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Hey, thank you very much.
Welcome back.
Good looking morning right now in Green Bay, Afton and Oshkosh.
We're at Brittany Merlot, our civic media meteorologist on earlier talking about the potential.
It's very tornadic looking throughout much.
Thank you.
The password is.
Tornadic.
Tornadic.
Tornadic.
Something.
Yeah, it's tornado-y.
But Brittany, we're looking at the weather thing you put up there, Todd.
It's definitely moving north.
East.
There's no question about that.
And there are some big, big red patches heading that way northeast Wisconsin, like far northeast Wisconsin.
But you send that looks kind of ugly with all the red.
But you said there's another okay, another line coming from that lacrosse area right behind it,
to tonight.
Six o'clock even.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
If you're a lacrosse player, you'll still be out there because Rich Thompson grows them tough.
Rich Thompson is here from Bay Valley Lacrosse Conference.
Also the head coach at Pulaski.
Long time coach and player.
And Rich, we were just talking about, you know, 20 years ago or something.
There basically was no lacrosse in Northeast Wisconsin.
And you guys
I'll tell you the very first thing I ever I remember doing a story and they brought it in audit I think it was monomony under the reservation and they brought in a group from I want to say North Dakota or some place like that just Start together.
Hey, this is our sport.
This is you want to talk about the true?
What's the American pastime?
It's the cross because this was the first sport in what became America and they were trying to get the heritage for the for the young
sure
and it not only took hold there
All these other schools jumped and it's like, this is cool.
Let's do it.
Rich Thompson, congratulations on what you helped create.
Absolutely.
So I was, um, I helped found, uh, the Kimberly program.
And then I also founded the Pulaski program.
It takes a lot to get that started.
Um, like for a Pulaski, we did learn to play clinics for two years.
So we would sit up, we'd bring goals to one of the local elementary
schools.
And I'm just to back up.
Okay.
You could be a basketball coach at one of these schools and every one of these kids has played basketball on their driveways or whatever for, you know, 10 years with your sport.
It was from ground zero, right?
It was.
It was.
Yep.
Yeah.
I literally, you were explaining just the basics to them.
And actually I find that basketball is the easiest sport to compare it to.
I know a lot of people will talk about hockey or football and stuff because people are wearing pads.
But if you think about a basketball, you have a backboard in your back.
Same thing in lacrosse.
We have a goal in the back, right?
So a lot of the offensive concepts, pick and roll, screens, things like that come right out of basketball.
I use as a coach a lot of my terminology and stuff is very similar to what you'd find in basketball.
What I think is cool about the two markets you picked, Kimberly and Plesky, they like their sports too.
They do.
They're very passionate about their sports.
They're parental support to try that.
But again, I want us to go back to the challenge of getting that started because it wasn't like they saw it a lot on TV and like, oh man, I like to play that.
So it's like, you went to the grade schools, what, fifth, sixth grade?
So
the concept was to get it started at the U-10, 12, U-14
And then those kids will build and that stuff.
And then they'll matriculate up to high school.
And that's literally what we did.
We started it at the youth level and then build it.
Then we got a high school program at Kimberly.
And then when I moved up to Pulaski, then we started building it at the Pulaski level.
Now we have a high school team.
We're in the second year of our adversity
program.
You know what I like those first, what you did?
Everybody started out.
Exactly even break.
It's not like some kid grew up with that a hoop in his on his driveway and somebody else didn't it's like you're all grounds or I think that's cool
exactly Yeah, that first class too There's a lot like our first class here now is gonna be graduating this year and they they really have a lot of you know Cohesion there are really a strong group together because they all went through this together They all learn the sport together They really became passionate about the sport together and it's something that really you know get get some going and stuff So it's it's really kind of a cool thing to see
we had literally Nothing else
Yeah, so yeah, so what we do is a lot of times we'll have practices on different days than baseball to give kids the opportunity to try both sports and I'll be honest You know I've my son played baseball for a couple years while he also did lacrosse and it's no offense baseball But it can be a little boring sometimes.
It's swinging a miss swinging a miss bunt You know ball and you know foul ball and this kind of stuff with lacrosse you are constantly up and down the field It's just like hockey where you're the ball is either going towards one goal or to the other goal.
You have body checking you
You have, you know, scoring goals.
Everybody likes to score the goal.
I, I, I ref the game yesterday and we had a brand new player.
He scored a last second goal.
His team mobbed him after the game.
I thought, how, you know, how great is that?
This is his first season and he, his name is Grayson.
He got mobbed after the game because he scored the last second goal
And I, I would assume, I'm just saying, cause you know, obviously basketball, they look for the height.
Football, they look for the, you know, bigger, whatever, whatever.
I would think lacrosse, anybody.
Physically dimension wise could play.
Correct.
Exactly.
Yes.
So that's one of the great parts about lacrosse is that if you're a large player, maybe you're not the fastest player, we have defensive spots you can play, right?
Where it's physical, that's, you know, it's right in front of the crease.
That's where you're going to do some of the body checking and stuff.
That's where you're going to move usher people out to the islands and things like that.
If you're really fast, then you might be one of those middies or attack guys that can take the ball up the field, be looking to feed the crease and be looking to feed goals and things like that.
So both bigger sizes, smaller sizes.
fast and slow, we have a spot for you on the lacrosse field.
I think that is so cool.
And you know, I gotta be honest with you, once in a while, you know, we've flipped around sports, excuse me, ESPN, and it'll always be like John Hopkins, like against Naval Academy
or some of these
easier kind of schools, but it is...
mind-boggling how they just flip that thing and that thing will travel from here to that downtown Green Bay sign and it'll hit that guy right in the wicket.
Yep.
I mean he'll hit it like perfectly.
The control they have on those things is fun to watch.
Yeah, you want to get the ball to the stick we as we say in La Crosse and that takes just that's literally hundreds of hours sitting on a wall just bouncing the ball practicing your stick skills and the more you can do that you can pass it a lot quicker than you can run it.
So the more they do that the better they get at it.
I think I would have been a good lacrosse player if I started.
Hey, where would you have played me?
Probably at midi to start.
Then we move you up to attack, score
some goals.
Get that water over here.
Todd?
Yes,
Yes.
Paid
everything to the games.
We would bring the tables.
We would bring the cones, the goals.
I mean, you felt like you were a mover, bringing all this stuff every single time, but now the WIA has taken on lacrosse.
So the last two years it's been a WIA sport.
We have our state championships down in Sun Prairie at their beautiful facility down there.
And it was a phenomenal experience last year to have the first WIA state championship.
We're at Thrich Thompson Bay Valley Lacrosse
Yep, so our Bay Valley, we pretty much take anything above Fond du Lac is what we say.
The schools that are in it currently, Nina has a team, Appleton, Kimberly, up in the Green Bay area, Depeer, Notre Dame, Bayport, Pulaski.
Oneida and then in central, Wisconsin, a wasa has a team Steven's point used to have a youth team and they still do have you team And now they're gonna add it next year.
So we hope Steven's point will so essentially anything above like the Sheboygan fondle act line in northeast, Wisconsin We say as part of the Bay Valley and
We play on our football field.
Yep, it's a puto stadium in Plask either.
So I have a game tomorrow night against Nina at support of state
I was I was I mean like in my era, you know back in high school if you were even caught like walking down the football field or running on it, you know, you're the groundskeeper like The marching band,
yes, exactly.
But these fields now, I mean, I remember being at Kimberly maybe this past and I got there real early and they had like two freshman football games before the varsity game unheard of
Right.
But these turfs on these fields are incredible, aren't
they?
They are.
They are.
They're fantastic fields.
I think every team in our league plays on their football field.
So it's really a great experience.
As to your point, the only time we worry is like if track is just finishing up a practice or something and somebody takes a shot, we want to make sure that we don't hit anybody with a ball.
Is it dangerous at all?
I mean, let's put it this way.
You do have swinging.
You have balls that are flying, right?
On the field, you're wearing helmets and shoulder pads and
something like
that.
And a face mask.
Yes, and a face mask.
In the boys' game.
In the girls' game, it's different.
They don't wear helmets and that kind of stuff.
So in the boys' game, though, we're wearing helmets and shoulder pads.
How fast does that ball go if somebody can really flick
it?
When you're up at the Premier La Crosse League, it's like the NFL for La Crosse, and they get up to like 110 miles an hour.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow, so it's like the fastest pitch and maybe that's faster than any pitch in baseball history Yeah, cuz
you think those sticks.
I mean they can get a lot of you know wick going with that
Wow, I did not know neither.
yeah, I think if you're a defenseman they're taking one of those shots Protecting your goalie.
That's a lot of shot.
There's a lot of power to take in that We so the chest protect they wear chest protectors inside their shoulder pads to protect them to
vast
Officer Craig, I'm going to play some of
Athletic trainers.
Yep.
So our athletic trainer for Pulaski is there on the sidelines for all of our games and all the other schools as well.
Yep.
So what do you do to recruit kids now, as far as like, because you need them playing before high school now to help prep, right?
So how is that going in the youth leagues or youth clinics or anything?
Exactly.
So on those same schools that we talked about, all have youth programs.
They increasingly now they have U8 programs, U10, U12, U14.
And that helps them get those six skills we talked about, helps them learn those skills, learn the rules of the game.
It's like you talked about, it's a brand new sport.
So there's a lot of rules to learn.
And so we get them, we do the trial across clinics in Pulaski.
the last three years, we've done National Celebrate La Crosse Week, where we did a big trial across clinic.
We invited all the local schools, kids to come and give the sport a try.
And then we get them into the youth program, and that feeds up to our high school programs.
We want the, we want WIA La Crosse to be very successful.
We want, we want to see, you know, the Fond du Lacs, the Oshkosh, the Hortonvilles, the Manitouac, Sheboygan's, the Eshwabenans all add La Crosse.
So we want to build that as strong as possible and make WIA La Crosse as strong as possible.
I gotta say one thing though.
That's pretty cool.
Just knowing about your background.
everything rich obviously your high school athlete and sports six different sports whatever and including everything and even still now you kind of tell your I don't know what you do for a real living but talk about how many nights and days and weekends you spend trying to help
high school athletes.
Yeah, so for me, it's so I I'm the high school coach for Pulaski.
So every night we have practice, except for one a week, the WA mandates, we take one week on off.
And that day, I usually officiate youth lacrosse for so yesterday was our night off.
I officiated youth lacrosse.
So it's pretty much every single night in the springtime.
But you want to know something though, every year, you know, it comes December, January, February, I can't wait to get out on a field again, and to play and watch lacrosse.
So to me, I
It's pretty much, hey family, I'll see you again at the end of the
season in June.
What do you do between August and November?
I'm an official for football and I also am an official for WI wrestling as well.
Your family ever say dad?
Do we do something here?
They knew I was an athlete.
do?
Yes, I'm a safety manager.
Oh,
little bit more about
I don't know if enough people know about it.
And about how they get, there's people who would like to do what you're doing.
about your career path
I'm going to ask you one quick question.
I don't want to belabor it because it'll take up the whole next segment.
Do you know of any cricket fields in Green Bay?
Of course.
Yes or no?
I don't.
Thank
you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Rich Tubbs and Bay Valley lacrosse
conference.
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Potentially really, really serious weather coming in later today.
Mark Daniels, legendary sportscaster, giving his opinion on the draft.
Kristen Ambo's point.
Mortgage Corporation, always a blast having her in.
And Rich Thompson joining us right now.
Bay Valley with Cross Conference, also the head coach at Pulaski.
And Jim had a couple of good questions for you for the break.
you want to know something I enjoy spending that Friday night Saturday night Sunday on a lacrosse field to me There's nothing better to do.
I would not want to sit on a couch and watch TV I'd rather sit out there in lacrosse field and watch lacrosse.
Absolutely.
So my daughter, when she was young, we got her into La Crosse.
At the time, I was in grad school.
So we got her into Sun Prairies Program.
We moved back up here to the Valley.
I'm from Nina originally.
And we were coming up here for birthdays and all these parties and stuff for our family and stuff.
And finally, he said, okay, time to move back to the Fox Valley area.
And so we moved up here.
I right away filed paperwork with the state to
get Kimberly LaCrosse program going.
A couple days later, she came out on the bus and said, hey, there's this other family that's trying to get something going.
So we combined efforts together.
We got the Kimberly program going.
And then
I
moved up to Pulaski.
And then I said, hey, we need to found that in Pulaski.
And so now that was back in 2018.
And so we've had seven years now of Pulaski LaCrosse.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Now we have a, um, at the time, you know, like you said, we were teaching every, everything, like the rules, the, this and that and stuff.
Now we have an established program where we have U 10, U 12, U 14.
We have a high school program.
We have a high school girls program as well.
So I mean, it's really blossom into a far more than I could have ever imagined and faster than I could have ever imagined.
And you're building up your own coaching base with these kids.
Exactly.
With yourself.
It's like, you know, how many other people would know the rules?
Now you got kids that have gone through the sport that could probably help.
Yeah,
that's great from both a coaching standpoint.
They can help coach and they can also help ref as well because it's always there's always a ref shortage We have two of my current players right now are
Refing youth and then we have several others that are interested in it and that to me really helps grow the game It helps build the next level and it also helps their development I tell them all the time if you know what an official is looking for like hey on this cross check here if you Bend your wrist to this point that ref is gonna be calling that or excuse me on a slash That tells them hey, I know and when I cut when I play a game I can't be you know bending my wrist to that point to get you to get that slash call
around.
Yeah, so Brian Mills, we talked about me being a football ref.
Brian Mills is my, my head of my crew.
So I'm his back judge on his crew.
All right, yeah.
Give him on your team.
He
knows a
lot
of people.
Have I done any of your games?
Have I broadcast any of the games you were refing?
Not that I'm aware of yet.
All right.
Because I can tell there's some crews that don't like me sometimes.
I might question something.
For officials, we definitely always need officials.
There's two opportunities for it.
One, if you're a high school player, you have opportunities to become an official for the youth.
If you're an adult, we often will get parents that'll say, you know what, I'm going to be coming to these games.
be an official, and they'll sometimes learn the sport and become an official as well.
So we have two opportunities, one for youth and one for adults.
want
pitch,
You're
yeah,
always say that there's there's never a board kid in a lacrosse game They're up and down the field constantly up and down up and down the balls going one direction or to the other direction
Um, your scoring goals, you're making, you know, there's lots of contact in front of the goal.
It's not the contact that you'd see in football.
You're not take, decleting anybody, but there is contact.
You can check below the neck and above the waist
to the side.
So you're, you know, there's, there's lots of checking going on and stuff.
So there's physical contact up and down, um, you know, back and forth scoring goals.
It's really just a high pace fast game.
And then boom, you come off the field for a few minutes, get a drink and then boom, you're back out there.
There's never a board, um, kid in a cross.
I just got to say, I would imagine this type of thing.
You know, like I can shoot her out a basketball.
on a weekend or by yourself, but you could probably go to the schoolyard maybe and just practice hitting against the school wall or something.
The number one thing a lacrosse coach tells their players is wall ball.
Get a brick wall and just practice that wall ball.
Practice your technique.
Get those 100s.
Get
a piece of chalk, draw the square.
Exactly.
And you bring it back to it.
We say bring it back to the box, which is right next to the head.
Just practice that.
Do that.
We say I do it 100 with each arm every single day, and you'll become a really good lacrosse player.
This is cool, Rick.
I love how many kids you've given the opportunity to play a sport.
They might not be playing sports in the spring if it wasn't for you.
That's awesome.
It's a good opportunity.
A lot of times, maybe baseball didn't work out for them.
Maybe they're not the best at hitting the ball or something.
This gives them another opportunity in spring to play a sport.
And you've played how many different sports in high school?
I played
six.
Six different sports.
Wow.
I want to congratulate you.
You are the third best athlete in our studio right now.
Thank you.
You're exactly the
of
sports going.
I'm not
blow smoke You gotta have
people like you where it's the passion.
It's not a job So
Yep, we play Nina tomorrow night at Sepuro Stadium at Pulaski High School 7.
Yeah,
nice.
Okay How much did your bench in high school?
I was getting I was up to like 250
How many times?
If you add it up ever all the way to ever lift it in high school, it might be 250, but probably not.
It's a lot of 20 pound curls.
It's been a long time though since I did that.
That's awesome, Rich.
You know what?
You should have been the arm wrestling competition this weekend.
Oh man, you had been perfect for that.
A lot of cool stuff going on.
My arm is still sore from it, otherwise I'd take you on.
Okay.
Rich Thompson, whatever we can do to promote your great sport of high school across, you let us know.
I will.
I'm serious, man.
I love your enthusiasm.
I love what you do for high school kids.
Cross the board.
Need people like you, buddy.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
By the way, when you were in high school on Friday nights, high school football, whose channel would you watch to get all the highlights?
The minor show.
Thank you.
Todd?
Yes, sir.
Any
comment?
Thank you.
Grant Oshkosh coming up.
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Now back to Mino and the Mayor.
Here's John Mino and Jim Schmidt.
Hey, thank
you very much.
Welcome back Mino and the Mayor here.
97.9 FMWGPW 98.3 and 96.5 FMW ISS in Appleton and Oshkosh and of course worldwide on the Civic Media app also am 1115 90 Thank you.
I'm proud of myself.
I didn't look so I had to give him a bell.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you Hey give rich Thompson a bell from Bay Valley lacrosse conference man the enthusiasm that guy has
for helping youth sports is incredible.
Isn't it?
He just he lives it.
No, he is not.
He has a love, man.
He just loves it.
I'll tell you another labor of love.
Everybody that either works at four or performs at the Grand Oshkosh, because that is one of the coolest venues in the world.
Todd introduced a very special guest with a show coming up that is incredible.
Hey, Joe Furlough, how are you doing?
What do I do to get a bell?
get
how you don't get a belt from Todd?
You know how you don't get a belt from Todd?
Ask him for one.
so glad Neil is joined us because...
Hi, Neil.
I'm sure they hear
the time, the folks at the fourth wall ensemble.
I'm so excited about the show.
The video is great.
And then you get out there and you want to try to describe it and you're like, right, you know, and and and love the, you know, the idea.
It's it's kind of an old school variety show.
People my generation
And up we'll remember these kind of acts on the Ed Sullivan.
I was just going to say that this I was just going to say it sounds like an episode of the Ed Sullivan show because you've got part modern dance, part circus, acrobatics, music, the I mean, it's
the only thing missing are the spinning plates, man.
Yeah, I told you,
you know, you
Yeah, so hi there.
I am Neil Parsons and I am the big on-bonus with the fourth wall ensemble We're a trio of musicians who are also actors dancers acrobats circus artists daredevils of all sorts.
Yeah, I just have to say one thing though
When you talk about the instruments, okay, that's a unique group of instruments altogether in your picture.
Could you describe how you blend those three instruments together?
Yeah, yeah.
So when we formed our group back in 2010, there was no music written for flute-based trombone and percussion.
So everything that we have
performed in our repertoire in the last 15 years has been created or co-created by us and our collaborative composers, but we do a lot of arranging ourselves.
You threw an accordion
in
there.
You can't do a Wisconsin interview, Neil, without talking about the accordion,
man.
We've got to have the accordion.
Yeah, Greg is a percussionist by training, but an accordionist by experience.
It was an instrument that he just wanted to pick up and also found that he could move around while playing it better than he could if he was behind the vibraphone or a drum set.
So the accordion makes Greg our percussionist much more mobile so we can all dance together.
That's awesome.
I would encourage people if they're if they're on the fence for this.
Obviously, we're on the radio, right?
Go to the website.
Look up the fourth wall.
There's a video and just check out the video and you get an idea of what's of what's going on.
And and I want to shout out Neil and fourth wall, not only for the show, which is called fruit flies like a banana on Friday night.
That's Friday, right?
May 2nd, Friday night.
But also the day before, they're doing two school shows.
And it's and it's all about like the science behind music, how music works.
Interesting.
They'll spend time with students too.
So there's like a slew of people that I that I want to thank in 30 seconds or less.
Be ready with your bell.
It's it's part of the student discovery series, which is sponsored by the Amcore Foundation.
It's it's part of the
Art Reach series, which is sponsored by Community First Credit Union, got a little support from Wisconsin Public Service Foundation.
And all of that comes together so that we can have a couple days of busing kids into the theater, which is always great fun.
And then this great public show.
And don't let me go at the end of this without talking about the ticket special, the super secret ticket special.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Neil, I just got to say, as a guy who was worked with the community, for you to come and engage those students is so valuable.
I mean, for so many reasons, not just to entertain them and teach them something about, you know, the fourth wall or about the arts.
It could open up a world to them that they would have never, ever seen had you not been here.
And that is one of the great honors that we have as performing artists, knowing that for many children that we perform for, we might be the first live performance that they see.
And we are here to share not just a live performance, but
introduce them to music, introduce them to dance, introduce them to acrobatics and theater.
We're kind of giving them a smorgasbord of experiences.
But also, we're really trying to make it personal.
We're really trying to make it something that cannot be replaced by smartphones or streaming media.
This is a live performance.
And to get back to the question of
How does it work with the audience choosing the show order?
Well, yeah, we have decided that the audience is going to choose the show order.
They are going to be...
directly involved in the show.
The show cannot proceed without their participation.
And we have a few different mechanisms for making that happen.
Sometimes it's pick a card, any card.
We've got a deck of cards with the different titles of pieces on that.
And then we also have some other maybe secret ways of having the audience.
None
about, I would like to know what your show
You know, Neil, I'm going to jump in with a question because I'm curious.
So you guys are really great musicians.
Thank you.
Who's the first one that says, gee, if I get on a hoverboard or a skateboard, this would be even better.
I mean, who comes up with the idea that we're going to suddenly do that?
Or if I climb on you.
While you're playing
and I
keep playing and we build this little pyramid Who comes up?
Who's the first one of you that came up with that craziness?
By this point, it's really hard to extract the origin story of most of our pieces When it comes to what we do and how we do it we are a collaboratively devised ensemble where you know the best idea wins by the end of the day and
it's uh it's not an efficient process of us all jumping in and saying like how about this how about this um so it it can be hard to figure out like oh whose idea was it originally because by the time all three of us have really put it through the ringer of ideas and brainstorming and testing like we do a lot of r&d of like well can we do it this way or no can we do it that way by the time
It makes its way to stage.
It's just this collective beast that we have kind of, you know, brought into the world through our collective conjuring.
Who's your audience?
Because it's great.
It's interesting because I didn't want to put it in the family series because it kind of labels it as a kid's show.
It's not.
It's a kid, but it is.
And it's not a date night show.
But you guys are smirking because I'm doing your interview for you, aren't you?
Hey, these are all questions I want.
I'd love to hear an answer to you.
It's good.
No,
it's it's kind of a date night show or it's a family show or it's a bring your kids show.
So you don't need kids show, right?
It's an interesting thing that the current arts industry.
So focused on who's your market who is your show for and when it comes down to it in my humble view art is for all and yes, there are certain artworks and certain You know artistic things that are guided to a certain audience, but we really believe that
music and dance and theater and acrobatics and the kind of stuff we do really is for all ages and that's why we have a show on the main stage on Friday night that is literally for all ages and what we love after a show like that is when the children and the parents and the grandparents all come to talk to us afterwards say that they love it and you you feel like each one of them senses that we made it for them.
necessarily say that, like, oh, it's for you, but you can also come.
No, we want everyone there.
There is something for everyone and a little bit of everything.
And that really does harken back to the vaudeville stage, the vaudeville theater model that the variety show of, the Ed Sullivan show, the variety show of, you know, YouTube, just like, see what comes next.
Never knowing what's going to come next and knowing that you're going to see something unusual and unexpected.
That's what we're all about.
We want everyone to just kind of like come for the ride and stick around for stuff they had no idea was possible.
Is it a little bit like Second City improv with instruments?
I suppose you could say that, although there is very little of the repertoire of a show that is improvised.
OK.
all of the different acts have been kind of painstakingly prepared in the first over the course of years.
But the flow of the show is this impromptu kind of character where we really, we don't know what's going to come next until it happens.
But once we know the next piece in the program,
We know what to do, but it's also kind of a surprise to us how the roller coaster ride of the evening is going to flow.
So that really keeps us on our toes.
And we feel like we're kind of the same boat with our audience that we're just like, we're along for the ride.
Let's go for it.
I think it sounds awesome.
So the I want to get back to the audience participation because that I mean, I think look shows life.
There's nothing like it.
I mean, I just love it more than
sports, anything else.
Tell me about the, how do they choose?
Like you, questions or the applause you say from when you're out there trying to show both to get them to take your act first or how does that all work?
Wait a
minute.
I want to, before you answer, I want to make sure that in the studio, Todd got a sound bite.
of the former mayor of Green Bay saying he loved live entertainment more than sports.
want to make sure I have that for later.
You go ahead and answer his question.
Yeah, well, we do actually have a deck of cards.
And for each card, that's a piece in the program.
And we run out into the audience, say pick a card, any card, anyone who's got their raised hand ready to like choose what comes next.
They pick a card, read the title off the back, and that's the next thing we do.
And then in the second act of our show, we have a different mechanism that's all about different colors.
So we have a set of warm-ish colors, some cool colors, and some patterns, and they're sort of oversized paint chips.
that, again, each of those is connected to a piece of repertoire in the show.
And again, the audience gets to just like shout it out, decide what's going to happen next.
And then we serve up that next course.
60 seconds, Joe.
Give us a plug.
Where do they get tickets?
How much are tickets?
Tickets are available at the grand website, the grandoshkosh.org.
And keep this in mind.
Shows called fruit flies like a banana.
We have a special.
It's called
You got to put in the code.
Go bananas.
All caps.
Go bananas plural.
And your ticket price will magically drop to $20 a ticket.
Nice.
Wow.
So it's Friday, seven o'clock.
Nothing like live entertainment where you don't know what's coming next.
Neil, thank you
for joining
and helping talk about the show.
Joe, thanks for saying this a lot.
Neil, this sounds spectacular.
Come see the show.
Thank you.
Mike Clemens when we come
back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
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Have a nice Monday morning, but once again, look out for later on this afternoon.
Keep your eye on your weather app.
Got a nice text here, Todd.
Ring yourself up today.
You are killing it with your music selections, Nancy.
Thanks,
yeah.
Well, I never get a bell.
Oh, man.
What?
If you deserved it, we'd give you one.
Thanks.
Mike Clemens.
Good morning.
Hi, Mino.
Hi, Mayor.
How are you guys?
We're good.
Did you get a chance to sleep until, like, five o'clock today?
Yeah.
Yeah, well, you know, the damper on the weekend was the Bucks game last night.
Oh!
Here were Damian Lillard, who went down in the first quarter.
You remember, you know, he missed about 14 games with the blood clot in his right calf muscle and his right leg.
And last night, it looked to me that he was coming down half court.
The Lakers, they were in transition.
It looked like his right foot flipped.
And then when he tried to recover, his left foot made an ugly turn.
And we're talking about an MRI today for a possible torn Achilles.
You couldn't ask for a worse game than last night's.
You got three to one.
Man at home Hal Burton was throwing them in from 35 feet and giving it back to Bobby Portis and whatever good from Oshkosh.
Yeah
That was an ugly way to hate to say it to end the season Mike and you know what I mean if that is that was
way it's gonna be
yeah
How about that draft man?
I love it party that was right.
I love it.
What did you think?
Well from a league standpoint
even though this thing grew six hundred thousand people and even with that cold rainy day we had on friday it was second only the national and when that when the nfl draft went to national it went to a new level because natural such a great backdrop with all the bars in the country music scene little green bay came right at number two of all-time draws for the nfl draft you think about this i mean in three days green bay more people or as many people
They come through 10 11 day runs for Summerfest or the Wisconsin State Fair.
And and on top of that, the thing increased the ratings on TV.
And this is what, you know, the NFL wants because it's what their sponsors want.
The ratings went up 11 percent.
That's a huge gain in one year.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Wow.
That's great.
Yeah.
I mean, I just went as a spectator.
I didn't see a single problem other than I'm going to say, as we talk a little bit about it, there should have been an entrance or an exit
at the east side of the stadium.
I thought it was just to expect for some older people that wanted to go to the stadium views and the the burkles and different places there and then to have to walk all the way back.
I don't know why they didn't have two entrances and exits just to make things flow better.
You could have had another secure entrance there, right?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and that's something maybe they'll think about when they move it to Pittsburgh next year.
But the Packers took eight players over the weekend.
course they start out uh... the first two nights with the offense of players they got this savvy on williams a wide receiver out at t c u uh... you know some of the scouts they remind you a little bit of cordell paterson it and he's personal he's six foot four he's he's pretty fast but he's a gadget guy played quarterback in high school so they can use them all over the field he threw a touchdown pass in the wildcat last year at t c u then they got four defensive players over the weekend
Including this baron sorrell.
Yeah offensive lineman out of texas to see how did see his press knows there were 16 kids that showed up for Thursday night in the first round and then after that most of them stay home because you know it's expensive to get there for the first place and they'd rather just spend a long time at home this kid wanted to cross the stage he thought he might go Friday night in the second or third round and when he didn't get picked he said well if we're here let's just let's just stay
so he was there available at what his name got called he was there in the green room and gudel got so excited that he had a player he came up to personally introduce him and the player selected was from the whole city from the green bay packers right go to get that even though he was in town he just that was the next player on the board so then the kid walks across the street from other from the stage a walk through lambo field he does a lambo leap comes and talks to us
There were this family and friends about eight or nine people in our enterprise conference.
It was great.
And then when someone said, boy, you've got your whole family here.
Tell us about that.
Just broke down.
He broke down.
That's when he lost it.
So what a passionate kid the Packers just drafted with the fourth round pick.
I mean, if you didn't get teared up or choked up when he was talking about his mom and dad.
And he almost like couldn't finish about having them in the first I mean think about that He stayed there just because he wanted to hear his name called and wanted his parents to hear it called Just hoping to get drafted and he gets drafted by the Packers right where he's sitting.
That's pretty magical.
Isn't it like
and I think the owners
ought to start thinking about that at the next draft, let's afford so these families can have, we can pay, they can, we can put them up so that they can be here for the weekend.
Jim
offered
his house the whole time free of charge.
Exactly, there you go.
Mike,
can we hear the rest of your reports all day?
Yes, sir.
We're tracking that buck story.
And then these packer rookies come in.
We'll probably have a packer rookie mini camp come up this weekend in Green Bay.
Mike, great work.
I'll tell you what, man.
You talk about taking that, doing everything you can, taking one for the team.
You sure did it this week.
No, I appreciate it guys.
Thank you so much for everything you guys do on your show
think it was a typical Packers draft and then they've got some exciting new place That's
great to hear
Mike Clements.
Thanks for everything you do for civic media and for mine on the mayor Thank you guys.
I got a buddy Todd.
Thanks for together a great show.
You got it back in tomorrow morning on the mayor.
See ya
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