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Transcript

Civic Series – Matenaer On Air

Director's Playhouse · Sun Jul 28, 2024

Welcome to WFHR's Directors Cut, Session 48.

Our host and program director here, James J. Mayloff, with my partner and art, are head up production set, Habagger.

Hey everyone, this is a start of a kind of a new series we're doing for Directors Cut and off and on things, so it's gonna be fun.

Yeah, with this show we're kicking off the Civic series as an idea of mine and Cess to give you out there a chance to better know our Civic Media family.

We ask you, the best listeners in radio, to welcome to the WFHR stage, from Matt Nair on the air, the amazing Jing Matt Nair.

And we're gonna be talking with Greg Bach or wonderful sidekick in just a little bit.

You can hear Matt Nair on the air Monday through Friday, 10 to noon, right here at WFHR.

Jane, thanks for joining us.

Tation, I am delighted to be here.

I should journalistically mention that right away, two of my favorite voices in radio are Jane and Greg.

So I just want to start out right away, letting the audience know that I am not gonna have a lot of integrity with this interview.

Just big fans of you guys, love what you guys do and appreciate you taking the time to be able to join us.

Jane, I always like to start off asking people their origin story.

Can you tell us a little bit about where you're from and how you got to this place?

Absolutely, I was born in Hartford, Wisconsin.

I was the youngest of six children.

Our father was a mortician.

We grew up upstairs.

It was a tough cell getting kids to come over for sleepovers.

But I managed my way through.

I was always one of the things that we did as kids.

We used to put on plays on Christmas Eve to keep ourselves entertained as mom and dad were wrapping the presents upstairs.

So I think that kind of set me on my path to be a performer.

The other thing that I credit with my love for, I don't know, making people laugh essentially.

I was about four years old.

We were all at Sunday Mass.

And it was a particular service in which at one point the priest says, let us rise, let us stand, let us sit.

And as he does that, the entire congregation follows along.

And I was curious and I said to my mother quite loudly, apparently, at one point, why doesn't he make up his mind?

And the entire congregation burst out laughing.

And I thought, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.

I don't know what I did other than ask a reasonable question.

And I got this great response.

So ever since then, you guys, I've kind of been chasing the laughs, I think.

I can relate to that on so many levels.

It's always interesting to me to hear any creative, any person in the creative arts,

and where they first got that chase, where it first started.

I know for me, it was making my mother laugh, I would do a moody.

I would do, you know, well, we're proud Jewish families.

I would do a moody and I was seven years old doing this voice and making a laugh.

My favorite joke that I've ever told to my Nana was Nana, because we're also very proud Italian family.

Nana, do you want to know how you can tell if somebody's Italian?

Wait a minute, they'll tell you.

It's just little things that we find early on in life that give us this taste of what we are chasing and what we want.

So right there, that kind of told you early on, whether subconsciously or not,

that this is something I want to be a part of.

So how did you go from that to getting into radio?

Well, I was a theater major when I started out in college.

And again, my father, a mortician, a very practical man,

did not necessarily think that acting was a secure profession, so we say.

So when I told him, I wanted to go to school for theater, he said, well, James,

maybe you should have a backup plan.

And so I doubled that with a communications degree.

Unfortunately, I was a big fish in a very little pond in my hometown.

I was in all the high school plays or most of the high school plays.

And when I got to University of Minnesota, which is a huge school,

I had never ridden a public bus before.

I was afraid of everything.

So when I got to some auditions, I was very, very intimidated by the level of actors who were coming out for those things.

And that's when I decided to transition more to communications.

And then ultimately towards radio, because to me, radio has always been at least back in the good old days before everyone could see you.

It was the theater of the mind.

And so I could be anything to anybody.

I could do an accent.

I could do a voice.

I could do whatever.

And the listener would then put whatever picture in their head to go with whatever character I was.

And that really, really appealed to me.

And it's a natural progression, I think, to go to that.

But it's also unique.

Everybody's journey to that is a little unique.

I want to go back for a second.

If you don't mind, you mentioned your father, the mortician.

We actually have a little experience with that here at WFHR.

Our old owner was actually an old mortician for many, many years.

The markets and everything.

So we've talked about that actually before with that as a combination with radio.

But I am kind of curious, because you mentioned hearing that laughter for the first time and some of these things.

One of the things that I enjoy about you, Jane, and people like us, as far as having a...

I don't want to say a darker sense of humor, but a darker sense of humor.

Do you think the part of that stem from that or just to kind of...

It just happened.

You were always going to be that way.

Oh, no.

There was definitely an influence growing up in a funeral family because you do tend to have a darker...

A darker view of some things and a different perspective on some things.

Last year, one of my brothers became very sick.

And as he was in the hospital and we were talking about making final arrangements,

he said, I want the cheapest cremation possible.

And I said, Charlie, I don't think they're on a sliding scale.

I think it's kind of one size, maybe not, but it kind of fits all.

And then he said, I want you to get the cheapest earn I can find.

It's like, okay, I got my marching orders.

After he passed, I went online to find an earn for him.

This was six months ago.

I am still getting advertisements for earn every time I go to a website.

It's like earn world.

And I feel like I think of this.

How many do you think I need at one time?

Do you buy them in bulk?

Should he have one for every day of the week?

I'm not sure how other people do this.

So, you know, and I told that story at his memorial service.

And we all howled because that's just so our family.

Nice.

There's so much everybody is going to experience some difficult times.

And I really think that laughter is the one thing that gets us through so much of it.

So I think that everybody in some ways has a little bit of a similar sense of humor to the three of us.

I think that it's also noteworthy when you can share those kind of things.

And I really appreciate you sharing that we feel for you and yours, Jane.

Thank you for sharing that with us.

Oh, absolutely.

And again, as you said, we all go through difficult periods.

Everyone deals with it differently.

My sense of humor isn't necessarily everyone's, you know, piece of high.

But I do try to be sensitive to other people who are going through tough times.

That just tends to be my coping mechanism.

So I can relate to that.

Yeah.

And we're speaking with Jane Mattenair from Mattenair on the air.

Jane, what about influences?

Who are the people that have influenced you the most, whether it's entertainment wise, radio wise, or just in life?

Oh, my.

Carol Burnett, Betty White.

Nice.

The Arthur, the Carol Burnett show was life changing for me.

In just in the ensemble that they put together and how well those that group of actors worked off of each other and played off of each other.

And I think that that's something that I've always wanted that kind of camaraderie when you're in the creative process.

It just makes it so much more fun.

And if you have the same comic sensibilities, there's nothing better than that.

It just feels fantastic.

I would say my earliest influences, second city television, SNL, and the Carol Burnett show.

I could not tell you how much those shows, because not only them being live and so much of what they would do, sketch wise, were live at least.

But with that particular one, the Carol Burnett show, it wasn't just that they had an elite talent on that show.

But to your point, the chemistry, they were able to build a chemistry that those other shows really weren't able to because of cast members leaving and coming and going and a lot of that.

And I think the two with SNL, with second city, you had people usually just starting out.

These were established careers already.

These were people who had really fine toned their comedic talents to the point where they were so good at this, and I think about this from time to time.

They were so good at this that they would rehearse and rehearse.

And then we'd see them live and they would still break.

They could still make Carol laugh or still make Tim Conway laugh or some like Hormin.

Harvey, I think Tim Conway's mission in life was to make Harvey Cormin break up.

Absolutely. You could not convince me otherwise.

And whenever I'm really, really down, you guys, I will watch the elephant sketch on YouTube with Tim.

That is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life.

It's just, yeah, snorkel, snorkel.

Oh god, it's so funny.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't, and I know I'm older than you guys.

But if I didn't mention Phyllis Diller, I had never seen anyone like Phyllis Diller because I didn't know women could do that.

I didn't know women could stand up and make jokes about their husbands.

Or she was groundbreaking, not just in the way that she looked, but in the things that she addressed.

And yeah, she had a big influence on me too.

There's fang.

Yes.

Bang.

There were some really trailblazers in that industry when it comes to that.

I think Joan Rivers is a great one as well, but Phyllis Diller doesn't get her due.

I'm so glad you brought her up. She doesn't get her due nearly enough.

That's a great one to mention.

Well, there would be no, there would be no Joan Rivers without Phyllis.

That's true.

Very true.

Yes.

Oh, very true.

So you kind of told this, Jane, a little bit of when you knew that you wanted to make people laugh, you wanted to entertain people in some way or another.

With your time and radio, when did you know, or are you still trying to find out that this is where you belong that you should be here?

At least at this point in time and ever.

Well, I've been doing this now for 42 years, you guys.

I am no longer qualified for anything else.

I have no marketable skills.

I've been, I've managed to find a way to get paid by having a smart mouth for a really long time.

And there just aren't a lot of jobs that call for that.

That's a good point.

You know, I've been the same bone radio is perfect.

Yes.

It's right.

I don't, I honestly, I don't know what I, what else I would do.

I never wanted to be on TV that, that didn't appeal to me too much pressure on looks and appearance.

And I've just always been more about finding things to celebrate that we share in common, pointing out problems on both sides, educating, informing.

And one of the best ways I know how to do that is by making people laugh.

Jane, you've mentioned sometimes on your show, you know, what you have done throughout the years and radio.

And it sounds like you've done just about everything you can do, at least on the air on radio.

You've done news, you've done DJ, you've done all that stuff.

So is that, is there any particular one you've enjoyed more than the other?

Well, the one thing I really wanted to be you guys when I first started out was I wanted, because there weren't that many women in radio when I started in 1981.

And really the only place you would hear women at that point, they were, they were the cool rock chick from seven to midnight.

That was, that was where the women were.

And I thought, well, I want to be that.

Unfortunately, I was neither cool nor a rock chick.

And ultimately the general manager heard me doing the overnight shift and he moved me some mornings.

And there I had a partner, I had numerous partners.

But that was a lot more freeing.

You didn't just have 20 seconds of the ramp of a song to say something.

We would chat in between songs, we would do bits, we would make up parody songs and parody things.

And, and so that really became my home.

And I spent the vast majority of my career doing morning radio.

Nice.

Yeah.

Gene, I'm curious with the work that you've done and as Seth touched on there, the amount of different types of work you've done,

do you enjoy working solo?

Do you enjoy collaborating with somebody?

Is there, is there a style that you like more?

I love the format that I have with Greg and with Calvin right now during, during our show, Matt near on air.

I'm, because I spent so much time in music radio where you're, you only had like 90 seconds to make your point.

I'm really intimidated by having 15 minutes that I have to fill myself.

Yeah.

I have a lot of time.

People don't appreciate how long that is when you are the only one who is speaking.

So I find it a lot more interesting to have someone to interact with, to have someone to play off of.

And it's also a way to get different perspectives because if everyone agrees on everything all the time, it's kind of boring.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's true.

Jane, do you have any other creative outlets?

You know, I was like asking our guests this because it's something that I noted when I was young.

Miles Davis, late in life, got into painting and became a great painter.

There's other creatives like finding different outlets, different ways to get out their creativity.

Do you have other things that you like doing?

I used to love to garden you guys and now that we've been in our house for 23 years, I was very, very ambitious with the number of flower beds that we put in 23 years ago.

Now I'm 23 years older and I wish I just could concrete over all of that.

It would make life so much easier.

We don't have a dog anymore.

We lost our dog about two years ago.

I can't go through that again.

I applaud people who are able to say goodbye.

But I love the Humane Society.

I love those kinds of organizations.

My husband and I are big travelers.

So every year we take a pretty big trip overseas.

And that's what we spend a lot of time doing.

And I do see my siblings.

And I'm trying to learn, you know, again, my husband and I have been married for 23 years.

I'm still trying not to poison him.

So cooking is not my natural arena.

But I do work on that as well.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, those are great.

Yeah, that's great.

And also for years and years, guys, I did do community theater.

And I wrote a couple of one-woman shows.

I did that for a long time.

Ultimately, the hours just, you know, when I was getting up at three o'clock in the morning,

it was impossible to continue doing community theater.

I couldn't stay awake during the rehearsals.

So that's just something I've kind of gotten away from in the last 10 years.

Our station is built on community theater.

Yeah, whether it was my experience really that got me into this gig 20 some years ago or whatever.

Or meeting Seth and Melissa through theater and getting them to, you know,

tricking them, I mean, asking them to join us here.

Jane, I just a couple more questions we'll let you go.

For you and I have both worked, and in many out there in radio land,

have worked for a lot of different companies.

It's just kind of a thing in radio.

Very few of us are like Pam over here at WFHR,

where she's been at the same station for 40 some years, some out years.

But even for Pam, WFHR has changed ownership many times.

I'm not speaking for you certainly, but I know that it means something different working for civic media.

And I didn't quite get that right away.

I've been through the ringer.

Our station had been sold not even like a blink of an eye before civic took over.

So we're kind of had a little PTSD to be honest with you about having,

being taken over by a new company and okay, well, what are they selling us?

What are they going to do?

And the first thing they did was hand us insurance papers,

which had a double factor to it.

It gave us not only a confirmation that our people were sticking around,

but it also showed us right away where they stand and what they mean.

And as the time has gone on, we've learned more and more of that message

and how much we are supporters of democracy.

We are supportive of freedom of facts.

And working for this company is a little bit different than working for your normal,

or a lot of this, quite frankly, a lot of the stations that are around,

and not only in our area, but around the country.

So what does it mean for you to work for civic?

After all of my years in this business, I finally feel like I have found my home.

And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

And everything you just said about the civic media mission of protecting democracy,

bringing you accurate information and the ability for all of us to learn together.

And that's something that Greg and I try to do on Matt and Aaron Air

is all the things in our backyard that we have never experienced or done or highlighted.

It is a unique company.

There is no question about it.

There's just no question about it.

And I think the spirit of collaboration within civic media is fantastic.

In some other companies, there might be jealousies.

There might be internal competitions.

And I think for the most part, we all very much agree with the mission of civic media.

And I cannot express enough the value and the satisfaction I get from working for this company.

And how grateful I am for this opportunity.

What is likely going to be the last job of my career?

Well said.

Yeah, very well.

And I couldn't agree with you more, Jane.

I'll just piggyback on that and add that we've also thanks to civic.

We've gotten to work with and get to meet people like you.

And that's another added bonus of it.

We really appreciate your final question.

Thank you.

Oh, go ahead.

I just want to say, I feel the same way about you guys.

I feel the same way about all across civic media.

We have some of the most passionate, up fantastic, dedicated people.

And it's just a really good feeling.

It's a really good feeling.

Your final question, Jane.

And then you can go ahead and go on with the rest of your day.

We like to ask everyone of our guests this question.

If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who and why?

Ooh, that's a tough one.

We always get that reaction.

We get that hardball questions here.

The director's cut.

Hardball questions.

Um, George Carlin would be one of them.

Oh, nice.

Um, Betty White would be another one.

That'd be a good one.

Um, Genghis Khan.

No, I'm kidding.

Oh, that's nice.

That coffee may not last long.

Okay.

Off with her head.

Um, but it's like my other idols.

Um, Mary Tyler Moore, um, Valerie Harper.

So many of those early comedians had such a big influence on me.

And I think it would be so interesting to hear about their struggles in order to get to the point where they got.

And, and some of those struggles still remain.

So we can, we can all learn from, from each other on that, I think.

We have a long line of fabulous women.

You got to say.

Yeah.

Excellent answer, Jane.

An excellent time talking with you.

Uh, we appreciate you so very much.

You might have to join us again sometime, though, because there are some follow-ups I have a little bit later.

But we really appreciate the time, Jane.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Seth and James, I have, I had so much fun.

Thank you so very much.

I will join you anytime.

Now you're going to have a tough time getting rid of me.

Okay.

Yes.

I guess, uh, we've done our job then.

Yes.

Thank you, Jane.

We appreciate you.

When we come back, we're going to be speaking with Jane Psychic.

Greg Bach is going to join us here on Director's Cut.

Welcome to WFHRs to welcome back to WFHRs Director's Cut.

That is, uh, we are being joined by Greg Bach from Matt and Air on the air.

You can hear Matt and Air on the air Monday through Friday.

Ten to noon.

Greg, thanks so much for joining us.

Uh, no problem.

Thanks for having me.

And also, by the way, I just want to, but it's Matt and Air on air.

Let's stay on brand, everybody.

Oh, what did I say?

Did I say wrong?

Oh, Matt and Air on air.

I apologize.

Greg, right out the gate, I want to get to know you.

I want to know a little bit about your origin story.

Can you tell us a little bit about where you're from and how you got to this place?

Oh, yeah.

Uh, so I'm born and raised in Wisconsin.

I was born in Waukesha actually.

W-A-U-K where we broadcast the show from.

It's literally a mile from where I went to school.

So I know this city real well.

And I've always lived in Wisconsin.

So, uh, yeah, went to live in Waukesha for the first couple of decades of my life.

I moved to Milwaukee and moved around southeast Wisconsin.

But I always made my way.

I made my way back to Waukesha and I always stayed here in Wisconsin because I really do love it.

It's got to mean something a little extra to be able to work for.

If you, if you will, your hometown station.

Absolutely.

I mean, the thing is, you know, once I left, it's not that I never came back,

but I just never had a real reason to come back to Waukesha.

Most of my friends have moved.

My family doesn't live there anymore.

And when working at Wau-A-U-K, I just, all these, you get all these memories coming through there.

Oh, I used to hang out here.

I go, you know, I used to, you know, we would, we would go hang out downtown Waukesha.

I would go to this local record store and blow a bun.

So yeah, it provides some great memories and really reinforces the Wisconsin

and the Waukesha roots that I have, which is fantastic.

Nice.

Greg is not just a great co-host with Jane, but also a great comedian.

It does a lot of work in Wisconsin when it comes to that and promoting other comedians.

What is it about comedy that called you and when did you know that you wanted to be a,

do make people laugh?

Well, like a lot of comedians, I am a failed musician.

I played in bands from the age of 14 to about my mid 20s.

And I always love comedy growing up, like from a very young age.

I mean, I remember watching, you know, Paula Poundstone, Ellen DeGeneres,

on TV, on HBO specials, Robert Klein.

And I always thought, oh, I love comedy.

But I never thought I could do it.

And then I went to an improv show one time.

I was like, I want to learn this.

And that was 2006.

And I started taking lessons in improv.

And then that's just sort of morphed and evolved into doing sketch comedy.

And then the last drag into slay in the kingdom, which is stand up.

And stand up is where I really, you know, is where I feel the most comfortable

standing on stage with a microphone in my hand telling jokes.

And I honestly, I love connecting with people.

I don't do raunchy material.

I don't do heavily blue material.

I mean, some of it might not be most appropriate for children.

And I don't really swear that much on stage.

But I really like connecting with people with my experiences.

And if anything, if they're having a tough day,

they at least know someone on stage gets them and can connect

and identify with what they're going through and make them laugh for anywhere

between five to, you know, 35 minutes.

I've always felt, I feel that comedy is a great equalizer,

that rich, poor, whatever connections you might have or don't have in life.

Everybody is going to, you know, find something funny or be able to relate to

or something like that.

It's really the, well, it's the essence of it's not what they did.

But why kings and queens had gestures, court gestures is because everybody was supposed to be on the same field.

Comedy is kind of actually, I think, come to that in many ways as we see with,

really a lot of our most respected journalists, court and court nowadays,

are comedians.

John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, so much of this.

It kind of is built to that place.

And I appreciate you noting that.

How did you get into radio, Greg?

Well, I've always had a love for radio.

I actually went, I backed it up a lot.

I've always loved radio.

And I applied to radio school on a high school.

And I ended up not going and sort of said, all right, well, you know,

I have some friends in radio who've been working in the industry since they're like 15 years old from internship to.

Now they have their own shows around the area.

And I was like, oh, that's not a thing I can ever do.

And then a couple of years ago, I was asked to do a Wednesday co-host here at WAK for civic media.

And then that turned into a producer's job that it turned into on air hosting.

And so it's just sort of snowballed.

And I've actually only been in radio professionally for about one and a half years.

Every single day I come into work.

I know that I am lucky.

Is it privilege and that there are a lot of other people out there who have worked a thousand times harder.

And I got a shot.

So I make the most of it every time I'm on the air or, you know, just working in periods.

Yeah, I've been here about 20 years longer, Greg.

And I'll tell you, I didn't go to school for this.

I'm not even supposed to be here.

I don't know how it happened.

I feel the same thing you do every day.

I come into work and I get to turn that microphone on.

I don't know who I kind of feel like the inmates are running the asylum still.

I still feel a little bit of that.

Let me move it.

Greg, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Laughing Tap.

Can you tell the R audience about that?

The Laughing Tap is the only comedy club.

I'm sorry.

It's the only stand-up comedy club in the city Milwaukee.

We have been there since, located in Walker's Point on Fifth Street since January of 2020.

So if you do the math, we had about eight good weeks.

And we shut down for four months.

And then we slowly built ourselves up.

But we made through it.

We made through it with the donations and the love and support of our friends and family,

families and other comedians.

But we really wanted to provide a space where not only can people come and laugh,

but comics can come and work because I'm not sure if people are aware of this.

But the comedy club model in at least America, I can't speak for the rest of the world,

isn't really always based on the love of the art.

It's more based on making money, which I understand that the business has to stay open.

But one thing we don't do is we don't censor our comics.

They can talk about whatever they want to talk about.

They can, you know, we don't need to say, some clubs will say,

oh, don't talk about politics or don't talk about,

no, we want people to be able to work within their art form and create what they want to create.

But also, we don't have a drink minimum.

So that, you know, you walk in the door, you walk in the door.

And if you want to just drink water, you can just drink water.

And, you know, your night out on a level of your receipt at the end,

and I can double when it comes to those things.

And we don't want to do that.

And we don't put that pressure on you.

So you come in, we tell you right away, there's no drink minimums.

Have fun, just be cool, be respectful, and have a good time.

And we bring in some amazing, amazing artists from all over the world.

So it's something we're very proud of.

We've really built a home, a brick and mortar home for stand-up in Milwaukee.

And indeed, you still try to showcase local talent as much as you can.

Absolutely.

We try to make sure that our host, if not featured.

So for those who don't know the parlance, usually in a comedy club, there's a host.

There's a feature, also known as a middleer, and then a headliner.

We try to make sure that at least one, if not both of the headliner,

I'm sorry, the host and the feature are local.

Sometimes the headliner will bring a feature.

And sometimes our headliners will be local as well.

But we want to make sure that people see that the talent that Wisconsin has to offer.

And that's, yeah, that's a very important point for us.

Because those are opportunities that they can take to the next level.

And it's a big part of what we wanted to do at Directors Cut.

Is feature local talent, Wisconsin talent, artists, creatives, given them an outlet.

We started doing the show, one of the talk to musicians and actors,

and really expanded from that to anybody we could get in a creative world on with the show.

It's good to hear.

I do want to encourage people to go to the, whether it's Facebook or go into the actual website,

laughingtap.com, laughingtap.com, or typing it into your search bar and Facebook

and liking their page, reaching out to Greg, if you are a comedian out there and in the area

and would like to be featured on there, or keep in mind they got a great show.

And we're recording this is in early July.

They got a show coming up July 14th, R&C therapy.

God, that sounds good.

That's a great title, Greg.

I wish I could say I made it up myself, but I did not,

but yeah, we're very excited to have this show come up this Sunday.

We expect it to be a packed house and just a great time.

Ben Palmer is incredibly funny, very, very well known on TikTok.

I've followed him long before, you know, we even, I think you opened the club.

So it's just we're, you know, it's, we're super excited.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the things that I was excited about, because with this the first time Greg and I have talked,

or any of us have talked to each other really, one of the things I was excited about to talk with you, Greg,

is because I saw a kinship with you and wanted to support artists.

I wanted to support other creatives and help promote them.

That's something that Seth and I can relate a lot too.

So really do appreciate you mentioning that and sharing the information with us.

We are speaking with Greg.

Greg Vock from Matt Nair.

On air.

There we go.

Don't worry, I'll fix it in post.

Thank you.

Greg, what about influences?

Who would have been some of your influences, whether it's entertainment or it's just in life in general?

I mean, as far as like entertainment, you know, my biggest, my biggest stand-up influences Pat Noswald.

He's the guy who is nice.

There's something about him that, you know, there's a lot of comedians out there who,

and I don't want to, I'm not going to, I don't want to come off sounding ages,

but as they get older, they produce less.

They're not as funny as they used to be.

They don't have as interesting ideas as they once did.

But Patten at, you know, I think he's in his mid 50s at this point.

He's still touring.

He's still talking about his life and being funny and being, and he's vibrant and he's alive.

And he's excited and there's something about that that really excites me because, you know,

you can see a lot of comedians get on and say to go, oh, back when I was younger.

I'm like, I don't care about back when you were younger.

That's, don't be upset with the younger generation.

It's what happens.

But he's just, he's one of those guys who, for me, you know, I could talk about influences all day.

Comedy-wise, but he's the one I'm always going to go to because, and he's also more story-based.

He's his, his, his jokes structure and his word choices are fantastic.

So, I mean, yeah, he, for me, you know, if, if I gotta, if I gotta start about Rushmore,

he's going to be the first face on there for me.

Well, both James and I are huge, Pat and Oswald fans.

You know, it's funny.

You mentioned that Greg because he doesn't have to go tour anymore.

Yeah.

He's, he's famous enough as he could just yet acting jobs all day long and he'd be fine.

He wouldn't have to do it.

But you are so right.

His passion, his love for stand up in particular is so obvious.

And you're, you're so right.

That's what, for me, too.

That's what draws me to him is that he's, it's something he loves and he keeps doing just an amazing job with it.

Yeah, I completely agree with you.

And he could easily phone it in on that, phone it in on a Netflix special for $10 million or whatever they're paying.

So-called comedians nowadays.

Yeah, shots fired.

What are you going to do about?

Come for us.

That's all right.

Bring it.

Yeah.

But he, you know, I saw him at the comedy, the club on state, Madison.

You know, it's, it's not a theater.

It's not a stadium.

It's not an arena.

It's not a TV show.

It's, you know, him in a room with like 250 other people.

And he was on fire on the last show of the weekend, too, where a lot of times the energy can lull.

And he was crackling and sparkling.

It was wonderful.

So yeah, huge influence for me.

And also, I think the other thing, too, is he's got a level of gratitude and grace about him that I enjoy.

You know, he could easily be bitter and all those things.

But he's not.

He's joyful and he's gracious and he appreciates the things he has.

And that's, that's influential.

Influential as well.

To me, it's not just about, you know, what they bring to the stage.

But who are they off stage and how do they interact?

And, you know, how do they operate in this world?

And, you know, I gravitate towards people who have grace and gratitude and thanks.

I mean, everyone has a bum day.

Everyone get grumbly and say, why didn't this happen for me?

And I'm going to.

But when you can, like I said with radio, it's like, there isn't a day that goes by that I do not thank the lucky stars.

They say, like, I was given this opportunity and I didn't have to.

And so I got to make the most of it because it could go away or it could go to someone else.

And, and I, you know, I just, yeah, I really appreciate what civic media has brought to me, which is also a great.

A bigger love for the state of Wisconsin than I already had.