And with me this morning is Kevin McDougal from 5K events who is
running a little low. His band was playing at State Fair last now. What's the
band's name? Past midnight. So yeah, we we play around here quite a bit. We
played at Sam and Arama. We were at Fist Freak Yacht Club and we'll be at our
Hot Harbor Knights show on September 11th, which this week we've got a great
act called Shameless Place playing tonight at Hot Harbor Knights. So it's a
free music in the park series that we've been doing all summer. So hope to
see you all come out. Yeah, what time to get home last night? Midnight. What a
trooper. Yeah, we played from 6 to 10 and then got out of their 11ish and
then let me guess lead guitar or rhythm guitar. No, I'm a singer. Oh, you don't
play any guitar? Well, no, no, not anymore. He's been pretty fair rhythm player
now. I sing and I say I'm a master of all the classroom instruments. You know,
the tambourine, the cowbell, the shaker. The Tracy Partridge triangle. You know,
well, I will always my brother played every instrument there is. He plays guitar.
He plays organ. He played every unit, the clarinet. He's a boy clarinet. And he played
with some of the biggest bands he played with little Anthony Imperials, Benny King,
Ruby and Romance, the Cherelles, the chiffons, the crystals, Jay and the Americans. He played
with all of them. Oh, Jay and the Americans. Because he was able to read music. Yeah.
And when they used to come to the, you know, the venues, they were playing that. These are,
you know, clubs and stuff. Yeah. And they used to hand in the sheet music. See with seven.
That's all you have to do. But a lot of great, a lot of those groups in the 60s. They don't
have to read music on my brother did. Yeah. And he was able to work with the band. And by the
time they hit the stage, it was like they had 20 rehearsals. Yeah. I envy that talent.
He was only 18 years old, 17 and 18 when he was doing it. My talent is I'm a big show off.
That's my talent. Well, my talent is I want to play an instrument. So my wife said, I'll teach
a piano. Okay. So I'm starting to learn. I just don't practice enough. Yeah. And I can play
with my right hand. Fine. It's playing with your left hand and your right hand because they're
different. They're different staffs. Sure. One's a base staff and one's a cheat club staff. Yeah.
And so I got it where I can do it and remitted, you know, stuff. But I can do it now. Look at
the music and not look at the keys. Yeah. But if I practice more, I'd be, you know, I'd be
Liberace, but unfortunately, I'm not. By the way, my brother went to see Lady Gaga on concert
several years ago. Oh, she's tremendous musician. All it was was her and a piano on stage for
two and a half hours. That's all she did. She did show tunes. She did everything. And he said,
I could have sat here for four hours, listening to her and the piano. Yeah. If you've ever heard
the stuff she did with Tony Bennett, it's pretty amazing. And she's just one of musical talent.
All right. Well, I'm not performing anywhere. So you don't have to worry about that. Okay.
Five K events for people that don't know you book some of the book, all the venues in
Racine like Festival Hall, Festival Park, Memorial Hall. Correct. So you do all those. We
are the stewards of all three of those venues that we call other scenes of Accenture. The trustees.
Yes, exactly that. So we, uh, yeah, we take care of it on behalf of the city of
Racine and all of our fine citizenry. Well, Memorial Hall was the site almost 100 years ago.
It was 98 and a half years ago. The site to the very first broadcast at WRJ. Yes.
There was a live orchestra on stage. And for the first time, they turned on the transmitter.
And that's what went on here from Memorial Hall. Yeah. Last November, celebrated its 100th
anniversary. Yes. We're getting there. Uh, next year, we start a hundredth year here. Okay.
So Memorial Hall was 100 years old, less November. And I feel like a hundred even on that.
Okay. So you're booking all events. Now we have something new this year at Festival Park.
It's the Racine Concert Band every Sunday. Not they have two more concerts left, two weeks left.
The 10th and the 17th. And this is the first year. For decades, they were at the Racine Zoo. And
then they changed and they went to Festival Park. Actually, they went to the tent outside,
where you generally have the beer serve. Yeah. Then they went inside. And then outside
for the rest of the year, the outside tent. So yeah, I mean, it's been going really well.
We've been really thrilled with it. You know, we're kind of getting in a groove to where we've
got to routine down not only us at the park, but the folks in the band and everything. So things
are running pretty smoothly. And the shows have been amazing. I always look forward to the to the
guest performers every week. Not only, you know, the band itself are fantastic, but the guest solo
S always look forward to the good instrumentalists or vocalists. You know, that type of training
is impressive. And they all sing in a foreign language. Have they do opera? Yeah, how they do that?
Yeah. I have trouble with English. And they're doing it. Exactly. They're doing it down yet.
Okay. Coming up tomorrow is the Festedale Latino. Yeah. Fiesta de Latino. That opens tomorrow
afternoon. And just the full weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, terrific, Hispanic music.
That's been it's coming from all over the country. Texas, you know, other parts of the United States.
And just some tremendous bands. You know, great Latin culture celebrating all the Latin cultures
here in Racine. And we're very excited. We think that's probably going to be one of our biggest
events of the year. Wow. Yeah. It's coming up starting tomorrow. Starting tomorrow afternoon. Yeah.
No, that sounds good. Okay. Then you've got the Racine Tavern League coming in on the 16th.
Yeah. The Racine Tavern League Racine Beersar is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Tavern
League of Wisconsin, which was actually originated in Racine in 1935. So that, that, you know,
very powerful lobby that represents all the tavern owners in the state of Wisconsin originated
in Racine. So we're going to have a day of sampling of just, you know, cocktail concoctions by
many of the bars here in town. Some great music from a band called Conviction and another band
called Stone Theory. So really excited about both those bands. Conviction is played at Hot Harbor
Night Stone Theory, played at Harbor Fest. And one of the, one of the guys in Stone Theory is
actually a percussionist with the Racine concert band. So you might see him tinkling on
any of the drum kit or the xylophone or the marimba. So he's with the Racine concert band as well.
Everybody in that band has 20 gigs going on. Oh, yeah. They're all in other bands all over the
area. I mean, I work at one radio station. I don't know. Well, there's a saying around our
park that if you're under the age of 60, you're in a band. Everybody in this town is in a band.
I tried, I tried to learn different instruments. I just didn't have a talent my brother has. Yeah,
he's very talented. I just couldn't do it. One of the things is I don't practice enough. Yeah,
it's time consuming. It is. And I don't do it. My wife says I didn't hear the piano today.
Are you practicing? No, myself, I take weekly vocal lessons. You know, just two hours every
Tuesday night. Really? Yeah. For years. Yeah. What are you going for the popper body sound?
What are you going to? No, just try. I say I have my voice teacher turned me from a karaoke hack
into a real singer. Well, good for him. Yeah. It's her. She's amazing. Well, good.
All right, summer's over. And we move into bacon and bruise. I keep saying summer's over.
It sounds so depressing. Bacon and bruise fest is another amazing event that will work. Actually,
September 5th and 6th. Okay. So Friday and Saturday. And this is say something that we're
partnering with our friends at the Racine Journal Times with. They did a similar event out in
Walworth County for many, many years. And then this year they moved it to the Walworth County
Fairgrounds. They had been in Lake Geneva, moved it to the Walworth County Fairgrounds and
decided they wanted to try their hand at bringing it to Racine a little later on in the season.
So we're in the middle of planning that. We could still use some some more food vendors for that.
If you're interested, reach out to us at festivalpark.com if you're interested in vending. You're just
looking for some sort of, you know, bacon centric item on your menu along with your regular menu.
We have some craft craft beers. We have some amazing music that we're looking forward to.
So the headliner on Friday night is banned from Chicago called the Shagged Delix, which is a 70s
disco tribute. No kidding. Yeah. And then Saturday night, the headliner is a yacht rock tribute act
out of Kenosha called EZFM. And so we're looking forward to that as well. So I do work at other
stations, but one of them has a yacht rock weekend. Thank you. Sure. When did that all start with
that term come from? Yeah, you know, there's a great documentary on HBO right now. And it's really,
it shows kind of the the bands or the artists that yacht rock kind of sprung from. And it's
steely Dan and it's Toto. But would they get the name from? Yeah, I think that's just kind of
that breezy early 80s mellow rock stuff. I think that's where and it just kind of got that
connotation. It is a really interesting like Christopher Cross is one of their core artists and
yacht. No, I mean, they could have picked sailboat music. They could have picked just about anything.
Wave music. They could have picked anything yacht. Yeah. I remember when I first heard that,
I said to the manager of the state, I said, what is yacht rock? Yeah, you can see it was a
couple of years back. And it's serious. XM has a station that's very, very popular. It's
interesting that documentary because they go through, you know, the bands like steely Dan and
Toto. Well, Donald Fagan from steely Dan is not a fan. One of the producers called him for
an interview and he politely told him to get lost. By the way, Donald Fagan, Walter Becker.
Steely Dan, but before they were steely Dan, they had another group. Yes. Who was the drummer?
Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase was the drummer. I come to him for you. He was the drummer if you play
keys. No, he was the drummer. Okay. Yeah. And he left and might have been good for him.
Yeah. He had a good career. He had a good career. So bacon and bruise fast is September 5th and 6th
of that's the property bacon. There's a committee that says, if it wasn't for bacon, nobody would
ever have heard of water chestnuts. That's true. That's very true. That's the only time I, you know,
I even pick them out of my Asian food. So they're only because they're rapid. Anything, if you don't
want to eat somebody to eat, if you want to eat something, rapid and bacon, they'll have it every
sell. All right, stand down is coming up September 13th. Now, what is this? Yeah, stand down is a
great event that we do with other St. County veterans outreach. And it helps veterans, whether
they're just struggling with organizing their benefits. Some of these guys are unfortunately
homeless. And so we have all kinds of advocacy groups that will have displays and be able to
do outreach with some of these folks. And then we also have a huge amount of items to give away,
coats, gloves, hats, boots, personal care items, things like that, that the veterans way
able to come in and take away with them as well as consult with these different agencies that
can help them with whatever they need. So that is a tremendous event. Here's a big one party on
the pavement, party on the pavement. Now this got started because they tore downtown streets up
part. They ripped it to shreds. It was all dirt. And then it's not good for the businesses down
there because people don't want to schlep through all the dirt in the mud. Sure. Then they built
this beautiful concrete road. And the first day they had it down, they closed it down the cars.
Yeah. Yeah. Let people spill beer and other things. You know, so we had a guy working with us.
He's no longer with us. Tom Kramer. And he said, it's the oddest thing that built this brand new
road for cars. And the first thing he did was say, no cars. No, no, no, can drive on it. And we
were broadcasting for the very first party on the pavement. And it was spectacular. Yeah,
it really is. It's, you know, it goes from six street to main street down to state street.
So, you know, the street is closed off. Live music, you know, food, all the retailers along the way
have, you know, various, you know, specials and things like that. Yeah, it rides for kids in the
middle of the street. They do. They have bands at the far north end. They have the bands there.
They had a dunk tank one year and it was freezing cold. It was an October. They had
and these kids, I guess from the high school were in there and she was shivering and they kept
knocking her in the thing. And I said, man, you gotta get this girl. She's shivering.
Sure. It was freezing outside. She's soaking wet. Yeah. But people said, here you go.
Yeah. Well, I know the case palm squad often has a little booth called a pie or pie a palm
where people pay money to hit these little girls in the face with a cream pie.
Oh, how cruel. My goddaughter had done it for a couple of years.
Yes, give them money. You don't know how you gotta have this little fun with it.
Party on the pavement. September 20th is here. These have been the big leave October.
But it's a little warmer in. Yeah, amazing. In recent years, the weather has been
tremendous. We get lucky with our weather here in September. Our summer may start late,
but it goes pretty deep into September. So September 27th, bark in the park. It's got to have
something to do with dogs. Yeah, absolutely. It is everything to do with dogs and dog people
and dog services. So the entire park will be filled with with those types of things. So,
yeah, that's always a fun event. You know, there's just very services, vet services that
have displays and anything that you might need to keep your dog happy and healthy.
Who's going to do the poop or scooper concession? Not this cowboy. There will be a lot of it.
You got a lot of dogs. They don't like poop or scoopers. As I recall last year,
the people kept the police stuff pretty good. Yeah, they've been pretty good about it.
That's good. Okay. That's bark in the park. September 27th. Let's move on to October.
The lighthouse quilter is killed. This is a quilt show. This is inside at Festival Hall.
October 4th and 5th. October 4th and 5th. You know, it's all things quilting. And you know,
actually, it is, it is quite the thing with a certain, you know, group of people that,
this is their second year for that. And yeah, it's just tremendous. If that is part of your,
your lifestyle, you know, come on out and learn everything about it and pick up some new tips
and meet some folks. Yeah, it's my wife is everything in lighthouse. My sister laws are
the same way. Everything I don't know what this is. People get this muggable wig about the
lighthouses. So when the downtown Racine Corporation did their summer things with a,
now they have butterflies out there down there. The first one was lighthouses and these were
working in lighthouses and they're about, you know, see. Yeah, they're pretty amazing.
So we bought one. Okay. And it was ironic, but it was the one that WRJ and sponsored. We,
it was just, okay, we didn't know that. Yeah. So we have in our living room and we have blankets.
We bought ad milligers, which have all the Wisconsin lighthouses on them quilted into the,
like, quote, thing. And it's amazing. I, I'm not into lighthouses, but people who are. Oh,
yeah. They love it. Now the one thing I am not into is doing that lighthouse thing with a climb
the lighthouse up and down. I might try that. Oh, come on. You're, I'm an ambulance standing by.
At least we're really interesting, actually. Well, I'm one of those defibrillators. Yeah,
everybody clear. I remember, I remember somebody said to me, are you going to do the Empire State
Building run? No, no, that's an elevator. If the elevators are broken, I don't go. I just,
I'll cancel my appointment for the day. You kidding me. But there are people that do that.
You know, there's an October event that you might not have on there. Like we just got recently,
it's October 25th at Memorial Hall. It is the United States can still carry Delta Defense,
gun legal seminar. So it is Saturday, October 25th at Memorial Hall. So anybody that's interested
in learning about things leading up to, if you ever have to use your weapon, anything like that,
a lot of other displays and, and seminars and things like that. So it's going to be hosted by
one of the top legal defense attorneys in the country that gives an amazing talk during that.
So that's one thing and that you don't have on your notes there that we just put together.
So I have old information. Well, actually, this is very, very, very new, very new. So we're breaking,
breaking news, breaking news, breaking news. Okay. October 16th Building Hope Habitat for Humanities
Galat Festival. Yeah, that's something that we've been going, we've been having for quite a while.
It benefits Habitat for Humanity, which, as everybody knows, does amazing work here in
we're seen in all over the country. So it's something that, you know, if you want to, you know,
give and participate in the Habitat for Humanity, you can, you know, buy tickets for the Galat in
attend and, you know, feel good doing it. Doing good ain't got no end. I always think of Jimmy Carter
when he was in his mid 80s. He was up there slinging the hammer. He was in his mid 80s hammering.
I, you know, I bring the hammer up in the basement. I'm exhausted. I'll wait till tomorrow to do
the hammering. I'll have to have a one nail on the porch and yeah, and this guy was in his 80s
building home down here. He's one of the founders of it. Yeah. Okay. Then you've got the NWACP
banquet, the 75th annual Freedom Fund banquet that's coming up in festival hall October 17th.
Yes. Yeah. So get your tickets for that tickets for any of these events can be found on festivalpark.com.
Just go to the events page and click upcoming events and you'll see the platform and pick your
event and then there's a little ticket link there. So the gaming vault convention. Yeah,
gaming is, you know, of course, anybody that's into any type of gaming, it, you know, has,
you know, some sales of, you know, gaming systems and different seminars and talks and just general
camaraderie amongst the gaming community. So they're fun. Probably they were. I have the,
I had these for a goof. Yeah. Yeah. My wife has a, we have the original Pong game console.
Uh-huh. It was one console all the ball. It was going back and forth. Yeah. And you had two things
you could either play with two players or you can play with one player. Yeah. And if the speaker
was right there in the console and she's still got it. Sure. I hope you didn't throw it out. Yeah.
My daughter has one of the her and her husband have these big high space chairs. Yeah. And they
have the big screen and they play people all over the country. Yeah. Yeah. My, my son's into those
things like four night. Yeah. But she's 45 years old. Yeah. I don't know if you should be
good. Yes. She grew up with that though. Mary. She grew up as Super Mario brothers.
Yeah. Quick story. So I'm playing Super Mario. And I got through all the worlds. Uh-huh.
And I called my wife and I got through. I got through. What are you talking about? I got through.
I got through. I got through. I got through. I had a little cheater thing you could put in there.
Okay. And it gave you all the powers you wanted. And so I cheated. And I got to it. Okay.
The coming together. We're seeing now. This is on October 25th. Two hours. That moved.
Actually, uh, yeah, that's on the same day. Oh, it is. Oh, yeah. We can, uh, yeah,
we can accommodate many events at, uh, at ever seen Suffolk Center that that is actually going
to be at festival hall. Okay. Uh, and the big one of the big ones festival of trees. That's like.
Yes. That's legendary. Yeah. Festival of trees. It's something we're working on right now.
And it is a display from November 25th through December 6th, where, you know, various, uh,
local, uh, uh, you know, companies and retailers will, you know, decorate trees with their, um,
maybe the, the theme of their business and then they're ultimately raffled off to benefit.
Yeah. I know. Um, yeah. It's really good. Uh, charities of their choice. And so you can actually
go on to, uh, festivalpark.com and go to festival of trees. And then there's all the information as
to how to sponsor a tree. And there's so many amazing things that go along with it. There's
going to be a full calendar of events that happen each day throughout, um, November 21st and
December 6th. So a lot of room for, for more trees. I know we're in, uh, in August and people
aren't necessarily thinking about Christmas yet. But, uh, um, you know, Miller Gurz is our partner
on this. And if you do sponsor a tree that, you know, we acquire the tree for you and it is
completely lit. So you don't have to worry about stringing the lights on it and we'll
set a day at festival hall where you and your, uh, volunteers can come decorate it.
And one, uh, have some fun. And one more event we get to get to now. We're seeing Turkey
tried and that'll take us up to December. Yeah. November 27th.
Turkey Trot is, uh, one of our five K events that, uh, it's, it's exactly that. It's, uh,
a five K run walk, uh, you know, competitive, uh, four of men and women's divisions. So it, uh,
you know, you have to bundle up a little bit, probably, you know, go run off your, uh, your,
your Turkey meal and, uh, I'm not running any well. Head into the holiday season and good shape.
So, all right. Kevin McDougal, five K events. If somebody wants to get the calendar,
I'm looking at how do they do it? Uh, festivalpark.com. I remember that every year.
Can't remember where I left my keys, but I can remember that vegetable park.com. Kevin McDougal
from five K event to you guys do a great job keeping some lights, keeping the lights on.
You bet. And festival festival party every Sunday. It was seen concert bands. So yeah.
And one more time, the name of your band passed midnight and they're playing at the third tonight.
Well, actually, we were playing this event, but we don't play until September 11th.
Oh, yeah. Last week of the third of the, of the series tonight's, uh, act is shameless place.
So, uh, Gates open at five. Music starts at six. And, uh, yeah, come on out.
Weather's going to be fantastic. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, Kevin.
See you next month. Yeah. See you next month. We'll go over this list again.
