Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #604

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

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

Welcome to episode 604 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. amazing beer. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom

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I'm Mike from toronomike.com and joining me this week from a secure, remote location, 1236 Innovator, Mark Weisblot. Mike, I feel like the last thing the world needs now is another two-and-a-half-hour-long podcast. We're inundated with all this shut in digital content coming in from all over the place. And we'll get into that somewhere in our monthly recap.

But the thing is we were going to be doing this anyway, the last Thursday of the month. That's our preferred time to go through the 1236.ca newsletter stories of the month, covering obituaries of the people who died since the last time we got together, going through a whole bunch of media stories and the radio gossip everybody loves, an update about Marcella Zoya, Toronto's own chair girl. This was our tradition, doing this get-together. And even though I was abiding by the Toronto mic standard, no phone-in episodes.

You come down to New Toronto, wait for the bus at the Islington subway station, detour around the Rogue Byway before getting to your door and demanding that you make me a cup of coffee to go along with my Great Lakes beer. Here I am,

sitting on the same couch where I started the day. I think we've all lowered our standards in this era of the pandemic. Now, you already cracked open, despite my request that you wait to crack it open on the microphone, you already cracked open a Great Lakes beer. Well, it got this show started faster because you wanted the sound effect. And I've got as far back as I can remember, the New England IPA. And this is what? Part of like a multi-can narrative that GLB put together?

I didn't see any others, but the whole idea here that it's an aging hipster reflecting upon what could have been. I guess I have those same sentiments. I'll do the best I can to make my way through this can of GLB, which I had left from the last time I visited you. Even though I try to drink as much as possible while we do these episodes, usually that's most of my drinking for the month. But this time around, seeing seeing how things are going, and if we get to the end of April, I might have to use the essential service of the LCBO to stock up on more GLB.

Well, let me crack open my Octopus Wants to Fight right now on the microphone. so cheers to you mark uh before we dive into the uh the important frivolity that is the monthly uh recap episodes by mark weisblatt of 1236 please tell us how you're doing like how is the social distancing which i'm told i'm supposed to call it physical distancing so how are you doing with the physical distancing and how is your uh physical and mental health during these trying times? Well, look, at this point, we're beyond finding this experience completely surreal. I'm like everyone else. I can't believe this is happening. And yet, I don't know if everybody out there is looking for a mirror, somebody to validate their current experience and what they're going through.

Like how many times do you have to hear and read and listen to people talking about the fact that this is difficult, that this is complicated, that this is something that humanity, as we know it, has never experienced before. And I feel I have less compulsion to get in touch with other people rather than more. Interesting. Because I'm not in the mood, right?

You're not going to get the best of anybody while they're going through this. Right. I think that might change and evolve over the weeks ahead. But in the meantime, I'm feeling kind of foul. I don't think there's a communication I can have with anybody who I wasn't already in touch with. And thankfully, I'm in contact with enough people to keep me buzzing during all this time. Right. But I'm not big on the idea that I should reach out to others right now. I don't know if you feel the same way.

I don't know if you're hearing from all the acquaintances that you forgot. Nope. Is anybody getting in touch? I think that's the prevailing sentiment right now that you kind of just got to go along and dance with the partners that you have in place. Right. And on the other side of this, we'll get a different experience of humanity, and it will be better for how we relate to one another.

I was listening to Ralph Ben-Murgy, not that kind of rabbi, right? to Ralph Ben-Murgy, not that kind of rabbi, right? He did a special self-isolation episode, and he got into the spiritual dimensions of this experience, and it was great because I love listening to Ralph's podcast, courtesy of TMDS. Love the plug. But I don't know that I have to listen to this kind of thing over and over and over again, right?

I listen to Ralph because he's got a podcast that I'm already listening to. I'm up to, what, 1,700 subscriptions? Wow. All of which are being produced in some form of self-isolation or another. You could say this is like a great equalizer for the media that even the Howard Stern show being paid, you know, a hundred million dollars a year is now being produced on a zoom video chat. Right. And it shows that all the money in the world, it's not going to help you overcome the limitations of this crappy content of people sitting at home in front of their computers. And I don't want to participate in any webinar. I'm not up to the

idea that I should jump on some video chat experience with anybody else out there. I don't even want to watch celebrities performing the songs from the comfort of their living room, even if it's providing me a window into the celebrity affairs, like the marriage between David Foster and Catherine McPhee. I got fascinated with that for a few minutes watching these people. Remind me, Mark, what's the age difference there in that coupling? She's 35 and he's 70. So David Foster, the legendary Canadian musician, songwriter, producer, and he's been married five times.

And he really likes the limelight, right? Because before that, he was in the Hadid family. And prior to that, his wife was the ex of Bruce Jenner, so he ended up taking on some custody of the older Jenner kids connected to the Kardashians, and more recently, marrying a woman that's younger than at least some of his own daughters. And they perform at the piano. There's Grandpa playing the songs and her singing along, jumping on the couch, excited to be finding an audience here in this time of self-isolation. Burton Cummings, on the other hand, he's been doing these live streams. Not enough of a fan to really fit through them,

but he made a point being interviewed about them. That he's being genuinely improvisational in what he's doing in his new home in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Right. That he's the real deal there. You know, he's just turning on the camera lend the inspiration fly bringing up the fact that these other celebrities they're out there doing these live streams these are coordinated efforts you know involving managers and agents

and producers they're doing sound checks uh and uh burton keeping it real there for all the old school Guess Who fans. And he had a reunion tour planned with Randy Bachman, one of the billion events that no one knows for sure when it's going to be able to go ahead. Okay, now he's keeping it real for Burton Cummings fans. Now I'm going to keep it real for Toronto Mike here. We're going to actually get rocking we're gonna start with radio and we're gonna just go on i think it's important that we proceed with our monthly recap that we would normally do in person yes normally i'd make you do the long commute to new toronto and pass the rogue byway and enjoy a beer in person with

me i normally would make you do that. Now that we're physically distancing, we're doing it by Skype. So we're on Skype right now. And we're going to do, it's going to be the same episode as normal, I'm hoping, except I'm not 100% sure how the music will play with you. So I'm going to play a little music and I'm going to hope you hear it here.

So here's the big test. Here we go. Mark, did you hear that? Yeah, I'm doing all right. And here we are with Smells Like Pink Spirit, but not playing it because you're a sucker for any 90s grunge nostalgia, but because it's a piece of music that really pertains to, I guess, what was the biggest Toronto announced somewhere in March, just before the great COVID-19 lockdown, that they were going to be picking up to run live weekdays from New York City, an American

syndicated program called The Breakfast Club. And this created the kind of commotion that is worthy of an entry on the torontomic.com blog. The fact that a local radio morning show was being dislodged with something from America. And you talk mastermind, right? The longtime hip hop radio DJ who'd been with the flow for quite a while, has a history going way back to campus radio in Toronto. And it was mastermind who they got rid of an afternoon drive in order to move the morning team into afternoon to make way for this breakfast club show because the flow,

even though they reverted to the old format and they got some goodwill out of that for a couple of years there, it was 93.5 The Move. FOTM Scott Turner was involved in programming that, more of a retro rhythmic radio station. Stingray, the company that owns it, that also owns Boom 97.3, which is way up there in the Toronto ratings.

They thought they could replicate that with more of a dance music thing. It didn't really happen. They brought back the flow. That was a station that was licensed about 20 years ago. A black owned independent radio station

after a long fight to get that kind of frequency going in Toronto. And the ratings did not reflect the enthusiasm for the stage coming back. And that, I think, has a lot to do with the fact that the audience for a hip-hop FM radio station

is possibly long gone and not coming back. What else could you do? It was explained to me that they've got other formats out there. not coming back. What else could you do? It was explained to me that they've got other formats out there, the Breeze, the adult contemporary format, Yacht Rock style, that would cut into the ratings on Boom. It's not the kind of frequency that could kind of get out there far enough to make country format change all that viable. You've got enough stations doing a top 40 CHR style in Toronto.

I don't know that Virgin and Kiss and Chum, you know, what can you do? Not a lot of room for another format out there. you know, what can you do? Not a lot of room for another format out there. Go for this American radio morning talk show, even though they also have music breaks. But the appeal is the fact that you're getting this somewhat unfiltered, candid style of radio, essentially the hip-hop version of the Howard Stern Show.

Mike, does the prospect of this being on the radio excite you at all? You can listen to it online already via the station that's coming out. No, we, you know, full disclosure, the only morning show I actually listen to anymore, we're going to talk about shortly, and it's Metro Morning, but let me just recap that for a moment to put a little

bow on it before we move on to another FOTM, but DJ Mastermind, Let Go, that basic, by the way, before the COVID pandemic here, Mastermind let go. That basically, by the way, before the COVID pandemic here, Mastermind was going to come on Toronto Mic as soon as he finished with his paperwork. So I will just let the listeners know

there's a lot of good guests that were scheduled and I've been pushing them off. I don't want, I don't want to do new episodes with like first time guests remotely if I can wait a couple of months or a few months and do it in person. So I'm holding off people like, you know, mastermind to get them in person. There is an exception to that rule, which I would just quickly state, which is Kish. So Kish, uh, order from chaos, you know, uh, his real name is Andrew

Cascino. Cascino, he's in California and he was never, he's never in Toronto. And I decided I will do, uh, I will make an exception for him. So, uh, Kish will be my special guest, uh, next week via Skype. But, um, okay, where was I going there? All right. So to recap, FOTM, Blake Carter, and her partner, Peter Cash, were going to be moved from mornings to afternoons where Mastermind vacated that spot by being let go. And then this syndicated show at a New York called The Breakfast Club was going to be the morning show on Flow.

I don't like it. I know Howard Stern's the last example of this happening in the Toronto market. And I did listen. I will admit I did listen to some Howard Stern, but on WBF, WBUF in Buffalo, because they censored less of it. So I listened to it there, but I do like my morning shows. Even I do like them being local. So it seems like if I'm reading between the lines, the pandemic happens and they realize this is the wrong time

to have our show coming out of New York City. We need a Toronto-based show during these trying times when everything is backwards and upside down. So they just reversed or delayed that. Is this decision delayed or is it cancelled? What do you know? They confirmed that they're going to hold off.

Don't forget, there's a fact to hear about commercial radio advertising. And you want to get some momentum in that they want to try to make money. And I don't know if this is a good time to do that. When they announced that the show was originally going to happen, there was a sense that, okay, if we shout at the radio station enough, they'll reverse their decision and keep this Toronto Radio Morning Show on. Maybe trying to, feeling I had some obligation to explain that there are no laws against bringing in an American talk radio show. That the regulations for the radio station pertain to music. Right.

And the money that Canadian radio stations are expected to pay into a fund, they cover subsidizing musical performers, not radio personalities. And if anything, they were doing a favor around this breakfast club show, Charlemagne the God, that's the guy who's the front man of the thing. It's him and DJ Envy, Angela Yee. If it made the station stronger, if it made it a contender, if they had enough curiosity out there for more of its mass appeal programming it would keep people tuned into the radio station wouldn't it right like it would help the ratings overall and the morning show that they pushed into afternoon drive would benefit as a result

and that their style wouldn't lend itself to the same kind of talk format that comes with having a big, I heart radio budget out of the USA, that it would help everybody involved. Now, I don't know if they could really spin it as a racial thing. I'm not sure what everyone's racial background is in this equation. And as a result, it ends up being a patriotic thing.

Like, how can we let these Americans invade the Toronto airwaves? But the fact is, you probably weren't listening to the station in the first place. Right. And we did live through this with Howard Stern. I mean, it's not like this is unprecedented. You know, Q107 for years had their morning show coming out of New York City. No breakfast club, no flow. I think that's the corner that the ratings painted them into. And I guess it's great for everyone involved

that this kind of show has taken off to be a syndicated show across America that has that level of attention, and now they're going to try it out north of the border. It's Bell Media that syndicated it, and it's Flow 93.5, the Stingray station that syndicated it and it's uh flow 93.5 the stingray station that's picked it up here uh blake carter an fotm right she was on an episode somewhere uh in the years that they were trying to figure out what to do with the station they brought her on board, Peter Cash. But Mastermind is one of those legendary characters

who has lived the dream. I look forward to him being on there. The reason I got into this topic, Mike, is on an episode, it might have been your last pre-pandemic episode with David Ryder from the Toronto Star. You mentioned somewhere in there that you got into a diatribe about this at your family dinner table. Right, yes. And your wife Monica was looking at you like, who cares about any of this stuff? Totally happened, yeah.

I went into a passionate diatribe about this exact topic we're talking about now. And yeah, she looked at me in the whole, this is, yeah, just pre-pandemic. And then she looked at me and told me I was the only one who cares, like has such passion in the belly for this topic. And she's probably right. Well, maybe you share it. I don't know.

Yeah, come on, Mike. Don't leave me out of it. I feel like I've come to the rescue here. This is some sort of therapy that we can get into this topic and anticipate the day that everything returns to normal, and I guess that you'll know that day has come because that's the day they sign on with the breakfast on Flo 935. It is kind of weird that they announced this show ready to go.

And it got, it got a fair bit of attention on Twitter. Right. Uh, even if it was, you know, something of a backlash, but again,

for a station at a hard time getting press or having anyone talking about it at all in the present tense, uh, and then having to reverse that decision and decide to do that just the night before. Right. You know, it's strange because I have a,

I have a blog entry at Toronto, Mike.com in which I discuss the changes and there's no, it's not speculation. It's reported as fact that they're moving, moving Carter and cash to afternoons and they're going to import this show. And you mentioned Chalamet and the God, I don't think that's his real name, but this new show from the breakfast Club from New York City is the new

morning show. And then of course, Monday comes around and it's Carter and Cash in the morning. So it's kind of an interesting that entry about it still is still out there. And it's, you know, it's just interesting. It was reported as fact that it never actually happened because as you were just saying the night before they changed their mind. Probably for the best. But by the way, just a little FYI, if every single topic is

20 minutes of conversation, this will be a 7 hour episode of Toronto Mike. So final words on this big radio story and then we'll try to spend less time on the next story. I'll pivot it to the fact that the last time I was in your basement, we talked about our pal Jay Brody getting his big shot on 102.1 The Edge at the end of February. His lifelong dream to get this job, and he basically spent five, six, seven years strategizing about how he could sit in this big chair. He had to wait for seven morning shows to fall off a cliff at CFNY.

CFNY. He had to wiggle his way into Sirius XM and be this kind of sidekick to Todd Shapiro, which ended up with the two of them not getting along. A whole bunch of different factors had to line up for him to be the guy that was standing by on Y-108 in Hamilton, already employed by Chorus Ready to Go. And then all of a sudden, in early 2020, everything falls into place. All the dominoes are in line, and they bring him on the air with the B-Team morning show. And then this happened. Right. And I think now falling into that trap along with everybody else

about not knowing how long this is going to take and when they are going to be able to get the runway that they need for that momentum for the morning show. So bad timing for our FOTM Jay Brody. Bad timing for everyone. And yet spinning the radio dial, you hear everyone persevering. The media has been deemed an essential service,

and there you have it. I saw a lot of people working remotely. I saw a video from Virgin Radio. It was Adam Wilde, TJ, Jack. They were all sitting in the same room, practicing some social distance somewhere, someone's condo, something. I wasn't quite sure.

But I thought, yeah, that was neat to see. You can do this form of radio anywhere. Technically, it comes out the same. It works fine. And for the sake of the listener, maybe it's even a little bit more exciting. The problem is it's only one topic that's on everybody's mind. So I've got, as usual, on my clock radio, News Talk 1010. I have it playing in the background.

I think I might have turned it down to do this with you for the first time in weeks that I haven't had it on even just in the background to hear what's up. And they've got all their hosts working from home. And as per a talk radio station or a newspaper now, any journalism outlet that is taking this very seriously. There's also a lot of self-congratulation about the fact that they're there for the audience. FOTM Jason Agnew.

Yes. He was given like a national overnight show. Good for him, man. Knowing him a long time. Good for him. That's his big shot? Look, I'm old enough to remember when the first Gulf War started, and that was a real pivot for CFRB, because that was the day that it matured into this kind of news talk radio station. They were still doing music shows prior to that point.

Right. They were still doing music shows prior to that point. And when the war started, they hightailed it into this incessant breaking news mode. I'm sure at the time it was disorienting for Wally Crowder sitting there. Suddenly he was brought into this different world of media that no one thought about before. You know, keep in mind, he had worked at the station going back to what, 1946. And here we were in early 1991. And this was the point that CFRB kind of hit that panic button, and they were in that mode all the time, and you've got to admit, it's really addictive.

You never know what's going to happen next. I don't know how much you've been tuned into that kind of live broadcasting in the past week or two. I mean, do you pay any attention at all? No, I haven't. I don't think in my life my radio's ever been on 1010. In my life. Now, your radio's kind of glued on 1010.

Do you think it's too much COVID-19 coverage? Or is it just the nature of the beast that that's the big thing happening? Like, is it too much? I would have to say it's completely exasperating, but that's it, right? You need, you need a hit. You need to know you got to stay on the pipe. You never know what's going to happen next. And we're talking about radio here. I mean, if it, if it's not broadcast media, then it's some, something on the internet, it's refreshing Twitter, it's checking Facebook. Oh, sure. The point where this becomes the only thing that anybody wants to talk about.

And you think, okay, this is an opportunity for a lot of different forms of media out there, including podcasting. Because, you know, here we are focused on all this one story. You know, we would talk for the last few years about how there is no monoculture anymore. There are no more topics, a tent under which everybody can be united. And just this panic and despair, uncertainty, we are all in this together. I think when everybody talks about what awaits here on the other side, I'm not sure what people will want to listen to.

I'm not sure how the mass media will translate. You look at people turning their heads more to authority, you know, that it's up to the government to help us work our way through all of this. Uh, when you talk about social media, this whole kind of authoritarian thing, you know,

people like dictating on Twitter about what you should think and how, how you live your life. I think that will end up going out of fashion because people don't want to have the patience anymore for it. That in that sense, maybe we're on the verge of some sort of libertarian thinking revolution. But we first, first we got to get to that point where, where, where, where that can happen. I mean, do you, do you think you'll get to the point where if we're,

if we're under this self isolation, social distancing for, for a number of weeks, like your, your patients will be short. You won't really be able to handle the idea of like randos out there telling you what to do or how to think. What are you thinking about this now, Mike? You're giving a thought at all. Like how will you react about this now, Mike? Are you giving it any thought at all? Like, how will you react, you know, to the idea that, like, you should, you know, follow a set of rules, you know, that people have decided for you when really all you want is your freedom after you've been confined to your house through like the whole spring of 2020? Well, okay. Firstly, we're not confined to our houses because two things are happening every single day in the Toronto Mic'd household. One is I'm still, thank you, Monica, I'm still escaping for a daily bike ride. In fact, I had one just before we pressed record. I did a 30k

ride on the waterfront trail and I'm still doing that every single day. And secondly, every evening, either before dinner or after dinner, there's a family walk. And to be quite honest, that's something we didn't always do. Maybe because walks were built into the day when I would take the kids to school and stuff but like so we're not locked up I will also say that um I'm all and maybe this is your chance to call me uh sheep or something but I'm uh all in on the reasoning behind the physical distancing and flattening the curve which is a term we've all overheard the last couple of weeks. But I'm completely in. No one is visiting the home for podcast recordings. And I'm like literally the only time

I am even close to people outside of my home here is when I'm at no frills to buy food to feed the family. So yeah, I don't know what will happen in two months. Like this has been only a couple, we're only on week two probably here, but we'll see. I always said I didn't expect things to kind of return to a sense of normalcy

until September 2020. So maybe my mindset has been that this is going to be a long time. I'm a hunker down, another overused phrase, and I'm all in. But tell us what your mindset is on this. Well, look, man, you are still a prisoner to this new code of conduct.

And maybe the only thing that's going to keep me and all of us alive is hoping for more freedom on the other side. So that's where I stand. But you're, you're, are you complying? Like,

are you, are you rebelling? What choice do I have? Well, well, it makes me question everything because I would talk about how I managed to rig up this freelance journalist lifestyle, uh, freelance journalist lifestyle doing this 1236.ca

newsletter every day, a dream opportunity through St. Joseph Communications Media. I've still been doing that all along, but I've got to work with the material that's out there. And I vacill been doing that all along, but I've got to work with the material that's out there. And I vacillate back and forth right between depression about the current experience and what the and privilege to hopefully inform and entertain and keep in touch with people. Imagining that this effort, the investment that I've made with this,

with the publisher will eventually come to be worth something. I don't know where it's going to go, but we, we got to keep on dreaming. Well, you like myself, like myself, you control the means of distribution. Like, you literally, in your own home office there,

you can research and write and send the 1236 daily newsletter at 1236. And likewise, like I can sit in the TMDS studio here in new, new Toronto and broadcast as I've done for the last, uh, quick math, uh,

almost eight years. Like we, by controlling these means of distribution, we are quite empowered during these times when, you know, when theoretically, if I may, uh, you know, when theoretically, if I may, you know, all sports has disappeared.

People can't go to restaurants and bars and hang with buddies and so many things that I, concerts are gone. All these entertainment options have disappeared overnight. But, you know, this is the moment for the things like streaming

video, be it Prime or Netflix or YouTube, and streaming audio, be it Toronto Mic'd or Not That Kind of Rabbi or Hebzeon Sports. This is the moment. And yet we're learning at the same time,

having just gone through this era when, what was it last year? 521 television shows, uh, new, uh, episodes, new series were distributed through,

uh, all the different platforms out there. Of course, we've got 10, 10,000 podcasts coming at us every day. I'm subscribed to 1700 of them now, which is amazing. Like that's crazy to me. I'm subscribed to 1,700 of them now. Which is amazing. Like, that's crazy to me.

I think you're the tiger, man. I need to do a documentary about you. And yet, we still want to anticipate what's coming next. And I personally don't feel that compulsion to catch up on movies that I ignored before that are just a click or two away. The same way I feel about getting in touch movies that I ignored before that are just a click or two away. Right.

Same way I feel about, you know, getting in touch with people that it might be estranged from. Right. Like now is, now is not the time. I want to know what's coming up around the corner. And,

uh, you can, you can give me all, all the distractions you have to offer. Obviously anyone who's in the business of content creation, like you said, hunkering down, uh, trying to see the opportunity in the situation that we're in so that you embed yourself in people's dreams so that you have something to offer when this is over so that you remember that you remember, that you're thought about, that you still want to be there. But come on.

We just want this thing to be over. But it's like a baseball game. Here's my analogy. Baseball is timeless in the sense that how long is a baseball game? Well, they're going to play nine innings, maybe to go extra innings. So there's no clock, right? I feel like

this COVID-19 pandemic, it's no clock right like i feel like this covid19 pandemic it's completely clockless like certain if you will dominoes need to fall and then at some point you know we'll hear from these trusted medical experts uh they will say it's safe to do this now or it's safe to do that now and uh i'm i guess part anxiety, if you will, for some people will probably come from the lack of clock. It would be one thing if they said, okay, we're all shutting down till May 1st or May 15th. And then you can kind of have a target end date and you can kind of count down and you can embrace it. But this thing is open-ended and that can be tricky. Like I've said

for a long time, I've been aiming at school being out till September. But for a lot of people, they were thinking this is a three, four week thing. So maybe the timeless aspect is a little anxiety inducing.

You can Google pretty much any opinion that you're looking for. Including the idea that this can be over really quick. You mentioned baseball games. Well, you can still walk out at any time that you've had enough baseball.

You don't want to sit through the extra in it. My brother, we went to a game for my, I guess just before I got married to Monica, my brothers and my son, my oldest son went to a game. Well, my only son at the time went to a game. And my brother, Ryan, did walk out. And that game ended up being 18 innings. So you're right.

Let's get into the sports broadcasting topic. And the fact that just before COVID-19 came to Canada, we had TSN 1050 being able to crunch the ratings from Numeris. And for the first time being able to crow that TSN 1050 beat Sportsnet Fan 590 in the pivotal time periods of morning and afternoon drive. Now, the battle between these two stations has been a recurring topic on Toronto Mic'd. Yes. You've had people hired and fired by both radio stations.

And right after those initial ratings came out, you did a sports media roundtable. Yes. With Hebze and Milan from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. And that was a timely episode because it was just after these ratings came out and you could have some perspective on what was going on with the fans. Bob McCowan being shown the door, possibly even open to returning there, or at least that's what people are inferring based on what he's been a factor, and the Tim and Sid TV thing being simulcast on the radio,

even though now they're just radio only now, right, while they try and kill time on the air with no sports to talk about. And so the TSN 1050 victory lap, The TSN 1050 victory lap, the first time that 1050 Chum was able to say that it had better ratings in the competition for like 35 years, going back to when Chum and CFTR were going head-to-head in the early 80s and ended up a situation where Chum was eclipsed by CFTR and ended up being the first to drop the top 40 format. A terrific Toronto media story in the history of radio in this town. radio in this town right that the the hapless 10 50 uh sports radio format which uh came and went with with the team in 2001 2002 uh that they finally got their comeuppance and uh are finally able to say at least in those time periods, that they are beating the fan. And now we're in that no sports zone, right?

It's a lot of filibustering on sports radio, I got to figure. A lot of nostalgia for yesteryear. Episodes bringing on, I don't know, Brian Burke, right? To talk about his nostalgic memories of everything he's ever done. Like that time that he had a lawyer go through the... The time he sent Toronto Mike a cease and desist. Every old-timer, every retiree, everyone who's ever done anything adjacent to sports, called up on the radio, sports television, going into rerun mode,

the entire Raptors playoff run, and yet you watched an old Raptors game. Oh, I watched. You were in the audience. Okay, I watched the first 10 minutes of the game I attended with my son James, the second game against Orlando that, uh, I finally enough at the beginning of that show, you hear Rod black, call it a must win, which actually made me laugh in hindsight, but we, we did smoke them. And I watched a bit of it because I remember being there with my boy and we couldn't believe we were there.

And the Raptors just annihilated the Orlando magic. So yes, I did. Well, I get, I, but I have been watching what I've been sucked into is the, I did. But I have been watching, what I've been sucked into is the Jays stuff. Like I watched Alomar hit the big home run against Eckersley. And I watched us clinch the ALCS in 1992. And I did even peek at some of that, you know, Maple Leafs versus Los Angeles Kings,

1990, what was that? 1992 conference final. The famous Kerry Frazier missed the high stick on Gilmore. But I have been sucked into a little bit, but to be honest, I've pretty much been absent from listening to any sports radio or watching much TSN or Sportsnet. And you can be completely confident

that you're not missing much. Although, you've still got Mark Hebbshire, Hebbsy on Sports, and you're still doing a sports podcast. Yep, tomorrow morning we're going to go live. And what did you think of the first remote episode of Hebbsy on Sports last

Friday? Oh, it's alright. I mean, just like the reaction to this episode might be, it's not the same. You've very much gotten into this kind of physical interaction that goes along with the podcasting. And yet we've got to work with what we've got right now. And I thought with Hebsey, a different perspective on things. I mean, I'm not much of a sports consumer.

I listen to the Hebsey spin on things, whatever they are. And so if you end up doing Hebsey on music, Hebsey on movies, Hebsey on horticulture. I totally would be in. Hebsey's a big music fan. I would Hedsy on horticulture I totally would be in Hedsy's a big music fan I would totally by the way on that note quick promotion for a future episode Dave Hodge reached out he wants to come back on Toronto Mike and

kick out the best jams of 2020 thus far so when Dave Hodge calls you accept the charges so I was like anything you want Mr. Hodge calls, you accept the charges. So I was like, anything you want, Mr. Hodge. So that is going to be happening in early April on Toronto Mic'd. But I digress.

Now, Mark. I'm sitting here waiting for my musical interjections, and I'm not getting them. Which is throwing me a bit off my rhythm here. Let me explain to you. Let me explain.

Sometimes when I'm playing music, I detect that your voice doesn't come through. It's almost like the channel takes in the music, but it sort of dilutes your voice. So I've made a executive decision for this episode. I'm still going to play musical elements, particularly during the memorial section, but I have skipped some of the

music we had planned for this opening part, but I will play the Beach Boys. We are bumbling around as badly as everybody else out there, but if it's good enough for the Howard Stern show under these conditions, then it's good enough for us, right?

You mentioned CBC, Metro Morning. Yes. That's where you're stuck on 1010. I have two radios, one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen. I literally told the kitchen radio the other day, I told it to reduce its volume by 20%. So that's where I'm at. But I have it glued to 99.1 and listening to CBC Radio 1 throughout the day.

Can you tell me anything about who is hosting Metro Morning these days? From what I could tell lately, right, it was David Common, who'd become a prominent news guy on CBC Radio in the last few years, and that they kind of parachuted him in there because I guess they felt they needed more of that experience breaking news voice. And yet with all the speculation about who was going to permanently replace Matt Galloway, I don't know that his name ever came up. You had a fan favorite in there, Piaia who was doing it through the winter but she was very insistent that this was a an interim gig uh that she wasn't kidding when she said that she

would only do it for a couple months and it didn't fit with her with her lifestyle uh that that this wasn't something that she wanted to get into and that there was a permanent host yet to come. And I suspect we've got a situation now where they put David Common in there and he's been, you know, doing a fine job, I'm sure, for the CBC Toronto audience. And then Matt Galloway comes on after with the national show on The Current. They extended that one. And I'm imagining then by default that david common who might not be the kind of archetype that you imagined uh being being uh put in a permanent

hosting job at the cbc which is to say he is a white male let's be honest right then he will end up being the new host of metro morning because he will have done such an exemplary job in the interim and everybody will forget about any of these identity issues that they had before. Just like I think those issues are going to be up for reconsideration in general, but that won't be the reflex as it was.

We all loved Andy Barry for many, many years and we were okay with the fact he happened to be a white male. That was a different era and i'm not just sticking up for the white male i'm just saying that when people would be making a short list of who would be a possible replacement that was the last thing that people had on their mind right because it was a cbc that was going on about equity and feeling a need to bring that to the station and that's reflected in who's the host of the show. It doesn't matter who's working behind the scenes

or who has a secondary role. They wanted the faces of the CBC to be this way. And as far as I know, this was like the plot of a season of the show, The Newsroom, where the same thing happened, that there was some kind of mass hysteria

in society and it ended up being the stereotypical anchorman who ended up with the job in the end. You mean the Finkelman newsroom? Yeah, that newsroom. There's a more recent newsroom that

some people think of when you say newsroom. Who's the guy? The writer of... Aaron Sorkin! As for Ken Finkel, I can't stand it. I'm just going based on a joke that somebody else told me. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles,

we had KROQ. K-R-O-Q Radio. A parallel with your FOTM, Tumble and Fred. the K-Rock in L.A. for the past 30 years had a morning show, two guys named Kevin and B. And they started shortly after Tumble and Fred did on CFNY. Fred did on CFNY. And I think the success that they had on LA with that same format of radio station, alternative rock, once the grunge thing kicked in,

no doubt an influence on the fact that Humble Howard went back, reunited with Fred in the early 1990s, because they figured that was a tried and true thing that was taking off in hollywood and we could do something like that in toronto having you know these kinds of dorky guys in the morning right playing against the hipster music and the success that they had would have been a factor in the fact that we had humbleble and Fred on that station for all those years. And I'm sure, because they're always kvetching about it on their own show, that Humble and Fred wish that they were still on CFNY.

And that they should have not voluntarily left. I'm right about that, correct? Well, there's a great regret. They put a hog out there for 30 years. Rather than voluntarily left to be on AM radio. Well, hindsight being 20-20, they definitely regret thinking they were too old for 102.1 and they wish they had just stayed.

Yeah, absolutely. Fred especially. Guys of that same generation, around 60 years of age, Kevin and Bean in Los Angeles, even though Bean had moved away from L.A., he was doing the show remotely. He was like a social distance pioneer in radio. They did a video hookup, but the show was successful enough, even beating Howard Stern in Los Angeles. They kept it for all that time.

Three decades. Wow. And on our previous 1236 episode, I'm pretty sure we mentioned that it was Gene Baxter, Bean from Kevin and Bean. He was shaken up that Luke Perry had died. And they were at least acquaintances. They figured life was too short, and he was still young enough to get one more act out of his career, and he wanted to go back to where he was born and grew up as a kid before moving to America as a teenager, and that was London, England.

kid before moving to America as a teenager, and that was London, England. And last November, he left KROQ. He left the United States, and they gave him a ticker tape parade. They were inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. They made this big goodbye for being a whole thing on the radio. But Kevin was going to stick around, was going to keep the sidekicks that they had before. They were going to do Kevin in the morning in Los Angeles. And through the winter, they found that the ratings sank like a stone. And the audience didn't hang on to listen to this new incarnation.

The rebranding didn't take. And, of course, you've got a big radio conglomerate, in this case, Intercom, which bought these radio stations from CBS. And they decided this whole thing was expendable. We don't want to pay Kevin anymore. was kicking in and he was going to do his social distancing radio show. They escorted him out of the building. Three security guards, not sure if they were standing the appropriate six feet away. They told him, you're done. After 30 years, that was it.

You're going home. We don't need you anymore. And in that Kevin and Beaten show, the universe they created, Adam Carolla came out of there and Jimmy Kimmel. So in all of their different remote shows, they've been acknowledging the fact

that the worst possible time just to leave the audience hanging and say, we don't want this old morning guy around anymore. Unfortunately, it was precipitated by the fact that in Kevin and Bean, it was Bean who voluntarily left.

And Kevin was going to carry on, and they could have negotiated, told him at the time, to wind the whole thing down. And no, instead he gets unceremoniously escorted out the door, and that was the end of Kevin and Bean.

The end of Kevin and Bean on K-Rock in L.A., because I know there's a New York K-Rock. Okay, now, let's pivot. The end of the inspiration of Humble and Fred. We're still at it, right? Still broadcasting. Actually, so I had a call with Howard today, and my best

advice, I've been telling him you know the moment that they canceled school i said guys keep recording in fact they've been taking fridays off for the past how many years i said no record on fridays because they're social distancing with fred and brampton and howard in the uh the queensway studio and Howard in the, uh, the Queensway studio. And they control the means of distribution just like you do. And just like I do. And I said, go, go, go record content five days a week. Cause I'm of the belief that, uh, people need these things, these, these podcasts, they love, they need them to continue during these, these times. Like there's too many radical changes happening in your day to day. You need some things to be kind of

trustworthy constants, and that's partly why I'm trying to continue to pump out new Toronto Mike material, including tomorrow. If I may promote tomorrow's episode, we're going to kick out jams, stew stone and cam gourd in return. We're going to try

to do it every single Friday during the physical distancing. And how's it going with Gallagher and Gross? Save the world. That of all the podcasts I produce, that's the one. So, you know, I was able to talk to Ralph yesterday

and say, go into a quiet room and talk to the nation for a half an hour and then send me the files that you recorded on your Android phone. Like, and, you know,

and Gross with his down the stretch, same thing. I i'm like normally he does it across the table from me i said record it on your iphone send it to me and i'll you know i'll make chicken salad out of the chicken you know what now the one podcast that seems to be in a bit of a holding pattern is gallagher and gross save the world because i don't i mean if you could imagine gallagher and Gross save the world. Because I don't, I mean, if you could imagine Gallagher and Gross, you know, on Skype, I just think, anyway, we're trying to figure out a solution to get new episodes out. But, you know, I have a very, you know, as you know, I have a high standard of quality here.

So I just got to make sure that we capture the manic gold that is Gallagher and Gross save the world. But that's the one that's kind of paused for a moment, but hopefully we unpause it soon. Okay, Mark. Part of the back-channel drama there was that John Gallagher was having some health struggles, right? He spent Christmas

in the hospital. How's he doing now? Okay, he had another issue. Getting through this? Well, okay. Okay, okay. We're recording this, right? So I'm going to be a little careful because, you know, I got to protect people's privacy and stuff. But John has, you know,

regular health challenges, including he recently had kind of a heart scare. Sort of around the same time Howard was having a heart scare. So, yes, there's the Gallagher who almost died at Christmas time with that nosebleed thing and there was a whole thing

and then the different heart thing. So yeah, we're kind of, and there's a few different, you know, factors at play here, which I, I won't reveal publicly to protect the,

uh, protect Gallagher's privacy, but yeah, there's a lot of different variables at play. So we got kind of the steady hand of Peter Gross, who's kind of ready, willing and able to do whatever. And then you got to kind of manage Gross, who's kind of ready, willing, and able to do whatever. And then you got to kind of manage the Gallagher manic genius.

And it's part of my job is to kind of keep all these things kind of, you know, keep everybody rowing in the same direction, if you will. So I'm working on a solution for Gallagher and Gross Save the World. But we haven't recorded a new episode yet. And I think the people need it more than ever. Okay, well, Peter Gross says he's going to live to 100, and he's 70%

of the way there, which means he's 70, right? Has he turned 70 yet? Not quite yet, but later this year, yeah, soon. He's got to be extra careful with this coronavirus going around.

Have you heard about this? What it does to you if you're older? I would advise Peter Gross. I know he thinks he's invincible. He made it to 71 in pretty much perfect health. Can I share a story? I don't even know. I'm going to share a story.

He's got to stay 12 feet away from everyone else. I told Peter. So Peter and I talk a story? I don't even know. I'm going to share a story. He's going to stay 12 feet away from everyone else. I told Peter. So Peter and I talk a lot. And I'm still pumping out fresh new episodes of Down the Stretch every single Monday. And so obviously professionally we talk and we talk also as friends. And I get the files for this Monday's drop. So what are we talking? We're talking on a Thursday.

So a few days ago, we dropped a new episode of Down the Stretch and I get the files and they're all kind of smart. Like he records on his iPhone and he sends me the files and he has people record answers to his questions via iPhone

and it's all very social distance and smart. But there is this one interview he does that he sends to me where he's clearly beside the guy. Okay. And I was on the phone with Peter. I go, Peter, how did you record that one episode with the jockey at Woodbine? He goes, oh, I drove to Woodbine and I went to the stable and I chatted him up. This is when I said, Peter, I said, Peter, you have to stop doing that. You can't be going to Woodbine Stables and interviewing jockeys. That's not social.

So we had, like we had, I said, I'm not talking to you as your producer. I'm talking to you as your friend that I need you to be healthy and to live. And that is not a smart move. And he told me, he said, Mike, I never get sick. I'm not going to die. And I just shook my head and I said, Peter, you sound really, really naive right now. And I really had a heart-to-heart with him,

explaining to him that, you know, despite his belief, he is not actually invincible. He actually is a human being. He can get sick and he won't live forever. Could it be that Peter figures that he's shorter than the average man

and he's already got a built-in social distance from a lot of people out there? Maybe not six feet but pretty damn close. The problem is you're talking about him interviewing a jockey who might be the same height as him. And that's where we get into issues.

Too funny, though. I want to write a book about working with all these people that I'm lucky enough to work with. I just want to write a book. You better get it done. And, Mike, you better find some younger clients. work with. I just want to write a book. You better get it done. And Mike, you better find some younger clients. Because someday, even if it takes another 30 years,

death comes for us all. And I hope you can reset a little bit with who's calling on the services podcasting from TMDS on the other side. Can I promote a few new ones? A quick one, new one? Okay, so the first commissioner and maybe the last commissioner, at least as long as Doug Ford is our premier,

but the Environment Commissioner of Ontario is a woman named Dr. Diane Sachs. And I am actually now producing her podcast, Green Economy Heroes. Now, she's not, you said get younger. Okay, that doesn't help. But this doesn't help either. The fact that we're going to launch a new podcast for Lorne Honickman, a great broadcaster, but also a practicing lawyer and his perspective on things. Also, I can't wait to produce this and get it out for people. But again, that's not going to lower the average age

of my clientele as well. So if you're a young person who needs a podcast, please reach out. I need to lower that medium of trying to make TMDS client age. And look, I heard on the broadcast dialogue podcast from the Canadian Trade Magazine. Right. Again, it was just when COVID-19 was kicking in.

It was an interview with Jean-Marie Heimrath, who's involved a new startup, the Podcast Exchange, a company that's trying to bring the more of a corporate advertiser framework to podcasting in Canada. Right. Not necessarily producing their own shows, but facilitating,

uh, sponsors, uh, working them into American podcasts because you can do this, this kind of, uh, geo targeting, dynamic insertion,

uh, lots of technicalities there. And, I think this is an interesting business that they're imagining there. I've got some different opinions about it that here in this country of Canada, at least in the city of Toronto, the nation's media capital, we need all the new media thinkers we can get. I don't know if the model that global and CTV developed, where you just strip Canadian commercials into American shows is going to do anything for anybody. And yet, look, all of this is kind of in slow motion for now. But that was there where they were talking about what's going to be your post-COVID-19 strategy.

This is two weeks ago now, middle of March, and I was thinking, oh, no, this is for real, isn't it? Like you're having to look at the perspective in any business, least of all media, about here we are going to have to get into thinking this is all going to regenerate like in the summer and maybe you can get something going in September and then a lot of things that people were dreaming of launching including me who had some i i think some some neat new projects on the go some ideas in the air at saint joseph media um the night before this became a little bit more of a starker reality. I had a terrific conversation with a colleague, someone you know about a potential podcast project I told you about. I know who it is.

Exciting collaboration right around the corner. We would start May the 1st, and we know now that it's highly unlikely to happen on time. We've got to keep on dreaming about the future here, Mike, whatever's going to happen. Another person in Toronto with a podcast startup is Terry O'Reilly, the longtime host on the CBC with his own show about the advertising business, Age of Persuasion, and that he had been talking for a while about getting his own podcast startup business going. This is a different style of show than you do completely. And yet, you know, catering to the audience that he built up on CBC. I mean, over the years,

look, a great sleight of hand that he started a show about the commercial advertising business, got CBC to pick it up, to pay him for it. And he was able to build this commercial business on the fact that he had this reputation from the show. Right. And that's an ambitious kind of new podcast network that he wants to start in Toronto. And I noticed he put out a teaser for the first of his new shows. Another one about, I guess, spin doctoring.

What's it called? We regret to inform you or something. The whole business of crisis communications. And I think that that's going somewhere out there. I mean, look, again, the media is going to change on the other side of this. We're just going to figure out how. Hopefully it doesn't involve a lot of layoffs. We'll get into the fact that some

companies are using COVID-19. Do that now. How? What happens to the media after this? I have no idea, Mike. If I did, I would

already be putting a down payment on my mansion that I would be able to pick up at a discount because I could see the future of where things were going in the media. I do think, first and foremost, that this era of clickbait can now rest in peace, or rest in pieces. Good. That these digital startups that were created with venture capital on the grounds that they would just throw article after article into the Facebook

ether and somehow build a brand on top of that. And that's where a lot of these culture wars came out of. And the whole social justice warrior business that was stoked by all these companies, BuzzFeed, Vice, and Vox, churning out these

articles telling you that the way you think about things are wrong, and then some people would agree with them, and other people would get angry and riled up uh but getting that that quick bait getting that attention was all part of the momentum that they were trying to build building these these businesses on quicksand pretty much based on the ones that went under other ones ones are persistent. They're sticking around. They diversified into different forms of media. And I would imagine a certain form of article, like the first person essay where someone writes about how agitated they are about a certain thing in life.

I said, I don't really want to hear too much about what people that I don't care about are going through right now. And I don't know how likely you or I or anyone else are likely to click on article after article about people who are just like struggling in different ways, psychologically, financially. It's awful for everyone. But that doesn't mean that I want to read about it all day, especially in lieu of finding real information. Thousands and thousands of words about your mood may not survive this thing. And we went through a process where if not the writers

and at least the editors, the management that were behind this thing were swimming in some money for a while. And I don't know if we're going to see a future of that. I don't know if there's going to be much of a future in this whole kind of Twitter fighting where we're like, we're going to learn after this period of social isolation, what do we want to do with our time? And I don't know that fighting on the internet is something that educated people are going to want to distract themselves with.

And I don't even know if it's cancel culture. Like, will there be an amnesty on everyone who was canceled over the last few years? Woody Allen will stand as like the last great example where the staff of the publisher, Hachette, all walked out, protest of his memoir, his book, Apropos of Nothing. We'll remember that as one of the last incidents before the world changed, that it was Woody Allen's son, Ronan Farrow. He was complaining, like, you know, how could his publisher do this behind his back? Like, you know, how could his publisher do this behind his back? He just put out this book, this investigation into Harvey Weinstein, all these Hollywood sex predators. And then they decide they're going to publish a book by his dad who's been accused of things that he denies in writing.

And they canceled the publication. It's come out now through a smaller press. I don't know. What do you think, Mike? Where does it go for all these culture war debacles? It's given us a lot of material to talk about. What will we see 2020 as a turning point when it all dies? Well, okay, I'm more interested in specifics.

I'm going to name three publications right now. Georgia Straight, Now, and Toronto Star. specifics like there's a i'm going to name three publications right now georgia straight now and toronto star and i'm hoping you can speak to each of them because i mean i know georgia straight and now are already in trouble and i i'm dying i'm literally dying to know your take on the brand new toronto star podcast that just launched, I think, last week. And I don't think it's fair to dunk on something that's been around for, what, three or four days as we're speaking here. But last fall, we did an episode

talking about what was going on in the podcast business. And we touched on this trend of the Daily News Explainer podcast, pretty much initiated by the New York Times and the success that they had with The Daily. And there they created an industry, and I guess it became essential. Well, if you're a newspaper and you want to team with it, you should be creating some kind of audio product that comes out every day that explains people the news. And one company after another after another got on board with this kind of show.

Rogers started the Big Story podcast. That's another future FOTM that you've got booked, right, Jordan? Jordan Heath-Rollins. Jordan Heath-Rollins is a great example of one of the very interesting guests that were all lined up to come into the TMDS studio that I'm now... Kevin Shea was supposed to come in today, and now I have to cancel the great Scott Turner's return

for his sequel on April Fool's Day. There's so much great stuff I'm having to push off. But yeah, Jordan Heath-Rollins is one of them. We'll get the big story later on. FrontBurner, another one from the CBC. And look, everyone's fixated upon this one story. And I don't know what you can't, I don't know that you can put out a news explainer podcast

in the latter days of March 2020 and not have it be about COVID-19. Right. And in that sense, it's kind of unfair to judge where this thing is going to go. So why did they, but why, I guess my question is, because we've talked at great lengths about how this was coming.

David Ryder gave us a heads up. Hey, this is about, this is happening. Raju Mudhar. By the way, they gave it the most poor star title. The show was called This Matters. From the Toronto Star. And yeah, it's your buddy who interviewed you his last big article. Yeah, Raju Madharb.

I was interviewed about this and I think off the record we had a long chat about how they were, you know, they hired people to be part of the Toronto Star podcast team. Did you listen? So tell us, you listened. What did you think of the new Toronto Star podcast team. Did you listen? So tell us, though, you listened. What did you think of the new Toronto Star podcast,

This Matters? It's going to take a while for the differential to be established because it's stuck on this one topic. And in that respect, it's like, okay, we're going to go to these newsmakers, these experts in Toronto. We're going to find the Toronto perspective on what's going on with this topic, and it'll be a tightly produced thing.

My question is, where is the audience for this? I would guess, given the platform that they have with the Toronto Star, we're reminded over and over, despite all its financial challenges, that it remains Canada's highest circulation newspaper. Yes. Can you turn newspaper readers into podcast listeners when your publication is somewhere like the Star? We've got to wait and see because we haven't seen that done

really in the Toronto market before on this level. PostMedia has had podcasts, and the Globe and Mail was trying out a few different podcasts. But here's the Toronto Star saying, okay, we want to get into your flow. Every single day, do you have, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes to listen to what's up from the Toronto Star? Even though we're a newspaper, we're not an audio company. I think it's just another step of my speculation in preparing the Torstar

Corporation for sale and that they're taking on new initiatives and they're experimenting a little bit more. I think the budget is constrained. They don't have another $40 million to spend on another StarTouch tablet app. In fact, at this point, the market cap of the entire Tor Star is less than they blew on that one experiment. And on the other end of this, I mean, what's going to be left in terms of media. They're talking about more relief to media publishers that can come through the government. After we've gone through this catastrophe, the original idea of a newspaper bailout will have to be escalated a little

bit more. And I guess I'm of two different minds on this because I potentially stand to benefit from different projects I'm involved with, including a 1236 newsletter. And on the other hand, I guess there is that kind of, uh, there's, there's that, that weariness about, uh, you know, how much you want government involved in your media. And that's what, what's going to happen now with the Toronto star other companies out there

with the alternative weeklies. It's a different scenario because this company, Media Central, came along and they had this ambitious plan with some backing, this penny stock on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, whatever was going on there. Someone came up with the idea that we can use cannabis content to snap up every distressed alternative weekly newspaper in North America, not just Canada, starting with Now Magazine in Toronto, and then the Georgia Straight, and we'll kind of build up this empire on the back of all this, and we'll get every single reader on what they what they term the creative class all unified under our umbrella and we'll get all these readers out there at once now i don't know if it was a surprise that the georgia straight three weeks after being acquired by this new

media central company uh had a number of layoffs this legacy alternative alternative weekly, over 50 years old in Vancouver, got rid of some staffers who had been there for quite a while. They were announcing like consolidation with Now in Toronto. And then we also heard about some furloughs and some pay cuts at Now. Could this thing already be in a spot of trouble? you wish them all the best but at the same time there was some question about their plans in the first place and we had another alternative weekly in halifax called the coast um which uh laid people off and said they're not printing anymore they'll keep running a website and maybe they'll come back to some print publishing in the future, even though a lot of people are dubious if that would happen.

And then other rumors that like things weren't going too well anyway. And are they using COVID-19 as an excuse just to get rid of people? And we're seeing increasingly like magazines, this is maybe media layoff season if it hasn't peaked already that different companies are now going to be using this uh to make announcements of things that were going to happen anytime that you know her newfound beauty goes beyond recovery and sets off made in her soul walk up

over my shoulder sandals dance in my face all right mark i'm contractually obligated to ask you the big question do we have a march 2020 chair girl update All right, Mark, I'm contractually obligated to ask you the big question. Do we have a March 2020 chair girl update? Mike, do we ever have a chair girl update?

And here we've come to the point where Marcella Zoya, Toronto's infamous chair girl, is making news simply for the fact that her friends on Instagram are posting old videos of her partying down. And somewhere out there on social media, it was discovered and got to the Toronto Sun. I don't know if they've got a chair girl bureau scanning Instagram all day waiting for these things to happen. But it was through the sun that we found out that there was some new video that was posted of chair girl having a blast. I can play this. Okay, I have this.

Let me bring down the Beach Boys there. Remind me, who suggested Marcella as the theme song for your chair girl updates oh that was fotm blair 5151 photography uh who did mention uh marcella by the beach boys on on the day that we learned that this this photo of this ghostly looking young woman throwing a chair off the balcony of the maple leaf square condos from an airbnb by the way this building has now banned airbnb which was an issue there and some other other condos in that area south core of of toronto uh and uh chair girl and her and her friends are now blocked from any short-term rental there. When we learned her name was Marcella, yes, it was Blair,

who reminded me that the Beach Boys had a song called Marcella. Okay, here's a 44-second clip from the Toronto Sun on Chair Girl parties. As the sentencing of Chairioteers is postponed by the coronavirus, she and her friends are partying, drinking and not keeping safe social distance from each other. Marcella Zoyle has shuttered most of her social media, but her friends are keeping their good times going and letting the world see them have a great time while the rest of us are isolated. Her sentencing's been postponed for 11 weeks. For the Toronto Sun, this is Sam Zemp.

Okay, so you're saying, are you suggesting these are older videos? Well, Chair Girl, who had scrubbed her Instagram account except for one photo of her standing between the TD Center Towers in downtown Toronto. And just before what was supposed to be her final sentencing, back on, what was the date on March 12th. There was a technicality, and they couldn't do it. Once again, Chairgirl was deferred, and they put it off for another couple of weeks.

And now, as we heard in that clip, it's not going to happen for 11 more weeks, if we even get that far. Wouldn't it be remarkable if the saga of Chairgirl, the monthly Marcella update, ends with them just throwing her case out of court? It's possible. This went on too long, she's not going to serve her six months in jail or even, I don't know, 17 days. Even this whole idea of taking her phone away from her

is not going to apply. She's going to be in the clear. She's going to be free. Freedom is coming for us all, but maybe chair girl, most of all. She put out a statement, right? Her Instagram story. This was a throwback video posted to my friend. Don't touch your face. I'm hunkering down like all of you. I'm not even going to be able to get any false eyelashes in the interim. I'm suffering here.

Like all the rest, I'm not partying down. I'm not renting Airbnb anymore. I'm going through it. We're all in this together. And that was our word that we heard from Chair Girl. And what was supposed to be her sentencing here in the middle of March, put off to March 30th. We know that's not going to happen now. 11 weeks later, stay tuned.

We got more Marcel Liddicombe. Absolutely. Now, I'm going to take a moment here to talk about some wonderful organizations that help fuel the real talk. And they're all pretty much experiencing, well, we're all experiencing, we're all in this together, as you said, and we're all experiencing tough times. But we've cracked open some delicious Great Lakes beer.

I got to say, this Octopus Wants to Fight is wonderful. Like, I just love it. And Great Lakes, the big update since the episode I did very recently on how the Toronto Mike partners are dealing with the pandemic here, Great Lakes has actually closed their retail store. So right now, you can order cases of Great Lakes. I think there's free delivery if you're within a certain geographical distance. But you can order cases of Great Lakes Brewery from the brewery, Great Lakes Brewery, but you

can also still, as you know, LCBOs are essential services and you can still find Great Lakes in LCBOs. But as you can imagine, tough times for Great Lakes, but the beer is better than ever. They're still making fresh craft beer. And this is a great time for Toronto Mike listeners and FOTMs to support Great Lakes. So thank you, Great Lakes. Same with Palma's Kitchen, like Palma Pasta and Palma's Kitchen, they're still open. You can go in and buy your fresh Italian food and your, just the tastiest Italian food in the GTA, buy it at Palma's Kitchen or one of the other Palma Pasta locations

in Mississauga and Oakville. You won't regret it. My family has been diving into the supply for Toronto Mike's guests. Well, of course, because your guests are not getting the Palma Pasta. Right. And you've got four hungry kids hanging around.

Four hungry kids and a crop in the field. But we'll get to that in the memorial section. The least they can do is keep you fed, along with the real talk. Right. along with the real talk. Right. That's great that you've got the FOTMs, the partners sticking with you through all this time.

Did you say sticking? Because I will say stickeru.com is a e-commerce website and still open for business, and you can definitely order your stickers from stickeru.com right now, wide open, and this is a great time to do so. So thank you, stickeru.com. I'm thinking about my musician buddy, Duncan Fremlin. I call him Banjo Dunk. You know, we've spent, this is, can I cry with you, Mark?

But we spent months, months discussing the Whiskey Jack Presents stories and songs of Stompin' Tom. We were working on FOTM Tom Wilson performing at this event. It was going to be at Zoomer Hall, April 16th. Let's face it, that's not going to happen. And I guess in lieu of promoting that event, I just want to say keep your chin up, Dunk, and let everyone know if you go to hellooutthere.ca,

you can buy Duncan's fantastic book, My Good Times of Stompin' Tom. I got an email from Perry Lefkoe, F-O-T-M, Perry Lefkoe, to tell me because every guest now gets a copy of this book and he told me he loved the book and he just wanted to tell me, because every guest now gets a copy of this book. And he told me he loved the book. And he just wanted to send me an email to say, my good times of Stompin' Tom is a fantastic book. So if everybody goes out and orders a copy from Dunk, that would help him out, because it's a tough time for musicians who make all their money with live performances,

because there are no live performances. And then in closing, I had a great chat with Austin Keitner of the Keitner Group. They, of course, they're still listing homes and they're still selling homes. And you can still engage Austin by texting Toronto Mike to 59559. They've basically utilized a bunch of our new new technology to you know they show you they'll do free home evaluations with via zoom and they will you know they're they're using uh video conferencing for buyer seller consultations and for showings and stuff so when you're very serious and you're then they do a safe you know a safe visit to the the home for in-person open houses, if you will. But they've adapted.

And I urge you to engage Austin. It's good for the show and it's good for you. Again, text Toronto Mike to 59559. And my friend Mark Weisblatt, is there any final thoughts on anything? I know I left a lot on the cutting room floor because we could literally go seven hours, but I want to get to the memorial section, but is there anything I left on the cutting room floor

that you want to pick up and throw at me right now before we go? Well, I wanted to mention the Big Brother Canada eviction, that there was more drama than usual surrounding Big Brother Canada this year, because they kept on with these sequestered house guests who were already in some form of quarantine uh that in fact there was this pandemic in the air out there and how they were going to be uh having to deal with the fact that this was going on in the world they initially got suspicious uh over the fact that the audience that would be there when they would evict someone from the house, you ever watch Big Brother?

It's a big dramatic thing when they give somebody their walking papers, and they weren't letting audiences in anymore, and then there was concern over the crew, that they weren't practicing the right social distance on the show, and people were calling in sick or just refusing to come in. And then they just had to pull the plug on the whole thing. And they have shot like a final episode of Big Brother Canada, which is set to air on April 1st. And I don't know, they're going to like dissolve the season.

And you're going to find out that's a cliffhanger of what they do with the $100,000 prize that was going to go to Big Brother. They're dissolving that season sort of like how the NHL and the NBA might have to dissolve their season. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. I also wanted to mention Bell Media.

This was also just before COVID-19 hit. And they announced that they were in bed with this company called Quibi. A multi-billion dollar Hollywood startup that was going to beam these celebrity shows to your smart phone.

And this was a big deal for Bell Media because I guess it's another thing from a Canadian conglomerate hooking onto Hollywood. And this thing is so well capitalized with the scheduled launch of April 6th. We'll see if that happens now. The whole idea is that you would want

to watch these shows on the go. But again, a great equalizer here with media that like, you know, we're being so distracted by people offering shows that they're producing on their own. What do you need this content that a company headed by Jeffrey Katzenberg is paying people millions of dollars for with the with the expectation of some return because it would be the subscriber service. of some return because it would be the subscriber service, but they were very euphoric about Bell Media that they, you know, found a new platform with this, with the subscription service. Got to feel a little bit bad for the hopes that were attached to that

because it did support some Canadian initiatives that they were being, you know, smooth movers, not wanting to miss out on something big, and we'll see if that comes together. The Elma Combo was another one that we've talked about here over the years. But Michael Weckerle about his plans to reopen the thing, and he set a target date of April 1st. You can snark, I suppose, about the fact that he wasn't really going to meet that target anyway. And he found a convenient excuse to say that April Fool's Day

and El Macombo isn't going to happen. Was it Big Sugar? Was Big Sugar going to be the first performance there? Wasn't Big Sugar going to be a guest on Toronto Mike? Oh yeah. That was another guest that he had to delay, defer, postpone.

Well, Gordy Johnson was going to, he lives in outside Austin, Texas, and he was coming to going to, he lives outside Austin, Texas, and he was coming to Toronto to promote his new album with Big Sugar, and during his visit here, by the way, this was all arranged by FOTM Ivor Hamilton. Shout out to Ivor. So yeah, Gordy was going

to pop on Toronto Mic when he was in Toronto promoting the new album, but that trip, of course, was canceled due to COVID-19. But I actually did get, uh, I did get Gordy to phone the Humble and Fred show via, uh,

from Austin. Uh, but I, for Toronto Mike, I felt it's better to wait until he visits Toronto and do it proper. Um, Cineplex is probably in big trouble now. It was already questionable a little bit,

involving an activist investor who didn't want that acquisition to go through, that the company was overvalued, that it was going to be sold for whatever billions of dollars to this British firm Cineworld, and we'll see where that happens. Remember, last episode we talked about the saga of Tanner Zipchan, who complained that he was only paid in scene points,

or the work that he did, at least in the first place. Even though he agreed to only get paid in scene points, he went to the Toronto Star and complained about it and then regretted that he said anything at all. It turns out that scene points are still worth what they were a few weeks ago. Cineplex stock is maybe not worth as much. It's not hard to find a lot of speculation in the air

whether we will go to the movies like we used to ever again. Run This Town, the Rob Ford movie, I know you touched on that a bit with David Ryder and that got a lot of hype because

of the connection to the Rob Ford story but the reviews were just terrible for this thing. And even though everyone wanted to root for this idea of a telephone Canada-backed movie that had a little bit of an American firepower to it, I don't think it could find many people out there who liked it. The concept of the thing that it was like about a young millennial played by Ben Platt, who was struggling to make it in the media and had access to the Rob Ford craft video. I don't think anyone was buying this whole fictionalization, but of course that closed, along with all the Cineplex theaters

that were showing it. And the Juno Awards were canceled, and the joke was no one really was paying that much attention in the first place. But I was rooting there for a pianist, Alexandra Strelisky

from Montreal, and she was nominated for one, for like the big award for the big album of the year. And she was going to get a spot on the CBC broadcast of the Juno Awards. And I thought that was a little bit subversive. There was a great interview with her on FOTM, Mark Wigmore's podcast. And the whole idea,

you know, people used to have these like instrumentalists like the Canadian pianist Frank Mills. And here she was doing like an updated 21st century version of that. Being a pop star

who just played these plaintive instrumentals on the piano. And I was expecting big things to come out of that. Like she would have been the big story out of the Junos. Well, here. She needed that kind of attention. Let's listen to a little bit of that.

And we'll let her take us into the memorial section of this 1236 episode of Toronto Mic'd is brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. Ridley Funeral Home is at 3080 Lakeshore. That's at 14th Street. And Brad Jones, who you might have heard on a recent episode of Toronto Mic'd, has been a tremendous

FOTM. Pay tribute without paying a fortune. Learn more at RidleyFuneralHome.com Thank you. I'm starting off with a little soul macosa. Tell us who we lost in March. Joel Makosa, tell us who we lost in March. Okay, well, in doing the memorial section, we are going to touch on the coronavirus.

And look, you know, this is going to bring us back to reality here, that there is, in fact, a plague in the air, and it is taking people out. Don't really want to be too glib about that fact, but at the same time, at age 86, Manu DeBango, who was best known for that instrumental song, which goes back to 1972. And if you don't know Soul Macosa, then you know Wanna Be Startin' Something by Michael Jackson. Which, years after it came out, like, I think it was just before Michael Jackson died, he ended up filing a lawsuit because it was interpolated into a Rihanna song.

Yes. That he wanted his share of royalties for the fact that this Mamase, Mamasa, Mamakusa was used there on the album Thriller. And there were royalties that he felt that he was entitled to all those years later. But the sax player from Cameroon, he was living in France, in Paris, and died on March 24 at age 86. 24 at age 86. And again, the fact that this COVID-19 is legitimately leading people's lives to end, that'll be reflected in a few of those we mentioned here

in this 1236 Memorial segment. She walks like you in so many ways. It's a different look, different time of day. One look in her eyes. How can I make you understand she's the one good thing? Since we lost the dream and the winter came And you said goodbye And I don't want another reason to cry You'll be all you want to be You've got the longest life Baby, be alone I share my dream with someone else I don't want to talk about it This woman, she's tearing my world apart

This woman, don't know what she's doing No, it's not Lady, it's This Woman by Kenny Rogers. Kenny Rogers, who died at age 81 and was the subject of an emergency podcast from Toronto Mike you had to get your mom on the line to remember the time when she would play Kenny Rogers' greatest hits day and night

yes and it was well received so it really warmed my heart that people really enjoyed the 11 minuteminute emergency episode, which I titled for Kenny, but I subtitled, Really, It's For My Mom. And yet, some controversy after that episode, because you and your mother concurred that there were no locations of the Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant in Toronto. And you were smacked around in the comments, and you were set on course.

In fact, there were several locations, including one on Islington Avenue. Somewhere up there. Look, I'm missing the bus ride that I would take to get to your place because you go past all these different strip malls with all the fast food games along Islington between Bloor and the Lakeshore. And you pretty much don't. You pass by like every fast food franchise that exists in this country. And Kenny Rogers Roasters was once there.

And yeah, around Toronto, like more of an outlying area thing, right? There was one around Steeles and Leslie, I think it's Scarborough and Mississauga. Didn't quite permeate downtown Toronto. Downtown Toronto was no place for Kenny Rogers to be selling chicken. But the chain was at its height when it became the subject of an episode of Seinfeld. And I think reflective of the fact that Kenny Rogers generally had a pretty good sense of humor about what it was like to be Kenny. But there was another Canadian content angle on Kenny Rogers.

Yes. And it went back to the fact that in the early 1970s, him and his band, the first edition, they did a variety show at the CTV Glen Warren Studios there in in in ancient course, Ontario. And and they did a show called Roland Roland on the river. They they later shortened it to Roland', where they participated in skits. They introduced guests. We've talked over the years about all these different variety shows, some of which I even went to as a kid. The same place where later they filmed the game show Just Like Mom, which I appeared on.

Right. Is Uncle Bobby recorded there too? Yeah, Uncle Bobby, of course. And what about Tyler Stewart? Let me let the listeners know how close we came within a whisker of being joined on this very episode via Skype by Tyler Stewart of the Barenaked Ladies. And of course... That might be another emergency episode in the future.

But he, when he came on Toronto Mic, he talked about working with, of course... Who is he working with? I cracked up. Super Dave Osborne. And they were recording the show in Agincourt. And is that the same studio? Yeah, that's it.

That's where all the magic has happened. And also scenes from the movie Network that were filmed there. Because they couldn't do this kind of movie in an American network TV station. They wouldn't go for it. And they went up to Toronto. Productions with Jim Henson.

A whole bunch of variety shows. Sonny and Cher at one point, uh, Bobby Vinton. And in fact, uh, earlier on in that, in that history, uh, there he had Kenny Rogers and the first edition doing a show there. And, uh, one of the clips that has circulated a lot because it showed up on DVD, it was a band, Badfinger, disciples of the Beatles from Apple Records. Right. That they came to Toronto and they did a performance of, at the time, 1972, their hit single, Baby Blue.

And there was Kenny Rogers introducing them. He kind of looks like a heroin dealer. You know, he's got those tinted glasses going on. It was all part of the persona. And if you look back at the history of the first edition, you know, people would look back at Kenny Rogers, this country star, and it would be like, did you know Kenny Rogers was once a rock singer?

I don't know if that ever came up with your mom. No, maybe we only had the one album. Remember, only that one single 1982 greatest hits album. So even Islands in the Stream, which everybody likes to go to as the big hit, foreign to me because it wasn't on that 1982 greatest hits. Well, he had this psychedelic history. And it went back to this song,

I just wanted to see what condition my condition was in. And they went back and forth trying to figure out if they wanted to be a rock band or a country music outfit that you eventually had to pick sides about what was going to be more viable. They had a hit more in the UK with, what was it called? Ruby. Ruby. Ruby.

That was one of the greatest hits I had. So that was a big one in my home. Ruby, don't take your love to town. Right. And they were trying to figure out what was their place in the music scene. And Kenny Rogers, of course, wanted to go country.

The other members were a little bit rock and roll, and he split from the group, and he went off and did his own thing. But they left this legacy behind in the CTV show again, which had some bits preserved. There was Ike and Tina Turner, and I think Gladys Knight and the Pips. Even though a lot of shows, like Uncle Bobby, didn't survive, no one kept tapes around, that somebody hung on to them long enough that a bit of that show survived, even posted

to YouTube. And there was Kenny Rogers introducing Badfinger, a group that met a tragic end with the two main guys committing suicide a few years apart. But Kenny kept at it. Of course, he had his association

with Lionel Richie. That's what really propelled him to the top with that greatest hits album. And then, you know, there he was like straddling the line, even though he was into the countryside, went back to the pop music thing, doing his different duets with Kim Carnes and James Ingram and, of of course dolly parton and the tune that we heard there this woman was the second single of songs that he did with the beach boys um well back at the peak of his career in 1984 and then after that we are the world

we are the children there was kenny ro watching that video. You know, here I thought there was Kenny back then, you know, more or less around the same age we are now. I'm watching this. We are the world that came up. Maybe someone was suggesting there should be like a COVID-19 version of the song. I think Lionel Richie wants to do a remake. I think Lionel Richie wants to do a remake. And of course, like so many of these videos, here I am looking at this guy in his mid to late 40s thinking, you know what, this guy looked really young.

What were we thinking back then? That Kenny Rogers was an old man. Must have been the gray. Well, that's what I've got. But I will say that the reason I know about Kenny Rogers Chicken, even though I missed all the locations around in Toronto, is because of Seinfeld, of course. So there's a famous Kramer episode in the Kenny Rogers Chicken.

Now, one thing I will say I did notice throughout my life in Etobicoke is if I were on near six points, like on Dundas, not far from Kipling in Etobicoke, I would pass the headquarters of the Evanoff Group. And that was a bunch of radio stations, including Brian Master's old station, The Jewel, and Bob Ouellette. Well, he was the program director there for many years,

Bingo Bob, and Proud FM was on the roster, and Z103, of course. But tell us, we lost the founder of the Evanoff Group. Yeah, Bill Evanoff, who was really behind some of the quirkier radio experiments, especially in the Toronto market, the outlying areas. Radio executive who came up through Chin, the multicultural radio station, and struck out on his own by buying a radio station from Burlington,-n-g 107.9 and he swung a deal with with them that uh if he could figure out how to turn around this struggling radio frequency that he would get a piece of the ownership and through that created a station called fm 108 uh it was was where the aforementioned Terry O'Reilly, the advertising guy, now into podcasts.

That's where he got his start in the industry and did this weird oldies radio format that went through the 1980s and then started introducing at nighttime this rhythmic music format, dance programming that eventually became the station Dance 108, and through the 1990s became known as Energy 108, and created this influential powerhouse there,

way, way on the right end of the radio dial, that ended up being, at the time, I would say, like the most seminal radio station in Toronto. And FOTM's Scott Turner was along for the ride and ended up, I think, replicating the influence that CFNY had, but he did it in a form of dance music,

mostly through tapping into the fact that there was this European sound, you know, mostly through tapping into the fact that there was this European sound, you know, Euro dance, Euro trash. And, and at the time energy 108 was on it, ended up selling that station to Shaw communications, but took the format over to a frequency from Orangeville and a station there that became hot 103.5 hits 103.5 then Z103.5 did you pull that clip yes the history of 103.5 give that a spin after creating many

successful promotions over the years Bill now established the Hits Girls, who attended promotions, events, and remotes. This was followed up with one of the most successful promotions at that time, called Show Your Hits. On four occasions, the Hits Girls made the front page of the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, and the Globe and Mail. Mike, don't you miss the era of unrepentant sexism in the media? Right. You watch that clip. There you see they're promoting this dance music radio station with these scantily clad women wearing, I don't know, these wet tank tops, wheeling around the city to promote a radio station. That was part of Bill Evanoff's style.

After all, he was the one that invented the Miss Chin Bikini Contest and turned this like sleepy, multicultural picnic that they would do every year. I don't know, They would have like a spaghetti eating and he came up with the idea. No, no, no. We need, we need people in bikinis, women and men. Right. And they parade upon the stage. And of course that's the kind of thing that ended in this century, but look, anything is possible after COVID-19. We could be seeing a renaissance of this sort of promotion. And there we had, you know, Bill Evanoff again, you know,

he managed to swing his way into these radio stations that weren't getting it done. There was 88.5 in Newmarket. Earlier this year, you had Scott Fox. Now from The Beat in Kitchenerer ontario but there he was involved in the history of this radio station that kept going through these schizophrenic

format changes like every single year they were trying something different to try and get some attention to the signal 88.5 and they ended up landing on the jewel, which was this like a mellower than mellow music sound. And, uh, through, through that, that little new market frequency, they ended up creating that into a national radio chain and,

uh, quite a bit of success, you know, operating as like a maverick radio company in Canada, even though a lot of people would talk about how cheap they were. Right. Basically get paid in contra, like advertising deals. Didn't Scott Turner even cop to that?

Yeah. He's got a bike because he learned from Bill Evanoff how you can trade radio airtime for luxury goods if you know the right people there you go I don't know a master of the industry and I think he you know again created like a lot of eccentric radio moments here and that we

that we remember in Toronto giving Frank D'Angelo a radio show on the dual 88.5. We won't hold that against him. Now you mentioned, sorry, you mentioned Shaw when you talked about the Evinel group. We also lost the founder of Shaw. 85 years old,

J.R. Shaw, who was Western Canada's cable TV mogul, kind of a parallel to what Ted Rogers managed to build in Ontario. And on the back of the fact that he laid down all this pipe, he was able to get into the media content business. And from his company, Shaw Communications, we ended up having Chorus Entertainment. The ownership structure, the relationship between the companies was a little confusing

because Chorus was owned by the Shaw family, or the majority of the shares were, or a lot of the shares were, but at the same time it was a separate entity from the telecom side of Shaw. And through Chorus, of course, now we've got them as the owner of global television, a lot of radio stations and specialty channels.

Got to say, their stock hasn't been doing too well. It already was going through a rough patch exacerbated by COVID-19. But it was also the fact that they were invested in things that, you know, they had to admit that it was a real blurry future for these different forms of traditional media. But it was J.R. Shaw who was behind it all, whether you liked it or not. He was the cowboy that built up this media empire there across Western Canada, ended up bringing it to Toronto,

taking over global television, global news, radio, and it was all linked to his legacy. So J.R. Shaw, dead of causes that were not COVID-19 in March 2020. Thank you. Mark, why did I just play the Major Dad theme song? Good question, Mike. It's because in March 2020, earlier in the month, a Toronto-born screenwriter, a guy named Earl Pomerantz, died at age 75. And here was the last name Pomerantz, better known from his brother, Hart Pomerantz, who was the sidekick to Lorne Michaels. They did a show called The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour on CBC.

And that experience, mostly the negative aspects of it, are credited by Lorne Michaels as the reason they left for the United States and started a show called Saturday Night Live. Now, through the connections that they had through Lorne Michaels, it turned out that Earl Pomerantz made himself in demand for sitcom writing. He wrote for Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart and Taxi and Major Dad. Did you ever watch Major Dad, Mike? When I was pulling this theme song yesterday, I asked Monica.

She did watch Major Dad. I did not, but I definitely knew Delta Burke from Designing Woman, which was a show I did watch. So I missed out on Major Dad, but my wife watched it. Major Dad, Gerald McRaney, another

character I think we would look back then and think this was like an old man, right? The Major Dad character. I mean, he's Major Dad. He's in his 40s. And here, 30 years later, we realize that that's actually not very young at all. But Major Dad was, in fact, where Earl Pomerantz had carte blanche to create a show that became a hit after a few tries. And I would suspect that he made a lot of money off of doing that show,

even though he also did scripts for the Cosby show, speaking of things that are canceled and cheers. And then later when it became a thing to start a blog, Earl Pomerantz, he started a blogspot account. And he told a lot of stories about what his experiences were writing in Hollywood. And that helped people remember him and be sad that he died age 75. We feel the sweet temptation. We might be lovers if the rhythm's right.

I hope this feeling never ends tonight Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free At night, I lock the door where no one else can see I'm tired of dancing here all by myself Tonight, I wanna dance with someone else Man, this jam still holds up. Here we have another COVID-19 death, and it is not Madonna. Tell us who passed away. An actor named Mark Bloom.

Not a household name, but in the headlines today, in fact, we learned that he was in desperately seeking Susan because he was the guy that played like the nerdy suburban husband of Rosanna Arquette's character who runs off to hang out with Madonna. And this was such a seminal movie and, you know, like such an important piece of cinema. Back in the day that I couldn't leave out the fact that, you know, here we have this actor tragically dying from coronavirus. And based on how things are going at this moment, not the last, along with Manu DeBango and some others that we'll still mention. Dead at age 69, and he was more

recently in a Netflix series called You. Mark Blue. It's quiet now And what it brings Is everything Comes calling back A brilliant night I'm still awake

I looked ahead, I'm sure I saw you there You don't need me to tell you now that nothing can compare. You might have laughed if I told you. You might have hidden your frown. You might have succeeded in changing me I might have been turned around It's easier to leave than to be left alone REM's Leaving New York.

Who left us, Mark? Bill Reiflin died of cancer at age 59. Not a name I knew, even though I was a teenage R.E.M. fan. But to me, like so many others who grew up

listening to R.E.M., we knew the drummer as a guy named Bill Berry. But he ended up leaving the group right after their peak. Decided to become a farmer. And it was Bill Reiflin who ended up being R.E.M.'s drummer on their last few albums.

He wasn't officially a member of the group. He wasn't in the photos or anything. But there he was keeping the beat on those last three REM albums. And he had an interesting musical career before that because very much like in the industrial rock genre. He was a drummer with Ministry, The Revolting Cocks, Pig Face, a song called Super Knot, a Black Sabbath remake,

a thousand homo DJs, the name of that group. That was like a big Martin Streak jam. Right. I don't remember that one. Like really, really intense music. And later ended up playing more recently with one of Mark Hemsher's favorite acts, King Crimson. Right.

And worked with Robert Fripp and his wife, Toya Wilcox. So for a drummer that I never heard of before he died, there he was with a lot of credits of things that a lot of people heard about, including there, I think, like the last REM single that I really recognize, Leaving New York. This is Psychic TV's God Star. Another rock and roll icon, Genesis T. Orridge. Speaking of that whole industrial music thing,

as he was in that pioneering industrial band Throbbing Gristle, and then went on to start a group of his own, Psychic TV. And in that song, they wrote about Brian Jones, which I remember CFNY spinning that one way back when. And through Genesis P. Orridge, and later he married a woman and conducted a kind of performance art experiment where they both took on like the same non-binary gender. This is before you heard about this being a semi-regular occurrence. Right.

That they had surgeries. This was all like very complicated. But hey, it was part of his performance art. And this guy, Neil Megson, who called himself Genesis P. Orridge, he died just before COVID-19 deaths became a headline and left this extremely eccentric legacy behind. Dead in March 2020, Genesis P. Or oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, When will I be famous? I've asked that question a few times. Tell me who passed away related to this jam.

Brosh was a duo, twin brothers, and I think they had a third member in there that they got rid of at one point. When Will I Be Famous was a British hit song by this group that was discovered by a music manager named Tom Watkins, who died late February at age 70. A fascinating figure behind the scenes of British modern rock,

partly because he was involved in album cover design. And if you know about Zedd at TT, the record label started by Trevor Horn, The Art of Noise and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, he was the art director on these albums. If you remember thinking those covers had a certain tone to them that was innovative at the time, you can credit this guy Tom Watkins, ended up being the manager of the Pet Shop Boys, where it was Neil Tennant,

who seems to come up a lot on this podcast, had this vision, and got this guy with a little more experience in the industry to steer them around, but they had a bad breakup. Some friction there in the ranks and cast him aside from the Pet Shop Boys. And I think that's when will I be famous by bros. I always thought it was bros.

He was, I guess, trying to capitalize on the Pet Shop Boys thing. Like, opportunities, let's make lots of money. Right. But I don't think he really quite got the idea. But there you go with that act. With that act and later East 17, an influential figure in this very British style of teen pop. And a couple of years ago, he wrote a memoir, which I read called Let's Make Lots of Money. My life as the biggest man in pop. And even though it didn't end well with the pet shop boys it was in fact neil pennant

uh of course who paid tribute to the guy without whom none of the pet shop boys would have been possible she was there kind of lady Down to her own She'd come curling round you Like fingers But she'd leave you crying in the night She will leave you crying in the night

Oh, she won't leave you crying in the night She's back in town You know, now whenever I think of Stevie Nicks, now I'm thinking of John Gallagher, but I'm happy to report John Gallagher is, as of this moment, still with us. But who did we lose that was associated with Buckingham Nicks? Yeah, this song, have you ever heard

Crying in the Night by Buckingham Nicks before? I don't recognize it. This was Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and yet instantly familiar, right? Like the sound of this song influenced so many things that came after, even to this day. And most of all, it was an influence on the band that was already a going concern called Fleetwood Mac. Sure. that was already a going concern called Fleetwood Mac. Sure.

And it was Keith Olsen, who died in March 2020, who was showing his studio to Mick Fleetwood and played him this Buckingham Knicks record that he had worked on. And the reaction there was, we got to get these kids in our band. And subsequently, there was, we got to get these kids in our band. And subsequently, of course, the White Album by Fleetwood Mac, 1975, the first one with that legendary incarnation. And it was Keith Olsen who bridged them from being a duo who were kind of languishing in obscurity. languishing in obscurity.

Again, even though that is the kind of sound that has just influenced so many things in the last 45 plus years that it would have otherwise gone unheard if it wasn't for Mick Fleetwood meeting Keith Olsen and plugging this in. And then later you have his production credits on songs that you could not imagine life without, like Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield.

Right. And Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar. Those were some of the records he worked on. And then in the late 80s, Whitesnake. Again, another band that was, you know, kind of lingering in heavy metal obscurity. And he was the one that, you know, put that shine on them. And David Coverdale in those videos with Tawny Catan. I'll never forget those videos.

That was Keith Olsen, the rock producer behind it all. And a bunch of other, like, corporate rock stuff. But those are really his biggest hits of all. Terrapin Station by the Grateful Dead, that was another album he produced, but really it came down to the fact that that Buckingham Nicks album, which

has never been properly reissued from 1973, but it never made it to the era of compact discs and streaming. Of course you can find it on YouTube, but there's kind of this idea that like, I don't know, maybe they're embarrassed by it or maybe they like the fact that you have to

hunt this thing down. And after they press new copies after, after Fleetwood Mac became a big deal, I don't know, maybe it was a contractual issue or something. But yeah, it took me a long time, I think, to hear it. Buckingham Knicks and the guy we have to thank who died at age 74, Keith Olsen.

17 I've got a guy that is 17 I don't care because I'm just 16 And my guy is 17 He's only 17 He loves me The Supremes. Did you know, Mike, that there was a fourth member of Diana Ross in The Supremes?

Her name was Barbara Martin? I knew there was a fourth member of Destiny's Child, but I did not know about the fourth member of the Supremes. A woman named Barbara Martin who died in early March at age 76, and she does like a spoken word thing on that song, and it was the main appearance that she had on a Supremes album. I don't know if it's coming in under where I'm talking. This is where technical limitations

are taken. So there's a spoken word part? I'll let you know when it comes in and I'll boost it. This is the kind of song I would hear when we mentioned FM-108 from Burlington, the oldest radio station

that would play these weird album tracks because they couldn't abide by the rules and play non-hit records on Oh, here it is. Here it is. So come on So that's Barbara Martin Yeah that was her complete contribution To rock history Because there she was in the Supremes Became pregnant At the time they were recording

This first album Their early records with Diana Ross. And even though her husband supported her that she should stay in the group, she ended up leaving. And the Supremes became a trio. And there was Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson and Diana Ross. Anna Ross, and of course, so much drama subsequently that Barbara Martin, by virtue of ducking out of the scene early, she managed to avoid. But there she was, living all this time in Detroit, only gave like one interview about her time in the group and really like a long forgotten footnote of rock and roll but by virtue of the fact that I don't know you're never going to

get as much attention as when you die sometimes learned a little bit about her because Barbara Martin died in March 2020 2020. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo God damn, he plays a mean banjo. Dueling banjos, love it from Deliverance, man. I always loved it. Tell me, who passed away from dueling banjos?

It was one half of the dueling banjos here. Eric Weisberg, suffering from Alzheimer's for years before he died here in late March at age 80, and recorded that song, which became, of course, famous and infamous because of the movie Deliverance. And I think the images that dueling banjos can conjure up might be a good analogy for the current state of the United States of America. Whatever the head down there. Is Eric the guitar guy or the banjo guy? He was. What?

Were they dueling banjos? No. The way I remember the movie uh which i've seen many times is uh the one guy the the visitor if you will is on a guitar and then the local like the ozarks local guy or whatever is he's the kid on the banjo and he keeps up and then at the end i remember the guitar guy going god damn you play a mean banjo like this is how i remember it look all i know is eric weisberg was a banjo player who was credited on on this uh 1973 hit song dueling okay because if you listen to that even it's a call and response with a

guitarist and a banjo player. That sounds like the banjo guy. But we don't know. What we don't know is it's probably not the guy from the movie. It's probably the guy who played on the soundtrack. But we need to do a little more research maybe and figure this out. The other dueling banjos guy died two years ago, Steve Mandel. And this month we lost at age 80, Eric

Weisberg. And all that he did in his career, I mean, there you go. That was the most unforgettable work of all. And by the way, I should mention hot off the presses

here, Breaking News. Wow, let's hear it. That is to say, it came out after we prepped the episode. Curly Neal from the Harlem Globetrotters died. Wow. And that just comes to mind now because that's sort of like Sweet Georgia Brown, like another piece of American 1970s instrumental music, right? I don't know how easily you can get that there,

but Sweet Georgia Brown, synonymous with Fred Curly Neal of the Harlem Globetrotters, and he died on the day we're recording here at 8. My apologies. I pulled up the first one I saw, and it's not what I should have pulled up. I pulled up a Louis Armstrong version of Sweet Georgia Brown,

but give me a moment. Here's what I'd rather have, the version we all know and love from the Harlem Globetrotters. It's a little potato quality here tough times, tough times so there's a little taste but you're right, those two instrumental jams are sort of

kind of tied together in American culture but here's a song, speaking of the 70s now, I know are sort of kind of tied together in American culture. But here's a song, speaking of the 70s. Now, I know we've had a little nostalgia with my mom and the Kenny Rogers, but I was raised on Sesame Street. Like this was the show I was planted in front of and I would watch, you know, the gang,

Maria and Mr. Hooper, and then even Buffy St. Marie was there. They were all there. Now I'm going to play... Let me just make sure I've got down my Harlem Globetrotters. Yes. I'm going to play a jam from Sesame Street

that's still tattooed on my cranium. Of all the songs in Sesame Street history, this might be the one I remember most fondly. So let's listen. Four. Four. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 4! So funky! Love it!

So, sadly though, if I'm playing it during the memorial section, somebody related to this great jam has passed away. Who is it, Mark? The Jassy Spy was the name of the outfit Airplane, Jefferson Starship and Starship. Right. But the connection who died in March 2020 was Grace and getting her into music, he worked for an animation studio, which produced these counting segments,

which they ran for all those years on Sesame Street. And here we had, I think there was a lot of the original DNA of 1969 Sesame Street that stuck around, right? All through the 80s, even into the 90s, that these segments lived with us for all those years. So even as Grace Slick, through the airplane and the starship, had all these songs on the radio and became the subject of fascination. There she was with her voice on every episode of Sesame Street.

Can I confess? Did you ever know about that? Well, yeah, I'm going to confess that I had zero idea that was Grace Slick. That is a song, like I said, tattooed on my cranium, and I sing it often, and I think about it a lot, because it got me when I was young. That's how brainwashing works. But I had no idea until right now that was Grace Slick. And so you can thank the late Jerry Slick,

who was in a band with her, The Great Society. But even though she went off to Jefferson Airplane, had a relationship there with Paul Cantor and had divorced him. He still brought her in to record those pieces. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. A part of our heritage, Mike. Absolutely. Now the tributes from Ardentia. We, the people of Ardentia,

we have suffered since you blasted our kingdom. I can offer you nothing this year except my loyalty. Prince Thun. We prize nothing more highly. And tell us, how great is this loyalty to your Emperor? Without measure. We are delighted to hear it. Fall on your sword. Death to me!

Death to me! This is Ming's theme from Flash Gordon. Max Von Cito. He died in March 2020. Made it to what age? Age 90, almost 91. He did all right. There we had Flash Gordon, where he played Ming the Merciless,

as reflected in the soundtrack album from Queen. And subsequently, we recognized him as Brewmeister Smith. Right. With Bob and Doug McKenzie called Strange Brew. And it turns out also this month, just the other day,

we have the Bob and Doug McKenzie statue that was unveiled at Edmonton. Right. While there was no one hanging around the streets of Edmonton to see it. And we're still waiting for the SCTV reunion to drop on Netflix. I remember when they announced Strange Brew, and it was kind of a source of fascination that, you know,

here was this actor who played Jesus Christ in the greatest story ever told. And he was, you know, later on known for The Exorcist. Right. And Three Days of the Condor that he was like lowering himself to be in this movie with Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis. And yet when he died, a lot of the tributes didn't fail to mention the fact that, you know, he played this villain in the Bob and Doug McKenzie movie, Max Von Cito, dead at 90,

ripe old age here in March, 2020. in March 2020. It's like we're stuck in the 70s here, and I dig it. But this is, of course, the Wonder Woman theme, appropriately positioned right after the Flash Gordon talk. Who died related to the Wonder Woman theme? who died related to the Wonder Woman theme? Wonder Woman was in the news

because of that Gal Gadot video of her singing Imagine with a bunch of celebrities including Linda Carter. TV's Wonder Woman was in that video with the movie Wonder Woman. Imagine a lot of people

dragging that one as a symbol of celebrities losing their minds here in a time of COVID-19. But before that happened, right before the death of Lyle Waggoner, who was on the Carol Burnett show, never missing a chance to start cracking up in the middle of a skit. And then a lot of people remember him because he played Steve Trevor on Wonder Woman and, you know, the weirdest development of all for a TV show, even though at the time this was common enough practice. That Wonder Woman, originally Wonder Woman, the TV show,

was supposed to be set what? Like during World War II, it was, you know, like a vintage retro flashback character. But then when the show was renewed, they decided to change the timeline in which the show Wonder Woman took place. And Lyle Waggoner went from playing Steve Trevor to Steve Trevor Jr., the son of his original character. And the viewers were supposed to buy that.

The fact that Wonder Woman was from the Amazon and she didn't age like mere mortals. So as somebody from America, Steve Trevor, in order to continue in the show, would have to be Steve Trevor Jr.

And they had to work around the fact that his father had a relationship with Wonder Woman, and you wouldn't want to go there, and therefore they had to keep it platonic. And so in the early episodes, he had a romance with Wonder Woman. In the later episodes of Wonder Woman, there was Lyle Wagner playing his own son. And hands off Wonder Woman. I love you. موسیقی در موسیقی درسته Thank you. PIANO PLAYS Thank you. Here we have another COVID-19 death. Yeah, just drag it out there, Mike, to be a little more depressing about the fact that we lost Terrence McNally,

to be a little more depressing about the fact that we lost Terrence McNally, the playwright whose work included Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Those would have been like the big budget musicals that you associate with him. But also a play that became a movie called Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. And this was an early 90s movie, right? Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer in that one, Frankie and Johnny, and Claire de Lune, the instrumental piece, which was kind of central to the storyline of their love affair that Debussy tuned Frankie and Johnny,

which came to us through the mind of Terrence McNally and one of those who died. I mean, I hope in April we're not going through a bunch of people that died because of the coronavirus. But that's where we're at. And wouldn't want to leave them out here and doing these memorial tributes to anybody that I could have something to say about. Terrence McNally dead at 81. A little John Coltrane to soothe the soul.

My favorite thing by John Coltrane and the piano player on that one, McCoy Tyner, legendary pianist for all kinds of jazz recordings, including under his own name. But that was the one I remembered most. Died at age 81 in March of 2020. My favorite thing. And decade after decade, you know, kept on playing long after John Coltrane died. And really going down in history, I was like one of the great traditional jazz pianists.

I don't know that he went so much in for that rock fusion thing. My love to the sea, the sea of love I want to tell you how much I love you. Do you remember when we met? That's the day I knew you were my pet. I want to tell you how much I love you. Sea of Love. Mike, you always like to end on the oldest note possible,

and here I got someone for you who died in March at age 94. Now, we would know that song because of the Honey Drippers, which was Robert Plant in an all-star cast in the mid-1980s when they did that kind of kitschy cover of Sea of Love. But I think at the point, it was like nothing else on the radio. And it was Robert Plant kind of rebelling against his Led Zeppelin days and doing something completely out of left field. And that was a singer that he was saluting. That Sea of Love, a big hit song in 1959, originally credited to Phil Phillips, 1959, originally credited to Phil Phillips, died here in March 2020 at a ripe old age.

And on that note, Mike, I think we are just about done. Remembering whoever we could hear in the memorial segment brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home and processed through 1236. Mark, thanks for doing this remotely. I didn't want to skip a month while we wait for this

to subside and return to normalcy. Thanks for doing this with me today. I cannot wait to look across the table, tip a Great Lakes beer, cheers to you. Can't wait

to do this in person again, but this will have to do until then. Let's see what happens. I know I'm on the front line here of FOTM, and it would be great to hook up with Tyler Stewart if we can do that at some point in April. And if not here, dreading what's ahead in April, we'll see where the world is at by the time we do another recap. Thanks a lot, Mike, for making this happen. I'm glad that we've done enough of these episodes now

that doing it remotely wasn't a completely alien experience. Let's see where it goes, and I'll do my best to keep the newsletters coming. 12361236.ca And that brings us to the end of our 604th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. That's 1236.

And as he mentioned, you should go to 1236.ca right now and subscribe to his fantastic newsletter that drops every weekday at 12.36 p.m. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group.

Banjo Dunk is at Banjo Dunk with a C. And Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.