The Fifth Hour: Barbershop Benny

Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a fun Friday for you! He talks: Complaints, Poutine, Barbershop Benny, Foodie Follies/Foodie Fun, Word of the Week, & more!

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Episode Transcript

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 soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearing House
of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth

(00:23):
Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio. And we have made it
to the weekend just hours ago, hours ago the Overnight Show,
and I just checked my email before I cranked on
the microphone here in the podcast studio, and complaint after

(00:53):
complaint after complaint, not about anything that I did on
the Overnight Show last night, nothing about my commentary. The
complaints were I don't understand. But why was Lorena not
there was the where was the queen complaining and all
that stuff. And here's the here's the funny thing, right,

(01:14):
And I don't know it's funny or not. Every time
someone on the show is away, I get the complaints,
I get the complaints, and I this was actually this
started before Lorena took the night off because a couple

(01:34):
of days ago she announced that she was not going
to be on last night. People complained. The funny thing is, though,
that people complain when she's there, so I guess it's
one of these weird things. And this goes back to
one of my hypotheses of the past that while people
said back in the day baseball baseball was the past

(01:55):
time of America, I would argue that complaining is the
number one pastime, at least of the overnight talk radio consumer.
People love. They absolutely love complaining. They do. It's wild

(02:20):
and listen. I do too. I complain about things I rant,
I get on my soapbox, issues in sports. It is
a universal hobby though, and it's something the complaint that
we bond over. Right. There is nothing quite like a
good gripe, a good wine fest that takes place. And

(02:45):
whether it's the weather or whether it's a person not
being on a radio show and all that now for
the record, not that you get any kind of award
from the company, because you don't. But I check back
and unless I I miss something, I have not left
my post for a scheduled radio show or podcast. We've

(03:08):
had fresh shows every day all year, and here we
are it's the eleventh day of April, and I'm not
looking for some kind of award. In fact, that's actually
a bad thing. You should take some time off from
time to time, and I do plan on taking a
few days now and again. We're going to Vancouver next

(03:29):
month for the Malard Meet and Greet. I think I'll
be taking a day off in Vancouver actually for the
meet and greet. That's not official. The rumor is it's
gonna be on a Thursday. It's gonna be on Thursday,
the Mallard Meet and Greet in Vancouver. So if that's
the case, we'll probably take that day off from the
live show and be present in the moment at that

(03:49):
particular event. There's also some dates in June that we'll
also be there, and there's some random days here and
there throughout the year, and so we'll see what happens.
I usually what I try to do, and I'm not
one hundred percent what's going to happen with the TV show.
We don't know. Hopefully they bring the show back for
another year, which will be great. And if that's the case,

(04:10):
you got to get all the days off in before
that show resumes production, which is in August, the late
August early September when the NFL season comes around, and
then we feel the crunch crunchy, crunch crunch. Anyway, I
just wanted to point out thank you for the complaints.
I'm sure Loraina is honored that people are upset. She

(04:33):
took the rare and appropriate day off and you guys
love to complain. So on this podcast, we've got the
Barbershop Benny Foody Follies, and we'll also have the always
popular Foodie fun not to be confused with foody follies,
a lot of foodie and the word all the week,

(04:53):
the word of the week. But we begin with this
and this goes back in the hot top time machine. Now,
some of you guys have been with me a long time,
o those of you are new. And it doesn't matter
whether you've been with the show a long time or not.
We've had a lot of great moments. One of the
fun periods of the time of the history of the show,
the Overnight Show, was I mean, we're going way back,

(05:16):
going back over twenty years. So the Chicago Cubs were
in the playoffs and the Cubs were going on a run.
They were on a heater, as the kids like to say,
and it looked like they were going to go to
the World Series. And during this time, we were on
the Score in Chicago, which was where we got Doc

(05:37):
Mike from. It doesn't really call a show much anymore.
So during that time, a listener who was a huge
Cub fan reached out to me and said, Hey, I
got a song and I'd like you to play it
on the air, and I said, okay, I'm hoping to that.
So he sent me the copy of the song. We
played it on the air, and we got in all

(05:57):
kinds of trouble, all kinds of trouble. And it was
a barber shop song. It was called the Chubby Cubby.
I think we might play a little bit of it
right here. The Chubby Cubby got it. We're looking good, Jobby, Yeah,

(06:25):
classic so good. Such a such a wonderful tune back
in the day. And I can't believe people didn't like
the double entondras in that song. Wow uh, But that
brings back a whole bunch of memories. And I brought
this up. And the reason I'm saying barbershop Benny is
today is national barbershop music day. And I didn't know

(06:49):
much about barbershop music. I just knew I liked it.
I liked the sound. And sure enough, it turns out
the origin is self explained to Barbershop music is deeply
rooted in the history of Black America and it goes

(07:09):
back to the eighteen eighties in the South, and the
dudes would hang out with the barbers and others at
the shop and they're waiting for their haircut, and apparently
you had to wait a long time, and they would
sing and harmonize together just like they were in some

(07:30):
kind of movie for entertainment. It's amazing what people did
before the smartphone, and you have entertainment right now. You
can get in that zombie mode and stare at a screen.
So they didn't have podcasting and radio shows or anything
like that in the eighteen eighties. And so anyway, yeah,
they started singing, and that simple act in the eighteen

(07:54):
eighties turned into a genre called barbershop music, and it
thrive from that point the eighteen eighties until the early
nineteen n nineteen ten, there was a song titled Play
the Barbershop Chord which was released to the public, and
that was all about that. The harmony, the barbershop harmony,

(08:18):
which is so cool, the art of harmonize singing, and
it's the type of performance and we played a little
bit here, but it's a type of performance which is
so good and just catchy lyrics and the melody and
it's it's great. Now it faded away in like the
nineteen nineteen twenties, became less popular, and it's really a

(08:42):
niche type of music even to this day. But the
Chubby Cubby and how we got in some trouble with
the affiliate in Chicago for playing that song along with
Doc Mike. A fond memory, Fond Memory and the hot
tub time machines. We go back to the some of
the early days of the Overnight Show when I was

(09:04):
doing weekend overnights and that was interesting. Now it is
also Poutine day. It is a very important day. My
favorite thing from Canada is poutine. Now I know it's
more of a Quebec thing, and it's a French French dish,
French Canadian dish. And we're going to Vancouver. Oh, I

(09:28):
cannot wait, cannot wait. Looking forward to it certainly kind
of look around and say, like what do I want
to check out. And I've seen Vancouver on the TV.
Remember the Vancouver Canucks have been in the Stanley Cup
Finals and been in big playoff games over the years,
and so occasionally, don't tell anybody, don't tell Eddie, but
I'll watch hockey. And I've seen Vancouver for other things,

(09:49):
and it's a beautiful looking city. And I'm excited to
get there and excited to meet some fans of the show,
fans of this podcast that'll be there and check out
the culture in Vancouver. But one of the things I
would like to do when I'm there is eat the poutine.
I know it's far away from Quebec, but it is

(10:10):
Poutine Day, and poutine is a Canadian dish that is
heavily influenced by the French cuisine. In fact, I read
somewhere that in the regions the French dominated portions of Quebec,
it is pronounced not poutine but poutin, poutin, like Vladimir Putin.

(10:34):
But in Quebec that is where they pronounce it. But
but everyone else outside of Theirs, it's poutine. And if
you don't know what poutine is, you're missing out. You're
missing one of the great joys of life. Poutine. Putine
is a dish that has the you got the French fries,
French fries, you got the cheese curds, and then you
got the basic dishes with brown gravy. That's I guess

(10:55):
the original dish. And other verse versions of poutine. I've
had all kinds of There's a fried chicken version actually
a place here in southern California and Anaheim that has
it's called the Croft. If you're in sokout really good
and they've got this fried chicken version of it Country

(11:16):
Fried Chicken, which is outstanding and you know, mixed together
that put different meats in there, and there's butter and
other ingredients and all that. I'm just kind of kind
of cool, and not too many places that have. And
I know in the Northeast when I was in Boston,
we were were floating around the Northeast states and New

(11:37):
England states and we ran into a fair amount of poutine,
a fair amount of poutine throughout that region. But in
California where we do the show from, not so much.
But this is National Poutine Day, which is celebrated every
year here on April eleventh, and mostly in Canadian cities,

(11:58):
but it's also very popular here in the state. And
the reason that I wanted to bring up Poutine Day
is not that I just want a wax poetic about poutine.
I love poutine, but did you know that boutine was
created in Quebec by mistake about that and it took off.

(12:18):
And that leads us into foody follies, foods that are
tremendously popular that were complete fops in the kitchen. And
as the Great Paul Harvey would say, the Great Paul Harvey,
you know what the news is. You know what the

(12:40):
news is, but you're soon going to hear the rest
of the story. Yeah. When I got into radio, Paul
Harvey was the most listened to person in radio. Everyone
knew who Paul Harvey was. He's been dead for a while.
Nobody knows who Paul Harvey is because it was your
radio boomer. You're mentioning, You're mentioning a guy that's not around.
What Paul Harvey, good day? Anyway, She's supposed to ruffle

(13:04):
papers or something. So the dish, why don't we start
with poutine? Right, We'll do that. I thought this was
interesting and it's the fifth Hour podcast we don't do
sporty here. It's a little extracurricular activity. I think this
kind of stuff's cool. I like futson around in the kitchen.
So it was a mistake. It was a mistake, and

(13:26):
it was created accidentally. We've talked about this in the past.
But this guy named Eddie, not Eddie Garcia, but a
different Eddie. I don't even know how to pronounce his
last name. But this guy was working at a restaurant
in Quebec. He was there and this guy comes in
and he's a regular customer, and the restaurant was located

(13:52):
in Warwick, which is in Quebec. I'm not familiar with
the geography of Quebec, so I just know that they
said it's a town of Warwick, and that town was
known for making cheese kurts. It's a popular dish, cheese skirts. So,
as the legend goes, this guy Eddie, the guy actually

(14:14):
was the guy at the restaurant who worked there, or
actually was the customer. Excuse me, it was a customer.
So he asked for cheese kurts to be added to
his French fried and the restaurant owner replied in French.
He said that is going to make a dreadful mess.

(14:35):
That that was the reply, that is that is going
to make a dreadful mess. Like this was offensive, Like
what are you doing? I mean, we are in the
culinary business. We do not want to serve bad food.
And so, you know, it's you know, typical cliche of
you know, the French guy getting angry and snippy and

(14:58):
all that stuff. And well, they'd made it and people
loved it, other people ate it, and the rest is history.
But it was a kind of a mistake. It was
like they threw it all together and it was a
it was a mess, and it's delicious. The chocolate chip cookie.

(15:19):
Did you know? The chocolate chip cookie, which started at
the toll house in in the Commonwealth, started when Ruth Wakefield,
here's the legend anyway, ran out of chocolate and substituted
it with chalked up, chopped up semi sweet chocolate bits,

(15:40):
and she thought that they would melt into the dough,
but instead they didn't. They held their shape, and that
is the birth of the chocolate chip cookie. Nestley later
bought the recipe and they're still doing pretty well. They're
doing pretty well. The potato chip back in the eighteen fifties. Now,

(16:01):
chocolate chip cookie was invented in the nineteen thirties, but
the potato chip came from Saratoga Springs, New York, famous
for other things. And a guy named George Crumb, George
Crumb in New York, and he was annoyed because customers

(16:21):
were sending back fried potatoes were being too thick and soggy.
So this guy was at the end of his robe.
He was at a I want to get away situation,
so he said, screw it. I'm gonna slice these potatoes
paper thin and I'm gonna fry him. And he did
just that. And the whole plan was to be a

(16:43):
douche and he wanted to annoy the person that was
the picky customer, and the customer loved them, and they
became a sensation, and they were originally called Saratoga Chips,
but again it was to screw over this custom that
was a douche, and then they of course become potato chips.

(17:04):
And yeah, I mean, there's there's a bunch of other
stories like that. Foody follies. The upside down apple tart
came from the eighteen eighties and this guy that ran
the hotel kitchen in France was making a regular apple

(17:24):
pie as we know it today, and the person was
overwhelmed and accidentally left the apples cooking in butter and
sugar for too long. Who goofed, I've got to know.
So in an effort to try to salvage the food,
the person threw the pastry dough on top and baked

(17:45):
it and then flipped it over. And the people at
this hotel in France loved it. Doesn't it seem like
most of these food mistakes are from France. I mean,
we got the you got the poutine, you got this
upside down apple tart thing. Now, this is an La story,
but it's also involving a food mistake of the French variety. Philips,

(18:11):
a restaurant in La which claims the originals Philip the
original Philips. They claim that they were the inventor of
the French dip sandwich, and the legend is that a
French immigrant was working at the restaurant. He kind of
ran the place and he accidentally dropped a delicious, freshly

(18:35):
baked row into a pan of hot beef drippings while
slicing the meat, and the customer who had ordered a sandwich.
He didn't want that, but the guy was in a hurry.
He said, listen, I'll take it anyway. And it was soggy.
It was soaked in juice. I guess this was the
last piece of bread they had and it became a hit.

(18:59):
Now there's another place in La called Coals, which, by
the way, spoiler alert, I like Coals better. Coals, though,
is at the point of demarcation. It's at the doors
of Hell. It is literally across the street from skid
Row Coal's restaurant in downtown La. It's an institution. They
claim they invented the French dip, and they say they

(19:23):
were preparing the sandwich for a customer that had sore
gums and asked for something soft. So the chef dipped
the hard crusted bread we're talking about sliced bread, as
jimbo Fisher would say, and it caught on. It was

(19:44):
there for some guy that had some dental issues in
the arrest is issues, So one of those is probably true,
maybe both. Do you know that Nacho was also a
mistake famous story from Mexico and there was a group,
as the legend goes, of military wives nineteen forty three,

(20:07):
the kitchen was closed. He didn't have a lot of
ingredients and so this guy Ignacio Nacho a Naya so
major d at a restaurant in Mexico. So they didn't
have a lot of stuff in the kitchen. These US
military wives were were there after everything had closed, and

(20:28):
so he felt bad, but he threw together what he had,
which was tortilla chips, melted cheese, and halapanos, and the
women could not get enough. And from that mistake, which
wasn't a mistake, it was an act of kindness. This
guy's life legacy was the inventor of the nacho and

(20:49):
it has evolved and to this day I love a nacho.
I can't get enough cornflakes. We'll get out on this
as far as the food e corn flakes was a mistake.
Doctor John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will the less

(21:09):
famous of the Kellogg brothers, but they were putting around
in the kitchen with boiled wheat at the sanitarium in
Battle Creek, Michigan. So they were trying to create a
healthy cereal. Saw a documentary about this a couple of
years ago, was pretty good, and I don't remember the

(21:30):
name of it, but it's pretty good. I wish I
could help you, but just look up weird cereal documentaries.
So the Kellogg brothers accidentally left some wheat sitting out
a little bit too long and it went stale and
trying to roll it. They're trying to roll it into dough. Anyway,
it started flaking apart. They toasted the flakes and whila.

(21:57):
They later switched to corn cornflakes were born. Will remember
they were trying to make it healthy. Will said, screw that,
We're going to add sugar, and John, doctor John Harvey,
Kellogg's brother, was like, what the f what are you doing?
You are messing up the healthy meal. But they did it.

(22:21):
That's how it went. So we pivot from foody follies,
which aren't really follies, and we go to foody fun
because we all got to eat and some new items.
Some interesting stories from the food world, other than disasters
that turned out to be sick, highly successful disasters that

(22:43):
turned out to be very profitable in the end. What
a burger kicking off the month of April. I know
it's April eleventh, but they have a mushrooms Swiss burger
that is back after a three year hiatus. It has
two grilled all beef panties as opposed to partially beef

(23:04):
melted Swiss cheese. It's got the Aju sauce and grilled mushrooms.
I don't need the mushrooms warm toasted bun and that
will be available till June. Second. Jack in the Box
has decided better late than never. They're getting involved into
the Hot Chicken. Yes, the Nashville Hot Chicken limited time.

(23:30):
If you're in an area with a Jack in the Box,
check that out. Pizza taking a page out of Kentucky
Fried Chickens playbook. Pizza is launching. They just launched. It's
actually going on. It started yesterday, it's going on today
and tomorrow. A Pizza Hut Pepperoni flavored caviar. Say what

(23:55):
gets a new pizza caviar bump box? There is one
small problem. The only way you can get this is
by traveling to Eighth Avenue in New York City. PiZZ
Hut located the one location nine thirty two Eighth Avenue

(24:18):
in New York City, and it's only available from four
o'clock till eight pm this afternoon and then tomorrow. And
that's it. That is all you're done High V. I've
been to a HIGHVE. They're in Missouri and Kansas and
the Midwest, and they have decided to get rid of

(24:42):
the bar. I actually bought some Chiefs merchandise at a
high V. They had a store at the front of
the high Ve that had all kinds of merch It
was very hot. I'd never been to a high V before.
This is when I was last November, when I was
in in Missouri, in Kansas, going back and forth and
so Hive. They apparently at some of the locations they

(25:05):
had bars. They're getting rid of those. They're eliminating full
service dining at the High V grocery store. How about
this one? Olive Garden is no longer number one in
terms of casual dining in the United States. They have
been dethroned. So as you know, I do not do lists.

(25:28):
I do not believe in list. But in honor of
Terry and England, a big supporter of Big Ben's Big Board,
has always liked Big Ben's Big Board. In fact, Terry
and England. Every weekend he sends me a message encouraging
me for more of Big Men's Big Board. He says, Ben,

(25:51):
you've got to do it, we need it, we believe
in you. I demand Big Men's Big Board, I say, Terry,
I just I want you to know it's not he
says Ben. I know it's not a list. You're as
strong as a lion. Come on, give it to me.
So anyway, here it is the ten top ten casual

(26:12):
dining chains in the United States. Now I realize that
if you're not in the United States, you might not
know many of these places. Number ten, number ten on
Big Ben's Big Board. Big Ben's Big Board, Number ten
Red Robin. Red Robin is still despite their issues. They
are number ten Red Lobster. We've done several stories on

(26:37):
this podcast about Red Lobster having problems. Remember they had
the all you can eat shrimp and people ate all
they could eat and it became a problem. Cheesecake Factories
Number eight. I used to eat at Cheesecake Factory all
the time. Big portions used to be somewhat reasonably priced,
and I have not been to Cheesecake Factory in a

(27:00):
fair amount of time. Number seven is Outback Steakhouse, which
I believe just filed for bankruptcy. They're on there. Number
six is Longhorn Steakhouse. These are the top ten on
Big Ben's Big Board casual dining chains according to market research.

(27:20):
So Longhorn Steakhouse, which I have been to, not that good.
Number six, Number five, Buffalo Wild Wings, there you go.
Number five Applebee's is number four of eating at several Applebee's.
It's fine Chili's, Chili's Grill and Bar. Number three, Number

(27:42):
two is Olive Garden and number one on Big Ben's
Big Board. Number one, you know it is no, it's
Texas Roadhouse, not to be confused with Longhorn Steakhouse or
Outback Steakhouse. This is Texas Roadhouse and they are the

(28:04):
new number one. Sales went up fourteen point seven percent
year to year, and they have passed Olive Garden by
and they've passed Chile's by. So I don't think I've
been to a Texas Roadhouse, but may maybe I have
somewhere along the way. It didn't stand out. It did

(28:25):
not stand out. Time now for the word all the week,
that's right, word all the week, and the word of
the week is schmaltzy. So what Mike who lives in
Vegas was listening. I think this was back on Thursday.
Who and I used the word. We were talking about

(28:48):
Luca in his return to Dallas and orgo the Mavericks
putting Luca video tribute on the scoreboard on the jumpotron
was schmaltzy. Now, the word schmaltzy, that is a Yiddish word.
So somewhere across the pearly gates, my grandfather is loving

(29:12):
the fact that I use the word schmaltzy, and it does,
it does come. And then you know, Yiddish as a
language is a combo. It's a it's like a buffet,
a pot luck buffet. You've got a little bit of
the language of the Jews with the Germans, Hebrew, Aramaic,

(29:36):
Slavic elements. It's all that. And the word schmaltzy comes
from the Yiddish term schmaltz, which in its literal form,
as you go down the rabbit hole, means fat or grease.
So when you say schmaltzy, you mean you're fat or
grease or something like that. If you go by the

(29:57):
actual literal definition, it was referring to animal fat like
chicken fat that was used in cooking. So it was
a culinary term and it at some point crossed the
rubicon and has become a modern phrase, which is something
that is overly sentimental, sappy, exaggerated, all of that. So

(30:25):
the evolution of the word schmaltzy, and it goes back.
The original use of it was long long ago, but
by the late nineteen hundreds early twentieth century, the Jewish
immigrants are the ones that brought the word to Americans. Always,
you know, people coming in, they throw stuff together and

(30:48):
it's a good melting pot. I hope people are still
doing that to come to the States and not just
being deuceious. So anyway, it took a twist. The adjective
form schmaltze in Yiddish started to describe things that were
greasy in an emotional sense and a little too sentimental, right,

(31:10):
just like the fat dripping from a roast. You're so sappy,
beer so schmaltzy. And they think that it was actually
tied into the theatrical style of storytelling, Yiddish storytelling, where
there was emotional grease, it was overdone, overdone for effect,

(31:34):
and so in our world in the US and all
that stuff, schmaltzy became a thing the way it's known
now in the nineteen thirty so almost one hundred years ago,
and it was interview in it. It was influenced by
the culture, the Jewish culture in Vaudeville, Vaudevillian films and

(31:54):
literature and things like that, and so that's where it
goes back, used in print and whatnot. And there was
a lot of emotion, tear jerking ballards and some kind
of Hollywood sob story and so the spelling has shifted

(32:15):
around and all that stuff. But it's common means cheesy
and all that. By nineteen thirty five, schmaltzy had made
its way firmly into the American lexicon, but it was
often as a mocking tone anything that was too mushy.

(32:37):
That was where it came from. And again, but its
roots are in fat but it's over indulgence and all
that stuff, and so still still used today. When I
saw that video, the Luca video and him crying on
the bench, I said, that is schmaltzy. That is so sappy,

(32:57):
so so sappy. All right, we'll get out on have
a wonderful, wonderful rest of your Friday. We have new pads.
Danny should be with me on the Saturday and Sunday pod,
so we'll have fresh content for you all weekend long
and be safe. Whatever you're up today. I'm gonna watch
some baseball later on today. Dodgers are back in California, Ia,

(33:22):
so i'll probably watch that game tonight and the last
few days of the NBA regular season, Hallelujah, watch some
of that as well. Have a great day. We'll talk
to you next time. Later, skater stop Austa pasta. Gotta murder,

(33:42):
I gotta go.