Two kinds of dangers.
One is what I just talked about that we've arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces.
I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?
And the second reason that I'm worried about this is that science is
more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious who comes ambling along.
It's a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on.
It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a constitution or a bill of rights.
The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education.
Otherwise, we don't run the government.
The government runs us.
Maybe 2.7.
Was that David Brooks?
That was
Carl Sagan.
Carl Sagan.
Yeah, remember?
I remember,
sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Way back when.
That was a lot of watching the show.
Oh, I know.
Cosmos.
Yeah.
Universe.
We knew
everything about space in Final Frontier.
He knew it all he did We got
morning.
We got some bad weather Might as well just mention it here in her sure right off the top sure It's the National Weather Service.
You know, it's funny.
We're getting these things They don't send up the balloons anymore Or as often as they should and Elon has his tentacles now in Noah
But anyway, we're still getting some alerts here.
And there's a severe thunderstorm warning for Northwestern Iowa County, Columbia County, Northern Dane County.
Right.
And, and SOC.
Yep.
Southeast SOC County.
Yes.
And
they're
630.
They're warning people about hazardous ping pong size.
Balls of ice.
Otherwise
known as
hail.
Hail.
Yeah.
Hail, hail.
Gangs all here.
And they even mentioned in the warning that you might have to replace your roofs.
That's helpful.
Really?
That's great advice.
Somebody there must work for an insurance
company.
Maybe so.
But these storms are moving really fast.
They're moving about 65 miles per hour.
They should be well on their way by 6.30.
Where are they going in such a hurry?
Well, they're moving to the
east.
It says here, people and animals outdoors will be injured, expect damage to roofs, siding, windows and vehicles.
Speaking of vehicles, I was driving in this morning and I witnessed a small
episode of Fast and Furious out there in University Avenue.
What are you talking about?
What do you mean, Fast and Furious?
Was there drag race going
on?
Yeah, there was, man.
I think it was an unexpected drag race.
Were you a part
of it?
No, but I watched it.
And I'm just driving along as I always do way over the speed limit.
And that's University Avenue.
This guy...
is just he just speeds through all of the traffic.
I mean, really, really, really cruising.
And there's this other guy that just been alongside of me as we were going down the university avenue.
And he thought, screw this.
And he took off after this guy to catch up to him and beat him.
Really?
Yes.
And then they were racing down there a little bit.
And then a campus drive, you know, the actual freeway, the Audubon
here in
Madison.
And they really took off during that.
I
mean,
they just went down there.
But of course, they get caught by the light.
Yeah.
So I got to see who they were, you know.
Of course they had the darkened windows.
Oh, so you couldn't really see them?
No, you couldn't see them.
And
that's one of the reasons why people have darkened windows is they don't want people to see them.
Some states, those darkened windows are illegal.
Well, even in this state, they're illegal.
Well, that's what I thought.
A lot of
people get away with it.
I don't know how or why, but they do.
I mean, I got my windows darkened, but the people that did it said, no, you can't get that.
You can't get it
that dark.
Can't do it.
And I'm glad they told me that because these are the side windows.
the driver's side and the passenger's side.
And if they were a little bit darker, I could not see traffic at night.
You know, I could look at night.
At night, it's really kind of a problem because it adds darkness to darkness.
And it makes it more difficult to see traffic or people, pedestrians.
So it's
a
problem.
Well, it's not a
big problem.
But if it were darker, it would have been a definite problem.
And my my younger son who does drive the old one doesn't but he doesn't drive my car now And I got the Prius so he could drive it, but he doesn't like driving it now because they tinted the windows He said I can't see anything they're not that dark Oh my god
But
they're
very stylish.
People like that.
You know, I drive through Dane County all the time doing the census, right?
And I'm out there in the sun, in
the summer, it's
even worse.
It's
just really bright.
And having all this brightness around me, I guess I'm aging here, but my eyes start hurting a little bit and it's uncomfortable and it gets hot.
So I got them tinted just because I just don't want that kind of heat and sunlight.
coming through the windows of my car.
They're
uncomfortable for your eyes.
It is.
Yeah.
My eyes.
Yeah, I don't like bright lights either.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course, I was 30 years working in television.
Blinded me.
You took out a couple of the lights.
You're a big celebrity.
You're awful.
You're always
from my people of your celebrity.
Throw that out there.
Yeah.
Well, it's 12 minutes past the hour.
John Peterson, Gordy Young, producer Sam, pushing the buttons and switches.
It's Friday.
Hey, that's a good thing.
We made it through the week.
I can't wait till AI decides how I describe this little fast and furious episode of mine.
Do you think if we talk about AI during the show a lot that it will start to grasp that we have a attitude about AI one way or the other if we keep talking about AI?
But I think AI
might have an attitude toward the show host, John and Gordy.
Well, it got us mixed up the other day on one of the descriptions.
Yes, that's
right.
It gave attribution to you, I think, instead of something that I said.
Exactly.
So it's still learning.
We reprimanded
AI for such an egregious act.
All right, well, weather-wise today, we already mentioned the severe thunderstorm warnings till about 6.30, and then things should improve a bit.
Through Northern Dane County.
Yes, and Columbia County and Partisaw County and Iowa County.
But those are moving along really quickly and should be out of here in 15 or 20 minutes and on their way to the east, hopefully.
Otherwise today, right now it's 52 degrees.
Would you like to know what the high today would be?
John, do you have that on your Samsung WMDX watch?
I do have that on here.
And while you're doing that, you know, check the sunrise and sunset.
I've got it now.
Do you have it?
Okay.
55 currently.
Okay.
A high of 67
today.
Boy, it's warm this morning, isn't it?
Okay.
Well, let's get out the lottery ball machine and see what that has to say.
It has ping pong sized hail in it.
That's what we're using today.
First number coming up with the shaft.
It's six.
Second number is a four.
What?
64, what did you say?
I said 67.
Okay.
Well, we'll find out.
It's, it's later on today.
It's really warm this morning.
It's warm in here.
You know, we could douse the lights in here a little bit.
Are those on dimmers?
Those aren't dimmers, are they?
no
here here's the
thing we could live we could do the show in darkness we should do that one day just do it in total total darkness no one can see us
right uh or just not turn the cameras on right there you know i i did put down uh uh my grass seed
Oh,
you did.
Yeah.
You did that.
I went out in there.
Finally.
It's something else, you know.
Yeah.
It's so easy to do, but yet it's something.
Oh, I said, can am I going to do it right?
Am I going to blow this?
How much grassy am I going to have left?
You have the spreader, right?
Yeah, I got the spreader.
I filled up the
spreader a whole bunch.
In fact, I just used the whole damn bag.
I didn't care.
I kept going back out there, reseeding, reseeding.
Really?
I didn't care.
So what's going to happen, right?
I don't know, but I'm be squeezed out of my yard by my overgrown grass.
You're going to have like, uh, it's going to be like the green at a golf course now that dense of grass could be true, but
super long.
Uh, so anyway, I'm.
I get this job done finally, and I'm really happy with myself, and I
know
rain is coming, so I look at the radar, and I'm looking at the storms, and they're missing Madison.
I was just like, live it, you
know?
No, I've got all the grass seed out there, I'm gonna feed the birds, I guess, at this point.
And, uh, yeah, the storms, uh, went side by side just around Madison for
some reason.
You just got to get a sprinkler out.
Didn't like, yes.
Don't you have one from like when the kids or when your dog was young and run through the sprinkler?
I, uh, I did get the
hose.
I
finally set up the hose in the hose reel out there yesterday as well.
Did
you?
I was
going to use it and I thought, nah.
And then all of a sudden what?
It starts raining early evening last
night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it saved me.
It saved me.
Good.
And I was happy.
Well, we'll get some more rain at times today a little bit.
You're in there.
That's what we're saying.
So
hopefully your
grass seed will be just fine.
I know a lot of people are worried about my grass.
All your neighbors certainly are.
They're very concerned about whatever you do over there.
That's true.
That's
true.
Let's get to the National Day calendar
for
April 18th.
That's today.
We almost don't have time for it.
That was your plan all along, wasn't it?
No.
What is it?
Or is it not today?
Is it National Exercise Day?
National Blue Gene Denim Day?
National Animal Crackers Day?
National Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet Day?
Or National Poem In Your Pocket Day?
It's not Poem In Your Pocket Day.
Well, you're wrong.
It is National Poem In Your Pocket Day.
That was a dumb one.
Okay.
Sam, do you take it?
What was the Denim Gene thing?
Whatever.
Not that day.
National blue jean denim day.
Yeah,
you are
correct.
It's not
really.
It's not national blue jean denim.
I'm looking at a blue jean pocket.
Well, that's the heart.
That's the poem in your pocket.
Oh.
Yeah, so you were looking at my screen, but he's still screwed up.
Okay.
Uh, national poem in your pocket.
Oh, who doesn't love a good poem in your pocket once in a while?
I've said that before.
It shares the way poetry brings joy by simply carrying one in your pocket.
When you share the poem, you'll bring joy to others.
You regent walking around the office sharing the poem in your pocket.
I got a poem.
It sounds pretty sick.
HR
wants to see you right now.
Let's see.
There are so many different styles of poetry.
This day, however, places no restrictions on rhyme.
OK, we're not at a time already.
No, poems after rhyme.
They're all set on poems.
Yeah, they do.
Let's continue this after the break.
Why don't we do that?
It's John and Gordy in the morning.
We'll be right back.
you
WMDX, 92.7.
Jimmy Webb's song, I believe.
That's right,
yeah.
Performed by Glenn Campbell.
Leinman, yep.
Wichita Leinman.
Why are we
playing?
We're playing that because it's national lineman appreciation day on the stage.
It's got a picture there of a lineman way up on a pole working on those lines.
It's Claude Campbell.
It's Claude Campbell, yeah.
You know, those guys do hard work after storms
and everything.
It's totally insane.
Yeah, I
mean, it's crazy dangerous.
Yeah, a couple of my cousins are linemen.
Really?
all over the Midwest whenever and wherever they're needed.
Yeah.
Well, National Lineman Appreciation Day today honors the men and women who work around the clock to keep the power going.
If the power is on where you are reading this article, you have a lineman to thank.
There you go.
Give me their name and
I'll
thank them.
From the power plant, the grid crisscrossing the country, both above and underground, right up to the meters.
John, you
turn your laptop speaker off.
You don't care at all about the studio.
I really don't care.
Of course I
can't.
Okay, National Alignment Day.
We salute all the line people out there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Where were we?
National Exercise Day?
Yes.
Got an exercise at least.
I just read that if you exercise at least five minutes every day, it has a health benefit.
Well, they started out, years ago, they started out with whatever minutes of exercise you should be having a day.
And then they found out that people still weren't exercising that amount, so then they just...
Every year, they keep lowering the number.
If you exercise one minute a day, apparently that's good enough for them.
Well, I was at Planet Fatmas yesterday.
And boy, there were a lot of people there.
I
don't
know
if that, yeah, usually it's not that packed.
There were a ton of people there yesterday.
I mean, just getting ready for the Easter holiday.
Even on a beautiful day, they were indoors.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I'm trying to get in there three or four times a week, but it's good.
That's good.
That's the goal.
Anyway, let's see.
National Animal Crackers Day.
Remember animal crackers?
They still make them, I think.
National Animal Crackers Day celebrates a childhood favorite.
A box of these sweet animal shaped crackers, not only provides a delicious snack, but also offers a little entertainment too.
Who knew?
I don't.
Have you ever been entertained by your animal cracker?
Well,
I think when I was maybe two, you know lining up the
animals to see which one
would devour the
other one And
they're not that good.
I
actually like them, but I'll tell you
what it's okay
Now there you go.
I was going to bring this up because you can buy bad animal crackers that don't taste like anything like cardboard.
Right.
And you buy the good ones that have all this flavor in them.
And you just have to find the right ones.
That's all.
I think Craven can find the Craven brand that Woodmans has.
I think those animal crackers are pretty good.
And they have really good animal crackers that cost a big giant.
Barrel of but you know, it's it's hard you buy a bad box of animal crackers and you go
I
never buying these damn things again.
Exactly.
Yeah, they're really aimed at kids But no, they're so good.
You're just a just munch on right?
Why don't they add protein powder to those damn make them healthy?
Okay
It's National Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet Day, okay?
This occurs annually on the third Friday in April.
The day aims to raise awareness and effectively rid homes of unused or expired prescription and over-the-counter medicines.
Just take them, take
them all, you know.
Don't, don't, don't
listen to.
That's how you clean them up.
Just finally take those pills.
Set up a stand in front of your house.
No.
Selling them.
Like a lemonade
stand.
I think that would be frowned upon by the authorities.
How do you dispose of your expired or unused medications?
Well, environmental studies show that flushing medications, that flows right into our water supply,
so
that's a bad idea.
They negatively impact the fish we eat and the water we drink.
How do we dispose of them?
Well, they have these days.
They have these special national clean out your medicine cabinet day, like today, to remove your...
your home of risks associated with leftover medications.
And there's an agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, if they're still a thing in business.
Well, I think they
probably cut that too.
Do you think so?
Maybe they may be supposed to take it to a pharmacy where they can dispose of this.
I would assume that's
probably the easiest
way to do it.
Ask your local pharmacist.
There you go.
Yeah.
I'm skimming ahead here and see if they offer any advice and they don't really do that.
You would think here on National Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet Day that they would give you some advice.
A whole bunch of places and links.
Not gonna do it.
Okay.
Anything in the history books today, Sam?
It's about time you asked me.
Please, God, let's move on.
He waits
so patiently for his moment of start.
This is your
spotlight.
Exactly.
Spotlight on Sam.
Okay.
Go.
History in the Reformation.
You know Martin Luther, right?
Not Martin Luther King, but Martin Luther.
Right, right.
My whole religion is based on that guy.
Exactly.
Today in 1521, this is just like a really...
funny name because of how English works.
Martin Luther was called to the diet of worms.
Now you might be asking, what is the diet of worms?
It's not where a bunch of people get together and eat some kind of delicacy worm or anything.
It was a group of people in the Holy Roman Empire.
a diet, a gathering, at a place called Worms in Germany, and basically they were interrogating him about his 95 theses that he posted up on the wall of a church, caused a big ruckus, and he defended himself and said, yeah, you can call me a heretic, you can excommunicate me, whatever, I'm gonna stand by what I said.
That's right,
you know, people had to pay to become a Catholic.
Or to be a cat
or they go through a lot.
Really?
Yeah, and Martin Luther basically came out against all of that stuff and boy He had a hard time a difficult time, but
he yeah caused a few wars, you know
Today
in 1775 it's the anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride.
Oh sure
The British are coming.
The British are coming.
The British are coming.
Yeah.
I just watched something on that last night where they were talking about how the British were going to come into, what's the town of?
Boston.
No,
it was Lexington.
Oh, Lexington.
Yes,
yes.
And they had lanterns in a tower,
a
church tower.
Right.
And two lanterns said they were coming by sea and one lantern on land.
That's it.
Yeah.
That's
right.
And they're going to reenact that.
Oh, yeah.
How
exciting.
They're gonna re-enact it because of Trump.
Oh boy.
That is by land, too, if I see.
All right, that's it for this half hour, but we've got a lot more to come in about an hour.
Rocker will be in the studio with a look at the Max Inc.
preview, local music, and Midwest Farm report coming up.
We'll be back with more of John and Gordy.
you
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.
Just doing my civic duties, son.
No!
You dense, irritating miniature beast of burden!
We can duck and
cover.
There's
a fall at each
other 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, yes.
92.7 WMDX.
It's John Peterson, Gordy Young with producer Sam.
Some storms rolling through our area, but they're moving very quickly and moving off to the east.
The rest of the day, we'll see some clouds and some scattered showers, yes?
They're in a hurry to get to there.
Easter weekend family gathering, right?
Are you doing anything special for Easter or are you
going to
grandma's house or anything?
It's a severe thunderstorm warning for northeastern Lafayette, green, southwestern Columbia, and of course, Dane County, northern
parts of Dane County, but it looks like it's really gonna hit Dane County as far as my radar is
concerned.
You already got the radar going?
I
do have the radar going, so that's going until about seven o'clock at least
according to this.
Okay, well
they
extended that, okay.
All right.
Well, it's awfully dark out.
We were just commenting during the break there that boy, it's dark downtown.
Well, they have a location in your Camp Randall Stadium.
Oh, really?
Yeah,
they mentioned that
along with Vernon, Mount Vernon, Henry Vila Zoo, Mazemany, Arlington, Blue Mounds, Albany, Camp Randall Stadium, Monticello, Nuglaris, Pine Bluff.
The interstate, 1994 interchange, Poinet, Sherwood Hills, Lake Wisconsin.
Are they still talking about ping pong ball size hail in the mix?
I don't see
that in here, but we should mention that.
It is.
I
think we're starting to see just a little bit of rain.
I think this
might be the difference here.
Two inch hail.
Oh, is that bigger than?
Ping pong balls?
Yes.
Probably.
That's bigger than a ping pong ball.
That's huge.
That's probably golf ball, actually bigger than a golf ball.
Almost like a small wiffle ball.
A small wiffle
ball.
How about a tennis ball?
Maybe a tennis ball?
Yeah, a tennis ball.
There you go.
A 60 mile per hour wind.
You don't want to get hit with those.
Those are bad.
So that's happening.
Are you speaking from experience, Gordy?
No, but I would not advise being out there.
It's hard to know that we had sunrise.
at 6 10 because
it's
it's like night out there right now.
Yes, very dark.
Yeah.
So
anyway, uh, idiocracy, that's what we're celebrating, but we also are going to, uh, uh, revive something that we put on hold for a long time.
We're bringing back a John and Gordy segment.
Well, we were warned by the fire department here
in Madison not to use this anymore, but, uh, oh, the hell with it.
We got so much stuff to, to play and
burn.
This
is, uh, a dumpster fire.
Oh, the dumpster's back.
Got a lot of.
Got that fire going during the storms here.
That's good.
A lot of stories.
Ooh, that's nice.
That's hot.
It's nice and warm.
Get the marshmallows out.
Okay.
So we got a lot of stories to throw in the dumpster here.
We
do.
Get caught up on things.
Well,
you know, Doge is active and they cut the CDC team as it was about to start a project to help North Carolina flood victims.
What?
Yes.
Wow.
They don't really plan these things out too well, right?
So anyway, good luck, North Carolina.
You're on your own, I guess.
Speaking of North Carolina, Trump went to North Carolina.
Oh, he did.
And of course, he lied to them, and he got them to vote for him, saying that Biden wasn't helping them over Hurricane Helene, right?
Mm-hmm.
Well, he got their votes, and he decided not to help them over Hurricane Helene.
So there you go nice nice going how
unusual
yeah Aren't they getting tired of being lied to yeah, you think right you would
you would expect that just
crazy stuff.
I know it Yeah, all right, so anyway, that's that's
first story can we fire up a dumpster again here put another log on the fire Whoa, there we go
Whoa, whoa, look out for the sparks.
Oh,
wow.
That is hot.
Got some burners there.
All right, now let's go to the defense department, okay?
Employees with the Pentagon's digital technology and a dub these SWAT team of nerds have decided to resign together.
SWAT
team of nerds.
I've got
my own SWAT team of nerds at home.
Thank God.
Man, anyway, have decided to resign together rather than deal with changes being brought about by Elon Musk's department of, I'm not even going to say it, just doge.
There's
no efficiency at
all in that department.
No.
Anyway, they are effectively shutting down the tech unit by the end of this month.
And without the program, some key efforts to counter adversarial drones will be sunsetted.
So I guess we don't really need all of this extraneous spending and fraud.
You're
listening to stuff
in the middle of the show.
Could we toss that into the dumpster,
please?
Because I
have to get rid of this stuff.
I just can't hold on to it forever.
Okay.
All right.
Okay, how
about
this?
Steve Ratner, you know, the economist guy on
Morning Show,
he said this, tax cuts account for 38% of the national debt while recession responses and spending increases each card is about 29%.
38% for tax cuts, 29% for two things, recessions and spending increases.
And now the Republicans want to pass $5.3 trillion in tax cuts.
And he says, we can't keep this up.
Really?
Plus that?
Get it in the dumpster.
Come on.
We know what we're doing here.
Fire it up.
Oh, man.
Get it out of here.
Yes.
OK.
All right.
Here comes the fire department.
All right, here's something I thought was fairly entertaining, you know magus don't like the woke idea So there is therapy now and Tracy omen
put together a therapy group for those who are suffering from wokeness.
Tracy Alvin.
Yes,
this is cut 154.
Okay.
So let's listen to one of those sessions, shall we?
Okay, everyone, welcome.
This support group is for people who are so woke that they are finding it impossible to have any fun at all.
We have somebody new with us this week.
So would you like to introduce yourself?
Hi, I'm Oscar.
I think, like, a lot of you guys, for me, it started with the little things.
Signing an online petition, going into a march.
Well, I mean, before I knew it, I was writing to The Guardian about LGBT representation in the Harry Potter books.
Which is shocking, by the way.
All right, Lily.
We've all read your blog.
Don't worry, Oscar, you've come to the right place.
All of the young people in this room are ruining their lives by being overly virtuous.
That's actually a microaggression to say young people.
because it carries subconscious bias towards the elderly.
Actually, what you're doing is denying agency to the elderly, which is arguably much worse.
This is what I'm talking about.
You see, it's a slippery slope.
One minute you're carrying a reusable water bottle.
Fine, and the next minute you're arguing that water is racist.
Oh my god, is water racist?
No, no, it's just an example.
Right, how did you guys get on with the homework that I set you?
Guys is an especially inclusive term.
Not now, Jamie.
By homework,
do
you mean having
to watch that old people sitcom?
It's called Friends, Lily, and you were supposed to watch it and enjoy it.
Well, I try, but I find it deeply problematic.
Why?
Well, there's the homophobia, the transphobia, the fatism and the slut-shaming, and could Chandler be any more annoying?
You can't go through your 20s worrying
about every aspect of everything.
You have to pick your battles.
And just remember that it doesn't really matter, because by the time you hit your 30s, most of you are going to be massively right-wing anyway.
Have any of you started to think that maybe poor people don't deserve benefits?
No.
Well, watch out for that one, because that's how it starts.
Okay.
See, a little, little session on, uh, unwokenness.
Tracy Almond.
Yeah.
I haven't heard from
her in a while.
Great.
So watch.
She's been with her
a lot.
Yeah.
All right, now let's save that one because that's a good one.
We don't
want to burn that.
What?
We don't want to throw that into the dumpster fire.
Oh, I don't.
Oh, OK, Sam.
Here we go.
Oh,
yep.
There
it goes.
OK.
Oh, well, I guess.
You know, I'm a saver, you know, I like to save little bits
and stuff like that.
Yeah, you are a hoarder.
We were talking yesterday about all of the video and audio tapes that you've collected over 50 plus years.
I know, it's ridiculous, it really is.
You have a storage room.
filled with that stuff.
But I didn't
anticipate the digital age.
I didn't anticipate 4K.
Well, here's the thing.
The digital age has been here for more than 20 years,
John.
Well, no, when I was recording, when Cable first came in and
could
watch all the old shows again and they
were
playing everything they could possibly find because there wasn't a lot of material.
So they just, you know, they dumped all of the ages of great comedy.
And I was saving it all thinking I'm archiving this for
All time,
I'm gonna be
the guy everybody's gonna go to.
I'm the
National Archivist, you
know.
Oh,
lightning.
Yeah, we're getting thunder and lightning, State Street, and
some
heavy rain, and hail,
yes.
But then I realized, too, that I have VHS and beta tapes
that
were all snowy and bad reception.
The early days of cable wasn't real clear.
So, yeah, we had a lot of problems.
All right, let's...
Get back to idiocracy.
Do we have time here?
Oh, yeah.
I
think so,
sure.
Yeah, I think.
All right.
How about this?
Elon Musk is being challenged by his old partner, Sam Altman.
Really?
Yeah, Sam Altman.
And he used to work together on open AI.
And, you know, of course, they had a difference of opinion on that.
Open AI became a commercial product as opposed to just a free product.
And Elon didn't like that.
Tough luck, man.
Anyway, OpenAI is quietly working on its own X, like social media network, complete with a social feed center and, you know, something very similar to ChatGPT.
All right.
So they're wondering now, is it going to be a separate app or is it going to be part of ChatGPT?
They don't know whether they're going to combine it.
I think Elon is combining his AI.
Uh, uh, thing app.
Okay.
Yeah.
He's combined his and, uh, I guess, you know, who knows, Sam, it might be out there doing his thing.
So this is kind of, this is good news.
This is competition.
That's what
it's all about.
Competition is good.
Okay.
What happened to the dumpster?
The fire is going down.
You really grabbed
that story out of my head?
You're thrown in a way, man.
Well, all right.
Well,
okay.
Time to move on.
Get our lives back.
Here we
go.
All
right, well, okay.
This
is a bit of paranoia, and that's what we have in our president.
Trump is fearful that the EU, European Union...
was set up to destroy the US.
This
is cut 97.
Let's listen to this.
The EU has been very tough over the years.
It was, I always say, it was formed to really do damage to the United States.
It does always
say that.
That's the reason it was formed.
It was formed with all of the countries from Europe.
I guess most of them, all of them, but most of them.
And they formed together to create a little bit of a monopoly situation to create a unified force against the United States for trade.
So they have NATO, which is largely the same countries.
And they took advantage of us dollar-wise and militarily until I got there.
Counting his panties, you know.
It's the countries in the European Union, but not all of them.
Just some of
them.
We're really glad that he thought that through.
He always does have to make it sound like he really thought about it.
He knows what he's talking about.
But here is the actual truth.
This is Cut 93.
Let's listen.
Okay.
President Trump announced the implementation of 20% reciprocal tariffs on EU nations.
This would significantly cut the volume of transatlantic trade.
Why has he done this?
The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States.
That's the purpose of
it.
That's good.
All right.
Yeah.
So I want you to pick that up after the break here because he goes on to explain.
why that's a ridiculous comment.
Of course, we all recognize as a dumbass comment anyway, just on the surface.
We don't need to know anymore, but I do want to know more as we dig deeper and deeper into the dumpster fire Friday.
OK,
sounds good.
Hey, coming up in our seven o'clock hour, we'll be giving away our last pair of tickets to the Milwaukee Film Festival that's going on next week.
General admission tickets and take your theater.
You can pick your theater and pick your film and rocker will be back in the studio.
because it's Friday and you'll have a maxing preview, some great local music happening around our area.
It's all coming up on John and Gordy in the morning.
Happy Friday.
We'll be right back.
This is one of the weirdest Elvis songs.
Yeah.
WMPX, John and Gordy in the morning.
Burning love.
Yeah, I know.
Oh boy.
Very
weird.
No,
it didn't bring him back.
It is 6.52, John and Gordy in the morning.
And it's... Thumbster Fire Friday, that's what we're celebrating here.
during idiocracy.
We're getting rain showers and some thunderstorms and some hail here and there.
And we're going to see the storms moving out, but some of the rain lingering off and on today.
We got a text from Matt.
Yeah.
He said, and as soon as I get rid of this damn box,
the cursor over here.
What did you give that?
No,
I'm going to.
I can't
control it with my left
hand.
Totally destructive.
Okay, Matt Middleton says, we have to exercise so we can eat more.
And that is so true,
isn't it?
Yeah, we were talking about
exercise earlier.
Right, you can
snack.
It gives you an excuse to snack because while I exercise, I burn a lot
of
calories.
I can add a few extras.
It doesn't matter at this point.
People are getting ready for Easter.
You know, they have Easter get-togethers and, you know, get the family together, have an Easter dinner,
right?
Or how about Steve Clemens?
in Sun Prairie, he says, whenever I hear this term used in the media, doge, I yell out, it's pronounced douche.
There you go.
Okay, Steve, thank you for that.
The
whole thing here is, you know, there was a song, right?
Blinded by the light, which a man for man sang douche in it, right?
Well, Springsteen wrote it.
The word is actually deuce in the lyrics.
And did Springsteen...
Reason
why he said deuce in the
first nose.
I don't know Rock trivia time now.
No, I
Yeah, but you watched it.
It was a concert film, right?
Or, you know, kind of, okay.
Springsteen did that one man show a few years
ago on
Broadway and you can see clips of that
show
where he kind of goes through his whole, you know, a lot of his most popular songs and sort of explains
him, plays him,
plays a few of them on just acoustic guitar.
And that one, he went, he went deep on that one and talked about every line in that song and how it really was just something.
It didn't make any sense at all.
Yeah.
Yeah,
it didn't really,
yeah.
Now we're talking about the EU and how it was put together to do something negative against the US.
I mean, this is a theory now that Trump is throwing out there saying that the EU wants to destroy the US, and that's why they brought it together.
But there is a truth to that.
Now let's play the explanation on that, which we didn't have time for before.
Let's play it.
President Trump announced the implementation of 20% reciprocal tariffs on EU nations.
This would significantly cut the volume of transatlantic trade.
Why has he done this?
The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States.
That was the purpose of
it.
Is this true?
Let's dive into the history.
I'm Ben Steele.
I'm Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
I study macroeconomics and in particular right now...
trade policy.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Western Europe was completely devastated.
Its economy was no longer functioning.
The United States was rapidly withdrawing its troops from Europe.
The State Department in the United States, however, was very concerned that unless these states cooperated, they would not be able to recover quickly.
They would not
be able to provide for their own security and they would not be good long-term customers for US industry.
So the plan that was developed within the State Department was to revive Europe's economy as quickly as possible with large-scale financial aid accompanied by an integration of the European economies so that they would interact as efficiently as possible.
America's primary aim was to rebalance
European economies, since they could not afford American capital goods, quickly revitalize their economies and make them good long-term customers for American products.
And that is exactly what happened.
There were conflicts in the trade relationship, but on balance, it was very good for U.S.
growth.
And I think this only serves... There you go.
That's an explanation.
It's pretty good.
It is.
That's the whole reason.
And we did it.
We brought this on ourselves.
It wasn't the EU's plan at all.
All right, let's go to Mark.
He's on the line.
What do you got for us, Mark, this morning?
Good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
Yeah, you brought up a couple of things.
You brought up, uh, Tracy Allman earlier that I can remember the, uh, bit she had on her show, Tracy Allman show that, uh, her painted black, um, bit where, you know, to the tune of, uh, I mean, the stones painted black.
I mean, she wakes up with her entire picture painted black that, um,
Yeah.
That's a great bit there.
But for Donald Trump, I mean, to criticize, you know, going over to Europe, you know, for anything.
Trump seems to have imported a lot of his wives from over in Europe.
Of course, it's Eastern Europe he's got it from.
And apparently, they're all coming from the former Soviet Union.
Yeah.
Well, maybe that's his little Russian connection right there.
That could be.
That could be.
Possibly.
Yes.
It is kind
of an amazing coincidence.
His brain.
And you notice a big old bald spot on Trump's head that just gets bigger and bigger that his comb over just isn't quite covered in anymore.
And maybe that's, you know, part of his, most part of his complete decline.
Yeah.
All right, Mark, thank you.
Thank
you guys.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Yeah, all right.
I don't know.
I think he's wearing like a little piece, a little hairpiece now.
They glue on there.
I think
so.
Yeah.
Yeah, we've got a Text here from Doug Yeah, he says you guys had the rug pulled out from under you by Marjorie Taylor Green She used tasers at her town meeting.
Yes, we got nationwide viral
Yeah, he was encouraging us to have a Taser fight.
That's right.
The coverage could have been yours if you had moved ahead
with the
John and Gordy Taser Festival.
Yeah, we missed the
vote on that one.
Doug should
be in charge of our promotion department.
He should, he should.
Okay, coming up in our seven o'clock hour, we'll have a couple more tickets to the Milwaukee Film Festival and Rocker will join us in studio with a Maxing preview all coming up.
On a dumpster, Fire Friday.
That's it.
as we were saying.
Let the sun shine.
It's the John and Courtney Show.
Transmitted
by
Wire.
Here is the latest news brought into your own living room.
You'll be hard to satisfy with anything left.
Let's give
them some better talk about.
Talk is cheap.
Cab, cab, cab.
Always gossiping.
It's the John and Gordy show.
This is High Five Plus.
And that's the way it is.
We'll do it live!
On 92.7 FM, WMDX.
Take it away, boys.
It's a dumpster fire Friday.
We're clearing out a lot of stuff.
We didn't have a chance to cover earlier.
That's
right.
Six minutes past the hour.
Rain showers moving through.
Looks like the thunderstorms have moved off to the east for the most part.
Well, it really came down, didn't it?
Yeah, we got some heavy rain moving through State Street.
Looks like it's still...
raining out there.
This portion of John and Gordy in the Morning brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.
Wake up, sleep better on a Virlo Mattress.
A lot has changed since 1958, but some things have remained constant.
Throughout Virlo's history, they're still direct to consumer and provide superior products at unbeatable prices.
Virlo Mattress of Madison.
Two Madison locations, east and west.
And you can find out more by going to Virlo.com.
Coming up in just a few minutes we'll be giving away another chance to win tickets to the Milwaukee Film Festival and Rocker will also join us later in the hour.
Right now Savannah Tome Olsen is with us for some news headlines.
Good morning Savannah!
Good morning.
How you guys doing?
We're
doing pretty good.
Hunkered down here in the studio, watching the rain and the hail and the thunderstorms moving through.
Protected
by the... It's tough to get out of bed when you've got a morning like this.
Oh, I know.
I
know.
And we're trying to keep everybody safe
and secure
within their homes.
That's what we're trying to do.
Stay indoors.
Yeah, just stay inside.
So what do you got for us this morning?
What's so...
What's at the top of the news?
Well, the big story of the week here was that Madison City Clerk Mary Beth Witzel Bell resigned.
I think the writing was on the wall here.
She had been an administrative leave for about a month as they investigated those 193 ballots that went uncounted in November.
And I think that the thing that both the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the mayor's office have brought up repeatedly
is that nobody knew about it until almost a month later.
I think that's the, that's the real clincher here, considering, you know, mistakes can happen anywhere.
However, finding those ballots and not letting anybody in on the mistake seems to be a real sore spot for a lot of leaders here.
So there are these two separate investigations and the one from the Wisconsin elections commission is going to keep going.
They've now kept this going in
two of their last meetings where we expected some kind of report or update.
And they said this time they have deposed people, including Mary Beth Whistlebell, and they're going to keep deposing more people.
So we don't know exactly who else they're going to be talking to here, but it seems like they have even more that they want to look into.
Yeah, there was a big blow up, too.
The Wisconsin Election Commission had a big dispute between Ann Jacobs, the commissioner chair, and Bob Spindel, who's a troublemaker and a right winger.
But anyway, that's my opinion.
But they argued back and forth.
Is that because of this discussion about the Dane County ballots?
They did.
So they were in this discussion about the ballots here in Madison in that investigation.
And Bob Spindel wanted to change the subject and talk about the spots in Milwaukee that did not have enough ballots on election night here in April.
And that is not on their agenda, which by law, they're only supposed to talk about the things that are on their scheduled agenda that gets released to the public.
This was not the first time I've seen Bob Spindel do this sort of thing.
But you can tell that it's happened many, many, many times by Ann Jacobs' reaction.
I've been in lots of these meetings.
I've never seen anything like that.
Do we have
that?
Yeah, we do have that.
We'll cut 183.
Let's play a little part of it here.
yelling at each other.
So it explains itself.
Let's listen.
Even
more serious problems in the city of Milwaukee where channel 12 has been doing an expo.
Okay, so you
get
the idea, right?
Then he said, well,
you're trying to silence me.
We were trying to control you.
It
was really something.
My phone was immediately lighting up with the other reporters who have covered election mechanics with me, people in the room who
looked over at some of the communications folks, uh, from the Wisconsin elections commission and said they were avoiding eye contact.
You can't blame them for that.
Well, you know, there's an irony there too, because, uh, Bob Spindel is part of the Republican party and the Republican party does want to see longer lines at elections to discourage people from going out to vote.
So he's there saying there were long lines and it was terrible.
That could, that could happen in Milwaukee because they were short ballots at some of the place.
Right.
Yeah.
So some people did have to wait.
All right.
What
else do
you
got?
Oh, yeah.
Anything for Easter weekend here?
What's, uh, you got a story
on this one.
We all know the price of eggs is crazy, right?
The average is a little over $6 for a dozen eggs right now.
But I looked up the price of chocolate and that's way worse.
So at this time, yeah, it's crazy at this time last year, a ton of cocoa cost about $2,000.
And right now it's about $8,400.
Oh, no.
Oh,
no.
Yeah.
So it's and then you add the potential for tariffs because most of our cocoa is imported has to grow in tropical climates.
So those costs could rise even further.
So even the average
Little Easter chocolate bunny is a little more expensive this year and could get more expensive from there, too.
Oh man There's a threat of chocolate bunnies this
year like
the chocolate bunnies You know people are cutting back on dying the eggs because the eggs are so expensive, right?
We're losing our holidays because of all this stuff.
Oh brother.
Gosh.
Okay.
What are
we
gonna do blame Trump?
All right, Savannah.
Thank you so much.
You have a good Easter weekend.
Yeah
And we'll
talk to you.
Yeah, you guys do.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, very good.
Take care.
That's Savannah Tomey Olson, our bureau chief for WMDX News.
Okay, this portion.
Did I mention this before?
If I haven't mentioned it, I should mention it right now.
Could you mention it because we're all on pins and needles here.
Yes, I know.
You were on the edge of your chair.
This portion of John and Gordy in the morning is brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.
Wake up and sleep better on a Virlo Mattress.
A lot has changed since 1958.
Some things remain constant throughout Virlo's history.
They are still direct to consumer and provide superior products at unbeatable prices.
Furlough mattress to Madison locations east and west or just go to furlough.com.
Okay, I'm just reading this
this Chiron on CNN this yeah Rubio says it's time to move on if Russia Ukraine war can't be ended That's
the
statement push it aside forget
about it.
You know we got other things happening.
We don't have time Wow Yeah, that's kind of a change of thought isn't it really not a good thought they were gonna solve that on day one
But apparently not.
You know, we just have to move on.
That's
how simple this whole
solution is.
Let's just move
on.
So much for if you try and fail, then try, try again.
I guess if you try and fail, then just brush it into the corner and forget about it.
That's right.
Oh, man.
All right.
Dumpster fire Friday.
Let's get the fire going again.
All right.
Let's go.
We
talked about you
know ice agents Arresting the wrong people.
They
just try to
arrest a 19 year old teen in New York City What another Kilmar a brago Garcia attempt apparently and of course the good news is that Senator Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar.
Yes
That was a big event.
Yeah pictures and everything
Yeah,
we'll find out more on that.
And here in Union Boss, Sean McGarvey demanded that Kilmar be brought back.
And this is a part of his speech.
I thought this was really a great moment because there was a standing ovation at the end.
So listen for that.
This is cut 165.
This is the Union Boss, you know.
Okay.
All right, Sean McGarvey.
We're not red.
We're not blue.
We're the building trades.
The backbone of America.
You want to build a $5 billion data center?
Want more six billion careers with health care retirement and no college debt?
You don't call Elon Musk.
You call us.
North America's building trade unions.
And yeah, that means all of us.
All of us, including our brother, smart apprentice, Kilmar Arbrega Garcia.
who we demand to be returned to watching this family now.
Bring him home.
Standing innovation right here.
Yeah.
All right, now I got this latest clip from Caroline Levitt.
I thought this was just so egregious, so horrific.
She is so.
I don't even know how to describe it.
She's a piece of work.
Yeah, that's it.
She is an absolute piece of work.
This is the latest and it's jaw-dropping stuff.
This is Cut 156.
Also listen.
Yesterday in the Oval Office, administration officials made it very clear that El Salvador is responsible for Mr. Obrego Garcia.
Yet El Salvador's president said we're not going to do anything with him.
So my question is, who is responsible for this man and where he's going to end up?
Well, no.
First of all, President Bukeli said that he is not going to smuggle a foreign terrorist back into the United States of America, as many in this room in the Democrat Party seemingly want him to do.
Obrego Garcia was a foreign
terrorist.
He is an MS-13 gang member.
He
was
engaged in human trafficking.
He
illegally came into our country.
And
so, deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.
There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who's going to live a peaceful life in Maryland, because he is a foreign terrorist, an MS-13 gang member.
Not
only have we confirmed that,
President Bukele yesterday in the Oval Office confirmed that as well.
No, he didn't.
So
he went back to his home country where he will face consequences for his gang affiliation and his engagement in human trafficking.
Not true.
I'm
not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone in the media to understand.
And it's appalling, truly
appalling, that there has been so much time covering this alleged human trafficker and this
gang member,
MS-13 gang member.
It's truly striking to
me.
She admits it's alleged.
They're calling her bubblegum Barbie now.
Oh, it's so well deserved,
so well
deserved.
You know, because all of this stuff, you know, they're going by the fact that it was presented as though he is part of MS-13 and it's part of the transcript.
But it was never proven that he was.
It's just something that was said in court.
And that's why they're saying, well, the courts even said it.
Well, you said it in the court.
It doesn't mean that they came to that conclusion.
Exactly.
It's just alleged.
Yeah.
Are you kidding me?
I'm not
kidding.
We
got to
throw
a little bit of that story out,
though.
OK.
Let's throw it out.
There it goes.
Perfect.
It is 18 minutes past the hour.
Watch yourself.
Don't hurt yourself.
Oh, man.
It's a hot.
Hot dumpster.
Phone lines are open.
608-879-8255.
That's 879 Talk, or you can always get ahold of us on the Civic Media app.
We
almost had a Kilmar-Obrego Garcia moment here
in
the Fox Valley.
We'll get to that in
just a moment.
Got that story coming up.
Let's give away a pair of tickets to the Milwaukee Film Fest.
You can text us on the Civic Media app.
Text the word tickets you could be going to a film of your choice at the Milwaukee Film Festival next week again the word
What's new with the weather?
What's new?
What's with the temperature now?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
What's the law?
in the capital city, and Brittany Merlot, our chief meteorologist, joins us now.
Good morning, Brittany.
Boy, we got some heavy weather moving through.
That's right.
I didn't see any of those
ping-pong-sized hail balls, but I was really looking forward to a new roof, too.
Well,
I was gonna say that right there is an automatic new roof through insurance It is damaging those shingles a hundred percent, but yeah, it looks like the ping-pong ball size hail stayed south of you.
Thankfully, okay, got the hail Yeah, I'm seeing reports in new Chloris right now of ping-pong ball size hail clear and then there was also baseball size hail in Platteville.
Oh, so it was wow massive.
Yeah
And that can just shatter the dough.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that can cause all kinds of problems.
Yeah.
So it's the worst of
it.
Everyone's OK out there.
Yeah.
It's the
worst of it moving away.
It looks the worst of it.
Yeah.
has moved off yes it is off to the east now that severe thunderstorm is continuing to roll away from you guys it's pretty much the biggest hail right now is hitting edgerton at the moment and then headed off towards whitewater and in towards the milwaukee area so that's moving away we do have another round behind it so don't be shocked if some more rumbles of thunder and more rain starts to spark up and intensify
That one is severe warned, but it isn't really packing much at all.
It's going to just roll through here with some gusty winds and some heavy downpours.
But after that, we start to lessen things out, some scattered light rain throughout the rest of the morning, staying stuck under cloudy skies.
High temperatures today still will make it to the low 70s, which is actually not the best.
We don't want that.
Oh, we don't want that.
Why don't we want that?
tornado
actually stayed cooler you'd have a chance of just regular rain and rumble thunder but if you're getting that warm if you do hit that 70 degrees today be ready around five o'clock or so for more severe thunderstorms despite spike up and again large hail damaging winds those are the main risks there is a tiny tornado chance I just think those are gonna stay much further into Illinois and Iowa and away from us all right stay away or tonight yeah more rounds still to go
Wow.
That was pretty threatening.
That's for sure.
I mean, it was dark all the way up to way past, way past sunrise.
Yeah.
So for the rest of the Easter holiday weekend, how are things shaping up for Saturday, Sunday?
Really, really nice, honestly.
The cold front moves through tonight.
It starts to clear us out overnight.
We'll be waking up tomorrow to dry conditions, sunny skies, but cooler.
It will be in the mid 50s tomorrow.
We'll slide to the mid to low 50s on Sunday with a sunny start to the day.
We'll see clouds increasing throughout the afternoon and then more rain moves in from the south on Sunday night and into our Monday.
All right.
I know you're going to ask about my lawn and I did get the seat down and everything is just fine.
All right.
Well, as far as we know now.
Well,
how's your gazebo, my man?
Well, I'll find out when I get home, I guess.
Probably just blowing down campus drive on its way to the Capitol by now.
Your neighbors would wish, anyway.
Barely.
All right, Brittany.
Thank you so much.
We'll talk to you on Monday.
Have a good weekend.
Have a
good
day.
You as well.
I'm the UMDX chief meteorologist, Brittany Merlot.
And we still have that pair of tickets up for grabs to the Milwaukee Film Festival.
You can text us on our Civic Media app and text the word tickets.
We'll draw for those tickets here shortly.
Now I
know a lot of people have been seeing the stories nationwide about people getting warnings from immigration, saying that they're going to be deported.
And it's freaking a lot of people out.
I mean, just normal everyday Americans out there getting notifications
that
they're gonna just tossed out of the country.
At random, apparently.
And it happened up in Nina, Nina resident in Tom France, a 68 year old retired college administrator and teacher.
Yeah.
And American citizen born in western Pennsylvania got one of those notifications.
Let's listen to cut 190 here.
And this is him explaining the situation as it was.
When Nina resident Tom France saw a pair of identical emails from the Department of Homeland Security in his inbox, he didn't think it was real.
My first reaction
was, this is a joke.
Then he read the email more closely.
It told him that he was in the country on humanitarian parole.
It said his parole was being revoked and he should leave the country immediately or he could be deported.
My fear was that it could compound.
And if it compounded, then what were the consequences for me?
France got in touch with Senator Tammy Baldwin's office.
The senator helped them resolve the issue with immigration officials.
He says he still isn't sure why he got the letter.
In a statement, Baldwin called it an attempt by the Trump administration to deport a U.S.
citizen, Joe Schultz, Wisconsin Public Radio.
That's
right.
Yeah,
exactly.
They have been testing the waters on that, deporting American citizens to El Salvador if they're evil enough.
And it's...
Of course, a determination that the administration wants to make for everybody.
Yeah, it's up to them.
Yeah, and the amazing thing is we have a president who is actually, believe it or not, micromanaging the entire country all by his lonesome.
He doesn't need the departments.
That's why they're getting rid of him.
He's controlling
all of it.
That's the scary part of this.
Now, there's part of this story that I also wrote down.
He said this Tom France, Nina resident, he said he was worried about the possibility of immigration officials showing up at his home, arresting him and ultimately deporting him, disappearing in other words.
And as a retiree, he said he was also worried about a reference in the letter.
And this is, remember, a lot of people are getting these same letters, reference in the letter to losing benefits because he spent years paying into Social Security and Medicaid.
They were gonna get rid of all of that stuff.
Maybe that's how they're thinking about saving money in Social Security and Medicaid by basically telling people that they're gonna lose it all and be deported at the same time.
And as you mentioned, the story that I saw too is that one person prepared themselves for that.
They told their friends, please video.
and record this because I'm going to be picked up and they're going to try and take me away.
We don't want people to disappear off the streets of the US.
That's what we're trying to prevent at this point in time.
This is where we are in this country.
Three months in, we are this worried about people being deported and disappearing in society.
And so his friends did videotape him as he was being taken away, and they had lawyers ready to go, and they stopped him from getting deported to El Salvador, but he's still detained in his state, because the state stepped in and said, you can't do this.
Right.
But yeah, that's happening.
They even stopped happening.
They even stopped 120-year-old who
was born in this country, showed his birth certificate, but they're
still holding him.
Yeah, unbelievable.
729, coming up next, after the break here, we've got Rocker in the studio with a Maxink preview, local music on John and Gordy in the Morning, coming
up.
WMDX 92.7, John and Gordy in the morning.
734
rain showers moving through downtown
Madison right now.
Still coming
down.
Yeah, coming down pretty heavily and maybe a little localized flooding here and there in some of the downtown streets.
Our congratulations going out to Kent from Sun Prairie.
He's going to Milwaukee Film Festival.
And that's happening next week.
We thank the Milwaukee Film Festival for providing us with some tickets.
We were talking about Caroline Levitt earlier, and Mark suggested this in a...
Text rather yeah, Barbie would likely be smarter than Caroline Levitt and I you know I really have to kind of agree with that and this is a question for you Gordy
you were in weather at one
time
Can you
ask Brittany if there is truth at Madison Lakes protect the area in East Madison and McFarland from tornadoes because they keep the area cooler?
No.
He wants us to ask Brittany about that.
We do avoid a lot of the tornadoes.
We can talk to Brittany next week about that.
This has come up before.
I remember that it was being asked.
I can't remember what the answer was on that, but I think there is something to do with pressure systems over lakes or...
You know, I should reach out to my old friend Gary Canalty on that, a retired weather guy.
You know, what you
should.
We saw him the other day.
And Brittany as
well.
Yeah.
We'll have to do that.
We'll get Brittany and Gary to get us the answer to
that question.
You know, if Brittany, when we get these questions for her, she does an investigative report.
She does.
And sends out an email.
I know.
Yeah.
She mentioned us as being, you know, a pain in her side, but that's fine.
Let's
get to
our friend Rocker here in the studio.
It's time for our Maxing preview.
Always great to see you Rock.
Great to see you guys.
Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, you made it through the storms here.
You know, I was getting ready and I was like, it's raining cats and dogs.
I'm going to be soaked just going to the car.
But
right.
Miraculously, my wife got a text from Dane County that said rain will be ending at seven o'clock.
And just as we were getting ready to walk out the door, rain ended at seven o'clock.
So.
Kudos to them.
Yeah, they're like little texting service.
That was awesome.
Yeah, I think gosh you line is no in
charge
of whether that's yeah But it's raining downtown now again, you got another batch and a lot of lightning at the moment.
Yeah,
so
Well, anyway, what's happening on Maxink this weekend?
Maxink radio, it's coming at you 6pm to midnight Saturday and Sunday night here on WMDX 927 FM.
And we have a great show lined up.
We are going to premiere doozy.
They are a band out of Appleton who are performing at the NFL.
Oh,
the draft?
The draft coming up in Green Bay, right?
And they wrote a song.
We'll talk about that in one second.
Ghost Particles, we'll have them on, even with new member Ernie from the Rousers, so we'll have some new music from them as well.
And Live in the Lair, this week is pretty special.
We're gonna have this band called Power Takeoff, and we're gonna tell you about them in just a moment.
But I'd like to talk about Marissa Ballastrieri Duo.
Now, they were in the Lair,
Last week on Maxingradio, we had them live in the studio right here and Marissa is a Madison Wisconsin based vocalist.
She's a former professional Italian opera singer and she collaborates with her songwriter, guitarist, husband, Stefan Hall on original folk jazz tunes inspired from the music from around the world.
So we recorded this and I just want to give you, you know, you can go on civicmedia.us, find Maxingradio and you can hear all of these podcasts which are up on the site.
So I thought I'd bring in a little
Taste of that all right recorded live in the lair on max inc radio.
This is Marissa ballastry re song about procrastination.
It's called one day
Sometimes I second guess it Why can't I make decisions?
I just need to be assertive Stop it with the long division Right now's the time for action If only I could take a stance Really ought to gain some traction One day I'll take my chance One day It's always one day Yeah, maybe I just don't know
My mind often wanders, but I know what I need to.
Uh-oh.
We get a little glitch.
We
had a lightning hit right there.
I wonder if
that did something.
Everything
just seemed to have froze up on me.
Wow.
Well,
are we still on the air?
Do you have your computer back?
We still
got the
music.
Alright.
Can't stop the rock and roll.
Alright,
there we go.
Sounds good.
Marissa Ballestery duo that was pretty fun last week live in the lair now this week in live in the lair we have this band called power take off okay they are on striker records they're from here in madison saturday april 26 they're playing at the red mouse which is uh i don't need that's out west madison i'm not even sure what city that's yeah um i don't know that one
Oh, yeah.
Red Mouse.
Okay.
Power takeoff is led by dynamic frontman Scotty Tice.
You might remember him from the Weisenheimers.
He was the drummer.
And his son Aiden is the drummer.
for power takeoff and rounding out the lineup are Ethan Schluter, son of last crack guitar player and Megaton studio owner Paul Schluter and Mikey Delbon guitars, Jacob Rippon bass.
So it's a father son loud and proud, bringing the noise on the stage.
And this song, Do You Want to Hit is number 29 right now in the SMR secondary market rock chart.
And to put that in perspective,
Lincoln Park Song is number 24, and Green Day's One-Eyed Bastard is number 35, so they're doing pretty good.
Yes.
Power Takeoff is live on Max Inc Radio Saturday night, this tomorrow night, 8 p.m.
here in the WMDX studios at Civic Media headquarters.
Friday, May 23rd, they're also at Broadfest, so there's a couple opportunities to see them.
This is Power Takeoff, and their new hit, Do You
Wanna?
That's a lot of fun.
That's a that's a great sound.
I like the song a lot and I looked up red mouse Yeah, and red mouse is located in pine bluff pine bluff mineral point and highway P out cross planes.
I was trying to remain
It's a ways out of town, kind of out by full compass.
Right, yeah, you keep going.
But further, yeah.
A little bit further.
The Crossroads, they have a baseball field there.
That's right.
They used to have outdoor concerts.
Yes.
You know, big, big like, you know, GGO would have these metal shows out there.
Yeah,
a nice bar
out there.
Yeah.
Huge, good one.
OK.
Always a good standard for any places.
Nice bar.
Come on, it's Wisconsin.
I know, I know.
We had one in every corner in Milwaukee when I was growing up.
In fact, it used to be called Kits Corner.
You might remember that.
Oh, yes,
yes.
Well, there's a bar right across the street from Red Mouse, and I can't think of the name of it, but...
Yeah,
little teeny one.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, well, let's move on from Red Mouse and a great song from Power Takeoff.
I
like that.
Now this is Doosie.
Doosie is a whammy award-winning three-piece pop rock band that came together in 2010.
They're from Appleton and Andrew Van Doosen, he's the founder and lead vocals guitar and they just wrote a song called
last one standing and it's going to be released on April 25th.
It's for the NFL Draft because they're going to be playing at Lambeau Field area during the NFL Draft.
April 25th, Duzzi is going to be playing the Great North Commons in Green Bay and then April 26th at in Duzzi's East Green Bay, which is just around the corner from Lambeau Field.
And so this
This song is kind of a big hit.
This is actually the premiere.
Right here is going to be the first time it's played.
We got a pre-release clip for this song.
And this is their song that they'll be playing at the NFL Draft coming up April 25th.
This is last one standing out April 21st.
This is doozy.
Cause lightning and I'm strong as thunder Doesn't matter what they say I'm gonna do it anyway It doesn't matter if it's dumb I'm gonna march to the beat of my own drum
All right, that's that's really good on of Appleton.
What a great group.
You know, this sounds so much like one of the animated spider-man cartoon themes It does it sounds just like it
early.
Yeah.
Yeah,
okay.
Yeah, they're pretty cool They recorded that at Cherry Pid Studios at Monomony Falls with Eric LaBros It was the same person who recorded might be an iron plow really recorded at this studio.
He's a great engineer.
Yeah, that is that.
Yeah, that's good production.
Yeah, it sounds great
We got time for one more here.
Sure.
All right.
You know, the Rocker Jamboree is coming up May 4th at the Burr Oak 1 to 5 PM featuring Electromag, Subatomic, Mindogs, Last Crack, and Magic 7.
Wow.
It's to raise funds for Mama Cares, of course, and yours truly, Rocker, for My Incident and Magic 7's second version of the band, featured Butto and Paul Schluter from Last Crack, guitar player and singer, along with drummer Mike Hafner and Barrett
bassist Darren Solderholm.
This song is from the album 7-11.
This was released in 2011.
This is Magic 7.
This song is called Mendota.
Can you feel it all?
Does it feel like anything when you hear the call?
Tell me what
Sounds excellent.
Yeah magic seven they haven't played a show I believe since 2011 So this will be special to see them get this back together for the performance as the rocker jamboree May 4th 1 to 5 p.m.
At the Baroque Mendota Mendota.
Yeah,
so the lineup Electromeg subatomic mind ox last crack and magic seven now you managed last crack
I did for about
10 years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's going to be a great
show on the road to
Europe.
You
put
them on the map and now they're just, you
know, well, actually I had them after they were already on the map.
It was kind of, I was on their second kind of comeback.
Okay.
All right.
There
you
go.
Yeah.
So this is going to be quite, quite the thing, uh, raising funds for mama cares.
And of course for you, rocker, and you kind of, you kind of brushed over your incident you called it.
Well, you had a heart attack.
Yeah.
You
had it on stage.
Right.
Playing
drums.
And you went down, and luckily, people were right there to revive you
and get you to the hospital right away.
That's so important.
And it's also interesting, of course, the way insurance works these days.
You're not out of those clouds.
All of a sudden, you have something like this happen.
and the timing deductible.
So it's hard for me, but it's hard for other musicians.
Absolutely.
And that's why Mama Cares was created.
Mama Cares, of course, helps musicians in their time of crisis, which is, you know, more often than not, a medical.
Exactly.
It might
hit everybody like that.
Right.
And this is really a great cause.
And it doesn't hit you until it hits you, right?
Yeah,
absolutely.
We are coming back with a rocker with more of the MaxSync preview on WMDX.
John and Gordy in the morning.
Stay with us.
This is Rock and Roll Radio.
Stay tuned for more Rock and Roll.
I need good music.
Good, good music.
It always feels so good to hear good music.
Rock and roll music, that is.
Yes.
WMDX, John and Gordy in the morning, 92.7.
With
Rocker in the studio, this portion of John and Gordy in the morning brought to you by Virlo Mattress.
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 in Madison, two locations east and west.
Go to Verlo.com.
Okay, rocker.
We are back with the Maxing preview.
What do you
got for us?
I got a couple more things.
You know, we were talking about this last week, but Natty Nation's almost 420 party is going to be happening Saturday, April 19th at the high noon saloon.
And everybody loves 420.
So why not celebrate the night before April 19th, right?
Roots reggae outfit based in Madison since 1995.
Natty Nation is literally legendary.
More info on them at nattynation.com.
I thought that take this chance to find just a little different slice of Natty Nation to check out and celebrate 420, right?
This is Suffice Rhythm Natty Nation.
Music playing
Is that an instrumental?
Yes, that's the song.
It is instrumental.
That is so cool.
That is really cool.
Hear the solo.
I mean, anybody that's a waking baker is really happy right
now.
But you know, I love the sound of a B3 too.
The old
days when they had instrumentals and they became hits on the radio and you
could listen to
them.
but it reminds me so much of like Ramsey Lewis.
I mean, that's the kind of stuff I'd love to hear again.
You know,
maybe a
hit instrumental.
Let's get
some of those back.
Okay.
There are plenty actually.
I'll start bringing them in.
Let's move on.
That's a Natty Nation April 19th.
So that's tomorrow night at the High Noon Saloon.
That is always a party too.
So the almost 420 party.
Bing Bong with Vandalay.
This was just announced May 2nd at the Gamma Ray Bar on Main Street.
This is a happy hour show at 5 p.m.
Pam Barrett.
She's on guitar vocals and writes a lot of the songs there.
Owns the Harmony Bar on Atwood.
Brian Bentley on drums, Danny Hicks on lead guitar and Julie Kylan on bass vocal and vocals.
Vandalay, they're an interesting band.
I haven't gotten to hear them yet, but they're formed in the small town of Nathanville, which is literally unincorporated, like way up by like Wausau and Stevens Point.
I want to find out more about them, but there's more info at bingbongband.com.
This is their hit, Clear Blue Sky from 2024's hip eponymous.
This is bingbong.
That's a cute song, bing bong.
That's right.
And we've played it here before and sometimes you may hear songs over, you know, but if you do, thank you for listening.
You've been listening more than once.
Yeah.
There you go.
That's
bottom line in it.
Is that something they wrote?
Is that something they composed?
Oh yeah, 99% of the time, anything I'm bringing into you guys is original.
All right, fantastic.
Got a minute or so here left.
Oh, you know, Festi season is coming.
Marquette Waterfront Festival, the 36 is the first one up to bat, right?
June 14th and 15th, Yehara Place Park.
The festival is the official curtain raiser to the Festi's, right?
So they're all coming.
We're just getting ready, getting you ready.
Of course, they have the kids games.
They have the River Alliances Fools Flotilla.
Have you guys heard of that?
No.
That's where you make your own boats and they float down the Yaha River out to the Manona.
Sam, get your Styrofoam boat ready.
I got it.
The Fools Flotilla.
Fools.
Only Fools build their own boats and float them down the Yaha River, right?
When is that again?
The Zany Boat Parade takes off from Tenney Park Locks at 10.30 AM.
I believe that's on the second date.
which is June 15th.
Oh, okay.
It was June 14th and June 15th, Yahara Place Park.
And I know you got a lot of other events here, but what's happening on Max Inc.
this weekend again?
Oh, let's go back to the beginning.
Let's see.
We have Doosy and we're going to premiere their new song, Last One Standing, which is the song for the NFL draft that's happening up in Green Bay at Lambeau Field.
Ghost Particles, we're going to be talking with new member Ernie.
He was from the Rausers and live in the lair with power takeoff.
Excellent.
Have a great weekend,
Robert.
All
right, thanks.
Appreciate you coming in.
Thank you.
Save up your Styrofoam cups for Sam's boat.
That's gonna do it.
For us, coming up on Monday, former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin will join us.
Stephanie Miller's coming up next.
We hope you have a happy Easter weekend.
We'll talk to you Monday morning.
Yeah?
I'm going to watch my lawn grow now.
Yeah?
Are you going to have fun with the Easter Bunny this weekend?
No.
Get some eggs and stuff?
No, I'm trying to kill as many bunnies as I can
around my
house.
Stephanie Miller's next.
Transmitted
by
Wire.
Here is the latest news brought into your own living room.
You'll be hard to satisfy with anything left.
Let's give
them some better talk about.
Talk is cheap.
Cab, cab, cab.
Always gossiping.
It's the John and Gordy show.
This is High Five Plus.
And that's the way it is.
We'll do it live!
On 92.7 FM, WMDX.
Take it away, boys.
It's a dumpster fire Friday.
We're clearing out a lot of stuff.
We didn't have a chance to cover earlier.
That's
right.
Six minutes past the hour.
Rain showers moving through.
Looks like the thunderstorms have moved off to the east for the most part.
Well, it really came down, didn't it?
Yeah, we got some heavy rain moving through State Street.
Looks like it's still...
raining out there.
This portion of John and Gordy in the Morning brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.
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Virlo Mattress of Madison.
Two Madison locations, east and west.
And you can find out more by going to Virlo.com.
Coming up in just a few minutes we'll be giving away another chance to win tickets to the Milwaukee Film Festival and Rocker will also join us later in the hour.
Right now Savannah Tome Olsen is with us for some news headlines.
Good morning Savannah!
Good morning.
How you guys doing?
We're
doing pretty good.
Hunkered down here in the studio, watching the rain and the hail and the thunderstorms moving through.
Protected
by the... It's tough to get out of bed when you've got a morning like this.
Oh, I know.
I
know.
And we're trying to keep everybody safe
and secure
within their homes.
That's what we're trying to do.
Stay indoors.
Yeah, just stay inside.
So what do you got for us this morning?
What's so...
What's at the top of the news?
Well, the big story of the week here was that Madison City Clerk Mary Beth Witzel Bell resigned.
I think the writing was on the wall here.
She had been an administrative leave for about a month as they investigated those 193 ballots that went uncounted in November.
And I think that the thing that both the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the mayor's office have brought up repeatedly
is that nobody knew about it until almost a month later.
I think that's the, that's the real clincher here, considering, you know, mistakes can happen anywhere.
However, finding those ballots and not letting anybody in on the mistake seems to be a real sore spot for a lot of leaders here.
So there are these two separate investigations and the one from the Wisconsin elections commission is going to keep going.
They've now kept this going in
two of their last meetings where we expected some kind of report or update.
And they said this time they have deposed people, including Mary Beth Whistlebell, and they're going to keep deposing more people.
So we don't know exactly who else they're going to be talking to here, but it seems like they have even more that they want to look into.
Yeah, there was a big blow up, too.
The Wisconsin Election Commission had a big dispute between Ann Jacobs, the commissioner chair, and Bob Spindel, who's a troublemaker and a right winger.
But anyway, that's my opinion.
But they argued back and forth.
Is that because of this discussion about the Dane County ballots?
They did.
So they were in this discussion about the ballots here in Madison in that investigation.
And Bob Spindel wanted to change the subject and talk about the spots in Milwaukee that did not have enough ballots on election night here in April.
And that is not on their agenda, which by law, they're only supposed to talk about the things that are on their scheduled agenda that gets released to the public.
This was not the first time I've seen Bob Spindel do this sort of thing.
But you can tell that it's happened many, many, many times by Ann Jacobs' reaction.
I've been in lots of these meetings.
I've never seen anything like that.
Do we have
that?
Yeah, we do have that.
We'll cut 183.
Let's play a little part of it here.
yelling at each other.
So it explains itself.
Let's listen.
Even
more serious problems in the city of Milwaukee where channel 12 has been doing an expo.
Okay, so you
get
the idea, right?
Then he said, well,
you're trying to silence me.
We were trying to control you.
It
was really something.
My phone was immediately lighting up with the other reporters who have covered election mechanics with me, people in the room who
looked over at some of the communications folks, uh, from the Wisconsin elections commission and said they were avoiding eye contact.
You can't blame them for that.
Well, you know, there's an irony there too, because, uh, Bob Spindel is part of the Republican party and the Republican party does want to see longer lines at elections to discourage people from going out to vote.
So he's there saying there were long lines and it was terrible.
That could, that could happen in Milwaukee because they were short ballots at some of the place.
Right.
Yeah.
So some people did have to wait.
All right.
What
else do
you
got?
Oh, yeah.
Anything for Easter weekend here?
What's, uh, you got a story
on this one.
We all know the price of eggs is crazy, right?
The average is a little over $6 for a dozen eggs right now.
But I looked up the price of chocolate and that's way worse.
So at this time, yeah, it's crazy at this time last year, a ton of cocoa cost about $2,000.
And right now it's about $8,400.
Oh, no.
Oh,
no.
Yeah.
So it's and then you add the potential for tariffs because most of our cocoa is imported has to grow in tropical climates.
So those costs could rise even further.
So even the average
Little Easter chocolate bunny is a little more expensive this year and could get more expensive from there, too.
Oh man There's a threat of chocolate bunnies this
year like
the chocolate bunnies You know people are cutting back on dying the eggs because the eggs are so expensive, right?
We're losing our holidays because of all this stuff.
Oh brother.
Gosh.
Okay.
What are
we
gonna do blame Trump?
All right, Savannah.
Thank you so much.
You have a good Easter weekend.
Yeah
And we'll
talk to you.
Yeah, you guys do.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, very good.
Take care.
That's Savannah Tomey Olson, our bureau chief for WMDX News.
Okay, this portion.
Did I mention this before?
If I haven't mentioned it, I should mention it right now.
Could you mention it because we're all on pins and needles here.
Yes, I know.
You were on the edge of your chair.
This portion of John and Gordy in the morning is brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.
Wake up and sleep better on a Virlo Mattress.
A lot has changed since 1958.
Some things remain constant throughout Virlo's history.
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Furlough mattress to Madison locations east and west or just go to furlough.com.
Okay, I'm just reading this
this Chiron on CNN this yeah Rubio says it's time to move on if Russia Ukraine war can't be ended That's
the
statement push it aside forget
about it.
You know we got other things happening.
We don't have time Wow Yeah, that's kind of a change of thought isn't it really not a good thought they were gonna solve that on day one
But apparently not.
You know, we just have to move on.
That's
how simple this whole
solution is.
Let's just move
on.
So much for if you try and fail, then try, try again.
I guess if you try and fail, then just brush it into the corner and forget about it.
That's right.
Oh, man.
All right.
Dumpster fire Friday.
Let's get the fire going again.
All right.
Let's go.
We
talked about you
know ice agents Arresting the wrong people.
They
just try to
arrest a 19 year old teen in New York City What another Kilmar a brago Garcia attempt apparently and of course the good news is that Senator Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar.
Yes
That was a big event.
Yeah pictures and everything
Yeah,
we'll find out more on that.
And here in Union Boss, Sean McGarvey demanded that Kilmar be brought back.
And this is a part of his speech.
I thought this was really a great moment because there was a standing ovation at the end.
So listen for that.
This is cut 165.
This is the Union Boss, you know.
Okay.
All right, Sean McGarvey.
We're not red.
We're not blue.
We're the building trades.
The backbone of America.
You want to build a $5 billion data center?
Want more six billion careers with health care retirement and no college debt?
You don't call Elon Musk.
You call us.
North America's building trade unions.
And yeah, that means all of us.
All of us, including our brother, smart apprentice, Kilmar Arbrega Garcia.
who we demand to be returned to watching this family now.
Bring him home.
Standing innovation right here.
Yeah.
All right, now I got this latest clip from Caroline Levitt.
I thought this was just so egregious, so horrific.
She is so.
I don't even know how to describe it.
She's a piece of work.
Yeah, that's it.
She is an absolute piece of work.
This is the latest and it's jaw-dropping stuff.
This is Cut 156.
Also listen.
Yesterday in the Oval Office, administration officials made it very clear that El Salvador is responsible for Mr. Obrego Garcia.
Yet El Salvador's president said we're not going to do anything with him.
So my question is, who is responsible for this man and where he's going to end up?
Well, no.
First of all, President Bukeli said that he is not going to smuggle a foreign terrorist back into the United States of America, as many in this room in the Democrat Party seemingly want him to do.
Obrego Garcia was a foreign
terrorist.
He is an MS-13 gang member.
He
was
engaged in human trafficking.
He
illegally came into our country.
And
so, deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.
There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who's going to live a peaceful life in Maryland, because he is a foreign terrorist, an MS-13 gang member.
Not
only have we confirmed that,
President Bukele yesterday in the Oval Office confirmed that as well.
No, he didn't.
So
he went back to his home country where he will face consequences for his gang affiliation and his engagement in human trafficking.
Not true.
I'm
not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone in the media to understand.
And it's appalling, truly
appalling, that there has been so much time covering this alleged human trafficker and this
gang member,
MS-13 gang member.
It's truly striking to
me.
She admits it's alleged.
They're calling her bubblegum Barbie now.
Oh, it's so well deserved,
so well
deserved.
You know, because all of this stuff, you know, they're going by the fact that it was presented as though he is part of MS-13 and it's part of the transcript.
But it was never proven that he was.
It's just something that was said in court.
And that's why they're saying, well, the courts even said it.
Well, you said it in the court.
It doesn't mean that they came to that conclusion.
Exactly.
It's just alleged.
Yeah.
Are you kidding me?
I'm not
kidding.
We
got to
throw
a little bit of that story out,
though.
OK.
Let's throw it out.
There it goes.
Perfect.
It is 18 minutes past the hour.
Watch yourself.
Don't hurt yourself.
Oh, man.
It's a hot.
Hot dumpster.
Phone lines are open.
608-879-8255.
That's 879 Talk, or you can always get ahold of us on the Civic Media app.
We
almost had a Kilmar-Obrego Garcia moment here
in
the Fox Valley.
We'll get to that in
just a moment.
Got that story coming up.
Let's give away a pair of tickets to the Milwaukee Film Fest.
You can text us on the Civic Media app.
Text the word tickets you could be going to a film of your choice at the Milwaukee Film Festival next week again the word
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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 at 7.35.
Time for us to welcome in Cara Ogborn from the Milwaukee Film Festival.
She's the artistic director there.
Good morning, Cara.
Good morning.
Good to have you with us here.
Give us an overview of the Film Festival.
First of all, it starts up next week, right?
From when?
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 around the Oriental.
And then two straight weeks of movies at the Oriental and Downer, over 200 films.
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.
Take off two weeks.
Yes.
What the heck?
Let's talk about some of the ones that deal with Wisconsin.
What about the there's a Brady spree documentary?
Brady spree?
Yeah.
So it's 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, 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.
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 to still kind of continued?
Do they have the headshots
now?
That's much more normal.
It happens kind of all over.
Right.
I
mean, that's now we've just we've just in the weirdness has infused everywhere.
And, you know, 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 Nellie Cluz's documentary.
It's a pretty 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, you know, 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?
I don't think I'm in it, but
I think they would have notified me.
You would have known.
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 five 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 the first mostly the first week into the festival and the filmmaker will be in attendance from in from the Bay area for that one.
I also love to talk about the film is called slice of life, the American dream in former pizza huts.
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 Hut's 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.
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?
OK.
Well, you know, what's really important to see in these movies in these great theaters, the Downer Theater and the Oriental, I mean, these are really classic, fantastic theaters in Milwaukee.
Could you fill us in on that?
You know, and, you know, as a non-profit, 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 Guru's 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 sweatpants 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, Addie, really looks to four.
kind of a breadth of musical genre so that every music fan has something to find.
The Janice Ian film is a really special one.
Everyone saw a complete 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
but more time learning her story and learning about her impact.
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.
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?
Yep, correct.
Good job.
All right.
Very good.
Well, thank you.
We
appreciate you being with us.
We will be back to wrap things up on John and Gordy in the morning right here at WMDX.
Stay with us.
From the capital to the campus and all across Dane County, we've got Madison Talking, 92.7 WMDX.
On a beautiful, beautiful Wednesday morning, we are having one heck of a time here in the program with idiocracy.
It continues.
Got plenty of sunshine today, highs in the mid 50s.
Gonna be beautiful all day long.
Maybe a few clouds late in the day.
And this portion of John and Gordy in the morning brought to you again by Verlo mattress of Madison.
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Well, again, I'm suggesting everybody get an adjustable bed frame, okay?
That's the way to go.
Like a hospital
bed?
Yeah, just like a hospital bed, no.
Like a hospital bed.
But you don't need the box spring.
No.
All right.
You
love the adjustable frames, right?
I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Two long singles.
Yeah.
And you put them together and it's a king-size bed.
You're just
preparing yourself for when your kids put you in a home bag.
See, they won't have to put me in a home because now I have my adjustable bed.
That's it.
All right.
Hey, look who's here, Mike McCabe.
Good morning,
guys.
How you doing?
Good.
Some exact blogger and you have a great blog this time around and tell us a little bit about what you were talking about.
Well, I was talking about how here we are in the 2020s and it feels a whole lot like the 1920s.
Yeah.
And now we actually have a man in the White House who thinks that's a good thing.
Who really looks at the 1920s as a
as a golden age for America, and of course it was an age of isolationism and protectionism and nativism.
Well, he's
actually going back to 1880.
Well,
he often talks about the 1890s as a golden period, and it should be pointed out that there was the bank collapse of 1893,
which
led to a
to a depression, not a recession, but a depression in
the
1890s.
And so the golden age he speaks of was a time of great trauma for many Americans.
And then he often glorifies the 1920s as well.
And I suppose he thinks of the roaring 20s as a time of great economic vigor.
But it was a...
It was an era marked by that isolationism and protectionism and nativism.
And so I quoted a former president who used those three words to describe what is going on.
He first used them in 2011.
And I quote an interview of his from 2011, but he didn't change his mind after 2011.
And by the way, I'm not...
talking about Biden or Obama or Carter or, you know, it's a different president than I'm quoting.
But he said almost the very same words again in 2016, sort of warning the nation.
And I think it was 2020 or 2021, he said it again, but even more with a sharper tongue because he turned the words on his own party and said,
My own party's becoming isolationist and protectionist and nativist.
And he talked about how dangerous that is and how corrosive to the soul it is.
And that was George W. Bush who said those words and kept warning, kept repeating this over and over again.
And so I wanted to quote those interviews.
because they speak so powerfully to the here and now, because here we are.
And I understand you've got that clip.
We
played it and it was just, I played it because I couldn't believe I was agreeing with George W. Bush or the fact that I always thought Bush was the dumbest president we ever had.
And
after listening
to this, this is like, I don't know whether it's comparing it to Trump or not, but I think this is a brilliant comment.
Let's listen to it.
A rational immigration policy eventually passed.
I think there's going to have to be some time.
What's interesting about our country, if you study history, is that there are some isms that occasionally pop up.
One is isolationism, and it's evil twin protectionism, and it's evil triplet nativism.
So if you study the 20s, for example, there was an American first policy that said, who cares what happens in Europe?
What happened in Europe mattered eventually because of World War two there was smooth holly Which is a part of an economic policy which basically said we don't want trade now There was a slow-up barriers and there was an immigration policy that I think during this period argued We had too many Jews and too many Italians therefore we should have no immigrants and my point to you is as we've been through this kind of Period of isolationism protections and natives at nativism.
I'm a little concerned that we may be going through the same period I hope that
These isms pass, which would then allow for a more orderly look in immigration.
He said that in 2011.
That was from a 2011 interview.
So that last line about, I'm a little concerned that we may be entering this sort of phase again.
He didn't say this last week or last year.
He said it in 2011, but he made remarkably similar comments again in 2016.
I linked to it in my latest Substack article.
And then again, I think it was in 2021, he repeated- He
elaborated?
He elaborated, but used these same terms.
But yeah, here we are with an America first policy.
And what do we have but trade policy that mirrors smooth holly?
from the 1920s.
And what do we have but an immigration policy that is an exact reflection of what he described was in place in the 1920s.
And so here we have a regime that is hell bent on returning us to the 1920s.
We're not thinking about where we should go as a country in the 2030s or the 2040s or the 2050s.
They want to sort of return us safely to the 1920s.
And of course, that was a period that led
to the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression that plagued this country for well over a decade.
And I think if sometimes history can, you can take comfort from history because you realize that we have been through these kinds of things before as a nation and we survived.
But man.
why would we want to return ourselves to a time where that led to so much trauma for so many people?
My parents, my dad was born in 1919 and my mom in 1921.
And they grew up through the Great Depression.
And I think anybody who has depression, your parents or grandparents know how shaped they are by that experience, how scarred they were.
by the Great Depression.
It changed the way they thought forever.
And we have a president who sort of nostalgically says, that's the golden age that we want to return America to.
Yeah, and just
yesterday, he wants to close down 30 embassies now.
I mean, just again, isolate us.
Yeah, we are trying to wall ourselves off.
And you know that
that these kinds of impulses are tempting to many people because people flocked to it in the 1920s as well.
When certain conditions arise, then people find it almost irresistible to wall ourselves off, to become isolationist and protectionist, to try to expel everybody who looks a little different or who is part of that other
group and hey, America first, and that's gonna remedy what ails us.
And of course, it led to ruin, it led to absolute ruin for our country the last time these policies range supreme.
And I think we either learn from that history or we are
doomed to repeat it.
Well, it seems like he's kind of romanticized that time period.
Sure has.
And sometimes if you think like that, you kind of eliminate all the negative possibilities that took place at that time, you know, and you think that you can do it better.
If you did that, now I can make this a successful.
economy
in some
way, shape or
form.
And people who are sort of bored with a silver spoon in their mouth or born on third base and they think they hit a triple.
Oh yeah.
Maybe people like that were doing fine in the 1920s.
Maybe they even substantially enriched themselves during the 1920s.
It
was good for their family,
right?
Exactly, but at the expense of so many people who were traumatized by that era.
And my parents were changed forever, and they never stopped sort of looking over their shoulder thinking, when's the next depression coming?
Because they lived through it.
And an awful lot of families were ruined, an awful lot of people were ruined.
And here we are going down this same exact path, which is very sad.
Talking with Mike McCabe, sub-stack blogger and author, and Mike in this latest sub-stack.
column you talk about your time in the Peace Corps.
Yeah, I kind of end the column on that
note.
Talk about that
again.
Well, you know, one of the things I mentioned is that I had to learn Bombra, which is a local language spoken in not only in Mali, but in parts of West Africa.
It's known as Jula and Ivory Coast, for example, but it's the same language.
And I ended up sort of learning it well enough to get by.
I spoke it clumsily, but serviceably, as I write in the column.
But one of the things that, you know, this is like 30 years ago that
I
lived there, but I still remember the blessings that you would give if somebody fell ill.
And I could still repeat them to this day.
They're right there fresh in my mind because they came in so handy so many times.
So, you know, you'd say like,
The first one means may you feel better or may you get better.
The second one means may your troubles lessen.
And the third one is may you come back to your old self.
And I just conclude the column that that is my wish for my country, that we get better, that we, that our troubles lessen and that we come back to ourselves, that we return to our, we regain our senses and
and see through America first, and see through the ghost of Smoot Holly, and see through these kinds of backward-looking policies that led to ruin the first time that it transpired in our country, and is gonna lead to ruin again.
So I just closed with those.
Yeah, I still remember him.
Kanoguyake.
Pretty wild.
But he gives you a perspective.
It certainly does give
you a perspective.
Um, you know, a lot of things on the right, uh, their big deal about the tariffs is that, uh, uh, that we're hypocrites, uh, that the progressives, Democrats and liberals are hypocrites because it seems like we're against tariffs and they always give examples.
They've always talked about how we have tariffed China in the past.
So why are we against tariffs now?
Because it's Trump doing the tariffs.
It isn't really, it's always this, this surgical.
Tariff that we put on China because of something they were doing like Obama that talked about tires dumping tires into this country.
He tariffed him.
That's very surgical
They're missing the point that Trump is doing this to every country in the world
even one with even friends even places without people.
Yes,
even even
that So this is their excuse that well, we have done it in the past and we thought tariffs were a good idea Well, no we did it surgically and we did it really all the examples are China.
We haven't done it to the rest of the world really so
they are providing this misinformation that we are hypocrites on it and we aren't.
Tariffs are good if you surgically use them and you don't lash out at even your friends, even your neighbors, country, up and down, you know, Canada,
Mexico.
You can aim for free trade.
You can aim for fair trade.
You know, there are free traders out there who just want, you
know, they
just want.
products to flow and without any barriers or restrictions at all.
And then you can aim for fair trade where you try to create some measures that help control things.
Or you can start trade wars.
That's what we're doing.
Yeah, the trade war.
This is smooth holly revisited.
Yeah.
And George W. Bush hit the nail right on the head.
This is the same as... And what
happened with smooth holly?
Well, anyone?
Anyone?
Anyone?
It
didn't work.
It led to ruin.
749, we're back with Mike McCabe, sub-stack blogger right after this on John and Gordy in the morning.
WMDX 92.7
It's Johnny Gordy in the morning.
We want to send our congratulations out to our winner of those Milwaukee Film Festival tickets.
Thomas from Greenfield will be going to that festival.
We'll have more tickets to give away tomorrow.
We'll talk to Cara Ogburn from the Milwaukee Film Fest, and she'll tell us about what's going on, some of the highlights there.
Yeah, he's pretty glad, you know.
He played his hits and some of the new ones, plus Beatles songs.
So yeah, he's really anxious to...
to go to this concert.
So that's great.
All right.
Right.
No,
you actually you're
you're confusing two different things here.
We gave away to Thomas, the Milwaukee Film Festival tickets.
This was a Peter Frampton winner.
Okay.
I'm getting confused.
We're
getting all these texts here.
Let's talk about the deportation problem that we have in this country now.
This is just crazy stuff.
You know, Trump has been lashing out at MS-13 for a long time.
I guess he wanted the death penalty for some members he thought were part of that group.
And now he is not backing down with this person who was mistakenly sent
El Salvador even though his administration admitted to it and everybody is talking that well you know it wasn't something we should have done and the Supreme Court sided with them saying try to get him back but of course he doubled down I think he's convinced that this is another MS-13 individual and he's not going to back down he's gonna keep that guy there he even convinced the president of El Salvador to keep him there and now he's talking
This is the scary part.
He's been talking about sending Americans there.
You know, really, really, really bad Americans.
Well, you just can't do it.
You can't call them really bad and send Americans to some foreign country to be tortured.
You just can't do it.
But anyway, he's decided to do that.
And my son...
mentioned this to me yesterday, he says the Trump executive order that he wrote a while back gives him the ability now to declare martial law on April 20th.
This is, and then it's Easter, you know, Hitler's birthday, and now he also will be allowed under martial law to deport American citizens if he wants to.
And so he's suggesting it now.
on April 20th, he can declare martial law and do just that.
So we're kind of building up to this, aren't we?
You know, and I can't know what is in this guy's heart or in his head, and I don't want to get in that head.
But my gut tells me that what this is really all about is it's just...
It's it's show.
It's it's for show.
It's for optics He he know he doesn't he's not convinced that any of these people have gang affiliations He slaps that label on them so that he can engage in the theatrics because I think he wants to he wants to get people to self-deport He want he wants people to never come in the first place it is
the nativism that George W. Bush talked about.
It's having an immigration policy that is based on this idea that there are too many of them among us.
People who are different looking or speak with a different tongue.
There's too many of them among us.
Let's make them go away.
Let's make them disappear.
And then you engage in some of this theatrical
behavior to send an unmistakable message to millions of people, don't come or if you're here, leave.
And
I think that's what this is really about.
It's about his desire to cleanse America in this fashion, which of course is also an isolationist kind of mentality that never leads anywhere good.
It never...
leads to prosperity.
It never leads to greater freedom.
It never leads anywhere good.
Because, and the reason I can say that with such certainty is that it's been done before in America, and we have a long history of it, and we see what happens when you have these spikes of this kind of behavior and this kind of
ideology.
Comparing it to the protests that we saw on campuses the Palestinian protests and you know, they're certainly Canceling a lot of visas of the students who participated in it happened here on our campus here at the UW and and now They're pushing very hard on Harvard and Harvard is pushing back just as hard by saying that we're gonna turn down the eight billion dollar Whatever
funding that they were going
to get.
Yeah, that's amazing because they wanted somebody to be on the
the university staff going through the hires, what the curriculum is, it's stunning stuff.
And I think because Harvard is doing this, more colleges are now trying to get on board and maybe
join together with other colleges.
That was an incredibly important action by Harvard.
Yes.
When you think about so many people have kneeled down, so many people have refused to resist, so many lawyers, so many judges, so many universities,
So many institutions and people with considerable power have chosen to kneel down.
And here was an example of an institution that decided to stand firm.
And that's an incredibly important message to send.
Dominoes.
Dominoes and other universities and other colleges are joining
in.
My only point here is that, yes, he's targeting people at the University of Wisconsin.
Madison, he's targeting people all over the country.
But my point is that...
If he targets 1,000 or if he targets 10,000 or if he targets 100,000, that's not his aim.
His aim is to send a message to millions.
Yes.
That's what he's really aiming to do because he wants millions out of here.
The message I want to send is you'd better jump on board.
Absolutely.
I want
him
to
be
a part of this.
Absolutely.
That's going to do it, Mike.
Thanks for joining us.
Mike McCabe.
He's with us every Wednesday.
Tomorrow we'll talk to Kara.
Oddburn from the Milwaukee Film Festival have more tickets to give away and also Judy Davidoff from Ismus will be with us.
Stephanie Miller is coming up next.
We hope you have a great day, John.
Have a wonderful day.
Mike, you have a good day too.
Producer Sam.
Mike, thank you.
So long.
