The Milwaukee LEGEND returns to discuss an array of topics. The last episode got a lot of people calling cap on Milverine’s walking routine. Does he really walk 45-55 miles per day? We do a mathematical analysis. 

What is the Milverine’s love life like? Are there Milverine groupies in Milwaukee? (This part is hilarious)

Additional topics include: 

• What he’s seeing around the RNC 
• Did he ever consider running for office? 
• His 2024 Summerfest experience 
• Craziest fan interaction 
• Throwing the Brewer’s first pitch 
• Favorite summer walking route 
• Walking routine, sleep routine, caffeine intake 

Milwaukee Uncut is produced by Story Mark Studios, in partnership with OnMilwaukee and presented by Nicolet Law and Central Standard Distillery. 

For clips follow:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milwaukeeuncut/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@milwaukeeuncutpod

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MilwaukeeUncut

The NCAA Tournament kicks off this week and Kam and Stevie stopped by the studio before heading down to Indianapolis! 

If you want to get an inside look at Marquette Basketball, laugh and get fired up for what’s to come this episode is for you. 

Topics include: 

• Big East Recap
• Mindset of the team right now 
• EGQs
• How Kam & Stevie ended up at Marquette and why they chose to stay 
• What it’s like playing for Shaka and the most fired up they’ve ever seen him 
• Zen Mode & Killa Mode
• Rapid fire questions
  • Best MU dining hall 
  • The Harp or RWB 
  • Best dancer on the team 
  • Worst dancer 
  • Best/worst drip on the team 
  • Worst scooter driver on campus 
  • Dream brand deals 
  • Most likely to come unprepared for a test 
  • Who you would/would not let date your sister on the team 
  • Favorite Milwaukee spots 
  • Most embarrassing warm up songs 
  • What they love most about MU and a message to the fans 

 

Episode hosted by Richie Burke & Grace Scalzo 

Produced by Story Mark Studios 

In partnership with OnMilwaukee 

Sponsored by Nicolet Law & Central Standard Distillery 

 

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Transcript

Kam Jones: You know, you can’t take a game for possession

Stevie Mitchell: for granted, especially in March Madness. You know, we know that in the tournament, if you’re not your best, you’re very beatable. So

Grace Scalzo: favorite Milwaukee spot when you’re not playing basketball,

Richie Burke: who’s the one guy on the team that you would not let date your sister?

Grace Scalzo: Best dancer on the team.

Richie Burke: Worst dancer.

Stevie Mitchell: There’s a few for this one.

Grace Scalzo: What is the thing that you love the most about Marquette?

Stevie Mitchell: We’re grateful. I mean, me personally, I’ve never been a part of a place that like loves basketball like Marquette does. Get lost in a fight with

Kam Jones: us. You know, we’re gonna be out there 40 minutes trying to get after it every second.

Richie Burke: Hey everyone, it’s your host Richie Burke and we have a very special March Madness edition of Milwaukee Uncut for you today. Kam Jones and Stevie Mitchell, two stars on the number two seed Marquette Golden Eagles, were nice enough to drop by last night before they headed to Indy today for their first round matchup on Friday against Western Kentucky.

This was a fun one. You’ll get an inside look at the Marquette basketball program. They had a lot of great stories. We also had a lot of laughs and we talk about the hopefully long tournament run that they are about to embark on. Along with Kam and Stevie, Gray Scalzo, who was on a couple of our Dating in Milwaukee episodes and is very involved in Marquette basketball, also came down to co host this one with me.

Before we get started, just a reminder that Milwaukee Uncut is produced in the heart of Walker’s Point at Story Mark Studios in partnership with On Milwaukee. And sponsored by Nicolet Law, the Midwest’s law firm, Russell Nicolet, who is the man on just about every other billboard in the area. Great guy. He dropped in the other week.

His episode will be out soon. And this show is also sponsored by our friends at Central Standard Distillery. If you’re looking to get after it responsibly this March Madness season, I highly recommend my personal favorite, their Door County Cherry Vodka. Or their new canned old fashions. They did in collaboration with the line and Kugel’s that are out right now.

Those are also very good central standard distillery. Okay. On that note, let’s dive in with Kam Jones and Stevie Mitchell. You’ve had a busy last week. It hasn’t really even been a week. You had the biggies tournament put up a very good fight in New York city without Colick made a good run against Yukon in the finals.

How, how, how are you feeling? How’s the vibe been coming back?

Stevie Mitchell: I think, you know, the vibe is kind of, you know, we lost our last game. So obviously, like, you know, a lot of people saying good job, you know, doing you know, getting some wins even without Tyler. But we know we could have, you know, played a lot better in that championship game.

So we just got back, just learn from the loss, obviously proud of the games we won, but just looking forward to, you know, continue to get better and then adding Tyler back.

Kam Jones: Like we still hungry. We didn’t go out there that championship game to put up a good fight and lose. We wanted to go out there and we thought we had enough, but we did have enough. And as a team, we thought we had enough to go win that game. And down the stretch, you know, they made a run that pretty much separated the game.

But yeah, I would say that we’re very motivated, you know, to get another chance to play. And, you know, knowing I just want to go home now.

Richie Burke: Stevie, how are you feeling? I saw a tweet that said you doled out and absorbed more contact in two games than the New York Jets roster all season. How are you doing?

Stevie Mitchell: I’m doing good. You know, Kenny, our athletic trainer, he’s, you know, had to had to deal with a lot this year, but he’s been taking good care. You know, just getting treatment every day. Are off days coming to get treatment. Yeah, practice. They got treatment before and after. So just, you know, take care of the body.

pretty. At this point in season. Everybody’s, you know, banged up a little bit, so just trying to take any advantage you can get by getting in the training room as much as possible.

Richie Burke: Do you get over that lost pretty quick with selection Sunday and the excitement that that brings the day after.

Stevie Mitchell: Not really. I mean, I feel like we won’t completely be over until You know.

Like the next game and then the game after that, you know, like. Going losing that game was kind of like we wanted to win that like just as bad as they wanted to win it They they got the win. So it’s not really something we could just get over But selection Sunday was a good, you know to come together as a team right after that and be together and enjoy You know, enjoy the moment enjoy the time that we have together

Grace Scalzo: Alright, so I took a deep dive into the k1 and Stewie show if you haven’t tapped in I recommend it great episodes Something you guys do, like an EGB is an EGQ, and if you’re unfamiliar, that’s an energy generating question, so I got one for you guys.

What part of each other’s game would you like to have, if you could?

Stevie Mitchell: Shoot that three. Shoot that three, shoot them step

Kam Jones: backs. I was about to say, I

Stevie Mitchell: think you shoot a better percentage from three to me. Nah, those step back threes, I need those, and I need the, you know, the left hand, quick release. You I need those.

I need the, I need the layup package. I know you said one part, but. Yeah, I need, I need the snatch, the hang, I need the spin in the lane. Oh my gosh. Drive right, come back left. You know, teams have been scouting that for the entire season. Still haven’t really been able to stop it. So I need that in my bank.

So yeah, that’s probably one of those few things. I think a lot of people

Kam Jones: sleep on Stu’s bed. He got a nice, nice bed. But you, that would be very tough to describe, but definitely, you know, his, his, his aura for his team and his, his defense for sure. Man, it’s, it’d be like poetry watching him play defense, especially, you know, on the best players.

Yeah, that’d be all I could really just be there. It’s like, damn.

Grace Scalzo: Yeah, I agree. And your offense is underrated. I would agree with Cam on that too. Extremely

Kam Jones: underrated.

Grace Scalzo: So, I want to take it back though, because in one of the episodes you guys talked about like, AAU and playing against each other. When did you guys meet?

Like how, what’s the story of how you guys know each other?

Kam Jones: We didn’t meet until, well actually, I think the first time, was the first time I talked to you when your commitment got leaked? Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. That was tough. You can

Stevie Mitchell: explain that. I mean, I think, cause, so he had like, I like had committed my coach had, my high school coach had told one of the like local reporters and I wasn’t announcing it for like another week, but the reporter, you know, took the, took the story and ran with it and had posted on Twitter right away.

So I just went on Instagram. I just saw like, I got tagged in a bunch of stories and I clicked on Kam’s story and it was like saying that I committed to Marquette. I was like, what? So I was lost. And I actually had a meeting with Dr. Lovell like in 15 minutes. So like I was kind of dealing with that as I was getting ready for that meeting.

So that was a lot. And then just, you know, from there me and Cam kind of just, we would FaceTime, just talk. And then we didn’t actually meet each other in person until. We got here on campus. That was my first time on campus. That was your second or first time?

Kam Jones: That was my second time on campus. But, yeah, that’s how we met.

That was, I remember posting that and then DK, which was who recruited both of us, he texted me and was like, Yo like, yeah, it got leaked that he was committing. He wasn’t, like, announcing that right now. I remember being like, damn, like, who took that away from him? Yeah.

Grace Scalzo: You didn’t have that? No one took it away from you, right?

Well,

Kam Jones: not really. People knew nor cared what I was going to do. So, you know, that wasn’t really a big thing. I pretty much just announced that I was coming to Marquette. So, that was a pretty fun experience.

Richie Burke: Stevie, did you, was it 100 percent made up in your mind while it got leaked? Or were you still in that decision process?

Stevie Mitchell: Nah, it was it was 100%. Okay. So, I think, cause I was, I wanted to do like, like I ended up doing a video or something. But I wanted to do that prior to, like, it got leaked, but once it did get leaked, I was like, I was kind of like, nah, I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to do it. It’s already out there anyway.

But then, like, my parents kind of convinced me to still just do what I did. And I made a video with like, A bunch of like the younger kids in my area. That’s a great video. I have just like just known while they were growing up and while I was, you know, growing up still as well. And they we went to our high school, my high school football field and I walked up the bleachers and they were all in the stands.

And then. Once I announced I was going to Marquette, they held, like, flags and, like, showed their shirts. They had, like, Marquette shirts, so. It was a fun video, so I was glad I was, I still did it.

Richie Burke: Looking ahead to the tournament this week, heading to heading to Indy. You’re playing Western Kentucky on Friday.

You’ve got a loaded bracket. There’s the Blue Bloods. You’ve got Kentucky. You’ve got Duke. Number one seed, Houston. Badgers are there in the bracket. Florida, potential in the second round. We’ll How are you feeling? Is it hard not to look ahead and stay in the moment right now?

Kam Jones: I would say no, it’s not hard because I mean, we know what it feels like to be a first round exit in the second round exit.

So you know, you can’t take a game for possession for granted, especially in March Madness. Every possession is that much more important. Margin for error goes very, very, very low. Yeah, and I, the only team that I’ve been thinking about is Western Kentucky.

Stevie Mitchell: Yeah, I’ll say the same thing. Like, it’s hard to like look ahead when like we haven’t made it ahead yet.

So I think for us, the main focus is on winning the first game and then moving forward from there. Just kind of learning as we’ve been doing the whole season and growing and getting ready for the next game. And hopefully we keep, are able to do that until the national championship. So, but I mean, I think for us, we’re just focusing on it one game at a time.

Yeah. 14 tournament that starts on Friday against Western Kentucky, who’s a good team. And you know, we know that in the tournament, if you’re not your best, you’re very beatable. So we’re just really focused on being our best version of ourselves.

Grace Scalzo: For sure. Okay. And so now day by day, Friday comes, it’s game day, 2 p.

m. game, right? Eastern time, 2 p. m. Yeah. Tap in if you’re, if you’re not gonna watch already. I’ll be watching. I’ll have my popcorn. I’ll be ready, but I want to know. It’s game day. Walk me through. What’s the steps? How does it go? Do you nap? Like what’s going on on a game day?

Stevie Mitchell: Honestly, I don’t even. It’s different like when we like go away then versus like during the regular season or during this conference play or whatever because it’s kind of like a little more random, but if it’s like at 2 we’ll probably wake up, have breakfast.

Probably have like a walkthrough or something and then have pregame meal and then head over, which I don’t even, yeah, we might just have a brunch because two is kind of a weird time because it’s like right after lunch and we start warming up like an hour before. So I don’t necessarily know what the pregame will consist of.

I just know that, I mean, I’m listening to my music watch my anime TikToks. So,

Grace Scalzo: that’s the ritual. Anime, TikToks, music. What music? What do we listen to?

Stevie Mitchell: Broadway, mainly. Yeah, Broadway. And then, like, just like random songs by other artists.

Grace Scalzo: Okay. Kam?

Richie Burke: How many anime TikToks are you watching pregame over there?

Kam Jones: Me? I’ve watched a few before. Yeah, shit. I mean, yeah, they give you, yeah, they give you more energy than you think. But yeah, for sure. The

Richie Burke: anime TikTok’s got some EGB. Yeah,

Kam Jones: you, you’ll

Richie Burke: be

Kam Jones: surprised. Them motherfuckers got some EGBs. I’m like a superhero. No, yeah but I pretty much, like you said, just listening to a little bit of music.

On game days, I like to, I like to go with how I’m feeling. So, you know, it’s different for different games. Yeah, like even with my music, I like to listen to whatever I want to in that particular moment in time and how my body’s feeling. I really try to, you know, adjust and cater to that.

Grace Scalzo: Sometimes I see you just like singing on your story.

That’s great content.

Kam Jones: I just be bored. Yeah, I’ll be bored and don’t be having nothing else to do. So and I’ll be listening, sitting in my room, listening to music. I’d be like, man, somebody gotta hear this.

Richie Burke: You got some pipes. How is it?

Grace Scalzo: No, he is good. It’s like a, it’s more of like a vibe. Like he’s just chilling in there like it’s

Kam Jones: music

Grace Scalzo: on.

Yeah. I might put in the request though, tuned. Yeah, for sure. You, you can

Kam Jones: do that. Yeah, it is it be good music going on in there. .

Richie Burke: What, what time do you get, do you guys get up, do you have curfew before the game? Do you have people check it knocking on your doors or anything? Is there anything like that or no?

Nah,

Kam Jones: nah, nah. I mean, we grown men, so it’s kind of like you, it’s, you gotta do some stuff yourself too. It’s on you to get your rest. We can’t have nobody watching your back to make sure you’re going to sleep. It’s on you to go to bed, turn your phone off, etc. Which I appreciate, but, you know, being that way here.

Richie Burke: Do you guys feel a certain amount of pressure after an early exit last year? Such a ravid Marquette fan base, and a starving Marquette fan base who hasn’t seen a team go farther than you went last year since 2013. 2013.

Kam Jones: What I would say to that question, as a player on the team, I can promise there isn’t one fan that wants us to win more than us.

Therefore, to answer your question, I try to really focus on my teammates to not let the outside things get in internal with our team because that can really, really be bad for a team. And, you know, having that pressure playing so tight and anxious can really, can really be bad. That can, that can, that can work against you for sure.

Stevie Mitchell: Yeah, I think like Kam said, like, I mean, every team I feel like is going to experience some type of, you know, pressure or feeling of pressure just because every team wants to win very badly. So I think if we can like, you know, use that to our advantage versus letting it like hinder our play or our performance.

It can be a good thing for us. And obviously, like we want to win, we want to win for ourselves. We want to win for each other. And then we do want to win for our fans as well. Because how much they care about, you know, our success and about us. So there’s a lot of people who want us to win. But we know that the only way we’re going to win is if we focus on doing the right things and doing the things that go into winning.

So getting caught up in the pressure and the feeling of pressure. It doesn’t really do too much for us, but, you know, acknowledging it is definitely something you gotta do because it’s there, but it’s there for everybody and it can make you better if you use it right.

Grace Scalzo: So fuel to the fire for sure. And you guys talked about on the podcast and back to it, you talked about your circle and how you said your word was Zen.

Yours was killer mode,

Kam Jones: killer

Grace Scalzo: mode. Okay. So if you’re trying to stay loose, you’re trying to be your best self, trying to be yourself, you’re out there in the game on Friday, we’re watching you. You do something cool. You dunk on somebody you’re like this, whatever it is. It needs to be a moment. Some, are you thinking Zen?

Are you thinking killer mode? What’s going through your mind in moments like that in a game?

Stevie Mitchell: I think like when I think when you’re really in your circle like you’re not really thinking about the things in your circle I think I think that’s more so like like when you you know Go back and think about that.

I was this I was that I was this but like when you’re in your circle You’re like so like in the moment Like the only thing you’re focused on is like what you just did or what you’re doing currently So I wouldn’t think say you’re really thinking about your circle at all I think the The circle is more so to help like direct you towards being Your your best like in your circle if that makes sense.

It’s like a it’s like a circle like It like guides you continuous. Yeah So it’s like I don’t think you’re thinking about anything other than what you’re doing at that moment when you’re a circle

Kam Jones: Yeah, and when you in the circle you like you are those things in your circle. So the terms that you have so When we at our best and me speaking personally when I’m at my best I’m in killer mode So I don’t have to think about it, you know what I’m saying if that makes sense

Grace Scalzo: Yeah, and now just so you know when I see you do something cool.

I’m gonna think killer mode

Richie Burke: We can do that I like that

So shaka I want to shift to shaka. He seems like a very unique coach Probably like no one that you’ve ever one on one played for before. Can you just touch on what it’s like playing for him? You

Stevie Mitchell: I think it’s, it’s definitely like, it’s an experience like every day just because of how consistent he is with like his vibe, his energy.

And then he’s like, obviously like a great role model because everything like we have a culture doc that he’s like, did by like made like, and it’s just like how we act, interact and respond and like kind of just like different principles in it. And he like embodies those and he like actually lives by those.

So it’s like, he’s a good role model to have because he practices what he preaches. And then just as far as like, a coach, like, he’s gonna yell at you, but that’s because he obviously wants us to get better and wants us to be our best. And then he’ll just, his energy is just like, like what I can’t say, one on one.

Like, I think a couple like film sessions ago, he was diving on the ground for a loose ball. He dove on the carpet, bro.

Kam Jones: He dove on the carpet, bro.

He’s like, what you got doing the ball loose? Bro, he threw me a ball, I rolled it out. He just dived on the carpet.

Richie Burke: In a film session?

Kam Jones: Yeah. In the hotel. In the hotel ballroom.

Yeah, nah, he, but it’s so consistent, like, every day, don’t miss a beat, and like, you would know if something was wrong with him, easily, like, just because of how, how, how, how of life he is.

Richie Burke: I only see him on the court, but I can’t really picture him any other way.

Kam Jones: Like, that’s him. Yeah. Man, that’s, I promise, like, the sliding, yelling, like, that is, that’s him, that’s all you need to see to know who.

You will know the very big element of Coach Mark.

Richie Burke: Yeah. Okay, what’s the most fired up that you have ever seen him? Like mad? Yeah, does a moment stand out?

Kam Jones: Yeah, I mean him yelling at me about defense. He’s always, like, in the game, his favorite thing to tell me is f ing guard. That’s his favorite thing to say to me.

But, yeah, he’s always fired up about defense. He hasn’t, I don’t think, he don’t really get on to any, like, mistakes, unless you’re just out there with avoidance goals. That’s the only time he really get on you for making a mistake or, or something like that, but for me, it’s just me playing defense.

Stevie Mitchell: Yeah, I would say. What Cam said, I mean, just like in practice, like it’s just like, he’ll, it’s like, he’ll kind of like pick somebody and, like kind of just pick on that person like throughout the practice because like we talk about responding a lot and like dealing with adversity. So like he’ll he’ll pick somebody in a practice every now and then and like kind of pick on them a little bit and just like test them and see how they respond.

And for me, I’ve had days where I responded well to that and days where I haven’t responded well to that. So, I think just like, you know, being able to,

Kam Jones: Yeah.

Stevie Mitchell: Being able to grow and get older and be able to handle those days better has been, you know, cool. Just cause How he is, like when he, when he is on you, he’s, he’s on you.

So,

Kam Jones: Ooh, man. Just in practice today, like I was, I’m looking at bro, I’m like, man, I remember like, man, I, I know how I feel like he still do to us now, but you just remember like how like everybody had their day way. He didn’t handle it very well. And yeah, that’s him. But it is all a out of wanting you to be better and wanting to win for sure.

Richie Burke: For those of you who heard some laughs, Oakley was very comfortable by Stevie, then moved off the couch, did a big stretch, and passed out now. So there he is. It’s Oakley’s show. He’s in good spirits though. He

own

it. I dove into the K1 and Stewie show as well. Kam, I heard you accidentally sent Shaka, was it a Drake verse or something that was supposed to go to a woman?

No, no, no. I didn’t

Kam Jones: accidentally send it. So he thought I was intending to send it to a woman because of what the lyrics said. Damn. Yeah, it was just, I was just sending him a song, like, cause we sent each other music, and I had just sent him, cause when I was listening to it in the locker room, I’m like, man, and I played it back again,

Grace Scalzo: I’m like, man,

Kam Jones: and I’m like, man, somebody got here, so I sent, I just sent that line to Coach, and he texted me back, he was like, yo, you mean to send this to me, or you mean to send this to to your girl, I was like, My first thought was like, no, I’m gonna send it to you.

But it made sense now that I think about it. Like, if somebody just randomly sent me that, I wouldn’t thought it was for me. You

Richie Burke: don’t discriminate women, 50 year old

guys. You, if a song’s fitting, you just let it fly. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If the song

Kam Jones: cool, yeah, the song cool, the song cool.

Richie Burke: What

Grace Scalzo: song was it?

Kam Jones: It was Slime You Out by Drake.

Grace Scalzo: Okay.

Kam Jones: Yep. What song? Slime You Out by Drake. Yep. I don’t know if I know that one. Very nice song.

Grace Scalzo: Scissors on that, right? Yep.

Kam Jones: Very nice song. Very nice. Is it a romantic song or a banger? It’s a

Grace Scalzo: great song. It’s a banger. He

Kam Jones: kind of was, he kind of was hurt. His feelings was kind of hurt a little bit on that one.

So yeah, that’s probably why he thought that.

Richie Burke: Hey everyone, it’s your host Richie Burke, and I just wanted to let you in on a giveaway. Weekly giveaway that we’re currently doing. At milwaukee uncut if you subscribe and write a review on this podcast wherever you’re listening Which we really appreciate because it helps us get more ears on this milwaukee content And you leave your instagram handle or your email at the end of that review You will be entered into our weekly giveaway right now.

We’re giving away milwaukee uncut hats and central standard stillery gift cards So if you’re looking to support the show and win some great prizes, please subscribe write a review You Again, leave your handle or your email at the end so we know where to reach you. Also, just a reminder, this podcast is brought to you by our friends at Nicolet Law and Central Standard Distillery.

All right, now we’re going to get back into the episode with a highly entertaining round of rapid fire questions that we call the Standard Five with Cam and Stevie.

Grace Scalzo: Best dining hall at Marquette? Comments.

Stevie Mitchell: Comments, I guess. Actually, Strader’s pretty good. I lived in Schrader in like 2008. You have breakfast.

I still go with commas though, just cause I was right next to Humpty.

Grace Scalzo: He’s got a sandwich! I missed it. He said he

Kam Jones: wanted a sandwich.

Richie Burke: Cam, what is going on? Man, what I walk

Kam Jones: on. This is, what is it, sophomore year? Yeah, it was right after the season. Yeah, it was right

after. Yeah, bro. Yeah. Man, when I walk home, he was like, earlier today, he was like, I’m trying to get a six pack. We’re in the weight room.

Richie Burke: We went to the Shrader.

Kam Jones: He crammed it to the table.

Everybody else like got food, like chicken, fried, whatever, a citrus salad. He pulled up with just a sundae. Waffle Sundae. Waffle Sundae. Said it was the special. I was gonna say, you don’t want no six pack bro, that was hilarious, that was a very funny moment.

Grace Scalzo: RWB or The Harp? I’d

Kam Jones: go with Harpy. I don’t know if I’ve

Richie Burke: ever been to The Harp.

Grace Scalzo: Fair. I’d go with Harpy. There we go. Now you have it.

Richie Burke: Alright. Shout out to The Harp. Shout out to The Harp. They’re friends of the show. Most likely teammate to log on to Bumble when you arrive in Indianapolis. Oh, you know what Bumble is?

Kam Jones: I tend to. Oh. Damn.

Richie Burke: Thinking about this a long time.

Kam Jones: Cause it’s

Richie Burke: Most likely to log on to a dating app in any of that case. That’s

Kam Jones: what I’m saying, we got some, we got some characters. And I’m one of them, but I ain’t, not for this question.

Richie Burke: You gotta be locked in

Kam Jones: though. I’ma go with nah, it’s the career for Jonah. I ain’t gonna say Jonah.

Ain’t no wrong with him. Why would he do that? Oh, it’s cause he’s home. He had the career. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. He can’t do it. Nah, he ain’t gonna do it. We go shit. Shout out Cheese. I’m gonna go with Cheese.

Grace Scalzo: The default answer here.

Kam Jones: Okay. Oh, yeah, that cause,

Richie Burke: Cheese. Who, who is that? Yeah.

That’s one I’d walk on with RJ, but Oh, the sundae guy. Yeah, that’s the waffle sundae. Who’s the sundae and the bumble guy. Oh

Grace Scalzo: my god. I

Richie Burke: don’t know if he would, but if I had to pick one It’s not a bad thing,

Kam Jones: I was just curious. That’s a lie, it ain’t nothing wrong with it, but Yeah, I’m probably gonna go with cheese.

Stevie Mitchell: Alright.

Grace Scalzo: Okay, moving on. Best dancer on the team.

Stevie Mitchell: Ooh, best dancer. That’s tough. We

Grace Scalzo: see the videos, come on now, don’t be shy.

Kam Jones: Yeah.

Grace Scalzo: Ah,

Kam Jones: Stu up there.

Stevie Mitchell: I

Kam Jones: don’t think I’m the best dancer. Nah, you up there for sure. I could

Stevie Mitchell: follow directions for a dance, but I can’t. Directions? That’s

Kam Jones: what I’m saying in the videos.

Oh, yeah. You know what I’m saying? You be too probably, C Band, C Band be having the hips. C Band got, he got a little. C B, C

Stevie Mitchell: B can dance. Yeah, shout out Cam Brown.

Kam Jones: Walk on Cam Brown. We’ll give him that one. Give him that one.

Grace Scalzo: Valid.

Richie Burke: Worst dancer. There’s a

Stevie Mitchell: few for this one. Rat, rat a lot. Hang

Kam Jones: with the words,

Stevie Mitchell: man.

Man, have you seen Idol Dance before? Bengal. Oh, Ben.

Kam Jones: Goddamn, BG. I’m sorry, BG. I’m gonna throw you up there.

Grace Scalzo: Okay, so Kam, this is kind of like a two part question for you. So, you were like, best dressed, right? Did you get that?

Kam Jones: With the team votes? Yeah. Oh yeah, yes ma’am. He’s looking the part right now.

Appreciate that. Yeah.

Grace Scalzo: Okay, so who, so if you have the best, who has the worst drip?

Kam Jones: I thought, I don’t know, I think, I’ve been thought we got

the most style out of any team in the country.

Grace Scalzo: Wow. Okay. I’ve been

Kam Jones: thought that from, from last summer. Yeah, I don’t know, that’s a tough one. But

Richie Burke: That doesn’t seem . Stevie, do you agree with cheese? No.

Stevie Mitchell: Cheese. Who, who, who are, who are you giving this to Me? There’s just people who try less often than others. I

Kam Jones: was thinking like, who don’t wear nothing. They all,

Stevie Mitchell: it’s like, I wouldn’t say I, I feel like on our team, like if anybody tries to look nice, they can’t.

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

Kam Jones: Oso don’t ever, I ain’t never seen Oso in No. Like I done seen him before, but. El also El also Elsa. Elsa can, he can dress, he can put it on. Yeah. He got swag. But yeah, him don’t be pulling, he don’t be trying to pull it out.

Stevie Mitchell: He, he doesn’t really pull out them. V , BG don’t really dress up that

Kam Jones: much.

Yeah. But,

Stevie Mitchell: but like when they, when they won to, they came. So we

Kam Jones: seen it. You feel me? We. When we went to Italy, we all, you should have seen, ooh, it was nice.

Stevie Mitchell: Yeah, I don’t know if we got a bad dresser on our team. We got people who try less often than others. Okay, that’s

Grace Scalzo: fair. That’s a tough one. I just saw something with Skims, I think, for you.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I want to know, like, dream brand deal. What brand?

You’re next, so start thinking.

Kam Jones: I mean, I’ll stick it out with Jordan. If Mike ever did, I’ll talk to Mike. I’m talking to Mike. Who wouldn’t

Grace Scalzo: talk to Mike? I like Jordan. You got Jordan on, what do you say CB?

Stevie Mitchell: I mean, I like Jordan, it’s just simple. Nice, comfortable, nice shoes, nice pants, nice sweatshirts, nice jackets.

Everything that we’ve gotten from Jordan has been nice, so I would say probably Jordan as well. Yeah,

Kam Jones: you can make some money from them, so, you know what I’m saying? That’s like, yeah, that’s fantasy land. That’s Coach Smart would call it.

Richie Burke: So, so this is my new favorite player right here. It’s not on me. It went away.

You gotta scroll. Oh my

gosh. Yeah!

Shout out to Cheese! That guy looks like he could take down a Sunday pretty quickly. Shout out to Cheese. Shout out to Cheese. Yeah,

Kam Jones: Cheese, he putting that work in. This was a long time ago.

Stevie Mitchell: Yeah, nah. But nah, nah, that’s funny. He came a long way. He’s injured right now, but. He ain’t been out of it for a minute.

He’s he’s been working to get cheese

Richie Burke: is welcome to come down here and defend himself on the podcast We can we can get funny episodes

Kam Jones: If y’all got you, I will come back. He’s also probably one

Stevie Mitchell: of the funniest people on the team We should we should team up for a

Richie Burke: k1 stewie milwaukee uncut cheese collaboration We’ll get that we’ll get we only have four mics we’ll get five so grace can come back for that one, too.

I hear some of you guys like your scooters Who is the worst scooter driver on the team?

Kam Jones: Well, I, Trey got the slowest bike. So, I mean, we’d be leaving him.

Grace Scalzo: No, that’s so mean. You’re dropping

Richie Burke: him? I mean, I mean. Jesus Christ.

Cheese is not going to recover from this episode. This was right outside of

Kam Jones: Hope. He wasn’t even on a, Cheese wasn’t even on a, he was on a, he was on a V. O. He was on a

V. O. that had, that you could like sit on. He was riding his bike and I was waiting on him. So I was bored. I was just riding my bike in circles.

So I’m just riding. I’m hitting my circle and I see cheese go. My first thought they was like this. I’m like, why are they that close? And see bands have when I just seen cheese hit the corner and they just man, that was crazy. See bands like let the bike go ran off. That was, that was, that was pretty funny.

You spend your cheese, man. We kind of, we low key doing cheese bad, but the great guy. But no, she’s a great, great, great, great guy. Great. To Cape. All right. Yeah. For those,

Richie Burke: for those who don’t know cheese, number 51, 51,

Kam Jones: six, six,

Richie Burke: six foot, 200 pounds, maybe two Oh one after that Sunday. He’s a junior from Chicago, Illinois.

Big East All Academic Team. Yes, sir. Let’s give a shout out to Chief. He be in

Kam Jones: them grades. Shout out to Chief. Yeah, he be studying. Sometimes he be running from me in 2K because he say he do homework.

Grace Scalzo: Okay, wait. So, this is on the school part of it. So, most likely to walk into a test unprepared?

Kam Jones: Me.

Grace Scalzo: Yeah.

Kam Jones: That’s not, I don’t say that to brag or nothing. That’s just, that’s just true. Not, I mean, I’d be prepared. Sometimes. But.

Grace Scalzo: You still do alright? Yeah.

Kam Jones: Oh,

Grace Scalzo: more chillin Yeah, yeah,

Kam Jones: yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a great major. I love my major.

Stevie Mitchell: On our team, most likely to walk into the test unprepared? Ooh.

Kam Jones: I’ma, I should, I should take my answer back.

Richie Burke: You go ahead. Don’t, don’t say it. Nah. Nah, it ain’t cheese. It ain’t cheese. It ain’t cheese. Oh yeah, he’s all academic. Yeah, he’s all academic too. I did

Kam Jones: on, yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s a leader. Yeah. Probably Al. Owl ain’t gon know you had it too. It ain’t no, yeah, Owl. I’ma go with Owl. That’s my dog, but Owl for sure.

That’s what I’ma go with. I remember

Sean told me.

Sean, too. Damn, man, Sean. Man, he was trying to tell us we was tripping, bro. When he was up there not talking about nothing. Talking about nothing. Was we tripping? When he had a presentation in class. Oh yeah,

Stevie Mitchell: that was crazy. Yeah, that was crazy.

Kam Jones: We had a presentation about an interview that we were supposed to have did.

Was

Richie Burke: it good? Was it a good

Kam Jones: presentation? I’m about to explain it to you. So like I said, it was on an interview that we had already did. So Sean go up there and he said the person I interviewed was Ben. He from, he’s from New Zealand, right? He said and this is just an example, he was like what’s your favorite food?

And he kept asking him questions as he was presenting and we were just sitting there laughing. And

Stevie Mitchell: the teacher would ask him a question about the interview and then he’d be like, Ben?

Kam Jones: Ben,

Stevie Mitchell: you said That was a very funny experience. No, but, I mean Our team actually does well in school as a

Kam Jones: whole. Shout out Tyler Colick.

He’s the best reader on the team.

Grace Scalzo: That is bogus, because Tyler, when he came on the podcast for you guys, like, he sounds really smart. He answers everything, like he always, yeah, like that’s so bogus. They just

Kam Jones: trolling, you feel me? Yeah, he’s most hated. Who wouldn’t try to get at all American? Yeah, you feel what I’m saying?

They trying to get him out of the element. So true. Don’t work.

Shout out Tyler. Shout out Colick.

Richie Burke: Who’s the one guy on the team that you would not let date your sister? If you don’t have a sister, this would be if you had one.

Grace Scalzo: I

Richie Burke: thought that was a good question.

Grace Scalzo: They’re just like gonna

Richie Burke: throw the answer, guess it.

Nah, jeez. He’s all academic. He could

take her out for ice cream. He likes that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Kam Jones: he’ll take her out for ice cream.

Grace Scalzo: I’m done. But,

Kam Jones: I mean, that don’t answer the question. We didn’t say take her out for ice cream. We said, date your sister. So, that’s my, I love cheese to death. But, I’m gonna have to go with that answer.

Richie Burke: Stevie, please say something other than cheese here. We can’t just, we can’t just completely body bag the guy who

Stevie Mitchell: I don’t want to, I, I, I, I feel like for me who I, okay, I’ll go with who I would let date my sister. Oh, what a nice guy. I would, I would, I would let, I would let Oso, I would let Bengal,

I would let CB.

Mhm. Three for three. I’ma, I’ma keep it top three. Top three. Top three. This stops there. All right. Top

Richie Burke: three.

Grace Scalzo: All right. Okay. So favorite Milwaukee spot when you’re not playing basketball?

Kam Jones: Like just to be at or like go eat?

Grace Scalzo: Either one.

Kam Jones: My new favorite spot, I just had it yesterday in 3rd Street Market Hall Mr.

Wing. Mr. Wing, so good. Shout out Mr. Wing, yeah, yeah, yeah, they do they thing out there.

Grace Scalzo: What, what flavor?

Kam Jones: I did the Buffalo Lemon Peppery Trip. They know my order when I walked in there, so it’s all love with them.

Stevie Mitchell: For me, favorite place to eat? We go to Capital Grill sometimes. Love Capital Grill. For, one of us has a birthday, we’ll go there together.

On the event, yeah. I’m more calm, I like, I like toast a lot. I think toast is better than sweet diner, in my humble opinion. But yeah, I like toast. I like the vibe inside. I also like I, I like obvious the one area, I think it’s MSOE that well like has all the food places, has a Chipotle, there’s a oh yeah, fusion poke.

I used

Richie Burke: to live on the east side. I was ATLE all the time. Yeah, fusion

Stevie Mitchell: Poke, that’s my spot too. I like that spot. That’s how you, man, I always thought it was fusion. Poke. Me too. But someone corrected me so it’s crazy. I’m not even sure it’s fusion Poke A, but I’m gonna go with that. ’cause the person corrected me.

It sounds, yeah, it pretty

Kam Jones: confident. Yeah. And it sound like that makes sense. What Fusion Poke mean? . Yeah. So , she might know. I mean, he made cheese. The man with the plan now cheese got it going on. He just, he a character too, so yeah. You come with both. Two things can be true at once. You know what I’m saying?

He’s the man with the plan for sure. Smart guy.

Richie Burke: Alright, what is the most embarrassing warm up song you get hyped to?

Kam Jones: A lot of teams, when they team go in, on the road, when they team go in the locker room, they try to play like BS songs, but. They kind of be like turning me up, like YMCA. They’ll play that.

Oh, you like the YMCA? Yeah, I like the YMCA. Like, you do that in summer camp, when you’re at the YMCA. They turn the YMCA song on. That’s one song I remember. I think that was at, like, Illinois. And they was, they thought they was throwing us off. They was turning us up. The joke was on them. You guys got that one.

you got to play, you got to play the fool to the fool to make the fool think that they the fool. I mean, they chew the food, but really they eat it. I messed that up.

Stevie Mitchell: For me, I, I don’t think I really listened to here and now I listen to some big time Rush songs, but that’s just, you know, I wouldn’t, I don’t think that’s embarrassing, I think.

Kam Jones: Oh, that’s what he meant. I thought he meant, like, I’m thinking about literal, literal warm ups. Like the music in the jumbotron. Oh, like in your headphones? Oh, I, if you were a T Swift guy over there, what you, you got going on? Yeah, I got Rihanna, Beyonce, all type of, okay, I’m just going down the line now.

Yeah. Justin Timberlake. I, it is whatever, how I be feeling. So some days Spice

Richie Burke: Spice Girls

throw back in. Not Spice

Kam Jones: Girls. No, not

Richie Burke: the Spice Girls. But

Kam Jones: like, some, it’d be some games to where I feel like, like a, like a, like a silent killer. So I play Rihanna. And then it’d be some games like, I just feel like just killing somebody like on the court.

So I play like crashout music.

Richie Burke: It’s

been working for you for whatever reason. For

Kam Jones: sure. It’s all in the mind.

Grace Scalzo: I’m just laughing.

Richie Burke: Okay,

Kam Jones: cool.

Grace Scalzo: What is the thing that you love the most about Marquette?

Stevie Mitchell: This might sound generic and corny, but my teammates, coaches, I feel like we’re actually like a family. It took, it was quick getting over being away from home just because of everybody that’s here. So, yeah. People make

Grace Scalzo: the place.

Stevie Mitchell: I

Kam Jones: remember you being so ready to go home that first break we got as freshmen.

That was hilarious. I did not want to go home. I wanted to go home so bad. I was enjoying that freedom. I didn’t have to ask my mama to do nothing.

Richie Burke: Man. And you haven’t looked back. Not once.

Kam Jones: Not once. I love you, mama. But, man, it was great. But it is great. I mean, outside of what he said, because that applies to me as well I would say, like, the community.

The fan base, for sure. They definitely help make you feel welcome, like you belong and you know, like you’re cared for. And I really appreciate that from a fan base because as a player you know, when you’re out there on the court doing, you know, certain things, it gets hard, you know, mentally, physically, and you know, it can lead to doubting yourself and to have fans that believe, that make it, that make you feel like they believe in you really, that is something I don’t take for granted.

Richie Burke: And final question. We’ll close the episode out. Anything you guys would like to say to the Marquette fan base right now?

Stevie Mitchell: Say we need y’all more than ever for this next for this next up and coming run. Been a big domino for us all season. Like Cam said we’re grateful. I mean, me personally, I’ve never been a part of a place that like loves basketball like Marquette.

So that’s been really cool for me and, you know, they help us a lot. They’re always showing love and we’re going to need that. Need them to continue to be our domino moving forward to help us, you know, get, get a goal that we both, we both want. So looking forward to it.

Kam Jones: Just to keep it short and simple.

I mean, you’re lost in a fight with us. You know, we’re going to be out there 40 minutes trying to get after every second on the, on the clock. We’ll And, you know, that support is needed. Every edge you can get in the tournament is essential, and you need to equip it and use it as much as you can. So, you know, just be there for us and, you know, let us know that you’re here.

Richie Burke: Thank you guys so much for coming on. That was fun. Grace, thanks for popping down as well. I learned a lot today from you two. Got a new favorite player on the squad. You a cheese man. We gotta get him out here. You a love. I’m telling you a love cheese. We’ll get him. We can get cheese man down here. Yeah, cheese man.

Most importantly, good luck this week. Next couple weeks we’re all pulling for you. So thanks for taking your time. Appreciate you. No problem. Appreciate you

Kam Jones: for having me.

Richie Burke: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Milwaukee Uncut. Just a reminder that Milwaukee Uncut is produced by Story Mark Studios in partnership with OnMilwaukee and presented by Nicolet Law and Central Standard Distillery.

Join us as we sit down with the legendary Wisconsin native, Charlie Berens. From a very humbling start to his career to his current status as a viral sensation, starting with the Manitowoc Minute to now selling out stages across the country on his current tour!  This episode delves into Charlie’s career highlights, hilarious stories of the come up and plenty of fan submitted questions as well as a WI Trivia section at the end. Prepare to be entertained on this episode of Milwaukee Uncut.

Donate to Feeding America to for the Holidays – every $1 provides 4 meals – https://feedingamericawi.org/holidays/

Bid on Joe Stanton & Richie’s Auction Experience for the United Way – https://storymarkstudios.betterworld.org/auctions/joe-richie-donut-smackdown-aucti

Listen to Charlie on his Bellied Up podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bellied-up/id1625967187

This podcast is produced by Story Mark Studios: https://milwaukeeuncut.com/

Sponsored by Central Standard Distillery: https://thecentralstandard.com/

In partnership with OnMilwaukee: https://onmilwaukee.com/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Charlie Berens: There was a lot of non success. I rolled pretzels at Annie Ann’s. Stocked milk. I think I had more money in my, uh, gas tank than in my bank account. I had one buddy, slept in his closet. You know, I had a minivan. And then I slept in that for a little bit. But you’re just doing it to try and figure out things.

[00:00:16] Richie Burke: You were working for MTV in college. Yeah. And got arrested and They shot 

[00:00:22] Charlie Berens: tear gas at us, those flashbang grenades all day, you know. I mastered this move. I’d drive up to D. C., I had to work like the next morning. There’s this Holiday Inn, you sleep in the parking lot. And then you go in the hotel in the morning, free continental breakfast, and then you look around and you see if anyone left a key on the table.

[00:00:41] Charlie Berens: Sometimes they did. You use that key, get into the fitness center, take a pool shower. It was good. That’s how, that’s living right there. 

[00:00:48] Richie Burke: Hey everyone, it’s your host Richie Burke, and welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut, sponsored by Central Standard Distillery, produced by Storymark Studios, and in partnership with On Milwaukee.

[00:00:58] Richie Burke: Very special episode today with comedian Charlie Behrens. We get into some fun light hearted fan submitted questions So if you’re wondering where to find a cougar in milwaukee what charlie’s top supper clubs in wisconsin are if he’d fight the milverine His favorite cities in the midwest the best wisconsin marriage proposals he’s ever seen And we dive into some Wisconsin trivia and plenty more fan submitted questions.

[00:01:21] Richie Burke: You’re not going to want to miss this. But before we get to that, we learn about Charlie’s backstory, which I didn’t know anything about. And he had quite the journey from when he started to his first viral Manitowoc Minute moment when he was at age 30, which is when most of us became familiar with him, so it’s a great episode.

[00:01:42] Richie Burke: And before we dive in, I do want to thank him for stopping on. It was when he was between appearances. He was nice enough to come down to the studio for an hour plus. And one of those appearances was for Feeding America, where he’s helping raise money to provide meals to those in need for this holiday season.

[00:01:57] Richie Burke: We just made a donation you can to every dollar donated buys for healthy meals for those in need in the area. So we’ve linked that in the show notes, if you feel up for helping others. So thanks again for listening to this episode of Milwaukee Uncut. And I hope you and your family have a great holiday season.

[00:02:15] Richie Burke: Now let’s dive into today’s episode with Charlie Barnes. I’ve got a Wisconsin legend here with 

[00:02:20] Charlie Berens: us today. Oh, jeez. You know, that’s, it’s very kind. Well, definitely not a legend, you know. I think you could probably 

[00:02:28] Richie Burke: already tell who he is. Host of Manitowoc Minute, The Bellied Up Podcast, The Kripes Cast, a Milwaukee area native, Marquette University High School graduate, and UW graduate.

[00:02:40] Richie Burke: And UW, 

[00:02:41] Charlie Berens: yeah, 

[00:02:41] Richie Burke: got the whole deal. Whole deal, um, former violin, woodworker, bicycle mechanic, um, flower picker. I did some of my homework, you did? 

[00:02:52] Charlie Berens: I rolled pretzels at Annie Ann’s. Forgot 

[00:02:54] Richie Burke: about that one in the intro. At Mayfair? 

[00:02:57] Charlie Berens: Yeah. Stocked milk. At a grocery store. I did a lot of weird jobs. And look how 

[00:03:01] Richie Burke: far he’s come.

[00:03:02] Richie Burke: Also one of 12 siblings. First off, um, so your first Man to Walk Minute video was released in 2017. Yeah. Went, went very viral, but there was a gap of eight years after you graduated from UW and since that really popped off, um, you worked for several networks. What, what was, what was that period like? From graduating to actually getting that first big break.

[00:03:28] Charlie Berens: Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, it was, uh, probably, uh, there was a lot of non success going on there. Um, I mean, I first, um, graduated, I worked on a film as, like, a PA for a little bit. You know, getting coffee and, like, starting out. Walkie talkies, you know, that kind of thing. And then I, um, after that, on my drive home from that, that was in Ann Arbor.

[00:03:53] Charlie Berens: It’s this film Cedar Rapids. I was working on, it was written by another Wisconsinite, Phil Johnston. Uh, he’s from, uh, Nina. So good guy. Good guy. Um, but anyway, on my ride home, Cedar Rapids? Yeah. With Ed Helms? Yeah. Yeah. You worked on that? Yeah. I was a pool boy, very out of focus, but I was a pool boy. You were in that movie?

[00:04:11] Charlie Berens: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t have any lines. It was out of focus. If you blinked, you would have missed me. But it’s like when Ed’s walking and he’s like, they even got a pool here! Um, wide shot of me, uh, in the deal. So, um, You 

[00:04:22] Richie Burke: had to continue working after that? You didn’t get the windfall from Cedar Rapids? 

[00:04:26] Charlie Berens: You know, you would think, but no, no.

[00:04:29] Charlie Berens: Okay. Yeah, and I was living with my, in my aunt, my aunt and uncle’s basement in Michigan while I was shooting that. You know, I had to work as a local, um, to try and, I don’t know, they had the tax credits thing or whatever. Um, so I was doing that, and then, uh, you make some money, but I, I, I had bills to pay, so I, I quickly needed another job, those gigs are only three months.

[00:04:52] Charlie Berens: Luckily on my way back, um, I got, um, I called to be a PA at this production company in Los Angeles that did like behind the scenes, you know? Um, and it was just a job. There weren’t a lot of jobs. I was kind of in the recession era. And, um, so I, I just, it was that, or go back to like being a bike mechanic.

[00:05:12] Charlie Berens: So I headed out to LA and I remember I got there. I think I had more money in my, uh, gas tank that in my bank account then. So I, I kind of, you know, um, I had a couple, I had one buddy, uh. Josh Burstein slept in his closet, but he had a real nice closet. It was like a big closet, you know? And he had a mattress in there, so that was good.

[00:05:33] Charlie Berens: Uh, or his couch, or, you know, I had a minivan that I accidentally shot with my dad’s shotgun, so he made me buy it. And, um, so that’s probably why I didn’t have any money. Um, but, um, and then I slept in that for a little bit. You know, it was kind of just like in Los Angeles at that time, you were just kind of working for not a lot of money and um, but you’re just doing it to try and figure out.

[00:05:58] Charlie Berens: So I would, uh, and I think it was good I wasn’t making a lot of money because then I, I was, I would stay late. I, I, cause I had the minivan, I was able to take the lights and the cameras and stuff to different shoots. And then I would bring them back to the office. And then I would, uh, set them up and shoot a reel, which was kind of like a comedy news type thing.

[00:06:21] Charlie Berens: You know, I was very inspired by Jon Stewart back in that day. And I wanted to do kind of, I went to school for journalism. So I wanted to do a mix of comedy and news. They had hosting positions. Got this job in South Carolina called One Minute News, which was this YouTube news organization. And so I started working for them.

[00:06:39] Charlie Berens: Uh, and then three months later, uh, you know, my salary got cut in half because we just ran out of money. It’s just weird economics. 

[00:06:49] Richie Burke: So you could live off of your salary for about three months? About three 

[00:06:53] Charlie Berens: months. Yeah, and then I got another job. Um, and then I was kind of working in D. C. and, uh, South Carolina at that point.

[00:07:02] Charlie Berens: And I mastered this move, dude. Where, uh, you know, I’d drive up to D. C. I had to work like the next morning. But I had to work the other day. So I like, there’s this holiday inn. You sleep in the parking lot. And then you go in the hotel in the morning, free continental breakfast. And then you look around, you see if anyone left a key on the table.

[00:07:23] Charlie Berens: Sometimes they did, you use that key. Get into the fitness center, take a pool shower. It was good. That’s how you, that’s living right there, you know? How 

[00:07:32] Richie Burke: old are you at that point? 

[00:07:33] Charlie Berens: Old enough to afford something else, but uh, No, I don’t know, I was 25, 24, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:07:41] Richie Burke: And then the Mantuak Minute, you were back in L.

[00:07:44] Richie Burke: A. when that happened. How did that come about? 

[00:07:47] Charlie Berens: Well, after, uh, South Carolina slash D. C., I went to Dallas and worked at a, kind of in traditional news. And then I just, that gig did not really go that great toward the end. And so I moved out to L. A. Um, they just, the news organization went in a different direction where they weren’t having anchors at all.

[00:08:08] Charlie Berens: Um, so I moved out to L. A. and then I just, uh, cause I knew people out there and I wanted to do something and I didn’t know where else to go. So I went there and, uh, I got a job eventually doing a few different news gigs. Um, doing some red carpet reporting, which I, I hated. I did not care. I, I, I didn’t know who anyone I was talking to was.

[00:08:34] Richie Burke: You talked to some big names. Yeah. I like went back in your old YouTube like Selena Gomez and some of those 

[00:08:42] Charlie Berens: people. Yeah. Talked to Selena Gomez, Fifth Harmony, um, who else? Uh, Johnny Depp, I think. 

[00:08:49] Richie Burke: You didn’t really enjoy doing that though. 

[00:08:51] Charlie Berens: Well, it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but a red carpet, it’s like, um, Um, it’s one of those things where like the celebrities don’t really want to be there.

[00:09:00] Charlie Berens: They’re doing the promotion, you know, and, and I, if I’m being honest, didn’t want to be there because I don’t really care that much about what any, you know, what a lot of, I don’t care about their latest film, you know, especially if I just didn’t, I didn’t have the passion, you know, and I think that’s why I was realizing.

[00:09:18] Charlie Berens: And again, that’s, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with them or anything wrong with their. I mean, they make great stuff, but I just didn’t want to spend my life spending a lot of time researching, um, things that I wasn’t passionate about. You know, I do a podcast now and I’m always, I’m passionate about like the topics or the people.

[00:09:40] Charlie Berens: And I enjoy that, but I was just doing things. I just need money, you know? And so to kind of keep my sanity, I started doing stand up at night. And I, I was doing this other producer gig at the time and I was like, I’m going to start making a video a week until something pops off. And so I was doing, um, videos.

[00:09:58] Charlie Berens: I did this, uh, this, uh, if Jack Dawson was really from Wisconsin where I changed the voice and that video did well, but people didn’t like follow me from it cause it was just like a voice. It wasn’t really my face. So I was trying to figure out, you know, how do I do something that people will care enough to follow me?

[00:10:16] Charlie Berens: Cause if I could get people to follow me, And then I could get people to come see me do stand up, you know, and I was doing stand up at night and there was this bit that I had about, um, you know, my time in local news where, you know, I had two jobs where, you know, I got, uh, maybe more than that, but my Wisconsin accent always came out and it was always kind of an issue.

[00:10:38] Charlie Berens: I would say some words wrong or get made fun of for it, you know, uh, and so I developed this character based off my time in local news, you know, where instead of. Doing everything people say I was doing wrong and changing it. I just doubled down on it and that was the basis for the man to walk minute And so, uh, yeah, there was this one show I did at the comedy store, uh, where it just murdered.

[00:10:59] Charlie Berens: It did really good. And I was like, oh, that felt so great. But I remember going to bed that night thinking, man, only 50 people saw that. You know, like how, and, and I was working at the comedy store. I was like, um, I was doing the DJ thing. Like I was basically playing the walk up music for. everybody just to get like five minutes, 10 minutes on stage.

[00:11:22] Charlie Berens: Or I was doing these bringer shows where you basically, you, you would make your friends pay to come, you know? Um, and I, I always bought the tickets and gave them away to them to make it easier. But then, you know, a lot of times they still didn’t come, you know, cause If you got to go to Hollywood in the, uh, you know, on a Wednesday night or some traffic sucks and you got paid for parking, it’s still a pain.

[00:11:41] Charlie Berens: So anyway, I was doing that and when that murdered, I was like, cool. But then I’m thinking like my next show is like a week and a half out, you know, I wish I could do something in the meantime. So I made that first man to walk minute and then that took off. And that’s when things really changed. 

[00:11:58] Richie Burke: You had a guy in the audience from Manitowoc during 

[00:12:02] Charlie Berens: that one, right?

[00:12:02] Charlie Berens: Yeah, I said, is anyone from the Midwest? Bunch of people raised their hands. I says, anyone from Wisconsin? This one guy’s got his hand up. He’s from Manitowoc. So he’s who I named the Manitowoc minute after. 

[00:12:12] Richie Burke: What was it like? Did it just fire off right after you posted it? Yeah. And did you, were you like, holy shit, this is actually.

[00:12:21] Charlie Berens: Yeah, I was for it. I almost didn’t put it out initially because I thought people would think, you know, I was making fun of them, which I was, but I was making fun of me, you know, I mean, I was literally making fun of myself. So I figured, yeah, if anyone’s got an issue, like, you know, I’ve lost enough jobs from this thing, you know, so, but it was really truly behind that just embracing, you know, and that’s the thing about, that’s a great thing about comedy is We’ve all got these imperfections and most of our lives we spend hiding them.

[00:12:53] Charlie Berens: But, um, comedy is a thing where you can double down on your imperfections and, you know, kind of reveal the humanity in it. And, um, and that’s what I like about that art form. 

[00:13:04] Richie Burke: Yeah. So you’re, you’re like 30 at this point, right? 30, yeah. Were you close to throwing in the towel on comedy or just trying to get into that industry?

[00:13:15] Richie Burke: Or where, where were you in life? Cause you’re still just. Struggling along. Yeah, trying to get your front paying for tickets to try and get your friends to show up scraping by Yeah, 

[00:13:25] Charlie Berens: yeah, and at that point I had had a decent producer job So okay, but I was still kidding myself into thinking I was doing what I wanted to do You know, I was always working.

[00:13:34] Charlie Berens: You know what I was always working on Something else I was working on scripts. I was working on something In my free time, you know, I just I’ve been a workaholic since I was a kid. So I just kept going and Yeah, it, it, it took off and I knew cause I put up enough videos that I spent hours and hours editing that did not take off.

[00:13:58] Charlie Berens: I think I needed to do that. So I knew the opportunity I had when this one did take off, you know, 

[00:14:04] Richie Burke: And then you just kept it going week after week 

[00:14:06] Charlie Berens: after week. Yep. Yep. And so that was the man to walk minute. And then eventually you, you see numbers go up. And then they plateau. Like, people have seen it. They get it.

[00:14:16] Charlie Berens: So then you gotta find something else. And it’s always that series of things go up, they plateau. You, you gotta find something else. You gotta dig deeper. Find something people haven’t seen. Surprise people. You know, inspire yourself creatively, 

[00:14:31] Richie Burke: too. Was it, um Is it weird at all or what did it feel like all of a sudden you kind of just working trying to get by and make it in LA and then you become, ironically, become like a Wisconsin folk hero where you’re from and you’re doing roll out the barrel at the Packard games and all this, all this stuff, which is probably like a dream for you as a kid, I would think.

[00:14:52] Richie Burke: Yeah. 

[00:14:53] Charlie Berens: I mean, it was something I could have never imagined as a kid. I mean, the, the system at play. Did not really exist until social media, um, became a leveling playing field for if you wanted to make it, um, you, you can do it on your own. You can do what you’re doing. You do your own thing, you know? And, um, that was so cool.

[00:15:19] Charlie Berens: That was so cool. And I, and so I just, yeah, I was in a place where, you know, every birthday you have, you’re like, ah, I’m this old and I haven’t done. That kind of went away of caring how old I was and caring how much I had accomplished Once I got to a place where I felt like I’m doing what I love, you know And things just changed, um, in my life, you know But Um, you know, you still go through things with that where you, you find yourself too many days, you’re doing things you don’t necessarily want to do or enjoy, and you kind of always have to keep yourself in check and keep saying, do I want to be doing X, Y, and Z and what is the reason I’m doing it for, you know, I could never imagined it, but I’m super happy and thankful that it, that it happened.

[00:16:11] Charlie Berens: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:16:12] Richie Burke: Very cool. All right. We’ll, we’ll move on to some more lighthearted. Yeah. Whatever. I mean, congrats on all you’ve done. It’s been cool to watch too as a fan and appreciate you coming down today. 

[00:16:21] Charlie Berens: Thank you. Thank you. No, I really appreciate that. And honestly, like I couldn’t do any of this without the humor of Wisconsin.

[00:16:29] Charlie Berens: You know, like a lot of the stuff I’m doing is taking things that is just observing the way people act and whatever. And honestly, I’ve based a lot of it off my grandpa, you know, and then you realize other people will have that same observation. Um, I couldn’t do it without, you know, the people, uh, watching by a long shot.

[00:16:48] Charlie Berens: So, yeah, thanks to everybody out there, you know, 

[00:16:51] Richie Burke: yeah, one, uh, one, one thing we glossed over. So, um, you were working for MTV in college and got arrested in, in Minneapolis. I thought that was interesting. Uh, Yeah. Welcome. Welcome to journalism. 

[00:17:05] Charlie Berens: Yeah. I know. Freedom of the press. Um, what happened? What? Well, I was covering the Republican National Convention, Minneapolis, uh, 2008.

[00:17:16] Charlie Berens: And um, yeah, I mean, you know, it was protests. This was before a lot of the protests that a lot of people remember, but this was, um, this was before the Occupy Wall Street movement, but you saw sort of the beginnings of that. Um, and then it was just a bunch of people, a bunch of different causes. People protest every, uh, Republican and Democrat convention.

[00:17:37] Charlie Berens: It’s just part of what happens. But on this particular day, my job was to cover the protests. So I was out there doing it. Um, I was actually supposed to be on the convention floor that night. Cause, uh, or, you know, in there reporting, cause Sarah Palin, I think was doing a speech that night. And, uh, but I was still covering the protests, but then eventually, um.

[00:17:57] Charlie Berens: I remember there were police surrounding us or they were blocking off this one bridge and I was with this reporter from the Boston Globe and uh, I turned around and I’m like alright, enough’s enough, you know, like we’ve been I They shot tear gas at us. Those flash bang grenades all day, you know, uh, this horse, uh, police on a horse accidentally run over someone, you know, uh, I think they were fine.

[00:18:23] Charlie Berens: I don’t know. Um, but it was just an, it was a pain in the ass, you know, and people were. Lighting cars on fire, and all this and that. And it had been days of this. Days of covering protests and stuff. So you’re kind of like, alright, I get what’s going on here. But then as we turned to leave, there was a line of, uh, cops standing there.

[00:18:42] Charlie Berens: And, uh, you know, and I was like, what do we do now? He’s like, well, we get arrested now. So everyone sat down, um, uh, and the police came over. And, uh, And, you know, they looked at our credentials and people were making fake credentials. So they just arrested everyone. They arrested a taxi driver who was just stuck in traffic, you know.

[00:19:05] Charlie Berens: But that taxi driver, I tell you what, he’s a good guy because I trade him half my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the slammer and he gave me a ride back to Dinkytown after. 

[00:19:13] Richie Burke: They cuff you and take you 

[00:19:14] Charlie Berens: in? Yeah. Yeah. They cuffed you, put you in a bus. The whole deal. Not real cuffs though. Uh, zip ties.

[00:19:21] Charlie Berens: Zip ties? Yeah. How scary was that? I wasn’t, I was, I was fine. I didn’t care. Um, it wasn’t. Um, scary. I don’t remember that being scary. I was just like, Oh, how am I gonna pay for this? You know, that’s what I was thinking. Um, and, uh, yeah. And then, you know, and then you’re looking, I remember seeing the big jumbotron, uh, Sarah Palin speaking on the thing.

[00:19:47] Charlie Berens: I’m like, all right, well, I’m not gonna make that whole deal. Um, but yeah, and then we went to jail for a little bit. Uh, hung out there, got my fingerprint taken, my picture, and um, Yeah, made some friends with the taxi driver. Went, went to Dinkytown later that morning, had some breakfast. Not the worst thing in 

[00:20:07] Richie Burke: the world.

[00:20:08] Richie Burke: So you got to say you were arrested. 

[00:20:11] Charlie Berens: Yeah, sure, we can look at it like that. Kind of, kind of. 

[00:20:13] Richie Burke: Yeah, yeah. All right, let’s um, so we usually do a segment called the Standard Five, which is five, five ish quick questions sponsored by Central Standard, but we have like 20, maybe 30, if you include uh, if you include trivia.

[00:20:29] Richie Burke: Yeah, shout out 

[00:20:30] Charlie Berens: to uh, Evan and Pat over at Central Standard, good guys, you know. 

[00:20:33] Richie Burke: Very good guys. You’re drinking in old fashioned right now. How is that? Bree, Bree made it. Um 

[00:20:40] Charlie Berens: Bree, thank you. You did a wonderful job on this Brandy Old Fashioned. It’s delicious. Thank you. I don’t know if you’re just saying that to make me feel good.

[00:20:47] Charlie Berens: No, I’m not. I would never just say that. What would you rate it? What’s that? What would you rate it? I’d rate this, um, Uh, I’ll give it a 9 out of 10. Wow. 9 out of 10. Cause I can’t give you a full 10. Then you’ll know I’m just, you know, full of it. But no, it’s a 9 of 10. Yeah. You did this professionally for a while.

[00:21:06] Charlie Berens: You did muddle it? Yeah. I can taste that. And you didn’t muddle the rind, which is fantastic. We, 

[00:21:12] Richie Burke: um, I don’t know if we want to admit this. We did watch your video, instructional. We want, we wanted to make a good one for you. We got, we got some blackberry brandy from central standard. 

[00:21:23] Charlie Berens: That’s awesome. That’s good stuff, man.

[00:21:25] Charlie Berens: Cause yeah. Really good. We did not know what we were doing. I love it. You did 

[00:21:29] Richie Burke: a heck of a job. And I’m drinking the, uh, the ready pour, um, cherry mule. There you go. 

[00:21:35] Charlie Berens: Well, 

[00:21:36] Richie Burke: very good. You’re going very good. Oh yeah. All right, let’s dive in. Um, Sorry, I’ve been a little under the weather. Um, and I’m sure this chair and meals helping me on the, on the bellied up podcast recently, uh, you somehow ended up in a committed relationship with a Canadian woman who, who was looking for a quote unquote, nice log and you just voluntarily threw yourself right in there.

[00:22:01] Richie Burke: Miles really set you up as a, as a fan of the show. I just wanted to, uh, Close the loop what whatever happened with the canadian woman who I believe. Um It was recently single. She was on a date to a canadian sex show and got left Got stood up there and then I kind of fell right into your lap. Yeah, if you it seems like a great catch Are you you know, are you there?

[00:22:27] Richie Burke: Are you single right now? I think we can dive right in we 

[00:22:30] Charlie Berens: never got there We never got there She and I you know, so that’s just kind of how it goes, you know Unfortunately, yeah miles did really throw me under the bus there, didn’t he? I thought he was helping you out. No, he’s 

[00:22:44] Richie Burke: just, he’s a jackass. She seemed like she could have been a good time.

[00:22:47] Richie Burke: She was, 

[00:22:48] Charlie Berens: uh, she was a good time, man. I forget her name, but no, we never connected after that. It’s a gosh darn 

[00:22:54] Richie Burke: shame. He was probably high on the, uh, the Hot Crazy Matrix graph. Oh yeah. Maybe in the fun zone or the danger zone. If you had to choose a Mount Rushmore of your favorite Wisconsinites, who would it be?

[00:23:10] Charlie Berens: Um, oh my gosh. 

[00:23:12] Richie Burke: Is the four on Mount 

[00:23:14] Charlie Berens: Rushmore? Wow. Yeah. So, um, that’s very interesting. Uh, I think he, Bob Bucher just came to mind. Vince Lombardi, um, just came to mind. Oh my gosh. There’s so many great Wisconsinites. We got Liberace here, you know? Um, we, we got, uh, We got Les Paul invented the electric guitar.

[00:23:36] Charlie Berens: I mean, we don’t need, uh, we need several mounts, uh, for the Rushmores, you know, I mean, I just named four there, but there’s way more. Um, 

[00:23:46] Richie Burke: top three supper clubs in Wisconsin. Oh, boy. If you want to build two mounts, you can go with six. 

[00:23:52] Charlie Berens: Ah, ha, ha. Uh, there’s Wentz’s, uh, uh, Wentz’s Supper Club up there on Lake Winnebago on the, um, on the, jeez.

[00:24:05] Charlie Berens: On the west side of the lake is a great great perch fry there. Uh, old town in Westby. Uh, that’s a fantastic spot. I’ve had dinner there. Were you just there on your stop? I did stop and I was there the last time I went to. I made some old fashions over there. Um, um, let’s see here. Um, Schultz’s over there in Dickeyville, you know, um, that’s not.

[00:24:30] Charlie Berens: Not a bad place. Have you been 

[00:24:32] Richie Burke: to Jake’s on Lake Tainter? No, should I? 

[00:24:36] Charlie Berens: That’s a good one. Jake’s on Lake Tainter. Here we are talking about Tainter again. That’s a fantastic lake. It’s a great lake. We grew up on that lake. Lake Tainter, huh? Tainter Lake. What was the best Tainter Lake joke you heard? Nobody was joking about that?

[00:24:54] Charlie Berens: Come on. I guess you say it enough. Yeah, Tainter Lake. 

[00:25:00] Richie Burke: Hey everyone, thanks again for tuning into Milwaukee Uncut. Before we get to more questions with Charlie, I just wanted to take a second to thank our sponsor, Central Standard Distillery. Charlie and I definitely enjoyed their product during this recording, so if you are looking for some amazing cocktails during this holiday season, make sure to go with Central Standard.

[00:25:17] Richie Burke: One more quick announcement, a couple weeks ago I got roped into a charity donut eating contest with my partner Joe Stanton from Three Leaf Partners to raise money. For the United Way of Milwaukee and Waukesha, and we’re auctioning off some good items, one including being part of the live audience on this Connaughton comes back on, we’re also giving away a Bucks VIP package, I’m giving away some rounds to Blue Mound Country Club, and we’ve got a calves and abs workout led by Matthew Holbrook for you and your friends if you’re looking to get shredded for Spring Break 24, so a lot of good items.

[00:25:53] Richie Burke: That is linked in the show notes if you want to bid on any. Okay, that’s all I’ve got for right now. Thanks again for tuning in. Let’s get back to the show with Charlie Dance. Alright, we got a good next question from Katie Line in Kugel. 

[00:26:07] Charlie Berens: Aw, Katie, 

[00:26:08] Richie Burke: she’s great. She is great. We’re about to find out how great she is.

[00:26:11] Richie Burke: She asked, Favorite line in Kugel? Human, not 

[00:26:15] Charlie Berens: beer. Oh, okay. Um, you know, God. Katie. Katie’s it. There you have it. And that’s going to be really bad news with her sister. It’s going to be bad news with, uh, Dick, you know. But, uh, she asked the question, so I’m going to give it to her. I can’t play that one politically.

[00:26:34] Charlie Berens: By the way, that whole family is a blast, man. I did a show up in Eagle River, and they have a place there, and we had a fish fry before one of the shows. Um, a lot of lineys there, uh, it might have been a little loose on the tongue during that show, because they insisted on, uh, knocking a couple back. Yeah, they’re 

[00:26:52] Richie Burke: professionals.

[00:26:53] Richie Burke: They are. You, you drink with them, you’re, it, it’s hard to Keep up. You can’t. 

[00:26:58] Charlie Berens: Yeah, I can’t even hang. It’s just in their 

[00:27:00] Richie Burke: blood. Can’t even hang. We’ll give an honorable mention to, uh, to Tony and Dick, Tony, 

[00:27:05] Charlie Berens: John, Dick, the whole deal. Yeah. I, I, I 

[00:27:08] Richie Burke: might push back. I think if you’re looking for a favorite leinenkugel in like a, a, a quick sprint, maybe not the whole day, but just, you know, an hour kind of.

[00:27:17] Richie Burke: I’d probably have to go with John Lyon and Kugel. The guy’s just an absolute 

[00:27:22] Charlie Berens: machine of a human being. He is. He’s so, he’s a fun, he was in 

[00:27:26] Richie Burke: one of our videos. He’s a fun dude. Okay, um, this, this one. This is a good, this is a good question. So, um, this one’s from, uh, P. Fett, Stephanie Fett and Michael Shepard.

[00:27:38] Richie Burke: Who is known as Sim God because he put a very expensive golf simulator in his house. Okay. Okay. They’re hosting a Packers pot roast and we’re wondering how to throw the best Packers party possible. Um, I’ll just add a little more context. So, I mean, this guy’s gone all out. He has like a putting green in the back, hot tub, balcony, projector screen.

[00:28:01] Richie Burke: And Bree and I were at their Cinco de Drinco party and they had a pinata. And they had some kids around and SimGod picked me up and spun me around, um, he played, he had a stint with the, uh, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and didn’t quite make it and then played for the Omaha Beef for a while in the AFL, but SimGod spun me around and I knocked the pinata over and there were some kids around and candy poured out, some condoms, some Jack Daniels shots, so I mean, I don’t know if they bought the wrong pinata, but then I got cracked in the head with an, uh, Egg by this guy named joe joe vilmo and he said it was good luck in mexico, even though he’s not mexican and so, um, that that’s Just to add some context.

[00:28:44] Richie Burke: So we’re dealing with uh, p fat and sim god throwing a packer’s pot roast and maybe maybe some advice That’s contextual to them and then for maybe the average human being just looking to have some people over for a low key. Oh, yeah. What 

[00:28:58] Charlie Berens: are some necessities? Well, I mean, you got to have enough food for everyone, even though everyone’s going to call you and insist they bring something, you’re going to say, Oh no, just bring yourself, you know.

[00:29:08] Charlie Berens: And usually, uh, they’ll bring excess food, so you gotta have enough, uh, you know, Cool Whip containers to bring leftovers, you know, and, um, the Ziploc bags, you know, uh, that you got going there, those can be reused, by the way. So you just wash them out, and then you can send someone home with leftovers. So start stocking up on those now.

[00:29:28] Charlie Berens: And, uh, Yeah, you know, also be prepared for a lot of Midwest goodbyes. You know, if you want people out of your house at a certain time, yeah, know where your fire alarm is and set that sucker off. That’s, uh, that’s going to be the only way you’ll get people, uh, without staying over there. Um, let’s see here beyond that.

[00:29:47] Charlie Berens: Um. Yeah, if you want to get rid of any, uh, meats you got in your chest freezer, you know, make sure you insist they take them home with you, like meet them in the driveway, you know, kind of get into their door when it’s window down, uh, have them roll the window down, then lean in there and hand them the stuff.

[00:30:04] Charlie Berens: And so it’s super awkward for them. To not take it, you know, that’s a good way to unload some, maybe, uh, older moose you have in your chest freezer. So, there’s a lot of different, uh, I, I could go on and on with that one, 

[00:30:17] Richie Burke: man. Yeah, I don’t know if SimGod’s got any moose over there, 

[00:30:20] Charlie Berens: but Well, you know, yeah, I mean, maybe don’t pick people up at your, uh, deal, uh, cause some might get cracked in the head, you know?

[00:30:28] Charlie Berens: Don’t put condoms in your, uh, pinata when there are kids there. You know, there’s some simple ones from that standpoint, too. You 

[00:30:36] Richie Burke: would think. Just kind of a wild card. Yeah. And an athlete. I’m 200 pounds. He just I mean, 

[00:30:42] Charlie Berens: that’s impressive. With 

[00:30:43] Richie Burke: ease. With ease. Speaking of Midwest Goodbye, what is, what is the best way to just get out of an Get out of an event, just kind of avoid the Midwest goodbye.

[00:30:53] Charlie Berens: Oh, Irish goodbye is the best way to do it. Just leave. You know, that takes a lot though. You’re going to feel guilty. Just power through the guilt and soon enough, you’ll forget you felt guilty. And then that’ll be the only move you ever do. I like 

[00:31:06] Richie Burke: that. Oh, this is interesting. Uh, Jordan Kearns. What’s the most Wisconsin marriage proposal you have ever heard of?

[00:31:16] Charlie Berens: Oh, there’s a few. Um, I was actually at this bar in, was it Menomonee? Could have been Menomonee. Um, somewhere up at Chippewa Falls. It was in Chippewa Falls. And I was just sitting there at the bar talking with some buddies and I see this guy get down on his knees, spills popcorn on himself as he’s doing.

[00:31:35] Charlie Berens: And, um, And then just proposes right there, you know, and she, she didn’t even get up. She was like, Oh my gosh, yes. You know, and then he sat back down and I was like, all right, I’ll buy them a drink. You know, 

[00:31:50] Richie Burke: did the bar go crazy or was it just a guy selling his popcorn? And the girl was like. Okay, okay, let’s do this.

[00:31:56] Charlie Berens: Basically, no one noticed. Yeah, it was like, the bar was just, I just, I was like, I think I just witnessed a, uh, proposal, you know? Although some people I hear, some people do that as a joke, and then they get some free drinks. That’s 

[00:32:13] Richie Burke: kind of low, although just, yeah, no, but a little. I’m not 

[00:32:18] Charlie Berens: a little unethical.

[00:32:19] Charlie Berens: I’m not bringing it up that it’s a good thing to do. I’m thinking maybe that’s what they did, but nobody noticed. So it’s a bummers up 

[00:32:26] Richie Burke: to you apparently. Any other, any other good ones? 

[00:32:28] Charlie Berens: Uh, quick trips is solid place to get engaged. Fleet Farm is not a bad way to do it. You know, you get yourself over there in the, uh, bolt aisle, you know, and then you get down on a hand in the end.

[00:32:39] Charlie Berens: You, you, you. You bring a few different bolts with you and then you say, will you marry me? You know, she says yes. And then you put the bolt on her finger, you know, and if that doesn’t fit, you use a different bolt and then, you know, you finally get the right bolt and it’s like, okay, there you go. You want that in a tungsten or you want it in a.

[00:32:58] Charlie Berens: You know, just stainless steel or should we go copper fitting? I don’t recommend that if you’re actually trying to spend the rest of your life with that person But 

[00:33:07] Richie Burke: probably not but it can it can work in wisconsin in certain places. It could it could apparently. Um, Nate, nate moody. Um Currently finishing up his he’s at marquette high grad.

[00:33:20] Richie Burke: Um, currently finishing up his last semester at marquette and his I think bartending or bouncing at deer camp down in the on third street nate moody I was wondering about your Marquette High experience. 

[00:33:33] Charlie Berens: Oh yeah, was he? Uh, yeah, I mean, first of all, I was very lucky to go to that school. It was, it’s a very good school.

[00:33:44] Charlie Berens: Um, what was my experience like? Honestly, I was just trying to play music at that time. So I, I was proud, I wasn’t very focused. I wasn’t a guy who really, uh, you know, fell in love with that school and did all the, um, all the things. You know, I was kind of like a bit of an outsider, I think, there. I was just trying to write and do music and stuff.

[00:34:05] Charlie Berens: That’s kind of how I spent my time, but I don’t have any, um, I did the newspaper there. I did that. I was actually the editor in chief of that, believe it or not. Um, and then, you know, there’s this great teacher there when I was there, a great guy, uh, Jim Carney, and actually he really, um, put in me, um, a really good sense of how to tell a story.

[00:34:27] Charlie Berens: He had this class called American Hero, and his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell. It’s all about the cosmogonic cycle and the, the hero cycle, you know? So, um, all Western storytelling kind of is based on that. Star Wars, um, George Lucas basically read Joseph Campbell and made a book to the T to, What that book talks about in the hero’s journey, you know, so I think that’s probably one of the most influential things that happened to me.

[00:34:56] Charlie Berens: Um, they’re 

[00:34:57] Richie Burke: very cool. I think Nate could probably use some advice on how to finish up strong on his last semester of college. I think he’s currently single working down on third street. Any. Any advice to Nate? Oh go out strong. I think that’s what he was really. 

[00:35:12] Charlie Berens: Oh, you’re talking about Marquette University He went to 

[00:35:15] Richie Burke: Marquette High now.

[00:35:16] Richie Burke: He’s at Marquette University. I see you answered the first question, right? I just want to throw in this extra extra part for the 

[00:35:23] Charlie Berens: guy, you know, I mean, hey just enjoy it I think cuz you know, everyone’s trying to cram so much in and It’s tough and you know you’re kind of sad that you’re leaving school sometimes, but there’s a lot of great things I had and just take it one beer at a time.

[00:35:39] Charlie Berens: You know And try to 

[00:35:41] Richie Burke: pass. Yeah, I feel like you need to have your bases covered. Yeah. Pass your classes, um, maybe take care of yourself a little bit, but other than that, just really enjoy it and soak it in. Yeah, exactly. Alright, Nate Moody, um, Devin Granger, who does all the, uh, content for Pat Connaughton, shout out to Devin.

[00:36:01] Richie Burke: Yeah! Favorite brand deal you’ve 

[00:36:04] Charlie Berens: done and why? Uh, I mean it’s tough to pick, um. You do, you work with a lot of good ones. I do. I mean, Quick Trip, uh, you know, Fleet Farm, um, there’s a lot of stuff that I just use in general. But I think probably my favorite has been, you know, uh, working with the Packers, um, you know, and.

[00:36:24] Charlie Berens: We did this one during COVID, which was called Missing Lambeau and it was no one could go there obviously with COVID. So we did this video called Missing Lambeau, which is probably one of my favorite ones we made. Um, you know, it’s the sadness of not being able to go in the stadium. I’m not gonna describe it very well, but that was a very fun video.

[00:36:42] Richie Burke: Very cool. Joe Arado, um, from the Locations Unknown podcast, which has really taken off. He was wondering, Would you agree to an MMA match against Milverine, 

[00:36:55] Charlie Berens: huh? No, that dude’s ripped man. No, not at all Does he do 

[00:36:59] Richie Burke: pretty good? I see I see I see some roadmaps over there. 

[00:37:02] Charlie Berens: Thank you. No, I Look, I know how to fight I’ve done some of that in my past, but I’m not I wouldn’t say like if somebody really knows how to fight They’re gonna kick my ass, you know but if we’re like if I’m walking in the street with somebody else or something and somebody like You know, jumps or whatever.

[00:37:21] Charlie Berens: I would be able to fight long enough for that other person to get away. That’s about how good I am at that, which is not very good. But, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve, yeah. I’m not gonna win that fight, especially if he knows how to fight. 

[00:37:36] Richie Burke: Yeah, Milvarent, just on intimidation alone. I 

[00:37:39] Charlie Berens: mean, the guy’s, yeah, the guy’s jacked and, yeah, he looks like a guy who knows how to do, do more than I do.

[00:37:46] Richie Burke: Favorite city or town to visit in the Midwest? Let’s do one in Wisconsin and one outside of 

[00:37:52] Charlie Berens: Wisconsin. Yeah, um, I always like, uh, I like going to Fond du Lac, uh, that’s where my grandma’s zoo is, you know, so I, I enjoy going there and hanging out, um, and, uh, Fondy, Fondy. Yeah, that’s good. And then, um, outside of the Midwest, um, side of Wisconsin or outside of Wisconsin.

[00:38:13] Charlie Berens: Uh, let’s see here. Oh, the U P man. They got some, they got some great stuff going up there. City wise. Um, geez, you know, let’s see here. Oh, uh, Iron, Iron River is pretty cool, you know. Um, they’ve also got some, they’ve got some good white water rafting, um, up there, believe it or not. Um, yeah, I’m trying to think of the city that’s in.

[00:38:46] Charlie Berens: Dang. I forget. 

[00:38:47] Richie Burke: I have a bad memory. The city of the UP. Um, 

[00:38:50] Charlie Berens: Well, I mean, you know, I’m trying to think of the city in the UP where we stopped and we did that, but I’m not gonna think about it. But there’s a lot of great cities up there, man. Um, yeah. Jeez. Minneapolis is fun. You know, it’s a good, it’s a fun city, but that’s not a small town.

[00:39:06] Charlie Berens: That’s 

[00:39:07] Richie Burke: all right. 

[00:39:08] Charlie Berens: Um, oh, um, Bemidji, Minnesota is pretty cool. They got a great state park there. I know someone who’s from there. Yeah, it’s great. It’s beautiful. I went there in winter. It’s 

[00:39:19] Richie Burke: just straight north of Minneapolis, 

[00:39:20] Charlie Berens: right? Yeah, pretty much. Okay. Maybe a little, a little west of that. I don’t know.

[00:39:26] Charlie Berens: I’d have to look at a 

[00:39:26] Richie Burke: map. Okay. Um, Jack from Tosa. Mm hmm wondering any advice on meeting a cougar in Milwaukee. 

[00:39:35] Charlie Berens: Oh boy. Well, yeah. I mean, what’s that one? victors, isn’t that Our victors, that’s a quick time. Yeah, I know There’s another one I, I, you know what? I don’t know that I even get out enough to any 

[00:39:51] Richie Burke: overarching advice for Jack, maybe from back in, back in the day when you used to go out 

[00:39:56] Charlie Berens: for cougars.

[00:39:58] Charlie Berens: I, you know, I, I don’t come, you know, uh, come to one of my shows, you know, uh, we got a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, good looking gals there. Nice plug. Yeah, come to one of my shows. Tickets at charliebarrons. com. No, I’m just kidding. Um, where to go? I don’t know, man. I don’t know. Where do you go? 

[00:40:18] Richie Burke: I don’t know. Maybe a nice hotel bar?

[00:40:20] Richie Burke: Yeah, 

[00:40:20] Charlie Berens: that’s true. Good point. Yeah, go up to the Fister. 

[00:40:23] Richie Burke: Convention season’s in the fall? Yeah. For Jack? 

[00:40:27] Charlie Berens: Yeah, go to the Fister. What’s the name of that rooftop bar? Blue. That’s it. Blue at 

[00:40:33] Richie Burke: the Fister. Um, the trade just went in. Maybe that’s a good one. Um, 

[00:40:41] Charlie Berens: the lobby of Northwestern Mutual. I don’t know. Oh, 

[00:40:43] Richie Burke: I like that.

[00:40:44] Richie Burke: Yeah. That’s not a bad idea. Just stay, stand there with a sign. I don’t, I 

[00:40:48] Charlie Berens: don’t know. Yeah. Lifetime fitness probably, you know, in Brookfield, uh, that’s not a bar, but it’s 

[00:40:55] Richie Burke: funny you bring that up. A lot of people have, have said that. Yeah. I think that’s where you get solid talent at lifetime fitness for Jack and Tosa.

[00:41:03] Richie Burke: Yeah. Victims. Um, I hadn’t been there. I’ve not been there in a long time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Alex Main, former employee here. Good guy. Great man bun. Favorite skit you’ve ever done? 

[00:41:17] Charlie Berens: Um, that’s always such a tough one. Um, yeah, I don’t know. Uh, there, the one that’s coming to mind right now is when I played a cow and Miles played a deer.

[00:41:26] Charlie Berens: Um, that was just one of those weird ones where we’re just very random last minute. We improvised a lot of it, but it was just cow meets deer, you know, and we dressed up as a cow and a deer and just. Whatever it was super hot and I was an inflatable cow and miles was in this big old deer thing We were both just sweating terribly.

[00:41:46] Charlie Berens: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. That’s one that comes to mind 

[00:41:49] Richie Burke: boston, john um would love a quest this isn’t really a question, but he Messaged in would love a Boston question as he has been elevating Billy Deuce Ah from Boston on his comedy tours and 

[00:42:03] Charlie Berens: videos. Nice. I love that. Yeah. So what what is his question?

[00:42:06] Richie Burke: He didn’t have one. He loves that you’re doing it any comments on on Billy Deuce or just the city of Boston in 

[00:42:12] Charlie Berens: general Bill is a great guy. That’s at Billy Deuce 86 on the social medias. Make sure you follow him He’s been in a lot of my videos. He’s a very very funny fella Yeah, definitely check him out.

[00:42:22] Charlie Berens: He’s got a He’s does a lot of music too. He’s going to have some more parody stuff coming 

[00:42:27] Richie Burke: out. Yeah. Boston, John, just a good guy. Um, a couple of weeks ago, took down probably 10, 12 IPAs. It didn’t even feel, feel a 

[00:42:37] Charlie Berens: thing. Just, you know, they, they, they know how to drink out there too. That’s for sure. They’re, they’re a bit of a different breed, you know, it’s a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences.

[00:42:48] Charlie Berens: It’s just 

[00:42:49] Richie Burke: a very jolly mass hole. You’ve got to be around, but you know, mass hole comes out. Yeah. All right, you ready for some Wisconsin trivia? Yeah, yeah, let’s hit it. Okay, I got 10 questions for you. Um, what is the official state beverage of Wisconsin? Uh, brandy. Brandy old fashioned. According to Google, it’s milk, but I’ll accept that answer.

[00:43:10] Richie Burke: Um, official dance of Wisconsin. Polka. Correct. True or false, Wisconsin is home to the world’s largest six pack of beer. 

[00:43:18] Charlie Berens: Uh, true. If you need a beer, go here. It’s in La Crosse, isn’t it? That is 

[00:43:22] Richie Burke: correct. Yeah What city is known as the bratwurst capital of 

[00:43:27] Charlie Berens: the world? Um Sheboygan correct 

[00:43:31] Richie Burke: if wisconsin were its own country Where would it rank in cheese production?

[00:43:36] Richie Burke: Number one. 

[00:43:39] Charlie Berens: Number four. That’s bullshit. False. According to Who? According to who? According 

[00:43:45] Richie Burke: to the internet. 

[00:43:47] Charlie Berens: No, it’s probably true. But that’s still pretty impressive, 

[00:43:50] Richie Burke: man. It is behind the rest of the United States, which would be one. That’s hilarious. Then Germany and France. Wow. Produce more cheese than Wisconsin, according to the internet.

[00:44:01] Richie Burke: Okay. Allegedly. Okay. Who’s the leading scorer in Packers history? Mason Crosby. Correct. Interception leader in Packers history. 

[00:44:11] Charlie Berens: Um, I want to say Leroy Butler. 

[00:44:14] Richie Burke: No, who is it? Similar era. Maybe right after Leroy. 

[00:44:20] Charlie Berens: Oh, Charles Woodson? 

[00:44:21] Richie Burke: Correct. Got it. Charles Woodson. All right. It’s a big one. Who was the one quarterback or I think it was the one quarterback.

[00:44:29] Richie Burke: Anyway, one of the quarterbacks. May have only been one who shared the quarterback room with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers during the overlap year. Some hints, he’s from Louisiana, he has career stats of 5 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, and a 123 passer rating. God, I 

[00:44:48] Charlie Berens: don’t even know. No, no clue. Craig Nall. Oh, see, I still wouldn’t have gotten it, but I, if I had multiple choice.

[00:44:57] Charlie Berens: Have you 

[00:44:57] Richie Burke: know who Craig Nall is? Yeah. I played golf with Craig Nall once. Did ya? In an outing. And we got into a playoff to win the outing. And Craig was probably 10 Miller Lights and 5 vodka shots deep on a Monday for it. Good for him. And he goes back in and grabs 2 Miller Lights for the one hole playoff.

[00:45:19] Richie Burke: Uh huh. And I was like, Craig, you’re grabbing 2 beers for one hole. Ha! And he looked at me like I was just an absolute idiot. Yeah. He said, Yeah, one’s for drinking, one’s for sipping and then just drove off. So I’m a huge Craig Nall fan and wanted to work Craig Nall into the podcast. I love that. I love that.

[00:45:40] Richie Burke: Shout out to Craig. I think he’s in Dallas right now and hopefully. Doing great. Nice. Um, last question on trivia, how fast can a red breasted merganser fly? I’m 

[00:45:52] Charlie Berens: glad you asked. I know it’s very fast shit. I wish I, I want to say it’s something like 40 or either 45 or 65 miles an hour. 75, a hundred miles an hour, 81, 81.

[00:46:06] Charlie Berens: Shoot. I should have known that. I do. Thank you for that fact. Cause I go for a breast and Merganser’s. I should have known that I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed. 

[00:46:13] Richie Burke: I think you got seven out of 10. Hell 

[00:46:15] Charlie Berens: yeah. It’s a good rock and roll. Yeah, I see. It’s a pass. There were some 

[00:46:19] Richie Burke: tough ones on there. All right. Uh, final question I have, why, why do you choose to live in Milwaukee and did you always want to come back 

[00:46:26] Charlie Berens: here?

[00:46:26] Charlie Berens: I love Milwaukee. No, I mean, I’ve lived all over the country and I just, I mean, you know, I, I just like that we have fresh water here. That’s a big win for starters, but also the, I love Wisconsin. There’s great fishing. There’s, um, great hunting, great hiking, camping, all that stuff we got right here. And, you know, good bars, you know, and, um, yeah, my family’s close too.

[00:46:47] Charlie Berens: They’re like family. I shouldn’t have made them like 20th on that list I just put there. But no, I love Milwaukee, man. I wouldn’t live anywhere 

[00:46:53] Richie Burke: else. It seems like you got a good family. I watched some of the sisters Cripe cast. Yeah, 

[00:46:57] Charlie Berens: yeah. They’re a bunch of BS ers, man. Yeah. Yeah. You can’t take anything they say serious.

[00:47:02] Richie Burke: Oh, all right. Well, it was great seeing you today. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Milwaukee Uncut with Charlie Behrens produced by Storymark Studios, sponsored by Central Standard and in partnership with On Milwaukee. If you are not already subscribed, make sure to do so.

[00:47:19] Richie Burke: We’ve got a lot of great episodes coming up, including the Milverine, Dating Advice to Milwaukee Men with a Plethora of People, and then we got world renowned Dr. Raymond Pryor, who works with some of the top performers in the world, coming on for a series in early January, when everyone’s in self improvement mode.[00:47:38]

Richie Burke: You’re not going to want to miss those episodes, and a lot more good ones, so make sure to subscribe if you’re not already, and please share the show. To family and friends who you think would enjoy this episode with Charlie. We really appreciate any support whether it’s sharing writing or review subscribing, means a lot to us.