Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ka boom. If you thought four hours a day, 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 gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse, the clearing House of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Mallarck starts right now that it does, and
welcome into the magic podcast boxes that what we call it.
We are in the air everywhere the vast power of
the I Heart Media family, the glob will reach of
the podcast network here with I Heart and we are
(00:44):
at it again the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller our
new slogan eight days a week because also four hours
not enough, as we like to say in the Overnight
Show during the weekend. If you're finding this, you're saying,
what the hell is this crap? This is a spit
in off of the Overnight Show for Fox Sports Radio,
(01:04):
the Ben Maller Show, which is broadcast live on hundreds
of radio stations like WOR over four hundred radio stations
and a bunch of other international platforms. Uh Sunday. For me,
it's Sunday through Thursday, but for most people it's Monday
through Friday from two am til six am Eastern Standard time.
(01:26):
So that's this And this show originally started as a
football handicapping podcast. It has morphed into something else. It
is the pathogens have shifted, uh, and it's it's something.
I'm not sure what we're doing here, but it's not
a football handicapping podcast. There's no football to handicap. And
it was only gonna be one day a week when
(01:46):
we started. Now it's three days a week. We keep
this up, we will be doing it twelve days a week.
But we are joined, as always, for better or worse,
by the man affectionately known as gag On David Gascon.
(02:07):
You know, it's a it's a new week forget brand
new episodes. It's a but it's a crazy dynamic that
we have, or you have in particular with your your
fans and followers. Because I before we get into any
of this, I must apologize for my lack of of
spunk and life last week. Um, but it's crazy because
(02:28):
we had Now are you are you willing to know?
Not yet? Not yet? You're not ready to go into
detail on that okay, because there was something that happened,
and I just want you to know know I'm a good teammate.
I didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut and
I'll continue to keep my mouth shut. But something happened,
a dramatic life event for David Gascon, and I didn't
mention and he didn't mention it. And it's very uncomfortable
(02:49):
me not to do it, but I am. I'm continuing
to honor your wishes. You you you holsted your side arm.
I appreciate that. But it's crazy because the dynamic that
you have with your ends and followers is crazy. Because
we had I had some female fans or followers of
yours that reached out and said, hey, I hope you're
(03:09):
doing well. You send a different lack the energy, lacked
the life, and then you had the mail that said
you're fucking terrible, you suck, You're horrible. What the fucke
loony on here? Instead it was bipolar. But three three
things I can I can sit you right now. One
(03:30):
is UM, I will never ever hack your Twitter account
like Jannasontenna Coople. I know you covered that earlier in
the week during your show, UM. And to UM, I
will never ever ever allow your wife to locate you
via snapchat if you're if you're at your brother's and
(03:52):
be doing any kind of extracurricular activity. So of course,
of course, of course. Uh. And just to address in
the mouth imlsia from the female perspective of the male perspective,
and it is a much different perspective. The women look
at things differently than the men, that's obvious. Um. As
far as the dudes, I like the comments I got
instead of gag on it's lifeless gone. Uh, that was
(04:15):
one of them. They were comparing you to a dead
fish with your contribution, which is odd because this is
not the first time this has happened. All right, I
remember we did the Sports Talk Verry interview and you
set that one out. Use I'm on the bench out
of that one. Listen, we live here in southern California,
and you can agree with me on this because you
did get married on the island. Um, when someone's riding
(04:36):
a wave, you don't want to get in front of it,
you don't want to ride along with it. And because
I did my best to to not derail um, which
was a great podcast, and you would have just been
bland and unimaginative if you had added to that. But so,
and you're promising gascon here not to be boring, right,
this is not You're gonna and we're not gonna be
(04:58):
welcomed to Dolesville here with you on this this weekend
of podcast. But we we did. Typically when we when
we post the podcast, we always ask either at the
end of the podcast or whether it's in print for
the Apple iTunes, to rate, review, subscribe the whole nine yards.
And and we did get some colorful reviews that came
in last week and that said, congratulations Ben, you are
(05:21):
now Fox News. Oh yeah, yeah, I did, like yeah,
I like that, you know, and and and and on
que I think I even said this on the podcast.
I got an email to my my other email address
and they were like, hey, you know, I was a
big fan I've listened to a few years. I can't,
you know, you just I don't. I don't agree with
what you said, so I can't. I can't. And you
(05:42):
you went the third rail. You know, this is which
I the great thing is that you know it's a
self fulfilling prophecy because I said, this is what's gonna happen,
and that's exactly. I got not a lot, but there
were a few people to reach time. Now there were
other people, and we'll get to the email back later
in the weekend. The people actually did like what we
we said, and they were open to it, and they
(06:03):
were like, hey, whatever, no matter of your opinion, which
was refreshing. But there were the people that the snowflake
crowd that's easily triggered by this stuff. And if you
don't agree with everything, if you don't drink the same
cool aid they drink, they're done. Um. And you know
that's just I don't. I don't live my life that way.
I know a lot of people do. And I have
friends that are I totally disagree with who are politically,
(06:24):
but I get along with him. I don't care. Now,
Yeah I did. I did show with Looney for years,
and I could not be more far further away from
Looney politically, uh you know, the limousine liberal Tom Looney.
But I you know, I get all. I was a friend,
I I I you know, we fight all the time
about stuff, but politically and sports wise, and then at
the end we hug it out. We're good. Yeah. Now
(06:46):
we since we're producing this um. The second week or
be the first week of May. Um, I I do
have a special request that I have to make and
it's uh, it's something that you chat about last week
with with our friend Fats in Philadelphia. I love Fats.
Fats is one of my favorite don't This guy just
(07:07):
started listening to a short while ago, and I'm I'm
a big fan of Fats. Now I think we might
have to invite him on for the week of May
twenty one. I'm not going to tell you now why,
but it is related to what he has done and
in the whole Philadelphia thing. Um, okay, I listen. I'm
I'm open to having Fats on the podcast. I guess
(07:29):
he's on guest Jon's team. Apparently no. No, But unlike
Chris and Houston, who you do not like the fact
that you have a listener torch himself with him all
you went straight torching on social media? That was that is. Yeah.
I've had some weird things. I mean, for some reason,
people are attracted me that do wild things, like the
(07:52):
most famous one had been Doc Mike that sent the
bloody goat heads from Chicago multiple times. But this is
it's in the top five. Lighting yourself on fire and
shouting my name during the NFL Draft is one of
the most unique things that I cannot encourage people to do,
and I don't know that anyone would want to do it,
but I mean, Fats facts will be on the podcast
(08:14):
as long as the people with the white coach don't
come knocking on his door first, whether that's the CDC
or the FBI. That dude had a Molotov cocktail and
he undressed himself with it. It was it was, yeah, yeah,
it was. And he didn't even make it to the
Eagles pick, which was my favorite part. Like normally you'd say, Okay,
(08:36):
the Eagles made a terrible pick, I'm gonna light myself
on fire. That would be like a classical Philadelphia thing
to do, that's timeless for the Philadelphia sports fan. But no, no,
not this guy. Fats in Philly's light. I can't even
make it. The Traps dragon onto long. I was gonna
light myself on fire right now. I'm a human dynamo,
is what I am. Man Be sure to catch live
(08:57):
editions of The Ben Maller Show week days at two
a Eastern paciffect on Fox Sports Radio and the I
Heart Radio app so coming up on today's party. It's
just area with a couple of things that we've got.
It's a cameo and Operation Odessa. We're gonna get to
that as well. It's that's right. Another Mallard film review tonight,
(09:17):
Thank the Pandemic. Another Mallard film review with Gascon as well.
I gave him a homework assignment, so we'll have that
in a minute. But just briefly, it's a cameo. Now.
We had teased this a couple of weeks ago. It
is now reality. My friends Sports with Coleman, beloved Baltimore
radio personality Morning Man in Baltimore. One of my radio friends.
(09:39):
Have a couple of radio friends that do local radio
at the other places that are in my like chain
of chatting, text messaging, and one Sports with Coleman's in
that group. And so he said, Hey, I got an idea.
Why don't you sign up for this thing? Can you?
I said, what the fuck is cameo? And don't bother me?
What are you? What are you doing? Um? And then
(10:00):
I looked at it, and I considered it, and we
talked about on the air, and I made the plunge.
I made the polar plunge. Like our friends in Minnesota,
I jumped into the Frozen Lake and I have joined
up with Cameo and it's pretty cool. Now. If you're
not familiar what this is, you didn't listen to a
previous podcast. It is a platform design for the shout out. Now.
(10:21):
I have said for many, many years, I do not
do shout outs. I'm not a morning zoo show, and
that is true. We are not a morning zoo show,
and we usually give out like brief shoutouts on the
radio occasionally, um, but that is what this platform is for.
And so I joined up about a week ago and
I've been playing around with it. Now, keep in mind,
(10:42):
I didn't mention this on social media, all right, that's
number one or radio or this podcast, other than I
was considering it. But at that time I had not
signed up. And here's the second point here, which is
the great thing about this show and the p but
that love this show and uh in all that, which
(11:03):
is amazing, and I don't deserve this. So I signed
up for it. I'm thinking, well, who nobody knows who
the funk I am. I'll just stay on here and
maybe I'll eventually get around to announcing that I'm on
this platform, and once I clicked the live button to
let people know that I was on already, a couple
of super fans of the show have popped my cameo
(11:25):
cherry and they have clicked on the button. I've only
done a couple of these things, and it's a video
platform greeting thing. There's a lot of real celebrities I'm
not a real celebrity that are on there, and uh so,
it's it's really cool if you're a big fan of
the show. And the way I was told by the
person from cameo who used to play by the Way
(11:46):
for the Patriots. How about that the guy that's uh
that that was my rep for this company through Coleman
is a former New England Patriot and was on one
of the Super Bowl winning teams, which I thought was
kind of neat. Um. I don't know if he wants
me to give his name out or not. I don't
know that we need to give his name out, but anyway, so,
uh so, this guy was giving the whole rap. He's like, hey, listen,
you know, if you're big fans, you know they have
(12:06):
like a birthday coming up or a wedding and bar
mitzvah you know whatever, or you want to settle a bet,
you know, if you want me to rant like a
lunatic or something like that. Uh, this is what this
is for. And I was like, okay, I mean fine.
You know it's because it's one of those things you
don't have to do it. Nobody has to do it,
and nobody does it. It doesn't matter, it doesn't affect
me at all. People want to do it, I'll do it.
And it does cost a couple of bucks. It's not free,
(12:26):
so I will tell you that. But it's a personalized greeting.
And from what understand, you can set it either you
can let it be public and let other people see it,
or you can just keep it private. And uh, I was,
I was pretty fired up, man. I had the first
two I had. Um was a woman whose husband was
a big fan of the show and and it was
(12:48):
his his birthday. You know, it sucks because of what's
going on with the pandemics. It's hopefully getting kept to
an end here soon. People couldn't go out and and
you know obviously can't go out and socialized. I just
had my birthday while I go so I gave a
a shout out to him. And then also there was
a kid that I had a birthday and we we
(13:10):
said a load of him, which was which was cool. Man.
That was that? That Really that one was neat because
this kid's like eleven years old, and I flashed back
to when I was eleven and I used to stay
up late at night and listen to the radio. And
so that was that was pretty neat. So anyway, let'sten.
If you want to know, I'll tweet it out at
some point. I'll put it on Facebook and all the
social media platforms. If you're not interested in looking that up,
(13:32):
but it's on the cameo dot com website if you
just search my name. Uh there you can check it out.
And uh, you know, like for I'm pretty open to
doing anything other than like wearing a you know, Angry
Bill cap and one of those things like I'm shopping
in San Diego and but uh, like you know, if
you want to see Bella, for example, like Angry Bill
might sign up and say, hey, send a video with Bella.
(13:54):
I would hold Bella against her will and force her
to do the video. So I'm mostly flexib Now, gascon
are you gonna sign up for this, guesscan if I
can hook you up, are you gonna sign up? So
the you claim to have many fans are very narcissistic here,
and I would think that you would want to be
part of this, to get in on that and and
give back to the listen. Yeah, I'd be down to
(14:15):
do something like that. It's just um, you know, for
as bad as has been, it is just a beautiful
thing to see you evolve. Oh, here we go again.
Is this is guess CON's humble brag shelf deprecation? This
is it right now? Egotistical? There he goes, We're off
(14:35):
to the races. It took a while, let me check
at fourteen minutes, about fourteen minutes into the podcast, and
then all of a sudden, kinda we're off to the races.
You know. I don't know if it's Cowboy and windsor
Doc Mike, whoever it is, but the oldest listeners on
your show to the youngest, like they're experiencing, even though
we're going through this big quarantine, they're experiencing the evolution
(15:00):
of of Ben Mallory like they're there. I mean, it's
it's a reboot like this is like Ben Mallory rebooted.
So you go just terrestrial radio to digital, to camera
to broadcasting like you are now full fledged professional broadcast.
Oh my god, I've you've popped my cherry guess pop
(15:23):
by chair. But you you're such a show. You were
on you were on YouTube back in the day. You know,
we have some of the videos from when you were
on with NBC. And you're flying back and forth the
East coast to West coast like once a month to
the beautiful Stanford, Connecticut area. There the home of professional wrestling,
you know, the headquarters of the w W. I walked
(15:43):
by their building are in Stanford, Connecticut, and I have
eaten at Bobby V's restaurant in Stanford, Connecticut. Hout that.
See so you have? I mean you traveled near and far,
and now you're going straight to digital, straight to uh television,
and now you're going onto the social media apps. This
is wonderful on YouTube nodding your monologues for Fox Sports Radio.
(16:07):
That was a brilliant idea. Who ever crafted that idea.
You are shameless. No, you are the shameless schmuck is
your new nickname, the shameless schmuck. No, I'm encouraged by
the West of the four oh five shameless suck, the narcissist, pretentious,
spoiled brat. I have such a conceited person. I have
(16:30):
said nothing of myself this entire time. I'm just encouraged
by what you're doing. I know you're just encouraged. And
you just have this little smirk to your voice while
you talk, because you have this smirk that makes me
want to punch you as you talk. You know, because
sometimes when you're not around, I'll have a I have
a careful conversation with your wife and she'll say, sometimes
(16:51):
he just needs to be pushed in that uncomfortable situation,
and I'm like, I agree with you. Miss is one hundred.
Yet again, this is this is gonna the conspiracy theorists
will be out again. Unsolicited guest gun works in Miller's
wife yet again into another podcast. This is seven eighty five,
that seven time this has happened. Well, you know, because
(17:14):
it's a team effort. It's it's not this is not golf,
this is not tennis. This is a collaboration of sorts.
You are not a rose. You're like a cactus, and
you live for a great period of time but you
need a little bit of water every so often. This
is great, Okay, done question for you. Yes, um, I
know you mentioned your dog, but are you gonna have
(17:37):
you gotta be running out of hats eventually, right, Yeah,
I don't. I've gone through a lot. I didn't realize
that My goal was I'm the mad Hatter of sports
chatters nicknames. So I thought, well, they're making me do
these dopey videos for YouTube, so I might as well.
And a lot of people, like thousands of people the
Dak Prescott thing. We were like fifteen thousand views, around
(17:59):
fifteen thousand used on just one video alone, that's like
five minutes or whatever. So it's there's a lot of
people seeing these things. And that's just on one of
the platforms, not you know, they're on all the social
media players. So my goal was to wear a new
hat every day. But yeah, I had the this week.
I've worned the Bill Miller barbecue hat listeners sent me
from Texas. I had that on the other night. And
(18:22):
what else have I I've gone through some of my
minor league baseball hats. I have not yet warned the
Bakersfield Blaze hat. I will wear that that's on my list.
You did the odd couple one. I did the odd couple.
Shout out to the odd couple. Our friends Rob Parker
and Christmas sort I had that going on. I have
a Tony Bruno hat that Tony gave me. I'm going
(18:42):
through some old hats. Here's one. You probably don't even
know who this is, but longtime listeners of Fox Sports
Radio might remember Mark Patrick, big big radio star in
Indianapolis who did our morning show. And uh, Mark, and
I don't know if you know no that story, but
(19:04):
it was pretty cool because when I was doing the
overnight show and and he was doing the morning show
and we are, paths would cross, although he was doing
it from a different location. Um, but he had a
kid that was a pretty good high school baseball player
and he would send me, Um, we have correspondence, you
know about the kid and all that stuff. And uh,
(19:24):
in in Indiana, in the Innnianapolis area and uh and
this goes back, Man, what are we talking here? We're
probably talking the likeve something like that, maybe right around then.
So this is like fifteen years ago. And uh, and
you know he's like, hey, my kids got a you know,
he got drafted by the you know, the the Yankees,
(19:47):
and uh, you know, I don't know, you know, he
might go to college or he ended going to college
and he made the major leagues and he's he had
an eight year career. The guy named Drew Storing. I
don't if you remember Drew Orange played for the Washington Nationals. Yeah. Yeah,
he was the closer for the Nationals. He he had
a forty save season in the big leagues. And for
(20:09):
the first couple of years of his career he was brilliant.
And then I don't know what happened. I mean, he's
you know, the clock hits hit zero and all hell happens.
But um, yeah, I met him. Cool. It was when
when the Nationals came in and uh with the against
the Dodgers obviously, and I was like, hey, I know
you're old man, and uh and uh, it was pretty
It was pretty cool. So I'm off to where the
(20:30):
Mark Patrick had my homage to Mark Patrick on sports.
You're in the big chair is what he used to say.
That was one of his trademark catchphrases. You're in the
big chair now. Just because you're running out of hats
for right now doesn't mean you can't shy away from
from rocking the beanie. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern
eleven pm Pacific. The Beanie. Yeah, you can rock some beanies.
(20:54):
That is that what this was all about. But do
rag also, what would you like me to wear? We
pull that off, but culturally inappropriate? No, but I just
I mean, your head is huge. Yeah, I can wear
like a bandana on my head. Maybe I'll do that, right,
could do that? I get the banda old school like
you could be either old school Kelly Rudy or old
(21:14):
school Jim McMahon. Oh, Kelly Rudy is a good one.
I like that. I think Kelly Rudy is. When I
think of Kelly Rudy, I think of him taking his
helmet off to get a gatorade shot or water shot
and then you see you know the yeah yeah, um,
but yeah, I think a beanie would work now because
you got when when you were nominated for your team's
(21:38):
every year on on your radio show. Usually get some
kind of apparel, right jersey hat? Did you ever get
a beanie at all? You know, I have to go
through it. I have in the Mallard Mansion buried in
the bowels of the Mallard Mansion. I have an entire
section of hats that I have gained from a lot
of them from listeners, a lot of them from freebees
(22:00):
back when they used to get freebes out. They don't
do that anymore. Um, I was gonna wear I was
excited because I didn't even realize i'd gotten this. I
don't remember ever paying for this, but I got a
Tito's Tacos hat and I was gonna wear it to
promote Tito's Tacos. But they're not open. So my favorite
tacos shop in l A Is Tito's Tacos and and
(22:22):
so I was gonna do that, but as like, what's
the point. They're not open, So when they open up,
let me know. When they open up, you're you're you're
in that part of town, guests gun and I will
rock the Tito's Tacos capus and omage to Tito's Tacos.
Definitely do so. Now I'm I'm encouraged by this. So
are you gonna do this? Are you doing this once
every week? Or what are you talking about? What the
(22:43):
the cameos? Oh no, the cameo. The way this works
is it once the page goes live, it's hunting season.
So like anybody you listening, you're like, hey, this would
be kind of fun. Maybe I'll do this and harass
Mallard and make them do a video about the Lakers
or some crap that. Um. You just go on there
and then you have I guess there's a couple of
(23:04):
days I have to get it back to you. But yeah,
it's open, so you know, can be endless people can
submit this or no one, UM might want to do
we only had we already had a couple, which is
which is encouraging. As I said, because the cameo website,
I'm not even I didn't even promote it. I just
said I might do it, and then I did it.
But it's cameo dot com. There's an app also that
(23:25):
they have and you know, I don't do it for me,
but there's like big, big celebrities that charge a ton
of money for these things. I'm I'm on the low
end of it because I'm a nobody. But there's like
we went through some of the names. Flavor. Flavor is
on there, and he's like charging two hift bucks for
(23:47):
a message dah these. I didn't know how long these
things should be, like I did, I wasn't sure, like
I've never done him before, so I'm trying to figure
that out. I was playing around with the app. The
first one was too short, the second one was probably
too long, so I gotta mess around with that. I
apologize for that, but I'm figuring out. Uh. It's it's
pretty funny, man. Some of the some of the names
(24:07):
we went through them before that are on here. You're like, whoa,
what the heck? Jamal Andrews, remember Jamal Anderson, the Dirty Bird? Yeah,
in the ant L he's on there. Dave wan Steady,
Hugh Jackson, Oh my god, the Great. He was probably
good at this because Hugh can regale. He's a good
(24:27):
BS artist. He's got the gift for gab. You um,
not not the gift for coaching, but the gift for gab.
I don't know. I don't know anyway, So if you
want interest in that, I'll get guests on on there
and uh and we'll have a contest to see who
gets more cameos. How about that we could do that?
I wonder if we can include any any kind of
play by play coverage of you cooking or or barbecuing.
(24:51):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports
Radio dot com and within the Heart radio apps. Search
f s R to listen live. Yeah, I would be
open to that. And you know, Mallard cooking on the cameo,
cooking on the cameo. If you want that, I can.
That's a great idea I'd be open to do anyway.
(25:12):
As you know, I make the meanest Philly cheese steak
west of the Mississippi, and it's an amazing homemade sandwich.
I get the bread that's shipped out from Philadelphia. I
have the thin cut ribby, although maybe not anymore because
I guess there's no meat. It's all going away. Uh.
And then I chopped that up even more. I've got
the the onion, the bell pepper, and the pro Bolone cheese,
(25:32):
not the whiz, not the cheese whiz, the pro Bolone cheese.
That's how you do a cheese steak, right. My friend
Tony Bruno taught me that back in the day, and
he's authentic Philadelphia and Fats has encouraged me as well.
So that's the way that goes all right, So moving on,
Hold on, you're not done. Because you mentioned that, you
mentioned the cooking. We are surprisingly especially you. You You had
(25:52):
surprisingly a lot of people that chimed in on some
of the podcast the last couple of weeks because of fasting,
Like you have really gotten this. This is big picked
up steam. Surprisingly. I don't know if that's because of
a lack of meat that's actually coming into some of
our cities or because people are actually trying to trim
down and and and and change their way of life. Yeah. Yeah, listen,
(26:15):
And it's not for everybody, and uh it might be
total bullshit, but it works, um for me. So it's
it's the placebo effect, right, you know, human beings when
they even if it's a placebo and you tell them
it's a placebo, it still works for for a lot
of people. So um, yeah, it's been it's been good
for me and I you know, I've had a lifetime
battle with being a big fatass, so this has really helped.
(26:37):
And I had a diet before I've told the story.
I lost a lot of weight and I gained gained
quite a bit of it back when I got married.
And this has been a way to get back to
where I wanted to be. So um, it's it's worked
for me, and it's really mind over matter. If you
don't mind, it doesn't matter that you're not eating right.
You just to me, I just drink water. I don't.
(26:57):
Some people fast and they don't even drink water. But
I don't know how you do it, guess com. But
I'm I'll just drink water and fill my stumming up
with water. There's no calories in it. And then I figured, like,
I'll work out, although now I can just go for walks,
but it's a million degrees where I live, so I
can get you know, I can, I can sweat and
then that'll burn off the water and so then it's
no big deal. Yes, So I was reading some stuff online, uh,
(27:20):
and I always look at YouTube for for ways that
people do fast. And part of of what I have
done is I've stayed away from taking like supplements or
adding any kind of protein or creating to my water.
So I've done that, but then I've also gone days
where I'll have some beat juice put into my water,
have some creating put in, and then work out and
(27:41):
then fast. But for everybody that tries or does do this.
I experienced this and you didn't tell me this last week,
but I did complete a forty eight hour fast and
the first thing I ate, um, Ben, it would right
through me. I mean seconds after I digested it is right,
three man. I would have appreciated a little heads up
(28:03):
after a da or fast, like, hey, this is what happened.
But I kind of experienced the ben mallor gall stone bladder.
You did, you had you had the explosion. No, I
didn't have it, but like I was, I was trending
in that right direction where I was like, all right,
get the funk out of my way, welcome to my world.
(28:23):
Now all we need to do is have your gall
bladder taken out and then we will complete the mission here.
But yeah, it is wild man. And you know, I
think a lot of it is because I had my
gall bladder taken out. But I hear from other people
who do the fasting, like after you fast for a
certain over, I think it is about forty eight hours.
Is that there's that threshold and I usually try to
(28:44):
go once or twice a week. I've told the story
I tried to go over that. But this week my
wife has put me on. She's embargoed. I'm only a
lot to eat one meal a day, she says, because
she's just still my birthday celebration. So she said, I
can eat one meal at a but and then next
week I'll get back to the h my michig with
(29:04):
the fasting and all that full fasting. Because you junked
out a little bit. Eddie sent you something banana cream
pie and then banana cream pie. Yeah, you didn't send
me a banana creampie. Edie sent me a banana cpie
and he likes me more than you. He sent me
a banana cream pie, but he sent you a pie
and then lied to you about the vending machine. So
I know we brought We brought this up the other
night and he's declared victory no matter what he says,
(29:26):
he won. Um. But you we did talk about your
weird addiction to Mint kit kat. Yeah, my my, my
longtime grandfather passed away, uh several years ago, but he
got me onto to mint when I was a child.
And that's good because I've heard guest Gun that if
(29:46):
you don't get a kid into mint early, they don't
get into it like you cross a certain age you're
not into mint. I don't know if that's true or bullshit,
but I love mint. My my dad was a big
fan and still is of mint ship ice cream of that,
and so I then, you know, copied my dad. I get.
I get sometimes I get chocolate chip ice cream. I
(30:06):
love cookie dough. But I'll occasionally too reminisce and go
back to my youth. I will get mint chip ice cream.
It flashes me back to when I was like eight
years old. So as yes, so as soon as they
put mint kit cats in there, I kid you not.
Last week it was just the tail end of April.
I had the first two and then over the weekend.
(30:27):
I know that I ate seven more so I was
probably of the consumption of that one row. What does
it C six or B six or whatever. That was
all me. So it was not only a dollar, was
a dollar ten cents because I had used my debit
card for the transaction, So that was all me. I
(30:47):
was a guilty party. Yeah. I was thinking about bringing
back the vending machine draft Part two to determine what
will be the last item left. But then I thought,
now they're they're gonna start refilling the vending machine, so
there's no point in doing that. So on that you
can always do like vending machine versus um health healthcare
(31:10):
items here in the in the studio because I've heard
about you know, I gotta come. I gotta go in
there because I have not been in a while, and
I have to pick up some mail. And I was
supposed to do it last weekend and then and you know,
I didn't do it or whatever, but I'm gonna do
it this weekend. So I'm gonna have to go in.
And I told my wife, I said, listen, I'll take
you with me, but you gotta sit in the car
because this company has a zero tolerance policy. I don't
(31:33):
lose my job because I took my wife into work
to pick up the mail. So yeah, we got a
thermostat in here with obviously temperature for the studios, but
we have a thermometer as well handwipes. And then every
window door is plastered with these giant I heeart warnings
about bringing in your own headphones, gloves, masks, the whole smash.
(31:54):
Good times. Can we now get the operational desk? What
the hell did I watch? This is great? So I
gave guests got a homework assignment. Now, I have been
a big fan of documentaries for a long time, all right,
but there's only a few that reached top level, very few.
Most of them are fucking terrible, all right. They suck,
But I'll watch them anyway because I'm I'm not kind
(32:16):
of person. I realized that these things are all biased.
I think everything is biased because people have their own
bias in life from life experience. But anyway, so this
is called Operational Desk. It actually came out a couple
of years ago, and I mentioned it on the radio
when it first came out and I first saw it.
I think it was originally on Showtime, but it's now
on Netflix. And I cannot recommend this enough. So to
(32:38):
give you the backstory, and and I know, I wrote
a few notes down because I watched it again, and
I could watch this thing probably every other month and
not get bored with it, not get old with it,
not get tired with it, any of that stuff. So
it's a it's a documentary about essentially the early nineties,
wild and crazy late eighties, early nineties Miami floored, the
drug scene, the whole thing. It's a true story. That's
(33:02):
the most amazing part of this. When you watch it,
you're like, well, this is this gotta be bullshit, This
can't be real. This has to be made up. But
but no, it's about these criminal I guess, for lack
of a better term, masterminds, who mixed with playboys in
Florida and it was sex, drugs and rock and roll
and hookers and guns and all kinds of debauchery. It's
(33:25):
it's like the story of the Cocaine Cowboys, but it's
like it's all interviews and it's it's better than that.
And the big parts of it, though, were the fact
that these guys, the reason they became operational Odessa is
the government got tipped off that these guys were buying
trying to buy Russian helicopters, and they succeeded and and
(33:49):
also bought a Russian sub. This is when the Soviet
Union crash. And the star of this podcast is a
guy named this gangster named Tarzan, who is one of
the most engaging bad guys you'd ever want to mean.
I mean, I feel like I want to work for
Tarzan after watching this. His real name is Ludwig Fainberg.
(34:12):
I believe it is his real name, and he's just
this like burly guy, very vibrant, smile, charming. He knows
he's done bad things, but doesn't seem to care. And uh,
you know, he thinks they're not really that bad and
all that. He's very enthusiastic about life and and uh,
so I guess he actually I think he's originally from
the Ukraine. He's actually not from Russia, but he lives
in Russia and he I guess he you know, goes
(34:33):
a side by side countries. Obviously been had many battles
and whatnot over the years. But but anyway, he came
to America and was an enforcer. His first job when
he he came to American immigrated was to to work
for the Gambino crime family in New York, New York.
So um, I I loved it, Gascott. I think it
(34:54):
was great that he ran a strip club called Porky's
in Miami, which was highlighted in the show. Oh and
then he became I guess he was the go to
guy for the Russian mob scene in South Florida, and
he started making tons of money. Like if you needed
if you needed drugs, you want to to tarzan if
you needed women to hook up with you went to
(35:15):
Tarzan if you needed what anything, you need to kill somebody?
He went to Tarzan. He would know a guy. He
he knows a guy. And then there's the other character.
There's this a couple other guys. There was this exotic
car guy, this wand Almeida. Um it was like the
Miami playboy guy. And then you had my other favorite
that all three of them were great. But this guy
(35:37):
Tony Nelson, Tony Yester, who was supposedly was I guess
he worked for Pablo Escobar. He's got ties to Pablo Escobar.
And the guy is still an international fugitive today and
they interviewed him. Imagine doing a documentary and interviewing a
fucking international fugitive. I mean, that just blows my mind.
(35:58):
But that just blows my mind that they did this.
It's unreal. And that you just mentioned Cameo. I was
actually initially petrified because when they did interview him, they
went right out of the gate to ask him about
the actual transgressions that he had and he says, do
you really want to talk about this? Let's not talk
about this, And I was like, oh ship, they actually
(36:20):
got him, and then he's ready to shoot these camera
guys and they cut away and then they go to
him and he's more relaxed. But you go back to
Tarzan real quick. Ben. It was amazing because the first
thing that he purchased when he landed in Miami was
a three fifty seven magnum. And then when they talked
about the helicopters that you mentioned, Um, I will spoil it,
(36:43):
but you can imagine we do these games and these
quizzes and you say, hey, how much is this or
how many people was this? And I usually shoot the
moon and you know, blow my wad on on over
shooting it on something. These guys bought helicopters for five dollars,
Russian military helicopters and I guess another spoiler alert, which
(37:05):
is which is great. When they were negotiating to buy
the Soviet sub remember the option, they had the option
to get the nukes, so you would offer these these
you know, random hustlers from Miami nuclear weapons and uh,
it's just there. It's unbelievable you're into these kind of things.
(37:27):
I cannot recommend this enough. And I actually he was curious.
I looked up a story was how did this all
come about? And so the documentary maker, um, he he
said he had a friend of him tipped him off
about Tarzan, right, the guy that's the start of the documentary.
And so at the time, Tarzan was in in jail
(37:50):
and I think like Argentina or something like that. I
forget which country, and I apologize, but he was in
jail somewhere. So anyway, this documentary guys like, I gotta
I gotta talk this guy and see if we've got
a film. So he paid off the prison guard. He
said he paid the prison guard where Tarzan was staying.
Five He had been texting Tarzan on a on a
was it a BlackBerry blueberry? What enough blueberry? BlackBerry back
(38:14):
in those days, And so he contacted Tarzan. I guess
is a lot of this was originally shot about ten
years ago and then it came out in originally eighteen.
But so the guy goes to this prison, the documentary maker,
and you know, Tarzan is a he's a very nice guy,
but he didn't know this and and you know, he's
nice to your face, but he could stab you in
(38:35):
the back, those kind of guys. And so he goes
and pays off the guy at the prison in whatever country.
It was five dollars to get into the prison, five
dollars to get out alive. So so there was the
five hundred dollars just to get in and then five
dollars protection so you don't get killed in the prison.
And then he sat down with Tarzan, and Tarzan you know,
talked and just talked and talked and talked, and so
(38:56):
the guys like, we got something. And and then he
went down the list and went to one i'l made
it and Wan was in for it and all that stuff.
And so then Tarzan escaped from jail and became a
fugitive and moved back to Russia. And then that allowed
them to interview him very casually Tarzan. So then I
was trying to figure out how the fund did this guy,
(39:17):
Tony yester Uh come into this, right, the Pablo Escobar guy.
And so this is this is so perfect. Right when
I heard this, I laughed my ass off, saying, when
you watch the documentary, will enjoy this. So so Tarzan
and Wan are regaling this documentary maker with all these
wild stories about their lives. Right, so they're still talking
(39:39):
to Tony, the the international fugitive Wan and and Tarzan
Andre talking to this guy. So Tony is like, what
the funk? I want to be part of this, you know,
I was part of this, you know. And so he
out of the blue from a from the What's app,
the documentary maker gets a random message on the What's App.
(39:59):
Hey it's Tony and uh and and he I forget
what the line he used was when it was something like, uh,
why don't you step up to the big leagues instead
of the minor leagues? You want to know what really
happened like that, you know, something some line like that
and uh. And then they had to negotiate and they
like I think it was in Africa and an airport
in Africa. It was. It's just crazy, I mean it is.
(40:23):
It is an amazing thing that not only getting the helicopters,
having to get them out of St. Petersburg in Russia
and all the obstacles they had to overcome. Yeah, because
you got you had gangsters in Russia when the government
was was obviously crumbling, and Jan had to fake it
like he was Pablo Escobar to come. Yeah, that's another
(40:44):
gred that's another part of it. Yeah. I love the
fact that and he taught I think the most The
most polarizing moment when all of this is when they
sent undercovers to to kind of unmask this entire incident.
Tarzan actually was getting it was in the middle of
a conversation when with an undercover and they were in
(41:07):
a hotel room and he looks at a clock next
to the bed and he says, that clock has a
camera in it. That clock has a camera. And the
guy's like, what are you talking about? And he's like,
I know, I've seen that before. That clock has a
camera in And he's like, well, if you think there's
a camera, to go check it. And he didn't call
his bluff and he didn't check it. But it turned
out there was a camera and a microphone because the FEDS,
(41:28):
were you spying on these guys? Well that was Tarza
is like, how many how many hours did they have
of talking about drugs, guns, murder and uh and all
the rest of these. Now I don't want to I
don't know if I should do this or not, guess gun,
but I looked up because I was curious what This
(41:49):
documentary came out a couple years ago. I say, what
happened to these guys? I know what happened. Do you
want me to share that now or should I? Should
I not? Shire? Uh? Yeah, sure, I want to? Okay,
all right, so you know two an this is spoiler. Also,
so what happened to the lives of these three guys
since the documentary? So we'll start out we had the good,
the bad, and the ugly. Alright, the good I guess
if you you're a fan of the documentary, is Tarzan
(42:11):
is still living in Russia. Um. He says he's still
committing crime because he's he's that's his career. But I
guess in Russia it's allowed, so he's he's free. One
al Mada, Um, the Miami playboy guy, is in jail.
He was convicted on drug charges in I think, and
(42:33):
so he went to jail. He was sentenced to six
years in jail for drug charges. So the Miami Playboys
down for the count for six years. And then and
I just found this out that Tony Yester Nelson, Tony Yester,
the guy with ties to Pablo Escobar. Um, he was
just extradited from Italy last year. I didn't realize this
(42:54):
last summer from Italy to the United States to face
drug and guns artists so he is no longer an
international fugitive. The law enforcement caught up with him and
he is now he's a he's facing he's facing a
maximum penalty of life in federal prison if convicted on
all all charges. So he he could be down for
(43:17):
the count they say from the light late nineteen eighties.
This is from the Orlando United States District Attorney's Office,
Middle District of Florida. It says here this guy Tony Yester,
Uh from the eighties to the early nineties are actually
late nineties, was part of a group involved in importing
(43:38):
kilogram amounts of cocaine and other narcotics in the United States,
including by negotiating the purchase of a Russian diesel submarine
for Colombian drug smugglers. According to law enforcement, he fled
to South Africa in nine seven to escape prosecution and
Uh then they began investigating in January fifteen. I guess
(44:00):
they get tipped off or something like that, and they
still doing marijuana and whatnot. But anyway, so it's a
lot of legalis and all that. So I'm guessing this
documentary guest did not help that. The You can talk
to your old man about this but I'm getting I'm
pretty sure that the law enforcement do not like when
a international fugitive does an interview for a documentary makes
him look bad, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, The
(44:21):
first thing he said when I when I talked to
him about this, he said, like what you just mentioned
was the he's like cocaine cowboys, man. Because I thought,
obviously I wasn't in that, uh and the know all
at that time because I was really young, but I
thought New York was a lot of this, and Miami
was just more flare around it, you know, Studio fifty
(44:43):
four and whatnot, and how New York was back in
the day with with the mob. But man, Miami was
so they were just drunk on drugs and women and
it was it was wild. Man. I you know, I
have a who wasn't there there in that time either.
I've only been to Miami a couple of times, and
(45:03):
I was there last. I actually was there in I
was there for the World Series in ninety seven, so
I was around that time. I wonder if I crossed
paths with Tarzan? How cool that? But the beautiful thing
was that one Almeida was was custom making speedboats that
had twin turbines like like a plane, like a fucking
(45:25):
planet at l A X or something like that at
like Guardia, but two million dollar boats and they were
only to traffic in and out narcotics, cocaine especially, So, man,
what it was fun. It was a lot of fun
watching this thing and to see them actually pull a
few stunts off. I mean, these guys could do no wrong.
(45:46):
These guys lived their best life even though a short
period of time. Yeah it is again. I cannot just
wrap this up here. I cannot recommend it enough. I
only talk about these documentaries on a podcast like this
if they are elite. Otherwise I don't waste my time
or just goof on them. But the Mallard doc rating
score one to ten, with ten being like Get Me
(46:07):
Roger Stone or Supersize Me Too, or any of those
great documentaries. This one on a scale of one to ten,
with ten being best. Gets a entertaining, thrilling, funny plot, twist,
great detail, comedy, um, all of it, everything, twist and turns,
all of that stuff gets the highest score you can
(46:28):
possibly get. Operation Odessa. It's on Netflix right now, Gascon.
Any score you want to give here, give it ten,
especially because the level of suspension, suspense and danger involved
was was full tilt. This is this was I mean,
we've we've watched some documentaries before and a lot of
that had to do with with Nike and the shoe companies,
(46:48):
and that's try the scheme, which was pretty good, but
not as good as Yeah, Roger Stone you mentioned, but
I love that. Get me Roger Stone, and that's one
of my favorites. But these guys are in their prime
with their age, and they're dealing with Colombian drug lords.
They're dealing with Russian gangsters, mob bosses, the FEDS, the
d e A, the FBI, the n s A. Like
(47:11):
you had six or seven different bureaus on these guys
in the United States and they had people hunting them
down internationally too. It was awesome. Yeah, it's a fun watch.
It's a great watch. And if you you know, listen,
you can't do anything else really these days, all this
stuff starting to open up. But to check it out again,
tell me if you like it or not, tell me
if I'm a schmuck for recommending it. Operation Odessa, and
(47:34):
that is that if you want to be part of
the Malle militia well, you're listening right now, so you
are part of the malle militia, but interact with us.
We have a mailbag podcast. It will be dropping later
this weekend. Those are questions submitted by you, and I've
opened it up to the email. I was going through
some of the email the Real Fifth Hour at gmail
dot com. So if you're not a Facebook person like
guess con the Real Fifth Hour at gmail dot com.
(47:56):
So just put question in the headline as a question
for the podcast and we'll hopefully get to it at
some point here on a future podcast. But you can
also follow me on Twitter at Ben Maller if you
don't know that by now, I'm on there a lot.
That's the cesspool of social media. Also on Facebook, which
is I guess we're free speech is no longer around,
(48:16):
but you can go on their Facebook slash Ben Mallard's Show.
That's our show page. We just crossed the ten thousand
like thing on there, which is pretty cool, So thank
you for that. Keep it going. Let's let's grow that up,
get it to the levels twitters at and then also
available on Instagram. I'm new to the Graham and you
can check that out at Ben Maller on Fox and
(48:38):
guest cons all over some of those places. Yeah no,
no cameo for me just yet. But on Twitter at
David J. Gascon, Instagram at Dave Gascon. Alright, listen, I
have a great weekend. Remember the podcast every day. I'll
have another podcast tomorrow and the day after that, and
then back to the radio after that. And to have
a great day today. Thank you.