Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #471

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

A tribute to Dave "Bookie" Bookman, followed by Mike's monthly chat with Marc Weisblott of 12:36 about the current state of media in Canada and what you oughta know.

Let's hear it for the music lovers of the city of Toronto, province, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Camp Turnasol, StickerU.com, and Capadia LLP CPAs. I'm Mike from torontomite.com and joining me for his monthly recap is Mark Weisblot

from 1236. Look out, child, you're bound to change You can't ever stay the same Cause if you keep on singing the same old lines You're gonna look around, baby And find your friends out of town Watch out girl The words you say That don't really fit the play Somebody else you might talk to

Now knows what you say And what you mean They don't help you stay you might say you ain't got a hold on yourself you might say you only need the rest You might say you can only fool yourself I said fool yourself I said, boo yourself Don't believe the words you read

They're written on the street Every time you know you play the game They'll knock you down and take you right away See how bad you need to cry, but no matter how you try It's the same old story once again You always had the one who called you grand I called you grand Hey, welcome Mike Here on Toronto Mic'd for a very special episode

Doing our monthly recap down here But off the top, let's talk about Dave Bookman. And that song right there was Fool Yourself, right? That's what it's called, by Little Feet. And the reason I'm reminded of that song is because it's one of the ones they played early on Tuesday morning when they announced that Bookie had passed away. early on Tuesday morning when they announced that Bookie had passed away. 9.30 in the morning on a Tuesday on a commercial radio station in Toronto, we heard a little feat song from 1973. And through that, I was reminded that that was one of Bookie's big influences. As a teenager, he would have spun that along the way on the Sunday Rock show that

he did on Indie 88, but as obviously things were mournful that morning when we learned that he died, that was one of the first tunes that they played in his memory, and I thought a good way to begin bookending our talk about Bookie here. When did you first meet Bookie? Well, I might have been the first high schooler that Bookie met in Toronto. Now, I was a teenager at the time. He was pushing 30, but our association goes back to CIUT, the University of Toronto radio station, where people like him tended to circulate in one way or another. And at the time, I would have first known who he was because of an album that he made. It was under the band name of The Bookmen.

The name of the album was Volume One Delicatessen. It was put out by a record label tied to a record store, Star Records from Oshawa. So campus radio at that point in time, we're talking here 1987, 1988, it was easy to get your Canadian record, some sort of exposure on campus radio. And even more so if what you were doing

sounded like nothing else out there. In this case, it was Dave Bookman, a Jewish guy from Ottawa who was doing an sort of imitation, homage, tribute, honor to Bob Dylan. I wouldn't call what he was doing singing. It was more a sort of poetry, right? Speaking through the songs, channeling the influence of Dylan, but doing it in his own way. You would hear that album on the radio, maybe pushed by him, that he was friends with other people that had shows on the station. And just through osmosis,

I got the sense that this was something that I should be paying attention to. That doesn't mean that I thought it was any good. It was esoteric, but part of the thing with being a DJ on CIUT or any of these campus community radio stations, even though I don't know if it was all that enforced, you were supposed to play 30% Canadian content. So there would be a bin with new records and some CanCon, and you had to pay heed to the indie musicians out there. That was the tradition at the station. The fact that CIT ended up in disarray by the end of its first year on the FM dial had a lot to do with how I got closer to Bookie along the way. But since the winds have gotten rusted You know the angels wanna wear my red shoes

But when they told me about the side of the parking That's when I knew that I could not refuse And I won't get any older Now the angels wanna wear my red shoes Oh, I was watching while you're dancing away I look at Rex, you're in a echo and sway How come everybody wants to be your friend? You know that it still hurts me just to say it

Oh, I know she's disgusting Oh, why's that? Cause she's feeling so beautiful Oh, let's do that She gets tired of the lust Oh, I's that? Cause she's feeling so abused. Oh, let's do that. She gets tired of the lust. Oh, I'm so sad. That it's so hard to refuse. Can you say that I'm too old when angels have stolen my red shoes?

Oh, I said I'm so happy I could die. Now, this is some ancient history in the story of Dave Bookman, how he became somebody who was known for being on the radio in Toronto. I can't remember what I did this morning, but I remember tuning in the station one morning, probably 1988, maybe 1989, and there he was with Dave Bedini, a familiar figure around Toronto.

The two of them were really good pals. Doing a show called High and Outside, and the whole point of the show was talking about sports interspersed with rock and roll. They played out whatever was going on. If we figured it out, you might even know what it was about. Something to do with the California Angels that was going on that day. What was the state of the California Angels? 1988? 1989? Maybe this is like the

retirement of Reggie Jackson or Rod Carew or one of those great veteran angels. It all sounds plausible. So Elvis Costello of course, that was textbook bookie. One of his rock and roll heroes who he cited as the interview that he considered his greatest accomplishment. That he got to sit down with this guy who spent a fair bit of time in Toronto at one point doing a TV show from here.

So Elvis Costello, Angels, Wanna Wear My Red Shoes, one of the songs that makes me think of first encountering this guy, Dave Bookman. And this is High and Outside with Dave Bedini. Yeah, Dave Bedini on CIUT. Wow. Now, let's hear a little bit from Bookie. Now, as you know, Bookie never made an appearance on Toronto Mic'd.

I never got to do the deep dive I so desperately wanted to do. But he did give us a little taste of what it might have sounded like. Here's a little bit of Bookie talking about his youth. Radio was really important in our family, so it was always on. And my mom and my older brother and stuff would listen to the radio constantly. And in Ottawa, back in the days, there was days, on the AM dial, there was two stations, one at 580 and one at like 1310 or another 1400. So the whole middle of the dial was wide open.

So you could go up and down there and pick up all the stations from the States, from like talk to sports to music stations. And just lying in bed, going up and down the dial and hearing all things, and with radio being the theater of the mind, when you heard it, you would picture it in your head, and that just created all the sort of, that was the canvas that created all these things, and then as you got older, it was just like you wanted to bring them to life.

You wanted to bring those things that you saw in your head when you heard stuff. You wanted to be on the other end of it and be painting it for people. The first job was to start at the edge. Getting on the other end of it, how would someone like that get a job in radio? Listen to the guy. This was not a conventional voice that would fit AM radio in Ottawa. It's funny when he mentions that. I think of someone else who died this year.

We talked about Mark Elliott, who was considered the main nighttime guy, top 40 radio in Ottawa during Dave's formative years. Got sick. And they were supposed to go on tour, like with Men Without Hats or something. It was something that was just wrong for the band at the time. And Clarkie didn't want to go. And Clarkie came down with a tropical disease. So we were at the hospital and

it was like the night before the tour and I remember calling into the station telling Hal like I'm here at the hospital readers are supposed to go on tour tomorrow and uh you know Dave Clark's in intensive care we don't know the story he goes hang on so I'm hanging on for like 10 minutes waiting he comes back he goes okay Dave on three we're gonna go you know one two three we're on the air with street reporter Dave Bookman who's got a breaking story about the Rio Statics Men Without Hats tour. And I just went for it and told, you know, the story and stuff, what was going on. And that's that's how my career started. The stars are shining, the set is smiling. Please welcome Johnny Buckland and Guy Barryman.

So in between being the kid who was flipping around the AM dial in Ottawa and being somebody who we got to know from CFNY, there was a whole campus radio scene. And I know that Bookie was initially connected to it through his hometown in Ottawa, the radio station out of Carleton University. One of the bands was called UIC, University. One of the bands was called UIC, which, you know, was originally the initials for unemployment insurance in Canada. And this band, UIC, from Exeter, Ontario, something posted

online by Jeff Cohen, owner of the Horseshoe Tavern, another pal of Bookie, mentioned that he initially saw the Bookmen as the opening act for this, I guess you would describe them as a grunge band in the mid-'80s, playing in Ottawa, trying to catch some kind of break with this style of music. And it turned out that on one of the last Sunday morning rock shows that Boogie did on the station, I heard this song, Our Garage by UIC. Out of the door, 18-word and cocky voice Sounds are coming out the door This is our garage A timeless place where anything goes

The rails still fall, no path to move Going out there just to relax Out in Argyros With the flame All night long to slam All night long to jam Until the dawn In Argyros Okay, now this is like one out of hundreds of bands

that you would have heard on Canadian campus radio in the 1980s. Of course, whenever people talk about any time in the 20th century now, don't they always have to clarify, this is before the internet was invented. And it meant getting in the van and touring around and pressing the flash and meeting one person at a time. When I heard this song, this album got reissued recently, played on Indie 88.1. It was one Sunday morning in March, because then I met up with my old CIUT pal, Steve Russell,

and we were reminiscing a bunch. And I mentioned I heard this song on 88.1 that morning, and I probably heard this song on 88.1 over 30 years ago, and it was still CKLN. So, you know, the commercial iteration of that frequency doesn't have that much to do with what it was when it was Ryerson, outside of generally covering alternative music. But there was UIC, something that Bridges Generations,

and it was Bookie who brought it back by spinning it on his Sunday morning show. offering alternative music, but there was UIC, something that bridges generations, and it was Bookie who brought it back by spinning it on his Sunday morning show, which we'll have to talk a bit more about in a bit. So we have Bookie. He's at, how does, so Hal Harbour, we heard him telling the story. I guess Hal Harbour at CFNY invites him to be the street reporter,

and that kind of gets his foot in the door. Oh yeah, well then we have to explain how Bookie became more associated with CIUT. Because you have to think back to the late 80s in Toronto. Less common than you'd find today, but certainly in downtown Toronto, you had a generation of what came to be known as slackers, people who were over-educated and underemployed. You'd get some sort of retail job, maybe working in a rep movie theater or something that was adjacent to culture, just so you could scrape by. And I recall Bookie working

at Book City, the Toronto chain of bookstores that keeps moving locations around Toronto. At one point, they had one at Young and Wellesley, Young and Isabella. It was where, before that it was a record store, it was records on wheels. After that, it was a record peddler. But somewhere in between, one of those bookstores with like a big magazine rack. I remember talking to Bookie there about the LaToya Jackson issue of Playboy magazine. That's how far, I don't know if I was old enough at the time to legally purchase it. I guess I could flip through it in the store.

it. I guess I could flip through it in the store. And, you know, there was Bookie, a peripheral player in the CIUT universe. He moved on to another job at A&A Records, mostly at their location at Young & Bloor, but we keep mentioning A&A Records on Toronto Might. At one point, they had locations like all the way up the Yonge Street Strip. There was one south of Yonge and Ballewa. There was another one just a little north of Yonge and Ballewa. They seemed to be in expansion mode. And it was a good place for an overeducated, underemployed Dave Bookman to get a job.

So all the time, I would pop into ANA's and talk to him there. And I think it increasingly came on his agenda to figure out how to get his own radio show without, without Dave Bedini, something that would, that would be a path to a career, which he ended up getting. And, and that's at 102.1.

So, yeah, well, well before that he had to be on the that's at 102.1, so... Yeah, well, before that, he had to be on the air every single day. When we found out that he had a brain aneurysm, when we were hoping for his recovery, I mentioned that it was his idea to do a talk show every single weekday morning. And that was a show that had the name,

again, Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back, was the name of the Dave Bookman show. It would come in for half an hour in the morning, Monday to Friday, maybe Tuesday to Friday. And what you would hear for half an hour on the air, 89.5 FM was an absolute whirlwind of him just trying to figure out how to be this guy on the radio. After a while, I don't know, maybe he didn't have enough confidence in the sound of his own voice. So they would play music while he was talking, whoever it was working behind the board.

You know, figuring out the technical stuff wouldn't have been his strong suit. And he instructed them to fade the music in and out while he was yapping away. And he was doing it all by himself, especially if he couldn't recruit somebody to show up at the station on that morning. Man. Now, this is all, this show he has, Don don't look back this predates being the street reporter

on uh cfny yeah it's it's segued to being a street reporter so as he as he discussed in there you know he uh had hal harbour from cfny guy named doug barron who at one point was a cfny director of canadian talent development because all these Canadian radio stations had to have some sort of obligation, financial thing, certain percentage of their revenues had to go to some CanCon initiatives. CFNY either had more obligation or more of a sense of duty than other stations out there,

so they actually had a music director, music department, that was specifically charged to look after independent CanCon. This is the foreground programming that was required by the CRTC. Yeah, and it was this guy, Hal Harbour, that was doing that job at a show called The Streets of Ontario, which was a staple through the 80s on CFNY. And right there, yeah, I came up with the idea, a bit tongue-in-cheek, street reporter

Dave Bookman. Right. So basically, for the remainder of the 90s, you got Bookie basically being heard in small bits on the 102.1 airwaves, but not yet becoming a an employee of the station. Well, much like CIUT imploding provided him with an opportunity, there was a transition at CFNY where they got rid of a whole regime and tightened up the format. And for some reason, I guess,

the program director, Stuart Myers, decided that Bookie was okay and he was worth keeping around. But actually figuring out how to make a living at this, well, that was a whole other battle. So our conversations through those years turned to the fact that all he wanted to do was turn this into a job. It wasn't happening so fast. And Kim Hughes, who was of now, she took over Live in Toronto, and she brought in Bookie as a part of Live in Toronto. Maybe he was forced upon her.

They needed something to talk about. That was the whole concept of this foreground programming. Yeah, so by that point in time, I was involved with iWeekly. I mean, you want to talk about low-paying, entry-level media opportunities. The thing that I basically dropped out of journalism school for was to be part of the initial crew, not on the first day, but shortly thereafter, for Torstar's concept for an alternative weekly newspaper to compete with now. So Kim Hughes was associated with now,

and any encounter that I had with her was, I don't know what I did wrong to this woman. It was never particularly pleasant. There were dagger stares all the way down. This became like a point of contention with Bookie because Bookie was my pal, but he didn't want to be seen fraternizing

with the enemy. But then the turning point happened when I wrote something for Eye, which was a thrashing of a show that CFNY 102.1 The Edge put on. It was one of their Music Matters events. It was primarily to give a band $100,000 to record an album.

They did it for the Barenaked Ladies a year or two before. There was also a first winner. I even remember the name, Thurman Fry, that I think they just treated it like an expense account, go out for fancy dinners and no album. Better luck there with the Barenaked Ladies with what they did with the money. So the third time around,

they turned it into more of a live talent show, and the bands performed there, and I did my usual thing. Sitting in the back corner of the back row, just kind of jotting down notes. See, for me, this stuff was just a conduit to be snarky about stuff. I don't know that I really cared about the music. I don't know that I really cared about the music. I don't know what would have had to go on to make me put something in print that said I enjoyed any of this. You could imagine how Dave Bookman reacted to the position that I have.

What was in the paper, my review of the show, was that band Head that ended up winning. Thornhill, Ontario. We came up recently with Stu Stone for listeners of Toronto Money. So, I mean, whatever I wrote wasn't all that special. It was, again, just a way to write something in the paper. Look, I'm 21, 22 years old. This is the only world that I'm capable of feigning any sort of opinion on.

And then Bookie tells me that he's going to write something for iWeekly. And I was excited. Wow, this is great. I knew he wasn't necessarily much of a traditional journalist. Maybe it would be some sort of opinion piece. I remember asking him, well, what is this piece about? Kind of sounding like Bookie here, trying to channel him in our exchange. Even though you notice I'm doing my voice. What are you going to say in this article? And in his usual way, he wouldn't tell me. It was going to be a secret.

Like, he was nervous about it. And then imagine my surprise when the piece comes out, and it's a rebuttal of me, and I don't remember all the details. I couldn't quite bring myself to dig it up. It wouldn't be online. And the closing line of the piece was something like, Wake up, Mark mark you're having a

nightmare wow see so okay so so so look he was trying to ingratiate himself with the radio station so i knew what he was up to right okay okay so he was a good for i was i was a good foil somebody to play off of to show how loyal he was to the tenets of CFNY. Right, and because you were a natural enemy at this point of Kim Hughes from Live in Toronto. Well, I was a natural enemy of rock music. I think that's all I wanted to be, because this was not my world. And we're talking by that point in time. He started an association with the Horseshoe Tavern.

This is a guy that lived and breathed the idea of staying out late and watching bands. You might have seen me at these things once in a while, but it was my world. Well, let's listen again to a little Dave Bookman talking about, like, how does he discover new music? Well, I'll say when it comes to getting music on the air and discovering new music, I'd say what makes my ears perk up is the sound of a friend telling me about a band.

I think the best source of music has always been the people you know. You can't see every band. There's too many shows, too many clubs, too many records. But somebody you know heard something. So when somebody whose opinion you trust tells you to check this out, odds are it's going to be something good. And I've always really relied upon a great network of friends and people

just tipping me on to stuff. Now, how do you make a living being that guy? That was a puzzle that Dave Bookman wanted to solve. And clearly, and I think his love of music, and I mean, that horseshoe, I read the piece, Cohen, what's his name? Jeff Cohen?

Yeah, Jeff Cohen. He was also from Ottawa. Great piece. You guys should track it down in what he wrote about the passing of his friend, Dave Bookman. But I mean,

that show he did, the new music nights at the horseshoe, it continued till now, I guess. Well, one of the things that they write about on the Horseshoe website is the fact that they were giving Bookie a stipend. There he was bringing people into the club. The whole idea was that he was plugging it on the radio, New Music Nights.

Not only booking these young local bands, but the fact that with Alternative Rock becoming big business, he started to have people from the major record companies asking them for a position on this showcase because it was a way to give them credibility. Coveted, coveted credibility. Right, right. Now, at 102.1, there's the Indie Hour. What can you share with us about what Bookie did for the Indie Hour?

So that must have come along because of this job that Hal Harbour had been doing before. That even though the sound of CFNY was becoming more corporate, that they still had this obligation, they still had this money they had to spend. I don't know what it was. It wasn't a lot. But it was a showcase for Bookie to become everybody's friend. So it was 11 p.m. one night of the week. People would send him, I guess, their demo cassettes, their indie CDs, whatever they were putting out. And you can bet that he made every effort possible to listen to anything that somebody sent him, figure out how to work into the show

so that somebody could say, still, into the mid-late 90s, that their song was played on 102.1 CFNY. And you had a little insight, because at this point you're still friends with Bookie at this point? I would say, look, I mean, I heard a lot about what was involved

with him trying to get more money out of the station. Listen, every conversation that I had with anyone in the media, I was a nobody. I didn't know anybody who made a real living at this stuff. So I was a good listener for, you know, what was involved in trying to break through. I mean, they put Alan Cross on a pedestal, didn't they? They gave him the ongoing history of new music, and Bookie was trying to angle to get the same status. I know one of the barriers to entry was the fact

that when it came to doing the technical side, he was just in over his head. Like, he would sit him down in front of the console, and he wouldn't know what button to push. I don't know if it was something psychological that he couldn't bring it. He didn't want to do it. It wasn't going to be his thing.

Like, he needed somebody to work as his operator in order for him to be on the air. They might have put him by that point on an overnight shift i remember him telling me well i told them if they pay me then i'll pay a board operator out of what you paid me like you can give me some money and i'll give it to somebody else and they turned him down on those grounds i guess they didn't want to get too deeply into that. There were such things as labor laws, but he had a desire to do the overnights. He wanted to be that guy, and the

station wouldn't let him. But they still had him doing appearances on the air. So through that rejection, I think, we got more of a buildup to the legend of Bookie. Now let's, while he's still at CFNY here, and of course we're going to get him to Indie 88 shortly here, but let's hear a little bit of Bookie on 102.1 The Edge introducing Coldplay. Today we honor a band who not only managed to tap into our emotions,

but have created a language of song to help us deal with love, fear, hope, despair, encouragement, and pride. Their universal appeal has made the world a smaller, less intimidating place where we know our feelings are shared and cared for, and in doing so, have created a soundtrack for our time. Please join us in welcoming the newest inductee to the Edge Rock of Fame, Coldplay. Okay, so Coldplay. When did Coldplay become popular? Early 2000s. Parachutes.

Yeah, it's maybe really late 90s maybe? Early 2000s. Okay, early 2000s. Early 2000s. Now Coldplay was corporate all the way, maybe? Early 2000s. Okay, early 2000s. Early 2000s. Now, Coldplay was corporate all the way, right? Coldplay was basically a boy band where they had this Chris Martin and they got some other guys to back him up. Because you couldn't have him as a solo artist.

I'm not saying they were bad. Right. I'm just saying that was Coldplay. That was indicative of where the whole alternative music thing was going once a grunge thing came to an end, there was a little era of electronica. You know, things got more eclectic. But eventually, early 2000s, Napster came on the scene,

and the radio formats tightened up again. But that's when Boogie finally got a shift, because there were changes at Chorus in Toronto, a lot of shuffling around. That was the era when Alan Cross left CFNY. May Potts wasn't on the air there anymore. Mojo Radio head start Dean Blundell came in and did the morning show. Somewhere in that transition,

when CFNY was out of the strip mall in Brampton forever, that's when there finally was a bit of a break for Bookie. They gave him the weekend morning all-request breakfast, knowing by that point he had everything going for him to be the kind of guy that people would call in to get their request played on the air. This is how you create loyal listeners. You put somebody on for a few seconds, you spin their song, you've got their loyalty for life. At least that's how it used to work. So he became even more of an ambassador, more of a presence on the air.

I didn't realize the entire timeline until after he died, or at least when he got sick, that it was in fact Alan Cross, when he was appointed the program director of 102.1 The Edge, made it a priority to make Bookie once and for all, this is like 2004, 13 years after he started with Hal Harbour, to give him that permanent full-time job on an afternoon shift, make Dave Bookman a prime-time guy on the radio in Toronto, knowing that they would have to hire somebody else to push the buttons. That's where Adam, the guy who ended up being the morning guy on the edge.

Adam Ricard. He started there. There was a job opening to push the buttons for Dave Bookman. He talked about Bookie, right, when he was on the podcast. Yes, he did, for sure. A lot of praise for Bookman. He talked about Bookie, right, when he was on the podcast? Yes, he did, for sure. A lot of praise for Bookie. And, yeah, and Adam right now, actually, I'm sure Adam will take over for Biggs and Barr on Hits 97.7.

Whatever's going on today, look, the politics of it all, I think, as the years went by. This is where I, in contact with him, last and last in the 21st century. But I'll talk about why I think that was a good thing. I mean, the frustration was over. He had nothing left to kvetch about. You know, he got the drive time radio show that he had long desired,

and that was in the mid-2000s on CFNY. Now, I think it's the same day that Edge 102 lets go Barry Taylor and Martin Streak, if I remember. And then the next news we got after that was that this gentleman was coming from Edmonton to take over Afternoons, Fearless Fred, who's now on Q107. Oh, Fearless Fred. And when you got the Toronto Mike website going, because you already had the blog and you were posting about radio, I think, I mean, listen, there's so many podcast episodes deep here. The controversies from this podcast would take hours to talk about. But Fearless Fred coming to town, I think,

was one of the first blowups, right, that happened through Toronto Mike. And yeah, absolutely. He did not like Toronto Mike because some commenters were upset at Fearless Fred coming from Edmonton on the heels of dismissing a couple of guys who were liked, you know, like Martin Streak and Barry Taylor. But yeah, above all, Fearless Fred was coming to town. Yeah. And Dave Bookman was going to be demoted. They were moving him from afternoon drive into the nighttime,

and that's where he got bookie at night. Does his salary change? Like this, I don't know about. In hindsight, I wish I got a touch and ask, because imagine the gossip that we could discuss here today. This whole era. Well, not gossip, but yes. Well, I actually was on Bookie's show with him when I started my blog project with the Toronto Star.

And it still seems, apart from the course of the time that you go on the radio, plug that you're doing something with journalism online. Right. I don't think I could be bothered today. I don't think it would do much of anything. And besides, no one seems to want me. They wouldn't have you today. You'd have to come on a podcast.

It seems like I've been blacklisted to that degree. But hey, things can change. I've got people working, arguing my case. So I came on with Bookie, and there was Adam. You know, exciting to be there at the Eaton Center studio. There was my buddy Bookman. He got the job. He was doing the afternoon drive radio show.

To be honest, though, this was also, you know, the dawn of the era of high-speed streaming online. And there was so much radio to listen to. BBC 6 Music, WOXY from Cincinnati, 89.3 The Current from Minneapolis. These were the kinds of stations that were doing what CFNY used to do, and the chorus station at 102.1 The Edge, this is why I'm not getting invited on any radio stations, That was the last thing that I wanted to hear, even if it was bookie between the tunes. So I wouldn't say that

I was much of a listener in all the years that he was doing it, but boy, given what I knew about what it took him to get there, I was with him all the way. Fearless Fred comes along and suddenly Dave Bookman

lost his afternoon drive shift. Maybe it was because of the backlash that happened with Martin Streak. That they didn't fire Bookie, but they still kept him around. Maybe they were worried about what would happen.

Or maybe he was actually more valuable to the radio station than they let on. Now, I mean, keep in mind, by this point, he's about 50 years old. What else was he going to do? Not that he wasn't qualified for a lot of stuff. He had that history with the Horseshoe Tavern. That was worth a lot.

But when you spend half a century climbing your way into this job, you're not going to walk away from it just because they shifted your time slot four hours into the future. And it seemed, based on the reminiscences, when it came to making an impact with young people living in the Toronto area around the 905. It seemed that Bookie at night was where they connected with him most of all. That there he was, a voice in the evening, you know,

somebody the sound of doing your homework. The soundtrack to it all was provided by Bookie. But eventually, as it happens, Geetz romo just told me this the other day in radio you get fired this is a way of life unfortunately and eventually it came for bookie well yeah i would say it was probably more like a constructive dismissal like uh because he announced that he was leaving you have it all down on toronto.com i think this is what you're creating an archive no i have it all i remember itMike.com, I think. This is what you're creating, an archive of all this news. No, I have it all down. I remember it because I went

back to revisit it. And not that it matters, but I had excellent inside sources tell me that he was pushed. He didn't jump. Not that this matters. But regardless, he was off the air at 102.1. And what year are we in

here? Is this 20... 2012. 2012. Was when he made his exit. Now, miracle of miracles, the fact that a competitor to the Edge had been licensed in Toronto, which I think was a bit of a fluke that this company, Central Ontario Broadcasting, got the license for 88.1, the frequency that was taken away from Ryerson students at CKLN due to mismanagement and abuse of the process. This was a whole ordeal over there,

and the CRTC opened it up to applicants for commercial radio station. usually when companies apply for a spot on the dial, they try to come up with promises that they can't necessarily fulfill. fair stuff that it could be more distinctive in the marketplace than any corporate competition that they promised do a little more talking a certain number of hours a week which meant they had to find somebody to execute the idea and remember of course uh alan cross at this point is what did he call himself guidance counselor he gave himself some funky title. But he was essentially a consultant helping Indy 88 launch this whole thing. Yeah, and found a whole bunch of people associated with CFNY who were looking for jobs. And Bookie, most of all, he wasn't on the air every day when Indy 88 signed on. I don't know if it was because maybe they didn't know what it was going to be yet. So initially they gave him this Sunday, Sunday night rock show,

what sounded like mostly a free-form style thing that he programmed, where he could let loose and be creative and put on, as far as I could tell, any song that he wanted to as long as it flowed and I guess as a block of programming time didn't alienate people too much. This is what people dream of with commercial radio. That somebody's able

to do a radio show where they do their own music programming. And there we had Sunday Night Rock Show, Indie88 with Dave Bookman. I was slowly passing an orphan's home today I stopped for

just a little while to watch the children play Alone the boy was standing and when I asked him why, he turned with eyes that could not see, and he began to cry.

I'm nobody's child, I'm nobody's child. I'm nobody's child Just like a flower I'm growing wild No mama's arms to hold me No daddy's smile Nobody wants me. I'm nobody's child. So, by this point, Bookie is in his early to mid-50s.

And I think his time had come. His favorite newer band, most of all, everybody seems to know, was Wilco, right? Jeff tweeted. Dave Bookman was a pioneer of dad rock. So along with stuff like Wilco, this is the Traveling Wilburys, Nobody's Child. It's another song they played on Indie 88 that Tuesday morning when they announced he died. So a very special song for him, I'm sure. And, well, I mean, the roots of dad rock.

Traveling Wilburys, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty. I'd like to hear a little more bookie. And this is a great, this was shared by Indie 88. It's like at the beginning of Indie88, I guess they had people like Raina, who was there, a former Edge 10 tour, and Bookie give a tour of Indie88. So here's Bookie giving a tour of the new station.

Hey, I'm Bookie. Welcome. And I'm going to take you through how I put together Crackle and Pop. Crackle and Pop is a feature here on Indie88. It runs every weekday, 9.45 in the morning, 3.45 in the afternoon. And it features great songs that came out in vinyl. What I do is every Friday night around 7.30, I come home, I get myself comfy, sit down on the couch. Whatever game's on the tube, we put it on, turn down the volume, and I just start going through my records,

either whatever I got in the stack, whatever I could find on the computer, start checking out what's going on, you know, what shows are coming to town, is there a rock and roll birthday this week, special event that happened, and we start just jotting down the tunes. I play a bunch and I try to put together five songs

for the upcoming week that you are gonna enjoy. The one we're gonna focus on today is by The Replacements, one of my all-time favorite bands. Why? Because this book just came out. It's called Trouble Boys. It's by the great Memphis journalist Bob Mayer. And it traces the band's history, right from when they

were born and right through until present day. And I've never read a book that's more intricate and gives you more details, including tons of stuff that you may not want to know. So in the spirit of this book, which I recommend for every rock and roll fan, we're going to play my favorite replacement songs. It's called I Will Dare. It's from this great 1984 record, Let It Be. Let's get it queued up for you.

Let It Be was groundbreaking as it took Paul Westerberg's songwriting to a whole new level. And the track we're going to play features a great lead guitar break by R.E.M.'s Pete Buck. So if we were on the studio and I was taping it would go something like this. In 1984 The Replacement released their groundbreaking record Let It Be. The record was a whole big leap in songwriting by Paul Westerberg and the track we're going to play I Will Dare features an amazing solo by Pete Buck. Let's give it a spin. It's Let It Be The Replacements. It's I Will Dare. It's Crackle and Pop. So, another song that Dave Bookman would have considered, like,

part of the fiber of his being, that Replacements album, Let It Be, from 1984. That clip reminds me that when he got going with Indie 88.1, they started with the crackle and pop feature, but he wasn't on the air every day yet. They still had automated music happening in middays. But it was the most natural thing that eventually they gave the time slot, the middays, over to a live voice.

Who else but Dave Bookman? I think the fact that he got to do this time slot and be there every day, that was the fulfillment of everything that he dreamed about doing because, well, not only for the fact that he still had a job, they could still get paid playing around on the radio, but that on Indy 88, a lot more than CFNY in the last 30 years. He had that leeway, he had that creative freedom to slip in certain things that you would

not have heard on a commercial radio station in Toronto at any other time. And knowing him as I did when I did, to this day, until his dying day, he would have relished every moment of being able to blast something like the replacements over the mainstream radio airwaves in Toronto. He was recognized, I guess this was last year, right? SEMA gave him some recognition. CIMA, is that SEMA? What, Canadian Independent Music Association? They don't go by SEMA? I don't know much about it, but yeah, he got an Unsung Hero Award. Okay, let's just hear him, the introduction kind of giving him, presenting him with this industry award here.

I'm here to celebrate Bookie's, you know, 30 years, 25 years of radio and helping us be the Unsung Hero. First starting at, of course, station 102, The Edge, and as part of the team that has launched Indy 88 in Toronto to be at the right place at the right time, Bookie has always been there, and I think for all of us who've gone down the horseshoe on Indy Tuesdays

and have honored ours there, Bookie has been there at the door saying he's okay, he can get in because it's a free night, it's a Bookie night. So everybody, I think we've always had champions, cause taking champions and leading our artists on. I think Bookie speaks for all of us here in saying he's champion in the way,

he's champion in the music scene, and I don't think anybody else deserves this award more than David Bookie Bookman. Mr. Bookie Bookman, David, come on up here and get your award. Congratulations. That is Derek Ross, another IndieMusicLifer in Canada,

the original drummer of The Spoons. Wow. And went on to work for Enigma Records. He was behind the scenes of the Sky Diggers. A lot of connections here. A lot of connections here, including the fact that one of the bands that was, you know, all these indie bands that Bookie championed, one of the bands he championed is Lowest of the Low, right?

This was one of the bands that Bookie would champion, and I'll be seeing them tomorrow night at the Danforth Music Hall. So it all comes together here. Middays on Indie 88. Now, I got this job putting together the 1236 newsletter, and I needed a soundtrack. I needed some consistency. I was mostly working on my own, either at home or in a coffee shop,

but I became one of those office drones, the laptop hobo version of one anyway. I needed something that I could listen to that would just keep me thrumming along, and there was Bookie on Indie 88. I'm pretty sure that every other morning he played this song by the band Future Islands. Seasons! See you next time. The seasons change

But I'm not tired of trying to change Cause I've been waiting on you Some real 21st century typing music, which I think worked well for mid-bass on Indie 88, Some real 21st century typing music, which I think worked well for mid-bass on Indie 88. Whether this was his choice or came up on the programming list, I heard it an awful lot. There's a YouTube video of Bookie interviewing this band, Future Islands.

They got some notoriety because they were on the David Letterman Show, one of the last viral moments from Late Show with David Letterman. This guy sort of looked, do you remember this video? Like Ty Domi crossed with Henry Rollins doing this strange, surrealist dance routine. And when they were at their peak of attention, Bookie did an interview with them, one of many that you can find on YouTube. And there he was interviewing Coldplay and he did these bits at the Edge with the Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers,

Offspring, they were going to be in the Edge Rock of Fame. It was a good way to get these big celebrities to come down to the stage. We're going to put you on our Rock of Fame. I don't know what happened to the Edge Rock of Fame, if it's still there or not, if it's been maintained as well as the Canadian Rock of Fame,

which isn't very well maintained at all. But whatever was going on in the station in those days, here was a chance for Bookie to connect with a different generation of artists and future islands was one of a whole bunch of examples that you mostly heard in toronto courtesy of indie 88 now there's an introduction speaking of dave badini there's an introduction i actually played this to tease your appearance today so i I played this on a previous episode of Toronto Mic'd. But I really think just as we're going to wind down the bookie memorial here, and we're going to do some of the typical month-end stuff that we do when you visit.

But I always liked this intro by Dave Bookman. Rocking Ball is about dreams. It's about passion. It's about why we get out of bed in the morning. Rock and roll is about friendships, meeting new people, and sharing experiences. Rock and roll is why we are all here this evening. Rock and roll is why life is great.

It's about all you people and all the bands here. Today, you're going to meet new friends. You're going to share experiences. It is with that passion that the Tragically Hits Trouble in the Head House Tour welcomes you to Maple Leaf Gardens. And please welcome from Otonago, Ontario, the Reopstatic. Now, I might be snarky about the music business. It served its purpose in getting me my break in journalism,

just to dunk on everything. But I do try to keep up on what's going on. So Bookie became one of those curators. There he was on the air in Toronto. I was so proud of him and felt some connection to everything that he was putting out there to the point where I was always proud of him and felt some connection to everything that he was putting out there to the point where I was always tweeting at him. Whenever I thought that he played something that was worth attention,

I would make sure to tag him. And just like he resisted a chance to come on the podcast, he rarely ever replied to me. But I felt like that was part of the cosmic relationship that we had. What he was doing on Twitter most of the time, I think, was trolling the young and the restless, which was his appointment viewing, I guess, going back to when he got kicked off Afternoon Drive on the Edge. He was home at that time in the afternoon to watch Y&R.

If you go by his Twitter, you would think that was a thing in the world that he cared the most about. But there was one song that he played when he was doing the Sunday Night Rock show. It moved to Sunday morning, and it only had that form for about a year. It was last March or April that they moved it to Sunday morning, and it only had that form for about a year. It was last March or April that they moved it to Sunday morning, and that's when I was up at 8, 9 a.m. listening, doing screenshots of the playlist when I was ever impressed with what he got away with. But there was one song that he spun on a Sunday night that just stood out for me. It was like shining through the radio, even if I was listening online.

The kind of experience that Bookie would have wanted to create for all his listeners, finding something that wasn't getting enough attention, even if it was showing up on Pitchfork or some of those other critical lists, being the curator, drawing my attention to something I never heard before. Here's the thing.

It's a song about the feelings that you have when somebody that you know but aren't really in touch with ends up passing away. It's a song by the band Pine Grove, but aren't really in touch with ends up passing away. It's a song by the band Pine Grove, which was on the critics' radar. Then the singer was involved in some Me Too thing. He canceled himself, but I think it's safe to play here.

And I made sure to tweet this song. Bookie, this is out of sight. This is my new favorite song. And for, I think, the one and only time that I complimented his choices on Twitter, he got back to me. He replied to say, yeah, this was so good. Old Friends by Pine Grove.

Old Friends by Pine Grove. I keep going over it over and over. My steps iterate, my shame outcome. Every outcome's such a come down. Lately afternoon with the shades drawn down. Kept saying I just wanted to see it. Saying what's wrong with that needle shaking. Outlines in a compass. Every outcome's such a comedown I knew it when we started

So I did just what I wanted So I drove through with it I saw your boyfriend at the Port Authority Sort of fucked up place Well, so I averted my stride on a quick one So coming back, we're going over your plate I feel like we could forget about it I feel like I could forget about it I feel like I could mellow out I don't feel undone in a big way There's nothing really bad to be upset about

When I thought I was getting better I woke up on the ground An appointment or disappointment I sat back on the ground An appointment or disappointment I sat back on the countdown As if I needed a reminder Oh, I do own a lot of wonder So I go through with it Walking out in the nighttime springtime

Needling my way home I saw Leah on the bus a few months ago I saw some old friends at her funeral My steps keep splitting my grief through these solipsistic moods I should call my parents when I think of them

Should tell my friends when I love them Maybe I should have gone out a bit more When you guys are still in town I got too caught up in my own shit Of how every outcome such come down And I knew it when I saw it Oh, I did just what I wanted

So I go through with it I knew happiness and I'm sorry And that is everything that I have to say about my friend, Dave Bookman. Wow. Well done, my friend. That was excellent. Okay, well, we have a whole other podcast to do here. And in the months that I've been coming in here doing the 1236 recap, we usually try to do this at the end of every month. Yes. We got into the tradition of ending it by going through the obituary list. People from Toronto or who influenced us in our lives, the ones who

died in the past month. And you had the idea that we should talk about Boogie off the top. Right. Rather than confine him to later on. I don't know what I'm getting myself into being so known for talking about people who died because one day I'm going to die and everybody's going to say, isn't it ironic that the guy who talked about the people who died, died too? So what am I setting myself up for here? Mark, everybody dies.

And if you should die before me, I will respectfully memorialize you on Toronto Mike. Who's going to have me on their podcast if you die before me? I can't help you with that one. I'll have other concerns at that point. So lots to talk about. going to have me on their podcast if you die before me i can't help you with that one i'll have a other i'll have other concerns at that point but here so lots to talk about well let's start talking about you 1236 okay so i fall you know i'm all over uh your newsletter which is 1236.ca people should subscribe but uh people like friends of the show people former guests and more are suddenly uh launching their own email newsletters.

Tell me what's going on with my friend Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario. And jump. And more. Jody's jumpsuit. Two others as well. Here's what's up. I was waiting for there to be a Toronto newsletter scene. And finally, with this platform that I switched to, Substack,

the technical opportunities seemed to be there. What I needed to do was find other people who were interested in using this thing to get on board that there could be other newsletters connected to 1236 and experiment, see if we can create some sort of scene. I couldn't just do one, and two would seem a little lame. Three was all right, but wouldn't it be remarkable if I could have four? Four new Substack newsletters launched them in the same week,

like a newsletter up front. This week, right. This week, that's what's happened. This is like the Toronto Avengers, right right so can you tell us everybody like obviously listeners of the show know retro ontario so ed conroy who i collaborated with a bit here on the podcast and uh always amazed by his appearances on news talk 10 10 including when he was filling in as a host and they wouldn't let me on the station to be there with them. Right, right, right, right. Ed Conroy, always lots to talk about

with Retro Ontario, pop culture of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I mean, so deep into the history of television from that era, City TV, TV Ontario, So he has his own email newsletter now. Yeah, not just a YouTube

channel, not just an Instagram account. His Instagram account is huge. But now you can get Retro Ontario in an email that's sent to you every Monday afternoon. That was the first. That was the one I started the week with. The second one was Jody's jumpsuit. Right. A woman on Twitter who just one day joined Twitter.

A woman on Twitter who just one day joined Twitter. She was on some sort of mom group on Facebook, and the Rob Ford hysteria was at its peak, and she would post about Rob Ford. She couldn't get anybody to care about what she had to say about Rob Ford. And she guessed correctly that Twitter was a place where you could find people who were riled up day and night about Rob Ford. Six years ago, she joined Twitter. And now, in addition to everything else she's been up to, she has her own newsletter.

So there's jump.substack.com. Every Tuesday, the Jump Stack. Some newsletter iteration of what she does on Twitter. I wouldn't call it a column. of what she does on Twitter. I wouldn't call it a column. It's not really, well, it's writing, so it's not quite stand-up comedy,

but it's also sort of like a monologue. We'll figure out what it's going to be. It's exciting to be there, giving her some advice on how to make it happen. These are all independent newsletters, though. I'm just the newsletter guru. Look, last month I was there complaining that I couldn't get any traction. And it's with these people

who are all terrific who are going to make it happen. What were you going to ask? I was going to say, so Retro Ontario and Jump, they've actually been on this show. I've met them. Great people. But who are these other two guys or gals? Okay, yeah, the other one, Lolly Picasso. Now, she's somebody who found herself in a position where she couldn't really do much besides be online all the time,

very online. And she turned herself into this crackerjack researcher, mostly about, like, the weird political vortex that happens on Twitter. At the same time right now, you might have noticed that fact-checking has become a big fad in the media. Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star with his Trump checks. And he's now off to a new job, rumored to be a major American network.

Specializes in news. That's currently laying a lot of people off. But I don't know if that's confirmed yet. It was sort of leaked by an intern. You know what happened? A star intern put an internal memo on Twitter saying Daniel Dale is resigning to get another job. Too funny.

They tried to put the lid back on it, but too late. Otherwise, we might not have known that guy. Back to Alali Pecazo, A underscore Pecazo on Twitter. too late otherwise we might not have known that gossip back to a lolly picasso a underscore picasso on twitter well this whole fad is happening with people doing fact checks she's the one who was ahead of the curve on twitter and i think she has a more interesting bent because she's not doing it for the sake of clickbait but but actual real research into misinformation,

disinformation, lies being spread online. And she came up with the name Ms. Info, MsInformation.substack.com. So we'll have Lolly Picasso doing her own newsletter, it's not me, on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Just as we record this podcast, one going out from the former editor-in-chief of McLean's magazine, previously National Post, Ken White,

or Kenneth White, as he prefers to be billed. He's moved into book publishing, nonfiction books. This is what he wants to do for the rest of his career. The company's called Sutherland House, and the email newsletter is called Shush, S-H-U-S-H, the Sutherland House email nonfiction newsletter. I love that you're building this empire,

and it's exciting. And I have to ask the obvious. Why was I never asked to have a Substack newsletter? Wouldn't that have been convoluted of interest? Anyone can sign up for this thing. So if you want to get going, maybe by the time I'm here next time, we'll have more Toronto Mike online. You're too busy

making a living. This is a side project, and we'll see where it goes. No one's been promised anything. It's really their own initiatives, encouraged by me to reach out to subscribers in a different way. All you have to do is give your email

address to these people at their respective Substack newsletters and they will give you something for free. Try it because if you don't like it and it's bothering you, you can always unsubscribe. There's the opportunity through the Substack that you can actually charge people for email newsletters opportunity through the Substack, another good thing, you can actually

charge people for email newsletters. But that's a different project for a different time. Because even people that charge still give away newsletters for free. It's very experimental in that sense because no one's perfected this yet. I just respect the fact you're trying something.

I'm lucky to have St. Joseph Media paying for my time to do this stuff. And there's more to come. But at least you're not going to bother me about the 1236 podcast anymore. Well, I'm still going to do that. I mean, that first hour is evidence you need your own podcast.

But the sacrifices I make to come down here, I don't know. We do the podcast. It's the only time of a weekday that I'm cut off from the world. I was going west on the subway and I was evacuated. We do the podcast. It's the only time of a weekday that I'm cut off from the world. I was going west on the subway, and I was evacuated. There was panic. People were wondering.

I was thinking, yes, maybe I'm going to die on the way to doing Toronto Mike. It turned out there was an injury on track level, a euphemism for what might be something serious. They had to get, everybody had to leave the subway. I caught a cab. We ended up picking up another guy who was going to the airport. And I took the bus for the last lap here

because I was too cheap because he would be paying the whole fare. So it worked out all right. Maybe the gods wanted you to pay some respects to the Humber Odeon Theater, right? They're playing movies for the last time today? Yeah, the last time today on the way out and the sacrifices I make. But another thing that Dave Bookman taught me is you can't expect a lot of glamour in doing this stuff. So

I think being evicted from the subway on the way here was par for the course in the kind of media experience I am accustomed to. Well, listen, no glamour maybe, but I will give you gifts. Listen, there's things that you're going to take home with you. Is that number? Okay. I was going to, that's number two. Okay. Well, I finally got my Great Lakes Brewery electric circus beer. Right. My very own can. I feel like I'd be wasting it if I drank it here. I'm in the same boat. I can't open it.

So I, I mean, I can't, I refuse to open it. So it's on display here. But yeah, you have an entire, just six fresh craft beer. I know the only time all month you'll consume these tasty, tasty craft beer is when you visit and you get your Great Lakes beer. So you're drinking an Octopus wants to fight. Your second can right now. Enjoy. You're going to take these with you.

Maybe you'll pay a visit to the lake and enjoy them as is your custom. Mike, what is happening at Great Lakes Brewery on your birthday? Will you be there? I want to know if you're going to be there. On June 27th. This is what? Now the fifth time that you've cornered me over this thing. And there might be one more

before that day. We might have to record because I don't think, right? You'll be too busy setting up. We can't do the last Thursday of June. That's a great question. Yeah, we'll have to schedule this in. You're right. So we might have one more chance to celebrate this. Maybe we should record on June. Oh no, because you'd come too late.

So let's, yes. June 27th from 6pm tom. to 9 p.m. is TMLX3. This is the Toronto Mic Listener Experience. This is going to be bigger and better than ever. Mark, you were at the first one. I hope you can come to the third one. You're still giving me a hard time

of flaking out of the second one. I would love to know why you flaked out of the second one. And one of Dave Bookman's favorite bands will be performing at Great Lakes Brewery. Right. Lowest of the low are performing. So they're performing tomorrow at the Danforth Music Hall. And on June 27th, they'll perform at TMLX3.

This is amazing. Of course, the Royal Pains will be back. And there's going to be free stickers on that note. Have you received a Toronto Mike sticker yet? Oh, yeah. I still haven't found the right place received a Toronto Mike sticker yet? Oh, yeah. I still haven't found the right place for my Toronto Mike sticker. I got to say, though, that your wife Monica's illustration,

the Toronto Mike logo. That's hers. See, I never knew. I only saw it digitally. And it's a lot better on a sticker. I understand it a bit more. The artisanal craft that Monica put into the logo. Thank you for giving her the props here. It comes through better on the sticker than it does

on the internet. And of course, you see there's a decal. Of course, we're not live on Periscope right now, but when you see a Periscope live recording, you see the decal on the back. That's courtesy of StickerU. StickerU.com. They'll be giving out Toronto Mike stickers to everybody who comes to Great Lakes Brewery

on June 27th for TMLX3. People can put them on their laptop, computers. Okay, today. And then we can see each other in public and we can ignore one another, but we'll remember that we both listen to Toronto Mike. There's a gentleman who works for Rogers Media. Is that the division?

Whatever the radio people are. Rogers Media, I get confused. But they're at 333 Bloor Street East. And I was there today to deliver stickers to this gentleman. So hello, Lucas. Enjoy the sticker. I believe he told me it's going on his computer. Okay, I'll look out for Lucas.

Okay. By the way, there's also a temporary tattoo. I know you want to rock one of those temporary tattoos. Toronto Mike temporary tattoo. Get anything that sticks. Go to stickeru.com. You can upload a custom image like I did with the PNG file for the Toronto Mike logo that Monica designed. And you can get one or as many as you want.

You can get buttons and temporary tattoos and stickers and decals. And there's anything that sticks you can get from StickerU.com. They're fantastic. So you got your beer, your stickers. I have, and I forgot to put in the table because we're not live on Periscope. So I thought it didn't matter. It's in the freezer. But I absolutely have a vegetarian lasagna for you from Palma Pasta.

Palma Pasta, I guess they're in it for you for the long haul because you keep on giving away lasagnas. Yeah. This week is costing them a fortune because there's six different guests this week. Six different people are getting lasagnas and beers. So I'm going to put them out of business of anything, but Palma Pasta, you've had it in the past. You've got another frozen vegetarian lasagna. Fantastic Italian food. They get the sauce right. They get it all right. You can visit them. They have four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. Go to palmapasta.com to find out where they are. But you can also, if you're catering an event, I straight up, it wasn't on the house or anything. I paid like a regular person. I had Palma Pasta cater my wedding,

which, it was amazing. And if you go to skipthedishes.com, Palma Pasta is now there as well. So thank you, Palma. Can you find out if Gino Vanelli enjoyed his Palma Pasta? You said, when he was here, right? You're Gino Vanelli. You know Italian

food. Yes, we need to find out if Gino Vanelli, and I'm sure he did because he knows it's the real deal. This is a family recipe. I don't know. He might have handed it off to his brother. Right. Seems like that's the way it works with Gino Vanelli.

His brother gets a sloppy second. No comment. I like it when you're here because typically I go to the billboard charts and I go to remember the time and we play something that was number one 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. But I like it because when you visit, we don't go to the Billboard Hot 100. We go to the Chum Charts. Of course we go to the Chum Charts.

So let us go back in time 50 years ago this week. This was the number one song on the chum charts. Don't let me down Don't let me down Don't let me down. Don't let me down. Don't let me down. Nobody ever loved me like she does.

No, she does. No, she does. Yes, she does. Don't Let Me Down by The Beatles. And this was a B-side, right? A B-side, but listed as a number one on the chump chart. So taking some liberties here with history, even though the point of the chump chart was that you would have to remember this at all, but a display in record stores of all the 45s that were of the chump chart was that you would have to remember this at all, but a display in record stores of all the 45s

that were on the chump chart. So if something was a double A-side or an A-side and B-side and they were both being played on the radio, they would be listed as one thing on the chump chart. In fact, I remember it from when I used to buy 12-inch singles of hits in the early 90s and dance stuff and everything.

For example, D-Lite would have Groove is in the Heart and What is Love. This was the A and the B side, and they were both billed as such. Absolutely. So 20 years before that, it was The Beatles. Every Beatles A and B side was some sort of hit. But Don't Let Me Down would have had more significance this week in 1969. Why? Because John Lennon was in Canada that week, and that's when

the Bed In For Peace was happening. They first tried to do it in Toronto, ended up decamping to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, leading up to the recording of Give Peace A Chance, June 1st, 1969, on 1050 Chump, 50 years ago. I think, given the timing, the fact that this was John Lennon on the B side of Get Back, he would have heard an awful lot of Don't Let Me Down. It's like the alternative history of the Beatles in Canada.

Once we talked about Roll Over Beethoven, how that was a Beatles single only in Canada, and I think this song had more of a resonance because it was when John and Yoko were in the country doing their bed in. And Get Back and Don't Let Me Down was the number one single on Chum. I would listen to that podcast. The ongoing history of the Beatles in Canada.

Like, I would listen to that podcast. That would be right up my alley. So if you want to start that. There's a guy on Twitter named Piers Hemmingson. He's a Canadian Beatles expert. Always have some amusing exchanges with him, given his obsessiveness. This is a little bit before my time.

Before I was born. I'm hanging on to this. I'm not yet 50 years old. But great memories, and not only that, but hearing Give Peace a Chance on 1050 Chum because it was Canadian content. Because the original Canadian content rules indicated that a song only had to be recorded in Canada to count as CanCon.

It didn't matter if the writer or the artist was. That's great. If it was from 1960s, it was CanCon. If it was recording, and that's why. And 10, 15, right up until they stopped playing the oldies. All, every day, like three, four, five times a day, give Peace a chance. Here's something new for you. I just realized this is your, of course, it's your first visit of May

because you come once a month. So this is the end of May. This is the first time I've got to make this offer to you. This is cool. So you're building an empire. You've got Jump and you've got Ed and you're starting to build this crew and you're putting out the sub stack newsletters and everything's on the up and up.

But you might, Mark, you might have questions about as this grows, scaling it and business decisions you have to make and with taxes, et cetera, you need to talk to Rupesh Kapadia. I'm telling you, this guy sees beyond the numbers. He's not your father's accountant. He is the rockstar accountant. Let's hear from Rupesh. He is the rock star accountant. Let's hear from Rupesh. Hey, hey, hey, this is Rupesh here. And today I wanted to call you up and let you know that we are all going to die.

But there is a silver lining. The silver lining is if you are a corporation, you can ask your company to pay the life insurance on your behalf and still get all the money out to your family on a tax-free basis. If you would like to know more, please contact Kapiti LLP, myself, Rupesh, or any of my associates, and we'll be happy to guide you through the process. Thank you. Did you mention Fast Time Watch Jewelry Repair? Or did you forget? No, thank you. I mean, I'm two beers in here. This octopus wants to fight. It's keeping me busy.

Very emotional opening to today's episode. So you better not make Milan upset with you. Oh, thank you, Mark, for saving me from myself. So, Rupesh, that's CapadiaLLP.com. And Mark, if you want your complimentary 15-minute consultation with Rupesh, that's kapadialp.com. And Mark, if you want your complimentary 15-minute consultation with Rupesh, let me know. I'll hook that up for you.

In fact, anyone listening who would like a complimentary 15 minutes with Rupesh Kapadia, the rockstar accountant, what a cool cat this guy is and he sees beyond the numbers, let me know. I'll hook that up for you.

And yes, of course, you know, this happens quite a bit where I go back in time, remember the time, and I get into the song and we're talking about the song and then I move on and I forget to tell people that remember the time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for almost 40 years. If you mention you heard about them on Toronto Mic'd, you get 15% off any regular price watch battery installation. By the way, listeners,

tomorrow, John and Wei, they have a wrestling podcast. They're going to come on Toronto Mic'd and joining me, helping me co-host this episode is a man who knows more about wrestling than we've all forgotten.

So that is, of course, Milan from Fast Time. He'll be here tomorrow. Good thing you didn't let him down. Don't let me down. I walked into a chum reunion at Young and St. Clair across from 1331 Young, which is almost this sort of

luxury condo now. I knew it was a chum reunion because there's some old guy wearing a Chum t-shirt at the Jingles Bar across from Chum. Our friend Doug Thompson there? I was scoping out to see if I recognized right on the street, talking to each other, was Bob,

Bob McGee, Sam, Samantha Houston, and Robbie Evans. They were the morning team on 1050 Chum in the 90s. I think Retro Ontario has a video commercial with them on YouTube. There they were, Bob, Sam, and Robbie. I even took a picture. Because you've got to get those paparazzi moments in Toronto. You've got to take what you can get.

Chum reunion. So there was Bob, Sam, and Robbie. And this was a coincidence that you stumbled upon the— Total, total. Who else would know who these people were? I've met Bob before. And Sam is on Zuma Radio. Morning show.

This song was introduced to me by Mark Wiseblood of 1236. That's a fact. I'm sad that this is the second last time I'm going to be playing this in 2019. That's it. Nana Muscuri will be put on the side burner until next spring. And I play it for Camp Tournesol. They've been around since 2001 and they provide French camps in the GTA for tens of thousands

of children ages 4 to 14. Visit campt.ca. What are you waiting for? You've got to put your kids in French camp if you want to watch their French skills blossom over the summer. They need to be in one of the what are you waiting for? You gotta put your kids in French camp if you want to watch their French skills blossom over the summer they need to be in one of the

overnight programs or the day camps offered by Camp Tournesol but when you register your child or children for the French camp use the promo code Mike2019 Mike2019 that'll save you some money.

And it lets Camp Ternus know they gotta come back in 2020 so I can play more Nana Muscuri. Are you ready, Mark? Four. What? The beginning of the podcast! This is a fantastic question from Brian Gerstein that'll lead

to some great chatter. So let's listen to Brian. Hi, Mark. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. I have an exclusive. I was the first real estate agent in my office to get the update from our head of new development that the Galleria Mall condos are now going to launch early fall, likely in September. You can still contact me at 416-873-0292 by phone or text to be put on the VIP list for first access. Mark, curious about songs I mentioned Toronto. With Shawn Mendes' If I Can't Have You Out, where he sings,

I'm in Toronto and I got this view, but I might as well be in a hotel room. A couple of others are Vienna Calling by Falco and Switching to Glide by The Kings. Can you add some more onto my list? I wish I could. That was a question I had on Twitter, and those were the two that I thought of. Switching to Glide by The Kings. Switching to Glide, the beat goes on. One hit wonder, it's The Kings.

Well, let's hear that first. That's The Kings, not The Kinks. The Kings had two songs blended into one where they mentioned Toronto. Hey, Judy Get Judy Hey, Judy Hey, Judy You said to call you up And I was feeling moody Hey, little Donna Still wanna

You said to ring you up When I was in Toronto Now, you should have played that for Jamar of Chum FM when he was here, as it's been a debate, along with wondering about his baby. I know we got a bit of an answer when he was on in May, but the pronunciation of Toronto might have been defined by that song,

The Beat goes on. Now, this episode is so overstuffed. Getting this in two and a half hours means a lot. It's going to be left on the cutting room floor. You got Shawn Mendes, because I think that's a hot one. I can't write one song that's not about you Can't drink without thinking about you

Is it too late to tell you that Everything means nothing if I can't have you I'm in Toronto and I got this view But I might Now how is this pronunciation of Toronto? Well for a guy, he's from Pickering. Is he from Pickering? He's from Pickering.

I get my Pickering and my Ajax mixed up sometimes,, he's from Pickering. Is he from Pickering? He's from Pickering. I get my Pickering and my Ajax mixed up sometimes, but he's from Pickering. Oh, Sum 41's from Ajax, right? I gotta make sure I don't confuse my Sum 41 with my Shawn Mendes. I think that's how I'd say it. Toronto. It was a big deal when Falco had Vienna calling.

And he mentioned Toronto, Canada in the chorus. That was 1986 after Rock Me Amadeus. And you thought, why is this guy mentioning Toronto? He's German. Somewhere in there. Remember that. You remember when this was,

this would have been a CFTR hit when you would have been tuned into 680. were you proud of your city when you heard that on the radio? Okay, so my memories, and I listened to a lot of CFTR at this time, is I remember Rock Me Amadeus being everywhere to a point where I had to buy it. And I had a remix of all the remixes, and I adored Rock Me Amadeus. One of my first favorite songs. I can't remember this song from the 80s. I can't remember it. I remember Dirk Commissioner. I can't remember this song from the 80s. I can't remember it.

I remember Dirk Commissioner. I don't remember. Dirk Commissar. Right, my German trusty. So the best we could do as far as an artist on the American charts, mentioning Toronto, Canada, was Falco and Vienna Carling. Austrian rock singer Falco. I mean, this was a time, and this is the answer to Brian's question,

when Huey Lewis did a version of the heart of rock and roll that was custom made for Canadian radio, where at the end he shouted out, Toronto and Montreal! And, like, things were pretty lame back then. We couldn't find too many. There was Canned Heat. The band Canned Heat.

Yeah, on the road again. They had the song Highway 401 Heat. On the road again. Jam band. They had the song Highway 401. On to the country. They mentioned Toronto somewhere in there. By the way, when Brian was quoting the Shawn Mendes song, I was kind of hoping he'd sing it. That was an opportunity for Brian to sing a little Shawn Mendes.

So Brian, next time you got to sing the lyrics. Goodbye Falco, because I need to get us talking about radio because we have other deaths beyond Dave Bookman to talk about here. I drive home the same way Two left turns off the interstate And she's always standing at the stoplight On 18th Street She could be a Sarah She could be an Emily And Olivia may be a Cassidy

With her shaky hands on the cardboard sign And she's looking at me Bet she was somebody's best friend This is Somebody's Daughter. Oh, that one is a banger. I don't think you've ever heard that on the radio. No, no, no. It's by a 25-year-old singer named Tenille Towns. She has some inscrutable Ukrainian last names,

so I don't think that would play on the country airwaves. But Big Canadian Breakthrough Star, that song is a banger. That is a jam. It's got... A Canadian country song. It's that kind of Taylor Swift thing, but I think it's got more of that alt-rock sound to it.

And that's a sound of a lot of country radio stations these days. And now it's a whole bunch more country radio in Canada. So tell us, this is a Bell Media rebranding, and I know that it's called Peer Country. Peer Country

stations are popping up across the country? Most of them were country stations to begin with. One in Kingston, closer to Toronto, that was modern rock format, Fly FM. But here's Bell Media doing something that we saw more in the United States

in the past 20 years, which is converting a whole bunch of radio stations to the exact same branding. So in effect, you've got a national radio station. Virgin Radio is sort of like that too, but this is much smaller markets across Canada. We'll all be known as pure country, and they're able to share the branding. And as we discuss here, it seems every single month, share the same announcers who are all voice tracking out of the same studio.

Right, which seems to be the future of radio. They put it on press release, and they say, well, we have local programming. But you know how this works and that's the reality of radio now. Okay, closer to home, we've talked a lot lately about Hits 97.7 because, of course, Jason Barr and Chris Biggs, the Biggs and Barr Show, although they're still on the air in St. Catharines, they have resigned because they're leaving to go to a station in

Ottawa. What's the name of the station in Ottawa? Doc and Woody. Shea Legendary Ottawa Rock Radio Station, but now owned by Rogers. Right. So it's a lot more corporate. Jason Barr, you once had him on Toronto Mike, right? He has been here,

yes. That was in the days when somebody would come here and really not say very much, and you would be perfectly satisfied with that. Yeah, today I rough him up a bit. You would not allow that today. In the early days, I was just honored somebody took the time to visit, like Jason Barr. So we had a nice conversation. It wasn't particularly long, but he wasn't a man of many words. Oh, it was like talking to a stranger in the elevator? That's about how

intimate it got. Anyway, so Bigs and Bar are gone from Hits, and then there was a rumor. I saw this rumor in the comments of that entry, and elsewhere, people pinging me and saying they thought maybe Hits was going to become one of the peer country

stations. I'm here to say that it doesn't look like that's happening. Like, I don't see this happening, but what have you heard about hits turning country? I just follow you, and including our friend Bingo Bob, Bob Willett, who got a new job with Bell Media. And like all great multitaskers,

he's going to be, what, program director of two radio stations and a DJ on a third radio station. That's right. So he'll be doing some fill-in work. Obviously, this is going to be... This fill-in work at... Fill-in was the name of Geet's Romo for a while.

Anyway, at Chem FM. But obviously, with Biggs and Barr leaving, this is going to create a bit of a domino effect. Somebody who's currently on the air will probably take over, at least in the interim, which will mean they'll need someone to fill in for that gentleman, that tall guy and bingo. Bob can do that.

And yes, there's a, a mat leave, a parental leave happening with the program director of those two stations in where are they in London? Where are they? Where? Hamilton,

Niagara. See, I suck. I don't know anything about this. What? K light. Right. And,

uh, uh, it was in fact, Darren Laidman with Colleen and Darren, who got purged, left of his own volition from Energy 95.3, turned up a few weeks later on K-Lite, which is a big Hamilton radio station. Good for him. I had no idea.

That news didn't make it to me. He's a deep Hamilton guy. He wasn't going to work in Toronto with Chorus Key. Well, we love the hammer on this show. A fake Hamilton radio station. He's true blue Hamilton all the way. Well, good for him. I've never met him, but Colleen says he's a very nice guy,

and Colleen's a very nice woman, so I've got to assume that's true. So I don't think Hitz is turning country. I think it's going to stay doing what it's doing, and Biggs and Barr will leave, I'm guessing, at the end of June because Doc and Woody, these longtime guys that are currently in the spot on that Rogers Ottawa station, Shea106? Did I get that right? C-H-E-Z.

Shea. Those guys are retiring, quote-unquote retiring, and they'll be gone at the end of June. So then Biggs and Barr will take over. So that's what's happening there. Okay, and that's a good one for Biggs and Barr. Two guys, I know the backstory here, two guys that worked in radio at different stations.

Chris Biggs on 99.9, other stations before that, all the way back to Z103.5, and paired up with Jason Bargott, exiled from Dean Blundell, and they decided to do a podcast and they turned it. They showed the radio industry they could work as a pair on a morning show. They got the job. And I'm sure, I mean, I don't know this at all. This is pure speculation, not pure country, but pure speculation that Biggs and Barrs

do a little time in Ottawa and then they come back to take over for Derringer on Q107. Well, it's a different company, but it is feasible. That would be the return of Bar 2 Chorus. Now, you said Bar worked with this Dean Blundell guy. Can you tell me, Mark Weisblot, who exactly

acquired Dean Blundell? That is a mystery. Dean Blundell announced that DeanBlundell.com is in a new partnership with a company that bought a certain percentage of his website. It's funny you bring up Dean, because a few months ago, there was a secret episode of Toronto Mic'd

where he had to refute Dean Blundell. When Dean Blundell attacks, which I vowed to pull, and I've never pulled it. You can actually listen to it right now. Google when Dean Blundell attacks, which I vowed to pull, and I've never pulled it. You can actually listen to it right now. Google when Dean Blundell attacks. Dean shows up on News Talk 1010 over and over again.

He does a podcast with Darren Millard, and I think they're on every day. I think they do one every day now on his own website. Wow. He's a wonderful, wonderful guy. He's a master showman. He's the P.T. Barnum

of radio. So wait, who did you say acquired him? We don't know. That's a mystery. We don't know. I don't know. Putting on Twitch TV, that seems to be a thing that a lot of independent podcasters... Oh, because Don Collins, right. Because he was hired by Don Collins to work at 590. I really don't care. You don't care? I'm letting something

out in the open here. I've put Dean Blundell on the topic list before, and we end up not talking about him. Normally, I skip him because I have zero... I don't like talking about Dean Blundell because I don't like this guy. I talked about him today because I thought, well, it keeps showing up on the list. Wasn't he going to be with Humble and Fred?

Then he didn't show up. Then that became a whole thing. He's also part of Bell Media, which makes me wonder if he's somehow connected to what they're doing on the Humble and Fred show with Bell Media. Everybody's all cozy. There's only so many

jobs for these ex-radio guys. And in the end, it seems like the trend is that most of all, they just want to get back on the radio. Well, maybe Blundell can get the spot currently occupied by Bob Willett. Yeah, well, listen, watch this discussion show up on the Dean Blundell podcast. I don't care.

Refuting that he doesn't want any of this. And that his appearances on CFRB are simply for the hell of it and he's not trying to get a job over there because DeanBlundell.com has millions of visitors a minute. Here's a real friend of the show, Robbie J., Rob Johnston. He's currently at Chorus, right? He's probably at Chorus Key right now. What's going on with this podcast,

this daily news podcast that he's helping to produce over there at Chorus, right? He's probably at Chorus Key right now. What's going on with this podcast, this daily news podcast that he's helping to produce over there at Chorus? Okay, you've got CBC with a morning podcast called Front Burner, and Rogers has one called The Big Story, and Chorus with its Curious Cast company. We talked about this on

Canada Land back in the winter. The fact that podcasts are getting more corporate. Seems like everyone needs a morning podcast. So it's Chorus Curious Cast starting its own global news morning podcast, I think on June 10th. It's a couple women that used to work at Vice who are involved with that. And Chorus will be going for it to do something in podcasting that's not just a repackaged radio show, but that it will actually be a morning podcast

produced by Global News jumping on that whole trend. I don't know if there's room for all these players to get the kind of audience they're looking for. What do you think? The Daily, the New York Times podcast started this trend, right? And the global one is called Wait, There's More. No, this is a prime example of it's key to be in early on one of these things.

I mean, they're proliferating all these morning podcasts. We only have so many minutes to listen. Everybody's listening to two and a half hour episodes of Toronto Mic'd, where are they going to find the time for the new? And I wish Robbie J the best in everything, and I'm sure they're going to have a lot of success, but everyone's going to have one of these.

I can't imagine they're all going to be successful. Tamara Kandaker, if I'm pronouncing that right, we'll find out when her podcast launched, if I have. She's going to be the host of this Wait, There's More on CuriousCast starting on June 10th. Tamara has

more of an edge because she was with Vice. She was part of that Vice News Canada thing, which seemed to be winding down, found a home on Global. So at least it is something different. We can complain endlessly about the fact these big media companies don't do anything that's outside the box. No, no, no.

So I think in this case, we'll see an example that fits the bill. Well, maybe it'd be good. Like I said, I have a global news blind spot that maybe I need to eliminate here. blind spot that maybe I need to eliminate here. But speaking of like podcasting, Anna Maria Tremonte from The Current is leaving the show for podcasts, CBC podcasts. And I think that is a milestone in the history of podcasting, no? Who would have imagined when you got started with Toronto Mike

that you would hear that one of the marquee CBC personalities was leaving to do a podcast eight years ago you would never no no no no no no no in fact i was joking with this i was on humble and fred show last week we were joking about this that that back when we started all this people in the radio would kind of like oh you're doing that internet thing like it was really like they were like holier than thou on the whole like you're slumming it on that internet thing. And now you have bonafide radio stars like Anna Maria Tremonte going to podcasting. This is now where they're,

I don't know at all whether she's choosing to go there. I have no idea. Maybe you know. But she's going there, and this is a significant milestone, I think. The CBC held their upfront presentation for the season ahead, and one of the things they emphasized,

which people took shots at, was the fact that they're making their environment more sponsor friendly. That's why they're doing Family Feud Canada. Because anyone that's going to watch Family Feud Canada is not going to complain

if the categories end up sponsored by, let's say, some brand of toilet paper. If you're going to sit through something called Family Feud Canada, then you can handle that sort of product placement. So they mention podcasts as well, that sponsors are welcome and invited. They can have advertisements on the radio, but Anna Maria Tromanti can be sponsored on a podcast.

It's going to be like a deep dive interview podcast. That'll be one of her main projects. And I'll give it a listen. Speaking of listening, you should be on Anna Maria Tremonti's podcast. Let's see if we can make that happen. Only if she does mine. We'll trade.

This is the newest jam by Carly Rae Jepsen. Every single night I pay When you're coming home, coming home Cause I've been living for the day Julian, in your heart, yeah You must be Julian And this song is, you tell me it's having difficulty getting airplay. Well, every couple of years Carly Rae Jepsen puts out an album, does something like a

performance with the Toronto Symphony, which gives us an opportunity to snark about the fact that when it comes to making the charts, Carly Rae Jepsen has a hard time. A bit of clickbait dedicated to Carly Rae still doesn't correlate with the actual fanaticism for her.

It's this whole idea that she is a pop star who doesn't make genuinely popular music, which allows the critics to say that nobody appreciates her. She has a new album called Dedicated. It came in at number 16 on the Canadian charts, but it didn't show up on the Billboard Top 200. Like, the streams weren't there.

Okay, as a casual guy who kind of observes a little pop music when it hits mainstream stuff, I can tell you that first single by Carly Rae Jepsen, Call Me Maybe, was a massive hit. It was everywhere. Oh, yeah, that was legit. But a one-hit wonder for all intents and purposes. The video of Tom Hanks.

That song. I really, really, really like you. Right. Is it just my house where that song got played a lot? No, it squeaked through. It got some numbers. But you don't hear Carly Rae Jepsen on Top 40 radio. Interesting.

Not even in Canada. Which is strange. No, it's not strange. Because it's GameCon, right? See, it's part of the marketing radio. Interesting. Not even in Canada. Which is strange. No, it's not strange. Because it's King Kong, right? See, it's part of the marketing plan. Explain to me further what that means. It's no accident that she's linked to the same management as Nickelback. I think just like Nickelback cultivates the haters,

has made more money based on the idea that everyone loathes Nickelback? The Carly Rae Jepsen marketing plan is to be the pop star that doesn't get the respect in the mainstream. But how does that pay the bills? Like, does that mean people... Because people want to be cool. Interesting. They want to come out to the show.

She's playing at the Sony Center in Toronto. And everybody there will think that they're a part of a cult following for Carly Rae Jepsen. Look, I think it's ingenious. I'm not ragging on what's going on here. Do you like the song? Yeah, it's great. But when you're sitting there trying to be a serious music critic like Carl Wilson of Slight and you're pondering the fact that Carly Rae Jepsen can't get any respect.

Little do you know. But you're being played in the Carly Rae Jepsen machine. Hey, Marcella Hey, Marcella Hey, Marcella Hey, Marcella I might leave some things on the cutting room floor, but I'm not leaving the chair girl update. A lot of people look forward to your chair girl update. That's why we play Marcella.

I'm not so sure about that, because any time I tweet about her, I get responses. No, calling me a perv. Why are you giving this girl attention? Do you have a cheer girl update for us?

This week, she's gone wild on Instagram with the Instagram stories. She got in trouble last month by the fact that somebody mentioned they had some Coke. She was hastily trying to clarify that it wasn't cocaine it was coca-cola please chair girl is now on the road partying hard in punta cana according to blog team well good for

her when does this do you know when this trial gets concluded? Middle of June. Now, the irony is, the chair girl's lawyer, Marcella Zoya, he appeared in court on her behalf. She hasn't come back to court in the couple of appearances since her initial booking. And he says she's

staying off Instagram. She's not partying. She's trying to change her ways. She's trying to get back into dental hygienist school. And the evidence on Instagram is very much to the contrary. I don't imagine this young woman is only 19 or 20. I guess people are justified in thinking I'm kind of creepy if I'm watching her Instagram. Well, yeah. I mean, she's young.

And she's, I don't know, very little I've seen of her. She's marketing herself sexily. Is that a word? Sexily? Look, the lawyer said to reporters that she was staying off Instagram and trying to clean up her act, not to be the kind of young woman who throws chairs off a balcony. And the humor comes in the fact, all you have to do is follow her on Instagram. It might be private, but I think anybody can get approved.

She's got over 10,000 followers. People like Siobhan Morris of News Talk 1010 watching her Instagram videos in the middle of the night. Siobhan is a good buffer, right? She's doing her job. Nobody will call Siobhan perverted. Paying attention to Chair Girl. And the fact she has these videos of her partying in Mexico,

wherever she is. Where? And it's gotten a ton of attention. And I don't know. I heard her on News Talk 1010 three times in one day. They made Chair Girl a topic. It sells, I guess. Now, do you have an update on the $10 Byway store?

Remember, there was a sighting of this store. What's the update there? The Byway $10 store. We heard news about it, and that was big news for Toronto Mike because a picture of the Byway back that was bequeathed to you. By Cam Gordon. By Cam Gordon of Twitter Canada. Right.

Ended up being the number one Google image search hit for Byway. Something like that. Because Byway really went into business before there was much of an internet, 2001. Right. And there was a story or two about Byway coming back to Canada. The founder of Byway, Mal Coven, 89, 90 years old, bringing Byway back. I did not believe that this was actually going to happen. No, I didn't either.

This was just announcement. But there on Bathurst Street, in between Steeles and Finch, in a strip mall next to a Dollarama. There are signs telling you, coming soon, the Byway $10 store. So look out for that opening in August, although maybe it was delayed until September. And the thing is, it's not competing with Dollarama,

because the stuff they're going to sell at Byway is $10 for everything, rather than $1. Byway, on the way back, we'll see how that goes. My daddy never gets no rest Cause she's playing all night And the music's all right Mama's got a squeeze box Daddy never sleeps at night

Tonight, my Raptors, my Raptors, play game one of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors. And I can't believe I just said that sentence. Mark, I'm so excited. I watched this team in preseason. I caught the vast majority of the regular season games, of course, all the playoff games. I didn't just tune in for the last two minutes like some people.

I watched tip-off. I watched the whole thing, often with my son. And I can't believe this is happening. But this happening that I'm so excited about had an effect on The Who. The Who played two of their final concerts in Toronto. The last real concert that they did with Keith Moon was at Maple Leaf Gardens, 1976. And then they returned to Toronto. Everyone who was alive in 1982, conscious of this fact,

you even remember when The Who had their final concert in Toronto, December 1982. The last Who concert ever. Keith Moon was dead. It was with Kenny Jones. And it was going to be the last Who concert. That Keith Moon was dead. It was with Kenny Jones. And it was going to be the last Who concert. That was it. No more Who. Never again.

And of course, it was only a matter of time. By the end of the 80s, The Who was back in business. The Who were going to play at Scotiabank Arena June 1st. And because of the Raptors, they got bumped along with 21 pilots. Their concert got canceled and Carrie Underwood had a show rescheduled and the Who are not playing in Toronto until the fall

and it's actually the kickoff of their next North American tour leg. kickoff of their next North American tour leg. I was imagining that wouldn't it be fateful if The Who had their final concert in Toronto, given the fact that there were two last Who concerts that were in the city before. Starting the next tour is the best we're going to do, but we're going to see if this even happens because these guys are getting old. They hope they

died before they get old. And there was Roger Daltrey on stage complaining about people in the audience smoking weed that he can't sing when there's smoke blowing in his face. Who do we got here, huh? We just redid

one of our favorite songs. Killed it. And it's crazy. It was crazy. It was so lit. It was so lit. We had a great time. Watch this cover. Repost it.

Tweet it. Instagram it. Everything. I meant to clip this part. Who let the dogs out? Who let the dogs out? Who let the dogs out? I got to bring that down. It's killing me.

What is this? It might be killing you, but I'm having the time of my life. This is a remake of Who Let the Dogs Out, which is the subject of a new documentary film. It was at the Hot Dogs Festival in Toronto. And it's all about

some guy and his quest to find out the real origins of Who Let the Dogs Out. You know this story originates in Toronto. That Who Let the Dogs Out was originally recorded for a radio commercial. And I'm not sure on what station this commercial would have run. Maybe it was Chin Radio.

It might have been WBLK. Maybe it was Shin Radio. It might have been WDLK. It was well before Flow 93.5. But that Who Let the Dogs Out started in Toronto, as far as anyone can tell, because it's been the subject of a dispute that's now a documentary movie.

So there's a documentary about who let the dogs out? Documentary about who wrote the song. Okay, or last night. Who let the dogs out. And this was a new version with the Baja men. But once we're able to see this movie, we will learn

I guess what is the best conclusion about who originated. There was a lawsuit and everything about it. This cover is a lot better than the original. I'm going to give them credit. My five-year-old is a big fan of the Baja Men's Who Let the Dogs Out, so that tells you what we're dealing with there. Oh, and I wanted to say where Chair Girl was cited. Oh, yeah, okay. Punta Cana is in the Dominican.

Not in... Not Mexico. That's the kind of mistake that somebody mentions in the Toronto Mike comments, and I feel bad that I made an error. Because we're not, it's not like we're going to go back and get it. No, but you caught it in the episode. So I feel like they'll probably tweet at you the correction. And then they'll get to this point in the podcast.

And then they'll tweet at you. They're sorry that they just heard the correction. Yeah, whatever. I'm too beersy and I regret the error. All right, let's get to this. Okay. Yeah, whatever. I'm too beersy, and I regret the error. All right, let's get to this, okay? That was a fantastic hour off the top in which you paid tribute to your friend Dave Bookman,

one of my favorite Toronto radio personalities. I thought you did an excellent job. But others have passed with a connection to this city, and I want to make sure we remember them as well. So let's do that now, and we'll see if we can nail our two-and-a-half-hour deadline. And we'll see if we can live up to your idea to have the oldest person who died at the end of the show. We're terrible at this.

I think we're going to get it this time, but let's start with this. This is Iron Maiden, Wasted Years. I got so caught up in the bookie talk that I wanted to tell this story somewhere down the line. Because I think it has a lot to do with how we're so fixated upon remembering people on the internet and how you know news about people dying isn't what it used to be and that the process of mourning people who you knew who you've lost is is different these days I saw a death listing for a guy named Dan Cohen now Now, that's a fairly common name. In fact, I know a different

guy named Dan Cohen now. This guy, Daniel Cohen. I saw a death listing for him, and based on the information there and the fact that I maybe had some idea of maybe what the name of the woman he married was and what he was doing, that this was a guy who died back in April. But I wasn't quite sure. And I didn't want to think that he was dead if he wasn't dead. So I researched it. I went back and forth. Have you ever had this experience?

Is it him? Is it not him? Yeah, sure. There's a picture of a guy that sort of looks like him. But, you know, maybe it's not him. There's a lot of guys in the world named Dan Cohen. He was someone I met in high school. We took a guitar class together.

I changed high schools in the 11th grade, and I was very excited because I got to pretend that guitar was a useful thing to sit there and study in the afternoon. Sit with an acoustic guitar in a classroom. I was going through some stuff. Wasn't really very good at talking to a lot of people, but this guy Dan Cohen, he reached out to me. We became acquaintances.

Remember we talked about how the bass player of Metallica, Cliff Burton, died dating when this happened, 1986. And we're both into the same junk culture. We talk about what we watched, how much music,

listen to a Q107. This was a guitar class after all, so it was a lot of banter back and forth about107. This was a guitar class after all so it was a lot of banter back and forth about music and it was a time that I needed a friend and this guy reached out to me. He was a friendly face. We had some common ground even if we only talked

during this guitar class. I had a pretty good idea that it was him who died. I don't know how. I sent a message to somebody whose mom commented on the online death notice. He wasn't of much help in explaining to me. And I wondered if maybe it's not the guy. Maybe this isn't the Dan Cohen that I knew who died.

I could have even talked about this here a month ago, but I don't want to talk about that a guy died and maybe he didn't die. Then maybe you'll catch wind of it and email me, oh, you just talked about how he died. Maybe I hoped that would happen, but no. Look, it was him. And the reason I knew is because he ran an Instagram account

where he was selling memorabilia, promoting it through Instagram, eBay auctions, rock and roll memorabilia. So in fact, even though he was, I think, primarily working as a real estate agent in the past decade, he got into the memorabilia business. Tried to make it as a music photographer for a little while. In fact, did stuff for iWeekly when I was involved there, bookie. or iWeekly, when I was involved there, Bookie. And eBay came along, and he was selling guitar picks, other souvenirs.

And it was only in May, a few weeks after I saw the death notice, I was able to confirm that it was my friend, Dan Cohen, who died at age 49. So I was a little startled because even though I had a hunch, even though I came close to confirmation, it was only when that Instagram post was there that I knew for sure. These are new experiences, aren't they? But have you explained why we're playing Wasted Years?

Every Iron Maiden song, I guess, has that kind of contemplation that it was, in fact, a sweat band from Iron Maiden that was the last host on Instagram. This was a song that came out around the time that I got to know them, and we're big on talking about that junk culture,

the heavy metal stuff, even though we were in a class with acoustic guitars, learning how to play songs like House of the Rising Sun, the real bird course in high school. Do you have any of those? That was my one, the guitar class.

Dramatic Arts, I took just for an easy OAC. And Family Studies, I took. I had a few. I think I did a few. So I hadn't seen Dan Cohen in many years. And he wasn't very online. I don't know, Facebook, anything like that. Well, I'm few, few. I think I did a few. So I hadn't seen Dan Cohen in many years, and he wasn't very online. I don't know, Facebook, anything like that. Well, I'm sorry, man.

So I'm missing him. Dan Cohen dead at 49. I don't know how. I want to find out. So that was on my mind, I think, most of all, the whole month, as far as people who died. And in the memorabilia business, there's a YouTube video of him interviewed by Ali Velshi on CNN

because Dan wrote a book about movie memorabilia. So I'm missing him even though it had been a long time. Since I saw him, it had been in that little way, just like Dave Bookman, someone that was there for me, to play a little role, somebody to talk to about the things that are my passions to this day. When I do motivation, my one solution is my queen Cause she's so strong, yeah She is always in my corner right there when I want her

All these other girls are tempting but I'm emptying your bun They say, do you need me? Do you think I'm pretend? Do I make you feel like cheating? I'm like, no, that's really close. Oh, I think that I found myself a cheerleader. She is always right there when I need her. Oh, I think that I found myself a cheerleader. She is always right there when I need her.

She walks like I'm a dove. This was the first number one that was played on G98. G98.7, there's a post on their website about how they broke this song in North America. Omi, cheerlead, you know this song. My wife loves this song. She still loves this song. Yeah. Fitzroy Gordon is somebody we lost

in April 2019. In fact, the announcement of his death was when we were recording last month's episode. And JJ chimed in. Apparently, I mention JJ

every time you're on. Oh, JJ is the best. I'm going to say that just so she can blush. But she said, will we still, even though this happened in April, will we still pay our respects to Fitzroy Gordon in the May? And the answer is of course. Of course. Fitzroy Gordon died at age 65.

His health was an issue for a couple of years. But he left his mark on the Toronto media, most recently as the creator of G98.7, a Caribbean and black radio station on the Toronto dial, which he had to fight really hard to get the license for. I mean, he had battles with the federal government about whether this spot on the dial was something that his idea for a station could occupy

because it relates to the CBC being at 99.1. But he felt passionately. He was in these battles for a long time. But why get this station on the air? And even after a flow, 93.5 got licensed. Denim Jolly was the captain behind that, but it was Fitzroy who believed that there was room for a different kind of black radio station in Toronto.

He aimed at an older demographic, more eclectic, more diverse, different than what Flo turned into. And he fought hard to get it on the air. Now, he was known before as a radio voice. He was Dr. Love on Chin, multicultural radio station in Toronto. Late night, Dr. Love. But he also did, like, sports updates for Fan 590. Yeah, he was a cricket player in Jamaica who moved to Canada.

And cricket, cricket was his thing. He was the main cricket correspondent in the Toronto media. So it was people at the Fan 590 who knew who Fitzroy was from all his appearances on there. It was also on Starphone. I remember Starphone, yeah. The thing that you would call up to get updates, and that was one of their most popular things, cricket scores.

And Starphone, back in the day when you wanted your sports scores and you miss it on the radio, and sometimes your newspaper would come and these would be late games, like West Coast games, and they wouldn't be in the paper. Like this star phone was essential for a sports fan. And that was part of it as well. Dr. Love, though, late nights on chin,

had a cult following in Toronto as he dispensed advice to the lovelorn in between playing reggae. It might have been on his show that Who Let the Dogs Out originated. This part of history is a bit lost to me. It's not something you can Google so easily. So he had a vision for his own radio station, and it needed the cooperation of the CBC and the CRTC and the federal government to get there,

of technicalities involved. They had tested for a while, but he signed on at G98.7 in 2012, 2013. And Stephen Harper, in fact, came there to open up the radio station. The politics on that station were intriguingly conservative because this was an older demographic. This is a black Canadian demographic that I don't see represented a lot. It's certainly not on Twitter.

Do you hear about these people that are older in Toronto or into things like gospel music? Fitzroy did a gospel show and a talk show, Grapevine, on the weekends on his own station with his name in the call letters, G98.7, G standing for Mr. Gordon, Fitzroy Gordon. Now, we lost a couple of news anchors way before their time here.

So one, I was saddened to learn Christine Crosby passed away. Oh, Christine Crosby, who worked at a number of Toronto TV stations, at CTV and at Global, ended up leaving TV, leaving the news media in order to work in publicity at the Ontario Science Centre and later for OCAD, OCAD University. She was in charge of media relations, so she still had dealings with media outlets, but it was crossing the floor on the other side.

Extra tragedy, the fact she lost her battle with cancer almost exactly one year after her husband was killed. Cycling. Yeah, cycling by a driver in Toronto. So a familiar face, and just based on the clicks in the 1236 newsletter, well-remembered was Christine Crosby, who died at 53. I never watched global news, and even I recognized her from global news.

So she's most definitely a memorable news anchor in this city. And here's a news anchor we also lost too soon, who died well before her time. I want to... Is it Sarika Sehgal? Sarika Sehgal. Sarika. I knew I'd butcher it.

And this is a bit cryptic. I assume that the circumstances were tragic, but she died in mid-May at age 42. And most people would have first known about Sarika Segal because she was alongside Ben Chin as the original anchors on Toronto One, the channel that launched in 2003. Well, let's hear a little bit of that. Good evening, everyone. I'm Ben Chin.

And I'm Sarika Sehgal. On this edition of Toronto Tonight, a special focus on that massive natural disaster threatening Southern California. Plus, that stunning $5.6 billion deficit at Queens Park. Can McGinty keep his promises? We'll take a look. Also ahead this hour, how much does a typical shopping basket cost at a grocery store compared to a big box store? We will ring up the numbers for you. And the Raptors return to the ACC for the start of their season. But how hot will

they be this time around but first that deadly wildfire in California and Toronto one was a disaster was uh licensed to Craig Media which uh I think three four months later announced they were selling the whole company because they they were running low on funds that their idea for Toronto TV station wasn't what they were expecting, couldn't really follow through on their promises. Maybe they didn't even expect to get the channel, but that was part of the original concept was to be a younger, youthful TV newscast

that wasn't about news, and it paired Sarika Sehgal with Ben Chin, a familiar face from City TV at the time. It was Sarika who was a standout star of the channel so much so easily once this imploded. She got another job at the CBC and then onto the CTV news channel, ended up leaving the media.

And her whole story's on a website for a creative retreat that she started a couple of years ago in Aron, Ontario, called Kel, K-H-E-L. And she talks about the fact that this was all an accident, that she didn't even set out to be in the media. She was a medical student going for initial science degree. She was a guest on some sort of show. Somebody saw her. They said, you should be in the media. She was a medical student going for initial science degrees. She was a guest on some sort of show. Somebody saw her.

They said, you should be on the air. And she followed their suggestion. She was telegenic enough to make it. Obviously she was. But looked and sounded great. I remember her very well from CBC News. And actually, her voice and the timbre of her voice, even listening to it just right now,

reminds me of Jill Deacon. Like, there's a—for people who want to compare the two styles of speaking. But she's very good. She started this place. The whole idea was that people who were burned out could find their creative spirit there, that she could be a guide, a consultant. Sounded like a great business idea that a lot of people would have craved taking advantage of something like this, especially somebody that they remembered watching on TV. We left this all behind.

And we learned through social media that she died at age 42. Still as of now at the end of May, no formal article or obituary. There's something on broadcastdialogue.com that stitched together different posts about her based on the fact that after a few days it was multiple people, including Strombo, who mentioned that she had died. There's nothing really to dispute there

that actually happened. There's a memorial service for her. That's been scheduled. And when you want to talk about mourning online and finding out that people died, I can't look away from trying to piece together the story. You find different things. My understanding is that the family doesn't want the cause published at this time.

Oh, and that makes sense. But we still lost her. 42 years old. Not somebody I expect to be talking about here on our roll call of people who died, but we started with Bookie, and personally, that was the most tragic of all. So, I mean, right up there,

as far as people who would be recognized was Sarika Segal. Dean Cameron passed away. Not a name that would be known in every household, but a major figure in the history of Canadian music. Here was a guy who started as the drummer for Tom Cochran, trying to make it in the Canadian rock business

in the early 70s. They ended up doing the soundtrack to a movie with a happy hooker, Xavieria Hollander. It's called My Pleasure Is My Business with Tom Cochran and his backing band, with Dean Cameron on the drums.

At one point, they called the band Harvest, then it became Cochran. But look, Dean Cameron was fated to be a guy behind the scenes who ended up working in the warehouse of EMI Music Canada, and it was within a decade that he ended up running the entire thing. He was president of the company before he was even 35 years old. Turned out, helpfully, one of his big stars in Canada was a guy they used to play drums for, Tom Cochran. And it was Tom Cochran, Life is a Highway, that album, Mad Mad World. That was one of the big victories for EMI, Capital Records.

A long list of Canadian artists. That's why they called Dean Cameron Captain Canada. They got that nickname with EMI. A storied company. Of course, they made a lot of money off the Beatles. We know that. Then they had their own individual CanCon aesthetic. EMI Music Canada was like the liberal party of record labels.

Straight down the middle, records that would sell large quantities. And Murray recorded for EMI. That says it all. It was Dean Cameron who ended up pulling the strings. Sheriff, who we talked about here several podcasts ago when I'm with you. They were signed to Capitol Records. And Dean Cameron ran the label from that period of time, 1988, right until the end, until EMI got absorbed by Universal Music Canada.

Dean Cameron was right there leading the charge. And not only did that mean Canadian artists, it meant British artists, a lot of them, who got more exposure in Canada as a result of him championing them. So Kate Bush running up the hill. One of the hits that Dean Cameron would have made in Canada to a proportion a lot greater than in the United States. And a lot of his work was championing Canadian artists, the mothership in the U.S.

Sky, love song, that was also on EMI. A whole bunch of stuff, and he was there through it all. Ended up leaving EMI when it got sold to Universal and got a whole new job, a huge job, being in charge of the renovation of Massey Hall, as well as Roy Thompson Hall, part of the same organization. And he was the one who was spearheading this thing, bringing Massey Hall back to its old glory,

a work in progress that he will not get to see finished. Dean Cameron died of a heart attack in May 2019 at age 65. And we lost a few, three sports writers in May. Ken McKee, Dean McNulty, and Jason Botchford. Do you remember any of them?

Jason Botchford worked for the... Ken McKee, I remember. Botchford worked for the Toronto Sun. He was 48 when he died. And then he ended up with... he was a Canucks beat reporter for Vancouver Sun. The Athletic, right? Vancouver Sun for a while, post-media. Yeah, then he moved to the Athletic last year. Like all great sports writers, the Athletic was too great to turn down.

That venture capital cash. Lost Jason Batchford. Ken McKee. You remember reading Ken McKee? Yes. In The Star. Ken McKee is the one of the, I know,

Ken McKee, I definitely remember. He was a star, and Dean McNulty was the son? Is that how it went? Auto racing corresponded. I mean, this is how deep the Toronto Sun

sports department got in its glory days. Right. What about auto racing for the Sun? Someone to sit there and just obsess over auto racing. The good old days, yeah. So these things come in threes.

There is in Peru three Canadian sports writers who died in May. The End one sped. All hands look out below. There's a change in the status quo. Gonna need all the help that we can get. According to our new arrival, life is more than mere survival. We just might live the good life yet. Here's one you don't even know is on the list. I added this myself just before you showed up because I learned... How could you resist? But I know who it is. It's Leon Redbone who died on the day we're recording this. It was announced at age 69.

Someone with a big Toronto connection. Big time. He was part of the Yorkville music scene. Now, he died at 69. They joked in the announcement, his family, that he passed away at the age of 127. That would have been my guess for how old Leon Redbone was with that sound. But no, no, he was just 69 in there with the 60s and 70s generation.

Got a lot of exposure from the early days of Saturday Night Live. But yeah, the whole Leon Redbone shtick owes a lot to Yorkville, that neighborhood of Toronto. My little research I was doing, it seems he came to Canada from Cyprus in the mid-60s and then changed his name. He was, I will butcher this for sure, but Dickeran Gobelian was his name

before he changed it to Leon Redbone. And yeah, he played Toronto in the mid-70s and that's what started his career. So I knew you'd have a, there would be an obvious Toronto angle for Leon Redbone for sure. And most recently, he's in the closing credits for the movie Elf. Yes.

With Zooey Deschanel singing Baby, It's Cold Outside. Yeah, he's the guy in that duet with Zooey Deschanel, for sure. And I was going to play it, but I've played enough Baby, It's Cold Outside during all that nonsense controversy in December. So I thought I'd go with the Mr. Belvedere theme song. A show I watched, for some reason I watched in syndication. I think I watched it because Mr. Baseball Bob Euchre was in it. And I had seen him in things like, I knew who he was and he would show up in things like Naked Gun and things like this.

And if you guessed how old the guy was singing that theme song, what would you have guessed? Oh, yeah. I would guess at that point. 80, 90, 100. So maybe it's accurate to say he died at 127. And speaking of theme songs, in the Bill Brio episode recently,

he kicked out his 15 favorite TV theme songs. But here is one of my favorite TV theme songs, but here is one of my favourite TV theme songs. Fraggle Rock. Tell me about Robert Hackborn. I found this one deep in the obit section, a listing in the newspapers about Robert Hackborn. Didn't know much about him until I read that he died. This happens a lot. But he was

a scenic designer for the CBC from 1955 to 1993. Which meant he worked on shows going back from Juliet, one of the original CBC shows, all the way up to Kids in the Hall

in 1993. And he was involved behind the scenes of Fraggle Rock, Jim Henson's show. And his contribution to that show, I mean,

making this thing happen. This was, this required a lot of design. And you can look up the fact that a few years ago he donated his archives

to Ryerson. That Ryerson has an archive about the show Fraggle Rock courtesy of CBC scenic designer Robert Hackmore and a great show if you know dig that up find that Fraggle Rock was a fantastic show tell me about uh well I tell me about what you can add to of course the great Red Kelly passed away but you had him on the list but I always think that's that's not really the kind of death you cover because it's such a big star.

Not only was he playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs, he was a member of parliament in Ottawa at the same time. That's true. But it feels like that's too big a death. What was the average hockey player's salary around that point in time? I think he needed the money that came with being an MP. No doubt. It was rather low probably

back then for sure so uh red kelly passed away at a pretty good old age right what did he live to be 90 something 95 do you have that there what was red red kelly but uh yeah we're losing all the uh leafs whoever won a stanley cup how many are left? How many are still alive? There's still a bunch. 67, there's still a bunch left from 67, for sure. Like, I'm thinking Mike Shakey Walton, for example, but there's a bunch, I believe, still kicking from the 60-70. But you're right, there will be a day when we say,

hey, there's nobody left. So, Eek, let's... Red Kelly made it to 91, almost. 91, good for him. By all accounts, he was quite the gentleman, quite the classy guy. So, Red Kelly made it to 91. 91, good for him. By all accounts, he was quite the gentleman, quite the classy guy. So Red Kelly, gone at 91. 91. Thank you. Speaking in a foreign tongue It's my life, it's my life, it's my life, my life

It's my life, it's my life, it's my life, my life Ralph Murphy died at 75. I wouldn't say that I knew this name before yesterday. Ralph Murphy was a Nashville songwriter and a big mentor to a lot of musicians out there. But his roots date back to his time

in Ontario, which included producing that song, pairing April Wine with a song written by Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Bad Side of the Moon. That was the Breakthrough album. It was Ralph Murphy, who's credited by the band with having that vision,

which gave it this CanCon song, which has been played on the radio ever since. He also wrote country songs for Crystal Gale. He was involved with her career. Oh, yeah. Jeannie C. Riley, a song called Good Enough to Be Your Wife, which was a big hit in the U.S. And Shania Twain, when she first got started

before she met Mutt Lang. It was Ralph Murphy who wrote one of the songs on Shania Twain's early album. And he wrote a song with an Ottawa thrash metal band called Annihilator. There's some deep cuts.

That's a good name for a thrash metal band, Annihilator. A power ballad. I'd never heard this song before. But it seemed like the kind of song they were banging on to be a big hit. Remember when every metal act had to have the power ballad? Of course. Metallica with One. Everyone was bidding for it.

Def Leppard had Love Bites. Yeah, this was a big thing. Def Leppard. A lot softer compared to Annihilator. Okay, okay. Next I was going to go with Extreme more than words. All right. Velma Demerson.

Another name that I've known more about after she died, which was just in the last couple days, and it was the fact that she goes down in Canadian history as someone who was criminally charged for living with a man who was her fiancé because he happened to be Chinese. She was 18 years old. Her father called the cops about the fact that she had this interracial relationship.

Now, this has been the subject of a documentary movie and books, but I've learned more about it ever since she died. Velma Demerson, who died at age 98 and uh she uh she was deemed incorrigible by the courts and as uh as an 18 year old they threw her in jail for almost a year wow for having a relationship with the so it's a chinese guy for yeah i guess uh, times have sure changed. And then she sued the government that was more recently in 2002. She sued the Ontario government for $11 million.

And they gave her an undisclosed settlement all these years later. Somebody worth learning about. I got to admit, only through these obituaries that I was alerted to the legacy of Velma Demerson. The discovery of the alphabet will create the forgetfulness in the learning school because they will not use their memory We don't know who discovered water, but we're pretty sure it wasn't the fish. I believe it. I really believe it. The goose quill put an end to talk.

It abolished mystery. It gave architecture and towns. It brought roads and armies. Bureaucracy. It was the basic metaphor with which the cycle of civilization began. The step from the dark into the light of the mind. The hand that filled the

parchment page built a city. Tell me, Mark, who was Quentin Fior? Quentin Fiore. Fiore. Although I'm not too sure now that you mention it. Quentin Fiore. Quentin Fiore. Fiore. Although I'm not too sure now that you mention it. Quentin Fiore died at age 99 in this spring. There was an obituary in the New York Times in May. And I have a bit of a personal connection to what Quentin Fiore is best known for.

He worked with Marshall McLuhan on a book called The Media is the Massage, which later became a record album. That's what we're hearing now. Marshall McLuhan. This was an audio interpretation of this book that Quentin Fiore worked on with McLuhan. What's the connection? My father was quoted in the book. And it dates back to the fact that my father was in charge of the family scrapyard. That was a family business at the book. And it dates back to the fact that my father was in charge of the family scrapyard. That was a family business at the time. He wrote an advertising slogan,

keep junkyards beautiful, throw something lovely away today. And that was mentioned in the book. Wow. McLuhan Book Media is the massage. Now, I had this book growing up. My father bought the book. He was alerted to the fact that this book existed.

What my father didn't know that I only found out in the past month. There's a New York Times article from 1967. Marjorie McLuhan talking about this book, this avant-garde book that he wrote. And he mentions my father's slogan as his inspiration for the media is a massage. My father's not alive anymore to see this. So I got to carry this on. I got to pay attention to the fact that my dad was not only Marshall McLuhan's book, but McLuhan himself highlighted that bit, that advertising slogan, as what motivated his concept in the first place. That's incredible. And we made it all the way to a few weeks ago

before Marshall McLuhan's collaborator on this passed away. When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, what will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to me. Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. Que sera, sera.

Doris Day. What will be, will be. She lived to be a nice age as well. Well, she lived for 97 years. That's alright, eh? And that was long enough, I think, for that to be considered a big celebrity passing. There's a list online of the oldest music

people in the world, and she was way up there. She was near the top of the list. She made it to 97, Doris Day, before our time. But I remember reruns of the Doris Day show. They would run in the afternoon, after school time slot, and it had this opening where it was like soft focus, a little bit

creepy i remember as a kid uh and and the legacy that doris day left but what did what did you think of doris day you have an opinion no i on on doris day i knew i knew she existed and i knew she was famous and i knew that song and that is it well Well, John Lennon. We talked about the Let It Be era of John Lennon. There was a shout out to Doris Day on the Let It Be. There were two shout outs to Doris Day on Let It Be. So that was Doris Day in her prime, I think, 50 years ago. She was on John Lennon's mind. We like to, I mean, we could have ended there.

We have a 97-year-old there, but we have somebody even older here. I.M. Pei? Yeah, I.M. Pei, the architect. He made it to what age? What do you have there? I have 102 years old. Not bad. 202 years old.

Not bad. You can see the work of I.M. Pei in Toronto as part of Commerce Court in downtown Toronto, the newer building. It was one of the defining skyscrapers of Toronto, indicative of his style. Now it's crowded around. There's too many skyscrapers in downtown Toronto. Commerce Court doesn't stand out anymore,

but back in the day when it was completed, it was a big deal. And also, big one in Montreal, Place Ville Marie. Very prominent in Montreal because there's not all that construction around. And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is his work. The glass pyramid, just like he did in the Louvre, wherever that is. I've been there. Paris, Louvre. Wherever that is. I've been there. Paris, I believe. And that thing he has,

it's like an empty shell. It's like the Rom crystal. So a part of Toronto, part of the skyline. Died at 102 in May 2019. Someone even older died. Herman Wook, author. Do you know Herman Wook? He made it to 103, almost 104.

That would have been the oldest celebrity death of May. We'll see who makes it through June, and if they don't, we'll talk about them here on Toronto Mic'd. Thank you, Mike, for all of your attention to Dave Bookman off the top, and that we got it, all that other stuff is a miracle, because we could have talked about Bookie all the way through, honestly. We could have. We only went five minutes over time.

This city is going to miss Bookie. I miss him already. What a fixture on Toronto Radio for decades, and I'm sorry for your loss. I know you knew him better than I did. We'll regroup. We'll try this again at the end of June. Sounds like a plan. Maybe the

day of TMLX3. Who knows how that'll work out. Who knows. And that brings us to the end of our 471st show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMike. Mark is at 1236. That's 1236.

And check out all the other Substack newsletters too. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, send me an email, DM, and I'll point you to what's up. Or 1236.ca to get the archive and you'll find out about other newsletters hosted on Substack

from great personalities in Toronto. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. As I look at the time, we're four hours away from game one of the NBA Finals.

Holy smokes. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. By the way, make sure I get your vegetarian lasagna out of the freezer before you go. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR. Milan will be here tomorrow. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. And Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP. See you tomorrow. I've been told that there's a sucker born every day. But I wonder who.