The Best New TV Shows with Tara Ariano (Hour 2)

Live from the Civic Media World headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Across

Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albault along with Mr. Aaron Zommers, our producer and engineer.

It is six past the hour of 12 noon on this Wednesday, April 16th, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite,

and it is

pump day.

There you go.

We made it to another half of week, Mr. Zommers on a sunny sky in the world headquarters.

Downtown Madison, Wisconsin.

Gonna be a beautiful day.

Probably one of the best days of the week.

Rain coming in tomorrow.

maybe some snowflakes here and there and friday as well some severe weather but then uh easter weekend sat saturday looks like the better one sunday maybe a few raindrops but the big bun

as we used to call it our host, the bunny.

He'll he'll make it.

He'll get the eggs where they where they need to be.

So hopefully you have a very safe and blessed Easter holiday with you and yours to those who celebrate, of course, to our Jewish listeners as well.

Pass over this past weekend beginning.

So a reflective time of year, Mr. Zombers, but spring is in the air.

Spring certainly is in the air.

Yeah, absolutely.

It certainly is.

Big show today.

Big show last to get to in hour number two at one thirty Tara Ariano is back been a while since we've heard

it

has been I don't know like nine months

long

time she had no one had a baby but yes it's been about maybe I should have picked a different

number

but no Tara's back an expert in television a national figure in in and of herself with people in her organization talking about the highs and lows so far in twenty twenty five of television

Maybe we'll talk about white lotus just got done with their run a lot of network TV shows ending the Their run as well for the years.

I'll talk to Tara about what's happening in television in hour number two as well another what's worse addition a Hard Rock Edition, which I will tell you I was not a hard rock guy kid growing up I just I don't know I guess I was more of a country guy and pop and that sort of thing but talking about the who and Led Zeppelin

So of course people are gonna get a little salty about this, but we'll we'll talk about that our number two as well and then Also, we're in a little bit later here.

I'm very very excited about this I even made news on Pat Crite Lowe's show this morning He had never heard a fusion voting and this is great because Pat hadn't no he hadn't that surprises me because he knows everything right No, he would he and so he might be listening who knows but anyway a fusion voting and this is great because

With all the turmoil happening in politics in the state and the country, how often people call or text it and say, Todd, what can we do about this?

Well, here we got a couple of guys in the studio today that are going to tell us there is something we can do.

It's called fusion voting.

Very, very, very interesting.

Not like ranked choice exactly.

but I think it has a way to possibly empower people that might not be part of the big two, so to speak, Republican and Democrats.

We have former Democratic Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney and former Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz in the studio.

But first, the lost had been found.

He is somewhere in America in a secure undisclosed location, a Wisconsin boy like myself, a former Republican like myself, and now one of the senior advisors at the Lincoln Project

Trigvie Olson somewhere in America joins us by phone.

Trigvie, how the heck are you?

I'm good.

I'm at the bookstore

at the University of Tennessee today, Tom.

The University of the Vowels?

The Vowels?

The Vowels.

We're getting some swag.

Woolen just did a visit.

And

so we've got to get a little bit of swag.

Well, this just shows what a great dad is.

I'm not joking around.

As Joe Biden says, I'm not joking around.

Trigvie is a great dad.

because here you are taking your daughters, you're doing a little university tour.

Now I said to you this morning, this could all be done very quickly if she would just commit to Wisconsin.

Well, you know what?

Wisconsin is definitely on the list, Todd, but we

had

to, we had to do a little road trip.

You know, you've got to kind of find out what your options are before you can, um, before you can know for sure.

So we, uh, we're doing a bunch of schools in the Atlantic and today, uh,

You get a really nice tour of the University of Chesapeake.

It's a nice school.

You know what?

It kind of reminds me a lot of Madison, actually.

I've heard

a little bit.

I've never been to the campus proper by Ben through town, and I've heard it's a great collegial field.

I mean, they're huge in sports, like Wisconsin is, football especially.

Their basketball team has gotten better.

The women's program, of course, under Pat Summit.

won how many national championships.

So yeah, and Tennessee is a chill place.

Not too hot, not too cold, right?

You

know, they are too.

They're a big, big, we, we just don't, we found this out while we were here.

You know, one of the cool things about going to all these campuses is you learn quite a bit about the different schools and whatever.

They're a huge baseball power.

Oh, that's right.

I've seen it.

One of the best, in fact, they have, they have a two of the top four potential draft picks and the major league baseball draft

we

learned.

Here and there's they're quite good at that.

So that's incredible.

Uh, of course, Wisconsin's been a while since, uh, we've had baseball here.

I think they have baseball.

No, it's, it's, it's touchy here.

It's touchy because they got rid of it partly because of title nine.

And so people would still like baseball here in, uh, in Madison.

Uh, uh, Trigme, let's talk a little political baseball.

Lots going on.

Uh, lots of things.

I like your take on here before the bottom of the hour.

I know you've been following a lot of the news here and we touched on this quite a bit yesterday on the show.

And this is this deportation of one of these individuals by Donald Trump sent to the prisons in El Salvador.

And this, a bar go Garcia is his name.

And here's a guy who the Trump administration, of course, the president of El Salvador was in the Oval Office yesterday.

Very disturbing.

We talked about it a lot yesterday, but I want to get to trivia is this new news being reported today by the New Republic and it turns out because one of Trump's and Marco Rubio's arguments here is a Pam Bondi is that This guy was part of MS-13 and Yet in court they have not proven or shown anything to the judge to to uphold that and now the New Republic are reporting today

that the arrested officer in the original arrest of this guy who made the assertion he was part of MS-13, it turns out this guy was relieved of duty himself because he was paying for sex to a prostitute and ended up talking about police cases to this woman.

Not exactly a credible witness as it turns out.

And I think it just goes again that as this case goes forward,

To me and I want your take on this is someone who's actually fought autocrats for those that don't know Trigvie is this is real banned from Russia by Putin himself because of his work against autocracies in Eastern Europe This seems to be the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself denying the truth here and not providing the courts with evidence and we are in a constitutional crisis in my opinion and damn near close to

calling it on democracy because if we don't uphold the law, if we don't have an executive branch who respects the courts, then do we really have a constitutional republic

treaty?

Well, it's a serious deal.

And you know, here's the thing.

The guy was in the United States legally.

He's entitled to due process.

OK?

Like the president of the United States, and this is why this matters for all of us,

doesn't just get to decide, or the Justice Department or law enforcement, who they're going to deport and send to a prison, particularly when you have people who have the legal rights.

We're either a nation of laws and process, which isn't always going to be pretty, and quite frankly, you know, there are probably people who deserve

You know, you would say, well, they don't deserve, you know, they deserve what they get.

But the reality is we're either a nation of rules and laws or we're not.

And if they can do this to somebody who's here legally, it's a slippery slope being able to just pick up anyone and deport them.

So, you know, and send them off to a blue dot,

really.

So it's a huge deal.

We don't

Again, if you're a Republican and you're listening to this show, if Barack Obama or Joe Biden did this, how would you be reacting?

If they had loaded up Sean Hannity

or Jesse Waters.

I saw this on your social media.

What if Biden had taken the January 6th defendants and just put them on a plane to El Salvador?

Correct.

And if one of them particularly any of them, okay, they did it maybe with you as citizens.

All right They're saying well, he's not doing it with you as citizens yet, but I guarantee you some of those people who are green-charted holders or non-us citizens, right?

naturalized you as citizens That should not be happening.

Well, and Trump was

And then defying the court is just outrageous.

Right.

Trump was

caught on a live... That's

what I would say.

Ask yourself this.

If you're an average citizen, should you have the... Well, what would happen if you defied a court order?

Right.

Why should the president and the executive branch be above the law?

Well, and we played the cut yesterday.

Trump was caught on a live, like talking to President Bukele of El Salvador, saying, quote, unquote, home groans are next.

That he is...

Not ruling out, sending full-bird American citizens to El Salvador without due process.

And, you know, this farce of, well, we can't get him back.

Really?

I mean, Trump's paying Bukele $6 million.

He wrote the art of the deal for God's sake.

That's what he says.

I mean, you're sitting next to him and you say, Bukele, I'm not giving the $6 million unless we get this guy back.

He'd be back like that.

So you're right.

It goes to due process.

It goes to respect to the law.

Yeah, exactly.

But it really gets back to rule

of law.

at the end of the day.

And it's just slippery slope.

And honestly, I mean, I've just been reading a series of books on Germany and sort of the whole period between the rise of the end of the, end of the Wehrmacht Republican all the way through the end of World War II.

And it's just slippery slope.

It's just slippery slope because right now it's people who are, who are

are here on green cards.

Next it will be LBGT community.

After

that it will be pastors at the leaking church who say things they don't like.

And eventually it's a slippery slope.

We're

a minute a minute left here trick before we got to go to back to go to break We'll come back.

I want your opinion on a couple of things.

We come back one your your colleague at Lincoln Project Stewart Stevens also a former Republican I was talking to Rick Wilson on one of the Lincoln project project podcast this week and and making this point that look what Trump is doing here what his ICE administration is doing picking people up without due process It's essentially kidnapping and that is illegal in

Pretty much every state, as far as last time I checked, why aren't state attorney generals filing kidnapping charges against ICE and some of the Trump administration?

And also, Bill Maher takes dinner with Trump at the White House.

Let's trick me think about that.

And the Packers, are they going to draft a wide receiver?

All of that in seven minutes.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the All Ball Show right here across Wisconsin on the Civic Media.

Radio Network.

you

Welcome

back to the Todd O'Ball show in the Civic video right into work.

21 now past the hour of 12 noon.

The incomparable Dolly Parton.

Well Dolly, Trigvie, are you going to go to Dollywood while you're down in Tennessee?

Join us via phone.

Trigvie Olson, Senior

Advisor at Lincoln

Project.

Are you going?

We're not planning on stopping at dollars

I've heard it's great.

I've never been there by her.

It's really cool

Yeah, we talked about it a little bit but to be honest We'll kind of run it out of time I mean this is just that people might

We had to go to New Orleans for a family friend event over the weekend, a birthday party.

And so then we just decided that we roadstrip back.

And we wanted to go to Dolly World, which is the province.

These college visits, they take a lot of time.

This is the difference between Trigme and I.

What?

I don't know how it was at UWT.

Or, you know, I only know U-W-E-C.

But you go to the residence halls now, they do the laundry for students.

Good Lord.

Really?

Really?

We didn't have

that.

Yeah.

No.

We didn't have that either.

And I tell you, some of these things that they give for them is the reason why the right has so much success demagoguing universities.

Well, there you go.

I'll put a little breaking news here.

This is courtesy of Channel 3000, CBS affiliate here in Madison headline.

Number of UW Madison International students alumni whose visas were terminated rises to 26.

says more than two dozen UW Madison students and recent alumni have seen their visas terminated through the student exchange visitor information system as of this afternoon.

According to University spokesman, the terminations include 15 current students and 12 recent alumni who have held immigration documents through a period of employment authorization.

And it continues on from there.

So now the number stands at 26.

Trayvita, get back to what we were talking about before the break.

We're no longer talking about quote-unquote illegal or the better phrases undocumented people.

These are people who have done it quote-unquote the right way, have waited in line, who have gotten permission, who have been here and now because of whatever.

And we're not just talking speech anymore.

I've seen, you know, the various sources.

Now I've seen these documents that ICE is using to identify someone as a threat.

It includes

Are you speaking of college kids?

Are you roommates with someone?

Who has a Chicago Bulls Jersey and a tattoo Bing Bing gone?

I'm not this is real.

This is real.

So this

is what we're talking about

now

Here's here's here's the thing You know what this is gonna is it's gonna again like the tariffs like doge

It's just going to have such a negative impact on the US economy.

It's going to cost people in places like Wisconsin Jobs.

Do you know who are foreign students who came here?

Sergey Brin, founder of Google.

Elon Musk was here on a student visa.

He actually overstayed his.

About, I think it's like 50% of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are people who came here on student visas.

They're taking all these people out.

They're gonna wanna come here.

They're gonna go to Europe.

They're gonna go to China.

They're gonna go to other places.

the honor of a Supreme Court ruling.

No, there's no precedent for that.

I think what's got to happen here is, I mean, Congress, Congress should be asserting itself.

It's not.

Okay.

And, and it's not because you have people like, you know, I do the Brian Styles and the Scott Fitzgeralds.

I doubt that the Tom Tiffany's do, but, but those guys know this is wrong.

Right.

They need to be hearing.

And quite frankly, if they don't go on, they need to be held accountable.

It's that simple.

They have to be held accountable.

And quite frankly, if they take the process, here's the other question.

If he isn't going to honor Supreme Court decisions, what are you pointing at?

How many members of the Supreme Court do you appoint?

The next question is,

Is he going to, is he

going to

honor election?

So what to Jeff, what we have to do is we have to be speaking out to defend the guardrails.

And second, we have to not be taking debate and we have to be talking about the real world consequences of these kinds of things in terms of economics.

Right.

The 10% of the jobs in Wisconsin are under threat from Donald Trump's insanity around tariffs.

Right.

10%.

70% of those people voted for Donald Trump, who had those jobs.

Yeah, I get it.

And that's why we're here to talk about this and tell people the truth.

Trigme, we'll save those questions on.

on the State Attorney General's being filing kidnapping charges and Bill Marshall next week, because I want to give you a minute here to talk about.

I've got your colleagues here from United Wisconsin, former Democratic Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney and former Republican State Senator Majority Leader Dale Schultz in the studio with me.

I know you've been involved in United Wisconsin.

You've got about a minute, my friend.

Talk to us a little bit about your thoughts on United Wisconsin.

No, I think, you know, I'm really proud of Dale and Dave, and I would say I'm more adjacent than they are colleagues of mine, and I've been friendly to them.

I'm really proud of all these people coming together because as I've said on the show, and it's something Dave and Dale, I'm sure you'll talk to them about, like they've taken.

In Wisconsin, there's certain things like higher education, like conservation, like rule of law.

These aren't red or blue things.

These are green and gold things.

And the fact that you've got Dave and Dale who come from very different places politically, very different parts of the state, standing up and saying, you know what, we've got to get back to that.

And oh, by the way, one way that we can

do that is

through fusion voting.

Like, I'm just proud of them.

I'm proud of them.

They are meeting in the grandest tradition of Wisconsin in the way that the Gaylord Nelson's and the Tommy Compton's and

And Warren Knowles and people like that, the giants that made Wisconsin such an amazing place.

And you

understand that even more if you've had the opportunity to go and live in other places.

What has made Wisconsin special, they're standing up and saying, this is wrong, we're going to defend it.

And I'm just proud of them.

Appreciate it.

By the way, Trigby, we're gonna have Tia Nelson on the show next Tuesday out at Governor Nelson State Park for Earth Day.

So I'm looking forward to that.

This can be a lot of fun.

Trigby, safe travels.

You know, the

other thing,

Todd, I'm getting a lot of pressure.

We gotta get, we gotta

get a tour set up.

All right.

You're the one traveling across America.

My big, my big trip is down to Stoughton for a bakery item.

All right, Trigby, safe travels.

Come on back.

More after this on the Toddleball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

It says you've got to stand for something.

Are you a ball or anything?

You've got to be your own man.

Not a puppet on a string.

Welcome back to the title.

I'll show up the Civic video ready to work.

Glad to have you along.

34 minutes to pass the hour of 1 o'clock, pardon me, 12 o'clock on this Wednesday, hump day, April 16th, 2025.

Zombers have all thrown off with the new time changes.

By the way, for those that haven't heard,

Starting a week from today, a week from today will now be at two o'clock until four in the afternoon.

So we're still in this time slot through Earth Day.

And then on Wednesday, you can find us two until four across the Civic Media Ready Network.

Thank you very much, Trigby Olsson, for calling in on the road.

And you can find our next two guests on their new project called United Wisconsin.

And you can find out

all sorts of great information about fusion voting and what united wisconsin is at united wisconsin all spelled out the full word united wisconsin dot org united wisconsin dot org please to welcome in here to the studio is the world headquarters in downtown madison former democratic dame county sheriff dave mahoney and former republican state senate majority leader dale schultz are here as our guests in the studio gentlemen thanks for being here

Thanks for the invitation, Todd.

As always, delighted to be here.

And a full disclosure, wherever he's on the show, Dale was one of my former bosses, but it's always great to have you guys here, two people that I've looked up to a lot.

Of course, myself, a former Republican, Dale still calls himself just out of a mule spite, a Republican, I think, because you tell people you just want to stick around because you don't want to give up the true Republicanism.

Is that right?

Well, that's true.

And I still consider myself a Republican.

I just don't vote a straight ticket.

Right.

That's fair enough.

And Sheriff Mahoney, you're a Democrat still, but you're someone who is independent minded.

I am.

I like to say I'm a common sense Democrat.

And, you know, having run for office four terms, longest serving sheriff in Dane County, I represented every citizen of this county without regard to their

Political affiliation, you know the big two Republican Democrat, but then also the independence the greens the Didn't have a party at all.

Yeah, I represented the needs of everybody and that's what's missing today

I've heard Dale say the same thing when he was state senator that once the election is over, I'm here to represent everyone.

Guys, it's a statewide show.

I'm sure there are some people that haven't heard of either one of you for those folks that might be listening or watching via StreamYard, YouTube and Twitter.

Sheriff Mahoney, start with you a little bit about where you grew up and just the 30,000 foot view of your career and how you got involved with the United Wisconsin.

Well, I grew up in Madison.

went to high school at Madison Memorial High School and grew up in a family that believed in giving back to the community that we enjoy a great life here in Wisconsin with green and gold, but that you have a responsibility to give back.

And I did some volunteer work with the Middleton Emergency Medical Service and through my affiliation there and with the chief of police in the city of Middleton.

I decided to go into law enforcement.

I served about nine months with the village of Cross Plains Police Department, and then I was recruited to join the sheriff's office, where I spent 41 years.

Wow.

And during that 41 years, the last 15 as the elected Dane County Sheriff.

And I took that role very seriously because, you know, although we have a reputation of being leaning

to the left in in Dane County.

We also have a strong independent and Republican representation within Dane County, and the issues are the same.

You know, Dale and I have far more in common than we have different differentiating us from a political perspective.

We might disagree on how we get there, but you know what?

We're willing to talk about it and.

Dale might bring me his direction, and I might bring him a little bit my direction.

But at the end of the day, we're serving the people, which is what the responsibility is of our elected people, our elected citizens.

So I served the last 15 years of my career as Dane County Sheriff.

During that time I also served at the president as president of the National Sheriff's Association representing 3,080 sheriffs across the United States and this is an issue that I Know is as recently as this past February was top of good discussion among the national sheriffs and I'm staying involved in Issues of concern right now.

I'm working for a consulting firm out of Chicago that

deals in behavioral health in jails and prisons because it's it's a Increasing number of people who are incarcerated with mental illness

Sir Schultz give us a quick overview of you've been on the show of course We appreciate you but a little bit where you grew up not actually too far from where Dave grew up and about how you got involved

I grew up on the south side of Madison I went to high school initially right across the street at Madison Central closed went to Madison West

graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison and then promptly went off to start farming on the family farm in Saw County.

Didn't take me too long to figure out I was going to need a job to support my bad habit of farming.

And my wife and I eventually moved into Richland Center where she completed

36 years in education.

Last 16 is superintendent of schools in our community.

And we have two daughters who went through the Richland Center School District and both doing very well.

And they're both graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Still farm, still involved in some real estate activities.

And like the hunt and fish and like Dave, I want to be involved in helping to solve problems.

And that's how I see this whole project with fusion voting.

It's, it's a problem solver.

I don't know if it's the same here in Madison, but in Richmond center, when I have coffee with the guys and gals downtown, they all tell me that they're tired of watching the reality show, which is our national government and they want.

Some sort of a solution and I tell them well, I've got a deal for you Fusion voting is what it's about

before going any further a quick shout out because I know her well not a long time your lovely wife Rachel

who now she has started her own after after standing by you for all those years in the state assembly and Senate.

Now she has been elected herself to the local city council

landslide Rachel.

She was unopposed in her first effort.

How about that?

She never on it.

Well, I guess maybe one of your assembly raises your own.

She she got out of seat at the city council and I got the vacuum a little more often

about time.

about time.

Well

said.

Absolutely.

Guys, let's go to the story.

For those that want to read the whole story, it's really well done.

Go to the Wisconsin State Journal.

And it's a story by Mitchell Schmidt in this weekend's Sunday State Journal headline.

Could this same candidate run under separate parties?

Wisconsin group wants to try it.

I'm going to read this paragraph just to kind of set the table and then have you guys get into it.

It says, quote, fusion voting allows the same candidate

to be nominated by more than one political party.

Voters would still vote only once in each race, but they can choose their preferred candidate without supporting a party they may disagree with.

In practice, that means some candidates would appear more than once on a ballot.

For example, Jane Doe Republican could appear on the same ballot as Jane Doe Green Party.

All votes for an individual candidate, whether nominated by a major political party or a minor party,

would then fuse together to create a final vote tally.

So that's the premise of this thing, guys.

Is that when you're out in the street, is that more or less how you're explaining it to people?

Exactly.

As I explained it, it's a means to address the hyper politicization of the two major parties.

We can't even have...

as civil conversation in our nation today.

And if we talk about Wisconsin, which are full of green and gold fans and folks that want to solve problems and believe in the same strong issues of democracy and strong schools and public safety and honoring public servants, it's important that we do that.

And right now,

the tempo and the temperature is so high that we can't even have a civil conversation.

So fusion voting allows not only the identification of the two major parties, Republican and Democrat, and to set their own agendas, but it allows a candidate who may be more moderate to appeal to the vast majority, the silent majority.

of our voters.

I know that you know I don't want to get too far down this road Dale because that's not what we're here for but you and the late great senator Tim Cullen did a lot of work for

for years on our redistricting.

And finally now, thanks to Governor Evers and a fairer, I'll call it, Supreme Court, we now have redistricting legislatively.

I've asked another former boss of mine, former Republican Congressman Scott Clug, who represented the second district, including Dane County of Madison, if he thought that he could get elected in the current maps as a Republican, he said, no, absolutely not.

Sheriff Mahoney, I'll ask you, could you have got, could you think you could get elected today as a Democrat in Dane County?

Well, not with the margins that I enjoyed when I was running.

Dale, I know the maps changed now, but think about the Senate district that you represented, those lines, do you think that you with your positions voting against Act 10 could have got elected in that district

today?

agree with Dave, I think not with the margins that I did before.

You got to remember, I was a guy who was used to getting 75% of the votes,

so

you'd have to have a lot of fallout to lose, but without a doubt, it would be a lot closer.

And who knows?

But to Dave's point, and I think this is so important to our listeners and viewers, what I think this idea of fusion voting does is give people who aren't either at the extreme left or right

more of a chance to get elected.

And what I hear when we take the show on the road across Wisconsin, is that what voters want, Dale?

Well, I go places, too.

Like I said before, people say, I don't vote anymore.

Just encourage the... But I can't say

it.

You can say it, you can say it,

bastard.

I can.

All right.

I'm trying to keep you in good stead with the FEC.

And, you know, people say, you know, look, my vote doesn't count anymore.

You know, I tried voting for third parties, but they never win.

So what's the point?

And I guess what I try to tell them is if you're tired of that extreme partisanship that Dave was talking about, and you want to have some agency in our elections, then fusion voting gives you that opportunity.

And we should also mention that the candidates have to accept.

votes to say they'll accept votes but why wouldn't they and in Wisconsin where elections are so close a few votes could make a difference and and if you won with the help of fused votes I think it's pretty natural you're gonna go back and talk to those people and and more importantly listen to them.

And it

re-empowers those in the middle those who

are moderate in their politics to feel that their voice is being heard and that they're being represented.

at all levels.

And I thought this was like, well, this has just been cooked up or whatever, but no, as it turns out in this article, the state journal says fusion voting was commonplace across the country.

In the 19th century, it was used as an avenue for anti-slavery parties to force the issue of abolition in the 1840s and 1850s.

Later populace, working man, suffragette and temperance parties used the tool to advance their policies and priorities.

So this isn't anything new.

It's just that we got away from it.

We

did as all across the country, but there are still

I believe at least three states that have fusion voting in the presidential election, Oregon, California, and Vermont.

And I believe that we have a constitutional right to exercise fusion voting here in Wisconsin.

But a couple of minutes here before the first break, we'll come back then and talk a little bit more.

But is there anything that needs to be said?

Do you think to like lay this out so people understand what it is before we go on to how do people get involved?

Well, I just want to make a historical note here that it is important and it's part of Wisconsin's history.

That little schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin where the Republican Party was born.

uh, was the result of free soilers, Democrats, wigs and a bunch of other little parties coming together, uh, to have a meeting because they wanted to change their government.

And, uh, they all walked out Republicans and they nominated Abraham Lincoln, uh, for the presidency and were successful.

Just imagine how those people who had been shut out, uh, weren't able to, uh, get their voices heard felt when all of a sudden, uh,

they hit the jackpot by working together.

That's the key, working together and compromising with each other to achieve policy goals.

We're talking with former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Shilson, former Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney here on the show talking about fusion voting.

You can find out more at unitedwisconsin.org.

Come on back.

We'll finish up the discussion and have a little fun as well.

It's the time of all show on the Civic Media.

Having fun doing it, welcome back to the Tahleball show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

It is nine before the hour of one o'clock, an hour at number two.

Gonna have a What's Worst for You, a rock edition.

The Who or Led Zeppelin will ask you that question, and Tara Ariano is back.

Always glad to have her.

talking about TV shows of 2025, the highs and the lows.

But right now it is all wonderful to have our two guests here in studio.

Always appreciate that.

The World Headquarters in downtown Madison, former Democratic Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney and former Republican State Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz talking about fusion voting.

They are the co-chairs of unitedwisconsin.org.

The organization is United Wisconsin.

You can find out more about this project, more about fusion voting.

And it's a great headline, transcending the politics of division.

I love that.

United Wisconsin spelled out unitedwisconsin.org.

Guys, lots of great conversation.

We really appreciate this.

Read a couple of these here off the air or on the air, brother.

From WMDX here in Madison, the history shows us fusion voting can be used for ill purposes too.

Witness Milwaukee when they used it against socialist candidates.

Well, I would think that, you know, everything can be used for ill purpose if that's the case.

Peggy in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, listening on WMDX, says fusion voting.

Yes, yes, yes.

Steve up on Green Bay at WGBW.

I like the idea of fusion voting on paper, but what prevents a party that is predicated on hateful and harmful policies from nominating a candidate?

Well, as I said earlier,

the candidate has to accept the votes.

If they say, no, I don't wish to be, allow you to nominate me, they have that right.

And, but I think in most cases, if they saw it as a positive addition, they would say, yeah, I want those votes.

And then they would be tangentially aligning themselves with this minor party to gather a majority of votes.

Steve in Milwaukee listening on WAUK says, how is this different fusion voting from ranked choice voting?

I'll take it quickly that the super 30,000 foot level is with ranked choice voting everybody kind of runs under I don't want to call it one ballot but it's just an open voting and then depending upon whether it's a primary or a general you take the top two or four or whatever it is of all the votes cast and then they move on whereas in fusion voting you still only have the same number of elections but a candidate can be listed on the same ballot

Under multiple parties as we said before and I think was appealing about fusion voting to me To both your points Dave and Dale is in today's hyper partisan atmosphere.

You might have someone that says

Well, you know, I'm a Democrat and I could just never bring myself to vote for somebody on the Republican ticket.

But you know, Schultz, I mean, you know, he voted against Walker on Act 10.

And if he wasn't run as Republican, I might vote for him again.

So theoretically, you could run on a different ticket and both the votes for Republican and.

the third party or the fusion party would count.

Same thing for Mahoney.

Geez, I'm a lifelong Republican.

I can't vote for a Democrat.

But if you ran under this as sheriff, I might vote for him.

So it makes candidates who are more in the middle and centrist, I have a better chance to win.

Do I have that right, guys?

You know, if I look back at my races, you know, I was averaging 68% to 78% in every one of my elections.

that percentages don't exist in just the Democratic Party in Dane County.

It was because I was seen as credible and in tune with the concerns of people representing themselves as independent or Republican.

The issues that I dealt with have no political significance.

Well they should.

When you

call 911, we don't ask you what party you're born in.

And it was the same when my predecessor who was a Republican.

You know, there's far more that Dale and I and quite honestly the representatives who are sitting in the Capitol today having common.

What's differing right now is the hyper politics preventing us from sitting down and addressing the core needs of the citizens who put us in office.

Dale, a couple of minutes left.

You're about two and a half minutes left.

You guys will be traveling on the road.

Talk about that a little bit.

I hope people can get involved.

Well, we are.

As you mentioned, Tim Cullen and I teamed up on gerrymandering and had a great time meeting fellow Wisconsinites from one corner of the state to the other through the auspices of a lot of good government groups.

I think Dave and I would enjoy getting out and having a chance to pitch this idea in a lot of different places.

And to turn people on to this is a solution because you know what?

Government shouldn't.

just be a reality show that appeals to the worst in people.

It shouldn't be the Jerry Springer show.

It ought to be befitting of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which undergird our political democracy.

And I think that's important to the vast majority of citizens in this state.

Dave, what I'm not asked you yet that people need to know.

Well, I think you've asked the important questions and I just want to follow up on Dale, you know,

I agree, hitting the road and talking about these issues that I really think hit home to hometown Wisconsin and getting away from the red and the blue and talking about green and gold, because that's really what defines us as Wisconsin.

And what is what great segue, because if you go to unitedwisconsin.org, what are the colors?

Green and gold.

How about that?

Funny how that works.

United Wisconsin spelled out unitedwisconsin.

O-R-G.

And that's how to get a hold of us.

That's the best way to get a hold of you guys and people to get involved.

Because, I mean, I guess about a minute left here, is it going to take some sort of legal action to get this done you think in Wisconsin or is it still too early to predict?

I think it's a little early, but I think we're thinking about that and preparing accordingly.

All right.

Very good.

Some more to come, Mr. Johnny Carson.

You know, we're

involved because we want to make this happen.

And we want to return Wisconsin to the greatness that it has always been.

Well, I remember when you were Sheriff Mahoney as a former Republican at the time.

And internally, people would say, we ain't running anybody against Mahoney because he's going to kick our butt.

And because you were representing everybody.

And Dale, you know how I feel about you as the same way and the reason you racked up all those numbers.

So two great guys, different political parties, but fighting for Wisconsin.

Dave Mahoney, Dale Schultz, we appreciate you.

Back after this on Civic Media.

Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Our crew is Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaugh, along with our outstanding producer, Mr. Aaron Zommers, on the board.

It is six past the hour of one o'clock.

Welcome to hour number two of the big program from the World Headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison on this Wednesday, April 16th, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite,

and it is

hot day indeed.

Beautiful skies right now still a little cool, but it's gonna be a very very nice spring day summers.

Absolutely I Was gonna try to find a brewers I thought well this will give me 20 seconds to find a brewers score, but no, it's fine.

It's fine The point is the brewers are playing right now or at least getting ready to play because on certain stations

We are preempted right now because of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball and you can find over the air We can't stream baseball here in on the app, but you can find the Brewer game over the air on Terrestrial radio as they say like kitchen radio car radio in Richland Center Oshkosh racing Kenosha Park balls and now in beautiful Hayward and hey look at this the Brewers are up on the Detroit Tigers 2 to nothing

Right now the the bottom of the third much better start than yesterday.

Yeah Reese Hoskins big home run to run Homer by Reese Hoskins

Excellent.

He was one of the people who gave me hope yesterday He had a few good hits, but it just it just didn't happen

yesterday the day before

right or yes Monday Monday Monday.

Yeah last night went down saw my compadre

Kirk Cullard, we met in New Glarus, lovely town in Green County.

And if you haven't been to New Glarus and went to the Othouse, I believe it's called, had a burger and beverage there.

Good time had by all.

And then, and this is one of the trials and tribulations of Todd's life.

Mom calls because she had a couple of young guys at the door.

My first question was, are they Mormon?

And she said, I asked them the same thing because they were very well-dressed.

No, no, no.

They were there from frontier communications, trying to get her to switch over from spectrum to frontier on, on internet.

And they want her to sign right now.

If we sign right now, we'll wave the 200 and some odd dollar hookup fee.

Yeah, that's a no.

Yeah.

I said, put me on speaker there.

And, and I said, well, you know, just leave the stuff and we'll look at it this weekend.

And, you know, if she wants to do it, fine.

If you really want to sell it to her, you can wave the hookup fee next Monday.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, I don't know.

And it seemed a little sketchy to me until mom did the right thing.

And by, you know, because they were kind of pressuring her, pressuring her, which I don't like, you know, she's a woman of a certain age.

I mean, I'm 55, figured out.

I mean, she's retired.

And why are you knocking on single women's doors at that night?

You know, I just didn't like the feel of it.

All right.

Put it that way.

And so.

Had dinner and and drove back to Madison.

I thought I'll just call and follow up on the phone called mom Landline at mom's house Busy Uncle she has call waiting in the landline, but whatever called again do it could not get a hold of that called the cell phone I texted could not so I called my sister.

I'm like what have you talked to mom turns out

She shows up about 45 minutes later.

She was at church, like a, like a good Lutheran would be on during Lent.

And it was fine and perfectly healthy.

And she just, you know, like, what, you know, well, you kids used to do the same thing to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Todd now has become the worrier.

And mom's just now having a good time and, and, and nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all.

So but I was worried there'd been these two guys in the house with her and then suddenly I can't get a hold of her like what's going on

That's fair.

How often do you hear of door-to-door internet

service providers?

I know right?

I just don't hear and and she did the prudent thing and contacted the Richland County Sheriff's office and Joanne Krulatz our great news director at WRCO and apparently The this is a legit thing that Frontier is going door-to-door So just but they did they didn't have like Frontier clothes on

or like any identification really, which made me think it was sketchy.

Right.

That is a weird way to be doing business in my opinion as well.

But anyway, mom's fine.

Everything's fine.

The problem is with Todd, is he's just getting anxiety in his old age.

Mom's, mom's never been doing better.

She's out there and getting it done, feeling great, socializing.

So how about that?

Michael in Tosa, listening to WMDX says the odd house has an excellent Friday fish fry.

I did not know that.

Well, I'm sure we'll be going back.

It's a cool little bar and grill.

The service was outstanding.

Really, really great.

And they've won like the Green County Burger Contest before.

I had the bacon cheeseburger with some kind of a very, very mild chili sauce.

It was really good.

So anyway, tonight, tonight I'm going down to Milwaukee to have dinner with my former broadcasting partner, Kevin O'Connor.

who was on the show a couple of weeks ago when we did this show from Milwaukee.

So that'll be a lot.

Kevin and I, we may close the place down because we haven't seen each other in person in quite some time.

Yeah.

From my perspective, it seems like Todd and Kevin, feel free to correct me on this tomorrow.

It seems like they each had the kind of thing like, oh no, I haven't heard from this person in a while.

Did I upset them?

And that they both just thought,

oh, they

must be mad at me and then didn't talk for 20 years.

And we'll figure out tonight as if it really has been 20 years.

And then when we got on the show last and many thanks to my friend, Carrie Pink, who set all this up, who's like the communication person, you know, be Milwaukee.

And we just, it was, it was a lot of fun.

So anyway, yeah, we'll, we'll update you on Kevin and Todd's adventures from.

from tonight.

Anyway, it is 12 minutes past the hour.

Many thanks to Dave Mahoney, former Democratic sheriff of Dane County and Dale Schultz, former Republican state senator from Southwest Wisconsin.

Fusion voting.

We got to talk more about that summers.

I think it's pretty cool.

And if you want to get involved again, unitedwisconsin.org, unitedwisconsin.org.

It's 12.

Make it 13 past the hour of one o'clock time once again for what's worse.

Let's

go.

Time once again

for what's worse, no prize money involved, nothing to give away, just your opportunity to have your voice heard across all 11 news talk sports stations in the Civic Media Ready Network, except those that are carrying Brewer's baseball.

It still goes over the app you understand.

Before we get, I would be remiss, have you heard of this like water, water gun game, water squirt gun game called assassination or something or other?

I have heard of that because I saw it on Reddit on r slash teachers where they were like, can we please stop doing this?

I had not heard of it until last night because I called my sister to check on mom and my niece who's about to graduate is their class is deep into this.

And so you pair up and then it's only water guns involved.

And like if you're wearing goggles, that's like some sort of armor and it doesn't count.

But now you've got kids stalking each other to squirt them with a water gun to take them out.

Outside of school hours.

Finding where

each other lives.

It's crazy.

Right.

Right.

It's all outside of school hours.

I never heard of this.

And I was deeply disturbed by the whole thing.

Anyway.

Time for what's worse that were you are you were you a growing up?

Are you a heavy metal listeners?

I would say some I would also say that the bands were about to talk about are not heavy metal

That's hilarious because to me I would call them I guess maybe not heavy metal to me

hard rock

hard rock.

Yeah

Especially Led Zeppelin, but I don't mean I'm no Phil me.

I'm no Jeff Perry.

You understand I'm not I'm not I'm not doing a great weekly radio show called this week in music history Available on WVMO community radio manona with our friend Jeff Perry who's been on this show before all right here it is what's with the category today is What's worse the who or Led Zeppelin the who

or Led Zeppelin.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Give us a call or text us on the Civic Media app.

If you don't have it, download it today at your Apple or Android device.

Simply go to your search bar and then type in Civic CIVIC.

It'll pop up, download it, takes less than a minute.

It's free.

It's what Gale King.

at CBS calls a deal the civic media app was worse the who or Led Zeppelin speaking of our ongoing contributor and friend Jeff Perry on Facebook he says this is a hard one I love both bands but I'm going to say that Led Zeppelin is worse Pete Townsend is a lot of things but at least he didn't play his guitar with a violin bow for 20 minutes on stage

He says, by the way, he appreciates the plug for his show.

It's a great program.

Check it out.

And see, again, growing up as a sheltered Methodist kid, it wasn't that I wasn't allowed to listen to this, but it just, I don't know.

You know, you know, my biggest memory of Led Zeppelin going to the Richland County Fair and I was pretty young.

So I don't know if I was playing the balloon.

I probably don't like to pop the balloon dart game at the county fair.

And they used to, one of the prizes, the small prizes, and they were probably, I don't know, four inches by four inches or something like that.

These mirrors, these little mirrors.

And I want a Led Zeppelin mirror.

And I was like, I don't even like Led Zeppelin.

Now, I felt like Charlie Brown Valentine's Day.

All I got was a rock.

Which by the way, Wikipedia disagrees with me.

I guess Led Zeppelin is considered one of the progenitors of heavy metal.

Yes!

See, all old man Todd is not a hundred percent an idiot.

What's worse?

Led Zeppelin or the who 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2.

What are my favorite lies?

Somebody says what's worse?

Led Zeppelin or the who who the who?

Which one is worse?

I just.

I was just wasn't my genre of music that I was into growing up.

But I know for some people it was like we should rock her, you know, from Max and Gradio.

I bet he could tell you every, I bet he could list off 25 songs from the who and 25 songs, Led Zeppelin, like that.

By the way, Max and Gradio, great program as well, available every Saturday evening, six until midnight across the Civic Media radio network.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

What's worse, the who or Led Zeppelin?

I'm gonna take a quick break here in a second and come on back and talk about that.

Also, we'll take a moment to remember Wink Martindale.

I was listening to Matt Nair on air with Jane and Greg earlier, which precedes us for another week or so.

And they were talking about game shows.

What game shows do you like?

Do you remember Tic Tac Doe?

It was hosted by Wink Martindale of all people.

Come on back on the Civic Media Network.

Well, Todd, do you think it was a tragic mistake?

No, Mr. Wolfe.

It was murder.

Welcome back to the Tellemals show on the Civic Media Radio Network, 21 past the hour of one o'clock on Wednesday, April 16th.

Little recreation!

of the one of the best opens of all television shows, in my opinion, recreating a moment from CSI Miami and, for my money, the best of the CSI genres or shows out there.

Of course, starring the incomparable David Caruso as Detective Horatio Cain, Jonathan Tago, Adam Rodriguez, Emily Proctor, Rex Lynn.

A lot of really, the cast was phenomenal.

beautifully written, beautifully shot, and almost every, and David Caruso's character, Horatio Cain, always dressed in black, almost always.

And so at the start of every episode, they would be on the scene of a death.

And someone would inevitably throw out some line like, you know, you think it was a mistake?

And Horatio Cain always had these great

dark kind of aviator sunglasses.

Oh, and he's not looking at them, he's looking away.

Right, right.

And then he'd have some line, he goes, he'd have some version of, and Mr. Wolf was one of the other detectives, he'd say, no, Mr. Wolf, it was murder.

And he put the sunglasses on, and away we go.

And away, it was a great formula for opening every single episode of CSI Miami.

I really miss that show.

And I try not on the few times I've been able to and fortunate to hang out with our friend Kelly call From just a bit outside the movie by the way the story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers available now for free on Roku and the Roku channel check it out today for free on Roku the Roku channel just a bit outside But once in a while I I do ask Kelly call a CBS question and I asked him once

Why did you cancel?

Why did you get rid of CSI Miami?

Because it was my favorite one.

And, you know, you gave a very nice polite answer.

And basically like, hey, look, sometimes shows just run their course, you know, and, and, and that show had kind of run its course for various reasons.

It was a great show.

But, you know, I think it's kind of the, you know, I'm not putting words in his mouth now, but what I got from it was kind of like Jerry Seinfeld in a way.

Seinfeld ended Seinfeld.

when it was number one on NBC.

And so I think it was a little bit, look, I mean, the show had been really, I think it was in the top 10 for several years and better to end it on a high note than to kind of let it die out and Peter out.

So anyway, it's still available.

You can still watch, I think on streaming on Paramount Plus or whatnot.

It relates, you understand, you say, Ty, why are you talking about CSI Miami?

Because that opening song was by The Who.

And today's what's worse question is what's worse, the who or Led Zeppelin?

What's worse, the who or Led Zeppelin?

844 Judas Priest.

When's the last time I gave out that old number?

855-752-4842-855-752-4842.

Let's go to Joe, listening on WMDX in Madison.

Joe, thanks for calling in.

Joe, the who or Led Zeppelin?

What's worse?

It's Joel,

but since I've been around since they have been around, they're both way overplayed and it's hard to listen to them with new ears again.

But the real villain in this...

I love both the bands.

But the real villain in this has got to be Led Zeppelin.

They had to steal music to make it rich.

They stole from Willie Dixon.

You shook me.

It took him over a decade to get his royalties and any credits for that.

Then there was the babe I'm gonna miss you.

And also the beginning to Stairway to Heaven.

Babe, I'm going to miss you, came from a folk singer who toured with the Bled Zeppelin two years before their album became a hit.

And the intro to Stairway to Heaven came from a band named Spirit and an instrumental on their first album called Taurus.

And they

toured together with that folky and Led Zeppelin before Led Zeppelin became stars.

Yeah, and so the widow of the guitarist for spirit entered a lawsuit against Led Zeppelin for royalties so she could pay for her daughter's college and the judge ruled against

Led Zeppelin, even though there's a half a billion dollars in royalties for their way to heaven, ruled against Led Zeppelin using outdated rules of evidence for creatives.

So I have no idea how that case ever got resolved.

But once again, I really enjoyed Jimmy Page.

Uh, Robert Plant, I tolerated.

I'm not a fan of the screech and singers.

But, uh, no, Led Zeppelin, they were just evil people.

This is amazing.

This is one of the top 10, if not top five, what's worse, calls over, Joe.

Very informative.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening, Joe.

Have a great day.

Uh, 855-752-4842.

Let's go to beautiful Menominee Falls and Dave, listening on Menominee Fall, up in Menominee Falls.

Dave, the who or led Zeppelin?

What's worse?

CSI

Miami,

worse than both of them put together.

You did not like CSI Miami, Dave?

No, he hung up.

That's all he had to say.

That's all he

had to say.

Now, you can't just hate one of my favorite shows that hang up.

Well, I can see why a lot of people don't like it because of the, it's so formulaic.

How so well if every show starts with I mean it's a murder Yeah, you know they go to the lab and then they like well a lot of the episodes of CSI and CSI like shows do follow a formula Some do and that's my point that

CSI Miami was probably the least formulaic of them And it also had a long arch of a story all about Horatio Kane David Caruso's character

and and kind of his his ex-wife and their son and and Columbia and the drug cartel.

There was there was a lot of depth.

It was really, really well written if you watch the show.

I have

not seen that much.

Well, see, I mean, they kind of give the show a chance, give it room to breathe.

There were relationships within the show that was also kind of and it was really one of the most beautifully at the cinematography or videography of that show, the skylines of Miami and the beach and the people.

And it was beautiful.

It was, hey, don't hate on CSI Miami.

If you don't like the show, pitch and get one.

Get a show like that.

Stay in the top 10, like CSI Miami.

What's worse, the who or Led Zeppelin, eight, five, five, seven, five, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

You were on the phone, Zombers.

I started giving out the old number.

It's been months since I used that number.

Eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

All right.

I'll quickly Zombers.

What's worse?

Uh, this is a really tough one because I respect both bands a lot although the last one of the last callers gave me a lot to think about I think my initial reaction that information aside was gonna be that the who is worse just because I Love so many let's

incorrect incorrect the correct answer is Led Zeppelin is worse simply because the who did the show for the song for CSI Miami back with Tara Ariano and television after this on the civic media ready

number

We gonna

sing and we gonna dance!

television shows out there on TV.

We'll discuss that and much more in just a moment with our next guest.

She is the writer, editor, and snack enthusiast Tara Ariano, co-founder of televisionwithoutpity.com.

In addition to Crack, her byline have appeared in New York, the New York Times magazine, Verity Fair, GQ, Vulture, Salon, and Slate.

And she co-hosts, amongst others, the podcast Extra.

Hot, great, and it is great.

She also co-authored three books, including a very special 90210 book.

She is Tara Ariano, if I could say the name correctly.

Tara, thanks for coming on.

Clearly I need to have a drink in the show, it's not even over yet.

Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you for coming back.

It's been a long time.

And talk to CP, our co-executive producer.

I said, why have we had Tara?

He goes, I don't know.

And so I appreciate you taking the time.

You're a busy person.

But I love your takes.

I know our audience loves our takes.

For those that might not have heard you on the show before, just a little refresher.

Give us a quick biography of growing up and how you got into being a television critic and an expert on this.

Oh well, I fell into it by accident, I think.

Which is the best

way to do

it.

Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, I just started out like being mouthy about TV shows on online bulletin boards.

That's what we had at the time.

It was the nineties.

I'm, I'm not old.

Uh, met my co-author who is, she's still my co-host today.

We've been working together for 25 years now.

Sarah debunting.

We met on an online message board and ran a website together for a year before we had met in person.

And that became television that pity and then everything else.

I've kind of gotten from that I've you know, all of the bylines are from people I think who knew me from that site

Well, what I love about your your take and and on the podcast as well is it's real I think you put it in terms of what we as a quote-unquote normal viewer not somebody who's a You know nothing against I guess a properly trained or how we want to put it critic out there, but I love your takes because I

they are conversational, the types of conversations that all of us would have with our friends and family like, I don't know, did you really like that?

You know, and so I love reading your stuff and hearing about it.

So thanks for coming on.

It is our pleasure.

So tell us a little bit about your role at Cracked and then we'll get into some of these new and not so great television shows of 2025.

Sure.

Well, I'm mostly critic of television, but also of sometimes the streaming movie, such as a kind of pregnant starring Amy Schumer or the latest Bridget Jones movie on Peacock, sometimes also covering stand-up specials, recently reviewed the new Chelsea Handler special.

I have a review coming out next week about the new...

special coming from Brett Goldstein, who's from Ted Lasso.

So all of that plus, you know, tons and tons and tons of sitcoms.

What's he doing?

What's Goldstein doing?

Brett Goldstein, he has been a touring comic since before, well before Ted Lasso, his first Edinburgh.

I did not know that.

His first Edinburgh show was in 2010.

So he's been doing that for a long time.

But this is his first, I believe, TV special coming to HBO on April 26th.

And he was a writer on Ted Lasso, and now they're doing a season four, which honestly, Tara, I'm very, very nervous about because I'm kind of, it's like, do we really want to go, it was so perfect, in my opinion, the first three seasons,

what's

your take on that?

I think a lot of people felt that way, that, you know, season three was plenty of that show and no one necessarily needed more.

And when it took so long for them to say if they were going to come back, I think the assumption was it was done.

But, you know, it's the biggest hit on Apple TV plus.

I'm sure they're not eager to let that one go.

uh... have you uh... have you seen the new movie or not so no so many more uh... just a bit outside the store nineteen eighty two milwaukee brewers have not

Streaming free now on Roku.

We're big fans because we're in Wisconsin, but you get a chance given it.

It's a great time I think it's great not just for sports people in Wisconsin It's just well told and a human it's a love story between a team and a city So if you get a chance because I love to hear your take on it.

So just

great.

Just

a

recommendation You're very welcome.

So tell us Tara Ariano What is on your you're going through your watch all these shows so that we don't have to no, that's

not

true, but I now

It's obvious that we were talking before we came on.

I have found myself watching less TV over the last six-ish months because, A, the end of the presidential campaign, and then in Wisconsin, we had a big Supreme Court race, Musk dumps in 20 million.

There is political ads on all the time, and it just made me kind of want to say, I need to take a break, but you, you're always watching.

Yeah, I mean, fortunately, writing for Cracked means I don't have to engage too much with...

the news half of casting.

So if people are looking for shows they can escape into, I've watched a bunch and I can help.

All right, well, let's start off with, should we do the bad or the good first?

We want to go back and forth.

Let's start positive, you know?

Why give too much oxygen to the shows that we're gonna say you can skip, you

know?

We can touch on them, but, well, we can start with the Righteous Gemstones.

That was the reference that we heard coming in.

That was Miss Behaven from this first season of the show.

It's now in its fourth season on HBO Sunday nights.

And this is the show about a family of megachurch.

Preachers and at this point in the show John Goodman is the father plays the father whose name is Eli And he is sort of stepped back and his three awful children have taken over running the church It's sort of you know, it's mega church succession more or less But this is the final season so they're they're wrapping up their story and they brought in a new character this season played by Megan Mullally the wonderful Megan Mullally from Will and Grace

plays I think it's fair to say now love interest for Eli she was his late wife's best friend and so they sort of reconnect like a lot of older people do sometimes when there's a divorce or someone gets widowed they you know

reconsidered people that are already in their lives, and she and Goodman are fantastic together, and the kids are still completely insane.

And now there's also a helper monkey, and I won't spoil how that comes into play, but that's part of the story as well.

And where is that streaming or where can people see that

at?

You can watch it live on HBO on Sunday nights, or you can stream it on Macs.

All right, very good.

What else do we have Tara Ariano on the good side in terms of television of 2025?

Well, not to put too much emphasis on Max, but I think by far, and this is not something I covered in my comedy remit, but we talked about it on our podcast, Extra Hot Great.