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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Brightlow.
That's me, but not in the Lake Wissota studio.
Good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio, unabashedly, Wisconsin, and live from Madison, where we...
held a forum last night, a three part panel discussion about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race with all kinds of great panelists.
My thanks to everybody who participated, organized, attended or listened across the civic media radio network to let people know about the stakes of the race.
And we'll talk more about that coming up in a bit.
We also have for guests this hour, State Senator Melissa Radcliffe and State Representative Alex George with an update on what your legislature is doing under the big top here in Madison.
and Luke Mathers will be along later in the program as well.
But first meteorologist Brittany Merlois here because it's no longer just a temperature roller coaster.
It is a weather roller.
It is a season roller coaster.
Which season are we in?
That any given part?
Brittany, good morning.
How are
you?
Good morning.
I am fantastic.
But this storm is a doozy.
Like you said, it's bringing a little bit of
everything.
uh yeah before i get the details you you asked before you said something about how how fancy the studio looks here in madison
and
uh yeah look i want to show i'm going to move to the side for a second here and i know it's a blurry background i had to because it was just a plain white wall here in one of the the studio's exotics media world hq i was looking for a place to plug in my laptop
And thankfully, Luke Mathers is here and was able to crawl underneath the console here to find where is the one.
Because the only other outlet is behind my head.
here on the wall.
It's directly behind my head.
I feed up on the wall.
No idea why there's an electrical outlet there of all places.
So that's hysterical.
It's
always fun to learn the facilities around
here.
Yes it
is.
But always great when Mr. Mathers assists as well.
So now back to this roller coaster.
Take us through the ride.
Yes, OK, so today we're going up that hill.
It is fantastic.
I mean clear skies out there right now.
A sunny day ahead.
Temperatures this morning are in the 20s to mid 30s and we're going to become breezy as we go through this afternoon.
The winds are going to be out of the South.
warming us right up to the mid sixties, all for the south and western areas of the state, probably some mid fifties still northeast because we're going to be battling a lake breeze off of Lake Michigan.
So a gorgeous, comfortable day today.
It's the calm before the storm.
And hey, if the clouds don't roll in around midnight, we do have a total lunar eclipse going on tonight.
So if you could check that out, it's around midnight to three a.m.
That's of course, when the earth casts a shadow on the moon and it's going
appear a red color.
So pretty cool, but we might have clouds here already because we've got a big system moving in and it is going to bring us mostly cloudy skies for tomorrow.
We do have a chance for some overnight to early morning small storms.
This of course is the warm front lifts through the state.
Those will not be strong or severe, but don't be alarmed if you hear some rumbles of thunder while you're sleeping.
So tomorrow it'll be windy and warm and kind of muggy.
We're going to have some dew points that are going to be sticky.
We haven't felt this in quite a while.
Winds are going to be whipping around 30 miles per hour tomorrow.
It's going to push our highs to the low to mid 70s.
So extreme warmth out there.
But it's not going to be the best day.
Like I said, it's cloudy.
It's dreary.
We've got those storms in the morning and then a big strong line moving in at night.
This wants to move into our western areas by nine o'clock, pushing in towards Madison, central Wisconsin, around 10 30 and uplifted lifts up to the Fox Valley Wausau area around 11 o'clock and then the rest of the areas after midnight.
So what we're looking at is a slight risk for them to be strong to severe from lacrosse to Milwaukee.
That means we could see
damaging wind gusts, approaching 70 miles per hour possible, some hail is possible in this line of storms, and then also some brief spin-ups of tornadoes could be in that line as well.
So yes, it's still technically winter, but when you have this crazy warm-up with a crazy cool down following it, and that's what's happening, a cold front is moving through Friday night, sparking up these strongest severe storms, so...
When you mix those two air masses, you usually get some trouble there.
So be weather savvy Friday night as that moves through.
And then I
know.
Well, let me catch my breath.
Okay.
And then Saturday,
Saturday.
Oh my God.
Hang
on,
we'll get to part two.
We need a commercial break in the middle of Brittany's forecast here.
So just for a moment here, Rob and Tigerton tells us we had a very beautiful moon set and a pink sunrise.
So while we're talking about the moon and the sun here, he says, good morning from Tigerton.
It's partly cloudy, 24 degrees with frost, some wet spots on the roads, sidewalks could be slippery in spots.
I'll have part two of what Rob had to say right after part two of Brittany Merleau's forecast.
Here she is.
All right, here we go.
So part two is Saturday.
So now we're going to see our temperatures starting to become a little bit cooler, nothing drastic, but we'll fall to the forties in the fifties.
We'll see some light rain throughout Saturday.
And then the cold moves in that dry air blasts us.
It's still going to be windy out there gusts up to about 3040 miles per hour.
Now the winds are going to be pulling in below freezing temperatures.
So you know that that rain is going to flip to snow.
all across the state.
So it's going to start into the northwestern areas Saturday evening and then throughout the overnight and by Sunday morning the eastern areas are going to be seeing the slight snowfall.
Now we could pick up a couple of inches and then it'll kick on out of here for Monday and we'll start to warm things back up for early next week and I will tell you there's another big storm middle of next week too so.
What do I always say?
Winter doesn't end until it breaks you and we are heading in that territory quickly.
More from Robin Tigerton.
I love the original Frankie Valley Four Seasons Oh What a Night song.
It's my favorite Frankie Valley in the Four Seasons song of all time and it's on the music playlist on my phone.
Brittany, thank you.
He goes on so much for all those recent beautiful days being outside walking and taking pictures and as far as the
There's a Facebook commenter as well by the name of Luke about the outlet behind my head Gotta plug my future flat screen somewhere puts Luke Mathers on Facebook.
So we've got to suspend that account Brittany.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Well, now we appreciate you the forecast
You the weather is more
Yeah.
Thank you, Brittany.
Talk to you later.
All right.
We were mentioning before here at 713 on Up North News Radio that members of Congress have not been holding as many in-person events and instead have been going with the Teletown halls as it were.
In our last hour, we read one critique of what was put on by Congressman Derrick Van Orden and shall we say the truth stretching that was going on?
Before that, Baylor Spears at the Wisconsin Examiner did a write-up of a recent tele-town hall by new Congressman Tony Weed, who Baylor writes defended President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's work inside the Trump administration Monday evening during his first town hall.
He was joined by Congressman Tom Tiffany as well, who helped answer questions from callers.
is how Baylor writes it.
There were some questions that participants could answer using their keypad.
And these are just so blatantly typical of what you'll hear here.
One of the questions that Tony Weed and Tom Tiffany put out was, do you believe the federal government spends too much taxpayer money?
Now, interestingly, in the olden days, meaning before Trump 2.0,
you probably would have gotten a healthy majority of people saying, yes, the federal government spends too much money.
Of course, they didn't mean on themselves, but that overall, it spends too much money.
But as people have been learning through all these punishing cuts that they're, even though they're spending that doesn't benefit them, but very definitely benefits somebody else who is worthy of this, like, you know, humanitarian aid, medical research, veterans health care.
Well, even in this,
you know, loaded question from two Republican congressmen and do you believe the federal government spends too much taxpayer money?
43% said yes, 57% said no.
And of course, there was the question, do you believe men should be allowed to participate in women's sports?
Because again, attacking the trans community is apparently one of the high priorities that's been going on.
There were questions about Medicare and Medicaid, where again, Trump and others have said that there won't be any cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, even though callers asked about it as well.
Weed and Tiffany said they want to protect Medicaid, but that lawmakers will be looking for savings, including by potentially establishing work requirements for the program and keeping quote, illegal immigrants from accessing the program.
Illegal immigrants.
as they put it, undocumented immigrants, don't access the program.
They pay into the program through paid deductions, but then can't sign up for them.
And so they are, their work is subsidizing all kinds of Americans who get healthcare and an old age pension as a result of their contributions.
You kick out the immigrants, you kick out the workers, you kick out those contributions, and it actually makes
Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, that much less stable.
Tiffany said there are too many able-bodied adults on Medicaid and rhetorically asked if we want them getting help from the federal government and from you, the taxpayer.
He implied that these people should get a job so they can get insurance through their employer.
And then of course he went on to attack again, quote, illegal immigrants.
Again, this whole notion of able-bodied people on Medicaid.
much like I would say there are veterans who claim disabilities and some of them run for Congress or other political office.
But in all cases, we don't know their full diagnosis.
We don't know what it is that a disability is based on.
We also don't know if those folks that you think are able-bodied are actually full-time caregivers and you just happen to see them at the grocery store and go, oh, well, he or she looks just fine.
What are they getting benefits for?
But if you can cast doubt on enough people in politics, you can make it look like everything is a waste.
Now, again, there only is going to be a few people who are taking advantage of any given program.
But the paint with a broad brush and say, well, therefore, we have to have these huge slashing cuts to Medicaid and other programs is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
But this is the kind of logic, the kind of attacks, the kind of division that we're seeing from Tony Weed and from Tom Tiffany in their Telletown Hall.
They went on to defend Elon Musk and everything that he's been doing to take a wrecking ball to the federal budget, saying that Elon Musk isn't firing anybody, meaning that it all comes back to Donald Trump.
If you want to believe that Trump is actually monitoring every little thing that Elon Musk is doing.
So this is what we will continue to hear.
over the coming weeks, and we'll ask if there's any red line that President Trump can cross where they will stand up for their constituents instead, and we'll continue waiting for some kind of an encouraging answer.
More after this, wherever you're listening across Wisconsin on this Thursday morning, when you're here, you're up north.
Live from Madison this morning on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Coverage begins at 12.30 on Civic Media stations in Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Richland Center.
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In today's newsletter, Christina is already looking ahead towards St.
Patty's Day and talks about where to find the best corned beef.
in time for the big holiday.
There's a little talk about dyeing beers, you know, DYE, you know, how do you get green beer on St.
Patrick's Day and how much dye is needed for that?
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And a story about the Nuglaris Brewing Company, the folks who give you Spotted Cow and how they are now offering tours of their original factory.
That's just some of what you'll find at our newsletter.
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appreciate you being here today.
We've got on the text line Tiffany from River Falls saying that I'm looking at that beautiful reddish pink moon set right now near Prescott and we appreciate you calling in and sharing that with us.
I want to take a moment to thank the folks who took part in our forum over here in Madison at the Orbiture Center last night.
Again, just a wonderful turnout.
on three different topics.
We talked about the future of public education in Wisconsin because again this next Supreme Court is going to hear a challenge to Act 10 and a challenge to voucher schools.
Todd Alba was the moderator.
And we were joined by Julie Mead, who is a retired UW Madison School of Education professor, a professor on school law.
So we talked about the law and how it relates to public education and the things that the Supreme Court could decide on.
There was our friend Heather Dubois born on from the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
There was Peggy Wirtz Olson from WEAC and State Representative Christian Phelps of Eau Claire, all giving wonderful remarks on the importance of protecting
public education in Wisconsin and the role that a state Supreme Court could play in either defending or weakening Wisconsin public education.
Our second panel was about the economy, making sure we have an economy that works.
How do you not have a state Supreme Court that's in the back pocket of Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce and other big business groups?
Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area and political editor for Civic Media moderated that panel.
Joining him were State Representative Francesca Hong of Madison, State Representative Supreme Maura Omokunde of Milwaukee, and then regular show contributors Melissa Baldoff from our climate check segment and Joseph Pecky.
And again.
Just fantastic responses about things that people may not necessarily think of but when it comes to protecting the environment protecting workers rights Protecting consumer rights.
These are all things that are going to come into play depending on whether the the court is controlled by conservatives or progressives coming up on April 1st and then I moderated the final panel reproductive rights being on the ballot I spoke earlier about the
presentation by Heather Martel of Chippewa Falls, who completely humanized an issue that is just made too, too political and too abstract by politicians.
And Heather truly brought it home along with Dr. Eliza Bennett, an obstetrician gynecologist, Michelle Velazquez of the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, and Senator Kelder Royce of Madison.
Wonderful to have them all there talking about these topics and then folks stuck around for a debate watch party to watch Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimmel, the former state attorney general and the Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and the moderators from WISN TV in Milwaukee did did a very good job.
They did the best they could given that
State Supreme Court races, judicial races nowadays, have become nothing like what the court actually does.
And people noticed that.
They came up to me afterwards during the debate watch party and commented on the difference that where we were talking about the issues that really impact life in Wisconsin, people and businesses, the environment, schools and more, so much of that debate.
was spent cherry picking a couple of court cases that had more to do with pedophiles and sexual assaults and, you know, letting criminals loose on the streets, all of these things that make for horrific campaign ads, but are a sliver of what any given justice would ever see, much less what a judge typically works on.
But it makes for great political fodder and both Crawford and Schimmel did not hesitate to, you know, essentially take every opportunity to point out the shortcomings of their opponent on this handful of cases.
And while there are valid points to be made about these cases, don't get me wrong, I'm not minimizing public safety, but we expect public safety to be in a joint endeavor.
of law enforcement, of crime prevention, of local prosecutors and judges for cases that may eventually get to a state Supreme Court for ruling on matters of the law and whether a particular case was handled appropriately in terms of the law.
A Supreme Court does not hear the case, does not hear any case of sexual assault and then render whether it happened or not.
Much less micromanaging, say, you know, the testing of rape kits.
Again, all valid issues, but just a subset of what we would expect from a state Supreme Court.
So again, I'm very grateful to everybody who attended and listened across the Civic Media Radio Network because I think that those are the folks who will talk to their friends and neighbors.
And all of us listening to this program know it.
We are tuned into this program because we're either news junkies, political junkies.
We just like to be informed on what's happening around the state.
We all have friends as I, as I told the audience last night, well, friends who call us sometimes literally from the voting booth and saying, Hey, how am I voting on this thing?
And now every one of those folks has a little bit more information to say, yeah, I know the commercials said this, but keep in mind this is how this race would actually affect you, your school, your clean water, your job.
and so forth.
So forgive me for patting ourselves on the back, but it was our first ever live event.
I was thrilled with how it turned out.
And so there is no doubt that we will do it again and once again try to really bring to you the real impact of politics, policy and elections on life in Wisconsin.
We've got two legislative guests after this.
You're up
north.
you can't say I didn't warn you.
During today's history lesson, I noted that today is National Popcorn Day, and I did warn you some kind of terrible song was coming up as a result.
And this 1972 hit by a group called Hot Butter is called Popcorn.
And I have an even more terrible story about this song and having to dance to it in second grade.
We're going to save that for when Luke Mathers is here in 20 minutes because we have much more esteemed guests that don't need to hear all about that.
That, of course, would be two great legislators, Representative Alex Jores from Wannakee and Senator Melissa Radcliffe from Cottage Grove.
Nice to have you both here.
Good morning.
Thank you.
Good morning, Pat.
Thanks for having
us.
And again, thank you as Greg notes in the chat here.
What is this noise?
This was a punishment.
I didn't mean to punish you, but you know, the bumper music had to go someplace.
So thanks again for being here.
We have been talking to a lot of first time legislators since the session started.
And I love that almost without fail.
They give the analogy of trying to drink from a fire hose in terms of taking in all the information.
But the fact of the matter is it's not just a first year thing.
I mean, it's just, it's ongoing.
Senator, we'll start with you.
I mean, what plates are you spinning or trying to keep spinning most of these days?
All of them is a kind of part of it.
It is going from the assembly in my first.
Sessions term to now this session being in the Senate first term.
It is a little different, but it's certainly it's always so busy the first few months and then we get the budget out and just trying to connect and get that information out to our constituents of what's all in the budget has been really important while also going to committee hearings and pushing back against.
bills that are awful for our state and it's just been a whirlwind but I enjoy the craziness I guess.
Yes you have to have a you know some kind of a
genetic abnormality that likes to deal with so much of this as I can say from personal experience as well.
Representative George, you're well aware of that.
We've had you on before to talk about things like affordable housing and other issues.
Are there things that are keeping you especially busy at this point of the session?
Yeah, I mean, like the senator said, it's definitely a busy time in this legislature.
And I feel like we're going to committees and session all the time.
The budget has been introduced.
But I guess I want your listeners to know that, unfortunately, our majority party colleagues, the Republicans that control the legislature, have not put any bills on the governor's desk to sign yet.
So we've been working for months, but we haven't passed any bills out of the legislature.
For him to sign so this is an odd time for us to be in where we seem to be working very hard in committee, but Unfortunately, there's not a lot of legislation going to the governor's desk right now
No, there's there's not because a lot of the bills that come up are things that The governor wouldn't sign even if they get there or maybe the assembly passes it and the Senate decides not to take it up Not the least of which I know you both have spoken out about the the rash of you know anti-trans bills
For example, you've talked about those.
There's also, I want to find the right comment here that came on YouTube.
Oh, this was from Alicia, who said, I'm sorry, I missed your forum last night.
I was watching the committee hearing on AB 104.
And then she goes on to write, Representative George asked some great questions on Tuesday during the committee hearing on AB 102.
First off, Alicia, nerd alert, okay.
Second, now I have to have the legislators explain AB 102 and AB 104, which stands for Assembly Bill, by the way.
So Representative Jordan, since you were getting the compliments here, talk a bit about some of these matters, what you've been working on.
Yeah, thanks for asking the question, Alicia.
I think that, unfortunately, we've seen a collection of bills this session that, again,
aren't going to become law, and my Republican colleagues know that.
However, they continue to put anti-trans legislation forward to ban them from sports, prevent gender-affirming care, and there's another bill too.
And I want to give
give my colleague a minute to speak on this because Senator Radcliffe has actually testified against each of these bills in committee.
I just had one of them in committee earlier this week and then I'm going to vote against it today because obviously it doesn't solve any problem.
It just seeks to divide and exclude and intimidate people in our state that are just trying to live their lives and we don't have time for that.
That does seem to be the theme, Senator, isn't it, of these early bills?
Well, it's, thank you, Representative Jores for, for being against these bills and your thoughtful questions during the hearing two days ago.
Now, I am the mom of a transgender son.
And so this has been a hard week for, for me as a mom and as a legislator as well.
And fortunately though, the community, the LGBTQ community really.
supports each other and the love is there.
And my Democratic colleagues have also been great on this.
It's, I don't want to give the negativity of those bills anymore airtime.
And we're just going to keep fighting back against the hateful bills that target our trans and non-binary communities.
That's exactly where we take this to pivot back into some of the other business of the legislature.
And this week included the beginning of an assembly committee named for a farm animal that apparently is supposed to do these great things for Wisconsin's budget.
Goat stands for what?
Government?
Accountability?
government operations accountability and transparency something along those lines it's meant to emulate what Elon Musk is doing but it can't because the rules at the state level are different but again senator redcliffe the fact that we're we're again looking at attacking
government services that help people.
One member of the committee is going specifically after diversity, equity, and inclusion.
It still sounds like a thing where they say we're going after waste, but it truly seems to indicate misplaced priorities.
Oh, definitely.
And I love a baby goat.
Don't get me wrong.
Like yoga is awesome, but that's not what this committee is at all.
And it could do so much more.
Unfortunately, it's part of what we've seen with the Republicans who are in the majority in our state.
It's about fear mongering.
It's in so many emails and meetings that I've had.
People are afraid that they're going to lose access to Medicaid, that they won't be able to get the services that they need that provide really life-saving care.
to them, even the ability to just participate in daily life, like transport from their home to the doctor to a pharmacy.
And so the fear mongering that continues to come out of this Republican-led legislature is just awful because these bills and this work impacts everyone in our state, not just Democratic areas.
really impacts everyone.
And so I wish that we could get back to actually doing the work that helps Wisconsin residents, that includes everyone.
Because Wisconsin, as I know it, should not be excluding anyone or fear mongering.
We need to work on bills that help everyone.
Representative Jorza, a related question, but let me take it in a more pointed way.
Again,
Is there something that this GOAT committee could do that breaks free of the divisiveness and just attacking government for the sake of attacking government?
Is it possible that they may identify something where you and your Democratic colleagues go?
You know, yeah, come to think of it, that does need to be curtailed or scaled back or something.
Do you have any sense that that could happen?
You know, my colleagues and I are always looking for ways to find waste or fraud or abuse.
However, that's not what this committee is doing.
And I'll just give you an example of it.
And you, I think you referenced that the vice chair of this goat committee has sent emails requesting.
Essentially, I think an open records request to cities and counties across our state, many, many cities and counties across our state, asking them to review their programs for DEI initiatives and report back to the committee.
Taxpayers already pay for audits and
reports so that we can understand what's going on in our government.
We don't need the vice chair of this GOAT committee going around to our municipalities asking for them to use their resources to report on programs that are already public.
So that's what this committee is doing.
I think yesterday they had a hearing where they brought all the agencies in to talk about how their staff is working.
And they came to realize that some of their actually say the agencies are actually saving money by allowing some work from home privileges here.
So I think that.
This is kind of going after something that is already public.
This is something that we already know what's what's happening in our state government and the fact that we're using taxpayer resources to, you know, find ways to divide our communities.
Like the senator said, it doesn't get to helping anybody's life be better.
It really just is seeking something out seeking a problem that doesn't exist.
Senator, a somewhat similar question to you and again, wondering if there's going to be some kind of bipartisan move on something.
And in this case, I'm going to talk about Medicaid expansion and then the expansion of postpartum coverage.
Now, in both cases, I had said at the start of this session that maybe, maybe after enough Republican legislators had heard from their constituents that they would
see the the wisdom in expanding Medicaid or at the very least expanding postpartum care since Wisconsin is now one of only two states that has not extended postpartum care to 12 months and yet it was what just about a week week and a half ago Republicans were crowing about not expanding Medicaid because of all the cuts now the deal on musk and president trump are making so my question to you in in any sense of earnestness is
might we at least see the postpartum expansion if Medicaid expansion, I guess, isn't gonna happen again after all?
And I see Senator Radcliffe's got a bit of a weak signal there, so Representative Juris, I'm gonna have you tackle that one first.
Of course, I think that what we've seen again is the postpartum Medicaid bill that covers pregnant women for extends to a year has been introduced again and it has wide bipartisan support.
I think I counted earlier that we have a full majority of the assembly on the bill.
And now we're coming to a situation where people are calling offices, constituents are calling offices asking their
representative to be on this bill and help it move forward.
And again, we are seeing a situation where the speaker is, you know, putting it to a committee on regulatory reform when it probably should be going to a health committee.
Just another kind of barrier that he's putting up to this bill.
So we want to see it forward.
It's a great, good bipartisan win that everybody can be proud of if we can make sure that it gets the assembly floor this time.
It's already headed to the Senate, I believe.
So it's something that we're looking at.
doing soon.
Yeah, Senator Radcliffe is back with us now as well.
And so let me go on to my final question here about the April 1 election.
Someone surprisingly one of the points that came up at our forum last night was okay, we've talked about reproductive rights and we've talked about education.
But one real stake of the Supreme Court race is that a new conservative majority
Could strike down the fair maps that we've only had for one election cycle.
Senator Radcliffe, what would be the damage of that if we returned to gerrymandering?
Sorry about my technical difficulties.
So I think that question was for me.
Yes, about gerrymandering and going
back.
Yes.
Yeah, it would be like detrimental, right?
Like the stakes are high in this race.
And I am, I've endorsed Susan Crawford.
She is the right candidate.
I wasn't able to watch the debate last night, but she is steady and understands what a judge should do to be impartial, as opposed to Fred Schimmel, who just will back whatever Republicans want him to do, ultimately, is what I've seen from his ads.
So it's so important to vote April 1st.
abortion rights and fair maps are on the ballot.
Public education is on the ballot.
And what I've heard from so many people is that public education is so important and something that we really need to fund in the budget and that we need to make sure it gets done for our state and people first.
Again, the importance of voting on April 1st.
Senator Melissa Ratcliffe, Representative Alex George, thank you both so much.
Can't wait to talk to you again soon.
Have a great day.
Thanks, Pat.
And when we come back, we will talk to Luke Mathers and wrap things up for Up North News Radio on a Thursday morning on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
This says 1975, doesn't it?
One more for Neil Sudak of turning 86 years old today.
Bad blood with Elton John doing the background singing with him, but not credited on the record because he wasn't that big of a deal yet.
Luke Mathers, always good looking and confident, handsome and capable, joining us from just
Just across the hall for me here at the Civic Media Global HQ.
Mr. Mathers, good morning, and thank you for getting me set up for this morning's broadcasting from studio.
What is this?
A2?
Is that what you call this room?
That's the short of it, yes.
Okay, right next to the brooms are right over here someplace.
Yep, but thanks for all that.
How are things down here?
Oh, we're doing great.
It's been a busy week and there's still a lot to be done between now and we're racing towards April 1st.
Yes, we are.
So it's kind of a full sprint now, two and a half weeks until election day here in Wisconsin.
You don't have to wait.
You can make a plan and be a voter already.
So absentee ballots are out.
You can request them.
You can be returning them to your local clerk.
You can wait until Tuesday.
Do in-person absentee voting.
like, but don't wait to make a plan.
So already be thinking about it.
We got two and a half weeks until Election Day, and that's the deadline to vote, not the first time to start thinking about voting here in Wisconsin.
That's nice.
What is what is that low rattle I was hearing there?
Do you have like a little fan going or a little diffuser for your essential oils or what's what's what's the story over there?
Well, in getting to try to get you all set up, I'm not hearing it myself, but it may be the fan of my laptop, which is why I asked.
It was
great.
I don't
have my main microphone with me because I was trying to get into the studio with you.
Folks, what you're hearing is the first laptop ever built back in 1904 has gone.
There you
go.
I don't know.
Don't know what you did, but there you go.
All right.
Good looking and confident.
I gotta give credit though to the folks behind the scenes there and Luke is one of them some of the time.
Sometimes he's in front, sometimes he's in the back.
He's like the civic media mullet, but there are folks behind the scenes.
that helped with the setup of this event.
And again, Matthew Goldstein from Courier Newsroom flew out here from out east to help set up this event.
And he worked with the folks at the Overture Center, which is right across the street here from Civic Media.
And they were amazing.
The Overture Center crew was wonderful.
But to get a broadcast done from any place, even across the street, was no easy task.
Plus, you're trying to live stream it.
on all the social platforms, you know, on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram.
So you had somebody working just on live streams as well.
I almost wish we had somebody with a camera just documenting all the setup to it.
And I got a feeling, Luke, you and some of your colleagues wish that every day that somebody was just seeing what all has to happen for one person to flip a microphone and say hello to everybody.
It's harder than it looks.
It's a lot that goes into it and one day we'll have, you know, our own very own version of the office documentary where you just see the camera crew kind of everywhere and just me doing the gym look at the cameras.
I was going to ask who's going to be our gym, of course.
I
see you thinking that, but I mean.
You you are kind of our Dwight, you know, you're Dwight Schrute over
here.
If I had to choose, I think that it would either be Craig or or Creed.
Those would be the two options if I truly have to choose.
Well, let's let's continue on with this casting here.
I'm a warehouse guy.
Todd Alba, is he Pam?
No, let's see.
No, OK, I
would say actually I would say now that you're really making me think about this, I would say Todd is probably
I would give him our creed.
He's the the
He's a guy.
He lives on his own terms.
He does his own thing.
No, what's what's the name of the sales guy that's always on the road and always going other places?
I can't think that would be the Todd Todd loves going out and doing a road show.
So it's got to be he's got to be the road salesman.
I can't I love this.
I love doing casting.
We here's a story from TV days.
This is in the in the mid 90s.
I'm producing.
I was a producer for the the noon news.
And the guys in the control room like to have a little fun sometimes.
And sometimes they would mess with the credits, and they would do casting.
And so there was like Gilligan's Island casting.
And so instead of Tom Benson, it was, you know, Gilligan Benson.
And the producer was Skipper-Crightlow or whatever the case may be.
And we'd do that with the love boat and with some other things.
One day, the station manager
and the sales manager are at a bar across the street having lunch, quote unquote.
And the bartender starts laughing at the TV and they go, what are you laughing at?
Oh, it puts the director is Alan Smithy.
Well,
Alan Smithy.
Is the what the the pseudonym that if a director hated the job so much if they hated the final result They wouldn't put their name on it.
They put Alan Smithy the bartender explains this Needless to say we got it talking to after after that and they were no more casting credits Tales of TV Oh, and I did promise the the popcorn story as well from that terrible 1972 song as a second or third graders
We had to perform for the parents.
Everybody had a little show and the third grade show was to have a parachute and we all ran around in a circle with the parachute and they throw little nerf balls in there and then we bounced the parachute up and down so that the balls were bouncing up and down popcorn.
Yeah.
to this song.
I still have nightmares
about it.
Cardinal nightmare fuel.
Welcome to the ride of your life.
You'll never forget.
You may never talk so much about serious politics and policy and ramifications here on Uptown News Radio.
And then we give you bad 70 songs and third graders dancing.
We are the full schmere right here.
It's
full service show,
make a
plan, be a voter and tune into your Wisconsin Badgers in the Big Ten tournament.
That's
right.
Coming up at 12.30 today.
Luke Mathers, thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Greg Beck, Greg Beck is back.
Greg Beck is back in two hours for Matt Nair on air.
Thank you, sir.
Bye.
Thanks to all of you for being part of this.
I'm heading back up north.
We'll see you there tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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