Grouches, Music Videos, and Kardashian’s Latest Oddity(Hour 1)

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anywhere.

And now, a guy who has a black and white plasma TV, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to

Nightlight.

Welcome, welcome, people.

Happy Wednesday, everybody.

Hope you're having a great day.

It is time for Nightlight.

It is time for us to come together as a community, as a society, and talk about really fun stuff.

Stuff that brings us together, like movies, TV, comedy, music, and the beautiful state of Wisconsin.

And Kim Kardashian.

We'll get to that.

Yeah.

Just a minute.

I cannot thank you.

Great

article.

Great read.

I'm

sure you enjoyed it.

Thank you enough for sharing that with me.

Oh, that is the voice of Conrad Krieger working the board tonight.

Hey, buddy.

Hey.

Yeah, it's... How's it

going?

It feels like it is really transitioning now to fall.

Yeah, I agree.

But that's okay.

It was beautiful today.

I woke up early to the sound of jackhammers in the street.

That's a

great way to wake

up.

There's always something in my neighborhood going on.

They're always fixing the street or digging up my cable line or my electrical line or something or someone with a chainsaw with a leaf blower.

And it always starts bright and early, but that's okay.

It was a gorgeous day.

I was glad to be up a little early today.

And yeah, fall is upon us.

And it's supposed to be a nice weekend.

It's supposed to be warm at least through the weekend.

So I can dig that, you know.

What, did you go off today?

No,

no, no.

No, I did not.

But I, you know, I still got in the gym.

So that's an

activity.

That's activity at least.

I gotta walk in and I will say this.

I got a nice, a brisk 45 minute walk in and I had a moment where I thought to myself, wow, I'm walking and this is exercise to me.

Like when I was your age, young Pete would have been very disappointed in old Pete.

Cause I was hitting it hard, you know, I was doing the weights and all that kind of stuff.

And nope, I take a walk now.

That's my workout.

No matter what age you are, you know, getting steps in is really important.

Absolutely.

I don't mean to denigrate people that walk because I'm one of them, but I like, I kind of have a bad knee.

I'm not going to run on pavement anymore.

I just think it's stupid.

Um, extra cycles for the living daylights out of me, a treadmill.

I can't do

it.

I got

to put a podcast on a walk.

And that's the only way I can tolerate cardiovascular activity.

When I was volunteering, I was in a middle school and I was running the stairs there and that was great.

I would go there at night when no one was there, just run stairs for 40 minutes.

That was one of the best workouts I've ever had.

And weirdly enough, it was not like high impact on your knees.

Cause when you go up, you're not really coming down hard.

Then I would take my time going down, walk the hall, come back, do it again.

That I miss.

I almost, maybe else.

start volunteering again, so they give me a fob to get into school so I can run stairs.

Other than that, honestly, like what cardiovascular workout excites you?

None of them.

None?

Yeah, then that I really only do a treadmill for a little bit to warm up.

Yeah.

And then I just like, yeah, I'm not going.

I do I do that thing you do, though, with the weights, I don't take any time in between.

So I get a good 30 minute workout.

But I would love to like play Frisbee Ultimate again or a game like that's a fun exercise, you know,

Time goes by quickly.

I guess I do shoot some hoops sometimes before before a workout to get get a warm-up in instead of walking on the treadmill or something like that because it just playing basketball is

way

more exciting than

Walking on the treadmill get a couple dunks in I hear you a couple whirling well.

Yeah, they had to lower the hoop for me for seven footer.

I Know there there were times in my life when all I wanted to do was go out and shoot hoops and I could do it for an hour and now I just

Well, I could still do it.

Like, why wouldn't I still do that?

I don't know what happens to people.

I guess I got a radio show and this takes up quite a bit of my time.

So I don't have as much time to shoot hoops as the middle-aged man.

You need to get one for your garage, you know?

Yeah, we need one of those Nerf hoops in here.

Yes, so you could shoot your paper at it.

Yeah, I could use, I need a little work on my set shot.

Hey, we got a fun show tonight, folks.

Recently, this was kind of a drag.

MTV announced no more music channels, no more music videos, which was a little bit disappointing.

I mean, I shouldn't say that because I stopped watching MTV eons ago.

I don't know if people still watch it.

I think now everybody's on the go.

Nobody sits on their couch and watches a music video anymore, right?

No, I mean, I'll watch it on YouTube if I like the artist.

Right.

Yeah, same.

My buddy Mike Siegel told me about this.

He said, yeah, it's done.

No more music videos.

And I said, well, we got to talk about that because Mike was actually a VJ on VH1 for like two or three years.

So he'd live that kind of cool lifestyle of the the VJ lifestyle so Mike will come on here tonight at 635 We'll talk about MTV our favorite videos you guys can get in on that conversation You can comment as you know and anything we're talking about throughout the course of the show at 855-752-4842 Be part of the conversation Mike will be here at 635.

He also hosts a great podcast called travel tales.

He loves to travel.

He's been all over the world He was in Des Moines, Iowa Conrad

And that's pretty exciting.

Have you been?

Have I been?

I have

not.

Okay.

So Michael be here at 635.

Then our pal Tim Sowers drops by at 735 to tell us what's coming up at the Overture Center.

And Tim always has great takes on TV shows.

He's a very, he's kind of a cinephile and a small screenophile too.

He likes his TV and movies as well as the live shows.

So we'll talk to Tim about that at 735.

Always fun.

But I think tonight, I think we're gonna get a good response on our question of the night.

So I think we should get that.

This is the nightlight question of the night.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Question.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

Who is your favorite grouch?

It is National Grouch Day, folks.

And even if it wasn't National Grouch Day, I would still ask this question.

I love this question.

I love grouches.

They're funny.

They say funny things when they're in bad moods.

I'm one of them at times.

Conrad can attest to that.

So who's your favorite grouch?

Help us celebrate National Grouch Day and let us know.

855-752-4842-855-75 civic.

You can drop us a stream comment.

If you're watching the radio on YouTube, X or Facebook,

or you can text us on the app.

Let us know who your favorite grouch is.

This is a fun one.

We got a lot of good social media responses.

I'll read those shortly.

So, all right, dude, let's get this out of the way to the Brewers.

Download two at home.

They have to win.

Now they got to win two out of three.

It's just-

Is it

two, three, two?

We talked about this last time.

It's two, three, two, yeah.

Okay.

So they got, now listen, here's the thing.

Here's what I would say to Brewer fans.

You guys took over the regular season with a really long win streak like they're certainly capable to get hot enough and take two out of three from the Dodgers and They did that

already didn't they sweep the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium?

They they swept the Dodgers in the regular season.

Okay, but that's regular season Right,

okay, but

Dodgers are just so hot right now like

yeah

everything they do just Completely out they outplayed us in every single aspect of the game

really

It's

I didn't see any of the game last night.

I was working on other stuff, but I was kind of following it.

Well,

man, there pitcher.

He did a complete game.

Did he?

He went the distance.

He played all nine innings.

Yeah.

Boy, that's that's kind of rare now.

Isn't it?

I think there he had like four, three or four hits.

Whoa.

Wow, that's nuts.

Yeah.

I mean, just it was like watching paint dry last night pretty much that the Brewers just kept.

Grounding out Yikes, and you know, yeah our our Freddie was pitched really well and then the bullpen came and kind of made it worse and

So he'll pitch again Hopefully Freddie can Dodger days will pitch again ideally, you know if you can get pot if you can get past their ace and then win one more game Anything can happen if the

thing is is we're trying to get to that bullpen

Yeah, the Dodger bullpen because I mean in the first game we saw they went to the bullpen and we we had Runners in scoring position before rice drink struck out, but

okay

It's really hard to get past those starting pitchers that they're really good for the Dodgers.

Yeah And they're the defending champ that they've been there too.

I think that means something like when you get in the playoffs They've been there many many

many many many times

true

So hang in there crew fans.

When is the tomorrow right tomorrow?

Yeah, and then they do three in a row in LA

They might I don't

know if I do

three in a row.

They might take one day out, but I Believe it's back-to-back game three and game four.

So

okay, let's Not to let's pivot and talk about Kim Kardashian speaking speaking of LA speaking of LA and the worst it has to offer so

You saw this article, you sent it to me.

It's a new line of underpants.

And they have their thongs with fake pubic hair.

So now trend was like, get rid of the hair or groom it.

Now they just want it like wildfire.

And these thongs Conrad in this picture, there's like bushy hair coming out on the side.

How is that a look?

Someone wants that look.

It's weird.

They should.

Yeah.

I don't know if this is really strange.

I don't know what the Martin, you know, the team behind that

design was thinking.

See, if I brought that up, I'd be fired immediately.

That's great.

Thanks.

Here's your two weeks available in 12 faux hair and thong color variations with straight and curly textures.

The thongs are currently sold out.

This is, what's the matter with society?

Kim Kardashian puts it out there and you know there's a certain amount of people that are gonna buy it.

Yeah.

What color are you gonna go with?

Well it says, with this iconic new panty, your carpet can be whatever color you want it to be.

So you can go with like a purple?

I've always wanted to be a redhead down below.

I don't, this is so weird.

The

carpet can

match whatever color you want.

Whatever color your drapes are.

No, this is how bored we are as a society.

There's a much easier way to have hair down there.

Yeah.

It's just weird.

Like

people are at home going, oh, that's

brilliant.

Oh, what?

I didn't see the price for those, but I.

I'm guessing they're not cheap either.

I bought a six-pack.

It's pretty.

It's reasonable.

200.

They throw in a Sydney Sweeney bar of soap.

Nice.

Oh my gosh, this is terrible.

Why don't I just don't like her?

And there's very few people, and at least some people I'll go, I don't like them, but like Mark Wahlberg, we talked about him the other day.

I said I never need to see another Mark Wahlberg movie.

By the way.

Yeah.

He's

doing another sequel.

To which horrible franchise?

Apple...

Released a movie last year around this time called family plan And there's family plan to they go to London

course

and guess who's the bad guy

John let's go

that would be hilarious Who is it John Snow kid Harrington?

Oh really which the whole I looked at the comments is like why is John Snow in this yeah?

I don't I don't get it and but I'll at least I'll say Mark Wahlberg, you know

Why London what?

He's got to bring that sassy Boston attitude to London, but this is like I don't I just don't like her.

I don't think she's really I don't think she's talented.

She's good at marketing

Yeah, I guess she

I don't like her mom.

I don't like her stupid brother.

I don't like her sisters.

I didn't really like her dad

It's just you don't like whole families what you're

saying I don't like no I don't and the dad you knew OJ did it when you saw Kardashian's face when they announced that verdict he looked like he was gonna faint he couldn't believe it so he knew that Whatever, but you know what folks if you want a pair of Kim Kardashian underpants, and you don't care what?

color hair is peeking out of them.

Go for

it.

I've got a new Halloween costume as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, folks, we are coming back.

We're going to read your texts, our question of the night.

Who's your favorite grouch?

Could be me after that last little tirade.

We'll share our answers with you.

And I've got a really funny clip of my favorite grouch that's coming up next on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Nightlight with Peachwama.

Great to have you with me.

I just, okay, here's, I was a little late getting back in the building, I have to admit, because I found two guys to be a part of our Nightlight Window Fund.

Really good dudes, they had soccer shirts on and they're from overseas and I said, are you guys soccer players?

And they started cracking up.

Like, I just don't understand what's so funny about that.

Like they look like soccer players.

Did you take the picture?

No, I forgot.

I just, it's so funny when there's a language barrier, like I was like, why are they laughing?

Like, I don't know, maybe I said something.

Maybe they heard me talking about King Parodians underpants, I don't know.

All right, so our question of the night, folks, is who's your favorite grouch?

It is National Grouch Day.

And I think Connor went first last night.

I'm gonna go first.

I changed my answer.

I said, Walter Mathow, because he's funny in everything.

And he's really grouch.

He's got that kind of sad sack face.

And then,

Daniel Wheeler Danny wheels posted Frank Costanza and I changed my answer because I think Estelle Costanza is Maybe the funniest person I've ever seen on TV She is plays George's mom I'm completely blanking on her name.

Her name is Estelle.

Why can't I think of her name?

I'll find it.

But anyway, she is my favorite grouch

by far and away.

And I have a quick clip here.

I'd like to play this.

Can you, this is, we'll do the short one right now, Con.

This is Estelle because she yells out because Frank Costanza, George's dad, is selling computers out of their garage.

And he offers Lloyd Braun, George's arch rival, and George, whoever wins and sells the most computers.

He's trying to compete with IBM.

A free water pick.

And George's mom does not like that at all.

Okay.

You're late again, Costanza, so listen up.

Starting tonight, we're having a little sales contest.

The loser gets fired, the winner gets a waterpick.

You're not giving away our waterpacks!

Serenity now!

You know what?

It doesn't matter.

That, of course, from the famous Serenity Now episode, which is hilarious.

One of the funnier later episodes of Seinfeld.

Let's play let's play the other one kind it's it's like a minute long and this is George moving back home Because he's lost his job and his life has taken a downturn.

It's George Jerry and Kramer moving George back to Frank and Estelle's house

Careful careful with the suitcases.

We just painted

Hello, Mrs. Costanz

I

gotta bring in some more stuff more stuff.

Yeah,

how much is there

is

more?

How are you, Jerry?

Fine, Mr. Sands.

Hey, I got a terrific joke for you.

Nah, not interested.

No, no, it's really funny.

There's these two guys.

Tell it to the audience.

Here, I made some bologna sandwiches.

Bologna?

Nobody eats bologna anymore.

What are you talking about?

Have a sandwich.

Nothing.

Oh, stop it.

You don't want one climber?

Uh, no thanks.

I think you're all a little touched in the head.

You're so worried about your health.

You're young men.

I really don't eat it.

What am I going to do with all these sandwiches?

Will you take them home?

Give them to someone in your building?

I don't know if I feel comfortable handing out baloney sandwiches in the

building.

That's so great.

She is hilarious.

And the one where they, the episode where they do the contest,

And she comes home and finds George treating her, his body like an amusement park to quote Estelle.

And she throws her back out and she's interaction is so funny too.

I could have clipped about 10 different things of her clips, but that's my favorite crouch.

How about you, Con?

I

got two.

One of them is kind of

festive because it's getting closer to Halloween.

Have you ever seen the movie Monster House?

No.

It's great.

It came on like 2006, so it was one of my childhood Halloween movies.

Kind of scary for a little kid, but you know, it's still a good movie.

But this guy, his house is like alive pretty much, and he lives in it.

And it's played by Steve Buscemi.

Oh, I love Steve Buscemi.

And it's his name's Never Cracker, but he's like the classic, like, get off my lawn.

So him, him is...

Up there, and then the other one is Mr. Heckles from Fronts.

He's a good grouch.

And I got a clip of you.

Yeah, let's hear it.

All right.

It's some of his good moments.

No,

no.

Mr. Heckles, no one is making any noise up here.

You're disturbing my oboe practice.

You don't play the oboe.

I could play the oboe.

Then I'm going to have to ask you to keep it down.

Who are you?

Hi, I'm Eric.

I'm going to be Chandler's new roommate.

I'm Chandler's new roommate.

I don't think so.

I could be Chandler's new roommate.

But he told me over the phone.

He told me in person.

That's weird.

Well, I'm going to go into my new apartment now.

He fakes like he's going into the apartment.

He goes

into it.

And then Chandler comes out of his room and Mr. Eccles is staying there soaring through his mail.

That's a good one.

I love some of these responses are outstanding.

Tony Zimmerman of Civic Media says Pat Crite low.

Check out Pat's show.

Mornings here at Civic Media, folks, and the very funny Tony Zimmerman.

That's great.

On the stream, Lil' Herve says Archie Bunker.

Love Archie Bunker.

That's a great one.

He also said Clint Eastwood.

Lil' Herve gave us three, and I think that's Dave.

I'm pretty sure that's Dave.

But he said Clint Eastwood.

And then also, Matt Harper, rock rap artist from Green Bay here, also said Clint Eastwood.

I never would have put Clint Eastwood in that category, but he is a grouch.

So he's got that squinty look like he's gonna kill someone and then Dave also said the dad from that 72

that is red foreman

Yeah, love red foreman and a native he might be yeah, I think so all right get folks Kim Kardashian's on we should have set up a deal with her we give a discount We give a free parry harry underpants Mike's eagle when we come back folks We're talking about the death of MTV and music as we know it

at least on MTV.

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

This is Pete Schwabba in Nightlight.

Welcome back, folks.

Great to have you with me tonight as we celebrate Wednesday night like every damn night in life should be celebrated.

I hope you're having a great night.

And if you're not, I hope we're helping make it a great night talking about some of the things that are so much fun in life to talk about.

Movies, TV, comedy, all kinds of fun stuff happening here tonight.

Tim Sowers will be here at 735 talking about upcoming events at the Overture Center in Madison.

I cannot wait to talk to Tim too because he's got two really cool shows coming up.

You know, not once has he offered me free tickets Conrad.

That's kind of weird.

I mean, I thought we were friends, right?

Tim and I get along.

Yeah, I think so.

Does he say stuff about me after he hangs up or after I leave the studio?

He says he can smell you through the...

through the stream, whatever.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, Tim will be here at 735 right now.

Oh, also in our question of the night is who is your favorite grouch?

It's National Grouch Day.

We've got some great answers.

We'll get to your texts soon.

But right now, it is my pleasure to welcome a very good friend of mine back to Nightlight.

He's one of our frequent fliers.

He's a comedian, a TV host, and the host of the TravelTales podcast and a former VH1 VJ, which is perfect for what we're talking about tonight.

Mike Siegel joins me over the phone.

Hey, buddy.

Hi, Pete.

I'm glad to hear you're celebrating Wednesday as I do every Wednesday.

Listen, every day is a gift, Mike.

Whether you're wearing Kim Kardashian's new underwear with the fake hair in it or not.

Do you have a pair?

I

have not, but I know what's gonna stuff my stocking

of Christmas.

They're thongs, Mike, but you can wear them backwards, too, if you want the hair part on the back.

That works just fine.

I know, isn't that terrible?

That's what they're selling.

It comes with hair.

Bursting out from the it's just I gotta

I gotta add to the Kardashians though, man.

They I mean you talk about geniuses in marketing to turn that nothing Wealthy unbelievable

unbelievable.

I think I knew what you said there that lack of talent into an empire Yeah, I'm with

you.

Yeah If I could only take my lack of talent

You need to make a sex tape I think

Yeah.

A new one, I should say.

I had a boy.

Hey, so first of all, happy belated birthday, Mike.

I understand

you had a birthday yesterday.

Yeah.

You

went out and celebrated.

How did that go?

It was nice.

Very low key this year.

Just a little dinner and then some cocktails with friends.

And yeah, this is how old I'm getting beat.

It was like seven o'clock, dinner at five, drinks at seven.

Home

by nine.

Yeah.

I would have thought that was the lamest thing in my twenties, but now it's fantastic.

And curl up with a good book after a night of

dinner.

Oh buddy.

Come on.

Big fan of happy hour these days.

Big fan of happy hour.

I sent you a text message yesterday.

I don't know if you remember this.

After I moved back to Wisconsin, I went back and I stayed with you for a while because I was, I don't know, doing some stuff or whatever and pitching something.

And so I was with you for like a solid week or two or whatever it was.

And we went out one night and you overdid it.

And I don't think you realized.

how hard you were hitting it.

And I was, I was watching TV and your bedroom was kind of off to the right.

And I see you like trying to put on sweatpants or something.

You're like hopping one way, then you're hopping.

Are you okay buddy?

And you go, man, I am effing hammered.

You actually said that out loud.

It was so funny.

That was not wrong.

Oh

good stuff that putting in sweatpants turned into an athletic event.

It was very funny.

Hey, do you have a favorite grouch mic?

A grouch?

Yeah, it's National Grouch Day.

That's our question tonight.

I said Mrs. Costanza and Walter Mathow.

I kind of had a tie.

Yeah, kind of.

Yeah,

Mathow was one of those guys.

Somebody posted like Walter Mathow in high school photograph, like his high school yearbook photo.

It was just like.

You couldn't believe it because that guy was never young.

You know, when you think of someone who was born at 50, that's mess out.

He looked like a sad sack when he was born.

Right?

You just can't picture him as a young guy.

It's like, it kind of reminds me of Larry Reeve, the comedian.

You know, he used to do these jokes and then he would tag him with, that's a tip from your uncle, Larry.

And I remember seeing him when I was like 20 and I'm like, this guy's like 60.

No, he was like 28.

Right.

He just always had that older guy look, you know?

Yeah, some guys are just born old looking.

Yeah.

Old look.

Steve Martin, because he went gray early, Steve Martin was looked the same for 40 years.

Now he looks pretty good for a guy who's like pushing 80 or whatever he

is.

No, he looks great.

I

have a favorite grouch.

I don't know.

I mean, Oscar's the classic, but a good grouch.

Well, that's a, well, you caught me off guard.

How about Red

Fox?

Mike, he was a good one.

Oh, dummy.

Big dummy.

Come on.

You big dummy.

Love Red Fox.

Man, I would like to see you pull off a, uh, a Samford and Son joke today of what you could get away

with.

Oh

man.

I'll stick your face in dough and make me some gorilla cookies.

I couldn't believe they said that back then.

I mean, I saw that as a kid and I'm like, oh man, I think that was pretty mean.

It's terrible.

Hey, so this is great having you here because you, you know, I was running some topics by you and you mentioned that VH, or I'm sorry, MTV stopped their music programming and video playing and they don't play music videos anymore, which is crazy.

Yeah.

I think it mostly is about the UK and Europe.

They had all these side channels like MTV 80s, MTV 90s, MTV hip hop that was still running over there.

And it's all gone.

I think the main MTV channel will still be running here.

But I mean, there's no music on it.

I mean, it's all like, literally, ridiculousness all day long.

God, those shows are so bad.

Yeah, it's such cheap programming that, but I guess it's all day.

their audience is gone.

I mean, it hasn't been about music for 20 years.

But

yeah,

it was the weird to see it because it was such a huge part of our lives, you know, you and I are at the same age.

And I remember when it came out, I sat there for hours at Friendhouse.

We just stared at it for hours.

It was

crazy.

I left a wedding.

that a friend of mine's older sister got married and me and like two friends left to go watch the thriller video because it had premiered.

And so we want, and I had recorded it, we were one of the first families with the VCR.

And

one of the last families to get rid of it, Mike.

So we went back and we watched it like three times, like MTV was everything back then.

And just like

you

said,

When you said that today, I said, oh, that's terrible.

And I go, well, you haven't watched videos in 30 years.

That's probably part of the problem.

So

nobody watches it anymore.

So you can't be that surprised.

And I think a lot of people went, wait a minute, still on somewhere.

I mean, do you have kids?

I don't.

But kids in their 20s or whatever, do they watch TV at all?

Well, not only typically with me, they will, if I'll say, hey, let's watch something.

But yeah, they're on their phones, I would say for the most part.

My son really likes movies, so he watches movies, but mostly it's the phone as it is with me.

I mean, I still watch TV, but I'm on my phone a lot too, you know?

I'm surprised they still make music videos at all.

I mean, what's it for the band now?

I mean, except, you know, it does go on YouTube and Tiktok, I guess,

and,

you know, social medias, but that's pretty much it.

There's just no market

for it.

Uh, I mean, I was in that when I was a VH one, it was on 97 and even then, um, music videos were the lowest rated, uh, part of the day.

So they buried us.

Oh yeah.

They buried us like Monday through Friday from like nine to 11 in the morning.

So housewives on treadmills would watch me.

And I know that because a lot of my former classmates were housewives on treadmills at that time and they would write me.

Hey, I saw you on TV.

Let's talk

about

that.

Like, what kind of gig was that for you?

I mean, when you got it, you must have felt great.

I mean, you probably worked with people, you grew up watching and so that must have been a thrill.

Yeah.

It was everybody's, you know, growing up in the 80s.

It was a dream to be a VJ.

You think that it's like, oh my God, they get to meet all the...

Rockstar thinking to have all this fun.

I go all over the place.

I that was it and by the time I got to New York I mean I was in my late 20s and even then I was probably too old for MTV Yeah, but the H1, you know, that was my I got the audition and I was always kind of like a rock kind of music nerd and They had me sit down.

I remember the audition.

They had me sit down in a room And just there's a pile of music magazines like Rolling Stone and spin and all these magazines

and then had me refleaf through it and just kind of riffed on everything I saw.

Oh,

wow.

And that was it.

They were like, yeah, we love that.

And then I got to the set when I got the gig and thought I could do that.

And they're like, yeah, you don't want to make fun of Mariah Carey.

You know, they might, they might, the record company might pull the videos though.

We can't, they're like, ah, and that was like TV 101.

You're going, oh, you guys are just a, you guys are just a marketing arm of the.

Right.

Oh, got it.

Did you, um, so that was weird.

Did you get to meet any, like, I remember Mark Goodman, Martha Quinn, uh, Kurt Loder, were any of those people around?

Wasn't VH1 in the same building as MTV for a while?

Uh, it was all Viacom at that point and at the same headquarters, but we shot at a different studio.

Okay.

Uh, that was right around the time they started TRL, which kind of took off and Carson Daly.

Oh yeah.

And so they had just were building this studio above Times Square and we had an old studio.

It was like 59th and 11th.

It was way off nowhere.

I think now they shoot the daily show there.

But at the time, yeah, there was like us, you know, us doing the reads and then, uh, RuPaul had a show and, uh, boy, seeing him the first time that was, uh, or her, I don't know, but seeing them the first time, uh,

Is intimidating because he's like six six With the wig and the heels it's like seven foot of drag queen coming down the hallway like Hi, how you doing like whoa?

I mean there you are Not gonna miss that guy, but yeah, it was weird time and the last meeting I went to they were Presenting their fall lineup and they were so excited page one about this new show behind the music that was coming

out

which really took off and that kind of like put the network kind of back on the map.

Cause they were like MTV's older sibling, you know?

It was a kind of more easier rock and there was no like hip hop on

it.

My guest is Mike Siegel.

He is a former VH1 VJ.

We're talking about the death of music on MTV, at least in some markets, so to speak.

And Mike, do you ever get people that would come up to you and say, what do you do while the video's on?

Yeah,

we're not watching it live, right?

We throw to it and then we go to the next read and just think yeah, they didn't they didn't figure it out like it was like Yeah, I had friends that when I worked at HGTV People had asked me about shows like house hunters.

Yeah,

and I friends who worked on that and they really think like

You sit there through the whole house buying process for months while they decide and close the rest grow.

And it's like, no.

Oh, that's

so funny.

And when I tell them, and not to blow the lid off it for anybody listening, they've already bought the house, folks.

And yeah, we got three days to shoot.

You go, you find two comps, and the people pretend

They're not walking to their own house and going, the closets are a little small.

That

is hilarious.

That's

like when I was a kid and I used to think when I'd listened to WLS on the radio stations, they were pointing to a band.

Here's the Bay City Rollers and the guy points and they start playing.

I thought they were all in the studio.

Mike Siegel is here.

Folks, we're going to do a very quick break and we'll come back and talk about our favorite videos.

It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

with Pete Schwab, great to have you with me tonight.

A.J.

from the 608 says, hey, Pete and Conrad, my heart says Oscar the Grouch, my head says Deborah from Everyone Loves Raymond.

Never really watched it.

Okay, but that's, wow, what's her name, Doris, something or other, right?

Not sure.

I

just thought of a new one, though, actually.

All right, lay it on me.

Terry Crews, everybody hates Chris.

He's a grouch Tony the trucker from the 608 says he all I'm sorry.

I missed his first at Texas Walter Matthow has played many grouches But William Frawley as Fred Mertz wins my vote.

I love Lucy show Wow, nice Tony awesome stuff Mike Siegel is with us folks former VH1 VJ host of the travel tales podcast and Renown TV host host of many TV programs and a very funny comedian Mike where you headed tonight Mike?

Uh-oh,

do we lose Mike?

Oh, are you there?

Oh, now we

gotcha.

Sorry about that.

Oh, that's okay.

Yeah.

I am headed to Venice for defense, really.

So a travel tales event, actually.

Oh, very cool.

Kind of

a

meeting of travel folks.

So I go to these every so often for kind of like a, you know, meet and greet and trying to get to know people.

Yeah.

I find a lot of guests there and stuff for the travel podcast, which I've been doing for 14 years now.

Wow.

My Peter just thought of a grouch.

I just thought of a great grouch.

Oh yeah, cool.

Danny DeVito in taxi.

Louis DePalma.

Nardo.

He was basically up in that cage, which is basically Oscar's can.

Oh yeah.

That's hilarious.

That's a great one.

Mike, so let's talk about what were some of your favorite videos like there's so many iconic videos Which ones did you

like when

they came out like in the 80s and early 90s?

I remember that like when I first thought of so early 80s that went to a friend's house in a different town And we didn't have cable in my town yet.

So when we thought I just remember one the first ones I saw was Don't pay the ferryman by Chris de Berg.

I think total eclipse of the heart

And and it seemed like every other one was either Rod Stewart or Pat Benatar,

right?

That's great

Those but I did love I had to find you know, I wasn't a Duran Duran fan, but you got to hand it to them It's like they saw the medium and they jumped on it like they knew it was like yes of them, you know what I mean?

We have a thing and

And I've grown to like them more.

I've seen them concert a couple of times and they're great.

They're great.

And they have a lot more hits than you see.

Oh, absolutely.

And they-

built on their kind of library, so to speak, like ordinary world and some of these later hits were just

so

great.

And their videos, like Rio was great.

Hungry like the wolf was fun.

I was kind of with you.

I didn't love them when they first came out, but they're the real deal.

I enjoyed that.

I love AHA's video.

Take on me.

Dire

Straits, you know?

Yeah, Peter Gabriel.

Oh yeah, that's so album.

You know, Sledgehammer was like, groundbreaking stuff and all these great directors grew out of those things.

You're basically making a three minute sizzle reel of your talent.

You know, it was kind of perfect.

Yeah, great point.

Did you like YouTube videos?

I loved With or Without You, even though it wasn't like as flashy as some of the videos, I just thought it was such a great song and I love the images they put to it, you know.

Yeah, and I love the where the streets have no name when they're playing on a rooftop in downtown LA

Oh,

yeah And they got shut down that was great.

I forgot about that one.

Yeah

Yeah, but I was so funny because I remember like we had to do a countdown every day on VH one and again There was no rhyme or reason to it.

They just picked ten songs That were hot in the charts and the record companies wanted to push

And it was the same, I think for three months though, I was there for 13 weeks.

And I think I played the same, you know, dozen songs almost every day.

It was crazy.

What a fun day.

And there's only so many times, there's only so many times you can throw to, and here's Hanson with Mbop.

I must have said Mbop 800 times and felt like an idiot each time going Mbop.

This is interesting, Mike.

You were actually a VJ?

I played

a VJ

in a pilot shot at VH1.

I don't know if you remember that with Jim Gaffigan.

You were dating a girl who worked at VH1 at the time and cast me.

And so I got to be kind of a pretend VJ, but I got a behind the scenes look at just how hard you guys worked.

Yeah.

It's brain surgery, Pete.

It was brain surgery.

I'm sure it was a great gig.

That's so great.

You've always been a music guy.

You

always

have been.

You mentioned a band I had never heard of.

Are you actively on the lookout for new music or do you just kind of find it in your circles?

What's your music fandom at right now?

Where are you?

You know what?

You know, I'm in my 50s now, so I'm seeing a lot of... What?

I'm also on that tour of seeing like, you know, we got to see these guys before they die.

That kind of thing, you know.

I once saw ACDC.

You know, just kind of bucket listing guys I've never seen.

Right.

And you know, it's really just Angus Young and Brian Johnson and a few other guys that, you know, hired guns basically.

Right.

So that's the whole band now.

And it's just, I mean, it was good, but these guys are old, man.

They're old.

There's like, there's like one pip left and he's touring.

It's just the pip.

Right.

I mean, at some point you're a tribute act.

You know what I mean?

If there's nobody original in the band, I mean, come on.

Exactly.

But I do feel bad now that it just haven't been keeping up on new music.