Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #564

Episode Date: December 30, 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 564 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Bryan Master from KW Realty, and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week, making his 24th and final appearance of the decade, is Mark Weisblot from 1236. Let us bask in the accomplishment

that we've had here, Toronto Mike. 24 times I've been here to the basement, but 12 of those times were in 2019. As I left last year, we did our post-Boxing Day episode. That's when I was here a year ago. episode. That's when I was here a year ago. And on the way out, we kind of left with the resolution that in 2019, we were going to try and do this thing that we were doing once a quarter and instead try it once a month. Now, we missed one of the monthly deadlines in there, But we caught up in November by doing a special episode about the state of podcasting. Right.

And it's allowed us to sit here and appreciate the fact that we followed through on something. How many New Year's resolutions out there actually came true? That I was on Toronto Mic'd 12 times in 12 months of 2019. And I loved every minute of it.

You know, the episodes with you are about two and a half hours, and that's longer than I think any other episode in 2019. No, no, but you broke through two and a half a couple times when you did the TMDX party. Close. TMLX, sorry. Already, it's too early. By the way way we're recording this at 11 a.m right no 12 36 newsletter getting in the way so usually you like to press send at 12 36 from your

home office and then you would venture south right typically dart down here but today as quickly as possible this morning yeah uh i I want to make it clear. This is not a year in review episode. It's not a decade in review episode. I think if you're getting around to this in January, you might think this is old content. You want to start with a clean slate for the new year. You don't want to be dragged through another retrospective

of things that happened before. What we're doing here for all intents and purposes is an episode meant to be listened to in 2020. If it's December 30, 31st, you're just ahead of the curve getting a sneak preview. And I consider me being here today a political act. Explain. Explain yourself. First of all, first crack the Great Lakes beer on the microphone. Okay.

And once again, this is like beer for breakfast here. Which beer did you crack open? Is that a Humber? Okay, that's the beer. I gave Brian Master from KW Realty and, of course, Radio Legend. I gave him a Humber beer. He still talks about it. That is his all-time favorite beer now is the Humber beer from Great Lakes Brewery.

How does it taste? It tastes very local, like I'm drinking right out of the river. He still talks about it. That is his all-time favorite beer now, is the Humber beer from Great Lakes Brewery. How does it taste? It tastes very local, like I'm drinking right out of the river. That doesn't sound like a good thing. Okay, it's December 30th, 2019 when we're recording this. What happened this year, Christmas and New Year's, a statutory holiday. This year, both days fall on a Wednesday. And I think the amount of time that a lot of people are getting away with flaking off work the fact that school is closed right straight through

for the whole two weeks until the sixth like it's a new new year's day is the first then it's thursday we're not gonna get back to business business on Thursday. So you drag this out. You're being stranded, held hostage in holiday mode, even though if these days happen to fall earlier or later in the week, we wouldn't be going through all this this year. And I was looking through a book, we'll talk about it a bit later, The Flyer Vault. And there's an ad in that Flyer Vault book for a Bruce Springsteen concert, which was held at the Seneca College Fieldhouse. A legendary concert.

Bruce Springsteen had been on the cover of Time and Newsweek magazine. The Born to Run album had come out and demand was such a head move. The concert from Convocation Hall into this bigger venue. It was held on December 27th. And it brings us back to a time, not really before either of us were old enough to notice these things, when there wasn't a whole corporation set up around the idea of a rock concert. If you wanted to do a big show on December 27th, nothing was getting in your way.

Nowadays, the custom is everything in society shuts down. People in the entertainment industry aren't going to be working too hard. Certainly not a concert act coming to Toronto. It doesn't happen anymore. The end of

December, and there was once a time in 1975 when these days the hammock of time between Christmas and New Year's, stuff would be happening. I mean, you know, the whole city would shut down on Sunday, and Boxing Day sales didn't happen until the 27th back then. Right. In 1975, Bruce Springsteen came to Toronto.

So here I want to resurrect in the 2020s the idea that, you know, In 1975, Bruce Springsteen came to Toronto. So here I want to resurrect in the 2020s the idea that if you don't want to, you don't have to slumber your way through all those holidays. And I think that's a difference between what you're doing here at TMDS and the big corporate media machine that you're ready to activate at any point in time. And when I was here a year ago, I was in the middle of a whole bunch of episodes, even though it was Christmas and New Year's and early January. In fact, that might be your peak period of time. I remember last year you had

Maestro down here, James B., just before New Year's. Then at the beginning of the year, there was Ashley Dawking talking about how she was ready to get a new job, which ended up happening at Fan 590. And then at the beginning of the year, Tyler Stewart down here for an epic episode, inspired by the fact that Bob Einstein died. Super Dave, who we had a connection with. I read your list of

what was the title? Significant Jewish deaths in 2019? Yeah, that was a Canadian Jewish news assignment. But I really enjoyed it. Part of the work I do there. And yeah, Bob Einstein, I think the most famous Canadian Jew to die

in 2019 on the second day of the year. And he wasn't even really Canadian. Well, I was going to point out the obvious, which is he's not even a Canadian Jew. He did work here, though, for many years. For over a decade. And that was not the least of reasons. The fact that I was mentioned, I think, 73 times on that Tyler Stewart episode. Oh, by the way, I have never disclosed this,

but Banjo... Banjo... That's funny. I should call him Banjo. Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack, which we'll talk about in a bit, plays hockey with Tyler Stewart. They're on the same hockey team. When are you getting him back down here?

He's been ghosting you. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. 2020. Okay, rapper's delight in the background. You fired that up. I mentioned the Flyer Vault, and you had those guys down here behind the book.

Right? Rob Bowman. Yes. And Daniel Tate. Daniel Tate. That's it. The feedback, by the way, is on that episode, they wanted to, they heard too much Daniel and not enough Rob, but I want to let people know Rob's coming back

to do his own episodes. We're going to hear a lot of Rob now if anyone is accustomed to the experience of sitting down here in Toronto Mike's basement making all sorts of mistakes in what I'm saying I go through that every single

month I mean the number of flubs that come out of my mouth as I'm trying to spontaneously talk about a 100 different topics. If I could go back in time and edit the episodes, we'd get those out of the way. But I've learned to live with it. And that if I make a mistake, this is real talk. It's going to be on there forever.

But in regard to the Flyer Vault, something on that episode that I wanted to correct. They were talking about a concert that happened almost exactly 40 years ago, January 1980, that the Sugar Hill Gang performed for the first time in Toronto on the heels of this song, Rapper's Delight, which had come out a few months before. And the way they were characterizing the concert, they were making it sound like they got a big crowd out to the show to see this group, but they weren't getting any mainstream attention. Do I got that right? That's about right.

It's kind of like you look back in history, it's amazing how all this happened. In fact, around that time, Rapper's Delight by the Sugarhill Gang was on its way to being the number one song on a Hamilton radio station, CKOC. Number one song on a Hamilton radio station, CKOC. So I don't think, in hindsight, this song was as obscure as they're making it out to be, that in fact it was a regional hit. And there at CKOC in Hamilton, it was number one on their chart, if not at that time, shortly thereafter. See, I'm glad you can come here.

You have a forum here where once a month you can come in and correct the record on all these things. I'm glad you... Well, the other point then, they were talking about this concert by the notorious B.I.G. And it took place in an abandoned byway store at Young and Girard in the basement. It was

converted into some kind of ad hoc food court. I'm not quite sure what was going on down there. But I guess a few concert promoters came up with the idea that they could hold a Biggie Smalls show down there. In this sweaty room with low ceilings and abandoned byway. And they gave the venue a name, the Apollo. Named after the legendary venue in Harlem. But they didn't even spell Apollo correctly.

Two P's and two L's. And they're making it out to be a big mystery, like what was this venue? It was a basement of a byway. But I believe, and you will recall better than I will, but I do believe I actually did say on that episode that Mark Weisblatt says it's an abandoned byway. Like, I'm pretty sure I snuck that in there.

Listen! Let those without typographical errors cast the first stone. But I think they were creating a mystique around this show that was greater than the reality. Combined with the fact they were claiming that they had this lost footage that Daniel put on the Flyer Vault Instagram account. That someone was filming this concert at the mysterious Apollo Theater in downtown Toronto. And the footage had been lost and buried for a quarter

of a century and somebody unearthed it, it was a tape taken from MuchMusic. I never let the facts get in the way of the good stuff. And I think it's possible that someone shot it by pointing their phone at a TV set with an old VHS

tape so it looked sort of grainy and made the claim I unearthed this lost footage. It was from MuchMusic. Subsequently, FOTM Master T did an interview with Rob Bowman on YouTube and Master T

corrected the record that his brother Basil Young, longtime cameraman for MuchMusic, was the one that shot the Notorious B.I.G. show. I love how it all comes together. Like, that is what I love about this podcast here. Final episode

of the decade, have I mentioned that? Now, it's the only decade this podcast has existed in, so it's not like I can, you know. So, this podcast started in summer of 2012, which means, yeah, this is the only decade it existed in. And yet you've spent so much time talking about the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Right.

Episode after episode after episode, swaddled in this Toronto media nostalgia. There's a lot of that, but there's a lot more than that. I mean, the last episode on Friday, speaking of working between Christmas and New Year's, Don Ferguson came over on Friday, and we did, basically, we had an hour together, and it was really, I thought it was a really good review

of the history of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which, by the way, comes to a conclusion tonight on CBC Television. What you didn't get into was the fact that around that time, Christmas programming at the CBC had never gotten more attention before thanks to the president of the united states of america uh it was the airing of home alone 2 oh right which was scheduled in mid-december uh somebody on twitter who was watching it, I guess, on a PVR, or maybe they taped it on a VHS cassette, I don't know.

Maybe if they were relying on the CBC airing a movie in order to watch it, that they might have been old school in that way and made the observation that the Donald Trump cameo was taken out of their airing of Home Alone 2. And this was like, I don't know, 10 days after it had aired on the CBC. Right. And when it comes to Twitter, you never know what's going to click. How is something going to get attention? You can always do the the

back-end research and figure out how something went viral whether uh maybe some russians were behind uh scaling up this tweet to the point where it became national news across the united states right donald trump censored out of the canadiancasting Corporation airing of Home Alone 2. Was this retaliation by Justin Trudeau? Oh, it's a... For that Mean Girls video at the NATO summit? Right, the hot mic. Or was it one of these many cuts that are made for broadcast

when you have a movie or a syndicated show and they take out all the irrelevant parts? It turned out to be the latter. CBC had to clarify this was the version of Home Alone 2 that they acquired back in 2014 when they got the rights to air the Home Alone series of movies, and it had nothing to do with Donald Trump being the president, but maybe retroactively they were happy to air it with the cuts.

Didn't make any effort to restore that scene to dignify and honor the president at this time of year and they turn this into like a real news story i mean it was getting enough traction once the president tweets about something and it's in canada This does not happen every day. They acknowledged the incident on the CBC News Network, and there was one of the CBC anchors, maybe the best CBC News Network anchor, Natasha Fata, whose political leanings, let's say, are less leftist than you would associate with the CBC.

And I don't know if she was specifically entrusted. Maybe she wasn't on the schedule that day. They called her in to assuage the nation that this was not a deliberate anti-Trump act on the part of the CBC and that she could be the voice of reason that people would listen to her. They trust her voice. They know her father, Tarek Fatah. She would not be lying.

And she teed up, introduced the missing scene from Home Alone 2. And ultimately Christmas was saved because they ended up airing the scene, at least on the news channel run by the CBC. Again, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. I'm going to crack open, if you don't mind, I took a beer out of your six-pack from Great Lakes Brewery.

So firstly, let me crack it open. And let me thank Great Lakes Brewery for their wonderful support for many years. The vast majority of the years we've been doing Toronto Mike, Great Lakes has been a partner, and they're going to continue into 2020, and best fresh craft beer you can find in this province. So thank you, Great Lakes.

No one has gone home with more GLB from Toronto Mike than me. That is absolutely true. That is absolutely true. Which is why I don't get upset when you now take one out of the six pack you can't complain anymore i'm giving you a sticker mark from sticker you.com by the way the very next toronto mic listener experience tmlx6 the date and time i don't yet have ready to announce but i can say that the next event is going to take place at sticker you on queen street near bathurst so we're moving a little bit east we're slowly moving ready to announce. But I can say that the next event is going to take place at Sticker U

on Queen Street near Bathurst. So we're moving a little bit east. We're slowly moving east. Let me get this straight then. For all new listeners, you were just mentioned in the Toronto Star. Thank you. That might have brought two or three people

to check out what Toronto Mic'd is all about. TMLX is the Toronto Mic'd. Toronto Mic'd is all about. TMLX is the Toronto Mic'd. Or Toronto Mic'd. Toronto Mic'd listener experience. Toronto Mic'd listener experience. Yes. TMDS is your company. Right.

Toronto Mic'd Digital Services. Toronto Mic'd Digital Services. Yes. F-O-T-M. Friend of Toronto. I haven't decided yet. Is it Friend of Toronto Mic'd? Or Friend of Toronto Mic'd? I think it might be Friend of Toronto Mic'd. But that's what

F-O-T-M stands for. Mark, you're one of the great friends of Toronto Mic'd. I better like you. You come over enough. I'm giving you a sticker from StickerU because you said you're trying to get enough stickers to cover your laptop i'm well on my way maybe maybe this will complete the puzzle i'll take a picture i'll put it on twitter and you can see how loyal i am to the toronto miked the biggest fotm of them all absolutely Absolutely. That the only sticker on my laptop

will be stickers from StickerU of Toronto Mic'd. So go to StickerU.com if you need to order stickers or decals. I got decals on the back here and temporary tattoos and a variety of other wonderful appendages. Before I ask

you about the Toronto Star article that was in the Sunday paper, which is yesterday, let me just say, since you were last here, it was announced I am now producing the Humble and Fred show. And I've helped with arrangements there that guests of Humble and Fred are going to start getting lasagna from Palma Pasta. So that's awesome because Palma Pasta is, you know, you did not make TMLX 5. You had a good excuse, but you were very much missed, but we had a great time

there, and we're going to do it again next December. We're all going to collect at Palma's Kitchen. TMLX will now be a quarterly event. That's where we're going on this. You're going for winter, spring, summer, and fall? I can say that there's going to be a probably March thing at Sticker U at Queen and Bathurst. And there's definitely going to be a return to the patio

with some live music at Great Lakes Brewery. June, I think. And there's definitely going to be a return to Palma's Kitchen in December. So that's three events. So will there be three or four in 2019? I don't know yet. I don't know yet. Get those sponsors in here who want to have TMLX.

You know, I actually have an opening. Wherever they are. So thank you, Palma Pasta. They've re-upped for 2020. And that is great because independent podcasting, as you read in the Toronto Star yesterday, that's the part, finding brands and companies that get it

and realize the value and the return on investment. And I try to work with six brands at a time. And for this episode, we are because, of course, Ridley Funeral Home, but we'll talk about that later. They're on board for the Mark Weisblatt appearances. But there is actually an opening. There's one opening for January 2020. So that's right now.

So give me a shout if you're interested in joining the family and being a part of what's happening here. Mark, what did you think of the Toronto Star article? think of the Toronto Star article? Well, it's an interesting point in history with the Toronto Star where there are rumors abounding that they're about to end the entertainment section of the newspaper. Now, I grew up reading the A&E pages of the Toronto Star. That was a newspaper delivered to the house where I grew up. And pretty much at one point in time, everything that I knew about show business was channeled through the pages of the star. Here we are on the precipice of 2020

and with some buyouts and reassignments and people moving on, there's innuendo in the air that the star is no longer going to devote print pages to this sort of coverage. And there's no real motivation for them to be doing it online either. Because in the subscription offering

that they have online, entertainment doesn't really play a part. Nor does the sports section. We can get into that and what Bruce Arthur has been up to, trying to position himself maybe as a future political pundit. And we'll see what happens with the Toronto Star Sports. You've had enough people down here speculating about that. But sooner than later, the indications are that you're no longer going to be reading

about what's happening in the media industry in any way, shape, or form in the Toronto Star. And this article about podcasting might have been the final article of its kind. That's interesting. I do know that, for example, that article was written by Raju Mudhar, and he's a part of the podcast team at Toronto Star

that's kicking off in 2020. Like, they're joining the fray and starting up, like, I guess, Toronto Star podcasts. Yeah, from what I could tell, it's a new assignment for him that he's been reassigned from entertainment writing. And once in a while, he would show up in the sports section as well.

But that he has been the one picked from the newsroom to pilot this new initiative where the toronto starway putting out its own daily news podcast joining what we were talking about here a few episodes ago is already a crowded field of people who are imitating the success of a podcast like The Daily from The New York Times and trying to get that habitual listen that if you're interested in the Toronto Star, that you would go for the idea of tuning in to your daily dose of Torstar and get it in the form of audio, and maybe through that they could get more people to subscribe to the digital version of the newspaper. For this project, they hired two new hosts that will be working on the podcast. So one of them is Saba Aitizaz.

And I'm always at the risk of mispronouncing names down here. Well, that's contagious. You got it from me. And Adrian Chunk, who worked before at the CBC, moving over to the Star. And Saba had worked at the BBC, according to her Twitter bio. So two young, new voices representing the Toronto Star brand.

If all goes according to plan, these will be the main voices of the star, just like New York Times with the Daily Podcast. You know the name of the host? Michael Barbaro. He's become the voice of the New York Times for a lot of people out there. Can they replicate this experience at the Star?

Some might say, if you've got a trend like podcasting, and the Toronto Star is getting around to writing articles about the podcasting bubble and starting up a podcast of their own, that that might be the best indication of all that peak podcasting has arrived. But it was in that story from Arif Noorani, who's the head of podcasting at the CBC. And he was saying you can't have too many podcasts because that's like saying there are too many books. Right.

And there's always room for another book. If it's good. No one's discouraged from writing a book because there's already a big bookstore full books the library is a pack to the rafters why would i write another book and that the same logic can apply to podcasts right and in that respect i'm sure in the board room of the toronto star uh their uh stock price is now hovering at 40 cents a share. It's lost, I don't know, 98% of its valuation in the last 15 years.

Did you hear Morgan Campbell took a voluntary buyout? Yeah, one of several. We're moving on. I won't name the names, but there are guests from the Toronto Star booked in January who have kindly asked to postpone to find out whether they're like what's going on in their professional lives that's how uh tumultuous it is right now if you're a toronto star employee well also you want to get the exit interview that's true it's my specialty that's my specialty

that's what the folks want to hear if they don't get to say goodbye in print um uh there are no longer doing restaurant reviews amy pataki longtime restaurant critic at the start announced at the end of her a year in review column that she's moving on from that beat still working for the newspaper uh listen we've been standing by for the last decade or two, wondering what it is going to be like when they lay the newspaper down to die. And it always seemed like it was off in some distant future. How could a big city not have its own Metropolitan Daily newspaper? But the sands have shifted, and it seems

like a lot of people can live with the idea that that kind of product isn't going to be around anymore, at least in the form that it used to be. And that the Toronto Star, this is publicly known, there was a feature article in the Walrus about how they felt there. They were running

out of time they launched a new initiative across canada star metro the concept was to give out these free daily newspapers in the in the big cities of canada hire uh staffs of young journalists who would do investigative reporting it would steer people over to the website. They canceled that thing in record time. You saw on Twitter all sorts of lamentations about what could have been, what was promised, what was supposed to be. The thing is, when you hire journalists who are young and hungry right out of school, and you break their hearts, you let them down by not really following through on the original plan. When they're young and hungry, you're never going to hear the end of it.

And the noise on Twitter was a lot louder for getting rid of those journalists than all the older ones that are taking a buyout or early retirement. It just caused a lot more commotion. Strangely enough, they announced that they're rehiring for some of those positions that they'll have national reporters across Canada. Let's see what's up in 2020 for the Toronto Star. And I think this will be a period of tumult and turmoil, and we'll see what's left on the other end because you would think there's going to be

some kind of business there. Once they figure out what that business is supposed to be, will podcasting save the Toronto Star? Stay tuned. I have a question for you about the article that I was quoted in, this peak podcasting article, which might be the final article of original content for the entertainment section in Toronto Star history.

Who knows? What a way to end it with me. Okay. You linked me to it online, but the Toronto Star website does not have this article. It is print only. So tell me, explain to me, like, talk to me like I'm a four-year-old here. How is there a digital version if the Toronto Star doesn't't host it on their own website i'm not sure maybe they somebody web editor just wasn't

paying attention it wasn't on the sked they didn't notice it wasn't there you found it through press reader right press reader which which is a subscription service you can also get it free in toronto through the. And you can read the contents of the print edition of the newspaper through Press Reader. But the podcasting article that came out, yeah, was not on the star.com. It was printed early, which is interesting

because, you know, 30 years ago, if you said I'd be quoted in this, you know, big entertainment article in the Sunday Star, that would be a big deal, but I'm not sure how big a deal that is today. It just seems like it's... Is it a bigger deal when you put it on Twitter

and you get a whole bunch of high fives? That's true, but how could I not? Vanity Media wins in the end. I think there's still value in the idea that you got mentioned in the Toronto Star, the big daily newspaper robert benzie of the of the toronto star from queens park likes reminding people that sure bind them on twitter that the toronto star is the largest circulation daily newspaper in canada which it is for sure thank you for reading that's his sarcastic rejoinder for anyone

who questions his reporting. In that sense, they've still got the skyscraper there at One Young Street. Yep, still there. They're working around it, but it's still there. The Toronto Star. What lies ahead?

Will the appearance of Toronto Mike, will your presence in an article, have we hit peak podcasting, go down in history as the last cultural coverage that was ever printed in that newspaper? The fact they didn't even get around to putting it on their own website?

What does that tell you? There was more attention, I think, to a post on Facebook. It was a public post from Craig McInnes, who worked as a Toronto Star pop music reporter, went on to be a movie reviewer for a while, and he was reflecting on the sticker that was on the second album by the band Timbuk3.

The future is so bright, I've got to wear shades. Wanting to show they weren't just a novelty act, the record company at the time printed a sticker which had a bunch of glowing reviews, a critical consensus across Canada. All these major daily newspapers where some critic was singing the praises how Timbuk3,

this married couple that ended up getting divorced, where the real deal, this was genuine Americana music and reflecting on the sticker, all the names that were on there, including his own, Craig McInnes was saying, look, there was once his brotherhood, sisterhood, mostly brotherhood, of people that wrote about music across the country. And they were all in this together, right?

A whole culture formed around the idea of a newspaper having its own rock and pop critic and how he got to be one of them. rock and pop critic and how he got to be one of them. And how now we're at the end of the line, and what does that say about the state of newspapers? And what came first, people stopping to read the newspapers or the newspapers giving up on covering these areas that people might have wanted to read about? You linked to this, and I clicked over right away because you typically share good things.

I guess you already know that. But by the way, subscribe to 1236 Newsletters, 1236.ca. Yeah, that's still the one. Yeah, it is still fantastic. Not today, but next week it'll be back. Maybe later this week.

Again, it might be a political act to get back to work on January 2nd. I'm thinking about it. I can decide that morning whether I want to do it or not. So let's see what's ahead for the newspaper industry. FOTM Ben Rayner

is somebody who I think he's not sure what his job is going to be. That's what's him to be applied. I should tell you, you might be interested, Peter Howell comes over. Or he's coming over just January? I should tell you, you might be interested. Peter Howell comes over. Or he's coming over just before the Oscars. So maybe that's, yeah, late January. Okay, well, that'll be a deep dive.

You can get into a lot of discussion with him because he was hanging around the Toronto Star for a while. Because he was a music guy before he was a movie guy. Oh, almost 40 years that he's been there. And he was a transit reporter before he got into music. And back in those early days of i weekly when i was privileged to be involved as a as a really early 20 something you got this opportunity handed to them just for the asking that that's how it all happened back then one of

those one of those glorious moments where i i think it took a long time for me to appreciate what happened to me. Somebody who grew up reading the Toronto Star Entertainment section could just sort of walk into this satellite of the Toronto Star and do pretty much whatever they wanted to. Asking for permission to do things that nobody could have imagined saying no about. things that nobody could have imagined saying no about? You know, this is your 24th appearance, but I need to remind listeners that the very first time you came over was actually a deep dive into Mark

Weisblatt's career. Oh, it was terrible! But that's where you can find out all the stuff you've been involved in. And I don't think I told the story well, but that was where it was at in the early 90s. And don't forget, we have to talk here a bit more about Now Magazine being sold.

That'll be on our media agenda here. But back with the issue of the Toronto Star. Look, I got to work as a freelancer, as a young freelancer working for a product

created by Torstar. The pay was terrible. A lot of the compensation came out of selling compact discs that I got for free at first wanting to be very ethical not wanting to line up at the used record store

and hand in all these CDs that I didn't give a good listen to after a number of years I got more and more albums which meant I had more and more CDs that I could sell it was understood that that would be supplementing my meager take from what I wrote for the paper.

And as we look back, what a time in history when you would have the Toronto Star, Peter Howell, working as the rock critic. He was an old guy. I think he was in his mid-30s, late 30s, writing about grunge rock. Right.

Seattle explosion. Who is this guy to tell us what to think? This is somebody with a mortgage. He doesn't have his ear to the ground. He doesn't know what's happening on the street. And that was part of the sentiment that drove the entire thing. Even though I had no interest whatsoever in the underground.

I wrote about the biggest pop stars. Things were happening at the time. I was addicted to top 40 radio. That's what I knew about. Got to meet a lot of celebrities, talk to them on the phone. When we get to the death list, we'll talk about what rock set and how rock set

became one of my first big break cover stories for iWeekly. We're going, of course, I'm looking now at the clock and I realize, holy smokes, we got to get moving here. Because there's lots to cover before the memorial section where we'll learn about Rockset. And maybe just before we get to a topic that we could have done in the memorial, but we're going to do it up front on Don Imus. May I ask, have you listened to the new episodes of Gallagher and Gross Save the World? Oh, I thought the latest batch of Gallagher and Gross Save the World will go down in history as the episodes where they found their voice.

And a lot of it had to do with the fact that your voice, Toronto Mike, was a big part of those episodes. I was nervous about this. Maybe you were the missing piece. A shaky start. The people couldn't find the levels. Some people thought there was too much of Peter Gross. More people thought there was too much of John Gallagher.

Right, but he's toned it down a lot. They needed you in the middle to be a referee. I was worried about this. You could be the moderator, I know, because your voice is already on a bunch of other podcasts. Well, not only that, because I mean, so I'm producing and they aren't released yet, but you can subscribe now,

but Ralph Ben-Murray's new podcast is called Not That Kind of Rabbi. And there's a bunch of episodes in the can, new ones coming next week, but none have actually dropped. There's just a teaser trailer, but you can subscribe right now and you really, really should.

And I'm muted, okay? My mic is muted for the Ben Murgie podcast. I'm already talking to Hebsey. I got beat up this morning by Mr. Hebsey. And I'm, you know, this podcast is a Toronto mic. I'm allowed to talk on this one. So I was actually in, for the first 16 episodes of

Gallagher and Gross Save the World, I was recommending to the guys, it's Gallagher and Gross. Nobody gives a shit about what Toronto Mike has to say. And Gallagher, of all people, he asked me to join in the fun and speak up a bit more. So for the last six episodes I dropped, I think I dropped them on Festivus or maybe the day before. Actually, don't tell the guys.

But I actually did contribute a lot more than I had in the past. I was essentially like a co-host of the show. And I was really worried, will this be the end of Gallagher and Gross Save the World? Because Toronto Mike wasn't muted for the episode anymore. And I'm really pleased with the feedback. It sounds like I think what I can contribute is I know how to get them going. And I know enough stuff that I know stuff that will press the buttons and kind of create some kind of provocative.

You can hold your own with these two titans of Toronto sports broadcasting, even though it's not a sports podcast, I realize. Right. And hearing all the episodes along the way, I was surprised how much I got into the episode Cats vs. Dogs. You would think, what kind of premise is that for a podcast but they keep it tight 22 minutes each episode you you drop them like like netflix it's a binge listen multiple episodes at once you can take them all in one sitting right you can do

you can do one a day and like an advent calendar I'll tease it like this to say that in the most recent episode, we learn, apparently for the first time in the public domain, John Gallagher reveals his real age. And that was a final one of the batch. That was where they're talking about their health issues. Which, ironically enough, I get a text from John Gallagher on Christmas Day, not to say Merry Christmas, but to show pictures.

I won't even describe them because it's pretty gross, but there was a lot of blood involved, and Gallagher spent Christmas and Boxing Day at Sunnybrook. He is a man of almost 60. Now you're allowed to say that, right? Hey, spoiler alert. I don't know that it was ever such a secret.

It was more that he was obfuscating it, right? Like, because he referred in his book to certain experiences in certain years. Well, you did the math. Most people don't do the math. So if a guy tells you he's 54 and he's really pushing 60, you got to go with it.

Even if you remember seeing him on TV, hearing him on Q107. This guy was not in his early 20s when he first came on the radar. Sugar, sugar. Okay, Don Imus. Yeah, oh, Don Imus. I was going to say, there was Don Imus this morning, WABC, the station where he did the last decade of his career, hosting the tribute to Don Imus on his old radio station, Russ

Salzberg. It all comes full circle. A name we've heard on Gallagher and Gross Saved the World. We hear that name a lot because he was a City TV guy. City TV guy. That Gallagher hates. Interfaced with Peter Gross, right? And I guess him and John Gallagher would have been on the same scene, or Gallagher would

have coveted his job because he was a guy that got on Q107, he won a contest on the air, an audition. Here was this guy that spoke genuine Brooklynese, transplanted to Toronto, got dragged along with his wife, was she in school here working or something like that. And he heard a call on Q107, they were looking for a sportscaster he went he did

a live audition with scruff connors right and his media career continues to this day in new york most famously on wfan where don imus was in his glory for all those years then imus got fired wabc picked him up and uh r and Russ Salzberg came around to the point where he's now heard in the morning on WABC with a couple of guys who were old sidekicks of Don Hymas. So that's how Russ Salzberg, formerly of Toronto and City TV. Toronto Connection.

And really, really bad sweaters that he would wear on camera. Part of the persona. I think it would have been Moses Neimer. It would have encouraged him to tacky it up. And you remember those sweaters, right? Russ Salzberg. I barely remember him, Russ Salzberg, from City TV. So I think we're talking about the early 80s.

All through the 80s. So he was the one to do the on-air obituary for Don Imus this morning in New York. Coming back to Toronto, Mike, it was you tweeting about the death of Don Imus. Looking at the numbers afterwards, the engagement level on those tweets. You never know what's going to gain traction. Did they put you in one of those Twitter moments

where you showed up on everybody's home screen when they opened the app? So last I looked, for example, likes of that tweet, I just tweeted, I'm a big Howard Stern fan, and everything I learned about Don Imus, I learned from Howard Stern. So it's all very tainted one way. And I know very little about

actual Don Imus. I couldn't hear him anywhere. I'd see him on Larry King now, and then just like Basement Dweller. The tribute to Don Imus this morning seemed to consist primarily of people talking about how he wasn't really a racist. If that's a legacy you leave, then you would imagine that you ran into some trouble along the way. Now, Robin Quivers claims that Don Imus called her the N-word. And of course, there's that famous controversy with the,

which women's basketball team was it? Rutgers, Rutgers University. And nappy-headed hoes, I think, was the term he used. That was the term he used. He's very apologetic about it, right? He sat down for meetings with black community leaders and he reached out and he said that he regretted what he had to say, and he came to a settlement with his employers

that let him go at the time. CBS Radio ended up back on the air with WABC. But the story of how Don Imus became a talk radio host focused on political issues on the morning show was really like the whole story of the American media in the late 20th century. How we got from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, a lot of that was channeled through Don Imus because he was the guy that turned the whole political thing into a big circus show as material that he could talk about on the air. And he came from that background of being the morning DJ. Here was this cowboy that was working in New York, WNBC radio.

WNBC. Yeah, that was his coinage. That was the way he said it. And he took the New York airwaves by storm in the early 70s with that kind of morning zoo radio show. Prank phone calls. I'm sure FOTM Gene Volitis would somehow take credit for the idea that Jesse and Gene pioneered that stuff. No, no, no.

Right. They were all ripping off Don Imus. They were riding the coattails of his success in New York. He lived the rock star life, ended up losing his job due to all the drug and alcohol binges that came along with the work. He was sent back to Cleveland,

where he'd worked before, was able to get a job on the air, and had a whole comeback. They brought him back to New York when he cleaned up his act. That's when he was on WNBC with Howard Stern. Howard Stern was on WNBC because of Don Imus. Don Imus was on in the morning. They wanted an afternoon show that was the drive-home counterpart to Imus in the morning.

Soupy sales within middays and a Wolfman Jack. Wolfman Jack. A show that you could pick up also in Toronto. So where can you pick it up? Tell me. Well, way, way back when. This is FOTM. Doug Thompson would have been in on this.

Right. He mentioned this. 1050 Chum used to have Wolfman Jack come into Toronto, do live shows on the air, tape some other stuff. But the legend of Wolfman Jack was accentuated from the movie American Graffiti. Which I watched 100 times on City TV late great movies.

And as, let's say, 1950s, early 60s, nostalgia started to take hold. Right. The original OK Boomers. Wolfman Jack was one of their avatars, right? Right. For these people that were entering their 30s, their 40s. Wanted that hit of teenage nostalgia.

Wolfman Jack was their DJ on the air. And, yeah, definitely. I heard Wolfman Jack on the air, maybe stations from Buffalo, a syndicated show. Right. Like one of those early voice track things, pre-taped, really canned.

Okay, so I'm eager to play this because it's the final moments of Imus. Is this at W, what is it, ABC? Yeah, WABC that brought him back. At this point, he was in his late 60s, right? Died at age 79. So this is 11, 12 years ago. He came back.

He did a comeback through WABC. And, you know, like so many aging media personalities, they gave him a tap on the shoulder and they told him, you're done. He ended up having to say goodbye, do a sign-off on the air, several months before his contract was going to run out just to save the station money. The fact was, he had millions of dollars anyway, but they came to some kind of settlement to just let him go, cut him loose. It wasn't his idea. I mean, his health was not great.

He ended up missing almost an entire year, 2017, because he was battling these health issues. In that sense, it wasn't a big surprise that he died, struggling with oxygen tanks. So here he was, not in the best shape, saying goodbye to the radio audience in March 2018. I wrote this down, and I want you to remember this. We were neither dissuaded nor diminished by the intellectually, morally, and ethically crippled losers,

the likes of a racist, bigoted, civil rights charlatan, or the insecure, envious, shock jock all howling in a chorus of like-minded yapping mutts lost in the dust of the caravan rolling by on the road to greatness. Rolling by on the road to greatness.

We did that. You did that. I did that. That's what we did you god damn right that's what we did wow you never heard that before I've been on the cover of the Rolling Stone. I met the president when I was half-slapped. Wow. You never heard that before? Never.

I know very little about Don Imus. Kid Rock playing him out. I guess Kid Rock was a musical voice of an ideology that Don Imus espoused on the air all those years. Yeah. Would there have been a Bill clinton as president of the united states without don imus sort of uh normalized his his his aberrant reputation uh would there have been a donald trump elected president of the united states without don imus turning Washington, D.C. into this kind of circus and doing it on the radio in the morning.

Like him or hate him. Greatly influential radio show. Didn't have much resonance in Canada. It's not something a Canadian radio station would have ever picked up. Very focused on American issues. Very idiosyncratic. Again, here you had this cowboy who was on the air

in New York City. And was he a racist? Did he deserve to be humiliated in death? I think maybe he wanted it that way. That was the reputation that he built for himself being on the air all those years.

Imus in the morning signing off almost two years ago and you could say he died with his boots on in the sense that he stuck it out on the air in radio into his late 70s. One of the great

reinventions. This was Howard Stern's point of contention, right? That Don Imus was just a top 40 DJ who started imitating Howard Stern, turning it into the shock jock talk radio show in the morning.

But he held his own, and divisive figure that he was, I think based even on the reaction to your tweets. Because who are you, Toronto Mike? The guy never even heard Don Imus getting all these reactions on Twitter. I think the last time I checked that we had 1,500 likes or something

like that on that tweet, which anyway, you never know what will gain traction. Okay, the guys who replaced him, Bernie and Sid, who were sidekicks. Bernard McGurk, Sid Rosenberg, I know they're back early January doing their tribute. And Ross Salzberg,

sportscaster on their morning show. He was the one who eulogized Don Imus, telling you over and over again how he wasn't really a racist. I mentioned earlier that Tyler Stewart from Bare Naked Ladies plays hockey with Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack.

We're listening to a little bit of Whiskey Jack here. This is TTC Skedadler, maybe in honor of the streetcars that have been retired. I saw a lot of press about that. Okay, so a year ago, Tyler Stewart was down here in the basement for a deep dive chat, one of the greatest episodes ever of Toronto Mic'd. And a year later, he won't return our calls, and you're left to talk about some guy who plays hockey with the drummer of the Barenaked Ladies,

and that you've met Banjo Dunk, and you're now like one or two degrees of separation from Tyler Stewart. What went wrong there? Wasn't Tyler an FOTM? To be discussed, the next episode will actually feature

Banjo Dunk and we'll talk about that for sure. But I want to make sure I get this message clear to all listeners of Toronto Mic. Whiskey Jack,

which you're listening to right now, they present stories and songs of Stomp and Tom Thursday, April 16, 2020 at 7.30 p.30pm at Zoomer Hall. See, it all comes back to Moses here. Zoomer Hall at 70 Jefferson Avenue.

So, whiskeyjackmusic.com is where you go for the details. And yes, Banjo Dunk will be in here next to kick out the jams and talk about some of these things for sure Oh, oh, sweet love I didn't mean it when I said I didn't love you so I should have held on tight, I never should have let you go I didn't know nothing, I was stupid, I was foolish, I was lying to myself. I could not find them, I would ever be without your love. You know, when I hear Mariah now, I just think about the fact that finally, thank goodness Christmas has ended and maybe we can stop hearing that damn Mariah Carey Christmas song, which seems to be the go-to song now.

which seems to be the go-to song now. And vindicated by the fact that it made number one on the Billboard Hot 100. 25 years climbing to the top of the chart. And the first time that song has ever hit number one. I want to give credit to Slate, I want to say, but there's a podcast I listen to which gives you the great detail of the rule changes at Billboard with regards to that chart that made this possible. You're thinking of Hit Parade

hosted by Chris Malampfy. A great observer. A guy I think he's sort of taken over from Casey Kasem. As far as being America's foremost pop chart analyst. Except here's a guy that's actually doing it on his own. Not relying on a staff of writers and researchers

and reading the script like Casey did. Fantastic podcast and a great episode on the history of Mariah Carey's, what's the Christmas song called again? All I want for Christmas is you. Wouldn't it be amazing if a 25-year-old Mariah Carey song was replaced at number one on the chart by a 15-year-old Mariah Carey song? I'm talking about the one playing right now. Okay, tell me the significance of this Mariah Carey song, We Belong Together, in our city of Toronto here. A video from TikTok that got a whole bunch of attention.

I think, you know, TikTok is an app unto itself. And kind of mysterious, I think, to anyone over the age of 20. Right. Is your daughter on TikTok? Yes, she is. Big fan of TikTok, yes. And that replaced Snapchat as far as, you know,

diverting all of the teenage attention this year to TikTok. Curiosity about whether you're giving a lot of data to the Chinese government based on what you're feeding into this app, even if you're just skimming through it, what they learn about you

from watching these little 15 second lip syncs. And the evolution of TikTok is such that we're starting to see TikTok factor into news articles. A few years ago, you would talk about people taking to Twitter to comment on a news event. And now, they're taking

to TikTok. TikTok made its Toronto Mike debut. And we talked about Jagmeet Singh and his viral video on TikTok. Oh, that's right. E40. Yep. Nope. Right.

Okay. So we had a TikTok video that went viral, I think, because it migrated over to Twitter. And it was a young woman doing karaoke outside the Toronto Eaton Center on that corner of Young and Dundas, where the Eaton Center meets that intersection. And while she was doing this heartfelt rendition of We Belong Together,

an ambulance pulls up. They're wheeling out a body on a gurney into the ambulance, and she's just singing away, singing her heart out, oblivious to it all. I don't think there was a better video about downtown Toronto this year than that viral video. There were at least one post about it on BlogTO. Look it up. We Belong Together, sung in downtown Toronto. And I think it's weird enough that there was a shopping mall built there on that intersection.

And the fact that entrance to the Eaton Center has always had a lot of notoriety, whether it's street preachers or really bad buskers. Yeah, Zanta, all sorts of action around there. You don't have to go downtown anymore to appreciate the liveliness of life around there that you can watch vicariously on TikTok. We belong together.

My next pick hit for the Mariah Carey renaissance. If we're just going to be a rewind here, I would like that to become a hit again. Thanks to that video in 2020. Well, as you know, Mariah's sitting at 19 number ones, and I believe the Beatles have the record with 20. Am I right?

Yeah, but Mariah's been around long. We're coming up to the 30th anniversary of Mariah Carey's first record. Vision of Love, yeah. And you have questions about exactly how old she is. She might already have turned 50. She might have fudged her age. Maybe inspired by John Gallagher. Is she on Tinder?

Her birth year is up for some dispute. Don't forget she married Tommy Mottola, much older man. Sven Gali, of course. That was a big deal. And now, okay, so turning the channels a little bit from Mariah to somebody who I think would like to be Mariah, Marcella, everybody's waiting for your chair girl update because this has become a

fixture lately. The chair girl updates. And there was a lot of action this past month. So I was going to say, all I hear is everybody waiting for the chair girl updates to end. I don't, I don't hear about anybody waiting for them to take place. I'm being kind. I'm being kind.

Some people do enjoy your chair girl updates and others hate them. Proof that Jewish people will work on Christmas. Aubrey Graham made news that day by the fact that he spent Christmas Eve editing Marcella Zoya out of his latest music video. I don't even know how it was noticed. Do people look at every single frame of a Drake video to look at the faces of the extras? A Drake video is big news, okay? And people watch it closely when Drake drops a video.

And I watched the video, even though it's only three seconds. It's clearly chair girl. I think just one person says, hey, is that chair girl? And then the rest, we all run with it. When Ricky was doing up Teasdale, I was doing dinner with Teezy I didn't trust no one, so I got a line, make his gal too greasy Nico never move, Niki, sweatsuit Nike, sweatsuit DG If man get beaky, ring ring, call up Gigi, do him up neatly Used to look up to a man from certain ends with Chuna on repeat Thought he was a bad boy then, till man got pinched and man went PC

Man went PC just like Della and Windows, some man Bindos Before I was ever around Kendalls, I was in Enzo, dreaming up Enzos The woman I do end up with has to be a baguette just like Munchie My son would say that Drake is spitting on this track. He's really spitting on this, man. This is war. Chairgirl's lawyer, Greg Leslie, he was also busy on Christmas Day, at least for a couple of seconds, responding to a question from the Canadian press about what his celebrity client, Marcella Zoya, thought about being edited out of this video. The fact that Drake was on Instagram publicizing the fact with a chair emoji that he was no longer going to tolerate her

being in the video based on the outcry. Certain people we don't condone, is what Drake said. Now, if you went vetting every single extra in every single rap video, imagine the revelations that you would come up with. Okay? In the whole history of hip-hop, I'm sure more controversial figures imagine the revelations that you would come up with. Okay? So do you believe...

In the whole history of hip-hop, I'm sure, more controversial figures have been the background of videos. Remember, there was curiosity about whether Barack Obama was in the video for Whoop, There It Is. That it was a guy that sort of looked enough like Obama that was Jason Richards, journalist from Toronto. He did an investigative report to find out, could this have been Barack Obama in the Whoop There It Is video?

And it was like, okay, it's almost definitely not him, but there's still a possibility that he was hanging around working as a rap video extra. What are you going to ask? Marcella Zoya, chair girl, back in the news in the video, herself on Instagram asking, what's all the fuss about? You know, there are so many problems in this world. Children are going hungry, and you're worried about me having a cameo in a music video, chair girl's lawyer rising to the occasion,

saying she's meeting all the conditions of her bail, and she's a model. And she's doing her job by showing up as an extra at this thing. Filmed it at. So I have a question for you. In your opinion, do you think Drake knew Cheer Girl was in his video and then saw the backlash and removed her? Or do you think it was a surprise to him? This might be a discussion for you to have with your teenage kids. Because I don't know if we can come to a conclusion.

I would think that she would be a good wrangler of other extras because she would be the most famous or infamous of the extras in the Drake video, right? That she would have been like a ringleader that people look up to Marcella. She had her 20th birthday. Talked about that here last time. I woke up in the morning to a whole bunch of Instagram stories, one after another. Late into the night, they were partying for Marcella's birthday. Looked like she had a lot of friends.

Chairgirl turning 20 was a big event with a certain segment of Toronto society. It wasn't just her. The other were big, big sparkly candles on the cake. And everybody was excited that Chairgirl girl had reached this milestone 20 years of age and even though she was standing by awaiting sentencing for uh now you don't have to say allegedly anymore chucking a chair right off a balcony of a condo in downtown toronto above the gardner expressway and people are naturally outraged? Stop making stupid people famous is the outcry that you get from certain FOTS.

I even got it. Yes, I got it too. Yes, I'm sorry. And so you can't really win, even ironically, in talking about how excited you are about Chair Girl. But she's going to find out her fate on January 14th. Okay. Okay.

Up to six months. So we have one more episode of Toronto Mike with a chair girl up. Well, I'm not sure about that because if, if she gets off or if the sentence is light, I mean, she'll be on Instagram forever and ever. That's her platform.

That's her thing. But Drake, Drake had no room for chair girl anymore. There was also an incident where she did a selfie at a Raptors game. Right. She was sitting courtside. And that made, I think, page two of the Toronto Sun. So it's not me making stupid people famous, okay? Now, I'm going to wind you up with a topic here and then i'm gonna

excuse myself and be right back before the listener is the wiser but now we never talked about this last episode can you tell us about the uh what has happened with the sale of now magazine okay now magazine which started as an independent publication in Toronto in 1981, September 1981, like any form of print media, had been riding some rocky seas here, financially speaking. You could tell because the page count kept going down. The number of writers contributing to the paper wasn't what it used to be. And it was just the natural evolution of what happened to the Alternative Weekly, that these newspapers that came out that were free on the streets of North America

that emerged in the 1980s, and they became big business through the 1990s. They couldn't figure out how to transition to the Internet, and they were at a point in their history where it was really a question about whether any of them were going to be around anymore. The granddaddy of them all, the most famous one, the Village Voice, ended up being saved by an apparel billionaire, a guy with a lot of money who believed in the mission of the Village Voice. And like a lot of these new owners that came in,

he pledged to keep it going, revive the original spirit of the place. And it was only a matter of time before he got annoyed by the amount of money that it was losing. And they stopped the village voice print edition continuing it online now that doesn't exist anymore it seems that he still is funding like the maintenance of an an archive website and the village voice has inspiration for now you would think if that couldn't make it anymore new york city if you can't make it there you can't make it anywhere anywhere it would now magazine be around anymore now uh, in 2016, three years ago, there was a point in the history where they had some clashes with the unionized employees of Now.

And they even nailed down a specific date where they were going to close the newspaper. Like there was a date that it was going to go under. It was established that they would, rather than negotiate with the union, that they were just going to give up on the whole thing. There was no point anymore in trying to figure out a way to keep this thing alive. And instead, the news that we got was Michael Hollett,

the co-founder of NOW with his then wife, Alice Klein. He's the one that would be leaving the paper, and she would keep it going. And there's some speculation about how this was subsidized. They had a really sweet building on Church Street, Church and Queen East, near St. Joseph Media in downtown Toronto. They had this property, this real estate, that turned out to be coveted condo development land, and they sold that. I think that helped to keep the whole thing afloat.

But we ended up learning that Now Magazine was losing $80,000 a week to stay in print through 2019. Well, that's FOTM Norm Wilner's salary. To say the least. But listen, whatever was going on there, Alice Klein believed in this mission enough that she wanted to keep it going. Ended up removing the adult classified section

of the newspaper. And I think in retrospect, you realize that was them trying to prepare it for sale. That this whole idea of, you know, running the advertising for sexual services was not going to be very viable for a potential new buyer. And I think given the timeline over the three, three and a half year period, I think they struggled a lot to try and find somebody who would save this thing

and continue to lose a lot of money in the interim. And when they found a savior, it turned out to be this publicly traded company, this penny stock. I think it's listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange or something. It's a cannabis media startup. Okay. That has a vision where they're going to acquire all the last surviving alternative weekly newspapers

in North America and they're going to be banded as part of one company and they're all going to be tied to this idea that people want to read content about cannabis and edibles and weed and what's going on there, even though maybe this is a little bit passe, that there isn't that bonanza of cannabis content that people were imagining. Advertising is very heavily regulated in Canada.

There's ways to work around it. St. Joseph Media has a new magazine coming out in 2020 that, in fact, is trying to work within the boundaries because you can't advertise cannabis in a context that's going to be read by people who are under legal smoking age. And here's now a magazine tied into this company that doesn't seem like it's the slickest operation, but maybe they've got some of their expertise. But they're still printing. They're still printing.

And they say that things are not going to change. And the new chief content officer, whatever his title is, he says that he believes in their mission and he has the capital to keep them afloat. They're saying all the right things. And attached a purchase price that they paid, $1 million up front to NOW Magazine. I guess paying back some of the losses

from the last little while to acquire the title, keeping Alice Klein around. She, in fact, might be the aforementioned chief content officer. You can make up any title you want on a magazine masthead. Right. And will Now Magazine continue into the future? Is there any sort of business there? Is there anything viable about this kind of alternative weekly?

You're from the scene? You were a writer at iWeekly, as you mentioned? Not only was I from the scene, I was a loyal reader of these newspapers. Of course. The whole idea of getting a fresh copy on a Thursday, or if you're really lucky, on a Wednesday night, when it would first hit the streets

and devour the content that was in there. First and foremost, you have to get people to pick the damn thing up. It doesn't matter what you're writing in there. First and foremost, you have to get people to pick the damn thing up. It doesn't matter what you're writing in there. It's psychologically, the audience that they're going after is glued to their phones. And the ritual of picking up the print media newspaper is no longer what it was. That's your first problem. That's your first challenge. Right. You have to present it in a way

that people are going to habitually and ritualistically pick it up like they used to. And that audience, that market, for that demographic, that age group, it's just not there anymore. Right. It's maybe skewing older. It's maybe a different demographic

when the Toronto Star closed down the commuter-free daily newspaper. There were a lot of people saying that there was an audience. Maybe it was a little older. Maybe the income bracket was a lot lower. But they would still turn to this free version of the Toronto Star, that it was being taken away from them. So if the Toronto Star can kill the idea of the free newspaper, does the urban, hipster, alternative weekly street newspaper have any life left in it?

This is the challenge that's ahead. Now a new competitor called Beetroot out of Western Canada has come out. They put out print editions. It's a lot slicker than Now Magazine is these days. It's primarily focused on music. Michael Hallett, who'd left Now, was involved in that at one point. Then he wasn't anymore.

Michael Hallett was on the Canada Land podcast. Did you listen to that one where he talked to Jesse Brown? It was a very succinct conversation. Controversially, he said sort of nice things about the writers that worked for iWeekly and The Grid with Torstar. I guess he no longer lost whatever venom that he had that anybody that was associated with the fake alt weekly

created by Torstar was the enemy once upon a time. Right. He mellowed in his old age. But he had some reflections on that whole history, and I think he's got some fight left in him. And that we haven't seen the last of him as a publisher, as a media figure, but I'm not too sure about that. And that, you know, maybe there's a niche there

if done the right way, if done differently than before. Because all these elements of Now Magazine, I guess based on your indifference to this conversation, you would be a former Now reader. You click a link if it shows up on Twitter, something online. Yeah, like I was interested in Norm Wilner's, you know, top, whatever, 10 movies of 2019.

But yeah, I wouldn't call him. I don't pick it up and read it very often anymore. It was a fascinating era. And if we've come to the end of it, I mean, here we are, look, here we are talking about the demise of the Toronto Star. And then you've got Michael Hollett on Canada Land talking about how John Hondridge,

the head of Torstar, sat down the couple that founded NOW, and he made an offer to them about how essentially he was trying to bully them into selling a piece of the paper, that he was interested in having a piece of NOW more than he was interested in Torstar running an alternative weekly, and they took a lot of Now more than he was interested in Torstar running an alternative weekly. And they took a lot of pride in the fact they turned John Hondrich down. They didn't go in for this bully bid

that he laid out. Big piles of cash on the table. All this could be yours if you give us a piece of what you're doing. And they turned it down and they had some good years. I mean, there was a lot of culture. You had Kim Hughes down here talking about the history,

being a music writer for NOW Magazine. Again, FOTM, Norm Willner, who moved in from the film critic role. He took over from John Harkness, who died suddenly over a decade ago. Darkness, who died suddenly over a decade ago. And John Kaplan, he was a theater critic who was very embedded in the Toronto theater community, was part of that newspaper. You picked up the newspaper because these were the authorities. These days, everybody's got an opinion online.

What can you do in print that cuts through that noise? What can you do that's so authoritative that people will revert back to their habits of spending a few minutes a week with a print weekly? Can it be done? I don't want to count it out because I believe that there's something there. It just has to be done differently than it was done before. And I don't know if some cannabis content entrepreneurs really know how to do it. That's not the indication I'm getting. They put out a press release. You can tell where a media company is at based on the quality of writing in its press release. And the one from this CanCentral about how now's web traffic was exploding

based on whatever metric that they had. I'm not sure what they did. Some SEO magic. I don't know. You've worked in this business for a while. You can twist these numbers pretty much any way you want to. Oh, you can cherry pick, yeah, and spin. And now they were announcing, okay, they're moving in.

You'll see more cannabis vertical integration in the pages of NOW Magazine in 2020. We will see if there's still a NOW Magazine to kick around. I don't even think the people writing there, who've

worked there for all these years, I think they were blindsided by the sale. didn't know this was happening uh and time will tell they're doing they're doing their best job to put something out i can't sit here and dump on everybody no and and i i look i'm in the business of creating information sources you know if any of them die i think it's an indictment of this industry, pretty much the only thing that I know how to do. But it doesn't mean that everyone's going to survive

into this century. Now, Mark, I'm going to ask you to do something I know you're going to struggle with here, but we're going to have to do this because I have some quick hits we have to do before we get to the memorial section because we've been very verbose in this first 90 minutes here.

So can you please comment in 60 seconds or less on the following topics? I'm going to spit, this is rapid fire time, okay? First, because I want to hit these topics, but I just can't dwell on them too long here. So just the quick hits here. BlogTO's fresh daily disaster. Yeah, we had that one on the cutting room floor,

I think an episode or two ago. It was BlogTO, the guy thataster. Yeah, we had that one on the cutting room floor, I think, an episode or two ago. It was BlogTO, the guy that runs it, Tim Shore. He thought he would do like a national website. He would compete with these other ones out there. A Narcity Daily Hive. You're hitting on these content farms once in a while, aren't you? Yes. He had this other name, Fresh Daily.

He owned a web address. He hired a couple writers to work there, and it took him all of two weeks to decide that he didn't want to do this project anymore. I think he hired these writers at a premium price, too. Wow. That was dumb. And he was going to build up this whole national staff, do a national version of BlogTO.

And once again, just like Star Metro, these are not the people you want on your bad side. These are the ones who will be on Twitter out for blood if you let them go so abruptly. And then, subsequently after he lays them off, he had a bunch of job ads up, open positions

at BlogTO, and you can imagine this did not go over very well. Here he is, you know, being known as a guy who can't make his mind up, breaking people's hearts. Who thought they finally secured a good journalism job. Is this the guy you want to be working for uh i don't know there are people that want to be involved with blog to fotm danny stover yes doing the podcast only in toronto right once a while they

they have some news you can use on there uh just some bad press uh and I think the kind of management style, you know, that people come to dread when it comes to the modern media. Now, Ken Shaw, Ken Shaw, has announced his retirement. Is that it? You're promising a big Ken Shaw impersonation here. I never promised that.

You put it on your website. Did I? I don't remember. You said it, 1236. December 30th episode. That's all I've got, Ken Shaw. We'll be featuring't remember. Ken Shaw. That's all I've got. Ken Shaw. That's it.

Is that underwhelming? I forgot I made that promise. Ken Shaw. Don't be disappointed by Ken Shaw. I don't do impersonations. I don't do good impersonations. Ken Shaw, though. That's all you got. More time for us to talk about Ken Shaw.

Remember my CTV blind spot, which I've been very open and honest about, in that I never watch CTV. I do know of Ken Shaw. Well, of course, he's been on there your entire life, pretty much. Ken Shaw. He announced his retirement, but because he wants to broadcast in five different decades,

do I have the right number, or is it more than that? He wants to have his last show in January. January 6th. So he will be back to sign off on the day that society gets back to work. That first Monday of 2020 will be the last day on the job. January 6th. Ken Shaw. Ken Shaw.

Looking at Gordon Martineau and how Gordon Martineau's career came to an end. That's the question. Right up there with Dave Hodge's pen flip as one of the most recurring discussions on Toronto Mike. The last day that Gord Martineau was on City TV. And up next, Modern Family. Ken Shaw getting a more dignified exit exit which also raises questions about when somebody like that announces their retirement did they jump right or were they pushed i've been asked this question so many times uh what is your do you know first of all do you know well he was already

cutting back on his amount of air time let's put it this way they they they wouldn't want to keep somebody around who isn't going to do the full-time hours. As far as I can tell, the job entails hanging around the station all day. You do a newscast at noon and another one at 6pm. And the replacement

announced for Ken Shaw, Nathan Downer, he already established himself as a newscasting warrior doing all those shifts on CP24. And he went viral with the Mike Tyson. With Mike Tyson, one of the greatest moments in Toronto television history. Because Russ Salzberg went viral with Mike Tyson. And immortalized on the wall of that laundromat in North York.

Nathan Downer, yeah. Nathan Downer and Mike Tyson, they're painted on that six mural in that laundromat way up there in North York. All right. So Nathan Downer, he's got the job. You know, his first big break, as far as I know, was Flow, the original Flow, 935. He was part of the morning show, right?

I didn't know. He was a newscaster and morning show on the Flow. It's almost 20 years ago. Is Melanie involved in that? This would be way before that. Well, I apologize. This would be the original cast of the station. This might have been way back when they had...

What was the original morning show? Kenny Robinson. Okay, yeah. The Toronto comedian. The comic, yeah. Was on the morning show. And then, yeah, somewhere in there along the way JJ and Melanie

they might have had the longest run but then the flow hosts that were there for a while are still around in Toronto G98.7 and that is Mark and Gemini in the morning those names ring a bell?

Does this mean anything to you? Indy 88 has caught 102.1 The Edge. At least in the male 25-54 demographic, this is a significant happening in Toronto radio. Well, given the amount of oxygen we give here to the topic of CFNY and 102.1 The Edge, the station that was

your main source of music information? In the 90s. Entertainment? 1990s? Humble and Fred? You woke up with Humble and Fred? Yep, in high school. From your first day of high school?

Yeah, I guess that was their first show. Right through university? So my first day of high school was 1999, I guess that was their first show. Right through university? So my first day of high school was 1989. And now you're the producer of the Humble and Fred show? Wow, man, I'm having a moment here. Dreams do come true. Wow. I'm always having a moment

here, though, because I can't believe that I'm the most frequent guest amongst all the FOTMs. You've created this whole galaxy down here, because you ask almost every guest about me. My name comes up. There's something about a 1236 episode. You're top of mind.

There was something that I floated to you. And I can learn through your podcast about who among the FOTMs know who I am and who hasn't heard of me. And I think I've retained a status that I'm quite comfortable with, that I'm still not all that well-known when it comes to the bigger Toronto media scene.

This was somewhat by design. But they do fake it. I would rather be 1236 or known as the person behind the newsletter. I think that's been better for my brand than to be myself because listen to me, I'm not for everyone. And you know, there are different ways of accessing what I do in different platforms. I don't know how, how, what percentage of guests that you have down here know who I am. A lot of times, though, they pretend not to know who you are. Like, I feel like there are definitely

these famous people in my basement here. I'll mention 1236, the newsletter, and they'll be like, oh yeah, like they'll act like they don't know that. But I feel like that might be, like, just so they don't seem too caring about this stuff. Okay, well, back to CFO. I think it was Alan Cross who had the best reaction.

When you mentioned 1236, you mentioned my name and he said, oh, oh, I know what that is. I didn't know it was him. Oh, because of... I know I worked my magic

on at least one icon and humble and completely oblivious to all my appearances here. No idea. That's kind of insulting now that you mention it. How can they be so unaware of these two and a half hours? Don't mention my name. It's not worth it. It never goes well in the end. The reason you've been on, how many hours is that in 2019? The main reason you're on is because

I think you're amazing. I think what you bring to the city and what I'm trying to do here is invaluable, and I don't think we could replace you. Growing up, I would have wanted to be on a radio station like CFNY. And a lot of the people that spent a lot of time agitating on the sidelines, complaining about what CFNY was doing wrong,

they were really just wannabes who felt that it was their birthright to have a say in the legend of this radio station. And CFNY, through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, was never as good as it used to be. You never had to go far to find somebody that said, I used to be such a dedicated listener to this radio station, and now I don't get it. They're not doing the right thing anymore. And we experienced decade after decade of this sort of dissonance when it came to what

was happening on 102.1 The Edge. But then, finally, the day arrived where people started not to care anymore. And I think we've chronicled that over the course of the years that I've been out here on the podcast, where here we are talking about these radio people as if they're still local celebrities. And yet you can't find a whole lot of evidence of anybody else caring about them. That, you know, the whereabouts of Tucker and Mora

or Coulter and Meredith or whatever that brother and sister duo are on CFNY. Right. That the number of people keeping track of this stuff is still significant, but it's no longer really part of the mainstream media conversation. And here we are wondering that if Chorus Entertainment lays CFNY down to die like a pet,

that it's no longer bringing in the returns. It's just not a fit anymore with their corporate strategy. It's something personal. It's just not working anymore. Now they've got this brother and sister, Alex and Ruby Carr, and I don't know, they can transfer to country

format or something. I don't know what's going to happen. But that was a milestone, I think, in radio history that you would have heard a lot more about at a different point in time than Indy 88, this startup radio station, I know it's like six years into its history,

that by hiring some old CFNY people and positioning itself a certain way with the audiences out there is now with the main target demographic beating CFNY in the ratings. A little cam con with Tal Bachman here,

Randy Bachman's son. Now I'm playing this because it was featured. It featured. I think a lot of us heard this song over the last month because of the Peloton. Now, I'm a guy who watches these ads on the, you know, people using the Peloton and think, what if you got on your bike

and rode outside? Like, that sounds like a good idea to me, which I'm going to do right after we wrap here today. But Peloton is like a, I guess it's like a, it's a bike. It's a stationary bike with some kind of a tablet attached to it. I don't know what's going on there, but the ad was very controversial. Can you explain to us in a nutshell? but the ad was very controversial. Can you explain to us in a nutshell? Because I watched the ad like five times,

and I don't really, I have to confess, I don't really understand why everybody was up in arms over this Peloton ad. Do you? It was all about the eyebrows of the actress who was playing the wife in the video, in the commercial, right? It was the idea that she was in a distressed state, being coerced by her husband to get in shape using this machine, and that it was sort of against her will that she was doing this. The eyebrows.

That she had no interest in getting in shape, and that, in fact, it was on the order of her sexist significant other that she actually worked her way on this machine and find her bliss eventually. Well, we sure are reading a lot. The whole idea that, like, this wasn't her, this wasn't her concept in the first place. And the message to, you know, husbands out there,

you know, if your wife isn't looking as hot as you want her to, order a Peloton for Christmas and she'll make you happy. I think that was the crux. And she'll have no choice, right? That was the crux of the controversy. Yeah, she's somehow a Stepford wife or something? Well, we'll see. The sales figures are going to come in because this is a public company.

And the stock price went down after the commotion after the ad, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't effective. It turns out that Peloton might have been a good investment if you bought low on this machinery. Tal Bachman, who's

mostly a one-hit wonder, son of Randy. That's very fair to say at this point, yes. Because I can't name a second Tal Bachman. Well, he got in on the wave of second-generation rock stars in the 90s. Leonard Cohen's son, Adam, had a record deal. I know, and of course, Bob Dylan's son had quite the number. Yeah, oh, Jacob Dylan, Wallflowers. So Tal had this one break with the song, one American hit.

He had the record company right behind him on this. He's an ex-Mormon, and I think he's got a lot of kids, just like his dad did. But he's also emerged as a real libertarian type. He was doing shows with Mark Stein, the political commentator. Let's say, you know, this is a political side that I am more sympathetic to than a lot of guests that you tend to have down here on Toronto Mic'd. And that, you know, Tal was sort of trying to be like the libertarian musician. You heard of the fishing musician from SCTV?

He was trying to pioneer the concept that he would be, if you were a fan of the Fountainhead, that you would enjoy the music of Tal Bachman. But I don't know if any of that has caught on as much as one hit song from over 20 years ago. And Variety magazine gave him a call and they asked him,

what do you feel about being on this controversial ad? And he's a little more of a right-winger, so he's not going to see any sexism or too much that was problematic about what they were doing. Above all, he was making money on his own with the songs. He was over 20 years old. He realizes, Dad, Randy has done that over and over again. No shortage of Guess Who and BTO songs. Taking care of businesses in every second ad.

I will say the first thing I noticed when I decided I need to see this ad and see what people are talking about, the first thing I noticed was, oh, there's Tal Bogman. Okay, well, anyway, he told Variety Magazine, the article, that he's currently in development at Netflix for a music-driven comedy drama show. And I don't know, maybe he's willing to ride that Trump train that he can find that audience there that seems to be part of what he's invested in as a great Canadian composer with that one Hall of Fame song, She's So High.

Okay, a yes or no question for you. And I mean this, yes or no, that's all I'm accepting from you. Do we still have John Derringer doing mornings on Q107 a year from today? Oh, well, no, we don't because he signed a 10-year contract and it's running out. I looked this up. Prepare, well, no. We don't because he's got a... He signed a 10-year contract and it's running out. I looked this up. Prepare for coming down here. At the end of 2010,

he signed a 10-year deal with Q107. I'm ready for him. With Chorus. And you think that when he's free, when the shackles are off, when he's no longer employed by a corporate radio station,

he will be willing to come on Toronto Mike? I think so. He listens to the show. I can't see why he wouldn't. He'd be very welcome here. I hope so. Now, that was a yes or no question. You've answered it. Now, last thing

before we move on to the memorial section. Matt Galloway no longer hosts Metro Morning. I know Pia Chetapaiwai is filling in for a couple of months, but she does not want this gig full time. Yes, she was affirming the fact that this is not for her.

Like, doesn't fit with her life. The 3.30 wake up is not conducive to her life. Whatever, she's got young kids that need her there in the morning. This is not meant for her. I'm not entirely sure about that. Well, this is her story. It can maybe be amended to work around her but i realize it's a very intense gig always sort of chafed at matt galloway he would never shut up about how early

he had to get up in the morning i know it was his crotch it was like a default go-to right you need to bridge the time he would go into a thing about, he never saw a third period of a Leaf game. He was working. It was a job. Like all the shift workers out there, he was keeping odd hours. But he's going to get a bit more sleep. Not too much more sleep. Hosting The Current,

which is actually a broadcast live at 7.30 our time. It goes on Atlantic Canada. Oh, that's right. It airs live one hour before we hear it here. I always forget it's live because you can't really tell it's live. 90 minutes earlier in Newfoundland. To be on guard.

The current came about because CBC Radio was asleep at the wheel on 9-11. That's how they came to the determination that they needed a national news show running at that time that could bridge across all the time zones. That they were running some prerecorded programming. I don't know. They were talking to a poet. The debaters.

No, like an interview with a poet or a potter or something. And 9-11 is going on. Right. Planes crashing into the World Trade Center. And this is what CBC Radio was broadcasting at the time. So there was something symbolic about starting it at 8.30 in the morning. Let's see who replaces Matt Galloway. That's the question.

Do you have any guess as to who will get this job? Well, the CBC doesn't lack four personalities, but part of the union agreement there is they have to publicly do a job posting. Like whenever they have an opening. They have to make it available to all comers. I mentioned before

Natasha Fata of the CBC News Network, who is by far their most talented news anchor in all of the CBC. I don't know how often you see her. You're familiar with her work? Yeah, I see her quite a bit. I think she should have been picked to be the sole anchor of the National

on the CBC. I don't think that four-anchor scheme has worked out all that well. I would throw her name in there just as somebody who I think is deserving of a shot, who's wallowing a little bit on the sidelines of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and who could be moved up and evolve into that kind of role.

But I don't know. You have to be versatile to host this Metro Morning Show as they designed it. And great for Matt Galloway. Listen, this was a guy who came from Campus Radio, York University, CHRY. Went to write for NOW Magazine. And in doing little bits on the radio at the CBC, showing what he learned over at York University. They had the chops when he first took over the

afternoon drive show. I was surprised. I didn't know. I didn't know that they saw him as having that level of talent. And in fact, he was in line to the throne to take over from Andy Barry and just put in almost 10 years. Right, because he was here and now's host. And then the obvious, I remember

at the time thinking this was an obvious successor for Andy Barry. And Metro Morning was never the same. Last time I think I listened to Metro Morning Live, might have tuned in for the last day, Matt's last day in December, was when Jesse Hirsch was on with Matt Galloway. Right, the Facebook stuff. Engaging him in a discussion about Facebook, and Matt demurred and deferred and wouldn't get into a fight about why the CBC is endorsing Facebook. Why isn't CBC taking a stand against Facebook? And the way that my pal Jesse Hirsch was treated on that episode turned me off a little bit about the whole Metro Morning experience. And I would tune in to hear Jesse on there.

He was a great addition, part of the cast of the show. And I know from having worked with Jesse that the level of attention that he got from being on Metro Morning for like seven minutes a week, it was massive. Like you don't have to be, you don't have to do two and a half hour long podcasts to be a household name

and take it for granted that so many people know who you are that the power of having that primetime slot in the morning on cbc radio across canada but especially in toronto because by far it's a highest rated morning radio show correct and it doesn't you know people don't remember what you said they just remember that you you your name was mentioned and you were on there. And they get their Jesse Hersh's confused with their Jesse Browns. Yeah, it doesn't really matter. It's just that you manage to make that imprint, that impact, people listening while they're getting ready in the morning, in the shower, on the way to work. And then you're part of the fabric of the whole thing.

And they just cut him loose. let him go, all because he challenged the corporation about why CBC is supporting Facebook at the same time that Facebook is something that maybe Canadians should be taking a stand against and maybe finding a way to disengage from the whole Facebook machine, let alone going on the air on public broadcasting, telling people that they should join a Facebook page. That's my conclusion. That's my exit commentary on Matt Galloway. Really nothing to do with Matt, who is, again, somebody that I saw come up from being a campus

radio guy to a third-string music writer for an alternative weekly newspaper, to be one of the top stars of public broadcasting in Canada. And I also hope that with podcasting, that it gives him more exposure for what he's been doing. It sounds like they still haven't figured out yet like a podcast strategy for that current show. You get as a podcast but that's the kind of thing that maybe they'll build on in the future because that's where the younger audiences are didn't they say that article that

you were in the average age listening to cbc podcast right it's significantly younger than the ones tuning in on fm and that is only going to continue. I was also going to mention from the last time I was on, I got more reaction than usual on Twitter for when I got into a spiel about Bell and Rogers Media and how these companies were showing through the controversies about Don Cherry and then Jessica Allen on the social that maybe these telecom giants should start to disengage from producing media content.

Yes, a lot of people were interested in what you had to say. And my prediction that I think we will see this happen at some point in the 2020s, it's just a matter of time, you know, when they realize that maybe it's not good for the stock price of companies that, you know, when they realize that maybe it's not good for the stock price of companies that, you know, currently primarily exist to sell you cell phones and home internet plans, that they are not going to get very far in the future as far as, you know, entertaining, spontaneous commentary on radio and television.

entertaining spontaneous commentary on radio and television and that we we we saw they they showed their hands with what happened how they reacted with with jessica allen with don cherry and i'm gonna stand by that prediction only because people co-signed it and and thinking thinking that we'll see an evolution in that way and speaking speaking in defense of TMDS and what you've got going with Toronto Mic'd, it was Ed Conroy, Retro Ontario, that touched on that as well, that these companies can't work fast enough to keep up with what is changing out there, trying to leverage the position that they have, make noise in certain ways. How many podcasts do we need? What do we do here?

How do we get into this space? How do we compete with what Toronto Mike is doing in his basement? And at some point in time, doesn't it just make sense to give up altogether? Doesn't it make sense to yield to the people who can do it quick and dirty, who can do a podcast on December 30th,

a date on the calendar when nobody else thinks about going to work. And I know you'll be at it down here in the basement, early January. Yep. When all these other companies are just having these strategy sessions. I got an episode Thursday and an episode Friday.

They're yawning their way back to business and coming up with strategic plans and we'll launch this thing in March and another thing in May and you can make it happen right here and that that's my my show of support for the TMDS aesthetic and the way of doing things all I ask is that you remember me if you have any opportunity for me to come along for the ride. How could I forget you? Although I have high hopes with where it's going. So yeah, St. Joseph Media, 1236 Newsletter continuing. And I've got some plans.

And they've been gestating for a while. They get beyond the daily 1236 Newsletter as we know it. At one point, a podcast was imagined. Then that was off the table. I don't know if it'll get back on the table again, but there's other things that I want to do, other formats, other genres. We'll see if I can roll them out here in 2020. And as you mentioned, because I'm a bit quiet about it,

the Canadian Jewish News, a legacy newspaper that turned 60 years of age on January 1st. And I've been handling trending in the Canadian Jewish news, kind of a page two feature in there. I write some little blurbs based on what's happening through my lens about what's going on out there. And Toronto Mike has been mentioned in there more than once. There was an item about the reopening of Byway.

And in the CJN a year ago, you remember this? Yes, I do. There was a picture of the Byway bag bequeathed to Toronto Mike by FOTM Cam Gordon. Correct. It made it in print in the CJN. We've talked about Hebsey in the CJN. Gave a plug for his book when it came out in the podcast.

Gallagher and Gross. I think next to the Canadian Jewish News, Toronto Mike Digital Services is the second highest employer of Jewish media talent in Toronto. Is that correct? I'm honored. That's fantastic. Well, you're not really employing anybody, are you?

No, but my clientele is composed of all religions, including Judaism. Not that kind of rabbi. Which is very good, by the way. Your most Jewish production yet, given how it has rabbi in the title. Listen, I have Kathleen Wynne coming over to my house, okay? This is a true story. I live in a world where Kathleen Wynne is dropping by, and it's not for my podcast.

It's to sit down and talk to Ralph Ben-Murray on his podcast. And when can we hear not that kind of rabbi with Ralph Ben-Murray? I actually think the first episode will drop on the 9th of January. So you can subscribe now. There's a 90, I don't know, there's a four minute teaser trailer, but I think the first episode will drop on January 9th, 2020. Now, Mark, I'm going to ask you to speak

at twice the normal speed you speak, believe it or not. Firstly, I want to let people know that this memorial section of the 1236 episode of Toronto Mic'd is brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. Now Ridley Funeral Home is at 3080 Lakeshore. That's at 14th Street.

So Lakeshore and 14th. And Brad Jones, who owns Ridley Funeral Home, he's been a tremendous FOTM and we got to hear from him at, uh, TML X five at Palmer's kitchen pay tribute without paying a fortune. Learn more at Ridley funeral home.com. Thank you. You always wanted a lover I only wanted a job And I was worth of living

How am I gonna get through? How am I gonna get through? I come here looking for money Got to have it Mark, we're listening to the Pet Shop Boys. What have I done to deserve this? Allie Willis was a co-songwriter on this song by the Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield. You remember when this was a huge hit?

I was a big Pet Shop Boys fan at the time. And I loved this jam. And this is the song that introduced me to Dusty Springfield and then later I would hear one of her probably her biggest hit I suppose

on my favorite movie of all time. She recorded Son of a Preacher Man which I heard on Pulp Fiction. And her health was not great and she did not live that much longer.

She didn't make it into the 21st century sadly but there was Dusty Springfield in her comeback glory with this song with the Pet Shop Boys. And you were on the younger end for Pet Shop Boys fans, but you realize that

amongst the literary crowd, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys was a god among men. For the fact that here was a guy that was working as a pop journalist for a teen magazine in the UK, a smash hits magazine. He's right about what was happening with whoever was topping the charts.

Haircut 100, Duran Duran, Wham, George Michael. He was off to New York to cover the police concert at Shea Stadium. And while he was there, he started researching, how can I become a pop star on my own? And he was talking to people in New York from these records that he was listening to, making connections, that he wanted to take a run at himself. And he wanted to become a pop star along with his sidekick

Chris Lowe. And they would have this group the Pet Shop Boys. And it's remarkable that he actually pulled it off. Starting with West End Girls. A song which initially was more of a British indie hit. Played on CFTR in Toronto

which would have gotten the idea from CFNY at the time, and then got a big record deal, Parlophone, Capital Records, re-release at West End Girls. Massive hit on the radio. Monster hit. 1986. But they had a lot of hits.

Like, Pet Shop Boys were pretty prolific there for a while. Hit, hit, hit, hit. The connection with Allie Willis came, not out of music, but this idea that at the time she was doing more work as a visual artist and that she was going to do some artwork for the Pet Shop Boys.

And Neil Tennant found out over the course of talking to her, this was the woman whose name, A. Willis, was a credit on hits that everybody knew by the band Earth, Wind, and Fire. And those songs, the biggest two of all, September. In September.

And Boogie Wonderland. And at that point in time, she was moving away from music. she was involved as a singer-songwriter on her own and out of that she managed to get writing

opportunities for other people, Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, Neutron Dance that was one of her songs, connected with the Pet Shop Boys and out of that we had What Have I Done to Deserve This that she put together the Pet Shop Boys, and out of that we had What Have I Done to Deserve This? That she put together different Pet Shop Boys songs, disparate parts,

and added the thing for Dusty Springfield, and the rest is history. Went on to write the theme from Friends, I'll Be There for You. But really just a great overall eccentric. I don't know that songwriting was the only thing that she wanted to be remembered for, and died after a cardiac event on Christmas 2019.

Rest in peace, Allie Willis. We're listening to Kelly Fraser, who I'm ashamed to say I only learned about her after she passed away. But this is her cover in her native language. This is, of course, Rihanna's Diamonds. She was nominated for a Juno Award and was currently crowdfunding, trying to raise money for her new album to break out on her own as a recording artist.

But the most attention that she got in her brief life was for doing these YouTube cover versions of songs. And one that got the most attention was this version of the Rihanna song. In what language is this? This is Inuktuwit.

And she was only 26 years old do we know what took her life? no I don't think that cause of death was out there which then stirs conversation as well so Rihanna and

the Camila Cabello song Havana that was another one she did a cover version of and Cherry Bomb the song by the Runaways was another one she did a cover version of. And Cherry Bomb, the song by The Runaways, was another one on YouTube. So another Christmas Day death from the world of music. Kelly Frazier, dead at 26. I say, I don't need no Molly to be savage. When I'm on that Molly, I feel savage.

She the definition of a bad bitch. Stole her. I'm the definition of a bandit. I don't need no Molly to be savage. But when I'm on the Molly, I feel savage. My girl the definition of a bad bitch. I don't need no molly to be savage. But when I'm on the molly, I feel savage. My girl, the definition of a bad bitch. Stole her heart. I'm the definition of a bandit.

Put the perks down and picked up the jiggies. Speaking of dying too young, Juice WRLD was only 21 years old. Well, you mentioned his death on here on an episode beforehand, right? And you played what was his biggest hit of all? Lucid Dreams.

And that was based on a sample from Sting, right? Right. He had a few other hits beyond that. And much like some of the other SoundCloud rappers that died at a young age, some of the other SoundCloud rappers that died at a young age. XXXTentacion. Is that how you pronounce it? I think that's right.

XXXTentacion. Who I've heard a great deal more, I heard far more from him in death than I did in life. Lil Peep was another who came out as a SoundCloud rapper and died at a young age. And Juice

World, another one who started uploading his own songs to the internet and going down in history with this early death at 21 under some unfortunate circumstances

that involved, what was it? Hiding pills in the airport? Police, FBI, law enforcement agents, yes, surrounding his plane. And the fact that they had some guns on the plane and he swallowed a bunch of pills and died of an overdose shortly thereafter. Listen, none of us are immortal.

Some of us just figure out how to go a little bit faster. And December 8th, 2019, same day John Lennon died, we lost Juice WRLD at age 21. What? What? What? They been killin' in the jungle for the crown Ain't nobody want it Better watch them niggas, you around I been tryna want them And these kids will sell you straps with a body on it

And ain't no deal, it's five racks if somebody want it. Ain't got no funds, they just promoting all the violence. And I don't blame them, OG should have gave them some guidance. Young and he's dumb, plus his friends trying to slam him. If he smoke one of them, ain't no loyal money to fight him. They've been killing in the jungle for the crown. Now closer to home. OG's in the ghetto, always told him not to be afraid.

Now I apologize, do you say Bully or Bavilli? Please help me, Mark. Toronto rapper. I want to call him Bavilli. Jackwar Stewart was his birth name. But yeah, B-V-L-L-Y. Here's the thing. You know, it's easier than ever to make a music video that looks pretty slick.

Easier than ever to make a music video that looks pretty slick, like as professional as something that would have had a multimillion-dollar budget back in the late 20th century. And Bully was a rapper on the rise. He's got videos out there that were filmed in England, across Europe. Things were happening for this kid there. Featuring some better-known rappers. Things were happening for this kid there. Featuring some better-known rappers.

I noticed that some fairly well-known rappers would be featured on B's tracks. I'm calling him B now. Fatally shot in a townhouse in Oshawa just before Christmas. More attention than he got in life, even though his videos uh were into the hundreds of thousands of views and shortly after he died someone created a wikipedia page for bully right ended up being deleted on the basis that he was non-notable then i have no hope. I'm sorry. That hurts. Maybe with all the news coverage out there, the Wikipedia editors will figure out a way to allow it. Macklemore had a number one album,

and he didn't have a page on Wikipedia. That's shocking because he was very well known in Seattle before he broke with Frischop. So many rappers out there, but I think Bully was making inroads with his career in whatever circumstance that found him shot and killed in Oshawa, Ontario. So another one that we lost in December. Well, here we are cracking jokes in the corner of our mouths And I feel like I'm laughing in a dream If I was young, I could wake outside your school Cause your face is like the cover of a magazine, magazine

How do you do the things that you do? Not one and all, good and bad A deep track, because it's not one of the monster hits you know from Roxette. Like, you got the look. It must have been love, but it's over now. A deep track because I want to show off my scholarly understanding of the Roxette catalog. And the fact that after they had their huge album Joyride, they got to the point where they had to show they were a real band.

This was not some sort of studio creation. The Rocksette were really old-fashioned rock and rollers and made an album called Tourism, which was a combination of acoustic versions of some of their hits and new songs to show they had the power pop bona fides. You know, they wanted to show that, like, they could win over the critics with what they had to offer.

And guess what? It backfired. And we didn't hear much about Roxette in North America after that. And this was 1992. The album they put out afterwards was controversial for a whole other reason. You could buy the CD with a combo meal

at McDonald's. And that's the way they figured that they had to market it. CDs were considered valuable objects. Right. Right? And you could pay a couple extra bucks and you could get a copy of the new Rock Zet album, Crash Boom Bang. Oh, that's like sticking a U2 album on a new iPhone or something, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well before that time, it was a giveaway to buy at McDonald's in the subject of controversy with different retailers. You know, what are you doing? You're devaluing music. Like you're practically giving it away for free. You're saying that music isn't worth all that much more than a carton of French fries. Do you remember when you could go to McDonald's

and buy a combo for something like $3.99 and then you could get a, I think five bucks got you a Field of Dreams. There were like four different options. I remember one being Field of Dreams because I bought that one. But Field of Dreams on VHS. Does this ring a bell with you? It was all about the upsell.

Roxette were on the cover of one of the first issues of iWeekly. And when I first got started doing that alternative newspaper thing, I was responsible. I was the one that suggested that Roxette should be on the cover. And I interviewed Per Gessel over the phone. I interviewed the guy from Minneapolis who brought the record to the radio station, The Look,

and he was responsible for their success and something else. And, I don't know, this lived in infamy for years afterwards. The fact that, you know, here I managed to convince them on a lark to put Roxette on the cover of a Toronto Alternative Weekly. One of my great contributions to the culture, which I was thinking about when I heard that Marie Fredrickson of Roxette died at age 61. I think it was 61, yes.

After health struggles for a few years, got it sort of back together for one last tour, even though she was struggling cognitively, but she was able to remember the lyrics, and I guess a lot of these deaths of music that people weren't thinking a lot about lately, all of a sudden the memories come rushing back. Right. And it's like, hey, Roxette!

I haven't thought of the lyrics. If you had a handful of, like, I would say there's multiple number one Billboard Hot 100 hits out of that band, Roxette. Like, that was everywhere, especially about, I'd say, about 30 years ago. Everywhere. Now, I just want to warn people right now,

don't worry, Holly Cole is still with us. I just want to make sure people aren't hearing this voice and concerned about Holly Cole's well-being. And I just want to make sure people aren't hearing this voice and being concerned about Holly Cole's well-being. And I just threw this on the pile because of the greatness of this

song. Remember Girl Talk when this tune was a breakthrough for Holly Cole. Who died in December was her dad, Leon Cole, who was a known name in his own right because he was a host on CBC Stereo at the time when it was more of a classical leaning radio station. And so at the same time that Holly Cole started becoming a breakout star on the Toronto jazz scene, it was mentioned in article after article about the fact that this is the daughter of the mid-afternoon host on CBC Stereo, Leon Cole.

And, you know, I'm sure they milked the connection at the time that she was proudly spoken of on the airwaves. And here was the host of RSVP 1985 to 1995 listeners would write in snail mail letters talking about the meaning of certain pieces of music to their lives and Leon Cole was the guy that read the letters he was the interpreter of it all

and I don't know that I ever would have heard of him myself if it wasn't for his daughter, Holly Cole, getting all the attention that she did. And there was an example, I guess, of a father and daughter Canadian celebrity of 25, 30 years ago. I have fond memories of the Holly Cole trio covering Johnny Nash. I can see clearly now And that seemed to be the I don't know, the big mainstream

Breakthrough for Holly Because I don't remember Girl Talk I remember Girl Talk as a guy named Greg Gillis who would mash up Mash up pop songs Remember what Harry Connick Jr. Was first Breaking through as... Individually, we are in love.

We are in love. And it was the whole idea of like a young new generation, right? Of lounge singers like the Great American Songbook. Maybe segue to bit into the Swing Dance Revival. James B. I don't know. Where did all that nostalgia go? Brian Setzer Orchestra with Jump, Jive, and Wail, as I recall.

Is what happened that all the old people that remember this stuff died and went away, and there's no one around to resurrect it anymore? I still like the Stray Cats. I still put them on now and then. Now, this is not the Bee Gees. A little George Michael. Now Mark, it was I think three Christmases ago we lost George Michael.

What sad news do you have to deliver to us three years later? George Michael's sister died on Christmas Day 2019. Melanie, she was 55 years of age. And you really can't look past the fact that, you know, 2016, the date that we lost George Michael and three years later

that his sister's life came to an end. Not being treated as suspicious in the song, here is a jive talking. not being treated as suspicious. And the song here is a jive talking. George Michael singing on this song, but credited to a group name, Boogie Box Hot. And it was George Michael's cousin and his sister Melanie's cousin

who was behind this act and recruited George to sing on this track, which never got much of a release around here because george michael was signed to cbs records and you know they didn't want this to conflict with the faith album and get in the way with his voice on another song right at the time you know they dilute the mothership suppressed attention to this cover which is of course out there on the internet of uh jive talking by george michael and i don't know that i heard the song that much either until a stereo gum.com which has a recap of all the number one hits billboard number one hits through history bg's jive talking was in there and there was an embed, a link to this song

which I don't know if I'd ever heard it before I'd forgotten about it entirely so here's a jam I think Mike you can get into this one Jive Talkin' with George Michael Love talking, that gets in the way, oh yeah. Love talking, I sound very fine. And jive talking. I'm a monster.

Got a revved up teenage head. Teenage monster. Teenage monster California bald-ass friends Half boy and half man I'm half the sea and half old land Move over boogie box high. The Flamin' Groovies. Teenage Head by Flamin' Groovies.

The song that inspired the name of the legendary Hamilton punk rock band. of the legendary Hamilton punk rock band sung by Roy Loney, who died in December at age 73. He was the original lead singer of this band, but ended up leaving before they had what became the closest they had to a mainstream power pop hit, Shake Some Action, in the mid-70s.

Before that came along, here was part of this, I guess you would call it the original grunge scene. Is that what you think of when you hear this song? Yeah, it's got that kind of dirgy, kind of Neil Young-ish, Cinnamon Girl thing going on there. It's got a bit of a grungy sound going on there. Yeah. I hear it. This year,

there's a reissue of a Teenage Heads album from 1983 called Tornado. It was going to be their big breakthrough in the United States of America, but they told them they had to change the name of the band. They had to add an S at the end,

and it had to be credited to Teenage Heads. Plural. Because they imagined this thing being all over the radio and MTV, and you didn't want that illicit illusion to a concept that parents would have to explain to their children. It's all so innocent compared to today. You never see the lyrics to a song by The Weeknd or whatever. Right.

Back in 1983, this is what they were being cautious about, and it imploded really quick. And before long, the band's name was back to Teenage Head with Frankie Venom. back to Teenage Head with Frankie Venom. He ended up dying young, but Teenage Head is still kicking around.

I pray to the Lord to send me a love. He sent me a love He sent me an angel From heaven above The stars in the sky He placed in her eyes I can hear the pops jumping off the vinyl. My true love. Going really deep here into the history of Canadian rock and roll

in a guy named Jack Scott, who died on December 12th at age 83, originally from Windsor, Ontario. And somewhere around the time that rock and roll started to become a thing, he was right there waiting with the whole act ready to go. He wasn't going to go by his real name, which was Giovanni Scafoni Jr., but instead anglicized it to Jack Scott

and put out a whole bunch of records in a really compressed period of time because back then you'd get away with it. I mean, there was no rule book, right? You could just do 45 after 45 after 45. It was like podcasting. And at the same time

that Elvis was breaking through, he was a Canadian citizen. He was born in Windsor, even though by that point he had moved to the Detroit area. But he was... Canadians had their own Elvis Presley. Did you ever know this? I had no idea.

Their own guy, their own equivalent, the Canadian version of Elvis. His name was Jack Scott. And how old was Jack when he passed away? Yeah, 83 years old. when he passed away. Yeah, 83 years old. And, you know, like a lot of these original unsung heroes of rock and roll, there wasn't much place for him

once the Beatles broke through. But, you know, the record collectors resurrected him and he made a comeback into the late 80s in an obituary form. He got the full obituary in the Globe and Mail, and people were commenting about how he was like a literary figure. You know, you wouldn't have associated this guy with, like, the rock and roll lifestyle. He was a deep thinker, Jack Scott.

But he had this history behind him, and there was enough of a revival circuit, those record collectors that, you know, put out reissues and gave him a bit of glory all over again. Papa, I know you're going to be upset, cause I was always your little girl. You should know by now, I'm not a baby. You should know by now I'm not a baby You always tell me Now this takes me back to CFTR recording the top six at six when True Blue broke.

This was a big jam. But Madonna's still fine. She's still active and healthy. So you have to visualize, I know it's a podcast, but you have to visualize you're watching this video and much music.

The video for Papa Don't Preach. Danny Aiello, who died on December 12th at age 86, I think he was a guy born to be over 50 because that's when we first would have known him, playing Madonna's dad in the video.

Speaking of great Italians through history, it said it right on Madonna's T-shirt. Yeah, Sal from Do the Right Thing. Oh, yeah, Do the Right Thing a few years later. An iconic performance from Danny Aiello. And in his later years, I guess, not to the extent of

Super Dave Bob Einstein, but a Canadian actor of sorts, thanks to Canada's greatest gangster movie auteur, Frank D'Angelo. Right. He would have written a check to Danny Aiello.

No, it was unmarked bills in a paper bag, I believe. He showed up in three Frank D'Angelo productions. Have an appearance from Danny Aiello. You had The Neighborhood in 2017. That was a big one for Frank. Do you remember? Barry Sherman's money was well spent on that one. I've never seen a Frank D'Angelo movie.

And later, the last big save, the hockey movie, Andy Frost has a cameo in the last big save. I believe it. And possibly all his other friends from the world of sports. Aren't you having Perry Lefkoe down here? Okay, he's booked. He's booked. And he'll talk about working for Frank D'Angelo.

I'm going to ask him. You'll say you have one thing in common with Danny Aiello. You were on the payroll for Frank D'Angelo. I'm going to ask him. You'll say, you have one thing in common with Danny Aiello. You were on the payroll of Frank D'Angelo. And Making a Deal with the Devil was another one that Danny Aiello was in. And a whole different Canadian movie, which got some viral notoriety, called Little Italy. Remember? Of course. Little Italy.

Anakin Skywalker. notoriety called Little Italy. Remember? Little Italy. A lot of mockery. Paid for with Telefilm Canada money. You could smell the burning cash from the screen as Emma Roberts and Hayden Christensen and

Alyssa Milano were enjoying the spoils of Canadian government funding. And along with Andrea Martin, who was in the movie. Oh. And Danny Aiello was in there too. I just saw her in Black Christmas. I finally, finally watched all of Black Christmas this holiday season. Speaking of Andrea Martin.

Okay. Pour one out for Danny Aiello, Italians Do It Better, and that was on Madonna's t-shirt in Papa Don't Preach, and he got his own entry on torontomike.com, right? He was worthy.

That's our crossover here, not only for the 1236 obituary segment, but remember it on Toronto Mike. Okay, before I turn this up uh a late breaking death we've added and tell me about neil innis oh neil innis died uh they were recording this uh news broke december 30th neil innis who was uh best recognized as the seventh. He was a musical director of Monty Python. In the trenches there with any music associated with that troupe. Originally connected through the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band.

Their original recording produced by Paul McCartney on the Urban Spaceman. And he went on to do The Ruttles, which was the parody film about the Beatles. All You Need Is Cash, right? With Eric Idle from Monty Python. Right. And musically, he was so connected to the Beatles that they ended up with some kind of legal action against him and he had to put Lennon and McCartney's name on the credits to songs like Double Back Alley,

obviously inspired by Penny Lane. Neil Innes ended up suing Oasis for plagiarism for one of their songs. Oasis does that. There's a few examples I can think of.

Which song do you remember? I'll bring down the ruttles here. Oh, the Oasis song was Whatever, and it was found in a court of law to have ripped off material from a song written by Neil Innes. So that was one of many enjoyable ironies in the life of this great musical comedian. I mean, The Ruddles. You ever seen The Ruddles? I have not.

All you need is cash. Okay, you got to see that one. I got to see it. Okay. You can't pretend to know the comedy canon without seeing the Ruddles and all the links there. It was kind of the intersection of Monty Python and Saturday Night Live. And part of the legacy of Neil Innes,

the Ruddles had their comeback album. When the Beatles did Anthology, the Ruddles did one called Archaeology. Kind of outtakes of their old songs. And the Ruddles did a rooftop concert in Toronto at Yonge and St. Clair. Okay. And I don't know if there were

that many people there, but Mike Myers was in the audience. Back in 1996. And yeah, so the Beatles never played a final rooftop concert in Toronto, but the Ruddles did. And it was on top of the pub across from the radio station, CFRB Mix 99.9. And I think that was the last great Toronto appearance by the Rutles.

It was also maybe the first. Well, speaking of the Beatles, this segues beautifully, almost like we planned it. But we're listening to a Beatles cover. This is Misery by Kenny Lynch. Remember and you'll be the lonely one, lonely one. Please come back to me. Cause everyone can see. Without you I will be in misery.

Oh, misery. Tell me about Kenny Lynch. This was the first cover version of a Beatles song ever recorded and a bit of a hit in the United Kingdom. And he remained close enough with Paul McCartney that Kenny Lynch is on the cover of the Band on the Run album. Ten years later, the Wings album, Kenny Lynch is in there. Well, since we're on a Beatles roll here,

let's keep rolling. Monique Lerac. My daughter would be proud of my accent on that. Rappelle-toi Que je n'étais rien pour toi Mais tu ne réponds pas Les yeux clos, tu dors déjà Tu t'en vas loin de moi Loin de moi

Quoi rêves-tu à qui dis-moi Qui te murmure tout bas And I'm pleased to see that Monique lived to be a nice old age. I always like to see that. 91 years of age. She originally came to prominence because she won an international song contest. The song that she sung at the time was called Mon Pays, which turned out to be a big

nationalist Quebecois anthem. Did they teach that one to you in French school? I don't remember. We're a long way from summer when we talk about Camp Tournesol and the influence that Nana Mascuri has with Le Tour de Sol.

If they're coming back as a sponsor, I'll have to fire up again my memory of being taught French by a woman that, as far as I could tell, didn't speak the language herself. Monique Lerac, the kind of Quebecois celebrity that no one in English Canada would have really heard of. But after learning that she died at age 91, digging around,

I just found this wonderful cover version of Here, There, and Everywhere. Name a song, Dimois. Not to be confused with Dimois, Dimois by Mitsu. Remember Now Be here now Okay, we're stuck on a Beatles loop now. And we're stuck on another thing that Oasis ripped off,

Be Here Now. But this was the George Harrison song from 1973 that he wrote based on the teachings of Ram Dass, a guy who was born Richard Alpert, and through the aid of psychedelic drugs, he found some deeper spirituality. He was right along there with Timothy Leary, except it was Ram Dass who was into the deeper religious side

of the entire operation. And his teachings inspired the call letters to a radio station we've talked about here from Montreal, just commemorated 50 years. Shom. Shom. Om. Shom. And I couldn't tell you really what any of this was about or supposed to mean.

But people needed to find something deeper at the time, and George Harrison, the most spiritually seeking of the Beatles, acknowledged his influence on this song. Be here now. Mission Impossible. One more Beatles connection. One more George Harrison link. Emile Richards, a percussionist, worked with George Harrison on a bunch of his solo albums and even was playing with him on his disastrous American tour in 1974.

Asterisk American Tour in 1974. But before that, the work that he did as a vibraphonist, Mission Impossible is the theme song that he's best known for. Before we lost Emil Richards in December at age 87. used to be sad used to be shy funniest thing the saddest part is i never knew why oh keeping myself on nothing was my favorite sport i had to take off and stop enjoying cause life's too short. There's a new girl in town cause I'm feeling good. Get a smile, got a song for the neighborhood. And it's all great when you stand on your own two feet. When you stand on your own two feet And this girl's here to stay

With some love and love Life's gonna be So sweet Alice. Remember when you would watch sitcoms where everything seemed really grown up, but there would usually be a kid on the show that you could connect to? Of course.

Well, Philip McKeon played that role in the series Alice. And that's where we got that theme song from. There's a new girl in town. Who's singing that theme song? Do you have any idea? No, you tell me. I don't know, except that it sounds the Timber sounds a bit like Biff

Naked. It's far too many decades before it could be Biff Naked, but it sounds like her. He was also the brother of another teen TV star, and that was Nancy McKeon, who played Joe on The Facts of Life. Joe, of course. I watched The Facts of Life like crazy. Wow.

Philip McKeon, he went on to work in radio after television. Apparently his health wasn't that great. You mean Doug? No, Doug McKeon is a different guy. I think I was confused in the list. Oh, sorry. I apologize. My data is faulty.

Mike, I apologize for giving you the wrong name. Philip McKeon died December 10th at age 55. Immortalized as a young person forever on reruns of Alice, wherever you can find them. And if you do, figure out who was singing that theme song. And speaking of iconic theme songs, Charlie's Angels. Okay, well, it was Linda Lavin from the show Alice that was singing the theme song.

Okay, good. Good to know. You beat Basement Dweller to it. That's it. Someone's firing off a comment while listening. You know, all ready to hit send on the comments of torontomike.com. Which I love, by the way. Please correct us in the comments of torontomike.com. Which I love, by the way. Please correct us in the comments.

Leonard Goldberg died at age 85. A TV producer, also involved in movies that we might know most famously, War Games. Oh, yes. With Matthew Broderick. Even though Charlie's Angels is synonymous most with Aaron Spelling, it was Leonard Goldberg.

He was more the guy on the ground. These were his ideas that were making up the concept of the show, which was a pretty ridiculous concept. You know, the idea that these three young, attractive women would take orders from a voice of a guy that they never saw about how to go out and fight crime. But, of course, they resurrected the franchise in the movie. And then this year, a Charlie's Angels remake,

which was a big box office flop. And I think because it was understood that you can't really make Charlie's Angels woke. You can't pretend it's a story of female empowerment. When, in fact, the original association of the show was with what they would call at the time jiggle television. Right. television. Right. And that to turn it into a feminist parable was maybe a bridge too far

even in this modern day of doing movie remakes. He knows the meaning of success His needs are more So he gives less

It's not unusual This is some Tom Jones Thunderball Who takes all And he strikes Who passed away related to this jam? Would have been one of the main Bond girls from this movie, a French actress named Claudine Auger.

Speaking of concepts of entertainment that might be past their due date, we'll see if the idea of a Bond girl continues into the 2020s. But it was once a way to get noticed, even if you were an actress only known in France. One of the original Sean Connery, James Bond movies, Thunderball had that role for Claudine Auger,

who died December 18th at age 78, Paris, France. But she thinks... Christmas time is here Happiness and cheer Fun for all that children call their favorite time of year

Snowflakes in the air Carols everywhere Olden times and ancient times of love and dreams Some Vince Guarelli trio. Tis the season. Lee Mendelsohn, who died on Christmas Day,

he was the guy who conceptualized turning the Peanuts comic strip from Charles M. Schultz into a television special starting with a Charlie Brown Christmas and all the perennial Peanuts specials that ran year after year after year.

That was really his main legacy. He was also later responsible for turning Garfield, the comic strip, into an animated cartoon series. But yeah, I had to get this in there just because tis the season. Would have sounded strange catching up to this in January that Lee Mendelsohn died aged 86, December 25th, 2019. Hello, Dolly, my jolie Dolly, je crois bien que tu as perdu la partie

Tu es si belle, Dolly, la plus belle Dolly, rien ne semblait pouvoir te résister dans la vie Hello, Dolly. That's Petula Clark. Hello Dolly sung in French by Petula Clark, but the original musical, Hello Dolly and Mame and La Cage Au Folle, all written by a composer named Jerry Herman.

Now I'm boxing it at age 88. I like to finish with these nice old ages. 88. Good for him. Is this more or less gay than the Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield? It's more. I don't know.

Are we the ones to judge? Well, hello. The thing that Grouch loves. The thing that Grouch's love best of all. Oh, I love trash. Anything dirty or dingy or dusty. Anything ragged or rotten or rusty. Yes, I love trash.

If you really want to see something trashy, look at this. I have here a sneaker that's tattered and worn. It's all full of holes and the laces are torn. A gift from my mother the day I was born. I love it because it's trash. Oh, I

love trash. Anything dirty or dingy or dusty. Oh, this takes me back some Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. And this is a big one because we lost the voice of Oscar, who was also the voice of Big Bird.

Carol Spinney died at age 85, but he was working pretty close to the end, and he was just retiring last year from doing the voices on Sesame Street. Also with Oscar and Big Bird, a lot of Canadian connections. Jim Henson, he shot a lot of productions up here, including the movie Follow That Bird,

which was a big starring role for these Muppets. Also with Oscar the Grouch, we've got the fact that in the early episodes of Sesame Street, he was orange. Sometimes you would come across an original Sesame Street vinyl album, and there you would see

orange Oscar. I remember even mascots dressing up in costumes where Oscar was presented as orange. But it didn't take long for Oscar to be presented as green. And there are different opinions about what exactly happened there, that it might have been like a racial sensitivity thing, that there was some interpretation

by giving Oscar a certain kind of color that was closer to human than the other? The other thinking was that Oscar fell in a swamp and from that point he was permanently green until the end of time.

These might be secrets that Carol Spinney took to the grave. But there he was working at a documentary about him, right? Most of these people end up getting a documentary. And there he was working. Jean Gomeschi interviewed Oscar the Grouch. That's still on YouTube. I mean, these are iconic.

I mean, we talk about, you know, Jim Henson did the voice of Kermit the Frog, and Kermit was kind of the soul, I guess, of the... Because Kermit crossed over. That's what I like about Kermit. You saw him on The Muppet Show, but he was also on Sesame Street. He was a rare crossover.

But Big Bird, I don't think, no pun intended, but that's as big as it got for Sesame Street fans like myself. And Oscar the Grouch was a favorite of all kids. So Carol Spinney passing away. How old was Carol? He made it to 85 years of age. And you like to end the episode with people who died at a really old age? I do.

So let's end with the oldest death that we could find. Coincidentally, right around the time you talked about this song on an episode of Toronto Mike. Christmas Crackers Volume 3 with Ed Retro Ontario Conroy. And we played this jam, so I'm sorry to hear, though, that

uh... Who died? Okay, let me explain. Two days before you talked about this jam with Ed Conroy and its connection to the Uncle Bobby show. It's a theme to the Uncle Bobby show. Little did you know, a guy named Gershon Kingsley died at age 97. And Gershon Kingsley worked with a fellow synthesizer musician named Jean-Jacques Perri.

And together they created an album called The In Sound From Way Out. This was one of the pioneering synthesizer albums, which was sampled and inspired and homaged from the Beastie Boys. And that's where a lot of people would recognize this iconography from. But to us Canadian children, like Retro Ontario was talking about, we would have heard this song in the Uncle Bobby show and figured, you know what, if Bobby Ash was involved with music, if you could set the Uncle Bobby legend to sound, this is what it would be like, right?

I mean, this is what you could imagine Uncle Bobby's personality being synthesized with a synthesizer into a piece of music. But no, as Ed explained on here, you know, they lifted it off an album. I don't imagine back then they even felt they had to ask for permission. I don't know if Perry and

Kingsley ever found out what was being done with their music, but spooks in space. And Gershon Kingsley also wrote a song called Popcorn. And originally his composition done by a group of musicians calling themselves Hot Butter.

And the song Popcorn was also something that he did along with the theme song from the game show A group of musicians calling themselves Hot Butter. And the song Popcorn. Right. Yes. Of course. Was also something that he did along with the theme song from the game show, The Joker's Wild. Gershon Kingsley, rest in peace. 97.

Now we went a little bit over, but it is our final episode of the decade. And there's no chance I'm editing a stitch of this. Thank you, Mark Weisblot, for, I don't know, what did we say, 24 episodes? But hopefully, I'm hoping I got 12 more in store for 2020. I didn't even expect it to make the three. And we did 12 before the year was up. Listen, young Mike. It's great to be a part of everything that's going on down here. You've been enshrined in the Toronto Star.

Maybe their last entertainment section article ever. And we're going to see where this juggernaut can go. I'm just along for the ride here. You're going to keep asking your guests whether they know who I am, whether they're making any sort of impact, and lots of projects to come, including with 1236, a daily newsletter through St. Joseph Media. Anything could happen.

That's what I signed up for. But as they try and reboot the Canadian publishing industry, bring it into a new decade, I hope that some of my ideas are heated and the place that you'll find out about it all is

1236.ca And that brings us to the end of our 564th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is 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. You can email Brian Master at letsgetyouhome at kw.com to get on his monthly email newsletter. Banjo Dunk is at banjodunk with a C. And Ridley Funeral Home is at ridleyfh. See you all next decade. this podcast has been produced by tmds and accelerated by roam phone roam phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect

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