Better Together (Hour 1)

Good morning world. Morning Wisconsin Rapids. It's time for a new day.

Time for the morning show everybody hope y'all are having a great start to your thirst out there. Happy Friday Eve. Have your host James.

Join by our head of production, our co-host Seth Habagger. Good morning. And the best listeners in radio. Let's kick things off the way we like to with our good friend Brittany.

We'll talk a little more of the nature. Good morning, Brett. Good morning. How are you guys feeling?

Feeling all right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sunny sky right now.

I'm playing from the cold. I'm impressed by you guys. Oh no. No. It's going to be a bit.

You know, after you spend enough time, I think in the state, you realize, okay, you got to you got to choose your battles wisely when you're complaining about weather.

I feel like you're out. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

What are these temps looking like, Brent? Well, you know, near record breaking cold is expected tomorrow. Wow.

Today we've got the system moving through. So it's pretty interesting. So we've got this clipper that would usually clip us, you know, from Canada, swings by really fast and gives us a quick shot of snow in the winter.

Well, that's already forming and happening today later tonight. So the quickly moved by it is going to bring those winds to about 30 miles per hour, which is going to make a wind show out there, which we felt this morning.

And then it's going to bring about a half an inch of rainfall to a lot of the area, maybe some of them are going to find there, no severe weather is expected.

And afterwards, it's going to reinforce the cold. So the chilliest day of the week will be tomorrow.

Highs barely making it to the mid fifties. Probably really feeling like the forties all throughout the day and a few spotty showers could linger there as well.

But as this system clears on out of here, well, what will we start the warm up Saturday about 60 degrees mid sixties on Sunday and then nearing 70 another 70 is returning by Monday.

So next week looks a lot warmer. We've just got to get through today and tomorrow with the system moving by.

Not bad, not bad, not bad at all. I'm going to make a executive decision here for a long time. I think that we as a society and many people have mentioned that if we got to get bad news, you want it from an English person.

Yeah, that voice, that accent and everything. I wanted to come from Britain. Yes.

If we got to have bad news, I wanted to come from you, because it's just you. I don't know. I mean, does it ever sell that? It's a real talent. Yeah, really is. It's a skill. I have not learned.

It's our audience knows. It's great stuff. Thank you, Brittany. We appreciate you.

You guys have a good day. Stay warm. You too.

Best in the business right there for in Britain. We're all joining us every morning right in this time slot.

Seth and I got some fun stuff lined up for you, everybody. We're actually going to go back in time and talk publishers clearing house a little bit.

Oh, but it's cool. It's a current, it's a current story. Okay.

You know, mentioning publishers clearing house. I don't know how much of the audience even know. Remember those ads on TV of the, yeah, yeah, those things.

You may already be a winner. That is coming up a little bit later. We're also of course kick off the 10 o'clock hour.

We like to on Thursdays with our pet of the week. Denise is going to join us.

Thanks for that. Well, that's some fun there. We're getting to entertainment news after that.

We've been saying Denzel Washington's name wrong.

Yeah, yeah, I got to figure that one out.

Was it Worshing 10? It's nice. Nicely done. I need a button bump.

Yeah, I know. We're going to get into the new cast of dancing with the stars.

Some interesting names on that list as always got that one coming up for you.

And some good news about the tariffs and everything in our entertainment sections.

Oh, okay. I'll be interesting. Talk some local theater. We'll talk some our newsletter.

Remind everybody about that. We got that all coming up for you.

And then we will also get into this new trend. The, this is a super viral trend.

The great lock-in. The great lock-in.

Yeah, well, we will go there. We will start.

I know what traditional lock-ins are. I'll be curious. I wonder if it's similar. We'll see.

But as I did earlier on the sunrise show that you can catch a seven to nine every morning over on 1055.

I have to pull the audible to start off first two ways. One.

Okay. Let the audience know that they have not heard.

George Aromani is passed away.

Oh, wow.

Master power suit fashion designer game changing.

I mean, we're talking a, is if there's a, you know, it's such a very, what's the word I'm looking for?

Unique kind of style. It was the Aromani suit, right?

Nowadays, you see, and actually not just nowadays. I mean, since we were kids, we've seen jokes about the fashion, fashion shows.

Right.

And these weird suits and things like that.

It's, it's mainly because of him because he changed the game so much.

He really did.

The designers continue to try to, well, if he could do it, maybe I can do it with this or something like that.

In this day and age, it's weird to think of, but there was a time where there was no day power suit.

Not for men, not for, and especially enough for women.

Right.

That changed with him.

Yeah.

So it's certainly noteworthy.

Yeah, absolutely.

Passing right there.

And I mean, if you hear the name Aromani, you know, you think of status.

You think of, you know, wow, it's an Aromani suit. That's really cool.

So a little look behind the curtain, like we like to do around here and let the audience in on things.

I'm not, I'm in one of those things from those places right now where I'm here, but I'm not completely here.

My family's going through another one of those situations.

My family's been hit by a lot over the last two months.

And now my, my dad's one of his, one of his sisters, my aunt Debbie, she was going through treatment for chemo.

And they, we found out late last night that yesterday morning, I should say, that they were sending her home to be with her family.

Okay.

She has such a rare cancer that the chemo is not working.

Gotcha.

I'm bringing this up in part because the research that was able to be done because she wouldn't, had some tests done in Houston.

Oh.

And another place that dad is going to help with that rare cancer for.

Right. Right.

And it's important to do these things.

That's part of the reason why we encourage people to always try to get treatment and to fight for these things.

Right. Right.

You know, and all that.

And I know that I'm not the only person out there right now that has to do a job that maybe not be completely there or, or wishes to be with their family or something like that.

Yeah.

And has heavy heart.

So with that, I think the context of that, and obviously I don't sleep.

So I'm getting ready to do the show over there.

And I'm all prepped.

I'm all set.

I'm in, I'm in game mode.

And I'm feeling ready to go.

And they're the weather is playing.

So I know I'm about to talk and I don't have my headphones.

And in 20 some years, I don't know if I've ever done that before.

Now, lucky for me, this is where they are, the studio right across the hall.

Literally for me with my big old feet.

Couple of steps.

Yeah.

Until I find out my foot has fallen asleep.

And I go to step on my foot.

Oh, no.

And it just, it's the, it had to, I almost wish that we were, there were cameras around here.

Just to have seen the footage of me with all the confidence and strength I have.

Planting on my left foot to find out that just crumple, right?

Yes.

Is it fair that I can't sleep but somehow my feet have no problem doing it?

No problem with it.

No.

That ain't right.

That's a, that's a, that ain't right story.

I love the idea of like a certain body part being lazy.

Yes.

It's like my arm fell asleep.

Come on.

What are you doing?

Wake up.

We got stuff to do here.

You know, my foot.

Come on.

That's always wakes up.

Yeah.

Just said, you know, lean into the, the funny everybody.

Yeah.

Find the funny, find the, find the humor.

It is out there.

And sometimes it's you.

Sometimes it's you.

Yes.

A couple of quick stories to get to in our opening monologue here.

Workers doing renovations at an Ontario high school made a surprising discovery behind a

bathroom wall, a wall that lost by it, by a then 17 year old, about 51 years earlier.

Oh.

Lorna McQueen, caretaker at Stony Creek's Orchard Park secondary school said construction

workers were tearing down the bathroom wall.

And then they found this wallet concealed behind it.

The wallet contained items belonging to Tom Schroff, who was a 17 year old student at

the school in 1974.

Wow.

It included his ID, driver's license, so security card, photo and family, that transit

pass, a list of Canadian distilleries and a 35 cent ticket to a hockey game.

35 cents.

Man.

Man, I hope he's still got to go to the game.

Oh, I know.

That's my big takeaway from this.

I hope he did miss the game.

Yeah.

So to find something like that and see things from before, we were, we were even born.

It was pretty cool, McQueen told the specter.

We thought we've got, we've got to find this guy and give it back to him after 50 years.

We're going, we're going to want to.

McQueen and their team were able to contact the now 67 year old Schroff on Facebook.

All right.

Initially, he thought it was a prank.

No, you didn't.

You didn't find my wallet.

Yeah.

And he was very, and he was also a little worried about scammers because they mentioned

his social security card.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I can see that.

And then he's like, wait a minute.

I already have those things.

I couldn't have lost them.

Right.

But he then, here, I remembered, I quote, I remembered, I renewed them at some point and said

I might as well go down to the school and check this out.

He visited the school for last Friday afternoon, discovered it was indeed his wallet.

Wow.

For me?

Wild.

I feel like this would happen if I had something embarrassing in the wallet.

I feel like that's what would be in my wallet.

It wouldn't, like this guy got lucky.

Like there's a, at 17 and you have a wallet, like I don't even know what embarrassing

thing there could be in there.

But I know that I would have something in there that was embarrassing or that a 17 year

old probably shouldn't have in the wallet.

Probably.

Yeah.

He said, the photo, there were also photos in the wallet that included a shot of his

childhood home, which he does not have any copies of.

So how cool is that?

How cool is that?

Wow.

That's really neat.

That's 54 years.

Man.

54 years.

That's really cool.

And then there is this one about custodians finding lost items.

Okay.

And if you notice this, everybody, and I only have just now picking up on this after about

nine years or whatever of doing this show, we have these stories quite often in the beginning

of school years.

Oh, yeah.

I almost promise you, if you went back to our morning shows and our topics and everything

that this topic comes up at the beginning of school years all the time, how about that?

So custodians at a New York High School found a decade's old item time capsule that had

originally been intended to be open in 2017.

Oh my gosh.

That's why they forgot about it.

Oh.

Wow.

I don't think I've ever heard of that.

A time capsule being forgotten.

No, I've heard of them opening them up early, you know, for whatever reason, like there's

like construction and they have to move something so they got to get it out and all that kind

of stuff.

But I've never, I never remember hearing about like forgetting you're completely about

it.

Why didn't we put that time capsule in?

I knew we forgot to do something.

Did we put the, we put the directions for the time capsule into time capsule?

Did we?

Who did that?

Frank was that you?

You crazy guy.

So they find this in a New York High School found a decades old.

The Smithsonian Central School District said students at the Smithtown West High School

started assembling the time capsule in 1973 and was finally completed in 92.

Oh wow.

The time capsule was supposed to have been open in 2017 but ended up lost and forgotten

in a storage room until being discovered by custodian staff during summer break.

I always thought they buried those, you know, and then have a marker or something.

That's what I always thought for time capsules.

They just put it at a storage closet.

I love it.

Had a calendar from 74 and 1987 banner proclaiming the school to be a news days, 19 to the seven

school of the year.

Oh, cool.

Cool.

A VHS, a video yearbook from 91 and 92.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Quote, if anybody has a VHS player, we'd love to swing by and watch this foot with you.

Funny.

The idea of that.

Okay.

Think of like if they did it in the 50s, we'll put this film, you know, canister in here.

And of course, we will have the technology then to, you know, in the future, never thinking.

It's like, oh, wait, we don't do that anymore.

Oh, no.

Holly said the items will be put on display.

So this year students can see the school's history.

That's cool.

As things change, quote, as things change, they say that they say the same, right?

Prom graduation, t-shirts, banners, pom-poms, we're still doing all the things, but it's

cool to see how they've evolved.

Mm-hmm.

And it's kind of cool when you think about that that schools and a lot of those things

have stayed the same while evolving.

Right.

Exactly.

It's really kind of fun.

Oh, video, your books, man.

Yeah.

That is a blast.

That is a blast.

Very much of its era.

Yeah.

Wow.

That was such a thing at the time.

Such a thing.

I want to answer.

So I got a follow-up question to this one.

Like, how do you lose a time capsule?

Seriously.

I really need that answered for me.

To be fair, it took them almost 20 years to get it put together.

Yeah.

And then maybe they just lost interest or something or maybe it was a janitor.

They're like, OK.

All right, Frank, we need you to go bury this in a time capsule and he's like, I don't

want to do that right now.

I'll just put it in there.

As the administration's changed, yeah, maybe that had maybe Frank just put it in the wrong

place.

I don't know.

It's almost mind-boggling to be how you can lose a time capsule.

Love it.

We will take a quick time out.

We'll come back and do some celebrating with our friends at El Café in the birthday

and anniversary club on the morning show at WFHR.

I just want to celebrate another day of living.

I just want to celebrate another day of living.

Welcome back, everybody.

Time to do some celebrating with our good friends at El Café in the birthday and anniversary

club.

We encourage you to treat yourself, get on over to El Café, 221 Market Avenue and

beautiful porn edwards.

Wish them a great day from all of us.

Check out some of those great specials they have and be sure to check out their Facebook

page.

They're doing such a great job with their posts and their social media.

Avocado Benedict is on the menu today.

Be sure to check that out.

They have a video of what them make.

Yeah, looks really good.

Oh my gosh.

Looks really good.

Man, they're doing it right at El Café.

They're doing it right.

Check that out by local support, local everybody and get us those birthdays and anniversaries.

We love celebrating with you.

Info at WFHR.com.

You can email us that way.

You can direct messages on our Facebook pages and of course you can call on up right

now.

Or 242600, wish anyone you want a happy birthday.

Even if it's in like August next year, it's fine.

Go for it.

Go for it.

We just want to do birthdays.

We love live birthdays and anniversaries.

We do.

Get them to us, everybody.

Seth.

I need a one through three.

Oh, again.

Wow.

Let's do three today.

Oh, okay.

There we go.

Give us that qualifier.

Get right into it.

Want to wish a very happy birthday to a good friend of ours here at WFHR.

Not with us anymore.

But I think if you worked at WFHR, you're always going to be a member of the team here.

Our good friend, Gene Delisio.

Oh, happy birthday.

Gene.

Long time.

And I mean long time sports broadcaster of WDLB and WOSQ radio stations worked with

a gene many, many years.

In fact, Gene, every once in a while, will still email us and give us updates on local

scores or stories locally.

He was here a couple of weeks ago to drop something off.

So I was able to actually meet him for in person.

I've heard a lot about him.

So I was actually able to meet him.

That was nice.

I've appreciated Gene very much behind the scenes.

I cannot tell you how helpful and like what a team player gene is when we were working

with WDLB very closely for those, all those years and everything gene integral to sports

coverage in this area.

I think that much like Melissa's picked up the mantle of Carl and news.

I think Michael Comer has done that with Gene Delisio in sports around here.

And Terry sticked to a very strong degree as well.

I mentioned that with Gene and Michael because of their just incredible brains for high school

sports.

I mean, you can't throw curveballs at these people.

More so Terry working here at WFHR for so many years and Michael's coverage in the reporting

he does.

That's very similar to Terry.

And Gene's so appreciated.

Yeah.

Also, one of the few people that I've done impressions in front of that laugh that liked

the impression.

I appreciate it.

A lot of people like that.

Gene's great.

I wish you a good birthday, sir.

Enjoy your day.

Happy 49th birthday to Jim and Deb Telexon.

Oh, happy anniversary, you two.

Yeah.

Enjoy your anniversary, you two.

We appreciate you sharing this with us every year.

Yeah.

We get to celebrate this one with you guys.

Happy 49th.

49, ooh.

This year's a big one.

It's a big one next year.

It's a big one.

And our qualifiers who celebrated the big one a while ago, Chuck and Gale Gibbons, happy

54th anniversary.

Well, happy 54th, you two.

Fantastic.

Our qualifiers, Chuck and Gale.

We encourage you to brag to all your friends, family, animals, strangers, imaginary friends.

Let them all know you're our qualifier for today.

Get us more birthdays and anniversaries, everybody.

Absolutely.

Take a look at who you share your birthdays with.

Comedian and a comedic writer, Whitney Cummings, is 43.

Okay.

I remember.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Whitney Cummings, yes.

A lot of people, great standard comedian for many years.

Got a chance to do some writing on a lot of shows.

She is the co-creator of Two Broke Girls.

That's right.

That's right.

And has really made a bit of a more of a career on doing the roasts.

She's a consistent roast artist and everything.

Which you can kind of make a living out these days.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Back of the day, you could do that.

Now, I think there's a big difference of being a quote-unquote wannabe insult comic

who is just basically punching down and making front of every other race under the

sun and things like that, which I have no problem with racial comedy.

It's just tell me a new joke.

All these guys do the same jokes.

They were doing these jokes in the 50s, man.

Come up with something new.

It's not even funny.

But then the insult comic, now that's one thing.

The roast comic is an artist.

There are people who made legendary careers off of it.

I think that there are some people, and I think we would have known Don Rickles is anyway,

but there's some people that will tell you that that's Don Rickles.

He made his bones off of that.

I think did opening up for the rat pack, but what do I know?

Yeah.

She's really good at that.

She's good at it.

She does, right.

That's a specific target, too.

The way roasting is very different from insult comic, so yeah.

I think that might be the difference for me in that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the difference of punching down at strangers or an identity or a lump of people and

a celebrity that should be able to handle it.

Exactly.

You know, a public person, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Big difference.

Very successful, as well, usually.

One of the biggest artists in the world, Beyoncé, is 44.

Wow.

I don't have time to go through all of her hits.

No.

Usually I mentioned a couple of hits of an artist.

She's...

I don't even have time for two.

She's incredible.

She is one of those generational musicians that just kind of change the game in a lot

of different ways, you know, branched out to many different areas of life.

And yeah.

I mean, you cannot argue with her talent and her success.

It's been well-earned.

I don't have a favorite Beyoncé song.

I don't have any of her songs on my playlist.

But there are a few artists I respect more than her, a current artist that I respect

more than her.

She could easily keep doing the same old thing every single album.

Right.

Plenty of artists do it.

Plenty of fan bases follow those artists doing it.

We know of one currently.

I mean, I don't...

I don't know.

Yeah.

There's certainly some current artists like that.

Right.

This woman completely changes her game every album and tries to push herself through every

album.

That's an artistic choice.

When you don't necessarily have to, you know, you could be kicking out greatest hits albums

and things like that.

She doesn't have to tour nearly as much as she does, but it means a lot to her to perform

in front of her fans.

Her fans?

So she tries to get to as many places as she can.

And if you saw that Super Bowl halftime show, if you've seen any of her performances,

the pop and circumstance that is put into these shows is so intentional and detailed.

And it's so cool to see such a big production.

You know what her reminds me of?

And people are going to lose their minds and get so mad at me for this.

It reminds me of KISS, where I saw KISS in it's a circus, it's a rock show, it's a circus

masquerading as a rock show.

And these guys are incredible, but for so much going on, it's all detailed, it's all

intentional.

Her performances are the same way.

Yeah.

There's so much going on.

But it's all intense.

It's leaning into the spectacle of rock and roll, basically is what it is.

And that's in, which is, it's there.

It's always been there.

It's just, you can go really big with it if you can afford to and if you want to.

One of our guys turned in 57 today, Seth John, John Demagio, one of the better voice

actors of our generation, he's losing, it does a lot of video game voice acting, but

I think most people would know him as Bender on Futuron.

Oh, yes, yes, my, it's funny because his, his normal voice is, is not Bender's, but

it's close.

It is.

He does have the New York accent.

He's got all that in his regular voice, but I mean that voice for Bender, it's one

of the all time great cartoon character voices.

He is top five, top 10 voice actor of all time for me.

I love John Demagio.

Great.

And a really fun, interesting person.

Yes.

Interviews with him are a lot of fun too.

Damon Wayne's a 65 in living color.

My wife and kids, the last Boy Scout, the Leith Weapon series, Damon Wayne's fantastic.

One thing that Damon Wayne's never gets credit for and I will do this till we're dying

day.

I'm watching, he's, he makes this big deal.

He's going to do one last comic with standup because that's where he got his made his bones

and everything.

He had just left in living color and he was going to do one more standup run and he

does this HBO special and at the end of it, he does it, he smashes the mic in essence

of, I'm done with it.

I'm done working away from it.

He basically drops the mic, right?

And nobody gives him credit for the drop in the mic thing.

That's Damon Wayne's man.

He created that.

Yes.

Nobody saw anybody doing that before.

Credit, credit where credit is due.

Yeah.

Also incredibly funny, incredibly funny.

My kind of humor where you can make people laugh while being serious.

Yes.

I, Damon Wayne, homey the clown is one of my favorite characters ever, ever.

He's, he can deadpan as good as anybody.

He's so good.

And I think that's why he was so successful on sitcoms.

You know, my wife and kids and he was on a more recent one too, like a streaming one.

He was on a sitcom type show.

Even then, man, he's, he's just, he's so good at it.

He's just fantastic.

That Wayne's family is just incredible.

The talent, a comedy in that family.

Candy Alexander, a 68-carrier Washington's mom on Scandal.

She was also on CSI Miami.

Okay.

Go for herself.

The legendary golfer Tom Watson is 76 today.

Woo.

Happy birthday to you.

Very good golfer.

Yeah.

And then some people no longer with us.

Like, well, now we know the rest of the story.

Paul Harvey boarded in the state in 1918 radio legend.

Yes.

Yes.

That voice.

It was more of the voice.

It wasn't so much.

I would say actually now that I think about it.

It's not the voice.

His delivery was so iconic, right?

It was very much his own.

You know, to the point where everyone can do a Paul Harvey, right?

You know, we can all, we can all do our own, we have our own invitation of it, right?

Which is, I mean, if you, if everyone has your, can do your invitation, that's it,

it's telling you how big he was, how influential and how distinctive he was as well.

It's a wild to think about how many generations grew up on him and how even somebody like

me, you know, grew up listening to Paul Harvey, right?

Right.

And he did it in two minutes.

It's incredible.

I mean, very short segments that he did it, but he did it.

But think about the amount of information and storytelling he did in that two minutes

and all and not rushed.

Like the pace.

I think the greatest thing about Paul Harvey was his pace.

I, I tried to, I do a poor, poor man's intimidation and, and, and, right, imitation, right?

Because I'm trying so hard to be like him.

Now, I really admired his work and I love storytelling and I think he was one of the greatest

storytelling.

Great storytelling.

Great voice.

Great talent.

And Dick York, born on this day in 1928, the first Darren on Bewitched, I played a, a

bell booking candle.

I played Darren.

Yes, that's right.

The, the movie and play that the show Bewitched was based on.

That's right.

It was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun character to play.

It took me forever to get that character down though.

I actually learned a very big directing technique, our rule here and the lesson with this

one where my director was telling me for two and a half weeks, three weeks or something,

James, I need you softer, James, I need you softer.

And I didn't play it a lot of romantic leads or anything like that.

I played a lot of villains.

So I figure I'm playing him too dark.

I'm playing him too serious or something so I keep trying to make him goofy at all this

stuff.

Right.

And finally, after a while, Chuck, Charles is like, James, I need you softer and he's going

down.

And like, what do you mean?

He goes, I need your, you're too loud.

You, I need you quieter, I need you quieter.

It was a volume direction, not an acting direction, I love that.

We will take a time out, come back after our news, sports and entertainment break and

take care of our partners.

And when we get back, we've got to talk publishers, clearing out, we got to do it, it's

coming up.

I agree.

On the morning show.

Welcome back everyone, morning show at WFHR, locally grown radio.

Not just Nirvana, some old Nirvana from Bleach.

That's from Bleach, yeah.

Nicely done.

Oh, cool.

Welcome back everybody.

Hope you're having a good start to your morning out there, just got a little better over

here.

Not better for people though who are collecting publishers, clearing house checks.

Uh oh.

That's still being done.

Oh, okay.

If you win a huge jackpot or a sweepstakes, like we're talking 1.7 billion powerball drawing,

right?

You usually have the option of accepting it as a regular payment over time or a smaller

lump sum right away.

This is one of the greater debates you have with your friends or your certificate other.

Right.

Hey, if you win, what way would you want to do it?

You want it all in one lump sum or you want it spread out?

Sure.

The Bobby Benia, if you will.

Yes.

Get that reference, we appreciate you.

So to me, I don't know.

I have never really thought much about this because it's just, there are certain thoughts.

I don't think about what the weather's like on Mars.

I ain't ever going there.

There's plenty of things that my brain thinks up there as an overthinker that I don't

really, you know, have a need to, but that's just one of those things.

This might as well be that to me as far as winning publishers, clearing out more likely

to walk on Mars that I am to win the publishers, so I don't even think about that stuff.

I think that I would want it spread out, but I don't know.

I don't know enough of that.

I don't know.

Trust me, I've talked to people who fought hard and long about this, about if they ever

win the thing.

So they're very opinion, it's very strong opinions on it.

It's very strong.

There's very little gray area with people.

It's interesting.

If you have an opinion, it's very like 100%, that's what they love.

Do you have a feeling on it?

Well, not really.

No, because I never do it.

It's like you're saying it.

I never do any of these kinds of things.

Well, here's another case for maybe the lump sum angle on this.

Oh, okay.

There's a story making the rounds online about a man in Oregon who won a publisher's clearing

house sweepstakes back in 2012, which pays him 5,000 a week forever, right?

Technically, they paid it as a 260K per year.

Okay.

That sounds nice.

Yeah.

It sounds really nice.

Sure.

Why not?

I could use that, right?

Yep.

But this year, the check never came and apparently, it ain't gonna.

Oh.

This past April, publisher's clearing house filed for bankruptcy, and at least 10 former

winners of, quote, forever prizes will no longer get payments.

Yep.

And that sounds about right.

You might think, well, that sucks, but at least they got some free money throughout the

years.

This guy says he's having a hard time finding a job because he's been out of work of,

out of the workforce so long.

Well, that's kind of, that's kind of on you, man.

I get it.

You could easily live without working, you know, 260,000 a year.

Sure.

You can live off of that, not easy, you know, but in the stain age, trying to get empathy

out of people, especially 12 jurors, jurors, that's right.

You got it.

You got it.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Since he's worked.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean, you should have kept up on something, maybe.

He also thinks he's going to lose his home, which he purchased, expecting all those payments

to continue.

And he says he thought he'd be able to have, leave money to his children someday, and

now there's nothing to them.

Another, quote, winner in his position said, you promised to change people's lives, and

now you messed it up.

Some winners did receive all their money, those who opted for the lump sum, rather than

the forever payments.

It's unclear if every prize winner had the option or not, right, exactly.

A company bought Publisher's Clearinghouse out of bankruptcy, and they'll continue running

new contests, but they're only paying for the future winners.

Yep.

Yeah.

I'm guessing that was part of the settlement, and the agreement that they don't have to,

they have no obligation to pay any debts that the previous Publisher's Clearinghouse had.

The winners under the previous business are being left out in the cold.

And obviously, this is the last one here of the story, probably they're probably going

to be some, you know, court cases and math.

Oh, I'm sure that will be, yeah, exactly.

But these people will never get that money.

They highly doubt it, highly doubt it.

The court cases are very misleading in that regard.

If you don't, you know, pay attention or know anything about it.

Right.

Exactly.

Oh, hey, they got that big settlement from that, that creepy guy who, you know, heard

all those people and took all their money and stuff, and now they're all going to get

a, no, they're not.

No, no, he broke in jail.

Yeah, he doesn't have any money.

Yeah.

Where are they going to get it from?

And, you know, a jail job, you know, and certainly paying them off, but, but you don't,

with that income, you get a dollar a day or whatever it is, you get paid for that.

Yeah.

Forget it.

How did these things ever exist?

Hmm.

Who was funding publishers Clearinghouse?

Like where was the money-making part of this?

Part of this.

It was, if I remember when I was a kid, so you know, this is one of those things where,

when they mailed it in, you know, you get it in the mail, right?

You get them like, you get them like several times a week in the, in the, the peak of all

of this stuff.

Yeah.

Where, yeah, they would, you get discounts on magazine subscriptions.

And I think that's where they would get their money from.

But that was just to draw you in to buy those magazine subscriptions, you know, you could

win whatever it is.

But this is a problem that we're seeing not only with this, and I think this is interesting

because it's also going to bring to light some other issues that we're seeing more recently.

There's been examples of technology companies going out of business for things like pacemakers.

And they were set up specifically to be, you know, a certain kind of, you know, they're

connected to the app, you know, they're smart, you know, device, going, quote, smart device.

And so these companies go out of business.

There's no one to take them over.

You get, you get a brick.

And this has become, I've seen stories about like certain motorized vehicles for disabled

people, other things like this.

This is a bad thing.

And this is happening right now, this sort of thing.

Now that's a little more serious than not, you know, public, I'm sure to the people that

aren't getting their money.

It's very serious.

I'm like, wow, what are we going to do?

But I mean, if you have a disability and you're counting on something and all of a sudden,

that technology is nothing.

It's gone.

There's no way you can fix it.

There's no support for it.

What are you going to do?

We've got our pet of the week coming up with Denise and she was telling us about that

story of the microchips and that company going out and everything.

What's going to happen with those microchips now with those animals that have those, exactly.

And you know, there's, there has to be a way of kind of like protecting consumers when

it comes to something like this.

I don't have the magic bullet for that or anything.

I don't understand.

I don't know what necessarily could be done.

And it does feel like something could be done there to where, at the very least, the technology

is still kept intact, exactly, kept working, some kind of, you know, it's got to be a safety

net for it.

There has to be a safety net.

In our lifetimes, the government has had no problem bailing out the car industry or

the bank industry or, you know, I mean, what, why couldn't you do something like this

that could actually really help people, like not be nearly as much money by the way?

Spoiler alert, everybody had the, had the banks or the, or the, you know, car companies

gone out of business, we'd still be here.

Yeah.

The economy would still be here.

Everything would still have worked out.

It'd been rough, but guess what?

We're going through rough right now.

Yeah, we sure are.

Because we did that.

Yes.

Because what happens when you bail out billionaires, they just feel like they, oh, I can keep

getting away with this.

Yes.

Absolutely.

It's the same thing.

It's the same thing when politicians tell me, well, businesses will figure out, we don't

need to raise minimum wage because the competitiveness of having good employees will make people

want to pay people more.

Yeah.

How does that work?

How's that happening?

You go ahead and apply for a job and tell me how that goes.

Yeah.

You know, Senator Congressman, you tell me how that works.

Right.

You know, Mr. Billionaire.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

That's not how that works.

Um, the publisher's clearinghouse was founded initially funded by Harold and Lut Lut Lut

Lut Lut Lut Lut Lut Escher T. Mertz.

Lut Escher.

Have you ever seen that name?

Lut Escher.

Lut L.

Never seen that name before.

Never seen that name before.

That's a distinctive name.

They did this along with their daughter Joyce as a partnership in 1953.

The company began in their basement and grew from there initially offering magazine subscriptions

to their direct mail.

There you go.

I didn't realize the direct, the magazine subscription part that was part of the publisher

part of publishers clearing the money.

Okay.

All right.

I was curious because man, I'm sorry, as a, especially as a kid seeing those, maybe this

is just the city boy of me or something, but I see this, I didn't see publishers clearing

house.

I saw hustle.

This, just hustle.

That's all this is a hustle.

We're in far off.

Honestly, you are not far off, my friend.

It was a joke in our house getting those and, and just ripping them up.

Yep.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Um, before we go to break, I did want to get to a good story and boy, we got a good

one around here.

Diane, you are a good story.

Oh, one of our good stories.

We love Diane.

Diane brought us lemon cookies with raisins in them.

Oh my gosh.

And I like them.

To the shock of everybody you've got, you've got the James Mayloff seal of approval to

the day.

Wow.

Diane can make a great cookie.

Like, I'm telling you, that is a great cookie right there.

And I would not like, I mean, don't tell her this, but I'm not sure how to be eating

it if my mother made those.

Oh dear.

Oh my gosh.

I don't know if I would have.

I just, she knows better.

My mom's not in her head right now, like, yes, he's right.

You would not have eaten it.

Thank you, Diane.

We appreciate you.

Thanks for keeping us fat.

We will take it.

Very nice.

We will take a quick time out.

We'll come back and wrap up the first hour of the morning show on WFHR.

Welcome back everybody.

Morning show here at WFHR, locally grown radio, Stanley Clark.

I love Stanley Clark.

Yeah.

Thought of that name in a while.

Let's go on.

What is it?

Boom.

East River Drive.

There's a couple of really good ones from him.

Yeah.

I encourage you to check that out.

Everybody.

And check this out.

This is an interesting one to me, Seth.

And I find these kind of things really interesting when it comes to relationships, couples.

I think you see this even with friendships, you know, especially long time friendships.

Okay.

But it's this thing of where we are, you know, friends with somebody or dating somebody

because we have some similar interests.

Sure.

And then of course, usually there's things that they do that are different.

Yeah.

And, you know, that you like about them or whatever and everything.

Sure.

And sometimes you may pick some of that up.

You know, sometimes it's true.

Sometimes it's words that they use, some of their lingo or even mannerisms sometimes.

Yeah.

Yes.

And it just is a natural thing that we do as humans.

Yeah.

You can even see this happen with people that you go to school with or work with or anything

like that.

Accents, maybe.

Yes.

Even as extreme as accents.

So they say you're more likely to stick to a new fitness routine if you've got someone

to do it with you.

Okay.

You can hold each other accountable.

And if it's your significant other, it could be easier to fit into your schedules.

Right.

It can even be a bonding thing.

I think to do it together.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And maybe there are other forces that work too.

So because like lingo or mannerisms or, you know, going on a health journey, these

things can, you know, be similar.

Right.

According to a new survey, 55% of people with a partner on a healthy journey joined them

without ever consciously deciding to do this.

Really?

Oh.

They're just mimicking their habits.

Wow.

47% 47% of couples who do wellness goals together call it the ultimate relationship

hack.

Wow.

66% say adopting healthier habits together reduce the stress and 62% of partners who

prioritize wellness as a team have much more time in the bedroom, but they have more

intimate time.

Yes.

Nicely done.

Yes.

I tried to make it.

That is a slave.

So there can be positive influences, but there can be negative ones as well as you have

with everything.

Yeah.

29% of partners have become the top culprit in derailing progress by keeping unhealthy snacks

at home or something like that.

Right.

Right.

The course goes both ways, just like anything in a relationship, but that's interesting.

You know, honestly, though, I wish we would come up with a better name than wellness.

Wellness has never really felt good to me.

Right.

And now it's starting to be used in kind of a yucky way in society in general.

You know, it's got some connotations with it now.

We're starting certain things that makes me feel a little about it.

I would make an argument that it always it has been for a long time, like going back

to our, you know, asylums being called wellness facilities and things like that.

Fair.

That's a fair point.

That word has never felt right to me.

It's never felt like what it's intended to me.

Right.

It's supposed to be a positive thing, right?

You know, being healthy, being in, you know, getting your exercise eating well, all that

kind of stuff.

But yeah.

I remember my dad used to tell me, it's not behind.

It's beside every strong man as an even stronger woman, right?

It's something one of the oldest things I remember him saying to me, and I think about

that with this.

It's not so much.

You can reverse that in some relationship, or whatever and everything.

And certainly nowadays it goes for anything, man, man, woman, woman, whatever combination

you, that is, is for you.

But no matter whatever the combination, you come back to these kind of results, where

the positive influence you can have on each other, exactly, and bring out of each other.

I, I, I, I don't know if we talk enough about that about relationships and the, the purpose

or the positive to a relationship and being in one, in this idea of, like accountability

has a bit of a serious heaviness to it.

Right.

I, I think it can.

And then I also think at times it can be just kind of a, a, a given name, you know, we

got to call something.

Right.

Yeah.

Exactly where it doesn't necessarily fit exactly what you're talking about, but that's as

close as we can get kind of thing.

I honestly, you know, I, I, one thing that I've always thought was interesting is when you're

in a relationship with someone, especially a long-term relationship, I've never bought

into the idea of, you know, the old movie cliche, you complete me, you know, that kind

of thing.

Yeah.

Because that implies you're missing something as a human being, but we're all individuals,

okay?

And I think we need to approach it as individuals, okay?

You're not, you're not, you're not with this person because they, you know, they make

you a complete person.

No, you're together because you want to be together.

Yeah.

And hopefully you make each other's weaknesses stronger.

And compliment each other in that sort of way, you know?

And to me, that's always to make two better people, instead of to make like one, you know,

like, oh, we're now a complete package kind of thing.

No, no, no, you're still individuals, but you make each other better.

Yeah.

My mom and dad have been together since they were 16 and 15.

And I think the biggest thing about them is that they have always remained individuals

to make a great team.

That's right.

They compliment each other.

They bring out good and each other and they're also very, very different, very different.

And that's fine.

You can do that.

That can be done.

I do think that there's also a, there's, for younger people, this needs to be brought

up more.

Right.

You know, I talk about this a lot with politicians or with our officers and some of this,

the negative, you know, the negative things they see on TV and the way we enhance those

ourselves.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, this has been going on with my hometown forever.

And Chicago is not a war zone.

No.

You just throw it into your Google or the crime rates in Chicago have gone down for almost

20 years.

Yep.

And it's, the city is not nearly close to what it used to be when I was a kid or anything

like that.

But yet we keep seeing these stories because it's low hanging fruit and they just keep

talking about, well, hey, we'll just grab that headline like when it comes to these

kind of things, that's what kids get.

They just think that all the sudden and then they never go to this place or whatever.

If all we ever talk about in relationships is, well, it's important to be in a relationship

because of procreation or because of this or whatever, then that's all they think that

it is when there is so much more to a couple to a relationship that is, I don't want

to say bigger than that, but an integral part of it of the idea of, hey, here's somebody

who is also going to help not only see the best in you, which we don't see in ourselves.

Exactly.

Which is a big part of it.

Yes, it is.

Our potential, which we don't often see in ourselves.

But also that person who is that ally, whether they're a cheerleader or they're a great person

to hold you accountable for stuff and everything.

You can't look that up in the paper.

You can't find that.

You just happen to come across it.

And there's an unspoken thing we're talking about right now, all the stuff that we've covered.

What this means is that in the relationship, they must be equal partners.

They must be equal partners, otherwise it's not going to be a good relationship because

one is going to dominate the other one.

And that is not good.

That is not a good relationship to be in.

That's what happened to me in Selma Hayek.

Yeah.

It was shame.

Shame too.

Because there was a future to it.

Oh, I know who dominated that relationship.

Yeah, yeah, rightfully so.

The 25th annual, 25th annual downtown grad affair is coming up this Saturday from 10

to 3 West Grand Avenue right here in Wisconsin.

Rapids were very excited about this one, celebrating creativity in the heart of Wisconsin

right here, right in the center of the state.

The downtown grand affair is one of her favorite events, one of those fun kind of beginning

of a new season wrapping up of one.

Absolutely.

It's an opportunity to find some of the coolest crafts you're going to find.

Melissa brought this up yesterday.

It's a great opportunity to start getting those Christmas gifts out of the way or at least

some ideas.

Yes.

Yes.

The family friendly events, free to the public and features the creeper's car show and

cruise as part of the festivities.

I love that that's when they line it up on the bridge there.

That's always so cool.

Yeah.

I think one of the coolest things about car shows is that we all get it.

You see these cars driving through town getting ready to go to the place or something

like that.

Exactly.

So just randomly, you know, in what you're sitting in traffic, you'll see some beautiful

Chevy pull up or something like that.

I love that part of car shows.

That's going on this weekend.

Along with plenty of other things, come shop, stroll and support local makers.

This is one of our by local, you know, support local definition events right here.

Yes.

We want to see you down there and we will see you down in there because we're going

to be there too.

Yeah.

We're going to have a table there from 10 to three.

Come on down for that.

And then later on, from 11 to one, we'll be doing a live broadcast on WIRI.

Melissa will be handling the first hour from 11 to noon and I'll be doing noon to one.

Very excited about that.

I'm going to try to stop by and say hi and everything.

I really appreciate the work that you guys are putting into this one.

We wanted to be a part of this.

We're happy to be a part of it.

And really big shout out to the Wisconsin Rabbids Chamber.

Yep.

100% for putting this on.

We love doing it with them.

Been doing some great work and I don't know if everybody's notices or not.

I've talked to them off here a little bit about this over the last two years.

These signature events have been enhanced, have been brought some more life brought into

them.

The community has noticed.

I hear from people all the time about it.

They've been doing some really great work, got some great young minds over there.

They've been really creative with a lot of this stuff and it's very good to see.

It's young and old.

I said young minds.

I don't know what it's about.

And it shows the health of the community.

And they're so well attended too.

People love coming out for these events and we love to be a part of them, so I'm excited

about it.

Looking forward to that event going on this week and make sure to make plans.

Get on down here and have some fun.

You can also, not only with all of this going on, you can probably, I don't know, maybe

check out some other things going on in the area too.

We've got our Don Donts.

Farmers market.

We'll be talking about that at the end of next hour, we'll get into all of that, looking

forward to it.

We're also going to be getting into, at the top of the hour, our pet of the week from Denise

Denise is brought in there, pet of the week.

I even got a preview of it already.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Okay.

So distracted now.

So distracted.

Look, and that's not fair of me.

I should give the audience a tease.

It's a furry animal.

There you go.

There you go.

You also know why he's distracted because any furry animal that comes in there, he's got

to take a look.

I can't help myself.