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Michael Feldman and his Wisconsin Public Radio show, “Whad’ya Know?,” came anyway to perform live at Viterbo University — despite the potential $1,800 extraction charge.
“That’s $900 a jaw,” he said — even a plumber on the Fourth of July doesn’t make that.
Feldman is a Milwaukee native who graduated from the University of Wisconsin with an English degree. He’s tried teaching school, driving cab and various commercial radio gigs before launching this comedy-quiz show with live music in 1985. “This is getting out of hand,” he writes in his
biography on the show’s Web site.
On the show, Feldman toys with the news, interviews local characters and moderates a quiz that includes “things you should have learned in school had you been paying attention.” He also bobs to the jazz played behind him between segments.
In Feldman’s La Crosse, as portrayed in his “All The News That Isn’t” monologue, the city is 7.5 Jaws of Life extrications away from paying for ergonomic chairs for the city council.
Bartenders by law are now being forced to listen to “all that stuff” while sober.
Oktoberfest was celebrated during alcohol oversight month, and the Sisters of Perpetual Adorationfest is in the works.
The deposit on the golden keg was $50,000, by the way.
Former Mayor John Medinger and current Mayor Mark Johnsrud have split the 10 Commandments between themselves. No word who is taking which five.
And the city’s BearCat, more particularly its flame thrower, is being used for leaf collection. Sure, $180,000 is a lot for an urban assault vehicle, but Eau Claire’s got one, and you can’t let that pass, he said.
You can hear the show in its entirety in the show archives at www.notmuch.com.
Feldman’s La Crosse also includes essayist Aggie Tippery of Hokah, Minn. She has sons: Tip, Tip, Tip, Tip and Grub. She read her unpublished piece about marrying a blue-eyed Harley-Davidson rider just weeks after their chance meeting when he blew through town.
“Write your name down so I don’t forget,” her love told her after they proposed to each other.
Woven into the show were stories about dropping live chickens off grocery stores, admiring the beauty of young Canadians, a mom always complaining about freezing, and river rat Kenney Salwey describing the adhesive qualities of “black, boot-sucking Mississippi mud.”
But only the curly gray-haired Tippery had Feldman and his crew wiping tears from their eyes laughing.
“She’s like Lake Wobegone if Garrison (Keillor) were real,” he said later.
Tippery said Feldman was just easy to talk to.
Chris Baldus can be reached at (608) 791-8256 cbaldus@lacrossetribune.com.
