Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #508

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

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

Welcome to episode 508 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. Oh, that's a new one for you, Mark. You're going to love this. I'm Mike from torontomike.com, and my guest this week, better late than never,

is Mark Weisblot of 1236. I think I needed to recover after our July episode. I appreciated having a bit more breathing room before we got to hear what's going to be mostly covering August.

But I'm also glad we bled into September, September 10th already, because last time I was here, I think we went a little bit off the handle. Not only did we run overtime unnecessarily, you took me down a road of discussion that I didn't really want to go. Remind me. It was about Mike Stafford and a couple of things that he put on Twitter,

and you were insistent we discuss it, and I'm not holding it against you. The people listening long enough here, what, 508 episodes in? We don't have a meeting before we do the podcast. The podcast is the discussion, right? There's no pre-interview. Everybody is listening to the first time that we've verbally gone over what we're talking about. And I think in the heat of the middle of summer that I maybe wasn't in the best mood to be doing the show at that time. What went wrong?

to be doing the show at that time. What went wrong? We can deconstruct this endlessly, or we can add another one to the archives that overrides the mistakes that we made in the edition from last month. Well, firstly, Mark, how do we not discuss that stuff? Like, we had to. That's in our wheelhouse.

Did we? I don't know. How do you ignore that? Because in the end, I don't think i don't think he should have lost his job and he didn't he's back on the air i can't even be bothered to listen to him anymore it's triggering because you you forced me to to consider a couple of things that he put on twitter look everybody makes mistakes yeah but okay but that's that's it that's your opinion we We're done. That could have been it. We don't have to go over it again.

So because I got a little wound up and then nobody told you to do 25 minutes on the subject. Our obituary section at the end went over time. We dragged it on, tried to tighten it up for this month. Even though we're doing 10 extra days. I'm confused because we're one third

of the way through September, and this episode will be everything since you were last here, which was the end of July. Now, does that mean you still come back at the end of September? We'll have to figure it out. We'll have to wind it back

so that we can do the 1236 episode at the end of a month. Or maybe it's... We'll space them out. Yeah, it's not my fault you had to have Ann Romer down here, but given the years that we've spent obsessing over the woman,

it was funny how when Pete Fowler was here, he knew about the Ann Romer thing. He'd been following it all along, but he didn't catch up to the point where you connected with her, and now she's a friend of Toronto Mike. He thought that the,

uh, recent and Romer visit for the 30th anniversary of breakfast television, Pete Fowler thought that was me catching the white whale. Like that was the first time and had come over and yeah, he was way out of date. So, uh, I need to ask you though,

how was the, uh, and, and Romer episode in which we called the original cast of BT? How was it? It was all right. It was all right. One of those immediate tribute events. You needed like a rubber chicken dinner to go along with the ceremony that was happening.

John Whaley's been like, uh, you know, uh, off the grid. I'm not entirely, but you know, I just,

okay, fine. But how was, I need to know how was the live from the opera house, uh, Martin streak party, party for Marty thing. How was it?

Well, that was your longest episode. That one actually broke the record for the longest episode of Toronto Mike. Most guests as well. And you were almost at three hours. A precedent for what you're going to do at TMLX4, I think. You'll need a wrangler there to keep the guests rotating. I think I'm going to have Tyler Campbell do it

because he's been... Oh, tomorrow. This is fun for listeners of Toronto Mike. Tomorrow, I have an episode of Toronto Mic'd. It'll be 5.09. It'll be the first time I sit down with somebody I did not book personally. That's 508 episodes I booked them all.

5.09 was booked by Tyler Campbell. That name, Campbell, which we've all said a million times, I just realized the P is silent. I just, oh my God. Campbell. No one says camp-able. Camp-bell. Anyways, my enunciations are legendary.

I got a lot out of, look, both those episodes loom large in our memory. City TV and breakfast television. I watched the debut episode with Ann Romer. She's wearing, what, a sweatsuit when she would come out at the beginning of the show? Yeah, tracksuit. Tracksuit.

Right. Sweatsuits are similar but different. Okay. And Martin Streak, I was thinking, when you were dissecting how he ended up losing his job at CFNY after all those years. And I don't think enough thought was given to the fact that after he died, it was at least partly because the live-to-air thing was no longer a going concern at the radio station, that they were winding down this idea of doing these remotes from the nightclubs, that by the end of the 2000s, that kind of event had fallen out of fashion. It didn't draw in the young people like it used to. Now, it's extra unfortunate that they didn't keep Martin Streak around to do something else on the air.

And, you know, I think that's what makes the whole thing extra tragic, that it's assumed that it was the fact that he lost his job that he ended up taking his own life shortly thereafter. And I think everybody with a passion for radio and the media business has thought long and hard about what their work means to them in light of how Martin Streak signed off and that maybe you should separate the realities of the industry

from your own personal life just for the sake of your own mental health. And that was a recurring theme with a lot of the guests you had. Right. I mean, in that episode, we spoke to his tattoo artist own mental health and that was a recurring theme with a lot of guests you had right and i mean in that uh episode we spoke to the his tattoo artist and we talked about uh the tattoo on uh streaks ass of the spirit of radio tattoo and i always think there's some symbolism there and i'm playing armchair psychiatrist here which i have no right to do but like when you literally brand yourself with the station you're on it's almost like like you're identifying too closely with your job. There's something there.

I won't go any further with my analysis. I got to meet Martin over the years. I would swing by the Edge storefront studios as a rock and roll reporter. I had to catch up on that radio industry gossip. And he was always excited to see me. And I wouldn't call him a pal, more of an industry acquaintance. But him and Pete Fowler, we just have these electric conversations while he was doing this show on CFNY.

And it's so sad how much was lost. And the fact that the radio station is still around in some form, but it's not in a way that they would ever talk about Martin Streak. So here you were with the Toronto Mic episode, where you covered the kind of thing that maybe once upon a time you would have expected to find on FM radio, but everybody involved could now deal with the reality that this is a medium in which we're remembering the greatness that used to be. It is interesting in the same week, back to back to back thursday and friday last week that

i did something which of that 30th anniversary of bt with the original crew that's something like back in the day we'd think uh you know breakfast television themselves might do or whatever and then i was doing the party for marty and it's kind of interesting where we've come with uh this type of programming that it really is now up to independent broadcasters like yours truly and okay but we also got to look forward and that that's the point of me coming down here to cover the stories that happened this month not not i wanted to tell you 20 30 years ago right uh although sometimes uh that's right most of the time i'm just trying to set a precedent so that we start off here on the right foot so I'm not walking out of here

regretting everything we ranted about for two and a half hours. Yesterday, Ellen Roseman was here, and after we ended the recording, we got to chatting, and I mentioned that she asked, I think, who was on next, and I said Mark Weisblatt from 1236,

and Ellen perked up, and she said, I subscribe to 1236. So Ellen's a subscriber. Is it possible that everyone in her household subscribes to 1236? Because her husband is a journalist. I knew him a little bit a few years ago. She has two sons. One of them is the editor of Now Magazine, music editor of Now, Richard Trupunsky.

She wanted me to know that Richard knew of Toronto Mic'd. So there you go. You would hope so. I don't know. After 508 episodes. So, Ellen Roseman, you had her, you booked her on here. I booked her

here. That was my, because I saw that she was no longer going to be writing in the Tron Stars. She brought it. She gave what you were looking for. And a lot of people are looking for this jam. I feel like we're early to play this because we're still in September, but this song is called October. My daughter just saw her So this is Alessia Cara Am I right? Am I saying that right?

Alessia or Alessa? What do you think? Alessia! Okay, good. My daughter was at the Shawn Mendes show. When I was at the Opera House, she was at the Shawn Mendes show and Alessia played there.

But October. Well, everybody is thinking about October because the Canadian federal election is about to happen. That is, we're here the day before they're going to drop the writ terminology that's been in some dispute. Is it drop the writ or draw up the writ? And how many Canadians know what the hell that means? And how many Canadians know that the election campaign wasn't already going on? We've been seeing the ads.

I mean, when I was watching the tennis, it would be like back-to-back. You'd get the Justin ad and then the Shear ad back-to-back. This Alessia Cara song reminds me of something you would hear on canadian am radio back when there was still top 40 stations that's something that toronto mike listeners can appreciate as a reference point back back in in in the mid 90s when when she was born all these radio stations were were dying out the country. There was no more music on AM. And this song is produced with John Levine, a guy that used to be in the Philosopher Kings,

and now engineering the career of Alessia Cara, who was the opening act for Shawn Mendes. Shawn Mendes. Shawn Mendes. And she put out a bunch of songs which were lamenting the end of her tour and that she is going to miss him when October comes. They're not on tour anymore. All right. I'm going to get the gifting out of the way, so to speak,

so we can really dive in here. There's a lot of ground to cover, but I'm glad to get the gifting out of the way, so to speak, so we can really dive in here. There's a lot of ground to cover, but I'm glad this song is October because there's a brand new sponsor. This is a new prize for you, I suppose. Mr. Weisblatt, something new. I'm going to give you two tickets to Pumpkins After Dark. Speaking of October,

it's 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins that will illuminate the skies at Country Heritage Park in Milton, Ontario from September 26th to November 3rd. So you and a plus one, I'm going to email you these PDF tickets and you can enjoy these pumpkins with the sculptures and the sounds.

And it sounds like maybe we'll, you let me know when you're going. I'll go the same night. Maybe it's going to be a fun time, man. Okay. Well, we'll get on that hayride all the way to Milton, Ontario on Pumpkins After Dark. It's worth the drive to Milton.

And if listeners want to save 10%, if you go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and use the promo code pumpkinmike. Again, pumpkinmike at pumpkinsafterdark.com. I need to hear, oh, go ahead. I want to hear you open a fresh can of Great Lakes beer. At least three of those are cold. At least 50% of them are cold.

We're recording this at 2.30 in the afternoon, and I really haven't had breakfast yet. And it seems like this is the best I can do for now. It's, what is this, Sunnyside Session IPA. Well, at least that is only 3.5%, I think. A breakfast beer, even though I've been up for hours. Well, who are you? This is what's going gonna work for nutrition today

who are you to have this lifestyle where you have a breakfast at 2 30 p.m okay what what a what a life i was i was hoping for more but because it's toronto mic'd it means that i go home with this six pack i get more free glb than than anyone else. That's not even close. What's the percentage of GLB that stays in Ontario? 99.862, I think. And that's the same percentage of your stock of GLB that goes home with me. Now I know why you want to come monthly. I'm not stupid.

Once we announced the lasagna. Oh, yes. So I have a lasagna for you as well in the freezer. Courtesy of Palma Pasta. Great partners of the show. Palmapasta.com. They're on Skip the Dishes. If you want authentic Italian food, look no further than Palma Pasta.

Another opportunity to pop some peas. Did I pop peas? Ann Romer told me before her second appearance that she popped peas on her first appearance. And I told her straight up that I don't mind if she pops peas, but she's a pro. So I don't even notice when people pop peas. What happened to you going to Ikea for lunch with Ann Romer?

I was afraid to bring it up. I wanted so badly to ask her but then i didn't want to embarrass her like maybe she said it to be nice and maybe she changed her mind and i didn't want to put her on the spot like i mean if she doesn't want to take me to ikea then i don't want her to take me to ikea you know what i mean so it's one of those it was kind of awkward moment i thought i thought to myself it might be cringy like this woman does not want to take this guy desperately needs a haircut maybe she doesn't want to be seen with him in the uh ikea food uh section i don't know so well she's getting ready now to make another

comeback right on cp24 it's bound to happen you know she's due but she's still in those ads so i i complimented her on finding a back door to the cp24 airwaves she apparently uh i hope i'm not speaking at a school here but i think they like her so much in those uh i think it's renewal by anderson or something like that but they like her so much i think they want to like right now i think it's just like gta i think they want to go across the continent with this thing. Across America with Ann Romer. I think she's going to be seen in the U.S. of A.

Okay, so two rounds down with Ann Romer on Toronto Mike. We'll hang in there and wait for the third. What did you do with your sticker you Toronto Mike sticker? I told you something like I had this idea that i was going to paper my entire laptop computer with toronto mike stickers once i accumulated enough

to cover the whole thing how many listen okay well you get one just for making the appearance but if i can give you more if you like i i have a whole, they recut them. So, okay, do you know what's the difference? The old one I gave you was like cut more white space around the logo. This one was cut closer to the, I don't know what it, the non-white parts. What's that called? I don't know.

But anyway, that's yours. And that's courtesy of Sticker U. Have you been to the bricks and mortar Sticker U location yet? On Queen West. What address on Queen West? I'm trying to remember. I remember it was definitely east of Dufferin

because I went there right after I visited Danny Graves at his motel bar in Parkdale. So I definitely can tell you I went east of Dufferin, but I can't remember how far east I went. And here's your answer. 677 Queen Street West. People used to browse on Queen Street for books and records. Most of those stores are no longer there.

Vintage clothing. If you're interested in stickers, then Sticker U is there with the storefront. Now, they're opening in phases, and there's a phase that hasn't opened yet, but it's coming, which is like a sticker museum in the basement. And I've been promised by Sticker U

that the Toronto Mike sticker will be part of the sticker museum. And if that is true and why, why wouldn't it be? They promised me I'm totally going to go there, take video and pictures like that would be amazing, right? Okay.

So I'll keep collecting stickers and I promise when I get enough of them, I'm going to cover my entire laptop with stickers from Toronto Mike. Do you, Mr. Wise blood, and this might be a personal question you take a pass on, my entire laptop with stickers from Toronto Mike. Do you, Mr. Wiseblood, and this might be a personal question you take a pass on, but do you own any like RRSPs or TFSAs? I'm not sure.

Is that too personal? Maybe. Can I see your T4s? What sponsor is this? Capadia LLP CPAs. So Rupesh Capadia, as I said, the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers, he will give everybody listening, including you, Mr. Wiseblood, a free consultation in which if you wanted to, you could ask him what makes more sense for you, RRSPs or TFSAs. Here's a little bit more from Rupesh.

Hey, hey, hey, Toronto Mike listeners. This is Rupesh here from Kapiti LLP. We at Kapiti LLP always look beyond numbers in servicing our clients. One of the ways we do this is by ensuring that they pay the least amount of tax in their lifetime. Today's topic, I get asked this question all the time. What is better, RRSP or TFSA?

As a general rule of thumb I think of it this way if you are in your prime and are earning the maximum taxable income now then invest in RRSP this will give you a tax deduction at your current tax rates and hence you will pay less taxes today however if you think you will be making the most taxable income in the future, then invest in a TFSA. As your investment in TFSA will grow on a tax-free basis. Well, everyone will have a different situation, and hence, it's always best to consult your tax advisors if you're not sure. Till next time, be calm and save your taxes.

Bye for now. Is Rupesh being held hostage there? It's a lot more low energy than his usual effort. The usual effort. We're here. Looking into my beautiful blue eyes across the table, that one was recorded at Capadia and then emailed to me. And yeah, of course, the energy was much higher when he was here

because you have the mic and you're live and it's exciting. Hey, hey, hey, it's Rupesh Kapadia. But yeah, I noticed that too. It's almost like the other one was after his Red Bull or something, his coffee or something. I was waiting for him to hold up a newspaper

with today's date on it. Okay, so tomorrow you said the election campaign campaign what's that called the uh the election campaign dropping the writ is the term that most people are satisfied with steve pakin who's coming down here one of these finally yes very soon um he's gotten in in on twitter over the years uh going through the etymology of dropping the writ. It all comes from England, I guess, right? All that, the wigs in the parliament and all that stuff. But yeah, quirky Canadian thing, right? The fact that there's a certain amount of days,

minimum, maximum days the election campaign has to be, and there was some discretion that Justin Trudeau had on what day he was going to drop it. And in fact, he picked September 11th of all days will be when they're dropping the writ and it's on for the Canadian election. So I'm hearing that even that, it'll probably be on again between now and the election day, October 21st, 2019.

Now, because the election is looming, there's a whole whack of election podcasts. Yeah, content all over the place. Look, I mean, the election thing is seen as an opportunity for news-oriented outlets to build audience like never before, even though most normies out there are paying attention to any of this stuff. And you can't make them more interested in politics than they already are, for the most part. To be honest, I mean, I'm already blocking out anything in my tweets that

mention like the name Justin or Scheer. Like I'm already I'm actually already tired of it all. sheer like i'm already i'm actually already tired of it all so and i think the more media you have the lower the turnout ends up being because the the trend line has only gone down the more people talking about the election on tv radio websites and now into podcasting right by the time the actual election day occurs i think the fatigue sets in and you've had enough of this thing you're just waiting for it to be over but the thing about podcasts is you can't be a passive listener right like it's like you have to actually pick it and subscribe to it and then cue it up and listen like it's definitely not something that you kind of throw on CBC radio in the background or something while you're doing the dishes or whatever.

Like it's very much a, you're a, what do you call that? A P one, I guess the radio insiders would call it your, your, your focus. So,

yeah. So we live through, remember they would talk about the blogging election, right? Which one was that? 2004, 2006, 2008.

Then we moved into social media. Remind me to ask you about Ramey the Minx when we're done this little quick thing here. Just take a mental note, because you said blogging. I need to ask you about Ramey. But do you want to run? Well, we can just end this whole segment

and get on to Ramey. Okay, so then social media took over, right? And now podcasting is center stage when it comes to election content. This idea now that the Canadian federal election is providing an opportunity for certain egos to get into the forefront that people will subscribe to their podcast because they'll hear something on there about the future of democracy. Honestly, it sounds like torture. Like, I will never, okay, I want to hear you run down the list, because I know Peter Mansbridge, somebody I'm actually interested in getting on the show, is on this list, and he's actually

doing a podcast. So why don't you run down the list? Well, then I can't say anything bad about him. No, I want real talk from you. He's not coming on anyways. I never, I don't know if he's coming on anyways. I want the truth. Even if it's shitty, just tell me. Run down the list. I was going to pull clips, then I realized it'll be

45 minutes on election podcast. You've got Peter Mansbridge, the bridge. He's still doing stuff with CBC. This one's not a CBC podcast. This is not a CBC podcast, but he's still working for CBC in the election. His name was in the press release. He's going to be

doing stuff. A special beforehand on election night. So how come The Bridge is not a CBC podcast? Because he found somebody who massaged his ego the right way and I'm going to give in to this podcast.

With the tools, the equipment to do it that he can do it on the run. He was in the preview episode. He's bragging about how mobile he is, right? That he can just set things up in his house in Stratford. See, I like to think of these episodes as like, Mark Weisblot listens so you don't have to. Like, is it any good, the bridge?

He did a preview episode. The bridge? He did a preview episode. He's going to start when they drop the writ doing it every day. That's what he promised. No, it's not any good. Okay, that's what I'm wondering. Because the first episode he did,

they were talking about the scourge of fake news. Oh, boy. And I listened to this thing and interviewed some professor about what we have to do to be vigilant news consumers. It was Jesse Brown on Twitter who pointed out that even though they were obsessing over fake news for that segment,

they didn't actually explain what the fake news was that we have to look out for. No examples. Nothing. Just fake news, fake news, fake news, fake news, fake news was that we have to look out for. No examples. Nothing. Just fake news, fake news, fake news, fake news, fake news. We're not inundated. I mean, most Canadians can tell the difference

between the crazy right-wing blog and CTV or, I don't know, whatever, Global News Radio. I'm trying to think. Well, can they or can't they? But you see, it extends to calling every partisan piece of content a form of fake news. So if an organization that's supporting one party or another. The Toronto Sun. The Toronto Sun favors Andrew Scheer's Conservative Party.

And so does Canada Proud, which was a spinoff from Ontario Proud. That much more. It's partisan, right-wing stuff. They do memes that show up on Facebook for the most part. One run by the NDP-affiliated broadband institute called Press Progress. Have you seen that one over the years? Maybe. Another one called North 99,

which is a bunch of liberal-affiliated people. And they're trying to do the more left, center-left version of Ontario Proud. For the most part, they do it badly,

but they always give me something to laugh about. The idea is that when you see these partisan third parties who are able to take donations as if they are a party participating in the election, including corporate donors that are getting in on it. Steve Paikin has a podcast this week explaining a lot more of that. The assumption that if you don't agree with what they're saying, are you supposed to conclude that what they're putting out there is fake news?

Right. Because you don't agree with it. Or because the funding source is paying for it with an agenda. Well, that's not fake. That's not fake news. And neither are the clickbait articles that you'll find from different sites that are still playing this game of trying to get as many clicks as they can.

That's not a real business so much anymore. It's left to a bunch of sites out there. One example is this website Narcity. You know Narcity, right? I've seen this, yeah. That's a little bit infamous. They had their ban from Reddit, of all things. You'd think that would be a main source of traffic,

but they were doing too much self-promotion out there and got busted. So they had an article, headline was something like, did, a question, did Justin Trudeau change the lyrics to the Canadian national anthem? You know, that was a headline.

It's clickbait. Then you click it and then you find out, no, he didn't, it wasn't really him. Right. That amended O Canada. It was a more complicated thing. Is that fake news? Is that fake news?

Because it's meant to lead you down a certain path. No, that's just... But ultimately presenting you with facts. But in this new paranoid scheme in which all these outlets are hiring a disinformation reporter, especially the CBC. They're trying to find where people are being misled. Can we trace this to Russians? Is the Trudeau must go hashtag consequence of bots that are out there coming from a sinister source.

This is what people are obsessing over. And joining the fray is a familiar face, Kevin Newman. Right. Most recently of W5 on CTV, been there a few years. And he's using the election to launch his new show, pivoting to podcasting, moving off television after all these years. At one point, he had a show, Kevin Newman Live, which was going to be one of those futurist efforts on the CTV News channel

about five years ago. And he'd been on Global before, and at one point they tried him out at ABC. I think that was the most compelling part of his career, going through The Ringer and American television. I think that was the most compelling part of his career, going through The Ringer and American television. Do you buy the idea of Kevin Newman as a podcast personality? Like, are you compelled to subscribe? No.

By the fact you hear he's doing it, but he thinks you should be, because you've seen him on TV all these years, all your life. Why wouldn't you want to listen to what an uncensored, unleashed unvarnished kevin newman has to say listen it's still saying it's still under the umbrella of his employer right where is he now ctv where is it a cooperation of different companies but but ctv bell media right is involved with the podcast he's going on the CTV National News to promote his podcast. Unlike the bridge in which it sounds like Peter Mansbridge has gone independent on this thing. He's not under the CBC

umbrella. Yeah, so he's still working with the social media following that he accumulated from the CBC. 60 seconds more on political before you've had enough. Okay, so who else out there? There's one from CBC called Party Lines. Okay.

That's Rosemary Barton from CBC The National. Well, that makes sense, because I feel like they have a mandate that they ought to have an election podcast at the CBC. And Elliman. You know Elliman? Elliman Abdel-Mamoud from BuzzFeed Canada. Yes.

And they're doing this. They only put out one episode so far. What they're covering, they're talking about process and how the parties line up this horse race thing and this analysis, which I guess is supposed to be nonpartisan. I don't know. They got the National to plug this on and CBC Radio Party Line's going for a more youthful audience.

We've got Bob Ray out there. A podcast? A digital agency that hooked up with Bob Ray. Wow. And he, I don't know, he's the most likely one to get Justin Trudeau to come on the show. I don't know, that would not be a hard-hitting interview. That would not be a Hasan Minhaj kind of scenario.

I don't even know. They're buddies. They're liberals. I don't even know if all listeners are aware, but I actually have, and I've been using it lately. I have a hardcore no active politician rule on this show because all I do is read reading points, and to me, there's nothing of substance to be

said by an active politician. Then we have the most surprising liberal partisan of all. Oh, friend of the show. Who is this? I'm sort of poking the sock here by mentioning him. Stephen Kersner. Ed the Sock. Still a friend of the show. Well, I haven't heard from him in a while.

Did he break up with the show? We never had a breakup. And I'm worried about talking about him at all. Because he could just use it in some way. Is it a good podcast by Ed the Sock? It doesn't matter. It's not important if it's good. It's Steve Kersner, familiar media character

trying to get things back together. He wanted to do videos and I think he realized that audio podcasting was a lot more efficient. He's churning out three or four of these a day. He doesn't have to be a sock. That's the thing. He's a sock sometimes, and sometimes it's SJK Kersner.

Interesting. And he's flooding iTunes with these things. He's got his liberal buddies, and he would tell you, well, he's just being logical. He's not beholden to any one party. But there's an obvious liberal bias out there from this thing, the FU network. Does this jam take you back, Mark? I wish we had the periscope up because Mark's doing a little jig here. Very good.

So this is George Benson. George Benson, Turn Your Love Around. This is one of those songs he did with the members of Toto in their heyday. And I remember hearing this song for the first time ever on a Buffalo radio station called Rock 102. 102.5 W-B-E-N-F-M out of Buffalo. A station that at the time, you could get this a lot clearer in Toronto than CFNY. CFNY was broadcasting out of Brampton, but I think a lot of the legend of CFNY is exaggerated because in most of the GTA, it was not an easy station to pick up. You needed to get into the wire hanger antenna thing.

This before it got on to the CN Tower. Right, right, right. And coming in loud and clear, a station optimized for those big stereos that people used to have. Did you have, like,

some uncle that was big into audio, hi-fi, and you'd go over to their house with these huge speakers? Big wooden,

totally can see it now. And it was Rock 102, I think, above all in this part of the world, which was the radio station was aiming at that crowd. They didn't have live DJs most of the time. They had a format called Stereo Rock. How much of it was prerecorded?

I don't know if there was some kind of technician working in the booth, spinning the records. But in the late 70s, early 80s, Rock 102, they had one on-air DJ who would come in on the morning. His name was Roger Christian. Now, in the past week, Roger Christian lost his job at 102.5 FM after 43 years. Wow.

This would be like laying off Commander Tom. Imagine if they just gave Commander Tom a pink slip rather than letting him gracefully retire, escorting him out of the building, mailing his personal affects to him later. Roger Christian was there when it was Rock 102. He was the only live voice. It became more of a top 40 station,

WMJQ Magic 102 into the 80s, competing with Kiss 98.5. Later, the name was Q102 for a while, and then Star 102.5, more of an adult contemporary station, a lot of Bruno Mars, and the Goo Goo Dolls, of course,

Buffalo's own. Of course, Irish. Who would think that these hardcore punks from Buffalo would be the kings of adult contemporary radio? I think Star 102.5 was the only station where you'd even know that the Goo Goo Dolls kept recording albums and played every hour or two on the station.

There was Roger Christian still doing middays. He'd been the program director, music director along the way. 43 years out of a job, and I thought worth mentioning here. Yeah, definitely. You know, Buffalo's so close. I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to it. Buffalo Radio, Buffalo Media. Buffalo used to be a much bigger media market.

When we were growing up, it was in the top 40, maybe number 39, 38, 39, 40. Now it's deeper down, mid-50s. And Roger Christian, yeah, hopefully he'll bounce back and said more. In fact, he sounded more youthful than ever. Here's this guy pushing 70 on the radio and a legend. We talk about Roger Ashby, how long he was around on Chum. And as far as time on Buffalo radio, Roger Christian, his real name, Emerson Stevens. There was a DJ from Buffalo whose real name was Roger Christian, went on the air as Mike Melody when he was on in Buffalo,

ended up being called up to the big leagues, a boss jock radio in L.A. He was Roger Christian. So this kid named Emerson Stevens took the name Roger Christian. You follow me here? Yeah, so there's a real Roger Christian. A DJ's real name, but he was using a fake name. So someone else made it their fake name, and that Roger Christian wrote songs with the Beach Boys,

Murray Wilson, father of Brian, Carl, Dennis Wilson, heard him talking about cars on the radio and figured he would be a good guy to come up with lyrics about car songs by the Beach Boys. That's the other Roger Christian. And we're going to hear some Beach Boys for sure. Oh, we always do. Later in this program.

What did I say about Roger Christian? Just escorted out the door. That was it. It's over. A story in the Buffalo News. Did not get the Roger Ashby farewell episode. So, yeah, the equivalent, I suppose, in Toronto would be if they pink-slipped Ashby and just he was gone

as opposed to what he got, which was like a farewell tour. So that would be kind of equivalent. Yeah, Roger Christian will have to have his farewell somewhere else. Is there a Buffalo Mike to interview him on a podcast? There probably is. Now, there's not a lot surprisingly because we're now post i was gonna say we're now post malone no we're now post uh labor day and we're used to having big radio changes like the day after labor day is a big day for

new radio shows to launch but we didn't get anything. It's funny, it doesn't happen anymore. Format changes or new morning shows coming in. Right. Different tweaks to radio stations. Maybe you see a few more posters out there. I saw billboards for Ross and Mocha, CHFI, Indie 88. But nothing to get excited about. Nothing newsworthy going on with commercial radio.

The biggest thing, I guess, a station like News Talk 1010 running promos about how they're a place to tune in to hear about the election. Jan, okay, now a couple of quick notes, and we'll do quick hits on this and move on because there's other media to talk about. But back in Vancouver, I actually, one of the reasons we're late on this and move on because there's other media to talk about. But back in Vancouver, I actually, one of the reasons we're late on this episode is

because I up and left for British Columbia. And when I was in Vancouver, there was a time I'm in the same city as Brother Jake and Gene Valaitis, who had a show on a station in Vancouver. That show is no more because, so Brother Jake retired or was? Yeah, he was on a TSN radio in Vancouver. Right. Landed there after being on this other Rock 101 for a number of years and then got the sports morning host job.

TSN radio, still trying to find its footing, and he was a familiar Vancouver personality. Like a weekend show because I know my, Hempsey was on it. He had been on daily. Yeah, but now he's- Doing the morning show. They flipped him to the weekend, doing a show with his old pal

from Q107, Gene Volitis. And Gene, when that show got ended, I guess, and Brother Jake retired or whatnot, and Gene,

who was in business with his partner, his former partner, Jesse Dillon, he's now on his way. Like he's literally, he might be here now, but he was driving from Vancouver to Toronto in order to set up shop back in his hometown, Toronto.

And he's talking about it on social media, which is why I guess it's public that Gene Volaitis is coming back to Toronto. Yeah, he was very public about this. And now what i i don't does anybody is anybody looking for him because he's looking for a gig in the radio he's working for this independent experimental thing roundhouse radio well yes yes and that uh ended up out of business bankrupt right it wasn't happening it was i i think a fantasy come true about what people imagined a radio station could

be free form music and fm talk shows but financially they couldn't make it work even with gene volitis on he was the morning guy and jody vance was on that station as well uh as i recall but that station is long gone but yeah Gene is here probably now. The countdown starts to Gene Volaitis in your basement after so many years. His appearance on Toronto Mic'd was via Skype. So yeah, he's gonna... He has actually phoned... I've never met him

in person. He's phoned me twice over the years suggesting that we work together. But whatever it was that he came up with never came through. Didn't materialize. I've had my fair share of Gene Valaitis phone calls myself, but I've never met him either.

So he's a phoner. He's a Santa Claus of the media, maybe more a snuffleupagus. He shows up and you never actually see him. Okay, quick aside, and we'll get back to business here, but my five year old lately has been asking the most uh the deepest most interesting questions about the

santa like as if he's it's not quite uh it's not quite working for him like he's found a lot of like holes in the story and and i know because he's my third of four children. So I can tell you the first two didn't reach this conclusion at five. They were much older than five. But this is one sharp cookie. He should be hosting a podcast. Is he then going to be the one in the kindergarten class that spoils it for everybody? I don't know when to step in and just tell him like zip it, buddy. Because this is awfully young for those who uh are brainwashed to believe but

we'll leave that because who knows who's listening to this in the car with their kids in the back seat so let's move on and talk about uh one more radio thing that i find interesting because she is a fotm that is i'm trying to get that to catch on that's friend of toronto mike reina so reina we knew her she was on uh on CFNY 102.1. She was let go. She resurfaced and was quite good on Indie 88, but she left that gig at Indie 88 to be the morning show host on CBC Music, right,

which we used to know as Radio 2. Am I doing this right? And what is this rumor du jour? I don't even know if we're allowed to talk about it, but we brought it. It's too late now. It's on your list. That's like giving away

their Santa Claus that we have a list. I thought the whole thing was just spontaneously invented as we went along. Real talk. Real talk. There's a list. And pro tip for you, Mr. Wiseblood, never put something on the list that I'm not allowed to speak about. Well, it wasn't confirmed

yet, but I heard it from multiple sources that Raina Doris, who is now on a CBC Music Morning show, she's doing a great job. The fact that it's dull is not her fault. That's way above her pay grade. That's a CBC thing. Well, it's music.

She's fine. She's good enough to be hired by the NPR affiliate in Philadelphia, WXPN Radio. According to sources, hired her to take over a nationally syndicated American show called World Cafe. And I don't know when this is going to be announced. And it's possible that everybody that told me was not allowed to talk about it. But it was multiple sources. Wiseblood is now saying

that Rayna at some point is going to resign. You need a caveat. TMZ breaks story after story after story. And they've made very few mistakes in all the years they've been around. Everybody's always very cautious.

It's TMZ. Allegedly. We have to say this is a report according to TMZ that Michael Jackson died. Allegedly. Because they could be wrong, but they're never really wrong. Reina allegedly leaving CBC Radio for NPR. Wow. Yeah, in Philadelphia.

In a long-storied show called World Cafe. Wow. Yeah, in Philadelphia, in a long-storied show called World Cafe, started by a guy called David Dye. Okay. D-Y-E. He retired a couple years ago. And when they were looking for a new host, they recruited a woman from CBC Radio 2

named Talia Schlanger. Okay. And she's been primarily doing the show for the last two or three years across America on NPR. She announced that she's no longer doing the show because she was inspired

to pursue her own creative projects. Oh. That she interviewed so many artists doing the show that she no longer felt that radio was a place for her. Good for her. That there were other outlets

where she wanted to spread her wings, make them wait for somebody else. Wow. Coincidentally, they found a new host to replace her at the CBC. Do we still do that segment about former guests resurfacing elsewhere? Because I was going to say, Sofia Yurstukovic has a new gig at the New England Sports Network covering Boston sports teams.

And that's an FOTM right there. Yeah, and there seems to be some migration to the U.S. talking about the contraction of a place like Rogers Sportsnet. Oh, yeah, Darren Millard. Darren Millard, that's who I was thinking of. After doing 100 podcasts with Dean Blundell, it did not curse his career enough. If he did one more podcast,

I might not have hired him. How was that? You listen to that, right? He was on with Dean. How was that podcast? But how was, how, how? Dean Blundell! I listened to hear him slagging you.

That, that, that was really the main motivation to tune in. And then I could tell you about it. Are we, I don't know if we should talk about this because I don't want to bring a lot of attention to it, but you, you tipped me off that

I was mentioned in the new Bullard. Can you tell me what the Bullard thing is? It's a bizarre Mike Bullard podcast hosted by a woman called Diana Davison who came to prominence. She was an advocate for Gian Gomeschi and the wrongfully accused. She's

a mysterious woman and she seems to be boosted by a bunch of Twitter trolls. They have names like Pam Mustard and Marlon Brando. I don't know who these characters are, but they're fronted by this Diana Davison doing a podcast, Untrue Crime. And it's well produced. It's not clear who's backing it

or who pays this woman or what the affiliation is. It's like cereal. And this thing is part of a podcast network with other, I guess you would call them, right leaning podcasts from Canada. One is the Quiggan Report. Okay, but there's a few others out there. This Bullard

podcast is trying to tell the truth about the ordeal that Mike Bullard podcast is trying to tell the truth about the ordeal that Mike Bullard went through. The reports about him and his relationship with Cynthia Mulligan are something that Mike Bullard has insisted repeatedly were completely untrue in the way that it was portrayed, especially by Kevin Donovan in the Toronto Star. This carried over to Shadow Lane magazine.

And you were looking into the idea that Mike Bullard would come here on Toronto Mic'd. I had him booked. It was that far. And that Mike Bullard was scheduled right in the heat of all this. He was right after the verdict or whatever. I think, yeah, right. so i remember because i told bullard he could come on if i could open the episode by reading

cynthia's victim impact statement i guess she had she wrote a statement that was shared by her friend avery haynes it was shared on facebook in its entirety and i told bullard if we do this episode i opened by reading it in its entirety which he he did not like at all, except that that was my way or the highway. But we had it all booked and scheduled. Another character in this is Sarah Boesveld, an F-O-T-M. Lovely person. She's a new mother and a great singer. A journalist for Chatelaine in the recent past.

I'm not sure if she's returning there or not. Actually, I'm not sure either because she went on a mat leave around the same time as all those layoffs, and I have no idea whether she was part of the layoffs or on mat leave, so I gotta say I don't know. Correspondence that you had with Sarah Boesfeld was entered into evidence in court

regarding the lawsuit that Mike Bullard filed against Rogers Media and Chatelaine. And according, so this podcast that we're talking about where I mentioned in like the first third of the first episode, it was bizarre because I wasn't going to listen to it. I have a lot. You listen to a thousand podcasts. I listen to like 10.

But you tipped me off that, you know, Toronto Mike is mentioned in this podcast. So, of course, I have to hear how am I mentioned. And it's revealed that Rogers entered it into evidence. That's what I mean. I listened to it twice. And Rogers entered into evidence a correspondence between me and Sarah Boesvelt. And it's just kind of strange that I'm in this thing. I just find it a little surreal.

And I don't want to say anything that's going to get you into even more legal trouble. Good. As we've experienced, the more episodes you do, the more interaction you've had with lawyers, right? Yeah. You got divorced and you had less to do with lawyers than you have as a result of this podcast. Yeah, absolutely. It started with, you know, Ross Porter.

And by the way, Walter Vinafro, I met him for the first time at that Martin Streak thing at the Opera House, speaking of the Jazz FM. I hadn't met him before. I had no idea. He worked at 102.1. I just didn't know. And I'm like,

what is Walter Vinafro doing here? But there you go. But yeah, so I just remembered that you told me about that earlier this morning before I head downtown. So yeah,

Bullard's got something going on to tell his side of the story, I suppose. Yeah, it's very sympathetic to Mike Bullard. Oh, it's very sympathetic to Mike Bowles. Oh, it's this he produced it. He was on the Saga 960 radio for a while. I guess he figured out that

they weren't really interested in paying him. That seemed to be the reason a lot of people left the station. And he's out there on Twitter. I guess he still has people who remember him. And some different light was shed on the audience that he had

for this Beyond the Mic with Mike Bullard on News Talk 1010. How intertwined with the relationship that he was having at the time. with the relationship that he was having at the time. And it was a popular enough show, but they let him go as soon as he got into this legal trouble. What did not happen was him being charged with stalking. And that was a word that he took issue with.

There was a retraction. Specifically stalking. Other activities that would be classified as criminal, but that he was not a stalker. Right. Now, not to spend any more time on Bullard than we have to, except that the Kevin Donovan headline about him, quote unquote, stalking, was shared a million, shared often.

Right. And then there was a retraction eventually in the star that really wasn't shared at all. So this seems to be how news operates. Right. The retraction is like it's there, but nobody's sharing it. It's just the original erroneous story. So I totally get why Bullard has his. Whatever it is, he's free. He can do what he wants. There's no, he should be able to have

whatever career he can cobble together. Of course. And it was a documentary podcast that he determined was a way of telling his story. Now, by the way, I can't imagine it's being listened by too many people because no one else has said, hey, Toronto Mike is mentioned early in this episode. I feel like if this was a popular podcast,

I would have received several notices. It's a full-time job, Mike, to listen to a thousand podcasts, but some move faster up the priority list than others. Okay, because I am convinced the most popular part of the 1236 episodes is the obituaries, I got to make sure we save time for that. So we got to move on to other media. Let us talk briefly.

We already mentioned that Breakfast Television turned 30 in Toronto, and that's why I had Ann Romer and David Onley and John Whaley and Steve Anthony and Bud Pierce on Toronto mics. But that same day, coincidentally, I think, there was a whole bunch of layoffs and cutbacks announced for BT. They got rid of breakfast television Montreal,

a smaller English-language market. But there was City TV through Rogers expanding into Montreal. They have to do a certain amount of local programming. And BT was the thing. It was the franchise for every city TV station. They determined it was unsustainable in Montreal. And not only that, but in other cities that they do BT, in Vancouver and Calgary,

they suspended the shows, laid some people off, and made some allusion to changes to the show where presumably it means they'll be feeding more content from Toronto, where BT has been around for 30 years, doing it more cheaply than before. Whatever they come up with, it's 30 years after they launched breakfast television. The audience, the demand for this kind of programming

is different than it used to be. When Ben Mulroney took over this Your Morning show on CTV. You know, I'm appearing on that. I should, I'm going to be on Your Morning like next week or something. Well, then I better not say anything bad about it. I just think, okay, by the time they got rid of Canada AM, it was kind of too late for too many people to notice, right? Once upon a time, the fact that Ben Mulroney was taking on a national CTV news-oriented morning show

would have been a lot bigger deal than it turned out to be, just like newspapers and magazines. I mean, you downsize the expectation about how many people are paying attention to a show like this. Here's going to 2020. to a show like this. Here's going to 2020. And they got rid of Canada AM to adjust their expectations based on the fact that the audience was going to be smaller.

And BT, as something outside of Toronto, was maybe not that much of a contender, was seen as expendable. And there was some poetic justice to the fact that at the same time they were doing a 30th anniversary thing without acknowledging Ann Romer and Kevin Frankish. Did they talk about them at all on City TV? I mean, these are former employees, a lot of bad blood there.

I don't think so. It would have been in passing. Something on Twitter, I think, these are former employees. A lot of bad blood there. I don't think so. It would have been in passing. Something on Twitter, I think, from Blair, mentioning they spun it like the current cast of BT was there all along from the launch of the show. And Roger just got there, right? Like, his seat's still cold. I don't know.

Kevin Frankish? You'll have to check in with him again to see if they paid any to the fact that he was there all those years. He listened to the 30th anniversary episode of the one with Ann Romer on Toronto Mic, and he did write on Twitter that he loved it. So Kevin Frankish approved. Okay, so Rodgers shedding staff all over the place, and not as big as the sports cutbacks,

Shedding staff all over the place, and not as big as the sports cutbacks, but breakfast television, a smaller enterprise than it used to be. I'm getting a Pulp Fiction vibe off this, that surfer rock. Do you know what we're listening to? This is, I believe, I'm listening to Viceland. The theme music from Vice News Tonight, which ran on HBO in different forms over the years,

building up to the fact they had two different Vice television shows running on HBO. One was a documentary series, a lot of foreign correspondence. That was around for five, six, seven years. And along with that was Vice News Tonight. HBO decided that it was no longer in business with Vice. The idea of getting Vice to do a nightly HBO newscast was no longer a big part of their business model. They would figure out it wasn't driving a lot of subscriptions. And now we're going to have a situation where the Viceland TV network,

which launched concurrently in the United States and Canada, was Rogers that made what was reported as a $100 million deal to pick up Vice in Canada. I don't know that it was $100 million in cash, but they had a big bet. Guy Lawrence, who was CEO of Rogers at the time,

came out with Shane Smith in their matching leather jackets, even though Guy Lawrence's one looked a little out of date. The guy was making, what, $12, $13 million a year. Couldn't he have afforded a stylish leather jacket? But no, he wore it like a dad digging it out from the back of his closet viceland the tv network which didn't really catch on as far as lifestyle shows were concerned is now pivoting to news and vice news tonight will be part of the viceland channel which if you even cared you can no longer pick up in Canada.

But they do run Vice News Tonight on the channel formerly known as MuchMusic. This comes at a time when Vice is reportedly up for sale, and it might be this newly merged ViacomCBS that is going to take the plunge and buy this company. What's not going to happen is any company paying $5.7 billion for Vice. That was a valuation at one point. And it's at the point now where they're looking to get rid of it, sell it off to a bigger network, bigger company,

report in Vanity Fair about CBS and Viacom merging and then picking up Vice. That hasn't happened yet. Maybe it will soon. But Vice doubling down on news and fewer of those lifestyle shows about weed and porn and Maddie Matheson, the dead set on life food guy.

You know Maddie? Nope. You heard of him? Never. Toronto personality? One of the things in this Vice deal was more Canadian shows than the average American channel might have had. But pivoting to news, and this happens at the same time, that a former Vice Canada music editor, Slava P, pleaded guilty in court to being involved in a cocaine smuggling conspiracy.

guilty in court to being involved in a cocaine smuggling conspiracy. And he's going to be sentenced. But he put on Twitter that, in fact, the spin that they gave in the National Post, other articles about what he was involved with, a number of people ended up in jail. This drug smuggling ring that was importing, exporting cocaine in and out of Australia, that the media spin was incorrect and that he didn't use his job to make contacts. He's disputing that this was the case.

Either way, he pleaded guilty. And this is the end of a saga, I think, that at the peak of Vice Canada was the kind of thing that you could imagine was part of the culture. Because Vice started as this underground zine from Montreal. You know the story of Vice, right? 25 years ago already, Gavin McInnes, Saroosh Alvi, Shane Smith. They started this magazine. They got some kind of government grants for people that were in drug rehab

and started this newspaper. And they told a lot of tall tales on their way to the top and built Vice up into this global organization. We'll see this fall what's around the corner for the future of Vice. But meanwhile, Viceland doubling down on news and more Vice news tonight. Well known enough as a brand that's worth something to somebody else. But definitely not what the investors were imagining, which was somebody coming along and paying $5.7 or more billion dollars. What a memory.

And that one courtesy of Ed Conroy, Retro Ontario. I help out with the Retro Ontario newsletter. Retroontario.substack.com. But it's Ed's playlist of memories that he's accumulated all these years doing Retro Ontario. You accuse me of stealing Ed Conroy from Toronto Mike. When was the last time Ed Conroy, who I consider a friend, Mr. Retro Ontario, when was the last time he was on Toronto Mike?

Okay, but he's busy with projects all over the place. You make time for Toronto Mike. You make time. That was harsher than I think you've ever been. Conroy, I'm talking to you, brother. Get your ass in here. We got some nostalgia. He's on News Talk 1010 with Jerry Agar.

Stealing my bits. Agar heard that in here. We got some nostalgia. He's on News Talk 1010 with Jerry Agar. Stealing my bits. Agar heard that stuff here. I've acclaimed Ed Conroy. He is the mirror of what I think on CFRB. He represents a libertarian viewpoint that you don't hear anybody else on News Talk 1010 really delivering like Ed Conroy can. And he gets in there with Jerry Agar. Sometimes things get intense.

Now, George Smitherman, former politician, is in there on with Ed. Oh, Cheryl will be happy. I get very excited when I hear Ed on 1010 channeling something that I know he got from me in the newsletter on Twitter. So he's a busy guy. He's all over the place. I'm at least half joking. Retro Ontario newsletter

had a couple of special editions, and one of them was about the fact that Channel 47 had signed on 40 years ago this September. Labor Day weekend was the launch of what was then known as MTV, Multilingual Television, Channel 47 Cable 4.

I have to say that I remember vividly that promo we just played. I knew I wanted to sing along. Those Bundy Clowns. I'm telling you, I knew it well. CFMT, and of course, we've had Joel Goldberg on this show many times. And if we go back far enough, in fact, there's a poster somewhere I'm going to get framed for this studio in which Jay Gold was hosting, what was it called? Do you remember the name of the music show?

Something else was the main show. There was a lot of configurations of music video shows where they kept introducing hosts that got hired away. Samantha Taylor, John Major. Right.

And the legacy of Channel 47, it also includes Saturday Night Italian movies, a lot of fond memories from young males who would tune in to these Italian movies, not speaking the language. Some great 70s cheese that always had a requisite number of topless scenes. Uh-huh. And if you weren't getting what you wanted from, like, I don't know, Revenge of the Nerds or some Porky's or something on City, late great movies on City TV, you might find what you're looking for.

The commercial breaks on Saturday Night Live were really long. There was always time to flip back and forth to the Italian movies on CFMT. The all-night show, which only lasted a year, 1980-81, with Chuck the Security Guard, maybe before your time. I don't remember it, but I've learned about it. Part of doing this 500 times is picking up these stories. And some of the commercials, including Crazy Joe. Crazy Joe's Draper.

Remember Crazy Joe? Of course, of course. Absolutely. And Crazy Joe, if you don't shop at Crazy Joe, you paid too much. These are my homeboys. Still around in the drapery business

in one form or another, but the golden age of Channel 47 cable 4 couldn't be told without a little bit of Crazy Joe. That turned 40 years. I was once on Channel 47 on CFM TV. In what capacity? Was it Lucy? No, it was a Jewish TV show that ran on Channel 47.

It was a Hebrew language show. So the kids from my class went on for the holiday of Passover and told the story and sang some songs. And then it's something that was like right out of a Krusty the Clown episode. The producer of the show gets up in front of all these kids and starts ranting at the camera about the fact they started

this show called shalom and that they didn't get any sponsors screw all of you viewers out there you didn't support us this is our last episode we're going off the air. Wow. And that was all done in Hebrew? Well, no. His rant was in English. Okay, because now, yes, please tell Retro Ontario that's the video I want to see. We'll have to find it. If it's anywhere, I remember it even more

because one of my friends at the time got in trouble. That's amazing. He was making funny faces behind the guy that was giving this impassioned speech about how nobody was supporting the show. But back in the day of Channel 47,

cable 4, it was guerrilla television later bailed out by Ted Rogers after the founder of the channel, Dan Iannuzzi, couldn't make it work

financially, but he was a visionary for sure. And check out retroenterra.substack.com for the 40th anniversary of Channel 47 and the 35th anniversary of Much Music debuting. Love you, Ed.

Love Retro Ontario. All right, everybody. Buckle up. Be ready because from the better late than never files, it is your Marcella the Chair Girl update. Tell us, Mark, what's up with Marcella? Update. Tell us, Mark. What's up with Marcella?

It might be one of the last months here on Toronto Mic'd that we listen to Marcella from the Beach Boys. Why? Because, and we heard this before, and things dragged on a bit further, but it seems like, based on an August court date, that the final court appearance for Chair girl is going to happen in October. And this time around, it was the lawyer, Greg Leslie, at this point, a reliable source for camera ready comments about his client.

She did not appear in court. She's only been there once. The rest of the time, she sent the lawyer along. But it seemed like this time around, the lawyer expressed some real exasperation about the antics of Chair Girl. While in the past, he said she had curtailed her social media activity, it sounded like this time around he was genuinely frustrated

with the fact that she keeps posting on Instagram, that she's maybe a little bit immature, and that you can't get the phones out of her hands, and when she's partying late into the night, and trust me, I see these Instagram stories. I'll wake up at 7, and there are Instagram stories from chair girls, some Toronto hotel. They're only an hour or two old. Timestamp is on.

Whatever she's up to. She's not doing a very effective job of laying low. Look, at one point, the spin was that she was contracted by a hotel in Miami to do some modeling. You got to take that claim at face value. It was even printed in Toronto Life magazine in the ego meter that they have the front there. I don't know what modeling this entailed, but that was a story and the lawyer was sticking to it.

And he imagines it for this issue where she was allegedly throwing patio furniture off a condo balcony back in the deepest, darkest of winter, that he'll be able to get her off with some sort of community service. But I'm not sure this verdict can be handed down without Marcella Zoya, chair girl, appearing in court. So here I would put this as the potential penoya, chair girl, appearing in court. So here, I would put this as the potential

penultimate chair girl update. Here on September 10th, 2019, the countdown begins to chair girl getting a sentence for what she did

and still mentioning her on social media brings out the backlash. There's something unseemly about drawing attention to this 19-year-old girl who's looking for attention. I think it's because she so desperately craves the attention that there's a sentiment to deprive her of it,

like to teach her a lesson. Look, she is just 19, but as we've talked about over the months, the first glimpse, I think, into the future of criminal behavior, allegedly. That, you know, here she is on social media being as much of an exhibitionist as she was before, even though she's still going through the courts.

This thing is going to be dragged out all through the year and that if you follow her on Instagram, Marcella CZ underscore, I think. No idea. I do not follow her. You can get endless updates from Chair Girl, Marcella Zoya, and we've followed her blunders

along the way through this year. And the lawyer is sticking with her, I guess. She must be an okay client, which means she's paying him, unless he's just doing it for the exposure. And one more opportunity, at least, to hear the Beach Boys. Marcella, which you always load that up.

You always know that we have to talk about Chairgirl here on Toronto Left. People expect it, so I'm always ready. Now, they also expect a good question from Brian Gerstein from propertyinthesix.com. Brian, of course, is a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. So are you ready, Mr. Weisblatt, for your Brian question? Yeah, do your best, Brian. Propertyinthesix.com Hi, Mark. Hi Mark, Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Galleria Condos are finally here. I'm attending the launch event today and will have

a complete pricing and floor plans. This Saturday, September 14th is the first day of sales. If you want one, call or text me at 416-873-0292. They're perfect for living in yourself or renting out. I already have investor clients of mine who are looking to buy as this project is going to be wildly successful. Mark, speaking of new condos, what are your thoughts on Condo Man, the 25-foot tall statue of a man holding a condo at another new purpose-built rental development at 101 St. Clair. What do you think the German artist Stephen Balkenhall was looking to portray? I first spotted this on Twitter. I don't live far from where this statue was erected,

which is on St. Clair, St. Clair West, just in Avenue Road, a little east of Avenue Road. Can you picture the area? There's one of the last Max Milk stores in Toronto that wasn't converted to a Circle K that's in that neighborhood. Deer Park, that part of Toronto. I saw Twitter, somebody had a picture of it, and they referenced the fact that here was an unusual sculpture outside that condo development,

the former Imperial Plaza, which was the headquarters of the Imperial Oil Building in that neighborhood. Now, an LCBO in there. There's a Longo's. There's a Starbucks on the other side. There's another Starbucks inside of the Longo's. And that this was the perfect statue

to reflect the current real estate era in Toronto. This was a white man. And if you see the statue up close, you might dispute that characterization. I don't know how white he's supposed to be. The features are a lot darker than that. But hey, it's an all-purpose Twitter pejorative to call it a white man

standing on a bunch of colored blocks holding a condo tower towards the sky. It took me a few hours to get around to walk the minutes I needed to to see this for myself. I could not believe how big this thing was. Condo man. It's like at least 25 feet high.

And that you've got this subversive social commentary permanently installed on the street directly across from the apartment building where Glenn Gould used to live. And there's a historical plaque about that. That this condo man from the German artist, I guess, is going to be there forever as a representative of the real estate madness in Toronto. So there's no truth to the rumor that this condo man is actually Brian Gerstein.

That's not true. I thought it was the likeness of Brian. No. I don't think Brian has the all we that you see in the face of this sculpture. It's not Bill Pullman. For that neighborhood, this is a long-awaited

tourist attraction. Have you ever been to the corner of St. Clair and Avenue Road? This is something to behold. It's a reason to check out the neighborhood. More business for Starbucks. People This is something to behold. It's a reason to check out the neighborhood. More business for Starbucks. People getting selfies next to this massive condo sculpture. Look, when you build a development, there's something in Toronto called Section 37 funding.

You have to put money into something, right? Public art, maybe a community center. With so many condos being built in Toronto in the past 10, 15 years, there have been a lot of beneficiaries of this money. It includes sculptures and statues and unusual things everywhere. It just seems for that neighborhood, they went all out. They just went from the most absurd thing, a meta commentary on what was going on with condos. And you can see it for yourself. I don't know if Brian Gerstein checked it out, but for the man behind propertyinthesix.com,

this is part of the culture that he's living. Absolutely. He's trying to sell Galleria Mall condos. Yeah, given the wealth of that neighborhood. We're in Deer Park, not far from Forest Hill, close to Yonge and St. Claire, where things are being redeveloped a lot.

I think the future is bright for this statue and the people will be looking for in years to come. So it was great to be able to see it for myself. You know, you see something the first time, you're amazed by being there, but then you walk by it multiple times afterwards

and it's mundane. Right. I made sure to capture on Twitter, you know, the fact, I couldn't believe how huge this thing was. And I hope other people also get to check it out. The name Condo Man reminds me of a movie I quite liked as a kid called Condor Man.

So different, different, right? This is not Condor Man. Okay. I got to get another beer. Let's hear it. Okay, what is that one? Good old Octopus. Octopus wants to fight.

Still my favorite. A fixture of Great Lakes Brewery. Thank you, GLB. Are you coming to the Toronto Mic'd listener experience on September 19th at Great Lakes Brewery? I might not be able to resist. Your plan is to record a remote episode of Toronto Mic'd. I got that correct?

Yes. In fact, the whole Opera House experience, which was fantastic, was like a dry run for this. Like, so it's basically going to be similar. I'll have four microphones set up. I'm going to take one if that's okay. People like Elvis and Hebsey and yourself will be invited to come on. I know Al Grego wants to come on.

He's from the Royal Pains. And of course, I'm going to see if Tyler Campbell, who will of course come on and talk to us as well, but if he can help me wrangle listeners, like I want it to be where I'm thinking of some of the people like, oh, I just remembered. You know what? I feel sad. We should shut it down. JJ, right, who loves the fact that we mentioned her on every episode. I think we missed her on the last one. Told me she won't be at TMLX4 because she's going to go to Montreal to hunt Pokemon. Like fictional digital overlay characters on an app.

Like, isn't that ridiculous? Listen, whatever makes her happy. Okay. But I want to hear from Livia Fomka. I'm working on saying that. Her husband. There's a whole bunch of people. Andy, Moose Grumpy.

I mean, Sheila. Like so many listeners uh rush mike i'm thinking of michael lang who i saw at the opera house a whole bunch of listeners hopefully come out uh steph wilkinson maybe rick c and oakville they all come out i'm trying to name the uh tens of thousands of listeners one by one here but uh come out and jump on a microphone and we you know find out we can find out who are you, when did you discover the show, where are you from, just a little bit of fun banter back and forth. I think this is going to be

a tremendous two and a half to three hour episode with all of you. So come, come. And I hope you come too, Mark. Okay, if I'm there, I'll be hiding out.

Well, bring your buddy Manny because I would love to put Manny on the ring. You're not supposed to mention his name. I'm not going to mention anything more than just the name Manny. There's lots of Mannys out there. Are there actually? He's the only Manny I I would love to put Manny on the list. You're not supposed to mention his name. I'm not going to mention anything more than just the name Manny.

There's lots of Mannys out there. Are there actually? He's the only Manny I've ever met. Is that a popular name? He might be the only one in town. Okay, we won't talk anymore. I'll see if I can edit that out. Okay, so tell me about your thoughts because I'm curious in your thoughts.

I did write about this on torontomike.com. But what do you think of the new logo for the Toronto Public Library? but what do you think of the new logo for the Toronto Public Library? You know, it was getting a lot of grief on this graphic design logo critic website called Brand New, and whenever a new logo launches, they tend to be on it. And I think they were quicker on the draw in acknowledging the rebrand of the Toronto Public Library. What seems to be going on here is what a lot of brands have had to face as far as a challenge, which is to create a logo that is flexible enough to use

in all platforms, right? On social media, that you can have the logo show up properly on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, that it's clear enough, basic enough that people will know what it is, and at the same time work for all the other branding purposes and the signage in the library. And they wanted to replace what was an older logo, the first Toronto Public Library logo after Amalgamation, which was more recent than I thought. It was from 2002.

All the branches of the Toronto Public Library, they amalgamated with the rest of the city in 1998, but it took a few more years to get a logo out of it. It had these arches on the logo that didn't make sense to a lot of people, but presumably they were a reflection of the arches in Nathan Phillips Square. Can you visualize what I'm talking about?

Of course, yep, yep. But maybe the form of the logo was a little intense. It didn't translate as well into the digital sphere that most logos now have to do. The criticism of the logo centered on the fact that it had a colon after the letters TPL, right? Is that supposed to represent the fact there are so many things going on at the library

that TPL is just an overture to all the services it can provide? I think it's exactly like what Kentucky Fried Chicken did, right? They wanted to stop being associated with fried foods, so they became KFC, right? But this is essentially, I think they're trying to stop being like, only books. People think, oh, the Toronto Public Library, that's where you get books.

And of course, that is where you get books. I get all my books from the Toronto Public Library. Yeah, but in other ways, it's overloaded because they're talking about the fact that, and it's not just in Toronto, that the demand for digital stuff through the library is so great that they've had to throttle how much stuff you can take out

because somebody is paying for every movie that you stream through the library, every movie that you stream through the library, every magazine that you read on the library website. Even if it's pennies, it adds up, and you can't, on the hoopla service, they limited the number of things that you can take out. They're trying to keep this under control. That also means less of a budget for books. So if you're taking out printed books out of the library, and I'm good for at least 50 books a month. Wow.

That cycle through me at the TPL. How do you have time when you're listening to all those podcasts? I'm not reading every single book. I just need to see what's going on. Okay, because I'm good for like two or three books a month. Again, you're prolific. I've got 100 out, a hundred on hold 50 circulating at a time better get my numbers right somebody might think i have some special permission take out more books in your lap 50 is a maximum number of books that you can take out and i'm

usually at that number wow 50 and 100 holds and more things that i've saved i find you fascinating i find you fascinating and then sometimes you have to get things through e-books. They even cap that, right? Audio e-books. It's kind of interesting to think about the fact that they only have a number of e-books available.

Well, the e-books, there's a punitive pricing to them which are trying to reduce. The publishers want a lot of money to be able to distribute an e-book. You think this thing flows for free like a tap, but no, they want to get paid. Copy and paste and, oh, we need more.

Okay, copy and paste, you know what I mean? Because it's digital, bits and bytes. Yeah, so never enough time to take this all in. Look, for some reason... But you like the new logo? I was going to say, I reserved an audio edition of Jordan Peterson's first book, Maps of Meaning.

And I don't know how long I waited. Maybe a year? I don't know how long it took for me to come through in the queue. And then I get the alert that this thing is coming in. I can listen to 30 hours of Jordan Peterson reading from this really dense book that he wrote before he got famous. And I'm thinking, do I have 30 hours, even at double speed, 15 hours to take in Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson? That's my latest challenge today. The logo's all right.

What does it matter? I mean, it doesn't affect my library use at all, what the logo turns out to be. I don't hate it. I know a lot of people want to hate it. Well, they have to get it out there, which means a lot of new signs on the library branches. There was some curiosity. I put a link to it in the newsletter

the day that the new logo came out, and it was the Perth-Dupont branch of the Toronto Public Library, somewhere in that north of Washington, a bluer neighborhood. You're not too far from Galleria Ball, Perth DuPont. Yeah, somewhere in the middle. And they still had the old Toronto Library logo, the one from before amalgamation.

It was still up there until just maybe a couple of years ago. So even the library tries to push it forward and get their new logos out there, but it's not the same rush. It's not like, you know, one day you went to bed and all the supermarkets changed from Dominion to Metro. The library won't mind if they're a little slower on the uptake to get the new logo out there

and on all of the library cards. But yeah, simplification, that's where it's at. My favorite one out of the simplified logos was a Canadian opera company. They came out with a new logo. This might be seven or eight years ago. It looks like a hockey team. They went from this idea of doing anything too artistic for the sake of opera, just like a real solid COC, Canadian Opera Company, something that you could imagine

like wearing on a jersey while skating around to signify opera. And that's where it's going in terms of logos. And as far as that trend is concerned, I think Toronto Public Library was a little slow. I know you have an argument about this on torontomike.com. We do. And if you want to see that argument, go to torontomike.com. I've made an executive decision, Mark,

that we're not going to rush through the obituaries like we always do. So we've got one hour to do the obituaries. I hope you're okay with this executive decision. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm guitar solo... Hmm Hmm Friends are warmer than gold When you're old Keeping them is harder Than you might suppose Lately I tend to make strangers

Wherever I go Some of them were once people I was happy to know Mounting mileage on the dash Double darkness falling fast I keep stressing. Press. We'd be down. Some, some strata feels like something really wrong has happened.

I confess. I'm barely hanging on All my happiness is gone All my happiness is gone It's all gone somewhere beyond. All my happiness is gone. Well, that was a little intense. But here we are with covering all of the deaths that happened since I was last here. Not only covering August, but also part of September. And this song, All My Happiness Is Gone by the Purple Mountains, All My Happiness Is Gone by the Purple Mountains, a song that came out earlier this summer, just before the death of the guy whose voice we heard rock world at the time, you would have known about the Silver Jews.

I wouldn't say that was my taste in music, but the people that were into this were really into it, really into David Berman, a guy who decided about 10 years ago, so past the peak of the attention that he was getting, that he was retired from music because he wanted to do it as an appeasement for his father. lobbyist working for tobacco companies and anti-environmental groups that he had made all this money that his son considered dirty and that he needed to lay low.

This is an eccentric reason to give up your music career. But it wasn't just a shtick because he held to it. He disappeared for a while and resurfaced in 2019 with Purple Mountains. A few weeks after his record

came out, we learned that Dave Berman died of suicide at age 52. Heavy stuff, huh? Especially when the song is entitled All My Happiness Is Gone. It's like when Kurt Cobain took his own life and you realize I think I wrote a song called

I Hate Myself and Want to Die. Right? Yeah, David Berman, he went through a lot, took his own life and the big rock death of the late summer 2019. I'm unfamiliar with this song

and the Purple Mountains and I wasn't sure I had the song loaded up, but I didn't listen to it beforehand. It is quite the intro he's got before it kicks in. Man, knowing that he took his own life when you listen to it, it's

heavy stuff, man. For those who are new here, we go over the people who died for the last part of the 1236 episodes of Toronto Mike. And just to clarify, this is not only my own morbid fascination.

I grew up reading torontomike.com. A website where celebrity deaths have been noted on a regular basis for all the years that you've been doing the website. And as I was reminded on Friday, a number of people learned that Martin Streak had passed away from torontomike.com. And that was 10 years ago. But I want to say it's not my morbid

fascination as well, but maybe it is. I don't know. I just think there's nothing as final as death. And if I don't write about it, who will? I think it's a good common ground. And the randomness of the list of people who died in the past month gives us an excuse to pay tribute to them and also cover some topics that we wouldn't otherwise discuss on the podcast. I promise Cause it's cold in here And I wish it was hot This thing's broken It's leaking from the fall

And I'm fractured From the fall And I want to go home It takes two when it used to take more It takes two when it used to take only one Well, my money's no good When I'm up to no good No good ever comes from it, honest I got a really good heart

I just can't catch a break If I could, I'd treat you like you wanted me to I promise That I'm fractured in the fall. And I want to go home. I'm fractured in the fall. And I want to go home This is Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, a song called Two from Easy Tiger.

Hard to keep up on all the albums that Ryan Adams put out over the years until he was recently canceled as a result of allegations in the New York Times article. But at his prime, as far as being a prolific artist, he worked with a backing band called the Cardinals, and a guitarist in the band was Neil Casale. And he died at age 50 at the end of august uh a few albums with ryan adams and also uh worked with

chris robinson the guy who was in the the black crows um him ryan adams worked on an album with willie nelson around that time and an unsung hero of rock and roll, but someone who was out there delivering it on tracks like that, and another rock and roll suicide, Neil Casale, dead at 50. Ryan Adams, you into his music? I mean, he's put out a lot of albums. Hard to keep up, keep track.

Here's what I know about Ryan Adams. He shares the same birthday as Brian Adams. And was married to Mandy Moore, the actress on that show. What's that show? I can't. Oh. Too many beers. I can't remember.

This Is Us. This Is Us. This Is Us. And she was one of the people who alleged that his treatment of women derailed her own singing career. They were married for a number of years along the way. And he says that the news reports about him were exaggerated and that he's planning a comeback in the future. But along the way here, it's guitarists for a few years who killed himself at the end of August.

And as far as losses are concerned, somebody we might not have thought about, I thought worth mentioning here on our obituary roundup for Toronto Mic. What's next? We better cut to the chase. We don't want to hear three or four minutes of this familiar song. You remember when this came out, though.

When it was a hit? Yeah, I do. This was the peak time of much music and video singles and Toronto Rocks, not only a hit on radio, but on television, too. The Kinks and Come Dancing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Patchy as all hell Well who died associated with this song

Was a keyboardist Who we're hearing It's Ian Gibbons He joined the Kinks later on in their career When they had this renaissance Appeared on those Kinks albums on in their career, when they had this renaissance, appeared on those Kinks albums, late 70s through the 1980s, when the Kinks had that resurgence. Here was a band that was part of the original British invasion

that 20 years later was still a somewhat contemporary act, delivering the hits. But the two brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, are always at odds with one another, and it wasn't long into the 90s that they packed it in. But every so often you'll read a headline about a Kinks album, a comeback, one last hurrah from these guys. But they won't be doing it with their keyboardist from the 1980s era, Ian Gibbons.

I meant to rip Dick in a Box. Everybody knows Dick in a Box from The Lonely Planet. Is that who we credit Dick in a Box to? Lonely Island. Lonely Island, right. Lonely Planet is something else. The Lonely, yeah. And it's Andy Samberg might be the most famous guy there,

but there's three of them, I believe, in Lonely Island. But I didn't rip Dick in a Box, so just close your eyes and remember the wonderful Dick in a Box. Well, here was a woman named Catrice Barnes who died in August at age 56. And she was originally an R&B performer with her brother in a pop duo called Juicy. They have a song called Sugar Free,

which was like a reaction single to Juicy Fruit by Matume. This is some deep cuts here. I love this stuff. From the world of R&B. Funny thing is, when the New York Times ran an obituary for Catrice Barnes, they would not mention the title of her most famous song, which she was very proud of, by the way. She went to collect an Emmy along with Andy Samberg, The Lonely Island.

What did they call it? Just D and then... Dick in a box. They wouldn't print that. A euphemism, a description for it. And she worked with Saturday Night Live, a lot of those SNL digital shorts, memorable stuff that involved her music.

They're fantastic, the digital shorts. So she lost her battle against breast cancer age 56 and another unsung hero of rock and roll, Catrice Barnes. Now Mark Stanson. What are you talking about? I'm taking swigs of my GLB. Wondering why I didn't eat something a little more

and precious before I showed up here today. Ironically, I'm actually picking up the five-year-old at the YMCA the minute we finish recording. To be unhappy I don't think Jarvis thinks of the YMCA in the way that this song thought of the YMCA. I think you're right. I hope you're right. I'm sure you will find many ways

to have a good time. It's fun to stay at the YMCA. It's fun to stay at the YMCA. They have everything for young men to enjoy. You can hang out with all the boys. It's fun to stay at the YMCA! It's fun to stay at the YMCA! You can get yourself clean.

You can have a good meal. You can do whatever you feel. Young men! No one from the village people died, but who we lost in August was the co-founder of the village people, a guy named Henri Bellolot, who died at age 82. And even though you'd think that he rode off into the sunset, that we would not have known who this guy was for how many years, it was in the mid-2010s that he got a bunch of headlines again. What happened?

A lawsuit from Victor Willis, the original cop of the Village People, the original cop of the Village People, saying that Henri Bellolot stole the credit from him for a whole bunch of Village People songs, including YMCA. Now, this had to be litigated, go through the courts, to prove that, in fact, his co-writing credit was a scam and that YMCA, amongst a bunch of other songs, came from the mind of Victor Willis. And he ended up winning credit on the songs. When it came to YMCA, completely determining that it was his idea. who started the Village People with Jacques Morali

in the legendary movie Can't Stop the Music. You ever seen that one with Steve Guttenberg? Calls himself Jacques Moral. Kind of anglicized it. A Brooklyn Jewish thing, although I think both these guys were also Jewish. That YMCA, while Henri claimed that it came from his mind, he translated the lyrics from French.

The village people cops stepped up all those years later to say, no, this was me. This was my idea. All these guys were straight, by the way. Is that right? Yeah, well, pretty much. I would have lost the bar bet. Not Jacques Morali, but generally this was Is that right? Yeah. I would have lost the bar bet. Not Jacques Morali,

but generally this was a burlesque act of heterosexual men who were catering to the gay community. But look what happened with the village people. This was the biggest act in the world for a minute. The album after album, they put out these four albums, rapid succession.

Ironically, this Henri Bellelot, he was from Morocco, and it was Casablanca Records that was the label that put out Village People in their heyday. And look, he made so much money off these songs. And even though they kind of lost their footing, that no one wanted to hear disco anymore.

I mean, look, this song endured all those years. That the Village People as a retro disco act was as sustainable as ever, still is today. People who remember when they were happening in the late 70s, despite all the disco demolition backlash. He expired

age 82, an infamous figure to some, given that he took credit for the songs, but a deep dive into the village people is inspiring. And there's a movie that was filming in Montreal this summer about the history of Casablanca Records.

And that encompasses a whole bunch of acts, Donna Summer and Kiss. And here was this legendary record label and the impact it had on pop culture. I want to see how I do saying his name. Henri Bellolo. I just assume that's correct. It's an easy one.

Last time, okay, we had last month in that episode we were trying to figure out the pronunciation of, what was it? Wow Gilberto. And we had Mike, Mike Moniz. Right, he's Portuguese. He sent you an audio file to set us straight on what it was.

I was so drunk by the end of that episode. I can't even remember who got what right or wrong. I'm glad you remembered that. Mike Moniz, I hope I'm saying his name right, listens to every episode and often gives feedback. He was giving feedback today about something I said to Ellen Roseman about getting ripped off by these cable companies. But we can all relate to that.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. I wish I had any memory of what we went through in that heavy, tortured episode of Toronto Mike. I loved that episode, by the way. Ignore the haters. Why are we playing My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Oscar Peterson, Mike? Because I recently tweeted the picture. I think I wrote O-P-O-G or something

like that because he's a lakeshore village guy and he's memorialized not far from the TMDS studios. Is that why? Oh, this is an awesome album. Night Train by Oscar Peterson. This was full of hits.

Back to back to back to back what what what was the deal with oscar peterson this month why was he in the news he was the favorite artist on spotify the account the public account that belonged to the late financier jeffrey epstein Dear Jeffrey Epstein, my heart belongs to daddy. So we can say definitively that Jeffrey Epstein did have a decent taste in music. We'll give him that. Just the fact that Oscar Peterson, I don't know what went on in his personal life, but he was not somebody who would associate with scandal.

But if you leave this kind of legacy behind, eventually, I guess you'll come up in one of these stories. So Jeffrey Epstein, who allegedly died, allegedly by his own hand, at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City at age 66. It was the website insider.com that managed to unearth the fact that he had a Spotify account that you could see in public.

And in the playlists he made are the songs that he saved. Oscar Peterson! His favorite artist. And the irony that one of those songs, if you know the story of Jeffrey Epstein, what business he seemed to be in, My Heart Belongs to Daddy,

going down in history as one of Jeffrey Epstein's favorite tracks. And maybe more infamy than Oscar Peterson would have expected to leave behind a dozen years after he died. Gotcha. Maybe. I told you that I'll always keep you I told you that Now tell me how you'd feel If I told you that I'm Pretty much everyone associated with this song is now dead.

What do you think about that? Really just an excuse to drag this one out by Whitney Houston and George Michael, If I Told You That. Did you see that documentary on Whitney Houston that was made a couple of years ago? Is that on Netflix? I have not yet seen that one. It's really intense. Some good filmmaking techniques in there.

Whitney Houston, If I Told You That, had a writing credit, maybe co-writing credit by a guy named LaShawn Daniels, who died in a car crash in South Carolina. And through a producer named Rodney Jerkins, a dark child. His fingerprints were on a bunch of songs that people know. The Boy Is Mine by Brandy and Monica. Which was number one for 100 years. I don't know a long time. If You Had My Love

the first hit by Jennifer Lopez. Say My Name by Destiny's Child. By far one of the biggest Beyonce songs. You Rock My World by Michael Jackson. That was his comeback single in 2001. Right. Don't know how successful

that was. And a whole bunch of other artists. They worked with the Spice Girls. They did a track for another one from Whitney Houston. That was a huge one. That was It's Not Right But It's Okay. That was one of her last hits while she was still with it. 1998.

And LaShawn Daniels, the person to remember this month for the fact that he died at age 41. What? That's a car crash. That's too bad. All these people died

before their time because of course and it's kind of sad when you think, okay, Whitney passes away in the fashion she dies and Whitney's daughter dies far too young. And George Michael. Oh, George Michael. I remember being here the day after, two days after George Michael died.

It was Christmas. Christmas Day, I believe, George Michael had a heart attack, a fatal heart attack. I remember Elvis crying about it. Yeah, I mean. So here's one track to remember, Fatal heart attack. I remember Elvis crying about it. Yeah. Here's one track to remember. A jam that figured you might as well load.

And remember Sean Daniels. A name that you don't know, but left an imprint on a lot of songs that you do. I actually don't remember this song. I wonder if I thought... There was a period of time where I thought I was too cool for anything like this. Like, not...

I'm too cool for this. So I feel like I ignored a whole bunch of pop music for a while before I realized I'm not cool at all. Like, who am I to be ignoring these pop music songs?

But I miss this one. They're all gone, but we're here to remember them. That debut album was a big deal to me. 87, I want to say, or 86 or 87. I don this one. They're all gone, but we're here to remember them. That debut album was a big deal to me. 87, I want to say, or 86 or 87. I don't know. Whitney Houston, 85. Is that right?

Not long after Wham and George Michael became a big deal. And her follow-up was called Whitney, right? Like she had a self-titled. Whitney Houston and Whitney. Right. Just to confuse you. What's that about? Things got a bit dark after a certain point in time. Whitney Houston and Whitney. Right. Just to confuse you. What's that about? Things got a bit dark after a certain point

in time. It's covered in that documentary. That's a good one. Find that if you have not. I will dig it up here. And then I want to talk... Here's a... Here's a big one here. Life is such a sweet insanity The more you learn, the less you know In the heart of every family There's a love that starts by letting go

Step by step and day by day We do not fall away Step by step and day by day, reaching up all the way Hand in hand we face our fear, together through the years We get closer, through happiness and tears And in our hearts we share, the laughter and the sadness, a special kind of happiness, together through the years. Life is such a sweet insanity, it's nice to know your friends are near. In the heart of every family, there's a love that's waiting there for you through the years. Now everybody would be talking about Valerie Harper in terms of the show Rhoda

and Mary Tyler Moore before that, but because we are still lost in the 1980s, it was important if nobody else, Toronto Mike acknowledges the sitcom that was originally called Valerie. You remember this one.

This is my introduction to Valerie Harper. Is this show not, yeah, if you're of a certain age this is when you learn the actress exists is this show. Yeah, this is when you learn that this woman was famous enough they would build this fairly generic family sitcom all around her and look it was show after

show after show like this it used to be on american television in the mid 80s these programs are interchangeable i don't know why did some become a hit while others did not? But Valerie caught on mostly because of one of her sons on the show, Jason Bateman. Who was on, if I hope my memory's right on this one, was on Silver Spoons. Silver Spoons. There was another one called It's Your Move. It was kind of like a contract star for NBC.

His sister was, of course, starring in a big, can't miss, was after Cosby show or something, Family Ties. Yeah, yeah, Justine Bateman. So that, I think, raises stock even more that there was those actual family ties between Jason and Justine Bateman. Valerie was on this hit show when she was holding out for more money, got into this contract dispute over Valerie. The show was called Valerie.

How could this show carry on without Valerie? Ask the Conners about that. And the contract dispute reached an impasse, and they fired Valerie from the Valerie show. Now, I remember, because eventually this show became known as the Hogan family. But there was a gateway to that where

it was Valarie, then it was Valarie's family, then it was the Hogan family. It's like mom has died, but the laughs go on. They killed her off, right? One very special episode where you lament the fact that she's not coming back.

That she has left the material world and then everybody moves on. It's back to the antics that we love this family for as their aunt moves in. Sandy Duncan. And then Valerie's family became the Hogan family

and this show was on long enough for Jason Bateman to become a grown-up, and the first two seasons, Valerie was in there, but she didn't come back for a third. And, yeah, same sort of thing happened with Roseanne. But in that show, her kids are older. You'd think, okay, they don't need the the grieving process it's not as intense but it's just television i'm surprised characters could move on right normally you know when shows write a character off the the trope is they put them on a bus right i think the character gets on a bus and

you never hear from that character again but they actually decided to kill off valerie harper like that's uh it's hard to come back from that. That's, that's kind of amazing for this family, light family sitcom that they did that. I want to, because we're talking about, you know, people of a certain age, you know, our age, we learn about Valerie Harper from Valerie, not from what made her famous, which was the Mary Tyler Moore show, right? Similarly, I want to say I first saw and learned about Cloris Leachman from Facts of Life because when Edna Garrett's character left the show, it was Cloris Leachman who took over at the store, whatever it was, out of their heads or whatever they called it.

And so it's kind of be fun, I think at some point, if we actually try to remember examples of like stars who were already famous for something much, much, much bigger, but you are of an age where, you know, them best from something they did after. Cloris Leachman is still alive at age 93.

Yes. And she, she's a pops up now. And then I think in stuff still, yeah, good for her. Like, uh,

I know she was a voice on The Simpsons a few times, but yeah, good for Cloris. And Valerie Harper, a lot of deep, complicated battles with cancer. She was given only a little while left to live a decade ago, and she hung on, made it to age 80. But another big celebrity death on August 30th. Valerie Harper dead at 80. Now, the character she was famous for playing on All in the Family,

which they spun off into Rhoda, was of Jewish descent. Yeah, that was Mary Tyler Moore. Oh, yeah. What do I keep saying? Well, the same stable of shows. Okay, you're right. Mary Tyler Moore. So it was the idea that she was extremely Jewish on the show, but not in real life. Debates over this, even to this day,

is it appropriate for cultural appropriation purposes for somebody on TV to say they're Jewish? I think the Jews are okay with this, I think. Because most of the producers and writers would have been Jewish. The most agrarious example of this is not that at all.

I think it's Short Circuit, where Fisher Stevens plays a man of South Asian descent complete with accent, and by all accounts, Fisher Stevens is not such. Yeah, that's a bit much. And that was, what was it? I can't remember if Short Circuit was filmed here or just Short Circuit 2.

Maybe it was just Short Circuit 2. Well, look, the star of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is also not Jewish. I didn't know that. So it continues to this day. Do you like that show? Because that's a show that... No, I couldn't stand it. Yeah, but that's a show that I was told was hilarious, and I gave it

such a good shot. I think I'm pretty current with it, actually. And it wasn't bad. There were parts of the first season where I thought it was pretty good, but it was not nearly as advertised. I was disappointed because the bar was so high for that particular program. But, yeah. But, what was I going to say?

Oh, I had so many things to say. Well, it was also Nancy Walker, right? She was also cosplaying as a Jewish mother on Rhoda. And look, one of our icons, Julie Kavner, later of The Simpsons.

Marge Simpson. There was some speculation that at one point, Valerie Harper, she had to start a GoFundMe for her cancer treatment. And I read somewhere, guessing that it was Julie Cavner that stepped in to help her as, you know, really the most successful financially of anybody

that would have been associated with that show was still around. Right, yeah. And again, the first time I saw her was on the Tracy Ullman show, which spawned off, of course, that's where the Simpsons were. There you go.

All these people were having a party on TV before you were old enough to know. And yet the legacy was such, the impact that they made. Everybody watched the big three American networks in the 1970s. And if you were a star from then, if you die now, definitely a lot of memories, a lot of tributes star from that. If you die now, definitely a lot of memories, a lot of tributes to

someone like Valerie Harper. It would be interesting to note, like, who's the biggest star from something else that you only knew from a later project? That's something I'm going to take offline and noodle, because there's a long list of people I know from their,

their later stuff. Fire up Toronto, Mike.com on that one. I just remembered, you mentioned we should talk about Ramey the minx. Are we going to have enough time for this one? I had a thought like, do we do the Ramey thing in the obituaries here?

Like, she's alive and well. Okay. Yes, she's alive and well. We'll get that. Note that right off the top. And before we could be up a few more deaths and I'm excited. we might hit our two-and-a-half-hour target,

which is exciting to me. So, Rami Dominguez, did you recently, did you tweet? Because I forgot. Okay, Rami was a guest on the show, and I used to read her all the time. Like, we're going way back now. A pioneering blogger in Toronto. At a time when, I think, no one quite understood this idea of online narcissism. The idea that you would post selfies, document yourself in different situations.

Here was this young woman, Lauren White, Ramey the Minx, who made a splash on Blogger. Because no one had ever really seen this before. The number of people that were using this service for this reason were few and far between. Okay, so at the very beginning, so Toronto Mike as a blog starts in like November 2002. And already going, not for very long, but already existing was RaymeTheMinks.com.

And I remember it was one of the rare examples of like a regularly updated Toronto blog that existed. And I remember it was one of the rare examples of like a regularly updated Toronto blog that existed. So I was quite fascinated by that and I'd follow her antics or whatever. And that's why I invited her on Toronto Mic'd because, of course, I need to talk to this person I'd read. And I remember before you

and I had ever communicated, you, was it iWeekly? Did you bring Ramy into, that's as close to bringing her to me? Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Somewhere down the line. Okay, but you were... She came up. I mean, look.

You figure, okay, there's sort of some wild character out there, and every city needs a few of them. And so let's try and give her more attention in different ways. I love that. Bring her into the mainstream a little bit more. I'm still into this idea.

But back then, there were few and far between because there wasn't Twitter. There wasn't Facebook. How would you find these people? They would have to not only start up a website of their own, but post on it regularly enough that you would get to know them. And added with Ramy the Minx

was the extra level of explicit nudity, which would have drawn today. I think that's really, they used to say, it's mundane. I think like back then you would think this is far out today. It's every day. People are sending nudes all over the place.

Hopefully not in a way that turns up on Google, but it was radical thinking back then. So whatever she's done between then and now, I'm not sure she's had some job working in advertising agencies, influencers. Well, that's it. So that's why when she was on Toronto Mike,

I was fascinated by what she was trying to do, but it seemed like she was a little bit of a pie in the sky. It felt like... Okay, get her back. I think she has something to say after all this time. And she took the summer off her blog that's so for the first time yeah in almost 20 years she was laying low and she came back ramey the minx.com that's where i was going with this is that i you're the one who tweeted the link to the new blog update right you retweeted it

yeah i see ramey the minx toronto blog pioneer. Give her some love. I completely lost touch with what she was up to, forgot about her for a long stretch, and then you tweeted that, so I clicked over. Well, now she's a middle-ager like all the rest of us, but we got to know her online when she was still, I don't know, 19, 20, 21? She was the original chair girl. That's right.

Without the criminal charges. And the saline. Okay, so I was surprised to see, like, since I think late 2018, so like, I don't know, like nine months or so, I saw precisely like two, maybe three blog updates in the last like nine months, which I found surprising because she was so prolific. So I just wanted to say that I'm glad she's still alive. Let's get back to who else died.

Otherwise, people will think we're memorializing her. She's got a lot of life ahead of her. Who else? Who else is in the obituary list? I want to talk about this gentleman, but I got two clips here. So how do I start? Let's hear his voice here. Speaking of Santa, let's hear this. this twas the night before christ, and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. And Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap had just settled our heads for a long winter's nap. When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter Away to the window I flew like a flash Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the luster of midday to objects below When what to my wondering eyes should appear But a miniature sleigh and eight

tiny reindeer with a little old driver so lively and quick I knew in an instant it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came. And he whistled and shouted and called them by name.

Now Dasher! Now Dancer, now Prancer and Vixen, on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen, to the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now dash away, dash away, dash away all. What a voice. Cary Stratton, This one really hurts, too. Having listened to him all these years on the new classical FM, CFMX radio. Just like such a robust voice.

One of the great characters. We talk so much about CFNY and the personalities that were there. The eclectic, eccentric bunch of people. CFMX, classical 96, when it was based in Coburg, had its own bunch of personalities too. And this guy, Cary Stratton, was also a symphony conductor. Do you want to hear his last? He was one of the great people on the air.

It was so sad that he died from ALS. Yeah, what else do you got? Let's hear some more, Cary. Okay, this must have been when he was sick, when he was struggling with ALS, yeah. What else have you got? Let's hear some more, Kerry. Okay, this must have been when he was sick, when he was struggling with ALS. A.K.A. Lou Gehrig's disease. Yeah, awful. I guess we've already rebranded that one.

Ice bucket challenge. Camille Saint-Saëns was wracked with pains when people addressed him as Saint-Saint. I would never look forward to a day upon day just sitting at home and I'm having to reinvent myself so for my third act I still create concerts and I still participate in whatever way I can. Last summer we learned that Kerry was facing this horrible disease and then in November he had to step down from hosting his daily live afternoon drive show, The Oasis. But he still wanted to conduct,

and he still wanted to be involved in the classical music community. Kerry is passing the baton to his protege, Vincent Chang. It's truly an honor. Now, he didn't last very long in this third act, sadly. His afternoon drive radio show went to Mark Wigmore, F-O-T-M. Correct.

I got that right? Yep. I have. And Mark Wigmore on now, afternoon drive on New Classical FM, part of Moses Nimer's Empire. And this guy was just so integral to the station. I am so illiterate when it comes to classical music.

I don't know what I'm ever going to catch. I want to be a classical music expert. You know, here I can tell you the difference between Brandy and Monica, but I don't know who wrote one symphony or another. And you tune into this guy, Cary Stratton. He'd make you feel more intelligent just by listening to him. And he died this summer, age 66. And what this ALS did, just the ravages of the disease,

that even though he pledged to stick around, he couldn't conduct anymore, but he could be a narrator in concert and do his radio show once a week. But we lost him one of the Toronto Radio Greats. Good morning, starshine. The earth says hello. This is a real obtuse connection to the death that came up over the summer in late August. Beverly D'Angelo is who's singing this version from the soundtrack of the movie version of Hair.

Made a movie ten years after the stage play. She's still with us, but she was also a fantastic voice on The Simpsons as Laureline Lumpkin. And yet generally more an actress than a singer. But as she got one of her early breaks, and she's talked about in different articles and podcasts, even the Gilbert Godfrey podcast recently. I heard it recently. She was great. She talked about how, as an 18-year-old,

she moved to Toronto, and she was a singer at the Zanzibar Tavern. And she would come up on stage in a cocktail dress and say, all right, boys, it's swing time. And then some of these go-go dancers would get on trapezes and swing around her while she sang on the stage of the Zanzibar. Who died recently was David Cooper. And he was the founder of the Zanzibar from a family that was on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto.

Really the royalty of Toronto strip clubs. He owned the Zanzibar. His brother owned the Brass Rail. And their father owned the Bermuda Tavern. You might not remember that one, but it turned into a male strip club, a gay male strip club called Remington's, hung on to that license until the development got

in the way. I figured this one out from the obituary listing. I might have been the one that broke this story on Twitter, by the way. I believe it. Regardless, the Toronto Star picked it up. Terrific article that came out of it. Writing about the history of how this guy started with

Zanzibar, kind of a rock and roll club, and Beverly D'Angelo hooked up with that scene with Romping Ronnie Hawkins and what became the band and the legacy of rock and roll on Yonge Street. But topless dancers were the way to go for this. David Cooper went to Times Square. He had the vision for this place. His son, Alan, took it over in more recent years. But it's been pretty candid about

the fact that with all the condo development going on in the neighborhood, the Zanzibar is not long for this world. It was a Bloomberg Businessweek article about Toronto strip clubs, and he said, yeah, he's probably getting out of it soon. Might have been a case like Honest Ed's. They was hanging on to it, the legacy of his dad.. Didn't want to disappoint him by selling the place. I don't know how much longer we'll have the big neon sign of the Zanzibar. The clue was they put an RIP Davey C, founder of the Zanzibar. I matched it with a death listing for him. And when I called this bouncer, I don't know, the monkey-suited guy who worked the door for the Zanzibar,

he was really nervous. He didn't want to let me know that this was definitely the guy who died. He didn't want to put on Twitter that somebody died who was still alive. But then in the Toronto Star, it turns out that his son Alan and his grandchildren, they love the fact. There's no better story. My grandpa started the Zanzibar. I don't know where these strippers came from over the years.

This might get a bit unseemly, but generally when it comes to, as we look in the rearview mirror, the glory days of striptease, before the table dancing and lap dancers came in, the Zanzibar was a place to be, and it's still standing, and so is the Brass Rail. It's not easy to get a strip club license.

They're not giving out anymore. There's no new strip clubs opening. And combined with the fact that it's kind of outmoded as a business model, I don't know how much longer we'll have strip clubs in downtown Toronto. Go to the Zanzibar while you can, I guess. Have you ever imagined being there? Now's your chance. You're probably going to walk out with a lighter wallet

than the one that you walked in with. And listen, this stuff is now for all genders. That's women stripping on the stage. But I think enough women have been to the Zanzibar, ironically, in recent years. From what I know, most of their business now is women, checking out this novelty on Yonge Street. For a couple of years in the mid-'90s,

my first wife and I lived across the street from the Brass Rail. And were you enlightened enough to go in there together? You know, I never went inside once. That's not part of the story. Now, we're going to close with one more death, and this one, just like the Cary Stratton death, hit you right in the feels, so to speak. This one got me, so let's get to it. Thank you. Here we are.

The Friendly Giant intro. Now, the Friendly Giant died in the year 2000. Who died a day or two before recording is a guy named Rod Coney Bear, who was right in the trenches there with Bob Holm, the friendly giant, for 27 years, 1958 to 1985. Now, let me just play a little bit so we can hear, because I'm sure you're getting to this detail,

but Rod Coneybear played, he was the voice of Jerome and Rusty. Jerome the giraffe and Rusty the rooster? That's correct. So let's just hear a little bit of that and then we'll come back to talk about Rod. Like Scottish bagpipe. That's good, like a bagpipe effect.

Is there still more? Got one little one left there. Ah. And this is quite different. We had an Irish one and a Scottish one. This is Swedish. Swedish. A clap dance.

Clap dance. We don't have anyone to clap, but we can play it. Do you want to dance this, do you think? Oh, I might. If Rusty can play, you should be able to dance. I suppose. I think so. I've got a couple of hoo be able to dance. I suppose. I think so. I've got a couple of hooves that might work anyhow.

Okay. Here we go. It's really hard to believe that we were kids at a time when this would pass for children's entertainment. As you know, I see a lot of children's entertainment these last two decades because of my kids. And it's all so frenetic, and this would never pass. This would be way too slow. And yet the CBC has let the friendly giant lie.

And yet the CBC has let the friendly giant lie, right? They haven't introduced like a post-gender friendly giant to grace the kids' airwaves of the CBC. In fact, the family pulled the puppets, the friendly giant puppets, they took them out of the CBC Museum because they used them in a cheeky sketch. It ran the Gemini Awards in 2007 where they were put in adult situations, and the estate of the Friendly Giant said,

uh-uh, this is inappropriate. We're not going to let the CBC cash in on the Friendly Giant anymore in any way. They crossed the line. But what comes to the legacy of Rod Coneyberry, he was best known for playing these puppets, but he was a CBC lifer. He was there for a while doing a whole bunch of different shows.

Even before The Twilight Zone came along, he did a show called Out of This World that was a supernatural thing, sort of similar, another one called The Rod and Charles Show, a comedy with Coney Bear and company. But on the CBC archives, on a website, they have a recording from a show he did called Man to Man. Okay? So this guy was getting started as a puppeteer and a friendly giant,

and at the same time, he wanted to start on CBC Radio an audio answer to Playboy magazine, where he would be like an Airsats Canadian answer to Hugh Hefner, which is really bizarre, because people do not associate that kind of programming with CBC Radio. No, they don't. And yet it was like, you know, ask your wives to leave the room. We're talking man to man, which was the name of the show. Just like Mojo Radio, talk radio for guys.

40 plus years later, there was a lot of outrage about this. People were saying, how can this be on the public broadcasting airwaves, this misogynist radio show? It only lasted one summer, five months. And then 10 years later, there's a clip of him talking up a show called The Bananas, which he created, a sketch comedy show, a psychedelic sketch comedy show for a tweenage audience. So here's this older beatnik.

It would have been pushing 40, 40 years ago. He died at 89, right? I think he was 88 because the obituary says in his 89th year but that means he hasn't yet turned 89

it means usually that's a so I think no he's 89 he was 89 oh I think they were

setting up to confuse you I think they were successful okay so there he is a middle aged man he's talking about how he's going to revolutionize kids programming by doing some a kids show on CBC inspired by Laugh-In.

It would be quick cuts and a lot of psychedelia, and this was his brainchild. And that one only lasted six episodes. It was too weird. It didn't catch on. But the friendly giant job endured, and he did it right alongside Bob home for all those years and as you know um mr rogers has a biopic with tom hanks right viewing at tiff yeah uh and uh mr mr dress up

looms large in our memories maybe one day somebody make a move about him nina keo who has been on the show because i i know her best as muffie mouse on today's special but she's done a lot of work as a puppeteer but i saw her post on facebook where she said that uh with the passing of uh rod uh that she was the last cast member of uh the friendly Giant that everybody had passed at that point. Was she like a later member of the Friendly Giant? I have to revisit the episode to find out. Poochie, Poochie on Itchy and Scratchy. They brought her in to be hipper with the kids.

I love the Poochie episode, but he went back to his home planet. There are a bunch of more oh bits. Maybe we'll carry over the list in the next episode. I better get out of here. If you come back in 20 days, will there be enough content? It's up to you when you come back. You're welcome anytime. And I really enjoyed this. And I urge everyone listening to our voices right now to go to 1236.ca. If you haven't already subscribed to the newsletter, what are you

waiting for? Subscribe today. We did all right, didn't we? Won't get any tweets like, you know, he's so knowledgeable. I want to listen, but I can't stand the sound of his voice. Ignore the haters, Mark. I do, I do. Trust me.

After what we went through in July, taking that under advisement, but I feel like this was the comeback episode. I think we're going to get rave reviews. Where we got back in good graces with the Toronto Mike listeners. And that brings us to the end of our 508th show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236.

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is at Capadia LLP and Pumpkins After Dark are at pumpkinsafterdark.com see you all next week. Cause everything is rose and green Well you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears