Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kubbooms.
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 cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben
Malor and Danny G Radio as we are together on
this Friday, the tenth day of January, and I gotta
tell you, I was on last night doing the Overnight.
So Danny G by the way, is on assignment. He
(00:49):
will produce this podcast and hopefully be with us over
the next couple of days. On the weekend that Danny
has been dealing with the fires and had to leave
his home, there's some craziness out near him, and I
didn't want to address that, but it is, by the way,
National house Plant Appreciation Day to day before we get
(01:11):
into the podcast, because we like these dopey holidays. It's
appreciation Day, which is fogazy, but apparently houseplants were used
by wealthy families back in five hundred BC. They go
all the way back to five hundred BC to this day.
I remember back in the I think it was like
the eighties or the nineties, there was a fad of
(01:35):
fake houseplants. But that's pretty much all I know. Those
plastic houseplants were everywhere. But I don't have any other
information other than its National house Plant Appreciation Day. Today
it's also Quitter's Day, so big day there. Quitter's Day
held the second Friday in January. It falls on January
(01:56):
tenth today, and it is a new Year's resolution, which
began four thousand years ago right the itching Babylon started
the tradition of setting new Year's resolutions, and supposedly today
Quitter's Day has set aside recognize those who set new
goals and failed to achieve them. Yes, so if you
(02:17):
planned on doing something and you're already doing the opposite,
congratulations you are being honored today on National Quitter's Day.
A wonderful day. So on this edition of the Fifth Hour,
we've got scramble Drill, Scramble drill. We have that we
also have on the Oregon Trail and the idiom of
(02:41):
the day, the idiom of the day. But we'll start
with this. So I wanted to mention and we do
promote Benny versus the Penny. Some of you get annoyed
by the Oh I used to like your podcast, but
you spend so much time telling you about Benny versus
the Penny. Yes, Guilty as charged, Guilty as charged. I
(03:03):
have a TV show that I am trying to get
people to watch. I will take every advantage I can
to get people to watch said TV show. If you're
annoyed by that, just fast forward in the podcast. But
I actually have a good story to tell as I
welcome you in to this edition of the Fifth Hour. Right,
this is our happy place. We get to hang around.
We can say bad words because it's only in the
(03:23):
podcast format. We don't run into the roadblock of the FCC,
where if we say a bad word we're in trouble.
Podcasts are like the old West. You can say whatever
you want, knock it out of the park. So the
other day, it was a normal, normal week. It started
out a long long time ago, which really wasn't that
long ago. It was a few days ago. I start
(03:46):
getting ready for the next episode of the TV show,
pretty much when the games kick off on Thursday during
the season. So I'm watching the game on Thursday seeing
what I did wrong. It's kind of like that coward bit,
what did Ben get right? What had been get wrong?
This year, It's been a lot that I got wrong.
Things that are supposed to happen haven't happened, and so
I'm trying to outmaneuver the penny. And we've zoomed through
(04:11):
the NFL regular season, so it's a constant thing watching football,
looking at the numbers and all that, and it's a
paralysis by analysis is generally what happens. I have too
much information. Now I try to whittle that down. There's
certain key indicators that I look for, and that's kind
of how we make the Fedicini alfredo. So that's how
(04:33):
that goes together. You gotta have the sauce, you gotta
have the noodles, and put all those together. So the
week started somewhat normal. I start putting stuff together on
Sunday night, and then more on Monday night, and Tuesday
is a big day to kind of get everything together,
and then Wednesday is the day that we put the
(04:57):
sausage into the two What becomes the sausage. We put
our head down and then all of a sudden, so
it was normal, and then all hell broke loose, Hot
Diggity Dog, all hell broke loose. So I had put together.
What I do is I send ideas. I pitch ideas
to Vinnie, who's the producer of Bennie Versus the Penny
(05:18):
and the team in Boston. But Vinnie's the guy that
producers the show. So I spend Monday and Tuesday mostly
cooking up ideas, and then Wednesday, starting in the morning,
is a production day. So that's the day on Wednesday
where I throw all these eyes ideas down. I scribble
them down with chicken scratch, and then I put some
(05:40):
stats together, riveting stuff, right, riveting stuff. So I put
all this stuff together, and I'm putting the show together,
doing my thing. La la la la la la la
la la la la la la. You know, nothing to
see here, just putting the show together. And mentioned all
hell broke loose because the fires actually started on Tuesday.
But we have fires all the time. In southern California.
(06:02):
Fires are a regular thing, so you figure, okay, there's fires,
it's fire seasons pretty much year round. We don't get
much rain here, so fine, nothing to see here. Well,
the fires On Wednesday morning, it was getting pretty pretty nasty,
pretty gnarly, and it just kept getting worse and worse
(06:26):
and worse and worse. And by Wednesday afternoon I was
getting emails from the people at Universal Studios saying, the
lot is closed, the lot is closed today, We're not
sure if the lot's going to be open on Thursday,
which is the day that we record Benny Versus the Penny,
(06:48):
and they were waiting for the next wave of fires,
which they knew were apparently coming. I didn't know you
could forecast fires. I guess there were a number of
them that were started out, all of them, but a
number of them were started by homeless people. So wonderful. Anyway,
So Wednesday I start I start getting messages saying, you know,
we're not sure if the lot's gonna be open. Let's
(07:09):
have a contingency plan. So I didn't really think much
of it. I thought, well, it seems like it's pretty bad,
but the planes are back up, the helicopters are back
up to put out the fire, and so since that's
going on, it should be okay, right, you know, you
know what happened, you assume it should be okay. So fine,
(07:32):
that's that. And then about ninety minutes later, and don't
hold me to that. I'd have to go back and
check my my messages, but it felt like about ninety
minutes later, they sent a message saying, all right, we've
nailed down the contingency plan. If we can't do Thursday,
(07:56):
we're we're gonna do. We're gonna do Friday. We'll do like,
we'll do it Friday morning. We'll record many versus the Penny.
And they asked me my availability, and then yeah, I
don't I don't care. I'll record the show at any time,
any place, anywhere. Let's do it. I'm down. So I
(08:16):
text him back. I said, whatever you need me to do,
I will do. The show must go on. So fine,
So they said, thank you. That's great. It's very kind
of you. We appreciate you doing that. Wonderful. All right, fine,
So then another ninety minutes goes by and I'm getting
(08:36):
ready for the radio show, right, I'm doubling down on
the radio show. I'm like, all right, I'm getting ready.
It's it's Wednesday. It's starting to be that time where
I got to lock in on the on the radio
show and figure out what I'm going to talk about,
Mallard monologues and all that. And so now I get
all right, lots closed contingency plan. We'll send a crew
out from Universal Studios to where you are and we'll
(08:59):
do your show remotely. So okay, And then there's some
meetings going on in Boston. I mean, it's a total
scramble scramble drill, people trying to figure out like what
are we doing? What are we doing? And I'm like,
I don't care. And then I'm like, there was this talk. Well,
maybe we'll send a crew out and I'll meet Looney
(09:20):
because Looney's closer to Universal Studios where he lives then
I do out in the north Woods. And so we're
going through all this anyway, we determine, because of the situation,
we would just do the show from our home studios.
Looney has a studio he does some work at KBC,
and I have the studio for Fox Sports Radio and
(09:40):
this podcast. I'm actually in the studio right now. So
we're like, all right, we'll just do it on Thursday,
but we'll just do it from the home studio and
we'll figure it out and all that. So I said,
all right, this will be different, and I'm curious how
this is going to go. Never done a national TV
show from my podcast studio, but here we were. We
(10:02):
had no other option because Universal Studios has been closed
because the fires and the fires pretty close. The studios
have had major fires over these Universal Studios. They've had
some serious, serious fires that have caused tremendous damage to
the back lot where we like to walk around and
all that. So whatever it takes to keep Universal Studios
(10:23):
in tech, I know they have some of their own
fire crews out that way. So we ended up yesterday
doing the TV show from our homes and if you
watch it it already. The reason we had to do
it on Thursday was because it starts airing Thursday evening.
(10:44):
So we needed a show because the show was scheduled
to be broadcast in some markets on Thursday evening, and
so we had to get the show out. People needed
to show. People agreed to carry the show, and they
had programming they needed to do the program. So we
did the show and it was it was interesting. There
were there were some obviously issues we had to work through,
(11:05):
some technical stuff. I had a pretty good setup, though,
I got to tell you, I don't think I don't
think it looked that bad. It looked pretty similar I
think to the way the show does look on a
normal weekly basis. There were some audio issues we had
to work out. The great thing about NBC, and it's
(11:29):
out of NBC Boston, they have all the bells and
whistles that you need to do a show from your home.
Considering that during COVID that's all they did. So they
figured out during that pandemic, how can we have television
from people's homes, And so they figured it all out
(11:49):
and it was it was great. Everything worked out, and
so they had everything that we needed. The IFB hookup
with the headphones, the way that we did the video
and the backdrop and the lighting and everything was good
to go. It was a chef's kiss. So I do
want to thank Vinnie and the people over there at
(12:11):
NBC Sports in Boston for making that a very smooth,
very smooth transition. There was one snaffo that we just
got burned by because we were doing the show and
about an hour after the show was put to bed
and then sent out to the affiliates, the NFL stumbled
(12:33):
through an announcement. There's a segment if you watch this
week's episode of Benni Versus Penny, there's a segment where
we stumbled through a portion of the show. We're talking
about the Rams and the Vikings, and the Vikings fans
were planning a hostile takeover, so we talked about that
during the show. Well, at the time we were talking
about that. The NFL was scheduled to play the Ram
(12:53):
Viking game on Monday night in Los Angeles in Inglewood,
in the hood in Inglewood, and then out of an
abundance of caution, okay, they decided to move the game.
They didn't have to move the game. The game could
have been played there. They chose to to move the game.
So it's the it's only the second playoff game Playoffs
(13:14):
in the history of the NFL where they've moved a
playoff game. The story behind that, the other one is fascinating,
Like this one is just Hey, it's twenty twenty five,
you know, we've we've got to let everyone know that
we're more concerned about people than everyone else and and
all that. Like, you could easily have played the game
on Monday night and it would have actually been been fine.
(13:37):
But I bring this up because the NFL has been
in existence for over one hundred years. It's been a minute, right,
it's been a minute. And through all of the different
events that have taken place in the history of America
that have been intertwined, wrapped around, wrapped around the NFL
(13:57):
like simultaneously, right, the NFL is being played, life goes on.
There was the President Kennedy being assassinated. There's been shuttles
that have exploded, There's been different events that have happened
nine to eleven, and so the NFL's pawster and things.
But as far as the playoffs are concerned, incredibly, the
(14:19):
Ram Viking game this weekend is only the second playoff
game in the history of the one hundred plus year
NFL to be moved to a different city. So I
wanted to give you the first one. The first one
was the nineteen thirty six NFL championship matchup between the
Boston Redskins and the Green Bay Packers. Have you heard
(14:41):
this story before? You have not? Okay, good. I actually
was going to use this on the Overnight Show, and
for some reason I never got to it. Bad job.
By me. So the Redskins and the Packers, we're going
to play the NFL Championship game nineteen thirty six, but
the game was moved out of Boston to New York.
The reason the game was moved get to the point please.
(15:03):
The reason is because the Redskins, the Boston Redskins, they
were the one schedule to host the NFL Championship at
Finnway Park, that was their home stadium. But the owner
a guy that is notorious for being a bit of
a douche, George Preston Marshall. Now I never met him.
Maybe he was a nice guy, but the history books,
(15:24):
the people that write history have not been very kind
to George Preston Marshall. So the owner of the Redskins decided,
you know what, I don't want to play the game
at Finnway Park. I want to move the game to
the Polo Grounds in New York City. So a team
from Boston played a team from Wisconsin at the Polo
(15:45):
Grounds in New York City. And the reason that George
Preston Marshall did that is he was annoyed because the
sports fans in Boston were not in they were not
invested in that type of American football. In nineteen thirty six,
baseball was popular, horse racing, boxing, and he didn't want
(16:08):
the game to be played there because he was worried
about he wanted to make money, he was worried about
not selling enough tickets in Boston. So he's like, I
got to get out of here now. It is interesting
to note that there's more to the story. As Paul
Harvey would say, you know the news, but now you're
about to find the found out the rest of the story.
(16:29):
You're going to find out the rest of the story.
So Marshall was planning on relocating what was the Boston Redskins,
and in nineteen thirty seven. The following year, he took
the Boston Redskins. He said bye bye to Boston and
(16:50):
moved them to Washington, DC and they became the Washington
Redskins starting in nineteen thirty seven. That had They later
around and played football for years and years, and then
the Wolkesters got involved and couldn't say that anymore. I
had to change the name of the team, and very
offensive to say that, and the NFL completely gen reflected
(17:13):
a few years back and got rid of the nickname.
Now the team really didn't have a nickname. Yeah, I
look at the team formerly know as the Redskins, I'm like,
it's just kind of faceless team. It's like the Memphis
Grizzlies or the New Orleans Pelicans. They're just these teams
that are just kind of there. They're filler teams. They
(17:34):
don't really move the needle at all. The names are blah,
the uniforms are blah. That's pretty much where I am
on the Washington Commanders, if you will. Now turning the
page on that. There was a moment about a week
(17:54):
ago that I thought I would be doing this podcast
from another state. I was convinced I was going to
figure out a way to get it done. Unfortunately, much
to my dismay, I could not do it. We're talking
about going on the Oregon Trail. Now, what is that
all about? Let me explain. So I learned after the fact. Unfortunately,
(18:19):
after the fact, I learned that somebody that I had
been a friend with for a number of years passed
away at the end of twenty twenty four. It actually
happened in November November of twenty twenty four, and I
(18:40):
didn't find out about it at the time, and I
actually found out about it a little later than that.
But I got a text from some number I didn't recognize. No,
normally I don't pay any attention to the text messages.
I'm like, this is somebody, this is probably spam. It's
probably spam. What am I doing? But this one had
(19:01):
information where only certain people would know the information? You know.
So and so I'm, you know, regarding the person I'm
about to talk about, and he said, there will be
another email coming. You have been invited to a celebration
of life for this particular person. So the person that
(19:26):
died is former Portland Trailblazers broadcaster Brian Wheeler was the
radio voice of the Portland Trailblazers from nineteen ninety eight
to twenty nineteen and had become a good friend of
mine for years. I met him shortly after he took
(19:46):
over in nineteen ninety eight. Now, back in those days,
I covered the NBA. I was there every night Clippers
Lakers games. I lived the NBA life. I probably went
to eighty plus NBA games including the playoffs per year
combined Clippers and even the Lakers, which I covered back
(20:08):
in those days. And so I was friends with this guy, Tony,
who was the engineer. He did the visiting teams, and
Tony was a buddy of mine, and he introduced me
to a lot of the play by play guys. He's like, hey, Ben,
you got to meet this guy. And Wheels had just
started out as the play by play guy for the Blazers.
He had replaced a gentleman who had been there for
seemingly ever, the longtime play by play guy the Blazers.
(20:32):
I forget his name. I forget his name right now, Shanelle,
I believe his name, but he had been there a
long time. So I immediately bonded with Brian Wheeler. He
was kind of a bigger guy, and I was a
much bigger guy at the time, and he was the
radio voice of the Portland Trailblazers. The Blazers are some
really good teams. Early on, they were in the Western
(20:52):
Conference Finals. They played the Lakers in the postseason one year,
and I saw wheel a couple times a year. They
probably four times a year. I would see him when
the Blazers would come to La to play the Clippers,
and likes always made sure I was out there when
the Blazers were in town and Over the years we
(21:13):
became friends. We talk on the phone. Sometimes we send
text messages to each other. Occasionally, Wheels had an afternoon
drive radio show in Portland and I would be a
guest on there. Occasionally called me up to fill in. Actually,
(21:34):
I auditioned when I was out of work one of
the jobs I lost years ago. I auditioned for the
radio station. I got offered the afternoon drive show in Portland,
and I turned it down. I was I couldn't do
it because the a the money wasn't good enough, and
it just felt like the wrong move in my career
at that time. So I didn't do it. But our
(21:55):
friendship continued, and Wheels and I we talked quite a bit.
And there's some stories. I don't know if it's appropriate
to tell them right now. I might wait until after
the celebration of life. I did want to thank that
the Trailblazers and the people who were involved in Wheel's
life for inviting me. I was honored to be invited.
(22:17):
I really wanted to make it. The event is on Sunday.
I was planning on trying to fly up. Actually today,
I was gonna fly up today, and then my plan
was to kind of hang out. I've never been to Portland.
I've flown over to go to Seattle. I was gonna
come to port I'm gonna go to Portland. I'll hang out.
My wife has a friend there. She'll visit her friend,
(22:41):
and then maybe I'll do a mallor meet and greet
on Saturday, and then I'll go to the event on
Sunday and then I'll fly back. The problem was the logistics.
I found out about this at the last minute, so
it pretty expensive to fly up there. But I could
spend the money and I wouldn't really have an issue
with that, but I would have had to miss a show.
(23:03):
There were no flights out after the event. I would
have to wait until Monday morning, so I would have
missed the radio show. But it's like, yeah, I could
have done that. But anyway, the flight thing, it just
didn't work out. So I was pretty bummed out when
I found out of it. I didn't find out right away.
There are some stories I want to tell. I feel
(23:24):
like it's inappropriate to tell them right at this minute,
but let's just say me and Wheels had a very
good friendship and I'd made some moves. There was one
moment and remind me on this. I'll get into it
in the future podcast. If I forget remind me. I
want to wait till after Sunday. But there was one
(23:45):
situation that would have changed NBA broadcasting and would have
been absolutely amazing. But I was involved in it. I
was helping Brian Wheeler. There was a job that was
open and I knew some people and I attempted to
(24:05):
help and then at the very last minute, somebody from
the outside stepped in and messed everything up. And so
it's unfortunate. But if you never heard Brian wheel he
was the radio voice of the Trailblazers, and he was
he was the guy that had a lot of catchphrases.
The one that he was most famous for NBA Entertainment
(24:29):
on their vignette shows. Remember nineteen ninety eight, this is
before social media, and really social media took off probably
about twenty ten, So the last nine years Wheels was
the voice of the Trailblazers, there was a lot of
social media, but early on there was not. But he
had all these catchphrase. The one that he was most
(24:50):
recognized for was boom shacka laca. A lot of people say, well,
boom shacka locke. He just took that from the video
game NBA Jam. But no, Wheels was not a video
game player. He used to say that he only played
like pac Man or Miss pac Man or something like that.
He took boom shacka loca from He borrowed it from
(25:10):
the movie Stripes with Bill Murray. He took boom shacka
loaca from that. There was a yeah. He had a
bunch of catchphrases. He had do it till You're satisfied,
which he took out from from a funk song by
DT Express. It's a great day to be a Blazer.
(25:31):
It was one of his catchphrases, and that was from
John Rooney, the old White Sox broadcaster back in the day.
That's a White Sox winner. So he took that and
twisted around and you know, once again and then we
can say it's a great day to be a Blazer.
He said that after every Trailblazer victory. And I really
(25:53):
appreciated what Wheels did. I told him this. You know,
he died pretty young. He was sixty t too. But
I told Wheels, I said, I love words, and I
love how you are able to work words. And in fact,
I know Alf and some of the guys that have
been listening a long time to the radio show. You know,
(26:14):
from time to time I will quote Brian Wheeler and
he would go on these rants this he would use
a three word I don't know how to describe it,
you know, adjectives, literation to describe the emotions of the
opposing team. When the Blazers would go on a run
(26:36):
and the other team would call it time out, it
would be like time out San Antonio. Greg Popovich is mystified,
mesmerized and mortified. And it was so good to listen to.
It was so awesome to listen to that, and I
just I loved it. And you know, that's just just
(26:59):
one example. There were a bunch. I mean I've quoted
Wheels doing that from time to time because I think
it's just just the alliterations of Brian Wheeler simply outstanding. Right.
The the Blazers are amazing, astonishing and astounding. You know,
(27:20):
it's let's see, like the Clippers coach Bill Fitch, time out.
Clippers Bill Fitch has bemused, bewildered, and bedeviled. Things like that.
Just just great, absolutely great, And if somebody was doing
very well, you know, certified, classified, gratified. Boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.
(27:43):
So that was his style. There were a bunch of
other catchphrases. When somebody would have a hammered dunk, he'd say, oh,
that was nasty. And they're dancing in the aisles at
the Rose Garden if something went great for the where
the Troublazers. But I love Wheels. He was very kind
to me. We would go out to lunch sometimes in
(28:04):
the offseason. He was adopted. He grew up in southern California.
He was adopted at birth, and he had a tough
child that he stepfather was an asshole and had a
tough tough time growing up. But he loved Vince Scully.
He loved chick Hern, Bob Miller, the great La play
(28:25):
by play guys, and he told me stories about you
wanted to be just like them. He planned on attending
school at USC. He ended up going to college in Chicago,
which it is interesting to note his he found his
birth mother. And you know, it's always one of those
weird things when you're adopted. You know, some people that
are adopted, they want to find their birth parents. Other
(28:47):
people that are adopted want nothing to do with their
birth parents. So it's a weird dynamic. But Brian wanted
to meet his birth mother. He did end up meeting
her a few years back and learned about what she
was like and why she made the decision that she
made and whatnot. And so anyway, Wheels grew up in
(29:09):
southern California, but he went to college in Chicago. He
did some like studio work for the Bulls. He worked
for the old Seattle SuperSonics back in the He bounced around,
He lived the nomad life, and I just loved him,
just loved the way he did the play by play.
And he had stints with the Sacramento Kings and the Sonics.
(29:32):
As I said, the Bulls, and he was the Oregon
sportscaster of the Year in twenty oh seven. He had
battled his weight his entire adult life. And I remember
when I lost my weight, which was probably probably around
twenty twenty ten. Wheels and I had many conversations. He's
(29:56):
trying to figure out how can he lose the weight,
and what can you do? And he tried every fad
diet and some of them worked. I remember he did
my Man Wheels, did the Oprah winfree like liquid diet,
and he lost a ton of weight. He was lost
more weight than I lost. He was lean, mean, and
(30:17):
a wrecking machine. The problem was traveling with an NBA team.
You're getting in late. You're getting in late, right. Things
are not necessarily open. Good restaurants are not open, so
you're eating late. You're not eating good food. You're drinking
a fair amount because you're going out to bars and
(30:39):
restaurants and you're having a social cocktail or whatever. So
eventually he could not keep up with the liquid diet.
He had to start eating solid food, and he put
all of the weight back and then some. And it
was just devastating when that happened. And so I tried
to give him some advice. I said, do the intimute fasting.
(30:59):
He actually tried it for a while, but it was
very difficult for him because again because of the schedule
and being around food, traveling to different NBA cities and
there's always like big piles of food all over the place,
and it's not good food. It was either the end
of twenty twenty three or early twenty twenty four. He
(31:19):
was with the Blazers till twenty nineteen. We spoke probably
once a year. After that, I didn't see him, obviously
because he was no longer traveling with the Trail Blazers.
He did come to LA. Big Dodger fan, Wheels and
so he would come down to La usually in the
middle of the summer, catch a Dodger game game or two.
But just a sweetheart of a guy and just really
(31:43):
enjoyed enjoyers coming on bummed out. I was unable to
make it. I hope to. I hope to get up
to Portland at some point. I think there's gonna be
some tributes that will be there for Wheels, and hope
to see some of that stuff. But again, I was
honored to be invited. I had a casual friendship with
Brian Wheeler, but I really appreciated his work. He was
(32:06):
so good, and you know, from Boomshaka Laca to my
eyes don't deceive. So I have to believe, and I
hope to honor Wheels. And this is something that I've
done a lot. Over the years. I've gotten older, more
and more people have died, which is unfortunate, but that's
(32:27):
part of life. Our number is going to come up,
all of us at some point. So I'm going to
try to work into the monologue some of the catchphrases
from Brian Wheeler as a tribute to Wheels, and so
that that's my plan. That's my plan. Now whether whether
that works, I'm not going to do it all the time,
(32:48):
but I'll do it occasionally, just a small, small tribute
to the great Brian Wheeler and Blazer fans were very
lucky to have him. He was so good. It is
such a art that very few do well. There's a
lot of people that can do play by play, and
I watch a bunch of different TV broadcasts, I hear
(33:08):
some radio broadcasts. A lot of these guys are just
their jabs, just another broadcaster, their jabs, nothing special. But
Wheels was special. He had whatever that is, the rasthma taz,
he had it. And I was lucky to be able
to hear some of his work. I was lucky enough
to know him. And he left this world. He should
(33:30):
still be doing the Trailblazer games, and he had some
health problems and he had to leave the Trailblazers, and
you know, it's sad, but you know, that's a job
he could have had. He'd still be doing it. He's
probably doing another eight nine years still his seventies, but
unfortunately he leaves this world at the age of sixty two.
So rest in peace. Brian Wheeler, one of the great
(33:54):
play by play guys. I was so lucky to come
across him and befriend him and have him as a
guy in my circle over the years. Now, I was
gonna do foodie fun, but there's not a lot of
food news, and there's no really good transition from that,
and it's kind of a slow week in foody fund
so I think I'll skip that. I did want to
(34:15):
mention the idiom of the day. We'll get out on
this the idiom of the day on the fifth hour.
So it's a phrase we've all used, man's best friend.
A dog is man's best friend. But is it true?
Is it true that that phrase actually goes back back back, back, back, back,
(34:38):
back back only to eighteen seventy, roughly eighteen seventy. Say what, yeah,
let me explain this is a matter fascinating. Now, I
love dogs. I'm a dog person. I'm not a cat person.
My dog Moxie. I spend pretty much every day getting
ready with the radio show with Moxie, my English bulldog,
(35:00):
laying on my legs, snoring and farting while I'm watching
games and getting ready for the show. And it's just
such a She's a sixty or fifty pound lap dog
or whatever, fifty five pounds. So anyway, have you ever
heard the phrase a dog is a man's best friend?
Of course you have.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Now.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
It seems like it goes back to the ancient times.
But is it true that it's actually from eighteen seventy
from America, the Missouri Supreme Court case of Burden versus
Hornsby in September of eighteen seventy. This is considered the
(35:41):
origin of the phrase, at least in the modern world.
In September of eighteen seventy. This is in Johnson County, Missouri,
in a courtroom. There there was a setting for what
was called the most celebrated dog case in the world,
big news in eighteen seventy. So this is the story.
I won't give you the whole story, but there was
(36:01):
this a person named Lee ownedas Hornsby. Fortunately we don't
use the name Lee owned us anymore. Really, it's an
old name. So this guy shot his neighbor and brother
in law, Charles Burden's hunting dog, the top hunting dog
dog named Old Drum Old Drum. So Burden was very upset.
(36:25):
Charles Burton's like, wait a minute, you a hole, what's
wrong with you? And threatened to kill Hornsby, but instead realized, well,
I probably shouldn't kill him, so instead I'll sue this
guy Hornsby for one hundred dollars. Well, Hornsby had been
employing his nephew to guard his flock of sheep, denied
giving any instruction to shoot the dog, Old Drum, so
(36:46):
they went to court. Now, one hundred bucks in eighteen
seventy was a lot of money. You want to play
the game? How much money? How much money was one
hundred dollars in eighteen seventy money versus today? You want
to play that game, Let's play that game. How much
(37:08):
do you think one hundred bucks in eighteen seventy versus today?
Here we are in twenty twenty five. So what would
the map? They don't even go back to eighteen seventy.
You know that they don't go back to eighteen seventy.
(37:28):
Let's see. Let me let me tump, let me let
me see last you. Maybe let me let me click
on this year. Hold on sake, listening to our live
coverage on the fifth hour, and as we try to
figure this out, No, it only goes back to the
inflation calculator. It only goes back to like nineteen nineteen thirteen,
(37:49):
nineteen thirteen, So there's no other information before. So we
can't even play the game. Why it was a lot
of money, I get to the point. So they went
to court and the lawsuit one hundred dollars. Hornsby had
been employing the nephew to guard the flock, but again
said I didn't tell this person to shoot Old Drum.
(38:10):
So they had two trials. The jury found Hornsby guilty
of ordering his nephew to kill Old Drum, awarded the
guy Burden, twenty five dollars. The judgment, though, was later reversed,
so they had a third trial, and Burden's lawyer, George
graham Vest George Graham Vest, delivered a tear jerking closing argument,
(38:34):
considered one of the great closing arguments at that time
and still talked about. Here we are one hundred and
fifty years later one hundred and fifty five years later
and it's still talked about. The closing argument was called
Eulogy for a Dog, and when this lawyer, George Graham
Vest finished, the jurors were in tears. They were they
(39:01):
awarded burden fifty dollars, so you didn't get the one
hundred dollars, you got the fifty dollars. Hornsby appealed to
the Supreme Court of Missouri, but the decision stood. But
best closing argument was so popular it became famous. It
was printed in newspapers and saved because there was no
(39:21):
internet in eighteen seventy and that is believed to be
where the modern version of a dog is a Man's
Best Friend came from from a closing argument in a
Missouri courthouse called Eulogy for a Dog, and it is
still available. You can read it. If you're interested in that,
(39:42):
check it out. We'll get out on that note. Hopefully
Danny g will be okay and these fires will go away,
and we will have a brand new episode of the
Fifth Hour podcast tomorrow Wildcard Weekend, Wildcard Saturday, we'll have
a brand new episode. Also tonight, we've got college football,
so it's a good sports weekend. Got college football tonight
(40:03):
Ohio State and Texas. The winner gets Notre Dome in
the championship game of college football. Have a wonderful rest
of your Friday. Thank you for listening to the podcast.
Tell a friend, tell a friend, spread the gospel of
the Fifth Hour Podcast, and we will talk to you tomorrow. Tomorrow.
(40:25):
Is it later, Skater Danny? Is that how it goes? Later? Skater?
I think so wrong. Gotta murder, I gotta go