Comedy, Packers, and Food Traditions: A Nite in Wisconsin (Hour 3)

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

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

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

Welcome

back to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

It is so much fun to be on the radio on this gorgeous Monday night in our beautiful state of Wisconsin.

We've already had way too much fun for a Monday, although I love Mondays.

Can I always say this?

I can't wait for Monday.

I don't know what to do with myself in the weekends.

Think I'm probably on an island there for the most part, but

yeah, I like what I do I like being able to binge all my TV and you know once sitting

in the weekend.

Yeah on the weekend That's good.

What did you watch besides football?

What did you watch?

I did I watched this I'm a sucker for just a new movie on Netflix like whatever on Saturday after the game I was like all right.

I want to just forget about something.

Yeah, I want to forget about this

So I watched this movie, it was called The People You Meet On Vacation or something like that, but it's based on a book, and it's like a rom-com.

Okay.

It wasn't for me, but I watched it anyways.

I admire that.

You got my

mind off.

Yeah.

You got my mind off it, but it definitely

wasn't for me.

Just take a chance on something sometimes, and sometimes you're pleasantly surprised.

And, you know, I was hearing some theories again about, oh no, so it wasn't... Stranger Things is coming out this week.

Oh gosh, I know.

No, it's uh...

You know, the documentary that they really seen about the last season.

The making it.

People are saying, oh, at the end of that, it's actually gonna turn into an episode.

Come

on.

What people need to get a life, seriously.

I guess that that's what happened at like a, like the Friday the 13th documentary or something.

Okay.

They

released a documentary about it at the end.

It was actually them getting chased by like Jason or something.

Is that true?

Yeah.

I

think it's I don't know if it's Friday the 13th one of the movie franchises around that though, okay, and No, it's just like I know I'm like it's it's over They're not that good of writers that you thought they were right

well that last season season 5 and I probably mentioned this last week that Audience scores were worse than the critics like the stranger things faithful just thought it was okay.

I mean so

I The last season was just kind of

Yeah.

I didn't in the first two seasons.

I mean, even the third, they were dynamite.

I was

like, he kept me locked in.

I was like, I can't wait for the next, you know, or whatever it was.

But

this one,

I'd watch an episode.

I'm like, I can wait.

Yeah.

I'm in no hurry.

It's not a cliffhanger.

We've had a lot of fun here tonight, folks.

In hour number one, we had Connie Feldman, our wonderful WGBW reporter.

She's always fun when she comes on the air.

She's had such a great career.

We discussed that in hour number one and a little bit into hour number two.

We had a quick update from Mike Clemens about the state of the Packers.

I didn't ask him about Lafleur, did I?

We have just a few minutes.

I

mean he kind of did say it at the beginning.

It's like he didn't he didn't make adjustments

Okay, no, but I mean like in terms of his job security.

It seems like he's okay Despite what national pundits were surmising

what would it be the worst thing if Packers kind of got a new face a new identity Are

you

calling for it

as a reporter on now make the call

the Packers have been doing the same things for the past like five years now just yeah

just doesn't seem like, at the end of the year, we're always like, we need a new kicker.

We're special teams.

Special teams needs a new coach, and then just doesn't happen, and we just do the same things that we did the year before.

Well, it's interesting because I made the comparison to Mike Tomlin and Harbott.

Now, both those guys have won Super Bowls, but since then, it's pretty much just been a winning record.

They make the playoffs, maybe a playoff win, but typically out.

And it's kind of been the same thing with LeFleur.

His two predecessors both have Super Bowl rings.

But like, at some point you get, and Packer fans are, and this is a testament to the organization, are spoiled.

It's a good organization.

They

have two Super Bowls.

You guys don't really have that much to complain about.

But once you have a taste for it, it's not good enough to make the playoffs.

Like, Bears fans were like, oh my God, we're in the playoffs.

What do we even do?

So I don't know.

It's interesting.

You seem safe, though.

Don't think I don't think he'll get fired.

I know I think he'll get extended You know I hear something funny though.

So last night 20 or not last night Saturday 21 to 3.

Okay.

Yeah, you know what other comeback met the floor was a part of

No,

he was on the Falcon the Falcon sideline when Tom Brady came back 28 to 3

he was Yeah, what was he like a quarterbacks coach something like that.

Yeah, he was I don't

think

See that's the thing about Brady's legacy and it's it's you can't fault the guy was he seven and three six and four or whatever like he's lost a few Super Bowls, but he's won that Like that was a choke that was the Falcons just and what was the Packers?

That was the total joke do you mean the other night?

Yeah, that was a total choke as well.

That was a choke But that's also Caleb Williams for as much as he drives me crazy the guy's a gamer.

I mean at the end of the game, you know

Don't know but yeah, obviously the Packers contributed the thing is like with all the turnover like they weren't even turnovers the Packers fumble like four times The Bears couldn't get it.

I don't think they sacked.

Maybe they sacked him once but I don't know it's hard to say

it was just Like I told you before I had the three note that we had in the first drive for the second half.

I was like we're gonna lose

I

Knew because I've seen that against the Browns the Panthers just any

any time that teams came back this year, we look like that on the first drive in the second half.

I missed a text last week from when I think we said what national holiday would you like to see?

There's pretty much a national day for everything, but this is a great one.

Jimmy Cusco put National Peach Waba Day.

Yeah, that's a great one.

We got to get Jimmy back on.

The problem is, he's the busiest guy in the world.

I mean, he

calls like 800 games.

I know.

No, listen, and he's got the voice for it, too.

Our question of the night, if you're just joining us, is what is your favorite tradition that involves food?

And this is an honor of National Sunday Dinner Day, which was yesterday.

Jim from Appleton says there is no more of a... Oh, this is nice.

I'm sorry, we just saw this.

although I think she was already gone.

I told her, I told her before.

Did you say it?

Okay.

Jim says there's no more of a celebrity than Connie Feldman in the Fox Valley.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

We're big fans.

I've just, I've only known Connie a short time and she doesn't like me, but I like her a lot.

She's a very fun guest.

I think she likes me.

I help her with all the technical stuff.

Oh, there you go.

That's a good way to get on anybody's good side.

Steady Eddie in the 608 says Thanksgiving.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, served with a nice merlot, and later on pumpkin pie with ice cream and a good cup of coffee for dessert, my favorite.

Eddie continues, Pete, earlier today I had a lightball moment I had to share with you and Conrad.

On the opening weekend of deer hunting season, the Green vape hackers play their game in blaze orange jerseys and pants with gold and green trim, helmets to match.

Wish Mike Clemens could have heard my bright idea.

Genius, am I right?

And then steady Eddie says, good luck to the bears.

No hard feelings, because I know the bears don't mean to cause no trouble.

They just want to do the Super Bowl shuffle.

It's been a while.

It certainly has, Eddie.

And thank you for the bear's love.

You're a big man to extend the well wishes to the bears.

And, you know, look, I don't know, what do you think about the Packer uniforms?

I will say this, I loved their uniforms when they were all white.

And have the trim of green and gold.

I think those look really slick

I'm just happy with the basic unis that this the classic green gold Packers uniforms that it just so much history.

Yeah, that's why I think Lambo will never it will always be the Packers team as well.

Okay

Fair enough, 920 says, warm loving smells.

That's my favorite tradition around food that I forgot to tell you about when my daughter is coming home from college or anyone coming home who's been away a while.

I'll throw a batch of cookies in the oven or bake a loaf of bread or something.

So when they walk in the house, they are greeted by warm loving smells that remind them of home.

Oh my gosh, this is great.

Do we know who sent this?

Uh, no.

I almost want to say that's Connie, because she's referring.

That is so great.

The text continues from 920 saying, reminds me of being a kid coming home from school on a cold day when my stay at home mom would have a batch of my favorite cookies just coming out of the oven.

That is a great text.

Thank you 920.

Tony the trucker in the 608 says, Pete, we began hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas at our home after it became too much for our parents.

Very chaotic with 30 plus friends and family, but memories we are creating are priceless.

It is weird, like there's times in my life I don't want everything to be about food so I can stay in shape, but food does bring people together.

It is a tradition.

And those are great texts.

Conrad's mom.

Paula on the stream says the tradition our family has done for the holidays is not have the usual turkey and ham we like to mix it up every year taco pizzas Phillies of Philly cheesesteaks.

Oh, wow So we can all spend time together instead of being in the kitchen.

See that's what I'm talking about like my wife will say that sometimes Let's not make it all about food.

Let's all take a walk together But like we're just so ingrained.

It's just a food culture.

Yeah, you know, I I'm not the

biggest fan of turkey anyways.

I always, I don't know, sometimes too dry for me.

And I like when you do this because it's like different every year.

You never, you know, it's like,

yeah, you can mow some tacos.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I

mean, tacos are great for any occasion.

I agree.

100% Robert from McFarland in the 608 says tailgating is my favorite tradition for food, beer, Brotsburgers.

I cannot believe we haven't heard tailgating yet.

That is outstanding.

Robert, thank you, sir.

We've got, coming up at some point, Rob might be running a few minutes late, but Rob Brackenridge and Mike Merrifield will be here at 7.20 around their abouts.

They've got a big comedy event.

They've actually got two big comedy shows coming up, one in Marinette that we'll discuss and then another one in the Wisconsin Dells, but they're both outstanding, outstanding, funny men, great stand-ups, well-seasoned, great joke writers and excellent performers.

They will be here in the studio whenever they get here and it'll be great to have them.

We've also, we talked to Mike and then Sherry Stoka.

I love having Sherry on because sometimes you just need the motivation to get in shape.

The holidays were just a couple of weeks ago, not even, and we're all sort of recovering.

And I just think when you talk to someone with her kind of knowledge about nutrition, it really is motivating.

So I thank you also to Sherry for being on the show last hour.

All of the hours of nightlight folks are catalogued in podcast form at civicmedia.us.

And you can listen to them there if you missed earlier interviews or nightlight fun.

So, oh, we got a phone call.

Who's on the phone, Ken?

Ollie from the Northwoods.

Ollie from the Northwoods.

You know what?

I knew Ollie was going to call when I was thinking of this question because it's food related and Ollie has great phone calls, well, about anything, but specifically about food.

Hi, Ollie.

Hi, how are you?

Doing

well.

How are you tonight?

I'm doing good.

My favorite thing was baking cookies with Christmas cookies with my children and then taking them and passing them around to the elderly people in our neighborhood.

And then also doing the same thing with my grandkids.

Baking Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses and things with

my grandkids.

That is so great, Ollie.

Do you still do these things?

Do your kids and grandkids come to you for the holidays, or do you go there?

No.

I go there for the holidays, but the kids are all out of the house gone, and so we don't make cookies together much anymore, but we do all try to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving at my daughter and son-in-law, and I have a

Son-in-law, who is a wonderful cook, and so he pleases us all with his wonderful cooking every holiday.

Well, it sounds like he had a great mentor.

Thank you so much, Ali.

As always, love your thoughts on food or any topic for the question that I had.

Thanks so much.

Have a great night.

All right.

All

right.

We are coming right back with two of certainly the funniest people in the studio, but I would go statewide or even nationwide.

Rob Brackenridge and Mike Merrifield will be here two very funny stand-up comedians in the studio.

We're talking comedy coming up next.

It's Night Light 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 Pete Schwabba and Packer fans, I will tell you this is the perfect way to end your Monday night because we've got two really funny guys helping us close down the show tonight.

They're here in the studio, two great Wisconsin guys, great comics.

Rob Brackenridge is just an excellent comic.

He's been here several times before and he's brought his pal

A guy I've been anxious to have on the show forever, too, the very funny, Mike Merrifield.

So it is great to have both of you in studio.

Thank you for making the drive.

Good to be

here.

Do I have to slide over so

Rob can

fit

in?

I want them to see my shirt.

What does that say?

Open bar.

That's my special.

We're going to talk about that.

Is that the antithesis to dry bar?

Dry bar, yes.

100%.

Yep.

Which is funny because we were just talking during the break, Mike, you were talking about a comic who...

Can you just tell the end of that story again?

I thought that was so funny.

Which

story?

I already forgot the story I was telling.

It was about the headliner who drank, and I always thought, I remember doing stand-up, the headliners I would work with were either recovering alcoholics or party crazy.

Right, right.

Like they hadn't been to rehab yet, but this guy was drinking wine in his hotel room.

Well, he was

actually the opener.

He was flipping the switch.

He was the opener.

I was the sober one.

Oh my gosh.

But yeah, I went to his room.

It's his terrible gig.

in Nagani, Michigan.

And the gig's actually fun, but they put you at the Triangle Motel, which there's just no way with the name Triangle Motel, it can be good.

And, uh, yeah, I woke up the next morning.

I told him we had to be ready to go at 9 a.m.

And I went to his room and he was getting yelled at by the maid.

She was like, you got to get your life together, man.

You're drinking at nine o'clock in the morning.

I forgot to add he had a bottle of wine.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, just listening to it.

He's just

taking

swings out of the bottle while

she yelled at him.

Wow.

When you got to get advice from a maid.

Yeah, yeah.

When she's

working at the Triangle Motel in Neganian, she's telling you you screwed your life

up.

Not even a good gig for maids necessarily.

No, no.

Just not

even

at the top of the...

Yeah, right across the street.

Why not just

go to

the days in and clean doesn't make any sense.

Nothing good is ever gonna happen it.

I know I tried.

Tell your story back in the day.

I used to actually get laid after a show.

It's weird.

This is not the way you told the story.

First,

you're embellishing a little.

I brought a girl back after the show because I was hilarious and she said, what can I do, you know, to show you my appreciation?

I brought her back to the Triangle motel and she took one look and I went, no way.

We're going

back.

You're not that funny.

It makes, you know, like a Red Roof fan, you know, look like a five star hotel.

It's terrible.

Alright, you guys are here.

Mike, we kind of, I feel like most of the listeners have heard Rob.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Get him out of here.

He doesn't need to be on this.

Get out of here,

Rob.

The bar is closed

apparently.

Get out, Rob.

Get out.

Get out.

Get out.

Come on, Rob.

He could be in the frame.

Well, what do you want to know?

I mean a similar story.

I did comedy forever and Rob talked me into it.

He told me that

Really this

is a hundred percent true because I was telling him, you know I had a job at the time and but I was thinking I need to just lean into comedy Make it my soul income so I try harder, you know and Rob was like man It's great, you know you go out on the road and you go to all these small towns and women think you're

you know, famous so they sleep with you, you know, and they throw themselves at you and some of the clubs even pay in drugs that, you know, they'll offer you, you want cash

or drugs, you know, back in the day.

Green or

white.

Yeah, he would

tell me all these amazing stories and I've been a comic for 30 years and none of it's ever happened.

Not one thing he ever promised ever happened.

But you gotta be

good looking.

Wow.

And

funny.

Look at this picture.

Look at Mike, your clean shit.

and you've got no hair, and you look like a badass.

That's a great photo.

You think so?

We're also rocking the beard tonight, and it must be nice.

Yeah, he looks like Ayatollah

Khomeini right now, doesn't he?

Well, when

you don't

have hair on the top, you have a lovely head of hair.

You have to do what you can, so you grow your beard out to compensate.

And

it

doesn't matter anyway when you're a comic.

Well, it especially doesn't matter when you're 53.

I'm invisible to

women.

We've given up.

So where are you based, Mike?

I know you're from Wisconsin.

Yeah, well, I still live in Appleton, actually.

Nice.

So you guys get to

pal around?

Oh, yeah,

yeah, yeah.

I

was in Nashville for a while.

I did five years there.

I would go back and forth every couple of weeks.

I was working down there.

Nice.

He works for a 800-pound grill.

Yeah, it's on a sweatshirt.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah, we're

plugging.

So we're plugging the 800 pound gorilla and the open bar comedy festival are special.

So tell us about that, Rob.

You've got you've done a dry bar where you have to be totally clean.

You're great at that.

I didn't even know you worked dirty at all.

I don't.

I don't.

I don't really.

He just said it's a effort.

I did the exact same

set with the F word in between each word.

So yeah.

No, it was fun.

It was in Sarasota, Florida, you know, in a great club, McCurdy's Comedy Theater.

Have you heard of that

place?

Maybe

heard of it.

Never been

there.

It's really good.

And they treat you really good in a packed place, and I had an awesome set.

Wow,

that goes without

saying.

I know.

I

felt you needed to go ahead and say

it.

I'm one of those guys that never has a bad set, you know?

It's

like, even

if you hit bomb, boy, did I kill him.

No, I'm not that

guy.

You mentioned the old days, though.

It's not like it was in the old days.

It's like stand-up is not like it

was when

I started.

Like you said, everybody was an addict.

Everybody was either

a

drunk or a pod head.

And now these young comics, they have no vices.

I guess the

only vice they would have would be social media.

You sit in a green room and everyone's staring at their phones.

No one's talking anymore.

And get this, they changed open mic to mic.

They just call them mics now.

Hey guys, wanna go do a couple of mics on Friday?

Because they don't have the kind of time to add open.

Oh, yeah.

Their time is valuable.

That's the excuse they gave me.

Because the first time I heard it, I was like, it's open mic.

You can't just change it.

It's been open mic since the teens.

You know what I mean?

They've been open mics.

And I realized they dropped the open because it makes them seem more legitimate.

Because if it's an open mic, that means anyone can do it.

Now they call

them

mics, and they say they're booked, so it's different than an open mic.

My thought is you're just dropping the open to make yourself feel more legitimate.

Like street crowd or

something.

Yeah, like

you're doing something bigger than what you are.

All right, we got two hilarious guys.

I'm so thrilled these guys are here.

Rob Brackenridge and Mike Merrifield.

We're going to do the news.

We're going to come back, and I'm going to tell you where you can see these two guys coming up in the next couple of weeks.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

And that's what we're doing here, to close out.

Are you guys Packer fans?

We'll get into that, too.

All right, we'll talk about that.

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

She said in the intro we had her do when she was on the show a couple weeks ago, she called me Schwab Balls, just like Lance Barber does.

That's great.

I guess it's great.

That's kind of how I want to be known.

Hey, welcome back to Nightlight.

I am Pete Schwab, but we have two outstanding guests in the studio here tonight, Mike Merrifield and Rob Brackenridge, two Appleton-based comics, but they tour all over and they've been around a long time and they're

Have so many like accolades Rob was just telling us about his new open bar special that is the opposite of a dry bar where you have to be clean How dirty do you get on that and where can people see I

actually do get kind of dirty and you can get it on YouTube It's absolutely free.

Just

go to

open bar.

They have their own site, you know their own YouTube channel and then just Just find Rob

break.

Oh my specials.

I can read it's called be

or no.

I that's I was just gonna say I love that

And Mike, you've been touring all over too.

I love that you're still Appleton-based.

You opened for Rob Schneider, I know, quite a bit.

His HBO Young Comedian Special was so funny.

And then he, of course, did Saturday Night Live and all that.

What are those gigs like?

with him now.

Yeah.

I mean, he sells out theaters like this coming

week and

we're going to be at the MGM in Copperfields Theater on Friday and Saturday and he'll sell it out both nights.

Yeah.

He's a, you know, he started out as a comic.

He was a comic from like 21 to 23.

I worked with him 30 years

and

Rob

worked with him

back in the, in the twenties on the megaphone, right?

Oh yeah.

Still your off air joke right there.

Yeah, what are we talking about?

I forgot.

I'm getting

old.

You're

talking about how...

Oh, he was a stand-up, but I thought he still was, but is he not?

Well,

he... Once he got huge, he took 10 years off of doing stand-up, and then Chris Rock told him, like, why aren't you doing stand-up?

Like, you're a funny guy, you're a funny stand-up, you should do it, and you can make a lot of money doing it.

So he started doing it, and he's good.

He's amazing now, but I remember his one...

used to be on Netflix.

It's a comedy dynamic special of his.

I think it's called Hot Sauce and the Holocaust or something like

that.

Some weird name, but I remember I was in LA with a bunch of comics and I was like, guys, let's watch Rob Schneider special.

You know, I'm sure this will be hilarious.

Like we're all ready to goof on it and act like we're better than him.

And five minutes in, we're all looking at each other like this stuff's great.

Like I

can't

even, he's good.

And.

He's sort of he's a Trump guy or whatever

and

so he had a lot of political stuff that he wrote the last few years that he really cares about and I really feel like it took him to like another level.

He's really killing it.

That's my neighbor.

That is really weird.

I live in Marinette.

I live an hour away and my neighbors are walking by the window.

No idea what's going on.

Maybe restraining orders in order.

Yeah, he is a Trump or he's kind of

There's a lot of money, and I believe he really probably really is and isn't just trying to cash in, but man, would you do that as a comic?

Well, he... You're costing yourself money too, right?

Well,

he already was sort of blacklisted by Hollywood about

15 years ago because of his

movies.

Well, that's a good one.

No, yeah.

For non-political

reasons.

No, he spoke out against vaccines around the time

that

that...

Jenny McCarthy spoke out or whatever he spoke out then.

And apparently I didn't know this.

A lot of your big corporations that sponsor television shows and things in Hollywood are all pharmaceutical companies.

Right.

So

he

basically got blacklisted for being outspoken.

Luckily he's got Sandler.

Sandler puts him in all his stuff.

Right.

And then he had done all those movies.

And then, like I said, he got back into doing stand up.

And he, you know, I look at older stuff.

And compared to what he's doing now and what he's doing now is amazing.

And actually right now we're touring with a band.

Oh,

you know

what

kill Tony is

on

YouTube?

Is that what you sent me before Rob?

No, I didn't send you any kill Tony kill Tony is Tony Hinchcliffe's YouTube show.

It's actually on Netflix.

Okay.

In

fact, there's a I think a new episode dropped last night and Rob is on it.

Schneider's on nice.

But yeah, he he just he's

Sort of had like a rebirth man, and he's firing on all eight cylinders.

And like I said, we're touring with a band and we have Tony's band.

We have the Kill Tony band tours with us now.

That's cool.

And

he's done a bunch of different band iterations.

We had Tony Bennett's band for a while.

And so he did more of like a jazz type style thing.

And now he's doing its rock and roll basically.

It's a lot of Elvis.

He sounds a lot like Elvis, but he can really sing, man.

He's an

incredible singer.

He actually used to be an Elvis impersonator.

That's

true.

That's

when I worked with him.

He had just stopped being an Elvis impersonator in Japan.

You

know,

he

finally told me that full story.

I thought he had done it for a while.

He only did it for like four months.

And when he got there, he didn't realize he had to do three shows a day, seven days a week.

And after the first show, he lost his voice because he

you know, he was singing.

He wasn't used

to singing.

It was kind of one of those things where the, the booking agent was like, I need a guy.

You know, can you sing Elvis?

And he's like, yeah, I can sing Elvis.

And he probably been singing it in his shower and in his car, but it's a whole different thing when you have to sing it in front of people.

Use your diaphragm.

Yeah.

You got to sing.

You got to know what you're doing.

But yeah, he did that for a while.

But I was thinking about it.

It's cool hanging out with him because he got famous at 23 years old.

Yeah.

And back when

You know if you are on Saturday Night Live everybody in the world knew who the cast of Saturday Night Live was.

I can only tell you Colin Joest and Michael Che.

I don't know anybody else that's on.

Keenan Thompson.

Yeah, he's been on there forever.

He's funny.

He makes me, do you ever see the sketch or the sketch, what's up with that?

That floors me.

And he was funny in the Beavis and Butthead.

I don't watch the show.

I only see with the quits online.

I'll give you

$1,000 if you can show me something funny that he's done.

$1,000 cash.

Conrad, take a

memo.

And then I'm going to borrow from Tom.

After we do your gig.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

After you do your gig.

Well, just say, you give it to me.

I'm going to owe you 800 bucks

after

we do your gig.

That's a great segue.

Let's talk about that.

Mike Merrifield is here.

Rob Brackenridge, two Appleton-based stand-up comics, really

great comics that have carved out a niche in the industry, outstanding stuff.

What, what, you got, I can't believe, Mike, like I see, I don't, are we Facebook?

Somehow I see

a

post.

I think I made a request a

long

time ago.

But we've, aside from Pascuali, we don't really know each other that well, but you're, you're stuff, you're all over the place.

And I couldn't believe when I reached out to Rob to do this football fundraiser in Marinette, he's like, I'll bring Mike Merrifield.

I'm like, the nationally touring headliner is going to open for you in Marinette, Wisconsin at the country.

Score so thank you for doing it and thank you Rob because you guys are gonna be a really fun

show really think Rob when he first gave me the offer he put an extra zero on the end No zeros

when I first

1350 that's what it was

So you guys are coming up to Marinette it's January 31st the rooms

Are comped let me just say that

nice, but it's

a country club in Marinette you fundraiser It's a good crowd and thank you for doing that But tell us also about you got a show coming up in the in the Dells, right?

Do you?

I don't I don't

I have no shows The website that hasn't been updated I'll bet you that thing hasn't been updated in five years.

Oh, man.

I was

talking about

that the stand-up journey is this new

Well, it's new-ish.

It's

a

comedy series that I produced called The Stand-Up Journeyman, and we filmed it at the Meyer Theater.

I love

it.

And what was it, North Coast Productions?

Those guys were cool enough to come out and film everything.

I put out a clip.

I got million views.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, okay.

So this is a great lineup.

Johnny Bainer, Mike Stanley, and you guys.

Yep.

And

we had filmed it before the pandemic, and then during the pandemic with all the free time is when I put it all together.

So it's four episodes.

And I think it's on Amazon still.

It's on Amazon.

You have to pay for it on Amazon, but

okay.

Oh, it's worth

the 99 cents.

All right.

We talked about Rob's dry bar and open bar specials.

You can see both of them on YouTube.

You've done the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, premier comedy competition.

It, you know, that's another thing Rob told me.

Speaking of Rob misleading me, I'm the whipping boy.

He was like, dude, if you make it to the finals in that competition, you got management.

Like you'll, you know, and then he reads off the list of second place winners, you know, Robin Williams,

all these

people that didn't win, but they became famous.

And the last week he said, you go to all the shows that are like in San Francisco or whatever, it's going to be all these industry people, nobody there.

They were like, they couldn't get people to be judges.

That's the other thing you should never judge comedy.

So

I didn't feel good about the whole thing, but I ended up getting second place.

Second place is amazing because there's

Robin

Williams and I both.

It's amazing anyway.

It's been 30 years and every second place winner has gone on to great things except one.

That would be me.

That would

be me.

I like to

break a good streak.

I went to the Montreal Comedy Festival.

I was a new face in 97.

That's huge.

It was.

Nothing like that happens anymore except being on Joe Rogan.

Yeah,

well, I never got I never killed

Tony That's

like

the modern version of that.

Yeah, but it was the same thing It was like oh you remember getting picked up the airport and there was a manager there and he's like oh you're gonna come away with this Representation I was just a Chicago comic and all these guys get deals and this and that I left.

I like got like one business card.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was like is this a bad sign Make a mistake.

Yeah, and I knew that he said that that's not gonna happen for me because that's just kind of how things happen sometimes

well

It is what it is.

You

know

you mentioned that I'm doing well, but am I I mean I didn't start out to be Rob Schneider's opening comic You know what I mean?

I started out doing this

to be Rob

Schneider.

It's a good

game You got all this other stuff too Mike you got and I know you don't need a pep talk from the guy doing radio But like two comedy specials on serious example stuff.

I

used to have a bunch of records and

stuff then you have seven albums out I mean seven albums and that's all

different material.

This news I brought is just for decoration.

I wasn't going to use it.

And you know how he got that gig?

I mean, you got to be pretty good to get that gig with Rob Schneider.

Tell him how you got it.

Oh, thanks to Rob Breckenridge.

I got it because Breckenridge is a moron.

No,

he's not

a moron.

It's true.

The quick story is Rob Breckenridge was opening for Rob Schneider at the Epic Events Center and

He just messaged me and said, Hey, you want to go up?

I'm opening for him and you'll get to meet him.

It'll be cool.

So yeah, that's cool.

We go, we kind of watch the show.

We don't really watch the show.

We're sitting in the green room most of the show.

And then we hung out with Schneider for like three hours afterwards.

And he asked Rob Breckenridge if he was open the next two nights because he needed someone to open for him in.

Springfield, Illinois, and then one other place.

Milwaukee in

Springfield.

At the Pottawatomie.

And Brackenridge says, no, I can't because I'm working at the skyline the next two nights.

But my buddy Mike can do it for you and he can record your show because he works for 800 pound gorilla.

So that's

right.

Yeah, he could record your show for

you.

And then right then I felt my stomach drop.

I saw the words come down and then I saw all this money go away.

What am I giving this gig away for?

And now I'm like best friends with Rob Schneider.

And he

looks at me every once.

Oh, yeah, you're that guy.

Yeah.

Do you get a taste of that?

He had 10%

like no.

He

does

my reels, he makes my reels.

All those tic-tac reels, how many 147?

147, how much do I

owe you?

The minimum would be a hundred bucks a reel for the production work.

Do you owe me a lot of money?

But it's not like he got you booked in Marinette at the end of January.

That's true.

And let's not forget, I'm going to owe you money after that gig.

That's how little it pays.

I thank

you to

do the gig.

Oh, that's so funny.

All right, Mike Merrifield and Rob Bracken-Riger here in the studio.

They are doing, you know what it was?

It was the January 20th.

I don't know where you saw this.

One of your websites that said January 20th.

Cheeseball show with Rob Bracken-Riger.

Rob Brackenridge, Wisconsin Delta.

Yeah, that must have been on your website.