October 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Saturday podcast for you! He talks: Pasta, Petting Zoo, People Are Strange, & more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kabooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a sol fastion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g
Radio celebrating World Pasta Day as we broadcast from the
remote studio somewhere in the bowels of the iHeartMedia Building,
unless it's not. As we're yapping away here celebrating pasta,
which has been around for five since five thousand BC
(00:54):
and came to America. We've talked about this before in
the podcast because I think we've been on during World
Pasta Day in the past. But President Jefferson was in
Perie back in the day and somebody served him some pasta.
He called it macaroni. He loved it so much. How
much did he love it? He brought back a ton
of it and He's like, I got to bring that
(01:15):
to America.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I mean, I love this macarona.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Of course it might not have actually been what we
call macaroni today, but he returned with a couple of
cases of this stuff, and then that helped spread the
joy of pasta. The big bumpety bump in mass production
of pasta was oh, you know the rest. Campbell's Soup
(01:39):
Company invented the canned pasta known as Spaghettio's, Oh Spaghettio,
and that became a big deal. Now as a kid,
it was in my rotation, and they determined the people
that may the pasta determined that kids could eat the
(02:03):
O shape rings without making a mess, and that was
bull crap. I was able to make a mess. My
mom's not here, but she would tell you she was
still around that I did make make a mess. Some
of the other ideas when they were making Spaghettio's, they
were like, well, let's make a little cowboys or you know,
coo cowboys.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And Indians racist. Well, they would have had to cancel
Campbells if they had done that.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
They thought about maybe spacemen or stars, or shapes of
footballs and baseballs, but they determined that the oh was
good and it rhymes spaghetti Oh kind of flows and
the whole thing. And then a few years after Campbells
came around the chain restaurant, the Old Spaghetti Factory opened
its first location in Portland and they're still around.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
There's still a few in my area.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So it is World pasta day celebrate appropriately on this podcast,
The Fifth Hour with Me and Danny g on this Saturday,
we've got in honor of National Past today we have
the Spaghetti Western, a story that has never before been told.
What you're about to hear the first time ever. This
(03:15):
story will be told on any microphone anywhere. And also
the odd ball Corner, which is our corner. It's our corner,
is what it is? Yes, all right, so listen. There
is a moment somewhere between the second Margarita and the
fourth rendition in your head of friends in low places,
(03:38):
when life stops pretending to be complicated, right, and you
just kind of tip your hat and you say, how
do partner and let the absurdity trot on through. So
that moment happened again recently in my life this past weekend,
a story that I've saved for this podcast. On the
far edges of Los Angeles County, a little place called Norco, California,
(04:02):
a town that has more saddles than Starbucks.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It does have a Starbucks, but it has more saddles.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
They have wide things near the road, a little like
dirt things to walk your horse. There's more livestock than Tesla's,
which is odd in California. And the concept of an
HOA a homeowner's association likely involves actual horses, a stampede
of horses.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Now, I was not there as a gas bag. I
was visiting.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I was there by marriage, as we have pointed out.
And you know this if you're also married. That is
how these things work. When you say I do and
you sign the contract. At some point in the journey
of life, you find yourself in a newly purchased cowboy hat,
standing next to three goats, a fluffy cow named Jet
and timing a mechanical bull that people are riding on
(04:53):
like a man auditioning for some kind of endorsement deal
with a stopwatch company. We were there for my my
wife's longtime co workers fiftieth birthday bash. Nice Woman, Good House.
It was her home Western theme. It was a fandego,
as they said in the Old West. A shindig, a
real gudea up and go kind of party, and so
(05:17):
it's kind of walking through this. So I don't own
cowboy boots. I have very big feet. I don't own
cowboy boots. I don't own spurs. I have watched the
San Antonio Spurs play, but I don't own spurs. However,
I do own what can only be described as a
Canadian tuxedo. We've talked about this in the past, a
full denim ensemble acquired on my somewhat recent trip to Vancouver.
(05:39):
We talked about yesterday I did this love note to Toronto,
but I talked about Canada because the Dodgers and Blue
Jays playing, and I mentioned Nico and here we are again.
I got that when we went to Vancouver, the Canadian tuxedo,
when Nico rolled out the red carpet, and you know,
the red carpet in Canada is covered in maple syrup
and hospitality. But that outfit, I didn't think I'd ever
(06:01):
wear it again. I thought, well, this is the only
time I'm in Canada, I'm gonna wear the Canadian tuxedo.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And I had the bolo tie, the whole thing, and
I said, oh no, I want to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And it's the kind of an outfit that makes you
feel like an extra and a B list spaghetti western, right,
the kind that ends up face down in a saloon
after the first scene that was me okay in the
spaghetti western on World pasta Day.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So I put on the tuxedo.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I topped it with the authentic cowboy hat which still
had the label on it, and just like that, poof,
I was no longer Benny from Benny versus the Penny
and the radio. No no no, I had a nickname change.
I was Benny Buckeroo Bennie Buckero, a man who, in
theory could lasso a calf, in reality could barely lasso
(06:49):
the TV remote control. That's just the reality. So Benny
Bucco Buckaroo or Buckeroo, Benny, whatever you want to call me.
So every true great party eventually involves a bad idea.
I'm not a big party guys, you know, I'm an introvert.
I try to limit it to mallard meet and greets,
(07:10):
and that's for bonding.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
With you, the listener.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So I just don't go to too many parties. But
I do know from the times I've been to parties
that normally there's a bad idea that becomes a good thing.
So some involve trampolines, some involve karaoke. This one involved
a mechanical bull, the great equalizer of bravado and machismo
and balance.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Now, I last was at a bar.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
There's a place and I don't even know it's still
there on Sunset in Hollywood. I used to go to
when I was younger, and they had a mechanical bull
and it was it was fun. I mean, most of
the people were there just to look at the hot
girls that would go on the mechanical bull and go
flying off the mechanical bull. But the mechanical bulls are
a fascinating invention. They were first introduced in the nineteen thirties.
(07:58):
Right the nineteen thirties. I thought, that's almost one hundred
years at an amusement park in New Jersey. And how
do I know that? Because I was like, I was
sitting there at this thing, and I was like, I
have mechanical bulls. I wonder how long they've been around.
So I guess since I started a Jersey, which I
guess means the original version likely tossed men in three
piece suits and women in floral dresses into the dirt
(08:18):
around Atlantic City. But the true pop culture coronation, as
I understand it, came in nineteen eighty when Urban Cowboy
turned this contraption at Gilly's Bar into a cinematic icon,
and that was John Travolta. Sissy Spacek was in that
movie Legends of that Era. However, the real star was
(08:40):
this rotating, bucking, ridiculous piece of machinery that has spent
the last four decades separating cowboys or fake cowboys from
their dignity.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now, yours truly did not ride the ball.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I'd like to alert all the podcast affiliates there are
none that I did not ride the bull. So this
was not out of fear, well, not only out of fear.
My lovely wife, knowing full well that I could trip
over a cordless phone, benched me pre eminently, your klutz,
You're gonna hurt yourself. I'm not spending the night in
(09:18):
the er that kind of stuff. You know, need your
healthy now. She also announced that she wasn't going to
ride the bull either. She let me know right away,
I am not planning on riding the bull. But here's
the funny thing about declarations made before a few margaritas
at a party filled with friends. There's this thing called
peer pressure. You mix that with alcohol, and by the
(09:39):
end of the night, my wife had gone on the
mechanical bul not one, not two, not three, not four,
not five, how about six rides later, and you could
nickname her Calamity Jane reincarnated, clinging to the bull like
a rodeo legend. If mechanical bull riding ever made the Olympics,
and why not? They have all these other food, gazy
things in the My wife is bringing home the gold
(10:03):
and she'll wrap herself in the flag. It's gonna be great.
It canna win a gold medal. So there, I was
not riding the bull, but I was at the party
and I was socializing.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And I had my.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Apple watch trapped on like some futuristic sheriff badge in
the Old West, Like what is that thing? And my
job I didn't know this when I showed up to
the party. My job was the timer. I was timing
each bull ride fifteen seconds here, thirty seconds here, one
minute there.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
The crowd would go wild.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Is if someone was storming Normandy with a pair of
boots and a stubborn spring. So the mechanical bull riding
is an underrated metaphor for adulthood, like nobody actually looks
very good doing it.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
You can't look graceful on a bull.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
You're flailing away, you're trying to grip, you're making weird faces,
you know, and people are recording it with their phones
to use against you at future points in time. And
everyone's getting thrown off. No one survives the bull. Everyone
gets thrown off, and in many ways that's life. You
hold on you get tossed around in life, and if
(11:14):
you're lucky, someone's laughing with you and not at you
by the time it's all over. And there was something
almost cinematic about Norco. I haven't spent much time there.
It's just want to be clear, it's not la as
I said. There's no skyline, there's no bums over there,
there's no trash. It's just different. It's a California where
(11:38):
people have space. There's goats, there's pigs, there's turkeys, there's chickens.
The whole thing a fluffy cow named Jet that was
the birthday gift to my wife's friend. Beautiful black, fluffy
cow that seemed to be a little scared of all
the attention the cow was getting. Jet was running around
(11:59):
its little cage there, and he was the star though.
Jet was the star of the livestock show. And it
reminded me that some people's daily existence is so different
than mine. It's like a petting zo These people live
in like a petting zoo. Mine involves a microphone and
my bulldog named Moxie, who, by the way, I'm gonna
(12:19):
post some photos at some point today, so check out
the social media pages for the show, the Facebook page
and the Instagram page. I'm gonna post some photos. And
you gotta see this photo of Moxie, ourf who let's
just say she put it on thick when I put
on my cowboy costume to go to this event, and
she really really nailed it. Listen that these people that
(12:44):
live at this place, their morning involves like chicken feeds sunrises.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's not my life. I go to bed when the
sun comes up.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
And there's a particular sound of mechanical bull makes when
someone hits the ground around the bull, that thud, and
then there's little laughter and the clapter, and then there's
there's a groan and there's more laughter, and for this night,
that was the soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Like, that's what we got, right, We got these people say,
I know there's people casually. These are my wife's friends.
I know them casually. They're nice people. They're good, they're
nice seeing.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Them, they always smile. They're nice to me. Even if
they don't like me, they pretend to like me. And
I imagine the next the next morning for these people
was less laughter and more pharmacy grade ibuprofen. Like alcohol
has a marvelous way of delaying pain, it does not
have a marvelous way of canceling it.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
But in that moment under.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
The string lights, you know, the old Western themed the
set up there, the cowboy hats, as the bull bucked,
the turkeys gobbled off to the side, the chickens were
doing their thing, and it just it was like the simplest,
dumbest night.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It was fun, you know, the moment just kind of
stuck there.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
There people drinking margaritas, there was plenty of food. They
had a taco guy there because you think Old West,
you think tacos.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
It was just good and anyway, maybe this was what
we're we're all doing. Think about it.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
As I was leaving and I was kind of like
processing everything that happened, and I wrote a few.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Notes down as I was leaving this.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
This party, and in some way writing a mechanical bull.
We obviously didn't build it, it just showed up.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
You rent it.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
It's like a couple grand to rent. They didn't even
can rent these things. Imagine the liability on that. And
so I think, wow, we you know, we got this
under control. And you know, trying to last just a
few more seconds before gravity wins, and you want to
impress everyone, and you cling to it and you wobble
and wobble, wobble, wobble, and you laugh and people clap
and cheer, and then people dust you off and somebody
(14:50):
hand you a drink, and you.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Know that's it. Here you go.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You almost made it. You almost survive right right there. Congratulations,
And if you're lucky, someone's there like me with an
apple watch keeping time, not to measure how long you
stayed on, but to remember, for a brief, ridiculous moment
in time, we were both in the arena, and I
was the man in the arena. I was the timekeeper
(15:16):
in the arena, but I was in the arena. So
if you need a timekeeper. If you're planning on having
a Western party, I will travel, I do weddings, I
do bar mitzvah's, I do birthday parties obviously, and I
do Western theme events. So saddle up, my friend. Life
does not stop. It does not stop. It does not stop.
Bucking the whole thing. I am Buckeroo, Benny or Benny
(15:37):
the Buckeroo.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Now turning the.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Page on that, we had a great mitzvah that took
place on the radio show this weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I want to I want to share it with you.
It happened the other day and I don't know if
you were listening.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I think this goes way back to We debuted it
on Monday into.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Tuesdays, so I guess it was early Tuesday. And this
is one of those things.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
There's moments when you do this job, when the universe
gives you the thumbs up. It just does not the
corporate memo. You're not allowed to talk about. That not
the engagement metrics that are you must be in the
twenty five to fifty four demo.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Got to be in the twenty five to fifty four demo.
Wink wink.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Now I'm talking about the real thing, the out of nowhere,
middle of the night, lightning in a bottle, kind of
a sign from the gods, and it happens quite a bit.
It happened again, a little audio care package sent from
the Buckeye State. A man who is well known in
(16:38):
the mal Ard Militia. One of the great songwriters. You
think of the legends and the Malam Militia, he's right
up there with Jay Scoop and Just Josh and all
the others are Buddy and Richmond that have sent songs in.
We're talking about Ohio Al and Ohio Al. If you
listen to this podcast, you know he has often featured
here with the little vignettes that we use Ohio Al.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I don't know much about what.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Makes him working all about IIOWI often spends his nights
in my head, futzing around in his garage with his guitar, and.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
He's got all his toys.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
He's got, you know, kind of a raspy voice at times,
and he's got this supernatural understanding of a very particular,
very strange community of radio listeners and callers.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Not listeners. The listeners are normal.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
The callers are a little on the edge on the spectrum,
as we like to say.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And so he sent in a song and I'm gonna
play it.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I want to talk about it here first and set
it up as a DJ one oh two point seven
kiss f M or something like that. So I'm gonna
play it, I promise you. And you guys have been
say employed some of these songs. All right, we're gonna
play this on the podcast, and we've got it cued up.
This is not just any song. Okay, I'm gonna set
this up and then you're gonna hear it and you'd
(17:53):
be like, oh, that was.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
You know, that's everything.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So this is a Doors knockoff that would make Jim
Morris and sit up from wherever leather pants wearing poets
go when they leave.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Us behind the pearly gates. You know what I'm saying.
I don't know. Just the tune was people are Strange,
which is perfect. I don't know if I said this
on the air or not. Maybe I did.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I know that I was talking to some friends about
the show and I think this was off.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
The air, and they're like, well, what song sums up
the show?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And I was like, oh, the Doors people are Strange
and this is people are strange, but it's reimagined, repurposed,
and rebranded into a malar militia anthem. It's catchy, it's clever.
I think you'll agree, but you'll be the judge of that.
It will become for my purposes the Halloween theme soundtrack
of overnight sports talk radio, the oddball corner of the
(18:49):
American media landscape, which is not mainstream because we're on
at night. If we were on during the day, that
would be different. Not on six am to six pm.
Those are mainstream shows, those of corporate shows.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
We are the afterthought.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
We are where insomniacs, the night shift workers, the degenerates,
the dreamers, and we're there for things that go bump
in the night when the goblins are out running around
and their spaceships were on. So this was not just music.
This was us and that's why I'm excited to play
it for you. Over the years, the Ben Malor Show
(19:25):
has become less and less of a sports show and
more and more of it's a radio program, but it's
kind of more just a late night speak easy where
the weird and wonderful show up in full technicolor, and
the way each hour starts out Normally we start out
with a Malard monologue, which is typically sporty, normally complaining
(19:47):
about something that is ridiculous or ripping someone that lost
the game. And then we open up the phones in
the B block and the B blocks about the calls,
and then we have a game or something goofy. We'd
be in we do in the C block. That's normally
how the show goes. And you know the characters in
the show. You got blind Scott from Boston, Hurricane who's
(20:07):
in a Red Sox cap unless he's not because he
doesn't know he's wearing. You got Marcella and Brooklyn with
his morning food picks, who thinks he's reinventing radio. My
man Lucky Tony, who's been dumped more than anyone on
the show the last couple of years. He was always
got a jab at that hater of the show, David Veasse.
You've got hollering James, whose nickname is as literal as
(20:28):
a nickname cats. You've got Jet who fled Dick and
Dayton weed Man who's the big star now with Asco
weed Man, Mike the Leprechaun, obviously, the characters that work
on the show behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You've got a rogue gallery.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
There's some other names as well, but it's a Vaughtvillian
act as what it is. It's like a midnight opera company,
and I love it. I didn't start out trying to
do this kind of show. It just kind of morphed
into that in Ohio, al somehow, some way fit nearly
all of those characters, the big stars on the mallad Militia.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Right now into the song that I'm about to.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Play, like a musical role call of your audio family
that doesn't quite fit anywhere else, and you don't really
want anyone to know about them. They're just for your
late night alone time. And that's one of the cool
things about people are strange. When Jim Morrison wrote it
before I was Alive in the nineteen sixty nineteen sixty seven,
(21:29):
it wasn't about the trip. It was about being the stranger,
being the one on the outside looking in, feeling like
you're walking through the rain while the rest of the
world dries off.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
And when you don't know someone, people do give you
very odd looks. I get more odd looks than anyone
because I'm a very big guy.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I'm tall guy, and I'm intimidating to little people.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I rotate nuts.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Well.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Women always give strange looks, so they try not to
look at you at all. But men in general also
with me. Oh man, you're a big guy. I'm gon
leave you alone. But it's the same energy that we get,
you know, late at night, overnight, two in the morning,
three in the morning, whatever it might be. The lights
are out, the highways are empty. The only sound is
some lunatic with a big mouth barking into a microphone
(22:19):
in a darkened radio studio in Sherman Oaks talking about
Dave Roberts and his Shenanigans. It's that space for the
misfits who couldn't get on in the daylight, wouldn't be
a loud in polite society in the daylight, but have
found a home together. I'm the general. You are in
(22:41):
the malad militia. You're part of the darkness. We had
our buddy, our box car guy, call up this week
in Iowa and do the oath. But how there's an
old line from this guy. I've used the line from
the man that shot Liberty Balance. But there's this guy
named Tony Wilson who also gave a version of that quote,
(23:02):
this is a myth making a guy behind the legendary
factory records back in the day, and his quote, which
is very similar to the man that shot Liberty Valance quote.
If it's a choice between the truth and the legend,
you print the legend, you go with the legend. And
that's what happens on the Ben Mahler Show Overnight. It's
(23:23):
been the secret sauce.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Of the show.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Right, legends have been born in our little world in
the dead hours of the night. They say, nothing good
happens after midnight unless you're on overnight sports radio. Nobody's
fact checking Cowboy and windsor nobody's work shopping weed man's
ramblings in a focus group.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It just happens.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
They exist, They become part of the fabric of what
this is.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
And then, if you're lucky.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Somebody like Ohio I'll picks up a guitar and starts
futzing around on his garage and next thing you know,
we have a song, so we're about to play it.
I did want to remind you to listen and watch
Benny Versus the Penny. It's week eight, already Week eight
in the NFL season. We would love to have you
consume our product there Week eight of the NFL season,
(24:19):
all the games, myself and Tom Looney.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
It's on YouTube at Benny Vspenny.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That's at Benny Vspenny if you would like to consume
the product there, and we'll have a mail bag tomorrow.
I will be back from Nevada into a SoCal at
some point later today.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'll be set up. There have some things to do
in La La.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Land when I get back to town, my home base,
and and're going to try to watch some college football,
a little bit of college football, obviously the.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Big event at the big event of that, you know
what that is.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Anyway, I have a wonderful rest of your day, and
I'm just gonna leave you with Ohio. I'm going to
play the song here and enjoy it. I just did
about ten minutes on how great the song is. So
without further ado, we now hand the powerful microphones of
the Fifth Hour Podcast with Ben Maler and Danny g
Radio two ohioal for a little knockoff version of People
(25:22):
Are Strange, the Malard Militia version. Asta pasta. See what
I did there, Danny, I said, Asta pasta, And here
it is Ohio.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Aw Black Scott is foot fifth, three different calls leaving
mysel old days, de.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Confuse Love Get Tone's dumping on the best say Halo
and James is taking a Susie.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
They're all strange.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
The malliblish you can't change because that's strange. And then
they're remembers the names because it's strange.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
They're all strange.
Speaker 6 (26:16):
Jed who bleeds proud and the redneck rivi Era, the
Dixter so proud of his calling show win a weed
man is Wine and the bagging full Moon and leprecnspew
and his crab jokes again.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
They're all strange, Hage Coop.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
De loop screen and their calls.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Because that's strange. Lorena is busting their balls because that strange.
They're all strange.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
M h.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
They're all strange.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Has balor militia. Can't change because this strange. It's been
a remembers and names because it dram They're all strange.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Hell yeah, my Felicia m
Kabooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a sol fastion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g
Radio celebrating World Pasta Day as we broadcast from the
remote studio somewhere in the bowels of the iHeartMedia Building,
unless it's not. As we're yapping away here celebrating pasta,
which has been around for five since five thousand BC
(00:54):
and came to America. We've talked about this before in
the podcast because I think we've been on during World
Pasta Day in the past. But President Jefferson was in
Perie back in the day and somebody served him some pasta.
He called it macaroni. He loved it so much. How
much did he love it? He brought back a ton
of it and He's like, I got to bring that
(01:15):
to America.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I mean, I love this macarona.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Of course it might not have actually been what we
call macaroni today, but he returned with a couple of
cases of this stuff, and then that helped spread the
joy of pasta. The big bumpety bump in mass production
of pasta was oh, you know the rest. Campbell's Soup
(01:39):
Company invented the canned pasta known as Spaghettio's, Oh Spaghettio,
and that became a big deal. Now as a kid,
it was in my rotation, and they determined the people
that may the pasta determined that kids could eat the
(02:03):
O shape rings without making a mess, and that was
bull crap. I was able to make a mess. My
mom's not here, but she would tell you she was
still around that I did make make a mess. Some
of the other ideas when they were making Spaghettio's, they
were like, well, let's make a little cowboys or you know,
coo cowboys.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And Indians racist. Well, they would have had to cancel
Campbells if they had done that.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
They thought about maybe spacemen or stars, or shapes of
footballs and baseballs, but they determined that the oh was
good and it rhymes spaghetti Oh kind of flows and
the whole thing. And then a few years after Campbells
came around the chain restaurant, the Old Spaghetti Factory opened
its first location in Portland and they're still around.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
There's still a few in my area.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So it is World pasta day celebrate appropriately on this podcast,
The Fifth Hour with Me and Danny g on this Saturday,
we've got in honor of National Past today we have
the Spaghetti Western, a story that has never before been told.
What you're about to hear the first time ever. This
(03:15):
story will be told on any microphone anywhere. And also
the odd ball Corner, which is our corner. It's our corner,
is what it is? Yes, all right, so listen. There
is a moment somewhere between the second Margarita and the
fourth rendition in your head of friends in low places,
(03:38):
when life stops pretending to be complicated, right, and you
just kind of tip your hat and you say, how
do partner and let the absurdity trot on through. So
that moment happened again recently in my life this past weekend,
a story that I've saved for this podcast. On the
far edges of Los Angeles County, a little place called Norco, California,
(04:02):
a town that has more saddles than Starbucks.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It does have a Starbucks, but it has more saddles.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
They have wide things near the road, a little like
dirt things to walk your horse. There's more livestock than Tesla's,
which is odd in California. And the concept of an
HOA a homeowner's association likely involves actual horses, a stampede
of horses.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Now, I was not there as a gas bag. I
was visiting.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I was there by marriage, as we have pointed out.
And you know this if you're also married. That is
how these things work. When you say I do and
you sign the contract. At some point in the journey
of life, you find yourself in a newly purchased cowboy hat,
standing next to three goats, a fluffy cow named Jet
and timing a mechanical bull that people are riding on
(04:53):
like a man auditioning for some kind of endorsement deal
with a stopwatch company. We were there for my my
wife's longtime co workers fiftieth birthday bash. Nice Woman, Good House.
It was her home Western theme. It was a fandego,
as they said in the Old West. A shindig, a
real gudea up and go kind of party, and so
(05:17):
it's kind of walking through this. So I don't own
cowboy boots. I have very big feet. I don't own
cowboy boots. I don't own spurs. I have watched the
San Antonio Spurs play, but I don't own spurs. However,
I do own what can only be described as a
Canadian tuxedo. We've talked about this in the past, a
full denim ensemble acquired on my somewhat recent trip to Vancouver.
(05:39):
We talked about yesterday I did this love note to Toronto,
but I talked about Canada because the Dodgers and Blue
Jays playing, and I mentioned Nico and here we are again.
I got that when we went to Vancouver, the Canadian tuxedo,
when Nico rolled out the red carpet, and you know,
the red carpet in Canada is covered in maple syrup
and hospitality. But that outfit, I didn't think I'd ever
(06:01):
wear it again. I thought, well, this is the only
time I'm in Canada, I'm gonna wear the Canadian tuxedo.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And I had the bolo tie, the whole thing, and
I said, oh no, I want to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And it's the kind of an outfit that makes you
feel like an extra and a B list spaghetti western, right,
the kind that ends up face down in a saloon
after the first scene that was me okay in the
spaghetti western on World pasta Day.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So I put on the tuxedo.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I topped it with the authentic cowboy hat which still
had the label on it, and just like that, poof,
I was no longer Benny from Benny versus the Penny
and the radio. No no no, I had a nickname change.
I was Benny Buckeroo Bennie Buckero, a man who, in
theory could lasso a calf, in reality could barely lasso
(06:49):
the TV remote control. That's just the reality. So Benny
Bucco Buckaroo or Buckeroo, Benny, whatever you want to call me.
So every true great party eventually involves a bad idea.
I'm not a big party guys, you know, I'm an introvert.
I try to limit it to mallard meet and greets,
(07:10):
and that's for bonding.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
With you, the listener.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So I just don't go to too many parties. But
I do know from the times I've been to parties
that normally there's a bad idea that becomes a good thing.
So some involve trampolines, some involve karaoke. This one involved
a mechanical bull, the great equalizer of bravado and machismo
and balance.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Now, I last was at a bar.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
There's a place and I don't even know it's still
there on Sunset in Hollywood. I used to go to
when I was younger, and they had a mechanical bull
and it was it was fun. I mean, most of
the people were there just to look at the hot
girls that would go on the mechanical bull and go
flying off the mechanical bull. But the mechanical bulls are
a fascinating invention. They were first introduced in the nineteen thirties.
(07:58):
Right the nineteen thirties. I thought, that's almost one hundred
years at an amusement park in New Jersey. And how
do I know that? Because I was like, I was
sitting there at this thing, and I was like, I
have mechanical bulls. I wonder how long they've been around.
So I guess since I started a Jersey, which I
guess means the original version likely tossed men in three
piece suits and women in floral dresses into the dirt
(08:18):
around Atlantic City. But the true pop culture coronation, as
I understand it, came in nineteen eighty when Urban Cowboy
turned this contraption at Gilly's Bar into a cinematic icon,
and that was John Travolta. Sissy Spacek was in that
movie Legends of that Era. However, the real star was
(08:40):
this rotating, bucking, ridiculous piece of machinery that has spent
the last four decades separating cowboys or fake cowboys from
their dignity.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now, yours truly did not ride the ball.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I'd like to alert all the podcast affiliates there are
none that I did not ride the bull. So this
was not out of fear, well, not only out of fear.
My lovely wife, knowing full well that I could trip
over a cordless phone, benched me pre eminently, your klutz,
You're gonna hurt yourself. I'm not spending the night in
(09:18):
the er that kind of stuff. You know, need your
healthy now. She also announced that she wasn't going to
ride the bull either. She let me know right away,
I am not planning on riding the bull. But here's
the funny thing about declarations made before a few margaritas
at a party filled with friends. There's this thing called
peer pressure. You mix that with alcohol, and by the
(09:39):
end of the night, my wife had gone on the
mechanical bul not one, not two, not three, not four,
not five, how about six rides later, and you could
nickname her Calamity Jane reincarnated, clinging to the bull like
a rodeo legend. If mechanical bull riding ever made the Olympics,
and why not? They have all these other food, gazy
things in the My wife is bringing home the gold
(10:03):
and she'll wrap herself in the flag. It's gonna be great.
It canna win a gold medal. So there, I was
not riding the bull, but I was at the party
and I was socializing.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And I had my.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Apple watch trapped on like some futuristic sheriff badge in
the Old West, Like what is that thing? And my
job I didn't know this when I showed up to
the party. My job was the timer. I was timing
each bull ride fifteen seconds here, thirty seconds here, one
minute there.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
The crowd would go wild.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Is if someone was storming Normandy with a pair of
boots and a stubborn spring. So the mechanical bull riding
is an underrated metaphor for adulthood, like nobody actually looks
very good doing it.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
You can't look graceful on a bull.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
You're flailing away, you're trying to grip, you're making weird faces,
you know, and people are recording it with their phones
to use against you at future points in time. And
everyone's getting thrown off. No one survives the bull. Everyone
gets thrown off, and in many ways that's life. You
hold on you get tossed around in life, and if
(11:14):
you're lucky, someone's laughing with you and not at you
by the time it's all over. And there was something
almost cinematic about Norco. I haven't spent much time there.
It's just want to be clear, it's not la as
I said. There's no skyline, there's no bums over there,
there's no trash. It's just different. It's a California where
(11:38):
people have space. There's goats, there's pigs, there's turkeys, there's chickens.
The whole thing a fluffy cow named Jet that was
the birthday gift to my wife's friend. Beautiful black, fluffy
cow that seemed to be a little scared of all
the attention the cow was getting. Jet was running around
(11:59):
its little cage there, and he was the star though.
Jet was the star of the livestock show. And it
reminded me that some people's daily existence is so different
than mine. It's like a petting zo These people live
in like a petting zoo. Mine involves a microphone and
my bulldog named Moxie, who, by the way, I'm gonna
(12:19):
post some photos at some point today, so check out
the social media pages for the show, the Facebook page
and the Instagram page. I'm gonna post some photos. And
you gotta see this photo of Moxie, ourf who let's
just say she put it on thick when I put
on my cowboy costume to go to this event, and
she really really nailed it. Listen that these people that
(12:44):
live at this place, their morning involves like chicken feeds sunrises.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's not my life. I go to bed when the
sun comes up.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
And there's a particular sound of mechanical bull makes when
someone hits the ground around the bull, that thud, and
then there's little laughter and the clapter, and then there's
there's a groan and there's more laughter, and for this night,
that was the soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Like, that's what we got, right, We got these people say,
I know there's people casually. These are my wife's friends.
I know them casually. They're nice people. They're good, they're
nice seeing.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Them, they always smile. They're nice to me. Even if
they don't like me, they pretend to like me. And
I imagine the next the next morning for these people
was less laughter and more pharmacy grade ibuprofen. Like alcohol
has a marvelous way of delaying pain, it does not
have a marvelous way of canceling it.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
But in that moment under.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
The string lights, you know, the old Western themed the
set up there, the cowboy hats, as the bull bucked,
the turkeys gobbled off to the side, the chickens were
doing their thing, and it just it was like the simplest,
dumbest night.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It was fun, you know, the moment just kind of
stuck there.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
There people drinking margaritas, there was plenty of food. They
had a taco guy there because you think Old West,
you think tacos.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
It was just good and anyway, maybe this was what
we're we're all doing. Think about it.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
As I was leaving and I was kind of like
processing everything that happened, and I wrote a few.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Notes down as I was leaving this.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
This party, and in some way writing a mechanical bull.
We obviously didn't build it, it just showed up.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
You rent it.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
It's like a couple grand to rent. They didn't even
can rent these things. Imagine the liability on that. And
so I think, wow, we you know, we got this
under control. And you know, trying to last just a
few more seconds before gravity wins, and you want to
impress everyone, and you cling to it and you wobble
and wobble, wobble, wobble, and you laugh and people clap
and cheer, and then people dust you off and somebody
(14:50):
hand you a drink, and you.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Know that's it. Here you go.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You almost made it. You almost survive right right there. Congratulations,
And if you're lucky, someone's there like me with an
apple watch keeping time, not to measure how long you
stayed on, but to remember, for a brief, ridiculous moment
in time, we were both in the arena, and I
was the man in the arena. I was the timekeeper
(15:16):
in the arena, but I was in the arena. So
if you need a timekeeper. If you're planning on having
a Western party, I will travel, I do weddings, I
do bar mitzvah's, I do birthday parties obviously, and I
do Western theme events. So saddle up, my friend. Life
does not stop. It does not stop. It does not stop.
Bucking the whole thing. I am Buckeroo, Benny or Benny
(15:37):
the Buckeroo.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Now turning the.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Page on that, we had a great mitzvah that took
place on the radio show this weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I want to I want to share it with you.
It happened the other day and I don't know if
you were listening.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I think this goes way back to We debuted it
on Monday into.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Tuesdays, so I guess it was early Tuesday. And this
is one of those things.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
There's moments when you do this job, when the universe
gives you the thumbs up. It just does not the
corporate memo. You're not allowed to talk about. That not
the engagement metrics that are you must be in the
twenty five to fifty four demo.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Got to be in the twenty five to fifty four demo.
Wink wink.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Now I'm talking about the real thing, the out of nowhere,
middle of the night, lightning in a bottle, kind of
a sign from the gods, and it happens quite a bit.
It happened again, a little audio care package sent from
the Buckeye State. A man who is well known in
(16:38):
the mal Ard Militia. One of the great songwriters. You
think of the legends and the Malam Militia, he's right
up there with Jay Scoop and Just Josh and all
the others are Buddy and Richmond that have sent songs in.
We're talking about Ohio Al and Ohio Al. If you
listen to this podcast, you know he has often featured
here with the little vignettes that we use Ohio Al.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I don't know much about what.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Makes him working all about IIOWI often spends his nights
in my head, futzing around in his garage with his guitar, and.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
He's got all his toys.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
He's got, you know, kind of a raspy voice at times,
and he's got this supernatural understanding of a very particular,
very strange community of radio listeners and callers.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Not listeners. The listeners are normal.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
The callers are a little on the edge on the spectrum,
as we like to say.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And so he sent in a song and I'm gonna
play it.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I want to talk about it here first and set
it up as a DJ one oh two point seven
kiss f M or something like that. So I'm gonna
play it, I promise you. And you guys have been
say employed some of these songs. All right, we're gonna
play this on the podcast, and we've got it cued up.
This is not just any song. Okay, I'm gonna set
this up and then you're gonna hear it and you'd
(17:53):
be like, oh, that was.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
You know, that's everything.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So this is a Doors knockoff that would make Jim
Morris and sit up from wherever leather pants wearing poets
go when they leave.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Us behind the pearly gates. You know what I'm saying.
I don't know. Just the tune was people are Strange,
which is perfect. I don't know if I said this
on the air or not. Maybe I did.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I know that I was talking to some friends about
the show and I think this was off.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
The air, and they're like, well, what song sums up
the show?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And I was like, oh, the Doors people are Strange
and this is people are strange, but it's reimagined, repurposed,
and rebranded into a malar militia anthem. It's catchy, it's clever.
I think you'll agree, but you'll be the judge of that.
It will become for my purposes the Halloween theme soundtrack
of overnight sports talk radio, the oddball corner of the
(18:49):
American media landscape, which is not mainstream because we're on
at night. If we were on during the day, that
would be different. Not on six am to six pm.
Those are mainstream shows, those of corporate shows.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
We are the afterthought.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
We are where insomniacs, the night shift workers, the degenerates,
the dreamers, and we're there for things that go bump
in the night when the goblins are out running around
and their spaceships were on. So this was not just music.
This was us and that's why I'm excited to play
it for you. Over the years, the Ben Malor Show
(19:25):
has become less and less of a sports show and
more and more of it's a radio program, but it's
kind of more just a late night speak easy where
the weird and wonderful show up in full technicolor, and
the way each hour starts out Normally we start out
with a Malard monologue, which is typically sporty, normally complaining
(19:47):
about something that is ridiculous or ripping someone that lost
the game. And then we open up the phones in
the B block and the B blocks about the calls,
and then we have a game or something goofy. We'd
be in we do in the C block. That's normally
how the show goes. And you know the characters in
the show. You got blind Scott from Boston, Hurricane who's
(20:07):
in a Red Sox cap unless he's not because he
doesn't know he's wearing. You got Marcella and Brooklyn with
his morning food picks, who thinks he's reinventing radio. My
man Lucky Tony, who's been dumped more than anyone on
the show the last couple of years. He was always
got a jab at that hater of the show, David Veasse.
You've got hollering James, whose nickname is as literal as
(20:28):
a nickname cats. You've got Jet who fled Dick and
Dayton weed Man who's the big star now with Asco
weed Man, Mike the Leprechaun, obviously, the characters that work
on the show behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You've got a rogue gallery.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
There's some other names as well, but it's a Vaughtvillian
act as what it is. It's like a midnight opera company,
and I love it. I didn't start out trying to
do this kind of show. It just kind of morphed
into that in Ohio, al somehow, some way fit nearly
all of those characters, the big stars on the mallad Militia.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Right now into the song that I'm about to.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Play, like a musical role call of your audio family
that doesn't quite fit anywhere else, and you don't really
want anyone to know about them. They're just for your
late night alone time. And that's one of the cool
things about people are strange. When Jim Morrison wrote it
before I was Alive in the nineteen sixty nineteen sixty seven,
(21:29):
it wasn't about the trip. It was about being the stranger,
being the one on the outside looking in, feeling like
you're walking through the rain while the rest of the
world dries off.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
And when you don't know someone, people do give you
very odd looks. I get more odd looks than anyone
because I'm a very big guy.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I'm tall guy, and I'm intimidating to little people.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I rotate nuts.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Well.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Women always give strange looks, so they try not to
look at you at all. But men in general also
with me. Oh man, you're a big guy. I'm gon
leave you alone. But it's the same energy that we get,
you know, late at night, overnight, two in the morning,
three in the morning, whatever it might be. The lights
are out, the highways are empty. The only sound is
some lunatic with a big mouth barking into a microphone
(22:19):
in a darkened radio studio in Sherman Oaks talking about
Dave Roberts and his Shenanigans. It's that space for the
misfits who couldn't get on in the daylight, wouldn't be
a loud in polite society in the daylight, but have
found a home together. I'm the general. You are in
(22:41):
the malad militia. You're part of the darkness. We had
our buddy, our box car guy, call up this week
in Iowa and do the oath. But how there's an
old line from this guy. I've used the line from
the man that shot Liberty Balance. But there's this guy
named Tony Wilson who also gave a version of that quote,
(23:02):
this is a myth making a guy behind the legendary
factory records back in the day, and his quote, which
is very similar to the man that shot Liberty Valance quote.
If it's a choice between the truth and the legend,
you print the legend, you go with the legend. And
that's what happens on the Ben Mahler Show Overnight. It's
(23:23):
been the secret sauce.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Of the show.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Right, legends have been born in our little world in
the dead hours of the night. They say, nothing good
happens after midnight unless you're on overnight sports radio. Nobody's
fact checking Cowboy and windsor nobody's work shopping weed man's
ramblings in a focus group.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It just happens.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
They exist, They become part of the fabric of what
this is.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
And then, if you're lucky.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Somebody like Ohio I'll picks up a guitar and starts
futzing around on his garage and next thing you know,
we have a song, so we're about to play it.
I did want to remind you to listen and watch
Benny Versus the Penny. It's week eight, already Week eight
in the NFL season. We would love to have you
consume our product there Week eight of the NFL season,
(24:19):
all the games, myself and Tom Looney.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
It's on YouTube at Benny Vspenny.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That's at Benny Vspenny if you would like to consume
the product there, and we'll have a mail bag tomorrow.
I will be back from Nevada into a SoCal at
some point later today.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'll be set up. There have some things to do
in La La.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Land when I get back to town, my home base,
and and're going to try to watch some college football,
a little bit of college football, obviously the.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Big event at the big event of that, you know
what that is.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Anyway, I have a wonderful rest of your day, and
I'm just gonna leave you with Ohio. I'm going to
play the song here and enjoy it. I just did
about ten minutes on how great the song is. So
without further ado, we now hand the powerful microphones of
the Fifth Hour Podcast with Ben Maler and Danny g
Radio two ohioal for a little knockoff version of People
(25:22):
Are Strange, the Malard Militia version. Asta pasta. See what
I did there, Danny, I said, Asta pasta, And here
it is Ohio.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Aw Black Scott is foot fifth, three different calls leaving
mysel old days, de.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Confuse Love Get Tone's dumping on the best say Halo
and James is taking a Susie.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
They're all strange.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
The malliblish you can't change because that's strange. And then
they're remembers the names because it's strange.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
They're all strange.
Speaker 6 (26:16):
Jed who bleeds proud and the redneck rivi Era, the
Dixter so proud of his calling show win a weed
man is Wine and the bagging full Moon and leprecnspew
and his crab jokes again.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
They're all strange, Hage Coop.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
De loop screen and their calls.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Because that's strange. Lorena is busting their balls because that strange.
They're all strange.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
M h.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
They're all strange.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Has balor militia. Can't change because this strange. It's been
a remembers and names because it dram They're all strange.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Hell yeah, my Felicia m
Host
Ben Maller
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