Shows›The Todd Allbaugh Show›You Never Know Who You’ll Meet At The Fair! (Hour 1)›Transcript

Transcript

You Never Know Who You’ll Meet At The Fair! (Hour 1)

The Todd Allbaugh Show · Fri Jul 11, 2025

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location, it's the Todd Alba Show.

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

And your feet might be in the,

you know, civic media network.

It's the Todd Hall Ball Show.

We lost control 30 seconds in.

We are live here at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls.

It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Friday, TGIF, the 11th of July, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.

Glad to have you along here live in Chippewa Falls.

Aaron Zommers, our producer and engineer back at the Old World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, and joining me once again for the entire show.

My friend, Mike Collick here at Civic Media and the host of

mornings with Pat Critello every morning on many of these stations from six until nine.

Mr. Pat Critello, are you ready for day two,

Pat?

The hump day camel was not available.

I was happy to fill in.

And instead, you

did this.

I did it.

We talked to Rusty Volk, the executive director of the State Fair yesterday.

We said, Rusty, I really want to have a live animal on this show.

Can we bring a live animal into this building?

And folks, he did it.

I came walking in here just a moment ago.

And there was a young lady sitting here with a chicken.

A live chicken on the table.

It's fantastic.

The most gentle...

I don't what do you have that chicken knocked up on?

It is just

so still

and

I know it's a very docile chicken or docile bird where you introduce her guest.

We'll we'll in just a second big show today coming up in just a few minutes of the first hour here with the Washington County executive and a Republican candidate for governor.

Josh Shulman is going to be here on the program stopping by to say hello and then it to 30 BJ Hollars and Steve Dayton of fireside productions talking about their new documentary on cube.

Of course, the national championships taking place this.

weekend in Eau Claire out number two then at three o'clock hour a what's worse sunburn or frostbite and then at 320 our friend and colleague Mike McKay from WCF W105.7 FM will be here to discuss what's going on on the music side of the Chippewa Valley and at 335 Ken Samanski teacher and author of the new book featuring Wisconsin northern Wisconsin State Fair will be here so a huge show and and and and

your mom.

Oh yeah, mom is literally right there.

Yes, mom Miss Linda is here once again.

Our Anthony Anderson version of mom.

She's

taking care of my bucket of cookies that I brought in for y'all.

Yes, thank we're going to talk fair food in our two look pack brought in these beautiful affair chocolate chip cookies.

You're going to talk about food, fair food as well.

But first let's start off right away with whatever our exhibitor exhibitors here and a wonderful person.

She was so kind to come on.

I'm very short notice my sister Heather and I were walking through the small animal bar.

and we saw these great chickens rolling.

And here we have Kaylee High and your recent graduate of Stanley Boyd High School here in the area.

Kaylee, thank you for coming on.

Yeah, no problem.

It's really, really cool.

So I introduced your bird here.

What is her name and what is her...

What is this?

I mean, I

know it's a hen, but I mean, what's the line of bird?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this is Sue.

Yeah.

Um, she's a Dominique and she's six years old.

Six years.

A Dominique.

Do you call them hens or chicken?

Hens.

Yeah, it's both.

Dominique and uh, her name is

Sue.

Pat would say it's a very docile bird.

Yeah, she's kind of been everywhere with me.

She was one of my very first chickens I got.

And so, yep, six years strong.

She's still

coming.

So does your family farm in the area?

Yeah, we have a farm over in Stanley, Wisconsin.

Dairy or cattle?

We kind of have a little bit of everything.

It used to be a dairy farm.

And then about four years ago, we switched over to beef.

So now my brother shows steers.

Oh, that's super cool.

It would have been a little messy to have a steer coming.

We take care of the bull ourselves over here.

Exactly.

We are

just fine.

This is the first chicken.

This could be an emotional support animal coming on a plane.

Yeah.

An emotional support chicken.

You were so gentle.

Yeah.

Always?

Yeah.

This is her all the time.

Wow.

How old were you when you first did you do this through 4-H?

When you first started,

Joey?

Yeah.

So I started in 4-H and then I showed all six years throughout 4-H and then I joined FFA and started my own poultry team.

But I started in fifth grade and then got my first chicken.

chickens in sixth grade.

that's well, we were telling the story off the air.

My sister and I had a terrible experience.

We tried to sneak a little chick into my mom's basement and it did not turn out well.

You need to have proper training.

Did your parents kind of show you about small animals growing up or did you learn that through FFA or 4H?

It was kind of just a learn as you go type thing.

Yeah, we had never had chickens.

My grandma had chickens, so she kind of gave us like the starting stuff and then.

from there on, it was just me trying to figure out what I was doing.

But you would agree with Todd's mom, not trying to raise

a chicken in the basement.

Yeah, no, do not raise a chicken.

You can

cardboard about your mom, no.

OK.

And when you show chickens at a fair, what are the judges looking for?

Yeah, so they're looking for, if they have all their feathers, the brightness of their skin, the younger they are and the better layers they are, the brighter their skin's going to be.

They check the length of their pelvis and their sternum and all those kind of things.

So are measurements involved?

They have to go through

that?

They have to measure them with your fingers and know it from there.

Yeah, pretty much.

I did.

I had no idea, Pat.

And I grew up in a rural community in southwest Wisconsin with county fairs.

I did not know there was this much detail to judging

chicken.

I have to tell you an honest to God story.

My first time coming to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair 30 years ago.

And we're going through the barns and they were judging rabbits at the time.

Have you had any in your family on the farm

back?

Yeah.

Okay.

The judge is talking to the whole crowd about the rabbits and saying all the things about what they're judging on.

And the judge honestly says, now, if it were up to me,

these these rabbits would already be like field dressed and prepared.

my gosh.

So you could see the muscular structure and blah, blah, blah.

And Sherry and I are just horse.

I'm like, this is how they judge animals.

Is the is the judge's name Ed Gein?

Yeah.

I mean, what is this?

It's terrible.

I've never heard that sound, but it was a it was a terrible introduction to animal judging at the fair.

Yeah.

I mean, I get that with the with the cattle, you know,

their auction, they're,

you know,

they're going to be turned into burger,

burger or

whatever.

And I do have to admit that today is National Kebab Day and my initial thing to bring into you, but I ate it first.

Glad you did it.

It was a chicken kebab.

It could have devastated poor Sue.

It was, yes.

We're talking with Kaylee High here from Staling Point High School.

She is in the small animal division and is showing her hen Sue here.

Pick up on that.

So my sister Heather and Pat and his wife went to dinner last night and our server was talking about whether it was her brother or somebody in her family.

showing a steer.

Yes.

And it did better than they thought.

And it was like he had raised this animal for a long time.

And now

we're bringing in two.

And the one that they thought for sure was going to be the champion, like had a bad experience, walked funny or whatever that one time.

And then the other one turned out to be a reserve champion.

So I mean, you don't know until you're in the moment being judged.

You can take your best guess.

But yeah, that's about it.

You just have to go for it.

But talk to us a little bit about this.

Yes, you're raising them, and if they do well, then obviously they're not going to be around any longer.

But you become attached to these animals, right?

Yeah, I know last year my brother was glad to see his go.

His was very naughty last year.

But this year, yeah, he was a little upset about it because he had a very sweet one this year.

And this isn't like Miss America.

They don't move up.

There's not a competition in West Alice and then beyond.

Right.

Anything

like that?

Do you have decombination?

I don't know much about it, but I do know that like...

It's almost a requirement for them to go to auction unless they don't make wait or if they are sick then you kind of have to take them home and try to sell them there.

You want them to go to auction most of the time because you spend a lot of money trying to get them in a feed and you want to be able to pay it off.

Well Sue, it's been fun.

Well, Sue, it's been here six years.

Yep, so chickens and rabbits don't go.

Oh,

okay.

You hear that rabbit judge?

You were talking a little bit before we went on the air.

My mom, actually.

Mom, Ms.

Lindover there asked a good question about...

There's all sorts of different naturally colored eggs.

How does that happen?

Is it certain breeds of hens?

Yeah, so it's actually, you can buy the breed specifically made for the color egg you want.

So if you want an olive agar, you're going to get some green eggs.

And if you want an Easter agar, you'll get anywhere from pink to blue eggs.

An Easter

agar, that's what we need.

Easter

agar, yes.

How often is it that people start their chicks by getting them from like a neighbor or something else in the community?

Because one of the

things we heard about when they were talking about postal service cutbacks and things, is that there's also the mailing of live chicks and things like that.

Yeah, no.

So I've always gotten mine from the mail.

You got your chicks from the mail.

You go pick them up from the post office once they get here, and you just kind of hope that the post office doesn't lose them.

I can't say much.

My mom works for the post office, so she'll be very mad at me.

We love our postal

workers, yes.

But yeah, it's pretty often, and then there is groups kind of everywhere that you can buy chickens from then, too.

A couple more minutes left.

Talk to us a little bit about, and I know it's fun.

to come to the fair and that sort of thing.

I've known a lot of people before over the years.

Talk to us a little bit about what you've learned in raising hands in terms of just responsibility and how has it prepared you?

I know you said you go to college next year in Iowa.

How has it prepared you in how you live your life and how you carry yourself?

Yeah, so especially raising chickens, it takes a lot of remembering last time you collected eggs, remembering when you went and fed them.

What did you feed them?

Are you making sure they get the right nutrients?

Are you getting close to fair?

Do you want me to start feeding them?

some extra stuff and so it's kind of just making sure you actually check on your birds and they are one of the easier animals to show so I'm a little lucky there but also kind of going forward I know like compassion like every animal has a different type of personality especially chickens they're all different so you kind of have to figure out how to deal with all that.

I'm sorry did you say what you were gonna be studying?

Yeah I'm going for Spanish I want to be a medical interpreter.

How

cool

that?

in Mexico then say what a chicken says what?

It's P-O-P-O.

P-O-P-O.

Really?

Yeah.

The chickens learn

a whole different language down there.

Yep.

Yeah.

My friends at El Salvador, when they say, what does a chicken say?

It's Kikidikidee.

That cockadoodle dude.

Yep, I've heard that as well.

Kikidikidee!

That cockadoodle dude.

So it's a Spanish chicken pat.

Wow, okay.

Is this something you...

What would you do in the future?

I mean, would you want to live in a rural setting, maybe on your own little hobby farm

versus a city?

Yeah, I want to have chickens for the rest of my life.

I can't imagine not having chickens.

That's

super

cool.

That's super cool.

Well, I just appreciate you coming on so much.

I think that too often, Pat and I talk about that young people spend too much time on screens and things like older people spend too much time on screens too.

I'm just always uplifted by young people in 4-H and FFA who are getting out there.

as your generation says, touch grass.

Literally, figuratively, I just think it's great.

Yeah, no, it's pretty awesome.

I've met some very cool people through 4H and FFA, and I'm very honored to be part of it.

But I have to ask, with Minecraft and the movie, and a lot of kids like to play Minecraft, I've got my two oldest grandsons go crazy for Minecraft, and then we saw the movie, how often has Sue had to hear the lava chicken song?

Too much, yeah.

See, see, see.

That didn't know.

Yeah, it was love of chicken.

Way too much.

Yeah.

A lot of chicken jockey.

I went and brought her to like a fourth grade thing for like FFA.

It was they got to meet all sorts of animals.

I heard it too much, and she heard it too much.

They throw popcorn

any

point.

Yeah, no, it wasn't great.

We saw one of the other was a Henry Rooster.

I said, how about that?

And you're like, no, I'm not bringing him over.

He's too mean.

She's very food motivated, so she thinks all you have is food, and she will peck at you.

So she's not coming

with.

Oh, there are different

personalities.

Oh, yes, there are.

I mean, I had to be careful bringing in the big bucket of cookies.

Otherwise, he was just going to be pecking away until we fed this guy

after the show.

Here's a.

Ridiculous question, but Sue here, does she eat laying eggs?

Yeah, so she's not laying anymore, but she did used to.

She's too old.

She's just kind of, she might lay like one a year, but that's about it.

So chickens go through menopause

aren't they?

Really?

Yeah, basically.

There's a post-menopause chicken.

My sisters can relate.

There's an art bump over there.

It's a little too enthusiastic, but we understand.

I didn't know that.

That's great.

Well, it's just been a pleasure.

Kaylee High from Staley Boyd High School.

Thank you for

spending this time with us

and congrats on graduation and best of what university in Iowa?

Oh, University of Northern Iowa, down in Cedar

Falls.

It's a great university.

Yeah.

Well,

best of luck and

everything.

Thank

you.

A pleasure.

Welcome back and talk with Josh Shulman on the other side.

You packed quite low and Todd with, yes, a live animal from the Northern Wisconsin State Fair live on location.

Never doubt you again.

Come on back after this.

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truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.

Welcome back to Todd Allball show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

We are live on location of beautiful Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin for the order Wisconsin State Fair along with Pat Crichtlow, host of mornings of Pat Crichtlow every morning across the network on six until nine.

Glad to have you along.

Pat, you never know who you're going to run into at the fair while Heather and I were out trying to find a live animal through the chicken.

Look who you found.

We ran into a can of different governor.

That's the great thing about coming to the northern Wisconsin State Fair.

You can have good

You can have family fun and you can meet people that you want to just strike up a conversation with as well.

And that's what running for governor or anything legislature is all about.

So Josh Oman is here, the Washington County executive and first Republican announced candidate for governor for 2026.

Welcome.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Good to be up here.

Well, I appreciate you coming on.

Why don't we just start off with for those that might not know you from Southeast Wisconsin, but tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you did and why you're running for governor.

Yes.

So I'm the Washington County executive.

I was born in Hartford, so Washington County originally.

I'm the son of a Lutheran minister and a registered nurse.

And my folks moved around a lot when I was a youngster.

And mostly the eastern part of the state, middle school and high school years in Kiwani.

So I'm a graduate of Manitowoc Lutheran High School.

And my wife and I have been married 24 years this year.

And thank you very much.

I'm a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

I was with the Madison Unit, the 147th Black Hawk Unit in Iraq in 2003.

And when I came back, I dedicated the rest of my life to the service and sacrifice of the guys and gals who didn't make it back, either in whole or in part, and reflecting the love of my Lord Jesus, my love in my neighbor.

So that's what put me into public service.

And I've been in municipal administration for 15, almost 20 years.

and county executive for the last six in Washington County.

So when you're looking at the Republican primary right now, and first of all, thank you for your service.

I had the opportunity

work for a former congressman Scott Kluge and handle military affairs.

I never served, but I have a great appreciation for our veterans, so thank you for that.

But when you look at this Republican primary, there's another person who announced a couple days ago here.

I think one of the big things that people are looking at is, in this environment, I'm a former Republican for 30 years, as you look at the current iteration, it seems like a lot of people are saying, well, you

or whoever wins this Republican primary is going to have to have President Trump's endorsement.

Do you feel that?

Do you need President Trump's endorsement to win this

race?

President Trump certainly important.

It is his party.

I mean, he's been around for a decade now and changed everything in dynamics and politics in all of America.

But I think this primary in particular is going to come down to one thing and one thing only.

In my lifetime, Republicans have only ever elected two governors, Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker.

Both were young, energetic guys under 45.

One was the county executive son of a minister.

And so we've got a template that we know works on our side.

And that's what I expect to work this time.

But the bottom line is we haven't had a cannon a long time on our side that really burns a shoe leather, runs into media at county fairs, state fairs, and I think that's what we need.

Meet people where they're at, have conversations with one another again, stop talking past each other.

There's been way too much of that.

And so that's what I like to see change in this campaign.

Whatever Governor Tony Evers decides, whether to run for a third term or whether to step back, then there will be a very crowded Democratic primary.

That's plain to see.

You will have things to say about the Evers administration and or the Democratic field as it comes up.

But since we only have limited time here, I want to do and I heard this a lot running all the time as well.

They're like, just tell us what you're going to do for me.

So I want to give you that opportunity.

If you are elected, what is it that you want to do?

Yeah, the big thing that I'm focused on is making Wisconsin a place that people are proud to be, not just be from.

And what I mean by that is we've talked about brain drain in the state for feels like a quarter century, most of my life, young people leaving the state for other opportunities, never coming back.

And now you're starting to see retirees leaving.

My mom and dad are residents of Wisconsin, but they have a place down in the Fort Myers area.

And I went down and visited the spring.

And like always, all the people from Wisconsin gather and they have the brat fry and all nine yards.

and they're all residents of Florida for six months and one day or more.

They love the sunshine and the zero income tax.

And I think both of those things, we have to work change.

If you look at the demography of the state in the next 25 years, it's kind of scary.

So we've got to retain, retain, retain.

And I think that's going to be my number one.

Can

I go to the other end of the age spectrum, though?

Retaining our best and brightest are young people so that they don't leave.

That's right.

Can you tell them?

So my big thing with that is, I think the big hurdle for them coming back is, where are they going to live?

housing in Washington County, the average price of a home is about 400,000.

It's demonstrably worse in Dane County, for example, but that is that is a similar average across the state.

I don't know how young people even can think about a 40 and a half right now, so I think that's a big issue we've got to tackle.

We have a track record in Washington County and I think we can take it to Madison.

State budget passed last week.

Governor Evers signed it into law.

There are people on the right who are saying that Tony Evers are whipped to the Republicans or people on the left saying they got a raw deal out of it.

Where do you stand?

Was this a good?

budget and it's something you could support or do you think it should have been better?

Yeah, it's not a good budget.

I don't think anybody's happy.

You know, I heard Greta Neubauer criticizing it saying she wouldn't even have a seat at the table.

I think that's wildly inappropriate.

The fact that legislative leadership and the governor weren't even talking to each other until what was it three, four weeks before the budget needed to be adopted with essentially a fiscal gun to your head with the federal money going away.

So, you know, that's something when I'm governor, you know, I wanted to reach out to Greta and say, listen.

We might not agree on much, but you're going to have a seat at the table.

We have to be talking to each other.

I think it's one of the big things that's wrong in America, is we just talk past one another.

We don't even have conversations anymore.

So it's good to have conversations, and I think that something's got to change.

We need leadership.

anything we have a minute left or so anything we haven't asked you and I'd love to have you come back on thanks for doing this what

have we not

asked you that you think people of this state need to hear of why you want to be governor

I think the big thing that people I've been hearing is the education governor governor evers

prides himself on being an education governor, and they are very concerned about education long term.

I mean, the declining enrollments really statewide on average, that's a problem.

The way that the funding formula works and has not worked for over 30 years is a problem, and we just keep throwing money.

We're not looking at outcomes, we're not looking at what's best for kids, we're just looking at how do we fund, how do we fund, how do we fund.

on the table, even if we disagree and work together to solve.

That's what I'm going to do when I'm governor.

It's what I've done as county executive in Washington County.

Washington County Executive and now Republican gubernatorial candidate Josh Shulman.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by.

Look forward to future conversations with Pat and I and moving forward.

Sounds good.

Thanks for having me.

Our pleasure.

Justjoshulman.com.

information.

Nice to

have

you

up here in

Chippewa.

Thank you.

Come on back.

We're going to talk a little about B.J.

Hollers in filmmaking and Kube after this.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the title of our show with Pat Kraitlo.

Live on location from Chippewa Falls of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair of the Civic Media.

ready

welcome back to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair live in Falls, Wisconsin.

Todd Albaugh, the Pacific City, you're ready to work along with my guest co-host for the day of the last two days here.

So kind, so gracious.

He usually gets up, or he always gets up late early.

Better always get up.

He's at six until nine a.m.

mornings at Pat Krightlow.

Mr. Krightlow is here at the table.

That song is going to be playing, Pat, at some point during the weekend for the U.S.

National Coupe Championship.

It'll clear just down the road.

from here, but what a show so far we started off with a live chicken followed by a politician.

What's the rule?

You never let a follow kids or animals and showmen follow.

God love it if he did it.

But if you're going to, it may as well be followed up then by champions.

Exactly.

That's exactly right.

Joining us via StreamYard just down the road because they are busy indeed.

They are from Fireside Productions.

BJ Hollers who has been on the show before talking about the great documentary when Robert Rubber hit the road.

It was world premiere here at the Pablo Center.

We were up here for that and his production partner at fireside Steve Dayton joined us via stream yard BJ and Steve.

Thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you for having us.

It's really, really great.

Number one again, if people haven't seen when rubber hit the road, it's a great documentary on the closing of the Uniroil tire facility here in Eau Claire.

Just really quickly, have you guys had more follow up on that?

Is the DVD out still or what's the status on that great piece?

Yeah, it's all going great.

PBS Wisconsin is screening it and streaming it regularly.

So you can check it out on PBS Wisconsin any second of your day.

It's also on Amazon.

You can pick up the DVD at our website, firesideproductions.com.

Wow, that's great.

If people haven't seen it, I would really encourage it.

A, it's just a great film, number one.

But what a story, you know, Pat, you and I talked about this before of just the resilience of this community up here in Chippewa Falls.

Right,

and I'm

absolutely certain that that resilience comes through in this as well.

And I noticed that you got a lot of gratitude for putting this together because it's a part of Eau Claire history that I think people feared was starting to be forgotten.

And you know what it's like to have to go back and try to tell a tale.

when there's nobody left to tell it, who actually lived it.

And so you've taken advantage of this opportunity.

It's going to be a permanent part of the culture

here.

Did you guys travel around that?

Have you heard similar comments?

Just, hey, thanks for preserving this history?

Yeah, it was a mixture of both.

Thanks for preserving this history.

And then around Wisconsin, maybe I didn't know this story as well, but I also lived this story in some way.

So we kind of kept running into that.

those comments.

Well, you're on to new projects as these things go in the art world.

Tell us about this latest project, what you guys are doing this weekend, and in conjunction with the Kube Championships.

It's a very exciting time in Eau Claire.

Of course, Eau Claire is the North American capital of Kube.

If you're familiar, Kube is a game born in kind of Sweden and these kind of places and it's come to America in part thanks to Eric Anderson and Eau Claire native.

And so all this weekend we will be filming the U.S.

National Kube Championship at the soccer parks here in Eau Claire to try to figure out who will be crowned king.

Our documentary will be called Kings of Kube and basically we spent the last year following four or so teams and a few other folks along

way to kind of figure out about this culture and the people and also the competitive spirit of it all.

I think this is fantastic.

We had Ken on the arc and we had Eric on the show yesterday talking about this and you know I didn't know anything about it until you guys know my my sister or brother law they got me playing it up here in Eau Claire and you know I I think it's great there may be other people that might not be into it as much but I mean what makes this a great story.

Yeah, I think the interesting thing about Kube is, you know, we have all played it in the backyard.

And then to go to Eau Claire Kube League and go to the championship and just see how much people are invested in this.

It's a lot of their entire lives.

This is their friend group.

This is their family.

This is what they do on weekends.

They travel many miles to do this.

This is who they are.

So it's ingrained into the people that play it.

And it's the people who heard the interview with Eric yesterday when he talked about the king as one of the pieces, you know, in Coop.

Yeah.

Those are the ones going, oh, I see what they did there.

Yeah, that's it.

You get it.

See, we listened.

Yeah,

absolutely.

Even

the shows I'm on, I listen to you.

I have

to pay him extra,

you know, beer.

We'll share it.

I just wanted to follow up on

I think again, for some people that might not be from the Chippewa Valley, they might, A, might not know what Kube is, but I think we've all had those.

quirky passions if I could call Kube a sort of a quirk whether it's people who are into Czech chess I mean these these people are obsessed with chess and will travel all over or you know they might be fishing people for some people fishing championships it's like what's that but it's the through line of a filmmaker for you guys is it just this unique people's where this human instinct a drive and passion no matter what the subject is

For me, it absolutely is.

We're trying to kind of be these flies on the wall for this kind of microculture that people may know something about, but even if you don't know what Kub is, even if you've never thrown a baton at all, you know what it means to be passionate, to be all in, to be a competitor, to want to win, to want to be the best you can be at something.

And what's so cool about Kub and all these folks who play tell us this, this is their chance to be the best in the country at something.

And they can be 50 years old.

They can have just started three years ago.

They say, you know, they don't have to be in the best shape of our lives.

But if you can do this one thing, if you can play this sport and it's not a game, it is a sport, you should ask them.

You can be the best in the world, or at least the best in the nation.

And it's pretty exciting to watch these folks to practice and train all year round for the opportunity to compete this weekend.

It's part of the attraction, it's obscurity in that it's a niche sport.

Not a lot of people play it.

And so you almost feel like one of the cool kids who gets to be in this thing that not everybody knows about.

I mean, I think yes.

And what's so cool is this community is very tight knit.

It's weird because last night we went to two Coupe parties and all the competitors there are making pizza, having a great time, kind of throwing batons together.

But in 24 hours from now, it's going to be a whole different ball game.

And these folks who are good friends all year round are going to be staunch competitors against one another.

They always say there's only one reason we're doing this and that's to win.

And so it's really cool to kind of see the bravado that can come out.

It's tricky to be.

friends, but also competitors.

And yet, you know, there's no referee.

They're kind of like doing this on their own.

And so there's a lot of gentlemen sports talk about the whole thing.

And it's really cool to see kind of passions on display, but also the honesty of just doing what's right for the game and for themselves.

We're talking with BJ Hollers and Steve Dayton from Fireside Productions, filmmakers who have done great productions like when rubber hit the road here and other works as well.

They're working on their latest documentary on the

Kube championships taking place in Eau Claire this weekend.

Guys, maybe this is a premature question.

Maybe you don't know the answer to this yet.

I'm going to ask it anyway.

So we've been very fortunate at this show to kind of become friends with filmmakers Kelly Call and Sean Hannes who did the documentary on the Brewers just a bit outside the story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers who have been on this show a number of times.

And one of the things that Kelly and Sean have told us is it's not really.

of film, a documentary about sports.

It's really about a love story between a community and a team, a community who was going through a recession at the time in the early 80s, and they needed something to believe in.

And this team of kind of misfits needed a city to uplift them.

What's the backstory?

Or if you know what was so far, what's this documentary?

It's not maybe just about Coob, but what's the real story here?

I would say that the story is about community.

It's about people connecting.

It's not the throwing the batons, but waiting to throw and those conversations that you have or in Eric Anderson's case, you know, raising two daughters and him being a big part of Coob and them finding love in it too.

And those those connections there.

So it's it's more about relationships than anything else.

Very much human interest.

Yeah.

Let's

get past the happy stuff here.

Like any sport, there's going to be the heels.

Who's the New York Yankees?

Have we gotten to the point where there is a team that is just almost unbeatable to the point that people almost either dread.

playing them or they they want the challenge to knock them off.

And if that's the case, do they get really full of themselves?

Are they humble champions?

Let's let's get all the gear down

right now.

No man.

Share it all.

This is where you get us in trouble.

I'm getting big trouble.

Well, I think most would say the greatest of all time, the goat is a guy who teaches in Chippewa.

He's no clear guy named Greg Jockelson.

And this guy has his name on the staff trophy again and again.

Again, he's won multiple national championships, just one world championships as well.

I mean, he's incredible.

And I think

other teams fear him, you know, and I think he likes that.

I think he likes the mystique.

And so he's been really generous with us and kind of shown us his full self.

But when he's on the pitch, I mean, he's there to win.

And I think everyone knows it and he doesn't miss a lot.

And it's just when you watch people at that level play this sport, I mean, when we play in the backyard, we hit a couple, we miss a couple.

You don't miss.

It is incredible the level that you're thinking about everything they do.

They call the game.

Viking chess and it's because it's strategic in so many ways, you know, so watching him play and his whole team wrecking crew.

They have one of their team members coming from Belgium.

They're quite the quite the team and wanted to be feared this weekend.

That's called the

wrecking crew.

Yeah, that's great.

That's perfect.

That's

appropriate.

Is it still?

what you'd call, you know, a street clothes type event or some people starting to, you know, that's good.

Yeah.

Uniforms has

it up.

Uniforms.

Yeah.

there any bling involved in this?

That

one's the bling.

He wants,

he wants the birch.

You are going to get so much bling.

Is there a cape at any point?

There's, so we're also following a team called the Coop Reapers and they may be the best dressed team out there.

They have the

Coop

Reapers.

All

right.

Coop

Reapers.

Multiple jerseys.

They have

hats, towels, stickers, postcards, you name it.

They

have their own wrapping paper.

They're

pretty good too.

A couple minutes left here, guys.

I want to ask you a filmmaking question because in this new state budget that has passed, bipartisan manner on this part, they just reinstituted.

It was there years and years ago under former Governor Tommy Thompson.

There's a new film office with some tax credits as filmmakers.

Is this does this mean anything?

Is this actually something that would would help you guys make films?

Or is this just all political fluff?

Well, I think we're optimistic.

Nathan Deming is a guy here in town.

He's really helped lead the charge.

Probably the level we're producing films that it probably will have a huge impact right away, but certainly the idea of drawing new industry, new filmmakers to Wisconsin would be enormous.

My brother's a filmmaker out in Denver, and they have some tax credits, and that's why he's there, and that's how they do film movies there.

Same with Atlanta, same with all the hubs.

So if Wisconsin can get in on that, it has great opportunities for other larger productions, maybe beyond what we're doing right now, but you know, maybe one day we'll get there too.

And it does bring

other filmmakers outside of Wisconsin here and have

them

take a look.

Minnesota Hats had good luck with their film program, their film office.

So I think this is a really exciting time for us.

I think it's only a rumor, but James Cameron.

Really?

I'm doing a sequel to Titanic.

Oh, right here!

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm

like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm

like, I'm like,

Yeah, there's definitely a story about there's a movie called 100 Beavers and they're looking at making their next feature and with incentives that might be something that can get them to stay in Wisconsin and do that right here.

So little things like that are big wins.

Did we have somewhere on talking about hundreds of beavers before?

We did, yes.

And I love that movie.

I think that's absolutely hundreds of beavers.

What a name and what a great movie.

I mean, yeah, anyway.

So I think it's great for film.

A minute left here or so.

Is there anything we have not asked you about this documentary on Kube that you'd like people to know?

Well, what I would say first and foremost is if you're unfamiliar with Coupe, if you just want to check it out, this is the time.

So starting tomorrow, 8 a.m.

Come out to the soccer park on Hamilton Road, no clear of Wisconsin, or tomorrow or on Sunday to watch the final cage match.

You're gonna have a great time.

All right, very good.

I believe Jerry Mathers is going to star in the sequel to hundreds of beavers.

Just a rumor.

All right, very good.

BJ Hollars and Steve Dayton of Fireside Productions.

Thank you so much, guys.

We really appreciate you and we'll be following you every step of the way.

Good luck.

Thanks guys.

See ya.

Thank you so much.

Come on back.

Pat and I are going to talk to Northern Wisconsin State Fair after this.

We're live on location in Chippewa Falls on the Civic Media.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Welcome back to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls.

Wisconsin we are live on location across the civic media ready network title ball along with our co-host our friend or colleague Pat Crite low of mornings with Pat Crite low from every morning from six until nine to crossed most of the stations here on the civic media ready network coming up at the top of the hour at three o'clock there'll be CBS ABC or James Kelly news depending upon which station you're listening to by a check of weather and then our Mike Clemens was sports and we'll come back with our number two what

You said the James Kelly news?

The James Kelly news.

That's what here we get here at the tap on every day in his fantastic.

And speaking of, you never know who's going to stop by the table at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair, none other than our own James Kelly.

Well, to be fair, I was scheduled to be here.

And it's so standard.

I didn't know this, but this is fantastic.

I think it's fantastic.

We appreciate this entirely voluntary appearance

you're

making here for us and not a hostage situation in the least.

How are you doing, James?

I'm doing great.

I'm really enjoying some Brewer's Baseball.

That song just made me think of Boulderum and Jacob Mizierowski.

Oh boy.

Now, for those that haven't listened before, the last time the three of us were together was at Pat's home, a beautiful lake with soda.

We did the show up there.

For those that don't know, James is a New York

from the Long Island, a big Yankees fan.

And I'm not being goofy.

I haven't checked how the Yankees doing.

Oh, they're going through a bit of a rough patch right now.

But the Brewers, they're on fire.

Yeah, the Brewers, they're looking like they might end up winning the NL Central after all.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

We got, we got.

half a season to go yet.

Two games back now.