November 14, 2025 • 31 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Friday for you! He talks: Blue Flu (why Dave Roberts didn't deserve any votes for manager of the year), D.C. Marketing Benny vs. The Penny, & Phrase of the Week returns from hibernation!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me Ben Mahler.
It is produced by Danny G Radio. He hopefully will
join us at some point over the weekend, but we
are back at it. The weekend begins right now on
a random Friday, a random Friday. So the way this
(00:49):
works on Fridays, I do the radio show. I then
walk out of the radio studio and it's kind of
like the Grandpa Simpson gift where you walk in and
out and then back in again and the meme. I
guess it's not a gift, it's a meme. And it's
(01:10):
that scene where in The Simpsons where Grandpa the Great
Abe Simpson enters the room. He looks around there's Bart
Simpson sitting there at the dais and he promptly leaves.
And so that's pretty much it. That's pretty god. I
go into the studio, I go out, and I go
back in again. And on this edition of the podcast today,
(01:34):
the only available in the podcast format, we have the
always Riveting Blue Flu, the South Park spin off with
a twist, and the Phrase of the Week as well. However,
today is the fourteenth day of November. There is a
holiday today you likely did not know about. It is
(01:56):
a food holiday. I will not be celebrating this holi
the day I've taken a strong position against this particular
food item. Today is National Pickle Day. Yes, National pickle
Day from the old world. Now. I grew up going
to Delis with my family. You know these motz of
(02:19):
ball soup and pastromi sandwiches and all that stuff at
the Delhi, and they'd always give you when you sat
down a thing of pickles. My mom loved pickles. I
didn't like the texture. I didn't I didn't like any
the smell I was okay with. But in honor of
National Pickle there, which is a big day I know
for Alf the alien ol Piner, who, for some reason,
(02:41):
because he's Alf, loves the pickle. The pickle though they
dated back they being the supposed experts, they did it
back to twenty thirty BC. The Mesopotamians would pickle cucumbers
were native to India, and that gave birth to what
(03:05):
has become. I mean, that's a long time Holy Canoli
twenty thirty BC. But the Mesopotamians, you can thank them.
It wasn't until the tenth century, according to the pickle propaganda,
that dill became a central ingredient in many brine mixtures
(03:26):
and all that stuff Western Europe and countries along that line.
And then in the nineteen forties, the United States government
they said, you know what, we're producing a lot of pickles.
They produced forty percent of the US pickle output, was
the United States government. And if you're producing pickles and
(03:47):
you're the government, what do you do. You include pickles
in the rations for the armed forces, is what you do. Okay,
there you go. So it's National Pickled Day. But we'll
begin with this. So I was not planning on talking
about this, but I got a couple of emails from
people who were looking for me to rant and rave.
(04:09):
Interesting enough, not from Lucky Tony. Not from Lucky Tony.
So the baseball season is long over. They had the
GM meetings this week, they had the MVP awards given out.
I'm not doing a ran about showy Otani. That's not
what this is about. Apparently the Dodger nation is up
in arms because Dave Roberts. How many votes did he
(04:32):
get for Manager? He didn't win the award, I didn't
win the word. How many votes did Dave Roberts get?
You want to take a guess? You see this? No,
you didn't see this. Okay, So Dave Roberts did he get?
I'm gonna give you three options here. Did he get
thirteen votes for Manage of the Year? Did Dave Roberts
get nine votes for Manage of the Year? Or did
(04:54):
Dave Roberts get three votes from Manager of the Year
or the other option? Option D is none of the above?
All right? Reveal answers. Reveal answers. Turns out that Dave
Roberts got as many votes for Manage of the Year
as you and I did. None, not a single vote
for Manage of the year. Bupkis squad douche. So let
(05:18):
us address. We will dress together. We're going to address
the snuffle of igus in the room. So you've got
David Vasse, enemy combatant of this podcast, running around like
someone stole his truro at a Dodger game, yelling disrespect, disrespect.
(05:39):
Now we know Vassay is a legendary houseman for the Dodgers,
that he is friends with all the players. He's a mouthpiece.
He's been that way for years, and it's part of
the job when you do that job. If you're too critical,
you don't get to do that job. He's had the
job for a while, which tells you he's the number
one cheerleader around. He's got the blue pom poms and
(06:01):
everything like you month. I had that job years ago.
I didn't last very long because it's not in my DNA.
It's baked into me to be critical. I can't be
a fanboy. I wish I could. I'd get better jobs
as a fanboy. You get better gigs. If you're critical,
you do the overnight show. At least that's the way
it's worked out for me. So let me help out
Vesay because Insa used to be my producer in another life.
(06:24):
So let me help out Vesse and all the Dodger
people out there who are I'm a Dodger person. I'm
happy they won the World Series. I love the fact
that they're going to win several more World Series in
the next ten years. It's wonderful. The question, is it
a great injustice that the Dodgers Dave Roberts got no
(06:45):
votes for Manager of the Year as the skipper of
the Dodgers. Keep in mind, because they won the World Series.
So I've got on this one. I've got beeswax, candle,
RB's in honor of Danny g and Catholic Church, and
we will combine all of these things together and we
are going to make thousands of downloads. Thousands. Now, Remember
(07:09):
I've ranted many times about bots and how all this
stuff is inflated and manipulated. I never said I was
against it. I just don't want to spend my own money.
But if one of you knuckleheads has a bot army
in Maldova, I'd be more than happy to have them
just listen and enjoy the heck out of it. Anyway,
(07:33):
back to the point, So to answer the question, is
this a great injustice that Dave Roberts did not get
a single vote for Manager of the Year, My response
is PULLEYE. Is my response. That is my response giving
this a super duper eye roll. Credit comes from let
me explain this to you. I know it's difficult for
(07:56):
some to understand. Credit comes from exceed not doing average work.
This is a regular season award. The playoffs does not matter.
The Dodgers spent I believe the number is one point
three billion. The last couple of offseasons they went on
a rodeo drive style shopping spree. Sho Hail Tani, Yoshinobu, Yamamoto,
(08:22):
Tyler Glass. Now they re signed ti Oscar Hernandez. And
that's just the tip of the iceberg. And despite all
of that, despite all of those amazing ballplayers, the Dodgers
of twenty twenty five underachieved. Oh my god, you can't
say that, Ben, They won the overnight. I don't even
know what voice that is. It is true they won
(08:45):
the overnight, but they did underachieve that. Vegas had the
Dodger win total at one hundred and five point five wins.
The Dodgers won ninety three games. Now, if you do
the malor math on that, it's minus twelve and a half.
So if you who were the skipper of a team
that won twelve games less, twelve and a half less
(09:07):
than they were supposed to. Would you be worthy of
some kind of accolades for that? That's not Manager of
the Year. That calls for a performance review. You did
not meet the regular season expectations. Again, just to repeat,
because I know I'm going to get some emails from
you knuckleheads and a little slow. It's a regular season award.
(09:31):
Are we supposed to light a beeswhack candle for poor
Dave Roberts? Give me a bleep and break. Dave Roberts
is not managing the Dodgers. He's play acting. He's an
IKEA display model wearing a hoodie. It's a great gig.
It pays a lot of money. Now page two here,
So Dave Roberts is essentially the assistant shift supervisor at
(09:56):
an Arby's and he reading whatever Andrew Friedman and the
NERD Battalion print out the morning of the game or
the afternoon of the game, the analytical menu. Imagine if
you will, world where Dave Roberts is working the drive
through at Arby's. Hello, welcome to the Dodger Stadium. Arby's.
(10:19):
Can I take your preapproved lineup card? So Dave Roberts
doesn't so much manage the games, he downloads them. Roberts
getting zero votes for Manager of the Year. That is
not a snub. That is a diagnosis. That is a diagnosis.
You can't win Manager of the Year if your biggest
(10:39):
managerial decision all season is whether to stand on the
top step or to sit near the top step of
the dugout. The industry knows it. The baseball writers who
vote on this know it. Held the ushers at Dodgers
Stadium know it. This isn't some kind of a anti
Dodger conspira. It's not. This's not blow this thing out
(11:02):
of proportion. This is the mafia of baseball writers, the
BBWAA saying, yes, we see the snuffle upagus wearing the
Dodger hat in the room, that the dude is a
middle manager with a laminated card. Mallard prop guy knows that.
(11:23):
Justin in Cincinnati knows that. Even Robbie the Mariner fan
knows that. Right, they all know it. I don't know
about Jed hu fled. Meanwhile, you've got Pat Murphy in Milwaukee.
The Brewers were rejected to win eighty two and a
half games this year. Eighty two and a half games.
They didn't go out and spend a billion dollars on
free agents. Eighty two and a half wins, They end
(11:46):
up winning ninety seven. They had the top record in baseball.
If my malor math is correct, that means they were
fourteen and a half games above expectations, which I don't
know how much Pat Murphy's managing day to day, but
it certainly seems like if you're gonna give an award
to somebody, that would be the guy that wins it.
That's actual value added. You take that roster, the brew
(12:09):
Crewe roster, a bunch of mid tier guys, bargain bin pitching,
slap together bullpen that was literally they used gorilla glue
to keep the bullpen together and they went ninety seven.
So yeah, you get the trophy. And again the other
argument as well, I got the Dave Roberts. He wasn't
gonna win, but he should have gotten a vote or
(12:29):
something along those lines. Now, the last word here on
this part of the Malar monologue, the bonus Malear monologue.
Is it true? Here's the question, Is it true that
the Dodgers are the only team in baseball where you
can win the World Series and the reaction is okay,
but we didn't get one vote from Manager of the Year.
What's up with that? We did not meet the spreadsheet?
(12:51):
And even in the year they win the World Series
back to back, you know, two years in a row. Here,
they want a regular season award at least a vote
because the pr machine says that they needed a vote.
They need the validation. And this has been a big
(13:12):
part of what the Dodgers have become recently. There's a
lot of whining over there at Dodgers Stadium, a lot
of whining, right, they need that validation, always begging for
the pad on the back and all it is that
the Hollywood stuff is that Andrew Friedman, I don't know.
And again I'm a Dodger fan. I don't like the attitude.
(13:33):
It's weak sauce, is what it is. But let me
put it to you another way. If you gave me
a roster of Sho Hail Tani, Mookie Bets, Freddie Freeman,
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glass Now and all these other cats
a payroll that requires a private equity firm to audit it,
(13:57):
and if I don't win one hundred plus games. If
I don't reach one hundred wins, I would expect zero
votes for Manager of the Year. I would expect someone
to take my key card. If this was the Catholic Church,
you'd be excommunicated for that. Dave Roberts is not getting robbed.
He didn't get robbed. He's getting graded fairly, honestly, and
(14:21):
it doesn't happen that often. Like he's a robotic manager.
He gets well paid. It's big check and all that stuff.
It's corporate baseball, it's push button, Hamburger, helper, all that
pr approved quotes, and the voters finally said, they said
it out loud is what they did. So I don't
(14:42):
have any kind of beef, any kind of issue with
that at all. Now turning the page to something completely different,
a show that I have not watched in years, South Park,
And no, this is not about South Park, but in
many ways it is. It's a South Park spin off.
For years on that show, the most famous catchphrase I
(15:03):
guess they actually finally whacked this guy was, oh my god,
they killed Kenny. We can update that they did kill Kenny.
Finally they killed them off. We can update it though
through the magic of the cartoon. Oh my god, they
killed penny. That's right. Leave it to the federal government
(15:25):
to accidentally give a struggling overnight gas bag who moonlights
with a gambling entertainment hybrid one of the great marketing
boosts in history, at least the history of this show
and the number of you were reached out. Oh, I'm
so sorry, the penny's going away and tell me you
(15:45):
don't get it without telling me you don't get In fact,
Gascon who used to work on this podcast, he was
trolling me, and I was like, dude, this guy really
doesn't understand how this works. I felt bad for him.
I've been living in Florida. He's semi retired there, shame
on him. But this week the US Mint in Philadelphia
hammered out its final final addition. Circulating of the Penny
(16:09):
dun skis finished. No more, no more naa no no
naa Hey, good bye. Yeah, after two hundred and thirty
eight years, two hundred and thirty eight years of making
a coin that for most of that no one wanted
(16:29):
and no one used, and no one bent over to
pick up unless they were already on the ground tying
their shoe or they were completely hammered, laying in a
gutter somewhere. Well, the people in Washington have finally pulled
the plug. Now to give you an idea, how crazy,
(16:51):
how absolutely bananas, two hundred and thirty eight years is.
Let's do some spur of the moment, mall. So a
generation is twenty years. So if you divide two hundred
and thirty eight by twenty, that equals almost twelve generations,
(17:17):
just to share under twelve generations of men and women
that have entered the world. And the penny has been
part of the world two hundred thirty eight years, and
they say bye bye. And doing so, they've turned Benny
Versus the Penny, which is available right now on YouTube,
(17:38):
our long running radio segment which turned into a TV show,
which turned viral video on YouTube. That creation because we're creators,
and it gave us something that we did not ask for,
unintentionally immortal. Seriously, Oh, you're just full of crap, bad, No,
I'm not. Let me explain. The penny has been decommissioned,
(18:02):
put out the pastor given the pink slip, whatever you want.
Benny versus the Penny has been promoted like ships passing
in the night the government killed the penny and made
our little YouTube show a cultural time capsule. And that's
how things wors Oh, that makes money. This is how
(18:22):
things work. Number One, we ignore something for decades or
longer than that. Number two, the government bans it, ends it,
or shuts it down, whatever you want to say, and
suddenly it becomes iconic. It's called the Streisan effect with
a copper plating. In terms of this little ditty that
we're talking about right now. The second the mint in
(18:43):
Philadelphia stopped making pennies, this became a story that was everywhere.
The coin became cooler, it became rarer, it became more nostalgic,
more American, became a talking point at parties and social
events and whatnot, and on the Ben Maller Show and
the other platforms that we partake in, like this Fifth
Hour podcast where the penny was. We did Benny Versus
(19:05):
the Penny on the podcast here flipping pennies metaphorically. For man,
it's been almost twenty years and now we can say
that my co star on Benny Versus the Penny has
now entered the national archive, alongside the cassette tape, the
rotary phone, the floppy disc. The pager finds out old
(19:27):
you are. If you're old, you've used all this stuff.
The VHS tape shout out to our friends at Blockbuster
Video back in the day, and every other relic Americans
suddenly can't live without. Once it's discontinued, the penny is
now part of the Remember when industrial complex? Remember when
(19:49):
I love that, Remember when we used to use typewriters,
Remember when we used to use blah blah blah film,
And Benny Versus the Penny gets to stand right next
to it, right right next to it, industrial complex that.
Remember when a show built on a coin and is
now part of history. You can't buy that kind of branding.
(20:12):
So I want to thank the boys in DC, the
people that made this decision. And Benny Versus the Penny
now has what every show wants, a story the media
doesn't have to invent. And there are networks we worked
at NBC last couple of years. There are networks that
spend a lot of money, millions and millions, trying to
(20:33):
manufacture bus. Media companies just in general, whether it's TV
or radio or podcasting, they spend a lot of money
trying to create buzz trying to make something important, something
out of nothing. And I just happened to wake up
one morning and my phone was filled with messages about people.
Oh I'm so sorry. Oh that sucks. What a bum
what a bum ride that is for you and I
(20:56):
And then I was like, well, wait a minute here,
well that's not bad. I wake up and I discover
that our little mascot friend is trending because Congress finally
figured out how math works. It's pretty crazy that it's
lasted this long. That's one thing about big government, the bureaucracy.
Things never get changed right away. Another great example is
(21:16):
the clocks, which I don't know anyone that thinks it's
a good idea to change the clocks in most states
in the United States, right, you go from daylight savings
time and all that, and you change the clocks. As
everyone complains about it, there's more access. More people die
every year because of the time change. They don't get
the right amount of sleep, and their bio rhythms are
all messed up. And the government doesn't care. They talk
(21:39):
about changing, but they never do. And the penny it
costs three point seven cents to make a penny. It
has a face value of one cent. So someone in
DC apparently saw the deficit, looking at the coin and said, okay,
we can at least stop losing money on this. We're
going to continue to lose money on the frivolous pork
(22:02):
barrel spending. We're going to continue to do that unchecked,
and the bridges to nowhere. Now the result of all this,
every headline about the penny all over the interweb, the
retirement of the penny is inadvertently a headline that is
about benny versus the penny. When people search on YouTube
(22:22):
for the penny, they'll see benny versus the penny. Every
feature story about the end of the penny production suddenly
serves as free advertising for a radio bit that became
a TV show that became a YouTube channel. This is
what you call falling up and the penny. The death
(22:44):
of the penny actually strengthens the gimmick. A gimmick is
only as good as the icon it leads on, and
before this week, the penny was, let's face it, the
penny was a nuisance for a lot of people, that
annoying loose change that you can't buy anything with, right
stuck between some bubble gum and the rappers, and there's
(23:06):
like Kawan rolling around. Maybe it's in your glove compartment
now again. Conversation piece, collectible taxpayer subsidized relic of Americana Maracana,
which is also a shopping center in Glendale. And every
time someone says remember those pennies that we used to have, yeah,
the answer is now, hey, yeah, benny versus the penny?
(23:28):
I remember, Benny versus the penny I do. The gimmick
didn't get weaker, it just gained gravatas, and we love
the word gravtas. The penny is no longer pocket lint.
It's not. It's a legacy object, is what it is.
Like the Yellow first down line, first down, the Red
Sox Curse of the Bambino, which so many people have
(23:51):
forgotten because the Red Sox have been really good over
the last twenty five years, and the Cubs Curse of
the Billy Goat. Shout out to our friend Doc Mike Darno,
and yeah, so our show is now the last major
remaining national stage where the penny will perform during football season.
(24:11):
The TV, the radio, the YouTube versions have all had
the penny, but they'll all benefit on the radio the
bit carries historical weight. It started on the radio, gave
birth to it years ago, and there's a sense of it.
We're keeping alive something the government declared dead. That resonates, right,
(24:32):
that resonates why not right? The classic crowd that we
have of rebels, misfits, traditionalists, good guys, bad guys who
think the world has moved too fast. Now on TV,
the story sells itself, and there's been some rumblings the
show will eventually return to television. But producers love a hook,
(24:53):
and now it's Benny versus the Penny has a built
in hook. It's obviously as shows starring a coin that
no longer is produced. It's nostalgia with a current events twist. Yeah,
And on YouTube Rocket Fuel YouTube lives on algorithms and controversy.
(25:14):
Penny discontinued The Final Penny, the last penny ever minted.
Every search term spikes up the numbers. It leads to
people subscribing to our channel, to the Benny Versus the
Penny channel, which is all good and so it's not
a marketing gimmick. It's marketing luck or destiny delivered by
(25:38):
a bunch of bureaucrats in DC so the penny, while
it is not being made and it'll eventually be gone,
it is still very much in circulation. There's a bunch
of pennies out there and will be around for years,
and Benny versus the Penny will be around forever. Of course,
forever is as long as I live. And once I'm
no longer around, that's forever. That's the end of time.
(25:59):
Americans love nostalgia, love tradition, wrap yourself in the flag,
love old things that won't die. How many documentaries have
I seen about Root sixty six? Get your kicks on
Root sixty six, jukeboxes, you name it. The Chicago Cubs
and the Braves on superstations back in the day, the
(26:21):
NFL insisting that fans sit outside for four hours in
a snow flurry in Buffalo. Things like that that just
continue on now. The penny belongs in the penny pantheon,
and as the keeper of the penny, the man yelling
into a microphone in the middle of the night or
here early in the morning on a Friday that just
(26:45):
happened to fall into the coin flipping situation. We were
originally going to do Benny Versus the Monkey, but we
couldn't get a monk, couldn't get a monk. And then
I was like, okay, well how about Benny versus the parrot?
And I was like, well, that's not going to work either,
And so there you go. Franchise that we've made out
of spare change and the penny may be discontinued, but
(27:07):
the show it inspired will outlive it. The coin is gone,
the brand is eternal, and for once, I want to
thank our political class. They made something more popular by
ending it. Yeah, so Benny versus the penny becomes the
Penny's final and greatest revenge. I couldn't do this rant
about the penny without mentioning my dear old father. When
(27:29):
my Pops passed away, he left behind at least five
or six jugs of pennies pennies. I talked about that
on this podcast when we lost my pops, and the
thing about that time, I kept thinking, hey, Dad, why
couldn't you have collected quarters or at least nichols give
(27:55):
me something more than pennies, because we had so many
pennies and it ended up getting us like one hundred
dollars or two hundred dollars. This was hardly anything and
it's like, oh man, that is just wacky, wacky, wacky
all right. Time now for the phrase of the week,
if you're unburdened by the phrase all the week. So
(28:19):
it's back by popular man. I want to thank Scott
and Florida, who is from Cali but has lived in
Florida for a while now and Scott is a big
consumer of the audio content. We thanks Scott for that,
and he said, we got to bring that phrase of
the week back. So I'm gonna give you some phrases.
I want you to do a deep dive on. The
phrase of the week today is tough as nails. Tough
(28:43):
as nails, So it comes from Scott in Florida and
toughen nails short, straight verbal scrapyard, toughest nails now. The
origin the phrase toughest nails dates back to the early
eighteen hundred. It's been a minute, first appearing in a
marria in English. At that time, nails, the literal metal
(29:04):
kind were considered one of the most durable, one of
the toughest, most unbreakable, everyday objects people handled in the world.
Their technology was not anywhere close to where it is now.
Why would it be at that time, and so this
was a very powerful thing.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
They didn't bend easily. These things didn't snap. They could
take a pounding and kept going and all that souff.
That was pretty cool. Now. The metaphor caught on quickly
because early America loved these simple physical imagery. If someone
(29:47):
was hard, unyielding, gritty, moxie, able to withstand punishment, comparing
them to a nail was perfect. And so by the
mid nineteenth century the phrase was firmly part of the lexicon,
and these things called newspapers, frontier slang, boxing vernacular. It
became part of boxing. So tough as nails emerged in
(30:13):
Britain with the same meaning as hard as nails. It's
just a trade off there tough, resilient, not easily overcome
or defeated. By eighteen fifty seven it had gone from
Britain to Australia, and then eighteen sixty one it became
(30:36):
somewhat popular in the United States, and then it was
really the eighteen nineties, so another thirty years the thing
took off. There was no Internet, there were no viral
videos at that time, and some other related phrases other
than the aforementioned tough as nails and hard as nails.
You have tough as shoe leather and tough old bird
(31:02):
as well. It's a great homage to the blacksmith bench,
the carpenter pouch, big parts of the early American jobs
that people had to have that are now done or
will be done by robots and AI and all that
wonderful stuff. So there it is the phrase of the week,
tough as nails. Thanks to Scott in Florida for that.
(31:26):
Have a wonderful rest of your Friday. We will have
a new episode of this podcast on Saturday, and the
mail Bag on Sunday. And until then, Rivadev J. Hello
what else? Oh yeah, that's right. Asta pasta tastes like
a touchdown in your mouth. I gotta say that, Arlse.
(31:47):
Danny's not going to put the podcast up, so I
gotta say asta pasta got a murder. I gotta go
Cutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me Ben Mahler.
It is produced by Danny G Radio. He hopefully will
join us at some point over the weekend, but we
are back at it. The weekend begins right now on
a random Friday, a random Friday. So the way this
(00:49):
works on Fridays, I do the radio show. I then
walk out of the radio studio and it's kind of
like the Grandpa Simpson gift where you walk in and
out and then back in again and the meme. I
guess it's not a gift, it's a meme. And it's
(01:10):
that scene where in The Simpsons where Grandpa the Great
Abe Simpson enters the room. He looks around there's Bart
Simpson sitting there at the dais and he promptly leaves.
And so that's pretty much it. That's pretty god. I
go into the studio, I go out, and I go
back in again. And on this edition of the podcast today,
(01:34):
the only available in the podcast format, we have the
always Riveting Blue Flu, the South Park spin off with
a twist, and the Phrase of the Week as well. However,
today is the fourteenth day of November. There is a
holiday today you likely did not know about. It is
(01:56):
a food holiday. I will not be celebrating this holi
the day I've taken a strong position against this particular
food item. Today is National Pickle Day. Yes, National pickle
Day from the old world. Now. I grew up going
to Delis with my family. You know these motz of
(02:19):
ball soup and pastromi sandwiches and all that stuff at
the Delhi, and they'd always give you when you sat
down a thing of pickles. My mom loved pickles. I
didn't like the texture. I didn't I didn't like any
the smell I was okay with. But in honor of
National Pickle there, which is a big day I know
for Alf the alien ol Piner, who, for some reason,
(02:41):
because he's Alf, loves the pickle. The pickle though they
dated back they being the supposed experts, they did it
back to twenty thirty BC. The Mesopotamians would pickle cucumbers
were native to India, and that gave birth to what
(03:05):
has become. I mean, that's a long time Holy Canoli
twenty thirty BC. But the Mesopotamians, you can thank them.
It wasn't until the tenth century, according to the pickle propaganda,
that dill became a central ingredient in many brine mixtures
(03:26):
and all that stuff Western Europe and countries along that line.
And then in the nineteen forties, the United States government
they said, you know what, we're producing a lot of pickles.
They produced forty percent of the US pickle output, was
the United States government. And if you're producing pickles and
(03:47):
you're the government, what do you do. You include pickles
in the rations for the armed forces, is what you do. Okay,
there you go. So it's National Pickled Day. But we'll
begin with this. So I was not planning on talking
about this, but I got a couple of emails from
people who were looking for me to rant and rave.
(04:09):
Interesting enough, not from Lucky Tony. Not from Lucky Tony.
So the baseball season is long over. They had the
GM meetings this week, they had the MVP awards given out.
I'm not doing a ran about showy Otani. That's not
what this is about. Apparently the Dodger nation is up
in arms because Dave Roberts. How many votes did he
(04:32):
get for Manager? He didn't win the award, I didn't
win the word. How many votes did Dave Roberts get?
You want to take a guess? You see this? No,
you didn't see this. Okay, So Dave Roberts did he get?
I'm gonna give you three options here. Did he get
thirteen votes for Manage of the Year? Did Dave Roberts
get nine votes for Manage of the Year? Or did
(04:54):
Dave Roberts get three votes from Manager of the Year
or the other option? Option D is none of the above?
All right? Reveal answers. Reveal answers. Turns out that Dave
Roberts got as many votes for Manage of the Year
as you and I did. None, not a single vote
for Manage of the year. Bupkis squad douche. So let
(05:18):
us address. We will dress together. We're going to address
the snuffle of igus in the room. So you've got
David Vasse, enemy combatant of this podcast, running around like
someone stole his truro at a Dodger game, yelling disrespect, disrespect.
(05:39):
Now we know Vassay is a legendary houseman for the Dodgers,
that he is friends with all the players. He's a mouthpiece.
He's been that way for years, and it's part of
the job when you do that job. If you're too critical,
you don't get to do that job. He's had the
job for a while, which tells you he's the number
one cheerleader around. He's got the blue pom poms and
(06:01):
everything like you month. I had that job years ago.
I didn't last very long because it's not in my DNA.
It's baked into me to be critical. I can't be
a fanboy. I wish I could. I'd get better jobs
as a fanboy. You get better gigs. If you're critical,
you do the overnight show. At least that's the way
it's worked out for me. So let me help out
Vesay because Insa used to be my producer in another life.
(06:24):
So let me help out Vesse and all the Dodger
people out there who are I'm a Dodger person. I'm
happy they won the World Series. I love the fact
that they're going to win several more World Series in
the next ten years. It's wonderful. The question, is it
a great injustice that the Dodgers Dave Roberts got no
(06:45):
votes for Manager of the Year as the skipper of
the Dodgers. Keep in mind, because they won the World Series.
So I've got on this one. I've got beeswax, candle,
RB's in honor of Danny g and Catholic Church, and
we will combine all of these things together and we
are going to make thousands of downloads. Thousands. Now, Remember
(07:09):
I've ranted many times about bots and how all this
stuff is inflated and manipulated. I never said I was
against it. I just don't want to spend my own money.
But if one of you knuckleheads has a bot army
in Maldova, I'd be more than happy to have them
just listen and enjoy the heck out of it. Anyway,
(07:33):
back to the point, So to answer the question, is
this a great injustice that Dave Roberts did not get
a single vote for Manager of the Year, My response
is PULLEYE. Is my response. That is my response giving
this a super duper eye roll. Credit comes from let
me explain this to you. I know it's difficult for
(07:56):
some to understand. Credit comes from exceed not doing average work.
This is a regular season award. The playoffs does not matter.
The Dodgers spent I believe the number is one point
three billion. The last couple of offseasons they went on
a rodeo drive style shopping spree. Sho Hail Tani, Yoshinobu, Yamamoto,
(08:22):
Tyler Glass. Now they re signed ti Oscar Hernandez. And
that's just the tip of the iceberg. And despite all
of that, despite all of those amazing ballplayers, the Dodgers
of twenty twenty five underachieved. Oh my god, you can't
say that, Ben, They won the overnight. I don't even
know what voice that is. It is true they won
(08:45):
the overnight, but they did underachieve that. Vegas had the
Dodger win total at one hundred and five point five wins.
The Dodgers won ninety three games. Now, if you do
the malor math on that, it's minus twelve and a half.
So if you who were the skipper of a team
that won twelve games less, twelve and a half less
(09:07):
than they were supposed to. Would you be worthy of
some kind of accolades for that? That's not Manager of
the Year. That calls for a performance review. You did
not meet the regular season expectations. Again, just to repeat,
because I know I'm going to get some emails from
you knuckleheads and a little slow. It's a regular season award.
(09:31):
Are we supposed to light a beeswhack candle for poor
Dave Roberts? Give me a bleep and break. Dave Roberts
is not managing the Dodgers. He's play acting. He's an
IKEA display model wearing a hoodie. It's a great gig.
It pays a lot of money. Now page two here,
So Dave Roberts is essentially the assistant shift supervisor at
(09:56):
an Arby's and he reading whatever Andrew Friedman and the
NERD Battalion print out the morning of the game or
the afternoon of the game, the analytical menu. Imagine if
you will, world where Dave Roberts is working the drive
through at Arby's. Hello, welcome to the Dodger Stadium. Arby's.
(10:19):
Can I take your preapproved lineup card? So Dave Roberts
doesn't so much manage the games, he downloads them. Roberts
getting zero votes for Manager of the Year. That is
not a snub. That is a diagnosis. That is a diagnosis.
You can't win Manager of the Year if your biggest
(10:39):
managerial decision all season is whether to stand on the
top step or to sit near the top step of
the dugout. The industry knows it. The baseball writers who
vote on this know it. Held the ushers at Dodgers
Stadium know it. This isn't some kind of a anti
Dodger conspira. It's not. This's not blow this thing out
(11:02):
of proportion. This is the mafia of baseball writers, the
BBWAA saying, yes, we see the snuffle upagus wearing the
Dodger hat in the room, that the dude is a
middle manager with a laminated card. Mallard prop guy knows that.
(11:23):
Justin in Cincinnati knows that. Even Robbie the Mariner fan
knows that. Right, they all know it. I don't know
about Jed hu fled. Meanwhile, you've got Pat Murphy in Milwaukee.
The Brewers were rejected to win eighty two and a
half games this year. Eighty two and a half games.
They didn't go out and spend a billion dollars on
free agents. Eighty two and a half wins, They end
(11:46):
up winning ninety seven. They had the top record in baseball.
If my malor math is correct, that means they were
fourteen and a half games above expectations, which I don't
know how much Pat Murphy's managing day to day, but
it certainly seems like if you're gonna give an award
to somebody, that would be the guy that wins it.
That's actual value added. You take that roster, the brew
(12:09):
Crewe roster, a bunch of mid tier guys, bargain bin pitching,
slap together bullpen that was literally they used gorilla glue
to keep the bullpen together and they went ninety seven.
So yeah, you get the trophy. And again the other
argument as well, I got the Dave Roberts. He wasn't
gonna win, but he should have gotten a vote or
(12:29):
something along those lines. Now, the last word here on
this part of the Malar monologue, the bonus Malear monologue.
Is it true? Here's the question, Is it true that
the Dodgers are the only team in baseball where you
can win the World Series and the reaction is okay,
but we didn't get one vote from Manager of the Year.
What's up with that? We did not meet the spreadsheet?
(12:51):
And even in the year they win the World Series
back to back, you know, two years in a row. Here,
they want a regular season award at least a vote
because the pr machine says that they needed a vote.
They need the validation. And this has been a big
(13:12):
part of what the Dodgers have become recently. There's a
lot of whining over there at Dodgers Stadium, a lot
of whining, right, they need that validation, always begging for
the pad on the back and all it is that
the Hollywood stuff is that Andrew Friedman, I don't know.
And again I'm a Dodger fan. I don't like the attitude.
(13:33):
It's weak sauce, is what it is. But let me
put it to you another way. If you gave me
a roster of Sho Hail Tani, Mookie Bets, Freddie Freeman,
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glass Now and all these other cats
a payroll that requires a private equity firm to audit it,
(13:57):
and if I don't win one hundred plus games. If
I don't reach one hundred wins, I would expect zero
votes for Manager of the Year. I would expect someone
to take my key card. If this was the Catholic Church,
you'd be excommunicated for that. Dave Roberts is not getting robbed.
He didn't get robbed. He's getting graded fairly, honestly, and
(14:21):
it doesn't happen that often. Like he's a robotic manager.
He gets well paid. It's big check and all that stuff.
It's corporate baseball, it's push button, Hamburger, helper, all that
pr approved quotes, and the voters finally said, they said
it out loud is what they did. So I don't
(14:42):
have any kind of beef, any kind of issue with
that at all. Now turning the page to something completely different,
a show that I have not watched in years, South Park,
And no, this is not about South Park, but in
many ways it is. It's a South Park spin off.
For years on that show, the most famous catchphrase I
(15:03):
guess they actually finally whacked this guy was, oh my god,
they killed Kenny. We can update that they did kill Kenny.
Finally they killed them off. We can update it though
through the magic of the cartoon. Oh my god, they
killed penny. That's right. Leave it to the federal government
(15:25):
to accidentally give a struggling overnight gas bag who moonlights
with a gambling entertainment hybrid one of the great marketing
boosts in history, at least the history of this show
and the number of you were reached out. Oh, I'm
so sorry, the penny's going away and tell me you
(15:45):
don't get it without telling me you don't get In fact,
Gascon who used to work on this podcast, he was
trolling me, and I was like, dude, this guy really
doesn't understand how this works. I felt bad for him.
I've been living in Florida. He's semi retired there, shame
on him. But this week the US Mint in Philadelphia
hammered out its final final addition. Circulating of the Penny
(16:09):
dun skis finished. No more, no more naa no no
naa Hey, good bye. Yeah, after two hundred and thirty
eight years, two hundred and thirty eight years of making
a coin that for most of that no one wanted
(16:29):
and no one used, and no one bent over to
pick up unless they were already on the ground tying
their shoe or they were completely hammered, laying in a
gutter somewhere. Well, the people in Washington have finally pulled
the plug. Now to give you an idea, how crazy,
(16:51):
how absolutely bananas, two hundred and thirty eight years is.
Let's do some spur of the moment, mall. So a
generation is twenty years. So if you divide two hundred
and thirty eight by twenty, that equals almost twelve generations,
(17:17):
just to share under twelve generations of men and women
that have entered the world. And the penny has been
part of the world two hundred thirty eight years, and
they say bye bye. And doing so, they've turned Benny
Versus the Penny, which is available right now on YouTube,
(17:38):
our long running radio segment which turned into a TV show,
which turned viral video on YouTube. That creation because we're creators,
and it gave us something that we did not ask for,
unintentionally immortal. Seriously, Oh, you're just full of crap, bad, No,
I'm not. Let me explain. The penny has been decommissioned,
(18:02):
put out the pastor given the pink slip, whatever you want.
Benny versus the Penny has been promoted like ships passing
in the night the government killed the penny and made
our little YouTube show a cultural time capsule. And that's
how things wors Oh, that makes money. This is how
(18:22):
things work. Number One, we ignore something for decades or
longer than that. Number two, the government bans it, ends it,
or shuts it down, whatever you want to say, and
suddenly it becomes iconic. It's called the Streisan effect with
a copper plating. In terms of this little ditty that
we're talking about right now. The second the mint in
(18:43):
Philadelphia stopped making pennies, this became a story that was everywhere.
The coin became cooler, it became rarer, it became more nostalgic,
more American, became a talking point at parties and social
events and whatnot, and on the Ben Maller Show and
the other platforms that we partake in, like this Fifth
Hour podcast where the penny was. We did Benny Versus
(19:05):
the Penny on the podcast here flipping pennies metaphorically. For man,
it's been almost twenty years and now we can say
that my co star on Benny Versus the Penny has
now entered the national archive, alongside the cassette tape, the
rotary phone, the floppy disc. The pager finds out old
(19:27):
you are. If you're old, you've used all this stuff.
The VHS tape shout out to our friends at Blockbuster
Video back in the day, and every other relic Americans
suddenly can't live without. Once it's discontinued, the penny is
now part of the Remember when industrial complex? Remember when
(19:49):
I love that, Remember when we used to use typewriters,
Remember when we used to use blah blah blah film,
And Benny Versus the Penny gets to stand right next
to it, right right next to it, industrial complex that.
Remember when a show built on a coin and is
now part of history. You can't buy that kind of branding.
(20:12):
So I want to thank the boys in DC, the
people that made this decision. And Benny Versus the Penny
now has what every show wants, a story the media
doesn't have to invent. And there are networks we worked
at NBC last couple of years. There are networks that
spend a lot of money, millions and millions, trying to
(20:33):
manufacture bus. Media companies just in general, whether it's TV
or radio or podcasting, they spend a lot of money
trying to create buzz trying to make something important, something
out of nothing. And I just happened to wake up
one morning and my phone was filled with messages about people.
Oh I'm so sorry. Oh that sucks. What a bum
what a bum ride that is for you and I
(20:56):
And then I was like, well, wait a minute here,
well that's not bad. I wake up and I discover
that our little mascot friend is trending because Congress finally
figured out how math works. It's pretty crazy that it's
lasted this long. That's one thing about big government, the bureaucracy.
Things never get changed right away. Another great example is
(21:16):
the clocks, which I don't know anyone that thinks it's
a good idea to change the clocks in most states
in the United States, right, you go from daylight savings
time and all that, and you change the clocks. As
everyone complains about it, there's more access. More people die
every year because of the time change. They don't get
the right amount of sleep, and their bio rhythms are
all messed up. And the government doesn't care. They talk
(21:39):
about changing, but they never do. And the penny it
costs three point seven cents to make a penny. It
has a face value of one cent. So someone in
DC apparently saw the deficit, looking at the coin and said, okay,
we can at least stop losing money on this. We're
going to continue to lose money on the frivolous pork
(22:02):
barrel spending. We're going to continue to do that unchecked,
and the bridges to nowhere. Now the result of all this,
every headline about the penny all over the interweb, the
retirement of the penny is inadvertently a headline that is
about benny versus the penny. When people search on YouTube
(22:22):
for the penny, they'll see benny versus the penny. Every
feature story about the end of the penny production suddenly
serves as free advertising for a radio bit that became
a TV show that became a YouTube channel. This is
what you call falling up and the penny. The death
(22:44):
of the penny actually strengthens the gimmick. A gimmick is
only as good as the icon it leads on, and
before this week, the penny was, let's face it, the
penny was a nuisance for a lot of people, that
annoying loose change that you can't buy anything with, right
stuck between some bubble gum and the rappers, and there's
(23:06):
like Kawan rolling around. Maybe it's in your glove compartment
now again. Conversation piece, collectible taxpayer subsidized relic of Americana Maracana,
which is also a shopping center in Glendale. And every
time someone says remember those pennies that we used to have, yeah,
the answer is now, hey, yeah, benny versus the penny?
(23:28):
I remember, Benny versus the penny I do. The gimmick
didn't get weaker, it just gained gravatas, and we love
the word gravtas. The penny is no longer pocket lint.
It's not. It's a legacy object, is what it is.
Like the Yellow first down line, first down, the Red
Sox Curse of the Bambino, which so many people have
(23:51):
forgotten because the Red Sox have been really good over
the last twenty five years, and the Cubs Curse of
the Billy Goat. Shout out to our friend Doc Mike Darno,
and yeah, so our show is now the last major
remaining national stage where the penny will perform during football season.
(24:11):
The TV, the radio, the YouTube versions have all had
the penny, but they'll all benefit on the radio the
bit carries historical weight. It started on the radio, gave
birth to it years ago, and there's a sense of it.
We're keeping alive something the government declared dead. That resonates, right,
(24:32):
that resonates why not right? The classic crowd that we
have of rebels, misfits, traditionalists, good guys, bad guys who
think the world has moved too fast. Now on TV,
the story sells itself, and there's been some rumblings the
show will eventually return to television. But producers love a hook,
(24:53):
and now it's Benny versus the Penny has a built
in hook. It's obviously as shows starring a coin that
no longer is produced. It's nostalgia with a current events twist. Yeah,
And on YouTube Rocket Fuel YouTube lives on algorithms and controversy.
(25:14):
Penny discontinued The Final Penny, the last penny ever minted.
Every search term spikes up the numbers. It leads to
people subscribing to our channel, to the Benny Versus the
Penny channel, which is all good and so it's not
a marketing gimmick. It's marketing luck or destiny delivered by
(25:38):
a bunch of bureaucrats in DC so the penny, while
it is not being made and it'll eventually be gone,
it is still very much in circulation. There's a bunch
of pennies out there and will be around for years,
and Benny versus the Penny will be around forever. Of course,
forever is as long as I live. And once I'm
no longer around, that's forever. That's the end of time.
(25:59):
Americans love nostalgia, love tradition, wrap yourself in the flag,
love old things that won't die. How many documentaries have
I seen about Root sixty six? Get your kicks on
Root sixty six, jukeboxes, you name it. The Chicago Cubs
and the Braves on superstations back in the day, the
(26:21):
NFL insisting that fans sit outside for four hours in
a snow flurry in Buffalo. Things like that that just
continue on now. The penny belongs in the penny pantheon,
and as the keeper of the penny, the man yelling
into a microphone in the middle of the night or
here early in the morning on a Friday that just
(26:45):
happened to fall into the coin flipping situation. We were
originally going to do Benny Versus the Monkey, but we
couldn't get a monk, couldn't get a monk. And then
I was like, okay, well how about Benny versus the parrot?
And I was like, well, that's not going to work either,
And so there you go. Franchise that we've made out
of spare change and the penny may be discontinued, but
(27:07):
the show it inspired will outlive it. The coin is gone,
the brand is eternal, and for once, I want to
thank our political class. They made something more popular by
ending it. Yeah, so Benny versus the penny becomes the
Penny's final and greatest revenge. I couldn't do this rant
about the penny without mentioning my dear old father. When
(27:29):
my Pops passed away, he left behind at least five
or six jugs of pennies pennies. I talked about that
on this podcast when we lost my pops, and the
thing about that time, I kept thinking, hey, Dad, why
couldn't you have collected quarters or at least nichols give
(27:55):
me something more than pennies, because we had so many
pennies and it ended up getting us like one hundred
dollars or two hundred dollars. This was hardly anything and
it's like, oh man, that is just wacky, wacky, wacky
all right. Time now for the phrase of the week,
if you're unburdened by the phrase all the week. So
(28:19):
it's back by popular man. I want to thank Scott
and Florida, who is from Cali but has lived in
Florida for a while now and Scott is a big
consumer of the audio content. We thanks Scott for that,
and he said, we got to bring that phrase of
the week back. So I'm gonna give you some phrases.
I want you to do a deep dive on. The
phrase of the week today is tough as nails. Tough
(28:43):
as nails, So it comes from Scott in Florida and
toughen nails short, straight verbal scrapyard, toughest nails now. The
origin the phrase toughest nails dates back to the early
eighteen hundred. It's been a minute, first appearing in a
marria in English. At that time, nails, the literal metal
(29:04):
kind were considered one of the most durable, one of
the toughest, most unbreakable, everyday objects people handled in the world.
Their technology was not anywhere close to where it is now.
Why would it be at that time, and so this
was a very powerful thing.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
They didn't bend easily. These things didn't snap. They could
take a pounding and kept going and all that souff.
That was pretty cool. Now. The metaphor caught on quickly
because early America loved these simple physical imagery. If someone
(29:47):
was hard, unyielding, gritty, moxie, able to withstand punishment, comparing
them to a nail was perfect. And so by the
mid nineteenth century the phrase was firmly part of the lexicon,
and these things called newspapers, frontier slang, boxing vernacular. It
became part of boxing. So tough as nails emerged in
(30:13):
Britain with the same meaning as hard as nails. It's
just a trade off there tough, resilient, not easily overcome
or defeated. By eighteen fifty seven it had gone from
Britain to Australia, and then eighteen sixty one it became
(30:36):
somewhat popular in the United States, and then it was
really the eighteen nineties, so another thirty years the thing
took off. There was no Internet, there were no viral
videos at that time, and some other related phrases other
than the aforementioned tough as nails and hard as nails.
You have tough as shoe leather and tough old bird
(31:02):
as well. It's a great homage to the blacksmith bench,
the carpenter pouch, big parts of the early American jobs
that people had to have that are now done or
will be done by robots and AI and all that
wonderful stuff. So there it is the phrase of the week,
tough as nails. Thanks to Scott in Florida for that.
(31:26):
Have a wonderful rest of your Friday. We will have
a new episode of this podcast on Saturday, and the
mail Bag on Sunday. And until then, Rivadev J. Hello
what else? Oh yeah, that's right. Asta pasta tastes like
a touchdown in your mouth. I gotta say that, Arlse.
(31:47):
Danny's not going to put the podcast up, so I
gotta say asta pasta got a murder. I gotta go
Host
Ben Maller
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For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
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