Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Annette Mangaard Takes Over: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1868

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

In this 1868th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Annette Mangaard takes over Toronto Mike'd and interviews Mike. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Stand by. I'm still pressing the buttons around here. Okay. So you're going to host this show, Annette, so you're going to do the intro. So I will hit the music, and then I'll watch you. When you start talking, excuse me, I'm all choked up at the difference in this episode.

I'm going to bring down the music, and you're going to do whatever, and you're like, I'm just the guest. Okay. But I am pressing the buttons to record everything, because I got to do that. Okay. So, if you're ready, I'm just going to hit the theme.

You ready? Yeah. Well, when you start talking, I faded down. Hi, this is going to be a very different Toronto mic today because he's not the host. He's the interviewee. And I, Annette Manguard, will be interviewing him. So, welcome to episode 1869 of Toronto. Toronto Mike, an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by...

Oh, it's 1868. Because Dan O'Toole stood me up yesterday. Oh, I'm so sorry. That's awful. Okay, but it is brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, the best beer in the world, ordered online at greatlakesbeer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. And poma pasta, which is the best pasta I've ever had in my life.

I got such an amazing lasagna when I was on here. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. You can visit them at palmapasta.com for more information. And also Fusion Corps own Nick Anus. Ieney. Ieney. Ieney's. Souries.

Nick Aeney's host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mick and Nick and Nick Podcasts. Mike and Nick. Mike and Nick. Mike and Nick. And I'm supposed to be hosting, sorry. You're doing a great job, by the way. Podcast you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.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. And today I'm going to be turning the microphone around and interviewing your regular host, Toronto Mike. Now, the reason I wanted to do this is that back December 4th of 2025, Toronto Mike interviewed me about my new documentary. I am the art Nabu Kabota, which happens to be showing again this Sunday at the Hot Doc Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West, at 4 p.m. At Sunday, March the 29th, please come and see it. It's a very interesting film. But when Mike interviewed me back December 4th, it got me thinking about podcasts and why do people do them?

And what if they replaced and what do they mean? So I thought I would interview Mike to ask them all these questions because how else will I find out? So we're going to start with how did you start being a podcast? Oh, we're diving right into it. I thought you were going to warm me up with some small talk first, you know. warm me up a little bit. I will tell you I was at the hot dogs cinema there, the Ted Rogers there, for, what was it, Nash the Slash Rises again, and they promoted things coming soon. And I saw I am the art, Nobuo Kubota by Annette Mangard promoted. Nice. And I said to my guest,

well, I was his guest, I guess, I said to Rob Bruce, I said, she's an FOTM. What is an FOTM? And you're the host of this show. Friends of Toronto Mike. Yes. I knew that. Anyways, that's exciting. That's happening March 29th and I'm excited for you. Yeah.

Okay, so I'm going to tell you another thing about interviewing. Yeah. You know, when I make a documentary, I feel no stress whatsoever because I'm going in with a camera and a microphone and I'm going to ask questions and I know what I want to get out of the interviewee. And I go about it in such a different way. And I know that I can edit it. Well, that's the safety net that you don't have today. That is correct. But also, I do a little pre-interview on the phone.

That's where I ask them, you know, what are you going to talk about? And I kind of get a sense of how they speak. Because if somebody is a wanderer or a lung, long, long-winded person, then you want to be able to kind of easily and nicely shift things. in another direction to get what it is you're trying to get them to say. And so, you know, that involves building of trust. And that involves time and letting them chit-chat about other things first and then getting into the meat of it.

But with this kind of interview, I thought, oh, my God, I actually, like, I have to find out about Toronto Mike and I have to find out what questions I want to ask them. And it was all like, oh, they don't get all stressed and everything. It's live. Well, how do you think I feel? I've had, I don't know, 1,867 episodes where I hosted. And today I'm trying my best to lay back and let you drive, but it's tough for me too.

Like I can already feel myself wanting to take over, but it's not my podcast today. It's yours. Okay. Well, so we're both in uncomfortable, like, we're out of our comfort zones. Right. Very true. And you are, I can imagine, you're so used to editing it. So you might do, I don't know, you might do an.

hour and then it's like, oh, I just, that eight minutes is my gold or whatever. But on my show, that hour is an hour. Yes. No, I'd probably use two minutes. But the other thing is that I'm constantly, I know about documentary filmmaking. Yeah, and I'm constantly listening and thinking, okay, did they say, oh, I've got a sound bite there. Oh, yeah, I can use that. And so I'll figure out as I'm listening to them what I can use and if it's going to work. And sometimes I say, can you tell me that a little bit more concisely. Okay, well, you can do that on this show, but it would be weird.

But you can also tell me at the end of this interview what two minutes you would actually use for something you were making. Okay. Did we even get two minutes that you could use? Okay, it's a deal. Okay, what was the question again? I guess I'm so used to like a little, like a little bit of like small talk off the top

instead of just diving into the questions. But that's my show. This is your show. And that was the question. We did the small talk. talk. So the question was, why podcasts? How did you start? All right. So I also am sensitive to like repeating this story because, you know, all of this was put into episode 1,000 of Toronto Mike, which is only five hours and 40 minutes a day. You can listen to it on your drive home. But in a nutshell, I started a personal home page

at Toronto Mike.com in the 90s. Do you remember the 90s? Oh yeah, I'm old. Remember the 90s. And then in 2002, it became a blog. Blogs had emerged as this cool new format. And I was a blogger. And then 10 years after I launched the blog at TorontoMike.com, I decided to launch Toronto Mike the podcast because I had helped Humble and Fred podcast in 2006. And we were doing the odd podcast here and there.

And in 2011, we decided Humble and Fred, we decided that we would record every day and make it like a full-time job for them. So that's what we did in October 2011, and I watched them do their thing for a bit, and I said, I could leave my comfort zone and do this. And I reached out to a guy named Andrew Stokely, and I got some audio gear, which we're using today. Well, some of the stuff I bought then, some have upgraded since then. And I decided to leave my comfort zone, talk into a microphone, and start a podcast.

Wow. Okay. In 2012. That's quite a while ago. And I'm a very practical person. So my first question is, how on earth did you make a living? Okay, well, till 2018, I had a full-time job. So the podcast was a side hustle until 2018.

So that's like six years. So for six years, I did this on the side while I worked full-time for a German soft, a German B2B software company as their digital marketing guy. So I had a full-time job to pay the mortgage and set up. send my kids to university. And in 2018, that's the first time I actually made all of my income from TMDS, which I'm now pointing to the logo, because TMDS is Toronto Mic Digital Services.

And that is like the umbrella corporation. So Toronto Mike is under the TMDS umbrella. But I also produce shows for other people, including the aforementioned Humble and Fred. I dropped an episode for them this morning. Oh, wow. So like what happened with Humble and Fred? they were on the radio.

They were so popular. Well, radio died. And I have bad news for you about radio. Humble and Fred have been podcasting for longer than I've been podcasting, because as I said, they kind of inspired me to do this. So I would say that the daily show that is similar to the one they have right now, we launched in 2011. So that's what's that?

15 years? Is that 15 years? So almost 15 years of podcasting. And I've always been like a consultant. I gave birth to that show, but I've been producing that show since 2019. So I'm on my seventh year of being the producer of the Humble and Fred show. Cool. But they're still around.

You just got to go to the podcaster app of choice, the podcast aggregator of choice. Maybe it's Apple, maybe it's Spotify. I use podcast, I can't even speak. Podcast addict. There's many, many, many podcast aggregators. Pick the one you like and subscribe to, well, subscribe to Humble. and Fred, but also subscribe to Toronto Mike, so you can learn how to pronounce

Aienes. I only say it at the beginning of every episode in that. I hear you. Aienes. All right. So, radio. Do you feel like radio is gone and podcasting has taken over?

Well, it's not gone, because they're still making money over there at, like, CHFI, for example. There's still big Toronto radio stations that, you know, generate revenue. So it's still out there, obviously. But without a doubt, it's dying a slow death. And a big reason is the on-demand ease at which you can listen to either a podcast or stream music, like on Spotify or Apple or YouTube premium or whatever poison you picked.

So it's just simply on-demand everywhere you are. You can have a stream of audio. You don't need this archaic idea of like, oh, you're going to tune into a radio station. You can't skip ads, right, which is a big thing. You can't fast forward, you can't pause, you can't rewind. It's happening. It's just simply a dated format. The only reason I think radio may continue is the real-time aspect where, like, if we have a disaster, I don't know, let's say there's a big Toronto flood or something.

Heaven forbid Annette, let's say there's a natural disaster or something even worse. Okay, the Americans are invading. No. We're going to. Please, please. No. Well, I don't wish for it, but we're going to find a radio, and we're going to tune in. We might tune in CBC Radio 1 at 99.1, but who knows?

Somebody might tune in 680 news. Who knows? We're going to tune in the radio to hear real-time news, what we should do, all of that. I think that's a moment when we're going to be glad we still have radios. By the way, do you have any radios? I do. I actually listen to CBC. So I do as well.

I listen to CBC radio. one quite a bit. How many radios do you own, Annette? Or devices that... Yeah, like, I mean, I'm not talking about web streaming. I mean, actual tuner terrestrial radio. Okay, one.

Is that in your car? No. Because cars got a radio, right? Oh, yeah, I've got one in my car too. That's two. Okay, so, you know, even if there's, let's say there's a... We lose power during the aforementioned invasion or natural disaster. We're going to

somebody will have a car that runs on a battery and we'll be able to go there. I'm just saying I myself have three batteries, sorry, three radios in this house. I'm looking at one right now. And I have, there is one in the car that's in the driveway right now. So that means I own four radio. You know what, now that I think about it, I still have an old clock radio. I just haven't used the radio in like 10 years. But that one would work as well.

So I'm ready. Okay, me too. But maybe I should get another radio. So thinking about radio. Get batteries for that radio, though. Like, I kind of think that your shows, is it a little bit like Tom Powers show on the CBC? It's not as safe as Tom Power.

I listen to Q. Yeah. Although I'm going to say controversial statement. I think Garvia Bailey is a better host of Q than Tom Power. I'm not going to weigh in on that because I like them both. Well, I'm not anti-Tom. I want to make that clear. But Tom has gone on a parental leave.

Oh. So he's had fill-ins. And one fill-in I've been hearing quite a bit on Q is Garvia Bailey. Yes. And I just happen to prefer Garvia. I think she's tremendous. I know they're looking for a new host of Metro Morning because the host is gone on to replace Heather Hisccox on television. So they have a new need for a host. I think the natural, no, God, no. I don't think they'd, I don't think they want me.

I think Garvia Bailey, if she wanted that job, would be a tremendous host of Metro Morning. Interesting. I've got a lot of thoughts on radio. Right. Well, tell me some more. Okay. So I, well, yeah, Q, Tom Power, no. So I do listen to Q periodically, and I think it's a very safe show.

Like, it's a very celebrity-driven safe show, right? And I personally find that's fine if that's what you're looking for, but I, and I might not get, like, I know Q's going to get, who will I pick on? Q's going to get, maybe they'll get Martin Scorsese or something, right? Like, Q gets big names because it's CBC Radio's Q.

But, I might not get Martin Scorsese, but I'll get in a net Mangard. And I'll feel like I can pretty much, within reason, I'll feel like I can ask Annette whatever I want, and we can get into it if there's something to get into. So I prefer the fact that I'm sort of on the edge. It's not for everybody, but it's not Q. That's for damn sure. This is not the CBC.

Right. So do you feel like because you can do that, that you're kind of like an archivist of the underground? Definitely a natural born archivist, which I was going to say archivist, but it's archivist. Is that what you're telling me? I don't know anything. English is my second language. What's your first again? Is it Swedish?

Danish. Danish. I've been to Copenhagen. It's a great place. Yeah. And you know who they really like in Copenhagen? Hans Christian Anderson. He's a big, big effing.

You know, I walked to the airport in Copenhagen. Wow. That's a bit of a hike. Yeah, I walked. And I could have expensed, like, I could have got, again, it was a business trip, so I could have expensed it. But I wanted to experience, like, I didn't care how long it took. I wanted to walk to the airport when I was leaving. I had to go to Frankfurt.

Well, where did I go Frankfurt after that? But, yeah, I walked to the, what's the name of the airport there? I don't know. I don't know. Whatever the Copenhagen airport is. Copenhagen Airport is. There you go. And.

Okay. So back to our question, which was the archivist role that you play. Forever. So do you think that what are you creating an archive of exactly? I'm trying to connect. I wish there's a, like, you know, I don't think these exist actually, but you know those in movies and TV shows, you got like the pins and the threads on the pin,

and then you got like photos, like you see it in the wire, for example, and how all the pieces fit together or whatever. Like in my mind, there's this giant board, and I'm trying to connect these dots. And I'll have somebody on and they'll drop a story about this. and then I'll say, oh, I have to pull on that thread. I wonder if that person would come on and so on and so on. So as we approach episode 1900, I feel like it's just tip of the iceberg stuff,

but I'm always pulling at these threads and trying to get these stories. Like, I want to create original content. So we don't just recycle and rehash the same slop over and over again. Right. Okay, so then with an archive, usually it exists in some kind of a physical way. So how will your archive exist? Well, what do you mean by physical way? Because obviously my archive is a, it's bits and bytes.

Right. Like it is, there are transcripts of Toronto mic episodes online and it is, it's an audio library. Every episode I've ever recorded is still online in that archive. So it's online, but you don't have it physically. I mean, I have a backup copy, but it's still bits and bites, right? Like, I don't have a, this is an audio presentation. but I do feel like this is more accessible than, for example, like a show like Q.

Like I think if you're like, oh, I want to hear, who do I want to pick on? Maestro Fresh West made that Q appearance back in 2013. Like, oh, maybe that's Gian Gio Mesh's Q. I don't know if you want to go back there. But I feel like if you want to go back to a 2013 episode of Toronto, Mike, in 10 seconds you're hearing it. Like I just, I feel like I've made it hyper accessible.

Right. And easy to find because you can literally Google it, or you can search on Toronto Mike.com, or you can search the podcast app of your choice. I find it very easy, especially because of this numbering thing. And my brother Steve told me when, you know, we got to like number 142. He said, you got to lose the numbers, he said. This numbers thing is small potatoes. It's amateur hour. And I said, I can't lose the numbers.

Like I need to say, oh, Annette, and I'm going to call this up so it's accurate. Oh, Annette, you were episode 1812. Okay, it's not just a war. You were 1812. Like that's like really unique, yeah. That's your unique ID. If people want to hear your Toronto Mike debut from December 2025, everybody has a unique ID.

It is the episode number. And do you have a little catalog where we can look this up? Where is it? Many different sources. So tronomike.com is your hub. And if you click podcasts at the top, in reverse chronological order, you'll see them all. But I actually felt like that was not sufficient.

People want a cherry pick. Like somebody's going to be like, like, oh, I want to hear Garvia Bailey on Toronto Mike, okay? You can go to notable guests at the top of Toronto Mike.com, and I have sorted them by like audio people, like radio people, television people, print people, politicians, so forth, miscellaneous for those I couldn't fit anywhere. Yeah, you can, uh, athletes, like I kind of organize it that way and you can just revert, you can see an alphabetical order like, oh, let me listen to Donovan Bailey or let me listen to. you know, Ben Johnson when he was in the basement. Cool. Wow.

979. Wow. That's Ben. Donovan, you know, touchy subject because Donovan always ran clean and Ben didn't. And Ben ran 979, but dirty like many of these sprinters in that race. Right. I recall there was a lot of controversy. Yeah. They kind of threw him under the bus there. Yeah. He's a good guy. Yeah.

Okay, so the other thing I was thinking about was the way that I learned about music, because I know you interview a lot of music people, and you know a lot. Oh, wow, amazing. Okay, so I used to watch Much Music. Me too. And Erica M. lived across the street. Oh, yeah, yeah. Eric M, the second woman VJ in Much Music history.

Amazing. Much music, though, was fantastic, right? we could just tune in and we could see something and we could hear something and it was always very exciting. Do you feel like you've replaced that in some way? Has it been replaced? Well, it's not the, now that was fully curated for you. Like the differences, and that was like what radio was for us before the internet is that it used to be somebody or organization or a person or people, a committee, they would curate this content for you. It's like these are the videos we're going to play for you today and we're going to talk about on the radio. all automated now. It's all like, what do they call the groups that you want to,

what are they called when you have a bunch of people in a room and you play a song and they have to rate the song? And then you, you know, like, what's that called? Focus groups. Focus groups. Okay, right. So there's so much focus group stuff going on that it's like there's an algorithm at playing. It's like these are the songs that we feel are the least likely to be skipped. And so basically it's an algorithm saying these are the songs we're going to serve up. So it used to be curated by people. Now it's curated by the bots, if you will, based on these focus groups, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and the metrics and the analytics.

Whereas nowadays, people are like, oh, I like Norwegian death metal. And then they can go and get Norwegian death metal from their streamer of choice. So videos would be just similar. It would be on YouTube, I guess, would be the place you'd go. and you could curate the content you listen to yourself. So this is my playlist. So as opposed to this is 680 CFTR's playlist that we're going to play. Now you can do it yourself.

And there's pros and cons to both. Right. But so now you're a curator. I'm, yes, of course, because the content in this feed, except for this episode, the content in this feed is absolutely, you know, I'm the judge, jury executioner. I'm the boss around here. Right. So this started out as I think a kind of alternative or rebel kind of media, but now has it become mainstream?

Well, I mean, I haven't become mainstream. I don't think. I don't think I approach this show any differently now than I did 10 years ago. Like I don't, for example, I feel like if this thing became corporatized or somehow became mainstream, that they'd be looking, I would have to look at the analytics and say, okay, oh, look at this. When I have these guests on, you get this many listeners. And, oh, look at Annette Mangard. She's underperforming. That's it for her. You know what I mean? Like, I 100% don't want to be that show who says,

I just had my barber on because he's leaving the province after 39 years living in South Atobico. And we did an exit interview as he says goodbye, okay? I listened. So tell me now, if I were mainstream, would I have my barber on the show for 90 minutes? Probably not. No, no, no chance.

So I wanted to talk to Andy the barber as he leaves. the province. By the way, he had a documentary filmmaker with him shooting footage. I heard. This guy Andrew, he's got like bonafides. I asked him what shows he's worked on, like real deal stuff. So, go figure. But he had a, I had a camera on him and he had a guy in here filming us. Yeah. But that's a good example. Andy the barber won't deliver the numbers that, who, I don't know, that he, they won't simply won't deliver the numbers that a famous person will get. I don't know, who would I, I'm trying to think of a big radio person who comes on. But if Aaron Davis comes on, Aaron Davis gets a lot more listeners than Andy the Barber.

And I'm telling you, Annette, and there's no bullshit here. I don't care. If I want to talk to Andy the Barber, I'm having Andy the Barber on. And if I want to talk to Aaron Davis, of course, I'm having Aaron Davis on. But I don't care that one might deliver three times the listenership because there are loyal listeners who listen to everything. And then there are cherry pickers, Annette. The cherry pickers, they subscribe to the feed and they say, see Andy the Barber and they say,

not today's Satan, and they swipe it away or something. And then they'll say, oh, look, I don't know, I'll pick on Ed Keenan, he's coming on for his quarterly and they'll be like, oh, I've been waiting for Ed Keenan's quarterly, they click play. So the cherry pickers aren't going to convert on Andy the Barber. Right, okay.

I know Aaron Davis. He's a good friend of mine. Well, there's multiple Aaron Davises. Oh, are there? Oh, are there? Oh, how do you know? Well, because I know there's a few Aaron Davises. Well, you don't know. Yours is a musician. Yes, that's true. Yeah. Mine, that I'm referring to is a former

CHFI morning radio host who moved out west. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Okay. Big radio star.

You don't know Aaron Davis from CHFI? Come on. You know what we're fun. Don Danard? No, sorry. Okay, Annette, I'm going to educate you. I'm a loser.

You're not a loser. You're just too cool for, you know, Roger's own media. Yeah, whatever. I want to ask you about audience, though. So you just talked about audience and how they're cherry pickers, but how do you get an audience? How do you keep an audience?

And I still want to ask that question about how do you make money? Okay, so the make, well, can I start the making money since that's like a simpler one to answer? Sure. Okay. But we're not going to start your podcast without making money. So there, if you listen to the first, I don't know, 100 episodes, there's zero sponsorship. So basically it costs me my time and my effort. my passion. And zero money comes. I had to buy some mics and I had to buy a board I'm looking

at and I had to buy cables, et cetera, headphones. But I didn't make any money, you know, so you basically just focus on the content. You try to build the shows. You know, I did it very organically, right? So it would be word of mouth through the starts of just blog readers who are checking it out. And then if it's any good, you know, people like to tell their friends about this neat new podcast they discover, this independent Toronto thing. And then over time, you know, after about 100-something episodes, what happened to me was I got a cold email, unsolicited email, from Great Lakes Brewery.

And we're over 10 years ago now. And I wasn't even thinking at that point, I still hadn't thought about monetizing it. Like, I was focused on the product, and it was a passion of mine. And the brewery is like, we love your show, and you keep referencing South Atobico landmarks, and we think you're in our backyard, basically. And they said, would you come?

come over for a meeting, so I biked over, and I had a meeting, and they said, hey, we'd like to give you money every month, and we'd like to give you beer every month, and the deal is, every guest who comes over gets some of our fresh craft beer. And this was proposed to me by Great Lakes, and my initial guttural response, Annette, and I don't know if I've even ever said this in public, my initial gutteral response was like, I was like George Carlin, and I'm like, I'm not going to sell out. Like, I don't want to take a, even though it was a fiercely independent local brewery, Craft Brewery.

I still didn't really want... I wasn't sure I wanted to go that route. So my initial guttural response was like, take your money and stick it up your butt or something like that. Like I'm a punker or something. And then I thought on it. And then I decided, let's try this

and see where it goes. And basically one thing led to another. Is that the fix? One thing leads to another. Fix has two X's in it, by the way. But then what happened was you have a sponsor. You start giving out the beer. You know, Ron McLean loves his beer.

Things go on. And then other people hear that and they're like, hey, would you give out this? And I got a couple of inbound sponsor requests. And I said, okay. And next thing you know, you got six to eight sponsors. Wow. But it's very organic. Like I'm actually, right now I think is, I've had runs where I've had, you know, many sponsors.

Right now I have this like core group. I haven't had time to, you know, hustle and close any new sponsorship. But I'll tell the listenership right now there are sponsorship opportunities available. I'm sorry, I've been so busy lately. But yeah. So now I'm just going to. say this now, even though you're interviewing me,

I still have in my freezer upstairs a palma pasta lasagna for you, Annette, because I heard you say you love it so much. Oh, wow, thank you. Delivered today, actually. Thank you. I brought you a little gift as well. What is it? It's my sponsorship gift to you. It's

two of my funny little muffins. So, what is this? Loaded with cannabis? What's going on here? No, I wish. No, they're full of nuts and they're Very healthy. They look very odd, though. I love it. That sounds great to me.

I'm going to consume those right after the recording. Well, you know, you'll have to see if you like them. Well, I think I'll like them. Okay. So back to audience. So how did you then keep building the audience? You, as you progress and you gain a reputation, this happened many years ago now. It's funny talking about this as I approached 1900 episodes.

I almost feel like we're talking about the old. days, but at some point you do get a reputation where people have a good experience on your show. I should also disclose that back then there weren't two million podcasts. There were podcasts, of course, but I launched in 2012. I'm not sure I could launch the show and have success with it in 2026. Like, I'm glad I don't have to find out. Like, I got in there at 2012 and I built from there. But there was a very, like, natural progression, authentic.

I had to get better as a host, and I'm not sure I'm good now, but I tried to get better. you get a reputation for being fair with your guests and they have a good time so then more interesting people will come over I just talked to Colin Cripps from Blue Rodeo yesterday and he wants to come over and kick out the jams with me so we're going to do that and I just Tom Wilson from Junkhouse he's going to come back

and I was just chatting with the guys from lowest of the low and they want to come back over the next few weeks so like you get these are all like musicians I legit love and it's pretty rad that they want to come over and chat it up with Toronto Mike. So you just focus on being fair, being a curious cat, archive that history, and then build. Okay, and how do you know how far your reach is?

Like, do you do analytics or how do you see? I can see. Where's the furthest person who listens to? Oh, that kind of thing. Well, you know, they're expats primarily. It's a very Toronto-focused show. But there are Toronto-focused show, but there are Torontoans who are in Japan right now who are listening because they want to like a little remember home.

or maybe they're partly homesick or maybe they just want to know what's going on at home. So I would say, I don't think there's a lot of, like, native Japanese people tuning into Toronto mic, but there are expats all over this damn world, and they tune in. So you'll get your New Zealand listeners, typically if you drill in a bit, you find out, oh, at least for some part of their life,

they either worked or lived or both in the city of Toronto or the GTA, or at least Canada. Right. Cool. But yeah, the reach is far. So how many listeners do you think you have now? I can literally click a button on this browser right now and tell you the exact number of listeners.

I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to read that number, except it's a big fucking number in it, and I'm humbled by it. That's amazing. I feel like I feel sometimes like, oh, I built my own radio station, and I have 100% control over the content. So, like, little things I can do.

I can do episodes like this is 1868, although you're interviewing me. But I can also like, oh, my youngest just turned 10 and I can do a 10 minute episode where I chat up my youngest about turning 10. Like, I just drop that in the feed because I can. I listen to that too.

Yeah, like 10 minutes. I mean, half of that is Taylor Swift, so, you know, but which, well, and you know, that's not legal, but I can do it and then I can deal with the consequences, you know? You can't legally play a Taylor Swift song in your podcast? You can't? Why not?

Because there's no, like, so can we'll say they'll do something for Canada, but it won't apply to Americans, right? So it won't apply beyond our borders. So there is no mechanism in play where you can buy some kind of a license

like radio stations do that will let you play licensed music. Like this does not exist. So whenever you hear music on a podcast, one thing is some of them, usually if it's corporatized, some will just have a black and white rule.

Like you don't play unlicensed music and then you won't hear Taylor Swift. Some have decided, I think they're playing games of themselves, like ongoing history and new music and some other podcasts, they've decided, well, we'll just play like 15 seconds of it, like some fair use thing, but that doesn't exist either. Like, they're just tricking themselves.

And then I do what I do, which is I'll play the music, and I'll suffer the consequences, which hopefully if I'm lucky, is it's typically just booted from YouTube. They're first to boot me. And sometimes Spotify removes an episode because of that, but I've been pretty lucky otherwise, and there's lots of different ways to get to a Toronto mic episode. So I think I'm breaking the eggs so my clients can enjoy the omelet, you know?

Right, cool. Okay, so you mentioned that you have a lot of fans, but you weren't going to tell me how many. Oh, I didn't say they were fans. They're just listeners. Okay, listeners. Okay, so I've been hearing that you're going to do something at the Elma combo. So how did you hear that? Did I post that on social media?

I think you did. All right, well, you're bringing up something. Like, this episode is. a weird one because it's different than all the rest. That, which is happening May 21st, is very different than what I do. It's a one-time only out of my comfort zone thing. I don't even know if I'll record it. I don't plan.

I don't know. But, yeah, I am headlining at the Elma combo on May 21st, and tickets are now available. Okay, so you got drumsticks in your hand. What are you going to do? Sing, dance, play the drums? No, but I do have a musician on stage with. me because I mentioned Rob Proust was at that Nash the Slash Rises again with me. And he's going to be on stage with me as kind of my Paul Schaefer.

So I'm going to do my thing, which is like I'm crafting this like one-man show basically where I'm going to present this, hopefully compelling content. And then along the way there will be musical cues. And I have Rob Pruss with his keyboard who will be playing a little music along the way. So it's not just me rambling on for 90 minutes. There's also some music from the prodigy that is Rob Pruss. Bruce, who played with the spoons during their glory days, as I like to say, and he played with Honeymoon Sweet, and he's played on Broadway.

And he's going to play with me on May 21 at the Elma Combo. Get your tickets now. And what does he play? He's a keyboard. So piano, he's going to have a keyboard up there, I think. So he's going to, I would say tickle the ivory, but it's not made of ivory anymore, in it. What is it plastic? It's not ivory.

because they have to kill elephants to do that. Oh, yeah, no, we don't want that. And they're an endangered species, and we love elephants on this program. So it's probably made of plastic or something. Something else. Too much plastic in the world. But anyway, at least you have...

I don't know what it's made of a net, okay? I'm not a key expert. It's probably plastic, though. All righty. So I gather you are going to sing and dance or something. No singing. No singing. I'm not going to sing. Okay.

But, I mean, I have been crafting it, so I have a Google document where I have these thoughts on bike rides. So I go on a bike ride, and then I'll have a thought. And I'll say, I won't say the word. I'll just say, okay, G word. You can guess what the G word is. I'll say, okay, G word, take a note.

And then G will talk to me and say, what's your note? And then I'll save this idea I just came up with. And then it'll save, and it's called Google. I just said the G word a bit differently. Google Keep. So Google Keep will take that note. And then once in a while, I'll go into Google Keep, and I'll see these notes, and I'll put them into my,

Google document for the Elma Combo show and I'll craft something. So I have all these different parts and there's a connective tissue and it's coming together. It's not done yet, but it is coming together and I'm looking forward to delivering this to somewhere from 10 to 200 people, somewhere in that range at the Elma combo. And here's the interesting part, Annette, although this will be discussed on that night. This wasn't my dream. I didn't initiate this and I'm not paying for the Elma Combo. So I have no expectations of making any money on it, but I also am happy to say,

I can't lose money on this. Someone else will lose the money. Fantastic. You have like a sponsor. Yeah, a woman named Melissa, and I'll talk about more of this on stage. But Melissa basically bought the alma combo one night for me to do this. Wow.

And I'm going to do it. Nice. I'm going to do it because I, it's so out of, like I never had the dream to do it. I'm not a stand-up guy. I've never done a minute of stand up anywhere. Like this is not what I want to do. It's not my dream.

Therefore, I'm going to kick ass and take names on May 21 and then never do it again. You might decide you'll love it and do it. It could become your new podcast thing. Well, maybe I'll take it on the road if it's a big hit. If I sell out the Elmo, but, you know, I don't even have insight into ticket sales. I didn't set the price. I don't see how many tickets are sold. I joked with my family that it's going to be me.

talking to 10 people and I don't know if it'll be 10 people or if it'll be 15 people or if it'd be 50 people I got no idea I just hope people come out because I want more people to hear this one time only 90 minutes or so presentation and it's may what 21 oh darn unfortunately I'm out of town another another ticket unsold sorry I would have come and gone rah rah yeah well telling you all your friends to go I need somebody I need somebody I need somebody somebody there. I know Mike Eppel says he's going. He's a business reporter for breakfast television and 680 news and Apple's going to make the trek from Ajax. I think he's he, is he Whitby or is he Whitby? He might be Whitby. I get my Ajax Whitby and Oscewa mixed up. They're all out there.

I think it's, I think he's Whitby. But he could be Ajax. They're all far. There's a border shared between Ajax and Whipy, right? I think it's Ajax, Whitby, Oscewa. Okay, I got to look into this. Yeah. Learn your Toronto map. You might have fans out there. That's Durham Region. Oh, I thought it was the other way.

I don't know. I think Peel Region is like Mississauga and Brampton. Yes, you're right. And I think Durham Region is like, because they have the nuclear power plant. Yeah. Which I'm not for. But anyway. Well, you know what?

That's because you watch Chernobyl, but remember, the USSR. That's true. I also interviewed Helen Keldicot, who. who is the expert on nuclear waste. But isn't it, tell me, I'm saying, so let me ask you, since you interviewed her, you can tell me, isn't it a clean source of energy? It is, but the water, they use this water, cooling water, to cool the system down, and then they flush that water into our drinking water.

And that water contains something, isotopes and all of these things that are... Yeah, like the Springfield isotopes. Forever chemicals. And they cause things like birth defects, and they are not... Well, that sounds terrible. Things we want to be ingesting. So, and then I have a question. What, like, I mean, what's the answer?

Solar and wood, wind? Like, what is, so, so. And I was just in Montreal, and I watched this little film about windmills in Afghanistan. It was really beautiful. And so they had these ancient windmills, which were made out of small pieces of wood, that just turned with the wind and it went down. There was like a. what would you call that a pole that the windmill turned when it was turning,

the pole went down through their adobe roof into a place where they had a mill and they were grinding wheat and other flowers from purely wind power. And they got all of their energy from wind power. Now, I'm Danish, you know, there's a lot of wind power in Denmark. And it powers most of the system. They also have, they're using waste, like they're using their waste to, basically burn it and get rid of it. And then that heats everybody's floors so that they don't need much heat in their houses

because their floors, the heat rises, as you mentioned earlier. So I produce a show, although it's been on hiatus for about a year now. So I don't know if I can still say I produce it, but no one else is producing it. It's just on hiatus. But for Diane Sacks, who was the last Environmental Environment Commissioner, was the title Environmental Commissioner for Ontario and then Doug Ford got rid of the position because who needs somebody? Who needs somebody telling you all the things you're doing wrong and you should be doing?

And then now she's a city counselor, of course. But I learned so much about renewable energy sources from this podcast, which was called Green Economy Heroes. I learned so much. And I don't understand why aren't we going a whole hog in this direction? You're asking me? I ride my bike everywhere. I really, I wish we were.

I did not ride my bike here. I noticed. Ask me where I'm going tonight. I'm telling you how to interview me. Okay, let me tell you this. So tonight, at 7 o'clock, I'll be in at a place called Handelbar in Kensington Market. I know it. And I'm biking there.

From here? You are a hero. Not even that long a ride. I'm going to brag to you about how easy that ride is for me. I'm telling you, Annette, that is an easy ride for me. But I have to require a client after you called Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home. He's going to come over at 5 o'clock. We're going to record a new episode of Life's Undertaking, which is the great podcast from

Ridley Funeral Home. Oh, cool. You have your measuring tape from Ridley Funeral Home. I do. I love it. It's a beautiful green color. It's a beautiful thing.

So I'm going to record a Brad, and then I'm going to hop on my bike, and I'm going to go to Kensington Market, and I'm going to go to the handlebar, and I'm going to open the festivities because there's a book launch. You mentioned being a natural born art. We talked about archiving everything. Cam Gordon, who's a frequent guest of this program, he's also a natural born archivist, and he wrote a book called Track Changes. and he talks about, you know, following music in the digital world with the internet and different and things.

And there's a whole chapter where I'm in it. It's pretty cool. Chapter 11. Anyway, I'm opening things up. There's a lot of cool people at this event tonight. But at 7 o'clock, I'm going to do the cold open. I have written and memorized a three-minute speech. Wow.

And I'm going to make that on stage in Kensington Market tonight at 7 p.m. But my point was I'm biking there. Like, there is no alternative. Like, if I'm able-bodied, which I'm happy to be right now, I am going to bike to my destination. That is fantastic, and I wish everyone did that. You also mentioned that you bike in the winter, which I do. I'm getting a little older and more fragile,

so I won't do it if there's ice and then snow on top. What kind of bike do you ride if there's any ice or snow? Like, do you ride? What kind of bike is it? My normal bike. But what is your normal bike? It's like an old commuter. But is it like a mountain bike time?

No, no, no, no. It's just a normal. Yeah. So that's why you've got to be careful when there's ice and snow because, you know, you do any little turn or sudden stop and you're going to be on your side. So you got to be careful. And it has happened to me. Because I have, when I look outside and if there's ice and snow out, I change the bike I ride

to be safe and get some traction. Oh, well, I only have one bike. I'm better than you. And Ed, I got three bikes. Okay, then we could talk about recycling it, you know. Recycle myelectronics.coma, because that's where you go if you have old electronic old cables, old devices, you don't go to the throat in the garbage, those chemicals end up in our landfill.

You go to Recycle My Electronics.c.a. And do they take off your personal data and all that stuff? They do not. You need, like if you have a hard drive that you're bringing in, they recommend you drill a hole in it. Really? Yeah. But I don't believe they have a mechanism to delete your data.

Okay. Because I think that's what we're all a little afraid of. Maybe you've got to drop it in a vat acid and then bring it over to recycle my electronics. All right, let's get back on topic. Yes, host. Okay, so the other thing I wanted to ask you is, who's the most famous person you ever interviewed?

I've thought about this. So I wonder, and I don't know if this is the answer, but I wonder if it's snow. Because Snow had a number one billboard. Snow is a musician. Oh, not Michael Snow, the artist. Not Michael Snow, the artist. No.

Although I do like his work, too. Because he did the audience outside the dome. That's right. And of course, the geese. The geese in the center. I'm saying a bunch of cool shit. The lake rate. But I was thinking of Snow, the rapper,

who had a number one, a Billboard Hot 100, number one hit for seven weeks in a row with a song called Informer. And I believe that song is very well-known throughout this world. So if I think about globally famous people, I think that he's right up there,

and also right up there, I think globally, I'm not talking Canada. I think Donovan Bailey would be a big deal, and I've had him on several times. In fact, I produce his podcast, and he comes here every week. But Donovan Bailey had the world record for the 100 meters. So he was like the Usain Bolt of his time, if you will, like gold medalist at the Olympics, Olympic and world record time. He was 9-8-4, I believe. But I think that being the 100-meter champion in the Olympics makes you,

globally famous. Like he's the fastest man in the world. Yeah. So those are two names that jump into my head about globally famous people. So is it primarily sports that you're doing interviews on? Well, in the beginning it was a lot of radio,

to be honest. Like I used to have radio and TV. I was fascinated, still am, but fascinated by City TV during the Moses era. Oh, yeah. So I had so many, I would just dig them up

where I could find him. I got Hurricane Harold Hussein who's never done an interview. Like I worked hard to get, some said no. Like Jojo Chinto just said no and I tried a few times. But most of these people, like the Lorne Honickman's and the Peter Gross and the Gord Martino and the Anne Roskowski, and I could go on. Most of these cats said yes.

So I did a lot of that. I did a lot of, like I had also Beyond City TV, I'd have on people like Lloyd Robertson or, you know, different, Austin Delaney, Dana Levinson, these kind of people. But I was also inches in radio. So there was a lot of media at first. And then I realized, oh, I really like music. So I went hard. I still kind of go hard because I do love talking to the musicians.

So a lot of musicians, all the guys in Sloan, I'm looking at them over here. And so now I would say it's all over the place. Like I might have a print journalist. I have a guy coming on who wrote a book about professional baseball in Toronto before the Blue Jays. And we're just going to dive deep into the history of professional baseball in Toronto before 1977. And I'm freaking jazzed about that. I have Andy Stokansky coming over. tomorrow with Blair Packham because Andy's never been on and he's going to make his debut.

He's a talented musician in this city. But yeah, so it's all over the place. Okay. So that made me think about research. So what kind of research do you do before someone comes on? I do, uh, it depends who's coming on. So for you, I watched your film. You did?

Yeah. I'm the, I'm the art. I watched the film, yeah. Uh, so if it's somebody who's made a doc or something, like when Alan's White came over, I asked if I could see with a screener. He did a documentary about Survivors of Suicide. Yeah, it's called Love Herald and you know what? It is showing after my film on Sunday.

And I saw that too and I went to the National Slash film and I said there's another FOTM. Yeah, so Alan's Weig and I legit loved the film but I watched it before he came over and then we talked about it. So I tried and this guy who wrote the book about this guy coming over tomorrow who wrote a book about the history of Toronto professional baseball in Toronto before the Blue Jays. He wrote a book and I read the book.

If it's a musician, I listen to it. I load up different jams, and I kind of take some notes here. I don't have many notes for you, but I take notes. That's because I'm in the interview. But I did note, I did take a note of when you were on,

which was 1812, and then the fact that I am the art is playing at the Hot Dog Cinema on March 29th. Like I have that note in front of me. But yeah, so I do a lot. I think I do a lot of homework. You know, I'm always prepared for my guests.

Even when Andy the Barber comes over, I make sure I've heard the late. a single for Phantom Lung, and I've loaded it in. I also, because I got my haircut by him last Monday, we heard a song by Gob. Do you know Gob? No, but I heard it. Yeah. So, and he made this, like, what I thought was a super interesting comedy.

He goes, that's the greatest pop punk this country has ever produced. And I'm like, I need to like talk to him about that on my show. So I'll load that up. So there's just prep, you know, if I have on Jerry Howarth, who's one of my favorite guests of all time, I had, you know, he called a big home run by Edwin. In Incarnazion. I had, you know, he stepped aside from the mic so that Tom Cheek could call the final out of the 1992 World Series against the Atlanta Braves. So, like, I'll have that clip loaded up.

So I do my homework in it. Always have. Always will. Great. And have you ever had a disaster? I almost had a disaster with the talented musician Molly Johnson. What? Do you know Molly?

I do. Molly just put out a single, a couple of. cover of a tragically hip song was actually played at my wedding called Long Time Running that she did with Jim Cuddy from Blue Rodeo. Right. I just listened to it. Okay. So Molly,

I was excited at Molly on for a variety of reasons. And I don't think Molly liked me. What? How could someone not like you? And before I pressed record, she was so mean to me. And I was, I will say,

I think if it happened today, it would be very different. Like, I don't think I can get nervous anymore. But I would get, I was so nervous. to record with her because she was so fucking mean to me that you can hear my voice in the beginning of that episode

because it's a different voice. It's the voice of nervous Mike. Oh, I know. And then we kept going and then at some point, she was still kind of short and mean, and at some point I called her out on it. And then she kind of went off of me. And then I used a word,

and I didn't, I mean, I used a word that she took great offense to, and I don't use the word anymore because I didn't know there was any negative connotations. Like, I'm pleading ignorance. I didn't know. but I used the word diva. I said I was getting diva-like vibes

because she was really difficult. And she told me, and I didn't know this, she educated me to tell me that she saw racial connotations in using the word diva, which I swear to you, I had no idea. I didn't know that either. Explain that to me. Well, a lot of divas when I think of divas.

I think of like Barbara Streisand. Yeah. Like I'll even think of, I think of, I think of, I actually think of white women. But, but yeah, like I don't think of race. Like race, I don't think. think of a particular race when I think of Diva, but she felt like this was something used against black women,

and she, you know, and I, I, I, I didn't know, and I don't, I don't use that term at all anymore because I don't want to upset anybody, and I didn't know. But you can hear in this episode, it's kind of an interesting case study, because it's going kind of bad, and then I sort of, it starts to get better, and then it gets really bad, but then somehow I stick the, landing and at the end we take a photo by the tree and she gives me a big hug and she tells me to go to go to the kensington jazz festival so i don't know i know it was uh years ago now right but a lot

of people talk about the molly johnson episode and actually you should probably listen and then let me know because uh it's almost i mean i did my best like i'm not i'm a big fan of molly johnson and i was excited to have her over but i can tell when somebody doesn't like me like i'm a human being in this world. I know when somebody doesn't like me. And she, for whatever reason, she, from the get-go, didn't like me. Right.

And that's fine. But she agreed to come over and talk. Right. But she never came back. Well, she never came back. That's true. And would you want her back now? Well, want is a strong word. If she wanted to come back, like, I wouldn't say no. Like, I would absolutely, because

I would like another crack at it, because I'm a big fan. But I'm not, like, going to pursue her. I'm not going to, like, extend the invitation necessarily, but if circumstances happened where she wanted to promote something, like I know she's passionate about the Kensington Market Jazz Festival, if she wanted to promote something and she was willing to come over, 100% I would agree to let her come over.

But I'm not going to, like, pursue her. Okay, understood. So I went almost, like, that's the only time I can think of where things got that. bad. I joke on this show that one day a guest is going to storm out of here. But, I mean, we're approaching episode 1900. And I think

it's like 1,100 unique guests or something like that. Because a lot of, you know, some people come over twice, and you're over your second time now. Blair's coming over to Moral with Andy, and I think Blair's been in this basement maybe, I don't know, 30 times or something. So, right? So they can pad the stats.

But nobody's marched out of here yet. you know, but stormed out yet. Right. But I try to be fair to everybody. Like I give everybody, you know, respect. Makes sense, yeah. So, oh, I think I asked you that.

Did I ask you who you would like to interview that you never got? No, you didn't ask me them. So there was one guest, because I used to have a commute. This is way back when, but you'd be stuck in a car going to work. This is what a commute is, okay? You cyclists don't know about this, but I used to have one of these things. And I worked in Mississauga,

and I'd go to my car, and I'd go, and then I'd drive home. This is a great detail you're getting here. But I would flip around my stations. You know, I'd like to hear 102.1. What are they playing? What's going on? The Q107.

I'd flip on CBC, what's going on. But I would often park myself on 590, which is an all-sports station, because I enjoyed listening to this guy named Bob McCowan on Primetime Sports. And I would listen to him. quite a bit. I'd listen to Bob McCowan doing primetime sports. He would have some cool co-hosts like Stephen Brunt, for example.

I was a big Stephen Brunt fan. Still am. Okay, long-winded way of saying, when I was approaching episode 500, I thought, oh, I'd like to make some noise with this milestone episode 500. That was back when very few podcasts got to 500. Now, every podcast gets to 500. Just kidding. But I thought, oh, Bob McCowan would make a great guest for episode 500. So I extended the invitation to the man, and he was like a real asshole about it.

He went on Twitter, back when, you know, pre-Elon era, when Twitter mattered. And he kind of did this whole thing, like, oh, Toronto Mike wants me to be his guest for 500. But I don't think his people like me or don't like dinosaurs like me or something. So I'm going to pass. Like just some kind of public, weird, rude, like just politely decline if you don't want to come on. Many people have declined, you know. I was trying to get John Derringer for years, and he would always politely decline, right? This is before the controversy became public.

But, and I don't even know if you know what controversy I'm talking about, but the listeners know. So, Baumacowen, episode 500, really soured me on the man, actually, but that never happened. So I would have liked to have a deep dive with Balmacowen. And there's a few guests like that. I'm still working on Ian Hanomansing, who swears he's going to do it. But I want to do it in the basement, so he's got to be in Toronto.

And we got to, like, we got to pick a day and time and do it because he listens to the show. He's a fan of the show, and he says he'll do it, but I want to do him. There's a few people like that. I tried very hard to get Anne Murray. Wow. Because I wanted to talk to Anne Murray about, firstly, she recorded a kid's album that I had when I was a kid, and I wanted to talk about, there's a hippo in my bathtub. And I had more, and of course, I'm kind of a huge nut for tears are not enough.

Do you know what that is? Tears are not enough? No. This is the charity single from 1985. And I'm trying to, as many people who are involved in that, I'm trying to get on Toronto mic and get their stories. I'm discovering along the way, some people that you'll read about on Wikipedia or elsewhere that were

there were not actually there. The guy from the Aeros, what's his name? McTaggart, he's listed on Wikipedia as being at the recording of tears are not enough. I got him on the show. I asked him what that was like and he explained. Nobody invited him to the recording. So part of cleaning up all these

mistruths that keep getting repeated and amplified out there is to actually talk to the subject matters and get the straight goods. But yeah, so I wanted to talk to Anne Marie because she's a big part of tears are not enough. Right. Anyway, her people said she's not doing press. And I remember that reply came from, like, her people.

And then I saw, very shortly thereafter, she absolutely did something, but it might have been something like Q. I feel like these people say I'm not doing press, but if Q calls or a big CBC show calls, suddenly they'll do a little press. Right. Well, maybe you need to become a mobile unit.

maybe you need to go to them. Why do that? Like Chuck D. Oh, that's a famous person who was on. Because he wasn't in the basement, I didn't think of him, okay? Chuck D from Public Enemy, I fucking love that band,

and I've been a huge Chuck D fan since the first time I heard it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. And he agreed to do a Toronto mic episode, but he wasn't going to come to myself at Tobico basement, but he was going to be playing the exhibition,

the grounds there. Right, the stadium. No, the band shell. Oh, yeah. And he said, yeah, if you want to interview me backstage. So I biked. I had a trailer. Still do.

I packed up my studio, put it in the trailer, bikeed to the exhibition grounds, somehow got somebody in security to take me backstage at the Banshell. And I set up my studio in there and Chuck D sat down with me. And it was amazing. So, and Jim Cuddy. I mentioned him earlier. I wanted Jim Cuddy on so bad. I agreed to do the same thing.

I biked my gear to the woodshed, which is in Riverdale. and I did it in the woodshed, and that was amazing. Barney Bentel was at the CBC building doing something or other there, and was at the Glen Gold Stadium, Glenn Gold Theater, whatever. And I did the same thing. Backstage, I recorded with Barney Bentel. So that is to tell you for certain people that I really want to talk to, if they'll sit down with me in Toronto or the GTA,

but they won't visit the basement for whatever reason, I will do my best to come to you. Amazing. thing. That's happened many times. Wow. There you go. Well, good thing to know. Good day. So, what do you think the future of broadcasting or podcasting is? I hope it's not like AI. I'll just throw it out there.

My favorite part of podcasting is that it's an authentic human being that's having these conversations and generating this content. Like, I am concerned that we're going to get an influx of like AI generated podcasts. And I think that would suck. Well, how could they do that? I think it's happening now. I think, you know how now, I don't know if you're seeing this, but on YouTube, for example,

there's, like, AI slop is kind of served up to you now. Yes. Yeah. So the same thing, like, like, I've heard examples of it, but it'll be like a guy and a gal will be shooting the breeze about whatever, but it's no, it's all AI generated. Like, these are not two human beings having the conversation. Like, I just hope it's human beings,

and I hope it's not. overly produced. I feel like some podcasts are overly produced like they're a like they're a mainstream media radio or television program. And what I like about podcasts and that's why I refuse to edit my show is I like the fact that you the humanity like the errors, the mistakes, the the the, uh, what I'm doing right now for example can can can live like can survive like you're a fly on the wall. Well, you know, Annette and Mike have a chat about this, that and the other. Right. Like I like that. authenticity.

Like, that's what I crave. Also, I personally crave a Toronto-centric show where that, you know, you'll talk about Kensington Market, for example, right? Or the woodshed in Riverdale. Like, so much American stuff is forced down, you know, our throats in Canadian, in the podcasting, like, world that I feel like it's important we maintain our voice. Like, this show is unabashedly Toronto-centric because the guy who's talking, authentically, lives in Toronto and bikes Toronto, and he's going to be in Kensington Market today

to make a three-minute speech, okay? At the handlebar. At the handlebar. No ticket required, I believe. You can just show up. Right. Is it open mic or something? Like, what's...

No, there's a, I don't have... It's a digital thing. There's a panel. I know Alan Cross and a bunch of interesting people are a part of this. So I open it up, like a cold open, Toronto mic. Right. Because I'm all over chapter 11 of this book, track changes. I got a copy here.

Track changes. And I open it up and then I think I introduced the author, Cam Gordon. And then there's these panel discussions for an hour about this, that, and the other. And then we're going to take a big photo together and then I'm going to bike home. Cool. I bet you have a lot of lights on your bike. One on the front, one on the back. Is that a lot?

I don't know. No. I have like six. Okay. I have one on the front, one in the back. But most of this ride to Kensington Market, most of it is the waterfront trail. Right. there are, as you know, there are no cars allowed.

Right. And I'm biking in traffic all the time. And I mean, I have to go lots of different places. And that's why I really, really have growing to appreciate that bluer bike lane. And if they fuck with it and that, I know. Don't fuck with my bluer bike lane. I know. I rely on that bike lane.

I travel it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. So what would you ask yourself if you were doing this interview? Do you ever shut up? I don't see you as being proposed.

I don't know. I've never considered what I would ask myself. I feel like I'm at a point now where if I had anything I wanted to ask myself, I would just do like a monologue on Toronto Mike. Like I do weave in that part of the deal is that each episode, typically an episode focuses on a guest. But there is a thread of like whatever it's going on in the world at the time. You know, there was a lot of talk about when Trump wouldn't shut up about 50 first state rhetoric like that came into the show.

So depending what's going on, the world, it definitely appears in the show. Like, so there is a time sensitive. It's evergreen, but there's time sensitive elements poured in. So that's why I think this core listenership that listens to every episode, they get that. And then, you know, along the way, new lexicon will appear and then that will get repeated and repeated until it becomes a part. Like there is a language in the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe, that it's funny, this three-minute speech I'm going to say tonight, I did it for my daughter. My daughter lives in Montreal, and she phoned me up. And I said, hey, can I do a three-minute speech for you just so I can see if I have it memorized?

And then I did it. But in this speech, I referred to the TMU, and my daughter says, you can't refer to the TMU, she said, because you're not talking on your show. You're talking to the, you know, I don't know what term she used, but it's like the great unwashed or whatever. And I'm like, I had that moment of like, well, she's definitely. right, but I don't think I care. Like, I probably won't say TMU tonight because she's, I can hear my daughter telling me to just say listeners instead of TMU, because TMU means Toronto Mike Universe.

Oh, I thought it was Toronto Metropolitan University. No, everybody thinks that, of course. Well, that's why, you know, they're a little bigger than you. Apparently. So that's why my daughter said you can't say TMU because people are going to think you're talking about the university. That is so true. But my mindset is, oh, I'm not, I'm, let's say, let's say, I'm going to make it up.

I don't know. Let's say there's 50 people there, okay? If two of them, well, let's make a bigger number. Five of them are listeners who know what TMU means, then that's for those five people. And the other 45 people can just screw themselves. So you wouldn't be willing to say TMU means Toronto, Mike University? No. Or universe?

No. Not university. Like even we've done it in this show. I said things to you and you weren't sure what I was talking about because I will speak the inside language for the diehards, even though it might alienate the outsiders. And I know that's like, well, how do I get in? Well, you have to listen. Because there's an episode I recorded about the lexicon.

You can find that episode and then kind of quickly catch up. But there are things, like if I said, oh, Dan O'Toole buffied me yesterday, you don't know what I'm talking about. Dan O'Toole buffied me. Buffy, no. So that's a word that means something in the TMU. Buffy means they basically bailed because Buffy St. Marie, bailed on the recording of tears are not enough.

And at West, they were like, what's it, Bruce Allen and David Foster. Well, Terry David Mulligan might have been there too. This Vancouver brain trust behind tears, they recorded it here, but the brain trust is Vancouver based, okay?

They're, on the phone, this documentary, and then I think it was David, Terry David Mulligan. I asked him, why wasn't Buffy St. Marie part of Tears are not enough? she's like, oh, she bailed. She basically was supposed to be and she bailed. So henceforth, when somebody bails, they buffy.

So that kind of shit. Okay. Which sounds, as I hear it out loud, this is why I don't like to be interviewed, because I hear it out loud, it all sounds crazy. Okay, so if somebody cancels, what do you do? I mean, this is live. Yeah, but do you have, like,

episodes that you know, who cares? Like, yesterday's a good example. You don't have backup episodes that you could just slot in there? Because I don't hold on episodes. There's nothing. in the bank. There's nothing in the bank. So once in a while I do have a Zoom I did with somebody

that I haven't dropped and it's going to drop soon and I sometimes I have that like almost never. This country singer named Megan Patrick I had that but it's very rare. I listened to that one too. She was one that wasn't like she was somewhere else. Yeah well she was in Nashville but she was canned and I think I dropped her like two or three days later

but I don't have any in like I can tell you I don't have any in the bank right now. So when Dan O'Toole cancels it just means no show that day. Oh. What about going on vacation? I mean, I don't do a lot of big vacations, but I'm entitled if I wanted to disappear for a week. I do have a trip planned to Montreal to my daughter's convocation from McGill, and it's in my calendar for late May after my Elma combo gig, the week after, I think.

So there's a few days I'll be in Montreal, and I won't record those days. You know, that's what the nice thing about podcasts are. You can drop things in the feed, or you can not drop things in the feed. It's not like a radio show where it's got to be on it. every day or whatever, you know. I'm not going to drop a rerun. There are podcasters who will drop old episodes. Like, so I could drop the episode 1812 with Annette Mangard.

I could drop it today, not today because I'm recording a view, but I could drop it tomorrow. Like, oh, this is from the vault or something, the archives, which I don't understand at all because it's, it is in the archives. Like, it's, to me, it's like, you're just, I don't understand. It's like, oh, you're patting your numbers. Right. Or, you know, that's not how poddivism. casting words. What I do do, Annette, now I'm interviewing myself. What I do do, I just said

do do do, do the clown, was a guest of Toronto mic by the way. Doodoo the clown. Billy Madison, he was in, by the way. So, also, I think he's related to Stoose Stone. That's important for the TMU. Okay. But what I do do is when an FOTM dies, because it's happened several times. When an FOTM passes away, I will typically record a little, little context intro, and then shape. a good portion of my conversation with that person. I do that. Like a little obituary. Yeah, like, you know,

oh, this person died, but here's like 90 minutes of Toronto Mike and this person talking about their life and career. And it hits, obviously, it hits differently when the person's no longer with us. Like Miles Goodwin from April Wine, for example, he passed away.

And I was able to say, yeah, years ago now, Miles Goodwin died, and I can drop in the feed. You know, here's my chat with Miles on this day, and then you hear Miles. talk about, you know, April Wine playing the high schools and Gettys. I saw them when I was a teenager.

They were big, big high school. They were big on that, you know, like Max Webster was doing that. Rasha was doing that in the very beginning, too. Oh, I don't remember them. But I remember the other one. There's somebody I want on Toronto Mike, Getty Lee. Oh, yeah. And have you asked him?

I've asked his lawyer. Oh. I don't know how to get to Getty. Like, I don't know how to get to Getty. But I know his lawyer, David Quattie. in Steinberg and I get sort of a maybe one day kind of vibe there but nothing's happened yet. Well, you know what I did when I was young and I was trying to get somebody was I would find out where they're going to be like at some awards thing or something and then I'd crash it and then

I'd make a beeline for them and wait until just that second when no one was talking to them and go blah blah blah blah and invariably I'd get them. See, I know Getty Lee is, I know he's going to be at the Juno Awards in Hamilton this. Sunday. And you're not going? Not going. I don't have a ticket. Like, they're not going to give you a ticket.

Yeah, but you got to figure out. Okay, so you need to just hang out at the door. I got to drive, maybe I'll bike to Hamilton. Yeah, ride your bike. And I'll hang out outside. But they're going to, you know what they're going to do of Getty Lee. They're going to somehow get him in through the back door or something like that.

He's Getty Lee, for goodness. And also, I think this is going to be a top secret thing. It's not publicized anywhere. I noticed, I think Rush playing the Juno's is it's either an invention of a, like a fever dream I had or I've seen the future. I don't know which one it is, but I feel like it's a certainty that

Rush will play these Juno's on Sunday, but this is nowhere in the public realm. And I've been talking about it for months. Right. So, you know, if it happens, I want full credit for breaking this story. And if it doesn't happen, I'll see if I can help you. Okay. Spread the word.

Well, I know all kinds of people. Well, get me, Get me, Get me, somebody, Annette. Oh, well, who's your second? choice. I have to think on it for a bit. There's a lot of people I want to talk to. I know lots of people you could talk to. I can make suggestions. Yeah, but I'm keen to scratch, like, itches, like, from my own personal history. I'd run them by you first. There are many members of the tragically hip I've yet to have over

that I've had only, Paul Angu is the only member who's actually visited the basement, and he was fantastic, but I would like to talk to the hip guys. Okay. Shantel Kravayshik. Oh, yeah. I like her. Well, she's been over, and she was great. But she promised to bring her husband over, so I would still like to make that happen. Rain Mata from Our Lady Peace. So I would like to get rain in the basement here.

Okay, don't give me too long a list. Then start with those and let me know how it goes. I'm going to keep in touch. Okay. I don't know. How's our time? I've known to do. How long we've been talking?

This is your show. I can tell you the time, because I'm looking at it. One hour, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds. So really, Annette, this is your show. Have we thanked all the sponsors? Well, let's do it again. Well, we talked about delicious fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery, the first sponsor of Toronto, Mike.

And the fabulous pasta from palma pasta. Yeah, so you say pasta. Yeah. Is that the way I'm supposed to say it? Because I say... You're asking me again, and I don't know English. I say pasta. Pasta.

Pasta. And I know a lot of Canadians say pasta. I say tomato. You say tomato. No one says tomato. I never understood that song. Who do you know? who's ever said tomato.

British people. Okay, well, maybe the Brits. Here, I hear pasta and pasta. I've always heard pasta because Mother's Pizza had a commercial with Dennis Weaver, Dennis Weaver. And he always said pizza pasta made perfect. And I would hear it. And I loved Mother's Pizza as a kid. Mother's Pizza, I don't think they're around anymore.

Good memories of that place. But the... But Palma's Kitchen is around. Well, Palma's Kitchen's around, and I'm going to be live there in either late November or early December. You, Annette, should come to a TMLX event one day. What's that? We are on our 22nd, I want to say, but we, a few times a year. Toronto Mike.

Listener experience. Oh. So we get, see, this is not just a bits and bites digital thing. We do get together in the flesh a few times a year. So we have one at the brewery, which is the Great Lake. brewery in South Atopico. We have one at the GLB brew pub, which is Jarvis and Queens Key. We have one at Palma's Kitchen.

Cool. Sometimes there's others, but those are the three that seem to happen every single year. And the last Thursday of June, we'll definitely have a TMLX event at the brewery. So you and your fans get together and eat and drink? Yeah. I, well, Great Lakes gives you your first beer on the house. I get Palma pasta to feed everybody. Wow.

And we literally, we hang. Well, the Palma's Kitchen, I do. a live recording, so that's a bit different. But there was quite a moment with Brad Bradford and Alan Swig at a TMLX event at Palmer's Kitchen. Oh, cool. But these other TMLX events, it's just a hang. Like, you can eat and drink and chat up your fellow, you know, FOTMs in the TMU.

FOTM, you know, when I first saw that, I thought it looked like a dirty word. No, I think the old, I think if you Google it, they'll say it's flavor of the month. Oh. or friends of Toronto Mike. Well, that's what it should say. Absolutely. Well, do you have any more questions? Well, let me just look,

because I didn't really follow my questions. Well, that's how it typically goes for me as well. Like anything burning here? Because we're at the hour 15, and I could rap. Well, I can play the music and you can do the outro, but. Oh, well, one thing I was going to say, because I was thinking about the differences between podcasting and documentary. And what I'm doing in documentary is I'm capturing somebody who,

going through something or someone who's in motion or someone who's experiencing something or something like that. And I was thinking you as a podcaster, you're kind of doing the same thing. I didn't realize that you were videoing these all as well. Well, that's not, I haven't always done the video. The video showed up because I was producing a show for Mark Hebscher called Hebson Sports and he wanted the cameras. So I had to go out and buy a couple of 4K cameras, these Logitech brios,

and figure out, you know, how to record video. So I had to kind of do that for him. And then I figure, well, now I have these damn cameras set up in the studio here in the basement. I might as well live stream my show. So I live stream. I used to live stream on Periscope, which was owned by Twitter. But Twitter canceled Periscope, even before Elon bought the place. And I moved to a page where I would not be policed by bots who would be pissed off.

I played Taylor Swift. So I moved to Lod. dot Toronto mic.com because I can do whatever I want there. And we're live streaming there right now. And people can go there for recordings to watch recordings. They can leave comments. I can pop in and read them and bring them into the show. So the cameras are now on every time somebody visits in person.

Right. So are there any comment? Has anyone said, who is that interviewer? I don't see a comment right now, but I did not. heavily promote this was happening. Oh, why not? I didn't. Well, I don't, that's the thing.

I don't, like, do a lot of promotion of the live stream for whatever reason. Like, you know, I feel like toast episodes, I will definitely make sure that we have a WhatsApp group with some diehard listeners and I'll be like, yeah, there's a toast episode at 2 o'clock this day. What's a toast episode? Hey, listen, you didn't do any homework in it. Come on. Once a quarter.

No, once a month. I just got to catch myself here. Once a month, Bob, Willett, who's a DJ on Indy 88, and the aforementioned Rob Pruse will visit me in this basement, and we will kick out thematic jams. We have a different theme every single month, and we play our three, each of us play our three favorite songs that fit that theme, and we deliver some mind blows and some fun facts about the song.

So last month, Rob Proust picked novelty jams. I think the month before, Bob Willett picked metal jams, and I have decided I want to kick out my favorite needle drops. That is the song that plays during that moment in that movie you love, and you love that song in that scene from that movie. So, you know, we'll play the song and talk about the scene it's from, and that is called needle drops, and we're kicking that out in April. Cool.

Yeah. Once a month, we do toast. It used to be Pandemic Friday, which is actually going to tie into my three-minute speech I'm making tonight at Handelbar, but we did 76 weeks in a row, not months, weeks. So 76 weeks in a row we did pandemic Fridays during the pandemic. We started in March 2020. And then after the pandemic, I brought it back as toast, which is a monthly version of what we call the pandemic Fridays. Cool.

Very cool. Well, is there anything else you'd like to say, Toronto, Mike? Just that I enjoyed chatting with you, Annette. And this was your idea. You pitched this to me. And I said, let's fuck shit up. I think I was thinking to myself. And I'm glad we did something here.

I forgot I also have to press the song. But I'm glad that we could remind people that I am the art, no Buo Kobota. That is going to be at the Hot Doc Cinema, Ted Rogers Cinema, whatever they name that now. No, I think you need to say a little bit about the film. That is about this guy who makes sound art, which is based on him learning Japanese as a five-year-old

when he was interned in BC. And he doesn't actually speak Japanese. And that's a good thing. chance for me to say that we talk in great depths about him. We play some of his music or sounds I should say and we talk about a multimedia artist Nubuo Kabota in episode

1812 of Toronto Mike. Right. And there's lots more of you there. That's true. And you're a groovy chick and you interviewed me and this is a very different episode of Toronto Mike and I hope it was okay for you. Did you like being interviewed? I didn't mind. Like you know you asked me about

the podcast so it was kind of like I live and breathe it anyway, so I'm happy to talk about this anytime. Well, it was really interesting for me since I knew so little about podcasting. You should make a documentary about the TMU. Well, for an audience of a... Come to the Elmo and film me, and then... Yeah, but I'm out of town. Oh, yeah, that's right.

I'm going on tour. I'm going on tour with my film. I'm going across Canada. Where will you be on May 21st? I'd have to look at the calendar, but I think it's Thunder Bay. Okay, that's a long way away. Okay. And then I'm heading across to Winnipeg and Regina.

Okay, good for you. That's cool. All the way to Gabriola and Salt Spring Islands. Cool. Yeah. Cool. So thank you. And before we go, I'm going to say that this brings us to the end of the 1868th show

of Toronto Mike. Go to Toronto Mike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs and much love to those who make this all possible. Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Nick Aienis. Aienes. Recycle MyElectronics.ca and Ridley Funeral Home. See y'all next week.

Well, I won't, but Mike will. See you tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow. I'm going to record twice tomorrow, but the second one of Andy and Blair, I'm going to drop it on Friday morning. Okay, tomorrow's my birthday. Happy birthday.

How old are you going to be? Am I allowed to ask? Well, I'm going to be 70. That's a mind blow. I know. That's a mind blow and a fun fact. How do you feel turning 70? I feel fantastic.

There's no aches and pains? No. That's good. That's everything, I think. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, so far. No aches and pains.

Fingers crossed. Okay, love to hear it, Annette. I guess this is your extra, and I'm talking over it. But thanks for interviewing me. Congrats again on the great film. I hope people come out and see it. And are you going to be in Kensington Market tonight for my three minutes meeting? I'm sorry I'm not because I've got somebody coming for dinner or someone from out of town. Okay, on that note, don't forget your lasagna. It's in my freezer.

Okay. Maybe we could have that. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.