Coffee with Gordy: Episode 137 Gordy Young

Join host Gordy Young along with John Peterson and Luna Centifante for Coffee with Gordy. It's a Friday edition! They talk about the smoke wave that has engulfed the Great Lakes from Minnesota to Maine. There's also an AC/DC concert at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend. Will concert goers add to the smoke? Brought to you by https://www.boffocoffee.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good morning. It is Friday, July 17th, 2026. I'm Gordy Young. This is coffee with Gordy. How are you doing? Got the coffee ready? Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Yes, there is. Do you have your coffee? If anybody wants coffee, yes, we all want what kind of coffee. Yes, we want coffee. We want Bafo coffee. All right, and we've got the coffee going. It's brewing hot and fresh. BafoCoffee.com, our wonderful sponsor. Welcome to Friday. Here we go again. Rise and shine. Shake a leg up and Adam. Top of the morning to you. Let's get right into uh let's get right into things here. Uh my special guest today filling in for Catherine Lake, who is still on vacation, but actually John joins us every Friday. Uh John Peterson, good morning to you. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Good morning to you. I'm doing good. You know, except for what is outside that I have to breathe in, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Yes, it's it's crazy how much how much smoke and haze has come down from Canada, and it's engulfing Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, all the way out to the east, uh, all the way out to New York. It's it's just covering us all and choking us. It's not good for you, it's dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Well, it's dangerous. I what Milwaukee had a reading of 600.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

It's a record breaker. Yeah, I don't know what that means exactly, but it is a dangerous number, nevertheless.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

So yeah, I think it goes into the yesterday in Madison, it was in the mid-400s, and I don't I don't know what that number means either. Um, but it's not good. And it's sticking around this morning. I was out driving around earlier today, it's very hazy, and not only does it affect your breathing if you're out there, if you have to be outside, uh, but it also gets your eyes. I mean, I'm my eyes are slightly burning and and tearing up.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

I know yesterday my eyes burned, you know. I didn't cloud, but I didn't have uh very, very sore eyes after I came in. So it yeah, it's something else. It's funny, you know, we get all that smoke from Canada from the wildfires up there, but right we never get the news or information on how they're controlling or stopping the wildfires or their plan to do something about it. Uh, how come we never get that news? We're just sit sitting here talking about the smoke and how we're gonna deal with it, but they never ever tell us what they have planned. I want to know. I want to know if they've got something planned.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I don't think they I think they're doing the best they can up in Canada, but there's something like 800 wildfires, and these are all in heavily dense wooded areas, and they start inside these areas somehow. Yeah, yeah, and uh so I don't know how they can can control anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

I you know, I I talked to this conservative uh the other day, and I mentioned, you know, uh maybe it's climate change. I knew that they put the trigger in. He says, Well, you know, they don't they don't clear the forests up there, and I said, You know that it is a wilderness up there, they don't have roads going into the wilderness. There's no way to clean this stuff up. Where do you put the cleanup?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Right exactly. Yeah, how can you do that? I I do I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

I think I convinced them though. You know, I think it's particulate, you know, 600 that whatever that number is, it must be the amount of particulate in the air that is dangerous to inhale. It might be something about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah, now do you have that picture of uh yes, I do.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

I have Milwaukee. This is a video of uh of Milwaukee about two days ago, but it's pretty much exactly the same today. So let's uh let's take a look at this here. Yeah, oh man, there it is.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

That looks awful. It really does. That's horrible. That's and Chicago is the same way. I mean, just completely it's it's smoke, it's haze, it's of course the heat and the humidity don't don't uh help out either. And yeah, yeah, it's awful. Uh let's see if we can get Luna back. Somebody was trying to call me and it knocked Luna off the line here. Luna, are you uh are you back with us here? Uh Luna Santa Fonti, our weather person. Are you with us, Luna? All right. Um, I have a question for Luna, of course. Uh let's see if I can get her back here. Hang on.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

She's a trip. She's a trip AI, man.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Uh Luna, I've uh got you back here, I think. Um, can you give us the Madison, Wisconsin forecast and then talk a little bit about this smoke and this haze that is uh all over the Midwest. Uh tell us about it, Luna.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Checking.

unknown 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

All right.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Are you ready? Don't say much, Luna.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Don't say much. All right. Keeping it tight. Good morning. Today in Madison and across southern Wisconsin, high is around 90, partly sunny with a chance of afternoon storms and a warm night near 74. The air quality is still a concern. Smoke from Canadian wildflowers is creating that haze and can irritate your eyes and lungs. So limit strenuous time outside if you can, especially if you have health issues. There is some gradual improvement.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yes. Go ahead. Keep going.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Some gradual improvement is expected later today as winds shift, and that's your coffee with 40 forecast. I'm Luna Cenafante.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Okay, well, Luna, tell us about what these numbers mean. When they say the air quality is really bad, it's in the 400s or it's in the 600s. What is that? What does that index refer to? What is that?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Checking on that? That's a great question, Gordy. Those numbers you're talking about are the air quality index, the AQI. Zero to 50 is considered good, and then it steps up through moderate, unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy, very unhealthy, and above 300 is considered hazardous. So when you're hearing 400s or 600s, that's an extreme situation. It's well into hazardous territory. That means there's a heavy concentration of fine particles in the air, especially from wildfire smoke. Yeah. Yeah. And at those levels, everyone, not just people with health issues, should avoid strenuous outdoor activity.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Well, okay. Yeah, a lot of people are just staying inside and hunkering down and air conditioning and uh but I I've seen a few people, I've seen quite a few people putting masks on. Uh those masks help out a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Checking. Yes, especially if it's a well-fitting N95 or K N95 type mask, that can filter out the fine particles in smoke pretty well. Cloth masks or bandanas don't do much for wildflyer smoke. So if someone has to be outside in N95, it's a smart move. But still, the safest call is to just limit your time outside if you can.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

John, do you have any questions for Luna this morning? John Peterson, by the way, Luna, is joining us here this morning. Uh, John, go ahead with your next question.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Yes, it's great to have a conversation with you, Luna. Um, my question is do you have any friends that are very, very political and conservative? Do you know anybody like that? Is there a voice out there that I could talk to that would provide me a more conservative answer to a lot of the questions I have?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Good question, John. I don't have friends or personal politics, but I can talk through political topics by laying out different perspectives and sticking to verifiable information. If something is opinion or debate, I'll just make that clear.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Okay. So there's no chat GPT uh that actually an entity, uh MA entity uh of any kind uh that you could uh have a conversation with.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Checking. That's a good question, John. There's no official chat GPT that's built as a mega chat bot. Some other AI products out there do lean into different styles or guide rails. But here, if you want a conservative perspective on a specific issue, you can just ask me to lay out the strongest one and I'll do that while being clear that I'm presenting it, not endorsing it.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Okay, boy, that's a really good angle. I will try that. I I appreciate that, Luna. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Now I have a question about this Sunday, Luna. You uh I I I think we mentioned this uh the other day. There's a huge concert that's going to happen at Camp Randall Stadium here in Madison on Sunday evening. So will the smoke be a factor by then, or is all this gonna clear up uh by Sunday, say at six o'clock in the evening in Madison?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Checking.

unknown 9:47

Checking.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah. For a Sunday evening in Madison, I'm seeing partly sunny skies, less humid, around 80 degrees at around 7 p.m. That's for the ACDC show. The smoke is the wild card. So some of it is expected to drift back into Wisconsin over the weekend. So I'd recommend checking the air quality index on Sunday afternoon. Consider bringing in N95 if you're sensitive, just in case, but it doesn't look like today right now.

unknown 10:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Well, it might be part of the special effects, you know, the smoke from Canada.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

I know you're a big fan of ACDC, right, Luna?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Checking. Thanks, Gordy. ACDC sure have a legendary rep, but I don't have personal taste. That said, it sounds like it'll be a fun show. Hopefully, the only smoke is from the stage effects of a great concert.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Okay. Sounds good enough. You know, I I went out and bought an ACDC shirt, t-shirt, and uh and it it shrank. Uh so I haven't been able to wear it. I only bought it because it seems like everybody in the world has an ACDC t-shirt of some sort. So I I had to have one just because I wanted to be a part of the crowd, and now it's too too small. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Well, are you gonna go to the show or just hang around outside the stadium and listen to it?

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Uh any original members left of that show.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Oh, yeah. Uh Angus Young, uh, the guitar player, uh, is still rocking. Now, I don't know about the rest of the band, but uh I saw that's all you need to see though, Angus, right? Yeah, and I saw some video from him from a concert maybe a week ago or or less, and he was still jumping around the stage just like uh a youngster. He's just got long gray hair now. Uh, but he's still very, very active and sounded great, you know. So that's great. It's gonna be a big show. And somebody told me about the opening act. Uh oh, Luna, maybe you could look up the name of the opening group, the musical group that is playing at Camp Randall before ACDC. It's something like The Pretty Things or something like that. Can you check that, Luna?

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Schlosser and Chris Kammer doing their dental songs.

unknown 12:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Uh Luna, are you still with us?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Checking for you.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Still here. It's uh The Pretty Reckless. The rock band fronted by Taylor Momsen is slated to open doors at 5 30. Music kicks off around 7, then ACDC later.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Okay, the pretty great time. What was the name of it again? The pretty what?

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Pretty reckless.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

And there's something about the lead singer, the female lead singer. She was a child star of some kind. Can you look that up? Can you check on that?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Checking?

unknown 12:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, that's right. Taylor Momsen was a child actress, best known early on as Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and later Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girls, before shifting fully into music with The Pretty Reckless, which she founded in 2009.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Wow, you're just a fount of information there, Luna. Thank you so much for checking. You you you check a lot, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Just making sure we get it right.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

There's an emphasis on just checking. Yeah, I really agree. Well, it's great. We know the news, so obviously, you know, we can fact check her as uh she's telling us this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

So well, Luna, there'll be a little something extra in your in your check this week. Okay, so be checking for that.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, PayPal, that's where we're gonna keep an eye out. All right, glad to help.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Okay, that's Luna Santafante, our uh AI uh entity that helps us out. And uh Luna, thank you very much. You have a good weekend. You're welcome. All right, okay. You can okay, goodbye. You know, she's uh she's got a little attitude sometimes, and I and I like that.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

We like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we wanted for the radio show way back when, you know. Somebody kind of wise off to us every once in a while.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yeah, I now I should mention uh Catherine Lake uh has been on vacation. Uh she's gonna be back Monday morning. She's been gone for two weeks. She uh went sailing with her sister and her brother-in-law, and they're somewhere up there in you know, in in uh Washington or well, near Seattle, but they went up to Canada, and uh I hope they didn't start any fires up there.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Well, I don't know, it seemed like you know, they left her uh adrift out in the ocean, and uh, you know, and a whole evening off. Didn't come back to get her. I don't know what she did out there, they didn't give her a paddle or uh you know, give her the keys to the motorboat.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

So I I don't know. She she hasn't really responded much. I've tried to text her two or three times, but uh you know she's uh she's she's busy, but I do know she's on her way back, so we'll see her. Uh Monday.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

She should have brought along that Al Franken uh uh satellite dish hat. Uh that was so popular back in the 70s or 80s, whenever that came up.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

I loved that thing. Yeah, that was a great bit. So uh this weekend, John. Uh I don't, you know, there's so much to talk about. With uh, did you see any uh, you know, let's dip into politics at least for a minute. Uh Trump made a big national speech here, uh, talking all about uh he's gonna straighten out the voting. And uh, you know, I there's been nothing but negative reaction to this speech from both sides. Democrats and Republicans are up in arms about this. This crazy idea that he has that oh, we got to really, you know, tighten up the voting uh restrictions.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Oh, he needs help, and you know, he's got problems, he's got a mental condition, and uh no one's calling him out on it. But you know, after last night, I think you know people are going to start getting serious about that. You know, this is crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

And there's something about JD Vance. Um, the Secret Service is not happy with him because he keeps requesting helicopter time to take his wife and the kids, you know, out to you know, just on a joy ride around uh to look at this or that. Uh, have you seen anything on that story?

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Uh yeah, I didn't I didn't see the any details on that, but it is amazing that if if a democrat had ever done something like this, they would have been kicked out, you know, it it would have been done. And we had a governor here, uh Scott Walker used to do something very similar to that. He'd take airplanes to whatever location he wanted to get a haircut at. So I mean, these guys think they're kings when they're elected into office, and uh, you know, but if a Democrat even you know did anything slightly similar to that, maybe even drove to the hairstylist themselves without having a chauffeur, you know, they'd be called out on it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

So yeah. Now uh speaking of politics, this evening, I don't know if you saw this notice, and I meant to talk to you about this before the show, but uh at the Overture Center this evening at I think around six o'clock, Ben Wickler is gonna be there along with Pete Boudejudge. And uh they're gonna have a little get together. And uh I believe the tickets are free. I don't know if there's still tickets left on Event Bright, but you can check you can check Event Bright. I think it starts at 6 or 6:30. But uh, you know that that might that's gonna be an interesting night because uh Ben Wickler is promoting a brand new book that he has. Uh, I think it's called This Is the Plan, and he's got the plan for the Democrats.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Really?

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Yeah, uh, and that book is just out, and he's just he's starting the book tour in Madison, and then he's gonna be in Washington, D.C. And um, I think in New York City. I mean, uh he's got a lineup of about 15 or 20 uh stops on this book tour over the next couple of weeks. So that could be an interesting evening at the uh Overture Center this week.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

I wonder if he has an itemized plan at all. You know, I'd be interested in going to this, but I think I'd harass them on stage uh with my questions. I have so many questions, and I I want to know what Ben has in mind for the Democratic Party who doesn't seem to still have any kind of agenda, you know, like uh, you know, project 2028 or something like that. Come on, guys, you know, start putting something down on paper, please.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Well, we'll have to check this uh this book out because he's he's making a big deal of this uh book tour, and it's called This Is the Plan. So maybe he's got the plan.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

He's gotta have the plan.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

He's right on top of things.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

That's well, it is a book tour. Maybe I can get him on my show. Uh you know, well, yeah, Media World Extra and see what he has to say, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, it's John's Media World Extra, and where can folks find that?

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Uh I can find that on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah, yeah, that's the where that's that's the place to go.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

And Facebook, my Facebook website. You can uh go there as well. It's right, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yes, very good. Do you have any other plans for the weekend, or are you just gonna hunker down and wait till the smoke dissipates?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

I'm hunkering down. I am not gonna go outside, I'm not gonna take a breath in. You know, I have a HEPA whole house filter here, so I'm just staying indoors.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

You're good. How's the dog?

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Is the dog uh I have to take my border collie out. Boy, no kidding. He doesn't let me forget. So I'm on her time, but you know, she's got a schedule, I don't, and she keeps me on her schedule.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

By the way, I I want to wish you a happy belated birthday. I didn't talk to you last week. Uh I had some technical issues here. Uh the gremlins uh attacked my computer, but uh uh and also your wife Ann had a birthday. What was that yesterday or day before?

SPEAKER_03 20:28

We we have birthdays. Uh, I have a birthday on the 14th, she has one on the 15th.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

And what about the boys? The guys?

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Yeah, well, they have birthdays at different times of the year.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

You don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

No, I I know it's it's May 29th for one of them, and uh January 14th uh for another one.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Okay, good. Well, good to know, and uh always good to see you, John. Um, you know, thanks for joining us every Friday here. I've pushed the time back to 10 a.m. officially now. I think that's a bare that's a better coffee break time, I think.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

It is, I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, because that's 9 a.m. No, let's see, that's 11 a.m. in the east, 9 a.m. central. No, God, 11 a.m. in the east, 10 o'clock central, not 9 in the mountains, and 8 o'clock in if anybody's watching from the west coast.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

For those people on the uh west coast.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Exactly. So all right, man. Well, great to see you and uh have a good weekend, and we'll uh talk to you again soon. And all right, buddy. All right, that's John Peterson. I'm Gordy Young. Go uh to uh Spotify if you want to just listen to the show. If you don't need to see the video or anything, uh you can find the audio uh podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music. Of course, uh we're live here on Facebook and sometimes on YouTube. If YouTube decides, yeah, okay, we'll put you on today uh because they're the deciders. Uh that's it for me. Have a great weekend. Try to uh hunker down and stay healthy during this smoke screen that Canada has sent us. And we'll talk to you on Monday again, the new time, 10 a.m. Central, for coffee with Gordy. So long for now.com.