John Plagman - Section Yellow, Sobriety & Support | Rooted Wisconsin | Ep70

0:00 What's up friends? Welcome back to Rooter Wisconsin. Appreciate you for clicking another episode. Grateful to have you here. Today's episode is with John Plagman doing a bunch of cool stuff. Why I initially reached out to John is section Yellow at Lambeau Field. Bringing a sober, supportive environment into one of the drunkest places in Wisconsin, to be quite frank. And awesome story of getting there. We talked about John's journey to sobriety, talk about some cool music, the start of Section Yellow, and then we wrap up our conversation. John has actually recently announced he's running for City Council in Green Bay, so we talked about some of his motivation behind that, which I'm always curious in as well. Shout out to our sponsors.

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1:46 Did you have a billboard for a while or do you? We do billboard. We do. Yeah. Yeah, I get. I get I get so I get good ideas, crazy ideas sometimes. And then and then I have a partner that helps me with the section yellow and he's technically the president because he created a nonprofit for it. So you need a nonprofit in order to solicit grant dollars and then we can use those grant dollars for billboards. You might hear me on one O 7.5 the fan because we do that, you know, so I'll be I'll come up an idea. Go. We should, we should advertise there, you know, because I'm thinking like a fan and we get Department of Transportation dollars and we can use those for billboards. And so we target 6 billboards around Lambeau Field that will give you a snapshot, a little a little a little nugget of sobriety.

2:36 Whether you take it or not doesn't matter, but you keep doing that sublimity sobriety will be in your head and may you may make some different decisions when you show up at Lambeau. Absolutely. And that's a, that's a huge thing about it. I, I love that like a angle at it because it can't be, we know it can't be forced. You know, we're going to talk about those stories today. It can't be forced. But at the same time that the opposite side of the message has been resounding throughout the, you know, 100 years in Wisconsin. We, you know, we, it cracks me up every year it rolls around. I, I, I think it might be out of an academic institution, but I can't remember. But it's always a study about the drunkest counties in the country and like 60 of 80 of them or whatever are in Wisconsin. And like, I every year, I get it. I get, I see it get shared on social media almost as if a trophy.

3:28 Yeah. And it drives me nuts. During COVID, there was my first introduction to TikTok. I think many people there was this map going around and people were going talking about it and it, it was the, IT had different shades of blue and the darker the blue, the more higher concentration percentage per capita the population drink. So where, where I go with this is we have 72 counties in Wisconsin. All of them were dark blue, but there was this one area that was white and everybody was talking about how like, come on, Wisconsin really, I mean, we know you drink, but really like we outside of Wisconsin, there was like maybe Iowa or maybe North Dakota had one county that was dark, dark blue. And then everybody's like, what's going on with the white area?

4:20 Like is that, is that an Indian Reservation or is that some religious area? No, that's Lake Winnebago. That's Lake Winnebago showing up. That's why that's why it's white, but it's the caricature of us being Wisconsin. Now, I've been sober, knock on wood. February 15th will be my 17th year. So I've been sober for 16 years. But if you take me back 20 years, I am that guy that wants to drink wisconsibly. I am that guy that will drink you under the table if you come and hang out with me. You know, I went to school. We'll do this. I'm I was born in West Bend, so we called ourselves Benders.

5:01 I'm half Irish, half German, born on Saint Patrick's Day in the state of Wisconsin. And then I went to school in Whitewater and UW Whitewater is a different, different college because I used to hang out at UWM and Madison and they they drink and they do a lot of hard drugs. That was my first time intro to cocaine was UW Whitewater. But if you came there, our goal is to get you blacked out, have fun. But we wanted to get you blacked out drunk. And you, most people try to stay up with us and you just can't do it. If you want to go, if you want to think Madison is like the number one drinking school per capital, Whitewater beats anybody by far. And and then, you know, I lived in, I lived in Milwaukee and then I lived in Fond du Lac.

5:51 And Fond du Lac is where I got sober in 2009. But during that whole time, the whole goal of, you know, Wisconsin, I thought was to be a functional alcoholic, right? Like my grandpa's. You go to work Monday through Friday, and if you did that, you could drink Thursday night, like at your bowling league or golf league. You could kick it in a little bit, but you got to get up to work and then Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, you know, you got to bring it back in again. And then Monday you're back to work. As long as you're paying your bills, who cares? I can drink as much as I want. I did that for over 20 years. Over 20 years, I drank alcohol and smoked weed like that and thought I was a functioning alcoholic. The toughest part of when you're in in that and you think you're normal drinking is I would show up at work and people like you go out last night and I'm like, well, I went to a bar to watch the Bucks game or watch the Brewers game. You know, I was home by like 9930, but now, now my kidneys aren't processing as fast and when I wake up, I'm oozing it out of my skin pores and now I'm smelling like alcohol and I can't smell it.

7:05 So I started working a lot of Cologne, you know, and it's just the insanity of that stuff. It's the insanity of the upset. We Wisconsinites are are where the where the badge of binge drinking. We can party it up for two or three days, but then we can we can be serious adults and parents and go back to work. Can't do it forever. Yeah, you can't. Absolutely. And there's a, there's a, another added layer in that of like, so your example of, you know, I went for the bucks game, I was home by 9:00. I only had 7 beers, 7 beers. Like when you realize how the world consumes alcohol and what's actually healthy for for people to consume 7 beers is, you know, quite a bit that's already past the scale of where personally I think people should go.

7:56 But you know when not here, man. Not here do we count the bar dice shots right. I know you know, do we count the home run shots that we're doing or the Packer touchdown shots because those are forgotten those just go along with it. You know everybody that that drinks heavy and I'll speak for myself because when I drank in my drinking years and using years, I wanted to be a nice guy. I wanted everybody to get along with me and I didn't want to be a Dick. My whole goal is don't be a Dick. But later in in my drinking career, especially in Milwaukee. Yeah, my. Career, you know, there were times I'd be blacking out and I'd have to figure out, oh crap, what did I do?

8:42 Thank God we don't have social media like we do now. This is 90s saved us. I mean, if you're a Gen. X person, holy cow. Because all that stuff could be on social media forever. But I'd have to go look at my phone. Who did I text? What did I do, Start calling people? Where's my car parked? Same. Damn, I couldn't remember where my car is parked. And now on Saturday or Sunday morning I'm walking around going where can't. Dude, where's my car? You know, it's literally. Yeah, yeah, and we same and we're certainly not in a silo, right. And like I said, not I I never do it from a holier than thou up on my high horse because I think a lot because of that, right.

9:25 Like we we've been there and I get I get why it happens. You know, it, it's especially for folks that are born here and grow up here, the culture that you understand until you experience some other stuff. What else are you going to do, man? It's, it's written for you. So I completely get it. But I just love talking about the alternatives and the different ways you can go. And that's kind of where I want to start today, man. Can we talk about your sobriety journey? What what led you to the realization that potentially, you know, the things that you were doing wasn't the best for you and there was another route? So I was a social worker in Fond du Lac and we'll say early 2005 was when I was there.

10:07 That was my lonely years. I'll say there's one thing here, people, let me just tell you this right now. When you leave your favorite bar and you leave that barstool that you sat on for the last 10 or 15 years and you get sober and and you think that they're going to bronze that barstool. They're not the next dude walking in that door is just going to take your spot and they're going to keep rolling as life goes on. Nobody owes you anything at from that bar because, you know, that was where my loyalty was. I used to hang out at Thurman's 15 on on just off of Brady St. So if anybody's in Milwaukee and knows that area, it was a good dead head bar. And when I moved up to Fond du Lac, I was kind of living. I was living on my own and I was going there's there's a weird line in the state kind of like where's up north? Yeah.

11:02 Where does the double bubble start? OK, Because I didn't know about the double bubbles in, in, in Milwaukee. But once we got up to Fond du Lac, anytime between 3:00 and 5:00 PM, you got the double bubble, You bought 1 drink and you get another one for free. And I was like, this is the greatest gift ever. Why doesn't everyplace have this? So every bar, Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, you know, Appleton, Green Bay, all had a double bubble hours, happy hours. And the interesting thing was I knew that I needed help. And the, the it's not funny, but it's, it's a serious moment where I was a social worker and I was taking people out of the mental health state institutions and I would take them to AODA counseling and I would just be off of off a Bender.

11:53 And once I dealt with them, where did I go? I went to the bar right afterwards. I was a 1000% hypocrite and I didn't know how to stop. I, I didn't, I was, I was being alone. I remember that I would get home from the bar and I would play Jerry Garcia band, huge dad head here. So I played good old Jerry and I would just start crying because I didn't know how to get off this train. I was trying to be smart where I would buy a, you know, a 12 pack of of paps and a half, you know, one of those smaller bottles of Jaeger and I'd buy it right after work thinking that that'll cover me for the night. But I'd buy about 8815.

12:37 I'd be like, man, I need another bottle of Jaeger and I'm not going anywhere because I'm drinking at home. I'm trying to be safe, you know, and those are the type of just dumb shit logic that you think you're doing right with it. So what happened was my mother had the courage to seek out help for me. And in Fond du Lac, they have these open speaker meetings on Sundays where you have a really nice brunch. You know, you pay $10, you get a nice spread of food. And then there's a speaker, a speaker that comes up and talks about their experience, strength and hope, their life experience, what brought them to sobriety.

13:20 And my mom would not leave until somebody would go over to my house and do an intervention. And her name was Carrie. And Carrie, if, if she hears this, this will be cool. She's from Fond du Lac. And she was, she couldn't remember when she grabbed my mom by the arm going, I know somebody that could help. And, and his name was Bill. And he worked at the Bland Dean House. He's a director of the Bland Dean House. And he was like, Yep, we can do it. Let's meet at 5:00. We'll go over by the house. This is on a Sunday, mind you, and I just got my first OWI, which I, that, that was like, that was like my, my limit. If I got it OWI, then I'm not going to drink anymore.

14:03 And we all have the yachts and, and the, and the, it didn't happen to me yet, you know, or if this happens, then I'll do that. It was 5:00 in the afternoon. I was doing my detox, meaning at this point in time I would drink on Friday and Saturday and detox on Sunday. I had to have a full detox on Sunday in order to be ready for work on Monday. Comes with. Age. It sucks because basically I'm giving myself the flu, tremors, shakes, headaches and I and my body is screaming for alcohol and I'm just going through the motions. Try heaving and I hear the knock at the door and it's not a cop knock.

14:53 It's like a like a friendly knock. And I look down the stairs in my house. I'm like, oh shit, this is it. This has got to be it. And there's my mom, dad, my sister, my sisters, then at the time husband and then two strangers. And they walked up and they sat down and and I said, I'm not fighting it. I'll listen. I'm not fighting this anymore. I see you brought back up and and the the one thing that got that was the most interesting was my mom does not allow swearing in front of her. And everybody just like you see in an intervention the show, everybody reads their thing and we're all crying, you know, and and then I and I go, can I speak?

15:40 And he's like, yeah, and I start talking, but I'm making justifications, rationalizations, minimizing, blaming. I'm doing all the all the excuses and tools I can pull out and just throw back at them, deflect all that's going. I have this in control. I'm going to see a therapist and I plan on making an, a, a meeting next week. So trust me when they should absolutely not trust me. And then Jim leans into me and goes, are you done with your fucking shit? And I'm like, and I look at my mom and like, you're not, you're letting him say fuck in front of you. Holy cow, this is serious. And and then I'm like, OK, let's go. You know, we can do this.

16:21 What time you pick me up tomorrow? No, we're going now. What do you mean we're going now? We're going right now. Well, there's no meetings now. Oh, yeah, there is. There's an NA meeting, a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the Blandine House. Let's go. I said they got coffee there. Yeah, they got coffee. And at this time I was smoking. I'm like, can I smoke a cigarette? They can smoke 3 cigarettes, but we're going. And then that was the start. All right? That was the start. Somebody that that's so valuable, somebody in your life that can push you, you know, over the edge because you were already at that realization. But a lot of times our our brains won't let us do it. That's great.

17:04 That's great. So but what then? What was that experience? What was it when you went to the meeting that had to be a trip? Can you remember? Is it a? Oh yeah, oh man, nervous anxiety, shaking, body tremors, man, my brain telling me get the fuck out of here, what are you doing here? And then my other brain going just chill, just relax. Follow the process, follow the process. And what, what was cool about the meeting was I got to hear other people's struggles, you know, of what they're doing, but they're making it, whether it be old timers, you know, I say over 10 years variety or young guys that are just in months and and it was cool and it was here's one thing about alcohol.

17:56 You can say alcoholism, you can say alcohol abuse, you can say drug abuse, you can say drug addiction. It doesn't care. It meaning the disease does not care what color you are, what part of the country you're from, what religion you are, whether you're poor, whether you're rich, whether you're the president of the United States or whether you're homeless. It doesn't care. I've met people from all walks of life and the diversity of that attracts me. What I get out of a A meetings and NA meetings is I get to listen, I get to share kind of what's on my chest and get it out.

18:38 And then I feel supported and I recharge my batteries for another 24 hours. Early in recovery, I was going probably about five days a week and it was good because I was meeting other people too. You, you definitely don't want to feel alone in this and your family cannot empathize at all. They should be encouraged to go to Alan on and thank God my mom and dad did. My mom pulled my dad along with them. We're going to go to Al Anon. And it was cool because they, they went to this Al Anon meeting and found it like that, had other couples in it. And then they all went out to like dinner afterwards or dinner beforehand. So they made it kind of like a little club. But they really supported themselves in that where when I was going all those times, then I was getting into service work, you know, just helping out where I could with meetings and going to a ton of different meetings.

19:27 And we find like we drive up to Appleton to the Genesis Club or Oshkosh at the Serenity. I think it's the Serenity House or Serenity Club, drive down to West Bend where I was born and raised down there. And it I have an allergy of the mind. So think diabetes, diabetes about the closest I could get to it instead of insulin. I need a meeting from time to time in order to kind of cleanse, cleanse the soul. It's not, it's not a spirit. It's not my mind. I have to cleanse my soul and get to that balance back again. And as I have more days of sobriety, I have a better understanding of what my character defects are, what my shortcomings are, when to make amends, when I made a mistake, but also what are what are my goals for the day? My sponsor and I send each other gratitude lists every day. Almost every day.

20:24 We try to do it every day. But what are you grateful for today? You know, and today I'm grateful for that. My, my son went to school. I have a special needs son that's nine years old and to get him to school has been challenging lately, but he went to school today. You know, I, I took a nice drive down Nicolet Drive and seeing the Bay. It's beautiful. I'm here with you doing this podcast, which is wonderful. And we're going to I'm going to do dinner with my parents and, and, and my kids and they have family. So it's breaking down that that daily, that daily gratitude list too. That's that's wonderful. And you learn all these tools in A and here's the other thing. I want to at least let people know I am not an, a, a big book thumper. What that means is some people in recovery go is the only way.

21:06 And if you don't do a a, you're a loser, you're going to fail, you're going to go relapse. It's not how it goes. There's Celebrate Recovery, there's even Buddhism in recovery. There's SMART Recovery, you know, and there's one for heroin, cocaine, overeaters. I, I being in a 12 step program for so many years, I think anyone can use a 12 step program. I think it's better than your Catholic confession because I was raised a Catholic and I tell my folks that who go to church regularly. My church is in a meeting. You know, I find my spirituality in a meeting from the people that are talking. I don't need to be talked at. I just want to listen and hear what people are going through.

21:50 Yeah, it'll be it'll be it sheds the light on things and it changes your perception as you go. Yeah, man, I so I'm like 8 years in or something like that, maybe 9 now. I don't know. I don't even know, but I got, I feel talk about gratitude. Like I feel super lucky that like I I came to a place of realization almost like by proxy. It was I started getting these headaches when I would drink. I think I developed an allergy. Yeah, I developed an allergy to alcohol. So the last the last day I ever drank, I had a Bloody Mary and one beer after playing in a golf tournament, of course. And driving home, I had to pull off my truck to the side of the road because I got this pounding migraine. Light was shining like I couldn't drive. I was incapacitated virtually and I just made the the decision at that point that I was never going to drink again. I just wasn't going to do it.

22:41 And you know, the flip side of this coin is up until that that point and then maybe the next year or so afterwards, I didn't recognize, I didn't recognize the problem. So I'm grateful that I'm twofold. I was mentally strong enough to not like have to lean on something to fall back into it. And that's not, you know, it's not, again, not from a a mountain, because I just got lucky. Like it's something I've always been kind of a stubborn ass. We all have our. Different. We all have our different paths. Yeah, but as as I was sober for longer and longer, not only that, like the health stuff improved, but I also started feeling so much better. Oh yeah, and mentally and then I had these conversations about, you know, hearing you say that I think everybody could benefit from 12 step program.

23:34 I've talked to copious amount of people in them and it's always that story of where, you know, for for me who got lucky, there's always, you know, 1000 other people that are leaning on it because of things or like that. The other side of it is the social aspect. That was the second part again, stubborn asshole. And I'm, I'm by nature pretty extroverted. So like that was, you probably got it too. One of the common questions, like what do you, what do you do when you go to a bar? You know what? I, I didn't get uncomfortable, like not having the hand, you know, like this. I, I, I was lucky enough not to, because I was extroverted enough, but I, I certainly know that's none of my doing either. That's my nature. So like I hear these stories and I love hearing about the tools or the paths to realization because in so many ways I'm grateful for mine that I don't know if I would have had it.

24:29 You know, I talk about the stubbornness. I don't know if I would have had the strength to do the 12 step program. I don't know if I ever would have come to the realization that I needed it or anything like that because, you know, you rattled it off already, You know, where's the car? Wake up in a yard, all this stuff. And it's like I never, it never clicked for me until I stopped. Let me ask you this, did you ever drive drunk with one eye closed because you're seeing 4 lanes? I used to have to do that. I have to close one. So I could see three lanes then and guessing which lane I was in. Yeah, that's how insane all this. Is and isn't that crazy to think about, man? And it and when you're in it, the next day you wake up and you're like, right, didn't happen yet.

25:12 Right. Didn't look outside the car. Cool. No dense score. All right, let's crack one open. It's 5-O clock somewhere, right? You know. Yeah, and that's, it's such a devastating mentality, you know, and and still to this day, you know, I whatever people make their own decisions. You want to have 6 drinks, you want to have 12 drinks, you want to have 30, whatever you're living your life. But the not yet thing is very, very scary. And when you talk about life's regrets or the happenstance of life and how it goes driving in those situations, if I could go back in time now like that is one thing I would never ever do, you know, and you and, and how does that get clouded, man?

25:55 How does that get clouded by this thing? That's that, you know, this liquid or whatever that goes into your body that shifts your perception so much that you don't even realize it. Dude, it trips me out. Blows my mind. And in the state of Wisconsin, I will say this as a born and bred cheese head, half of us, I'll say half, 50% of the state I am, I do not have any evidence based statistics on this. Think they drive better drunk or buzz? Isn't that wild? We'll use buzz. So let's look at this supper clubs, OK, When I went to Whitewater, my dad used to bring my grandfather down from Oricon and we used to go to a supper club. We would have two or three old fashions and that was that was social hour.

26:43 And then we'd have two or three beers with with our fish fry, mostly perch, sometimes walleye once in a while, once in a while frog legs if you're feeling spicy. There's a Wisconsin what I can get? On Oh yeah, most, my dad's always a bluegill guy, my dad's always a bluegill guy. And then afterwards you're having a grasshopper and then you're going to probably maybe have a couple drinks afterwards. And the whole process takes about 3 hours. But right then and there, you, you have about 8 drinks in you, you know, and that's, that's the culture of, of, of Wisconsin is that when I grew up, we had, did you have the kids cooler and the adult cooler? My dad used to play softball. There was always the quarter barrel after the game, 1/4 barrel for both teams.

27:28 That was normal on a weekday. On a weekday, 1/4 barrel at Regner Park in West Bend, That's where it was. That's when I first started drinking, stealing, stealing cups off the quarter barrel and running over the park and, and and finish them. Two beers in I'm puking and my mom's got me in the station wagon yelling at me. I'm grounded. Birthdays, first communions, baptisms, holidays, summer picnics, 4th of July, going up to the cabin. Brewer Game. Packer. Game leaves the house. Everywhere. The the one thing people don't understand when they come to Wisconsin, especially people that find jobs here and come here, they don't realize how entranced alcohol is in our day-to-day lives.

28:14 And once again, I'm saying there's nothing wrong with that. But on the flip side, the state needs to be more. I don't want to say sensitive because that might be a snowflake or a woke word, and I'm not trying to do that. But just be cool with people who are sober and not ask what morally went wrong that you effed up in your life and you can't drink because, you know, I'm not a quitter. Yeah. I'm not a quitter, man. Yeah. That's another that's another funny angle, dude. Because of my path to quitting, it's sometimes like when I tell somebody I don't drink, they're almost like nervous to ask why they like assume that I like killed somebody in a car accident, right? And I had to quit drinking and nobody had my hands behind my back. Like it was a choice.

28:59 Isn't that that's crazy, man. We so let me let me kind of jump into this story and get into the section yellow because that addresses that point. Right. That's the next piece. Yeah. What is that? So when I got sober and it was February 15th actually coming up 2009, the biggest fear I had was I can't go to Lambeau Field anymore and I can't go to concerts and the band Fish. So if you know the Grateful Dead, there's this band called Fish and I was a die hard Fish fan since the mid 90s and they were on hiatus for a while. And now they're coming back and they're playing Alpine Valley. I had about four or five months sober and I'm going to Alpine and I, I destroyed Alpine man. I mean, there are some, I got some bad horror stories about Alpine, whether it be Metallica concert in 89, Rush in 92, you know, all the all the various types of Dead concerts. They're tripping just a while.

29:56 I have a long history there and I worked there when I went to college at Whitewater. That was a fun summer job working at or Alpine. So I'm walking in there and I am nervous, man. I mean, it's like we're this way. You're traveling home on Hwy. 29 and it's a full on Blizzard. You barely got one lane and you got an hour to go and you can't see shit. You're white knuckling it. You're almost thinking maybe I got to pull over because I don't want to slide off the ditch. That's white knuckling. And how the anxiety I felt going into the show and there was this place called the Fellowship and not with an F with APH cause all fish fans throw pH in front of everything. So it's a stick.

30:40 But they, they mirrored that off the Grateful Dead who had the Warfrats and they've been doing that since the 70s. Sober people want to still be a part of the scenes and hear the music, but they want to do it in a sober way so they get connected, to be a part of each other and make kind of a family about it. Knowing you're supported. The major biggest thing to learn in life is to know you're not alone. When you know you're not alone in any aspect, you have support, you feel like, well, wait a second, if I'm not alone in this, let me learn from them. Let me learn from that. Let me read on about it. Let me see what's going on. So I quickly gathered information on the fellowship and this was back in 2009.

31:20 So we didn't have Instagram or not we, we didn't have Instagram. We didn't have TikTok, we didn't. Have barely had Facebook and. We had Yahoo Groups, we had Yahoo Groups that we were in and I remember the first set I couldn't find. So they have a table there with, with a banner that says the fellowship. And you meet up there beforehand, you kind of socialize, you know, that's kind of like remember playing tag and you always had ghoul, you know, the safe zone or whatever, bring it. So we had ghoul. That was our goal, man. We we would be able to just stop, check in, know that we're OK, and then we'd go back in, go back in the crowd and the first set couldn't didn't find him. And I'm like, I might, I might have to bounce because me, I look like a hippie.

32:04 I got long hair, you know, and the guy I was with more looks like a cop and he was my supportive using buddy. So he loved getting all the weed sent to him because everybody would ask me if I wanted smoke off their bowl. This is pre COVID, mind you, when everybody was smoking, passing around. Y'all share share your saliva with a bunch of strangers. And so my buddy Corey at the time just took took all the weed and I was I was good with that and I was just clenching onto a water bottle. So Fast forward to to a separate because there's only about a 45 minutes that break and I found this guy from Minnesota and he was sober too, and it was his his first sober show and we were ready just to go. OK, if we us 2 stick together, maybe we'll try to find him next time.

32:45 And as I'm you. Found him before you found. The yeah, I found him because he was looking too. He was looking too. And, and I go, you know what, let me buy you a soda. And then we'll, we'll just hang out together because it's a lot better than me going all the way down with, with, with the madness of the weed and, and all the other drugs that were going on and beers. And then all of a sudden I see a yellow balloon around the corner. I'm like, God damn it, there they are. And finally we saw the fellowship. There was about 80 people there all laughing, all hugging. We're on the outside just observing, going this is cool. We kind of want to be a part of this. And then immediately some guy's like, what's your name? I said my name's John.

33:25 I'm from Green Bay. He's like awesome, man. Are you? Is this your first sober show? I'm like, yeah, I'm scared shitless, man. It's like, come on in, dude. So you come on in. What they have is they get in a big circle and they have a gratitude list or a gratitude quick thing. So you, you bounce a balloon along and wherever the balloon lands, you give about a less than a minute spiel on how grateful you are for whatever it could be the song that was played, it could be making here to Alpine, It could be your sobriety today, but you're just, you're just jazzing everybody up with yourself. I've heard some amazing, amazing stories and and then they're done. And we did a sobriety countdown where we all got in line.

34:06 We rarely do this now. We all got in line and I had like 3 months. So I was at the very beginning of the line because I had the least. And there was a guy there with 30 years and I was like, cool, I'm like, can we hang? He's like, absolutely. Now I don't know how you are with the music fan, but with Dad and Fish and everything, there's certain songs that are played at concerts and they don't play every song, every set list the same. So you start chasing these songs, right? Well, there's this song called The Lizards that Fish plays that I absolutely love and I was seeing them since 95 and I've never heard it. And then the second set, second or third song in is the opening lyrics to the Lizards man. And now you talk about a spiritual awakening, right? So now Fish is playing the song called The Lizards to me now, yes, playing with the crowd, but I am connecting with the band now.

34:54 I'm connecting with with a higher power God and going. What is going on here? I'm feeling weird with this whole spirituality. I look around the whole long 'cause I'm sitting over on the left side of the lawn and looking up at all the hills and all that. And in my head, I'm going through a history of all the crazy, dumb shit that I've done at Alpine and I tell God and to myself going, you know what, I am not going to fight this anymore. I'm turning it over to you. You have it. I get it now. I get it now. No more rationalizations, no more bullshit. I want to be sober. I want to be there for my health and for my family.

35:34 And that that was my spiritual awakening there. That's unbelievable, man, That's unbelievable. There's a there's a lot of different directions we could go from here. Let's stick with the fan experience for a little bit though, because it's funny in a in a roundabout way that almost like keeps me out of Lambeau, you know, especially the bleachers. Like if you're down in there super close to drunk ass people is just not my vibe. It and it does, you know, it's different for everybody. It doesn't keep me out because I want to Sprint to buy a beer. It keeps me out because this guy's the most annoying person I've ever met in my life When and it, it just ruins the experience. So let's talk about that, the logistics of it a little bit because I know I, I think, well, I shouldn't say no, I've never joined. But a common misconception is that there's like this painted yellow section of Lambeau that you all go sit in the seats in, right?

36:27 It's more about the collectiveness of the group as opposed to the a group of seats per SE or something like that, right? I did that specifically to throw off the people that don't hell yeah, that don't do their own research. You know, they don't do the research. So I knew that that I would throw they're taking our sections. I'm on the wait list. I'm 85,623. They can't do that to us. No, we're not taking any seats. So I, I explained about the fish table and the, and the warfare table, but the fellowship table. Now I'm volunteering the tables. And I'm also, I also work downtown as a social worker and I'm also on the Brown County Coalition for change, which is an alcohol and drug abuse coalition. We have all the major players there, Felon, Amplify now, Previa, Aurora Health Department, ADRC, Community Treatment Center, Liebertos, AANA, Celebrate Recovery, some churches, some therapies. I mean, we got like 20-30 different people that are always representing stuff.

37:26 And it was 2019. I've done the table at Alpine now about 5 or 6 times. And that experience, the one-on-one connection, you coming up to me, Brad and, and talking to me at that table, not knowing anything about it. That's the connection. That's where I get goosebumps off of. And you were going to get goosebumps off that memory as well. And so I went up to our, our kind of our lead person, her name is Laura. She works at Amplified. She was somebody, she was a somebody up in Bellin and I presented that to her and she's like, hey John, I love that idea. I can get us a meeting at Lambeau. By the way, I call Lambeau Field, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because you never get really invited in there.

38:09 You never really know what's going on behind closed doors and to get in there is a big deal. So we had a meeting and did my little 5th grade PowerPoint forum about why we want to do this. All I was asking for is a a table and two chairs somewhere in the concourse at Lambeau Field. Why? Because we're going to connect with the fans that are sober, whether that's recovery, whether it's just lifestyle, religion, or maybe they're sober curious, or maybe there's a sober ally, there's a family member, a wife, a husband who's like, I want my, I like my partner to get sober and I don't know what to do. So we're going to, we want to just be there as a presence.

38:51 And it took a priest and and we'll say a higher UPS wife to kind of make the connection and breakthrough to the Packers. And then we got in. A higher up of somebody that works at Lambeau's wife. Yeah, OK. Interesting. A priest. Anytime you're stuck knowing something, go to your local priest. They know everybody. They do. Father Paul DeMuth, he knows he was part of it. He's an awesome guy. So no, he introduced me to a wife of one of the, you know, administrators and she, her and I met and she's like, I love this. We can do it. And then she met me, introduced me to Jennifer and Keith, who are the people that run Lambeau. And then I remember Jennifer walking along. This was, this was like October in 2019. And we're walking along the concourse and she picks out by the QuikTrip gate.

39:46 She's like right here, this is all you need is a is a table and two chairs. You're good. Yep. And then she's like, OK, we'll do it for the rest of the season, but you got to get your own tickets. They weren't going to give us voluntary right away on, you know, as a volunteer status. So we had people that we knew had tickets and we got them donated and we went in there and did it and then 2020 hits and then it's COVID. So that's a stop 2021 hits and now we're doing it again. But we're on a a volunteer basis and the Today show met with us so national. Programming got out to us. Public radio did stories on us. The Wall Street Journal did a story on us.

40:26 Story Corps. I don't know if you're familiar with Story Corps. Story Corps is cool. So Story Corps has a bus or a van. It's a big grant by the Smithsonian Institute. You ever get a chance to do Story Corps do it? So what they do is they drive around all year long for like 10 years and stop in the cities and they have a recording studio and you and one other person can come in and have a conversation about anything for one hour and then it gets in the vault at the Smithsonian's Institute. Really. So my mom and I, I'll, I'll, I'll send you the link. You can put it up there. My mom and I did a story about how did alcoholism come in our family because it just didn't surprisingly start with me, right?

41:08 I have 4 generations here in Green Bay. Henry John Martin was my great grandfather. So that's HJ Martin, which is a major flooring factory right down the way. So we have it in our family and it got it skipped my parents. But my grandmother, who was the eldest daughter of Henry John Martin and Margaret Martin, she became a drug addict to her, to heroin, not heroin, sorry, Valium, because that's what a lot of women did back in the day when they had kids. They would just get hooked on Valium painkillers. Then you have a couple glasses of wine with it and you're gone. My grandfather, he was an alcoholic and he, he from the military World War Two, he flew planes over France to bomb Germany, you know, and, and to keep the bombers clear. And that post traumatic sent him spiraling and there was no therapy.

42:00 There is no medication at the time to help him. So he drank all the time. He lost jobs left and right and I didn't. You don't find this out until you're in your 20s. And then we kind of had the story about it. So back to section yellow. We were able to get this going. And then we made the national news. We made all this stuff. The draft comes up and we made the draft. We were there for the draft, which was amazing. Mind you, the NFL doesn't pay for anything. We had to come up with $13,500 for three days to have a tent there. The original bill was 36,000. Oh, but they cut you a deal. We, we slammed down what our wish list was. We had a big wish list and then when they got the bill, we're like, well, what if we just do one tent and we don't need mocktails there?

42:45 The draft was a huge experience. We had over 100,000 people not stop in the tent per SE, but as they're walking past and looking and stopping, we usually had over 100,000 people there. Yeah. And and with with with section yellow. The main thing is people stop. They check in with us, they take pictures, they grab. We give away free water. That was another add on. Throughout the years. We always do an additional ask. We have a kiosk now and and a table. We give out candy, we give out stickers like one game at a time, Section Yellow. So you can kind of, you bump into somebody, they might have a stick around, then you kind of recognize them, you know? So yeah, it's definitely a new vibe. And they're advertising inside Lambeau Field about Section Yellow.

43:29 I know. And that leads me to one of the main things I wanted to learn about today as far as you brought up the the the tightness of the Packers organization, how everything goes. So maybe you can't even share, but what what has you know, you gave a good picture of the response up till now. Do like I see this as an opportunity, Packers like look at the look at just what you put together that look at the attention that guy. I think it's an opportunity building on what I was saying earlier that it keeps me out of Lambeau. I think it's an opportunity for the Packers to be another voice in this in of of this concept in our community that says, OK, there is a section yellow of seats of where people do it because immediately that's I know that you have to deal with that all the time because it has to be the first place people's minds go. Yeah.

44:24 Do you see that as a possibility? And I know that's it's tough navigate waters to navigate because you have to manage the relationship and all that stuff. But is that something that? And it's really not the Packers. It's Lambeau Field and the city of Green Bay. Got to remember city of Green Bay owns Lambeau Field. That area is annexed for the city of Green Bay. That's why currently right now the mayor has not signed the 10 year contract yet for for Lambeau for the Packers use Lambeau Field. They want more. Saying it like we all want to see more concerts there. Lambeau Field should be a Summerfest Every June we have Summerfest down in Milwaukee. What they did with the draft is a blueprint for major music festivals and they could easily have that. If I had my wish, it would be like that. But back to your question, Brad, about having a section up there, Brown County has the lottery there. All those 300 level seats, majority of those are Brown County seats.

45:26 So you go, if you're a Brown County resident, you can go into the lottery, I do. And you almost 99% of the time, you're going to get one game. And then you can do that every year. Could you take those Brown County seats and take like 100 of them and make that strictly sober? Oh, yeah, you can. Because if you go to the Brewers game in section 200, right behind home plate, that's the family section. And those ushers there are like total authoritarian ushers. They will not let you walk through that with a beer. You got to walk around because the press box is right behind you, you know, and so it can be done.

46:07 Would it ever happen? I'm always great. Let's go back to the gratitude. I'm always grateful that we're there and we're there with the Brackers and we get to be a presence there. We're also there with the Green Bay Blizzards. So when the Green Bay Blizzard season starts, we're a great partner with them. Mind you, shout out their season openers. March 15th, go to that game. It's going to be a huge game because they almost won the championship last year. They were 5 inches away from a, from a QB sneak from winning the championship in the indoor league football. It was crazy. That's a that's a great organization. And we also work with the Green Bay Rockers. So we're here now year round with everything and with the Packers.

46:49 Would would you say, do the Packers know about section yellow? Don't think so. That's the difference between Lambeau Field and the Packers. Have we asked to meet with and maybe do a little, you know, Q&A engagement with them? Yeah, we have. And we're we're not asking for it, but we always throw that out there. There are Packer, Packer players that are sober. One of the most famous ones, Tony Mandridge, he's sober. He's on TikTok live all the time, man. That's where I found you. You see Tony live all the time. And he's never been back to Lambeau. Never he has never been back to Lambeau and I've reached out to him going dude, come back, stop at the section yellow volunteer at the section yellow table.

47:30 The fans love you dude, but he for whatever reason, he hasn't and I respect that. You know, the one cool thing, I'll I'll do this. And then I've then I've talked way enough is it is cool to get a new Lambeau tradition started because you have the Lambeau Leap and we have the wave, you know, and we we give one of the things we do is we give away balloons when people are coming up to us. OK. And this is because we used to put up balloons the first game. We used to put up balloons so people would recognize this because that's what I used to when I go to concerts. But when one of those balloon popped in the concourse, it sounds like a gunshot going off.

48:12 It just echoes. And I'm like, no more balloons. No more balloons. We we cannot be kicked out our first day. So what are we going to do with 500 balloons? Give them away? Do it during the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter there's no alcohol served. So that's section Yellow's quarter. So for the last six years we've been giving away balloons, the people that stop by and they, they can be sober people. Or if you are having a drink but you are not drunk and you have a brother or a family member or someone you're thinking about that you wish would be sober or that has passed away, that is sober, that was sober or passed away of a drug overdose that didn't make it.

48:53 You can have a balloon, but just don't be intoxicated when you're doing it because that sends a bad message. But we want to be able to incorpose anyone. And then in the fourth, beginning of the fourth quarter, you blow up the balloon and you pop it up and every all the fans love bouncing around. Come winter, that ball, that balloon goes straight down. But if you can get a wind, you can almost get it all the way around the field or onto the field. And we did get the Packers blessings that we could do that. That kind of did it. We went and rogue the first couple years, but then when the Today show really wanted to focus on this balloon thing, we had to we had to go hey, can we talk to mom and dad first before you spill the beans because we didn't really ask for their permission. So I talked to them and they talked to their environmental engineer.

49:37 It's. Probably you good that you had them at that time. Yes, yes. And and then we biodegradable balloons, they're not helium. They don't flow out of the stadium. Our little balloon thing doesn't make more of a mess than all the beer bottles or beer cups that gets bored in there. But it's a cool vision. Because if I release the balloon, that's me telling Lambeau Field there's one person in the sea of 80,000 that's sober, and that person across the field that might be thinking about sobriety, that might be going. I did it again. Fucking told myself I wouldn't drink. When I did John at the fish show correct? Yeah, and I didn't drink. And why did I drink again?

50:18 I got to drive home, I got to work the next day. I'm going to be in so much trouble. My marriage is on the rocks. My wife is going to divorce me. Why do I do that? Wait, there's a balloon. There's hope. There is hope even in the madness at Lambeau. And then all of a sudden you see him popping up over here, popping up over there, popping over. Holy shit. And made the Jumbotron. I'll get I'll get text. It made live TV. We've had the balloon pop up on your TV and go down. So having that new Lambeau Field tradition, that's kind of like a remember, we don't hate on people that drink, but we do love people that embrace sobriety, whatever path you're looking at it. And with those yellow balloons going up, just keep them bouncing, man. Just keep them bouncing.

51:00 You know, it's awesome, dude. It's marketing genius. It's you know, life is clearly good. It's, it's a subtle but powerful way, Like the whole thing you put together is a subtle but powerful way to embrace this within the walls of where it is very not. You know that way. It's awesome man. Lambeau Field is the epicenter of alcohol abuse. Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Obviously Milwaukee and Madison are the epicenters of alcohol abuse where you're probably approaching, I don't have the stats, but I believe it's above 28. I would guess 30% of people are abuse alcohol on a regular basis.

51:50 That's one in three. That's one of us. You know, it's got to be him because you and I are sober. So it's just, it's a daunting fact because most places might have 12 or 15% and in the state of Wisconsin, you have places that are 30% and people are proud of that. And I, I get it makes money, makes money, but we can turn, we can turn the stereotype around and go, you know what, there's a lot of sober people here too. Brad, you are the reason why I started Section Yellow because remember the gym that that did that intervention with me. I have season tickets. I get them through my cousin. Eh, I offered him a game long time ago, like going to let me pay you back, I want to take you to a game. He's a crazy nut Packer fan.

52:39 And he said no, I can't go up to Lambo, it's too much of A trigger. And I said he was the inspiration for making this there because nobody, nobody should look at Lambeau Field and feel anxious of coming to a game if you're sober. We are there. Section Yellow was there to make you feel very cool and even, like, like, take, for instance, you're sitting in that stand and let's say you got drunks all around you and you're like, this sucks. You come and hang out with us. We got extra chairs, hang out with us for a while. Once you feel a little bit better and you get your batteries recharged, you take a little break, jump back in it again. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome, man. And and when I look, you know, put on the old marketing hat and I look at it from APR lens, there's all kinds of stats right now that I love to see about how younger generations are limiting alcohol in their lives.

53:29 When you think about the next people that are going to be filling those seats, man, the it's in the Packers best interest to take a little look at what you're doing, maybe dive in a little deeper and see what see what else can build from this, because you've done a hell of a job so far. And to me, the sky is only up and the path is only up from here. And and there's so much incentive for them right now because as it ages out, like I hope to see these numbers continuing to dwindle and decline. And then pretty soon, like that script is going to flip and, you know, there's power structures, structures in all of life. And one of them is back to the making money thing. OK, well, now how are we going to make money? Maybe John was on to something here. You know what I'm saying?

54:14 Couple things, we would love to have a section yellow signature drink there that's non alcoholic. That would be awesome. 2 is we are at Stadium View for tailgates now. Stadium View partnered with us last year and we did five games where we have a section yellow tailgate in in the madness of Stadium View, you know, so we have this little pod, but there it was very successful. We had about 6-7 volunteers each game before the game, like 3 hours before the game. And then, you know, there's about maybe 20-30 people that would hang out in that part of the parking lot over there. Back to the draft. So I talked to a executive director, took him out to a supper club, took him out to the Union Hotel and showed him around a little Wisconsin flavor.

55:00 And I, I hit him up with the whole section yellow thing at every stadium. Because some stadiums will say, well, we have a sober section. They do, they have a family section, but they're not addressing sobriety awareness. It's not about sitting somewhere. It's about the awareness and, and putting that, that, that, that seat of knowledge in, in every fan. So they understand it. And what I asked about and when I brought up is, you know, in a couple years you might need us because it doesn't have to be alcohol. It can be gambling too. Yeah. And gambling's way worse than alcohol money wise. Because I've never, I mean, I just put it this way, I like to gamble as well and I found out that my addictive mind likes anything that shoots a couple of couple of endorphins and and dopamine. Going.

55:49 Yeah, and it could be. It could be. I mean, for the Super Bowl, you know, I bet my mom 5 bucks on the coin of the flip of the coin. Of course I go tails never fails and it always God damn, it always fails go heads, people. But you know what I mean? It's just that little juice of dopamine that you're looking for. So gambling and how it's on your phone and how you can gamble just excessively. Once again, not hating on the gambling, but that's a slippery soap where you can get deep, you know, into debt and and that's where people really have really have a hard time. You know what I just saw yesterday? Dude, that blew my mind. I had no idea that you could do it, but I I saw this like Yahoo headline or somewhere online I saw it might have been a social media post.

56:31 FanDuel no longer will allow credit card deposits. I was like, you could put money on there with a credit card. Imagine the people that are up shit Creek right now. And 30%? Yeah, like I used to use DraftKings a little bit, but I didn't know you could do it with a credit card. That's wild. Yeah, I tried. So let's talk about this. So, fantasy football, how many leagues are you in? Two OK. I think 2 is reasonable, Yeah, I was a couple 100 bucks. I was up to four or five and I have a section yellow league, a work league and then a couple of buddies league. So three, you know, and one's only the most is like 100 bucks. Yeah, and we try to keep it, you know, more for the trophy and bragging rights and anything.

57:14 But gambling's going to be a big, huge issue when alcohol goes down. And the NFL knew what they're doing. You know, they, they are. I I love the NFL, but they, they know how to run everything. Oh yeah. And it's all about making profit. Yeah, it's so tight and it that that can kind of be a decent segue into another piece of what I was getting Wisconsin directed is I think a lot of that money and power in the Tavern League holds us back a little bit. Legalize it, legalize weed and get it going. Governor Evers, why aren't you doing that already? I just saw something again recently, but then the the big headline was Robin Voss says no way to legalize.

57:58 We're on an island where everybody else is is got legalized weed and we want to still pussyfoot around with it and go, well, let's try medicinal. No, Yeah, you're you're oozing tax dollars out of our state. So much of it. So much. And as somebody in long term recovery, you'd be like, John, why do you want it? Because that were those tax dollars just like cigarettes are will go to preventative awareness and treatment. Yeah, and, and people that need treatment, especially the detox, because we only have one detox center here in Green Bay and that's Bellin and beds could be full. When beds are full, guess what we're doing as a social worker, you start calling the Saint Elizabeth's down in Sheboygan or maybe in Appleton and then St.

58:41 ES in in Sheboygan. I believe it is remote, maybe flip flop. Just trying to find a bed. Just trying to find a a a a cute mental health facility that will do detox bond. Alex has got a great detox at, at Saint Emilians. And we, we need better infrastructure for, for our, for alcoholism and alcohol abuse. And if, if you made weed legalized, number one, you don't have oozing the money out. Number two, you take it away from the drug traffickers and #3 you can, you can add the amount of scrutiny that they have to go to, to make sure everything is safe. And there isn't any, any ketamine, not ketamine, any fentanyl in it.

59:24 You know, here's the sad part about my kids growing up. When I grew up, you didn't really have to worry about smoking a joint or doing a line of cocaine and experimenting and not have to worry about dying. My kids, when they grow up, if they do decide to partake, I don't want them to die because somebody cut it up with with fentanyl and they are putting fentanyl in weed. I just saw something about that again. What? What? Really. Yeah, I've never seen. As a bigger kick, they will dust it with weed and you will not recognize it. So anything you're getting off the street and you're not getting at a dispensary has the has the higher. I don't know what the stats are, but it's extremely high probability that it could have a dusting of fentanyl because it gives it more of a kick. That's devastating.

1:00:12 Bigger high. I haven't heard that at all. So I'm an I'm an advocate of legalization and used to a certain extent, but that, you know, the Tavern league will stomp around and say we've never spent one lobbying dollar against legalized marijuana. Well, OK, maybe you didn't directly say this is explicit, but you know, the people that they're funding have those conversations. So whatever, stomp around and. See and and they're selling weed and infused weed products through through they make infused. I haven't been in a bar in many, many years, but my sister drinks and she said John, I had a beer last night but it was full of wheat, so.

1:00:57 That's what carouser is that has it's micro dosed, micro dosed THC that like that thing. I, you know, it's for me personally, it's anything that limits specifically that alcohol is what I think is that's where my my focus is. And, and you think about, you know, the value of providing alternatives and what whatever, you know, be the devil's advocating and counter your argument with saying, well, OK, what do you, what's trading one thing for another thing, blah, blah, blah, Which, you know, there's a valid conversation there to be had. At the same time, the the options that come behind it with the funding that you're talking about, of where the tax dollars would go, leading to an, a more informed decision making process for both sides and everything that is where like all of that, regardless of the side of the fence you're on, makes complete sense, right?

1:01:53 Because so I hadn't heard anything about the connection between fentanyl and St. weed that that's wild to me. But we certainly know that. I mean, Theo, one of the biggest podcast on the planet jokes about that all the time about how like, I think it's I think he said it in like he had that crazy week where he had Bernie on and then he had Trump on and I was like that this is the coolest thing ever to have these two back-to-back. And I think it came from that where he makes the joke about you can't even do cocaine anymore. But it's super true, dude. It's super true. And I don't know, I just appreciate your your place in it and what you're trying to do with with the group. A couple other places I want to get to today that'll veer us off of this path a little bit.

1:02:37 One I didn't even know growing up in West Bend. You ever run across a dude named Bob Bonifant in West Bend? You know that. Guy class of 90 E. OK, he's, he's retired now. I don't know how old he is, but I just asked because Bob was pretty instrumental in my career path. Yeah. So I I worked at a radio station in West Bend for. Was it right by gas station? Across the street, maybe. Yeah, kind of right on the main drag. What? Was there was a factory right across the street too? I'm I'm picturing my youth right now. I can't even remember the name of the core Rd. Was that no, not the core Rd. God, I can't think of it. I don't remember any of the. I just picture where it is. I can picture where. It is. I can picture Bob and some of my Co workers and then I can picture the little AM studio that I sat in and board up the NASCAR race.

1:03:22 Did you ever go? Did you ever go to the bars around Big Cedar Lake? No, I did quite a bit of fishing around that area, you know. Big cedar, little cedar. Those places are awesome. Oh. Man, did I. Catch Whitetail Inn best fish fry in that area. I'm sure other people will say it, but when I think West Bend and think you know that area of Washington County, I think of the Whitetail Inn. It's on the I don't even east side of Little Cedar or something. Yeah, so I spent a lot of time around Little Cedar. That was my favorite lake to fish there because when I worked there, part of the time I lived in Menominee Falls slash Jackson. Yeah. So I was just wondering, man, that that would have been a a funny connection. But the the other piece that I want to talk with you a little bit about is that I I just recently saw that you're running for City Council. Yeah, I want to talk about that dude, because sure, I love the anybody who takes a step in the direction of impacting their community.

1:04:18 So that ultimately ask, again, you ask about the podcast, what I'm trying to do is connect us in a way that's outside of politics. At the same time, I appreciate somebody who steps up and, you know, give some of their time and effort and intention to their local community. And one of the main ways to do that is local politics. Really, really double edged sword, right? You're going to immediately probably have some friends that maybe don't, you know, they're going to go the other way because you do that. And then you're going to develop this group of people that aligns with you. What's your what's your motivation to do that? And what made you decide I'm a run for City Council and just throw my hat in? This room, I am going to try to do this in my best brief, straightforward talk, OK, Because I don't want to give you my political Sometimes you can go on a political spiel and sounds like a used car salesman.

1:05:12 I don't want to do that. I want to be real here, and I'm always real. But when you go door knocking and then you've knocked on the 100th door, you start getting a script and it just kind of rolls. Off Oh yeah dude and everybody knows when there's a news mic in front of somebody, no matter how real you say it is, it's not real we're an hour and 15 minutes into chatting that's why I do what we do because we can actually talk about life and. Normal stuff. Here you go. I I moved to Green Bay in 2010. OK, I'm a fourth generation Green Bay resident going all the way back to my great grandfather, Henry John Martin. My grandmother was born here, my mom was born here. I was not born here, but I've moved here. I have two kids. I'm a homeowner. I live over by Baird School.

1:05:53 I'm also a social worker downtown and I do this nonprofit. When the Green Bay had a city assessment for home, they did it in October. And then in November we got the, the the property tax bill and everybody's jumped. It was like, what? Now our value went up OK, but mine jumped up 900 bucks. And you did it in November, but you didn't prorate it for two more months and then charged me the whole year. You charged me the whole year. And I reached out to my Alder person and didn't really get a response.

1:06:34 Then it happened this year, went up instead of 900 bucks and went up 300 bucks. And that, that that affects my bottom line. Because you know what, we're we're all struggling. We're all a couple paychecks away from serious decision making. You know, I'm fortunate that I work and I can provide for my family, but you take my job away and I'm out of work for six months or a year. We're we're doing different things. I don't think my counterpart who I'm running against understands that. She has more business and finance.

1:07:14 I'm social work. I'm more in the community. Also, trash pickup. Now this is itty bitty stuff. Trash pickup. The leaves fall in November. You know they're going to fall in November. Three years straight, I did not get my leaves picked up. And then the snow falls on top of it. And now I got dead grass all along. And they'll say, well, you could drop it off at the city dump. No, I pay tax. My taxes just went up, man. Bring the truck over and just scoop them up. I put them on the edge of my yard. Let's do that. Come on, messenger. Don't get much of a reply. So that and then, then my son has special needs and we're going through the school system and Baird school is amazing. But the Green Bay Area public school and I am going to go out on a limb on this has some real rework that needs to happen. There are $25 million in debt.

1:08:08 Their school board is in chaos and, and the administration might need a, a dodge cleaning, you know, because there are a lot of administrators and I'm going to get hate on that because it's union, but I, I'm, I'm an advocate for the teachers. I'm not an advocate for all the administrators that are making a lot of money. And we're, we're not getting our, we're going to get 25,000,000 from, you're going to go to Evers and get in that rainy day fund. What is it 440 or 4 billion? I don't even know how much it is. He doesn't never, he never cracks open the checkbook anyway. So it's these type of issues that I'm like in my recovery. I cannot sit back and keep whining and complaining without taking an action step.

1:08:51 So what is the action step I can take? I reached out to Representative Ahmad Riviera Wagner, representatives are here to ask for advice and he's like, here's what you could do. You could do the school board or you could run for City Council. The City Council is going to be the toughest race in District 1 because Jennifer is a very well known Alder person in her district. More in her location because she's in Red Smith area. I'm over in Baird. Well, that's what matters for a City Council race, right, Is it is your perception in the immediate border area? Correct. But the whole district is Baird, Baird School, Red Smith area, Nicolet Drive, UW, GB and then some other outlying areas.

1:09:35 And for me, I think, I think I can do this. You have Republicans, you have Democrats. My dad was a card carrying Ronald Reagan, Vietnam veteran Republican. My mom was a Kennedy Democrat, but she'll say she's independent, but she's mostly a Democrat. I'm in the middle. And here's what I want to appease to to people in politics, because politics is so divisive if you're Republican or you're Democrat and you're sort of in the middle. Which is 90% of the population. Let's start our own let's start our own party and call it the fuck you party.

1:10:21 OK, let's call it the fuck you party to the to the left wing and the right wing political spectrum. And let's just be done with them. And then let's do common sense rules. It's common sense rules. But there are people like are you because this is non partisan, But I had to take the Democratic ticket because she's the heavy Republican. So I, I need I want to help. If you don't get the help, you're basically running all the way uphill. And that's what it is, man. The, the, the system is structured in a way that feeds it feeds the separation of two. And you know, you can talk about all the incentive for that for a million years, right? Like a divided population is easier to rule and all of this stuff, right?

1:11:02 But it feels like like just taking the temperature of the air of our society right now. It feels like there's an appetite for this swing back to the middle right where most of us live. And you know, I can't remember, I think it was before the show, I said this like we have so much more in common with our neighbor than we do the billionaire lobbyist who's being the playing the puppet strings of these things and that stuff. I had Brian Johnson on a while on a while back and I, I was intrigued to hear he had a story. I can't remember verbatim, and I might even mess up some of the logistics, but he had a story about how similarly he had to like pick a party. I don't know if that's nonpartisan or not his role.

1:11:43 I would think it is, but I I could be wrong. Regardless, he had a, a like a smear campaign done against him that was directed from political dollars from the opposing party. And like, that's for the a local race. So we can sit here and think that it's only president and Congress. In the house. But it flows all the way down to the bottom. And I think I haven't, I haven't dipped my toes in this water yet, But eventually, sometime I, I foresee a, a future, Brad, that's going to kind of be in the same spot where like, I think it's an instrumental way to impact your immediate community in a way that makes sense and in a way that is, you know, reflective of beliefs and supportive of what you're trying to do. Because that's where I think we change it, dude. Like we can't change the, the president, really. We can't change the, the entire structure unless everybody decides to stop paying those taxes you were talking about, which won't happen.

1:12:47 But what we can do is we can, you know, dude, I one, let me stop here for a second. I think it's awesome. The reference of your parents, you know, living on 2 mountains. Like that's it's a crazy time when I because my parents live with me. After my divorce, I brought my parents in to live with me so I can expand their life real quick because I work at a place that tries to do aging. So I want to slow down their aging. But when I come home at dinner time in the 530, Evening News comes on. It's game on between those two and I'm just refereeing. No shit. Oh yeah, it gets hot. That's awesome. It's hot late man. I and I don't think I think that probably used to be more common than it is now.

1:13:31 Even couples are like get on board or divide. You know, I think that's kind of the place we are. And I love hearing that, that, you know, and for a couple that sounds like they've been married for a long time, it's probably pretty colorful, right? I, I should know, they're pro. They're 57. The 60 is coming soon. So my sister and I got to start getting the party ready because we did the 50th. So I know they're, they're closer to 60 than 50. But yeah, they've been married a long time. A long time. And, and I just, I don't know man, that the whole temperature of, of society right now is just uncomfortable.

1:14:12 And I, I think that we've like, and, and social media has been a huge part of that. It's funny. I teach social media marketing. It's funny because social media, like for all the good that it does for the world, they're like it does. It highlights and puts on a pedestal the fringes, the 10% of people on each side that are willing to just be outlandish, say shit that's not true, or be so convicted in a belief that there couldn't be anything else right. Now it's a 32nd drug. Yeah, there's a fact that dopamine in your retirement, you can lie and make it look true and nobody's going to contest it. And you throw in AI in there and now everything's fake, but it's claiming it's true.

1:14:54 And let let's take this, let's switch gears a little bit, but we'll come back to it. My parents understanding AI, they're they're done with technology. They're done. And I got to literally tell mom, that's AI. You can't believe that it's AI. But where? Where the Republican and Democrat, both sides, the the crazy left and right, where they're attacking our elders who don't understand it and they can make them believe it? Oh hell yeah, really quickly. And they could still vote. They're still a card carrying member of society. You know they can do it all. Man, it's wild. Well, cool. Thanks for sharing. I, I applaud anybody that takes a step in the direction of serving locally. Yeah, in a in any type of way, man.

1:15:35 Just real simply, it's it was for my kids. You know, I want my kids to grow up and I think a lot of families in District 1 and in Green Bay want this. You want your family safe, you want to raise your kids, you want to have a nice neighborhood, you want affordably be able to buy everything you want. You want nice roads and you want to do it responsibly. And you also want to help other people like homeless people, people that are having drug addiction problems, people that might be having other societal problems. So that's where I'm kind of I'm a way big Democrat on on for social issues or when it comes to fiscal issues, I might be leaning more conservative. So the cool part about this is when I go door knocking and there's only been one person.

1:16:17 There's only been one person that goes the husband I met talked with him and he's like, well, let me talk with the wife and then what? He talks to the wife and then she goes, I can hear in the backwards, if that guy's a fucking Democrat, you slam the God damn door on him. And then he comes back like all sullen, like I'm like, I heard I'm good, I'll walk away. And that was the only weird experience I had. But otherwise, people that you may have a Trump flag or a Trump thing up in their garage, I'll still knock on your door. Dude. We have the similar. We have similar goals and values we want for our family. That's what I'm representing. That's the people I represent. I don't represent an ideology.

1:17:00 And once you get further from that middle, it doesn't become politics, it becomes religion. It becomes a drug for people and you will not change their mind because they are indoctrinated in that drug. Let's bring it more centre. Yeah, buy all those social media videos, buy the the news outlet they decide to watch and where they do that when. My mom goes to bed at 9:00. You know what's the first thing that goes on in my house for my dad? Fox News. Fox News going on, man. Yeah, well, cool, John. It was great chatting with you man. Thank you, Brad. I love this. What you got going on here is cool and keep doing it. We got to get you live out in the field. Yeah, let's talk about that.

1:17:46 I think there could be a really cool scenario of a little social media live talking to some people right down in the weeds who are experiencing Lambo through a sober lens. There you go. Appreciate you man. Thank you. Appreciate it too.