The New WGBW (Hour 2)

Broadcasting live statewide from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba, your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now a guy who wanted to be in porn but didn't have the acting chops, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to Nightlight.

Ladies and gentlemen, great to have you with me.

Happy Wednesday, everybody.

We are halfway through the week, a little more than halfway.

If you work a nine to five, I'm getting there.

Great to have you with me.

We have a really fun show tonight.

And it's interesting that you picked, Conrad, that lead-in that I wanted to be in porn, but I didn't have the acting chops because I don't know if you've heard the Hollywood Beats all day, but I broke a big story about the celebrity sex tapes.

Yeah,

yeah.

So that was interesting.

I feel like that'd be a really interesting show, you know?

Yeah.

Are you going to watch?

I don't know.

I did watch something last night.

Really?

It was the Virgin Show.

Oh, did you really?

It was absolutely

awful.

Are you my first?

It's called, right?

Really?

Yeah, it was awful.

How could it not be?

The lines, like, they have two narrators, a woman and a guy.

And they say...

The woman talks for two lines and then the guy says like we just broke your two-person virginity of a of narrators on a virgin show Wow is that a bad joke and that's not even a joke that was like two minutes into it.

I was two minutes into the show

So for lack of a better phrase they shot their wad in two minutes.

It was that's terrible

every line that they had that was like making a joke on virgins

Some of the worst writing I've ever heard and I'm surprised that they didn't like stop what they were doing there be like Are you sure you wanted me to say this?

It was it was terrible and the the people in it are like

Do you believe their virgins?

Some of them.

Yes.

Okay others.

No,

I think they're faking it It was

it's it's bad TV

You know, it's like you can watch that those bad TV shows like to hate watch it or cringe watching this is like a new Ultimate of cringe watching

We're talking about a show called are you my first it's something we kind of Elaborated on a bit yesterday.

It's a new Netflix reality show where people lose their virginity on a reality show

And most of them say they were waiting for that special moment, I guess, when a streaming platform came along to broadcast it.

That's what Conrad is talking about.

Doesn't sound like you're endorsing the show.

It's terrible.

I

watched one episode.

Well, not even one episode.

I watched like 30 minutes because I was like, all right, this has got to get better at some point.

And it just kept getting worse and

worse and worse and worse.

Those kind of shows, if they are bad out of the gate, they aren't going to get better.

It was so bad.

That sounds

terrible.

Like, in like 35 minutes into it, they introduced a new character.

Not a character, a new guy who's a virgin on the Bachelorette.

And all the guys were like, no!

What are we supposed to

compete

with him?

He's got reality show experience.

That's so bad, right?

Can't even like I am laughing though because you said 35 minutes into it like you're still watching and then you're like and then in episode 4 I couldn't believe when they How many

minutes

screen time are you gonna give them?

You

know, I pretty much shut it off after I heard that line of how are we supposed to compete with them?

I was like, oh brother.

Oh That's so funny.

I'm guessing the show has no nudity or sex either which I mean not if you're gonna have a show about virginity and

you know, attractive people, which I saw on the ad.

It looked like, you know, people that are attractive, it's not, and there's tons of reasons why people don't lose their virginity.

It has nothing to do or it doesn't always have to do with looks.

It could just be like in the movie, the 40 year old virgin, they missed their chance or whatever.

Or like, let's say you're being, you're waiting for marriage and then it doesn't work out.

And it's like, well, I'm 26 now.

What are the girls in it?

equated herself with Queen Elizabeth saying, do you think Queen Elizabeth slept around?

No.

And then she did it in a British accent.

I don't think so.

Oh God.

You gotta find some clips of that.

We gotta play

some

of those.

What?

Please keep watching that and let's find some clips.

That's awesome.

All right, lots more great conversation to come folks.

We are just talking about a show about virgins and that's our opening act because we're gonna talk about

Celebrity sex tapes tonight?

I swear I'm not turning this into a Dr. Ruth type show, but it's just these two shows are out at around the same time and celebrity sex tapes, they promised to reveal the truth.

Or the hidden, I'm sorry, the hidden secrets behind celebrity sex tapes, which is weird because they're kind of out there.

And I think some of them legitimately got stolen from homes.

Like I think Pamela and Tommy Lee's sex tape was stolen.

by construction workers, if I remember correctly.

But nowadays, it's like everybody's got a sex tape.

I feel like I'm the only person without a sex tape.

Well, you know, like the intro said, you didn't have the acting job.

I can't act.

I have a terrific body.

I just can't deliver a line.

But there's all kind of, they're everywhere.

I know Colin Farrell, they say has one.

Pamela and Tommy Lee.

There was Jane Kennedy.

who used to host an NFL show in the morning on Sunday mornings.

And there was a, God, she was married to a boxer named Isaac, something or other.

They had one.

That was the first one I was ever aware of.

And I remember thinking, oh my God, that's horrible.

Can you imagine if a tape like this got out?

And then you realize some people might want them out there.

Like I'm so suspicious of the Kardashian one.

Like they're just publicity hounds.

I believe that was on purpose.

What was his name um RJ or something

Ray J Ray J. Yeah,

maybe it was him Cuz he's like I want to be more popular

maybe it was him.

I'm not saying it was Kim Kardashian But I wouldn't put it past the Kardashian family to do something like that, but yeah, he had a lower Q rating.

I'm sure then Kim And that guy was a good actor.

I didn't even know he was an actor.

There's I'm kidding.

He's a rapper.

I think I just mean in relation to the

The worst I remember seeing the Pamela and Tommy Lee one a friend of mine had it and they talk it's like They're trashy enough because it's like you're look you feel weird watching it, but When they talk They sound like idiots It's like you couldn't even like like porno writing is better than what Pamela and Tommy Lee were saying to each other Colin Farrell to I Have a friend who has all of them

on VHS.

And he's been on this show.

Yeah.

And it's like, like Colin Farrell was even talking, sounds like an idiot.

Like people are not at their best verbally when they're having sex.

So I don't hold them to a standard.

You know, I get that it's going to be stupid, but at least, and that makes me also think like they were legitimately stolen because nobody would want people to hear if they consider themselves a master monologist.

They wouldn't want that out there.

But the Kim Kardashian one, I don't know.

That looked kind of staged to me.

I only watched it like 14 times, but I got a grasp of it.

You keep in

count.

I don't know if I've ever, I do remember seeing like on those like entertainment shows.

She's like talking to the camera.

I mean, it's, so anyway, there you go.

You got a new show to watch, folks.

The secrets of celebrity sex tapes.

And that is on the arts and entertainment network.

Great stuff.

Let's get to our speaking while we're on this topic so we can sort of segue off of it.

Tonight's question of the night is inspired by the secrets of celebrity sex tapes.

Let's get to the night light question of the night.

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.

What two celebrities?

Do you never want to see in a sex tape?

Who are two celebrities you hope never make a sex tape that is tonight's question of the night 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic I Put this in the beats.

I'm gonna stick with my answer Seth Rogen and Marjorie Taylor green That is that would be an unholy pairing on many levels.

I Don't think they even like each other.

I'm guessing

for political reasons, but I never want to see those two in a sex tape.

You know, Seth Rogen has been in a sex tape.

Please tell me.

A movie, maybe.

Yeah.

The movie Sex Tape.

The knocked up.

Oh, he's in the movie.

Is it Zach and Mary?

Zach and Mary make a sex tape or make a, yeah.

So you said Pete Davidson and Bella Ramsey.

Yeah, that's kind of a, that'd be a tough one.

That would be terrible.

That would be a tough watch.

So let us know folks, you can also let us know on the app or on the stream if you're watching on Facebook, YouTube or X and drop us a like or a follow if you don't mind while you're there.

But chime in, be part of the show.

We'd love to hear what you think.

How gross can we make this really?

Like how horrifying can we make the idea of a sex tape to the point where nobody, it would have negative box office numbers.

Nobody would ever want to see it.

Let us know what you think.

I was kind of in a mood.

I played what I call roadkill pole position on the way down.

There was at least two animals killed, body parts strewn about on the highway.

And it's like, well, do I go over a deer leg with my car or do I swerve?

You know, it's kind of dangerous either way.

But I was able to swerve because I don't need a deer.

like going up into my exhaust system or something.

It was very dangerous though.

Not a fun ride.

That commute's not getting me at all.

So that's what I was dealing with.

And then I gotta tell you this, folks, I do, I fast from time to time.

I just finished a 36 hour fast today and it turned into like a 41 hour fast.

Cause I had a guy over who was giving me an estimate on my roof and we got to talking and then my daughter

you know, I went too long and then my daughter had something to do.

We're going to go out to have breakfast.

And I was really excited to have like a breakfast burrito today, craving one.

I always crave like protein when I come off of fast.

Well, 36 hours turned into like 41 hours.

We ended up barely making it to this place for lunch.

Nope, we don't have the breakfast burrito.

We have no breakfast.

And their lunch menu is like, it's kind of one of these boutique places, you know, they don't, it's not somewhere to go if you're hungry.

So I ordered a black and blue burger and it's like a boutique black and blue I'm coming off a fast and I've got a burger that's the size of a quarter on bread and Like seven chips And I said to my daughter we might have to get a pizza This is not cutting it.

I'm depressed But I'm over

it.

You know what I had for breakfast on Saturday.

It's

super good around Sunday.

Sorry Let's just say we

We went out downtown on Saturday night, and then the morning after we were like, yeah, let's get some breakfast.

Got two eggs, some pieces of bacon hash browns, and some pancakes with Reese's chocolate chips on it.

That doesn't sound terrible.

The pancakes was amazing.

Yeah, because you put chocolate chips in them, right?

That's not a bad thing.

So it was like chocolate chips and Reese's chocolate chips.

It was so good.

Would dig

that

I think because people put peanut butter don't you put peanut

butter on your pancakes

or you

put peanut butter on my waffles my pancakes and syrup I Don't have it often, but boy was that good

Yeah, I uh That's see that's kind of what I needed today.

Maybe a different, but I just needed I needed something filling Some good movies opening this weekend folks Honey don't a new effort from Ethan Cohen.

I hope he and Joel

Start making films again Cuz I'm like is something going on there.

You know like each other anymore sibling rivalry But apparently based on my research they're not Feuding they just are doing their own thing for a while.

That's fine But I did not like his last movie drive away Dallas.

I thought it was kind of lame But it's good cast market quality Aubrey Plaza Chris Evans.

I still haven't seen it.

That's all right.

There's like

Now we'll talk about it when we come back.

All right, we'll talk about that when we come back.

I'm going to tell you what else is opening and getting great reviews.

And then Conrad is going to tell us about a fight that broke out on a movie set.

And we'll read your texts.

We're doing it all on Nightlight tonight, folks.

Great to have you with me.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome

back tonight, folks.

We have two great guests.

We got so caught up in sex tape talk.

Immoral.

sex tape talk that I did not tease my guests and I have two outstanding guests tonight.

Author Chris Miklos is here.

He wrote a book called Tick Town.

It's like a pulpy fiction type novel about mutant ticks in a Wisconsin tourist town.

It looks fantastic.

Chris has also made a couple of movies and he's Madison based.

We will talk to Chris at 635.

And then one of our newest on air hosts here at this specific

The station, WGBW, is in the building.

She will be here at 720, Ms.

Laura McKenna.

Very excited to get to know Laura, as many of you probably heard.

They switched the format here at WGBW.

It is now local news and timeless hits.

And Laura is all part of that.

So we'll get to know Laura a little bit as well in hour number two.

I'm off tomorrow night, folks.

What are we doing tomorrow, Conrad?

We got a best of show, because you have to be off too.

Yeah, we got a best of featuring Mike Schmidt.

And his

great

story about

the basketball.

Yep.

We had a listener that said they really liked that story.

She's like, we should

bring that back.

That's a great story.

We got it.

I also brought David Zucker again.

OK.

That interview.

Nice.

Horace Green finishing it off.

Outstanding.

So that's the best of show.

We won't be here live tomorrow, folks.

I'm taking a few days off to take care of some family stuff and a little staycation.

but we will have you well covered here at Nightlight with the best of tomorrow night, David Zucker, Mike Schmidt, and Horace Green, and then Friday night is a big night to it.

Aaron Kerrano is guest hosting.

Yeah, guest hosting.

Still

live show?

Terry Barr's still gonna be on the show.

Outstanding.

And just, you know, we got a special surprise guest in the first 635, so.

A surprise guest?

Yeah.

Wow.

Aaron's recommendation, so.

Seems like you guys might have told me about that.

Nightlight with peach well.

Hey, whatever.

That's fine.

No, it'll be fine Aaron does a great job He is a no stranger to being on the air behind the mic.

So he is I'm thrilled Aaron's doing it and it's so much better I think than just I mean the best of can be fun, too Because it's highlights, but I think a live show is better.

Of course

And then I'll be off Monday and Tuesday as well back on Wednesday.

So

we'll figure out Monday and Tuesday as well.

John and Gordy, right?

John and

Gordy are going to be the guest hosts for Monday and Tuesday.

All right.

You guys are in for a treat because John and Gordy host the WMDX morning show in Madison here on Civic Media.

But they're only on Madison in the mornings.

I love being on their show.

They're so much fun.

They're radio pros.

And they're going to have a blast, I think, hosting Night Light next week.

So we've got you covered.

Don't go anywhere.

Still tune in.

It's still going to be the same Night Light with different people.

Sorry,

are you going to make a sex tape on your time off?

That's the plan.

I've got the ad out on Craigslist.

Just waiting to hear your back.

Would it be weird if you put an ad out to make a sex tape and then the person shows up and sees you and goes, ooh.

Yeah, never mind.

I'm going to take a powder.

Thank you very much anyway.

I was actually here to buy the extra computer cord.

Not for the sex tape.

All right, so great guests tonight.

Chris McClose will be here at 635 talking about his book, Tick Town.

And one of the newest members, our WGBW team here in Green Bay, Laura McKenna at 720.

So let's get some, we should probably do some texts, huh?

Definitely.

I love this one.

Dave on the stream.

Our question is, what two celebrities you hope never make a sex tape?

And Dave Kunish on the stream says Conrad and Kate McKinnon.

I think she

would be repulsed too, because I

don't think she lets men.

You don't think she wants to?

Oh, that's right.

I thought you were going to say she doesn't want to do anything with fanboy Conrad, but you might have two things working against you.

Thanks for calling me a celeb, though.

Dave also says, I like both of them, but not.

Naked.

Well, you don't listen.

You don't have to be naked on a sex tape.

That's true Dave says Sly and Arnold I don't think you have to worry about that either.

Although you never know who knows what goes on behind closed doors We have some great social media responses to Daniel Daniel Wheeler Danny wheels says Trump and Putin I think we go we can all agree And then Alan Martin

Alan Martin on social media in response to Daniel to Danny wheels response Trump and Putin Alan Martin says Daniel Wheeler too late Alan obviously has the inside scoop on a Trump Putin sex tape something we never need to see Nick Wallander Our pal says Kermit and miss Piggy.

Oh, come on.

That'd be kind of sweet.

Don't you think?

That

I don't know why they cracked me up so much when I was reading you could you could have that be PG rated

to they don't even have parts

I think we're fine.

It could be in the Muppets movie.

It could be wholesome.

Stacey Sue says Trump and Betty White.

I can see half of that, but Betty White, I gotta tell ya.

In her 80s, Betty White was not, well, she's a beautiful woman and she's hilarious.

I'm half with you, Stacey Sue.

Matt Cassane on social media says JoJo Siwa and Clay Akin.

I got to Google.

I think JoJo Siwa is the...

Let's think he's the founder.

She is

she's one of those child stars that was like Oh, it's

her mom made

her dance.

I think she was on like dance moms or something like

that Oh, yeah, yeah, and her

mom went super hard on her And

now

she just makes music herself but like is super annoying

I Was thinking all right, here's I apologize Matt I got this wrong.

I was thinking Curtis Sleeva Who is the founder of the guardian angels they used to ride the subway trains?

and protect people.

An awesome group.

When I first heard about the Guardian Angels, I absolutely loved the guard.

And I would see them.

Sometimes they had a Chicago chapter on the subway in Chicago, too, and I was always like, oh, that's cool.

Mike Dessertel on the social media says, Steve Bishimi and Shirley McClain.

Okay.

Interesting.

Yeah, that is interesting.

I can't say I want to see that, but I can't say I'd be completely repulsed by that pairing.

Two talented actors.

All right, when we come back, folks, we are gonna talk about, oh my God.

This is the second question this week I've set up that just like invited people to talk about Trump.

Monica Hale says Donald and the lady.

Oh, I gotta think of something better.

All right, we're coming back, folks.

We're gonna talk about giant mutant ticks invading your Wisconsin town.

Chris McClose joins us next.

He is an author.

Lord McKenna coming up on hour two.

Great to have you with me.

Answer our question.

Be part of the show.

We'll read your text on the radio.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Hey,

this is Mike Starr and you're listening to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

Welcome back.

What was that song?

It was a tag.

It was a tag.

Who do we have?

It was Mike Star.

Mike Star.

You know, it's so funny.

You read my mind.

I was going to have you do the Mike Star tag.

He's got a really identifiable voice.

Don't you think?

Oh, yeah.

Like I just think dumb and dumber when I hear Mike's voice.

Laura McKenna will be here at 720 folks in the building.

That'll be fun to have her in studio.

Our question of the night is what two celebrities do you hope never make a sex tape?

There is a new show called Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes out that has to be.

who probably binge-watched.

I don't think it's, you think they're ever gonna have a cliffhanger?

Will Tommy Lee and Pamela have sex again?

So bad, they should do a voice.

They should dub, they should do some ADR and dub voices in because the talking is so God awful.

All right, without further ado, let's get to our first guest of the night.

Very excited to have this gentleman on the show.

He was referred to me by our pal Rob Thomas and he has a new book out called Tick Town.

He's also a filmmaker.

And a Madison-based artist, and he joins us now over the stream, Mr. Christopher Miklos.

Hey, Christopher.

Hey, Pete, how are you?

Do you prefer Christopher or Chris?

Chris is fine, thanks.

OK, and I'm saying Miklos correctly?

Yeah.

OK, you kind of gave a close enough.

Yeah, that's fine.

I say it different.

I say it like three different ways.

Well, however, I'm here to serve.

So in my last day, I've been hearing Schwabba differently all my life.

So I totally feel your pain a little bit there.

Well,

I appreciate you having me.

Thanks for inviting me in tonight.

Well, it's such a great book.

The first thing I have to ask you, you're a horror writer.

Are there two people you never want to see make a sex tape?

There

are several, to be honest with

you.

I'm going to go with Kristi Noem and Steven Miller.

You know what's so funny is I don't, I typically shy away from politics on the show because it's politics a lot during the day in current events.

But this question was not at all meant.

Sometimes it just goes there.

And it's not political to say those are two unattractive people or Donald Trump is an unattractive person.

That's not political.

It's facts.

So anyway, that's a great answer.

Well, Ernest Borgman is dead.

So I couldn't use Ernest Borgman, you know, who's a good standby for such a question.

It's so funny.

You say that a friend of mine, Rick Corso, a stand-up comic, a guy who I worked with back in the day, said the best editing, they have a best editing Oscar.

And how do you decide best editing?

Oh, he cut that Ernest Borgnein love scene.

This guy gets the trophy.

So it's funny you went with Borgnein.

All right, let's get into it, Chris.

Tell us about Ticktown.

I love, this just sounds great.

Well, so Ticktown is my debut novel and it's got a very simple log line.

It's a pulp horror novel and the log line is simply that a Wisconsin tourist town Becomes the feeding ground for a band of giant mutant ticks and I always say that if

If you hear that log line and you see the cover of the book, you're going to know exactly what you're getting from Tick Town.

It's just it's just a pulpy, fun, fast paced love letter to the to the big bug creature feature movies of the 50s and 60s, which I used to love.

And this is just my it's my kind of a loving homage to those movies.

I love that.

It's funny too that you use a tick because even like small ticks I find horrifying When one of them like latches on but you have a giant like mutant tick you've made it ten times worse Why is it first of all?

Why haven't we really seen to the best of my knowledge anyway a tick monster in a movie and Why are they so creepy?

That's funny isn't it because I

When I sat down to write the book I wanted to do a big bug kind of creature feature sort of thing and I was very much inspired by a book called Excuse me night of the crabs by

yeah

guy and Smith, which is exactly what you think it is.

It's what Jack Kravitz Excuse me, um

And so I started thinking, okay, I can't do crabs, obviously, spiders have been done to death.

And I started going through and I thought, well, we're in Wisconsin and ticks are a major problem in Wisconsin.

And so I kind of did just a real quick survey to see if I could find anything that was, you know, tick in literature, something written, and I couldn't really find anything.

So I thought, okay, that would be really great.

And then later,

After I finished the book, I found that there was a movie in the early 1990s about giant ticks, not quite giant like mine,

but it was like

a kind of a B movie.

And it was, you know, it was, you know, a typical 80s, 90s movie.

But they're, they're horrifying, you know, they're, they're obviously they spread disease and they're, you know, they, they freak you out.

But if you ever see a close up of a tick, they're just gruesome test creatures, their mouth parts, you know, they, they tear and they rip and they suck.

And they're just, I mean, they're really horrible things.

And so I really thought that they'd be perfect for this kind of book.

And I think people have responded to it.

That's excellent.

If there's a tick that big, Lyme disease would be the worst of your problems.

Yeah, exactly.

So you said you got the idea from the crab book.

How long did it take to write this?

Like, even though you were kind of inspired, you settled on the tick, I've never written a book.

To me, it sounds so overwhelming, but how long does it take to write a novel?

So, yeah, I mean, it's not a long book.

I'll just let me say that to start.

It's about, it's roughly 54,000 words, a little over 200 pages in print.

So it's a pretty fast-paced read.

So it was a pretty fast-paced write as well.

I started it around,

Let's say February of 2023 and by the end of the year So maybe you know ten months later.

I was you know deep into my

fourth or fifth draft.

And the actual first draft was probably six months.

And then from there, it was just, you know, rearranging things and cleaning things up and sharpening the characters.

And then by February of 2024, so about a year after I started it, it was ready to start sharing with potential literary agents and publishers.

And so that's, that's what I did.

That's exciting.

My guest is Christopher Miklos.

He is the author of Tick Town.

Where can people find the book, Chris?

Well, it's actually, I'm very proud to say it's in a lot of bookstores around the state.

It's been picked up by a couple dozen bookstores around Wisconsin, several here in Madison, but kind of in the far reaches of the state, it's in some great bookstores in Chicago and the Twin Cities and around the country.

but for the easiest way to generally get it is gonna be on Amazon.

You can get a paperback copy, you can get a...

a digital copy for your Kindle.

It's also an audio book.

There was an audio version that came out concurrently with the print version.

And so it's widely available.

It's always great to get it in the bookstore or come.

I'm doing a Wisconsin book tour that I'm currently in the middle of.

And so it's always great when someone comes out and buys a book at one of the stops on the tour and I can sign it and meet people.

It's been a really cool experience.

So for people who might not

No.

Describe, because I was like 30 when I knew what pulp meant when it comes to fiction or books or whatever.

Explain what that genre is, because in your bio it says you became a fan of the pulp horror genre.

How did that happen?

And explain a little bit to people what pulp is.

Sure.

Well, you know, technically what pulp is is it refers to

these in the early part of the last century, they would print, they would print cheap books, you know, that just got kind of churned out on

pulped paper.

So it was like very cheaply made paper.

They would churn out these paperbacks that they had writers that would just kind of churn out these, you know, things like the Tarzan series was like an early form of pulp in horror.

The, you know, the, the, the fiendish Dr. Fu Manchu was like early pulp horror.

But I, I discovered it actually only about, I mean, I of course was familiar with these things, but I started reading it about

five years ago, I stumbled across a book called Paperbacks from Hell, which was written by Will Erickson and Grady Hendricks.

And it's basically a survey of the kind of classic pulp horror paperbacks of the 70s and 80s.

And they were

It was a it was a genre that was marked by, you know, kind of ridiculous plot lines like giant mutant crabs and larger than life heroes and the writing is very, you know, crisp and to the point and it's very yeah, so that it moves very fast and

this book by by Hendrickson and Erickson was just so entertaining because it kind of surveyed all these, you know, crazy books that I was largely unfamiliar with.

And so I decided to start reading some of them.

And I picked up a couple of books by Graham Masterton, who's a great pulp writer, and and Sean Hudson, who wrote this seminal book called slugs about, you know, killer slugs that like mouth and you dig into.

And then, of course, the Guy in Smith books and his his his

his seminal work was Night of the Crabs.

And as I was reading these books, I completely fell in love with them.

I loved the writing style.

I loved the kind of the fast paced, you know, get right to the point, you know, very, very propulsive sort of storytelling.

And, and I was

at that time, I was finishing my second movie with my filmmaking partners.

And I thought, you know, I want to try my hand at a novel, and this is the kind of novel I want to write.

And so I decided that that was going to be for me.

And so I jumped into it.

That's really impressive.

What are your writing tendencies, Chris?

Like, I remember Woody Allen saying he writes every day from 9am to noon, religiously, like he does not miss it.

And, you know, as a writer myself, I've

They always say work through.

If you have writer's block, sit down anyway.

Come up with two words, because you never know what it could lead to.

And I've tried to do that, but there's times I just don't do anything.

How do you handle writer's block?

And what are your writing tendencies in terms of practice?

So I tend to write in the morning.

So I would like to compare myself to Woody Allen, but he's much more disciplined than I am as far as that goes.

And I'm a huge fan, actually, of Woody Allen.

I just think

he's one of the great human writers of the last century.

I don't want to see a sex tape involving Woody Allen.

I will say that.

That's a

good one.

That's a good one.

But I have an 11-year-old daughter.

And so during the school year particularly, I'll try and get up at five

or 530 and write for a couple hours before I kind of got to have

to get her off

to school.

And then when she goes off to school, I'll tend to write for a couple hours more.

But I find, you know, maybe like, like Alan, that once you get towards noonish, I start to kind of lose my steam and my creative juice.

And so I'll try to write as much as I can in the morning.

And then if I have to do like PR stuff, or if I have to, you know, obviously do

stuff around the house or whatever it might be.

I'll go do that in the afternoons.

But I just find I'm very, I think more creative.

Joe Landsdale always says that, you know, he's most creative in those hours after he gets up because he thinks it has something to do with your mind working and, you know, sleep and the dreams and you're still in that state when you're tired.

And maybe it's good for fiction and for especially horror fiction.

I don't know if that's the case, but

it's the period that's best for me.

Definitely that first chunk of time, those first two hours, you know, two and a half hours for me is always, you know, the most fruitful.

And in terms of writer's block, I don't know, I actually, when I sat down to write Tick Town, I was in the middle of writer's block, I'd been writing a script, a movie script about

It was like a horror comedy script about zombies that are they're turned into zombies because of the Perpetual Christmas music at Christmas time and they descended this radio station to try and

hey, let's we have to do a very quick break Let's pick up right there where we were we're coming right back.

It's nightlight with peach wabba talking to Chris

Miklos

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

Great to have you with me on this Wednesday night.

We are coming to you from beautiful downtown Green Bay at City Deck Landing, broadcasting statewide.

And my current guest is joining us over the stream from Madison.

His name is Chris Miklos, and he is the author of the book Tick Town, which you can purchase in various places.

give it a Google and give it a read.

It sounds great.

We're talking to Chris about how he got the book not only written but published.

And before the break, Chris, we were talking about how you deal with writer's block, which can be very crippling at times.

Yeah.

And I just, you know, I was in the middle of saying that I was writing this script and I was loving the script.

And it was a horror comedy.

And I was literally laughing out loud.

I knew exactly what was going ahead at all.

plotted out and I was just having such a good time with it and I got to a scene and I just stopped and I couldn't go any further and I it's like God this is terrible and I wanted nothing to do with it anymore I was you know I just got hit with a block and so I thought you know I'm just gonna put it aside and so I put it aside I said it's time to start on Ticktown.

wrote TicTown, ignored, didn't even think about that other script until I was done with it.

And then when I finished TicTown and I was in the process of pitching it to agents and whatnot, I was like, oh, I'm going to go back to that other project.

And I just picked it up and it flowed.

And I knocked it off in about a month, finished it up.

So I think sometimes you just got to walk away.

You want to try to keep writing, but sometimes you just

your mind just doesn't want to deal with whatever problems you've got on the page.

And so sometimes it's just helpful to pick up another project or work on editing something else and then come back to it.

At least that's, it worked for me.

Yeah, that's great advice.

You used in the, what do you call it, the press kit you sent me, you have that one of the inspirations for TicTown is JAWS.

I just gave JAWS a re-watch about six weeks ago.

Can you explain that how the two are similar?

Well, JAWS is one of my favorite movies.

I enjoy the book as well, but the movie, I think, is just one of the perfect movies that's out there.

And so there's definitely parallels, of course, with the giant creature, with the...

you know, with the small town celebration, you know, in Jaws, it's the fourth of July beach opening and, you know, in Tick Town, it's the Harvest Moon Jubilee.

There's some of Jaws in its DNA.

There's a corrupt mayor in my book that is somewhat patterned on Mayor Vaughn from Jaws, but it's also, I think, there's a mix between Mayor Vaughn and Boss Hog from the old Dukes of Hazard show.

And so it's just, it was always kind of out there, you know, in my in my head that, you know, this movie that really embraced a lot of the tropes of pulp horror, you know, Jaws itself, the book by Peter Benchley is very pulpy.

And I thought, you know, so that's a good inspiration to draw from.

I

actually like the movie draws better than the book, to be honest.

I know that's kind of rare.

I like my chances against a shark better than a tick just because don't swim.

That's an easy one.

I don't like doing that anyway, but like the tick freaks me out.

What was the biggest challenge getting this seen by publishers or getting it looked at?

You're a first-time writer.

Talk about that process a little bit.

Well, for years, I've produced a couple of movie scripts myself, again, with partners when

we made a

couple feature films.

But I've also written lots of spec scripts.

you know, I've spent years trying to get them noticed by literary managers and producers and I've sent countless queries out and all that.

So I'm very used to this idea that, you know, you have to like send, you know.

hundreds of tentacles out into the void and hopefully it nails something.

And so when I started looking at how you do it with a with a novel, it was very much the same thing.

You know, people say, oh, it could take you years to find an agent.

It could take, you know, you know, publishers, you know, six months or a year before you look at your, at your thing, if they even will.

And so I started the process right, you know, when I, when I finished Tick Town.

And

I had read somewhere that some good advice would be don't just send to a bunch of people at once, send to like maybe six agents or six publishers.

And then if someone gets back to and says, well, here's a problem with your pitch or here's why we're not going to respond, you can you can adjust.

So I sent this was like on a Tuesday, literally, I sent six six emails to agents with my with my pitch.

And I sent six emails to

publishers with my pitch.

And within about an hour, one of the agents had gotten back to me and said, Hey, this, you know, this sounds interesting.

I'd like to read it.

So I sent him the full manuscript.

And a week later, he emailed me and said, I love this, I want to represent it, you know, let's go.

And which is remarkable.

And I

It turns out and one of the reasons I had reached out to him was it turns out speaking of Jaws that he was he was in the midst last year of Representing the re-release of Bench these jobs.

Oh,

right.

And so I thought maybe he'd be interested, you know in something similar So I think it took some luck, but what I found out actually

several months later, he didn't tell me this at the time, was that that morning he'd been reading an article in the New York Times about Pulp Horror and then I send him this email and the subject line was Tick Town, a Pulp Horror novel.

And so

it caught his eye and he was interested.

And so obviously the moral of the story is that sometimes you just got to get lucky.

You got to

hit the right person at the right time.

And so I was very lucky.

I signed with him a few weeks later.

And then he kind of took it from there reaching out to publishers and we found someone we liked and often running.

That's outstanding.

And it's typically the hardest people that are the luck, the hardest working people that are the luckiest because it's all about timing.

And the more you, I mean, that's just a great story.

I did get a text here from Mark and Prairie to Sack, he's in the 608.

It says, didn't Will Ferrell confront a big tick in the version of the land of the lost?

It was a huge mosquito.

Oh, mosquito.

is horrifying.

All right, Chris, can we keep you for a few minutes after the news?

Certainly.

All right, fantastic.

Chris Miklos is here.

He's an author.

We're going to talk to him a little bit about his filmmaking, too, after the break, and we'll read some of your texts.

We're coming right back.

It's Nightlight with Peach Waba Act II is coming up next on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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 back, ladies and gentlemen.

This Wednesday, consider it lit.

We lit it up tonight, Conrad.

We're not even done.

We still got an hour show.

But

we gotta light up the next hour, because I'm not gonna be here until next Wednesday.

So we gotta keep this train moving.

Our question of the night, folks, in case you missed it earlier, is what two celebrities do you hope never make a sex tape?

This question was inspired by the new, I think it was Netflix show, The Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes.

I don't know, what secrets could there be?

They're having sex on tape, and it's out there.

And I don't think all of it's an accident, that's all I'm saying.

We also talked about, we didn't get to the fight.

We'll have to do that another time.

There was a fight on the set of a Marvel movie.

We'll cover that next time.

Laura McKenna is here at 720 Tonight, folks.

Great to have Laura here.

She is one of the new additions here at WGBW.

She plays the oldies during the day and she's kind of a radio professional.

She's been around a lot and she's got tons of experience and she's a lot of fun and she's coming into the studio.

at 720 tonight in just a few minutes.

So that will be fun.

I'm going to get to some of your texts in just a few minutes.

But right now, we have a few more minutes with our current guest, who is an author, Madison based at Chris Miklos.

He wrote the book Tick Town, which is now available.

And Chris, I love that it's 200 pages.

It's a quick read and you'll, you know, it's just sticking true to what inspired you, the pulp, pulp genre, I guess, pulp horror genre.

We talked about your writing practice what you're also a filmmaker And you've made two were they both feature films that looked you up on IMDB Pro.

Yes, okay That's impressive to get two feature films made on the independent level is really amazing What tell us about the headmistress that was from 2023

Yeah, so the the second movie was called the headmistress and like our first movie, which was the nursery I co-produced it with my business partners Jason Pyro and Glenn Chung and then Jason Pyro and I co-directed it and The headmistress was actually a really cool project because we We were offered the ability to shoot the film in a in a recently abandoned nunnery down in down Wow, and so

one of the executive producers on the movie had just bought this land and it had just been decommissioned like several months earlier and it had these two beautiful old buildings that must have been built in the 40s or 50s and they were just full of character and they were creepy and wonderful and he basically told us you know this was in I think

March of 1999.

And he said, you know, I'm going to burn these down basically in December so you can do anything you want to them until then.

And so we wrote a script and and that fall, Jay and myself and all the actors moved in to the nunnery.

And and we spent about 12 days shooting the movie.

And it was

It was like a big fun summer camp experience.

Had some great actors, really proud of the movie.

It was released in 2023.

And you can find it basically anywhere you get your streaming entertainment.

So it was a project we're really, really fond of.

All right.

Your first one was the nursery in 2018.

So sticking with the same horror genre, tell us about the nursery and where we can see that.

So the nursery, like the headmistress, is a ghost story.

It was very much inspired by the babysitter and peril movies of the late 70s and early 80s.

And you can find it.

I mean you can you can buy it or rent it anywhere you buy or rent or attain but I always for both movies I like to send people to Tubi because it's a it's a free service

free

ad support it so you can find them both at Tubi it's a great place to watch them if you're in the DVDs or Blu-ray they're both available via that you can get them you know anywhere you get that stuff so yeah they're fun projects and you know they

They're very, very, very low budget movies, but I think they hold up and we've, you know, they're both award winners and we've, we had some success on the festival circuit.

So I'm real proud of them both.

That is

outstanding.

All right.

So now the big question, when can we see Tick Town on the big screen?

Well, I unfortunately say that Tick Town, just based on the, you know,

the idea of the book is a little bit out of my budget range.

I'm

used to these cheaper movies.

And one of the things that was so liberating about writing this book was that I didn't have to think about a budget.

When I write a script that I'm going to produce, you're constantly thinking, well, how am I going to pull off this effect?

How are you going to make sure the cast is small enough that we can afford it?

And all that sort of thing.

And so it was just completely liberating to anything that popped into my mind I could write.

But I'm not sure that I'll be able to afford to produce it.

But if anyone wants to either fund it or buy the rights, you can certainly call

me.

Anything is possible if you put a few dollar signs next to it.

Is it easier to write a screenplay or a novel?

That's a great question.

I actually found that my screenwriting, you know, I've written, you know, eight or nine scripts at this point, and I found that my screenwriting was very instructive to writing this kind of novel because with a movie screenplay, you want to strip it down to the action, you want to have descriptions that are very punchy and to the point, and that's how you want to write a Pulp Horror novel too.

I think my script writing experience was just a great prep for the novel.

But I think just because in a novel, you can write anything you want.

You don't have to think about the constraints and the possibilities that you're going to have to pull off when you put on the paper.

I think I found it easier to write the novel, to be honest with you.

OK, that's it.

I always feel the same way, too.

A novel is too overwhelming to me.

I like the parameters.

writing a screenplay you got to hit certain beats by certain pages I feel like personally I operate better within that structure maybe just what I'm used to like I don't even know where you would start or where you would end with a novel but you sound like you it sound like if someone did come in and back you financially you'd be able to make TicTown happen on the big screen I think that would be really fun.

It's ready made for Movedom.

It's ready made for movies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What?

Why are so many great horror stories at the big studio level or on the independent level shot in Wisconsin?

What is it about our state that can be creepy?

Is it the woods?

Is it the lakes?

What do you think?

I think the woods and the lakes.

I mean, we have obviously there's something in the water, you know, with our history of various hauntings.

And of course, you know, at Dean and you know, there's there's.

horror in the blood.

For sure.

You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of that.

And so I think that, yeah, for me, I love the, the isolation, especially that the Northern Wisconsin, you know, offers.

That's why Ticktown is set there.

My next book is set in Northern Wisconsin as well.

I think you have some interesting, you know, legends and, you know, like, in some cases, you know,

uh, tribal legends that you can, you know, are very ripe for, uh, for, for mining, for, for fiction.

And so, yeah, Wisconsin's ready made for horror.

We got, we, it's in our blood.

Yeah.

Agreed.

What are you, uh, what are you watching on TV, Chris?

Like when you're done writing and you're 11 year olds in bed, what are you, uh, firing up?

You binge watching anything you could share with us?

Boy,

I haven't been binge watching much, but I've been on a kick.

It's funny.

It has nothing to do with horror.

I've been on a kick where I've been watching.

I've been tracking down as many William Powell movies as I could find from the 40s and 50s.

Oh, wow.

I love the thin man movies and I was watching one of the thin man movies and I was like, you know what, I want to watch some other stuff.

So actually the last three or four weeks I've been watching as many William Powell movies as I can find.

That's great.

That's a great suggestion.

Listen, this has been really fun.

I hope you keep us posted on everything you're working on.

What's next, by the way?

So I just actually just a couple days ago I sent off to my agent my second book It there's a very very threadbare legend of a of a kind of a cryptid

Loch Nessmonster kind of creature in Devil's Lake.

So it's not actually set in Devil's Lake, but I kind of used that as inspiration and fleshed out, again, what was very threadbare legend about a sea creature.

And so that's my next book.

That's outstanding.

Well, break a leg in all your endeavors.

Pardon me.

And let's do this again.

Keep right like the wind, my friend.

Pete, thank you so much for having me.

This has been a ball.

My pleasure.

All right.

Have a great night.

Thank you very much, Chris.

That's Chris McLeod.

Check out TicTown, folks.

A fast, easy, pulpy read.

You cannot ask for anything, especially for me.

Con, that's a book I could read because I used to be a reader.

I've talked about it on the show.

I was an English major.

I've read many books, but I have not been a reader for years.

And that's the perfect kind of book, I think, to get you back on track.

I thought you were just going to say because it's like 200 pages.

That's a lot of pages.

But you know what if it's between Kim Kardashian sex tape and Chris's book.

I'm reading Chris.

Yeah, I'm reading tic-town as well

Let's have a tic-town reading party Laura McKenna will be here in just a few minutes folks She is a new member on the WGBW team here at time.

Have you listened to the station when you come in?

It's a great I find myself like who doesn't love oldies, you know

Yeah, that's a good point.

You put them on.

Always good

listening.

Outstanding.

And we're going to have Dan Marcus on next week.

So lots going on here in Green Bay at this studio, part of the Civic Media family.

Laura will be here at 7.20.

We've got some text to get through here.

So let's try to catch up on some text.

John Murray says, Peter, are the questions on your show now posed by the question makers from Family Feud?

Things are getting racy.

Just saying.

I kind of think that's a compliment.

I've never heard anyone refer to nightlight as racey or sexy or whatever.

Family feud?

Family feud, yeah.

Steve Harvey, no thanks.

Steve and Florida Conrad's dead checks in.

Two celebrities that I hope and pray will never make a sex tape are old comedians Rosie O'Donnell and Jimmy Fallon.

Oh, that's an odd pairing, Steve.

That's great.

Nick from Marshall, he's in the 608 says, also Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, even though I believe they're just friends.

So they say, Nick, so they say, Nick also said Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr.

Yeah, you don't need to see that either.

Mark from Prairie to Sex said, Betty White passed away December 31st, 2021, she nearly hit 100.

I mean, is that in really, it's an impressive run.

for a very talented actor who I called very attractive.

Even into her later years, I thought she was beautiful and funny.

I don't think many hundred-year-olds are putting out sex tapes though.

No.

That's the problem in America right now.

It's ageism, Conrad.

We need more.

We just stopped that sentence.

All right, done and done.

Robert from La Crosse, season the 801.

Carol Linka.

And Pete Exeth.

People just can't get past like, you ever do that, you have like a public figure, you dislike so much, but they are beautiful or gorgeous.

And then you have to play that game of your head like, well, if it ever came to that, I don't know.

Moral dilemma.

I'm trying to think.

Get back to us.

Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids, he's in the 608 says, Sherry from Peewee's Playhouse.

And the vice-pres.

Everybody's put these, oh, hi Pete.

Melissa from Willy Street, the six away says, hi Pete.

DJT and three-toed Marge.

And then a puke of OG.

All right, political sex tapes, that's a whole different ball game.

We could open up a whole other can of worms there.

John from Madison also says, superstar Donald Trump and Grace Jones might make me peak.

Okay, John, way to reach across the aisle.

She would potentially kill him in the fourth place segment Tom from New Berlin says celebrity sex tape narrated by dr. Ruth.

Oh, I like where he's going with that John also says dr. Phil and Roseanne bar.

Oops.

I just threw up in my mouth Alright, we're coming back folks Laura McKenna is here in studio.

We're gonna have a blast You're not gonna want to miss it.

It's peach wabba and nightlight on the civic media radio network

Conrad's mom says, whoopee Goldberg with anybody.

And that was an answer to tonight's questions.

Who are two celebrities you hope never make a sex tape?

And the list is endless.

But let's pivot here and introduce my listeners anyway.

Maybe they already know this next guest.

Maybe not.

She's been around quite a while and is a radio pro, as I like to call her.

And we just met recently, but she joins us.

here in the studio and you can hear her right here on WGBW during the day, Laura McKenna.

Hey.

How are you?

Good.

It's, it was so refreshing to come in here because in my like work life and in family life, I always have to be the planner of everything.

Yeah.

So coming in with you, I have no idea what we're going to talk about.

Sit back and relax.

Leave the

driving to

us.

I love it.

Leave the driving to Conrad.

He just tells me what to do and I just listen.

Yeah.

Do you have kids?

I have kids.

A cat?

Well, this is where- Get ready.

Not what I asked.

Get ready.

No, I have a cat.

My husband has a cat and a dog.

We don't quite live together yet.

Oh, okay.

So it's a whole weird thing, but no kids.

I think we're more pet people than kid people.

I love stories like that.

I love

that you consider your pets your kids.

Yeah.

And I love that you said, well,

we don't

live together yet.

Yeah.

We like to take things very

slow.

I think that's great.

Very slow.

Peter, we're finally going to be together.

We're going to be buried next to each other.

And then we'll spend the rest of it.

I think that's awesome.

Well, that's great.

It's great to have you here.

And it's great to officially meet you in person on the air.

Yeah.

So how's it going here at WGBW?

Good.

I remember meeting you briefly a couple of weeks ago when the station did the big flip.

Right.

There were so many people.

people in that room.

I honestly, I didn't know if I met you that day or not.

I was like, did we meet?

Were we in the room?

I introduced