Ideas By Elliot Podcast

Great interview with downtown volunteer and certified gemowatchamijigga guy with fancy watches. My friend Adam Funk made me laugh a little too much. I hope you enjoy getting a brief taste of this great Green Bay native and all around amazing man.

Transcript Ok that track was from my brother's old band called Tone Logic that plays with Chris Rugowski and some other friends. Chris is still out there playing with the Band of Seahorses but Chris doesn't have many tracks yet to play. So that's an original called Pushover which is my favorite song they ever did and my brother is the drummer.  He also doesn't have many tracks. I have all this music surrounding me all the time so I went on Facebook and said give me some 30 seconds and some 60 seconds tracks. I get nothing. Very upsetting so today I am here with our like I said to Nick in the ready room, I said one of our not so bad council members I think that what I said. Randy Scannell. Did I say your last name correctly?  Close enough.  How you say it? Think of channel without the…  Scannell. Really   Ok they used to have an o in front of it.  So did everybody say it the way that I do? (laugh)  Yeah yeah it's all over the place people will call me scandal when I taught.  That's actually closer. See we're already getting into the good stuff.  So you taught. I didn't know that. So I'm going to get right into it. I have some ready questions but this is like your show. So you can say whatever you want. So you're on city council but I kind of want to go back to the version 1.0 Randy. So why are you here?  I'm here because you invited me? I didn't know anything about this. I'm glad that you invited me. Thanks for having me.  Thanks for being here. I'm super. I'm super honored for sure yeah.  So that's what everybody thinks I'm asking when I say why are you here, but I kind of want to back it up even more.  So why are you here?  I'm here because I don't think we would have met if I wasn't an alder and I became an alder because I believe in practical responsible governance. I don't think we have a lot of that and I want to make a difference. So that's why I'm here so that's my purpose.  So Nick we get to charge them for this right? Nick- Sure you want me to pass it through?  Yeah I think we need to charge them for the advertisement.  (Laugh)  Nick- I think his campaign funds. So this deductible donations.  Yeah definitely, it can become a kind donation. Nick- There we are. It is going to be unkind. It’s going to be unkind (laugh).  So okay so how long have you been in Green Bay?  Most of my life. When I was 4 I lived a year in Marinette. I lived a year in Monterrey Mexico teaching.  I lived a month in Pakistan teaching. That got cut short it was 2001 and 9 11 was the first day of school. Nick- For real.  Yeah.  Wow that's amazing you already have amazing stories already. I'm super excited so tell me more about that stuff, teaching.  Well I always wanted to be a teacher going back to high school and my older sister became a teacher. She went to the field and about time I graduate in 74 enrollments where restarting to go down. There was a (? ) market for teachers. So my guidance counselor and the counselor from GB and my sister said don't go into teaching. Computers were a big and upcoming thing. Go into to computers, I didn't want to go into computers, but I listen to them and I didn't go into teaching.  Which was dumb see back in the mid eighties I finally figured I had to do something so I went into the tech school. I was going to go in to drafting and even though I don't believe in the draft.  Nice I see where this is going.  Actually that’s not true either that’s just a dumb pun. I do believe in the draft.  I do that too I drop things and be like no I totally believe in it.  I heard they needed teachers so I transferred out and went to GB and to get my teaching license and had plan on actually moving out of the area because I was going to go into social studies.  I knew at that time, even though they needed teachers they didn’t social studies teachers in the area.  So I have spent quite a bit of my life trying to get out of the Green Bay Area I came very close to New York in the late seventies but everything fell through. So I went to GB got my certification and had plan to move out But I met Rose who I subsequently end up marrying or she married me maybe. So that's tied me to the area again. So we both went into teaching and I quickly found out that in the area I wasn't going to be able to teach social studies. So I did a lot of subbing at first. I did a lot of subbing in special education. Which is a field you can't get a certification at GB. So they just kind of touched on it a little bit not much. I didn't even know much about it until subbing and it really clicked. I really love special education. So I went to Silver Lake College I got that and I start a career in special education.  I taught in a number of different districts. My wife when she graduated she didn't end up getting a teaching job so she ended up going into business. But we knew people who had moved overseas  and we always thought once the kids were up and out and taken care of. That we would try that cause like after a year or so. When you're out of college districts, no longer look at your applications. It doesn't pay to apply to get into teaching anymore and she still wanted to be a teacher. So we’d teach overseas and if we liked it we would stay and if we didn’t we would come back and she would have the teaching experience. Then the districts will look at her and maybe she would get a job and that's actually what happened. She's working in the Green Bay School District now.  Wonderful.  She's a teacher.  So the social studies thing sounds interesting my brother Dustin went to school for teaching social studies.  Even now you have to be able to teach in 4 languages and also teach science. That actually brought him down to Milwaukee for while. He actually went up to Marinette to teach for a while. I taught in Marinette for a year. Yeah that was just a few years ago and then he ended up down in Milwaukee. Where he had to go to a charter school. That charter school is now defunded this year. So he moved back to Green Bay just this past weekend. I had to help him move so that's kind of interesting. So you been all around the world and you ended up back here.  You know I think talking to all these people all these friends I have, they would be like look who you are talking to right now. A lot of people say they want to leave and then come back anyway or they can’t leave. They're caught in the gravity and yeah that’s been like with me too I'm like a life. Like I've been here forever but I got to get out in January and February. So whoever I interview in January and February it has got to be down in Austin.  Yeah we just did today ten days in London so.  Wonderful. I have yet to go to Europe. I say that to Toranda I feel so sheltered sometimes. I'm living vicariously through my friends now.  That's what friends are for.  Yep you are going to take one for the team. Alright so let's draw into Green Bay a little bit more. You are on our city council and you are you didn't say stuck but you're here and you've been other places.  So what's your favorite thing about Green Bay?  The development that is going on now. The growth and the diversity is really starting to take off as a city. For the longest time I thought developmentally the city was very backwards. That's why I wanted to get out and live in a big town. You know we put the universities out in the boondocks instead of downtown or we tore down our downtown and now they have a big panoramic picture 1960s Green Bay downtown.  All the old buildings. It’s just fantastic and then 20 years later you look at downtown Green Bay and it's a whole different picture. So now I really think we got some neat development going on. We're growing. We're getting more diverse. It’s becoming a more and exciting place.  So the growth you like.  The growth.  I spend most of my time at Karvina not at Starbucks but I was at Starbucks last night. Gina and I stopped over at Starbucks I had a moment where I actually looking around and it was very diverse. It felt like I was not in Green Bay.  That was a Starbucks it Military and Mason. I don't know where all of these people came from because they did not grow up here and I could immediately tell that it was like every color and it was amazing. I love that because I am a fan of diversity too.  So I do know I live on planet earth so I guess like to me it's weird not to be. But whatever so let's get into maybe it's kind of a repeat of the teaching stuff but I have asked this question around Gina  and some of these things are kind of repeats but I think they went over pretty good in discussion. So let's give it a try. What is the thing you're most proud of or a fun story , before city council? Like something that you are really proud of a fun story.  A fun story  And obviously the next story is going to be since you've been there. You can mentally prepare.  Wow a fun story well how about the journey from Green Bay to Lahore Pakistan that was a fun story.  I am sure it was.  We end up having to sleep the night at Heathrow which is a fun time. I tell you.  Why is that? Oh well I don't know anything about it.  Oh well you were sleeping in an airport. You are sleeping in a chair in the airport. You are trying to turn your luggage into a bed. So the whole night you're staying up there. So the whole night you end up spending there?  Yeah. Homelessness. Got a taste of it and of course we had to take care of our luggage and it was overweight. One piece of luggage was under and one was over, so right in the middle of the airport with all the people waiting, while they checked our luggage we were switching stuff around. A lot of fun. But then on a flight from London to Lahore it was interesting because it was kind of like you know when you see in the movies. Like an old bus on an old Mexican road and you got the chickens .There were people and they had bags of all kinds of stuff. They had computers. It was that kind of the atmosphere I felt like I was on the bus going to down an old road to some little village. Unfortunately one woman got air sick.  She had a real hard time.  So was it someone you went with. Nope we were separate but it turns out she ended up being one of the teachers at the school we were going to. So it's a bilingual school we actually not in Lahore because English is the official languages. But they wanted English teachers from all around the world. It was a baccalaureate school where you need to have foreign teachers so they would recruit foreign teachers and I would teach world history, English like you would teach English, and world literature. So we landed about 1 o'clock in the morning but before time and you don't go into the airport they bring a bus to you. I stepped off the plane and it was like someone stuck a bottle of soap in my mouth. It was awful. The pollution and after about the second day of that I was thinking I can't do this I got to get out of here. About the third day for better or worse I was acclimated. When you look up you never saw the sun always a haze. Never see clouds just a haze. So it’s one o’clock in the morning and our apartments it on the campus. You know they're putting us up. So the school had buses and their there was several of us on that plane who was going to be teaching. I'm in the front seat with Yosef and we see ox carts going down the road pulling flat bed. Some of the drivers are sleeping on the flat beds. We see the police they have someone pulled over. They are heavily armed the police. So they motioned for us to go over and the driver points to me and shakes his finger no and keeps driving. It turns out the police like to hit up their own their own population. They don't like to pull over foreigners to hit them up for anything because they don't want the reputation. (wow) So then we get to the campus.  That's probably every were you know. We are probably that way too.  I was going to say our Police Department is the finest in the world.   I've given them lots of money. Well good.  Speeding tickets, not for a long time. When I was a lot younger.   Everything doesn’t go to the police though. You haven’t gotten any of it because I haven’t’ had a ticket in a while. So everything in Pakistan is walled in. They have brownouts. So security is armed guards at gates and so we weren't expecting that either. So we come in and we have all of these heavily armed guards.  Let us help you with your luggage. We didn't argue.  Take the luggage. So just coming into Pakistan was quite quite the adventure.  So but you enjoyed it.  Yeah it was a fantastic experience. It was something I had never experienced before.  Great place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there?  Well at the time I was looking forward to living there. It would have been a wonderful wonderful adventure. It turns out that we ended up meeting some of the other teachers. There was an Irishman who was a music major going for his masters in drumming. He had a Sufi drummer as his master and we had made plan. He was going to take me to all of these Sufi festivals right outside of Lahore where his Sufi master lived. So that would have been quite the adventure. In many ways it really is eye opening the poverty. It was just horrendous. We lived not far from what is known as the ditch row. It was supposedly a one way highway on each side. You would be going down the highway and a donkey cart would be coming beside you. There was no room driving.  It was like driving in video game. No rules or rules and very loose sense of the term. You would have stop lights on a highway sometimes it works sometimes it wouldn't. You would have speed bumps on highway.  This was in a city area? I was guess in a rural area well we were on the outskirts of the city.  But we were within the city limits.  Wow that's so crazy. Wow so that's a great story and it got cut short by some crazy terrorist. That's even crazier that this happened when you were there. So the next question is- give me a crazy story and it doesn't have to be a city council story but since you been in the public’s hear.  A crazy story. Well I will say a fun story but it just go there doesn't it.  Yeah yeah yeah. On the council or just a fun story something that you are proud of. An accomplishment or both it’s your show. Well teaching, I was pretty proud of my teaching working with special education.  It was a unique situation. It’s one job where you are actually working with everyone not just the students but you're working with the parents, you're working with the administration, work with the staff, and your coordinate everything to make sure you're making the best possible education. I'm proud of their work and that was a lot of fun last. My last teaching job was at was Monocle High School Indiana and that was in Kashema.  That was very unique too. The cultural experience. You know they had their own lacrosse games every year after the first thunderstorm. For music class, it was mostly drumming and singing was the main focus of it. So you start this new school year smudging. So you've done everything.  Well a lot.  So you're not going to take that bait huh. No.  I have a few things left to check off.  What would you say to convince someone else to run for public office? We kind of had that sort of like a parenthetical conversation on Facebook that kind of thing. It sounds like you are very encouraging of people entering.  Yeah I encourage people to get involved politically every way you possibly can. It’s important and a lot of fun. I used to be not as politically involved as I am now at one time. As a matter of fact I used to be kind of proud that I thought it wasn't important. I said both political parties were pretty close to the middle of the road generally speaking and that it did make a big difference. I don't think that's true anymore.  I think that's a lot of talk but I still feel that way. Awe no. Well I've had an awakening. I think and I became very politically active when act ten came down with all the rallies all of the protests. Went to Madison a few times and in town what was going on. I got involved in helping and volunteering for political campaigns. In the rallies and all that kind of stuff. I became very politically active and it's a lot of fun volunteering. Especially volunteering because you pick and choose what you do when you want to do it. But it's pretty exciting to get involved with a lot of the politicians and a lot of the political stuff is going on. As far as being an alder is being, I am having a ball. I mean I just had a blast meeting all kinds of wonderful interesting people. All kinds of wonderful interesting, developments, events and projects. You get to be involved in. You help brought out your constituents and I have been very successful in helping a lot of people with the problems that they are having in their neighborhood.   Anything that stick out in your mind when you say?  Nothing major probably the most unique one was Minister Pharrall.  I fondly call him farmer Pharrall. He planted a garden in his front yard, a vegetable garden, and there is nothing wrong with that but he carried it over to the terrace. Which is illegal.  So the area beyond the sidewalk. Yeah, the area beyond the sidewalk.  There is good reason for that because you don't want high plants to obstruct views your. You don't want waste going the curb and restrict the sewage or go straight to the river. So he took the concerns that the ordinance addressed and addressed them himself.  He made a big berm between the garden and the curb and planted it with the grass so that it would absorb anything. He kept all the plants in the area low to the ground. So he met the spirit of the law. So I was able to get an exception and he was able to grow his garden.  Wow, I was not aware of that.  That is pretty cool. So you hear that and you think wow that was stupid rule.  Like I understand why it was a rule at one point but really. So that is good. I know a few people that want to run the office what would you say to them?  I would say get some training because that does make a big difference. My background with working on campaigns made a big difference. So both the Democratic Party, the Republic Party, the Chamber of Commerce, and other group will have trainings.  Find out about those and go to all of them because they all, well if its county or city, those are non partisans’ races. So I went to the chambers training and the Democratic Party is training. So get as much training as you can. So how much does it cost?  They’re free.  I knew. That there was a little softball.  I hit it out of park.  Well you know you hit the ball.  That's rare.  So go ahead I didn't mean to cut you off.  So connect yourself with some good support. My wife is my treasure. It is good to have a treasure. It’s good to have some people to bounce some things off of as things come up. You want to try to run a professional campaign. You want to have some people to raise some money so that you won't have to put in all your own money. You know have you some nice signs and a nice flyer. A few things like that. But it's basically, you want to go and knock on doors and talk to people. That is key I think. Yeah I think that is the key to. So roughly, how much money do you think it would take for some type of local election? I don't know how much money we’re talking about. We hear about the presidential ones spending billions on the race.  Well for the city depending on where you go for the sign and who you go to for everything. I would think a thousand dollars would be comfortable. You got to do some shopping around and get the best deal. I go Union usually. But even then you may want to shop around.   Be a smart shopper. So now we are about at the halfway point so turn it over to Nick for a brief to talk about our studio here at the Camera Corner. He has been so gracious enough to sponsor this silly little interview show. Nick- It’s not that silly. It’s been pretty silly.  Nick- Well it’s not listed as comedy is it? We talked about that in episode 0.  She's really angry about that. She thinks that she is super funny. Nick- There was a lot of laughing and there is humor to the show.   I was laughing with her not at her. Nick- I have security footage to prove it.  So go ahead and take it over Nick. Nick- So honestly, I think I'm probably going to end up making you a commercial spot to run to make it easier. Because it’s hard for me every time. Hey come to Camera Corner where you can rent a studio and do whatever you want to do.  Yeah but you know there is a lot of stuff here.  Nick-There is.  You have lighting. You have screens. Like you had some clients in there when we came in. Nick- Yeah we were shooting some commercials for another company. We have the podcast area of course that you're using and we also do the live video feed straight to the internet. I'm talking to someone right now about possibly doing a weekly series show that will run on her website then after the live broadcast we can re-edit it and send it out to the TV stations and the cable stations whatnot.  Nice.  Nick- So there's a lot of possibilities and my real go for the Camera Corner Studio is to make it affordable for anybody if you're willing to put a little bit of more work into it and do the editing yourself. Bring your own equipment. We can start as low as $65 an hour and then every service on top of that is ala carte. So if you need a camera, the video camera is an extra 30 bucks. If you need someone to run it, that’s 50 bucks. We can really work with a company, a small business, or individuals. Even I have some friends.  I am an individual. Nick- You are an individual. Well you have a company page now.  Yeah Nick- If you have a Facebook company page then that technically makes your company.  Don't tell the IRS.  Nick- You're fine you're fine. Cool you know I have a couple of buddies they make YouTube videos. They do plays on YouTube and they're talking about coming in to kick it up a notch at the end of the year and do something a little more professional.  So they come in and out and it is a couple hundred bucks usually. Nick- Yeah like I said as low as 65 bucks for 1 hour. If you’re a making a five minute YouTube video you might be able to make five or ten videos in your hour. So just talk to me and I will help you be smart about how you use your time and get it as efficiently as we can.  You think I know everything there is to know about everything and I appreciate it and I love the ego boost and I need it a lot. But you have been super helpful with giving suggestions. Like how to use a microphone. How to talk in the microphone properly. But even with that, even from the business end of things. Like how the potentially get sponsorships and get things paid for. I think your knowledge is worth ten times what people will be paying you for it literally. If you go into a big city you would pay thousands for what you're doing for nickels. Nick- Well maybe I should charge more then.  You should yeah but not me. Nick- Well is much appreciated we're glad to have you Elliott. Thanks for using us.  Well so do you have a story to share or not. Nick- I dunno.  Like. I like those. Any things that have anything happened within the last week or so? Something you have to plan? Nick- We were just working on a combination of things. What we were doing is a video for their sales people within the company. So that they are familiar with the products that are available to them. So technically it is an internal training video. Hey don't forget we sell this product. So they had about a two minute script that they put up on the teleprompter. She read it a few times. Then I took some still photos of the product and we did a little over the shoulder view. So you can see what it actually look like to move the product and see all the different textures in motions. So we had a couple different backdrops. Did a couple of costume changes. So we actually shot 3 months worth of material in those two hours.  Wow four for a few hundred bucks. Nick- Well yeah I'm going to come in will under budget and she planned $500.  See I think that's amazing because I know how much does stuff cost. Like some of it and some of it I don't know. Which means it's probably a lot more than what I think. Nick- Well the thing is. It’s efficient for us as Camera Corner because we already have it and use it for onsite production services. So when charity organization hold fundraisers at Lambo Field (?) we do a lot of that stuff. Like we provide AV Support. The thing that are the most expensive items are things that get used the least. So what I found is, instead of charging $300 a day for this camera that might be kind of expensive for some people. But if I can make it $30 an hour it's a lot more affordable to a lot more people. So to mitigate the risk of charging lower amounts per- use we put it in our building with our security cameras. We charge for it hourly. It’s safe. You have somebody here that can help you if you really get stuck. It's just an opportunity to better utilize our existing assets. Every time I come in. It's like you're getting busier and busier. Nick- Absolutely.  So you got to slow it down a little bit because I'm afraid you're going to boot me. Nick- I won't get too busy for you if anything you're a big part of why we're getting busy.  I appreciate that.  There is always one in the morning.  There's always what? One in the morning.  Oh. There is always 1 a.m. in the morning. I'm like one what. Nick- I have keys we could do like Elliot after dark. That’s possible.  But nobody wants that we can't go down that path all right back to Randy. Thanks Nick. Alright so are there any questions you think I should ask you? Like what do you want to share with everyone? What do you want to share with anybody?   I can make plugs. Let’s see. Anything about me? What about me?  Okay, well tell me about your jacket.  Ok my Nehru jacket.  Nehru.  As a young man growing up in the late 60's early 70's, Nehru jackets were a kind of popular. I did have one. I bought one at Saint Biennia Paul and I loved the hell out of it. I am still mad at my parents. I don't know how it is that it ended up in the attic and it ended up God knows from where there and then I lost it. So I always wanted another one and now that I'm an alder. I always were a sports coat. That's my man purse. So I decided I wanted a navy blue jacket and I had a fight with my wife but I finally was able to get it as long as I didn't spend too much.  So I went online and found a company out of South Carolina about my jacket. So now I have my Nehru. So whenever I'm out with my wife I can wear my Nehru jacket.  So I got a really sixties looking one on Amazon that's 28 bucks. I should pick it up.  Sure.  Then we can match.  We can start a trend.  So I didn't know how to spell Nehru. It is Nehru. You can use the first pronouncer of India if you watch the movie Gandhi. He's the first.  Oh so that's where I heard that because I know I heard it. But maybe I heard it in relation with the jackets to. It is often called the Beatle’s jacket because the Beatles made it really popular in the sixty's.  That's what I said when I first saw it. I was like so where you the inspiration Sergeant Pepper. We should get a band together.  That would be awesome that would be awesome .I think we would probably be a pretty horrible band. I would have to be the singer.  Go right ahead. I will harmonize.  I don't know you looked at me kind of weird so I don't know. Okay so I'm going to go to my cheat sheet for some more questions. So this is a question that I asked of Ronda and Gina. You sort of answered it already. You did some teaching and stuff other than City Council what other organizations are you involved in maybe as a consequence of your work but maybe separately? Things and causes that you like.  Well I'm involved with the Democratic Party and they're the ones to actually push me into running. I didn't want to run. I wanted to stay a volunteer. Volunteering is nice, you choose what you want to do when you want to do it. But I have also been involved with citizen’s voices in action. Which is a group composed mainly of people who are or were homeless. We are advocating for homeless this issue.  It's called Project what?  It’s called citizens voices in action.  Where did I get project from?  CVIA, citizens voices in action.  I was putting words together.  I have also been involved in this, well this group really doesn't have a name it started with Chief Maliter. It started as is just a local group.  It's just a local group. It is a local group.  A lot of the local ethnic groups getting together building relationships and networking together and seeing how we can make a positive impact on the communities.  As a matter of fact, we have started basketball ‘Bring your own Five’ every Saturday at 1 o'clock at Fisk Park. If you don't bring your own five then some people who trickle in, we will make a group and we play basketball. Basically 12 to 18 to keep him a little busy.  Ok twelve to eighteen.  Yep.  It’s at Fisk Park. Saturday every Saturday at one o’clock.  So I'm too old. I can't go.  I'm sorry you can come in and keep time. I've been a timekeeper and believe me is not as easy as it seems.  Well you get to click the button to get it going. How about if we just by one of these things? (Beep) You get to click the buzzer. Wow you think I'm worth nothing. I'm worth an electronic clock. Believe me it is an important job. They had me doing it and I failed. This is why we have this.  If I had to count I'd like awe it feels like it has been 10 minutes.  Well we have a clock but I dropped it. But I stop it and I have to get it started. It was complicated man.  Nick- But I will say just a short interjection. I stopped by Bertrand’s the other day and they were having their store closing sale. There are some clocks there that they are trying to get rid of and the possession thingy. With a little light.  We have a possession; we don’t have a light thing. Nick- They're on sale. Bertrand's is clearing out. Good. I'll let the group know.  So I was searching around to see if there was a website on Facebook for the group.   Yeah it's b y o 5.  It’s on Facebook.   There it is bring your own five. So it's just a search for the word spelled out. Bring your own 5. Somebody did a good job with that.   Yeah Sharon and Terry did a great job they have been the main was pushing this and putting this together I have just been tag along and helping out here and there as I can.  Your humble I'm sure not just the tag alone. Well I'm not a good time keeper there. That’s for sure. But it's fun. It's a lot of fun and we bring water and Gatorade.  I didn’t what it was called but I did but I did hear about this from somewhere.  It did get a little media attention yeah.  You know people talk about the media only talks about the bad stuff. They talk about good and bad. There's a lot of great things that they cover most of the great things.  So speaking of that so today is August 13th and recording who knows when I'll get it out.  So it's not a plug but maybe I should have plugged it before. Still can't get them on iTunes yet. So today's Taste on Broadway. Taste on Broadway.  So that made me think of asking you. You said that you were a fan of all of the development and diversity. So what are your favorite downtown activities? What more you think we can do or is anything missing? Well one thing I would like to see, I would like to see more buskin. That's a big time atmosphere. I would like to really promote that more. I remember in Mexico you would have clowns and musicians on the buses. I have been pitching in a little bit I'm on the transmit commission I talked about that a little bit I don't know how far that will go or when but I would like to see to promote more buskin.  So my friend does a lot of that.  So my friend Kent Dennison he does a lot of it and Chris Regalski who is in the band with my brother he does a lot of that. They go to both of the farmers markets and they play there so I'm sure you probably have seen these guys.  Yeah I probably have given them some money. I always carry a bunch of ones. I try to give to everyone. I try to support that I really enjoy busking. I think it adds a lot of atmosphere to the city and that was one of the great things about being in a big city.  I've been to big cities and I've seen street musicians and I'm so sheltered and naive I did not know it was called Busking until the musicians in my life set me straight. So I don't think a lot of people know that. So Busking is like when you grab your guitar and you open up your case and play and people throw money in it, or in the streets. It can be anything it could be any instrument. My brother plays drums.  You could even be juggling clowning.  There's one artist that.. Wait are you trying to convince me to go out and do it.  Yeah. Yeah. I want to see the clown nose. There's one artist, you know there's the statue.  Absolutely. I think that is great.  Freaks me out every time though.  I tried to get little kids to give him money. So more busking. Is there anything that anybody can do to further that? What do you think? I don't know I'm still kind of feeling my way around it. I'm trying to see if we can promote busking on a transit. I like to see if we can open up busking, not just two events.  So yeah there are permit problems with that.  There might be.  Yeah I think that's the thing that holds people back they don't want to go out there and get in trouble.  They shouldn’t. Right that's always a problem ignorance of the law is no excuse. So there are some issues, you don't know? I don’t know.  You should keep me posted on that.  Yeah. Cause you should know.  Yeah.  I should.  Or you should make it not a rule.  Right. Right. This what I need to I need to talk to some people about. Some of these laws that we have in place they can be a hundred years old. The world changes and sometimes I think it might be best just to throw the rule out and see what becomes a problem and have new rules and develop as you know. I don't know. I have no idea and I've lived here my whole life. I think that's kind of a problem when don't even know if I'm breaking the law that's weird.  Yeah the cities trying to update their technology and we're hoping that the city page will become more of a resource page where people can go and find things out and do things.  That would be great. Let me know when they get that done.  They’re working, they’re working.  Yeah I know.  I know.  Well technology is an ongoing thing that is never done. There's a lot we can do and I feel like the mayor has done a great job with those kinds of things. Chris Rand (?) I’m like whatever I want to be king of the nerds and someone out nerds me like Chris or like Nick. It kind of makes me a little bit sad. Chris was an amazing guy to have I really feel like Green Bay's worse off now since he's gone to North Carolina. No Virginia.  They're all the same East Coasters. I'm sorry. That’s right it is Virginia. I do remember that I have family moved to North Carolina. So, busking is there anything else you think that we can get to make our downtown. It doesn’t have to be downtown. It can kind of be downtown centric. I have heard that as a criticism. I have some bias but I feel like our downtown was neglected for twenty or thirty years. Yeah Yeah. Definitely. So I feel like we got to make up for lost time.  We they are starting out, I know further out on Military. They are trying to do more events out that way. I think there is always room for growth. So do you think it’s time to move, not change the focus but expand? Or do you think there is more stuff to do downtown? There is always more stuff to do downtown. Downtown is never done. It’s like an ongoing process. So like what are we missing? What do you think we are missing? You never want to stop development. I mean you are never done with development. That is an ongoing process and it takes so long. That is one thing when I got this job that realize is that development takes so long and it’s so complicated and its one little thing that can hold it up.  Look at the Northend Hotel. That's a fantastic project but it's a complex one. They have had one thing thrown at them after another, poor guys. They have just been chomping away at the bid and I think that it is going to happen soon and it's going to be great. So it's just an ongoing process you always want to keep developing you never stop. So are there any amenities?  Amenities.  Or something like that.  I would like to see us use more technical stuff and I also like to see the green back. There's a lot of new technologies out there that are happening. I don't know if you've heard of the solar roads. I don't think there yet but we're working on an East River Trail. I'm wondering if that is a place and maybe we can start with a solar roadway. I know in Denmark. They've done it so we've got something to go by. I'd like to see downtown definitely become a lot more greener.  I get excited about solar. I think even downtown we can go greener. So you know we're very critical and I hate to make things sound bad. I think we hold our own when it comes to having a green downtown. There's worse. I have seen worse in a few places, you know even in other countries.  I'm not saying it’s bad but I would like to see more. I'm not putting words in your mouth. I don't mean to. There's a common question when people say like what scares you the most I don't want to ask that. I want to do the flip side because I want to focus on the positive. So what scares most people that you just think you take it with stride?  What scares most people is the first question to ask? What do you think scares most people?  The top two things are public speaking and death. Well public speaking I have no problem with public speaking. You don't say.  Despite the experience, it’s not a problem with public speaking. As a teacher you know..  Absolutely  So public speaking is ok with death. Death sucks. No no (laugh) what things do you handle fine.  With death.  You're turning into a politician. I think you're dodging. I think I used to be more afraid of death when I was younger. Now I don't really focus the dying I just look at the living. Cause even when you know you are going to go it’s just like that (snaps finger). As a matter of fact when I was young we used to make a joke that instead of having a family get together the next year we would just wait to the next person died but it seems like every year we got together for a death. Anyway it is just an ongoing process you never done grieving. You never want to let go completely.  So listening to, I listen to a lot of podcast.  You would think I would be better at this but there was a show about a three generational funeral, like a funeral home place. Sort of like we talk about people who want to get out of Green Bay get a different experience but then things put them back.  This guy, I think he is around 30, maybe a little older even and his father and his grandfather was still kind of and involved.  He took another job somewhere and he came back and it was fascinating. I forgot the name of it but we listen to it on the way up to a family reunion Did anybody die?   Nobody. But it made us think of all those things. We were out on Sail Ranch and I couldn’t get any music on my iPhone. So it was already recorded so I made Gina and Kyle listen to they were not happy because it was kind of a downer but it was fascinating.  I didn't expect it so that kind of brings me to the next question with a power to be surprised I didn't know you were a world traveler. I really didn’t know you were a teacher and I'm kind of ashamed to admit that. I feel like I should know a little bit more about you.  So what is something other than teaching that someone would be surprised to learn about you? That we haven't talked about.  Surprised to learn about me.  I'm pretty out there I don't really have a lot of secrets.  What’s surprising sometimes is something you may like that a lot of people do not know that you like.  I do like the clash.  So that's great you like some good pop punk.  As a matter of fact let me do a plug for the punk movie that's going on. Have you heard about that on Facebook with James Baker what's it called?  Actually we talk about it quite a bit because Gina's friends with all those people. Talk more it’s your show. So say what you know about it. Not a lot. I know James Baker and he's a big part of it so I'm following it on Facebook right now they're just looking for money.  There's a Kickstarter campaign and Gina yelled at me because I didn't have a podcast out already.  It's over though.  Because it’s over. (Laugh) That’s why it’s really nothing to plug now.  I don't know if they got enough money or not, I really hadn’t to looked yet it. If they didn’t maybe, they will put it back out there.  I should hope so. Oh, Nick is online searching for it.   Nick- Got our crack team on it. Sorry the websites blocked.  I was trying to research but I'm on the company network. No no that’s cool. So you like the clash and you like that whole kind of stuff excited about the movie. I know a lot of those people through Gina, mostly but separately I know some of those people. So it's super exciting. Nick- Ok I have it now. My cell phone works.  So right on Green Blahfield.com (?) It says that the Kickstarter campaign a huge success. Their goal was to raise 16000 thousand dollars so there go in thirty days they raised 19500. So do they have to give some back?  Like we talked about before a video production can be expensive. Nick- It can be. Maybe you got to give them a call and say hey I can help you out. Because I don't know where they're going to go cheaper. You probably could help them out. So some of the stuff my feel like repeats. You gave great answers. You love the clash. That’s good. I feel like I kind of know you. I am surprised yet not.  So what are you most looking forward to of the next 20 years?  What I'm looking forward too. I would love to be able to move downtown myself personally. I'm looking forward to more exciting, bigger, more interesting Green Bay. I think we have become a bigger city and I always wanted to live in a bigger city. I think in twenty years it is going to be a lot of changes in Green Bay. A lot of good, positive, and exciting changes. So that's one reason I say get involved now because it's happening now. It is so much fun so I love being a part of it.  I talk all the time like on cell phones, smart phones like the one I have in my hand. Like everyone has in their hands. They have sort of transformed the world in less than a decade. I feel like self driving vehicle is going to be much more transforming. My next vehicle is going to be self driving.  So you are already on top of that.  But like parking we had a controversial about the Wal-Mart downtown because partially they're going to have to have an adjoining parking lot and that might be able to go away for self driving taxis.  You get dropped off and the car goes away so I'm super excited that.  I feel like Green Bay is focused on our downtown right now so over the next 20 years we are prime for success. Other cities might not be able to do that they may not be focusing on the right things at the right time and it’s been slow for me to get to that mind frame of all of that progress. But I’m like build buildings on top of buildings because we won't need the roads.  People can walk and they can get self driving cars so I'm super excited about that so I agree so that's for Green Bay. What are you looking to otherwise? Well grandkids would be nice. We have some but more would be nice.  So what are their names? The grandkids? Well give a shout out to all you listeners.  We got Anna, Frankie Jr.  and Miles but that’s just from one everybody else got to start picking up.  So my grandmother's maiden name is Miles so every three years they have a big Miles family reunion.  People come from Miles.  That's the joke. That was too easy.  Yeah and we played a bit a little bit but it's amazing cause no one’s last name is Miles anymore.  That one family Miles they happen to live in North Carolina. So that's an interesting story.  Not really.  It's interesting for me. So this is the last question here unless Nick has a question. No one gave me any questions on Facebook because I didn't think to do it right away. Nick- Yeah you really got to do that poll sooner. Like a day or two before maybe.  Okay so you know that I'm late at everything. Nick- I mean it doesn't hurt me but you know that if you want social questions.  I mean I like the questions I have been asking that's why I've been repeating them because I've come up with other things and that kind of like works out okay. If I run out of questions you know I have to have you back so it works out to for me.  So the one that I kind of close with, with Gina and Ronda and I got good answers is if you could co-host any episode in the future which guest would you want to be my co-host with? Who would you want to ask questions of? See I use that and then I go and get them. So my only rule it has to be either someone that I know or could know. Like very easily. Like of course we will have Barrack Obama on someday. It’s probably going to be episode 10000. How about James Baker. James Baker that would be a great one.  Ok.  That would be fun. So the guy putting on the new punk movie. I should have got this going earlier because that would have helped him out. Now he is probably like well geez thanks. Well you know they still promote the movie once they get it done so it is still plenty of time ya know.  Yeah so how do you know him? He and I worked together at Club Foods (?) Back in the day before I was a teacher. I did a lot of retail work.  I am convinced this town is 2 degrees of separation for everybody. Like if I don’t know you, I know someone who knows you. It’s so crazy. So that’s all I got. So Nick is going to run that last track and I think that is called Swordfish. So I only had 2 mp3’s from my brother old band and so that’s what I have because nobody else gave me anything.  Doesn’t have anything to do with the movie do it? Swordfish. No I don’t think so.  That’s just the name and I think it is just instrumental. Even though sang over the top once. Anyway thanks Randy. Thanks for having me.

Green Bay Alderman Randy Scannell (rhymes with Chanel) joins Elliot in the studio to talk about local politics, his history as an educator, world travel - and more!

Transcript Into Music Is it going to be louder than that? So you are fading in now? Sweet thanks Nick. So that was the band called Reburial. Reburial. Oh we don’t know the name of the track yet. We will try to figure that out before the end or maybe not. We will play another Reburial at the end or another one? Nick- We will play another one. Yes. That’s good stuff. Supposedly Reburial is a Green Bay band or some sort of quasi local thing. I haven’t heard anything and I don’t have any stuff to pimp. If you are in Reburial you need to contact us and give us something to tell your upcoming fans all about you. Nick- Yeah the email that I sent you is all the stuff I have.  It just said Reburial. Nick- That’s it. They said that there is three clips here enjoy.  So every episode I want to feature some local music from Green Bay area so if you got stuff Rhonda, this is like episode 1 the first episode was 0. It’s like August now and you should be hearing this pretty soon. So for episode 1, I have my new BFF Rhonda. I am going to grill her with some questions. I am ready bring it on. So first of all this isn’t an official question but I don’t know how to say your last name. Sitnikau. I did it, I would have done it right.  Everyone murders my last name and it is so easy. It is as it spelled. I don’t know if you told me that or not. It’s a real problem I should just go by Rhonda. Just Rhonda. It is funny, I have had many on broadway discussions over the last month and I mentioned that you were going to be on. I was like Rhonda and they were like Rhonda. I was like Rhonda Rhonda you don’t know Rhonda. Then they were like Rhonda.  That may be a good thing. I was like yes. Rhonda, Rhonda is going to be there so it will be cool. They were like really. So there was some surprise about that.  Interesting. Yeah so why do you think that is? I put you on the spot. Well, I think we all know. They probably figure I am somewhat..very outspoken.  Really. Yes. You have a very vocabulary.  I have a lot of vocabulary. I am ready to use it whenever I can. I think that it’s possible that they wonder what am I going to say. That’s what makes it awesome. Shake your head Nick.  Exactly. Nick- I’m with you. I love it. I loves when he does that.  We only have had one episode and I feel like we have done one hundred already. How does that happen?  It’s fun. So I am sorry. Gina and I are going to marriage counseling and we discussed how we both, probably our whole family, probably like our parents and everything all the way back. All the way back to the turtles right. We have a problem with talking over people. So I am sorry if I did that. I have the same problem so this will be interesting.  So can you like cut one of the mikes if you need to Nick. Nick- Sure. I just cut myself there. I can if you need me to just tell me what you need me to do. I just needed to explore that a little bit more. So I didn’t mean to cut you off because I wanted you to keep talking. No that’s okay. Its my guess. I am not really sure but I thought I was a very good and vocal voice for the broadway district during the last year and a half. During the you know what time.  No. Tell me what. I don’t really talk about it because I actually got that word out of my brain after about a year. You know the whole store situation downtown. But I think that there is always, if people really know me. I am actually pretty mindful and thoughtful about what I say. I just don’t usually hold back if I need to say something that needs to be said. Right. That’s probably why people aren’t really sure about what I am going to talk about with you. Plus I am not pointing any fingers but there are people in the media who might just clip out the controversial parts and play those. Yeah exactly cause that never happens. I remember once when there would be Rhonda, then there would be Elliot. That was weird. Like we were opposing (?)factions.  We were. I think that it is all about intentions. I think we both had good intentions. That’s exactly why we can sit here today.  Right even people who are on opposing views can get together and talk things out.  I only choose opposing view people to be in my life. I think that’s a problem.  Sort of a sickness. Yeah that’s weird. Yeah what I just said you just took that ten times too far. That’s weird. That actually kind of segways into the first question that I was going to ask.  I asked Gina a lot of the questions kind of similarly. So for right now, I want to have my friends come in and talk about why they are here and why they care. So in your case, how long have you been in Green Bay? Is that the first question? Yeah that’s sort of the first question. I moved here in 1990. From where? Actually from North Dakota of all places. My parents came and took teaching positions and I followed. My mom was terminally ill. I didn’t want to be a way for her so I moved to Green Bay and I did leave for two months but I came back. I love it here. What took you away? Say weather. Well it wasn’t weather actually. Even though I went to Arizona. I did go to Arizona. I am a fair skin maiden and that’s not the place for me to be. I am a little bit of a free spirit and I just like to test the water sometimes and it’s a really horrendous place to raise a child. That’s exactly what brought me back. Arizona is? It is. What part of Arizona? I was in Prescott Arizona. It actually a pretty nice retirement community. Just typical Arizona, people are just kind of hanging out. The cost of living is crazy. The schools are horrendous, the child care is horrendous. There was like one park. People didn’t realize that. It was nice to visit but not a good place to live.  That describes almost everywhere to me. That is why I am still here.  I am happy to be back. It was probably a good thing to do because it gave me a sense of appreciation to come back and be in this area and I don’t regret it.  Right Right. Cool so you kind of slipped into this but what’s your favorite thing about Green Bay? Oh boy. I would have to say it’s changed since I have been here. You know you grow older and different things matter. Your vices are different the people are definitely what I love the most. I don’t spend a lot of time at home, I spend a lot of time out of my house. Hanging out in my neighborhood and going downtown. I just love the community. The community is great.  So what changed? I don’t know you said a lot of stuff there.  Oh that’s ok.  It changes. So the people is now. The people is now. You love people now you didn’t before.  No. Well. People are definitely what I love. Getting to know… I have a very diverse group of friends. All different walks of life everything. I love it that way. Yet I can get together with all of these people in various parts of the city and have a great time. Even in little Tiwanna.  Oh boy are we going to go there? I will go there.  Noooo. I don’t care. It’s your show you can do whatever you want. My show. You only get one episode though.  Is this the only portion I get to talk about Green Bay? What part about your show did you not understand? You can talk about whatever you want. I just have ten questions to kind of guide things but I’d rather hear more about what you want to say. So if there are more things about Green Bay. So the next thing I have is the thing you are most proud of or a fun story your life before you came to Green Bay? Oh I have a great story about that. So you can do that now. When I was in third grade, my mother was beyond a free spirit and she decided we were going to take our family and move to France.  From North Dakota? Yeah. Well no that’s not true we were in Michigan at that time. No one stays in Michigan long.  Yeah I have a long story about where I lived but we will talk about this part and you are talking over me again. I just wanted to say that.  Sorry. Nick probably already cut my mike.  Nick- I dropped the ball. I dropped the ball there.  Michigan. France. No I am in France. My story, my fun story is that we were in France and my parents were going to study there and we were just going to go to school. In third grade we were just going to learn French. So we go. So you went there? Yeah we moved Anjers, France.  That’s amazing. I had no idea.  And we were out we spent the night in the Charles Degaul airport on the floor in sleeping bags because we had arrived and it was too early to get ..we hadn’t exchanged our money and blah blah blah. So in the  meantime there were gypsies running around. This is like a weird movie, an art house movie. It is and my parents were taking turns guarding us and the 18 pieces of luggage that we had. That was a really great memory. I feel like if I could get through that I could get through anything. So how long did you stay there? We were there not that long because it didn’t turn out to be what it should have been or what my mom thought it would be. We ended up coming back. It wasn’t realistic but my mom never really did anything…it was like hey this sounds cool. Lets do it.  That’s cool though. It is and I loved her for that. We came back and my mom and I went back the summer after, she finished her class and then I actually went back by myself for a week when I was older. I am plugging France because it is a great country to visit.  I am 40ish and I have never been to Europe. So I feel kind of cheated.  You should go.  But I never had any good excuses to go. Gina and I were going to go to Barcelona in September because I have to wrap everything around business trips. It was too expensive. I just couldn’t go. No you need to do it. You need to go to a bread and breakfast were you share a bathroom. You are never in your hotel so you don’t have to spend money on a hotel. Oh I agree with that.  There are cheap ways to do it. Well flights were super expensive when we had to decided. Then they dropped about four hundred bucks but we had already decided not to do it.  Travel in March and you will get the cheapest available ticket. Oh see I have my new travel agent. That’s sweet. Now back to Green Bay. Do you want to go back to Green Bay on this or do you want to talk more about Europe? No not really. It’s your show. That was a memory that was one of my favorite members that I had. Not many people can say that they slept on the floor of an airport. I have laid on the floor before at an airport. With gypsies running around? Not in France, not with gypsies. Not in third grade either. Amazing story. Same kind of question. Thing you are most proud of or a fun story in Green Bay? Is it either or and or? And or, it’s your show. It’s my show. The thing that I am most proud of, I try very hard to be a good mom. It’s the best thing in my life. That is what I am most proud of because I haven’t the greatest odds but I have made it a priority. I would say that is what I am most proud of.  According to your facebook viewership you are doing good. That’s where I see most of it. Its good so I wasn’t talking over you again was I. No you weren’t. You gave me the I was talking over you look again. That is my resting bitch face, it just happens. Now so that every remembers very clearly I did not say that. It’s the RBF. We will just say it with the initials. We have to remember that Nick and use it going forward. Nick- Sure. We all have it. Even if you are not a woman you have a RBF. Oh that is for sure. So that is what you are most proud of. Because I am a self absorbed type of person I would never put my son or sons or grandchild first. What else though what are proud of for you? I would have to say I am self employed. I basically facilitate everything I do and I get compensated for it. I market myself. I have been a self employed makeup artist for twenty years and I had an agent for a while but I have to say I have gotten accomplished and had way more work representing myself. I am very proud of that. I always work hard to never say no always show up not have to be babysat. To put myself in situations I am not really comfortable working on purpose. I take jobs that it’s not my thing but I want to see how well I do. I worked for the Coke brothers this past week. That was kind of an example.  Wow did they pay you? Of course. Okay that’s cool. Well they will pay me because I invoiced for the job. I thought why do I want to do this because they stand for everything I don’t support and I don’t have a lot of warm fuzzies for them but then I thought you know I am going to be in a situation and in an environment that is some place I have never been. I am going to learn from it. I am going to be able to be somewhat of a sponge to take in some information even though I signed about five confidentiality agreements. I think its customary.  Its usually one.  Yeah this is five.  Now we really really mean it. You can’t talk about this.  So that kind of sums up it. I am proud that put myself in situations that aren’t necessarily easy but I know that they will be worthwhile. Absolutely. That’s why you are here right. Yeah Iwas really looking forward to this. Nick- Same here. Nice for you to pretend. Nick- Not really comfortable but it’s worth it. But I will do it.  You look very comfortable. Nick- I am a little cold. The air conditioner is a little extreme right now. So I was getting dressed today so I was thinking what am I going to be comfortable in. I was really comfortable last time and I don’t remember what I was wearing.  Nick- Neither was I, I wasn’t really looking. Oh you were looking a lot.  Nick- Next question.  So fun story. You have any fun stories? Fun can mean a lot of things. Fun story.  Yeah exciting, interesting, hilarious, or awkward. Awkward. A lot of my stories probably have to do with my work because I spend a lot of time working as most of us do. Do you remember John Edwards he was the president of (?) Well he actually, he came to Green Bay in 2004 and he was the running mate of John Kerry and they came to speak at Bay Beach. So he was coming to do an interview with Good Morning America. So they needed a hair and makeup artist so they hired me.  Oh sweet. Well. Oh..well he is very perfect looking. Is that where this is going? Please say yes, that would be awesome.  Speaking of confidentiality agreements. So I had to go on his bus and get him ready. So he is out of politics now? He is beyond out of politics. The baby momma drama and all of that that went on. So I am on the bus and I have to sign papers. There is a woman who is doing video of the experience. It was this blond woman with little glasses saying you don’t mind if we get some footage of you while you’re working and I say that’s fine. I mean what am I going to say. I am on this bus with secret service. So I said sure where do I sign. So they were videotaping this. His wife was there and his kids were younger. So there were maybe six of us and then we go forward to a few years later to find out that here was this woman that was videotaping us and she was actually you know….. Crazy.  His lover… so I put it together. So I don’t know if that is fun. It’s weird, fun, awkward , and bizarre all at the same time that I was actually in this moment were these people were all together.  It was probably super fun at the time or stressful  It was a little bit of everything.  But afterwards you were probably like wow. Omg that was her. That’s crazy Yeah it is I have a lot of that. Ok. This is like last time when you broke in and gave your one on one with Camera Corner Studios. Nick- Well I don’t need to give the whole spill. But you are here a product of Camera Corner Studios. Kind of do it yourself video audio broadcast whatever you can imagine. It’s available if you need it.  Contact me at cameracornerentals.cccp.com  Just in case I accidently delete the first episode and we start with episode 1, I want to recap that Nick kind of spearheaded this whole thing were Camera Corner studios is my sponsor. Which is super awesome and cool. So thanks Nick and Camera Corner Studios and Camera Corner and all the awesome people that are involved in that. I don’t know who else to thank them by name but I am pretty sure it is other people. Nick- Pretty much just me.  Well I really wanted you to be the one to say that.  Nick- I don’t know. We may have some other people listening…me So anything else you want to throw in there. You have availability any days. Nick- Sure. I am busy this Friday. But this Friday means a lot of different things to a lot of different ipods.  Now that’s true I guess I shouldn’t have asked it like that. Oh remember when I said that you should have a little story about someone booked. Do you have anything like that? Nick- Oh sure. I have a very large insurance company from town that will be coming in this week. Oooh confidentiality.  There was three or four or five. I bet there was only one. Nick- I haven’t really signed anything. I just don’t know if I can do my own productions but it’s just more convenient to come here. They are going to use the screen the lights. They are going to be using the chromo wall the lights the teleprompter. So they are just going bring their camera shoot and be done. Well we do have at least two very large insurance companies it could be either one. Nick- Yes keeping a little ambiguity there. Yeah your show you are my most frequent guest right now.  That’s only two.  Nick- You can’t say that. Come on why not. I have been here at least 2 other times. Nick- You have been here a few times. Are you saying that I have over stayed my welcome? Nick- No no not at all. You are always welcome.  So far.  Nick- So far. I do wear out my welcome as it turns out.  Nick- Just don’t do like I did over in Northcoast and bring in like confetti in a can and stuff. That can cause a problem. I at least need to know about that before you start doing that kind of stuff. It’s not for video anyway so why would you.  So I got like fourish questions. Walmart let’s talk about it a little bit. Give me your thoughts on what’s happening what happened. How hard you wanted to punch me or anybody else? It’s been a year.  During the entire experience I feel that I had both good and bad feedback. Sometimes people would come up and be like yeah good job or I would have the opposite. Thanks a lot. Way to screw over Green Bay. But I feel the same today as I do back then. We could do better and we did. I happen to be proud of that. I think there was something on the table and the media took it and created a riff at times. Any time you refer to people as opponents that doesn’t help. At the end of the day it was a zoning amendment and that’s what it was.  Yeah right. It wasn’t really about them. That was really hard for me because I was a part of a group. B Local. There were a few of us who tried to keep the conversation, you know we can’t really talk about their crap wages, because they pay like crap. We had to talk about land use. Zoning amendment change land use. That is what we had to focus on. It was an emotional situation. There were city politics involved. That’s the way it goes. At the end of the day we know we could do better and we did. There was a lot of us who knew that was possible and to this day I still cannot find a supercenter in the downtown of any city. I can’t I’ve looked. I have researched. I will tell you it was more than being a smart ass on facebook. It was a full time job showing up at meetings. I took it seriously. A lot of times I was put in front of the camera and had to answer questions because I was the face of this fight. So you better have all of your ducks in a row so you better know what you are talking about. One thing I can say about this experience and I am glad that we didn’t have the zoning amendment change and Wal-Mart left. We have a local developer who has acquired that piece of land. It’s the most historic piece of land in Green Bay by the way. It actually the first piece of land put on the registry in Green Bay. I am not sure a lot of people know that. I believe that the turmoil the community involvement even if it was people pitting against it made a new energy for people who have a love for their city. It created a new energy there prior to that. So I think that was some sort of a gift. So thank you Wal-Mart for that gift. That is definitely change, if you ask people in this city two years ago to be invested…I don’t think it’s an accident. You saw people really refocus. You and I met. Even though we were not necessarily on the same side there have been relationships built. There are a lot of things that came of that , that were actually good. Of course it is easy for me to say because my side won. But I think we all won. Wal-Mart decided they didn’t want to be here. They could have been here.  Yeah I was there. They could have said okay fine two stories. All of that didn’t even have to happen.  I was always okay with that as well. But really the media tried to play it. What do you do with news you create a fight. You create a problem. It sells news and that was the fight. At the end of the day it was Wal-Mart who decided they did not want to be here. It wasn’t the city of Green Bay. So they came two or three weeks later to one of the stations and they wanted to (?) more stuff about that. I think after it was decided. They interviewed me and I didn’t want to get caught with some weird sound bite. So I recalled saying over and over there is not going to a Wal-Mart in the Broadway District. That was my answer to every question.  Let me say it a little bit slower. So I want to hear a little more about what you have to say about this but one thing you don’t know. Because I don’t go around telling everybody this is it was probably about three years or more before I stepped foot in the local Wal-Mart on the Westside. It has nothing to do with downtown or Wal-Mart employment practices. I felt pretty strongly at the time we needed to support our local discount retailers because they were paying for our downtown fireworks. So I would also go to ShopKo for that kind of stuff. I do think people lose sight of that aspect of things.       Even shops themselves abandon that market a little bit because they are getting beat by Walmart but I don't think that's too controversial today they are going after smaller markets then ShopKo Hometown Stores I worked there for a while so I know.  Online shopping is taking over people are not wanting to walk around a 3 million square foot store people don't want to do that they don't have time to do that. Its convenience they want to be able to say hey I want this right now. Oh my god. I can just go online and buy it and that's taking over and it's putting a huge dent even in Wal-Mart. I don't have like a philosophical problem as long as they are following the law with what companies pay or whatever like that. If they are doing something illegal or unethical I feel like people will get the word out and those things will get fixed one way or the other either. Through legal means or something else.  Wal-Mart has committed to increase in their wages. I don't think it’s enough but I think they pay like what ShopKo pays so that kind of discussion is always weird. I don't think people know that about me that I actually despise Wal-Mart. I really hated everything about what they were doing but then I read Sam Walton's book and much like you I like to expose myself to the other side. In his book the reason why I believe, and Sam’s dead so I can't actually ask him, I believe the reason they took so long to actually get to Green Bay is because they were afraid of the competition. I don't know if that was just Shopko or who it was they said they got their ideas from a distribution company in Green Bay. That's right in his book. Sam Walton kept me up one night because I was like what is he talking about I thought I'd  imagined it so he avoided Green Bay for a long time. Then he came with a vengeance so I kind of wish he was there I would have liked to talk to him about that. So what's your actual take on that do you think it should be a Downtown Supercenter? His actual take on that is that we will go nowhere that we are not wanted that's quote.  I think that you are right about that. The whole thing is weird yeah anything else on that?  Can I make one more plug or request during that process we learned a lot about city politics and we were able to learn process of how things happen..  Are you running for office?  I'm not saying anything right now I'm just saying that.  Wouldn't it be awesome if we had breaking announcements. There will be no news today.. people need to understand that really important decisions get made from city government they have a lot of power and a lot of influence . We have to understand that when you decide not to go out in the spring for city elections and vote, that's a really poor choice. Your local government role rather its  council or county board they make really important decisions that do affect your life. Even if you don't believe they do, they do. They affect your well being ,your whole life style of living in Green Bay, and I really hope cause of all the media attention. Because of the conversation about some of the alderman and some of the things that are happening ,and we know all about those things, that it engages people to get proactive and want to be participating in local government and city politics. Because it is an important job and it doesn’t get the props they deserve and people just assume that they just clean up your garbage cans and make sure that your driveway are plowed. They do all that but they also make important decisions like do we bring a major retailer into the downtown historic district of Green Bay. They get to make that choice and that is something that I will hope that there are people out there who want to be involved in making those decisions. So I really hope that in the spring of 2016 that we see a resurgence of people wanting to be involved in that process.  So do you think that people like you, me, and the clan of regulars the politically active people.. The consciences people. Right that is kind of where I am going with that. Do you think the controversy last year was enough to get people motivated during election two years later? I think that there is a lot of workings happening. I know that there are things happening under the surface. Conversation happening. A lot of people who came out of the community,that we didn’t know were there that were well spoken that were well versed that did research that actually had ties to the city in different ways we did not know about. And you are keeping them active. Yeah trying to. I think part of it you have to keep them active there is a whole system to it. People like that I feel like they become those one issue voters like the anti-abortion. That are like single issue voters like that so I get afraid of some of those people like that because if that is the one thing you are thinking about you are blind to all of these other issues. Like you said before these are the people we vote for who collect the garbage make sure we have adequate police resources or whatever. If you are focused on those things you are not worried about downtown Wal-Mart. Is there something that people can actually learn as an adult or do you to be something like us I feel like you came from a politically aware background?  My dad was a history and government major. They were on the school boards. That was a part of my life I used to hide behind, I am a complete political geek I love it. Let me say this. Local politics is a non partisanship issue. It says it right there on the ballet. The beauty of that is when you actually do run for local office you don’t have to deal with that type of thing very often. Green bay city council is never going to legislate abortions thank god.  You kind of like to see that debate. I see it somewhat on face book anyway. So if you are a person who is afraid to run for a district. Rather city or county.  Don’t point at me like that.  Know that you are probably not going to get that question often and if you do you probably just simply respond with you know this a non partisanship election and we don’t deal with that type of policy. I respect your views but that is not something that we deal with. What else can I do for you? So I think I know what you are going to answer for this. Do you think that was the place of city council to answer the Wal-Mart thing? Absolutely because that was a land use issue. That is what they are there for. They are supposed to decide on zoning. Tax base assess the value. That was really what it was about they didn’t bring a lot assessed value they didn’t bring a very good tax base. When you compare it to entire block of Broadway they really didn’t. That’s what we wanted them to look at so we spent a lot of time talking to them about it. Giving information. They do make a lot of decisions not everyone is happy with the results but they really are suppose to say does this development go here? Does it jive with the rest of the area? Is it worthwhile? Do we have to hand out a lot of tiff money? If we do are we going to get it back and these are things that they are suppose to do. Nice. I was nodding my head for that too. In a similar vein what do you think that people, that are not the mayor and city council, what can they do to develop that area make it kind of the kick ass vision that everybody wants? Not a giant parking lot that ends up looking like a big mistake. Are we talking Larson Green? Or whatever you don’t necessarily have to take it there but that is a very visual thing Well there are neighborhood associations for a reason. There are people who are actually active, politically active, who actually care about what happens in their neighborhood. Whether it be safety or development or what have you but that’s why they are there. They hold events to get feedback from residents. I would actually like to see neighborhood associations more active at a council meeting. We really would like to see more of this in our district you know work with their alderman vs.  not to say they are all doing this but just throwing wine tasting and talking about garage sales.  Let’s talk about what we can have here. Let’s do some research I like to see them be more politically active. I was in the neighborhood associating for a year and I got a little frustrated for that very reason because I was like the number one thing we are talking about is garage sale. Now if you get bored we can talk about something else. I love to talk about Green Bay. What do you think the on Broadway Association should be doing and it’s not? Let’s say you are talking to me and I am the President but there is going to be a new President and you want to give a message to that person. What would you tell them? He or she. I would say if I just look in the last year. I love what has happened. The wine tasting was great it brought a lot of people to the district. I had never been there before and I thought it was really successful. I volunteered for that and thought that it was a great idea. I am about action.  So thank you for volunteering by the way. I do it when I can.  Obviously. I like the benches. The waste baskets that was genius. That’s been my favorite it has been.  Did I tell you how it happened? I do know how it happened. It’s one of those things when things are not really going the way you expected and you have to problem solve. When you problem solve you come up with a solution that was better than the original thought. Right and you involved the community so it was like a win win. People probably get sick of me giving props but that was my favorite thing. That’s my most favorite thing that broadway has ever done because its long lasting and it’s an example of bringing people in that probably wouldn’t have been involved before. Turning lemons into lemonade. Its street art and I love street art. I think that is one of the best things you can do. To redefine and area. You know I did one. Yes I do. Mine is the worst one for the record Nick. Ya know. That was just a shoulder shrug. I didn’t even get a rude comment on it. Well it shows that these people really care about their area. They put a lot of energy into.  I did the green and yellow one. It’s fine. It’s totally not fine. Max did one. Which one? It was white and blue and then there was like blood for no reason. Pretty cool. Then Gina and our daughter did like the purple cat. Did you see that one? It’s right on the corner of Broadway and Walnut. That was Ret. Its super cool because it’s like the color of your hat. I know no one can see that. So anyway thanks for that.  So what else do I think they should be doing? Whoever you are or what you are. If you are a for profit or nonprofit. Whatever you organization stands for. I am a huge fan of action so you need to be doing things at all times. Not just talking about it. Not just meetings to hear each other speak. You need to be a force of action because that is how communities get better. So whatever that means to you, you have to get together and make a plan so I would like to see a little bit more action.  So I am going to be the devil’s advocate because I prefer action over inaction. Because even if you make a mistake you can fix mistakes. There would be some people that say forcing action would be confrontation. What would you say about that? Anything? Forcing action? Or whatever. Moving quickly. Some people may or may not have said that about me. To the point of confrontational. It’s interesting that you brought that up because I like action. Especially with easy decisions but even the difficult ones try to navigate with the best information I have at the time and say let’s just do this. The benches were a good example. Even with Wal-Mart being on the board I had a feudatory responsibility for the decisions that I put out there right.  So I can say that’s easy that’s my job I have to do that. Quietly behind closed doors I can say other things, but anyway we can move on from that. No I didn’t get a chance to respond to that. Whatever you are talking about forcing actions are we afraid that something bad will happen? What’s the temperature of your community? Are you getting a reaction that is not favorable are you getting a negative reaction? Whether it be conversation in the community, facebook, has the news media picked up on something? That is what matters. Interpersonal situations is just their own thing.  The purpose of your organization is what is the temperature of the community. Do you see a positive response? Are you seeing negative reaction because of forcing action? If you are not seeing anything one way or another then you are not doing enough. So I am not an idle person in any means is just bad as forcing action. So if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Nick is already bored. You know he is like my barometer. He is like on the edge of his seat when Rhonda is talking then when I talk he is like oh boy. So shifting gears a little bit, I know you volunteered for On Broadway but what are some other things that you have volunteered for around the community? On a regular bases for the bay area human society it was something I used to do regularly years ago. But then I had a child and started my own business. But then once she turned eight she was actually able to volunteer. So that was a birthday gift from me, hey we are actually going to go and volunteer together. So that is what we do quiet often and it’s not an easy thing to do. Some nights I come home and feel like I am stapled to the floor but there is a need for it. That is probably something I like to say that I would like to see more people involved in. Volunteerism is what gets the moving into the direction that they need to go.  So what kind of thing do they have a need for? Really simple things like doing laundry. Poop checks is what they call it. Clean up the cages. People come to view the animal. They are not looking at a dog or cat that’s you know is not clean. That sort of thing. It’s really important and I spend a lot of time in the counsil room. I call that my volunteer work because I don’t get paid for it but I am there all the time.  So that was the sort of the b part of that question. So I said what organizations have you been involved in? Maybe there are some other things that I think you talked about your two favorites. Are there any other ones you want to elaborate on?  Well of course I try to help out at school as much as I can.  Which school? Give your school plug.  Aldo Leopode Green Bay.  That’s a good school my niece went there.  It’s wonderful it’s a great school I am very honored to be there. This is a hilarious question. I had asked Gina. I said this morning Max said why would anyone want to hear about her she’s just a person. It was the weirdest thing. I think he regrets saying that now.  Why not? Right shes actually very interesting. Nick was there was it pretty interesting. Nick- Yeah I think it’s worth putting out there. Maybe we can make it a bonus track.  Are you afraid of her? Nick- No. She doesn’t spark fear in you. Nick- Not really. Do I? Nick- Not really. A disturbance maybe. Okay I am sorry. So this is a good question, I will let you be the judge of that. What scares most people that you kind of take in stride.  Saying what you feel and putting yourself out there. So you are not afraid of putting yourself out there. I have put myself out there many times and it didn’t go well and I put myself out there many  times and it went great. I am really focused on the positive.  So you are not afraid of personal attacks.  I have had a million of things. It’s really not about me it’s about them.  That’s a good answer. I am going to steal parts of that. Ok I want to keep it under an hour. So what are you most looking forward to in the next twenty years? Twenty years. I just want to be alive. I am a cancer survivor just this last year. Really scary time in my life. I am looking forward to just trying to be healthy and be able to be in my daughter’s life and maybe serve my city somehow. Also use the fact that I don’t have fear of failure which some people don’t look at as a good thing I look forward to see what can happen with all of that.  So you are all clear you are cancer free? Yeah at this point that was not fun. So in twenty years we will have to do this again. Hopefully sooner. What is something that you think the couple people who might be listening like my mom, would be surprised to know about you? There is like the public Rhonda and everybody has their perception of you.  What would be something someone would be surprised to know? I am actually a pretty sensitive person. I am pretty simple. I had people think that I am high maintenance. I am not and I don’t require a lot to be happy. Everybody wants to focus on the things that are not going well. But for every one thing that is not going well there is like five things that are going well. I am not an overly religious person but I am pretty spiritual. I think the other perception is that I am kind of a hard ass. I have been told that I am mean and I am actually really not.  You’re passionate. I am passionate. Well I actually don’t really like that word because I feel that it is something attributed to women I feel like crying and spitting involved in that word.  I have been called passionate. Recently. I think I just don’t like to waste time. Because we never know how much time we have that sounds really dramatic but we don’t so why don’t we take care of it right now. Absolutely I am stealing like all of that. Are you? Really are you writing it down? No but I have it recorded.  Nick-Yeah I am recording this time. So I don’t think I had officially ten questions this time and that is sort of a guideline but we are kind of loose. I thought this was a good question and I asked Gina. I will tell you what she said. If you could co host an episode in the future which guest would you like to talk to? Is that guest or guests? Your choice so if you come up with three… And it has to be someone that would actually show up. We are not talking dream guest. You know what it could be a little bit of a reach but it should be somebody if you and I tag team we could get. So if Joe Biddens available. Naw. I wouldn’t want to talk to him either. All he would say is big f*** deal right. Can we stay local? Gina was local.  Can you tell me what she said? Yeah she said she would love to have Donna Schmit on. Oh yeah.She is a great woman. I have never not see her smiling. She doesn’t have RBF. You like stole that before I could even get it out.  She never does. She is always smiling. I love her.  I believe she and Gina share a birthday. This Saturday.  Then you should absolutely make that happen.  So you have to come up with one you don’t have too. No I want to. No I am not answer questions. I would say probably it has to be somebody that people know. Not really to me, not to talk over you that is part of this. I know a lot of super interesting people that a lot of people don’t know. But a lot of them are a little more private. So I think that’s okay to. Well that’s a hard question are you going to contact this person? I am a Dave Boyce fan he has always been so nice to me when he probably shouldn’t have been. I never forget the time I saw him like 11 pm shoveling snow. He wasn’t even an alderman anymore. Like I will never forget that. Shoveling snow at the city hall and he wasn’t even an alderman he had lost his district. We walked out side he was shoveling snow.  Not just a photo opp. No one was there it was 11 oclock and the media had already left. SO I would say Dave Boyce because he is a pretty interesting guy. He will doodle at council meetings. I would put myself next to him on purpose just to see what he is doodling.  Okay we are almost done. Why don’t you ask a question or tell me something I should have asked. What’s your greatest fear?  What’s my greatest fear? So over the last year I have gone thru a lot of ups and downs and weird stuff. I don’t know anymore. It’s kind of cliché to say that I am not afraid of anything because that’s probably not true, but I would jump out an airplane in a heartbeat take on the scariest roller coaster. I would get up and talk to whoever. So the typical things people are afraid of, I don’t care. I guess I am sort of afraid of betrayal. You know that people that you think know or trust, finding out that maybe they don’t really like you.   What are you afraid of about that though? Well it kind of calls into question who I am. I mean you are who your friends are and if I am all of sudden realizing that I have different friends then I thought I did. Or I have fewer friends. That’s something that it has been a long time since I have had to face something like that. I guess. I am not afraid of anything else. I think that all the typical things people are afraid of people like us take in stride. Part of that is being through really tough things, I haven’t been through cancer. All the things that were tough for me nothing really compares to that. I am not going to pretend like it does. I am pretty fearless. I think people are afraid of putting themselves out there. I feel like I have lived my entire adult life in the open. So you would be a pretty good host. Nick- We are looking for a new host by the way. I will do it.   So she comes in and she’s like I can hook you up with all sorts of new clients and his is like boom. So you got that other track ready? Nick-Sure. So the tracks that we don’t know the name. Nick- I think I know the names. The other one we listened to before was "Tormented Pleasure". This one I believe is "Demon's Cage". Demons cage also somewhat fitting.

Green Bay Political activist Rhonda Sitnikay joins Elliot to talk about Wal-Mart and more!

Premier Episode! So, we talked a lot about the show - and what may be to come Gina talks about growing up in Manitowoc and moving to Green Bay Discussion about Green Blah - the Green Bay Punk Rock Documentary Should I have stayed waitressing? Insurance business Regular people

Transcript Intro (Music) So, this is a cool local band called Eric Lives Here, and the name of this track is called “Cool Girls in Hot Pants”.  “Cool Girls in Hot Pants”, and I was kind of blown away. I got this in my email this morning and one with the closing track we're going to have. This band, “Eric Lives Here” are going to be performing at the Badger State Brewing Company. That’s Packers family night, so they're going to be there from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and we're going to try to feature local bands two local bands every episode we do on here, or I do I'm here, because I'm trying to be a solo artist. You've always got people. I know. I know. I got about fifty people lined up. My name is Elliot if you didn't know that.  I don't know why anyone would be listening if they don't know my name and today I'm going to be talking to Gina, who is my wife and business partner for almost two decades.  I'm the girl in the hot pants, the cool girl in hot pants.  So she's afraid that there's going to be too many silent moments, so he has to be careful insaying things like that. It was a song!  Okay, so this is like episode 0. That is what I am calling it.  It’s the first one and so it's going to be really horrible. So I hope 50 shows into this we're not going to even want to acknowledge this as existing and want a do over. But I want to thank, first of all my friend Nick Wautier, from Camera Corner Studios. Which is a special studio space that Camera Corner put out. I'm going to let him talk about that more a little bit later but that's a very first sponsor and is awesome we are in the studio and there's like a counter and we have cameras that are pointed away from us.  I feel like a celebrity.  Yeah, it's awesome. I wanted to swear now but I'm not going to do that because we want to have the ratings. Thank you and Camera Corner Studios.  So I'm going to jump right into it. Are you ready? Yeah I think so. Now I am afraid to speak.   I'm really fearful that I'm going to run out of time. I don't want this to go too long. I don't even know why anybody wants to listen to this we'll see.   You've been listening to Max too long.  Yeah yeah but we'll touch on that. Alright so I have a little outline of some questions that I provided to Gina. So I'm just going to read through them and try to mix it up a little bit. So hopefully some things will come out that doesn't sound super rehearsed. I did just give the questions to her this morning though.  I actually didn't even have them I'm looking at them first now, so I don't have anything prepared but…   That's good.   But I have some ideas. I was already told to be quiet, so I don't know.  Nobody wants that.  Nobody wants me to be quiet?  Okay so for my first question and you could take this however you want. I put why you here?  Originally I intended for that to be why do you live in Green Bay? But why are you here? You weren't born here but you can talk about why you are here today too so.   Ok.  And I will interrupt you.   Well.  We do that in our family. The banter, you said you didn't want the husband and wife banter.  Our counselor will be very upset with this.   Well I'm thinking I have a good story for this. First of all, I will say why I am here in this beautiful studio is that you were a loud mouth on Facebook and got the attention of some awesome people name Nick. Yeah one person. Yeah one person at a place.  This is not a comedy show.  Nobody else is laughing. So anyway we were going to do it with a little iPod and I thought that would be fun, but now it has become more than that. So it's pretty cool. So that's why I am here.  You are here because it is cool otherwise you wouldn't be? I'm here because it's cool and we were going to have lunch and Elliot forgot the lunch. So he didn't bring any lunch.  That's true I owe Nick some lunch.  Right, but why am I here in Green Bay. That is a better story and I am looking at the website and the Facebook page of that whole back story, but I don't think I have all day so I'll make it short.  Well we can stop at one question. Ok.   The whole thing with the 10 questions is that I am afraid if I start talking to somebody we will have nothing to say and we will have awkward silence. I don't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable. I could speak for days. Back in high school I lived in Manitowoc, Wisconsin with my best friend Kellie. A lot of Manitowocians know that, so my sister…. People in Manitowoc don't have the Internet.  Oh they don't. They can't hear this.  This istrue, I didn't get the internet until I moved to Green Bay. Don't tell anybody there. Just kidding Rick just kidding. We lived in Manitowoc and all of the Green Bay people would come and visit me and Kellie when we were in high school. So she got a little bored in Manitowoc and decided that she was going to move to Green Bay and live with my sister, Jackie and all of those people. They had lots of bands Jim Runge I don't know how to say that name ever. I don't know, it’s hard. Jim you're going to have to help me out with this maybe you will be one of Elliot's interviews.   She has known the guy for 50 years and you don't know how to say his name.  I am not fifty yet.  Oh whoops this is going… this is going bad already so anyway. It’s Kellie's fault.  It's Kellie's fault she left me in Manitowoc. So who is Kellie? Kellie is my friend from high school from Manitowoc she was on the drill team..  Where is she now? She was like the one that would like to go out and smoke cigarettes on break and then she was like a bad girl and I was like a good girl. So she wanted to be a good girl with me and she asked me could she come hang out with my jock friends. Then she got me into the bad life the punk rockers. The bad life? The bad life. There is going to be a movie about the bad life. Yes there is. I've got it up on my screen right now. Green Blah, the history of Green Bay punk rock documentary. They've got a Kickstarter program going on right now.   I know, I know.  By the way, so if anyone wants to help them get that going.   I don't have any sponsors yet, so I'm broke.   Maybe they will come and be your sponsor once they're famous. Maybe if you have the inside track with one of them.   Yeah I was supposed to be interviewed for that but I was scared that Jim Baker would make me sound really bad. We've always had sort of a love hate relationship.  All that's inside baseball.  What baseball? Yeah like if you talk about people, you should talk about who they are. Jim Baker? Yeah like any of those people. I think that everybody knows Norb. Everybody knows know Norb. He was on Jenny Jones. Yeah but like everybody else, you should probably give them a little plug. Well okay the film was directed by James Baker. On this website him and Chris Prettie, they did a great job and so I'm excited for it to come out. But they have Facebook too. So if you want to go check out any of those type… Green blah Green Bla ah. We have a domain for that, too, but we didn’t redirect it, but they have greenblahfilm.com But they don't have anything there yet   Yeah they do.  Oh ok.   They have the site up and it’s great.   I just have my notes in front of me.  It's awesome. So that was one of the reasons why I came here. It is really funny because no one that knows me now would have believed that was me then because I was a waitress working out at a truck stop. Anytime we would go to parties, I would have on my black ripped up converse tennies and my black ripped up skirts. I tried to look as crazy as I could, but I was not very good at it, so everybody made fun of me.  Most said that I was the, what did Kellie call me, “I was the hick of the punk rock scene.” They probably still say that.   Jody said I never got any of the guys because I looked smart. So then my tag line became I am really not that smart I just look like it. I still didn't get any of the guys.   Alright so we're going to move on from that. That's why you're here because Kellie made you come.  Yep.   Just cut to the chase. I know that's a personality defect .I just want to be direct and get right to it but you know deal with it. That's a good one.   What's your favorite thing about the awesome town of Green Bay? Favorite thing. My favorite thing about Green Bay always used to be a Bay Beach. Around those times it was fun just to go and hang out no matter what age you are. That hasn't happened in a long time but I hear that there's going to be a beach again right?   I don't know I'm not sure.  That would be cool. That would be cool   I am NOT in charge of beaching. That would be cool if there was a beach with..  Well it would be a lot better than driving an hour to find one.   Great in any direction, which we have been trying to do a lot lately, we want sand and warmth.  What's your favorite thing now?  Oh boy. Green Bay or out?   I mean whatever. You can talk about whatever you want. I kind of want to keep it on the intra track. We have local bands I kind of want to focus on what we have that is awesome around here. That is a good one. It’s a very good point. When you brought up that first track I pulled up his website and I was checking that out and that is probably my favorite thing right now.  I feel like things are a little bit how they used to be when I first moved here. When I first moved here it was cool because we had all of those bands, and everybody was like a big family. The guys were about in five different bands and it was just cool.   Now we are getting some of that back?   We are getting some of that back. Our eldest son is always busking on the streets and he knows a lot of those bands. He is always begging me to go and hang out and check them out and I just can't because I am too old and I'm a grandma. But that is what I think is cool because if I ever want to go with Chris and Brandon they're all buskers.   Great.  If you got me a wheelchair that you could just push me around in I could probably go and hang out at those places.  Ok weirdo. How about a fun story before you came to Green Bay?  When I was a kid?  Whatever.  I don't have many fun stories from Manitowoc.   Or things that you are most proud of.   As you said we didn't have internet in Manitowoc.   Right life is more interesting now. Everyone sits around and hits like on Facebook. That's not a very interesting life right?   Well my fun life.   Everybody just hit like on Facebook and I feel really bad now about that.  My fun life goes back to Ludington.  Of course, they have a nice beach.   They do have a nice beach.  They do have a nice beach and 28 miles of beach along the shore.   That's what makes it awesome. That's what beats our side of the lake.  It makes it awesome because they have a beach period with sand and they take care of it and it's just beautiful and they have dunes and a nice state park right there.  Which is pretty nice I have pictures.   Yeah but we also had, when my dad was alive, we had a race track and that was Ludington Speedway. I got to be the pits concession stand and there's a long story behind what he called me but you said this can't be a comedy show so I can't get into that.  Well if it's going to be comedy it has to be funny.   It might be funny to other people but it’s not that funny to me.  Then that’s what makes it funny. That is what comedy is- Bill Cosby.   My concession stand name was Oinks World Famous Coney Dogs. I had a secret recipe and my secret recipe was from A&W because my dad's friend owned A&W. There was one ingredient in A&W Coney sauce that I'm not going to tell you, but he told me because I was special.  I was seven.  I think the statute of limitation up ran out I think you could probably say what it was.   Yeah I don't even think they have an A&W there and the dudes dead. So I'm not telling because what if I want to start up a concession stand like food truck or food truck Friday.  Like everybody knows the secret ingredient is cinnamon.  No that is Max’s secret ingredient, not mine. My secret ingredient is meat and I'm not going to tell you what kind of meat. But anyway I had a concession stand. My dad bought me this little trailer with a pull down bedpost, what's that called the front thing of a bed, headboard as the pull down thing. What are you the leader of the hicks?  Could be the leader of the inventors is now. Inventors wow there's always a nice way to say things.  And it was a great little Coney dog place I have pictures of it on Facebook. I will have to show you sometime but we sold hot dogs, Coney dogs, candy bars and all of that kind of stuff. My dad bought it for 300 bucks and bought me $300 worth of inventory and after my first week I paid my employee $5 for pay. Her name was DeLynn. She was very happy that I gave her a job so young in life and I took the rest of the $300 profit and ran. Paid my dad back within a week and it was all profit from there. It was fun and there were races every Sunday at the fairgrounds.  You are still friends with Dylan?  Yes she is probably my best friend for life and we talk all the time. She was like oh my god that $5.00 was awesome every week. I don't think I ever told her how much I really made.  Oh well she won't listen to this they don't have the Internet.   Michigan or Manitowoc.  How about a fun story after you came to Green Bay more than what you have already talked about.   Okay, fun story like once I grew up?   No, like maybe today maybe last week. Whatever’s interesting. You know the whole point of the ten questions. To spark some memories. All of these people are not super awesome. Like when Max told me no one wants to hear what I got to say. Max is my son. He is 11 and he said what the heck would someone want to hear from you for mom. You know the thing is everyone knows Max. Everybody knows max.  When your kids think they're better than you. Yeah you know sometimes they are probably right. Anyway the whole point of the ten questions was to try to capture the essence of cool people around Green Bay some of them are my friends.  Some of them I don’t know as well as I like to know.  I know, how about, can we talk about how we met.  Sure.  That's a different story.   Nick is going what. Oh, that's the wrap it up sign thanks for listening everybody this has been a good show sure.  Sure. Sure. Sure.  Alright go ahead.  Well I want tell the intimate details. Elliot wanted me to be a date. I was working at Humana back then and I got a phone call and he said I'm desperate and I was like wow he's desperate. He really likes me a lot doesn't he? He worked at the bottom of my sister’s salon he had a business and Jeri had a salon upstairs right.   Right I remember very clearly. Jeri was always trying to set us up. I don't know why she is a terrible matchmaker.  In history.  Well he called me first. She gave him my number and he called and said he was desperate he needed a date that night. He didn’t tell me why he just said he needed a date.   And you said what I'm at work I'm busy.   I don't have a babysitter you need to plan.   We can't bleep there can be no bleeping. I said I'm sorry I don't have a babysitter. Then an hour goes by and I get another phone call and it is my sister and she said “Gina, Elliotreally needs a date tonight.” I said what are you joking. He really needs a date he just doesn't want to tell you he really needs a date. Then I called him back and I said what's up. He said I don't know I called everybody that I can think of and nobody will go with me. I said wow, at least Jeri made it seem like he wanted me, but we did end up going somewhere it was to Paper Valley in Appleton. Elliot had a little date set up with a client.  I think the client had a little date set up with me.  It was supposed to be a date with the client. A client meeting but the client had a hotel room at Paper Valley set up.  So by the end of the night we had to pretend like we were indeed dating because this was not a woman client, this was a man client. So once he saw him, Elliot started reaching over kissing me. I progressed to fighting with this client because he said I was stealing Elliot from him or something like that. I can't even remember and that was the first kiss. Elliot said “I looked up at you, and I knew I was in love.” I have never ever talked like that in my life.   Yes he did it was honest. He did.   For sure not, moving on. I have lots of dudes that are into me and it is kind of weird so if any of my 5 female friends get a frantic call saying you need to come with me somewhere that is what that is about. It has nothing to do with not being interested in you or anything like that.  Unless you are a really good kisser at the end and he tells you that he is in love.  Ok so I think that was four questions. Is it a good time for a break and flip it over to Nick?   I didn't even know we got two more questions in.   Well sort of. I'm not keeping track, well I don't have a big number one you know. There is none of that going on but maybe I will have to add that. Make it sort of like the Late Show or something. So I did this post maybe about a month ago and I said hey I'm thinking about doing a podcast I'm thinking about interviewing my friends and people kind of started getting a little bit interested in it. You put things on Facebook and you can expect for some of your friends to notice you know. But it got a little more interest than I expected so that was fun and interesting. I have a lot of people and hopefully they can wind up coming to talk to me. One of the individuals that I am Facebook friends with is Nick Wautier at Camera Corner Studios. Where we are at right now and he said hey I would love to have you come down and record some things. So I want to pop it over to Nick so that he can tell you a little about the studio.  Nick- Yeah thanks Elliot I appreciate that. It was just recently Mr. Turner from Camera Corner purchased some property in the area and we were working on expanding the business and we ended up with some space that we really didn't have a solid plan for. So I was in our rental and events production area and we take the show on the road and we help companies with their company meetings or charities with their fundraising events. I said to Rick hey we have all this equipment that we use out on the road I could probably use a lot more if I had a place here in Green Bay and you have a empty buildings. So I made a plan and I presented it to him and we went ahead and opened up Camera Corner Studio which is where we're at right now. It is kind of my pet project. We were planning on supporting small businesses or people who may have a youtube  series who want to kick up the production volume notch once in a while…  Is my mike on?  Nick-Yeah you're on. So talk about there's video cameras all over the place. There is a green screen. How little does it cost? People will be impressed.  Nick-It’s really kind of built as a do it yourself whatever you need to do. So photographers can come in and shoot senior photos and family pictures. We have lighting backdrops and of course a 30 foot ish room that you can get for about 65 bucks an hour. Now if you don't have your own camera or if you don't have your own, maybe you want to do a video or some scrobing lights or some special pieces of equipment. We can also add those on an hourly rate. So like this podcast we can do it ends up being about a hundred bucks an hour. I'll just say that to do video now we have video cameras I am actually working with a couple of places it's going to do a hourly or an one hour weekly live show with three different camera angles with a few different my microphone options for a few people to run it is going to cost about $400 episode.  You have a green screen.  Nick- Yeah we can do the green screening. We can do text overlay. We can add video. We can add sound clips to the background. In fact I haven't put it to use much but I can actually talk to you guys while I am not on the show. That is really helpful when you are doing a live show and you need to pace yourself. You be like hey we have to be done by 10 p.m. so at 9: 50 I am going to tell you to cut it off. So all of those technologies we have and we have had for a couple of years is just putting it to this type of application. It really requires a dedicated location so that's really the only big difference. The nice thing is because he's in our building and have our security and its not be used without a supervision. We can dramatically reduce the calls by charging you hourly instead of charging you a whole day. Like sitting right in front of me is a 400 dollars a day camera. Which is kind of pricey for some people but if you only need to make a 5 minute YouTube video you can maybe afford 40 dollars an hour. So that's kind of the idea and I'm hoping that it takes off. I think it has a lot of opportunities.   Plus you available and you can help out and you're a genius. I can tell this already sounds 8 million times better than if I was doing it.   Nick-Well thank you I do my best.   Exactly 8 million times better.  Not to mention it is fun.  Nick- You know I love them podcasts and shows beyond. Just being my career is kind of like my passion. I was telling my friend the other day if I were to hit the lottery and retire tomorrow I probably would spend a decent chunk of the building my own live internet TV station.  Nice Nick-This just what I want to do. You have your friend Elliot helping you. And you are going to allow comedy right?  No. He finds funny people though. Nice-In the appropriate time slot you can have 9 to 11 p.m.  So do you have anything else you want to add go ahead if you do? Nick- I'm good. What I think we should do is, I know that we're going to have to record some episodes stacked on top of each other. I think it would be really cool because if people do listen every episode like the thing we just kind of went through instead of makes it repetitive. Maybe you could talk about in terms of naming names. Maybe you can talk about some of the real cool projects that you recently did like the one you just talked about. Like if we have a different one every week I think it would be really cool. Make stuff up if there isn't any won't nobody know. Nick- Yeah no problem.  Well cause you can give them plugs then right?  Nick- Yeah totally and that's actually part of my marketing strategy for the place to is to, with permission, I’m going to update the production photo of the day every day.  So I will take a shot of the person standing in front of the green screen and put it on our Facebook page. That will promote their project as well as promoting our studio.  So actually of segways back into my next question I have for Gina. Oh shoot.  You are not supposed to read them because the thing is I'm not supposed to read them. They're supposed to be like a conversation. I don't know maybe episode 0 will be the first and final episode. We will just scrap whole thing.  Oh no.   I kind of wanted to cover your life coming to Green Bay so that people can have some background on you. Then I wanted to talk about what you do around here so Tricia had a good recommendation and that was talking about organizations that you have been involved in. What are your favorite things, organizations, companies or whatever? Oh boy. I have to remember all of those.  Well you don't have to remember all of those just the notable ones.  First off. The horrible ones. First off, like I stated I started off being a waitress and that was fun and that was at a truck stop and it was probably the most fun I've ever had in my life being a truck stop waitress which I thought, hey this would be the life. There were a lot of older women waitresses. They were happy as heck and one of my customers that came in all the time, they weren't really good tippers by the way, but they did say you know we have an offer for you. Do you think you want to do anything else because we have this business we’re opening and we think you would be a great frontline whatever? I think they wanted me to be the receptionist bartender for the parties. So I said I don't know I'm kind of liking this waitressing thing. But then I ask some people around me and they said well do you want it to be a waitress forever and I can accepted that as a slam. I said I guess I better not because I thought it was ok. So I do the math every time I go out to eat and I say I think I would be good I would make decent money being a waitress. Well I wasn't really confident at that time. I was still in my younger years when I didn't know what I should do with my life and I had a baby I think I had two at the time. I think I had bought a house and I thought it was okay. No I didn't buy a house at that time. I don't know when the house came in so it is seems a little bit foggy.  Why is your memory so foggy?  Cause it’s been so long ago. Remember I am a grandmother so then.. Hi Zoe.  Zoe is my granddaughter. She is spoiled by her grandfather very much so.   That's not true. I disown her. I was a receptionist there so I got to know the office thing. So I didn't know that so these gas station guys they stopped you and you became the reception is there. Yeah for them. They went out of business stop paying my insurance for a few months even though they were still taking it out of my check. I can say that on the air because I never got my money back. So they didn't pay my insurance and I was pregnant so that's it. I was pregnant with my second child and they hadn't paid the last 3 months and I was about to have a baby. So I call to see if I could get pre registered for maternity birth of Ben. So they said that you don't have any insurance. I said what do you mean I don't have any insurance. My check says that I do. So they said he kind of took that money and didn't pay it to us. So at that moment I decided that I was going to go and fix the insurance industry. So I went quickly and applied at Humana and I got the job right away of course. So did you fix it?  I did my damndest.  Was Barack Obama there? I did use.. Was he there helping you with your crusade? No he wasn't he was still a lawyer but I think I convinced him to come on over into the world. But now you made me lose train of thought. But oh yeah my concession stand. I don't think I made you lose train of thought. I think Adam Funk commenting on my post is the reason that you lost track.  Adam stop it. Are you wearing your watch? So I was working at Humana. I use my 7 year old concession stand on my resume as one of my items and they really liked that. They were impressed by my job when I was seven. I got every job that I ever wanted that I applied to every 6 months after that. I kept going up the ladder and I worked there for about 10 years. Then Elliot you got me somehow interested in leaving that and doing some internet crap.  Big mistake don't ever do that.  Yeah yeah then that happened for 15 years. Stay in Manitowoc.  Then there is one more thing that I can elaborate on from here. Elliot was always the face of the business. I always stood in the background in the shadows.  Just kind of keeping things going. Elliott would be the one that spoke up and got the media attention and some radio people would call and I would say Elliott has to go. I have always been the shy one of course no one realizes that but I am. So he said at one point that there were some women networking groups that he wanted to be involved in as a business I said I'm a woman and you're not. He said right. So I can't be in them, so get your ass up and go and be in them. So I did that.  I've never talked like that either. Maybe not in their voice but it were those words.  I would think that you would be better at imitating me.  I can't because everybody says that's not the way he said it. Jerry said it first and Trisha said that he doesn't talk like that. So I am going to have to get your laugh down but I did join those and it was a good experience. I ended up being the president of the women in management Group which is no longer around here. They have it in other cities throughout Wisconsin but that was the fun and interesting experience. I got involved in some legal stuff I have been doing a lot of legal not apprenticing. What is it? Assistant.  What a helper? I like assistant better. So that was really interesting. What other groups have I been in? Oh, I we have been involved a lot in the Chambers of Commerce a few years back. That was good the Small Business Council. I was on the board who chose the awards per year. We did win awards volunteers of the year for  Broadway Inc. A couple of times we won the Governors Award.  Then Ben was the Volunteer of the Year. We got entrepreneurs of the year.   Yeah there is a whole wall of them nobody cares. I care I want to get a book together well of those papers.  This is the banter people don’t like. Nobody likes them. Ok banter no awards. Do not talk about your awards because it is boring. We have four more questions and we only have three and a half more minutes.  I will go through them quickly. I will go through them quickly I promise.  Math is hard.  Summary, I am not looking at the clock though he is looking at clock.  I am and it is totally not three and a half minutes. If Karen Baker was here right now she would be on it and she would helping me to be the timekeeper. So I didn't mean to take things off topic. That was it. So going back into the next one, was what scares most people.. Oh you're jumping ahead. Oh. You don't get to read the questions. That's my job. Oh my gosh. Just like I told John Tuscany you don't need to call me with questions. I ask the questions. See that's the problem when you have man and wife. No everybody thinks they get to ask questions. No questions. Ask away. They have to get a question from me first. So this morning Max said why would anybody want to hear her? She's just a regular person. Why can't you interview someone more interesting?  I think he made himself that person. So tell me why he is wrong?  I have to answer that question. Yeah. Well first off I would say he is wrong because I'm going to kick his butt. So you heard it so when the middle school calls and there are signs of child abuse we know where they came from right. Yeah but I have a very good attorney and she happens to be good friends with Max.  I think she will can to be able to work it out. I think he's wrong and I think he's wrong not because he shouldn’t be interviewed because he would probably be your best interview. We will see. He would be. I got a lot of people that I kind of promise slots to. It is going to be hard. You might have to fit him in somewhere but I think he's wrong because there are a lot of people who want to know about regular people.  Now nobody wants to know about regular people.  Yeah they do. They want to know about regular people. They want to know about stuff like where they came from. I want to know about people. I want to know where they came from what they've done and I work with a lot of people around here in the community. When I'm with them for business purposes, I don't get to talk to them about their personal stuff. So if this is a personal thing, I don't know what you're going to go for in the future. I don't know if this going to be more business related or personal. But personally I would want to listen to it more so if it was about their personal stuff. I get to hear about their business stuff all the time. If we go out at night people tend to lean towards the professional stuff because they don't want to off put you or give you a wrong reputation.  They want to be professional.  They want to be professional because maybe someone will talk about them. This is a good avenue to talk about those things where it's not embarrassing because you're saying it and you know everyone is listening to it. It's not like you're saying it behind anybody's back it's not like somebody cut you down  because we all have little things in our closets that aren’t what people could gossip, don't really deserve gossip but I am fine with people talking about it.  Right my closet door is open and it's full of dirty clothes on the floor.  I know and that is why I have always laughed at myself because I was so shy when I was younger and at one point I decided...  You don't always laugh at yourself. No just when I'm being yelled at. I hate being yelled at more than anything in the world. Ok most of that is what I was going to say to him but I thought that I would save it for the show. So it's okay.  That's good that we are on the same page.  But the other thing reason why I want you to answer that is I read a lot about how women, particular women in business are not I don't know what you want to call it arrogant enough to toot their own horn. So I kind of wanted you to feel comfortable doing that. I want other females to feel comfortable doing that when I'm talking to them and I am a big believer in that and I have even gotten into trouble for saying there is too many old white males that are involved in things around here. We need more women in particular but we need more of everybody and I have gotten in trouble for saying that I am kind of on public record. I think you got into trouble because someone misunderstood you because you do tend to just say things and you know what you mean I know what you mean but you kind of tend to not have a filter switch right.  I think that's mostly good but you know. Nick will bleep things for us.  I don’t think he needs to bleep things. I think that when people hear you talk like this then maybe they will realize that’s just you. Okay we are going to burn through the next couple of questions because I do sort of want to keep it at 40ish minutes. Feel like they have to play it on triple speed to get through it. Well I do.  Well one question that I want to ask is what scares most people but you feel that you handle just fine? Sort of the opposite thing of saying what scares you. What do you think scares other people that you are not scared of? Is that a stupid question? Money. You are not scared of money? I think most people are scared of being broke. I would like to have a lot of money. I would like to have a million chafers in my purse right now. The last 16 yrs when we were doing our business and the bucks weren’t really rolling in the bucks. I didn’t get stressed all out about it. I just learned how to make it to the next day and let you guys do your thing. It didn’t make me feel like it was the end of the world. I feel like most people think that if they don’t have five thousand in the bank they are doomed and I read Rich Man Poor Man. I know that if I am not making money right now I have to be smarter. I have a lot of things. A lot of ideas in my head. Yeah this is audio only if you point nobody knows. That’s why I said in my head. Up here in my head. That’s a good that’s a great answer. Kind of along those lines what are you looking most forward to over the next twenty years? Traveling.  Nice where? Well we have discussed this. First we were going to go to Spain. We are not going to go to Barcelona because it’s just too expensive.  Right we were going to go to (?) and Barcelona but that was too expensive. We talked about Italy and Trisha said that the prisons are terrible over there and they will find a way to get you in one. I don’t know why she assumes that we are going to go to prison. Apparently Italians don’t like the way we talk.  I don’t know but that scared me. I think we were talking about France would be cool. Yeah so Europe.  I would like to travel to Germany with my cousin.  So you want to travel and go to Europe. Two questions left. This will be easy and quick. So what is something everyone would be surprised to learn out about you? That you haven’t already said. Maybe that I was shy. Yeah that’s a good one. Because everybody says that they are afraid of you.  Everybody seems to think they are afraid of me and I don’t get it. When I was in elementary school I would sit up by the teachers. People say they are afraid of me too. Well you are scary. I don’t get it.  With random outbursts. You are scary. Not to me. Are you scared Nick? He doesn’t know. He didn’t say no.  I can just ignore you but when I was a kid in elementary school. I did not go out by the kids I would just sit up with the teachers on the steps. I was too afraid to go and play with the other kids. Okay not super surprising to me but I think other people would be surprised to find that out.  My last question is if you could co host any episode in the future, which I am not going to let you do because you are terrible at this, who would you like to be there with? That could be anybody that said they wanted to do it or anybody on your wish lists or multiple. Don’t over think it.  Kyle. My son Kyle. Anybody else? I am sure there is a lot but that question I should have seen long time ago because I would have thought of them. So anybody that people in Green Bay may know better than Kyle? Oh like famous people. Whatever nobody is famous. There is one. We are not going to get Aaron Rodgers on here.  There is one. Let me give you a little bit of back ground. Jim Schmitt has already been a big support of our chili cook offs or anything that any business around this city has had. He does everything he can do to try to show up at everything. So one year we had customer appreciation party and he was there every year, and one year his family dog had died and he still showed up.  That made me tear up because I thought about how dedicated he was to the businesses here. So I kind of have a relationship with his wife Donna. She would be one that I would want to interview because I feel like we have had questions like this alone and separate. I ask her how do you deal with those things how do you deal with the public scrutiny of him with politics. So we have a little bit in common that she could help me learn how to deal with that with you.  So Kyle and Donna. I haven’t asked her but I will have to ask her would she like to be on. I think she would. Some of my questions would be do you get involved. She is in demand so getting her for an hour might be tough.  Everybody loves her. Everybody does love her. Okay so my favorite Alana Morissette quote is enough about you let's talk about me for a while. So real quick what should we call the show? I think I'm just going to put everybody's name as the title of the show. Like some podcast get real clever with the title of this show but these are people I don't want to be too clever. Might offend people. Something by Elliot. Ideas by Elliot. Fun with Elliot. Questions with Elliot. Friends with Elliot.  The one rule that you want to say is that you have had to met these people these are not just random people off the street. So does that rule still apply with the bands? No because I don't know every bands.  I don't know the two bands that I'm playing today. Sorry I broke that rule if it was a rule.  Then you should probably get that back out there again. Oh I need more bands. I'm going to run out. If I have two different bands every week. That's going to be pretty tough. I hear everybody's saying yeah they will send you stuff but then they don't.  I got one and that was from a new friend named Greg.    I think you should have one song. Half a song at the beginning half at the end. Then you will only need one per show. Yeah I guess we could do that if it comes to it. But there is so much good music and these bands are amazing.  Are these all originals?  Yes they are all original. No covers please.  If there is a cover I don't know how to pay the licensing fee for that and I don't want to pay my attorney to try to figured. If it is a cover it’s going to have to be a super original take on it like Johnny Cash Hurt. I think you still have to pay the song writers licensing and so I would rather not pay anybody for this and I don’t want to implicate my friend Nick either. Nick- Appreciate it. So we are still working on a name for this. So do you think it was pretty good length too long too short?  I thought it was fine. What do you think Nick?  Nick- Yeah this feels pretty natural. I don't I don't like being told to shut up a couple times. Nick- I don’t know if those exact words were used but it was definitely some hand gestures that I saw through the window. She paraphrases sometimes maybe that is why people misunderstand me. My gestures.  Why they don’t like me because they say it’s my eyes. I beat at them with my eyes.  See no one can see you looking at me like that now. Nick can’t see you either.  Nick- No your back is turned and you are covered by the clock. So you are not afraid of me right? What do you think about the ten questions? Like these are extra questions these are bonus questions and they are going to be different. I am not going to ask everybody the same questions right but there might be some repeats. I kind of want to touch on some local things some organizations and Green Bay stuff I don’t if that gets boring we will change it up too right.  I missed a lot of. Well I could probably repeat guest but I don’t think no one is going to want to listen to you twice. The next one that I think I have lined up, but he is down in Appleton most of the time, is probably my friend Gary and hopefully that will be episode 1. I have a whole back log of people who said they would do this with me.   I do have one thing to say though because I was offended that I was episode zero. Can you explain that?  What episode zero. He said that’s a compliment. Nick can you help out here? Nick- Being episode zero. You are the test run. I mean there is a lot of faith….how you perform to the podcast listeners set the stage for all the listeners going forward. Okay so it’s like I am the pilot. Nick- Yeah I didn’t want to say this before and put pressure on you but this is really important.  Chris is getting the thumbs up. I mean Nick. I am looking at Chris on my screen. Why are you looking at dudes on your screen? Because I am looking at the Green Blah history of punk rock.  Okay so I think we can probably wrap up we have one more track that I got sent. This one is called Bad Ass by the band Redx. There website is redxrock.co