Good morning world, it's a new day.
Time for the morning show, got your host James behind the mic,
joined by our head of news, our co-host Melissa K.
Good morning.
And the best listeners and radio.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
We hope you're having a great start to your Tuesday out there.
Let's kick it off the right way with our current friend,
Brent Lee Murlow, when I talk in Mother Nature.
Good morning, Brett.
Good morning, little darker start to the day,
but we're going to see some sunshine.
How are you guys doing?
Doing all right.
Yeah, doing all right over here.
It is a little cloudier out there today than it was.
Seems like it was yesterday.
Yeah, not the brightest start of the morning, but we
will see some more this afternoon.
A lot of that rain's staying well north of us.
I really don't think we're going to see
much chances of a shower or thunderstorm
until late tonight, pretty much around midnight.
So I think dry day, comfortable highs in the mid 70s,
a little breezy with the winds out of the south,
but hey, that's warming us up, where we are going to be
hitting 80 degrees over the weekend.
Friday's Saturday and Sunday.
It's going to be the summer again.
Not bad, not bad.
That's crazy.
Yeah, that sounds good.
I already took my air conditioner out.
So I better not get too wet for too long.
I don't know.
I'm excited about the warmer temps that we get.
I like these kind of where we have this mix of fall
in summer weather.
Yeah, like the changing of seasons,
we get a little bit of both worlds just a few days at a time
and transition out of it.
Yes, but I will say it's weird.
I was thinking about it yesterday from the mid 60s, right?
And I'm in long sleeves and a pants.
In spring, I would already be in shorts in a tank top,
but now we're bundling up, getting ready for it.
But it is refreshing with the fall colors changing already,
too, gorgeous.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And fall gives a lot of us 90s kids
excuse to get our flannels out.
And that's, you know, that's great.
That's fun.
That's nice.
We appreciate you, Brittany.
Thanks so much for joining us.
We'll hang out again tomorrow.
Have a good day.
You too.
Thanks, Brittany.
Best in the business right there.
Brittany Merlot joining us every morning, right in this time slot.
We got fun stuff in store for you, everybody.
We got the LKF Abort Day anniversary club is right around the corner.
Was curious about this one, especially getting into it with you, Melissa.
How many of us encounter a paywall while reading the news?
Okay.
We'll get into that a little bit later,
along with a new trend that young people are doing with their beer.
I don't know, we'll discuss.
And we'll get into five fast food items,
professional chefs love.
Thought that would be an interesting one.
We've got the 10 o'clock hour to kick off some entertainment news.
Senate Live has announced the majority of their cast
and what they'll be doing with that.
Looking forward to it.
We will also be getting into an interesting one.
The another fire festival musical is in the works.
And I don't know about that.
I don't know.
Okay.
All that coming up want to talk about our newsletter.
Talk about you submitting your recipes out there, everybody.
All of that a little bit afterwards.
We've got a couple of other ones here
and including a new hack about car sickness.
Oh, a new hack.
Get into that one a little bit later.
But as we do around here,
we like to be honest with the audience.
I'll let them look behind the curtain as much as we can.
And Monday night, I'd say one Monday morning to AM-ish.
We got a call and we found out that my aunt, my aunt,
David passed.
I'm so sorry.
We were up all, thank you.
We were up all night.
And as you'd imagine, and my father and I
talking and everything, and one of the things
that I tried to do in those moments,
and I've been in a lot of these.
And especially lately, I'm a bit of a referee.
I don't really think or anything about myself.
It's more so about the people I'm around.
My brother and sister, my mom and dad.
My dad's remaining brothers and sisters, I should say.
We're talking and we're, and I like to throw curveballs in there.
I like to, I like to, you know,
throw things in there to kind of get the mood
a little bit not happy, but just a little lighter.
You know, similar to how I always do on these shows
and try to wrap up every segment on a high note
or a funny joke or something like that.
It's what I've done my whole life.
I didn't really realize this until recently.
But along with that, something else I've always done
is the 2am thought.
And these thoughts did hit you at 2am.
And especially when you do content like Melissa and I
and at our, we look for this.
We look for, oh, this will be a good story.
Oh, this will be something to talk about.
And find people who'll find this interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I go ahead and I pitch this to my family.
I'm like, oh, this is a good test.
I'll see what they think of this.
And then I'll throw it out there.
And I thought of, well, we were talking about Chicago.
We were talking about Illinois.
And in the, some of the, my aunt devs favorite musicians
and we talked about cheap trick
who are from Northern Illinois.
And it got me thinking about, well,
what state produced the most musicians?
And I bring this up in, Melissa,
you could hear a record scratch.
They just look at, and I thought I did,
I thought it was bad, but then it got us talking about it.
And we got a whole different subject
that we got talking about my endabinular positive light.
And I bring this up, and I share all this
to make your morning that much more uncomfortable, everybody.
I'm going somewhere with this,
because in all honesty, I think that, you know,
we're all gonna be dealing with things like this.
We're all starting our morning with something.
You know, maybe it's not as heavy as that.
Maybe it is heavier than that, who knows.
But we all have a, you know, the show must go on.
We all have things to do.
And that's not just our business lives,
but our personal lives.
And I think finding these moments
and finding these things that can be,
for lack of a better word, a segue,
can be very helpful, and can create content for our show.
So I thought, what's the state that has the most musicians?
And when I ask this question to you, to the audience,
feel free to call up 715-424-2600,
go ahead and share with us through the app as well.
You want to text us, that's cool.
We'll be keeping an eye on that.
Just off the top of your head, I asked that question,
what's the first state you think of?
I'm guessing you're gonna think big states.
Well, actually, I was gonna ask what the parameters are,
is it where they were born,
or is it where they're performing?
Because if it's where they're performing,
I'd say Tennessee, is that as Nashville?
Yeah, yeah.
If it's where they're born,
yeah, then things get a little more...
Yeah. I see there.
I think, certainly, fair, fair.
For me, I was thinking musicians
that were born in that state,
but it's a really, that's fun.
I like either one.
We can play with both of those,
and touch on both of them.
Okay, because otherwise, I'm gonna say Texas.
Texas is a great answer.
Texas is a great one, especially, how big...
It's also a really big state.
You're covering a lot of bases with that one.
It's a very smart call.
It's a very good one.
And there's some very rural areas where all you have to do
is maybe strum a guitar.
I was good. There you go, yeah.
But that was also not a great statement.
What's that?
I mean it in a negative way.
Yeah, we know what you mean.
I was gonna say New York off the top of my head
because it's one of the older states,
and it certainly,
while it isn't the biggest of some of the states,
it's older than a lot of them.
It's very populated.
Yeah, and you have so much a chance
to make a break in New York
than you do in other states sometimes.
But we're voting for it.
I would have been more inclined to say California
than New York.
Yeah, yeah.
And that would, you would have been right.
California has produced the most musicians
followed closely by other large states
like New York, Tennessee, and Texas.
What?
Yep.
So we named them all?
We got them all.
That's crazy.
Yeah, I don't know if we've ever done that before.
Where is Seth?
How is he missing my accomplishment here about music?
Thankfully, we podcast these
and we will make darn sure that he hears that.
So I like what you said though about the performing
because I wanted to look at that too,
and you had that one nailed
because Tennessee by far and away.
Yeah, they got Nashville.
Yeah, specifically the greater Nashville area.
It is really, that's the hub, that's the one.
We have a call.
But then I would, oh, oh, go ahead.
We want to talk to our colleagues.
Let's go ahead and take this call.
Good morning on the show.
Good morning.
I don't have anything about today subject,
but I would like to talk about Bobbler's.
Bobbler's?
Yes, yes.
I think I try to call and yesterday,
I just couldn't get it in and so on.
Well, yeah, but what were you going to reference that for?
They're like, we haven't received.
They're made out of cement, cast cement, I guess.
It's like a golf tee with a bowl on top.
And there was a pipe that run up to the middle
and that was unconsciously, all subalong.
It would bubble out of there.
Huh.
Okay.
It was holes alongside it
for it to drain back into the ground.
Sure.
We had those at most of the parts.
And they were like I said, they were cast out of a concrete.
That is really cool.
And it actually would bubble up.
So that's why we call him Bobbler.
I just learned something today and I love it.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
That is really cool.
Thanks for sharing that, sir.
We appreciate that.
Always good to talk to you too.
You have a good morning.
Yeah, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We love learning around here.
That is awesome.
That was great.
We appreciate that.
I did not know that.
No, I didn't either.
We appreciate you guys' calls.
You can bring up subjects from months ago, okay?
Everybody.
That's fine, please.
We like to talk around here.
You co-direct this show.
So please feel free to call it and change the subject or anything like that.
I was going to say that I'm surprised Louisiana didn't make the list at all with New Orleans.
It's a good one, yes.
And how much music happens there because, oh my goodness, that is a place that's on my
bucket list.
Well, and I looked at a couple of different websites and even just throwing it into your
search engines and everything.
And one of the interesting things I saw was that South Carolina kept popping up.
And I can see it.
The state is listed among those that produce a high number of musicians.
And certainly have a lot of performance there.
But I wouldn't have expected South Carolina.
I wouldn't have put them up there.
I would have put Louisiana, New Orleans in particular ahead of South Carolina.
Before South Carolina.
But, okay.
It's interesting.
I certainly got a plenty of great musicians from a lot of different states.
I find it interesting too when you find the states that you wouldn't expect an artist
to be from.
Or when you hear of an artist and you're like, okay, well, there's a couple of country
stars that I would have never expected have been born in California, you know, things
like that.
Yeah, it's interesting.
We also wanted to get into this one real quick before we go to break a carrot, a carrot,
a parrot.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
It's going to be that kind of border.
They rhyme.
It's okay.
That's this one letter up, dude.
You're fine.
A Prokosius pet parrot from China earned a Guinness world record for the fastest time
to identify 10 colors.
Wow.
Zigboi, a pet belonging to Quinn Fang, picked up colored straw balls and placed them into
bins of corresponding colors in 33.5 seconds, earning the title for the fastest time to
identify 10 colors by a parrot.
That's incredible.
Yeah, I know that a lot of people were following this race very closely.
For all 30, some seconds.
Right.
The parrot made one mistake during his attempt, placing a dark pink ball into a light pink
container, but corrected the air in time to capture the record.
So it even corrected itself.
Corrected itself.
See?
Birds are smart.
They really are.
Fang, who adopted the parrot when it was just a baby in 2020, said that it showed an early
love of playing with different colored balls, so he decided to train his pet to sort
the colors.
That's awesome.
Birds, especially birds that live in the wild, have certainly had to learn to do this over
the year.
Yeah, that's how they identify their food.
Right.
I guess I just, I really didn't think about this.
I really, I never thought about birds and colors or being able to identify them, love
the loan, being able to break a world record or...
Yeah, birds are incredible.
And we are talking about birds, so Melissa, I think you know where I'm going with this.
We could maybe get an update on your new roommates.
Yeah.
Lilo is doing good.
Did I tell you I had to move the cage to the floor so they can get in and out by themselves?
No, I didn't know.
Just won't work it?
Yeah, we're working on trust issues.
Yeah, obviously they don't like me.
Well, yeah.
But they don't, you know, we're not to the them coming to me stage yet.
So if I have to pick them up to get them out of their cage every day or put them back,
I think that it's a little, you know, invasive of their space.
So I want them to be able to decide when they come in and out.
I still am going to have to pick them up here again soon and trim their nails again,
because they're growing, you know, has nails do.
But they actually asked the other day to come out of the cage.
Oh.
So I got home because I had to do some running around and I got home and I was sitting
at the table working and they came out and stood in front of the door and then hold on
to get a sneeze.
Nope.
She said it.
It goes away.
They stood in front of the door and then just kind of like looked around and waited and
looked around and I was like, are you wanting to come out?
Do you want to come out?
So then I went over and of course they ran away as soon as they came close, opened the
door.
But then they came right out.
Oh, that is really cool.
Yeah.
So they were asking to come out of the cage, it was really, it's a step toward, you know,
building that trust.
And, you know, learning how to, you know, communicate to each other.
Understand each other.
I understand each other.
That's really, I'm sorry.
I'm fascinated by this.
Yeah.
I think it's really cool.
And their favorite treat is rice.
It is a myth that you cannot feed rice to birds.
Their bodies don't get hot enough to cook it.
This is not going to make their bellies explode like we were told as kids.
Yeah.
That did a number on a lot of us.
I think I mentioned before, you know, it's interesting to me that you, you getting pigeons
and we certainly, you know, like a lot of urban cities and everything, you have people
that have pigeons up on the rooftops and stuff.
We had some older kids in our neighborhood that did that and they would talk about how
these birds could fly like up and down the state pretty much and just doing things.
And that always, that was just logical to me.
The birds could do that.
But the idea of communicating like yours just did or this parrot with the colors, I think
I'm still, you know, learning about the animal world is just fascinating.
And the fact that we get to share this planet with animals is a gift.
It really is.
Yeah.
And that is the perfect way to put it.
We do share it with them.
And it is such a gift.
We appreciate the update Melissa.
Thank you.
I had a good look with that.
I hope it goes well.
We will come back and we'll do some celebrating with the El Café birthday and anniversary
club.
It's Melissa and James taking you through your morning at WFHR.
You heard pit bull time to do some celebrating with our great friends over at El Café and
the birthday and anniversary club.
We encourage you to treat yourself.
Get on over there today.
They're open.
There you are.
Two 21 market avenue, beautiful port Edwards.
Head on over there.
Check out some of those amazing specials.
Got some unique stuff today.
They do.
They got multiple kinds of Benedict, which is my absolute favorite breakfast.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
So they have a country style Benedict, which is buttermilk biscuits, talked with eggs,
sausage patties, and smothered in country gravy.
And Irish Benedict, this one is my favorite.
So it's potatoes covered with freshly sliced corn, beef, onions, peppers, cheddar cheese,
eggs, and hollandaise sauce.
This one is so good.
What are, I see that it served with tater tots, I believe, or cakes?
Yes.
Cakes.
I feel like I should know what that is.
Pancakes.
It is pancakes.
I knew that.
I just was testing the audience.
Well done, everybody.
And I think that TST is toast.
Oh, it's toast.
Because it's served over potatoes.
Yeah, it makes a lot worse.
That's it.
Yeah.
They go to go potatoes.
Well, you're right.
It's totally fine.
They're using kitchen jargon on there.
It's not.
I don't like that.
That's our challenge.
That's our challenge.
Why do they make that tougher than that?
I think that makes perfect sense, because actually the other way that I've had their Irish
Benedict is instead of over potatoes, they have it over an English muffin.
Which I think I honestly like that, but this one contains, it also includes the onions
and the peppers.
So yeah, I totally would go eat this.
Oh, yeah.
This, this sounds really good.
You got to check this out.
Everybody try it yourself.
Keep in mind the other stuff.
We've also got Charlie's favorites, Charlie's favorite over there as well in some other
great stuff.
And we want to remind you.
Do you see what's in that?
Real chicken, steak, chorizo, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and ranchero sauce wrapped in a
tortilla.
Charlie.
Charlie, I want to meet this.
I don't know who he is.
I've got a lot of food things in common.
Yeah.
I also wanted to remind you everybody that this Friday, you got plans.
September 12th, they are hosting a fish fry front rise fundraiser for the Port Edwards
Elementary School.
A percentage of the sales from four to eight will be donated to the school.
Great way to impact the future, great way to help out our good friends over in the Port
Edwards School District.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And when, when, and you get some amazing food while you're at it?
Other fish fries, just the best.
Yeah.
It's so good.
And while you can start ordering it at 10.30.
If you order after four on this Friday, that's when the Port Proci, part of the percentage
of the sales will go to the P-E-P-O depot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And be sure to make plans for that, everybody.
Looking forward to it.
That's going to be pretty cool.
Let's go ahead and dive into our local birthdays and anniversaries.
And we are able to do that because you send them to us, everybody.
Keep doing that.
Info at wfhr.com can email us that way.
You can direct messages on our Facebook pages.
And of course, you can call it on up.
That number is 715-424-2600.
If you have the civic media app, what you have, because you want to take us everywhere,
don't you?
And it's just a touch or two away.
We look forward to talking with you, everybody.
Feel free to call it any time.
Let's see here.
Melissa, I need a one or a two.
Two.
You know, says that one.
And we can get right into it.
First up, we want to wish Pam's brother-in-law and sister-in-law a happy 30th wedding anniversary.
Oh, wow.
Happy 30th, you two.
Bob and Carol Hilke over in Sun City West in Arizona, wishing them a happy anniversary.
Wow.
Well, they're going to be living it up and enjoying their anniversary.
From what I understand, I think the weather's pretty nice over there right now, too.
So get outside, enjoy yourself, have some fun in that Arizona sun and happy anniversary
to you both.
Happy 30th.
That's a great one, 30th.
Yeah.
Double check here.
What is a 30th anniversary?
I know, Pam put this in here a while ago.
Thank you again for that, Pam.
30th.
Pearl.
Pearl is the traditional gift.
The modern gift is the diamond.
Why?
Yeah, I know.
I don't know.
Why would that be the modern gift?
So they could sell more diamonds.
I don't know, I don't know.
It's weird.
But I like that.
I go ahead and get it.
I think the modern, I think we need to update the modern guest, James.
Yes, we do.
I think we could do that.
Yes.
It should be, it's like, no, no, it should be something like virtual reality has said.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe we can go not quite so modern and do like an MP3 player.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, I love this.
We need to do that.
That's fantastic.
So we take a look at our local list here.
And first up, we want to wish you happy birthday to Shirley Townsend.
Happy birthday, Shirley.
Enjoy your day.
Sure.
Hope it's a good one for you.
And our qualifier today, Walter Brown.
Oh, happy birthday, Walter.
Enjoy your day, sir.
Hope it's a great one for you.
You're our qualifier.
We encourage you to brag to all your friends, family, strangers that you are our qualifier
for the birthday and anniversary club.
Congratulations.
Taking a look at our celebrity list here.
Michelle Williams is 45, a wonderful actress.
And in the Venom movies, she was Glinda in Oz, The Great and Powerful, of course, in
Brokeback Mountain with her then husband, Heath Ledger.
Oh, yeah.
They had a wonderful daughter together, Matilda Rose, who was turning 20 next month, which
is incredible.
Wow.
I like Michelle Williams as an actor, very good actor, very strong worker, her work
in Brokeback Mountain, I think is overshadowed a little bit by Heath and Jake Gyllenhaal's
performance, but she's incredible in it.
I really liked her.
You still haven't seen that one yet.
It's a mover.
It'll move you.
Oh, she was in the greatest showman I love now.
Yes.
She's fantastic in that.
She is such a great co-star.
She really is a great compliment, and while also shining on her own.
But the way she handled things after Heath Ledger's death, there is no playbook for something
like that.
I will respect her to my last days of the way she handled that and raising their daughter
and all the different things they did.
There's a beautiful story of Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell and Jude Law, I think.
They did a movie and all the proceeds, the money that they made from the movie they gave
to Matilda, because it was a role that Heath Ledger was going to do until he passed.
I mean, it is, I like the movie, but it's not maybe the greatest movie to everybody,
but that movie is very special to me because of that.
What actors can do when they come together?
Yeah.
Forty-fifth to her, happy fiftieth to Michael Bubleier.
Incredible.
Great place.
Yeah.
Incredible corner.
Eric Stone Street is 54, Cameron, a modern family, huge Kansas City T-Fan, a good actor.
Henry Thomas is 54, Elliott from ET, happy birthday to him, and a very, very happy 59th
birthday to the Sandman, Mr. Adam Sandler.
Wow.
I don't know if I can give a better compliment than he's the closest for me I've gotten to
a robber Williams probably.
And I say that as not only as somebody who has influenced me so much from such a young
age, long before Sandler and I live, I remember enjoying Adam Sandler on a little TV show called
Remote Control on MTV, where he jumped on there, he was like 17, 16 or something, but he
would just jump on there and do these bits, and he did a great job, and then of course
his work on Sandler and I live.
You know, I've mentioned many times of well, they're between him and the Beastie boys.
They were one of some of the only things that as a young Jewish kid, you had to point
that and be like, okay, there's some representation, there's some, you know, and making it cool
to be honest.
You know, Jews and pop culture have not exactly been, you know, made James Bond or anything
like that.
They don't put us as action stars.
And I'm Sandler really tried to change that in literal way, in coming out with an action
movie with a Jewish man as the lead actor and a Jewish action star.
But it's also, I bring up the Rob Williams comparison because of the opportunity he has
gotten to show that, oh yeah, he can also do dramatic work.
And really should have been nominated for Uncut Gems, I would make an argument he could
have even won that year.
And it's cool to see, because we don't get to see this very often, but in this time,
what Rob Williams was doing, other actors weren't able to do, he stuck at it, he worked with
certain casting directors and he got an opportunity.
But you know, 20 years before, or I should say, five, 10 years before that, Rob Williams
would have never gotten those opportunities.
Know your comedic actor, you make people funny.
We don't want to take any chances putting you in a darker role.
That paves the way for people like Will Ferrell, John Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler and people
like that, even Melissa McCarthy, to do more dramatic work and show, oh yeah, you know
what, who some of the best dramatic actors are?
Because they get the whole spectrum of human emotion, they understand it better.
Sandler is, it's so cool to see where his career has gone and the respect that he gets
from people in the industry.
And I enjoyed him, like I don't like some of the stupid funny movies necessarily, but
some of his rom coms are good, the wedding singer, I love the wedding singer.
51states, big daddy, like those are so good.
I love big daddy.
You put him with Drew Barrymore or Winona Ryder and you got a good flick.
You got a good flick.
I don't care, I don't care about the script, I don't even care.
You put those three, like any of those combinations in there, I actually, I want to see all three
of them in a movie now.
I want to say, oh, Mr. Deeds, Mr. Deeds is an underrated one.
I love that movie, I love that.
That may be my favorite of all of his rom coms, I think, yeah, it's my favorite of all
of his rom coms, definitely.
Yeah.
You got John Tuturo too.
He's great.
I got to see that movie.
Being a look at some people no longer with us, we wish a very, or a topal, it would have
been born in this, it was born in this day, it would have been celebrating his birthday.
Born in 1935, he is the fiddler on the roof, Dr. Hans and Flash Gordon as well and a couple
of other roles.
But one of my bigger influences, one of my first influences, watching fiddler on the roof
with my mom and everything was a big part of my childhood.
Yeah, my too.
Again, there was not a lot of representation.
We took what we could get.
Topal, I can remember my mother telling me that, Jimmy, she wasn't going to ask me to
be a doctor or an attorney, that's what she wanted.
She wasn't going to ask me to play piano, even though she wanted me to.
But she told me, I want you to be the fiddler one day.
And as I am in my mid 40s, and I say to my mother, I don't think this is ever going
to happen, I don't feel I could ever fit that role.
I would try my hardest, but I don't think I could.
It is a classic, iconic role, though.
I really hope, when it comes to remakes and reimagining, that's one that I've really
tossed back and forth about, if they should remake fiddler on the roof.
I don't know.
I would like to see it done with an all-Jewish cast.
I would like to see it done with some modern touches, but at the same time, it's perfect
the way it is.
I don't think it needs to be touched.
Yeah, it's a great movie.
Otis Redding born in the state in 1941, R&B legend.
I would say that if you pressed me on it in my favorite song, it's probably sitting on
the dock of the bay.
And my it just might be a happy birthday, it would have been, it was only 26 when he passed
away, too.
So many other great songs, too, from Otis Redding.
Try a little 10 again.
There you go.
We'll be back after Melissa's news, Mike Sports, Pete's Entertainment, and so much more
for you coming up on The Morning Show at WFHR.
Welcome back, everybody.
Morning show here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
Melissa and James hanging out with you.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us.
Got some fun stuff going on around here, and Pam was nice enough to look up the temperature
in Sun City, Arizona.
It is 87 already there, heading to 104.
Oh my.
Okay.
So maybe it's not such a great day.
That is a different kind of heat, man.
That is a different kind of heat.
I don't even know what it would be like, even when I was living in California, I don't
know, I'm sure there were, but I don't remember days where it's like 84 before it's eight.
That's crazy.
This is an interesting one, Melissa, and I thought that you can come to this story from a
different angle than some out there as you are not only our head of news, but you are
certainly even before being involved in art news, you were involved in news in general
with the previous jobs and everything.
So I thought this was interesting when I came across it, a full third of Americans, a
full third, and a new poll claim they've never encountered a paywall while reading the
news.
33% said that they haven't.
We thought maybe a third of people would just read the news, but no, 95% of folks
pulled said that they do follow the news online.
So 95% of folks say that they follow the news online.
Since the last time you heard 95% of anything, that's a pretty impressive number, and I think
noteworthy.
27% also claimed that they've never encountered a paywall while watching e-streaming service,
and 49% said the same about playing games online.
The survey was done by the New York Times.
They put their mini crossword puzzle behind a paywall last month, I think that is noteworthy
with this story.
It's also found...
It's kind of funny.
It is kind of funny.
Thank you for it.
It also found 21% of us have started a paid subscription after getting blocked while
trying to read the news.
35% have done it because they want to do stream something.
Now I will admit, I've kind of been on two sides of this one.
At first, I was very frustrated by the paywall situation.
I don't like this, how dare you.
You never did this to me before.
I spent my first couple of years doing this show, and I still do, but I spent them a little
differently in the mornings where I would go through the morning paper, if you will,
online.
Looking at the New York Times, looking at the Washington Post, the California Sun Times,
looking at these different things, looking for content and articles, and trying to double
check and triple check facts and everything.
Then eventually, some of those services, like the LA Times, started going behind paywalls.
I was very frustrated by that.
What I'm more frustrated by is the losing journalism.
There's one thing that I want to get out there really quick.
When we're talking about journalism, newspaper, radios, any of these things, quit calling
them dying mediums, or they're dead or something like that.
There's a difference of a live and dead.
Can we agree on that, everybody?
Something is dead.
It doesn't exist anymore.
It is not around.
We still have plenty of newspapers in circulation.
We still have plenty of radio stations in very relevant in their markets and in the medium
in general, in social, in the world that we are constructed here, in.
These are still very important mediums that still matter quite a bit.
With that said, they only stay around if we invest in them.
If that's what it takes, that's the rub.
I try to be very selective about these things, where I'm going to do that, and part of that
comes to where the news that you trust.
Well, because of the way that things are, where our pay is at, who is investing in these
news departments, you have to make selective choices, or at least most of us can afford
to pay for everything, but you can afford to invest in one, and if that's your trusted
new source that's behind a paywall, and you can invest in them, then that's what you
can do.
But there is a lot of news out there that is not behind a paywall, like obviously that
33% have found.
That's true.
If you're just reading headlines, if you want to go in deeper, a lot of times you do
hit a paywall, but those are there for a reason because you have to invest in journalism
if you want journalism to stay alive.
Yeah.
I think we do the streaming service thing.
We don't think too much about that.
I think that we have to start looking at it a little similar, although they are very
different in the type of information that they are kicking out.
The content.
Yes, the content is definitely very different.
We have to be able to separate those.
But right now, one of the bigger conversations we've been having all summer really in the
sports world is, well, if you're a football fan, do you have a thousand dollars?
Because that's probably what it's going to take to be able to catch every one of these
games of your local teams, whether it's having three different, four different, I'm sorry,
streaming services, or having basic cable, or all these other things.
And then there's the red zone, there's NFL network, YouTube, all these different things.
It piles up.
And before you know it, you're spending how much of your paycheck on football, on sports.
Now we see a lot of people that have been willing to do this.
And I'm very curious to see what the streaming numbers are going to be like, although I doubt
we'll get a lot of the actual numbers from some of these people.
But I think one of the bigger fears on what you're talking, what you're bringing up, is
this idea of, oh, I got to choose between sports and news.
Well, we know where a lot of America is going to go with that.
And I love sports.
Sports is amazing.
I love sports.
Sports is not as important as news, not even close, and that's a dangerous place to be
in.
Because again, what you brought up at the beginning of this, which is probably the most
important part, I think, how much of a paycheck we have.
And this idea that, well, we're not raising the minimum wage in this state.
I haven't heard anybody barking about that.
I haven't heard anybody seem to go, I feel like I'm out on an island on this one.
I'm going, I'm taking crazy stuff.
When it comes to these things, if we're not going to see any change in pay, how can people
be expected to do that?
And that only benefits the people in powers of position.
That benefits nobody.
Doesn't help journalists.
Doesn't help us as citizens.
Only benefits the people at the top that are trying not to get this information out there.
Well, and the push to, okay, we need everything now.
We need it immediately.
We need it at our fingertips.
Not only works for certain things, true, I think that there is a loss of the understanding
of what journalism is.
Yeah.
Yes.
Broadly.
Well said.
I want to take a call real quick.
Good morning.
You're on the show.
Hello.
Your car warranty has about to expire.
Yes, exactly.
I was waiting for that.
It was.
It seemed like a real call there.
Yeah, I want to know from you guys out there how many of you are willing to do the paywall
thing and where you're going for your news.
We'd like to hear that.
They hear that from you.
And certainly, why don't we encourage you to go to our news because, you know, there's
no paywall.
There's no paywall.
No paywall.
And you can sign up for our newsletter at wfhr.com or wiry.fm.
It is the same newsletter for both stations right now.
But that is free.
And there's no advertising.
Nope.
Nope.
It's just straight up news.
Great, great, great reporting being done by our team.
I encourage you to check that out, everybody.
Well trusted source.
Go to wfhr.com.
And while you're there, maybe throw us your recipe, maybe we want more of your recipes
for our 85th anniversary edition cookbook, hopefully coming out on our anniversary in November.
That's coming up soon.
It's right around the corner.
Well, it's picking up steam too.
When we come back, five fast food items, professional chefs love.
Oh, this is going to be interesting.
We'll be back with that on the morning show on wfhr.
Welcome back, everyone.
Morning show at wfhr, 97 five fm 13 20 a.m.
Hope you all are having a great Tuesday morning out there.
Melissa and James hanging out with you.
Let's dive right into this, Melissa.
We got this from food and wine.
You can go there to food and wine.com if you'd like to see the complete article.
They asked professional chefs to name the top fast food items they personally love to
order.
And here's what they said.
So first up, Popeyes fried chicken.
Three different chefs had it on their list.
One of them said, quote, I have never considered Popeyes to be fast food.
To me, it's a fried chicken restaurant.
Okay.
No, I think that there's some similarity to that with a certain like culverse for us.
I don't think a culverse is fast food.
I know it is, but I've never really thought about that.
You have it.
It's made fresh.
It's not like some other fast food restaurants.
It feels like that's a big, you know, difference maker to me between fast food, you know, and
that.
And just the simpleness of what you do.
Yeah, that.
Well, and Popeyes fried chicken, it can't be frozen when they're putting it in the
fire.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's got to be made fresh.
I really, that's one of the top.
That's my guess.
I don't actually know.
Yeah.
From what I've heard, you're right.
It's one of the top fast food places I haven't been to, Popeyes.
I want to go to Popeyes.
Well, we don't have one around here.
I'm a little surprised by that, to be honest.
People love chicken around here.
I'm surprised there isn't more chicken places.
The Impossible Whopper.
It's a decent burger if you're looking for a vegetarian option.
Really?
I will say.
I've never had it.
I haven't either, but I will say as far as the vegetarian foods go, and especially in
the fast food industry, that's the one that stuck around.
Most of these places have kind of gotten rid of, or they just have it on their side menu
or as a side option.
Burger King has really still used that as one of their...
It's up there.
It's one of the bigger ones they promote.
Yeah.
I would be tempted to try that.
Usually, if I do go to Burger King, I get the chicken sandwich because it's nostalgia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I hear you.
Yeah.
But the french fries, they ruin the french fries.
They ruin the french fries.
It hasn't been the same since.
It will be completely honest about it, yeah.
Chicken nuggets.
Even food snobs love chicken nuggets.
Food and wine linked to a recent article on how elevated nuggets have even become a thing
at a handful of fine dining restaurants.
Yes.
We have your chicken nuggets here.
You asked for the eight piece.
We have a number of different dipping sauces here.
Here's some grape poupon, if you'd like.
But they got to jazz up the name.
Yes.
Nuggets?
Here's your diamond.
Chicken, chicken gold nuggets.
Yes, there we go.
Chicken gold nuggets.
You nailed it.
Yes.
Yes.
Everything has to have gold or diamond or something.
Oh, something.
Yeah.
That's it.
But chicken nuggets are amazing.
That, yeah.
Like, they just are.
Yeah, they are.
And McNuggets, because that's what they are, right?
That's what they were talking about.
So specifically from McDonald's, they do something with the breading on their chicken nuggets
that I don't think is similar anywhere else.
It's very crispy, which is harder to find in a nugget.
Yes.
And they just got a great flavor.
They really do.
I don't like a soft nugget.
Don't like it.
Don't like it.
Don't give me a soggy nugget.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
No like it.
And then in and out cheeseburgers.
And this is the only, although the impossible burger is a burger, this is the only one meatburger
that is on the list.
In and out cheeseburgers, the ingredients are fresh and just a solid burger overall.
The only catch is not always fast food.
The lines that in and out can be pretty long.
And that's true.
I've been to a lot of in and outs over in California there in Sonic, I went to a bunch
of those.
And you do, it is a little similar to callvers where you're going to wait a little bit.
I don't think, probably around the same pace, I would throw out there also portillos in
Illinois.
Portillos, you're going to, you're usually going to wait, but it's so worth it.
Oh god, it's a worth it.
We all know that something worthwhile takes time and it's better to wait for something
good than, than have fast garbage.
Why does that sound so familiar?
It feels like we were just talking about a subject.
It reminds me of news, food and news, huh?
You want to take your time with these?
Yeah.
Make sure you check your sources.
And finally, KFC's chicken sandwich.
The chef that listed it said that they were working on a fried chicken concept and tested
out every sandwich they could, KFC's was their favorite.
They didn't say it was the best, they just said it was their favorite.
Okay.
I used to go to KFC more often when I lived in Toma because they had a really good chicken
sandwich, but then they took the chicken sandwiches off their menu for a while.
Yeah.
Like you couldn't even get a chicken, they have like sliders.
Was your only option for sandwiches there?
So do they have a chicken sandwich, no?
That's a good question.
It's a very good question.
Yeah, I don't know.
And I don't think our KFC is even open right now, is it?
Yeah.
So the mystery remains.
Yeah, we're wondering.
And speaking of our KFC not being open, I know that you have been a little frustrated
yourself with a Taco Bell not necessarily being open.
There's big news.
There is big news.
There's big news.
It's part of the reason we did this store.
You want to say it or?
I can't think I did it too excited.
Taco Bell, for those who did not see, have been bringing back some items over the last
couple of years.
And they went real nostalgia with some of the recent ones and Melissa, they heard you.
They did.
They're bringing...
I can't believe it.
The seventh layer, bean burrito.
It is being brought back, everybody.
It is being brought back.
The other layer of burrito is coming back.
Yes.
Yes.
It is back.
Our long national nightmare, by that of me, Melissa's long national nightmare is slightly
over.
But now I'm going to have to drive like a half hour to get one.
Yeah, that's the thing.
There's the...
That would be how it works.
Isn't that just the luck?
Yeah, right.
Isn't that just that work?
That's just how it works out.
If you were going to...
I'm very happy for you about that, by the way.
I'm not too.
I'm excited.
Shout out to Laura.
She brought up a good point in the text chain there about Wednesday last time you went
to Culver's and there wasn't a line.
The only time I've been to a Culver's and there wasn't was picking up my sister when
she was done with work there.
And even then there was a bunch of cars because there's a bunch of great people to work
over there.
And you nail this, though.
We know this and we plan for it.
That's how much we love the food.
You don't expect it to be fast.
While we highlight Culver's, it's not just Culver's.
I think sit-down restaurants have done this for a long time, too.
And there's plenty of places that everybody has like their favorite go-to restaurant or
something like that.
I think those are important.
Again, it's always important to buy local and support local, those industries need it
especially.
Absolutely.
I only got a minute or so left here.
So I just want to throw this one out there to you and the audience.
If you had a professional chef in your life and you were going to bring them to a fast
food place, where would you bring them?
I think Culver's is a great option.
But I'm going to throw out there as well, Arbise.
I think I take it to an Arbise.
Different foods and the Jemokashake, the Jemokashake.
There are sandwiches.
I like just the roast beef sandwich.
It's good.
I've never had bad meal there.
You can't go wrong with bread and meat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also will say, and this is something that I've been much like my bacon double cheese
burgers.
I've tested the mozzarella sticks in almost every place around here, almost every joint.
They may have the best ones.
They may.
They're really good.
They're really good.
We want to hear your suggestions, everybody.
Keep in mind, this is all about supporting local as well.
We're having some fun here with this.
A lot of these places we have mentioned don't advertise with us, and that's okay.
We would like them to front desk 424-1300, but this is also what we do here at WFHR and
WRI.
We cover local, we support local, and that includes everybody.
So we want to hear from you about your local places and your local favorites out there.
That's where you like to eat.
And I'll be back with more show coming up right here at this is locally grown radio WFHR
1320 AM W24 ADE Wisconsin Rapids and always streaming of the Civic Media app.
