Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.
This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now, a guy who always looks ahead, even when parallel parking.
Pete Chwaba.
Welcome, welcome ladies and gentlemen.
This is Nightlight.
Thanks for joining us tonight on this Monday after a horrible storm.
Wasn't it a horrible storm?
You know, I'd, so yesterday I went to go get something for my brothers that was there in a storage because I didn't have room for it.
And we had like rain and an insane amount of wind
and then
hail for a little bit.
And then when we actually got to my house, it was snowing.
So I was like, I picked the worst day to do this possible.
Yeah, that may be.
I mean, we didn't get what they thought we were going to get though.
At least in Marinette, we were supposed to get like seven inches of snow on Sunday.
So we ended up taking my daughter back a day early from her spring break and point got it bad.
So I'm really hoping that's the last.
Yes.
We'll have to deal with
them.
I'm
hoping.
It was good.
It was kind of a false alarm, but that's better than.
Having it come out of nowhere and not expecting it like has been the case a couple times this winter at least on my drive home But this is nightlight folks.
You found us.
It's great to have you with us tonight on this Monday March 24th The first weekend of the NCAA tournament is in the books the box office underperformed I hope you had a good weekend.
It was constant badgers did not various movies did not but it was a it was a lovely weekend
you know, overall, I would say those two factors aside, I did drive to, I did drive to Stephen's point, I took my daughter back to college, and I know this is something that I don't know if it drives you as crazy as it drives me, but we stopped at a semi-fast food.
National chain, I'm not gonna say the name of it, but it rhymes with Ip Oatly.
Okay, no.
You know, when people, I don't know what happens after they train workers.
We went into this establishment, again, remain nameless, but their shirts were filthy.
They were like the uniform.
It's like, do you wash them when you go home?
You gotta wash your shirt.
That's your uniform.
You could literally take these shirts, like the old line from Cheers, Cliff says you could put Norm's tie in boiling water and make soup.
That's how these shirts were.
They had so much food on them.
And here's what drives me crazy too.
They tell workers, and we get this at where I get a sandwich occasionally in Marinette too, the workers have rubber gloves on.
But they handle money.
And they don't change their glove.
Like, I don't understand, like, why are you wearing them?
And at this place on Saturday where we went, someone nudged their nose with the glove.
It's like...
You don't want a little bugger in your food?
I don't.
I'm crazy that way.
But I don't understand.
It's like it goes in one ear and out the other.
You're in the food industry.
You have to practice cleanliness.
It has to be clean.
It has to be sanitary.
I
don't get it.
You know, I will say this.
I worked at a pizza place for a little over two years and...
that shirt that I wore sometimes just in a day would get filthy like that just in one day yeah I suppose that's that's fair and then I go home and wash it but the one thing I hate about any shirts that you give in the fast food industry no matter how many times you wash that thing it still smells bad
yeah
I smell like a
pizza place.
Every time I walked outside with that shirt on, every time I had it on, it was disgusting.
And it's not, I'm not like a lot of, look, I worked at a McDonald's in high school and you could eat off the floors.
It was that clean.
Yeah.
Um, so I'm not saying they're all bad and you're right, they may have just had a big rush, but I did the thing now, which I do.
And when they say, when there's room for a tip, I'll say, I'm happy to tip you, but can someone go wipe a table off for us?
There were three tables open.
And they were disgusting, and they said, oh yeah, right away.
I mean, if you bring your attention to it, they'll do it, and they're nice about it, but I shouldn't have to do that.
No.
The floor was, I mean, it was, they either had bustfuls of traveling young athletes coming through, and they trashed the place, or they're just not getting it done.
You know, I worked at like a sub place too, and I was so bad at making subs that they put me on duty, just cleaning tables.
Do you do that
on purpose the soda
machines and stuff?
I may have maybe could have done it Yeah, you know, but they put me on dish duty.
So
I think you could I think you could have made a sandwich if you put your mind to it But sometimes that that's funny when you go in it says subway sandwich artist and there's mustard and there's orange Marmalade or whatever.
It's like is that the canvas?
What is going on?
Hey, folks, be part of our break into spring text-to-wind statewide contest.
It's another awesome contest we're having here at Civic Media.
You have a daily chance to win a Chula Vista getaway, Milwaukee Brewers, club level tickets, club level Conrad.
Where is
that?
That's
near the club, right?
on that one level.
It's right behind home plate
too.
They're great seeds.
Yes,
they're great
seeds.
Or 100 bucks cash, who doesn't need that?
Plus every time you enter and you put into your grant, every time you do an entry, it goes into the grand prize drawing of, get this, a brand new Queen mattress set from Verlo.
That's where my bet is from, but I have a king, but it's awesome stuff there.
It's a new Queen mattress set from Verlo that includes a mattress, Queen set.
Sheet set, I'm sorry, mattress protector and pillows.
What do you think that mattress protector
is?
I have a mattress protector.
It's just a mattress pad, right?
Yeah, it's a mattress pad.
I've never heard of a mattress protector before.
Yeah, it's just a protect, you know.
If someone comes and tries to come in and stab you in the middle of the night.
Or you're eating some food late at night.
Okay.
You know, you drip down your PB&J, the jelly goes all over.
Someone could be a bed wetter, you don't know.
And pillows, ladies and gentlemen.
You do have to download the app to play.
That's the one catch.
It takes about two seconds though.
The app is very easy to use.
You won't regret it once you have it.
So definitely download the Civic Media app and play our break into spring text-to-win statewide contest.
Drawings, text-to-win times will be 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m.
and 4 p.m.
Listen for the daily word and text it right back in on the app.
It's 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m.
and 4 p.m.
and you could win
Every day, a Chula Vista getaway, Milwaukee Brewers Club level seats, or 100 bucks in cash.
It is a great contest.
Be part of it.
These are so much fun.
We are not eligible, is that correct?
Yeah, we're not eligible.
See, there's always a catch.
But daily prize and grand prize, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Can you tell, sometimes I show up here to the studio and I've been alone all day and I have not spoken a word.
It's like this is the first time I'm using my mouth.
And I can't even get my words out.
I noticed that a little bit.
Do you?
Would it kill you to say, hey, Pete, you're coming into work soon?
Let's have a phone conversation.
Let's have a little poetry slam or something to get the old lips flapping.
You know, you could you could do those those acting things on your drive down here.
Yeah.
Topeka bodega Topeka unique New York unique New York.
Folks, I have a great show for you guys tonight.
Two phenomenal guests.
I'm very excited about this first guest.
He made a film, a documentary called A Road at Night, and it tells the story of Howard Moore.
Howard was a UW men's basketball player in the early to mid 90s.
Chicago kid came up.
He was on the first team.
The first Badger team that made the tournament in 47 years.
Rashad Griffith was on that team, Michael Finley, Tracy Webster.
They just had a phenomenal cast of players.
Howard was part of that.
He went on to become a UW men's coach.
And then several years ago, I want to say six years ago, he was involved in a terrible car accident where he lost family members.
And John Roach, who will be here at 635,
phenomenal filmmaker.
He co-wrote the straight story, which was an Oscar nominated film with Mary Sweeney directed by David Lynch.
And he created other stuff too.
He's a great producer, great filmmaker.
He'll be here at 635 to talk about his new documentary, A Road at Night.
It's the story of Howard Moore.
And if you are a fan of UW basketball, there's so much stuff in there for you to, stuff I forgot when I was watching it today.
All these great stories and great stories about Howard Moore and what
just what a great person he was and how infectious his attitude was.
They called him several guys on the team and coaches called him the best teammate they've ever had, which if you're not like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, that's about the best compliment you can get.
However, there was a tragic accident and John made a film about this and it's gonna premiere at the Wisconsin Film Festival in just a couple weeks.
So you can still get tickets for it.
John will be on to discuss that and many other things.
I'm gonna ask him, I had the opportunity to interview John on PBS Wisconsin a couple weeks ago and he's a really good interview and a really good guy.
He'll be here at 635 and then this is exciting too.
You ready for this Conrad?
Oh, I'm ready.
There's a new stage play live.
theater, legitimate theater, as Homer Simpson would say.
Ed Gein, the musical, will be showing from April 4th through the 6th in Oshkosh, and a young actor named Ezekiel Druze, who plays Ed Gein in the show, will be here to talk about the show at 7.35.
There's a whole cast of characters that are kind of semi-regulars on Nightlight.
Dan Davies, and I don't want to leave anybody's name out, but...
I know Dan wrote the original independent film, which became a cult classic.
I think our pal JB Thompson is involved with the film in some capacity.
And Ezekiel would be here.
He is the lead role of Ed Gein.
He'll be here at 735.
So two fun guests.
And our question of the night, we got to get to this Conrad.
We're running out of time here in this first segment.
It is National Cocktail Day.
So our question of the night is coming up.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Pregunta.
Question.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Domanda.
Question.
Question.
Questions.
If you could only have one more drink, that's it.
What would it be?
Yeah, I assume people will respond with a cocktail.
Manhattan, old-fashioned, martini, a beer.
Good glass of wine, whatever it is, but you can only have one more drink.
What are you choosing in honor of National Cocktail Day?
I think for me, I think it would be a dirty, nice dirty vodka martini.
Not total dirt, a splash of dirt, a little bit of olive juice in there, but man, for a guy who hasn't drank in two and a half years, that's all.
I think that's what I would do.
What would you do?
It would have to be...
A mojito.
Oh,
mojito's good too,
yeah.
That's my favorite all-time drink, so it'd have to be that.
God,
a margarita would be good too.
There's so many drinks to choose from.
Let us know.
855-752-4842-855-756.
What is your drink if you could only have one more?
It's National Cocktail Folks Cocktail Day.
Pour one.
and listen to the rest of the show and be here and join us and be part of the fun here on Night Light tonight.
We got a great show, John Roach coming up at 635, Ezekiel Drews at 735.
And we'll read your texts when we come back and talk a little bit about the Badgers.
It's Pete Schwabba and Night Light on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome
back.
Our question of the night is if you could only have one more drink, what would it be?
It is national cocktail day, ladies and gentlemen.
And it begs the question, one more drink your whole life.
What are you gonna sip?
Nurse?
Suck down?
Guzzle?
However you do it, let us know what your drink of choice is.
You can text us on the app, very easy to use, and you need it to play the new Civic Media Spring Break giveaway as well.
And it's very easy to text off the app.
You can text us old school at 855-75-248-428-5575.
Civic, and if you're listening on the stream, that is fine too, folks.
It's just great to have you.
AJ says, hi, Pete and Conrad.
I'm super excited for the Wisconsin Film Festival.
That makes two of us, AJ.
Well, either of you be down in Madison during that time.
And if I had one last drink, it would be an Irish coffee.
I don't care about quality of coffee or liquor, just give me coffee, whiskey, and some sort of Irish cream.
Wow, that's a great answer.
AJ, I will be at the Wisconsin Film Festival for the first four days or so.
I'll be hosting the Meet the Parents event.
They're going to show the original film, the indie film shop by Greg Leanna.
I will be hosting the Q&A there.
That's Saturday afternoon.
But say hi if you see me.
I'm all over the place during that week.
It's a fun time.
Brian from Milwaukee says, dirty Shirley.
What was that?
We had that.
Somebody else liked the dirty Shirley on the show.
I
got to look it up.
I got to go to the Google.
A Shirley Temple is a non-alcoholic.
So maybe they just put whiskey in there.
Maybe it's like an old fashioned.
I've been Brian too now.
I'm embarrassed.
I forgot what a dirty Shirley is but
It's all right, so I have heard so it's vodka lemon lime soda ice grenadine and then cherries Okay, Marchino.
I think that's how you say it right
sounds delish.
You know cherries.
Yeah, Tom from New Berlin says a five-gallon muddled Old-fashioned brandy of course sure I guess I never specified how big the drink could be Tom says five gallons.
I mean if you're gonna
Go that route, Tom, just say an endless drink.
Anna, for Madison, this is a high-peton Conrad.
My last drink would be a rum and Coke.
That's a good one.
That's a popular bar drink in Wisconsin.
A rum and dyes.
It really is.
It really is.
We have a call?
Yes, we do.
Oh, who do we have?
Ollie from the Northwoods.
Ollie!
Ollie, how are you?
I well.
Well, I'm not a big drinker, but I will tell a little story about years and years and years ago.
My sister and I went to a place and they used to have a mix that was called Herford Cow and it came in flavors like chocolate or vanilla or banana or strawberry.
And after we had a few, then we asked the bartender if he could mix us up, uh, one with all the flavors together.
And he said, well, what do you call that?
And we said, Oh, we call it a stampede.
So a stampede would be good.
A stampede would get the job done.
It sounds like
you bad.
Oh
Ali, that's fantastic.
Thank you as always for the call.
Have a great night.
Or maybe I would go with the stampede.
I don't know.
That's so interesting.
It did.
From the 262, listening on WAUK, they say a Moscow mule.
Oh, yes.
There you go.
You said mojito, right?
I do.
But
a good Moscow mule is really,
yeah.
Absolutely.
Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids says, pour me a blast.
Cheers.
That's not a bad way to go.
I mean, if it's your last drink, why tease yourself?
Throw down a blast.
I get it Tyler Carolyn from Heartland says love a good Cosmo.
Okay You and Michael Scott from the office.
He loves his Cosmos.
That's a great one Monica from Mount Horrib says a chocolate martini Believe it or not, I've never had a chocolate martini.
You know what?
I
had a
I Key lime martini once
and
it was
amazing
Monica says also the Bartell Theater in Madison is now playing films.
This Friday is hundreds of beavers.
Haven't seen it yet, going based on your recommendation.
Be sure and tell them it's based on our recommendation, Monica, when you show up at the theater.
That's a great little theater and a great little movie, which isn't even a little movie anymore.
I think it's grossed over a million bucks as like $150,000 independent film.
Very funny.
Would love to hear what you think of it, Monica.
after you've seen it.
Ed in Madison says, perfect Manhattan, two ounces of rye, one ounce of sweet vermouth, one ounce of dry vermouth, five to seven dashes of Angostura bitters.
I don't know if I'm saying that right.
I didn't know, actually I did know there was bitters in Manhattan.
He says, shake with ice, 15 to 20 seconds, serve straight up with a thin orange peel, squeeze the peel over the drink, Ed in Madison.
Well done Ed, that was poetry buddy.
Steve in Florida says, in honor of Wisconsin being the dairy state, my last drink would be vanilla ice cream mixed with Brandy.
I think that's a Brandy Alexander, right?
Some like that, yeah.
Or very close to it, yeah.
Conrad's mom checks in and says, I like Wisconsin Brandy old fashioned sour.
I found out that other states do not make old fashions the same way.
Yeah, we're kind of like the old fashioned state, I think.
Yeah, just do it a little differently here.
I like whiskey old fashioned myself
Yeah, I feel like a lot of other states make it where you can really taste the alcohol.
Yeah, totally.
We do not hear
all right Hey, are we good on that clip?
Not yet.
Not yet.
All right.
We'll play it when John's here.
We have a clip from The film a road at night the director and producer John Roach is here to discuss his film which we'll be playing at the Wisconsin Film Festival Sunday April I think that's the sixth
I think it's the sixth, yeah, at the Barrymore Theater.
John is an accomplished writer, producer, director.
He co-wrote the straight story with Mary Sweeney, and it was directed by David Lynch back in, I want to say, 2000 or 1999.
And there were Oscar nominations tied to that film as well.
He's a very talented guy.
He'll be here after the news, and we will discuss a road at night.
A film that, for me, it's a tragic story of Howard Moore.
former Wisconsin basketball player and coach.
But hearing these guys talk about him and talk about Wisconsin basketball in a weird way made me feel better about what happened this weekend.
The story is not...
It's not a it's a fun story until the end.
It's a tragic thing But Howard Moore was just a the story needed to be told John did a great job telling the story and it's about one of UW Madison's own a very cool film and we will talk to John about that film after the news Civic Media's news team folks is waiting To tell you what you need to know So listen to it absorb it
and move on with your life accordingly.
John Roach is here in just a few minutes.
Ezekiel Drews at 735 talking about Ed Geene the musical.
We are coming right back.
Do not go anywhere.
It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome
back.
This is Nightlight.
Great to have you with me tonight, folks.
On this Monday night, I am Pete Schwabba, riding shotgun as always.
Not always, but as usual.
Conrad, the K-man Krieger.
Or is it Kruger, Kroger?
I don't know what's going on with your last name, but...
One of those was good.
Ezekiel Drews will be here at 7.35 tonight, folks, to discuss Ed Gein, the musical, which will be playing in Oshkosh April 4th through the 6th.
I would love to attend that, and I'm anxious to see that play, but I will be in Madison this year at the Wisconsin Film Festival, as I am every year, representing...
PBS Wisconsin, and introducing films and hosting Q&As, and having a grand old time at what is one of the most underrated and really cool film festivals around the Wisconsin Film Festival.
And playing at the Film Festival is a film called A Road at Night, a documentary about former UW-Madison men's basketball player and coach Howard Moore.
It will screen this year on Sunday.
I believe it's April 6th at the Barrymore in the evening.
I will get that information to you.
Or we can ask our next guest, who is the filmmaker and creative force behind the film, John Roach.
He joins us now on the stream.
Hey, buddy.
Hey, how are you?
I'm doing very well.
Look at that.
Look at that.
Look at that.
Look at that office chair, man.
You are styling.
That's a, that's a.
You know, if you're a director, you have to set up a good shot.
You know, that chair screams success.
It screams aging back
from high school
football of that.
That'll work too.
Hey, great to have you.
How you doing tonight, John?
I'm doing great.
Got a little cough.
I inherited another virus from my grandchildren, but doing fine.
I'll kick it.
But yeah, pretty good.
Disappointed with the Badgers this weekend, but they had a wonderful season and it was a heck of a college basketball game.
You know, I was saying that before we went to the news, how much I liked watching your film today.
I've still got a few minutes left of it because I got distracted as I often do during the day, but it just made me so happy to be a Badger fan.
You just, you really showcase...
in the film, that community in Madison, and sports, they have it.
I think Wisconsin, they just won the state championship for Girls Hockey.
It's just a great community.
National championship, yeah.
National championship.
And you brought that out in this documentary.
Now, it's about Howard Moore, and it's kind of a tragic story.
So before we jump into the documentary, can you tell us a little bit about Howard as a person?
Sure.
I knew him enough to nod at him in passing.
If you're in Madison and, you know, you hang out around the university environment, I grew up like four blocks from Camp Randall on the near west side of Madison.
And Tim Valentine, who's one of the executive producers along with George Hamill, Tim is represented as an agent.
I'm both hanging with Tim, who's a great friend.
I run into these guys or I meet him or I'm at a, you know, having beers with him.
And so I knew Howard enough to nod at him.
And obviously I remember him when he was an athlete.
But I didn't know him that well.
And to some extent, I think it made the piece better because...
There was a lot of a journalistic exercise in the documentary.
There was not a lot known about the accident.
We developed the backstory on Jennifer, his wife, because it wasn't just about Howard.
It was
about Jaden, Jennifer, and his son, Jarell.
So I didn't know him that well, but after the first round of interviews with his teammates in the balcony of the old field house,
didn't take much to figure out that he was beloved, as was Jen.
He was an unselfish player.
He played a huge role in getting Michael Finley and Richard Griffith and Tracy Webster to Madison, which really took the lid off the program, as Tom Oates says in the piece.
But it's not really a basketball story.
Basketball is the stage upon which a bigger story plays out.
And a more important story in some ways.
You know, it's interesting you say that.
I was kind of trying to figure out today how to frame, how to bring you on.
And because you're right, it is about his family and the horrible tragedy.
It was a car accident in Michigan.
But you have so much leading up to that story before we meet his family about Howard and...
How do you tell people, like if you went to someone, John, and said, I have this documentary, what's your elevator pitch?
Because it's just a great story.
Every aspect of it is fascinating.
The one line that jumped out at me was, when the worst of times bring out the best in
people.
because the community has just rallied around the Moors.
And there's also a quote from James Baldwin that in doing the research I came upon, and James Baldwin's quote was, life is tragic and therefore unutterably beautiful.
Because in the midst of this tragedy, there were so many beautiful moments.
His teammates came from all over the country within 12 hours.
His hospital room was filled.
There's been a tremendous amount of support for the Moore family.
Tim Valentine has been helping the Moors out for five years.
Several teammates, well, here's a great example.
We were shooting interviews in the Moore household of Howard's father, Howard Trennis, his mother, and his brother Darnell.
And all of a sudden, there's a big truck in the driveway.
And so we stopped.
taping because it was an audio issue and a huge container is unloaded.
Michael Finley had a hyperbaric chamber delivered to Howard's home to aid in his recovery.
Wow.
Who does that?
That's
incredible.
Yeah.
And, um, he, uh, Howard is in a striker bed.
Moselle Peterson, his teammate works for striker, got him the bed.
I mean,
this guy is Howard is beloved.
And when I interviewed his teammates, I was set to go.
I mentioned one of the teammates that we're shooting out at the Moore's house.
And I mentioned it to Chris Conger, who spent a lot of time on the bench with Howard.
Howard had 100 points total in his whole career, but he was a great teammate.
And I said, we're going to be interviewing Trenes Moore and Howard Moore Sr.
and Darnell.
And Chris Conger goes, oh my god, Darnell.
He was 10 years old when we were playing.
I used to sneak him into the shell in my duffel bag.
Because if you remember anyone who went to Wisconsin, getting into the shell was like trying to get into a nuclear missile silo.
It was really hard to get in.
And in the off season, all of our city players would hold court.
And Darnell would come up from Chicago to visit Howard.
He was a great brother.
And so Chris smuggled them in in a duffel bag and they, you know, set his duffel bag down at center court and then a kid would jump out of the bag.
So that's pretty good.
But there's just a lot of love in the piece, Pete.
Yeah,
just a lot of love in the piece.
Definitely.
All right.
So tell us about.
the movie, John, because people that are listening right now probably are wondering what happened.
I kind of gave broad strokes, but tell the story of the tragedy and how this documentary came to be out of that.
Sure.
So Howard had returned to the University of Wisconsin campus after being there as a player to be an assistant coach, first for Bo and then for Greg Gard.
They were, you know, coaches don't get a lot of time off, but Memorial Day is one of those little windows, you know?
And so Jennifer, Howard, Jayden, and Jarrell were in their car.
They drove to, in their SUV.
They drove to Chicago to visit Howard's parents.
And as many people do, they were leery of rush hour traffic.
So they headed to Detroit to visit Jennifer's mother at about 11, 12 at night.
so they would get out of Chicago.
And it's about a three hour four hour drive to Detroit from Chicago, but a lot faster if you're not hung up on traffic.
So they stopped for gas outside of Ann Arbor, got back on M5, which is kind of like an interstate highway.
And Jen took over for Howard at the wheel because Howard was tired.
And while they were filling up,
for gas a young woman named Samantha Winchester was leaving a bar that she was at with two friends her friend was a bartender and then a friend who is sitting alongside her and Samantha consumed about seven drinks most of the majority of them heart liquor in about an hour and a half and she was a slight woman and her friend said stay with me she said no i'm fine to get home she got on
M5 and somewhere in the night on this road at night, Samantha got confused and did a U-turn in the middle of the interstate and barreled down the highway and hit the Moors head on as they were coming around a turn on this interstate.
The car was engulfed in flames.
Jen was a flame.
Howard was burned on the upper
third of his body, but Jarrell was able to pull him out of the passenger side, went back to get his sister, Jayden, in the way back of the SUV.
The family dog jumped into his arms, and he was trying to get Jayden out, but the flames are so bad, people are pulling him away.
The dog jumped out of his arms to be with Jayden, and they both perished in the back of the truck.
Jen perished later at the hospital.
Howard's teammates sprang into action.
But the heart of the story, Pete, it's about drunk driving.
Once every 37 minutes in America, someone's killed in a drunk driving crash.
And Samantha was a nice young woman.
She and her friends didn't make one good decision that night, not one.
when they had several chances to make one good decision.
And so I think that the doc is about, when you head out into the night, be careful that you don't set off a cascade of events that can affect a family and a community forever.
And the storytelling came in because in order to know what was lost, you had to know the mores.
Right.
And they were truly beloved.
Howard was an unselfish guy.
One of the most troubling things about it is Howard was a wonderful athlete, 6'8", and he was one of the most perilous guys you'd ever meet.
And now he can't walk and he can't talk.
And he lost his wife and daughter, and it's like the book of Job.
I will say George Hamill, who's an executive producer in Tim Valentine, they just didn't sit idly by.
Right after the accident, COVID descended upon the land.
And as we came out of COVID, George really echoed what a lot of people were saying is, what's going on with Howard?
How is Howard?
And once George understood Howard's condition, which is very challenging,
He and Tim were talking.
They were actually at a football game.
And they said, we got to do something for Howard.
And we have to let people know what happened and how he's doing now.
And we have to raise some money for him.
So Tim and George is a great guy.
His sister was in my fifth grade class at Blessed Sacrament Great School in Madison.
And they talked to me.
And I said, this is not just a four minute piece.
To me, and I think they were thinking the same way.
I said, this feels
Like a documentary, there's a lot of story to be told.
The film is a road at night.
My guest is John Roach.
He is the director of the film.
It plays Sunday, April 6th at 7 p.m.
at the Barrymore Theater and tells the story of the Moore family and a tragic accident.
But not just, I mean, you also, you have the tragedy in there, John, but you have this great story about two really, including his wife and how they met and the kids and how Howard came up playing basketball.
And I want to ask you a little bit after a very short break about his connection to Madison.
And maybe we could tell a little bit more about the person Howard is to the listeners right now when we come back.
John Roach is here.
We'll get into that and learn more about Howard Moore after this very short break.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back.
Tonight Light, I am Pete Schwabba.
And we are doing Monday the way Monday should be done.
We're talking about a couple of really cool movies.
Ezekiel Drews will be here at 735 to talk about Ed Gein, the musical.
We had a chance to talk to Ezekiel a little earlier and we will play that at 735.
Right now, my guest is John Roach.
He is an accomplished writer, producer, and Wisconsin native.
His most recent project is A Road at Night.
And you can see it at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
It tells the story of Howard Moore and his career at Wisconsin and a tragedy that happened to his family during a drive from Chicago to Michigan.
And John, as you mentioned, it's really a story about just people making a mistake and how it affects people.
It was so fun in your film to get to know who Howard was and
I
love I love early on his dad says You know his dad wanted him to go to Northwestern.
He said dad.
I want to go to Wisconsin He took a visit to Wisconsin and he said to his dad I just want you to know if I like to visit I'm going there He
already
seemed to have had a connection with Wisconsin.
Is that because of recruiters or why was he drawn there?
You know, I
think it was just the vibe
Um, Howard was more than an athlete.
He was a student leader.
He was like an ombudsman for the basketball program to the student population at large.
And I think he just strolled around and said, this is, this is me.
I
can do
this.
Um, and you know, there's a funny, there's so many beautiful little anecdotes and the film, obviously there's a tragedy, but there's so much.
There's forgiveness.
There's love and there is hope.
Howard's making incremental improvements every day, and his son, Jarrell, is a star.
He's just a wonderful young man.
But one anecdote that I loved, Howard's dad, Howard's senior, who was retired engineer in Chicago.
I said, so you came up for all the games?
He goes, I did come up for all the games.
Sometimes my wife would go with Michael Finley's wife, and they would drive up.
And I would take the country roads to Madison because I loved looking at all the cows.
And it's also about the undying bonds of teammates.
There are certain experiences in your life, like being a teammate or being in the military in combat or being in a rock and roll band, whatever it might be, where you're subjected to a certain level of intensity together as a group.
And these guys are bound for life.
They are brothers.
And to be a witness to the love that they have for each other was an honor, truly an honor.
Yeah.
That's a great, to me, personally, that's my favorite thing about the whole film is hearing the teammates talk.
Rashard Griffith, Michael Finley, and Tracy Webster, you forget Andy Kilbride, what a team they had then, too.
Oh, they had a great team.
We'll
talk about that in a minute, but we have a clip here that I want to play that we were unable to play earlier.
We have a clip from, this is a clip from a road at night, John's film, which will be playing at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
Let's hear that now, Conrad.
The phone's ringing.
I'm like, why is Joe Kravinoff calling me at six in the morning?
I saw a tweet early that Saturday morning that just said, we're praying for Howard.
And I was like, huh.
So now I was like, OK, this got to be something.
So let me ask him like, hello?
Am I a big bro?
Are you sitting down?
I pull over, and I make the call, and Rashard told me what happened, and...
He was hysterical on the phone.
And I was like, well, maybe it's somebody else.
It was Greg Gard, a coach.
I got bad news for you.
You just can't imagine anything of that magnitude happening to a family and to someone that you love and you care about.
Really powerful.
You have great interviews, John.
Thank you,
Pete.
You've got Bo Ryan, Greg Guard, Barry Alvarez.
I'll just tell you this.
When I started, we both discussed our connection to Chicago and Wisconsin.
Yeah, right.
I had only lived here for middle school and high school and I couldn't wait to get back to the big city.
But I became a Badger fan.
In like 1990, I want to say it was, I was working the
front.
Good timing, Pete.
I know, how about that?
I was working the funny bone in Pittsburgh and this guy comes up to me after the show and he says, hey, really great job.
We start talking.
Turns out it was Barry Alvarez's brother and he said my brother just took the, cause I did a couple of jokes about Wisconsin.
He said my brother just took the head coaching job for the football team.
I was like, oh, no kidding.
So I started following Barry Alvarez and I was hooked on the football team and the basketball team as well.
It was a great time to become a Badger fan because
The whole school just took a different turn when those two teams in particular became competitive.
And like you say in your documentary, it was the first time they made a tournament appearance for the basketball team in 47 years.
Well, what's interesting is that both the basketball and football programs were ascendant at the same time.
Yeah.
And Barry Alvarez knew all those guys because the basketball offices and the football offices were adjacent to each other in Camp Randall at that time.
They hadn't remodeled anything and the big television money hadn't dropped yet.
And so, you know, Barry, you know, he just was great at working with young guys.
He'd see Richard Wanderthru and Mike Finley Wanderthru and
Andy Kilbride talked about how the Barry's program, the energy from what Barry was doing, fed into the basketball program and vice versa.
So it was just young guys having success in a program that it hadn't had any.
That's a great story.
When we come back, can we keep you through the news, John?
Are you good on time?
Sure.
All right.
I'd love to ask you for some more questions.
One of the ones I want to ask you about is a great story that Andy Kilbride.
tells about getting his haircut.
Howard wanted to cut his hair.
And this just shows what kind of person Howard Moore was.
It's a great story.
You're going to
want to stick around for it because it's just a great story.
And we're talking about A Road at Night.
It plays at the Wisconsin Film Festival Sunday night, April 6th.
at the Barrymore Theater.
John will be there and it's a great place to see a film and a great film.
We're coming right back after the news here on Nightlight with Pete Chihuahua on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
