Doctors, Dairy, and Dynamic Performances (Hour 2)

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 appreciates a nice hot meal at a fair price.

Pete Chwaba.

Who doesn't?

Hello everybody.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to our new, new and improved, new longer version.

We are on at five o'clock right now.

It's very exciting to be with you an hour early here on the show that has the goal every day to make you happy.

You could call this the happy hour if you wanted to.

We strive to take your mind off the day.

and get you to think about more fun things, the joys of life, like movies and TV, music, comedy, sports, what else, Conrad, what am I missing?

I mean, a nice hot

meal sounds pretty

good

right

now.

Nice hot meals, we talk about food sometimes, we

talk about all kinds of

stuff here at Night Light.

It is great to have you with me, that is the voice of Conrad Krieger, he is the Night Light producer, and we have been on every night from six to eight for the last

Well, more or less two years, a couple of time changes.

And

now we're on an hour earlier, hoping to keep you company if you're still in your car or if you just want some more entertainment talk, we are here to do just that.

So it is great to have you here.

And whether you're joining us over the radio where we air more or less statewide or the app or on the stream, if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook or X, you can always leave us a comment.

The phone lines are always open, 855-752-4842.

I welcome...

Opinions, all kinds of stuff.

I'd love to know what you guys are thinking throughout the course of the show.

So feel free to chime in at any time and let us know what's on your mind.

How you doing today, Con?

I'm doing good.

Yeah.

It's a victory Monday, as they say.

Yeah.

Really?

You're jumping into the Packers like 10 seconds into the show?

I'm just happy.

I'm happy my alarm went off and I'm here at 5 o'clock today.

Because that could have been catastrophic.

Yeah.

Because I have an hour drive.

And

it takes me two hours to put my face on and do my hair and all that kind of stuff.

So I'm just happy to be here.

So you had a good weekend though, it sounds

like.

Yeah, I saw a lot of movies this weekend.

Did

you?

I did.

So

you got Victory Monday, you've got movies.

We do have a lot to talk about.

There's no question about

that.

It was a great weekend.

It was a great weekend.

It

was a gorgeous weekend.

Yeah, I mean, I went outside, guess what I was wearing?

Shorts.

You

know it.

year-round shorts guy, that's Conrad Krieger.

That's a big thing here in Wisconsin.

We could do that.

We had, like Saturday was so gorgeous.

It was one of those days, probably hit 50, low 50s.

I did not want to be inside.

I just wanted to be

outside.

And I'm an inside guy.

I love my color television.

I love my chairs, my couch, my computer, all that kind of stuff.

But man, when it is that gorgeous, you have to go out of doors.

That's what I say.

Did you go for a walk?

Many.

Many?

I had a phone call, a friend of mine, we have this project together we're doing.

It's a movie thing.

And he called me from the American film market in Los Angeles, which is where he spent the last five days.

And we talked about a script for an hour and a half.

But I had bad reception because I kind of lived by the water.

So I had to do like this back and forth walk outside.

But I had to stay close to my house because my wife was on a long distance call in the house with one of her sisters.

So I'm like,

I literally walked probably, I'm not kidding, for like an hour and a half on the phone in like a hundred foot radius of my house.

People thought I was probably insane.

Well, you know, for me, I can never sit still when I'm on a phone call.

Really?

I don't know why, I'm just always walking around on a phone call.

Interesting, even if it's the party line?

I'm always on the move.

But you do like to party, right?

Sometimes.

And especially when you're not here.

Oh, I bet you do.

All right.

Really fun show tonight.

We're packing an hour and a half of entertainment somehow into three hours.

We're going to figure it out, folks.

We'll do this.

Very exciting to be on this early.

If you're still in your car, drive safely.

do not get in a wreck, but hopefully we can keep you company here until we shift our focus a little more towards entertainment at six o'clock.

But we have a really fun show tonight.

Jimmy Cusca is here at 535.

He is the Civic Media Sports Director.

He is also, Jimmy, I don't even know how Jimmy does it.

He's got, the guy like covers sports.

He announces sports like a fiend.

And he,

Every time he's on, he's watched like more TV than I have.

He's got all the shows he's watching himself or with his kids to talk about.

So we're going to cover all of that with Jimmy at 535 tonight.

And it will be good to connect.

Jimmy has been on probably a couple of months now, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm starting to take it personally.

Well, he's back on and he's back.

And he does have a show that he finished that we talked, I make the call on Friday last week.

Okay.

So he definitely talking about it.

So

you know what he's going to talk about?

Oh, yeah.

Have I seen the show?

No, I don't think you have.

Okay.

But I did, I saw the first season of this show.

Okay.

And I enjoyed it.

Was it Threes Company?

I don't.

Is it Milf

Manor?

Oh, I need a season three still.

All right.

Well, it'll be fun.

Jimmy can come here and talk about shows I knew nothing about.

That'll be really, that'll be a really fun, one sided conversation.

No, I love Jimmy's recommendations.

He is the one really, my son turned me on to the show, The Boys, which I ended up hating.

I liked it at first.

And then the

way it

ended, I really was just like, oh my gosh.

But Jimmy got me into that too.

And he's got a great eye for TV, love his opinions.

So we'll welcome Jimmy here at 535 as we always do.

And then this is exciting, folks.

At 635, as we so often do here at Nightlight, we have live in studio entertainment.

The doctors in Recital are gonna be live in the studio talking about their upcoming event.

They do this every year.

It's for charity.

It's all people from the medical.

world here in northeast Wisconsin and parts beyond, I believe, that put on this great show every year.

And it all goes to charity and you would not believe the talent in this group of people.

They're all in the medical field.

In fact, the organizer, Kim Shefchik, is the one who comes in with the piazz, Chris and Paul Piazz.

Great couple, very musically talented, all of them are.

Kim's got a beautiful voice.

They're gonna come into the studio, they're gonna sing.

They can pretty much sing any genre, and they're gonna talk about this great event that happens every year here in Green Bay.

They will be live in the studio, and I love when they are here because they sound fantastic.

So you don't wanna miss that.

And then at 7.20, we have Lindsay Fry from the Festival Theater in St.

Croix Falls over in the western part of the state.

They have a great show coming up, and we've enjoyed our talks with anyone we've been in touch with from the Festival Theater.

They do great things over there.

I love that they are closer to Minneapolis than where we are, but they still seem to like us better.

I think that's really cool.

Yeah, it's just a state thing, you know.

Yeah.

I don't want to make it all about the Vikings, but come on.

It's terrible.

It's gonna be, yeah.

Lindsay will be here at six, I'm sorry, at 720.

So that's a great show.

Those are great guests.

We're covering everything.

And I think it's time, Conrad.

What do you think?

Should we?

I think it's time.

There might be people listening right now, though, who have no idea what we do every night.

Do you realize that?

I think so, but I think it's time we get to that.

Let's help

them get their feet wet.

It's the nightlight question of the night.

Let's talk about the question.

OK, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

OK, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

OK, America's Dairylanders.

It's National Butter Day.

Yes, of course, butter has its own day as it should.

It's delectable.

So tonight's question is, what is your favorite dairy product?

It's National Butter Day.

And I want to know from you, my fellow dairylanders, what is your favorite dairy product?

And I'm going to go first because I don't, admittedly, I don't eat a ton of dairy.

But this particular national holiday caught my attention because I love butter that is melted on a baked potato.

I indulged just last Friday at a fish fry on my night off.

Nice.

So I love melted butter.

On a baked potato, on like warm banana bread or pumpkin bread, forget about it.

Get outta here.

I love butter.

And I'm also gonna say I'm not a huge cheese eater, but smoked Gouda, baby.

I will have smoked Gouda on anything.

Crackers, bread, on another piece of smoked Gouda.

I don't care.

So those are my two.

Let's say you can.

This it's maybe a surprise.

I don't know, but I'm a sucker for some chocolate milk.

Oh chocolate milk is good.

It's just anytime I'm like

Feeling

something like maybe I just get some chocolate milk.

I think they'll make me feel better Packers

defense is underperforming

give me And it's you know, you get all you go to the quick trip Go to the quick trip and you grab one of their chocolate milks.

It's pretty good.

Is it quick trip brand?

Yeah, it is.

No

kidding.

I didn't

know they

had that

What about the dairy substitutes?

Do you like the chocolate

oat milk?

I will say this.

My brother put me on to this chocolate protein oat milk.

Or no, it's almond milk, I believe.

It almost tastes exactly the same.

It's all about the chocolate anyway.

The milk is just the vessel.

It has more protein in it.

And it has less sugar.

Because if you look at chocolate milk, it has a decent amount in there.

It's a health food, basically.

Yeah,

something you should make part of your everyday diet.

Yeah, so

I like chocolate oat milk.

I'm sorry almond milk if

you put that

tasted chocolate oat milk yet.

Oh, I don't think I have it.

I don't know if I have it I think though that almond milk if you put it in your coffee.

It's a great great creamer in it as well

Yeah, I use oat milk in my coffee.

I do that I do have some allergies to dairy, but They would not stop me from melted butter on anything

and smoked Gouda.

I love it.

So let us know what you guys think.

855-752-4842-855-752.

No, I'm sorry, 855-75 Civic.

This is just something we do here every night at Nightlight.

We ask a question and we love when you, the listener, are part of the show and let us know what you're thinking too.

So please join the fun.

Got some great guests and all right.

Get to your Packers, buddy.

I know you got to get this off your chest because I barely

said

hello, Wisconsin.

And you're like, so Pete, the Packers.

So what did you think?

Well, you know, I was a little bit worried in the game.

I'm not glad.

I thought we could come out and play amazing against a third string quarterback.

But I will say it is James Winston.

So it's not any third string quarterback.

He can play.

He can play.

Yeah.

And I mean, our defense a little questionable on the secondary.

This game also just let the run game just Every time I thought we were gonna stop them Here's another run for four or five yards And I was like, oh come on.

Why you guys Josh Jacobs injured he's injured, but I heard that It's not as serious as people thought So hopefully he's back, you know one or two weeks.

That'll be nice.

Yeah, but a menu

Wilson is no bad running back by any means so

Definitely can put more of the load on him too.

So

So what do you make of the fact that they lost those last two games last week?

You can't take the Phillies Philly.

They're great.

So yeah, maybe that's a loss but the one before that they probably should have had This one Wasn't a gimme.

It's on the road.

Whatever anything can happen.

Rusty Wilson was riding the bench We didn't have to look at him during the game, but

it would have been worse

worse,

but you know, are they all

Sometimes all it takes

is one win and you're kind of back on track.

Yeah, I mean Jordan Love looked way better than he's the last two games.

I mean, the throws he was making was great.

Just the receivers needed to catch the ball for him.

I'll say that.

Romeo Dobbs had like, I think three drops, but also some great catches.

Kristen Watson looked just really, really good for this game.

But nice.

You know, I think, I think moving forward, we can expect some better offense.

See, here's what you're in for in this five o'clock hour.

I have come clean months ago that I am a Bears fan.

I spent the first part of my childhood in Chicago and Conrad and I have had some spirited discussions about the Bears and the Packers.

And I'm not a Packer hater.

I love the rival.

I don't even understand how you guys are Minnesota haters.

I love all the NFC North.

I love those, those matchups.

I

was

almost cheering for Detroit last night, even though their loss put the Bears in first place because I liked it.

It's like cheering for the Big Ten in a way.

Yeah, I get that.

Yeah, I mean I was cheering for the Lions too.

I'm not gonna lie.

I just not a big fan of Philly, so I'm not a big fan of Philly

and Dan Campbell's an idiot.

He went over

five on fourth

down.

Like do your team a favor for God's sake.

All right, when we come back folks I want to tell you about a great screening coming up in Madison December 4th and

Oh my God, a whole bunch of stuff.

We are coming right back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Chihuahua on the Civic Media Radio Network.

This is Nightlight.

I am Pete Schwabba in our new time slot where we go on the air at five o'clock in our earlier, still technically night, at least through the winter.

It's certainly dark outside.

But it's great to be with you and it's great to have you here with us tonight.

Conrad Krieger is working the board.

He's the producer of Nightlight.

And we are pleased to make your acquaintance in this early hour.

Hope you're having a great day, folks.

Wherever you're joining us from across this great state, it is great to have you.

And we will hope to bring a smile to your face, maybe have a few laughs.

You're gonna hear some great singers at 635 with the Doctors in Recital.

And it's gonna be a lot of fun.

So great to have you here.

I wanna tell you all about a great screening that is taking place December 4th.

I have a personal interest in this too.

Those of you listening who might not know me that well, my background is film and TV, and I was a stand-up comedian before.

A film I made called The Godfather of Green Bay will be showing at the brand-new Atwood Music Hall on December 4th.

The show is, or the night, I should say, is sponsored by John and Gordy of the WMDX morning show, and Dondren's Distilling.

It's going to be a great night.

A lot of the proceeds will go to the Dane County Humane Society.

The Godfather of Green Bay is a comedy.

Starring me, Tony Goldman, Lauren Holly, Lance Barber, Tom Lennon.

Lots of great actors from Milwaukee, a few from Chicago, some from here in northeast Wisconsin.

We had a phenomenal cast.

There's big laughs, and it's a great movie to watch with an audience.

So I would love it if you could come out December 4th, say hello, introduce yourself.

The door is open at 6.

John and Gordy will introduce the film, and then there will be a Q&A following.

It's going to be a really fun evening December 4th at the Atwood Music Hall.

For more information, where do we send people for more information?

CivicMedia.com, right?

Or just send me a Morse code.

I'll get back to you.

Our question of the night is, it is National Butter Day.

We are the dairy state.

I would love to know what is your favorite dairy product?

Mine is melted butter.

I'm very specific there.

And I say smoked Gouda cheese.

What did you say again, Con?

I said chocolate milk.

Chocolate milk.

Yes, of course.

That's a great one.

Isn't that Russell Wilson's favorite?

No, he likes Subway.

He likes Subway because he was a pitch man for Subway.

And that

did not go very well.

It's spicy.

Should we play that commercial?

Can you find that?

Let's

play

that.

At some point during the show,

we'll play the horrible

commercial.

Yeah, I can definitely.

It's great.

So I'll definitely.

It is

great.

I want to tell people, let us know, by the way, folks, what your favorite dairy product is.

It's 855-752-4842-855-75 civic.

Join the fun.

Be part of the show.

You can also text us on the app or the stream.

If you are watching the radio on Facebook YouTube or ex Twitter I want to tell everybody about a movie I saw this weekend that I thought was just outstanding and I it was one of those things where you're just shuffling through I think I was on Fandango and It's called Relay and it stars Riz Ahmed.

I think I'm saying that right.

He's an Oscar winner I believe from the sound of metal

Lily James and Sam Worthington, who plays a really good bad guy.

And I didn't know this existed, Khan, but apparently when there's a whistleblower at a corporation, sometimes they're not very happy with these people, these corporations, especially ones that are fudging evidence or doing things that are unscrupulous.

So they kind of intimidate the whistleblower, oftentimes, at least according to this film, Relay, the whistleblower will get cold feet and want a middleman or middle woman to negotiate them giving these sensitive files back to the corporation.

The movie is a thriller and it's really good.

There's a lot of really tense scenes and that's all I'll say, but it's a really, it's definitely worth, I mean, it's $5.99, you can watch it in your living room, it's so great, it's called Relay and I highly

Highly recommend it.

Let's uh, oh we got a phone call count.

Yes, Cindy from Appleton Cindy from Appleton.

I haven't heard from you since last week.

Hi Cindy from Appleton.

How are

you?

Hey Pete, how are you?

I'm good.

Thanks

Good to hear from you.

What's

going on?

Well, I think probably one of the most favorite dairy products I would think would be ice cream, but believe it or not mine is sour cream I love sour cream.

I put sour cream on everything

boy that

That is one that kind of flies under the radar.

And Carol Lynn, who's watching on the stream on Facebook, also said sour cream.

So do you put it, what do you, do you put it on a baked potato?

Oh yeah, baked potato in my chili.

A lot of my like any tomato based stuff gets sour cream.

Anything creamy gets sour cream.

Sometimes they even use it for salad dressing.

If I'm out of salad dressing, I mean, I just put it on a lot of stuff.

Let me ask you this, Cindy.

Do you ever just grab a spoon and go to town on the tub of sour cream?

No,

that would be a little weird.

That's aberrant behavior.

Cindy, thank you.

Thank you so much as always for the call.

Brett from Brown Deer says my favorite dairy product.

See what he did here.

My favorite dairy product is Trump's in the Epstein files.

Oops, I mean cheese.

I could see how you could make that mistake.

Thank you, Brett.

Just cheese in general?

You got a favorite kind of cheese con?

There was this one, I can't remember the name now because I got it in Door County.

And we went to like this cheese tasting place.

Yeah.

And it was just like apple kind of base cheese.

Think it was a little cheddar.

I like when they do that when they flavor them a little bit.

That's kind of cool

It was the best cheese I've ever

had

and I just ate it by itself

just a hunk of cheese Well done

was like a mouse

Carol in on the stream also says Tony Goldwyn is an excellent actor Carol I will say this if you're near Madison, please come out to the screening on the fourth Tony Goldwyn is not only

a great actor.

He is a descendant of Samuel Goldwyn, who is the Goldwyn in MGM, Metro Goldwyn-Meyer, and he is, I think it was his grandfather.

And he told me, when we were talking in between takes, and I got to know him a little bit, he said, the only thing that's important to him as an artist is his body of work, which made me feel good that he wanted to do the film and accepted our offer.

But also, I just have so much respect for the guy.

He is a tremendous actor.

And he's great in the film, too.

He wears a mullet.

He spent six days in Marinette, Wisconsin, walking around the mall.

And it was a blast.

OK, so Jimmy Koska is coming up at 5.35, folks.

Right around the corner, we're going to talk a little sports with Jimmy and find out what he's been watching.

He is always fun to talk to.

One more text here before the break from the 608.

Tyler says, love the derriere on a Malamoo beach.

Where the cows are happy.

Do you get that, Con?

Maybe explain a little bit.

Tyler's a wordsmith there with his puns.

Please explain Tyler.

Great to have you tonight.

We are coming right back at Night Light with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

All right Conrad this is our first Five o'clock hour on nightlight.

This has never been done before in the history of radio has there been a show That was moved from six o'clock to an earlier start at five o'clock

that had you and I working on the show.

That is true.

We are breaking ground here tonight.

So it is great to have you with me tonight, folks.

If you're headed home from work or whatever, sit back and have some fun with us.

We're talking sports and movies and comedy and music.

We've got live entertainment in the studio tonight.

You didn't think we could get a trapeze artist in the studio, did you, Conrad?

No, but you proved me wrong.

I'm joking.

Of

course, it's the Doctors and Recital.

We'll be here at 6.35.

Lindsay Fry from the Festival Theatre at 7.20.

We'll be telling us about a great play they are doing over there in the western part of the state.

And right now, this is exciting because we're going to talk a little sports in movies with our pal.

He is the Civic Media Sports Director, and we love when he joins us here at Nightlight.

Mr. Jimmy Kuska.

Hey,

buddy.

Hey, it's been a while since I've gotten to be on the show, so I'm pretty excited to be here.

You know, you're like the busiest guy.

First of all, let me just say you have an open invitation.

You could say, Pete, I'm coming on.

And I'll be like, Conrad, clear the schedule.

No, but you're like seriously one of the busiest people, not just at Civic Media, but one of the busiest people I know.

Well, it's good to be.

I think it's better to be busy than bored.

For sure.

But yeah.

I definitely find my way into a lot of things.

You know, the next couple of weeks, I'm doing 11 college sports broadcasts in the span of two weeks.

And that includes basketball, it includes wrestling, includes football, playoff football.

So I am beyond stoked to have the opportunity to even have somebody that's interested in me calling games, but then to be able to go out and cover sports and call it a job.

I mean, that's just awesome.

Listen, I feel the same way.

And when I get to talk sports with you or my Clemens, it's just an added bonus.

So we'll get into all of that.

Absolutely.

And you got young kids at home too.

So, you know, I guess it's...

Yeah, they were trying to take me down in a soccer video game here just a minute ago before I joined you.

And unfortunately, you know, they weren't able to get close for them.

But they'll get

there.

Was it FIFA?

Yeah, it was FIFA.

But here's the thing.

I can only be better than them at video games and all these other things for so long.

My oldest son is nine and a half and he'd over the weekend for the first time beat me in chess.

So I am rapidly losing ground to that whole notion that like dad is some big and federal fortress of like being awesome.

My older kid is quickly knocking down those walls.

He sounds like a prodigy.

He's really smart way smarter than I ever was, but he had been practicing against his classmates and he was getting bored of beating all of his.

All the friends in school and they were getting mad at him for winning So he decided I'm gonna start playing dad and he plays me all the time and and now he just routinely He challenges me.

He makes me think it makes me sweat that finally he broke through And I'm like finally the monkeys off his back.

There's no pressure on me anymore.

I could admit defeat But yeah, it's a lot of fun.

I think that you know in the world of entertainment too You think of just things like video games board games all these things and we talk a lot about movies and sports and things like that But you know what if you find something that makes

makes you happy and you want to do it and enjoy your time, pass the time, whatever it is you're trying to do.

These are definitely some great alternatives to all those other

things.

Absolutely, well said.

And we all want our kids to be smarter than us.

But when we realize they actually are and they know it, that's a problem.

Yeah, he catches me sometimes.

I have a very poor memory of certain things So if if there if there's something coming up on the schedule and he knows when it's happening I've probably forgotten when basketball practices, but he knows to the minute when it is and he's got the shoes on he's already looking for my car keys for me and I love that

Jim it is I don't know if you heard this our question of the night is it is national dairy day We are the dairy state.

I'm sorry.

It's national butter day.

We're the dairy state.

Do you have a favorite dairy product?

Yeah,

my favorite dairy product is chocolate milk.

I'm kind of known for it.

And in my circles, I drink a lot of it.

The butter thing is hilarious to me, though, because my grandma, she just turned 92 in August.

A few years ago, for Christmas, she gave me the Bohemian cookbook they had put together in Chippewa County, Wisconsin, a bunch of people got together.

decided to make a cookbook, and I'm not lying to you, and I'm glad I get to share this on National Butter Day.

Literally every single recipe calls for just an incredible amount of butter.

That's the secret to bohemian cooking.

Well, you could do a lot worse.

That's fantastic.

You know, Conrad's favorite dairy product is chocolate milk as well.

There we go.

There's a reason why we

do a sports show together.

Make the call thing.

Hey, that's a great segue.

Why don't we start there?

Jim, how are things going on Make the Call?

You got the kid, the K-man here, as part of your ensemble and Gray, and tell us about the show.

Yeah, so outside of the knuckleheads.

It's one going pretty well.

I think I'm kidding having having all these people from civic media come together to Do a show and and I really I really try to do it as where I handle kind of the the timely elements that have to be produced like After we record so I try to handle that and I let them just take the roundtable take all the questions and run with it so Conrad Parker Olson great and Greg Anderson they all do

the bulk of the show where there's like the actual discussion on sports topics.

I am there to just kind of shepherd it along and then knock out the interview parts of it just to give us, you know.

It's like having three sports shows in one, really.

We're trying to cover a lot of different ground.

Last week, we were covering everything from junior college soccer all the way up to the Packers.

This week, we're going to talk a lot of division three football with the Christmas Bowl on Saturday and Sun Prairie, and then the four WIAC teams, as well as Concordia, making it into the NCAA tournaments.

So there's a lot of great things in Wisconsin to talk about sports-wise.

Having a one-hour show isn't nearly enough to capture all of it, but we do hit a lot of different things.

throughout the program.

And obviously having Conrad as part of it is awesome.

Having all the collaboration we have in the company as part of that show, along with Mike Clemens, who does a segment in the show as well, I really feel like it's a good melting pot of all the sports things we do here at Civic Media, whether it's covering local high school events or the Packers, Badgers, Bucks, et cetera.

That's fantastic, and I love the title to make the call.

That's a great great title for a sports show and Conrad I knew Jimmy was gonna say good things about you you weren't so sure but Well very cool, so check out make the call everybody my guest is Jimmy Koska He is the civic media sports director and one of the busiest guys I've ever met Jim where you've got

all this announcing you're doing.

Where should we go next?

Because I know we want to talk some TV and film too, but do we want to jump into the Packers or your announcing duties?

Well, you're dying your dance floor.

Well, I'm doing a lot of stuff for UW-Platteville.

Just look at their home schedule for events, and that's where you'll find me.

Outside of Saturday's just Ms.

Bull, which is Wisconsin's first Division III college football bowl game, by the way.

That's happening in Sunfery Saturday at 2.

UW-Stout taking on Wash U out of St.

Louis.

The Lakefront Bowl is in Wabatosa, just down the road.

That's a different matchup of conferences.

But those two bowl games are the only two college football bowl games in Wisconsin.

And it's great because we have a lot of small colleges in the state, whether it's junior colleges, two-year colleges.

You've got obviously your UW system, a lot of division three schools, you know, all the way, especially in the eastern part of the state and even to the northern part of the state as well.

There's so many different.

you know, ways for high school student athletes to compete in the state at the college level.

There's a lot of opportunity for that.

And what you've seen over, I would say the last 15 to 20 years, is you've seen a lot of the student athletes who used to just exclusively go, you know, into the WIAC or into the CCIW or the MIAC or wherever they're going in the Midwest.

You're seeing these guys now in division one rosters and gals, especially in, you know, women's basketball, women's soccer, things like that.

You're seeing just

just how important Wisconsin is in terms of providing college level athletes across all sports, not just a football thing or a basketball thing.

And Wisconsin has so many opportunities for it.

We're really spoiled here in the state with how many ways there are for students who go from high school to have a college opportunity.

We have every level represented here with the exception

of a lot of D2s.

We have one D2 school, but a lot of the D2s are to our west or to our south.

But other than that, we've got a million division three opportunities.

And then, of course, you've got your division ones.

In football, you've got just the one, but in basketball, you've got four.

So I really feel like in the state of Wisconsin, we've got very, very good youth club level programs, high school programs.

all the way through college and obviously professional sports.

With the exception of not having the NHL, I think we're in pretty good shape here at Wisconsin.

Oh, absolutely.

Speaking of all these announcing gigs you're doing, Jim, and I'm not surprised with those pipes, but what is your favorite sport to call?

What gets you really charged when it's not even like work or you have to do less prep because you're so into it?

Is there one of those sports that you call?

First half of my career, it was basketball because that's what I played the longest and what I was the best at.

So early in my career, I felt like I was stealing money, calling basketball games because it was so easy to just sit and talk about basketball for, and basketball games are quick.

So you go to a high school basketball game, the broadcast, the pregame and post game show might be longer than the game because the game, you might show up and have your, your pregame show go up at seven.

You might be tearing down your gear at eight 20.

It's an hour and change.

And all of a sudden you're on your, you're back in your car and your way home.

Whereas a high school football game, you might not be done till after 10 o'clock.

you know, so I always felt like basketball is the easiest, but living in North, Northern Wisconsin, Northwestern Wisconsin, my mentor in broadcasting was the Hall of Famer, Mike Sullivan, who passed away earlier this year.

And Mike's love was hockey.

And he had a lot of hockey broadcasts on our broadcast schedule.

And just after producing it for so long, cause I didn't know anything about hockey, I was too afraid to call it.

I produced a lot of them and I'm hearing the excitement and how quick it is and how much things are flowing and moving and how

you know, he was trying to describe where the puck was going, everything.

I'm like, okay, I got to check this out.

So I went to a couple of games in person.

We became a Minnesota wild affiliate.

Got to go out to the suite and watch some of those, listen to the broadcasters, started watching it a bit more.

And I got really interested in it to the point that for a few years, I was even the home announcer for a junior level hockey team in the Madison area.

And I did a lot of high school games.

you know, probably for the last 10, 15 years now, well, midway through my career kind of shifted from basketball being that easy sport to hockey, because hockey plays right into my personality where I am loud, I talk fast, and I get excited over every little thing that happens at a sporting event.

If it's a hit along the boards, you better believe I'm losing my mind, right?

Oh, yeah.

I am going full soccer style into that thing, leading into the goal.

That's me all the way.

So hockey's become that sport for me.

And sadly, where I live, not a lot of hockey opportunities, but any chance I get to head to a rink and call a game, I'm 100% there.

Love it.

What is it about?

This is interesting, like when it comes to high school football,

My daughter was in the marching band a couple years ago before she graduated.

So we went to a lot of high school football games.

I wasn't going because my son had graduated.

I was amazed at how many parents whose kids had been out of high school for 10, even 20 years still go to high school football games.

Why is that, Jim?

Is it community?

Is it a love of the sport at that level?

What do you attribute to that?

Yeah, I think football, especially in Wisconsin in the Midwest, this is a cultural thing.

I think football is more important here where we live than it is in other places.

This is a gathering place for a lot of communities.

Even where football is in...

necessarily the most successful.

And I'm speaking to that as a high school football coach of a program that has it won in four years.

I forgot you do that too, I believe.

Yeah, that's what you're watching on the stream over here, over this shoulder.

There's a couple of coaching plaques up there because I've done that the last four years.

But I think that it's a cultural thing.

It brings people together.

And it's a lot of people because football has a very high participation number.

So there's a lot of families that are coming together for this event.

Even in a small town like ours where our high school enrollment

It's 185 students.

Well, 40 of them play football, all right?

So just 40 in football.

There's another 15 that are in the cheer squad.

Then there's another 30 to 40 that are in the band.

Then there's another five that are student managers.

There's another three that are working game day ops, whether they're doing the scoreboard, they're holding the chains, the sticks.

So you start adding it up.

And all of a sudden, you've got roughly half of the high school out there already with their families at a high school football game at a small school.

So it takes an entire village, just like the saying goes, right?

In a small town, that's really the case.

So if you go to a smaller town, you're going to see

half the town show up regardless.

And the other half of the town that isn't there is probably talking about it when things go well.

So I really feel like that's that's been really the big thing in Wisconsin is that football is just part of the DNA of living here, not just in Wisconsin, but anywhere here in the upper Midwest.

It's part of our DNA, whether it's Packers, whatever it is, that's what that's why.

All right, we are coming right back with more with Jimmy Cusco.

We'll talk some Packers, some movies.

It's Nightlight with Pete Schwab on an hour early here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good day.

I am Pete Schwab, and this is Nightlight.

It is great to have you, folks, wherever you're joining us from around our beautiful state tonight.

Welcome to Nightlight.

We are having some fun here tonight talking movies, sports, TV, comedy.

We've got live entertainment coming up at 6.35 with the Doctors and Recital.

They'll be here in the studio talking about some theater in the third and final hour.

And right now,

We are in the throes of a really fun conversation, as we always are when Jimmy Koska is here.

He is the Civic Media Sports Director and one of the hosts of Make the Call, a new sports show here on Civic Media that you can catch with Conrad Krieger on the other side of the glass there.

Gray Gunderson and Parker Olson, as well as Jimmy and appearances from Mike Clemens.

So check that out as well.

Jim, before we move on totally from high school football, are there teams to watch this year?

We're in the playoffs now.

Who are the favorites or who should we be watching for?

Well this week is the state high school football championships So you've really only got 14 options at this point to choose from because we're down to the finals now But just quickly just go I'm gonna go smallest divisions the largest divisions Division 7 is Cochran Fountain City Kenosha, St.

Joseph d6 one of my favorite matchups Darlington and Edgar Division 5 is Mayville in Northwestern Division 4 is little shoot and win a conny so of all those teams I listed

All of them are 13-0.

Every single team is undefeated, except for Little Shoot, which is 12-1.

But every other team is undefeated.

So you have three unbeaten matchups in the small school games.

And that's Thursday at Camp Randall throughout the day.

And then Friday, there's three more.

Grafton and Reedsburg, Notre Dame and West Appear.

That's another undefeated showdown.

And that's, I think, for the people at WGBW.

That's the one they'd be most interested in.

And Arrowhead, Bayport, and the D1 final, which two classic programs.

And again, Bayport, another Green Bay area school.

So Green Bay's well represented.

The Fox Valley really well represented.

presented this year at state.

But you look at just.

all these great teams and players that are there.

The state finals in Madison over two days is some of the best high school sporting event.

You'll look at the watch and obviously it's televised too, so it's easy to find during the day.

But those are really fun events to be at, be part of, and as a player who got to go to state one time, it is really special.

And it's so cool that we get to have it at Camp Randall at such a great venue.

Maybe the only better place would be like Lambeau Field, but Camp Randall's pretty great

too.

I remember playing against Promontre when Notre Dame was still Promontre back in the late 80s.

And I think I got run over once and decided football was not for me.

But yeah, they've come a long way.

And you're right, Northeast Wisconsin football is a pretty big deal here.

That's great.

What about the Packers, Jim?

Conrad and I were talking about this.

What do you attribute there?

I mean, they did win yesterday, but it wasn't pretty and they had to kind of gut it out.

What do you see for them moving forward?

Well, a harder schedule for one.

I mean, they have to play five divisional games the rest of the way.

They still have to play, you know, the Vikings twice, the Bears twice, the Lions on Thanksgiving.

They get the Broncos, they get the Ravens.

I think that is where it really steps up.

You play basically every game in the division now So the good news is is that everything's kind of in front of you, right?

You have control over your own destiny for the playoffs for the most part because you're gonna play your divisional opponents and Right now there's three teams kind of jammed together at the top of the division The Bears are leading it believe it or not at seven and three but the Packers are right there So you've got a lot of opportunity the rest of way to move up to standings But on the other hand any loss is gonna be immediately magnified because it's gonna move you down the Philadelphia game really prove that out because

And the Packers won that game that would have been the two seed in the NFC following that game and because they lost they fell all the way to the seventh seed So that's how close things are right now in the National Football League.

I think the Packers struggles are there's a lot of injuries obviously, but it's also the middle of the year and you know This is what happens over the course of a 17 week NFL season.

It is not a sprint

Packers came out of the gates hot, but it is not a sprint It is a marathon and to be honest the regular season is almost it's almost a war of attrition Or you just hope you're among the top seven at the end so you can make your move in the playoffs You probably don't want to be the seven seed you want to get to get the host at least one but There's there's a lot that happens in the NFL.

It's truly a week-to-week situation Based on matchups and player availability It's hard to put these things on paper weeks out because you never know what's gonna happen that Jordan Love and

Josh Jacobs get hurt in the last game I mean nobody's predicting that and that greatly changes how a football team can operate so That's what I attributed to a combination of it's a very long season in football and also the injuries are starting to pile up

Well said and it doesn't help when your buy is like week five or whatever it was like that just doesn't really do you know

why they

have them?

Yeah

Well, they do the early buys because now starting with this week is to start a flex scheduling.

So they want to make sure the best matchups are on TV.

So they have to get the bio weeks out of the way early so that they can have more matchups to flex around later.

And for the Packers, the only one that's really a strong contender to be flexed is going to be the first Packers Bears game.

And that's because the Packers final three games already TBDs.

We don't know where they're going to be.

We know that the third to last game is a Saturday at either 3.30 or 7.

The only game that can really be flexed at this point is going to be that Bears game, which is currently set for noon.

That one is pretty easy case to move it later, given that the two teams are at the top of the division.

Jimmy Koska is my guest.

He is the Civic Media Sports Director and one of the hosts of Make the Call.

We're talking sports and Jim is gonna stick with us through the news and we're gonna talk to him about a TV show He wants to talk about very excited about that too.

I love Jim's picks when it comes to TV and movies We've got about a minute till the break Jim till the news Luke fickle What do you what's your take like they had a pretty good showing they beat Washington they hung with Indiana for the first half at least What are you thinking in terms of his future if if anything will happen?

The short take on this is that the Badgers are not willing to pay the buyout.

And they're going to run it back next year and see if they can grow the program with him in charge.

Changing course at this point, too.

It's not on a vacuum.

A lot of big programs are looking for head coaches.

So who are you bringing in to replace him?

There's a lot of people looking for coaches right now in college football.

So there's no guarantee you're going to get the guy you want.

And it's going to be very competitive to get the guy you do want.

Great answer.

All right, that's Jimmy Koska.

He will be here after the news.

Our question to the night folks is, it is National Butter Day.

What is your favorite dairy product?

Monica in Mount Horrib says, she's in the 608.

She says, I agree with your Gouda statement.

I like smoked Gouda, but butter on a nice piece of sourdough is another favorite.

I was at the casino and brought there and thought their broccoli was so amazing.

So I went back for more.

It was only then that I realized it was swimming and butter proof that butter makes everything better.

Even broccoli, I guess.

All right, Conrad is giving me the signal.

He probably does that on make the call too, Jim.

We are coming back.

Lots of fun still to come on Night Light here.

Glad you're with me, folks.

It's Peach Wabba and Night Light.

Jimmy Cusca is with us coming back on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Peach Waba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who once tore his ACL playing chess, Peach Waba.

Perfect.

Welcome back to Nightlight, folks.

This is so funny.

This is how I know we're on the same page, Conrad, is because I meant to tell you to play that one because Jimmy's son is a chess prodigy.

Yeah.

It's also good that he knows you can tear a major something or other from a game that seems very non-physical.

How mad were you when he said checkmate?

I don't really hear checkmate that often, Conrad.

But I do sweat it out.

It's tough for me.

Playing chess for me is a cardiovascular.

exercise.

Jimmy Keska is my current guest.

We will be back to Jim at just a moment coming up at 6.35.

That's about 30 minutes away, folks.

The Doctors and Recital will be here in the studio singing to their hearts' content, bringing song to your evening.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

And that's what we do here.

We're going to do this.

We do this every night.

We talk movies, TV, comedy.

There will be live entertainment at 6.35 with the Doctors and Recital.

And then at 7.20, Lindsay Fry from the Festival Theater in St.

Croy Falls will be here to talk about a really cool holiday play they have coming up.

It's a beautiful Christmas story.

You're probably familiar with it, but she's going to tell us about it anyway, and it's a different take on it.

So we'll tell you all about that in hour number three as well.

That's right.

I said hour number three.

Nightlight is on for the foreseeable future anyway.

We're starting at five now and going to eight, as opposed to our typical start time of 6 p.m.

Conrad, you got to pace yourself.

Don't overdo this.

This is three hours, buddy.

So I need you to hang in there.

I got it.

Get some

coffee, maybe an energy drink, whatever.

Our question of the night, folks, in honor of National Butter Day is, what is your favorite dairy product?

We are America's Dairyland.

I think it's important we all have a product.

I don't even eat that much dairy, but the dairy I eat, I truly love.

Melted butter and smoked Gouda.

Those are my two dairy products.

Conrad says chocolate milk.

My current guest, Jimmy Kuska, said chocolate milk.

So we're going to jump back in here now with Jim and talk some movies and TV.

And we will do that throughout the course of the show.

But answer the question, folks, be part of the fun.

855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.

You can also text us on the Civic Media app, which is very easy to use if you don't have it.

I highly recommend it.

And of course, if you're watching the radio on the stream,

At Facebook, YouTube, or X, you can drop us a stream comment.

It's always great.

Just be part of the show.

We absolutely love it.

Mr. Koska, how are you?

You're talking about chess being a cardiovascular sport.

Yesterday on 60 Minutes, CBS News had a report on chess boxing.

And I tell you what, if regular chess doesn't get your heart pumping, I'll vote having a fist fight in the middle of it.

Listen, if I was better at chess, it probably wouldn't be a cardiovascular, but my heart gets pumping.

How does that work?

Boxing with chess.

I,

uh, painfully, I would imagine I, I'm not finding myself up for CTE, but, uh, this is apparently a thing.

Uh, I just, when you were mentioning it being CardioVascular, just immediately I'm like, you know what?

I just saw a story on

this.

That's hilarious.

That's just not fair either because a lot of chess players are nerds and they shouldn't have to box.

This is their respite, I think, right?

Come on.

That's terrible.

Jim, it's great to have you with me.

For those of you who listen to Civic Media regularly, you know, Jimmy is our sports director and one of the hosts of the new show, the new sports show, Make the Call.

So check that out as well.

When can they see or when can they hear Make the Call, you guys?

That's at 7 a.m.

every Saturday here on Civic Media News Talk Stations around the network.

Fantastic.

It's a great show.

We've had Gray and Parker on before, too, to discuss it.

They're going to be back on Friday.

We'll have a little more sports talk with those guys.

Absolutely, check it out, folks.

Jimmy, you stuck around.

Thank you for your time, as always.

I know how busy you are, but you're watching a show, and I want to talk some movies and TV with you, because I always enjoy that part of your visit.

So what are you watching, and what is this TV show Conrad has built up like crazy that you're watching and that you love?

I'm not sure which one he's talking about that he's building up, but there are several that I've been watching I was watching I got the Witcher just had its new season come out at the end of October got through that the Witcher was a show that had a very famous casting change in the lead hand your cable going out and then Bringing in Liam Helmsworth.

So they've made a big casting change The direction of the show in the fourth season has a lot of people very upset.

I found it

just kind of it's kind of in that same category where I feel like we're tapping out not only on superhero movies but like fantasy settings.

I feel like we've finally reached a creative threshold of

We've done this a lot, and it might be time to try some other IPs.

But the show was... I mean, I enjoy... These shows are based on books and video games, so I always enjoy that.

And then the other one is based on an anime, or a manga, I should say, and that is one piece, which is on Netflix as well.

There's a new season coming out in the spring, and I had never actually checked it out, because as a lot of people that follow...

If they're in the anime, they know that shows like One Piece go on forever.

I think there are over 1,000 episodes now.

So thinking of this as a live-action show, a little bit strange, right?

Well, it's actually done extremely well in just the one season of it, which covers maybe 5% of the full story.

But there's a lot of material for them to draw from, at least.

I actually enjoyed it.

So a couple of Netflix shows is where I ended up here in my latest binge-watching adventures.

I don't even know that show.

Are you watching that, Con?

I watched the first season.

I'm not usually an anime watcher, but that live action I felt was really well done as well.

Oh, that's cool.

And my brother's actually watching the full anime series.

Wow.

Okay.

So he'll get back to about six years when that's done.

I think

he's in like the three hundreds right now.

And if he's watching five episodes a night, yeah, about six trips, he'll tell you how it ends,

right?

There is nothing that makes me happier than having multiple seasons of a show I've just discovered that I have to watch.

And I love knowing I can pace myself and it'll be there.

It just sucks when you finish a show you truly love.

The Witcher, I have not seen that.

I'm going to have to check that out.

That's a great recommendation.

Yeah, it's a good start.

It's a strong starting show.

It's a fantasy world type show.

It's a very good video game, really good video games made based on books that were written for this world.

And I think that a lot of the creative differences that led to the casting changes were because the show wasn't staying true to what was written in books, but

you know, as we saw with Game of Thrones, as we've seen with a lot of fantasy type shows that have a book basis, what works in print doesn't always work on the screen.

So, you know, they've got to, they got to spice up the drama and the romance.

They got to make the explosions more explosion-y.

They got to make the dragons more dragon-y.

You know what I mean?

They got to, they got to really go all out to hook people in.

So.

My guest is Jimmy Casca.

He is the Civic Media Sports Director and one of the hosts of Make the Call, which you can hear on the network or on the.

Where do you, the podcast, assume, I assume too, right?

But network-wide at 7 a.m.

on Saturday.

Great show.

Check it out.

Jimmy, what, in terms of kids' movies and movies, what are you watching these days?

So we're kind of in this weird spot of the year where there haven't been a lot of kids' movies that have come out.

We had the

We had the summer of kpop demon hunters right where when

that

movie came out It was everywhere and to the point that they started pushing it in theaters The last push they did was over halloween and it didn't do as well But there was like the fifth time they had pushed it trying to capitalize on the viral success, right?

Very well done show.

It's a show that is very kid-appropriate album It's it's got a lot of catchy songs.

I pretty much every song on the soundtrack is awesome to listen to Yeah, but I feel like like many things that are kind of unexpected

success is that whatever they do next with it, it's gonna feel a little more cash grabby than the soul of this one.

So I'm very skeptical when you have these shows that come out of nowhere or have these creative properties that come out of nowhere and do well.

On the other hand, what we are shaping up for is a pretty good start to next year with kids movies because the next Mario Brothers movie is coming out.

The first one made something like a Gajillion dollars.

They can just print money with those, right?

Crazy.

But you've got some good ones coming up next year.

I think 2026 will have a lot of strong movies for that.

But yeah, the kids movie front right now, it's a little cool.

We're at the end of the year.

I think a lot of people are just going to settle into Christmas classes at this point.

And that's kind of where we're at movie-wise.

Do you have a favorite holiday film, Jim?

Die Hard, obviously.