August 1, 2026 • 38 mins
On the latest Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, we ask the important questions that society has recklessly ignored. Why does Canada need a thing called Big Mustard? How did the Romans look at a toothache and think, "Yeah, this'll fix it"? Is disc golf an actual sport or just hiking with Frisbees? Why are clowns still employed? What's the deal with sticky sand? Sand isn't supposed to stick—that's the whole business model! We'll make a pit stop over Lake Winnebago, wander through the outrage economy where everyone's professionally offended, marvel at the psychological masterpiece known as buy one, get one free hot takes, and pay tribute to the crayon-eating fan boys who loudly complain while faithfully paying the bills. Plus, life inside a technological Bermuda Triangle for a P1, where chargers disappear, passwords evaporate, software updates arrive at the worst possible moment, and every gadget eventually decides, "You know what? I'm done." No hocus pocus, just focus... on absolutely everything you never knew you needed to think about.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kabooms.
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 sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, it's a clearinghouse
of hot takes. Break free for something special. The Fifth
(00:23):
Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and you. It is either the first day of
August or the thirty second day of July. Happy Saturday
to you and whatever you end up doing today, you're
having a better day than Tony Romo, who just wanted
to see his grandmama. He's babushka and then all of
(00:52):
a sudden, now he's suspended from CBS. You see that
story that we would have a full Mallar monologue on
that Romo out well for now and JJ Watt the
Magic Carpet ride next to Jim Natz there on CBS.
My god, all right, on this edition of the fifth
Hour of the Saturday Special. Your irrelevant the moment people
(01:15):
stop arguing about you and technological Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
We'll get to those and more. It is the two
hundred and thirteenth day of the year.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I am told that means there are one hundred and
fifty two days left in the year twenty twenty six.
It is disc golf Day today. I have never played
disc golf. I do remember years ago it became somewhat trendy,
kind of like pickleball, that kind of thing. I read
(01:47):
that they were over six thousand official disc golf courses
in the United States. That seems like a lot, because
I don't know anyone that plays disc golf.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Six thousand that can't be right.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
And do you really need your own disc golf course
to play disc golf?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know what I'm saying. It's mustard Day today.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
The first Saturday of the month, which is today, is
mustard Day. I learned that yellow mustard is not actually
naturally bright yellow. That the color, that vibrant yellow color
that you see when you go out to a restaurant
or you have your mustard and your fridge, It comes
from the turmeric and it's not the mustard seed itself.
(02:33):
And if you enjoy mustard, you better think our friend
Nico and all his brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
There, Oh, Cada.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Canada grows more mustard than anywhere else in the world.
The Canadian prairies, which I've not been to, the prairie
provinces of Canada, produce the majority of the entire global
supply of mustard. Now, the good news is there's no
countries trying to take out mustard. Like no one's got
their nukes pointed at mustard to mess up the global economy,
(03:08):
and no one said, wow, we don't have mustard. I
can't go on with my life. And like most things,
I've talked about garlic a lot because I love garlic,
and I've done rants and rives, I've done whole podcasts
on garlic and My love Affair with God. Mustard, much
like garlic, was once used as medicine the ancient Greeks
and the Romans back in the day. They were just
(03:30):
called Greeks and Romans. They weren't called ancient when they
were there, and they believed you could treat everything from
a toothache out by tooth to a snake bite and
you'd be fine. You just take a little mustard. Now
I don't believe that at all. I do believe that
garlic does have healing powers. I believe that National clown
(03:53):
Day is today.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
It is estimated there are over ten thousand clowns and
organized clown groups at over twenty thousand clowns worldwide.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I think they're more than that. Just don't be
the guy that takes the people in your basement.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And you know, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's pinball Day today, pinball Day today. A lot of
holidays today, it's pinball Day today. The first coin operated,
commercially successful pinball machine was named Baffleball in nineteen thirty one.
Nineteen thirty one, so the pinball machine is not even
the modern pinball machine is not even one hundred years old.
(04:30):
And I love my favorite pinball thing. And I learned
this years ago my family in New York that back
in the I don't know how long ago it was,
you'd have to just look it up yourself there. But
the pinball machine was actually contraband in New York.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
And this goes back many, many many years.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But New York City outlawed pinball machines because of organized crime,
and they claim that people were gambling on the pinball games.
And then once New York City banned pinball as horrific.
A lot of other cities also pinball was illegal. Thin
think about that pinball. Pinball was illegal and it was
(05:17):
years and then in the nineteen I think it was
in the nineteen seventies the game that somebody went to
court and was able to overturn it and all that,
so it came back. But anyway, pinball. So if you're
you've got kids and they're playing pinball.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Say you know that was illegal. You're a rebel.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
That was an illegal game in New York City. You're
you're going off the reservation, is what you're doing. It's
also sand Castle Day today, so celebrate the first Saturday
of the month of August is sand Castle Day. And
why you need a day for sand Castle's I don't know.
I didn't see the fact that I thought was cool
that sand. The reason stands sand if I could talk
(05:53):
that way. Sand sticks to your skin when you're at
the beach is because it holds onto water, and we're
made out of a lot of water, and so your skin,
you know, in my skin, we all sweat, and then
that creates enough moisture, even though we don't feel it
per se, but it creates enough moisture where the sand
(06:15):
it just clings to you.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's what it does. There you go, and there are
a bunch of different colored sands. You've got the white sand,
the tan sand, which is the most popular, the pink sand,
and the black sand. So there you go. That's it
on sand.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Now onto the program. Actually, before we get to the
meat of the matter, I did want to thank you.
Well maybe not you, but I got a bunch of messages.
I haven't been able to write back to everybody. A
lot of you reached out, which is very kind. You know,
I have a couple of brothers. I'm the middle child.
My older brother lives in New York. My younger brother
lives in Wisconsin, in Appleton, Wisconsin, and he's doing fine,
(06:53):
which is good because I had no clue why people
were suddenly very concerned about my brother.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I was like, oh, I'm getting messages. I'm like, what
do you do? The first matches I got from him
we're okay, we're okay. And my reaction was, I figured
you were okay. What happened? And it turns out.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
About I don't know how many miles from me, ay
fifteen hundred miles from me. I was completely oblivious that Appleton,
Wisconsin had been hit by an e F three tornado.
Now you might be surprised to learn that I do
not exactly spend my free time tracking the Fox Citi's
(07:34):
weather forecast.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I will check in the winter time, I admit it.
I like to have fun when it's seventy five degrees
in LA and I rip all the Wokesters and then
I look at the forecast in Appleton and it's like
minus seven with snow flurries all week.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'll look at.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That and I'll say, well, you know, the Wokesters aren't
so bad this week because it's you know, the weather's
better here and all that stuff. But if Appleton pops
up into the news, I assume that somebody must have
invented like a new kind of cheese dish, or they
got another blizzard and not the kind from Dairy Queen
that we were promoting this week on the radio show. Instead,
(08:12):
this tornado I was reading about it. It had winds between
one hundred and thirty six and one hundred and sixty
five miles per hour. And this is the part that
is crazy to me. It's stayed on the ground for
more than twenty minutes. Now, I live in earthquake country.
I've lived through some big earthquakes. Most earthquakes are just
about thirty seconds or less, not much more than that,
(08:34):
usually a lot less than that, very small. You hear
them coming the earthquake, you can hear the noise from
a distance, and then you obviously in the earthquake, and
then you can kind of hear it after the post
mortem on the earthquake. This thing went on for more
than twenty minutes around Appleton and the suburbs and then
vanished over Lake Winnebego. And I imagine like somebody was
out there fishing on Lake Winnebego and then all of
(08:54):
a sudden, today, you know, here you go left a
twelve mile trail of destruction. Thousands of homes and businesses
were torn up, trees uprooted. There were some photos of
roofs being ripped off. Power lines went down. More than
thirty thousand people lost electricity. My brother, he did send
(09:17):
me a bunch of photos. Let's just say he got
free tree trimming. And what was the name of the gardener, Well,
that would be Mother Nature. Mother Nature was the name
of the gardener, and Mother Nature didn't charge, just ripped
up a bunch of trees. His neighbor's trees got it
worse than him.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It was pretty nasty in terms of the damage to
the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Power lines were down. My brother was without power for
three days this week. He did not have a generator.
That's what happens when you're from California and you moved
to Wisconsin. He will be buying a generator. He was
just sweating it out. Not that it gets that hot
in Appleton, but when you're used to ten degrees, it's hot.
So he was just sweating it out the old fashioned way. Now,
(09:55):
the amazing part is, and this is great, no one died.
That's awesome from what I read, no fatalities considering twenty
minutes on the ground EF three tornado. That's the math
isn't really math, And I mean, that's that's impossible.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And I guess they have a system.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
My brother was saying, they have a warning system. They
send out like a text thing and.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
All kinds of different things to warn people when the
weather gets really, really nasty. So you get that all right.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Now to the outrage economy, the outrage economy, So we
are happy to report on this fifth hour podcast, a
must listen for legends like the one and only No Stradinis.
He loves this, he's been on the podcast. So we
are happy to report that we remain one of the
(10:47):
last places where sports radio still embraces the lost art
of the fire brand. Now, I didn't plan on being
a fire brand. I don't even consider myself a fire brand.
I don't go into these monologues thinking, wow, let's see
what I can do today to be a firebran. No,
and so not the fake, manufactured outrage that is assembled
(11:08):
by those corporate brainstorming sessions.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
No, no, no, this is the.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Old fashioned spark plug, the on air human mosquito, apparently
agent provocateur, and the job description begins and ends with
one simple mission, get people to listen. Now, how do
people listen? There's many different ways. A lot of people
listen live to the Overnight show. We have truck drivers
(11:33):
and factory workers and cops and robbers who love that,
and people with insomnia, old dudes that are just trying
to get through.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
The night and you know, have that going on and
medical problems, so we have all that.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So you're just trying to get people listen. Then you
have people to listen to the podcast like this on demand.
And then there's people that get little bite sized pieces
of the show, little bite sized pieces.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And that's the social media world. And so that's essentially.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
What talk radio is right now is getting people to react.
It's in the DNA. And so this week we had
a very good week. Business is Booming. Mission accomplished twice
this week, not once, but twice. This week, the show
tripped into the social media algorithm, the buy one, get
one free, double your pleasure, double your outrage. Now, I
generally avoid social media during the daylight hours. I use
(12:22):
it as a tool for the show. It's a funhouse
of mirrors and a lot of clowns, a lot of clowns,
a lot of clowns.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
And so I'll occasionally make a quick dry I call
it drive by.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I call a drive by where I'll go on social
media for like a minute and just quickly check out
a few things and then get out of there and
I'm preparing get back to preparing for the Mala monologues.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
These bullet points don't write themselves.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So this week's entertainment came courtesy of Philadelphia Fanboys and
what's called Raider Nation.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Whatever's left of nation? Yeah, so two loyal constituentcies who
forever I can't thank you enough. You are always.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Prepared to sprint into battle to defend your damsels in
distress because of laundry.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Now we'll start in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
The Philadelphia brigade erupted because I suggested, I got to
check with Fats on this. I suggested that the Lebron
James experiment isn't going to transform the seventy six ers
into basketball royalty.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
How drya mahlor.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Apparently questioning a forty something meter superstar now qualifies as blasphemy.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Meanwhile, in Nevada, Raider Nation rushed to defend selecting quarterback
Fernando Mendoza with the first overall pick, even though at
the moment he can't beat out the football equivalent of
a museum exhibit, Kirk Cousins, whose NFL expiration date appears
(14:04):
to have arrived several seasons ago, and yet the Raiders
signed him. The responses were magnificent. Now, not thoughtful and
not original and not per se pervasive or anything like that.
They were wonderful. They were magnificent. I used the word magnificity.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And so you had a mix of.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Younger, middle aged, older, hot take hall I call them
hot take hall monitors, the bleacher bosos, logo worshipers who
treat the franchise logo like it's the family coat of arms.
And so the Raiders, who I thought when I was
a kid, they used to win all the time, and
(14:46):
now I'm getting older and they have won any The
Raiders haven't won a super Bowl since nineteen eighty three.
Let's pause think about that for a second. That championship
came when Ronald Reagan occupied the White House. Apple was
just introducing the macintosh with this guy named Ridley Scott.
(15:09):
That is very famous commercial in nineteen eighty four, the
nineteen eighty four super Bowl, which is, by the way,
when the Raiders when the Super bowls after the eighty
three season. The Internet wasn't a thing. Television was original
episodes of Dynasty, Dallas, the A Team, Magnum Pi.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
These are good shows. Michael Jackson's Thriller dominated the record world.
The music world. Line Old Richies Can't Slow Down was popular.
In the car.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Gallon of gas cost you a buck twenty one eggs
were roughly a dollar a dozen milk barely topped two bucks.
You could buy a pack of cigarettes. People love smoking
in the eighties, and you could buy a pack of
Marlboroughs for less than pocket change today. And I used
to collect these Star Wars action figures, the Kenner Star
(16:03):
Wars action figures. Well, that was expensive. That was ninety
seven cents to get one of those. And all that
happened the last time the Raiders were a champion. And
yet in twenty twenty six, complete strangers are still willing
to throw verbal punches defending the decisions made by a
franchise whose last championship celebration.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You have to look up.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
On the internet and there's the video, but it's barely color.
It's like it's just wild and all this while the
NEPO baby owner, who did nothing other than inherit the
team because he won the genetic lottery, is at PF
Chang's eating spicy noodles, while Tom Brady, the GM by
proxy of the Raiders, is auditioning for the WWE. That's
(16:54):
the Raiders, and I'm the bad guy. You can't make
this stuff up. Sports fandom is fascinating. I was told
this like the modern religion a lot of people aren't
religious anymore, and they've turned their religious tendencies into sports
like Philadelphia, of course, has long provided reliable material for
those of us to do sports radio. This isn't my
(17:15):
first dance with that algorithm. Like years ago. Years ago,
I questioned whether Nick Foles was the answer. Later came
skepticism over Jalen Hurts. Every time the digital torches came out,
and Philly sports radio needs Howard Eskin, they need Angelo Cataldi.
(17:37):
I'll give you an example that I'm gonna juxtapose the
difference between.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Today and just a few years ago.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
So a few years back I did a rant absolutely
slaying Doc Rivers, Glenn doc Rivers, and instead of getting
hate in Philadelphia, I got Angelo Cataldi, the greatest morning
guy in Philadelphia's orts radio history, one of the goats
of sports radio. Angelo's retired now, but I had his
(18:04):
producer reach out to me to get me to come
on the show to trash Doc Rivers, because that was
what you did. That was the real Philadelphia. Now you
got a bunch of soft people in Philadelphia. It's really
sad that there's that many people, the interlopers, who are
not the real Philadelphia. Fans, because the real Philadelphia fans
would hold Lebron James accountable.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
And say, hey, wait a minute here, what are you doing.
So I've been in the algorithm in Philadelphia over the
years with Jalen Hurts and Nick Foles and Doc Rivers
and all that stuff, and I've reached the point where
I assume half of what appears on social media isn't
even human.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I talk about the matrix with bots, sock puppet accounts,
professional outrage consultants, all of those things. Most normal people
I've noticed over the years have things like jobs. You've
got a family, you've got responsibilities. You don't spend Tuesday
afternoon composing twenty seven replies to someone you've never met
(19:04):
over an opinion about a basketball player. And yet social
media somehow finds an endless supply of volunteers. It's fascinating,
and the funny part, they never seem to understand.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
God bless them like these people.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Most of them are window lickers who think they're punishing
the person they dislike. It's the dogpile mentality, when the
dogpile is the greatest thing you.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Could possibly have. As a talk show host, they're actually
working overtime to support the product. And this is what
they'll never understand, because they're not that smart. Every angry
reply is great. It fuels more replies. Every quote treat
or X or whatever it's called, feeds the algorithm. Every insult, Well,
(19:54):
that's why you're all at three of the morning from
the crayon eaters generates another impression. So congratulations, and I
want to thank both the Philadelphia fan and the Raider fan.
You just became an unpaid member of the Malad Militia
marketing department, the Ben Maler Show marketing department, helping put
food on my table, money in my bank account. And
(20:15):
may you forever be a Dingleberry.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Howard Stern, we mentioned this a few times over the years,
back when he was good, and actually he's like retired now,
but back when he was good, Stern figured out, and
the people in radio figured out decades ago, the famous
Stern effect, which was not built on universal admiration. The
people who hated Howard Stern often listened longer than the
(20:38):
fans who really loved him because they desperately wanted to
catch that next thing to be upset about. So outrage
has always been a remarkably durable business model.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Indifference is much worse.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Being ignored is the only unforgivable sin on social media.
You're irrelevant the moment people stop arguing about you when
you're in this business. And now before anyone before you
or anyone else accuses me of manufacturing controversy, you must
understand the nuance. I am not sitting in a laboratory
(21:14):
engineering ridiculous opinions simply to chase clicks. The main objective
is to get people to listen to the live radio
show and the podcast. These little bite sized pieces the
company sends out.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That's an add on item. That's an add on item.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
These takes come from years and years behind the microphone
letting these things marinate. They're my own proprietary blend. Agree
or disagree, that's the game. Thumbs up, thumbs down. The
problem isn't disagreement. The problem is modern sports discourse.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It's become logo worship.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Lebron spent years being public enemy number one in Philadelphia.
Then suddenly he goes into the changing room and he
changed which is his outfit. And now some of the
people who used to just destroy him are now polishing
his resume because he wears the proper laundry. They're licking
(22:12):
the toes, the green puss, they're sucking that out from
under his toenails. A quarterback prospect in Vegas becomes immune
from criticism the moment these people their favorite franchise draft him,
an independent thought has become option. The jersey decides the opinion,
(22:36):
the logo writes the script, and people simply memorize the lines.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's it. Like sports are supposed to encourage debate. Instead,
we've created digital neighborhoods with gangs running around cybergons or
disagreement is treated like.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Vandalism, and you must believe in group think. So yes,
after all these years, we continue being, as I said,
a sparkplug, the undercover agent provocateur, because unlike so many
of the younger lads and sports media, we're not asking
for your approval.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
We're not. We're just asking for attention. That's it.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Whatever that means. You love the take, that's great, man,
You love my take. You hate the take, that's fine too.
Make sure to quote them, make sure to take screenshots
of them. Make sure to make all your same jokes
you always make. Oh you're ugly, you're fat, your middle age,
whatever you're old, you're a boomer.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Or all that's I love it. I love all of it.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Every insult is another dollar in my pocket. So make
sure to send these things to your buddies while calling
me every effing name in the book. And remember who's
really getting paid in this interaction. The outrage is not
costing me anything. It's costing you time, which is the
(23:53):
most valuable thing that we have. You're wasting your time
and it's giving me a little bit of money.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
You're throwing some shit goes into my bank account. You're
the one donating your time and giving me money to
promote the show. So thank you. I want to thank
you for your service. God bless you. Now moving on
to the Life of Malor. The Life of Malor on
the Fifth Hour podcast. If you like this, click that
thumbs up thing the five stars and boy, that would
(24:22):
be great, and do a little review and tell a
friend and if everyone, including you and the guy over
across town there and the lady who doesn't want to
admit she listens, if everyone just gets one other person
to listen to this, we will double our audience and
that would be pretty cool. So behind the microphone there
are certain traditions we just talked about the sports take
(24:45):
on the show. Every show starts each hour with a
malam monologue. Very rarely does that not happen. So we
start with a malam monologue.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
We then transition into angry callers, people convinced that officials
are part of an international global conspiracy against them, and
then we have the crazy callers, the characters like Hollering
James and weed Man Hippie now born Billy Blanks.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
He lives in South.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Foist from New York, one of the enduring characters on
the show. One of the people who somehow someway became
part of the furniture in the Mallad Militia if the
furniture occasionally wandered off, forgot where the furniture lived, and
came back smelling like a reggae festival. So it was
(25:36):
his birthday week. Every Monday into Tuesday. Weed Man calls
the show to solve all of the world's problems while
simultaneously creating several new problems. And he's developed this strange
role over the years where listeners ask him questions, he
answers with a complete confidence, and somewhere in the middle
(25:57):
he tells one of the same three stories he's been
telling since George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. We're in
the White House, back in the old days. There the
details changed slightly each time, like folklore passed down through generations,
except the generations are only about six weeks apart. For example,
(26:19):
he continues to be perpetually stunned that there's a marijuana
dispensary practically down the street from his apartment in Hollywood, Florida,
And considering that this man has been arrested for marijuana
possession more times than most people have renewed their driver's license.
I suppose it's understandable to him in his world, walking
(26:44):
past a legal weed shop is probably like al Capone
discovering the irs now has a.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Customer loyalty program? What is that?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So I started thinking about what I could do for
him on his birthday, and we had him on and
I think a listener sent him some food that was great.
During my long drive back to the north Woods, I
punched his number into my phone. Sometimes I have to
act like weed Man's mom and call him, Hey, weed Man.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
We've got the bit. You're in okay, I'll call up.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I was awake, I was busy, so I of course
block my caller ID beforehand because I've learned from experience.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Talk Mike. Yeah, my buddy from.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Chicago who's called me every year since. He said, Ben,
I'm gonna be going to jail in Chicago. I don't
know if I'll be able to get a hold of
you after. Can I just have your number, I'm gonna
call you one time. Sure, no problem, Doc. And it's
been twenty years and he.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Still calls me every week check saying, Hey, Ben, I'm
in Tucson. I'm helping this lady that's got you know,
so and so, giving her pineapple smoothie. Thanks Doc. Yeah.
So eventually I give him a call.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I call him on the way home there or whatever,
doing his thing, and it's early in the morning and whatever. Fine,
he's still wide awake, he answered, wished me a happy birthday.
Then he says, Ben, I love you, and the boy
that was sweet, surprisingly sweet, So of course I said,
I love you weed man. You know not you know
(28:17):
romance love a romance, not romance, bromance, you know, a
couple of boys. He's been a great character on the show,
like I said, So, then I asked the rather obvious question,
not that I enjoy small talk.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
I said, listen, what are you doing today? Today's your birthday.
Today's your birthday. He'sai, I don't know. I he didn't say.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
He didn't say going out, he didn't say seeing friends.
He didn't say I'm gonna go celebrate, you gonna have
a big cake. He just said, I don't know. It
sounded less like uncertainty and more like a lifestyle choice. Now,
knowing Billy the way I do, I figured there was
a decent chance that he would spend the day watching
forty year old Johnny Carson clips on YouTube while eating
(28:59):
whatever food his guardian, Angel Purrito, not a burrito Purrito
had delivered to his apartment.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
By the way, Purito not a fan of mine. He's
a Raider fan, and he's not happy with me. Right,
I've upset my man Purrito.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Anyway, So I had no idea exactly what weed man
slash Billy was up to, and so I said, hey,
why don't you go out and you'll get you leave
you a little apartment there and make the birthday rounds,
go collect all your free stuff for your birthday. And
immediately at that point I flashed back to my early twenties.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
This is why I brought it up. So one birthday,
and I don't remember how old I was, I was fatty, Benny.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I was fatty, and I practically treated the birthday like
a scavenger. And I drove all over southern California collecting
complimentary fries, cookies, ice cream, slices of pie, doughnuts, drinks, muffins, pancakes,
dessert stuff I didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Even really want or need. I just did it. Anything
that came with the words happy birthday. I was in on.
I was in on.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
It was less a birthday celebration and more of an
organized heist through corporate America. The only thing missing was
a getaway driver. Now, weed Man loved the idea. He
loves things he doesn't have to pay for. He loves
to beg for things he didn't have to beg for.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
This.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
He said, boy, oh that would be great, Ben. He said, oh, boy,
that would be great Ben. Then he asked the question
that doomed this entire operation, the question that would become
the bane of my existence this week. He said, where
should I go? Simple question? So I started listening places.
I was like, how about Starbucks? And then we I
(30:48):
was like, looking, we can't go to Star Wars needs
an app? Ah McDonald's. Ah, you got to be part
of that rewards program. How about Arby's. Arby's is desperate
for people.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Come on, now, you need an account Wendy's Wendy's, Nah,
I said, download this. Well, definitely Denny's.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
I mean I got that breakfast thing at Denny's on
my birthday.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
No, no, you got to register first. Every single FN
restaurant that used to hand out a cookie or this
or that or whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Simply because you showed up and showed your identification. Now
they want paperwork now, of course, not actual paperwork, digital paperwork.
Somewhere along the way, birthdays became less about celebrating and
more about onboarding.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
It's about onboarding.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
You can't get a free cookie anymore without surrendering your
email address, your phone number, birthday, zip code, favorite color,
and what feels like a small vial of blood. Happy birthday?
Now tell us your mother's maiden name, please? Well, what
about your last four of your social No, yeah, I'm
giving you that. Accept cookies except tracking, Accept eternal surveillance.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
That's the deal. Somewhere a muffin was waiting for weed
Man behind forty seven pages of terms and conditions. He
just wants a muffin, a blueberry muffin. Given the man hashbruns,
he just wants hashbruns instead instead.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Was like I was trying to negotiate a merger. Now
there's an old saying, which is really not all that old.
If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
Like apparently the free brownie cost exactly one permanent marketing profile.
I wasn't especially worried about Weedman's privacy. Nor is weed
Man worried about his privacy. The man spent much of
(32:36):
his adult life homeless and in and out of South
Beach jail, Miami jail. He's not exactly protecting a Cayman
Islands investment portfolio and crypto and trying to keep it
from Nigerian princes in an email phishing scam. Of course,
the great thing and we'll get to this in a minute,
but weed Man doesn't have to worry about a phishing
(32:58):
scam on his email. The real problem is weed Man
exists in a technological Bermuda triangle. I'm telling you, the
weed Man lives in a technological Bermuda triangles very odd.
He can somehow find a forty seven minute clip of
Johnny Carson interviewing Don Rickles in nineteen eighty three and
nineteen eighty five that was uploaded by a man named
(33:20):
Classic TV Guy sixty nine four twenty. But ask him
to locate the forget password button, and suddenly we're searching
for Atlantis, the lost city of Atlantis.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And years ago I helped him create an email address.
It became a bit on the show. Coop has done
the same thing, and each and every time, within days,
if not hours, the password disappears into whatever dimension missing
socks occupy. He doesn't forget eventually.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
This is the beauty of weed man. He forgets immediately.
Billy forgets immediately. It's almost performance art. He has smoked
so much marijuana and God only knows what else. Over
the decades that directions like up, down, left, right have
become more philosophical concepts than practical instructions. The birthday plan
(34:17):
slowly unraveled on this phone call. Every restaurant this blew
me away. Literally, every restaurant required an app. Every app
required an account, every account required an email, Every email
required a password.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's like, what do we do it.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Every password you got to you required actually being able
to remember something, and that was.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
The fatal flaw. So for it seemed like three hours,
it was probably fifteen minutes. I was genuinely befuddled.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I believed I was organizing the greatest birthday buffet in
South Florida and got a rude awakening.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
I was thunderstruck.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Instead, I'd accident volunteered weed Man for a semester long
introductory course in modern identification verification. So by the time
we got to Arby's, I had mentioned, you know, like
we Man, we're gonna find one, and then I just
gave up. I just gave up, and I figured, if
(35:19):
we sign you up for this, weed Man, you're gonna
have to work at Arby's.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
That's it. It's like, congratulations, weed Man. Before claiming your
free roast beef sandwich or Philly cheese steak, you need
to complete this three minute training module and attend a
diversity awareness and seminar, and also pass a cyber security
Level two clearance and we'll give you an annual performance review. Well, no,
(35:45):
I just I just want to get a roast beef sandwich,
maybe the Philly cheese steak. So somewhere an Arby's executive
is looking at a spreadsheet saying, great news. We traded
one free curly fry for eighteen years of location information
on this person. And meanwhile, weed Man is still standing
(36:05):
outside wondering if they validate the parking. Well, they don't
charge for parking, weed Man, and you don't have a car.
The whole thing felt backwards bizarro world like restaurants used
to bribe you with dessert. Get an ice cream cone,
come in, get a scoop ice cream. Now they recruit
you into their digital cult.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
The cookie isn't free, it's merely the signing bonus to
get you in. Now.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Eventually Wendy's won't even ask for your email. They'll simply say,
think about a frosty. A drone will appear outside your house.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Now we noticed.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
We noticed that, you know, the the ice cream was
not the saying that you got last time. We're wondering
if you're okay, please please reply now weed Man is
you know he's he literally does? I said Johnny Carson.
He told me that he's been watching old episodes of
Johnny Carson. I'm not that up like he's watching Tonight Show.
(37:02):
I didn't know that was on there. There's old episodes
of the Tonight Show back in the eighties and the seventies,
and he'll be the only person in America too inept,
incompetent with tech to be tracked. And he doesn't have
to worry about the Nigerian princes and all that stuff
for once in his life. His greatest weakness which in
(37:24):
modern society not being able to being a technophobe. In
modern society a Mennonite is not great, and that has
now become his superpower. He's ready to join the Justice League.
On that note, we are going to put the baby
to bed. Have a great Saturday.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Remember you're having a better Saturday than Tony Romos. He's
apparently for now blown his eighteen million dollar a year
gig over there at.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
CBS because of a golf trip gone bad. Anyway, I
have a great rest of your day. We'll have the
mail bag tomorrow and we'll talk to you then.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Bye bye. That's what Dick and day Ayton would say.
You don't want me to upset Dick. Bye bye.
Kabooms.
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 sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, it's a clearinghouse
of hot takes. Break free for something special. The Fifth
(00:23):
Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and you. It is either the first day of
August or the thirty second day of July. Happy Saturday
to you and whatever you end up doing today, you're
having a better day than Tony Romo, who just wanted
to see his grandmama. He's babushka and then all of
(00:52):
a sudden, now he's suspended from CBS. You see that
story that we would have a full Mallar monologue on
that Romo out well for now and JJ Watt the
Magic Carpet ride next to Jim Natz there on CBS.
My god, all right, on this edition of the fifth
Hour of the Saturday Special. Your irrelevant the moment people
(01:15):
stop arguing about you and technological Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
We'll get to those and more. It is the two
hundred and thirteenth day of the year.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I am told that means there are one hundred and
fifty two days left in the year twenty twenty six.
It is disc golf Day today. I have never played
disc golf. I do remember years ago it became somewhat trendy,
kind of like pickleball, that kind of thing. I read
(01:47):
that they were over six thousand official disc golf courses
in the United States. That seems like a lot, because
I don't know anyone that plays disc golf.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Six thousand that can't be right.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
And do you really need your own disc golf course
to play disc golf?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know what I'm saying. It's mustard Day today.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
The first Saturday of the month, which is today, is
mustard Day. I learned that yellow mustard is not actually
naturally bright yellow. That the color, that vibrant yellow color
that you see when you go out to a restaurant
or you have your mustard and your fridge, It comes
from the turmeric and it's not the mustard seed itself.
(02:33):
And if you enjoy mustard, you better think our friend
Nico and all his brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
There, Oh, Cada.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Canada grows more mustard than anywhere else in the world.
The Canadian prairies, which I've not been to, the prairie
provinces of Canada, produce the majority of the entire global
supply of mustard. Now, the good news is there's no
countries trying to take out mustard. Like no one's got
their nukes pointed at mustard to mess up the global economy,
(03:08):
and no one said, wow, we don't have mustard. I
can't go on with my life. And like most things,
I've talked about garlic a lot because I love garlic,
and I've done rants and rives, I've done whole podcasts
on garlic and My love Affair with God. Mustard, much
like garlic, was once used as medicine the ancient Greeks
and the Romans back in the day. They were just
(03:30):
called Greeks and Romans. They weren't called ancient when they
were there, and they believed you could treat everything from
a toothache out by tooth to a snake bite and
you'd be fine. You just take a little mustard. Now
I don't believe that at all. I do believe that
garlic does have healing powers. I believe that National clown
(03:53):
Day is today.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
It is estimated there are over ten thousand clowns and
organized clown groups at over twenty thousand clowns worldwide.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, I think they're more than that. Just don't be
the guy that takes the people in your basement.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And you know, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's pinball Day today, pinball Day today. A lot of
holidays today, it's pinball Day today. The first coin operated,
commercially successful pinball machine was named Baffleball in nineteen thirty one.
Nineteen thirty one, so the pinball machine is not even
the modern pinball machine is not even one hundred years old.
(04:30):
And I love my favorite pinball thing. And I learned
this years ago my family in New York that back
in the I don't know how long ago it was,
you'd have to just look it up yourself there. But
the pinball machine was actually contraband in New York.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
And this goes back many, many many years.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But New York City outlawed pinball machines because of organized crime,
and they claim that people were gambling on the pinball games.
And then once New York City banned pinball as horrific.
A lot of other cities also pinball was illegal. Thin
think about that pinball. Pinball was illegal and it was
(05:17):
years and then in the nineteen I think it was
in the nineteen seventies the game that somebody went to
court and was able to overturn it and all that,
so it came back. But anyway, pinball. So if you're
you've got kids and they're playing pinball.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Say you know that was illegal. You're a rebel.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
That was an illegal game in New York City. You're
you're going off the reservation, is what you're doing. It's
also sand Castle Day today, so celebrate the first Saturday
of the month of August is sand Castle Day. And
why you need a day for sand Castle's I don't know.
I didn't see the fact that I thought was cool
that sand. The reason stands sand if I could talk
(05:53):
that way. Sand sticks to your skin when you're at
the beach is because it holds onto water, and we're
made out of a lot of water, and so your skin,
you know, in my skin, we all sweat, and then
that creates enough moisture, even though we don't feel it
per se, but it creates enough moisture where the sand
(06:15):
it just clings to you.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's what it does. There you go, and there are
a bunch of different colored sands. You've got the white sand,
the tan sand, which is the most popular, the pink sand,
and the black sand. So there you go. That's it
on sand.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Now onto the program. Actually, before we get to the
meat of the matter, I did want to thank you.
Well maybe not you, but I got a bunch of messages.
I haven't been able to write back to everybody. A
lot of you reached out, which is very kind. You know,
I have a couple of brothers. I'm the middle child.
My older brother lives in New York. My younger brother
lives in Wisconsin, in Appleton, Wisconsin, and he's doing fine,
(06:53):
which is good because I had no clue why people
were suddenly very concerned about my brother.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I was like, oh, I'm getting messages. I'm like, what
do you do? The first matches I got from him
we're okay, we're okay. And my reaction was, I figured
you were okay. What happened? And it turns out.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
About I don't know how many miles from me, ay
fifteen hundred miles from me. I was completely oblivious that Appleton,
Wisconsin had been hit by an e F three tornado.
Now you might be surprised to learn that I do
not exactly spend my free time tracking the Fox Citi's
(07:34):
weather forecast.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I will check in the winter time, I admit it.
I like to have fun when it's seventy five degrees
in LA and I rip all the Wokesters and then
I look at the forecast in Appleton and it's like
minus seven with snow flurries all week.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'll look at.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That and I'll say, well, you know, the Wokesters aren't
so bad this week because it's you know, the weather's
better here and all that stuff. But if Appleton pops
up into the news, I assume that somebody must have
invented like a new kind of cheese dish, or they
got another blizzard and not the kind from Dairy Queen
that we were promoting this week on the radio show. Instead,
(08:12):
this tornado I was reading about it. It had winds between
one hundred and thirty six and one hundred and sixty
five miles per hour. And this is the part that
is crazy to me. It's stayed on the ground for
more than twenty minutes. Now, I live in earthquake country.
I've lived through some big earthquakes. Most earthquakes are just
about thirty seconds or less, not much more than that,
(08:34):
usually a lot less than that, very small. You hear
them coming the earthquake, you can hear the noise from
a distance, and then you obviously in the earthquake, and
then you can kind of hear it after the post
mortem on the earthquake. This thing went on for more
than twenty minutes around Appleton and the suburbs and then
vanished over Lake Winnebego. And I imagine like somebody was
out there fishing on Lake Winnebego and then all of
(08:54):
a sudden, today, you know, here you go left a
twelve mile trail of destruction. Thousands of homes and businesses
were torn up, trees uprooted. There were some photos of
roofs being ripped off. Power lines went down. More than
thirty thousand people lost electricity. My brother, he did send
(09:17):
me a bunch of photos. Let's just say he got
free tree trimming. And what was the name of the gardener, Well,
that would be Mother Nature. Mother Nature was the name
of the gardener, and Mother Nature didn't charge, just ripped
up a bunch of trees. His neighbor's trees got it
worse than him.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It was pretty nasty in terms of the damage to
the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Power lines were down. My brother was without power for
three days this week. He did not have a generator.
That's what happens when you're from California and you moved
to Wisconsin. He will be buying a generator. He was
just sweating it out. Not that it gets that hot
in Appleton, but when you're used to ten degrees, it's hot.
So he was just sweating it out the old fashioned way. Now,
(09:55):
the amazing part is, and this is great, no one died.
That's awesome from what I read, no fatalities considering twenty
minutes on the ground EF three tornado. That's the math
isn't really math, And I mean, that's that's impossible.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And I guess they have a system.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
My brother was saying, they have a warning system. They
send out like a text thing and.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
All kinds of different things to warn people when the
weather gets really, really nasty. So you get that all right.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Now to the outrage economy, the outrage economy, So we
are happy to report on this fifth hour podcast, a
must listen for legends like the one and only No Stradinis.
He loves this, he's been on the podcast. So we
are happy to report that we remain one of the
(10:47):
last places where sports radio still embraces the lost art
of the fire brand. Now, I didn't plan on being
a fire brand. I don't even consider myself a fire brand.
I don't go into these monologues thinking, wow, let's see
what I can do today to be a firebran. No,
and so not the fake, manufactured outrage that is assembled
(11:08):
by those corporate brainstorming sessions.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
No, no, no, this is the.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Old fashioned spark plug, the on air human mosquito, apparently
agent provocateur, and the job description begins and ends with
one simple mission, get people to listen. Now, how do
people listen? There's many different ways. A lot of people
listen live to the Overnight show. We have truck drivers
(11:33):
and factory workers and cops and robbers who love that,
and people with insomnia, old dudes that are just trying
to get through.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
The night and you know, have that going on and
medical problems, so we have all that.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So you're just trying to get people listen. Then you
have people to listen to the podcast like this on demand.
And then there's people that get little bite sized pieces
of the show, little bite sized pieces.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And that's the social media world. And so that's essentially.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
What talk radio is right now is getting people to react.
It's in the DNA. And so this week we had
a very good week. Business is Booming. Mission accomplished twice
this week, not once, but twice. This week, the show
tripped into the social media algorithm, the buy one, get
one free, double your pleasure, double your outrage. Now, I
generally avoid social media during the daylight hours. I use
(12:22):
it as a tool for the show. It's a funhouse
of mirrors and a lot of clowns, a lot of clowns,
a lot of clowns.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
And so I'll occasionally make a quick dry I call
it drive by.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I call a drive by where I'll go on social
media for like a minute and just quickly check out
a few things and then get out of there and
I'm preparing get back to preparing for the Mala monologues.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
These bullet points don't write themselves.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So this week's entertainment came courtesy of Philadelphia Fanboys and
what's called Raider Nation.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Whatever's left of nation? Yeah, so two loyal constituentcies who
forever I can't thank you enough. You are always.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Prepared to sprint into battle to defend your damsels in
distress because of laundry.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Now we'll start in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
The Philadelphia brigade erupted because I suggested, I got to
check with Fats on this. I suggested that the Lebron
James experiment isn't going to transform the seventy six ers
into basketball royalty.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
How drya mahlor.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Apparently questioning a forty something meter superstar now qualifies as blasphemy.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Meanwhile, in Nevada, Raider Nation rushed to defend selecting quarterback
Fernando Mendoza with the first overall pick, even though at
the moment he can't beat out the football equivalent of
a museum exhibit, Kirk Cousins, whose NFL expiration date appears
(14:04):
to have arrived several seasons ago, and yet the Raiders
signed him. The responses were magnificent. Now, not thoughtful and
not original and not per se pervasive or anything like that.
They were wonderful. They were magnificent. I used the word magnificity.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And so you had a mix of.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Younger, middle aged, older, hot take hall I call them
hot take hall monitors, the bleacher bosos, logo worshipers who
treat the franchise logo like it's the family coat of arms.
And so the Raiders, who I thought when I was
a kid, they used to win all the time, and
(14:46):
now I'm getting older and they have won any The
Raiders haven't won a super Bowl since nineteen eighty three.
Let's pause think about that for a second. That championship
came when Ronald Reagan occupied the White House. Apple was
just introducing the macintosh with this guy named Ridley Scott.
(15:09):
That is very famous commercial in nineteen eighty four, the
nineteen eighty four super Bowl, which is, by the way,
when the Raiders when the Super bowls after the eighty
three season. The Internet wasn't a thing. Television was original
episodes of Dynasty, Dallas, the A Team, Magnum Pi.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
These are good shows. Michael Jackson's Thriller dominated the record world.
The music world. Line Old Richies Can't Slow Down was popular.
In the car.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Gallon of gas cost you a buck twenty one eggs
were roughly a dollar a dozen milk barely topped two bucks.
You could buy a pack of cigarettes. People love smoking
in the eighties, and you could buy a pack of
Marlboroughs for less than pocket change today. And I used
to collect these Star Wars action figures, the Kenner Star
(16:03):
Wars action figures. Well, that was expensive. That was ninety
seven cents to get one of those. And all that
happened the last time the Raiders were a champion. And
yet in twenty twenty six, complete strangers are still willing
to throw verbal punches defending the decisions made by a
franchise whose last championship celebration.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You have to look up.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
On the internet and there's the video, but it's barely color.
It's like it's just wild and all this while the
NEPO baby owner, who did nothing other than inherit the
team because he won the genetic lottery, is at PF
Chang's eating spicy noodles, while Tom Brady, the GM by
proxy of the Raiders, is auditioning for the WWE. That's
(16:54):
the Raiders, and I'm the bad guy. You can't make
this stuff up. Sports fandom is fascinating. I was told
this like the modern religion a lot of people aren't
religious anymore, and they've turned their religious tendencies into sports
like Philadelphia, of course, has long provided reliable material for
those of us to do sports radio. This isn't my
(17:15):
first dance with that algorithm. Like years ago. Years ago,
I questioned whether Nick Foles was the answer. Later came
skepticism over Jalen Hurts. Every time the digital torches came out,
and Philly sports radio needs Howard Eskin, they need Angelo Cataldi.
(17:37):
I'll give you an example that I'm gonna juxtapose the
difference between.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Today and just a few years ago.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
So a few years back I did a rant absolutely
slaying Doc Rivers, Glenn doc Rivers, and instead of getting
hate in Philadelphia, I got Angelo Cataldi, the greatest morning
guy in Philadelphia's orts radio history, one of the goats
of sports radio. Angelo's retired now, but I had his
(18:04):
producer reach out to me to get me to come
on the show to trash Doc Rivers, because that was
what you did. That was the real Philadelphia. Now you
got a bunch of soft people in Philadelphia. It's really
sad that there's that many people, the interlopers, who are
not the real Philadelphia. Fans, because the real Philadelphia fans
would hold Lebron James accountable.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
And say, hey, wait a minute here, what are you doing.
So I've been in the algorithm in Philadelphia over the
years with Jalen Hurts and Nick Foles and Doc Rivers
and all that stuff, and I've reached the point where
I assume half of what appears on social media isn't
even human.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I talk about the matrix with bots, sock puppet accounts,
professional outrage consultants, all of those things. Most normal people
I've noticed over the years have things like jobs. You've
got a family, you've got responsibilities. You don't spend Tuesday
afternoon composing twenty seven replies to someone you've never met
(19:04):
over an opinion about a basketball player. And yet social
media somehow finds an endless supply of volunteers. It's fascinating,
and the funny part, they never seem to understand.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
God bless them like these people.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Most of them are window lickers who think they're punishing
the person they dislike. It's the dogpile mentality, when the
dogpile is the greatest thing you.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Could possibly have. As a talk show host, they're actually
working overtime to support the product. And this is what
they'll never understand, because they're not that smart. Every angry
reply is great. It fuels more replies. Every quote treat
or X or whatever it's called, feeds the algorithm. Every insult, Well,
(19:54):
that's why you're all at three of the morning from
the crayon eaters generates another impression. So congratulations, and I
want to thank both the Philadelphia fan and the Raider fan.
You just became an unpaid member of the Malad Militia
marketing department, the Ben Maler Show marketing department, helping put
food on my table, money in my bank account. And
(20:15):
may you forever be a Dingleberry.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Howard Stern, we mentioned this a few times over the years,
back when he was good, and actually he's like retired now,
but back when he was good, Stern figured out, and
the people in radio figured out decades ago, the famous
Stern effect, which was not built on universal admiration. The
people who hated Howard Stern often listened longer than the
(20:38):
fans who really loved him because they desperately wanted to
catch that next thing to be upset about. So outrage
has always been a remarkably durable business model.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Indifference is much worse.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Being ignored is the only unforgivable sin on social media.
You're irrelevant the moment people stop arguing about you when
you're in this business. And now before anyone before you
or anyone else accuses me of manufacturing controversy, you must
understand the nuance. I am not sitting in a laboratory
(21:14):
engineering ridiculous opinions simply to chase clicks. The main objective
is to get people to listen to the live radio
show and the podcast. These little bite sized pieces the
company sends out.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That's an add on item. That's an add on item.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
These takes come from years and years behind the microphone
letting these things marinate. They're my own proprietary blend. Agree
or disagree, that's the game. Thumbs up, thumbs down. The
problem isn't disagreement. The problem is modern sports discourse.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It's become logo worship.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Lebron spent years being public enemy number one in Philadelphia.
Then suddenly he goes into the changing room and he
changed which is his outfit. And now some of the
people who used to just destroy him are now polishing
his resume because he wears the proper laundry. They're licking
(22:12):
the toes, the green puss, they're sucking that out from
under his toenails. A quarterback prospect in Vegas becomes immune
from criticism the moment these people their favorite franchise draft him,
an independent thought has become option. The jersey decides the opinion,
(22:36):
the logo writes the script, and people simply memorize the lines.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's it. Like sports are supposed to encourage debate. Instead,
we've created digital neighborhoods with gangs running around cybergons or
disagreement is treated like.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Vandalism, and you must believe in group think. So yes,
after all these years, we continue being, as I said,
a sparkplug, the undercover agent provocateur, because unlike so many
of the younger lads and sports media, we're not asking
for your approval.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
We're not. We're just asking for attention. That's it.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Whatever that means. You love the take, that's great, man,
You love my take. You hate the take, that's fine too.
Make sure to quote them, make sure to take screenshots
of them. Make sure to make all your same jokes
you always make. Oh you're ugly, you're fat, your middle age,
whatever you're old, you're a boomer.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Or all that's I love it. I love all of it.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Every insult is another dollar in my pocket. So make
sure to send these things to your buddies while calling
me every effing name in the book. And remember who's
really getting paid in this interaction. The outrage is not
costing me anything. It's costing you time, which is the
(23:53):
most valuable thing that we have. You're wasting your time
and it's giving me a little bit of money.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
You're throwing some shit goes into my bank account. You're
the one donating your time and giving me money to
promote the show. So thank you. I want to thank
you for your service. God bless you. Now moving on
to the Life of Malor. The Life of Malor on
the Fifth Hour podcast. If you like this, click that
thumbs up thing the five stars and boy, that would
(24:22):
be great, and do a little review and tell a
friend and if everyone, including you and the guy over
across town there and the lady who doesn't want to
admit she listens, if everyone just gets one other person
to listen to this, we will double our audience and
that would be pretty cool. So behind the microphone there
are certain traditions we just talked about the sports take
(24:45):
on the show. Every show starts each hour with a
malam monologue. Very rarely does that not happen. So we
start with a malam monologue.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
We then transition into angry callers, people convinced that officials
are part of an international global conspiracy against them, and
then we have the crazy callers, the characters like Hollering
James and weed Man Hippie now born Billy Blanks.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
He lives in South.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Foist from New York, one of the enduring characters on
the show. One of the people who somehow someway became
part of the furniture in the Mallad Militia if the
furniture occasionally wandered off, forgot where the furniture lived, and
came back smelling like a reggae festival. So it was
(25:36):
his birthday week. Every Monday into Tuesday. Weed Man calls
the show to solve all of the world's problems while
simultaneously creating several new problems. And he's developed this strange
role over the years where listeners ask him questions, he
answers with a complete confidence, and somewhere in the middle
(25:57):
he tells one of the same three stories he's been
telling since George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. We're in
the White House, back in the old days. There the
details changed slightly each time, like folklore passed down through generations,
except the generations are only about six weeks apart. For example,
(26:19):
he continues to be perpetually stunned that there's a marijuana
dispensary practically down the street from his apartment in Hollywood, Florida,
And considering that this man has been arrested for marijuana
possession more times than most people have renewed their driver's license.
I suppose it's understandable to him in his world, walking
(26:44):
past a legal weed shop is probably like al Capone
discovering the irs now has a.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Customer loyalty program? What is that?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So I started thinking about what I could do for
him on his birthday, and we had him on and
I think a listener sent him some food that was great.
During my long drive back to the north Woods, I
punched his number into my phone. Sometimes I have to
act like weed Man's mom and call him, Hey, weed Man.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
We've got the bit. You're in okay, I'll call up.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I was awake, I was busy, so I of course
block my caller ID beforehand because I've learned from experience.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Talk Mike. Yeah, my buddy from.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Chicago who's called me every year since. He said, Ben,
I'm gonna be going to jail in Chicago. I don't
know if I'll be able to get a hold of
you after. Can I just have your number, I'm gonna
call you one time. Sure, no problem, Doc. And it's
been twenty years and he.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Still calls me every week check saying, Hey, Ben, I'm
in Tucson. I'm helping this lady that's got you know,
so and so, giving her pineapple smoothie. Thanks Doc. Yeah.
So eventually I give him a call.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I call him on the way home there or whatever,
doing his thing, and it's early in the morning and whatever. Fine,
he's still wide awake, he answered, wished me a happy birthday.
Then he says, Ben, I love you, and the boy
that was sweet, surprisingly sweet, So of course I said,
I love you weed man. You know not you know
(28:17):
romance love a romance, not romance, bromance, you know, a
couple of boys. He's been a great character on the show,
like I said, So, then I asked the rather obvious question,
not that I enjoy small talk.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
I said, listen, what are you doing today? Today's your birthday.
Today's your birthday. He'sai, I don't know. I he didn't say.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
He didn't say going out, he didn't say seeing friends.
He didn't say I'm gonna go celebrate, you gonna have
a big cake. He just said, I don't know. It
sounded less like uncertainty and more like a lifestyle choice. Now,
knowing Billy the way I do, I figured there was
a decent chance that he would spend the day watching
forty year old Johnny Carson clips on YouTube while eating
(28:59):
whatever food his guardian, Angel Purrito, not a burrito Purrito
had delivered to his apartment.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
By the way, Purito not a fan of mine. He's
a Raider fan, and he's not happy with me. Right,
I've upset my man Purrito.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Anyway, So I had no idea exactly what weed man
slash Billy was up to, and so I said, hey,
why don't you go out and you'll get you leave
you a little apartment there and make the birthday rounds,
go collect all your free stuff for your birthday. And
immediately at that point I flashed back to my early twenties.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
This is why I brought it up. So one birthday,
and I don't remember how old I was, I was fatty, Benny.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I was fatty, and I practically treated the birthday like
a scavenger. And I drove all over southern California collecting
complimentary fries, cookies, ice cream, slices of pie, doughnuts, drinks, muffins, pancakes,
dessert stuff I didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Even really want or need. I just did it. Anything
that came with the words happy birthday. I was in on.
I was in on.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
It was less a birthday celebration and more of an
organized heist through corporate America. The only thing missing was
a getaway driver. Now, weed Man loved the idea. He
loves things he doesn't have to pay for. He loves
to beg for things he didn't have to beg for.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
This.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
He said, boy, oh that would be great, Ben. He said, oh, boy,
that would be great Ben. Then he asked the question
that doomed this entire operation, the question that would become
the bane of my existence this week. He said, where
should I go? Simple question? So I started listening places.
I was like, how about Starbucks? And then we I
(30:48):
was like, looking, we can't go to Star Wars needs
an app? Ah McDonald's. Ah, you got to be part
of that rewards program. How about Arby's. Arby's is desperate
for people.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Come on, now, you need an account Wendy's Wendy's, Nah,
I said, download this. Well, definitely Denny's.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
I mean I got that breakfast thing at Denny's on
my birthday.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
No, no, you got to register first. Every single FN
restaurant that used to hand out a cookie or this
or that or whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Simply because you showed up and showed your identification. Now
they want paperwork now, of course, not actual paperwork, digital paperwork.
Somewhere along the way, birthdays became less about celebrating and
more about onboarding.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
It's about onboarding.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
You can't get a free cookie anymore without surrendering your
email address, your phone number, birthday, zip code, favorite color,
and what feels like a small vial of blood. Happy birthday?
Now tell us your mother's maiden name, please? Well, what
about your last four of your social No, yeah, I'm
giving you that. Accept cookies except tracking, Accept eternal surveillance.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
That's the deal. Somewhere a muffin was waiting for weed
Man behind forty seven pages of terms and conditions. He
just wants a muffin, a blueberry muffin. Given the man hashbruns,
he just wants hashbruns instead instead.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Was like I was trying to negotiate a merger. Now
there's an old saying, which is really not all that old.
If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
Like apparently the free brownie cost exactly one permanent marketing profile.
I wasn't especially worried about Weedman's privacy. Nor is weed
Man worried about his privacy. The man spent much of
(32:36):
his adult life homeless and in and out of South
Beach jail, Miami jail. He's not exactly protecting a Cayman
Islands investment portfolio and crypto and trying to keep it
from Nigerian princes in an email phishing scam. Of course,
the great thing and we'll get to this in a minute,
but weed Man doesn't have to worry about a phishing
(32:58):
scam on his email. The real problem is weed Man
exists in a technological Bermuda triangle. I'm telling you, the
weed Man lives in a technological Bermuda triangles very odd.
He can somehow find a forty seven minute clip of
Johnny Carson interviewing Don Rickles in nineteen eighty three and
nineteen eighty five that was uploaded by a man named
(33:20):
Classic TV Guy sixty nine four twenty. But ask him
to locate the forget password button, and suddenly we're searching
for Atlantis, the lost city of Atlantis.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And years ago I helped him create an email address.
It became a bit on the show. Coop has done
the same thing, and each and every time, within days,
if not hours, the password disappears into whatever dimension missing
socks occupy. He doesn't forget eventually.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
This is the beauty of weed man. He forgets immediately.
Billy forgets immediately. It's almost performance art. He has smoked
so much marijuana and God only knows what else. Over
the decades that directions like up, down, left, right have
become more philosophical concepts than practical instructions. The birthday plan
(34:17):
slowly unraveled on this phone call. Every restaurant this blew
me away. Literally, every restaurant required an app. Every app
required an account, every account required an email, Every email
required a password.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's like, what do we do it.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Every password you got to you required actually being able
to remember something, and that was.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
The fatal flaw. So for it seemed like three hours,
it was probably fifteen minutes. I was genuinely befuddled.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I believed I was organizing the greatest birthday buffet in
South Florida and got a rude awakening.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
I was thunderstruck.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Instead, I'd accident volunteered weed Man for a semester long
introductory course in modern identification verification. So by the time
we got to Arby's, I had mentioned, you know, like
we Man, we're gonna find one, and then I just
gave up. I just gave up, and I figured, if
(35:19):
we sign you up for this, weed Man, you're gonna
have to work at Arby's.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
That's it. It's like, congratulations, weed Man. Before claiming your
free roast beef sandwich or Philly cheese steak, you need
to complete this three minute training module and attend a
diversity awareness and seminar, and also pass a cyber security
Level two clearance and we'll give you an annual performance review. Well, no,
(35:45):
I just I just want to get a roast beef sandwich,
maybe the Philly cheese steak. So somewhere an Arby's executive
is looking at a spreadsheet saying, great news. We traded
one free curly fry for eighteen years of location information
on this person. And meanwhile, weed Man is still standing
(36:05):
outside wondering if they validate the parking. Well, they don't
charge for parking, weed Man, and you don't have a car.
The whole thing felt backwards bizarro world like restaurants used
to bribe you with dessert. Get an ice cream cone,
come in, get a scoop ice cream. Now they recruit
you into their digital cult.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
The cookie isn't free, it's merely the signing bonus to
get you in. Now.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Eventually Wendy's won't even ask for your email. They'll simply say,
think about a frosty. A drone will appear outside your house.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Now we noticed.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
We noticed that, you know, the the ice cream was
not the saying that you got last time. We're wondering
if you're okay, please please reply now weed Man is
you know he's he literally does? I said Johnny Carson.
He told me that he's been watching old episodes of
Johnny Carson. I'm not that up like he's watching Tonight Show.
(37:02):
I didn't know that was on there. There's old episodes
of the Tonight Show back in the eighties and the seventies,
and he'll be the only person in America too inept,
incompetent with tech to be tracked. And he doesn't have
to worry about the Nigerian princes and all that stuff
for once in his life. His greatest weakness which in
(37:24):
modern society not being able to being a technophobe. In
modern society a Mennonite is not great, and that has
now become his superpower. He's ready to join the Justice League.
On that note, we are going to put the baby
to bed. Have a great Saturday.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Remember you're having a better Saturday than Tony Romos. He's
apparently for now blown his eighteen million dollar a year
gig over there at.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
CBS because of a golf trip gone bad. Anyway, I
have a great rest of your day. We'll have the
mail bag tomorrow and we'll talk to you then.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Bye bye. That's what Dick and day Ayton would say.
You don't want me to upset Dick. Bye bye.
Host
Ben Maller
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