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Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Thursday morning.
It's June 12th, 2025.
It's another...
It's it's another morning to have you here up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the civic media radio network I can't say it's a beautiful morning for once because I have a question for you Could can we build a wall around Canada instead?
Can we forget the Mexico stuff?
Can we build a wall and high enough to keep the smoke out?
Because it is it is once again a smoky morning here on Lake Wissota perhaps where you are as well
But we still appreciate you being here listening across the radio network or on the app or YouTube or Facebook or podcast and really appreciate you being here today on the program today it appears to be happening again in the Wisconsin legislature where Republicans appear to show some willingness to compromise on an issue only to turn around and add what's known as a poison pill
which is some other bill or amendment or language that's terrible and undoes whatever compromise Republicans were pretending to embrace.
But then they put these, they have strings attached.
We're going to talk to State Senate Democratic Leader Diane Hasselbein about the progress of state budget negotiations and I'll tell you more about what might be following when it comes to a compromise on funding the stewardship program here in the state.
As you know, Melissa Baldoff not only does our climate check, she's a political strategist, a former top advisor to Governor Tony Evers.
If you missed her near the end of our show yesterday, she has some thoughts on that new column by our colleague, Dan Schaefer, on whether the governor should follow Dan's advice and decline to run for a third term next year.
In a little bit here, we'll talk about how our Confederate president is doing more now to put the names of sworn civil war enemies of the United States back on our military bases.
Sharita Booker reviews some popular events happening this weekend around Wisconsin.
We'll talk to Chad Holmes about stories he's following in the Wausau area.
We'll check in one more time with Joseph Peckie ahead of this weekend's Democratic State Convention.
Sean O'Malley looks at how your money and the markets are impacted by all the latest news out of Washington, DC.
And of course, we'll have our Scani summer text-to-end contest.
Only a couple of more days of that.
as well.
If you'd like to have a little input on the show, on the conversations, ask any questions, you can send us a text at 855-75-CIVIC-855-7524842.
You can also text us directly from the Civic Media app and you're going to be texting us from that app in about an hour for that Scotty Summer Text to Win contest.
And of course, if you're listening on the radio and
Want to know if you can really watch the show?
Yes, you can.
You can see what we're doing by heading over to the Up North News Facebook page or YouTube page or the Civic Media Facebook page or the YouTube page.
You can also email us radio at upnorthnewswi.com.
But if you go to one of these social media channels and you decide to watch us, you'll not only see, you know, the latest from this Lake Wasota studio and its sexy new bookcase.
But that sexy pink t-shirt that Parker Olson is wearing down there at Studio A2 in Madison.
Mr. Olson, good morning.
What do you got there?
What are you sporting?
I had that impression, yes.
OK.
And it doesn't say Madison or flamingos or anything.
It says Dairyland on there.
So it's like one of these alternate jerseys, I guess.
No.
Or is that
soccer?
sponsor?
Yeah.
OK.
OK.
Well, Dairyland Cooperative, Dairyland Electric, I don't know.
Whoever it is, thank you for supporting.
Okay, it could be that too.
Clearly Parker and I are gonna be learning more about Madison soccer teams and I do say plural because we have talked about how there will be more Soccer action coming to Madison men's and women's
I don't know if you want to call it professional, semi-pro, I forget now, so clearly we need to get up to speed and tell you more, but right now it's just a fashion piece.
Oh yeah.
Mark Rolson in his pink Madison Flamingo soccer kit.
I'm
Yeah, all about it.
You guys getting the smokiness up down there as well or I don't
so because yesterday was so much better.
So much better than we noticed right around sunset.
It was starting to come in again.
And maybe it was just a scene setter because we we are going to have Tony says this is so disappointing.
Hop on the soccer train guys.
Well, you know, yeah, we
the footy I guess you'd call football.
Brittany Merlot says a stalled weather front is set up and it's basically just going to be a pipeline for showers from now into early next week.
Not rain all the time but there may very well be a soaking rain.
at times and so we'll have her break things down in our next hour as far as you know what this stalled weather front is doing, where the rain is going to be.
Her state forecast for today says partly cloudy, scattered showers early in the day in southern Wisconsin, more will pop up this evening, highs today around 70 up north, mid 70s south and east wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.
occasional showers and thunderstorms tonight a heavy rain is possible especially in the western part of the state and lows tonight will range from just 45 degrees up north to 55 south southeast winds at 10 to 15 miles an hour tomorrow here we're going to be talking to a state supreme court candidate
Dane County Judge Chris Taylor, somebody who served in the legislature prior to being a judge, and now she is an announced candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court for that seat next year, next April, which tells you something about the races that candidates have to declare this early, although it's important to declare this early for somebody like Judge Taylor because she will be
probably running against Justice Rebecca Bradley, who is the leader of the conservative flank of the state Supreme Court, arguably, through the incendiary comments she likes to make in her opinions.
It's still possible that other candidates will get in the race.
If that's the case, there will be a primary next November.
And the way these nonpartisan elections work, you might recall, is in the February primary,
It's the top two vote-getters.
who advance.
It doesn't matter if they're liberal, conservative, independent, whatever the case may be.
So if there aren't any more candidates, then just the two will advance to April.
Otherwise, in February, it will be the top two vote getters that advance to the primary.
So Chris Taylor will be joining us in our eight o'clock hour tomorrow morning.
And Dr. Kristen Lierly, who's normally here in the eight o'clock hour on Fridays, will join us for some of the questioning for Judge Chris Taylor.
So that will be a nice addition to have to the show tomorrow.
I'm just calling up today's Up North News Daily newsletter.
Christina Laurie puts that together for us Monday through Friday.
You can sign up for it over at our website.
Head to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Click subscribe and the banner on top of the homepage.
She continues her series on food networks, 25 iconic eats and drinks from America's Dairyland and talks all about maple syrup.
Because yeah, we talked a lot about beer and bratwurst and cheese, but syrup is very much a part of the region's history and culinary culture.
And so there are all kinds of things, including a USA Today list of 10 small batch maple syrups you need to try.
And you may think, well, wait, syrup is syrup.
It comes from a maple tree, right?
You know, just the way that I thought honey was honey.
And yet on that recent vacation that I took, there were these various, you know, wine tastings and things like that.
And they gave us three different types of honey to try.
And one was what you would just consider to be, you know, straight honey.
One of them, the bees were primarily working fields of lavender.
And another one was rosemary.
And there's such a difference in color and in taste.
I mean, surprisingly so.
I mean, how often do you taste two different honeys back to back?
I think if I gave you any one of them, you go, okay, that's honey.
But when you taste test them, you really get that feel for the difference.
So when Christina tells you in today's newsletter that there are 10 different small batch maple syrups you need to try, believer.
because there's really a difference that way.
Let's see, she's got something for June Dairy Month as well, and that deals with butterfat and the butterfat content of milk.
I mean, nobody really talks about it, but it matters in terms of, you know, again, the ingredients that you're using.
And so she has a story about that, including a link to some only in Wisconsin ice cream shops.
So
Again, for that and more, head over to UpMorningNewsWI.com.
Click on the newsletter there.
Parker, are we being corrected by one
mothers here?
We did.
Okay,
say here?
They are a US L1 team.
That would be Madison and a lot of fun to watch.
And the proper name for what Parker is wearing is a kit.
Well, we said that already, but it's a US L1 team.
which I'm pretty sure leads us to the next question, of course, of what is a USL one?
And I know, I know there are a lot of Flamingos fans in Madison, and I understand they might be ripping their hair out right now.
But for the other five million of us outside of the Madison area, who don't follow this team regularly, we would like to learn more.
So yes, Tony, you can put up on YouTube that you're so proud of Luke, but for all the rest of us, you know, be patient.
We're learning.
It all starts somewhere and it does not necessarily start with a love of soccer.
Sometimes it's love of the t-shirt.
Oh,
I'm sorry, the kid.
So there you go.
We mentioned, did we get to this yesterday or did we not?
Did we get the news after the show?
You know what we did because I neglected to tell you that we have one more guest who's coming up.
In place of the usual history lesson, we are going to be talking to one of our civic media colleagues right here, John Scott, the marketing director at Civic Media, who met and interviewed Brian Wilson at a concert once upon a time and is going to tell us all about that, about meeting the man who really created the Beach Boys.
Yes, Roger writes on Stevens Point from Stevens Point on Facebook.
Definitely a musical genius.
His favorite Beach Boy song is God Only Knows.
And I will tell you that we are going to lead the segment off with that coming up in just over half an hour.
And I too am going to break up a little bit.
because God only knows does that for me as well.
It's just a beautiful masterpiece of a song.
And Brian Wilson was, yeah, a genius.
There's just no other word for it.
A tortured genius, quite literally, it turns out.
And I don't know the degree to which the movie Love and Mercy, I don't know how much of it was was, you know, fictionalized, how much of it was fictionalized in a way that was completely off base.
But
If that movie truly grabs the essence of Brian Wilson and both his genius and his complications then that was time well spent for me watching it a couple years back and I would highly recommend it to you as well the movie Love and Mercy to learn much more about the late Brian Wilson who passed away yesterday I guess at the age of 82 years old.
All right.
Well, coming up, we're going to hear from Alyssa Baldoff.
We're going to hear from Sharita Booker as well about some of the events that you can attend around Wisconsin coming up this weekend.
That's right, two guests along the way before too much longer.
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network, and we will be talking about our Confederate president renaming military bases again right after this.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
No, it's not that often anymore in Major League Baseball that you see a pitcher go all nine innings.
But Atlanta managed to get a complete game out of Spencer Schwellenbach as Atlanta beat the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday.
Six to two, Atlanta took two out of three from the Brewers at American Family Field.
Reese Hoskin homered in the second for the Brewers.
Christian Yelich missed his second consecutive game with a swollen right wrist.
He was hit by a pitch at Philadelphia on June 1st, and then he aggravated the injury on a slide last weekend.
So up next for the Brewers, a four-game homestand against Division Rival St.
Louis.
The Brewers' pitching phenom, I hear that word used a lot with this kid, Jacob Mizorowski, makes his Major League debut tonight.
So this could be the start of something
Great for the Brewers or not.
I think back to Garrett Mitchell.
Remember that first game or two and we just thought, oh my God, we've just seen the future of this team.
And then he got injured and was out for a year.
I'm not saying that's going to happen to Miz here.
I'm just saying, I'm hoping for the best for the Brewers.
New pitcher Jacob Mizorowski making his debut tonight against the St.
Louis Cardinals.
Pregame starts at 6 0 5 on several civic media stations around the state.
Hit over to civicmedia.us to learn more.
Of course, the WIAA girls softball championships are underway in Madison.
We'll have Mike Clemens on tomorrow to break down how the postseason is going in high school sports.
And in the NBA finals last night, Indiana won again.
They beat Oklahoma City to take a two games to one lead.
Final score 116 to 107.
It says here, every time Indiana has lost a game in the last three months, it simply has come back to win the next one, including here in the finals.
Game four will be Friday in Indiana.
All right, well, let's check in on President Donald Jefferson Davis Trump as he dredges up Confederate names, but not really, he says, get a load of how he is technically
not renaming some of our military bases after Confederate figures.
You'll recall that, you know, five years ago or so as we had a national reckoning on race and relations and history.
And finally, some folks had the light bulb go off and go, why do we still have military bases that are named for sworn enemies of the United States?
who once served the United States, but then in the Civil War fought for the Confederacy, were leaders of the Confederacy, who led the Confederacy as president of the Confederacy.
Why are we still using those names?
Finally ditched them two years ago.
It took a little money, it took a little time, but it got done.
And here comes Donald Trump and friends saying, now we'd rather have the racist names on, but we're not actually gonna put the racist names on there.
Give a listen.
In Georgia, there's Fort Eisenhower.
Okay.
Everybody knows President Dwight Eisenhower.
But the name's going to revert back to Fort Gordon, originally named for John Brown Gordon, a Confederate slave owner and Ku Klux Klan member.
This time around now, the Army says the base is going to be renamed for Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, who fought in the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.
Wink.
Fort Greg Adams will revert back to Fort Lee.
Not Robert E. Lee, of course.
No, no, no.
Fort Lee is now going to be honored for private Fitz Lee for his heroism during the Spanish-American War.
Wink.
Of course, President Trump managed to screw up his already lame attempt at being cute because instead of saying Fort Lee, he said the new name of the fort would be Fort Robert E. Lee.
No, it's not it's gonna be Fort Lee because it's not named for Robert E. Lee.
You know, you know what I mean?
You know, you know Fort Walker this one's crazy Fort Walker will become Fort AP Hill again AP Hill, but not for the original Confederate.
No, no, no
This AP Hill is going to be named for Medal of Honor recipients, Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Hill, First Sergeant Robert A. Pin, P-I-N-N, and Private Brian Anderson for their heroism during the Civil War.
So AP Hill standing for Anderson and Pin and Hill.
Wink.
Honestly, if there are any descendants of these families whose names are being appropriated for this,
I would love to hear them speak up and say, don't you dare use our loved ones names so shamelessly to shield your racism.
I mean, how much is it going to cost to, again, change all these names?
Well, reporters ask the Army and they wouldn't say.
By the way, this comes on the heels of the Navy, changing the names of some of its vessels, taking Harvey Milk's name off of one.
Let's see.
National White Nationalist Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also wants to remove the names of the first Black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and civil rights leader Medgar Evers from Vessels.
Recall how the Naval Academy temporarily removed more than 300 books from its library, including volumes about the Holocaust, about Jackie Robinson and more.
And again, they eventually got put back but after an expensive court fight because
racism and homophobia are besties with fiscal hypocrisy, riding shotgun.
And I cannot still believe that there isn't somebody in this Congress who doesn't, who isn't American enough to stand up and say to a president of their own party, nobody is fooled by this.
Nobody
is fooled by this when they hear how this all actually came about.
This is making a lot of people thrilled.
There's a lot of people being made happy about this.
Those of course would be the reasons why we still have a race problem in this country.
And now we're taking this big old step backwards.
And the thing is we're going to take the step forward again.
We honest to God are there will again come come a day when Trumpism is no more and it will cost some money and take some time and people will gross again.
But
The arc of history will bend toward justice again.
I swear, that's the only way this country survives, is we keep fighting and fighting and getting the right thing done, despite these stupid setbacks.
Melissa Baldoff is coming up next.
Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
media manager Sherida Booker is back here on this Thursday morning to help us preview coming attraction is something we want to do much more of as we roll through the summer months here.
Sherida Booker, welcome.
How are you?
How are you?
I'm good.
Thanks.
Thank you for being here on a Thursday to help us promote things happening in the next weekend.
Let's start with a big one.
down on the Milwaukee Lakeshore, the Lakefront Festival of Art.
I know I've been down, it's been a long time, but I've been down there.
It's a big deal and it is gonna get started tomorrow, Friday the 13th.
Tell us more about it.
And from tomorrow through Saturday, the Museum of Slate Front Grounds will be filled with over 145 artists across the country.
You can browse and buy everything from paintings and pottery to jewelry and sculptures.
There will be live music, dance performances, hands on art projects for the kids, plus a wine and beer garden and local food vendors.
Tickets are $27 at the gate, but you can save a few bucks by buying in advance online for $22.
Kids 12 and under
getting free thanks to an anonymous donor and for more information on that and tickets visit
All right, and one other note that I see here on their website that I think is worth bringing up is that there will be these outdoor vendors, and they only accept digital payments.
Cash is accepted inside the museum, but if you're going to the Lakefront Festival, and I'm sure you're seeing this more often as well, Sherita, where they're going cashless, and so you got to have either that phone app or a credit card handy.
Yeah, and more people all the time are like that, but I thought it'd be a good idea just to warn folks ahead of time.
All right, so that's Friday and end of the weekend.
Now let's get into the weekend on Saturday, where it's June Dairy Month, of course, and so there will be all kinds of breakfasts on the farm, and there's one happening for Dane County over in Cambridge coming up.
We know June Dairy Month is a big deal here in Wisconsin.
So Dane County Breakfast on the Farm is this Saturday at Hinchley's Dairy Farm in Cambridge.
It runs from 7 a.m.
to 11 30 a.m.
And it's your chance to enjoy a free, real farm style breakfast that includes eggs, sausage, pancakes, yogurt, cheese, milk, and even ice cream.
You'll get to tour the farm, meet some cows, check out antique tractors, and enjoy kid-friendly activities and live entertainment.
It's just $10 for adults, $5 for kids, three to 11, and little ones under
are free and just a heads up they're only taking cash or check at the gate if you want more info head to daintcountydairy.org
And breakfast on the farm is the classic Wisconsin tradition.
So if you don't live around Dane County, you may be able to find one in the area near you.
It's a great way to support local farmers.
And I've got one more related in that vein.
Also on Saturday is the Washington County Dairy Breakfast.
It's also the classic green reunion tractor show.
Our friend Sheila Everhart, who was in here last week, gave us all that information.
Breakfast will be served at the Washington County Fair Park.
It's all you can eat pancakes, scrambled eggs, cheese.
a chapel sauce, milk, and the Maple Woods Dairy Farm on Pleasant Valley Road is where that's being handled from seven to noon.
And again, that's all part of June Dairy Month activities.
In this case, part of the Classic Green Reunion Tractor Show in Washington County.
And we've got one more weekend event to talk about.
That would be the Door County Beer Festival on Saturday.
There'll be more than 150 craft beers from over 40 Midwest breweries to sample.
local food and live music.
You can grab early access tickets for $75, which include early access to all tasting tents or general admission tickets for $55.
Either way, you'll get unlimited tastings and a souvenir glass.
And if you're worried about getting there, they've got free shuttles running all day from spots in Sister Bay, Egg Harbor and Bailey's Harbor.
So you can get your tickets in all the details at doorcountybeerfestival.com.
you know who's missing out on all this stuff all those all those happy little democrats who are gathering in wisconsin dels this weekend for their state convention where they will be electing a new state party chair so for all those folks you're going to find another dairy month breakfast to go to because you're you're going to be doing some very busy things coming up this weekend in wisconsin dels just a busy weekend all around charita thank you so much for telling us all about it hope you have a good weekend yourself you too bet
Oh, let me straighten up one thing.
I think I conflated a couple of things over in Washington County.
Parking and the breakfast will be served at the Washington County Fairgrounds.
The activities and the ice cream sundaes will be held on the farm.
And again, those websites are all either.
Let's go to the Washington County one first.
WashingtonCountyDairy.com.
The breakfast on the farm for Dane County is DaneCountyDairy.org.
The Milwaukee Art Museum, Lakefront Festival of the Arts is ma'am, Milwaukee Art Museum, mam.org, slash LFOA, Lakefront Festival of the Arts, and doorcountybeerfestival.com, doorcountybeerfestival.com for some of the events that Sharita was talking about.
All right, now let's shift gears.
If you missed it toward the end of the show yesterday, we talked to Melissa Baldoff, who, along with doing our climate check and along with being Joe Zipecki, candidate for state party chair, is also a former deputy chief of staff to Governor Tony Evers.
And so we asked her yesterday if she had any thoughts on the recent Dan Schaefer column about maybe not running for a third term.
Let's play a little of that back.
I put this thing up on my Facebook page and there was some spirited responses right away.
Here's one of those spirited responders right now, Melissa Baldoff, who has her climate check, but also as a former advisor to Governor Evers.
Melissa, good morning.
How are you doing?
I'm doing all right.
Yeah, I'm glad you're glad we're going to get a couple minutes to talk about this here.
And I said this on your, commented on your Facebook post and I'll say it again here.
I have known and worked with Dan for years and I really
appreciate what he's doing with the recombination area.
I have the utmost respect for him, you know, personally and professionally.
But, you know, even our friends get it wrong sometimes.
And I think Dan's really got it wrong here.
Not only do I just disagree with, you know, the take, I think it is just a gift to Republicans who want to see
a fight among Democrats.
They want to see disunity.
They want us to be divided and attacking one another.
And it's, you know, an attack that they want to make as well.
So I think that this is, you know, giving them a gift for one.
And I think that the broader concern, you know, setting aside what Republicans are going to do, because we know, we have some ideas about what they're going to do.
This is, I think, kind of flies in the face of what we think, what we can kind of expect from voters and what we're seeing already, what we're hearing already, that with all of the chaos happening in DC, you see, with Trump and his very public breakup with Elon Musk and all that's going on with that, no expectation that things are going to get calm and sane.
easy and rational and effective anywhere around the White House anytime soon.
People are really going to be looking for calm, steady, trusted leadership at the state level.
And that's what they're going to get with Tony Evers.
That's what they've always gotten from Governor Evers.
There is a reason that since he was elected, he has been the most popular and the most trusted elected official in the state of Wisconsin when you look at
market pulling, market up pulling.
So I think that is something that we really have to take into account here.
We're also, you know, I know that there were comparisons to other leaders.
And look, I am somebody who works very hard to ensure that the people representing us are less old, male, straight, and white.
And I get it.
And I understand where the conversation is coming from.
But I think on this particular one, I think it just misses the
mark.
It was always going to be talked about this weekend at the State Democratic Convention regardless.
I've obviously
so now I think people were holding back.
And Dan has definitely found a way to be a conversation starter on this.
Again, the governor's made very clear he's going to decide after the budget's all done and and then make his announcement.
I don't know that anything that's said or done this weekend is necessarily going to accelerate that timeline to you.
I think that like you said, the governor's been pretty clear and at the same time, though, you know, I in my experience working for him and, you know, what I've seen from him.
Publicly and privately he's a very honest dealer and if something were to change his timeline for some reason I think he'd be very transparent with people about that and you know what the reason for was for that but I think we have every reason to trust him when he says he's gonna make a decision after the budget.
That's Melissa Baldoff and when we visited yesterday we then made the transition into our climate check and we talked all about Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
saying that the Biden era fuel economy standards for cars and trucks are illegal and moved to reverse them.
Always taking the side of big oil and less fuel efficient cars whenever possible.
And again, Duffy like Trump continue to spout off falsely about a so-called EV mandate.
There is no EV mandate.
There's an air quality mandate.
If you can reach it with a mixture of EVs and fossil fuel burning cars, then go for it.
If you'd rather have the, you know, the dirty air and the gas guzzlers and direct more American consumers to buy imported cars that are more fuel efficient, that that's a choice that you can make.
And that's one that the Trump administration has made.
Now, if you wanted to hear that full segment with Melissa Baldoff, including everything else that we had to say about climate issues and the column about Governor Evers by Dan Schaefer, well, you can listen back to past episodes.
You just head over to the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Better yet, subscribe to us as a podcast.
If you're part of the cult of Apple like I am, which I thought that's all there ever was, you would just put...
put Apple podcasts on, but for Android and a whole lot of people that don't want to do everything by Apple, there is Spotify.
And we would highly recommend heading over to Spotify and subscribing to our podcast there as well.
We'd love to have you as a subscriber for that.
Looking at some of the other stories that we've got on our website online at UpNorthNewsWI.com, there's one all about fly fishing in Wisconsin, which
I frankly don't really think much about because I'm out here on a lake or a deep lake where people are looking for musky and walleye and I don't appreciate nearly enough all the fly fishing done for trout around Wisconsin.
And so we've got an article there that has you covered from peaceful trout streams to rivers with salmon.
There are six different ones to check out.
There's the Wolf River.
which is one of only two designated national scenic rivers in Wisconsin, where you can catch rainbow trout, brown trout, brook trout, in addition to sturgeon.
There's the Kickapoo River.
The West Fork is regarded as a great spot for both wet and dry fly fishing, the article says, for brook and brown trout.
Let's see.
There's also a stretch of the Pestigal River right below the Johnson Falls Dam, called one of the best fly fishing spots in all of Wisconsin with a variety of species, as well as walleye, pike, and muskie.
There's the Rush River that rises near Baldwin in St.
Croix County and flows toward Pierce County, a tributary of the Mississippi, considered one of the best for trout fishing by the DNR.
You can also catch smallmouth bass and other medium temperature species.
And more are listed there as well.
So look for that six best fly fishing spots in Wisconsin by Sam Cohen on our website upnorthnewswi.com.
Coming up next, we are going to have a very different daily history lesson, basically the history of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.
Look, I'll be honest, the pickings were slim today anyway, so I really wanted to take advantage instead of talking to one of our colleagues, John Scott, who has met with Brian Wilson, interviewed him, and we're going to talk about that next.
You're up north.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
This of course is God only knows By Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys and I have to apologize on the front end I mentioned earlier this song still guts me I was 14 years old when my little brother passed away at the age of nine And we played this song at the funeral so You'd think the years would maybe heal some of this stuff, but it doesn't and it just goes to tell you more about the
the artistic genius that was Brian Wilson and what he brought to the Beach Boys in their earliest phases of surf music when things got more complex through pet sounds and and then through the rest of his history which the phrase I use I think quite appropriately is torture genius.
And among the many people fortunate enough to get to meet and interview, Brian Wilson over the years includes John Scott, who is the Civic Media Director of Marketing, and he joins us now.
John, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
Thank you so much for being here.
You talked to him in California in 2007, correct?
Yeah, he played us.
He played a show at the Harmony Festival.
kind of a county fair with a little extra hippie added in.
And look, by 2007, I mean, you know, the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson and others, you know, they were playing all over the place.
So they were much more accessible than in their days when they were filling up stadiums.
But by 2007, tell me a bit more about, you know, how you got to meet them and what the interview was like.
I've had the great privilege over this career to be able to interview a lot of famous people I've had the privilege of interviewing presidents and actors and rock stars and it was just a nice perk of the job that I had and I had a couple of connections to get up to this event and we did a live broadcast that afternoon I recall and I was
Flabbergasted that the thought of being able to meet Brian Wilson and talk to him even after meeting lots of people This guy's an icon.
He's a legend and I was a little intimidated but he Was having a really good day that day and our conversation was fluid and friendly and I Went back to kind of just rejigger How that all went but he was amazing he spent an hour with me
And then I got to go backstage when he played his set with his band later on.
Obviously, he's been asked a lot of the same questions over and over again.
But I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about the questions that you asked.
What did you especially get out of it?
What did you learn that really stuck with you in being able to do some Q&A with Brian Wilson?
That's an awesome question, and you're absolutely right.
When someone has done something as long as he has, he's been asked everything over and over and over again.
There is one thing that I will take away from our conversation.
I don't remember 30 of the other questions I asked him because it was a while ago, but I said, how do you write a song?
And he told me to envision a piece of canvas on an easel that's blank.
And then you begin with the background color.
Let's say it's blue.
You paint blue on the back of the easel.
That's Brian Wilson at a piano, starting to work out the initial melodies of the song.
And then he said, you add a tree or a sun or some grass or, you know, you start layering it on.
He said that he could see the whole song in his head before it was even finished.
just by starting with that blank canvas, him at a piano, just working it out.
Isn't that really something?
I've never thought of it that
way before.
I've heard that before about some folks who basically see music.
They see the colors.
And I remember getting that impression from the movie about him as well.
And did you get to talk at all about that transition, if you will?
Pigeon hold initially as a California surfer dude and all the music was gonna sound the same and you know between the you know the creative Competition with the Beatles and others it feels like he really got to Come out of his creative shell and in that moment did you guys get to cover that kind of transition at all?
I think we did I went back
that was able to find the set list of the show.
So I know what songs he played.
And most of them were Beach Boys songs.
But he had a really good band, as I recall, and he did some of his own material.
And he just pretty much said that he enjoyed playing those old songs.
I said, you're not tired of them?
He goes, why would you be tired of them?
They made his whole life.
But he enjoyed, again, this is 2007, so he's through
the real turbulent 80s and 90s where he was really going through some mental, he had some mental health issues and stuff.
But he said he felt freer to experiment and kind of just do his own thing.
And that's really all he was looking for was that that creative piece, you know, which is tough to get when you're competing with a record label or when you're having artistic differences in your group.
And
So I'm glad that he got the chance to do these, you know, essentially solo gigs and be his own person.
And it was so nice of you to put up a remembrance about that in the company chat so we could hear more about it.
I'm just I'm glad you're willing to share that it clearly stuck with you that that visit that day.
Not all of them do but this one did and I'll always be grateful for my time with him Pat.
John Scott is the director of marketing for Civic Media and we are so fortunate that you were able to and willing to share some memories of Brian Wilson with us today.
John, thank you so much again.
Have a great day.
You too.
Thanks very much.
Okay.
Appreciate it so much.
Again, you can see why I wanted to clear the decks and just learn much more about Brian Wilson and you know what all
you could glean from being able to.
I've always wanted to talk to songwriters.
I always think of people like, you know, Don Henley, for example, but there are so many others.
And just get that sense for something I could never do.
I could never write music or anything like that.
They can and they write these masterpieces.
And I feel very fortunate that Brian Wilson was
We'll need to share some of his difficult, but beautiful life with us.
So thank you again to John Scott for that.
Much more ahead in the next hour here of our mornings with Pack Right Low powered by Uppermanth News live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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