November 10, 2024 • 36 mins
Ben Maller & Danny G. have Mail Bag fun for your Sunday! All questions sent in by new listeners & P1's of the #MallerMilitia! Download, subscribe, and remember that sharing is caring (unless it's an STD.) Follow Danny G. @DannyGradio and Ben on Twitter @BenMaller and listen to the original terrestrial radio edition of "Ben Maller Show," Monday-Friday on Fox Sports Radio, 2a-6a ET, 11p-3a PT!...Follow, rate & review "The Fifth Hour!"
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Episode Transcript
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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 sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everyway in a very happy, happy, happy
Sunday Sunday Sunday to you as we are chamouing on
this glorious day here in NFL Sunday week number ten
(00:51):
in the National Football League. And I will be in
attendance at one of the games today. As we are
doing this. I am in can City on National Vanilla
Cupcake Day, very specific holidays. National Vanilla Cupcake Day a
very important day, and also Sesame Street Day today, Danny.
(01:12):
I know it was very important for both of us
growing up Sesame Street.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And you are a big snuffle up a gift guy.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I am, I am. I love snuffle love gus big
military weekend as Veterans Day is tomorrow, it's US Marine
Corps Day today. It's also it's the Marine Corps birthday today,
so there's a lot going on. And as far as
the Malar meet and greet, which was yesterday, as we
normally like to point out Danny on this podcast, now,
(01:41):
I sent some stuff out on the socials yesterday at
the landing over in Liberty.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So yeah, I saw pictures that looked like it was
a good turnout.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah. Yeah. I like to let this stuff breathe and
kind of collect my thoughts. It's been a whirlwind this weekend,
and in just a few minutes.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
They the real reason is you want content for next
weekend's podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Exactly, And I'm saving content. I know Terry and England
loves that. He always likes to point that out, how
great it is. Always looks forward to me saving content
for the following week. But yeah, so we'll have, you know,
have some of the stories and I'll have more stories. Today.
I'm going to the Chiefs game. They're playing the Broncos
this afternoon at Arrowhead and I will be tailgating the tailgating.
(02:31):
Danny begins, the gates open. I think it's seven thirty
this morning, the gates open. So I again, no sleep,
but I'm fine, you know, I'm having a good time.
I'm having fun. Everyone's been very nice here since I
got to town, and I'm just enjoying a rare and
(02:52):
appropriate weekend away because I normally do not travel at all,
especially since I've started doing the TV show the last
couple of years during football season, don't do it. But
I made the exception, so I'm going to enjoy the
hell out of it. Today. I am going to consume.
I'm not a big drinker, but I will be consuming
large amounts of alcohol and barbecue today. That's the plan.
(03:13):
At the game, we do have the mail bag. This
is a mail bag podcast, Danny. But before we get
to that, I wanted to do the Idiom of the week.
Are you prepared for the idiom of the week?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
The idiom of the week?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
All right? This one came from p Air from Springfield,
friend of Alf the Alien Opiner, and he said, how
about cornering the market? Since I've heard that phrase. Wants
to know about cornering the market? So for those of
you in the back of the room, it's rather obvious,
but maybe not. What does the raise corner of the
(03:46):
market mean? Well, make a long story short, it essentially
means in business. You've acquired enough of a company, like
the shares of a company, to be able to manipulate
the price of the company. Hence the name. The market
is backed into a corner where there is no room
(04:07):
to move because you have cornered the market, and the
corner is as old as trade itself. And this is crazy, though,
I thought, well, this is probably a phrase from like
the eighteen hundreds or something like that. No, no, it
goes all the way back to a Greek mathematician, and
I believe the name is Thales. I believe is that
(04:30):
how you pronounced it? Dan, You're a big Greek guy, mathematician,
asked astro astronomer. Easier for me to say philosopher. And
according to the legend, I think I just butt youered
all this. But according to the legend Aristotle on you
got that one right, Yeah, corner of the market on
olive oil presses. And so this this goes back to
(04:53):
ancient Greece and all that. And so this, this guy,
the mathematician, was able to predict the upcoming large crop
of olives, and he knew he'd done the math on this.
He figured it out the rudimentary numbers. He figured it
out correctly and decided to make the best of it.
(05:13):
He raised a small sum of money. He paid deposits
for the whole of the olive presses, and you know,
hire them these other people at low rent. And when
the season arrived, there was a sudden demand for these
olive presses and he made a ton of money. It
cornered the market. So the phrase cornered the market goes
(05:37):
all the way up, all the way back to ancient Greece,
and it involves Aristotle and then also a famed fellow
Greek mathematician and philosopher who was involved with Aristotle. So
for the idiom of the week, cornering the market, cornering
(05:58):
the market.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Idea, I was going to learn something.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's educational. It's a teachable moment.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Danny.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Let's get to the mailbag. What do you say you
want to mail bag? We got the mail bag, right,
it's this mail bag. Thank you very much, ohio Al,
(06:25):
the legend that is the great ohio Al. And right
to the mailbag we go. These are actual letters by
actual listeners. You can send in your questions anytime. You
can do it right now, you can do it tomorrow,
you can do it the day after. I don't care.
Just put mail bag or mail in the headline on
the email that you send, and make sure to send
(06:47):
it to Real fifth hour at gmail dot com. That's
Real fifth hour at gmail dot com. First one, Mike
in Fullerton writes, and he says, hello, Ben and Danny,
in response to Louis in Delaware's question from last week's mailbag.
I don't know about masshole, Mickey, but I'm convinced that
(07:11):
Alf and Ferddog are both AI chat box and they
aren't even good bots of that. Everything they say on
the show is stupid. According to Mike and Fullerton, even
their names are stupid. Alf's spin off the air for
over thirty years. If I were you, Ben, I'd stop
(07:31):
reading their tweets immediately. Not to go all third rail
on you guys, but I'm curious how much election coverage
you guys watched back on Tuesday. It worked out well
that it was called a little before Ben's show came
on the air. Mike says, so yeah, I'll go first.
(07:53):
I was trying to find something to watch I get
ready for the show, and I usually watch basketball. There
was no basketball, God forbid, the NBA plays an election
night because their fans are they're so stupid they can't
watch a game and vote, so they cancel all the game.
So I ended up watching the Bruins and the Maple
Leafs and the Kings in the wild. I was flipping
back and forth. Those games were co inciting for a
(08:18):
fair amount of time, for a fair amount of time.
But then after that ended, I did turn on the
election coverage, and I had it on in the background,
and I was putting monologues together, notes for monologues, and
I'd look up every you know, every ten minutes or
so and see what was going on. And I was
(08:38):
flipping to the different news channels, and people were not
we're not handling it very well. In some of those
liberal outlets. They were freaking out. They were like, oh,
you know, this is not right. They're like, well, there's
still time, you know. Not only but I did watch,
and you know, it was I'm not a huge political guy,
(08:59):
but I do enjoy the election coverage and the drama
of it all. What about you, Danny.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I brought back a present from the airplane and getting
home from Seattle. You ever have those flights where it
messes up the pressure in your head Oh yeah, in
your ears.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, I have terrible hearing. I mean my headphone and
headphones have destroyed my earring. And yeah, I've got all
kinds of issues.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Yeah, I wasn't feeling well. Not only was I coming
off a busy weekend for work. When I got home,
I just felt like I had been run over by
a truck. So I was in bed Monday. I worked,
but I went right back to sleep as soon as
I got home. I did the same thing on Election
Day and evening, so I'm laying in bed. I had
(09:47):
the coverage on. I was flipping around to see how
the different channels were covering it, and I fell asleep,
like in a kind of under the weather days where
you hear things and you start having dreams about what
you're hearing on the TV.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Oh yeah, you confuse dream land with reality.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yes, yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And in my dream, Donald Trump was calling the network again, and.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Buddy, that's right. You were friends with President Trump. That's right.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Eh, Yeah, he voted for me. Remember to get a raise?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Last question? Did you tell my producer Danny g that
he deserved a raise when you called last time?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Absolutely? I said, you get the president, but you really do.
You have a great show, and he's a nice guy.
But I said, you get the president of the phone,
you deserve a raise. I haven't done too many of
these calls lately.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Now that he's president again, you should send him a
letter and say, hey, by the way, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
That the best he could do right now for broadcasters
is to ask for us not to get laid off.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
So I wake up out of the stupor, and it
was perfect timing because they had just one of the
networks had just called it. As I woke up, splashed
some cold water on my face and brushed my teeth.
Trump was going to come out for his speech, so
I got to watch all of that unfold.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Good timing, way to go, and I didn't. I was
hoping we would get a concession speech that night, but
we did not, so I had to I did. I didn't.
That happened while I was I was sleeping the next day,
but it was. It was a wild night, man, just
a wild couple of days because he had all the
(11:33):
usual suspects before the election, like oh yeah, Trump's gonna
lose blah blah blah blah blah, and then obviously that
did not happen.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
You fired.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Ron from Florida writes some of the mail bag. He says,
Ben and Danny, how did you gen survive? Here would
go again? A lot of political emails? My man third
rail mo man. Ron says, how did you get you
gen survive another? Election? Uh? Election cycle? So I I mean,
we just talked about it, Ron, but it's pretty much
(12:06):
just plug away, right, put one foot in front of
the other, keep your head down, that kind of crap.
And I did enjoy some of the insane stories that
we got from this election cycle. The two that I
loved the most were a large number of people the
day of the election who googled did Joe Biden drop out?
(12:27):
On election Day? You talk about not having a clue,
right you met it is the day of the election,
and you're like, did Joe Biden drop out of the election? Well?
How else? Why else would his name not be on
the ballot? Dummy? So that was pretty amusing.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Those are the same people who ask you when is
the Super Bowl? Oh?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's the same crowd. And then my other story,
which I love and it's a great way to rip
the younger generation, which we both love so much. It's
the number one pastime. Is this story that there were
long delays in a lot of places because the younger voters,
the eighteen plus voters that hadn't voted before eighteen, nineteen twenty,
that didn't get to vote in the last presidential election,
(13:13):
the younger voters did not know how to sign their
name because they have not you know, they don't have
to do that anymore in school. And so they couldn't
sign the voter registry because they had never written their
name out, or they didn't know how to write their
name out, and you have to sign. You have to
sign your name when you go in.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
They don't learn cursive yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Exactly, exactly, that's what you said. It better than me.
But so they didn't know how to sign their name
in cursive writing, and so it became this whole to
do and which is just perfect. You talk about the
zeitgeist of the times, say, then, I get it. You know,
you're on your phone all the time, you're on computers.
You know, we're dinosaurs, Danny. We had to learn how
to write with a pen and use a typewriter, not
(13:55):
a computer, a typewriter. But that's just so hilarious to
me that at places across the country, from from Maine
to Hawaii, the kids were like, I don't know, you
want me to sign my name. I don't know what
are I supposed to do? I just sign my name
Kevin in Texas Rights And he says, Ben, you had
said sarcastically on this podcast you do with Danny that
(14:19):
you expected writing after the election, why didn't we get
the mass looting Kevin from Texas? I think we covered
this earlier, Danny, But I am surprised. I thought that
we would see I'm happy that we didn't. We saw
more violence after the Dodgers won the World Series? Am
I correct in saying that than we did after the
(14:41):
presidential election? Which is surprising?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Control, wasn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And I think it's because the Weienioles and whoever else
might have voted for Kamala. They were crying on their keyboards.
I don't think they were going to go out and
do anything in the streets.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, well, it's it's great. I mean, I'm obviously I
love it. I think it's ridiculous burning stuff down because
your favorite political hero didn't win. I think the whole
thing's absurd, and it is a rather large upset that
I didn't I haven't seen the numbers the last couple
of days, but I at last I checked Trump. I
don't think all the voting totals are even in yet,
(15:19):
but Trump, I think he won the popular vote. He
was winning the popular vote, which is now that is stunning.
That is that's a that's a bigger upset since remember
one University Maryland, Baltimore County and Farley Dickinson, those sixteen
seeds won in the NCAA tournament. Like that, that's like
that big an upset to me, a sixteen seed beating
(15:41):
a one that Trump ended up winning the popular vote.
So anyway, Mike and Iowa writes, and he says, Ben
and Danny, do you think these celebrities and athletes like
Lebron James are feeling like they failed because they endorsed
the loser people did not list some of them and
vote for their candidate in the presidential election. But there's
(16:06):
a lot of political email this week day. It's almost
like people are more concerned about the election than they
are anything sporty. I guess, so, yeah, I don't. I
don't think this is gonna what do you think that.
I don't think this is going to change how athletes
approach this kind of stuff. I mean, my belief is
when you reach a certain level of celebrity like lebron
(16:31):
and to a lesser degree some of the Hollywood people,
that you live in a different dimension. You're not in
the same world we're in. They're in a bubble and
they're insulated from the real world and they live in
a different universe, and they hang out with people who
share their ideology and their dogma and all that, and
(16:51):
and so they're convinced that they have all the power,
and obviously they don't. Right otherwise, I mean, then the media,
then the celebrities, the election would have come out differently.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Well, the celebrities can't relate to our day to day lives.
I saw Beyonce posting stuff on social media and the
first comment are underneath her post for Harris said, what
the hell are you talking about? You haven't been to
the grocery store in decades. You don't know what the
hell's going out there, and you got paid ten million
(17:23):
dollars to side with who you're siding with. I don't
know if that checks out or not. That she got paid,
But you know, I take it with a grain of salt.
Who cares what a rich celebrity says about politics?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm right there with you. And
I'm at the point now I'm old enough, like I'm
kind of grown up. I guess I still talk about
sports for a living, but I'm kind of growing up.
And I know what I like in life and what
I don't like in life. And I know what I
want to have happened and what I don't want to
have happened. And I don't need Lebron James or anyone
(17:57):
else for that matter to tell me. And I do
think it's very pretentious. In fact, I saw I think
it was Aaron Rodgers this week. I did one of
his paid interviews with Pat McAfee, and he was mocking
the celebrity endorsements like Lebron and whatnot. And I think
that's that's kind of where I am on it. Like
(18:19):
I think we agree we're in lockstep when it comes
to that. Oh me, since he Tommy writes in he says, uh,
here Benny the Brazen and Danny Ganja the Wife and
I finally tried raising canes this past weekend, and one
word sums it up. Amazing. Amazing is the word that
(18:42):
since he Tommy said, whodos to you, gentlemen for speaking
of the deliciousness that is raising canes. Tommy says, I
told the girl at the pickup window that Ben Mahler
sent us, and she said who who? I quickly explained
to who you are, and she said she'd give your
(19:04):
show a try. Just out there repping your show and
packing my grill with amazing dummy chicken fingers. Have a
great day, gentleman. Who day from Sincy Tommy. The Bengals
planned back, of course, on Thursday against the Baltimore Ravens.
(19:27):
So there you go, Danny, we got a guy to
go to Keynes. We should we should have Keynes as
an advertiser or something like that. Come on, buy some
spots on the podcast. All right, I want my chicken
is one of those birds going.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Damn you?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
All right, mass whole Mickey. He is next on the
mail bag and he's he said he was riding this
while he was waiting for the Boston Globe truck to arrive,
and he always listens to our podcast, and he did
confirm here massle Mickey Danny that if everything goes well
(20:06):
and the TV show gets picked up that he knows
people and I can end up going to Wooster, about
a forty five minute trip west of Boston and throw
out the first pitch at a at a minor league
baseball and that'd be awesome.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
You mean throw out one of your lollipop pitches.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well, that's what you say, Danny, But listen, I am
a veteran of the first pitch honors. It is a
tremendous honor to throw out the first pitch, and I
will put on a show. Well I bring back the
lollipop curb. I don't know. Maybe I'll throw a knuckleball,
Maybe I'll throw a fastball. Who knows. And Mickey also
says there's a.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Great maybe you look like one of the neat Crow brothers.
How dare you?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
That is a cancel drop? So anyway, mass whole, Mickey says,
there's a speak easy there. He says, it's a tell
vernon where Babe Ruth used to drink during prohibition times.
That's kind of cool, right, that's awesome. Go to a
(21:10):
bar that Babe Ruth got hammered at during prohibition? Can
you imagine they tried prohibition again today on like anything.
How how ineffective that would be, right? I mean, the
fact that they were able to do it for several
years when they did is rather crazy. But imagine you're.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Telling you what my telling you what my new job
would be. I'd be a bootlegger.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh yeah, Well I heard stories when I was a kid,
and maybe it was my grandparents making it up, but
they lived through prohibition and in LA what they would
do is they'd all go on to a boat and
they'd go out into international waters and just get hammered.
It was. It was a drinking boat because you couldn't
(21:53):
drink legally here. But if you're out how many I
think we've had this conversation before, But how many miles
is international waters? It's a certain number of miles off
the coast. But you go out there and you're done.
You're good. Do whatever you want, gamble, you can drink
and do all kinds of debauchery out international waters. Alf
(22:16):
from the future or is it the past? He says, gentlemen,
did you ever envision a future in radio where you
would be broadcasting remotely or producing for talent in a
far away studio from weekend overnights to weekday overnight's, periscope,
videos to YouTube and all things in between. It's hard
(22:37):
to believe that in the last twenty years how media
has changed, especially since the invention of the smartphone and
social media. So he says, alf, well, yeah, absolutely, it's insane.
I remember when I was in my early days in
radio and Mike Thompson was the boss. He came up
(23:00):
to me and I was working local radio in LA.
We got covered up a lot by Dodger baseball and
we were doing a show in the evening and the
Dodgers played during the summer every night pretty much when
we were on, so we weren't on very often. And
my boss is like, listen, there's this thing we want
to try to do. We're going to have you do
your show, but it'll just be broadcast on the internet
(23:25):
like a podcast. And we both looked at him like
he was speaking Chinese, like you what are you Chinese? Russian?
What is that? And he's like no, no, So we
didn't test it out. It's new technology, and at that time,
everyone and their mother was listening to to the radio
and nobody was listening to streaming music. I think at
(23:48):
that time, maybe what was that what was that thing?
The streaming service was just getting going? What was that
music one? The Napster I think it was. Was it
called Napster? I think that was it. Yeah, Napster, I
think it was around that time, but it was it
was still kind of a new thing and not everyone
was aware of it and was it legal? Is it
not legal? And all that stuff. So we were like,
(24:09):
you're nuts, what are you talking about? And we never
actually ended up doing it, But now we have such
a large aunt. The numbers on the Fox Sports radio
channel on iHeart, which is the largest streaming service in America,
(24:30):
if not the world. There are how many different channels
are there on the iHeartRadio I don't know, like fifteen
hundred or something like that.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, it's something like two thousand.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Two thousand, and Fox Sports Radio is in the top
five every single time the ratings come out on iHeart,
we're in the top five out of two thousand channels.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
That is insane And that's why we haven't been laid
off in radio yet.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Thank god, people are actually listening, which is great, and uh,
you know what I I I love that. I was
talking to some of the guys in the the I
T Department, the social media team at Fox and and
they were telling me that we knew very well on
my show with people waking up in Europe and whether
(25:18):
they don't know whether it's ex pats or people that
they assume it's it's you know, ex Americans that you know,
former Americans that are living abroad. But when they wake
up in the morning all over Europe, the numbers spike
up on on my my show or for the the overnight,
which is early morning in you know, in the UK.
(25:40):
And I was like, well, that's kind of kind of bizarre,
but I guess it makes sense if you're from the
States and you just kind of want to get little
taste of home. You'll turn on some sports talk and
we're talking about all the bull crap that's going on
in American sports, and we're not talking about football. We're
talking about football. You know.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
It's Yeah, imagine hearing that heavy accent all day long.
Turn your show on, and all of a sudden you
hear weed man, hippie.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, weed man, angry Bill, Doc Mike, the whole trifecta. So, yeah,
the industry is is nuts. I still haven't gotten over, Danny.
We used to have when you did remotes, we had
this thing called an ISDN line. It was a hard line,
(26:30):
hardwired line, and it was very reliable and worked wonderfully.
But now everything is pretty much done internet based, and
I still don't trust it, don't. I can't get over that.
It's my issue, Danny. I still don't trust them. I don't,
but everyone in the business. It's an industry standard now
to use this Wi Fi, but I still don't trust it.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Dealt with that for a few days this past week
with internet issues in the county that I live in.
And I'm all so old enough in radio to remember
when we did hard lines for the remotes. There was
one radio station where the general manager had this whole
system where there was like actual phone cable that was
rolled up and we had to find a phone jack
(27:13):
wherever we were broadcasting from the plug into.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Oh When I began, we would send out well, I
did reports. We do the reports over landlines, and I
like when I was a stringer at Dodger Stadium that
all started and I would call up at every fifteen
or twenty minutes or whatever and do an update from
Dodger Stadium on a landline, and you know, it's like,
(27:39):
who has a landline? I know nobody had a landlines.
What are you talking about landline?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Here?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
You lost your mind, you old man. All right, let's
see your next one is from Stevo, he says, gentlemen,
I saw a news story this week. Chaos had descended
on a small town in South Carolina. He says. They
were over forty monkeys broke free from a research facility.
(28:09):
And I said, there's a large monkey breeder, one of
the biggest in the entire world. It's based in South Carolina. Ben,
I know you were in South Carolina not that long ago.
What does this sound like to you? To me, it
sounds like a great documentary, is what it sounds like. Yeah,
the same people that made The Lion King can make
(28:32):
this right, or you know, the Tiger not the Lion King,
the Tiger King. Can you imagine a documentary about the
day that forty monkeys escape from a facility and like,
where did they go? Ye doing?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
When you were talking about that story, I couldn't help
but picture Jerry Jones and his famous drop.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I am a monkey fan.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
No, for sure. I think that's well, good for the monkeys.
I'll tell you a funny story about I don't know
if I've talked about this on the podcast or not,
but I grew up in Orange County, in Irvine, in
Orange County, SoCal and years and years ago from I
think it was the Santa Ana Zoo in Orange County,
(29:16):
there was a prison break of parrots, those exotic parrots.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
I've heard this story before.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, maybe I'm the one that told you, But they
escape from the Santa Ana Zoo and there was a
jail break. They all got out, and there are now
multiple generations of parrots flying around Orange County, California that
are the second third generation of that original escape from
(29:48):
from the zoo, and they've just they live in the
area and they fly around and people that live there
see them. They fly in the afternoons in the mornings,
and they fly in convoys around Orange County. Parrots, wild
parrots that escaped from and every one of the animals
in the zoo must look at those parrots and say, someday,
(30:08):
that's going to be me. Right, someday, I'm going to
escape the zoo and I'm going to be like those
beautiful parrots when they make their way around all right.
Last one on the mail bag. This one comes from David,
who is in Vegas. He listens every every Sunday, loves
(30:30):
the mail bag, or so he says, probably lying just
so i'd read this on the air. But David, good
luck it worked, And he says, you guys, being in
radio your entire career. I want to know what you
thought about the story this week that the AI radio
station turned out to be a complete disaster. So he
sent me this. So this is from New York Times.
(30:51):
A state funded radio show in Poland could not find
an audience, right, so they listen. You know, we're gonna
do We're gonna experiment with AI hosts, and we're gonna
have all AI Hosts're gonna try to appeal the younger listeners.
You know, everyone wants that younger demo. They don't want
(31:11):
that younger demo. So they went to AI AI generated
gen z hosts and there was initially a little bit
of an uptick, but eventually the results are in and
it turns out it was a complete disaster and they
(31:34):
had great intentions. They painted the whole picture. This is
really great. The future of media AI blah blah blah blah, blah,
but yeah, I didn't. It turns out people actually like
human beings talking to them and not AI bots, so
it turned out to be a total debacle. And obviously,
I mean, this guy knows, Danny. We're we're pro human
(31:57):
that's a very controversial position. But we like human being
doing radio jobs and podcasting jobs. And I'm sure at
some point we'll all lose our jobs to AI, but
I'd like to think that we'll be long gone by
that by the time that happened.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
And even if something like that were to come to
fruition in the future, if there are some broadcast owners
that said, you know what, let's do away with the
live people, they eventually I think would still have to
bring them back then because broadcasting companies have tried this
in the past and failed.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Let's just do all music.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Let's test that there were radio stations across the country
that experimented with just playing music, kind of like what
Pandora does nowadays. But Pandora is supposed to be without personalities,
that's supposed to just be a playlist. Radio is the relatability.
It is the warm feeling you get from feeling like
you're with a live human being. And that goes away,
(32:55):
whether it's a robot AI recordings like VOICEO for stuff
that some radio stations try to trick listeners with, like
let me pre record something and pretend like it's live
on an FM music radio station. The listeners can sniff
that stuff out.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh yeah, more now than ever. I'm right there with you.
And then the whole point, the advantage that we have
in radio. I say this all the time, and we're
twenty four hour shop. We never close is the fact
that at any moment, if you're by yourself and you're
driving on some deserted, dusty road down the Winnemucker Road,
(33:32):
if you will, and there's nobody around, and you want
to have a connection to another human being, if you
turn on a radio show, you can hear other human
beings and you're not alone. On a podcast, like I mean,
we're doing podcasts now, we can do this whenever, right,
you know, of course this you know a week ago
and you never know. But on live radio it's a
(33:54):
much different communal experience.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
So in fact, this is last week. We don't even
know what happened in the election yet.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah. In fact, we actually did this about three months
ago and the joke's on you.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
This doesn't have the number one station anymore.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Is it? All right? We'll get out on that. I
am off tonight. I'm traveling back. I'm going to the
Chiefs game today, and there were no flights that would
get me back to LA in time to do the show.
Believe it or not. The flight you have to stop.
You have to stop again on the way back.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
What a slacker? How dare you take a day off?
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I know, but I'm taking the first flight out on Monday,
and then I'll be back Monday and Tuesday on the
radio show and probably be sleeping all day and all that.
And Danny, what do you have going on?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
There's like an apool person beside it and another one inside,
and it has big guys that're looking at us.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Ben, look forward to a lot of conspiracy theories next
week on the podcast, because Alex is going to fill
in for me. What the wife and I decided to
do was not go on that Christmas cruise. It wasn't
in the cards. But our anniversary is coming up next weekend,
so we are going to instead go out of town
and celebrate our anniversary.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
All right, Well, a happy anniversary to you. Danny and
your wife, and hope you have a wonderful, wonderful time
and thank you.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Oh the conspiracy from Alex. What do you think he's
going to say about the election. I'm going to make
a prediction. He's going to say, Ben, this is the
last election that's ever going to happen in our country.
It's going to be a royal family. He's going to
say that. Watch mark my words.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Baron Trump will be the next president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
I bet you he's going to say something like that.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I can only I can only wait. So get your
emails to the Vegan. Alex, the Vegan, the conspiracy theorist
will be in next weekend with me for at least
part of the weekend. Then Danny, I'll talk to you
in a couple of weeks. Man, have a fun time
and we'll talk to you on this podcast next weekend.
And Daniel, I'll catch up with you next time you're on.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Thank you, brother. Aasta pasta gotta murder. I gotta go
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 sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everyway in a very happy, happy, happy
Sunday Sunday Sunday to you as we are chamouing on
this glorious day here in NFL Sunday week number ten
(00:51):
in the National Football League. And I will be in
attendance at one of the games today. As we are
doing this. I am in can City on National Vanilla
Cupcake Day, very specific holidays. National Vanilla Cupcake Day a
very important day, and also Sesame Street Day today, Danny.
(01:12):
I know it was very important for both of us
growing up Sesame Street.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And you are a big snuffle up a gift guy.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I am, I am. I love snuffle love gus big
military weekend as Veterans Day is tomorrow, it's US Marine
Corps Day today. It's also it's the Marine Corps birthday today,
so there's a lot going on. And as far as
the Malar meet and greet, which was yesterday, as we
normally like to point out Danny on this podcast, now,
(01:41):
I sent some stuff out on the socials yesterday at
the landing over in Liberty.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So yeah, I saw pictures that looked like it was
a good turnout.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah. Yeah. I like to let this stuff breathe and
kind of collect my thoughts. It's been a whirlwind this weekend,
and in just a few minutes.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
They the real reason is you want content for next
weekend's podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Exactly, And I'm saving content. I know Terry and England
loves that. He always likes to point that out, how
great it is. Always looks forward to me saving content
for the following week. But yeah, so we'll have, you know,
have some of the stories and I'll have more stories. Today.
I'm going to the Chiefs game. They're playing the Broncos
this afternoon at Arrowhead and I will be tailgating the tailgating.
(02:31):
Danny begins, the gates open. I think it's seven thirty
this morning, the gates open. So I again, no sleep,
but I'm fine, you know, I'm having a good time.
I'm having fun. Everyone's been very nice here since I
got to town, and I'm just enjoying a rare and
(02:52):
appropriate weekend away because I normally do not travel at all,
especially since I've started doing the TV show the last
couple of years during football season, don't do it. But
I made the exception, so I'm going to enjoy the
hell out of it. Today. I am going to consume.
I'm not a big drinker, but I will be consuming
large amounts of alcohol and barbecue today. That's the plan.
(03:13):
At the game, we do have the mail bag. This
is a mail bag podcast, Danny. But before we get
to that, I wanted to do the Idiom of the week.
Are you prepared for the idiom of the week?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
The idiom of the week?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
All right? This one came from p Air from Springfield,
friend of Alf the Alien Opiner, and he said, how
about cornering the market? Since I've heard that phrase. Wants
to know about cornering the market? So for those of
you in the back of the room, it's rather obvious,
but maybe not. What does the raise corner of the
(03:46):
market mean? Well, make a long story short, it essentially
means in business. You've acquired enough of a company, like
the shares of a company, to be able to manipulate
the price of the company. Hence the name. The market
is backed into a corner where there is no room
(04:07):
to move because you have cornered the market, and the
corner is as old as trade itself. And this is crazy, though,
I thought, well, this is probably a phrase from like
the eighteen hundreds or something like that. No, no, it
goes all the way back to a Greek mathematician, and
I believe the name is Thales. I believe is that
(04:30):
how you pronounced it? Dan, You're a big Greek guy, mathematician,
asked astro astronomer. Easier for me to say philosopher. And
according to the legend, I think I just butt youered
all this. But according to the legend Aristotle on you
got that one right, Yeah, corner of the market on
olive oil presses. And so this this goes back to
(04:53):
ancient Greece and all that. And so this, this guy,
the mathematician, was able to predict the upcoming large crop
of olives, and he knew he'd done the math on this.
He figured it out the rudimentary numbers. He figured it
out correctly and decided to make the best of it.
(05:13):
He raised a small sum of money. He paid deposits
for the whole of the olive presses, and you know,
hire them these other people at low rent. And when
the season arrived, there was a sudden demand for these
olive presses and he made a ton of money. It
cornered the market. So the phrase cornered the market goes
(05:37):
all the way up, all the way back to ancient Greece,
and it involves Aristotle and then also a famed fellow
Greek mathematician and philosopher who was involved with Aristotle. So
for the idiom of the week, cornering the market, cornering
(05:58):
the market.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Idea, I was going to learn something.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's educational. It's a teachable moment.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Danny.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Let's get to the mailbag. What do you say you
want to mail bag? We got the mail bag, right,
it's this mail bag. Thank you very much, ohio Al,
(06:25):
the legend that is the great ohio Al. And right
to the mailbag we go. These are actual letters by
actual listeners. You can send in your questions anytime. You
can do it right now, you can do it tomorrow,
you can do it the day after. I don't care.
Just put mail bag or mail in the headline on
the email that you send, and make sure to send
(06:47):
it to Real fifth hour at gmail dot com. That's
Real fifth hour at gmail dot com. First one, Mike
in Fullerton writes, and he says, hello, Ben and Danny,
in response to Louis in Delaware's question from last week's mailbag.
I don't know about masshole, Mickey, but I'm convinced that
(07:11):
Alf and Ferddog are both AI chat box and they
aren't even good bots of that. Everything they say on
the show is stupid. According to Mike and Fullerton, even
their names are stupid. Alf's spin off the air for
over thirty years. If I were you, Ben, I'd stop
(07:31):
reading their tweets immediately. Not to go all third rail
on you guys, but I'm curious how much election coverage
you guys watched back on Tuesday. It worked out well
that it was called a little before Ben's show came
on the air. Mike says, so yeah, I'll go first.
(07:53):
I was trying to find something to watch I get
ready for the show, and I usually watch basketball. There
was no basketball, God forbid, the NBA plays an election
night because their fans are they're so stupid they can't
watch a game and vote, so they cancel all the game.
So I ended up watching the Bruins and the Maple
Leafs and the Kings in the wild. I was flipping
back and forth. Those games were co inciting for a
(08:18):
fair amount of time, for a fair amount of time.
But then after that ended, I did turn on the
election coverage, and I had it on in the background,
and I was putting monologues together, notes for monologues, and
I'd look up every you know, every ten minutes or
so and see what was going on. And I was
(08:38):
flipping to the different news channels, and people were not
we're not handling it very well. In some of those
liberal outlets. They were freaking out. They were like, oh,
you know, this is not right. They're like, well, there's
still time, you know. Not only but I did watch,
and you know, it was I'm not a huge political guy,
(08:59):
but I do enjoy the election coverage and the drama
of it all. What about you, Danny.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I brought back a present from the airplane and getting
home from Seattle. You ever have those flights where it
messes up the pressure in your head Oh yeah, in
your ears.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, I have terrible hearing. I mean my headphone and
headphones have destroyed my earring. And yeah, I've got all
kinds of issues.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Yeah, I wasn't feeling well. Not only was I coming
off a busy weekend for work. When I got home,
I just felt like I had been run over by
a truck. So I was in bed Monday. I worked,
but I went right back to sleep as soon as
I got home. I did the same thing on Election
Day and evening, so I'm laying in bed. I had
(09:47):
the coverage on. I was flipping around to see how
the different channels were covering it, and I fell asleep,
like in a kind of under the weather days where
you hear things and you start having dreams about what
you're hearing on the TV.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Oh yeah, you confuse dream land with reality.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yes, yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And in my dream, Donald Trump was calling the network again, and.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Buddy, that's right. You were friends with President Trump. That's right.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Eh, Yeah, he voted for me. Remember to get a raise?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Last question? Did you tell my producer Danny g that
he deserved a raise when you called last time?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Absolutely? I said, you get the president, but you really do.
You have a great show, and he's a nice guy.
But I said, you get the president of the phone,
you deserve a raise. I haven't done too many of
these calls lately.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Now that he's president again, you should send him a
letter and say, hey, by the way, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
That the best he could do right now for broadcasters
is to ask for us not to get laid off.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
So I wake up out of the stupor, and it
was perfect timing because they had just one of the
networks had just called it. As I woke up, splashed
some cold water on my face and brushed my teeth.
Trump was going to come out for his speech, so
I got to watch all of that unfold.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Good timing, way to go, and I didn't. I was
hoping we would get a concession speech that night, but
we did not, so I had to I did. I didn't.
That happened while I was I was sleeping the next day,
but it was. It was a wild night, man, just
a wild couple of days because he had all the
(11:33):
usual suspects before the election, like oh yeah, Trump's gonna
lose blah blah blah blah blah, and then obviously that
did not happen.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
You fired.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Ron from Florida writes some of the mail bag. He says,
Ben and Danny, how did you gen survive? Here would
go again? A lot of political emails? My man third
rail mo man. Ron says, how did you get you
gen survive another? Election? Uh? Election cycle? So I I mean,
we just talked about it, Ron, but it's pretty much
(12:06):
just plug away, right, put one foot in front of
the other, keep your head down, that kind of crap.
And I did enjoy some of the insane stories that
we got from this election cycle. The two that I
loved the most were a large number of people the
day of the election who googled did Joe Biden drop out?
(12:27):
On election Day? You talk about not having a clue,
right you met it is the day of the election,
and you're like, did Joe Biden drop out of the election? Well?
How else? Why else would his name not be on
the ballot? Dummy? So that was pretty amusing.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Those are the same people who ask you when is
the Super Bowl? Oh?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's the same crowd. And then my other story,
which I love and it's a great way to rip
the younger generation, which we both love so much. It's
the number one pastime. Is this story that there were
long delays in a lot of places because the younger voters,
the eighteen plus voters that hadn't voted before eighteen, nineteen twenty,
that didn't get to vote in the last presidential election,
(13:13):
the younger voters did not know how to sign their
name because they have not you know, they don't have
to do that anymore in school. And so they couldn't
sign the voter registry because they had never written their
name out, or they didn't know how to write their
name out, and you have to sign. You have to
sign your name when you go in.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
They don't learn cursive yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Exactly, exactly, that's what you said. It better than me.
But so they didn't know how to sign their name
in cursive writing, and so it became this whole to
do and which is just perfect. You talk about the
zeitgeist of the times, say, then, I get it. You know,
you're on your phone all the time, you're on computers.
You know, we're dinosaurs, Danny. We had to learn how
to write with a pen and use a typewriter, not
(13:55):
a computer, a typewriter. But that's just so hilarious to
me that at places across the country, from from Maine
to Hawaii, the kids were like, I don't know, you
want me to sign my name. I don't know what
are I supposed to do? I just sign my name
Kevin in Texas Rights And he says, Ben, you had
said sarcastically on this podcast you do with Danny that
(14:19):
you expected writing after the election, why didn't we get
the mass looting Kevin from Texas? I think we covered
this earlier, Danny, But I am surprised. I thought that
we would see I'm happy that we didn't. We saw
more violence after the Dodgers won the World Series? Am
I correct in saying that than we did after the
(14:41):
presidential election? Which is surprising?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Control, wasn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And I think it's because the Weienioles and whoever else
might have voted for Kamala. They were crying on their keyboards.
I don't think they were going to go out and
do anything in the streets.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, well, it's it's great. I mean, I'm obviously I
love it. I think it's ridiculous burning stuff down because
your favorite political hero didn't win. I think the whole
thing's absurd, and it is a rather large upset that
I didn't I haven't seen the numbers the last couple
of days, but I at last I checked Trump. I
don't think all the voting totals are even in yet,
(15:19):
but Trump, I think he won the popular vote. He
was winning the popular vote, which is now that is stunning.
That is that's a that's a bigger upset since remember
one University Maryland, Baltimore County and Farley Dickinson, those sixteen
seeds won in the NCAA tournament. Like that, that's like
that big an upset to me, a sixteen seed beating
(15:41):
a one that Trump ended up winning the popular vote.
So anyway, Mike and Iowa writes, and he says, Ben
and Danny, do you think these celebrities and athletes like
Lebron James are feeling like they failed because they endorsed
the loser people did not list some of them and
vote for their candidate in the presidential election. But there's
(16:06):
a lot of political email this week day. It's almost
like people are more concerned about the election than they
are anything sporty. I guess, so, yeah, I don't. I
don't think this is gonna what do you think that.
I don't think this is going to change how athletes
approach this kind of stuff. I mean, my belief is
when you reach a certain level of celebrity like lebron
(16:31):
and to a lesser degree some of the Hollywood people,
that you live in a different dimension. You're not in
the same world we're in. They're in a bubble and
they're insulated from the real world and they live in
a different universe, and they hang out with people who
share their ideology and their dogma and all that, and
(16:51):
and so they're convinced that they have all the power,
and obviously they don't. Right otherwise, I mean, then the media,
then the celebrities, the election would have come out differently.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Well, the celebrities can't relate to our day to day lives.
I saw Beyonce posting stuff on social media and the
first comment are underneath her post for Harris said, what
the hell are you talking about? You haven't been to
the grocery store in decades. You don't know what the
hell's going out there, and you got paid ten million
(17:23):
dollars to side with who you're siding with. I don't
know if that checks out or not. That she got paid,
But you know, I take it with a grain of salt.
Who cares what a rich celebrity says about politics?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm right there with you. And
I'm at the point now I'm old enough, like I'm
kind of grown up. I guess I still talk about
sports for a living, but I'm kind of growing up.
And I know what I like in life and what
I don't like in life. And I know what I
want to have happened and what I don't want to
have happened. And I don't need Lebron James or anyone
(17:57):
else for that matter to tell me. And I do
think it's very pretentious. In fact, I saw I think
it was Aaron Rodgers this week. I did one of
his paid interviews with Pat McAfee, and he was mocking
the celebrity endorsements like Lebron and whatnot. And I think
that's that's kind of where I am on it. Like
(18:19):
I think we agree we're in lockstep when it comes
to that. Oh me, since he Tommy writes in he says, uh,
here Benny the Brazen and Danny Ganja the Wife and
I finally tried raising canes this past weekend, and one
word sums it up. Amazing. Amazing is the word that
(18:42):
since he Tommy said, whodos to you, gentlemen for speaking
of the deliciousness that is raising canes. Tommy says, I
told the girl at the pickup window that Ben Mahler
sent us, and she said who who? I quickly explained
to who you are, and she said she'd give your
(19:04):
show a try. Just out there repping your show and
packing my grill with amazing dummy chicken fingers. Have a
great day, gentleman. Who day from Sincy Tommy. The Bengals
planned back, of course, on Thursday against the Baltimore Ravens.
(19:27):
So there you go, Danny, we got a guy to
go to Keynes. We should we should have Keynes as
an advertiser or something like that. Come on, buy some
spots on the podcast. All right, I want my chicken
is one of those birds going.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Damn you?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
All right, mass whole Mickey. He is next on the
mail bag and he's he said he was riding this
while he was waiting for the Boston Globe truck to arrive,
and he always listens to our podcast, and he did
confirm here massle Mickey Danny that if everything goes well
(20:06):
and the TV show gets picked up that he knows
people and I can end up going to Wooster, about
a forty five minute trip west of Boston and throw
out the first pitch at a at a minor league
baseball and that'd be awesome.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
You mean throw out one of your lollipop pitches.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well, that's what you say, Danny, But listen, I am
a veteran of the first pitch honors. It is a
tremendous honor to throw out the first pitch, and I
will put on a show. Well I bring back the
lollipop curb. I don't know. Maybe I'll throw a knuckleball,
Maybe I'll throw a fastball. Who knows. And Mickey also
says there's a.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Great maybe you look like one of the neat Crow brothers.
How dare you?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
That is a cancel drop? So anyway, mass whole, Mickey says,
there's a speak easy there. He says, it's a tell
vernon where Babe Ruth used to drink during prohibition times.
That's kind of cool, right, that's awesome. Go to a
(21:10):
bar that Babe Ruth got hammered at during prohibition? Can
you imagine they tried prohibition again today on like anything.
How how ineffective that would be, right? I mean, the
fact that they were able to do it for several
years when they did is rather crazy. But imagine you're.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Telling you what my telling you what my new job
would be. I'd be a bootlegger.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh yeah, Well I heard stories when I was a kid,
and maybe it was my grandparents making it up, but
they lived through prohibition and in LA what they would
do is they'd all go on to a boat and
they'd go out into international waters and just get hammered.
It was. It was a drinking boat because you couldn't
(21:53):
drink legally here. But if you're out how many I
think we've had this conversation before, But how many miles
is international waters? It's a certain number of miles off
the coast. But you go out there and you're done.
You're good. Do whatever you want, gamble, you can drink
and do all kinds of debauchery out international waters. Alf
(22:16):
from the future or is it the past? He says, gentlemen,
did you ever envision a future in radio where you
would be broadcasting remotely or producing for talent in a
far away studio from weekend overnights to weekday overnight's, periscope,
videos to YouTube and all things in between. It's hard
(22:37):
to believe that in the last twenty years how media
has changed, especially since the invention of the smartphone and
social media. So he says, alf, well, yeah, absolutely, it's insane.
I remember when I was in my early days in
radio and Mike Thompson was the boss. He came up
(23:00):
to me and I was working local radio in LA.
We got covered up a lot by Dodger baseball and
we were doing a show in the evening and the
Dodgers played during the summer every night pretty much when
we were on, so we weren't on very often. And
my boss is like, listen, there's this thing we want
to try to do. We're going to have you do
your show, but it'll just be broadcast on the internet
(23:25):
like a podcast. And we both looked at him like
he was speaking Chinese, like you what are you Chinese? Russian?
What is that? And he's like no, no, So we
didn't test it out. It's new technology, and at that time,
everyone and their mother was listening to to the radio
and nobody was listening to streaming music. I think at
(23:48):
that time, maybe what was that what was that thing?
The streaming service was just getting going? What was that
music one? The Napster I think it was. Was it
called Napster? I think that was it. Yeah, Napster, I
think it was around that time, but it was it
was still kind of a new thing and not everyone
was aware of it and was it legal? Is it
not legal? And all that stuff. So we were like,
(24:09):
you're nuts, what are you talking about? And we never
actually ended up doing it, But now we have such
a large aunt. The numbers on the Fox Sports radio
channel on iHeart, which is the largest streaming service in America,
(24:30):
if not the world. There are how many different channels
are there on the iHeartRadio I don't know, like fifteen
hundred or something like that.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, it's something like two thousand.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Two thousand, and Fox Sports Radio is in the top
five every single time the ratings come out on iHeart,
we're in the top five out of two thousand channels.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
That is insane And that's why we haven't been laid
off in radio yet.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Thank god, people are actually listening, which is great, and uh,
you know what I I I love that. I was
talking to some of the guys in the the I
T Department, the social media team at Fox and and
they were telling me that we knew very well on
my show with people waking up in Europe and whether
(25:18):
they don't know whether it's ex pats or people that
they assume it's it's you know, ex Americans that you know,
former Americans that are living abroad. But when they wake
up in the morning all over Europe, the numbers spike
up on on my my show or for the the overnight,
which is early morning in you know, in the UK.
(25:40):
And I was like, well, that's kind of kind of bizarre,
but I guess it makes sense if you're from the
States and you just kind of want to get little
taste of home. You'll turn on some sports talk and
we're talking about all the bull crap that's going on
in American sports, and we're not talking about football. We're
talking about football. You know.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
It's Yeah, imagine hearing that heavy accent all day long.
Turn your show on, and all of a sudden you
hear weed man, hippie.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, weed man, angry Bill, Doc Mike, the whole trifecta. So, yeah,
the industry is is nuts. I still haven't gotten over, Danny.
We used to have when you did remotes, we had
this thing called an ISDN line. It was a hard line,
(26:30):
hardwired line, and it was very reliable and worked wonderfully.
But now everything is pretty much done internet based, and
I still don't trust it, don't. I can't get over that.
It's my issue, Danny. I still don't trust them. I don't,
but everyone in the business. It's an industry standard now
to use this Wi Fi, but I still don't trust it.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Dealt with that for a few days this past week
with internet issues in the county that I live in.
And I'm all so old enough in radio to remember
when we did hard lines for the remotes. There was
one radio station where the general manager had this whole
system where there was like actual phone cable that was
rolled up and we had to find a phone jack
(27:13):
wherever we were broadcasting from the plug into.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Oh When I began, we would send out well, I
did reports. We do the reports over landlines, and I
like when I was a stringer at Dodger Stadium that
all started and I would call up at every fifteen
or twenty minutes or whatever and do an update from
Dodger Stadium on a landline, and you know, it's like,
(27:39):
who has a landline? I know nobody had a landlines.
What are you talking about landline?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Here?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
You lost your mind, you old man. All right, let's
see your next one is from Stevo, he says, gentlemen,
I saw a news story this week. Chaos had descended
on a small town in South Carolina. He says. They
were over forty monkeys broke free from a research facility.
(28:09):
And I said, there's a large monkey breeder, one of
the biggest in the entire world. It's based in South Carolina. Ben,
I know you were in South Carolina not that long ago.
What does this sound like to you? To me, it
sounds like a great documentary, is what it sounds like. Yeah,
the same people that made The Lion King can make
(28:32):
this right, or you know, the Tiger not the Lion King,
the Tiger King. Can you imagine a documentary about the
day that forty monkeys escape from a facility and like,
where did they go? Ye doing?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
When you were talking about that story, I couldn't help
but picture Jerry Jones and his famous drop.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I am a monkey fan.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
No, for sure. I think that's well, good for the monkeys.
I'll tell you a funny story about I don't know
if I've talked about this on the podcast or not,
but I grew up in Orange County, in Irvine, in
Orange County, SoCal and years and years ago from I
think it was the Santa Ana Zoo in Orange County,
(29:16):
there was a prison break of parrots, those exotic parrots.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
I've heard this story before.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, maybe I'm the one that told you, But they
escape from the Santa Ana Zoo and there was a
jail break. They all got out, and there are now
multiple generations of parrots flying around Orange County, California that
are the second third generation of that original escape from
(29:48):
from the zoo, and they've just they live in the
area and they fly around and people that live there
see them. They fly in the afternoons in the mornings,
and they fly in convoys around Orange County. Parrots, wild
parrots that escaped from and every one of the animals
in the zoo must look at those parrots and say, someday,
(30:08):
that's going to be me. Right, someday, I'm going to
escape the zoo and I'm going to be like those
beautiful parrots when they make their way around all right.
Last one on the mail bag. This one comes from David,
who is in Vegas. He listens every every Sunday, loves
(30:30):
the mail bag, or so he says, probably lying just
so i'd read this on the air. But David, good
luck it worked, And he says, you guys, being in
radio your entire career. I want to know what you
thought about the story this week that the AI radio
station turned out to be a complete disaster. So he
sent me this. So this is from New York Times.
(30:51):
A state funded radio show in Poland could not find
an audience, right, so they listen. You know, we're gonna
do We're gonna experiment with AI hosts, and we're gonna
have all AI Hosts're gonna try to appeal the younger listeners.
You know, everyone wants that younger demo. They don't want
(31:11):
that younger demo. So they went to AI AI generated
gen z hosts and there was initially a little bit
of an uptick, but eventually the results are in and
it turns out it was a complete disaster and they
(31:34):
had great intentions. They painted the whole picture. This is
really great. The future of media AI blah blah blah blah, blah,
but yeah, I didn't. It turns out people actually like
human beings talking to them and not AI bots, so
it turned out to be a total debacle. And obviously,
I mean, this guy knows, Danny. We're we're pro human
(31:57):
that's a very controversial position. But we like human being
doing radio jobs and podcasting jobs. And I'm sure at
some point we'll all lose our jobs to AI, but
I'd like to think that we'll be long gone by
that by the time that happened.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
And even if something like that were to come to
fruition in the future, if there are some broadcast owners
that said, you know what, let's do away with the
live people, they eventually I think would still have to
bring them back then because broadcasting companies have tried this
in the past and failed.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Let's just do all music.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Let's test that there were radio stations across the country
that experimented with just playing music, kind of like what
Pandora does nowadays. But Pandora is supposed to be without personalities,
that's supposed to just be a playlist. Radio is the relatability.
It is the warm feeling you get from feeling like
you're with a live human being. And that goes away,
(32:55):
whether it's a robot AI recordings like VOICEO for stuff
that some radio stations try to trick listeners with, like
let me pre record something and pretend like it's live
on an FM music radio station. The listeners can sniff
that stuff out.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh yeah, more now than ever. I'm right there with you.
And then the whole point, the advantage that we have
in radio. I say this all the time, and we're
twenty four hour shop. We never close is the fact
that at any moment, if you're by yourself and you're
driving on some deserted, dusty road down the Winnemucker Road,
(33:32):
if you will, and there's nobody around, and you want
to have a connection to another human being, if you
turn on a radio show, you can hear other human
beings and you're not alone. On a podcast, like I mean,
we're doing podcasts now, we can do this whenever, right,
you know, of course this you know a week ago
and you never know. But on live radio it's a
(33:54):
much different communal experience.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
So in fact, this is last week. We don't even
know what happened in the election yet.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah. In fact, we actually did this about three months
ago and the joke's on you.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
This doesn't have the number one station anymore.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Is it? All right? We'll get out on that. I
am off tonight. I'm traveling back. I'm going to the
Chiefs game today, and there were no flights that would
get me back to LA in time to do the show.
Believe it or not. The flight you have to stop.
You have to stop again on the way back.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
What a slacker? How dare you take a day off?
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I know, but I'm taking the first flight out on Monday,
and then I'll be back Monday and Tuesday on the
radio show and probably be sleeping all day and all that.
And Danny, what do you have going on?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
There's like an apool person beside it and another one inside,
and it has big guys that're looking at us.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Ben, look forward to a lot of conspiracy theories next
week on the podcast, because Alex is going to fill
in for me. What the wife and I decided to
do was not go on that Christmas cruise. It wasn't
in the cards. But our anniversary is coming up next weekend,
so we are going to instead go out of town
and celebrate our anniversary.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
All right, Well, a happy anniversary to you. Danny and
your wife, and hope you have a wonderful, wonderful time
and thank you.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Oh the conspiracy from Alex. What do you think he's
going to say about the election. I'm going to make
a prediction. He's going to say, Ben, this is the
last election that's ever going to happen in our country.
It's going to be a royal family. He's going to
say that. Watch mark my words.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Baron Trump will be the next president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
I bet you he's going to say something like that.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I can only I can only wait. So get your
emails to the Vegan. Alex, the Vegan, the conspiracy theorist
will be in next weekend with me for at least
part of the weekend. Then Danny, I'll talk to you
in a couple of weeks. Man, have a fun time
and we'll talk to you on this podcast next weekend.
And Daniel, I'll catch up with you next time you're on.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Thank you, brother. Aasta pasta gotta murder. I gotta go
Host
Ben Maller
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