Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #414

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

Mike chats with Marc Weisblott of 12:36 about the current state of the media in Canada.

Welcome to episode 414 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Paytm Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, and Census Design and Build. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and jewelry repair, and census design and build. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me as we close out the year, Mark Weisblot from 1236. There it is, buddy. How you doing? Hey, it is that time of year when all the media goes into a state of slumber.

Nobody puts any effort into anything, right? People on vacation, if they show up, they don't really want to work. But here we are, Toronto Mic'd, December 27th, 2018. Listen, I don't take a vacation. You're one of three episodes I have between Christmas Day and New Year's Day. But I got to say, you're my favorite. I look forward, every quarter I look forward to your visit. And the rapid fire assault on the senses.

This is going to be a fun couple hours we spend together. So thanks for coming, man. Yeah, of course. I never drink more beer in one sitting than I do down here. What are you drinking? Tell us all. We're into the GLB. What is this? Root 666 Devil's Pale Ale.

I haven't seen this can before, so we'll start with this one. It's Joel Goldberg, who was on recently with Ziggy, who says that that should be year-round. He adores... In fact, I don't... Yeah, I should have got him.

I think he got one in his six-pack, but I should have stacked the deck because he loves that Devil's Ale. That's his go-to. Thank you for the

Satanists over at Great Lakes Brewery for making this first one possible. Yeah, well, hey, why wait? There's more. So you have a six-pack in front of you, courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. Thank you, Great Lakes.

They just renewed for another six months. They want to do... So, man, they're the first sponsor, and they haven't left yet. So I think it's been mutually beneficial, and I really do value their support. And I like to think that... In fact, Elvis told me this the other day. Because they sponsor my show, when he wants craft beer, which is like, why would you want any other beer? He goes to Great Lakes just because they sponsor this show.

So maybe Elvis is consuming enough to make the sponsorship worthwhile. But yeah, enjoy your Great Lakes beer. Enjoy. Enjoy. And I'll stop talking to you mid-gulp because you need to enjoy. But what else did I want to say? I got a lot of catching up to do.

Look. All right, listen. Listen, before I give you another gift, which you've never received before because they only started in November and this is your first visit. But before I do that, there's some stuff you were spitting at me before I pressed record and I said, hold that till we start recording.

So spit it out now, my brother. No, I'm thinking. Here I am, episode 414. Next up, 415. You've got James B. 416, Maestro Fresh West. You know, when I first started in this media racket, professionally, semi-professionally with iWeekly, I mean, those two guys were like the top of the heap as far as Toronto Famous was concerned. Here we are like 26, 27, 28 years later. And here I am sharing the bill with them here on the podcast. Well, let me see if I got this straight.

If we were recording this episode 27 years ago, these would be very relevant guests. Is that what you're telling me right now? Are you saying they're not so relevant now that they're making their way down here? Anyway, Maestro, I know. Big hero of yours. You've still got the 12-inch single,

Let Your Backbone Slide. I remember when that came out. Did he autograph that for you? Yeah, he did. He did. Speaking of Joel Goldberg, Joel Goldberg directed the video. Yeah, and look, Joel is still around too, right? Showing up down here. You know what?

I had to bring it full circle. My brain is exploding on how this works. But currently, as we speak maybe, Joel Goldberg, he's directing something, and I'll get more information tomorrow, but he's directing some kind of a documentary about James B. Like, that's happening right now. So it's all, like, it all connects. If we're going to talk about the drama with Jazz FM here today, maybe I'll get to that more with James.

But, yeah, he's still been doing it all this time. I don't know. I'm not quite sure how he pulled it off. I mean, if you said, who would still be around, right, 25, 30 years from now? But that's the magic of the time of the year, right, where we reflect on the fact that we've come this far. Yeah, he's still around, and yeah, we're going to talk.

Well, Jazz FM will come up with James tomorrow. I have some other Jazz FM people coming on soon. We're going to have some talks because I saw jazzcast.ca is launching. And I know people like Danny Elwell and Garvia Bailey are behind that. And that's kind of cool for jazz fans in the city. Well, I do think this drama is a watershed one in the history of Toronto media. We can get into that a bit later when we romp through all the radio topics. Just to tell people, Mark always sends me some points he wants to hit,

and there's always lots of them, and then they're sorted. We now categorize them nicely, like politics, radio, you get the idea. And we even have this nice like uh what do we call it like in memoriam section that we'll do at the end but uh i always kind of reshuffle the deck i like to lead with radio yeah and then you throw in like a like a dozen of your own along the way and then you wonder why we get distracted and can't make it through the list right right but uh why am why am I playing some Italian dinner music? Because, Mark, finally you're going to be fed.

You always leave with your beer, but now you get, and it's right there, I'm pointing to it, large meat lasagna. Maybe I should have asked you earlier, but regardless, everybody finds somebody who loves lasagna. Do you enjoy Italian food? I'll do my best. We'll figure it out on the way. Somebody's going to enjoy that.

Even if you leave it with me, I'll give you five bucks for it. How's that? It feeds the whole family. I never did pick up a free meal from a sponsor you had before. Oh, yeah. In the earlier rounds. But why didn't you? I don't know.

I forgot. I forgot around it. You gave me a coupon code and everything. Anyway, forget about them. Yeah, they're old news, man. Now it's all about Palma Pasta. So they have four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. And, of course, Palma's Kitchen, that's their new, that's an amazing facility.

You've got to get there. It's near Mavis and Burnhamthorpe. But go to palmapasta.com to find out exactly where. But there's four locations. Great retail store. They've got a hot table at that Palma's Kitchen, and you can get even pizza or have a nice cappuccino or espresso, and it's just a fantastic place if you like Italian food.

Palmapasta.com, Mississauga's best pasta, fresh pasta, and Italian food. When you walked in the door, Mark, you mentioned that there was lots of drama, like Toronto Mike drama. Is it drama or drama? Does it matter? I just keep checking your TorontoMike.com comment section because things have been flaring up there like never before. So I'm interested in your perspective. So I actually avoided this topic with Elvis.

You'd think that would be something we'd talk about. But he said that somebody, I can name him with you, Dean Blund that would be something we'd talk about, but he said that somebody, I can name him with you, Dean Blundell was just looking for attention and that he didn't want to give him any attention because that's what he's looking for. But meanwhile, I feel like it's kind of, what do you call that, like conspicuous by its absence. Like, how do you not talk about this? But please tell me from your perspective as a man who like surveys all that, you're always kind of monitoring. What is your opinion on all of this? You know that Dean went off on me, too, on one of his podcasts. He wasn't quite sure what 1236 even was because I had a quip on Twitter, the fact that wokeness will come for us all.

Right, Dean announced that he was turning over a new leaf. He's got a new image. He's no longer going to have a babes section on his website he was aggregating i don't know the latest uh paulina gretzky instagrams uh putting it on his site looking for some of that magic traffic action i don't think anybody cared one way or the other but he he pointedly drew attention to the fact that he was rebranding, and he was no longer going to have this element on his website. It was part of the new dean, the image he wanted to project. Right, and this is all very recent, right? I don't know. And then he started going off. He mistook 1236 with the 24 Hours newspaper, the one that used to be published by The Sun, later Post Media. It went under.

You'd get this free thing in the subway. So I don't think he had an idea of who was making this comment or why they were talking about him. But he did go off on you on a podcast. Well, he's looking for anybody who cares. Anyone who's got something to talking about him. But he did go off on you on a podcast. Well, he's looking for anybody who cares. Anyone who's got something to say about him. Is that it? Because he's trying. I don't think there's much more than that.

I think it's part of the image of being able to have a feud with somebody out there. He's now trying to relaunch his career. He seems to have friends at News Talk 1010, Bell Media. They believe in him. Another chance for Dean Blundell. He went through Rogers. That didn't end well, I guess. You had Scott Moore down here, right?

By the way, did you notice I didn't even ask Scott Moore about Dean Blundell, which is kind of interesting for a guy who apparently has spent the last 20 years going, this only exists, according to somebody, this only exists to go at Dean Blundell. It's amazing I forgot to ask about him when I had Scott Moore here twice. And prior to that,

he got canceled by Chorus. Now, this is the thing that Dean was most famous for doing the Dean Blundell show on 102.1 The Edge. He did that for 13, 14 years. Yeah, probably closer to 14 years. And, you know, it had an unceremonious conclusion there. His sidekicks kept on leaving him. I think in the end, really, it's all just show business. I think in the end really it's all just show business

and you happen to be a good target and you provided him with the material that he was looking for I don't think anybody at Bell Media is going to say Toronto Mike was saying some nasty things about you but I don't know at this point I don't know how it reflects on him

but did Toronto Mike you listen to my podcast unlike Elvis who does not listen, you actually listen. Do I say awful things? Do I say awful things about Dean Blundell? Well, you were picking him apart, point by point,

when he went on this rant about the show. Oh, I meant before that. Okay, before that. You might be giving him too much credit, is what I'm saying, right? He needs to perform here. He needs to show that he's once again capable of earning a living in the media. What else is he going to do at this point? If you've invested 20, 25 years into this game of being a loudmouth on the radio and you realize maybe you have to pivot and aim for that older audience,

the more sophisticated sound of talk radio, the fact that he's gotten back on the air, that they welcomed him in at Bell, that he's going on this whole apology tour talking about the fact that he wants to reflect well on the company, he doesn't want to do anything wrong, he doesn't want to have bikini chicks on his website and give the wrong idea about what he represents and how he's clean and sober and how he made all these comments about you while he was

depressed and drinking. But okay, just because I've heard this out there, because apparently Dean said that this podcast was two years old or something, which is like another piece of fiction. I just want to point out that on the same podcast in which he goes at me which he recorded in uh earlier in 2018 he uh talks about how he was months sober like this is not during drinking dean this is post just clarifying that if i wasn't clear isn't the whole idea here that it builds up to the point

that he comes down here to the basement and hangs out with you? Okay, one more last thing I need to clarify. I've had more than a couple of people tweet that, I guess in wrestling, I don't remember the term, fabricate something, prefab? I can't remember the term. There's a term in wrestling. Kayfabe. Kayfabe, okay, where you fake a feud, right? Like actors, essentially, to get more attention or more traction or whatever

and a couple people said this seems like dean and i have like conspired to like invent this uh i just want to for the record i guess i don't know i'm saying anything for the record but uh this is not kayfabe kayfabe this is not uh phony like there's i've never had a i've never had a phone conversation with dean on about this. He put out the podcast. I put out mine. Then he wrote that blog entry while I was having pizza with my teenage son. And then I responded to that when I got home. And that's pretty much where we are.

If only it would end there. Look, meanwhile, you've got a guy who's been in the Toronto radio scene for over half a century spouting off about you, right? He doesn't care who you are and what does it all mean. Where is this coming from? over half a century spouting off about you, right? Oh, yeah. He doesn't care who you are and what does it all mean. Where is this coming from? Okay, I was going to ask you. It's on my notes, actually. So because there is like a local forum.

They call it the Yellow Board where radio vets and radio fans. Yeah, yeah. I got that going about 18, 19 years ago, in fact. Did you? Yeah, I was doing this column, that website, radiodigest.com, and I started talking about what they were talking about on there. And eventually, all these people

started gravitating over to that website when I was no longer being paid for that column. So it was a, yeah, it was a spinoff of a website called Rock Radio Scrapbook. Okay. It was supposed to be like a Toronto version of something that existed in New York, the New York Radio Message Board.

You don't know too much about this history, do you? No, no, no, no, no. I'm glad you're sharing. I don't know. And in those earlier days of message boards, right, I mean, you would go wherever the action was, wherever people were talking about you. Right. So this big yellow board, Sowny, Southern Ontario, Western New York Radio TV Forum, it just became this natural hangout online where people would chat about these things.

It's gone through a lot of different phases over the years, and I guess it's just a default place because there really wasn't anything that came along on Facebook or Twitter or any other website to replace it. Maybe the comment section of Toronto Mike has gotten some of that action. But yeah, that was a history there. And there he had this week on Christmas Eve an argument about whether Toronto Mike was qualified to fight with Dean Blundell. Right. So actually, I mean, someone named grilled,

I don't know, these are all anonymous handles. Some of them are. But this grilled cheese, I don't know who that is, but that person started a thread on this forum about my unnumbered episode of Toronto Mike about Dean Blundell to say Toronto Mike has an un, I don't know, and there was some confusion in the board about like, why am I hiding it when I mean, I put it on the feed, right? Like, it's, it's not how you hide anything. I just didn't, like, I didn't write about it on

torontomike.com or tweet about it. But it was added to the feed. So all subscribers of Toronto Mike had this push to them. And I did actually give a heads up to anyone who's savvy enough to be subscribed to TMI. So both of you, I basically said on TMI, like early December that this episode was coming. But anyway, I added it to the feed, and grilled cheese shared it with the people on the board. And then there was a lot of confusion. And I just chimed in with some facts, like some people thought you had to be like a patron to get it. And some people thought I was hiding it. so I clarified some things. And then out of nowhere, this person named Doug Thompson

said something to the effect of why should I care what Toronto Mike says? And all I responded to was, feel free not to care. That's what I wrote. Feel free not to care. A lot of people don't care what I have to say. That's cool. And even more people don't care about what Dean Blundell has to say, but Doug

seems to have some kind of relationship with him. But with his dad, right? Doug is friendly with Dean's dad? Maybe, right? Dean's father was a radio executive, right? He spent a long time in the trenches. He worked for Chum Limited. Jim Blundell.

So Dean Blundell is not the self-made success story that some people might believe. Now, much like the prime minister of Canada, you know, it helps to have a father in a position that can help you along the way. So Dean got his start in Windsor. 89X was a radio station there owned by Chum, and that's where Dean first got the morning show that brought him to Toronto. So I figure there's a lot of relationships here that involve that older generation of radio people. Just because they were rooting for Dean. They knew who his dad was and were backing him up. And I don't know.

Maybe they're supportive of him in this current situation. He's in recovery. I don't know. Do you want to back the guy up? I wrote, feel free not to care and then doug said i don't he wrote back this doug thompson who up until this moment i actually had never heard the name and had no idea who doug thompson was but he wrote back uh something like um i don't care who or what toronto mike why what does that mean i'm not human i don't know who or what

toronto mike is and then from that there it became the feud wasn't like a dean versus toronto mike it became doug thompson versus toronto mike which is a really one-sided feud because i didn't know the guy existed you should listen to doug thompson he's a respected radio veteran right he was a jingle producer a 10 50 chumum 53 years ago. We have to stick by him and believe in him and his disparagement of Toronto Mike. Well, since this, I don't know how, this Doug, I don't know Doug. I wouldn't know him if he walked by me on the street, okay?

I wish him nothing but the best, except he sounds like a dink because he just out of nowhere told me he doesn't care who or what I am. But since that moment, now I'm getting comments on Toronto Mike from a commenter named The Yellow Board who uses a proxy server and changes his IP or her, I say her as if it could ever be, well, who knows, proxy changes IP address.

But nasty, like offensive stuff about my wife. Like I posted a picture of me and my kids and, oh, your wife's not in the picture because she's with me. Oh, she... And then all these, like, terrible things from this yellowboard commenter that I'm having to delete.

So all of a sudden, this Doug Thompson nonsense is, like, you know, just pain in the ass. I cannot believe we're talking about this. All right, let's move on. I think the people on that forum cannot believe we're talking about this because you know they people on that forum cannot believe we're talking about this because you know they're all going to hear it. You've heard

of the intellectual dark web. This is the anti-intellectual dark web. Alright. Screw them all. But 2018, I had a moment where Stafford went off on me and I had an uncomfortable episode with Molly Johnson, although I don't

think she and I are feuding because we had a big hug and we're all good. But it was kind of an interesting year for the podcast. Humble and Fred, you okay with Humble and Fred? I got a weird call from Humble the other day because he didn't like what I wrote about Dino, his new BFF, but I'd rather not say anything more.

They're all now working with Bell Media, right? Maybe they think this is like a re-entry level that they're on. They'll get chances that they didn't have before. Suddenly, I mean, no comment further. I don't want to get my, I don't want to upset anybody. Let's leave this topic. I'm playing

Bare Naked Ladies because I just want to ask you, when the Junos were happening, they performed, they reunited with Stephen Page, and then we had a bet, and I just want to know, like, how long does the bet go for? Like, I said it was a one-off, and you said that it would spark a reunification of Barenaked Ladies?

Is that, is that my... I said they would be leaving too much money on the table. I mean, there would be something in it for everybody if they reunited. Do we, like, is there any, like, word out there about a reunification or an album together? It's amazing you've hung on to this all year long. I'm just waiting for you to say I might be right. I might also be wrong. I heard Stephen Page comment that, well, you know, just because you run into your ex-wife or whatever doesn't mean you're going to get back together and start all over again. Right.

That's the way he sees it. They announced a tour for next summer. It's Hootie and the Blowfish with the Barenaked Ladies, right? I guess if you were living in a dorm room somewhere in the USA in the mid-'90s, this was the music you listened to, and now you're middle-aged all in for this nostalgia. This was the music you listened to, and now you're middle-aged, all in for this nostalgia. So BNL, I think this is some validation that they attained that level of fame back at the time, right? That they were almost as famous as Hootie and the Blowfish?

I'd say they're right up there. One week was a massive hit. They didn't sell anywhere as many records, but I think their music got around at the time, right? Remember the 90210 stuff? Yeah, before Napster, before file sharing, before you could easily burn one CD onto another. I think

B&L was listened to by a lot of people that never actually bought an album. So here they are going on tour, and yeah, the tour is without Stephen Page. So you've got one up over me on that one. We'll see. Time will tell, but it felt like it might have been a one-off.

But yeah, we'll see. Yeah, I've held on to that one a long time. Okay, we're down here to settle scores. Let's see where we're at three months from now. He could end up on that tour, although I would suspect all the contracts are signed and everything. Let's see where that story is at in 2020.

On this day, Mark, in 1974, Dear Abby's The Dear Abby show ends its run on CBS Radio after 11 years. So I always, when I think of Dear Abby, I think of Ann Landers because they were sisters, as you know. And I was a Toronto Star household. I know there's lots of households that were Sun households. So Abby, to me, was the Toronto Sun. And Ann Landers was the Toronto Star. Back then, you couldn't get a sun delivered to your house during the week, only on Sundays, right?

She said, right? See, I was a storehouse. I didn't know these things. Getting a sun into your house required a lot more effort than a star. A walk. You had to walk somewhere to the corner. Today, the advice columnist in the Toronto Star, and she has been for quite a while now, Ellie. Ellie Tesher, do you ever come across an Ellie column? She had a great viral one, right? Right before Christmas, it was, the headline was something like, I'm 48 years old, how do I deal with the comments I get about bringing my 19-year-old wife to the office Christmas party?

And what did she say? That's a great one. party and what what did she say that's a great one um well uh the letter writer also conceded that uh a few years ago he had a an 18 year old girlfriend uh different from right on the good wife and a few years before that his girlfriend was 17 so it seemed to be a serial situation that he's been having to deal with over and over again. But look, he finally found someone who is legal, and he married her. And the chatter won't stop. People are still wondering what's up with this guy. Is she syndicated, or is she just Toronto Star? She was a woman.

I'm not sure what's going on. I don't know where these letters came from. Well, I was going to ask you. Okay, so we know, obviously dear abby and ann landers are syndicated well they're both passed now but they were syndicated column uh columns that would picked up by many newspapers across the north america and i mentioned again abby was the son and ann landers was the star but i was gonna ask you like who are the current like abby's and ann landers well there's at slate they have a column, Dear Prudence.

You've heard of Dear Prudence? That's been going on ever since Slate started. That's about a quarter century ago now. So Dear Prudence at Slate, a number of different people have taken on that role. And then there's one at thecut.com, New York Magazine website, and that's Ask Polly. Polly Esther was the pseudonym of writer Heather

Havrileski, and she's been doing that for a while. Polly Esther's a great pseudonym. This stuff gets like tens of thousands of hits. I guess it's right up there with the horoscope section when it comes to people peeking at it. A lot of folks out there, either they need advice of their own, or they're all just rubberneckers and they want to learn about other people's problems. Isn't that really what it's all about, Mike? Isn't that what you were into even as a kid reading Dear Abby? Like, gosh, these people really have screwed up lives. I don't feel that bad about what's going on with me. Precisely. And it's always good to hear, especially in the pre-internet era,

because now we hear everybody's problems all day long, all the time. But back in the day, it was good to hear that, oh, I'm not alone. That's why talk radio was kind of so important in these newspaper columns. Like, oh, you know, I'm not the only one with problems out there. So it's a good reminder. Yeah, and Dr. Fraser Crane, right? A whole sitcom about a talk radio

advice host. And there were a few out there back in the day. Dr. Laura, remember? Of course, Les Schlesinger. Dr. Joy Brown. Joyce Brothers, I thought you were going to say there for a second. Did she ever do anything like that? Or is it just she was a common, I used to see her on like Donahue and stuff. And there was a guy named Dr. David Viscott who had a real kind of bedside manner. He was cited as the influence, the inspiration for the Fraser Crane character.

Maybe Dean Blondell has a future in that. Doing advice on the radio. I don't think he's that quick on his feet. I'm not sure that's for him. Remember the Time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years.

We talk about Byway and all these shops have passed, but you know, even Sears is no longer in Canada. Sears took off and left. But back when Sears was here, they had the watch repair business and that really was fast time. They were doing it for Sears. Now they're doing it for themselves and they're great people. And if you want 15% off your watch battery installation, just mention you heard about them on Toronto Mike. You just go to any of their locations and say that, and they'll take 15% off, which is amazing. So go to

FastTimeWatchRepair.com for a location near you. Their newest location is now open in Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill. Let's jump in. Let's start. And let's start, if you don't mind, Mr. Weisblot, with radio. And of course, we talked about this often, and we spoke of it as fact that Roger Ashby would be gone by the end of 2018. Uh-oh, I'm going to need another beer here, I think, to get into this whole discussion. Enjoy fresh craft beer, Great Lakes Brewery. Now tell us, I mean, that happened. Roger Ashby retired. Yeah, and you know what? For me, it was a really emotional experience because I think I remember listening to Roger Ashby on the very first day that he replaced Tom Rivers at 1050 Chum. This would have been the fall of 1982. I was definitely listening.

But the debut of Roger as a full-time morning man, it wasn't something they announced for the simple reason that they weren't sure he was going to be permanent. The whole idea was that he wasn't going to be doing the job for very long. Here we were 36 years later in the end of Roger Ashby as Chum Morning Man. Now this song, All I Need is a Miracle by Mike and the Mechanics, it was a very emotional thing on one of the last days, last day in the studio. Marilyn Dennis was talking about the song, how she went for her job interview with Roger, and she turned on the radio, and she thought, the next song that I hear is going to define my experience here working at Chum.

That was 1986. Do you think we can hit the post on this one? I don't know. Mike and the Mechanics. Mike and the Mechanics on Chum FM. I think you butchered that. Oh, did I? Yeah, I think so.

I was waiting like a whole month to come in here. Well, Mike Rutherford, of course, from Genesis. And I remember my mom's favorite song at this time, just in a quick aside, was In the Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics, which I think was a bit after this. Yeah, that was the next album. That was a couple years later. So Marilyn Dennis told a very nice story,

like, really emotional stuff about how it was this song that defined her experience of working with Roger on Chum FM for all that time. And you know what? When they actually played the song, the intro on the radio, they faded it out.

They wouldn't play the song on Chum FM. It no longer fits the format. That's too bad. I did listen, by the way. I did tune in for the last half hour of Roger Ashby because, although I never listened to him, it's funny, I never listened to him on the radio, you couldn't live in the city and not know about Roger Rick and Marilyn.

The marketing for that morning show was everywhere. Everyone knew, Rick and Marilyn. Like the marketing for that morning show was everywhere. Like everyone knew Roger, Rick and Marilyn, whether you listened or not. And I listened to Roger, Roger, Rick and Marilyn, Roger, Darren and Marilyn, Roger, Marilyn and Jamar.

I mean, there were probably like entire years that I didn't bother to tune in. But for most of 36 years, I was keeping tabs on what Roger was doing. Pretty early on, when the podcast thing started to happen, they started putting out highlights of the show on a podcast.

So listening on double speed, I managed to catch up what was going on on the Chum FM morning show in like 10 minutes. Right. And I think I listened a lot of days in the last 15 years. So the fact that they were winding this thing down, that Roger was going to be retiring from the morning show, something that we discussed here on how many episodes,

how many quarters did I come down here? We suspected it, but John Donabee came on and spilled the beans, like blew the cover. And you might remember I had Roger on mean, I had Roger on years ago. So listen to that episode of Toronto Mike. But I had Jamar McNeil on Toronto Mike. And I looked him in the eyes and I said, you know, we know Roger's leaving at the end of the year. And he refused to like, he didn't say that's not happening, but he wasn't going to touch that one.

He was going to let Roger make that announcement. And here we go. And it happened real quick. I mean, as far as a public announcement was concerned, he made a pretty hasty exit. One of the things I loved about the weeks in which he was winding down, that he said, Roger, he was no longer afraid to say things on the radio that he otherwise might have just kept to himself.

Right? For the first time in a 50-year career, he no longer had to worry about getting fired. So, yeah, it was a little bit more subversive. I mean, the last time I was here, I was praising the interplay between Roger, Maryland, and Jamar. I feel like Jamar has come in to Chum FM on a level that we can relate to, right, Mike?

Me and you. Like, we've built an alliance with Jamar. I tweeted something nice about him. He put it on Instagram. He came down here for the podcast. Remember, he phoned me when he first got to town. He came over. That was, I don't know what you thought,

but I thought it was a great episode. Like, we got to really learn about Jamar. Yeah, so that's the thing. We have to find new people who are just coming to town, right? We've got these characters from 40, 50 years ago. They're never going to have any respect for us. They got here first, right? They're bitter and angry. You're right.

They feel this is their turf. You know, they don't want any newbies, you know, even though we're like middle-aged here. You know, there's no room for us on the scene. No, it sounds like when, when, when Rogers took over Hockey Night in Canada and they said, oh,

we're the fresh faces out there with Jeff Merrick and Strombo. And we're like, oh, these are 45 year old men. Yeah, older than that even.

Well now, but at the time. it's good that Merrick is still making it happen. Strombo, off, off to, to other things.

Ah, Strombo. What are you getting, what are you getting Strombo back? He said he'd come back for episode 590, which at the time we laughed like, oh, that'll be in 100 years. But I mean, we're at 414 now.

Like 590 is like probably not that far off, right? Like 2020 maybe? So yeah, getting back to Jamar. Jamar McNeil. And Rick Hodge. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Roger yeah. Jamar and – Jamar McNeil, but – And Rick Hodge. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Roger, Rick, and Marilyn. So, just before Roger Ashby was showing the door, Rick Hodge, who was working for Bell Media, he was working for Easy Rock in Niagara Falls.

He also quickly – it was one of those things where on a Wednesday they said, okay, his last day is Friday, one of those deals, right? At least they put out a press release about it, right? Usually they try to keep these things quiet, but this guy's in his late 60s. I guess it was amicable enough. Yeah. He realized his time was up. I listened to his last episode. It was amicable enough.

He didn't seem too bitter. I think he knew. He was out there in St. Catharines, and then shortly after his retirement from Easy Rock in St. Catharines, he was on the Roger, Rick, and Marilyn show. They had a reunion one morning. Originally it was just going to be Roger and Rick. And Marilyn made a surprise appearance halfway through. It was magical stuff, I thought.

It was really emotional to listen to this thing. I know I have to be like all cynical and jaded and sarcastic about everything that I heard. But for somebody who's been paying attention to the media in Toronto for all this time and all these decades, you know, there was Roger. He started out as the overnight DJ on 1050 Chum.

He worked behind the scenes for a while. And then he would do the Sunday morning oldie show. I once won a Kink greatest hits album by calling in on the Sunday morning oldies show. Went to pick it up and got a tour of 1331 Yonge Street. So when you have things like that happen to you when you're like 10 years old, you've made a fan forever. It's like a Happy Meal. You never forget that toy that came with the Happy Meal. And even when you're 40 years old, you'll go to McDonald's and think,

oh, that was a great toy when I was 10 years old. Roger came in as a temporary replacement, right? He was an all-around swing guy, pinch hitter, doing weekends on Chum in the early 80s. Tom Rivers, he had some sort of contract dispute right and uh all of a sudden he was he was no longer on 10 50 chum went off to 680 cftr um and uh you talk all the time about listening to tom rivers when you were that was my morning show as a kid yeah but yeah i was i was a chum guy all the way way. We talk about that here over and over and over again. So I stuck with Roger at least for a while. And the temporary guy never got replaced.

They kept him around, moved him to FM. Here we were in December 2018. Roger Ashby, who will be coming on the podcast again, maybe. 2019. 2019. 2019. And then apparently now he'll be able to shoot from the hip. We can get some real talk out of Roger. I think so.

They also say he's doing like an iHeartRadio oldies. Yeah, yeah. He's going to program some digital only channel. Okay, so one thing about Rick Hodge. And I know you did some work with him for a little while. Yep. You helped him out. He's been on the show.

A blog. Remember, I was in the room when he had that blow up on the Easy Rock. And then that was probably the first radio controversy I was a part of now that I look back. So when Roger gave an interview to a newspaper in St. Catharines, something like that, he claimed that he would wake up to prepare for his morning show at like 10 p.m that he would sleep from 4 until 10 wake up like late in the evening for everyone else and spend the entire night overnight scouring the internet about what to discuss in the morning do you believe this to be true i I do not believe that. Actually,

Rick's a weirdo. Like, you know what? I do believe it. Until, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here, because this is the same man, I remember when we were friendly, who had like 14 cats, and I mean, I believe it. He's a weirdo. It fits like the

eccentric divorce guy kind of lifestyle. He's an eccentric guy and i think that and now that i think about so he sleeps six hours solid and then he is up and then essentially it's like his morning show would be sort of like if you had like i don't know a late night show like uh so that's his late night okay but he was like on easy rock in saint catherine's this wasn't some sort of hard-hitting news talk morning show he was doing. I believe it. I believe it. And maybe I'll get

him back on and we can impress him a little bit, but I believe him. Try to verify that one for me. Because people were wondering. They were asking me if that was true. We can't spend two hours, my friend, on radio because we have so much to cover. So we're going to burn through.

But I want to hear, you have some interesting news about our new friend, Jamar McNew. Oh, Jamar just became a father for the first time. And this, to me, was really curious. So here they had the buildup, right? Roger is retiring. Jamar is going to take over. He's going to be the anchor of the morning show with Marilyn as his sidekick. Then all of a sudden, Jamar isn't there anymore.

It turns out that Jamar had a kid in Atlanta. In Atlanta. Now, I've been listening close enough since Jamar got here to wonder, when did this happen? Nine months back? Did you do the calendar thing? It would have had to be at least nine months, I would assume. Maybe a little bit less. But as long as he was here, there was a bun in

the oven and it belonged to Jamar. So there's a bit of a mystery. Where did this come from? Is it like a love child? Did he know this was going to happen? Did he keep it secret? Did he break it off? And maybe they had some sort of reunion. What is the deal with Jamar's child? This is a mystery not quite on par with Drake. Drake's baby, remember? Of course. Everybody was wondering. He dropped rhymes about this baby on his new album.

Does he have a kid that he's not really talking about who's going to disclose what's going on here? So we've got another mystery going into 2019. The mystery of Jamar McNeil's baby. disclose what's going on here. So we've got another mystery going into 2019, the mystery of Jamar McNeil's baby. Well, Jamar texted me, like, as recently as, I'd say, two weeks ago, I received a text from Jamar saying, like, when can I come on and kick out the jams? And so that's going to happen, like, early 2019. So I'll delicately bring that up. Find out what's up with Jamar. So that was a curious case, unusual situation. They had such a buildup to the fact that this guy was going to take over the chum morning show.

And within a couple of days, he wasn't there anymore. They went through the rest of the year without their man, Jamar. And I guess, I don't know if he's a new father. He's got some diapers to change and bills to pay. That's a long-distance relationship with your child. It's a good thing he's got this great job, right? Now this kid will grow up with a famous dad, right, on the legendary radio station in Toronto.

Perfect. Speaking of children of famous Toronto Chum FM morning show people, Marilyn Dennis' son, Adam Wilde, is the new morning show at Virgin. And you've got confirmation on this. I guess confirmation would take the form of the promos they're running on 99.9. They're talking about something wild is coming to the radio station. How are they spelling wild? I don't know.

Okay, so how come there's an open spot on Virgin Radio in the mornings? Oh, you want to talk about drama? I think this story makes anything that happens on Toronto Mike seem like a sandbox. Let's do it. Like a kindergarten class. So Tucker, right? Scott Tucker. Scott Tucker.

He was hired as a host for Virgin Radio. He was a guy who worked his way through the ranks, right? He moved from one city to another, London, and he was in Montreal at some point before that. So Scott Tucker got his big opportunity. They got rid of Mad Dog. Yeah, because Mad Dog and Mora were doing it, because it was Mad Dog and Billy.

Billy was booted, and then it was like Mad Dog and Mora were doing it because it was Mad Dog and Billy. Billy was booted, and then it was like Mad Dog and Mora. And then, yeah, I was surprised when Mad Dog was let go, and then they brought in this Tucker dude. One thing about Tucker that I thought was a reflection of the times that we're in, how radio works these days. They never promoted the fact that they had this guy on the station, right? Roz and Mocha, Kiss 92.5. That would be the direct competition. Those guys' faces are all over the place. Streetcars, TTC platforms, everywhere. And Tucker was operating on the

down low. He was doing this morning show for a few years. I don't know. How would anyone have ever heard of him? But, yeah, they kept Tucker a quiet presence on the station. I guess you would have had to be a regular listener to know who he was. And as we found out, I think that made him more expendable when it was time to find somebody new to come in there. So Adam Wilde, the son of Marilyn Dennis, they no longer hide that, right? No, because he had a podcast. That was like a big secret for a while. Who's the guy who does the Maple Leaf video?

Steve Dangle. Right, so he was on and we talked about that and he says, yeah, he's public about it. It's not a... Yeah, but for a while they weren't, I guess. Again, you know, you don't want any charges of nepotism.

You don't want to be thought of as like a Dean Blundell situation. Because you should point out, if you don't know, Virgin is owned by Bell Media, which also owns Chum and CTV. And of course,

Marilyn has a TV show on CTV. So Marilyn's a Bell Media veteran employee. And then, of course, now Adam Wilde will be a Bell Media. Yeah, so where are we on this story? I'm already getting lost. So Adam Wilde announced abruptly that he was no longer going to be working for Rogers. But what confused things even further, then he showed up anyway on the Fan 590, right?

He was doing, like, fellowships. Probably he signed a non-compete, but that non-compete would not matter if you showed up on another Rogers property. For a little while, we thought it was going to be a Marilyn and her son, right? It would be, like, Marilyn and Adam and Roger and maybe Jamar would be in there somehow,

but I guess that got canceled out by what happened. Well, you bring in Adam, right? And then in a year or two, or whenever you decide it's time for Marilyn to move on, now you've already got, now you've got Jamar and Adam as you're kind of like

for the next, whatever, 20 years. Okay, so how this relates to Tucker. While all this was going on and people were speculating about where Adam Wilde was going to go, I guess Tucker was chugging along. He claims that the ratings were great, right? They had all sorts of attention to this Tucker in the morning radio show.

And then they bring in Jamar across the hall, and he's working at Chum. And then all of a sudden one day, Tucker and Maura and this other guy, Andy Wilson. Who used to do, when Humble and Fred were on Mix 99.9, I believe Andy was there. I hope I got my, yeah, he was some, or maybe at Easy Rock, but he somehow used to produce a Humble and Fred show at some point because I met him at a couple of functions.

But please. And all of them were informed at once, your services are no longer required. And I don't think I've seen anyone more publicly pissed off at the fact that he lost his radio job than this guy Tucker. Now, he's careful about what he's saying and how he's saying it, but there's a whole new frontier here. I've never seen a radio morning guy put on Instagram, we got fired today. Yeah. Oh, and just because I like, you know, to be correct, Andy Wilson never did produce Humble and Fred.

That was Bingo Bob at 99.9. But Andy Wilson produced the Humble Howard thing he did at Easy Rock and Boom with, like, Colleen Rusholm. That was the end. Okay. Listen, whatever it was, you haven't been, what do they say? You haven't made it in radio until you've been fired. It's a given.

But, yeah, as far as behind the scenes drama is concerned. So Tucker's a little bit pissed. Well, yeah, because he spent like half of the year wondering what was going on around him. They bring in Jamar on Chum, and here's Adam Wilde, and where's he going to end up? And it turned out that the whole time, all along, they were getting ready to get rid of Tucker. Now, let me ask you this. They did turf like 75% of the on-air people at Virgin. It was more than the morning show.

They actually had a couple. I guess they're looking for a more refreshed sound. Or as some people speculate, this is part of like more of a national network thing, right? This is part of like a more of a national network thing, right, where they're looking to cut costs and make these radio stations more efficient by running the same programming in every city. Does it really matter on a radio format where you're playing the same music from one city to the next? You really need somebody local there all the time. We got into this when discussing the situation at Chorus with 102.1 The Edge and Q107. Can't you simulate the same experience for the way people listen today by having one crew of DJs and have them work the entire country?

People get very emotional about this, right? They think, well, the radio, it has to be local. You have to have somebody in that city. How can you get away with this, right? But it's happened enough. We have enough precedent up until this point that I don't think it's such a big deal. I don't think anybody who's actually listening, not the old geezers complaining on the message board. I don't know how many of them care whether the person teeing up the record that's allowed to talk in the air for like two and a half minutes an hour, what city they're sitting in. I'm with you from like I think you're correct during like midday and evenings where I think the people seem to care more, I think, is that morning and afternoon drive show.

They like those shows to be live and local, at least when you're a big city like Toronto. They don't want Meredith doing the afternoon drive from Vancouver. But I believe Meredith has moved. She relocated to Toronto, right? I think one of the funniest posts in the history of torontomic.com is the one where you try to untangle the mystery of meredith right the fact

they gave this woman an afternoon drive shift on cfny the legendary toronto station and they couldn't even be bothered to have uh the the host of the show working in Toronto. That was the case, what, through the late summer into the fall? Right, and we had a nice exchange. She was playing along. She took selfies of herself to show me, oh, she was in Vancouver. And then I asked her this question. Was it Tom?

Is that the name of the guy? Yeah, the guy was Tom. He was the morning show producer, and they had him on the air. I mean, this is where it's at when it comes to uh radio uh going into the the end of this decade this guy tom uh worked with uh who was it adam and adam and mel mel on uh 102.1 the edge morning show yeah uh he ended up getting a job in timmons ontario so you, okay, they gave this guy the afternoon drive show on a Toronto radio station?

He can make more money in Timmins. He voluntarily leaves for Timmins? That's true. Go back 10 years and tell that story. Unless you had, I don't know, unless your love child lived in Timmins and you wanted to spend more time with your kid, there's no other explanation that makes sense to leave the afternoon drive on Hedge 102 or whatever it is, 102.1 The Edge, to go to Kimmins.

But the Tom story, I think it's funny, is that so Tom was co-hosting the afternoon drive show with Meredith. Tom was in Toronto at Chorus Key there by the water, by the lake. And Meredith was in Vancouver. And we were going back and forth. And I was asking Meredith questions and she was answering them. And then I said to Meredith, I just asked her, have you ever met Tom?

That was my question. Have you ever met Tom, your co-host? Have you ever met him? And radio silence from then on, that was the end of our exchange. She never replied and I never heard from her again. And now we've got, okay, so now we've got Meredith. She moved to Toronto.

Right. So she's here now. I don't know anything about Meredith. But she's now with Colter. It's okay. I don't, I mean, listen. Meredith Geddes. You do what you gotta do, right, to make it in radio as it is.

Now she's still doing voice tracking on other cities' radio stations, I guess. Why would they get rid of something that was successful? It was efficient. She could fake her way through being on in these other cities at the same time in Toronto. So they put this kid Coulter on with Meredith. He had previously been on Q107. Right. And this guy moved through the ranks real quickly. I remember he was on CKLN in the dying days of that station. He was one of the people rallying for the future of a radio station out of Ryerson. They ended up losing it.

It's now Indy 88 instead of CKLN. I thought that. But, you know, the bright lights were waiting for him. And, you know, I think he has the voice that people see as like the alternative rock radio voice as it is now. Right. It's it's certainly not like the the cliche DJ announcer voice. It's kind of like like a bro Jake Edwards. It's a deadpan sort of thing. Greg B. Harrell, who moved his way through the edge, and now he's on KLOS in Los Angeles,

but he still records a thing that they run in Toronto. He's a voice of, what's he bragging about now? I don't know, 80, 85 different radio stations. So, you know, this seems to be the way that you project a commercial radio voice at this point, right? Like kind of aloof and dismissive, right? You don't want to seem like too excited to be there. And I think Greg Beharo, well, he's risen to the top as far as being one of those talents. So Coulter is sort of also operating in that style

and so is meredith as well and uh seeing the plans that they have for this edge morning show starting in january okay so let me set it up by saying we joked a moment ago we joked about the fact we almost had a mother-son morning show in this city it could be marilyn dennis and adam wilde on whatever chum uh but the fact is we're getting like starting next week we're getting uh our first sibling well not our first oh please you take it from here because it's not our first it's our first brother sister ruby and alex car that's it right there uh they were in vancouver beforehand um and uh moving to moving to toronto Chorus, doing the morning show. I don't want to sound like Fred Patterson here, but this is a pivot for 102.1, the whole CFNY legacy, right?

This is not the kind of sound, this is not the marketing that you associate with the station, but they've gone through so many incarnations to try and do something in the morning after they got rid of our buddy Blundell. Right? They had a revolving door of people trying to figure out what to do in the morning. Yeah, Fearless Fred and Josie Dye. So they settled on this thing, sibling radio.

And, you know, they've also got a different style, right? It's not the old-time DJ voices. It's a woman at the forefront of the thing, as far as I can tell. It's like the sister is the host and the brother is the sidekick. And we'll see how this style translates to what they're doing there. There's enough suspicion in the air that they're going to change the format at some point. This whole thing of doing new rock music, what was once a cash cow for this kind of radio station, reaching the male 18 to 34 demographic. What do you do when those people don't listen to radio anymore? This is what I always wonder.

So many other options for the 18 to 34-year-olds. I always wonder, so many other options for the 18 to 34-year-olds. And they're, I mean, my teenagers are the smallest sample size in the world, but they ain't listening to morning radio, but they're listening to a lot of music and a lot of talk. So I wonder if this morning show is going to be a lot of talk, which, you know, puts us closer, I think, to the podcast example as far as how people listen to the radio today. They're keeping us in suspense,

keeping us in suspense for a while because I remember being here in October and they announced this new Edge morning show. Right. Yeah, they announced it a long time ago, but it's coming next week. Now, you mentioned Indie 88 who took over the Signal 88.1 from CKLN.

And of course, Josie Dye, we've just mentioned her because she's the morning show there. But the ratings that came out, the radio ratings that came out show that Indy 88 is, could we say they're beating the edge? At least when it's broken down in like the key demo, right?

As far as demographics are concerned. If you want that young male audience and also the female audience, it showed good signs, good signals that Indy 88, in fact, has broken through like it's now competitive. So there might be some sort of margin of error. But, yeah, now we've reached that point. After five years, Indy 88 and 102.1 The Edge are considered neck and neck, if not even a bit of advantage to 88.1. The dynamic here that makes a difference is the fact that The Edge is part of the big chorus conglomerate. And Indy 88 out there, owned by this company from Barrie, Ontario, is out there on its own and doesn't necessarily have the same clout.

there on its own and doesn't necessarily have the same clout. And signal strength, which is what I'm always, this is, to me, this is a remarkable little story we got going on here because even just strictly going by signal strength, that 102.1 signal is way stronger than the 88.1 signal. So they went to the CRTC asking for a power increase, right? They argued that they haven't been able to be profitable as they expected. And, you know, every once in a while, maybe more and more these days, the CRTC comes back to these stations that are crying poor saying, look, you applied for this license. You accepted it as it was. You're crying poor five years later.

Well, you are pretty happy to get the station to begin with. Work with what you've got but they were turned down on the previous try now they're proposing uh some sort of uh signal swap situation uh i never quite understand these people that are really into like the the technicalities of antennas and stuff like that like how do you go that's always inside how do you go from being interested in like radio and music and djs and everything like that to like knowing all this That's always inside radio, guys. station in Toronto, 106.5, which plays 25% indigenous music. It's associated with the APTN, the Aboriginal People's Television Network. This was a radio license that goes back to the early 2000s, right?

They rebooted it. So they're making some sort of proposal now that the two stations will team up and they'll do something or another involving the antennas and they'll increase the power for both of them but Indy 88 will end up with more power than it had before. And they'll pay for it. They're willing to pay for it

to get this station heard and to build on their competitive situation right now. Now, since you mentioned Element FM, their morning guy is Bob McGee, right? And correct me if I'm wrong, you're the man who would give me the definitive answer on this, but John Donabee left CIUT or wherever last summer,

and Roger Ashby just left 104.5 earlier this month. Does that make Bob McGee the GTA terrestrial radio host that's been on Toronto Airwaves the longest? Am I wording that right? Or the earliest? It might be that Bob McGee,

his real name, Denny O'Neill, you know he was once married to Jeannie Becker. That was once his big claim to fame. Fashion television, Jeannie Becker. More people heard of Jeannie Becker than That was once his big claim to fame. Fashion television, Jeannie Becker. More people heard of Jeannie Becker than Bob McGee. But Bob has been on the radio in Toronto for so long, 46 years.

Now, he started at 1050 Chum. He went to Vancouver. He came back to Chum. Early 70s? Yeah, going back 1972. Okay, he's the champ right now. He ended up being the morning guy at 1050 Chum when it switched to all oldies in 1989. So he was like—

Not 86? 86 was halfway there, and then all oldies 1989. You would know, my friend. They did that for a while. That was with Samantha Houston, who's now on Zoomer Radio. At one point, they got rid of that morning thing. They got rid of Bob McGee. Resurfaced at CHFI as a replacement for Don Daynard,

a job that we learned. Aaron Davis, right? Yeah, we learned on Roger Ashby's last day from the mayor of Toronto, John Tory, that he once approached Roger Ashby to replace Don Daynard on CHFI. I thought that was a bit of a revelation. That's a fun fact you've written.

Yeah, the mayor wouldn't even say Rogers on the Bell radio station. I was working for another radio company, as if anyone couldn't figure it out on their own. So Bob ended up on CHFI and then Vinyl 95.3 from Hamilton. So he has been around the radio dial for, at this point, 46 and a half years now doing the morning show on Element FM. And that has been a fascinating station to hear it unfold, right?

The whole agenda over there is to give exposure to Canadian Indigenous musicians, but that's only 25% of the playlist. They figured out, you know, if they want a broader audience, they want people to tune in. Don't tell people you have to listen to this. Like, this is nutritious. It's good for you, you know, to learn about this.

It's like a Trojan horse. Yeah, Canadian music. But rather, you know, they've worked it into a much broader playlist, pretty eclectic station. I would say it's closer to the sound that Chum FM used to have before they went all in on this current pop thing. Sorry, 106.5? 106.5 in Toronto.

Its web presence isn't even all that great. I don't think you can get it on the TuneIn app. What did Q107 bump up? I guess you're okay. I'm trying to think. I always remember Q as a strong signal. It kind of spread its wings there. So yeah, Bob McGee there doing the morning show,

morning DJ, a guy that's doing the morning show, morning DJ. A guy that's been in Toronto since somewhere in 1972. Someone else that's been in Toronto for around that long. Brian Master. You can hear him now on the station. The Jewel, the one that's licensed to Newmarket. Yeah, so Brian Master is still there. He also goes back to 1972. But if you want the champion, the current radio voice that's been doing the same thing most consistently in Toronto for the longest amount of time, it's a guy named Glenn Woodcock.

What? Does a big band show on Jazz FM. And he's been doing it now for 42 years in a row. And there's a reason why he's an interesting character in the media game. He used to be the letters page

editor of the Toronto Sun. So do you remember in the glory days of the Sun, they would print letters from readers and there would be a parenthetical comment after every letter. Do you remember this? Well, because I was a star household, I don't, but

maybe a bit. Okay, well, so that was his thing. He was kind of like this anonymous voice, you know, representing the sensibility of the Toronto sun. Like the editor? Like, you know, is that like where you had Ed or something? Like, anyway, I kind of can visualize it

that there's a response from some unknown entity. So it was mostly whenever somebody would write in to complain about the Sun's coverage. Okay, now hold on to the jazz. He would be the voice of reason by their standards.

Hold on to that jazz thing because we're going to bring that up in a moment here. I just want to say that, okay, so we think in some targeted demographics, Indy 88 is beating the edge that's not even the biggest surprise from this recent radio uh ratings that we all uh that you we dove into because uh is it fair to say that uh 640 guns and guns global news radio Radio 640 Toronto is beating News Talk 1010?

I think they would probably want to deny it at the legendary CFRB that finally they're actually being eclipsed as far as a segment of the audience is concerned, right? I mean, the whole thing over there is hubris. They want to be known. It's a definitive news talk radio station. I correct, again, you know better than I do, but I thought 1010 had very recently had some pretty big monster ratings. Like this is a fairly rapid decline. Am I correct? The difference is when you break it down in demographics and the way they measure

radio ratings, right? If you have a lot of people who are tuning in that are walking around with these PPM devices strapped to their belt, it seems like an older person's thing to actually want to do to be willing to participate in these surveys. But when it comes to monitoring the young people that are into these things, I don't know how many there are. I don't know if it's a legit measurement of anything. But, yeah, they actually found that more of the younger people listening to him than anyone at 1010, he seems to be vindicated here, at least for the time being. The numbers are showing that 640, with its rebranding, has edged it out and has a slightly bigger audience with a younger demographic. Okay, yes, and it's the older demographic that Googles the changes and complains about Stafford's co-host, Supriya Dwivedi, because these old knuckle-draggers don't like change,

I suppose, but it sounds like the numbers show that that show is doing better than John Moore in certain demographics. We'll see where it's at. change, I suppose, but it sounds like the numbers show that that show is doing better than John Moore's in certain demographics. We'll see where it's at. Again, they dismiss these things. Okay, there's a margin of error, whatever it is, but I think change is in the air over at News Talk 1010. Oh, good. I'm glad you mentioned that.

They're making different announcements. They announced Warren and Lisa Kinsella are now contributors at 1010. Now, these people are, they run their own consulting firm, the Daisy Group. They work with all sorts of politicians and, you know, they try to spin things for the media. I don't know if they are going to disclose any of these details when they're showing up on 1010 over again as political pundits. I mean, I know that was CBC. They have different standards, of course, but the Evan Solomon

situation, right? Is this what we're referring to? Will they disclose when they have a monetary, potential monetary gain for the exposure? They have people on now who don't disclose what they're doing.

People like Scott Reed, Amanda Galbraith. Why are these people always so eager to be on the radio? It's because the exposure pays dividends. It gives them something as far as being heard, being seen as authoritative figures when it comes to commenting on what's going on in the news and politics, what's happening around the city. Yeah, definitely it pays off. What we don't hear on the station is any sort of disclosure. Maybe once in a while they'll slip something in.

Oh, I happen to do some work for the Liberal Party of Canada. Oh, by the way, I'm helping to craft John Tory's. But 640 is not disclosing much either. party of Canada. Oh, by the way, I'm helping to craft John Torrey's... I mean, the example I always think of, mainly because she came on and we talked about it, but Alex Pearson will come. Alex Pearson, and I don't listen to the show, but sometimes driving home from hockey, if I'm flipping around,

I'll hear her. She just relentlessly will go at the provincial liberal party, but she never discloses the fact that she was working for the PC party. And yet, how else to make money in the media? I'm thinking I have to get in on this racket, too. What am I doing wrong? I should be

into this AstroTurf game. Anyway, Warren Kinsella and his wife Lisa... Who did not write Field of Dreams, just for the clarification. He did not write the Field of Dreams movie. One of their milestones of 2018 was the fact they took on the band Headley as clients. So the sexual assault allegations were flying against Jacob Hogard.

He ended up being criminally charged. I think they're expecting a trial to go ahead in like 2020. We're seeing how the justice system works slowly, even when you are charged with something. The amount of time it takes maybe doesn't encourage other people to report such situations when they come up. Anyway, the Kinsellas took on Headley as a client. While these allegations were flying around, they ended up dropping Headley as a client. However, there was some curiosity about why they would have taken this on to begin with,

given their political persuasion and where their sympathies lie. However, you can't ask Warren Kinsella anything about this on Twitter because he will block you if he doesn't like your question. Now, in fairness, his official explanation is that as soon as they caught wind of what exactly was happening here, they decided to no longer represent Headley. But I think this thing kind

of hangs over them, just a lot of wondering out there, what were you thinking? But again, I mean, they did drop them as a client. And you don't hear a lot about who people are representing, who's doing the crisis PR. A whole firm in Toronto, Navigator Limited, is dedicated to taking on these causes. Limited is dedicated to taking on these causes, you don't get a lot of disclosure when Navigator is doing damage control for you. But when people find out, when they can attach a name of a firm to it, usually all makes sense. Usually when you're in trouble, Mike, if this ever happens to you, I think Navigator is

who you turn to to get you out of that jam. And sometimes you only hear that Navigator is representing somebody when they end up dropping the client, like Gian Gomeschi, for example, that maybe something is even too hot for them to handle. Now, speaking of damage control, Dean Blundell keeps talking about his great relationship with Mike Ben Dixon at 1010, and just last week,

I think it was Thursday and Friday, I think, he was filling in for Jim Richards on 1010. Are we back to Dean Blundell again? Organically, though, it's in your list, Mr. Weissblatt. I liked how, well, you jumped the gun. I liked how on here you tried to get to the bottom with

Ed Conroy wondering whether or not I'm persona non grata on News Talk 1010. Yeah, and me too. I just was curious. Well, if you talk about these people in a critical fashion, I'm not criticizing anything. I'm asking, is Blundell going to get a show on 1010? I'm saying,

I can't expect to get a phone call asking me to be on the station, I think I would be really excited if Mike Ben Dixon invited me to do something. I think I have to keep on good terms with him because the way things are going, what I want to do with the 1236 newsletter, I'll have to talk to him in the future. We have to stay on civilized terms here. We have to stay on civilized terms here. So I can't thrash him for hiring Dean Blundell. Maybe he's about to give Dean Blundell one of the prime gigs on the radio station.

What do you think of that? Well, that's what you're here to tell me. I had no idea. Well, are we now not going to be welcome in the world of Mike Ben Dixon and Bell Media by the fact that we've discussed it on here. Well, to be frank, I mean, I have fairly recent history. There's a very strong affiliation between 1010 and Great Lakes Brewery. Like, I was at this Christmas party recently, and I saw Jim Richards and Mad Dog there. And I've been at previous functions at Great Lakes Brewery where Agar was there and Mike Ben Dixon. previous functions at Great Leagues Brewery where Agar was there and Mike Ben

Dixon and, you know, and John Moore, as you know, was booked on the show and then was refused permission by like 1010 PR, but I've had a beer with Ben Dixon and we've kind of talked about everything and I think we're cool. I've never had anything against Ben Dixon.

He did not like an episode I did a long time ago with a former reporter for 1010 that he did not like, but I did a long time ago with a former reporter for 1010 that he did not like, but I mean, again, that sounds like he didn't like what she was saying. I was not saying anything negative about 1010. I don't know anything. So I don't know.

I feel things are fine. I got no ill will towards anyone at 1010. What is all this hysteria about, especially when no one's getting paid any real money for anything, as far as opening your mouth and talking into a microphone is concerned. Like the Kinsellas, right? You find other ways to monetize what you're doing. You go on the radio for exposure, and then you have another business that's a lot more

lucrative, and getting this attention on the radio helps you to look more credible as far as potential clients are concerned. I think there needs to be some leeway here. When people are tweeting and talking and revealing things about themselves all the time, I think you have to be a lot more generous these days. You can't hang somebody for one thing that they said that you might disagree with. I don't think you can condemn them forever just because they made some remark that was out of bounds. Look, we come down here, we talk for two hours or more.

Two plus, yeah. Think of all the things on all the podcasts that I've said that I've lived to regret. Right, I know. You're right. Well, that's why we try to do the same couple of hours over and over and over again, right? So then when somebody's trying to do like a forensic audit about everything that I think,

they won't have the energy to go through all of the episodes. They'll just go to the most recent one. But if you were a betting man, you would bet that Blundell ends up with a show at 1010? I would bet that Blundell is in the good graces of Bell Media.

I think that he's going to great lengths to make himself sound like an appealing personality. You need somebody on the air who can command the microphone in a certain kind of way that can sound good on your blowtorch AM radio signal. And whatever the format, I think. So who has to go to make one?

I think Blundell. Who leaves? There are many stations and different platforms. And as these things get more consolidated, we'll see if Bell Media itself, if Bell even sticks with the radio business. There's always speculation they inherited this thing by accident, right?

Came with a bunch of TV channels, different platforms, things that they bought from Astral and Chum. Do they really want to be in radio for the long haul? Does it mean anything to them? As far as Mondale's future goes, I don't know. I guess the guy will just try to make as much noise as possible.

He has this clickbait website. It is really clickbait, isn't it? He claims that it's got all sorts of attention and audience. I don't see any evidence of this. There's not a lot of social traction. I wonder how many fake followers this guy has. I couldn't tell you. Half of them.

I haven't examined up until this point, but I certainly acknowledge that anyone who has invested so many years in a certain kind of career of talking on the radio, there are only so many windows of opportunity that ever open up. And you've got to be able to jump through it when it's there. So we've got, you know, Blundell in one corner and Humble and Fred in the other. And they've got a relationship with Bell. And they're all just trying to find, trying to find something that's going to work. They can bring it to the future. I don't think anybody knows anything about what's going to happen,

what's going to be sustainable. A lot of them imagine that FM radio will no longer be focused on music so much. They'll finally get a shot to be on FM radio doing a talk format. Maybe that's going to happen. Maybe that's around the corner. No one knows anything. But listen, a lot of people have dropped out, and these are the characters that we've got to deal with.

These are the ones providing content for Toronto Mike hundreds of times. Isn't that what Dean Bundell said? You've talked about him on the show. I had Todd Shapiro on hundreds of times to shit talk Blundell. Yeah, anyway. A bit of a hyperbole there.

Honestly, I wasn't kidding. We could easily do two hours on radio. I actually wanted to ask you about JazzCast. What do you know about JazzCast? Well, I don't know much about JazzCast. Like, what do you know about JazzCast? Well, I don't know much about JazzCast. All I know is that they seem to be building up a roster of people who used to work with Jazz FM. A lot of drama with Jazz FM.

Simon Haupt at the Globe Mail, he's reported on it most thoroughly. Backlash involving Ross Porter, who was a former head of the radio station, about his conduct on the job, and you've got a former head of the radio station, about his conduct on the job, and you've got a former morning host, Garvia Bailey, she's suing them.

Got a couple other lawsuits in the works, and someone who was representing a bunch of donors, he sued to get hold of the station's contact list. Like the email list, that's like somebody suing 1236 for your subscriber list. And I don't think this looks very good on what they're trying to do.

They just had an on-air fundraising drive. They only raised like half the money of their goal. It was $350,000. They got like just over half of that. And now a whole bunch of money has to go to lawyers to pay for a legal fight over the email list. So this is a bit of a mess. The fact that some people are breaking out on their own and starting this JazzCast online radio station. I saw pictures of four people involved.

I recognize Danny Elwell, of course, and I recognize Garvia Bailey. And this name's eluding me, which is embarrassing because she's coming on soon. The latest, Heather Bambrick. Heather Bambrick. Another one is Walter Vinafro. He's shown up also on that Element FM. So they're starting jazzcast.ca, which I'm going to learn more about because Garvia is going to come on and because Heather Bambrick is going to come on.

And I don't know if he's involved, but I'll see what James B. knows about all this because he was a longtime jazz FM-er. Okay, yeah, so big drama over there. I think when a radio station is so dependent on listener donations and they have a fundraising drive, I mean, you can only feel for the people that are still left working there. There's Brad Barker from The Pursuit of Happiness who's still on the air. They're having to go on the air and appeal to listeners to donate money,

and the phones aren't ringing like they used to. Something's up, and in the year ahead, that'll be a big drama to see. If in fact some sort of startup, I don't know who's funding it. That's usually key to knowing what's really going on behind the scenes. But it's probably got minimal funding required. I mean, if it's an

online audio stream, I mean, I don't know. I guess I'm going to get answers by asking the right questions to the right people. I'll find out for you. I want to ask you, Mike Richards came on since you were last here, and he announced that he's the new morning show host of the news station Saga 960. Yeah, he came on here to announce it, and then it didn't happen. But he says it's happening, I think he said January 7th is his first day.

So it's happening. And I heard, I caught a very emotional tribute to you toronto mike where from mike richards i didn't know this he was down here he's sitting in this chair oh i thought you know thank you for having respect and honoring uh my work believing in people like me and that's why i've come down here to tell you how i'm gonna be on this little Miss Saga radio station that no one has ever heard of. See, for every Blundell, there's a Mike Richards, so I'm doing something right for some people.

Oh, I'm sure at one point Mike Richards was as full of it as Blundell is now. Eventually, the humility comes around. Oh, and just since we're talking about 960, it's worth noting that Mike Bullard is the afternoon drive guy there. Yeah, Mike Bullard and Lawrence Morgenstern, a long-time Yuck Yucks comic,

who was also a writer on the Open Mic with Mike Bullard talk show. So Mike Bullard there every afternoon. I've caught it from time to time listening online, Saga 960. And it is certainly different as far as

just a couple guys sitting around the microphone. There were some signal problems with this radio station, and they were working out of some sort of studio that was a lot worse than what you've got down here in the basement, right? It sounded terrible, but they say all sorts of improvements are coming. And a Mississauga AM radio station, one that had a license for years and years, and it never launched. And, you know, eventually you got to follow through. CRDC isn't going to wait forever. And they put this thing on the air, and I don't know what sort of audience is waiting

to hear a talk radio station where people just sit around and ramble. But look, we get away with it here on Toronto Mike. Maybe there's something doing that on the AM dial as well. I want to let Brian Gerstein from PSR Brokerage introduce the next topic. We're going to leave radio. Now, it might come up again, but

I got to leave radio because I want to talk about the city we live in. I'm going to let Brian introduce that, and then I want to talk a little bit of politics and about some celebrities, and of course, we have to do the In Memoriam section, and we're going to try to keep this thing close to two hours. I don't know if that's even possible, but here's Brian.

Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Mark. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. Mark, I was recently in Galleria Mall at Fabricland where my daughter, thanks to a tip from Mike's wife Monica, scored a bunch of fabric at 75% off on their last day. It just so happens that Free Developments, who PSR exclusively sells their new development

projects for, is behind the billion dollar redevelopment. So I will be able to offer VIP first access to my clients. It is never too early to let me know if you are interested so call or text me at 416-873-0292 as sales could start as early as this spring. Mark do you have any memories of Galleria Mall and do you think think that this billion-dollar 10-year redevelopment, which will include eight towers ranging from 18 to 35 stories, 300,000 square feet of retail space, which represents more than the entire Galleria shopping center, 28,000 square feet of office space, a 75,000 square foot community center, which doubles the size of the current center, and finally, an eight-acre park to replace the existing seven-acre play area.

Will this all attract families? Since 50% of the almost 3,000 condo units will be two bedrooms or more. Okay, wait a second. Is Brian telling me that he's going to get me a condo at the Galleria Mall? Was that the offer there? I think we're going to share one. I think we can share one. If I show up, but I have to wait 10 years for this to happen. So is it going to be like Bitcoin mining? If I come on this podcast enough, answer enough Brian Gerstein questions,

I will have earned my own condo at the Galleria. It's amazing you got the question about memories of Galleria Mall. I'm the guy who worked there for five years, but it's all you. I don't even think I ever set foot in the Galleria Mall. I mean, it wasn't part of my orbit. Well, you're a North York guy, right? I didn't grow up anywhere near there, and I think my understanding of it was pretty reasoned. But I've heard all sorts of anecdotes from you about working at Food City.

Yeah, Food City. And then I was part of the team that converted it into a price chopper. There's a fabric land there that just shut down. So Brian alluded to this story. But my wife is a sewist. I think that's the term she goes by. She heard there were great deals because it was going out of business, this particular fabric land. They're still around,

but this one's gone now. But I know that Brian's daughter is like a designer, like designs dresses and stuff. So I guess in this community of like the designer sewist community, when you find out a fabric land's got like 75% off fabric, this is a big deal. My wife bought so much fabric, and then Brian's daughter bought fabric. And this was kind of like brought Galleria Mall top of mind for all of us fairly recently. Okay, well, the transformation of the Galleria must be for real because the main part of the mall outside of the anchor stores, as far as I know, they're now all closed. They actually went out of business there. Fabric Land and everything beyond that, right? They still have the food city where you worked. What is it now?

Oh, it's Fresh Co. Fresh Co. Rexall is still there. There's a Planet Fitness. Do you know what that Rexall was when I started? It was a Boots. Do you remember Boots? Yeah, I remember Boots from England, right?

And then it was Boots, Pharma Plus, then Rexall. I think that was a Boots. Do you remember Boots? Yeah, I remember Boots from England, right? And then it was Boots, Pharma Plus, then Rexall. I think that was the chain there. LCBO is still there, right? There's still McDonald's in the parking lot. In the parking lot, yeah. Well, the Galleria was kind of in the peak of its slumlord status when no one knew what was going to become of this whole thing, right?

I saw more than one comment about people wondering like you've got here these multinational corporations not to mention the liquor control board of ontario and td banks in there too td bank you know all of these big money businesses would they not have been interested in an upgrade to the mall? What was going on here with the owner of the property that they kept it in its state that it was in from the time it was built, from 1972?

Yeah, and of course, because I worked there, we had coffee breaks and everyone, we would take turns buying coffee for all the grocery clerks and stuff. And El Amigo, this is the little restaurant in the middle, we would go you go to el amigo and uh it never occurred to me till i recently saw this online but like it had a a spanish name and nothing on the menu was like of spanish descent there there's a book of photos from the gallery

mall right like a coffee table book that was actually put together but i think i took it I took it for granted when I was there. I was there often for five years, and it's just like another crappy mall. The Dufferin Mall was going through extensive renovations and cleaning itself up, and we weren't. This is just how it works. So if you wanted a nicer mall, you went a little further south to Dufferin and Blewer and went to the Dufferin Mall. What could be more of a reflection of how kitschy the Galleria Mall was than the fact that a bar in the neighborhood, I guess somewhere in Bloordale, it's called the Open House Bar,

one of those places that hipsters hang out. Too cool for me or you, Mike. They managed to salvage a sign from the Galleria electronic store, a neon sign, and they installed it in the bar. So a piece of the Galleria lives on as part of the nightlife in the neighborhood. Well, it seems inevitable, so no matter what happens to the property, whether or not Brian hooks me up with a condo in there someday, you can always visit the open house bar and see a piece of what the Galleria used to be. Amazing. Amazing. Fantastic. I love talking about Galleria Mall. But all these guys from the neighborhood, right? All these Portuguese, Italian working class. A lot of Portuguese in that neighborhood, yep.

Portuguese, Italian working class. A lot of Portuguese in that neighborhood, yep. They would all gather together. They'd watch a World Cup on a giant screen TV that was sort of like 10 or 20 years out of date. They would put it in the middle of the mall for them to watch. So there have been some lamentations for the fact that all these people that would hang out in the mall all day, they're not going to have anywhere else to go.

At the same time this is going on, they're imagining this condo community, right, like the ultimate Toronto gentrification experience. They are promoting it. They have a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram account, Reimagined Galleria. They're always highlighting all the artisanal experiences that are provided in the neighborhood. They have never actually included pictures of the actual Galleria Mall, right? The whole idea, the whole appeal of wanting to live there is anything but the mall as it's been for the last 20, 30, 40 years. But I think when it comes to actually selling the place i think i think they will play off nostalgia for it that you know if we get to five ten years from now that people will actually

find it like a like like a cool experience to have to to have bought a condo right in the place that this mall once sat wait for it it's coming i'm telling you i i believe you i believe you by the way that's when that whole World Cup experience at Galleria Mall is when I learned that the Portuguese were double dipping because at this time, Portugal was not a World Cup contender, but Brazil was. And these fresh new Canadians, fresh from Portugal, might as well have been straight from Rio,

like the way they rooted for Brazil. It was the same thing. And I realized it's not quite entirely fair that you could double dip like that. And I guess there are enough of this older generation still out there. These are the people that paid like $10,000 for a house 50 years ago.

Hoping to cash in, get that million bucks and make it all worthwhile. So I guess we'll be seeing more of that as well as the neighborhood becomes a little more respectable. But as Brian says, we're a long way off from seeing the world of the future at the Galleria Mall. Go, go, go anytime It's a great time to go Feels so good when the strikes are rolling

Don't know anyone who doesn't love bowling There's a 24-hour Bullerama Fun Center near you. Automatic scoring available at some locations. Dial U-Bow for reservations and information. Mark Daly, is it true? Is there a 24-hour Bullerama near me? There is no there a 24-hour Bola Rama near me? There is no longer a 24-hour Bola Rama near me because Bathurst Bola Rama closed down on December 15th.

It had been there going back to the early 60s. It was originally a chaise. That was a chain of bowling alleys when bowling was kind of a new thing. You know, this was the era of the Flintstones. I think that's kind of like the living legacy of bowling, right, to reflect like the early 1960s. Bowling was a thing that ladies and gentlemen did.

It was like, you know, a big recreational activity. You joined a bowling league. If you were too small for the 10-pin experience, they would have five-pin bowling, which was invented in Canada. Right. And Bathurst Bowlerama was there for all this time, like over 55 years. It was there at the corner of Bloor and Glencairn. This December marked the end of theuer and glen karen uh this december marked the end of the line for bathurst bowl-a-rama um and uh it was definitely not the first example of a bowling

alley running out of time uh as the winds of change keep blowing around the city there's no more room for uh the bowling alleys of yesteryear. You know, this closing got a lot of coverage, right? The mayor went there to pay his respects to the bowling alley. And people wonder, well, why weren't you there supporting it while it was going on? I actually think this Bathurst Bowlerama did pretty well. I think it was consistently active as far as people interested in bowling one of the things that i found in bowling i mean you remember going

to kids birthday parties there was one at uh on dundas not far from kipling that just shut down like a couple years ago and that was also bowl-o-rama right and there was always like a weird sticker shock when you would go to bowling you would think like hey this is a a fun ironic activity let's go to the bowling alley and and and between like renting the lane and yeah getting the shoes and uh i don't know maybe 50 bucks later yeah maybe you wanted some nachos it's like how how did this night of bowling end up costing like $54? This is not what I was expecting. It's true. I thought it was like six bucks to hang out here for a night. And then you learn,

there was a place called O'Connor Bowl on Islington. This is going back, but during the weekdays, it was 99 cents an hour or a game. I can't remember, but me and my buddies, I went to school not too far from there and we figured that out

and we would ditch school and bowl and it was a reasonably reasonably priced because it's 99 cents a game or something honorable i heard of a reporter who was looking into bathurst bowl-o-rama called up you know wondered if they if they had any comments about the closing of this place and actually on the phone the response they got from the owner was anything but cordial. In fact, the owner went into a whole tirade about, like, where were you when we were trying to make this thing work? That's funny. So I alluded to O'Connor Bowl because I was at Michael Power,

and a previous episode I mentioned Mrs. Weckerle, who was teaching, it turns out she wasn't Latin. She was teaching German at Michael Power. But her son is known to listeners of this podcast. And tell me, Mark Weisblatt, about the return of the El Macombo. Oh, Weckerle. I get it. There's a new sign up at the El Macombo. It looks a lot like the old sign that used to be on the El Macombo.

But this one has been expertly crafted through the greatest experts in neon, right? They took the original neon palms of the El Macombo and reconstructed them for the new millennium. And we've been hearing about this for years. It was four years ago that Michael Weckerle, a guy best known for being on Dragon's Den, right? He managed to make a lot of money in the investment industry on Bay Street. He was like the Bay Street rebel. And now sitting on this big pile of money, decided that he was going to pick up the cause of having the ultimate Toronto nightclub for all those

rockin' rockers out there who like to rock, the El Macombo is going to be the place where you can hang out. And are the Stones going to come there? Do you have any insight into that? Michael Wackerly says he went, I think, to Prague and had like a negotiation there

with somebody who knew somebody who knew Mick Jagger about whether he could get them to show up. I thought this would have happened a few years ago. They've been working on the renovations. Well, you thought Derringer was teasing that when Jennifer... Yeah, yeah, that's right.

You remember that, huh? Of course I do. I guess I got that one wrong. I remember all your mistakes, both of them. He said, we're having the most exciting thing ever here at Q107. It turned out to be his new sidekick. I thought they were going to be sponsoring. They were going to be putting on a Rolling Stones concert at the El Macombo.

They were going to be revisiting the spirit of 1977. Who would have imagined that the Rolling Stones would still be on the job here in 2019? But they've got a tour booked, and the tour coincides with when they say the El Macombo is reopening. Maybe we will see another surprise Rolling Stones concert at the Alamocombo. This Michael Wackerly seems to have deep pockets. He's willing to pay for it. And in the meantime, though, they relaunched the club by turning back on the sign.

Our friend Edward Keenan wrote one of his best columns of the year, if not ever, about the experience of watching the ceremony where they turned the sign back on. The fact all these people were gathered there at Spadina and College to watch this thing happen. You know, they found the people that like take this very seriously. They treat the El Macombo as like a sanctuary of everything they believe in. And all sorts of plans have been pronounced.

And, you know, they promise this will be where it's all happening, I guess, aiming for like an older money demographic that likes rock music. Michael Weckerle started up a record label to sign bands. He claims he's going to be recording them in the club with Eddie Kramer, the legendary producer, worked with Jimi Hendrix and Kiss. Now he's hanging out in Toronto at the El Macombo. Let's see if it ever happens. That's going to be a cliffhanger for 2019. for 2019. He says sometimes this spring,

maybe April 1st, but also joked that by saying April Fool's Day, he's got an out in case it's not ready by then. That's right. Did you listen to the Festivus episode I did with Elvis? You mean the episode where Elvis came into your basement, talked about how he never listens to your podcast,

then trashed you for all your Smith talked about how he never listens to your podcast. Then trashed you for all your nostalgic indulgences. Okay, so two things. One is he said that you... So 1236, I don't know if we've mentioned it. I was supposed to mention this off the top. 1236 is a newsletter that

people can subscribe to at 1236.ca. I'm subscribed. People should subscribe to this thing. It's amazing. You're the man behind it. But Elvis made a snide remark about how you're taking a lot of vacation time. Would you like to rebut? I didn't take an entire week off the entire 2018 until the end of November.

Elvis, what are you even talking about? I mean, he's not going to hear this. Yeah, I know he won't. But he took, so you took one week, and I understand you were in Israel? I was. I was on a press tour. You can't do the newsletter from Israel. They don't have the internet there.

Well, I mean, I needed a bit of a break. Anyhow, last time I was here back in October, I talked about how we were trying to figure out how to change things up, right? The newsletter has been going since mid-2015, I started doing this thing, not quite knowing where it would go. With St. Joseph Media, we did a lot of experiments and built up an audience for the idea of a daily newsletter. It comes out at 12.36 p.m. A lot of people seem to like it. They keep on opening it. But, yeah, this past fall I think was something of a holding pattern.

Some things changed with the company. And it's really been up to me. I mean, it's my assignment to figure out where to take this thing in the future and serve the audience that we have. So I would say of all the time I've been working on this, I'm not saying that I took a break. But I took license of the fact that I could coast a little bit through the fall, a bridge to 2019, and doing something a bit different,

and it's going to happen. Can you be more specific? What's going to be different? Will I embrace these changes, or will I miss the old 1236? It's a big picture, as far as where the whole digital journalism thing has been heading at this point in time.

I think a lot of people want to be able to make like big pronouncements, right, about what's going to happen next as far as internet news is concerned. So I had this opportunity to start this newsletter going on three and a half years ago. and a half years ago. It was in the orbit of Toronto Life magazine with St. Joseph providing some editorial support. So not 24 hours, not 24 hours. No, but 1236, a separate entity, right?

A brand unto itself that this company has believed in my ability to follow through on doing something different. And I'm not going to say that it hasn't been frustrating at some points along the way, but I think now it's time to follow through on all of this bluster and actually deliver a product that can prove itself as far as being worth people's attention. And presumably from that, some sort of revenue will follow. So up until this point, I've been – you know how these record labels would have in their heyday all sorts of money-making artists, right?

All sorts of things that generated big dividends for the company. And then they would keep some prestige bands hanging around, right? Just to make the thing look like it was on top of it all. So that's the role that I have played up until this point at St. Joseph. I've been like the thing that they've been able to say to clients that they run, you know, that is able to speak to an audience that I've cultivated this amount of attention out there and they can do this for other people too. At some point in time, though, you know, I'm going to have to carry my own weight.

I'm going to have to be able to show, you know, that this thing has some sort of viable position that it didn't have before. I want to make that happen. That's the big goal here going into 2019. Could I be any more abstract and obtuse about what I'm actually planning to do? I was going to call you John Tory because you've said a great deal, but you've said nothing. Is anything different in 2019? Yeah.

I think the style of how I'm writing these newsletters will change. The emphasis, the focus will be different, but I haven't settled on what that will be yet. I have to be all evasive and elusive. Let me be specific then. You took this week off, right?

I'm not getting 12.36 this week. Who sits there plugging away angry on the internet? I'm not judging you. I'm not judging you for taking, that was Elvis, ignorant. Elvis is ignorant.

He thinks you take a lot of time off. You don't. I can vouch for that. But will you be back, like for example, I know it's a stat day, New Year's,

nobody's looking for it that day, but will you be back at it January 2nd? I'll be back at it in early January, date to be determined. Probably the 7th.

You're like Mike Richards, you're going to be back at it. Figure out at what point I'll be doing something a little bit different. But will you? I mean, I've got this audience. That's a given. I want to be able to do a more effective job of communicating with them than I've done up until

this point. They keep on opening the newsletter, right? We established that. Once you've got that mind share, once you've got that amount of people paying attention to you, then you've got to follow through, right? Then you've got to turn it into something. So 2018 was very much about being on the precipice of waiting to turn it into something. And there was a chance that I wouldn't continue.

But now it looks like that's going to happen. And now we'll figure out where it goes. Well, then imagine me coming down here. I have to explain how everything fell apart and how I didn't want to do it anymore. Well, you know what I'm going to ask? I would ask you what I always ask you, which is why is there still no 1236 podcast? Well, that was a plan to do something in the audio genre

at St. Joseph Media. It wasn't going to be all about me. There were other things that were going to feed into it, too. So you would ask me about it, and I would be like, oh, I don't know. Maybe it's going to happen soon, and we're testing some things out, and we're hanging around, and I don't know if that fad has passed us by.

The podcasting fad? No, I don't... Podcasting isnad has passed us by. The podcasting fad? Podcasting isn't going anywhere. I meant the idea of being able to leverage that as something that a company that produces magazines and websites puts so much energy into it. So yeah, they put that on the back burner if it ever happens at all.

Maybe it'll happen. Remind me again, this is no judgment at all. I'm impressed by everything you do, and it's very big leagues and amazing. But why is it, again, that you're not completely independent on this project? Why are you in bed with St. Joseph's Media? Why am I in bed?

Because they came up with a scheme in which they're paying me money. That's the reason. Okay, that's the reason. I wasn't sure because... Okay, good. That's a great reason. I think that's the best reason ever.

Well, now we've got to figure out how to make money. That would be the next phase of it. There was some advertising along the way. Look, I mean, a lot has changed in three or four years as far as, like, what is a website for? We've seen so many disasters in the world of creating content online. many disasters in the world of creating content online all these big names that we recognize buzzfeed yeah vice and vox you know the these companies a lot of venture capital big overhead though these guys big overhead and like a huge burn rate i mean the you know toronto star tor star you know you asked them three three and a years ago, they told you the future belonged to the tablet.

Yes. Right? Star Touch was going to be the thing that everyone was looking at. All these naysayers said, what are you doing? What are you thinking? This is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life. And it took a couple of years for them to acknowledge that, you know, maybe it was all just a waste of time. So we've gone through this era, this whole period,

in which a lot of things were tried out, and I think some terrific opportunities for a lot of people. In this way, I don't think it's such a bad thing that I didn't succeed as I once thought I would with the newsletter style that I was doing. I think now we're going to try a different approach with the newsletter style that I was doing. Now we're going to try a different approach to the newsletter and reach people

in a different way and maybe justify its existence in the way that wasn't happening before. So, okay, so next time you're on, which hopefully is three months from now, we can talk in specifics about what these changes were and how they worked

and all that jazz. So stay tuned. Yeah, the audience is there. The people are reading. They're paying attention. It doesn't matter how much I slack off, how lazy I get. How many times you go to Israel? Yeah, how many days I take off, disappear. How upset Elvis gets that I'm not

delivering his newsletter every day. I think it's amazing that he pays that much attention to me. He feels he's entitled. He cares more about me than he does about you. I noticed that. He listened to one episode because I asked him to review the diversity in sports media episode because that's kind of his bag, and I wanted him, and he wore me. It was during the Sloan concert at the Phoenix.

He told me that I, be careful, Mike. He says he envisioned me getting in a whole whack of trouble as if I couldn't handle the sensitivity of the topic and the subject matter. And anyway, I passed his thorough review. I got rave reviews from Elvis. But please, I just looked at the clock. So what I'm going to do is I want to tell everybody listening,

$10 is yours right now. You go to paytm.ca, download the excellent Paytm app. It's an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. I use it to pay all of my bills because I get rewarded for bill payments. And I can choose how I pay, credit card, bank, or Paytm Cash. So if you want $10 right now in Paytm Cash, use the promo code Toronto Mike when you make your first bill payment. You get the $10. You can use it towards another bill payment or rewards purchase. It's just free money, man.

You know, you have tough times. You get that $10 right now. It's a great app anyway. It doesn't cost you anything to use it. Paytm.ca. Thank you, Paytm, because they just renewed for another three months. And I really value their

partnership. What happened to Pink Floyd? Money by Pink Floyd. You turned me off of it, I think. Did I? No, I never said a bad word about it. I think people still love that La Tournesol by Nana Muscuri. You get full credit for that one.

She told me she's coming back during those three months when everyone signs up their kids for summer camp, I will play that again, hopefully, and Camp Tournesol returns. That's my hope and my dream there. Now, I'm looking at the topics. We have four hours of content left, and I want to fit everything in 30 minutes. So we're going to go kind of rapid fire. I know we say this every

week, but if you can maybe stick to a minute per topic, I'm just going to start throwing things at you. I want to ask you about Frank D'Angelo. He had a prolific year. You would think that Frank D'Angelo would be fading away. His big benefactor,

Barry Sherman, as far as anyone can tell, along with his wife, Honey, they were murdered last December, an unsolved murder in Toronto. And people were wondering, what's up with Frank D'Angelo? He's no longer got Barry Sherman around, the most enthusiastic backer of all his products. Little did anyone know, but Frank D'Angelo came through with three films in 2018. Now, they haven't all been released yet, but it's quite a thing, right, for Frank to be able to announce online that he's just made one of these movies. So there were three this year. One was The Joke Thief that actually played at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival.

I know people that went to the TIFF light box, and they saw Frank with his movie. The other one, The Last Big Save, a hockey-themed movie. Andy Frost, apparently. Right, whose son scored yesterday versus poor Denmark, who we beat 14 to nothing in the World Juniors. And one more, a mysterious movie from Frank, Making a Deal with the Devil. Now, on top of all that, as far as I could tell, Frank became a father this year.

I'm not sure exactly. For the first time? I don't know. I have no idea. But there's a Frank D'Angelo lullaby album that he produced in honor of these children that I think are his children. So big year, 2018. Frank D'Angelo and the Being Frank talk show is back on CHCH. So he can still afford to have that on CHCH, even though, sadly, like you mentioned, the Sherman murders were a year ago. I'm not sure what's going on there now. People were curious about their son, the Sherman's son, Jonathan. He's ended up being in charge of their pharmaceutical company, Apotex. And one of the first things he did was he got rid of a longtime partner of his father

and uh in a goldmail article it mentioned his apprenticeship at the hands of frank d'angelo so when you've got that on your resume i guess it's gonna keep coming up over and over oh at the brewery or steelback if I got my facts right there. But let me, I'm playing, he's not related to me. I thought he was, and maybe he is. I was assured by this priest from Ireland that Jeff Healy was my cousin.

But anyway, Jeff Healy, See the Light. What a great album this was. Confidence Man was on this and he covered George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Sleeps. Please tell me, there's a book out, right? By Jeff Healy.

By far the best Canadian show business book of 2018. It's called The Best Seat in the House, written by Tom Stephen, drummer for the Jeff Healy band. Now, this book has already caused a bit of commotion. Well, first it came out, and I wondered, why wasn't anybody talking about this book has already caused a bit of commotion. Well, first it came out, and I wondered, why wasn't anybody talking about this book? I don't think I have seen this much dirt dished about what it's like to work in the Canadian music business as much as Jeff Healy's drummer.

Got a review from the Globe and Mail that was less than kind. Globe and Mail that was less than kind. It was curious about, you know, why did why did Jeff Healy's drummer who was, you know, riding this meal ticket, the fact that he was not only the drummer, but also the manager, you know, here, Jeff Healy's been dead for over a decade. You know, what's he writing a book talking about how terrible the experience was of trying to make it in rock and roll? But I thought it was honest, it was candid, it was different. And here we've got Tom Stephen out there doing a bit of promo for the book. He was even on a podcast from our friend Kareem Kanji, the Welcome Podcast. And he's kind of explaining

that no, he wasn't really in it to disparage Jeff and everything he represented. That it was actually a tribute to the guy and all of his talents. But I think people like the dirt. They like to read something that's a little bit gossipy that says

in hindsight that it's not all that it seemed as far as the glamour was concerned of finding this blind guy who could play the guitar like nobody else. And, you know, how they wrote this thing to contract with Arista Records. Clive Davis was backing the band. You know, they had a huge hit, Angel Eyes. Angel Eyes. What backing the band. They had a huge hit, Angel Eyes. Angel Eyes. What a beautiful song. Absolutely. And here was Tom. He was advised

not to be a manager of the band at the same time he was actually in the band. That you shouldn't cross your wires that way. What he writes about in the book, clash after clash with Jeff Healy as this guy who was seen as a guitar playing prodigy. He wasn't so into this idea of being a corporate rock star.

And, you know, you could read it like a lot of accusations here about how Jeff, in fact, sabotaged their shot here at the big time. And they had all sorts of run-ins with, like, big stars. And it seemed the way it's told in the book. They managed to infuriate one person after another after another. It was like an endless series of letdowns. They got George Harrison to do a solo on a version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

I think I said weeps. Making up for the fact that Eric Clapton was on the Beatles record, so it was like George's opportunity, right? Right. To do justice, and then they mixed the record, and you could barely even hear George Harrison when the record came out.

Wow. Keith Richards, Mark Knopfler, just like name dropping all over the place. And the fact that Jeff never really followed through, that he was like more interested in his like 78 jazz record collection, more into the idea of being a trumpet player than following through on what people expected of him. So a real book as far as, you know, reading the dirt dish from the Canadian music industry of the era. And, you know, you wonder, like, what went wrong?

We heard all this stuff about Jeff Healy. What happened to him? And this book spells it out. And it's even stranger now, I think, that the drummer who wrote it is saying his intentions were actually not to trash the guy. That he had all sorts of disputes with his family

and Jeff Healy's estate, but in the end, he just meant, well, he wanted to put on the record. I think it was a great read. Different sort of book. You can get it at the library. Well, now I want to get him on the record. I think it was a great read. Different sort of book. You can get it at the library. Well, now I want to get him on the podcast. That's the kind of conversation I want to have.

And yet, he's not quite backing up the voice that he puts on in the book. Maybe it was a ghostwriter that spun it in a way that he doesn't agree with. To get some attention, sure. Different read out there. There was another Jeff Ely song, Lost in Your Eyes. Of course. It was a Tom Petty cover version. You wondered, like, why did Tom Petty have this two-chord song

that he handed off to Jeff Healy? It's on the Tom Petty box set. It was originally from his band Mud Crutch. Right. And when you hear the original Tom Petty version, it makes a lot more sense. So I went back to that. And, you know, your friend Molly Johnson once worked with Jeff Healy, too. Was that a Jazz FM?

No, that was backing vocals on one of his records. So, yeah, down a Jeff Healy rabbit hole this fall in the book that I'm not sure even the drummer that wrote it is all that proud of. Maybe he should read his book. It's out there. The Facts of Life. So Blair and Tootie were in town. I used to watch this in syndication after school.

Facts of Life. CTV launched a streaming website here in this age of netflix bell media they also have crave they renamed their movie network in hbo it's now all crave tv uh you know by the way i find confusing i'm a crave customer and now there's two levels of crave there's the uh the old level which i have which lets me watch you know the wire and seinfeld and stuff like that. But now there's the new level, which includes the new HBO stuff and the TMN stuff.

So now there's two craves. It's very confusing to me. I kind of love the fact that CTV now has a streaming website for things that you could never actually charge money for. It's like a VHS bargain bin of streaming video. It's like if you can't afford Netflix, if even Crave TV is out of reach for you, Bell Media to the rescue with their website. So they launched CTV Throwback. Our friend Ed Conroy, Retro Ontario, he's talked about the fact they destroyed the tapes of so many of these legendary CTV shows. You think, what is CTV throwback? Like you think of CTV.

You want Uncle Bobby reruns. Trouble with Tracy. Where's Definition? Headline Hunters. Come on. How about that CTV show Circus? Remember Circus? That was one of the variety shows they produced there. I feel like we talked about Circus? Remember Circus? That was one variety show they produced there.

I feel like we talked about Circus before on here. Anyway, CTV throwback. But that's not the rock and roll magazine, the heavy metal rock and roll magazine. No, no. No, Circus was like with like Donny and Marie impersonators, and they would come out and introduce Circus acts. I saw a taping of the show in Agent Court. Okay, well, speaking of Bell Media, then. So, yeah, they put out their own

bargain basement streaming video website, and you can now watch, in Canada, every episode of The Facts of Life. So I thought it was an amusing diversion there that they had Blair and Tootie of The Facts of Life. They made the rounds at Bell Media, on Chum, on The Social,

all their platforms, all their shows, to talk about the facts of life with Alan Thicke's theme song as something to get excited about. How Canadian can you get, really? Imagine you're Blair and Tootie and the phone call comes in. You're needed up in Toronto to make the rounds and talk about how people now can stream your sitcom online.

I mean, that's a lot of hours of the facts of life, like nine years of that sitcom. Yeah, and there's some George Clooney in there and some big names come in there. Do you remember Tootie's real name, real first name? Do you know this at all? I don't remember. I've had too many names. I believe it's Dorothy. I hope I'm right. Someone will correct me. Speaking of Bell Media,

can this be true? The last real MuchMusicVJ was fired by Etalk? Devin. You remember Devin? Barely. He won the MuchMusicVJ search. VJ Devin. And MuchMusic at the time was still a going concern as far as still playing music videos.

And if you were a VJ on MuchMusic, it was still kind of a big deal. He would have even overlapped with when Strombo was still there. It was fast-track track to Canadian celebrity. I don't know if people recognize at the time that maybe this was the end of an era, the whole idea of how much music VJ was sunsetting. But Devin, they ended up moving him over to CP24 once Bell Media acquired that. And, you know, I mean, listen, it was good enough for J.D. Roberts to go from being a VJ to a news anchorman. Why couldn't Devin get that opportunity, too? So

for a while he was he was doing the news on CP24. They moved him over to E-Talk. He did that for a number of years, kind of like Ben Mulroney's understudy on E-Talk. Did you ever see him in action over there? You know, I've never seen a minute of eTalk. I don't know how to explain what you're missing. Is it like Entertainment Tonight, essentially? Yeah, pretty much. But he did a bunch of years working on eTalk and then Bell Media every November.

They secretly cut back, get rid of a bunch of people. They announced they don't have jobs anymore. I think they've gotten better at announcing departures from Bell Media. So Devin, I think the last of the legacy of MuchMusicVJs, no longer with the company. The end of an era.

And as far as I know, Ben Mulroney no longer has that mini-me, that understudy, right, that guy to play the role when he's not there. But, hey, times are tough for everyone, and Devin says he's working on new things, new platforms, new hopes, new dreams, a guy that won a contest to be a much-music VJ. Like Rick the Temp. Yeah, and like all the rest, found himself with a pink slip. And Rick the Temp, coincidentally, did end up on Entertainment Tonight Canada

before he was let go, so that's where they all go. They all end up the contest winners at Much Music. All right, I'm playing Homo Sapien. I remember this on the radio. Early 80s, I want to say. 1982 would have been the time that Pete Shelley's Homo Sapien. I remember this on the radio. Early 80s, I want to say. 1982 would have been the time that Pete Shelley's Homo Sapien. I guess we're into the death list now. Well, here, because due to time, we're now in the second hour.

We've completed two hours. We're in the third hour, and I want to hit these in memoriam. I want to do all the deaths on your list. I feel like the death section of the podcast needs like a bigger opening. It needs its own theme song. We need like a stinger or something. Okay, so yeah. Rest in peace.

Talking about the people that died this fall. And what's the connection here to Toronto Mike? Pete Shelley, Homo Sapien, made number two on the Chum Chart, 1050 Chum, July 1982. A song that was not even a hit in England where Pete Shelley came from. Turned out to be a big deal in Canada. I think that was, you know, the effect of CFNY, that whole influence. The whole Britpop thing of the early 80s.

So Pete Shelley, a guy that developed his chops with the Buzzcocks, he first came on my radar, your radar, with this song. I mean, who knows this song who's not fond of it, right? This is one of those generational anthems that I don't see how anyone could dislike. I'm with you, man. I'm with you. How old was he again? Do you have that in your notes? I don't see how anyone could dislike. I'm with you, man. I'm with you. How old was he again? Do you have that in your notes? I don't know. You put it on your website. Pete Shelley passed

away. And yeah, this song, absolutely. And I posted this song because I remember it when I was just getting into like when I was leaving Rafi and Sharon Lewis and Brom for like real music. I remember this. Pete Shelley was 63 when he died on December 6th, and of course his history as part of the whole punk rock thing

was really deep. The band ended up reuniting, but at the time when Homo Sabien was number two on Chum, what was keeping it out of the number one slot? It was Body Language by Queen was number one on Chum. What was keeping it out of the number one slot? It was Body Language by Queen was number one at the time. So this was a little different for the AM dial of the day. I mean, you know, these songs are pretty debauched, kind of complicated stuff for a 10-year-old to be listening to.

But through the song, we got to know who pete shelley was and the history behind him so i think as far as music deaths of the last few weeks um way up there as far as people paying attention to him rob sheffield of rolling stone wrote what i thought was a good tribute and kind of mentioning homo sapien as far as being one of those groundbreaking songs right as far as like discussing the the topic of of gender identity back in the day and uh if you were as young as we were kind of complicated but but a big part of his legacy I love those vinyl pops. Girl, we made it to the top We went so high we couldn't stop

Climbed the ladder leading us nowhere The hungry years, do you recognize this voice? You led us together The Hungry Years. Do you recognize this voice? Fred Napoli? Okay, I know this version of the Neil Sedaka song for no other reason than I used to listen to Fred Napoli. He was the overnight guy on CFRB 1010 through the 80s into the early 90s. I don't think I've ever heard an example like this anywhere else. Fred used to play his own records on his radio show.

I feel like Frank D'Angelo would do that. Hey, Mike Ben Dixon, give Frank D'Angelo a show on CFRB. Yeah, well, he might pay for it. So, yeah, of course. So we lost Fred Napoli. And I did go to YouTube. I saw, for example, a surprise birthday party for him. And I had to kind of catch up on my Fred because I don't remember listening to Fred.

But he was a radio legend. I saw Donabee wrote some tributes to the man. It was a big deal. I helped Fred Napoli stay on the air. In 1992, CFRB was changing to all-talk format. They were getting rid of music on the station, and they got rid of Fred Napoli. He had a history there at CFRB, before that at CKFM 99.9, the overnight guy.

And back then, when I was writing these bits for Eye, I mentioned the fact that Fred was losing his show. Here was this all-night radio on the weekend. To me, it was like a transformative experience to hear this guy. Overnight, he would play his own songs. He would read his own stories. I mean, I was not in the demographic

for whatever he was up to, but I had strange tastes. You were wise beyond your years. And I had this forum as a really young guy writing in the free newspaper, and I kind of mentioned the fact that Fred was losing his show. They didn't want him on the air anymore. He no longer fit the format. What happened was a week or two later, Fred came back. They let him stay on the format. What happened was, a week or two later, Fred came back.

They let him stay on the air. They kept him around for another year because of the outcry that my little item brought on. Yeah, so he had one more year. I think that was 1992 into 1993. But it was always a surreal experience listening to Fred doing his overnight show.

And this was in the later years of his career being on the air in Toronto. He would have an all-night show. The all-night show would end at 8 o'clock in the morning. So could you imagine, like, you're tuning in to see him or me at 6 or 7 a.m. on a Sunday, and there's the overnight guy, and he's still sitting in the air chair. Like what kind of morning show is this? And I think that's when Fred would break out his own records. Canadian content.

They needed it on an early Sunday morning. So, yeah, rest in peace, Fred Napoli. I think an amazing voice. I mean, heard on hundreds of commercials. and he died around Remembrance Day. There's a recording of him reading In Flanders Fields. Yes, I heard that. Excellent. And it's a demonstration of his talents. So we will miss Fred Napoli.

Now, speaking of CFRB, we also lost David Craig. And, yeah, with CFRB, I don't understand why they never mention on the station that people that used to work there have died. You would think this would be like the top of the news. Now, of course, when Wally Crowder, the morning man for 50 years, passed away, I think they made a kind of a big deal about that one. I think they made a kind of a big deal about that one. But when David Craig, who was like a prominent newsman on CFRB through the 1970s, when he died this fall, it was even like difficult to find information about it. Not a lot of obituaries, of course, with 1236. I try to remember these people, acknowledge them. And yeah, David Craig, he had like that commanding news voice.

Do you think it's because, as we mentioned with the whole 640 versus 1010, that maybe they so desire the younger ears that they don't want to alienate the younger ears with a name that they will not know? They might have mentioned it on Zoomer radio because David Craig ended up working at Classical, 96.3, Classical FM in later years. And he was on 680 News and he did a big band radio show. So yeah, that was someone else who died. And what would have once been the topic of an obituary in the newspaper.

It's strange how this happens. You sort of, maybe you come across a Facebook post or somebody links something on Twitter. And, you know, these are the secret celebrities that, for me, it's always interesting to reflect upon the impact that they have. That a voice that millions of people once would have been familiar with is no longer around. I would have thought more attention would have been paid to this fact. So I do what I can, right? No, that's why we're doing now.

My own little corner. Yeah, that's why we're doing the obit list. Who else did we have this fall? I want to talk about the first DJ on Chum. Oh, Chum FM. That was it. Tim Thomas. Yeah, on the first day they changed Chum FM from a classical music feed to the freeform progressive radio, Tim Thomas was one of the first voices on there. He ended up being some sort of clergyman, some kind of pastor out in Vancouver. He died a little while ago. Not too many details.

I'm not sure if I couldn't find anything because that wasn't his real name. That's what happens with these radio guys. And it's such a common name anyways. Tim Thomas. But he was one of those people that was there on day one of 104.5 Chum FM. So we're talking about Roger Ashby and the legacy of Chum FM. Well, this guy was there from the start working on Chum FM, doing the whole freeform radio thing. It's like Marsden era, right?

Yeah, before that even. Pete and Geet. And there are people out there. This is before I was born, but there are people out there who have still a very specific memory of hearing these things and the contribution that they made. So if you get John Donabee back in here, maybe you can ask him about Tim Thomas. Which I wish will happen. He will come back and I will ask him. Absolutely. And Michael Kesterton. I would credit for being a bit of an influence on the 1236 newsletter or just the whole idea of writing a column every day of news nuggets, things that you rounded up. So this was a lifer at the Globe and Mail, a guy who worked there his entire career doing editing, maybe some writing.

In 1990, they were redesigning the Globe and Mail. Do you remember this at all? Did you ever have a Globe and Mail in your house? They had a back page. This is when the Globe and Mail redesigned. In the mid-'90s, my first wife subscribed to the Globe and Mail, and it would arrive when I got married, and she loved that. That was her newspaper. On the back of the front section, they had a page called Facts and Arguments.

It would have a column. It would have a first person essay and then there was a thing every day called social studies and it was um michael kesterton he would uh round up all kinds of items that he found whatever you know also all sorts of miscellaneous uh things that he collected that he gathered that he put together, found the connection between two different events that were happening. And when they introduced this thing in the globe, as far as I could tell, looking back in history, it was the most popular thing the Globe and Mail ever did. The social studies column.

He did it for something like 23 years. He retired. His health wasn't that great. And we lost him this fall. You know, not a guy who was a big journalism star, not a guy who would have his picture in the paper, you know, but he was there every day for all those years, a staple of the newspaper.

I'm playing Laughter in the Rain because this relates to the passing of Lyman Potts. You said that as we go down the death list, we should get older and older, right? Oh, you know what? You're right. I'll save an old... This is our oldest

death. This guy died. He was 102 years old. You can't get much of a better deal than dying at 102. That's pretty good. You could't get much of a better deal than dying at 102. That's pretty good. You could make it to 103, but 102, you would think you did okay, right? So who is Lyman Potts?

Lyman Potts was a radio executive, worked for Standard Broadcasting, the development of the Canadian radio industry as we know it. He was a big figure in all that, and I guess the biggest part of his legacy was that he had the idea to record Canadian musicians, get them on record,

so that radio stations would actually have Canadians to play on the radio because there weren't many around. They weren't being recorded. So what we're hearing in the background is laughter in the rain. Another Neil Sedaka one. This is a version by Jackie Matu.

I feel like we've mentioned Jackie Matu a lot down here, no? Is that the name of your band? A little bit. Can't claim to be a Jackie expert. Okay, Jackie Matu, a guy who moved to Toronto from Jamaica, reggae musician. He made some of these groovy, easy-listening albums that they would play on stations like CFRB

just to get the Canadian content in there, do cover versions of Neil Sedaka songs like this one. And these would become staples of the Canadian airwaves. Lyman Potts was a guy who had this idea when nobody else did. So when he died this fall at 102 years old, I think he got more attention than a lot of these other radio characters for living that long. And if you look up Jackie Matu from the 1970s on YouTube

and a lot of the other musicians in the Canadian Talent Library, we owe it to him having the idea. These talents were around. He's the one that got them on record. Sad, horrific car crash in Mexico took the life of husband and wife Leslie Soul and Terry Michael. Oh, was there a sadder story than this one about the fact that here was this Toronto Canadian broadcasting couple

married for around 40 years. Terry Michael was a voice that I guess at her peak was heard on CKFM 99.9. And she would do the midday show. She ended up at other stations as well in Toronto, including on 97.3 at one point doing the morning show but the story behind this couple and how they met was originally through shome in montreal legendary rock radio station so terry michael was uh just a young woman who uh would would listen to the live earl jive on shome um and ended up calling in on one of his shows to have some kind of argument about an Eric Clapton concert that happened the night before, about whether it was any good.

The station manager heard this woman on the line and said, find her, get her over here. We need that voice on the air. So that's a wonderful story about how to make it in radio in the mid 70s in montreal leslie soul who ended up being her husband he came in as the program director of the station um they both ended up losing their job because the owner jeff sterling he didn't want any employee relationships going on there got rid of both both of them, and they came to Toronto. So we had Terry Michael on a bunch of different radio stations, and Leslie Saul, who became known as the guy who was hired by Rogers to find a way to save CFMT, Channel 47.

It was licensed as a multilingual television channel, went broke after a few years, and it was Leslie Soule who was put in charge of trying to make it work and trying to work other programming into the lineup so that, you know, it could be somehow self-sustaining as a TV channel he got a lot of credit for making that a success some controversy followed because uh the tributes from rogers were naming him as the the godfather of canadian multicultural television but uh retro ontario had up on his website uh some dispute of this fact and of course you don't want to be you know you don't the guy just died right you don't want to get a whole controversy going about you know this

person we tragically lost about getting credit for something they didn't do um but yeah it was in fact uh channel 47 existed before him uh and even before that there was City TV that was doing multicultural television. Nonetheless, big loss, tragic story, but as these obituaries go, I think like a great romance of Canadian broadcasting. Now, Leslie Soule wrote an article that actually inspired me to devote a whole episode to this topic,

which is coming in 2019. I'm just working on the guest. I have Mark Hebbs here involved, but it was an article about the greatest station no one listened to in Toronto, and it was about Metro 1430. Yeah, that's where he worked before. He ended up joining Rogers,

and that'll be something else. I'm talking about lost nostalgia as far as radio is concerned, the point where 1430 CKFH, you know, they tried to go for like that full service radio thing. Well, it's some of the names involved in this project,

like just some of the massive, from John Donabee, well, John Oakley was like the overnight guy, and there was John Donabee, and I mean, Hebsey was actually there for a while, but there was Scott Ferguson doing sports. Joe Bowen, I think, was there, but there's this lengthy list of major broadcasters

that were there, but due to some signal issues, and there's a whole bunch of specifics that we're going to cover, but due to issues of the signal that not many people actually could hear this day and jerry howarth was in there howard yes coming down here right sometime in april he says april yes and he seems to be i trust the guy he seems to be an honorable guy he says he's coming in april he's got a new book coming out i think that's what he wants to talk about in april who else died this fall before we're done here Who else died this fall before we're done here? Oh!

I think there's a voice in here somewhere. Good afternoon, Mr. Raymer. Everything is going extremely well. Let me put it this way, Mr. Raymer. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. So I am constantly occupied. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use,

which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. Okay, we got a taste there of HAL 9000. Douglas Rain was the voice of HAL 9000 from 2001, A Space Odyssey. And he died at age 90 this fall. So is he the ripe old age that you want to end on? Well, I'm going to end on somebody else. So we're going to end on Harry Leslie Smith. Oh, okay.

So Douglas Rain, he was one of the founders of the Stratford Festival. So Douglas Rainey was one of the founders of the Stratford Festival, and he was a guy that Stanley Kubrick found, a perfect voice for Hal 9000 that he figured out. Originally, Kubrick, he was imagining like he had kind of like a biblical influence that he was imagining for this character, right? Like this all-knowing voice, this god. Charlton Heston? No, no. It was more like Jackie Mason was more he imagined, like somebody rabbinical. There's a book called, believe it or not,

this is the actual title of a book, Stanley Kubrick, New York Jewish Intellectual. And it gets into the fact that he imagined something a lot more sticky for HAL 9000. Imagine if that happened with the legacy of that film. So Douglas Rain was Hal 9000. And he was Hal 9000, and there

was the sequel, right? 2010? Year We Make Contact. And there was an SCTV skit. And he reprised the role. Well, of course. He was from around these parts. so it was um douglas rain 90 year old uh veteran stage actor but uh here's a thing he did like a half

century ago that he'll always be remembered for so i think he died on the same weekend as fred napoli who were mentioned there so there were you know two voices that a lot of people recognize as voices, even if they don't know the names behind them. And Harry Leslie Smith. I don't know what to say about this guy. Here is somebody who came to prominence on Twitter. He was a Second World War veteran who had his son doing tweeting and podcasting for him. And the whole message that Harry Leslie Smith had was the fact that, you know, here he was, a British war veteran who fought there, you know, for a better world.

And into his 90s, he despaired about the fact that, you know, the world didn't turn out like he imagined. Here we were in a world, you know, where the president of the United States is Donald Trump. He's letting me down. This is not what I went to war for. And was very emphatic about his message, even if it wasn't him who was doing all the tweeting. He toured around, wanted to get the message out.

So he spent half the year in the UK and the other half in Canada, living in Belleville, Ontario. So here we are with the holiday season. The Harry's Last Stand Twitter account continues. It's his son running it. And there's some questions in the air about why his son, who just raised a bunch of money from a GoFundMe account, decided he had to start

another GoFundMe account in order to preserve Harry's legacy, something about paying his debts and protecting his copyrights. Maybe this is all genuine, but there were some questions out there about why exactly he had to start another GoFundMe

and why Harry's son is blocking anyone on Twitter who asks questions about what's going on there. So maybe we will find out the answer. Everybody wants the best out there for everyone else, right? Everyone on Twitter is all very respectful and kind of everyone else's experiences. Nobody means to dig up any dirt or find any evidence of wrongdoing, so

waiting to hear what is going on there and why Harry's memory requires money in order to be carried on by his offspring. And, of course, the reason we can close with Harry is he passed away at the ripe old age of 95. Okay, but look how we found that other spin there.

It's a bit of a cliffhanger, right? We'll see where we're at by the time I'm down here next time and there will be a next time I insist upon it you get three months off and then you gotta come back is that cool? and how many topics did we not cover? we should have like a part one

part two maybe you should come on monthly this seems to be a lot to cover but we did leave a lot on the cutting room floor but I think we got a lot to cover. But we did leave a lot on the cutting room floor. But I think we got a lot of good stuff in there. And chocolate. It's almost two and a half hours.

We did two and a half hours. Answer in the comments if you think I should be back sooner than that. But, yeah, a lot of work to do with 1236.ca. And a new style of newsletter as soon as I figure out what that should be. And that brings us to the end of our 414th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. 1236, of course.

Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. That was a great win last night. Palma Pasta is at Raptors devotee. That was a great win last night. Palma pasta is at Palma pasta. Fast time. Watch and jewelry repair is at fast time. W J R and pay TM is at pay TM Canada. See you all tomorrow with James B.

Happy new year. Mike. Happy new year. Mark. Happy New Year.