Swearing, Silica, and the Kennedy Conundrum (Hour 2)

Transcript

Swearing, Silica, and the Kennedy Conundrum (Hour 2)

John & Gordy · Mon Dec 22, 2025

Kathryn Lake

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Kathryn Lake

for a while.

The talk is cheap.

Cab, cab, cab.

Always gossiping.

It's the John and Gordy show.

This is high-five once.

Kathryn Lake

And that's the way it

is.

We'll do it

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live.

On 92.7 FM, WMDX.

Take it away, boys.

All right, take them away.

Wait, I mean, you know, the sunrise is getting...

Well, sunrise is at 726.

Is that according to your Samsung watch?

20 minutes away from that right now.

Yeah.

425 in the afternoon.

Sunset.

Yeah.

It's wintertime, 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.

Yeah.

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?

Well, sideways.

The driver's side is a little on the side, which is okay.

You know, 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, 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, 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 you have to take the side panel off.

Like seriously.

Oh no.

Yeah, you gotta take it to a body shop and take the sun.

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 going to cost me

an arm and a leg.

You're

sure that's really... Yes, I went to three places.

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, you think they can do that.

I think they could Yeah, it

does it does they do other stuff too.

Oh, they do.

Yeah.

Yep 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 babbling.

There we go.

Okay

All

right.

I didn't know Groupon still exists.

Oh, yeah.

Does it really?

Yes, yeah.

I have no idea.

I'm going to say this.

I'm a little snobbery here.

All right.

A little snobbery.

OK.

I have the space car now.

Oh, yeah.

You know, EV, I don't need oil changes anymore.

Right,

OK.

You know, I just

want to let you know that

you don't have to go through that hell anymore.

OK.

All right.

And then I did.

I took the Prius out just to see if the headlines were aligned

or not.

And

then I'm like experiencing an engine with cylinders in it.

And I'm thinking, oh my god, this is like, you know.

From another 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.

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.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, let's send that off to Matt.

You might get some, you know, some money.

Some

residuals.

Yeah,

just, you know, 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 subsidized tax credits.

So, yeah.

Yeah, that's that's time.

He's always thinking about us here in Wisconsin.

Let's make him governor.

Oh my god.

At least

Eric Havde announced

he's not running.

I was gonna say at least it's not stand-up comedian Eric Havde.

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 because so much for Wisconsin.

Yeah.

My commercials,

just 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 it 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.

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 the S 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

Washbooth

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 if everybody's heart.

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.

be, 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.

Get on the stick now.

Get your opposition racers

going.

Oh, okay.

Listen, I tried to stop him.

I saw

him.

I

was waving my arms.

You know, I was like,

he was really

panicking.

Yeah.

Well, you

don't, you don't swear very

much.

No, you don't swear.

That's pretty cool.

Especially on the air.

Okay.

She's gone.

Well, that was timed well.

Okay.

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, the 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.

Yeah.

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 and Pierce 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.

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.

You know, she's really hot.

My wife turned to me yet last night.

She goes, you know, we could have a three away with her.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I think we, we got to take a break.

I

turned the mic off.

Emily in Paris.

Check it out.

We're coming back with more of John and Courtney for a Monday after this.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

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.

Is

that weird?

Yeah.

My parents still did that when early

2000s.

Yeah.

That happened to me.

Have they apologized for that?

No.

Not at all.

Oh, they should.

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 rough, he heard all the 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.

And then we're talking about Emily in Paris being a vacuous eye candy, essentially.

But you know what?

It's a funny show.

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.

Really?

Yeah.

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?

You have a

story

for it?

Yes, the naming of 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

well they also 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

on

does it no it doesn't

so they're supposed to get

congress to approve that

right so anyway i mean you know 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 there.

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 to 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 to 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

Happy

Monday.

Dom at the controls, of course.

Catherine Lake has joined us.

Good morning, Catherine.

I'm just here to watch.

Kathryn Lake

I'm just here to

make sure.

You

Kathryn Lake

don't say any S words.

My 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

Kathryn Lake

heard about it.

I

think

Kathryn Lake

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

Kathryn Lake

said it was good, you know, just

to sit back.

It's just eye candy.

Yeah, we don't have to war with you.

You really don't have to think too hard on the 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

Kathryn Lake

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... And then she gets

into 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 yeah this season.

Yeah, so

Kathryn Lake

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.

Kathryn Lake

She's the new flavor of the month

But this this season it's different everything is going sideways.

Yeah sideways for

Yeah, yeah Here we have dick on the lines this morning 6 0 8 8 7 9 8 2 5 5 good morning dick go ahead

Uh, what about the John and Gordy State Capitol?

Yeah,

we're trying to put our names on everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the cleanliness of, uh, if this is true that it's not real clean, 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

Kathryn Lake

than any Vegas place they've

played

Kathryn Lake

lately,

no doubt.

Village people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

But you know, I just, just wondering.

Question,

Kathryn Lake

Dick, thanks.

Oh, I know.

I know.

They put the name up without any approval whatsoever.

Authorization.

It's supposed to be approved by Congress.

Put it up there.

Kathryn Lake

Yeah.

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.

It wasn't named that until after JFK was assassinated.

They changed the

Kathryn Lake

name.

Oh, oh, wait, let's go over that part one more time.

Oh,

Kathryn Lake

after he was what?

Assassinated.

Kathryn Lake

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 planned it.

It was, it didn't open until 1971.

So that was, you know, eight years after Kennedy had been assassinated.

Kathryn Lake

I've played there.

You played at the Kennedy Center.

What do you mean you played there?

Kathryn Lake

My orchestra got to play there.

You had an orchestra.

Yeah, my orchestra.

Was it the Catherine Lake Orchestra?

No, it was not.

You name it after yourselves.

It was the Empire State

Kathryn Lake

Youth

Orchestra.

You played the flute.

Kathryn Lake

Violin for God's sake.

The Empire State Youth Orchestra got to play there.

And Carnegie Hall.

Practice, practice, practice.

Gay.

Wow.

Kathryn Lake

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.

Very, very tiny

letters.

She actually went to the Brewers game with us.

Oh, really?

Yeah,

she's important.

Oh,

right now.

Yeah, she's important.

Okay.

And she said, uh, 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 it done.

I mean, you know, the most dangerous thing you could possibly think of is Silica in the air around a school, elementary school, and he allowed that.

He's one of the worst people ever to run for governor just because he has a pass that is not very good.

Kathryn Lake

Those kinds of

ideas.

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

Kathryn Lake

parents never swore.

My parents

never swore.

Kathryn Lake

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.

Your parents.

Wasn't that amazing.

Yeah.

Kathryn Lake

Yeah, then it's okay.

Not in front of kids.

They were able to sense themselves around you.

Kathryn Lake

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.

Kathryn Lake

Dominic's

laughing.

You guys are slack-jawed uninterested.

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 not.

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

Kathryn Lake

just baiting me.

You're just baiting me.

I

am.

I am baiting you.

Kathryn Lake

Mark

says if I remember right the s-word was perfectly acceptable to the angle of Saxons, but the Norman influence on the English language decided it was crude and unacceptable We can say Guano manure poop etc, 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.

It's something brilliant.

There you go, Mark.

Just every time.

It's gorgeous.

OK.

You

Kathryn Lake

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

Kathryn Lake

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 then in Chicago and Illinois,

all

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told.

Seriously, my

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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 and just have them say whatever they want.

No, I have a lot of stories.

I got a ton of stories.

You're right.

I haven't gotten to too many

of them here.

OK.

OK.

We're getting more comments about the Kennedy Center here.

Kathryn Lake

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 the leaky diapers.

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.

Sounds awesome.

Professor of Economics, Justin Wolffers.

Everybody loves Justin Wolfers.

I just love the way he explains the economy to us, okay?

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

Kathryn Lake

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.

Okay, couldn't upgrade.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's because it's responsive, right?

That's what 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, fun something else.

Yeah.

So, you know, we're so we have to go through all of our Alexis and we got a ton of neutralize.

Yeah, we had to put them all into

I'm English, American, American English.

So, 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've got the wrong idea.

Kathryn Lake

Let's talk about this after the break.

I want

Kathryn Lake

to define what Alexa plus is.

Yeah.

Well, it has, it's.

It gives you the ability to have a conversation with Alexa, and Alexa has AI, and it gets faxed.

I want to mine is doing that.

Because Alexa cannot do that.

They can't actually look things up for you.

Okay.

We will continue with John and Gordy, along with Catherine Lake and Dominic Lee after these messages from our beloved

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sponsors.

I'm going to

call Fonzo.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Johnny Gordy in the morning.

Who is that?

Kathryn Lake

It's too cool

for you.

Do

you know who it is?

No, it's in sound show.

So I'll look it up and

I'll let you

guys know.

The other day, I think you played Smash Mouth.

I love everything.

I love Smash Mouth.

Yeah.

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Because

we're

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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?

Kathryn Lake

You want

to

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dip into my musical world and you don't have the data?

It's called hot.

Okay, let's play hot.

We'll play some.

Let's play it.

This is a great song.

This is a great song.

Yeah, excellent.

Let's check it out.

Okay.

Kathryn Lake

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 movie in violation.

I mean, seriously, that's good.

That's a great song for the Hot Wheels animated movies.

I like it.

Yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Lake

Can you pull the song that they're most famous for?

No.

Kathryn Lake

You can't?

Do you?

Kathryn Lake

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.

Kathryn Lake

Rockstar.

Rockstar.

Rockstar.

Oh,

yeah, rockstar.

That was the, that's right.

Do you remember

that one?

Yeah.

Oh,

yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, and they do a really good cover of a question mark of a mystery.

All star.

It's all star.

Yeah, 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.

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Dominic knows the words.

Yeah.

Great song.

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Another good one.

Yeah,

that's a good one.

Kathryn Lake

You were talking about swearing a lot this morning.

Yeah.

Again.

Yeah.

Larry has written in from Deerfield.

Larry underste- He sees me.

Larry sees me.

Kimmel and Colbert.

Colbert.

Colbert.

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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.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Larry.

Yeah.

Larry.

Well, you know, the thing about the thing about smash mouth is that the lead singer died.

Oh, is that true?

I mean, that is he had such a unique voice, great voice.

And he had health issues and passed away in 2023.

Sad.

Yeah.

Kathryn Lake

You're from Middleton, John.

There's another John in Middleton who knows Spanish and I don't...

I mean, it's Spanish.

That's Italian.

What does that say?

It's

Kathryn Lake

Italian, but I don't know... 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... The S word?

Kathryn Lake

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

Kathryn Lake

indeed, there's a lot of bad words in this one, we're not gonna say anything.

It is all swearing.

I'm not gonna swear in

Italian

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either.

Okay, thanks John for Middleton.

We can swear in another language.

How's that?

Okay, we were 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.

Kathryn Lake

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.

And 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.

That's

it.

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.

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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

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speaking to

me last

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night in bed.

I'm calling

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you.

It

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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

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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.

Kathryn Lake

I'm done with

you.

Okay.

Most everybody else is.

Are we done?

You're done.

Yeah,

we're about done.

You know, I can't I came in with

like eight pages of story

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.

Kathryn Lake

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.

Kathryn Lake

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