Exploring Wisconsin’s Hidden Gems and Pop Culture Mysteries (Hour 2)

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Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with Pete Schwabach.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who loves the sin but hates the sinner, T. Chwaba.

He's not here.

Right now.

He's somewhere, but he's not here

tonight.

Well, he's off tonight and tomorrow night, and we'll be here for him instead.

That's John Peterson.

I'm Gordy Young, filling in from our Madison Studios here.

Beautiful state street right outside the window.

It's been gorgeous all day long, I guess all across the state.

Yeah, it's just a beautiful day.

Some good weather.

It feels like fall is in the air.

It's

great to be out in the yard, you know,

feeling that breeze.

And we've got Conrad, Pete's producer with us.

Everything going okay back at headquarters there.

Oh, it's going fantastic.

We've got a couple of texts here.

Why don't we get to those?

Yeah, let's see.

We've

got this is our big question tonight.

Yeah, your favorite sweet treat, right?

And you can call us or text us at 855-75 Civic.

That's 855-7524842.

We got a text from Monica in Mount Horrib.

says I also stop at Killwinds.

Oh, she's talking about, well,

that's where Todd Alba

stopped.

And he says, she says, uh, every time I'm on state street, I go to the overture and get a caramel covered Oreo or chocolate dipped Oreo.

If they don't have the caramel, that's Monica and Mount Horup.

Uh, Mike from cottage girl.

My favorite is two scoops of vanilla and a waffle cone, simple and pure.

And a second vote for the cream brulee.

Yes.

Cream brulee.

And

yeah,

so you can call us or text us and put in your vote or whatever you'd like as a sweet treat.

You know, if you feel like a little bit of an adventure,

you

can head out to Aldi, the grocery store, and check out the frozen food section because they have actual German desserts in there.

They don't

have them.

They don't have them there all the time.

So you just.

get in there, check it out, because they have, you know, the German chocolates and the German cakes, they're not really, they're not full of sugar.

Right, they're not as sweet.

Yeah, and they're, yeah, they're, they're cakey and they're just wonderful, just great stuff.

So check it out.

You'll find a great dessert there and finally become your favorite, I assume.

You're making me hungry again.

This is usually I've had dinner by now.

Yeah.

You know, this is so weird.

Because we do the morning show here in Madison on WMDX.

You know, you can tune in on the Civic Media app if you'd like.

We're on from six to eight AM.

And so this is really weird being up this late at night.

And we'll be back here tomorrow morning for our morning show.

A little bit later on, we'll be talking with Tom and Christie.

Manus, they've got a couple of books out

all

about Wisconsin and they've taken many road trips to many unusual places.

Oh, yeah, and we'll have them in in

a little

while.

So, yeah,

that's all I got.

That's fine.

That's great.

But let's let's again talk about the movie theaters.

Okay.

Yeah, you know the commercials and the trailers, right?

Yeah.

Well, if you've gone to a Marcus theater, you've probably seen the president of

Marcus organization corporation and that's Greg Marcus.

He does these little trailers of his own

he does

intros to the it's very entertaining I gotta say it's pretty

wild and I and I have to say that he his appearance with Spinal tab was something else

Well, they've got their new movie out soon,

right soon.

Yes, and that's coming out on September 12th

Uh, but he, he was right there with spinal tap standing there.

All, all of them were standing there and he would throw a few sentences in and they would respond to him and it was just, uh, it was, it was kind of funny.

You know,

I'm going to have to check that out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I'm looking forward to that movie.

It's a, it's spinal, spinal tap to the end continues.

Of

course,

it's final tap.

You know, that's what I'm thinking.

You should have been John and Gordy.

The end continues.

Oh,

that's what we should have named the show.

Yeah.

See?

I mean, we've been doing this for like 50 years.

It seems

like it.

All right.

I think Paul McCartney's in this, in

this

movie, and Elton John and a few other notables are making cameo appearances in it.

It should be very entertaining.

So

it's even going to be an IMAX.

Can you imagine watching it in IMAX?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But of course, you know, this is one of the longest pre promotions I have ever seen in my entire life.

How long have they promoting the fact that this is coming out of September 12th?

Come on, guys.

Well,

they had to re-release the original Spinal Tap and, you know, I guess they

spruced

that up, right?

They cleaned it all

up.

So everybody had to go to the movie theater and see it for 20 bucks.

Right.

So, you know, catch the first one if you hadn't seen it before.

It's like going to a concert.

That's what it

was about.

They've been promoting it forever.

For at least a year.

Yeah.

Right?

Right.

But that's kind of, you know, it's going to be a lot of fun to see that and see how these guys aged.

Of course.

Well, I've seen, I've seen a couple of trailers on TV at this point.

Yes.

And, uh, Oh, I,

you know, I

have

a

Harry Schurer, you know, he does a great radio show at his show has been a show.

I have

a

clip.

Do you?

I do.

All right.

It's cut 19.

Why don't we play that?

Okay.

Here's Harry Schurer.

All right.

Well, no, it's

it.

We now

say

formally of the band formerly known as Spinal Tap for legal

reasons.

Well, what happened?

You can't use the word Spinal Tap and talk about it.

You can't use anything.

You can't even say formally of.

Spinal tap formerly of the band formerly known as formally of the band formerly known as Spinal tap will all make sure and the piece would jump in correctly if I Well, you can you know if I get it wrong fix it in post now.

Okay.

No, no, we leave it in I think we just leave it in always is are we live?

I think we're not live, but we're alive to tape.

I have to take you.

There's no tape.

No, there's never was yeah

No, there's no live, and there's no tape, but we're live to tape.

But we're live to tape, because yes, it's exactly what I'm trying to say.

Okay.

Ladies

and gentlemen, Rob Ryan was doing this special called the TV show.

It was a satire of everything on television.

And one of the things we did was a late night rock and roll show.

And we introduced this band, England's loudest band.

It was a live performance that then segued into a very pretentious mini-video with a pig-faced judge and smoke and devils and all that crap.

We started talking about what else we could do with these characters and that's what pushed us forward.

Library of Congress put it in the National Film Registry.

This goes to 11.

It's in the Oxford English Dictionary.

It became part of our culture.

This goes to 11.

Is in the dictionary?

Is it really?

Yes.

Okay.

Wow.

All

right.

Can't wait to see it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's gonna

be good.

That's

good.

Harry Shearer being interviewed there by Paul Schaeffer, who

also is in

the

original movie, and I think he's in this one too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Reiner.

Yeah, they brought the whole band back together again.

Good for them.

It's crazy stuff.

Yeah.

All right, now let's talk to, let's talk about another series that's gonna come out.

This you wouldn't have thought would be a series because it's Blade Runner.

Oh, yeah.

And this time it's called Blade Runner.

2099.

Yes, 2099.

Do you remember Blade Runner, the original Blade Runner?

Yes.

And it took place in 2019.

Oh, is that right?

That was the future that they portrayed in LA.

Okay.

2019.

Wow.

The very first Blade Runner, which was out in 1982.

So now, of course, there was one in between now.

It was Blade Runner 2049 with Ryan Gosling.

Okay.

You didn't see that, right?

I didn't see that one.

Well, lucky you didn't.

Really?

Not a big one?

Maybe they'll have an edited version of that.

A little long?

There's something about movies nowadays where they just don't want to edit anything anymore.

You know, they want to leave it all in, right?

Because they've done away with the director's cut thing.

Now they just leave all the stuff in.

It's already director's cut or uncut.

So there it is.

Okay.

So this is going to be a big deal.

It's going to be a series on prime.

And, uh, and, uh, it stars, uh, Michelle, yo,

no kidding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She seems like what is that?

Almost seems like she's in everything.

Um, well, that's a good question.

I don't actually have a time that this will debut, but you know, the thing here is, you know, with these long.

movies now, a lot of people on all these streaming services, all these shows are much longer than they need to be.

Because in the streaming thing, like Disney Plus and then HBO Max, they weren't ready for streaming.

They thought they'd do it because Netflix was doing so well, so they thought, let's do it.

And it became very difficult for them to produce the shows and make the money.

They were losing money hand over fist.

Now Disney Plus has decided not to do any more series, because it's just too expensive.

didn't work out.

And my tip to everybody who might want to have, you know, a binge night or two, check out Disney shows, the superheroes, the Marvel Universe, check those out back to back, binge them, do not wait in a day or two days, just see them all together because they make sense and they flow and it doesn't seem long or tedious.

Okay.

All right.

And skip over the end credits if you can.

Yeah.

Now at Disney plus is also putting out.

Yes, the new Beatles anthology series Oh, they are now the video.

I've been I've been monitoring this

this

development Okay, and I want to tell you as a lifelong beetle fan.

Okay All my life.

I've loved everything that the Beatles have come out with

and everything.

I believe you

You have to convince the audience.

Okay.

Well, just, you know, take my word for it.

Okay.

But from what I'm hearing on this anthology thing, we've officially reached Elvis country with the Beatles now, where they are scraping the bottom of the beard.

Some stuff because I've

heard a few, you know, bootleg cuts and, you know, and there's some stuff that they still have in the archives that would be worth.

putting through the AI generators and cleaning up, like some of their stuff from their years in Hamburg that got recorded.

It's never really been officially released, but because of the quality, the audio and the screaming and all of that.

And some of that, that's what they should be putting out.

Yeah, the live recordings.

They've got a lot of other stuff that is just snippets of, and it's just, so I'm not...

I'm not really on the edge of my chair waiting for this new anthology series to come out.

I mean, I'll give it a shot and check it out.

Sure.

You sure you're not looking forward to the Christmas greetings from the Beatles?

I've heard those.

The collection.

It ain't that great.

Oh, no.

I just say it.

I remember them too.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I mean, I feel bad saying that, but.

Because usually all their stuff is top shelf.

And they did clean up free as a bird and real, real love.

And I've heard those.

I've heard one of those.

It's okay.

You know, the voices are a little bit better.

It's not great.

What was the song they

just released?

They

put

the video

now and then.

Now on that.

Yeah.

It's a good song.

Yeah.

Now that got released on the real, on the red and blue releases that they put out last

year, I

think

they put that on

there, which was really kind of odd because it had nothing to do with the red series or the blue series, but they just threw it on there as a bonus cut.

Like, what do we do

with this?

You

know,

let's

throw it out there.

Maybe it'll increase the

sales,

but.

Yeah, but they are going to do something on Disney plus with the and you remember the anthology series

that was on

ABC

Yes,

and it was a point that was appointment television because we hadn't seen you know the

remaining recording sessions and where they were interacting with each other Paul and Ringo and George everybody a little

Little tense of

course because that's what he did Yeah, and those were good.

Yeah, and that was that was a

great

series

was a good series But yeah, apparently there's some stuff that's coming out from that series that Disney plus and the Beatles

Wow, meaning Beatles are

you to say that

that

I know I

feel bad even talking about it

I

feel

sick.

Sick to my stomach.

When you want some Tums or

some Pepto, I think we

got some in the first

aid

kit.

Okay, 19 minutes past the hour.

Phone Lens are open 855-752-4842.

When we come back in just a little

while here.

We've got a guest, Tom, and Christy Manus.

Yes, we'll be back on the Civic Media Radio Network.

It's night light.

Pete Schwabba, John and Gordy, sitting in.

Stay with

us.

You're listening to Civic Media.

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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Petraba, he's on vacation.

John and Gordy in the morning, sitting in for him.

That's right.

We're going to be here, uh, rest of this evening and tomorrow night as well.

And for Pete, he'll be back on Wednesday.

And, uh, Tom and Christy Manas are back in the studio with us.

Good morning or good afternoon.

Good evening.

What, uh, what time is it?

I forgot.

Yeah.

We had you in early this morning.

Now we're having you in the evening.

It seems like late night.

Yeah.

To you.

Yeah.

Oh, hang on, let me, there we go.

We got your mic on.

Okay.

All right.

Yes.

So you were out, so we had you in the morning and then you went out and took pictures.

Is that what you did?

We

did.

Yeah.

Did you

get some good shots?

Well, it's hard finding things that aren't here anymore.

So we thought maybe we would find things that represented things that we wrote about.

So we went to an antique store today in

Madison.

Oh,

okay.

Yeah, we found a few things that might

work.

Which antique store?

On Cottage Grove Road.

Oh, OK.

OK.

I thought maybe you went to Atomic Antiques.

Oh, what's that?

Oh, it's a real kitschy antique store near where Nakoma Plaza used to be.

Oh,

wow.

Yeah.

I should

have recommended it.

If I'd

known you were going,

I would have

recommended that one.

Yeah.

Well, I did find a swatch today, though, which I was really excited about because we have this nice collection.

And I found one and I got it for 12 bucks.

It's not real old, it's only 2005, but it's still unique.

I have a few of those.

I love

them.

I collect watches.

Well, now I don't because now I have a digital watch.

I have a smart watch and I've got 80,000 faces on this darn thing.

Well, that's

kinda cool

too.

Yes, it's very

cool.

So the two of you have two books here.

We do.

And one of them is Secret Wisconsin and the other one is Wisconsin Roadside Attractions.

John, there you've got it.

And which book came out first?

The Secrets.

Secret Wisconsin.

So that's our first baby.

Yeah.

When did this come out?

Just a couple

of

years

ago, right?

Two years ago.

Yeah.

I was looking through this a little while ago and a couple of things caught my eye.

First of all, for all the bowlers out there, Turkey's in the basement in Milwaukee,

right?

The Holler House.

Tell us about this place.

That's a pretty special place.

This is in Milwaukee, right?

It is.

That is a, it's well, first of all, it's the nation's oldest sanctioned bowling alley.

And when you pull up in the neighborhood, you know, it's just a, it's a bar.

And when you go downstairs though, there's two lanes.

and it has the original wood floors and the owner was joking every year when they get inspected he's holding his breath hoping they pass to keep their recognition.

But it's also known because a lot of famous bowlers or a lot of people in the music business like to come and bowl there and they'll rent the place just to themselves.

I think there's only two lanes in

it.

Yeah,

that's what

the

picture looks like.

Yeah, there's only two lanes in it and Glen Fry from the Eagles is one and Jack White from Jack White and the

White

Stripes.

Yeah, they love to bowl there.

And also another fun fact about Jack White is he's a mad upholsterer.

He loves to upholster.

Furniture.

What?

Yeah, it feels strange.

He's even got a little business in Nashville.

Oh, really?

He does

that on the side.

Apparently, it's peaceful and he enjoys it.

Well, maybe Trump would like him more now that he knows he's an upholsterer.

Because he said some nasty things about him and Jack White is responding to him.

That's right.

Oh,

I didn't know that.

Now another one you have in here is the hideout, Al Capone's Northwoods hideout complex.

Oh my gosh.

He had a few, didn't he?

Yes.

Nobody really knows where this is.

A lot of people have written about it and they've written about the wrong place.

Oh,

really?

I'm the type of person, if I'm going to do something, I want to research it and I want to know that it's factual and that's what's going on.

So

we fact-checked.

We found it and we drove up there because it's not too far from Eau Claire.

A beautiful day in February.

We went up there and we found it.

We're so excited.

We got stuck in a snow

drift

and no salt service, no anything, but there's turrets out front.

It's really cool.

I mean, he used to land his planes on his private lake.

His

float plane.

Now, I didn't know Al Capone had a brother.

Oh,

up in Mercer.

Ralph Capone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He

owned and operated the Rex Hotel in Billy's Bar in Mercer.

In

Mercer.

Until the 70s when

he died.

Yeah, he tried to hang kind of low.

You know, I mean, with a brother like that, you'd kind of want to, I guess.

Exactly.

Did

he change his name?

No.

Really?

No.

But he was

a friendly guy.

People, locals, they loved him.

Oh,

yeah.

Sure.

Now, a couple more here before we need to take a little break here, but then we'll come back.

But Dretska's department store.

Oh, yeah, that's an old department store in Cutahey.

Oh, this is

the store with the original old clothes.

Yeah, she could

still buy a leisure suit there.

I don't know if they just didn't sell out their stock or they have a warehouse left over, but

there's

still a ton of old stuff in there, and the original owner is still working behind the counter.

Not the friendliest person, but...

It's okay.

How did you find it?

Is it all new new clothing or is there some retro clothing in it?

Nope, it's all new stuff.

Yeah,

but it's old stock.

Okay.

No, also, they have the old cash system where

it

has, you know, if you go to the bank now, you know, that shoots your tube up.

What this is old system is old metal wiring goes throughout the whole store.

When somebody checks out, they give their money to the register, she takes it sends it up.

to the second floor, they make change, send it back down to

the

cashier, because they didn't trust the people.

Oh,

wow.

The cashiers, yeah, which is a little weird.

Isn't that something?

Yeah,

that's what they used to do.

If you ever get down there, go.

I think she's only open now from like 10 to 3, 3 days a week or something, yeah.

12 to 3, yeah, okay.

Well, there's a whole lot more in this book and we're going to talk about the other book.

I imagine she doesn't want to sell a lot of product.

There wouldn't be a store at that point.

Yeah.

Right.

I think they just like hanging out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going to continue our conversation with Tom and Christy Mannus.

Secret places.

Secret places in Wisconsin and some roadside attractions as well.

If you want to get in on this and maybe you have a roadside attraction or a secret place you want to tell us about.

Yeah.

855-752-4842 is our number that's

855-75 Civic.

We'll be back with more.

It's Nightlight with Pete Schwabba, John and Gordy sitting in on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Coming right

back.

Nightlight Beach Wabba, John and Gordy in the morning, filling in tonight and tomorrow night as well.

Our special guest, Tom and Christie Menace.

They've been all over the state.

They've been all over the world.

And as you heard, Christie is incredibly curious and fact checks everything.

Yes.

Well, Tom is also very curious.

Well, no, Tom is.

Yeah.

He's just so long for the ride.

Well, that's what Christy told me.

I just I just drive.

You've revealed a whole lot of stuff.

Let's get a little background on you guys.

How did you get started in all of this?

Well, we met and that started.

Yeah.

30 years ago, you both had the same interests to travel like this and visit all these unusual or different places.

You know, Tom didn't really he always wanted to travel.

But until he met me, he didn't really travel.

I traveled through books.

Yeah.

Because we, as my family, whenever went anywhere.

Yeah.

And we went all the time.

So, um, I showed him the ropes and we've been doing it ever since.

Well, I have started out as

travel writers.

So

for

what, for what newspaper?

What, uh,

yeah, we've been freelance for almost the whole time.

No

kidding.

But we write for Newsweek.

We write for international food and wine.

Okay.

Different places.

A

lot of different places.

Yeah.

Okay.

And a publisher caught us and the books came out.

So which is your favorite way to travel and discover all of

this?

We take two lanes and back roads as much as we possibly can through small towns because that's how you find unique things.

So that's our favorite.

Yeah.

And we like to stop at grocery stores and talk to people.

Yeah,

you find out a lot.

Yeah, people love to talk about their towns.

Yeah, sure.

So you have two books secret Wisconsin and historic Wisconsin roadside.

Yeah, which one was first?

Okay,

let's get back to that.

What's the what's the coolest one you ever went to them?

I mean the one that you you found and you thought man, nobody else knows about this.

I know there's a lot of those.

It's probably a lot like that

There

are a

lot.

Well, we've talked about it before but I think JFK's urinal was

Pretty cool.

We talked about that a

little bit this morning.

Where was that?

That's

in Spooner.

Spooner.

This is statewide.

Let's tell them about this urinal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, in Spooner, it's Big Dick's Buckhorn N. Downtown.

And JFK, he was campaigning back in the, you know, back in the day and he needed to take care of business.

So he went in there and he

you can stand and pee where JFK peed.

Wow.

And I don't think they've updated it.

I think it's the exact same year at all.

And like I said this morning, I think they've maybe cleaned it once or twice since then.

It's a real dive bar, but they also have a plaque on the bathroom door stating that and the date.

And they kept some, someone bought him a beer while he was there.

They kept his glass and they have, you know, that in a case on the wall.

I mean, it's not fancy by any means, but you know.

Yeah.

Tell

us about this place in Sparta, the fast fiberglass place.

Oh, where they have all the molds.

Yes, I've been

to Sparta a number of times, so I didn't know about this place.

Oh, so you didn't go there?

No.

So this is where those big molds

are.

Yeah.

Look at

this

picture, John.

Big boy, they

got a big boy

mold.

All

the big badgers and...

You know Wisconsin Dallas all those

huge The huge musky yeah, and you can

walk through it's just a graveyard you can walk through there and look at them all these

mold.

Oh

my gosh Now

here's a tip for everybody listening.

Okay, when you see a big boy You can tell if it's the original if if he's holding a plate under the burger if he's if his hand is Holding the burger without a plate.

It's not an original

Oh, really?

Just a little tip.

Keep an eye out.

Can you work at a big boy tonight?

I did.

I was a big boy cook.

Oh, wow.

Oh,

yeah.

That's the sign of the grill.

I was going to say in Milwaukee.

Yes.

Because that's kind of where they got the start in the

area.

Oh, yeah.

Marcus.

Marcus.

Yeah.

I love their chocolate fudge cakes with the ice cream in it.

I worked on Wisconsin Avenue.

Okay.

Yeah.

Right across from their hotel.

So, I know I loved it there.

I learned how to do dishes and cook really fast.

And the kids appreciate that now.

Our phone lines are open 855-752-4842 talking to Tom and Kristie Manus.

Tell us about Gravity Hill.

Where is this?

Oh, that's in Schulsberg.

What is Gravity Hill all

about?

That is an experience.

Have you tried it?

Numerous times.

We're skeptical.

We try everything.

It's an anti-gravity hill is what it is.

Just a mile outside of Schuelsberg, it's a little road that goes through a cornfield, a little highway, and they have a blue sign that gives you instructions.

So you put your car in neutral and you roll uphill.

And we're not talking just a little creeping.

We were up to five miles an hour.

And skeptics that we are, we went back a second time with a six-foot level.

And

our son, we

took him with his

drone because we wanted footage from every angle.

Really?

Yeah.

I mean,

it was something.

Are you going to release a video of all your investigations?

We should.

We should.

We

really

should.

That's a

good idea.

Yeah.

Now you've traveled all around the world.

What are some of the oddest things that you found

overseas?

Oh, the Penis Museum.

Excuse

me?

Yeah.

Exactly.

In Iceland.

So

it's an Iceland,

so they're all little tiny ones.

Well, they have whales.

Whale penises in there, too.

They have a good variety.

It's in Housavik, right?

Well, it was, but it moved.

Tell us the reason why they have a penis museum.

I really don't know.

Because somebody is obsessed with

size.

Yeah.

Because it's a

small town and they didn't have anything

else to

highlight.

Now is this one of the places you just discovered on your own?

We drove by.

And we turned

around.

Another

thing in Iceland that is kind of cool is there was a country radio station in the middle of nowhere and the guy was Icelandic.

and he loved old-fashioned country

music.

So he made this radio station and we decided we had to go and meet this guy and we went to his little radio station and it was kind of cool.

He wasn't there when we got there but somebody phoned him and they had to hunt him down around town and he came right away because at the time we were living right outside of Nashville.

But that was a

unique thing.

So you kind of swapped stories and talked about the old

country song.

His English wasn't very good.

No, it was just a unique thing that in the middle of Iceland there's this country.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay,

here's another one from your secret Wisconsin.