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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Thursday morning, August 7th, 2025.
It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake WSOTA, from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media Radio Network.
catching us by podcast or even through the website, all the different ways you can listen in to the show or watch us.
Thanks for starting your day right here.
I have a question for you.
Do you remember one year ago yesterday when Minnesota Governor Tim Walls was chosen as Kamala Harris's running mate?
Yeah, it was only a year ago.
Feels like forever ago.
Remember how the thing that people liked about him was his being unafraid to call out Republican politicians for being so weird?
Why did the consultants take that away?
It's not like the weirdness went away.
I have not one, not two, but three stories just from yesterday involving Wisconsin Republicans and the ongoing weirdness.
And we'll talk to Joseph Pecky about that a little bit later on this morning.
Also on the show, we'll talk to guest Lou Ann Bird about Congressman Brian Stile and how he's been getting compliments for his recent in-person town hall.
you know, the kind of thing Republican leaders have been discouraging, explicitly discouraging, because, you know, you don't want Americans complaining about the cuts that Republicans are making to essential programs.
But Stiles getting complimented for his bravery.
But as Lou Ann Bird and I will discuss, the bravery only lasts as long as you're willing to be truthful to your audience.
After that, it's just political theater.
So we'll discuss that a little bit later on.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is loosening some rules on drones to allow more of them to fly beyond the operator's line of sight.
That might be good for delivering Amazon packages and Starbucks coffee, but what about, you know, safety?
We'll discuss that.
We'll hear back from our conversation yesterday with Earl Ingram, a little piece of it reacting to yesterday's 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
Being marked under conditions, few people thought could return 60 years after its passage.
We will talk to Trigvie Olson, Senior Advisor to The Lincoln Project, live from Lithuania where he's traveling.
It's mid-afternoon there.
It's the only way we could get him to appear on a morning radio show is to move him to the other side of the planet where it's not early morning.
Trigvie is a River Falls native.
He has worked all over the globe promoting democracy.
Now he spends much of his time helping defend democracy in the United States of America, of all places.
And we'll catch up with Sean O'Malley and talk about your money in the markets and ask if instability over the overnight developments in President Trump's trade war are doing anything to alleviate concerns about possible stagflation, spoiler alert, they are not.
but we'll talk more with Sean about that coming up in just a bit.
Along the way, we'd be happy to have you join us in the comment sections of Facebook or YouTube.
You can also use the Civic Media app and reach out to us as well.
Just go to one of the stations where you can hear this fine program.
and use the text section.
You can also use the voice note section and leave us a little note that way as well.
It'd be great to hear from you, hear what's going on, hear what's on your mind today.
Let's get the state forecast from Brittany Merlot and then we'll visit with Parker Olson here in just a moment as well.
Let's see, Brittany says the heat and humidity are going to be cranking up and then bringing some rain and thunder along with it.
The chances for severe weather hold off for now, she says.
The state forecast for today muggy with more clouds.
Some showers and thunderstorms may spark up by midday with highs today in the mid to upper 80s, a southwest wind at 10 to 20 miles an hour.
For tonight, scattered showers and thunderstorms, especially south, lows tonight in the mid to upper 60s with a south wind at five to 10.
And again, we'll.
check in with her in less than an hour now and hear much more about what the forecast is looking like heading into the end of the week and into the weekend.
Down to Madison Studio A2 now where Parker Olson produces this little shindig and joins us.
How are things in Madison this morning, Mr. Olson?
You're confused about the NFL
Yes, I'm confused about the NFL at the moment.
I don't know if you saw this yesterday.
The NFL banned teams from providing smelling salts to players, which is kind of a weird thing to do, I don't know, whatever.
They didn't ban the use though, so players can still bring their own.
Okay, which Whatever the reason that they banned them is I think a fair reason and I can't believe that they're not publicizing this given the NFL's like War against concussions.
Uh-huh part of the reason was that it's believed that smelling salts can have the potential to mask symptoms of concussions Hmm you would think that you'd want to publicize that you're taking steps to
Combat the thing that is I don't know scaring a lot of parents away from letting their kids play your sport
So you're saying they're they're not being upfront about it playing its role in concussions.
in part I think because I'm assuming the NFL announcement nowhere in there was the C word concussion was probably nowhere in the announcement,
I'm sure
And that to me is the main reason is they don't even want to say, hey, we're helping out, you know, getting rid of this thing that might mask this bad thing because they don't want to remind people that the bad thing is still out there.
I mean, a couple of years back, there were people saying, gosh, I don't know if the NFL is going to be around in five to 10 years, you know, with all these concussions and parents keeping their kids out.
Well, now as it turned out, the NFL is currently flourishing because again, the American attention span is a squirrel.
Anyway.
So yeah, see exactly.
So yeah, let's just not talk about it is, is the main reason.
So, because again, uh, as Donald Meyer said famously when he was running ABC or NBC sports way back in the day, the answer to all your questions is money.
This is true.
Yeah.
And for the NFL, it's all about that.
So, uh, let's talk about baseball for a second here, because your first place Milwaukee Brewers won again.
They're now in a six game winning streak.
Uh, they beat Atlanta five to four last night.
Andrew Vaughn, it's just, what a pickup.
Andrew Vaughn, another home run and his hitting streak is now 12 games.
His best ever in his career.
Blake Perkins also homered.
Jose Quintana went six innings.
He allowed three runs, seven hits, seven strikeouts, and Trevor McGill got his 26th save.
If back on, what was it, March 31st, whatever it was when we first started losing to the New York Yankees, if you said, we're going to have the best record in baseball, we're going to get to 70 wins faster than any other time in franchise history.
And we're going to do this with guys named Andrew Vaughn, Blake Perkins, Jose Quintana, Trevor McGill.
I don't know that I would have believed you.
But
of on now in terms of them being you know household names.
Yeah, folks who don't follow the team regularly You know the people who can say well, I think currently on the team Ryan Braun, right?
No,
no So the these guys are not they're not superstars.
They're not celebrities.
They're not household names They're just winning.
That's all they do is win.
That and some good managing.
Apparently the pocket pancakes are working.
Whatever it is that Murphy is telling them
he's known on his pocket pancake is working.
Yeah.
Well, like,
apparently he's just, you know, sneaking up between endings or something like that.
I don't know.
We're just so used to seeing, you know, chewing tobacco and bubblegum and sunflower seeds that it never occurred to us to look for a breakfast product, you know, in somebody's pocket.
I don't know.
So the Brewers are off today.
They're coming back from Atlanta and they're getting set for a home series against the New York Mets.
First game of that will be tomorrow with pregame starting at 6 35 on several civic media stations again head over to civicmedia.us to learn more So for the weekend then will you have like mallers games to work again down there in Madison?
Um, I believe I only have one the nightmares season finish last night They won the championship and I'll walk off victory
Um, so big props to the nightmares.
Um, I think I only have one Mallard's game on Saturday and I believe it'll be immediately after I help my friend move.
So that's going to be a long day.
Well, you know, no good deed goes unpunished.
So Tony up on YouTube pocket pancakes for the win.
Yes.
here's the thing about media.
There's so much media out there now.
I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.
But you will see like a cooking segment on the Today Show or something all about food you can make ahead of time and keep in your pocket.
You know, if you're going to make a pancake, make it this way.
Use these ingredients so it doesn't fall apart in your pocket.
That to be a producer on one of these shows is to take the most
Flaky fringe stuff in society and make it mainstream.
Yeah, there will be a pocket food segment before you know it.
Surely the MLB network, I think had a segment about the Brewers the other day and it like compared players to pancakes.
I think they had Andrew Vaughn was the blueberry pancake of the team.
Okay.
I don't really know.
I think they called Caleb Durbin short stack because he's one of the shorter guys on the team.
See, this is what I'm talking about with these producers and these shows.
You got a lot of time to fill.
You got a lot of time.
There's so much time to fill.
What are we going to talk about?
Let's go for the pocket pancakes, the wallet waffles.
the sack of cereal.
It'll, it's a feed sack that you just strap on, you
have your raisin brand that way.
I don't know, but it never, it never is a one and done situation.
There almost certainly will be more, more to come on this.
Uh,
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, and we are just pleased as punch to be part of these morning partnerships here with all kinds of newsletters and other video products and podcasts coming out from Courier Newsroom.
Among those is Cam Stevenson, who after Labor Day we will be talking to on Tuesday mornings when he officially completes his move from our Arizona outlet to Washington, D.C.
to be our Capitol Hill reporter.
But he is doing a daily newsletter called Below the Beltway.
Beltway.News is where you get it.
And in this week's newsletters, he talks about Texas and the whole gerrymandering fight that's going on there.
And of course, that's ratcheting up.
More states are talking about both red states and blue states are talking about things that they might do to monkey with their maps.
None of it should be happening.
None of it should be happening because, you know, Republicans should simply be standing up to their president and saying, no, we don't do this.
We do a redistricting every 10 years after the census.
One person, one vote, make it fair.
And if that sounds really naive, well, that's something you should check on then because we should all be better than that.
and we should expect better.
But until we get to that point, don't be surprised at all that you've got blue states that are looking to at least balance out the shift toward autocracy that we're seeing in some of the red states.
All right, we're going to talk about the change in rules that will allow drones to
fly farther and farther away from the operators, what could possibly go wrong, that and much more still ahead from the heart of America's up north.
Live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your Thursday morning time.
Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
It is 622 now on this Thursday morning back here on Lake Wissota and Parker Olsen down in Madison.
We're gonna hear from Sharita Booker coming up in less than 15 minutes about some of the events that you could consider attending this weekend.
We'll also be hearing from Earl Ingram talking about the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
But first, let's chat for a minute about drones because there's a change in regulations coming down them.
Parker, do you have a drone or have you ever flown one?
I don't remember.
There might still be.
Yeah, I don't remember.
So I had like those
I guess they don't quite qualify as a drone.
I had those like remote control helicopters as a kid.
Oh, well, sure.
So I think there's probably like two of those still around.
Okay, but never an actual that
can't get too far away.
Okay.
So I have one, but I haven't used it for
quite a while.
Um, it was, you know, like, like a lot of other fads, it seems.
I got it, used it quite a bit.
You know, you got some great pictures of the house on the lake and all of that.
And then I crashed it once and then I got it repaired and I haven't, uh, I just haven't really taken it out much since, but I, I can see how nice it would be to get it to go farther and farther away from whatever it is that you're shooting and being able to get these wide vistas.
Or I don't know deliver a cup of coffee maybe or a pizza or an Amazon package I mean we hear about that all the time.
Yeah, but it's It's really difficult because again once it's out of your line of sight I mean you can see what the camera sees on the drone, you know on your phone or your controller But you can't you have no peripheral vision.
You don't know what's just off to the sides whether it's You know
a power line or a building or a small aircraft or a hot air balloon or
drones.
Yes.
Why there's rules.
But on Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a proposal.
going to lay out a process, according to this National Public Radio report, by which companies could be approved to use drones and follow certain rules that would give them an exemption from the operator's line of sight.
So, you know, long distance drone delivery.
So, so truly they're more like aircraft.
At this point, you know, we're really entering the world of, uh, of the Jetsons, essentially.
And, you know, Sean Duffy said as much in talking about loosening these rules, said, oh, you could, you could get a cup of coffee delivered by, by Starbucks.
And I just don't know that that's really where we're going, that we're delivering cups of coffee and pizza.
I mean,
Let's see, according to the report here, under the proposed rule, drones used by businesses would have to be built to certain industry standards and have collision avoidance technology to ensure they maintain a safe separation from other aircraft.
Commercial drones would be banned from flying over large outdoor gatherings like concerts and sporting events.
Asked whether the skies are already too crowded.
an FAA administrator said it was an example of why the proposal is necessary because he said, you got a little bit of the Wild West out there right now.
So regulating to a common standard, making sure the vehicles comply with our regulations and then surveying is a much better place than where we are today.
The proposed rule will be open for public comment in 60 days.
So on the one hand, you've got
Sean Duffy, who's, you know, like, like many of today's Republican politicians has never met regulations that they didn't want to get rid of.
And yet saying that this process is going to lead to regulations that will give us more drones that can do, have more commercial benefit to them.
And in the same breath, I want to be a little excited or optimistic about the potential.
Even while at the same time, I'm thinking, I don't know.
I don't know if this is such a great idea, you know?
I think whatever you do, collisions are going to happen same as they do with cars.
I mean, we didn't not authorize cars because they might crash into each other.
They do.
And tens of thousands of people die every year.
We're going to have that happen with drones as well.
So we ought to have at least, you know, a rule book that works and is all about safety and looks into things like privacy as well.
You know, I mean, that's yeah, I've been to places where suddenly a drone appears out of nowhere and just hovers over you.
Um, I know we were on a beach on vacation one time and there's a drone just hovering over and I'm like, okay, is it, is it, you know, some, some pervy guy, you know, looking at the, the women on the beach?
Are they, are they even worse?
Are they looking at me?
Cause then there's really something wrong.
I don't know.
They're messed up.
Yeah, uh, let's see from, uh, Tony on YouTube.
I have a, uh, Mavic mini two fits in my camera bag.
The dogs hate it.
You can't fly them in state parks, which I get, but it annoys because that's where I'd like to fly it, but not when people are around.
Right.
See, there's only, there's only so many wide open spaces out there, you know, that are convenient to folks and to be able to fly them.
I'm not even sure to be honest, you know, if I'm flying that up above Lake Wasota,
you know, to what extent, you know, how far, you know, you can't go too high because there's there's small aircraft there.
And again, there are privacy concerns.
And as somebody who has already crashed a drone once, there's also collision avoidance to keep in mind.
So I'm trying to keep an open mind on this.
I just don't want to get it to the point where it is literally just delivering pizzas.
I think that's a step too far.
you really
Well, and that's why I say, you know, it starts with a rulemaking process, but whether whatever those rules will ultimately be, let's just say we should follow this carefully.
as this process unfolds.
When we come back, it's going to be a great summer weekend and there are some wonderful events out there.
Maybe events you wouldn't normally think of going to, but Sharita Booker is going to tell you all about it right after the break.
And then we'll hear from Earl Ingram talking about the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the conditions we find ourselves in these days when it comes to voting rights and race based gerrymandering.
It's an unusual place.
Never thought we'd be here.
in the United States of America in this day and age.
But the Midwest Farm Report is coming up next.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
your weekend.
Maybe you have plans, but maybe you don't and would like some ideas on things that are happening all around you.
I mean, it is, it's county fair season like crazy.
There's local festivals as well.
Here to talk about some of those is our social media manager, Sharita Booker.
Sharita, hello.
How are you?
Hey Pat, I'm doing well.
How are you?
I'm good.
Did you make it out to the Wisconsin State Fair already?
I did and I want to go back because I didn't get a turkey leg.
What, what did you
What did you like or
Oh, you had that.
my
All right, uh, so there there's there's another option for folks.
There are, uh, today begin the county fairs, uh, Bayfield County and Washburn, the Pierce County Fair in Ellsworth, the Russ County Fair in Lady Smith, the Violas County Fair in Eagle River, uh, also already underway, the Clark County Fair in Nealsville, the Lincoln County Fair in Merrill.
And now as we get to some of the local festivals, uh, let's start over in the Oshkosh area.
I saw this, uh, big old empty field when I was on my way to
Air Venture and a lot of signs for Crossroads 41 and their big weekend starts today, right?
Yep starts today and it'll run through Saturday and the headliners today include Cody Johnson and Dustin Lynch and Friday's headliners will be Kane Brown and Nelly and Saturday will be Parker
McCollum and Jesse Murph and of course there'll be tons of food and drink options as well as camping if you want to hang around for the entirety of the Fest.
One-day tickets are $145 and three-day tickets start at $220.
So if you want more information or tickets, visit XROADS41.com and that's just an X.
Yep, just XROADS41.com for Crossroads 41.
You noticed two else's on the lineup for Saturday though.
I didn't see who.
Flo Rida.
Oh, who recently performed at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair and Chippewa Falls.
Flo Rida's got a thing for Wisconsin.
He does.
He must love it here.
Hey, what's not to love?
We got it all.
We got brats that we cook a million different ways.
And we're also, you know, the home of the hamburger.
That's what the folks in Seymour will tell you.
So they're a burger fest.
That's coming up this weekend.
yep so that's on the eighth and the ninth and burger festival feature a hamburger parade the bun run kids games live music a burger eating contest and a giant kitchen or ketchup slide and more this even is also taking place at two different locations so downtown seymour at depot street and on ninth on the ninth it'll be at rock ledge school and park oh i'm sorry that's on the eighth and the ninth it'll be at rock ledge school and park
and that's where the hot air balloon display will be and other family friendly activities and that mission downtown is just four dollars in advance or six dollars at the gate kids 12 are under getting free with the paid adult and your ticket also gets you access to a car show the model railroad exhibit the world's largest hamburger memorabilia display at the steamer county museum and a little fun fact
burger fest started in 1989 and celebrate the birth of the burger in Seymour in 1885 and it said that Charlie Negrine aka Hamburger Charlie of Hortonville actually invented the hamburger first selling it at the Seymour fair.
So for more information visit homeofthehamburger.com
And look, again, Home of the Hamburger dot org is what I see here.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Yeah.
And click on history.
And I am reading from the history.
How do we know that Seymour is truly the home of the hamburger?
And that says here, numerous communities claim to be the birthplace of the burger, but no one can supply any evidence dating back to 1885, like Seymour.
Early newspaper articles, interviews with contemporaries and Charlie's daughter all verify the burger was served at the Seymour fair.
in 1885.
This isn't just some made-up thing.
This is real history, folks, so get to the Seymour Burger Fest this weekend, homeofthehamburger.org.
Then finally, let's do the Jewish Food Festival in Mekwon.
Tell us about that.
And more than 8,500 people are expected to come together for this free two-day festival that'll be packed with food and culture.
and tradition, you'll find foods like pastrami and corned beef sandwiches, falafel, stuffed cabbage, shawarma, sweet noodle noodle kugel, matzah ball soup, and more.
The festival will also feature live music, family-friendly activities, and a petting zoo.
Visitors can also explore a matzah bakery, leather shop, farm, or try their hand at shala making and other hands on heritage demonstrations.
And if you want more information or tickets, visit jewishfoodmequan.com.
There you go.
And so along with all of those, let's see, there's the Waukesha Blues Fest coming up tomorrow and Saturday.
There is Irish Fest in La Crosse, which is tomorrow through Sunday.
The Sean O'Folk Music Festival begins tomorrow.
The Boulder Junction Muskie Jamboree is on Sunday and then right here in beautiful Chippewa Falls, Pure Water Days, and the Cruise Inn Car Show, all taking place by and large on Saturday.
And there's plenty more that I
didn't get to in that.
Sharita hasn't covered here.
Go to travelwisconsin.com and then they've got a little filter put in the filter for this weekend for the dates and you'll see the dozens of things that you could be doing this weekend.
Or like me, you'll be doing none of them because you got a hammock in the backyard and that feels pretty good.
Did you make a plan yourself yet?
I love it.
No plans.
See it starts that way.
It does sometimes things come up
And that's great.
You know, it's like, oh, I would not have done this otherwise.
But sometimes it's nice to start with a blank canvas and then see what fills in from there.
Sherita Booker, thank you so much.
We read everything she posts at our social media sites.
Search for Up North News WI.
If you're going to one of those social platforms for the first time.
Thanks, Sherita.
Have a great day.
You too, Pat.
So Sharita along with posting some of those stories also compiles the statistics for them and then shares what are some of the more popular posts of the past week or so and so I thought I'd pass that along.
One of our more popular Facebook posts lately is an article all about Wisconsin's five cleanest lakes and most pristine beaches.
And again, we got 15,000 lakes to choose from.
So to get the five cleanest is really saying something.
And so that post proved to be rather popular.
We also had a popular post on Wisconsin scene, its first confirmed case of West Nile virus in 2025.
And to do what you can to avoid those mosquitoes, long sleeves, insect repellent, things like that.
There was kind of a lighthearted post on Instagram from video that came out of Marathon County.
People who have occasionally protested at Congressman Tom Tiffany's Warsaw office.
And gosh, so coincidentally, every time there are people protesting outside Tom Tiffany's office, the sprinklers turn on and get the protesters wet.
And at a recent protest, they decided to be, well, you know, forewarned as forearmed.
Sure enough, the sprinklers turned on and they were ready.
They were in swimsuits, umbrellas, life jackets, dancing around, carrying signs, and that turned out to be a popular post of making light of what was otherwise, you know, a jerk move by some political staff or someplace.
And then finally, there's a popular post on Facebook about wildfire season.
This isn't about the Republicans blaming Canada.
Which is a silly thing that we're gonna get into later on because another sternally worded letter is being sent by a Wisconsin Republican to Canada telling them to you know do something about all their wildfire smoke Insert I roll here.
No, this post is about the
DNR crews from Wisconsin who are going to help out in northern Manitoba as well as out west in Oregon and California to help with fires there and the skills that they then bring back to Wisconsin for managing, you know, fires and emergencies that could happen here at some point in the future.
So all of that, sir, all of those are among our most popular posts again on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, what used to be Twitter and more.
If you missed it yesterday, we visited in our eight o'clock hour with Earl Ingram of the What's Going On with Earl Ingram podcast, which you really ought to check out.
Go over to civicmedia.us to learn more.
And I also, in our conversation, noted that yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
Now I'm 61 years old, Earl is 71 years old.
And so for him, looking back,
60 years at how far things had come and how far things have regressed.
Truly made an impression on him.
Here's his response to my question about the Voting Rights Act.
You know, Pat, it is, it is more than frustrating as I watch the clocks being turned back on the gains that took place during the time that I was a young boy and
It always takes me back to my dad, who had to live through a time that inequality was the order of the day for the majority of his life.
And as a very young man, watching Dr. Martin Luther King in the civil rights struggle and the fight, it took place to make it possible for a young boy like me.
to be able to get an education in the system that was different to what my parents and my grandparents had to go through.
It's really disheartening as now you see your great-grandchildren looking at the same kind of reality that your father and your grandparents look to.
And I think that the part of this that is so heart-wrenching is that
who's left to fight for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren is the battle that was waged in the 1960s for equality and those kinds of things.
There were great people who came together, black and white, who fought for justice.
And I just don't see that on the horizon with the future.
generations to take this battle on.
So it's, it's more than frustrating as heartbreaking.
And Earl visits with us Wednesday mornings in our eight AM hour here on these mornings powered by up north news on the civic media radio network.
Along those lines.
Again, you hear me talk about headlines a lot.
And I especially pick on the New York Times, but it's everywhere.
They're just one of the more better known newspapers.
And so I would expect better.
But
Here on the front page this morning it says, Trump's redistricting campaign tests his power in the states.
And the subhead is, the effort by President Trump and his allies is the latest example of them trying to rewrite the rules to squeeze out every possible political advantage.
And that again is an example of sanewashing.
We're trying to make something sound normal here that he's trying to rewrite the rules to squeeze out every possible political advantage.
No, he's cheating.
He's cheating and doing it in one of the most racist manners we've seen since prior to the Voting Rights Act passing.
in taking states like Texas.
And we've seen this in Louisiana and Alabama and other states as well.
And we have certainly seen it in the way that Wisconsin legislators treat the city of Milwaukee.
And in looking for ways to diminish representation among people who tend to vote Democratic.
Why do they tend to vote Democratic?
look at what they're trying to do right now to prevent them from voting for the Democratic candidates they want.
Again, this is a matter of respecting the voters and letting them pick their representatives and respecting the rule of law.
This isn't rewriting the rules to squeeze out every possible political advantage.
It's cheating.
And we need to stop sanewashing something that had other presidents done this prior to this would have been called out so much more loudly.
But again, we continue to give this guy a pass for reasons that remain a mystery to me.
Today's history lesson is next as we always do mornings here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
You know, somewhere out there right now, there's a couple.
Married couple, probably, because they're old enough to remember the song.
They were just singing that to each other right now.
They're just kind of lip-syncing along, having fun.
And then we go on to ruin it by talking over it.
Welcome to today's history lesson for this August 7th.
That was Elton John and Kiki Dee, the number one song this week in 1976.
It would be number one for four weeks, but it would stick around like a permanent earworm for the rest of the 70s and beyond.
And why wouldn't it?
Listen to it.
It's happy tune.
On this day in 1782, General George Washington ordered the creation of the Badge of Military Merit.
To honor soldiers who were wounded in battle, it was later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart, making this national Purple Heart Day.
The number one song this week in 1965 was by Hermans
Hermits.
So
here's my next question for young Mr. Olson here.
So you'd get these novelty songs every so often when I was growing up.
Sure.
What recently would count as novelty songs?
You know that are not like anything else you hear on the radio and they're they're meant to be intentionally funny.
They have a song called the night I punched Russell Crowe in the head Did not see that coming yeah, I don't know if it's a truest allegedly it's true perhaps I'm not sure but okay
I guess that's in the right vein.
Yeah, if there's anything else that counts, you know, somewhat recently as a novelty song.
I'd love to hear about it.
I just don't know.
Maybe that's just not a thing anymore.
music.
Yeah, I am.
It's going to take forever to listen to this particular podcast.
It's called A History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey.
And I don't know where he's up to right now.
I'm only up to episode number 30.
in all these songs
about
early, and it's not even early rock and roll.
This predates rock and roll.
And a common theme in those early years is that you would have songs that were written, performed, produced, and sold by black artists.
But then record companies would take advantage of very lax copyright laws and have, you know, white artists remake them and they would go even higher.
So here's the original version of Shaboom by the chords from 1954.
But of
course as often happens, it only got as high as number nine on the charts, but it was on this day in 1954 that the number one song was the White Guy Cover by the Crew
Cuts.
Yeah,
never feel whiter than when I'm hearing these comparisons.
Yeah.
Honestly, you know.
Happy birthday.
No, BJ Thomas is not with us anymore.
He passed away back in 2021.
But this is the anniversary of the birth of BJ Thomas in
1942.
Happy
birthday to actress Charlize Theron.
She is 50 years old today.
The number one song this week in 1971 was by the Bee Gees.
Feeling so
now.
Well, that's the thing about the Bee Gees is
pre-disco
more and more folks don't know this.
There was the the Bee Gees were quite popular pre-disco but they were for these kind of slower you know schmaltzy types of things like this and then disco came along and they had a whole new career.
Happy birthday to Bruce Dickinson.
We'll explain which one he is 67 years old today.
Yeah, that's the Bruce Dickinson.
We're talking about lead vocalist for Iron Maiden.
Not the Bruce Dickinson from the SNL Cowbell sketch portrayed by Christopher Walken.
And not Bruce Dickinson, who was an actual record manager who was mistakenly given credit by the writers at Saturday Night Live for producing Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Ice Your Cult.
Here's the story behind that, according to Wikipedia, so it must be true.
The original song by Blue Eistercult was originally produced by David Lucas.
He's the one who discovered Blue Eistercult and signed them to the label.
There was a Bruce Dickinson producer at Columbia Records, but he was only some mid-level manager.
His name appears on the Greatest Hits compilation under the title Reissue Producer.
An intern at Saturday Night Live was sent out to get the original album Agents of Fortune, but instead picked up the Greatest Hits album
and mistakenly thought that Bruce Dickinson was the guy who fictitiously but famously said, I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.
None of them are the Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden, singing Power Slave there, who is 67 years old today.
The things you never thought you'd learn that you learned on this show.
So many Bruce Dickinson's, so little time.
Along with it being National Purple Heart Day, this is National Aged Care Employees Day.
And as I come closer to the need for aged care, I too would like to say how much I appreciate the work you do.
Please be kind to me in the very near future.
And as I often say on days like this, IPA day,
For folks that have never had an IPA, the proper way to drink it is to open it and pour it directly down the drain.
And here's where I get all the hate messages again.
I know, if you like it, you'll like it.
I like it.
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