February 13, 2026 • 33 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Friday for you! Ben shares his wild adventures from San Francisco trip!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Maler and Danny G Radio. Happy Friday. It is the
thirteenth day of February. We were recording this early in
the morning on a Friday, and it is Valentine's Day weekend,
So hopefully at some point we'll have an emergency Tinderoni
(00:50):
Tips with Danny G Radio. But today on this edition
of the podcast, we've got the Mather travel Log a
little bit different, Malard Travelogus. This is our first Fifth
Hour podcast since the weekend getaway in Northern California. We're
gonna call this Barnacles on the Mayflower. We're gonna call
(01:13):
this one Barnacles on the Mayflower. Now, I did notice
it was World Radio Day today. I saw this. Now
I did not know that it is World Radio Day.
I did not realize this was a thing. However it is.
It hasn't been a thing for that long. World Radio
Day was first proposed in Spain in September of twenty ten,
(01:37):
and then it began shortly after that. In twenty eleven,
World Radio Day was accepted by all member states of
the I guess there's a world body that puts these
things together. And the first official World Radio Day was
the University of Pisa, the Leaning Tower of Peace in Italy.
(02:02):
They hosted an event there and we can thank the
great Marconi who invented radio, and then this guy James
Clerk Maxwell who proposed radio's possibility. But it was Marconi
that invented the first practical radio device and providing me
(02:24):
with a lifetime of employment. And the gadgets have changed
right to watch you McCall. It's the thinking. My jiggs
are all different now. But the radio it's as many
radio days today as one of them. So we honor
broadcasting and the history of the wacky, wacky business. And
(02:45):
it was some of the things that took place here
in radio. I don't know that I want to get
into this right now. Actually, I had to study this.
When I was in Saddleback College. I learned a little
bit about radio, and like the first radio station was
KDKA and Pittsburgh and nineteen nineteen and then radio FM
(03:09):
radio began. There was a bunch of pirate radio stations.
That's why the government regulated radio to avoid pirate radio.
Of course, now we have the Internet which has nothing
but pirated this, that and the other thing. So celebrate appropriately.
It is again World Radio Day. Meanwhile, the Mallard travelog
(03:31):
has been activated. The road from Los Angeles to San
Francisco is not merely a drive. Now, I've done this
a few times over the years, but this is a pilgrimage.
And I was reminded, having not done it in a
little bit of time, that the trip from the South
to the north, you feel like you're reading about Lewis
(03:55):
and Clark, but you're living it. But you get better snacks,
better snacks, conditioning, heating, that kind of stuff. Manifest destiny
in a malormobile. As we traveled the overnight sports talk
conn of Hall in the malomobile made the migration right
up the spine of California, right up the spine. Now
(04:19):
as you are aware because you are a loyal minion
of the Fifth Hour podcast. We completed a world wind
journey at what used to be called Radio Row. That's
the colloquial term Radio Row and is now more accurately
Influencer Row. A bizarre of ring lights and really self
(04:46):
important people. The guy I used to do the podcast
with West of the four h five. These are his peeps, right,
real smarmy, arrogant people who think their gods give the world.
That is what was here. It was a meet way
of marketing. Look like a lot of interns and dudes
who use the phrase content vertical and they use it.
(05:11):
There's no irony there they use it. So Fox Sports Radio,
as you are aware, they send the daytime Royalty. There's
two types of radio. There's night radio and there's daytime radio.
So the daytime radio shows get treated a little bit better.
The overnight peasants, as usual, are left to finance their
(05:32):
own travel expeditions, while the daytime guys get hotel rooms
and per diem and things like that. So fortunately, my
brother in law happens to live about ten miles from
the heart of San Francisco where this was going on.
At the convention, center and my wife, bless her. Intrepidzoul
(05:56):
loves a good road trip the way some people love
of breathing. So the journey north on I five Interstate
five is a lesson in humility regarding geography, and California
is a massive monster. It's vast, it's got the agriculture,
(06:20):
and it's empty because of that in the middle. There's
not a lot going on when you're driving through the middle. Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia,
towns like that, I just feel like Commas in a sentence.
No one ever finishes the cows. They just outnumber people,
(06:41):
which drives the animal rights wackos crazy. Oh my god,
they're farting and there's come on, I want my milk,
I want my meat. Fart away boys, flatulence everywhere, And
what I enjoyed. One of the things I laughed at
was the billboards scolding the bozo gas newsome and I
(07:02):
didn't realize that this was as big a thing still,
and things maybe moved on, but no, there were a
bunch of billboards with this rural venom, which is a
different kind of venom. Farmer venom is a different kind
of venom, the kind of venom that could curdle milk.
And we're talking about the bread basket of California, which
(07:24):
stretches out like it's this green ocean. And you realize
that driving again from LA to San Francisco is the
West Coast equivalent of driving from Boston to Washington. Of
course we don't have the charming colonial plaques and historical monuments,
but you're going through. If you're going from Boston to Washington,
(07:49):
you're traveling through seven states. Right now, We in California
have a great deal of garlic. That's our advantage. Now,
we made the required stop at In and Out Burger.
We stopped right across the Grapevine, which is when you're
leaving LA, you gotta go up through the hills and
go down into the place where they have all the food.
(08:12):
They make the food, and that's the Grapevine. It's a
little like truck stop there, and there's hotels if you're
not familiar with it. And so we stopped at the
Grapevine at the in and Out Burger, which is less
a restaurant and more it's like a civic duty to
eat an in that burger. I don't eat there very much,
but when I see one on the road, we always
try to stop, so we kept going. After that, we
(08:32):
were fortified again from a Loves truck stop, not the
Flying j Not the Flying Jack. There was no Flying
Jay at this off ramp, so we went to Loves
Now keep Inlind. My wife piloted. It was a two
person operation. My wife piloted while I attempted to assemble
an overnight radio program from scratch while sitting in the
(08:55):
passenger seat. It was truly a dynamic duo maneuver that
would have impressed the road warriors. They were, oh, man,
that's the way to go. So the show on the
West Coast begins at eleven PM, and there is no
grace period in radio. I have friends that have normal
nine to five jobs, and if traffic is bad, they
(09:17):
show up at nine thirty or ten o'clock. The microphone
does not care about your plight, your journey, your traffic,
doesn't care about it, doesn't care about it. So Gilroy
announced itself before we saw it. The windows immediately came down.
That's a requirement. The windows came down. We inhaled the
(09:39):
stinking rows nature's antibiotic gangster name garlic, and that was awesome.
I just love the smell of the guard. Now, by
the time we reached San Francisco proper, it was now
rush hour. My wife was driving, trying to negotiate lanes
like a diplomat in a dispute at the border, and
(10:04):
no one gave an inch, No mercy was shown, and
the wife was not enjoying this part of the trip. Now,
eventually we reached the sanctuarya at my brother in law's home,
where I converted a room with cathedral ceilings into a
broadcast bunker, Benny's broadcast bunker. I brought this big, giant
(10:28):
container with a remote studio setup, including the microphone, the headphones,
the thing that we need to connect to everything. So
it was all there, and I was worried. I was like, well,
this is probably not going to sound that good. But
we had nowhere else to broadcast from because the cable
that we had wasn't very long and it had to
(10:50):
be connected to the do Hickey, and if it was
not connected to the dow Higgy as Alf the Alien
Opinter and Fergdog No, that would cause a problem that
would cause So the acoustics were horrific. My voice ricocheted
like a racquetball. In a gymnasium. Callers wondered if I
(11:12):
was ill. They were convinced that I had gotten the
creeping crud. No, no, I I was just echoing off
drywall to six hundred radio stations. So we improvised, which
meant going on our phones, well mostly my wife's phone,
to Amazon. We ordered a longer cable and we wanted
(11:37):
a lower ceiling. And in order to get a lower ceiling,
we're not doing the work that just Josh does. We decided, okay,
we'll get a longer cable, and so we used the
Malor method. My right hand was getting a workout, not
the Malor maneuver. That's something different. The Malor maneuver, as
you know, is on the game shows. But the Malor
method you adjust, adapt and broadcast, not man deflect and absorb. No, no, no.
(12:04):
We use the Malord method to just adapt and broadcast.
So the following day there was a package that showed
up at the door and it had the cable needed,
so we were able to broadcast where we wanted to. And
then we also had a luncheon. That's right, a power
luncheon at the fly Trap in San Francisco. This is
(12:24):
a relic of the olden days in San Francisco, with
more than a century of stories. If those plaster walls
could talk, My god, the things that likely happened at
the fly Trap. How great is that? What a great
name that is? So this event, there's a patriarchy to this.
(12:48):
So the daytime host who had their trip paid for,
with their nice jackets and all that, they were there.
But I had a chance to meet some really cool people,
the big sales executives for the company who came in
from New York and Nashville. A bunch of producers there.
Danny G was a bunch of my old producer, Danny G.
(13:10):
Wrong Button Bob the talent was also there. The big
daytime guys, Rob Parker and Jonas Knox and LaVar Arrington
and Brady Quinns. First time I met Brady quinn he
was there, the old Notre Dame quarterback Covino and Rich
and I did not see Stu Gotts. I did not
(13:30):
come across Stu Gotts. He was not at that event,
at least not when I was there. And we made
the rounds and said hello to everyone and all that,
and did did our thing that got to see the
president Yellow FaceTime with the president of the Premier Network.
She lives in Nashville there, Julie Talbot, very nice woman
who I haven't seen that often, obviously not living in
(13:51):
California anymore, and it was great to catch up with
her as a kind of a summit of the big
people at the company. And like I said, a lot
of these guys I'd not met, really cool dudes, and
they're the ones that keep us going because they're the
ones that sell all the commercials for dude wipes and
all the other stuff, and then we just have to
read them on the air. I did break my fast
(14:13):
a little early. I was not happy about it, but
I did break my fast little early for free food,
a small betrayal of the regular routine that I justified
it rare and appropriate. Rare, rare and appropriate. You got
to live life if you can't just be so locked
in that you gotta follow this. So I did fast
(14:33):
the very minimum amount of time. Then came a walk
to try to get to the credentialing gauntlet courtesy of
the National Football League see Radio Row. You can't just
walk into radio Row, No, you have to be approved
by the NFL and their security, and you have to
send in this thing and that thing, and I don't
(14:56):
know what the other thing is and all that stuff.
So when I say has to approve you, we are
talking NFL security, which includes a facial scan which leads
to you getting your badge printed. Pentagon level vigilance for
a room full of men and women who are arguing
(15:20):
about the future of the on side kick and you
have facial recognition, Pentagon level security. Now, my wife received
the pass as well, and so she was able to
hang out with me, and together we crossed over, crossing
the Rubicon into the funhouse. Radio Row. Now, legend has
(15:42):
it that radio Row began with Mike and the Mad Dog,
Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, who both did a stint
at Fox Sports Radio. A lot of people don't know
that they both did a stint at Fox Sports Radio
twenty five years ago. Their weekend shows from WFN picked
up in simulcast on Fox Sports Radio. However, we learned,
(16:05):
and I didn't know this, that even though Russo and
Francesa both had weekend shows, they almost never actually did them,
so they were mostly carrying the fill ins for Chris
Russo and Mike francessa but a couple of New Yorkers
with microphones and ambitions. They would go to the super
Bowl site. They'd set up in the lobby of the hotel,
and then word got out, and since Mike and the
(16:28):
Mad Dog, it has over the years metastasized into a
convention now which has been taken over by selfie sticks
and beautiful women who are really trying to dress down
unless they're not. Hey, good for them, you got it,
(16:49):
show it. The NFL, they really do seem more invested
in TikTok trends than terrestrial radio. I can't believe it.
I don't know why. Uh, this is the part where
I would go into a rant. It's the matrix. I've
already done that, you know how I feel about it.
At some point there will be the great Awakening. At
(17:11):
some point a bunch of really powerful people are going
to realize that they have been taking to the cleaners.
They're going to realize that. Now it hasn't happened yet,
but at some point it's going to happen. The fake
level of activity that goes on on these platforms is
(17:32):
next level. Like there's obviously a lot of people on them,
just not as many as the numbers indicate. So the
vibe has shifted from a barroom debate the old classic
sports radio Tom Rady is the great lo Joe mont Taylor.
Now it's this curated spectacle. To describe it, and if
(17:54):
you haven't been, you probably have it. It's Costco. If
Costco sold egos in bulk, this would be the loading dock,
this would be the loading dock. And still there were
friendly faces, colleagues, a bunch of other people that behind
the scenes pr veterans who I have crossed path with
(18:15):
in my time in radio, so it was cool to
see him. JT the Brick, who had a seventeen year
run I think at Fox Sports Radio. I got to
catch up with JT. And of course he does some
stuff with Tom Looney and I do Benny Versus the
Penny with Tom Looney, so it was great to see him.
Some of my old TV people who I knew from
(18:37):
the Benny Versus the Penny Show on NBC. My buddy
Bill was there. He was nice enough to come over
and say hello, so I got to catch up with
him and I briefly did some stuff at WEEI. I
can't believe it's been almost ten years twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
and they had a booth and I saw WIGGI, who
(18:58):
used to play for the Pages Old Tight like a
morning guy, but he was there in the afternoon. I
didn't ask many questions. Ted Johnson, the Old Patriot was
there also, So those guys were wandering around. A Rash
who I've known since he was an intern, and my
buddy from Canada. I'm always guys. It was cool. I
was shaking hands. I'm not much of a small talk guy.
This was mostly small talk. Did my interviews, traded pleasantries
(19:21):
that may or may not be remembered. I'm gonna go
with not remembered. And then on a sidewalk not far
from the madness of the convention center, which was secured
by a massive police presence, I nearly collided with Dave Chappelle. Yeah,
my right shoulder on my left, not my left. My
(19:44):
right shoulder passed within a foot of the Comic Royalty.
The gesture Dave Chappelle the court jester, and that was
that was pretty cool. And I didn't notice it that
there was a gaggle like group of people. These dudes
were following one of these influencer ladies who was shaking
(20:08):
her tooks while she walked and it was not ugly,
and so everything was slowed down. And then ahead of
her was Dave Chappelle. Was some dude just walking around.
Oh that's Dave Chappelle, very recognizable from all the Netflix
comedy stuff and all that. So there he was, and
we had that brief moment. That that brief moment there
(20:31):
and this in my private ledger. Not a big board
unless it is not a list. This is a big board.
So Terry and England come to so the celebrity siding.
Now this elevates me to the next level. I'm no
longer at the kiddy table and Dave Chappelle somewhere between
(20:54):
David Beckham when he was still playing Footebois and the Hoff,
the legend David Hasselhoff. Would they wink at a nod
to Justin Bieber the Beebes who's hoodie touched my arm
while he was going out to a Lakers game years ago.
So we are now me and Dave Chappelle the most
(21:14):
using the most generous interpretation of proximity lifelong acquaintances like
I'm sure next time, Dave Chappelle does a comedy show
in LA in Hollywood, I'll be like, hey, uh remember me, Dave.
Can I get a couple of tickets? Should? No problem,
No problem. Now, the city itself presented a curious amount
of theater in San Francisco because near the convention Center
(21:37):
it was fine. Order was there, laws were being followed.
I don't want to say the streets were scrubbed, because
there was still a lot of dirt around. The police
presence was abundant. Now, one of the offers, one of
the officers, confided with me and the wife, and you know,
the wife knows the lingo. She's a nine and one operator,
(22:00):
so she knows the lingo of the cops. And so
this guy was really cool and he's like confighted. He
used to be a radio guy names Marcus. I'm sure
there's more than one cop named Marcus. And it was
really cool. He's like, yeah, give me the whole rap.
And he essentially said, and this blew me away because
I heard guys like Pat McAfee who were like, oh,
people said San Francisco was, but it's not about at all.
(22:22):
And you're right around the convention center it was fine.
And the cop told me that the politicians in San Francisco,
they gave the mandate to treat the Super Bowl convention
area where all the media people were going to be
and the influencers, as a geopolitical event, like they swept
(22:45):
up the vagrants. And it was reminiscent the officer said
of when the President of China came for some meetings.
Is a similar thing, and so okay. But then you
leave that bubble you want under a few blocks, and
the varnishes thinned, the reality reasserts itself and does about
(23:09):
as subtle as a brass band about us, subtle as
a brass band. Traffic downtown was medievil, medievil. And I'd
like to meet the politician that decided we have these
three lane roads in downtown San Francisco. Why don't we
convert one of the lanes in all of downtown as
(23:30):
a busway or ride share corridor. Will paint that lane red,
and we will provide one of the legendary boondoggles in
any city I've ever been to. Now, traffic's bad in
la and it's bad in Boston. It's a lot of
it's underground, and New York City's terrible. And I've been
(23:51):
able to travel and drive in all these places, but
it once took us. This was I think on Thursday,
might not it was Friday. It took us forty five
minutes to go a mile and a half. We were
a mile and a half from where we needed a park.
Took forty five minutes. I could have crawled in my
(24:13):
knee pads or whatever. I would have made it in
less time. Now, after waiting, there was another moment where
we left Radio Row. We were going to go out
and get a bite to eat, and we walked a
few blocks over from the convention center. He's like, all right,
let's go a few blocks over. There'll be less traffic. Well, A,
there wasn't less traffic, and B we could not believe
(24:35):
every corner had a cop on it to avoid the
people that were down on their luck from hanging out
with the tourists and all that. So we went to
is it Union Square? I think something Union. We went
down there and it's like this really cool park surrounded
by these old buildings, and you might you could have
been in any city, could have been in Chicago, New York, LA.
(24:55):
Whatever the buildings are all. And so we saw we
were like all right, Let's order an uber all right,
no problem. The uber says, six minutes, will pick you
up from this spot. Walk a half a block to
this spot. Okay, I can walk a half a block.
So we walked a half a block and the app,
(25:17):
the uber app, said traffic is building. Car is still
six minutes away. So we said, okay, understandable. I was
just going to wait here. And we waited, and we
waited for about thirty to forty minutes. I forget exactly
how long it was. It was more than thirty less
than forty, but I'll say between thirty and forty. And
(25:40):
I was getting annoyed, and I said, you know what,
cancel it now. We had no other audit. We could
not walk the hills of San Francisco. We're not lunatics.
These hills are insane. I'd like to also go back
on a hot top time machine find out who decided
this is a good idea. Let's uh, this is almost
the hill is almost straight up. Let's build a house here,
(26:01):
Let's build a skyscraper. That's the way to do it. Anyway,
So I had this brilliant epiphany. I said, you know what,
we're in San Francisco. Cancel the uber. We did, and
I was overwhelmed with the tourism disease, if you will.
We boarded one of the iconic cable cars, you know,
(26:25):
the red cable cars, which is really only there for
the tourists, and it was packed. It was absolutely packed.
It was so packed. How packed was It was so
packed that we had to cling to the exterior like
barnacles on the Mayflower. Okay, we had to cling. The
only places they had were on the side, you know
the poles on the side you can stand up as
(26:46):
the cars movie. So we spent eight dollars each sixteen
dollars for a thrill ride like at an amusement park.
And at multiple points did we flirt with being the
lead store on the eleven o'clock news. Overnight radio host
is in the hospital after being hit while riding in
iconic San Francisco cable car. Yeah, the automobiles came about
(27:12):
as close as possible with no shame in their game.
So close they could smell our cologne or perfume, or
we could. They literally could read the expressions on our face.
They could have hugged us. It was wild and now
we obviously survived. I'm doing this podcast that felt like
(27:34):
a minor achievement, just surviving, and we were planning on
eating at my favorite restaurant in San Francisco, the Stick
and Rose. However, by the time we navigated the cable car,
we didn't have enough time, so we decided to cross over.
We went all the way to the end of the
(27:54):
cable car, too afraid to get off because of what
was going on. We almost got almost hit a car
that stopped. This white jeep stopped right in front of
the cable car. Why would you stop in front of
the cable car. Those things take a couple of minutes
to stop it. They don't stop right anyway. So we
were all way down to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco
and then walked over to Girideli Square for the Cookie Sunday,
(28:19):
a very decadent dessert that should require a coast. It's
my favorite dessert and I had to have it. So
from there we took the dessert and sat down on
that little park in Fisherman's Wharf and admired the silhouette
on the distance of Alcatraz Island, this amazing monument to misbehavior,
(28:41):
and I looked at us. Imagine how much a condo
would go for if you could put a condo on
Alcatraz Island and watch out, Oh my god, would that
be great? And also we admired the mighty Golden gate
Bridge was off to the left. It was a cool day,
San Francisco. Not East Coast coal, not Wooster Mask Cole,
(29:05):
but it was coal. And a woman who was just
a normal looking woman put on she put it on
somewhere else, but she had a bikini on. I don't
or she put the bikini on, but she was wearing
a bikini and she plunged in to the water. She
plunged into the water in San Francis. I was like, whoa,
(29:27):
what is this woman doing? It's wild? And uh yeah,
I admired her fortitude. I questioned her sanity equal amounts.
I was like, well, that's kind of cool. That's a
little different. What are you doing, my goodness, what are
you doing? And she see him fine, I'm guessing that's
(29:47):
not the first time she's done the Arctic plunge. And
she survived as far as we could tell. And that
was it. So we we had to get back the
radio road to get my bag. And the reason we
to go back and get the bag was because Radio
Row was going to shut down. It was Friday, So
we made it back to an uber. Had to walk
six blocks. The traffic was so bad. The guys like, listen,
(30:10):
I can you know we can keep going, or you
can just get out and walk. You'll get there sooner.
So we got out and walked a little bit, saw
some of the debauchery, and then we got closer and
the cops were there, and so everything was fine, and
we didn't eventually go back to the stinking Rows and
have dinner. So we did have that and just reeked
(30:31):
of garlic and it was just wonderful. And then on
Saturday we made the journey back. The following morning, there
had a brunch with the brother in law, and then
made the trip down the winding road of Highway one
oh one, stopping at all our favorites. The Madonna Inn
in San Louis Obispo for the champagne cake, the Old
(30:53):
West Cinnamon Roll Shop, which is about thirteen miles down
the coast. There iconic Cinnabon, Iconic Cinnabons, and I had
to stop at Costco in Central California for the Sacrament
of gasoline. And how long did it take us to
get back? We took the long way. Normally it takes
(31:15):
about six hours to go from LA to San Francisco
and vice versa. It took us ten hours, ten hours.
My brain was thoroughly sautaed by the time we got
back to California. I drove most of it. I didn't
drive the whole thing, but I drove about nine of
the ten hours. And it's always one of these things
when you look back at stuff like this, it was like, Wow,
(31:36):
that was a lot of fun. Man, that was fun.
It was a Tasmanian devil like journey. It really was
a Tasmanian devil like journey. The microphones, whirlwinds, power lunches,
hanging out with old radio friends, garlic, celebrity brush bys,
(31:57):
me and my buddy Dave Chappelle, cable call a peril,
all of that stuff. Now, none of that stuff's gonna
happen next year, because the Super Bowl sixty one will
return to Los Angeles in the hood in Englewood and
up to no good. There will be no trips through farmland,
(32:17):
no Gilroy perfume, no Northern pilgrimage, only traffic glorious grinding
gridlock traffic as only they can do it in La
La Land. And if all goes well, we will be there, microphone, live,
metaphors loaded, ready to declare once more that the show
(32:40):
has to go on. Whether we're invited or not. We're
gonna be interlopers. We're gonna crush the party, and that's
how that's going to go. And on that note we
will say goodbye for now. We got another episode of
The Fifth Hour tomorrow on Saturday, and then on Sunday
the mail Bag. Still time to get your questions in
for the mail bag. Send them in right now care
(33:01):
of Reel fifth Hour at gmail dot com. That's real
fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Have a wonderful rest
of your Saturday. I tell you to watch the All
Star NBA stuff, but I know you're not gonna do that,
So have a great day. Gotta murder, Gotta go
Cutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Maler and Danny G Radio. Happy Friday. It is the
thirteenth day of February. We were recording this early in
the morning on a Friday, and it is Valentine's Day weekend,
So hopefully at some point we'll have an emergency Tinderoni
(00:50):
Tips with Danny G Radio. But today on this edition
of the podcast, we've got the Mather travel Log a
little bit different, Malard Travelogus. This is our first Fifth
Hour podcast since the weekend getaway in Northern California. We're
gonna call this Barnacles on the Mayflower. We're gonna call
(01:13):
this one Barnacles on the Mayflower. Now, I did notice
it was World Radio Day today. I saw this. Now
I did not know that it is World Radio Day.
I did not realize this was a thing. However it is.
It hasn't been a thing for that long. World Radio
Day was first proposed in Spain in September of twenty ten,
(01:37):
and then it began shortly after that. In twenty eleven,
World Radio Day was accepted by all member states of
the I guess there's a world body that puts these
things together. And the first official World Radio Day was
the University of Pisa, the Leaning Tower of Peace in Italy.
(02:02):
They hosted an event there and we can thank the
great Marconi who invented radio, and then this guy James
Clerk Maxwell who proposed radio's possibility. But it was Marconi
that invented the first practical radio device and providing me
(02:24):
with a lifetime of employment. And the gadgets have changed
right to watch you McCall. It's the thinking. My jiggs
are all different now. But the radio it's as many
radio days today as one of them. So we honor
broadcasting and the history of the wacky, wacky business. And
(02:45):
it was some of the things that took place here
in radio. I don't know that I want to get
into this right now. Actually, I had to study this.
When I was in Saddleback College. I learned a little
bit about radio, and like the first radio station was
KDKA and Pittsburgh and nineteen nineteen and then radio FM
(03:09):
radio began. There was a bunch of pirate radio stations.
That's why the government regulated radio to avoid pirate radio.
Of course, now we have the Internet which has nothing
but pirated this, that and the other thing. So celebrate appropriately.
It is again World Radio Day. Meanwhile, the Mallard travelog
(03:31):
has been activated. The road from Los Angeles to San
Francisco is not merely a drive. Now, I've done this
a few times over the years, but this is a pilgrimage.
And I was reminded, having not done it in a
little bit of time, that the trip from the South
to the north, you feel like you're reading about Lewis
(03:55):
and Clark, but you're living it. But you get better snacks,
better snacks, conditioning, heating, that kind of stuff. Manifest destiny
in a malormobile. As we traveled the overnight sports talk
conn of Hall in the malomobile made the migration right
up the spine of California, right up the spine. Now
(04:19):
as you are aware because you are a loyal minion
of the Fifth Hour podcast. We completed a world wind
journey at what used to be called Radio Row. That's
the colloquial term Radio Row and is now more accurately
Influencer Row. A bizarre of ring lights and really self
(04:46):
important people. The guy I used to do the podcast
with West of the four h five. These are his peeps, right,
real smarmy, arrogant people who think their gods give the world.
That is what was here. It was a meet way
of marketing. Look like a lot of interns and dudes
who use the phrase content vertical and they use it.
(05:11):
There's no irony there they use it. So Fox Sports Radio,
as you are aware, they send the daytime Royalty. There's
two types of radio. There's night radio and there's daytime radio.
So the daytime radio shows get treated a little bit better.
The overnight peasants, as usual, are left to finance their
(05:32):
own travel expeditions, while the daytime guys get hotel rooms
and per diem and things like that. So fortunately, my
brother in law happens to live about ten miles from
the heart of San Francisco where this was going on.
At the convention, center and my wife, bless her. Intrepidzoul
(05:56):
loves a good road trip the way some people love
of breathing. So the journey north on I five Interstate
five is a lesson in humility regarding geography, and California
is a massive monster. It's vast, it's got the agriculture,
(06:20):
and it's empty because of that in the middle. There's
not a lot going on when you're driving through the middle. Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia,
towns like that, I just feel like Commas in a sentence.
No one ever finishes the cows. They just outnumber people,
(06:41):
which drives the animal rights wackos crazy. Oh my god,
they're farting and there's come on, I want my milk,
I want my meat. Fart away boys, flatulence everywhere, And
what I enjoyed. One of the things I laughed at
was the billboards scolding the bozo gas newsome and I
(07:02):
didn't realize that this was as big a thing still,
and things maybe moved on, but no, there were a
bunch of billboards with this rural venom, which is a
different kind of venom. Farmer venom is a different kind
of venom, the kind of venom that could curdle milk.
And we're talking about the bread basket of California, which
(07:24):
stretches out like it's this green ocean. And you realize
that driving again from LA to San Francisco is the
West Coast equivalent of driving from Boston to Washington. Of
course we don't have the charming colonial plaques and historical monuments,
but you're going through. If you're going from Boston to Washington,
(07:49):
you're traveling through seven states. Right now, We in California
have a great deal of garlic. That's our advantage. Now,
we made the required stop at In and Out Burger.
We stopped right across the Grapevine, which is when you're
leaving LA, you gotta go up through the hills and
go down into the place where they have all the food.
(08:12):
They make the food, and that's the Grapevine. It's a
little like truck stop there, and there's hotels if you're
not familiar with it. And so we stopped at the
Grapevine at the in and Out Burger, which is less
a restaurant and more it's like a civic duty to
eat an in that burger. I don't eat there very much,
but when I see one on the road, we always
try to stop, so we kept going. After that, we
(08:32):
were fortified again from a Loves truck stop, not the
Flying j Not the Flying Jack. There was no Flying
Jay at this off ramp, so we went to Loves
Now keep Inlind. My wife piloted. It was a two
person operation. My wife piloted while I attempted to assemble
an overnight radio program from scratch while sitting in the
(08:55):
passenger seat. It was truly a dynamic duo maneuver that
would have impressed the road warriors. They were, oh, man,
that's the way to go. So the show on the
West Coast begins at eleven PM, and there is no
grace period in radio. I have friends that have normal
nine to five jobs, and if traffic is bad, they
(09:17):
show up at nine thirty or ten o'clock. The microphone
does not care about your plight, your journey, your traffic,
doesn't care about it, doesn't care about it. So Gilroy
announced itself before we saw it. The windows immediately came down.
That's a requirement. The windows came down. We inhaled the
(09:39):
stinking rows nature's antibiotic gangster name garlic, and that was awesome.
I just love the smell of the guard. Now, by
the time we reached San Francisco proper, it was now
rush hour. My wife was driving, trying to negotiate lanes
like a diplomat in a dispute at the border, and
(10:04):
no one gave an inch, No mercy was shown, and
the wife was not enjoying this part of the trip. Now,
eventually we reached the sanctuarya at my brother in law's home,
where I converted a room with cathedral ceilings into a
broadcast bunker, Benny's broadcast bunker. I brought this big, giant
(10:28):
container with a remote studio setup, including the microphone, the headphones,
the thing that we need to connect to everything. So
it was all there, and I was worried. I was like, well,
this is probably not going to sound that good. But
we had nowhere else to broadcast from because the cable
that we had wasn't very long and it had to
(10:50):
be connected to the do Hickey, and if it was
not connected to the dow Higgy as Alf the Alien
Opinter and Fergdog No, that would cause a problem that
would cause So the acoustics were horrific. My voice ricocheted
like a racquetball. In a gymnasium. Callers wondered if I
(11:12):
was ill. They were convinced that I had gotten the
creeping crud. No, no, I I was just echoing off
drywall to six hundred radio stations. So we improvised, which
meant going on our phones, well mostly my wife's phone,
to Amazon. We ordered a longer cable and we wanted
(11:37):
a lower ceiling. And in order to get a lower ceiling,
we're not doing the work that just Josh does. We decided, okay,
we'll get a longer cable, and so we used the
Malor method. My right hand was getting a workout, not
the Malor maneuver. That's something different. The Malor maneuver, as
you know, is on the game shows. But the Malor
method you adjust, adapt and broadcast, not man deflect and absorb. No, no, no.
(12:04):
We use the Malord method to just adapt and broadcast.
So the following day there was a package that showed
up at the door and it had the cable needed,
so we were able to broadcast where we wanted to. And
then we also had a luncheon. That's right, a power
luncheon at the fly Trap in San Francisco. This is
(12:24):
a relic of the olden days in San Francisco, with
more than a century of stories. If those plaster walls
could talk, My god, the things that likely happened at
the fly Trap. How great is that? What a great
name that is? So this event, there's a patriarchy to this.
(12:48):
So the daytime host who had their trip paid for,
with their nice jackets and all that, they were there.
But I had a chance to meet some really cool people,
the big sales executives for the company who came in
from New York and Nashville. A bunch of producers there.
Danny G was a bunch of my old producer, Danny G.
(13:10):
Wrong Button Bob the talent was also there. The big
daytime guys, Rob Parker and Jonas Knox and LaVar Arrington
and Brady Quinns. First time I met Brady quinn he
was there, the old Notre Dame quarterback Covino and Rich
and I did not see Stu Gotts. I did not
(13:30):
come across Stu Gotts. He was not at that event,
at least not when I was there. And we made
the rounds and said hello to everyone and all that,
and did did our thing that got to see the
president Yellow FaceTime with the president of the Premier Network.
She lives in Nashville there, Julie Talbot, very nice woman
who I haven't seen that often, obviously not living in
(13:51):
California anymore, and it was great to catch up with
her as a kind of a summit of the big
people at the company. And like I said, a lot
of these guys I'd not met, really cool dudes, and
they're the ones that keep us going because they're the
ones that sell all the commercials for dude wipes and
all the other stuff, and then we just have to
read them on the air. I did break my fast
(14:13):
a little early. I was not happy about it, but
I did break my fast little early for free food,
a small betrayal of the regular routine that I justified
it rare and appropriate. Rare, rare and appropriate. You got
to live life if you can't just be so locked
in that you gotta follow this. So I did fast
(14:33):
the very minimum amount of time. Then came a walk
to try to get to the credentialing gauntlet courtesy of
the National Football League see Radio Row. You can't just
walk into radio Row, No, you have to be approved
by the NFL and their security, and you have to
send in this thing and that thing, and I don't
(14:56):
know what the other thing is and all that stuff.
So when I say has to approve you, we are
talking NFL security, which includes a facial scan which leads
to you getting your badge printed. Pentagon level vigilance for
a room full of men and women who are arguing
(15:20):
about the future of the on side kick and you
have facial recognition, Pentagon level security. Now, my wife received
the pass as well, and so she was able to
hang out with me, and together we crossed over, crossing
the Rubicon into the funhouse. Radio Row. Now, legend has
(15:42):
it that radio Row began with Mike and the Mad Dog,
Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, who both did a stint
at Fox Sports Radio. A lot of people don't know
that they both did a stint at Fox Sports Radio
twenty five years ago. Their weekend shows from WFN picked
up in simulcast on Fox Sports Radio. However, we learned,
(16:05):
and I didn't know this, that even though Russo and
Francesa both had weekend shows, they almost never actually did them,
so they were mostly carrying the fill ins for Chris
Russo and Mike francessa but a couple of New Yorkers
with microphones and ambitions. They would go to the super
Bowl site. They'd set up in the lobby of the hotel,
and then word got out, and since Mike and the
(16:28):
Mad Dog, it has over the years metastasized into a
convention now which has been taken over by selfie sticks
and beautiful women who are really trying to dress down
unless they're not. Hey, good for them, you got it,
(16:49):
show it. The NFL, they really do seem more invested
in TikTok trends than terrestrial radio. I can't believe it.
I don't know why. Uh, this is the part where
I would go into a rant. It's the matrix. I've
already done that, you know how I feel about it.
At some point there will be the great Awakening. At
(17:11):
some point a bunch of really powerful people are going
to realize that they have been taking to the cleaners.
They're going to realize that. Now it hasn't happened yet,
but at some point it's going to happen. The fake
level of activity that goes on on these platforms is
(17:32):
next level. Like there's obviously a lot of people on them,
just not as many as the numbers indicate. So the
vibe has shifted from a barroom debate the old classic
sports radio Tom Rady is the great lo Joe mont Taylor.
Now it's this curated spectacle. To describe it, and if
(17:54):
you haven't been, you probably have it. It's Costco. If
Costco sold egos in bulk, this would be the loading dock,
this would be the loading dock. And still there were
friendly faces, colleagues, a bunch of other people that behind
the scenes pr veterans who I have crossed path with
(18:15):
in my time in radio, so it was cool to
see him. JT the Brick, who had a seventeen year
run I think at Fox Sports Radio. I got to
catch up with JT. And of course he does some
stuff with Tom Looney and I do Benny Versus the
Penny with Tom Looney, so it was great to see him.
Some of my old TV people who I knew from
(18:37):
the Benny Versus the Penny Show on NBC. My buddy
Bill was there. He was nice enough to come over
and say hello, so I got to catch up with
him and I briefly did some stuff at WEEI. I
can't believe it's been almost ten years twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
and they had a booth and I saw WIGGI, who
(18:58):
used to play for the Pages Old Tight like a
morning guy, but he was there in the afternoon. I
didn't ask many questions. Ted Johnson, the Old Patriot was
there also, So those guys were wandering around. A Rash
who I've known since he was an intern, and my
buddy from Canada. I'm always guys. It was cool. I
was shaking hands. I'm not much of a small talk guy.
This was mostly small talk. Did my interviews, traded pleasantries
(19:21):
that may or may not be remembered. I'm gonna go
with not remembered. And then on a sidewalk not far
from the madness of the convention center, which was secured
by a massive police presence, I nearly collided with Dave Chappelle. Yeah,
my right shoulder on my left, not my left. My
(19:44):
right shoulder passed within a foot of the Comic Royalty.
The gesture Dave Chappelle the court jester, and that was
that was pretty cool. And I didn't notice it that
there was a gaggle like group of people. These dudes
were following one of these influencer ladies who was shaking
(20:08):
her tooks while she walked and it was not ugly,
and so everything was slowed down. And then ahead of
her was Dave Chappelle. Was some dude just walking around.
Oh that's Dave Chappelle, very recognizable from all the Netflix
comedy stuff and all that. So there he was, and
we had that brief moment. That that brief moment there
(20:31):
and this in my private ledger. Not a big board
unless it is not a list. This is a big board.
So Terry and England come to so the celebrity siding.
Now this elevates me to the next level. I'm no
longer at the kiddy table and Dave Chappelle somewhere between
(20:54):
David Beckham when he was still playing Footebois and the Hoff,
the legend David Hasselhoff. Would they wink at a nod
to Justin Bieber the Beebes who's hoodie touched my arm
while he was going out to a Lakers game years ago.
So we are now me and Dave Chappelle the most
(21:14):
using the most generous interpretation of proximity lifelong acquaintances like
I'm sure next time, Dave Chappelle does a comedy show
in LA in Hollywood, I'll be like, hey, uh remember me, Dave.
Can I get a couple of tickets? Should? No problem,
No problem. Now, the city itself presented a curious amount
of theater in San Francisco because near the convention Center
(21:37):
it was fine. Order was there, laws were being followed.
I don't want to say the streets were scrubbed, because
there was still a lot of dirt around. The police
presence was abundant. Now, one of the offers, one of
the officers, confided with me and the wife, and you know,
the wife knows the lingo. She's a nine and one operator,
(22:00):
so she knows the lingo of the cops. And so
this guy was really cool and he's like confighted. He
used to be a radio guy names Marcus. I'm sure
there's more than one cop named Marcus. And it was
really cool. He's like, yeah, give me the whole rap.
And he essentially said, and this blew me away because
I heard guys like Pat McAfee who were like, oh,
people said San Francisco was, but it's not about at all.
(22:22):
And you're right around the convention center it was fine.
And the cop told me that the politicians in San Francisco,
they gave the mandate to treat the Super Bowl convention
area where all the media people were going to be
and the influencers, as a geopolitical event, like they swept
(22:45):
up the vagrants. And it was reminiscent the officer said
of when the President of China came for some meetings.
Is a similar thing, and so okay. But then you
leave that bubble you want under a few blocks, and
the varnishes thinned, the reality reasserts itself and does about
(23:09):
as subtle as a brass band about us, subtle as
a brass band. Traffic downtown was medievil, medievil. And I'd
like to meet the politician that decided we have these
three lane roads in downtown San Francisco. Why don't we
convert one of the lanes in all of downtown as
(23:30):
a busway or ride share corridor. Will paint that lane red,
and we will provide one of the legendary boondoggles in
any city I've ever been to. Now, traffic's bad in
la and it's bad in Boston. It's a lot of
it's underground, and New York City's terrible. And I've been
(23:51):
able to travel and drive in all these places, but
it once took us. This was I think on Thursday,
might not it was Friday. It took us forty five
minutes to go a mile and a half. We were
a mile and a half from where we needed a park.
Took forty five minutes. I could have crawled in my
(24:13):
knee pads or whatever. I would have made it in
less time. Now, after waiting, there was another moment where
we left Radio Row. We were going to go out
and get a bite to eat, and we walked a
few blocks over from the convention center. He's like, all right,
let's go a few blocks over. There'll be less traffic. Well, A,
there wasn't less traffic, and B we could not believe
(24:35):
every corner had a cop on it to avoid the
people that were down on their luck from hanging out
with the tourists and all that. So we went to
is it Union Square? I think something Union. We went
down there and it's like this really cool park surrounded
by these old buildings, and you might you could have
been in any city, could have been in Chicago, New York, LA.
(24:55):
Whatever the buildings are all. And so we saw we
were like all right, Let's order an uber all right,
no problem. The uber says, six minutes, will pick you
up from this spot. Walk a half a block to
this spot. Okay, I can walk a half a block.
So we walked a half a block and the app,
(25:17):
the uber app, said traffic is building. Car is still
six minutes away. So we said, okay, understandable. I was
just going to wait here. And we waited, and we
waited for about thirty to forty minutes. I forget exactly
how long it was. It was more than thirty less
than forty, but I'll say between thirty and forty. And
(25:40):
I was getting annoyed, and I said, you know what,
cancel it now. We had no other audit. We could
not walk the hills of San Francisco. We're not lunatics.
These hills are insane. I'd like to also go back
on a hot top time machine find out who decided
this is a good idea. Let's uh, this is almost
the hill is almost straight up. Let's build a house here,
(26:01):
Let's build a skyscraper. That's the way to do it. Anyway,
So I had this brilliant epiphany. I said, you know what,
we're in San Francisco. Cancel the uber. We did, and
I was overwhelmed with the tourism disease, if you will.
We boarded one of the iconic cable cars, you know,
(26:25):
the red cable cars, which is really only there for
the tourists, and it was packed. It was absolutely packed.
It was so packed. How packed was It was so
packed that we had to cling to the exterior like
barnacles on the Mayflower. Okay, we had to cling. The
only places they had were on the side, you know
the poles on the side you can stand up as
(26:46):
the cars movie. So we spent eight dollars each sixteen
dollars for a thrill ride like at an amusement park.
And at multiple points did we flirt with being the
lead store on the eleven o'clock news. Overnight radio host
is in the hospital after being hit while riding in
iconic San Francisco cable car. Yeah, the automobiles came about
(27:12):
as close as possible with no shame in their game.
So close they could smell our cologne or perfume, or
we could. They literally could read the expressions on our face.
They could have hugged us. It was wild and now
we obviously survived. I'm doing this podcast that felt like
(27:34):
a minor achievement, just surviving, and we were planning on
eating at my favorite restaurant in San Francisco, the Stick
and Rose. However, by the time we navigated the cable car,
we didn't have enough time, so we decided to cross over.
We went all the way to the end of the
(27:54):
cable car, too afraid to get off because of what
was going on. We almost got almost hit a car
that stopped. This white jeep stopped right in front of
the cable car. Why would you stop in front of
the cable car. Those things take a couple of minutes
to stop it. They don't stop right anyway. So we
were all way down to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco
and then walked over to Girideli Square for the Cookie Sunday,
(28:19):
a very decadent dessert that should require a coast. It's
my favorite dessert and I had to have it. So
from there we took the dessert and sat down on
that little park in Fisherman's Wharf and admired the silhouette
on the distance of Alcatraz Island, this amazing monument to misbehavior,
(28:41):
and I looked at us. Imagine how much a condo
would go for if you could put a condo on
Alcatraz Island and watch out, Oh my god, would that
be great? And also we admired the mighty Golden gate
Bridge was off to the left. It was a cool day,
San Francisco. Not East Coast coal, not Wooster Mask Cole,
(29:05):
but it was coal. And a woman who was just
a normal looking woman put on she put it on
somewhere else, but she had a bikini on. I don't
or she put the bikini on, but she was wearing
a bikini and she plunged in to the water. She
plunged into the water in San Francis. I was like, whoa,
(29:27):
what is this woman doing? It's wild? And uh yeah,
I admired her fortitude. I questioned her sanity equal amounts.
I was like, well, that's kind of cool. That's a
little different. What are you doing, my goodness, what are
you doing? And she see him fine, I'm guessing that's
(29:47):
not the first time she's done the Arctic plunge. And
she survived as far as we could tell. And that
was it. So we we had to get back the
radio road to get my bag. And the reason we
to go back and get the bag was because Radio
Row was going to shut down. It was Friday, So
we made it back to an uber. Had to walk
six blocks. The traffic was so bad. The guys like, listen,
(30:10):
I can you know we can keep going, or you
can just get out and walk. You'll get there sooner.
So we got out and walked a little bit, saw
some of the debauchery, and then we got closer and
the cops were there, and so everything was fine, and
we didn't eventually go back to the stinking Rows and
have dinner. So we did have that and just reeked
(30:31):
of garlic and it was just wonderful. And then on
Saturday we made the journey back. The following morning, there
had a brunch with the brother in law, and then
made the trip down the winding road of Highway one
oh one, stopping at all our favorites. The Madonna Inn
in San Louis Obispo for the champagne cake, the Old
(30:53):
West Cinnamon Roll Shop, which is about thirteen miles down
the coast. There iconic Cinnabon, Iconic Cinnabons, and I had
to stop at Costco in Central California for the Sacrament
of gasoline. And how long did it take us to
get back? We took the long way. Normally it takes
(31:15):
about six hours to go from LA to San Francisco
and vice versa. It took us ten hours, ten hours.
My brain was thoroughly sautaed by the time we got
back to California. I drove most of it. I didn't
drive the whole thing, but I drove about nine of
the ten hours. And it's always one of these things
when you look back at stuff like this, it was like, Wow,
(31:36):
that was a lot of fun. Man, that was fun.
It was a Tasmanian devil like journey. It really was
a Tasmanian devil like journey. The microphones, whirlwinds, power lunches,
hanging out with old radio friends, garlic, celebrity brush bys,
(31:57):
me and my buddy Dave Chappelle, cable call a peril,
all of that stuff. Now, none of that stuff's gonna
happen next year, because the Super Bowl sixty one will
return to Los Angeles in the hood in Englewood and
up to no good. There will be no trips through farmland,
(32:17):
no Gilroy perfume, no Northern pilgrimage, only traffic glorious grinding
gridlock traffic as only they can do it in La
La Land. And if all goes well, we will be there, microphone, live,
metaphors loaded, ready to declare once more that the show
(32:40):
has to go on. Whether we're invited or not. We're
gonna be interlopers. We're gonna crush the party, and that's
how that's going to go. And on that note we
will say goodbye for now. We got another episode of
The Fifth Hour tomorrow on Saturday, and then on Sunday
the mail Bag. Still time to get your questions in
for the mail bag. Send them in right now care
(33:01):
of Reel fifth Hour at gmail dot com. That's real
fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Have a wonderful rest
of your Saturday. I tell you to watch the All
Star NBA stuff, but I know you're not gonna do that,
So have a great day. Gotta murder, Gotta go
Host
Ben Maller
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe
When a group of women from all over the country realise they all dated the same prolific romance scammer they vow to bring him to justice. In this brand new season of global number 1 hit podcast, The Girlfriends, Anna Sinfield meets a group of funny, feisty, determined women who all had the misfortune of dating a mysterious man named Derek Alldred. Trust Me Babe is a story about the protective forces of gossip, gut instinct, and trusting your besties and the group of women who took matters into their own hands to take down a fraudster when no one else would listen. If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/ The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!