The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
Today is is a rather discombobulating day for a variety of reasons. For one, here in the city of Milwaukee, we are experiencing the worst wildfire smoke here that I think we’ve ever experienced here in the city. The air quality is atrocious and everything smells like a campfire — and not in a good way. It’s really, really bad.
Secondly, scrolling social media to see Giannis Antetokounmpo being introduced as a new member of the Miami Heat gave me a bit of a visceral reaction to this visual. This never should have happened. Giannis should have been a Buck for life. Ugh.
Third, we are in the middle of the most discombobulating week of the election cycle for the Democratic primary in the race for governor.
Campaign finance reports for everyone running have just been released, and it would be an insane amount of information to parse in normal times, much less when one of the seemingly top candidates is having their campaign implode over a campaign finance crisis.
So, I am discombobulated. So today’s podcast might seem a little unhinged. But I am thrilled to be talking to one of my very favorite people to talk to — Greg Bach. Greg was the host or co-host of many different shows on Civic Media, and I used to talk with him every Friday when he was co-hosting “Matenaer On Air.”
We talked about these discombobulating times, the big picture of the Democratic primary, and much more.
You can watch this podcast in the video above, or in the Substack app, or on our YouTube Channel.
You can also listen to this podcast on Apple Podcast (which we’re not able to embed, but you can find here), and on Spotify (below).
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.
