Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #676

Episode Date: June 30, 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 676 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. Oh, Mark just cracked one open. Oh, Mark just cracked one open. Visit GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike to sign up now. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. The Keitner Group. They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text Toronto Mike to 59559.

And our newest sponsor, CDN Technologies. Your IT and cybersecurity experts. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me in person, live from the TMDS Backyard Studio for his June 2020 Roundup, is Mark Weisblot from 1236. Hey, Mike. I am so excited to be back here with you because we went through the past three monthly recaps, doing it virtually. We started trying out Skype. We ended up with Zoom. And I don't think we were the only ones out there suffering from Zoom fatigue because there's only so many of these online chats that anyone can handle. And I've had a few of them in other professional capacities.

And it's like, what, you load up the laptop, you sit there waiting for the other face to appear, and it's getting a little bit redundant and repetitive, and people want to get together in person again. Here in the Backyard Studios, I am what? 10 feet away from you? We are safely ensconced in a distant setup scenario. A lot of the danger of the droplets flying through the air in your basement has been eradicated. And based on what you were saying, based on having done just one backyard episode to date, right?

I'm number two. You're number two. I was aiming to be the first. Didn't quite happen, but it was a better tryout with Ben Rayner. You're thinking you should have been doing it this way all along. Whenever weather permitted, Toronto might should have been a backyard experience mark there's a number of things are going to come out of this uh pandemic that things will learn like lessons we learn from moving forward one of which is that like post pandemic

post vaccine on a nice day like this the skies blue, there's zero chance of rain, which is sort of a deal breaker with this setup. On days like this, I should have always been recording in the backyard, without a doubt. This is the way to go. Well, look at all that we got out in the open by doing it in a subterranean basement style after all those months, all those consecutive episodes. It's now been a year and a half since we took up this challenge of doing the monthly 1236 recap.

It was quarterly before that point in time. We slipped on the schedule a little bit last year, but this 2020 now, six months in a row. But, you know, some missing months in there when I wasn't able to make the trek out here to New Toronto and see you. And not only that, but they're your kids. Jarvis and Morgan, we had a little pre-show out here, but it looked like they're well-behaved enough. They knew they had to scram, go inside, get out of daddy's way when he's doing the podcast.

They're well-trained, Leg. I gave them that look. Daddy's way when he's doing the podcast? They're well-trained. I gave him that look. Now, before we move any further, by the way, you don't mind if I put a little live Alanis in the background. You can tell us all the significance in a moment. A couple of quick notes. One is you've already cracked open a cold Great Lakes beer,

and we all know Wise Blight. Wise Blight. Wise Blight. That's your name, right? It's been a while. You're at your best when you have some Great Lakes in your system. Not only that, but you gave me some crackers. Right, well, you asked for chips, and I didn't have chips,

and I said, is salt crackers okay? I was trying to interest Jarvis in a cracker-eating contest. If we're really starved for content before we get to the two-and-a-half-hour mark. I don't think we'll have that problem, actually. But the other thing I want to point out is I'm looking at you, and you have a little bit of like a five o'clock shadow going on,

and you just took them off, but you had the... How would you describe those sunglasses? Are they aviators? What are those? But you look like George Michael circa Faith. The Faith George Michael. They're Bob McCowan sunglasses that you can find at a shopper's drug mart near you.

Well, you know, if I find those crackers get in the way of your performance, I'm going to take them away from you. Well, look what happened. Six months ago, I don't think we talked about it on the podcast, I had to get cataract surgery, which is usually something befitting of a somewhat older person a few decades down the line. Right, we were mysterious.

I think we referred to you having a medical procedure, but we did not name this. Well, I got a little nervous about how it was going to go. But the upside of that is I don't have to wear prescription glasses anymore. Well, it turns out, I just found out yesterday, there are some complications in getting it accurate. I wanted to be free of any corrective eyewear in the future. I got to go in again and get a whole other type of laser surgery done.

A PRK thing. Oh, no. Old school laser surgery. It's all thing. Oh, no. Old school laser surgery. It's all for the best, Mike. It's to be able to see with clarity. How do I look? Can you see me? He's 10 feet away.

You can still see me. You're doing all right. But here's the thing. I went into 2020 thinking I would get 2020 vision. I'm not there yet. But also, look at all the social opportunities that would open up as soon as I, you know, didn't have to walk around with these glasses anymore. I've been wearing them ever since I appeared on Just Like Mom.

Oh, I do. I recently shared that footage. Fake news, I know. It wasn't me. But, you know, it got me reflecting here. Then, you know, go through most of the first six months of my life without having to lean on wearing glasses. I spent it in lockdown. And a lot of that time in some form of self-isolation, not necessarily being free of

human contact, but we were advised to stay home. And, you know, we went along, went along with the inconveniences associated with that. So I really haven't been able to break out and explore and experience the freedom of my new post-Glasses life. And the reason I thought we should get to this Alanis song, it's in her 25th anniversary re-release. Ironic. It was recorded in early March in London, England. And, you know, you get really wistful thinking about the last days before the lockdown. What did people still have the freedom to do,

not knowing we were just a few days away from not being able to do it anymore? I know 19,000 people were in the Scotiabank Arena. Like, I want to say that was the Wednesday, maybe? The Wednesday of that week? Like, the 11th of March or something? But it's nice to hear, Lantley. She sounds really good live. I didn't know this was recorded just in March 2020.

Hard to believe. It seems like it's a relic from a long-lost era. There's another video. I've watched it multiple times. There's another video. I've watched it multiple times. There's a significance. It's the last big American rock concert, I think, that happened before the lockdown. It was the Eagles performing in Houston, Texas,

and they're doing Take It to the Limit with Vince Gill taking over. That's in the history of the Eagles. I don't remember. Is this in the Eagles documentary? That was the legendary song because it resulted in a fist fight backstage between Randy Meisner and Glenn Frey of the Eagles.

It's now Vince Gill who does the singing there. The point is, there they are performing it with a whole symphony orchestra behind them, a whole arena full of people there in the first weekend of March 2020, and just watching the whole spectacle on YouTube. It brings you down this emotional road, right? Did we know that the world would change forever

just a few days after the end of this concert? Crazy. Now, I just checked out my notes here. I see we're going to need two and a half hours to, you know, do like a racism roundup, I think is the segment. If that's what it is, I would think that it speaks to some bigger issues about the state of the media industry, which is our recurring theme here on these 1236 episodes. And racism as a feature rather than a bug of the way that a lot of these systems work. And I want to hit them all. There's lots here. Lots to talk about. Let me first crack open my cold Great Lakes. I have an octopus wants to fight.

Good stuff. The future of the 1236 newsletter, which you can still sign up for at 1236.ca. The future is unwritten. Joe Strummer. Some change is happening at St saint joseph communications media division i alluded before that uh ken hunt who i've worked with there is now the president and publisher of most of the magazines in canada the people have heard of and we are going to figure out

what we can do with this 1236 brand after all this time. I know I've said that on like 30 previous podcast episodes, but, you know, they rode along with me to get the thing to the stage where the name was a little bit known. I got to live out my fantasy of doing the definitive version of a certain kind of thing. live out my fantasy of doing the definitive version of a certain kind of thing. And looking forward this summer, maybe, to see if we can figure out what's next and what to do with it. And if that means keeping the newsletter going as it's been,

morphing it into some other form or doing something else entirely. Because I was privileged to be able to stick to this routine during all those weeks of lockdown. Right. I got up in the morning, moved to the couch, and I put together my idea of this newsletter. The material was maybe a little thin compared to the peak of when all the action was happening. thin compared to the peak of when all the action was happening. But I still managed to put out the product that people were looking for, and the open rate stayed the same, even bumped up a little bit. We got the reputation sustained. What is next for the newsletter remains to be seen,

and I'm looking forward to where it can go, what I can do with this career that I've developed. And coming here for the monthly recap has been a big part of that. I still want to get into the podcasting business somehow. Might involve working with Toronto Mike if the right opportunity presents itself. I just put that out there as if there's anyone looking to do or somehow back the persistence of these two and a half hour recaps. At the end of the last episode, we kind of dragged on with the obituary segment where we recapped the deaths as a way of finding a finish line for our episodes. And it came up in the comments, maybe that should be a whole other podcast on its own. And you seemed open to the idea that we could do, like,

an obituary podcast as a separate product. In the meantime, though, we'll have at the end here the still Ridley Funeral Home? Absolutely. Ridley Funeral Home 1236 monthly recap of people who died. We left out Fred Willard last time, which was a big omission. Correcting it here. I think

I was looking to find the theme to the show where I first knew who Fred Willard was and that show was Real People. The show on NBC, which was like a forerunner of reality television. I remember really being into it as a child, but I knew we did lots of stuff before and since. Maybe we'll mention Fred, along with all the people who passed away since we last talked,

wrapping up the month of May. And here we are in June, halfway through 2020. Mike, can you believe we made it? Well, we're halfway there, and we're living on a prayer. Mark, what did you think of the Ben Rayner, the first ever Backyard episode of Toronto Mike? What did you think of Ben Rayner? That was some real, real talk. And I thought that Ben brought it. He keeps on mentioning the fact that he knows me

as some kind of meatloaf aficionado, which is the only thing that he knows about me. That's why he brings it up and keeps repeating it. It was over 20 years ago now. I got a free ticket for some reason to see this meatloaf concert. I ended up sitting next to Ben. I knew who he was. By that point, he'd been a Toronto star for a year or two.

I talked about the fact that even though I couldn't find anybody to go with me, here I was by myself at the Meatloaf concert. I couldn't resist because I was big into Bad Out of Hell when I was growing up, and I made a point of following Bad Out of Hell 2. I went to that concert, Maple Leaf Gardens, and the follow-up album, which didn't do much of anything. I thought, here's Meatloaf. I'll worship this guy as a child.

I can't miss this opportunity to sit in his presence. I did it one more time there at the end of 1999. Very Y2K experience. I think I got that chapter of my life over and done with. I never thought of my meatloaf love again until Ben Rayner comes on Toronto Mic'd. And it's the only thing that he remembers. I don't know him very well.

But, of course, I followed his career with the Toronto Star. And there we learned about the fact that as the Toronto Star business model changed, there wasn't going to be any room for him anymore. Now, I kind of regret he didn't take that offer. What was it? To be some kind of cultural columnist, like he would be the one roving reporter.

Yeah, he'd be good at that. He would keep his nose to the grindstone, pounding the pavement around town. It wasn't meant to be that. I think that's something they need in the process of canceling the entertainment section. It's going to have to be somebody else's job. I think we'll talk about the latest travails of Torstar once we get into our ramble here about the media. Well, let's get into it.

So, Ben Rayner, thumbs up. Now, let's segue over to Ben Mulrooney. Should I play this clip? Yeah, why? It sets things up, doesn't it? The whole thing? It's like a minute 53. Well, as much as you can handle. Mike, you've never been shy about fading

things out once we've crossed the line. But then again, you're also very generous. You want to make sure you're not stepping on anyone's words of wisdom. Remember, when Alan Cross was on yesterday, I played all, like, three and a half minutes of Brother Bill calling him out. How did that work out?

They're still friends, you think? Yeah, I did listen. But, like, what's your verdict? Here in Toronto Mike friendship court, do you think these guys are on the level? Well, let me just shit all over Zoom again here. And I'm still going to be doing Zoom episodes, and especially for a lot of TMDS clients.

So I can't completely crap on remote recordings. But from a host's perspective, a guy who's now done 676 episodes of Toronto Mike, Zoom is really boring me. And part of the problem is like when I played that clip, I had to kind of minimize my Zoom to go into where I play my stuff. And I'm playing the brother Bill and I'm getting ready to, you know, do things. So I actually did not see Alan as I played the clip. But if Alan were sitting where you are now, as I played the clip, I'd be staring right at him,

and I'd be able, so I don't, like, I wish I could see him in the room during those kind of moments. But, okay, so, I don't know. I hope things are good. It didn't, I don't think Brother Bill was being really, like, you know, I think it was a fair comment,

and I think Alan was very, handled it with grace. What was he saying in the end? Look, I had a real life. He was married to the morning newscaster on the radio station. He wanted to be with his wife at home, not hanging out in the back of some nightclub. And he worked a lot, right? He was doing a lot of gigs.

You know the real money was in club gigs and stuff after hours there. Okay, so let's move on to play this clip of Ben Mulroney on your show I've yet to see a minute of. I believe I was on that show. I think the only show, the only time I've ever... Yeah, you were on that. I'm confirming. You were, in fact, on that show. The only time I've ever seen Your Morning was when I watched myself on Anne-Marie Metawake interviewed me for your morning.

Yeah, that pronunciation needs work, but... Can you do it? What? Anne-Marie Metawake? It's not Metawake? Not even close. Sounds close. Okay, here's Ben. I want to take a moment to speak to you about the situation surrounding my wife, Jessica, and the next steps I will be taking with Bell Media.

I love my wife. However, it is not my place to speak for her. And today, together, we are committed to doing the work to both learn and understand more about anti-Black racism as well as learn and understand more about our blind spots. So what does this mean for me? Well, it means acknowledging here today that my privilege has benefited me greatly.

And while I have certainly worked hard to build my career, I know that systemic racism and injustice helps people like me and harms those who aren't like me, often in ways that are invisible to us. This needs to change. Last Saturday, I watched on CTV as my colleagues led a national conversation about how we can take action against systemic racism. And that conversation showed me more than ever we need more black voices, more indigenous voices, more people of color in the media, as well as every other profession.

And that is why I have decided to immediately step away from my role as anchor at E-Talk to create space for a new perspective and a new voice. It is my hope that that new anchor is black, indigenous, or a person of color, and they can use this important platform to inspire, to lead, and to make change. I guess here's a point when you can fade out and give up on the entire thing he said, what he wanted to say. Okay, Mark. Firstly, is that just spin?

Is that just corporate spin? He couldn't work with Laney after that. Laney, there's so many things here I need to talk to you about. I would like to commend Ben Mulroney for that amazing statement that he made. I've never heard a better played spin on a situation than what Ben Mulroney was able to deliver right there and then. And this is because people like me were standing by wondering what was going to happen.

What was Ben Mulroney going to say about the fact that his wife, Jessica Mulroney, lost her show with CTV and Bell Media, I Do Redo, canceled by Good Morning America on ABC. She had a deal with Netflix. She would show up on CityLine. She was doing this bridal thing with Hudson's Bay. Can Ben's career survive this at the same time that he remains married to this woman. Well, we heard it right there from the Mulrooney's mouth.

I love my wife. And therefore, he has to step aside from what I can tell is maybe one hour a day of work. Taping these intros that he does on the show, E-Talk. He's reading a teleprompter. Right. And when he confirmed the announcement,

it wasn't that he was giving up his Oscar red carpet duties, other related special correspondence. It was more like he does his morning show at CTV at 299 Queen Street West, then he hangs around for a little longer in the day, and he does this other stuff just to keep his presence on this show where we originally got to know Ben Mulroney,

along with Canadian Idol, of course, which was a huge juggernaut in its day. You have had most judges of Canadian Idol show up on Toronto Mike. I've had 75% of the judges, yes. And the fame that they attained from being on this show is something that you could never replicate in this day. They got in there right under the wire, 2003, 4, 5,

because the ratings started to wane after that point, right? That you could count on a critical mass of people to tune into a franchise like this one. If Canadian Idol started today, it would just be another show that you would barely hear anything about. Just like American Idol in its revival. I mean, you don't hear anything now with the news about what's going on with American Idol.

So they got the best of it. Timing is everything in show business. And, you know, here we've had Ben Mulroney after all these years. And I think, thanks in part to Twitter, and I also think due to needing to have a sense of humor about his wife's friend, Meghan Markle, and how this put him in proximity to Prince Harry, I do think Ben is quite self-aware of the situation that circulates around him, when the paparazzi start congregating around his house, waiting to take a shot, as they did this past winter, of him slipping and falling on the ice,

that he's got a good sense of humor about the situation that he's in. After all, the guy's passion is this sort of entertainment journalism. That is basically what he's doing there in the morning on CTV. Something was expected, and something was delivered. And in talking to people around the neighborhood, normies who don't follow every detail of the online vortex, as far as they could tell, Ben Mulroney stepped aside because he felt it was a good idea.

It was time to make way for new voices, black, indigenous, people of color. Hey, what could be bad? What could be wrong with saying that? It didn't really matter that he didn't seem to be giving up much at all. When it came to regenerating the story on Inside Edition, where they highlighted, what was it, Meghan Markle's best friend's husband quits talk show. The optics of the situation was, a guy went on Canadian television,

the son of a former prime minister, went on the air and sacrificed his livelihood for the better of people kind. Right. And we know that nothing of the sort was happening here. But he did what he had to do. And you can credit, I think, as word got out, that Jessica Mulrooney, the Mulrooney family, hired a crisis PR firm to handle the situation,

that this was perfectly played. The best thing that money can buy paid to a company like Navigator. I don't know for sure if it was them. They're the ones that you call when you're in trouble. They're the ones that Jean Gomeschi and the guy from Headley, Jacob Hogard, Navigator dropped them as clients. But the fact that they initially consulted with this company indicates that they're there to move in, to figure out what to do.

They crafted this message for Ben Mulroney. And whatever you think of the guy, it had the intended effect, don't you think? Like, this was what he was aiming for, to leave the impression that he was making a sacrifice based on the fact that his wife, suffering from what Shanann Govani, my gossip guru, called social media neurosis, that he was able to correct anything that was wrong with her image, thus paving the way for her to make a comeback. Okay. How does that play in?

Like, can you can you quickly summarize? I realize it really will be two and a half hours on these events that have happened in the last month, but what can you say about Lainey Louie and the essay she wrote on her Lainey gossip? The fact that we're all afraid of the Mulroonists. A number of theories here. Don't put it past her that she didn't

consult with Ben, her colleague, who I think had a lot to do with the fact that she's embedded at Bell Media and CTV. Lainey Gossip was itself a unique phenomenon. I once saw her give a speech in 2009. It was an advertising week conference. And I was incredibly impressed with how she spun this story that she had, Lainey Gossip. It was originally her sending out these emails,

these gossip rundowns that she would send to her friends, and that this became, through the decade of the 2000s, as celebrity blogging became more of a thing, that she turned it into a business, that she eventually leveraged it into a role with CTV. And she was right alongside there with Ben Mulroney. Now, it's a whole mind warp to try and figure out how is it that this woman, whose reputation is for running

a no-holds-barred gossip website, is at the same time going to the red carpet at the Golden Globe Awards and taking orders from publicists, wrangling the celebrities. It just doesn't compute. But as we see with Ben's statement, it's all a world of illusion anyhow.

But she was the one that said that under the circumstances that found Jessica Mulroney, I mean, where did this all begin? Jessica Mulroney said, I'm stepping back from my platform to listen and learn about anti-black racism at this time. I'm not going to post for the next week or whatever. You know, I'm going to be proactive here. I'm going to show some solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, this other influencer, Sasha Exeter, the

niece of Marcy Ian of CTV and the social. I don't think I knew that. Everything's so connected, Mark. Keep going. She launched into this rant about people have to be proactive. Don't listen and learn. Post your

statement, which became the trend of the day there, after the brutal death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I mean, how these situations interconnect. There's a lot of opportunism here in these stories that we'll review. Don't get me wrong. But it ends up being a case where Jessica Mulroney, upon hearing this indictment from Sasha Exeter, I think she was making a good point. If you have influence, if you're an influencer too, if you happen to be Caucasian, do not step

back and listen and learn. Make a statement. Be proactive about your support of the movement Jessica Mulroney took it very personally threatened this woman's livelihood that is what happened that is why her show got cancelled through Instagram private messages subsequently threatening to sue her for libel

even though Sasha Exeter's argument there on a video which was like 12 minutes long, was that I don't think this woman, Jessica Mulroney, is racist. But she should not take it personally either, and she should listen to what somebody like me is saying, at least consider my opinion. And when that ends up with a direct message saying,

I'm going to sue you for libel, well, that's when we got this cancellation like a 9-11 of Canadian content. Jessica Mulrooney has lost her show on CTV. This incident that you're referring to right now

is when I discovered there was a Jessica Mulrooney. I was completely ignorant. This was such a black hole for me. I had never seen Jessica Mulrooney in my entire life. But now I such a black hole for me. I had never seen Jessica Mulrooney in my entire life. But now I know she exists. Now you know she exists, right? Although I do remember taking note, a mental note, oh,

Ben Mulrooney and his kids are at the royal wedding. I distinctly remember and I remember, I think I knew at that point that it's because they were friends with the duchess or whatever. And they were in the wedding party. So their friendship was legit. This wasn't some sort of

trumped up claim that they had a connection with one another. That Jessica Mulroney, her maiden name Brownstein, her family Browns Shoes. Right. So she's connected twice. She's got the two

families behind her. shoes. Right. Kind of a pioneer. So she's connected twice. She's got the two she's got the two families behind her. It was like the first big Canadian company to sell Italian footwear. Right. Made a lot of money back in the day. Okay, so Mark, because so where are we at now, Ben?

Where are we at? Ben's not on E-Talk. Ben is not on E-Talk anymore. Nobody cares. Nobody's looking for him. No, I don't think many people care. They announced a new season on eTalk. Ben is not on eTalk anymore. Nobody cares. Nobody's looking for him. No, I don't think many people care. They announced a new season on CTV. There was no new host appointed to eTalk in Ben's stead, right? What he's saying is, like, there's, like, seven people connected to the show, whatever the number is, and, you know, the ones that fit this description,

people of color black indigenous whatever they happen to be like will elevate their voices because i'm getting out of the way and one of those people happens to be laney louis she's one of those and then and then she had to do a segment on the social uh via zoom or whatever it was video chat chat, right, that aired on CTV, where her very supportive co-hosts on this CTV talk show. Did you watch this one, Mike? Yes, I did. Remember, I have that.

I do know a bit about the social because Monica watched the social on her mat leaves, okay? And you also would have seen it in the 1236 newsletter. Okay, so they set up what looked like a very scripted situation. Which was all about forgiving Lainey for the fact that she played along with this game, the glory days of

Perez Hilton, and the superficial remember these Pink is the New Blog that were kind of cranking up the gossip column style. She criticized people for their outfits and stuff. She used the term ghetto tits to refer to Janet Jackson at the height of her infamy. Right, and there's a racial tinge to such terminology.

So I think the point was that, hey, those who live in glass houses maybe shouldn't be tossing around. I have changed. I have grown. I'm a different person now. Whatever. Like I said, I started this speech in 2009. It was terrific.

And at the time, no one was scrutinizing a language she was using on this website. Right. It got her to that point in time. And then subsequently, I mentioned Shanann Govani. He wrote a column decrying Lainey because she interviewed this woman who

was dressed in a Nazi uniform once, who was cheating with the husband of Sandra Bullock. And she was in Toronto doing this promotion for Ashley Madison. And it was promoted as a big exclusive. Lainey confronts this woman about her situation.

And obviously they were doing that for some level of attention, bringing this kind of celebrity tabloid journalism that Lainey specialized in to the CTV network. They had no problem platforming any of this 10 years ago. It's only people like Shanann, along with me, paying enough attention to this to say this is completely ridiculous. But whatever, listen. Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform once too.

We're all guilty out here. I heard our prime minister once wore blackface. I don't know if you caught wind of that one. Yeah, I think I might have heard of that. Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm so sick of the Ben Maroney thing. Okay, so we've canceled. I guess we've canceled.

Okay, you might be sick of it, but I think we just did. How long was that? 20, 30 minutes? That was the best segment we've ever done, Mike. I'm sorry. Too long, too long. I'm going in for another cracker. I need to know.

There are so many things. I've had a few chats with, like Hebsey and I talked about the Kayla Gray thing. And then we're going to touch on these. I just read a very interesting Twitter thread from somebody who worked in the global newsroom. And there's so many things here. But let's start with Kayla Gray.

So Sherry Ford, a white woman who's married to a black man, wrote a very personal essay about that experience. Her father was racist. And in this essay, Sherry Ford used the N-word, like wrote it out, the whole thing, not like N and then asterisks or something like that. So she used the N-word a couple of times, twice, and Kayla Gray, who's an FOTM, I just feel I need to disclose that. She's also at Quibi doing her daily sportscast for an audience of dozens?

That might be an exaggeration. No, no, not that many. I'm sure that will go down in history as, like, in the marketing case studies as the greatest disaster of all time possibly. She's getting paid and to a certain degree at this point in time. Do you think they're paying her more? Yeah, I think. You think they said

we're going to give you more money? I think Bell Media got a good chunk of money to go along with this. Not the other way around. And Kayla's getting some? Yeah, I would hope so. Okay, then for her sake I hope it goes a long time. But Kayla Grade refused, essentially did not promote or tweet about the Sherry Ford essay because she said she was triggered by a white woman using the N-word.

Kayla Gray, of course, is a black woman, in case you don't know Kayla. So this all went down, and this is just like some guy I never heard of. You'll explain it to us in a minute. But some guy kind of amplified all this by tagging all the bosses at Bell Media that Kayla Gray wasn't a team player because she wasn't sharing the Sherry Ford piece. Which if you just ask me, Mike, what's going on, I'd say, oh, well, if Kayla Gray is not comfortable sharing it because a white woman used the N-word, to me the story is gone. if Kayla Gray is not comfortable sharing it because a white woman used, used the N word like that,

to me, the story is gone. It's over because that's her complete right to be, uh, triggered by something and not want to share that because it offends her. Like, I don't even know how the story goes beyond that, but this did become quite the story.

Like there were a couple of different bell media PR releases about this and you can take it away, Mark. Do I have to? Well, it was one of two statements that TSN had to put out over about a week period of time. And it was all very complicated, right? Because it was based on her saying, what was the situation? That the wife of her colleague, guess was that the situation um yeah

duane ford is the black man married to sherry ford and duane definitely works for tsn covering the cfl he's a cfl vet i don't know if sherry ford works for tsn but she might well duane ford is entitled to feel like he feels and support his wife and Kayla Gray is entitled to spout off about that and TSN issued a statement and then they issued another statement

to say that we weren't supportive enough in the first statement towards her. And then you got this other character that no one's ever heard of. Right, this guy.

Except Hebsey knows him. That's the closest connection. Who is this guy who's creating a Canadian media scandal? He stirred the pot and created the shitstorm. I really think he should have just that we can... Who is this guy who's creating a Canadian media scandal? He stirred the pot and created the shitstorm.

I really think he should have just minded his own damn business. And who is he? Who is this guy I don't know from Adam? Who is he to be telling Kayla

that she should not be offended by Sherry? Well, let her say whatever she wants. And a lot of the subplot here is whether or not people tied to these corporations should have free reign to say whatever they like on social media platforms. And I think if you're going to let these people say anything at all, then you have to give them carte blanche.

You have to have a total tolerance policy. Otherwise, don't let them speak on social media. Like, that's the nature of Twitter, other forms of social media. I mean, the Jessica Mulroney thing was all Instagram. You either let people have free reign to say whatever they want, or you ban them and block them from using it entirely. Is that not a reasonable proposition?

I think that's reasonable, Mark. Because that's just the nature of what those platforms have become. And that includes Jessica Mulroney then. Like if you're letting her have free reign on social media, that if she wants to threaten a woman, then listen, you've got to deal with consequences in a larger context. But I don't know if they should hold it over her that you were out of bounds in a reaction that you had to something on Instagram. Like she just should have been forbidden from using it in the first place.

But she was never, here's where the problem is. The problem is that, you know, you have some people who are like permanent full-time employees of Rogers Communications or Bell Media or whatnot. But then you have all these people like Bruce Arthur, for example, right? Bruce is affiliated, I suppose, in some respect with TSN because we see him on TSN.

But he's not a TSN full-time employee. I know, I know. A lot of gray areas. I'm just saying none of this would have happened. We'd have nothing to talk about here if it wasn't for people not taking a hard line on these policies and figuring that, okay, you know, social media is the way that anybody knows that Jessica Mulroney is up to. She got a TV deal not just based on her Mulroney privilege, which is what it really was, not white privilege.

Right. Because she was active on social media. She kept the Jessica Mulroney brand alive. And you're prone to slip up at times. I'm not forgiving her for falling out of line and turning a fellow influencer's life upside down, making her worried about her livelihood. But you can't have it both ways is what I'm saying.

And I think maybe we'll see a harder line here once everybody gets back to work. As far as social media policies are concerned, we learned from the Dawn Cherry incident last November, just how much these media companies that are tied to telecom giants, where everything you say is connected to the stock price that's in people's retirement plans, this is all very precarious. And this is not an arena in which there's going to be a whole lot of free speech. But I guess they've taken the line that backing up a Kayla Gray in an argument like this is the correct position to take. And morally, it just might be.

take and morally it just might be but none of this would have happened if like you you know you sort of gave these people uh the lowdown that like you you know you can't fight with with randos who come at you this tim mcclure guy on social media there wouldn't have been this incident to begin with right and you mean you mentioned the two different Bell Media PR releases. Like the first wasn't strong enough in like support of Kayla. And the second one was more, was clearer. Yeah, whatever. She should stay underground. But you got to just kind of dissect it and wonder why is this happening to begin with?

Well, okay. Well, TSN had a rough month. They were also issuing press releases because Hal Johnson. Hal, I've invited Hal and Joanne on Toronto Mic'd. Oh, get them back here. You'll have a whole backyard workout session and everything. But now it'll look like I'm having them on because of this, but I've invited them on. I honestly don't think they care.

Look, Hal Johnson, I thought, my pal Vinay Menon at the Toronto Star, what a great call. He's my pal, too. He said that. He grew up watching his body break, sitting on the couch, eating his Doritos, drinking Mountain Dew, and never any inclination to take their advice. Right.

And you didn't even think about what race Hal Johnson was. Like, it never even entered his mind that there was any issue, anything holding this guy back. Right. That he was so cheerful. Who could hate Hal Johnson? No one. Who could call Hal Johnson on the phone and say, we've got another black guy here, so we're revoking the job offer we gave you this morning. Who could do that to him?

Well, because I am good friends with my co-host. Can I call him that? I guess he's actually the host. I'm the co-host. But the host of Hebsey on Sports, who shared at the same time that Hal Johnson was learning from TSN that, oh, we have a black guy. We don't need two black guys, right? Mark Hebzer had been giving,

was receiving similar feedback that they had a Jewish guy named Michael Landsberg, who, by the way, since you were last on Toronto Mic, has become quite the FOTM with two appearances. Michael Landsberg was, so you have your token black guy, your token Jew, and you don't need a Hal Johnson

or a Hebsey because those roles have been filled. So this period, it sounds like there was a terribly bigoted period. And we should, I feel like it's only fair to point out that Bell Media did not own TSN during this period. Which made it very easy for them to

apologize. But the average Joe can't, like the average Joe for them to apologize. But the average Joe can't, like the average Joe, if I may, shit on the average Joe for a moment, they don't, they're not sophisticated to know the difference. Like, we're the geeks that go, oh, it wasn't until this year

that Bell Media assumed ownership. Like, the average Joe doesn't know that. Oh, I know, and that's, look, they had to issue a statement saying, this was shameful. But the whole point of Hal Johns' video was these racist rejections that he suffered along the way was what inspired him to do the body break segments with his wife

that they eventually found a partnership there and participation. And that's why we were annoyed for all these years about those body break segments on TV. I watch, of course, we're a similar vintage as is Vinay. And we all grew up with these body break participation vignettes or whatnot. I actually did not even think of them as a married couple. I don't think there was any like, they weren't like kissing or hugging. I didn't even think of them as a married couple.

I just thought they were both. And yet, in more recent years, I think they became hipper. I talked to Hal on the phone. I wrote an article about him. That was back when I was working at Post Media. What was the headline of the story? Hal Johnson has shaved his mustache. Oh, no. That always upsets me.

That's the kind of icon that he became and he was amazing. I talked to him on the phone for, I don't know, seven minutes. I'm still mad. Not that I could have talked. I could have talked to him all day. It wasn't like the clock was ticking. But all I wanted to know, Hal, what was behind your decision to shave your mustache?

Well, it's probably from the Lorne Honigman handbook of out of fashion. Who else is it? A lot of them. But Howard Berger, for example. Only Jim Van Horn, I think, is holding on to the mustache. If you ever get Hal back here, you can talk about when I got the scoop and wrote that exclusive Canada.com story

about the time Hal Johnson shaved his mustache. The point of Hal Johnson's video was, you know, I made lemons out of lemonade. I went through these experiences. No, no, we make lemonade out of lemons. know, I made lemons out of lemonade. I went through these experiences. No, no, we make lemonade out of lemons. Sorry, I made... I'm only one beer in, Mike. Also, we should point out, when Ben Rainer was here,

it was 7 p.m. start time, which meant all the lawn mowing and construction in the neighborhood had stopped, and all we had was birds chirping, because I don't know if this will get picked up by the mic, but I can hear some backyard work nearby. It's better than them screaming at me to shut up.

Okay, he made lemonade out of lemons. That was the whole point of his video. And I think that's a message to a whole younger generation that spends all day agitating on Twitter about the state of the media. I created something new and I got a whole 30-year career out of it, and I've been able to develop a sense of humor about my legacy. They did a promo.

It was for Netflix, a Santa Clarita diet. Very funny, right? It was like a body break thing about that. It went viral. It helped to, I guess, renew their image. Like these people are real cheesy, but they know it, and everybody should have great Gen X memories about the influence and inspiration of Joanne McLeod and Hal Johnson of Body Break.

And it was, I think, a message that anyone could heed. I was subject to this racism, and it inspired me to make something all my own, and I lived happily ever after. And this contrasts with some other stories, if you even want to go there, about people that are just raging because they want a piece of the establishment media

and it's more important to them to break into the old mainstream than the idea of creating something new. Okay, well, we covered Hal Johnson and we covered the Kayla Gray, Sherry Ford situation. And speaking of, you know, Sherry Ford, a white woman, and she did say that her husband helped her write her piece and sort of told her to spell out the N-word in its entirety.

And so she made that decision, although I know retroactively she has censored it online. But this does tie in nicely to what's going on at the mother core at the CBC with another white woman, Wendy Mesley, who apparently used the N-word in a closed door staff meeting, if you will. Yeah, there's no apparently when she admitted to it. Right. Which was subsequently her decision they um and just like the details of so many things going on in the media what does a typical person know about the current state of wendy mesley like what is her job do you know what

wendy mesley was doing for the last two and a half years do you have any concept uh not really like she was hosting you know that she's no longer married to peter mansbridge yes you know why i think because uh i went to high school i was i was much younger so she i should say cynthia dale went to my high school so there's my connection to Peter Mansbridge. Wendy Mesley was taken off the national. And despite having been long divorced from Mansbridge, it was like a starter marriage for her. Subsequently, she's been married to the same guy for over 20 years. But they were a CBC power couple.

And however these things are worked out, even though their personal relationship did not sustain, it seemed like, you know, they remained sidekicks to some degree. You would see them on air together, one throwing to another in a cordial fashion. Right. one throwing to another in a cordial fashion. And in the 2010s, up until they shuffled things, changed things up at the National, when Mansbridge did his year-long farewell tour, so went Wendy Mesley. She was no longer Peter Mansbridge's backup on the National.

They were shifting to this four-anchor format, and I'd imagine they told her, you're not going to be one of these four. There's no room for you here anymore. It was Adrienne Arsenault who ascended in the ranks, and that was it for Wendy. They gave her a Sunday morning talk show. The show is or was, I assume it's not coming back,

it's called The Weekly. And I guess to put it in the most simplistic terms possible, this was going to be the wokeness talk show from CBC News. This was where they were going to examine the issues through that contemporary lens and intersection of media, technology, and politics, and acknowledge the fact that a whole new generation, a different lens on these experiences, was rising up and taking shape. Now, Mike, if you propose such a show, would you think that a white woman in her 60s, a four decade I said that this was going to be the show that invited people like Maxime Bernier and Jordan Peterson in the studio, put them on the hot seat, allege their alt-right beliefs?

Would you say that this establishment figure, this person who definitely worked you know, worked their way, earned their way to the top of the journalistic heap at the CBC, would be the best interrogator when it came to those kinds of topics? You would say no. Okay. I mean, do you have to give it any thought? Like, this would be the ideal job for somebody who projected a different kind of image, right? Somebody who was more of a media outsider for all those years,

who never got a say, who never got recognized. Like, that was the premise of the show, but I guess it was part of, like, the gotcha interviewing style. Let's get Wendy Mesley in there. And then someone like Maxim Bernier, of course, will show up. I'm being interviewed by one of the veteran correspondents of the CBC.

And then she would interrogate him with questions that were, I guess, worked on with the younger generation. that were, I guess, worked on with the younger generation. And this was the nature of the meetings in which Wendy Mesley was confirmed to have said the N-word, once while quoting the title of a book and more recently while quoting something said by a prospective guest. It was a producer on the show, a woman named Imani Walker, who complained about Wendy Mesley using the N-word, and she was perfectly entitled to do just that.

And the fact that Wendy had been cautioned about using it last fall made this a suspendable offense. Well, that's a key detail. She did it once once and somebody approached her and told her that this makes me uncomfortable. And it sounds like maybe she, her reaction to that wasn't, from what I hear, maybe that,

you know, the fact she did it again, that's sort of like, it's not a standalone instance. This is the second time. And this is after being told it made somebody feel uncomfortable. Do you think Wendy Masley deserves to lose her career over this?

That this is the end of the line for her four decades with the CBC? Oh, probably not, but again, I don't know anymore. I know that, I don't know where she would resurface. I know that you're right. If you're in the, I used to, I still do, but I always preach to my

kids that context is king and context is everything. So if you're going to drop an F-bomb, if you said that goal was fucking amazing, I was always fine with it. And if you said you're a fucking asshole, I was not. Context is king, but it sounds

like when it comes to some words, it's content. Context in this case, it sounds like when it comes to some words, it's content. Context in this case, by the way, included an immediate apology. Right. So it's just, you know, if she had been warned that somebody was made uncomfortable by her, even

in that context, using that word, I can tell you, you know, when that word comes up on this show, it's very effortless to say N-word, and everybody knows the word we're referring to. Should it be coming up in the rap music that white kids are listening to every day? Does that have a destructive effect upon society?

No, I mean, I can tell you my son, for example, who's 18 years old, listens to a lot of music where the N-word is very, very prominent. And he knows, because we've talked about this, even if he's got his headphones on and he's just walking down the street into his tune, that he can rap along. And those words he cannot say,

even though he's actually just repeating the lyrics of the song. So, you know, you have to be kind of self-aware of certain words that will be triggering to others. Bruce Daubegan. An FOTM? Are you willing to call him one? Daubegan, right? Not Daubegan.

Daubegan. I think it's Daubegan. Yes, let's talk about this real quick because I did amplify this on Twitter the other day. FOTM. Yeah, he's an FOTM. I mean, not, I mean, Looskies is an FOTM. There's a lot of FOTMs with opinion. Alex Pearson.

Right. FOTM doesn't mean you mirror my ethical and political beliefs. So go ahead with the Bruce talk. I want to talk about this. Well, it was noticed then there was like a CBC union, Guild, a private Facebook group or something. And Bruce Dobigin. But it wasn't. Like, I saw that tweet. It was never a private Facebook group or something and bruce dobigan but it wasn't like i saw that

tweet it was never a private facebook group really nothing it was a public blog it's his public public blog but it was people from the cbc okay but liking and commenting favorably bruce has a good point talking about the rats and the snitches who have toppled her friend, Wendy Mesley, who had a perfectly credible career, and they were out for blood. They were thirsty. They ended it all for her. And it was the fact that, you know, they were liking it. It kind of rippled. It was like a meta scandal within the scandal. Now, no less than Jesse Brown of Canada Land on at least one, maybe two episodes of his podcast.

He was defending Wendy Mesley from this perspective. When you have an editorial meeting, something that is taking place off the air, even if lately it's via Zoom or whatever, if it's more virtual, via Zoom or whatever, if it's more virtual. You are sketching out ideas, and you have to give people permission to screw up and maybe say the wrong thing. The broadcast, the thing that we're putting on the record, is not our behind-the-scenes discussion before the fact. That's what Jesse Brown said.

Oh, yeah, that's Jesse Brown. And listen, he'll sacrifice anyone, put their head on a stick, but there he was sticking up, maybe recognizing something within himself. You know, I've also said things which would be indictable if somebody reported on me. He's got his employees trying to form a union around him. This could happen to me. That's what could happen to you. Right, okay, but— And me. He's got his employees trying to form a union around him. This could happen to me. That's what could happen to you.

Right. Okay. But the key detail in my humble opinion is that Wendy quoted a name of a book with the N-word in it and said the N-word and was told by this person that was offended by her use of the N-word. Even in that context, apparently this person told her,

you know, it offended me when you use that word and she did it again anyway my this is not a you get the one it doesn't help that bruce dobigan has put himself on the side of people who it's dangerous to agree with yes but his website is called not the public broadcaster right it's He's an exiled CBC guy who's railing from Calgary about how they don't support Donald Trump enough. Right. Well, let's just make this clear.

I think, and I've talked to Pagan about this, because, you know, Pagan and Dobigan are longtime buds who had that show on the Fan 590. And neither of us quite understand this hard turn that Dobigan took at some point when he moved out west where he has like really offensive and hateful

positions on all things Donald Trump like and it's really disturbing to me so you know is he an FOTM like I had him on the show and it was a pleasant 90 minute discussion even though we disagreed on lots? Like, I had him on the show, and it was a pleasant 90-minute discussion, even though we disagreed on lots of things.

I would have him on again for a civil discussion on all of these matters. I would challenge him, of course, because I think he's got some ideologies, some beliefs here that are, in my opinion, offensive and hurtful and hateful. So, but, yeah, that's boosted over again. He's stinking out of position. Look, he wants to be known for what he thinks about things. Why would he otherwise be running his own blog? Does he have a job nowadays?

Like, is he employed in the media? When he came by, he had just written a book on salary cap. I think it's cap in hand. But, so, I don't know. book on salary cap. I think it's a cap in hand. But so I don't know. I don't know. But you know what? I think there are opportunities, especially in Calgary. If you want to be that, you know, out there and abrasive with your opinions about this stuff.

Like we know there is such a thing as a contrarian right wing media. We talk about it here all the time. And if Bruce needs to make a living, maybe he's staking out opportunities in that field. They're not going to have him back on the CBC, not after what he wrote. And so it becomes toxic for a CBC union Facebook group to be giving a thumbs up and liking something

that Bruce Dobigan said when it came to Wendy Mesley. I'm just saying that they might as well have been liking what Jesse Brown said, which is just like if you let your media employees talk on social media, you have to let these editorial meetings, at least to a reasonable extent, be a safe enough space that you can screw something up, that you can say the wrong word, and if you the perspective of the person who was offended by it. All of that can be true, and white people can know not to say the N-word. You know what I mean?

Well, and she should have known because she was disciplined about it. Right, this is my point. Okay, so what's with this? because she was disciplined. Right, this is my point. Okay, so what's with this? Look, the CBC announced they were accelerating their diversity targets as part of their agenda. They were going to take action under the climate of June 2020.

There were some awkward moments with the president of the CBC, Catherine Tate, about a statement she made, and she did not mention that this was a concern about anti-black racism. She kind of made it vague, I guess. She was trying to be inclusive. She was trying to lay it on the line that she agreed with the book White Fragility, that there were things that she was guilty of, that there were things that could be done, but it ends up that she worded it wrong and it was scrutinized this way. Back in my day, Mike. Yes, grandpa. My day is still going on as long as you let me come on here. I don't know that people that were outsiders that actually had something subversive that they wanted to say, that their dream and ambition and goal was to work at the CBC, right? The CBC was a mainstream

institution. And if I've got something to say that's an outsider attitude, I'm going to find another forum in which to say it. And it's not about toppling the statues at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, that I am going to make my name by doing it independently on my own platform. And that might have been an alternative weekly magazine. It might have been a zine that you published on your own. It might have been getting your own college radio show. You've talked about lots of stories here about people who made their way into media, not by getting an entry-level temporary CBC job.

They charted their own path by starting something on their own, and that is where maybe there's a bit of a generation gap that I don't understand, which is where is all this agitation coming from that you feel that you have to work your way into a mainstream corporation in order to get your ideas heard when there's very little precedent in the history of the media of that ever working. That you get the job and you have to go along, you have to take orders. You're part of an infrastructure of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people. It's rather

creatively stifling. I can't imagine. And it's a subplot in all these stories, which I think we've learned from the coronavirus. That if your media organization is larger than the number of people that you can currently legally have in your backyard,

your media outlet is too large. Is TMDS too large? I just need real talk here. But this is the spirit of everything. As I see your daughter looking through the window in the background, wondering who this lunatic is that you've allowed into the domain of your home. She has, actually. When I had the Ben Rayner, it was unlike this episode, Mark.

Ben Rayner's episode was live on Periscope. And there were certain times I watched it again afterwards, and I could see Morgan just shows up in the background. How old is Morgan now, four? See, Morgan is the kind of media colleague that I think I was born to have. Like, I can deal with Morgan, okay? It's the temperament of somebody who, you know, is a young adult who's looking to have their say. Who wants to be known, who wants to be recognized, who wants to be heard.

I understand it. I've been there. I would sell out anyone in the name of career advancement, okay? I would shit talk any sort of manager that I felt was standing in the

way of my opportunities to get recognition for what I wanted to do, okay? I'm laying it out here. I'm being honest. There's no concept of being polite or considering their feelings. I wanted to do. Okay. I'm laying it out here. I'm being honest. I, there was no, there, there's no concept of being polite or considering their feelings or their kids having food on the table.

I wanted recognition for what I wanted to do. And I would just find an angle, whatever it was. So I'm not saying these accusations of racism aren't genuine. it was. So I'm not saying these accusations of racism aren't genuine. I'm saying that they intersect with a sensibility that I understand when that part of the discussion wasn't even on the table, right? You want to topple the statues. You want to have your say. You want to be known. You want to be recognized. I mean, does anyone not relate to this? And this just happens to be the angle that seems to get the action and reaction that we need

at this time. We'll be right back. guitar solo Begin the day with a friendly voice A companion unobtrusive Blaze that song that's so elusive And the magic music Makes your morning moon Up on your way Hit the open road

There is magic at your fingers For the spirit never lingers Undermining contact in your heavy solitude Invisible airwaves crackle with life Speaking of FOTMs, David Marsden is a great FOTM. Talk to me, Cracker Monster. And I don't mean that in an offensive way. It's because Mark's eating crackers right now. Talk to me, cracker monster. And I don't mean that in an offensive way.

It's because Mark's eating crackers right now. I've got to be careful coming off that discussion there. I mean, tell us about David Marsden and the spirit of radio. Okay, time to crack open another Great Lakes beer. We've got a Red Leaf Lager. Moving on from the Lake Effect IPA. Okay, the Red Leaf Lager. Appropriate because tomorrow is Canada Day.

And joining me in this very backyard to kick out his 10 favorite Toronto jams is Michael Barkley. out his 10 favorite Toronto jams is Michael Barkley. So it's like Ben and Michael. I feel like I'm going to get all the music reviewers back here. Hey, I used to do that. I used to be a rock

critic. Well, that means I'm going three for three here. Three-peat. Well, ask those guys what they think about me, if anything at all. I'll definitely... You might not get the most flattering response. What does Michael Barclay think about you? I used to read him from this id magazine from Guelph.

And I think that was like the early days of hate reading when the whole point of dissecting what he was on about was to annoy me. Okay, before you say a word about Spirit of Radio and David Marsden, I just got to say we're outside. This is actually perfect weather, like just gorgeous day, clear skies, just a wonderful environment. And the headphones, I'm wearing headphones back here, which I rarely do. Usually the music's kind of like it's out loud and, you know, immersed here.

And I'm wearing the headphones and I'm hearing this great Rush jam in my headphones. Life is good. I got a cool GLB. I always loved, I always loved this, might be my favorite Rush song actually. I just like how it changes up and it's got that reggae

feel to it. You know what? I never loved it as much as I did when they premiered the animated music video of Spirit of Radio on the 40th anniversary reissue of Permanent Waves. And partly because not only was the music video a tribute to the great DJs who put Rush on the radio map, the great DJs who put Rush on the radio map. But, you know, as you saw at the beginning of the video, it was very much focused on Neil Peart. And, you know, there you had him like as a teenager, right? He's driving this, what is it?

Red Barchetta sports car that he's driving. Right, Red Barchetta, yeah. And, you know, learning how to drum while listening to the radio there in England as a teenager and the influence this had on the music of Rush. David Marsden is actually in this video rendered two different ways. You've got the hippie David Marsden from Chum FM in 1974, by all accounts. He was the first radio DJ to give airtime to Rush. And in that, a couple of contemporaries.

Right. One is a woman, Donna Halper, who was a DJ in Detroit, who's credited with giving Rush her first break in the USA. And then Bob Coburn, who we used to hear on Q107 in Toronto, syndicated talk show. Remember that one? You were a big Q107 guy. Remember it was Rockline where we do these interviews? Oh, of course, yes.

Monday nights on Q107. Absolutely. He was given credit. And Jim Ladd, who was once on the album with Roger Waters, Radio Chaos. And Jim Ladd also given credit for his role in the Rise of Rush. But nobody, because it's in there twice, is given more credit for inspiring

the success of Rush and the song itself, Spirit of Radio, than our friend David Marsden. And I cannot believe to this day that David Marsden knows who I am. The fact that I write something and send it out in an email newsletter every day

that David Marsden is reading still to this day completely blows my mind. And I think because when I first had an understanding of who he was, it was my late father who pointed out to me that David Marsden was a guy that he grew up listening to. Dave Mickey. They'd be about the same age, but my father was an adolescent in his mind. be about the same age, but my father was an adolescent in his mind, listening to Dave Mickey fast talking on CKEY radio in Toronto. I knew as a child that David Marsden was mentioned in the Marshall McLuhan book, Understanding Media.

By the way, my dad was quoted in a McLuhan book too. We talked about that here once. Yes, yes. And I knew that David Marsden, who was in charge at CFNY, you'd hear his voice on the air, especially doing his show on Saturday nights, which he still does to this day on nythespirit.com, this legendary figure, David Marsden, was still in our midst. And back then, he was around 40 years old. Now, he's 80. And that's how long that I have lived with the legend of David Marsden.

And I have to pinch myself that I even know the guy and even got a chance to work with him a little bit once. And we correspond from time to time. The chills that went up my spine when I saw David Marsden represent an animated form in this Rush video. But it's a little disorienting because they put, they see if I'm like call letters on a rendering of the 1974 Chum FM David Marsden. Oh.

So you look at that and you say, well, is that supposed to be Marsden? Right. Because in 1980, the new wave Marsden is also represented there, queuing up the record. And you might be the only guy who noticed that. Oh, no, no, no. I saw a whole debate on Facebook. People were trying to decode it. It was actually Ivor Hamilton.

Sure. One of his sidekicks who set them straight. Right, right. And it's also on the Broadcast Dialogue podcast. You know, that he gave permission for this to happen. Like, they cleared it. They fact-checked it. This was done with the record company's authority. It wasn't a surprise that he was in there.

But yeah, very emotional for everyone to see an animated David Marsden in there. I think affirming for me the power of the song, which I was more a limelight guy. And we'll talk in the depths. Not roll the bones?

No, well the producer of that will come up when we do the obituaries in a little bit. Just before we move on from Marsden, when I look back and I think, okay, David Marsden, as you know, you were there. Unlike Alan Cross, you were there. Marsden did a Toronto Public Library speaking appearance fairly recently.

Well, before everything got locked down. That's one of my memories of uh life in the past year before you know when we still had to go outside but when david marsden had to decide uh how he wanted that audio shared with the masses david marsden decided he wanted it to appear in the toronto mic stream and if you know, Dave Hodge said the same thing when he had that reporters live recording. He said he wanted it to be there. So the fact that people like Dave Hodge and David Marsden

want their content in the Toronto Mic stream as a way to reach the masses tickles me. Can I say tickles me pink? I can say that. And not only that, Marsden can give you lessons on how to be a media maverick. Because he's seen

so much of it. I mean, right up to when the Flow, Flow 935, after it first started and they weren't really going very far, they called in Marsden, a white man, to try and figure out how to save the station. I mean, that's how much of a legend he was.

And he went on to work for The Rock in Oshawa, did those weekend evening shows for so many years. When that run ended, the possible future prime minister of Canada, Aaron O'Toole, paid tribute to David Marsden in the House of Commons. And I played that for Marsden on my program, and he was openly weeping. I was weeping. And so a salute to David Marsden,

who has got at least a speck of the recognition that he deserves thanks to Rush in that spirit of radio video, and may he live long and prosper. And I do hope we get that octogenarian David Marsden interview. I know that the Corona virus threw things out of whack, but, but it was, it was on your mind,

right? To have Marsden back for an encore deep dive. Absolutely. And yeah, we'll at some point we'll make this happen here. Now, speaking of old radio vets, do you have a Bob McCowan update for everybody? You know, the listeners want to hear a Bob McCowan update.

Well, hopefully, I've got my computer right in front of me, and I can check the current view count of the YouTube videos. Oh, are you on my Wi-Fi? Are you on my Wi-Fi there? How is it that deep into the backyard? It's working as fast as ever, Mike.

This might be better than your basement. I think everything has been improved as a result of going outside. I'm with you. But I have to look at the forecast now. I don't ever, you know, that was one thing I never worried about when I had a recording. Like, oh, I better check the forecast. Now that's a big part, and it's an extra layer of anxiety I'm not particularly keen on.

Did you know that Bob McCowan was involved in the production of a new documentary about the band The Go-Go's? Is that a Fadoo production? Yeah, it is. I did not know that. I learned that by poking around, trying to figure out if anybody is watching his comeback here on YouTube. Did we mention, last time you were on, which was via Zoom, unfortunately,

we did mention that FOTM Brian Gerstein had appeared on an episode, right? Yeah, that's right. One of the early ones. Now you have, okay, you've got five listeners. What's he called? Is he still sticking with that name? Okay, you've got five listeners. What's he called? Is he still sticking with that name? Okay, you've got five. I believe I got a tweet from Bob McCowan that suggested it is now a podcast.

It used to be the only way to hear this program was via YouTube, but now he says apparently it's going to be also a podcast. Okay, so you were critical of the fact that in this new media age, when a guy with this much clout from being on the radio for all these years is now venturing into cyberspace, the last thing you want to see is your friend Brian Gerstein asking him a question. No slight against Brian, of course, but you said that's not a format

that you would have advised Bobcat to do. You are correct. If I had been consulted, if Bobcat had reached out to TMDS and Toronto Mike, and I wish he had, we would have had a coffee or something and chatted about this. And I would think Bob McAllen's strength is a long-form interview discussion

with somebody of interest. And I think he might be on his way. Because the last one he posted, I'm looking here right now, maybe he's taking this holiday week off, was an interview with John Shannon. It's not five minutes. I see nine minutes, 43 seconds. And it got 1,500 views.

That's what people would like to see. That was a boost. So our prediction that, okay, you've got five minutes, will quickly turn into, okay, you've got five viewers. More like 500 at its lower end. Right. And, you know, I mean, just if you want to do some quick comparisons, like when I live stream a Ben Rayner episode, which I did last week,

now that was a particularly interesting episode because Rayner had disappeared from the star and no one knew what was going on and he kind of clarified everything. But, I mean, last check, and I forget, but I think last check was something like 3 000 people watched that and that doesn't even include all the podcast listeners so just to you know and i'm just some guy in his basement who's now in his backyard where it's much much nicer than okay but what's all what's all this surveillance of bobcat really about is it ultimately to get him to sit down with

you to succumb and i've been the temptation that you're providing for a proper deep dive would i even do that now maybe i would do it if he said hey it's funnier to just joke about it over and i gotta say my appetite like my interest in talking to bob mckeown is near zero like it was it was high for years because he's a an obvious guess i'd want to have in my uh basement and then when he said no a couple of times and then that whole Twitter thing, I don't really like I don't have much of an interest in talking

to anybody who kind of doesn't want to talk to me. I don't care what comes out of it. I don't care as much about ratings. I wouldn't say, oh, I'll get big numbers for that one. No, it's about enjoying it and the authenticity of it all.

I don't want to talk to somebody who doesn't want to talk to me. I guess he's still hawking tragically hip wine. Yeah. And with FOTM Jake Gold back in the picture now, mining the tragically hip archives. I guess Michael Barclay will have more to say about that. Yeah, we'll talk about that. And I did talk about that with Alan Cross yesterday

because one of the listener questions for Alan was like, what would he do if he were Jake Gold taking over this? And then Alan talked about it. Because Michael Barclay wrote a fantastic unauthorized biography. And Alan is looking for Jake to get the boys to do an authorized biography. So I wonder if tragically hip wine is consistent with the brand values that their returning manager, Jake Gold, is looking to uphold. In the meantime, somehow Bobcat.

I guess he's got friends all over. Look, the Go-Go's, tragically hip, they're all part of Bobcat Nation. And if you're lucky or not, he'll realize that, okay, you've got five minutes does not stand a chance until he follows every great Toronto sports media figure by appearing on Toronto Mic'd. Correctamundo, Mark Weisblatt.

Absolutely. Now, because I'm looking at time, I'm going to ask you if we could maybe jump to something I'm interested in. What is going on with NOW Magazine? It looked for a moment when I read a press release that you tweeted about, it looked like maybe the great FOTM Norm Wilner might be in a little trouble. It looked like maybe Now was going the way of the Toronto Star

and chopping the arts coverage and that entertainment-type coverage out. Can you tell us, by the way, for the record, Norm still has a gig there, so don't panic yet, but what is the deal with Now Magazine? This new owner, Media Central, they are listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. And I can't really figure out what the purpose of this company happens to be, but one of their things that they think they can make money on is by buying every alternative weekly newspaper in North America,

saving it from extinction, just like Now Magazine and the Georgia Straight, and they can create a whole different kind of media empire. One of their press releases, all their press releases are horribly written. I mean, you can't decipher what they're talking about. You would think press releases coming from a media outlet where they have access to some talented writers and editors would get them to read it over before putting it on the wire.

But maybe this speaks to some of the tensions going on there right now. One of their press releases was, look, there's a pandemic going on. look, there's a pandemic going on, there are no live events. And expecting any money to come in to our new model where we're going to own 100 alternative weeklies, they actually only own two. The two that were left standing in Canada. And we're not going to look to arts coverage to pay our bills. We're going instead for e-sports as an area where you can do some journalism

that might generate some revenue. I think that's what they were trying to say. Like, there are no concerts, no plays, not much likely even, by the way, of movies right now in the cinemas. Going out is not really going to be a revenue stream. Let's pivot to things that involve just people sitting at home. We can make a media business out of this. We're going to merge our editorial operations with our advertising content and whatever it was, and arts will be de-emphasized,

leading to the assumption that it meant that all these people like Norm Wilner and other people who stuck it out, those warriors of the alternative media, people that did not say, I want to work at the CBC, people that would never look at global TV and say, this is where I'm going to be creative and get my voice heard. There was a, there was a meaning to the alternative weekly business. It attracted a certain kind of freak, a particular kind of weirdo that gravitated towards it.

Like you? Like Matt Galloway, one of the most establishment journalists in all of Canada. Wouldn't have happened for him without NOW and CHRY Radio. I mean, these were the stepping stones. And that if, you know, NOW Magazine, whatever's left of it, I mean, they were putting out 16-page newspapers. And I don't even know how many they were printing, if they were printing them at all.

Things got dark there for everyone. I was lucky to have any kind of job through that time of the spring of 2020, but they said, okay, you know, we're moving towards these new frontiers. I mean, they have these penny stock shareholders that want to hear something nice. And so after the press release came out, the people now are like, what is it? You're saying in this press release that I'm going to be out of a job, that I'm now redundant, that everything I've worked for here doesn't mean anything anymore. And that is kind of what the press release said. And then the head of the whole operation, a guy named Brian Kalish, came forward and said,

no, we're not going to be cutting out the arts coverage. It's a heart and the soul of the alternative weekly thing in the creative class. We're just augmenting it with this other coverage instead. And that's right. It's all a little bleak. I mean, I don't know. But if anyone goes through this and has a lot of confidence for what's ahead in the future, and, you know, I think everybody is pulling for this Now magazine,

symbolically speaking, to sustain itself. But you've also got co-founder of Now magazine, Michael Hollett, on Twitter, saying, I'm going to come up with a new model. I know he's been working on it

different ways for a while. He originally was going to be involved with his Beetroot magazine, although his association with it went south. I'm not sure what happened there. But he has other ideas he wants. You know, look, you got to look at it like we're setting the stage for an opportunity.

If there's a vaccine, if life as we know it comes back, the media that covers this stuff, there has never been a better opportunity for it to reset. But we also have to find business models that are going to be interested in supporting it all. Otherwise, nobody will get paid. Maybe it's just us, man. Like 1236 and Toronto Mike. Maybe there it is. We only have to pay two people.

You're reminding me I got to figure out this summer what it is I'm supposed to be doing. But I like being transparent about that. And there's a lot on the horizon. In most ways, I'm more hopeful than ever that I've got to this point, especially when you see all these Twitter arguments that have gone on about people that are justified in accusing these companies of racist behavior and then other people that are maybe being a little bit more opportunistic about seeing the chance to air their grievances in the workplace

and being taken seriously. I know I skipped. Admittedly, I skipped this in your notes because I try to keep this to close between half hours. This is a completely improvised discussion. We did reference global TV. We referenced the tweets and...

Yeah, nothing revolutionary. I'm sorry. I mean, I know people work hard to do a good job. I work for Post Media for two years. I know. You want to defend what it is? Nothing! Do you expect the global television network owned by Chorus Entertainment to revolutionize media content? I mean, Mike, do you honestly

believe that anything that comes out of there serves any more purpose than to be gossipy fodder for us to talk about here on the monthly recap. Like, I don't see it happening. I'm sorry, especially by the fact they're tied to this sinking stock price and losing hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm sorry. I know that this Jordan Banks that took over Rogers Sports and Media Thanks, Matt Layden.

wants to try and do a good job. They're paying you big bucks. Right. They hire you out of experience on Facebook and Instagram. What better media executive do you want on your side? But take a step back for a minute.

This city TV is not going to be what it once was, no matter how much heart people put into it. And don't get me started on Bell Media, which has very talented people in the ranks. But you heard that Ben Mulroney statement. Right. And all the surrounding chaos. Right.

I don't know that I would want to sit around in meeting after meeting after meeting, figuring out what they should do. Of course, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail are too white from management on down. But if you're actually going to go to work and spend, and it's going to take this long, an entire decade restructuring how these places work, then you've got to believe in their mission. You can't go in every day to the Globe and Mail being sulky and surly about what the Globe and Mail stands for. If you don't like Rex Murphy at the National Post, you have to come up with a theory of how the National Post can be better with representation

and also make money at it. And I see a lot of hope in all of this because it just means canceling everyone, starting all over again, and recognizing that the greatest Canadian media company operates like we are right now. With me sitting across from you, 10 feet apart, and ranting and raving online. There can't possibly be a chair girl update for June 2020. Is there? in her Instagram stories gradually displayed the apathy towards social distancing

and any other rules connected to the pandemic. Shocker. She was showing herself at parties where people were in proximity just like the good old days. We wouldn't worry about transferring droplets

from one person to another. It's a generational thing, right? And again, my teenagers have been very, very good, and they have been following the rules to the best of my knowledge, but I do understand from Trinity Bellwoods and beyond that it is, there is a, uh, certain age group that isn't as scared of COVID-19.

And yet I think, uh, Marcella spent some time in like some real social isolation that she actually wasn't locked down because she had one celebratory post on her feed, permanent Instagram saying, we outside. It's her way of announcing to the world that, you know, fuck your rules. There's a lot of people with that mentality. I'm chair girl.

I'm not interested in things like the law. And the latest update finds Marcella taking a trip to Vancouver. Really? Where there is not as much fear of COVID-19. Did she go into 14-day isolation upon her arrival?

Do you have to do that when you're traveling within Canada? I thought you might have to do that. Depends on the province, I think. You didn't see Micah based on what I was seeing on Instagram! I thought you might have to do that. It depends on the province, I think. But I think... You didn't see Micah based on what I was seeing on Instagram. Okay, I don't know. I got to plead a little ignorance there. Marcella, based on her geotags, was in Vancouver.

And she was having the kind of fun that is not as accessible in Toronto, like indoor dining. Oh. Not something you're allowed to do in Toronto just yet. We're not at that stage three. Now, how this ties into Vancouver, right, is a fact that Vancouver got to the point where even strip clubs were able to open and operate again. Brandy's Exotic Show Lounge in downtown Vancouver, it was figured out that that was the source of a little COVID-19 outbreak

that they've got, you know, contract tracing is up to some speed here. And they were able to figure out that the strip club is where it was happening. Do you care, Mark Weisblatt from 1236, the newsletter, do you care if Toronto is a hub city for NHL games or if the Blue Jays fly here from,

I think they're in Dunedin, Florida, if they fly here and sort of take up residence in the Dome, which happens to have a hotel attached to it. As a Torontonian in this pandemic, do you care? Well, I'm looking forward to the discussions that will ensue on Hebsey on sports, about the morals and the ethics of doing so. I would say there are economic benefits, right? I mean, Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta, put out a pitch that Edmonton is the kind of place where the NHL

would want to make their hub. And featured the scenic sights of what it seemed like. Everything but Edmonton. Like the Rocky Mountains. Like the whole of Alberta was up for grabs. If only the NHL decided to hang out here. Here's Lake Louise. Look what you could see many hours away from Emerson.

And so I understand people hearing the Blue Jays will set up shop at Rogers Center and come and go and say, please, like, what do you need this for? What do you need Florida Marlins hanging out here, jetting back and forth in and out of Toronto, based on where things are at in the pandemic? I guess I'm of the opinion that this is not an essential service at this time. It doesn't, it doesn't seem prudent. Like, like we have to trust all these different moving parts that they're all

going to behave accordingly. And I quite frankly, don't trust that. So why would you invite all these Floridians and people from a state that's been like, let's face it, absolutely. This might be the peak. They might be in their peak right now of COVID, new COVID cases. And yet I think there's a surrealism that people will enjoy if it turns out that the Scotiabank Arena, that like, you know, all the superstars of hockey are happening in there and no one, no one is allowed to watch any of this in person. You know, it will create like a level of excitement around that area, right?

Even if the players aren't allowed outside in the open. This all feels so different. I might take a pass. We'll see. I don't want to say that and then be glued to my TV for Game 5 of Leafs versus the Blue Jackets or something like that and be some complete hypocrite. So we'll see. I won't know until we're in it. What a time to be alive, man.

It's a little... We will report back in our July roundup. I cannot wait. I don't see any reason why we can't do what we did right now, which is 10 feet apart safely. I didn't shake your hand. I didn't give you a hug. Afterwards, when we take that photo in which you'll be distant back like Ben Rayner,

will you be wearing the sunglasses? Yes or no? I know he's eating it. Mark is eating crackers. I'm about to get to the memorial section. He's going to watch it. And also, there is one, there is a flaw in my plan. I don't have like a port-o-potty or anything like that out here.

We'll have to discuss that later. It's okay. I'll be hanging out at the lake near her house after we're done. You'll be taking a leak in the lake. Okay. So let's... What? Where were we?

What were you asking? I was busy eating crackers. Don't worry about it. I want to give some love to some wonderful, wonderful partners of Toronto Mic'd. If anyone's got any issues with their home network, maybe your computer, maybe you clicked that phishing link.

I know a lot of people are trying to get that free Walmart $100 gift card. Or maybe you click that link you shouldn't have. Or maybe your network just is sluggish. Not like mine where Mark is deep in my backyard. I can barely see him 10 feet away there. And he's got great Wi-Fi there. But if you have any issues at all, I really recommend a conversation with Barb Paluskiewicz.

Just have a chat with her and tell her what's going on. The phone number, the 905 number, because they're on that border of Oakville and Mississauga, and I haven't memorized this 905 number, and I'm outside and I don't have my notes. But go to cdntechnologies.com and call Barb. And if you have any questions about the GTA real estate market, if you're looking to buy and or sell in the next six months,

have a conversation with Austin Keitner of the Keitner Group. Austin's a great guy and you can text Toronto Mike to 59559. Get that hooked up. Mark, do I got to go downstairs and get you a Sticker You Toronto Mike sticker? I didn't put one on the table for you. He's still eating crackers, everybody. Go ahead, Mark. I have an old laptop

at home which I adorned with Toronto Mike stickers. Well, I'll get you one. I'll get you one. StickerYou.com. Fantastic partners. Yeah, but I've already got like 18 Toronto Mike stickers. Well, I'll get you one. I'll get you one. StickerU.com. Fantastic partners. Yeah, but I've already got like 18 Toronto Mike stickers. Then I won't get you one because I need to give it to Michael Barclay tomorrow.

Don't give it to the people who asked you to ride it over. You're still offering that service. Okay, well, let's, yes, let me do that now. So because my wrist has, well, it's been healed for a while. Where have you been? I'm now biking everywhere all over the city and I'm eager to drop off a Toronto Mike sticker in your mailbox

or I could meet you on the corner and put it down and run six feet away while you pick it up and we talk about it. So if you want a Toronto Mike sticker, courtesy of stickeru.com, please let me know. DM me on my Twitter. DMs are always open

or you could write Mike at torontomike.com. Do that up. Tomorrow, I will announce a returning sponsor. That's the only teaser you're getting today. Mark, you can try to guess if you like. But there is a seasonal sponsor that is coming a bit earlier. They had such a good experience last year. They're going to arrive a little bit earlier. So tomorrow being July, I'll be announcing an exciting new sponsor. So I'll just close this little section before I introduce the memorial section by saying, of course, Great Lakes Beer. Patio's not yet open, but that beer is fresh and it's tasty. And you can go to greatlakesbeer.com.

Make sure you load up. I see Wiseblots enjoying his beer. And Palma Pasta, they've been great sponsors for, I don't know, a good 18 months now. Wonderful sponsors of the program. I don't have a lasagna for Mark. I haven't received my delivery for guests because I've only just. And yet, based on Twitter, plenty of people have gotten into Palma Pasta

and they think of you while they are enjoying their lasagna. I think the two brands that I've seen most connected to, when people drink a cold Great Lakes beer, it's delicious and they think about me and I like that. But also, yeah, Palma Pasta. That's when people discover, hey, this authentic Italian food is here in the GTA. And also, I'm into the fact it's a family-run biz. It's not some conglomerate chain or something like that. This is the Petrucci family.

And I can pick up the phone right now and have a conversation with Anthony Petrucci, and it will always be pleasant. I know he tried to call me on my birthday the other day, and I couldn't take the call, but I owe you a call, Anthony. But thank you, Palmapasta. And because this is a 1236 episode of Toronto Mic, we're going to talk about those we've lost in June 2020. And this segment, the memorial segment of the 1236 episodes of Toronto Mic'd are brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. Ridley Funeral Home is at 3080 Lakeshore. That's at 14th Street.

And Brad Jones, by the way, that's New Toronto if you're keeping track of your neighbourhoods. That's actually New Toronto. And Brad Jones has been a tremendous FOTM and you can pay tribute without paying a fortune. To learn more, go to RidleyFuneralHome.com. We'll see you next time. We must meet with other names We must meet with other names You touched my heart so deep And you rescued me

Now free me Don't watch me cry Just see me go I'll take away the strongest feelings You will ever know. There will be no more isolation in our secret separation. You touch my heart so deeply, you rescue me. And I'm free. The Fix.

Secret separation. Rupert Hine died on June 4th at age 72. And he was best known as a record producer who also made music of his own. He had his own pseudo band called Think Man, kind of pseudonym for himself. But going through his discography, I think his greatest project was working with this band, The Fix, where he produced all their great albums. And it got me thinking that The

Fix were really like the Beatles of the 1980s. Which is, I know, like it's a controversial position to take. No, extremely controversial. Duran Duran is the Beatles of the 80s. Who? Duran Duran.

No, no, no. Absolutely not. Listen to the genius of this track, which was then on the back end of them having a string of hits. You know, it had a lot to do with MTV and that whole new British invasion that Duran Duran were a part of. But the way he produced these fixed records, even though it sounds a little dated, that they had this string of hits, you know, enough to this day to be on that 80s retro circuit, it reflected a sensibility where I think in his day in the 80s, he was as important a figure as George Martin was to the Beatles.

Where he got some vindication for this was on the Private Dancer album by Tina Turner. And that song, Better Be Good To Me, which had the guys from The Fix in the video along with Tina Turner. That was a validation they got to some degree, but of course you also had those other hits, One Thing Leads to Another and Saved by Zero and Red Skies at Night. And I think as far as the production work of Rupert Hine, that was probably his greatest legacy.

But look, he also had a lot to do with the history of Canadian content because he produced the band Saga. Their hits that they had in the early 80s. Turn me loose. Turn me loose. You are so wrong. Am I? Yeah, that's lover boy.

Okay, who am I thinking of? What? What do you want? Saga? Something loose. That was Wind Em Up. No, there was another one. On the loose. On the loose. Tonight, there was another one. On the loose.

On the loose. Tonight, I'm on the loose. That's the jam I'm thinking of. My apologies. No one can stop me now. Tonight, I'm on the loose. Oh, my God. But you know what?

I feel it's just shame. Can I edit this out? Whether he was working with other British people or Canadian ones, Howard Jones, who was Canadian enough know, Canadian enough that he has spent his teenage years here. And Eight Seconds, Kiss You When It's Dangerous. That was also part of his history.

And Rush, the Roll the Bones album, which you mentioned early on. Why does it happen? Because it happens. Roll the bones. Roll the room. Throw off your coat, pick up the post, and put a copy on it. Lie down on the bed, lay back your head, smoke a cigarette.

Second time I played this jam in a couple of weeks. And yet, what? Last time you played it, the guy behind the mic, he hadn't died yet. I think I killed him. Graham Williamson, the frontman for Paca Orchestra, who died here in the last days of June 2020. I loved this song. Listen to the radio. I remember when it was cranked up on 1050 Chum

and right there at the beginning of the much music era, Paca Orchestra rose up from the Queen Street West scene where they'd been plugging away by that point for like five years and got a deal

with this company called Solid Gold Records, which also had these other bands like Toronto, a band called Toronto, The Headpins, Chilliwack. Shout out to FOTM Blair, who never misses a chance to slag Chilliwack on Twitter. Rayno was a good jam, though. Very esoteric thing that Blair has going on. And listen, just that case of hard luck all the way down for Paca Orchestra.

Their record company went broke amidst an album, their debut album in 1984, that had three CanCon singles to be remembered forever. Listen to the radio, which was written by Tom Robinson and Peter Gabriel. They adapted this song, which was a little more listless in the way that Tom Robinson originally recorded it. You know, Tom Robinson, Glad to be Gay was his anthem, more in the punk era and war babies, like a core CFNY kind of guy. They covered one of his songs just impeccably timed.

The other one was Might as Well Be on Mars, Sunday morning with the New York Times, consummate song to hear in a Sunday morning Canadian content rotation at 6 a.m. when the stations fill their obligation. And a police protest song that we can now see 36 years later, ahead of its time, Cherry Beach Express about the Toronto police,

and that was a subject of some controversy. Which you may hear tomorrow on... What do you mean, may? This means you already got it queued up. A record label went broke, and Graham Williamson's health was failing, and they couldn't follow through on it. They tried again independently.

By that point, he went back to Scotland, Glasgow, left his legend behind. Not a lot of people would have thought about him until they found out that he died here in June 2020. Feeling strong Makes me want to come on to you In a very special way That no words on earth could ever say But could you ever love me again If I let you down Could you ever love me again?

If I let you down, disappointed you. Could you ever love me again? If I cease to do a little thing for you. I don't think I've ever heard this song before. Well, you're not listening to enough Zoomer radio, Mike. That's true. It's been played there every single day in the life of that station. It's CKOC and 1050 Chama, Canadian oldie from Gary and Dave. Could you ever love me again?

Playing that, Gary didn't die, and Dave is still with us, as far as I know. But I wanted to pay tribute to the gentleman connected to that song, a guy named Greg Simpson. And he was a figure in the background of the Canadian music industry for so many years. And one of his opportunities became being a road manager for Gary and Dave, their only national tour when they had this hit. Other consummate AM radio, mid-'70s can-con.

Then they ended up, Gary and Dave ended up being pilots, both of them. And then they both joined the church, like the ministry. They went into missionary work, something like that. That's the history of this song. Greg Simpson, though, went on to other things, which included behind the scenes in record retail and pioneering a London, Ontario radio station called FM96, which is to this day owned by Chorus Entertainment.

And if you were in London, Ontario in the late 70s, 80s into the 90s, station is still around. Greg Simpson was a guy who took the credit for bringing like some hip attitude to the airwaves of London, Ontario. Also worked with the Canadian Music Week, the conference that they do every year behind the scenes. You would always see him around there. And he was just like extremely online,

that he was all the time posting his almost forgotten tracks and active on Facebook, just a passion for the music industry and trying to keep things together. Well, we lost Greg Simpson at age 71 in June of 2020. He's a guy, you know, you might have never heard about him, but he will be missed. She's just 16 years old Leave her alone They said Separated by fools Who don't know what love is yet

But I want you to know If I could fly I'd pick you up I'd take you into the night And show you love Like you've never seen Ever seen Another song I don't think I've ever heard.

I love these episodes because you introduce me to things I would never normally hear. Mike, this song, Into the Night, by Benny Mardonis, who died at age 73 in Syracuse, New York, where he found a following for his music and made his home there in central New York State. Died on June 29th. Into the Night goes down in history as a one-hit wonder that made it to the top 20 of the U.S. Billboard charts twice. Not only in 1980, but it was resurrected again in 1989.

Now, if I knew about it in 1980, it was kind of a vague thing. You would hear it on AM radio stations, but 1989 is when I really started getting into the music charts, and it was an astounding period of time, and that was on the heels of When I'm With You by Sheriff, making a comeback back to number one. Yeah, but did CFTR play this? Well, probably in 1980.

Because in 89, I would have tuned in. Yeah, but maybe 1989. Look, and we have to do a disclaimer here because the song is very problematic. Right off the top, this is a guy, 33-year-old guy. Well, just like Ringo Starr, You're 16, which was a hit earlier in the 70s. In 1980, she's just 16 years old. Leave her alone. But like that great Hayden song, right? She's only 16. That's why she's only a dream. He just changed it to she's only 23.

I think Hayden was like 24 at the time. This guy was deep into his 30s. And even before that, he had an album called Thank God for Girls. So this guy Benny had it. Maybe he had something going on. It was 1989. Radio stations

started resurrecting old hits. This was when the music charts started bifurcating because of all the rap and heavy metal, and they didn't know what to do, and they started just bringing back old songs that they thought would play well on the airwaves. And this one rose up back into the top 20 again

for a second time. Hey, when did Save a Prayer by Duran Duran get its second run? Do you remember this? I think that was their Arena album, when they had their greatest hits performed live. I remember two waves of that song, for example. Yeah, the first

one might have been more like a Canadian thing, and that was like it breaking through more in the United States, and then that rippled up here. And I don't know if there was like a Canadian attention to the second wave of Into the Night by Benny Mardonis, but it wasn't that far away that he found his biggest following in Syracuse. And there was a documentary made a few years ago

about the fact that he was the biggest rock star in Syracuse, New York. And a rough ride for Benny at the end as he was struggling with Parkinson's disease. And there was a GoFundMe and attention. There wasn't a long-term care home. Coronavirus in the air. And, you know, for a guy, I mean, you have to have rooted for him. And just kind of, you know, tragic last days for an unsung hero of rock and roll. Pop, lock, and drop it. Pop, lock, and drop it. Pop, lock, and drop it.

Pop, lock, and drop it. Pop, lock, and drop it. Pop, lock, and drop it. Tonight is gonna be some change. There's no acting to dig in. So stop acting and get it clapping cause I'm knowing you feel me. Yeah, you cute,

but don't let that shit go to your head cause with this cutie don't you pimp and another one will. You prefer rock and the same thing. You cute, but don't let this shit go to your head Cause what this cutie don't you live in Another one where you prefer Rockin' the same thing Pop, lock, and drop it This shows up in a girl talk mix A girl talk mashup

But this is of course Huey A guy named Huey Who died in a shooting on June 25th, age 31, and had that little bit of success at a really young age. Pop, Lock, and Drop It was a hit back in 2006, 2007, made it all the way up to number six on the Billboard Hot 100.

He didn't seem to be able to sustain the success of this great rap party tune, and his life ended in this tragic way around St. Louis, in that area where he grew up, and he moved back, too. And look, I mean, really, the kind of song we're only playing

because he's dead. And a tragic story. And, I mean, seemed like George Floyd, who at one point was trying a rap career and got attention for that. But yeah, made it to that Girl Talk mashup album. And it's a key part of that song, which I can't remember the name. Maybe you have it there.

But the name of the Girl Talk song where this is heavily featured is excellent. Did you know that Girl Talk once trashed me on the stage? Do tell. Greg Gillis, right? I need to know this story because I worship a lot of his work. This was 2008, my little comeback with iWeekly. Like most of these media things, it had a quick fade out, but it was fun for a little while, and it was a cover story.

Is Girl Talk killing music? It was a torqued up rhetorical argument that Greg Gillis was in fact, I don't know what I was arguing. I have no recollection. He saved music. You know what it was? It was that they had found out that Girl Talk did an interview for Now

Magazine and it was a way to get like a contrarian cover for I so that I and Now would come out the same day with a cover of the guy. I miss these days, man. Me too, by the way, because that sounds amazing. These were the dying days of it, and we knew it at the time, but it was like, so Now would write a cover story about what a hero he was, and there would be a cover on I trashing the

guy's reputation. And people were aware and gave a shit. I think it was see this is i couldn't say this at the time because i was i was trying to bring it back i was trying to make my way into the tor star corporation okay i was trying to save the toronto star entertainment section and i thought that i could do it sideways through the side door well of this i like ed keen. Ed Keenan is now in fucking Washington. Okay, are you rubbing it in? It didn't work out for me, Mike. I'm sorry.

I had all my hopes and dreams set on making this kind of impact, but guess what? You're better where you are. Okay, but guess what, man? Twelve years later, it allows me to come in here and tell this story about the time that Greg Gillis of Girl Talk, I don't even know what he said, referenced the fact that I wrote this article in this page. I don't even know if anyone's picking it up.

But I guess if you're Girl Talk and you're rolling into town, a conquering hero of illegal mashups. Right. And someone shows you the cover of this free local newspaper is girl talk killing music that's a whole lot more exciting than the other alternative weekly that just ran like some puff piece interview with you you use that that's that's big for a greg gillis you know now you've got me all nostalgic how do we get those days coming back again mike the only way to do it is through podcasts. In my opinion. Podcasts and newsletters. You are understating as usual, you're understating the value of the 1236

brand. It should be multi-channel, multi-platform. You, you're something the Toronto Star can't do. You're what you bring to the scene. Why do you think I give you two and a half hours every single month? Because I like to look at your handsome face?

No. Content. It's been a while. I feel, Mike, like you're returning to a new state of arousal by the fact that I make all this effort to come over to your house. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back that up. Here, let's kick out this jam because I know you have a great story with it.

How will everybody's heard about the bird. Bird is a word. Oh, well, a bird, bird, bird, well,

a bird is a word. Oh, well, a bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,

bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,

bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,

bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,

bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,

bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,

bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D,D Oh, man. Surfing Bird The Trash Men John Waters might have stopped making movies a little while ago But I think the cinematic legacy he left behind Is something that we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives

And that includes Ricky Leak. Yeah, the 1972 movie Pink Flamingos where a guy named David E. Gluck used his sphincter to perform a version

on screen of Surf and Bird by the Trashmen and all these years later, people wondered, who was the man behind the singing anus

in this midnight movie that we've worshipped all of these years? Well, David E. Glock did not want people to know that it was him. You know, partly because he wanted to keep his job and retain a role

in polite society. But he died at age 70 in June 2020 and I guess upon his death John Waters felt the coast was clear to pay tribute to his friend, David E. Gluck. That was the sphincter that made cinematic history.

Wow. Wow. It can now be revealed. And how old was David E. Gluck? 70 years old, unfortunately. And I hope John Waters lives a long life to come because I think he's always got fascinating reflections on the culture, right? Even though his days

of making these movies is behind him. We got to see John Waters go from being the ultimate underground filmmaker, like you mentioned, Ricky Lake. I mean, Hairspray and Crybaby and the stage musical versions.

I went past him. I was walking on, I guess, Bloor, and I was going by Avenue Road there, and I walked right by John Water. TIFF was happening, but it was a big deal to me. And please tell me he still has the mustache, right? Because he had that great pencil-thin mustache. Yeah, that would be his trademark.

I mean, you wouldn't recognize a guy without it. That would be more scandalous than Hal Johnson, a body break-thin mustache. Yeah, that would be his trademark. I mean, you wouldn't recognize a guy without it. That would be more scandalous than Hal Johnson of Body Break shaving his mustache. And of John Waters, who hasn't passed away. I don't want to confuse people. We're in the memorial section here. But he also has one of the great all-time Simpsons guest appearances.

So, yeah, hopefully we don't have to talk about him anytime soon, if you know what I mean. Can't get to sleep It doesn't matter what I do Walk in the streets With every step I think of you You took a look at me Started the mystery Now you're on my mind.

I think you've been there all the time. I'm getting a premonition. The writing's on the wall. Intuition. I can hear that call. I'm getting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Oh, Bonnie Pointer, who was in the Pointer Sisters, right?

Who we talked about by mistake Because I thought that was Grace Slick on the Sesame Street counting song Which was on a different counting The opposite Like you thought it was the Pointer Sisters, but it was Grace Slick And it was only a matter of time until we covered a Pointer Sister, sadly, in the memorial section. Because on June 8th, at age 69, Bonnie Pointer died. Originally a member of the sister group as a quartet.

But everybody remembers it as a trio because Bonnie Pointer went solo. This song, Premonition, okay, I remember having it on a cassette of songs I taped off the radio. CKFM, the sound of our Toronto, at one point in the mid-80s was the hippest place in Toronto to hear black music.

And it took a few years for me to put it together about why this was happening. Why was this most establishment kind of Toronto radio station going down this road of playing so much dance music and R&B that you wouldn't hear anywhere else? Well, I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that an announcer on the station, Phil McKellar, said something racist on the air a few years before. Legendary story. Have we gone over that before?

No, but I talked to Maureen Holloway, I think I talked to. Did it come up with their orchestra? They would have Saturday night. They would play these R&B songs, and I would get my cassette recorder going and listen to it all week, including this one, Premonition by Bonnie Pointer, even though it was a single but really wasn't a hit at all. The bigger hit she had was Heaven Must Have Sent You, but Bonnie Pointer also did a song

on the soundtrack of a movie that starred a young Stu Stone, and that was Heavenly Bodies. And I'm coming full circle for a Pandemic Fridays reference here. The Beast in Me from the soundtrack of the Canadian flash dance Knock Off, co-written by Ron Bass, a movie critic who moved to writing for the big screen. Cynthia Dale, Peter Mansbridge's wife. It was supposed to be her breakout role. Michael Power graduates.

Reiner Schwartz was in the movie for a little bit. Speaking of CKFM. And Stu Stone. Wow. I mean, what? This is like 36 years ago. 1984.

You never know where Stu Stone is going to... You just never know. Like, you know, you can't mention a celebrity death on the Pandemic Friday episodes without him saying he has some connection to that person. Be it Jerry Stiller or Little Richard.

He's always connected. And also in Heavenly Bodies, Murray Westgate and Mickey Moore, two other Canadian TV legends. And Stuart Stone playing what? Somebody's twerpy little son? I think he had the Jonathan Lipnicki role before Jonathan Lipnicki was born. Was it like, cover your eyes, you're looking at some erotic aerobics going on here? You know, you're like the little boy who's creeping in for a peek. You looked alright before

Box on the run You scream and everybody comes A-runnin', takin' the run And I, you jump away I'm the run Box on the Run The sweet Fox on the Run paid tribute here to Andy Scott, the guitarist for this pioneering British glam band,

and stands out because he was like the last surviving member that was still sticking around with whatever amounted to the original iteration of the Sweet Fox on the Run being just one of the songs that everybody remembers from the legacy that they left behind. What do you know about the Sweet? Sort of what I know about The Suite? Sort of what I know about a band like Slade, for example.

The Suite's a British band, right? Yeah, yeah. Like Slade, for example. I know Slade has a bunch of UK hits, and I even know a couple of them because one of them gets played at Christmas a lot. But I don't really know much about these. They feel like they're UK phenomenons. I think The suite had more solid

songs, and those were like Ballroom Blitz and Love is like Oxygen. Well, you know, guys like me want to hear the Tia Carrera version of Ballroom Blitz. But it was Slade that had

more of the 80s comeback, Run, Run Away. Yeah, by Great Big Sea covered. They mastered that disco metal sound. It was partly because of the cover version, Come on, Feel the Noise by Choir Riot. Right. And that was a comeback for Slade. But, you know, in all the years that went by, even though their hit-making faded,

But, you know, in all the years that went by, even though their hit-making faded, part of the ongoing history of British music was the fact that with the producers, Nicky Chin and Mike Chapman, yeah, those were the guys who wrote the songs that managed to keep paying the bills, I'm sure a lot of royalties, for Andy Scott of the suite until we lost him at age 70 in June of 2020. Sorry, I got the name wrong. You want to edit that? No, but tell us the real name. The guy was Steve Priest. Steve Priest. So who did you say it was? Andy Scott. Okay, hopefully Andy Scott's okay.

Is he okay? But Steve Priest passed away from the suite. Look, it shows how much I know about these people. Well, because you're not British. I feel like this is British guys would know this. He was the bassistist and then he became the lead vocalist. Oh, quick, before we talk

about this mother and child jam, I watched the High Fidelity series starring Zoe Kravitz. I just finished it. And that was because the book, of course, very British. Nick Hornby.

And I enjoyed that book. That's back when I used to read lots of books. I don't do that as much as I used to. But they totally reimagined it. And it's good. Zoe Kravitz, High Fidelity. Okay, so let me clarify what I got wrong.

There were two versions of the suite that were happening at once. One was Andy Scott's suite, and the other one was Steve Priest's suite. You see, so only one of the leaders of the touring versions of the suite survived. I credited the wrong one, and it was Steve Priest, who we lost at age 72 in June 2020. Andy Scott lives on. Good thing you caught it before you went home and started hating yourself for having to wait a month

before you could correct it. But let's listen to some Paul Simon. Over and over again But I would not give you false hope now On this strange and mournful day When the mother and child reunion is only a motion away Oh, the mother and child reunion is only a motion away. On a mother and child reunion. It's only a moment away.

Okay, who did we lose from this jam? I can tell you for sure. I'm not going to get this one wrong. It was a guy named Hux Brown, a real name Linford. Hux Brown was a session guitarist. Signature song right there, Mother and Child Reunion by Paul Simon. He died in June at age 75. And he went on to be involved with Toots and the Maytals,

another legendary reggae group who may not end up being remembered for anything else, but that they appeared on the episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Donald Trump. And that Donald Trump, when he hosted SNL, the head of The Apprentice, introduced Toots and the Maytals. And I think because of the privilege that Paul Simon has with Lorne Michaels, with SNL,

that's the reason why Toots and the Maytals, who were not having any particular comeback or anything, how they got booked on the show, I would figure the connection was Hux Brown still playing with the band, that he had those links with Paul Simon. But look, when we're all dead and gone, people will look back at this Trump episode of SNL and they'll see Hux there playing with Toots, Hibbert,

and how that's part of the legacy he left behind. And the other legacy, Toots and the Maytals are the first band to use the word reggae, right? This is where reggae comes from. I feel like that's a fun fact. If you say so. Alright, we just heard some Paul Simon, right? We got more Paul Simon? When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school It's a wonder I can think at all

And my lack of education hasn't hurt me none. I can read the writing on the wall. Code of Chrome. Give us those nice bright colors. Give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's sunday day oh yeah i got an icon camera i love to take a photograph you can never have enough paul simon well imagine you're paul simon and you find out in the space of a month that two of the guitarists who define two of your hits have died. And this one was Pete Carr, who died at age 70 on June 27th. And he was the guitarist there on Kodachrome.

Not a name that I knew until I found out that he died. And then suddenly I realized I knew a whole bunch of songs he was involved with, like the one from Sail Cat, Motorcycle Mama, a song later covered by the Sugar Cubes, a CFNY hit somewhere around 1990. And you would hear them on Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night album

and the Guilty album by Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb. A Stustone favorite. An all-time rock and roll by Bob Seger. And therefore, like a lot of threads with music that we all know, one of those people in the background was guitarist Pete Carr. Are we done with Paul Simon? No.

How old, by the way, was Pete again? 70. 70. We're not quite done with Paul Simon yet. And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson Jesus loves you more than you will know. Whoa, whoa, whoa. God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson. Heaven holds a place for those who pray.

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. This is not Evan Dando and the Levinheads. This is definitely Simon and Garfunkel. Simon and Garfunkel and Toronto Mike. I still, I love this song. I've always, I used to put in high school, I'd stick this song on mixes.

I just love it so much. One of the more entertaining obituaries in June 2020 was that of Charles Webb, who wrote a novel called The Graduate, died at age 81 on June 16th. Are You Trying to Seduce Me, Mrs. Robinson, was his line right out of the book. And it was his novel that was adapted by Buck Henry.

We also had somewhere in our history of 1236 death recaps not too long ago. Uh, but the 1967 movie version of The Graduate, a touchstone for a generation. Here's the thing, though. Uh, Charles Webb did everything possible to live a life that kept him away from this fame. And that he stayed out of the public eye and he just went to work as a regular guy, that he stayed reclusive,

that he wasn't into the idea of capitalizing on the fame that he had, that he lived in a trailer park or a motel with his wife. They ended up running a nudist camp in New Jersey. His wife's name was Eve. She's in the obituaries because she decided to change her name to Fred. It didn't seem like her gender changed, but she shaved her head, and she was protesting marriage laws, and they ended up moving to England. And the guy, like, never had any money, even though he wrote this legendary book.

It sounded like he did everything possible to avoid capitalizing on the fame of The Graduate, the most famous thing that he left behind. He went into the 2000s, like, he wrote a sequel. into the 2000s like he wrote a sequel. It was out in 2007. It was with the characters from The Graduate as grown-ups, parents

in suburbia, educating their kids. But nothing like the movie. Nothing like what was left behind for the baby boomer generation. Charles Webb, without whom there would be no The Graduate. Plastics.

So we are behind the counter here at Tiny Tom Donuts with the owner himself, Tom Brazier. And Tom, you've been basically born into this business, haven't you? Your father started it when? That's right. He started back in 1960. Wow. And I joined, I was 13 back then. I joined when I turned 15.

And I've been doing it ever since. So you've been schooled in donuts. Schooled in donuts. And those donuts are these little guys and you've built basically an entire empire on these guys. Yes we have. And outside of these, how many products do you offer? None. Just these?

Four flavors of one donut. Four flavors and after the donut comes out you just dip it in whatever? That's right. Chocolate, icing sugar, cinnamon, or apple cinnamon. Whatever the customer wants. So I've got to ask you, outside of offering one product, price-wise, would you say you're the cheapest game in town? I don't think so. No? No.

Maybe even a little bit on the high side? Yeah, but people are willing to pay the price. Absolutely. And what is this guy on YouTube trying to do to Tiny Tom by implying that that that he's ripping people off with his little bag of doughnuts? And it was Thomas Brazier, who was Tiny Tom of Tiny Tom Donuts, who died in June 2020 at age 73. who died in June 2020 at age 73. Even Ed Conroy of Retro Ontario did one of his only appearances during the pandemic with Jerry Agar talking about Tiny Tom. He's been quiet, right?

I follow him on 121 different channels. I feel like maybe he's hard at work on something. I think he is one of the numerous parents in the world at this time who has found themselves in a position of running a daycare center in their home against their will. And that's why Ed Conroy has been a bit low-key lately. But, yeah, I hope he resurrects the newsletter

and we hear more from Ed in the future. But it was through Ed talking on News Talk 1010 that I got some insight into the life of Tom Brazier and the fact that he made tiny Tom donuts for 60 out of his 73 years. That his father and uncle ran a pastry shop and and they had a stand at the C&E, and he saw this machine that was making these little donuts, and he loved them so much. He said to his father, we should get into this line of work.

We should get hold of these mini donuts. And they ended up buying the machine, and as described there by age 15, it was full steam ahead for the legacy of Tiny Tom Donuts as part of the Canadian National Exhibition, which sounded like where he did much of his business for all those years. Like, just working those 18 days of the year sustained Tiny Tom for a good long time. And then he expanded to Canada's Wonderland and some kind of shop of his own.

But that one dozen per bag, one flavor per dozen, was the credo of Tiny Tom, making it extra sad that there's not going to be a CNE this year in 2020 where we can pay tribute to Tiny Tom by devouring a bag of his donuts. Growing up You don't see the writing on the wall

Passing by Moving straight ahead You knew it all But maybe sometime If you feel the pace You'll find you're all alone Everything has changed Play the game You know you can't quit until it's won

Soldier on Only you can do what must be done You know it's the way you're alive like me You're just a prisoner And you're trying to break free I can see a new horizon Underneath the blazing sky I'll be where the eagle's flying Higher and higher Will I be a man in motion St. Elmo's Fire.

Joel Schumacher was able to write his own ticket in Hollywood after he came up with the idea and directed the movie called St. Elmo's Fire. Because, did you ever see St. Elmo's Fire? I mean, it's a movie about nothing. I never saw St. Elmo's Fire. The whole idea was just to assemble all this brat pack, you know, people that had some affiliation with, at the time, you know, other young directors. There we get into the era of Rob Lowe and Demi Moore and Judd Nelson,

Ally Sheedy, right, who were also in The Breakfast Club, Emilio Estevez, also part of that high school detention. And, you know, here was like a coming-of-age movie that was his idea. And after movies like DC Cab and Car Wash and The Wiz, it was St. Elmo's Fire and that theme song by John Parr, David Foster's tribute song to Rick Hansen, that that was where it really took off for Jules Schumacher. Went on to movies like The Lost Boys, Flatliners.

That was the one where Kiefer Sutherland and Julia Roberts were supposed to get married. Yeah, it was pretty good. All around that. Dying Young with Michael Douglas as a kind of hothead. Maybe an influence on the MAGA generation in that movie. And then we get into the Batman years. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Not good Batman movies.

His Batman movies, I felt, they were too campy for my liking. I like a darker Batman movie. And yet, Joel Schumacher, I think he's synonymous with a certain kind of blockbuster, whether these movies were successful or not, whether young Mike thought there was anything worthy in these brooding Batman movies. The Lost Boys, with the two Corys.

Corey Haim, Corey Feldman to this day. Still the subject of much speculation. And Kiefer Sutherland in there too. And I mean, some of his reputation had something to do with the fact that it wasn't too long ago. Last year, Joel Schumacher said he has had intimate relations with somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 partners. I don't know much about that, but who's the Irish actor? Colin Farrell. He did a couple of movies of Colin Farrell that were actually really good.

They weren't those kind of big blockbuster movies. Was he in the 10,000 to 20,000 partners? I have no comment that Joel Schumacher was estimating about? He did say that quite a few of them were famous. I have no... Mark, I can tell you this for sure. I have no

idea. Now he's dead and we'll never get all the stories out of him that he's left behind. Joel Schumacher, dead at 80 on June 22nd. One of the most esteemed and indeed one of the most beloved people in North America today, particularly where Montrealers are concerned, is Mr. Jackie Robinson,

and it is indeed a privilege for Youth Special to have Mr. Robinson with us today as a special guest. Mr. Robinson, welcome to the program. Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Well, we in Montreal remember you, of course, as you first broke into organized baseball as a second baseman with the Montreal Royals, and even I remember seeing you play that position. What are your memories of Montreal? Well, I remember Montreal as a city that enabled me to go into the major leagues. Had it not been for the fact that we broke in in Montreal, I doubt seriously if we could have made the grade so rapidly. The fans there were just fantastic,

and my wife and I have nothing but the greatest of memory, especially as we would go to the ballpark out the Gatsby Way, out where the French Canadians were speaking. They spoke nothing but French. And every morning going to the ballpark, it was like, I don't know, somebody coming down making racket because heads would pop out of each of the adjoining houses as we walked past. And the people were so friendly and nice that we shall never forget them.

Well, I'm sure they won't forget you either. Jackie Robinson didn't live long enough to be a guest on Toronto Mic'd. So instead, we go back to a clip of him being interviewed on the CBC by Stuart Smith, who made it to age 82, died on June 10th. And Stuart Smith, born in Montreal, was a medical student at the time that he started hosting a show on the CBC called Youth Special. A co-host on the show, Patty Springgate, who he later married. And he did these interviews with people like Jackie Robinson. Isn't that amazing that that clip is still around, theBC archives oh fantastic yeah by the way I mean the the new hot number one

bestseller book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo um it misinterprets the story of Jackie Robinson which I think among other things that book is being criticized for as a total outrage. So that's where Jackie Robinson is also on people's minds, because he's mischaracterized the work that he took to break through into Major League Baseball to fit this agenda of this book. But I'm digressing, because we're talking about Stuart Smith. And Stuart Smith, okay, started on TV while he was in medical school, Stuart Smith. And Stuart Smith, okay, started on TV while he was in medical school,

went on to become a psychiatrist and did a show on CHDH in Hamilton called This Is Psychiatry. And along the way, he thought he would get into politics. And being in Montreal, you know, he was already run for the Liberal Party as the MP for Mount Royal when he was tapped on the shoulder and asked to step aside so that he could make way for guess who among the Liberals in the late 60s looking for a seat in the House of Commons? Who else but Pierre Trudeau. And so as a result, the Liberal Party owed Stuart Smith a lot. He ended up being the leader of the Ontario Liberals. Stuart Smith a lot.

He ended up being the leader of the Ontario Liberals, and like everyone of this vintage, like Bill Davis, guess who wrote a glowing tribute to the legend of Stuart Smith? FOTM Steve Pakin. And mentioned, called him the most important politician you've never heard of. That

here was this guy who was a Jewish doctor who took the helm of the Ontario Liberals and was credited for transforming the party at a time when they didn't stand a chance. Like Bill Davis was at that point premier for life as long as he wanted to be. But there was Stuart Smith working in the background and I guess playing that role in the Liberals, making way for David Peterson and the era where the Liberals eventually took power in Ontario. All his life, he was a fighter.

But in the end, Harold Ballard wanted to die in peace. For months, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team had been suffering from kidney, heart, and respiratory problems. Yesterday, he told doctors at a Toronto hospital to unplug him from a respirator, a life support apparatus used to aid his breathing. They did. And this afternoon, after getting a haircut and joking with doctors, Ballard died. He was 86 years old.

Here's Dan Bjarne. Okay, a plot twist. I bet you you never thought out of the obituaries for this month that I could say that the person that I knew the best was Yolanda Ballard. I'm floored. I'm floored. How did you know Yolanda? I'm floored. I'm floored. How did you know Yolanda?

It mostly consisted of Yolanda shrieking at me to get the hell out of her way so that she could sit in her preferred seat at the patio of Starbucks in Forest Hill Village. Is this your old stomping grounds? Is this the Starbucks you used to frequent? I'm still in the midst. And it was mentioned, by the way, in her death notice that she used to hang out there. Yolanda Ballard, who was never married to Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard, but she took his last name. And it was a subject of a big court battle, right?

Involving his son, Bill Ballard, the whole family, the estate that Harold Ballard left behind, that Yolanda, who was left in Harold's will with $50,000 a year, went to court and demanded more. I slept with the guy. I was by his side. What are you trying to buy me off here with this piddly 50K? And she took them to court, and she ended up, the estimate in the story about it, between $2 and $5 million.

And she settled into that Forest Hill Village neighborhood of Toronto. And for years, you would see her there at the Starbucks with her dog, with her poodle or pooch. Right. And there was Yolanda Ballard, a fixture of the neighborhood, along with Stormin' Norman Rumack. FOTM Stormin' Norman. Right. FOTM Kim Mitchell.

You're going to have to ask him about this one. Future FOTM. That episode is Monday. Also, uh, frequenting the, uh, Starbucks in Forrestville Village, non-FOTM, Brian Burke. Oh yeah,

he tried to sue me once. That's right. And the occasional sighting of FOTM, Sean Cullen. Oh, funny guy. Okay, this is,

uh, exciting that this, uh, that's pretty much a sum total of everything i know about this particular starbucks out remember when starbucks uh got into booze like they were going to sell beer and wine at starbucks this was going to be their test store in toronto there in spadina road in toronto exciting yolanda ballard uh we lost her uh at age uh 87 and she was off to florida like uh age 87,

and she was off to Florida like close to a decade ago. And will never be forgotten, I think, right? Everybody that remembers the story of Harold Ballard, you can't have it without Yolanda. When you finally get

Jeff Merrick back on, you'll have to review the whole Harold Ballard legacy as Jeff Merrick was the one who shoveled him into the ground. Park Lawn Cemetery represents. Just trying to avoid our three-hour episode here, Mark. But here, it's funny how we played St. Elmo's Fire,

and here's Chariots of Fire. Ian Holm was a British actor who was famous enough to have a post on torontomike.com when he died at age 88. He's a big deal, right? I feel like he was in a lot of stuff. I think he's a big deal. And one of his roles was as a coach in the movie Chariots

of Fire, the Toronto International Film Festival. Well, never let you forget that that was the stage on which this slow, sleepy British film became a commercial success. And it was in 1982 that this instrumental theme by Vangelis It went to number one?

Yeah, all the way on Stereogum.com. They do a recap and they covered that somewhere in June. It reminded me that it was somewhere between it premiering at TIFF and becoming a commercial hit that this song creeped up on the radio. It is very rare. It was a big single at the time. Rare for a song to get to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 without any lyrics. I can think of a couple of times it might have happened.

One is themed from a summer's place or something. But I would think it might have happened. Tell me if I'm wrong. Eddie Murphy, the Beverly Hills Cop. What's that song? Axl F. Right. And Harold Fulton.

That's the one I'm looking for. And the Miami Vice theme song. And Kenny G. You can go on and on. Maybe this is a Pandemic Fridays topic. Wait until it happens. Instrumental hits. Actually, probably. Okay.

I remember seeing Chariots of Fire. You know why? Because it came out at a time when I was old enough to go to a movie on my own, but not old enough to see most of the movies. Right. So did you go through this period of time? So you were sort of left with this certain cohort of films that you didn't have any issue getting into. Not that they were checking ID or whatever,

but you're always kind of worried what if they do. You don't want to make any plans around that. I remember sitting through Chariots of Fire. I did not understand what the hell was going on. This was the most boring movie I'd ever seen. It had something to do with a Jewish runner who was battling anti-Semitism. You know I've never seen it.

And a devout Catholic runner who didn't want to run on Sundays. And, you know, how they found common cause based on a true story that they ran for the Brits in the Olympics. And we overcame

every kind of discrimination. And there was Ian Holm and now he's dead. Don't you wonder why Life itself drives in And takes you by surprise Don't you try to run It gets you from behind Like a common cold It takes you for a ride Now is the time

To call the doctor This is a serious case There's not much time to call the doctor. This is a serious case. There's not much time. Call the doctor. They love to watch him operate. He comes and goes. So call the doctor. They need a special technique.

He grows and grows. Call the doctor. Calling out the doctor, Detroit. Bruce J. Friedman died at age 90 in June 2020. A real legendary New York writer type. He was a novelist and a playwright. He was an actor. But what he'd be most familiar with are movies that I think everyone who perused the VHS rental store in the 1980s would be familiar with. The screenplay for Stir Crazy with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.

Yes. Splash. Everybody knows Splash, right? Daryl Hannah. Thanks, Daryl Hannah. John Candy's in there. He was behind The Lonely Guy. He wrote the book that the movie was based on,

starring Steve Martin and Dr. Detroit. Starring who else? Oh, Dan Aykroyd and his future wife, Donna Dixon. Right. And this was part of once, did I tell you Dan Aykroyd once held the door for me at a, it was like Avenue Road and it was one of those

fancy restaurants. I couldn't afford myself. My boss at the time was paying for the meal, but Dan Aykroyd opened the door for me. I think I had this on the same tape off the radio as Bonnie Pointer's song Premonition. That's how deep we're going here.

Devo with the song Dr. Detroit. You're finally on vacation You're wondering what to do You want someplace that's different You want someplace that's special You can have a great vacation in New York And you say, I love New York You can climb a mountain I love New York And there's such great sailing

I love New York. And there's such great sailing. I love New York. We can all go camping. I love New York. Because it's so exciting. New York is different, you know. New York is special. You can have a great vacation in New York. And you say, I love New York. What a great vacation in New York. And you say, I love New York.

What a great vacation. I love New York. What a great vacation. I love New York. The graphic designer behind the I Love New York logo, Milton Glaser, died at age 91. And back to back there with Bruce J. Friedman, part of that same generation of these artistic New York characters. But whereas Bruce J. Friedman's thing was those 1980 comedy movies, the legacy of Milton Glazer is in New York Magazine,

which he co-created, also very well known for its graphic design, and in the back of a cab. At the time, New York was broke and bankrupt, and the streets were crime riddled. They didn't know if anybody was going to visit it again. He was given the commission, the idea came up. Could he invent a slogan, a graphic that would draw tourists back to New York? And that was his idea. I love New York. Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be

The pains that are withheld for me. I realize and I can see that suicide is painless. It brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please. Johnny Mandel was the writer of the theme song from M.A.S.H., died here at the very end of June at age 94. And the Twitter tributes would indicate what kind of company he rolled in. Tony Bennett, he's still alive. Michael Bublé. These were a couple of the people who made a point of paying homage to this songwriter.

made a point of paying homage to this songwriter, not only behind the MASH theme song, but a whole bunch of standards in the American Songbook, including The Shadow of Your Smile. And it got me reviewing my favorite cover version of that by Bill Frizzell with Petra Hayden, the singer, violinist. But if you know the great American songbook, then you can't forget the shadow of your smile,

even though his most famous song of all, the music, not the lyrics, which came from Robert Altman's teenage son. You knew this? I knew this because I think I heard a quote from Robert Altman at some point where he said his son made more money off MASH than he did. But the instrumental version that played over the credits for that decade,

however many years, is longer than the actual Korean War that MASH was around and to this day you know that you're settling in for a pseudo-intellectual half hour of feminist-friendly television when you're about to watch MASH.

Right, hook that Alan Elder to my veins. And by the way, I always loved this song. I remember I watched the show MASH for years and years before I realized there was a version of this song with lyrics and then it was like just hauntingly cool © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Okay, for those under the age of 50, what did we just listen to? Wait a second. You're under the age of 50. I am still under the age of 50.

And we at least vaguely associate that instrumental music with the Dick Van Dyke show. Okay, I watched a lot of things like Leave it to Beaver, for example. And shows like this would come on CKVR and I'd watch them in syndication. But I got to admit, although I was well aware Mary Tyler Moore had this show called The Dick Van Dyke Show with Dick Van Dyke, I actually couldn't have told you what that song was if I didn't know what I was playing. And for this, Carl Reiner died at age 98 on June 29th, 2020. Made it to a ripe old age. On June 29th, 2020, made it to a ripe old age. It was Mel Brooks' son, Max Brooks, who made a viral video at the beginning of the coronavirus saying, you know, you got to keep your distance here from the old folks. Because if you spread this COVID-19, you might kill my dad.

And then he'll give it to Dick Van Dyke. And then he'll give it to Carl Reiner. Right. And before that, you've wiped out an entire generation of comedy legends. You know what's weird? I think just yesterday I was reading a tweet from Rob Reiner about Mel Brooks' birthday. I think he had a birthday yesterday.

He had a birthday, and there was a picture of him with Carl Reiner wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts. I saw that yesterday. So top of mind was Carl Reiner, and Lives Matter t-shirts. I saw that yesterday. So top of mind was Carl Reiner and I distinctly had that moment most of us probably had yesterday which is oh he's really old Carl Reiner and then you find out

he's 98 years old and you hope that he can keep going and then the next day we learn he passed away. Well if the guy who interviewed the 2,000 year old man wanted to go out, seeming like he was still with the zeitgeist, if that picture was in fact taken on Mel Brooks' birthday,

went out in fine style? Absolutely. No, and this is a big deal. You know, for the young'uns listening, and they're out there, believe it or not, I hope they appreciate the legacy of Carl Reiner. Just what a complete, you know, you go ahead. You're the expert.

Speaking of racism, there was a jerk with Steve Martin, which certainly in his day was a provocative film, I think, that you couldn't make today that would be taken as offensive on that level. Steve Martin saying, I was born a poor black child. But that was the one, I think, that infused him to our generation. At the time, Schroeder was still vital.

Also, the movies All of Me, again with Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, remember that one? Yes, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And Oh God, with John Denver and George Burns are also dead. Right. But Carl Reiner outlived them all.

He didn't try to make his own airplane. I think that was part of his secret. Made it to age 98. And the 2,000-year-old man, it was, what was it, 40 years later, they did the 2,000-year-old man in the year 2000. And even then you knew they were real ultra cuckers so the fact that he stuck around and was with us for 28 years more

we got a glimpse into this bromance between Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner when I want to say it was the comedians in cars getting coffee when Jerry dropped by you might have seen this episode where a lot of us kind of got to see that they watched Jeopardy together at night.

It was quite the bromance they had going on. And look, a lot of the people we recap here who died in the prior month, a lot of them big influences on the TV we grew up with in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. And whether we knew the Dick Van Dyke show or not, the influence of Carl Reiner was indisputable. And yeah, I'm still sore that we forgot Fred Willard next time, but we don't have time to get to him now. We just got to wrap this thing up. We'll meet again. Don't know when.

Don't know when, don't know when But I know we'll meet again Some sunny day Keep smiling through Just like you always do Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away So will you please say hello to the folks that I know Tell them I won't be long.

They'll be happy to know that as you saw me go, I was singing this song. We meet again. Don't know when, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. We'll meet again, don't know when, don't know when But I know we'll meet again some sunny day Keep smiling through Just like you always do Till the blue skies Hide the dark clouds far away

So will you please say hello To the folks that I know Tell them I won't be long They'll be happy to know If you are a celebrity who made it to 103 years of age without getting cancelled for anything, then you deserve an extra long play out here

on Toronto Mic'd Vera Lynn died at age 103 the force's sweetheart behind the song We'll Meet Again

best known in the United Kingdom, although when Stephen Colbert did his last Colbert Report, he did a celebrity sing-along to Will Meet Again. It illuminated how much this song was known in England as one of the legendary tunes of the 20th century, and with Vera Lynn gone at age 103. How many celebrities are older than Vera Lynn? I saw the cover of the National Examiner tabloid.

Olivia de Havilland. From Gone with the Wind, yes. That has been canceled, that movie. But she turns 104 years old on July 1st. And so we leave with the hope that it's a long time before we say goodbye to Olivia de Havilland. And that's all we've got for now

on the Ridley Funeral Home 1236 obituary recap. And I'm going to have some more crackers. And we hit the three-hour mark. We might have to break these up. I feel like these are two different episodes. Are you kidding? This was terrific. To hang out in your backyard

on a June afternoon on the eve of a midweek holiday. Absolutely spectacular. Thank you, Toronto Mike, for making it happen. And that brings us to the end of our 676th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. That's 1236. And if you're not subscribed to the 1236 newsletter, then how the hell did you make it three hours deep into this episode? Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.

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