Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #535

Episode Date: October 31, 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 535 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Brian Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me to deliver his monthly sermon, 1236's very own Mark Weisblot. Happy Halloween, Mike Boone.

We made it, and I'm here for another monthly recap, except we lost a month along the way, right? I was here, what was it, beginning of September? September 10th, I think it was, last time. And that was because we missed doing one in August, and we couldn't figure out when to do it. In the end, I just figured let's go back on track

and get here as close as we can get to the last day of the month. So close your eyes and you will find that you've arrived in Frightenstein. Perhaps the Count will find a way to make his monster work today. For if he solves this monster... Mark, it's always a pleasure, but especially on this frightful Halloween day. It's soaking out there. Oh, just stormy weather and the usual TTC problems of getting over here. I think the bus bays of Islington Station

are falling apart, crumbling down. It might have even been the stormy weather. I think Hebsey gave me a heads up that they're doing work on the where the bus terminals are inside of Islington and now you have to get it like outside. Yeah, so they send

us off into the rainy streets and before you know it, I was coming here from the west for the first time. You bounced too west and you had to come back east. I didn't know where the hell I was going. And what was supposed to be a damp,

getting here really early, ready to go, right after Humble Howard kicked out the jams. You recorded that one this morning on Halloween. Here I am right after my old frenemy, Humble Howard. Back to back. Always interesting. He does not care that I'm here with you every month. He has no idea.

You mentioned it for the first time to him today. Right. The odds that he's going to hear this are practically non-existent, maybe now that I'm finally mentioning him. Well, a few observations. One is he was surprised when i told him we play the whole song like you know when we kick out the jams we're gonna play the whole thing so that means he had never heard us kick out the jams episode even though his uh his partner fred patterson kicked out the jams many years ago so there was that and then secondly uh at the end of the episode i played

rosie and gray from lowest to the low as I have for every single episode, including the four times he came on Fred. And he's like, what's this music? Like he had never heard it before. So not only does he not listen to Toronto Mike, but I don't think he listens to his own episodes. It doesn't matter though, because the indifference that he has towards all of it made for a fantastic episode last week

when he had Humble and Fred down here. And I think the clash of the titans, right? Podcast versus podcast. A lot of drama ensued. I'm actually very interested in your thoughts because like you said, lots of things happened. We talked about it a bit in the Humble Howard kicks out the jams episode.

By the way, there's a great quote from Elvis. I'm going to read it to you. Elvis, friend of the show Elvis, says, I haven't looked forward to not listening to an episode more than the Humble Howard jams one. It goes to show you how far back you go with Humble and Fred. What is it now? When did he get fired from the mix?

06. 06. And you did the podcast with them shortly thereafter. We're talking about now a 13-year relationship. It goes to show you that when you've invested that much time, when things go sour, it ends up being more dramatic, right? I mean, when you break up with lifelong friends, it's a big deal. Rather than somebody you're meeting for the first time that's coming down or doesn't go so well, there was a lot invested

on the way to this fight. No doubt. And again, it gave people something to talk about because there was a lot of feedback and a lot of engagement and, you know, it's no worse for wear. I took my hand. What I mean, what percentage of it is stick? How much is a performance, a radio bit? And how much is the the? Guys, they've been doing it for so long. I think it's, you can't tell. It's blurred. I think Fred yelling at me, I think that was genuine. And even the Howard, I don't think there was any shtick.

I actually think it was all, I think it was. They know how to leverage it, though, right? Okay, so you're the one putting in the hours today. Forget about me complaining about the bus on the way here. You're doing two podcasts in one day. I think I've done it before. Both in your basement. You had Jamar here, right?

That was on the same day as another one because it was an emergency visit from Jamar. Yes, yes. Can you even remember who it was in the morning? Mike Zeisberger, maybe? They were both in the afternoon. I feel like it might have been Mike Zeisberger, maybe? They were both in the afternoon. I feel like it might have been Mike Zeisberger, but I could be wrong about that. Well, this is why people keep coming back to Toronto Mike.

And I think as you go through the cycle, I mean, having Humble Howard down here twice in what, seven, eight days? Yeah. It goes to show you that there's a whole universe here here the f-o-t-m and we all intertwine and in fact the last couple of nights i was at events at which uh f-o-t-m's were presenting made sure to let you know while i was this is a this is a big thing going on because you went to the uh david marsden uh reference library presentation which then the next morning you had it freshly baked in the podcast and that was i mean i uh again i i here's where i'm at now and

this all kind of came out of doing that opera house thing at the party for marty it's like all of a sudden now i realize i basically i've put a lot of many years blood sweat and tears into having creating my own radio station and i now have this like channel and I'm like, if Mars is going to talk for an hour about the spirit of radio and see if the, why, like, why can't we record that and share it on the feed for Toronto Mike? Why not? Now I'm thinking like that. So now I'm, I'm at a point now where I'm contacting David Mars and I'm like, here's what I want to do. He's all into it. He put me in touch with the library. Eventually, a guy named Michael Cole helped me out by getting me the audio, and I took it from there. I had a few thoughts when I was seeing Marsden speak that I didn't expect to have. That is what makes a memorable event. He spoke in a kind of open-air theater in the reference library. It's the kind of place where even if you don't get much of a crowd,

it still looks respectable. But he had, what, 60, 70, maybe 80 people show up to hear him speak on a busy Tuesday night in Toronto. And the presentation that he gave, as far as I could tell, this is the first time he did this presentation. This is a whole roadshow that he can take around all over the place. It was – I don't live that far from there. Usually I find a way to get out of going to these events. A Legion Hall, a tribe meeting of the kinds of people that would go to a David Marsden speaking event.

I got to go find my people in there. I ran into Danny Elwell for the first time in a long time, another FOTM. Lee Carter, formerly of CFNY, live from London. He's worked at the CBC as a news producer. Was Roger Ashby there? For years and years and years. But Doug Thompson was there, and I didn't notice him, but he shouted out to me and said hi.

I figure I have to make up with Doug. I don't know what we said on here about Doug Thompson, but I guess he's okay now because you did a whole Chum Tribute episode. After our episode, we did talk about that. Well, look, if Howard Stern

can make amends with all these big Hollywood stars, we can backtrack on anything bad we said about Doug Thompson. I'm literally on Friday, which is tomorrow, right? Yeah, tomorrow,

I'm biking over to Chorus Key. That's where they broadcast Element FM. And Doug Thompson is doing imaging over there. So I'm going to bike over to Chorus Key. And I'm going to deliver a vegetarian lasagna from Palm Apos. And maybe you'll meet Bob McGee, another Chum legend who does the morning show. There's someone you've got to get on the guest wish list. I've been working on it.

Bob hasn't bought in yet, but I've been working on it. I think so. That was another milestone here as far as Toronto Mic'd as a source of radio geekery that you did that chum retrospective with Doug Thompson. And that was your station. And I remember our episode with Ed in the early days. Ed Conroy. Yeah, and I don't think we knew what we were doing down here, but people said it was okay

and I'm not going to ask you to delete it. So going back, you have a chum requiem. We talked about chum and much music. It was us getting to know one another through this topic.

We tried. Back in 2016, I said, let's do an episode on the 30th anniversary of when they turned off the original top 40 chum chart format at 10.50 chum, and then we kept moving the date.

It ended up not even being on the anniversary. I would like to think that that was one of the milestone episodes that helped establish this as a source of this kind of discussion. I'll say this. I'm all for trying new things, and when you try new things and you take risks, you're not going to hit a home run every time. I've been down here 21 times ever since, still waiting for the sticker you signed to show up. Check your head.

Because I'm still coming down here every time, fearing the inevitable. It's done, actually. I just have to pick it up. So next time I'm in the Liberty Village area, which maybe I'll do it. You know what? I might do it.

I would do it tomorrow on my way back from Chorus Key, dropping off the lasagna, except I have to rush back because Huxley Workman is going to be here. And, you know, I can't leave Huxley waiting. Whatever it is, we're standing by for the first guest to have a warning, a stern warning to check their head when they sit in this infamous seat where everybody manages to bump when they stand up. Who was the worst ever head bumper?

It might have been Damien Cox, but it could have been Barry Carlisle accompanied Stephen. Speaking of, I was talking to Humble about the TFC. They won a big match yesterday. Stephen Caldwell was accompanied won a big match yesterday. Stephen Caldwell was accompanied by a guy named Barry. And Barry, I think he left blood on the ceiling. But today, I will say this, just before I press record on the Periscope,

Humble hit it pretty damn good. You mentioned Colleen Rusholm also smashed her head once. You would mention every time. Don't be like Colleen Rusholm. She's the one who did it after. Everyone does it before they record. But Colleen was the first time I realized, oh, people will instinctively leap out of their seat in excitement.

It's over. And that's when I started warning guests. Before they get up, be careful. You will hit your head. You see, everything that goes on down here is like a meme. A sub plot of Toronto Mike. Look what we've built here. Added to the bingo card. That's right Al. Get on that. By the way that's coming up soon. Al's

going to put together top 20 clips of episode 251 through 500. Al's working feverishly. By the way speaking of FOTMs and I did mention this to Gord Stelic but I'll just say it. We missed you at the Dakota, whatever it's called, in my hood, not the Dakota Tavern where Hebsey thought it was,

but the Royal Pains played, and there were several FOTMs in attendance. All right, so Royal Pains, you're still in good standing with Al Grego? Of course. You have yet to fight with Al? He's doing all right? He's not going down the road of humble and friend?

You know what? He dedicated a song to me. He played Bounce because it was by a former guest of Toronto Mic'd. And yeah, we're in great terms. You get me? It's working out then. Royal Pains, house band of TMLX. We'll get them back.

Two, three. Two and three. One, two, and three. One, two, andX. We'll get them back. Two, three. Two and three. One, two, and three. One, two, and three. We'll get them back. Okay, time is of the essence, so I want to ask you what you thought of Gallagher and Gross saved the world.

Well, I think in the eight episodes that you put out for the first binge listen experience, there were a lot of morsels in there things that we hadn't heard before and you you learn i think peter gross hasn't had the chance to be as candid in the public media as gallagher has right he wrote the book he'd done these interviews on here i think uh also peter gross is a few years older he's sitting on a lot of anecdotes that we're waiting to hatch. And in those Gallagher and Gross episodes, we get a whole bunch. What, I'm wondering, you're promising five more?

Did you record them already? Yes. So five are— What can we anticipate whenever this happens? I like the whole idea that they come out like a surprise. Yes. You refresh your podcast app, and there they are, ready to go. On that note, if you can hear my voice right now, and you're not subscribed to Gallagher and Gross Save the World,

you're doing it wrong, because five more up, there's eight in the can, five more are going to fall from the heavens when I press the magic button when I'm ready. This is heavy. There's some great stuff that you had in the Gallagher book, but you have a lot of heavy stuff about their relationship with their parents. Gallagher and Gross, it gets heavy. It's just all over the place.

Very strong five episodes coming up. It's strong, if not stronger than the first eight. Peter Gross is almost 70 years of age. Is that right? Yeah, he's 69. He built up some experiences, some perspective. And I think you're providing him with a forum that he never imagined doing in the media

because this whole thing was all about doing the quick radio sportscast and other wacky bits on TV. So, you know, people have a preference, right? Gallagher or Gross? Who is it that doesn't want to hear Gallagher, but they can only handle Gross? I think Beats. They can deal with the idea that people prefer one over the other.

Beetz thinks Gallagher, and for the eight episodes, he has a point. We actually had a coaching session, and the next five are better in this regard. But Beetz felt that Gallagher interrupted Gross too much. So we fixed that. He's almost 70, and we learned from Marsden's talk that he is turning 80 in March 2020. And he kept his age a real secret.

You could figure it out because of the years that he's been around. I actually thought he had already hit 80. I thought maybe he's a little younger, 78, 79. It's documented. It's out there. But I never heard an affirmation, confirmation about when his actual 80th birthday is. Immediately thought, here is your chance, finally, to get an octogenarian on Toronto Mike to do an interview. I've yet to, you know, break that glass ceiling there.

I've yet to have anyone over the age of 80 on the show, and I think Marsden, I know he wants to come on. I don't know that he's excited to be 80, but he's doing great. And I just love the anecdote after anecdote. Listen to that episode in the Toronto Mike podcast feed. Yeah, this was this was one of the best. I'd never heard this one before.

It's talking about the band Japan coming to CFNY in Brampton. Was this the yellow house days of CFNY? I mean, it was not an easy signal to pick up in Toronto, but one of the very few, maybe the only commercial radio station on the continent playing them at the time. And talked about the Band Japan came for a visit.

They were hungry. They were looking for lunch. And Brampton wasn't anywhere near as built up as it is today. And the closest place for them to go was the Ziggy's Deli. Like part of Loblaws, right? I remember. At Ziggy's.

And there at lunchtime, there he was with these dolled up new wave goth rockers from England traipsing through the Ziggy's store looking for a deli sandwich. And of all the anecdotes, that one summed up, I think,

the experience of what it was to be the hippest radio guy in Brampton in 1979. Basement Dweller has a question for you. Uh-oh. Strange but legit question for 1236 upon his next visit. Where exactly is the Ontario edition of Beat Root magazine available in Toronto? I don't know. I have no idea. I put that one online.

You know what that is? That's like a new alt monthly music publication. And Michael Hallett, the co-founder of Now Magazine, was originally involved, and he's not anymore. And I did see a picture of a print edition. I think it's one of those soft launch things. I don't know. It's online. Basement Dweller.

You can find it at the Beat Root site. But, yeah, that's one of the media anecdotes that maybe we would have had on the list. So it's relevant. Relevant to what I'm talking about. But yeah, this is a new venture. You know, people

trying to get that print entertainment magazine thing going again now is still around. The big issue is getting anyone to pick the stuff up. It doesn't matter how good the paper is. We're just out of the habit, right, of picking up a free print newspaper when you see it. Could be a Toronto star that they give away at McDonald's or a son that somebody discarded at coffee time.

I'm the biggest media geek around, and my inclination with the phone in my hand is just to ignore it. And even if I pick it up, I don't end up reading it. Just toss it on the coffee table and every few months remember to clear the stuff away. Let me ask you about newsletters. So as you know, I subscribe to the 1236 newsletter.

I sure hope so. I've only been down here 22 times reminding people to do it. Well, let's remind them one more time that you go to 1236.ca to subscribe to your... The newsletter, of course, it's sent at 1236 each weekday. More punctual than ever. And working with a new editor, Conan Tobias, helps out on the back end. And he's working at St. Joseph Media,

St. Joseph Communications Media Group. Which now owns all those Rogers properties. Yeah, took on a bunch. So doing a little more collaboration with Conan, a guy who's been around for a long time, does his own magazine, Tattle Creek. So we're scheming a little bit about what 1236 can be in the near future. But I also subscribe.

Ever-evolving story. I also subscribe to the Retro Ontario newsletter. And one day I was reading an issue and it said, I think it was sponsored by you. Do I have that right? Like you sponsored 1236. I was imagining that somebody reading it would be impressed by this fact. There's another newsletter.

I don't know how effective it was. But it was a day I wasn't on at 1236, day of the federal election. And we sent out an election reflections issue from Retro Ontario, and it came out at that time. So I juice his subscriber list and trying to figure out how it can reciprocate. Still a work in progress, but always exciting with Ed Conroy,

who is making more appearances than ever. He was on Global Morning Show. What's it called? The Morning Show on Global TV. Okay, cool. The Jennifer Valentine one. Right. show what's it called uh uh the morning show on global tv okay jennifer valentine one right and he he did uh an episode with uh steve pakin right uh tvo agenda fotm linda uh helped to make that happen yeah there you go real fotm convergence behind the scenes and on camera and the guests of

the episode. When is this one out? This is coming soon. They recorded this one in advance. I know they recorded it already, for sure. What did you think of the Pagan episode of Toronto Mike, real quick? Oh, well, I mean, listen, consummate pro. I don't think there's anything you could ask him about where he couldn't just have the whole answer spill right out of him. In other words, it was great, but I deserve none of the credit is what I'm hearing here.

Yeah, I'm saying that. Because a monkey could have conducted that. He did a bit once on the agenda where it was him interviewing himself. I saw that. And I felt like it might as well have been the case with your podcast too. Like he could have easily handled the hosting duties at the same time that he was responding to the questions. A new book by Robin D doolittle globe mail journalist uh it's it's about the whole me too movement and everything one of the chapters is a post-mortem on

what happened to steve pakin and of everything in the book i can't say i read it cover to cover uh had it coming is the name of the book and And Steve Paikin, the chapter about him where she interviewed him and deconstructed this thing where he was accused, that was the best part. Okay, good to know, good to know. But yeah, I enjoyed Paikin's visit, but like you said, he's a smooth operator, real pro. I don't think I could have asked him.

Real pro, and yet you read as this thing where he was accused, and he thought his career was over, even though he didn't do anything that related to what he was being accused of. Well, you know what? It was a false accusation, but he figured it didn't matter, right? I mean, this is the condition. This was the climate. Right. And he had to deal with it.

He had to push through, and he's come out a champ. For the woman who accused him falsely, any ramifications? I don't know. She still says that it was true, and she claims she was responsible. I don't like that. If you notice, in that fantastic episode with Steve Bacon, I did not have a segment about this. I avoided an obvious question

simply because I was thinking if I were falsely accused of something like that, every freaking time I do an interview, I have to spend like, you know, five to 10 minutes talking about it. I just didn't think that was fair. Oh, you've come up again in this Mike Bullard podcast. On untrue crime.

I was wondering. Okay, so you've got on one hand, Mike Bullard doing. Untrue crime. I was wondering. On one hand, Mike Bullard doing an interview podcast, which is okay. I've never heard that. I've heard it, and he did one recently with James Al Tucher, who was a dot-com billionaire who lost a whole bunch of

money, maybe not billions. Then he got into Bitcoin. It's like a guy who's won and lost many millions of dollars. Now he wants to be a stand-up billions. Then he got into Bitcoin. It's like a guy who's won and lost many millions of dollars. Now he wants to be a standup comedian. Somehow he got connected with Bullard. So Bullard did an interview with him, but then he did an interview with Bullard. It's on the James Al Tucher podcast. For what it's worth, you got Bullard spilling a lot of dirt about the old open mic show and what it was like to be a big star in Canadian media. But I'm hesitant to boost attention to it much

because there's a cloud around the guy. But anyone who's interested in the history of open mic on CTV and when it moved to global, if you're a connoisseur of Canadian television history of the late 90s, early 2000s, he dishes, he delivers, he names names. The other podcast is a documentary, Untrue Crime. I'm listening to this one. And that one gets into a whole bunch of other names, F-O-T-M's.

All over the place. Like Avery Haynes. Yep. Sarah Boesveld. Sarah Boesveld. We've also got involved there Pam Seidel, her husband, David Eddy, who was a buddy of Bullard's. Kate Wheeler came up in the latest episode. Did you catch this?

Yes. I better just preface this by saying I'm listening because right off the get-go of the first episode, they talked about Toronto Mike, and that's sort of how you get my attention. And, of course, Cynthia Mulligan, the woman who had a relationship with Bullard

and accused him of some charges that he got off of, but he pled guilty to a lesser charge related to harassment. I want to get that accurate here. I may not be doing a good enough job. I can't even follow what's going on in this podcast. Maybe it's because the kind that I listen to at triple speed. But there's a lot of adolescent activity going on between

the characters there. If you like a soap opera involving stars of Canadian television, I'm not endorsing the agenda going on here, but that Untrue crime podcast is a buried treasure. So let me, I don't think I've ever stated this in public,

so you're getting an exclusive here, but I guess there's a, I know there's a lawsuit between Bullard and Rogers going on. And he's confident that he's, I mean, he's got a whole podcast documentary happening. So. And I guess he would have cleared that with the lawyers at the same time, what he's saying on there.

I don't know. He starts unloading on Bell Let's Talk Day and how fraudulent he thought it was. But I'm talking about this Diana Davison untrue crime podcast. But Bowler is interviewed on the podcast with Diana Davison, right? He's involved in the creation of that podcast. She's the narrator of the podcast. That's the thing. Actually, that I think is the great flaw of this podcast

is that it's so clearly Bullard partnered with Bullard on this. It's not an objective third party putting this together. This is somebody who's clearly... Well, when you only interview the guy who the podcast is trying to acquit, and you don't talk to the people on the other side for the podcast, that is, in essence, terrible journalism.

But I don't know if that's what this is trying to achieve. Well, what really I think is inappropriate if you're even trying to fake that you're somehow objective on this is to keep throwing in the comedy bits with the little sound effects. Like this is, they would do,

like he would do a one. Okay, well, he must have friends who are interested in rehabilitating his image because he's got this thing in New York with James Al Tucher and, you know, there's an American podcast and he's talking about, you know, trying to give life advice, how he went from being, you know, how he went from being a cop to a comedian

and a big star in Toronto, across Canada. He worked at Bell, right? I mean, he worked at, like, Bell as, like, the telephone. Yeah, he did that, too. And, again, with the Al Tucher interview, he doesn't know who any of these people are, right? You've got Bullard sort of naming names. Right.

It's very Toronto-centric. Ranking out people in Canadian media to a person who's in New York who doesn't know who any of these people are. Right. As far as I'm concerned, it was good value there in that podcast. But I don't know who, I don't know why this is being done, though. Yes, I'm not giving a coherent explanation. But Mark, I haven't even got to my exclusive here.

I haven't even got to it. Okay. So part of this lawsuit between Bullard and Rogers is the fact that there was this interview with Sarah Boesvelt at FOTM. Sarah Boesvelt did an interview with Cynthia Mulligan for Chatelaine magazine. And I guess to put into evidence, Rogers had to cough up the transcript,

the full transcript for this interview. So that means you get everything the full transcript for this interview. So that means you get everything they talked about beyond the interview. And there's a good section where they talk about me. So I'm hearing all these references to me on this podcast. And I'm like, why does Toronto Mike keep coming up in this like this regard or whatever. And the person behind the podcast sent me the transcript. So all this is to say, that's why Toronto Mike is all over. It's not all over. I think I've been in like three episodes, but I was in the first one and that caught my attention. It's hard to care so much about the case of Mike Bullard as this podcast is asking you to do. But on the other hand, people are putting out all kinds of documentary podcasts about

cases you've never heard of. Right. On the presumption that you're going to get wrapped up in the drama. It's the biggest thing in podcasting, right? It's true crime. And this one's going by the untrue crime. This one sounds like a parody of those podcasts. And yet it's also based in factual reality.

those podcasts. And yet it's also based in factual reality. And it's more information than I even feel I need to know about any of the characters involved. Yeah, we're both listening. And again, would I be listening if I wasn't on it? I don't know, but I'm listening and you're listening too. I don't even want anybody else to listen to it. You've got better things to do with your time. Then we better move on. I'm coming back here in mid-November and we're going to do an episode to it okay you've got better things to do with your time i'm coming back here in mid-november and we're going to do an episode talking about podcasts right so the missing toronto mic episode is going to be made up for with a very special agenda right you you wanted to do this you asked me to come in i'm happy to be here because you listen to over a thousand podcasts easily so there's no bet in my opinion there's no better person in this country to come

on and talk about the state of podcast and we're it's going to be canadian centric right did we even have okay i think we'll talk about what i've been listening to observations that i've had in watching the podcast market developing can i did one with jesse brown back in february where we talked about the podcast business with you a little more informal and me talking to you about how it's gone with TMDS, what it's been like to be doing this now for all of this time. Other experiences that you've had with Gallagher and Gross and Hebsey, we'll recap it all. I think with the hope of getting a different level of attention to the conversations that we have.

If this works, we'll get some money out of the deal. And you'll talk about, you know, the Rogers podcasts and the chorus. I mean, an FOTM is doing stuff at chorus and with podcasts and you'll be naming names. What was the date? Well, you said a day I can't make it on that date and hope and pray that the TTC works in my favor. Although, look, I want I want I want to get on the map. I want to get on the agenda as far as this new layer to the media business.

I don't have any specific expectations, even on Canada land today, that we're talking about how the market is oversaturated with these podcasts. But the cream always rises. I feel like the same thing happened with blogs. It happens with everything, that everyone throws one out there. Most people give up on it pretty early because it's a lot of work. Kevin Newman, former anchor from CTV, from Global before that, he did one, attention control.

And I think there was a need for a media podcast in Canada that wasn't Jesse Brown. Kevin Newman took the reins and started one, and he quit midway through the run of the show. Because it's a lot of work. They thought it would be like a lean back, easy gig. Most people quit. He's riding along with

some of the fake news panic during the election, but they just put out a new episode and suddenly Kevin Newman isn't there anymore. His producer is hosting the show. No mention of Kevin. I don't know if this was anything personal or something in business with the company that was putting it out there, but they did roll it out with a lot of hoopla. It's not too many people have launched a podcast getting like a five-minute feature on the CTV national news. But again, maybe they roll this thing out and they're

waiting for the downloads to come in. Hey, a million people watch a CTV news, won't at least, I don't know, 100,000 of them download. It never works that way. Never, ever, ever. Right, they realize it's a lot of work with little monetary return. But there is money.

I saw at the David Marzen speech, this guy, I've met him before, Jean-Marie Heimrath. He's involved in podcasting in Canada, the podcasting business. I've got to look deeper into what these people are doing, what they expect to come out of it, because podcasts are getting listened to, and there's going to be some kind of shakeout,

and we're going to see where it happens, and I think we have to position ourselves, Mike Boone, me and you, in the middle of this scene. This episode is going to be our attempt to do ourselves, Mike Boone, me and you, in the middle of this scene, this episode is going to be our attempt to do it, or at the very least, it'll just be another 1236 episode where everybody who rides along with us will hopefully enjoy what we have to say. It'll be nice to have a focus on a single topic.

Kind of like that time when there was a guy down here that looked and sounded exactly like Elvis, but he worked for LinkedIn. Where did you find this guy? His doppelganger. And he had the same voice and he was giving you advice on what to do with your career.

Did Elvis find out that there was a guy out there in the world impersonating him? You can ask him for yourself on December 7th because TMLX5 is December 7th at noon. And I want you, I mean, of course, I want you there. Elvis is already guaranteed he'll be there.

He's now going to have been to more Toronto Mike live events, and he's listened to Toronto Mike episodes. That's true, that's true, that's true. And where is it? Because by default, you're probably thinking it's at Great Lakes Brewery, because the first four were at Great Lakes Brewery. I can barely say that word, let alone have it there. I can tell you this particular TMLX is actually going to be at Palma's Kitchen.

Palma's Kitchen, more details to come. I did meet with the good people at Palma Pasta, and they're going to feed all TMLX 5 attendees. They're going to get fresh pasta on the house. So you went from two TMLXs in 2018 to three in 2019? Oh, yeah. And I'm already... Doing all right.

So, yes. So thank you, Palma Pasta, for hosting. Can't wait. Great Lakes is still going to be a key part of the TMLX 5. And we're working on how to legally give everybody free booze at this thing. So we're just figuring out the licensing and all that. And what's the date? What is it?

December 7th. It's a Saturday. So it's family friendly. Elvis and I will not swear. I know a lot of people are disappointed now. I mean, it's Elvis you got to worry about

with the swears. But we won't swear and we won't ruin any magic at that time of year. Okay, I'll be back between now and then in mid-November. We're going to talk

about podcasting. No obituaries on that episode, but we'll do them at the end when we're done here today. Oh, and I have exciting news about Toronto Mic'd when we get to today's obituary section. Now, I'm going to crack open right now. I better get around. Do you want to go first? Once again, a breakfast beer.

I mean, I had some coffee earlier. It's awfully late for breakfast, but I don't judge. I don't judge. Yeah, almost 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And maximize my caloric intake for today. Cheers to you, good friend. Yeah, thanks to Grand Lake Spurry. I don't judge. Almost 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And maximize my caloric intake for today. Cheers to you, good friend. Yeah, thanks to Great Lakes Brewery. Nice to see you.

Thank you, Great Lakes. I'm having a cold. I'm having an octopus wants to fight. And Mark has a blonde lager, my wife's favorite beer. Another one, another thing that came up in the Marsden talk, where he was discussing Pete and Geetz and putting these two guys back together on CFNY in the 80s. The fact they had no relationship off the air.

They didn't talk, and that was part of the magic. I feel we are building that kind of relationship where almost everything we have ever spoken to one another has been recorded. But the difference is you and I communicate frequently via Twitter DM. Well, there was no Twitter DMs in the 80s. I'm just letting them know.

You're right. The voice-to-voice is always on these episodes. We hardly ever talk outside that. But we do communicate regularly because we have things to run by each other and share. What a beautiful friendship this is. If it worked for Pete and Geats, it could work for us too. But don't forget how Pete and Geats ended. You talked about here with Geats, right?

Yeah. He just decided all of a sudden, I don't want to do this anymore, and he put Pete out of a job. Right, right, right. And now Pete's no longer with us. This is why unpaid labor is the best guarantee of coming back for more.

Right, I pay you in beer. So enjoy your Great Lakes beer. Thank you, Palma Pasta, again, for hosting Team X5, and I can't wait to have more details on that. There's another, I guess you've got so many of these, you could like blanket your house with these. I'm going to build a house. Toronto Mike sticker from Sticker You. I had a great chat with Laura from Sticker You because they have, as we talked about, the sticker that will stop people from bumping their heads is ready. Yeah, one more sticker to add to my ambition. I don't know where I came up with this. To put only Toronto Mike stickers on my laptop.

Oh, my God. Like a whole laptop, wallpapered with Toronto Mike stickers. I say that on here just to fill time. I don't know what that would look like. We'll see how long it takes you. I'll get around to it. I'll send you a picture when I do. I've got an old laptop sitting around. Oh, you've got a pop socket too,

which it turns out my wife can't have her phone without one of these Capadia pop sockets. It goes on the back of the phone. It's like a tripod. Yeah, yeah. Now that you finally told me what this was, anybody coming to TMLX 5 will get one, right? Okay, I hope so.

I hope I don't know. I'm going to try. You gave them out at the last one. I will try for sure. For sure. So thank you, Rupesh Kapadia. And here's a little conversation I had with Rupesh Kapadia about stocks. Linda writes,

My husband works full time and I just started my own business and made a lot less than him last year. We have a few stocks that we own jointly. If we sell them, can we apply the capital gain to myself only a lot less than him last year. We have a few stocks that we own jointly. If we sell them, can we apply the capital gain to myself only or do we have to split it 50-50? I'm sorry, Linda. In this case, the answer is flat no.

You will have to report it 50-50. Saying that, if you think it's going to continue in future once you sell the stocks that you have, if you think it's going to continue in future, once you sell the stocks that you have, you might be able to buy this or different stocks in your own name. So in future, if there are capital gains, then you will report it only on your return

and not on your spouse's return. So Linda, thank you for the great question for Rupesh. I am still collecting questions from the listenership for Rupesh Kapadia, the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers. What happened to the hey, hey, hey that you would come in with?

Hey, hey. You know, so I can tell you this, that there's two Rupesh's. There's the Rupesh who's here in person with me and there's the Rupesh who records things from his office and emails it to me.

The energy level difference is palpable. Like when he's here in person, he's so much energy. He's the hey, hey, hey guy. When he records in his office and says, I'm Rupesh Kapadia, the rock star accountant. Here's the thing. If you're going to be

a pitch man, like Russell Oliver, Oliver's jewelry, you have to live up to the shtick that you're putting across on the air. I realize that might not be for everyone, but it's part of what people expect when they meet you. So if Rupesh Kapadia is serious

about branding himself through Toronto Mike, you got to prod him a little bit and say, look. Well, that's why I had him over. People need you to be on all the time. I told him, I said, you get your butt, because he lives in North York,

and I said, you get your butt to South Toronto here and let's record in person. And I got a whole bunch of stuff I'm going to play through November. That's fantastic. By the way, it's Brian Master, of course.

He is a salesperson with Keller Williams Realty Solution Brokerage. It's been very interesting that he was the MC for Gord Stalick's wedding. He, of course, of course, Doug Thompson and him are friends. They worked together in the same building

for years. He's been coming up in a lot of episodes. Just naturally coming up. It's been great having Brian Master. I remember Brian Master was a DJ at a bar mitzvah party. Jewish kid turning 13.

Had a party at which Brian Master was a DJ. And I wouldn't say I had a very amicable friendship with this kid. I guess we would describe our relationship as frenemies. But he really wanted to impress me with the fact that Brian Master, a cool DJ that you heard on the radio, was going to be the DJ at his event. And no kid listened to more radio than me. I was so excited about the chance to meet Brian Master. It turned out that same day or maybe a week before, somewhere around that time, might have been the same day,

there was an article in the Toronto Star featuring Brian Master. You talked about that article on here with him. And the point of the article was it was about djs who were entering middle age and at that point middle age meant like they were turning 30 right and it was brian master talking about the fact that he was so disgusted by the album cover of aussie Osbourne's Blizzard of Oz that he could no longer tolerate working for a hard rock radio station like Chum FM. And he had to go find some safer ground that was in line with his new 30-something middle-age values over at CHFI.

You mentioned that article to him i floated it your way and he didn't remember being quoted in the paper didn't he even wonder if you were lying you were making this thing i had to show him the screen capture that you sent me to as evidence that i didn't make up the story yes he's a company man he was he was saying what he had to say and he's had a great career ever since on the radio and also in real estate still on the radio he's in real estate and that's the sponsorship of course with brian master it's not his radio profession there i was a a bratty 12-year-old kid, and I remember approaching him and saying, Hey, Brian Master, I saw you in the newspaper.

And he couldn't have been any more annoyed than he was. That's funny. So if you want to be on Brian Master's monthly snail mail newsletter, I'm on this thing. There's a lot of good information in there, and it's just fun to get snail mail that's not an invoice. It's fun. You should get this. It also helps the show. If you write an email to Brian Master,

it's also fun to write a radio star and get a reply. It's always fun. Now, Brian is at letsgetyouhome at kw.com. Right now, pause the podcast, generate an email on your phone or your laptop and let Brian know that you heard about the newsletter on Toronto Mike. Then you want in it's let's get you home at kw.com.

That was it. No voice. Brian master. Well, I'm going to get new ones. I feel like playing that one. What does he say? Proud to be here.

Thrilled to be be on Toronto Mike. Thrilled to be here on Toronto Mike. Right. That man's got the energy. Radio flourish. He's got that radio voice that you and I lack. That's correct. We are never going to be Brian Mastro.

At least you have character. You have something to your voice that people dig. I'm just like wallpaper here. You're mostly complaining. Who's the woman that was at at your last tmlx4 who has a problem with me you couldn't take the shrieking and oh is that sheila i don't want to say the wrong name it shows you how seriously i'm i'm sorry you know it might have been uh andy andy maybe i i react to this like Humble Howard reacts to me.

It kind of slides off. I don't want to think too much about it. Well, Humble Howard thinks you hate him. It's not worth my energy. Do you want to address that once and for all? Yeah, based on some conversations from 20 years ago. Actually, it's when Howard Stern came to town, so that's more than me. Yeah, but then there was a reconnection afterwards. Bingo Bob knows a bit about this story.

Coming soon. I've decided to make most of my... I've worked really hard this year, and I'm burnt out, and I'm going to make most of my December episodes are going to be what I call fun episodes with people like Bingo Bob and Stu Stone and Cam Gordon and yourself, and Elvis is going to come for Festivus, and Retro Ontario is going to come for Christmas Crackers Volume 3.

Oh, the best. The best. Christmas Crackers with Retro Ontario. Load up those Uncle Bobby stories. Love it. Love it. Load up the Great Lakes beer when Retro Ontario is here. I think he pounds away more of these than any other guest.

You are correct. And I still have a few more electric circus. You've got one here. That's very precious. Yeah, yeah. Saving the cans. Okay. We've got to dive in. I've got to take kids trick-or-treating tonight. We've got to go here. I thought Halloween was cancelled!

What happened? In Montreal, not here. We don't do that here. I've got to say goodbye to what I thoroughly enjoyed, partnering with Pumpkins After Dark. But this is the final episode I'll do in October 2019. Therefore, this is the final time I will tell you all that the promo code still works

and they're still doing shows through November 3rd. The promo code, of course, is Pumpkin Mike, but you already know that. Pumpkin Mike, yesterday I got word hundreds of people used the promo code and it went very, very well. But goodbye, Pumpkins After Dark. You guys are great and I look forward

to doing it again next year. Looking forward to hearing about this new sponsor later on. No spoilers. No spoilers, but there is a new sponsor and I can't wait to tell the world about it. So let us start with radio here. Oh, I even have a song for this. I'm a little disorganized with my song,

so bear with me, people. But, uh... The sounds of Philadelphia because, tell us, last episode you were on, Toronto Mike, you talked about, you actually, I think you revealed that Reina had quit CBC Radio 2. Last episode, I think we possibly risked getting somebody in trouble with U.S. immigration. I wonder if that's what was happening.

Oh my goodness. I never really got the full details on that. I think she wanted NPR to announce it first. You think? Because it seemed a little more sensitive than that. But here we are, October 31st, the first day of broadcast for FOTM, Reina Douris on World Cafe,

originating from WXPN in Philadelphia, but heard on hundreds of NPR member radio stations. And she signed on for the first time at 2 p.m. today, right? And it was delayed. There was some issue. A visa thing and then maybe getting there right. She was supposed to

happen. They announced it. It was going to be earlier in October. Took till Halloween. At least she got on the air in October. And it's a show that gets its first airing from 2 to 4 p.m. in the afternoon, World Cafe. Kind of an adult alternative radio format, non-commercial. I would say the sound is hotter than the one of CBC Music Radio 2. It's easy to rag on that one, but I don't think it's anywhere near as interesting a sound as the one they have coming out of Philadelphia.

And there's Reina. Now, these guys are playing better music, I think, starting with Season of the Witch by Donovan on what was a Halloween-themed show. Because I was delayed in getting here, I got to hear the opening. But it's heard all day, and it's online,

and there's podcasts, so the format of the show is that she does a got to hear the opening, but it's heard all day and it's online and there's podcasts. So the format of the show is that she does DJ thing, introducing music. And then, uh, on the reg, they have a artist interview features that she hosts as well. So there's Raina now on NPR world cafe,

and she can no longer tell us that we can't talk about her, uh, moving to Philadelphia and being on there. She seemed legitimately surprised that we had this information. And I basically, I hate to say it, I threw you under the bus

and I said, Weisblot's got the information. I just pressed record. I want to ask you about the Thursday 30 because I listened to an awful lot of the Thursday 30 in my lifetime

and it seems like it quietly died. Just because I'm Googling around, wondering what's going on at 102.1 The Edge. And that's how I found out that Much Music no longer has a music video shift. That was earlier in this year. It became a Canadian press story. I was looking at Much Music's schedule,

and I don't look at this every day, but it just so happened that it was a day or two after they removed the video flow for much music it became a national story canadian press what happened to the right six hour block of new music videos they're running on much music it's not a lot of people really lamenting this but i it's no i found a couple of tweets and we're saying what happened to music videos what happened much much. Don't you write music videos? They still do. It's one hour of retro videos.

They still have, they give one hour to the roots of much music, a Canadian content hour, but they replaced all the videos with comedy, now old CTV shows just for laughs. Why is that relevant to what we're hearing? What song is this? Who is this? This is what? A band from Iceland. Yes, it's of Monsters and Men. Monsters and hearing? What song is this? Who is this? This is what? A band from Iceland. Yes, it's of Monsters and Men.

Monsters and Men. The song is called Alligator. Alligator by Monsters and Men. The final number one song on the top 30 chart from CFNY. Without any fanfare, somewhere in the middle of the summer, they're suspended in time forever. It's still a live page on their website. The final CFNY Top 30 chart

after over 30 years of having what was called the Thursday 30, where they would count down the top 30 songs on the air. FOTM Pete Fowler would be in there with Martin Streak. Later it was FOTM Strombo who was part of the countdown. They made it a big event to unveil the top 30 songs of the week.

And that tradition of the Chum Chart or CKOC all hit 40 that CFNY had a chart. When they first started doing a chart, it was controversial. Because CFNY wasn't about doing pop charts. But it was Scott Turner who introduced it to the station. I was in touch with Scott about the top 30. FOTM Scott

Turner. Scott told me he had some old charts that he's going to scan. I'm off the bug him. He didn't get around to it yet. I saw him at the Opera House. I wanted to see some old charts. What? Scott? I saw him. I hope he's on your good side. Yeah, of course. You have to have him down here again. First of all, he's the nicest guy on the planet. Imagine

getting on his bad side. First of all, I'm the nicest guy on the planet. Imagine getting on his bad side. First of all, I'm on most people's good side, I just want to say for the record. The vast majority of reasonable people like me. Who else by me would notice and see if I discontinued their chart? But it opens up wondering, well, what's going on with that radio station?

Our periodic chat. They had a story on global news, like a press release on the global website about their new evening DJ, a guy named Kevin Govin gets and it was a fact that he submitted his resume in crayon i guess showing some level of creativity that must account for something because it's more creative than he's expected to be on the air from from what i can tell although he might be great i've never heard no he might be the best thing since okay butA. Sprite. He might be. Okay, but what is going – they have a new ad campaign, and the whole point of the ads that they have right now

is that they're offering a style of music that is – you don't want to listen to it because you're interested in what 102.1 The Edge is playing. You're interested in it because they're not playing certain styles of music. So they've got some bus shelter ads about how this is a station for non-beliebers, as somebody remarked. How 2010 can you get dunking on Justin Bieber? And another one about, it references Old Town Road, that they don't play that song,

even though you think that's a great feel good story, regardless of what genre of music you listen to. And again, part of this might be my age. I am older than I used to be. That is a fact. But speak for yourself. I used to be like that. We're like, oh, I like this.

Therefore, I can't like that. I used to, you know, in my mind, I used to think these were these factions or whatever. And then but in 2019, and I can just I have a couple of teenagers i'm very close to and i can tell you in 2019 it's okay to love alternative music and justin bieber and trap rap yeah trap rap which is in a commercial uh they've got a couple of spots running a bit of a cop-out because the the dial on the radio that people, one guy pouring coffee on, the frequency is 92.6. So unless these are European commercials, I mean, why not just go all out and say 92.5?

Kiss FM, the competition in Toronto. I bring this up not because I care about the minutiae of what the station is doing. Barely listening to it. Got a morning show with the brother and sister and drive home, Coulter and Meredith, and everyone on the station does multiple shifts at multiple stations, a lot of voice tracking across Canada. That's part of the new chorus model. I mean, chorus as a company is in a precarious position

because they're very invested in traditional TV and cable specialty channels. They closed down a couple of them, IFC, Cosmo TV. The retrenchment is on. The shareholders want their dividends to go up. I mean, what is happening here? It's more wondering about what's it going to be like when they finally pull the plug, when the CFNY legacy comes to an end.

Is there going to be any advance notice? Are they going to have a ceremonial sign-off? Or is the thing just going to disappear? One day, finally, after 30 years of wondering if CFNY is going to change its format to country music, you'll just wake up and that'll be the format on there. Because most people won't notice, day, finally, after 30 years of wondering if CFNY is going to change its format to country music, you'll just wake up and that'll be the format on there. Because most people won't notice, won't even miss the station. But when different stations are going off the air, you know, they find different ways to acknowledge them. We're finding more of a trend in the United States,

like WPLJ 95.5 in New York. You know, they signed off, they sold the frequency to a Christian broadcaster and did a terrific week. We talked about that on here. A whole week of programming where the old DJs came back. They talked about it. Would CFNY do anything of the sort? Would Alan Cross come on and do the ultimate final ongoing history of new music? Because he's in the family.

Well, he just celebrated 30 years there. He did a blog post about it. FOTM Alan Cross. Who I adore, but he did gloss over that big chunk of time. Yeah, I've worked for CFNY for 30 years, right?

Given the seal of approval by David Marsden. The last guy hired for CFNY was Alan Cross. It was in his presentation. And it's interesting, Alan Cross... He didn't talk about the fact

that he left that he worked for Indie 88. So you've got Indie 88 now. They've got a power increase. I don't know if it's taken effect. A Josie Dye is heavily promoted by a lot of advertising for her, some awareness that she's at the station.

Indie 88 selling itself that way, playing a lot of the same music as one of 2.1 The Edge. Yes. Stealing their listeners because where else are their listeners going to come from? And at the same time over at The Edge with the shrinking share

of terrestrial radio listeners who want to hear new rock music. Right. Your enticement to tune in is about what they don't play anymore? That makes me wonder if we're nearing the end. But at least it got your attention. Oh, that counts for something.

I just, well, you know what? We just love the nostalgia. And I'm wondering, I'm laying it down here. Is the end of CFNY going to be commemorated a 102.1 The Edge? Or is it going to be a special episode of Toronto Mic'd? The latter is far far far more likely at this point absolutely even when i'm crying crazy yeah i got boy problems that's the human in me bling bling then i saw them that's the goddess i want to just go on the record as saying i like

this song very much well there's a reason that right behind old town road it was the biggest american hit of the year a real surprise too right because was lizzo put out an album and this song wasn't on the album it was an older song it was in a netflix show promos for the show and it caught on that way bringing it up here only because i think it's an example of where radio playlists are at right now in fall 2019, which is the fact that even though this was a huge hit record, neither CHFI nor Chum 104.5 added Lizzo's Truth Hurts to their rotation. Does that seem weird to you, that there's still a line of the kind of hip-hop song that stations like that don't touch when they first come out? I think this is most definitely

a Kiss and Virgin song. I'm sorry. And the new cap. Not new cap. What are they called now? Stingrays. For sure. It doesn't mean they won't get around to it eventually. It's just too hard for a CHFI. But it's a big hit

on these hot AC radio stations in the United States in the same format. But maybe it's a bit of a standoff. Like if one station added it, the other one would pick it up. They would have to. But I've been following this stuff all my life and it stands out as something that you don't hear right now on

Chum or CHFI. Now before we get too far away from that, uh, wonderful chat about CF and why we should update everyone that an FOTM, I guess he is. I haven't heard from him since, but FOTM kid, Craig has a new job that you, uh,

you heard him. Oh yeah. Cause we forgot to mention him some episodes ago and we did like a recap of FOTMs with new gigs. And he, he was at least recently a traffic reporter on 680 News. It's funny that we forget about him. Kid Craig.

Right. He's the guy that vacated that evening shift. They fired him. They made him the morning guy. Right. And then he ends up losing his job altogether at the station. I don't know anything about Kid Craig. He's a wonderful guy as far as I can tell.

He might be the nicest guy ever. I don't know anything about Kid Craig. He's a wonderful guy as far as I can tell. He might be the nicest guy ever. But he goes down in history as the most hostile guest on Toronto Mic'd. I wonder if he wonders all these years later what went wrong with Kid Craig on Toronto Mic'd that as far as all the guests you've had, he was what? The most aloof? You're talking about like the Humble and Fred feud. At least they give her.

At least Humble and Fred are invested in you. But this kid Craig came down like he was too cool for school. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to talk about anything. What was the problem? It's interesting because when you were making that statement right there, and I was thinking Molly Johnson is the most, what was the term you used?

I can't remember now. Yeah, I know, but I think deeper into the archives of Toronto Mike, you have this episode with Kid Craig. No, but it was not interesting. He came down here and he was not interesting in any way. I do remember that was one of the first episodes where I felt like I was a dentist for an hour. Like I was going to pull, it was like pulling teeth. Like I'm going to try to extract.

And my thought, which I didn't speak out loud, but in my mind at the time, I remember it was, this guy's a radio broadcaster. Like he's supposed to know how to entertain on a microphone. Like sometimes I'll get that with like an author or something who's never been on a mic or whatever. But I'm like, Kid Craig, this is what to entertain on a microphone. Sometimes I'll get that with an author or something who's never been on a mic or whatever. But I'm like, Kid Craig, this is what he does for a living. Where is that get up and go? Okay, well, maybe he's found his calling as a traffic reporter, right?

To be the guy in the sky. He's filling that role of Russ Holden, Daryl Dahmer. These guys are retired. They needed young, new, cheaper blood. Rogers, a god-holy Kid Craig. Best of luck to them. Oh, yeah. We root for Kid Craig.

But the only thing, I only think about Kid Craig in the context of the episode he did with you. It's true. I don't know what we'd call people who listen to every episode of Toronto Mic'd if there's a name for that, but those completists will often refer to Kid Craig as, what the hell was that? So people might want to go check that out if they want to.

At least we're talking about Kid Craig. Right. Humble Howard would be jealous of the fact that I spent all this time not thinking about him, but wondering what went wrong on the episode with Kid Craig. And what a lovely position you're in, that you never

have to worry that Humble Howard might hear that. Like, that's not even a risk. So it must be very, very nice. It's okay. I'm barely hearing him anymore. Tell me FOTM Matt Galloway. First of all, this is the one that hits me the most. We talk all the time about changes in radio and it's like, what

of salad? Like, I don't hear the siblings on 102.1. I'm sure they're wonderful. But I thoroughly enjoy Metro Morning with ev salad like i don't i don't hear the siblings on 102.1 i'm sure they're wonderful but i thoroughly enjoy metro morning with matt galloway well you better get used to not hearing him because they're shuffling them out of there real fast in fact early december they're going to do their sounds of the season concert show early december that'll be the end of matt gallalloway's run of Metro Morning. Almost 10 years, not quite. A job opening became available on The Current. Anna Maria Tremonti deciding to pivot to podcasting,

that she'll be doing an interview show, moving away from the treadmill of daily news. She's done her time. They can sell ads on podcasts. Yeah, yeah, and that's a big thing. And we'll talk about that on the special episode where we talk about the podcast business. But Matt's gone. Do we have any idea?

He's not gone. He's going to be on the same frequency on a national level. Let me just say. It's a promotion as far as his image is concerned, but maybe a demotion as far as the goodwill that surrounds him. Everybody loves Matt Galloway. Right. I'm not here to, yeah, of course, he's to be commended.

He earned this. It's a promotion. In my mind, though, it means I'll hear less Matt Galloway because I don't tune into The Current as often as I should. I like to listen to Metro Morning. It's a different style of show, right? listen to Metro Morning. It's a different style of show, right? It's not that flow of information that they do on CBC, right, where people are listening not as attentively a lot of the time,

but more ritualistically. Right. It's a habitual thing. So let me ask you this. Who will get the Metro Morning hosting job? Oh, I don't know. There are a bunch of people on the bench at CBC. Because traditionally, and this is interesting,

because FOTM Jill Deacon had a very serious health situation. Well, she had cancer, and she had to take a leave of absence to fight cancer, although she's back now. Because traditionally, Here and Now would feed this spot. Like, Matt Galloway came from here and now. So you'd think traditionally, Jill Deacon might get the Metro Morning spot if she wanted it. Because it means waking up at an ungodly hour.

And then somebody would be hired to take over here and now. Well, look, there are CBC announcers across the country who are doing a similar style show to Metro Morning. But they've got to be a Toronto person. One of them is going on at the same time in the same building. It's Ontario Morning. It's a show that runs on stations, you know, smaller markets across the province. Pia Chattopadoye,

they've got her doing this weekend show out, what's it called, out in the open? Does that sound right? Fresh Air? No, no, it's something. It's like a documentary show. It's like This American Life kind of crossed with Definitely Not the Opera. Just like personal stories. Very, very highly produced segments.

She would be someone, Pia, who would move into that slot easily. She tried out for Q. She's the kind of person in a CBC bullpen. I was listening to Q the other day, and somebody was substituting for power there, and I thought she sounded fantastic, and I can't remember her name now. Whoever it is, we'll find out soon,

because Galloway is leaving in early December. But CBC is also big on having interim hosts take over for a period of time, right? Reina left. Can't remember even the name of who replaced, but they won't announce who it is. We should take over. There are so many layers of management going on. We should take, you know, JJ and Melanie, who were down there, FOTMs.

I said on here a few episodes ago that their podcast should be the CBC Music Morning Show. That the way they do their podcast with this off-the-cuff discussion is the exact kind of thing that the CBC Music station is missing. It just so happens that JJ is working for CBC Music, but he's putting on that suit-and-tie sort of voice. And the problem with this Radio 2 CBC Music, and I feel it's easier to say this now that FOTM Raina is no longer there, is that the station is boring. It has none of the dynamics associated

with interesting music radio, which is you have to have a personality to be more than just the presenter. It sounds too starched, and even this Buck 65 who's been there now for over a decade. Nothing's going on there. That was my advice to CBC Music.

Take this JJ, pair him up with Melanie. Right. Make that the CBC Music Morning Show. Let them say whatever they want. Seriously. I told JJ to stay tuned to this episode because there would be some talk about his podcast.

The podcast before was just Melanie. But JJ was the guest like 90% of the time. Now it is officially the JJ and Melanie podcast. I think I should have them back. Like, I feel like now that we have the rapport,

it would be better. Well, because no, there are, nobody is standing for JJ and Melanie more than, than me on these, these 1236 episodes. And,

and much like, oh, what are those other Tucker and Maura, right? They, they, the, the,

the radio people that did the morning shows who were doing the podcast now, you know, who who get the the the gloves taken off that they're no longer, you know, limited to a certain amount of minutes. So they have to talk and throw to a song, throw to a commercial like Humble and Fred. There are other other people out there with that season radio experience who should, I feel, be let a little looser, trusted to do this format. I could not agree with you more. I could not agree with you more. By the way, we can't call this gentleman an FOTM because he's not an FOTM.

He is the opposite of an FOTM. At least he acknowledged you. Even if I'm not sure he knew who he was talking about, but at least in an abstract way, he knows who you are. Yeah, he did refer to me as Toronto Mike, but he did not tag me. Come on.

Anyways, that's fine. He could have called you Mike from Toronto. At least he got the Toronto Mike part right. I thought he might call me Mike in Boston, so I'm glad he got Toronto Mike right. Okay, so Bob McCowan was replaced. It's been official since your last visit by Tim and Sid, who do a TV show that you listen to on the radio. A lot of opinions about this one.

I read a post at the Toronto Sports Media website speculating, what is going on here? Tim and Sid, who went through a couple different incarnations, now doing a TV show on the radio. And based on what I read there, a lot of the shtick is reliant upon video clips, but you still hear them on the radio referencing the fact they're showing a video, and it's a little awkward that way. Maybe they're not living up to their claim of a multi-platform agenda.

But at the end of the day, it really comes down to the fact they needed to cut costs at Rogers Sportsnet. And Tim and Sid were already hanging around doing this TV show. Why not just put it on the radio? Before I forget, I want to thank Gare Joyce for inviting me to his book launch yesterday. I forgot that this happened. So I was in Oshawa yesterday, and I drove to Oshawa. I biked there four and a half hours each way or something. I drove to

Oshawa, which is by the way, a nightmare. I'm on the 401 and I'm thinking to myself, I know I used to do this, like I used to have to do this, but when you have to do something like that, I think you compartmentalize it somewhere in your brain is like, just don't touch that because it's feeding your kids or whatever. But now I'm doing this and I'm thinking, I can't, I couldn't live like this. It was, I spent three hours commuting yesterday in my car and I hated it. So this is neither here nor there, except to say that even though it was cold and rainy, I was not going to drive to the distillery district for Dear Joyce's book launch. I was biking there and I did, and I saw a lot of FOTMs. I saw Damien Cox, Christina Rutherford, Terry Koshan. Um, there's other, Oh yeah. David Schultz,

of course, gear Joyce, like all these FOTMs. He's got a book about Sidney Crosby. If you're going to buy a, if you have a hockey fan in your life, you're buying a Christmas gift for buy this Sidney Crosby book by gear Joyce. Cause gear Joyce is a good guy and a great, great, great writer. So thank you, Gare. And I have no idea where I was going with that. Where do we leave? Well, we're talking about sports right now. Right. I guess that's what triggered it.

You triggered it. Tim and Sid. Right. Now on Sportsnet 5590, filling most of that Bob McCown time slot. But you've also got this other show, The Writer's Block, which is on in the afternoon, two to five. And that's like the old primetime sports. All the old primetime sports sidekicks,

Richard Deitch, who moved here from Sports Illustrated. And they're all in there. What do they do? Jeff Blair, of course, is the primary host of that show. And FOTM, Stephen Bruntunt is there when Richard's not there. This is not part of my sports radio listening diet.

But from what I can tell, it's a reflection of the state of Rogers Sportsnet, right? Where they got rid of Greg Brady, although he said it was amicable. And he says he's doing some guest spots on Global News Radio 640, sort of auditioning, find his way back outside of sports radio. But he had a history on AM640. Yes, because he was Leafs lunch with Bill Waters, I think, was the big spot. So what's happening with Rodgers? We've got a new president of Rodgers Media, Jordan Banks,

a guy who spent a while as the head of Facebook Canada for the first, I don't know, decade that there was a head of Facebook Canada, Jordan Banks was a man. He came over from various different dot-com experiences when Facebook wasn't much of a business. And under his watch, he nurtured it into something in this country. It was going to happen anyway, I guess. But he was Zuckerberg's main man in this country. He gets a job at Rogers Media. You'd figure he would be a hot property to come in to replace the regime that was there before. Rick Brace, that was a guy? He was there with Scott Moore, FOTM.

And they landed this hockey deal, $5.2 billion for 12 years of the NHL. Schultz has a great book about it. And by all accounts, this has been a disaster.

Jordan Banks, new Rogers Media boss, featured by him in the Globe and Mail, he's trying to see the brighter side of it all. He was hired to be the fix-it man. Figure out how to turn this frown upside down and how they can stop

leaking money in the media division in the face of what's happening with Hawkins. I know how to do it. The Leafs need to go to the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, that would be one option, or any Canadian team at all. I know, no. Trust me. You're kind of right, but not really. I'm telling you, it's got to be, trust me, it's got to be the team.

And if, so, I mean, he has no control over that. If that happens, right, he'll get bonuses. Everyone will be having a party. This will have been the greatest thing that ever happened, but they're relying upon these hockey players that do not care as much as me and you about what's happening with Rogers Media. And, you know, the Blue Jays are tied into the media division of Rogers and the fact they own the stake at MLSC.

I mean, this is all intertwined. And I don't know if any individual radio station, how well it's doing from one quarter to the next, really factors into the overall monstrosity that is Rogers Communications. In fact, it's primarily a telecom company. And this is all folly on the sidelines. But based on the number of people that they've cut back over the years, from Sportsnet alone alone layoff round

after round after round fotm howard burger especially gets passionate about talking on his on his website right about how many people they've cut loose and why the wave after wave of not needing people around anymore even ones who have built up these big followings, Bob McCowan being the biggest fish of all to let loose from the tank, whatever's going to happen to him after this. So there's Jordan Banks. He's talking about hopes to salvage the hockey.

What else is he going to say? Right, exactly. What else is he going to say? I would have done this deal again if I was in charge. Gee, isn't that brilliant? Are you telling me that you would have done this deal again if I was in charge. Gee, isn't that brilliant? Are you telling me that you would have done a deal that would have lost so much money and cost so many jobs over the past five or six years? Is that really what you have to offer as a media manager?

At the same time, I got to figure out who I got to suck up to to continue to have some sort of income coming out of the media. And I feel I have some answers for how to save Rogers Media. I just have to figure out what they are first. And I'm not sure that I buy what this Jordan Banks is selling when he talks about the fact that City TV, again, an operation that Rogers acquired pretty much by accident, how CityTV is able to connect with people on the local level,

and in turn, it stands to be more successful than Facebook. Are you buying this line? That's a laughable line. Do you believe, is it or is it it? I think it is. There might be a logic there. Because who knows what lies ahead in the future. I don't even know that they really want to own City TV.

They picked up this thing from Bell Media, right? Bell Media, CRTC wouldn't allow Bell to own City TV and CTV. Right, they had to choose one and it was an obvious choice for them. And Ted Rogers was still alive at the time. And much like the magazines that they were running, there was a sentimental thing that Ted Rogers wanted to have some qualitative media in this division of the company, that he was willing to lose money on certain projects. What they couldn't have foreseen was the idea that an old school TV station like City TV

would no longer be popular. Whether it's Gordon Martineau, whoever, Lauren Honigman, who else have you had on here from the glory days of City TV? Peter Gross and John Gallagher. Of course, of course. How can I forget? We talk about them so much, I've managed to forget. Part of my family now, the TMDS family.

Did you ever imagine a day when people by default wouldn't tune in to City TV? It was the hippest operation around. And yet today, struggling for viewers, they've got the crappiest American programming. And some nights of the week, they don't even make an effort to do anything with it. I mean, they run the hockey games on there, and that helps for the CanCon. But not the Leafs games. Leafs games are on the TV.

Yeah, not the Leafs. So they've got to figure out this mess. Good luck to Jordan Banks, head of Rogers Media, who's putting on a brave face as he enters into this challenge to figure out what to do with the media division, and we'll see where it goes. And I don't know whether it's Rogers or Bell, Chorus. We've got all these big media companies

that are facing all the cord cutters going on, wondering what the future holds. And from a certain perspective, it's a very exciting time. But it's not so much fun if you lose your job. Sholm. Now, I'm a Toronto guy. I know of Sholm because FOTM Steve Anthony used to work there.

Tell me about the milestone anniversary at Shom. Shom? Yeah, also a Toronto guy. I didn't know much about Shom. I always thought Shom was sort of like a more francophone version of pronouncing chum. I was reminded, and this story circulated over the years, that's not where the name came from. That in fact, it was like a spiritual Indian mantra thing, the OM.

Yeah, the OM. Jeff Sterling, the guy who originally owned the station, real eccentric, also owned NTV in Newfoundland, independent station there, which is still around. And, you know, listen, these were hippies. It was Jeff Sterling and Doug Pringle, another name that comes up in the original history of the station. And they just celebrated their 50th anniversary.

October 28th, 1969 was when they signed on. The format, they're not a free-form rock radio station anymore. It's owned by Bell Media. Went through Chum and Astral. Standard? Standard Broadcasting somewhere along the way. But you know what? It's close enough to what it was that I thought credibly,

I don't know if we'd see this on CFNY, they were able to celebrate their 50th anniversary as a continuum that represents a half century since they began. So there was a piece from Ennio Morricone where they're singing, Sean, Sean, Sean. It's close enough to Sean that it became a jingle on the station all these years.

Happy 50th anniversary to Shom, 97.7 in Montreal, and a future FOTM, John Derringer, worked there for a number of years. Here's hoping. A couple of years in the mid-90s. Yeah. Nope.

Yeah. Nope. Yeah. Nope. Mark, apologies to you I know you love your politics segment but due to time constraints I skipped ahead to this one because this was when my daughter told me all about TikTok. That's when this went viral. Jagmeet Singh. Got to pronounce it correctly.

Jagmeet. But I still hear Jagmeet all the time. Yeah, I know. I think at the beginning we said Jagmeet. But you see, I know it's not Jagmeet, and I said Jagmeet. What's my problem? Jagmeet Singh made a viral sensation out of this TikTok song by who?

E-40? Is that the name of the rapper? E-40. E-40. It's been around a long time. And so if you're a TikTok user, the whole thing is what? So if you're a TikTok user, the whole thing is what? You draw from their bank of song clips, of which this became a big meme.

Over half a million people on TikTok were doing the E-40 meme. The choices. I heard off the top, not the most polite language in this hip-hop song. But really, which ones do have polite language? That doesn't bother me at all. The man has license. That's part of the culture. Look, when Norm Kelly, Toronto City Councilor,

would be on Twitter big-upping all these hip-hoppers, you've got to wonder if he ever bothered to pay attention to the lyrics of any of the songs that he was endorsing. It's the kind of thing that if people took seriously, you would condemn at Toronto City Hall. So here was Jugmeet with this meme, which didn't seem to help him get any more seats

in the federal election, but it was part of the momentum that allowed him as the leader of the NDP to declare that it was a victory of sorts with the liberal minority that now he plays a role in Parliament. He can influence the power balance once things get back into business. And as his campaign gained steam when he was coming out to talk about how Justin Trudeau's blackface photos would have had an impact on people emotionally. That, you know, you probably feel hurt if you're a person of color seeing these photos of Justin Trudeau.

Barack Obama ended up endorsing Trudeau. The whole message there was he's not a racist. Don't try to, you know, tar him with this brush of brown face and black face. But he won. What can you do? Minority government. So this song will go down in history as one of the soundtracks of the Canadian election of 2019. And it was wonderful that there was TikTok TOK and Jagmeet Singh.

And what were we saying? Your, your daughter is a Tik TOK user. Yep. And I, uh, was ignorant to the world of Tik TOK, which is the way that teens like it.

I think that, uh, 40 something year old guys have no idea what's going on there, but, uh, I'm going to stick. If it's okay with everybody, I'm going to stick to the only social media channel I actually enjoy,

which is Twitter. So you'll find me on Twitter. The rest is just... We'll see if TikTok has staying power. I saw they were hiring people in Toronto, but it's got ties to the Chinese, so there's a lot of concerns over surveillance and what's really going on here.

I believe you've had this song on the list for several episodes, it feels like. Oh, I want to, you know, because I was so charmed by listening to this record from the CBC by a singer named Judy Singh, and it represents, I think, the first recording done by David Foster, the producer who went on to a lot of fame and fortune. If you find this Judy Singh record that was re-released from the CBC archives, you can hear David Foster in his earliest days behind the scenes, composing and performing on this album.

And there's David Foster in a new documentary, which Bell Media is promoting. And here's this guy who, I don't know, people give him a lot of thought over the years. He was behind all those hit records by Chicago. When Chicago became a big bombastic corporate rock band, there was David Foster behind the scenes. And we're going to hear more about David Foster

because Bell Media has decided that he's a big Canadian hero that needs to be celebrated. This interests you at all? Do you care about what David Foster is doing? I mean, there's a mild curiosity. Okay, and yet this guy managed to really be, he's like Bruce Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner. He really wanted to be this kind of Hollywood personality

in reality TV, and then he marries Catherine McPhee, who I think is younger than some of his children from American Idol. Yes, and yeah, a lot younger than David Foster. Yeah. Half his age, a source, subject of fascination. So that's on the brink.

That's happening, a documentary about David Foster. And from the reviews that I read, this is a very flattering portrayal. Not a whole lot of dirt, but he's out there waiting to be celebrated and commemorated. I don't know if I made it worthwhile to keep that song on the list for all these months. And then it ended abruptly, and I'm like, what did I do wrong? But that's okay, because let's not make the people, let's not make the listenership wait any longer, because it's time for the Beach Boys' Marcella.

And that means we're ready, Mark Weisblatt, for our chair girl update. I just want to thank an FOTM Blair on Twitter now as 5151photography. It used to be Photoblair, and at one point he logged off. I wonder if something is wrong. Tell him we liked that handle.

Photo Blair is a good handle. I guess he wanted to promote his business, I suppose. Okay. Blair, in fact, was the person who first made the analogy between Marcella Zoya, the chair girl, and the Beach Boys song Marcella. He tweeted about it. He put it out there on the morning that her name was revealed.

Marcella. He tweeted about it. He put it out there on the morning that her name was revealed. But, Blair, who I've never met, knows me well enough to know that I would have known this song anyway. That said, if it was not for Blair

putting it on Twitter, we would not be in what? Our sixth, seventh, eighth consecutive episode of playing the Beach Boys song, Marcella. Someone on Twitter, Beach Boys Girl. If you have a handle like Beach Boys Girl. I've seen this handle, yes.

Then who better to catch on to the fact that Toronto Mike Podcast was playing this pretty obscure Beach Boys song. Yeah, I didn't know it until you pointed it out to me. When they got the South Africans in the band, and there was Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, more behind the scenes with Marcella. Marcella Zoya, chair girl update.

She was supposed to be in court this month. We've had this happen several times along the way. And once again, they rescheduled her court date. That I think it's going to take until the end of 2019 to figure out what actually happened to Marcella. I was all ready to do the final chair girl update, and it's not going to happen yet. In the interim, we had a film industry guy from Toronto named Rob Duckworth, who somewhere on Instagram, he's at a Halloween party, and he dressed up as Chair Girl. And I wouldn't say he put a whole lot of effort into the costume.

First of all, the guy has a beard, and he didn't even shave for the occasion. Second of all, he basically just put on a blonde wig. There was no further attempt to resemble Marcella Zoya. He didn't even shave for the occasion. Second of all, he basically just put on a blonde wig. There was no further attempt to resemble Marcella Zoya. A blonde wig carrying a chair around. Look at me. I'm chair girl. And for this, he ended up on page two of the Toronto Sun.

The headline, chair-larious. And he said that the weekend, the weekend's people direct messaged him on Instagram and said they wanted to get some sort of picture of him with the weekend, like a guy. Why not go to the actual chair girl? Right. Like, you can do that. You don't have to go to a guy with a beard dressed up as chair girl if you want a picture of yourself with chair girl. What an age we live in, right? Think do that. You don't have to go to a guy with a beard dressed up as chair girl if you want a picture of yourself with chair girl. What an age we live in, right?

Think about that. I don't know if he's telling the truth. He's just pranking FOTM Jane Stevenson at the Toronto Sun. So the aftermath of it all is, whether it was in the Sun or BlogTO, maybe Narcity, I don't know. Who else covers guys dressed up as chair girl. Chair girl herself on Instagram made a point of sharing the fact that there was this coverage of a guy dressed up as chair girl.

This does not fall in line with anything her lawyer has said, that she's, what, pulling away from social media, that she regrets everything that ever happened to her she didn't mean to allegedly chuck that patio furniture off a balcony towards a gardener expressway where where people could be hurt just another month in the life of chair girl let's see where we're at with marcella with with how many episodes do we have left to go in 2019 two? will we get to the end of the year and have the final

update about Marcella here's hoping here's hoping Mark, it's time to talk about those we lost this past month. And this is the wholly appropriate time for me to introduce a brand new sponsor. A brand new partner of Toronto Mike. Welcome Ridley Funeral Home. I met with the owner of Ridley Funeral Home, a gentleman named Brad,

just a wonderful guy. The entire facility is amazing and my neck of the woods actually, southwest Toronto. And let me just urge everyone listening to attend the Holidays in Hope Candlelight Service on December 7th at 7pm. This is taking place at the Assembly Hall.

You can join Brad and the good people at Ridley Funeral Home for their annual free memorial service in honour of those loved ones who have passed away and cannot be with us this holiday season. For more information, go to ridleyfuneralhome.com or call 416-259-3705. And I'm playing the cars since you're gone. Well, listen, after that live read, I have to open another GLB

because I can't believe what's just happened here. We do this obituary segment every 1236 episodes. What just revealed to me is the fact that you've got a funeral home now sponsoring Toronto Mike. I mean, how perfect is that? A match made in heaven. If we,

we have to, we have to recap every time that the whole idea of fixating upon obituaries was something that I think Toronto Mike enabled because on the Toronto Mike dot com website for all these years, every time a celebrity of interest dies, you have done a blog post and you've done it for all these years. You've got this archive, not only of the little memorial thing, you usually get it up pretty quick after you hear the celebrity died. And underneath the comment section often lights up with people talking about that celebrity. Right. And it was my idea here as we develop these episodes and we would,

you know, do these obituary segments and why not do it in one, one big fix of talking about everyone of interest who died since the last time I was here. Now, now it's been more than a month. Right. And, of course, when a Rick Ocasek passes away, for example.

Rick Ocasek. Oh, my apologies. I've learned this, just like Jagmeet and Jagmeet Singh, that all the years I was growing up, I heard Rick Ocasek. No, it was Rick Ocasek. But it didn't sink in with you yet. That was the actual pronunciation. And his legal name was spelled, there was a T in the middle of it.

And he dropped it when he started up with the cars. Okay, but when Rick passes away. Rick without a K. Rick Ocastic. Oh, yeah, R-I-C. R-I-C. Right. And Ocastic without a T. Yeah, okay, Rick O'Casick. Without a C. Oh, yeah, R-I-C. R-I-C. Right. And O'Casick without a T.

Yeah, okay, Rick O'Casick passes away. When this gentleman... I think the biggest... No, the biggest celebrity... Rockstar death in September, October 2019. Yes, I would agree. But when Rick passes away, the mainstream media will cover it.

Okay, you're going to get, I don't know, Eric Alper will be here and maybe Jeff Woods is talking there and Alan Cross is there. I mean, does Alan do that? Maybe. Bottom line is, it's well covered. So the majority of the deaths that we talk about will be those who aren't necessarily given the same limelight. Yeah, a pastiche of celebrities that we remember,

usually from our own childhoods, and combining that with different Toronto characters, things that we cover in the 1236 newsletter. And it's been terrific so far because it's allowed us to have conversations

about people that wouldn't have come up at any other time. It's sad that it took them to die for us to think about them. But when it comes to Rick O'Cassick, a lot of content came out of his death. You saw a lot of articles, a lot of memorials, a lot of recollections about the

history of the Cars, including a Canadian angle there, which I didn't know that much about before, which was the fact that when the Cars had their debut album, it in fact was one of those albums that was bigger in Canada than any other territory, that they went from playing at the El Macombo to Maple Leaf Gardens to the C&E Grandstand, all within the space of a couple of years that this Cars debut album tapped into something that was more successful in the Canadian market than anywhere else. And you could see how that would happen because it had that new wavy sound,

but also because this was the era we were talking before about SHOM radio, when FM radio stations across the country had to find non-hit music to play. It was part of the CRTC regulations. And that first Cars album was hit after hit after hit. Songs that you could play over and over again that were not released as singles, but played well in what was happening FM radio as it pivoted from the progressive rock thing into more of a new wave sound. That Rick Ocastic came from that background, that he had tried to make it on his own as a more earthy rocker, that he understood the instincts.

And a lot of the obituaries and appreciations of the guy, I think, were marveling at how well executed the concept of the cars turned out to be. This was not some organic garage band. This was a guy who had a very calculated idea of how he wanted to be a rich and famous rock star. I think once he pulled it off, he retreated, and he wasn't so fond of the fame that went along with it. The first car's out, and the second one, Candy O. Right. Third one, Panorama, that

was sort of the more abstract, artsy side of the band. Shake It Up, which was going for more of a crass commercial thing, but that song that we heard, what's it? Since You've Gone. Since You've Gone.

And then, the big motherlode, Heartbeat City, which is the album we all remember where they brought in Mutt Lang as the producer, generate these hit singles. And it was really a calculation to move Rick as the front man in the music videos because it was half him, but it was half Benjamin Orr. Right.

And Rick would write the songs, but Ben Orr, they would flip back and forth. So by the time we got to see the cars all over the place, music videos, big celebrities on these after-school music video shows in Toronto, it was all about Rick Ocasek with the other four guys from the band in the background, even though they all

contributed to what this was. I mean, this was a band that had a drummer, David Robinson. He was like the in-house graphic designer of the band. This is how much calculation went into it. So it was a fact that, you know, here was Rick Ocastic who became a household name, at least for a little time, but resisted it so much that the album that came out after the big Heartbeat City album was a dud. No one cared about them anymore, and it was time to wind the whole thing down.

And again, I've said this before, but you can't underestimate the importance of the You Might Think video, which was all, there was a period of time I remember it was all over the place, You Might Think, which featured prominently Rick Ocastic. And it was also the fact that he was involved in all these more artistic projects, right?

Things that were on the fringes of the music scene. The Bad Brains, Suicide, a band with a cult following that he was their producer and working with them. And later on, he was behind the scenes of Weezer and their big breakthrough. And that was kind of the sequel to the Cars, that there was Weezer with Rick O'Cassick behind the dial.

Great album, too, by Weezer. I think this would be the other big rock and roll death since your last appearance. And I mixed it up on you. You wanted a different Eddie Money song. I suggested Shaken, which is not a song that you

know, I guess. You never heard it. I know Two Tickets to Paradise. I think Shaken is the essence of Eddie Money. This song, a reminder from the obituaries, he hated this song, especially the na-na-na-na-na part of it. But here he made a bit of a comeback beforehand, Take Me Home Tonight and I Wanna Go Back. These were songs that were in the the corporate

rock milieu that he was presented with he was an interpreter of other people's work and he was you know given this song that was calculated to be a radio hit and it seemed to work and this was really the last we heard of eddie money all over the radio. Walk on Water, 1988. But invested enough, he had the right number of jukebox hits that he could spend the next 30 years just touring, right? Playing those, like, 8, 9, 10, 12 songs that everybody would know. Once you've got that repertoire, you're kind of set for life. Yeah, and he had, of course, in his back pocket, Two Tickets to Paradise, I think that's the...

Two Tickets to Paradise, baby, hold on. Yeah. So I don't know the lot of people really thinking about Eddie Money before he died. And he'd been through the ringer as far as drug addiction was concerned, right? He had a, what was it, a fentanyl overdose. And he thought it was cocaine that he snorted way back when, pioneering that way, but kind of self-deprecating about all the battles that he had. And listen, it was amazing that he lasted as long as he did, but he made it to 70 70 and we lost Eddie Money.

Ever since, I think we lost David Bowie and Prince and who else? A bunch of rock stars all died. George Michael. Tom Petty. There's a lot more tension nowadays when a rock star dies and I think the nostalgia machine has it's ramped up to a different level where people get more emotional about figures that they might not have thought much about but they start

getting they start get into like reminiscence mode about songs they heard on the radio growing up Eddie Money was I think he benefited from the fact that he died while this wave is happening, and there's only going to be more because there's a lot more rock stars left to die.

Lots more to come. I think, was it I? I know it was me, but did we ever coin a phrase for when you like a band's music more after the principal member passes away? Were you listening to more Eddie Money or more Cars songs after you heard about them dying in that same not two of the best examples actually but there have been several examples over the last few years of bands i'm like oh i don't really know them well let me

dive in and i'll be like these guys are fucking great but the guy had to die for me to like dive in there is a a great rolling stone article fact. This is what Rolling Stone magazine is still good for, analyzing the life of Rick Ocastic and really the road that he went down as somebody who walked off the stage himself to be behind the scenes in the music business, but then the health challenges have followed, and they made it to the end with his ex-wife, Paulina Porzakova, also a supermodel celebrity

that even though they ended up breaking up and it was announced beforehand, but in fact she was with him at the end when he died. Here's somebody else that died. Another rock star, a big figure in music history, Ginger Baker. And this song is kind of obscure, right? It's a band called Masters of Reality.

It came out in 1993. This was a group that was, I would say, a little bit on the satirical side as far as, well, Masters of Reality. That was a name taken from black sabbath and produced by rick rubin but they they really went for it in in 1993 and they managed to recruit ginger baker to be their drummer on this album that came out around that time ginger baker from cream they went on to uh get more into Nigerian music

and working with Fela Kuti. He tried to be an actor at one point. He auditioned to be in UHF, the Weird Al Yankovic movie, and he didn't get the part. I mean, could you imagine Weird Al had a chance to have Ginger Baker playing some goofy role? I don't know, the old scraggly homeless man or something in the movie? How come?

And they turned him down? Why did we never get another Weird Al fronted movie? That's the only movie I can think of. Because it was an enormous flop. It was amazing. But he acquitted himself after. He came back in different ways. Conan the Librarian.

So there was where Weird Al, of all people, intersected with Ginger Baker that he tried to be an actor. But there are some terrific Ginger Baker albums out there when he went down more a jazz route. One called, off the top of my head, Horses and Trees, I think it is, from the

mid-80s. And then an album called Why, which came out five years ago, has an amazing piece on there called Ginger Spice. Not to be confused with Jerry Halliwell. That is confusing. But it's an amazing,

powerful piece, and Ginger Baker was still pounding it out all those years later after Cream with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker's Air Force and certainly a rock drummer to remember that we lost. Was that September, October, whatever it was. Since your last visit.

I only measure things on when was the last obituary roundup on Toronto Mic'd. And the one we're hearing in the background, in fact, died right after, maybe even right before the news came out when I was last here doing an episode. That was Daniel Johnston. This song, this beautiful little ditty is True Love Will Find You in the End. Cause true love is searching too But how can it recognize you Unless you step out into the light, the light Don't be sad, I know you will

But don't give up until True love will find you in the end A real outsider artist as far as 1980s music was concerned when he first recorded that. Daniel Johnston ended up getting more attention paid to him because he was one of those performers who was championed by Kurt Cobain.

And this was in a window of time when if Kurt Cobain gave a seal of approval to somebody, that the record labels would have been knocking on their door, wondering if they could be the next Nirvana. And it wasn't going to happen that way for him. He was certainly an eccentric kind of character who built up this big following for his style of songwriting following for his style of songwriting and you know eventually uh overcame whatever challenges he had to go on the road and at one point at one point he was booked to perform at mtv canada at the masonic temple when they did the mtv live show out of there right that was an unusual thing that someone like him would be on such a corporate Canadian television show

that as far as, you know, something to remember as far as a little bit of subversion sinking in here to MTV Canada as he performed in Toronto at least a couple times along the way. And I don't know. You know that somebody

was a big deal to some people when the Toronto group Choir, Choir, Choir put out one of their memorial videos and they did a version of that. True Love will find you in the end. Here's some CanCon for you. But two years go by and still my light's on This is hard for me to say

But this is all that I can take It's the last song I'll ever write for you It's the last time that I'll tell you just how much I really care. This is the last song I'll ever sing for you. You come looking for the light and it won't be there, but I love you. You are not listening to Zoomer Radio AM 740. Guilty as charged. But rather Toronto Mike. And they play this song every damn day. Maybe two or three times.

Does the Jewel play this? Oh, for sure, for sure. This song is eternal CanCon. The last song by Edward Bear. Danny Marks was in Edward Bear. He's still around on the radio. Jazz FM does the blues shit there. Okay, playing this in honor of a guy named Arnold Gossiewicz,

who died at age 85. And he was, at the time, Edward Bear was one of his signings, the president of Capitol Records of Canada. And he was a figure in the Ottawa music scene. Co-founded a music store there called the Treble Cleft. And worked his way up through the world of rack jobbing, getting records in.

Well, look, I mean, records in Canada in the 60s weren't just sold to record stores. It was about getting it into the department stores all around the country. Somebody had to maintain and nurture all those record album departments and make sure they were stocked with the latest hits. Just like you had even smaller variety stores around the city

that would have the Chum 30 with the 45s there. Do you remember any of this? Were you old enough? That you could go to your corner store and you could buy 45 RPM records. Like somebody had to make sure these things were stocked, and he was a big player in that business. I did buy 45 RPM singles i did i i liked to buy the singles and vinyl and uh but i would go to the jane and bluer sam the record man to pick up my 45s from school i could walk there from school

so with with arnold goss which you had a guy who was a a creation of that era and worked his way up to be the president of Capitol. Part of his initiative was to take the profits that they were making from all these Beatles albums and reinvest it in Canadian content. That's where Edward Bear came from and a whole bunch of other acts. And all these records really owe it to the fact that he had this motivation. Anne Murray was their biggest star by far. It came out of Capitol Records of Canada in the early 70s when he worked there the next place he worked was cbs records of canada and he's credited with discovering this album that was kind of being

ignored that was somewhere in the pipeline of cbs by a guy named meatloaf called Bat Out of Hell. Oh, yeah. And it's Gossiewicz who was championed for the fact that he was the one that came forward and said, we have got a hit on our hands. Wow. We've got to work this Meatloaf guy and turn him into a star. Wow. And he played a pivotal role in engineering the hero that was Meatloaf.

Wow. Out of all people with that out of hell. What a juggernaut album that was. And then he was at CBS Records Canada for a while. Subsequently, he got into the publishing business, moving away from music, maybe feeling a little too old to rock and roll in the 80s, and ran once legendary publisher called Macmillan of Canada. And if you look at the authors that were with Macmillan,

you would associate these with books you would see in Kohl's bookstores around Canada. Like Robertson Davies was published by Macmillan. They forced us to read Fifth Business. I don't think I've ever read Robertson Davies. Not even Fifth Businessan. They forced us to read Fifth Business. I don't think I've ever read Robertson Davies. Not even Fifth Business. No, not even. I don't think it was on a curriculum. I think two classes told me to read it, actually, over my academic career.

By the way. We're in different worlds. If I may say, yes, I am an English major. But if I may say, great book. I just want to throw it out there. So I was forced to read it, but it is a great book. And he continued to be a literary agent right up until his death at age 85 in October 2019. So much so that there is a big Leonard Cohen biography coming out. I mean, there have been books on Leonard Cohen before,

but this is going to be the definitive one, supposedly, by writer Michael Posner. supposedly by writer Michael Posner. So, you know, here was somebody, amazing career, so many years in the music industry tied to Meatloaf, Anne Murray, Edward Bear, I don't know, whatever it took to be in charge of Capitol Records and CBS Records of Canada, and then moved into book publishing, also had an influence there.

So as far as uh creative personalities behind the scenes in canada this one sounded to me like a giant and uh we we heard about all this because he happened to die at age 85 and i'm glad that we could uh spend some time talking about him because i don't think you'll hear about him on uh rosin mocha so if uh i mean i was uh what was i talking about there uh the last song can you name a second edward bear song what um close your eyes is that the one by edward bear i was wondering if you could do it because i cannot but i have the as you know i think i mentioned a hundred times i had this box set from the juno award people and it was like oh canada and they had all these huge CanCon hits.

And, of course, Edward Bear's on there with that song we just heard. Oh, you know, remember Delilah on the radio? She would come on at night and do the syndicated American show, Delilah? Yes. That was a sign-off song from her show, Delilah. Close your eyes. You don't have that cute up there. Close your eyes.

No, I don't have it cute up there. We'll do that next time. I'm going to cube. This will jam. I really like this song, so I can't wait to talk about this guy. I am a friend of original gun come to blow me up The sweet daddy him come back again Dan Dada, now he's a super cat man, you are Dan Dada Me fling to stab under the boy with the bomber Me lick out ninja man front teeth with a hammer The gun where me fire man, it is a type of writer

And where part me come from a rock food Where it come me barn and me grow in a digger to slump The gun where me have man man it don't carry trigger You press two button and I pierce your fire Me and I feel me mama and me and I feel me dada Say so that me days not to dread life will be longer And these are the words of the mighty mighty judge Who sit up in a Zion in a sweet Ethiopia

And I judge a fling lightning and judge a dash thunder Make every man and then judge a make the daughter Come follow me, come follow me Original gun come to blow me top Sweetie daddy him come back again Too bad we don't have the periscope going here because I'm totally grooving, man. This is fantastic. What is going on in this song? What is he singing?

What is this about? What are the gunshots? Do you have any idea? I need to go to genius.com and decipher this thing. I believe he's writing the great novel of his life with his typewriter. run some of them start flat a louis rankin uh louis rankin real name leonard ford uh was a jamaican dance hall musician who ended up settling in hanover ontario and died on september 30th in a car crash on Highway 89.

He was somewhere around 65, 66 years old. And this past spring ended up going viral for doing a little shout-out to the Raptors as they were moving towards a championship. And I'm not sure I knew what he was talking about there either. But enough of a character that people wondered. Well, listen, he looks like he knows what he's talking about, okay? And of course, strong ties to the... Where's Hanover exactly? I should know this.

But Ontario anyways. What? Walkerton? Bruce County? Okay, yeah. So, you know, not a drive away, but I don't think I could bike that. But still, close enough. The real Jamaican Don Dada.

Louis Rankin. You know, he had a vision of what he could be. And this song came out at the time that I think the reggae dance, remember when Shabba Ranks was kind of a pop star? Huge star. He did a song with Maxi Priest.

That was like a top 40 song. He had Lover Man. He had, yeah, As Raw As Ever was a big one. And there was another one, Super Cat. Remember a song called Flex? Flex. And is that, didn't he do Nuff Man A Dead?

I mean, this was the, there was a moment, absolutely, where it crossed over into like, it caught a bunch of us like hip hop heads for sure. So not only was he associated with dance hall music, but he also did some movie roles in different movies. And Belly is the movie that was referenced when he died that people must remember him from. 1998 with DMX and Method Man and T-Baws from TLC.

Oh, by the way, Method Man had a small role in The Deuce, which I watched the series finale. This is a David Simon series on HBO that he's the man who created The Wire. Yes, Molly, he created The Wire. I got to say, I loved this series. I'm just throwing it out there. I just adored The Deuce, and I loved how they ended things up. Little aside.

Since you mentioned Method Man, who was in that series. Bright lights and music, it's faster Look boy, don't check on your watch, run another glance I'm not leaving now, honey, not a chance I decide, give me no problems Much later, baby, you'll be saying, never mind You know a life is cruel, a life is never kind This is the Muffs. Yeah, this song was originally by Kim Wilde, but this cover version has really gone down in history because it was on the soundtrack to the movie Clueless.

So it introduced The Muffs to a big audience of, at the time, teenage girls wouldn't have known this was a cover version. Right. And, you know, speaking of Nirvana and the type of band that their popularity helped enable, you know, here you had the Muffs with Kim Shattuck at the forefront, who died on October 2nd at age 56. She's the lead vocalist? She was in the forefront who died on October 2nd. She's the lead vocalist? 56.

She was in the forefront of it all. She sounds amazing on this song. Beyond this cover version, I mean, managed to build up a following for all this time, and she made an album right before she died. While she was struggling with ALS, knowing that she wouldn't be able to do this for much longer. She recorded an album that was subsequently released.

Yeah, right after she died. So young. And now this might be an example where I'll dive into the muffs. I almost said I'll muff dive, but that's something else. But I think I've been missing out. Before that, she was in a band called the Pandoras, which I don't remember finding all that compelling to listen to, but they got a lot of coverage in music magazines

because I think this is part of, I guess, the biases of rock journalism in the 80s, that if you had an all-female band with attitude, that you were going to read feature articles about them in Spin magazine. And I think that level of attention far outweighed the number of people who ever heard the Pandoras.

But as far as strident punk rock-influenced female bands. Not only the Pandoras, but the Moffs, a big legacy for Kim Shattuck. Like Riot Grrrl stuff, man. That sounds good to me. Now, I think we better say quickly before we move on to this next major death here, we should say hi to JJ.

I feel like if we don't... JJ expects to hear a shout out on the 1236 episode of Toronto Mike. She might be the biggest 1236 on Toronto Mike fan. And I'm glad she made it back alive from playing Pokemon Go

in Montreal. But she says for sure she's going to be at TMLX5 at Palmas Kitchen. So she's going to be at TMLX5 at Palma's Kitchen. So she's, like, confirmed. I know Levee Fumka's even got her name tag already. Okay, hope to reunite with JJ sometime soon. Yes.

This song is what? Another celebrity death, moving into the Hollywood portion of the rundown here. But you had it on TorontoMike.com. This is an actor. It's a big one for me from Jackie Brown. This is a big one for you. Because Jackie Brown, you remember this movie, Quentin Tarantino. Of course.

Well, I'm a huge Tarantino buff. And you see that latest movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That's the one I haven't seen yet. You had to go to the, that's the only, I think it's the only movie I went to a movie theater to see in all of 2019. I plan to, but it's so hard. I'm not trying to get any pity party here, but I got to get somebody to watch the two little ones. It's twice as long.

No, they're re-releasing a longer version of it. And you know what? I was right in there for the ride, and I am willing to go into a theater. I will see two theatrical movies this year, and it will be the same movie. That's the effect that this movie has. Seriously. I'm going to see it. It was that good.

I just adore every single movie Tarantino has put out, including Jackie Brown, which started. Not that I liked it that much, actually, but there was a Netflix movie that was after what happened in Breaking Bad. And you can see this gentleman in that movie. He's got a role in there, Robert Forster. And he was the kind of actor that it really took Quentin Tarantino to bring back from obscurity.

He did it with John Travolta, of course. Although I feel like he gets too much credit for Travolta because didn't Look Who's Talking bring Travolta? What was the time difference? Okay, but nobody looked at John Travolta and said, this is one of America's great thespians. He was in Look Who's Talking. It took the Pulp Fiction thing to put it back on the map.

And look, I think he's sort of squandered that ever since then. The Scientologists have not been giving him good career advice in the 21st century ever since battlefield earth that's the one okay we're talking about robert forrester and there was a jackie brown which i also saw in a theater and uh with with pam greer uh it was an intense movie, and I think, you know, here was a chance to show that Tarantino could do, you know, a little more of a psychological side

of the crime movie, right? That, you know, here was this blaxploitation idol, Pam Greer, with Robert Forrester in there. What was his part in the movie? I mean, it's been so long since I've seen it. Bounty Hunter? It's been a long time for me.

Bounty Hunter with a heart of gold. And you were drawn to this person because of, I guess, the more emotional side. Now, shout out to Bobby Womack, who's no longer with us, but that's a jam right there, 110th Street. I think that's amazing. Okay, so dead at 78 in October was Robert Forrester.

And in that movie, if I recall, because of course you have greats like Robert De Niro in there, but you also have Bridget Fonda's in there, right? Yeah, that's right. But I was going to say, it's because Robert Forrester was in the sitcom with Tim Allen, Last Man Standing, which I've never seen. I've never seen that. So that's why he was also a little more on the radar in the sitcom with Tim Allen, Last Man Standing, which I've never seen. I've never seen that.

So that's why he was also a little more on the radar in the last few years. I'm a motor running Head out on the highway Looking for adventure In whatever comes our way Yeah, darling, go make it happen Take the world in a loving place Well, you like the segue, but it was Peter Fonda. He died in August.

I think I had it on the list. I was looking at your TorontoMic.com entries. But hey, Peter Fonda from Easy Rider. Did we forget him last time? Yeah, I think he fell through the cracks. I sent you a couple of different lists and you ignored them. The problem is you sent three different lists and I only grabbed one of them. That's the problem.

It's bad enough that we're admitting that there was a list. But we should have a shared Google document. Oh, that's so much work. A living, breathing document. Next time. We didn't get to Peter Fonda before, I figured. He was on torontomike.com. Of course.

That's a major death. Mention him on your podcast at some point. This movie was seminal, as they say. This was a big BFD, right? This was a big fucking deal. I mean, we're too young to remember when it came out in theaters, but this was a big deal. Easy Rider.

I go to the Easy Restaurant at Queen and Ronci's there, and I see Peter Fonda all over the walls. Big deal. And of course, Fonda all over the walls. Big deal. And of course, was it Uli's Gold?

What was the movie? Because you mentioned a minute ago, Tim Allen. So Tim Allen had a series with Robert Forster. Tim Allen's wife on his famous sitcom

was in this movie playing Peter Fonda's daughter. And I want to say it's called Uli's Gold. And I remember watching that and thinking, that Peter Fonda can act. And now he's dead.

And now he's gone. In August, apparently. But any excuse to play Steppenwolf. Can I tell you an aside of when I first heard this song? They played this song in an episode of Family Ties, and I'll never forget it. I loved Family Ties. And it was like a two-parter. And some, I don't know,

Michael J., what's his character's name? Alex P. Keating. His friend died or something. And this was a really deep and heavy episode, man. It was one of those special episodes. And I still remember they played Born born to be wild in this episode and i'm like what is that song and why is it so like i'm pretty young at this

time why is it so amazing so that's i didn't hear it in easy rider first i heard it on family times oh you are so lame it's real talk so Bridget Fonda was in Jackie Brown of Robert Forrester and this is Peter Fonda and Peter is Bridget's father am I right on that? yeah that would make sense and Jane Fonda's sister

and Jane Fonda's still out there with that Netflix Grace and Frankie and getting arrested. I saw that. You know, I mean, look, she's got that legendary arrest photo, Jane Fonda. So, you know, once you've got one arrest photo out there, you might as well go for a second one. or a second one. We'll make you happy We had a dream We'd go traveling together We'd spread a little love And then we'd keep moving on

Something always happens Whenever we're together We get a happy feeling When we're singing a song Traveling along There's a song that we're singing Looking at this gentleman's advanced age, I'm wondering if I should have saved him for last.

Not a lot of people would know his name, but he died at the end of October. October 30th was 89 years old. That's yesterday. Bernard Slade, originally from St. Catharines, Ontario. A guy who wanted to be a serious playwright who ended up moving to Hollywood. And he got himself attached to shows like Bewitched, The Flying Nun, The Courtship of Eddie's Father. father. These were foundational sitcoms

of American television. Scaled himself up to create a show based on a family band called the Cowsills, which was the Partridge family. And there's an article from a McLean's magazine. It's online from 1975. There's a pretty

good archive of McLean's. A lot of Cane Con history in there. Where there he is complaining to some degree, even though it made him some money, about the fact that he wanted to be taken seriously, get back to business as a playwright. Even though

the residuals from the sitcoms probably gave him enough to live off of for the rest of his life. He wanted to be taken more seriously. So he wrote a play called Same Time Next Year, which was later turned into a movie with Charles Grodin, Ellen Burstyn.

And then I think a more personal one for him, a play called Tribute, which was made into a movie called, sorry, starring Jack Lemmon with Robbie Benson. It was Jack Lemmon reprising his role on the stage. And there was another one, a play turned movie called Romantic Comedy. So these were the kind of movies that came out of the late 70s. These are the sort of movies that would not be theatrically released today. There were more, you know, serious, serious movies for, you know, middle-aged husbands and wives to go out to see.

It was, it was Bernard Slade who was behind a few of them. I guess he got his, his wish fulfilled. He got to be taken seriously as a playwright, as an artist behind the movies. Didn't have too many credits after that, which makes me believe that I think these sitcoms that he disparaged working on paid the bills for the rest of his life after that.

That's the assumption based on looking them up. Now, Mark, you're not a big sports fan, but you keep in the know. It's part of my homework for being here, I think. And I love Hebsey on sports. That is my main source of

sports information. Thank you for saying that. That's not a paid endorsement. No, no, no. I'm really listening. Hebsey on sports. Get it in your podcast player. Mark Hebsey. Everybody knows Hebsey. We got a fresh episode tomorrow. They have to know that he's doing this podcast.

Comes down here to TMDS in the basement. Does a podcast every Monday, every Friday. And you hear a monologue mostly. You interject. Here and there. and you hear a monologue mostly, you interject, kind of accelerates to the point where he reaches a peak in every episode. You know, that he's sort of got a point that he wants to make and he works his way up the mountain, right? And then he reaches the peak.

And then it's a nice slide down from there. And what are the episodes? 45, 50 minutes always? Which is the peak. Right. And then it's a nice slide down from there. Right. And what are the episodes? 45, 50 minutes always? Ah, 55 minutes. Okay, he's a pro, though. He stays within a certain structure. He knows he's got a good sense for when to start,

when's the middle, and when's the end. Hebsey on sports. Now, that was the Montreal Expo's theme, if you didn't recognize it. Oh, no, you played that in the podcast that you did this morning with Humble Howard. Yeah, because someone sent me a link to it via DM, and I thought I should play it. Oh, that was me. Sorry. So, the Montreal Expo's theme, and Montreal Expo's World Series Champions of 2019. Sort of.

Close enough. Close enough. Well, as close as they might get, unless they get a team at some point. But yes, the franchise formerly known as the Montreal Expos won their first ever World Series last night. I was falling asleep in the latter innings, but I was there awake to watch the final inning, which is what matters. And I will say a fun fact I learned yesterday

is there's only one player ever who represented both the Montreal Expos and the Toronto Blue Jays in the all-star game. Mark Weisblatt, are you, do you want to take a stab at who this one player is? Oh, I know because I saw it on your website yesterday. And I was old enough. Okay, I was just the right age, like five, six years old, right age, like five, six years old, to know the names of every player on the inaugural season of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Wow. I had books and programs and everything. Doug Alt. My dad got me into baseball. This is a thing that you should care about. I guess every dad wants their son to be into baseball. And the Blue Jays were new. I mean, my father wasn't Paul Godfrey

or anything. He did what he could to make me interested in it. You know that Paul Godfrey's son, what, threw out the first pitch at the first Blue Jays game? I did not know that. Paul Godfrey, right? He was part of the team from the

start. I know he's played a key role in us finally getting to Dome Stadium. Dome Stadium and then running the team from from the start i know he's what he i know he's uh he played a key role in us getting finally getting a dome stadium dome stadium and then running the team himself during i think what's going down in history is the worst years that it experienced under rogers right right but what's the name i saw the name and i remember the name and here i am sitting with you and ron fairly ron fairly so ronley, it was a rough day for like Toronto sports fans of an age because Ron Fairley, who was our all-star representative that first season in 1977 and was a former expo, he passed away yesterday. But also, and it's interesting, I just had Gord Stelic on Toronto

Mike, like just like the day before or something. And, and of course, recently, one of my favorite episodes is Jim McKinney. And when Jim McKinney was on, I, I said a quote from this gentleman, Jim Gregory,

the quote was, I wouldn't trade McKinney for Bobby or straight up. That was the quote. That's how much promise Jim McKinney had as a young defenseman. The rest is history. Bobby or hasn't come on Toronto Mike, but Jim McKinney has as a young defenseman. The rest is history. Bobby Orr hasn't come on Toronto Mike, but Jim McKinney has. So yes,

Jim Gregory and Ron Fairley both passed away yesterday. Okay. Big day for Toronto sports death on October 30th, 2019. Absolutely. Absolutely. When the moon hits your eye Like a big pizza pie That's amore I feel like I'm doing a Palmer's Kitchen giveaway here.

When the world seems to shine Like you've had too much wine That's amore Look, I know Dean Martin's been dead quite a long time. Bells will ring, ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling, and you'll sing the... Tell us all why I'm playing That's Amore by Dean O. Dean Martin. Martin.

Okay, yeah, so there was a legendary music writer that died in October 2019. You might never have heard of him, but his name was Nick Toshes. And I think the most popular book he ever wrote was the biography of Dean Martin called Dino that

came out in the 90s. But here was one of those characters, if you were clued into the rock critic tribe, Lester Bangs, because he was immortalized in that almost famous movie, is the name that most people now know. Right, Philip Seymour Hoffman, right? But these were people that wrote for Rolling Stone or the Village Voice, Alt Weekly in New York City. Rolling Stone or the Village Voice, Alt Weekly in New York City. And most of all, I think the one that had at the time the most creative license was Cream Magazine.

Did you ever see Cream? I've seen it and heard of it, but I don't have any memories of reading it. Boy, howdy. And I think, you know, and now what we look back at is a prehistoric era of media. This was a magazine that introduced a lot of subversive ideas to kids that would buy it at the variety store. Like here was a magazine that was presented as this pin-up magazine where you could read about your favorite rock stars, but the level of writing in there was on a whole different level it was

exceptional uh you know these were these were by far some of the most unique scribes of the time and these people that go down in history and and it was um uh nick tosh's who you know got that level of attention he ended up writing a biography on Jerry Lee Lewis and doing a number of... Who's still with us, by the way. Yeah, amazingly enough. And Little Richard, too, I just want to point out. I'm trying to think of who these big-time first rock and rollers are.

We never know what shape they're in. He also collaborated on the autobiography of Hall and Oates. They did a book that Nick Toshes was involved with. And here's a guy that lived a life of journalism and left a whole legendary thing behind, representing a whole different era, I think. When somebody like that could do this quality of work and yet at the same time have it mass marketed

to the fact there were teenage kids who would have known who this guy was and were interested in his opinions on what was happening in rock music. He died in October at age 69. Well, the worst part for me here, I mean for everybody, was 1966. The city never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool. That's when was invited that all North America, the Beatles. all in North America, the Beatles.

Love you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, everybody, all the men, become with long hair. Kids, no, no, no touch, no touch. Marafata in 12, 13, under barbershop in town, they close 500. Everybody go in Costa Rojan. That was a gentleman named Corrado Acaputo. We have talked about him on Toronto Mike before. Puto. We have talked about him on Toronto Mike before because he had a barber shop at Bathurst and Queen, downtown Toronto, that he ran for the better part of 55 years. I think there was a

barber shop there. He ended up taking it over. It's called Corrado's. It burned down in March. It was a big fire there. in fact yeah we definitely subsequent uh barber the guy that he gave the business to his stepson ended up dying in the fire on this on this property that was owned by corrado uh corrado was dead died uh in in late october he was around 80 years of age i know how old he is because he talked about coming to Canada from Sicily, age 17 in 1957, 79, 80 years old. And he was there running this barbershop in this neighborhood, which I think was a pretty rough part of town at the time.

What was going on at Bathurst and Queen? No, yeah, for sure. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, this was sort of still blue. Fabrics and Queen. No, yeah, for sure. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, you know, this was sort of still. Fabrics and stuff. Yeah, fashion district, but also maybe a blue-collar neighborhood. But this guy, yeah, this guy hung around there long enough that he managed to weather all the different changes running his barber shop there.

And he's a legendary Toronto character. I mean, people knew about him. Like, he was doing commercials uh there's a serial commercial fiber plus that he's in you can find that on youtube and different documentaries that people made about him all the fact that he was so resilient they were standing there running this barber shop all this time part of the legend of corrado was the fact that even though there were other chairs in the barber shop, I think for the most part it ended up being a case that he was the only barber there.

As a result, he could get away with saying whatever was on his mind. Anecdote after anecdote after anecdote. Let's just say if Corrado was doing a speech at the Toronto Public Library, that they probably would have had a protest going on to shut him down. But it was part of the experience to go and get a haircut from him because he would launch into this soliloquy for each individual customer. Somebody on Reddit wrote that getting a haircut from him could last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour

because he would launch into all these tirades while he was snipping away at your hair. The man needed a podcast. And that was part of the charm. Now, based on anecdotal evidence, the anecdotes that he had to share were very repetitive. And his thing, he had a vendetta against the Beatles, of all things. Imagine there's a barber in Toronto when that clip was from,

when he was winding it down, retiring, handing off his business. I don't know, five years ago, he'd been doing it 55 years. business i don't know five years ago he'd been doing it 55 years listen to the resentment towards john paul george and ringo because they didn't have haircuts for killing the barbershop business in downtown i think it's exaggerating about the number of barbershops they were responsible for closing down uh once yelp came along as a way to review businesses, let's just say the Corrado page on there explained a little bit about what the experience was of listening to him speak.

And yet people came time and time again to listen to the wit and wisdom of Corrado. I don't know. I was going to go a great barber. I don't know. Maybe, maybe he was a mediocre barber. As far as I know,

he isn't even in the ground yet. That his funeral, in fact, is, is tomorrow, November 1st. But that he stuck it out there at, at,

at Bathurst and Queen 162, Bathurst Street, for all those years. And, you know, unfortunate circumstances. There was a fire there and a kid died. Stepson of the barber that took the place over. Really unfortunate. He wasn't around much longer. But you're cutting hair at that corner for that many years.

People are going to remember you. And, you know, what more would he have wanted than to be remembered? He had to mention him here on the Toronto Mic'd obituary segment. Now sponsored, by the way. You want to give another sponsor plug? Ridley Funeral Home. Talk to Brad and the gang? Ridley Funeral Home. Talk to Brad and the gang at Ridley Funeral Home. You know, we were wondering via our direct messages

who might be the first Toronto Mike guest to die. And I guess we're standing by to see if that ever happens. Well, I'm going to guarantee it happens eventually. I just hope it's not one of us. Yeah, can you guarantee it isn't me? Okay, so here we get, you love winding it down with the oldest age we can get, right? Which tells me we're nearing the end of this broadcast. Thanks to Bill Macy making it all the way to 97 years of age.

Will Macy making it all the way to 97 years of age. Not to be confused with William H. Macy, who's not that old and is also not that dead. Now, everybody remembers Maude, if only for B. Arthur. And if they don't remember Maude, they remember Shopper's Drug Mart commercials with Maude. Right. Which was all part of the package as far as Canadian attention. Well, they'll remember the Golden Girls is what they'll remember.

Even if you're too young, and I remember Maude, but for sure you'll know Bea Arthur from the Golden Girls. No, you know I've had too many Great Lakes beers when I can't remember the Golden Girls. I know. I was going to say, he went to Shopper's Drug Mart, which is a fantastic recall. I love those ads. But, I mean, Golden Girls was kind of popular.

So I just want to say thank you one last time here to Great Lakes Brewery for Octopus Wants to Fight IPA. My favorite beer. Still my favorite. And it's the perfect drink prior to taking your two toddlers, they're not toddlers anymore, your two kids trick-or-treating on a cold, rainy Halloween. So tell us about

Bill Macy before I play us out. I think the situation was people would wonder with Maude, what kind of man would marry Maude? And it was a Walter, right? Walter Findlay,

the, the husband of Maude spin off from all in the family. And that's what we remember. Bill may see the most for, and he died in October, 2019 at age 97. Not bad. I'll take it.

Got all the way there. Later on, he would do these guest spots on Seinfeld. Remember when they would go to the retirement home where Jerry's parents were living? Yes. And there he was on the biggest sitcom around all those years later. And in general, I guess just one of those guys

that was so synonymous with a specific TV character that he can barely be remembered for anything else, right? Even though he worked, even though he lived to all those years later. Kind of like George Costanza, right? He tries different sitcoms and things, but we just want him to be George. So we remember closing out this Toronto Mike

obituary segment now brought to you by, get this right again? Ridley Funeral Home. They're on Lakeshore. They're in New Toronto. And hopefully we'll have a long relationship with Ridley Funeral Home. And I don't know. Is there any other podcast in Toronto that talks about dead people?

As much as a 1236 episode of Toronto Mike? They found the right place. I thought you were going to say, is there any other podcast in Toronto sponsored by a funeral home? We left a bunch of obits on the table. Did we? Yeah, we did. You didn't get the whole list.

You know what? We'll talk offline here. We'll carry them over. I can't have multiple versions of the truth because then it messes up. So we'll talk offline. We've got to start up a Google. What are you asking me to do? A shared Google document

and then you can edit it as the thoughts come to you and we all look at one version. Mike, it was a lot of trouble to get here today. I'm not going to lie. Do you want to go trick-or-treating with me or do you want to shell out with Monica? She's going to be at the door of a witch hat giving the candies out. I'm going around with Morgan and

Jarvis. We'll see how far we can get on a cold, rainy Halloween. But which would you like to do? Because you're welcome to. I wanted Halloween to be canceled. I'm back here in November. We're going to talk about the podcast industry, where it's been, where it's going, what our expectations are for what's going to happen with podcasts,

and we're going to try and make it good. And this is our next challenge, right? So before the November 1236 episode, I'm going to be back. Not as fast as Humble Howard, but I'm coming back in a couple weeks. We're going to do this again. I think Humble beat the Larry Fedorek record between appearances. I have to check into that, but I'll get my people to listen.

Okay, happy Halloween to Toronto Mike and all the Toronto Mike family. I look forward to the comments that come under the posting of every episode. Right? I jump in there sometimes. I love it when you jump in there, for sure. Okay, just don't say anything bad, because then I'll just get Mike to delete it anyway. And that brings us to the end of our 535th show. It feels like just yesterday I put together episode 500.

That's been crazy. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMike. Mark is at 1236. That's at 1236. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Brian Master wants you to email him at letsgetyouhome at kw.com. Get on his mailing list. Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP. And Pumpkins After Dark are at pumpkins pumpkins after dark.com. And I just said that for the last time for a long time. Thank you. Pumpkins after dark. See you all tomorrow with Hawksley workmen. I know it's true. How about you? I'm picking up trash and then putting down roads.

And they're broken stocks, the class struggle explodes. And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can.