January 9, 2026 • 30 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Friday for you! Long-time caller and Maller Militia member Sir Scratch Off gives a sermon on Ben's language, then curses when the gremlins do a stealth attack on the remote studio. We also celebrate Quitters Day!!!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me Ben Mallor,
and we are hanging out together here on a Friday.
The what is it? Today's the ninth day of January.
And on this podcast we have Sir Potty Mouth and
(00:49):
on the QD. But we're gonna begin with this so
on a weekly basis the journey into the audio world
that we do here this being Friday. We have new
podcasts all week and long. But we have come to
accept many uncomfortable truths about life, such as as I've
gotten older, the Malard metabolism has entered the Witness Protection program,
(01:13):
which is why I do extreme fasting on the daily,
on the daily, and that every time I go to
the grocery store and I go to check out, it
doesn't matter what line I pick. Immediately the person checking
out will want to have a long term conversation with
(01:36):
whoever they're checking out. Now, I try to do self
checkout as much as I can. One of the stories
I go to does not have self checkout, which is
a big pain in the behind anyway. Also, that will
circle back when you hear someone in business say, we'll
circle back to that, that is corporate jargon, that the
(02:00):
corporate code for this whatever this is, is never happening. Whatever
that is. No matter whether it should happen or not,
it's not happening. So when somebody says that, we'll circle
back to that never happening. And now, thanks to Live Radio,
we have once again been reminded of the most humbling
(02:22):
truth of all. Karma owns a stopwatch and has impeccable timing.
Did you know that? Did you know that Karma owns
a stopwatch and has impeccable timing?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It does?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It does? Let's take you on a journey through time
and space. So we talk often about some of the
quirky things that happen on the weekday show. We spend
our time here on the podcast The Fifth Hour Podcast
talking about that some would say, way too much time, Right,
what are you doing? Why do you keep talking about that?
(02:55):
What's wrong with you? Move on? However, it's a good
way to document the things that take place. And I
know that we talk about it so much. We're almost
at the point where some some who listen and think
we are just being nostalgic. It's like we're men who
still insist on vinyl records that that sounds better, or
(03:19):
that the Big East was the top point in all
of sports when the Big East basketball dominated every Monday,
Big Monday and all that stuff. But here's the deal again,
I like doing this podcast. Some days I like it
more than others. And I find podcasting to be wonderful.
It's very controlled here the ecosystem. It's polite. It's bubble
(03:43):
wrap for the soul. It's like live radio. However, is
a demolition derby where you are blindfolded and someone else
controls the brakes, right, It's that kind of situation. And
I do love that I got into it when I
was a young dad back in the day. That's why
(04:03):
I got into radio now earlier this week, get to
the point, please, So the Demolition Audio Derby delivered one
of its masterpieces. This was Masterpiece Theater, one of its
finest RECs. Took place just a couple of days ago
on the Wednesday into Thursday show. So it was the
(04:25):
final hour of the Ben Mather Show, a time slot
where reality becomes optional. And we have more people listening
that hour than we do the earlier parts of the
show because of the people getting up early trying to
get the jump on work on the Eastern seaboards. So
we have a lot more people then than we do
(04:47):
earlier in the show listening live. Another podcast is the podcast,
and people will listen and consume what they're going to consume.
But the callers treat the phone lines like a confession
booth with no priest. Although you could argue that I
am the audio priest, I am not an actual priest,
(05:08):
but on the radio, why not? And so enter Sir
scratch Off. Now, if you listen semi regularly, chances are
if you've been with the show for any period of
time that you've heard the work of Sir scratch Off.
He loves the Rams. He liked them when they were
the Saint Louis Rams. He likes the back in the
day with the La Rams. He loves to call up
(05:29):
and talk about the Rams. He also gets very offended
about the Dodgers. He's a Cardinals fan. He's got issues. However,
he's a longtime member of the Mallard Militia from the
state of Arkansas. A senior statesman, if you will, a
veteran caller. Veteran caller, the kind of guy whose name
(05:50):
alone suggests that he's got opinions, convictions, and at least
at least a couple of plastic tubs was filled with
old lottery tickets. And he's the guy that will go
into a roadside diner in the backwoods of Arkansas and
(06:12):
he will say, Hey, can I get a breakfast burrito? Well,
why would you order a breakfast baburrito your roadside stop
somewhere in Arkansas? Well, I like breakfast burritos. And then
he'll start talking. Next thing you know, you'll be in
a conversation for an hour. So he hadn't called in
a while, Sir scratch off, I was genuinely happy. That's
what a loser I am. I was genuinely happy to
(06:34):
hear his voice. That happiness lasted approximately and I don't
want to exaggerate and I do not want to exaggerate.
It lasted approximately eight seconds. Now some background for those
in the back of the room. Background for those of
you in the back of room. I know JT the
Wingman will appreciate this, and so will Lucky Tony. Sir
(06:56):
scratch Off over the holidays, had sent me a a
bunch of messages on Facebook messager, and I am famously bad.
I always apologize in advance for responding to random messages
that I get. I get a high volume of messages.
It's part of the gig, and it's cool and all that.
(07:17):
And this is not an exaggeration. Though I have unopened emails,
I think that are old enough to cast a ballot
at this point. And because I was on holiday, I
saw his messages and I attempted something radical. It's called politeness.
(07:38):
I tried to respond, and I got a message from
Facebook informing me that I was not allowed to message
this particular user, which I found odd. This is not
a rejection you can process emotionally. It's not seen, it's
(07:58):
not left on red. It's a digital thing. I'm a
jig tapping you on the shoulder and saying, yeah, you're
not able to talk to this person, You're not on
a list. So naturally I mentioned this to Sir scratch
Off on the air. I said, listen, Sir scratch Off,
I tried to write back. He sounded dazed and confused,
(08:20):
as he often does, like a man being told his
mailbox has filled up and has now filed a restraining order,
And then, like a revival tent sprouting up overnight, the
sermon began. I didn't ask for the sermon. Did you
ask for the sermon? I didn't ask for the sermon. Well,
(08:42):
I got a sermon, and guess what, so did you.
It started with I like your show. The man said, now,
having done this whatever, this is long enough, we know
that that sentence is meaningless. Once the word but capital
(09:04):
be But enter's the chat. Everything before that is just
a runway. The crash is imminent. You know it is happening.
You know it is happening. So Sir scratch Off launches
into this long winded critique of my language, not your language,
(09:24):
my language, my mouth, my vocabulary. This was less feedback
and more old testament, If you know what I'm saying.
He spoke with the confidence of a man, Sir scratch Off,
who had never accidentally sent a text to the wrong person,
then started to wonder, Oh my god, what have I done,
(09:46):
and then stared at their phone praying for the power
outage to take place. So you want that power, just
the thing that doesn't happen. So we explained that, listen,
I do a lot of things. There's a lot of
things I'm not good at. There's a lot of things
I do I shouldn't do. I don't use profanity on radio,
not because I don't love profanity. I do love profanity.
(10:08):
I enjoy profanity. However, I am regulated by the Federal
Communications Commission, whether I like it or not. A group
of individuals that has many hobbies. None of them include
my happiness. None of them include my happiness. So I said, listen,
do you think I worked blue? He had no idea
what that meant. I guess that's even over his head.
(10:30):
So the FCC does not appreciate creative wordplay involving body parts.
They don't. They don't. They don't like pottymouth. So back
and forth we went Southern Arkansas drawl versus West Coast
overnight sarcasm. And then then, because live radio has a
(10:54):
tremendous sense of humor. The gremlin arrived. Knock knock, Who's there?
The gremlin? The gremlin? Who so the broadcast line. My
broadcast line malfunctioned from the remote studio could put my
microphone went silent. In the business, this is a da situation.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Dead air? What who?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
What? Whow so?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Dead air?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Maybe ten seconds? You understand that in radio ten seconds
is not silence. It is a geological area. Mountains can form.
There is an entire civilization that can rise up and
fall down in ten seconds. Somewhere A program director reaches
(11:48):
for antacid, just imagining this, so so scratch Off assumed,
since he didn't hear me barking at him, he assumed
the position that yours truly had hung up on him
very rudely. Something that has happened.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I had not.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I had not. He was still on the air. He
was still on the air, and in what can only
be described as a master class in irony, the man
who had just spent several minutes lecturing me from the
church pew about my language, announced proudly and loudly on
(12:34):
hundreds of radio stations, on satellite radio, on endless platforms
that I was an asshole. This is the moment live
radio earns its pension. There was no dump button, no edit,
no rewind, just Karma stretching, crackling its knuckle and saying
(13:01):
my turn. Now. Of course Lorraina did hit the dump button. However,
it was obvious that whatever had been said was not
supposed to be said, and it ended up on the podcast. Now,
the hypocrisy of all this was so clean, so delicious,
all that deserved a plaque.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
A man think about that.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
A man delivers a sermon on verbal hygiene, the higher
better person, right, I'm better than you and I know
how you should talk, and then immediately swears on national
radio the moment he thinks the principal has left the room.
It was like watching someone complain about calories while eating
(13:45):
with a spoon frosting out of the container. I laughed,
not necessarily on the I think there's a little bit
of chuckle. I couldn't, but spiritually, I've been driving around
last couple of days.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I deep in the soul.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
This was hilarious. And again this is another thing I
love doing this, all the stuff I do, the podcast whatever.
This is why podcasting will never fully replace live radio.
Podcasting does not betray you live radio. Absolutely will. And
that's the point. And so where does this rank? We
(14:21):
don't do a list. We do not believe in this
on Benny's Big Board for Terry and England, Benny's Big Board,
the long bizarre history of the Ben Maler Show. So
it's likely in the top twenty. It's not certainly near
the very top that's reserved. The very top is reserved
(14:42):
for the classics Genie and Medford, A Bushing her neighbor
on air, the farmer from Georgia. I don't remember the
guy's name performing barnyard animal impressions.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Like he was auditioning for a children's show hosted by
Livestock mark the full name guy screaming and barking my direction,
hollering James snoring like a platypus, and somehow winning a
radio game show. Callers being pulled over mid sentence. We've
(15:15):
had a few of those. How about Randy from Norman, Oklahoma.
I was doing a commercial and in the copy I
believe the word bouncy or bouncy error was in the copy,
and Randy lost his bleeping mind. Randy in Norman, Oklahoma,
And that is how the phrase pro Bouncy Ball was
(15:37):
born as a tribute to Randy from Norman, Oklahoma. So
live radio is not perfect. It's not always clean, it
is not efficient, and sometimes, depending on what part of
the Bible belt you're in, it's not safe. However, it
is honest. It exposes a lot, especially especially when we
(16:03):
think we're preaching wink wink, not not. Sir scratch Off
didn't just call the show that night. He contributed to
the audio archive, adding a chapter and reminded us you
and I reminded us that the universe is listening and
that sometimes the universe has a sense of humor. And
(16:24):
then I love the fact that he called back the
next day, Sir scratch Off defending the fact that he
said asshole on the radio show and he was quoting scripture,
he said, well, ass is in the Bible, and as
Coop pointed out, a whole is not anywhere anyway. I
know that podcasting is cool right now, and I'm doing
(16:45):
a podcast as I'm talking about this, and this is
going to be the future, and someday, someday I will
likely only do a podcast that'll be all I do.
I'll live a comfortable life and I'll record this whenever
I want. But moments like this or why I always
believe in live rate, It's why I got into live radio.
(17:06):
And when Karma speaks, it doesn't send a push notification,
it goes live.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
We'll do it live.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
We're gonna do it live, and we'll do it live
meanwhile on the QD. So if you didn't get the message,
maybe not. Today is not just your normal day.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well, it's a Friday, it is a Friday. However, do
you know what this is?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
No? Okay? Good? Today is Quitters Day on the QD.
It's Quittersday. It lands on the second Friday of January.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Today being January ninth.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
This year, and just far enough from New Year's Eve
that the confetti has been vacuumed up by your hoover,
and just close enough that the treadmill receipt is still
in your inbox, so you have that.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So it is the only holiday.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'll say, see only holiday on the calendar that doesn't
pretend that we are better than we are.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Now you think about Valentine's Day is next month.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Valentine's Day insists that you spend money on cards and
flowers and insists that we are romantic. Thanksgiving, claims that
we are grateful. Quitter's Day shrugs and says, you tried something,
it didn't work, and that's it. You know what are
you thinking? Welcome back, your quitter, Welcome back. Let me
(18:33):
give you a hug. It's the day the dream quietly
slips out the back door. Now we've mentioned in previous
episodes that I do not do New Year's resolutions. This
is not a moral stance that I have taken that
I am somehow better than you, so much as a
logistical one. And as I pointed out, if something is broken,
(18:57):
you fix it immediately, schedule the repair for a ceremonial
date that exists mostly because a wall calendar flipped over.
For example, if your dishwasher is not working, if you
have a leak in your sink, you don't say, you
know what, I'm gonna wait. It's it's November tenth, but
(19:19):
I'm gonna wait till January.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
For no, you grab a wrench.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
If you're gonna try to fix it yourself, you watch
some YouTube videos, or you call the roto router, call
a plumber or whoever Mom and pop plumber even better,
And you do that, and maybe you put your own
bucket under there and at some point just admit defeat
and that's it. But either way, action beat symbolism all
(19:44):
the time. And this I've learned based on the feedback
I get from you, not that I write back to
many of you. Put the feedback you send to me
apparently puts me in the minority. Most people love New
Year's resolutions the way they of movie trailers, not because
they represent the reality, because they hint at a better
(20:07):
version of us in the future. There's a resolution, say
you can watch a ninety minute or two hour film,
but a trailer, it compresses the film down to a
couple of lines. It's like, I will get in shape,
I will eat better, I will lose weight. These are
(20:28):
not plans, these are taglines. Is it true that the
tradition of New Year's resolutions is really really old?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
How about four thousand?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
About four thousand years old, they estimate, dating back to
the ancient Babylonians. That sounds like a long time ago.
Their year did not even start on the first of January.
It began in mid March, on the first full moon
after the spring equinox. Bringing the astrology insider Andrea for
(21:00):
more on this unless we don't.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So this already tells you.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You're talking about the Babylonians and you're talking about the
calendar being different. This tells you something important here. Resolutions
were originally tied to things that really mattered instead of
get in shape, eat better, lose weight.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Not that those things don't matter.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
But back in the day, it was agriculture, it was seasons,
it was survival. It was not Hey, my fat ass
is getting on the peloton and I've got a street
gone and all that, and I'm gonna stop drinking for
the month of January. If you broke a promise back then,
it most likely met that as a Babylonian, your crops
(21:44):
failed or your gods got mad, not that you felt
mildly guilty while scrolling Instagram.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So times have changed now.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Quitter's Day, which is today, exists to recognize those of
us who set goal not me, and fail to achieve them,
and in theory, to encourage you to try again. So
it's equal parts compassionate and then brutal. It's the same
at the same time. And research does show I was
(22:17):
reading about this, actually was it last week or the
week before that most people quit their new Year's resolutions
around this time. That's why the holidays hear about eighty
percent tap out by week two, Tap tap, I'm out,
see you later. It's not a failure rate. That is
a demographic trend, is what that is. Eighty percent. Most resolutions,
(22:40):
according to experts, cluster around the same holy trinity. I
want to exercise more, I'm going to eat healthier, and
I am going to lose weight. The Big three, the
Big three, and these goals. While they are noble, they
are also abstract in the way clouds are abstract. You
(23:01):
can't see them, you can't point at them, and you
can't grab them.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I'm I'm going to get in shape is not a plan.
It's a vibe.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's like saying you're going to be more interesting or
finally understand jazz music. Okay, congratulations. The real problem with
New Year's resolutions isn't laziness.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
It's oh, a over ambition.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
People start with a burst, right, You're all excited, Yeah,
you have motivation that feels infinite. It's like a brand
new notebook. You swear you're gonna you're gonna keep neat forever,
and then life happens and motivation leaks out.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Right leaks out a little bit there, like air from balloon.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
You forget about behind you know, you kind of forget it.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
The air comes out, it's behind the soulf or whatever.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And January.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I know we're doing January ninth, but it's Quitter's Day today,
and people look at January first, and the way people
treat Mondays as a symbolic reset, even though the week
technically starts on Sunday, right, Sunday is the start of
the week, not Monday. But you go to work on Monday.
Most people don't work on Sunday, although the radio show
starts Sunday night in the Monday morning. And human behavior
(24:23):
does not reset cleanly.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's more like a cluttered desktop where you keep creating
new folders labeled final, final, final, Final, and you don't
end up deleting anything normally. What happens is I start
deleting stuff when I get the message you're running out
of stores. Well I don't want to run out of storage.
Well you're running out of storage. Okay, so you better
release some how do you delete some? Okay? Let me
(24:48):
watch a video on YouTube? Okay, I watched the video.
Now I gotta go click on the watch you might
call it on the little logo on the upper left
hand side of the screen. I gotta click on that.
Then I gotta click on system preferences. Then I gotta
click on this other little thing. And then I got
to leave us. But I can't believe everything because there's
some stuff I need, but I have to do it,
and I got to do it. And that's it again,
eighty percent of people giving up at roughly the same
(25:11):
time turns personal disappointment into a communal experience. It's kind
of like when everyone leaves a party at once, and
you feel a little less awkward about wanting to leave. Now,
I try to do the Irish goodbye. As we've talked about,
my effort every time we go to a party is
(25:32):
do the Irish goodbye. The wife does not want to
do the Irish goodbye, so that I get dragged in
by marriage to having to do the long goodbye. And
then there's always I don't don't leave the party. Don't
leave the party that we need you to stay the
whole thing, all right. That's that's it, and so it's
it's just the way it is. And Quitter's Day is
(25:54):
social proof that it wasn't just you. The system is rigged.
It's a rig deal. The advice that follows is always
the same. Well in you're supposed to set short term,
makeable goals, even ef it's a medium, I go short
term right. Long term goals are a recipe to stop
(26:19):
doing whatever you're doing. You just one step at a time,
break it down, make it manageable, bite sized pieces like
it's you don't feed a steak to a baby or
a toddler. You chop up the pieces of food from
the steak and you chew your food and all that stuff.
That's good advice. It's also obvious. There's obvious advice, which
(26:41):
raises the question of why we ignore it every single
year and almost every single time, almost every single time,
we ignore it. Now, maybe it's because the small goal
is not cinematic, if you know what I'm saying right,
Nobody wants a montage where the hero flosses constantly and
(27:05):
walks thirty minutes a day and drinks a lot of water.
We want the transformation. It's like watching the show house
Hunters or love it or list it right, and so
you can watch it and they'll go through the whole thing.
And you know, however, you can just fast forward to
the end, say all right, well which one did they pick?
(27:27):
They got three options, which one did they pick? And
then just fast forward.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You want the before and after, you want the dramatic reveal.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You'd like that. And you know, life is not a montage.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
It's the slow panshot and change happens the way that
rust forms quietly and just little by the little. There's
no real applause there.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
And that's again another issue.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
With New Year's Resolutions, that you know, it's designed for
those of us who who want the glory and want
it right away, and then it exposes no. Quitter's Day,
which is today, exposes that there's a bit of.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
A gap there.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's the moment when the dream meets habit and habit
wins by ko knockout. So again, Quitter's Day, as I said,
might just be that's a weasel word, the most honest
holiday we have. And it doesn't judge. It just notes
(28:36):
that the data and it shrugs and it winks and
there you go. So that's where we are. And if
you quit, whether it was today or the last couple
of days. Good luck. You have until January first, twenty
twenty seven, twenty twenty seven, you can do it all
(28:57):
over again. Whoop the damn dude. Yes, absolutely all right.
On that note, reminder, Benny versus the penny is up.
We'll have all the episodes up and running by the
end of the day today for a week week number zero.
It's the zero week for the playoffs, right well, it's
(29:18):
called wildcard weekend in the NFL, so we've got that covered.
The Rams start off the playoffs against Carolina that game on.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Saturday Saturday, Saturday.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Afternoon, and then continue all the way all the way
through Monday night when the Steelers and the Texans play.
We got picks on every single game. We'll have fresh
podcast here on Saturday and Sunday as well the mail.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Bag on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
You have time to send a question in for the
mail bag, send it care of Real fifth Hour at
gmail dot com. Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com.
Enjoy that and.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Have a wonderful rest of your Friday.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Order. I gotta go
Kutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me Ben Mallor,
and we are hanging out together here on a Friday.
The what is it? Today's the ninth day of January.
And on this podcast we have Sir Potty Mouth and
(00:49):
on the QD. But we're gonna begin with this so
on a weekly basis the journey into the audio world
that we do here this being Friday. We have new
podcasts all week and long. But we have come to
accept many uncomfortable truths about life, such as as I've
gotten older, the Malard metabolism has entered the Witness Protection program,
(01:13):
which is why I do extreme fasting on the daily,
on the daily, and that every time I go to
the grocery store and I go to check out, it
doesn't matter what line I pick. Immediately the person checking
out will want to have a long term conversation with
(01:36):
whoever they're checking out. Now, I try to do self
checkout as much as I can. One of the stories
I go to does not have self checkout, which is
a big pain in the behind anyway. Also, that will
circle back when you hear someone in business say, we'll
circle back to that, that is corporate jargon, that the
(02:00):
corporate code for this whatever this is, is never happening. Whatever
that is. No matter whether it should happen or not,
it's not happening. So when somebody says that, we'll circle
back to that never happening. And now, thanks to Live Radio,
we have once again been reminded of the most humbling
(02:22):
truth of all. Karma owns a stopwatch and has impeccable timing.
Did you know that? Did you know that Karma owns
a stopwatch and has impeccable timing?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
It does?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It does? Let's take you on a journey through time
and space. So we talk often about some of the
quirky things that happen on the weekday show. We spend
our time here on the podcast The Fifth Hour Podcast
talking about that some would say, way too much time, Right,
what are you doing? Why do you keep talking about that?
(02:55):
What's wrong with you? Move on? However, it's a good
way to document the things that take place. And I
know that we talk about it so much. We're almost
at the point where some some who listen and think
we are just being nostalgic. It's like we're men who
still insist on vinyl records that that sounds better, or
(03:19):
that the Big East was the top point in all
of sports when the Big East basketball dominated every Monday,
Big Monday and all that stuff. But here's the deal again,
I like doing this podcast. Some days I like it
more than others. And I find podcasting to be wonderful.
It's very controlled here the ecosystem. It's polite. It's bubble
(03:43):
wrap for the soul. It's like live radio. However, is
a demolition derby where you are blindfolded and someone else
controls the brakes, right, It's that kind of situation. And
I do love that I got into it when I
was a young dad back in the day. That's why
(04:03):
I got into radio now earlier this week, get to
the point, please, So the Demolition Audio Derby delivered one
of its masterpieces. This was Masterpiece Theater, one of its
finest RECs. Took place just a couple of days ago
on the Wednesday into Thursday show. So it was the
(04:25):
final hour of the Ben Mather Show, a time slot
where reality becomes optional. And we have more people listening
that hour than we do the earlier parts of the
show because of the people getting up early trying to
get the jump on work on the Eastern seaboards. So
we have a lot more people then than we do
(04:47):
earlier in the show listening live. Another podcast is the podcast,
and people will listen and consume what they're going to consume.
But the callers treat the phone lines like a confession
booth with no priest. Although you could argue that I
am the audio priest, I am not an actual priest,
(05:08):
but on the radio, why not? And so enter Sir
scratch Off. Now, if you listen semi regularly, chances are
if you've been with the show for any period of
time that you've heard the work of Sir scratch Off.
He loves the Rams. He liked them when they were
the Saint Louis Rams. He likes the back in the
day with the La Rams. He loves to call up
(05:29):
and talk about the Rams. He also gets very offended
about the Dodgers. He's a Cardinals fan. He's got issues. However,
he's a longtime member of the Mallard Militia from the
state of Arkansas. A senior statesman, if you will, a
veteran caller. Veteran caller, the kind of guy whose name
(05:50):
alone suggests that he's got opinions, convictions, and at least
at least a couple of plastic tubs was filled with
old lottery tickets. And he's the guy that will go
into a roadside diner in the backwoods of Arkansas and
(06:12):
he will say, Hey, can I get a breakfast burrito? Well,
why would you order a breakfast baburrito your roadside stop
somewhere in Arkansas? Well, I like breakfast burritos. And then
he'll start talking. Next thing you know, you'll be in
a conversation for an hour. So he hadn't called in
a while, Sir scratch off, I was genuinely happy. That's
what a loser I am. I was genuinely happy to
(06:34):
hear his voice. That happiness lasted approximately and I don't
want to exaggerate and I do not want to exaggerate.
It lasted approximately eight seconds. Now some background for those
in the back of the room. Background for those of
you in the back of room. I know JT the
Wingman will appreciate this, and so will Lucky Tony. Sir
(06:56):
scratch Off over the holidays, had sent me a a
bunch of messages on Facebook messager, and I am famously bad.
I always apologize in advance for responding to random messages
that I get. I get a high volume of messages.
It's part of the gig, and it's cool and all that.
(07:17):
And this is not an exaggeration. Though I have unopened emails,
I think that are old enough to cast a ballot
at this point. And because I was on holiday, I
saw his messages and I attempted something radical. It's called politeness.
(07:38):
I tried to respond, and I got a message from
Facebook informing me that I was not allowed to message
this particular user, which I found odd. This is not
a rejection you can process emotionally. It's not seen, it's
(07:58):
not left on red. It's a digital thing. I'm a
jig tapping you on the shoulder and saying, yeah, you're
not able to talk to this person, You're not on
a list. So naturally I mentioned this to Sir scratch
Off on the air. I said, listen, Sir scratch Off,
I tried to write back. He sounded dazed and confused,
(08:20):
as he often does, like a man being told his
mailbox has filled up and has now filed a restraining order,
And then, like a revival tent sprouting up overnight, the
sermon began. I didn't ask for the sermon. Did you
ask for the sermon? I didn't ask for the sermon. Well,
(08:42):
I got a sermon, and guess what, so did you.
It started with I like your show. The man said, now,
having done this whatever, this is long enough, we know
that that sentence is meaningless. Once the word but capital
(09:04):
be But enter's the chat. Everything before that is just
a runway. The crash is imminent. You know it is happening.
You know it is happening. So Sir scratch Off launches
into this long winded critique of my language, not your language,
(09:24):
my language, my mouth, my vocabulary. This was less feedback
and more old testament, If you know what I'm saying.
He spoke with the confidence of a man, Sir scratch Off,
who had never accidentally sent a text to the wrong person,
then started to wonder, Oh my god, what have I done,
(09:46):
and then stared at their phone praying for the power
outage to take place. So you want that power, just
the thing that doesn't happen. So we explained that, listen,
I do a lot of things. There's a lot of
things I'm not good at. There's a lot of things
I do I shouldn't do. I don't use profanity on radio,
not because I don't love profanity. I do love profanity.
(10:08):
I enjoy profanity. However, I am regulated by the Federal
Communications Commission, whether I like it or not. A group
of individuals that has many hobbies. None of them include
my happiness. None of them include my happiness. So I said, listen,
do you think I worked blue? He had no idea
what that meant. I guess that's even over his head.
(10:30):
So the FCC does not appreciate creative wordplay involving body parts.
They don't. They don't. They don't like pottymouth. So back
and forth we went Southern Arkansas drawl versus West Coast
overnight sarcasm. And then then, because live radio has a
(10:54):
tremendous sense of humor. The gremlin arrived. Knock knock, Who's there?
The gremlin? The gremlin? Who so the broadcast line. My
broadcast line malfunctioned from the remote studio could put my
microphone went silent. In the business, this is a da situation.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Dead air? What who?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
What? Whow so?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Dead air?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Maybe ten seconds? You understand that in radio ten seconds
is not silence. It is a geological area. Mountains can form.
There is an entire civilization that can rise up and
fall down in ten seconds. Somewhere A program director reaches
(11:48):
for antacid, just imagining this, so so scratch Off assumed,
since he didn't hear me barking at him, he assumed
the position that yours truly had hung up on him
very rudely. Something that has happened.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I had not.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I had not. He was still on the air. He
was still on the air, and in what can only
be described as a master class in irony, the man
who had just spent several minutes lecturing me from the
church pew about my language, announced proudly and loudly on
(12:34):
hundreds of radio stations, on satellite radio, on endless platforms
that I was an asshole. This is the moment live
radio earns its pension. There was no dump button, no edit,
no rewind, just Karma stretching, crackling its knuckle and saying
(13:01):
my turn. Now. Of course Lorraina did hit the dump button. However,
it was obvious that whatever had been said was not
supposed to be said, and it ended up on the podcast. Now,
the hypocrisy of all this was so clean, so delicious,
all that deserved a plaque.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
A man think about that.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
A man delivers a sermon on verbal hygiene, the higher
better person, right, I'm better than you and I know
how you should talk, and then immediately swears on national
radio the moment he thinks the principal has left the room.
It was like watching someone complain about calories while eating
(13:45):
with a spoon frosting out of the container. I laughed,
not necessarily on the I think there's a little bit
of chuckle. I couldn't, but spiritually, I've been driving around
last couple of days.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I deep in the soul.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
This was hilarious. And again this is another thing I
love doing this, all the stuff I do, the podcast whatever.
This is why podcasting will never fully replace live radio.
Podcasting does not betray you live radio. Absolutely will. And
that's the point. And so where does this rank? We
(14:21):
don't do a list. We do not believe in this
on Benny's Big Board for Terry and England, Benny's Big Board,
the long bizarre history of the Ben Maler Show. So
it's likely in the top twenty. It's not certainly near
the very top that's reserved. The very top is reserved
(14:42):
for the classics Genie and Medford, A Bushing her neighbor
on air, the farmer from Georgia. I don't remember the
guy's name performing barnyard animal impressions.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Like he was auditioning for a children's show hosted by
Livestock mark the full name guy screaming and barking my direction,
hollering James snoring like a platypus, and somehow winning a
radio game show. Callers being pulled over mid sentence. We've
(15:15):
had a few of those. How about Randy from Norman, Oklahoma.
I was doing a commercial and in the copy I
believe the word bouncy or bouncy error was in the copy,
and Randy lost his bleeping mind. Randy in Norman, Oklahoma,
And that is how the phrase pro Bouncy Ball was
(15:37):
born as a tribute to Randy from Norman, Oklahoma. So
live radio is not perfect. It's not always clean, it
is not efficient, and sometimes, depending on what part of
the Bible belt you're in, it's not safe. However, it
is honest. It exposes a lot, especially especially when we
(16:03):
think we're preaching wink wink, not not. Sir scratch Off
didn't just call the show that night. He contributed to
the audio archive, adding a chapter and reminded us you
and I reminded us that the universe is listening and
that sometimes the universe has a sense of humor. And
(16:24):
then I love the fact that he called back the
next day, Sir scratch Off defending the fact that he
said asshole on the radio show and he was quoting scripture,
he said, well, ass is in the Bible, and as
Coop pointed out, a whole is not anywhere anyway. I
know that podcasting is cool right now, and I'm doing
(16:45):
a podcast as I'm talking about this, and this is
going to be the future, and someday, someday I will
likely only do a podcast that'll be all I do.
I'll live a comfortable life and I'll record this whenever
I want. But moments like this or why I always
believe in live rate, It's why I got into live radio.
(17:06):
And when Karma speaks, it doesn't send a push notification,
it goes live.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
We'll do it live.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
We're gonna do it live, and we'll do it live
meanwhile on the QD. So if you didn't get the message,
maybe not. Today is not just your normal day.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well, it's a Friday, it is a Friday. However, do
you know what this is?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
No? Okay? Good? Today is Quitters Day on the QD.
It's Quittersday. It lands on the second Friday of January.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Today being January ninth.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
This year, and just far enough from New Year's Eve
that the confetti has been vacuumed up by your hoover,
and just close enough that the treadmill receipt is still
in your inbox, so you have that.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So it is the only holiday.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'll say, see only holiday on the calendar that doesn't
pretend that we are better than we are.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Now you think about Valentine's Day is next month.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Valentine's Day insists that you spend money on cards and
flowers and insists that we are romantic. Thanksgiving, claims that
we are grateful. Quitter's Day shrugs and says, you tried something,
it didn't work, and that's it. You know what are
you thinking? Welcome back, your quitter, Welcome back. Let me
(18:33):
give you a hug. It's the day the dream quietly
slips out the back door. Now we've mentioned in previous
episodes that I do not do New Year's resolutions. This
is not a moral stance that I have taken that
I am somehow better than you, so much as a
logistical one. And as I pointed out, if something is broken,
(18:57):
you fix it immediately, schedule the repair for a ceremonial
date that exists mostly because a wall calendar flipped over.
For example, if your dishwasher is not working, if you
have a leak in your sink, you don't say, you
know what, I'm gonna wait. It's it's November tenth, but
(19:19):
I'm gonna wait till January.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
For no, you grab a wrench.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
If you're gonna try to fix it yourself, you watch
some YouTube videos, or you call the roto router, call
a plumber or whoever Mom and pop plumber even better,
And you do that, and maybe you put your own
bucket under there and at some point just admit defeat
and that's it. But either way, action beat symbolism all
(19:44):
the time. And this I've learned based on the feedback
I get from you, not that I write back to
many of you. Put the feedback you send to me
apparently puts me in the minority. Most people love New
Year's resolutions the way they of movie trailers, not because
they represent the reality, because they hint at a better
(20:07):
version of us in the future. There's a resolution, say
you can watch a ninety minute or two hour film,
but a trailer, it compresses the film down to a
couple of lines. It's like, I will get in shape,
I will eat better, I will lose weight. These are
(20:28):
not plans, these are taglines. Is it true that the
tradition of New Year's resolutions is really really old?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
How about four thousand?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
About four thousand years old, they estimate, dating back to
the ancient Babylonians. That sounds like a long time ago.
Their year did not even start on the first of January.
It began in mid March, on the first full moon
after the spring equinox. Bringing the astrology insider Andrea for
(21:00):
more on this unless we don't.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So this already tells you.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You're talking about the Babylonians and you're talking about the
calendar being different. This tells you something important here. Resolutions
were originally tied to things that really mattered instead of
get in shape, eat better, lose weight.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Not that those things don't matter.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
But back in the day, it was agriculture, it was seasons,
it was survival. It was not Hey, my fat ass
is getting on the peloton and I've got a street
gone and all that, and I'm gonna stop drinking for
the month of January. If you broke a promise back then,
it most likely met that as a Babylonian, your crops
(21:44):
failed or your gods got mad, not that you felt
mildly guilty while scrolling Instagram.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So times have changed now.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Quitter's Day, which is today, exists to recognize those of
us who set goal not me, and fail to achieve them,
and in theory, to encourage you to try again. So
it's equal parts compassionate and then brutal. It's the same
at the same time. And research does show I was
(22:17):
reading about this, actually was it last week or the
week before that most people quit their new Year's resolutions
around this time. That's why the holidays hear about eighty
percent tap out by week two, Tap tap, I'm out,
see you later. It's not a failure rate. That is
a demographic trend, is what that is. Eighty percent. Most resolutions,
(22:40):
according to experts, cluster around the same holy trinity. I
want to exercise more, I'm going to eat healthier, and
I am going to lose weight. The Big three, the
Big three, and these goals. While they are noble, they
are also abstract in the way clouds are abstract. You
(23:01):
can't see them, you can't point at them, and you
can't grab them.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I'm I'm going to get in shape is not a plan.
It's a vibe.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's like saying you're going to be more interesting or
finally understand jazz music. Okay, congratulations. The real problem with
New Year's resolutions isn't laziness.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
It's oh, a over ambition.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
People start with a burst, right, You're all excited, Yeah,
you have motivation that feels infinite. It's like a brand
new notebook. You swear you're gonna you're gonna keep neat forever,
and then life happens and motivation leaks out.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Right leaks out a little bit there, like air from balloon.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
You forget about behind you know, you kind of forget it.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
The air comes out, it's behind the soulf or whatever.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And January.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I know we're doing January ninth, but it's Quitter's Day today,
and people look at January first, and the way people
treat Mondays as a symbolic reset, even though the week
technically starts on Sunday, right, Sunday is the start of
the week, not Monday. But you go to work on Monday.
Most people don't work on Sunday, although the radio show
starts Sunday night in the Monday morning. And human behavior
(24:23):
does not reset cleanly.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
It doesn't.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's more like a cluttered desktop where you keep creating
new folders labeled final, final, final, Final, and you don't
end up deleting anything normally. What happens is I start
deleting stuff when I get the message you're running out
of stores. Well I don't want to run out of storage.
Well you're running out of storage. Okay, so you better
release some how do you delete some? Okay? Let me
(24:48):
watch a video on YouTube? Okay, I watched the video.
Now I gotta go click on the watch you might
call it on the little logo on the upper left
hand side of the screen. I gotta click on that.
Then I gotta click on system preferences. Then I gotta
click on this other little thing. And then I got
to leave us. But I can't believe everything because there's
some stuff I need, but I have to do it,
and I got to do it. And that's it again,
eighty percent of people giving up at roughly the same
(25:11):
time turns personal disappointment into a communal experience. It's kind
of like when everyone leaves a party at once, and
you feel a little less awkward about wanting to leave. Now,
I try to do the Irish goodbye. As we've talked about,
my effort every time we go to a party is
(25:32):
do the Irish goodbye. The wife does not want to
do the Irish goodbye, so that I get dragged in
by marriage to having to do the long goodbye. And
then there's always I don't don't leave the party. Don't
leave the party that we need you to stay the
whole thing, all right. That's that's it, and so it's
it's just the way it is. And Quitter's Day is
(25:54):
social proof that it wasn't just you. The system is rigged.
It's a rig deal. The advice that follows is always
the same. Well in you're supposed to set short term,
makeable goals, even ef it's a medium, I go short
term right. Long term goals are a recipe to stop
(26:19):
doing whatever you're doing. You just one step at a time,
break it down, make it manageable, bite sized pieces like
it's you don't feed a steak to a baby or
a toddler. You chop up the pieces of food from
the steak and you chew your food and all that stuff.
That's good advice. It's also obvious. There's obvious advice, which
(26:41):
raises the question of why we ignore it every single
year and almost every single time, almost every single time,
we ignore it. Now, maybe it's because the small goal
is not cinematic, if you know what I'm saying right,
Nobody wants a montage where the hero flosses constantly and
(27:05):
walks thirty minutes a day and drinks a lot of water.
We want the transformation. It's like watching the show house
Hunters or love it or list it right, and so
you can watch it and they'll go through the whole thing.
And you know, however, you can just fast forward to
the end, say all right, well which one did they pick?
(27:27):
They got three options, which one did they pick? And
then just fast forward.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You want the before and after, you want the dramatic reveal.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You'd like that. And you know, life is not a montage.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
It's the slow panshot and change happens the way that
rust forms quietly and just little by the little. There's
no real applause there.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
And that's again another issue.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
With New Year's Resolutions, that you know, it's designed for
those of us who who want the glory and want
it right away, and then it exposes no. Quitter's Day,
which is today, exposes that there's a bit of.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
A gap there.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's the moment when the dream meets habit and habit
wins by ko knockout. So again, Quitter's Day, as I said,
might just be that's a weasel word, the most honest
holiday we have. And it doesn't judge. It just notes
(28:36):
that the data and it shrugs and it winks and
there you go. So that's where we are. And if
you quit, whether it was today or the last couple
of days. Good luck. You have until January first, twenty
twenty seven, twenty twenty seven, you can do it all
(28:57):
over again. Whoop the damn dude. Yes, absolutely all right.
On that note, reminder, Benny versus the penny is up.
We'll have all the episodes up and running by the
end of the day today for a week week number zero.
It's the zero week for the playoffs, right well, it's
(29:18):
called wildcard weekend in the NFL, so we've got that covered.
The Rams start off the playoffs against Carolina that game on.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Saturday Saturday, Saturday.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Afternoon, and then continue all the way all the way
through Monday night when the Steelers and the Texans play.
We got picks on every single game. We'll have fresh
podcast here on Saturday and Sunday as well the mail.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Bag on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
You have time to send a question in for the
mail bag, send it care of Real fifth Hour at
gmail dot com. Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com.
Enjoy that and.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Have a wonderful rest of your Friday.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Order. I gotta go
Host
Ben Maller
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