Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #436

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

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

Welcome to episode 436 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Paytm Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, and our newest sponsor, Buckle. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com, and joining me this week is 1236 Dude, Mark Weisblot. Okay, so I got the job done. I promised there would be a different look to the newsletter. How's it going for you, Mike? This is more mobile-friendly. Well, yeah, I kind of turned a blind eye to the fact that it wasn't working for everybody before. I'm connected now with a company called Substack.

They're the ones that want to be at the forefront of the newsletter thing. That includes selling paid subscriptions to email newsletters, but with 1236 at 1236.ca, still putting out the 1236 newsletter for free. And here's a case where I think they've got some buzz going on around Substack, that they've made this investment in the long run for putting out newsletters. And I figure to that extent, we could outsource the details of how these things work

because they're the ones who are promising that it's going to work in every system, every kind of phone, every browser, every way, every app, everything for reading newsletters. And then it turned out like like, one week into the experiment of having faith in this company to make it happen, half the newsletters vanished because people who were using Gmail, it either went to spam or it didn't show up at all. And it had to do with the things I was doing in the newsletter

with the Twitter embeds. The images weren't translating properly. Now, they figured it out. They rectified everything. But this was part of the experience of changing to a new platform, and they got on it right away. So they are still in beta, and I guess now I am back in beta too, if I ever left it all along. And we'll see what happens with Substack, which has a podcast out today. It shows up. They sent their own email newsletter to users of Substack.

Who is the guest on the Substack podcast today? Jesse Brown, Canada Land. It all comes full circle. So first, let me say that you being readable on my mobile device is a game changer. Congrats. That's a big deal, I think. Well, yeah.

Again, I kind of knew this was happening, but it was above my pay grade to make any adjustments at this time. So get the newsletter. If you're listening, 1236.ca. We'll talk about the past month in 1236 topics, but of course there's another month ahead, right? End of February, February 28th. It's like the mail.

It never stops. So every single month we're buried with more content and we got to get you in here every single month. I'm going to put a pin in the Jesse Brown thing for a minute. We're going to come back to it. I got Jesse Brown questions because I want to open with something i think is kind of remarkable so let's tell the backstory briefly here uh this ties in with uh no pun intended this ties in with tyler stewart of the bare naked ladies there was um a piece of audio he desperately wanted to hear

and he was hoping that you would be able to dig this up. Do you want to tell the story before I play the clip? Well, when you had Tyler here at the beginning of 2019, one of the things he referenced was the fact that the Barenaked Ladies, when they first reached that stadium status in the USA, starting to get more radio airplay across America. They made it all the way to KC's Top 40 Countdown. And they entered one week at number 40.

According to Tyler, it was their one and only week with this song. I did some further research, found out actually it stuck around for another week after that, number 39. But you said one week. Actually, it stuck around for another week after that. Number 39. You said one week. I thought we're talking about the old apartment. The old apartment? Is this like a who's on first routine? Was in Casey's Top 40 for one week in 1997.

Oh, my God. I only heard one week, and I'm like, no, man. Come on. We're just getting started here today. You're already nodding off. No, I heard one week. and I'm like, no, man. Come on, we're just getting started here today. You're already nodding off. No, I heard one week. My ears pricked up. The old apartment was like the mainstream American radio breakthrough for Barenaked Ladies.

It was already a year old in Canada, right? But they're working the road in the U.S. The live version was on Rock Spectac, as I recall, and it had some kind of second life there. And then Brian Wilson afterward, and it had some kind of second life there. But regardless, it may be some peach pit. And then Brian Wilson afterward, and then one week, right? So Tyler was talking about Casey Kasem. I thought, I gotta find this clip.

Where can I get this thing? And the gauntlet was thrown down. I wrote to the guy who uploads Casey Kasem clips to YouTube. It takes him a while to do it all because he has to cut out the music so that his channel doesn't get banned, but he sent it directly to me. Tyler's listening.

I gave him a heads up. Not that he would miss this anyways, right? He's not going to miss a 1236 appearance on Toronto Mike. But he is listening, so I'm going to play this now. I'm so excited. I wish I had a camera on Tyler right now. Number 40. The first of our two debuts

is by a Canadian band that goes by the name Bare Naked Ladies, but the members of the group aren't ladies at all. They're men and they're fully clothed. Their song is called The Old Apartment. Broken to the old apartment. That's the name of the next Bare Naked Ladies album.

They're men and they're fully clothed. Now, the Casey Kasem YouTube guy sent me this clip. And it really is all about context, right? Because when I heard this on Casey Kasem's Top 40, it was so exciting. Even though it's like 21, 22 years later. I would never put this song on my own right now, I don't think. I like the remake of it a lot better, the one that they put out last year with the Persuasions. But yeah, what a thrill.

I think this was like eternal validation, the fact that they got onto the KCK some countdown, not knowing this would ever happen again. So no wonder this was a great moment in the history of Tyler Stewart. I was excited for him, too. There you go. Now, did you hear Ted Wallachian's appearance on this show? Oh, yeah. Well, of course. Ted has been around Toronto Radio like literally my entire life. Right.

And more specifically yours. But as long as I've been listening to the radio, there was Ted Walsh on one radio station or another. He complained that the lasagna was frozen and that the beer was warm. And I can't do anything about that frozen lasagna because it's got to stay frozen. You decide when you make it. But I wanted you to know the front two cans are fresh from the refrigerator. Okay, well then let me break it all down and get into the six-pack because, listen, no-name beer, right, brewed by Loblaw, became a bit of a fetish object when it debuted earlier this month. But just like no good restaurant ever closed down because a Tim Hortons opened next door, I think Great Lakes Brewery will do all right with no-name beer in the marketplace.

Fresh craft beer. They're fiercely independent over there. And that's the location for TMLX3. Now, Mark, you were at TMLX1, and you did not show up for tmlx2 we're gonna be taking attendance on this one for an entire year right yeah so how many more months how many episodes will i be in for between now and tmlx4 more i believe four more so june 27 is tmlx3 and it's from 6 to 9 p.m. at Great Lakes Brewery. And these guys are the headlining act. So the Royal Pains are back. We love the Royal Pains.

Al, we can't wait to hear your 90s covers. But then at 8 p.m., lowest of the the Low hit the stage at TMLX3. I think this is massive. This is a big deal. Tell me, is this a big deal? I don't hear their songs as the closing theme to any other podcast, so I think they owe you that much.

The last thing that Lowest of the Low did, which got wider attention, was they appeared on CBS Saturday morning right on this American news show. There was some curiosity, like, how did they get that booking? That was an unexpected place. But you did some digging. You figured it out. Yeah, the current anchor of the CBS Evening News,

even though he's reportedly on his way out, a guy named Jeff Glore was a Gen Xer from Buffalo, grew up at the time that Lowest of the Low were breaking through on CFNY in Toronto. And it turned out they had an even bigger following in Buffalo, right? So this Jeff Glore, an American anchorman, he was like the archetypal teenage Lowest of the Low fan. The music that he dug through adolescence. So it was him who pulled a couple of strings. And how many years into the career of Lowest of the Low? Like 26, 27, 28 years?

They made their American television debut on the Saturday morning news. There you go. And now they're going to make their TMLX debut June 27. Get it in the calendar. I'm, as you can, not only is it an event, I can't wait to meet, you know, past guests and listeners, but that's my birthday. Just throwing that out there.

June 27, so at Great Lakes. And I mentioned the pasta. Unfortunately, that lasagna is still frozen, but that is a vegetarian lasagna. How did you like the last one you took? I think that's why you're coming in monthly. It did all right. So what is it?

We've got the cold lasagna and the warm beer, the radio legacy of Ted Wallach and still high-sticking after all these years. Well, that's why he was nominated for a Juno Award. That's because he's funny. So Palma Pasta, as you know, has four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. They got Palma's Kitchen. That's the new location.

That's got the hot table. It's got the retail store. You can get a slice of pizza, a cappuccino. It's fantastic. It's near Mavis and Burnhamthorpe. Go to palmapasta.com to find out the exact address. Mississauga's best fresh pasta and Italian food. And beloved by Mike Wilner's ex-mother-in-law.

And Ted, Ted I think made sure to get his butt to Palmapasta for their, he said their sauce was excellent and that's how he knows they're a good italian uh food eatery all right let's talk jesse brown so you were recently a guest on jesse's podcast yeah he invited me in and i turned it down uh my first suggestion was that he should have you on instead what yeah? Yeah, he can verify this. But I noticed he didn't call me. Well, he wanted guests who were not in podcasting. Now, sort of a gray area for me.

If I'm coming in here monthly, I do play a role in the Canadian podcast business a little more than before. and podcast business a little more than before. But look, he wanted me on as like a cranky critic to review some of the different ventures that were going on specifically with the big media companies, Chorus and Rogers, Entertainment One, other people starting up smaller shops to develop more of a podcast business in Canada. Is this a good thing?

So he had me on, and Ben Cannon, a guy who reviews podcasts, runs a newsletter called The Constant Listener. Somewhere in there, whether it made the final cut, we were trying to figure out who listens to more podcasts, me or Ben Cannon. The number he threw out was 1,250 subscriptions. But this is a guy who's into quality, right? In fact, he was aghast at the fact that I talked about liking to listen on double speed. Sometimes double speed isn't even fast enough.

And him and Jesse, right, they were into the aesthetics, appreciating the production of these audio artists. But I have a different approach to it all. Binge listening all the time. So, yeah, we reviewed some of the shows. I don't want to dump too much on people that are just getting started. But one of the themes that came out in our discussion is the fact that all these big media players, we've seen them try to ride every type of digital phenomenon over the past 20 years. It goes back to the very first websites, right? When everybody needed

some sort of presence on the internet. And what they figured out over time was, you know, this thing maybe wasn't working out so fast. It wasn't getting them the money that they were imagining in this online gold rush. And from there, you know, YouTube was a big thing, right? A few years ago, it was like, you can get on YouTube, start your own YouTube channel. They'll pay you up front

if they believe in what you're doing. And you'll be able to monetize. Blogging, which came and went, They'll pay you up front if they believe in what you're doing. And you'll be able to monetize. Blogging, which came and went as a phenomenon. But, you know, there was a period of time when newspapers were looking at this blog business. You know this better than anybody. I had my own shot with the Toronto Star. What happened? I did it for like eight, nine months.

And they came back to me and they said, you know what, we were expecting a different kind of audience. We just didn't see the numbers there. We're sorry, there's nothing personal. We're just going to not continue and carry on. And that was like nine months. Well, you know what, especially back

then. It took a lot longer to make one of these things successful than to have a baby. Yeah, but Mark, if we're going to get to February 2019 before I have to pick the kids up at daycare, I've got to get to my Jesse Brown question. So, for example, Jake the Snake wants to

know if you, is there an expectation that Jesse Brown will ever take you out for beer? Listen, the only free beer I accept is down here in this basement. But that's because nobody else is offering. No, look, I mean, Jesse has provided me with years of irretainment without getting too deeply into what's annoyed me

about Canada land. But I think in the end, he knows as well as I do. I have great admiration for what he's been able to build up. This whole idea of being this antagonistic media critic, I think he's lost the plot a few times along the way.

I was overjoyed to be a part of what I think was an old school episode of Canada Land. He pushed the right buttons. How long was the episode? Approximately. 52 minutes? But there's like a bunch of commercials beforehand.

How long did you record for? How much was left on the cutting room floor? I think we did like 80 minutes. Not bad. That was not enough for me. But in my humble opinion, maybe it's because I'm a big fan of yours, no disrespect to Ben, but that episode didn't need Ben.

Of course it needed Ben. Why do you think it needed Ben? Because he was the voice of reason. And he was on the phone. It's like a veteran person. Well, it was Skype. I mean, look, I think you need to balance out the schtick coma that I get into.

You know that term, schtick coma? That's a you know that term schtick coma that's a howard stern thing talking about benji bronk right as a sidekick who used to be in the studio with him yeah not not in the studio anymore um and uh that was a term that that they used to use to explain what he did so you know it's it's not always about uh it's not always about being the voice of reason. I find most discussions, especially on podcasts, about the media to be tedious. I'm here to spark it up while we do it a different way. And we don't talk about the semantics of the publishing industry. And I think when it does come up, when you indulge me this way, usually that's when you're least interested in what I'm talking about. We can be honest.

Okay, so you send me your notes every time you're coming in. And there's always a section on politics, which I sometimes completely skip, and sometimes I'll just cherry pick one or two. But that's the category. So I'm a big fan of the radio and the uh deaths those are the two sections okay let's get to it because you know now that we've we've set up this idea that we'll do an obituary list at the end right so we don't want to define the finish line for the podcast and my goal here is to make it the best part mo rocka started up a podcast called Mobituaries, where he talks about interesting characters and

the stories behind how they died. So it made me feel like I was a little ahead of the curve, that there is an obituary podcast out there. So come on, Mike. We gotta keep up here. We can't let Mo Rocca eclipse what we're doing. Normally when I do the Remember the Time, I pick a song

from the Billboard 100, and this time I'm going you've guided me in a different direction. So this, on this day 30 years ago, the number one song in Canada in Canada was this. guitar solo Angel of Harlem, U2, what do you think of that?

I was looking over what number one hits happened in Canada that didn't reach the same plateau in the United States. And 30 years ago, I remember this one. Only made it to number 14 on the Hot 100. I'm surprised by that because it got heavy airplay here. Yeah, but you see, it got heavy airplay here, right? So I think there was a certain kind of record that Canadian radio would get into.

Like, this is like you two doing Tom Cochran, isn't it? Like, it's that kind of sound, the Canadian corporate rock radio sound. So I could imagine why this was a bigger hit here. Also, this is right around the time that U2 became a bit of a joke. Imagine today. Okay, wait, let's go back. The cultural appropriation charges over this song, if it came out now, would be off the charts. This was the lead single from the follow-up album to their biggest commercial.

Second single. What was the first single? Desire was the first one. You're right. Oh, my God. You're absolutely right. Rattle and Hum. You're right.

Rattle and Hum. But that was a follow-up to Joshua Tree. Yeah, but it was overblown, pretentious, right? I liked it. The whole idea was that there would be a movie and you would go and watch. There wasblown, pretentious, right? I liked it. The whole idea was that there would be a movie, and you'd go and watch. There was a movie, Black and White, right? Discovering America, getting deep into the Martin Luther

King Jr. business. And it had the choir doing Where the Streets Have No Name, which I guess you could call it pretentious, or you could call it awesome. I call it awesome. So yeah, I know what you're saying. They did some new versions of their songs, some live stuff. But yeah, this was an original ditty that I

dug 30 years ago. Okay, well then a part of our heritage here in the fact that we are force-fed this on Canadian radio. Remember the time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch

and jewelry repairs for over 30 years. You get 15% off any regular priced watch battery installation if you mention that you heard about Fast Time on Toronto Mic. I've had at least a couple of people tell me that they were lucky enough to go into the new location in Richmond Hill and meet Milan. Milan's becoming a little bit of a celebrity himself and at least two people. And in fact, even JJ,

regular listener, JJ said she was too shy to meet Milan. She hadn't, I don't know if she hadn't done her eyebrows or something. I can't remember any more of the details, but if you want to meet Milan, I think that's where he hides out the Richmond Hill location, but go to fast time. Watch..com to find a location near you.

Okay, let's dive in, Mark. Let's get going here. Let's start with Toronto. And I have a transition song that I've played on this podcast before. Breeding Ground, which I played famously during the Molly Johnson episode. That's her in there. Tell me about the Queen Street transition.

Yeah, this Breeding Ground song, I think, back 30-plus years to the kind of music that was synonymous with Queen West. I used to spin this a lot on CFNY. I didn't know much about breeding ground. We, of course, know about Molly Johnson. She is nominated for a Juno Award. You can now hit that square on the Toronto Mike bingo card

that we talked about Molly Johnson. Well, we're going to hit a lot of squares today, but please... Okay, so what's going on? I was actually on Queen West just last week. The Canterland Studio is at 401 Richmond. That's not a big secret. After showing up there, I hadn't been around in a while. I got to see for myself something that I'd previously only been familiar with from Twitter.

only been familiar with from Twitter. And it was the construction of the Mountain Equipment Co-op Store on what is generally known as the Pursuit of Happiness parking lot. It was a guy, his handle is MetroManTO. He's got a bit of infamy for being the guy who on the Urban Toronto Message Board every other day said he had sources in the Toronto Police Service saying Rob Ford was about to be arrested. So he's a bit of a conspiratorial character that way. But, you know, also one of those urbanists who prowls the streets of Toronto taking pictures for Twitter so that I never have to leave the house. I can just see what's going on that way.

So there he is, a mountain equipment co-op, the mech store that was a couple years in the making. They paved over the parking lot. The Pursuit of Happiness. The Pursuit of Happiness parking lot where the video was filmed. And he was outraged. Why? Because it looked like a big box store from the suburbs. And, you know, if we're supposed to be treating that area of Queen West, Queen and John,

as some sort of sanctified space, most synonymous, I guess, with the Rivoli, the Horseshoe Tavern, which we've talked about a lot on Here You At, the Horseshoe Tavern book author, right? McPherson. David McPherson. A great book. So, yeah, passed Toronto, my guess. So I guess, look, you know, it's almost 2020 and the perception is still there

that Queen West is a kind of hollow ground where the last thing you want to see is a suburban-style big box store. But it looks like, even though Mac is seen as a with-it brand, this was the building they ordered up, and it's not going to be coming down all that fast. And it looks like, aesthetically speaking,

it's got all the symptoms that people associate with suburbia. Now, you think that people might have gotten over this by now, but I think the legacy of Queen West, it still looms large, right? No? Is it because of city TV and much music that it was located there? That people, even if they didn't live in Toronto, didn't grow up here, like they associated it with a state of hipsterdom that they aspired to achieve. I always grew up thinking the cool people

could be found on Queen Street, and that's where the cool shops were. I remember if you wanted to buy a pair of, I don't know, used jeans or whatever, there was the black market or whatever, you'd go to the Queen Street, was it was always thought as the cool place but that was a long yeah you know okay so how long has this backlash been going on um in the book um uh is this live the memoir that christopher ward wrote about much music another another

toronto mic guest uh when that book came out. So an anecdote in there from Molly Johnson about the time when Les Chateaux opened up on that strip of Queen West, somewhere along the way, in between the Rivoli, the Horseshoe, somewhere on that block.

And the fact that Les Chateaux took over what had been a Goodwill store, Goodwill Salvation Army something in that thrift store genre, Les Chateaux moves in, and every single night, the punks gathered around to scrawl graffiti all over the windows.

They weren't going to stand for Le Chateau, leaving the shopping mall and moving into their turf. So that's about what? Like going on 35 years ago. Long time ago. Pierre Trudeau may not have yet done his walk in the snow when it opened there. Flash forward like another decade,

and there's a bit in Naomi Klein's book, No Logo, where she talks about how around 1996, Levi's silver tab jeans did a takeover of Queen West. Do you remember this at all? They bought every billboard on the street, right? Like billboards on the side of buildings, on the street, right? Like billboards on the side of buildings, on the second floors,

something that I think at the time looked a little radical. Now we're used to seeing these sorts of advertisements everywhere, but back then, the idea of draping entire blocks of a street with corporate messaging, let alone doing it on Queen Street West. This was seen as, you know, some sort of heresy.

And she quotes in the book, like, I guess, at the time that she saw some goth girl standing on the corner crying about the fact that Queen West will never be the same. This, you know, it's all over. Who let these Levi's jeans people come down here? See, it was over a long time ago. And then the

Festival Hall opened. That was with the Paramount Movie Theater and the Chapters Store. Also a Palladium. I don't know if you spent any time in there. No, not in a long time. But at the time that it was built, this was, again, sort of a suburban idea brought downtown.

But the whole idea was with this building that if you would go in there to see a movie or buy some books or hang around Palladium, that you were in the city of the future. And here we are 23 years later. the future. And here we are 23 years later, Rio Can, the owner of the building, announcing plans that based on what they're suggesting, based on the proposal, they're going to be throwing that whole thing down. So here we go, a building that rose and fell within our lifetimes because Queen West ain't what it used to be, right? The movies are changing. I think they're going to—the plan is to keep movie theaters in there, but it'll be like more the Cineplex VIP ones. Not as much the IMAX thing as before. Just looking to the future, the fact that people won't be going out to the movies as much.

And just retooling what that space will be. So I guess it's just absurdity, but it goes on. I understand it. When people react to these changes on Queen West, look how much time has passed. I guess it's easier to complain than contemplate the fact that all of us here are getting a little bit old. That's for sure. Speaking of getting old, it's been a long time, but when I was a kid, like a highlight

would be maybe a class trip to the planetarium. Like this was a big deal to lean back and kind of take in a show at the McLaughlin Planetarium. So what's the news on that front? You know, I went to the premiere, it might have been a media night, for Laser Grunge. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you check out Laser Grunge? No, but I remember Laser Floyd was a big deal. Yeah, so it was like Laser Grunge was the advancement of the Laser Floyd concept.

And I think it would have been one of the last such events at the McLaughlin Planetarium because it ended its run as a planetarium somewhere in the mid-90s, around 1995. So it's been sitting there all this time, right? Yeah. For a couple years, it was the children's own museum, like an IKEA-sponsored installation. But for the most part,

they were using it as a storage space for the ROM. Maybe if you go in there like you'll find all sorts of uh treasures from king tut uh whatever whatever they're using uh the planetarium as storage for i don't know it's it hasn't been open to the public so it's been quite a few years wondering what's going to become of this space and people are very passionate about the planetarium right especially like like people that are into modernist architecture, what it represents as a building. A lot of petitions over the years to try and save it. But better to actually do something with that valuable land.

So the University of Toronto, which has taken it over, they announced that it's going to be rebuilt, that there's going to be a whole new structure on that site. Say goodbye to the McLaughlin Planetarium that we're used to seeing there. Look, at one point they were trying to build a condo on that space, a high-rise 40-story condo, and the neighbors revolted. That was when the ROM Crystal was opening, right? It was going to be part of redeveloping that corner. Bloomer Avenue Road on Queens Park, that got shut down. The shadows of the condo that seemed a little too ambitious for the era.

I don't know if it would get the same kind of backlash today. Now, a bit of a rookie mistake here in using Substack now for the 1236 newsletter. I actually embedded a tweet from what was essentially like an alt-right architecture Twitter account. Did you know that such a thing exists? I'm not surprised, but I didn't know that. Kind of using architecture criticism of a way of bringing people into some ideas that people might define as neo-nazi but it was just a silly opinion of

somebody being outraged about their idea for what to put in place of a planetarium i got a lot of retweets so i figured it was newsworthy but yeah i was a little shocked shocked at my own ignorance there by the fact that even if I was giving a little bit of publicity to these Twitter architecture trolls who are bringing people into whatever dark side of social media that they're representing. And I think for the most part, look, a lot of sentimentality around the McLaughlin Planetarium. But they are opening another planetarium nearby. Where? St. George Street. Okay. So a few blocks away.

Like near the Beta Museum or? Somewhere. Beta, Bata, whatever. The Beta Bata, I believe. With the astronomy department of the University of Toronto. So there will be a planetarium. And I guess just like the story of Queen Street West, I mean, the city keeps on changing.

And look, I mean, we're talking about changes that have taken like 20, 30, 40 years. So we come down here in the basement. This is a safe space for Toronto nostalgia. Absolutely. And it can be disconcerting to walk around an old neighborhood that you remember one way, and now it's completely different, something that you're not used to.

When I was down around 401 Richmond, I'm wondering where did all these condos come from? Don't you have that experience when you're in a part of a city, and you look up, and it's like, I never noticed that building. That's a good example. The planetarium, that neighborhood, because I went to U of T and I was at,

of course, St. George, uh, the downtown campus. And I mean, every day I, I lived at like Charles street and young and I walked those streets. And it's like,

uh, when I go back now, it's like, and now we're like, I, again, you mentioned we're getting older. It's,

it's a fact because, uh, that's, I don't know, 25 years ago, these memories and everything's different. And you're like, you mentioned we're getting older. It's a fact because that's, I don't know, 25 years ago, these memories and everything's different. And you're like, what the heck happened? And even driving, I was driving downtown yesterday. Yes, not biking.

I was driving downtown yesterday. So I don't know if you get a bingo point card for that. But it's just, you see that Tridel building jutting out and you just see all this stuff that wasn't there, like all this stuff that wasn't there, like all this stuff that wasn't there before. And it's like a very rapidly growing and expanding city. And it's like us old folks are like, what's going on? Okay, but look, with that comes a lot of income inequality.

You know, the idea that people have to live in the inner suburbs and, you know, go through a big hassle to take the TTC in from Scarborough to do their downtown jobs that aren't very glamorous. Well, they could use their child's Presto card and save a buck. Well, that was a different topic,

which was hilarious, right? It was Sean O'Shea, the consumer reporter from Global News, who I guess had already been working on a story. SOS. You can go on Kijiji and find people selling these child Presto cards where they are promising like five years

of riding the TTC for $150. Wow. It's a deal. Now, how do they do it? Volume, which is essentially buying a Presto card that's meant for kids. When you're 12 and under, you ride the TTC for free. And part of that initiative, they declared that the kids still have to have a Presto card. And they can't do anything about the fact that anybody of any age

can buy a kid's presto card, right? You don't have to show ID to buy a child presto card. They found a whole underground trade in child presto cards going on. The inspectors who were doing a

survey about TTC fare evasion, they counted a certain number of examples. I think it was 78 examples that they caught. Like, it just turned out that the sample that they were taking, you know, showed some cause for concern, that this was real. It was going on. People were loading up child presto cards with the fact that you can ride for free. Like, if you register it as a kid. I didn't do this. I don't know how it works.

Sean O'Shea used Kijiji to contact one of the sellers, met him somewhere in a dark alley or maybe the tunnels of one of the subway stations. Lower Bay. Exposed the fact that he was from global news. And you won't believe what happened next. The guy made a run for it, right? So you had one of those great TV news consumer report moments where the reporter was chasing down the subject that he caught selling the kiddie press record.

I don't know if that puts an end to it. One of the things I found out was a fact that it's not illegal to sell one of these cards to an adult. So that itself will not curb this behavior. What they think they have to do is come up with a different style to the cards so that people notice when it's an adult using a child Presto card. So great moments in TTC fare evasion that they really blundered that one. They have to admit because monthly pass, what used to be a metro pass, it's kind of expensive. And if somebody was offering you $100, $150,

you could ride the TTC for free for the next five years, even if they only paid $7 for the free card. I just bought one on my phone right now. It looks legit. That's a great deal. But Mark, I'm looking at the clock and I realize we've got to get to radio because we could do two hours on radio and we simply, I mean, even though you pointed

out to me via Twitter that Joe Rogan's recent episode went almost five hours, so I don't want any complaints, especially from Gene Valaitis, who says that the optimal length is 22 minutes. I don't want any complaints that this thing's going to run two plus hours. Okay, what's up in radio? Alright, let's

get to radio. Let's begin with Jazz FM. What's the latest? There's been big developments in the Jazz FM. I think most of what's been going on with Jazz FM is happening in this basement, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know. You mentioned it with

Ted Wallachian. I just asked. I didn't even say. I don't think I said Jazz FM. I said, have you ever been sued for slander or accused of slander? I could tell by his eyes. He knew where I was going, and he didn't want to go there. Okay, so for those who have not

seen, Howard Levitt, very well known employment lawyer in Toronto who's a regular on News Talk 1010. He does his own infomercial call-in show. It's an interesting listen every week. He

sent a letter to Toronto Mike ordering him to remove the episodes of five different podcasts, podcasts with former employees of Jazz FM 91. Now, this got a lot of attention, mostly for the fact in the way that it was worded. for the fact in the way that it was worded and uh there was howard levitt you know suggesting that um ross porter former uh program director of jazz fm still heard on the station with his music to listen to jazz by but the new the new board hasn't uh told him his services are no longer required not yet i think that'll be newsworthy when it happens. I don't know. So yeah, a lot of personal struggles that he's gone through and the health of his wife and his son. And those facts were raised as reasons that you should delete these podcasts.

And when you talked about news reports about Ross Porter, that somehow there was a correlation between the fact that he was being discussed as a public figure. He's been the subject of multiple articles. Okay, if I may say, and I'll be careful, but, although I have lawyered up, I now have a lawyer, but I can tell you that everything I know about that

man, Ross Porter, I learned from sources, recently from sources such as the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and cbc.ca. Everything I said about him or knew about him

were taken from those sources within the past year. It's unfortunate what he's been going through and the way it's described in the letter from Howard Levin. But at the same time, to suggest that conversations

on your podcast, whether or not he listened to them, had anything to do with what's happened here. He listed five episodes. He listed Ralph Ben-Murray, Danny Elwell, James B., Heather

Bambrick, and Bill King. Yeah, that was the older one. Those are the episodes that were listed. Conspicuous by its absence is recent episode with Mark Wigmore, which didn't seem to make the cut, but regardless. I listened back to all these episodes after I got the letter because I was initially

spooked by receiving this letter and I listened to hear, what did I say? What did the guest say? Awfully tame and safe and James B., for example, there was nothing. Forget slander. We didn't talk about it in a negative light of any sorts. He was super careful.

Ralph Ben-Murray, we never mentioned anything about Ross Porter. It was recorded before I had read any articles in the paper about it. So I don't believe, and I don't have any, in my opinion, they did not listen to these episodes thoroughly before listing them. They simply maybe heard about one or two and then listed everybody they saw that was a former employee at Jazz FM. Is there a consensus that if a newspaper like the Golden Mail received a letter like this, that they would just ignore it? I don't know. I don't know if they received one as well. I think it's strange that I did

because I'm a podcaster who's just speaking about, you know, things that are in the mainstream media, which trustworthy sources that you know have been, you know, corroborated and triple-checked and all this stuff that Global Mail does. So I don't know what to say.

I mean, it must feel good to say you've lawyered up. I've never... Now you've hit the big time, right? I've lawyered up. Have you ever lawyered up before I've never... Now you've hit the big time, right? I've lawyered up. Have you ever lawyered up before you did get divorced? Did you have to lawyer up? No, actually.

We did that without... No, I did not have to lawyer up. So first time for everything. I hope I never have to lawyer up. It seems really stressful. So Jazz FM, that's... You might have to lawyer up after whatever we're talking about here. I'm not sure. I'm nervous. Worried. Please. You never yeah. You might have to lawyer up after whatever we're talking about here. I'm not sure.

I'm nervous. Worried. Please. You never know. You never know. So we mentioned that I did not. I was not ordered to remove the Mark Wigmore episode, which is great because it's a great episode.

And he has a new gig. He's now the afternoon drive host at 96.3. Is that Moses' classical station? The new classical FM. Moses has a certain shtick. I think one of those is naming something the new. The new VR. Remember the new

VR? Of course. And never dropping the new part. They had Raptor games, you know, but people forget that. The new classical FM. Now, Mark Wigmore got that job because of some misfortune on the part of a longtime voice

on the station, Cary Stratton, who's a conductor, symphony conductor, who has been a voice on there for like, I don't know, decades. He was doing the afternoon drive show. He had to step down because he was diagnosed with ALS.

So really intense stuff. But, you know, he's doing his best to fight it, and he's still heard on the station, still doing a voice track show on the weekends. So that created an opening for Mark Wigmore. I can understand maybe that's a little awkward, right? You got a job because somebody had to retire due to their health. But he seems like the right guy.

And, you know, there he was, exiled from Jazz FM. You talk to him, hear about his career. Couldn't imagine a better hire by that station than mark wigmore in afternoon drive i heard him on there maybe he was uh putting on a a bit of a classical radio affect that he wants to be taken seriously uh different voice and you hear on his own podcast yeah but he has the pedigree i think because he's you know all that cbc time and yeah well you do have to know how to pronounce a lot of stuff yeah if you're going to be a classical FM DJ. Earlier, I

mispronounced a word, and it occurred to me. Beta? I said beta instead of bata, and that's exactly what I do with woman. I say the woman instead of woman. I actually think I have a challenge here with those sounds.

So imagine reading the names of symphonies and composers and conductors. I can't even say brewery. But anyway. So Mark Wigmore, yeah, the right guy for the job, and I think part of Toronto Mike's history. Somebody else who came in here on our podcast didn't quite know if things were going to work out for the future, and then a few days later, he's got the job.

That's a trend because Ashley Dawking was a guest on this show not too long ago. And we talked about, like, you know, she just wanted for 2019, she wanted something permanent, full-time, if you will, because she was doing all the freelance stuff and everything. And here we are in February, and she has been announced as the replacement for Elliot Price, who I have another former guest who sadly was shown the door. That's too bad. I liked Elliot.

But Ashley Dawking is the new Morning Show co-host with Greg Brady on the Fan 590. What do you think of people giving you credit? I'm a little uncomfortable with it because, of course, I don't deserve credit for Ashley Docking getting a gig, but I have what I have done, if I pat myself on the back, is I have tried to shine a light on the lack of diversity in

particularly at the Fan 590, but in AM radio in general, and this is kind of significant in that this is the first, I would say, non-white guy to get a full-time gig during the core weekday hours on the Fan 590 since, I'm going to say, maybe Barb DiGiulio? I don't know. It's been a long time. And here we have a situation where there were any number of women they could have hired, right? Like, what took so long that it was apparent

that they didn't have any female voices on the air? It was a while ago that they fired Barb. Long time ago. Yeah, she's been on 1010 for a few years now. And I guess they found the right one. Like, it sounds like they will be putting some promotional push behind her, even though any fear that TSN 1050 will cut into the fans' ratings. I think they're over it by now, right?

Did that come up with Scott Moore? Like, they were nervous. They were wondering, like, what would happen. Here was Bell with a sports radio station, and they've still got a long way to go to catch up. Yeah, but again, what i point to is you this example last time you were on which was only a month ago because now you come in monthly but we talked about how it did seem very recently like we could say the same thing about uh 640 and 1010 like very recently we would see big readings for 1010 and 640 kind of picking

up the scraps and we would we would talk about how like the dominance there and it seems uh what we've seen recently is that that dominance is over and you can make an argument that in some key demos at some key times 640 actually has more listeners than 1010 and before you respond i'm bringing up 640 because you know yesterday the big press release comes from rogers that ashley dockings on 590 but there was another press release yesterday from chorus telling us that they have uh brought some new new voices to 640 tell us well uh talking about white men on the radio yeah um there was uh jeff mccarthur a guy who had been on 640 before, they put him on TV on the Global Morning Show,

and they shuffled that around. There's no longer the Toronto Global Morning Show with Jeff MacArthur. What he's doing now is a national global morning show, which runs after the Toronto Morning Show. Which we'll get to in a minute. He had a resource there, a guy that could do talk radio, so I guess he had to do something i guess otherwise uh he wouldn't be earning the

same salary as before so they put him back on to where it was before doing like the midday after news on 640 along with alan carter um who's the longtime political reporter type at Global News, now an anchorman, I think. I don't know. What do you know about Global TV? Global News Radio seems more popular now than Global Television. Global Television is a huge blind spot for me, basically since Yes Guy,

since Hebsey and Taddy were doing Sportsline. It's a huge blind spot for me. But I will say the two bodies that had to be moved out in order to bring in these two new white guys, as we mentioned, is, well, Matt Gurney, who's a white guy himself, but Tasha Carradine, right? She was moved out as well. And I think what they're doing with the time slots is Kelly Cotrera moves to nine,

out as well. I think what they're doing with the time slots is Kelly Cotrera moves to nine, and then you get the two new shows before Oakley closes things out over there. And they're putting global TV newscasts on the radio, which seems to be part of the way

it's done now. Now, Matt Gurney might have been a white guy, but I think by the standards of Toronto Talk Radio, he was a subversive white guy, because he was younger the standards of Toronto Talk Radio, he was a subversive white guy, because he was younger than the typical AM Talk Radio host. And he also came from the world of newspapers.

One of the few people, I think, ever to leave a job in the newspaper business, working as the comment editor of the National Post, and get into radio because print media wasn't paying him enough money. He talked about that here. I don't know too many precedents.

I mean, Matt Galloway used to be a writer for Now Magazine, ended up at the CBC, but those are two different leagues. Being an editor at the National Post or being a talk show host on Global News Radio, I was surprised that the uh radio opportunity paid him more but they put him on in mornings with supriya duavetti so i guess uh they had high hopes and they saw him as the kind of character that could differentiate the station

from what was going on elsewhere on the dial that didn didn't work out. Mike Stafford came in. Now he's the morning co-host. And Gurney was left with this nine to noon slot. I wouldn't say he reinvented the radio wheel or anything. It was just like talk radio, mostly about politics, but he was different. And to have him replaced by some TV anchorman type people, to bring

the TV bingo calling to radio, well, they're not going to invite me now back on Global News 640 after I've said something like that. Oh, that's right. That's your station, bud. Working with what they've got. Now, pure speculation on my part, but

what I've learned along the way after hundreds of these conversations is that when you're a morning show host like Matt Gurney, you get paid sort of a morning show salary, and then you get moved. This happened with Mike Richards. It happens all the time. Greg Brady, it happens all the time.

But they get moved to a midday shift, if you will, but the salary is still the morning show salary. And pure speculation on my part, but there's probably many factors at play, and that's probably one of them, that he's being paid morning show money to be a guy in the mid day, which gets paid less. Okay, but either way, ratings are up for the

time slots where they count, and that's their morning show, afternoon drive. I wonder what's going to happen with John Moore, Jerry Agar, Jim Richards, The Rush wonder what's gonna happen with john moore uh jerry agar jim richards yeah the rush with ryan and jay and their new third wheel dean blundell wait can you uh elaborate on this guy who by the way appeared on another podcast uh within the last week to spread more lies about me uh you know he's not my cup of tea please tell me a guy named matt cundall who's been in the radio business for a long time finds himself on the

beach i guess that's the term they use he's not working at a radio station right now so he started a podcast that is uh primarily about talking uh with radio people. Different from what you do on Toronto Mic'd in the sense that, like, it's very focused and he recognizes that the audience is, for the most part, going to be other broadcast professionals. I think he does a really great job. He had one this week with Colter Bouchard of Colter and Meredith on 102.1 The Edge. They got some good tidbits out of that one.

Hearing about this young guy, his late 20s, winding his way through the radio industry, ended up working in Dubai, got fired from the radio station for making a video saying you should be nice to gay people. Really?

They didn't like that. I think they were imagining a beheading possibility if somebody approved a message like that. Couldn't talk about pork. Couldn't talk about Israel. Interesting listen with Coulter. So another one on the SoundOff podcast.

Dean Blundell making his comeback. You know Dean Blundell. Did you listen to this episode of Dean? Well, I listened on Triple Speed. On Triple Speed, did Dean mention Toronto Mike? Oh, yeah, of course. I think it's the only thing he's got. The idea that there's this podcast around,

there's a turd in a basement who's been begging him, begging him to come on the podcast for years and years and years. He's still singing that note there. It might be time for another secret episode of Toronto Mike just to respond to that. But no, he didn't. Look, he didn't say anything new.

And the narrative with Dean is that he's gone through a lot. He regrets what happened to his reputation. He regrets how it's blocked him from getting gigs. Yeah, which wasn't the case because then he got hired by Rogers to be on Mornings on the Fan. But look, he claims now that this incident that was reported in the Star was kind of a contrived thing that only came up because they were just trying to create

like a typical social justice warrior Toronto Star story in looking at the fact that there was this jury trial for a man who was charged with sexual assault on other men. Was he convicted? You know the story. I don't want to say the wrong thing. Yeah, well, Blind Derek's been on the show. We've talked about this. But it took place in a bathhouse.

And I don't want to say what happened in case I'm wrong. I can't definitively remember how that resolved. You can't Google and podcast at the same time. Pretty sure he was convicted at least that first time because the jokes were around how he would enjoy being there because of things that would happen. That was a lot of the homophobia. Okay, so Dean is modern-day mea culpa

is saying that, you know, this was not a joke about all gay people. He was talking about this one specific incident of criminal behavior. And that's what he was making jokes about, that this was, you know, nothing to do with the fact that it involved a man doing these things to other men. It was just an easy target as far as he was concerned. Like, he didn't think there was anything wrong with going on about the fact that here was this

guy who was in trouble for all these despicable acts. And he blames it on the Toronto Star that they painted it as like a homophobic commentary that he was talking about everyone. So he wants it to be known that he was only referring to this one case where his producer was the foreman of the jury

and that it was a bit of a setup on the part of the lawyer um to to try and influence the court system what do you think still not my cup of tea. And now I want to talk about Jennifer Valentine. So we were talking about like chorus, I mean, sorry, global or whatever the difference is. Global having a new morning show. There's a new Toronto morning show on global TV. And Jennifer Valentine has left her co-hosting duties on Q107 where she was with John Derringer.

She's left that to be on global television. Jennifer Valentine has gotten TorontoMic.com a lot of clicks over the years, right? It's whether it was her leaving breakfast television or joining Q107. Hundreds of comments. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

And the endless thread. And I will say this. When she first got into bed with Chorus, so to speak, she was hosting like a, what was it? Bachelor After Party or something. Bachelor Canada After Party. Something to do with The Bachelor in Vancouver. She was hosting this program for Chorus.

And I invited her on Toronto Mic then so we could talk about what happened at Breakfast Television, et cetera, et cetera. And she happened at Breakfast Television, etc., etc. And she ran it by PR, Chorus PR. And that was the very first time in the history of this podcast that a guest was denied permission to appear on my program. It's happened several times since, but that was the first time. And I would guess they will now double down on the denial because the idea is that she's a familiar face for all those years on breakfast television and if they've got her on

Global, people will be flipping around. They'll make it their habitual morning TV experience and if you get them to flip over, then they'll stick around. I mean, these things work very slowly. Liza Fromer,

another guest that you had down here. They tried her out on Global with that same thinking, that she had that background with BT. And that came to an end. Was it acrimonious? My mom quite liked that show. I don't remember. Was it like

not a happy conclusion to their relationship? No, it was not. That was not her choice to leave, if that's what you mean. But there was a guy on that show. He's like a Vancouver-based guy, and I can never remember his name

because I think he went right back there. Oh, Dave Gary. Yeah, yeah. And I only know who he is because you're always talking about how your mom likes watching this guy. It's like the second time I mentioned it, I think. Second?

It might be the 22nd. There's no bingo space for... What's his name again? John Gary? Dave Gary. Dave Gary. Almost became my stepdad. I got to know these things.

Okay, yeah. The avuncular TV personality. I think, yeah, you could have done a monthly podcast with him if that relationship worked. Well, he's on the West Coast now, so I don't do my chats via Skype, so forget it. And you don't do them with family members anymore either, I've noticed. Well, you never know. There might be more. I can't convince any family members to do the show.

I actually desperately want to do an episode of my 17-year-old. And he's basically, I don't know if he's holding, is this like his master negotiation skills? But he's taking a hard no thanks stance. So I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Even Jarvis is lawyering up i think uh oh but i will ask him again to be down here once i think morgan can

get even remotely close to the microphone which is a challenge for many broadcasting uh professionals so i don't know once i think she can do that i will have morgan on the podcast uh she is a sweetheart but i could do another two hours about her. Instead, I want to ask Flow 93.5. They returned to that original name. They were The Move, and now they're back to Flow. Well, they

flipped over to The Move on the premise that it would be throwbacks. There was a legacy in the radio of Energy 108 from Burlington and Z103 Hot 103.5. Do you remember when the station was called that? The radio station from Orangeville.

It's actually in Etobicoke. On Dundas. They were known for playing that Euro trash dance music. Scott Turner. I see him as like one of the main architects of that sound in Toronto. Also, Wayne Williams. You know Wayne Williams? He's still around.

I should get him on the show. Program director in Hamilton of the chorus radio station. He comes up a lot. I need to get that man in my basement. Yeah, so great history turning these low-watt suburban 905 radio stations into little powerhouses in Toronto. NuCap, which owned 93.5 at the time, I think they saw an opportunity.

They had Boom 97.3, by some measures, the number one radio station in Toronto. Why not do a rhythmic version of what they do over at Boom and play these songs from the 90s, early 2000s. Lots of Fugees. Yeah, I mean, I quite liked the sound when they did the throwbacks.

I liked it. The stuff that was synonymous with electric circus. No one else was doing that kind of radio. But I don't know that it was the kind of format, the sort of playlist that could go on forever. It might sound like a nostalgic novelty for a few days. It doesn't mean you were going to stick around.

So instead they went back to hip hop, but they didn't change the name. So it was still the move, but it was actually the music that was synonymous with flow. Right. Blake Carter was on this show, like the week they flipped to that new,

which basically meant more Kendrick Lamar and just some more modern, lots of Post Malone. A lot of repetition, too, and a lot of Drake. A lot of Drake, of course. Literally. It's not an exaggeration. Every half hour, there's a song from Drake or something featuring Drake. We need more Mishy Mee and less Drake.

That's what we need. So it was natural with the brand equity that they built for Flow 93.5, the fact that anybody that was interested in what this station was doing were still calling it Flow. Why not go back to the name? They got a new owner in Stingray.

And even though they were launching these Yacht Rock radio stations and other markets in Canada, The Breeze. We're not getting a Breeze. Some speculation. Well, not yet. But yeah, why not just flip back to the flow,

the same music, the same DJs, and give it another shot to see if people are into this brand. I mean, the flow when it launched was a long time coming. They spent over a decade. It was Milestone Communications, an independent company. Went to the CRTC proposing this sort of format in

1990, and they lost. They didn't get the license because the CRTC decided that Toronto needed a new country radio station. That was KISS 92.5. It's still called KISS, but the new country is long gone. Well, the C is a K now.

It was a C, I remember, at the beginning, right? People still have the mugs, right? Is it your mom who still drinks from a Kiss mug? My mom loved, speaking of my mom, Dave Geary and Kiss 92.5, the mugs and kisses. Yeah, the mugs and kisses filled with Hershey's Kisses. That was a thing they had going on a while.

Their first ratings came out and they had like a 10 share astronomical, but... The Garth Brooks era. It was very good. But they also played the Barenaked Ladies. So it was kind of like

turning the country format. I mean, the people that were country music purists, they thought this station was a joke. But it was a formula that worked for a little while. At least gave the perception a lot of people were listening to it.

So, you know, the flow had a long history as an independent station. A frequency like that could only go so far with an indie owner as far as being able to sell advertising and marketing itself. You know, they tried to tweak the format over the years. I mean, when it first launched,

it was maybe a little bit too much like a college radio station. Then at one point, David Marsden came in to be the program director of Flow 93.5. I don't... That has come up on here. Okay, yeah. But so much has come up on here. Now I'm starting to forget things. I need to revisit my own catalog.

Okay, and then they went to the retro sound, skewing older, skewing younger, whatever it was. Then more of a top 40 thing. Then they started threatening KISS 92.5. Then KISS 92.5 changed to hip hop. This was a weird time in Toronto radio history. They hired people away from the flow. This is all old news now because so much has changed,

especially as far as how young people consume music. Speaking of flow, did you enjoy the Mishy Mee episode? I enjoyed the station ID that she made for you all right let's hear it toronto stay tuned right here with toronto mics and it goes a little something like this hit it there you go it's like i'm listening to the fantastic voyage on ckln 30 years ago with ron nelson that's right um yeah mishi me uh someone who has been around Toronto all this time and an example of you doing the definitive podcast interview with somebody who, did she ever do

any kind of podcast before? Not that I've heard and I gotta say you know, those are the episodes that personally I have the most satisfaction from. Like a Mishy Mee who I completely adored many decades ago,

and I have great respect for her. When I get somebody like that, and they're willing to sort of play the game, and they'll answer my questions, and they'll listen to me fanboy a bit, and I can play their songs, and they're not going to be like,

oh, I don't want to hear my own music or anything. They're willing to listen and tell you something about it you didn't know. Those are the episodes I personally enjoy the most next to my monthly visits from mark weisblatt at 12.56 what else was going on with radio before we drop this all right so we mentioned uh kiss 92.5 that's where adam wilde

used to work but he quit because he eventually after his non-compete expired, he took a gig as the new morning show host at Virgin 99.9, taking over for Tucker. We talked about this last week. And now there's exciting news. His wife is pregnant. And you love your Marilyn and Jamar on 104.5. Does this get discussed on both shows or just Marilyn's show? Well, I heard Marilyn was on with her son, with Adam Wilde.

It was great. But on 99.9. On 99.9. I mean, it's not like they plugged the fact that you can hear her on the radio. I guess they're imagining a different demographic. Yeah, their parents' station. They blew out this Tucker and Maura and Wilson show we talked about here on the previous episodes about how angry they were. I love it.

show we talked about here on the previous episodes about how angry they were i love it they're doing podcasts just like spitting with venom about the fact they were tossed out of the radio business at least for now to make way for maryland dennis's son i mean could you imagine a better a better target for people uh being upset about nepotism. You know, the woman that's been on Chum FM for 33 years gets her son a job across the hall. But look, he earned his way there. He's got something of a following as far as social media is concerned, and that's really what it takes.

Like, that's what these stations are looking for. The amount of time they talk on the air it's really quick they don't really uh spend a lot of time bantering right between the breaks but it's it's more about the interaction it's about having the followers on instagram uh you know reaching out to people that way and you know finding that loyalty that used to go on with the radio station request line. Once upon a time, you'd play the record that somebody wanted to hear and they would be your friend for life.

They would tell all their friends, right, about the fact that you got your call answered on the radio. These days, it's about saying the right thing on Facebook and acknowledging the audience is out there. It seems like Adam Wilde was the guy to do it, and Tucker and Maura and Wilson maybe had aged out of that kind of activity.

But Adam Wilde and TJ... And Jax. And Jax. With an X. They were sidekick. Very amusing tweet when she joined the show, referring to her own orientation that she never imagined waking up alongside a man, let alone two of them. So that's where we're at.

It's great. It's refreshing. It's different. So Adam Wilde, his wife, who's also some sort of Instagram influencer. I don't have that name at my fingertips. Okay, but she's with Childe. I'm sure she's terrific. She's with Childe and Marilyn. Marilyn came out at least once to talk to him about it,

and then she had to go. She had to go back to her regular job at Chum 104.5, which brings us to our Toronto-mic'd mystery. I'm working on it. So Jamar is going to come back. It's always a little interesting. But I have to ask, what is the deal with Jamar's baby? That'll be the first question I ask him. So I'm going to get him

down here in the hot seat in my basement, and I'm going to ask him about his baby. That's number one with a bullet. That's a high priority for me. And Jamar, look, you follow him on Instagram. He's always off to another city every other weekend. He's DJing in Chicago. He was

playing some sort of Soca party. He's got a in Chicago. He was playing some sort of Soca party. He's got a good life. So the guy's got a, yeah, he works his way around. Still, you know, got his fans south of the border. But as we've raved about here, I think a big star for Bell Media. And, yeah, the kind of guy that we're on the level with. Unlike all these old radio geezers that Jamar will actually take what we have to say seriously. So all love for Jamar.

The man takes my calls. That's all you need to know about him. So speaking of, you know, big-time stars, let's talk about Adnan Virk. Oh, well, look, I mean, he was certainly seen as like a fast-rising star in the world of ESPN, wasn't he? Like from pretty humble beginnings in the Canadian media. What network was he on of the two Canadian sports media conglomerates? This is a blind spot for me. 360? I don't even know.

Maybe or back when it was a score into Sportsnet, something like that. It doesn't matter now. Look, he got called up to the big leagues. ESPN, Baseball Tonight. And he did the kind of thing that you're not supposed to do, which is he leaked information to the website, awful announcing about rumors going around that his show, Baseball Tonight, was about to be canceled.

Somehow, he was alleged to have been the tipster that put this information into the hands of the website. And before you know it, he was out the door. Maybe he used company email. That's a rookie mistake. Not that he's a rookie, but maybe he must have something like that. And you know what? Maybe he didn't do it at all,

just to make sure you don't get it. Oh, my God. I've got to write down here on my wall the word allegedly. I got to say it before I make any statements. I have no idea what happened with Adnan, and I don't pretend to know. Well, I know what happened with him. He's out of a job. Right.

And he can no longer say. It's not like Dan Shulman where he could say that he made the crossover from the Canadian media to the big time. that he made the crossover from the Canadian media to the big time, American sports. When my buddies Jay and Dan, they went down south to become stars, and then it didn't work out, and then they were quickly offered a position at TSN to come back home, and there was a lot of, as you know, a lot of noise. The reason it didn't work out was because they didn't have any viewers. I mean, like, no one cared.

And they did cash some pretty big checks along the way. But will he come home? Will Adnan come back to Canada? I guess we'll have to wait and see. You're going to have to clear his name. He also, I just found out, he had a movie podcast going on all this time on ESPN. I would have listened to that if I knew anything about it.

I'm not going to go through the archives. I don't need to hear about old movies that have already opened. But yeah, just somebody, the hometown boy made good. And for the time being, due to circumstances, things are not happening for him.

I think he's going to have to at least sit out the next season. This worked out well last month. We let Brian Gerstein from propertyinth the six.com introduce uh a segment if you will and we're gonna let yeah it's either that or him putting me on the spot with something that i'm too embarrassed to answer right so let's let's let brian do it again um i don't i haven't listened to this uh i don't know if he's going to mention the gallery of

i hope he does i got my fingers crossed. Here's Brian. Hi, Mark. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Phase one of the Galleria Mall redevelopment plan, including 420 condos and 2 buildings, are being sold exclusively by PSR. Contact me now by phone or text at 416-873-0292 and I can send you high-risk pictures and put you on my VIP first access list. We are targeting this May or June to sell them with a 2023 completion date. The best part, the park and community center will be completed before then. They will be both investor-friendly priced and also ideal for end users.

Mark, on your Twitter feed, you covered Toronto and GTA famous American headstones and where to find them. Coming off the Oscars and their annual memorial tribute, the timing could not be better for this question. So, who are they and where do we find them? I love this question.

Okay, well, thanks, Brian. Look, it came up because they announced some new names of laneways in downtown Toronto, specifically around the area of like College and Bathurst, just like northwest of Kensington Market, around the neighborhood of Harvard Collegiate. Different luminaries that grew up around there. You know, there's a never-ending supply of laneways in Toronto, and maybe there's a never-ending supply of people that they can be named after. So when they announced the names of who was getting a laneway in this new round in that neighborhood,

there was Alan Borovoy, a legendary civil rights lawyer. He's dead now. Wayne and Schuster, who are also long gone. They're getting their own lane. They don't get separate laneways, Wayne and Schuster. Johnny Wayne, Frank Schuster. Anyways, Wayne and Schuster. Johnny Wayne, Frank Schuster.

No, it's going to be the Wayne and Schuster Lane somewhere around Harvard where they went to high school. And a third famous name whose career was mostly spent in the United States of America, Morley Safer, will have his own lane in downtown Toronto. Now, this got me thinking. Morley Safer is probably the biggest celebrity who was recently buried in Toronto. Even though, you know, he had all this stardom with 60 Minutes. Remember when he retired? They announced his retirement, 2016. They did a whole tribute show to Morley Safer. Well, something was up because he died a few days later.

So maybe they had this in the can. They didn't need to drag this out too long. Maybe he or his family flagged the fact that it was almost over. Maybe you should run the tribute show. I guess if he was able to see it, you would enjoy the fact that you got to see your own funeral on TV, so to speak. You can see Morley Safer's headstone at the Rose Lawn Cemetery, which is like around the neighborhood of Bathurst and Eglinton. It's a Jewish cemetery, and Morley Safer is buried there. Are you surprised about this fact?

is buried there. Are you surprised about this fact? Because not a lot of people that became famous in the U.S. whose bodies were sent back to Toronto in order to make it their final resting place. Good point. Although I'm not completely shocked by this because he's from here, but

I know the tweet that Brian's referencing there and you had like, and I find this interesting because as recently as the last episode interesting because, you know, I as recently as the last episode of Ted Wallachian, I was talking about the Jeff Healy gravestone in the Park Lawn Cemetery. And I know that because that's where Harold Ballard is. And I won't even like tempt Al into like creating a bingo square for like references to Harold Ballard's grave. But like when Jeff Merrick came on in the early days and we talked about him

putting the dirt on Harold Ballard's casket, I mean, right then I knew he was going to help me find that grave site. So I'm interested in what, in addition to Morley Safer, who was a big freaking star, what other megastars are buried here

that most people would be surprised at? Okay, so based on my research which consists of asking people on twitter it's not as long a list as you might think um a little while ago i put this in the 1236 newsletter at the time there was a reaction to the fact that you could look on trip advisor and there was an entry for cory hames grave now you think this would be, like, something of interest because this is all the way up there in the 905,

somewhere around King City. That's where Corey was buried after his tragic death in 2010. Why not make it known that you can pay your respects to Corey Haim out there? Like Jim Morrison. I've been to Jim Morrison's grave site in Paris. Well, you've got one up on me. I haven't even been to Corey Haim out there. It's like Jim Morrison. I've been to Jim Morrison's gravesite in Paris.

Well, you've got one up on me. I haven't even been to Corey Haim's gravesite. I haven't either. But yeah, so when you're visiting your Jewish grandparents at the cemetery, you can pay your respects. You can leave a little stone in honor of Corey Haim. It's there. That's where he was buried.

So asking around a little more, I was reminded of these ones that I forgot about. And that list includes Gregory Hines. Yes. Which will show, I think, because none of us think of him and Toronto. Like, he's not Canadian. Well, in his latter years,

he had a relationship, whether he was married or not, with a woman who was from Toronto. So he spent a lot of time here. So she had him buried in the cemetery on a stone, you know, that presumably she can be buried right alongside him. Right. He was a big, I mean, in the 80s, there was a period

of time there i don't know what i can't remember the name tapped out or something whatever's the name of his big tap movie tap it was called tap but he had a big you know he's a he's a great dancer and a fantastic like one of the a premier like tap dancer and he had a movie about tap dancing or something tap i can't remember anymore you You might remember. But he was a big star in the 80s. Big deal. Okay, well, when he died, 2003, he was buried in Toronto. And it turned out that the woman that was his fiancée,

that was it at the time, Negreta Jade, she died too at a relatively young age, 2009. So she is, in fact, buried beside him. And her premonition, I guess, came true that that would also be her final resting place. Here's another name

that died in 2017. George A. Romero, the director of Night of the Living Dead. Night of the Living Dead, yeah. Another case of a guy who got married and moved to Toronto and made some of his latter-day films here. So I guess if you were showing some sort of celebrity watcher around Toronto grave sites,

you could check out where George A. Romero is buried in Toronto. Now, a little more homegrown, but still a tombstone that a lot of people not from Toronto would find interesting. John Rutzy. Do you know who John Rutzy is? No. He was the original drummer of Rush. Okay. So before Neil Peart came in, the first Rush album has drumming from John Rutzy.

Now, he died in 2008. And if you are a Rush fan, they have a Rush Con in Toronto periodically where the Rush fans all get together and hang out. They visit Queen's Park to reenact the album cover of Moving Pictures. There's only so many Rush nerd activities that you can do in Toronto, but visiting the original drummer's grave would be one of them. Well, we're going to have a lowest of the low con at Great Lakes on June 27th. And so, yeah, in compiling that list, the best I could do to find, you know, people who had success elsewhere but spent most of their lives in Toronto. Well, fantastic.

John Candy. Yeah, of course. We talked about him with Wallachian, too. Okay, so John Candy has his memorial here, right? And the guy that replaced John Candy, when John Candy left SCTV for a couple years,

he was replaced by Tony Rosato. Right. Who had a bit of a hard time in his latter years and died just a couple years ago. So if you had somebody who was really into the history of SCTV and Saturday Night Live, Tony Rosato and John Candy,

and I think that's it. If you have any more examples, leave them in the comments, because I'm curious to find any more. Hockey players don't count, because I suspect there's dozens and dozens of famous hockey players. And also like Glenn Gould, right? He's buried in Toronto. But you would assume that he would be.

Well, Jeff Healy's got to be right there. I have his drummer coming in next week, by the way. Jeff Healy's drummer. You've read the book, right? Best Seat in the House? Oh yeah, Tom Steven. That'll be fantastic. I think because it is one of the dishiest books

you will ever read about the Canadian music industry. Speaking of chart hits, Canadian chart hits of 30 years ago. Confidence Man? Or Angel Eyes? Angel Eyes. Yeah, that was also introduced on the radio by Casey Kasem. Wonderful song.

Yeah, that made it way up the chart. And well before Barenaked Ladies, there was also Con Can. I Beg Your Pardon was on the American charts 30 years ago around this time. Con Can. 30 years ago around this time. Con-can. At the time that Jeff Healy and Con-can broke in America, that they had this Casey Kasem chart status,

these were two people that I knew, Barry Harris from Con-can and Jeff Healy, because they both were doing shows at CIUT, at the University of Toronto radio station. Isn't that interesting? Like, you wouldn't see that today? Like, you wouldn't find anyone on the top 40 who's on the air at a university radio station here? No, that wouldn't happen today.

So that'll have to come up as well with Tom Stephen. The fact that there, Jeff Healy was becoming an American megastar, and at the same time, all he really wanted to do was, like, play his jazz 78s at the campus radio station. Speaking of Jim Morrison, I mentioned going to his grave, and now I'm thinking Jeff Healy in Roadhouse, doing the Roadhouse blues. It all comes together. Now, before we get back to the program, we've done a kick-ass hour and 30 now. We've got hopefully about an hour to go here.

But I want to let people know about a couple of fantastic apps. These are two sponsors of The Real Talk. What you're listening to now is possible because of Property in the 6th, but of course, because of Paytm. Paytm is an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Mark, I downloaded that app, designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Mark, I downloaded that app, I think it was 18 months ago or so, and I've paid every bill since using the Paytm app.

Like it's easy, it costs you nothing, but you get points, you get rewarded for making bill payments. And I can use my credit card to get the points there. It's a win-win for me. I use Paytm, and if you go to paytm.ca, you can download the app and give it a go. Let me know if you have any questions or if you need any help. I'm here.

Also, Buckle, B-U-K-L dot C-O. Mark, you don't drive here. You're using the child's Presto card you bought online, I understand. But if you have an automobile and you need some work, some repairs done on your car, your automobile, you can go to buckle.co. You get instant quotes from shops in your area. You can book an appointment right away. Then you just got to bring in your car, you get it serviced and you drive away. You're even automatically charged. So it's all completely seamless. B-U-K-L dot C-O. Earlier, Mark, when we were talking about Toronto stuff, I saw you had a chair girl on the list and I skipped it

and I'm going to bring it up because I'm going to also, I want to bring up the guy who was licking the CBC reporter. So feel free to give me an update or share anything you want about Chair Girl. And then I want to hear about this Boyd Banks. I watched the video and it was one of those, when I watched the video of the liquor, so not the chair tosser, but the liquor. I was thinking that it was kind of absurd and crazy. And I think 20 years ago, we would probably have not thought twice about it, to be honest.

And today it becomes like a me too moment. But please, let's hear your delightful voice. Well, and you know who you didn't mention was Cat Shit God. Oh yeah. Because I thought we've done enough uh more blundell today well yeah related to dean blundell so yeah catch it guy okay well this guy's on twitter and he

tweets uh i guess this goes on during the leaf games i'm not on tml talk twitter is that your thing no no no no i'd love to tweet during a game but i am not part of the hockey twitter so i mean based on uh how i see this hashtag happening, it's not difficult to get attention for a hockey tweet if you hashtag it, right? Like, it always has a hashtag so people are following the game chat. That's where Twitter becomes a chat room for the hockey game. Right. So, people will notice when you tweet something like,

if the Leafs come back from this game, what was it? It was 3-0. 3-0. We looked like we were going to lose like 8-0. We were getting hammered by Montreal. And I think I tweeted at that moment, this game sucks. What you didn't tweet was, if the Leafs come back, I'm going to consume the fecal feces out of the litter box.

I did not. And that's what this gentleman did. And he filmed a video of himself doing it. So he ate the feces. I don't know. I'm not sure what he ate. It would be easy to take some chocolate and, I don't know, not that I have any interest in actually verifying this,

but it sounds like if you eat cat shit, and I don't even want to discredit Dark Guy who's been on the show because he seems to have taken his 15 minutes and made something longer out of it. But cat shit guy doesn't deserve 15 minutes. 15 seconds is too long. Cat shit guy isn't going to be getting a sponsorship from Nicorette anytime soon because he can't quit eating the cat shit.

I mean, you know, they don't have any drugs yet, if that's what you're into, to curb your appetite for cat shit. But he, I mean, I don't hear a lot of buzz about Cat Shit Guy except for everything I know about Cat Shit Guy I learned from you. Okay, where have you been, right? Because Dean Blundell, starting up his burgeoning media empire with his own website, which somehow on Twitter doesn't seem to be getting the engagement

that you'd think a guy with so many hits and followers and attention would get. But hey, that's between him and whoever he's paying to crank up his stats. We know that goes on. We've seen that with a few micro-celebrities. Not to accuse Dean of anything and end up on his podcast again. But he offered a job, quote-unquote, to catch it guy.

Now, when you say job, you don't mean a pain gig. You just mean he's going to let this guy write on his blog. And yet the reason that people noticed was because Catch It Guy put on Facebook that I've got the paperwork from the parent company of DeanBlundell.com that I'm about to sign and make a deal with Dean

in order to join the world of Dean Blundell. But essentially, it's free content for Dean's blog. I mean, I've had a blog since 2002. And I know you've got to kind of feed the beast, and he's just getting some guy to write about the Leafs on his blog for nobody. And yet, just like how Dart Guy brought out all these sports media professionals to express their frustration with the fact that he was getting to the front of the line in the media industry, cat shit guy had to deal with the haters who were wondering

what's going on here? Is this what it takes these days to get a job as a writer? I suspect, and I'm pretty confident with this, that anyone who could string a sentence together if they were to write Dean and say,

hey, can I publish content on your site? He would say yes. So why is there paperwork? Have you ever had paperwork involved with being a guest on the podcast or anything? No, never, never. Maybe Dean has to protect himself in certain ways given what he's been through.

So after he's getting this fury on Twitter, he had to concede that this was, yeah, an unpaid blogging job. And isn't it hilarious what sends people into hysterical reaction? And Dean then wrote, I thought was a very entertaining summary of the incident.

And by doing a bit of meta-trolling here, a success story for DeanBlundell.com. We'll see. Next month, we'll check in on the progress of Catch It, Kai, if we even remember what's going on there. Let's move on to Boyd Banks.

You're more curious about this. I think it only happened. I saw it yesterday, maybe, if we even remember what's going on there. Let's move on to Boyd Banks. Yeah, tell me, this is the liquor. You're more curious about this. Well, because I just saw, I think it only happened. I saw it yesterday, maybe, for the first time. There was a town hall meeting at the comedy bar, the Association of Stand-Up Comedians. There is some sort of group like that banding together in an emergency town hall. What were they

worried about? Something that got a lot more attention than you'd think it would. Oh, I know about this. We should have talked about this in the radio section. But there's been a development in this, I believe. Yeah, so SiriusXM switched their Canada Laughs comedy channel over to Just for Laughs. Just for Laughs would take over the programming.

No official announcement was made. They just flipped the switch, and people got notice of the fact they were doing something different. Suddenly, on this Canada Laughs channel, which was a part of the original satellite radio license, do 100% Canadian content, figure out a way to float some royalties to Canadian comedians, you know, pretty good idea. I mean, there was an uproar when satellite radio got licensed in Canada, 2005. This was a service, a system, where you couldn't put 30%, 35%, 40% CanCon onto the existing channels.

The whole thing was American channels were going to be coming into Canada unfiltered. There was none of that simultaneous substitution that you could do with television, right? I mean, except on the Super Bowl where you could insert Canadian commercials over the American ones. In fact, the music channels on satellite radio don't have commercials at all. They just have it on the talk stations.

The liberal government of the time tried to block the CRTC decision, to overturn it, like they were going to keep satellite radio out of Canada. Ultimately, the companies prevailed. Two different ones, Sirius and XM. So you had this Canada Laughs channel after all these years. I mean, we're talking now 13, 14 years.

And I don't think too many people knew about this before. No, I don't. Comedians were getting like tens of thousands of dollars a year in royalty payments from being played on this channel entirely as an appeasement to the CRTC. One interesting development through the history of media is the fact that Netflix never had to do anything like this. Netflix didn't have to go to the CRTC to be approved for distribution in Canada. Netflix is causing coronaries over at the CBC. They're talking about how this is like cultural colonialism,

even though you can see CBC shows on Netflix, even though CBC shows are getting audiences around the world because of Netflix. Even Working Moms is becoming sort of like a hot new show. Well, yeah, or so the Reitman family would like you to believe. No, it's not true. By the way, it's not a bad show. I've caught it.

Okay, yeah, but Schitt's Creek, Working Moms, Kim's Convenience, The End of Green Gables, a whole bunch of CBC stuff, and Canadian shows in general. Netflix is opening, like, sound stages in Toronto, and they did that without federal regulation. Satellite radio and that deal they had dates back to the fact that when there was more control from the CRTC to approve satellite radio in Canada or not, CRTC wanted it. The liberal government said you can't have it, and they ended up being overruled.

So Canada laughs, a bit of a crisis in the comedy community. What's going to happen now? Howie Mandel, co-owner of Just for Laughs, a very convenient person to go after and accuse of being some sort of traitor to his fellow country comedians because Howie Mandel was once struggling here, not for very long.

So what does he think? Here they've got the Just for Laughs channel on SiriusXM. Even though it's going to play a percentage of Canadian stuff, all of a sudden they're running Jerry Seinfeld routines on there. But also, I think if they don't have to pay the royalties, if they air stuff from the Just for Laughs catalog, they somehow already own this stuff. So that was the fear.

There's been a big development. Yeah, I'm not even sure how the economics were going to work. Yeah, it is interesting. Because they said that they were still going to get money to Canadian comedians one way or the other as long as they went through the gatekeepers of Just for Laughs, which is a lot more conventional, maybe, than the type of program that was going on there.

But, I mean, to put a bow on this, they reversed their decision. I guess the outcry was far more intense than they expected, and they've said, okay, we won't do that. That's the bottom line. They're not doing this anymore, right?

But still programmed by Just for Laughs. Right, okay. And comedians like to complain. I mean, what do they do all day? I mean, they're on stage for 20 minutes. That's a lot of hours in the day. I'm fascinated by the economics here day? I mean, they're on stage for 20 minutes. That's a lot of hours in the day. I'm fascinated by the economics here because, I mean, much like musicians,

you can throw a rock and hit a dozen amateur or wannabe professional comedians who are working hard and making very little money. I had no idea this revenue stream existed, like that Canada Laughs was paying thousands of dollars to local comics for airing their bits. Like, I think this is news

to most of us. In that respect, then the system worked. But as soon as there was the prospect of the money being taken away, look at what happened. There was a revolt.

Even got covered on, this hour has 22 minutes. A show that's like never sincere about anything. I mean, these government comedians, you know, they choose their targets based on whoever's in office, whoever they have to appease. You didn't see a lot of 22 minutes bits about what was going on with Justin Trudeau and SNC-Lavalin. But Howie Mandel, they went after on 22 minutes. Anyway, the timing was fortuitous because they ended up reversing

the decision at least to the point where they say it's going to be 100% can't con. During the meeting, town hall meeting, a CBC reporter was there. What's his name? Do we know? We should know his name. Okay, I can look that up. And he ended up, how would you describe

what happened? Oh, it was sort of like it's kind of like to be shocking, I guess, is he was kind of creepily right behind the reporter pretending to lick his neck maybe. It was definitely like provocative and weird. And yeah, I guess the reporter held his composure and sort of didn't barely flinched and kind of finished the report,

but it was super creepy and weird and yeah, this guy just licked his neck, I want to say. Chris Glover. Chris Glover. Is the name of the CBC reporter who became a viral celebrity for a night because of this attention he was getting from Boyd Banks. Boyd Banks has been around the Toronto comedy scene for a long time.

He was in Dirty Work with Norm Macdonald. Love that movie. I think every Canadian comedian of the time was in that movie. He's been around the club circuit and also appeared in various roles on TV. Do you know which one he was best known for? No. in various roles on TV. Sure. Do you know which one he was best known for? No. I think it was, I'm trying to look this up.

It was playing the role of, was he in like Airheads or something like that? Or no, no, he's not the Airheads guy. Okay. or no no he's not the earheads guy okay uh anyway so uh boyd banks uh deciding to prank the reporter who was doing the right the stand-up report at the show and uh the reaction he got from fellow comedians was not very favorable because they were looking at it like here they were trying to be taken seriously from from the media right like they were here uh with the real cause that they wanted attention for which was getting royalties from sirius xm what's what's what's this old-time

canadian comedian boyd banks doing um causing uh that kind of distraction so yeah even yeah, even though you mentioned, like, once upon a time, it might have been, like, an amusing thing that people might have, like, talked about. It would have been, like, something that maybe a couple of people would have had recorded on a VCR. It would have been something that, like,

Ed Conroy, yeah, you'd go over to Retro Ontario's house and he'd have this tape and he'd show it to you years later just before the Speaker's Corner outtakes. But instead, look how it works. Suddenly it's on Twitter and everybody sees it. And Boyd Banks was humiliated, said he needs help, needs to get some mental health counseling for what he did. So that's where the story ends. I don't think there's going to be any criminal charges for what he did. So that's where the story ends. I don't think there's going to be any criminal charges for what he did. And to answer the question here, as usual, drinking too much beer, fogging my mind.

I can't do the 1236 thing when I'm a little bit drunk. I learn this lesson every time. It was Fat Lou was the role that Boyd Banks played in the movie. Jason X. Anyway, someone else mentioned that, so I figured, okay, maybe he's a little bit famous. I've never seen Jason X. I'm sure it is the greatest of the franchise. I'm sure, I'm sure.

I'm playing. This video was amazing. Was it? I don't want to. I think it was Steve Anthony. Was it? I don't want to. I think it was Steve Anthony. Somebody had a moment with Mitsu back in the day.

What do you mean by a moment? I don't know. I got to be careful now that lawyers are sending me letters. But there was a moment. Was this corroborated by John Gallagher that was living in a house with him? And he maybe woke up late at night and ran into somebody on the way to the bathroom. I think, sir, I think you've nailed it. I'm pretty sure.

And I think I asked Steve about it, and he was very classy about it, but acknowledged it did happen. But regardless, regardless, I am playing Mitsu's Bye Bye Mon Cowboy because Music Plus is being shut down. It's going off the air. More specifically, it's like flipping to another format. Just another specialty channel showing, I don't know.

It's Quebec. We don't know what happens there. Me too. When Musique Plus signed on as the Quebecois spinoff of Much Music, it was a pretty big deal. If you were a watcher of Much Music at the time, they played up the fact that here they were, like bridging the two solitudes of Canada by having a satellite station in Montreal that would not only be playing French language videos, but playing all sorts of videos

with VJs who were speaking French. Well, we had French Kiss, hosted by Nathalie Richard. Much Music, the English version, in their license, they had to play, I think, 5% Canadian, sorry, French Canadian videos. That explains French Kiss.

Whatever appeasement there to the CRTC. So, yeah, I don't know. They didn't put that show in prime time necessarily, but if you were glued to Much Music Enough, you would have caught on to the fact that... You would be glued to Natalie Richard. Wow, what a beauty. And she eventually did become a regular English Much Music VJ.

She got promoted or whatever. And from the French- canadian videos they were playing a number of them managed to make it into regular rotation so here we have mitsu someone who might have otherwise been ghettoized into this quebecois music scene she was plucked out of that province and turned into a cross canada celebrity celebrity. Speaking of much music, this is some sad news. Oh, well, why'd you bring up Music Plus? We talked about how it was shutting down.

Yeah, because it's their closing Music Plus. That's the news, right? Oh, yeah, that was the news. That is the news. You're cut off. Two? Mark, we talked about this. One and a half.

Okay, one and a half. Okay. I was going to add that I do remember watching Music Plus. And because it was... How did you watch it? It was on Rogers Cable at one point anyway. Okay. And because it was from Montreal, it was a lot classier.

It was a lot more exciting. When they would do the interviews, they would do the interviews with the English-speaking performers, right? And they would switch back and forth between English and French. That's what I was going to say about remembering watching Musique Plus, and I think just in general. Like a hipper style

of music video channel than MuchMusic. You looked at me as if I should know what you were thinking in your mind that is undocumented on the list. I get it now. Anyway, we're going to MuchMusic. I'm trying to change the... Casey Kasem's got that famous, he's coming out of the uptempo song

and he's talking about a dog that died and you can't do it and it's pissing him off. And it's that viral audio. I love it. Anyway, this is the Casey Kasem episode. We opened with it and there it comes again. But I am sad news is that, uh, Kim clark champness who i met at the much music reunion hosted by the aforementioned uh ed conroy and uh jay gold who is a friend of the show joel goldberg who is a great guy i'll tell you a story when i finish recording i can't tell you right now but uh regardless i met kim clark champist there and then we struck up a conversation via uh twitter or email i can't remember which one about him coming on toronto miked because i wanted kim clark championist on toronto miked of course i did but he was very busy and we got pushed along and now i fear it may never happen but

more importantly uh i hope kim clark champion Champness regains his health because his cancer has returned. And this time it has taken his voice. He has lost his natural speaking voice forever. And I saw a photo of him. He went public with this on, I think, Instagram or Facebook. I can't remember which one. You'll know. But I just want to hope that Kim Clark Champness recovers

and even if he can never speak again, I just hope that he is healthy, can enjoy life and recover from this. Kim Clark Champness. Not only did he lose his voice, it was an amazing voice. So I think that makes people extra sad. But, you know, he's

a fighter here and he's pledging to get better and get back to action. So look forward to what's in the future for Kim Clark Chapness. Let's talk about the CFL. Meanwhile, in sports news, the Canadian Football League has announced, and let me pause right there. First of all, there is a Canadian Football League. And the cheerleaders are here tonight, evidently. Well, they've announced something,

specifically that a defensive tackle with the actual name Poop Johnson has signed to play with the Toronto Argonauts. And where did Poop get his nickname? The answer will make you say, yeah, that makes sense. You see, a defensive tackle needs to stay heavy. And when asked about his weight by sports reporters, Johnson once said he can weigh anywhere from 280 to 300 pounds,

depending on the day. How? I guess because I poop so much. Poop Johnson. Okay, well, one of the ongoing laments in the history of Toronto sports is that nobody cares about the Argos. And here we have

Poop Johnson, the new signing. He's going to be the guy that makes Toronto excited about CFL football. Based on the reaction to the fact they signed him, right? I mean, this was like assigning a guy to a sports team

essentially to troll the media. That doesn't happen every day, but it's the sort of thing maybe you can get away with in the CFL. He was, what, he was playing for Winnipeg before? Was that right? I think. I'll take your word for it, man. I watched the Great Cup, and if the Argos are in a conference final,

I'll tune in there, and that is it. Okay. Well, so you're the tip. I'm barely ahead of you in this one, even though I co-host a very popular sports platform. Yeah, the typical Toronto sports fan. Get Hebsey on this one once the season starts and see what happens with the Argos. And if it was worth their while to make Poop Johnson the marquee player. I've got high hopes for the viral power of Poop Johnson.

Look, he was talked about on the Stephen Colbert show. When was the last time the CFL was trending on YouTube? Probably Ricky, Ricky, Ricky, what's his name? Ricky Waters? Who's the? Anyway, I'm not even drinking but please uh earlier in the show maybe right off the top i read a question for you from jake the snake okay jake the snake is a proud hamiltonian but he i know from twitter i've never even met the man i know from twitter he's a die-hard helix fan. This is a big deal to him. Well, you single-handedly revived the career of Helix

in Toronto. I never read such good press for them. Yeah, you walked down the street to the park on a Saturday night in the summer, and there was Helix. You're right. I deserve praise for that and for the Ashley Dawkins hiring. Those are the two things. But tell me, what's Brian

Vollmer? Am I saying that right? Brian Vollmer is in the news. Not because he died. I want to point that out. Yeah, this craggy old rock star who's never gotten the respect from his peers in the music industry. Lives in London, Ontario. You know, the Juno Awards are in London coming up next month. Good.

I think they should have a tribute. Now, Corey Hart is the one going to the Hall of Fame. You'd think there would be some respect for Brian Vollmer. He's the guy that lives in London, Ontario. But he's selling his house, right? He might be the most famous rock star there. Is he selling his house? He has a house.

Planet Helix bought it 25 years ago. And it's sort of a local landmark. Because it looks like the kind of house that the lead singer of Helix. Bought it 25 years ago. And it's sort of a local landmark. Because it looks like the kind of house that the lead singer of Helix would live in. He customized it and got featured when they were doing Cribs on MTV Canada. And even though

this show is aimed at like 11-year-olds, they made sure that Brian Vollmer got his due on the Canadian version of MTV Cribs, selling the house for $350,000. I mean, what would Brian Gerstein say? You would say that's not in the six. That's a bargain by Toronto standards. How he ended up living there is itself a story.

Because Helix had these hits in the 80s, and based on seeing their show, they had a few memorable tunes. Yes, they did. They left that legacy of heavy metal jams. And sweet ballads like this one here. These are much music-friendly hits. And a few of them are cover versions. So I think they had some good A&R.

It was Capitol Records that was overseeing them to get them airplay by doing this foot in cold water power ballad. But as tends to happen in the rock and roll game, Helix didn't get all the money that reflected their level of success. And Brian Vollmer ended up working at Hasty Market. In the late 80s, early 90s, there was a Hasty Market in Kitchener, his hometown, where you could see Brian Vollmer working behind the counter. He got held up. Could you imagine?

I like this story because it's a good follow-up to last week when we did the whole alias sheriff thing. We talked about the courier, right? What's the gentleman's name? Oh, Freddie Kirchheiser, Steve DiMarci. It's just interesting to hear, and I've become fascinated with this myself, talking to rock musicians

that I admire, but finding out how many of those rock musicians you admire and you listen to on a Saturday night or whatever have Joe Jobs, I'd say. I'd call them Joe Jobs. Okay, well, no one wanted to hear Helix when grunge came along. They fell out of favor. But look, somehow Brian got it together, bought this old pile in London, Ontario,

and he souped it up to his taste. Planet Helix, his house over there, and it's up for sale. So somewhere out there might be the Helix fan that always wanted to live in the Rock and Roll Heroes house. Jake's got to have, I don't know Jake personally, I only know him through social media, but he's got to have $350,000. Well, he has to find the right bank manager that will hear his plea.

I've been a Helix fan all my life. I have to get a mortgage to live in the man's house. It could happen. Speaking of Canadian rockers. Canadian rockers. Listen to our friend Tyler Stewart singing like an angel. They let him sing on that harmony there, the Barenaked Ladies. That is the Barenaked Ladies in the background.

And that's Kim Mitchell on lead vocals. Our very own Kim Mitchell, who I'm trying to get on the show. Tyler, maybe you can put in a word for me. She takes more whiskey than I want. I heard this for the first time when they put it out last Friday. I did not like it. I didn't understand what the point was of remaking this song. And I listened to it a few more times and I'm totally into it. I completely understand

what they were going for here. The video helped, I think. Diamonds, Diamonds from Max Webster, 1977 with the lyrics from Pied Dubois, the legendary psychiatric doctor who also wrote lyrics with Kim Mitchell.

And Kim Mitchell had a keyboard player named Greg Wells in the late 80s, early 90s that he worked with on his albums at the time, which became decreasingly popular. That's what happens. I don't think he was filling out a job application at the hasty market,

but we know that Kim Mitchell got a day job a few years later on Q107, which he did for a lot longer than anybody might have thought. And they only cut him loose when they started cutting their budget. And that was the end of Kim Mitchell's career on the radio. You know he was a real radio guy

because they abruptly cancelled him. Shortly thereafter, I saw him at the same park where I saw Helix. Fun fact. That's to get the bingo points. Fun fact. I actually quite dig it. This sounds good. The Baredaked Ladies doing the harmonies and Kim.

So this is Greg Wells, a guy who started out in the Kim Mitchell band, now a superstar Hollywood producer. He's worked with Adele, 21 Pilots, Katy Perry. And now he has time for his old buddy Kim. And I don't know if this is the first of several remakes that they're doing, but yeah, I think this is the best way for someone of his vintage to get back into the action, doing remakes of old songs. What could be better than Diamonds, Diamonds with the Barenaked Ladies?

All right, Mark, it's time. It's a somber time on Toronto Mic'd. It's time to memorialize those who have passed. It's my favorite time. I'm trying not to make it sound so joyful because these people just died. See, I'm trying to change my tone here. Okay, and I've got even a couple

of corrections from our last obituary list. Do, do you want to do the corrections up top? Well, no, I was saying because in your comment section, one of your best pals, Al, from the Royal Pains. Al Grego, who created the bingo card that I keep referencing. And, you know, he said he was

cringing listening to us talking about Beard Guy from Walk Off the Earth. Yeah, yeah. And I think he had a point. It's you. Well, no, it was both of us. But I never pretended to know anything. Well, we were speculating about the fact that his death got a lot more attention than maybe you imagined that it would. Because who was this

guy? Like, how many fans did Walk Off the Earth actually have? And yeah, I think maybe we took a wrong turn on it because they are big enough to play the Sony Center in Toronto, and they did it by doing cover songs on YouTube.

And look, I've seen the Royal Pains play live. You know, these are guys who... You can see them again on June 27th. Well, yeah, so they're well-experienced in the art of the cover song, and I think a lot of admiration there for somebody who's been able to do that and turn it into a

significant career out of Burlington, Ontario. But they also had hits with original compositions, so they're not just a cover band. Now, I'm not talking about the Royal Pains. I'm talking about Walk Off the Earth. Okay, well, two beers in. I apologize to Al as I was two beers

in last time for underestimating how many people were into Walk Off the Earth. They're going on tour, so I think that will actually add to the attention that they receive by the fact that they just lost their anchor. They just lost a beard guy. And also in the last one at the end, we talk about Norman Snyder,

the guy who wrote a couple of well-known movies, Dead Ringers with David Cronenberg and Casino Jack Snyder, the guy who wrote a couple of well-known movies, Dead Ringers with David Cronenberg and Casino Jack with Kevin Spacey. I got his age wrong. It's off the top of my head. He said he was 85. He was 70. I don't know.

He was 10 years younger than I said. He looked 85. Okay, so you want the finish line of the obituary list, though, to be the oldest person so we don't leave on a sad note. So I think I brought you this week the oldest possible person that we can end the obituaries with. Let's go. Okay, we're going to begin in radio. We lost Mike Cleaver.

Tell us about Mike Cleaver. Oh, there was no one lost Mike Cleaver. Tell us about Mike Cleaver. Oh, there was no one like Mike Cleaver. He was the guy that defined the news voice of 1050 Chum. Originally from Kelowna, B.C., you know, he got called up to the big leagues working under Dick Smythe at 1331 Yonge Street. leagues working under Dick Smythe at 1331 Yonge Street. And look, I mean, to be a newscaster with your photo on the front of the chum chart, I don't think they ever gave that honor to Dick Smythe. It was Mike Cleaver who was the hippest newscaster in the room. He had this bombastic style that I think became like the signature of the station. As people speak

about Mark Daly when it comes to city TV, I think Mike Cleaver was to Chum on the radio. So he did his time there at Chum and moved back west, worked in some other cities, ended up back at Chum in the mid-80s. That's when I was the biggest Chum bug and listening. And I heard this guy doing the news, and it was like you could tell that there was something different about him. And not knowing so much that he was there in the previous decade. I was too young to know what was going on. This was the kind of guy that would have that commanding presence and turn the newscast on a top 40 radio station into something you would want to listen to. Here's an ad from that era that you speak of, mid-80s chum, 1050 chum, which features not only Mike Cleaver, but someone we spoke about last episode you were on in January who passed away recently.

So let's listen to that ad. The 1050 Chum Morning Show. A miracle comic. Starring Jerry Forbes as himself. If you're funny, it's a miracle. Brian Henderson. News, sports, and personal commentary. Good morning, Jerry.

Good morning, everybody. With traffic, Mary Garofalo. No accidents to tell you about for the time being. Mike Cleaver from the Chum News Center. With this morning's top stories. And weather specialist Robbie Evans. It is nice and sunny out there right now. With the best music of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

More favorites, more fun, 1050 Chum. And that's when Roger Ashby moved to Chum FM and 1050 Chum was, you know, skewing a little older. And how sad is it that both Brian Henderson and Mike Cleaver died in the winter of 2019? I found on Facebook Mike Cleaver, in fact, mourning not only Brian Henderson, but Mark Elliott, who died on that same weekend in January in his health battles that claimed Mike Cleaver, too. Thank you. We've lost a member of Sky. I think the last time I remember something like this happening was Wheels

from Degrassi, Neil Hope, about the story of somebody who people would recognize as somewhat famous in Canada pass away and nobody pays attention to them. The story of Wheels was a real

sad one. Remember when that happened? But that was different because Wheels died five years before we were notified. Right? That's different. Because of course, if we had been notified that Wheels had passed away, there would have been a...

Heck, I would have gone into full mourning mode. So that's, I think, at least five years gap between actual death and, hey, public, that guy who played wheels is dead. Okay, but still, everybody knows this song if they've listened to Canadian radio. Yeah, let me hear. Okay, this is like one of those very, I don't want to say bland, but yeah, okay, I'll say bland. But yeah, okay, I'll say Bland. Bland, CanCon songs that kind of existed,

and it was everywhere, and you knew it, but it was like background noise, and you moved on. But yeah, of course, Sky had a big hit here. Okay, well, noting that he died, because somebody has to, James Rinald, the singer on that song from the first album by Sky, died last summer. So he's the lead singer we're hearing in this song. Yeah, that's significant. He's the lead singer of a band with Canadian radio hits.

There should have been more noise about this. That's what we're doing now, I guess. I guess when you don't leave a trail of people paying attention to the fact that you were ever here. So he died in the summer? Yeah, this is the story. I mean, nobody wants this to happen to them. You want to be remembered if you were in show business. So wait, I is a story. I mean, nobody wants this to happen to them. You want to be remembered if you were in show business. So wait, I have a question, though.

So he died in the summer and just no news outlet picked up on it? Or was it that nobody knew? Like, what happened here? Oh, yeah, nobody knew. So we only are now being told that the re-singer died. Well, yeah, you could find out that he died, but to make the connection between the fact that this was the same guy that died last summer. So, a Toronto Mike shout-out, a toast to Love Song by Sky, which, yeah, you would think this was just some adult contemporary wallpaper,

but I think knowing the fact that he's not around anymore, that he died young. So, somebody else for our list. Is there a name for the phenomenon where you don't care at all for a song and then when you realize the lead singer's passed on, you think, it's not a bad song. Is there a word for that phenomenon? Is there a German word for that? I don't know.

All right, let's move on here. Let's bring down some love song by Sky. Let's talk about, please, Joe Hardy. Oh, well, I mean, you know, we're tracing all the connections between people here. Mentioning before Kim Mitchell's pal who ended up being a big producer. Well, Joe Hardy was someone else

who produced records by Kim Mitchell. Not only Kim Mitchell, but also the big album by Tom Cochran, Life is a Highway. Wow. He was the guy behind the board and ended up working with a few other Canadian acts, people who have been on Toronto Mic'd.

Who? Colin James. He's great. The Jeff Healy Band. Almost on Toronto Mic'd. He was also behind the board for them. Also, the engineer on a legendary album, Pleased to Meet Me by The Replacements.

He was still working as an engineer then, studio engineer. His biggest work was with ZZ Top. So what he ended up doing was working on Copperhead Road by Steve Earle. Amazing song. That was a huge record on Canadian radio. Top 10 of 10, it went to number one.

So talking about how something like Angel of Harlem by U2 had that Canadian sound, didn't translate as well in the States. There was just something about that Copperhead Road, and I guess the way they promoted it. But it sounds so American, that song, to me, like Copperhead Road, which I didn't know was not as big a hit in the States. Yeah, that would have been pretty obscure by American standards. I mean, a critical favorite, and, you know, something that you would have heard on, I don't know, adult alternative radio stations. When you were talking about Joe Hardy, you said the word album, which I always say incorrectly as album. I stick an L there.

Does that count for the Toronto Mike bingo card? There's going to be a version two. Okay, let Al know. Let's go. Here you come again And you say that you're my friend But I don't know why you're here She wants to know how I feel Tell her that I'm happy

This is Jackie Shane. Tell her that I'm gay Tell her I wouldn't have to Any other way Well, this was a big story by Canadian Music Standards. And it might have been something, again, that no one would have known about because Jackie Shane was a singer in Toronto. The Yonge Street scene of the 1960s featured on one of those murals.

Have you seen those music murals that are around the Yonge and Carleton area? those music murals that are around the young and college young and carlton area two sides of the building there that honor the legacy music on the young street strip uh when you want to talk about 10 50 chum and some of the unusual songs that scaled the chart the fact that this one any other way made it to number two in 1963 well that was that was kind of out there, partly due to the fact that Jackie Shane, at the time, see, there was a little debate about this. The obituaries talk about Jackie Shane

as a transgender pioneer. But people didn't use that word in 1963. Going by Skye Gilbert, but people didn't use that word in 1963 going by Skye Gilbert who has a lot of experience in the world of drag as far as he's been able to research

you would call at the time Jackie Shane a drag queen, a man who performed in the style of a woman. Now, things have changed, and people do get very particular about this stuff. And when it came to more recent coverage, the assumption was that you would call Jackie Shane a woman, that her pronouns would be she and her. So if that's what Jackie Shane

wanted, then we remember Jackie Shane, the transgender woman who made a big impact. That song was lost for so many years. No one knew where she was. And she was found in 2010, around the time CBC Radio did a documentary about Any Other Way. Eventually, there was a reissue of the album this past month in the Grammy Awards, nominated in the Best Reissue category, Jackie Shane's Any Other Way.

So there were more interviews, more attention, vowing to eventually come back to Toronto from Nashville, where she sort of disappeared all those years ago. But the Grammy win wasn't in the cards. You know who won the Grammy in that category? Tell me. Weird Al Yankovic. Of course.

Did you ever, was it a show fight back with David Horowitz? Is this a show that you're familiar with? Well, did you get the theme song queued up? Because it was really all about the theme song. The last time we mentioned James Ingram, who had just died last month. I feel like this was a better song than anything James Ingram came up with. I mean, it doesn't get any better when it comes to the yacht rock soul sound. But it's also a total ripoff, I think, of James Ingram.

A song he did with Michael McDonald, Yamo Be There. A little bit of Backstabbers by the OJs. So this was a show that I remember watching from WKBW in Buffalo. They would show it on Sunday night. How do we explain to future generations that you would end up watching certain shows because it was the only thing on? Your kids have no comprehension of this right you had to be there absolutely and not only uh did did david horowitz influence me i mean you know uh this was a guy that came out with you know that that pomposity that he was playing a role uh it was

kind of winking all along i i think even at a young age, I got what he was trying to transmit. Like it was sort of a joke, but at the same time, he was into consumer advocacy and he influenced all those other TV people. So Sean O'Shea of Global News, I think he owes a lot to David Horowitz. And of course, Peter Silverman.

I was waiting for it. Watch it, buddy. I don't think those people would have had their careers without David Horowitz. There's going to be a future guest. I won't even give the name, but his uncle is the guy being shoved in the Watch It, Buddy clip.

And I'll tell you the name because you're familiar with this guy and I'll tell you afterwards. But unbelievable, right? That's unbelievable. Oh, I can't wait. When? When're familiar with this guy, and I'll tell you afterwards. But Unbelievable, right? That's Unbelievable. Oh, I can't wait. When? When?

When is this happening? Soon. Soon. I'll tell you the name later, and you're going to be excited about this episode. Retro Ontario is going to lose it. I can already feel this happening. As the song bounces around in my headphones as we talk about the passing of David Horowitz, this song is giving me an easy lover vibe.

Do you remember the duet? Was it Phil Collins and Billy Ocean? Who was the duet? No, no, Philip Bailey from Earth, Wind, and Fire. And if you see, it's great. See, my memory was foggy, but that's what it sounds like to me. Clips on YouTube from Phil Collins on his recent tour, right? I mean, he can't walk anymore.

Sort of sad, but he has great fun with the fact that he's sitting there in that chair doing the duet of Easy Lover. But by far, I think the best of Phil Collins' repertoire. So this, I think, came before Easy Lover, but listen, it's a banger either way, the Fight Back theme song. Absolutely, absolutely. All right, tell me about, and I'm not familiar of this name,

I can't wait to hear about him, Harold Wisefield, or Wisefeld, sorry, Harold Wisefeld, but they called him Zoltz? Zoltz, Z-O-L-T-Z-Z. An unusual nickname. He owned a store, I think, it was there for 35 years. So if anybody was in the beaches area of Toronto, they would have known about this store, Enz. That's my excuse. I'm on the other side of the world here.

Sort of an old-fashioned schmutter store that predated these fast fashion dealers of today. these fast fashion dealers of today. Back then, it was like jobbers who would pick up deals on large quantities of shirts and pants and whatever that people couldn't get rid of, and they'd sell them at a discount price. So he was one of those old-school retailers that way. And he ended up retiring in 2017. Went out with a bang because he was doing all these interviews.

All media went to talk to Zoltz. Why? Because they were so entertaining, ranting about the fact that the rents had skyrocketed on Queen East and the beaches to the point where there was nothing going on there anymore. Another neighborhood killed by gentrification, and the only people that you would find making money around there were the usual.

Shoppers Drug Mart, Rexall, Starbucks. Right. And that homogeneity that killed a lot of the character of the beach. So for about 35 years, Zoltz was one of those characters, and he died in February 2019, as did another retailing legend, a guy named Paul Gwartzman.

And the store that he started in 1950 was Gwartzman's Art Supplies on Spadina, just south of college. And his claim to fame after so many years is he was like the last of the old-school Jewish businesses around Kensington Market. I mean, the show King of Kensington now is, you know, 40 plus years ago. And the inspiration behind it, well, I mean, things have changed a lot. And it was primarily Chinatown around there and the eclecticism of Kensington Market. primarily Chinatown around there and the eclecticism of Kensington Market.

But this guy, Mr. G, he stuck around Gwartzman's art supplies. And that was one of the deaths that we had in the past few weeks. He was kind of old, but a loss all the same. A lot of history disappearing as these people leave us. But the store all the same, a lot of history disappearing as these people leave us.

But the store is still there, so it can still make the claim of having been around since 1950. Sorry, Mark, I'm busting a groove over here because speaking of losses, Johnny Loveson. And another Canadian musician who got a lot of attention at different times. I don't think he got an official obituary. Tell me about him because I know nothing about him. I'm playing the song, I Need a Working Girl,

which I have to plead ignorance. I do not know this song. This song was a hit on Much Music. I'm pretty sure that Stu Jeffries would have played this one. Maybe even on Good Rockin' Tonight. Yeah, because Stu never appeared on Much Music, right? Good Rockin' Tonight? Or the Radio Canada.

Now, he was a musician from Quebec who ended up part of the Yorkville scene in the late 60s. And he gained some prominence. It was actually Gary Topp of the Yorkville scene in the late 60s. And he gained some prominence. It was actually Gary Taup of the Garys. You had his partner Gary Cormier down here, who he promoted shows with as the Garys. And Johnny Loveson in the 70s in Toronto was like a big-time opening act. He had that status most significantly for the Ramones,

that it was Johnny Loveson and the Invisible Band. Every time the Ramones were in Toronto in the 70s, Johnny Loveson would warm up the crowd. Ended up getting a deal with A&M Records of Canada. Kind of turned him into one of those, like, Springsteen-influenced performers. He didn't sound like Springsteen, but more like the guys who were influenced by Springsteen,influenced performers. He didn't sound like Springsteen, but more like the guys who were influenced by Springsteen,

if you follow. Steve Forbert was one of them. Southside Johnny. Maybe a little bit of Mink DeVille. I don't know if these names mean anything to you, but they were trying to do a Canadian version of that in Johnny Loveson. This song, I Need a Working Girl, was their bid to try and get him into the music video thing.

Saw a little bit of success. And later on, he played with Stevie Ray Vaughan. But his career hit a big speed bump. He was at Nathan Phillips Square doing a New Year's Eve show for City TV with Ronnie Hawkins. He had a brain aneurysm. Could you imagine? I used to watch those.

That's what I would watch on New Year's Eve was the romping Ronnie Hawkins fur coat where Gordon Martineau would kind of come up there and everybody and the City TV would sponsor it or whatever. Nathan Phillips Square is on New Year's Eve. I did not know that happened to poor Johnny. Did not know that.

He got back into it a little bit, but, you know, the whole idea of radio airplay had sort of passed him by. But a beloved figure and, like, ignored by the mainstream media when he died last week at age 69. This is why you're here, because the people who will listen to two and a half hours of us, you know, nattering on like this, will be interested to learn about Johnny Loveson. So thank you for being here. Here's a name they will know. A much more famous musician. But passed on nonetheless.

And of course, as people may have gathered, we're not memorializing everyone famous person who died. We're memorializing the Canadian, Toronto-centric, maybe lesser-known, or you didn't know they had a connection

to the city. Peter Tork, the monkeys. Peter Tork was really the outsider of all the monkeys, right? He was the one that was most serious about playing music. And as their TV show became a big deal,

the estimates are that he was the one who was the most into the idea of artistic integrity. Although it seemed like all of them had a different idea. That's how you got the Monkees movie head, which was them rebelling against the image. It was projected from them as a prefab four. So the connection to Toronto of Peter Tork is the fact that in the late 70s, I mean, he didn't make any money from the Monkees originally.

I don't think any of them did, although Michael Nesmith, he inherited a whole bunch because his mother invented liquid paper. Right. So he was doing all right and he was investing in different businesses and he became a successful music video mogul. But Peter Tork was sort of struggling and, you know, he refashioned himself as one of those new wavers. Even performed live at CBGB's. At that point, the Monkees nostalgia thing hadn't kicked in yet, so it was kind of like a cult item for people who vaguely remembered him, that he was being transgressive against the grain of the old Monkees image, and played at least twice in Toronto in the early 80s. The first one that I could find was at the Hotel Isabella,

which was a kind of punk rock dive around 1983. And then he came back in June 1984, and he played at this place called Cafe on the Park, which is at Young and Eglinton, west of Young, closer around Avenue Road, which is now a Boom Breakfast restaurant. this place a lot. I think taking the bus on the way to school, that there would be like rock performances in this old house in front of the North Toronto Community Centre. And in fact Peter Tork did a week in Toronto at the time. Again, I think

brought out people who were into the monkeys partly as like a kitsch thing that they remembered from their childhood. But at the same time, if they were really in the know, they knew that Peter Tork was like the Mensa monkey. He was like the guy that was kicking against the whole image that was cultivated for the group.

Little did he know at the time that he was only a couple years away from the monkey's revival. I was going to say, so this is all like mid-80s that he's playing at Young and Egg at a cafe. And then, of course, you're right. A few years later, the Monkees had a whole resurgence. So my generation discovers the Monkees. They were played on Much Music.

And there was a whole Monkees craze that happened in the late-'80s. Yeah, first MTV and and much music copying it. Well, I don't know anything that happened over there. Listen, they got the rights to the show. I don't think it was that complicated. No one else at that point in the mid-80s. And there were the monkeys. They performed at Ontario Place and all the amphitheaters and amusement parks.

But still, I think Peter Tork was kind of an outsider. And he had some health struggles more recently. I mean, the Monkees were performing around here just in the past year, and Peter Tork wasn't able to make it along for the show. So we're down to two Monkees, just like two Beatles. Two Monkees.

Mickey and Mike, right? These are our last remaining Monkees. And Monkees' album, 50 And an album, Monkeys album, 50th anniversary album, Good Times, and there were a couple songs with Peter Tork on vocals, which was not a common thing. He was the least likely to be singing on any song

by the Monkeys. Carl Lagerfeld has a connection to the city as well. Maybe the same hood as okay, this is tying in nicely here. Tell me about how Carl Lagerfeld... I guess right around the corner from that club at Yonge and Eglinton, the Art Shop Condos with the lobby

by Carl Lagerfeld. He made his first trip to Toronto in order to unveil the fact that he was the designer of these Yonge and Eglinton lobbies. Shot up with his cat, right? He was a man in his 80s and he wouldn't go anywhere

without choupette. It's all part of the image. He was cultivating. Always needed the wraparound sunglasses. You see a picture of Karl Lagerfeld without his sunglasses?

It looks like Fred Armisen doing an imitation of Karl Lagerfeld. Or like Roy Orbison, right? You can't even picture Roy Orbison without sunglasses on. The show never stopped until he was dead. So Karl Lagerfeld. Joe Schlesinger of the CBC passed away.

A serious journalist who was really revered. I mean, he did all this foreign correspondence for the CBC with his very thick accent. And at one point, they tried to move him into management. He didn't like it. He wanted to be out there in the field making things happen. So by Canadian journalism standards, journalism-alism standards,

Canadian journalism standards. Journalism standards. That was a big loss that he died at age 90 and really fondly remembered for being one of those people when it was only a three-channel universe for

bringing the world into Canadian homes. I'm going to give myself another pat on the back. I did several things. I got Ashley on the back. So I did several things. I've got Ashley docking the gig and I did other things as well. But also I'm able to take so much content and somehow mold it to a point where we can hit the two and a half hour deadline. Like we're nailing that two and a half hour hard stop because I got to go get this online and get the kids at kindergarten. We're nailing it because we're at the last death.

The final death that we'll be discussing for this February 2019 episode with Mark Weisblatt from 1236. And as you teased, it would be somebody advanced in age. Tell me about Kitty Cohen. Well, I think scientists wonder, what's the oldest age you could be and still remain a functioning member of society? What do you think?

What would your best guess? I guess it would be around maybe just a little over 100, I would say. You could still be fully functional. In the case of Kitty Cohen, you had a woman who was 101 years old and she threw out the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game. And that was not enough because she hung around a little bit longer.

And at age 103, there she was, back at the Rogers Center, running the bases. It was something that they promoted Major League Baseball as a big deal at the time. I think that Kitty Cohen planned to live to at least 120, but it wasn't meant to be.

She was visiting her son in Jamaica. Imagine that. She's traveling to Jamaica. You want to end with the oldest possible person? Yeah, there was Kitty Cohen, subject of a lot of articles, I think most of all for her love of the Blue Jays. I think she was still out there looking for a boyfriend,

but she passed away February 2019 at age 106. She never lived to see Vlad Guerrero Jr. in the major leagues. She never lived to see The Next Time I'll Be on Toronto Might, so we'll see you at the end of March. She didn't live to see this one, but you know what they say, only the good die young. Thanks, Mark, so much again. I know you're coming here because that large vegetarian lasagna,

you probably can eat that for three or four days if you pace it and measure it out properly. So that's good. You're good to go there. Well, I'm not leaving with six cans of beer. We're down to four. I might have to top it off for you because you're a good boy. So, yeah, enjoy. Okay, tell people to subscribe to the newsletter.

The least you can do after two and a half hours. You have a newsletter? I had no idea. 1236. 1236.ca. And that brings us to the end of our 436th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

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You get a photo with him. It's extra special. And yes, you get that discount when you mention you heard about him on Toronto Mic'd. And PayTM is at PayTM Canada. See you all next week. Eight years of laughter and eight years of tears.

And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming.