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And now, live from the Civic Media headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, here are John and Gordy.
We're truly sorry.
Yes, yes
It
looks like it's gonna be a pretty nice day today at least I'm hoping so here on WM DX We have the WM DX weather window overlooking State Street capital city Yes, and the WM DX official Samsung watch of the show.
Yeah, we'll be checking in with that in a few moments.
Good morning
And I have plans today to spread grass seed all over my lawn to see how that works.
That's going to be a $56 investment.
I know I'm just spreading $56 all over my lawn and blow.
It is going to be breezy again today.
So I don't know.
It's a good day to do that kind of thing.
I got no choice.
It's going
to start raining later,
I suppose.
Later.
Yes,
that's right.
Why don't you just like rent a sod cutter and then take your neighbor's lawn?
Oh, I love that.
No, I don't need their dandelions.
The nice thing about sod is you don't get the dandelions and you have an instant really thick lawn.
Right, right.
Yeah.
But I have too big a lawn for that.
You
could have one nice green patch and then the rest just kind of browned around it.
Well, I did have a green patch when they took out a tree and the stump and they replanted that area and it was just gorgeous.
And now that has since dwindled into nothing.
What kind of grass seed did you get?
You have to do anything else to treat it?
Do you just throw it on there and sprinkle some water on it?
It's got a little soil
in
it.
It's
got fertilizer in it.
Oh.
And it's
also the grass seed.
And it's supposed to work wonders like magic.
It's
like the jack and the beans, you know.
Jack and the beans stalk?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the beans before
they
became stocks.
Yeah.
Okay.
But, you know, you know what I'm getting at here, you know, I
want to, I
want a nice lot.
I know you don't
know.
I have no idea where I'm
going.
You're driving around the parking lot without a space to park.
That's it.
Um,
yeah.
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy young producer, Sam, all raring to go here on this Thursday.
And it is looking mainly clear out there.
And we're at 39 degrees currently, according to WMDX thermometer outside the WMDX window.
Is that,
is it really what?
Yeah, 39.
Well, I suppose it puts
a lot of pressure on the WMDX amps on the watch.
So currently 40 degrees.
Okay.
So we're, you know, in the ballpark.
Yes.
I know.
And then a high of 66 today.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Well, let's, uh,
Anybody keeping track of this?
I'm not.
Well, let's check the weather with that wheel.
Let's just roll it around and see what happens.
The afternoon high and around it goes and where it stops is.
right there on red 62.
That's quite a difference from what your watch is saying.
Yes.
You don't have
to
compare it later on.
You think so?
I think
we'll remember.
See how that goes.
We're about three minutes away from sunrise just to let
you know.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Okay.
And tonight sunset is at 742.
Plan your
grilling accordingly.
Okay.
Well, it's gonna be raining, it looks like.
It could cloud up and might have some showers by late in the day.
Well, I'm hoping for my grass seed.
All right, well, good enough.
What about the national day calendar, you say?
Well, we've got it right here.
Yeah, what about that?
Oh my gosh.
Is it or is it not?
Don't bring me down with
this.
Whatever you do, don't depress me.
Okay, is it national get to know your customer's day?
How about National High Five Day?
National History Museum Day?
National Cheese Ball Day?
National Haiku Poetry Day?
Or National Ellis Island Family History Day?
Which one of those days?
It's
not High Five
Day.
Well, you're wrong again today.
Whatever your name is.
I forgot your name for a second there.
Whatever my name is.
Sam, do you have a guess?
It's not National High Five
right now.
It's not History Museum Day.
You got it right for a change.
Yeah.
Get a shiny new dime.
Yes.
Add it to your account.
Okay.
Let's get to know your customer's day.
Hey, hey.
Okay, this is for retailers, I imagine.
Reminds businesses to reach out to patrons and get to know them better.
You know, the day is observed annually on the third Thursday of each quarter.
That's a wonderful tip for all the Tesla dealers out there and the salespeople on the floor.
Go out there and get to know your neighbors.
What businesses get to know when... Oh, okay.
Let me start over.
When businesses get to know their customers, they also get to know more about what they need to grow.
Remember when Main Street businesses were locally owned and operated?
I remember those days.
Oh, yes,
fond memories.
The owners knew you by name.
They knew your shopping habits.
Additionally, they typically knew what you wanted to buy.
Not surprisingly, they were willing to get it in for you if they didn't have it.
Unfortunately, with the advent of the internet and big box stores, much of the personal attention has gone by the wayside.
Boy, if you can get any attention from anybody in a big box store, you know.
Why is that you can't find anybody to get help anymore when you're in a one of the big box?
That's
not true at Costco.
I'm sorry.
Oh, okay.
Well except for Costco.
They have plenty of people.
Yes, they do have quite a few people there and they're all friends.
Yeah, okay.
Is your friend still working there that greets you when you walk in the door?
She is in a
different area apparently.
She got tired of doing that.
So
now she's in a different area.
I
never see her.
But I just want to say something about the old shop owners.
It used to be not so much that they knew what you were going to order, but it was more or less you had an account with them.
And you'd buy your stuff and they'd just add it to the account at the end of the month.
They'd give you the bill and you'd pay it off.
And that was the way it was done in the local areas in Milwaukee where we lived.
Oh, those were the days.
Yeah.
Well, it was kind of nice because as kids, we'd go to this market and we'd pick up all the hot dogs and all the meats.
We just went there and shopped,
put it on the
bill.
Put it
on the bill.
My parents.
God, their bill must have been outrageous.
I bet it was like having the Amazon bill come every month.
It's just outrageous.
What?
You bought what?
Yeah.
It's National High Five Day.
When was the last time you saw somebody give a high five?
I hate people who give high
fives.
I walk away, I'm running.
But I'm thinking, what is wrong with you?
Do you really have to have some kind of skin contact?
No.
I forgot all about the high-five.
Actually, I was watching, you know, I was scanning through the channel doing high-speed scanning.
Oh, yes, I'm good at that.
And they had everybody who loves Raymond on that flashback to when they were high school kids, you know, and they were wearing bad wigs and bad clothing.
And at this party, everybody's given each other high-fives.
And
I
thought, yeah, I remember high-fives.
It used to be a thing.
What are you talking about?
Like this is when you instead of like a fist you don't even know what a high five is.
No, people still high five each other.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Not like in a context all the time.
But this was
something all the time.
Maybe maybe it's because I work with kids more.
Sam, there's something wrong with you.
There's something wrong with people at high five.
You know,
stay
away from them.
Steer clear.
John, don't make me walk in there and give you
high five.
Exactly.
I never saw a need for slapping five or high fives.
Sam's
giving himself a high five now.
I know,
he is.
Little creepy.
Okay, each year on the third Thursday in April, we observe National High Five Day.
This is a fun day where you can high five everyone you see.
Oh, let's just try to stop it.
Oh
no.
Let's get arrested.
Okay, never
mind, let's move on.
You're like an old
television
sitcom, you know,
watching people in the office
high-fiving all day long.
It's National Cheese Ball Day.
When was the last time you had a nice cheese ball, get some crackers and break that thing open?
You get a
cheese ball and you
swipe the crackers into the cheese ball and scoop out something?
Yeah, that's...
basically the idea.
That doesn't make any sense at
all.
It's national Haiku poetry.
I know you're a big fan of Haiku poetry.
What is five lines?
Yeah, let's see.
Here we go.
Observed annually on April 17th, Haiku Poetry Day encourages all to try their hand at creativity.
The Haiku poetry is a form of Japanese poetry that is non-riming and usually consists of three lines with a syllable pattern of five, seven, five.
So they give an example here.
This is called Haiku the Other World by Richard Wright.
Oh, that's nice.
Oh, yeah.
It's a classic.
White caps on the bay, a broken signboard hanging.
No, it's banging.
A broken signboard banging in the April wind.
You want me to repeat that?
White caps on the bay, a broken signboard banging in the April wind.
Yeah, let me show that.
Okay, that's
poetry.
That's haiku poetry.
What?
That's it.
That's
it.
That's it.
The old, the old beatnik.
That's what you're doing.
Instead of applause.
And it's National Ellis
Island
Family History Day.
Why would that be today?
Well, we'll find out.
April 17th, National Ellis Island Family History encourages families to explore their ancestry and discover family who immigrated through Ellis Island.
Here we go through your family history, John.
No, and get into genealogy.
No, no, what
is the what was the site that everybody went to but now it's bankrupt?
I think that's 23 and me 23 and me.
Yeah, that's right.
Ancestry is still
happening.
Now, you know, we never got to that story on the show, but it was it was a nightmarish news story where all of all
all
these histories all these millions and millions of people now all of their information is for sale genetic makeup
is for sale.
Right.
Oh my God.
That's not good.
Hey Mark, Mark texted and said,
did
you put straw down over the seeded areas?
Well, I haven't done it yet, but no, this stuff avoids the whole putting straw down thing.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, that would make sense.
You said that now, now it's not going to work.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
Do we have time to get to the history book there, Sam?
I don't know if we do right now.
We'll get to
it soon.
If you don't know, how would we know?
OK, the answer's no, Gordy.
OK, that's more
definitive.
OK.
All right, coming up a little bit later on, we're going to be checking in with Cara Ogburn.
She's with the Milwaukee Film Fest.
She's the artistic director.
In fact, we'll have a couple of tickets to give away in our 7 o'clock hour.
And we'll check in with Judy Davidoff from The Ismus about the latest issue that's out there.
18 minutes past the hour.
Back with more of John and Gordy in the morning in just a moment.
WMDX, John and
Gordy in the morning.
It's 621, it's 39 degrees, mostly clear, but some clouds are going to be moving in, maybe rain later on.
Yeah.
Highs in the 60s for today.
And it's going to be breezy.
So.
Breezy again, and there goes the launch seat.
It's going to blow away.
I was worried about that.
Well, 20 to 30 mile per hour winds.
I don't know.
Is
that going to do it?
I don't
know, maybe.
could blow it into your neighbor's lawn and then they're
going to have a
nice lawn.
What do you got for history,
Sam?
Let's open up a book.
No, let's go
online.
Let's go to the
Kindle version.
Is that dial up
working?
Ah, there we go.
Got a good connection.
Good.
What do we got today?
Today in 19... I want to see if you remember any of this stuff.
Well, this all happened during your lifetimes.
Today in 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion began.
Yeah, vaguely remember that.
You would have been a little tyke still then.
That was eight
very tense times.
Eight or nine, yeah.
At the Peterson
home.
Yes.
You remember that?
Just as a little
kid, yes.
Fiasco.
That it was.
I didn't learn about it in school, really.
I kind of had to find out about it on my own, which is a little crazy.
That was a
complaint my kids had, too.
They didn't learn a lot of history in history class in school.
And it bothered them.
Why do they call it history class?
They wanted to know.
And then my son found out about the...
World War II
in
English class because it was a reading
assignment.
He didn't know about World War II.
They didn't
teach World War II.
What?
Like he knew that it happened, but he didn't know anything about it.
Well,
yeah, they have kind of overview, I guess.
I don't know.
I don't know if he knew about World War II or not.
My point is, is that he learned about World War II, Germany.
Yeah.
and the death camps all in an English assignment.
That's wild.
Yeah, a reading
assignment.
Both of your dads fought in World War II.
And John, you've got really young kids.
Did they ever get a chance to talk to your father about that?
No, but
my wife's brother did, even recorded it.
And then he never let me listen to it.
What?
Now
he meant to
yeah, we he just keeps forgetting and
I've been asked so
but I'd love to hear
it There's a recording.
Yeah.
Yeah, you should have a chance part of
that silent generation
Yeah, they didn't like to talk about it.
They didn't talk about anything at all.
Yeah They never complained about Medicare.
They should have
I live through World War two.
I probably wouldn't want to talk about it either
Well, I don't know as my dad didn't see
any action I mean they weren't he wasn't in
a military
zone, but he was in Panama for most of the war
My
dad saw a brief action that was shot immediately.
He was shot?
Yes, yes.
Well, he was all right, obviously.
Yes, yes,
survived.
Just amazing.
You know, you get shot and you depend on other people to say, well, I'm going to try to save this guy.
You know, it's kind of a weird.
Where did he go?
Where was he when he?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know anything about his experience there again.
My wife's brother knows more about this than I do.
Maybe you ought to contact him and get the tape.
He was wounded and everything worked out.
Wow.
Was it a serious wound?
It
was.
It
was.
Yeah.
Through the back and took out a lung.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well,
all right, I know it's a very up
story
When you guys were young did either you want to be astronauts?
Oh, yeah.
No,
didn't that Gordy did that change after Apollo 13
happened?
It might
have yes, I mean you are already a little older at that point
Yeah, yeah,
but today at 1970 Apollo 13 safely returned home.
I was
touch-and-go there for a few days.
Yeah, very yeah
That's a situation
the movie with Tom Hanks,
right?
Yeah, I've seen the movie quite a few times.
Oh, it's good Yeah, and anything
I Can't tell if you're gonna say if you're gonna like say something 2011 you guys ever watch Game of Thrones.
No Sort of toward the end toward the
end.
Yeah, I have not seen any of it I know that a lot of people are diehard fans so 2011 Game of Thrones
hit the screen for the first time.
2011, wow.
It went on for quite a while.
It did
go on.
The thing that bothers me about Game of Thrones is it lasted many, many seasons, right?
Right.
So you just don't want to jump in because you're not going to be familiar with a lot of the characters.
So I thought,
well, jeez.
It had like a horrible ending to, or like a very, very...
Like not satisfying ending.
Yeah, I heard that too.
So there's no point even watching the show as far as I'm concerned.
I
don't know.
A lot of people seemed to like it, so I wanted to check it out, but I didn't want to just jump right into the show.
So I wanted to see season one, and they made an amazing decision.
They didn't really season one or allow you to see it without paying for it in some way, shape or form.
And I'm thinking, well, does that help?
Maybe
they
should have just shown season one and then hook people onto season one so they'd watch the
rest of the damn
series, the dumbasses.
God, just makes me angry thinking about it to this day.
What have had a fan?
I'm sorry.
You know, I'm almost, you know, I'm almost at wit's end.
I wake up every morning and I get the news and I'm thinking we're all doomed.
We're absolutely all doomed.
That was the kind of way you came into the studio this morning.
Yeah, I apologize for bringing everybody down.
Like the whole world's going to
hell in a handbasket.
First words, John said to me when he came in this morning, you know, I just don't know what I'm going to do with this program anymore.
I have so many stories.
I
have no time to actually give you these stories because they're really super important.
They're gonna make a difference.
Everything turns on these stories and we don't have time to fill you in.
And a lot of them.
And a lot of it's really bad news
for everybody.
It's not good news.
No, it's not.
And the thing is there's no hope.
I don't want to bring everybody down.
There doesn't seem to be much
hope.
There's always hope.
There's always hope.
Okay.
But there is.
You told me the story about the Republican you watched.
Trey Gowdy.
Trey Gowdy.
Even Trey Gowdy's turned against Trump.
Turn
against Trump.
That's
hope.
There's some
hope right there.
Okay.
We will be back with idiocracy.
Oh, no, we have Dr. Tim Slecker.
Yes,
right busted pencils talking about that Harvard story boy
boy
and a whole lot more coming up on John and Gordy in the morning on
WMDX
It's morning time to wake up get some coffee and call your parole officer.
It's John and Gordy in the morning on 92.7 WMDS.
I'll have
to change that.
I'll have to call the Homeland Security office.
Send us out of the country boy.
634 it's 40 degrees highs in the 60s today.
Look for some rain showers developing late in the day and this evening.
It's John and Gordy along with producer Sam.
And it is time once again for Busted Pencils.
Tim Slikers with us this morning talking education with an educator.
All right?
So, you know, there's so much to talk about, isn't there, Tim?
Yeah,
a
little, you know, I mean, every so often.
Every
word in a
while, a story about education pops up.
You want to tackle
Harvard
first or what do you want to go
with?
Either that or the use of condiments.
Yes, the important use of condiments.
Why don't we get to the cut from Linda McMahon, the Department of Ed Leader who wants to phase out her own job.
Oh, you can't make this stuff up.
All right.
Well, anyway, this was her commentary in a little press conference.
Let's listen to this thing.
I think it was a letter or report that I heard this morning.
I wish I could remember the source, but that there is a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders or even pre-Ks have a one teaching, you know, every year starting, you know, that far down in the grades.
And that's just a.
That's a wonderful thing.
Kids are sponges.
They just absorb everything.
And so it wasn't all that long ago that we're going to have internet in our schools.
Now, OK, let's see A1 and how can that be helpful?
How can it be helpful in one-on-one instruction?
How can it be helpful in absorbing more information for those fast learners?
It can be more one-on-one directed.
And those are the kinds of things and innovations that I want to see continue to develop.
That's nice.
Here's a here's a comment from that post that I read.
McMahon keeps referring to A1 as or AI rather is A1 and talking about how it will help students at all levels.
But how can we get those students to drink it?
Linda added he they wrote the smarter kids can move up to
Thousand Island dressing Bring that into the class and then I have this web wisdom from somebody who also Observes something that I wasn't aware of during this conversation during this interview.
Let's listen to this is cut 179 and This person has an observation.
I think is important to add to this.
Let's listen
Trump's education secretary Linda McMahon just said she wants to incorporate a one steak sauce into our schools She seems to have gotten confused because she was on a panel about AI technology with a bunch of AI company CEOs who were trying to figure out how they can get the Trump administration to invest in their products The funniest part to me is that all these CEOs are trying to curry favor with the administration So no one corrected her and they just left it out there a one steak sauce in the school
Not to mention the fact that we have much bigger problems to solve in the US education system than figuring out how to integrate AI.
It would be a lot funnier if these people weren't running our government, and the price for their ignorance wasn't being paid by our kids and their
future.
It could have been worse to sanitize.
That's true.
No one can say that cleanly.
Wow.
Yeah, that's
crazy.
I don't know.
I mean, you know, it's really funny.
I mean, it's almost like, wow, what comics wrote this script?
But to think about it, you could tell, though, that what she was speaking was something that was already prepared, remarks for her, because if she would have said AI, the following kind of qualifiers that she used about one-on-one instruction and innovation and things like that, those were
very nice, well intended, and in fact, accurate statements.
And so what kind of points out that the reality is is that
She didn't really know that that was AI.
You know, she really thought about A1.
And so you'd sit there and go, you know, oh, it was just a faux pas.
I don't know if it was a faux pas as much as it was somebody who really didn't understand that they were talking about how AI would be useful in schools.
And she jumped right into A1.
So, um, yeah, you
know, people from the AI industry prior to that is just unbelievable, unthinkable at a certain point.
But yes, what you
did talk about was accurate, which even surprised me.
But
see, it's not, it's not surprising, right?
Because these are comments that were not, those weren't hers.
They were prepared for her, right?
You know, and, and, which again, points out that here, you know, what are the qualifications of this person to be in charge of the nation's education?
We start to go, okay, well, how did she get this job?
And everybody knows exactly how she got this job, you know?
But A1, you know, oh my goodness.
I mean, all the jokes, yeah, how do we get A1?
Well, then I read somebody else who was like, hey.
You know what, maybe this is good news for the school lunch program because maybe we'll start serving steak.
At least add some
flavor to
school
lunch.
Enough of
the fish sticks and tater tots.
Right to the
top.
You know, well, and like we said, and so, you know, we talked about this on busted pencils and, you know, there's a A1 sauce and, you know, back to the Nancy Reagan's use of ketchup,
Heinz ketchup
as a vegetable for school lunches, you know, because
You know, she made that comment with the sincerity of going, well, what do you mean kids don't get their vegetables?
They have ketchup.
It's like, wait a minute, what planet are we on?
What are we talking about?
I mean, you know, especially imagine, catch.
ketchup.
Have you read the ingredients of ketchup?
It's like, you know, red dye number 10 and sugar.
Yeah.
Um, I, I'm, I'm sorry.
No, no, that's good
to expound.
I, uh, I, I was watching, uh, that discussion, that panel discussion that she was on and the two people she was talking to were advocates of private
privatization of schools.
And then she went on to explain a few things about how important it is to have a variety of different kinds of schools to go to, public and private and religious schools, and how important it is just to have that option out there.
And then she went in to the idea that there'll be hybrids of learning and that is that some people will go to public school in the morning and then in the afternoon go to a private school and have private classes.
class is there.
It's just a little bit of convolution.
It's an education buffet.
You can't quite land on a solution, so let's just go
with it all, you know.
We're talking to Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils, a podcast you can listen to on Civic Media here on the Civic Media app.
You can join the conversation, 608-879-8255.
Let's move on to the Harvard issue.
Yeah.
So
Harvard is-
Wait, Harvard is about to invest in A1?
Well,
who knows what they're going to do.
Maybe they'll choose that instead.
Maybe
that'll make the administration happy.
We were watching a little bit of coverage on CNN this morning on our monitor here in the studio, and they were talking about the fact that now Trump is threatening to prevent international students from attending Harvard
as well.
That's the latest.
Yeah, that's the latest.
I mean, where do you...
Where do you start with this one?
You know, higher education and I think this is one of the ways to look at this is somebody saying, well, you know, they deserve it.
They're an elite woke institution.
They're a private university, right?
Making decisions about how they
admit students, whether or not they're going to have programs that talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and things like that.
The idea here, let's just forget about this being Harvard and talk about it being a private business and ask the question, would you or would we stand for government intrusion?
like this into a private business.
And I ask that question to, you know, conservatives, my neighbors, who I think, you know, if you broke this down into that simplicity of a kind of an equation, I think a lot of them would have real doubts about this being a policy that they feel comfortable with.
I mean, taking the seriousness to say, it's just like, wait a minute, what are we doing here?
What are the implications, the government making denial of students?
And I keep coming back to this one as being really, to me, the most concerning is that they continue to hear about wanting to actually control.
what is taught what is taught and Okay, so Harvard is the most elite Institution with some of the best researchers produced the you know what the the most presidents of the United States And we're gonna we're questioning whether or not they're teaching the appropriate content All of a sudden now wait a minute
Harvard, can you believe what they're teaching at Harvard?
We've got to control that because I mean people, you know, it's an elite institution.
I'm glad to see them really fighting back and hopefully providing some type of an example as a resistance.
But I also do worry about the higher education in general.
for the places that aren't Harvard, that don't have the resources and the clout to actually put up a resistance the way they are.
And again, the implications of changing and actually requiring different curricula or how things are taught and what is taught, how many institutions of higher education
already have made those decisions to obey in advance and to avoid the type of scrutiny that their resources just would not give them the ability to deal with.
That is where you start thinking about all of those small state institutions, small private institutions, community colleges.
who are out there doing the work of educating the workforce, who are saying, you know what, we just don't have the ability to put up a resistance to this.
We're going to comply because actually we have a lot of real important work to do and we just don't have the time bandwidth and resources to put up a resistance to this.
And how much of this really is the intention then of this administration to realize that you're going to get 80 to 90% compliance below the harbors just by simply creating this type of news.
That's right.
Well, there are a big protest going on all across the country including right here in Madison at noon today in the library mall.
There's going to be a protest and What the point of the protest is to urge the UW Madison to join the Big Ten mutual defense compact and commit to share resources and strategic support among all the 18 of the Big Ten universities
in
defense of academic freedom
Institutional integrity and the research enterprise and and it's I think all all because of Harvard finally resisting what is going on with the unit with the administration
And we'll get into a little bit more of that after we come back with dr. Tim Slecker and John and Gordy in just a moment
651, 92.7 WMDX, John and Gordy, along with Dr. Tim Slecker, this portion of the program brought to you by our friends at Verlo Mattress of Madison.
Wake up and sleep better on a Verlo Mattress.
A lot has changed since 1958, but some things have remained constant throughout Verlo's history.
They're still direct to consumer and provide superior products at unbeatable prices.
Verlo Mattress, two Madison locations east and west.
And go to verlo.com for more
information.
Yeah, I find out about these protests, these organized protests around the country to join in and defend as a group against what Trump is trying to do to the universities, calling curriculum, having somebody oversee who they hire, all of that.
It's insane, it's crazy.
And because of that, I saw it on TV last night, it was on Rachel Maddow and she showed a picture
the isthmus, and I guess it might even be in today's isthmus, that the headline about
this organized protest at noon on the library mall.
So I don't know how they got the message or news out to them.
I looked on their side, I didn't see an announcement for this story.
But yeah, it's kind of interesting.
It's hitting it.
And the problem is university, our university is still not on board with this.
And Tim, I think the problem here in these local smaller colleges is that
the colleges are funded by the legislators.
And if it's a conservative legislature, they're going to penalize and punish those universities if they join in on something like this.
They'll call it woke and, you know, indoctrination and they'll start cutting funding as they always do.
Right.
Yeah.
And, you know, that's why I said that that's the concern of joining into a movement and.
resistance movement and that's why now coming back it's it's good to see the Harvard's stepping up because they have the resources they have the credibility they have that that kind of you know long type of relationship also with their alumni very powerful alumni in the country who are
I think probably sitting there going like, wait a minute, what purpose does it serve to break down one of the most reputable institutions in the world?
What's the game going to be at the end of the day by destroying an institution that, as they say,
You know, if you get in and graduate from Harvard, the rest of your life, because of the connections to the alumni right there, it's frightening.
I worry about it.
But, you know, at the same time, too, we were talking during the break, there is also, there's a petition and a letter out right now nationally that has, last I checked, this was maybe three days ago, so I'm going to bet there are more, but 60 university past and present
presidents have signed on to this petition to, you know, kind of push back on the Trump administration to say, you know, this, this is not something that is cool and in kosher.
And, you know, I don't know.
It made me think, though, too, that.
You know, maybe if we just all ordered a one, um, you know, things would be better.
It called, you know, maybe maybe Harvard's tactics would be to say, you know what, how about this?
How about in all dining facilities in Harvard, we're going to use a one from now on, you know,
they can go along with Linda McMahon on this one.
I think, you know, good
idea.
That's that.
And then, and then I was thinking, you know, Hey, let's go.
So even further, maybe Grey Poupon.
That
sounds a little liberal.
Sounds woke.
Now we had a few comments, by the way, some text here from a Doug Rock musician and singer Meatloaf appeared on the TV commercial for the product and promoted his slogan, A1 Makes Beef Sing.
But, you know, meatloaf, why not, right?
And here's another one, John in Middleton.
Some folks learned to read by perusing cereal boxes and steak sauce bottles.
I learned by reading ketchup bottles and I'm still confused.
Thank you for that comment, John.
A1 steak sauce.
It's got electrolytes.
It's what plants crave in the afternoon.
So
that's
from Matt out in Middleton.
Oh, it's, it's fun stuff.
You know, I mean, we could, I do want to play this one comment from Harvard University professor Andrew Crespo.
This is cut 153.
Let's listen.
Given Harvard is the first school that we've seen respond this way, how does that impact your lawsuit and what does that mean for this going forward?
Well, I think the Trump administration's decision to cut $2.2 billion from Harvard tonight makes clear just how essential this lawsuit is and how critical this fight is and why it's so important for Harvard and really every university in the country to take a stand at this critical moment because this is a clear
unquestionable violation of First Amendment rights.
You mentioned some of the demands that the administration has made of Harvard.
It includes things like trying to appoint a federally named oversight official to do an audit of every course, every department at Harvard to see if we have
ideological balance to meet the Trump administration's test for what we teach and what we say at these universities.
It's a transparent effort to change what is taught, what we say in our classrooms, what we teach our students, to make sure that the only things that are actually set on university campuses are things that the Trump administration wants to hear.
Again, this is all part of what dictators do to take over, and that is to get rid of or at least change the universities, along with the media as well.
That's what they're doing, threatening the
media.
Yeah, that's where it's at
All right,
we're just about out of
time,
Tim.
We want
to leave you in that high notes
there about that.
You can catch Dr. Tim Slecker, Busted Pencils, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with podcasts, and they also have one on Saturday.
Check out the Wednesday podcast where Johnny and Tim go at it again.
I think Johnny.
We've been doing
that a lot lately.
That's true.
Johnny didn't want to talk about a one-sauce very long.
Thank you Tim.
We'll talk
to you next
time and we will be back with Kara Ogburn coming up from Milwaukee Film Festival also Judy David off coming up in our next
hour
John I'm Gordy on the radio 92.7 is the place to go It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy It's John
I'm Gordy
It's John I'm Gordy It's John I'm Gordy
Good
morning 706 92.7 WMDX with John Peterson, Gordy Young.
What's
Jim out there in Germantown
talking about?
Off the air, what's up?
I don't know, Jim.
Jim explained some more to us.
Well, if he can't hear us, how can he respond?
Catherine is
on the phone here this morning.
Catherine is on the phone?
All right,
well.
Let's find out what's happening.
Yeah, what's on her mind?
Maybe there's something going
on.
You can just say that she's on the phone, but not listen to her.
Good morning,
Catherine.
What's
up?
Oh, good morning.
I missed the first hour, so I just wanted to get the recap.
I
turned off my alarm at 5.30 this morning because I didn't sleep until then.
Oh, no.
Because I'm still
sick.
Yeah, bad night.
Well, you missed a great segment, Busted Pencils, here.
Do you want to hear the recap?
Do I have the music for that?
Yeah, we need our
AI music for
the... But this is AI interpreting our last half hour.
OK.
Here we go.
A whole hour, actually.
All right.
Here it is.
The title is A1 Sauce, High Fives, and Harvard Stand.
So this recaps our first hour.
John and Gordy tackle a whirlwind of topics from quirky national days like high five and cheese ball day to the serious clash between Harvard University and the Trump administration.
The episode brings humor with a mix up over AEI and A1 sauce questioning the state of educational leadership.
Meanwhile, Harvard's
bold resistance against government overreach prompts a wider discussion on academic freedom and the institutional integrity.
As protests spark across campuses, the show highlights the fight against curricular
Control and the defense of universities from political influence, blending lighthearted banter with critical societal issues.
I didn't mention Dr. Tim Slucker, but that's why we were talking about those topics.
So that's what you
missed.
I question the word curricular.
I don't know about that word.
You don't think
that's a
word?
I'm sure it is, but I just, it's stuck out.
I know, I know it stood out for me, but it's, it's right there and it's, it's from AI.
Do you think AI is inventing new words now?
Oh, maybe.
I know.
Maybe.
Is that one of those hiccups or what do they call hallucinations?
Is that what they call it?
I
think it is.
Well, I got nothing else.
I just wanted to say I did hear a little bit of Tim Flecker and I love him.
I think that's just.
amongst your best stuff all week.
I love when Tim Slecker from busted pencils comes
on.
I love it too.
Yeah, he's great.
Money in the bank.
He opens up, man.
You know, talks about education away and educators should.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
Well, we hope you feel better soon.
Yeah, check and see if... Get off here.
Can you drive over to Germantown and see why we're off the air there?
Okay,
if
you can.
I'll check it out.
All right, thank you.
All right.
Yeah, hydrate.
Get those electrolytes going.
Okay.
All right, a little bit later on we're going to be talking with Kara Otburn from the Milwaukee Film Festival.
She's the artistic director and we'll have another pair of tickets to give away to one of the films that's showing during the Film Fest.
And also we'll check in with Judy Davidoff from The Ismus about the latest issue with that terrific cover photo.
And also want to find out
the story behind that.
quote from John Peterson And
we're gonna ask her about the protest at noon on the library mall right to try to get the UW to participate in this very important
nationwide movement to join all the colleges together and fight the Trump attempts to stifle universities.
It's called the Big Ten Mutual Defense Compact.
So that's what they want the UW to join.
And they haven't really said anything yet.
You know, the act way asked pretty quick with the Republican legislature
by
getting rid of DEI just like that.
blink of an eye that didn't settle well with anybody, actually.
Why don't we get to another comment from the Harvard professor that we heard from last hour.
It is Professor Andrew Crespo, and this we didn't get to yet.
It's cut 162 talking about what's happening with the administration and Harvard.
Professor, what's your reaction to all of this, including the latest truth social post by the president?
I think the president's post makes clear what this is all really about.
Donald Trump wants to control what is taught in America's universities.
He wants to try to use all of the tools of the federal government to break the backs of these institutions unless they parrot his own preferred ideology.
This is a page straight out of authoritarian playbooks.
If you look across history and across the globe, when people come into power who wants to try to maintain and control power in a way that's contrary to the basic norms of a constitutional democracy, they attack some of the core institutions of civil society.
They attack
the press, they attack the courts, they attack the legal profession, and they attack universities.
And that's what's happening here.
And the president isn't even pretending about it.
His truth social message makes clear that he wants to change what he views as the ideology of what's being taught at American universities and make it more to his liking.
He wants them to be following the Trump syllabus instead of the syllabi that have been created by these universities over the past century that have made them the shining example of what higher education should look like in the world.
He's going to break the back of American universities if
He persists this way, but I'm proud to see that universities like Harvard are standing tall and saying, this is a red line.
You cannot have the federal government trying to tell people what to teach inside of our universities.
It violates the First Amendment.
It violates the laws of our country.
And it is.
flat out dangerous authoritarian moves.
All right, I guess he sums it up right there,
huh?
So again,
if you want to protest, go down to the library mall here on campus and ask the UW to join the Big Ten Mutual Defense Compact.
It's very important to do that.
And that's today.
That is today, yes, make it on down there at noon.
All right, okay.
I also have a cut here this I this this is really fantastic This is Marquette Warriors coach Steve Carr and he wore a Harvard basketball shirt and During the game and the Warriors won by the way, but this was at the press conference.
This is cut 180 and Let's listen to what he had to say.
This is great stuff
Tommy Amaker is a friend of mine, Harvard coach, and he sent me the shirt.
Actually, we practiced there in Boston in November.
He gave me the shirt and felt like a great day to wear it.
I believe in academic freedom.
I think it's crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to, and they should not be shaken down and told
what to teach, what to say by our government.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but it's kind of par for the course right now.
So yes, this is me supporting Harvard way to go, way to stand up to the bully.
All right.
Wow.
Yeah.
Again, that's Markhead Corey, a Warriors coach, Steve, Steve, Steve Curry.
Yeah.
Let's go
to
the
phone.
Sure.
Dick up
there.
He's waiting patiently.
Dick, good morning.
What do you got for us
today?
something that the president's selling.
Have you heard about it?
Well,
make your make your weight great again scale.
Looking with the same gold plating as the Oval Office.
And if you act now, we'll throw in a special Mr. Pillow free.
You know, that old friend of mine, Mike Lindell, I'm trying
to help.
So sorry for
him.
I went from slightly over six feet tall and 231 down to 204 when I use this scale.
All
this is a result of my last checkup.
The doctor had one of my scales.
You
think they're worried maybe about getting
beheaded or something like that if they resist and actually, you know, tell people what he really weighed.
It's hard to imagine.
Oh my
God.
I know.
I guess a friend of mine listens to nothing but sports talk radio.
Yeah.
And he said they rarely get political.
Early in the week when that came out, he said they were just nothing not stop but talking about that.
I
mean,
six, four body fat of 4%.
It's like, no, it's unbelievable.
It really is
truly.
He's a Greek God, no doubt about it.
I get a hold of one of those stales that help for me.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I think it just proves that a lot of those pictures They're not doctored the net a1 pictures of him as a superhero or a Rambo style warrior
Let's go to mark he's
on
the line this morning 608-879-8255 is our number good morning mark
Yeah, good morning guys.
Yeah, you're talking about Harvard earlier and I brushed up my history a little bit last night.
That's something that picked up from sort of old, but what were these shipmates is about the Puritans of New England that apparently Harvard was actually established as an Orthodox Christian institution by people who thought were actually not really Orthodox Christian thinkers, but they separated from England and went there and
It was secularized, I guess, in the 19th century by the students themselves.
And part of it was that the reason they found it is to control thought.
I mean, they didn't like the fact that people were thinking religiously on their own, which is ironic, considering the fact that they were the whole separatist thing from the Church of England and from the Church of Rome and not wanting to adhere to the orthodoxy of the time.
And Trump apparently wants to reestablish some kind of political orthodoxism.
box in this country where everybody knew their place in the women who their place was in the kitchen in the bedroom and birth and babies and take care of their their man who was a soul voice in the house that had any authority and that it is just uh... i i i i i just as a applicable that uh... trump is trying to do that stuff i think that uh... it is just you know controlling people's thought is it is no place in any in a democracy and uh... and yes we were
democratic republic and you know that's probably your father real mag is out there yes we are a democratic republic and uh... republics have representative government and you guys don't like it well maybe you should install all your asses over to russia and that's what we should just kind of fighting to send off thirty in the home however millions of want to go to rush you go to russian and kiss putin's
butt
Yeah, appreciate the comment.
It's just amazing stuff.
And remember what I mentioned yesterday, too, the Trump executive order that he passed a while back allows him to, you know, declare this aliens.
Well, the aliens and I forgot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Aliens
Act.
Yes.
He put that in place so a little bit later, he can declare it martial law, which is something that he can do on Easter Day.
That's what they're talking
about, which is this Sunday.
Yeah.
And that means he can deport American citizens to El Salvador, if they want.
Yes, 19 minutes past the hour, and we're going to get an update on weather with WMDX meteorologist Brittany Murdoch.
Coming up next on John and Gordy.
Yeah, Freddie Cannon, WMDX, 92.7, John and Gordy in the morning, and Sam's going to be leaving the state here in a few moments.
What's the deal?
You're
going down to Illinois?
Well, yeah, I was wondering what the weather was going to be, and apparently it's got chances of storms tonight, but Brittany can explain that a little more later.
The reason I'm heading down south is...
I've got one of my many wild, weird interests is old printing technology.
And I'm going to pick up this, it's called a spirit duplicator.
It's the kind of things that they used in schools back in the day before copiers.
And if you got a test or an assignment or something, fresh off the press.
It would smell like this sweet purple ink on it.
Yeah, it was
so nice.
That's right.
And John is really excited that I'm going to pick up this machine so he can he can huff all the chemicals.
Yes.
Well, I remember it too.
Yeah.
Well, I was in the nurse's office at the time and I didn't feel good.
I was lying down and I saw that ink paper in the waste basket.
Yeah.
I pulled it out and it smelled so.
Good that I licked all the ink off.
Did it taste good too?
Yes, it didn't.
Well, it didn't taste bad because I licked the whole sheet clean.
Yeah.
And I tell you, you know, the nurse was not too happy.
Did you
get
sicker or did
it make you better?
I think the school was checking to see if they were ready for a lawsuit.
Oh, gosh.
But yeah, apparently had lead in it because that's why I am like
I am today.
Yeah, that explains a lot.
Hey, we got to get to Brittany Merlot here in just
a
moment.
But first, let me remind everybody of this portion of John and Gordy.
And the morning is brought to you by our friends at Verlo Mattress.
Wake up and sleep better on a Verlo Mattress.
Plenty has changed since 1958, but some things have remained the same throughout Verlo's history.
They're still direct to consumer and provide superior products at unbeatable prices.
Verlo mattress.
two locations in Madison, east and west, and go to verlo.com for more information.
Now, it's time for WMDX chief meteorologist, Brittany Merlo.
Good morning, Brittany.
How are you?
Good morning.
Oh, all those things we did when we were in school.
Yeah, these old
days.
Like in the Inca.
Did you get
the Spemiorcraft copies?
Did you ever get those things where they just smelled wonderful?
You know, when they passed
them out in class.
I think that's a little before her time.
Oh, okay.
Well, I
don't
know when they dropped out, when they stopped using that stuff,
you know.
Like in the 1970s.
You were just sniffing glue or something back in my
day.
Too many kids were looking
to ink off
the sheets.
I know, it's bad, bad stuff.
Hey, I'm spreading grass seed all over my lawn today because I'm, you know, because of your advice, it's going to start raining.
So I'm depending on your weather forecast.
as today to make sure that I'm doing everything right.
Yes.
Well, I think you are because I mean, even last night, there was a major bird migration, 166 million birds are flying here to the Midwest.
So I think that's a sign spring is really cool.
Yes.
Spread the grass seed, you know, get ready for the nicer weather, all of that.
So it's exciting, exciting.
Yeah, that's great.
Oh, wait, do we know birds like grass seed?
Maybe they're going to attack you a lot.
They do love grass seed.
Yes, they do.
Yeah, sadly.
Maybe that's why they're coming.
Did you spread the grass seed?
I guess I said too
much.
Way to go.
Maybe they caught some of those radio airwaves and they understand what we're saying.
They probably do.
Oh, goodness.
Oh, well, you know what else is coming?
Storms, too.
Oh, boy.
Well,
tell us about it.
Yes, so we've got a low pressure system targeting the state.
First it's going to bring us a warm front, then it's going to smack us with a cold front.
So we're going to have multiple rounds of showers and storms and all of this is going to be starting this afternoon.
So the clouds are already here.
The temperatures are in those upper 30s.
We are going to see the winds get a bit breezy to gusting around 30 miles per hour out of the south.
So still a high fire danger in place this afternoon before the rain arrives.
High temperatures will reach those low 60s and then the scattered showers.
storms, mainly starting a looking at any of them to
maybe just some gusty winds, light hail there.
And then overnight, some of those could be on the stronger to maybe severe side of things.
As they roll through through the overnight hours, we could get some bigger hail and gustier winds.
And of course, about a half an inch of rain is expected as all of these roll through.
So it should wind down early Friday morning.
We'll get a little bit of a break.
And then we really spike in temperatures tomorrow afternoon.
We're looking at low to mid seventies potentially.
So, that kind
of heat.
Yeah.
But we still got the cold front that needs to move through.
So it may or may not spark up some more scattered showers Friday afternoon and into the evening.
But that'll clear him out of here.
It gives us a beautiful Saturday with highs in the upper fifties and still partly sunny into Sunday with the low fifties.
Excellent.
Now we're not talking about anything that could go, uh, tornadic.
Are we?
I mean, this is severe.
I know last week was severe weather awareness week, but I was still, I was still kind of in, in the zone here for possible severe weather.
Any of that happening in this mix?
I mean,
when we, when we get to hail,
when we talk about hail, I mean, that's kind of a heads up, right?
Exactly.
It really is.
And especially as we go into Friday, if we do really get that warm, we are going to be with that little risk of some tornadoes pushing through as well.
I think it's going to stay more east of you.
But of course, you're right on that line.
So just keep a heads up and pay attention just in case.
So again, that'll be Friday afternoon and into the evening for the strongest.
I
sure hope that I don't get.
sucked into a tornado with my car.
Like I get blown around just driving down the highway.
Are you
going to the VW bug?
I am.
Well, I don't have two cars down here.
Well, okay.
All
right,
we've
got to get to a call here.
We have a jail on the line.
So, Brittany, thank you for that weather forecast.
I'm looking forward to spreading seed.
I'm grass seed.
Okay,
let's just
clear the way here.
Let's
go to Joe.
Have a good
day, guys.
Thank you.
That's
WMDX
meteorologist Brittany Merlo.
I don't know if we got time for Joe right now.
We got less than a minute and a half.
Well, we got a minute and a half.
Let's go to Joe.
Joe is right on top of it.
She can tell us.
Good morning, Joe.
Oh, sure.
I'll be brief.
I would recommend a kitty litter in the back of your VW van as your car is your heading down south.
Just get a little extra weight back there.
I did want to say that you have this through line going through your discussion today.
Dick's idea of the Trump scale that says exactly what you wanted to say.
I think that's going to be the first business success the guy ever had.
I would love a scale that would say exactly what I wanted to say.
And that gets into this idea that Mark called about, which is the idea of political orthodoxy.
So what Trump is saying to Harvard is, you will say what I want you to say.
And what gets great about it is this unwillingness to make any sense of maybe we have it wrong, maybe we don't have a complete
completely right, like the dear A1 gal.
You know, couldn't admit I had it wrong.
Yeah,
right.
Well, that's good.
All right, Joe.
Appreciate that comment.
We appreciate that.
729, when we come back, we'll talk to Kara Ogburn from the Milwaukee Film Festival and give away a pair of tickets to one of those films and also a little bit later on this hour, Judy Davidoff from Ismus, all happening on John and Gordy in the
morning.
This portion of the show is being brought to you by Noses.
Yes, when wanting to stick something in other people's business, more people use their noses than any other part of their faith.
Noses.
Available wherever old factory body parts are sold.
Well, we have a president like that now, Michael managing an entire country with his weird wacky ideas.
Well, let's set the side of politics for just a few minutes here.
No, I can't do that.
Come on,
John.
All right, I'll try.
It's John and Gordy in the morning, along with producer Sam.
It's 735.
Temperatures today will get into the 60s, but look for some rain developing.
Actually, at the moment, downtown
Madison,
we have some sunshine breaking through the clouds.
But again, highs in the 60s for today.
Time for us to welcome in Kara Ogborn from the Milwaukee Film Festival.
She's the artistic director there.
Good morning, Kara.
Good morning.
Good to have you with us here.
We're also going to give away a pair of tickets.
And in fact, right now, if you text us the word, what would oh yeah, the word is beer.
We couldn't think of a word, so I asked John, what do you think of when you think of Milwaukee?
Because this is the Milwaukee Film Festival.
And he said beer, so our word today is beer.
And we just found out from Kara that both of the theaters that are showing the movies, the Oriental and the Downer,
serve beer.
They serve beer.
Beer
is the word.
Get the Civic Media app, get it going, and you can text us the word beer, and we will select a winner for a pair of tickets.
the film festival is your choice of the movies good morning Kara again glad to have you with us give us an overview of the film festival first of all it starts up next week right goes
yeah
from when we're
one week away from opening night.
The festival starts on the 24th with the film Sally a documentary about Sally ride made by a Milwaukee native filmmaker Christina Costantini and a block party that takes over that space at North and Farwell where around the Oriental and then two straight weeks of movies at the Oriental and Downer over 200 films.
Wow.
more films than you can
possibly see.
Yes.
I challenge
you.
Okay, we'll take that challenge.
We're going to take off a couple of weeks, Gordy.
Yeah, okay.
You got to take off two weeks.
Yes.
What the heck?
All right.
Well, let's, let's talk about, I think this precedes the film festival, doesn't it?
The retrospective for David Lynch at the Oriental Theater on Farwell.
Yeah, let's talk about that.
Yeah.
In addition to the film festival, Milwaukee Film operates the Oriental and Downer theaters year round.
And upon learning of David Lynch's passing, we thought it appropriate to honor his legacy and show basically as many of his films as we possibly could.
So we have two more coming.
Mohan Drive and Inland Empire will round out the series to...
I would say of his best, but I'm biased.
Yeah.
Well, it is going to feature a blue velvet.
And it's an old Bobby Vinton song, which I hated more than anything in my life because it was on all the time and it didn't fit in with the rock and roll I wanted to hear on top 40 radio at the time.
But it made me like blue velvet, actually.
And the movie is really surreal in so many ways, a little brutal.
A little violent, but it wasn't as bad as some of the other movies that I think.
Oh, we had a catwalk by your screen there.
Yeah.
Watching you.
Constantly.
The tale.
And then Wild at Heart, which was an interesting movie as well.
But Twin Peaks, Firewalk, everybody talks about that.
It's one of those controversial films.
You know, it's really good.
I thought in the beginning, but I didn't know what happened at the end, which is what.
That was the impression I had with Twin Peaks, too.
I didn't understand the ending to Twin Peaks, and I watched every season, so.
That's David Lynch
for you.
Yeah, that's David Lynch.
That's David Lynch,
exactly.
It is.
All right, now let's get into the actual film festival, because there are a lot of great films.
Let's talk about some of the ones that deal with Wisconsin.
There's a Brady Spree documentary?
Brady Spree?
Yeah.
So this is a new documentary.
I believe that the public world premiere is at our festival.
This is a film that comes out of UWM's Doc UWM program with Sean Kafer as the director of that program and of the film.
It tells the story about the history of Brady Street kind of through its initial immigrant
rises, its initial population surges, the kinds of industry that built up around Brady Street with tanneries, and then the changes that have undergone the neighborhood through different kind of moments of change.
And we were talking a little about you being at some of those Brady Street festivals.
Oh,
yeah.
You'll see that in the film.
But also what's happening today on Brady Street, which continues to, of course, be like a vibrant through line for the city.
A lot of history and cool shops always.
I think there's always been cool stuff on Brady.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
No, it was quite quite quite the festival.
A lot of strange people showed up for the Brady Street Festival.
Does any of that go on today?
Is that still kind of continued?
Do they have the head shops?
Now, that's much more normal and happens kind of all over,
right?
So, yeah.
Right,
I mean, that's now, we've just, the weirdness has infused everywhere.
But Brady Street Festival, they're planning a couple of upcoming new festivals through their bid.
I know that I've been seeing on my social media for the summer, so.
Yeah,
it's a good way to
sort of think about streets.
I'm sure Madison has similar kinds of streets that have always kind of had vibrancy and life.
State
Street.
Yeah,
we're broadcasting right from one of those places.
Exactly.
Kara, I wanted to ask you about the one about Wisconsin Delz.
It's just called Delz, right?
Yeah.
So yeah, the film is called The Delz.
When you're going to our program book or online alphabetical, can't miss it.
The Dells.
This is Melly Cluz's documentary.
It's a pre-Verite style documentary that explores the world of the J1 visa, young people who come to work at The Dells and basically make the water park capital come alive and thrive in the summer for tourists and from around the state and around the country to have a good time.
And it really explores kind of their life,
which I
think one doesn't get to see.
What does it look like to come to the
Wisconsin Dells in the Wisconsin, a state in the United States.
You may never have thought of living in Bulgaria or other places.
And living there and working there and, you know, experiencing a version of the American dream.
Well, actually, Gordy worked there for quite a while.
Having been in the Dells a number of years over my life.
I know that J1 students, they come.
to get jobs and to live there and work there and their house there.
And many times they don't speak the language sometimes and there's some issues there.
I know during the pandemic, some of them got stuck in the Dells and
their
visas ran out.
They couldn't go anywhere.
They didn't have places to live.
It was really quite an experience.
I'm sure that's an interesting movie.
I'd like to check it out myself.
I wonder if you're in it, you know?
Don't think
I'm in
it.
They would have notified me, but
we would have
known.
Well,
give us another
couple of
your picks
here.
There's kind of a new movie there.
Death of a unicorn is going to be featured.
The Paul Rudd film.
Kind of a
famous.
Yes, Death of a unicorn is actually showing now in the theater.
It'll end when the festival starts
because we take it
over with even more new films, right?
There's new films every day.
okay all right and we want to remind our listeners if you'd like to win a pair of tickets to one of the films at the festival you can text us the word beer okay that's the easy word to remember beer you can get on the civic media app and text us there or at 608-879-8255
what are some of the movies that you think people might be interested in watching
Absolutely.
So we don't have a movie about beer this year, but we do have a movie about cocktails.
It's called Bar, and it follows bartenders from around the country participating in the Bar 5 program, which is kind of a, like,
training school certification for mixologists.
If you love Top Chef, you'll love this.
And you watch kind of the craft and the art, but also the science and the history of cocktails kind of come together in bar.
Playing mostly the first week into the festival and the filmmaker will be in attendance in from the Bay Area for that one.
I also love to talk about the film.
It's called Slice of Life, the American Dream in Former Pizza Hut.
It's a film that's about Pizza Hut.
Pizza Hut's rise, Pizza Hut's iconic architecture, and
then
businesses that have taken over former Pizza Huts to make a new kind of community, whether it's a marijuana shop in Colorado, a queer-friendly church
in
Florida, there's a karaoke bar, there's restaurants of all shapes and sizes.
The filmmakers will also be here for that.
They tell me, and it didn't make the film, that the most interesting former Pizza Hut in the Milwaukee area is a veterinary clinic.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Yeah, they did downsize, I believe, and became more of a drive-through or more of a delivery service that it was a restaurant.
That's why they abandoned a lot of these buildings.
There's a, you know, corporate conglomerations, you know, higher ups, changing efficiencies, you know, and of course, the pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of businesses.
So more kind of
car and pickup culture.
Um, except for the historic theaters, we, you know, we still hold on to the value of the communal watching a horror movie and gasping with others, watching a comedy and laughing with others.
These things remain pretty important to us.
Well, you know, what's really important is seeing these movies in these great theaters, the downer theater and the oriental.
I mean, these are really classic, fantastic theaters in Milwaukee.
Could you, could you send on that?
You know, and, and.
You know, as a nonprofit, it was important for us to kind of preserve history while also continuing to provide great movies every single day.
And modern amenities like beer at the movie theaters.
Best popcorn in town.
We've got brewers yeast, you know, really trying to make theater going.
You remember what theater going used to be in the 1920s when the Oriental Theater opened, you know, people would get dressed up.
This was your social activity for the week.
Now you might see more people in Uggs and Sweats.
hands than gowns, but
still a
great way to escape your everyday life, see the life of someone else, travel the world.
And the Film Festival does all that, like for two weeks jam-packed.
We're talking with Kara Otburn from the
Milwaukee Film Festival a couple of music movies here that I wanted to find out a little bit more about one about Janice Ian called Breaking Silence and then the other one the John and Yoko movie which was here at the Madison or the Wisconsin Film Festival here in Madison last week or so Can you mention a little bit about those movies Kara?
Yeah, so if you're looking for Music Docs, our sound vision program is the place to go.
Documentary is about, yes, Janisian, John and Yoko, usually the name of the musical artist is in the title of these ones,
so it's a
good clue.
Whoever you like, our programmer for that program, Abby, really looks to for...
kind of a breadth of musical genres so that every music fan has something to find.
The Janice Ian film is a really special one.
Everyone saw a completely unknown over the holidays.
This
takes you back to that same place and introduces you to some of the people who maybe didn't get to be played by Timothy Shelby.
And
also to
hear from the real folks, Joan Baez's feature.
We showed a Joan Baez doc last year.
She's here again to talk about the impact that Janice Ian had, who's a little less known.
You know her voice, but you might not know her name.
And here you can spend a little bit more time learning her story and learning about her impact.
Yeah, Jan Sien's Society's Child was a breakthrough song.
It was incredible.
And Leonard Bernstein had it in a documentary form that he put out.
It was about rock and roll music and how it was changing the way America thinks.
It was part of a movement in America.
It was a great documentary.
I don't know if we can find that anymore.
Maybe it's on YouTube someplace, but it was fantastic and it featured a live version of Society's Child and truly an amazing song at the time.
Couple more minutes here, Kara.
Tell us for folks who want to go to the festival a little bit more about how they can get tickets and where they can go for more information.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, first you're supposed to text the word beer so that you can receive those two
free
tickets.
There you go.
If you don't get two free tickets, you can go to our website, mkefilm.org.
Right on the home page.
Click right in.
You look for the birds.
It's spring.
The birds are coming.
The grass is getting spread.
We're going to try and take them to the movie theater so they don't eat your grass seed there.
But click in through there.
Explore the films.
Tickets are on sale now.
They went on sale to the public.
Individual tickets yesterday.
And if you're watching two weeks of movies, we still do have passes.
All access passes on sale for you.
Excellent.
And again, the film or the website is mkefilm.org.
Correct, Kara?
Yeah, correct.
Good job.
All right.
Very good.
Well, thank you.
We appreciate you being with a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Very good.
That's Cara Ogburn from Milwaukee Film Festival.
Sam, did we pick a winner yet?
We did.
Let me get her name back here.
Monica in Mount Horab is getting the tickets to the Grands of
Monica.
Very good.
We will be back to wrap things up on John and Gordy in the morning right here at WMDX.
Stay with us.
Okay WMDX 92.7 it's John and Gordon the morning broadcasting from the capital city Madison overlooking State
Street
It is 7.52.
Beautiful sunshine peeking through some of the early morning clouds.
We might get some rain later in highs in the 60s.
This portion of John and Gordy in the morning brought to you by a friend at Verlo mattress.
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All right,
let's talk to the president and editor of The Ismus.
Judy, David Hoff is with us this morning.
How are you doing?
Good morning, Judy.
I'm good.
Great.
You know, I was watching Rachel Maddow last night and she talked about the protests going on across the nation.
Colleges getting together and they're trying to fight the Trump administration and they had a little screen capture that they featured on Maddow's show and it had Ismus
And it had the announcement that there's going to be a protest at the library mall.
And I looked on your site, I couldn't find it.
I don't know how they got that, but it
was- It's probably the calendar listing.
Oh, that's probably
it.
Yeah.
It was kind of interesting, but they featured it right there on national television.
Excellent.
Just
thought I'd let you know.
Yeah, and Judy.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
And one of the things that jumped out at me at the current issue of Isthmus is, of course, the photograph right on the front page there.
Great picture of a dog with looking at his reflection.
It's just one of those pictures that really jumps out at you.
Yeah.
Who took that photo?
Yeah,
well, that didn't fall out.
And if you, he's a local photographer.
Yes.
Who really, and it's for him, really kind of a side gig.
He considers it a hobby, but he goes out most mornings, and I think early evenings too, you would see him around the Arboretum, like Wingra, and he's a wonderful photographer.
He has a large following on Instagram, so we were really happy that we got one of the photos from him.
Ken Fowler, okay.
Kenton, yeah, Kenton
Fowler.
Kenton,
sorry, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I always, you know, when I open up the issue, I always go to your opinion page because you really have some good topics on here.
And you're also kind of focusing on the American distrust of media.
And we know, of course, that, you know, this is a Trump thing.
This is a mega thing.
They have beat this to death.
since 2016 at least.
Yeah, fake news.
Yeah,
trying to portray the media as fake and their stuff that's now taking off and people are watching that now just to see and compare, but not really, you know, it's more or less propaganda at this point.
But what is it?
What is your feeling?
What you're saying in the editorial?
Well, you know, I mean, of course, I feel that it's all that it's very unfortunate.
I mean, it's not like
media makes no errors and it's not like there can't be improvement in many ways.
At least through polling it shows that there is this general mistrust when people talk about the media They're usually talking about the national media.
Yes What I write about is that you know, at least the good news for those of us in local news is that When you ask specifically about your local news organization, the trust really does go way up people do
believe in the quality of what they're reading and there's a connection.
And in particular, people who are connected to their community are connected to their local news outlets, which I thought was pretty interesting too.
It's
encouraging, yes.
That is encouraging.
And
talk about, Judy, talk about these community newsrooms, the
series.
Yeah.
Well, you know, along just kind of developing that idea of the trust factor more, you know, we're all always trying to figure out how to better reach our readers, our supporters, provide the news that they want, provide the content they want, and how do you do that?
You know, you can do some surveys, but we also just thought that
at least and especially in this moment you know this moment of extreme change disruption um concern anxiety stress um let's meet with the people who you know um are connected with isthmus or you know could be more connected with isthmus and see what's on their minds
Um, you know, just almost in general, um, but also what they would like to see, um, covered, um, you know, what their concerns are and, um, just get out in the community a little bit more.
Yeah.
Uh, Judy also,
so we organized, I'm sorry.
So we organized this meeting and it was at Goodman, um, library, uh, it was evening and, um, we had just great discussions about everything.
It was really kind of a round table.
Are you going to do more
of
those?
We are.
We are.
We're planning.
We're hoping the next one's going to be in June.
We're thinking, since this is on the south side, we might go east, probably looking at another library.
And yeah, we just talked about it actually at our board meeting last night and hope to get that organizing in place so we can tell people about it soon.
We just got a minute or so left.
One thing I wanted to point out, you have a
The essay on the back page there, Life in Transit is the title of it and it's by Dan Cain.
I thought this was a great essay by him and really a life-changing experience that he explains.
Can you mention a little bit more about that or talk
about that?
Yes,
yes, so actually Dan is on our board.
That's how I met him and in fact I asked him a little bit more about his writing last night and he said he's been
driving an Uber often,
often
on, I believe for about 10 years since he came back from Miami.
He is not much of a sleeper.
Right.
It's a great essay.
Yeah.
He does a couple of hours of writing a night and then he goes out and drives and he just really loves the interaction with people.
Judy, thank you so much.
Yeah, sorry, we've got to move on here.
But thank you for being with us.
Stephanie Miller's
next.
Thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
