Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Al Grego: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1591

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

In this 1591st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike kicks out the jams with Al Grego. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1591 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Season seven of Yes We Are Open, an award-winning podcast from Minaris, we are open an award-winning podcast from Monaris hosted by FOTM Al Gregor. RecycleMyElectronics.ca committing to our planet's future means properly recycling

our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, Pillars of the Community Since 1921. Joining me today is the aforementioned award-winning host of Yes We Are Open, Al Grego. How are you now? Is that a letter Kenny thing? It is. Okay, I figured it out by now. Good and you. Good and you, Oh, I like the Sloan shirt. Thank you. I wore it just for you. And, uh, tell me about your band. Right off the top.

Like I'm just jumping right in here. Okay. So you are the lead singer for a band who played the very first three Toronto mic'd listener experiences. So TMLX one, two, and three, which all took place at Great Lakes Brewery. Your band, The Royal Pains, played all three of those events. I need to know the status of The Royal Pains and then I need to know if I could see The Royal Pains live anywhere in the GTA coming up. The status is where, you know, we got the

band back together and we're playing some shows again. And, uh, that's exciting. Yeah, it is exciting. We played a show in, uh, what I guess, uptown, uh, Eglinton and, uh, Mount Pleasant area, uh, a few weeks ago at the place called smoke show. I'm told it's the old chicken deli. I'm not sure. Uh, great venue. We had a lot of fun. It was amazing turnout and we'll be definitely be playing there again. Uh, I think in March. Okay. Um, but yeah, this Friday we're, we're going up to sea grave, Ontario. I think it's,

wait, wait, where the hell is that? I don't know. Somewhere near Lake school. God, where the hell is that? We're playing at a cider, uh, two, two blokes cider. Okay. Um, okay. And like, can you give me, I don't, I'm really stupid, but like, like where I've never been there. It's east. It's east. East and north, northeast of here. Like Peterborough. I don't think it's quite that east. Um, okay. Bowmanville. Where are we going here? You know what? Maybe you don't know. Do you have the live stream going? Maybe people on the live stream. All right.

So Jeremy Hopkins is on the live stream and as the official. He's the fact checker. Historian. Well, he's Robert Lawson is the fact checker. Jeremy Hopkins is the official historian of the Toronto Mike podcast. So Jeremy, you've been assigned a task.

I know there's a delay in the live stream. Can you find out where, name the city again? Seagrave. I think it is. Find out please for us exactly where is Seagrave because that's where, uh, FOTMs need to travel to see the Royal paint. Two blokes cider, cider. Two blokes cider. It rolls off the tongue.

It's kind of a different venue for us because normally we're like playing somewhere where there's a stage and a dance club or dance floor. This sounds like it's going to be more like a, a sit down, you know, sing along and have some cider and enjoy some live music. I think we're there from six to nine, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm always, I'm always happy to do, you know, break in new venues. Oh, amazing. You guys are amazing. And you also host a podcast unrelated to your role at Monaris. You, you, uh, host and produce the official letter Kenny universe pod, not official, the, uh, unofficial, unofficial, but like the de facto, like the only one that,

and remind me the creator's name is Jared Kiso. So Jared Kiso only did one podcast, correct? Yep. And it was yours. And what's the name of that podcast? The produce stand. Do you like my t-shirt? Yes. I complimented your Sloan T shirt. Beautiful T shirt. Ask me how much I paid for this T shirt. As much as a actually, I actually did buy this one. So I can't say as much as I paid for this one.

It's because you got a good deal on your Sloan T shirt. I'll swap. She teaches with you. I bought this actually at the Phoenix when we went to go see them do this album, one chord to another, the 25th anniversary, they played the album front to back live. They sounded amazing. And then the second half of the show, they played all the greatest hits. It was a great, great show. That's a great band. Yeah. One of K I just in this episode will drop on Friday, but I just had Dave Hodge here. And he said a prominent, he didn't name the musician, but he said a

prominent American musician was chatting with him and asked him like, what's the best or the biggest best band ever to come out of the country, Canada? So like when this question gets asked, so you know, a bunch of bands run through someone's head, I would think, oh, the guess who, maybe not Rush. And then you'd, what Dave Hodge said was the tragically hip.

But I just want to say in the top ten is Sloan. 100% I mean there are times where I would put Sloan number one because I think they write great great rock songs. Well okay the hip obviously they're Canada's band, they've got a special place in everyone's heart and yes I love the hip and you know, we love performing the hip. Sloan just puts out banger after banger after banger, even after you know, you forgot they exist, if you listen to their stuff, it still sounds like Sloan. It's still, they sound great.

And that was the first and only time I've ever seen them live. I was a little worried that they wouldn't sound great live. Oh, they're great live. They were amazing live. They were so good live. And they all take turns. Yeah. They take turns like behind the drums. Yeah. So Chris is a Chris Murphy, the bass player lead singer. He got behind the drum kit and I'm like, Oh my God,

he's as good a drummer as their drummer. He was so good. Yeah. It was a great show. And, uh, I was hoping they would do the same treatment with their native Navy blues album, which is another one of my favorite CDs of theirs. Unfortunately, that 25 year anniversary thing is coming gone. We have heard from Jeremy Hopkins on the live stream. This is how easy it is. It comes back. Okay. Right. So again, I'm going to sound stupid here because he says, and tell me Al, if I'm out to lunch, I don't want to sound like one of those ignorant Torontonians who doesn't know the rest of Ontario. Well, I'm not in Toronto and I don't know where it is.

He says it's Southeast of Sunderland. Okay. Sunderland. That sounds right. All right. Can you please tell me where Sunderland is? I have no idea. I'm going to use ways to get up there on Friday.

We're offending so many people right now. I know. I apologize. Please come and see us. It's a bit north. Okay. Do you know where Port Perry is? I've heard of it. See, I know where Port Hope is because the sign is on the 401. I know where Port Hope is as well, yes.

And that's where Wills' dad lives. It's also where my old Poise for the Worm drummer is from. And where we recorded our album was in Port Hope. Okay. So Port Perry is not Port Hope. It's another port. So it's a bit north of Port Perry. By the way, Jeremy Hopkins, so I mentioned that the Royal Pains played the first three Toronto Mike listener experiences.

We just had the 17th TMLX event on Saturday. That's right. Jeremy writes, he had a nice time chatting with you at TMLX 17. He beat me too, cause I was gonna say the same thing. I had a really great chat with Jeremy and it was a lot of fun.

That was a- Jeremy spoken. Once again, a great, great event. I'm very jealous that you can do these events because Your fans are all American. Well, yeah, all over the world, right? And unfortunately

You're global. That's like your curse and your blessing is okay. Okay. East of Oxbridge. That's where the railway, I actually think I know exactly where Oxbridge is now. I know where Oxbridge is. East of Oxbridge is now. I know where Uxbridge is. East of Uxbridge is where you find where you're going to play.

Okay. So you'll be using Waze. Okay. Of course. We'll need a Jeremy Hopkins con boy or something. Okay. So just to pump your tires a bit. Okay. So you're globally famous on the produce stand. So where I'm only famous in this little city of Toronto. So like, I can get all the people together or not all of them, but I can get like a, whatever.

We did have a live taping once on Matt's deck, uh, or my cohost, Matt's deck. And we had a great turnout of FOTM's. Miriam and Juan were there. Gord and Tom were there. So we had a live audience of four. Is. Miriam and Juan were there, Gord and Tom were there. So we had a live audience of four. Is this the time we were all at GLB's? Yes, you guys were at Brewpub, that's right. Tom stayed maybe and Gord left.

Yeah, Gord left. Okay, so maybe Tom wasn't there. Gord was there, Miriam and Juan. But Levi Fumka left with Juan, I suppose. Okay, it's like you took all the FOTMs with you, you son of a bitch. Okay, so. You had some despair

But thank you. I want to say thank you For your help with the audio because so I bring my stuff to record but we have a live Audience for this TML X event at Palmer's kitchen in Mississauga So like I need the people there to hear this so you bring that part because I've been too cheap to invest in it myself. That'll probably be something I should do in the very near future to save you the trouble. Well that PA system costs probably double what your initial set up. Give me a number. Probably you're looking at five grand. Okay I want the FOTM's to buy me that for a hat. You don't have any space for it though. My 51st birthday is spectacular at Great Lakes Brewery. Yeah I don't know where I'd put it. You don't have any space for it though. My 51st birthday is spectacular at Great Lakes Brewery. Yeah.

I don't know where I'd put it. I don't want to make myself redundant here. No, but I want to say, once you know, although every other time you forget a cable, but I just want to say, thank you. Yes. This is what I'm saying to you. Thank you. You're a valued member. You've attended more TMLX events than you've skipped, but you're, you're not batting a thousand.

I missed one. Like, you've only missed one. Damn Langer, yes, I missed one. Langer's 17 for 17. It came down to me and Langer, and I finally had to miss one. I forget what it was. Wasn't it Rush?

When did Rush Mike, he was in the top three. Yeah, it was Mike. It was Rush Mike. Why did you miss one? I probably had something very important. Probably, actually, letter Kenny related, if I'm like I if I'm gonna now I'm hurt. Okay And Jeremy says he only knows these towns because his dad would take him to every place that had a railway station. So Jeremy Hopkins knows his trains train by the way terrible band, right?

We had this discussion on toast listen to toast on my way into the office this morning and, um, I don't mind drops from the, from Jupiter, but yeah, the rest of it is like soul. That's Hey, so you're right. That's the worst. One of the worst songs ever. It is to chart. Anyways, terrible songs that didn't chart. Okay. So continued success with the produce stand. I'm wearing the t-shirt right now. You're nominated for a Canadian podcast award for that. Yeah. Yeah for that for on the TV and film category and nominated for branded podcasts Here's the thing Mike Yeah, you're so fiercely independent you you wouldn't even think about campaigning for yourself and I get that's that's kind of what what it takes

To see I don't want to win an award I have to campaign for well I want like you're so good even though you didn't campaign even the biggest words require campaigning even biggest awards require you submitting your work the game is rigged even the Oscars even the Junos even the Grammys not winning any of those either you have to submit your work now I'm not winning any of those either. You have to submit your work. Now let's talk about one of your podcasts in particular, and then we'll catch up along the way. So, Yes We Are Open has just finished its seventh season. Yes.

You went to Winnipeg, although I noticed not all your episodes were recorded in Winnipeg, because I pay attention. Do you like how would I do, and again, we're gonna talk about each episode individually as we kick out jams related to each of the, how many episodes in season seven? Eight. Eight. So we'll kick out eight jams. You have a bonus jam. Is the bonus jam going to be upfront or at the end? We'll do it at the end. At the end. Okay. It's a nice banger. We can, uh, I love that song actually. And you know, there's a multiple versions of this

song, but we both love the same version. I hope we've picked the right one. We're much music guys. We know what version to pick. Please. Can't wait to do that. I'm sure when I kick that out, Robert Lawson will be listening. Cause you know, that's one of the guys on that jam is who he likes to fact check the most. So we're going to kick out jams related to the seasons, uh, to season seven, but, uh, I've been shouting out the episodes along the way and we'll, we'll talk about, uh, your, maybe right now, like. You've had a lot of guests from Winnipeg

or at least with ties to Winnipeg, which has been great to have them on. Did you listen to Rob Nash? I've listened to all of them. Rob Nash was wow. I haven't watched the doc yet, but I really. Leslie said the episode is better than the doc. Like this is Leslie Taylor who watched the doc. The doc's very good everybody. But she said it episode is better than the doc. Like this is Leslie Taylor who watched the doc.

The doc's very good everybody. But she said it was actually better him in the basement unedited just chatting for 90 minutes was actually more effective than the doc. I'm always worried that people will cherry pick their episodes at Toronto Mike. So if you're cherry picking episodes, you might not cherry pick Rob Nash

because you're like who the hell is Rob Nash? Please listen to Rob Nash on Toronto Mike. What an episode. It was crazy. And just hearing his story, but also the reason for, you know, the tattoos on his arms and just here. When he pulled out the notes, the suicide notes that people give them, it's unbelievable.

Powerful, like crazy powerful. I mean, if you have that on video, you should. I do. It's already on my YouTube channel. Is it okay? I haven't checked, sorry. I'm the. You know know it again you know how I don't campaign I also don't tell anyone when I throw video and I just sort of do it discreetly like you're not great at marketing you want a job I have a VP of sales who doesn't

sell yeah you could be my VP of marketing doesn't market the jobs available your support has been amazing Toronto Mike needs great supporters like Minaris and you Al Greggo and I love that we get to partner on this and once every, I guess you do three months on, three months off and then during your three months on you pop over here to kick out jams related to that particular season of Yes We Are Open. When do you find out if you're going to be renewed for season eight of Yes, We Are Open? Well, season eight will start in April of 2025. So I'm hoping that I'll send you that email of renewal sometime in March to let

you know. Cross your fingers, everybody. Come on. You know, recyclemyelectronics.ca, CA cliff hacking came over and committed to 12 months I'm 20 25. Why can't you do that? It's not my call. Unfortunately, it's never my see that's what That's your move. You can always blame the the guy in the corner the girl in the corner office or whatever Okay, but I appreciate the support nonetheless amazing So I'm gonna give you a few gifts and then we're gonna get into this thing. Okay. So obviously you have enough wireless speakers from an heiress. What do you got? Like a room full of them?

One in every room. And do you listen to yourself? Like, do you listen? Because I'm always curious. Like, so you pack it. You're the producer of this show. So you package it together and then you drop it. I like to say drop it. You drop it into the feed. Do you also listen via a podcast app as if you are a listener? I yes but at that point by that time I'm listening to it at like 2x speed. I'm just making sure that you know nothing weird happened when I published it and you know it doesn't. This is QA. Yeah it's more QA because I live with that episode for the whole week Leading up to when it's published by the time I'm done with it. I'm kind of done with it So yesterday I took my daughter swimming before toast and it's Gus Ryder pool very hot

But I have like a half an hour during this swim and I'm sitting there and I said I'm going to listen to Kevin Shea at TML X 17 as if I'm, like as if I don't know the story, I'm going to pretend I don't know the story. I'm going to pretend it's not my podcast. I'm going to pretend I am not biased. I'm going to just listen to it as if I'm listening, like, is this too long, whatever, because there was some discussion whether 21 minutes is too long for a story, an uninterrupted story. Because you were there at, this is from tmlx17. So I listened to it during this way and I came to the conclusion again,

it's hard to remove your bias when it's your freaking baby we're talking about, right? Like, oh, my baby is ugly. Okay, it's very difficult, right? But I, after 21 minutes, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't edit anything out. I wouldn't interrupt it at all. It was great.

It was a gorgeous, beautiful, touching story by a man who heartfelt, passionate storyteller. And I wouldn't change a thing. You were there. What did you think of the 21 minutes that Kevin Shea took at the beginning of TMLX 17? Well, I think Rob Proust put it best yesterday, you know, on the toast episode. When you're there, it's different. And I mean, I was there and I was sitting with Katie Lauer and, and I was listening attentively to whether there was going to be any feedback. So I had other things on my mind.

There's stuff going around more QA and I'll admit to you that, uh, when, when, uh, when the story started, okay, that's great. And then I clued out for a while. And when I clued back in, I was confused as to whether he was still telling the same story. And my, my thoughts myself, yeah, I checked out and the thought to myself was like, Oh shit, is

he still telling that same story? Wow. That was a long time. But then I did listen to it back on the, on the podcast, uh, after you uploaded it and it's a completely different, um, uh, experience. And I think it works. And I mean, being a podcast for myself, yeah,

when I listened to back to episodes that I've done, but I've lived through, there is a, it's a different experience in a different field. Cause you're in the person's ears and it's an intimate feeling, right? And I think you pay, you're more engaged and you pay more attention. And it was, and it was a great story. It was an amazing story that needed that full time to tell. Do you think in 2024, and not you specifically, but just the general zeitgeist of human beings,

the attention span we all have, I watched my, you've got kids, I watched my 10 year old, he's on YouTube, and these super cuts, right? Yeah, it's not. Every 4.5 seconds. Boom, something else or whatever. Like it's just, it's just so different than a 21 minute story.

Same thing was being said about the MTV generation. These fast cutting right. Well, Sesame street did this. Yeah. And so I just think the attention span is still there. It's just now directed at something different, you know, um, for some reason, my kids can't watch a half hour long sitcom or whatever, but they can watch five, you know, 15 minute or five,

five minute YouTube shorts. And I don't know why. And, and they don't need that narrative thread for some reason to enjoy them. I don't get it. Uh, I mean, I'm, I feel like the with age, like my son, who's now 17 were, you know, I sat him down and we watched, I forget what movie we watched, but it was one of those, Oh, it was seven. We watched seven. Shout out to Kevin Spacey. Now talk about, you know, that movie does not, that does not, uh, that's Fincher. So that's a long meandering stroll through this story, right? Like it's not fast cut.

It's like, take your time to tell the story, right? And my son loved it. So I think he just kind of have to like, hopefully as they get older, they'll appreciate it. But I feel like we might've lost the art of listening to one voice for 21 minutes straight. And you know, people are like, oh my God, it was a half an hour.

And it was 21 minutes. But again you know, people are like, oh my God, it was a half an hour. It was 21 minutes. But again, a heartfelt, beautiful story. A man was passionate about it. And again, a great story, and I'm glad it happened. And I'll shut up about it now, but this only happened on Saturday. And it's 1.5 speed, so it's not 21 minutes. It's more like 10, 15 minutes.

And J-Ho on the live stream says he's not into hockey and he's still loved Kevin's story. So again, great story here. Now you have enough wireless speakers, but I have fresh Great Lakes beer for you. Sweet. And I know we're drinking a coffee because you were nice enough to bring me a coffee, but these two beers here are fresh from the fridge. So they're cold. Once I'm finished my coffee, I might try this. Absacker. So Troy Birch brought that over last week. Uh, cause, uh, I produced the between two fermenters podcast and he brings over beer for those recordings and what he doesn't drink. I keep,

well you don't need to have abs to drink this, I hope, because I'm, abs hiding under there. I'm sure under my cake. Yeah. So thank you. Great Brewery. When you were at TMLX, I saw Anthony Petrucci took care of you because you needed a vegetarian lasagna and I only had meat lasagnas in my freezer. So you've got that because you're gonna bring that to family members for the Christmas Eve at the Greggo household. So no meat. So yeah, I had to get a no meat vegetarian lasagna to take over

Okay, so thank you palma pasta for giving that to the cuddly one Al Grego Recycle my electronics dot CA. Of course, that's where you go If you have old electronics of devices cables, you don't throw that in the garbage those chemicals end up in our life Oh, yeah, you're the last so I have cliff hacking brought some over you have a USB key end up in our life. Oh yeah, you're the last. So I have Cliff Hacking brought some over. You have a USB key. Awesome. A stick courtesy of RecycleMyElectronics.ca because I couldn't give you another speaker. So I gave you that instead. And Ridley Funeral Home. I've got so many of these, I think. Everyone in the, Greg, maybe that's your Christmas gift, like stocking stuff for your loved ones is you just put a Ridley Funeral Home measuring tape

and everybody's stocking. Not a bad idea here. I'm full of the pro tips here. So we'll catch up along the way. I'm eager to get to the jams. Do I just play and then we discuss? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. 47 deadbeats, living in a back street, north, east, west, south, all in the same house. Sitting in a back room, waiting for the big boom. I'm in a bedroom waiting for my baby. She's so mean, but I don't care. I love her eyes and her wild, wild hair. Time to defeat the real life best.

Heading for the night takes living in the wild, wild west. The wild, wild west. Wild west. Who matters in the fact that... Wild west, I remember this jam from Much Music. This is the Escape Club. Yeah, this is such a guilty pleasure. Screw it.

I'm not guilty about it. I love this song. I think it's so catchy. It's so fun. I was going to say, there's far guiltier pleasures in this one. Yeah, that's true. No shame in this game. So yeah, the Escape Club, they're a British pop rock band formed in 1983 to 92.

And then again from 2009 to present. This is from their second album. Reached number one in the US. This is interesting. So number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Yeah. Amazing. So here's a mind blow for you. I'm ready. They're the only British artists that ever hit number one in the US while never charting in the UK. You know, that's a mind blow. I'm not even gonna call that a fun fact. That's an absolute mind blow. Yeah, I thought it was interesting.

So the guitarist, John Holliday, he heard a Run DMC track on TV and that inspired him to put this hip hop beat on his drum machine and then their singer, Trevor Steele, started singing over it. And that's where we got this. So, and the Ronnie that he mentions in the song is a reference to Ronald Reagan. So it's a very of the time, this song. Do you remember that Simpson's illusion to the, the fictional cassette rap and Ronnie?

Yes. Will, Will, Will, Will. You know, when you were talking earlier, like, Oh, your kids can't watch a sitcom. I was thinking my eight year old can watch 22 minutes of The Simpsons. Okay. Just sit there. So I think maybe The Simpsons because of the colors and the kind of zips along. Yeah. My daughter did just finish watching Modern Family. So I guess she's, you know, getting to an age where she can do that. Well, here's the question. How old your daughter? I love it. That's amazing. Like Veronica, right?

She wrote me a note once like a hundred years ago now and she was just a kid Well, she's still just a kid but would Veronica listen to 21 minutes of Kevin shade telling that hockey story Probably not because it would have it would mean nothing to her. I don't think she would this is like the dress where you say What color is this dress? And it was like, can you, okay. So the escape club, I think Michael Lang, who we've already mentioned once, you know, he's our arch nemesis.

He went 17 for 17 at TMLX events. Actually he's Tyler Campbell's arch nemesis. He's not here. Nobody, you're nobody's arch nemesis. Do you have any enemies in the game? Yeah, Tyler. That's not true. No, Langer. Langer.

After your event last, on Saturday, Langer and I were walking towards our car and I'm saying, here we go Langer, we're walking down an alley, just as I pictured it. We're about to get into it. But unfortunately, there was nothing, no projectiles to, no trash cans. Well, this story, I don't even think it's a Langer story. Now that I'm thinking in my head, it might be a Tyler story. I feel like Tyler was invited to a concert, maybe the bowling alley concerts. You get those 80s bands like Spoons and Honeymoon Suite and all that. I think he was invited to one of those shows with a surprise

headliner, like they didn't tell you who the headliner was. You'll be surprised. And I think the headliner was the escape club. Really? Yeah. And I think, I think this was the surprise headliner and they have a number one hit, but I will put a gun to your head. Not a real gun, of course, but Al Grego, name another escape club song. I couldn't.

You're now a dead man. I'm a dead man, yeah. I saw on Wikipedia when I was reading up on this yesterday, they did have another quote unquote hit. Maybe it was just, you know, made the charts, but I don't even remember the name of the song. I listened to it and like didn't ring a bell. And listening to it in the headphones now, I can see the British rejecting this song.

This is not really a Brit song. They don't really dig this kind of style No, it's it's very much Of the time and talking about the wild old west talking about America talking about Ronnie Ronald Reagan I mean well, yeah Well, anyway, the reason we're listening to this song is because episode one of season 7 of yes, we were open. I visited Of course I visited Ashley Lyons and Michael Mark you from the real escape room, uh, which is an escape. I mean, if you've ever,

ever done an escape room, no, never done an escape room. I've done a few with my family. They're a lot of fun. Um, well you're trying to escape your family. No, no, no, just a, uh, a fun little, you know, instead of going bowling or whatever, you go to an escape room and, uh, you know, there a lot of or whatever, you go to an escape room and you know, they're a lot of fun. And I was really interested in this one, really looking forward to this because I got to see behind the scenes, you know, the guts of what makes these things tick.

And there's a lot of technology that goes into them. So it's kind of fun to visit that, see behind the scenes. Ashley had a really interesting story because basically her and her family went to an escape room, loved it so much. She was like 19 straight out of high school. She's like, we should open our own escape room and convinced her family, her dad, basically, to help her start this business.

And they opened a business called Time Lapse and then I ran that in Winnipeg back in the early heyday of escape rooms. And then this other real escape run by, um, Megan and Adam Smith, who are the owners of activate games. I don't know if you've ever heard of that company, but no, if you look it up, they're all over the place now.

They're like this huge international company anyway. Um, Adam and Megan started this activate games and didn't have time for their original business anymore. So they sold it to Ashley and her family. So it's a really great story of a family run business, but also like, uh, Ashley at 19, like being an entrepreneur and convincing her family. Think about where you were at 19. Yeah, I was, I was trying to figure, I was going to Trevis Institute probably. And, and uh,

Oh, I've seen those ads. Yeah. I think that's what I was doing. Did you get a good, uh, good education there? Yeah, it would help me out. I mean, I'm podcasting now. Now you produce podcasts. Okay. By the way, let's shout out. So you are a Portuguese descent, right?

I am. Yes. You know who else is a Portuguese descent? Mike, uh, Hamilton Mike is the one. Hamilton Mike. Yeah, he is a Portuguese descent. Also Ed Souza. Oh yeah, of course.

Susan. Who's an FOTM. He's the guy who put, who put on that show I was talking about with the escape club. That was his thing. He's the guy who books, uh, like typically it's eighties bands, but he books, these bands at the classic bowl in Mississauga. That's cool. Ed Souza who was born in, uh, Portugal. Well, there you go. I'm just trying to, you know, the name like Susie. You've got to be Portuguese. Yeah. Gotta be Portuguese. Ed Susa escape.

By the way, I don't know if I want to say this out loud, but what the heck, right? It's real talk. But I think if I were told come to a secret concert, you don't know who the headliner is and it was escape club. I think I'd be disappointed. Well, I'd be waiting for, I'd be hoping they didn't, you know, keep the hit to the end. I, you know what I would say?

I think, can you play that song over and over again? They just keep playing the wild wild west or whatever. At least I'm in a bowling alley. I can, you know, bowl a few frames while I'm there. So what did you, I mean, maybe at the end, at the end, I want to know, so I'm going to tease this because I'm going to pretend we're on the radio or something, but I want to know a bit more about like Winnipeg. It is a city again, like you said, it gets Robert Lawson's from Winnipeg. I mean, Winnipeg comes up early and often on this show. I've never been to Winnipeg, it is a city, again, like you said, like it's Robert Lawson's from Winnipeg.

I mean, Winnipeg comes up early and often on this show. I've never been to Winnipeg. You have now. And my guest tomorrow, his name is Stu Stone. You ever heard of this guy? I've heard of him. And he just, he goes to Winnipeg once a year to film movies because of the tax credit.

It's a big, yeah, it's a big place for movies. And he told me that it's actually Selkirk. Did you go to Selkirk? I did not. Apparently better in Selkirk for taxes than even Winnipeg. Probably. I don't know. That's what he said. I don't know if it's that regional. Maybe it is. Yeah. That's what he says. So they film in Selkirk and they get a bunch of money back. So if they hire a camera person, I don't can't remember now,

but like two thirds of the cost of this camera person comes back to them in tax credits. Yeah. Well, I was talking to, and we'll get to the shooter's story later, but the owner of that golf club, and I asked him if he's had any famous people go through. He said it's two stone. No, he said, which, which is the, the lead, less insane quade? Is it Randy or Dennis? I think it's Dennis Quaid. Dennis is the crazy. No, Dennis is a less insane. Yeah. He played, uh, great balls of fire. Right, right, right. And he's so when he was, cause he just played Ronald Reagan in a biopic.

Well, this is the Ronald Reagan podcast. That's like the third time. Yeah. And, uh, and Dennis Quaid, while that was, some of it was shot in Winnipeg and Dennis Quaid was there shooting that movie. Yeah. And yeah. And Randy's the nut. So, but you know, it's funny. I'm just gonna cause I like to tie all these loose ends, right? We've been talking about the bowling alley and you mentioned bowling as just a reference. And, uh, I, Randy Quaid was a bowler that Woody Harrelson bowling. Yes. I love that movie. Yeah. So good.

That's a, that's Randy Queen Quaid is in that Okay. Oh my goodness Can I phone Lauren Honigman like now I feel like I should phone him now and tell him we're about to play this song It's like who wants to be a millionaire when that guy won the million bucks, right? He phoned his dad and said dad. I just want you to be the first to know. I'm about to win a million dollars Oh Lauren, I want you to be the first to know we're about to play a Bob Dylan song. You ready? Yeah. Listen to this! I lie to jewels in the sky Your back is straight, your hair is smooth On the pillow where you lie But I don't sense affection

Or gratitude or love Your loyalty is not to me But to the stars above One more pepper's got feet This is why you brought me a coffee. One more cup of coffee. Bob Dylan from 1976's Desire. Yeah, Emily Lou Harris apparently is on this track too. I haven't heard her yet. She'd be young here.

Yeah. From his 17th studio album. And yeah, the White Stripes covered this, Robert Plant, Tom Jones, but I have heard the White Stripes cover. It's pretty cool. Anyway, I brought this one out because I went to a place called Scout Coffee & Community,

and that's a business owned by Katrina Tessier. And Katrina, she opened this in 2017. It was inspired by a coffee shop of her that she used to go to all the time in Victoria BC when she was on maternity leave. When she moved back to Winnipeg with her husband and newborn, she thought she should open up a coffee shop where kids are welcome. So there's like a playground area. There's a, she sells a bunch of different baby

supplies and smart. So parents can go and have coffee and have some adult time while the kids play. And, uh, it's a nice community area. She, she had two locations, had to close one down unfortunately during the pandemic, but still has the one location open. Scout coffee and community.

Smart because yeah, the parents can have the coffee and chat all the gossip talk in the neighborhood whatnot, and the kids can go off and play and leave them alone. Yes, it was cool to visit Katrina. She's got a bit, she's got ties to the radio industry as well. But when she was out in Vancouver I think she was, I don't know if she was like on air talent or worked behind the scenes. Does she know Neil Morrison from

C-Fox? Possibly. Also known as Brother Bill. Anyway that was a cool story and it was great to visit Katrina and great and And so yeah, this pick here, by the way, is from my director. He's the one who suggested this one because I think I was only familiar with the White Stripes version of this song. I was not surprised, but when you chose Wild Wild West by The Escape Club, I'm wondering if you considered Cool MoD's Wild Wild West. But there was no escape oh yeah or reason for that was the escape call crap okay stop making so much sense okay look

I need a I need to crack open a beer in here okay so Bob Dylan's one more cup of coffee for scout coffee and community let's hear what we have next next I'm This is a banger, Al. Natu Natu. That's right. By M. Kirvani and Chandra Bose. And this is off the RR soundtrack from 2021. Have you watched RR yet? No, I haven't.

This is Bollywood, right? Yeah, yes. But that movie, it's on Netflix. Probably my favorite movie of 2023. Really? Or 2022, whatever year it came out. Better than Bandits. It was so, shout out to TwoStone, but I'm sorry.

This was better than Bandits. This is an epic, epic film that had everything in it, action, romance, comedy, and a musical sequence that they actually performed this at the Oscars. And it was a really cool scene in the movie too. Just a real great throwback movie of kind of epic, like storytelling, and it was amazing. Well, I'll say, I don't hear a lot of this genre.

No, me neither, but I had to pick it. Because- See if it, why I didn't play a lot of it. My director, Rick was like, you should do Spice World or something. I'm like, no, like, cause the reason we're talking about this is I interviewed Spice Circle, which is a business,

a family run business by Nikhil and Nikhil Dutt. And it's an Indian restaurant. And Oh, there's the connection. Yeah, it was a great great I wondered if Natu Natu was like a spice or something. No, no it's just I wanted something a little more authentic than Spice Girls for this song so I'm like what song do I know and then I started thinking uh Slumdog Millionaire was there something in there but nothing uh no then I thought about this movie because it was such an amazing movie and I remember this scene specifically. I'm like, well, let's kick out this. I mean, it was an Oscar winner, so it had to be good.

And the songs, the song is great. Like listening in the headphones again, like I guess that's where I was going. I don't hear a lot of the genre, but I'm listening in the headphones and I'm like, this song's pretty fricking awesome. It's great. It's definitely a screen enhanced jam. If you watch the scene that I like how you're using my terminology, you know, I'm with the Toronto Mike Lord. This is the hero of the day. Yeah, absolutely.

If you watch the scene in the movie that this song is tied to, it's, it's an amazing scene, like the dance sequence, the two leading men, like they, they go from battling tigers to dancing. And it, it, it's crazy. Well, that was me at the Phoenix on Monday nights during the strange paradise era spice circle. So this is in Winnipeg as well. Yeah. Spice circle in Winnipeg. Actually your, um, Matt Cundle referred me to this guy because he says he eats there once a week

and he loves the food there. So I'm like, Oh, I gotta go check this out. And it was a great story. And the kill and, and I killed it. They came out of high school once again, family run business. The father was a rest or it was a chef in a bunch of hotels and stuff. Wanted to open his own restaurant and tap to sons on the shoulder and said, Hey, let's do this as a family. And that's what they did.

And they had zero experience. They actually opened their doors, didn't do any marketing and expected people to just walk in. And when no one did, they were like, oh, we probably should do some marketing. Give us like, like a little insight into how do you, like, if you're going to get Monaris to pay for your flight to Winnipeg, and I'm assuming Monaris is even going to pay for your hotel room and even your flight home. Back to pay myself. You bike, that's how they get you. That's how they get you. Like,

what's the process? I mean, obviously the, the, the common denominator is all of these businesses that you go and visit. They're all Mineris customers. So that's obviously like a baseline. You must be a Miner customer. There are so many though that must be a wide universe here. Then what's the criteria to decide who will get a visit from the cuddly one, Al Grego? You have to want to tell your story and have, and host me and you can't just rough them up against the wall. Tell me your story. It's surprisingly, you know, challenging to get people. I mean, I understand you have a business to run, so you may not have time,

but I reach out to these businesses and half the time it's a cold email. Uh, and they'll look at it going, Oh, you know, straight into the spam folder. Right? So it helps when I have somebody, uh, making the introduction. So in this case, Matt Cundle did the introduction. And he also introduced me to Susie Parker, who is a, uh, uh, uh, pup or a PR person in Winnipeg. And she introduced me to the other Winnipeg businesses. Uh, they were, I guess clients of hers or friends of hers. So they, they really helped out in finding the businesses for this season.

Okay. And again, you did eight episodes in this season seven of yes, we are open six of them are in Winnipeg. Two of them are in Toronto. Okay, good. Because that last one I'm gonna... I know this guy will talk about him. Okay. So I'm digging it very much. And I will say every time somebody reports back to me that they listen to Yes, We Are Open because I talked about it, they all say they love how it's like you capture the sounds of the... of wherever you are. Like it's not just you in a microphone talking with somebody like we're doing right now. No, there's ambience. Like you capture the whole.

There has to be, because why else would they send me there in person? Like I have to make it worth sending you zoom with them. Yeah. Otherwise just a zoom meeting. No, I want to be able to be there on the scene and record sounds from, from whatever's happening there. You want to smell the spices. Exactly. You want to smell the coffee. And by the way, I ate at Spice Circle.

The food was amazing and I highly recommend. So every place, we'll get to generate cakes. Did you escape from the real escape room? I didn't do the escape room. I didn't have time. And I was by myself. Most of these escape rooms require team play and stuff like that. So unfortunately I didn't have time on for it. And it was, I was by myself. The most of these escape rooms require team play and stuff like that. So unfortunately I didn't do that,

but I had a lot of fun like just seeing the behind the scenes of what puts these together. So amazing. Okay. And that's a Natu Natu. I'm going to have to add that to my, uh, my play. Definitely watch RRR on Netflix. It's like a three hour epic, but it is so, so good. It is so good. I'm going to add it to my list. No, I, I, but it is so so good. It is so good. I'm gonna add it to my list No, I I was I do want to see it. It looks like it would be pretty pretty damn good When I was a kid

I'm not gonna you know where I'm going. I'm not gonna tell sorry. I'm just gonna say I Loved now we'll talk about on the other side, but this was like my first favorite song from this rather big British band. You're ready? I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore, I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes I see a line of cars and they are painted black With flowers and my love won't never to come back I see people turn their heads and quickly look away Like a newborn baby it just happens every day.

I look inside myself and see my heart is black. Painted Black by The Rolling Stones. That's right, from 1966's Aftermath. Now, I wonder if your answer's the same as mine. What was your introduction to this song? Tour of Duty. Of course. But it's funny because my brain gets Tour of Duty confused with China Beach. Yeah, I mean, they were around the same time. And we were similar vintage. Yeah, exactly. We discussed. So you're kind of dumb at that age. No, I won't. This is how dumb I was. I'm like, I didn't find out this is a Rolling Stones song until after that. Wait a minute.

The tour of duty theme is Rolling Stones. I was a heady on that because I stumbled upon my father's copy of hot rocks. It was a double album. Yeah. And I, that's actually, that was a big thing for young Mike and discovering, Oh my God, Paint It Black is on this, which I already loved from Tour of Duty. And then, oh my God, this, You Can't Always Get What You Want, which I still sing to my kids. Well, and that's like from some commercial,

isn't that from an Air Canada commercial or something? Oh, maybe, but because I discovered this Hot Rocks double album from Rolling Stones, all the big hits from 64 to 71 or whatever, I knew them all. You know, let's spend the night together, of course Jumpin' Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man, all that stuff because of Hot Rocks. But it was an exciting moment when I'm hearing this song on Hot Rocks and remembering that I knew it and loved it already from Tour of Duty. This is their third number one single, so

yeah, this is like in their heyday for sure. And we're rolling so magazines to 213 on the list of 500 greatest songs. You think it'd be right, right. Higher considering the magazines named after them. But, uh, well, yes, yes. And that's no, just to tie it all together. Cause that's what we do here. But of course, Rolling Stone, that's also a big Bob Dylan jam. Like a Rolling Stone. Yeah. I only say it facetiously.

So I picked this one because this is one of the Ontario stories, Door World, from- What did they sell there? They sell doors. And this is Dave and Brianne Gunther in Tilsonburg, Ontario. Oh, my back still hurts when I hear that name. I had to look that up. I had no idea. You know, when I started, I brought that into the, when Mike Apple made his debut because he's from Tilson break and it's a, and if I went banjo dunk was expected at TMLX 17 and he didn't show up.

But of course he tours doing like Stomp and Tom songs. And so Stomp and Tom Tilson Berg, Mike Apple, happy birthday, Mike. He loved that moment, by the way, when we sang happy birthday to him at TMLX 17. Yeah. My back still hurts when I, when I posted about that episode, more than two or three people posted, my back still hurts. And I'm like, what's this about? I had no clue. It was such a blind spot for me. I had to look at them. oh, stupid. Well again, we're a bit young for that, but you know, we have to learn our history, right Al? Yeah, well yeah, we do. And we're also doomed to repeat it, I guess.

And anyway, yes, Dave and Breanne Gunther and they started the Door World and they install overhead doors in businesses and homes. And it was a lot of fun visiting with them in Tilsonburg and hearing their story. Shout out to Ann Romer, the competitors. We go to Door World in this, in the TMU, we go to Door World. Okay. What's Ann Romer's company? No, she does, I don't want to name the competitor because I don't know if they're

Meneris clients or not, but Anderson, she does all of that. And you know, I get emails from, this is what, this is a true story. I think this is interesting for listeners, but I get emails from Americans who see ads for Anderson doors with this woman named Anne Roemer and they Google her name and they end up on my site. Sure. Of course. And then they write a note to say, Oh, never heard of this woman, but she's on our TVs all the time, pushing these doors. And then they learned from my podcast who in Roemer is, and they learned, and they learned about the, the mad crush that young Mike and then they hear about the restraining and Roemer sent me a note. She wanted to also attend the list of people who almost attended very long. Okay. Very long. But Mike Apple was there, Tilson Berg. And so, so door world is an Ontario story. So of the eight episodes, how many

were recorded in Winnipeg? Six. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah. Okay. So you didn't do like all six from Winnipeg and then do a couple of Ontario. You, you, you got already number four. The fourth episode is already in Ontario. Yeah. I thought I'd shuffle it up a bit because you not just a pretty face. Okay. And you actually tease this one earlier and are you going to crack open a coffee is done, so I thought you go out and get a crack one too. So because Al Greggo has a six pack, not just the beer, but abs, you're drinking the I'm going to do it too. And then we're going to kick this next jam.

That's how you do it. Do you crack open beers on the produce stand? We used to, but, uh, you know, I didn't want to get accused of, of stealing. Oh, you just hit it. You know what? Is this our first recording since? No, no, I think, no, cause you had us on last year. Okay.

Remember? Anyway, your wife still does your, does your wife still think I'm mad at you? That's our first recording since. No, no, I think. Oh, no, because you had us on last year. Okay. Remember? Anyway, your wife still does your does your wife still think I'm mad at you? She when I told her I was coming over to explain what we're talking about. Now you behave treat treat Mike nicely. And I said, what Mike loves me. I'm his I'm a sponsor. He's got it.

He's got a tree in a nutshell for the just we'll do we won't spend too much. I won't spend 21 minutes on this story, but That's gonna be my line for a while when people are telling a long story In a nutshell you invited me on the produce stand You know who the only people listening now who know this story are probably y y zed gourd Not Z and leave a funk FOTM Hall of Famer who announced to us at tmlx 17 She was cancer-. That was the, that was the highlight of the night. That was amazing. Amazing. Yeah.

I mean I already knew, but just to, just to see here or feel the love in the room for, for Miriam, which is well deserved. And the moment when she told Elvis how much she appreciated his support and then, uh, in Elvis, who was a chatty guy, you could tell, didn't know what to say. like this is like Elvis was speechless And then they embraced and for a man who spent most of the afternoon laughing his ass off Hi, oh as Allen's wag yeah Which was by the way very funny line from Allen's wag who is a polarizing figure at this event

But entertain the hell out of me You know what I sat beside him most of the time and and we had you know We shot some lines at each other and he seemed fine Until Brad Bradford showed up. He was okay. He yeah when I when he got up, I'm like, oh here we go and I knew this is gonna be the What's her name? The the Brio Liz Brio Liz Brio was that Liz Brio attacked? Stu stone kind of personally like sure. Yeah. Trying to defend me. Right. So she was like just protecting me where Alan did. He just sort of did a general whole,

like I don't want to hear a politician politicking and I can respect that. The only, only issue I have with it all is that it's my show. Sure. Like this is my event, my show I'm feeding you. I'm making sure you get your, can I say that I wasn't too sad that he did it? No, that's fine. That's exactly right. You can agree with him. But again, as you know, Al, anyone who comes to TMLX events who wants on the mic gets on the mic. Anyone. Even if I hate your guts, you can come on the mic and chat. I happen to like Brad Bradford as a human being and I respect him and we're fellow cyclists. So I'm just going to have

a five to seven minute chat with him about Bill two one two anyways Allen's why gave us all some Some fun content to discuss like I really appreciate for the mill for sure. Okay. I like that one. Okay, let's borrow that one Where I was going quickly is that you invited me on your podcast the produce stand and I told you ahead of time I was going to pretend I was pissed at you for stealing a lot of my stuff. And I can't remember. Oh yeah. Kicking out the jams. That's what it was. You were going to kick out the, you, you basically heard things on Toronto Mike that you were going to emulate like, you know, borrow and I, what am I going to do? I didn't invent kicking out jams. I'm fine with it, but I was going to pretend like I was pissed at

you. And then I was going to leave the zoom in anger and you did. And yeah, and I did that. So I, you. So I'm acting basically, like I'm gonna do some stu-stone shtick here. I'm like, I went out, I said, enough is enough, I remember doing, enough is enough, you took this, you had the live stream, you did this, you did that, you have the events, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's it, I'm outta here. And I slammed my laptop. And your wife is still unsure if that was a worker shoot. She was concerned for the rest of that episode. She was concerned. Are you sure we should be doing this? Maybe we should. That's not rename it. It can't be called kick out the gems. Uh, Mike has the, uh, he owns that. Forget MC five. That's mine now. Okay.

Before I play this song, do you golf? I used to, um, poorly, poorly, but you would golf. Yeah, I would. I'd go with my buddies you golf? I used to. Oh, you did? Poorly, poorly. But you would golf? I would. I'd go with my buddies. To close some deals? Yeah. Okay. So I don't golf, but I'm going to kick this out and we're going to talk about it. Straight down the middle It went straight down the middle Then it started to hook

Just a wee, wee bit And that's when McKendry lost sight of it That little white pellet Has never been found to this day But it went straight down the middle like they say. Whacked down the fairway. Is this the only golf song? You think so right? There were a few others but I like this one and it's Bing. He had to had to bring out Bing.

Actually this is Bing's first appearance but not his last. Which is amazing because in December he has one of the biggest songs in the world With white Christmas. Yeah. Yeah, and this one here. It's funny cuz this one here is actually off of one of his Christmas albums He had a bunch. He had the market market cornered For Christmas songs. This one was off his Merry Christmas No Anyway, one of his Christmas, yeah, Merry Christmas is the name of the album and I don't know why because that has nothing to do with

Christmas. Anyway, it was the most... When you live in California maybe it does. Maybe. It was the most on-the-nose song I could find for this and it's Bing. You gotta love Bing. Anyway, so this is for Shooter's family. You don't have to like Bing. I don't think his kids liked him. Oh really? Okay. You can dig into that later. Yeah maybe I'll that deserves a Google. But enough about Kevin's face. I visited Amy and Guido Sarasani. They're the Sarasani family. They bought a driving range in 1993, opened it in 1994, but then Guido, the patriarch, built an 18-hole golf course on the property with a backhoe and very little like experience.

He just decided, I want it. I want to run a golf course. So I'm going to build one. And, and he bought adjacent land and just did that. And the reason he did it, I loved the, cause he was an investment banker and he would, he said he would always go to these golf clubs and not feel very welcome. Or, or, or, and he, he vowed that one day he would open up a public course where you wouldn't need, you know, it didn't matter how much money you made.

It didn't matter your status. Everyone was welcome. And he did that with a shooter's family golf. He had imposter syndrome because he saw everybody a rattling their jewelry when they arrived. It's a great story and it was a fun visit with them and Amy who's Guido's daughter she runs the banquet and restaurant facility part of the operation. It's grown into an amazing operation and they're doing great and yeah I had fun talking to Guido and about all the celebrities that have visited his golf course and he had a lot to say about that.

Dennis Quaid, like I said, Morgan Freeman even visited there, because it's the closest driving range to downtown Winnipeg. So whenever they're there to shoot movies, if they're looking to, you know, fire some balls at the driving range, that's where they would go. And this is Winnipeg? This is in Winnipeg. Okay. And it's called Shooter's Family Golf.

Correct. And you're telling me the legend Morgan Freeman played that course. According to Guido Sarasani. I would like to hear him narrate that course. I can't tell you where I'm trying. Here I am. I have a voice that's not even close to Morgan Freeman's voice. Because if I had Morgan Freeman's voice, all my episodes would just be monologues. Like I'd have no guess. I would just just tell you about thoughts as they pop in my head in my Morgan Freeman voice and you would listen because I would sound like Morgan Freeman. Yes, of course I would.

I'd listen to that man read the phone book. But you asked me if I've ever played golf. In a previous life, I did work for a multimedia company and what we, we put out a, a digital golf publication called the Canadian multimedia golf course, a source. And it was a CD-ROM of golf courses across the country. And, and myself and a team of two other programmers, we put these together and I would write the scripts for these, like, you know, every, every golf course has 18 holes. So you'd have to describe each course and you'd, you know, I'd have to write scripts like this hole here is a par three,

150 yards, blah, blah, blah. Uh, it high risk, high reward and all that stuff. And this is how you're supposed to approach it. It was tedious work. And, uh, but a lot of fun. It was kind of like my first job out of college. And so I got to know golf a lot. I even went to the Canadian, the 1998 Canadian Open, and even got to shoot like golf course footage on like from helicopters. I wasn't in the helicopter,

but we had people up in helicopters. It was a, it was a lot of fun. It was a fun time. The Glen Abbey golf courses in Oakville. That's right. I was there this past summer, not to golf because I don't golf't golf but I was there to record of people at the Joe Carter Classic. So people who are going to the Joe Carter Classic for charity they would come on my mics and we would chat and everybody I asked to come on the mic and I had Tim Heron who was at TMLX17 he was asking people on my behalf as well to a tee they all said yes that includes people that you wouldn't think would do it like

Josh Donaldson Jose Batista Joe Carter was happy to do it Tom Cocker was happy to do it but all these people Wendell Clark They're all happy to do it. We got one. No that whole afternoon one no And when I tell you who it is and and you might know, because I think it was mentioned at TMLX 17 with Tim, but when I tell you it is, you'll be very disappointed. Do you know who said, no, I will not talk to you on your mics here at Glen Abbey, even though I'm here for charity. Who was it?

He took a wild step forward and fell. Oh, Paul Henderson, he scores! Henderson has scored for Canada. That's my foster. He went, Paul Henderson said no. I was like foster, he would, he's dead. What? Foster, he was dead.

It wasn't foster. You know what? He also said no shout out to Ridley funeral homes, foster, he would, my foster, he would impression needs a little work. I apologize. I'll fix it in post. Maybe with AI, not Al.

Cause you bring that up a few weekends ago. Uh, there was an event in Toronto during the Taylor Swift craziness. with AI, not Al. Is it? Yeah. You bring that up a few weekends ago, there was an event in Toronto during the Taylor Swift craziness. There was actually a Shorzy event where the cast of Shorzy played a charity game. Oh, I saw your photos. With Toronto Maple Leaf alumni and I was there

and I got to meet Wendell Clark, FOTM Rick Vibe was there. With their both FOTM. Todd Gill was there, Daniel Marowah Daniel Meriwa, um, um, Antropof there's a lot of, you know, um, these are big, good deal. Yeah. They were all there and there's a lot of Meriwa scored, I think 34 goals as a rookie or something. And, uh, Sammy Joe small was in net for the bulldogs. She was great. And it was a lot of fun and at the Mattamy center.

So my first time at Maple Leaf gardens since they shut down and converted it, I was a little underwhelmed actually. I actually, my first time there since they shut down and converted was for the book launch. Wendell Clark had a book written by Jim Lang. And I went, because I'd never met Wendell Clark in person. And as you know, hero of the day.

His picture's right over here. There he is, yeah. I wanted to meet Wendell Clark. So I went there to meet Wendell Clark. And again, uh, underwhelming cause it's just a little, little, uh, skating rink there. And it's, uh, it's not Maple Leaf gardens anymore. They made a big deal out of keeping the roof, the domed roof because, but, but they painted it all white and it doesn't look, it just, yeah, it was kind of, it just looked like a minor league arena.

Our PWHL team, the now known as the Scepters, they were playing their games there. Uh, that now they've moved to a more suitable facility. I think the Coca-Cola Coliseum there by the C&E grounds, but it's, you know, it's kind of underwhelming. I think that's a very small venue. Yeah. But, Hey, you got to meet Wendell Clark. I got to meet, yeah, I got to meet a bunch of Maple Leaf alum. You know where I thought the story was going?

It was- Paul Henderson and you had a great chat. He couldn't be more delightful, you know, because he's a very proud Christian, right? That's Paul Henderson's thing. Yeah, no, he wasn't there. I don't think he was there anyway. Okay. But Rick Vibe still has a shot.

Holy crap. Oh, okay. Oh, man. He, yeah, he lasered a few at Sammy Jo. I felt bad for her, but yeah. Okay. So to connect in all the team, you was, uh, yeah. He lasered a few at Sammy Joe. I felt bad for her, but, uh, yeah. Okay. So to connect that all the team, you know, so Jamie's Sammy, Sammy Joe small wrote the forward to Rob Del Mundo's book. Oh yeah. And Rob Del Mundo's book was inspired by one of Kevin Shea's books.

There you go. It all comes full circle. I love how this works. Okay. So you're not golfing that much anymore. No, and I've golfed in years. Well, neither is Bing Crosby. Okay. So let's kick out another one here. Depends who you ask. I used to hang out down at Jack's pool hall You go down there and don't do nothing at all You wanted to play some cards, there was a game in the back You wanted a shot or something, you went out to Jack If you had a little money, you was a grade A fool There was a guy down there who used to shoot a little pool Rack him up, rack him up

Rack him up, rack him up Till the day he was dead that all they ever said was, Rack'em up. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car.

He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. He didn't own a TV set, didn't own a car. his album, Not Lie to Me, which came out in 1997.

Do they call them Langer? I don't know. Are all Langs Langer? Probably. If they're hockey players. When they have family events, is it like, Hey Langer, and everybody's like, hey. If they're hockey players,

they're either Langer or Langsy, I guess. Langer's better than Langsy. But Johnny, I just want to say for the record, Missing in H. Yes, yes. I don't know a whole lot about Johnny Lang, but this song was very on the nose, so I had to pick it. Well, he doesn't know much about you.

When I searched up billiard songs, the number one was Bad to the Bone. But that's just because of the video. The video is all shot, it takes place in a pool hall, it's him playing, shooting pool with, Oh man, I forget the legendary blues guitar. Anyway, it's... B.B. King? No, it wasn't B.B. King. Bo Diddley? Maybe. I'm just gonna name legendary blues. So, but I mean that like visually, you know, this is an audio podcast so it wouldn't work. Anyway, so this one here is very much about billiards and this is

because I visited Able game room, uh, and Neil McGusky and his team at Able game room. They, they, uh, they sell all sorts of home gaming stuff like pool tables and air hockey tables and foosball or, or our Portuguese and Italian brethren called Jitoni tables and dart boards and all sorts of things. And it was a real game room. Yeah. Real, real fun place to visit and meet. He's got a great

staff there. One of his sales guys is like a on weekends. He he's a professional wrestler. And, and like one of his guys there, he's been there for like 40 years. He like, it's a really interesting story. Now you need to have a little bit of a space in the home for a game room. Yes, you do. Like a little bit more than this studio. Like I think I don't, like if you notice you're, uh, you hit your head when you stand up because there's nowhere left in this house for me. I sure don't get a game room.

I'm wondering if I could even hold the pool cue upright in this studio area. You know, Rob, we mentioned Rob Nash earlier. Rob, by the way, two Bs. So Johnny Lang, no H. No H. Rob Lang, two Bs. What the hell's going on here? But that man is six foot five.

And you see how the ceiling's kind of normal over there that you and I can stand up over there. Yeah. Rob Nash could not stand up over there. Forget over here. Yeah. Okay. Shout out to Leo Rodin's. Yeah, I was gonna say he joins the Leo Rodin's club. Leo is a lot taller than that, but yeah. Bob Nash could not stand up over there. Forget over here. Okay.

Shout out to Leo Rodin's. Yeah, I was gonna say he joins the Leo Rodin's club. Leo is a lot taller than that, but yeah. AVO game room servicing Winnipeg since 1963. They're like on their third owners, but so long. Redley Funeral Home since 1921. Okay, you got some work to do here, AVO. AVO is good, because when I was doing the ad reads

or whatever, I was calling it AVO room. Well, and those topic conversation when I started recording was like, what do you guys go by, AVO or AVO? And I had different answers from each of them, right? Because it's named after- Then you can't get it wrong. The original owners were brothers, Aubrey, Vern, and Orville. Hell off. So yeah, it's an acronym of their names, right? So- Hey, if you had a game room, maybe, it was, yeah, it's there. It's an acronym of their names, right? So, um, Hey, if you had a game room, maybe you have one, but what would you have if you were going to pick something up at AVO game room for

your game room? Would you go with the foosball table? Yeah, billiard table. What would you get? Okay. You foosball man. Okay. I'm trying to think what I would go for. Can I get an air hockey table? Sure. I'm going for an air hockey table. I like foosball. My wife would go for the ping pong. Um, and uh, there was a time where I, I loved, I dreamed about having a pool table in the house, but uh, well you gotta dream bigger than that. Okay.

I feel like that dream one day I can envision there'll be like a produce stand live event and your listeners will gift you. No, because to your point, I need a house big enough to have a pool table and I just assumed you're at hall and landing and like I'm assuming you're on like 10,000 square feet of home there. Don't they given houses away up there? They're definitely not. When you bought in what was going on when I bought, I mean, it's,

it's a little bit to 50 year old bungalow. It's what it is. So it's a half the age of this one here. Okay. I got to visit you. How come I never get invited up there? Uh, you have a standing invitation. You can come up. How long a bike ride is that? You know what? I think it's a 60 K bike ride and most of it, most of it's off road, but most of its paths paved or most of its bike path, 60 K easy peasy. Yeah. It's then I got to get back. That's the only problem. You can't put my backyard. Well, I do have a trailer for the studio so I can put a tent in that. Okay. So I'll come up and see you. I might, I might lie to be in the guest room,

which is also my podcast studio. So there you go. I got to see how things are rolling up there. Okay. Oh my goodness. Now I'm remembering listening to 680 CFTR and abs I'm telling you L. I loved this song like this song blew my pre grunge era. This song blew my mind You ready, buddy? I'm ready. Let's sing it together Walk this way, you and me babe. Hey, hey! Hey! Wow! Speaking of Langer, Mud Lang!

Hwah! Living like a bum baby come and get it on. Living like a lover with a red-eyed phone. Looking like a tramp like a video man. Dare unless you want, cannot be your man. Man! Woo! It's still slave. sweet. Here we go. You ready Al? You're the singer. I can't tell if we're going to be talking about cakes or if we're going to be talking about a strip club here. This is a great, this song would be great as a strip club. You know that right? I'm sure it's been featured on in many a strip club. I'm sure. All right.

Why are we playing deaf leopards? Pour some sugar on me. All right. Well, I'll talk about the song first. Of course. Sorry. Interesting. So yeah, pour some sugar on me off of 1987's massive hysteria, which massive, massive album.

Did you have the cassette? I had the, yes, both the cassette and then the CD. And you had to buy it by playthrough, right? Like every song seemed to be a single. Yeah, no it was a banger. Here's an interesting, so reach number two on the US Billboard Hot 100. What blocked it?

Richard Marx's Hold On To The Night. Wow, that's America for you. Right, but here's okay. Hold on to the night. This might be fun, so rank number two on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs Of The 80s, number two, okay, in 2006. Is it top hard rock songs?

Just said greatest songs of the 80s in 2006 was when they put this out. So number two, what do you think was number one? Come on, Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners. Is that 80s? Yeah. No, it's not. It's not. I take it that's wrong. Okay.

So maybe this is rock. Maybe this is rock because then then let me think and it's an American list, right? Yeah. Okay. Give me a second here. Number one. Very American band. Bon Jovi.

Yeah, it is Bon Jovi. It is Bon Jovi. Okay. You give love a bad name. No, it's the other one. Oh, the other one. Oh, halfway. Living on a prayer. no, it's the other one. Living under prayer was number one and number three was hungry like a wolf.

Okay. Duran Duran. Yeah. I wondered, uh, any Aerosmith on that list or maybe, well, I only got the top three. I thought it'd be fun. But that's gotta be a rock list. Yeah, it's gotta be. There's no Madonna or although having Jackson. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, and Halen's jump should be on the top ten. Come on. Yeah, absolutely And so Elliot said he was inspired partially by Aerosmith Speaking them and run DMC's version of walk this way. So I guess kind of the well this part's kind of rapy, right? Yeah Yeah, it's only of a rappy. Number 22 in Canada. Oh, charge smarts, you know, like they like things like Richard Marx's.

Hold on to the night. Hold on to the night. All right. So yes, Jenna Rae Cakes. So I visited Jenna and Ashley, they're twin sisters. They started their cake empire in Winnipeg after watching Cake Boss on TV. No training, Jen has just started baking and has turned into... They've got four locations in Winnipeg.

Four locations? One at the Winnipeg airport. It's an amazing brand. They've done an amazing job with this. Are they even small enough for you? I feel like you do the smaller... Under a hundred employees. Yeah. That's that's the core location. That's like Palm of pasta territory.

Well, they've got a very lean operation. They've got the central to the kitchen and then, uh, the, the staff that worked the stores. Generate cake. So twin sisters watch cake boss and they both look at each other at the same time and say, are you thinking what I'm thinking? And then she's like, I think I'm thinking what you're thinking. And then they go, okay,

we're going to say it together. Three, two, one, let's start our own cake company. Yeah. It probably went something like that. Um, let me do the biopic. That'll be the big scene. Fun and interesting tie to Toronto here. Uh, Jenna, uh, Jenna's husband is Michael Hutchinson, former Toronto may believe goalie. You know what? That's a, you're burying the lead out. Gringo. I would have led. I remember him. He's a second string goal. Anyway, no, he's not easy. Was he a starter or was he a backup? I feel like he was a backup actually, but that's a, that's a wonderful fun fact. Okay. That's a fun fact.

So and what are the names of the twins again? Jenna and Ashley, Jenna and Ashley, which one's married to a Jenna's Jenna. Yeah. Okay. So it's called Jenna Ray Kate. Correct. So what happened? Jenna is the Baker. Ashley was, she's marketing. Ray is Jenna's middle name. I, I'm just wondering, like I didn't get into the leads with that. Did you get into the, it wasn't, it wasn't a trauma when it was named after one of the sisters. No, well they, they, they covered that themselves.

Jenna started it and actually you were going to say there's no real talk in that episode. You can't get into that. Jenna started, Ashley joined her after when things were, you know, to help her out by then she'd already had established the name. So they chose not to, uh, add Ashley to it. So it was a joint decision. Jenna Rae Cakes, and if anyone listening, cause this is our last Winnipeg episode we're gonna discuss,

although maybe not the end of our Winnipeg discussion. If anyone listening finds themselves in Winnipeg, Manitoba, find one of those four locations. Pretty easy, one of them is in the airport. Yes, the airport, so. And they're coming for that airport. Macaroni. Putting on the spot here. Oh jeez. Why?

It's why something we got that right. Okay. WZ. Is that, I think it's not fixed. It imposed it. It's wrong. Okay. So generate cakes, pour some sugar on me. Love it. I love cakes. Are you a cake person or a pie person? I'll go pie person, but their macarons are really good. So, uh, I'll, you know, I'll have to be offended that you're a pipe. You're like careful there. I don't want to, I don't want to offend. I don't mind cake, but I prefer pie.

Okay. I prefer cake to pie, but if I'm having pie, it's gotta be a la mode. Okay. I need that scoop of vanilla ice. I was going to say unless it's ice cream cake and then, then it's ice cream cake, ice cream cake, ice cream, ice creams, the best Billy minor pie. Oh yeah. I got that. Get that at the keg. Shout out to Ann Romer.

You know, if they ended showing up at TM like 17, I was going to say, let me see your purse or whatever. And I was going to be happy to say, why do you have all these keg gift cards? You're not retiring again. Are you in? Give me a break here. Okay. So this is the, that is the end of the Winnipeg. I know you through, you just decided to mix

things up and you threw a door world in there, which is a business dedicated to the doors of a great, great band, Jim Morrison. I've been to his grave in Paris. I've been there. Okay. I'm very excited about this eighth episode of season seven, but I'm gonna play the song and then we're gonna get into it. And speaking of Christmas and Bing. Correct. Al's a big Bing head here. Melikilikimaka is a thing to say On a bright Hawaiian Christmas day That's the island greeting that we send To you from the land where palm trees sway Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night.

Mele-Kileke-Maka is a wise way to say Merry Christmas to you. Mele-Kileke-Maka is a thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day. I didn't want to talk over these lovely women here, but Mellie Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby. Yes, from 1950s white Christmas. It's interesting, I think on the Wikipedia page it shows how they get Melikaliki Makha from Merry Christmas because there's a bunch of rules in the Hawaiian language where you can't have more than one consonant together, so you've got to add vowels and certain letters don't have an analogue in the Hawaiian alphabet. So the translation of it is actually Merry Christmas, like word for word, which is interesting anyway. I thought it was interesting, but written

by Robert Alex Anderson and he was like a talkable. And I'm going to call Jane Siberee and find out if that was interesting. Jane, it's Mike. Is this an interesting fact? I read it. I thought it was interesting. Anyway, Robert Allen, Alex Anderson it's Mike. Is this an interesting fact? I read it. I thought it was interesting. Anyway, Robert Allen, Alex Anderson talked about golf. He's a golf buddy of Bing Crosby's. He wrote this song, Bing heard it, loved it, recorded it and surprised Alan

Alex with the recording or Robert Alex, uh, with the recording and then put her on his massive white Christmas album to make him very rich man. I think. Well, they're still selling copies in 2024. It might be the biggest single in the English language pop culture universe. White Christmas might be the biggest single of all time. I wouldn't be surprised.

I think I read that somewhere. Like, think of that. Every year it comes back. I mean, eventually, not not now but maybe in a hundred years Mariah Carey will catch being with her Christmas song but yeah every December you're back on the radio yeah and I mean Mariah is doing all right for herself too so no tag days for her yeah and I'm I picked this one because for our final episode I went to Oakville and I visited FOTM, Tyler

and his wife, Jordy Schwartz from RetroFestive and got to visit their store and tell their story. Ty the Christmas guy, you went all the way to Oakville. So here we are going to Winnipeg, okay? And you know, you had generate cakes in the airport, but you went all the way to Oakville. RetroFestive, I love this guy, Ty Schwartz. And you mentioned his wife. What's his wife's name? January cakes in the airport, but you went all the way to Oakville retro festive. I love this guy, Ty Schwartz. Uh, and you mentioned his wife. What's his wife's name? Jordi. Okay.

So I haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, but Ty comes to the, uh, festive TMLX events, which were at Palma's kitchen at this time of year. And he gives gifts to the attendees. Last year, we all got moose mugs and did you get a present this year? Of course I did. I got the abominable snowman from the, what is it, the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. My kids were there at that event and they came home, one's got baby Yoda, the other's

got Minnie Mouse, but like they, this was the biggest deal. Like Ty takes care of us and he's a sweetheart. He's great. And his wife's great. And yeah, I met him. I met him last year at TMLX 15. Did you look at his rifle? Uh, yes. Well, I went to his, you burping on my mic. Did you burp on the Menera's podcast? Yes. I did. No, I did not fix that. Impose. I went out to the parking lot and saw the rifle

in his trunk. That was very, you know, shady dealings there. It sounds like, oh, I went to see his rifle, but it was not loaded, right? I don't think so. No. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. He's got a great story and it's a really cool store. I brought, I took the family there last weekend. They had a great time. If you, if you're looking for, how big is the store? I gotta get out there. It's so from the front, it doesn't look like much, but inside it's like a maze of rooms and the walls are covered with just anything you can think of retro and holiday.

Did you buy a leg lamp? I did not feel like that would be the big, the big thing. I mean, there's lots of big things. Oh, lots of leg lamps, the moose mugs, the turtle doves from Home Alone. But like any kind of like a Christmas ornament from like movies, any kind of TV show you can think of. If he doesn't have it, it doesn't exist. He's got it all there. It's pretty impressive. This election. He's an impressive guy. And again, I mentioned this at TMLX 17, but you know, that takes three hours to go through that one. So this one might be easier for some people. But-

Didn't he have his own episode? Yeah, he's been over here. It was amazing. So there's a tie, the Christmas guy episode of Toronto Mike, but he's friends of a guy named Andrew Godaro. And due to that friendship, Andrew Godaro reached out and said, I would love to do an episode about it's

called screamers it's a Halloween themed thing it's in mape maple where is it Vaughn it's up in Vaughn Woodbridge what only do it at Wonderland no it used to be a C&E ground yeah they used to they moved it to I think it's near seven and four hundred I went there so I should remember this but I bike there so I'm trying to remember where I went near where Wendell Clark's used to be at? 407 because Tyler used to be an events coordinator for Wonderland So I was wondering whether that's all I met right so but I don't know how they met but maybe they did meet that way but anyway, so Andrew Godaro and I started talking thanks to tie the Christmas guy and I very quickly recognized the name Godaro because

When I worked at the CNE for three years, my boss was Arto Godaro. And he's been haunting me ever since. Like just the scariest boss I've ever had. And because we did this episode with Andrew, I said, I'll do the episode if I can talk to your dad. So Andrew came over and this is last October, I guess. So 2023. But then I said, okay

We're gonna I want Ardo. Good Darrow to zoom in because I want to talk to him and it was very therapeutic for me I've been sleeping much better since then. It's like I I realized that he had to put on this like Mean front because he had these teenagers working for him and he basically That's how he got us to like stay in line because we're all a bunch of like hooligans or whatever. So thank you, Ty Schwartz for introducing me to Andrew Goddaro. So I could like slay these demons with my conversation with Ardo Goddaro and retro festive in Oakville. I got to get my ass there. Tis the season people like, you know,

Brian Dunn. Yeah, these people just camp out. They camp out at retro festive because they want Christmas, 12 months a year and this this retro festive delivers. So that episode, episode eight of yes, we are open fantastic. That was enthusiastic, right? Okay, that's what you pay for out okay, but we have a bonus jam. I'm very excited to a prairie town. I'm a kid in a prairie town. I was born and raised in a prairie town. Just a kid full of dreams.

We didn't have much but an old radio. Music came from places we'd never been Growing up in a prairie town Learning to drive in the snow Not much to do so you start a band Soon you've gone as far as you can go Winter nights are long Summer days are long

Port is a main, 50 below Springtime melts the snow, rivers overflow 40's and main, 50 below 40's and main, 50 below FOTM, but future FOTM Neil Young. This is Prairie Town, but this is the version I love. I love the video and much music. I love this song. Me too. All about Winnipeg.

And Margot Timmons from the Cowboy Junkies is also singing back up. Get out of here. And she's in the video too, apparently. Beautiful woman and great voice. I'm this close to booking her brother Michael to do an episode about the cowboy yonkies, but Margo seems a little shy like a podcast shy, but anyway, I'm sure she'll be on the produce stand next week. Yeah, because I've got the drop. She'll be on the produce stand next week and

then Bob's basement the week after maybe and I'll pick up the sloppy seconds and whatever at some point here. But what was it like? This is your first trip to Winnipeg? Yep. Was it as advertised? What did you expect? How was it? Talk to me, Al.

So, I mean, I wrote about this on my blog, but basically, so read the blog. You have a blog? Is that like Nick Kiprios? It's in the book? I'm pulling a Nick Kiprios. No, it was fun. It was great. Look, every time I told somebody I was going to Winnipeg, I think,

including you say, wow, you're going there on purpose. Uh, I don't think I said that many people did. And I'm like, why? Like this is why I like this job is because I get to go visit the cities that, uh, cause I actually want to go to Winnipeg. Yeah, it's a great town. It's a great time. I loved it. I loved my visit there. It didn't hurt. I want the day I got there is the tail end of a massive heat wave The Burt block party was happening a block away from what's called Burt block party Burton Cummings Theatre. It's a street block party. There's like 4,000 people they had a blue rodeo they had

Toronto's own blue rodeo Big sugar, I think I forget headstone more heads I get them all mixed up still and then but on the last day unfortunately I got there on the Sunday so on the last day though they had SAS Jordan FOTM and they had Tom Wilson no life as a highway dude Tom Cochran Tom Cochran who was at the Joe Carter classic with me he was he was the headliner and I got to listen to it outside the gates. He's a Manitoba guy. He's great and he's one of those Canadian artists where thanks to CanCon, it's amazing how many songs of his you know. Okay, can I quick story? So I'm at Massey Hall because they're putting

a bunch of great artists into the Songwriters hall of fame. And I'm there with the aforementioned Tyler Campbell, the VP of sales. Someone said, well, I got to throw the dog a bone, you know, he does a lot of good things here. So it opens cold open. Tom Cochran is singing his wonderful song with red rider called lunatic fringe. Yes. Okay. And so so, during the intermission- That's the one that's very, very kind of Pink Floyd-y. It's amazing, actually. It's a Pink Floyd kind of song, isn't it?

It's very, kind of got a bit of prog going on there, but it's very good song and it's great. He does this, and it's Tom singing his own song, but it's fantastic. Yeah. Now it's intermission. We meet the aforementioned Rob Del Mundo. We met him at intermission because he was at the place

and he goes, who was that covering Tom Cochran off the top of the show? Because his seat was really shitty like poor Rob Del Mundo was behind a pillar or something and then Tyler and I looked at it well That was Tom Cochran himself covering that Tom Cochran song So he sounded great in Winnipeg and and his band still sounded amazing And I could hear sass when I first got there from my hotel room, her voice, like she's got one of the most powerful voices,

I think in Canada in terms of like, you know, female lead singers. Oh, she's great. But you know, it's kind of interesting that Sass is there near the Bird and Cummings Theater there because Sass Jordan's husband the theater there because SAS Jordan's husband was slash is the lead singer of the fake guess who all right. That was just sued into oblivion here and they're now

the guess who name according to my source Robert Lawson who wrote the one of the great books about the wheat field empire. I think he called it great book. Go to clover day a mall and go to the record store and clover day a mall and say Robert Lawson, I want to called it great book. Go to Cloverdale Mall and go to the, uh, the record store in Cloverdale Mall and say, Robert Lawson, I want to buy your guess who book. But he tells me Robert Lawson that now Randy Bachman and burden coming, they own the name. Guess who again, like for the first time in many years. Yeah. But the name,

that really, what it does is it screws over SAS Jordan's husband, who was the lead singer of the fake Guess Who. So it's kind of interesting that Sass Jordan's at this event. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Sorry, Sass. It's just interesting. Like it's just interesting how what a small Canada,

like what a small world it is. Sure, but I feel like it's back to where it belongs. Like when Michael Jackson owned the Beatles catalog and now it's back to, you know, Paul McCartney owns it again. Like the right person has it, has the rights to it now. But yeah, Winnipeg was a great town. I got to visit a lot of places. I talk about it a lot during the podcast, you know, the Blue Bomber Stadium, probably the nicest CFL. Well, I've only seen a few, but it was a great stadium.

It looked like it could have been in that NFL quality state. But you haven't been to Regina yet to see where the Rough Riders are. Regina is probably this coming spring. I'm probably going to go to Regina. That's my question. So what can we expect in season eight? Have you decided where you're going yet? I haven't decided yet, but I think it's probably because I want to do the territories as well, but I don't want to go to the territories if it's still winter there. So it might happen at the end of the summer. So that means this spring I'll

probably hit Regina. Is there money in the banana stand for you to bring like a technical producer to Regina? I want to go there too. Many people ask me that. No, I'm the only one who matters here. Who inspired you to podcast? Yes Mike, thank you for that. Anyway, great town. I highly recommend you visit it. Kiss this ring over here. Maybe in the summer. Maybe in the summer, visit it.

Not in the winter. Unless you really like it. That's what they say about Winnipeg, right? Come in the summer. And then they say, all you have to do is deal with the giant mosquitoes. Like, this is how they sell you on Winnipeg. They're like, don't come in the winter.

Come in the summer. You just have to deal with like, mosquitoes the size of Canadian geese. So I didn't see them. So maybe you got to go like late August or late September and you're good. Well, we should ask, I'll ask Stu Stone tomorrow about Winnipeg and then I'll bring up the fact that you went to Winnipeg. I'll find out if Stu agrees with you that Winnipeg is a gem in this crown of a country we call Canada. Al, where do I begin? I appreciate your support at the TMLx events. We do only one live recording a year now, but it's at Palma's Kitchen either

late November or early December. And you're a key part of that because you bring the speakers. So thank you for that. Thank you for your sponsorship, partnering with Toronto Miked. This continues because of you. You're not just cuddly, you're generous and kind. And I love partnering with partnering. Can you say partnering? Partnering? Say it again. Partnering? Again. No. Okay. I love partnering. I think it's the beer with Meneris and thank you for that and congrats on another successful season of Yes We Are Open and I hope you win all the Canadian podcast award. Thanks Mike, I really appreciate it and yes, Toronto Mike has been a great partner for Meneris and Yes We Are Open and I'm hoping it continues in the spring.

It better. Or I'm deleting all your episodes. Don't worry, Spotify will delete this in exactly two days because you played a few unlicensed tracks on this one. But this song will not get it deleted. What do you think of Rob Proust's new closing theme? I love it, I love it. I mean, and I loved getting to know him a bit more

on Saturday. He's a prince of a guy and very talented, like super talented. And thank you so much for the assist with the sound on Saturday. It really helped. And that brings us to our 1000s, the end of our 1000 and 1591st. It's getting harder to say these numbers as they get bigger.

1591st show. By the way, Al Greggo, because you know where I'm going next, soon we'll be at like, like every 250 episodes, you're supposed to do a best of. Okay. I might be back in a week or two. Is that all right? Can I come back? When are you going to let the scheduler know? Because now that the season's over, we're 91 episodes beyond the 250. So you were supposed to do, and I've lost track of numbers, but you were supposed to do. I feel shame. 1250 to 1500.

I know. And here we are close to 1750, which is the next chunk. Are you still up for this, John? I, yes. Look in the eyes. I am, I am up. Do you want out? No, I don't want out.

I mean, if somebody wanted to take it over, fine. But if no one's going to take it over, I'm going to continue it. Do you know this song? I do. I'm surprised at the people who don't recognize this song. Well, you have to be a certain vintage. I suppose, but Bob O'Lett didn't get it. Elvis didn't get it. You know this one. Of course I do. I realize I haven't finished the extra yet. Much love to all who made this possible. That's

Great Lakes Brewery. There's some romantic traffic for you. Palma Pasta, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Minaris of course. We love Minaris so much. And Ridley Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow. Kids in the hall team. Shadowy men on a shadowy planet having an average weekend. Shout out to FOTM Dunpile. See you all tomorrow and my special guest is Stu Stone, FOTM Hall of Famer. One day the cuddly one, Al Grego, will be an FOTM Hall of Famer.

Stay tuned for that.