Wgtd's The Morning Show With Greg Berg

From 2013 - Ian O'Connor, author of "Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry."

Victoria Hetherington talks about her latest book ...... "The Friend Machine: On the Trail of AI Companionship." The book examines how tens of thousands of people around the world are utilizing AI for companionship, friendship, and even romance. The book discusses what there is to celebrate as well as what there is to fear in this technology.

We speak with author and journalist Phyllis Karas about her book "Curse of the Blumenthals," in which we talks about two very unhappy events in her family's history - "The Tragedy," a car accident in the 1930s involving a drunk driver in which six of Karas's relatives were killed ...... and "The Incident" from the early 1950s in which one of her relatives purportedly committed a horrific murder that became a sensationalized news story. Karas found herself obsessed with uncovering as much information about these two events as she possibly could.

We speak with entertainment writer Scott Ryan about his latest book- "Twin Peaks: Through the Red Curtain." The book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of this groundbreaking series by David Lynch and Mark Frost .... a series that helped pave the way for all kinds of series that have come in its wake, including "The X Files," "Lost," and "Stranger Things."

We are sharing Thursday's Morning Show a couple of days early because it concerns a performance coming up this Friday night at the White Lilac in downtown Kenosha: Storyteller, actor and singer Tom Kastle is presenting his one-man show "Dan Seavey: Confessions of a Great Lakes Pirate." Seavey is someone how actually engaged in piracy on the Great Lakes during his long and colorful life.

We speak with Marcus White, President of the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, and Alexandria Smith, Program Officer, about their Safety and Well-Being Collaborative, an enormous project involving nearly three dozen organizations from around Racine - seeking to address some of the most pressing concern confronting the city around the issue of racial disparity.

From 2008- John Broughton, author of "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual." This book was published at a time when Wikipedia was a relatively new addition to the internet, and many people were still unsure of what it was and how it functioned.

Yesterday, May 15th, Racine native Zachary Scot Johnson posted his 5,000th "Song a Day" on Youtube. That's 5,000 consecutive days that Zach has posted a song . In honor of the milestone, we're re-sharing the interview we did with Zach back when he passed the 3,000 benchmark. That interview was done during the period when COVID had basically shut down Zach's live, in-person performance activity and the Song A Day project was an especially important means to remain connected with his fans. Zach is now busier than ever as a musician based in the Twin Cities.

We speak with Nick Greene, author of "How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius: What Architects, Stuntwomen, Paleoanthropologists, and Computer Scientists Reveal About the World's Game."

For Kailyn Palomares's monthly visit to the program, we hear from Ben French, Vice President of Propogation, Production and Product Development at Johnson Nursery in Menomonee Falls ..... one of the largest providers of native plants in Southeastern Wisconsin.

We preview the Racine Theater Guild's production of the musical PIPPIN with Doug Instenes, managing and artistic director of the RTG and the stage director for this production. We also talk about his long time connection with this particular show.

We preview this coming Sunday's concert by the Kenosha Chamber Choir .... "Songs of the American Heartbeat," an all-American program in honor of our country's 250th anniversary. We speak with Michael Gutierrez, director of the group, and Agnes Gray, president of the ensemble and a member of the soprano section. The concert will be performed at Bradford High School thanks to a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Pauline Steinhorn, author of "Dreaming of the River: A Mother and Daughter's Fight for Survival during the Holocaust." The two people named in the book's subtitle were the author's mother and grandmother- and this book is based extensively on journals written by both women shortly after the end of the war. It allows Steinhorn to tell many of the same stories from two different perspectives.

Note from Gregory Berg: One of my favorite television programs is CBS Sunday Morning. Today, for Mother's Day, they ran a moving story about a series of retreats across the country for women who have lost their mothers and are trying to cope with the loss. I immediately recognized the name of the woman responsible for organizing the retreats- Hope Edelman - because she had been a guest on my Morning Show many years ago (2007) - talking about her book "Motherless Mothers: How Losing a Mother Shapes the Parent You Become." The book was a followup to her 1994 best-selling book "Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss." I am replaying this interview today in honor of Mother's Day and because I am mindful of all of the people for whom this day includes sorrow and some sense of loss.

As Willow Newell ends her reign as Miss Wisconsin (she crowns the next Miss Wisconsin on June 20th) we decided to re-share this interview that was recorded shortly after she became Miss Wisconsin in the summer of last year.

We speak with David King Dunaway about his new book "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See." It's a look at the history of how eyeglasses were developed - and what may be ahead as technology advances. The book also touches on the author's own relationship with glasses- which he has worn for more than 70 years. During the course of researching this book, the author elected to spend a week without wearing his glasses to see how well he could navigate with his very serious myopia uncorrected.

We speak with Russ Johnson, director of the Jazz Ensemble at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, about Wynton Marsalis's Abyssisian Mass: A Gospel Celebration, which is being performed at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening in Frances Bedford Hall. This is a collaboration between the Jazz Ensemble and the choirs at Parkside, conducted by James Kinchen.

We speak with David Anderson, artistic director of the Lake Geneva Symphony Orchestra, about the concert this weekend that finishes out their 25th anniversary season - a program that will include Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Overture.

Sister Janet Weyker, a well-known advocate for environmental concerns in Racine, speaks about the importance of composting.

Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a teacher at Harvard Medical School, discusses his book "Feeling Better with Cannabis: Feel Better, Sleep Better, and Live Better with Marijuana and CBD. " Grinspoon's father, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, was a forceful advocate for medical marijuana a half century ago.