6-5-26 - *FULL SHOW* Mayor Mike Johnston; Muay Thai World Champ; Bolton Pleads Guilty; Boring Dem Debate

Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better, feel more creative or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match. Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried Mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed. No dispensary run, no second-guessing, just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal, third-party tested, and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to Mood-M-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight. Mood helps you get there. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Gina's on the wrong side of the room this morning. She's trying to figure out, see. I'm going to move. All right, she's going to move. You're going to explain the situation. Yeah, maybe, or maybe you will. I will. We're, um. We're only a month into not having functioning kitchen water. So we've been dealing with bathroom sink water for us. Should it actually open with the, this is why we can't have nice things. Which is why we need. Yeah. That's right. And so we don't know how long, you know, given that it's been about a month. We can't have nice things. Yeah. Given that it's been about a month with the with the sink water. We don't know how long this will take, but apparently, Gina, do you want to explain this situation? She's walking, she's walking back around. Very busy in here. On my pop star mic? Yeah, and your pop star mic. All right. Well, apparently, well, here's the full story, actually. I walked out of yoga. Zen is going to be feeling great, you know, just let go of the day, ready to set 19 alarms. And I get a text of a broken mic from our boss, which is clearly in my spot. My mic. Yeah. Yeah. And. So then I knew I would be sitting where Keenan normally sits because we have three computers, four mics, but three computers. And I asked, how in the world does this happen? Because the mic was completely broken off of the stand and on the table. And he said, am I calling people out in this? Yeah, of course you are. All right. Well, Benjamin Netanyahu Albright said that it just broke. It just broke. And my husband, who works with a lot of camera equipment, says nothing ever just breaks. You definitely can never say it just broke. So then Shannon rigged up a great pop star looking mic here. Yeah. Or I can, I mean, I can carry, I can pick it up. I can spin it around. Like, I can, I get to hold it upside down. That'd be kind of funny, actually. See, the thing, though.

I would have thought that Ben could just grab some of his old chewed gum from right underneath where you're standing and stick it all together. No, don't forget, he only chews special gum. Special gum. Right. Just like this just breaks. Special gum. All right, well, Gina's on a mic now, and she can spin it around and do it. It's on a mic stand on the floor with one of those long, you know, four foot arms. So Gina's very versatile with the microphone today. So we'll see what kind of gymnastics and stuff she does with it. We'll get to 19. Yeah, it is. We'll get to we'll get to 19 alarms in a minute. I do want to spend a couple minutes on on the news here following up actually on three things that Gina just covered in the in the newscast. Okay, first the vote in the Senate. for $70 billion to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the next three years. As Gina said, it passed 52 to 47. You will note that that adds up to 99 rather than 100. I do believe that the missing vote yesterday was our very own Senator Michael Bennett, although I do not believe that his vote would have mattered in this particular situation. I've complained enough about the anti-weaponization fund, so I will just say one quick thing on it. It's a little bit surprising, even in these days of rather firm control by Donald Trump over the Republican Party, that there wasn't enough cahones in the Republican Senate to pass an amendment. to kill the anti-weaponization fund. Not to be clear, the acting attorney general already said, no, we're not doing that. So they're kind of going on that. I wouldn't take him at his word, but there was an amendment to try to kill it, and it failed. Just barely failed. So I wish they had shown a little more courage there. Not the end of the world as long as Todd Blanche sticks with his word. Then the other story Gina mentioned, the House of Representatives. with 18 Republicans joining every Democrat except Ilhan Omar voted for something called the Ukraine Support Act. So it passed 226 to 195. And this would give aid to Ukraine. It would impose sanctions on Russia. It is unclear whether this will even get a vote in the Senate. And this is... I'm sure anyone listening to this show is already well aware of how these dynamics are. But typically what happens in the House and the Senate is if the president is against a bill, the leader of that chamber, if the leader is of the same party as the president. So a Republican president, Republican Speaker of the House, Republican majority leader in the Senate, if the president is against a bill. They will do, the leaders in the chambers will do everything they can to prevent the bill from coming up for a vote if they believe it would pass, which does seem not great, right? You know that a bill will pass among these elected representatives who are here to, here to represent the people. And since it will pass, but the guy down the street doesn't want it to pass, you won't even let it come up for a vote. There are ways around that in the House, a discharge petition, which.

You've heard about from time to time. In any case, this thing, we don't know if it will, this Ukraine support act, we don't know if it will even get a vote in the Senate because there's a decent chance that it would pass if it did. So we'll see. I do support it and I'm going to move on because I don't even know what we'll, you know, if we'll pass. Another thing Gina mentioned, and this falls into the category of I watched it so you didn't have to. The Democratic debate last night for Governor Phil Weiser versus Michael Bennett, moderated by the same two people on Nine News, who moderated the Republican stuff in recent days, Kyle Clark and Marshall Zellinger. No, we do not have either of them on the show today. And it was boring and predictable. And there's two main takeaways for me from these guys. In fact, if you think about the audio that Gina just played, Phil was saying, we're going to incentivize more building of the kind of housing that we really need more of. So first of all, it's not the governor's job to really decide what kind of housing we need more of unless there is something truly distorting the process. in government policy, and then all you need to do is eliminate that government policy. The market will decide what kind of housing we need. And he is talking about, well, the permits are the same price for a big house as a small house. Permitting isn't a state thing. I don't know what he would do there, but it doesn't sound like his goal is really to reduce the cost of permits for inexpensive housing. Sounds like his goal is to raise the cost of permits for fancier houses. That is what they always do. Anyway, it was boring. spent a bunch of time, kind of sniping each other with really meaningless jabs because these two guys are so similar to each other. There's very little to distinguish between them. And so they have to fall back on silly attacks like, well, Phil, you're suing Trump so much now, but why didn't you sue him more, you know, seven years ago in Trump's first term? That was like Michael Bennett's main attack. It was all just so dumb, so boring. And frankly, if I were a Democrat, I don't know how I would choose between these two guys. And I maintain my view. These guys both want to raise tax. and they both want to make it easier for unions to steal a worker's wage by requiring that you pay union dues to have a job in the state of Colorado. If you think that one particular political party has harmed the state so far, just watch they haven't even started yet. Inquiring minds want to know, Gina, how was it going to sleep with only 19 alarms set? And did you do it? You promised. Yes. Yes, I did it. And? Okay, so I set 19. I took, well, first off, when we were doing it all yesterday and talking to my Gemini or whatever source that I have on my phone, somehow we already deleted one alarm. Don't know which one that was. So it was already at 21. So then I only had to eliminate two. So I took one out from between 3 and 3.30 and 1 out between 4 and 420. Okay, solid.

My cat woke me up at 117. Oh. The first alarm goes off at 145. That's still yesterday. Mm-hmm. So then I couldn't fall back asleep. I don't think it was because I only had 19 alarms. But then I did wake up to the 145 alarm, snoozed for five minutes, and then woke up. that the one yeah I guess probably snoozed for longer than five minutes because I woke up at the two o'clock alarm and actually got up at that point So I likely only still hit two, maybe three alarms. Did you go to yoga to get all Zend out because you were stressed about only having 19 alarms on? Yeah, absolutely. I'm a creature of habit. I've set 22 alarms since I started this show. Since I started here at K-O-A, I've always had those alarms. Amazing. So even just... Deleding, accidentally deleting one yesterday was a lot, let alone only setting. Are you, are you way more OCD than I knew? Probably. All right. Are you very much a creature of habit in some other way you would like to elaborate on? Where do we begin? Just pick one. Just give us a sense of who is Gina. Well, at yoga, as I was trying to get zend out, I have my go-to spot. If somebody is in that go-to spot, I only have two other spots that I am willing to put my mat down and practice in those spots. Right. I've never gotten to the third spot. If I get to the third spot, I might just have to walk out. How am I possibly supposed to do yoga in any other spot? Wow. Does that paint? Yeah, no, that does. Okay, good. That does. Thank you for sharing you because if somebody's in my parking spot in the parking spot, I was like, oh, parking spots, yeah, exactly. Really? That's why I can't park in the front row because people randomly park in that front row and I don't want my spot taken. So I'm like five spots back and make sure that nobody's ever there. And occasionally somebody is like, right, sir, let me get on my spot. Exactly. Exactly. Just like with our meetings with our boss. We all have our seats that we normally sit in. No. And then news director Rob walks in and sits in my on a side seat. Oh, you are. No, you are. Dude, you are completely missing what's going on there. I am normally the first person in that room. Okay. And I... You picked the same seat. No, I intentionally don't. Well, you never sent in my seat. Yes, I did. I did. A couple of weeks ago, I sat in your seat and you sat at the far end of the table across from Dave. So you're ruining it. Yes. Nice. Yeah, I'm just trying to get people a little bit out of their comfort zone. I might have to take up yoga and go into your spot.

I don't think this is going to work. Even today with this pop star mic, this red light that is now off in the distance that is normally underneath the mic is throwing me off. So I have to know how OCD you are. In the dishwasher, do all the forks go in a certain spot? All the spoons go to a certain spot? No, actually, not. That can be completely random? Dishwashers, dishwashers okay. Yeah. So you're not crazy, crazy. Just a little. Yeah. Let's ask listeners real quick. What's the thing you're OCD about? What's the thing you always got to have the same way or it just throws you off for the rest of the day? Text us at 56690 and let us know. My mom just texted me saying you are your mother's daughter. Awesome. Love it. All right, I've had a couple of topics about AI that I think are fascinating and important that I've wanted to get to for most of the week, and I haven't. So we'll get to them right after some news, weather and traffic. But text us at 56690 and tell us what you are kind of OCD about and what you have to have the same way. I'm Ross. There's producer dragon behind the glass and sleep deprived. Got up yesterday, Gina. over there on the pop star microphone. We're going to spend a little time a little bit later, not much later, just a little later. on things you are OCD about. So text those to us at 56690. What's something that you really always have to have the same way or it just really bugs you? Now, I want to get to this AI thing because I've had this for several days. And I think it's important. I think it's interesting. There's so much talk about AI. I will note, you know, Gina was just talking about how the jobs report came in way better than economist estimates. I also just saw on TV that the... April numbers for the previously reported April jobs were revised way up as well. It's very interesting. This is just sort of tangential, but it's interesting with all this talk about how AI is going to destroy jobs, that at least so far you are absolutely not seeing it in jobs numbers. And I continue to believe that it's easy to imagine all the jobs that AI is going to kill. And it will. We need to be, should be thinking more about all the jobs that AI is going to allow to be created. Let me get to this other thing. So Bruce Melman is a somewhat frequent guest. Let's call him an occasional guest on the show. And he has a fabulous substack. And you can go look it up. Bruce Melman, M-E-H-L-M-A-N. If you just go look up Bruce Melman's substack, you'll find it. He calls his podcast, age of his substack. I'm sorry, age of disruption. And he usually puts out something every Sunday. And this past weekend, this thing he put out, it's called Brave New Workforce, same old challenges. But the brave, he spelled B-R-A-I instead of just B-R-A-V-E. And there were a couple things in here that really jumped out at me about.

Sort of reminding me that maybe a lot of the conventional wisdom about AI, including maybe my own, is a little bit off and maybe missing a couple of things. So he mentions a particular Axios article about how, and I'm quoting here, an AI consultant tells Axios one of their clients, so this would be a big business. recently spent half a billion dollars with a B in a single month after failing to put usage limits on the AI licenses for their employees. Because typically when you buy AI licenses, right, you want to use chat GPT or Claude or whatever. You spend a certain amount of money and that gets you permission for a certain amount of usage. And then if you go over that, you have to pay extra, right? I'm sure you can think of plenty other examples of stuff where you get a certain amount of time for some amount of money. And then if you want more time, you got to pay more. But the employees probably weren't even aware of it. As far as they know, they just have the AI on their computer and they're using it. And they're not thinking about the license. The boss is handling that. The boss didn't put any limits and they're just using their AI. And so this one company blew through all this money. It's very interesting. Now, Bruce says, AI is surely powerful and transformational. But as we learn more, the workforce of the future faces similar challenges. So let's just go through some of these, about four minutes here, I think. Let me just go through some of these things because I just thought this was one of the best notes I've read in a long time. The first point, people talk about AI workers don't demand overtime pay, right? Your chat GPT or whatever doesn't demand overtime pay. Yes, but AI is shifting some corporate costs from human payroll to metered digital labor, creating new exposure to price increases, usage overruns, switching charges, and vendor lock-in. Software licenses are the new time cards and unexpected costs are the norm. This is really, really interesting. In other words, what they're saying is, say you have a human employee. Yeah, the human employee might want overtime. It might cost you a little more money that way. And they might need a raise at some point. But many people, including me to a certain degree, including I, to a certain degree, have been thinking about When thinking about AI as an alternative to employees for certain things, have been doing it in a framework imagining that the AI is free or close to free. But it's really not. And in fact, AI is very, very expensive to. to generate and it's going to be very expensive for businesses to use because there's a massive amount involved in creating the AI and then they're going to want their profit margins as well. And so when you're using AI, you've got these risks. The AI company can raise prices on you, just the same way a worker might want a raise. You can use too much AI and have these costs that we just talked about. You could not like your particular AI and want to switch and that could cost you money or you

you might find that it's too difficult to switch or there's some inertia there. And so you're sort of locked into that one AI vendor, even though that might not be the best thing for you. Another group says AI forecast misses like getting your guess wrong. Are the rule not the exception? Only 15% of companies forecast their AI costs within 10%. 56% missed by 11 to 25%, 24% of companies missed their guess on how much they're going to spend on AI by more than 50%. Okay, so what else? They say, well, AI workers don't go on strike. Yes, but AI workers are controlled by third parties who can raise costs, suspend access, change rules, throttle usage, alter the way the model behaves, or refuse to allow you to use the AI if you're using it for something that they... think you shouldn't, which would be a lot like an AI worker going on strike. And if you're Dragon's Widget Factory, you might not worry about that. But what if you're doing something a little more edgy? And the AI company says, no, we don't like that. We don't want you to be able to use our AI for that. What if you're in the defense industry? Or what if you are in the oil and gas industry and they decide to be all woken? They won't support defense or fossil fuels. And they decide that they were not going to let you use AI anymore. for your company, right? So there are things that can function kind of like AI going on strike. We're also told AI workers increase productivity. Okay, yes. AI workers don't need, you know, nice managers to keep them happy and focused and productive and motivated. But it doesn't eliminate the need for managers. It just creates a new class of managers, people who supervise digital workers and approve their actions and audit their behavior and find and fix their mistakes and pull the kill switch when needed. Again, I'm quoting from Bruce Melman's substack here. Overseeing AI agents and AI work can prove time consuming, grueling and inefficient. Here's a quote from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford. Teams using AI for augmentation, targeted assistance within an established workflow, see a gain of about 24% efficiency on average. But teams attempting automation, delegating whole tasks end to end and essentially replacing people, experience an 18% decline. inefficiency due to verification and debugging challenges. Wow. You know what? There's more to this. I'm going to share with you more a little bit later in the show, but I just wanted to at least get started on this with the main point being that lots of people, including I, I think have been...

underestimating some of the significant potential risks and costs and challenges of replacing people with AI. And that might be part of the reason you are not seeing AI killing jobs showing up in the data. Who knew, Gina? Who knew? All right, let's give away some tickets. I think I know how I want to do this, Dragon. But you can pick the texture number and the time. But before you do, let me just tell folks what we're giving away. This is pretty cool. It's a pair of tickets to the advance screening of Stephen Spielberg's new sci-fi thriller movie called Disclosure Day starring Emily Blunt. And what it says here in the words in front of me on the screen, it's about finding out if we're not alone in the universe. Anyway, new Steven Spielberg movie, this screening is 7 p.m. next Monday at the Harkins Northfield Theater, you know, up there by... by Bass Pro Shops and all that where Stapleton Airport used to be and all that. So this will be your chance to see this before it actually comes out to movie theaters for everybody else to watch, which is a week from today. So you will win a pair of tickets for next Monday evening to see the new Spielberg movie. Now I have a trivia question for you that you are going to need to answer in order to be able to win these tickets. Dragon is going to tell you right now what else you need to do to be able to win these tickets. It's and when? Let's go, well, you're going to need to text in, what is our text? 56690. Textor number one at let's go 654 and 12 seconds. Wow, we don't do texture number one very often. I thought you were going to go the other way. I thought you were going to do texture number 17. Because we had so many people want these tickets last time. Definitely not 17. Not 17. Yeah. Okay, texture number one at 654 and 12 seconds at 56690 and your text must include your name, your email address, and the answer to this trivia question. Which Steven Spielberg movie is represented on the t-shirt Ross is wearing today? No, that's actually, okay, so that's not actually the question, but it is true, and it is true for the question I'm going to ask you. I'm going to give you a trivia question here, and the answer is the t-shirt I'm wearing today. Which Steven Spielberg movie? has a tremendous cast, including Richard Dreyfus, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and was filmed mostly at Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. It's one of Stephen Spielberg's first and best movies. You're forgetting one main member of the cast. Bruce. Yeah, right. Exactly. I've seen Bruce.

I won't say where Bruce is because that'll give it away even more. But that's not a very difficult question. All right. So text number one at 654 and 12 seconds, your name, your email address at which Steven Spielberg movie was filmed mostly on location at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. And please mind the Kevin rule? Yes. Only one text. And if you need more help, I will just say, I don't know if Gina has seen this movie. I have seen it. Okay. And she was definitely born after that movie, after that movie was made. So I definitely know that. Okay, so there's that. Oh, you know what, as long as we got epic on the microphone, can you please explain Porch Fest? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so. I've been to a porch fest once before in Jacksonville, Florida. I didn't know it was an actual brand. So I don't know if it was like the sanctioned porch fest that we'll be seeing here in Denver. But it's pretty much this event that they're trying to put together in Denver in October where you have a bunch of different local artists that are going to be playing on porches, literally just outside people's homes in the area. They're hoping to do it in the Baker neighborhood in Denver on October 3rd. And porch fest happened in multiple cities. Like I mentioned, I saw one in Jacksonville, but in Boston and Atlanta and other areas. And you just walk around the neighborhood and there's going to be a bunch of different bands playing on people's porches. You can hang out and they'll close off the streets and see a bunch of different bands. Apparently they said that they've had a... 15, let's see, where was it? They had a ton of artists that have already applied to be part of it. They're hoping to get about 50 artists and 15 plus stages in the area. 20 bucks for it, Denver Porchfest.com. It's like in the initial stages of it. And it also would be a nonprofit event that they would fund for East 7 Arts. It's a nonprofit that helps children with autism by providing arts music therapy. So just the initial start of it. I think it'd be a great event for Denver. I feel like it would fit the bill perfectly in the Baker neighborhood. Yeah. And October 3rd, hopefully it'll be a... So Denver Porchfest.com is the link. Denver Porchfest.com. Yep. And... So do they tell you who's going to be playing? Or is it kind of like the thing, you buy the ticket, you go in and let's, and like be surprised and see who shows up on the porch, do you know? Still do a scheduled event. So they still have it where it's pretty much set up where there's a lineup of artists and a schedule and certain porches in the area. And I just remember going around Jacksonville and just like walking from neighborhood to neighborhood. And I mean, they got. They got really creative with it because you have to kind of rig up the porch and able to have like a pop star mic like I do today where the chord can go all the way down to the sidewalk and sing along with the crowd and things like that. So it was a cool event when I saw it then and I feel like it'll fit the bill for Denver pretty well. Love it. That sounds super cool. I'm very excited for that. Check out Denver Porch Fest.com. As Gina said, it's very preliminary right now. They're still setting it up for October.

But I thought that was a cool thing. All right, we're going to do some news weather and traffic. And then, oh, please keep texting 56690 and tell us what's something your OCD about. Like, it's got to be the same way for you each time or you get a little freaked out. We want to know. 56690. Keep it here on K. Your whole neighborhood goes black in seconds. Except your house. The Patriot Power Generator 2200X from four Patriots keeps your lights on when the grid goes down. It's the most powerful generator Four Patriots has ever built. Four Patriots gives you backup power without gas, fumes, or a loud engine. Just lights, a cold fridge, and peace of mind when the power fails. Right now, save $500 and get two solar panels free. That means you can recharge twice as fast, but only while supplies last. Keep your lights on, your food cold, and your family calm when the grid goes down. Don't wait for the next blackout. Visit 4Patriots.com today. That's the number four, P-A-T-R-I-O-T-S dot com. and see why families trust four patriots to stay ready. All right, good morning. Congratulations to Dwayne for getting the answer to the trivia question. What Steven Spielberg movie is on Ross's t-shirt today? And the answer is Jaws. Now, of course, if you're just joining, that wasn't the entirety of the question. I said, what Steven Spielberg movie had all these people in the cast? Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfis and Robert Shaw, who is just amazing. And Dragon? Bruce. Bruce. I've seen Bruce at Universal Studios, right? So check this out. Let me, let me share it. Oh, and so, yeah, and, and what. what Spielberg movie was filmed, mostly at Martha's Vineyard. And so that was Jaws released in some year before Gina was born. Now, this is from jaws.fandom.com. The shark was originally called Bruce by film crew members in reference to Stephen Spielberg's lawyer. Bruce Raymer and knowledgeable Finn fans tend to prefer using this as an official moniker. Interestingly, it's never been agreed upon as to the official name the shark should be called. But anybody in the know knows that it's Bruce. Wasn't? Wasn't Bruce Ulric So the Shark in Finding Nemo? That is correct, yes. Yeah. In homage to the Bruce. The Bruce. So there you go. Congratulations to Dwayne and won a pair of tickets to see the new Spielberg movie. I feel like this week we haven't spent enough time wasting listeners time. And so I would like to do a little of that. It makes Dragon very excited. It's the highlight of his week.

Gina, as a professional journalist, it's there cringing. Like, I can't believe I'm here with these guys. She rolled her eyes. Did she? Maybe a little. A little. I think you spent a lot of time on National Repeat Day, wasting people's time. Wait, National what? Don't worry about it. National Repeat Day? No, it was National Repeat Day. National Repeat Day. Isn't that what I said? Pete and Repeat were sitting at a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat. Pete and repeat were sitting on the fence. Pete fell off. Who was left? Hi, Gina. Hi. The question was... The question was, what's something you're OCD about? What's something you have to have the same way every time or it will just bug you? Now there was one, so Dragon saw one that's actually come up more than once now that Dragon is on board with. Is this the honk one? No, not the hunk one, the other one. You can mention the hunk one if you want. It's up to you as long as you do it in a G-rated version and don't offend Gina. And then there's one that I'm on board with, actually, but I want Dragon to go first. Is this the light switch? Yeah, it's the light switch one. The three-way light switches, the main one, the one that's always used, has to be down when the lights are off. And if it's up and the lights are off, I have to go to the other one, turn that one off, then go back to the first one, then turn it on. It's dreadful. And I will, okay, I'll mention one other thing that relates to light switches. So, okay, I had a friend named Jerry Doyle who has since passed away, but I went to visit him one time. And when I got there, he had a screwdriver. And I asked him what he was doing. And he said he had found a screw in one of the plates for his light switches that wasn't vertical. And he said all the screws and the plate to the light switch in his house have to be vertical or he can't sleep. He is worse than Gina with only 19 alarms cannot sleep. So I kind of making fun of him, asked him what about the plate around the electrical outlet behind your refrigerator? And he said, oh yeah, I checked that one. That one's all right. That one's vertical too. That one's vertical too. So before we get to Gina's, I will just say the one that I'm kind of on board with was this one. I have to have chapstick in my pocket. So it doesn't have to be in my pocket. I don't have chapstick in my pocket, but I do have it in my jacket pocket. I just, I like to have chapstick with me. Because I don't like it when my lips feel dry. And then when they do, you can't stop thinking about it. And then you keep licking your lips, which makes them drier and it's just bad. Just drink your bathroom sink water. No, but drinking water doesn't help with dry lips. It really, it really doesn't. It really doesn't. Somebody was wondering if Yo-Yo Ma is going to play the Jaws theme on the Kello tonight.

All right, Gina, what are you OCD about? This texture said I always make sure the labels of my products in the bathroom are facing the same way all forward. Just the bathroom? What about the soup? Can soup? Come on. You're just really going to ignite people's OCD even further. Peanut butter? The jelly and the friend. That's hilarious that your friend said, no, I already checked that one. Yeah, well, that guy was legit OCD. He was like, no, don't worry. I was ahead of that. He was legit OCD for years and years and years. Gina, what about you? We talked a little already, but we need one more. Oh, really? Yeah. What's something that has to be the same way? Um. Man, I mean, a lot of things. Too many of the names. You saw me, I have to wipe everything down in the studio when I walk in. And I thought I was going to be at that other spot because Benjamin Netanyahu Albright Hulk smashed this microphone. And then producer Shannon rigged it up to a pop star microphone. So I didn't wipe down this one. Right. And then once I said it. I had to go grab a wipe and then. Yeah, Gina, legit, Gina went out, got a disinfectant wipe came in and wiped it all down. And meanwhile, I'm like looking, did I drop a piece of candy on the floor that I can still eat? Yeah, I wiped down your area too because I know you don't wash your hands and you do not wipe down that area. Wait, are you saying when you come in at 5 o'clock or whatever, 4 o'clock? Yeah. Not as often as I wipe down mine, but if there's still a little juice left on the wipe, yeah, I'll take care of that one. That's amazing. That's what? That's slightly invasive. That's your spot. You want to hear something worse. I don't know whether I feel invaded or grateful. That's very thoughtful of you. I'm embarrassed to admit the other one. Go ahead. We're all friends here. Nobody else is listening. I wipe down the door handles because I know you don't wash your hands. So I wiped down that door handle and then the handle that goes to the hallway to the bathroom. But there's only like 27 other people who use this. So you're saying you wipe the door handles only because of me? Maybe because I've also found gum underneath the table and I have to clean up the mess that is left here. So this is the real image, Ben Albright. chewing a mouthful, a double bubble gum, grabbing it out of his mouth, mashing it underneath the countertop where Gina is right now, and then going and grabbing the handle with his bubblegum stained fingers. That's really what's going on right here at K-O-A. That's why we can't have nice things. Karen, I think you are a little bit unusual and I wonder if you are left handed or some other strange thing like that because Karen says that the light switch screws go horizontal. Clearly. And then another person earlier said, of course light switch screws go vertical because they accumulate less dust that way. As if there is anybody in the world who is wondering how much dust.

A light switch screw accumulates. All right, we're going to get back to all the OCD stuff. But these are really, really fun. So keep them coming. 56690. What is something that you are kind of OCD about. You got to have it the same way every time where you freak out a little bit. Now, I just got to have about a minute and a half year because we want to make sure to have plenty of time to spend with the mayor of Denver. Let me tell you about an interesting story that hit yesterday. John Bolton, former national security advisor in President Trump's first term, who was then fired by Trump and they. have not had nice things to say about each other since then. They are very, very much antagonistic. Was accused of mishandling classified information. And months ago when this first came out, he said he's absolutely not guilty. And then he pledged not guilty in court. And now he's changing. And he's going to plead guilty. to, and I'm at the Associated Press here, a single count of retaining classified information. And he's going to have to also pay a $2.5 million fine. And this is a tricky thing because I suspect, and the Wall Street Journal has a whole big piece about this, they suspect that John Bolton agreed to plead guilty and pay $2.5 million. because fighting it and taking it to court will probably cost more than that. The Wall Street Journal says that the fine is best understood as an attempt to deny Mr. John Bolton earnings from the book because this comes around when John Bolton wrote a book and he did submit the book for making sure it wasn't publicizing classified information. There was a judge involved in the case early who said that he thought John Bolton might have mishandled classified information. information. In particular, what he seemed to do was he took notes in meetings. He didn't take classified information with him, but he took notes in meetings and then apparently shared some of this stuff, which is deemed to be classified information, with his wife and or daughter who were like proofreading his book for him. So in any case, the book was called, the book was called The Room Where It Happens. And it's a pretty well-reviewed book. The Wall Street Journal says, and I quote, especially troubling and vindictive is that the Justice Department is still insisting that Mr. John Bolton go to prison. The concession prosecutors have made is they won't ask for more than five years. John Bolton will ask the court for probation. Imagine that though. John Bolton agreeing to plead guilty in a situation where he still might end up going to prison. He's 77 years old. And of course, a lot of the... Trump people who love Tina Peters were saying, no, don't do that to her. She's old. He's basically the same age or older, actually, but they apparently want him to go to prison. Anyway, I have a feeling John Bolton might have done something actually a little wrong here. Not as wrong as what Hillary Clinton did, though. Nothing happened to her. And arguably not as wrong as what Donald Trump did with classified information. And nothing happened to him. The mayor of Denver comes up just after some news, weather and traffic. Just one quick thing here. A listener dragon, listener Karen, has a really good point that it's odd that three-way switches are called three-way switches because there's only two switches.

Right? And then, right? So that's weird. It's the cabling and everything. I know. Yeah, but I agree. Gina has a question for you. I do. Yeah, you do on the theme of the day. Go ahead. It's not an embarrassing question. All right. Mr. Mayor, we are asking what are you OCD about? Is there one thing that you have to make sure is perfect or fixed or changed to just go about your day? Oh. I love waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Like if you do one of the breakfast places and you have to have the right precise ratio of the same amount of strawberry, whipped cream, and waffle on each bite. So it's got to be very carefully platted out when you make those waffles. I make them for my kids a lot. And so that's probably my most OCD eating habit. That's not OCD. That's just common sense. I mean, you're not going to have just a bare waffle. You have to have the whipped cream and strawberries on top. I'm amazed what some barbarians will do and just take an entire bite of waffle with no strawberry or whipped cream. But if you were eating one and somehow you got a piece of waffle that didn't have strawberry or whipped cream on it or just not very much, would you not eat that piece? Would you get your knife and just go spread some over on that piece to even it out a little better? Oh, yeah, I would even it out. But say if I were to a restaurant, I would then ask for more whipped cream. And there's a certain amount of time you can wait until the waffle is mostly dead. But I would definitely hold out for an extra order of whipped cream. So I don't go with a naked waffle. Dragon has a question for you. What about syrup? No syrup at all? I sometimes do syrup also. If I want to just go full diabetes waffle than I do, I eat syrup and whipped cream and strawberry. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Mike, but I do semi-professional radio, but Gina is a professional. And she's just sitting here, she's doing the thing where she's got her hand, her thumb and forefinger pinching the top of her nose. Like she can't believe what's going on here on K-O-A. Cannot believe it. Gina, do you want to ask him a real question then? Mr. Mayor, maybe you'll be having a waffle with strawberries, whipped cream in Long Beach, California this weekend, because I guess you are attending the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Annual Meeting. That's a good train. Thank you. Nice segue. Tell us about this conference, what it entails what you're hoping to take away from it. Yeah, it is simply that. It is about a thousand mayors from around the country all meet together over two or three days. And I find these companies really useful because mayors are very practical people. It's just, hey, we're all trying to solve the same problems. What's working? So, okay, you're working on increasing permitting speed in your city. What's the secret? Or you're working on better strategies for how to fund housing. What are you using? I lead a couple of sessions over the course the weekend. One is I chair what's called the Big Cities Alliance, which is a convening of all 75 of the big city mayors, the largest cities in the country. And so that's what we'll talk about affordability strategies and what people are doing. And so mostly it's a chance to just share best practices, figure out what's working, and then try to steal those good ideas from other people who are head home and use them in your city.

All right, let me just push back slightly. So I don't think anybody believes that you, and I don't think you should necessarily be, but are like nonpartisan or whatever. Like lots of mayors, including you, have lots of bad things to say about this particular president. But are you saying that when you get into that environment, that stuff just really isn't what's talked about? Yeah, because, I mean, you know, we're not working on the war in Iran here. We're not working on, you know, the anti-weaponization fund here. We work, and there are a lot of mayors that are nonpartisan or mayors that are Republicans or Democrats. A lot of mayors are workers that don't really know their partisan affiliation because they often don't run in a partisan capacity. So it's just those traditional, I think, partisan battle topics are not the ones mayors care the most about. If there are things like, okay, how are you doing with facing federal funding cuts? Because you have cities that are all facing that risk. That will be a shared topic. But again, for us, it's more about how do you solve the problem than it is who are you mad at? All right. So I'm going to combine two questions. Give us your thoughts on the impending retirement of Denver Airport CEO, Phil Washington, and Denver City Council member, Sarah Parity. Yeah, I mean, for Phil, just an incredible wife of service. I mean, you may have seen, but he's been doing public service for 50 years now. I mean, started in the Army, has been served at the head of RTD as the head of the airport here. And so I think he has more than earned the chance to retire. I think he wants to be with family and do some other ventures going to want to write a book and probably spend some time. And so he's had an amazing run. I think in the last five years, the airport is. you know, now the sixth busiest airport in the world. I think we're on a great path now with the plan on the security lines being fixed with the plan on being able to build the tunnels. So I think he just was ready and was incredibly grateful. For Councilman Parry, obviously it was much more of a surprise, but I know she has some health issues. She's battling and made the assessment that, you know, she wants to be able to be present for her family and be able to do the job to her fullest capacity. And I thought she in a very selfless way said, I don't think I can do this with the current things I'm fighting. And so... Very supportive of both of them and really grateful for their service. Two part two, Ross's two part. With Washington, who are you hoping to really find in a successor, what kind of leader in the next steps for DIA? And Councilwoman Parity was very highly critical of some of your administration's policies with the past flock camera negotiations and things like that. Would you like to see another at-large city council member who has similar pushback because sometimes it's good to have somebody that represents the entire city also kind of have a difference in what you stand for. some of your administration policies.

Yeah, I think for Phil, obviously we will do a national search, you know, even a global search. I say to folks, people don't often realize that Denver is, you know, the fifth-busiest airport in the world. So we're with peers like Tokyo, Dubai, London, Dallas. And so the interesting thing is, you know, if you were the CEO of the airport in L.A. or in New York or in San Francisco, it would be a promotion to come to Denver. And so we think we'll have a great opportunity to recruit. amazing candidates from around the world. And so I think we'll do a search to look for all those candidates. We're looking for someone who... has a vision to be able to carry this airport to the next level and to be able to be a really great operator-manager leader of what is a very, very large enterprise. So I think that one will be a process, we'll announce next week. And, yeah, Councilman Parody and I didn't agree on all the issues, but I have a lot of respect for her, and I think we enjoyed, you know, it's like when you play sports against a crosstown rival in your hometown, you guys fight it out on the field, and afterwards you hug it out and go out and sometimes have a beer, I guess, after you're out of high school. But there will be an election for her replacement. It will actually be this November, so all of Denver will have a chance to weigh in on those races. I generally don't weigh in on city council races because I feel like that's in the city council's, I think, area. But obviously there will be, I think, a lot of folks that will get in. There'll be some good options. And, yeah, we'd love to see someone who wants to support solving the hard problems the city faces, and we look forward to seeing who jumps in. A quick follow up in the airport thing. You're talking about how busy it is and all that. And I wasn't going to ask you this, but you made me think of it. Do you have any update? And I don't even know how much this is your area of responsibility, but on widening Pena. We absolutely do. And it's definitely my area responsibility. It's the third, Ross, it's kind of the third last remaining big problem for the airport. We had to solve faster security, you know, redundancy for the train. If that goes down, the third one is Pena. And so we have a community process and a study going on right now that is getting feedback from the neighbors and looking at what the options are for how to increase volume through that road to the airport. And yes, the options are widening Pena. The options are other ways to increase traffic on the A line, the public transit line, to pull cars off of Pena. And so we're open to both, and that will be something we'll look to announce the next few months. We should be able to get to a final plan on that one, and we're anxious to get to work on that. All right. Just my uneducated two cents is it's a mirage to think you're going to pull people off the road and put them on the train. And I hope you don't. do something where you add like a toll lane that really very few people are going to use and you end up with traffic that's just as bad. I think you just got to widen it for everybody. Don't worry about the train and get her done.

We definitely have folks that share that opinion. I think I'd say one of the challenges is that it was built to be just a road to the airport. Obviously, since then, we have a lot of communities that are along the way. So Montbella, Green Valley Ranch, Gateway. And so the challenges is the FAA will not allow airport funds to be used to build a road that goes to the neighborhoods. And so if you wanted federal funding and airport funding, you'd have to have some sort of dedicated lane that goes to... to the airport. If you have it as a general access road, the city would have to pay for, which becomes much more expensive. So it's one of the challenges, what is the funding source and what is the purpose of the lane? All right, well, we'll see how that goes. A lane just to the airport would be fine as long as it's not a toll lane. Do what you got to do to get the funding. Denver mayor, Mike Johnson, go enjoy the 90 degree weekend, and we'll talk with you next week. Thanks for having you. Take care. All right. Dragon, like, do I really have time? You did not. I didn't have a good answer. Good answer. You did not. Okay, let me do just a random kind of thing here, just a little fun thing. We'll get back to some OCD in a bit if we have. if we have time, but we sure are enjoying your stories. President Trump has from time to time mentioned an uncle of his named John Trump. And he has said a couple of wacky things about John Trump that weren't true, like that he was a professor who taught the Unabomber. But the Unabomber actually didn't go to school where John Trump taught. But in any case, John Trump, who Donald Trump says was a super genius. actually was a super genius. And it's just a very interesting story. You know, like Trump exaggerates a lot of things. But when Trump says that his uncle was a great, brilliant genius and a super genius, it's actually true. And I just wanted to share a little bit of this with you, just as a nerd, as a history thing. This is from the Washington Post. It came out. Yesterday, I think. And also, I have to say, you know, nice to see some of these newspapers writing something nice about somebody named Trump, although the Washington Post is trying to get away from all that kind of left wing, like left wing hating Trump all the time. So they're trying to be a little more even-handed. But just as a history nerd, this is so cool. So I'm not going to share all of this with you, but a good amount. So two days before D-Day, John Trump was standing on an English cliff facing Normandy, fine-tuning a radar that was part of an extraordinary system for guiding the boats and planes that would soon carry Allied soldiers across the water toward the enemy coast. Two days before this year's D-Day anniversary. So, yeah, June 6th tomorrow.

Tomorrow's the anniversary of D-Day. Understanding John Trump's contributions has become more important than ever. So John Trump is the younger brother of Donald Trump's dad, Fred. And he played a crucial role in the development of radar for D-Day and World War II. Radar was hailed as second only to the atomic bomb in the importance of winning the war. Later, John Trump contributed to the success of the U.S. space program and pioneered methods still relevant to semiconductor manufacturing. He taught at MIT. He was honored by British King George the 6th by American President Harry Truman for his work in the war. He was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan. That was just a few years before John Trump died, which was in the mid-1980s. Trump's wartime work was set in motion by a 1940 mission authorized by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who desperately sought America's help after Adolf Hitler defeated France. Churchill's secret mission delivered a crucial radar component called a cavity magnetron. A palm-sized device that generated microwaves powerful enough for airborne radar. delivered that to America. Doing so helped kickstart radar work in the U.S. and supercharged collaboration between the two nations on critical science and technology. And then Trump organized America's most innovative radar laboratory at MIT to make such improvements real and secure allied air power. So by the time D-Day neared in 1944, Trump directed a secret field laboratory in England where he listened. and worked closely with America's troops to prepare MIT radar for battle. American bombers using the radar developed at MIT were able to quote unquote see through clouds and destroy and destroy German oil and aircraft factories helping secure air supremacy by the time General Eisenhower's invasion force reached the beaches at Normandy. Radar also made possible one of the largest successful Paratrooper drops in history during D-Day when planes guided by radar deployed. 23,000 people behind enemy lines. Eisenhower said, if I didn't have air supremacy, I wouldn't be here. And Eisenhower's top air general said that the radar field lab directed by John Trump was one of the most important factors in America's air success. And the story goes on from there, John Trump was very actively involved in helping the English defeat the threat of the British V1.

Basically the first cruise missiles, but. But because of John Trump's work, Britain was able to intercept many of those and take them out with anti-aircraft batteries as well. One last thing. Writing in his diary, on July 19th, 1944, John Trump described having lunch with King George the 6th and Queen Elizabeth, who I guess wouldn't have been queen at the time, if he was still king. But anyway, where the king asked a number of questions about radar work in the United States. Imagine that. Right? Lunch with the king and the future queen, or else maybe it was the current queen and the previous king. I'm not sure based on the timing. But this was also a factor in dropping atomic bombs in Japan. They used radar for that and on and on. A fascinating story. John Trump, President Donald Trump's uncle, truly a super genius. Dragon just refilled his bathroom sink water. So what? Nothing. All right. Our guest, Sean, in studio, has no idea why I'm talking about bathroom sink water, and I'm not going to explain it to him. Sean is general manager of my outdoor TV, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. We're going to talk about TV viewing habits, and the stream TV show that is coming up in a little bit over a week in Denver, June 16th to June 19th, is a huge event for the streaming television industry. So why don't we start with that, actually? And then I want to spend a bunch of time talking with you about your... business and about television watching habits which probably actually stream is about that as well so So, yeah, fire away. So stream TV is the 16th to 19th of June here in Denver, and it's the biggest streaming show around now. There used to be a lot of shows. Now there's really just this one. We got over 2,000 people. It's all layers of all companies, the big streamers, the small streamers, content sellers, content creators, everybody is there, advertisers, tech people. The streaming space really reaches very broadly across the business, and this is the show. to go to. All right, I've got one and then Gina's going to have 100 questions. So what is the biggest trend right now that people who own and manage streaming services are dealing with in terms of changing viewer behavior?

So I think we're all trying to follow it, or maybe sometimes get ahead of this viewing behavior. So it used to be that there was linear TV you got from Comcast, your cable operator, and there was streaming on demand, which was Netflix. And now you have fast channels, which are free advertising-supported channels. They don't call them fast, but at any time you go to a platform, there's 400 channels you can watch for free. Then beyond that, there are... 100 streaming subscription channels that you can get. And what all of these people trying to understand is the changing dynamic of the viewer. So the viewer used to want to have a streaming video experience with no ads. I want a ton of content. I want no ads. Now every single one of the big guys and most of the little guys have ad tiers, which means instead of paying $10, now you can pay $7. And it used to be, you know, Netflix would say we will never have ads. Forget it. That's the old school way to do it. We're not going to do it. But because we're asking the consumer to stack three and four and five subscriptions, they can't do that at $10, but maybe they can do it at $6. And so we're trying to understand how many ads will the audiences want. Is there a place for a full premium no ad service? Like HBO used to be when we were, you know, kids. It was HBO was no ads, premium channels, expensive, and then there was cable. So there's sort of that hierarchy or stratification in the streaming business where you get a $499 channel, a $699 channel. That same $699 channel with ads or without ads is $10. So how many, like what will people want next year? Do you think consumers still stack all their streaming services because we were even talking about it off the air that sometimes I find myself being like, okay, well, my show's over on Netflix, I'm going to cancel my Netflix membership, I'm going to join something else instead. And then how do you cater to that? Because I feel like then I take a while to get back to Netflix and then they're losing my money for a couple months. I just don't know how you balance it when we have cable TV where you could just. look at it forever, which nobody really does nowadays. And now you have all these different streaming services. You have to cater to different markets. It is really, really hard. So I'll give you the, so there's there's what Netflix does about that, which is, uh, their budget for 2026 for content is 20 billion dollars. So for them, it's a money thing, right? How are we going to get you into from your first show into your next show? We do 100 shows and you're going to like two and you're going to like two. For little guys like us and a lot of the others, it is a really significant problem. And, you know, HBO even, I'm sure, has it with Game of Thrones. Like people come with Game of Thrones and they leave. So then that's why HBO would do something like, we're not going to drop the whole thing at once. We're going to do it by a week. And maybe we're going to move one, two weeks. So I'd say it's a massive problem that we've not solved. And the consumer is now really getting dropy with their services, right? You'll get one, you'll drop it, you'll come back to it. So it's a real challenge. So one of the things that we've done is we have moved away from just having on-demand content to having a lean-back live TV channel.

So that's... Tell us a little bit about your business, you know, at my outdoor TV. What exactly is it? How does it work? And just as a concept, like, how is it adapting to these new dynamics that Gina and I have both asked you about? Yeah, so we're super serving one audience, and that's hunting and fishing audience. And the big guys, I guess, well, Netflix could do anything without a better money, but they've chosen not to. We have this space and anime channels have their space. Crafting channels have their space. You cannot serve an avid audience with a little bit of content. If you're going to get somebody to pay you $10 a month, you've got to have everything. All the big stars, all the big shows. So that's one thing. And I think what we need to do as smaller operators is be more innovative. So right now, as far as I know, and it could have changed yesterday because this market is still changing really quickly. Netflix doesn't have these lean back channels. My Outdoor TV, we have... What does that mean? So lean back channels where you go. Instead of searching for something like bass fishing in Texas, you can just press a button that says the bass channel. Just like the old days, right? You go to a channel, you sit back, you watch for four hours. It's a scheduled channel that just continually unspools in front of you. You don't have to do anything. And in this, like we're all a choice overload, right? So sometimes, especially our audience, you want to get home? You want to press a button? I don't want to make another decision ever. I just want to watch. So that is a way that you can keep people beyond the show. And what we're finding is with these live TV channels, people will see a show and they're like, I want to watch another episode of that show. How do I do that? Go to the search bar. We got you into another show. Well, that's what I was going to ask with like the choice paralysis. Because sometimes you have like a Netflix and there's so many choices that I find myself just rewatching the same show over and over and over. So are these niche markets, you know, like my outdoor TV, do you think people are more finding ways to cater to their own interests and almost narrowing the options instead of having this broad mass of so many different shows? Yes. And it used to be that the cable model was we're going to give you. 200 channels and not a bunch of selection or option on which ones you want, but you get them all. Now people are building their own streaming stack, which will be I like cartoons, I like fishing, I like, I want one of the big guys with Netflix. So people are assembling their own offering and so in that way there's a lot more control. I'm wondering following up on that a little bit, or at least a tangent on that, and we've got about a minute here. How does something, let's say my outdoor TV, but something catering to a niche market, how do you even break through to get the attention of a potential customer when Netflix is everywhere, YouTube TV, which we haven't mentioned, right? Like, how do you even reach them? So I'd say money, time, and learning. And that's one of the things at Stream TV that we're trying to do is have a lot of panels because all you know is what you were exposed to. And as a small operator, you get your office and you're learning from your data. You come to Stream TV and you're able to see 20 other small streaming channels. You can say, hey, Ross, how did you acquire customers on YouTube? And they'll say, oh, I tried this. It worked. I tried this. It didn't work. So really hard. We're still trying to figure it out. This market is changing really quickly. So we're going to go and learn some more at Stream TV.

Later this June. So the stream TV show is coming up June 16th to 19th. You can learn more at streamtvyshow.com. It's out at the Gaylord by the airport. You're talking 2 to 3,000 people there. It's a very big show for the industry. And then Sean Luxston in studio with us is the general manager of My Outdoor TV. And that's their URL as well. My OutdoorTV.com. I encourage you to check out. both of them. But, you know, if you really want to learn about industry stuff in a big way, it turns out that the biggest best show is right here in Denver, and you're going to have execs from the niche markets like Sean, and you're also going to have execs from YouTube and Amazon and Roku and all this stuff. So streamtvyshow.com for that. Sean Luxton, thanks so much for making the trip to join us in studio. It's been a really interesting conversation. Thank you, Russ. Thank you, Gina. So just a little bit of news here from Gina with an update on stuff going on in the beef. supply chain, which is a big deal here in Colorado. For a hot first weekend of June, our Friday weekend event segment here on K-OA is proudly sponsored by Colorado Art Weekend.com. This weekend's art festival will be the Park Hill Arts Festival. It's now in its 13th year. It takes place tomorrow and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the grounds of the Park Hill Masonic Lodge on East Montview Boulevard. You can shop 100 plus professional artists from our state and be able. on, meet the makers and discover original artwork that you won't find in ordinary stores. Paintings, sculptures, ceramics, photography, and jewelry. There's also a gourmet alley of non-art booths as well as food trucks to enjoy. You can find the full list of vendors and more details by going to parkhillartsfestable.com. More than 200 talented artists are spending the weekend turning Denver streets into works of art with their 24th annual Denver Chalk Art Festival. The free two-day street painting festival runs tomorrow and Sunday. It's just two blocks south of Civic Center Park. You can kick off the summer with several summer fest along the front range. K-ways Rob Dawson has the list. Arvada Summerfest returns tomorrow with live music, family activities, and local food. It runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ralston Park Edition at 64th and Sims just north of Arvada West High School. The free festival features live music performances from Booty and the Beat, Jess Shiansey, and the High Hopes, as well as headliner DJ Williams Band. Thornton Fest takes place at the carpenter park fields at 180. Faith Avenue in Colorado Boulevard tomorrow from 10 a.m. till 9 p.m. You'll enjoy entertainment, arts, crafts, a vendor marketplace, disc dogs, car show, police canine demos, a beer garden and kid zone. Live music will be provided by Thornton Community Jazz Band, Little Moses Jay Jones Band, Glitter in the Air, Guerrilla Fanfare, and Hillbilly Demons. Hillbilly Demons is a great band name. Then you could head on over to Brighton's Carmichael Park tomorrow's community celebration. It's Brighton Summerfest.

includes kids activities, food vendors, and live music. The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. K-OA's Mindy Stone says it's a silver anniversary for Centennial. The city of Centennial turns 25 with a huge celebration tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with free fun entertainment activities and hometown pride with Celebrate Centennial at Centennial Center Park. Bring your family, friends, and neighbors for a day of music, kids activities, vendors, food trucks, and touch a truck. The first ever touring production of Harry Potter. The Cursed Child has arrived in Colorado. The Tony Award-winning production will play the Buell Theater for a limited engagement of four weeks through Sunday, June 21st. Tickets are on sale at DenverCenter.org. A limited number of lottery tickets are available at LuckySeed.com. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child contains haze, CO2 fog, flame, and pyro effects. That's K-O-A's Carrie Mac. KOA Sam Speck says it's time to get out the fishing rods as Colorado's free fishing weekend is back. That's right. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said all anglers can fish without a license anywhere in Colorado tomorrow and Sunday. The annual event during the first weekend of June aims to get families, friends, and anglers back into Colorado's outdoors, fishing for cold and warm water fish species. A classic rodeo returning to Elizabeth this weekend. Here's KOA's Connor Shreve. The Elizabeth Stampede runs through Sunday. You'll see bull riding, bearback riding, and saddle bronch events at the rodeo. arena tonight. A parade steps off at 9 tomorrow morning. There will also be a PRCA rodeo performance tomorrow at 1 and 7 p.m. as well as Sunday at 1 p.m. Tickets are available online at Elizabeth Stampede.com. The Denver Fringe Festival runs through Sunday at venues throughout Denver's Rhino and Five Points Neighborhoods. This year there will be 80 shows in all types of performing arts, including original theater, dance, comedy, improv, and cabaret at more than 20 venues. You can step into the wacky. World of Meow Wolf this weekend. The already immersive experience is launching phenomenomily. With magical live performances, interactive characters, giant puppets, and hidden surprises along the way. The special performances kick off today and run on select days through August 9th. The lineup of local guest artists and performance groups can be found on Meow Wolf's website. In concert news, at Red Rocks, I'll also be here as Britt Floyd will be playing tonight. Tomorrow night, if you can catch Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Trey Anastacio, we'll be playing Sunday along with the Colorado Symphony. Friday weekend events are proudly sponsored by Colorado Art Weekend. You can learn more about all of their art festivals throughout the summer by going to Coloradoartweekend.com.

Coming up next to your chance to win $2,500 to celebrate America 250. It's in the next five minutes your chance to win. So keep listening. That's thanks to PeakMed Spa for all your weight loss needs with summer specials, peakmedspah.com. I love how she started it with, okay, boomer. You're taking it horizontal. What do people do with horizontal photos nowadays? Oh my gosh. Can I tell you I'm old? Neely Block joins us in studio. I'm so excited for this conversation. So Neely is actually the niece of a good friend of mine, Rich. And Neely is a four-time world champion in Muay Thai kickboxing, a two-time world champion in kickboxing. Is that right? Did I get those statistics right? Four-time world champion in Muay, four-time European champion in Muay Thai, and a three-time world champion in kickboxing. And it's funny, you know, so Neely's sitting here in studio with us, and if you just walk by her, you wouldn't necessarily say that's someone who could just massively kick my ass. And yet, and yet here you are. And Neely, you were, you were born in Maryland, but moved to Israel when you were very young. So you fight for Israel. Yes, I represent Israel, the Israeli flag, proud Jew, proud Israeli. And it's my essence and it's who I just feel like that's my calling. Tell us just a little bit about your upcoming fight. I'm sure Gina's got plenty of questions for you as well. But you've got a very exciting thing coming up in just a week. Yes. So I've been in the martial art world for about 21 years. Moy Thai, right? Moy Thai and kickboxing. And I'm about to make my MMA debut in Peru, Lima, right next week, June 11th. Wow. I disagree with you saying that you don't think she could kick someone's butt because I've seen your social media. No, but I'm saying you didn't know anything about her and you just walked by Neely, you wouldn't think that's a serious badass. Yeah, no, right. Yeah, I've seen her abs. I know. Tell us about the difference of the preparation that goes into being with Muay Thai for so long and now transitioning to MMA. That's a great question. It's actually something I've recently thought about how it's very different because there's so many other. aspects in MMA, right between the groundwork and coming, putting it together between the striking and wrestling and jiu-jitsu. So it's really finding that sweet spot what works for you. Also the training itself, right? In Muay, if you go to Thailand, for instance, and you see how they train, they're going to go running like in the morning, probably in the afternoon and they're going to hit pads nonstop. And here, I mean, obviously in this gym, but everywhere else it's different. It's very dissected to the point of where you're going to take one thing, you're going to work on that and then try to implement it into your work. And it's not, it's grinding, but it's not like that end of just like kicking nonstop. I've been there. It's good. But there's a point and there's a time for everything and I think I'm in a different place in my career.

As you go into this first MMA fight, what would you say is your key advantage or area of, you know, relative advantage versus your opponent? And what would you say might be your key weakness, which is probably what you're working on a lot at the gym, whatever that might be? So I'm going to start with the weakness. I would say probably the groundwork, right? My opponent is a round belt. That's the only thing that she would, in a sense, have on me. But obviously, I'm not going to let it get to there. And my advantage is the fact that I have over 100 fights in Muay and in kickboxing and in Sambo, combat Sambo. So it's that experience. It's the experience, the mental experience also in the ring. And let's put it this way also. I fought Valentina Chavchenko. Well, 10 years ago, her last Muay fight. So that's a big advantage. It was her last Muay fight because you beat her so bad? No, I lost that fight. It was because she signed with the UFC. She had contracts. Wow. I want to back up a little bit here because you've been an athlete all your life. You played many different sports. I even learned that you were a ballerina at one point. So how did Muay and kickboxing become the winner? Oh, so my dream was to be a professional athlete, right? If I'm looking at Michael Phelps and Michael Jim Jordan, all these big names, Serena Williams, I just fell in love with that spark in their eyes or when they took the court, they went, did their performance. And I just wanted to. be in that that realm. I just wanted to feel that. So every choice and every decision that I made throughout my career and my life was towards that that goal. And so like you said, I played American football. I played with them internationally basketball. Like if you were to ask me at the age of 12 where I saw myself in 10 years, it would have been a football player. But then I had to be drafted into the army. I was like, okay, what am I doing? Am I going to go into the army as combat soldier? Or am I going to go into the army as a special athlete? There's like the option to go in as an athlete. And then like it's a regular desk job, I would say. And it really took a, you know, I had to kind of go back and forth with myself and make that decision. And at the end of the day, I was like, okay, if that is what I. That's where I see myself and that's the career I want. So I have to go in and be drafted as a special athlete. So that's what I did. And when that time came, I had to, I needed some sort of achievement to get that recognition. So the closest was moitai boxing in that. scene. So that's how that stuck. Like I started when I was 10. My mom took me when I was 10. She started for herself. She started for the self-defense. And that's how it just kind of became part of me as well. So thanks to Emma. Thanks to Emma. What does Abba say about it?

That's dad. May he rest in peace. Oh, sorry. Yes. All right. Neely Block joins us in studio. We just have a minute or so. And you can look her up and find her everywhere online, N-I-L-I. Okay, N-I-L-I is the first name. Block, just like it sounds. Very active on Instagram and find all kinds of stuff, including maybe a video she just took of donuts in the K-O-A studio. That might be. Which I did not eat. Yeah, I was going to say. Which she did not eat. I did not think you would take one. I tried to tempt her. We're just about out of time. But as professional athletes go, you're not old, but you're not young either. Until what age do you think you can be a professional fighter? I think I could continue. much longer, maybe even 10 more years. Look at Holly Holmes, for instance. She's 41, 42. She just fought a boxing match. But it's really my personal decision of like, you know, I have other things that I want to achieve. I have other things, you know, family and stuff like that. Like I can continue, but I have to put an end to that as well. So I have to give myself, you know, the next few years could be three, four years of like doing something big and calling it like because I can continue. I feel like I have so much more. And as time evolves and technology, our bodies and our abilities get greater and stronger. Yeah. And as you were saying about this fight, you're going into against a younger fighter. And again, you're not an old fighter. So I'm not suggesting that. But. Experience is a big deal and you can't rush experience. It just happens over time. So that I think is a huge advantage for you. I agree. Do you know if there's any place where my listeners would be able to watch your upcoming fight? I've been asked that multiple times. I'm going to try and figure out through the organization and maybe share it on social media. Okay. But I would say go on to their social media, FFC. And they'll probably post something there. I know it'll be broadcasted live in Israel because they bought rights. But I'm not sure here. Okay. Well, I'm very excited for you. I wish you the best of luck and your first MMA fight. I can't imagine. I can't fathom any of that. It's just. Really, really remarkable. It's great to meet you. Say hi to your uncle for me. And if you find out how we can watch it, if there is a way, tell Rich, he'll tell me, or you can tell me, because we'd love to, we'd love to have a chance to see it. All right, I'm going to find out. Thank you so much. Good luck, safe travels. That's fantastic. Neely Block, N-I-L-I, Block, go look her up.