Honoring MLK, Jr. (Hour 1)

Good morning, Wisconsin. Morning, world. It's a new day. Thanks for kicking it off with us here at WFHR.

Got your host, James Vlad in the mic. I am joined by our head of news, our co-host, Melissa K.

Good morning. Head of production and co-host sets have agreed to my right.

Good morning. And the best listeners and radio everywhere around. Thanks so much for joining us everybody.

We're going to have some fun. Way to kick off the week way we like to. We're the good friend Brittany and we're low.

What else can we say, right? James has no words. Yeah.

Yeah, Brittany is a cold one out there. Thank you so much for joining us and working today with us. We appreciate it.

Brittany, real quick, I did. I was trying to find our coldest forecast ever here in Wisconsin.

Rapids was not able to. I did find a cool weather underground.

Does a nice job of being able to let you look back in the history if you can find the exact date.

But I couldn't find anything. I certainly think I found one more famous here.

Our coldest day in Wisconsin back in 96 and quarter.

Oh, yes. Yes. I think they hold a record. Don't they? Yeah, they do. Yeah, negative 55.

No, out actual temperature to the wing of the actual tent.

What is it looking like here today? We're hopefully not breaking any records.

No, no, we're near that. Thankfully. That hurts just here.

Yeah, he really did. He felt it in the bones. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. I'm trying to get my job working as a that one.

I think it's going to be about four below.

And right now, temperatures are 15 below.

And you put those winds. They're moving at only five miles per hour.

That doesn't sound like much, but it's making us feel near 30 below at the moment.

So central Wisconsin is frigid. Stupid cold. I'm going to call it.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

We love that. Yes.

So it hurts. It's going to hurt all day today too.

So it feels like 30 below now when our high temperatures hit this afternoon,

it'll feel like 20 below.

So we've got a layer up, bundle up, frostbite can happen within about 15 to 20 minutes in those conditions.

So definitely cover all exposed skin.

Hurry up if you need to be outside. Run from heat to heat.

That's what I've been doing or hunker down. There you go.

Stay home if you can. Because tonight it's going to get even worse.

Our temperatures are going to be falling to about 20 below, actual temperature.

And with the wind still whipping at about 15 miles per hour,

it's going to feel like 40 below overnight and through tomorrow morning.

So that is just, I mean, that's ridiculous.

You don't want to let your pets outside.

You pretty much don't want to go outside and frostbite can happen in 10 minutes.

And hypothermia too. All these back cold weather things.

Takes me back. Takes me back to my salad days in northern Minnesota.

Oh yeah.

Right. Oh yeah.

It's a little hard to predict these things, of course,

but it seems like that we, if we can get through these next couple of days,

which we all will, we get through these next couple of days,

it's going to, we're going to be building up a thick skin from this,

because it's probably not going to get this kind of cold the rest of the winter.

Yeah, I mean, there might be another chance in February.

I feel like we get one more of these usually,

but we're going to pull out of this by Wednesday.

We'll be in the teens on Thursday.

We'll climb to the upper 20s for the weekend.

And it's going to be sunny and beautiful.

Really, we only have a chance for snow on Wednesday when that warm fuck moves through,

which if you were all going to be welcoming.

Yeah.

Just a little bit of snow expected.

Nothing crazy, but some more moderate milder temperatures students the weekend.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Yeah.

Yeah, we make it through these days.

And the rest of the winter is going to feel like nothing to us.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pretty, we appreciate you.

You have a great day.

We'll talk again tomorrow.

You too.

Stay warm.

Best in the business right there.

Bring him below joining us every morning, right in this time slot.

Big appreciation to her, especially on mornings like this.

This is where you're so key to be able to talk to a live meteorologist.

It's where he really knows her stuff.

And it's hilarious.

Let's go to our state.

Yes, it's literally here in Wisconsin.

More on that later.

We're not letting that one go.

That'll be one of the topics we dive into today.

More on that in a second.

But I real quickly do want to let just a tee off of what Brittany was saying there.

Our good friends at the 80RC of Central Wisconsin have let us know right away that meals on wheels

will be canceled for today and tomorrow.

Okay.

Senior dining as well.

So keep an eye out for our seniors.

You know the ones in your neighborhood.

Maybe check in on them if you can.

When you do so, you'll be warm as well.

We don't want to get you stuck out there.

Exactly.

Or anything.

But please do so.

We appreciate so much you guys looking out for our seniors out there.

And keep that in mind.

And big thank you to our air and wells and our friends over at the 80RC.

We got four fitness trends look out for in 2025.

Got that one coming up for you a little bit later.

We're also going to get into a couple of other fun ones for you.

We've got some things to look forward to in 2025.

Okay.

Nice.

And yes, as Melissa was touching on there, we will be getting into some of the layoffs going on in their area.

Meteorologist wise as well as news wise.

Yeah.

There's a lot of that going on.

I don't want us to tackle that one.

But one of the start off our show of course with it being Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Yes.

Yes.

And we send a shout out and respect to all those that have taken today as a day to honor Dr. King

and in their wrong way for some people that is not working.

And that's cool.

Good on.

Absolutely.

And to many of us, like the three of us here working currently, we found our best way to honor the man.

And his message was to work today.

Now, keep in mind our offices are closed for today.

Yes.

Tomorrow, if you have to drop anything off, we'd encourage you to do it that.

But in honoring Dr. King, I think that first and foremost, I like most of you out there.

The message is where the first thing we think of.

And it's vitally important, especially more and more as we go forward here.

Yes.

I don't like to necessarily look at progress and progress made or anything when it comes to human beings

and human rights and these things.

But there is work to be done.

I think that's fair to say that.

Regardless of how you feel about this issue, I think we can all agree that there is work to be done.

But while that work is vital and important, I feel like every day we cover that topic.

Every day we're talking about treating people right.

Treating people right.

Yeah.

I think so.

Whether it's about civil rights or deepening that or just around that.

Yes.

We are always talking about that.

And I'm not going to focus on what's in the man himself.

Okay.

And just talking a little bit about Dr. King and maybe some things that you may not know.

Did you know that his first name was actually Michael?

His name was Michael.

Did I?

I don't think I knew that.

So all sort of for a universe where we're celebrating Michael King Jr. Day.

That's right.

That's a little weirder.

It sounds a little weirder doesn't it.

Yes, that's right.

Well, in part, this happened because his father, a powerful pastor in Atlanta, traveled to Germany in 1934,

by what he learned about the 16th century, a Protestant reformer, Martin Luther.

Right.

Yeah.

He was so moved that he changed his names, the names of him and his son.

Wow.

Really?

So that was, he was already alive when he changed that.

That's interesting.

I would really love to know how Martha felt about it.

Like her first reactions are for it.

I'm sorry.

That was part of her.

Yeah, right.

But his mom, right?

Yeah, Michael's original.

Yeah, his mom, Martin Luther, mom.

Yeah.

It's got a little awkward effort.

No matter how much you believe in your husband and everything, you believe, okay, this is a good message, but still.

But Martin is close to Michael Honey.

It's really close.

I mean, she really, you know, maybe had to be embroidery already, but Martin on it.

Yeah.

That's right.

King was incredibly intelligent.

You know, profit.

I'm not profit, but a prodigy.

Thank you.

I couldn't think of that word.

Yes.

Well in high school that he skipped two grades, ninth and tenth before enrolling in Morehouse College in 44.

At the age of 15.

Wow.

Didn't know that.

I didn't know that either.

Holy mackerel.

I knew he was a, obviously, Dr. Martin Luther.

He was a doctorate.

He had a doctorate.

But wow, I didn't know that.

He started the Poor People's Campaign at Effort to Unite the poor of every race and creed.

It was the last campaign he would ever lead.

But something that has been brought back.

It has still going on.

And would like to see more, more about that.

More done with that, I should say.

I agree.

I think that that's not only one of the more important causes, but one that could literally unite all of us, especially going forward here.

If there's one thing that most people understand that we have in common with each other, it is our income.

Yeah.

And it, or lack thereof, right?

Yeah.

And the top one, one percent, does not care of what race or creed or sex you are.

They just are, they care about green.

That is the only color that they care about.

And whatever color crypto is, apparently, I don't know what that is.

Oh, yeah.

I think this one is a little more popularly covered.

But just for those that may not know, he was a huge trekkie.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a big star track fan.

Yes, he was.

I think I know you're going with this, too.

When he happened to meet actor Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant of the Hurrah in Los Angeles in 1966, he was shocked to hear that she was planning to leave the show.

He said, quote, you cannot do that.

For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen.

Do you understand what this is?

The only show that my wife, Coretta and I will allow our children to stay up and watch is Star Trek.

Wow.

And in major part, not only because of this, this was a man who loved storytelling.

And he got to remember there was no sci-fi on Twilight Zone, I suppose.

That's right.

It was sort of adjacent.

If you stretch a little bit on that term.

But really, there was nothing like this on TV.

And when I talk about representation, sci-fi gave that to African Americans.

It gave that really to ethnic people.

You know, as great as Nichelle was, she wasn't the only ethnic person.

Right.

George Tikai and a few others.

I mean, yeah, absolutely.

Can I be stated enough that they show about the infinite future had ethnic people represented in jobs.

Where they weren't doing stereotypical things.

They were equals.

Everyone was an equal.

Yep.

I'm not a trekkie.

I'm not a big trekkie.

I'm not a big trekkie.

But man, am I thankful for that show.

And so many of the actors on it, William Shatner and some of the...

God, one of the greatest TV stories of all time is how the first, you know, interracial kiss happened on TV.

It's one of my favorite stories ever.

Right.

It's fantastic.

So there's a lot of cool things that came from that.

You could see that King saw that before many, I think.

He did.

If everybody.

Mm-hmm.

And he was a pool shark.

No, he wasn't a pool shark.

But he was really in the billiards.

Oh, I didn't know that.

In fact, he was a fantastic edit.

He loved the game and played avidly for more than 20 years.

Wow.

And according to Civil Rights Law, he used his skills to win the respect of local African Americans.

Wow.

I have told the story many times about how Reggie White won over the locker room.

Mm-hmm.

When Reggie first got there, it wasn't all roses.

It took time.

And these players were not having Reggie.

Reggie will come into this.

And he was Reverend Reggie in the locker room.

Well, these players were not really into that.

You know, especially a lot of the younger players and everything.

Charles Woodson told him, and I'm sorry, Leroy Butler told him,

Hey, you want to get through to these guys?

You got to meet him where they are.

And they were at the bar.

Reggie was not going to the bar.

He was not a drinker or anything.

But eventually, he finally did after a loss or something like that.

And obviously, the rest is history.

He's in backer lore when it's super bowl all those things.

Well, Martin Luther King Jr. felt very similar to this.

And I believe that this is part of where Reggie got some of that from.

And Leroy Butler got some of that.

I would not be surprised at all.

Yeah, I would be surprised.

The very early on in the process.

Long before Montgomery.

Long before some of the travels that he would have in the speeches he would give,

he gave speeches in these billiard rooms, talking to people,

and just in straight up just reaching them on their level.

You had to convince the people that the way, not only what he wanted to do,

but the way he wanted to do it was the right way, right?

So he had to go and talk to people where, like you said, where they were.

And convince them.

I think there's something to learn from this in everyday life,

not only to our politicians or leaders out there to meet people on their level.

We still have politicians going door to door during campaign seasons.

I think that's vitally important.

I think we respect the daylights out of that, whether I fool you or somebody

or not, I have so much respect for that.

That's a hard, that's hard to do.

Yep.

And I think to whether you like influencers or not,

I do think that this isn't something that's going away.

And to that degree, I think anybody can make a viral video.

But get out there and you really want to influence people.

Get out there, talk to people, shake some hands,

actually look people in the eyes and stuff.

Means a lot.

To me, that goes so much farther and deeper in life.

And that's part of the reason why we want to be at El Café doing a live broadcast.

Well, it's around about way to get there.

But I like it.

I like it.

I think to do with me wanting to try their coffee or food or anything like that.

Excellent.

More on them in a moment.

I do think that all these facts are really cool and interesting.

Then there is the, well, what do we do with this?

What do we do with this day?

Whether you were working or not, whether you are honoring the day or not.

You can honor the day.

Just by treating people right, man.

This isn't rocket science.

This isn't something where, well, actually, in order to honor Dr. King,

you need to read these 18 books.

Let me get these up here.

And I need you to give 20 hours of public service.

Those are all great things that we champion you to do that and we encourage you to do that.

There's a lot of great ways you can help out your community, especially today with meals on wheels,

not in service, checking in on your neighbors and those things.

Look, Dr. King's message was yes to have people of opposite colors holding hands in some of these things.

His message was about humanity.

His message was about people.

This is the most basic thing in the world to treat people equally.

It wasn't about the race and the creeds and so many of these things as it was.

Just treat people the way you would want to be treated treating people equally.

Pretty simple, yeah.

I do think that a great thing to do is maybe looking into some of his more lesser known speeches.

Yes.

I think you'll find a lot of inspiration and beauty in them.

Especially after that, I have a dream speech because we kind of stopped there with him a lot.

It was just like he, you know, in 63, he had the speech on the, you know, in DC, great speech, you know, iconic, all this stuff.

Man, he gave a lot more great speeches after that, so check them out.

And I think if you have a moment to the creative community out there taking a step back and kind of just appreciating that and appreciating his writing.

Oh, yes.

Like a really, really strong writer.

Like just a, just think that there's many ways that you can honor him.

Yeah.

While also, again, you know, looking for ways to put back into your community.

That's the way to do it.

I think another great thing we can do is just have conversations and talk with each other.

And a lot of times, especially if you, you know, say you are not a black person, watch some, some of creative content from people of other breeds and other races.

Because we understand things better from other people's point of view when we hear it from their words.

Right, right.

And we understand to have the lingo and the words to be able to have those conversations is really helpful.

It is.

Just to be careful, let me double check here what the side effects are of empathy.

Side effects of it.

I got nothing.

Okay.

Wow, cool.

And a few cases of niceness.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, we could all use a little more of that.

Yes.

I will talk more about this throughout the show.

But for now, we're going to get to our time out.

Take care of our partners.

When we come back, we're doing some celebrating L.K.A.

Birthday anniversary club right around the corner on the morning show at WFHR.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday.

It's time to do some celebrating with our great friends over at L.K.A.

and the birthday anniversary club.

We encourage you to treat yourself tomorrow when they open their doors.

Get a reminder, everyone.

Don't go now.

Don't go now.

But that gives you a day to go ahead and think about what you want on that menu.

You can even take a look at it by going to their website.

L.K.A.W.I.

dot com.

L.K.A.W.I dot com.

Go ahead and pre-game.

Just pre-game.

I know what I want.

Figure it out.

Be sure to check out their Facebook page as well.

It's a great way to keep up to date and all the cool things that they're doing

and specials that they have.

Last Friday, they had their whole menu open.

It's the night and everything.

All they know is about that.

I encourage you to check out our friends over at L.K.A.

By local support, local everybody.

Yes, indeed.

And of course, get us those birthdays and anniversaries.

We love celebrating with you.

Info at WFHR.com.

You can email us there.

You can of course direct messages as well on our Facebook pages.

And you can call up.

That's right.

715-424-2600.

Join the conversation.

We'd love to hear from you.

Everybody.

We got two possible qualifiers on the list for today.

Since you're both going to be in tomorrow, a Melissa can you give me a wire or two?

Yeah.

This is the first time I get to pick out a two a Monday.

I'm excited.

I didn't even notice how many do I have to choose from.

Two.

She's so excited.

That was awesome.

That's great.

Okay, I picked two.

Thank you for that, Melissa.

We got ourselves a qualifier.

First up on the list, we wish a very happy birthday to friend of the station and the community Milo plant.

Happy birthday, Milo.

Okay, Milo.

Milo's great.

Yes.

I saw him yesterday.

I didn't even mention his birthday yesterday.

Come on, Milo.

That's going on.

That's him.

Fine.

Milo fantastic.

We appreciate you, Milo.

Hope you have a fantastic day.

Enjoy your day, sir.

And our qualifier today, we should a happy birthday to Logan Yule.

Happy birthday, Logan.

Logan, congratulations.

The Yules may be showing up again tomorrow.

We'll see here.

But Logan, we wish you a happy birthday.

Today?

Enjoy the day.

It's a good one for you.

Yes.

And you're our qualifier.

We say brag to all of our friends and family and family.

Dogs love it when you brag to them.

They love it.

They look at you and rapture.

Yes.

We take a look at our celebrity list.

Evan Peters is 38 today.

Hey, he's only 38.

American Horror Story star.

You might remember him as well as Magneto's son, Quick Silver,

and X-Men, Days of Future Past.

And a couple of the other X-Men movies.

He keeps popping up at those Marvel movies now.

Yes.

And shows.

And I don't blame the casting people.

Like, not only is he handsome for all day and everything.

The kid has got so much great acting chops at the...

I'm really at 38.

I'm very surprised.

Part of the reason I kept watching American Horror Story.

I'll be honest with you guys.

I really didn't do much for me.

Story-wise or anything like that.

It was the acting.

Makes sense.

Sarah Paulson is just one of the best TV actors I'll ever see.

Any of us will ever see.

And I thought Evan Peters was just beyond impressed with me.

That first season, his character has got to be one of the most difficult characters for an actor to play.

And he nailed it.

Wow.

And just...

I don't know.

I'll watch him the rest of his career.

Cool.

He's good.

Just because I haven't seen him.

Did he play a bad guy?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was going to say.

Just his look.

He looks like he would play a really good villain.

Yeah.

He does.

In fact, in many times in that series, he does.

In fact, I believe he played Jeffrey Dahmer or some...

Some serial killer.

I think it was Dahmer.

I can't remember what it was.

It was movie.

I didn't watch it.

I think it was him and then.

That's part of the reason why I was so good to see him as Quicksilver.

A hero, yeah, right?

Yeah.

A lot of good about our character.

Brantley Gilbert is 40s day country singer.

Let's see here.

It's like the name Brantley.

It's a great name.

It's a great name.

That's a great name.

Melissa Rivers is 57, Joan Rivers' daughter.

Okay.

Melissa, what a great name.

No.

Isn't such a great name, is it?

Nice.

Guys are doing really good with this whole doing this resolution.

Be a nice storyteller.

It's going really good.

It's going good.

It's through Cleged's teeth, but we're going to do it.

We're going to make it through.

20 days so far.

I know.

It doesn't hurt.

Pretty good.

I only had a couple slip ups.

We're in Mulligan.

Mulligan.

Yeah.

Mulligan's awesome.

Rain Wilson 59 today.

Dwight Shrut on the office.

Is that a number, quite a few other roles as well?

No.

Now, of course, the name escapes me.

He's got this really interesting podcast that he does about like unexplained phenomena

and weird stories and stuff like that that are reenacted and he's kind of the host of it.

He's really good in that.

Yeah.

It's interesting to see.

I'm not saying that he doesn't want to work or isn't getting enough work, but it's

interesting to see so many of these actors.

If you have, it's a little bit like in music business.

If you were fortunate and you were able to make some money actually off of a hit song,

and you could live off of the royalties and off that song.

You know, I'm not saying you're going to live like in the upper crust of society.

No.

But that's not what most artists are looking for.

Right.

And a guy like Rain Wilson, while I'm sure he wants to act more in everything, he's been able

to, you know, not be able to be a little more picking and choosy because he's been smart

with this money.

And he, this podcast, he's really enjoying it.

I believe he's got sponsors for it now.

Yes, he does.

Yeah.

You get to do that.

Yes, he is.

It's really interesting the way the creative community is gone with that and actors like him.

Let's see here.

John Michael Montgomery is 60 today.

Another big country star.

Yeah.

Bill Morris, 69.

Long time stand with comedian and funny man.

And I, I, I don't really watch his shows anymore, but I grew up watching politically incorrect.

And real time with Bill Marrow watch for the first 10, 15 seasons or whatever it is and

everything.

Because for a long time, I really, whether I agreed or disagreed with Bill Marr, and

I probably agree with maybe 50% and 50% I didn't agree with.

There was nothing like that on TV.

There was nothing like what he was doing.

Politically incorrect was way ahead of its time.

Yeah.

And needed, and needed, we need more of that.

One thing that, whether you like Bill Marr or not, he will bring on people that he does

not agree with.

He will bring on people that don't see eye to eye with him.

And while this has gotten much worse and part of the reason why I don't watch it anymore

is because he become old man that yells at cloud.

Yeah.

Yes.

Early on in the day, they would have civil conversations before we need more of that.

And this is a stand up comedian.

Yes.

And one thing, again, I'll give him credit for, Bill Marr doesn't try to be anything other

than that.

He's a stand up comic.

That's what he is and he doesn't try to pretend he's something else.

And you need that in this day and age.

But it took a gesture.

It took the court gesture to be able to kind of get people to see, you know, along with

the daily show, obviously, and what John Stewart did with that, which was another game

changer.

Yep.

Absolutely.

This was, this is needed in today's society more than ever, and I encourage people to

to take tune these things into watch these things out, keep these things around again,

more on public, you know, journalism later.

But people like John Stewart and John Oliver and Colbert, Stephen Colbert, that are willing

to not just bow the knee.

We need that kind of a voice in America.

We need it.

Yes.

Paul Stanley is 73 for the star child, lead singer, a kiss.

And one of the better showmen you'll ever see, I was just, I just even thinking about

it right now.

I, I, I knew who kiss was, knew they were popular.

I had no idea how talented they were.

Yes.

I really did.

It's hard to see past the makeup.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's just me looking from the outside.

I'm not familiar with their work at all.

Yeah.

That kiss is amazing.

Kisses.

Really amazing, man.

Edwin Buzz Aldrin is 95 today, second man on the moon and first time legend here in

a hero.

Oh my gosh.

I'm glad to hear.

He's still a plan on them.

He's still around.

He's still around 95.

Wow.

Is he a hero on the moon, too?

I mean, I would think so.

Well, there's only a few people on the moon.

So I guess, you know, they need their heroes, too, you know, was either one that put the MTV

flight notes.

It's a great question.

I'm trying to figure that out.

A big thank you.

I don't know about anybody else, but I think I'll watch in the moon landing and in reading

up some great quotes from Mr. Aldrin.

Yes.

Also, one of the better cameos in 30 rock history is, is the Hibbid Liz Levin just yelling

at the moon.

I own you moon.

As I actually look at the moon and shake my head, that's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's perfect.

Plus, your name is Buzz.

I mean, what a great nickname.

Buzz, man.

Awesome.

Some birthdays, some people no longer with us today.

We just got done more, you know, memorializing David Lynch, who had been 79 today, 446 past

20, just recently, just a couple days ago, maybe the most unique director we'll ever

see.

Very much.

That could do big projects.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Over the weekend, I went back and watched most of Mahal and Drive, which I don't think is

a difficult movie to understand if you just relax.

Just relax and try and and everything.

But I watched, I didn't watch all of it because I didn't have that kind of time, but I watched

the beginning of Lou Velvet and it's just, you'll never see a movie like that again.

You'll never see a movie.

I'd like that again.

You'll never see producers allow something like that again.

I'm not saying it's likable.

It's an already movie, everybody.

It's not forever.

It can be a very rough watch, yes.

But, man, it is one of the most, Dennis Hopper, it's the reason why Dennis Hopper went on

to play villains his whole career basically.

After that, yeah.

But also, it's just one of the weirdest ways to start a movie and one of the most like,

what's that?

What, what, what, what, all the questions that pop in your head just from one scene,

just the way his brain worked, man.

It should also be noted that we didn't get more David Lynch movies because of his health

at the end of his life.

Yeah.

He was, he was, he was, he was staying doors and everything.

I believe it's the final film he made was in 2006.

And then I mean, he went back to do like Twin Peaks again and stuff, but there wasn't much.

George Burns born in this day in 1896, comedic legend, of course, him and Gracie, the,

Gracie Allen, yeah.

Gracie.

Yeah.

Right tag teams in comedic history, but George had an amazing career, of course.

Yes, he did.

Dr. DeForest Kelly born in this day in 1920, Dr. Boone's, I'm a Dr. Jim, not an insert

thing here.

Yes.

Right.

Nice.

We talked about Star Trek earlier.

Exactly.

There you go.

Which is why we celebrate Dr. King solid day on today because of DeForest Kettinop.

No.

I told you it was a big Trek fan.

Yeah.

Of course, I wish everybody celebrating a birthday anniversary out there.

A great one.

Enjoy your day.

My little plant.

Happy birthday, my little.

Happy birthday, my little.

Happy birthday, my little.

And our Qualifier Logan.

You will enjoy your day.

Happy birthday, Logan.

Happy birthday, Logan.

Can't think of a better way to celebrate than tomorrow at Elle Cafe.

You still get free pie.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Check that out, everybody.

We'll check out our news and our sports break.

Check in with our partners.

We'll come back and have some more fun.

On the morning show at WFHR.

Welcome back, everybody.

On the morning show here at WFHR.

Locally grown radio.

Melissa, Seth and James here with you.

Thanks so much for joining us, everybody.

We got some fun topics for you in a little bit.

We're going to be getting into.

We're going to help you get in better shape.

We've got some four fitness trends to look out for.

Okay.

It is Blue Monday, which is known as the most depressing day of the year.

We're going to touch on that one a little bit and try to cheer you up a little.

Get you through it.

But real quick, we got to touch on this one.

And this is something.

This is an ongoing topic that will unfortunately not be going away anytime soon.

One of the talk a little bit about an article that came across at WPR.

A shout out to our friends over at Wisconsin Public Broadcasting.

More important than ever that we stick together.

We look out for each other in the public radio and radio in all of these things above.

Yes.

And in the article, it talks about layoffs happening.

The how layoffs at local TV news stations affect Wisconsin communities.

This was published on the 15th.

So you should still be able to find that I was able to pull it just like I didn't already have a bookmarked.

Looked on their web page and was able to find it very easy.

And in recent weeks by now, most people in our area have heard about some of the layoffs that have been happening.

Not just in the recent weeks, but in recent years.

Really?

Yeah.

It's been happening for a while.

More and more.

This has been going on.

And we talk all the time about the importance of local journalism.

You know, one of the things that we learned really early on in this process was well, well.

As, you know, satellite radio gets bigger and streaming gets bigger with music and all these things.

What is something we could do that nobody else can do?

Well, we can report about central Wisconsin better than anybody.

That's right.

Nobody else is living here.

Nobody is paying taxes here or has neighbors here like we do covering these subjects.

And that is true everywhere around the state, everywhere around the country.

You've got local reporters working hard in this area.

I champion all the time, our civic media team and the people that we have here.

But we got friends and good people at least I'll say for me and the stations friends that work at the Daily Tribune or the Rapid City Times or anything like that.

And sharing of information and not needing to be the first to tell a story or something like that and breaking news and all those things.

Collaborating together.

It's becoming more and more important.

And I think one of the things that bothers me is sometimes is the question of why this is important.

If I want to know the forecast in Madison, I can pop that up right now.

And I can tell you that, okay, well, it's this many degrees and this windshield blah blah blah.

But what I can't tell you is maybe necessarily what schools are closed or what is happening on the street or what it actually feels like in Madison because I'm not in Madison.

Right.

Right.

Right.

But our local reporters can.

Yes.

Our local reporters can give you those things.

Which bridges are slippery?

Oh, I mean, lots of important information.

Exactly.

Yes.

So much.

I don't think the audience even has a glimpse of the idea of how much Melissa runs around this state with her tape recorder and recording things and getting interviews and talking to people one on one and everything.

Like how vital that is to news telling and getting true information.

The old shoe leather.

Yep.

How much we work at a station that if civic media messed up, we'd be reporting on it.

Think about what that means, everybody.

ESPN has fired multiple people over the years and decades and everything because they want to report on ESPN.

Yeah.

And we're not going to have that.

You can't do that.

You can talk about anything else.

You can talk about all these sports franchises.

Now they mess up.

But you can't talk about us.

I have no doubt in my mind that and we've proven this over and over again in this short amount of time.

That when things have come up about civic that may not be the grosiest, we cover it.

That says something you guys.

I go on the airwaves and I learn early on that if I am, I don't like sharing my personal life.

But if I share bits and pieces of my family and these things, well, we become relatable.

Yeah.

And we learn that we have a lot in common.

And so when I don't know what pandemic happens, the world trusted new source.

Not some conglomerate.

Not some media company that has run out of another part of the state or the country for that matter.

Right.

Exactly.

And this is where we're at right now where we've had it's happened over and over.

And now one of the final shoes to me has dropped.

And we have lost a lot of our local meteorologists.

Yes.

It was announced last week that WAOW are local.

I say local loosely because all they've ever covered is was saw essentially.

Yeah, basically.

But that's the closest we got.

And they do still do some coverage here in Wisconsin rapids and everything.

And better than nothing.

Absolutely.

And even that's gone now as it looks because as I'm mentioning and if you have not heard,

yes, there is no local weather anymore.

They're doing their weather out of Madison.

Oh, I thought it was coming for Alan Media out of like Atlanta.

Like the weather channel or something like that.

You're right, Melissa.

You're right.

Just saying just being fair on the weekends and stuff.

There is sometimes coverage from.

But it's still a lot of Madison.

Which is pretty far away from us.

Yeah, it really is.

Yeah.

And with all of this, I have not and I've looked up and I have not seen other than their basic,

you know, promo about this and everything.

Alan Media Group has not come forward about anything or reach out to anybody or talk to anybody

or anything like that.

No.

Just making cuts.

Yeah.

Which if you're going to make the cuts because it's all well and good and easy for me to say all of these things,

I'm not buying a lot of newspaper stuff.

I'm not going through paywalls for a lot of these things.

So I'm just as much of a part of the problem as many out there.

I'm not going to lie to you guys and say that I pay for every single company

so I can get through a paywall or anything.

I don't.

I work in radio.

I don't know that kind of money.

But I will say that it's important to find trusted new sources and sometimes think it is worth paying.

And it is worth.

Look at pay attention to who advertises with these companies and work with that by their products,

you know, supporting them and everything.

One thing worth noting though, that this was an election year.

So those TV stations had a pretty large influx of money coming in right now.

They did.

Yeah.

Political ads running on the stations and everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is, this has very little to do.

Okay.

I think everybody can relate to cost cutting to keep the lights on.

This is not that.

No.

No, it is not.

This is rich people wanted to be richer.

Yeah.

And looking at you and saying, you don't matter.

Mm-hmm.

You're, you're, you're concerned about your local forecast.

I don't care about that.

Mm-hmm.

So for me, I don't care about Ellen Media Group.

Yeah.

Why would you?

And look, I cannot stress enough how dangerous it is for me to say that out there.

I need to work for them one day.

But not me.

I got other things I could do.

I'm not supporting that organization.

I'm not supporting anything they do.

This is, this is my mother and me.

This is the rebel in me.

I refuse to support anything of that.

So I'm done watching them.

I'm done watching them.

I'm done watching them.

Anything that their product is part of.

And this is one of the ways that we have our voices heard.

I'm not telling anybody else to do it.

I'm not championing anything.

I'm not going to go put a Facebook page post out and everything or nothing like that.

This is just personally something I'm doing with my money.

And I'm not ever, and I'm not buying anybody that advertises with them either.

I'm done.

I'm done.

I'm not done playing nice with this stuff.

The only way that any there ever going to hear us is if we hit them in the money.

You got to hit them in the money.

You can, you can start petitions.

You can start a Facebook group.

You can do all these things.

I encourage you to do it all.

But don't ever forget that the one thing they're going to listen to is the bottom line is the dollar.

And that's how you affect, that's how you make change.

Nowadays in 2025 is hitting people in the wallet.

That's the only thing that they're going to pay attention to.

So you know what?

Whether it's your sports team or it is an Allen media group or something like this.

You want to be heard.

Right.

That's how you do it.

Well, so looking at the landscape now basically because I think I remember them reading somewhere that they're cutting down their local news broadcast like 15 minutes.

And then the rest is going to be canned.

You know, like from somewhere else kind of whatever.

I think we are now down to one station for like almost all of central Wisconsin.

Yeah.

To get local television news.

And that's it.

And that's not good at all.

That's not it.

That's not the situation we should or we should want to be in.

No, it's going to make it very easy for those that have the money to control the narrative that we are hearing.

Exactly.

One of the most disappointing parts of all this to me, Brian Allen, the businessman and guy that did all this stuff.

It comes from the entertainment world.

Like he made his bones basically doing a lot of that.

So I mean, he should know better than most what he's doing.

And he does.

He does know.

He doesn't care.

Exactly.

That's what it is.

Does it make me an extra buck than I'm going to do it?

Yeah.

So I implore you not only to do those things, but I implore you to go to wfhare.com sign up for our newsletter.

Yeah.

Where you will get local weather.

You will get local news.

Yes.

You will get those things.

Listen to our morning shows and everything.

Army Deerologist is located in Wassa.

Yeah.

That's right.

She's right here.

She's right next door.

She does live every morning about updates or weather constantly because they're in the

area and they understand that it's important because it's essential with constant weather

is important.

Yes it is.

Again, not rocket science.

No.

You know, do you do things the way you're going out there and everything, but I know for

me anything that I do my homework on this stuff.

And I know anything.

Alameda, they're fingerprints are on.

I ain't touching any of it.

I don't need it.

I got the wfhare newsletter.

I've got local reporting being done.

I know where to look for these things and encourage you to as well.

We will help you find that as we go along through this process together.

Yes.

We will do this together.

We'll be back with more show coming up on the morning show at WFHR.

Welcome back everybody.

Morning show at WFHR.

Seth, Melissa and James here with you.

We'll be having a good one out there.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Playing some cheerier music.

Get into this subject.

Yeah.

Because today is officially the most depressing day of the year.

I don't know.

I didn't hit the mark like I was right.

That's all right.

Today is known as Blue Monday, which is typically the third Monday of January.

That means it's always linked with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is just a coincidence.

But a sad one.

Blue Monday has been a thing ever since a British psychologist named Dr. Cliff Arnold came up with it 20 years ago.

It's based on a weird formula that's supposed to calculate how sad or depressed many given day might be.

Okay.

And the third Monday in January is the perfect storm of peak terribleness when you look at the bad weather in shorter days.

And the time has passed since Christmas that you've lost that kind of Christmas spirit feeling maybe.

Your news, resolutions, aren't maybe going well.

And your motivation isn't just not where it could be.

And you're realizing that this is the beginning of a year in which any journey can look big along when you look at the beginning of it.

And you're just kind of tailing it out.

So I think that understanding all these things can help you counter and fight all these things.

Yeah.

And it's not scientific.

No.

If you look at an actual mental health stats, there's no proof today is any more depressing than any average day in January.

But some of us tend to have less pep in our step.

And it's a Monday.

So, you know, that's a 15 blow zero.

Yeah.

Today at least the sun is shining.

I know.

We'll take that.

There's one bright bright spot, literally.

Nice.

Nice.

And a quote from Dr. Arnell here, the guy that started all this quote,

it was never my intention to make the day sound negative but to inspire people to take action and make bold life decisions for the year ahead.

Okay.

I don't know.

Everybody's different.

Seems a little counterintuitive.

It does.

It does.

A little galaxy brain there, yeah.

It doesn't.

It wouldn't hurt to give this information and then how you counter the information.

Yeah.

That would make more sense.

I think that's a big part of it.

Today is the day to rewrite the lyrics to Blue Christmas.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

The blue Monday when it's cold.

Nice.

Nice.

I like.

I like.

That's my new favorite thing.

Right there.

That was awesome.

Let's see you in the bumpers.

You may well.

I do think that this, look, all of our own mental health is on us.

It doesn't fall on anybody else.

Your mental health falls on you.

It begins with you.

I'm sorry.

It begins with you.

It's what I mean to say.

Yeah.

And so if you don't want this today to be a blue Monday, make it a red Monday.

Make it a blue Monday.

Make it a orange Monday, yellow Monday, whatever.

And I'll make it a brighter Monday for you, whatever that might mean.

And encountering these things and catching these things as they get going.

I know for me a big part of fighting depression and I do it every day is catching it at the

pass.

Right.

I see you starting up.

Don't you, don't you, don't you, don't you, don't you start, you start with me today,

man.

It's seven in the morning.

I need to be in a good mood right now.

You back off.

You go in your corner.

I'll deal with you later.

And I do.

I compartmentalize.

And I focus on them here.

And now what is literally happening.

I'll be honest.

One of the things that helps me, I think, is part and being in radio.

And I look at the seconds ticking.

And I see that, well, I felt horrible at 8.50, but at 8.54, I can feel better.

Because time only goes one direction.

So if I just stick with time, it'll see me through this.

Things get better with time.

This is the ultimate cure to almost anything.

I'm not saying it cures everything, but it obviously doesn't.

But everything fades with time.

And I think that depression is a very similar thing.

It can meet you there the same day and the next day.

But if you're ready for it, you can hopefully counter it a little bit more.

And music, I think, is a big one too.

Everybody's going to be different.

For some people, my mom, it's reading.

My mom, it's sitting baby, being able to be left alone

and just get into a favorite book or favorite chat, catch up,

and get a chapter in or something like that.

Exactly.

She's immediately better afterwards.

For me, I listen to some music and I can't help myself.

And I'm a little bit better mood because of Stevie or something like that.

I'd like to just also put out there too though.

If you're finding that those things aren't helping or they don't work,

don't be afraid to reach out and ask for help.

Maybe you need to get into therapy.

Maybe you need to look into talk with your primary care physician

about possible medications.

Sometimes we can't balance those chemicals in our brain by ourselves.

And we need the help.

And it's okay.

It's okay to need that.

And that's a big part of where I wanted to make sure to wrap the segment on that.

Is that Melissa?

Is that it's okay to not be okay?

That's part of this process too.

And I swear, when you give yourself that,

it's the beginning of a new day for you.

You give yourself that grace.

You can do that while also not just settling for feeling that way.

You don't have to feel that way, but it's okay that you do.

And that's part of how you get better.

It's amazing how just reaching out.

You're not realizing you're not alone with it.

Just that one step can mean a lot too.

It's hard to step sometimes.

It is.

It can be extremely hard.

It's really, really hard.

But someone told me once that they would rather have a 10-minute conversation with someone

when they're at their lowest than to never speak to that person again.

Wow.

They'd rather take 10, 20 minutes, hour of their day to help them.

Right.

And so always remember that.

People want you in their lives.

You're not alone.

You are not alone.

Years ago did a sketch of Oscar the Grouch in therapy.

And I actually brought a trash can in from the street, like from Old Town,

like on the street of Old Town.

Oh my goodness.

Did the sketch.

It didn't go well.

It wasn't that funny.

But it helped me.

You tried.