It's time to find out what the heck is going around downtown. So many events. Summers
over fought well actually summer zone for the September 22nd, but you know what I mean.
And Kevin McDougal from 5K events is here before we get to the new events. How was the
summer?
The summer's been amazing. We're coming to the end of it like you were saying. We've
got a few events left around out the season. And yeah, it's been really amazing for us down
at festival hall and festival park. My knees and my feet in my back are testament to all
that a lot a lot of time on on the feet of the summer. And but but just a string of amazing
events. So you know, including you know, they're seeing concert band, which we got to
see you every Sunday night.
You were there every Sunday night, sitting there watching the band because you had to make
sure everything went.
Yeah, make sure you know, they had everything they needed and you know, just generally be
the kind of the face of the face of the venue. And you had a coordinate to because you
had Latin fest going on. Yeah, that day was chaotic. And then you had another thing going
on the smoke on the water thing going out the other end. Yeah, yeah, two concerts. Then
you had the concert band. Everything had a stop and start at the exact moment. Yeah,
it was pretty much. It was well. Yeah, it was a lot of juggling of of times and getting
bands in and out. But that's what we do. Whoa, I couldn't deal with it. If I heard
one sound from somebody, you should be like, shut that off. I'll break it that guitar
if you don't do it.
Well, what's amazing about festival park is you can have multiple stages going at the
same time and not have a cross section of the sound that sits by design. So it's it's
really makes the park very flexible and the very attractive to hold multiple events on
one day. And what a great setting too. It is. You can't beat it. I mean, you got the
lake right there. And so yeah, beautiful. Yeah, some days I just sit out there and have
lunch and look at the harbor and go pretty lucky to be able to hang out here. I'm glad
I'm not in San Antonio, Texas right now where it's 104 degrees. Yeah, that would not be
good. Okay, let's talk about what's coming up here. The next one that we've been giving
tickets away, family, poor packs is bippity, boppity, bacon fast. This is coming up on the
fifth and sixth Friday and Saturday and Saturday open at four o'clock on Friday, partnering
with our friends at the recene journal times to put the sea other. And yeah, just two days
of everything bacon and some great music, a couple of recene bands as well as some great
bands from outside the market. But Friday night, we opened the music at 430 with one of
my favorite local bands, full flavor. And then the headliner is a 70s disco tribute
out of Chicago called the Shagged Delix. So bring your platform shoes and your polyester
and and shake your groove thing. And then Saturday is runaway train, a great classic rock band
from right here in Racine. And then our headliner is easy FM, which is a yacht rock tribute
from Kenosha. So really looking forward to that full lineup and the weather's going to
be spectacular. You know, serving up bacon, a lot of these, a lot of these bacon fast,
you really can't get bacon. It's bacon in few things, but we're going to, we have an
option where you can just buy a boat full of bacon. So, so we're looking forward to that.
And then we've got sampling of some great whiskey from Bubba's still whiskey, some great
flavored whiskeys and some cocktails oriented around that. So it's, it's tremendous. And
we're really looking forward to it to kind of wind down our festival season. And if people
didn't hear it earlier and you want to know everything, you want to know about bacon.
Bacon. The most beautiful thing on earth. Bacon's the best. Even the frying of bacon sounds
like a plot. It's like, yeah, bacon. You want to know how good bacon is to improve other
food? They wrap it in bacon. If it weren't for bacon, we wouldn't even know what a water
chestnut is. Thank you, bacon. Sincerely, water chestnut, the third.
And those bits of bacon, bits of bacon like the fairy dust of the food community. You
don't want this baked potato? Brrrrr. Now it's your favorite part of the meal. It's
not interested in a salad. Bippity, poverty, bacon. I just turned it into an entree. But
once you put bacon in a salad, it's no longer a salad. It just becomes a game of find
the bacon and the lettuce. It's like you're panning for gold.
Here we go. Bacon. That says it all, then. It sure does.
Bippity, bippity, bacon. So do you know any of the menu items at Bacon Fest all the time?
Yeah, we sure do. We've got, well, our friends from Lees, Deli will be there. Of course,
everybody knows them on Washington Avenue. They'll be adding bacon to some of their sandwiches.
I'm sure roll and smoke, two, six, two barbecue putting infusing some barbecue with their
pulled pork. And then we've got just festival park. Our menu is going to be the boat of bacon.
You can do a bacon wrapped hot dog with cheese, bacon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. So that's it. That's a pork. I'll bake it. The pork pigs had to give it up.
Yeah. Okay. So a bacon wrapped hot dog with cheese. Yeah. So that sounds like angioplasty city
right after. It is the local cardiologist. We're going to keep them in business. They have a
booth set up. Yeah. And thanks to our friends at Jones Dairy Farm out in Fortacansson,
as our bacon sponsor. So they're providing us with all their amazing products. And yeah,
we're excited. It's going to be a good thing. Whoa. And bacon infused popcorn. So we're doing
that. You just, you know, you pop it up and you put some, you know, bacon seasoning on it
and then juge it up a little bit. It doesn't exactly, exactly. Very nice. Very nice to the food
in the food. Yeah. So it's, it's so, you know, come out and get your bacon on with us on Friday
and Saturday. And it's going to be beautiful weather too. It's sunny both days highs in the
60s. Actually sunny Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. Behind the mid 60s. It's going to be
tremendous. And you get tickets at festivalpark.com go to the events page and $10 at the gate or,
or you can, you know, $10 ticket online or $15 for the whole weekend. So in tickets are available
at the gate. So avoid those convenience fees and buy it at the gate if you like. I don't eat
when I'm on the air. But if I had a bacon wrapped hot dog with cheese on it now, I think I might.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm fussy about how I like my bacon served. I don't like it like incinerated
crispy. And I don't say I do. I like that. I like mine fatty and rare. And yeah, I see. I like
him. Even I don't like spam per se, but I had it at the spam museum in all of the Minnesota.
And I like it burnt to a crisp. Same thing with onions. You're going to serve the onions. They
have to be burnt to a crisp. So they served. I said, these things didn't even see a fire. Go
back and burn them. Yeah, it's not good to have everything to burn to a crisp. But
now I like it. Takes the flavor out of it. Let's talk about stand down, which is coming up
September 13th. Yeah, stand down is a great event. This is our second year for this.
We're doing it with Racine County Veterans Outreach. And it is a day long event that features
veterans oriented services. So you'll have a lot of, you know, the veterans that come in, maybe
they need help with job placement, resume construction, housing, help with their benefits.
You know, things of that nature, we also will have a lot of gear we're giving away because
unfortunately, some of these veterans might be homeless. So we're going to have a lot of
supply of coats. That to me is the saddest phrase homeless veteran. It is. And I will say
since we took over at Festival Park, our, you know, our company 5K events and conjunct you
with the city of Racine and the police department have come a long win mitigating some of the
homelessness in downtown Racine and a lot of the local agencies. It's not near as prevalent as
it used to be. I don't know if they're going other places where she's not seeing them anymore
if they're getting the help and the shelter they need. But we certainly are not seeing as much as
we did at one time in downtown Racine. I want to feel bad when I hear that phrase.
Homeless veterans. Yeah. Guys who and women who laid their lives on the line, dodging bullets.
Now they have nowhere to go. Yeah, it's, it is unfortunate. But fortunately,
there are a lot of great organizations here in Racine with, especially with their
scene County veterans outreach. I can provide a lot of resources for, for these men and women
that have served us and need our help. You know, as a matter of fact, one of our staff members
last year, it was a Vietnam era veteran and he got help with his benefits and got his
benefits sorted out. So it's an amazing thing. But you know, we've got a lot of
items we've gotten from Amazon, you know, personal care items, things like that.
I'd be giving away hats, coats, boots, gloves, all that good stuff. And you know,
I have never been a war. And so I don't know what it's like. I can't tell you, I do.
But to have to go through the carnage, I just saw a, I think on Facebook,
there was a picture of a cemetery tombstone. And on it, it was a guy who passed away. But his
tombstone said, I would love forgiveness for the older, for the old woman who I killed in Vietnam
on a raid. And I said, please forgive me for that old woman. I hope her soul is in heaven.
This guy for decades, it bothered him so much that that's his tombstone. His name isn't even on
it. It's just that message. Please forgive me for taking that woman's life.
Well, there's always a reminder that we have at Memorial Hall, which is another one of our venues
that we, that we manage in the foyer is the names of the wars on that. All the
Racine County war dad going back to the Civil War through the Vietnam war. And it is,
it's hundreds of Racine County residents that laid down their life and all these conflicts. So
it's, it's quite a sobering thing. So this is next week and after this one, it's called
stand down at 13th September 13th. And it's free to the public. So just come on in and
let us help you. You know, I get teary. I want to think about something like that. Yeah.
My dad was a veteran. Yeah. And never talked about it much. But I, I have his three
commendations in World War II. He was in four years on the entire war. And on my wall at home,
I have his laminated three commendations that he got from forest all secretary of the Navy
now as an aircraft carrier. Yeah. And it talks about there to Arthur Rosen, I think,
mechanic third club. He was a Navy flyer. He was a tail gunner. He said, for the saving of
800 lives on a US ship. And I went to that. What was this about? He said, well, it was being
attacked by Japanese planes. And we took down the planes that were attacking the ship.
And those guys are alive today. Yeah. And he got two others. And my dad was 17.
When he was in an incredible tail gunner. Yeah. And he said he never saw the people he killed
because he was a tail gunner. And, you know, you didn't see them. But he got a two distinguished
flying cross battles. 17. Yeah. I mean, what was I doing? I was, you know, I was stage manager
at high school when he was seven. I was playing football and drinking too much in Texas.
Well, his mother, his mother signed him in the day after Pearl Harbor. Yeah. And that's when he
went in December 7th, the right afternoon, December 8th or rather, right after Pearl Harbor.
Anyway, so stand down the important events of September 13th at, at festival hall and festival
park. All right. We got another big one coming up. A little happier one, festival of trees.
November 21th. Yeah, festival of trees. A lot of your listeners may recall the initial incarnation
of festival trees, which ran for years. At festival hall, it was an event that featured, you know,
ornately decorated Christmas tree sponsored by local businesses and community organizations.
And people are invited into, you know, see the trees, but also, you know, put a raffle ticket in
and hopes of winning one of them and taking them home. And then the proceeds from that go to benefit
local charities, the charities of the choices by the, the sponsors of the trees. And then
in and amongst that through the, through November 21st through December 6th are going to be a lot
of different types of community events, you know, concerts, you know, Caledonia Conservancy has a
wine tasting, all kinds of other, there's a breakfast with Santa. So a lot of great things that are
happening. We are in need of sponsors for trees. We have a lot of trees left and we just secured a
great presenting sponsor on the event, the local culverts of franchisee will be joining us while
and we get the trees from millers. So that's awesome. They're all pre-lit. So you can find out about
the different ways that you can participate at festivalpark.com or reach out to me, Kevin at festival
park.com. Now, remember years ago, you had a, you can do the decorating yourself or find an
organization to do it for you. Yes. And we had a tree there. And I remember the first time walking
and I said, because we were broadcasting from there and I said, oh, I hope it's a nice looking tree.
Please let it be nice. I don't want to, I don't want a snoopy tree or Charlie Brown
tree. Right? Right? That twig. Yeah. With a bent over thing with it. Please, and it was beautiful.
Yeah. The trees and people know how well you got to bid on them. Yeah. And yeah, the, you know,
the companies are encouraged to decorate their trees, but they can reach out to us. We have
volunteers that are happy to do it or they can engage a local agency to do it for them.
So again, yeah, that's what we did. We had figured who we had to do it, but we did it for a
couple of years. So anyway, a quick review. If you want to sponsor a tree and get your name
with a card there and I guess and everything, get your name on card. Yeah, you'd be, you know,
featured in all the, all the collateral materials, you know, the website and things like that.
But then it also be, you know, great designation of your tree. As it appears, there's small trees,
medium trees, large trees, you can do a wreath. You can donate a basket for raffle. So there's just
a lot of great ways that you can participate. So, you know, go to festivalpark.com and go to
the events page and find St. St. Nick's festival of trees and get the information there or you can
reach out to me, Kevin at festivalpark.com. And I'll get you sorted out.
We're quickly here. I didn't realize you have bingo every second Tuesday.
We do. We do that with the VFW post and we combine that with, you know, a different
unique menu item and that's at Memorial Hall. And that's bingo invites bingo invites.
And that's interesting. Yeah. And then we're coming up toward the end of our,
free music in the concert series, Hot Harbor Nights. Tonight we have a great band from
Western Racine County, the North Cape Express. And then we wind up next week on the 11th
last night of the run with my band Pass Midnight. So. And you're doing this with any notes in front
of you. I don't know how you do that. I can't remember the call letters. I gotta have a tight
out in front of you double. Yeah. I don't know. I live this stuff. We're elbows deep in it.
So it's, it's ingrained in my brain. So bingo, did I hear right 1.4 billion dollars as a jack
pot of. Yeah. I think that was drawn this morning or yesterday. Nobody won. No. No. Oh,
wow. What do you want? It goes up again. Yeah. Yeah. How, you know, it's, you only have to pick
six numbers. Yeah. Six numbers. And they're selling millions and millions and millions of tickets.
People can't pick six numbers. It doesn't make sense. No. It's, uh, yeah. But you think about
all the, you know, infinite infinite number of combinations. So you could put those six numbers.
And they do. Well, the way they do it is it's not really six numbers. It's five numbers plus
another number, which is from a different pot. Okay. And you got to get the power ball. The power
one of the 50 numbers. And this one's from 36 numbers. Uh, whoever came up with this idea,
genius. One of the, one of the comedians we have said, you know, with all the technology we've
got now, we're still using ping pong balls to pick. We can't improve upon ping pong balls.
After all these years, the anticipation of that ball popping up and then spinning it around.
And do you remember how they rigged it in, in Pennsylvania? They made a movie. You have a
John Travolta. No. Yeah. John Travolta started in the film. I think I was called, um,
and the way they did it was they put clear nail polish on the balls. They wanted to win and
it weed them down a little bit. Uh-oh. So all the other ones that didn't have the nail polish
rose to the surface when they picked them out. Okay. And all the ones they wanted to win
had no nail polish on them. Well, I forget the movie was John Travolta made it. Um,
be on it was. Anyways, I was about the lottery scandal in Pennsylvania. Okay. It wasn't a power ball.
Yeah. There's a great movie I just watched on, um, Amazon's called the luckiest man in the
world. And it's about people might remember from the mid 80s. There was a guy that, uh, that
game show pressed your luck on CBS. He had, he had memorized the five patterns that the lights
we go around the board on and he won like $109,000. Yes. Yes. Yes. And, uh, and you know, it wasn't
cheating. He just had a whole lot of time on his hands and love game shows and, uh, but his,
his store, his back story is really kind of sad and how he ended up, but, uh, but yeah,
check that out on, on Amazon, the luckiest man in the world and Walton Goggins is in it and, uh,
David Strathairns in it. So great cast. It's a, it's good stuff. Um, I'm trying to look at that movie
with John Travolta here. And I thought it was called Lucky Numbers. Oh, it was Lucky Numbers. Okay.
Matt with John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow. Um, that sounds familiar. The television weatherman scams
a local lottery. Yeah. Can't do it. It's very hard to do that today. Yeah. It's pretty locked down.
Yeah. Um, I was going to say something and then I forget what it was. It was only brilliant. And
I like, of course it was. The older I get, the more it goes in one year at the other. Okay.
Quick review. We've got the bacon fest coming up this weekend. Friday and Saturday. Friday
and Saturday. Festival Park. Let's do a quick review of people just waking up and say, I smell
bacon somewhere. Yeah. You're certainly going to smell it from the festival site on, on Friday
afternoon, but free, free smells by the way. Yeah. Definitely free smells. Walked by the gate.
You'll be drawn in. No, we open at four o'clock on Friday. Tickets are available at festival
park.com on the events page or at the gate, $10 at the gates of $15 for both days. And yeah, great
music over the over the two days. Come on out and see the Shagged Deluxe. If you like 70s disco
and then easy FM on Saturday for you. Yacht Rock Mavits. Which term? Yacht Rock Tum from.
Well, you know, it's interesting. There's a great documentary on HBO. It's just called Yacht Rock.
And it shows how the format originated and it really originated from, from two bands.
Steely Dan and, um, Toto. So a lot of the music and a lot of the members that contributed to the
tracks on all these records emanated from those two bands. And it's just kind of a genre that
it said, easy late 70s early. Yes. We're the one. Yacht. I don't know. Maybe just because of the
attitude, you know, the California Florida. I wouldn't know. I've never been on a yacht before.
So I've been on a robot. Yeah. I've never been on a yacht. Been on a real big boat. Okay. So we've
got the stand down coming on the 13th on the 13th, which is a great event like we talked about
helping all the local veterans get sorted out with their benefits and housing and job creation.
And, and then some, you know, gear that they might need personal care items and, you know,
outerwear, things of that nature. So come on down for that. And the festival of trees,
which is coming up on the 21th, but if you want to sign up now and get some sponsorship of these
trees, and it's going to be crowded because people love looking at trees at Christmas.
Yeah, it's going to be a great event. And yeah, Festival Hall, we filled with these gorgeous
trees, you know, go to festivalpark.com and click on the events page and then find the Saint
Nick Festival of trees. It is November 21st through December 6th, which is Saint Nicholas day.
That's kind of what we're ending it on. And so, yeah, or you can reach out to me, Kevin McDougall,
Kevin at festivalpark.com. Okay. So people want to see this entire schedule. Where do they go?
They can see it on festivalpark.com. The events page, all the events that we've talked about
are listed there. And then some that we haven't gotten to yet that we have bark in the park
ending at the end of September, which is a pet-oriented event. So that's kind of our last outdoor event
for the year. But we have a full schedule of indoor events, public and private coming up in the
off season. So he goes light to burn in festivalpark. Kevin McDougall from 5K events. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Don. Great working with you this year with the nursing concert.
Oh, thank you so much. We're looking forward to it next year. Yeah, thank you very much.
