Like a fine wine aged to perfection, until the bottle shatters against the rocks of history, two ancient warriors of radio broadcasting take to the airwaves of Madison for anyone brave enough to listen to the unvarnished truth, or something like that.
It's John and Gordy in the morning on 92.7
WMDX.
introduction
to make you spin up your coffee when you heard
it.
Almost.
Good morning.
I'm a little afraid to go on the air now, you know, living up to that.
You know, coming up here on the program, we're going to get to a summation, an AI summation of the show the last hour yesterday.
Yeah.
And it always sounds like it's the only reason we're doing it is because it makes it sound so
Interesting.
It's
a new feature that we have
on the show
where AI analyzes every hour that we do and then spits out
a summary.
It does.
It spits out a summary.
And we like the fact that it is cold and ruthless and has AI sense of humor.
Right.
And we're doing it because Sam hates AI so much.
I'm
being replaced anyway.
What does it matter if I get replaced with a machine or
not?
Nobody values what I do around here.
I
know you've been doing summations for all these days.
For a year and
a half.
For a year and a half and we've
never complimented you on it.
And yet AI comes in, all of a sudden they're showing up on our screen and we're thinking, oh my god, that's fantastic.
Did we do that?
So, yeah, you're being replaced Sam.
It's it's
quite hyperbolic
That's
the name of the game in the business of radio, right?
Automation
took
us out.
Yeah Yeah,
that's
producer Sam pushing the buttons and flipping the switches in there.
Yeah, John Peterson Gordy young happy Friday.
Yeah
It's eight minutes past the hour.
Well, we stayed up so late last night to do the Pete Schwabba show.
Right.
Yeah.
At 6.35.
It was fun.
It's always a good time with Pete.
He's a great guy.
Love Pete.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We need to get him in here sometime live
in the morning.
I'd love
to talk to
him about movies.
He was just here this past weekend for the festival.
I know.
He's busy watching all those movies late
at night.
And he's got festival guests on, so we'd be in the way.
No, for him coming on your show, you just gotta like take him out of his hotel room and cart him over here.
Although we
did get him up early enough to take him out to breakfast last time.
One of the times
he was here.
But we need to get him on the air here some early morning to see how he does early in the morning.
Because I don't think he's used to getting up
that early.
I think he sleeps in probably.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
We had a good time.
And we appreciate Pete inviting us.
And we'll get another invite in a year or two, I'm sure, right?
Well,
you know, I was listening on the way in, they play a rerun of Pete's show.
Yeah.
And this morning he seemed to have regretted even having a conversation with us.
No, I'm just kidding.
But he didn't say anything.
He's fine.
Yeah, he's okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was that happened.
And here it is Friday, lots of things happening this weekend.
Let's see the farmers markets first Madison farmers market of the season tomorrow.
Okay,
that'll be a lot of fun up around the square the Midwest horse show is happening.
We're gonna talk to Pam Yankee In about 15 minutes find out more
about the
horse fair 10 minutes or so.
Yeah Anyway, yeah, that'll be a good time and when we'll talk about the Girl Scout patch the Girl Scout patch.
Yes, they're selling cookies again, you know
Oh,
yes.
Are all the cookies that were in the kitchen gone already?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
What?
They're gone.
We didn't even hear about that.
Oh, you know, I thought I saw that in chat or something.
There was a memory.
There were cookies in there.
Yeah, I think they're all gone.
I didn't expect
them to be here this morning.
For how often you write the snack cabinet in there?
I'm surprised you didn't see them.
Yeah, I did not.
Were they
hidden?
Were they?
They were hidden in plain sight on the counter next to the coffee maker.
Then we missed
it.
They must have gotten there after we left.
Maybe.
After I left in a huff you
always leave in a huff you're always huffing puffing on your way
out the door
Rumbling Well, okay, let's check the
Let's check the weather right now at 29 degrees on the WMDX thermometer outside our WMDX window overlooking State Street.
Well, the WMDX Samsung Watch indicates 56 is a high temperature today.
56.
Currently 31 according to the Samsung Watch.
Well, we're close.
Yeah, 29 is what our thermometer says.
I've been getting alerts for pollen.
Pollan alerts seems a little early for that.
Yeah, not Maybe I mean the afternoon it warms up a little bit.
Hmm.
I have to admit though somebody spray-painted Frost on my cart window this morning, so
Really?
You had to get the scraper
out?
I had
to scrape the window.
Oh my
god.
I did too, except I forgot to put the, because I'm driving the bug now, I still have my ice scraper and my other car just up north right now.
And I didn't have a cassette case to use.
So I had to use my credit card to scrape my
window.
There goes the digital
information on that car.
Well, let's check the afternoon high.
What was that?
Oh, it's Friday, so we got to get the balls out.
Get the lottery ball machine going.
And see what the afternoon high is.
OK.
Right up the shaft.
First number is a five.
What did you just say?
Second number is the three.
What?
Okay, that's my job to get a little blue on this show.
I don't know what you're talking
about.
53 is the predicted afternoon high.
It's going
to be cloudy today, although it looks pretty clear this morning.
Hey, we got an early morning call here.
We
do.
Yeah.
It's nice to get early calls here.
Matt Middleton is on the line with us this morning.
Good morning, Matt.
What do you got for us?
Good morning, guys.
I wanted to read something quick.
I think it's kind of the big issue behind a lot of what we're suffering here in the West.
The G7, the global south, consists of over 40% of the world's population.
Their combined military is over 13 million some active members.
Economy their GDP surpassed us in 2018.
I believe that's before they What is it Indonesia joined the bricks
right
and I was not aware of this but Indonesia's population is 230 some million people almost that of the US.
Yeah, it's huge.
You've got Saudi Arabia.
I ran Egypt.
They joined you've got a
Japan and South Korea now trying to make deals with China because of Trump's madness, right?
But I really think that it's the back of it all that's what's behind all this the Empire is crumbling.
We know we can't compete economically anymore and Trump and the Capitalists are just basically trying to you know, rob the ship while it's thinking.
Yes Well, you could good way of saying
but that's what it's all about really.
Yeah
Wow
Well, that's
excellent.
Quite a
good analysis there, Matt.
Thank
you.
Thank you for that.
I don't have anything on that.
The G7, I know.
Yeah.
Well, that's the whole thing.
You know, we were doing so well.
You know, we were right.
Truly.
Everything
was
going just fine.
The preeminent power on the world stage.
Yeah.
And yet, here we are starting all over again.
We just threw that formula out.
And it's all because of the Trump tariffs, right?
Yeah, exactly.
That's screwing everything up.
Yeah, we're going to go to a tariff system and get rid of taxes completely.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's not a new plan, is
it?
Well, thank you, Matt, for that
call.
Thank you.
608-879-8255, getting us off to a start there.
Not
exactly uplifting, but
we're
going to get to more of the tax stuff a little bit later on.
But first, it's time for the National Day calendar.
That's what we do
every time,
every day of the year.
Do
we have a whole bunch of them today?
I'm
going to skim through some of them.
I'm going to skip a couple.
Today is, is it or is it not National Submarine Day?
It's
not National Submarine
Day.
Well, you're wrong right off the bat.
It is National Submarine
Day.
Wait till I get through the list.
Is it National Flannel Day?
National Day of Silence, National Cheese Fondue Day, National Pet Pay, National Eight Track Tape Day, or National Barbershop Quartet Day.
Which one of those days does not belong?
John, you're already out.
I'm out, yes.
Sam, it's up to you.
You get a louder buzzer this time.
There you go.
It's not Barbershop Quartet Day.
Well, you're wrong,
too.
Oh, no.
Give
yourself that loud buzzer.
It's not what
stay silent day.
You're wrong again.
How many times do you want to be wrong?
It's not national flannel day.
Oh, yeah,
that's right.
I was gonna pick.
Oh, sure you were
It's National Submarine Day.
You know, we need a day to salute
everybody that's running around in
submarines underneath the ocean.
We keep forgetting about submarines.
Well, we honor the day that the U.S.
Navy first acquired its first modern commissioned submarine, April 11th, 1900.
That became the first Navy modern submarine.
I never
understood the
term
submarine.
Submarine underwater.
It's pretty simple.
What other,
is that the term you don't
understand?
There was a term, you know, dating.
Dating.
There was a,
oh, yeah, submarine date, no, submarine.
Yeah, I just had it and I lost it before I brought it up here.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah.
What was that phrase?
Yeah.
It was about dating.
It was.
Yeah.
Submarine
races.
Submarine, you'd go out and
go
parking to Neck and watch the submarine races.
And I
don't understand it.
I never have it.
Nobody explained it
to me.
I still don't.
Okay.
Mr. Knight.
Oh, wait.
Sam is like, what?
What are you talking about?
In the olden days, young teenagers with cars used to like to go out in the middle of nowhere and Neck.
They used to call it necking.
Okay, let's move on.
And watch the submarine days.
Were you waiting for a response?
Well, they would
say, no, they would say, we're going to go watch the submarines race.
It made no sense
at all.
And it doesn't make
any sense now, but it was just something to say.
It was code for going out and making out.
So it's submarine
race day today.
Yes,
it
is.
It's National Day of Silence.
Be quiet today, okay?
National Cheese Fondue Day, National Pet Day, be nice to your pet every day.
National eight-track tape day.
Wow.
We gave you an eight-track tape thing.
How's your collection?
Did you ever get that working?
Well, I did get it working, but Gordy, I hate to break it to you, but I donated it back to Goodwill.
Did you really?
Wow.
We took a lot of time picking that
out for you, Sam, at Atomic Antiques over there.
We thought that was the best wood grain that they had for plastic.
Wow.
Okay, Sam.
It's National Barbershop Quartet Day, but we don't have to listen to any Barbershop Quartet.
No, let's not.
Oh, God.
OK, we're back with Pam Yankee is next on John and Gordy in the Morning.
Stay with us.
Working in that coal mine.
Working in a coal mine going down,
down, down.
Working in a coal mine going
down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going
down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going
down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down,
down, down.
Working in a coal
mine going down, down, down.
Working in
a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
Working in
It's
happening.
It's happening.
Do we have the music for that?
We've got the jingle and an ad where I thought we'd just play that right out of the gate here.
and talk about
horse.
Remember when your mom used to compare you to a horse?
Stop horsing around!
Get off your high horse!
At the Midwest Horse Fair, we embrace that comparison.
We have horses of a different color.
It's okay to eat like a horse.
Always put the cart before the horse when you're shopping.
Move it on over to the rodeo or the Sunday derby.
It's the Midwest Horse Fair in 20th through 26th.
MidwestHorseFair.com for more.
It's this weekend.
Woo!
Have a little horse after that.
Pam,
you're familiar with the Midwest horse fair, I'm sure, right?
Oh, indeed.
Oh, indeed.
Yep.
And, you know, that's, I've been thinking about it for the past couple of days.
One thing about the horse fair is it always stretches parking availability at the Lion Energy Center.
And if we would have had the wet weather, cool, sloppy stuff.
that we had last weekend, that would have not bowed well for the visitors.
But it looks like weather is really going to straighten out here and they're going to be ready to go coming up in about an hour.
Oh, yeah.
You know, the parking with the horse trailers.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, we've got good weather on the way for the weekend.
So
that should
be
great for the fair.
All right.
Let's talk about the Wisconsin.
Meat Industries Hall of Fame.
Wow.
That sounds pretty cool.
Didn't even know anything about
this.
What's this
all
about?
Yeah.
So this is something pretty cool that actually was started several years ago.
It started in 1993.
So think about our Wisconsin cheese makers.
You know, we always talk about master cheese makers.
Every little shop's got kind of their own specialty.
Well, it's the same for Wisconsin's meat industry.
These would be your local butchers, the people that come up with the recipes for the
brought for the cured bacon, the hams, all that kind of stuff that you find locally.
And the Wisconsin Association Meet Processors is meeting at the Marriott West in Middleton.
I got over there last night because it was time for their Hall of Fame induction.
And talk about names that are legends in the industry.
So one of them you'll probably recognize right out of the chute.
And that's Fritz Yousinger.
If you've ever listened to a Brewer's game, you know that
The legend Bob Yucca always talked about Yousinger Broth.
Well, it's a family-run company to this day.
And Fritz Yousinger is the fourth generation of family members that's making it happen.
About 144 years they've been in the Milwaukee area doing what they do.
So it was great to talk to him.
I said, how in the world do you keep the family succession going?
Because literally family members have been the ones that have been at the helm.
And he said, well, first of all, instead of Christmas presents,
Kids get shares in the company, and that helps to motivate their focus on being involved.
But he said, you know, a lot of it is just osmosis.
He said, when I was a kid, I was hearing about it at the dinner table.
I'd walk in the plant with my dad.
So Fritz went to school at UW, got a meat science and food science degree, and he said some of the bacteriology classes that he had, the food science classes, still come in very helpful today.
in their plant.
So he was one of the inductees.
They got a chance to visit with them.
They do have fifth generation youth singers in the wings coming on as leadership there.
Then the other guy is pretty cool.
Dan Sutherland is his name and he too grew up in the Milwaukee area and his family was involved in meat processing.
Again, I want to stress this is in the Milwaukee area running the Milwaukee Stockyards.
People don't realize that there was a very vibrant livestock yard.
Kind of right where the pot a lot of me gaming Casino is now in Milwaukee down in the valley.
That's what they call
it.
Well, okay Yeah, and then Sutherland dad was one of the operators of that and then Danny eventually took it over from his dad So he's done everything from managed plants been involved in me purchasing rendering even the foreign market in 82 he joined Johnson bro Johnson bill brought
Now listen to this, the sow, S-O-W, sow procurement.
And I said, what is it, sow?
I said, I've never even stopped to think about what kind of hog you want for brats.
And he said, oh yeah, a sow is because they've got more meat.
and more fat and more flavor.
So you've got a really nice ratio of lean to fat.
And he said, so he really learned the skills from others in the industry.
Did not go to college or anything like that.
He learned it by doing it.
So Dan Sutherland, the other inductee into the Hall of Fame last night, they're going to continue with their convention.
through about one o'clock on Saturday at the Marriott Well.
All right.
Well, that sounds like a cool place to be.
And I know that in Milwaukee and the valley there, they also tanneries.
So I'm wondering if that kind of ties
in at all.
So, yeah.
That's correct.
All right.
And Pam, we've got a couple of minutes here.
Can you tell us a little bit about the Girl Scouts partnering up with Wisconsin Agriculture
for a new
patch, right?
Yep.
I'm bringing it up fellas, because normally if you say Girl Scouts, people start thinking about their favorite cookie, right?
Yeah,
right.
Yeah.
This started, I want to say, probably about five years ago.
A dairy farmer north of Madison in Dane named John Hague decided his kids were, his girls were involved in Girl Scouts, and they earn those badges or patches, I should say.
Well, there was no patch that would connect those young people to anything about dairy.
That's how it started, was a dairy patch.
The troops would go out visit the dairy farm, learn a little bit more about dairy, then they'd earn their patch.
And it kind of went from there.
Today, the girls go to have the opportunity in Wisconsin to get a patch that not only is about dairy, but all Wisconsin agriculture, the girls go through 10 different stations when they go to a visit, five in the morning, five in the afternoon that are interactive, about 15 minutes long to introduce them to new career opportunities in agriculture they might not have thought about, like natural resources, animal health, education, agronomy, dairy science, all that kind of stuff.
And it's really caught on.
There's a lot of participation from the Girl Scouts, and more importantly, Girl Scout leadership are kind of like, duh, why haven't we been doing this before?
If you've got a young lady that's involved in the Girl Scouts, it's more than just selling cookies,
as they say.
That's fantastic.
It should also go to the Boy Scouts, too, a little bit there, maybe a patch for them.
Well,
maybe
so.
Reach out to them as well, you bet.
Good idea.
Well, Pam, thank you
so much.
Great
stuff.
Yeah, terrific.
Should be a great weekend not only for the horse fair, but also the farmers market along the square and
Pam you have a great weekend.
Can anybody go to the Sausage Hall of Fame thing Samples over there at the meat
industry They will they will do free hot dogs All right,
Pam you have a good weekend.
Thank you so much
Hey, I'm Yankee Midwest Farm Report, and that's coming up right around the corner.
And later in our next hour, Peter Frampton Tickets, it's all coming up on John and Gordy in the
morning.
As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point, a dumbing down, until humanity was incapable of solving even its most basic problems.
Now listen, Grapehead.
I'll explain it so even you can understand it.
We
can duck
and
cover.
There's a fallout shelter right there.
There's no way to survive this, you idiot!
Idiocracy.
For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.
Oh.
Welcome back a lot of stuff today.
It's a Friday.
It's John and Gordy 92.7 WMDX producer Sam Doing his thing.
Yeah, it's 635 It's gonna be really nice today, but kind of cloudy later high in the mid fifties right now 30 degrees This portion of John and Gordy in the morning brought to you by Verlo mattress of Madison the Verlo mismatch sale going on right now biggest sale of the year
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Okay, we got to catch up on some...
We do.
We have a few topics this morning about the submarine races.
A term used way back when, and I never understood it.
Gordy didn't understand it, but everybody talked about them.
But
Catherine's all over it.
She knows all about it
somehow.
She does.
She really does.
She's an authority on submarine
races.
She said, this is why.
It's called submarine races, because you'd park at a body of water and
quote, watch the submarine races.
that are below the surface.
And
then she puts in parentheses, Lord, why am I rating this?
Well, we wanted the same thing.
Apparently you know something about it.
And last night we talked to Pete Chwaba about Sam's VW.
And I mentioned that the Blue Meanie is painted on the door.
And
I'm not sure if Mark is referring to that, but he said, so was Trump the leader of the Blue Meanies.
He
sure acts like the master blue meanie.
That's
right.
He does.
Yeah.
And if you don't know what we're talking about, well, you got to watch the movie, Yellow Submarine.
Okay.
Is it time to take a look at the review of our show?
Oh.
The last hour of our program yesterday, you know, we have AI now interpreting what John and Gordy has done.
Well, yes.
Now, we're supposed to refer to this first line.
Do you think?
What do you think about that?
Should I skip
that?
No, no.
Say it.
Stop it.
Stop it.
Let's just do this.
There's a rumor.
Okay.
It's a rumor.
There it is.
Here it is.
It's titled Navigating Nomination Highs and Tariff Turmoil.
Here
we
go.
John and our two.
John and Gordy celebrate being nominated for Best of Madison Radio Due, buzzing about anticipation for the June 1st voting.
They dive into the chaotic world of tariffs, unpacking Trump's 90-tade tariff pause and the economic panic that it sparked.
As bond markets tremble and tariffs raise sneaker prices, Fox News surprisingly tells the truth about U.S.
companies bearing the tariff burden.
That's right.
The duo
sprinkle humor.
amidst the turbulence with quirky national day and Peter Frampton ticket giveaways.
Meanwhile, the weather promises a brighter weekend and they're set for a movie night on Pete Schwabba's show.
Stay tuned for more hijinks.
It gets us pretty much.
It's amazing we did all of that.
It
doesn't understand the national day
calendar, I don't think, with quirky
national days.
You know, our two.
I just had a great idea.
AI is now another listener to the show.
Why don't we just make...
more AIs to listen to the show.
We can make our own listeners.
We can make our own audience.
You're right.
Wow.
That's
it right there.
I think that's a great idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's going to catch on.
You hate AIs.
You're
right.
But now
you've seen the light.
You see the future with AIs.
And my oldest son, who is 26, he always like rolls his eyes every time I talk about AIs.
He says, Dad, AIs have been around for 30 years.
Okay, but now it's just coming into its own.
And Doug from St.
Francis, we're just catching up on our texts here, and you can always text us on the Civic Media app.
Doug says, you've probably heard that Jeff Bezos will be launching his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, into space.
Is their relationship
okay?
It
could be a problem.
Yeah, we'll keep an eye on that one.
Okay.
Yeah, well, all right.
Now it's time for idiocracy.
All
right.
Got plenty to choose.
We do have we have Tim Miller.
He's from the Bulwark.
Yeah.
Does a lot of guest appearances.
He tells it like it is.
And
that's why
I like Tim an awful lot.
And he's talking about Laura Loomer, who advised Trump on who to fire and signal gate, right?
Right.
So anyway, this is Tim talking about Laura Loomer.
Laura Loomer is
such a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist.
I mean, she's an unapologetic, I think you had quotes in the intro, white nationalist like has said that about herself, like cheered the deaths of Muslims, said like she hopes for more.
I mean, like just nasty person.
And anybody who doesn't believe it could just Google Laura Loom or crazy or just look at her ex feed if they wanted to, to get a sense for this.
The fact that she is in the White House talking to the president saying, you should fire people who are in charge of national security.
And he apparently said, OK, Laura, great.
And fired a couple of people.
And that's how the country is being run.
And we have a Fox and Friends weekend host that is running the military.
So it shouldn't be that surprising.
But I think that it is really just important to marinate on that, that the people with power
in the White House, or outside the White House, are like these extreme fringe conspiracy theorists that have big followers online.
They can dictate who is in charge of our country's security, your family's security.
And just on this point, one other thing, over at the DOJ today, they had a briefing at the Department of Justice and it was like banning...
Benny Johnson, and it was just a whole rogues gallery of rumor-esque weirdos that were like having
a briefing
at the DOJ about the politicization of our government.
So, you know, Justice Department national security decisions are being decided by MAGA conspiracy bloggers.
So that should help you sleep at night.
Yeah,
rogues gallery.
Well put.
What a way to sum that up.
Boy,
think about
that group.
Now we're gonna take a positive look now.
Oh, good.
rising Democrat whose voice is being heard.
It's a state senator, Mallory McMorrow.
And she recently came out with her vision of America.
Let's listen to that cut seven.
If you decide to run, what case are you making to the people of Michigan and why you'd be the choice?
We need new leadership.
In this moment, we have a Democratic Party that does not feel like it is prepared to meet this moment.
This is no longer the Republican Party.
And to be very clear, I represent Mitt Romney's hometown.
That time is long gone.
This is the MAGA party, this is Trump's party, and we need democratic leadership who understand that, who know how to fight, who believe that there is a future worth fighting for, and are going to lay out that clear vision.
You know, I'm a member of the millennial generation.
By and large, we did worse than our parents.
Can't afford to buy a house, can't afford to start a family, are not living the life that we were promised, even if we did everything right.
Democrats have to put that vision forward, and there is a big decision to make, but that's what I'm thinking about as we think about the rest of the state of Michigan.
Pretty good.
That's Senator, State Senator Mallory McMarrow, who is running for Congress.
Yeah,
good
for
her.
Nice.
Nicely put.
That reminds me.
I don't think we've mentioned it today on our show.
Ben Wickler is not running for DNC chair of Wisconsin
again.
I put that on the outline.
Were you just about to get to that?
Did I take the words out of your
mouth?
No, I'm glad you brought it up because that's a big surprise.
You think
he's burned out?
Did he release a statement or anything?
It was a tweet.
She mentioned to me, you know, we're just sitting there watching television.
I
know I know it's all an ounce there, but well, he's been doing it a long time Well, right after this I think you know, it's pretty much burned out or he's running for office Maybe something
else.
You know
what?
He is very very good at Talking about what the Democrats should be about.
Mm-hmm.
Why shouldn't he run for office, right?
And I hope he is I hope that's in his plans, but we don't know yet.
It's fresh news.
Yes, it is
All right.
Okay.
All right.
Now let's get to, uh, uh, Trump going after the traders that have worked in his previous administration writing books.
Now they're going after him.
This hit the fan last night on the talk show.
So, man, people are really kind of worried about this.
This is true dictatorship.
Uh, let's listen to cut 109.
Here it is.
The next presidential memorandum we have for you relates to Miles Taylor.
You may recall that Miles Taylor served in the Department of Homeland Security during your previous administration.
In his
capacity with the Department of Homeland Security, he leaked classified information.
He wrote a book under the pseudonym anonymous, making outrageous claims both about your administration and about others in it.
What
this
presidential memorandum is going to do, one, it's going to strip any act of clearance.
that he has in light of his past activities involving classified information.
It's also going to order the Department of Justice
to
investigate his activities to see
what
else might come up in that context.
given his egregious behavior during your previous administration.
And I had no idea who this guy was.
I had no idea.
I saw him with CNN, or one of them, I guess, CNN.
It's not a big deal.
I think we have to do something about it.
You can't have that happen.
If that happens to other presidents, it wouldn't be sustainable for the president.
Oh, he's doing it for other presidents.
And if it was a Democrat president, I'd say, that's a terrible thing.
A thing like that can happen.
That's a terrible thing.
And it's time to find out whether or not somebody can do that.
Can they write a book?
Because it happened to be one.
of a lot of people in a room, and they go out and write a book,
and
worse than that, call it an anonymous, like it's a big deal.
But we're going to find out whether or not somebody's allowed to do that.
I think it's a very important case, and I think he's guilty of treason, if you want to know.
Oh my god.
We'll find
out.
And I assume we're recommending this to the Department of Justice.
Yes, sir.
Yes, that's it.
Get that Department of Justice out there to do his bidding.
It's not supposed to be doing that, but.
Well, we are definitely in a dictatorship.
This position has gone to his head.
The guardrails are off.
And yeah, getting immunity from the Supreme Court was the match that lit that fuse.
I mean, he always felt that way anyway.
He felt like he could do whatever he
wanted.
He doesn't know anything about government, so he just went
in just like a
lot, right?
It doesn't know anything about Social Security, but they're thinking there's fraud all over the place, you know, those one and three year olds getting Social Security, oh my God, the fraud and all of that, that's outrageous, those kids, you know, they know what to spend that money on.
We haven't heard much from Elon though, since the Wisconsin race.
He's gone underground now, hanging out at the Oval
Office very much anymore.
You never know.
Now the focus is on RFK Jr.
because he's an idiot.
Well, the brain worm.
Oh, I know, we've got to give him that, right?
All right, here's RFK Jr.
You know, he was asked about all the big cuts and HHS and CDC and $11 billion in cuts.
to get more specific.
These are state and local programs we're seeing all over the country.
I'm sure he knows all about
that.
Oh, he knows all about it.
He was interviewed by CBS News' Dr. Lapook and he asked him about those cuts.
Let's check this out here.
Since his appointment in February, Kennedy has facilitated sweeping cuts for programs and staffers alike.
You proposed more than $11 billion in cuts to local and state programs addressing things like infectious disease, mental health, addiction, and childhood vaccination.
Did you personally approve those cuts?
I'm not familiar with those cuts.
We have to go.
We'd have to go.
There's, like, more than 50 pages of, you know, of cuts that I actually went through.
These
were mainly DEI
cuts, which the president... There were a lot, but I'll give you, for example, about $750,000 of a University of Michigan grant into adolescent diabetes was cut.
Did you know that?
I didn't know that, and
that's... So, you know, know about those cuts.
I think it's, well, rather unsettling, I mean, you know...
to say the least.
I think he'd get a summary of some of this stuff.
Just taking off as they would have given a list of things that were cut so he knew what he was working with,
right?
He would think so.
Well, okay, I don't have these people working for me anymore.
Maybe I should do something about that.
Maybe that's why he hasn't done anything about measles in Texas, which he was catching on and even spreading
more and more.
We've got a couple of calls here now.
Do we have time for any of them
at this point?
No, but we'll have them.
Right after the break.
Hold on.
We'll get to your calls.
Yes, we will.
And also in our next hour, Peter Frampton tickets, we've got one more pair to that show that's happening in Milwaukee and we'll be giving those away.
Also, Rocker will be here in our next hour as well with a Max Inc preview for the weekend on John and Gordy in the morning.
WMDX, John and Gordy in the morning.
You can hear the coffee perky.
Mm-hmm.
651.
I've seen a little bit of sunshine.
We'll see some clouds moving in and right now 30 degrees highs in the mid fifties today.
My mom used to say perky, you know.
It's
percolating.
It's percolating.
I think she
did it
just to get me to say percolate as a little kid, you know.
Really?
Yeah, you know how they tease, right?
You think so?
Try to get their kids to think a little bit more.
Mm-hmm.
Hey, we've got some people.
What?
Oh, really?
Come on, Sam.
You've heard me.
You believe that, right?
What are you talking about?
Well, percolating.
Yeah?
Yeah, well, you brought a percolator in.
Are you talking
like teaching kids how to...
Perking teaching kids language.
Yes, yeah, you know filled in the blank And my mom would you know sit there and just say you know say the word short like Perk
Perk.
Well, that's like a foreign word to a lot of younger people nowadays.
Yeah,
they don't know about Perk.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
What am I doing?
I got to
bring it back in here.
We got to use it as a sound effect.
We can put it right up next to the microphone while it brews.
Okay, okay.
Hey, there's an idea right there.
Let's go to the phones right now.
We have Mark on the line.
Mark, go ahead.
What do you got for us today?
You know, I thought there came Perk leading up through my head.
Nice one, Mark.
Tool security.
when three-year-olds collecting social security.
Actually, you know, that's probably survivor's benefits, you know, because that's actually, you know, pretty useful thing.
I mean, we collected social security for a while when my dad was disabled, partially disabled by a drunk driver back, before that's back in 1970, before
he was
able to go back to work.
We collected SSI, you know, that kept us going when his disability benefits at work had run out and
was able to go back to work.
I mean, that kept our family going.
I mean, I could put Paul Ryan and his mother through college so they could do
their
various careers.
So Elon Musk should pull his head out of his rump and actually
Look at what actually Social Security actually provides for the American citizens.
That's why it
makes me so frustrated.
They wouldn't make this accusation.
They wouldn't call this fraud and abuse if they understood the system on this.
And you know, I even experienced this myself because I was collecting Social Security at the time my kids were growing up.
very young and the Social Security agent, because I went to the office, said, you know, you have kids, you can get an extra benefit for them.
They acted like I was already dead and they paid, they paid these benefits to my kids.
I felt a little offended, but also happy.
So anyway, yeah,
I had that
experience as well.
You know, a guy in Social Security having kids.
to take care of, they would give you extra money.
Right.
So anyway, let's go to Joe now on the line.
Good morning, Joe.
How are you?
Hey guys, great stuff.
Please bring that percolating song back again.
That is just a delightful little thing.
And yes, most of us do not percolate anymore.
Instead, maybe the word marinate is a better one that you had from one of your previous bits that you had.
Percolate, marinate, you know.
Anyway, I just wanted to commend you.
You had the comments from the...
a legislator in Michigan who's planning on moving ahead.
And she said, we have to know how to fight.
And I was going to commend to your readers.
I had mentioned this guy's name before, and I just want to throw this into the mix.
He's a writer out of Canada.
His name is Dean Blundell.
It's B-L-U-N-D-E-L-L.
And he's got a sub stack.
And the title of this one article that I would offer people, it's Carney's Checkmate, How Canada's Quiet Bond Play Forced Trump
to drop tariffs.
His point is that this guy, Mark Carney, the interim prime minister of Canada, is one smart guy.
He said these tariffs went into place that what Carney did was head to Europe.
and work with Japan, which is the number one owner of our debt, to the tune of a trillion dollars.
And then these EU nations like Germany and France also owning a whole great deal of our debt.
And basically worked out a little scheme with him to say, if he goes farther with these terrorists, we're just going to do a slow drop of US dollars.
And boy, as the bond market drops, that'll get their attention.
And indeed, he was right.
And that this play behind
behind the scenes, very quiet, which has made the point, we can get you where it hurts.
Just shut up with these tariffs, and indeed that pause took place as these other countries started dropping US dollars.
Of course, Trump's not going to say that, but that was the power play that made him go a little game out of here with all of this tariff stuff for 90 days for whatever happens there.
But if people would like a little in-depth look at that, it was just
What a apex predator move.
It was really something.
So I just wanted to say to know how to fight these days.
We can get easy to be discouraged.
But boy, there are people out there that are figuring out how to game this in a way that's most effective.
Yeah.
Thanks guys.
Love the show.
And I'll let that percolate.
Okay.
Thank you, Joe.
Appreciate that call.
Mark Carney has really been messaging perfectly and really taken it to Trump.
I'm on board with her.
assessment of Mark Kearney.
You know, I wanted to get to something a little bit,
I thought was very... Well, we only
have about a minute.
I know.
Okay.
But
I just want to preface this.
Okay.
This
is 60 minutes in Australia.
Oh,
yeah.
Right.
They have a different 60 minutes down there.
They
do
their own program.
They had a piece on Elon and a former business partner
of Elans, and this is really good stuff.
We'll get to it first off
next hour.
All
right, we'll get to
that.
Yep, and also, once again, we have Peter Frampton tickets to give away.
If you want to go to that show, it's April 15th in Milwaukee, and when you hear some music from Peter Frampton, what do we have for a word?
What do we want to do for a word, Sam?
I'll leave it up to you in our next hour.
Why don't you keep doing this?
I
know
one song
from Peter Frampton.
All right, well, that's fine.
You know, that's okay, but we'll I'll tell you what we'll discuss it during the break and we'll figure out what we're gonna do that Okay, and then of course we have rocker because it's Friday and he'll have the maxing preview a lot of great Regional and local music from Wisconsin to tell you about some events as well It's all coming up on John and Gordy in the morning on WMDX
He was saying, let the sun shine.
Is the
John
and
Courtney show.
From the depths of a digital abyss, where truth drowns in a sea of clickbait and algorithms, a beacon ignites. From the heart of Badgerland, from our studios on State Street in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, it's John and Gordy on 92.7 WMDX.
John and Gordy in the morning try to live up to that one. Six minutes past the hour. We're seeing some sunshine this morning. We'll see clouds later on. Highs in the mid-fifties. Right now it's 32 degrees. And I'm wondering if they should just voluntarily give people leaf blowers. You know, I say walk down State Street. Maybe they could leaf blow a little bit. Help out. Well, first of all, there are no leaves out there.
You can look at the trees, they're all bare, all of them. Every single one, there's no, okay. These guys need a job. I know, but they're blown away. Yeah, now they're washing down the street with a hose. Well, that works. They're power washing it. Power washing. Yeah, well, it's gotta be nice and clean. Well, yeah, farmers markets tomorrow, of course. Oh, that's right. First one of the season, so they're gonna make things very nice. All right, let's go.
Yeah, we have Savannah to me also me. Olson is on right now to check out what's going on in the news world. Good morning, Savannah. How are you? Good morning, guys. I'm doing okay. I'm told
by my personal weather source, my husband downstairs, that it's going to be a gorgeous day for the farmer's market tomorrow. So everybody really lucked out in that regard. Yes, your husband, the former weather person, right? Yeah. He is always a weather person. Once a weather person, always a weather person. I know I have to work with one over here. I was just telling the guys during the break that you and I ran into each other at Target the other day. I know.
It made my afternoon. Oh, mine too. Well, it was kind of funny because we both had our shopping to do and we turned the corner and both kind of looked at each other for a second. It's like when you see somebody that you know, you know that you know them, but you're trying to think, well, this is not where I know them from. Did I see that on an FBI poster? No, it was kind of funny, but we had a nice little chat and it was good to see you again. Yeah, nice to see you IRL face to face. Right.
Exactly, in the real world. Okay, you've got some really, really incredible news about the student visas that were taken away here at the UW, and it's going on across the country as well. What do you got for us?
That's right. So this has been the big story throughout the week kind of changing day by day here at this point as far as we know which it has changed Kind of as we go into each day here, but there have been at least 40 students across Wisconsin who have had their visas revoked And there have been at least 300 to this point across the country. This is all part of
the Trump administration's effort to crack down on immigration and they're specifically targeting lots of people who participated in protests against the war in Gaza. However, UW Madison says they don't believe that the people whose visas have been revoked here in Madison were involved in those protests. But the big thing, this is going to get kind of into the weeds here. But when people's visas have been revoked in the past, when they're students, usually
Um, that means they just can't leave the country and come back. They would have to apply to a new visa. They're usually allowed to keep their status as permanent residents. So they're not usually having to self-deport, basically. Um, but in some of these cases, and it's not clear yet how many, uh, in some of these cases, the Trump administration is also removing their, uh, legal resident status, which means that they're basically telling people you should get out now. Um, and that's a big change from, uh,
previous administrations over the last few decades. It's also taken shot at some of the instructors as well. Is that correct? That's right, especially at universities across the country. So far from UW, all we know is that there were seven alumni who are there now on employment visas. So they're probably working as grad students, I would assume, getting some sort of grad students stipend.
Well, let's get rid of all the intellectual students that we have in this country. All the professionals, people that can add to this country. Yeah, let's get rid of them right away. And I guess we could include Elon in all of this. He was here on a student visa and didn't go to college. He violated a student visa. No kidding. Yeah. Didn't know that. Wow. Any other stories that we should be aware of, Savannah?
The big thing is Ben Wickler, that was the late breaking story yesterday is that Ben Wickler will be stepping down and we've already got a couple people throwing their hats in the ring. The state Democratic Party convention is in the Dells in the middle of June. And so that's when they'll elect the next person to lead wisdom. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there. I'm thinking he's going to run for office because he knows how to run for office. Ben Wickler? Yeah.
That's my guess. All right. Well, you know that I'm making that prediction. All right. And you can give me credit and interview me later on. You got it. All right. Well, Savannah, thank you very much. And I'm glad to hear that we're going to have good weather for the farmers market too. So yeah, that really worked out. Yeah. Excellent. Very good. We'll talk to you again soon. Thank you. Thanks. That's all right. WMDX news.
Bureau Chief Savanna Tomei Olsen. You got a contest to play here? Well, I want to let everybody know that we are going to give away some Peter Frampton tickets. And you know, he was in a band before he had his own band called Humble Pie. So, you know, if you hear music from Peter Frampton or Humble Pie, and that'll happen sometime later this hour, we'll have a pair of tickets for Peter Frampton. He's appearing at the Riverside Theater.
in Milwaukee, so the keyword will be Riverside, okay? So you'll wanna text that to us on the Civic Media app, and when you hear some Peter Frampton music, okay? All right, well that sounds fun. All right, you'll be going off to that show. It is April 15th at 7.30 p.m. in Milwaukee at the Riverside Theater, and again, Riverside's the word, okay. All right, let's- But not yet, don't text yet. Don't text yet when you hear the Peter Frampton music or Humble Pie music, okay? All right.
All right, read down now. Over to you, John Peterson. Take it away. Do we have time for this? It's time for you to talk. Go. Geez. Yes, we got time. Is this your 60 minutes thing? Yeah, this is my 60 minutes thing. This is good. 60 minutes from Australia. This is an Australian version of 60 minutes. This is, by the way, this is how they describe this story online, all right? This is it. We are lifting the self-serving veil on the world's richest Nazi.
All right. They called him Nazi right on their website. Okay. What Musk purports to be doing with Doge and what he's actually doing are two entirely different things. Now, let's listen to this. This is the interview to a former friend and business partner, Dr. Phil Lowe of NeuroVigil. And he had a few things to say. Let's start with cut 95. All right.
They're parading that he's saving taxpayers money. What he's actually doing is he is defunding organizations that regulate his companies. So he is weakening the people who would have weakened him. So what he says, he's fighting for the American taxpayer. Respectfully, I say this.
And just like when he calls himself a free speech absolutist, when he clearly is boosting certain voices on X, including his own, and shadow banning others, relatively speaking. So, no, I know him too well to understand that this is a charade. What is your ultimate fear? My fear is that he is using, that he's manipulating President Trump to tear up the Constitution until he will tear up President Trump.
There you go. Wow. All right, this is pretty heavy stuff. There's a part two. Let's listen to that. This is cut 96 as they go deeper into this.
This relationship with China, which is our greatest adversary over which we need to have leverage and not the other way around, this is a real problem. You have to understand this is a person who casts himself as a sort of maverick renegade who isn't, you know, shy to insult people in power, but he has never once said anything less than obsequious about Xi Jinping or the Chinese Communist Party. President Musk is stealing your money. Operating effectively unchecked.
Musk has dismantled entire federal agencies, torn up spending programs, and shown staff the door. The US government has never seen upheaval quite like it. This was my dream job, and it's just being taken away by an administration who doesn't care about science. Hard enough to take it personal when someone questions my work in thick. If there's any lessons to be drawn from this...
It is that we do not need the richest people in the world controlling our government. Some estimates suggest up to 300,000 of the 2.3 million federal workforce will go. To leading Democrats in Congress, it's a scandal, not a saving. The wrecking ball of right-wing authoritarianism is swinging right through Congress and coming directly at the freedoms of the press and the people right now.
The self-appointed CEO of this operation is the unelected bureaucrat and aspiring techno dictator Elon Musk. For this to be happening on a mass scale is just... is really unprecedented. Shannon Liz Reardon is one of America's top employment lawyers and has spent years defending 2,000 Twitter employees. She's now busy building cases on behalf of federal employees.
How would you describe Elon Musk's approach to reducing the federal workforce? He's acting like it's his own business. He's acting as though he owns the government and he can use the same methods that he used at Twitter. This just should not be happening this way. The courts have now ordered the reinstatement of 25,000 workers across 18 agencies. For Doge Advisor James Fishback, it's chaotic.
but necessary to cull bloated government spending. You probably have to cut a little bit too much. You have to go a little bit too far and then pull back as a result. Seeing that already with some of the federal workers that were sacked recently and then rehired a couple of days later. No harm, no foul. No harm, no foul. Tough weekend for them. Unbelievable. No harm, no foul.
No harm, no harm. We all have bad days. Some of us lose our jobs on some of them. Some of us just, I don't know, spill a glass of milk. Yeah. Took about a month for them to worry about losing their job and then they lost their job. Tough weekend for them. Oh, they get called back. That's much better. Everything is good again. Everything's fine. Don't worry. No ups or downs for that family. Oh my God. They really don't care. This is just sociopathic. Just totally.
But anyway, that's coverage 60 minutes in Australia and they did a really great job. I'd like to see something like that here in this country, right? Yes, absolutely. I found out things that he didn't know that were covered in this country. 18 minutes past the hour and the Verlo Mismatch sale is back. Their biggest sale of the year. Mismatch on the outside, long-lasting craftsmanship on the inside. Hurry in now. Save an additional 10% off of every mattress and box spring. Go to Verlo Mattress of Madison. Two locations.
furlough.com for more information. We're back with more with John and Gordy in just a moment.
you
Flashin' back to smolder music there.
Yeah.
I'm reaching for the bong and I
don't have one.
When the bong would tip over you have the bong
water all over the floor.
Yeah, bong water is
never gonna be fun.
It has a mess and smell for days.
It's 22 past the hour.
A nice day to start out sunshine.
We'll see clouds later and highs in the mid 50s but here to tell us more about what we can expect.
Weather-wise this weekend, boy, we got a lot of stuff going on in Madison this weekend, like the first farmer's market of the season and the horse fair is going on at the Alliance Center.
So it's all up to Brittany Merlot, right?
To make sure that the weather is fine and beautiful.
Well, let's see what happens.
The weight is on her shoulders at this point.
There's a lot of pressure.
High pressure,
right?
That's what we need.
That's what we have.
That's what we've
got.
So nice weekend ahead, right?
Yes, absolutely.
High pressure system in place now, mostly sunny skies and highs in those mid fifties.
Like you said, tomorrow we will see a few more clouds out there, but we will hit 60 degrees and then partly sunny on Sunday into the mid sixties.
But there is a little chance of rain in the afternoon.
So keep an eye out for that on Sunday and Monday, still into those upper 50s.
So gorgeous weather out there.
Yeah.
Well, it looks good through the weekend and at least the early part of next week.
But one thing we want to remind folks is this is severe weather awareness week, right?
And we really haven't mentioned this too much because it's been fairly mild lately.
But this is the time of year where things can really stir up, right?
Oh, what sure is it's tornado season from April through August.
I mean, it can happen any time of the year.
We had one in February, but this is their season.
This is their time.
This is when all the ingredients usually like to line up and they can strike at any minute.
So yesterday, those sirens went off twice, right?
Everybody practiced their plan and took shelter and that was what.
was supposed to happen, right?
You want to know what you're going to do ahead of time before the actual emergency happens because you're running around in circles, all confused, grabbing stuff left and right.
And time is of the essence when a tornado warning is out there.
Really, if you didn't do anything yesterday, make a plan today with your family, with your friends in different situations, different times of the day, because they can happen in the morning.
They can happen in the evening.
They can happen overnight, too.
So do you have a way to wake up?
Does that phone have those emergency alerts turned on?
Will those severe weather things go through?
If not, do you have a severe weather radio?
Those are pretty fun, too, because you can hit the test.
You just set the alarm off and have the family run around.
I
know, that's cool.
Yeah.
So it's just a time to really just plan because these things come out of nowhere.
And of course we all think it's never going to happen to us, but it can.
That's right.
So just be aware and be prepared.
All right.
Just in case.
And now I'm afraid.
Thank you.
No, you're welcome.
John is
a
scary man.
A
lot of people are.
I get it.
Yeah.
Well, Brittany, thank you so much.
And we hope you have a good weekend and we'll talk to you again on Monday.
Enjoy the
good.
Enjoy
the weather.
All right.
I've got a little speech here from Eric Swawa.
He did a great job at a at a hands off rally.
I want to play this.
It's inspirational.
Let's let's play this.
This is what kicking the out of fascism looks like.
Yes.
This is what it looks like.
We've seen a lot of people cave to fascism in America.
We're not.
We've seen the CEO's cave.
Will you cave?
We've seen the law firm's cave.
Will you cave?
We've seen the college's cave.
Will you cave?
We can't cave.
My name's Eric Swalwell.
I'm the son of a cop, a mom who was a baker.
And I went to college as the first in the family on a soccer scholarship.
And before every big game,
Before every season, the coach would tell us, I want you to close your eyes and think about what does that last moment of the game look like?
And I want you to think as we begin this season of democracy, what does the last moment of this march look like?
We win!
That's what it looks like.
It's justice!
It's redemption!
It's accountability!
And it's renewal.
Because as you stand here right now, we have gone from a Trump slump to a Trump train wreck.
We are going into a red recession.
Our 401Ks are 201Ks.
Our costs at Walmart and Home Depot and Target, where four out of five of the things we buy or from overseas are going up.
And where is Donald Trump?
He's golfing.
So to Donald Trump, I say, get your ass off the golf course and face the people.
America first.
It's Trump first.
This guy is a con.
Trump bibles, made in China.
Trump sneakers, made in China.
The Trump coin.
made on a computer made in China, and he's not just disappearing people.
He's disappearing rights.
And to that we say, disappear, we're still here.
Our veterans, we're still here.
That's right.
He wants to disappear our veterans and women and hardworking immigrants and our seniors and our kids and the sick.
So you are asking us, what is the plan?
And I'll tell you this, we are not going to give a single vote to fascism inside the Congress, because we know you're fighting outside the Congress.
And so small victories will bring us big victories.
We had a victory last Tuesday in Wisconsin.
Thank you.
And there you go.
Wow.
I know.
That is truly a great speech.
You got the crowd fired up.
And I just want to mention that you should look for, Rachel Maddow did a great story last night on a simple historical.
It's a history competition by students all across the country.
And it was canceled because Doge canceled it.
Trump canceled the funding for this.
It's just a minor amount of money for this competition.
You know,
students
across America were competing in it, and it was canceled because of the funding was pulled.
Amazing.
Amazing stuff.
728, congratulations to Tom from Hartford.
He's
going to Peter Frampton, April 15th at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee.
Way to go, Tom.
And we'll get those tickets to you.
Next week, we'll have tickets to the Milwaukee Film Festival coming up next.
Rocker is in the studio with a Max Inc preview of local and regional music and what's happening around our area.
Stay with
us!
WMDX 92.7, John and Gordy in the morning again.
Congratulations, Tom Hartford.
Yep, he's going to Peter Frampton at the Riverside Theater April 15th and next week we'll be giving away tickets to the Milwaukee Film Festival and that's coming up April 24th through May 8th in Milwaukee.
We'll tell you more about that next week.
And this portion of the show being brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.
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You can go to WMDXradio.com.
That's WMDXradio.com.
Got the newsletter happening there.
Also, you can see what we're up to, all the events coming up for the spring and the summer.
and different podcasts, you can check it out at wmdxradio.com.
Yeah, favorite the website, okay?
Just head on over there often.
Absolutely.
Okay, Rocker's in the studio.
Good morning, Rocker.
What is happening, John and Gordy?
Hey, Sam.
How you guys doing?
Everything is happening.
You're
happening, man.
You are.
Yeah.
So...
It's good to have you back in the studio.
We've had you virtually the last couple of weeks.
That's right.
It's good to see you in person again.
Back in the saddle.
That's right.
And a lot of things going on this weekend and upcoming weekends.
Tell us what you got.
Okay, Max, Ink, Radio.
We have actually some good news and some good things happening.
Some great music this morning.
Max, Ink, Radio 6 to midnight.
every Saturday night and that repeats on Sunday all over the civic media radio network.
This week we have ethical trade company.
We're going to be talking to Manuel and James, the founders of that and talk to them about their great mission of bringing products from
from people that they've saved in the slave industry across the world and bring them and sell them on their website here in Madison.
Joey B Banks from the Funky JB's, he's going to be doing the Clyde Stubblefield birthday tribute that's going to be coming up April 18th at the High Noon Saloon.
And live in the lair, tomorrow we have the Marissa Ballastrieri duo.
And that's going to be very kind of jazzy, very interesting stuff, very original.
And Trevor Banks, Clyde Stubblefield, they're trying to get him into the Hall of Fame.
And Trevor Banks has been making a movie, he gave it the drummer some.
And so he's raising...
awareness efforts and fundraising for this film and to get him in the Hall of Fame.
I can't believe he isn't in the Hall of Fame.
Well,
they have a stick, okay?
They
have
one of his drumsticks on display, but he's not like a tree, you know, he's not like a gold coat, you know, member, right?
Right.
So they, there's really an effort to try and get him what he deserves.
Yeah, the funky drummer, come on.
Yeah, you know, exactly.
He's in
there.
He's one of the top drummers in the world.
I think he was rated like number four or something by Rolling Stone.
It was pretty
crazy.
Well, Clyde Stubblefield's birthday, the tribute is coming up April 18th at the high noon saloon with the funky JB's.
Then they're going to be doing another Clyde tribute celebrating Clyde's doctorate PhD from the UW Madison music school.
And that's going to be Friday, May 9th at the Moral Union Terrace.
I can't think of a better place to see.
That band.
Yeah, it'd be a lot of fun.
You know, we always got to play a little tribute to Clyde.
So this is Clyde Stubblefield from a 1997 album that they did.
You know, Clyde was, of course, the drummer for James Brown.
Never got a lot of credit on with James Brown.
And that's where he really got famous, right?
So he didn't have any songs.
So
back, you know, in the 90s, they started putting together these albums so that he could actually have songs that they could go to him.
So this one is Parties in the Kitchen, 1997 Clydes Double View.
Amazing stuff.
Laying it down.
You know, think about Clyde also, just a side note.
You know, his drumming style was one of the styles that first got sampled when sampling became a thing, right?
Well,
he's the most sampled drummer in the world.
Exactly.
But if you talk to him where it came from, it came from the railroad tracks down in the south
that
he used to listen to.
So, you know, you listen to like a train going by, you know.
You
know,
he put that to drum beats.
So he listened to all those train sounds and you know, he didn't take lessons, right?
Right.
He learned all that himself, just
listening to the train
and copying the beats.
Amazing.
I mean, how many times have all of us partied in the kitchen?
Yeah.
Well, I really never thought
about it,
but
that's
usually
where the best part of the party is happening.
I
love the title of this song and it
Clyde's house, right?
Yeah,
it was true.
Like when you whenever you went to like a hangout with Clyde, everybody ended up in the kitchen partying, right?
Absolutely.
And then they were in the kitchen and they're like, well, what's going to happen when the beer runs
out?
You got to go get some more.
Yeah.
Somebody's in the kitchen to go out that back door and get some more.
We met him a
few times.
Clyde, you know, you.
to play with Michael Feldman when Michael
Feldman had what do you know.
And so we knew Jim Packard, the announcer, and so we'd go to, you know, some of the events and occasionally run into Clyde and Jim and Michael Feldman.
He was so
personable.
You could really approach
him.
He was the nicest, sweetest man.
He just really was a super friendly guy, but kind of shy.
Laughed at all your jokes.
Yeah, he was great.
He was a wonderful, wonderful guy.
Yeah.
So yeah, so you know, we need to get him in the Hall of Fame.
So check out that movie that's, you know, give the drummer some they're making and they have a fundraiser.
Now, speaking of.
of awards and ceremonies and stuff.
The Whammy, Wisconsin area music industry, they have their annual awards.
It's coming up this March, May 4th, I'm sorry, May 4th at 6 p.m.
it starts, it's at the Deco in West Alice.
And they just announced, this is pretty crazy, it came to me as a surprise, they are going to induct me, Rocker,
into the whammy wall of honor.
Well,
congratulations.
Yeah, so I'm gonna go accept
this award
May 4th.
So that's pretty cool.
You really deserve it, man.
You really worked hard on this.
You know,
it's a great kind of recognition for people who kind of really over a lifetime have worked to enhance or enrich the music scene of Wisconsin.
So it's a great honor to receive this award.
I'll be in person.
and to do it on May 4th.
And it'll be crazy because, you know, the Rocker Jamboree is May 4th.
So I'm going to do the Rocker Jamboree and then race out to Milwaukee.
I'm going to feel like Phil Collins in live eight racing back and forth.
Well, it'll be great.
And you definitely deserve that award.
I'm pretty happy.
I mean, I'm
like, it's a pretty big award.
And I was like just completely shocked.
So
it'll be a lot of fun.
That's a great surprise.
Thanks for announcing that.
Yeah.
Terrific.
Let's get back to music here in Madison tonight, April 11th at the Old Brick Botanical Gardens.
It's the canopy sessions from six to eight PM.
Kick off your weekend with live concert in one of Madison's most unique spots.
It's the Bowles Conservatory.
You can immerse yourself in tropical surrounding, soak up the warmth and enjoy performances by regional artists.
It's a whole series.
There's bar service available in the conservatory, so you can get a drink, right?
It's a strolling...
So no seating, right?
There's some benches, but you can't carry in chairs.
It's at the conservatory there.
And the canopy sessions are amplified performances.
So they're not acoustics.
So don't be surprised when you see some loud raucous music.
And this time, April 11th tonight, alternative rock trio.
the racing pulses who were founded in 2012.
They are going to be playing there tonight.
They've had this couple of hit songs since 2012.
Let's hear a little racing pulses.
This is
surreal.
The
racing pulses again, that's tonight.
And that's at Old Brick Botanical Gardens.
So that's, you know, you go in that beer mid kind of looking building, right?
That's, you know, I can't imagine actually playing in there because how it would be humid.
Very humid.
Tropical, right?
Exactly.
That's the
closest thing to Florida you can get right here.
Natty Nation.
Natty Nation is having their almost 420 party because it's going to be on the 19th of April at the high noon saloon.
Almost 420.
Almost
420 party.
Any excuse you can come up with or tie it in.
Okay.
That's right.
You know, well,
these guys do this annual thing for them.
Critically acclaimed metaphysical hard roots reggae outfit.
They're based in Madison since 1995.
So they've been around for a long time.
I thought I'd bring in a really old song from their first album.
The journey has just begun.
This is Nanny Nation with Youth Bring
Roots.
No matter what the time of day, youth bringin' roots.
What do people say if they want the roots?
It don't matter who they think they are.
They'll never be no big, big star.
I just want to be a roots rocker.
Just want to be a showstopper.
Youth bring roots, man.
Youth bring roots.
Would you say, ah, youth bring roots?
Oh, yeah,
I'm pretty cool.
I like it.
Good stuff.
Youth bring roots.
Maddie Nation.
And that's exactly what we need, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's get quick to the spine stealers.
April 27th at the Hainun Saloon and April 30th at the Burr Oak.
And they'll be at the Blue Ox Music Festival on June 27th.
That's up in Eau Claire.
The Spine Steelers are a two gal duo making spooky folk influenced by the Northwood, Wisconsin pines.
24-7 truck stop
diners.
That's scary.
Heartbreak and dark lights.
Wow.
That's a mouthful.
That's scary.
I'm looking at the Spine Steelers and I'm thinking of the movie The Tingler.
Remember that?
Spine Tingler?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Spine
Steelers.
Yeah, when you stop and think about it, Spine Steelers.
That's pretty interesting.
Well, Kate and Emma started learning guitar together around bonfires and shared their hometown experiences during the height of the pandemic.
They wrote songs and now they're like a thing.
They kind of evolved after the pandemic.
Spine Steelers, West Texas Sun.
Let's hear it.
Texas Sunset Reminds me of the moon In this sun as we burn Burn to go All my third cup of gay station coffee Tasting last night's cigarettes
Well,
I love that.
That's great.
Little banjo.
I
heard some
banjo.
Probably why I loved it so much.
That's a great song.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
Okay.
We got to take a quick break, but we will be back with more of the Maxing Preview with Rocker in the studio with Johnny Gordy in the morning right here on WMDX.
Stay with us.
This is Rock and Roll Radio.
Stay tuned for more Rock and Roll.
Good Rock and
Roll Music, that's what we're talking about here on WMDX, John and Gordy in the morning with Rocker.
It is 7.52, a nice day ahead of us, highs in the mid 50s this afternoon and a good looking weekend too.
Alright, back with Rocker and the Maxing preview continues and what do you got for us now, Ron?
Well, you know, every week I've been coming in here, bringing a little bit of music from the bands that are playing the Rocker Jamboree.
And the Rocker Jamboree is happening at the Baroque on Winnebago on Sunday, May 4th.
That's one to 5 p.m.
And of course, there's bands that are reuniting that haven't played in 20 years or 10 years or a dozen years, six.
None of them really have.
Last Crack, Magic 7, Mindox.
and then subatomic and electromag.
So today I thought I'd bring in some Mindocs.
Now Mindocs was a band that happened after Last Crack where Last Crack's singer, Buddo, left Last Crack and he started with Mindocs.
And Mindocs was looking to get signed by record.
They went out to LA and El Dorado Studios, which is where Alice in Chains, Jean's Addiction and Last Crack had recorded.
And Mindocs was Peter Rest, who you might know from the skin tones on guitar and Butto from Last Crack of Magic 7 on vocals.
This is one of the songs that they did at El Dorado Studios.
This is Mindocs.
It's the whale.
ox
mind ox that's right yeah that's gonna be great I mean a lot of people are really psyched to see him they really very rarely play yeah and so this is a real treat some of these other bands you know last crack magic seven
oh oh oh
Catherine's in the studio hello Catherine pretty happy to
hear about your war
oh my god
yeah it's not crazy oh my gosh yeah
congratulations yes
Oh,
thank you so much.
I know it's it's it's really it's surreal You know, I mean, yeah, it's one of those things like you know, you just work your whole life You know in the music right because you love music, you know
And
yeah, and then all of a sudden, you know
One day they're giving you this like lifetime achievement award and you're like, well, you know, I guess it has.
I mean, my hair is all white now and I've been in music for a long time.
Realization settles in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's pretty cool.
So I'm pretty psyched.
Thank you.
That'll never happen to Johnny Gordy.
Um, okay.
All right.
Let's move on to,
uh, the ghost particles.
Now we talked about them before, right?
They're, they're a bunch of guys.
They have like a, you know, a thousand years of history between all the guys in the band.
They're the ghost particles.
And they're a band comprised of veteran Madison musicians, some of who have been active in the music scene since the mid seventies.
Phil Davis on lead vocals and guitars.
Dave Benton, you might recognize his name.
Yeah.
Lee Lasky from the Rousers.
Um,
And now, and Polly Ryan, I'm percussion, you've played with Schreitz Double Field Band for many, many years.
But now they have a new member.
Ernie from the Rousers has joined the Ghost Particles.
How fitting, right?
Oh, yes.
Ernie.
Ernie.
Ernie from the Rousers now in the Ghost Particles.
So I thought I'd bring in another song.
Now this is from their latest album, North Central, I believe it's the name of it.
And this song is oblivious, but it's with Beth Killian singing along with it.
This is the Ghost Particles, oblivious with Beth
Killian.
The way you reach across and touch my hand Like a soldier from a foreign land
I
like that a
lot.
That is such a Madison sound.
Oh, yeah, isn't it?
Yeah, it really
is.
Oh, I should probably tell you where they're playing, right?
Yeah.
May 10th, coming up Burroke, and they're going to be playing with Richard Weigel.
People may recognize that name, too.
Another ghost particle out there in the Madison music scene.
We're almost out of time, but we got time for a couple of quick hits if you want to mention anybody's playing anywhere
The moon gypsies are playing tonight Saturday or tomorrow night.
I'm sorry Saturday April 12th at the comeback in that's Robert J Chris Wagner and Mary Gaines And you know, did you hear the terrace chair return party?
Okay, that's the first Friday that you can be out on the terrace though UW marching band is gonna be performing at 4 30 fish fries hot dogs It's just a great time out there and that's
next Friday right Friday 18th
the 18th.
Yep
And then May 8th, here we come again, Madison Night Market.
So you guys know all about that.
It's happening again.
The cycle starts.
Here we go.
Take off the shoes.
This is Madison.
Go around barefoot.
We did this last year.
What the heck?
We'll
do it again this year.
Rockers,
thank you so much.
Thanks, guys.
I really appreciate it.
You bet, man.
Coming up Monday, we'll be giving away tickets to Milwaukee Film Festival.
That'll be a lot of fun.
And coming up next, it's Stephanie Miller.
And don't forget, Farmers Market starts tomorrow.
And maybe out and about to walk around the square.
Maybe give out a few t-shirts or something.
Something like that.
Yes.
That'll do it for us.
Again, Stephanie Miller is coming up next.
Have a great weekend.
Talk to you Monday.
So
long.
The John and Gordy Morning Show is on the air. Phone lines are open at 608-879-8255. 608-879-TALK. You can also call or text the guys on the free Civic Media app. Now, here they are, live from our studios on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin, John and Gordy.
For a Tuesday? I think so, yeah. Too bubbly. Too happy. Why? Why? Good morning! Was Schwab in here last night? Yes. Can't you tell? The place is a mess. I know. Beer cans everywhere. What the hell? He's a heavy drinker, huh? Well, he's got nothing else to do. Way up north. You know, I saw him at the movie I went to go see last night. You did? Yeah.
I went to go see Vixen with the Wisconsin Film Festival. It was an interesting movie. It was funny, very revealing, I guess you could say. A lot of nudity, right? Yeah, yes. Was this an old movie? Yeah. Okay, that's like a 70s movie. So was it originally? Late 60s or 70s, yeah. Something like that. When they did that. When they could. It was a big movement.
Yeah, was. Throw in some nudity. Yeah. I show my son that. Did you? That stuff. Yeah. You know, prime has all these old movies. What's your goal in showing him this? Just to show him, you know, the time difference. You know, how it was just gratuitous sex. That's what it was. Yeah.
Because they found out they could do it, right? I mean, the big deal were the X movies. Oh, yeah. I mean, you had to go to special theaters to see the X-rated movies. Right. And then suddenly they started showing nudity, but it was mostly in these crazy psychedelic horror movies. That's right. They could get away with it. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, it had to do with rituals and nudity. Yeah.
So yeah, it was a crazy time. Why don't we do any of that anymore? That sounds like a good time. Well, then they created the rating system, right? I mean, it was either x-rated or it wasn't in the early days. Yeah, I don't remember. They created R and PG. I don't know when all that happened. But they did get away with a heck of a lot, you know? So now we watch a lot of these old movies. We don't get together very often because he gets embarrassed and he hates it.
I'm showing him how to scan efficiently to all the good parts. High speed scanning. Yeah, that's the way to go. Yeah. Use that fast forward button. If you watch a movie twice as fast, then you can watch twice as many movies in the same amount of time. Always rewatch more than that. Because a lot of the horror movies, you don't see the monster until the last five minutes. That's right.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's nine minutes past the hour. It's boy. It's a little chilly out there this morning. Mm-hmm. 20 degrees. It's ridiculous. The WMDX thermometer outside our window here. I have 22. Do you have 22? On the non-WMDX thermometer at my home. Okay. Not on my watch. Well, okay. What does your watch say for an afternoon? The WMDX Samsung watch?
Well, it, uh, I don't know. Oh, you can't get it going? Is there a problem? No, I accidentally hit my sleep cycle.
Which means I'm gonna go to sleep right now. How many controls does it's got? It's got everything on it, man. I'm robotic. Yeah, it's your like control panel, right? It is. It's my control panel. I'm the bionic, man. Oh, well, it disappeared. See, it only lasts eight seconds. Well, in the meantime, maybe we can... No, I got it. Oh, okay. Okay, the WMDX-M7 walks here is saying 46 degrees as he predicted high temperature, currently 23. Okay.
All right. Well, let's check the... What do we go with? What have we used? Oh, how about the one-arm bandit? We haven't used that for a while. Yeah. Let's see what we got here. All right. First number is a zero, four, three. Zero, four, three. That's 43 degrees. So it's a little... What did yours say? What did your watch say? 42. 42. Oh, no. It's currently 42. No. But it said 46. No, it's not. It's currently 22. Oh, 20.
It's, no, no, it's 23. 46 is predicted high. Okay, too many numbers. Yeah, take it. And now I don't even know what the weather is going to be like. Well, it's going to be, uh, it's really clear this morning and, you know, pretty chilly, but at least it's not windy. Yeah. Yesterday was kind of breezy. Uh, it's going to be mostly sunny today, mid 40s this afternoon. Okay. Let's get to the national day calendar. Shall we? Okay. Okay. All right. What is it today? What is it?
Is it? Look at the screen, John, here. Well, I'm not, I'm not looking. I'm barely paying attention to life. You're barely, barely awake. Um, is it National Library Workers Day? How about National Zoo Lovers Day? National Empanada Day. National All Is Hours Day. Or National Tap Dancing Day. What day is it not?
It's an easy one, come on. I know it is. I'm just embarrassed. It's not tap dancing day. Don't you think it should be though? Yeah, you know, it really should be. They ought to have a tap dancing day.
Tap dancing, you know, it's a great thing, and you never see any tap dancing anymore. It traumatized every kid in the 50s and 60s. Oh, tell me about it. I don't know why parents made us do it. I don't. Do you have to take tap dancing lessons? Well, I had a recital. I was on stage at my recital. I was a playing card. We were a deck of cards. Really? Yeah. There we go. I had to.
I had to take tap dancing lessons. Shuffle ball change. Like, yeah, yes. Shuffle, yes. You had to learn the steps and everything. And you got those special shoes and they were really too, too tight or, you know, very uncomfortable. They're always uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. With metal on the back and the front. Yes. Yuck.
Yeah. All right, it is National Library Workers Day, so we salute all the library workers out there. You know, they do a lot of work there. Libraries do so much more than just how is the books that we borrow nearly any time of the day or night. Do the libraries stay open late at night? I don't think so. I don't know. Early evening, maybe, but. Okay, so we salute the library workers of America. Good for you. Short trip. Yeah.
National empanada day. When was the last time you had an empanada? Recognizes a delicious pastry that comes in several different forms today. The name empanada comes from the Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish verb empandar. What is an empanada?
Well, empanadas are made by folding the dough or bread around a seasoned stuffing. Stuffed dough is then baked or fried. It's very much like hand pies. It's like a little pie. It's like a calzone kind of. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Spanish calzone. But not pizza. I've only had, I think, sweet empanadas where it's got like sugar and caramel and stuff inside. That was good. Empanadas go back to the 1500s. Wow. OK.
So enjoy an empanada today. It's National Zoo Lovers Day. Boy, we have a great zoo here in the Vila Sioux. We do. Yeah, very nice. Hey, let's get back to naked stuff.
Okay, where did that come from? Talking about the movie I saw last night? You know, what was your favorite naked part of that movie? No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm seeing a text from Mark out in the sack. He goes, you seem muted in...
a regular basis on British TV back in the 70s, the show seen at PBS iClaudia is a good deal of female nudity. That's right. I think they were still, well, I don't know, Europe was way ahead of us on this thing. Well, sure. Yeah. And they had it on TV instead of just at the movie theaters and cheap psychedelic or horror movies. Yeah. Yeah. You want to read the rest of that or no? Well,
I mean, I could, I think they still aren't as uptight in Europe because now they blur out even behinds on TV, on American TV. I haven't seen that, but I watch a lot of streaming channels. So, yeah, you see a lot of behinds. Male behinds, that's the big deal. That's the new thing. My wife loves it. Okay. Takes what she can, you know.
It's National All Is Hours Day. Do you want to hear about that? National All Is Nudity. I don't know who brought that up. I don't know. Observed each year on April 8th, National All Is Hours Day takes us along three views of appreciation. Celebrate each of these approaches. What is this? This is just stupid. I don't know. What day is it again? It's National All Is Hours Day.
Explore the world around you. Find something to appreciate in the world beyond your front door. Share your bounty with others. Express thankfulness for what you had. Just be appreciative of your life. Any time you use bounties in the description, guys, we'll just give up. It's weak. Yeah. What are we going to do? Oh, we do a math. Do you want to go to history or do you want to go to math? Let's go to math. Math is on the phone. 608-879-8255. Good morning, Matt. What do you got for us today?
Morning guys, thanks again for what you're doing. I wonder what you think about this digital economy and how it changed our world and seems to have created a surplus of a lot of things and The value of things seems to have gone down because of the surplus Because I hadn't been on Facebook in years I put it on my phone and I get on there and you're just bombarded with all this junk. Yeah, and it makes me think of
capitalism and how it's not designed for this digital age, especially with robots and all this. And I hear a lot of talk of trying to make a new system, but it's actually gotten so bad that even Elon Musk is now backtracking on his crazy claims of, you know,
It's the MAGA stuff. Oh, now we need no tariffs because his pocket's getting hit. Yeah, he's criticized Trump. Yeah, the billionaires are not liking all of this. Yeah, but I think that Howard Lutnick.
Commerce secretary just loves those robots, you know, they're going to come and take our jobs. But we're going to create jobs, even though we are losing jobs because the robots will be there and we'll be training and fixing the robots as a breakdown. Does anyone believe that? No, nobody believes that. No one believes that. But yeah, that's what would be, that's what would be sold. I don't know. I get sometimes they kind of like some of the weird things that pop up that they're trying to sell you and you don't know where.
they're coming from. What country is selling us this product? I saw one yesterday, I thought was fascinating. It's a fold up shoe display. So, I mean, you can put all your shoes in this thing and it folds up and down, it collapses, and then you can put these glass doors on it. Do you need something like that? I don't know. But I was fascinated. Wow, that's a really good idea. You know, they always have these really great ideas.
You're afraid to give them your credit card number. You don't know where they're coming from. Exactly. All right. Well, we're just getting warmed up on a Tuesday morning. Matt, thank you for that call. And we will have more. We'll open the history books in a moment on John and Gordy in the morning with producer Sam.
It's 21 minutes past the hours. Some pretty heavy rain moving through. We'll talk to Brittany Merlot here in just a moment after I remind you that the key word
this hour in our break into spring text to win statewide contest, a pair of Brewer tickets up for grabs. The key word is bright, bright, B R I G H T. All right, you have until eight AM to text that in to possibly win the Brewer tickets and all the entries get into the statewide the grand prize winning prize. What the Merlot Merlot mattress.
Verlo mattress. Good God, somebody slap me and get my mouth working. It's a Verlo mattress set. It's a queen size mattress set. I thought you were going to reach over and slap me upside the head there for a moment. Help me out a little bit. Yes. OK, the Verlo mattress is the grand prize. Oh, let's get to Brittany Merlo and get a word on what's going on weather wise. We've got a heavy rain moving through Madison. Brittany, take it away. Yeah.
Fill us in. What's going on? Well, first things first, you're lucky that you're getting rain because I woke up this morning with three inches of snow. I've got freezing rain here right now. So I would trade you for those claps of thunder right now. Freezing rain at once? Wow. Oh my God. Yes. Winter will not go away up here. It's hell up there, man.
It's frozen over. It seriously has. But yeah, you guys got some heavy rains and thunderstorms moving through. None of them are severe at the moment. And it looks like it's going to be continuing till about noon. And you'll get a little break and kind of like the key word, bright.
If you get bright this afternoon after those storms roll through, you have a chance for some strong to severe storms possibly firing up again, maybe around four or five or so. Keep that in mind because we've got this warm air moving in. Highs today, we'll hit 60.
maybe the low 60s. And of course with that sunshine and some instability as another cold front moves through, we could see some of those storms spark up and become strong. Now those could have high winds and hail. These this morning could still have some hail but much smaller in size. So kind of a rough, wet, nasty day and windy too. Ew, gusts are up to about 40 miles per hour today. Whoa!
Okay, well, I consider ourselves lucky not having the weather you have up there. That's that's a nightmare. Yeah, I know it really is. Oh, at least you're getting the salt wafers off the streets, you know, a car wash for free. There's good. There's positives with storms. There is a silver lining somewhere. Yeah. And then once we get through with all this today and tonight, what can we expect tomorrow and beyond? Yeah.
Much calmer. So much better. Partly sunny skies by Thursday. That stays the case for most of the weekend. Highs will be in those low to mid 50s all weekend long. The only other chance for precipitation we have is Friday night into Saturday morning. We could see some light rain, but that's about it. A gorgeous weekend. All right. And that's because...
Jill Crof, or Susan Crawford one. You know, we're really happy about that. It's made a complete difference in my outlook now. You're looking at the world with rose-tinted glasses now. I am, yes. Okay. And Jill underly want it. Yes. All right. Brittany, thank you so much. We appreciate that. Okay. And hunker down up there. Yeah. Look out for them. Boy, that's snow and freezing. Be very careful on that ice. All right. All right.
Thanks, Brittany. We'll do. Thanks, our WMDX meteorologist, Brittany Merlo. And as I promised, we're going to play Cory Booker. Yes. Got a response during his speech last night. And he read a letter, a response from Wisconsin. Yeah, he was getting a lot of messages. I think it was an email. Yeah. But let's listen to that story one more time. And we're talking about universal health care in this country. We should have it. And this is a good reason why. Let's listen.
My name is Kiana Spooner and I live in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. I'm 63 years old. My husband Joe and I have five children and three grandchildren and live a wonderful life as our family is growing. God bless you and your family. We own businesses and work to contribute social security for ourselves and our employees. We did all the things we could do to secure our future and contribute to the larger community of those in need.
We felt that we're living the American dream until one day in 2012. I know this personally with my dad. I feel for you, Ms. Spooner. To one day in 2012, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's is a degenerate.
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative brain disease that progresses over time. Sorry, I'm thinking about my dad. It is unrelenting and affects motor and nerve processes. Loss of benefits will have a direct and daily effect on me and my family as we navigate the medical needs we will be facing. I will need progressive and comprehensive care as I age. I will need medication every single day of my life.
And I will need the security of a generous society to care for me. Millions of others join me there. Please, Senator Booker, please protect my social security. I just thank God that my mom had the resources to take care of my dad. And I watched that degenerative disease take from his life for 20 years and how much it cost the thousands of dollars it cost my mom to take care of him.
I know my friend Andy Kim, who's in the Senate right now, is facing health challenges with his father. I know so many people personally whose parents have Alzheimer's. I know so many Americans who are not powerful, they're not rich. I know so many Americans who live in fear every day that one little thing will happen to them that will destabilize their financial well-being and now those millions of Americans because of a president and a man named Musk.
or it's driving fear into them. All right, it's Cory Booker, who took to the Senate floor and was there for 25 hours. Standing up the whole time. Not allowed a bathroom break during that time either. Hard to imagine. I have one of those trucker bottles underneath the podium. I don't know. A stadium buddy? Not sure. Don't know how that works. A stadium buddy.
That was an amazing speech. Yeah, just amazing day yesterday. Yeah, Susan Crawford winning like this underly winning against somebody who believes in in private schools And we have a reaction here from Watertown. Yeah
Ann Rausch Gifford wrote as... As much as I'm ecstatic about Crawford's victory last night, Watertown lost three school board seats to mega M4L candidates. They also lost the operational school referendum, not good news and Watertown school. No, that's bad news. Sorry to hear about that. And Tyler in Columbia County says we are reigning on Trump's parade. When we come back, Mike McCabe will join us and talk about yesterday and what happened.
last night. Right here on John and Gordy in the morning.
Tell your neighbors to listen to John and Gordy in the morning followed immediately by me a true broadcast veteran, Stephanie Miller on 92.7 WMDX. Thank you, Stephanie. Nice of her to say that. All right, we have a contest going. Well, not anymore. We've got a winner to the contest.
Yes, who won the Peter Frampton tickets? Kurt. Congrats to Kurt in Madison. He was the first person to text in when we started playing Peter Frampton. And we'll have another pair of tickets tomorrow. And then another. And then another on Friday. You've got two more opportunities. Peter Frampton's going to be at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee, April 15th at 7.30 p.m. So yeah, tickets again tomorrow and...
on Friday. Okay, weather wise today, cloudy, rain this afternoon, high near 42. And right now it's still 33 degrees, a little chilly this morning. Time for Mike McCabe to join us. Good morning, Mike. Good morning. Always good to see you. And everything looking good out there for you today? Yeah, you know, Frampton comes alive was
One of the very first albums I had. For a lot of people it was. That was a huge album for me. It was really great. I mean it was a great live recording. But it's just a rehash of songs that he released earlier on albums in the studio. Those are really nice quality songs. I didn't know any of that.
Yeah. Really? I was barely a teenager. Yeah. Well, that dates us, thank you. And it was a double album. When you opened the album cover up, it made like a nice poster if you wanted to do that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Remember it well. Is that something you did? No. I'm going to put your wall. No, not at all. Be a framped in my idol. No, no. He's a great guitar player though, and he's still on tour. Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, well, that's great to know all right Mike you've got an article on your sub stack About a guy named Byron Kilburn and how that relates to well somebody else that was recently in Wisconsin He who must not be named he who yes, right a wealthy go-getter. Yeah. Yeah Well Byron Kilburn was a wealthy go-getter. You know he and he was an outsider He he was born in Connecticut
Way back when? Way back when. And his family resettled in Ohio. But then his ambitions eventually brought him to Wisconsin. And he was a guy who was involved in a vast array of money making ventures. He was a canal builder. He was a surveyor and a land speculator.
but he had a particular proclivity for transportation. He wasn't into electric cars. It was steam-powered trains in his day, and that's where the story really gets interesting. That really takes off from there, isn't it? The land acquisition for the railroad. Yeah, and Byron Kilbourne, you know, he settled in what's now Milwaukee.
And at that time it was known there were three birds, and one of them ended up being named Kilbourne Town, because he was such a big deal there. But Byron Kilbourne wanted to build a railroad across the state of Wisconsin, from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River at La Crosse.
Yeah, but he didn't want to pay anybody for the land that he needed for that railroad. What he wanted was for the territorial legislators at that time to use their new powers of eminent domain to condemn land in this corridor from Milwaukee to La Crosse and give it to Kilburn in a land grant.
and have seized the land from the property owners and then give it to Kilbourne so he could build his railroad. And he ended up making over a half a million dollars worth of bribes to members of Wisconsin legislature to pass the land grant bill, made...
over a quarter million dollars in additional bribes to other key power brokers, including the lieutenant governor and the chief clerk of the assembly and the governor's personal secretary, and then eventually paid the governor at the time, Coles Bashford, $50,000 to sign the bill into law and give him this land that he could use to build his railroad.
Byron Kilburn is known to be Wisconsin's first millionaire, which is saying something when you think that the average worker at the time was making less than a dollar a day. And a skilled tradesman, the daily wage of a skilled tradesman at the time was under $2. Wow. Wow. So the bribes that he was making, these were...
breathtaking, astonishing sums of money to throw around, and becoming a millionaire at that time was an amazing feat when you're thinking about people living on a dollar a day. That's what the economy was like at the time.
And so he gets his free land and he builds his railroad. He crossed the Wisconsin River. It is what now is known as Wisconsin Dells and named the settlement after himself. And a lot of people don't know this, but before Wisconsin Dells was called Wisconsin Dells, it was Kilbourne. It was first known as Kilbourne City, then just shortened to Kilbourne until 1931, when that whole land grant scandal rubbed people the wrong way to the point where they didn't want
their community associated with that scoundrel anymore, and they changed the name. The interesting part of this story, though, with Byron Kilbourne, is the reaction it provoked from the people of Wisconsin. That land-grant scandal led voters to rise up and vote Kohl's Bashford out of office. There were all these other power brokers, many of whom were bribed by Kilbourne, of course, who came to be known as the 40 Thieves.
And eventually, Coles, Bashford, and the 40 thieves were all voted out of office. And that set in motion. That was like the first tremor in what ended up becoming an earthquake in the state of Wisconsin. Bribery was outlawed. Oh, geez, that's too bad. And here's the amazing thing. A lot of people don't think about this, but for the first half century of statehood.
Wisconsin became a state in 1848 and it wasn't until 1897 that bribing public officials was outlawed. So for the first half century of state it was perfectly legal to do what Byron Kilbourne did. But people rose up against that, bribery was outlawed, corporate campaign contributions and election spending were also banned in Wisconsin and that set the stage for
an amazing flurry of progressive reforms. Worker rights advances were made. Child labor was outlawed. Protections for women in the workplace were put in place. Unemployment insurance for those thrown out of work. Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to create that. Financial compensation for people injured in the workplace. Workers' comp was created.
For the very first time in Wisconsin came the first state in the nation to create such a system. The first state health and the first state life insurance plan was created by Wisconsin, the first kindergarten, the first educational technical and adult education system. All that was all done by the 1911 legislature. One legislature did all of that. And on top of it, they took.
the nominating process for elected officials out of the hands of party bosses who were picking their people in small field rooms and gave it to the people, created the first direct primary elections anywhere in the country, right here in Wisconsin. Did they have something to do with the great socialist movement as well?
Byron Kilburn did manage to get himself elected mayor of Milwaukee twice Now this is a man who was described by someone who knew him well as a man with strong prejudices and and a dictatorial disposition Yes, again an echo from the past that that that sure applies to somebody who's an awful lot like Byron Kilburn who
who looked at Wisconsin as being ripe for the taking and came here and threw around a bunch of money, slapped on a cheesehead and thought that he could order us around. And what Elon Musk didn't know when he did that was that there's this history in Wisconsin about how Wisconsin treats people who come in and throw their weight around this way. But Byron Kilburn did manage to become mayor of Milwaukee twice, but...
the response to Kilburn's corruption did lead to a series of socialist mayors in Milwaukee. Those who became known as the sewer socialists, who built the sewer systems and the public libraries and the public parks and so many other things that made Milwaukee a great city and fueled Milwaukee's growth.
There was a string of three socialist mayors in the city of Milwaukee that also were a response to the corruption of that kill-borne era. Well, a lot of those policies, they came up with went nationwide. Absolutely, absolutely. And Wisconsin was a trailblazer and did all these things that were firsts in the nation. Social security was even invented here.
grabbed by national policymakers to make a federal policy, but the idea was created right here in Wisconsin. Amazing. All of these things happened in Wisconsin in response to a guy and to an era. It was an awful lot like the one that we're living through now. And Kilburn was an awful lot like this man who just...
came to Wisconsin and thought that he could uh could order us around and buy himself a state supreme court seat and and all that business. Talking to Mike McCabe here from a sub-stack blogger and author so so how did Byron Kilborn wind up after all this since bribery was legal when he was doing it uh did he ever have to pay the price i mean as a scoundrel who'd been ripping off people for
couple of decades. He certainly didn't go to jail. The corruption that his corruption was, of course, legally blessed at the time. But that changed because of the public reaction to what happened that that land grant scandal. And it altered the face of Wisconsin.
You know, Kilborn, to this day, there's an elementary school in Milwaukee that bears Byron Kilborn's name. Kilborn Avenue is a major thoroughfare right through the heart of downtown Milwaukee, still named for Byron Kilborn. Marquette's around there. Yeah. And there's still some places around the Dells that bear his name. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, so he became a titan of industry, a major railroad baron. But the way he went about...
his business to enrich himself, rubbed people the wrong way to the point where it led to this amazing transformation of our political culture and our social fabric. And it really made Wisconsin a place that became a policy pioneer that the rest of the nation looked to, to create protections for working class Americans.
what Musk just tried to do, I think was done out of ignorance of Wisconsin's history. He didn't crack a history book and he didn't learn about Byron Kilbourne or the reaction that Kilbourne's corruption provoked in our state. But like I titled the article, what goes around comes around. And I think what you've seen here in Wisconsin is a reignition of that instinct that people here have when
some outsider comes and figures that this is land for the taking and he can
throw his weight around, boss people around, and exert his influence. Well, Mike, I think it's important that the rest of Wisconsin know this story as well. Absolutely. So maybe a lot of people don't know about Byron Kilbourne. And if they knew, they could make that comparison and probably have that same reaction to what Elon is doing here in this country. We're seeing it across the country. I think the protests aren't exactly against Trump. They are against Elon and what he has managed to do to the country.
the era, it's against what Trump and Musk and everybody else represent, what they're trying to force down people's throats. And there is this powerful reaction that's been created. I got a chance to speak to a group of high school students at DeForest High School last week and told the Byron Kilbourne story. And not only did none of the students know the story, but the teachers didn't know the story either. And I wrote that.
inspired me to write the Substack article. And I've heard from so many people who've been faithful readers of mine, and they hadn't heard the story. They didn't know the history either. So I think this is really important for us to know our own history because people say that if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. But here's an example where if you don't know history, perhaps you will never be inspired to recreate some magic that was once created right here in Wisconsin.
Mike we got to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more with Mike McCabe this portion of John and Gordy in the morning brought to you by Verlo mattress of Madison the Verlo mismatch sale is going on for a few more days mismatch on the outside the same long-lasting Verlo craftsmanship on the inside so hurry and now save an additional 10% off of every mattress in box spring wake up and sleep better Verlo mattress of Madison two locations back with more with Mike McCabe on John and Gordy in the morning in a moment
They make the juice.
WMDX 92.7 John and Gordy in the morning We're back with Mike McCabe and Mike is a sub-stack Blogger and also an author got a great book Miracles Along County Q and Mike Why don't you mention you're gonna be appearing in Evansville tomorrow, right? Yeah tomorrow
tomorrow evening at six at the Eager Free Public Library in Evansville. Eager Free. It's called, well, Eager is a very prominent family rooted in Evansville. So the library is named for the Eager family, but it's a free public library.
So yeah, it's the eager-free public library in Evansville, and I actually spent the early part of my childhood on a small farm outside of Evansville on Coles Road. And so they, and the book that I wrote, the novel I wrote, Miracles Along County Cube, has some Evansville-inspired parts to the story.
This week is National Library Week. Yes, it is. And the library wanted a local author, particularly one who had written with Evansville sort of as a backdrop. And I wanted me to be their speaker for National Library Week. And so I'm going to do a presentation about the book and then sell and sign copies after the presentation.
But then I hear the news that the regime in Washington has decided to shutter, by executive order, the agency that supports libraries and museums in this country. And public libraries and museums around the country stand to lose billions of dollars worth of financial support.
And I know it's a small gesture, but I figured I cannot go and sell and sign books and pocket the money and head off. So I'm gonna donate all the proceeds to the public library there in Evansville. And so anybody who's in the area, Evansville is not far from Madison. Anybody in the area who wants to come on down to Evansville, it's charming town. It's a wonderful little community. And I've got some roots there from my early childhood.
Anybody who wants to come six o'clock tomorrow night at the public library on Main Street. And if you want to buy a book, it's also a way to support the public library because every dime is going to go to them. So that's tomorrow, 6 p.m. Evansville at the library. So, okay, very good. Well, I hope you get a lot of people showing up and buying the books for a good cause. You got to wonder, you know, why any...
one would cut or freeze or get rid of support for museums and libraries in the first place to save money. That obviously doesn't make any sense at all. You see what's happening to the Smithsonian Museum. And there's this active effort underway to try to scrub the historical record, erase elements of our history.
And of course, public libraries, what are public libraries, but places where people can learn about our history and about the way things are in America, the way things were. And in a public library, you not only find those reminders of what we were like, but also hints of what we could become because we...
Telling that story of Byron Kilbourne, way back in the 1800s when all that unfolded. But it's not only a reminder of where we were as a state then, but it's also a hint at what we could become because you think about that amazing reaction by the people of Wisconsin to the corruption of that era and all the progressive reforms that followed as a result. That was because...
People rose up against that and we need to know that and people in power today people who are trying to replicate what Byron Kilburn did then don't want people to know that history They don't want to people to know that part of the story. That's why museums and and libraries under assault. It's not to save money. It's to try to
it's to try to warp history. Well, I'm hoping history in this case does repeat itself. I mean, we have Elon out there, and we have a very inactive Congress at this point, allowing the president and Elon to get away with all of this stuff, and the midterms might just be a repeat. And there's another echo that comes from that story. When Byron Kilburn offered all those bribes to members of the state assembly and state senate, according to the historical record, only one
Senator, a fellow who came to be known as Anas Damasakab turned down the bribe. Everybody else who's offered the money took it and voted for that land grant bill. And so that legislature behaved exactly how today's Congress is behaving. In the face of this same kind of behavior. All but in that case, only one stood up and said, no, that ain't right. Everybody else took the money and those were astonishing sums of money that were thrown at. By the way, where is that guy's city?
Anybody name a city after what was his name again? His name was Honest a Mass of Cobb. I don't believe he was from Cobb, Wisconsin though. But he said it wasn't right. But everybody else went along until the voters said, you know what? The 40 thieves are all gone and the governor's gone. We're going to change the direction of the state. It was the people who rose up.
But man, that legislature behaved exactly how today's Congress is behaving. And you were talking before, again, you're going to be at the Evansville Library. Again, the name of it. The Eager Free Public Library. Right on Main Street. I was thinking about this, too, because Baraboo recently redid their library, and it was a Carnegie library. And Andrew Carnegie, I was just looking this up, he was a Scottish American businessman, big business man, and he helped to build 2,500
Carnegie Libraries. Donated money. Unbelievable. There aren't so many weeks. There aren't so many Kilborn public libraries. Mike, we got to leave it there. Thank you for joining us. And that's going to do it for us. Stephanie Miller's next. Tomorrow we've got more Peter Frampton tickets to give away. We'll talk to Busted Pencils about the state of education. Hope you have a great day. All right. Well, yeah, same to you. Right back at you. All right. So long.
As we were saying. Let the sun shine. Is the John and Gordy show.
