Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #446

Episode Date: March 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 446 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Alma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Buckle, and Camp Turnasol. Jewelry Repair, Buckle, and Camp Turnasol. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me for his monthly State of Toronto address, Mark Weisblot from 1236. Welcome. And what am I doing in between Toronto Mike appearances? I'm writing the 1236 newsletter.

You can get it at 1236.ca. I figure after, what, 16, 17 appearances on here that you have a lot of listeners who came through the podcast, but maybe some new subscribers getting this in the feed. So I figure I should front load it with a little self-promotion. You owe me that much at least, Mike. Mark, I'm giving you, I'm feeding you

and providing you with local fresh craft beer every single time you visit. It's a very, I would say, mutually agreeable deal here. Are you cracking? Okay, good. I put the cold ones in the front for you there. That's a cold one. So you cracked open a blonde lager from Great Lakes.

Okay, we're ready to go. And now that we're here with the two-and-a-half-hour monthly episodes, there's always a point where I start to regret opening that second GLB. That's when it gets good. Now, I know you're good for two beers during the recording. You take the rest home with you. So the cold ones, I think it's, I think the blonde lager, and I think there's an octopus maybe in the front that's cold.

I know that's cold too. Everyone loves the octopus wants to fight IPA because it's been around as long as you've had GLB here, we've had the octopus. That's right. That's right. So enjoy it from Great Lakes Brewery. Fantastic sponsors of the program. They help fuel the real talk.

Will you, like for the record, will you be at the Great Lakes Brewery patio on June 27th for TMLX3? I don't know. I mean, there's no way I can get out of this now, is there? Every single guest that's been in here, like all of 2019, you start off by trying to secure their presence on the GLB patio. Gervia Bailey, I believe she's going to be there. I think Keegan was at the last one, so he'll be at this next one. Okay, and Mike Wilner, he's got an off day.

I was reading an interview with Wilner. He mentioned he'll get like four off days at home the entire season. You're telling me that TMLX3 is how he's going to spend one of those four days off for the entire season? Well, okay. He says, for sure, unless he spends an extra night in New York City, because they play the Yankees on the 26th. That game's like a one o'clock game or something.

And if he comes back home, he'll be at TMLX. You know, me and Wilner go back like 35 years. I'm wondering if I can get in on some of this New York City action. Well, he could use somebody to carry his bags or something. We'll see if we can hook you up there. So, thank you, Great Lakes. Also, I know you're the vegetarian lasagna man.

Yeah, that's what seems to work for my people. So, and carrying this home is always a privilege and a pleasure. I thought the best tweet you had of the month was the guy that ran into you at Palma's Kitchen. What was that like?

What was it all about to be recognized going in for lunch? No, bizarre, because I biked over to Palma to meet with Anthony at Palma Pasta, and we had a little meeting. Jessica was there, too. Hi, Jessica, from Palma Pasta. And then a little meeting. Jessica was there too. Hi, Jessica from Palma Pasta. And then I'm like bundled up to bike back. It's kind of a cold day.

I'm all layered up. I got my helmet on, my balaclava, and I'm just about to leave. And a gentleman and his lady friend, they're like, and there's Toronto Mike. And I'm like, I don't, I've never seen this guy before. I'm like, hi, what's your name? And then his name is Neil, as I recall.

And he's like, we came from Regent Park because we heard Palma Pasta sponsors Toronto Mike's. And then I'm like, Anthony, get over here. Like, get over here, buddy. Listen to this. This is not, it was as if I planned it. If I were savvy enough to manipulate the situation and have somebody, like an actor, pretend they were going to bump

into me because they heard the Fuel the Reel talk. But it was totally authentic and that's amazing, I think. That should be good for a few more free lasagnas after an endorsement like that. And look, coming here, the commercials are part of the fun.

We figured that out over all the months that I've been down here. It's like I anticipate what I'm going to say when the different sponsors come up during our time here. With your visits, because you're here, if people don't know yet, you come here every month now.

This is like the March recap and that's tremendous uh because we used to do it quarterly and then we'd fill up two and a half hours and yet you notice the list keeps getting longer even though we move from 90 to 30 days it seems like there's even more to talk about in the shorter interval which is strange but. And there's one segment of our show that I feel it's getting bigger, but I'm glad it's getting bigger because you do a tremendous job of recognizing celebrity deaths

or notable deaths of people who have a Toronto connection somehow. And you're excellent at this. This memorial section of your episodes could be your appearance alone. Okay, but look, this partly started with you. Because as long as you've had the website, as far as I can remember, you've been doing a Deadpool.

How did that start? That was with your brother? How did this happen that you always post whenever there's a celebrity death that resonates with you, it shows up on torontomic.com absolutely correct and that has been happening since 2002 so i can't even do the math on that what is that 17 years and there is a deadpool like there's an active deadpool because my brother i think my brother ryan had a king kong bundy in the deadpool and the way it works is and this is very morbid and i don't make much

noise about it. Like it's, I don't, I hid the link for example, because it's like, who is this guy to have a pool about people passing? Like that's terrible. But basically you draft people and then you take the number 100 and then you subtract their age at the time of death. And that's how many points you get. So, um, like I had Scott Weiland in the Deadpool and I got a lot of points, but I was very sad to see Scott pass. I wasn't at all happy to see Scott pass. But there's a gentleman who's still alive, Kirk Douglas.

And we're at a point now where he's now costing us points because 100 minus his age is a negative number. So that's kind of interesting. Okay, well, I try to go a little bit deeper with my death list. And now that we're starting to get complaints that 150 minutes is too long for a podcast, that seems to be a recurring theme. Also a couple of comments to that effect.

So we've got a bit more of a format here now than we started with. At the end of the episode, we go through all the fresh deaths, people who died in the past month, and usually with as much of a Toronto connection that we can find or some personal resonance that relates to what we're talking about. So that's our finish line, and we're looking at, what, two more hours on the way there? So you better hurry it up, Mike.

I've sharpened my scissors for the cutting room floor. But I will say, we've got some fantastic audio for the memorial section, and I think the most talked-about news that you shared in your last visit was, is the band called Sky? Yeah, it was a duo from Montreal, right? A pop music duo signed to EMI Canada. And a guy named James Rinald died under rather mysterious circumstances. There were not any press reports

about the fact that he passed away in his mid-40s, I guess, somewhere around there. A guy who had a little taste of pop stardom decided it wasn't for him, and subsequently Sky continued with different vocalists. But to me, that's a significant death that didn't get reported anywhere of significance. And you kind of dug it up. I guess you found it on a blog.

Yeah, it was on a Montreal writer who I've known a long time. But this is what? Christian Gravener. And he had it on his blog. Koolopolis. Yeah, it was a mysterious thing. Just, you know wondering uh how did this happen seemed a little bit tragic sudden death and we brought it up here uh quite

a few people commenting on it in fact i think because people they all remembered this uh love song by sky there's a couple of big review can con fixture met music hits. And you're right. The song took on more poignancy by the fact that you learned that the guy behind the mic wasn't alive anymore. I now dig that song, and I used to hate that song. So there's more of that coming up in the program. Have you been enjoying the Toronto Mic episodes lately? Are there any particularly good episodes you want to boost and let people know they're missing out? Oh, well, Jeff Healy's drummer,

Tom Stephen, we raved about his book on here a few months ago, so it was good that you got him down for a chat. Even played him a couple songs that I sent your way that he never heard before.

And the one I screwed up is the timing of the, is it the Angel Eyes cover? Oh, that's such a trifle. Yeah, but it was around the same time that it was a hit for Jeff Healy. You know, Bela Fleck, you must know that name. He's a banjo player, kind of in the jam band scene. That was his band, New Grass Revival with Angel Eyes.

Also, the Tom Petty original version of Lost in Your Eyes. Yeah, thanks for sending that over because he had never heard that. Just watching his eyes as he listened to the first time, it's kind of remarkable that you can have that experience. Sort of like when, who is it again? Be a Genie learned

about the trade of Kendris Morales at a shopper's drug mart. Did that happen just yesterday, I suppose? And you shared some footage of that. Going deeper and deeper. And you've got Gino Vannelli. He'll be here between this appearance and my next one.

He'll be here on Good Friday. All the way from Oregon. You know, he lives in the state of Oregon. See, I'm excited about it, but I also had Barney Bentall was booked on my show. And he was here for a short period of time. And then I guess he had to go to the studio to record something, and he postponed, but he doesn't live in the GTA,

so it's like indefinitely postponed. So I hope that doesn't happen. Okay, I looked up what Gino was up to right now before performing in his home in Native Land. He's on the Yacht Rock boat cruise. Could you imagine? Oh, with Loggins and Messina? That would be fantastic.

So I look forward to hearing about the Yacht Rock boat cruise. What's this Santana Black Magic Woman all about? Mr. Weisblatt, you tell me. Why am I playing Black Magic Woman by Santana? Okay, well, just as we did a podcast on the 30th anniversary of 1050 Chum ending its Chum Chart era, it seems fitting to somehow mark the fact that it was 10 years ago this week,

March 26, 2009, that 1050 Chum played its final song. And it was Santana, Black Magic Woman. And you mentioned they cut it like midway through. They just chopped it off at the neck there. Keep in mind, by that point in time, they were so sick of saying goodbye on 1050 Chum. They'd, you know, gone through a format change in 1986. Then they went to sports as the team in 2001,

came back to the music in 2002. With little less conversation by Elvis Presley. This was obviously a Bell Media directive to do something else with the frequency, and it wasn't quite at the point where the TSN radio was ready, so they flipped the switch doing something a lot more benign, simulcasting the television feed from CP24.

And when they did it, there was, I don't remember any formal announcement. It was just a switch. They flipped at 5 a.m., one minute in to Black Magic Woman. And was Ann Romer on CP24? Yeah, all your friends, Ann Romer on CP24? Yeah, all your friends.

Ann Romer, Steve Anthony, right? It was a reunion from City TV, Breakfast Television. That was a day that Bell fully took over CP24 because they had a transition period where it was still a little part of City TV. Then Bell owned it, but they were still shooting it in the same place as City Pulse News. So it was that date that they fully broke free

and it became a big moneymaker for Bell. What it was doing on the radio was subject to some confusion. But it had similar ratings to 1050 now. No, just kidding. It might have even been a little bit better. Yeah, but this wasn't about radio. And you can still get the iHeartRadio app and hear CP24 wherever you've got a phone.

So CP24 radio is still around, digitally speaking. But yeah, that was a weird one now when you're putting tv on the radio yeah for sure for sure now putting um whenever i do the remember the remember the time for fast time i typically go into the billboard hot 100 charts and then i pull something from like 10 years ago or 20 30 40 50 60 whatever but when 60, whatever. But when you visit, I like that we mix it up and we do something completely different. So I won't ask you to guess what we're going to listen to since you told me to play this,

but on this day, 50 years ago, this was the number one song on the chum charts. St. Douglas Quintet is back. We'd like to thank all of our beautiful friends all over the country for all theintet. Quintet. It's Mendocino. Mendocino. Oh, man. I don't have much of a relationship with the song. This is why you've got to get Roger Ashby down here. I'm worth a minute.

Ask him about some of these quirky items that showed up on the Chum chart. This would have been just before Roger showed up at Chum, but I'm sure he talked about it over the years. This was a Tex-Mex band, Sir Douglas Quintet, led by Doug Salm. And it was kind of like a fake British invasion group. Oh, because they put Sir in the front. For sure, that would make...

I thought for sure they were a British band. For sure. The song only made I thought for sure they were a British band, for sure. The song only made number 27 on the Hot 100, but somehow, it ended up topping the Chum Chart. I don't know the whole story behind this one. There's still an era in which there were

regional hits. Songs could be big in particular cities. There maybe wasn't the same influence from the American charts, but 50 years ago today, the Toronto number one song was something that, far as I can tell, you've

never heard before. Yeah, this is the first time. I mean, when you sent me the link, it was the first time I ever heard a song. When they would play oldies on Chum over the years, this would factor into it. Of course it would. It was number one time I ever did a song. When they would play oldies on Chum over the years, this would factor into it. Of course it would. It was number one on the station. So that's what I got today for Remember the Time. And 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. Milan from Fast Time is visiting the TMDS studio here on April 8th because we're going to do another sports media roundtable discussion with Hebsey and Brian from propertyinthesix.com. We'll hear from him soon.

But if you want to get 15% off any regular priced watch battery installation, mention that you heard about FastTime on Toronto Mic'd and go to fasttimewatchrepair.com for a location near you. Their newest location is now open in Richmond Hill. So thank you, Fast Time, for fueling the real talk. Marcella by the Beach Boys okay let's do this give me my chair girl update well from my chair girl update.

Well, from the chair girl breaking news desk, her lawyer was in court just last week, and he came up with a little bit of a sob story to suggest that there should be some leniency in the charges charged with allegedly throwing patio furniture off a 45th floor balcony in downtown Toronto. It turns out that according to the lawyer, Chair Girl was kicked out of dental hygienist school. So is that like there's an ethics clause or something?

Well, and then she herself. Now, to understand the dynamic of chair girl, 19 years old. Now, it's unfortunate that it had to happen the way that it did. But I think here we're seeing the dawn of a different kind of Internet celebrity, right? That she's got this little bit of infamy, and she's doing all that she can to leverage it. You remember when she made her first court appearance, and the cameras, paparazzi, were swarming all around her when she went to the court at College Park.

And then she comes out of Starbucks with a Frappuccino drink that was, like, bigger than her head. with a Frappuccino drink that was, like, bigger than her head. You know, she took a good photo, right? The kind of thing that people like talking about. The website Narcity was all over it. They had, like, multiple posts updating people on Chair Girl. Her Instagram went private for a time, but now it's public again.

MarcellaCZ underscore, and through that you get to learn about the adventures of Chair Girl. I'm not sure that she has the best influences in life, but she has posted a few things that suggest that she realizes this, and even her lawyer said

that she lost some friends as a result of the incident. But she seems to be having a pretty good time. There was even a hashtag, Chair Bay. She shared a video of herself doing a photo session. What do you make of all this? As a parent of teenagers who will soon reach the age of majority, would you want them hanging around with Marcella Zoya, Toronto's

own chair girl? I can't believe I'm going to defend chair girl because what she did was reckless and dangerous. She didn't kill anybody. No, but it was stupid. It was really, really stupid to a point where it could have killed somebody. I would just say that she's 19

and teenagers do stupid shit all the time is all I'm going to say. So if she actually learns from this and it's truly remorseful that she had that brain-dead moment where she did something stupid for the camera and doesn't do it ever again, I feel like maybe she should be allowed back into dental school. Well, look, I don't want to judge. She is of legal age, and she can do anything that's legal. The videos on there are provocative, and they suggest some interesting activities.

She's linked me into a world of these other Instagram accounts like Toronto's Baddest Baddies. I'm not going to draw any conclusions about what exactly is being marketed here. She was hanging out at the St. Regis Hotel, the former Trump Toronto. Videos of her and her friends twerking. She loves the nightlife. I've gotten that much out of her from paying attention to all of her posts. But, yeah, I mean, look, the lawyer is looking for a break here. She was fined a couple thousand dollars, told that she had to go live with her mother. There was some speculation on

Reddit that maybe they didn't have the greatest relationship under the circumstances. I don't want to get too deeply into exploiting this, but at the same time, we live in an era where people dream of getting this kind of attention on social media. But her challenge now, of course, will be finding brands that want to align themselves with what she represents to many people. Well, finding brands are finding people who want ShareGirl to be hanging around. She probably has a Patreon account.

Yeah, that or actual patrons. Right, right, right. By the way, go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. That's where you should put your money. Now, let's burn through a few Toronto items before I bring us to radio and media and some stories

that relate directly to 1236. So let's burn through these guys. Corrado's Barbershop at Queen and Bathurst. Dude, are you familiar with Corrado? Corrado Acaputo, the legendary Toronto barber. He was cutting hair for 55 years at the corner of College and Bathurst. Worked there from ages 17 to 72. And quite a character.

I mean, you want to talk about internet infamy, look at his Yelp page. Some of the reviews bringing up some of the questionable comments that come up from an old Italian barber. You could imagine. I don't know if we have to speculate on what those might be. He was, look, if you don't like it, go to another barber. It was Corrado's Barbershop. So, sadly, a fire in the house next door.

He owned the building that contained the barbershop, also a residence. And it turned out that the gentleman who took over the barbershop was living there. An early morning fire that at least raised the barbershop if it didn't burn it down. And Adam, the guy that replaced him there, his stepson died in the basement of the barbershop. So yeah, real sad ending for the place where a Toronto character was hanging out all these years. was hanging out all these years. I witnessed the renovations to the ROM when the crystal appeared. I was working for a brief period

right across the street from it. And you thought it would be like an actual crystal because the renderings made it look, right? Like it was going to be like the world's biggest piece of jewelry. I was thinking like Superman, remember, when he would go to his, I don't know what it was called, the fortress or whatever. Fortress of Solitude. Right, right, right.

That's right. So tell me, though, what's happening with the ROM crystal now? Well, something's up, right, because they've removed the paneling on it and some renovations are taking place, even though there didn't seem to be any confirmation from the ROM about exactly what was going on it just seems like after a dozen years uh that it got beaten down by weather that's understandable but uh there were so many of us who dream of the day that the ROM crystal will be demolished when it first opened there was a review in the Globe of Mail by by Lisa Rashawn where she actually laid out the circumstances under which the thing would be thrown down in her own lifetime. Here were other examples of buildings that were unveiled with the same pretense

and ended up being modified or altered or changed or even just giving up on the whole thing and replacing it with something else, will the ROM crystal, we're playing the long game here, do you think, Mike, that you will live long enough to see the removal of the ROM crystal? You saw it go up, and you're going to see it come down. Yes, if I were a betting man, I would say easily. I'd say it comes down in the next 15 years. Okay.

So we're like 12 years into its existence. It opened in June 2007. Yeah, sounds about right. So 12 years long. Maybe we're halfway through its life. So really what's going on, they announced a while ago, right? They opened the other doors of the rum, the original entrance, the one that was along Avenue Road, Queens Park, is now accessible again.

They have been closed in favor of the Crystal. The Crystal now is like the secondary entranceway. And, you know, they have some idea there wasn't much going on there outside in the front. Like no real place to hang out. not very hospitable in that regard. So what's going to show up there are like more seating, I don't know, somebody serving gelato, some attempt to turn it into more of a tourist-friendly zone than it was before. Because the thing that Daniel Lieibskind set up, it was kind of hostile, right? It's kind of trying to be Eastern European in its sensibility towards the Royal Ontario Museum. Maybe it wasn't a right fit for what people around there wanted.

It's a lot more residential around there than it used to be, right? A lot of these big luxury condos. Mayor John Tory lives right across the street. You know where John Tory lives? Bloor and Bedford, a condo that went up in the past decade. Other ones surrounding the museum. So I think there was demand there to bring some humanity to the front of the ROM crystal, even if we're stuck with the structure for a little while longer.

So yeah, I'll take that bet on 15 years. We'll see if we're stuck with the structure for a little while longer. So yeah, I'll take that bet on 15 years. We'll see if we're alive to see it. Yeah, we'll record and talk about it when it happens. Another structure I spent many hours in is 333 Young. I used to go to HMV and I would spend hours just in the basement with the hip hop stuff. All the floors I enjoyed. And fantastic place to just hang out when you're a teenager. What's going to happen at 333 Young?

Oh, well, they'll be selling weed out of there, of course. What else did you think was going to happen? It turned out that when Sunrise Records took over HMV Canada, they announced right off the top they weren't going to go into 333 Young. The rent was too damn high.

And they just couldn't justify keeping that location. So here we are almost two years since HMV left Young and Dundas. And they found a new tenant, at least for the ground floor. It's the brand Tokyo Smoke, owned by Canopy Growth, the big weed producer in Canada. The way it worked was people applied for licenses, and they awarded lottery winners, 25 in the province of Ontario, five of them in the city of Toronto. in the province of Ontario, five of them in the city of Toronto. And it seems like the pot shops, the legal weed stores,

are going to be located pretty much exactly where you would have predicted. You've got one at Yonge and Dundas, one at Queen and John, right? Another at Queen and Bathurst. One's at Yonge and Cumberland near Yorkville, near the Pilot Tavern. And one at Yonge and College Street, right near Maple Leaf Gardens. There won't be one at the Rogue Byway, is what you're telling me. Well, they could dream,

but yeah, I think that's going to have to happen somewhere down the line in the future. One of the jokes with legal weed in Canada is that there hasn't been enough supply to meet the demand. And a lot of these smokers, I mean, what did they do? They strengthened the black market. I mean, if you're a weed dealer, you're doing better than ever because the government took away the stigma.

Even if it's technically illegal, it's not a situation where you're going to be caught if you're selling people one joint at a time. And not only that, like now, you can, I live near the waterfront. Like I see guys are just smoking weed, you know, in the park. Not the playground kind of park, but the park. And nobody goes up to you and says, prove where you purchased this marijuana. Well, and because benefit of the doubt, they might have bought it online. E-commerce, Ontario Cannabis Store. So now that you can do that, I guess we're going to have to wait and see how this legal retail thing happens.

I mean, at the same time, in the interim, the old dispensaries, the illegal stores have still been operating in different parts of the city. So there might end up being more raids on the illegal stores. I mean, you wouldn't see this permissiveness with alcohol. If somebody just like randomly opened a store where they were selling hooch, right, somewhere along the lakeshore, which around this area, you could imagine that. I think they would be shut down pretty quick. And we're not seeing that with those illegal dispensaries.

That might change after April 1st. Of course, it's a lot harder to make good hooch as opposed to growing good weed, I suppose. Okay, but you haven't gotten into this yet, right? You haven't been a legal weed smoker, neither have I. I mean, it's all around, though. It seems to now be

so ubiquitous that it's part of my life. It's just like the smell of fresh air has been interrupted by marijuana. But I will say this, Mark. Before it was legal, when I'd come off the waterfront trail, there's a street called Norris Crescent,

and I have to take that to kind of get back to where I live. And I was smelling pretty much the same amount of weed like a year ago. Okay, but after it became legal, it's kind of like you have to deal with it. You can't think about it as a stigma. It's just kind of like it's there.

I better find a way to like this somehow because there's no escape. And I hate to say this, but I never minded the smell of cigarettes. I always thought when someone would come over to the house, like to visit my parents, and they were smoking, there was like excitement in the air. I always felt that it was like something a little more grown up, that there was a guest that came over that needed an ashtray. I don't know if you ever felt this way about smoking.

It's so taboo to talk about it in that light, but I mean, it was a sensory experience of going to a bar, a nightclub, a concert that people would be smoking all around you. Now that's happening with weed, and now it's wafting through our bedrooms.

Believe! Believe! Believe! Believe! Believe. Now this is some awful audio from the corner of Yonge and Dundas. The Believe guy. Salk, what's his name? The Believe man?

Sarko. Sarko, Sarko Sulk. So that's Believe. And what's happening at Young and Dundas? You don't have any more Believe? Oh, that's here. This is all I got. I just got Believe.

Well, Sarko was a street character in Toronto. Still around. And he would work the corner there of Young and Dundas, right in front of a Forever 21 store. I think to the point where he became synonymous with that building there, which was originally a bank of Nova Scotia.

I looked up some old ads upstairs there. There used to be some sort of snake oil hair growing salon. At one point, a tailor was working out of there selling suits in a bank building and then later it became The Gap. And Forever 21 took it over. I think when record stores started to fade from the scene, we went into this era of fast fashion, like H&M.

Oh, my wife hates fast fashion. Get her going on fast fashion. And Uniqlo. So a lot of competition there for those shoppers. American Apparel came and went, But Forever 21 was still around. So they announced they were finished. They'll stick with the one in the Eaton Center. I guess retail is changing,

and that Young & Dundas location isn't making the money that it used to, which gets us reflecting upon Sarko. What's going to happen if the new tenant at Yonge and Dundas is not so forgiving when it comes to that street preacher? Speaking of our personalities, like Sarko? I always forget, yeah, Sarko. And yeah, you can read about him online. There were a couple of attempts to profile him,

and it seems like he's really sincere in what he's trying to do, save souls there. Out on the street, Times Square, through history, has had thousands of characters like this. In Toronto, we've got to work with who we've got. There used to be the sticker lady. Remember the sticker lady? She would go up to men and tell them they looked really handsome today

and then try to sell them a sticker. She would go up to men and tell them they looked really handsome today and then try to sell them a sticker. She was spotted over here. It's a shaky lady who was exposed by Mike Strobel of the Toronto site. But Sarko, I think he just wants to spread the gospel in his idiosyncratic way. And he comes down there to do it. I don't know if he's got any fights with the black Israelites who are working that corner as well. But it seems like he's got that turf to himself, like across the street in front of the Eaton Center. There's always a circus going on. That corner there is a little cramped, right? You've got like the four-way crossing going on sometimes.

Oh, the scramble. Yeah, the scramble. Things get, you know, a little complicated, but he's been there, a resilient presence, and will he be there forever? Will he outlive forever 21? That's a story that's moving on,

and we'll see if the new tenant can deal with the fact this guy is out there. Seems like if he's suddenly gone, people are going to miss him. But then again, maybe he can just go across the street to Yonge-Dundas Square. Now, a gentleman who's been spending more time

in my hood on Lakeshore, right by where I live, is Zanta. So in fact, he's been writing, like there's an art gallery that had a fire and dusty windows and stuff. And he likes to write, you know, Google Xanta and things like that on this. Like I saw he was there yesterday writing that. And I'll be kind about this because I'm very sensitive to the fact that I believe Xanta has some struggles with mental illness, etc.

But I don't think he's doing, at least with my eyeballs, he's not doing particularly well these days. But he's definitely out and about and all over Mimico and New Toronto. Found some new turf, right? He used to be so disruptive in front of the old City TV building

and much music. And what people first thought was a joke turned a little more intense over the years. And what can you say? I mean, he's still alive. He's still at it. He's still wearing the Santa hat too. So for what that's worth.

Yeah, and it's interesting how something that I think was a street character novelty once people scratch the surface about what was going on there changed the perspective on it a bit. People don't laugh about Zanta as much. No, I don't find it funny anymore. Yeah, we've moved on to the I hate rubber boots guy, and coming up to springtime, a big season for him,

the I hate rubber boots sightings should be peaking at some time in the spring. Right. Queen Video's closing down? This happened a year ago, ago too because there was a first queen video store in queen west queen and uh spadina area a year ago gave up dvd rentals ain't what it used to be uh it's only so much of a market for these high art blu-rays uh but they they kept around uh bluer street blue and bath Annex. But a year later, another store is closed.

And this time they're clearing out the last of that inventory. So, you know, this is the hotbed for 80s, 90s nostalgia. How do you feel about the idea that the last video store might be that blockbuster in Bend, Oregon that keeps getting written about over and over again? You've seen the stories on that one. Of course, but didn't somebody tweet us? There was a Blockbuster in Australia closed and Oregon is the last one. Yeah, Friends of Fernandez.

Right, right. Of course, named after the great Tony Fernandez. Friends of Fernandez. Didn't he say there was one in Ontario? Oh, in Sound. I don't know. What was he doing? Looking around Google Maps.

Okay. Came across this mint condition Blockbuster that's still intact. What, like two, two and a half hour drive away from Toronto. You can see the ghost of a blockbuster where the signage looks like it did well. It was still open. And I guess it's waiting to be used in some kind of retro 90s movie. If they want to shoot it there, it's ready to go. And it was corroborated that people, in fact, have driven by there

and noticed it last summer, and we'll see if that happens again. If anybody has a sighting of the last ghost blockbuster in Ontario, make sure to put it on Twitter. Is there a word for when you're sad? You're nostalgic and sad. You're sad about something disappearing even though you haven't used that particular thing yourself in 20 years.

Is there a word for that? I think that's good enough. That's as close to a word as you can get. I feel sad that we don't have many video stores left. And at one point soon, we'll probably have one or none. And even though I personally, who is like a daily video store guy, I haven't been to a video store, I would say, at least in 20 years. And yet here I am kind of sad to see them go.

Like that's kind of, you know, contradictory. Like I'm not even using these services, but I like that they're around. Does that make sense? I suppose. So, I mean, look, Netflix is what it is. All the other services out there, Crave and Canopy, which is a free one,

you can get through the library. And by the way, Netflix kind of sucks. Like I know everybody talks about Netflix and a lot of it's mediocre. I'm just pointing, there's some good stuff in Netflix, but maybe I'm going through something where nothing's grabbing me anymore.

I just like BoJack Horseman. That's what I like from Netflix, but this is my own problem. I'll deal with this. No, no, I think you need some kind of communal incentive to actually follow through and watch something, right?

Like you need, there'd be a critical mass of attention to a certain show before you're motivated to watch it yourself. No, because that was Game of Thrones and I made it through three seasons. That's how hard I tried on Game of Thrones.

Three, Walking Dead, I bailed after one episode. But Game of Thrones, I went three seasons and then I'm like, I am out. Like, I tapped out. And people, I mean, as you know, this is exactly the kind of show you're describing.

Like, the whole universe is going to be talking about Game of Thrones now. But anyway. Okay, well, look, you can't watch everything. And Toronto did have a video store that reopened. It was Videoflix up on Avenue Road, Avenue and Wilson 401, somewhere up there. A more affluent area with an older population.

Their video store closed and somebody came along and opened it back up again. All right, I want to get to radio, but I need to ask my old stomping grounds. We had a coffee time at Bloor and Jane. Is there any news about the coffee Time at Bloor and Jane? Well, I think the Coffee Time closures are happening fast and furious. They've got numerous iconic locations that are not around anymore. Or the Coffee Time corporate office gives up on them, and this is a long legacy.

Someone else takes over, and it gets a name that's sort of like Coffee Time, but it's not cold coffee time. Like when country style went through a bad period where all of a sudden there'd be a new county style. I remember, oh, it's county style. And it would be, it's a little off-brand, if you will. So I think one of the more prominent coffee times in Toronto was baked into the building

with the entrance to the Jane subway station. You know that one, right? Yep. There was a Sam the Record Man nearby for a long time. And the movie theater down the street. Humber Odeon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was a happening place for a teenager to hang out after school.

I guess you're describing your life at the time. Well, I went to primary school at St. Pius, which was essentially Jane and Bloor. And so Jane was like the stop. So Coffee Time moved out of there, and who knows what comes in its place. Nonetheless, Coffee Time also signed a deal to become one of those cannabis stores, right? Once the regulations expand to incorporate more outlets, a parent company of Coffee Time has gotten into that because as we know,

no one has ever purchased drugs inside a Coffee Time. They prefer the Galaxy Donuts. I remember the Lansdowne and Blewer Galaxy Donuts. As you know, and Brian's got his's coming up soon, but we talk a lot about the Galleria Mall, as you might have heard. And Galleria Mall is DuPont and Dufferin. Yeah, the Coffee Time closed nearby there too.

This is terrible. The one near me here closed and it became a two-for-one pizza and then that closed and now it's a pizza hut for what it's worth worth if you're keeping track at home okay so uh let's get into radio because of course well here i have to open another beer okay radio love radio virgin radio turfed the tucker and mora show which was called tucker in

the mornings with mora it wasn't even the the mor show. No, she was tagged on as with Maura Gerstein? Gerstein. Don't attach a different ethnicity to her than she actually has. My apologies. So, they turfed that show because they brought in Adam Wilde. This is

Marilyn Dennis. Oh, and they were pissed off because they felt like, look, I mean, it's one thing to be fired and replaced by another radio star. But imagine it's the son of the woman that works down the hall. That does smell of nepotism. Wouldn't you feel like you were burned by the owners if they told you that this Canadian media icon's son was going to replace you? Now, you told me, because in private conversations,

I hope I'm not telling tales out of school, that you quite enjoyed the Tucker and Maura podcast. Oh, loved it, loved it, absolutely. Because you got to hear the real people. Real talk. Yeah, it was real talk. What was going on behind the microphones? I got to, look, I'm a chum fan. real people. Real talk. Yeah, it was real talk. What was going on behind the microphones?

I got to, look, I'm a chum fan. So I'm not speaking from the perspective that something that should be on the radio needs to be all sneaky and subversive here. I'm not, you know, looking for some avant-garde presentation, but I really couldn't get into what Tucker and Maura were doing. It wasn't my thing. Oh, on 99.9. On 99.9.

So then they show up with this podcast. It's like, who are these people? This is amazing. You're getting to hear an honesty that wasn't coming through when they were doing the Virgin Radio Show. Now, look, it's just a job. They were doing what they had to do that was being expected of them. It sounds like there was at least some tension with the management there.

They were complaining. Well, one thing, right, it was a bit unfair that Maura's name was not on the show, but they didn't really promote Tucker anyway. No. He wasn't what you would call a radio celebrity. anyway. No. He wasn't what you would call a radio celebrity. And I think they were a little old for

the audience the station was aiming at. To compare and contrast, we see Roz and Mocha everywhere. Like, they're on the TTC platforms and on streetcars. Look, they're probably the same age too. Early mid-40s. Roz is pushing 50. They've been working at that

station for 20 years. Right. In its first incarnation and then came back. So Tucker and Maura, yeah, I could relate to the people that were on the podcast a lot more than whatever I was hearing on the radio.

Then, without revealing that they got a new job, they make an announcement, they're deleting all the old episodes of the podcast. Not that you're going to go back and listen to all of them, but something was up. It was very symbolic that they didn't want to keep this legacy of the crashing Bell Media. Very good.

Yes. To tell people what happened is there's a station, Sing, C-I-N-G. C-I-N-G-F-M. Originally 107.9. Yeah, there's a station, Sing, C-I-N-G. C-I-N-G FM, originally 107.9. And then, yeah, there's a frequency. That was what we used to know as Energy 108. Energy 108 from Burlington, before that FM 108, which was an oldie station at one point.

And it was, I think, very much the kind of 905 radio station of Toronto in the 70s and 80s. I mean, CFNY had this legacy too, but they took a detour to be a lot more hip. FM 108 was kind of like a crackpot, crapshoot of different formats going on at the time. Once I tuned into it, it was a fascinating radio station, but yeah, it became Energy 108, and the owners, the Evanov family, at one point, eventually

sold it to Chorus. Right. And then there was a frequency swap, so CING moved to, remind me, because this is like a Hamilton station, I don't know. 95.3. 95.3. That was Y105. Remember Y105? It was a classic rock station. Jeff Lumby, Mike Richards. Right. 95.3. That was Y105. Remember Y105?

It was a classic rock station. Jeff Lumby. Jeff Lumby, Mike Richards. Right, right. Absolutely. And so they figured they would take over 95.3. They would move the energy format over there. It got a lot of attention, right?

It was like a cult-follow following Toronto radio station, Energy 108. A lot of credibility with the people there. Scott Turner, Wayne Williams, right? It was brought in the Eurodance thing, but there was also hip hop happening. Yeah, Chris Shepard mastermind at one point. Then Stu Jeffries ended up doing the morning show. Remember that? That was part of his moving into Toronto. So they figured, you know, they had something going on. Move it to the better frequency, 95.3. It could be heard a lot better all over the GTA. That's what they did.

And the ratings went in the wrong direction. Now, most recently, it was known as Fresh. This was the brand name, Fresh. And a couple of people like us Toronto Radio people would be familiar with, they used to have Kelly Cotrera was on this station. And the morning show featured a friend of Toronto Mike, Colleen Rusholm, with Darren Laidman. Yeah, Big D.

Now, he's like a hardcore Hamilton guy. He's like one of those Hamilton media people. I have to, I always, like, obviously, I honestly don't listen to any Hamilton radio. I love the Hammer, Tom Wilson. They're all great. Stephen Brecht. Most Hamilton radio people, it seems,

end up going into politics. The mayor of Hamilton, Bob Bertina, was a longtime radio guy. He's now an MP in Ottawa. He's like one of those quiet MPs now for the liberals. Doesn't say much, but, you know, kind of like almost like a patronage thing that he got elected to parliament. Another guy, Jason Farr. He used to be Darren Laidman's sidekick.

He's also in politics in Hamilton. Donna Skelly, a woman that was on CHCH. Mark Hebbshire worked with Donna Skelly. Is Mark Hebbshire running for office anytime soon? We'll find it out first in this basement. I'll ask him tomorrow. But just to bring us up to speed on the big announcement in March, it's that Fresh FM 95.3, going back to the energy branding,

they're now Energy 95.3. They got rid, they let go their morning show of Colleen and Darren. So they got burned in the same way that Tucker and Maura did. Right. So they can't say that they were unfairly targeted because it tends to happen in radio. The people have a target on your back, and they'll tell you to say goodbye. So that was it for Darren and Colleen, who go back to the energy radio format.

95.3, that was with Nicholas Pickless. Who's in Buffalo now? Mostly from Buffalo in 25 years. They drafted him to Toronto because he was like a teen celebrity in Toronto. He was on YTV, Video and Arcade Top 10. So he had a bit of a name. With Liza Fromer, am I right?

Yeah, that goes way, way back. So there he was hosting this cheap Canadian game show. Yeah, and I hear it about 2.1 too, Nicholas. They came on to play Nintendo on YTV. But the thing was on for so long, and the audience was like little kids, like six, seven, eight-year-olds. Right.

That when you grow up with a person like that, you end up thinking they're a celebrity, even if they're really not. So that's what happened to Nicholas Pickless. Like, he became ingrained with the right audience of preschoolers. By the time they were teenagers, they thought Nicholas Pickless is like a famous radio guy. And Chorus in Canada lured him away from Buffalo for a year or so. He was on energy with Darren and Colleen.

Wow, okay, great. Now with Darren and Colleen. Wow, okay, great. Now, Darren and Colleen turfed, so they got replaced by Tucker and Nora. Look, they weren't turfed, because Colleen is still there. Yes, okay, but there is, without a doubt, the way I read it, they were turfed,

and then Colleen was offered the afternoon drive. But also maybe Darren, because he put on Facebook that he voluntarily laughed. What are the odds that this is true? Okay, I have to preface this by saying I don't have any inside info, but because I know there was a period where Big D and Colleen thought

they were no longer on the radio, and then, of course, we saw that Colleen is, appropriately enough, of the name Rush Home, is part on the radio. And then, of course, we saw that Colleen is, appropriately enough, with the name Rush Home, is part of the Rush Home afternoon drive. I'm of the opinion that might not be true, but I do not know for certain. And who am I to... I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

In the end, though, look, we've got Tucker and Moore on the morning. Virgin 95.3. I don't like the music they're playing. I think it's terrible, but I'm not the target audience for this. And I think, once again, with fresh radio, they were going after Hamilton. It was a Hamilton-licensed station. So now enough clues there that they're taking a run once again at the Toronto market with this frequency.

You've got to be careful when you do this because your competitors are going to tell on you if you pretend that a Hamilton station is actually from Toronto. But I'm pretty sure that they're broadcasting from Chorus Key. Be specific. You think Tucker and Mora are broadcasting from Chorus Key?

Yeah, absolutely. Because I heard their podcast that they did, like their self-congratulatory podcast. And these people are all right. I mean, I don't know how much meta discussion anyone wants to hear about radio, but they were talking about like the new studios. They'd never been in such a high tech environment. I think they kind of gave it away.

You're right. And, you know, I can rat them out. They'll make them drive to Hamilton at 4 o'clock every morning now. For what it's worth, I asked my friend Colleen Rusholm if she was broadcasting the Afternoon Drive show from Chorus Key, and

she said, not yet. Right now, according to her, she's broadcasting from Hamilton. I don't know how these rules apply. You can run a radio station on your laptop. Does it matter where you're coming from? I mean, CRTC has rules and regulations. Yeah, Orangeville, Z103.5.

They got their wrists slapped. So they have to say now in their station IDs that they're from Orangeville. And even though no one listening knows Orangeville is, it's Orangeville radio station. Even though they're broadcasting from Etobicoke, they have to do things on the station, at least to create the impression that they're coming from Orangeville. They're serving Orangeville.

This is an Orangeville radio station. But I have questions for you. You might have the answers. What about the fact, like, we'll use my station 102.1, for example. That's a Brampton station, right? Is it still? Well, this is my question.

I think they got permission to change that because for a while they were having to be a little sneaky. Okay. But 640. They would do the Edge, Bloor and Bathurst, but they would still have their base operations in Brampton. They were still in the strip mall in Brampton.

Right. Even when a lot of their shows were coming out of downtown Toronto. Right, like Bloor and Bathurst and then by the Eden Center. Yeah, so they got whatever dispensation they needed that they don't have to be tied to Brampton anymore. Now, what about GNR 640? Because I can't remember. Markham?

Where is that supposed to be out of? Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill. Yeah, I think that got cleared along. These are archaic rules. I don't remember. Markham? Where is that supposed to be out of? Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill. Yeah, I think that got cleared along. These are archaic rules. I don't know. But if somebody rats on you, it's going to be a competitor every time. Have you listened?

That says that you're not following orders. So it'll be a CHFI or a CHMFM that comes to the CRTC and says, our new competitor, Energy 95.3, is lying about where it's being broadcast from. They're not living up to their condition of license because companies can only own two FM radio stations in a city, and they're sneaking in with a third. Good point, good point. Now, I know for a fact that CKMT, which is Saga,

Mrs. Saga Station, I know for a fact it broadcasts right now. It broadcasts out of Etobicoke. I don't know if it matters. I don't know if it matters. I don't know if it violates a rule. I don't care. I just know that is happening. So that's neither here nor there because nobody's heard of CK&T.

Best of luck with Tucker and Moore. I thought the ad that they put out, not virgins anymore, that was clever. That was funny. That violates every rule. Don't mention the competition. So it was different for the Canadian media industry for a corporate station to do something like that,

I think because the ratings are so low. I mean, you know, this is a sort of a Hail Mary pass, but the music could be a lot better. It's people for whom CHFI is too hip, like people who would be intimidated by the playlist on the most mainstream radio station, that's fine too. There are, not everyone

can be so cool. And the Tucker and Mora style they established seems to play into that. They had their first day, they had some self-congratulatory callers that they put on the air. I mean, these seem to be genuine.

We wouldn't say that these were the most sophisticated listeners. It's not a hipster audience that they established. But that's fine. It's a good job. Get to be on the radio, and if the numbers come in, then they'll be vindicated and validated and lots of success to come. But I think this also relates to how Chorus is doing radio now. We've talked on here about 102.1 The Edge.

And that new morning show they put on, did you get to listen to that yet? Not a minute, no. Sibling Radio, Ruby and Alex Carr. I find it so disorienting because the pattern that they do is so generic. Like this could be a radio station transmitting from anywhere, and it either is pre-scripted, like they write everything out. It might be pre-recorded and edited down so that it could fit a certain time frame and dissuade people from tuning away.

But when you talk about the legacy of CFNY, this is the farthest thing from it. I would like to hear from a radio programmer to explain to me who this style of radio is appealing to. It must be successful somewhere. The consultants must find some wisdom in doing it this way. I might be the only person out there who's still listening and wonders what has happened to the radio station that used to speak to me. And maybe I'm just too old, but it's not an age thing. And I don't know what kind of young person would listen to this. In the end, it's just something to put on in the background. And maybe I'm thinking too much about what this is supposed

to mean. I'm naturally curious. I haven't tuned in. I mean, other than some Metro Morning, I haven't heard any Morning Radio. Okay, well, if you hear the CFNY 102 Morning Show, I mean, you would like to hear, I don't know, what is it? Like, talk about the city of Toronto, I guess, where they're broadcasting from? I don't know, what is it? Like talk about the city of Toronto, I guess, where they're broadcasting from. I don't catch a lot of examples that these people really relate to what's happening here or it's stuff that they like looked up on the internet and not actually related to.

Like they've just moved here. They're new in town, but they still want to sound a little bit savvy. So they're, I don't know, getting stories off of blog TO and reading them on the air. Not much to relate to there. And I don't understand, like, there's no relationship with the music. It could be any format.

And the voices that they put on, I don't get it. It's sort of like this affected sarcasm. It's nothing that, you know that the young people of Toronto today would relate to as far as I can tell. The ratings will prove me wrong, but it sounds like they've got a long way to go in creating something on the air that people will understand. And the SoundOff podcast, the one with Matt Cundall, our friend,

he tweets at you from time to time. Oh, the one who had Dean Blundell on. He had Meredith Geddes on the podcast. He asked her about all this voice tracking. And she was a little bit defensive. But again, he's a professional in the radio business. He understands this is the way it's done now. But he was the one asking her,

like, if you're actually talented, I want to hear the real you, right? I don't want to hear this sort of chopped up, compressed, scripted, edited, pre-recorded version of what you are. If you're good enough to be doing live radio, why aren't you doing it? I don't know that they really came to any sort of resolution outside of maybe despairing that this is what radio is and driving more people to real talk and creating a situation where podcasting becomes more of a thing with more people. And the ones left listening to the old-fashioned radio

are maybe not as discerning in their tastes. I'm not a young Toronto guy. I'm an older Toronto guy. Well, I'm older than you. Yes, we're both 40-something. And I would say I happen, my

you know, I talk about Lowest of the Low a lot. I close every episode of Lowest of the Low. Lowest of the Low has a new album coming out. In fact, next Thursday, I'm actually at the listener party for the new Lowest of the Low album. And they're going to come on Toronto Mic'd and talk about the new album

and promote their appearance at TMLX3. Do you think you'll get free food and drink at this party? It's in the invitation. Because, you know, they kind of cut back on this stuff in the music business. It's not like it used to be. They had free food and drink at the launch of Mark Hebbshire's book. Okay.

And I was shocked. Really? Yeah. I think the book industry is more accommodating of this hospitality than music is now. I'll report back. But I was promised a free beer and pizza. Just one free beer. I'll report back, but I was promised free beer and pizza. Just one free beer? I don't know. If you see someone standing over the pizza to regulate

how many slices you can take, then you know that they're not expecting to sell a lot of lowest of the low albums. The story I'm trying to share is that I heard Ron Hawkins was going to be on the Strombo show, and I made sure to tune in. I've always felt this way,

that what I like from radio, which is why I listen to podcasts all the time now, is I like a person who really cares about their subject matter, which I guess is the opposite of what you're describing on these morning shows, like the morning show at 102.1. And it sounds like the podcast that you listened to from Tucker and Maura gave you a lot of that authenticity that you are craving. And maybe this is something you said offline, and maybe you haven't said on the podcast

yet, but when you tune into Tucker and Maura on their new home, whatever this is called, Energy 95.3. Now they're sounding more like the typical scripted stuff you're hearing out of 100.1. Yeah, I mean, based on like a day or two of tuning in, not even very much past the first day. Okay. Maybe it's a little more live than some of these other stations are, that they're given some trust to follow through on it,

but like zero chance of things flying off the handle and them like interrupting a scheduled song because there's something that they want to say or there's someone that called in that's maybe worth their attention. This to me is what's worth tuning in for. All those found moments, I find them happening a lot more right now on Chum, 104.5, right? That is where I listen to hear something, to hear some reference to something or some digression that's going on with the people there. I actually think that that is closer to the old-fashioned freeform progressive radio than what I'm hearing out of these chorus stations.

Chum! Chum! Like, the most establishment mainstream radio station. How is it that that's happening? And Bell Media's a pretty conservative company. But yeah, I'm more likely to be surprised by what I hear on Chum right now, after Roger Ashby left. Do you have a Jamar...

But also before. Do you have a Jamar... But also before. Do you have a Jamar baby update for me? Oh, he's got Instagram photos of his baby. I should have done screenshots and sent them to you. He's being a little more candid about the fact that this baby actually exists. It's not just a bit for the radio.

I heard him mention somewhere that he is actively in a relationship. And she lives in Atlanta? Or she might have moved here. Okay. Because what's he doing with the baby all the time? Right.

The mystery of Jamar's baby. How this happened. Why the radio audience never heard about it until the baby is born. We're waiting for Jamar to come back down here and kick out the jams.

And he is coming back to kick out the jams. And he is coming back to kick out the jams, so it'll be worth the wait. Jim Taddy, so we talked about Mark Hebbs here because, of course, he's recording Hebbsy on Sports from this very studio every Monday and Friday morning. Do you still listen to Hebbsy on Sports?

Yeah, yeah, I still listen. Are you gonna, once again, on the sports media roundtable talk about how I hate sports? My sports education mostly comes now from listening to Hebsey. Do you know what happens in exactly 13 or 14 minutes from now? Do you know what's happening? Yeah, the Blue Jays. Opening day.

First pitch. But no one cares. No one wants to be there. I think it's probably going to be close to a sellout. But anyway, opening day is like an event, so it doesn't count. But Jim Taddy, who was doing the afternoon drive at another Hamilton station. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes Guy, right?

Jim Taddy. Yes Guy. So he was on 1150 TSN radio in Hamilton, and they turfed that show. But he wasn't the only one. Who else was the other guy's name? Ottawa. No, but they got rid of people in Ottawa, Vancouver. They did a lot of cutbacks all across the chain of TSA.

And here's some interesting news. So kind of legend has it that years ago, I invited Jim Taddy on Toronto Mic'd and we had a very interesting discussion and the crux of this discussion was that he didn't want to go backwards and talk about the past. He wanted to only look forward

and I didn't think there was anything for us to talk about if we didn't talk to go backwards and talk about the past. He wanted to only look forward. And I didn't think there was anything for us to talk about if we didn't talk about Sportsline and Yes Guy and all that stuff. So we kind of decided not to do it. But I asked him again with this news, and he said that he's still going to do some Maple Leaf hockey stuff on 1050. But in a few months, he says he's game. So hopefully this summer there's a Jim Taddy. Is he going to have to go back to selling real estate, right?

He was doing that in the interim. Cottage country or something. It's a conundrum because the team, when Chum Radio launched it, they tried to do national sports radio. And it was said time and time again that national sports radio doesn't work in Canada, right? Specifically in Canada. Like ESPN does okay in the United States,

has an audience, has a lot of stations. I mean, it's cheap programming. But in Canada, you can't talk about the Leafs in Vancouver. I'm correct on that. I think what is that, okay, there's a lot of teams

in all the leagues in the USA. But in Canada, excluding the CFL, of course, there's just NHL. Like, there's several teams in Canada in the NHL, but there's only one NBA team. There's no NFL team. There's only one Major League Baseball team in Canada. So I just feel like there's not enough ties that bind. Okay, so they have to economize the TSN radio. The ratings have not gotten to the level that they want. I think that's a given. Does anybody claim that TSN radio is successful?

No, but I did see Jonah at Toronto Sports Media. He was pumping the tires of the Overdrive show with O-Dog. Who's on that show? John Derringer's nephew's on that show. Bill Hayes. Not Bill Hayes. Brian Hayes. That's right. And another ex-NHL. Obviously, I don nephew's on that show. Bill Hayes. Not Bill Hayes. Brian Hayes. Brian Hayes, right.

And another ex-NHL. Obviously, I don't listen to this show. But apparently, this is popular with younger men. And it was challenging Bob McCowan. This is what he wrote. And look, it can happen. Because for years and years, the conventional wisdom was that 10-10 had all the ratings and no one tuned to 640.

conventional wisdom was that 1010 had all the ratings and no one tuned to 640. And now suddenly you've got 640 eclipsing 1010 in the demographics that matter. So who knows? The future might be better for TSM, but I don't know if it's going to work. They keep cutting back. So that was the latest. I mean, Hamilton, a smaller market. So now you've got more.

I looked at the schedule, like more duplication of TSN 1050 on TSN 1150. Interesting. Chum and CKOC, which were top 40 rivals, now have a lot of the same programming. They'll have the same morning show, the one with Michael Landsberg, but then a Hamilton one comes on at 8 o'clock. So they've got an hour of local morning. So they can talk Thai cats, I guess. I'm not even sure what else. Oskwewewe. Very good. I'm not even sure what else.

Very good. See, you are a sports guy. Yes, guy. Yeah, that makes me a sports guy, right. So you mentioned 640 keeps gaining on 1010, which is exciting, I suppose, if you follow that kind of thing. 1010, their morning show host, John Moore, who famously

was scheduled to appear on Toronto Mic'd and had to politely decline because PR said no, which doesn't happen too often, but it happened there. John Moore's been trying out different co-hosts. He tried out two different co-hosts. One was Barb DiGiulio. Oh, yeah. One of their expert panelists, some sort of lobbyist.

I forget which one. Well, Barb's great. Amanda of lobbyist. I forget which one. Well, Barb's great. Amanda Galbraith. I don't know. One of the regulars on there was trying with John Moore. Is that because— Well, he said on the air he was burned out. He went to management.

He told them, I need some help here on this morning show, which is a unique thing to confess on the radio, to say that I don't have the stamina that I used to, I need help in here. That was how he described it. I don't know whether that was true or whether this is being forced on him to try to ignite the ratings in a different direction. Then he went on

vacation for two weeks, which was also kind of suspicious. Maybe he needed one. I think he had just been on one. I don't want to speculate that maybe he's not feeling it like he used to. Was he tweeting those pictures of your toes on the beach? That typical shot you get. Whatever it is, a bit of a transitional period, I think, for 10-10

because the ratings are being eclipsed by 640. And 640 put out a press release to announce some of their lineup changes, and they bragged about it. Wouldn't you? Like, we're beating News Talk 1010 here at Global News Radio. That still says,

and it still surprises me when you say it, but you know your stuff. So I will say- Well, I mean, that was, I don't know, it wasn't refuted. I didn't see a Bell Media press release saying the opposite. Here's the thing.

I actually enjoy talking about, as you know, I enjoy talking about radio and like, okay, Tucker Moore here now and Adam Wiles here, and this is that, Jamar this, that. I enjoy that very much. But what I actually have very, very, very little interest in, even though a lot of people come to me for this, I have very little interest in the ratings.

Like, I don't particularly believe it. Well, it doesn't matter because when the station isn't doing well, they will tell you that the ratings are wrong. Right. When the ratings are good, you know, absolutely accurate. There's never been a better measurement of exactly how great we are. So right now, Mike Stafford is a big fan of the rating system. Right?

Because it's showing, hey, look. Look at how we're doing with these key demographics against John Moore. So tell me, is Supriya Dwivedi with child? Like she's got a, at some point, I suppose, there's a maternity leave looming. Yeah, I don't know what they're going to do in place. I mean, Stafford did radio by himself for decades. Oh, he's good. So I think he can handle it again. He'll probably end up getting these big yellow board comments,

soundy.net, saying how much they love Stafford being alone. That'll be angry. It'll be tweeting about how he doesn't trust anybody on there, even though maybe secretly he's okay with the fact that people are saying. I get the comments from people like many of the soundy contributors. I get these people who Google the show, and they just simply find Supriya. For that listenership, it sounds like Supriya, they find her to be a little left of center.

And yet she's great and different and, you know, a voice that is uncharacteristic of the angry white male talk radio style in Canada. It's great that she's stuck around, right? Matt Gurney was in there with her. They got rid of him. Oh, that's March news, right? Is that March news or did we do that on February? February, March.

I mean, they put on these other global TV guys. One of them, Jeff MacArthur, who was on the radio, went to TV, now back to radio. The other one is Alan Carter. Their new midday hosts. Right. Good for a 640. Jim Richards. Jim Richards is more

fascinating. I heard Jim earlier today in fact, his topic was whether he's 53 years old. He was wondering whether 53 is early 50s or mid-50s. I thought that was a good topic, okay? Like that was the kind of thing that I like to hear talk radio about. The answer, of course, is it's actually early 50s, but 54 is mid-50s.

I'll be there soon enough. Well, hopefully we all get there. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest about Toronto Radio before I move on? What else was there? What were the other topics that came out during the month? I mean, you know, look, we wait to hear

the answer to what's going on with Jamar's baby. Operators are standing by. Adam Wilde on Virgin 99.9 making his mother proud. Down the dial. I got a comment. I don't get a lot of reactions

to my choice of items in the 1236 newsletter with somebody who wondered why am I always writing about radio? Like, why are we supposed to care about this? Are you against podcasting? And it's like, no, I also write about podcasts. Maybe even more. I'm the one tuned into all this stuff. I wanted

to give a shout out to Gary Dunford, who used to be the page six columnist. He comments on Toronto Mike all the time. He's in the... Oh, look, I love Dunford. I mean, that was a guy. I would stand by the Toronto Sun street boxes at 1 o'clock in the morning, waiting for the newspaper to be loaded up so that I could buy one and read Dunford's column. What's strange to me is that people like Ted Wallachian come down here, and they lament the fact there's no Gary Dunford writing about radio in the newspaper anymore. Well, I do this every single day to the point where I get complaints about it.

And I think Dunford understood at an earlier era. I mean, I was too young to play a role in all of this. Look, these are the media people who are in Toronto. These are the underdogs of the media industry, and they're the ones who are delivering it for hours every day. It doesn't matter if I like them or not. I think that what happens in the radio business, everything that surrounds it,

even if the audience isn't what it used to be, even if there's a different demographic tuned in, it's still terrific. Look how much time we spent talking about it here. I mean, you don't even listen to these stations. No, and I'm fascinated. And you're considered the expert. Absolutely, no.

All I want to do is talk about, you know, Brother Bill or let's talk about, yeah, let's go way back and talk about May Potts on 102.1. Okay, so we'll move on from radio. This song here came into my life because you, Mark Weisblatt, emailed it to me about a year ago. Maybe a little bit more than a year ago. Because you heard, I guess on Twitter, that Camp Tournesol was going to sponsor Toronto Mic'd.

And you sent this over. This is something you heard in school? Remind me. It was a French teacher who I don't think knew how to speak French. But hey, she persisted, was the best the school could do.

Too funny. And she would play us French songs. So, Le Tournesol rang in my head for decades before I found

something to do with it. What? That was to send it to Toronto Mike. And I used it every Camp Tournesol mention in 2018. And they love you for it. They do like it. Where's my free tuition to Camp Tournesol?

You're too old. You're too old. But I was going to say, the best comment you got on this was someone who likened it to the Camp Krusty song from The Simpsons. Hail to the Camp Krusty song from the Simpsons. Oh, Mr. Black. That's one of my favorite Simpsons episodes

of all time is the Camp Krusty episode. Fantastic. Well, you better get the sponsor plug in before the song speeds up and then it comes to an end. It's so abrupt, right? That's true. Camp Ternusol. Being serious here for a moment, all my children, I suppose, are going to go to French Immersion.

The three-year-old, by the way, the three-year-old is now 100% potty trained for waking hours. Okay, I don't know. I'm excited by this. This is the youngest out of diapers except when she sleeps. She wears a pull-up to bed, okay?

I can only talk about her like this while she's young and not listening to Toronto Mic'd because I've already had to stop telling all these great stories about my teenagers. But where am I going with this? I'm here to say that if you want to watch your child's French skills blossom over the summer, you need to send them to Camp Tournesol French Camps. They've been doing this since 2001 for tens of thousands of children ages 4 to 14. Go to campt.ca and learn about the day camps and the overnight programs. There's an introduction

to French day camp for ages 4 to 10. There's a French immersion program for ages 13 and 14. There's overnight camps from 8 to 14. There's leadership programs for the older kids 12 to 15. There's online French tutoring. There's just this new Love My Planet, this eco camp. You need to go to campt.ca and when you sign up your child for French camp,

use the promo code Mike2019. Mike2019. It'll save you some money and it lets them know they should come back next year so we can keep playing Nana Muscuri and reminding Mark of his primary school years.

Should I have a third beer is what I'm thinking about here. Are you done the second one? I'm done. Remember, there's another hazard to drinking too much during the program. It's not the loose lips. It's the, Mike, I really need drinking too much during the program. It's not the loose lips. It's the, Mike, I really need to go to the washroom. And you know, we do this live to tape,

so I can always put on Indigato De Vida or whatever. But let's, do you mind now if we let Brian ask you a question and do that before we get into the video? Yeah, yeah, Brian, bring it on. Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Mark. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Light. Now is the time to contact me for a free home evaluation if you are considering selling your home and or looking to buy during the busy spring market. You can also call or text me at 416-873-0292 if you are interested in the Galleria Mall condo redevelopment my brokerage is exclusively selling.

Reminder that the Sports Media Roundtable with Mike, Hebsey, Milan and I will be reconvening on Monday, April 8th with lots of sports media news to discuss since our last visit. Mark, time to tee you up for a question you put out there for your 1236 Twitter followers that I am interested in as well. Can you chime off a list of celebrities who were arrested in Toronto? Well, Brian, it just so happens that we already did the research

and this has become a fun recurring feature here, right? Where I try to find like fodder for a listicle that relates to famous people in Toronto. In January, we had what? It was people like Kamala Harris, who had lived in Canada at one point during their formative years, even though they weren't born here, then moved back away from Canada. We went through that list.

Last month. It was famous people who were buried in Toronto. And we made an error that I regret. It was claiming that John Candy was buried in Toronto. And that made news around that time. It was the 25th anniversary of his death, which reminded me that I was wrong. But you didn't actually say Toronto. I think you said King City or something like that. But you definitely said somewhere. Whatever it was. Yeah, he's not buried here. There was a memorial service in Toronto, which was broadcast on CHCH. But he was buried before that in LA. So let's go. So this month, let's talk about people that were arrested in Toronto who were famous.

What name do you think of? Keith Richards. Is that the first one that always comes to mind? That's the first one, yeah. That is probably the most infamous one of all because Margaret Trudeau was involved in the situation that was happening around the Rolling Stones when they were in Toronto. February, March, March 1977.

And also he likes to reference that and credit that kind of moment with cleaning up his life and, you know, realizing he needed to change his habits. When he went to court for the drug charges, a judge sentenced him to play a concert for the blind in Oshawa, Ontario, which was a whole other story in itself. Keith was freed, even though I think it was a long time until he could enter Canada again after doing that concert, 1979. The Rolling Stones had their tour after that, and they didn't play in Canada. So Keith Richards, you think the most famous person to ever get arrested in Toronto? I didn't think as much about the story of Jimi Hendrix.

There is a really long Wikipedia page about Jimi Hendrix's drug bust in Toronto in 1969. Oh, wow. One of the things, I mean, this is before our time. I didn't realize how little attention this received in the American media. Like, generally, it wasn't something that there were articles about. There was Jimi Hendrix arrested at the Toronto Moulton Airport for hashish and heroin, even though he claimed he wasn't a heroin user.

And it ended up being a big deal, which almost derailed his career. Now, Jimi Hendrix didn't have much longer to live in 1969, not that anyone would have known that. But it turned out to be a turbulent year as a result of him being arrested and charged in Toronto. Not only that, but he was caught again with some prescription pill. But he ended up being charged for that and they cleared him afterwards

once they figured out what was up. He said he wasn't into heroin and the drugs were planted on him. No one was sure of the story because he didn't he didn't live for very long after that so i think if you're if you're really into the jimmy hendrix experience and the whole story around him that the fact that he was arrested for drugs in toronto looms largely even though it wasn't so much on my mind. Natalie Cole was another musician.

I did not know she was arrested. I didn't know Jimi Hendrix was arrested. Okay, and Natalie Cole you didn't know. And that was 1975 again. She was known at the time, I mean, she was starting her singing career. Right. Had a record deal, but she was, you know,

it was Nat King Cole's daughter, first and foremost in 1975. And yeah, again, a drug situation, heroin. Now the name, and I'm sure you'll get to this, but I recall Justin Bieber. Wasn't he arrested here? Well, that was a big night outside 52 Division when they brought in Justin Bieber to get booked with some sort of assault charge involving his limo driver.

I didn't really get the gist of what happened after that. He probably settled some kind of payoff to drop the charges. I might be wrong off the top of my head here. But, you know, look, Justin Bieber is going through a lot right now. There's speculation he might never sing again. He's talking about retirement, or if he'll return, he'll be some kind of Christian singer. He's got this marriage to Hailey Baldwin.

He's dealing with some stuff, Justin Bieber. And I think his arrest in Toronto kind of foreshadowed the fact that maybe he was going down the road of one of those former teen idols for whom adulthood wasn't all it was cracked up to be. So he made a statement just this week that he'd be stepping back from the limelight, even though he hasn't had an album in three or four years.

But that was a monster album with many number one hits on it. I'm curious, are there any non famous people who aren't musicians that crack the list? Well, I mean sports people. Dave Winfield. Dave Winfield comes up over and over again. The Seagull. You remember

that? When it actually happened? I don't remember that day. Oh my God. August. August of 1983. Yeah. But that was the season i started paying attention to blue jays baseball but yeah that was a big one he hit the seagull uh there were a bunch of what football players uh gary payton sam cassell jason uh jason yeah these are uh basketball players sorry basketball players sorry come on don't you listen to enough hebsey on sports

basketball players that was it guys i've never heard of but look they were arrested players. Sorry. Come on, don't you listen to enough Hebsey on sports? Basketball players, that was it. Guys I've never heard of, but look, they were arrested at the For Your Eyes Only Strip Club on King Street West. They got into some kind of confrontation involving a stripper

that worked there and the husband of a stripper who was also a stripper. I vaguely remember this, but not really. But that, any more like that that have eluded, escaped my memory?

Well, there was like punching and kicking going on and eventually Did they ever arrest Madonna? move through the courts? That comes up a lot. No, because it was torqued for that Truth or Dare movie.

Right. But it was like the police paid her a visit at the concert. That's why we know it. Because of the obscenity complaints brought on probably by the parents of like some preschooler that was at the show wondering why is this woman masturbating on the stage? What's it all about?

Dino Cicerelli. Okay, I know who that is. Yeah. Great, great NHL player. Do you remember this one? What happened to him? It was an on-ice thing? I don't remember.

I don't remember. Yeah, hit Luke Richardson. That was the guy. He was Maple Leaf and Edmonton Oilers. Hit him with his stick, punched him in the mouth. Roberto Osuna. There's some very recent history. Definitely.

What happened there? It was withdrawn, right? Yeah, she wouldn't come back from Mexico. I think the victim refused to come back from Mexico, and somehow these charges were dropped in that process. David Meggett, NFL, right? Yeah. Okay, 1998, arrested in Toronto

after allegedly assaulting an escort worker after a three-way sexual encounter. As if you need to have an explanation of what a three-way is. We say menage a trois on this program. He'll probably be in prison for the rest of his life. Because he ended up involved in some other incident that got him locked up. I didn't know that. The manager of the Black Eyed Peas was charged with an assault involving Perez Hilton.

Oh, yes, I do recall. At the Much Music Video Awards. Whatever happened there, Perez... I mean, could you believe there's a guy who's walked around for the past 15 years who calls himself Perez Hilton? That's a legitimate celebrity. At the time, it was right because he was doing a gossip blog. He was writing these articles that were trashing famous people,

and he had an epiphany that he was going to be nice. And now he's every celebrity's friend. He came back to Toronto. He's going to be nice. And now he's every celebrity's friend. He came back to Toronto. It was at one point a few years later, he was wondering about getting, what, breast milk for his daughter. He tweeted Norm Kelly, wondering if he could help him.

So I don't know that Perez Hilton had the cachet that he used to. There's someone, though, that has come up in headlines this year, Ja Rule, because of the Fyre Festival. Oh, yeah, no doubt. He's coming back to play some beer festival or something with Ashanti. Okay, so at the La Rouge nightclub, he ended up getting fined $1,500, pleading guilty to assault somewhere on the Toronto club scene in 2004. So this is like a decade before the Fyre Fest business.

And Thanos from the Avengers, Infinity War. That was last spring. Remember when Thanos was arrested on the streets of Toronto? It was a stunt involving the police. It was because the van attack had just happened, Yonge Street in North York. So they thought they would do a little movie promo to try and cheer people up.

I don't know if that was as effective as they wanted it to be, but they got some earned media for the Avengers movie. I like these topics. Some police arresting Thanos. Do you already know, not that you should tell us now, but do you already know what will be your question you'll tweet out for April? Well, I mean, I'll take suggestions, but we got a whole other month to figure out what it'll be.

Because these are great. That's what I got for Brian Gerstein, propertyinthesix.com. And remember, the Galleria Mall development. Brian's your guy. Contact Brian and he'll... Yeah, just don't go looking for coffee time to be near a condo at the Galleria Mall. Right.

You at 1236, remind us of the relationship between 1236 and St. Joseph Media. Well, I better because they're the ones paying me for this project. And it's been a terrific experiment. I mean, we're a couple episodes away, but we're coming up on four years that I've been doing this. Four years of doing your daily, weekday, I should say, weekday newsletter at 1236 p.m.

At 1236.ca. Right. And there's been obviously a lot of action happening around it. Not all of it is visible to the public. But it's been amazing. It's been terrific. The

experience of my media life. And again, you're not going to do your own podcast. You're going to do this every month, which I'm happy for. the experience of my media life. And, uh, again, uh, there's not, you're not going to do your own podcast. You're going to do this every month, which I'm happy for. No, no, I still might do my podcast.

Okay, you still might do your podcast. Keep us, uh, posted. It would be a lot different than this. It won't be two and a half hours every day. Cause that would be a lot.

Uh, but I could do it. Yes, I know you could. I know you could. St. Joseph's, uh,

just made a major purchase. Uh, they, what did they buy from Rogers? I'm not sure what they bought. I'm not sure what was purchased. They acquired. Isn't that buying?

I don't know how much. It's possible that not a lot of money changed hands. But some money changed hands. No, not necessarily. More importantly, they decided to acquire a bunch of magazines that Rogers Media wanted to get rid of. But big magazines like Maclean's and Chatelaine's? The biggest. This is it.

This is like every magazine in Canada is now working with me. How can no money change hands? Can you explain that? Because Rogers turned down a deal. The guy that owned the Hockey News, Graham Rustan, he made an offer to buy the magazines. And from what I heard, they didn't like him. They didn't like his plans.

Okay. Because Rogers got these magazines as part of buying McLean Hunter. Right. Telecommunications company, including cable TV. That's what they really wanted. They got some radio stations out of it too. Maybe some TV as well. And also these magazines.

So for Ted Rogers, it was a folly, like here was his chance to be a publisher, but generally the consensus is he wasn't really so much into it. I mean, it was a prestigious thing to say these decades old Canadian magazines would be part of the Rogers legacy and they did everything they could to leverage them. And I guess over the years, they brought in a lot of money. But in the past few years, that wasn't happening anymore. And they wanted to unload the magazines. They wanted to find somebody to acquire them

who would continue the legacy. Otherwise, Rogers would be blamed for murdering all these legendary Canadian magazines. You see where I'm going with this? It was about finding someone who would be able to treat them with some respect so that it wouldn't be an embarrassment for Roger.

So it's sort of like if your kid's allergic to dogs, you don't just sell your dog to the highest bidder. You give it to a family that will treat it the way you want it to be treated. Look, whatever amount of money was involved. Based on the amount of money that Rogers makes in general, this was a rounding error. So they wanted it to go to somebody who would adopt the employees and continue the legacy of what they were doing.

I mean, they laid off tons of people to get to this point. Yeah, people like Sarah Boesveld and people who were on this show have been kind been part of these layoffs. I think she might be back, but I'm not sure. I know she went

on Madly. I'm not sure. It's a new owner, different regime. They gave them offers to continue employment for the time being.

So these magazines now belong to St. Joseph Media, publisher of 1236. This is where I'm going. Is there now more channels or forums for your prose? You're a very interesting writer. I hope so. This is where I'm going. Is there now more channels or forums for your prose?

You're a very interesting writer. I hope so. What else am I doing this for? I think that there are a lot of bright minds that I work with, and they'll be part of an expansion. Before that, it was really Toronto Life, which was the most compatible publication they had running, kind of the template of how to do this.

Toronto Life doesn't have a lot of staff. They rely on some freelance writers to come up with these feature articles. And they're finding ways to generate revenue doing other things. Now Toronto Life, a membership program, you can become a member of Toronto Life. So it's more significant than just being a subscriber. You are a member. They give you the inside track on restaurants, retail, exclusive sales, and invite you to parties and panel discussions. I'm not here to do a sales pitch for that, but I'm saying that is where

it's going. You've got a magazine brand everybody knows. But if they're not going to read the magazine, you still might be able to get them to subscribe to something adjacent to the print media brand. Do you understand? Does that make sense? That you can take a name that everybody knows, like the claims of Chatelaine. Hello Canada, I

think, has a lot of newsstand sales. People that like reading the latest about Meghan Markle, right? It's a very nice version of the supermarket tabloid newspaper. Right. They've got Flair, Canadian Business, Today's Parent. And not only does St. Joseph own these magazines now, they're part of the new Apple News.

What does Apple News mean for not only St. Joseph's Media, but, you know, Tourstar and others? I'd like to get the 1236 newsletter on there for the same reason that Jesse Brown, of all people, has decided that Apple News is good now. He had a podcast talking to Jaron Kerr, who works with him, a great writer, editor, and they were talking about Apple News. CanadaLand is now going to get placement on Apple News.

I want in on this. So how do you get in on it? Because you'd be on everybody's iPhone. I'm not sure you get in on it. I haven't been able to download it yet. I haven't been upgraded to the operating system, even though I have an iPhone. I'll be locked out again.

So the idea is that like iTunes or like Apple Music, this is baked in everyone's phone. You can reach an audience whether or not they're even paying that much attention. These are the people that are more passive news consumers. These are Tucker and Mora listeners who would not necessarily bother

to subscribe to a snarky email newsletter. That might be a little above their heads. Whatever. Reach out. Try to get to as many people as possible. And they're iPhone users, so they have a little money, email newsletter. That might be a little above their heads. Whatever, reach out. You know, try to get to as many people as possible. And they're iPhone users, so they have a little money, I think. I always think iPhone users are like rich people. Yeah, that would be something as well.

It's more of a reach. So, yeah, it would be fun to get on there. I know Toronto Life, though. Toronto Life is on there, Apple News. So is McLean, Chatelaine. Hello, Canada, Today's Parent. Flair, Canadian business. So Apple News Plus launched with a Tim Cook keynote speech.

It's not the same as it was when it was Steve Jobs, right? Everybody complains. He doesn't have the charisma, not the one more thing. But here's Apple getting into journalism and maybe meeting some criticism for the fact that all they really did was buy this company called Texture texture i do yes first called next issue rogers was involved whole idea was of ipad magazines when people invested a lot in the idea of the ipad but also on the phone so unlike star touch which was a disaster burning like 45 million million. That texture gives you like every, pretty much every mainstream American Canadian magazine.

You can access it for $12.99 Canadian a month. Would you subscribe to this? Would you pay $12.99 to read what's going on in every single magazine? No, because I don't know if people know this, but you can pretty much do this with a library card. Like I'm able to access this through the Toronto Public Library. Yeah, that too, but that could also disappear at any time.

Okay, well, I'll worry about it then. I'll worry about it then. Well, I will also worry about it then. For now, though, look, there's a free tier for Apple News. Okay. And there's Apple News+, which you have to pay for. And remember, I'm an Android guy. I don't even know if that means anything.

Okay, part of Apple News+, is the Toronto Star. And I guess the free Apple News too. Toronto Star, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal. Toronto Star has just spent the past year asking people, begging to get a digital subscription. To save journalism by

paying for the Toronto Star. They installed a subscription requirement and then they put up a paywall. And look, clever internet users know how to circumvent all this stuff. Although, once again, they could change a policy. They could make it hard to read, hard to use those tricks to get around the paywall.

And you're told time and time again by the editors and reporters at the Toronto Star that if you want to be a good citizen, an ethical person, you will pay for the news you're reading. Otherwise, what do you want? The place is going to go out of business. Apple comes along, offers a star, a chunk of change. We haven't heard how much.

To make it one of the flagship media outlets for Apple News. New York Times turned them down. Washington Post also didn't want it. to make it one of the flagship media outlets for Apple News. And New York Times turned them down. Washington Post also didn't want it. Wall Street Journal bought in. And they're saying, well, it's not the whole Wall Street Journal. And the LA Times, which has a new ownership, and they're trying to make it sort of a flagship of Apple, that Apple will rejuvenate the paper.

So here's a Toronto Star, which went through StarTouch, went through a whole process of trying to guilt people into subscribing to its website. I don't know how successful it is because they never disclosed it. They always can throw out some number, just like the radio ratings. Things are always increasing. But they never tell you exactly what. And they made a deal with Apple, and they're saying it's working out for them,

and they're saying that Apple News is subsidizing journalism at the Toronto Star. So good news for the Toronto Star, which has taken its share of lumps, especially if it means they'll enhance what they're putting out there. They're trying to make it like a national newspaper, thestar.com, not even the Toronto Star, so that they can get all those readers all across the country to be into a more liberal, progressive approach to journalism. I get such a headache thinking about the Toronto Star. Is it because I had some dealings with them over the years?

Speaking of Tour Star, before we leave it, one more thing. An interesting story that you shined a light on. This gentleman coincidentally was already booked to come on Toronto Mic'd in April. Primarily, we're going to talk about the book.

Here. The Never Ending Presence, which is the story of Gore Downey and the Tragically Hip. This is written by Michael Barclay. And tell us what happened to him in March. Oh, I loved it. It was Michael Barclay, longtime rock journalist. I mean, he had a bestseller with this Tragically Hip book.

It was way up there on the top 10 list of Canada. Good for him. Wrote the right kind of book at the right time. And I know it was very sincere and well-intended. It wasn't him trying to exploit Gord Downie's death. How many music biographies have ever broken through in the Canadian bestseller list? Not too many. And we hear on here that you have to write about hockey to sell a lot of books in Canada. At Christmas. You hear that time and time again on Toronto Mike. So Michael Barclay on his blog, Radio Free Kanakistan. This guy's been reviewing records for, I don't know, 20, 25 years. I remember he wrote

for a newspaper from Guelph called Id, which I used to hate read. Before there were hate reads on the internet, I would pick up this paper. You can talk about it with him, these record reviews. Look, the guy knows his stuff and was writing capsule record reviews for the Kitchener-Waterloo record owned by Torstar. Here he was. Waterloo Record, owned by Torstar. Here he was. He was still doing it after all these years in which you would think it was such an anachronism

that they would have a freelance record reviewer, the only one in Canada, for all I know, like the only one in the world. And he was writing for the newspaper in Kitchener, Waterloo, only because they never really noticed that he was doing it all this time. He flew under the radar.

He wrote a... File his copy, and it would show up in the newspaper. Right. And as he said, he didn't get paid a lot of money for this, which might be... $80 a week. So that might be why it didn't trigger any alarms. But he compared himself to, and I think it's a funny comparison, is Milton in the office space.

In office space, Milton, he was fired, but they forgot to tell him, and there was an accounting error, so he kept getting paid every two weeks. And that's how he said he felt, like maybe they had accidentally forgot to tell him, and there was some accounting error that meant he still got his 80 bucks a week. The tragicomic part of what he wrote was

he was told that, well, the reviews are not performing well online. They aren't getting a lot of clicks. So he decided to look it up, and he found that most of the columns weren't even posted online. They were only showing up in print. So there's justification for getting rid of him. I mean, he said that the original editor who hired him retired and then died.

A great story here, something straight out of Dilbert. I'll bring it. Yeah, when he comes in, and again, he's coming over in April, which is coming soon, we'll talk about it. I think it's very interesting. And he's still doing these reviews now,

except he's posting them to his blog that you mentioned. And I think he got a lot of attention for that blog post, which was hilarious. I was glad to do my little part because I think that was a bit of comic relief about how journalism works

in the 21st century, that this guy could hum along writing these record reviews. Nobody would notice in this big tour star corporation what he was doing. Nobody would care. Then suddenly a new editor comes in, looks at the budget, and wonders well, maybe we should cut this guy

free up $80 a week. love Cause nowhere in the world could there be a girl as true as you girl All my love I give gladly to you

All your love You give gladly to me Tell me why. Oh, why shouldn't we go? Each other. We go. Each other. Making each other cry.

Hurting each other. Out of the door. The Walker brothers hurting each other. I dig it, man. I dig it. Are we into the point of the podcast where we talk about the people who died? This is the memorial section because I've just, I've made it, I've called an audible on the line of scrimmage here that we're going to

let this breathe a bit and meander in this section a little longer, so I kind of went there quicker. I hope that's okay. Scott Walker, singer for the Walker Brothers, died at age 76. If you're a real rock snob,

you like throwing around the name Scott Walker. Were you into Scott Walker? Not until I learned he passed away, and then I dove in and totally dug the sound. Like, I've been enjoying it all week, but I got to plead ignorance. I think he set the record for uh the the longest endurance of having a major label record deal that he went from like 1957 until the day he died always putting out albums

always getting some some respect from the music industry for a period of over 60 years. And a lot of that is owed to the fact that he had this hipster following that discovered him in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Scott Walker was a name that you dropped to show how clued in you were to the musical intelligentsia. And you found, this is what I like, so Scott Walker passed away. It did reach the mainstream media.

I learned about it from some publication, I don't know, Rolling Stone or something. And you always find a tie to, if not locally, but then to Canada. Well, that's how we heard, hurting each other. That was what? The Guess Who? Chad Allen and the Expressions, later known as the Guess Who.

Oh, shaking all over. So that was some Canadian content with Scott Walker, but he already had it in his blood because his mother was born in Montreal. So Scott Walker's mother is from montreal now that didn't make him canadian no but good enough for me on toronto look i mean i was going to talk about new kids on the block and the fact that it was the 25th anniversary of the last concert oh okay look uh no one in new kids on the blog died, so don't be frightened when I play this. Okay, but I was saying

that the two brothers from New Kids on the Block, their parents are also Canadian. No one knows that. We'll sneak this into the memorial section. You can hear them going crazy In stadiums in every nation

A never-ending celebration, baby. That's how we show our dedication. The boys in the band. The boys in the band. And this is new, new kids on the block. We do it for the fans. Is it okay if I say I like this better than Scott Walker? Of course.

Real talk. So it was 25 years ago, April 4th, 1994. The day that Kurt Cobain died. Although his body wasn't found until a couple days later. The New Kids on the Block played their last concert in Toronto on the Danforth. You remember this? I was there, not at the concert. I was on the street.

Oh, wow. So New Kids on the Block put out this last album, Face the Music, the last album of their original run. I mean, they were already passing. They were putting out a single. They didn't even put their name on it. It was NKOTB, right? It was like New Kids on the Block.

It would be kryptonite. Well, okay, basically, grunge comes along and sort of kills this boy band era. Like, it was a tough time for boy bands in the grunge era. Just like it was a tough time for hair metal bands. Although I saw the Motley Crue movie on Netflix, and I actually enjoyed it. I don't know what that says about me. I was there to see the New Kids on the Block mob on the Danforth, April 4th, 1994.

I don't know. Look, no one else is going to mark this anniversary. I'm going to talk about Kurt Cobain dying 25 years ago. But there was New Kids on the Block basically just going through the motions. Time to move on. And 25 years later, the New Kids are booked to play the Scotiabank Arena

this summer. Wow. Top ticket price, $595. Wonder what the ticket prices were like for that Danforth gig. Either way. $32.50. Watch his video, Boys in the Band. It's the 30th anniversary of Hangin' Tough.

I think these guys seem pretty excited to be around 50 years old. And even though we slipped them into the memorial section, they're all alive and seemingly healthy. I think so. I think Donnie Wahlberg has managed to play his role ironically. Like, you know,

here's a guy who persevered. People used to make fun of him. He was wearing a public enemy T-shirt in one of the videos. Games. Of course. I remember those games. And who's got the last laugh, huh?

It's NKOTB at the Scotiabank Arena this summer. Here's a song they did with great video with Debbie Gibson and Belle Biv DeVoe and Lance Bass. Wow. Boys in the Bay. It's kind of like when the Beatles had Free as a Bird and Real Love. Like, they didn't have to try so hard because it was the Beatles had Free as a Bird and Real Love. They didn't have to try so hard because it was the Beatles. The new New Kids on the Block songs

have that sort of Beatles in 1995 thing going for them. Back to our memorial section. Well, it all ties in because New Kids on the Block, Beverly Hills 90210, it's not part of the same paradigm.

Luke Perry passed away. That was a surprise. None of us saw that coming. Well, least of all him. It was a stroke, right? I think as far, this was a first generation X death by natural causes. 25 years after Kurt Cobain.

If you look at Kurt Cobain's death as a milestone for Gen X, the fact that 25 years later, Luke Perry died of a stroke. It's kind of a bookend. Here we are entering deep middle age for us Gen Xers. And a lot of reflection, a lot of contemplation. I mean, the DJ from the morning show of K-Rock in Los Angeles, Kevin and Bean, it was

Bean, he said that he's decided to move on because of Luke Perry dying. Like that got him thinking about the fact that he wanted to do something else before it was too late with his life. So he was leaving the morning radio show and cover of People magazine,

every checkout counter, Luke Perry. He was making a comeback of sorts, I guess, because he's in that Riverdale, which my teenage daughter really likes, for what that's worth, on Netflix. Riverdale, he played Archie's dad, I guess. I think, probably. I'm not down with the Riverdale.

I think he played Archie's dad. What I do know is that there was going to be a Beverly Hills 90210 revival. It's actually happening, but it's not a scripted show. It's going to be like a fake reality show involving the original cast reprising their characters, but they're doing it on the cheap because they're framing it like a documentary. Here's where they are now, trying to be kind of clever about it, but at the same time not having to put so much work into the show.

There was Ian Ziering, Steve Sanders. He posted a picture of the writer's room. It's on. It's odd. It's happening. 90210. Of Shark. Shark. What was the Shark movies called?

I never saw one of them. Sharknado. Sharknado. Ian Ziering. His father on 90210. The TV father died. I saw that too. Same week as Luke Perry.

He was like a soap opera guy. But look, Luke Perry was more significant. Deadhead. 52. same week as he was like a soap opera guy right but look luke perry was more significant dead end 52 and who knew that the theme from beverly hills 90210 went on this long uh we only we never heard it this long i can't believe it's still going okay so i i i don't know her directly but i know i know the family that her daughter married into and it was one of the executive producers of 90210, a woman named Jessica Klein. Her husband was Steve Wasserman. These people, I heard from other family members, they were saying, well, you know, the parents

of our son's husband, they were involved with the creation of 90210. And I heard this story, and I thought, that cannot be true. These are people that maybe like submitted a spec script once. Right. And maybe they got a credit somewhere down the line, you know, that they were just hangers-on in Hollywood. But no, this is actually true.

They were legit co-creators of 90210 in the sense that they ran the writers' room during the heyday of the show and got promoted to executive producers. Jessica Klein and Steve Wasserman, their story had a tragic turn because Steve Wasserman fell off a boat and died in 1998 with his wife. Then she was his ex-wife and daughter on the boat with him. So that made a lot of headlines at the time. But they played a big role in the making of the show.

Everything that we know Dylan McKay from came out of the imagination of these two executive producers. So Jessica Klein, her daughter, her grandkids are in Toronto, and as far as I know, she spends a lot of time in Toronto. Who knew? Don't go stalking her just because I mentioned that on the podcast. Tell me about Chef Grant Soto. Oh, Soto.

Soto. Oh, no, no, because that was not a guy's real name. Okay, what was his real name? Some deep thinking here about this. The guy's name was Taylor Clark. And you caught me off guard with that. I'm sorry. Even though I knew I was going to come in and talk about it.

In fact, on your list, he's number two, and I put him number three, so you'd think you'd be anticipating. But this is... No one knows. Look, I mean, okay, so here was a guy. Yeah. Let me just tell you, everything I learned about this is, let me just preface this. Look, I mean, okay, so here was a guy. Yeah. Because you,

let me just tell you, everything I learned about this gentleman, I've learned from you in writing all the great things you've written about him and I feel like I missed out. So please continue. And here we go,

this is a curse because this is the third month in a row that I've talked about somebody who I knew a little bit. It was Mark Elliott in January,

Mike Cleaver in February. I never met him in person, but I interviewed him once for an article on 680 News. He was trashing 680 News, where he worked for a couple years. How terrible it was. It was hilarious. He had that on his personal webpage, so I think I was the only person to ever write about Mike Cleaver in a Toronto newspaper like I did. He was obviously proud of it. It was on his website.

In March, we learned about the accidental overdose death of Taylor Clark, a guy who was known mostly by the handle on Twitter, on Instagram, as Chef Grant Sotto. What he originally was doing on there was a tie-in to a show that he was trying to pitch, making fun of the pretentious Toronto restaurant culture. As

we heard more and more about these restaurants like the Black Hoof, what are these Toronto restaurants that come to mind? You hear about it all the time. I always think of these Mark McEwen type things. Yeah, Mark McEwen was a regular target of his. Right.

And, you know, there he was on Twitter with, like, the devastating parody of what these restaurants were doing at the time in the early 2010s. And a lot of curiosity. You know, when someone gets a good twitter parody account going who is this guy turned out to be guy was working as a waiter he's trying to break into writing for television and he was trying to sell the show about chef grant sato the show never got sold but the twitter account took off and from there, Taylor, as far as I could tell,

a lot of people wanted to meet him, talk to him, including the people he was making fun of on Twitter. Jen Ag from the Black Hoof, she became a good friend of his. And, you know, I think he spent a lot of time making the rounds, pitching his TV ideas, spent a lot of time into the CBC. As I got going with 1236, he was kind of a trusted tipster. A lot of direct messages with him over the years. Interesting. He always had something to tell me about. Some observations or thoughts.

He dug what you were doing. I dug what he was doing. Not only that, but I think he had the same critical view on a lot of this, what do we want to call it, this contrived wokeness that was taking over social media. Also, he was a guy that moved to Toronto from Thunder Bay. So I think he had a very astute perspective on a certain generation in downtown Toronto, the people that have taken over areas like Liberty Village or inhabit city-place condos, people from small towns who grew up and moved to

Toronto like him. Just like a scathing perspective on how simplistic all these people were with their tastes, their small-town Rube tastes trying to make it in the big city. I thought he was a genius. He had amazing parodies. Over time, he moved from Twitter to Instagram, and this guy was using Instagram stories like no one I ever have seen before. He was turning it into its own self-contained universe. I don't know if I can do it justice describing it. There were different Twitter threads with screenshots of what he was up to.

Just endless mockery of the tastes of the younger millennials in Toronto trying to navigate life here in the 21st century. I don't know what he would have done with this stuff. You'd think it would have turned into a television show or something, maybe a kind of podcast. I would chat with him about what was going on with podcasting. But Instagram stories was where this guy could shine. It was his medium like no other. I was caught, it's like, this is blowing my mind. And he was kind of modest about it. Now, I never met him in person. I wouldn't say I knew the guy very well. But you were a frequent DMer, so you had one private conversation.

Well, based on the accounts, he had these kinds of virtual friendships with a lot of people. And you get reflective upon, maybe this isn't the greatest thing for your mental health, to only get to know people through the internet. And I think, based on what I've heard, this is a guy who was struggling a lot, but you wouldn't know it from the way he presented himself online. But I never met him, so I don't want to project something upon him. Maybe I'm talking more about myself here.

I don't know. He was brilliant. Look, he was going to... I thought I would be riding his coattails. I thought I was lucky to have a bit of correspondence with him so that he could get a show somewhere. He could hire me to write for it. But we never got around to meeting and it never quite happened.

So he died accidental drug overdose at age 38. 38! Yeah, well, ridiculously young. And hearing you describe him, it sounds like I would have dug him. And I'm sorry I missed out. And I'm sorry for your loss because 38 years old. And it's weird because I did not know him. I didn't know him, but I knew after he died,

I learned a lot more about him they did have a lot you know his his mom died not too long ago he spent you know a few years trying to help her and take care of her maybe uh had to put his career on hold a little bit he did one tv show it was for show called real side richard krauss was involved with that it was for hbo and tmn bell media whatever it, interstitial things. They would show between the movies on these pay TV channels. And he went to L.A. He interviewed Evan Goldberg, the sidekick of Seth Rogen.

So some of that's on YouTube, him hanging out with Evan Goldberg. And what do you get when you watch that? What do you get when you watch that? The sense of a real sweet guy who I think had a real astute sense of ridicule and parody and satire, and now he's gone. So Taylor Clark, what a loss. I mean, we have all these relationships. You might have never met me, right, if I didn't come down here and do the podcast. We have all these connections, and yet we don't know the people. You and I

through email and then DMing, we communicated over several, several years, I would say. 10, 12 years. Right. So how would you feel if I was suddenly dead? Yeah, I would be on the podcast. And then you wouldn't know.

You never met me. This is a complicated thing to process. But it's the way we live now. And I'm just really bummed that this guy's not around anymore. Because I lost one of my best 1236 tipsters.

Who's going to make fun of the street legal reboot in my DMs dms you know on a side note i sometimes think okay there's certain i call them these like pillars like this this this mount rushmore of like whatever this is that you know we're doing and i always talk about you know there's uh there's 1236 that's mark wise blot and there's Retro Ontario that's Ed Conroy and then I sometimes think you know these

what if they just decide to do something else like what if you for example one day you're like I got a good job as an assistant manager you would be amazed

how many times that happened in the 15 years that we've corresponded I quit this thing like 17 times yeah but then you you always pop up

somewhere else and 1236 how many years has 12, 36 been out? We're going on four years. So, I mean, like three and a bit since being serious about it. But yeah, four years in existence. And this is like, I don't know what it is, our 11th or something episode here.

Oh, like 17th? Okay, sure, I don't know. I don't know. I lost track. I got to double digits. But I can tell you right now, like if you just turned off that tap like i'm not going to be so grisly to say oh you know you died okay forget dying you went off and did something else

okay or if ed conroy just decided you know ah he's gonna just take care of the family and i don't know get it get it just work a job make money and enjoy life or whatever like these are great losses like there's a huge void and who's in who's waiting in the wings to give a shit to fill that void like well exactly and who's going who's going to be so savage about the restaurant business now that chef grant sato is not around anymore because i think that was his calling that was his niche i mean this is a you know there's a big thing in the lives a lot of people needed some guy to poke holes in it and at the same time do it in a way that was respectful enough

that the actual targets of his humiliation became friends with him. So I think he had the right touch. And I'm bummed that he's gone. Now that you mention it,

I really hope I can get another job if this 1236 thing tanks. Good communicators can always get another job. Well, I know I'm always welcome here in the basement. That's right. That's right. I love how we were talking about

the death of some guy of a drug overdose and now it became all about me. Well, I hope you live forever. But let's move on of our memorial here because I want to hit that 230 target here. Is there any audio on this file? Hold on. This is... Oh, sorry. In the enchanted forest trailer park

The Coleman stoves are lit And it's getting dark Sitting in the S-train Playing crib with Bernice Heard somebody screaming Down on the beach it was Vampire Beavers was Vampire Beavers Vampire Beavers, Joe Hall.

You better run, you better run Tell us about Joe. Here was a beloved Toronto character before my time, but I always heard about Joe Hall and the Continental Drift. Did that ring a bell with you? Not really. A musician from downtown, Queen Street scene, Continental Drift was a band that had the novelist Paul Quarrington,

his brother Tony Quarrington. Joe Hall died at age 71, and it was Tony Quarrington who broke the news in a post on Facebook and said, this is a guy whose lyricism would be right up there with Leonard Cohen. Wow. It was sort of in the Frank Zappa milieu. I think everyone involved admitted that this music wasn't for everyone, but a great Toronto music scene character who left an impact,

ended up moving to Peterborough, Ontario, and was still recording, right? Had his latest album in December 2018. So Joe Hall, Joe Hall of the Continental Drift, one of those Toronto icons that we lost in March 2019. What about Justin Haynes? Oh, another sad story of a sudden death. Another musician who moved to Toronto from Ottawa.

And I only knew who he was because he wrote some pieces for Now Magazine about struggling with homelessness. Ended up in Seton House, the infamous Toronto homeless shelter, which, where conditions never seem to be getting any better

I've been reading about Seton House and what an unpleasant place it is for as long as I've been reading about anything ended up there and then found himself properly housed afterwards

but with his provincial benefits, health benefits and everything, I mean, you know, couldn't make it. I mean, it's not enough money that you can get if you're eligible for these disability benefits. So he wrote, I thought, some evocative articles for now about what he was struggling with in trying to make it, and now he's dead at age 46.

So another recent tragedy, I thought, tribute to him in the Ottawa citizen and other places. And I think, again, like these online relationships, you read the fact this guy was writing about his struggles to make it, struggles to survive in the pages of Now, and then he's dead a couple weeks later. I don't think there's enough written about how people in the creative class,

people in music and other artistic disciplines end up reaching a point in life where they can't make it anymore. So it was Justin Haynes who at least left behind that legacy before he died I want to sing along if that's okay but I Y my plane land of a thousand dances By the WWF wrestlers my plane. Land of a Thousand Dances by the WWF wrestlers

because we lost one. King Kong Bundy. I can't remember. Have we had an episode where we haven't mentioned a WWF wrestler dying in the past month? Probably not. King Kong Bundy was the one that we lost in March

2019. I feel like because WWF Wrestling, before it broke big, before WrestleMania, before the rock and wrestling connection, that Toronto was one of the hotbeds for professional wrestling. Is this because of Frank Tunney?

There's a Frank Tunney consortium that was... Yeah, he had an office across from Maple Leaf Gardens. They had Maple Leaf Wrestling from the Brockville Civic Arena and Billy Red Lion. Don't you dare miss it. And so even as wrestling became big business, CHCH and Hamilton still had the rights to it. It was bizarre.

In today's age of media consolidation, you would never have something concurrently, you know, having like big deals with American networks and at the same time a rinky-dink TV channel in Hamilton would be doing its own version of the same show, the same brand, the same property. I only ever saw Billy Red Lions on CHCH.

And I always... They're as intertwined in my mind as the hilarious House of Freidenstein and CHCH. So we lost Mean Gene Okerlund recently. We lost Nikolai Volkov. Right.

The fake Russian. Who else? Who else was on the list? Check your Deadpool updates. I'll have to check it out. You never miss a wrestler death. You might be selective when it comes to music or media, but wrestling is always on your website.

If you became famous in the 2000s, it's possible I missed the wrestler death. I really am big on the wrestlers I watched as a youngster, and that's this era. This King Kong Bundy era, with the Junkyard Dog, who died long ago, and the Big John Stud, and

Andre the Giant, whose mug is to my left here, and of course Hulk Hogan, and Rowdy Roddy Piper, who's all over this jam. And he had a lot of Toronto connections. Oh yeah, is there any, did you find any? Yeah, of course, your Toronto connection, of course, is the WWF and Tiny and Billy Red Lions and everything. And you, in Toronto, Mike.

That's right. Another excuse to play a song from the 1985, 85 wrestling album. 85? Mid 80s. I would guess 85 if Mid-80s. I would guess 85 if I had to guess. Tell me about club DJ legend Jason Steele.

Deco? Is that what they call them? Deco. Deco. Jason Deco Steele. Where's Marie Curtis Park? That's in your neighborhood. Very close.

In fact, the border between Etobicoke and Mississauga goes right in the middle of Marie Curtis Park. So there was a go from me to get a tree, to get a memorial bench for a DJ named Jason Deco Steel. There was a guy whose name was in lights back when Toronto nightclub DJs would get that level of attention. He came up right alongside Chris Shepard. I mean, Chris Shepard would be the best known of all.

But there was a whole bunch of them, and that included Jason Deco Steele. And the place to see Jason Deco Steele on the turntables was the Diamond Club, Sherbourne Street, downtown Toronto, starting in 1984 when he was first hired there. And he was so successful through the mid to late 80s that he ended up being hired away by the COPA in Yorkville. And it ended up ankling the Diamond Club to the degree that they ended up closing down, changing the name of the building to the Phoenix Concert Theater,

which is still there to this day. But the Diamond Club left a large legacy behind. A writer in Toronto, Denise Benson, also a DJ, did a lot of research into the 80s and 90s Toronto dance club scene, the DJs behind it. There was a book that she published then and now. The articles were in the Grid magazine while that lasted, and you can look a bunch of them up online. So Jason

Deco Steele was a big figure in this history. Died suddenly in the past month, and a lot of people sentimental about the fact that he's gone that he represented an era that's disappeared in toronto he has a video he he did some camcorder thing of

the dance floor and it takes you back to a whole different age naturally no one has a smartphone no one's distracted just hypnotized by the music and you know here here's a character that left a big cultural impact on Toronto, ended up owning one of those party bus companies, as far as I can tell, and settled in this neighborhood in the west lakeshore of Toronto. There will be a memorial presence for him,

and that really should have been like a newspaper obituary on the guy, but we got him in the 1236 newsletter. Sad to say, but at the same time honoring someone who made that big cultural impact on Toronto. We got him in the newsletter, and now we got him on Toronto Mic. So our work here is done. Play a little rough trade.

I might not be this old again Streshing peacock without your blue dress Tell me about Joanne Brooks. Rough Trade is a name you know. You remember Rough Trade? They were on CanCon Radio. High School Confidential. High School Confidential.

Old Touch. Another big hit. That was their one that broke through in the USA. That was with Bernie Finkelstein, a name that's come up here

with Stephen Fearing. Another great episode. I should plug before I go. Well, thank you because I left that episode thinking that that was the epitome of what Toronto Mike should be. And then I wondered how many people would cherry pick that episode because the average person in my circle doesn't know this name.

But I'm glad you listened, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think it was fantastic. So back to Rough Trade. Before they had that level of success by putting out albums, there was a different Rough Trade. There was Carol Pope, the lead singer, Kevin Staples, the musical sidekick. But they had a whole different band and a somewhat different style that we hear on this song, Birds of a Feather, the original version of it.

They re-recorded it later on. It was their signature song. They put out an album, Rough Trade Live, and they had another singer in the band. And her name was Joanne Brooks. Well, she died in March 2019. She had a long history on the Toronto music scene, which went back to being part of the act with her mother, who would perform at the Club Blue Note, and she would bring out a little Joanne to sing.

Young, tweenage singer. She grew up to be a part of this act, which itself didn't get the glory, and yet, in retrospect, I think this was the more captivating incarnation of rough trade. And there are clips online of them performing on the Peter Zosky show

on a song called Dyke by Default, which is pretty subversive stuff for 1976, 77. And there is Joanne Brooks right in there with Carol Pope doing a duet. So, you know, not something that made the big mainstream media radar, but I think it was through Nicholas Jennings, Toronto media archivist. He was the one that noted that she had passed away this month. Sorry to lose Joanne Brooks.

Tell me about Joe Rosenblatt. Sorry to lose Joanne Brooks. Tell me about Joe Rosenblatt. Well, there was a poet who was one of the original authors of Coach House Press. We're talking about some real deep University of Toronto hippie era stuff. A Trotskyite who was a railway worker, grew up in Kensington Market. You would think he won the Governor General Awards for poetry in 1976, but didn't see a lot of coverage of

his passing. He had a book somewhere in there called the LSD Leacock, like Stephen Leacock, but the LSD version. I guess that's what Joe Rosenblatt thought that he was, and interestingly, as he died in his mid-80s, published a book a few days before he died

called Bite Me. So one of those that you wouldn't read about, not even on the CBC, and yet he once won a Governor General's Award. Here's a little breezin'. Here's a little breezin'. What show was this the theme song from? Joyce Davidson?

It's George Benson, of course. He didn't die. No, he didn't die, but who passed away here? Sandra Fair was the woman's name, a Canadian television producer. One of her early claims to fame was the fact that she was in the background engineering this talk show on CTV starring Joyce Davidson.

This was, I think, back in the day that, well, the practice even continued into the era of city TV where you would just take some song that you found on an album, make it a theme song for a TV show, and no one would notice. Ed Conroy tells me it happened all the time.

Like, I'm still standing or something like that would be the theme song. Yeah, obsession on fashion television and emotion. Right. Figure out the rights later. If anybody even paid any attention back then. So Sandra Fair was behind the scenes on some of the Canadian TV shows we remember. Joyce Davidson.

Did you know that name? No. It was, okay, like mid-70s afternoon TV for housewives. Well, if it didn't get syndicated alongside WKRP in Cincinnati, I missed it. Very much of the era that she was successful in the U.S. and then did this show in Toronto. Sandra Fair went on to do shows that you do know. Okay, so my friend Andrew Stokely, who I've mentioned many times on the show,

he worked with Sandra Fair and said she was fantastic. And that's when I learned that Sandra Fair was responsible for video hits. And really an ingenious idea. Because, well, look, they were picking up where MTV in the U.S. left off. Free content provided by the record companies. And all you have to do is film like a little wraparound. Suddenly you've got a Canadian TV show. Couldn't get any cheaper than that.

And also, not that I watch this show, but it's very popular, So You Think You Can Dance. I guess that's the Canadian version that she is. Yeah, So You Think You Can Dance Canada. So that was an opportunity that she had to have a hit in the modern era of reality television

by adopting that format. She's also married to Yvonne Fetchon, a name that is easily mispronounced. Comes up a lot. Canadian TV icon. If you watch, I don't know, Kim's Convenience or something, his name will, I believe, will flash

in the credits. Yeah, so they were a power couple in that whole world, and they were behind things like the original Comedy Network when it first started in Canada. They were behind the scenes of a lot of those shows, and the whole idea of putting comedians on Canadian TV, she also played a role in that. So Sandra Fair did in March 2019. I don't know where to start or where to stop. My luck's like a bug, I can't stop pushing it.

My head feels like a ghost in the dark. Love this song. Tenderness. Again, you hear the guy dies and suddenly the song takes on a different meaning than before. We need to coin a word for that because it happens to me all the time. But I have to say,

I've been in love for like 15 years with these mashups done by this artist named Girl Talk. And there's one of his, one of my favorite Girl Talk songs, uses this song so perfectly that now when I hear this song, I hear the rest of his mashup in my head.

But tell us who from general public passed away. Oh, ranking Roger. Roger Charlery, a guy who joined the English beat straight out of high school and ended up with a level of stardom that someone could only dream of, like a black kid in England. Suddenly he was a big mainstream music star on top of the pops in England and had this huge alternative following,

especially on CFNY in Toronto. The police picnic they performed at. I mean, like Mirror in the Bathroom, for example. I mean, it's been kicked out on a kick. I think Michael Hainsworth, I think, it's his favorite song of all time. If you told me that Tenderness by General Public, which was a spin-off from the English

Beat, the two frontmen, Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling, if you told me that was the number one hit in Canada, I would have believed you. I was aghast to find out that it only peaked at number 11, number 10 on the Chum chart, but look, these were busy times

in pop music, but i mean the the canadian following for the for this guy was far outsized anything in the u.s uk uh but this was a big crossover hit later on they had a bigger hit in the states it was a cover version of i'll take you there the staple singer song of a general public reunion, but tenderness was where it's at, and somewhere in there was a comment from David Marsden that they were at the UNO Awards,

CASB Awards, and Roger couldn't make it, couldn't get into the country, so they had a cardboard cutout of him on the stage while Dave Wakeling danced around him. So I think, like Luke Perry, it's like, this guy's too young to die. Like, this was, you know, an icon of our youth, dead at age 56. And now the end is near And so I face the final curtain

That's not Frankie, that's Doug Crossley. I found this one in the Toronto Star obituary section before it was the subject of any article. I like a lot of these obituaries. Not the same coverage you might have expected. For somebody who once had their own national TV show on the CBC, 1973, a lounge singer type signed to RCA Records, a little older than the teeny bopper demographic

might have been interested in, ended up turning to country music. And then, after Alex Trebek left the show Stars on Ice, Doug Crosley swept in to replace him. So, in more modern history, he was the host of that show.

Remember Stars on Ice? That was like ice dancing. Vaguely, yes. With different costumes. He replaced Alex Trebek. For the last season of the show. And yet we, and again, a national show back when there was no internet or anything, so this was a big deal.

But you had to do a little digging to kind of bring this to the surface and shed a little light on this. Well, yeah, there he is singing My Way, and I think it was auditioning, as far as I could tell, for Canada's Got Talent in 2013. It's a video of him doing karaoke to My Way. This guy was a lounge lizard par excellence. That's supposed to be a pejorative, I know. But he wore it well. Doug Crossley. Ed Bickert.

If you were into jazz guitar, you knew the name Ed Bickert. You think I could get on Jazz FM with a eulogy like that? Yes. At least JazzCast. I love the sound in the background. It's a live album taped at George's Spaghetti House in the east side of downtown Toronto. Legendary jazz club. You know, here, virtuoso guitarist playing. It might as well be spring in honor of the season,

but like all the clinking and clanking in the background, you knew that this was a real jazz club when people would rather talk and eat than listen to the music. So it's fun that that's preserved on the recording. And Ed Bickert, who had to retire for health reasons somewhere around the year 2000 and died in the past month at age uh 83 i think same as uh same as doug crossley now we like to go out as you as i mean 83 is a great age actually we could go out with that, but we're going to go a little older.

86, that was it. 86. Okay, I'm not that drunk. The polka dot door. Let's peep through the polka dot door. Songs and stories and so much more. Through the polka dot door. That's my jam right there. Polka dot door That's my jam right there.

Polka dot door. Who from polka dot door has passed away? Well, no one from polka dot door passed away, but rather a woman named Vera Good, who in the world of clickbait headlines, I guess you have to find an angle. And so there was a story from the Kitchener-Waterloo

record that showed up on the Toronto Star website, which credited Vera Good, who died at age, what? What did we have down? A hundred and... A hundred and three. A hundred and three. That was it. She was credited as a creator of the

polka dot door, but she was not the creator of the polka dot door now what do you do in this case because you don't want to be mean to the legacy of a woman who just died at 103 now i don't want to like you know pick big hairs here but uh like okay so as i understand it polka dot door was based on a uk show like there's a united there's a kids show in the uk that has that i can't remember the name of that show but i've seen i think ed conroy shared a clip of this and i saw it there but you know the same puppets some of the same ideas going through that that that hole in the door to see a film or whatever which i always loved so it's sort of based on that and then it gets its own own unique aspects kind of added on to that.

Humpty and Dumpty and Pokaroo. The show was called Play School on the BBC. Now, Vera Good was in charge of kids programming at TV Ontario, back then known as OECA, the Ontario Educational Communications Authority. the Ontario Educational Communications Authority. And she would have been the one that gave the green light to the creation of the polka dot door, but she did not create the polka dot door. It was actually a guy named Ted Coney Bear who created the polka dot door.

Nonetheless, there was a book about her beyond the polka dot door, about her life, a biography written a few years ago. And clearly she made a significant contribution to creating kids' programming on the provincial television network because we have such memories of everything that they did. So you can't discredit her for that,

but she was not the creator of the polka dot. Take that, Vera Good. 103, that's a great way to end it. Did you know one of the original hosts of Polka.Door has been on Toronto Mic'd? Do you want to guess who it is? He's thinking. We're going to run out of time before I can remember.

Nina Keough, who is best known to me as Muffy Mouse on today's special. Muffy Mouse from today's special. Muffy Mouse! From today's special. What a great episode that was. I look forward to who you've got down here in the next month. Gives us more to talk about when I'm here at the end of April.

You know, we missed that. I wanted to be another nice, clean two hours and 30 minutes, and I went over by a couple of minutes. But there was so much good stuff there. Oh, you're not cutting anything out. That goes against the grain of Toronto Mike. Nothing's coming out.

Okay, so back here, and I don't know, whatever day works. End of April. It's April already. What happened? Time is passing us by. End of April, early May, we'll figure out the best date. Whatever it is, 30 more days will have gone by, and we'll make it all happen here on Toronto Mic.

And that brings us to the end of our 446th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mic. Mark is at 1236. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptor's Devotee. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR.

And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. Cause everything is rosy and green Well you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or will do For me and you But I'm 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 up rosy and gray.

Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow won't stay today. And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away