Filmmaker Steve Burrows on Bleed Out and Storytelling (Hour 2)

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feature presentation.

Here's Pete and Greg.

Maestro.

No.

I

didn't know if you were doing.

Welcome back to nightlife folks.

I am Pete Schwabba and the laughter you hear the exuberant laughter is that of Greg Bach who is sitting across the state from me.

My unbelievably talented co-host, Dom Lee, is working the board in Madison, doing the Lord's work there, pressing the buttons and getting it done.

How are you

guys?

How do you think it's going so far?

I think it's going well.

I felt a little off my game in the beginning of the show, but I feel like I'm picking up speed and I'm really getting my train on the rails and other comparisons using words.

They're doing great.

You're definitely

back.

Yeah.

It is great to have you here, folks.

It's a Monday night here at the Civic Media Network.

This is Nightlight.

And if you missed hour number one,

you

missed our conversation with Madison Area Music mainstay, Robert J. Check out the podcast at civicmedia.us.

All of our shows are catalogued in podcast form.

You can check out those interviews and Greg and I ranting about the news and all kinds of fun stuff.

We have another great hour coming up here, just kicking it off as we get started here.

A great guest in Steve Burroughs coming up at 620.

Steve isn't originally from Milwaukee.

He's been in LA for years.

He's made films like Chump Change and HBO's Bleed Out and he was a very successful improv comedian, stand-up comedian.

and he's directed Super Bowl commercials.

The guy's done it all and he's one of Wisconsin's own.

He'll be here shortly.

What else?

Greg, what am I

missing?

Jump in here, buddy.

If you missed your opportunity or you want another opportunity to enter into our break into spring multi-state text-to-win contest, well, guess what?

We have another opportunity in the seven o'clock hour after the show is over.

Still tune in.

Stay here on Civic Media where, you know, we don't shut the power off and we leave.

But you will get another keyword and you will be able to enter in for today's chance to win $200, get entered into the big grand prize drawing for a mattress house from Verlo.

And then we

begin the whole thing over tomorrow at seven AM with seven more chances.

And this goes until the end of this week.

So folks, think about that seven times seven times.

That's a lot of entries.

Do that math in

your

head is a lot of entries.

Every single entry, you don't have to win to be entered either.

You enter to win $200 and then you are automatically entered into win the, the, the mattress set.

So again, stick around for the seven o'clock hour for your chance to win $200 in the break in the spring text to win multi-state contest here.

on civic media.

Oh yeah.

Can you imagine

winning

a brand new Verlo mattress and 200 bucks cash?

That's a great day.

I'd be amazed.

Have you ever won a contest like that?

Like, have you ever won anything?

No, I,

okay.

I think I won like at bingo when I was 25 and my high school friends and I were all home and we went to play bingo with the old folks and I think I might have won like six bucks.

That's all I'm working with here as far

as

contests go.

Hey, it's six more dollars than you had, correct?

Correct.

It was a win.

I put it in

the W column for sure.

I want a bike once.

Whoa.

Oh, that's a pretty good one.

Yeah.

I didn't fix this contest.

I didn't cheat, but I certainly exploited the rules, which was you can enter as many times as you want.

So I did.

Hundreds of times.

Oh, wow.

To the point where the restaurant called me that, hey, it's so-and-so from the restaurant.

Yeah, you won.

I'm like, I know I did.

I think anytime you preface something by saying, I didn't cheat.

I

didn't

cheat.

That would be kind of assumed, especially what I know of you, Greg.

You seem like a reasonably honest guy, but you kind of put some doubt in my head there.

I did not cheat.

I am not a crook.

I'm not a crook.

Not a crook.

Hey, I think what we should do before we read some texts is get back to the basics and remind people of our very cool question of the night.

There you

go.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

What is the best or most exciting or just your favorite sporting event in America?

We are in the middle of, not the middle, we just started the NCAA tournament.

And that actually, the first weekend of the tournament is my favorite.

That's when there are so many games you can't even keep up.

There are upsets and there's drama and great stories behind the players and coaches and universities.

It's so much fun.

That is mine.

But tell us what your favorite sporting event is throughout the course of the year.

You got the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Indy 500, World Series, Stanley Cup, all that stuff.

There's no right or wrong answer, folks.

There's

just your answer, 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.

You can also text us on the app.

I know you have it.

Or if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment.

like Daniel Barry Sports, Daniel Barry Sports highlights it.

What did he write there, Dom?

I can't see that.

My computer is crazy small.

It looks like

ice cream

or something.

I actually can't see either.

Are you guys looking at the Facebook or are you looking at?

We're looking at the stream comment.

Oh, the stream comment?

Yeah.

It's an emoji.

That just looks like bells or a high.

I think that's just a wave.

I think it's just a wave.

He's just saying hi.

That's fine too.

Folks, you can comment on whatever you

want throughout the course of the show, as you know.

It's great to have you with us.

It looks like two beers.

Cheers.

And that's right under that is Terry Barr with her hearts and Terry referred us to Stephen Jay, which was very nice.

Thank you, Terry.

I didn't realize that was Terry.

Yeah.

Hi, Terry.

We miss you.

Let's see.

Let's see if she says something back.

We've got text to read.

We're having a lot of fun here.

Steve Burroughs

is coming

up very shortly.

Should we get to the text, Greg?

What do you think?

Let's get to the text.

All right.

Why don't you do, I pulled some off the text line because,

you know,

when we do these contests as fun as they are, we have to, it's like doing surgery, pulling the question of the night text out.

So I've got those.

If you want to alternate and you could do the, you know, the social media ones.

Sounds good.

I will get the social media.

You take care of text line.

Go ahead, my friend.

Let's go.

Let's, let's not waste any more time.

The kidding around is pretty much over.

We've got

Robert from lacrosse says world curling championships.

in Salt

Lake City next

week.

Robert apparently did not get enough of this during the Olympics.

And you know what?

I have to admit, on opening night of the Olympics, my wife and I were excited to watch the Olympics.

We thought we'd get like speed skating, ski jumping, whatever

was

curling, and we were bummed out.

But the more we watched it, it looks like there is a science to it.

And I think it's kind

of cool.

Yes, there, of course, there's a science.

It's a deep science.

It's very, it's very strategic.

And you have to have

You have it's it's like it's almost like pool in a sense where you'll say like I want to put I want to put the stone here But I have to do these other things to make it where like like I said this before when the Olympics started Jimmy Kimmel made a crack about curling and I got really upset about it because he tried to treat it as like Oh, it's just a bunch of you know Podunk country folks throwing a rock down some I know it's actually pretty intense and you got to be pretty in shape to do it if you've if you've ever seen someone sweep in front of a stone I

I dare anyone out there before you make fun of to try to do that and just tell me how your shoulders feel the next morning.

So curling, it's slow.

Yes, very slow.

You're like, okay, but I love it.

I love the intensity people have for curling when they play it.

Do you think that people who are curlers

are better sweepers domestically, like cleaning up the kitchen?

You

think

they bring

any of that

expertise to their domestic?

Definitely.

I think I think yeah, definitely

Dom pounced Greg is still thinking about it.

I love

what I'm just thinking about the fact that maybe they may even think to themselves I gotta save the arms someone else has to do this.

Yeah, these are these are championship shoulders and and and you know, you know, these triceps got to work for the work for the goal They're not trying to clean up the kitchen someone else.

So that's why I kids clean the kitchen

So we've got Monica and Mount Horrib says the Luca Libre is my favorite sporting event.

It's ridiculously over the top and fun in person.

I have to admit my, once again, my knowledge of this is through Jack Black and Nacho Libre.

Is this a wrestling

event?

So, so it's lucha Libre.

I think so.

Okay.

It's pronounced lucha Libre and it is, it is, it is traditional Mexican restaurant, traditional.

Let me repeat this.

Let me try this again.

It's wrestling in the traditional Mexican sense where they wear masks.

And

lucha

libre is also, I would say even more entertaining than watching WWE or AEW because there's so much more athletics and high flying stunts happening that when lucha libre is built to purely entertain and you are going to walk away mesmerized by what these

these individuals can do.

So yeah, Lucha Libre is a fun night out.

It is wild.

You will scream your brains out.

It sounds

like a nutty night out in the town that I'm all

in

favor of.

We've got Matt on the text line just says, too old and busted to play anything.

Well, with that

attitude,

yeah.

Well, that's what I do.

I do not.

I feel the same way, Matt.

Yeah, I'm not playing it.

We're just talking about it.

But I certainly love.

I love watching the Grand Slams in tennis.

I like watching tennis a lot, but the Grand Slams, especially the US Open, there's just so much excitement there.

And then yeah, baseball, the World Series, even when my team isn't in there, which it's never been since I was, I don't know how old, but yeah, baseball and tennis are the ones I always gravitate towards.

I'll, you know, if, like this weekend I watched some golf and I couldn't believe I was like, Oh, I'm interested in this, but then I moved on.

Dude, I'm totally with you there with anything that comes down to like tennis when they go and it's love and it keeps just That's really tense a golf putt.

I don't watch golf.

I don't play golf Yeah, I'm not even sure it's a sport, but it is pretty dug on exciting when it comes down to a putt Love any game seven love the NCAA tournament Tom.

Did you answer this question?

Yeah, I have an answer I really like soccer so I would say MLS Cup

for me

easily

We have some text messages here.

Jeff Smith.

Jeff Schmidt says the Stanley Cup playoffs.

A Mr. P Schwabba says NCAA attorney, pound for pound, the best sport drama in stories.

Tim Baker on Facebook says playoff, baseball, game seven series, the best.

And Boris Hamilton, the Red Bull soapbox race.

I am not

familiar with that, but Boris is a good dude.

And then Pat Francis says the Pinewood Derby.

Good, good reference there.

Good reference.

Brett in Brown Deer says, my favorite sporting event is any championship tournament that my team is still in.

Great

answer, Brett.

That makes great sense too.

That's true when you have a vested interest.

And then, oh, this is interesting.

Okay, Cam said,

A 1995 Dodgers game, disco demolition night is my favorite because it caused the game to be forfeited.

He's talking about a Kamiski park.

Greg, you must be familiar with

this.

And that's from like the night, the late, the late seventies actually that was disco

sucks.

Yeah, Radio host Steve Dahl organized it.

They

blew

up records.

They had to cancel the game.

People from the stands went on the field.

My buddy Rich Brown to this day says he remembers standing on the pitcher's mound smoking weed and taking in all the chaos around him.

That was insanity.

And I have to be honest, when I was a kid, my aunts and uncles all went out disco dancing and there was disco everywhere.

I kind of liked the music.

I didn't understand it

at all.

Well, the thing is it took place on July the 12th, 1979 in Chicago.

And there was a great article I read a long time ago that said that that whole thing and the DJ completely denies this, but the, you know,

It was really based on a lot of racism and homophobia because, you know, when it comes to disco music, that is an art form that came from the clubs, specifically gay clubs.

So like, I've read an article and watched a documentary about, or short documentary about the origins of disco demolition night or disco sucks night at Comiskey Park.

But I remember those scenes growing up as a little kid, like people running around like this smoky Comiskey Park, trying to get themselves together.

And the whites actually like, yeah, we're done.

We're done for the night.

You ruined it.

So thanks.

Oh baseball.

Nobody gets to have any fun.

No.

All right.

All right.

Don't go anywhere folks.

When we come back, we'll be talking to filmmaker Steve Burroughs right here on nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

Got any questions?

Feel free to call in text 8557 5248 4285 575 civically a comment on the live stream.

We are on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.

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Welcome back.

Hey, this is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

Sitting across the stage for me is Greg Bach.

Dom Lee, working the board in Madison, holding down the fort at Civic Media HQ, if you will.

Crisis averted, guys.

We have got our next guest.

I am so thrilled.

Every time he's on the show, I love it.

I'm excited Greg and Dom both get to meet him now.

He is a native Wisconsinite, more specifically Milwaukee.

He is the creative force behind such films as Chump Change and, big time, I believe Super Bowl commercials too.

And he is most recently very famous for his outstanding documentary called Bleed Out, which you can catch on HBO.

It's been there for a couple of years.

But if you want to see it with a crowd, which is always more desirable when it comes to movie watching, we're going to give you some information on where you can see it right here in southern Wisconsin this weekend.

It is my pleasure to welcome the very talented and just an all around swell guy, Mr. Steve Burroughs.

Hey, buddy.

Howdy, everybody.

How's it going?

Good.

How are you this evening?

Great.

Thank you so

much for being

here.

I'm thrilled to be here.

Love you guys and appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, of course.

Always.

So, man, I got so many questions, Steve.

But all right, the reason we have you on initially, you made this great documentary called Bleed Out.

you know, if you've ever been frustrated with the medical industry or medicine or doctors or hospitals or whatever, I highly recommend it.

It's a very gripping moving story.

Steve, tell us about bleed out first and then we'll get into where it's playing this weekend.

Great.

Thank you, Pete.

So I was a comedy guy in LA for about 25 years, you know, making a fool of myself for a living.

TV, movies, commercials.

I was on Super Bowl commercials.

Always the idiot, always the guy that never got the girl, never got, you know.

And I was typecast and it was fine.

Life was good.

And then my mom, back in, one of my Super Bowl commercials, I'll just tell you real quick, was for Celso Blue Dandruff.

I was the guy that 100 million people thought had Dandruff.

And by the way, I did it with one of them.

It was just a great, nutty, weird life that I was living.

And then my mom back in Milwaukee, a retired school teacher, went in for a routine partial hip replacement and came out in a coma with permanent brain damage.

And my uncle's a doctor.

My aunt's a nurse.

I flew in.

I became a power attorney.

My uncle got the medical records.

He looked at this one page and he said, this has been falsified.

And that sent us on a 10-year journey.

of trying to find a number one, take care of my mother,

and

try to figure out what happened to my mother.

And in this pursuit of getting her justice in the legal system, we discovered that medical error, our little personal story, was actually a universal story.

We found that it was, medical error is a third leaning cause of death in America.

So we just stayed on it.

I shot the whole film on my iPhone.

I actually went undercover with a spy pen.

That

was that's actually one of the reasons why it's an HBO movie.

Oh, I was I was getting I was getting the run around for years and then but a certain doctors were telling me one thing and.

Another and then I decided just I did the radical thing of trying, you know, I just wanted to do what was in my mom's best interest and.

And I wasn't even sure how to work this little, you know, it was like a little spy pen thing.

I didn't know how to I didn't know if it worked.

I turned it over to my editor.

He goes, what is this?

I go.

I don't know.

But as it turns out, it was the truth.

And we caught it.

We caught the genie in a bottle.

I had no expectations for this.

It came out just over six years ago.

And we were so we're so lucky because there's so many people like us who have gone through these kinds of things and they don't have an opportunity to tell their story.

We got one of the biggest, you know, outlets that you can, I mean, 25 million people have seen this thing.

And we take it very seriously that I've personally heard from 100,000 people in their families who have told me the stories.

And it's basically the same story.

It's not the exact same story as my mom, but it's the same story about when something goes wrong, we're all human, we all make mistakes.

And what are you gonna do as a doctor or a hospital when that mistake happens?

And we all know what the right answer is.

It turns out about half of them do the right thing, half of them don't.

the most unexpected thing out of this film, this little tiny film that we made is that it just, it started to continue its upward trajectory by when you started getting calls from medical schools and nursing schools and universities wanting to show this film to their medical students as teaching curriculum.

And I'm like, I'm the guy with, I'm the guy with dandruff on the cells and bloopers, but I am not.

I am not a doctor.

I'm not an attorney.

I'm not a nurse.

I don't know much of anything.

But for whatever reason, our little story, we caught it live.

And when you watch the film, it takes place over 10 years in about 90 minutes.

It takes place over 10 years.

And it's an insane journey that apparently happens every day here in America.

I have a question for you, but I'm going to wait for it because we go to break in a few months and it's going to take a little bit longer.

But I do want to say this is that to me, HBO is a network that has a certain amount of gravitas for me personally.

If it's a documentary on HBO, specifically nowadays, if it's a stand-up special on HBO, I'm like, this has to be of some quality because

HBO does not just hand this stuff out regularly and to anyone who wants it.

So to me the fact that this is on HBO has a certain amount of pull and it even says on your website that according to your website says that it will be on there for another year at least.

So people can continue to see it.

They've renewed it four times, largely due, well certainly due to the

the public being so far behind us, but really the thing that's given us that second booster has been the medical community, because we thought that the medical community would not respond to this movie.

When you see it, you'll see why, but it was just the opposite.

They're like, and I knew when we actually pitched the movie to HBO, we walked into this woman, her name's Sheila Nevins, and Pete would know this when you pitch somebody.

Most people in showbiz can say no.

They have the ability to say it.

Very few can say yes.

I walked into Sheila Neva's office and it was like she had like 15 Oscars.

Steve, let's

pick up right there.

I want to hear the rest of this, but we got

to do

the news.

We're going to come back and then we'll also tell you where you can see this outstanding film this weekend.

Steve Burroughs is here, folks, and native son.

We're coming right back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

more E.L.O.

whenever you can find a way to play E.L.O.

Welcome back tonight.

Do you know what I say to that band?

Hello.

Yeah, I'm rethinking the E.L.O.

thing.

Hey, welcome back

folks.

I'm sorry, Greg.

I couldn't resist.

I'm Peach

Wamba sitting across the stage for me is Greg Bach.

Producing the show in Madison is Dom Lee.

Dom Lee as we sometimes refer to him.

It is great to have you here, folks.

We are in the middle of a great conversation with our current guest.

He is a native Wisconsinite who makes his home.

We just learned North of Phoenix now after years in LA.

He is responsible for films like Chump Change, which is hilarious.

Super Bowl commercials, he was on Seinfeld, just a really talented guy.

And we were talking about his documentary that you can find on HBO Bleed Out.

Steve Burroughs is with us over the stream.

Steve, you were talking about going into the offices of HBO right before we went to the break.

Please continue.

Yeah.

So when you're, you're in a show business, you're a filmmaker, you've got scripts or stories or whatever, you go into these meetings and 98% of the people that you meet in these meetings, whether it's New York or LA, are people that can say no.

Everybody can say no.

there's very few people that actually could say yes.

And I had prepared this whole like half hour long pitch and we went up in the elevator at HBO and I wasn't sure who I was meeting and we walk out and we go into this woman's office, Sheila Nevins and Nancy Abraham, it's the two of them.

And their office is literally like covered with like Academy Awards, Oscars.

And when I say 150 Emmys, no exaggeration.

And I realize at this moment,

I am in the rare, I have the rare opportunity here to pitch this story to somebody who can say yes.

And I decided to not do the verbal pitch.

I had this little five minute kind of a sizzle reel thing of what I thought it could be.

And I showed it to him and five minutes later they said, let's do it.

It was like

that.

It was like, I waited three decades for that meeting to happen.

To get a yes.

They gave such great notes.

Normally, you get these crazy, idiotic notes from people.

And HBO, they gave me very few notes, but they were all very, really good notes.

And I took every single one of them.

And I credit them for really kind of shaping.

I was going to tell the whole movie in the past tense.

And they said, well, that's a mistake.

Why don't you just think about doing it in the present tense over 10 years?

So I just took out all the, you know, all the past tense, all the, you know, instead of walked, walk instead of, you know,

and it just made

the film like, so all of a sudden the audience was like completely in the story with me because I was shooting it live all those years.

It was just a great note that I would have never come up with and, you know, ever.

You know, I hear that story all the time, you know, when you watch documentaries about movies or TV shows, you hear these horror stories of executives coming to set or being part of the process, handing notes that are just ridiculous.

But I also love hearing stories about executives who hand notes to artists that help because it reminds me that even though they're wearing a suit, even though they're not the one writing or directing, there are still people in your industry, I should say.

who care about what's being made and they want to do their best to be a part of the process.

And by giving those notes makes me happy because it means there are people who are still doing that job right now.

Instead of what we all think of, you know, algorithms, ones and zeros, you know, engagement, all the words, but there are still people who said, I got into this industry because I love movies and television and I want to be the best help I can be.

So when I hear things like that, it still makes me very happy to know that they're still around.

Yeah, our first film that Pete mentioned, Chump Change, was literally about my worst experience in show business and basically development hell.

And I

had a studio executive.

I was writing a movie back then, 25 years ago.

It was like a kind of animal house kind of thing.

And this studio executive literally told me, he says, no punctuation.

That was his note to me.

I don't want to see any punctuation.

What?

And I thought he was messing with me, right?

I thought, oh, he's, I was, you know, I was a pretty new writer.

And he's like,

I

don't want to be bothered by like, you know, punctuation marks or quotes or periods or commas or semicolons.

And I call my agent and I say, is this for real?

And he goes, yeah, this guy just doesn't like punctuation.

That was a particularly stupid note to get.

Well, I've experienced the best and the worst of Hollywood note giving.

The one story I always think about is when Kevin Smith talks about writing that draft of Superman that never got made with Nicholas Cage and the guy who produced it, John Peter says, I don't want to see him in a suit and I don't want to see him flying.

You're like, then we're not making a movie.

We're not making a movie about Superman then.

But yeah, I'm sure there are millions.

I'm sure Pete, you have tons of stories as well about notes where you're like, hey, you know, be really good.

You're like, go ahead, tell me what you think would be really good.

And then you just chuck the note away.

It's so weird because you, you get these notes and Steve, I don't know if this has been your experience, but at first you're like, this has to be a joke.

So you sit

down with

this blank stare for like five seconds.

You're like, oh, this guy's serious.

So yeah.

And you just, you got to get through the meeting.

You don't want to piss people off, but Steve, what, where can people, all right.

So the whole reason you're coming to Wisconsin is to show bleed out.

This great movie we've been talking about, where can people see it?

And are you going to do a Q and A?

Yes, so we are we have been chosen to be the closing night film a week from last night at the Bloy International Film Festival And this film festival is just a terrific eclectic It's a film festival.

It's got over a hundred films longs shorts documentaries fiction if you go on their website it is

astounding the amount of work that they're showing in the next, they start on Wednesday, and we'll get there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

But I couldn't believe the quality of these films.

And we feel so lucky to be able to, look, I love to be able to show this film, because you can obviously see it on HBO, but you can't normally see it on the big screen.

And so we're in the big theater there, in the Wilson Theater at Beloit College.

I've had the opportunity to screen this thing over the past few years.

There's nothing, as we all know, I know I'm gonna sound like the directorial idiot, but boy, there's nothing like seeing a movie on the big screen.

And my movie, Bleed Out, it was poorly shot, poorly recorded on this iPhone.

Like I said, I had no idea what I was doing.

And I thought HBO would not really be into the lack of quality.

And they said, we don't care about any of that.

It's content.

It's the story.

You know, just we'll make sure that people can see it and hear it.

So when we first showed on the big screen in New York, I thought it was going to be a disaster.

It was just the opposite.

You know, it's just so the thrill of being able to come back home to where the movie was made and show it for Wisconsin audiences in ways they've never seen it before.

We can't wait.

And there's going to be a Q&A afterwards.

They've warned me that the Q&A is go.

They go deep and I'm like, love it.

You

can ask

us anything.

We're, we're, we just can't wait to get there.

So yeah.

I think that, you know, I think you're doing something right now, Steve.

That's typical Midwestern where you've done this thing that people love and you were trying to be like, it's, I don't know why it's, it was filmed on an iPhone.

It doesn't sound good.

I feel like if anyone said that to you, Steve, you'd be like, oh, it was a film in an iPhone.

It doesn't look good.

Yeah, but HBO bought it.

So what's your explanation there?

So that's what I'm saying to you.

It's a good film.

People like it.

It looks nice.

But the question I have though for you is it goes back to something you said earlier in the previous segment is that that medical schools have been showing this to students.

And that raises the question of what kind of pushback you've gotten and you said you were surprised by the embracing that they've taken towards this documentary.

Has there been pushback from people in the medical field or

If so, is that like the insurance side or the administration side?

But what do they seek to achieve when they show it in their classes?

They're saying like, watch this.

This is how you can become a better doctor.

Don't do what they're doing.

Do

this.

But like what kind, you know, that's wonderful to see.

But was there also pushback at anyone in the industry as well?

Well, I'll take that question first.

We expected there to be pushback.

In fact, HBO, they took a full year.

Like when you see the film, you'll understand that this is like a hardcore medical legal drama, heavy on legalese, because there's a whole medical malpractice case in the film that goes over the seven-year period.

And HBO took a full year before they released the film.

They took a full year to legally vet every single second of this movie.

I had to prove everything we said.

So there's a moment where doctors were replaced in the intensive care unit.

uh by a camera in the corner and uh there was no doctor there there was just a nurse and the camera was out by the airport and there was one doctor out by the Milwaukee airport watching 160 patients like my mom in a coma and the cameras weren't on so HBO said you can't just go out there man and just say there are no doctors in the ICU and

replaced by cameras that aren't on, you're going to have to prove it.

And we could prove it.

We had all the backup.

We had all the evidence.

We went through the entire trial, et cetera.

There are moments like this in our story that are, I mean, the HBO lawyers have seen it all.

They did the Woody Allen thing, and they did the Michael Jackson thing, and the Scientology thing.

And I said, are you guys worried about us?

They go, no, we got this.

We got it.

They worry about John Oliver.

That's who they worry about.

And by the way, our lawyer is his lawyer for the show.

So

we know that

they're legally vetting him every week when they do that.

So when the movie came out, the HBO lawyers told us, be prepared for anywhere from 12 to 15 lawsuits.

It's coming.

And we're like, because we're just Stephen Margo, the Burroughs of Hollywood, just two of us, but we had HBO and they said, no, no, no, don't worry about it.

And because we did the legal vetting and we had all our ducks in a row.

We told the truth and we had everything was backed up in triplicate.

Take a guess how many times we've been sued since this movie came out.

I want to say zero to feel good, but I also feel like I should say a

hundred.

I like that.

I like Pete.

You want to guess it all again?

Ten zero.

Yeah.

You did it.

Nothing.

Wow.

It was just it was just the story was rock solid.

It was it was vetted to the nth degree.

And the reason now I'll circle back to your second question, which was your first question.

I think the reason that the medical student or the universities and the medical schools are seeing it is because when you see it, it's in present tense.

You go through everything that my mom and our family went through.

And these medical practitioners who all went to medical school and nursing school, the doctors who run this, they are horrified, absolutely horrified and embarrassed by the care that my mother received.

And I'll try to answer your question by quoting, we recently did something at the Mayo Clinic and there was this young oncologist who looked like he was 14 years old.

I mean, he looked like a baby, but he's a cancer doctor.

And he came up to me and he said, and he had tears in his eyes at the end of this thing.

And I'm sure he was probably like 27, 28, something like that.

He said, I just want you to know that watching your mother go through what she went through,

has forever changed the way I'm going to practice medicine in my entire career.

That's great.

I told that dude.

Thanks, man.

I mean, that last 10 years worth it in one sentence.

You know, it's like, what are you going to do?

What they do is they show, I think all these medical schools and universities show their their young charges because you'll see in our movie, there were unbelievable medical mistakes made.

and you gotta make a decision as a human being or as a hospital or as a corporation, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do?

Are you gonna go this way or that way?

And the place, like we're going to Georgetown.

I know how much time we have, but we're in two weeks.

You have about 30

seconds.

Georgetown University Medical School, we're going in two weeks.

Their last speaker was Dr. Fauci.

We're like, what?

No, no pressure, Steve.

No pressure whatsoever.

You guys seen the film?

I mean, we are not, you know, but they're doing it for that.

They want to, they want to make sure that because if you make a mistake and you, you have the opportunity to be honest with the family and correct it, then the same mistake won't be made again and help gets better and everything gets better.

Steve, we're out of time.

I'm so sorry.

I had new chump change questions for you, but we'll do that next time.

Steve Burroughs, thank you so much.

We're coming right back.

It's night light.

Thank you, guys.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwab and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

My name is Greg Bach here in Radio Park in Racine, all the way across the state, live and in charge in Christmas Town.

2015 USA, Marinette, Wisconsin.

I'm trying to make it work for you, buddy.

I give a Christmas City USA.

I cannot stress this enough.

I'll write that down.

Hold on and rain that down.

I'll bet you.

Holiday extravaganzaville 2014.

Oh, I like that actually.

But you were listening to Nightlight here.

We are with you for a little bit longer.

Don't go anywhere.

There's still lots of programming still ahead, but we don't, as I said before, we don't shut the lights off when we're done and there's still lots going on.

Plus another chance, your final chance for today.

to text in a keyword to win $200 in the break into spring text to win multi-state contest here going throughout the rest of the week.

You get seven opportunities throughout the day, but at seven PM in that hour, that's your final one for today.

Your next one will be at seven AM and you must enter using the Civic Media app.

So that's the break into spring text to win multi-state contest here on Civic Media.

Good luck.

Now it's time, Pete.

Yes.

For a little.

portion of the show we've been doing for a while, but we haven't really like Concreted down.

We've been workshopping it kind of exactly.

It's like it's like a Broadway play or like, you know, those sets you do on the road, you're like, Oh, I got I got a cool joke.

I want to do tonight.

We've been polishing and polishing, but now it's time for a section of the show we call the nightcap.

There we go.

I was like, I was giving it some dramatic.

No, I thought maybe you spaced out.

I did.

Point is

I was looking at tomorrow's show and I'm like, I'll get to that later.

But this is the nightcap where we take a look at the show that was, reflect on our own thoughts, get some text messages if we have them and just have some general, I think this is Pete where we should have like just bow ties.

We don't have the time, but like you just like undo them.

Or like that.

At the end, you don't have to dress up, just have a bow tie untied around your neck.

With a little.

Martini in hand.

Exactly.

And you're like, Hey folks.

Welcome to the nightcap.

You know, I just want to say before we completely wrap things up.

Bleed out.

Check it out on HBO.

You can't

make it to Beloit because that's going to be a really cool thing.

Steve is so entertaining when he does Q&As.

But his movie Chump Change, I think you could just watch it on YouTube.

It's got Ben Stiller's parents, Stiller and O'Mara, Tim Matheson, Tracy Lords.

Steve, okay, we know that adult films typically are not well acted.

The plots aren't great.

Tracy Lords, who is a former adult film actress, is in Chump Change.

And

she won Best Actress at the US HBO comedy film, HBO comedy and arts festival.

So really talented guy.

And yeah, I can't wait to have him back on.

That was fun.

Yeah, we'll set it up for one of our After Dark series, for our After Dark series, which you don't know about that folks.

Go to Civic Media's YouTube page where you can find full length interviews with people we've talked to.

We'll give you, you know, we'll give you a couple of segments, you know, 20 minutes or so.

But then there's a whole other half of that conversation.

So go, go to civicmedia.us.

Actually, I take the back, go to our YouTube page, which I believe is also Civic Media US to find the After Dark series and watch and listen and get in touch.

Yeah, we are here in the nightcap.

So Pete, how do you think we did for, great stuff.

Week five, I think we need to let go of how many weeks it is, but we also don't because it's our

show.

At some point, it's like saying it's our, you know, seven week anniversary when you first start dating someone, eventually that just kind of falls off.

But I agree.

And I think this is fun too, just for some validation.

Craig Kinnit on the stream says, also guys loving the secret show.

Yes.

What do you

know?

Well, you know, I mean, Hey, we're just, just a couple of people trying to have fun here.

Just having a good time.

I want to read some more text messages.

Let's see here.

Someone else, Rob.

Oh, Rob layman.

Love Rob.

He's a regular listener on the, on the live stream says March madness, NCAA basketball tournament.

He loves that as well.

Just like you do Pete.

He's up in Tigerton, Rob and Tigerton.

If you're listening to this, Rob, drink your water.

You know what I mean, Rob, drink your water.

Oh, I love an inside joke like that.

Not a joke.

This is not a joke.

It's an inside medical advice.

Oh, dear.

Yeah.

He needs to drink more water.

Oh,

good.

Well, thank you for the text

either way.

Well, you know, hydrated or dehydrated, it's great to hear from you.

And we've got, oh, Matt and Eau Claire says, love the afterglow idea, Greg.

There you go.

All right.

Well, I think he means nightcap,

right?

Well, or it means after dark.

I have no idea.

I just had a good idea.

It wasn't my idea, Matt.

We all thought of it together, but I'll take credit.

But very much appreciate everyone who called and texted.

Tomorrow's show, we've got Kevin Dospoy.

who is the director of forward analytics.

He'll be here talking about Wisconsin's struggling economy.

And then in the second hour, Greg, am I pronouncing this correct here, Pete Schwem.

Greg Schwem, writer of the syndicated column, Hotel Humor will be here to share some of his latest observations and absurdities from everyday life.

Greg is a, I met Greg doing standup in Chicago years ago.

He had just moved to Chicago, which I think is where he was from.

He was a news reporter in Florida.

who kind of checked that career and went to stand up route and did really well.

And now he's got this humor hotel column for Tribune Media Services and great observational stuff.

Love talking to Greg and breaking down his articles.

So we'll do that tomorrow night.

That'll be fun too.

And you brought up that point of like someone who says like, you know, we've been dating for seven weeks or whatever.

I always would tell new comics, tell the audience it's your first time on stage.

If you want to, that's fine.

You'll get claps.

They'll be, but

Stop after that, because you'll have people who will go on stage and be like, it's my 14th time.

It's like, stop telling them that.

Yeah.

Just stop saying that.

Just don't want, nobody cares.

Nobody cares.

And

if anything, they might think, oh, he should be a little further along.

Exactly, right?

Exactly.

It's my 14th time.

You just started comedy yesterday while I do comedy in New York, and there's a lot of microphones.

All right, folks, on behalf of Pete, I'm going to say thanks to Dominic, to Tucker, engineering and traffic without them.

None of this stuff works.

These microphones don't work.

I want to thank everyone who called, texted, sorry, Cindy from Appleton.

We weren't able to take a call, but, you know, call on back.

We want to hear from you again.

Robert J and Steve Burrows for being our guests tonight.

And we just appreciate all of you for being a part of this.

Without you, there is no us.

Don't go anywhere.

Stick around.

There's plenty of more coming up on Civic Media, including your chance to enter in the seven o'clock keyword in the break in the spring text to win contest.

But that's for you to do.

Get that Civic Media app.

Download it.

Stick around.

Be patient.

You'll get that word.

Good luck to you.

All right, folks, we're gonna get on out of here, but we'll be back tomorrow.

Pete, say good night to the people, please.

Good night,

Wisconsin.

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