Please stand by for the John and Gordy morning show.
Phone lines are open right now.
Call or text 608-879-8255 or use the free Civic Media app.
And now, live from the Civic Media headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, here are John and Gordy.
We're truly sorry.
It's going good.
So far.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, so far, so good.
Yeah.
Well, we could stumble at any moment.
Things should go off off the rails.
By the way, did your parking
pass work this morning?
Yeah.
Mine did not work.
Oh, what do you think that means?
That means
maybe maybe it's a one man show.
Damn.
It's just getting used to this.
Well, I was hoping they'd tell you in a different way.
Oh
well.
It's been fun while it lasted.
Good morning, it's Monday.
But take that for a show promo.
Oh yeah, I'll take that.
You sell the Catherine
now.
Yeah, really.
Here it is, Monday, the 22nd day of December, you know, Christmas, just a couple of days away.
You all ready?
You all ready for the holiday?
I am not ready for it.
I'm having the time of my life.
I am having such a good time spending money that I am just like, you know, just amazing that holiday feeling you get spending every dime that you have.
You know, there's something
about
it.
I don't know.
I wish every day could be Christmas.
What's the matter
with you?
Actually, looking at our Amazon bill, I would say every day is Christmas.
By the way, speaking of my Amazon bill, I have an Amazon card, credit card.
It's a city bank.
And I found out that I was about a month and a half late on my...
payment yeah okay now I've I've been longer overdue than that right the thing is I just kind of let it go for a couple of months and then just pay the damn thing off right and I pay it off every time
But anyway, and it's exorbitant.
I mean, you know, we're talking $3,000, $4,000.
You buy a lot of stuff.
You are a consumer.
I'm surprised you have room
in your house for anything else.
I know, we're hoarders.
Do you have automatic payments though?
Do you have automatic payments?
What do you mean?
Like, he pays it off.
He pays it off?
No, I pay the whole thing off, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
And everything kind of goes through that card because then we get points and then we get discounts on things we purchase on Prime.
The thing is, because I was late and I don't get this at all, this is a weird time of the year to do this, but they froze my charging abilities.
So, you know, I'm trying to tune into my Hulu plus account and apparently it needed a payment for the month and I couldn't get the Hulu and I got really, I really got pissed off.
So I talked to a representative at Citibank and she said, well, that's what we do.
So no, you don't.
I've been later than this, and I never had this happen, and you're doing this at the holiday season.
What a wonderful Christmas gift for me.
And so, by the way, what makes it even worse is that I had just paid the bill.
You know from my account at the credit unit.
I just it's an electronic transfer But I had just paid it the whole thing off and then all of a sudden this happens So so I go to their website and they have Pay now, you know, you can make
a
quick payment
sure
and that won't allow me to do that because they froze the I can't make a payment
to just get it off the hook.
What are you going to do now?
What do you call it?
So you get it straightened out?
No, no,
today, today being Monday.
I mean, this happened all on Saturday.
So, you know, being Monday, I would assume that the electronic transfer will go through and everything will be fine.
The normal way we pay, but I can't do it online.
I can't do it on their website.
Oddly.
But we'll see what happens, you know, keep updated.
I'm really mad.
And I'm thinking of going to my Costco card and putting all of my subscriptions on the Costco card and screw prime, screw Citibank.
And I'm going, I'm leaving these people behind.
If they want to do this on the holiday season, they can go to hell.
I'm just thinking, you know, you guys, and it's like, okay, we also base this on your credit.
Yeah record and I said well my credit record shows that I paid the damn bill every couple of months off, right?
You know, I don't just make little payments here and there and I don't know you know, just yeah, and I've got a credit score of like 820 or something
like
that So I don't know I'm
just
like I'm mystified by this they're treating me like some kind of scum and that's not gonna happen
Sorry you
have to go
through this.
It's a during the holiday season.
Very sad Okay Weather for today a few sprinkles few flurries right now 31 degrees highs around 37.
Hey phone lines are open 608-879-8255 Let's go to Matt in Middleton for our early morning called.
All
right.
Good
morning Matt.
Hi
Matt
Morning guys
Just wait, John.
Wait until your credit is attached to your allegiance and your online comments related to Clinton Point USA.
Then you'll get a good credit score as long as you be a good little white nationalist.
I wanted to talk about this AI thing quick because I talked to my 12-year-old niece yesterday.
We went out to dinner with the family and she says that
something like eight out of ten of her classmates are already cheating on their exams, their papers, cheating as much as they possibly can using AI.
And it's all the rage as we create this idiocracy before us.
Yes, yes,
yes.
And I now think that this, and I also saw that in San Francisco they had a power outage.
at a data center that caused all the Waymo cars to go dead in their tracks, causing major backups on the street, everything, major chaos.
Oh, no.
But that's okay.
We just need to go go fast and break as much as possible because the billionaires need more power.
That's what I'm
thinking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's that's not a good situation to be in if you're underway some place.
Yeah, and that's in the traffic backups.
They were literally stopped in the middle of the street.
Oh,
no.
Wow.
See, that's,
you know, that's
something to keep in mind with these Waymo's or any of these automated cars,
right?
Yes.
This can happen.
That must have been chaos.
Yes.
Well, Matt,
thank you.
We'll have to look into that.
Wow.
That is
just a whoo.
Matt, thanks for that call.
You know, I thought I had problems.
OK.
And then those Waymos, of course, you know, they have 360 cameras on them.
So, you know, can surveil its area, which still freaks me out a little bit.
Remember the protests in LA?
Yeah.
The.
burned Waymo's because of the cameras and they were using the cameras by the police
force
in
order to
find protesters.
So I don't know, you know, this surveillance society is driving me crazy.
We were talking about this over Christmas and my family and it was just like, there will be a time when we'll look back at this time and think, wow, we were really free.
We had so many possibilities.
You know, we could go online, we could do this,
that, and
the other.
We could find things.
We had privacy.
None of that will be true in about 10, 15 years.
Oh, you were given a 10 or 15 years?
Oh, I think it's going to happen
way before that.
Yeah, that's what I think is going to happen.
So we're all doomed.
And
that's about
it?
We
got a message here, John, from Gary.
Yes, Gary Henson.
He says, John, instead of the giant vendors previously mentioned, you can always consult the Oracle, your listeners, about alternative places to
shop.
That's a good
idea.
That's a good idea.
And by the way, Scott mentions that you can set up auto payment to pay in full.
I did not know that you could set it up so it just pulls out whatever it needs.
That's
what I, yeah, that's what I use for my discovery.
Yep.
I just have auto payment and I don't even have to think about it.
It just pays the entire bill.
It knows how much to
take out.
Yep.
That's very nice.
Oh, okay.
Well, I feel like I'm a little behind the curve here.
I'm going to set that up.
The hell with this, right?
Look I hate them now.
I hate them now more than ever.
Yeah
And I'm thinking well, I'd like to be able to use my Costco card,
you
know
I
don't have a Costco credit card, but I
was
thinking of maybe getting one and then using that for some reason to I get points yeah for that one so I don't know You know one way or another we're going to Get even with city bank whether it's I don't know destroying their buildings one by one
Really?
No, I'm
just
kidding.
But you know, it's not fair during the Christmas season.
The thing is, you know, you could just be building up, building up, making a lot of purchases, raising that bill up, and then suddenly they do this, which seems really odd at a weird time of the year to do this.
But I don't know.
Maybe they're just flexing their muscles.
Maybe the billionaires are flexing their muscles and saying, nope, you can't.
You can't do that anymore.
We gotcha.
Okay, let's go back to the phones.
Mark is on the line this morning from Prairie to Sack.
Good morning, Mark.
Yeah, good morning.
Yeah, I was just thinking that it's like the billionaires are Colossus and at the end when Colossus is saying we were supposed to regard them with with a respect and awe.
Yes.
And we're supposed to come to love them because you know that freedom is just an illusion and that the only thing people that should actually be free is
are the billionaires because we are just the serfs and the only thing is is to make them wealthier so they can be like the old Beverly Hillbillies where Milvren dies they would put out of the vault and swim in the cash and when he would get flustered Mr. Yang would wave the stacks on the entities
and
they would always wake up and then it was just
There's
something, you know, like,
it's so great
talking about these characters.
Like there's some kind of legendary, you know,
Beverly
Hillbilly.
Beverly Hillbilly characters, you know.
Yeah, but forgot about Milburn Drysdale.
Yeah.
Swimming in the cash.
Great stuff.
It's just sad because these guys, you know, that it's like we're living in, you know, mid mid.
19th century England and they're all Ebenezer Scrooge We're just supposed to be grateful that you know, whatever crumb is drop off the table that
yeah Well,
that's where we are.
We're in the golden age here mark remember this is the golden age.
Yeah
It's fool's gold and that's iron pyrite and that's what is that isn't that lead lead and iron and lead mixed together I think
yes, I think that's what it is.
Yeah, I
Well, all right.
I always
appreciate that,
Mark.
Thank
you.
We're left to the Fool's Gold, because as a kid, I used to find Fool's Gold all over and I thought,
well,
how do they know this is Fool's Gold?
It could be real gold.
You know, why am I assuming it's Fool's Gold?
Where
were you finding Fool's Gold in Milwaukee, in the rivers and streams around the area panning for gold?
They had
a trestle, and all this, the trestle would eat away, you know, the land would just kind of drain off, and it would expose more rocks and fossils and things like that.
I used to collect and I'd run across fool's gold.
I
think they knew it was gold.
They just wanted to keep us down.
They wanted to keep the middle class down.
On 19 past the hour, in a moment, we hope to check in with Pam Yankee from the Midwest Food and Farm Report.
Just getting going on a Monday morning.
It's John and Gordy, along with producer Dominic.
We'll be right
back.
You
can ask me what's trending?
What's trending?
You can ask me what's trending?
What's trending?
What's trending?
That
little trending thing.
What?
I love that.
I like it too.
What's trending?
This is Johnny Gordy in the morning on WMDX.
We never say that very often anymore, you know?
Well, we're doing... Yeah, we're filling
in... 92.7.
for ourselves this morning.
Yeah, we're filling it for ourselves.
Mostly we've been doing the afternoon show and we'll be there this afternoon from two to five.
But yeah, we're back for a rare morning visit here.
But joining us is our friend Pam Yankee.
Good morning, Pam.
Yeah, good morning, guys.
I know how that goes, especially around the holidays.
We were sitting down as a team trying to figure out who's going to be where and who else is covering what they're doing and whose voice is going to be where.
Yeah, yeah, it's that time of year for sure.
So how about those Packers and Bears?
I
can't believe that I found myself cheering for old number 12 last night against the Lions.
That was that was crazy Put aside my old childish Could act in like a diva side and actually good for the old man to come
ahead
So, uh, yeah, Packers still have two games left and they just need to win one to, uh, at least secure that they're still in the running.
Yeah.
Seven o'clock this Saturday, seven o'clock.
That's such an odd seven o'clock on Saturday
for that
Ravens game.
So that's just.
For the people that come to our house up by Green Bay, I have to struggle.
Am I feeding you lunch or dinner
or dessert?
Or
what am I putting out for you that you might feel engaged to want to eat?
So menu planning has begun in earnest to try to figure out what a seven o'clock on a Saturday.
With this weather too, that's the other thing normally I can lean on things like chilly or something to keep your body warm But now it seems like if anything will be taken layers off by the time we get to Saturday.
Yeah The thing here is these
I guess, you know, seven o'clock is a pretty good time because then you'll have time to go out and party afterwards, you know.
But
well, yeah, not have to worry about getting up for work the next day theoretically.
That's true.
Yeah.
I'm not crazy
about Saturday night games, though.
Well, extended forecast for Saturday for Green Bay is 38 degrees for high.
So it'll probably be in mid 30s around game time.
Oh, that brings up a really good point.
What?
And I think you'll agree with this, Pam.
They tried to freeze the packers out on the sidelines.
Did you see that?
Yeah, they didn't bring heaters,
right?
The
heaters were broke so.
I hear
them talking about that.
Yeah.
The heaters were there, but they wouldn't blow or whatever.
So yeah.
Yeah.
And it looked windy as the Dickens, boy.
I don't know
for folks that might have been at the shoulders field, but I was watching just the pants legs of the refs and how they were slapping in the wind.
It's like, man, that's, you forget how much wind you can get off the lake.
Right.
Toilet bowl.
Toilet bowl, yes, swirling around.
Yes, that toilet bowl down there.
All right.
Yeah.
So let's get into this other, there is a, there's a, what, a convention, right?
Convention.
Well, yeah, that's one thing that I just think is kind of interesting.
I think we talked about it a little bit last week is how the Wisconsin Farmer's Union decided that they really wanted to walk the walk when it comes to buy local and know your farmers.
So what they did is focus in on trying to make sure all of their convention meals were emphasizing local.
And it was pretty cool, Lane.
Cosolino is the director of special projects for the Farmers Union that had to work with the Chula Vista Resort, their staff, their menu folks, and try to come up with some creative ways.
They fed 280 attendees seven meals each with a local emphasis, 70 local ingredients, and 40 farmer members that were incorporated into the menu.
And they didn't want to make the chefs
completely irritated.
So they did try to work with what their menu had and then just incorporate local ingredients from local farms.
And then during the meal, they highlighted the members in the audience that were supplying some of the things like legumes, mushrooms, different dairy products, some of the stuff that they added on storage potatoes and garlic and things like that.
But I just thought, you know, think about how how much extra work for a convention it is.
to try to work with an institutional buyer like a restaurant and try to incorporate those local ingredients.
I just thought it was worth a way to go start on a Monday in the Wisconsin Farmer's Union for not only talking the talk, but walking the walk when it comes to that buy local, know your farmer
movement.
Oh yeah, that's the way it should be.
Yeah, good for them
for
doing that.
Boy, I remember, you know, many years ago they had like restaurant conventions in Madison.
I knew somebody and they have all these restaurant tours there and they'd have displays and all the food would be laid
out
and that was something that, you know, as a radio announcer, Pam.
That's the only way I could be fed.
Send me to those.
Yeah, I'll go to that one, sure.
I'll be happy to represent.
Sure.
I'll spin on that one for just a minute, John, because on Friday we had our all-building Christmas party.
And, you know, I'm a food pusher.
It's what I do.
So I brought
the
cheesy potatoes.
I brought the, you know, the shredded pork and all that.
My
husband
wanted to bring apple crisp.
And he was absolutely vexed.
We don't have an oven at the office.
He said, why don't you have an oven?
I said, you know the people I work with, you know radio people.
That's just not insurable in our building.
So
he knew the toaster oven to warm his apple crisp.
because he was absolutely convinced that nobody would eat apple crisp that wasn't warm.
And then he also brought ice cream.
I said, ice cream, are you kidding?
These people are going to be so full.
But again, it's his farm ethics that believe you cannot serve apple crisp without ice cream.
And like
you
said, I swear to God, everybody that had a Ziploc in their office came running down the hall when they heard that the food was going to be served because that is just radio.
That is radio at its
truest moment.
That is exactly what is there.
That's what we do.
Oh,
boy.
Well, Pam, we got to leave it there.
Happy holidays to you.
All right,
boys, I'm going to be gone
now, yeah.
We will,
too.
We'll catch up with you in 2026, my friend.
Absolutely.
Thank
you very much.
That's Pam Yankee from the Midwest Food and Farm Report, which is next.
Then we're back with Idiocracy on John and Gordy in the morning.
But it is free.
That's true
Good enough for a lot of us It's Johnny Gordy in the morning right here in WM DX ninety two point seven check us out on the civic media app as well
Pick our station and then text or voice notice or give us
a call.
And you can call us at 608-879-8255.
Weather for today, maybe a few flurries or sprinkles, no big deal.
31 degrees currently, highs around 37 with mostly cloudy skies through the day.
Got some information here, John, from the Madison Streets Department on Madison Street Collections, and I'll pay attention to this because
it's a
little convoluted.
Madison Street collections on Wednesday or Thursday, in honor of the holiday, there will be no Madison Streets collections on Wednesday or Thursday.
You got that?
And the drop-off sites will also be closed.
If your household normally has Tuesday or Wednesday pickup, have your carts to the curb by 6.30 a.m.
on Tuesday.
You got that?
If you have Thursday or Friday pickup, get them out there by 6.30 a.m.
on Friday.
Everybody knows that.
If everybody knows
you get it out of there first thing in the morning, my God!
All right, you don't need that information sure cuz I could run through it again.
No, don't do that.
It's just
you know pickups on
Wednesday and
really Thursday Kiss that goodbye Okay, all right.
Well anyway
Are we going to play this little cut here from Charlie
Barron's?
Do you have that ready, Dom?
Because we
were talking about the Packers with Pam Yankee.
Do you see the game?
I did.
It was unbelievable.
I watched the whole thing.
Oh,
my God.
What a
game.
All the way down to the last minute.
OK.
Over time and everything.
And the Bears pull it out.
OK.
Well, here's Charlie Barron's response to all this.
OK.
Well.
It usually does help Clicker
He's
really depressed.
He's
decked out in Packer clothes with swear words all over against the barons.
In the video it looks like he's gonna cry too.
I mean, his eyes are so boy-shot.
I'm so sorry
for him.
Yeah, good.
Well, you know.
It's Charlie Barons.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, God, that is just wild.
So should we get into a little idiocracy?
Did you track this speech that Trump just went completely...
off the rails.
I know it's hard to pick one,
but... Well, let's play the official theme of idiotic resolution.
Oh yeah, we haven't got
an area yet.
Alright, gotta do that, you know.
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.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything.
That could be considered a rational thought.
Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this.
Yes.
We can duck and cover.
There's a fallout shelter right there.
There's no way to survive this, you idiot.
Idiocracy.
For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.
That's how I'm afraid that we won't be able to survive this.
We had three damn warriors of this.
Yeah.
I mean, we've done away with public health, which, you know,
That's a serious item.
Yes, and Well and every day, you know, they change what they're going to do with rebates checks in the mail Tariffs drug prices anybody following how they're making these drug prices Laura.
I'm not I can't and I know everything about health care I can't make heads or tails of how they're doing this.
Yeah
It's just ridiculous.
Anyway, you have this fantastic cut.
Yeah, this was just one of many
moments.
By the way, this afternoon we're going to be checking in with the, and this is compliments of Joe who gave us a hat tip on this one.
It is the story of the Christmas story of the snake, the poisonous snake.
Oh really?
Okay.
Trump
had a
heartwarming Christmas story and we'll be
visiting that this afternoon.
Oh good.
Well, this is from speech, you know, he's likes to likes to go on the road every once in a while, you know, just to get out of the White House Well, this time he was in North Carolina at Rocky Mount, North Carolina and This is on the affordability tour.
Okay, so you might remember the FBI's raid on
You know, at Mar-a-Lago.
Yes.
About the, you know, all the files and all this stuff.
He's still kind
of smart.
Yeah, he's still, he's still reliving that.
And boy, oh boy, this went really sideways really fast.
Boy, is this a funny story?
You know, he's, oh.
Somehow he got.
I don't
know, he's like a stand-up comedian, just riffing.
He started talking about Melania's underwear.
So, you know, hang on to something and here we go.
Throw it.
Oh god.
Oh, that's outrageous.
We have to we have to do something about you.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Can you imagine?
I just just.
It's.
Can you imagine any other president doing anything like that?
No, and no, no, no, no.
And of course, you know, it kind of bypasses the whole point of the the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate.
And that is to recover the boxes.
Files, files and files and files and boxes of top secret information that he eventually posted up all over my logo.
You know, kind of decorative in his bathroom.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Or at least, you know, he had boxes in the bathroom, which I assume you can just sit on instead of the toilet.
Yeah.
God, it's just a he's just a creepy, creepy person.
All right doesn't sound good.
No, I mean it's I He's he's really losing it.
I mean I lost it a long time ago, but he's really it's getting really bad now
Well,
somebody's just gonna have to you know,
I was kind of rampa
away.
I Was watching America Fest.
Oh,
were
you?
Yeah
Get together
and Guess who appeared at America Fest a guy who's running kind of a weird like Trumpian campaign for governor here Tom Tiffany.
Oh, he was there.
Yeah, he spoke Believe it or not acting like well, you know, he's mr. Big Shot Again, he is running Trump's campaign here in Wisconsin as Wisconsin governor
which is really bizarre.
Now he just got passed a bill that allows hunting wolves again in the state.
This guy is like, he's like a, he's like an earth mover, you know, he just, he doesn't care what's in his way.
He's just gonna plow through it.
He allowed sand mining next to schools.
Remember this?
And the school and the parents were worried about silica.
Dust being in the air because it is a it's not good for your health to cause his cancer So he he's he got he got these pits to be made near schools
He didn't care right
he didn't he doesn't it doesn't matter nothing matters to this guy and now he's running like Trump ran for president for
our Wisconsin governor.
So anyway, he got up there and he spoke.
Why don't we play this?
This is cut to 19.
All right.
To 19.
Okay.
Take a look at Minnesota.
Millions.
Billions of Somalian led welfare fraud that Tim Walz ignored.
Yes, boo.
Look at Illinois.
Billions and free benefits for illegal aliens while American families struggle to pay their bills.
No, that's not true.
No.
Look
at New York where felons walk free and they'll try to lock you up for defending yourself Those are the real consequences of Democrat rule and they want Wisconsin to be the next victim Let let me ask you do you want Wisconsin to look like those failed states?
No, we don't Repeat after me only louder.
No, we
No one's
really
and the socialists who will likely run against me and this governor's race said America's founding was awful.
What let that sink in?
Well, that doesn't make any sense at all.
I am sick and tired of politicians who enjoy America's freedom and opportunity yet spend every day trying to tear it down.
We deserve leaders who thank God for America.
And we need leaders that will not apologize for it.
OK.
Wow.
Those are the kind of leader.
You
know,
I am
Tiffany.
The word leader just really just turns me completely off.
You're not a leader.
You're working for us.
You dip.
Yeah.
And of course, you know, it's like, oh, well.
You have your healthcare, but we don't.
How about that, huh?
We put you there to help us out, spend our tax dollars, and give us healthcare, but no, no, no, you guys are the elite.
You're in your ivory towers there in Congress.
You don't need to worry about us out here struggling to pay our healthcare
costs.
No, they've got healthcare, automatically, pensions lined up after they leave office
if they've
been there enough time.
And then he brings up a whole bunch of stuff that isn't real.
Nothing real.
And this is the thing, and he took a shot at Minnesota.
Minnesota is ahead of us.
It's killing us because they have better policies, they have better work environments there.
Yeah, environmental controls.
A lot of companies go there instead of Wisconsin.
They're killing us.
And he keeps saying he doesn't want to be anything like Minnesota.
Well, thank you so much, Tom Tiffany, for that promise.
Boy, you're going to be governor just like
that.
We will continue with more idiocracy for a Monday morning.
It's John Peterson, Gordy Young, along with Dominic Lee, live from downtown Madison.
Just a block from the Capitol.
We'll be right back with more.
Stay with
us.
John and Gordy in the morning 92.7 FM and on the civic media app as well.
Oh boy It's
653, you
know after a crazy weekend of watching news clips and listening to them and you know, I just want to you know, just I just want to Huddle in the corner in the fetal position and just Curl up, you know, we wake me up in three years, you know if we're still around if we still have any kind of country at all
Yeah.
Oh man.
It
can be depressing at times.
You want to take a phone call?
Yeah
sure.
Raise us up a little bit.
Joe's always got
a good story for us.
What do you got for us Joe?
Good
morning Joe.
Well, I would like to return to Melania Trump's underwear drawer.
I found that a fascinating little bit.
First off, she's going on and on about what her underwear drawer looks like.
Now, you tell me, you dig through your wife's underwear drawer.
I mean, do you open it and just look and go, honey, that's just amazing.
I mean, yeah.
You're right.
You're right.
That's crazy,
isn't it?
This is Ludacris and the idea number two that she's folding the underwear.
Oh, yeah, right.
She has staff, honey.
She's not folding
it.
Yeah, and steaming
it.
What was I
thinking?
And it just, you know, he starts out on these lies and it just takes you down this river of disbelief with all his little eddies and currents to it.
I mean, was he trying to say that when they released the warrant to search for the box of the classified
top secret material that he had and classified material that he had stolen from the White House that they were going to Melania's underwear drawer.
I mean that there was underwear strewn all over because it doesn't a warrant have to indicate where you're going to search.
And does anybody say Melania's underwear drawer is one of the places we're going to search for boxes or boxes for material?
This makes no sense at all.
I mean, you might say her closet.
But in that case, it would be her shoes, her clothing, her underwear.
Everything was strewn all over.
But his specificity about the underwear drawer.
Can you imagine being married to somebody who brings us up in a big crowd?
I think the only thing we can do is to query every Republican now.
as to what their wife's underwear drawer looks like.
Because we want to take it from the top.
If you looked at your wife's underwear drawer, and what does that tell us about you as a candidate and how you're going to run the country?
Well, that's a great idea, yes.
That would be a required question by reporters at this point now.
You're right.
And brought it up.
The last thing I wanted to mention was that, again, last week, Trump in his River of Disbelief had voted this idea that we're going to have this
$1,776 payment to service members.
You know, everybody, they're going to get a one-time payment of that.
And he, of course, was claiming it was going to come out of the munificence of all of the money he's raised on the tariffs.
And now we find out that it's going to be coming out of a housing allowance that Congress sets aside for service people to help them with their housing if their pay isn't enough and if they're living in an expensive part of the country and they need that money.
So they're going to get a one-time payment, and it's going to cut down on what's available for housing allowance.
The housing allowance is every month.
Every month you're paying for housing, not a one-time payment.
It's ridiculous.
And as some of these service people are saying, you know, a thousand seven hundred and seventy six dollars is just like a half of a housing, a mortgage payment for a lot of people, you know, or one month's rent, you know, whereas you could, if you keep that money intact, you're not going to blow it up for service members.
They're going to be able to, at the same time you're cutting the VA, we are in La La land.
We are just in a very odd place, but I'm very interested to follow the story of Melania's underwear.
I'd like to know about every.
politicians wife's underwear drawer too.
Sure.
So,
there you go.
Thanks so much.
All right.
So, thanks.
Happy holidays.
The river of disbelief.
Yeah.
It's just, you know.
Yeah, it is.
You're right.
He's like a riffing commuting.
I mean, he's trying to be.
He's trying
to be a
comedian.
He's trying to be funny.
Yes.
But just to start talking about your the first lady's underwear drawer.
Man, oh man.
And it doesn't get funny.
Can you imagine any other president doing
Anything close to
that?
No, but you know,
the thing is he does get laughs from the cult.
I don't know why they think that's funny, but they do.
And I guess it's just his arm motions and his expressions, which I think they also find kind of humorous.
We find it dangerous.
Right?
Well, anyway, pushing everybody else to suicide.
But it's
really getting into crazy, crazy land here
and really
land.
Well, let's get into crazy land while we're still in idiocracy here.
This is J.D.
Vance.
And this is, by the way, audio that was retweeted by Elon Musk, who has his preoccupation with white people.
for some reason.
Oh yeah.
So let's listen to cut to 16 JD Vance.
Unlike the left, we stand against treating anybody.
And I love what Nikki said about this.
We don't treat anybody different because of their race or their sex.
That's a lie.
So we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs.
That's fair stuff there.
What are you doing?
In the United States of America, you don't have to apologize for being white anymore.
There
is.
Wow.
Yes, you don't have to apologize for that.
You know, being two white guys.
Yeah.
And I haven't really experienced any of this.
You ever apologized
for
being
white?
Yeah, I really never questioned, you know, whether a person got the job because they were a minority or not or because they were better than... You know, I just...
You know, you apply for jobs, you either get it, you don't.
Exactly.
You don't sit there wondering, well, I guess.
Yeah, somebody
else got that.
They weren't qualified.
I swear to God, that wasn't qualified.
You know, it's just, you don't do that.
You don't think like that.
But, you know, they got everybody thinking like that on the mega side.
Yeah,
doesn't work like that.
Very weird.
We'll take more of your calls, 608-879-8255.
You can also text us on the Civic Media app.
We've got news straight ahead also of sports.
some weather updates for the holidays and then we're back with more of John and Gordy for a Monday morning after this.
B-
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.
The 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.
All right, dude.
Take them away.
Wait, I mean, you know, the sunrise is getting...
The sun rises at 726.
Is
that according to your Samsung watch?
20 minutes away from that right now.
Yeah.
425 in the afternoon sun set.
Yeah,
it's winter time, you
know.
Which I took advantage of yesterday because I went out and I tried out the old Prius.
I replaced the light bulbs, the headlights, low beams, and I had to see if...
I did a good job and I did not do a good job.
What are they pointing upward or sideways or
something?
The driver's side is a little on the side, which is okay.
At least it's better than what it used to be.
And then the other side is all foggy and I don't know why.
So it's not really doing much of a job of aiming the headlight.
You know, headlights are, they used to be easy to replace.
Yes, it was just a bulb.
Yeah.
But now I've got my left
headlight, my driver's side headlight has been out on my Subaru and I usually go to AutoZone or you know, whatever it is.
You know one of these other
places they actually put the bulbs in maybe
well Yeah, some most of these places will do that But when they came out there to look at it, they said well, okay, you can buy the bulb here, but we can't do this one I'm like really I've never had that happen before usually yeah, but this is a Subaru and this is on the driver's side and There you have to take the side panel off
Like seriously.
Oh, no.
Yeah, you got to take it to a body shop and take the panel off in order to get to the headlight, which is insane to me.
That seems insane.
The other side, no problem.
But
this because the battery is on the left side or on the driver's side.
Yeah, they couldn't get to the headlight thing.
So I'm driving around.
I'm trying to find a place that'll do this.
Not gonna cost me an arm and a leg.
Sure.
That's sure.
That's really.
Yes.
I went I went to three places there.
Yeah, we can't do it
Oh
my
god,
you're gonna try try
babbling try babbling babbling is pretty
good.
Yeah, yeah, babbling Yeah, that's where I go to get everything for everything.
All right.
Well, I think they can do that I think they could wait a minute.
Is that the the oil change shop?
Yes,
it does it does they do other stuff too.
Oh, they
do.
Yeah, yep
Yeah, check it out.
Well, you know, thank
you for that An
additional tip on that you could always go to Groupon and get a coupon for Balvely.
There we go.
Okay.
All right.
I didn't know Groupon still exists.
Oh, yeah.
Does it
really?
Yes.
Yeah.
No idea.
I I'm gonna I'm gonna say this a little snobbery here
a
little
snobbery.
Okay.
I have the space car now.
Oh,
yeah.
I don't need
oil changes anymore.
I just want to
let you know that
you don't have to go through that hell anymore.
And
then I did.
I took the Prius out just to see if the headlines were aligned
or not.
And
then and then I'm like experiencing, you know, an engine with cylinders in it.
And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is like, you know, from your
time.
Yeah,
this is like, who use it?
Engines with cylinders?
The delay of energy?
Oh, man, it just sucks.
I am so spoiled with the EV.
Good God.
Mr. Money Pants over here.
OK, well, thank you.
Look, I took advantage of the $4,000 rebate from
Trump
before he.
Canceled them.
Yeah, good for you.
Damn it.
We got a
20.
Yeah, a $20,000 EV.
I think that's pretty good.
Oh, yeah.
You know, for a new EV.
It's fantastic.
Yeah.
So anyway, yeah.
You know just one of those little stories I thought I'd pass along I look I have something here from Matt and he He texted this I am thinking idiocracy takes place after the last data center and AI engineer dies and we're left with a useless populations of mega You know that that really is actually yeah, I'm thinking we should send that to Mike Judd
He could actually have an idiocracy too based just on that idea alone.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's send let's send that off to Matt.
You might get some
You know,
some money, some
residuals.
You can always pass it along to your friends.
And Mark says, when it came to certifying the 2020 election, did Tom Tiffany go along with how Wisconsin voted?
No, he supported the insurrection and betrayed us.
And not only that, Mark, he also supported taking healthcare away from all of us on the ACA by not giving us the...
the subsidized subsidized tax credits.
So, yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's Tom.
He's always thinking about us here in Wisconsin.
Let's make him governor.
Oh, boy.
Oh,
my God.
At least Eric Hovde announced he's not running.
I was going to say,
at least it's not stand up comedian Eric Hovde.
He's pulled out of the race, not that he was ever in it.
It was the worst campaign I'd ever seen.
And he was
neck and neck with Tammy Baldwin
who
does so much for Wisconsin.
My commercials were awful.
And not only that, he had so many bad things come out.
While he was running for governor, you know, he has a bank and that bank absorbed other banks' loans, business loans, and then what they did was they canceled those
Business loans, these were, you know, people who had the business loans were paying them off just as they always do.
And all of a sudden found out that they had to come up with the entire loan
or
they had to call the quits and they called it quits.
He
put a
whole bunch of businesses out of business and he was touting himself as the small business bank.
You
know, it's stories like that that don't get a lot of publicity during the campaign, but they really,
really should.
Well, we can be safe now that he's not running for governor.
Well, made that announcement a few days ago.
I guess that's good, right?
Yeah,
I
think so.
All right.
What do you think about this story, John?
Yeah.
You know, you and I, you know, when we get off the air, we swear like sailors, right?
We do.
You know, there's a lot of bombs being dropped here and there.
Usually it's about the show or what, you know, something I said or you said we disagreed with or something Dom said.
Or
what Catherine said.
Yeah.
But get this, there's a new study published by the Journal of American Psychologists, because, you know, they know everything.
They show that swearing can boost your physical performance by helping people overcome their inhibitions and pushing themselves harder in strength and endurance tests.
Um, wow.
Yeah.
Isn't that something you're
prepared to work out?
Well, I, in many situations, people hold themselves back consciously or unconsciously from using their full strength.
And they say swearing is easily available as a way to keep yourself focused and confident and less distracted and go for it a little more.
It's a good thing.
Uh, they say it's a well replicated, reliable finding.
And, um,
the psychological mechanisms say that swearing throws off your social constraint and allows yourself to push harder in different situations.
So yeah, so swear like a sailor.
Yeah.
Wow.
You know, swear like a.
We have changed.
We have changed the whole format here in the show now.
I can
see you've been pushing for more swearing.
Well, I think the S word should be allowed on the air and
I'm
pushing that.
Yeah.
Heavily here.
Yeah, I swear to God.
We're gonna be
able to say the
s-word in the
not too distant future Wow Swearing is literally a calorie neutral drug-free low-cost readily available to at our disposal when we need to boost our performance They say it's good.
That's it
for you to swear.
That's it.
That's all we need is an actual doctor Giving us this kind of advice.
This is uh, yeah
Professor Nicholas Washmoose of the University of Alabama.
We need to get this guy on the air.
Our labs are now studying how swearing influences public speaking and romantic approach behaviors.
Two situations where people tend to hesitate or second-guess themselves.
So if you're in a romantic situation, start swearing because it'll do you some good.
Get something going there.
I think that's a great idea.
I've always said that if you could swear, just like in normal everyday life, everybody does it.
It just seems to
warm the
cockles of everybody's
hearts.
Listen, they did a test during this.
This is crazy.
Whatever the hell, cockles.
They conducted two experiments with 192 total participants.
They asked each participant to repeat either a swear word of their choice or a neutral word every two seconds while doing a chair push-up.
The people that swore did more push-ups in a lot of time.
Because they were swearing while they were doing it, right?
Yes.
One more.
So swearing is good for you.
Let's go to the phones.
Catherine is on the line here.
Uh-oh.
Oh, hang on.
Hang on.
Hey, Catherine Lake.
Good
morning.
Dominic Alfonso Lee.
Alfonso.
When your hosts decide that they want to start wearing and you say, oh, let's get them on the air.
Let me do a little opposition research and talk to our boss.
And maybe discuss whether or not she wants to hear the S-word on the air.
I don't want to hear the S-word on
the
air.
Most of the mothers in their cars right now, bringing their kids to school, don't want to hear the S-word on the air right now.
Dominic, you can get on the stick now.
Get your opposition race up going.
Oh, OK.
Listen, I tried to stop him.
I saw
him.
I
was waving my arms.
You know, I was hitting my hand.
He
was really
panicking.
Yeah.
Well, you don't swear very much.
No, you don't swear.
That's
pretty cool.
Especially on the air.
OK, she's gone.
She hung up.
Well, that was timed well.
OK.
All right, well, I guess we can't swear yet, but we're gonna work on it.
Someday very, very soon.
Get the S-word.
You know, last night we had some time and we decided to watch a vacuous, empty TV series show on Netflix.
I don't know if anybody
else has checked this out.
It's Emily in Paris.
Oh, yeah.
Have you watched
that?
I've seen the first two seasons.
Is it the third season?
Yeah,
whatever season it is, fourth season, fifth season.
Oh,
yeah.
This is a very funny
show.
Do you like it or not?
Well, I think it's okay.
I figured it out.
I figured out Emily in Paris.
It is vacuous, emptiness, just fashion-y, marketing stuff.
And here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
Emily starts off.
a complete blank at the beginning of each and every episode.
Not episode series.
Season?
Season.
Okay.
And she's nothing.
You know, she doesn't really have a big part in any of the episodes until later and it builds
and builds and then
all of a sudden she becomes the main character and everything is pivoting on what she does next.
Did you see it
from the beginning?
Yes, okay.
Yeah, all the way through.
Yeah, and we always we always watch Emily in Paris because it is you know, it's just it's light nothingness, you know We just want to sit back and watch something that doesn't make any sense and we don't care Well, it's you know,
I think it's fun though, but but it is fun and you know the scenes that they have I mean, it's just like I mean, it's beautifully photographed
as well.
So you get the whole feeling of Paris.
Yeah.
And
what about the woman who's in charge of
the
agency?
Oh, I know.
Is she hot or what?
And then the two guys, the two guys working
behind the scenes.
That's crazy stuff.
Yeah.
Oh boy.
But
she is hot.
Funny.
You
know, she's really hot.
My wife turned to me last night.
She goes, you know, we could have a three away with her.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
I think we, we gotta take a break.
Turn your mics off.
Emily in Paris.
Check it out.
We're coming back with more of John and Courtney.
We're on Monday after this.
Johnny Gordy in the morning.
92.7 WMDX.
Might see
a few light flurries or a little bit of sprinkles out there this morning.
Otherwise mostly cloudy today, high near 37.
Right now it's 31 degrees.
Oh yeah.
A few responses here about swearing.
Steve, Mount Horrib, I've eaten a lot of soap growing up in the 70s.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, wash your mouth out with soap.
Was that
weird?
Yeah.
My parents still did that when early 2000s.
Really?
Yeah.
That happened to me a couple of times.
Have they apologized for that?
No, they... Not
at all.
Holy shit.
Really seriously
child abuse these days.
Yes.
I
think so.
Yeah, probably some poisonous color in it Get RFK junior on that In the movie a Christmas story Mark writes a little Ralphie heard all these swear words his father swore and
he put it this way and he's paraphrasing like the old masters use oils his
father used
profanity
yeah that would be my dad too yeah it was fun he did it very selectively but it was really
good it's fun the way they made it sound the profanities sound yeah
And then we're talking about Emily in Paris being a vacuous eye candy, essentially.
But you know what?
My wife did say, and she writes novels and even the screenplay now, that it's well-written.
It's really a well-written show.
And I have to admit, besides the chef, who really doesn't have much of a part at all, and I don't like him, everybody else
is really well written.
Everybody's fleshed out.
It's really a lot of fun to watch, you know.
Again, it's just for fun.
And the actress that plays Emily is Lily Collins.
That's Phil Collins' daughter.
Phil Collins' daughter.
The drummer.
Famous drummer from Genesis.
Yeah.
You know you're getting old when Phil Collins' daughter is like, you know.
Yeah, she's just a kid.
Just a kid.
I think she's 37 years old.
Oh my God.
She looks a lot younger.
Oh, she does look younger.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, um, let's get into something, you know, political.
Okay.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's
why that's
fine.
That's why
we're here.
Politics.
Politics as usual.
We
dive into it every once in a while.
What do you have?
Do you have a story
for us?
Yes, the naming
of the...
The Trump Kennedy Senate.
Oh, God.
Oh, man.
This is... I don't know who this person is, but she thinks she's pretty good.
Brianna Lyman, she is a, and I'm using quotes here, reporter,
for the Federalist, managed to trash George Floyd and the Kennedy Center making excuses for putting Trump's name on it.
So I just have to play her report on this because she managed to, I don't know how she did it, but she brings it around and brings up Black Lives Matter.
Let's bring this to light.
I
personally don't care that much, but I do find it funny, Paul, that you care and that the Kennedys care because no one in your party cared in 2020 when you guys were changing names of hospitals, parks, schools, streets, everything in the name of George Floyd.
In fact, Wikipedia has an entire page called list of name changes due to the George Floyd protest.
It is the longest Wikipedia page I've ever seen.
So people who are up in arms about name changes now were mostly silent.
The second point I'd make.
I think it's really disingenuous for the Kennedys and for anyone to sit here and pretend like they care so much about the Kennedy Center.
Because I don't know how many of you guys have been to the Kennedy Center prior to Donald Trump taking office.
I was there in 2023.
I was in a VIP box.
That should be pretty nice.
The seats were stained.
I literally sat down.
I was like, is this wet?
Is this fresh?
The floors were dirty.
This is a place that was decrepit.
And all of this on top of people getting exorbitant salaries.
All right.
Wow, I wasn't there and I didn't see how sticky the floors were and all that other stuff.
I mean, you know, it's typical, right?
It's yeah, but it was all like that and you know Trump didn't like any of that and boy he went in there and just cleaned house, right?
Yeah, sure.
There's one problem that the Megas don't get and I just thought I'd bring this up They don't understand that You have to earn that place on the front of the building
If you want your name up there, you should earn that.
Right.
Not buy it and put your name up there because you have the ability to do it, you have
the money.
And legally, it can't be changed.
The name can't be changed without congressional approval.
Well, and it doesn't stop them from putting the name up, does it?
No, no, it doesn't.
There's supposed to be a Congress to approve that.
Right.
So anyway, I mean, you earn it.
You know, you earn your name on the front of a building, on an award, on a park, on a street, whatever, you know?
Right.
And you don't buy your imagined recognition of greatness by putting your name on the building, which is what Trump is doing all over the place.
One exception though, I mean, John and Gordy media complex here, we...
Right, we're just gonna put our names on that.
That's okay.
The John and
Gordy
Studios.
Yes, exactly.
But you know, it just happens like that.
Sure.
What else can we name here?
We've already got the studio, we've got the building here, the John and Gordy...
Metroplex.
You guys have your own stores, too, the John and Gordy woke stores.
Oh, that's right.
Yes, we do.
Well, we have a lot of products.
Yeah.
John and Gordy, let's go back to cursive storybook, which is still available on our Facebook page.
I think it's
the let's go back.
Let's go back to series that we have, you know, and there's a whole bunch of let's go backs, too.
I can't remember what we came up with all this.
Yeah.
Let's go back to
this than the other thing.
But
let's go back to the Midwest food and farm report that's coming up next.
And then we'll be back with more of John and Gordy for a Monday morning.
We invite your phone calls 608-879-8255 coming right back.
you
with some
tailor, someone soldier
to a
sailor.
Goose step, mama.
Goose step, mama.
Johnny Gordy in the morning.
Happy Monday.
Dom at the controls, of course.
Catherine Lake has joined us.
Good morning, Catherine.
I'm
just here to
watch.
I'm just here to
make
sure.
You
don't say any S words.
I have a hand on the dumb button.
S word is the most acceptable word we could possibly say on this show.
Whatever.
Oh, it's 31 degrees highs today in the upper thirties, maybe a few light flurries and sprinkles this morning, otherwise just cloudy
today.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, you heard us talking about Emily in Paris, right?
Have you seen Emily in Paris?
I've
heard about it.
I
think
I might have almost decided to start it and didn't.
Is it wonderful?
Oh, it's a great show.
It is, yeah, it's a lot of the beginning.
And
you said it was good, you know, just to
sit back.
It's just eye candy.
Yeah, we don't have to worry.
You really don't have to think too hard on this show.
Don't think.
It's just entertainment.
Yeah, it really is.
And we've had a, you know, a few people have mentioned that it's a terrific show.
That's a lot of fun.
That's from your former neighbors.
Yes.
Probably down there in New Orleans.
They're still
listening to you?
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
I
know.
What is that
all about?
And they mentioned that Emily is Phil Collins' daughter.
Lily Collins plays Emily.
That's what you were mentioning.
She plays a Chicago ad executive or a junior executive who gets transferred over to Paris and then the fund ensues.
to another office in Paris of this advertising agency.
It's an
international agency.
And
I was talking about how... She gets
in all kinds of situations.
Well, yeah, I mean, it's really, it's fun and the relationships are kind of fun to watch as they end and begin and begin constantly and the marketing that they actually put in this program.
It's pretty good stuff.
But
this season, Emily seems to be making a lot of mistakes.
She is proposing these incredible ideas to market products, but they're not going over very well with the clients.
And I think that's kind of a nice little turn this season.
You
got to have a conflict.
You have a problem.
Sure.
I mean, before all the other seasons, she would make these really dumb suggestions and everybody just love them.
Because she's the new flavor of the month,
maybe.
But this season, it's different.
Everything is going sideways for her.
Sideways for
her.
We have Dick on the lines this morning.
608-879-8255.
Good morning, Dick.
Go ahead.
What about the John and Gordy State Capitol?
Oh, yeah.
We're trying to put our names on everything, yeah.
Yeah.
So the cleanliness of, if this is true that it's not real clean.
Not true.
What would it matter when you're booking the likes of, oh, say Ted Nugent or Wayne Newton or Kid Rock, you know, some really big act?
It's cleaner
than any Vegas place they've
played lately.
No doubt.
It was a village people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
But, you know, I just, just wondering.
It's a big
question, Dick.
Thanks.
Oh, I know.
I know.
You know, they put the, they put the name up without any.
Approval, what's the letter?
Authorization, it's supposed to be approved by Congress.
Put it up there.
I don't know when the Kennedy Center was created and named.
Actually, it was started by President Eisenhower, the planning of it, and then it carried over to the Kennedy administration.
They were just going to make it a cultural center.
It wasn't going to be named the Kennedy Center.
And then what happened?
It wasn't named that until after JFK was assassinated.
They changed the
name.
Oh, wait, let's go over that part one more time.
Oh, okay.
After he was, what?
Assassinated.
Yeah, so it was named for a man who gave his life in service.
Yes, yes.
Oh.
You earn your place on a building, on a street, on a
park.
It actually didn't open, so, all right, let's back up a second.
So the Eisenhower administration.
You're
taking it all back
now?
Planned
it.
It was, it didn't open until 1971.
Yeah.
So that was, you know, eight years after Kennedy had been assassinated.
I've played there.
You played at the Kennedy Center.
What do you mean you played there?
My orchestra got to play there.
You had an orchestra?
Yeah, my orchestra.
Was it the Catherine Lake Orchestra?
No, it was not.
Did you name it after yourself?
The Empire State Youth
Orchestra.
You played the flute.
Violin for God's sake.
The Empire State Youth Orchestra got to play there.
And Carnegie Hall.
Practice, practice, practice.
Gay.
Wow.
That's the joke punchline.
Yes.
All right, let's get to some of the texture.
We have a few comments from Facebook, from Linda, Akola Atkins.
And you know, if I mess that up, it's because it's like eight feet away from me and I'm just very,
very tiny letters.
She actually went
to the Brewer's game with us.
Oh, really?
Yeah, she's important.
Oh, right now.
Yeah, she's important.
Okay.
And she said, uh, silica mines are shutting down because they are not profitable.
And we were talking about, you know,
Putting these sand pits next to schools That's one of the things that Tom Tiffany pushed in the state and got got it done I mean, you know that the most dangerous thing you could possibly think of as silica in the air around a school elementary school and he allowed that That's he he's one of the worst people ever to run for governor just because he has a pass that is not very good those kinds
of ideas.
Yeah
We got a comment from Len in Madison.
We were talking about swearing and cursing.
He says, I call cursing speaking and cursive.
Good.
Good one, Len.
He's very funny on many levels.
Thank you for that.
Let's go back to cursive.
That's our book.
That's
your
book.
My
parents never swore.
My parents
never swore.
My
mom said an alternative word for poo once.
She called somebody.
started with a T. You can imagine what that word is.
An alternative for poo that starts with a T at the dinner table.
And she told a story.
And this person, you know, instead of using the word person, my dad was like, what are, you can't say even that was not okay.
After we turned 22, everybody graduated from college, all three kids.
The potty mouths came out.
They were both potty mouth, four letter words, anything.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, then it's okay.
Not in front of kids.
They were able to sense themselves around you.
Well, yes, not only that.
I think they altered their brains.
You know, they got older and they relaxed.
But to teach children to be more creative with your language, you don't have to use that kind of language.
Use something more creative.
It's explosive, fine, in moderation.
You guys are so dull-faced right now.
You don't even hear me.
Dominic's
laughing.
You guys are slack-jawed.
Well, we're
trying to come up with something clever.
This is nothing there if you're not setting us up very
well.
And it's not working.
Dominic, did your parents swear around you?
I was just going to say, yeah, they swore.
They listen to the show all the time, so I'm just going to out them right now.
But yeah, they swore.
They swore.
They swore.
A lot, and they do matters.
Like sailors.
Yeah, like sailors.
Look, I think the bottom line here is everybody swears and they swear a lot.
And it should be normalized.
We should say it even in the media.
We should say it in our newspapers.
We should say it on TV broadcasts.
And we should say it on the radio.
What?
You're just baiting me.
You're just baiting me.
I am.
I am baiting you.
And I'm sitting here thinking,
I'm going to say
this, and I'm going to let
him speak because he's the host.
I'm going to say this.
But you're just baiting
me.
I am.
Mark says, if I remember right, the S-word was perfectly acceptable to the Anglo-Saxons.
But the Norman influence on the English language decided it was crude and unacceptable.
Crude.
We can say guano, manure, poop, et cetera.
But the S-word is a no-no.
seems ridiculous to me.
Thank you, Mark.
Thanks for
standing up
for
us there.
He knows his history, man.
Unbelievable.
He does.
He gets a bell ring every time he calls with something brilliant.
There you go, Mark.
Just every time.
It's gorgeous.
OK.
You
have the best callers.
You guys are the luckiest talk show hosts in the world.
Do you know that?
A lot.
You do a talk show host
in Madison, Wisconsin, the smartest, funniest people live in Wisconsin.
I'm sorry, they do.
You played a little, they do.
Wave on your people here than in Chicago and Illinois,
all
told.
Seriously, my
favorite.
That's why I'm back here.
You guys are so creative
and funny.
These guys, our listeners are so incredible.
We have so much to this program.
We love them.
And sometimes we won't even come in with a story anymore.
Like today?
No, I have a lot of stories.
I got a ton of stories.
You're right.
I haven't gotten too many of them
here.
OK.
OK.
We're getting more comments about the Kennedy Center here.
Oh, that's good.
Okay, I'll read this one.
John from Edgerton says, the woman that talked about the sogginess going in at the Kennedy Center was the same night Donald was there with a leaky diaper.
Okay, all
right.
Wow.
Okay,
now it's getting weird.
Okay.
How about something not so upbeat?
Oh, really?
You're going to bring us down?
Yes, I want to bring you all down.
Professor of Economics, Justin Wolffers.
Everybody loves Justin Wolfers.
I just love the way he explains the economy to us.
He loves those numbers.
Well, why can't young people buy homes and have babies?
Well, let's listen to cut to 14.
And in terms of your crystal ball, looking into what we can expect for 2026, I mean, we saw three rate cuts in 2025.
all things being equal, what are we going to expect next year?
More rate cuts, deeper rate cuts, your thoughts, Justin.
Let me pivot your question a little bit.
I'm happy to answer it, Zane, but rate cuts and bond markets and stuff, that's a lot of interest to the financial sector.
But for the folks at home, what really matters is, are they able to find work?
Are their jobs stable?
Are they able to get pay rises?
And what we see is that the labor market has slowed quite substantially, that the next batch of kids who graduate are going to find it a lot harder to find work, that the folks are in jobs that they don't really like right now are finding it harder to switch.
And the folks who are looking for a pay rise in order to catch up,
with inflation are planning it harder to get those pay rises.
These numbers really are quite pessimistic about where we are.
Yes.
The lack of progress.
And in fact, the steps back we've made over the last few months.
Zane, if I'm sounding more worried to you than I've sounded in months, it's because I am.
There you go.
OK.
It's not a real positive
report right
there.
But ominous.
You know, I love the accent.
Now, here's the thing, and I gotta tell you this, it heads up to everybody who has an Alexa at home.
There is something called Alexa Plus.
Have you heard about this?
I activated one of my two Alexa's at home.
What am I doing?
Okay.
The thing is, we couldn't get our Alexa to get the Alexa Plus.
Couldn't upgrade?
Yeah.
Because it's responsive, right?
That's what you say to Alexa.
You say Alexa upgrade.
Right.
And I kept saying we can't upgrade because you have different languages on some of your Alexis.
Oh.
So we have like, you know, Australian and one, you know, something else.
Yeah.
So, you know, so we have to go through all of our Alexis and we got a ton of neutralized.
Yeah, we had to put them all into.
I'm English, American, American English.
So, uh, uh, so we did that.
And then finally it says, well, thank you.
You know, you are now added to the list of Alexa plus.
So it's not, it's not in effect yet.
It's they're taking a list of people.
Yes.
Oh, maybe I got the wrong idea.
Let's talk about this after the break.
I want
to define what Alexa plus is.
Yeah.
Well, it has, it, it's.
It gives you the ability to have a conversation with Alexa, and Alexa has AI, and it gets fixed.
One of mine is doing that.
Because Alexa cannot do that.
They can't actually look things up for you.
One of my, okay.
Okay.
All right.
We will continue with John and Gordy, along with Catherine Lake and Dominic Lee after these messages from our beloved
sponsors.
I'm going to call
Fonzo.
He said there ain't no rest for the wicked Money don't grow on trees I got bills to pay I got a mouth to feed Ain't nothing in this world for free I know I can't slow down I can't hold back though, you know I wish I could I know there ain't no rest for the wicked Until we close our eyes for good
Johnny Gordy in the morning, who is that?
It's too cool for
you And I?
Do you know who it is, Kevin?
No, it's in sound shows, so I'll look it up.
I want you guys to know, all right?
The other day, I think you played Smash Mouth.
I love everything.
I love Smash
Mouth.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Because we're
cool.
Because we're from the 90s and we're cool.
Well, yes.
They did a great song in the Hot Wheels animated movies.
Oh,
yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah, what was that
song?
You're so arrogant.
Can you look that up there?
You want to
dip into my musical world and you don't have the data?
It's called Hot.
OK, let's play Hot.
OK, we'll play some Hot.
Let's play it.
This is a great song.
This is a great song.
Yeah, excellent.
Let's check it out.
OK.
I know why you love them.
They reek of the 60s.
Well, what was their big hit, though?
They had a, they had a.
Okay,
fine.
Let's
listen to this part.
Isn't that great?
I'm a moving violation.
I mean, seriously.
That's good.
That's a great song for the Hot Wheels animated movies.
I like it.
Yeah, yeah.
Can you pull the song that they're most famous for?
No.
You can't?
Do you?
No.
I can sing it, but I'm not going to.
What is it?
It's very, it's kind of similar to that sound that we just heard.
Rockstar.
Rockstar.
Rockstar.
Oh, yeah, rockstar.
That was the, that's right.
Do you remember that one?
Yeah.
Oh,
yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay,
excellent, and they do a really good cover of go ahead and question mark him a mystery.
It's all star.
It's all star.
That's what it is.
All right, yeah, I think it's all star.
Okay, let me
play here.
All right Put it on the turntable.
Here we go Yeah
Dominic knows the words
Great song.
Another good one.
Yeah, that's a good one.
You were talking about swearing a lot this morning.
Yeah.
Again, Larry has written in from Deerfield.
Larry underste- He sees me.
Larry sees me.
Kimmel and Colbert.
Colbert.
Colbert.
Sorry.
And their writers are masters at creative metaphors and adjectives for Donald.
When you simply overuse expletives like the F or the S words and other crudities, they become boring.
and lose their impact.
Yes.
Occasionally, they hit the nail on the head, but not over and over again.
OK.
Well, thank you, Larry.
Yeah.
Thank you, Larry.
Well, you know, the thing about the thing about Smash Mouth is that the lead singer died.
Oh, is that so?
I mean, that is he had such a unique voice, great voice.
And he had health issues and passed away in 2023.
Sad.
Yeah.
You're from Middleton, John.
There's another John in Middleton who knows Spanish and I don't,
I
mean, that's
Italian.
What does
that say?
It's Italian, but I don't know it.
He says Giovanni in Middleton says, I'm gonna, well, first of all, I believe the first word is the word that we're talking about because in
French,
in French, it is spelled that way.
He
spelled M E R D A.
And I bet that is
there's a lot.
Yep.
I just looked it up.
I translated it It is all swearing
John
from Middleton we can swear in another language Okay, we're talking about touching on Alexa plus the next generation of Alexa it's powered by generative AI and maybe the reason why we can't get it here
is because we don't have a data center in Madison.
Just build one under your house.
Why don't
you
make a basement for
yourself?
Well, OK.
But it's a new AI assistant that gets things done.
She's smarter, more conversational, more capable, and free with Brian.
Here's the thing, you know, we had a male voice.
And we tried all these different voices in the house.
Now we can't use all these different voices and a male voice.
Now
we're, you know, now we're forced to have the female voice.
And I kind of, I wanted, you know, different voices.
Yeah.
Both of mine have different voices.
Do they?
Just different flavor here that, wait a minute.
Alexa likes me better than you.
No, you can't have Alexa Plus with a different voice.
It's a different, it's a different male voice.
It is a different male voice that I have.
It's weird.
It
was a
man
speaking to me last night in
bed.
I'm calling
you.
It was
him across the room.
There was somebody in your house.
I'd be worried if I were you.
But Alexa Plus only works with one voice and it is her voice.
The original Alexa
voice.
Keep telling me I'm wrong.
Come over.
I'll demonstrate.
John
doesn't get out of the house at all.
Me and Gordon are getting nervous over here.
I'm starting to sweat a little bit.
Yeah, I don't know what's happening.
Why'd you take your headphones off?
Yeah,
I'm done with
you.
Are
we
done?
You're done.
Yeah, we're about done.
You
know, I can't I came in with like eight pages of
stories
to get
saved for the afternoon.
We'll be
on from two until five with three hours to get through every one of these stories that I brought here.
And our guest will be Terry Barr.
She's going to be talking about some holiday events happening around Madison
and Southern
Wisconsin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All over the state.
Yeah.
Not a con here.
Yeah.
Our accountant is here.
Oh, good.
All right.
Stephanie Miller is coming up next.
And we'll talk to you this afternoon from two until five.
Tune in then.
We hope you have a great day.
So
long.
Hi I'm producer Dom and you are listening to a pre-recorded segment of the John and Gordy show where the guys talk with Tom and Christy Manus, authors of the book Historic Wisconsin Roadside.
Enjoy!
So happy holidays.
We're getting to the holiday season here and do you have any recommend?
recommendations on holiday places to go, things to see around Wisconsin.
Any favorites?
Of course we do.
Well that's good because I asked you a little while ago to come up with some.
So I'm glad I
asked.
But yeah, let's talk about the books.
Historic Wisconsin Roadside.
That's one book and the other one is Secret Wisconsin.
You're very mysterious and very secret but some great places that you have discovered.
Tiny little things, big things, it's just amazing.
Amazing book and I would suggest these books if you're really going to make kind of a staycation in Wisconsin and pick up these books, you're invaluable.
Yeah.
And if you know somebody that you don't know what to get them for Christmas, talking about Christmas.
Yes.
Perfect.
It is.
It really is.
And another thing too is we like things that are really inexpensive and secret Wisconsin.
You can do everything, experience everything in a book for $64.80.
There you go.
See.
So some could say we were cheap.
That's pretty good.
You figured I don't want
to say that.
So holidays, give us some ideas.
I think I'll start out with one of my favorite things to do for the holidays.
And it's up in Barron, Wisconsin.
I
had to think.
It's Barron, right?
It's
Barron County.
It's Barron County right outside of Rice, like the small town of Cameron.
It's a really small town.
It's called the Pioneer Village Museum.
For one weekend, they open up at Christmas and you know, Santa's there and you can take the horse drawn buggies
around and
there's music in the little chapel
and
there's
gifts and
crafts.
It's really fun.
Yeah.
Yeah,
you can buy anything and it's free.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
And that is this year.
It's December 6th and 7th.
Okay.
Excellent.
And we'll be there.
Oh, okay.
Do you go over here and make it an annual deal?
We try to go and see Santa.
Yeah.
Because it's really unique.
They have Santa in like a boat house with an old
boat.
And the old boat... He is.
He's
in
all...
Yeah, it's a little different.
It's a little
different.
That's a little different.
But the old boat on display is one that used to be...
Or used to be one that delivered mail on the on one of the legs.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, that is interesting Okay, so Santa's delivering mail and sitting in a boat on
Christmas.
Yeah
We like different
time for that
and the kids like that So what made you think how mean we're gonna go this year why why would you have
thought about doing well because we're signing our books there
Oh, okay.
There you go.
And it is a lot of fun.
Yeah.
All right.
What date are you going to be there?
We're going to be there the sixth and the seventh.
Okay.
Friday night and then Saturday during the day.
Okay.
Actually, that's the Saturday night and Sunday during the day.
Yeah.
It's a good thing I keep her around.
My wife, the same thing.
So that's how far is that from Madison?
Oh, that's quite a trip.
So it's, it's about, it's under four hours.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Well, that sounds
like an easy ride.
Any other any other holiday ideas that jump out at you.
Well, it has to be a whole bunch of them.
Oh, definitely.
Okay.
Yeah.
Oh,
okay.
Oh, yeah.
See, we're quick.
You
know, all this stuff in less.
Let's go to the next one.
Another favorite of ours is the in Sparta is a Chris Kringle market.
Okay.
And it's, I mean, they have the little wooden, you know, market.
booths that they built.
It really looks European and it's really crowded because it's really popular.
But throughout town they have these sections set up with a little booth and people are selling their handmade crafts or whatever.
And Cousin Eddie makes an appearance straight with his bathrobe holding a can of beer.
Well, I
mean, I mean,
I don't know if he comes for free or if they hired him.
I don't know, but, but it's
kind of fun.
It's a different Cousinetti.
Sure.
It could be.
Yeah.
Well, Sparta's, that's not that far away from here.
No, that's
close.
That's a little closer.
Yeah.
But, but we would highly recommend it.
I mean, it's really a cool spot.
A lot of stuff to do.
They
have a really good spiced apple cider
at Jenny's cover.
It's, it's an old rest.
Well,
It's not old.
It's a restaurant when you can step back in time.
And everything in there is, is antiques, but everything has a purpose and a story.
It's not like they just pulled a bunch of antiques and,
you know,
put it in there.
Yeah.
I mean, it, it really is a good place.
And, and they make all their food handmade.
And, and her recipe for apple cider is, I think if I remember right, your farmer grandmother.
So it's really good.
Yeah.
Hand it down from the ages.
All right.
So what else you got for us?
Let's go to the next one.
Well, I mean,
you have the list over there.
So
yeah, well, you can't read it.
So you're going to get into a family
argument.
It's a good thing we put you on the opposite side of the table
here.
So in Spooner, another huge event in Spooner is Ladies Night Out.
Uh, where, you know, you bring donation or you buy something from one of the stops or one of the shops, excuse me.
And, um, and you get entered into the drawing, but it's probably one of the most popular events in Northwest Wisconsin.
Um, and, uh, we'd also recommend, uh, going there too.
Uh, so that's a lot of fun up in the Northwoods.
Spooner.
Ladies night it is.
It is ladies night.
And that is November 24th.
It's a Monday night from two to eight.
A
lot of husbands go though also.
Oh, okay.
There's a
nice brewery there.
So yeah.
So they can go to the brewery.
I would have thought more of a singles thing than anything.
Well, you know, that's where that bar is.
The, um,
your big dicks, but corn saloon.
You know,
we're
President Kennedy.
He peed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's in that
town.
So yeah.
Yeah.
You've got to familiarize everybody with that story.
Yeah, I mean that tells us again.
Yeah.
So when JFK was campaigning, he had Northwest Wisconsin, he was in Spooner.
You know, he hit all the small towns, but you know, just like everybody else, you got to go.
So, so he stopped in this, in this bar and, you know, took a leak.
Yeah.
Took a, took a leak.
And then, uh,
You know, when he was done, somebody handed him a glass of beer.
A lady bought him a glass of beer and he drank a little but left it there, but they kept the cup.
And it's now in a display that they have, you know, newspaper articles, but also the bathroom hasn't changed since he was there.
So you can stand there and you can literally go to the bathroom and pee the same place that JFK did.
I'm, cause I don't think it's been updated and it's not very clean either, but.
It's true that women can participate, but I get it.
I get it.
Yeah.
This reminds me of like, uh, um, uh, Darby O'Gill and the little people.
Do you ever see that movie?
I did not.
Because they had one of the little people drink out of a glass and they saved the glass and they put it on top of the bar and everybody just went on over something so silly.
It's the same thing, yeah.
Something like that.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, they
have a little display case on the wall, you know, with a few things in there.
Sounds like a great trip, you know.
Yeah.
Go see that.
There's actually a lot of things to do in Spoonart that people don't really...
know about.
Most people focus on Hayward, which is, you know, 30 minutes away, you know, but Spooner really is one of those little hidden towns that you need to look at.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
That's a big recommendation, big thumbs up.
Talking about some holiday things here with Tom and Kristie Manus, travelers,
historic Wisconsin road signs, one of the books, and the other one is Secret Wisconsin.
Well, fill us in.
What
else do you got?
Any
other
holiday
ideas?
Oh,
sure.
La Crosse, they have the rotary lights.
Oh, yeah.
Every town has lights, but La Crosse
is
over the top.
It is a big deal.
I think it
was a couple of years ago, somebody vandalized all their lights or stole their lights, but they're back up now this year.
I know they're putting them up right now.
What is a rotary light?
It's a light display
put up by the rotary.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
And it's right down on the riverfront part, but that's pretty exciting.
Yeah.
It is.
Now we have a question here from Anna of Madison says, hi, John, Gordy and Conrad.
Please ask your guests about the Old World Christmas Market at the Ulstaff Resort.
Ulstaff
Resort.
Is that what it is?
Do you know about this?
I know
about it, but I haven't been.
We haven't been.
Okay.
All right.
See you, please stop.
All right.
Yes, but also down there, look, Geneva, you might have heard of the Santa Cruz.
They take the Mel boat.
And you can take your kids on the cruise and they go through a light display on the shoreline.
And at the very end, there's a little house with Santa there and the kids.
Now, you can't go in the house, but Santa comes by the boat.
Oh, wow.
And so the kids get to see Santa.
That's
cool.
So that's in Lake Geneva?
It is.
So that's before the lake freezes over.
Well, yeah, and they have little people swimming out there to keep it from,
you know, like the ducks.
They
don't have enough ducks, so now they're, you know, they're little bathing caps, you know.
See, that's a detail that we didn't cover.
Okay, here's another one.
It's
not in Wisconsin
though.
Oh, all right,
sure.
It's in Fairfield, Iowa.
They put on a great Christmas event there.
They have a town square with a gazebo, you know, old-fashioned, everything.
They have horse and buggy rides around the square.
They do a kickoff where they light everything up.
They have a Grinch Christmas village, which is so much fun.
I think that'd be cool.
It's really cool.
I think it's a carpenter that puts it on so they build all these little things and the families can go through
it.
Is that Whoville?
Yeah, and the
buildings are like from the movie.
But Fairfield, Iowa, they do an incredible job with
Christmas.
What aren't Iowa's then?
Southeast.
Yeah.
Fair.
It's also one of the quirkiest towns you'll ever come across.
Really?
It is.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's about 10,000 people.
Oprah called it America's...
Oh,
who cares?
Yeah,
anyway, but
they have most unusual small town.
Yeah.
Oh, but they
have more restaurants per capita than San Francisco in this little bitty
town.
Wow.
And the restaurants are anything you could think of.
There's Turkish, Ethiopian, Egyptian, you know, anything.
What
a mix.
You wouldn't think in small town.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Got about a minute left here.
Also, and
The Yerks Observatory, I hope I said that right.
The world's largest glass tree, they started, I did it last year or two years ago.
Glass blowers are actually blowing glass on site.
And then they're taking the hot glass and building, building the tree.
Wow, that must be incredible.
Wow.
Yeah.
I
have enough time.
I
have one more.
Yeah.
Okay.
In Eau Claire, there's a place called the glass orchard.
Okay.
And they do glass works.
And they also have an apple orchard.
But for the next couple of weeks, they hang all their glass ornaments in the apple trees and you can walk through the magical fantasy land and pick up what you want.
All right, let us let a combination order and glass blowing.
Yeah, we will continue with Tom and Christy Mattis and find out some more ideas for the
holidays.
Hi, I'm producer Dom and you are listening to a pre-recorded segment of the John and Gordy show where the guys talk with Tom and Christy Manus, authors of the book Historic Wisconsin Roadside.
Enjoy.
We're back with Tom and Christy Manus with talking about some holiday ideas and other ideas, places to go this time of year.
That might be fun for you and the family.
and taking your texts and your phone calls if you want to call in.
Yeah, a big
question.
8-7-9-8-2-5-5.
Question
of the night because it's a guac day today.
What is your favorite chip dip?
Feel free to give us a... Well, let's ask Tom and Christie.
A
texture.
Yeah.
Oh, guacamole definitely
is mine.
What do you like in it?
Do you like the cumin idea and a little dash of lime?
Doesn't that make it taste really good?
No, I like it.
pretty plain.
You
know, little diced tomato, little diced onion.
Oh yeah, diced tomato.
That
works too.
And a
little diced onion and little lime juice and pretty simple.
Well, cumin, see, you have everything but cumin in it.
If you put just a little pinch of it.
John's crazy for cumin.
I'll try it.
I'll try it.
It really, it really makes it kind of Mexican.
Well, I've had my fill of cumin lately because last night we were at our local EAA chapter chili cookoff.
Oh,
yeah.
And
some of it had a little too
much in there.
It was a little strong.
Yeah.
I've been to those chili cookoffs, you know, Sturgeon Bay.
Wow.
Oh, yeah.
That's great stuff up there.
Christie, do you have a favorite dip?
I do.
And it's not his.
I like an old fashioned one that my mom used to make, which is cream cheese, sliced olives, Worcestershire sauce.
Wow.
And some olive juice.
It's just
The milk?
Put a little milk in
it?
Are the green
olives
okay?
Yes, that would be good.
And it's good on a bagel
also.
I do like it too.
Yeah, he likes that
too.
Well, it's good that you can get along.
You
can agree on something once in a while.
Alright, let's get back to some more travel items for this time of year or any time of year.
What do you got?
Basically.
Okay, so an Oshkosh is Celebration of Lights.
Which is basically a Celebration of Lights.
It
goes
from the invention of the light bulb all the way up to neon.
But if you're in the Oshkosh area.
It's
a great thing to do.
Well, how about, uh, I mean, we have a celebration of lights here in Madison.
Oh, great.
And is
it, is it, yes.
Oh,
I love that.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great thing.
And I just read that Viola Zoo is going to have some kind of a light thing this year.
Oh, I didn't hear that.
I hope it doesn't scare the animals.
Maybe they're going to light the animals
up.
No, that'd be something to watch them walking around.
Dress them up in, uh, yeah, LEDs.
You know, that's pretty safe that way.
Or have
you traveled lately?
What new things have you seen?
As we talked to you last, have you been out and about around?
Tell us about it.
You're
working on another book.
There's a chance we have two released next year.
The second one is pushing into the year.
But our next one coming up is called Lost Treasures of Wisconsin.
It's released.
It's scheduled for May 1st.
And it's about things that aren't here anymore that everybody has fond memories of.
oh yes we're pretty excited about that yeah
what have you got a couple of
like like all bars and
restaurants
big sky drive in
yeah oh the big
sky drive in i know right where that
was headliners um
yes headliners yes we had a tv show
called smokey
sky drive it yeah yeah we work
i know you did
we worked at channel 47 which is located right where
i was a viewer were you really yes
kidding
no
So were you, you were living in Madison here?
Yeah.
I was, I grew up in Mount Horpe.
Okay.
So you were the one person to watch that show.
It's fantastic to hear that.
I remember when 47 started.
Oh,
yeah.
Well, we were there.
That was a big deal when we got Fox then.
Yeah.
It was.
Okay.
No, we, we're not, we're going to save this story.
This is a teaser.
We're going to save this story to release date.
Okay.
But during the research on this book with with Smokies, Christy found with with being a good teacher.
Anyway, she found something really interesting with a family member that is tied to the restaurant that goes back from history that that she didn't know.
And it's really, really
interesting.
Well, can't wait to.
find that.
Yeah, I'm not going to tell you, but it's pretty exciting.
Yeah.
No, this is
tied in with Spokies.
It
is.
Which is a steak restaurant.
Yes, it was.
It was.
It's
been rated.
It has
been
rated the best in the Midwest, and of course, Madison in Wisconsin.
It's
weird.
A lot of these great restaurants don't pass along from generation to generation.
Isn't that strange?
I think it is.
You know, Madison had so many great restaurants.
And they'd still do.
But a lot of the older ones are gone.
It's pretty sad, I think.
Well, Smokies was a great place.
It was.
And it was an iconic history.
Yeah,
you
walked in there.
It was like going back to 1960.
Exactly.
They hadn't changed anything.
Now, wasn't there a
dinner club right on Verona Road and the Belt Line.
It was in the shopping center parking lot, and it was a steakhouse, I believe.
It was a fantastic, well, maybe it was a, maybe they had fish there.
I can't remember now.
No, I can't remember that either.
Okay.
Well, how about LaTigre?
It's still there.
Have you been to the
LaTigre?
I don't know that one.
Oh my gosh, really good.
Oh, you have to go to the LaTigre because that is a legend in Madison.
That's right.
Get off the belt line at what exit?
Verona Road.
Okay,
Verona Road.
It's
right
next to Doran's hardware.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah.
And they have a hot
oil lamps in there, all over.
At least
they did when we were in there.
And it's actually brake oil.
They did brake oil.
They have tires.
They have tires on the walls and it's a lounge.
And you will get reprimandered if you swear in there.
Really?
Yeah.
I
can't see any
swear
words.
I think that's
the son that sent it over.
Yeah, he probably doesn't like
that.
Now, do you know that from experience?
No, it's 40 squares all the time.
I swear a lot.
It's a problem.
And I got kicked out.
No, I don't know.
Well,
it's a weird place, but it's a fun place.
Good place to go.
All
right.
We're going to continue with Tom and
Christie.
What we got another suggestion here, Mark.
I heard sex is a recipe for pumpkin hummus.
Yeah.
And that looks kind of interesting.
I guess it does look
interesting.
We'll get to more.
We'll be back in just a few minutes.
Hi, I'm producer Dom and you are listening to a
pre-recorded segment of The John and Gordy Show where the guys talk with Tom and Christy Manus, authors of the book Historic Wisconsin Roadside.
Enjoy!
Let me just go first to our text here because we've got a few texts and suggestions.
Let's get caught up.
We were talking about the pumpkin hummus, which sounds like a really good deal, doesn't it?
I mean, that sounds like fun.
I've never thought about pumpkin.
I'll try it.
We mix pumpkin in almost everything now.
We put
it
in tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce.
We always mix it in.
Oh, I've never heard of that.
It really is.
It's really good.
We found out only because at Aldi, they sell it all in one container, pumpkin and tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce.
Oh, wow.
And it's really nice.
It kind of waters down the tomato taste, the bite, and it's fantastic stuff.
One of the two.
One of the chili recipes last night had pumpkin.
Oh, yeah.
It did.
It took the bite away from it.
It does take the bite away.
Well, they always say to give it to dogs if they have an upset stomach, too.
Is that right?
Yeah, so that makes sense.
John Murray, we appreciate your comment about John and Gordy in the morning.
Great dynamic.
Catherine is a nice
A jump in every
time.
Jump in
every time.
She jumps in every once in a while.
And Guardian commercials are very well done.
Oh, thank you.
And John, your passion is exactly what we need to hear every day.
Thank you both for the journey.
All right.
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
And plus he also mentioned here, hope to see you at the Atwood movie.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
The Godfather of Green Bay.
We do want to remind everybody that's happening at the Atwood Music Hall here in Madison.
You should make the trip.
This is a Pete Schwabba written movie.
He directed it.
He stars in it.
There are some other stars in there.
Tom Lennon and Lauren Holly and I'm missing somebody.
Oh,
Lance Barber.
Tony Goldwin.
Last bar were?
Yes.
Thank you, Conrad.
Anyway, this is happening at the Atwood Music Hall here in Madison, December 4th.
That's a Thursday night, 7 p.m.
powered by our friends at Doundrens Distilling.
And it all goes to help, or portions of it go to help the Dane County Humane Society.
And thank you, Eric Swenson, for filling me in.
As far as the Supper Club, I couldn't think the name of.
It was a fish place or a steak place on Rona Road.
the Belt Line, and it's called Fyler's.
Fyler's Super Club.
Yep.
Okay.
Remember the White Horse?
Oh,
yeah.
Right down
the
block.
You remember
that?
Yeah, that's
right.
Yeah.
That would be in your new book, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
In Nav Hill, and there's so many of them.
Oh, yeah.
The Cuba Club.
Oh,
yeah.
Sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's kind of Madison.
Right.
But read about it in their next one is another that's coming out in the summer.
May
1st.
Okay.
And that book Los Angeles, Wisconsin is literally the entire state.
Okay.
We tried to get things from every part in the state.
Okay.
And then the work, the book we're working on right now is small town Wisconsin.
Small town Wisconsin.
Yeah.
It's going to be towns with 15,000 people or less.
What are you looking for when you go to a small town like that?
We look for quirky.
That's
the first thing we look for.
We don't look for old buildings or stuff like that.
We like pop culture and exciting stuff.
It'll have lower, famous people.
How
the
town
started.
It's got to have a cool vibe to it.
What's the smallest town in the book?
Do you have an idea?
Yeah.
We're
still picking towns.
It's kind of funny because I was up near Chano and driving through the countryside and we ran across a diner.
No, it wasn't a diner.
It was a supper club and it was the most gorgeous looking supper club.
I think I've ever seen it was neon lights and flashing signs and you go in and it's just, it's really kind of nice, but it has a regular bar.
And I mentioned this the other day.
It had a ham sign, you know, where the ham spear and the water would rotate, and it would look like it was hypnotized.
I love neon.
It wasn't the fire room or fireside.
Maybe.
I can't remember the name of it.
It was just unbelievable.
Well, if you were in...
shawano shawano shawano
yeah shawano
um did you go to twig sundrop museum
oh yes i did yes
right right in town yeah that's kind of a fun place
yeah it is it is there's so much packed in there because yeah sundrop was my favorite soda oh it's a little kid yeah
it still is
ours
oh
yeah still
is yeah
yeah
yeah we don't really drink a lot of coffee hardly she doesn't drink any
occasionally we'll have some, but our caffeine in the morning is diet sundrop.
Now, that place is amazing on a Saturday.
All the people bringing in their bottles and exchanging them for full bottles.
I mean,
there's
some people getting four and five cases
at a time.
They have kids that wheel them out to their car.
Yeah,
it's
kind of a fun place.
Is that on the Fox River side?
Or is it on the downtown side?
I mean, it's all downtown, but
it's
downtown.
Yeah, but
is it it's, you know, where the river is?
Yeah,
it's closer to the road.
It's on the north
side.
It's
on the north side of the street.
Yeah, a main street.
Yeah,
and we're actually going to be there.
Oh you
are.
We're going to be signing books there too.
We're signing a
lot of books.
This is our list the next couple of weeks.
Oh wow, you're on tour.
And this doesn't have everything.
We
added a few more today because we've got the
statewide audience
tonight.
Okay, so when are we at Sun Drop?
Okay, so
we're
on Saturday the 22nd in Shimano.
Thank you.
I have a hard time with
it.
You should see the looks we get.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So we're at Twix Sundrop Museum on Saturday the 22nd from 10 to 12.
And then later that day, we're going to be in Stevens Point at bound to happen books from two to four.
And then we mentioned Spooner Ladies Night Out.
We're going to be there signing books at Round Man Brewing.
uh, December 4th, we're going to be at Peppin Library.
Uh, and then December 6th, we're going to be at Pearl Street Books in La Crosse and then also Pioneer Village, the 6th and the 7th and Cameron, which is just outside of Rice Lake.
Um, and then, um, the 11th, we're going to be in Superior at the Bong Veterans Historical Center.
If you haven't seen that, it's really cool.
They've got a cool Pete here, 38 Lightning World War II.
Oh,
really?
And
he's one of the top, maybe the top, he's
one of the top aces of World War Two.
Really?
So yeah, I mean, it's I'm a war I'm a warbler bird fanatic.
So I
love that stuff.
So I'm really excited to do that.
And I did pick up a book about him recently.
I just haven't been had time to read it.
And then the 12th, we're probably going to be an early we're waiting to finalize that.
And then I added three more today.
But then we're leaving for Europe.
On the 18th,
okay.
No,
that's gonna be a different book, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah Yeah, we'll be there.
We're gonna be in Europe the Mediterranean actually yeah over Christmas Which we're kind of excited about spending Christmas.
We're gonna actually spend Christmas Day in Italy So that should be interesting this year.
Yeah, who am I thinking of that does the tour of Italy all the restaurants there on CNN?
Oh
He's an actor.
Yeah.
Oh Stanley Tucci.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, he's got
a good
show.
That is such a great show.
It's a great show.
Another great show if you haven't seen it is Somebody Feed Phil.
Somebody Feed
Phil Rosenthal?
Yes.
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
We love that show.
He was just
here recently too in Madison.
Oh, was he?
Yeah, he's on a book tour right now.
He produced Everybody Loves Raymond.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Last
month, I think.
This is his travel show, and he goes around to different restaurants all over the world.
What a great gig.
I know.
You guys have fun, too, don't you?
We have a
blast.
You must put a lot of miles on the car every
year.
We do.
We have to get a new one about every two years.
And the prices aren't that great now.
Do you have a hybrid?
I hope you do.
It saves a lot of gas.
No, unfortunately, we have a big truck.
Oh, OK.
There's a lot of places we go off-road.
So we like to go to the Colorado Rockies.
Yeah.
As much as possible.
Yeah.
But we do love what we do.
Yeah.
I like and tell.
I mean, you're writing a book about everything that you do do.
So they keep in track.
The magazine articles.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We
write a lot of places.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have a website?
We do.
Smalltownplussize.com.
smalltownplussize.com.
We are actually small town travel specialists.
And then on social, it's Tom and Kristie travel.
Well, Instagram is Tom.
It's just our names.
Tom and Kristie Manus on Instagram and Facebook is small town plus size.
Why the plus size?
Because when years ago, we used to go to small towns.
Yeah.
made plus-size adventures out of small
towns.
Because there's this misconception that there's nothing to do in small towns where actually you'll find more and quirkier things in small towns than you will in most other places.
Any museums that pop up in your travels lately that you've gone to?
In Sparta.
There's the
sprockets and rockets.
They have bicycles and they have
Astronaut.
There was an
astronaut
from Sparta.
Deke
Slayton.
Deke Slayton.
He was
one of the early, what are they called?
The Mercury Seven.
And Deke Slayton never got into space because he had some inner ear problems.
I remember hearing
about that.
Isn't it a neat museum?
Yeah,
this museum is a combination of a bicycle museum and a space museum.
Why
not?
The only place in Wisconsin where you can see an actual moon rock.
And you remember that?
Really?
Yeah.
Okay, do you remember the bicycle that had they put skis on it?
And then there's another bicycle they put ice skates on it Okay, well they have them at that museum and you can't I mean they were only made for like once because if you want to see him that's the place to
go
So Sparta is really, it's a cool town that people overlook.
And I think they don't have a lot of advertising dollars, but it is really a really cork to me, Tim.
Now, also, you remember all the roadside attractions back in the day, because you talked about this morning too, the big roadside fiberglass attractions.
Well, Sparta.
Fast fiberglass company.
just outside the city limits made a lot of those across america oh there you and you can walk through the you still have the molds and yeah the molds yeah and you'll see like big boy and wow you know all kinds of stuff
yeah
wow it's like this i think it's the fiberglass graveyard it's what they
call it i want to go to the fiberglass graveyard
well it really is cool because you get to look through and just imagine what these
you know, molds were what they created because you're in the outside, not the details on the inside.
Is that where the McPherson company is or maybe I'm thinking of another place.
Where's the place for the muskie?
That's a giant muskie.
Yes.
The freshwater fishing hall of fame
museum.
But you can stand.
I think they say you can fit like 20 something people inside the mouth when you go inside.
And it's like you can go inside.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they're stairs.
Yeah, they're stairs and then you can overlook the city and I want to do this picture.
We gotta do
this.
Really?
Yeah, if you take a lot of pictures.
Oh, yeah, thousands.
Yeah.
We should all go on a road trip together.
I
like
it.
We should get a bus, go through the state, see all these things,
and
talk about them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean,
But we take so many pictures because you never know when you're going to need something.
And when something comes up, when an opportunity for an article comes up, you know, you just search your pictures for something and say, oh, yeah, I have photos so I can write about it.
You know, so yeah, that's
terrific.
Well, that's great
stuff.
OK, let's see.
Got a few more minutes to go.
But we were talking about small towns, though.
Anything interesting that you've come across so far that makes small towns so unique?
The people.
okay okay wait we're running out of time here for this particular section but we'll come back with more
Hi,
I'm producer Dom and you are listening to a pre-recorded segment of the John and Gordy show where the guys talk with Tom and Christy Manus, authors of the book, Historic Wisconsin Roadside.
Enjoy!
Phillips is on
Highway 13.
Yep.
And
it's way up north.
Most people have driven through it going up north.
And you see these, you know, concrete things on the side of the road, just on the south side of the city limits and it's Wisconsin Concrete
Park.
wait you
know
the wisconsin concrete
there's something
that is
yes something that doesn't seem like it'd be an attractive place to go
exactly and you drive by and you see a few things you go oh yeah that's interesting but you keep driving yeah
you have to pull in
yeah it's so it started um by fretsmith he was a lumberjack back in the day and but he he started his parents were immigrants from germany
Uh, and then he's, he started building these things in a spare time out of concrete and he, he made them out of like colorful on the outside, colorful class, anything that would shine and catch the light.
You know, he made sculptures of different things.
Now he's a folk artist and, uh, so that the Kohler museum stepped in, um, they restored the park and then they turned it over to the city of Phillips and also an organization called friends of Fred Smith who run and take care of the park.
um and so his take on things i mean he he was um i don't i don't think he went very far in school because he was lumberjack he went to work
sure he couldn't read or write right
and he couldn't read or write um but he was one quirky dude i mean he had his own borrow site too where he would he would um
But you know the the sleigh balls on his knees and play violin and jingle his knees along Okay, I mean I mean he he loved entertaining people But in this park is over 200 concrete statues resembling different things But you really have to look at the depth that he thought of these things and these these statues
There's there's the Clydesdale the Budweiser Clydesdale.
Yes horses.
He's got that there.
He's got a brine a groom
He's got all kinds of animals.
Sacajawea.
But everything has a meaning, though.
It's not just building statues just because it looks nice or it's fun.
Everything has a very deep meaning to him, and it's significant to him.
And in his bar, they served Rhinelander beer in the glass bottles, obviously, in the day.
And they used to hide the bottle, broken bottles under the dirt of the floor.
But he ended up taking those bottles and using them in his artwork.
So it's kind of a neat place.
Above the bar, they have created an Airbnb, which is, we've stayed there.
And I had Tom all stressed out because I said it was, all those things came to life at night.
And there was a back door that was all glass.
No, I
know, they don't come to
life, you know.
They could, you don't know.
And they do a lot of unique, I want to say classes.
You could take different art classes there.
They decorate for the holidays.
Talking about holidays, that's a great place to go because they're decorated for the holidays.
It's just fun to go and walk through.
We took a felting class.
Phillips, yes, right downtown Phillips.
What kind of class?
A felting class.
You know, I'm not the artist at all, so I'm like, yeah, felt.
It's fiber
arts.
Well, we make felt things.
Well, fiber arts,
of
course.
Yeah, we make felt things.
But she ended up making, she made a Jim Croci.
Oh, no kidding.
Yeah.
As an ornament for our Christmas tree.
Oh, nice.
Unique.
See, we're very quirky and unique.
I just made a
blob and got it finished as fast as I could.
You know, this cement park.
My concrete park, my wife has been there.
Her writer friend lives just outside of Phillips.
And she went there and she said it's the most
weird place ever.
I mean, I guess he puts sticks in the concrete and it creates soldiers or something like that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's just, it's just a weird thing.
I mean, they have a big musky and they have a
a milking maid in a milking account.
But
imagine that at night.
See, can't you see where these things might come alive or they're haunted or something?
It's like kind of like a
graveyard.
But you know, Colour Museum restored it and it really is a big deal.
You know, when you look at it and look, there's like I said, there's over 200 sculptures and each one has a significant meaning.
It's really an amazing place.
I mean, she was stunned.
But it's up there right in the middle of nowhere.
It is.
But people drive.
I mean, we're guilty of it too.
I mean, we drive by, you know, but you need to go in and take a look.
And they're doing a better job with creating plaques and explaining his art and so forth.
But, but he's a folk artist from Emirates.
So it's,
yeah.
That's great stuff.
I think there's like, there's probably four parks similar to that around the state where people have immigrated.
And that's how they express themselves.
Yeah.
Well, there's one in, what is it, North Freedom.
Oh, between North Freedom
and
Barrow.
Oh, what is this?
It's right on Highway 12.
Yeah.
Evermore.
Evermore is right across from the Amal
Plains.
Yeah, I've been
there.
Right besides the
ladies.
Amazing place.
Yeah.
I bought a few things at the ladies back in the day.
Oh, wow.
Obviously they weren't worth keeping.
Anyway, this John Murray says, Hey John, you know, I liked your talking like a soldier bit.
Remember when I was
From the front lines, I pretended like I was in some kind of documentary.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
OK, well, it doesn't matter.
All right.
Thanks, John.
We got about it.
Yeah, we're out of time.
We're out of time now.
But
Tom and Christy Manus.
It's always amazing.
Fun stuff.
Your things are just amazing.
We just love coming.
Yeah.
Well, we love having you here.
And if you want to find out more about Tom and Christy, go to smalltownplussize.com.
And you find out about all the books and their travels and everything else.
And yeah, keep in touch.
We'll have you back.
We'll go to Amazon
and just plug it in.
Yeah.
You can get it anywhere.
You can
get it at our publisher's
website.
Okay.
Terrific.
Yeah.
Free shipping.
All
right.
It's Johnny Gordon.
Free
shipping.
Still going.
Okay.
All right.
Now I got it.
I know
I know but you know he played it
They played guitar on it instead and made it sound a lot better than this electronic weird thing that he does here.
Look, I'm a big Beatles fan from, you know, from all the way back, all the way back.
So
and then you're burning all your albums on because of that song.
My God.
And I love Paul McCartney went to see Paul McCartney twice once in 2002.
And then a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah.
Just a few weeks ago, son.
He didn't play this song, by the way.
Well, it wasn't Christmas time.
But I got to say, I speak from love for Paul McCartney.
But this is the worst guy.
Well, I almost swore there.
This is the worst piece of material that he ever did.
And I think it was because they gave him a brand new synthesizer, the people from the synthesizer company.
I don't know what kind of synthesizer.
And this is when synthesizers were a new thing.
And he did this song and it became a big hit.
But it's so...
I just musically speaking, I just can't stand it when it comes on.
You're not alone.
There's a lot of echo on it.
There's a lot of just crazy synthesizer stuff that just play a little bit more.
It's repetitive.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
You don't hear synthesizer anymore and there's a reason why because it's just
Irritating when it's played like that.
And I'm sorry, Paul, if you're listening out there, you know, I'm sure you don't want
to be, you don't want to be a man hind steamroller.
Oh,
man.
It's just so irritating.
Yeah.
And the reverse side of that, John Lennon came out with a great Christmas song.
You'll have to find that happy Christmas war is over, which was one of the great Christmas songs of all time.
It is.
But Paul, I'm sorry.
I just, I can't take that song.
Here we go.
Yeah.
Great song.
It is.
And I know Yoko's on it too.
I get it for all of you Yoko non fans.
It's.
Kind of rough, but overall, that's a great Christmas song.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll get off my soapbox.
Okay.
Well, you know, it's almost, you know, New Year's Eve.
So we shouldn't really even be thinking
about who is that came out, uh, one of the sons.
It's not Julian.
It was, uh, uh, who's the other kid?
Sean, Sean, right?
Yeah.
Sean
O'Neill Lennon.
Yeah.
What about him?
He came out and defended his mom, and he convinced me that a lot of people have drawn conclusions that they shouldn't have drawn over Yoko over all these many decades.
About how she broke up the Beatles, and she had nothing to do with it.
And her
horrible voice, that was just an experimental
thing that
she was trying at the time.
It's not the way she really sings.
She actually sings better on that Christmas song than any other song that I've ever heard her sing on.
So, yeah, it was, it was, it was all right.
Yeah.
She, you know, she actually, the B 52s took some Yoko Ono stuff.
Yeah.
So she was way ahead of her time.
Yeah.
She was, she was following in the footsteps of the theremin.
That's
right.
Yeah.
The instrument.
I don't know.
I'm defending her at this point, even though I was part of the group that, you know... Couldn't stand her.
Yeah, trying to get her out of the country.
No, that wasn't true.
Okay.
No.
I thought it was overblown at the time, making her such an enemy.
There were
so many stories about the Beatles that it was just absolutely ridiculous.
I'd hardly believed any of them, except that when Paul was dead, I actually believed
that.
Well, yeah, they were already breaking up.
The breakup was already in motion, and then she came along.
became a part of this.
She was in the studio.
They'd never had any of, any of their wives or girlfriends in the studio before, but when John and Yoko got together, they were together constantly.
And that, that kind of broke the mood in the studio, but they got over it.
They actually became okay with it.
It's irritating bringing your girlfriend along everywhere you go.
That's kind of a, well, that's the way it was.
But you know, I was just thinking now with
John
and Yoko, you and I have closed out.
This year right seeing the Beatles Right seeing two members of the Beatles of the remaining
you went
McCartney.
I went to say Ringo star, right?
I mean what a weird coincidence that I know.
Yeah Yeah, it was great, you know, they're still they're still out there rocking.
You know, it's amazing.
Yeah, McCartney's 83.
I think Ringo's 85.
They're still touring
It's amazing.
Where did you see Ringo?
Well, don't you remember he was in Milwaukee?
He was in Milwaukee.
It
was great stuff.
It really was.
And they can really move around.
Which I have to, you know, I sit there and I'm thinking, I'm maybe not doing all the exercises I should be doing because they're limbers, heck.
Yeah, Ringo's out there doing jumping jacks on stage.
Yes, he is, yes.
Yeah.
McCartney did a couple of backflips.
It was amazing.
He jumped off the drug stand.
I'm beginning to think that's not true.
But when you look at
Mick Jagger, wow, right?
Although the Stones called off their 2026 tour just a couple of days ago, not because of Mick Jagger, but because of Keith Richards.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
He was not up to it physically.
Wow.
Yeah.
They didn't really, they were kind of coy about why they pulled the plug on that tour, but it was all kind of set up.
And then he said, I can't do it.
So you don't have Keith Richards out there.
Yeah.
That's a whole different thing.
I know it is.
So anyway, but we're still here.
You know, we're still plugging away.
We are.
Yeah.
Looking forward to a new year.
Yeah.
And
breath
a fresh air
that once we
want in 2026 what do
you guys do you guys have a New Year's resolution that you guys have I mean, I know mine.
I have a New Year's resolution.
Do you really know what
no line dancing?
What is it?
It's it is to work out that was that was Yeah, and I'm here.
Yeah, and I always do it for the first month of January and then stop right after forget about it
Yeah Well, I made that resolution earlier and all of a sudden we ended up living here at the state
We don't have
the same equipment here.
You know, we should have an exercise room now.
We've got plenty of office space.
Leftover.
Now that it's Johnny Gordy Studios, we should probably just put that in the budget.
Yeah,
that'll, why not?
Put in an exercise room.
We do have that
extra
office right there.
Why not?
Yeah.
Do you want to guess what year with the first Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop happened?
I got a little New Year's Eve trivia.
It's coming up in a couple of days.
I'm assuming it's 1992.
The
first Times Square ball drop?
Yeah.
1992.
Why would you... I'm gonna say 1963.
Yeah, even older.
Way older.
Really?
Way older.
Times Square, the big ball drop.
The big
get-together.
I'm
sure it wasn't as high tech as it is now.
It was 1907.
No.
Yes.
Oh,
wow.
Oh,
my God.
What is it?
Just
dropped balls from the top of the building.
The ball dropped.
It
was pretty easy.
They
had to be rudimentary
at
the
time.
Did you guys drop balls from the top of this?
We did.
Yeah.
We threw them off at the top.
We had the John and Gordy stressed balls.
You don't do that in Madison.
They get
very upset.
We had to go down and chase them
all down afterwards.
We had to
apologize to a group of people who were trying to save themselves from causing some kind of traffic accident.
That
was traumatizing for them, but they got over it.
Not a smart idea.
You know that
You know that New Year's Rockin' Eve show?
Now Ryan Seacrest took over for Dick Clark, you know.
Seacrest is that... Seacrest hosts is it.
Yeah.
Okay.
But do you remember what, when the first year was that Dick Clark did the New Year's Rockin' Eve, which was a big deal because up until that time they had Guy Lombardo, a guy from the 30s or 40s would have his orchestra playing in some ballroom and they would just do all laying zine and then that was it.
It was over.
But New Year's Rockin' Eve with Dick Clark was the first broadcast.
Want to take a guess?
2005.
No.
No.
Earlier.
You probably don't even remember Dick Clark.
I
don't.
1992.
I was going to say, 92, 93.
No.
1972 with Dick Clark.
Well, that's a long time.
Yeah.
Wow.
And we got to start
guessing earlier here.
The first guest, the first band, was Three Dog Night.
And George Carlin was also on the show.
providing some comedy.
I'll be honest, I'm a blur as far as when these groups were out.
Really?
Yeah, it's not a big deal.
So, do you have any New Year's Eve plans, John, or Dom?
What do you do on New Year's Eve?
Do you go out and get snot-slinging
drunk?
What do you do?
Well, you know what?
I think I am.
Yes, I think that's gonna be the goal for this year.
Grow up, Dom, just
grow up, will
you?
Do what we all do, just sit at home in a chair
and say, oh my
god, not another new
year.
Well, if you guys want to come out with me, you know, we got a few people going, we can all get
Well, you're going to go line dancing though.
I don't want to do that.
Well, but then you get drunk as well.
So, you
know, it all works out.
Just watch you try to dance.
Please don't.
Well, you
know, we kind of have a tradition of going out and getting a cherry beer.
Cherry
beer?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's a...
Where do you get cherry beer?
I'm trying to
think of what it is.
What,
the
brand name?
Yeah, the brand name.
It's a Belgian red, is what they call it.
And it's in the Nuclearis Brewing Company.
Is it Creek Lambics?
Okay, that would be other brewers.
And it's exactly, pretty much exactly the same.
But Nuclearis Brewery has the... I'm seeing Nuclearis Belgian red.
That's it.
Right there.
The
Belgian red.
Okay.
Yeah.
And we
get
a bottle of that instead of cheap champagne.
I can't stand the bubbles.
And we pour that and it's just delicious.
This is the greatest stuff.
And it's Wisconsin.
That's
what we do it for.
Yeah.
It sounds good.
I'll have to try that sometime.
Yeah.
In fact, they should make champagne size bottles.
of that.
Because like, it's delicious stuff.
Well, no, it's cherries.
It's all cherries.
It's very, very definitely cherry.
So if you like cherry juice, this is it.
This is the thing to get.
And bubbly and wonderful.
But you're not planning to go out anywhere.
You just stay home for New Year's Eve, right?
Yeah,
so it's kind of amateur night.
Yeah, you don't want to drive.
You don't want to be driving around, you know, no around midnight when all the crazy people are out there just running willy-nilly through the streets.
You think so?
Drunk.
We're gonna do that.
That's all
we ever did.
Maybe
Dom will do that.
Yeah, give us my shirt off and taste drink or
something.
With his sock hat on, of course.
Well, it's John and Gordy for a Monday morning as we, you know, start to wind down the year.
And we'll have much more of our best of pre-pre-pre New Year's Eve celebration when we return.
Stay with us
here.
Hello, this is producer Dominic from The John and Gordy Show, and this is a pre-recorded segment with the fabulous farm babe, Pam Yachty.
I'm traveling up deep to the land of the
under-21
bars.
I'm going
to
Cheeseland.
Pam Yachty
joins us now.
Yes.
At West Farm Report.
Good morning, Pam.
Morning guys.
Yeah, I was at the game last night.
It was plenty chilly there, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good outcome
though.
Yeah, it's very good.
Very good.
About gave me a heart attack, but very good.
The only good thing about letting go of field in this weather is that you're sitting so close to one another, you're generally trying to coning on somebody else's body heat to keep you there.
Right.
Yeah, I know.
It's really crazy out in the stands.
At least, you know, when you're out in the stands, in the weather, because I went out there for one of those really, really, really cold days and we were drinking beer.
I've told you the story, but the beer was dripping down our chins.
Our chins were frozen, Pam.
So we didn't feel the beer pouring down our chins.
And we looked down and we had beer.
I went
with my 19 year old nephew yesterday and I turned and looked at him and he had had something to eat and it was literally frozen on his face.
Did you not ever hear of a napkin?
He's like, what are you talking about?
His face was so frozen.
He didn't, he couldn't tell that he had anything there.
So yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
That's crazy.
That's why they got out in the stand with the icicles.
Yeah.
It's real.
Great game
though.
All right.
Well, let's talk about the county fairs and the impact they have economically around Wisconsin.
Yeah.
yeah this is kind of cool uh... it's it's been a year-long project at the wisconsin fair association affairs undertook it's part of a national collaboration to take a look at the economic impact that fairs have on their communities and obviously then to the state and uh... they're going to be talking about this at great length in january when they have their state convention in wisconsin dels but jimmy butki the executive secretary of the wisconsin association affairs was telling me a little bit about
boy, I guess we'd say the economic punch that county fairs bring to a community.
I think a lot of us imagine county fairs are, it is about community.
You get together.
It is also about education.
That's a major component.
Jamie said that the other thing that they have to engage in is volunteer recruitment.
Since the pandemic, people don't want to volunteer.
So trying to find those volunteers that county fairs depend on and giving them a story that they can resonate with.
Obviously it's not like you're getting volunteers by its definition, you're not getting paid, but they're trying to find out ways that they can get people excited about that.
Now the economic part of it, like I said, I don't have all the details, but I took a look at some of the information that they had previously and also that some individual fairs
had commissioned and it really is, it's striking.
I shared with you guys just a few of them.
They figured that over 33% of all citizens in Wisconsin attended a county fair.
That's a pretty good average.
That's a pretty fabulous and a lot of it, if you think about what fairs have gone through through the pandemic, a lot of fairs rely on every year's income.
You can't
Bypass of one year and stay healthy and then try and get your crowd to come back out So I'm happy to see that they're that they're doing well that way then take a look at some of the fairs that have done an exceedingly great job at Generating money while we're at the county fair now.
That's uh, what's so what's like?
Well The holiday what is it Labor Day Memorial Day?
What's the one in September?
Labor day labor day.
Yeah.
Okay.
So there's kind of cascades over labor day.
So does Iowa counties and those fairgrounds generated about nine million dollars in financial economic impact in the community and and they've got basically 70 full-time jobs that are supported by the county fair and well worth county.
That's a that's a big one out of gamey county.
That's kind of up here where I'm at
Just outside of Green Bay, 1.3 million in Iowa County.
Like I said, another one that goes over that Labor Day weekend, almost a million dollars.
And they figured that one supports about 12 and a half jobs in Iowa County.
Now, like I said, remember, when you start looking at those counties, like you said, John, they're all over the place, 72 county fairs in Wisconsin.
And think about some of the sparsely populated counties.
where the county fair is not only your gathering spot, but it is an economic driver.
You know, there's vendors that depend on that.
So I'd be curious to see all the details when they get together in January.
Jamie Buttke, our executive secretary, just received the top recruiter award by the International Association of Fairs and Expositions because she got 23 Wisconsin Fairs to participate in this national economic impact study.
So
It should be interesting.
I'll
look forward to some of the details.
Well, Gordy's putting together a Elvis impersonation act that he wants to perform at all of these games.
Give me your card.
Give me your card.
I'll be a representative up at their convention.
I'll put you right next to the tractor and truck poles and the carnival clouds.
Oh, that's a good gig, man.
I'll tell you what.
Actually, that's a choice gig.
We've got about a minute or so left, but we want to
touch on all the cheese information
that we've got.
Right.
We can't get through
it all, but I really want to touch on this.
I want to get into it even deeper the next time we talk, but
this is
really a fantastic story about what the dairy farmers of Wisconsin are doing with cheese.
Tell us.
Yeah.
Well, it's anywhere you're going, look for the proudly Wisconsin badge.
It's basically a hand holding up a wheel of cheese and that'll let you know no matter where you are.
That's Wisconsin cheese.
And remember 90% of our milk in Wisconsin goes into cheese.
90% of the cheese we produce sells outside of Wisconsin.
Yeah.
And then the byproducts are all being part marketed as well.
Turn it to
something really
healthy.
We can tackle that on Friday.
I'll give you a whole laundry list of what we do after the
cheese.
It's fascinating stuff.
Very good, Pam.
We'll talk to you again on Friday.
You have a good week.
That's Pam.
See you later, boys.
All right.
Coming back with more after
this.
Hello, it's producer Dom again.
Just wanted to let you know that this is a pre-recorded segment with John and Gordy talking to Rearibble, a former United States representative from 2011 to 2017.
We were talking about FIFA and how corrupt they are and we have a few
Comments about it.
Well, let's go to Nancy on the phone lines real quick here before we get to former congressman Reed Ribble talking about health care Nancy, what do you got for us?
Hi there I come from up in Wausau, you know, and we're a pretty red area up here But I don't know how much can there's gonna be more in our drinking water than PFAS for people that Still can't believe that Trump is anything but a con
Uh, you know, you're getting a peace prize that you literally invent with a corrupt agency.
What do we need to do to get this out there to more mainstream media?
My
goodness.
I agree.
Well, we're, we're, we're doing our best here.
You know, I have another cut from Jen Psaki
in
regards.
in, in, in regards to this FIFA award.
So we'll get to that in a little while, but I appreciate your call and everything.
And we have a comment here that was sent in, um, let's see, or FIFA is in stupid that, you know, they're not stupid.
They're being investigated for crimes and, uh, and the plastic, uh,
Award is certainly a way to pay him off.
Okay.
We'll see what happens with that.
All
right, Brett.
Thank you for that comment.
Thank you.
And
Nancy, thanks for that call.
Now let's get to our special guest this afternoon.
It's a former congressman Reed Ribble, also a professor or something like that
at the
Green W.
I believe I believe he
it's and read correct us if we're wrong practitioner in residence there you go in political science at
uwg
green bay did
i get that right yeah and you got that right john okay okay we're good all right that's right i'm not a i'm not a professor there
okay
all right what what is a practitioner in residence what is that was that kind of
like an adjunct professor or what is yeah so yeah so i i i uh i assist in some of the political science classrooms i do lectures on different
and topics to various students, but mostly those students that are seeking some type of occupation in the political realm, whether it's campaign side or actually the government side, I serve as an advisor.
They have my contact information.
We visit about career path and how they might enter this world of politics and try to help them along their journey as they seek to
Serve the country and whatever or or the state of Wisconsin or or the county that they live in in Wisconsin through the political side
Well, you know when you were in Congress you were a big supporter of farming and what happens to farmers in regards to like tariffs and the resulting Problems they have because of these tariffs you were in Congress during the first
Trump administration and
no, no, I actually left in 2017.
Oh, you did.
Okay.
So I left right before Trump came
in.
But, um, but I can tell just as an aside to that, what farmers really want is markets.
They don't want help.
And so the best way to help farmers to open up markets to them, not shrink them by imposing tariffs.
All
right.
Well,
Let's get to health care then.
I will try not to get too upset or
whatever.
Okay.
Now you're more on the libertarian side.
So
you would like to
see less government involved in health care.
I mean, we do have Medicare.
We have Medicaid and we also have the tax credits that are in the Affordable Care Act.
So there's a lot of government help and support.
for our healthcare system currently the way it is.
My idea is to go with universal healthcare.
And that would be universal health insurance by the government and have some of these insurance companies, of course, manage the system itself.
I know that's government involvement and probably not something you support, but it seems like the only way we can get out of this big mess, this debt.
And so people don't have debt loads.
They don't accumulate medical debt.
and they don't have huge premiums each month that they have to deal with.
And by the way, you're also giving an advantage to large businesses that can offer healthcare where small businesses cannot offer it or most of the time can't.
And I, I, listen, I think that this is where that ends up.
I think probably within the next decade, we're going to have some type of single payer universal health healthcare.
I think that was part of the original strategy behind the Affordable Care Act, and we're now kind of at this place where Republicans find themselves in a box canyon that they can't get themselves out of.
Because the COVID subsidies, which were, you can argue, were necessary during the COVID environment.
COVID's now over, but the healthcare prices continue to escalate.
And now if you just get rid of that particular subsidy, citizens are going to find themselves in a real tough spot.
And going to your point about how many people are already in some type of single-payer system, over 50% of the US population is in some type of single-payer
system
already.
When you take Medicare and Medicaid, you take veteran's health.
You take prison health and you take Brevinian affairs health, you already have over 50% of the country in some form a single payer.
And because the government reimburses below the actual costs of some of those programs, those that are in the private health care system, buying their health insurance to the private system, whether it be directly or through their employers, have to pay a higher amount
to offset the loss on the other side.
And so we've got this kind of catastrophic place that the country finds itself in with health care.
And the thing that bothers me most of all, and maybe you guys will agree or disagree, and it's totally fine for us have a disagreement.
It's also fine with me to have agreement is that there's been too much talk about health insurance and not enough talk about health care.
And as if they're the same.
So like you take some of the counties in rural northern Wisconsin, there are no health care providers there.
And so to what benefit do these citizens get by paying a lot of money for health insurance when there's no providers in the county that they live in?
Well, that's true.
And it's really, we have a health care delivery problem in crisis as well as a health insurance and health cost crisis.
And that's where
the two parties have to somehow lay down their swords and get in a room and actually talk this through and listen to the voices of the American people who in many cases need help, you know, whether it's through Medicaid or senior citizens that are on Medicare or a regular private pay that is now going to see healthcare prices spike.
There's a real challenge here.
There are probably some things they could do in the interim
But at the end of the day, they're going to have to come up with some type of solution, and they're not going to have it by January 1st.
Right.
Now, you know, that tax credit increase because of COVID kind of spoiled the insurance companies.
And
because it went directly to them.
It went right to them and they managed to raise their rates.
And I believe that Trump also allowed the insurance companies to increase their yearly increase to 15 percent instead of limiting it to just 10 percent.
I don't know what the point of that was except to make it more expensive for people.
But, you know, that tax credit certainly made people feel like, hey, you know what, we can afford health care now.
And it brought down those who are uninsured from 48 million to about 24 million.
And again, the 24 million could get health care to like 40 percent of them could get health care through expanded Medicaid.
So.
The problem here is that we're just throwing more money, our money, taxpayer money into the health care system when we could just do one big health care reform act and give health care to everybody and just increase the payroll tax, essentially, you know, the money
that
goes into it.
It would be fairly significant payroll tax increase because going that route,
doesn't, in my view, solve the underlying problem, which is the cost of delivery of healthcare.
And so we're looking at, again, having a middleman, some insurance company, managing it on behalf of the government, if they become a single payer.
as opposed to trying to do things that will actually cause healthcare costs to go down.
And I can maybe make some suggestions on things that they might consider or should consider.
What would be, let's increase the supply of physicians, nurses and physician assistants by providing for those 18, 19, 20 year old young people that want to go into the medical service in this country, let's provide
free education for them so they don't leave college with a $400,000 debt to have their MD.
And instead, you get them into the system so that we're increasing the number of physicians that are available.
And if you increase the supply of health care, you're going to drive the price down.
And right now we've got the inversion of that.
We're increasing the demand of healthcare as boomers in particular are retiring out.
We're increasing demand as the US population ages out without increasing the supply.
And this is helping to drive costs up.
And so one of the things we need to do is at the service provider side is to free up more people to go into healthcare without bankrupting them on the journey there.
That's
what a lot of European countries
do.
They
pay for
the physician's training and the nurses as well.
And because they come out without any kind of bills, they don't have to charge as much for their services.
And if you look at most European models, the government does put quite a few restrictions on what
physicians can earn and the gap that you might see between some that's providing mental health care or primary care and someone that's an anesthesiologist or a surgeon is much smaller in those environments.
But their indebtedness is also much lower because their education was provided for by the system.
And I think that's one of the things you do.
The other thing you might do is you, the Affordable Care Act restricted
physicians from owning their own hospitals and owning their own businesses per se, that's a provision that's backfired on us and we should cut those doctors loose to provide care.
And I also think that for those 24 to 30 million people that are uninsured, why don't we require the medical health system to be transparent on their pricing?
You know, actually post their pricing.
We know what it costs and they know every
Every hospital in the country knows what it costs to take out a gallbladder, for example, or do a tonsillectomy.
They do thousands and thousands and thousands.
They know exactly what they are, but we've monopolized it, and now we need to break down those monopolies and force transparency and pricing.
So those people that are uninsured have a way of shopping, but they can't.
If you call your primary care doc and ask them what this or that costs, they can't tell you.
They just know what the code is.
Right.
But I always had a problem with that because there's no way to shop for that kind of care because they're a different, they could, they could certainly display the price of an operation or treatment, but you can't go to each and every hospital and get, you know, a quote on that.
And you don't have time for it sometimes.
And doctors, doctors are in certain groups at this point.
with our current healthcare system.
That's correct because it's been monopolized a bit, but if you do what I suggested at the front end and increase the supply and you liberate physicians to work outside of that particular system, you would have more competition on pricing, much like you do in eye care dental.
And so there are ways, particularly in primary care, which is where you need to get at to get at the underlying health conditions in the country.
If you get that,
Supply up you can begin to drive some of those costs of health care delivery down.
That's
right And you end up with you end up with a with a population that is ends up being healthier
We're talking to read rebel and we'll continue this conversation after a break here on healthcare
Hi, it's Dom, the producer of The John and Gordy Show, and you're listening to the continued conversation with Reed Ripple.
Enjoy!
John and Gordy, we're talking health care again.
We always talk about health care because we know something about it.
And we're talking to Reed Rebel, former Congressman and now practitioner in residence in political science at the University of Green Bay.
And
we've got a phone call.
Should we take that?
Okay.
Reed, stand by.
Let's see what they have to say.
Let's talk to Gary in Sussex.
Good afternoon, Gary.
Go ahead.
Hey.
I got I have an idea.
I'm a heating contractor and When I sit there and I just left the job now I told the guy that he's gonna need a new furnace shortly Now his furnace is almost 25 years old But his furnace lasted 25 years because I do the maintenance on it every year Now if people would sit there and take care of themselves eat better
stop smoking, stop drinking and doing any of the other bad vices that are out there and start walking and jogging and swimming and biking and everything like that.
Everybody's health is gonna get way better.
So they should give you an incentive to go out there and if you stay healthy and you don't smoke and you don't drink, price of healthcare is gonna go down worldwide.
Nationwide at least, you
know, we've been saying
that for a
long time.
So what kind of incentive are you suggesting?
Well, okay.
First of all, these big insurance companies, obviously they do charge way too much.
And the Republicans didn't have an answer for it.
Democrats certainly didn't have an answer to it.
You know, nobody knows what to do.
So as far as I'm concerned, I would say, well,
If everybody was healthy, it would automatically bring it down.
But I would probably say it'll give you like 25% off.
But the thing is, people would be healthier anyways.
So the cost of healthcare would automatically go down because people would be healthy.
And if you don't want to, if you want to smoke and drink all day and eat bonbons, then fine, pay through the nose.
I don't care.
You know, Gary, the only problem
with that solution is that you're trying to change human nature and we're not going to be able to do that.
There's no incentive to change human nature.
We can't do it.
Well, Gary, I'm going to move on to our guest here, but we appreciate your comment and a lot of the texts that we're getting have to do with affordability.
and the cost of health care in this country and profits and hospitals and doctors are making incredible profits.
Insurance companies are making incredible profits.
What we have to do is somehow negotiate down those prices.
What do you think we do?
Can we negotiate?
Most of the European countries negotiate with the doctors, the hospitals, the drug prices.
They control how much you can charge for each one of those events.
What do you think?
Yeah, well, it's not really a negotiation.
It's a dictate.
And that may ultimately be where we end up.
I mean, we have to be realistic here that most first world countries are having some form of single payer health care system.
And I think that ultimately that's where this ends up.
However, in the interim between here and there, what the recent caller just said about putting incentives in the right place, that, again, would require an act of Congress.
It would require those two sides to come to some form of agreement and where insurance companies have more flexibility.
hospital systems have more flexibility to charge the smoker more, to charge the alcoholic more, to charge the obese more, and try to help them get to a place where they take some responsibility for their own health.
And this is why we need to put, in my view, we need to put more emphasis on primary care and getting in front of these issues rather than
rather than getting behind and trying to treat them after the problem occurs, which we don't really see happening.
Well, I have something I want to put a little cut here about student financial aid for graduate students.
Let's listen to this.
So I don't like to do this, but did you guys know that the Department of Education has now taken nursing completely out of a professional degree program?
So if the health care system isn't broken enough,
and there's not already a shortage of nursing.
By doing this, congratulations, you're going to be short a million other nurses.
By not giving nurses the same amount of reimbursement or like educational loans that you do for other practices that are included in this like MDs, veterinarians, chiropractors, podiatrists, people aren't going to go to school.
So apparently my doctorate that I busted my tushy for is not going to be considered a
professional degree.
Cool.
Oh, and they also did this to teachers too.
So basically getting your doctorate for nursing or education is now going to be a waste.
So your ER wait times is going to go up.
You want your medication?
Good luck finding a nurse.
You want someone to spend extra time with your kid because they need to be tutored?
Good luck finding that higher level of education.
Bravo.
Well, what do you think?
She's not wrong.
These are some of the places whereby public policy shoots itself in the foot.
Going right back to the very place that I started, we have to increase supply, not decrease supply.
This will decrease
it.
That will serve to decrease it.
Listen, I just had a fairly major back surgery and I will tell you, I was very thankful in the middle of the night.
to be awoken by a very competent nurse to make sure that I was managing my pain in the right time.
I was making sure whatever medications and exercises that I needed to do to facilitate my recovery were happening when I was in the hospital.
And that wasn't done by my surgeon.
That was done by a nurse that was working in the middle of the night to make sure that I was taken care of.
And having fewer nurses is not the right approach to this.
She's highlighting one of the many problems that we have in the delivery of health care.
Well, this is setting us up for a fall, basically.
Reform of the Department of Education.
Reid, we have to go.
Yeah, we have to leave it there, but thank you so much for joining us.
We hope to have you back again soon.
Sure, we
can talk about Social Security.
Never go.
Hey, I would love to do that.
You give me a call some time and we'll talk that through.
Very good.
Love to do that.
Thank you.
That's Reid Ribble, practitioner in residence in politics, political science at Green Bay UW.
Coming up next.
you
