
It's a
gas!
WMBX, 92.7.
It's John and Gordy in the morning.
Dom at the controls.
Keep that up.
Keep that up.
I want to hear the gas.
Yeah.
Here we go.
There you go.
I feel better.
735.
clear to partly cloudy skies this morning look for rain this afternoon high near 50 today that's it and it's going to be really windy tonight with the showers and moving on through then weather it just clears up and gets nicer for the rest of the isn't that nice yeah this time of year when it's fall you know the leaves are changing you want to travel around the state
Who better to talk to this time of year than Tom and Christy Manus?
They are the authors of a couple of books, one of them is Secret Wisconsin.
Let's
see other book titled.
Historic Wisconsin Roadside.
There we go.
Yeah, it's
fantastic.
It's good to have you back again.
Two great books.
We really have to
check
them out.
We love coming to see
you guys.
No, you got up at what hour?
Did you start traveling from where you live?
Well, we left Eau Claire at 3.30.
3.30.
Thanks for making
the effort
to
come
down here.
Talk to us for 20 minutes.
It's always fun.
We can always stream you in here, but next time we're going to set up a tent in the lobby so you
can camp out a little
overnight.
It's a great idea.
Roaming
around
the office.
Did you find anything out there?
Did you find some snacks and some coffee?
Well, yeah, somebody needs to restock the Snickers.
Now they do, right?
Okay.
I agree.
I only found one.
All right.
Okay.
Well,
at least there was one left for you.
Okay.
But now let's get to some of the, you know, besides just the books that you have here, you've got some new things for us here.
And I believe this is one of the great times of the year for me anyway.
I love Halloween.
I love ghost stories.
I love all of that, the trappings.
Unfortunately, we don't get many ghosts and ghost guests in here.
You know, I wish we could at least talk about spirit world and hunting them down and stuff like that.
But you've got something for us, right?
Oh,
yeah.
Where do you go if you want some hauntings?
What do you do for a kind of stuff?
When it comes to hauntings.
Well, there's this unique place in, do you say it, Wanna Walk?
Yeah,
Wanna
Walk, Wanna
Walk.
Get right close to that mic
there first, Steve.
Yeah, the spiritual camp.
Oh, sure.
Oh, I've
heard.
Are you familiar with this?
I've
heard about this.
I had never heard about this.
Yes, my sister lives
in Reedsburg, and they, yes, they've been talking about this for a couple of decades.
There's a spiritual camp up
there.
You call it Spook Hill.
That's what the locals call it.
Spook
Hill, okay.
Now, see, I never knew about it, and I just learned about it.
Well, Gordy never
kills anybody.
Well, I don't know much about it, but I've heard about it.
I don't know what they
really do there.
Well, let's find out.
I guess they have seances.
Yes.
If the spirits are coming, that's where they're going for the most part.
Oh, I like the music.
That's perfect.
Thank
you.
You can stay there.
They have rustic cabins.
I'm not going to stay there.
But one of the cabins is lucky number 13.
And it has a light bulb on the door that has been glowing steadily for like 30 to 40 years.
So
they call it the living spirit.
I don't know.
That is scary.
I'm scared.
Yeah.
I wonder, you know, I don't know if like, my dad said he stayed at a motel where it was haunted as well.
And you know, just, it was a pain in the ass dealing with ghosts, but you know, he did.
Now, I don't know.
Is this one he
walked?
Is this open to the public?
Or is
it?
It is.
You can go and walk the grounds.
It's free.
Supposedly spirits live in the forest.
Yeah.
See, you guys going?
I'm not.
Oh, yeah.
I would do it in a half second.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, have you been down to the Orpheum?
Yes.
You know that's haunted, right?
Right next to us here.
Yeah.
Yeah, right on the block.
That's
haunted.
There's supposedly a teenager fell from the balcony and still can be seen sitting in a seat when there's nobody there.
Yeah.
But if you walk in and see him, he disappears.
the projectionist from way back when committed suicide in the projection room.
And he haunts the place and the way he does it is he moves things.
So there's things that are constantly moving around.
That's right down the road.
Yeah, I've seen a few movies at the Orpheum.
I have
too.
Sometimes the sound and the visuals are so bad that I feel like I've died.
And I think my spirit still haunts some of the seating area.
What
are you talking
about?
They have improved the sound and audio and everything, and that's a beautiful theater right now.
Is it open again?
Yes.
Oh, it's a very active
theater.
Yeah.
They have comedians in there.
They have special guests all the time down there.
Elvis Costello the other night.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
Well, they have lots of big acts there.
But you can see the ghost of me still traumatized by some of the audio of the movies I've seen.
How was the focus?
Was the focus okay?
No, the focus was bad, too.
It was not a good
theater at the point.
Now, up near us, just outside of Eau Claire, there is an Elk Mountain.
If you're driving on the interstate, it's on the north side.
You can see a big flag.
It's a two-story castle with a lookout on the top.
Wow.
But it's in our Secret Wisconsin book.
But this Elk Mountain castle is what it's called.
It was dedicated to dead postal employees.
And what they did is underneath the flagpole, they have every single rural route.
I think if I remember right, there might have been 13.
Don't hold me to that number.
But they have dirt from each of those rural routes underneath the flag.
Wow, nice.
And it has an incredible view.
You can, you know, walk up to roof, you know, look it up.
But it's also rumored to be haunted.
It's the rumor is a family was there and a ghost or somebody as they were walking down the stairs.
Push the wife down the stairs.
Oh, and they witnessed it And they said well, yeah, there was nobody around but it was obvious something pushed her and it has you know weird sounds at night also weird lights at night Screams in the woods, you know things like that.
So where is this?
It's an elk mound.
It's it's just west of Eau Claire a few miles.
Okay, right off the interstate.
Yeah
Wow, that's scary.
Okay.
All right.
Well anything dealing with
Post employees is scary.
Matt, are you
listening?
The
caller Matt works for the post.
Okay.
Next.
What else you
got?
Well,
up around Baraboo, I know they have a lot of ghosts too.
We've talked about that a number of times.
Well, isn't there a bar?
That's pretty haunted.
It's like the most haunted place in
Wisconsin.
You can't think of the name of it
though.
Is that near Baraboo?
Yeah, I can't remember the name of it.
Well, down by Delavan.
Yeah,
Delavan.
What's that?
There's the Circus Cemetery.
In
Delavan?
There's
two cemeteries.
And both of them have, I mean, it was a huge
a wintering home for circus performance and stuff.
And so both of the cemeteries have a lot of circus performers there and each one is marked with a sign, you know, it tells about the performer and the name and so forth.
But it's also haunted.
Yeah, that's scary.
If you think about it, clowns haunting.
I
know
that
that is a frightening thought
right
there, you know, a spring grove cemetery.
And
St.
Andrews is the other one.
Yes.
Yeah.
OK.
Well, there was a movie way back when in the 60s called Circus of Horrors.
Yes, I remember that.
And then, of course, there's Killer Clowns from Outer Space.
Well, that sounds interesting.
That is actually a really great movie.
Okay, I never would've guessed.
I thought it'd be something like a Sharknado movie.
It is, but the clowns are just really the scariest looking clowns you'll ever see.
Well, I don't like any clowns, so I don't want to see a scary
clown.
Well, no,
yeah.
I'm
looking at this Delavan cemetery and they're talking about, okay, people have claimed to see ghosts of acrobats, clowns, and even horses wandering through the cemetery at night.
Yeah,
if you want a unique haunted experience, yeah, that's definitely one of them.
Yeah,
OK, Delavan Spring Grove Cemetery.
And those are in our historic Wisconsin roadside
book.
And I believe that they pass out 3D glasses at the at the gates.
I'm just thinking
of
13 ghosts.
They had a circus performer who put his head in the mouth of a lion.
Yeah.
And in the lion chomped down on
his
head.
Didn't work out that time.
Well, ironically, at the park, Tower Park in Delavan, they have a bubbler that's the mouth of a lion.
Oh, really?
There you put your head on that.
It's kind of
scary now.
No, I'm not even going to do that.
OK.
It's obviously, you know, a fall.
What else you got for
us?
Well, have you guys been to the Wonder Bar?
Yes.
Yes.
It recently closed.
Where's that?
That was on Olin and
John Nolan.
John Nolan.
Right here in town.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Oh, that
one.
Okay.
Yeah, tell us about that.
That
was a really cool place.
It was.
Right near the
Coliseum.
Right.
Yeah, it looks really cool.
We haven't been there, but it looks really cool.
It's really old building.
Yeah, it's got a lot of history.
Yeah.
It was
the
gangsta.
Yeah, they bought it in 1929.
So it was a competitor for
Who was it the gangster in Chicago?
Al Capone.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah, how can I forget?
Yeah, yeah, it was it was competitive for him really In the North Chicago area Well, he sent his brother up to open the the North Tower and so it had you know if you remember it had the turrets on both sides Yes, and they had little slots for the Tommy guns the Tommy machine guns really easy and And there's a lot of things that happen at this Wonder Bar
One is underneath it, it said that there was a tunnel that went to Lake Mandora where a lot of people supposedly lost their lives that crossed them.
And also the one of the brothers is they he disappeared and they think that he's buried or was buried in the walls on the second floor next to the fireplace.
So it was it was notoriously haunted for years until it shut down and.
And major mafia names also visited Babyface Nelson.
I mean, all the big names.
They used to frequent.
I think I've passed by there.
It's still there.
It's just vacant, right?
Yeah, it's vacant.
Yeah, it's boarded up.
Yeah.
Talking with Tom and
Christy Manus.
You guys travel all over Wisconsin.
Getting some texts here about, it was the old Baraboo Inn.
in Baraboo, that's
the bar,
and that's still there, and that still opens
for
haunted tours, and you can still drink
there
too.
And the church key in Madison, just down the street on University Avenue.
Oh wow, never thought about that
one.
All right, well, anything else this time of year, as far as, you know, I mean, the leaves are changing.
We can talk about more haunted things if you have them, but...
We have all kinds of stuff we can talk about.
Well, this time of year, it's the leaves are changing.
I know a lot of people head to Door County, but there are other places, of course, everywhere.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Check out them.
And if you know us, you know that we like the things that don't necessarily show up on the first few pages of Google search, right?
You know, the Delft or counties, you know, things like that.
Well, yeah, let's go a little
deeper.
I found one, you know, it's the it's the boy with the leaking boot.
Yeah, what's
that about?
Yeah, we just love weird things.
You
know, tell us about that.
Well, Stevens Point bought the boy with the leaky boot in the 1800s.
Yeah.
And
what is it?
What
is a
boy with a leaky
poof?
It's a statue.
We've got
a minute here, but keep going.
It's a statue, and it pours water out.
And supposedly it was from like the Civil War or whatever.
Anyway, Stevens Point got it.
It was in disrepair.
It used to be in the center of Stevens Point.
The fire department took it over, put it in front of fire station number one.
Right
downtown.
Yep.
And the original is in the basement because with the campus there,
People kept stealing it decapitating it.
So they put I know so May through August it's out other times It's in the basement.
They have to bring it in during school.
Yeah, okay.
That is such a cool thing to see I'm gonna have to
look for
that.
All right.
Can you stick around a couple more minutes here?
All right We're gonna keep Tom and Christy with us.
We'll be back with more of John and Gordy right after this on WMDX
Great
song.
I love this.
Tom and Christy Manus are with us today.
They have a couple of books out, Secret Wisconsin and Road Sides.
What is it?
Road?
Historic Wisconsin.
Road Sides, okay.
That was
close.
Yeah.
Don't
have it in front of me.
92.7 WMDX.
A few more minutes here with Tom and Christie.
So let's talk a little bit more about, we mentioned yo-yos.
We were talking about yo-yos during the break and you brought a yo-yo with us to remind us.
That's right.
Everybody loves a yo-yo.
Who doesn't?
Yeah, it's a wonderful story about Duncan Yo-yos.
It is from 1946 to 1964.
They remain a little town in northwestern Wisconsin called Luck.
Luck luck population 900 900
Everybody worked there and they made about 70,000 yoyos a day
A day
20 million a year during those years.
No, this is before cell phones
We
had nothing else to do Play with your yo-yo
I have
a huge collection of Duncan yoyos.
I was really
into it.
I was not that good But I really tried to be that good some lit up.
They had sparkles in it Of course, they went up there in luck Wisconsin because of the wood
they did because they were made of wood
time sure
and maple is what they wanted the hardwood so
that was
the ideal ideal wood for the yoyos
and the reason they shut down is they started to lose popularity so a company flambo bought them and made them out of the plastic that it is today and i believe flambo flambo
is imperable i believe
yeah wisconsin company oh yeah i still see a company tackle boxes and all kinds of stuff like that
yeah
There's
a museum there.
You can go see the museum.
The world's largest yo-yo
is in the
museum.
It's actually, it's a smock.
In luck.
In luck.
In luck.
In luck.
How big is the largest yo-yo?
Pretty darn
big.
Waste,
waist high maybe.
Now the thing is, they were made out of wood initially, but didn't, wasn't it Duncan, what's his first name?
Dan, Don, Don Duncan.
Don Duncan, wasn't he in the ads for Duncan Yo-Yo for a while?
I think so, yeah.
He was also, he also invented or created the good humor.
Good humor.
Yeah, with the ice cream.
Yeah, that's something else too,
yeah.
They moved the factory from Chicago to Luck because they could find workers for one, but
it's
also right there where the wood was.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then I was wondering, did
They changed the plastic and the plastics and the acrylics while he was still in charge of it or was just
flambo at
that point.
It was after that.
All right, just had to know.
No one cares.
Come
on, we care,
right?
Yeah, we were talking about tops too.
At the same time, they had the yo-yo craze going on.
We had tops.
Now you said the yo-yo is still very popular.
Where is it popular still?
In the Philippines.
Okay, all right.
It's
crazy popular.
Really?
Wow.
And they're doing all the tricks and really keeping it going.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Anything else?
What do we got?
A couple
of
more minutes here.
Oh, Cozy
N.
Yeah, that's what we were going to talk
about.
Okay.
So the, um, Lucky Yo-Yo Museum is in our book, Secret Wisconsin, as is the Cozy N in Jamesville.
And the Cozy N is, is a Chinese restaurant
that
everybody drives by, you know, every day.
But it's the second oldest Chinese restaurant in the same location in the United States.
And it's also the oldest Chinese restaurant in Wisconsin.
But the thing is, we called it traveling egg rolls because people are, they're notorious for ordering, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, even 100 egg rolls at a time to take back on the plane when they go home or in the car on a road trip in coolers.
And they're that famous.
And we actually had a friend of ours in Northwest Wisconsin.
She came down here and bought 48.
Put them in the cooler because she's doing everything in the book.
Or they're doing everything in the book.
Wow.
Wow.
Okay.
And they
invited us over for dinner and shared them.
But the story not only is about the egg rolls.
The owner's mom was a famous Chinese chef at Toy's Chinese restaurant in Milwaukee.
I don't know if you remember
that.
Sure.
Cool.
I think it was a six-story building, but that's also in our new book coming up in the spring.
But she wanted to buy a restaurant so she found the one and knew the people that own the Jameswell restaurant the cozy and she bought it our kids grew up there as teenagers But an interesting fact with this is Tom Fong and his wife Amanda Tom is the son they run it now and his dad was a One of six Chinese survivors from the Titanic And they said that he was the last person rescued from the wreck
They found him floating on a door, strapped on what they think was a state room door, but he was strapped on with a belt.
So there's a lot of history there.
But the thing is, when you pass something, you have to look deeper and go, hmm, is there a story here?
Sometimes there's not, but oftentimes things you pass every day have a story that would blow you away.
Yeah, that's really interesting because it's there and you discovered it in some way, shape, or form, because other people have discovered it.
How are the egg rolls though?
Oh, they're incredible.
They're
very good.
They must be really good.
Are they big, small
or long?
They're big.
They're handmade every day.
No kidding.
Right.
It's a two day recipe and they have a hint of peanut butter.
That's kind
of mean.
A two day recipe.
Yeah.
It takes two days to make.
It does.
It's a family recipe that takes two days.
Wow.
And
it's not like the process when you get now and you get off the truck.
It's actual, you know, cabbage and pork and stuff.
Yeah.
And if you want to see more about it, we do a show with NBC or
TMJ for NBC, Milwaukee, where we take Stephanie Brown around to these places and introduce them to them.
And Cozy N was one of them.
So you
can learn more.
That's great.
We'll have to look for that.
All right.
Well, we're out of time.
But Tom and Chris, do you have a new book coming out in the spring?
Yeah.
Tell us about that.
What's the name of it?
It's Lost Treasures of Wisconsin.
OK.
It's about things that aren't here anymore, but everybody has good memories of.
And people want to find out more.
How do they find out?
You got
Facebook?
You can go to Tom and Christie Manus on Instagram.
Our website is smalltownplussize.com.
You can order the books from our publisher, Reedy Press.
Just do a search for us.
You'll find us everywhere.
Very good.
Tom and Christie Manus.
Christy with a K if you're Googling, okay,
right?
Okay,
and we depress is R E E D Y.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for coming.
Come back.
Really?
Come back
tomorrow.
Yeah, sure.
Right.
Right back.
Oh, we love coming down.
All right.
That's going to do it for us.
Stephanie Miller is next tomorrow on our show.
Mike McCabe will join us because it's Wednesday.
Okay.
All right.
Have a great day, John.
All right.
I
know.
Okay.
See you later.
So
long everybody.
So long.
Christie, Tom.
Good
day.
Good to have you.
WMDX 92.7.
It's John and Gordy in the morning.
It gets wrapped up in that song.
I love it.
The American dream is killing us all.
We've got sunshine today, highs in the mid to upper 60s.
Time for us to talk with former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin.
Good morning, Paul.
Morning, guys.
Pretty good weekend, though.
Boy, it really was.
I mean, what a...
great get together out at the Capitol on Saturday, just fantastic.
I was out there and Gordy missed it because he was in the process of moving, but so many people turned out, so many costumed characters turned out for this protest.
I want to get your input on that.
What do you think of turning up in costumes for these protests?
I mean, I'm trying to figure out a better way to protest.
Really?
costumes is the way to at least, you know, present a different kind of image, right?
I mean, instead of the smoke bombs and the flash bombs and everything else, you know, when you have a costume character, it lessens the impact of those.
Well, when the
cops are hauling off a unicorn, you
know, that's what the sign... Yeah, you know there's something wrong with them, right?
There's something weird going on.
It's not the unicorn.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yes, and especially if it's...
Shall we say some something or someone that we treat with affection?
Yeah Like a princess
right or
a
giant bee.
I like the giant bee
Yeah, yeah
dinosaur.
Yeah, we're getting off the wizard.
Yeah Well, okay
It was a great protest.
You've been through a lot of protests yourself here in Madison.
I mean, we are the protest city.
What are some of the things that you remember way back when that seemed to work and things that didn't work exactly?
Well, I think the important thing to remember is this, that protests generally are important to invigorate the base.
They give us energy.
They give us
the momentum to go on to do other things.
Protests don't necessarily expand the base.
They do energize it.
And so what you do, you don't hop from protest to protest.
What you do is you have protests, then you do the work of expanding the base, more protests expand the base.
There's almost a rhythm to it.
And as it progresses, you see political change.
You do see end to wars.
You do see legislation pass that produces social and economic justice.
And so, yeah, now it's time to double down and
Go out there and expand the base.
You know, it
was a great weekend across the country.
You know what they're
doing now internationally.
Oh, yeah internationally too.
Yes, but what they're doing now is they're creating more of a of a show, you know with some of the weaponry with some of the smoke bombs
All of that stuff creates a show for the administration, you know, and it creates confusion among the protesters and no one knows what's really going on and they can present it any way they want.
They can spin the images in the way that they want to because of those show busy type of situations they want to create and put out on social media.
Well, I think one of the things
especially as long as the protests stay peaceful, and including in peaceful, I include disruption.
Disruption has its role.
I draw the line at tractions.
But one of the things that, going back particularly to the Nixon administration,
And now we see it with the Trump administration, is you have repressive governments that do not know how to democratically respond to those protests.
And that works our advantage because that does highlight the fact that they are emperors, they are kings.
that they have no regard for the other branches of government, the legislative body, and particularly the courts.
Now, the big challenge for us as Americans now is will the courts stand by the Constitution?
The packing of the Supreme Court with Trump appointees, obviously, I think the most
terrifying thing we've seen in the history of this nation.
The combination of a president who believes that his will is more important, more powerful than the other two branches of government.
Well, Amy Comney Barrett, she did an interview and she mentioned that President Trump can do almost anything he wants.
She can
He can defy the court, the Supreme Court, if he wants, because they have no way to stop him.
They don't have police powers to stop him.
So that's an amazing thing to say.
Well,
it's the reality.
And it goes back to one of the very first Supreme Court rulings.
May very recently, Madison, we talked about that where after after the Supreme Court decision,
Uh, the president said, in effect, they, uh, they made that ruling, let them enforce it.
Sort of, you know, jokingly mocking the fact that the Supreme court has no other way of enforcing its decisions other than the, basically the will of the president and the Congress to abide by the rulings.
That's right.
We're talking with former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin.
Paul, before we went on the air, you mentioned a New York Times article
that
caught your eye, basically talking about how there's maybe a lane for more moderate candidates in our near future.
Tell us more
about that.
It's an interesting article this morning, which discusses the fact that while there's not a lot of competitive races,
It's it's an opinion piece.
It's entitled America still has a political center and it's the key to winning and While there aren't that many competitive congressional districts or even Senate districts there are some and the key to winning and they uses some Wisconsin examples here the elections of Tony Evers and and reelection in the last time of Tammy Baldwin the point is
You don't have to be as left-wing and progressive in these more moderate congressional districts as say an AOC or a Mark Polkant that if your party wants to build a majority, speaking in this case of the Democrats, let's elect one moderate people who will be there, maybe not on every issue, but certainly
in enough to control a House of Congress.
And you see it in two different ways, first in terms of more moderate people in these swing districts.
But also, I'll use the example of Tammy Baldwin, who's got a plethora of physicians on issues.
Uh, in certain parts of Wisconsin, for example, maybe she ought to talk about some of the efforts that she's made in terms of combating unnecessary government regulation rather than speaking about some of her more militant positions in regards to social and economic justice.
That's
a pretty good idea.
Yeah.
So that middle lane is pretty much wide open.
For candidates
like,
yeah, like,
yes, they can drive
through there.
Yeah.
Yeah,
go
ahead.
Read a portion of the article.
Um, and it, the author of this piece suggests the strategy and then writes left wing Democrats and right wing Republicans have spent years trying to tell a different story.
They claim that reaching out to swing voters is overrated and then they are wrong.
But they do have an element of truth in what they're saying.
And their point, their office point is this.
They are not, there's not as many swing districts in this country that are left to be competitive.
But there's still enough swing districts for either party to create a majority.
So good luck to all of us.
Yeah.
I know.
kind of play
what that exactly could mean.
Well, I just wonder if moderate and mid, I guess we wouldn't know until they try, but moderate and middle candidates do,
you know,
how do they do in fundraising?
Cause things are so divided now.
And it seems like big money is driving the train still.
Yeah, that's for sure.
But isn't there a move, a youth movement as well that we're looking at?
you know, getting the fresh new faces in new blood in the
democratic
party.
I think that's critical as well.
And we've seen that in some of these instances where we've got challenges.
We have challenges to some well entrenched incumbents.
Republicans have absolutely no problem throwing some of their older
Shall we say more moderate leaders under the bus?
Democrats are a bit resembling a bit reluctant to do that But I think the key is is understanding the nature of the constituency and finding the candidate who can win that election
And then with time, and this is critical.
It was the key to my success in hearing Madison, and the first time I was elected mayor in the 70s, prove that you're going to represent the people, prove that you're going to look out for their agenda, and then prove you can govern and take them with you to a more progressive position.
Organized labor in Madison in the 1970s was horrendous.
Public employees unions were not looking out for women.
And one of the greatest battles we had was the city's efforts that were successful to hire women firefighters.
The women, the firefighters union adamantly was opposed to it.
And if you look at the list of some of the alders,
particularly so-called downtown progressives.
They voted against the appointment at that time of Judith Pedersen to the police and fire commission, and I had nominated her as an appointee of somebody who was going to work diligently to change the hiring standards for the department and make it more inclusive to include women.
Now,
There was a bad battle itself, but not only was there that battle, but then we had to move forward With the firefighters union and keep them in effect on the progressive side Because in terms of elections, they've been key to my first victory
Well, we need to leave it there.
We appreciate you joining us always good to talk to you and we'll talk to you again next month
Well, hopefully it'll be as warm as it is now.
Yeah.
We
appreciate it.
Yes.
Thank you, Paul.
Thank you.
We appreciate your
point of view on that.
Paul Simon, former Madison mayor.
We're coming right back after this.
It's very clear you're being unpacking and we're going to run it all away with no more kings.
We're going to elect a president.
No more kings.
He's going to do what the people want.
No
more kings.
We're going to run things our way.
No more kings.
Nobody's going to tell us what to do.
To put it kindly king, we really don't agree.
They knew our time had
come for them to take this.
92.7.
It's John and Gordy in the morning.
We're all holding hands.
trying to make it through the next three and a half year.
That's right.
There will
be here for you.
752.
We've got a few more minutes to go here before Stephanie Miller.
I mentioned earlier that they were flooding social media with old mass protests trying to discredit the major protests and no Kings protest around the nation.
The right wing was very busy putting videos out there of protests that don't
actually happen, you know, now.
They happened many years ago.
And one of the big ones, and this is, this is what the post read countless leftist mouthpieces on X, including Elizabeth Warren.
have been caught sharing a 2017 MSNBC video from a Boston counter protest to make it appear as footage of the 2025 No Kings rally after lower than expected turnout.
No, the turnout was rather large.
You know, I don't know.
We saw a lot of homemade signs, a lot of costume characters out there.
I think this is a fantastic
turnout.
Even in Middleton, one of the corners in Middleton
was
jam-packed with people holding signs and protesting.
What a great site that was.
And tomorrow, thanks to a listener who sent us the audio, Judge Everett Mitchell's opening speech, which was very difficult to follow.
John Nichols did a good job right afterwards, but it was a great speech.
We'll get a little
piece of that tomorrow so uh... uh... it it was uh... just a fantastic speech right uh... let's get to uh... we have uh... cg and a lot
of a bunch of
calls for those of you to get to all of what do you got cj
morning gentlemen
i
don't think i'm gonna call i'd like uh... i thought some uh... videos were
newscasters were rocking around to these protests.
And I love where they asked them why why they were protesting.
And they didn't have any idea.
So what is he doing as a king?
They didn't have any idea.
And Mr. Soglin talked about getting the youth vote.
Turning Point USA.
Charlie Kirk blowing up
Gentlemen,
yeah,
the churches are packed.
The youth are looking for positive messages and they're finding it on the Republicans
But you know the the the message that Charlie Kirk had wasn't a positive one It was a horribly negative one.
It was masked in in Christianity.
It was masked in Christianity It pretended to be a religious point of view and it poisons the poisons
religion
country that's just a terrible message isn't it guys well that's why I
think it's more detailed than that
millions of you are
Headed towards the conservative side as you guys well, you can
say that
crazy people like mendani.
Yeah,
a communist Marxist
well, you know He'll look it will see we'll see how successful he is.
We'll see how successful he is on that Okay, we're gonna take a next next caller here.
It's Charles.
What do you got for us Charles?
Charles got a couple of minutes
Good morning guys, man.
I hate I had to
He had to come before me.
What he does is he really shows his racism.
He does.
My dummy hasn't done anything to anyone except for talking about trying to help everyday normal citizens.
One thing you don't hear coming from the right anymore is helping people.
It was all about, oh, the grocery prices.
We got to bring prices down, housing.
Donald Trump has not said one thing about helping everyday normal citizens.
Exactly.
Good point.
I was calling about the protest.
My wife and I went down to Cathedral Park in Milwaukee, and it was amazing.
Earl was the emcee, did a great job.
Maggie Dawn had a speaking part.
She did great.
It was terrific to see all humans out there, different shades, just enjoying themselves and
trying to save the democracy of this country.
There was no hate speech.
There was no, we hate America.
None of that.
And I think Republicans are but hurt because there were no issues and they thought they were going to be.
I was glad of the time limit thing from 11 to 2 o'clock you dispersed because if you let it linger on, that gives the opportunity for the hooligans.
that they want to come in and disrupt things and then have broadcast it all over the news.
Oh, look at the riots.
They're tearing up stuff.
We thought it was fantastic.
Couldn't ask for a better day.
Exactly.
All right, Charles, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, great point of view.
And that's what happened during the, you know, King's rallies.
Now let's go to Tim Burchett.
He's a Republican and he was out at Burger King.
Let's listen
to him.
your friendly neighborhood Burger King and join my No Kings Day.
It's some traditional flame, broiled goodness in my hand right now.
Could you imagine the Democrat Party calling about No Kings?
And they literally elected their candidate for president, Mala Harris, with no election.
Imagine
that.
Man.
We are irony of it all.
We don't have a king in this country.
All
right, now he also wrote celebrating the fact that I don't have a British accent with a charbroil Whopper in my hand.
Okay, wait a minute.
You know that voice on the familiar Could you play 165 for me here?
Let's listen to this because I think
this
is with the British accent though.
Okay, this is Tim Bershady.
I
think
Cappies is the point where the best hamburgers ought to be found for only 15 cents.
All right.
I think you're right.
Sounds like the same guy.
I know it does sound like the same guy.
And he tipped his hand.
He said, I
don't
have a British accent this time.
Okay.
Fabulous.
Hey, Grouchy captain.
That is going to do it for a Monday tomorrow.
Tom and Christy Madness will join us talking about some fall trip ideas this time of year with the leaves changing and all that kind of thing.
Stephanie Miller is next.
John, have a great day.
Yeah, well, I certainly will.
And
we'll be talking more about No Kings tomorrow as
well.
Yes, sir.
You want smart talk?
You came to the right place.
You want well-behaved hosts?
Yeah, that's not happening.
John and Gordy are back, armed with microphones, coffee, and way too much confidence.
This is The John and Gordy Show on 92.7 WMDX.
be moved you can't move it very far so you
I've
Oh, yeah.
Is that from Jack LaLaine?
No.
It'd be fun to see what they thought exercise was back in the fifties.
Oh, my God.
I know.
I know.
But here's the thing.
I have men's health and I don't know where I got that.
The magazine?
What do you mean you know, it's it's a it's a email bulletin that I get and it might be I thought it was that magazine You're right, but it isn't it's something else and it may be Mayo Clinic or something like that, but the send me emails maybe you know three or four times a week and I read through it and it's geared toward men You know their health what happens to them at each?
Older
You know, I resist aging.
I mean, our brains don't age, right?
But our bodies do, and they start collapsing.
So... What do you mean our brains don't age?
Of course they age.
They shrink.
Your brain shrinks over time.
Yeah, but you don't really think.
I mean, mentally, you really don't think you're older.
But here's the thing, when you're looking at some of the exercises and the stretching exercises that they have for seniors, you know, I was insulted.
Because I was in a very good exercise regimen at home, when I was like 68, 69, I was, you know, I was buff.
in a way, really.
I can't get buff.
I don't have that kind of body.
But, you know, I'm thin, normally thin, so it was good.
And I was really exercising, but I'd look at the senior exercises and I would just, what are they doing?
You know, stretching?
What kind of exercise is that stretching?
What are you doing?
It didn't even make it seem like people can't like move or something like that.
Now, as I keep getting older and older, I'm thinking, you know what, you got to do that.
Stretching that stretching thing.
Yeah, and and I always thought 30 seconds hold that stretch for 30 seconds and You know works it does.
I think that's isn't that what Tai
A long time ago.
I was in karate and every single class that we had started with it started with a stretch.
Did you break a lot of boards?
I did not break a lot of... I was bad.
I didn't even get... I didn't get any belt.
I was out of there as quick as I can.
You didn't like it?
No, I did not because I wasn't good.
Oh, yeah.
And I had grown up watching movies where karate was the answer to every fight.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah karate chop would disable Man from uncle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I spy spy a little karate chopped at the back of the neck now when I watch those movies It's just funny or or Matt Helm, right?
I'm that was the dumbest, you know seeing Dean Martin try to be an action hero didn't work
but
way ahead of the
Well, here it is Friday a little bit later on.
We're going to check in with Savannah Tomei Olson.
Get some of the news headlines of the day and also Pam Yonkey right around the corner here.
We'll get the Midwest food and farm report and find out what she's been up to.
And Rocker will be in the studio with a maxing preview, some great local music happening around our area and around the region.
He'll update us on that.
And of course, it's a Packers week and Packers are actually traveling to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers.
And that's a big Sunday night game, primetime Sunday night football.
Weather today, we have a freeze warning in effect till 9 a.m.
It's really quite cold out
You think it would do that.
Yeah, drawn from, I don't know, the heat in the universe and draw.
But, but, you know, I didn't have a scraper.
And I knew it was a cassette.
No, I knew it.
I knew the scraper was in the Prius, but I don't know who the hell in our house locked up the Prius.
So I had to go back into the house and grab the wrong keys.
That's why you were running late this morning.
I grabbed the keys for the Highlander.
Yeah.
And that didn't work with the Prius.
So I went back into the house and I got the Prius keys and I got the thing out and I scraped the windows and I finally made it.
But boy that that was just a nightmare
Yeah, sleeping in.
Well, sometimes it's pretty cool.
You know, I can just sit there and read some of the crazy stories that we feature on Idiocracy.
And I have one today.
Do you?
Yeah.
This is the fun one.
This is the Reagan quote.
It has to do with tariffs.
And well, the story is basic.
I'll just give you a heads up on it.
Trump canceled negotiations with Canada.
He's mad about something.
Because Canada decided to play the old Ronald Reagan.
Add.
Not add, but the speech that he gave, at least part of it.
About tariffs.
Yeah, about tariffs.
Yeah, he's ending the negotiations with Canada now, just because
In Canada.
And he gave the most ridiculous reason, and we'll get to that.
I mean, you waited here.
I was looking for its comment from TrueSocial, but you have to have an account with TrueSocial to get on TrueSocial.
And I hate TrueSocial more than anything, but I may have to end up doing that.
Actually, no, I'm not going to do that.
Everybody manages to steal stuff from TrueSocial anyway for me.
We can see the before and after.
You know, they're trying to hide all this.
How do you demo late?
Yes.
But they've now blocked off a park that's across the street anywhere where they can get a visual of the demolition.
Now the Secret Service has stepped in and saying, well, this is a security matter.
And it wasn't even a full court.
It was a half court, I think.
Well, you know, it's a tennis court and it's split in half and there was hardly anything there.
Boy, they couldn't handle that.
I mean, you know, again, everybody reminds me, and the anchors are very good with this.
They say, you know, they're really kind of renting the White House.
It's not theirs.
It's not theirs.
So, he just ripped it down.
No advice.
No plans.
Nothing.
am personally I am personally honked off by the demolition of the East Wing I got the opportunity to moderate a White House panel in the East Wing a couple years ago
Invitation of U.S.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack asked me to moderate what they called the climate champions.
It was stories about farmers and landowners from all across the United States and different things they were doing to try to flex and moderate with the climate.
And it was in the East Wing.
And I still have the picture up in my office.
And you know, I mean, how many times do you get a chance to do something in the White House?
And then I watch TV and it's like, oh, there it goes.
I
like I said, I
didn't mean to break, break off your freeze conversation because that was definitely something I noticed this morning.
Rooftops, windshields, the first sign that we've got it, you know, it worked two weeks.
We're about two weeks.
compared to when we normally see freeze in Wisconsin.
Normally that would happen between the fourth and the sixth.
So we've been able to stretch it out a little bit.
The only reason I brought it up for you guys this morning is it's still maybe a little early for some of our Wisconsin potato growers.
We were talking with them this week.
They had gotten
They had to jump start the harvest because it was so hot.
And potato growers have to harvest when the temperatures are as close to about 40 degrees as they can.
So a lot of potato growers started the harvest at midnight, one, two in the morning, because that was when the temperatures were ideal to bring the spuds out of the ground and get them into storage.
Now the little rascals are laying out there in the ground.
And if the freeze occurs,
Well, they've always been describing to me as they said to think of potatoes like a bunch of toddlers on a bus.
Don't touch me.
Don't move me.
They're very picky about how they want to be handled.
Potatoes now if they are, if they accidentally get frozen or something, they can turn into kind of a poison pill when they take them into storage because they've got these big warehouses where they're
piling up potatoes and controlling the temperature and the darkness until you and I need them June and next year.
And if you put one bad spud in the middle of that, it has a tendency to touch all the other potatoes and get them, you know, soft and mushy.
So
our
It was warm and fuzzy for me.
But here's the thing.
You say they dig them up, right?
That's the way they harvest them and they let them sit there for a little while.
Does that mean that, you know, like an initial freeze isn't going to affect them, but if it's a freeze over and over again, then it becomes problematic for these?
They're still insulated Then then we can go for a while, but if for some reason say they dug them yesterday and didn't get a chance to Bring them all in then that's where they can start to get some soft spots or you know one or two that just you know for some reason were exposed but remember potatoes potatoes carrots onions Anybody that's got a garden knows you can leave those in the ground quite a little while
and they're still perfectly fine even after we get you know depending on the snow and that type thing you can leave them in the ground November into almost December and then pull them up and they're still fine because they're insulated it's just when they get exposed to that uh that air that you have to start worrying about their condition
So Trump decides to open the US Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency offices to try to help farmers.
And then he snapped at beef producers that complained about bringing Argentina beef in.
It's like, I guess he started.
to segregate which area of agriculture he wants to side with because he slammed beef producers for criticizing his Argentina beef move.
As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point, a dumbing down.
God, I'm so stupid!
Stupid, foolish, gullible, doddish, dumbbell, lay back.
Idiocracy.
For the
Clear skies this morning, there's frost out there on your windshield.
So you might allow a little extra time to scrape that frost out before you drive around southern Wisconsin.
The freeze warning in effect this morning for all of southern Wisconsin till 9 a.m.
It's gonna clear, it's gonna be clear and sunny today, high around 51 right now, 30 degrees
So anyway,
I know I missed that up Ronald Reagan foundation announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement.
It's a fake.
It is not a fake.
That's what Trump.
Yeah, Trump is saying it's a fake.
It's not fake.
It's not a fake.
It's an action and they even have video.
You know, we use the audio
clips here, but this is a video.
Let's hear what Ronald Reagan said about tariffs and why Canada would want to use this in an advertisement.
Let's go with it.
At first, when someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs, and sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time.
What eventually occurs is
First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs.
They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.
And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs.
High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.
The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers and less and less competition.
So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying.
Then the worst happens.
Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.
Okay.
Let's let's do exactly the opposite and see how that works out Let's prove Ronald Reagan wrong.
Maybe that's what Trump is trying to do here and Canada picked up on this particular speech They're using it in ads in order to attack Trump and his insistence on putting
trade tariffs in place.
And at this point, Canada is also experiencing a near recession at this point.
It might happen really soon, but they're approaching that.
So things are bad in Canada and they need to have some kind of negotiation and now Reagan has kind of inserted himself in here somehow.
And Trump is angry about it.
What can you
right sometimes
And when you repeat stories over and over again, it's something you're rerunning in your head that you have created and that is part of a symptom of dementia.
And he does this all the time.
And I'm wondering if that isn't what the big problem here is.
The other problem, if you have a case of dementia, you have people who are advising you.
And this sounds like he's being advised.
about the Reagan video being a fake, a deep fake.
And that's what they're telling him in the White House.
And he doesn't watch this stuff.
He doesn't understand any of this stuff.
He doesn't even know that this video ever existed prior to this.
So he thinks, well, this is all just created, manufactured, and Canada's using it.
That's my theory.
I think
that this could be an indicator of a real problem and the fact that he isn't actually running the country at all, he's just taking advice, he's just repeating what other people tell him, like what's going on in Portland.
morning guys uh we are truly in the upside down world because uh i feel like there's going to be more republican communism coming as they gobble up corporations as they uh cause them to fail in some ways but
As far as the idiocracy, you know, at least President Camacho wanted the smartest people to run things.
We don't even have that.
Yeah.
in the capital in celebration of bills being passed, you know?
Oh, man.
Oh, man.
Wow.
President Comacho.
All right.
Thank you for that call.
Now, you know, when we talk about idiocracy again, you really have to see this movie and and think when we saw this when it was originally released, it was just stupid.
It was dumb.
Bizarre.
It didn't seem right.
You know, we thought, well, very far off far out.
It didn't exactly work.
It was just too crazy.
Yeah, too over the top.
And now, of course, we are now it's moderate.
Yeah.
Oh, OK.
All right.
Anyway.
Let's get into something else here that's changed the subject a little bit It's a nice trick if you can pull it off Fed employees usually get furloughed pay during shutdowns right not getting fired But now you know Trump is firing them and getting rid of them ruthlessly I'd say
I want to know, do the magas really want to vote for him again?
This is, this is cruel stuff to our fellow Americans.
Here's NBC 4 in DC, a little report on this.
Cut 107, cut 107 about firing these employees.
Let's listen.
Breaking news on a Friday afternoon.
Federal workers, many of them are neighbors here in the Washington DC area are being fired.
A post on X from the director of the office of management and budget Russ vote said rifts have begun government speak for reductions in force in plain English.
It means people are being fired in the midst of this government shutdown.
How many?
One White House source told NBC News a substantial number.
Another source said it is in the thousands.
Where are they?
How will they be notified?
We don't have those answers yet, but a spokesperson told NBC News.
It's deeply unfortunate that thousands of federal workers will be laid off as a result of the Democrat shutdown.
It's unclear if any of this is legal.
It doesn't mean it's not happening.
It'll be fought over in the courts.
In the meantime, those federal employees put in the middle.
In past shutdowns, many of them have been furloughed, asked to work without pay or simply gone without paychecks for some time.
But they would eventually get their jobs back.
Now the White House seems to be pushing the envelope and actually reducing the number of federal employees
through fire.
That's right.
Can't work.
Do not do any work at all.
Don't go on your laptop.
Don't take care of stuff you didn't finish.
Really?
Yeah.
Just stop cold.
Do not do it.
Yeah.
So anyway,
Again, why aren't any of these numbers, these huge numbers of layoffs and firings, why aren't they used in the unemployment report?
You would think that that would just escalate, go right through the roof, but nothing's ever really happened with that.
Must be a problem.
You know what, we'll find out next week.
As we continue that story in Murder Hornets.
All right, let's get to occupying cities.
You know, there's something that snaps in the mega mind where they think that this is the safest way to go.
We really need to take care of crime.
This does it for them, you know, occupying a city with the military, some form of military.
That's the way to do it.
Police force not enough for them.
Go after the sanctuary cities.
Yes.
Bring in the military.
Especially, yes, the democratic cities.
By the way, that last story we heard.
Democrat.
It's Democratic.
Okay.
Let's not fall into the Republican way of saying Democrat.
Okay.
This just burns me every time.
But let's listen to Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.
He was talking about freedom and security and this is cut 162.
Let's get to it.
Everybody's on the same page, marching in unison to deliver the president's agenda and his goals in making Washington, D.C.
safe again, in making Memphis safe again.
Chicago, how can these guys like Chicago, how could they not want to make Chicago safe again?
I'll never understand it for the life of me, how these people do not want to work with this administration.
And I'm talking Pritzker and I'm talking Newsom.
How and why?
man.
Devolishing it.
Yeah, just taking it apart with no permission, no plans whatsoever.
I mean, you know, it started off as $250 million.
Then it went up to three.
Yeah.
And a lot of the stories I have with me are just at three, but he increased it to 350 million dollars.
Really?
Yeah.
He keeps changing.
It's just like all the time.
Well, maybe more donors are
OK.
The government shutdown is now in its third week.
Countless federal employees aren't being paid.
Food stamps will run out soon.
And there's no end in sight.
But not to worry, President Trump is working day and night to build a ballroom.
It's exactly what you voted for, coal miners in Pennsylvania.
90,000 gilded square feet for Trump to do the jerk off dance in.
But if you're worried such a renovation might damage the people's house let Donald Trump put your fears to rest
it wanted to fear with the current building.
I won't be it'll be Near it, but not touching it and paste total respect to the existing building which I'm the biggest fan of it's my favorite
Yeah, it's my favorite.
I never want to leave, and I'm never going to.
I believe it's his favorite building, though.
He loves the history, the decor, the immunity from criminal convictions that it provides.
But great.
The White House itself is going to be fine.
They're not going to touch it.
They're not even going to touch it.
This morning, demolition day at the White House, crews tearing down walls as construction for President Trump's 90,000-square-foot ballroom ramps up.
It looks like they touched it.
I mean, holy shit.
Who's his general contractor, Bin Laden and son?
Apparently not touching the White House turned into demolishing the White House.
And for what?
Does he really need a ballroom attached to his home?
I mean, it would be good to have one room where Baron didn't have to crouch, but still.
I mean, they're tearing apart the entire East Wing.
I hope there's nothing important going on there.
Constructed in 1902, the East Wing house is the office of the First
Lady.
That's harsh.
That's harsh.
Do you think Trump warned Melanin in advance or did a crane just scooper up mid-bubble bath?
Yeah, we
Hey, good morning, guys.
I wanted to go back to the whole crime thing.
I was saying, I said to the day I died, it's never been about crime.
They're not going into the crime areas of these cities.
I always believe that this was a fake outrage of it's in the crime emergency.
so they could actually be able to go into the sanctuary cities and round up immigrants.
And that's what it's always been about.
Because like I said, they didn't go into the high crime areas of DC.
They're not going to go into the high crime areas of Chicago.
It's all about protecting the thugs, as they call them, the ICE agents.
And that's what it's all about.
So it's the fake outrage in there.
Oh, they, they Democrat, the Democratic party don't care about crime.
They, they want the thugs and that to just run, rap it and kill people.
And they're the ones that's unleashing crime.
Oh yeah.
The biggest criminal and at the head of the White House, 34 count felon.
It puzzles me when they talk about crime.
And then they look at him and I'm like, what are they thinking?
Well, no, they're not thinking.
They're not.
you, Charles.
How comfortable are you with the president apparently seeking $230 million in the Department
I don't know the details about that.
I just read it.
I don't know.
I've never seen the Epstein evidence.
It wasn't in my lane.
I don't know anything about the mean point thing.
I don't know.
I don't know anything about the dinner.
I was a little busy this past week because you know.
I'm not following all the twists and turns of the...
guitar jet.
I haven't looked into the details of the RSC budget.
There's lots of nuances.
At first I've heard of that.
I don't know anything about it.
I
I've been a little busy.
I haven't seen the specifics of that and I don't know.
I don't know the details.
I just saw a headline this morning.
I don't know what you're talking about with the children.
Look, I'm not going to make any detailed statement on this because I don't know the details.
I've been very busy the last 48 hours
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