Good morning, Wisconsin. Good morning, world. It's a new day. Thanks for kicking it off with us right here at 97-5 FM 13-28M WFHR, locally grown radio. Got your host, James J behind the mic. I am joined by our head of news, Melissa K. Good morning. Our head of production, Seth Havak. Good morning. And all of you. Thanks so much for joining us, everybody. We hope you're having a good one out there. We're going to get right to our weather right here. We've got a good friend, Paul Trauma,
whether I weather center joining us, Paul. How are you? Pretty good. How about you guys? We're doing good. It's good to hear from them. Good to hear from you. How was your weekend?
It was pretty good. Yeah, hard to believe. It's about a week away from Christmas. It's so close. And we almost, we almost got a tease of a white Christmas this morning, Paul. We had a little bit of a dusting and some incredible winds last night. Yeah. I was up literally all night last night and one of those kind of nights where the house is shaking kind of winds.
We're going to have more noise outside and you're like, something just hit my house. What was that mean? It's the kind of noises where you know what? I'll check it in the morning. I'm not going to go do that right now. I'm going to go check that out right now.
Well, it's done is done, right? Yeah. We're going to have more of that today, Paul.
Yeah, still whipping up here with these winds today, starting to ease up with some of the wind gust by later today. And then tonight, the winds really start to slack off. But, yeah, still into some clouds this morning, some flurries passing through and then some breaks of sun developing as we get further through the day with attempts holding pretty steady from around the low 20s, where they are this morning. Northwest wind still 20 to 35. And then tonight, the winds diminish as we head back to about 11 with a clear sky.
After cold start Tuesday, partly sunny skies, 32 and then mid 20s Tuesday night, upper 30s, mix of clouds and sun Wednesday, 25 Wednesday night, still about the lower 40s Thursday and Friday, cloudy skies, both days, maybe a couple rain showers by Friday, by with a high temperature at about 42.
And that still looks like we'll get back. I'm just some mid 40s for the weekend. It's like our next major system bringing some rain coming up Sunday and a Monday.
So instead of a white Christmas, maybe a wet Christmas up here, the way things are looking.
One of the more unpopular Christmas songs. Wet Christmas. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Not one of Bing's best. Not to take a shot. I love Bing Crosby, but just not one of his best. It's not really one of we appreciate you.
Just struck a chord. Yeah.
This popular. Well done. Well done sir. Well done. We appreciate you. Have a great day.
All right. So good. You guys do best of the business. Best of the business. We appreciate our good football. So good.
We appreciate them. We'll be talking with Mike Moore tomorrow. I'll Paul Moore tomorrow looking forward to that.
We got good things lined up for you this hour and the next hour. Good things on the way. I want to get into top destinations of 2023.
I'm going to go into that. And not just top 20 destinations of 2023. What would be your top destination of 2024?
You can go somewhere. You got a free ticket. Where you want to go. That's a good one. Start thinking about that to the best listeners in radio.
You guys think about that one. Get ready to call up when we get into the conversation. 715-424-2600. Call up and join us.
Ryan Landers. Oh wait. Actually go a little bit further than that.
Well, if it's going to be 2023, Ryan Landers not a bad pick. There's not a lot of time left. That is true. That's true.
I'm going to get into a little bit of science. We've got that coming up for you. Some entertainment fun.
And the 9 o'clock hour, of course, going to start with the kitchens open. Looking forward to that one. It's going to be a lot of fun there.
We'll have some that ain't right stuff. Good stories of the day. And a lot of local stuff. We're going to hit on the next couple of weeks here.
I want us to really, really make sure that we're covering as much local events as possible. I don't care how much time it takes us.
We've got a two hour show. We can get that in. I think so. We'll work on what that one. All that coming up this weekend to the audience.
It may probably did not know this. I wouldn't imagine if you did. Well, you guys are really good at your job.
We had our holiday party this weekend at Civic Media. That's right. And Seth and Pam, you guys went. I'm a listen. I were unable to. But I wanted to know how it went.
It went well. It's amazing. You know, I didn't go to the holiday party last year. But still, you could tell that how much Civic Media has grown over the last year was really.
I mean, I heard a lot of people talk about, you know, like, wow, can you imagine all these people here from what it was. But it was really great.
I mean, we kind of got our state of the network address from Sage. You know, let us know how the year went, stuff what we're looking forward to next year.
Not buying any more stations. We're just. Yeah. We're kind of packed with that part now. Now we got to start working on stuff. Are you sure? Are you sure he said that before?
Yes, he has. I think that Sage and I have a pretty pretty strong relationship. So I'm going to say this. I don't think Sage even knows. I'm not saying that Sage is a hundred percent. I think he has good attention. He means what he says.
I don't know if he even knows how true that is. So lots of lots of kudos from everybody, you know, about how things are going really good year and looking forward to next year and doing better, of course.
And we were at the Chula Vista resort, which is amazed, by the way, Beth and I like walk through three buildings so we find out where they were.
Where is everyone going here?
But but the food was great, you know, and that meeting some people, you know, that we haven't seen, you know, haven't seen a person before, you know, if communicated with over zoom over zoom or Google stuff, chat rooms and that kind of stuff.
But it was really cool to see how big things have gotten there and how every this big diverse group of stations that we have throughout Wisconsin. It was really kind of interesting.
Melissa, you went last year, right?
Yes, I went last year and it was in Madison and it was a great party then as well. And you know, meeting people like Seth said that you've only met over zoom or, you know, Google meets is it's fun.
And I was sad to miss this year, but it was my family Christmas and I couldn't miss that.
No, no, no.
You can't miss that.
But it was fun to see all the pictures that were shared on our shared chats of the party.
I wanted to thank everybody for doing that. I feel very similar to Melissa. I felt like I was at least a little bit there and got to experience a little of it.
It was nice. I really appreciate them doing that.
And don't get to do this very often. I haven't gotten to do this very often in my life and especially in radio.
But I was talking to a couple of listeners this weekend and then I ended up having this similar conversation with some of my students last night.
And one of my longtime friends, teachers that I work with, Brian, who was my first teacher at Second City and good morning to Boston's own Brian out there.
He says to me, the way you the tone of the way you talk about this company, the way that you're speaking about your job, it's different.
And I didn't know it at all what he meant. We had other things going on so later on we're grading and I'm talking to him.
And he's like, I got it now. You're proud. And I am thought of it. I am thought of it before.
And I like to think that I've been proud of every station I've worked for. I like to think that I've been loyal to every station I've worked for.
But I don't know if it's ever there's things that you can do. And then there's things that are going to come across as fake to an audience.
And there's a big difference, especially in today's day and age and radio. You got to be real. You have to.
The audience will eat you alive if you are fake. We've seen it. Look at ratings. Look at people who are not around anymore in radio and that kind of thing.
The audience is the ultimate factor to this. And they are the ultimate deciders on this. And when I talk to our listeners, when I talk to people that are in the last year or two with civic media and all that,
I'm not alone. They're taking pride too. They're taking pride in this station. They're taking pride in this company. It's a Wisconsin company.
It is a homegrown company. It is a company that is starting from the bottom up and look at what we have done in the couple of years time.
Well, sage said something that I thought was really interesting. Of course, he reiterated that the main thing for civic media is local radio, keeping radio as local as you can.
Now, the comment he made was really interesting. He said, like local ownership of stations is not viable anymore. It's really hard for like one or two people or a small company to run a radio station.
The money is not there. So one of the reasons he wanted to build this network is to give those local stations a chance to actually survive and hopefully thrive.
And I think they've been really pushing towards the goal this year of 2023 of getting to that point. So coming up next year, it's going to be fascinating to see how we can continue on that, especially with, you know, as much local stuff as we can.
Yeah, building on local. Yeah. When this first happened when the change happened and we went from hard was consummated to civic. It was, it was, you know, shocking to us more than anybody. I think our audience, you know, obviously say right there with that.
But we did not see that coming or anything. Right. When in those early days and those early conversations with sage and talking to other members of civic media and everything, one of the things that stood out to me was they they saw this station.
And they wanted it. And they were not going to they were going to do everything they could to get it because of everything you were just saying their Seth W F HR is a prime example not just here in central Wisconsin to the whole state. Yes.
This station has been around and been known and everything. And I'm not saying it's a household station name or anything. Right.
And if you are in radio and you've been in radio in Wisconsin in the last 80 years, you know what W F HR is. It meant something for them. And they were not going to take over and they were going to get this station.
And you can see why now. You see why that's so important. Not only are we in a perfect position in the middle of the state.
And everything. But you want everything Seth was just saying that's what we are, baby. We've been doing this for 80 some years. That's who we are.
And we're I believe we are a prime. If not the example of this. Yeah. And we're going to keep being that. And we're going to keep being that majorly because of the people of civic media.
Yep. And a big thank you to them. Appreciate them having this holiday party for our team and everything. It was a lot of fun. Now we're going to get to work.
Yeah. That's right. Back to work everybody's work to be done times over. I want to see. So I was going to actually start with this segment went a little longer than I expected.
So I'm going to wait on it. And it's actually interesting. I'm waiting on it because I want to see if anything happens in the next 20 some minutes before after
Misty's and after the news. Okay. We will get into if anybody is still out there playing where I'm again. All right.
We're going to see if anybody can still stick around the next 20 minutes. Otherwise my Peru and we'll see.
We got some celebrate to do coming up on. We got Misty's many birthday anniversary club right around the quarter right here at the morning show on WFHR locally grown radio.
Still learning when he's when he's popping out that I got to get the weather down again.
Yeah. This time if I am going to cut off temperatures though. Is it this time of the year to do it? We don't really want to hear it.
No. I don't know. Forties by Wednesday. Come on guys. That part of want to hear. But like when he gives the actual like what right the
temperature. It's time to do some celebrating with our great friends over at Misty's many. We encourage you to treat yourself. Get on over to Misty's.
They're open right now. They're open six to two six days a week at 9041s. Did I wait 13 South in Wisconsin Rapids when you get there.
Thank the gang force which is a great day from all of us at WFHR. If you're celebrating a birthday. Get on over there.
Let Brian know let the gang know and you get his free slice one of Brian's pies. That's right. It's a pretty sweet deal right.
I was going to go back and ask Brian. Hey Brian. Good. I was my birthday. Give me some pie. I may like that. I don't know.
We appreciate our friends over at Misty's and we appreciate all of you helping us with this. We've got a great list today.
We want that list even bigger. Get us more birthdays and anniversaries. Send them to info at WFHR.com. James dot mail of hat civic media dot us.
We're going to course direct message us on our Facebook pages. Go ahead and hit us up at the WFHR or WIRI Facebook pages and be sure to like and subscribe to those.
And and and and oh god I'm really this is embarrassing.
You mean I was I was in a grand bell. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds familiar. You know. Okay. Okay. I'm with you.
And I'm looking right at this device right in front of me and I cannot think of what it's called. What?
The telephone. The telephone. You know what you guys. I think you guys are on to something. Okay.
So you're telling me that the audience can call in right now. 715-424-2600 and get us those birthdays and anniversaries.
They can. You're telling me that if I'm at home right now listening and I'm like, oh my god I forgot so and so's birthday.
Oh or our anniversary. I could save some face and call up right now. 715-424-2600. That is that is correct.
That's insane. That is correct. I don't know about this. I this. All right. We'll try. We'll give it a shot.
Modern technology. Yeah. I guess you're just weird. All right. All right. Let's give it a shot.
Go ahead and feel free to call up. And if you're listening to us on the civic media app, thank you very much for downloading that app.
You are just a touch or two away from getting right in touch with us. Yeah.
Go ahead and download that app and keep on listening everybody. We don't even have to remember our number.
That's right. Boy, less numbers to remember. That sounds really nice. That's a good thing.
I had to remember this one. I've got one, two, three, four possible qualifiers.
Seth, give me a one through four. Four. I'm panicked. Whatever came to my head, I said it.
Oh, wait. We nice try. We first wish happy birthday to Rose Garrett. Happy birthday, Rose.
Enjoy your day. Rose. Hope it's a good one for you. Beautiful name. Beautiful name.
Christa Rucker comes up next. Happy birthday, Christa. Happy birthday, Christa.
Enjoy your day, Christa. And John Peetz. Happy birthday, John. Happy birthday, John.
Enjoy your day, John. Hope it's a good one for you. And we wish a very happy 41st anniversary to our qualifiers.
Don and Becky Crenz. Oh, congratulations, you two. Happy birthday, Don and Becky.
Wishing you the best of days, you two. Oh, enjoy. And I know it's a Monday, but I say celebrate all week long.
Go right into Christmas with this one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, they got married this time of year.
So you think that that had something to do with it. Your Christmas being close. Sure.
Kind of thing. So yeah. Yeah. Keep on celebrating. Happy 41st, you two.
Don and Becky, we wish you great one. You're qualifiers today.
So a little bit, this time of year is one of the more interesting times of year.
When I first started hosting the morning show here, it was, it drove me insane.
And it was very, very hectic because a lot of my news sources, a lot of stories, places where I grab from for our segments aren't around
anything right now. They close shop until January, early January and for to give their writers and people a holiday break.
Makes sense. drove me in a panic at first, though.
How am I going to fill the time? How am I going to fill segments?
So over the years, I collect stories and I keep track of things.
So now that's no problem. We're going to fill our stuff. We're going to be fine with that.
But at the time, it was pretty crazy. And this was a segment in particular that was very, very crazy because
I have one particular place I go for birthdays and anniversaries. Right.
And I don't have that right now. So I go to different places and I like to just have fun with this.
So I am on a different website. I'm on one of my favorite websites actually on this day.com, on this day.com.
If you are a history nerd, like I am, you are going to love this webpage.
Very cool. And they have different sections for events, birthdays, deaths, these kind of things, history, film, and TV, music, all that.
Sure. So we're going to go through these birthdays, but it's going to be a little different than we normally do.
You might have some names in there and some older ones that we don't always have.
But we actually start off with maybe the greatest clown in history, Joseph Grimaldi.
The greatest clown in history?
He that English pantomimeist and considered the greatest clown in history.
How about that? Born on this day in 1778 in London.
Okay, wow. Old school clowning. Very old school clowning. I would talk away.
English entertainer of the Regency era.
Oh, there you go. Born on this day in 1863, Franz Ferdinand.
Oh, jeez.
Oh, he had a rough end of the road there.
Not the pop band. Not the pop band.
Arch Duke of Austria, Austria, who was assassination in 1914 led to declarations of war and war one.
Yeah. Kind of touched off a whole big conflagration there.
A lot of stuff happened after that.
Yeah. Joseph Stalin born on this day in 1878.
To my interest.
Wow.
Tykov born on this day in 1886.
Wow.
Malcolm baseball Hall of Famer, Outfielder, AL MVP, Triple Crown winner in 1909, AL batting champion with the Tigers, Managed the Tigers.
12 times.
And unfortunately, considered one of the bad names of baseball.
And one of the bad guys of baseball when he was not.
As we've come to learn, and I will stand on this hill as long as I live, Tykov was moody, but the problem with Tykov was not that he was a jerk.
It was that he wasn't that interesting.
And a sports writer, an alcoholic sports writer who couldn't put two words together, needed to write a book.
And he wanted to write a biography and he wrote one about Tykov and made up stories.
Just made stuff up.
This idea that Tykov was sharpening his spikes so when he slid into people, he'd stab him and things like that and all these things.
Well, there is a wonderful book out now that came out about five years ago or so about the real Tykov and actually telling you the real story of Tykov.
A reassessment of who he was and what he meant.
Yes.
Tykov was no more saint than any other person walking the planet right now.
But he also, he was not this jerk of baseball.
He wasn't like the evil.
Well, and nobody deserves to have anybody vilify them just for a to sell a book.
Exactly.
I genuinely believe that if you are a lover of baseball, it is on all of us to spread the word about that book and these stories as much as possible whenever we can.
We owe it to it.
We owe it to his history.
We owe it to his family.
And I think it's just one of those things that you should want to do, I would think.
Betty Grable born in the state in 1916, American singer, dancer.
Oh, yes.
Million dollar legs.
Yes.
That's right.
The famous during World War II is the number one pin-up girl if I remember.
Yeah, that's right.
42 films.
She's 42.
She has had a very good career and an underrated actor I have to say.
She has had some very good roles.
She was an underrated actor.
Thank you for mentioning that.
Yeah.
It doesn't get mentioned nearly enough.
Let's see here.
This is it.
It's not as easy to look up.
It's not as easy as website.
I have to figure something else out.
Where is everybody?
There's a couple that I really want to make sure we get to.
Born in 1943, Keith Richards.
Keith Richards is 80 years old today.
Oh my gosh.
Tara's songwriter.
He made it.
I bet you he never thought he'd make it to 80 years old.
I would love to ask him.
I would too.
He does not seem to like every ever we all make a bigger deal out of Keith Richards.
We do.
We do.
Keith Richards ever has.
Yes.
If Keith Richards has an ego, I would be I would be borderline shocked.
Yes.
And he has never he has seen like that his whole career.
We only know him.
Yeah.
Because of album liners and stuff.
That's right.
Yeah.
He doesn't necessarily like put himself out there.
When's the last time you saw Keith Richards interview, you know.
But he's one of the most famous guitarists of all time.
What about all time favorite Keith Richards quotes is he was and they've released an album
he's saying lead on a couple of songs.
And people said, hey, you know, Keith, you have a really good voice.
Why don't you sing on more of the Rolling Stones tracks on the recordings?
And he's like, what then what would Mick do?
Yeah, it's great.
It's such a great leg.
It's such a great leg.
He wasn't even thinking of himself.
But Mick is our singer.
It's not me.
And it's such an English response.
It is.
Now, born in 1946, Stephen Biko, South African anti apartheid activist,
born in Ginsburg Township in 1977, one of the greatest movies I'll ever see,
Biko.
That's an excellent movie.
Incredible movie, encourage everybody to see it.
The soundtrack is brilliant by Peter Gabriel.
Peter Gabriel.
Yeah.
Born a 77 years old today, born in 1946, one of our greatest directors, Stephen Spielberg.
Yeah.
Spielberg?
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
All right.
Midwesterner.
Midwesterner.
I'll claim a moment.
I'll claim a moment.
I'll claim a moment.
Absolutely.
One of the most important directors.
I could mention, you know, Schindler's list, the color purple and some things like that.
But his importance doesn't just rely on that.
It's also what he did with pushing genres as far as jaws, what that did, what close encounters
did.
Right.
There's so many directors that will tell you that they learned and they were inspired
by Spielberg, not because of a storyline or an award he won, but because of his directorial,
his technique, Spike Lee talks about this a lot.
They're actually really good friends, and which, by the way, I would love to hear a conversation
between Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg.
That'd be an interesting one, right?
Yeah.
Interesting.
But Spielberg, he just, like so many creatives of art, you know, going back to DaVinci and
people like that, they just see the world differently.
And one of the things that I don't think gets talked about enough with Steven Spielberg,
no ego, no ego, not a diva, none of this stuff.
If you are a young director and you are struggling or you are having a hard time, chances are
you've gotten a phone call from Steven Spielberg and you didn't even know he had your number.
Like he's one of those guys.
He's always been that way.
He is one of those people that tries to bring others up.
One thing I have never really appreciated that much about Steven Spielberg, and that we
know these days we're hearing more and more about old time directors and some of the, let's
be honest, the abuse of actors and crew that they said for the, you know, for art's sake,
I just, you know, that's whatever.
No one has ever said anything about Steven Spielberg because he is a consummate professional.
His sets are the best, they're run well, no one's getting abused, he's a collaborator
with everybody on there.
I am not the biggest Steven Spielberg fan on the planet, but I have to give him all the
credit in the world for the way he does business because he is one of the best at that, treating
people with respect.
And this day and age where it's, if you've got something bad story, it's come out.
Yeah, it, you know, it'll come.
You haven't heard anything about him, you know, you haven't heard any negative stuff
about him.
Oh, it sounds more like if there were issues with actors and actresses on his sets, he
just doesn't work with them anymore.
Yep.
It does happen a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, there's a number of stories about that.
Yep.
And I, I would appreciate about him too is, uh, the Shenzel's list, uh, him making that
movie.
He, because I don't think a lot of people understood when he made that movie.
He was not, uh, studios were begging him not to make that.
Oh, yeah.
And, and not just that, but, you know, this is going to hurt your career.
This is going to, this is going to slide, you know, slide you back and out these things
and still when I had no, he did it.
During the filming, uh, when they were filming Shenzel's list, uh, Rob Williams would call
up Steven Spielberg, uh, randomly, and, and just to make him laugh, just to cheer him up
and everything.
Cause of the, the subject matter was so serious, yeah, and intense.
One of my favorite stories and, and, and our team, it, I love that.
Um, and, uh, Ray Liotta would have been celebrating the birthday on this day, born in
1954, passed away just a year or so ago in 2022, uh, good fellas feel the dreams, cop
land, Newark, New Jersey zone, Ray Liotta, good actor.
Hmm.
I love Ray.
Ron White, born in this day in 1956, born in French, Texas, you knew it.
You knew he was.
Yeah, of course he was.
Even if you didn't think you knew that that's where Ron White was born, that's where
Rob White was born.
Great.
Very funny comedian.
Yeah.
Very funny comedian.
Um, I like Ron White, actually, like, uh, he's got a couple of, uh, bits that I'll go
back and listen to for quite some time, not bad.
I admire any stand of comedian too that can do the drink thing, the timing.
You've got a time, right?
Right.
And Ron White will tell a joke and then take a drink.
Yep.
And let the audience just laughter, just kind of like fill the silence and everything.
Like it's very, like, it may seem silly, but smart comedians get it.
I've talked to enough comedians where there's actually a timing thing to that that old
spurned cigar, it was a prop.
He used it as a prop.
Yep.
Exactly.
Uh, 60 years old, Brad Pitt is 60.
Brad Pitt is 60.
Really?
Wow.
Born in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Oh, that's right.
I forgot.
He's from Oklahoma.
Yeah.
You hear it every once in a while.
Every now and then, everything.
Um, I, I, there's a billion things you could say about Brad Pitt, but I do want to say,
mm, way, way, way, way, way better than average actor.
Mm.
Way better.
Uh, that, that look and everything.
I think, uh, people, uh, they don't, they don't, um, if he was an uglier actor, he'd
get the credit.
Surprisingly, yes.
It's weird.
It's weird.
It's weird as it is in everything, but I quite so attractive, right?
Please tell me I'm wrong, you know, uh, but it, it, it's not just him, obviously, uh,
look at, um, Leonardo DiCaprio has been one of the best actors of his generation since,
uh, what's eating Gilbert Grape?
Right.
It took him to the Revenant to fight.
He had to actually get older in some wrinkles before he actually started getting like,
oh, he's, he's actually, look how refined he is and everything.
Um, it's, it's not a big deal, but I mean, it's something that kind of does come up from
time to time.
Brad Pitt, incredible.
He's got the job.
He's got the job.
He's very, very good.
Um, I think that, uh, legends of the fall is, is a good example of this.
I mean, it's career.
Yeah.
Uh, 12 monkeys and other one fight club.
There's, I mean, he's got plenty of examples.
Throw it out there.
Yeah.
Uh, Charles Oakley born in the state in 1963.
Woo.
Yeah.
That's part of the 90s.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What a tea.
And Stone Cold Steve Austin in 59 today, born in 1964.
You hear that glass.
You know what that means.
I love Stone Cold.
I love his wrestling.
Oh, man.
He was the last.
I thought he would be older than that.
Me too.
Actually, he's been around for a really long time.
Yeah.
Uh, born in 1969, Joe Randa in Fielder for the Kansas City Royals.
I only mentioned him because he's Milwaukee's own.
Uh, oh, I didn't know that.
He was from Milwaukee.
He was from Milwaukee.
I did not.
I knew that.
I mentioned that one.
Uh, and, uh, it's pretty much going to do it for a list.
I think I could have swore there was at least one or two more names.
I wanted to make sure to mention in there.
Okay.
It's not.
Again, this is not an easy list to go through.
No, no, it's not.
It's not.
It's not making great radio.
No.
Uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, oh, Christine Aguilera is 43 today.
Katie Holmes is 45.
There you go.
There you go.
All right.
Wow.
Uh, I got to get Christine Aguilera in there.
Yeah.
We amazing voice.
Yes.
Really, really talented singer.
Take a break.
Come back, uh, after our state and local news.
Uh, last Christmas.
I told you.
Yeah.
Happy birthday.
Uh, I think Mr Duranty appreciate that.
The old schnozzle lots.
Yeah.
Man, that knows greatest knows ever.
A lot of mileage out of that.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
My father best Jimmy Duranty impression ever.
I totally believe it.
Yeah, it's totally believe it.
Taylor made for it.
He's Taylor made for it.
Uh, and we made it everybody.
We made it through the second from that first segment to now.
And nobody had to be whammed.
No, no, no, no.
Wham again for anybody.
Yeah, no wham again.
Are you playing wham again?
It's the Christmas game.
You've probably already lost.
I know I have not.
Oh, really?
I have not either.
Uh, now, uh, now I, now, but with the preset of if it came up in the bumpers,
and I don't remember it coming up in the bumpers, I may have already lost the game.
I'm not sure, but I don't remember.
I haven't been listening to it like the radio and it pops on or I walk into an apartment store,
you know, building and it's on or anything like that.
Now, let's explain what wham again is to the audience and may not know what this is.
Uh, a last week in a DJ cost a stir in Britain after playing the hit wham song.
Last Christmas at a soccer game in front of about 60,000 people.
Oops.
That's dirty pool.
A week earlier, another DJ had done the same at a match with 7,000 people,
prompting him to apologize in an interview with the BBC.
That DJ didn't know what he was doing.
Oh, no, that DJ just played it because it's wham.
It's England.
It's Christmas.
It's Christmas.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, uh, and for those, I should say that wham is still incredibly huge over there.
Like, you know, especially George Michael, um, he's almost had a renaissance in,
in the United Kingdom and everyone, which is very kind of cool to hear.
It is very cool.
Uh, one of those artists that I don't, I know from myself, I never quite appreciated
how good that man's voice was until unfortunately, you know, as a grown adult and everything.
So I think that's kind of cool.
But if you're confused what, what goes on here, there is a game called Wham again.
That's popular this time of year, especially in Britain, which consists of not
listening to the holiday classic by the 80s pop duo.
From December 1st to December 24th, you, if you listen and recognize the original version
of the song, it's game over.
Listening to remixes and covers is fine, though.
Oh, the original count.
Yes.
Okay.
So the three of us working on that Christmas album, you know, that we're doing, uh,
because we don't have, yeah, because that one, because we got plenty of time.
I mean, we have, we got tons of free time.
A lot of time here, man.
Yeah, how are you coming on that Hanukkah song?
All right.
Well, nicely done, nicely done.
I got two, I got two courts and I have two courts so far.
I, I, I think this is kind of one of those fun things.
And I, I want to bring more attention to this.
Yeah, it's such a fun game.
It is.
And there's no, you know, a big deal to it.
If you lose or what have you or anything like that.
It's on an honor system, too.
So it's really, it's really, it really is.
Yeah, it really is.
But here's the thing that one of the things that came up this weekend.
And I, I thought of it and I brought it up to a bunch of my students just to test this out
and everything.
What about the people that love the song?
And like, but still want to play the game.
And I asked any of my students if this was the case.
And two of them shot their hands up right away.
Really?
Yeah.
One, uh, one girl had a wonderful story.
Her, uh, they had a, a Christmas mix CD in their house.
And their, her father loved to play it.
And he's not with us anymore.
But he, he loved that CD.
And a couple of the songs on there he would sing along too, including this one.
Oh, nice.
Well, her and her girlfriends.
And she's going to Chicago right now, the university.
Chicago shout out to her, you see.
She's going there.
And her friends, her tour mates and everything, they're playing this game.
And she's, she's been really tempted to play the songs.
She wants to play it because of her father and all this stuff and everything.
Uh, so we had some fun with that actually.
She said it was the first time that she smiled or laughed about this, uh,
in about, uh, two years.
That's nice.
And it came about because of this song and because of the silly game.
I mean, that alone, you know, that kind of stuff is fun.
Well, since this game is completely arbitrary any more,
anyway, let's put some different rules on it.
I say, if you deliberately want to play it, that doesn't count.
Oh, it has to be random.
It has to be one of those things where you're not searching it out.
And all of a sudden, you've got, you're just kind of bopping around and, uh,
they're, oh, there it is.
Oh, darn, I lose kind of thing.
So, but if you want to listen to it, that shouldn't count.
I like that.
I like that rule.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I mean, if she wants to listen to her in her dorm room on purpose,
just put on headphones.
I mean, not ruining the game for anybody else.
Yeah, I, uh, we could do that too.
Yeah, I, I've been a little disappointed that that did not come up.
You would, you would think it'd be the first thing that would any of us would think about.
But yeah, it did, no, it did not come up.
I cannot say it did.
So there's the other side of this too, where there's, uh,
there's some people that are just playing, I want to say playing dirty pool.
But like this DJ, newity was the second DJ, newity was doing the soccer game.
Yeah.
And I love his cheek.
That was good.
I like that.
You're all out of the game.
Well, and he, he, he wasn't even playing like, it was like, uh, techno music.
Yeah, with techno with, and then also not a nowhere wham.
I can just get on that.
That's good though.
I love it.
That's also, I cannot help myself.
And I don't know how nobody has said, I'm sure somebody has to have noticed this or said
something by now.
But how perfect is that decades and decades ago, these two young Englishmen get together.
They're trying to think of a name for their band.
You know, wham.
That sounds great.
Let's call ourselves wham.
And they named themselves wham.
And all these decades later, wham.
Like, like, like, that's how this gate, that's the feeling you get from this
game.
You just got whammed.
It's got, it's not just they're called wham.
There's an exclamation plan on it.
Yes, yes, yes.
They deliberately chose to put an exclamation point on it.
So, you know, how could they know all these decades later?
They would fit perfectly with this game.
It would have been perfectly to those out there.
Plague still a good luck to you.
Good luck to you.
You just, you got a couple more days.
Got a couple more days.
We're probably in a room for you at some point.
One more week.
Yeah.
I don't know if there's the bumper count.
Does it have to be the whole song?
I wonder if that's a nice, interesting point of this too.
Probably not because I don't know.
You know, it's got to, it's got to, it's got to stand.
It's locked into a store and it's on.
You're going to, yeah, you're not going to listen to the whole song.
I, I think you still have to.
It's down.
Yeah.
Again, arbitrary rules, but it counts.
You guys got me on that.
You're right, you're right.
We're going to come back and it's not just Seth Melissa and I that are talking.
We want you talking.
I want to hear where you want to go in 2024.
Where do you want to go?
Your dream destinations.
Or where are you going in 2024?
Do you have some plans already?
Have you got plans already?
Do you have an extra seat?
Do you, no, I'm joking.
That's not, I didn't design a whole segment.
Do you have a big suitcase?
I didn't design a whole segment.
It's their room for me.
Coming up on the morning show here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
Welcome back everyone.
Morning show here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
Melissa Seth and James with you.
On an open fire.
Jack Frost nipping at your nose.
You tied cows.
Bing sung by choir.
And folks dressed up like Esquimo.
Never but I know.
Just for the whole song in there.
I will not cut off neck and cold.
I will not do it.
Welcome back everybody.
Thanks for joining us.
Melissa Seth and James here.
We're about to dive into destinations.
But first, let's take a call.
Good morning.
What's on your mind?
Hello.
Not a lot, I guess.
Well, I don't know if you guys heard that.
But I think we are one of the best,
if not the best morning show.
Absolutely.
At least it was good.
I appreciate the listener saying that.
That was very nice.
I'm sure if the audio came through,
but that's when I heard my headphones.
But we do want your phone calls.
715-424-2600-424-2600.
Where are you going in 2024?
The plans for 2024.
Do you want to make plans?
I think that one of the best things to do
in these colder months here in the Midwest
is making warm plans.
That helps.
It actually does help.
Yeah, I'm with you, man.
Something to look forward to.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And this came about as they do the end of the year lists.
The 2023 world's top destinations.
Where were we going in 2023?
We'll get into the little of that.
But I do want to hear from not only our audience,
but I want to hear from you guys.
Do you guys have any plans for 2024
to go anywhere to do any traveling or anything?
And I'm not asking just because I do the schedule around here.
I'm not.
Although that is important.
We had to keep that in mind.
I love the idea, though, that that was my way.
Like I was sheepish about asking you guys.
So this was my way of doing it.
It was a little roundabout.
I'm sitting over here like while you guys are talking.
Just writing notes.
Yeah, so Seth is going to be gone.
Well, actually, my vacation, I just got approved for March.
I will be going to Arizona.
Oh, nice.
Have you ever been to Arizona?
Yeah, I was there two years ago for an extended weekend.
I got to do one Jeep ride in the desert.
So that's that is the plan again.
We'll be visiting some family members and one Jeep ride in the desert.
That's all you do.
Yeah, probably more than one, but yeah, I would I really want to do that.
That seems like a lot of fun.
Arizona and the desert is beautiful.
Like I did not expect to be as impressed and enthralled with the desert as I was.
Because I like hills and green.
I mean, there's hills out there.
But there's not a lot of grass and not a lot of trees.
It's more like rocks and cacti, but they're still cool.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, one of the states have always wanted to go to my Nana Papa friends out there.
It had friends out there and used to go out there almost every summer.
And the way Nana would talk about the Melissa saying about the deserts out there,
how beautiful the hills could be in some of the beauty out there.
I wouldn't have known that until she said it.
And hearing you say it, Melissa just brings it home.
That's interesting.
And that's going to be fun.
That's going to be a fun trip.
I think so.
Should be good.
Do you have anything like that?
I don't have anything Beth does.
I have no plans yet for traveling.
Coming up here, I'm sure we'll figure something out and I'll do some traveling this year.
But at this point, I do not.
So I'm open to suggestions.
You know, if people have their things they should call in and let us know.
Maybe maybe I'll be joining them.
I'd like to say a lot of that.
I like the idea of that.
I certainly need to do that.
I really probably shouldn't even allow myself to talk in this conversation.
Why not?
You can dream.
You can have plans.
I could have planned, yeah, but like it's been years now that I've been talking.
I think it's been, I had a listener mentioned this to me.
It's been four years that I've been saying on the radio.
You know what this summer, I'm going camping.
And I never do.
And I never do.
So I don't, I don't want to keep lying to the audience here.
I'm just going to score.
That's what I wanted.
That, you know, that, that's a great side question.
That's a great minute.
That is fair.
But we do want to hear from you.
424, 2600.
Feel free to call up and join the conversation.
We go to National Geographic where they release their top destinations of 2023.
All right.
And looking at the list,
Paris, France, hit number one.
Oh, well, I guess that's not a big surprise.
Good to see you back there before the bedbugs did.
Interesting.
I thought it was interesting to see, though.
The Paris is still way up there.
Madrid, Spain, up there as well.
Nice.
Both places I want to go, you know, bedbugs aside.
Yes, but yes.
No, I'm with you.
Those, so both suddenly, very cool places.
Tokyo, Japan, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Berlin, Germany.
Wow.
Also in there.
Again, all of those places I wouldn't mind going to.
I go to every single one.
Rome, Italy.
Yeah.
There's also in there.
And then we got to our first state, New York.
Our first, uh, in there.
New York, so I was fun to visit.
Oh, yeah.
There's so much to do in New York.
Just walking around, the city is, is amazing.
Just having a stroll in New York is something, it's something cool.
715-424-2600.
Uh, you know, you have in front of you a, a blank plane ticket.
You can take that, you know, uh, back and forth.
Anywhere in the world you want to go.
Where would you go?
424-2600.
I'd love to hear from you.
I'd love to know where you're going.
And don't worry about the outliers.
Well, who's going to watch my cats?
Who's going to watch my kids?
No, no, it's all taken care of, right?
This is all imaginary.
It's all, this is all fantastical.
Yes, yes.
Uh, don't do what I do with these situations.
It's starting, like, immediately to you.
Well, wait a minute, but I could never do the, the, the, the, um, yeah, good.
So I think we should turn this around, James, and, and ask you.
Oh, yeah, okay.
You have this theoretical blank ticket.
Fantastic.
Everything's taken care of.
Now, remember, we're not saying you are going there.
Just, you know, where would you go?
Where would you go?
Where would you go?
I, I, I marvel at how I don't think of these, like, I'm shocked when you guys
flip these things back at me, like, I did not see that coming.
Like, I, I generally did, um, so think fast on your feet.
Yeah. Cause, cause honestly, I've always, I've had this asked my whole life.
And the first things I usually say are Rome or Israel or these kind of, I, I, I have
such a, I want to go see these, um, where my people are from.
And I want to go trace those roots.
It's something that none.
And I used to talk about in Italy, um, our family started in Basel.
Uh, we go from Basel to, uh, Venice to Naples, um, and do that kind of trip.
Right.
Same thing with Egypt.
Uh, I want to see the pyramids, but I want to see where the mail-off name comes from
and stuff like that, um, but honestly, you, when, when you, you guys did this to me,
my first thought was, uh, the states that there's so much in this country.
Oh, absolutely.
Uh, I have never, I've never been out of the country.
So, uh, you would think I get a blank ticket.
That's what I got to use it for.
But to be honest with you, man, I, there's so much in this country that I have not seen
that I want to see.
Well, that's one of the cool things about this, this country is Melissa Touchdown.
You know, there's the, go to the Southwest and you can see the gorgeous desert
that's down there.
You could take a trip just to the next state from Arizona to New Mexico.
And you've got gorgeous mountains.
That's the beautiful mountain ranges in, in New Mexico.
Oh, you can go out to the east coast and see, you know, the very early history of,
of the immigrants coming over to this country.
What's a New England?
Yep.
Up to the Massachusetts in that area.
Yeah, yeah.
I think because of how much I love history, that's why I would want to go out east.
Because I've never really been to at least and, and I love, I love the idea of like,
my cousin spent the decades in Boston.
And she used to send me pictures of like roads that have been a, like, the first roads
that were built and stuff, just because she knows how much I love this stuff.
Right.
Which I, by the way, I didn't get to imagine what it would look like for her to be taking that
picture.
And if you're like, what are you doing?
Why don't you take a picture of a road?
I'm a road.
It's a road.
Yeah, I think that that kind of, that that would probably, if I'm forced, I
got to make a decision right now in this segment.
I'm picking, uh, I'm picking the East Coast.
Is that count?
Yes.
If I could be more specific, I would be.
But I know.
I just off the top and that's where I'm going.
That's where I would go.
You could actually start in one like the big Megalopolis that starts up in Boston and goes
all the way down to DC basically.
You could just take a whole trip, you know, get up on the train and just go down the coast
of the, the Eastern Seaboard there.
And you could visit all kinds of great stuff.
You could fillies in there.
Of course, New York City's in there.
And then you go to DC and then all the stuff in Maryland and stuff.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it would be a cool trip.
And now with the last couple of minutes of the segment, I want to just make, uh, pull the,
the magnifying glass a little bit more inward.
Okay.
And how about in Wisconsin?
Is there anywhere in Wisconsin you haven't visited that you would like to?
Because no time like the present, um, this is a beautiful state.
And there are plenty of things to see that maybe you haven't,
especially you go up north or, or something, and a lot, I know a number of people
that haven't spent too much time in the northern parts of the state.
From me, I still haven't been the house on the rock.
It's probably my number one thing in this state I want to do that I haven't gotten to do.
And it's actually not too far away from here, yeah.
Yeah, it's not.
I have a friend who was just there a couple of weekends ago with her mom, um,
for, and they have their Christmas display set up.
So I got to see some pictures and a mini tour, you know, through her pictures of it.
And I, I, it's a really neat place to visit.
I highly recommend.
Me too.
So is, uh, for you guys, is there a Wisconsin destination?
Or boy, um, because I honestly theater anywhere in the state, I would,
I would love to travel and see Wisconsin has some sneaky, uh, beautiful
theaters that I don't think we, yeah, unless you're in the state you really
think about too often, but she's right on that.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Um, the, uh, actually speaking of the house on the rocks,
bring green also has the outdoor theater in the summer.
By the way, they do a Shakespeare and, yeah, classic theater there.
So, um, it's a, is it American players theater?
APT.
Yes, American players, I would say ATP sometimes.
That's why I would control.
APT.
But, uh, yeah, they have expanded there.
They have got, um, a black box theater there now as well.
And I think that one's inside.
Or you go down to my former stomping grounds in the southern part of the state,
the fireside theater and four actors in.
Oh, yeah, they put us in great shows.
Yeah, they have a very cool, uh, uh, uh, set up there as well.
Very good dinner theater, by the way, the foods are, it's tremendous.
Um, but it is just expect to be crammed in like sardines.
Yes, exactly.
In that dining room.
They do, and it's very popular as well.
Um, but, you know, I'm trying to think because I have been,
I just realized I've basically been over the entire state.
Mm-hmm.
I have been just about everywhere in Wisconsin.
And I'm trying to think is there a place that I haven't been there that I've
been on the ice age trail?
Oh, that's another one.
The ice age trail, and that's not familiar.
I guess, uh, where is that?
I mean, it does go across practically the entire state.
True, true.
I've probably been on it in parts, uh, but, uh, you know,
in different sections of it, but I can't, I obviously haven't been through the whole thing.
So there, there's a park, uh, there's, uh, way up north, uh,
that have been to where there's a rock.
And you're, and when you're taking the trail,
and this rock has traveled from like the way, way up in Canada,
and they've traced it, and it's just slid down all these thousands of years,
and everything.
You see this, right?
It's just a regular rock, but you're looking at it and like,
my god, just insane to think about.
There's so much beauty in this state.
Yes, you can find out so much to see.
You can find out more by going to destinationwisconsin.com,
or try our friends at travelwisconsin.com, of course.
Plenty of resources for you when it comes to that.
We will take a break.
We'll come back after CBS and state and local news.
We have got the kitchens open.
Our wonderful segment.
The Melissa brings to us.
Nice.
That is coming up for you.
Everybody looking forward to that.
Also going to get into a little bit of entertainment news in the 9 o'clock hour.
Got some local stuff we want to touch on.
All right.
Comes to that.
That ain't right.
Stories plenty more.
It's the morning show on WFHR.
We are.
Well, you tell them Heather.
WFHR Wisconsin Rapids 1320 AM,
and W248D,
E Broadcasting at 97.5
after