Jason Mansmith on Upcoming Events at the Thrasher Opera House (Hour 2)

From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.

It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, come on!

Here's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Dude!

Welcome to nightlight ladies and gentlemen Happy Tuesday everybody.

Oh Man, it feels good to be back on the air Greg.

It was a long 23 hours 24 hours 22 hours, whatever it was good to see you

buddy.

How are you?

I'm doing quite well peachy keen loving life It's Tuesday.

That means it's not Monday

True.

We are that much closer to Wednesday, which is always a good feeling.

Yeah, sure it is

That is Greg block folks.

He is coming to you live from radio park in Racine and Just up the coast from him is me.

I don't

know

if that was grammatically correct But I am in Marinette, Wisconsin and beautiful northeast Wisconsin.

I am a mere a couple hundred feet from the beautiful

Waters of Green Bay and it is a beautiful gorgeous warm day here.

So I'll take it Hopefully you guys had a great day as well Dom is joining us from Madison as always.

How are you my friend?

I'm doing pretty good.

I am I did a lot around the apartment today.

I'm feeling productive It was it was another great day just like yesterday.

I'm having a really good week so far What is your design style

for your new apartment?

In what way like, um, you know

What is the style you're going for in your apartment?

Like Art Deco

or... Like Art

Deco, are you going for, are you going for modern?

Are you going for a country look?

Like, you know, looking like your grandma's kitchen?

Are you going

for an old... Dom's like, I got a couch and a TV.

Pretty much.

Okay, let me rephrase the question.

Let me rephrase the question, and I don't mean to sound like that guy, but when your girlfriend sees the place, what does she say like as far as, hmm, I can see this, this, and this?

She says, this

needs work.

Um, and that's that's it and yeah, I don't have enough furniture yet So I don't really don't have a design I plan to make it more modern, but I just don't have enough furniture quite yet to really say it has any style at all So

okay go

for the year

22 dude go for the shabby chic.

Yeah,

get yourself You know like except for the couch.

I think a couch is kind of gross Yeah, if it's been used listen,

I have a Jimmy John's flag though, which I haven't put out but I want to burn it just

burn it.

Okay

You might as well just put like a poster with no frame of John Belushi wearing the college sweater and then next to that just a Blues Brothers poster.

Okay.

That'll work.

Yeah.

Do you really have a Jimmy John's flag?

I will.

You know what?

I'll post that.

I totally thought that was a joke.

No, I really do.

I really do.

I got it for my friends.

Yeah, it's really good too.

Nice material.

Great.

I want to go more into this, your friends who give you Jimmy John's flag.

That seems very interesting as well.

They just give swag as gifts at that age.

We're canceling

all the, we're canceling all the guests and everything we're talking about tonight.

We're going to focus on this specific topic

tonight.

Dude, that's the case.

I am totally taking a powder.

I'm not sitting through that for two hours.

Knock yourself out.

I'll go run some errands.

I don't know if you guys are handy or not, but I, we have this great porch and I don't like, you know, it's the, the seasons are so short here in Wisconsin, but I, I'd like to be able to use it through October.

So I thought about buying heaters, you know, those big portable heaters you see at restaurants.

I didn't want to do that.

So we bought something unassuming, a little fire table, which can be hidden, but gives off some warmth.

And I'm trying to put this thing together today.

I cannot believe that places like Menards or Home Depot or whatever, expect general

The general population to put together a fire table.

There are like three tubes.

You can't mix up Mm-hmm I'm not the handiest guy in the world, but I'm slogging through this setup and I think I got it down, but I don't know if you guys are handy I've done a lot of bad stuff when it comes to putting things together I put a toilet seat on once that has it was up at a 45 degree angle because I put the bolts on wrong

My wife bought a table off the back of a truck in Chicago years ago.

And I put the legs on and the chairs didn't fit.

And we got into an argument over it.

She's like, that doesn't look right.

I go, well, honey, this is what happens when you buy furniture off a truck because they know you're not going to complain because they're mob related.

And it turns out I had the legs on the opposite side of the brackets.

So it's stuff like that that has haunted me over and over.

Quick question.

Yeah.

Do these things come with instructions?

They do and I follow them

listen dude.

I but you know these diagrams are so like I Don't know you have to have like bionic eyes sometimes

to see what they're very detailed I mean, I don't disagree with you.

I I like putting stuff together.

I'm a Lego kid So when I when we get something it's always my job, and it's not a job.

It's a pure blown love for me But sometimes you do get like I was putting together a workbench table in my garage and the instructions that came with it were not

as helpful as I think they thought they were.

And I really had to.

There were a couple, I mean, and I think when I put something together, I'll say I have to go back every once in a while.

I'm like, oh, I missed this one thing.

Oh, I got to go back and like unscrew four screws and go back and blah,

blah,

blah.

But yeah, I mean, it's so frustrating.

So I get it completely.

That's why I always go online to try to find videos too, because I do not want to

I like putting things

together.

I don't

want to be angry at the end of it.

Right.

That's typically how I am, but the fire thing makes me nervous.

Like you put a table together wrong.

Okay.

Maybe the table falls over.

It's uneven or whatever.

You only used eight bolts and 17 screws.

I don't know what it is, but, um, yeah, it can be very frustrating, but I, when I have time, I don't mind it, but I'm just not very good at it.

I'm willing to admit that.

Hey, man.

I need to say

that that's.

Well, I mean, that's where that's where YouTube always comes in handy for me.

YouTube University has been a godsend.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it seriously has.

Yeah.

We have a great show folks tonight.

It is great to have you here with us on nightlight.

We have a Nicholas DeGroote coming up at 535.

How cool is this?

Nicholas started a group called Ground Floor Democracy and it's just people getting together.

I won't give away everything, but in really cool places just to talk about current events and politics and have a civil.

discussion.

So I'm excited to get into a big argument with Nicholas.

I joke, guys.

I'm joking.

It'll be great to have Nicholas here.

That's at 535.

And then at 620, we have Mr. Jason Mansmith.

He's been on the show before.

He's the marketing director of the Thrasher Opera House.

Have you ever heard of a cooler venue name than that, gentlemen?

No.

I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty metal.

Right?

Yeah, it is really

cool.

And I'm not saying they haven't had metal acts there before, but they have just like a great lineup.

Like there's just comedians and plays and everything.

We'll talk to Jason about what's coming up in this really cool venue in Green Lake, Wisconsin.

We've got a great question of the night, but first guys, I think we need to get to something.

Big stuff here.

We are doing one of our great civic media text to win contests.

We are in day number two.

It's still fresh.

You still have so many opportunities to win.

It is the civic media accelerate your summer multi-state text to win contest.

Do you know how that works, Greg?

I do know how that works.

What you only need one thing to play right?

It's the app.

That's all you need folks Yeah, I'm gonna give you the keyword in just a moment here text that in on the app and you will be eligible for a daily prize of a hundred bucks and a Wisconsin Dells prize package Things like well a lot of stuff that you can do it was constant bells

at

the Dells for miscellaneous tickets for Experiences at the Dells those just the daily prizes and when you enter the contest you are automatically enrolled

for our grand prize.

And this one's good, Greg.

And I know you're excited about this.

You want to tell the people what the grand prize is?

Oh, I'm very excited.

The grand prize is a $250 grocery card and a $250 gas card.

So all of that could be yours.

And you have seven opportunities a day.

to text in we're going to be giving stuff and we're going to be giving you tell we should we'll be giving those prizes away 7am 9am 1113 5 and 7 7 times you can enter every single time and

We we wish you the best here's the best part to is that if it's your first time playing you will probably get a message from us at media to invite you to do something like Follow us on Facebook sign up for newsletter if you do that you'll get one extra entry in the entire conscious can't do it every time But you'll get that one extra entry and if you enter in every single time That is still let's see here so that is that is 71 entries total.

That's a lot.

Yeah

And the good thing is we can't play, so that increases the listeners.

So just click on that link.

When you get a confirmation link, click on that link and go to town.

And what Greg just said, great stuff and an extra chance to win.

Absolutely.

And it's very easy.

So 250 bucks, a $250 gas card, a $250 grocery card, get yourself some Twinkies, whatever you want to buy.

There's no right or wrong folks.

And that's all we need.

Greg, you know what?

I'm gonna let you, if you're okay with this, you want to give the keyword?

I'd love to, I absolutely

would.

Lay it on

us.

All right.

This

words, this hours keyword is Mr. Greg Buck.

Grocery, G-R-O-C-E-R-Y Grocery as in I'm going to buy grocery with

the money I win from the accelerate.

Yeah, because it doesn't make sense.

Grocery is the word.

G. R. O. C. E. R. Y. You can text it in right now.

Good luck.

You have until the end of the hour, but you only get to enter in once.

But the word is grocery.

We'll let you know throughout the hour as well.

Remind people folks coming in a little bit late in the game want them to be able to enter in.

But that is the keyword for this hour.

Good luck.

And yeah, let's let's let's get the show a rocket and a rolling then.

I was following along and you spelled it right.

That was perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Great keyword.

Impressive.

Yes.

Especially given our grand prize.

So good luck everybody and text that in and off you go and good luck.

So guys, we got a great question tonight too.

So maybe we should get to that.

What do you think Tom?

Let's do it.

Let's talk about the question.

I think that means yes.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Questions.

All right, so about, I would say two weeks ago, there were some stories in the news for several days, really, about these 11, or I think it was at the time 10, maybe it was 12, but they settled on 11.

Missing scientists that...

scientists that just vanished and people that do research.

And I admit, Greg, I fell for it.

I was like, Oh my gosh, we got to talk about this.

Well, yeah, our pal Tucker, who's also our senior producer, debunked this theory in about three minutes and told us what happened.

And there was an excuse for every scientist that had gone missing.

Well, Fox News kind of ran with the story in the last day or two, regardless, didn't stop him.

Yeah.

So

That is kind of the inspiration for tonight's question of the night, which is, what is a conspiracy theory you believe?

What is a conspiracy theory you believe?

855-752-4842-855-757.

You can also text us on the app right after you send in that keyword.

And if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment and be part of the fun here at Night Light on this awesome Tuesday night.

And I've known Tucker, our senior producer for some time now and he's great.

We absolutely love him.

What I did not know.

And when he, we kind of brought this up, he just, he looked at WOs.

I'm also like an award winning, I've won awards for my research.

I'm like, okay,

let

me trust you then to do that.

Cause he knows it a lot better than that.

Cause what happens is I start looking things up and I'm like, but wait a minute, but wait.

I know.

So it was a great article that we saw in the New York times we will put in the show notes too regarding the, the.

conspiracy

theory regarding these

missing scientists.

And it really focuses on something important.

And I think that depending on the conspiracy theory we're talking about, it could also lead to great harm because it affects families, it affects loved ones, it affects communities.

I mean, perfect example, perfect example.

They're eating the cats and the dogs, a completely made up

a completely

made up thing

said by the vice president of the United States back when he was running for office.

And he even admitted saying, well, it's not true, but I need to start the conversation.

So you lied.

So that lie he told turned into conspiracy theory, which affected the immigrants, affected their families, affected the community and affected the way the country looks at Springfield, Ohio.

So this is a really great article.

And we're going to, you know, we'll talk more about this in the second hour about what people believe and what they don't believe.

But I think it was, it was a very good read.

This

place to information can be dangerous.

No question about that Sydney politics weighs in on the stream and says what happened to the hair Dom did Greg and Pete make you cut it?

We would never do that Sydney great

to

have you with us when we come back We're gonna tell you how many times Donald Trump tweeted last month.

It's insane folks or socialed.

Whatever you call it.

This is nightlight with Pete and Greg coming back

Welcome

back.

This is Nightlight, a Tuesday night edition with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and Dom Lee along for the ride.

holding down the fort in Madison and working the board.

It is great to have you with us.

I'm in Marinette, Wisconsin.

Greg is in Racine, and together, the three of us make up the Yatterhey Triangle, and you'll know what that means if you watch us on the stream.

Tune into the stream.

We like to be watched.

Like some kind of Illuminati thing.

Yeah, I'm taking

like the I'm taking the I'm taking the Jay-Z hand thing This is a good reason to watch the live stream folks taking the Jay-Z hand thing or the diamond Dallas page thing if you

love

wrestling from the 90s and make it into a triangle It's not the Illuminati.

It's the yatter.

Hey triangle.

I'm a Marty now.

I love it.

It's thank you side

down Well, there's no such thing as an upside-down triangle, but

Oh, what you just did plays right into the question of the night, which is, what is a conspiracy theory you believe?

Let us know.

You can text us, stream us, or let us know on the app.

But we have a, we have a caller, Dom.

And it's our pal, Greg.

Can you put him through?

Patch him in.

Let's do it.

Hello.

Hey there,

Greg.

Good evening.

Thanks for calling.

Hey, Dom, good bumper music with the Sam Cooke twist in the night away, too.

That's awesome.

Appreciate that.

That's really cool.

Um, hey, so, um, I, um, I don't know if I used to believe, but I did give, like, when I was small, um, which is when, you know, some of our conspiracy theories start when we are small children, but

Um, you know, so if you step on a crack, you break your mother's back, you know, um, I, I don't know if I really believe that, believe that, but it gave some credibility to it.

Or if you, um, go across a black cat's path, it will give you so much bad luck.

Um, and I can't even see whether a cat is black or not, but anyway.

So that's the thing.

But yeah, what I really wanted to tell you guys is this Friday night in Waukesha is going to start Friday night live and it's going to be a music festival in downtown Waukesha, nine stages or more.

of local live music and, uh, so you guys should try to make it down, maybe even do a nightlight remote there sometimes.

That would be, that would be, that would be really fun.

I mean, I don't know if we'll be able to do it this time.

That's kind of the

short

notice, but we appreciate the invite and that's something we

are

talking about or doing, doing live remotes for the show.

It's every week during the summer and this year.

Okay.

Um, they were just advertising that they're going to be designated area for, um, alcohol consumption, uh, downstairs.

So our downtown, so people can actually drink in open air.

So, um, that's

awesome, Greg.

Uh, and I saw your text

too about how sometimes directions are in Chinese and foreign languages or so it seems, but, uh, the awesome stuff.

Glad you're part of the show, Greg.

Thanks for the call, pal.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah a foreign language so but anyway We'll we'll see you guys later

Speaking of Greg Greg, this is something you'll be interested in thanks to the I think this was on the Daily Beast Donald Trump set a record last month he posted on truth social the platform nobody ever goes to

861 times in May that is a record and let me just say USA USA USA that is impressive 861 times

that's nearly 28

Post a day, folks.

That takes a lot of work.

It needs nimble thumbs.

It needs a real dedication to needing attention.

And what I did find out, if you brought up Truth Social, which is very funny, is that the parent company of Truth Social lost a lot of money last quarter.

And their stock is worth like eight bucks.

They've only made like $3 million in any sort of profit whatsoever.

And they've lost like hundreds of millions

of dollars.

He's done poorly.

Yeah.

It's always

done.

Well, they always, they always say like, we don't make money with this, but they really don't make money with this.

Does he just willing to take a loss so he can do whatever, even though he's welcome back on Twitter or he could.

Oh yeah.

He has a Twitter

account.

He has.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Elon Musk, unwhatevered him, banned him.

Uh, but yeah, he, he, he, he truths all over the place 28 times a day, apparently.

That's insane.

Yeah.

So, I mean,

But that's, that's what our president is doing.

Only he is only beating out a sitting congressman from Wisconsin, Derek Van Norton for most tweets in a day.

So is

that

true?

Oh,

Derek will go, Derek will tweet a hundred times in a day.

We'll tweet a hundred times a day.

It's, he is a special

thumbs

must be huge.

Well, he'll, yeah, yeah, he's huge.

Before we get out of here too, really quick, this came across the wire today.

NPR News is reporting this after a judge temporary blocked Trump's 1.8 billion and

billion anti-weaponization fund, they are officially walking away from it.

It has garnered no support.

Republicans are not happy about this.

And really, when it comes down to it, no one can really justify why anyone is going to be giving what it seemed to be $2 billion to various people who helped try to take down the government.

So that fund, the $1.776 billion fund is being abandoned.

How about that?

And the good thing is, if you're into weaponization,

The Justice Department is still doing it.

A DOJ spokesperson kind of came to their defense, the people that stormed the looters.

The traders, they're called traders.

The traders and defended them, even though they beat up cops and left the place trash and all that kind of stuff.

They

pooped on the floor.

Yeah.

Well, the bathrooms probably work out.

That's true.

I mean, Nancy Pelosi's office has a great

desk.

She probably has her own bathroom.

Of course she does.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Our Accelerate Your Summer text-to-win multi-state contest is in full play right now, and our keyword this hour is grocery.

G-R-O-C-E-R-Y, G-R-O-C-E-R-Y.

Text that in only on the app, and you are eligible to win 100 bucks and a nice little prize package.

Even our next guest can enter.

How about that?

You should remind him that.

Keyword.

Grocery.

Text it in.

Good luck everybody.

We're coming right back with Nicholas DeGroote.

This is Pete and Greg and Nightlight.

Welcome back to Nightlight.

I am Pete Schwabba, sitting across or upstate, I should say, from Greg Bach.

And Dom Lee is in Madison.

We are the Yatterhey Triangle.

And just a quick reminder, folks, civic medias accelerate your summer multi-state text-to-win contest is in full swing.

And this hour's keyword is Grocery.

G-R-O-C-E-R-Y Grocery.

Text that in right now, only on the app, and you're eligible for our daily prize.

Very excited to welcome this next guest to the show.

He founded this great group called Ground Floor Democracy.

And he joins us now over the phone to discuss this group, which celebrates civility.

I love it.

Mr. Nicholas DeGroote.

Nicholas, how are you?

I'm good.

Thanks for having me, Pete and Greg.

Yeah, it's our pleasure.

Tell us about Ground Floor Democracy.

Where do the inspiration for this come from?

Yeah, so honestly, I was feeling a lot of anxiety post-election.

And I was sort of looking around at my community and figuring out what would be the best way for me to get involved.

At the time, my schedule was really busy.

I was a full-time student.

I'm a single parent, which is obviously also a full-time job.

And then I was taking my son to the park every day after school for about two hours.

So I was like, well, I'm here in this public space every day anyway.

Like why not just open up a space for people to sit with me and talk with me?

Because even at that point, I really just felt like the place where things need to be fixed the most is the way that we all talk to one another about these things.

that are really contentious that we feel strongly about.

So I basically just did that.

I threw up a whiteboard where I would write a question of the day every day and I got a bunch of chairs and I'd set up a few chairs and then I would just invite people to come and sit with me and along the way I would just meet people who are also

feeling the tension of the moment and wanting to find ways to get involved, but also unsure of where to go or where to get started.

And I met people who are doing other really incredible things in the community, other mutual aid organizations and, you know, group projects that are just really incredible.

And I teamed up with a lot of them to work on different projects and

Slowly I've just been weeding together with the community and it's been really eye-opening to see how much work is really being done that like a lot of people don't see if you're not actively in those areas and getting involved with those things.

So then I was thinking to myself, I'm like, okay, so like where, what is this about?

What are we trying to do?

I was in school at the time, so I learned about this concept called commons related to this scientist Eleanor Ostrom.

And she won a Nobel Prize for her work in this particular subject in relation to like nature commons, which are basically like community owned nature spaces.

And she basically did a whole thing about like,

What are the structures that are necessary to like make these kind of organizations work effectively?

And so I'm just taking the work that she already did and I'm translating it to other types of things.

So like, to me, there's two things in particular that I really think our democracy needs to like move forward from where we are right now.

Really like three, but the two.

Things that I think need to be built that don't already exist our first a civic commons, which is what we're trying to do with politics in the park I think a politics in the park is the first program of that civic commons that we're trying to build and then another example would be like a media commons where it's sort of a Community owned media group that's driven by the concept of civic journalism

Yeah, so I would ideally like to work with some community journalists who are already doing work in the community and try to Come up with workshops and things that we can teach people to You know go out there and produce News but like do it more disciplined than how it's currently, you know getting out there and I think if we give people the tools We can you know build a more reliable system for

supporting our democracy and then sort of the third thing is like helping organizations that already exist build democratic structures within them so that you know a lot of people I think really get into sort of the nonprofit space with like all of the best intentions at heart and then like a generation will go by and they're no longer in charge of those organizations but because of the way that they're built now kind of one person gets to decide all these things about how the organization operates and

you know, it sort of creates this drift towards, you know, authoritarianism even on the small scale.

So ideally what I would like to do is help support the small democracies that will hopefully allow our large democracy to function better.

Well, I mean, that's, it sounds like quite a plan from just simply taking your kid to the park to where you're at right now.

I want to bring it back to the original time though, you know, you go to the park, you put up a whiteboard with a question, what were

the first feelings toward Especially, you know with social media out there How apt were people or how bold were people to come in and actually have a conversation?

Or did they say like what is this?

Like can you tell me before I actually say anything?

What were those first times doing it like for you?

Yeah, so this has been a like fascinating journey even from like my own perspective because I can tell you that like

Putting up a sign and just inviting anybody to come and talk to you does this deal like a lot of anxiety from the jump

Like you're

like, oh, I don't know who's gonna come and try to sit down like am I gonna have somebody who's you know Really crazy and dangerous try to come up to me right away and cause a scene but like it just hasn't materialized that way and What I found is that like there's there's definitely some apprehension but like

People are pleasantly surprised when they sit down and start having a conversation and there's almost like an apprehension for it to end like people people enjoy the time that we do it and For a while.

I even have like one gentleman who just like regularly seemed to be showing up to Like take part in it.

I actually haven't

we took a break for the winter and I haven't seen him in the new year but what I have had is like last year there was a lot more days where it was just me sitting by myself in the park for sure but this year I've had only two days of the days that I've been out there where nobody has been with me like most days I have at least a couple people show up and sit down and and talk

Our guest is Nicholas DeGroote.

He is the founder of Ground Floor Democracy.

He gets together with people in parks and encourages conversations, civil discourse, something that we could all use more of for sure.

Nicholas, one of my biggest dislikes for social media, specifically Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, is that it allows people to remain anonymous.

And they're always full of courage when they don't use a real picture or their real name and they say really hateful things.

Have you had, but I found that not to be the case.

Like when you're talking to people face to face, it's about, you know, problems in our towns.

Like how do we get water, pay for the pool operation or whatever.

It's much more mundane.

Have you encouraged any people with vitriol or that are that angry?

Like they are on social media when it comes to sitting face to face in a park.

Well, and like what you're saying is like at the heart of like why I chose

to do this the way that i'm doing it because like i think the thing that needs to happen is we need to get off the social media and get back to the in person to be honest with you i don't even know how what the percentages on the amount of people on the internet that are actually people and not right that are designed specifically there to be outrageous and and

get

the clicks and stuff like that so like i have not had an experience like that.

out in public yet.

That's not to say that I don't think that it ever will happen, but for the most part, even the people who come in, there are people who come in, they're ready to have a debate.

That's what they're expecting.

They're expecting that I'm gonna argue with them about a particular point, but then once they realize that that's not really what I'm doing, there's always this shift to, I don't know, a calmer light.

like we're just here, almost like we're on the same page already.

Even though we haven't even really discussed anything.

Well, I think that's the problem is people, well, I don't want to say the problem.

That's, you know, people come in with their guards automatically up, up high, ready for anything.

And then you have to sort of talk them down and be like, Nope, we're just here to have a conversation.

We're here to find out what the connective tissue between us is.

And that's where my question goes to, you know, you've had a lot of conversations, you talked to a lot of folks.

What are the connective tissues the things that really worry people out there?

I mean, I don't want to say regardless of who they voted for but when you break things down we have families we have Jobs we have things we have to pay for what are those points in our lives that make us more connected than divided?

Honestly, I think that like People would be surprised the extent to which across the spectrum

People want to be there for one another like especially when people are going through hard times.

Yeah, like I've never had anybody sit down and talk to me regardless of their political affiliation Who didn't want to see somebody who needed help get help?

That's a great answer

Have you thought about setting up a subsidiary to politics in the park called politics in the dog park, Nicholas?

Would people be even more calm under those circumstances?

Actually, you know the dog park in Oshkosh is not a terrible idea for a spot to like set up one day It's

like those puppy interviews with celebrities you like if there's if there's some heated discussion bring in some dogs

Oh, yeah, if you do though, I want to

taste I want some I do have a I do have an actual question for you We've got about two minutes and we have to do a break and then we'll come back with more with our guest Nicholas DeGroote the founder of a ground floor democracy But have has this like inspired you at all to become even more active in your community or even run for

office

not run for office, but be more involved in the community.

Absolutely.

I think that like in a lot of ways we put a lot of stock in politicians and their ability to do things.

But to be honest with you, when I really thought about it and I had even considered the possibility of running for an office, like where I really came back to is like the truth is that the power resides in the community.

And at the end of the day, like that's where I want to be doing my work is as close to the community as possible.

Great answer.

That's where that's where the most important work is being done and That just like before we go to break that leads me to my thought is that we are an election year here in Wisconsin We're voting for local leaders and that's where a lot of that great work is happening So those conversations happening happening at the local level and we're voting we're voting for people who want the jobs in our city councils County boards things like that.

It's very very important Nicholas what you're doing

Yeah

Oh, there you are.

Nicholas, we're going to take a really short break.

We'll come back and we'll have a few more minutes.

Nicholas DeGroote is our guest.

He is the founder of Ground Floor Democracy, and he joins us now over the phone from Oshkosh.

We'll have a few more minutes with Nicholas.

Just a reminder, folks, our keyword for this hour in our Accelerate Your Summer multi-state text-to-win contest.

We love our contest here at Civic Media.

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We are not eligible, Greg, but no, we're still having fun.

We are coming right back with Nicholas DeGroote.

This is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and Nightlight.

This is

like literally one of my favorite crouchy lyrics.

Dom, you're amazing.

I know we give you a hard time sometimes about hair and conspiracy theories and such, but you're crushing it, man.

Thank you.

I am Peach Waba.

He is Greg Bach and the other he is Dom Lee folks.

We are the Outer Hate Triangle.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Peach Waba and Greg Bach.

It's great to have you here.

Our question of the night is, what is a conspiracy theory you believe if you have one?

Share that with us on the text line.

And while you're there, get in on our

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So good luck, everybody.

Text those in and we will read your texts regarding the question of the night after the news at the top of the hour.

Right now, we are in interview mode, Greg.

We have a great

guest.

Nicholas

DeGroote is here.

He's telling us about his organization and he is the founder of Ground Floor Democracy, Politics in the Park.

That's what he does, folks.

He goes to the park, has a seat, presumably by a swing set or something and talks to people about the issues

of the day.

We should

go to a park and talk to Nicholas.

I would love to do that.

Yeah,

absolutely.

What if we went there and acted like bots, though?

Well, I would have to get my robot suit and have to get my lights all and practice my my robot walk like more.

More.

Hey, we

just want to help you get the butts in the seats.

That's why we're here Yeah, in a recent article you said you were a political science student at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

and

you're eager to attend political and academic events

But you looked around and saw donors, university administrators, professors, and students required to be present for class, and you felt out of place.

You went from there to doing what you're doing now.

Why did you feel out of place in college?

I don't know if this out of place is necessarily the right word.

college is just built for a very particular kind of student and like I wasn't that student because I'm 30 years old and I have a kid and all the responsibilities outside of education being the regular part of my life but also I had to be a full-time student in order to get the full Pell Grant and stuff like that so I think the system is really set up in a way that's like

Not ideal if you're somebody who's trying to return to school and you have other things going on in your life that make it difficult to make school your number one priority.

Yeah.

Interesting.

I don't add, you know, as someone, Nicholas, who went to college again later, quote, later in life would be to most people.

I went back when I was 26, got a degree in political

science.

It

is very hard because you have to, people are really excited.

Oh, you're going back to school, but there's really not a lot out there to like make it easier to do what they want you to do, which is get that diploma.

It's tough.

I mean, like full-time job, kid, full-time school, that's three full-time jobs.

I don't know how you would find the time.

Yeah, and I mean that was it right is like and and that's like everybody everybody's life is like that and then To try and tack on an extra thing of like hey come and be more civically engaged I totally understand why people like hear that and they sort of cringe away from it But I think that we're just sort of in this moment where it's like

even those of us who are living these incredibly busy lives already, we have to try and eke out even a little bit more room to be more civically engaged if we want to start to see things moving in a more positive direction.

Because it's pretty obvious to me that we're just headed in a bad one.

And if we don't do more to take the reins and shift us into a more positive direction, I don't know where the cliff is, so we'll see what happens.

Nicholas DeGroote is our guest.

He's the founder of Ground Floor Democracy.

He hosts meetings in the park, very casual meetings where people talk politics and issues and come together.

A great idea and it's been a success so far.

I want to ask you, Nicholas, before we let you go, we've got about a minute and a half or so.

In this article I read about you, you said you felt like after the first couple of meetings, you had to start facilitating or guiding the meetings, which makes sense to me.

And one of the questions you asked the attendees is if you could change one thing about your local government, what would it be?

I'd like to ask you that same question.

What would you change?

To be honest with you, I'm a really big fan of sortition, which is random lottery as a way of doing governance.

I think that local government especially could like do a lot to introduce sortition even

even not necessarily completely to the city council, but even a portion of the city council being chosen by sortition, I think could really do a lot to change our democracy and change the way we think about how regular people can do government.

I think I know what that word means based on what you said after it.

But can you explain

to people

listening like myself who might not know?

Yeah, so it's just instead of people being elected into positions there would instead be a random lottery of the people who live in that area to be chosen for those positions That's bold.

I love that

I would be totally down for that.

All

right,

Nicholas, Greg and I might

surprise you one of these days and crash one of your parties here in the park.

But in the meantime, keep up the great work.

Thank you for spending time here with us tonight.

And you're making a difference.

I think it's fantastic.

Thanks for being here tonight.

Absolutely.

Thanks a bunch, guys.

All right,

you got it.

That's Nicholas DeGroote.

I think they have a website, Greg.

I should

ask.

We'll put that in the

show notes if you want to check it out.

Perfect.

All right.

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We are coming back to read.

The responses to your question, your answers to the question of the night, and we will have Jason Mansmith here, too, in hour number two, telling us what's happening at the Thrasher Opera House in Green Lake.

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Here's Pete and Greg.

Welcome back to Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

So happy you're joining us here in hour two of the program.

If you missed anything from the first hour, if you're just joining us right now, you can go to civicmedia.us slash shows.

Go look for Nightlight, download episodes, listen to them at your leisure, take them wherever you like all over the world, catch up and be part of the conversation.

So much, so thankful to Nicholas DeGroote from Ground Up Democracy for being our guest.

We have a great

second hour plan for you, including a discussion with Jason Mansmith, who is the marketing director of the Thrasher Opera House.

He'll be talking about all the upcoming events coming to their venue, and we'll get you to the nightcap.

And if you missed the opportunity or you want to try again to get a keyword entry in, we have another chance at seven o'clock, the last one for the day, and then it all starts again.

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So that comes up in the seven o'clock hour, stick around for that as well.

And again, we started all back over again tomorrow, seven more chances throughout the day.

And do not forget if you get the opportunity to get an extra entry, take that, take that chance.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I am Greg Bach, coming to you live from Radio Park in Racine and all the way up the coast and the northeast of Wisconsin is Mr. Pete Schwabba in Marinette, then completing the Yadahe Triangle, if you believe in triangles.

Triangles.

Yeah.

Triangles that I like to call fall over is Mr. Damley in Madison and HQ on the ones and twos.

We are the Yadaheer Triangler.

So happy you're here today.

So happy you are choosing to share time with us.

It's

We're having a great time.

Really, really fun time.

So, yeah.

Let's jump right into the restatement of the question of the night and let's get into the conversation because I see a lot of messages coming through the text line and I want to hear from the people.

So, Dom, can you please give us the question again or hit the music.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

What

is a conspiracy theory that you believe?

855-752-484-2855-75CIVIC?

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Thank you.

So questioning again is what is a conspiracy theory that you believe, Dom?

Oh, actually, no, I'm sorry.

Pete, let's start with you, please.

Before I answer the question, Greg, me and Culpa, I totally forgot to push the Nightlight Movie Club movie this week, which is Casino Royale.

I got all wrapped up in the contest, but folks, every Thursday night here in the second hour, we have Nightlight Movie Club, which starts at 6.20.

And we break down a movie, we discuss it, we have fun with it.

And this week's choice is Tucker, our senior producer, Tucker Lagursky.

Casino Royale a great Bond film that is our our movie of the week for nightlight movie clubs So check that out before Thursday night and be part of the conversation.

We'll talk about our favorite quotes Scenes maybe our favorite James Bond's whoever they were we'll do that second-hour Thursday night.

So

James is

bond.

Yeah,

that's how you say

plural So all right, so let's kick it off with you Pete.

What is a conspiracy theory that you believe?

All right, so I believe to a degree that the Kennedy killing was some kind of

conspiracy, maybe not like you said earlier, Greg, as widespread as

they

indicated in the movie, the Oliver Stone film, which is a bit over the top, but I don't believe it was one gunman.

I do believe other people were involved.

And it's the simple thing of, in the Oliver Stone film, when his head went back into the left, I know that's been talked about over and over, but how, I'm not saying it can't happen if he shot from behind, but it seems like,

I don't know.

So I just feel like there has to be at least a couple more people involved in that.

Also, my other ones, these are just kind of silly new Coke.

Wait, you don't believe it existed?

No, I believe it existed.

It was terrible, but that Coke launched it and made it bad on purpose because it was bad.

I don't know if

you had a chance to taste it.

I was probably 20 when it came out.

It was bad.

And then they relaunched Coke.

and called it co-classic, maybe just a great marketing move.

So I kind of, I could believe that could happen easily.

And I will say, I don't believe, I never used to believe in conspiracy theories because my parents always said, well, nut jobs are the ones peddling conspiracy theories.

But the thing is, when there's money to be made.

Yeah.

People do crazy things.

Well, and there was also something we talked about a couple weeks ago a story where it said that the conspiracy theories that are being pedaled nowadays are not coming from like the backwoods guys and their trailers on their computers, right?

It's from people who have of high or higher education people who are of the mainstream people and unfortunately people pushing them are also folks who have high followings on social media and they'll do anything for clicks and engagements.

It's a grift.

It can definitely be a grift even when the information is right in front of your face.

Dom, what about you?

What is a conspiracy theory that you believe?

And is it sandwich store-based?

No, not sandwich store-based.

I

wish it was.

I would have to say there was a viral thing that went out on Facebook.

It was the Area 51, where they were storming

Area

51.

I believe that happened.

And I believe that they actually did go inside Area 51.

And I don't know.

Like people?

Random people.

They managed to get inside.

There was like hundreds and hundreds of people trying to.

quote-unquote, storm it.

And I believe some people manage to get in, and most people don't believe that, but I do, I think.

I'm

not familiar with that, but do you believe, are you saying you believe there's an actual alien being held in there, and people stormed it to see what was okay?

That too,

yes.

I

believe Area 51 in full.

Wow boy.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

Howdy.

Okay.

Wow.

You're going you're going classic That's a that's a class like for you as you're a retro.

That's retro actually.

Yeah, that's like you're like you're like the guy who's like I'm bringing back bell bottoms It's

like, you know what they're comfy.

Yeah,

they get the wind up to my ankles.

It's nice.

All right, so

what do we

have?

Oh, what about me?

Yeah, I don't I'm just kind of a kind of like a

No funner here.

I don't really buy in conspiracy theories.

I'm sorry.

I think the only one that I'm interested in learning more about that I still have not read.

So therefore I don't want to say I believe in it, but there's something called the dead internet theory where it consists.

It persists that the mostly bot activity and automated content is happening in on the internet period, not just on social media, but like in many places.

And that sounds very interesting to me.

And it also just seems like a very low stakes one because, you know, as we were talking earlier, like some of these conspiracy theories can really harm families and harm people.

Like, you know, it just doesn't, it's not good stuff, but this one seems interesting to me because now I just believe that most responders on social media are bots because I've seen those videos of

bought farms, where comments are being generated, where there are like a thousand phones in a room, all hooked up to computers, just constantly throwing out like rage bait comments and commentary.

So I kind of lean towards the idea of maybe the internet's mostly dead or mostly robotic.

That's really

interesting.

I would not say it's low stakes, though.

I would

say

that if that is happening, that is the work of people with a lot of money,

want to

control people who want to monetize.

the internet.

So I don't

think it's low stakes.

It's

very dangerous.

I guess, I guess my point.

Oh, I guess no, it does.

It does cause harm too.

You're right.

You're right.

I take that back.

It's not low stakes.

I guess I'm, I'm thinking it more in context to like the story we talked about with regard to dead scientists and things like that.

And the information in people's faces and then folks still saying, no, I don't believe you because you're part of the deep state or whatever that is.

But let's hear from the people.

Dom, let's kick it off with the text line.

Yeah,

we got quite a few here.

We got Robert listening in on WLCX as all of Trump's assassination attempts were staged even at the life expense to innocent others.

Charlie Kirk's death was the result of the Trump mega mafia.

Wow.

That's been a take for quite a while too.

I could buy that one.

I mean,

you know, it's such a mess the investigation.

Who knows?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

We got a Chris in Madison says the death clause conspiracy is an interesting one.

I go back and forth on it's basically a rumor that music labels murder or sabotage artists to make more money off them via insurance policies.

The YouTube channel barely sociable covers it quite well.

Wow.

Never heard that one before.

That's interesting.

But again, a lot of money to be made.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

What else we got there,

Dom?

We got Melissa from Willy Street texting in that says, not sure it's a conspiracy theory anymore, but the CIA killed JFK.

I don't know if we're actually ever going to know, honestly, because when they did the executive order to release the files, the...

Even the people who looked are like there's nothing here.

So I'm sure those secrets are very buried Yeah, absolutely.

Do we have any others there Tom?

Yeah, I'm trying to scroll through the um We

got John

Murray keywords in there.

Yeah, it says

walking

with here's a conspiracy theory grocery Yeah,

John Murray texting in on WMDX says walking with the tall whites Dude worked a weather station at Los Alamos and hung out with the tall whites, which is a small group of

aliens who are stationed there, amazing story, bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

No, I mean, I've been called a tall white too.

So let me just spend a bunch of tall guys.

You know, I have trouble like with the alien.

I do too.

Is because when I saw this thing on one of the places I follow the science thing, where you would have to go or what traveling light years would get you.

Mm hmm.

If they showed up and it was in this book I read to called The Elegant Universe by Brian

Greed.

Yes.

Yeah, and he said if there were going to be Aliens that came here they would be through little wormholes They're not gonna be green people in spaceships and all that kind of stuff because they couldn't make it that far with it That's like our limited brain, and that's not a new theory I've heard people say that too, but it seems almost impossible that they could get here with a spaceship

Or can they

Let's get to some Facebook comments.

We'll get to more text comments in a little while, but let's get to some Facebook comments as well.

I'm sure people have opinions.

Yeah, Richard says the food industry is set up to make us sick and keep us that way so the health care system can milk us dry.

Again, health care, big business, baby.

Ian says that there are forces and people that work in your and my life attempting to help us even if we're not aware of it.

Oh, that's kind of a positive one, right?

Wait, say that one more time again?

Say that again?

That there are forces and people that work in your life and my life attempting to help us even if we're not aware of it.

That's interesting.

I

feel like a conspiracy theory.

That just feels like a nice thing.

It's like a guardian angel, pay it forward thing.

Cash Money Carl says that I am a character in an alien's video game simulation.

The sunglasses aren't helping you, pal.

No.

Let's see.

Chuck Gennaro, our civic media pal, says,

Uh, what does he say?

Oh, he's responding to Stacy Sue, who says that Elvis is alive and Chuck says Stacy Sue and works at a seven 11 at Marquette, Michigan.

I've not heard that one.

I would find that hard to believe.

One more here.

JB Thompson says that Greg Bach is a standup comedian.

That's

not even funny.

That's

true.

That's an unfunny conspiracy theory.

And it's true.

I'm funny pictures

are on the internet, JB, and I can vouch for him because he makes me laugh.

We've got some more.

All right, folks, we'll get to more of your comments on tonight's question.

What is a conspiracy theory that you believe will get more to your comments online, texting, calling, or on the live stream as well as Facebook throughout the show here on Nightlight with Pete Schwab and Greg Bach.

But coming up next is Jason Mansmith, the marketing director of Thrasher Opera House.

And to find out more about what's going on there, you're going to have to stick around because more to come here on Nightlight with Pete and Greg.

live stream.

We're currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.

We still call Twitter.

We have a question of the night, which is what is the conspiracy theory that you believe?

Let us know.

You can also drop a line by getting on the civic media app, which you need to participate in the

multi-state text to win contest.

A new keyword will be coming your way in the seven o'clock hour after we are done.

So stick around, get that.

Good luck.

We'll talk more about that towards the end of the show.

But right now, let us welcome to the program our second guest of the evening.

He is the marketing director of the Thrasher Opera House here in Wisconsin.

Jason Mansmith is back on the program.

Jason, good evening.

Welcome here.

Thanks for being on the program.

Great talk to you.

Hey, so glad to be along with you guys.

Certainly do appreciate the opportunity to talk about her historic opera house, which

is cool.

So let's start with the name first.

Well, first of all, the most metal name in history, but also when you, when if, if I say to somebody, Hey, let's go to the thrash or opera house, it's possible someone would say, well, I don't enjoy opera.

That's

the Ms.

Nobra made me with the name.

Tell us about all the things you have at the opera house.

Yeah.

So very rarely do we have opera.

I mean, we do every once in a while, but 90% of the time we don't.

But we've got all kinds of different music genres coming on through there from across the world, right?

So bluegrass, rock, gospel.

Heck, we'll do polka.

country, you know, all those kind of things.

We even had one of my favorite shows was gangsta grass.

I don't know if you get all those cats and all, but this is blue grass and rap in the same thing.

And they were so great.

And so great.

They did the theme song to justified.

Yes.

Correct.

Absolutely.

So we had those guys at a couple of times, but yeah, not, not particularly a lot of opera coming through there.

And people get a little bit like concerned with Thrasher as well because they're like,

Is that the skateboarding magazine that's supporting

this?

Or is this like a

thrash metal thing that's coming on in here?

No, Charlie Thrasher is the gentleman who built this building back in 1910.