Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #427

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

Mike's monthly chat with Marc Weisblott of 12:36 about the current state of media in Canada.

Welcome to episode 427 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Property in the 6, all right on cue, propertyinthesix.com, Paytm Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair and our newest sponsor Buckle. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me is 1236's very own Mark Weisblot.

Hey, I got in just under the wire for January 2019. Absolutely. And what are you doing here so soon? We last saw you at the end of December. You come in every quarter. If my math is correct, that's every three months.

So what the heck are you doing here, bud? Well, it's not like I broke into your house here. I mean, you welcomed me into the basement, I think, by mutual agreement, rather than me coming in every quarter and us racing through to finish all the topics I had in what, like two and a half hours we were pushing by last time? And quite frankly, I'm tired of leaving so much good content on the cutting room floor. But even now, like here we are one month since you were last here and there's enough content. Like even now we got to get right to it. Okay, so let's not even make any promises about how long this is going to go on for,

but here I am, one of the coldest days of January. I don't know, was yesterday colder than today? Where are we here? I think maybe a little, but these are cold days. These are days I cannot ride my bike. So for the first time visiting here, I had to take refuge in the Rogue Byway. I'd never stepped in there before.

What did you think? Give us your review. Well, first of all, you've got like an old porn theater kind of vibe to it, right? A dilapidated building like it's been around for a while. But I was impressed for this neighborhood here in New Toronto. I think this must be a pretty good general store for a lot of people. It has everything you would need in your life. I mean, dollar store quality experiences.

They've got the furniture upstairs. I think that's what gave the porn theater feeling. Like the upstairs where they sell furniture. Right. The lights were off, so it was kind of like a forbidden room. Hell yeah, you're all alone up there. Yes, I know what you mean. Like, you're all alone up there, right?

I saw you could get Saskatchewan Rough Riders sneakers, $9.99 high tops. You can't beat that price. That seemed very vintage byway. Another thing in there, paper towels, but without a wrapping. So you buy a roll of paper towels, right? Like there's nothing to protect it, to carry it in. So I guess if you're environmentally conscious enough to not want any wrapping on your paper towels, you're still the kind of person who would use paper towels, the Rogue

Byway has you covered. Remember you used to do those interesting Instagram posts from a dollar store. Yeah, just a way of filling up 1236 on Instagram. If you could make time, maybe not on the coldest day of the year, but make time on... Give

the Rogue Byway the attention it deserves. Well, keep in mind, this is not like a Walmart, right? They're going to be wondering what you're doing, wandering around there, snapping pictures of everything. They'll appreciate the exposure, like the free marketing. I think they might like it. But, yeah, we were wondering, like, how long could the rogue byway last,

especially if the real byway is coming back? But it seems in this neighborhood, you don't have, within walking walking distance any big box stores, do you? No, definitely not. So yeah, I think the rogue byway would actually have a customer base who depend on this thing. Yeah, you got to drive to Sureway to get to the big box stuff, which is a little bit of a hike. But yeah, nothing you can walk to, that's for sure. Now, I want to ask you, before we dive in here, have you been enjoying recent episodes of Toronto Mike? Any standouts? Where were we? Well, the other day you had my old classmate, right? Mike Wilner was down here. And a comment that he made about being on your podcast, what, four times now? Three times? At least four times. three times, and this was his fourth time, and then he went to TMLX2, the one that I wasn't at.

But one thing that stood out with Wilner's commentary about coming down here, the fact that being on your podcast has humanized him, that people don't think that he's the same jerk that he is on the radio when he comes on Toronto Might. This podcast has been very, very good to Mike Wilner. Absolutely. In fact, today I was with, this morning, I was with a listener of Toronto Mic'd, and his remark was that it was really bothering him to admit it, like it was irking him to admit it because he kind of loves to hate Wilner.

But he was starting to like Wilner from my show, so I take great pride in that. And I think that's why I have to come back here more often every month, because if you can rehabilitate Mike Wilner, imagine what you can do for me. I've humanized the beast. I think we'll really reach a singularity here if I'm coming in to do the podcast, and I'm coming down at the same time that Wilner is coming up, right? Like running into each other in the waiting room to go see the same psychiatrist, that kind of feeling, right? You know, we would like recognize one another, but we wouldn't acknowledge the fact that the other guy is there doing this because we're kind of here for the same therapeutic purposes.

Now, you came up in that Mike Wilner episode because you're former classmates. So I dropped your name. But I also, you came up several times in the recent Tyler Stewart episode. Oh, yeah. Well, as far as Toronto Mike episodes of 2019, right? That was in January. Yeah, that was January. Seems long enough ago.

You were apologizing for not doing as many podcasts. I mean, this January. No, I was apologizing for not doing as many podcasts? I mean, this January? No, I was apologizing for not writing as much. I think that was misunderstood by a commenter. I actually think my pacing of podcasts is the same as always. I did three this week. What do they want from me? So we had Tyler Stewart down here.

You did what? 420. Two and a half hours? Two hours, 40 minutes with Tyler. I knew he was listening to Toronto Mike all along. How did you know? Because I didn't know. How did you know? Because I have a pretty good idea of his tastes, right? I mean,

he laid them all out when he was down here. I think the Easter egg in the episode was the fact that off the top you played that clip of Bob Einstein. He died a few days before. Super Dave being interviewed by Gian Gomeschi, pretending that he didn't know who this guy was, who used to drive him around Toronto.

One time, ended up in the Puerto Rican parade. Oh, yeah, that's right. And, you know, there was Super Dave, you know, faking the fact that he didn't remember his name or what band he was in or anything like that. And then Tyler played the same trick on you, pretending like he didn't know anything about the podcast. And then gradually, like over the course of two hours and 40 minutes,

he dropped so many references to episodes that had happened before. I know. I'm well aware he's listening right now. He wouldn't miss a Mark Wiseblood episode. He's a big fan of yours. Yeah, I sure hope not. And we're going to get together at some point. I've never met him in person.

Well, we're going to arrange for... I'm serious about this. Ed's right now... I got to get Ed... I should clarify which Ed. Ed Conroy is going to be part of this panel discussion. It's going to be Tyler, me, you, and Ed. It's going to be fantastic. So it's going to be what? Like, you, and Ed. It's going to be fantastic.

It's going to be the Toronto retro dork Mount Rushmore. We're all going to convene here and go through a bunch of topics together. Sometime in the spring, I guess. We have to do it before he goes on that Hootie and the Blowfish thing. I don't think

he would fly back just to take that episode. He didn't want to come back from the cottage to record the Big Bang Theory theme song, so I don't know if he'd come back for that. I don't know. Based on how he was talking about me and Ed Conroy, I think he would fly in just to record this one. So, yeah, good to have a new podcast pal in Tyler Stewart. At the time, I thought it was the longest episode in Toronto Mike's history, but it's the second

longest because astute listener, Basement Dweller, pointed out that the episode with Dan O'Toole was a couple minutes long. Although that was mostly because he had had to drive down here, right? It was like an eight-hour

commute to get here. He's from Orono. He had to go to Agincourt next from here, as if that's like a short distance or whatever. So he was kind of wasting time here. And then I sent him off to where he could get a nice meal and some nice red wine.

But no red wine for you because you've already popped one open. You, my friend, get a six-pack of fresh GLB Great Lakes beer. And doing a shorter episode means I'll have to take a few more home than I'm used to. That's right. And, well, you're going to be taking lots home. So first things first.

You get the beer. I know it's your favorite beer, craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario GLB brewed for you Ontario and of course you know they're a fiercely independent craft brewery

located right here in Etobicoke so thank you Great Lakes Brewery they have this Friday evening thing with live singers that's really cool live at 5 I think they're calling it so get your butt

to Great Lakes Brewery. What are they? What's the address, Elizabeth? I'm just going to read that off the thing. 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard. Get your butt to Great Lakes Brewery for the live at 5 on Friday nights. And you're also

taking home frozen vegetarian lasagna. Yeah, we'll have to figure out the best context in which to consume this. Living the journalist lifestyle that I do, I don't spend more than 24 seconds thinking about anything before I eat it. And this one requires, what, 24 hours of leaving it on a counter. Well, I think in the fridge. But yeah, you have to thaw it.

It's frozen solid. It's as if it was left outside. So it's frozen solid. You let that thaw for 24 hours. Stick it in the fridge for 24 hours. And then I think it's only 45 to 55 minutes in the oven at 375. That thing, if you do it right, you could

probably get three, maybe four meals out of that. How many meals do you get out of it with your kids? It's one meal with everybody. Because we do the meat lasagna, which is a bit more hefty, I suppose. And all six of us will be full at the end of the meal, but there'll be no leftovers. Okay. Well, no one has given away more lasagna in Toronto podcasting than you have.

That is for sure. And I haven't even mentioned who the lasagna is from. Of course, it's from Palma Pasta. Speaking of popping peas, discover Mississauga's best fresh pasta and Italian food. And Mike Wilner mentioned his ex-mother-in-law would make the trek to Mississauga just to buy Palma Pasta. Okay, well, take that, ex-mother-in-law. Ex-mother-in-law would make the trek to Mississauga just to buy Palma Pasta. Okay, well, take that, ex-mother-in-law. Ex-mother-in-law. Mike Wilner has a free lasagna from Palma Pasta.

Visit palmapasta.com today to find out a location near you. Well, they're all in Mississauga or Oakville, so you can also order online, though. If you're catering, you can do that online. So I do want to point out, though, that their new Palma's Kitchen you're catering you can do that online so uh i do want to point out though that their new palmas kitchen is near mavis and burnham thorpe and it's a fantastic brand new facility so get your butt to palma and let them know toronto mike sent ya now uh let's do it all off the top here let's do the uh actually i'm gonna save the brian question

because it's a nice segue to part of our discussion today. But I do want to do some Remember the Time with you. So I'm digging this new, like, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, what was number one on the Billboard Hot 100. And this will come up later because next chart has something we're going to talk about later. But what's happening is you get these songs, like, I don't know, heard it through the grapevine, and it's like number one for three or four weeks or something. So now that whole three or four weeks, it's the same song.

I don't want to repeat songs. But if I'm doing, like, three episodes a week, what's happening is I'm like, like last episode, I went to 10 years ago to get something new with Jeff Simmons. And we ended up with some Lady Gaga. But for you, I'm going way back just to get a new jam in here. 60 years ago today,

the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 was this. Can you name that tune, Mark Weisblatt? Well, I know it's Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Correct. Which, by the way, was the name of the first Mad Men episode. Okay, so it's 1959. Correct. January 1959. You remember then, right?

Well, I remember hearing oldies radio, right? I mean, I'm old enough to remember when oldies radio was still about the 1950s. The golden oldies, yeah. And those, I don't know if you remember the cassettes you'd get from gas stations. Do you remember those? Yeah, Don Gaynor, Looking Back. Right. I mean, I discovered so much music, including a different song from this artist that was on one of the cassettes I had as a kid. But let me know when you give up, and I'll tell you.

I've given up, even though I'm pretty sure that it's The Platters. It is The Platters. I wish I had a sound effect to play right now. Congratulations. And I didn't use Google or nothing, right? You've got proof. You're going to verify. I can confirm that 1236 knew the answer. It was in the back of his mind. So remember the time. It's brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years.

You might remember the watch repair in Sears. Well, that was Fast Time. So get a watch battery replacement. This is the detail I forgot to share with everybody listening to the Wilner episode, but you can get a watch battery replacement while you wait. And if you mentioned Toronto Mike, you get 15% off any regular price watch battery installation. That's crazy. Milan lost his mind when he came up with that one. So visit FastTimeWatchRepair.com for a location near you. And when

I remember when the platters were still young enough for oldies radio, there would be like 17 different groups out there touring at any given time that were all calling themselves the Platters. Right. And it was all very confusing, although it turned out I don't think it was very often that people really cared that there weren't any original members in the group. Like, how do you fact check this thing, right? Especially 30 years ago, they were just happy that there was a vocal group on the stage singing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

You're just looking for that hit of nostalgia, you know? As long as it sounds good to the ears, it's going to take you back. It doesn't matter if it's the original singer or not. It doesn't matter. Now, Mark, you don't own a car. I know this because you were hanging out in the Rogue Byway. That's my clue. Yeah, hanging out in the

Rogue Byway, but not waiting for a bus as long as I have in the past. I think I figured out the right time to get to Islington Subway Station. If you're going to do this monthly, you've got to figure that out. So let me tell you, though, for everyone listening who does own a car, buckle.co. That's B-U-K-L dot C-O.

You go there, you enter your car, make model gear and the service it requires. You get instant quotes from shops in your area. You can book the appointment right there online. Then all you have to do is bring in your car, get it serviced, and you drive away. You're automatically charged. It's seamless. Buckle.co. You have to give this a try. B-U-K-L.co. Yeah, get your car fixed, and then you'll be available to offer me a lift if I need to get here on time next time. Look, when this podcast starts taking off and I'm swimming in dollar bills, I'm going to start paying for transportation the way Jake Gold wants me to do it.

He says he'll come on when I pay for his transportation. And he's still being stubborn about that, huh? Yeah, he's a very—I quite like the guy. I only met him one time. He gave me a big hug when he came to pick up Hebsey one day after Hebsey on Sports. But, you know, we've talked on the phone a few times, and I think we have a mutual... So, wait, he'll drive down for Hebsey at your house, but he won't drive himself over... I know, that was weird, eh?

...to talk on the podcast. Well, he doesn't own a car. Somehow he borrowed a car for that day, and he was, him and Hebsey were going to this Pansy's Original Deli at, like, Bathurst and Wilson. You ever been there? Pansers. Pansers. What did I say? Pansies. Get the sponsor right.

Everyone of a certain demographic knows Pansers, and by being a sponsor of Hebzeon Sports, I'm reminded that they still exist. Right. And then really, I can tell you, they're very close to my kid's pediatrician,

for what that's worth, which is not much. So I want one final tip for everybody listening. You can get $10 right now in Paytm Cash. This is a great deal. I mean, every one of my family's done it because they're handing out $10 bills over there. But Paytm is a great app. I use it to manage all of my bills in one spot. You download this app from paytm.ca, then it's easy to set up. And then when you make your first

bill payment, I don't know, you're going to pay property taxes or you're going to pay whatever, your hydro, whatever. When you make that first one, you use the promo code Toronto Mike, you get $10 in Paytm cash and you can put that towards another bill payment or a reward purchase. That's free money right there. Just use the promo code Toronto Mike with Paytm. Did you hear about Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator from the USA? He gave a speech at the March for Life, the anti-abortion thing. It ended up making headlines this year because of that confrontation, right, involving the native elder, Nathan Phillips.

Anyway, at some point in the day, Ben Shapiro was making a speech at the March for Life, and he included references to his sponsors during the speech that he was making so that they could use it as his podcast later in the day. Now, it sort of backfired because he was going on one quote in particular when he talked about how he would not want to kill baby Hitler because Hitler was a baby and it seemed like that quote in particular managed to get the attention of his sponsors and at least three of them withdrew from his show like what is with this guy who's saying things like that and including uh sponsor mentions during his speech at the March for Life.

So this didn't go over very well, a bit of a milestone in the history of podcast advertising, and maybe it's a reason to get the sponsor mentions out of the way so that we're not talking about anything later on that gets you in trouble and ends up losing a sponsor. Well, that's exactly what we're going to do here. Now, we're going to hear from Brian later, but yeah, he's asked his question,

and that'll come up later. But let's dive in here. So I'm not going to go, you're right, I have a goal, but I won't share it with the audience in case we miss this goal of how long this can be. And if this is going to be a monthly thing, I have an idea of how we, let's dive in. And meanwhile,, you're taking

up seven minutes by going over the rules here. Mark, let's start with politics, and what can you tell us about Doug Ford? Where are you at right now with Doug Ford? I didn't like him at all as a councillor, and I'm

still kind of surprised people hated Kathleen Wynne so much and hated the Liberal Party so much that they gave this party a majority. I am not on Team Doug, no, no, sir. Okay, well, look, the wheel keeps on spinning, right? Every day we've got a new Doug Ford catastrophe. Now, we went through this before with the Rob Ford experience, and I think people were accustomed to the fact that, you know, every 24 hours there would be like a new kind of chaos coming out of Doug Ford's office at Queen's Park. And we've already gone through a few of them in 2019. Right. Hazel McCallion was appointed to be a special advisor on municipal issues.

Right. They're rumbling about amalgamating different municipalities doing in other parts of Ontario what they did in Toronto, slashing the size of city government. Anything to get Patrick Brown, is that correct? Yeah, I think that's always part of it, or at least you could imagine Doug Ford snickering at the fact that this was a way to throw Patrick Brown out of another job. So, you know, they make an announcement, put out an official press release, like late on a Friday afternoon, that Hazel McCallion has got this gig. She'll be paid up to $150,000 a year. Keep in mind, she's turning 98 years of age on Valentine's Day. So, you know, they make the announcement, and it turns So, you know, they make the announcement and it turns out, you know, once it made it into the media,

Hazel, she was sort of demurring. Like, she didn't confirm the fact. She didn't say okay that she would take on this job. Amateur hour, right? Like, small little software companies that I'm working with would not make that mistake. You get her agreement first. Okay, and then it turns out—

At least let her see the press release and approve it before you put it out. Well, after all that, it's like a couple weeks later, Hazel says she doesn't even have any time. She's almost 98, and she's too busy doing other stuff to be bothered hanging out with Doug Ford, too busy doing other stuff to be bothered hanging out with Doug Ford, let alone to get an earful from people like Patrick Brown wondering if this is all a conspiracy to throw him out of a job. Everything's personal with this guy. I assure you that's part of it. I assure you.

Okay, at the same time, we've got a situation involving one of the MPPs, a woman named Kinga Surma. Now, is she your MPP down here in New Toronto? No, that's elsewhere in Etobicoke. The woman who's my MPP did not show up for any of the debates. And then in my wife's Lakeshore mom's Facebook group, they're all very interested in talking to her on a variety of issues, and she doesn't answer a single phone call or email.

Who is it? What's her name? Do you remember? It reminded me of, it's Hogarth. Hogarth is the last name. Christine Hogarth, I believe, something like that. Yeah, good enough. Okay, so Kinga was a subject of some innuendo during the election, right? Because it turned out that Doug Ford had been involved in helping to pay for her condo.

Oh, I thought you were going to say something else that I heard, but yeah. Well, I mean, one thing leads to another, and people make assumptions about what's the relationship between these people. And in fact, it was Doug saying, look, the family's got a lot of money, right? They're in a position where they can actually help people out. And somewhere down the line, he gave her some sort of boost with keeping a roof over her head. It doesn't really matter now. She's got a great job. She's an MPP.

And we didn't hear much from Kinga in the first few months. But it turns out that the Ontario PCs, they seem to be positioning her like as some sort of Ontario answer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, right? Like, here we've got like a young elected official. What can we do to make her seem like she's on top of things, like she's really hip and with it? She is now the Ontario Conservative ambassador on social media. She's the one that's all over Instagram posting about everything that she does.

Now, the content that she's putting out is completely mundane, right? She's like door knocking around the neighborhood. The next election is three and a half years away. But already it's like she's out there campaigning, clearly trying to be positioned as some sort of celebrity. I don't know if this is her idea or not. But look, it's worked for AOC in Washington, right? I mean, she's now the face of the Democratic Party. Why not find that equivalent in Toronto, in Ontario?

I'm waiting for her to actually say something that's a little more newsworthy than she has so far. I mean, maybe it's just this sort of bland checking in, catching up, right? Just being all over the place. I don't know if you've noticed Kinga, but she's one to watch. If she's going to keep this up for the next three and a half years, right? The idea is that she is now representing a younger generation of the Conservative Party. So you're waiting for Kinga to say something,

and another MPP on the Doug Ford administration is singing Sam Oosterhof. Sam Oosterhof. Oh, not Ooster, not like Rooster? He got elected as a teenage MPP, right? He was in Niagara. He ended up getting the seat that used to belong to Tim Hudak. Right. And it was a by-election.

I mean, you know, they managed to pull off a bit of a coup there in the riding involving the social conservatives. Sam is an evangelical Christian, represents that wing of the party. When Tanya Granik-Allen tried to run for the leadership, she gets a lot of credit for ultimately putting Doug Ford over the top. Like, he couldn't have done it without her. But they wouldn't let her run as an MPP. Otherwise, she'd be right there in Queens Park. Right.

If they didn't cancel her nomination or, you know, her attempt to get elected. But it's Sam who represents that wing. He's, I guess, 21 years old. He's engaged to be married. So ever since he got elected there, the nickname at one point was Doogie Houser MPP. He looks a bit like Doogie. Sam has been a subject of fascination at 1236.

Now, if I can take a little tangent here and not go at Steve Paikin, but here's the thing. Years ago, I invited Steve Paikin on this program, and Steve expressed great interest, but asked me to please schedule it with somebody in his office, a lady named Rose. So I'm happy to do so. So Rose is unresponsive, and essentially, I can't get Steve Paikin in here because I can't get Rose to play ball. What's that about? I don't know. I think you could get Zach Paikin down here, his son, without much difficulty.

If he ever comes back from Russia or wherever he's hanging out these days. I only bring up, obviously, I bring up Steve Paikin because Sam Osterhoff, who I like to call Osterhoff, but Osterhoff was on Paikagan's show on the agenda on TVO. And let's hear him sing. Do you sing on the hustings? I actually, I do. Would you favor us with a few bars of what you might sing while you're out there going from house to house door knocking? All right.

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. there going from house to house door knocking? All right. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows but Jesus. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Glory hallelujah.

What do you think? Well, I think it'll make a good clip when there's a documentary on doug ford's 12 years of being premier of ontario oh no um that that'll make uh uh for for a useful part of the of the opening montage right they're already they already struck a committee an election readiness committee to get doug re-elected in 2022 i. I think that was just a little bit of trolling to make that announcement and kind of scare off the liberals,

let them know that they're already scheming about how to make sure that Premier Dofo will be around for at this point. I mean, whatever, eight years, 12 years, 20 years. But look, I mean, Sam Osterhoff, he's only 21. Doug will be long gone, right? And we'll still have the Oost

hanging around at Queen's Park, I think. If he wants it, this is going to be the job for the rest of his life. Now, before we move on to Toronto news, we have a couple of long-time city councillors that are no longer what, there's only 25 councillors, right? Yeah, now 25 city councillors.

When the election happened, a few of them were guaranteed to end up unemployed because it was incumbent councillors running against one another, right? You'd have Josh Matlow up against Joe Mahevic. Only one of them was going to survive. Only one of them was going to survive. And in the process, over the years down here, of course, we talked about Norm Kelly and the fascination with it, with his Twitter account. I think, I mean, if we go back to 2015, 2016, it was seen as somewhat novel that, you know, here was a guy in his 70s who at least had some sort of social media manager who was pretending that Norm was into the hippity hop, right? That he was commenting on all these rap beefs. He let Meek Mill know that he wasn't welcome in Toronto. And eventually it just got so tiresome, the Norm Twitter account.

It was worse than ISIS by the time Norm was running out of time being on city council. So we've got no more Norm at City Hall. He was sent packing. You know, it's Jim Karagiannis who beat him in Scarborough. But the Norm Twitter account carries on. I'm not sure if the keys to the Twitter account were handed back to the real Norm, because he's moved away. As far as I can recall, in 2019, there hasn't been that same content that there was before, right?

Norm wasn't going on pretending to be excited about the new Troy Lane's album dropping at midnight, whatever he was doing before. I don't think At Norm has had anything to say about Pusha T and Drake, this whole drama that was going on. I don't know. Where's Norm when we need him most? But it could be that Normlly is actually the guy on twitter and and what does he have to say good morning right and uh hey uh there's a lot of snow coming

down and all these other affirmations so at some point maybe somebody will have to check in with norm find out if he's now running the twitter account and discover if he actually learned in the process what's been going on under his name during all this time. I'm not sure if Norm was ever paying attention to the Twitter account that bore his name. Can we get that into where it belongs with Norm Wilner? Is there anything I can do to get that account to Norm Wilner? There are all sorts of Norms out there. George Wendt, maybe, would be a better custodian of the Norm handle. But look, whatever purpose it's serving, the Norm account is still tweeting.

Maybe there's some six-dad merchandise that they've got to clear out. Norm Kelly, he's left the spotlight, but he's still on Twitter. And of course, I was going to say, maybe we should get that account to Storm and Norman Rumack. Anyway, we'll see what we can do. Giorgio Mammoliti is no longer in city council.

And yet he has a new job, like all great right-wing politicians even though even though he's once with the ndp i guess it's safe to say uh was he georgio back then or was he just george george mammalini at queens park i mean he he was trying to run as a conservative he wanted to be right in there with doug ford that was a plan that he was going to run in brampton and that ended up not happening another uh harebrained scheme for the Ontario Conservatives didn't pan out. So look, just like some of these other politicians, Julian Fantino comes to mind, also Joe Oliver, right? All these conservative politicians who were against the legalization of marijuana, Brian Mulroney, he has an advisory

role for a company on the board of directors. All of a sudden, they all want to cash in on legal weed. So when we found out that Giorgio Mammoliti was getting into that game too, it was not much of a surprise. Now, the company that he's working with, it has some sort of deal with a shoe store chain in the United States selling like cbd uh shoe polish or something if you want to get some kind of cannabis flavor in in how you shine your shoes that's the company that mamaliti is working with the guy's got to make a living he's

got to do something out there and i guess uh marijuana is where it's at. Speaking of CBD, that's where Doug Ford's daughter got in trouble. Yeah, right. Because she was promoting illegally. You can't buy it legally, right? This was a black market. CBD oil stuff. At this point, yeah, it's still technically illegal.

There was Kyla Ford on Instagram, the lean queen. Yeah, she's the one with the six-pack. Yeah, a few of the daughters seem to be into working out. One of them who's married to a cop who's into bodybuilding. Oh, that was the professional lingerie football player, as I recall. And yeah, his whole family's on Instagram. Doug Ford's wife used to be on Instagram.

Maybe she still is, but it's turned to private. But these daughters seem to be doing it related to some sort of business, like all great reality TV stars. They've got to find some way to monetize their social media. I just watched the fire festival, the documentary about the whole fire festival. Yeah, the Ford daughters would be right in there if you ended up with with some sort of canadian version of a of a fire festival so uh there was kyle afford promoting a cbd not technically legal uh somebody was paying enough

attention turned it into a news story on huffpost canada um she ended up deleting the post which indicated that she sort of knew that she was doing something wrong. I wonder if the advertiser then would not have paid her. And yet, at the same time, they got more attention than they could have ever dreamed of if it was just something on Instagram. Right, absolutely. Now, speaking of weed, in some Toronto news, Yorkville is getting a weed store.

Well, it's already been rented. It's already there. It's a company, Fire and Flower. That's like one of the higher-end cannabis chains from Edmonton, from Alberta. And here we're in a position now. They just had a lottery for the licenses. Eventually, it's going to be open season, right? But given the issues of supply and everything, they limited the number of people

that could have the rights to open a cannabis storefront in Toronto. So people applied. They showed that they had the backing, that they had the cash to do this thing. And at the same time, even before the lottery winners were announced uh in a in a store in yorkville right on the mink mile right there on bluer street

uh in the window was a sign saying fire and flowers coming to the neighborhood so there was some suspicion about what was going on there it ain't cheap right it's like seven hundred thousand dollars a year to rent this relatively small store there in yorkville um but they're they're going for it like uh they say that they're not in it to cut a deal with one of those lottery winners even though you gotta imagine that they would like to do that because like what would be the point of paying that much to be there on the strip um they say they would be satisfied if it just ends up being like a showroom, an education center for this company until they're able to open up and sell pot there. So it's pretty symbolic, right?

The fact that they're in Yorkville, the hippie haven of the 60s and 70s now has its very own marijuana store. But here we are, like months after the legalization. I remember on Legalization Day, you had Jamar McNeil down here from Chum FM. It was like nobody knew what was going to happen, right? We thought like Canada would be changed forever when recreational marijuana became legal. when recreational marijuana became legal. And the fact that a store is opening like around Bloor and Avenue Road, you get the sense that it's sort of blasé, right?

Like it's not such a big deal if it's there or not there, whatever happens. No, it feels like we had weed stores, maybe not in Yorkville, but there were already weed stores. Like that's for a guy who doesn't partake, that's to me, it just seems like right now there's probably less weed stores than we, that's, for a guy who doesn't partake, that's, to me, it just seems like right now there's probably less weed stores than we had before, right?

Well, it was Mark Emery, his cannabis culture chain, that was trying to get a foothold, establish itself as a brand, as a legal brand, in Vancouver, and then go across Canada. Mark Emery now finding himself on the wrong end of media attention. A couple of articles, some bad press alleging some indiscreet behavior, particularly with young female employees. So it doesn't seem like Mark Emery will be regarded as the prince of pot

the way he branded himself for so many years. I mean, he even did like a prison sentence, right, for what he was trying to get done. He has a wife, Jodi Emery, but they're no longer a couple. And she's trying to distance herself from him. And then she opened a cafe in Kensington Market called Jodi's Joint, also hoping for one of those licenses. The sentiment seems to be like there's a new era of prohibition, that this is actually the opposite of having weed retail all over the place. The government is like staying on top of things and controlling the distribution of cannabis to the point where you cannot be an entrepreneur as easily as was imagined when weed became legal.

They're making it kind of tough and a little bit tricky to be able to sell this stuff and make a living out of it. We'll see where it goes. It might be safe to predict that this fire and flower in Yorkville will end up cutting a deal with one of these lottery winners because they've got money to burn. And if you've got a license to sell pot, you're going to go into business with these people that have made that level of investment. I mean the store is right there, right? Bloor Street. Like why would you want to open one in Etobicoke if that kind of real estate is just there waiting for you? Well, see what happens when the store opens. I mean it's conspicuous by the fact that it's been there all through January.

They haven't opened the doors for any reason at all. Now, speaking of Doug Ford, can you please tell me what's going on with Ontario Place? Can you tell me what's going on with Ontario Place? columnist Martin Reg Cohn floating the notion that the Ontario Science Centre which is celebrating 50 years half a century there up in Don Mills great pictures of John Lennon

in December 1969 going to the Science Centre ascending the brutalist staircase of the Science Centre where he was going at the time 50 years ago to announce the Toronto Peace Festival, an event that never happened.

Like some hippie hustlers managed to talk John Lennon into making this appearance, doing this press conference. I guess he was too stoned to know the difference or really care about one way or the other. That was our fire festival. Close enough. I think like all those hippie events, it never quite happened to fit the bill. So here we are, half century of the Science Center.

When was the last time you were there at Don Mills in Eglinton? At least in the last 12 months I've been there. Well, it is getting like its own LRT stop, right? It's part of the Eglinton Crosstown. It will be easier to get there by transit than it ever used to be. I would say I go at least once a year. Once a calendar year with the kids. So what about the idea of taking the Science

Center and moving it to Ontario Place? That's where some thinking is at. That maybe this building, you know, this magnificent, brutalist building has run its course, and if the Science Center is really in for a renaissance, put it by the lakeshore. Like, that would be an attraction.

That would be a draw that would bring people out to Ontario Place. That's what one Toronto Star columnist is imagining anyway. I can see why you connect that because Science Centre has that great IMAX.

I don't know what they call it. It's an IMAX theater, but it's like a spherical screen. The Cinesphere? That's what you're... No, that's at Ontario Place. Ontario Place. Science Centre has an IMAX theater as well because I always go you're... No, that's at Ontario Place. Ontario Place. Science Center has

an IMAX theater as well, because I always go see a flick there when I go to Ontario Place. I remember. I went to see Weird Al Yankovic perform at the Science Center. It was referenced, that show, when James B. was over here. Right. He mentioned Weird Al at the Science Center. That was a good episode, right, James B.?

1992. Yeah, you did all right. I mean, you didn't get the dirt on Jazz FM, but close enough. So if something like the Science Center doesn't end up at Ontario Place, what are we looking at? Casino. Probably something like a casino. A casino and a Ferris wheel.

A Ferris wheel fared a lot better in a poll. It was a former research poll, right? They found out that more than half of the people polled are fine with a Ferris wheel. Have a big Ferris wheel. In London, England, or Chicago. Put a Ferris wheel on the waterfront. All our

problems will be solved. I'll let him have the Ferris wheel if he promises to let the casino stay at Woodbine. I think that's a good compromise. Isn't there a casino at Woodbine? Isn't that like Ford Nation up there in Rexdale? What happened?

Isn't there already a casino there? It doesn't matter. You can't have enough casinos, right, if you're Doug Ford. So the thing that terrified a lot of people learning about Ontario Place and the changes to the board of directors and technically the control is now in the hands of the provincial government before it was a little more complicated.

At Ontario Place right now, nothing is sacred. Like, as far as they're concerned, you know, everything's up for grabs on that land, just about. They would be more than happy to raise anything that's there, you know, in favor of building some sort of casino, like something, I mean, how do you spin this thing? It's all about gambling, but it's like a family-friendly environment where everybody can hang out and watch mom and dad gamble their college fund away.

That seems to be where it's going as far as Ontario Place is concerned. We'll see what, I mean, what other concepts are there? Like what could come along that would be more effective than a casino? Like the way it is now is not sustainable.

I was down there a couple summers ago. They had like a total generic arts and culture festival. It was some kind of attempt by the government. Like they were trying to like, trying to revive what Ontario Place used to be. It was a really sad scene because so much of it, it's so dilapidated.

But have you been to the new Trillium Park? Yeah, I think I've made it there. I got a glimpse of what was going on. So I go there often. And all I can think is that this is what, return the waterfront to the public with these great trails and parkland, and yeah, give it back.

Do that. Just extend that across. And then Doug Ford will come back at you and say, well, where's the money? Right? I mean, here we are, like burning cash that could otherwise generate some revenue

for the province by turning Ontario Place into that kind of environment. There's a casino down there every year during the CNE, and like for weeks beforehand. So put the casino there and keep the waterfront for us, the public. And we'll see. I mean, people have been talking about the end of the CNE for as long as we've been alive, this has been endangered, right?

It's like, why are they like preserving all this space just to hand it over to a midway that runs two weeks out of every year, right? That is some valuable land that's sitting there like all year long, not really used for anything. Now, it's kind of been crowded out. It's not as big as it used to be. But yeah, the CNE grounds, I mean, when we think of the heyday of these places, this whole neighborhood, nobody wanted to live there in the 60s, 70s, 80s. Parkdale wasn't

gentrified like it is now. There wasn't really much of a desire to be residing around there. Now we're at the point where people would be fine with condos at Ontario Place. There would be big demand for the concept of living there, especially if it was cheaper than anywhere else. Paul Godfrey has retired as CEO of Post Media. This sort of overlap between politics and media, right? Because it's all intertwined. And speaking of things that have been around

for our whole lives, Paul Godfrey is a public figure in Toronto who was Metro chairman in the 1970s, early 80s, moved into media as publisher of the Toronto Sun and had a lot of success

at the time that the Toronto Sun was just printing money. I mean, this was one of the most lucrative media operations in the history of Canada at the time. The heyday of the Sun, especially the fact that you couldn't get it delivered to your house. You had to buy single copies, which gave them proof that people were reading this thing. copies which gave them proof that people were reading this thing so uh godfrey's success there was something that he had tried to replicate in charge of post media he ran the blue jays somewhere in between he put together a deal with american hedge funds to salvage these newspapers

that can west was going broke the national post ottawa citizen, Montreal Gazette, newspapers in Western Canada. They were all under this umbrella that he found these hedge funds who were believers in this plan. They could keep squeezing money out of newspapers during the past decade, a time when everybody knew that the day would come that they weren't going to be printing these things anymore. So Paul Godfrey's work was maybe sort of done here, that he put all the deals together. He managed to keep the papers alive for an extra decade, and he relinquished a title. He stepped down. He's no longer CEO of PostMedia.

He now has the role of executive chairman, which indicates that he can still call the shots politically about what goes on with the newspapers. He can still suggest that the Toronto Sun be as friendly as possible to the provincial conservatives. That's been part of the Sun agenda that got leaked out in a memo. But Paul Godfrey, at age 80, has left the stage. What do you think about this? This guy has been around in Toronto. He's been a mover and shaker all this time. He was the guy who would come to Exhibition Stadium

with those signs and everything, like, we need a dome. He was a big backer of getting a dome. We need an NFL team. Remember when that was his big cause? He ended up in charge of the Blue Jays, and you were following that a lot closer than I was. I don't think people look back too fondly at the Paul Godfrey years of baseball in Toronto.

No, no, no, no. So Paul Godfrey, good riddance, if you will, and then Rogers Magazine. Rogers Magazines are still available if you will, and then Rogers Magazine. Rogers Magazines are still available if you want to throw a few bucks at them. Well, there was a rumor that the employees were going to band together to buy these things.

They cut some kind of deal. When we talk about Rogers Magazines, you know which ones we're talking about, right? McLean's Magazine, Chatelaine Magazine, Today's Parent, Hello Canada, Canadian business is in there even though it's not really publishing anymore these are these are their magazine brands flair is another uh one that they kind of run a website in their spare time news came out just be

just before the new year about a plan from employees that they would like band together to save journalism in Canada by getting backers to buy these magazines. As far as anybody can tell, as far as anybody who's talked to me is concerned, this plan isn't going to happen. So no one is quite sure what's going on with Rogers and their magazines. They don't want these magazines anymore. At the same time, they don't want to sell them to somebody who's going to end up ruining everything. They don't want to be the ones who botched McLean's magazine by selling it to the wrong person.

The owner of the Hockey News was all ready to buy them. He had the cash lined up. And from what I could tell, they decided not to sell it to him because they didn't like the guy. Like they didn't believe that he could keep these magazines going at any kind of qualitative level. And that's what Rogers wants. If they're going to hand these things off, it's more a matter of making sure that they're in the hands of somebody that's going to keep them running. of making sure that they're in the hands of somebody that's going to keep them running. Now, I don't know.

If McLean's magazine disappeared tomorrow, do you think anyone would notice? Do you mean the Dead Tree version or the publication as a whole? Well, whatever iteration works, right, for the time and place. I mean, the idea of the weekly news magazine, you would have McLean's, a Canadian version of Time and Newsweek. Right. They refashioned it into something that millions, tens of millions of people across Canada subscribe to this thing. Waiting rooms everywhere. Right. You couldn't go to the doctor without seeing a pile of McLean's. It was seen as like a mighty media property that has certainly diminished in the years since then. It might have something to do with the fact

that Rogers ended up owning these magazines and wasn't so into the idea of the heritage they represented. Under the right owner, you could take the fact these magazines are well enough known that people have heard of them, right? That in itself is a big deal. Just have the name recognition, the familiar brand, the banner over the magazine, and that there could be some kind of journalistic renaissance that could take place

if it falls into the right hands, if it gets the right owner. futuristic renaissance that could take place if it falls into the right hands, if it gets the right owner. So St. Joseph Media, publisher of 1236. Full disclosure. Has been bandied about as a potential buyer of these magazines. But nobody knows for sure. I can't get an answer, least of all from the company itself, whether Rogers Magazines will end up going to St. Joseph.

By the time here in another month, there might be more of a story to tell about what happened there. See, it's easy to say, you know, go digital, but at the same time, there's a clickbait apocalypse happening in the USA right now, right? Layoffs at BuzzFeed and Huffington Post. The BuzzFeed one became big news. You must have caught wind of this.

BuzzFeed was getting rid of like 200, 220 people. I think the estimate was all across America. Some of their foreign affiliates like England, Australia, Mexico, Spain, they were running BuzzFeed. What happened there? It was the fact that these venture capitalists, I mean the whole idea that, you could invest in a clickbait company, some kind of media content thing would take hold, and their investment, like at this point, $500 million was poured into BuzzFeed, would eventually generate the kind of returns that these big investors were looking for. that these big investors were looking for. And, you know, they were having a good time for a few years, right? They were rolling in all this dough,

but then it sunk in after a while that maybe they couldn't generate the kind of cash that these investors were looking for. So even though they were making a lot of money, they were capitalized with the expectation that they would make that much more, right? And the killer app, as far as they were concerned, was distribution on Facebook. You put stuff on Facebook over and over and over again, and eventually, as Facebook had this news feed, you would end up dominating Facebook.

That BuzzFeed would be the definitive publisher of all of Facebook. Facebook then changes the algorithm. They de-emphasized news as something that people ended up seeing. All of a sudden, these BuzzFeed posts that were getting like 2 million hits, suddenly they're wondering if they're even going to get to 20,000. Wow. So that was part of what knocked them down. Yeah, you're at the mercy of the big boys algorithm, and that's no way to build a business. But they did build a business, or at least the illusion of one.

So BuzzFeed was so wrapped up in the identities of the people working for it. And if you got a job at BuzzFeed, especially if you were like a recent graduate, 23, 24 years old, and you got hired by BuzzFeed in the past few years, I mean, this was like the stamp of approval. You were the greatest writer on the entire internet if BuzzFeed had a job for you. So as a result, you ended up with a lot of arrogance and a lot of these young writers, editors, content creators, feeling like BuzzFeed was part of their identity. I mean, I am BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed is me. So because of this demographic dangerous, always dangerous. Because of this demographic that was working there,

I mean, this was like a rude awakening. I mean, these people were traumatized by the idea that they would be thrown out of a job. And if it wasn't them themselves losing a job, it would be like the person that hired them, right? Or someone that they dealt with every day who was suddenly unemployed. So here you are playing with the emotions of these people,

and some of the blame can be placed upon the head of BuzzFeed, the founder Jonah Peretti. I mean, he was the one that imparted this idea in these people, right, that they were, like, participating in something that was so awesome that it was worth sacrificing their entire existence for. And suddenly they're throwing pink slips around, and he finds himself on the short end of the stick here. I mean, you know, there were messages that he was getting, like there were Slack chats going on in the BuzzFeed office about, like, people wondering how come he's not answering.

Like I'm, you know, going through something heavy here. This is affecting my mental health. When you hire people of a certain age group, a particular disposition, when they're conditioned that they can like act out this way, right? When they're at work, like you should like lay out all your feelings. You should make that part of what you're producing. It backfires badly when things start turning upside down. That's what's happened at BuzzFeed this month. And at the same time, I think there were larger implications for what this says about journalism

and democracy. And, you know, here was the one company that was supposed to subvert the system. Like, as newspapers were closing all over, they managed to raise this amount of money. It wasn't just them. It was also Vice and Vox, other publishers out there, right, who were gambling on the idea of being like the future media barons of America. So, you know, even at the Washington Post, the New York Times, even though these places are relatively stable,

that they have different revenue streams, they appeal to a much more elite audience. Even over there, they're worried and wondering if there's a future for them

if BuzzFeed couldn't make it. And what about the Canadian company, Dibley? Oh, well, Dibley. Did you ever come across Dibley? Never. And Facebook, whatever?

But I only know what I see from 1236 on Twitter. That's everything I know about Dibley. Dibley was based in London, Ontario, and they were able to boast like, they were like the runner-up to BuzzFeed. They boasted they were the second most popular viral publisher in the world. Second place by a real long shot, creating all these memes and short videos for Facebook.

So here we had like a Canadian version of the BuzzFeed story. The scale was a lot smaller, obviously, but it was the same kind of evolution. They were going to ride on the back of Facebook, and they found themselves angled when Facebook changed. Suddenly, Facebook wasn't promoting their posts anymore. Now, if you were a venture capitalist looking to invest in media, if you were Dibley and you were able to show a post that you put on Facebook that got 40 million views, more than the population of Canada looked at this video. And they pulled it off just by putting something on Facebook. I guess you would look at that and think, well, that seems pretty neat. That sounds like the future of media right there. They even had Kirsteen Stewart,

who came from Twitter Canada before that at the CBC, you know, they appointed her to the top job there. That clearly didn't come cheap. They were rolling in dough, whatever it took. So they were named like from Deloitte or something like the greatest growing company in all of Canada in 2017. Anyone on the outside looking at this would say, OK, wait, maybe you're building this entire thing on quicksand. Maybe this thing isn't built to last the way that you're banking on it. Well, the reckoning came for Dibley over the course of 2018, ended up with a whole bunch of layoffs, a much smaller company still at it. Look, I don't think this was such a bad idea. I mean, I'm also in the media, right?

I mean, you're looking for a solution. You're looking for something that can reach a lot of people. They did have evidence of a mass audience, even if the view count was sort of fake and fraudulent from Facebook. What were you going to say? I was going to say that I think you and I are similar in that we would be much leaner and meaner. Like, this seems like it's very bloated with a lot of overhead for these digital companies. Okay, but you need a nice office where you can take people in.

I mean, they have... In an open bar. They don't have it anymore. Maybe their sign is still outside. Right at Dibley Headquarters at King and John Street, right near where the Score... Is that still there?

Yeah, well, Meck is still there, too. Not too far. Although they're moving soon to Queen Street. Same office before that was toronto.com. Oh, yeah, Torstar Digital.

Yes, I know where you're talking about. That was there. And then Chapters, before Indigo took over. The Shoppers is next door, right? Yeah, somewhere around there. So you need that exposed brick. You need some foosball tables.

You need to keep people juiced all day, give them free energy bars and Red Bull. You know, that's part of the mystique to have that entire environment. And, you know, I don't think the investors would—I don't know these people. I'm just assuming what I see on the outside that the investors ponying up the cash wouldn't have it any other way. So here we are sitting in your basement. Right, TMDS Studios. We could run Dibley out of here. That's what I'm thinking, though. Why not make, you know, we have 1236 in Toronto, Mike.

We throw in Retro Ontario, we start our own Dibley. And look, it's probably going that way. If we're in it here for the long haul, I mean, we've been doing 1236 now three and a half years with St. Joseph Media. I've mostly just worked on my laptop, lying on my couch, going to coffee shops when I was in the mood, but yeah, I'm trying to represent

the future way of doing things. It can be kind of lonely and alienating, and you can only work this way for so many hours. I don't know if you get that vertigo, right? You need a break when you've been sitting at a computer for so long. That's why we do this. You go to the Rogue Byway.

You come here. You get some beers, some lasagna. Yeah, just like Mike Wilner. I'm telling you, you are our therapist, Toronto Mike. There's a role that you're serving. So psychologically, it's maybe not the greatest. But if you want to follow through, if you want to create a brand that people are going to care about, this is a sweat equity that you've got to put in.

This is what you've got to do. And at least you own it. At least, unlike these people who think that they are BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed is them, which is such a naive outlook, you can get 1236 tattooed on your ass. Well, I mean, look, I'm beholden here to St. Joseph. They're the one that set me up for it. It is mean, look, I'm beholden here to St. Joseph.

They're the one that set me up for it. It is their brand. It's like you're praying to St. Joseph. I see that. I like that. I'm glad for it, too. It's been an amazing experience, right? I mean, it's kept going for this long. We wouldn't have gotten to this point.

I think when I was here before the last couple rounds, I was maybe wondering what would be the future of this thing. Do you want to give us an update? Because I'm going to dive into radio. I'm ready to go. Wait another month until I have something. No, this is my podcast. Okay, thank you.

After all that, after 17 times of coming down here and you grilling me about when the podcast is coming. Look, I'm working with people who also see it this way. But, you know, look, BuzzFeed gave a lot of people opportunities that they wouldn't have had otherwise. I mean, you could be, you know, look, BuzzFeed gave a lot of people opportunities that they wouldn't have had otherwise. I mean, you could be, you know, really whiny on Twitter about the fact

that there was no place for you in the media and somebody at BuzzFeed would reach out and give you a job. A whole generation of people were able to get those opportunities because of this venture backed journalism that happened. It's very few people that I ever saw complaining about Twitter on journalism who didn't get a shot, thanks to these companies. And BuzzFeed is still going. I mean, they're going to turn it into something. A little bit of a scandal happened when their director

of quizzes lost his job. He was laid off. A guy named Matthew Perpetua, who was around online for a while. He used to be one of those music bloggers. Remember the MP3 blogs? Yeah. When people would write about music and you could download the MP3 with what they were writing about. Anyway, he landed at BuzzFeed.

He became the director of quizzes. And after they laid him off because he has a platform a little more savvy than the younger people out there, he wrote a reflective post on his website about his experience there. And he dropped a bombshell. It was a fact that even though he was being paid to oversee quizzes at BuzzFeed, even though they had like a team of quiz writers at BuzzFeed, the fact that BuzzFeed had a community contributor section where anyone could make a quiz on their own. It turned out that there was a 19-year-old college student in Michigan who was getting the second highest amount of traffic of any writer on BuzzFeed, and she was doing it all for free.

Wow. Just by coming up with quiz after quiz after quiz every single day. So as soon as this got out there, I guess they knew internally for a while, but only when he lost his job did he drop that bombshell. It became the subject of such morbid fascination, right? It's like, look, why is BuzzFeed paying all these people to write? There are kids out there who believe in this brand enough

to contribute for free, getting not just the same amount of traffic than the people being paid, but like 100 times more. And part of the future of BuzzFeed, the model, as far as people can tell, is going to be more of those community contributions and less of the idea of people making a living

writing stuff like quizzes. Now, to one of my favorite topics, as you know, it's time to talk radio. It's time, you know, The radio ratings are up today. I didn't get the chance to see them on the Numerous website right now. Every month you get the PPM ratings. Oh, the 12 plus? Is this that male and female 12 plus?

Yeah, you get a bit of everything. So we'll get to chew those over. I don't know if, I mean, from one month to the next, there usually aren't very radical changes. But one of the things in Toronto, you know, last time around, last ratings book it was big news the fact that global news radio 640 and news talk 1010 were now more or less neck and neck in the 25 to 54 demographic that 640 was even beating 1010 in some categories some day parts

some shows on there and once, the numbers came out today. It affirms it even further that 640, for all intents and purposes, is now beating the old CFRB. News talk, 10-10. It only took like 18, 19, 20 years for this to happen. Do I get any credit at all? Like, I've had many 640 personalities. I couldn't get John Moore. They said no to my request to have John Moore on the show.

But I have had, you know, Stafford's come on a couple of times. We had a fun public feud for a little bit. Like, this must be helping, right? Journey's been over here. I suspect Stafford is in a better mood today, right? Now he'll be your buddy again. I have to tweet a couple of nice things about him. So 640, right, they relaunched under the global brand.

Chorus Entertainment, its stock has tanked. Our friend Lou Skizis lost his job somewhere in the process. Happy capitalism. They were retooling who they paid to be on the air. Lou was okay with that, though, in the end, right? I mean, he's into capitalism. He's fine with the fact that his services were no longer required. He could handle that.

If Lou was in charge, he would have let himself go, too, under the circumstances. But, yeah, it seems like what they've done with Stafford and Supriya in the morning show, John Oakley, afternoon drive, the stuff in midday and at night. You look at the numbers, 25 to 54. They are leaving CFRB in the dust. This is big news. I know. I didn't see this coming.

I said 18, 19, 20 years. It's like 1993, 4, 5 that they started to put talk shows on 640. Finally, they're competitive. So it took this long. And, you know, I think it's a terrific story and probably leading to a lot of nervousness over at News Talk 1010. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Maybe they should have let John Moore come on my show.

Maybe it would have been a good move, but I digress. Okay. Let's talk about the new morning show at 102.1 The Edge because the siblings have arrived from Vancouver. I saw an ad for them in the subway on my way here. This is, what are their names? Ruby and Alex Carr, Sibling Radio. Unlike all the previous attempts to replace your buddy dean blendell at the edge it

seemed like this one this one this one had a fair bit of lead time right they're bringing this brother and sister in from western canada i think it was announced in september a long time ago starting in january they had an interim morning show with another of your podcast pals kid craig right does he go down to history as the worst guest in the history of i know you're cringing i never uh but we've said as much as my guests because they're good people to come all the way Craig? Right. Does he go down in history as the worst guest in the history of I know you're cringing. I never speak poorly of my guests. Because they're good people to come all the way here and do that. Well, he was doing the morning show for a few

months, got kicked back to evening. So what does that tell you about how the Toronto Mike effect worked on him? So, Sibling Radio. 102.1 in the mornings. This is finally their attempt. I mean, it might not be finally.

It might be another one next year. But after a revolving door, try and find something that would be a suitable replacement for Dean Blundell. They found this brother and sister, right, who are both in radio. How are they? How does it sound? Well, here's the thing. We've gone over this here before. And it's the way the station is formatted now.

The people come on and talk this happened before with the morning show they got rid of which was adam and adam and mel uh and uh the station is now format and i guess it's like a corporate right wide chorus thing is that if you listen to the station it's very easy not to notice that there is any voice in the studio. It's like music segues into commercials and back to music, and the people come on and talk for a bit, but it's very regimented. They only talk.

You can hear the stopwatch ticking away when they come on for a talking break. It's very brief. It's very succinct. It sounds kind of rehearsed. The idea that you'll hear anything spontaneous sounds like a long shot. It's kind of the best analogy I could think of is how in Canadian TV, it used to be regulated that on Canadian stations, you would have less commercial time than the American ones. So remember how on different channels—

It still is. That's why you get all those promos for global shows, and that's still the rule, right? That's right. I don't watch these channels anymore. Remember, it used to be, especially like Channel 47. Omni was good at this. They would have like a host that would come on.

Lucy Zillio. Remember? There was Karen Bertelsen. She was another one that would come on. And they would do like a shtick for 60 seconds while a show was happening. And they would implement these things on Canadian TV. Vic Cummings was the legendary one who would be on CHCH Channel 11 during the soap operas. And I think he had like longer than 60 seconds like two or three minutes

he would he would talk at one time so now and this is not regulated or anything it's the same thing in radio right where like the show is not the djs that are at the station the whole idea is the music first and the commercial second and then these voices come on and they say some stuff but you don't really remember that you're there like you're not really listening for that reason anyway because you listen to a lot more radio than i do i need to know uh what's the better program uh josie die in her show or the siblings on simply on the fact that the josie die one is a lot looser like that there's an opportunity for some found moments that something spontaneous might happen,

that these people did not rehearse what they're saying in advance. And if they don't say whatever they're trying to say within, you know, the prescribed period of time, that like the stopwatch won't run out. That's the effect you get now listening to these chorus stations. It probably works as far as these ratings are concerned.

I mean, they're there to make money, but for somebody who's listened to the radio for so long, I mean, forget all the nostalgia about The Edge and CFNY and everything like that. I just find it infuriating because this is never what I listened for. I wanted to know

something about the people on the air, and I tuned in one weekend to The Edge on a Sunday afternoon, and there was a DJ on, a young female DJ. I didn't catch her name. I don't know if she ever gave it or not. I couldn't tell what was happening. She would come on.

She would talk for like a minute at a time every half hour. And, you know, it was sort of heartbreaking because at one point, I'm pretty sure she referenced the fact that she works full-time in a restaurant and does this radio on the side. She seemed to be coming from like a remote location, maybe another city from London, Ontario, Hamilton, wherever else. They have a station like that, this disembodied voice. And I couldn't even figure out what her name was.

And there was nothing on the website, nothing on social media. This was all very confusing for me, the old-time radio geek, to be listening that this is what came of the station, and this is the way that they imagine it works now. Amazing. Okay, well, compare that to podcasts where we just go on incessantly

about what's wrong with radio, right? So they've got the afternoon drive show to Meredith, one of your favorite blog posts. Yes, of course, Twitter. About Meredith Geddes, right? So they've got that. They've got the afternoon drive show too. Meredith, one of your favorite blog posts. Yes, of course. Twitter. About Meredith Geddes, right? Who was in Vancouver and now in Toronto. And this other guy.

Yeah, she's moved here, right? Like she lives in Toronto now. With Colter Bouchard, I think his last name. He was on Q107 before. It's hard to know. A lot of these guys, it's hard to know their last names, right? I was thinking that with Carlin. Yeah, that's kind of the thing, right?

Of the American, it started like with these american stations remember howard stern would have on k-rock in new york there was booker there was cane he'd have sort of all these uh younger dudes that were hanging out with him kid cabby chris cabby yeah you remember cabby wherever he is now he didn't pay his taxes remember he didn't think he had to pay his taxes and uh he filmed some sort of porn movie in the Howard Stern studio. I used that as my time for Howard Stern. So, yeah, that was part of the thing. So Coulter and Meredith, I mean, most people who would be listening now don't know this stuff.

But based on Meredith and what we found out about her, like they're doing a shift in Toronto. But they've already done shifts on three other stations. And then they're showing up in Toronto at the end of the day. Their last thing before they punch out for the afternoon is being on the radio in Toronto for a three-hour shift, but only talking for like 30 seconds an hour. I read

that NUCAP, which is now actually called Stingray. So Stingray, they've decided they have a bunch of smaller Alberta stations that are all simulcasting the same show. And I don't know if that's so bad

because that's... Well, it's 14 stations at the same morning show. Well, iHeartRadio in the United States, Ryan Seacrest is on all these radio stations and they run that

in Canada too, right? Well, it depends if you want to hear any local flavor. I mean, maybe because I'm born and raised in Toronto, which is a city

where this will never be a problem. I would just think that part of the joy of listening to the radio is that it's live and local. Am I showing my age? I don't know what's going on there. I don't know what the idea is

or what's going to happen. There are only so many listeners left. A lot of people have just abandoned these radio stations. Yes, because they're all listening to Toronto Mike. Now, I've got to ask you, you've tuned into the new Adam Wilde show on Virgin, right?

Yeah, at least on the first day and a little bit beyond that. How's that going? That was the worst-kept secret in Toronto radio for a while. I don't know how much of a worst-kept secret it was, because you got it wrong to begin with. Oh, yeah. At first, I thought it was going to Chum, and then I realized. But I did

correct myself. You're right. I did originally think it was virgin. Okay, so yeah, Adam Wilde again there. Like, the guy is talking 30, 60 seconds at a time, right? He's got a TJ there, one of the guys that survived the purge at Virgin Radio, and a newcomer from KISS

92.5, where Adam used to work. Oh, Jax. Jax, right. I saw the press release or something. So, where Adam used to work. Oh, Jax. Jax, right. I saw the press release or something. So three hosts in the morning, kind of a new generation, Roger, Rick, and Marilyn. And the irony there, of course, is that Adam is Marilyn's son. So if you're charmed by the fact that there is Marilyn Dennis, who's moving forward on Chum FM with Jamar,

that her son is working down the hall on one station. Let me come back to Jamar when you're done. Well, she's on another. So, yeah, listen, they talk fast. They got a lot of data in there. And I think a lot of it has to do also with social media, that these radio stations, the way they're being consulted now, it's like if you're interacting on Instagram with the people listening, that's just as, if not more important than being on the air.

People used to answer the request line. If you played somebody's record on the radio, you had them in as a fan for life. Well, I guess if you're Adam Wilde and you offer some kind of quip, some kind of comment to something that somebody put on Facebook, that that is how you engender the loyalty nowadays. So that's the game over there. It's a lot different. They're also playing it at Kiss 92 where they've got Roz and Mocha. I mean, that's a very talk-heavy morning show by comparison. And Darren Jones, a guy who's been around the Toronto media for so long.

The buzz. I mean, he's like 20 years now working at Kiss 92.5. He wasn't there for a bunch of years in between. Roz and Mocha also. You had Mocha down here once, right? I've had Ross and Mocha down here. And Ross. I forgot all about it.

Ross, very handsome man. So those guys go way back with the history of that station, 92.5. And here's 99.9. You know, they got rid of Tucker. Yeah, okay.

And Maura. And they have their podcast and they're so bitter. I love it. It's hilarious. Okay, so yes, but I'm glad you brought up the Tucker Show, which is Adam Weil took over for this Tucker Show because Andy Wilson was on that show.

And I go back of Andy Wilson because he used to produce the, he was producing Humble Howard's show on Easy Rock back in the day. So I know Andy through another channel. Okay, so a very successful toady working behind the scenes of radio for all those years. And they would hire and fire people that would keep him. Right. He was there for the Mad Dog and Billy. Billy would go. He'd stay. Mad Dog would go. He would

stay. He was there for the Tucker era, but he did get caught up in this Tucker show firing, but he got a job in Montreal doing mornings. Well, he showed his loyalty, huh? I mean, he hung around that station, standard broadcasting, Astral, Bell Media for all those years. I guess he was considered a good catch.

Be that radio sidekick. But who would have thought that he'd be the guy to, I mean, he's willing to change markets. Good for him. But yeah, so, I mean, if you're looking for Andy Wilson, I guess this is the end of him on those Tucker podcasts. Tucker and Maura and Wilson, maybe now no Wilson on the podcast. Yeah, I think it's hilarious to listen to these people who are, you know, just angling for a new job.

And they're a lot more candid on this podcast than I ever think they got to be on terrestrial radio. Now, there's not much future in that. If they're planning to make a living off of doing this stuff, I don't think a duo that was working for Bell Media, who never really had much of a profile, not a lot of marketing of them, I don't know that they could really make it in

podcasting, but they have the chops to be hired somewhere else and based on listening to their podcast, I mean, I wish them luck. I hope they get the chance to show up on another station based on what they're doing do something that's more like their podcast not throwing but no one's allowed to talk anymore like where can you do that i don't know maybe these ratings will come in people will realize that there should possibly be a different way of doing things and they'll find the window that they need to leap through right to get to

get back at it but yeah i think you know the fact that they need to leap through, right, to get back at it. But yeah, I think, you know, the fact that people are out there doing a podcast, I mean, we've heard from the bitter radio people who lost their job before, right? I don't think I've ever seen anybody

vent their hostility in the way that I have Tucker and Maura. And they made a fan out of me with this podcast. So I'll admit that right here. Cool. And you know they listen to, and they made a fan out of me with this podcast. So I'll admit that right here. Cool. And you know they listen to this, and they consider this valuable feedback. So keep it up, and don't break the fourth wall by being too flattered by the fact that I said this stuff.

And good luck to Wilson in Montreal. There you go. Now, here, I do want you to circle back. You mentioned Jamar because, of course, since you were last here. No, no. Roger Ashby's last show was before your last. Yeah, Roger left early December. I was here at the end of the year.

Okay, so now it's just Marilyn and Jamar. Marilyn Dennis and Jamar. Jamar doesn't get a last name in the official billing for the show. So it's a chum morning show. But that works. It's good. Marilyn, Dennis, and Jamar. Yeah, because it's like Roger, Rick, and Marilyn.

Marilyn, Dennis, and Jamar, right? Who's Dennis? Right. Somebody, one of the students who reviewed my show, thought her name was Dennis or something. Anyway, Jamar, who is coming on the show, we've been chatting about when he's going to come in and kick out. And I think we ascertained here last time that with Jamar McNeil, we've got the kind

of friend we need on a big Toronto morning radio show. Right. A lot of these people would look down at Toronto Mike or the 1236 newsletter that this is like something that came along afterwards. This is like some new generation, even though we're deeply middle-aged here, like some new generation that they don't understand. They don't have to care about what these young punks are saying about stuff. But with Jamar, a guy who I guess is younger than both of us,

he's new on the scene, new in Toronto, doesn't know anybody. And, you know, I put out a very nice tweet about him. I was impressed in the first few weeks. He put my tweet on Instagram, right? I said they hired the right guy, Jamar. And I played your clip for him. He was so flattered. Yeah, I played your clip for him.

And when you praised him, he loved it. So we are right in there with Jamar, right? We have permeated this thing like we never could before. We are embedded with the Chum 104.5 morning show. Yet you're very closely monitoring the situation regarding Jamar and his surprise baby

that we just discovered. I love a good mystery, and it's been unfolding there on the Chum Morning Show. Now, Jamar moved to Toronto, right? Came here, podcast, talked all about it. He was very open about his experiences, right? He ended his run in Chicago, got a job in Toronto, didn't know anything about the city.

Like, didn't know anybody. He'd heard of Drake. He knew that the city had a nickname, The Six. You know, his Toronto literacy was pretty low. He couldn't even pronounce Toronto properly. He was so new to everything that was going on here. So, you know, here we had the big buildup, right? They made the announcement.

Roger was going to retire. Speaking of best-kept secrets, worst-kept secrets, what would you categorize it as? I think once, who was it? Donabee let it out of the bag early in Toronto, Mike, early 2018. Yeah, we knew it was happening right there. So a big buildup that Roger is going to take leave and Marilyn will move to the front of the line. And Jamar would be there filling a different sort of role. Roger retires.

And a couple days later, Jamar is gone. He disappeared. And they explained that Jamar was off somewhere because he was having a baby, or a woman was having a baby, and the baby belonged to Jamar. And it was never quite explained how he moved to Toronto,

and there was a bun in the oven, a baby was going to be born by the end of 2018, and how did he not mention this baby? How was a baby born to Jamar that they never mentioned on the air until the baby was born? What is your theory on this?

I don't want to speculate too much on the private life of this guy. It's not private. It's all over Instagram. They talk about it on the radio. It's possible this is, maybe this is not a steady girlfriend. Maybe this is a friend with benefits,

as the kids would say. I think he mentioned the girlfriend. I think he's in touch with the mother. So this is his girlfriend? The baby was born in Atlanta. I caught that much. Okay, so he had a girlfriend in Atlanta. But was she the girlfriend at the time

that he first moved to Toronto? I'm going to ask Jamar when he's here. Well, that would be the easiest way to find out. It might be more fun just to speculate about all this. Maybe he has multiple. Who knows? Maybe he's got multiple girlfriends. Okay, but it's not like he's an absentee father.

He's talking on the radio fondly about being with his newborn baby. Is he flying to Atlanta on weekends? I even know the name of the baby. It's Kofi. He talked about it enough that I remember the name of the baby. Okay. Well, we have to keep following the Jamar baby story. When he is on, I will ask him what's going on.

And what if he doesn't tell you? Well, that's his right, I guess. The guys talk. I mean, the guys talk. I mean, we talk about all these stations where they only talk for 60, 90 seconds at a clip. They do have long-form conversations on Chum. That's how I know all this stuff. And we still don't know the story of Jamar's baby.

I have a couple of notes before I ask you about the Jazz FM situation. But I need, I mean, I'm a big fan 590 follower, if you will, and Elliot Price is on the outs there. They let him go. And again, Toronto Mike, I think, played a role, maybe a tiny little role in somebody getting a big gig in Toronto radio. Well, this has not been announced yet,

but it seems like it's probably true i believe but ashley docking might become the new co-host of greg brady do i get some credit there and so what she came on your podcast and you talked for what an hour and a half about the fact that uh uh fan 590 was full of white males right yes that was pretty much like the main focal point of your discussion that did you mansplaining about how to make lasagna which i did to you as well right white males, right? Yes. That was pretty much like the main focal point of your discussion. That and you mansplaining about how to make lasagna. Which I did to you as well, right? Okay, but with me, it's fine.

With her, it might have been a sensitive issue. And I remember she talked about how her aspiration for 2019 was to get a full-time gig. Yes. Like she was very hopeful and even believed that coming down here, like she was willing to put up with your mansplaining if it helped her get a job as far as we can tell now it seems to be working out in record time like uh i hope i get a little credit here because that like from the time and i hope elliot price doesn't blame me for this conversely because he was a great guest as well on toronto mike toronto mike giveth and toronto like taketh the way right but i mean this was on the heels of the diversity

episode i call it but the i had the diversity episode, I call it. But I had the panel discussion with Scott Moore and others about diversity in Canadian sports media. So we did that. And Ashley was booked for that show, and then she had to take a... She had to work, so she couldn't make it. And Sofia Jurstukovic came on instead.

But, by the way, Shorali Najak is coming on Toronto Mike for his deep dive soon. But all this is to say that, uh, yes, then we had the chat with Ashley docking and that was the kind of the idea was like, why not? Cause she was doing a lot of fill in work. Why not give Ashley docking her own show? She's good at what she does. And it would be nice to hear a different perspective, like, uh, some diversity on, uh, Canada's

biggest sports radio station. So if this does become official and soon it might be announced, I'm not announcing it now, but I'm saying it looks like it's probably going to happen. I hope it does. That's kind of exciting. And if I played any role in that, then my work here is done. I can drop the mic and sign off. I still get to come back here next month, right?

Well, we'll see. Maybe we'll see. Of course, I would have you on weekly if you lived closer. Let's leave it at that for sure. I would never say no to a 1236 episode. But now I can now disclose to the audience that I had a target time I was gunning for. And I can promise you, because we still have some showbiz and the deaths we have to discuss, I'm going to miss my target. So we're going to start burning here. Okay, buddy? We're going to burn. I just want to say Scott MacArthur is no longer on 1050.

Scott MacArthur looks like he's taking a job with Rogers Sportsnet hosting Jay's Talk, which was previously often hosted by Mike Wilner, who was probably very polarizing in that role. And maybe not having him in that role will make people like him more as a play-by-play guy. And him and Ben Wagner can do the broadcasts of Blue Jay Games, which is really where Mike Wilner's heart is. Okay, so good for my friend Mike Wilner, right? Another score. And we'll have that reunion on the steps

as we both come down here for a therapy session. Right. Eventually, at some point, we're going to end up converging here in the world of Toronto Mike. Yeah, hopefully. So, please, if you can keep it to under two minutes, and then I want to talk about snow. Not the snow that falls

from the sky. A different snow. But what can you tell us about the whole Jazz FM thing? Any updates there? I don't know. What is to tell? I mean, you went over this. Oh, JazzCast. Heather Bambrick was in here talking about the JazzCast. What did you think of Heather Bambrick? I thought she was fun. Exciting episode, and here she is

going into this new frontier of digital broadcasting. I come up, apparently, in their meetings. They have their meetings, all those founders. Oh, that's my screech. They announced JazzCast as a thing that was going to be... People who used to work at JazzFM left the station for one reason or another.

Danny Elwell, Garvia Bailey, Heather Bambrick. That's right. And who's the dude? I keep forgetting. Walter Vanafro. Right. And if you scroll down to the bottom of their website, you notice that they were thanking somebody for perhaps providing support for their new venture. So even though you could run something like that

as cheaply as you do right here, I mean, these people would want to be compensated for their time. Who ended up coming up with that money? We didn't get a dollar figure attached to it, but it was Marie Slate, right? Daughter of the broadcast veteran, corporate owner, Alan Slate, sister of Gary Slate, people that came into a lot of money when they sold standard broadcasting.

Like a lot of money. Marie Slate was a supporter of Jazz FM. There were stories last summer that came out that she was like wrestling for control of the radio station. It turned out that she denied any of these stories uh that she said that she wasn't looking for anything like that at all now you look up the timeline and a few weeks later jazzcast.ca was registered suddenly here you have like an internet version of jazz fm with people who left the station for one reason or another is the plan to set this thing up online,

have the membership vote that they should throw out the entire current staff and management and board of directors of Jazz FM, and here you've got this thing jazz-cast, it's ready to go. Here's the new Jazz FM under new management with a new name, right?

None of those ghosts that they consider to be cursing what they're trying to do with the complicated situation at the station. Adding to it all is the fact that Jazz FM now only has one full-time host, Terry McGillicott, who was there all the time in the jazz format. He's retiring. He's out of there this week. So that leaves Brad Barker, the longtime music director, their member of the pursuit of happiness, as like the last guy standing with a full-time gig on Jazz FM. It's a little too perfect, the way this is going, that you imagine that they're not going to do anything with the station, that there's too much disarray. They had a

fundraising drive where they only raised half the money that they usually did. They ended up having to pay for a whole court battle about their email list. Everything is lined up perfectly for Jazz FM in its current form to be unsustainable and this jazz cast will take over its place on the Toronto Airwaves. Do you imagine that this is what's going on

here, even if it was denied? I think all the pieces fit. I think you're onto something there. I think I asked that very question of Heather Bambrick. She's playing the game, but yeah, I think that's the end game.

James B. will end up back there, and the guy that they don't want to have anything to do with is Ross Porter. So I guess they want to isolate him for whatever reason. I mean, he hasn't, you know, been convicted of doing anything wrong.

No, but Heather was pretty clear that this was a toxic environment, as she described it. Yeah, but all these media environments are after a while. But I need to, not that he's toxic, but I need to just promote

that on Monday, that's the next episode, actually, is Mark Wingmore. Oh, from Jazz FM. Speaking of Jazz FM, former. Former and possibly future. Who knows? Now, I was talking about snow.

Okay, let's listen to this and let's talk about this. so this sounds a lot like Informer, but what exactly is this? It's Daddy Yankee, Puerto Rican rapper, singer, personality, whatever he is. Here you thought maybe this winter that a snow, Darren O'Brien, would come knocking on your door, offering to shovel your walkway, maybe plow the snow out of your driveway, right? I mean, forget about Mr. Plow from The Simpsons. Wouldn't that be an amazing new career for him if snow started up a snow plowing business in Toronto?

That'd be great. But it seems like he's got a better job for the time being, which is this remake, remix, sampling, interpolation, featuring Snow.

What's the song called? It's a remake of... Con Calma? Con Calma? And Daddy Yankee is pretty popular in a certain kind of way. So it sounds like, once again, 26 years after it was a Billboard Hot 100 number one,

that Snow's Informer will be heard widely once again. This is now the second year in a row that he tried to remake Informer. There was an Informer 2018 press release. This one passed me by completely a year ago. They went to Bucharest, Romania to film a video. It was going to be the big Snow comeback. Didn't quite catch on, but

this one already tens of millions of listens for Daddy Yankee featuring Snow so he can afford his heating bills this winter. And one of Canada's great one-hit wonders, even though people will tell you— More than one hit. Yeah, yeah, I know we had more than one hit.

Oh, in Canada, anyway. But the one song. One American hit. So, dominant in this day and age. It wouldn't get anywhere with that cultural appropriation. The patois. But remember when Snow—I mean, right? The guy was in jail at the time that the song started breaking.

It was like part of the whole myth and mystique of Snow that he was like sitting in the common area, wherever he was hanging out, Millhaven, I don't know, wherever they put him at the time. And there was video came on, Much Music, Extend a Mix. It was a premiere, and he was sitting there watching it with his fellow jailbirds and ended up with American No. 1. Can you believe how long ago that is now? 1993. That was back when it was rare. Now it's commonplace for a Toronto artist to get to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. But how many of them are in prison at the time that it happens? No, not nearly enough. Now,

speaking of great white rappers, let's hear from Brian Gerstein. Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Mark. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Call or text me at 416-873-0292 if you're looking at getting your home ready for the spring market. The early listers will sell

quicker and for more money, so let's get started. Mark, I find it interesting how some celebrities, be it athletes, actors, or singers, either proudly claim some of their Canadian roots or act as if it never happened. Oral Hirshhiser, the great Dodger pitcher and World Series MVP, lived here from 12 years old playing hockey for the Don Mills Flyers until he moved to New Jersey for high school. It was a surprise to me to just learn about his partial Canadian roots, which I had no idea. Contrast that to Matthew Perry, who was raised in Ottawa by his mother until he was 15 when he moved to LA to pursue acting, which worked out pretty well for him. His Canadian roots are more entrenched, and he embraces them. Any others you can think of who either embrace,

are ambivalent, or like to forget their time in Canada? Okay, well, Brian is playing off something that I put on Twitter, and it came up the day that Kamala Harris announced that she would be running for president of the United States. Now, she grew up in Montreal, right? She was a graduate of Westmount High School in Montreal. So I threw it out there to wonder, like, who were the celebrities who were not born in Canada, came here for part of their formative years,

and ended up going back to the United States or England or wherever, and ended up being famous. Like, what other names can we think of beyond this possible future president of the USA who fit that description, who fit that bill? One of the more famous ones is Miley Cyrus. Because her dad had a TV show here, right?

It was filming, what was that show? It was called Doc. Right. And in between, hanging out with his buddy from the Toronto Sun, Joe Warmington, who once wrote a book about him. Billy Ray was shuttling his daughter around to her song and dance classes, giving her the tools that she needed to go back home and become a star. Now, I do the heavy lifting when it comes to sports on this show. I know you had Oral Hershiser. He's another guy. I don't hate sports, by the way, which came up as an assertion here on another episode.

Did I say that? Oh, I meant you're not a fanatic like some fools. Well, it's a different set of skills. It's a vocabulary that I haven't quite mastered. I shouldn't have said you hate sports. I apologize. Okay, but yes, some sports figures. I wanted to speak of Steph Curry and Seth Jones, children of Raptors who were young living here

because their dads were Toronto Raptors. And then one became a hockey star, and then the other is one of the top five players in the NBA. Okay, so the story with Steph Curry is he grew up here for a number of years, and then he moved back where? Where was he from? I don't speak sports. North Carolina?

The United States. I don't know exactly where. Del Curry was his dad. And he met his wife, who was originally from Toronto, but he didn't know her here. But they had something in common by the fact that they both had spent time living in Toronto. Right. And something that I read was the fact that she would visit Toronto to see her relatives or whatever, and she would bring back those Maynard's peach sour candies back to Steph Curry,

who had a fondness for them from his time living in Toronto, and they bonded over that. So, yeah, he has deep roots in Toronto. Who was the other one? Seth Jones? Oh, yeah, the kids of Toronto Raptors. Second- generation kids. But maybe they would be in a different category because they were already anointed into all that.

Although you could say the same for another one. Another guy whose father was in the football business, Rex Ryan, who partly grew up in Toronto. Did you know the story of Rex Ryan? No, I don't. It actually connects to one of your favorites down here, Steve Simmons. Get out of here. The story of Rex Ryan, the time he spent in Toronto, was the fact that Steve Simmons was in school, York Mills Collegiate,

where I also graduated from, with Rex Ryan's older brother, who mentioned offhandedly that his dad was a coach in the NFL. They couldn't believe it. Like, what is a kid doing here at York Mills Collegiate who has a father who does that for a living? Buddy Ryan, right? Am I right?

Here's my sports literacy. Yeah, Buddy Ryan. I think there's a whole family of Ryan. Okay, so Rex Ryan grew up roughly in the same neighborhood as me, and I haven't quite been able to confirm this. Maybe I can get in touch with him someday and find this out, that Rex Ryan and his twin brother delivered the Toronto Star to my house. Like, they were the paper boys, the twin brothers,

before my time to really be conscious of this, but the timing checks out that they would have been the ones who did this, delivered the paper. I have to find out, did Rex Ryan deliver the star around that neighborhood? Like York Mills and Bayview, York Mills and Leslie. He definitely spent some time around there. His mother ended up, uh right she was an academic she ended up being in charge whatever the position was a university of new brunswick um but also uh before that worked at at the university of toronto um so there was my tie to rex ryan rex ryan once delivered the toronto to my house, I think.

So add that to the list of celebrity references down here. Well, is there anyone else on that list you want to drop real quick before I go to death? Well, who else? I mean, Ian Astbury of the Cult, right? It came up when he first started being famous. I mean, he was more famous in Canada than anywhere else with that album, right? Love, Electric, those early cult albums, big in Toronto, right? He had a friend in Chris Shepard at CFNY, right? Love, Electric, those early call-downs, in Toronto, right? He had a friend in Chris Shepard at CFNY, right? They played the

cult all the time. They weren't as popular in the USA as they were here. And he grew up in Hamilton. Tom Cruise was another one. So tell me about his Canadian roots. He was one of those kids. But did he live up here? Yeah? He lived in Ottawa at one point.

His last name wasn't Cruz. It was Mappether. Howard Jones, the singer, that was another one who was more popular in Canada than in the United States early on. I think that might have had to do with the fact that he had some history here. When I was asking on Twitter, Elon Musk's

name came up. He went to, what, Queens University? Does that sound right? I don't know. I didn't know that. I'm probably right about that. And Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth, she went to York University. And that was subject of some fascination when Sonic Youth first got a little bit popular.

It's like, you know, what kind of American would go to York University? But it was a pretty artsy, avant-garde place back then. And Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth ended up there. Who else did I say? You know, David Byrne. He was in Hamilton, like, as a little kid for a little bit. George Butler. So we're into British here.

Montreal or something, like as a baby. Wow. Now Keanu Reeves came up as a name, but he was born in Beirut. But he's a Canadian citizen. Like even though he grew up in Toronto and was never all that famous when he was here, he would be Canadian first and foremost. You would say

the same even more so for Kiefer Sutherland who was born in London, England but he was famous living in Toronto for a really long time and even recently lived here. They were filming Designated Survivor around Toronto.

Dan Durant, no that show got cancelled but Dan Durant was on that show. Are they back to it now in Toronto? It got cancelled by ABC, it got picked up by they still on it? Dan Durant, no, that show got canceled, but Dan Durant was on that show. Are they back to it now in Toronto? It got canceled by ABC. It got picked up by Netflix. Did it? Yeah, it's going to be on Netflix.

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought they... But people would have pictures, right, of Keanu Reeves riding the subway in Toronto. Or not Keanu, Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer, Keanu, confused.

But he was pretty loyal to Toronto. He has been all along, and I think it was only when the show 24 took off that this wasn't his primary residence, but it might be again now. So I think that's the list, most list. I mean, Prince Andrew went to boarding school. Does that count? I don't know if that counts. Sort of quasi-Canadian. So that was. Does that count? I don't know if that counts. Sort of quasi- Because we're the Commonwealth.

Quasi-Canadian. So that was a list I had. I don't know. Leave in the comments if we forgot any, left any up. But Miley Cyrus is, I think she should be celebrating.

Put her on Canada's Walk of Fame. Miley Cyrus. Why not? That party in the USA Jam we just played, that's a banger right there. I'm sorry. That's still a great single.

I'm a big fan of Miley. I'm always asking Joe Warmington to comment on career developments in Miley Cyrus' life. I don't think he was invited to a recent wedding. Oh my gosh. And you would think her dad's best bud helped make the career of Billy Ray Cyrus.

Joe Warmington, left behind, disinvited. You're breaking his icky, breaky heart there. Now, before we close with deaths as we now do when you visit

let's do a little flashback so now I talk about how with remember

the time for fast time watch and sure repair I like to do

you know what was number one on the billboard hot 100 like 30 years ago

or 40 years ago or 20 years ago whatever to get a fresh jam

now next week I'll be able to play a song, a Canadian song that went to number one. It was February 4th, the charts of February 4th, 1989. But here's what we're going to do. We're going to play a little Casey Kasem. And it was Tyler Stewart who got me back into listening on YouTube to old Casey Kasem shows because he was talking about the old apartment and it debuted on Casey's top 40 at number 40. I said it was only there one week.

I looked it up. Tyler is going to love this. It was actually in the top 40 for two weeks. And I'm trying to get that clip. I wrote to the guy that puts Casey Kasem shows on YouTube. So while I was there poking around old Casey Kasem YouTubes, I remember that we were approaching the 30th anniversary of a different Canadian song on the chart.

Climbing four notches to number five with When the Children Cry, that's the group White Lion. Well, now on CT40, we're up to a top 10 smash by a band from Toronto, Canada, and it's their first time in the survey. Now, you may think, hey, top 10, that's pretty good, a band with a bright future. Actually, the group Sheriff has no future whatsoever. They broke up four years ago. Here's the strange story of their posthumous popularity. Back in the early 80s, the five members of Sheriff were paying their dues, playing small clubs in and around Toronto. And in 1982, they landed a

record deal. Suddenly, the tide began to turn. Their first single went top 10 on the Canadian chart, and the follow-up shot to number one. But success was not so sweet in the States. Sheriff never managed to break the top 40 on the American chart. So their American record label dropped them. For a few months, they all tried to carry on. But creative conflicts began tearing them apart. They were broke, they were bitter, and they were divided. But in 1985, they all found one thing to agree on.

It was time for Sheriff to call it quits and ride off into the sunset. Two of the members formed another band called Frozen Ghost. Two others took day jobs and worked on their music at night. And one dropped out of music altogether. Now, four years after they broke up, the last single released by Sheriff has been rediscovered by radio and it's finally put their name on the u.s pop

charts but even so the former members flatly refuse to get back together as guitarist steve demarchi puts it there are just too many bad feelings in the air for that to ever happen so here's the top 10 band with no future at number four here's sheriff with when i'm with you the band that's having its biggest success now that it no longer exists the defunct group called sheriff in with their first top 10 hit when i'm with you i'm casey casem three big hits to number one as the countdown rolls on now that might be the the best Casey Kasem rap that I've ever heard. That was long, too. Like, he had over two minutes, I think.

Well, it was like Fireside Chat with Casey Kasem. That was the magic of the countdown. This was a time when Casey Kasem ended up leaving American Top 40. There was a rival syndication thing, and he broke out on his own. Shadow Stevens? Shadow Stevens took over American Top 40. There was a rival syndication thing, and he broke out on his own. Shadow Stevens? Shadow Stevens took over American Top 40. I remember that. Casey started Casey's Top 40.

Now, this is some real chart geekery. There's a podcast that Slate Magazine puts out called Hit Parade that really gets into this stuff. And they might even do a CanCon episode. We'll see if that happens and if the story of Sheriff works into it. So When I'm With You started climbing the American charts. It was a DJ in Las Vegas that dusted off the song that he thought was one of those lost tunes. I mean, pop music was maybe not in the best place in 1988. Radio stations started finding old songs that they could revive on the air.

Red Red Wine by UB40 was one of them that ended up hitting number one five years later after it originally came out. So it became something of a trend at that time to revive old songs. At the same time, American Top 40 was being loyal to the Billboard chart. American Top 40 was being loyal to the Billboard chart, and radio stations started to find the show too polarizing because there was all this rap and metal showing up on the charts that the radio stations that ran Casey Kasem's show his own countdown. He uses a different chart, the one from Radio and Records magazine, the one that reflected what the mainstream top 40 stations were playing, ended up with the more popular countdown show. Shadow Stevens fell out of favor, lost all his radio stations, and Casey ended up getting American top 40 back again.

So the week that we just heard with Sheriff was Casey's first week back to the countdown after he laid low for six months, the triumphant return of Casey Kasem, Casey's Top 40. And now you know the rest of the story. I guess. I mean, the story of Sheriff, I think... I love that story, Frozen Ghost. As far as CanCon, probably the weirdest story of them guess. I mean, the story of Sheriff, I think, as far as, I love that story,

Frozen Ghost. As far as CanCon, probably the weirdest story of them all. Alias, right? Because Alias is in, well, yeah, the two guys went off

and started Frozen Ghost. Right. Right? It was, Pauper in Paradise, that was a great band, Frozen Ghost. You thought so.

I don't know. I like that cassette, I loved it. They certainly lacked for critical acclaim. I liked them. It was Arnold, Lanny,

and Wolf. I had a Twitter combo with him once. Things fell apart with the other two guys, Steve DiMarci, who they mentioned there, and the singer of the whole thing, Freddie Kirchie. It was his voice, right, holding that note for like 75 seconds at the end of the song, When I'm With You. So while Frozen Ghost was happening they got a a record deal american record deal atlantic records the two other guys from sheriff had to work as couriers in mississauga because they couldn't make a living in music so there they were like working for a courier they're working at a courier company driving around offices getting signatures

dropping off packages whatever whatever it was. And it turned out they had number one hit in America. They made number one on Billboard. They came back together as Alias, right? Which had a number one hit. Arnold Lane, he was very stubborn. He didn't want to reform Sheriff, even though

he owned the song. He would brag about how he bought it for less than the price of a used car. He owned the publishing, got rich. He helped back the band Our Lady Peace. They owe it all to him. And Alias came out, had another hit, More Than Words Can Say. Right. Which sounds pretty much the same, right?

More than words can say, I need to know. The grunge thing came along. That was the end of Alias. The corporate rock fell out of favor. And Freddie Kirchhean tried more of an acoustic act. Adult contemporary thing. Steve DiMarci from Sheriff, Alias, ended up getting a job as a guitarist for the Cranberries.

So how do you like that? She's got a... Well, she's passed, sadly. But she had a Canadian connection too. Speaking of. That's right. And it was her husband, right? A guy who was a road manager for Duran Duran.

It was his father who ran the courier company that the guys from Sheriff went to work for. My brain just broke, brother. So there you go. Too bad Casey Kasem is no longer alive. This is the shit Tyler loves, okay? And this, for Casey to tell the entire story of Sheriff and Frozen Ghost and Alias, I mean, you

thought that clip was long. No. This could have gone for hours. I got another clip I want to play now. Now we're moving on. This is our closing segment. We're going to talk about some recent deaths that we'd like to shine a light on here. Let's play a clip of Mark Elliott

quitting in 1986, and then we'll come back and you can tell us about Mark. CFI with Peter Gabriel giving a sledgehammer. And I got mine in my hand. I'm about to drop it. You know, I've been told this moment is inevitable, and I've been told that by management people around here at CFI Radio. And unfortunately, they're absolutely right.

It is a moment that I regret, but unfortunately has to be. I'm going to be leaving CFRA tonight at 10 p.m., and I will not be back tomorrow night, unfortunately. But it's been fun spending 10 years working here. I've never enjoyed a job more than this one. And the proof of that is that right now, as I speak into this microphone, according to the latest available figures, more people are listening to CFRA in Ottawa than any other radio station. And that is the biggest compliment that this jockey can ever get. And I thank you for it. However, right now, there are some severe problems that I'm having with the management of this radio station. We are not talking to each other.

severe problems that I'm having with the management of this radio station. We are not talking to each other, and I would rather give up now while I'm ahead than argue about it. We're arguing about an awful lot of things, and money is one of them. That's a big problem. But the straw that broke my back and makes its debut tomorrow night, and I haven't mentioned it until now, is one that takes the place of the top 35 countdown. Now, that's been a fixture on this station. It's well-liked by the listeners, it's well-liked by the people who work on it, and it's well-liked by me. Tomorrow night, it becomes the top 20,

and I'm a little bit mad about that. I'm more than a little. I'll say that. New music needs a place on radio, and this show has offered a lot of new music, which I'm proud of. It's a principle of mine that new music has to make way on the radio.

But the trend is moving older. Disappoints me. But I hope being number one in this time slot would protect this show from changes. That's not so. The station discussed getting rid of the chart altogether, seriously, with me, which would be ludicrous,

but they want to go that way. I disagree with them, but as of tomorrow night, I'm supposed to host the all-new Top 20. Now, it's only the tip of an iceberg. I won't bore you with the rest. Suffice it to say, if you want to get famous, go into radio. That's about

all I can do. Got a lot of good friends around here, and I'm really happy with it, and I'm really happy with the 10 years I've spent here. Got a lot of people to thank for them. I don't like long goodbyes. That's as long as I'm going to be, at least between now and 10 o'clock. And by the way, things don't get depressing around here. I like it. I think we'll have some fun between now and then. You know, by now, just about everyone. Okay, so when we talk about people who died, I certainly don't expect coming down here

to talk about somebody who I actually knew. But in this case, not only did I get to know Mark Elliott, his real name was Nils Johansson, but he loved telling people about that moment in his radio career. And he always made a point to emphasize that while he was giving that little speech on the air, resigning from CFRA, that he was completely full of shit.

And that he was out of his mind at the time, right? A drug addict, an alcoholic. And that, you know, his ego was out of control. And this was sort of the rationalization that he gave to his audience after 10 years of being on the air there, one of the biggest top 40 DJs in the history of Ottawa, that he decided that he was too famous to hang on to that job. So there's a clip, Mark Elliott from 1986. You mentioned somewhere that you've never had a guest on Toronto Mic who's died yet. That is still true. And he might have been that guest.

I mean, if you had him down here, I don't know if like four or five hours would have been enough time for how much he would have wanted to talk about his life and his career. I feel like I've missed out because I'm, I mean, you knew him personally and it sounds like he would have had some great stories to share. But would you believe I only learned of his existence when he passed away? Well, he spent like about 15 years working for CFRB, News Talk 1010, right? His signature show was People Helping People. So the story of Mark Elliott, it surrounds the fact that he was in recovery, that, you know, he went through this experience in Ottawa. He was a high-flying radio DJ. I mean, you know, this guy, this is like the only thing that he wanted to do growing up in Weston. It was like his dream, his passion to be a guy behind the microphone.

And, I mean, listen to that voice. Like, you know, he was born to do this. And, you know, at a pretty young age, I mean, people's careers accelerated fast. They were worth something in radio. The thing was that they told him he couldn't use his name, Nils Johansson. It was too ethnic for Canadian radio at the time.

He landed in Ottawa, you know, got this opportunity on CFRA. I mean, if you were a kid in junior high, high school in Ottawa, he was a guy that you listened to, right? We remember the days, whether it was like Tarzan Dan or Mike Cooper or John Major, everybody gathered around the radio at night to listen to the local DJ. Mark Elliott was that guy in Ottawa for so many years. He managed to hang on to the job all that time, but the addiction started creeping up on him, and he ended up in rehab. And he crashed in an extremely dramatic way

that he managed to leave behind all these blog posts about. It's writing on Medium.com. You can learn about a lot of his life. And found himself in recovery, you know, in a situation where he was trying to get better. And it ended up he was suggested for a job at the radio station, right? I mean, where else could he work? What else was he qualified to do? So he landed at these radio stations in Windsor that had been bought by Chum.

A guy named Warren Cosford, whose name comes up a lot on the radio scene, who was involved with Chum, was overseeing the station at the time, Chum was overseeing the station at the time, multiple stations there in Windsor, and connected there with Nils, with Mark Elliott, and tried to find the right role for him on the radio, and they hatched a plan. What could be better for this guy, this DJ legend who spent so many years in rehab, than to do an overnight show called People Helping People, where he would talk to people who were suffering through different stages of addiction, themselves or their family members, and just wanted somebody to talk to.

So they launched this show, and it eventually went across Canada. Chum was, at the time, trying to get going and talk radio, even never quite took hold in Toronto. He never got that Toronto affiliate for people helping people. But one of the things that hampered the show that made it difficult to get it off the ground, the fact they couldn't get any sponsors because this was not a good time radio show. I mean, least of all, would they get, you know, anything connected to drinking or drugs or good times, right? Any radio sponsor like that wouldn't want to be associated with a show that was hosted by a drug addict and an alcoholic. So, you know, he kind of ended up muddling through.

It couldn't catch on nationally in the way that they needed to to make it a moneymaker, but you would think this was an important public service for talk radio to be doing, right, all across Canada. So it ended up that he finally found a place to do his thing in Toronto. That was on Talk 640, right? AM 640, Global News Radio 640. At the time, it was in a little bit of flux, but they had open time slots for the right kind of people to do a show, and he brought people helping people to Toronto. And he finally got the kind of success

that he was hoping for all along, that the ratings came in, and there he had the number one show, Evenings in Toronto, was on this obscure Talk 640 hosted by Mark Elliott. Wow. Because this was radio, what ended up happening? They changed the format of the station to Mojo Radio, and he was the first one out the door.

No place for him. No room. Mojo Radio was supposed to be all about fun. No room for people helping people. Maxim Magazine, right. So he crossed the street, and they found a spot for him to do this people helping people thing at CFRB. He was also doing fill-in work. Ended up on air during the great Toronto blackout, August 2003.

That's it. And he ended up filling in on a summer afternoon. You know, not much going on. Ended up commanding the station during the blackoutout, impressed the management enough that they gave him his own show. For a number of years, he was on every night, weeknights, doing the night side on CFRB 1010, along with people helping people once a week. That came to an end, as all these things do, and he decided that the reputation he had

on the radio, the fact that he had all these years behind, and he decided that the reputation he had on the radio, the fact that he had all these years behind him, gave him the qualifications to become an addictions counselor. So he went into private practice, still did the radio show once a week, essentially as a way to promote his counseling. And as far as I could tell, he was quite successful at it, right?

A lot of addicts out there who needed to hear from somebody as compassionate as him. And, you know, the fact they heard him on the air gave him all the credibility that he needed. Here's the thing, though. I learned it from him. You can read it online. It's a fact that, you know, doing the addiction counseling takes its toll, especially as he was into his 60s. He couldn't take it anymore. It was starting to wear him down. He ended up giving up on the practice. He still had the radio show, but he wasn't getting paid for it. So things were not going well for him. He found himself living in Niagara Falls with Jarrett, his partner of a number of years.

I mean, that was a thing too, right? A guy before had relationships with women. He was married. He had five children from those relationships. But the whole time he was married. He had five children from those relationships. But the whole time he was gay. And here he was, you know, able to live like he wanted as an out radio host in Toronto here in the 21st century. He had, you know, a lot of pride in what he was doing on the airwaves, but it didn't end very well. And spent the last couple of years figuring out how to get it back together.

He turned 65 around Christmas time, and it turned out that that was his last few days of being able to fend for himself, fell into a coma, and died in January 2019. So rest in peace, Mark Elliott. He was certainly one of a kind. When I was a young man, I would phone a number. I think it was in the yellow pages or white pages. It was a phone number, and you could call it up to hear sports commentary by Brian Henderson. And every day I would call, because I was listening to Tom Rivers,

but I liked to hear Henny's sports commentary, and I would call this number every day to hear what Henderson had to say about the local sports stories or whatnot. So Brian Henderson, I knew him from 1050. He passed away as well. Everybody knew him from 1050 because he was there from

1977 to 2004. He died. Mark Elliott had just turned 65. Henderson was a bit older, I think 73. Yeah, that was it. There were conflicting reports about how old he was. I think we settled on 73 years old when he died. Joined 1050 Chum as a morning sportscaster.

died joined 10 50 chum as a morning sportscaster and uh everybody who was old enough then to be listening to radio in the 80s and 90s knew right every radio station aimed at a male demographic that was playing music would have the sportscaster fred patterson my good pal. Spike Gallagher, your longtime buddy. Mark Hebbshire, did it for a time at Q107. Rick Hodge, another friend of Toronto Mike. All of these, they're all my friends.

Everyone but Henderson, apparently. Even he, by the way, before you continue with the Brian Henderson tribute here, years ago, he actually wrote a comment on torontomike.com

with great detail of what he was up to, his son had become a teacher, and a very thorough update. And it was the first time we had heard from him in a long time. And so many, many people would find this entry when they were trying to find out whatever happened to Brian Henderson.

His history at Chum was like the history of the radio business. Because he started off, yeah, just filling that role of being the sports guy. Right. There was Rick Hodge on FM. Brian Henderson had that role on AM. Just a guy to do sportscasts. That was it in the morning on the station. Dick Smythe would do the news.

Right. It was Jay Nelson. Then Tom Rivers took over. Eventually Roger Ashby. And as as they started to move on they made henderson more of a morning sidekick uh there's a commercial i think a retro interior one from the chum morning show it's jerry forbes mary gara fellow mike cleaver robbie evans five people doing a morning show on 10 50 chum five hosts at once and there was henderson in there as the cranky sidekick this guy was like i don't know in uh in his early mid 40s i mean as far as

i could tell he was already then like an old grandpa that was part of the personality that he put across on the airwaves so dick smith endedthe ended up leaving CHUM, went to CFTR, right? That was the evolution where he was reunited with Tom Rivers on the CFTR morning show and closed off his career there at 680 News. So they gave Henderson the newscast job. So now he moved into that pole position. The thing that Sythe had done all those years was now being done by henderson then they blew up the chum morning show got rid of all

those hosts no more room pay five people at once and they made brian henderson who'd been there all this time the anchor of the morning show they switched the format from playing oldies. They went to the Team 1050, and they kept Henderson around. That was, what, Paul Romanuk doing the morning show? Yeah. And Mike Richards. Yeah. And Brian Henderson. So they went to a whole format change, a whole overhaul at Chum,

and there was still room for him because he was a sports guy. Nobody was listening. They tried to retool it. Gene Valaitis ended up taking on Henderson as a sidekick. They knew each other going way back. Team 1050 went out of business. That was the end of that. Very dramatic episode.

Of course. In the history of radio. Ask Jim Van Horn about that. Now, Chum burned tens of millions of dollars on this sports radio network that went nowhere. And Henderson went back to doing the Chum Morning Show. Ask Jim Van Horn about that. Where he found himself off the air and other people filling in for him. I guess that's when Gord James stepped in to the morning show at Chum. And a story about how Henderson was visited by one of the Chum executives while he was in the hospital. And they slipped him an envelope at a Tim Hortons. The chat that he thought he was going to have about coming back was actually him being given that piece of paper that said your services are no longer required. And that was the end, 2004, of Brian Henderson for all those years,

27 years, on the radio in Toronto on 1050 Chump. How was that? This band is known primarily for their covers. This is actually an original song, though, by Walk Off the Earth. It was hard to find an original hit. I like this one. This was a good one. And I think at the time it came out,

it was unexpected because this was a Walk Off the Earth from Burlington. And we got to know them seven years ago. 2012. It was a cover version of the Gautier. Gautier. Gautier. Yeah. Speaking of One Hit Wonders, that is, I believe, maybe the greatest example

of One Hit Wonder, if you take a look at his success. But someone that I used to know... Do you think it was all those band members actually playing a live guitar? Because if you listen to it, kind of a long shot that what you're hearing on the soundtrack was a live rendition of five people playing the same instrument.

But the guy you couldn't take your eyes off of was the guy at the end of that instrument, the kind of serious-looking guy with the great beard. He was the guy I always noticed in that video. in that video so uh mike beard guy taylor died at the tail end of 2018 from walk off the earth natural causes was the official description uh he was 51 years of age and i was surprised this seems to happen more and more maybe Maybe I'm not absorbing enough media still because I didn't realize that someone like that passing away would get that much attention. Maybe it was a suspicion about what might have happened here. Maybe it was a time of year that it was sort of emotional.

Well, it's a big band in this neck of the woods. A walk-off year is a big deal. And also that he was a star on YouTube might have had something to do with it. Because there were not a lot of YouTube personalities who would be now in their 50s. But he was, you know, like 44 years old at the time when this group he was in on the side was running a trucking company, a dispatcher, something like that. Freight hauling company in Burlington, by all accounts, you know, successful business. I mean, it was, you know, far away from fame and stardom and YouTube and music and videos. It was something he did on the side.

But all of a sudden, here he was, part of this YouTube success, which got them playing some pretty big concerts all around the world because of the cover versions from Walk Off the Earth. So Beard Guy, you know, household face sort of, yeah? I think you would have known who he was. I knew him. Yeah, I knew what he looked like. I would recognize him. I wasn't aware that he had this nickname, Beard Guy,

but I probably would have accidentally called him Beard Guy. Well, that's what he is. He's a beard guy. It wasn't until his death that I learned his name is Mike Taylor. So there was a tribute concert to him in Burlington. I mean, Burlington is... Have you been to Burlington lately? I have been to Burlington. No, I to him in Burlington. I mean, Burlington is—have you been to Burlington lately? I have been to Burlington.

No, I've got cousins in Burlington, and I think I drove by it on my way home from Cambridge fairly recently, but I haven't really stopped there. Okay, things that were—remember how we're growing up, 80s and 90s, you would hear, like, this is a town out of the 1950s, and you would know what people meant when they used that description? Well, going to Burlington these days is like going to a town in the 1980s. Sheriff's When I'm With You is still the number one hit in Burlington, Ontario, when you walk around there. Is there a lot of mullets in Burlington? Wonderful waterfront.

Well, you know, they have a Sound of Music Festival there. And this past summer, the big bands that came, there were Eve Six, Ever Clear, Finger Eleven. So this is the kind of rock and roll. Finger Eleven are from Burlington, right? This is what they still listen to in Burlington. Rainbow Butt Monkeys. So, yeah, Walk Off the Earth, they had such a connection to Burlington that they had a tribute concert to Beard Guy.

And the Barenaked Ladies were there. And that was discussed down here with Tyler at the time. It was Kevin Hearn, right? What did Tyler say it was? It says Kevin Hearn's mother and Beard Guide's mother were longtime friends. Do I got that right? Somebody in the band's mother

was longtime friends with Beard Guide's mother. Yeah. So that's how Barenaked Ladies ended up performing there and other acts. So Walk Off the Earth, who are booked at a pretty significant tour. They're playing the Sony Center, soon to be the Meridian Hall in Toronto. And there's multiple Meridian theaters now in this city, right?

Yeah, they're playing the downtown one. And so they lost Beard Guy. So if you're a fan of Walk Off the Earth and you would pay to go to their concert, I guess it would be an emotional experience, the fact that here's a band carrying on and one of them i'm sure they'll have a video tribute and they'll probably do i think bohemian rhapsody i saw this great video tribute to the guy on youtube to the bohemian rhapsody their cover of bohemian rhapsody they'll probably do that in the concert okay so uh rip beard guy, an unexpected celebrity and I think an unexpected amount of attention when he died at the end of 2018. Thinking back in time when love was only in my mind I realized

Ain't no second chance You've got to hold on to romance Don't let it slide There's a special kind of magic in the air When you find another heart that needs to share Baby, come to me Let me put my arms around you This was meant to be

This is my go-to James Ingram jam. I can tell. You must have grooved to this when you were a kid in the backseat, listening to 590 CKY. That was a yacht rock radio station of choice. Well, I didn't want to go with the American Tale song. Oh, no, far too saccharine. So, James Ingram, uh, the latest

loss in the world of music, and a bit of a Canadian connection, I mean a morsel, because he was one of the musical guests on SCTV, and I think that was the first I ever heard James Ingram, or grasped who he was,

because the song, the hit at the time, Just Once, was credited to Quincy Jones featuring James Ingram. I didn't know that. That was like his first hit, I'd say, right? Yeah, he was a demo singer. He hooked up with Quincy Jones when he had an album, The Dude. Yeah.

And it was Quincy Jones who made him a star. There was Just Once. the dude yeah and it was quincy jones who made him a star there was just once it was in um dr tongue's 3d house of beef on 1981 sctv they gotta get these sctvs on netflix i i guess that's happening this year because you know i want to reminisce and it's on youtube but they didn't have the music right so i couldn't look up. Couldn't watch James Ingram on SCTV. 100 Ways, you remember that? That was the other jam with Quincy Jones and James Ingram, and then he went on to write one of the great songs on the album Thriller. Do you know which one?

He wrote a song on Thriller? I'm going to guess. He did Pretty Young Thing. Hey, that is pretty good, because I don't even know if that would have rolled off my head as quickly as yours. Well, I always get confused between what did the guys from Toto. The guys from Toto wrote some songs. Human Nature, right? Human Nature, right, right, right.

The keyboardist of Toto. So, Pretty Young Thing, a song that Michael Jackson wrote with that title, but it was a different song. Did you know this? No. Okay, there was a different PYT that Michael Jackson wrote. And I think, as the story goes, Quincy Jones heard this song by Michael Jackson and kind of cringed. Like, Michael Jackson's idea, not to insinuate anything, of a song called Pretty Young Thing. Right.

Was maybe not consistent with Quincy's vision for what to put on Thriller. So he turned to James Ingram, who just had a couple hits with, and got him to write a completely different song called PYT, Pretty Young Thing. And that's the one that ended up on Thriller. Love it. Now, James Ingram, you mentioned, appeared on SCTV. So tell me about Judy Cooper Seeley. Oh, well, here was a name that I would not have known until they had tributes to her

from the SCTV Twitter account. She was the wig maker, like the hairstylist for SCTV. It was where she caught a big break. I mean, what a break that would have been, right? To make it as a wig maker in the TV industry, and your client is SCTV. So the impact that she had on that show was pretty significant, I think. Her husband was Joe Seeley, jazz pianist in Toronto. So age 77, I think one of those people who we really learn about when she died. And there was a Canadian press obituary for her.

So somebody to remember, even if we just got to know who she was, who died earlier in 2019. Judy Parker, is that right? Seeley. Judy Cooper. Sorry. That's okay.

I'm working on memory here. I'm only just learning about her. And I've only had one beer. Judy Cooper. Seeley. cooper sorry that's okay uh you only just learned about hers and i've only had one beer judy judy cooper seely uh jack stoddart here was a canadian publisher um and uh he inherited the company from his father general publishing right uh canadian books not the most scintillating business at any point in time. But once the whole can-lit movement started in the 60s and 70s, there got to be more of a buzz around book publishing. The thing was that these publishers could never quite figure out how to keep it together. I guess through what he inherited, Jack started, found the right formula to stay in business for a certain amount of time and even started up a publishing imprint under his own name. So he put out one book that was a huge hit called The Wealthy Barber.

Right. David Chilton was the author of that book. At a time, I think, you know, the economy wasn't doing too great. This was 1980s in Canada. Inflation rates were sky high. People figuring out how to get by. And here was a story of how, you know, a barber living this humble life, socking away his money,

could end up getting rich if he just put it in the right place. So they sold a ton of these books to wealthy Barber. Yeah. He, Chilton would go on to be one of the dragons, right, on Dragon's Den? Or am I confusing? Yeah, it's close enough for this point in the podcast. Another book was Boom, Bust, and Echo.

That was a demographic book, right, when the baby boomers were getting economic clout. This was a big zeitgeist title that a lot of people bought at the time. Eventually, they couldn't navigate their way. Think about it. A guy that made so much money off of some financial advice book couldn't keep his own company afloat, and everything that he inherited in his own book publishing business collapsed quite dramatically, and that would have been in the early 2000s.

So if you find a Canadian book published by Stoddart, this was the guy that made it all possible, and now he's dead. Now he's dead. Now I'm either the world's worst podcast host or the very greatest podcast host because I targeted, I'm now going to disclose

I wanted to make this a crisp tight 100 minutes. That was my goal. In honor of James Ingram, 100 ways. Exactly. Exactly. I now look at the clock and I see we're going to talk about one more death before I play us out and it's going to make

this episode about two and a half hours so watch out Tyler Stewart but that's me missing the hundred minute mark I had no idea we have failed so colossally I want you to ponder that now let's talk about

one more death. Norman Snyder. Okay, well, this Norman Snyder, not a name you would recognize, but a writer, a journalist, a political commentator that worked for the Globe and Mail. And his career took a turn because he worked on a movie with David Cronenberg. 1986, 85? 6? 7, something like that. Dead Ringers. Right.

Do you remember Dead Ringers? Of course. Of course. The twins. He managed to find a different career path after that. Then, a number of years later, went on to write another movie called Casino Jack. You ever see Casino Jack? No.

With Kevin Spacey? Nope. Okay. One of those movies. I mean, we talk about financial swindler Jack Abramoff. So that was the movie that Norman Snyder ended up with the most success with, I think. I heard an interview not long ago with Jack Abramoff about who Casino Jack was made,

and he mentioned the fact that people used to go up to Kevin Spacey and they used to ask him, aren't you embarrassed to be playing Jack Abramoff? And now Jack Abramoff feels vindicated because he has people coming up to him saying, aren't you embarrassed that you were played in a movie by Kevin Spacey? How old was Norman

Snyder? 85. You're testing my memory. I need to make sure we agreed to end on the old people deaths. I'll see if I can do better for you next time. A good 102-year-old or something like that. Okay, that's the news

and we are out of here. Wow. Mark, that was fantastic. Again, I left stuff on the cutting room floor. Even you coming monthly, we can't fit it all in. Two and a half hours. Amazing. Enjoy your beer. Enjoy your vegetarian lasagna from Palma

Pasta. And thanks for coming, man. I really enjoyed this. And that brings us to the end of our 427th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. Go to 1236.ca and subscribe to that email because it's awesome. And a new look newsletter coming by the time I'm back here in February. Is it going to be mobile friendly? I'll edit that part out.

I'll edit that part out. Uh, our friends at great leagues brewery or at great leagues beer property in the six.com is at Raptors devotee. Palma pasta is at Palma pasta. Fast time watch and jewelry repair is at fastma Pasta. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR. And Pay TM is at Pay TM Canada. See you all next week. And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away.

Cause everything is rosy and green. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years. It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears.