from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitler.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Wednesday morning, February 19th, 2025.
Three days until the Brewers first spring training game.
36 days till the season open here.
It's another beautiful day.
It's another cold, cold day to have you here up north.
Live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're listening across the civic media network or on the app or on social media or by podcast.
We appreciate you starting your day right here.
Um I got a question for you.
Did you ever think your morning was off to a great start and then you discovered one little issue that throws the whole thing Kitty Wampus?
Um
Greg Bach is joining us from Radio Park in Racine Moments before The show open I go as I typically do creature of habit to reach for my mug of coffee Lovely mug of coffee's got pictures of all my grandkids on there.
It's a wonderful thing.
They're
adorable I take that first sip and just about choke realizing I didn't set it on remember how much have I bragged about this little hot plate that I've got here that keeps my coffee hot
and realize that in my uncoffeeed state, I set it on the coaster next to it instead of the actual hot plate.
So I'm drinking, that coffee's been sitting there for a half hour and it's cold.
I'm starting the day with cold coffee, Greg.
I can't work under these conditions.
Take the show.
I'm out
of
here.
I'm starting with cold coffee too, man.
Just get over it.
It's fine.
You're fine.
It was a very overdramatic situation of what
for less to the split second going, aw man.
But instead I turned it into a two minute bit, which is funny because we've got a really packed show.
I don't have time to be wasting this.
But I really like the fact that all it took for me to get my own show from you was cold coffee.
Expecting a nice piping hot coffee and you get the, oh, you put it in the wrong place.
Oh well.
So.
Greg is once again in the, the tropical hotspot of Wisconsin right now with a temperature of one degree above zero.
And I'm not sharing it
with anybody.
It's not sharing that one degree.
Go get one from Milwaukee.
They've got one degree as well.
Everybody else is out of degrees.
It's nine below here in Chippewa Falls.
Hey word, the current temperature right now is 20 below zero.
I'm so tired of this.
I'm just ready to be done.
Aimer year at 12 below, Wausau 9 below, Wisconsin Rapid 16 below.
In La Crosse it says minus 6, Green Bay minus 4, Madison 3 degrees below zero right now.
Let's see, from Brittany Merlot, she says, an extreme cold warning is in effect for the far northwestern counties, Douglas, Burnett, Washburn, Barron, Polk, with wind chills of about 35 below zero right now.
There is a cold weather advisory in effect until 9am for the rest of the western and southern parts of Wisconsin with wind chills of 20 to 30 below.
She says we'll start to climb out of the cold as soon as tomorrow with a spring-like surprise at the end of the weekend.
I hope you're right, Brittany.
Oh my God, I hope you're right.
For the state forecast for today, partly cloudy in the south, mostly cloudy in the north with some light snow showers possible, especially in the afternoon.
Low teens everywhere across the state with a northwest wind at 10 to 15.
Partly cloudy with scattered light snow showers tonight, mainly in northern and eastern Wisconsin with lows in the single digits below zero.
Again, a northwest wind at five to 10 and a Brittany will be here live in just under an hour to tell us more about that forecast.
I mentioned that it was a busy show today and is it ever now?
One guest we won't have, typically at 6.30 on Wednesdays, we talked to Melissa Baldoff.
She has our climate check.
She is off this week.
That's fine.
We'll need that to talk about all the other big things going on.
Yesterday there was a primary election in Wisconsin and Governor Evers delivered his budget address.
So we will talk about both of those things.
We will talk about
some of the things that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been doing over the past day or so and make sure that we correct the record on those things.
So we'll have a little bit of that all coming up this hour along with Melissa K from WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids.
She'll be here for today's history lesson.
Then it really gets busy in the seven o'clock hour.
First, we will talk to two legislators, both on the Joint Finance Committee.
That's the one in the legislature that writes the state budget.
We'll talk to Representative Deb Andraka and State Senator Latanya Johnson, not only about what Governor Evers proposed last night, but also their reaction to the Republican reaction, which probably went about the way that you would expect that it would, but I'll give you details on that coming up in just a couple of minutes here.
And then at 730, we talked to members of three different groups who watch the state budget carefully every two years, because obviously a state budget is way more important than a lot of people appreciate.
And I'm not just saying that as a former legislator, I'm saying it as somebody who actually interned for his legislator in high school.
and got an appreciation early on that a state budget does so much and can have such an impact on people's lives, like education.
So we will talk to Heather Dubois-Bornan from the Wisconsin Public Education Network on efforts that help the general population.
We'll talk to David Liners from Wisdom and in ways that impact how government works or doesn't work in Wisconsin.
And we'll talk to Robert Craig.
from citizen action, and they're all going to be telling you reasons why there's something in the state budget for everyone to look at, and either contact your legislator and say, that's great, you should go and get that done, or that's a terrible idea, and you should do this instead.
That's what democracy is all about, is being able to contact your lawmakers and saying, you know, look, I can't make you do any of these things, but you need to know how I feel, you need to know where my priorities are.
And so we'll talk all about that.
But first, I'll have a few sound bites here from Governor Evers from last night and his budget address and what he proposed.
And you'll see what you think about it as well.
Along the way, you can tell us what you think of any of our topics along the way, or bring up your own question or comment on the show, 855-75-CIVIC, 855-752-4842.
You can also use the Civic Media app.
to text us or to call us, or you can put a comment on the Facebook page, or you can put it on the YouTube page, the YouTube page for up-north news, the Facebook page for up-north news, or the Facebook page for civic media.
There is so much to cover that I'm actually going to take care of sports really quick because it's brief.
It's just a couple of college basketball games.
The 11th ranked Badger men had no trouble hosting Illinois last night and posting a 95 to 74 win giving the Badgers a five game winning streak.
They will next play Saturday 11 a.m.
and they will host Oregon and
Greg, Oregon or Oregon, and I don't mean the, the Dane County community, the state of the state of Oregon, Oregon.
You called Oregon or Oregon.
It is literally a thing that I will say both ways and have no idea until it comes out of my mouth.
You know, same.
That's how I feel about the word.
It's coupon or coupon, you know, envelope or envelope or yes.
Yeah.
There are just some words that you just, I don't know.
Sometimes it sounds like soda and sometimes it just falls out as pop.
Well, those are those are different words.
All right, gross.
Wait, what?
What's gross?
It's soda.
It's all is soda.
Don't call it pop.
Pop is my father.
We're fine.
The 16th ranked Marquette Cruz past Seton Hall last night in men's college basketball.
They will next play at Villanova on Friday night.
So there's a look at sports there at just coming up on 6 15 right now.
And Tony, Tony says your, your topics are great.
Greg, I don't know how we resolve this.
Here's Tony's next comment.
It's pronounced Oregon.
He just writes it out.
I know.
Every once in a while,
every once in a while, I'll type something like that on Facebook.
I'll type it.
Is it pronounced Caribbean or Caribbean?
And for me, that's just hilarious.
I loved it, Tony.
We're not going to top anything else through us to the day.
He just writes out it's pronounced Oregon or Oregon.
Uh,
Adam,
Adam writes in on YouTube being from Oregon or Oregon.
This offends me.
So again, no phonetic pronunciation there.
So I don't know in Wisconsin.
Is
it pronounced Oregon?
I don't know.
Okay.
Yeah.
Cause I know that if you go to Oregon and you call it Oregon or anything but Oregon.
Oregonians get offended they get upset they're like don't call that like
I didn't know the one that I don't understand is
is Wisconsin, because we say Wisconsin.
Now, occasionally we get teased when they say Wisconsin.
But that's not what bugs me.
What bugs me is it seems like people in about 47 or 48 other states, instead of it's saying WIS like it does, they make a WES, they go Wisconsin.
Like, where's that
coming from?
I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say Wisconsin.
Oh, I hear all.
That's all I'm going to
hear in the next time.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I will be there.
to be like, what'd you call me?
That's our word.
Where do you fall on Scotty?
Is Scotty, that's our word, we can say it or you can't say it, or do you care?
No, I'm okay with Scotty.
I don't take it as any kind of an insult or anything.
Cassandra writes it on YouTube, like, milk, M-E-L-K.
Oh, no, that is a bridge too far for me.
When I hear people say milk, I'm like... The
other one.
People from the south They love to tease Wisconsinites for the way that we say bag Because apparently the way we just say bag but to them that sounds like a two syllable word apparently for them It's really quick like bag and they hear us going bag.
Hey, Pat.
Let me ask them a question Who won the war?
All right?
All right, Adam Adam
says Oregon and he puts the H in there on Oregon.
Good to know.
Good to know.
That's
one thing about this entire, my entire journey here with Civic Media is finding all these places in Wisconsin that I never heard of before.
So get in the lay of the land.
Yep.
And, and Tony puts a couple of A's in the word bag bag.
I put my groceries in the bag.
I
love that.
I hear it.
The internet lasts forever.
And so someday somebody's going to come to this particular page for this particular show and see milk and or a God and bag in the comment section.
And I don't even know if they'll hit play on the video at this point.
They'll just be, well, yeah, they will.
Captain, was this
research important for survival?
No,
that's why they all died out.
Yep.
Well, we did
it
anyway.
We
did it anyway.
The other one that gets me is European cities.
in the U.S.
And
I'm sure
there's a definitive list someplace of the ones where, you know, they say it this way here, but that way over there.
And so we're going to have fun with names, but we're up against it.
So we'll save that game for another day
like New Berlin, New Berlin.
Yeah.
Yes.
They don't call it New Berlin instead of
Berlin.
Yes.
Many more to come.
Trust me.
We like playing those little word games.
But we will talk about the governor's budget address and more headlines coming up right after this quick break.
Wherever you're listening across Wisconsin on this Wednesday morning, when you're here, you're up north.
We'll be right back.
Smoky Robinson has a birthday today 85
years old so we will be
Tipping our hat to a musical legend coming up in today's history lesson in a half hour here on Up North News Radio 621 the time right now.
You know, we forgot yesterday and I've got I've got it marked here at some point is you were going to tell a Greece a story about Greece, the movie.
No, the play, right?
Greece as an entity as a thing as as they say nowadays an IP, a brand IP.
Okay.
Do we, do we save that for the history lesson too?
Or do you want to tell it right
now?
Yeah.
Cause there's a lot
going
on in history.
So, um, all right.
What I didn't know cause I saw Greece has been in my life for, you know, my entire life and I,
well, it is the word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, uh, the word is also, I guess, bird, but, um, but what I didn't know about it after seeing it many times and watching the movie and loving even the sequel, Greece too, which is an unpopular opinion.
Uh, the original.
The very, very original before Broadway isn't what we see in the movies.
It takes place in South Side Chicago with young like kids of Polish descendants.
And they the play is very different and very dark.
Really?
Yeah.
So there are four versions of Greece.
There is the original play that no one will see now.
But you just don't see that version anymore.
There's the.
the Broadway version, there's the movie version, and then there's the high school version because as we know with Grease Delighting, kids can't sing that song in
school, but they still sing that version.
So there are a bunch of different versions of Grease, but the original was like a gritty musical about kids on South Side of Chicago.
Like it's way, way, way different from sunny California.
Hmm.
Okay.
See, for sometimes the first draft isn't the final
draft.
Right.
Exactly.
This one's very racist.
We should rewrite this.
Yeah, let's work on that.
Right.
Okay.
Well, good.
Well, I'm glad I finally remembered to ask you about that.
The Up North News Daily newsletter.
You can get it at upnorthnewswi.com.
Click subscribe in the top banner.
And of course, there's a lot of focus on cancer and screening throughout the month of February.
And Christina Laurie.
has a story about kind of the world's toughest cancer to spot and it's pancreatic cancer.
And so she talks about signs and symptoms that you shouldn't miss.
There's also the story about five early cancer warning signs that you shouldn't ignore.
and a story there about President Donald Trump talking about Greenland and how you shouldn't get distracted by such stories.
So all of that and more in our daily newsletter, sign up at upnorthnewswi.com.
All right, well unveiling his proposed 2025 state budget on Tuesday night, Governor Tony Evers called for the elimination of taxes on tips.
He floated a new idea to encourage the freezing of local property taxes.
and putting the state's $4 billion surplus to work, helping families deal with childcare shortage, inflation, contaminated water, education challenges, safety issues, and so on.
Obviously, Evers, as a former state superintendent of public instruction, talked about part of the reason that his next state budget needs to be
as supportive of public education as it is, is to make up for years of short-changing Wisconsin school kids.
Our current system isn't working.
Take the loss in school district, for example.
The fate of their school district is on the ballot today, and kids, parents, and educators will be holding their breath tonight to see if their schools will be saved.
That's the reality become all too often.
In 2024 we saw a historic number of school referendums on the ballot and 169 of those referendum passed.
Nearly 400 referendums passed in the last four years.
So the good news is Wisconsinites have shown this legislature time and time again the support increasing investments in our public schools.
The bad news is
Wisconsinites had to raise their own property taxes to prove it.
This system isn't sustainable.
It creates winners and losers, haves and have nots, but referendums are not inevitable.
Wisconsinites wouldn't have to raise their own property taxes to keep school lights on and doors open if this legislature invested in K through 12 education from the get go.
And the budget I'm announcing tonight proves we can both make the investments in our kids that we need to and hold the line on
prevent property taxes from going
on.
By the way, the referendum in Boston that he referenced that did pass essentially saving the school district.
No thanks to legislative Republicans hell bent on squeezing public schools out of existence.
The news was not as good in the Kenosha school district where the referendum there failed and forces.
some very hard decisions in the Kenosha School District.
The tax relief as proposed by Evers would include direct state payments to communities that don't raise their property taxes in order to help them avoid cuts in services.
And my plan invests in public education at every level while holding the line on property taxes.
I'm announcing plans to stop price gouging on prescriptions and crackdown on insurance companies for denying Wisconsinite's medical bill claims.
I also want to invest in fighting PFAS and lead and getting contaminates out of our land, service lines, bubblers, schools, homes, and childcare centers for good.
And we're going to keep fixing the darn roads and infrastructure, building more affordable housing, keeping our kids, families, and communities safe.
and expanding high-speed Internet.
The budget I'm proposing balances our priorities of investing in our kids and needs that have been long neglected while providing real and sustainable tax relief and saving where we can.
All told, Evers is proposing nearly $2 billion in tax relief efforts, including the elimination of income taxes on tip income, eliminating the sales tax on over-the-counter medications, cutting taxes for homeowners, renters, veterans, and seniors with an emphasis
on the middle income brackets.
Evers is proposing 80 million for school districts to hire literacy coaches, provide tutoring and find other ways to improve reading scores statewide.
He mentioned PFAS there as well, even though Republicans have refused to release $125 million from the last budget because too many Republicans wanted to let corporate polluters off the hook when it comes to cleanup costs and possible prosecution.
The typical GOP response came from someone like Representative Amanda Nedwitski, who said of raising test score standards for kids, quote, more money has not proven to improve outcomes.
So I guess less will.
Well, she's from Kenosha County.
So I'm afraid she's going to find out the hard way for those kids.
More after this, you're up
north.
Such a busy history lesson today that we've got some spillover.
This was the number one song this day in 1983 by Patty Austin and James Ingram.
But as I was wishing for Greg here coming up, you're gonna hear James Ingram, but wouldn't it be better if Michael McDonald sang it?
a great classic adult contemporary song
you're writing
early 1980s.
What a wonderful genre title for what is evidently just some of the most boring music that ever existed.
Well, boring soft rock just doesn't have the same as adult contemporary.
So so again, that was this day in 1983, which again, I had to correct myself not 32 years ago this week.
42 years ago this week.
And for those folks following at home, and I know you care about this, my coffee is hot once again.
This hot plate is amazing.
Thank you, thank you.
I feel so much better.
I've got one comment in from Facebook from Jody about our newsletter saying, where can I find out more information about pancreatic cancer?
And obviously we referenced it in today's newsletter, sign up at the website up northnewswi.com.
In the newsletter, the nice part about it is sometimes
we will provide links to our own stories on our website upnorthnewswi.com but other times there will be outside links to ways that stories were done elsewhere or directly from a source.
So in this case I can tell you that in the newsletter there is a link there that says the signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
And what you what you get if you click on that link is it takes you directly to the Mayo Clinic page on pancreatic cancer.
So obviously I'm not going to give you that whole web address.
I'm just going to say if you put in Mayo Clinic dot org.
you'll go to the homepage of maleclinic.org, and then you click on the little magnifying glass to search, type in pancreatic cancer, and it takes you exactly to the page that Christina put in this morning's newsletter.
Plenty of other good medical sites out there.
This isn't a promo for Mayo Clinic, just where we happen to have the link for today's story on pancreatic cancer.
So I hope that that helps you out.
And again, you can always get more in our daily newsletter, and I'm sure we'll be putting some stuff on the website as well.
Getting back to the headline about Governor Evers delivering his budget address, and then that takes us into the other big story from yesterday, which would be the primary election.
But I was mentioning at the end of the last segment, Republicans indicating that they've really learned nearly nothing from the pasting that they took last November when the gerrymandered maps were finally eliminated and their majority was shrunk down to something very narrow.
and showing that they might want to be working more with this governor to get some bipartisan measures done.
And yet to look at their press releases, they acknowledge Evers proposals for tax relief and water cleanup and literacy funding and more.
And as I look through them, they just really couldn't spell out any kind of better alternative.
Only that they were against whatever Evers was proposing.
It was basically blah blah liberal wish list blah blah Joe Biden blah blah entitlements something something and and not Anything that competes with what the governor is proposing idea for idea especially when it comes to education and as I mentioned And as the governor mentioned in that soundbite earlier there will again be many
school referendums on the ballot on April 1st.
There will also be a race for state superintendent of public instruction and what we learned in the primary yesterday is that incumbent Jill Underly will advance to the April 1st election along with charter schools advocate Brittany Kinzer.
So voters are going to have a clear choice on April 1st.
One in Underly is an unflinching advocate for public schools willing to call out lawmakers for their efforts to torpedo public education.
And another candidate whose supporters will want taxpayers to keep footing the bill for two parallel school systems in Wisconsin, a voucher school program that is out of control and threatening budgets around the state and frankly around the country.
Now coming in third was stock Prairie Superintendent Jeff Wright.
He released a very gracious statement that said in part while our campaign did not advance, I'm grateful for the conversations I was able to have about the future of K-12 public education in Wisconsin.
I got into this race because I believe that Wisconsin should always be at the forefront of innovation and excellence in public education.
Our districts deserve better from the Department of Public Instruction because Wisconsin kids and communities deserve the absolute best from our schools.
But now we do move on to the April 1st general election between Brittany Kinzer and Superintendent Jill Underly and Unfortunately, it means we're going to see a whole new wave of ads I mean we are already seeing a nauseous number of ads for the state Supreme Court race with Susan Crawford versus former Attorney General Brad Schimmel Now it's going to be joined by a new wave of ads for the state superintendent race and half of those ads
are going to focus on just the worst extremes about public schools.
I mean, look at the Supreme Court race.
To look at the ads from Brad Schimmel, you'd think that Susan Crawford, when every rape case comes to her, she says, oh, you're a rapist, you should walk free, go, go.
Which, of course, is not how it works at all, but that's the impression Brad Schimmel wants to get you.
You're gonna get the same thing here from people who are supporting Brittany Kinzer, who are gonna do...
tell you whatever they can that makes you think that public schools are failing.
This from the people whose sole purpose it seems is to undermine a quality public education for every child in Wisconsin.
An education that is free from indoctrination, discrimination, and misinformation.
Those are going to be the stakes come April 1st.
Another new story from yesterday.
Vote in a van?
Yes, you can.
And this again is a holdover for the benefits for Wisconsin voters of electing Justice Janet Protasewitz a couple of years ago.
Because the state Supreme Court, the four liberal justices there, upheld the ability of local communities to set up secure mobile voting sites as they see fit.
It had been challenged in southeastern Wisconsin.
by somebody that said, well, this is much like the Dropbox thing.
You know, because Dropboxes were not specifically mentioned in state law, then apparently that meant they were banned.
And the same goes for mobile voting sites.
And the state Supreme Court justices, the four progressive ones, said that's not the case at all.
That local officials have wide latitude to set up elections as they deem best as long as they are secure.
This case was brought by the group called Law Forward.
and their staff counsel Scott Thompson argued the case in the Wisconsin Supreme Court last fall, and he put out this statement.
In 2023, law forward, on behalf of Block, Black leaders organizing for communities, successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to take this case on bypass, and they should have, because voting is not a privilege.
It is a right.
It is a fundamental right that must be protected and full access to the ballot includes safe and secure absentee voting options.
The suit was brought to attack the right to vote and equal protection under the Wisconsin Constitution.
This case, Scott Thompson goes on to say, was yet another attempt to limit access to absentee voting.
Wisconsin's black voters have faced historical barriers to the ballot box and block intervened to ensure that their voices are able to be heard.
And this, by the way, is not an explicitly racial issue.
In this particular case, it's one that could have helped disenfranchise black voters, but we certainly have seen the far-right targeting voters of any striper color in cities.
in Milwaukee, in Madison, Racine, Kenosha, Green Bay.
And if you think that, well, that's all that we're ever going to see, then clearly you've never watched history long enough to know that, you know, the pendulum swings both ways.
And do you really want to envision a time where there's a group from the left in power that would somehow find ways to disenfranchise
conservative voters in rural areas.
Why are we playing that tit for tat game?
When voting is a right that should be protected.
And if there were widespread fraud, you would address it.
But there's not.
Of course, Elon Musk, again, spread the lie that there is when he came into the Supreme Court race supporting Brad Schimmel, but
It is far more important that this Supreme Court stands up for the right to vote.
Elon Musk also has claimed, and you may not have seen, if you don't watch any right wing, you know, cable channels, you might not have heard about this, but if you pay any attention to the right wing media, all you heard about yesterday was that Musk's minions found $4.7 trillion.
in untraceable payments, secret payments that nobody could account for.
That's the real waste in government, $4.7 trillion in payments.
It doesn't take much to look and go, hmm, why is my BS detector going off?
And you can find, and I found here from a couple of folks who do, who are actual auditors.
who actually do work auditing for the taxpayer, for the government, explaining that what the Musk minions found wasn't anything like what they said it was.
In fact, to take it a step further, here's a headline from the New York Times this morning, Doge claimed it saved $8 billion by canceling one contract.
It was actually $8 million.
There is also the headline that Trump or Musk or whoever in charge there.
Remember we mentioned the other day that they fired a bunch of people whose job it is to safeguard the nuclear stockpile?
Well yesterday's headline was about how the administration fired a bunch of workers only to discover afterwards that they help with response to bird flu outbreaks.
And they are feverishly trying to hire these workers back.
in case there is a widespread outbreak of bird flu in the United States.
This isn't some, you know, willy-nilly little mistakes made for the greater good.
No, this is incompetence.
This is rank incompetence.
It's ham-handedness at its worst, and they're doing it with our security, our nuclear security, our public health.
They're playing with people's lives, literally.
in other parts of the country and here at home.
They're, they have fired or caused the resignations of so many good people who just wanted to serve their country but are now apparently the deep state.
Where do we go from here?
Unless, well first off, unless courts do something to stop these things, it's just going to continue to get worse, but
those court orders then have to be enforced somehow.
You know, judges and justices, they don't have their own police force that they can send in.
And so as long as you have a president and members of Congress saying to the court system, yeah, you and what army, we're going to have some real problems here with the rule of law.
And that's where I think this all comes back to us talking to our friends and neighbors, including the ones we don't normally agree with on a lot of things and finding common ground on something like the rule of law and obeying court orders and playing by the rules.
I would dare to say that while there are many Trump voters who are still apologists for what's been happening so far these past four weeks,
that you probably are finding an increasing number of them saying, this is not the stuff that I voted for.
I didn't vote for somebody who claims to have found $4.7 trillion in waste, which just happens to equate to the $4.7 trillion that they would have to find to pay to renew the Trump tax cuts.
from his first time in office.
Those tax cuts blew a hole in the deficit of over $2 trillion.
That was then 2017.
And they just want to rubber stamp it and put those tax cuts geared toward the wealthy back in effect for another nearly 10 years.
And this time the price tag would be $4.7 trillion.
They're not going to get there
by firing a few workers who work on bird flu or guarding the national nuclear stockpile or presidential libraries.
They're going to have to go after some things like Medicare, Social Security, and more unless they're stopped.
Melissa K joins us for today's history lesson right after this.
You're up north.
Yeah.
Smoky Robinson.
It's his birthday today.
We're kicking up.
And where else will you hear a bassoon in rock and roll?
You know?
Nowhere
else.
Nowhere else.
You will
hear a tuba in hip hop though.
Really?
The roots have a tuba player.
Oh, yes.
Oh, I love the roots.
Yes,
you're right.
Oh, yes.
I love
the roots.
I do.
I don't hear them.
I don't listen nearly enough and I should.
Melissa Cates here from 97.5 WFHR in 105.5 WIRI.
Melissa, how are you?
Good morning.
I am.
I'm good.
I'm awake.
I'm warm.
You know, it's a lovely day.
We got a little smoky, you know, when smoky sings.
That's
always a
good thing.
You know that song when smoky sings by ABC?
I know,
probably.
OK.
If you go, you'll hear that whole little bassoon thing from Tears of a Clown as as the baseline underneath.
It's very cool.
I'll check it out.
What's what's
happening up
there in Rapidsworld?
In rabbits, we had a big common council meeting last night.
ATV-UTVs are not going to be allowed in the city still.
And we are going to keep fluoride in our city drinking water.
Interesting.
Oh,
yes.
Yes.
All right.
What do you know?
Public health wins one now and
then.
Yeah.
They listened to all of the experts because they all showed
up.
See, that's the thing.
If you don't show up,
you know, it's weird things can happen.
If we get nothing else done over our time with with civic media, and with Courier Newsroom, it's that civic engagement matters, you got to show up.
If you feel
strongly about your voice heard.
Yep.
Let's see next on the the birthday list is a singer Lou Christie is 82 years old today.
He was born this day in 1943 and then on this day in 1966 it was his 23rd birthday and his song went to number one.
Probably would have made more sense if I'd have queued it up to the chorus there.
Greg, you know the chorus, right?
Can you get that high?
No.
What?
I'll tell you what, while we wait for the chorus to hit, I'll tell you Thomas Edison patented the phonograph this day in 1878 and a whole lot of heroes in the United States Marine Corps landed on Iwo Jima, 30,000 Marines this day in 1945.
in a landmark battle for control of that strategic location.
Now, here's Lou Christie.
Actually, yeah, I can hit this because this is a, this is a, what's
the word I'm
looking
for?
False Settle.
False Settle voice.
It's
basically
like, it's like the Bee Gees.
There are, the medical waste buckets are filled with the vocal cords that other men have shredded.
trying to try to hit those notes.
What a visceral and graphic depiction of your point, Pat.
Thank you very much.
Let's see, Austrian singer-songwriter, the late Falco, was born this day in 1957.
He had two hits.
He had Dirk Hamasar in 1981 and this one from 1985.
The 80s were so stupid.
Oh my god, such an earworm.
No, I say that with love.
I love this song.
But the
video.
Perfect cleaning song, like to dance around in your kitchen while you're sweeping.
Clean me.
Clean me kitchen.
Clean me kitchen.
Clean me kitchen.
Clean
me
kitchen.
Let's see.
Another birthday today that would be singer Seal is 62 years old today.
What
I know again, I should have queued this up.
No, you did it.
He also gave us a kiss from a rose.
Oh, yeah.
Can we just take four seconds and talk about that truly disturbing Super Bowl ad with him?
Is that I didn't I was gone on vacation.
They didn't want Super Bowl commercials, but they basically, yeah, they use AI to put him in.
They put his face on a seal.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was
That was I only saw like two seconds of that.
That was very troubling for Mountain Dew as well.
It was a Mountain Dew ad.
Mountain Dew hasn't had a good commercial in a long time.
They
try to go back to the mountains.
Nice.
OK, here's here's this.
I guess this isn't a falsetto, but it's pretty close.
The number one song this week in 1972 was by Nelson.
It starts low.
Yeah.
But is it really it?
Like right now, it's
like, oh, you can't live without
me.
If Lou Christie didn't blow out your vocal chords, this one might do it.
Now he's really convincing you.
Yeah.
He's pounding it home.
That's
right.
Number one song for four weeks back in 1972.
One more.
Bruce Springsteen has only been at the top of the Hot 100 with one song that he wrote, and he didn't even sing that version that hit number one.
It was Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
When I tell people that this is a Bruce Springsteen song, people are like, what?
Same with Because of the
Night.
Oh look, you're getting some love here, Melissa, from the 80s.
Adam writes in on YouTube, safety dance also makes a great cleaning song.
Woohoo, I'll look that up.
Maybe you'll do that today.
I'll put together a playlist and clean the bedroom.
A playlist of Melissa's
cleaning songs.
I like this.
Are you a mopper?
Just a sweeper?
Well,
I was specially trained.
I can do it all, baby.
Ooh,
okay.
I mean, this whole day in history has gotten very weird.
I must say.
Very
weird shredded vocal chords.
We've got house cleaning music and a lot of a
lot of oh, yes from Melissa in very weird spaces like oh You
have strong teeth
And Bowers in Wisconsin Rapids.
Happy birthday to the US Coast Guard Reserve.
This is National Airboat Day.
So head down to the Everglades.
Take that little airboat ride.
This is Chocolate Mint Day.
That is a wonderful combination.
Greg disagrees clearly.
It depends.
But we don't have time.
All right.
And National Arabian Horse Day and National Tug of War Day.
One of the most youthful childhood activities I could imagine.
Aren't they bringing it back as an Olympic sport though?
Are they really?
I
guess
I'll start training.
I'll only accept it if the losers get fed to alligators.
Thank you, Melissa.
Have
a great day.
Happy house
cleaning.
More after this.