Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Barry Davis: Toronto Mike'd #223

Episode Date: March 9, 2017

Mike chats with Barry Davis about his years at The Fan, his time at Sportsnet covering the Blue Jays, why he's no longer there and his Tom Petty tribute band, We Ain't Petty.

Welcome to episode 223 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And Chef's Plate, delivering delicious and locally sourced farm fresh ingredients and refrigerated kits directly to your door. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and joining me this week is Barry Davis. Welcome, Barry. Mike, how are you? Good. And I'm sitting here staring at a case of this beer right now. Very tempting.

You know what? You can dive in. It's all good if you want to dive in. In fact, if you did decide to have a beer, I would replenish that beer so you'd still get a six-pack to take home. It would just sort of grow again, if you will. It's like a bottomless... Tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this pack home with me and crack it open after a very busy day because we don't want to encourage

the drinking and driving, right? Never. No, I was going to stop you at one. Yeah, there you go. Or I'd be driving you to your next appointment myself. Right off the top, so once for Throwback Thursday on Twitter, you shared a pic of a young Barry Davis. Yeah.

Now, I realize this song takes like two minutes to get going. What is this? Hair by the Cow Sills. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it takes a while. I should have set it up to start at the two-minute mark. That's all right. We'll let that go.

But this picture, for people who haven't seen it, Barry Davis had a mane, like a super long hair. I had hair. Worked well with the spandex, too, back in the mid-'80s. And this was like you were a big, I'm going to guess you were into hair metal? Is that fair to say? I was into everything, really. That was just the look-80s. And this was like, you were a big, I'm going to guess you were into hair metal? Is that fair to say? I was into everything, really. That was just the look of the day.

That was the look that would get me the girls. Well, at least I hoped it would. It didn't always work. It worked once, and that was all it needed to work. Here it is. There you go. That was when Sebastian Bach was getting all the chicks. Yeah, I remember seeing the video for Jump by Van Halen.

Yeah. I looked at Eddie Van Halen and I said, I want that look. Now, I could never have that exact look. But at that point, I said, the hair has got to grow. It's got to get all fluffed up and gelled up and moosed up. I had so much product in that hair back then. Didn't do what it did. So tell me, when did you cut the hair

and why did you eventually have to cut the hair? Well, as the 80s turned into the 90s, that long mane became a mullet. Yes, I had the mullet very briefly. And then I went for my first job interview with the mullet. And it was actually a job interview at what is now the fan 590 it was still just a oldies radio station

they were doing the Jays games and they hired me on to sit behind a control board from midnight till 6 a.m. on weekends play the tunes and the DJs weren't even there they were on what is now a very antiquated system called a cart and you put that in and it would have the DJ saying, hey, you're listening to great oldies. Here we are. Music of your life, right? Music of your life. Exactly. So I did that. And after the first week, I said, you know what? I think the hair might have to go a bit. So it was a gradual trim down, bit by bit. And then

eventually, it's like someone who's balding and they don't want to shave their head, so they do the comb-overs with it, and eventually they say, you know what, I just got to get rid of it. That is what happened with my long hair. You need to give that advice to Hulk Hogan. I think he's hanging on to that ring of fire, you know what I mean? I think those are the least of his issues right now. Oh, he's got the cash though, right?

Because he got that Gawker money. Yes. He scored big time there. So great hair uh i remember those days poison and and all that death leopard yeah crew oh yeah miss dr feel good that was a good just grunge you're right grunge came on and kind of swept totally killed it all i think i think if you look back at guns and roses and they were the band that kind of tied it all together because they were the end of the hair metal and the beginning of grunge.

And then as, as they kind of turned the tide, then you got bands like Pearl Jam that came in and, and really, you know, it went from the, the flashy, you know, spandex and colors and the bandanas to the,

you know, black jeans and black t-shirt look in the shorter hair. You're right. You're, you nailed it. Cause use your illusion 1 and 2 came out and that was still, I think in 1990, I think.

Yeah. It was still a big freaking deal. Like that was, you had to get that opening date. You got to get 1 and 2. I'm pointing to my appetite for Destruction Flag. One of the greatest albums ever.

Oh my God. But the great thing about Guns N' Roses is that they appealed to the, you know, the hair metal fans, but then they also appealed to what became the grunge fans. And now,

when you look back now, a lot of people say, I love grunge, but the hair metal, that's just bubblegum stuff. And the people that like the bubblegum stuff said, oh, the grunge

is just too serious. It's too hard that way. So they were a great bridge. They were a great tie-in between the two different eras. And it really took the music out of the 80s and into the 90s.

I couldn't agree more. They weren't doing the silly, like, warrant cherry pie nonsense. I mean, Mr. Brownstone is a heavy track, man. You know, it holds up. And just even Used to Love Her or whatever, like, or Patience. Used to play that in my band, actually, way back in the day. We used to do It, Used to Love Her. We're going to get into your band.

We're going to get into 1430, the music of your life, in a moment. I need to ask really quickly. I'm wearing sweatpants now because we're recording in my basement and I'm working from home and I wear these Roots track pants. That's acceptable, right? To do a podcast with you. People can't see us. It's not like you're George Costanza and this is the message you're sending out to the world that you've just given up. Right, right. So, because I did this recently.

I wore track pants for another guest and we do a photo after and somebody called me out on Twitter like, you can't track pants. You can't wear track pants. I'm like, I'm at my own home. Well, you know what I've discovered? My wife found these for me.

They are track pants, but they look like jeans. It's amazing. That's what I need. They feel like track pants. They have the drawstring, but when people see you wearing them, especially if you have a shirt that goes over the front, lo and behold, people think you have jeans on.

That's like a tuxedo shirt. Yeah, they became my travel pants if I was on an airplane. I wanted to look decent but be comfortable. I'm going to have to source these out. That sounds amazing. Everybody listening, crowdfund Toronto Mic'd. Help keep this going so we can have cool convos with people

like Barry Davis. Go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. If that's too much to remember, go to torontomike.com and click the big orange button that says become a patron and give what you can. I really appreciate it. Barry mentioned there's beer in front of him.

Great Lakes Brewery is giving Barry Davis. These are big cans, too. I mean, these aren't little babies. And you got an assortment there. And this is a craft brewery, an independent craft brewery in southwest Toronto. And they're amazing. The cans, I mean, you can't see this. But my God, that's some pretty good artwork on the cans.

Is this done by the guy himself? Yeah, they do that. And that's one of their things. They have cool, like, Harry Porter. You don't want to crush this when you're done. You just want to put it on your mantle, right? And that's Apocalypse Later, which is, you know, a cute spin on Apocalypse Now.

That's one of their staples, right? Which one's that? The lumberjack, yeah. I like that one. One of their staples, and that's all year round. Guess who's getting drunk tonight on a six-pack. Do it up. Do it up.

So that beer goes home with you. Barry, I got to feed you as well because you came all this way. So Chef's Plate is going to send you two meals to your door. And it's a meal kit delivery service. So they pre-portion the ingredients. And they give you an easy to follow recipe. And then you put it together at home. It just so happens I've started cooking a lot more lately.

You're going to love this. I'm looking forward to that. Because you can't screw up the measurements, man. They give you like a Ziploc bag, and this is exactly the amount you need. Like, you can't mess it up. Oh, you know what? I can mess it up. And the thing is, I've been home a lot more lately, so I've had a little more downtime.

And my wife's birthday is in February. And every year, I'm in spring training, so I'm not home for her birthday. Well, this year, I'm home. So I said, I'm going to bake her her birthday. Well, this year I'm home. So I said, I'm going to bake her a cake. Well, that was an absolute disaster. When I took the pans out of the oven and I flipped the cake over, it was stuck. So I started pounding on it, pounding on it, and then the thing fell apart. And then I thought, how am I going to save this? Well, I just put frosting together. Right, that's the glue. The frosting is the glue. But as I frosted it, I guess it was still

warm, so it just broke it up even more. So I saved it by just putting some beautiful little, one of those little candy little dot things on top of it. Sure. The little sprinkles. There you go. So, yeah, it looked like hell. It tasted pretty good. But my wife said, you know, a nice

attempt, but next time just go buy me a cake. When you were talking about using the icing as like cement, sort of, to put it back together, you next time, just go buy me a cake. When you were talking about using the icing as cement to put it back together, you reminded me of the Great Wall of China. The reason that that's still standing today after so many... They use icing? They use icing. Come on! They used rice.

They basically used rice as a glue between the pieces of stone or whatnot. The engineers look at that today as the reason that this has withheld so many years of abuse. That kind of scares me because I do eat a lot of rice, and I'm trying to watch what I eat as I get older. And now I'm thinking that there's rice in my stomach that is going to be there forever.

Probably true. Probably true. All right, let's dive in here. Barry Davis, you mentioned the music of your life, 1430. And you're right. Guys like me would listen to Tom and Jerry, and then we'd fall asleep. And then we'd wake up, and they'd be playing not even as cool as Tom Jones. They were playing like... Tom Jones was cool. Yeah. What were they playing? Stuff that our grandparents might have listened to. Absolutely. And they started to try to get a bit hipper. And when I started there, it was great because you're basically in this radio station all by yourself overnight. And if you have to go use the bathroom, you need to basically make sure that you don't miss your cue.

Because nowadays, you just pump in a bunch of songs on the computer, hit play, and you can go. But I would have to literally cue up and play every song. So every once in a while, MacArthur Park would be on the playlist. And that song's like nine minutes long. So that was the bathroom song. So my first shift working there, I put on MacArthur Park and said, I'm going to the bathroom. Well, to get to where

the bathrooms are, you have to go out of a locked door. And the door had a combination. And I thought I knew it. It came out, and I'm trying all these different combinations and nowadays you just call somebody I know cell phones weren't around back then

so I was in a complete panic and then finally I looked and there was a reception desk and underneath there was some paper and somebody had left something there knowing that the people that work overnight tend to forget and there was the combination and I got in just in time See it's too bad that CJCL wouldn't let you play Indiegogo de Vida.

Yeah. Because you get like 16 minutes in. Well, it's funny because once they knew they were switching over to all sports, the music director, a guy named Steve Walkers, decided, you know what, music doesn't matter anymore. We have to fill the time, but we're going to go to all sports. And I remember doing the last night technical on on the board the last night they played music and it went from all that paul anka stuff yeah yeah and all of a sudden we were playing the stones and it was like okay

this is you know this would work if we could do this all the time right and then next thing you know uh you know 6 a.m comes and uh it was mike inglglis and Joe Bowen, Stephanie Smythe. They were the original morning show there at the fan when they kicked off. It was quite a big deal. And here they are still going strong after all these years. That scene where the stones are played, that's straight out of the pilot for WKRP, right? Totally. Because you're having my baby, right?

And then Dr. Johnny just rips it off the thing, and he plays Kiss or something. That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay, how did you get the gig at 1430? You just applied like a regular guy? No, it's really interesting how that all worked out. Back in the late 80s, I was still playing in a band during the evenings, and during the day I was working in a factory.

I was shipping and receiving out in Mississauga. So I'd basically go on very little sleep. I'd work 8.30 to 4.30, get home, have a bite to eat, get gear. And a lot of times we'd be playing shows, you know, Tuesday to Sunday. So, you know, I'd do the gig, come home, get a few hours sleep, go back. And there came a time after about five or six years where I totally lost interest in doing the factory work, and my boss could see that.

And one day he calls me into the office, and I probably look like hell, and he said, you really don't enjoy this, do you? And I said, wow, of course I like this. Again, I'm making a living. I was engaged at the time. I knew I was getting married. He said, well, I'm going to tell you something.

I'm going to let you go. And I thought, let me go? I mean, that's my job. I mean, what am I going to do? He said, I know you're going to figure this out, but I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to let you go. And I thought, let me go? I mean, that's my job. I mean, what am I going to do? He said, I know you're going to figure this out, but I'm going to let you go. I remember getting home from the office that day, and I said to my now wife, I said, so now what? Fortunately, we were living with my mother. We were in our early 20s, and we didn't have to pay much, just a little bit to help out.

My wife says, why don't you go to school? I said, yeah, I guess, but what would I take? And lo and behold, there was a brochure for Humber College just sitting on the table. So we started leafing through it, and I saw radio broadcasting. I said, I could do that. I'd like to do that. So I called, and I said, how do I get in?

And they said, you have to come and write a test, an English comprehensive test. I had been in school for about four or five years, so I hadn't really been doing a lot of studying. So I went, and I wrote the test, an English comprehensive test. I had been in school for about four or five years, so I hadn't really been doing a lot of studying. So I went and I wrote the test, and I tanked it. I don't think I did very well at all. My fiancée and I then went on vacation,

and she's from the East Coast, so we were in Newfoundland, and I get a call from the coordinator from Humber College, and he says, you know, I just want to let you know you didn't do very well on the test. The mark on the test wasn't enough for you to get in the course. However, when we met, there was something there. I thought that there was potential there, so I'm going to give you another opportunity to write the test. So I said, okay.

I got home. I said, I'm going to do it this time. I wrote the test. Somehow I passed it, got into the course. And then after the end of the first year, there was a bulletin board and there was a sheet of paper and it said, who wants a radio job this summer? So, and it had all the little, you know, the phone numbers all hanging, you need to pull one of the little tags. I grabbed the whole sheet. I went to the coordinator. I said, how do I get this job?

He said, here's the guy, go to CJCL and he'll talk to you. So I went there and I said, look, I'm here looking for the job. He said, okay, sit down. And we sat down. He asked me, told me, basically said, this is what we need. When can you start? I said, I can start right away. He goes, great, you'll be training tomorrow. Okay.

Cool. You'll be making $8 an hour. I'm like, I'll take it. I'll take it. And that was how it all began. And that was in April of 1992. And as most baseball fans would know, that turned out to be a pretty good year for them and the Maple Leafs, right? That's right.

And then in September of that year, they decided to move to the all-sports format. And my first reporting gig was to stand on the corner of Yonge and Eglinton and just go up to random people with a tape recorder and say, How do you feel about the fact that there's going to be an all-sports radio station in Toronto? And that's what we call streeters. And that's what most people that do reporting cannot stand. You know, I have a feeling for when you're in the mall and somebody says, hi, would you like to try? And most people just ignore.

I'll usually stop and say, sure, I'd love to, because I know that feeling. It's a horrible feeling when you're just approaching people and 90% of them are going to just look at you the other way. So that's basically how I got my in there. And then I just kept volunteering to do more and more things. And next thing you know, I'm covering the Blue Jays and I'm covering the Leafs. And then I got into doing some Raptors stuff.

And it was funny because two weeks after I started, they said, we need one more guy to do what you're doing. Do you know anybody? And I thought, I do know somebody that I went to college with, and it was George Strombolopoulos. There you go. So I called Strombol. I said, George, what are you doing? He goes, well, I moved to BC, and I'm trying to find work out here. I said, well, how's it going? He goes, well, not good. I said, well, do you want to come and work here in Toronto? I can get you a job at a radio station. It only pays $8 an hour. Boom.

He was on the next plane. He started the next week, and then somehow things kicked off really well for George. I've been lucky enough that he sat there, and he speaks very highly of you, but does he realize he owes his entire career to Barry Davis? I remind

him all the time. That's the one thing about George. He's a I mean, that's, you know, I remind him all the time. But yeah, that's the one thing about George. He's a very loyal guy and he'll always remember you and he'll always remember that story. And, you know, once in a while

I'll make sure I bring it up like today. All right, let's go back to those early days. So Scott Ferguson is the guy. You were working with Scott Ferguson? I love Scott Ferguson, yeah.

What a great guy. That's the voice I remember. So after your Jays game, Scott Ferguson does the out-of-town scoreboard and all that. And that cadence he had is just so memorable to me. Yeah, absolutely. To me, that was the voice of the Blue Jays before I got into doing it. There were times where I would call in as a fan, call in Jays talk and ask Scott Ferguson questions.

You know, Bob McCown would do it sometimes too, but it was Scott Ferguson's gig. Yes. And that really gave me my first chance. And Tom Cheek, to me, was the one who really opened the door for me. Because when I started going as kind of a cub reporter, I'd go to the Jays games, I'd stick my microphone in the scrums, and then I started to get a little more ballsy and I'd ask a few questions. And next thing you know, I'd be doing some interviews and I'd run the cassette up and I'd give it to the you know, the person that was the audio guy in the booth at the Rogers Center. And then Scott Ferguson would say, you know,

our Barry Davis spoke to so-and-so and here's what, what, you know, uh, Kelly Gruber had to say. And he played the clip and Tom Cheek heard that. And he's, and he said, you know, how come you're not on with Scott setting up your own interviews? I said, well, I don't know. No one ever asked me to. So he called the program director and he said, you know what? This guy's doing the work. Why can't he come on? He should come on. Next week, they said, you know what? When you do the interviews, you come on and you can sit with Scott Ferguson and set your own interviews up. And I said, no way. And that was, to me, to be sitting in that booth when just a few years ago, I'd be sitting in the 500 level looking at the booth saying, man, it would be nice to be in there one day.

I mean, that was my dream. I wanted to be in that booth. And just a few years later, thanks to Tom Cheek, I got my opportunity. I could do hours just hearing Tom Cheek stories. That's amazing. He was the best. He really was. And again, I grew up listening to him from 1977 on.

I mean, I probably, back then, we didn't get a lot of Jays games on TV. No. You know, you got maybe one during the week, like a Wednesday, and then a, you know, a weekend game. Yeah, you had like a CFTO with Fergie Oliver and Don Chevrier. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. We had to. And so it was, first it was Tom Cheek and Early Win, and then Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth, you know, in the early 80s.

And that's, you know, that was my summers. I would be, if I was out playing baseball, I'd have the little transistor radio. If I was sitting out in my backyard, getting some rays, had the radio. Everywhere you went, driving around the car, you listened to the game. And the way that the two of them

were able to paint the picture, and for all the sports that are out there, I don't think any sport resonates in radio better than baseball. I agree. It's something about the timeless nature of it. I almost want to call it romantic, but it's definitely the best sport on radio. And I also like you listen to Tom and Jerry on the radio every night. It's great that Tom Cheek spoke up on your behalf. It sounds like that was a key moment in your development. And

quick aside, and then it's all back to Barry, but quick aside is Bob Elliott was here. Okay. And we talked about Tom Cheek and we played some of his best calls. Yeah. And Bob, he wrote an article last week for Canada Baseball in which he writes a letter to Tom. And he,

so it's basically a nice letter to Tom giving him an update on things. Yeah. In that article, the legendary Bob Elliott tells Tom about this podcast in Etobicoke called Toronto Mic'd. And he was on it and played the clips.

Come on. And Bob says he sent the link to Shirley Cheek. Yes. And Shirley Cheek enjoyed hearing the discussion. How about that? So I'm just so pleased that Shirley Cheek got some satisfaction from hearing us talk about her great late husband. Yeah. It was very sad how things ended for Tom.

And I was in some ways fortunate, but in other ways it was sad to do the last full TV interview with him. And we sat him down on the field at Rogers Center. And by then he was really struggling. And you'd ask him. There were times where he would stop in the middle of an answer just because he couldn, by then he was, he was really struggling. And, you know, you'd ask, and there were times where he would stop in the middle of an answer just because he couldn't remember what he was saying. And, you know, he felt so bad. He said, can we do it over? And I remember saying, Tom, we don't have to do this. He goes, no, I don't, I don't mind doing this.

I'll do this, but just, you know, be patient with me because sometimes my, my thoughts get, you know, lost and I have to start over again. I said, look, we're recording this. We can edit this. We can do whatever we want to do. So that was my last real memory of him sitting on the field and doing that interview with him. Yeah, so sad. It reminds me of Gore Downey just not too recently, but fairly recently, sat

down with Peter Mansbridge and had to write Peter's name on his hand. And it's just terrible what that does to you. Yeah, just terrible. Okay, so you mentioned Scott Ferguson. You mentioned Tom Cheek, Jerry Howarth. But can we, this fan, I guess we'll talk about Fan 590 because you turn from 1430 to 590.

I still have a Fan 1430 jacket at home. Oh, never give that up. Yeah. Because I'm trying to remember because I remember I was in university. I think it was like 94 when this was happening or something like that. Yeah, it was because it was a station called Key 590. They were a music station. They went under.

So all of a sudden, that frequency was available. And 590 is a much better frequency than 1430. I don't know how that all works. No, but you're right. It's too technical for me. But more reach. It gets out much further distance and a clearer signal. So Fan 590, when I mentioned you were coming on the show,

Jim Richards on Twitter piped in. So Jim Richards tells me... There's another guy that gave me my start too. I think he needs some recognition as well. You know, he's attached to Strombol at the hip. You don't bump into one without the other being right there. Have you noticed that? Yeah, and how that all started was

Jim would be doing his Saturday morning shows at the Fan and they were all... and it was a blast. I mean, some of my favorite years working in the business were working with Jim. So his show would start at 6 a.m. Saturday, and we would come in at 11 o'clock at night Friday, myself, Strombo, and Jim, and we would start putting together the show. We would start putting together some of the little comedy bits. We'd be doing voices for them. One of the jobs I did is I would have to edit together what we'd call our blooper reel, which was just – we started a thing where all the people that are producers, if they hear something that is a goof-up, we had a clipboard. Write it down.

Write down what time it was and what it was said. And then I'd gather all this stuff. I'd gather all the tapes on the Friday night, and I'd put together a five- or six-minute montage of the worst of the week. But again, Jim gave George and I an amazing opportunity to come on the air with him all the time. And we built up quite a friendship.

I don't see them as much as I'd like to, but I still talk to Jim quite regularly, and I've been talking to George a lot lately as well. So Jim says you're his original board op. Yes, I was. Wow. And at the time, Strombo was the producer. Yes. So there's this time in mid-90s when Jim Richards is doing a show, and you're on board as the board op, and Strombo's the producer. And then he tells me Elliott Friedman was an intern.

Yeah. That's crazy, right? Elliott Friedman was an intern. Isn't That's crazy, right? Elliot Friedman was an intern. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? A lot of talent there. It was. And, you know, in fact,

I remember the very first time Dan Schulman hit the airwaves at the fan. And at that time, again, they'd just switched the formats. And, you know, I don't even know if we'd officially... No, we had officially

hadn't gone the fan yet. We were still CJCL. But what they did is they wanted to start doing some sports talk programming on evenings when the Jays weren't playing. So they started bringing in some different people. And I remember getting, you know, a phone message or whatever or a memo in my – because back then we didn't have emails. God, I'm old. So it said that we're bringing in this new guy from Barry tonight. Can you just show him around, show him how the microphone buttons work

and all that kind of stuff? So I said, yeah, sure. I'm going to see what this guy is like. So in walks this tall, gangly guy who had a huge afro and looked like Art Garfunkel. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, this is going to be fun. I said, hi, I'm Barry. Hi, I'm Dan.

Hi, Dan. Nice voice. Sits down. I'm like like you ready to go he goes yep turns on the mic starts talking i'm like holy crap this dude's good like this guy is so good um and he deserves everything that he's achieved i mean a phenomenal broadcaster just a terrific play-by-play guy and he's one of those guys you can literally just listen to him recite the phone book. I think now that Vince Scully has retired, can we say Dan Schulman is the best out there? Can I say that? I would.

I just did. Why not? Who's going to stop me? It's my show. That's right. All right. So Richard Strombo Friedman. Does Jeff Merrick ever fit into that crew?

He does because Jeff used to, and was sunday nights i used to do you know as things went along i started doing the the sports updates on sunday nights well george and jeff um were doing well jeff was part of a wrestling show but george and jeff also used to do this wacky overnight show and basically the program director at the time and i think it was bob mackwitz senior said guys do whatever you want to do. And Bob Mackwitz Jr. was part of that show as well. So they would just do whatever. It's the game, right? The game. And one night, they just started talking one night about old TV shows, and they brought up Happy Days. And I said, oh, God, I love that show. I know everything about it. Oh, yeah,

I bet you don't. Oh, I do. So I came in one night from like 2 a.m. till 5 a.m. having people call in to try to stump me with Happy Days trivia. And that went on and just crazy stuff like that. And it was a blast. It was unlike anything because there were really no rules other than don't swear. I mean, they would literally do the show in their underwear, which really was... I'd say my track pants aren't so bad now. No, it wasn't very pleasant for me, and I wasn't going to join them on that. That's funny.

Another name from that time, is it Greg Sansoni was there? Greg Sansoni. Yeah, he was actually... Now, I knew there was one more guy. So Elliot Friedman was the intern. George was the producer. I was technical operator. Jim was hosting, and Greg Sansoni would be doing the sports updates.

See, all of you went on to... Most of you national. I mean, Jim has got a local show, but a very popular 1010 show. But you all went on to such big things in this country. Tell you what, the Fan 590 was a phenomenal breeding ground for so many people that have moved on. And, you know, just 10 plus wonderful years working there. I have a question from Elias.

I hope I have pronounced that right. Elias on Twitter, who wants me to ask you about covering the Raptors. He remembers you as one of the more critical voices when it came to Lenny Wilkins in particular. And he wants to know if you ever got in trouble for being critical of the Raptors. Yeah, you know, and the Raptors thing,

and I'll admit this now publicly because it's so many years gone by, but so Elliot Friedman was the Raptors thing, and I'll admit this now publicly because it's so many years gone by. So Elliot Friedman was the Raptors reporter at the fan. The guy knew everything basketball. Then all of a sudden a new TV station came out, which became the score. Then it was called Headline Sports. So Elliot left. So George knew some basketball, so they had him go down and kind of finish the season.

And then George left. So then here we are in the summer, and the program director at the time, Nelson Millman, calls me in. He says, so we're looking for someone to be our beat reporter for the Raptors. What do you know about basketball? And I said, oh, I mean, I'm a huge Raptors fan. I love basketball. I've been following it all my life. He goes, okay, gig is yours.

I'm like, awesome. I walked out of his office, i said to myself i know nothing about the raptors about i really don't i mean i was a casual fan at best so i took that summer and you know i went to the library because that's we did back then and rented videos and started reading magazines and did everything i could and that next year uh there i was the raptors beat reporter and the intention at that time was that we were going to cover every game, home and away. They started the season on the road. They had two games, one in Miami, one in Atlanta.

They lost them both. I don't know why I remember this so well. They come home for their home opener to play against Golden State Warriors. Latrell Sprewell, who had just choked P.J. Carlissimo. They won that game and okay, the Raptors are 1-2. Then they went on and lost 17 straight games.

They finished the season 16-66, and then the next year there was a lockout. Then things started to get real interesting because they drafted Vince Carter. Jack Armstrong and Chuck Swirsky were hired to do the radio. And then we just started to do a pre- and post-game show, which I got a chance to do. So, yeah, I hosted the pre- and post-game show for a few years.

And then Eric Smith came along. And then, of course, he took office. And he's still there. He's still there. He's still there. So, okay, I was going to ask, are you the guy who took us to Eric Smith doing the Raptors? He stole my job, but no.

You know what? He came in, and again, he was an intern. And it was actually Nelson who said, you know what he came in and he again he was an intern and um and it was actually nelson said you know what he really knows his hoops you want to bring him in once in a while and just give him a chance so the more he went on the more i went i was saying myself this guy knows his basketball like he really knows his basketball and you know as time went on he started to take more and more responsibility with that i started to work more into being you know the reporter and what i used to do with the Jays. I'd come up onto his post-game show

and play some sound and co-host with him in that way. Then it was around 2001 that Chum Radio decided that they were going to start their own rival sports station. Right. The team. I jumped with many

people that jumped. Scott Ferguson, I jumped. The team. I jumped. You're in that. With many people that jumped. Scott Ferguson, for example. Scott Ferguson jumped. Some folks from TSN, Paul Romanuk. Romanuk, Van Horn. Van Horn went. They were trying to purge as many people from the other radio stations as possible. I mean, they wanted McCown. They wanted

Stelic. Those guys they weren't able to get. But we started there, and they had some great ideas. You know, we were going to be a national radio network. We're not going to just be Toronto-centric. You know, we're going to do this the right way. We're going to make this great. This is a five-year plan. Well, 17 months later, they pulled the plug on it.

And that was it. They literally, it was a Monday afternoon, a company-wide email came out with everybody's name on it. And it said, please show up tomorrow morning for a meeting. And we're like, meeting? What's going on, right? What's going on? Well, you arrive at the Chum building and there was security guards all over the building. Uh-oh, this is not good. And then they had a bunch of stacking chairs all lined up in a big hallway. And the head of CHUM just looked at everybody, said, thank you for all coming. I just want you to say I want to thank everybody

for their fine efforts over the last 17 months. At 3 o'clock this afternoon, we'll be playing Elvis. Thank you very much for your time. There's HR people on either side of the building that you'll have your packages waiting for you. That was it. That was it. So Mike Richards was on recently, but in his

first appearance, he tells this story, and he tells, I'm trying to make sure I don't mess up the details, but there's something about a Romanox speaks up or something. Did you get a Romanox story out of this? Or do we have to protect the guilty here?

I'm not going to say who it was, but there was one person who spoke out and wasn't very happy about it. And basically, this person spoke for the entire group. We all felt that way. We were all in shock. We all left good jobs for something that we felt was going to be at least a five-year plan. And it was a very quick bailout. And yeah, he expressed some concerns that we all had. Yeah, I can imagine. And that's a horrible feeling any time, hey, here's your HR envelope.

Nobody, nobody. Because I had, you know, I'd been 10 years at the fan, and then I went right to the team, and I didn't know what I was going to do. How was I going to be unemployed? And thankfully, two weeks later, I was working at Sportsnet. So it worked out quite well. Okay.

Now, before we get to Sportsnet, Andrew Sheehy on Twitter wants me to ask you how it felt to cover the final game for the Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens. Yeah. I don't know how he knew I was there. But, yeah, I was there. I have good sources here. The Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks. Doug Gilmore was playing for the Hawks in that game. And Leafs stunk.

It was a terrible game. But for me, growing up, I grew up a Leafs fan, and my first sports hero growing up was Mike Palmatier. I wanted to be him. I had his jerseys. You've got the old Bernie Perrant mask or the Jacques Plante mask hanging over there. I had one of those. I had spray painted it to make it look like a Palmatier mask. He was my hero. And I never, other than as a kid, you know, being at autograph signings and stuff like that, but that last game at Maple Leaf Gardens, he was there.

And before the game, I got a chance to sit down and do a full radio interview with him. And I talked to him about when I met him as a kid. And the nice thing was that he was as gracious to me there as he was when I was a kid. And that meant a lot to me. You know, sometimes you meet your heroes and they turn out to be real, can I say dinks? You can swear, yeah. I'm allowed to swear?

You can swear on this podcast. Oh, that's great. Explicit. I put an explicit warning in iTunes. Okay, so yeah, he turned out to be a great guy. So to me, that was probably the most fondest memory. And for me, Maple Leaf Gardens always held something really special to me growing up. I used to have this recurring dream as a kid that in my basement, there was a door.

And when I'd open up the doors in the basement, it would lead me right into Maple Leaf Gardens. And I remember as a kid the first time, and I think a lot of kids, adults remember as a kid, wherever it was, that first time they were in a stadium or an arena that walked through the tunnel and then all of a sudden the thing that you've seen on TV

so many times is right there in front of you. I remember it well. You're right. And I loved Maple Leaf Gardens too mainly because as a young man that's where I saw the Leaf games from the Grays of course.

I was always up in the Grays. But I always remember the bunker and Harold Ballard and King Clancy would always be in there. And how about the smoky corridors between periods and the troughs in the grays. But I always remember the bunker and Harold Ballard and King Clancy would always be in there. And how about the smoky corridors between periods? That's right.

And the troughs in the bathroom. I remember as a kid walking on Carlton or whatever to get to the game. And you'd walk through a cloud of pot smoke. Oh, yeah. You'd be like, what's that? Like, what's this smell? You'd get out of the subway. And the first thing you'd see and you'd smell would be that, I think it was Frank Fatir's pizza.

Oh, yeah. Right? And it would go from that smell to the smell of pot, and then all the scalpers. You know, again, Air Canada Centre is a fine building, but there's just something, and

maybe it just shows our age, right? It's a bit sanitized, or corporate maybe is the word. I thought they did a good job keeping the face of the old post office at the Air Canada Centre. They did a good job architecturally there, but you post office Yeah, absolutely. They did a good job like architecturally there, but you're right. It's lacking a little bit of that grungy Toronto character that you got at the curtains. Like those gold seats

kind of in the corners behind each net where you knew on any given night somebody is going to get drilled by a puck going over the glass. Right. Or the blues where I remember going to a game with my mother and she's afraid of heights and we were in the corner blues. She wouldn't stand up for the anthem because she was afraid she was going to a game with my mother, and she's afraid of heights, and we were in the corner blues. She wouldn't stand up for the anthem because she was afraid she was going to fall over.

Oh, man. The last goal was scored by... Who's the fighter who passed away? He played for Chicago. Oh, Bob Probert. Yes, Bob Probert. Sorry, Bob's name. But yeah, I think he's got the last goal at MLG,

if I remember correctly. I recorded that game to VHS. It's actually with Retro Ontario being digitized, Yeah, I think he's got the last goal at MLG, if I remember correctly. I recorded that game to VHS. It's actually with Retro Ontario being digitized, and I have to follow up with him because I want that back. Somewhere I have some souvenirs that they gave out that night from the final game locked away somewhere. But yeah, that was a great memory. All right, Sportsnet.

I've heard of them. So you just explained after the team dissolves and you get your walking papers, you're lucky enough that you're not out of work very long. What were you doing for Sportsnet? Well, again, that's really interesting because a guy that was our sports director at the team, and he'd been let go with some middle management people a few months earlier. He started working at Sportsnet as a producer. His name is Sean Levine.

He's now working at TSN Radio. He's part of Scott MacArthur's afternoon show. So Sean called me a day before, and he was tipped off. And he said, I'm hearing, he goes, I don't know if it's true, but I'm hearing that the team is going to go under on Tuesday. And I would highly recommend that you get your demo together. And at the time, because of the Chum affiliation, CP24 was part of Chum. Right.

And they had the sportscasters, the people that were doing radio, do little sports hits on CP24. Now, unlike most TV, there was no teleprompter. There was no highlights. You basically had a stationary camera that was on you, and you just spoke for two minutes. And I recorded all those, and that became my demo. So I gave the tape to Sean Levine, and he said, they're hiring a full-time Leaf reporter at Sportsnet. I said, okay. He goes, well, we'll see if it's not too late. Well, apparently they had come to the end

of their interviews. They were pretty much ready to hire somebody. Sean put the tape on the desk and said, can you just watch this tape? I got a call. They said, would you like to come in for an interview? I did an interview. They called me for a second interview. I went in for that. And then they asked me if I wanted to take the job and be the full-time Leaf reporter. And that was the year before the hockey lockout.

So like 2005? No, 2001. 2001, 2002. I get them all mixed up now. The Ed Bell four-year. Shane Corston, Darcy Tucker, that crew. The Muskoka Five. There you go. So that year I did all 82 games plus the playoffs

and by the time the season was over, I was just gone. Like completely gone. It was tough. Then the next year there was a lockout and just so happens the guy that was covering the Raptors for Sportsnet left to go join a new TV station which no longer exists. It was called Toronto One.

I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, I do. It was on the air very briefly. So he left. So then they said, hey, listen, you did Raptors at the fan. Do you want to be our Raptors reporter here at Sportsnet? So I jumped in and started doing that. Cool.

Now, in modern, I'm going to fast forward a little bit at Sportsnet here. We've had a couple, I know, I know, got some questions for you here, but first at Sportsnet, very popular face because the last two Blue Jay seasons, Blue Jay fever returned to the city. You know better than anybody,

but man, I know I couldn't miss a game for most of the last two seasons. Once the trade deadline two years ago when Tulewitzki came in, Price, basically from there on,

it became appointment viewing again and it felt good. And you were a familiar face and very good. I'm just going to play a clip, if you don't mind, of something, a song you wrote for Joe Biagini. So let's listen to your pipes here. Man.

Man. Thank you. He made it look easy, though some say he's crazy And inside he's thinking about ballet and pitching Oh, Biagini lives in Japan Biagini loves finger painting He's outrageous when he's on TV Biagini bonobobs me finger painting. He's outrageous when he's on TV. Be a genie, boner bumps me. Okay, I'm going to admit something to you right now.

Let's hear it. There was a little bit of alcohol involved in that. You know, I was going to say good pipes, but we're going to talk about that in a moment. And that's you on guitar, pipes but we're gonna talk about that in a moment and that's you on guitar and we're gonna talk about that in a moment but uh yeah joe biagini is outrageous and he loved that right yeah somebody had played it to him before i had a chance to tell him about it and uh yeah he got a kick out of he asked if he can make that his walkout song but never never transpired but yeah it was a a night we were in tampa and uh there was a tornado coming, and they told everybody to stay in their rooms,

and I always carry my guitar with me on the road, so I had a few pops, and it just happened. Well, tonight, when you're enjoying your Great Lakes beer, if you become so inspired to write a Toronto Mike theme song, I'll play it on the next episode. So there you go. It's going to take more than a six-pack for that. I'll send a delivery to your home.

And one more thing while we're on Sportsnet is you took some cuts, and the players saw you in the batting cage. I'm just going to play a little bit of this fantasy camp. Let me hear what these guys had to say about you. Barry Davis. You want to take a second to brace yourself for this? You have to see this. I just want to see what this body looks like in this uniform.

Oh, my God. Yep, that's like in this uniform. Oh, my God. Yep. That's about what I thought. Oh, watch your head. Yeah, that's Donaldson, Stroman, and Sanchez. Just critiquing your baseball skills there. Okay, so let me cut to the chase. I've got to ask you a question here.

So, obviously, the players me cut to the chase. I gotta ask you a question here. So you're, obviously the players like you, fans like you, you're familiar face during these two crazy Blue Jay fever, way before that, but these last two years particularly when everybody like millions and millions of people are tuning in to see Barry Davis and seeing you do a great job. Why are you not

at spring training? Why are you no longer on the Sportsnet telecast of Blue Jays games? Well, first of all, I'm going to say that the time I had there, 14 years, were just tremendous. And the last two in particular

were the highlights of my career. Unfortunately, the way it is in this business, sometimes changes are made and changes were made. And I find myself now looking forward and moving ahead.

And I loved every moment I did with the Jays. I would not take back a second of that. But, you know, it's just the way the way the business is. And I'm here with you today and we'll see where things are going. And you've not seen the last of me, hopefully, on television. And it's something that I still really have in my heart, as well as music. I'm doing some acting on the side. Again, music is not something I'm going to make a career out of. That's something I was doing anyway. I know a lot of people think that I just quit to pursue music, to live out my dream. As wonderful as that would sound,

that's not quite the way it happened. But in the movie, that's the way you'll write it. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. But as far as all the But in the movie, that's the way you'll write it. Sure, absolutely, absolutely. But as far as all the details, I mean, it's just too much to get into. But let's just say changes were made and I'm ready to roll with the changes. All right, now I need to, for the people listening who can't see this,

I have now, I picked up Barry by the scruff of his neck. I'm now pressing him against the wall and I'm shaking him violently. And I'm saying, Barry Davis, did you jump or were you pushed? See, if I don't rough you up a little bit,

I'm going to get hate mail. I respect you for asking that question. I'm going to plead the fifth on that. And that is your right. I believe that's a right here. I have to check the Constitution. Everybody's entitled to is your right. I believe that's a right here. I have to check the Constitution. Everybody's entitled to their own opinion. I'll just let everybody figure out for themselves and think what they want to think.

Okay, then I'm going to think something, and then we'll move on going forward. But I understand now it's Hazel May, who was there before, and they're going to add Arash Madani. This is what I'm told. So to me, as a fan, nobody ever once watched a Jays game and said, oh, if only this Barry guy wasn't here,

this would be a great view. And no one had that opinion. So this is clearly, in my opinion, Mike speaking here, not Barry, a cost-cutting move. This is what I think. You don't have to comment. You've already pled the fifth. Your lawyer says you can be quiet now.

But yeah, you'll be missed, by the the way on games uh but you know that and uh i appreciate that at least and you know i wanted to say one thing as well that uh since this went down um i've been just blown away by by the support i've seen on social media uh so many people have been so kind and uh i read every single one of those comments that people send me. And one thing that it's always been important for me is to be able to connect with the audience, connect with the fans, the viewers, not put myself in a different light or a different category. I'm one of you guys. I'm just fortunate enough to have been able to be on the inside all these years. But for me, as a TV broadcaster, you want the viewers to invite you into their home. And if they don't like you and they don't feel comfortable with you, they don't want you in their home.

So that's always been important to me is to have that connection with the people. And it's safe to say that if TSN calls you and they need a beat guy, a Jays guy, you would take that phone call. You want to be my agent? You would take that phone call. You want to be my agent? You would take the phone call. You would accept the charges, right? And you would... I am keeping all options open right now. So we'll cross our fingers that we get to see you on some Jays coverage at some point.

But let's get back to music here. Firstly, while you were covering the Jays, you got to meet my hero, Ed Vedder. Oh, man. By the way, I'm wearing my Yield t-shirt today from the 98 tour. I should have brought the pick that he gave me. And it's interesting because there were so many celebrities during the World Series this year. So,

Vince Vaughn was there. I had a chance to meet him, but all I knew was somehow, someway, I need to see Eddie Vedder. So here we are game seven of the world series and I still hadn't seen Eddie better and you know I saw him from the press box singing take me out to the ball game but that was as close as I got so the world series ends the Cubs win I'm in their clubhouse doing some interviews I don't see him in there I see Bill Murray in there you know okay great Bill Murray a big fan but I want to see eddie better right um so we're all done and i go out

to uh to meet up my crew to start feeding our stuff and who's sitting in the freaking dugout eddie vetter because it's pouring down rain so i'm like okay i gotta meet eddie vetter and he was talking to some people and when things were cleared away i just approached him i said eddie hi i just want to tell you i'm an absolutely huge fan. Right from the beginning, I said, my two favorite bands are Pearl Jam and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And I know you're a big Tom Petty fan, too, because he actually had been on stage with Tom Petty once and sang The Waiting with them. So he goes, yeah, oh, they're great. And then he actually quoted.

He goes, that was the thing about the World Series. The Waiting was the hardest part. Yes, that's right. And I said, listen, any chance for a pic right and i grabbed my phone to take a picture and he reaches into his pocket he goes yeah here's a pic and i'm like does it say ed on it like no no no but it has ev on one side and 21 on the other so he actually says to me you know can i uh i said can i get a real picture too? He's joking. Absolutely. So we did a picture together.

And that was it. That was my moment with Eddie Vedder. And that was to me a thrill. I mean, you see the athletes all the time, but to meet musicians was off the charts. And you mentioned your love of Tom Petty. This is a band called, I don't know if you've heard of this band They're called We Ain't Petty

We Ain't Petty We are a tribute to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers And this is your voice We're listening to you That's me Trying to sound like Tom Petty I can't look like him There's no way I can look like him

So the best I can do Is try to sound like him And I'm really lucky. I'm surrounded by a great group of musicians. And it's something I wanted to do ever since I saw his documentary on Netflix. And I just threw it out last summer. Just crazy. I'm just thinking, put together a Tom Petty Troupe.

Anybody interested? And I got all these musicians saying, yeah, do it. I do it. I do it. So I just had a group of guys over. We did a jam. And I said, you know i just had a group of guys over we did a jam and i said you know i think we can do this so we just started to work things and as my schedule started to ease up after the world series we started to rehearse more and uh yeah we had our

first gig uh last sunday at a big uh fundraiser benefit for uh paramedics who suffer from ptsd so we got to do a 45 minuteminute set, and it was a blast. My first time doing a full set with a band on stage since 1993. Wow. Yeah. So were you nervous? Was there any anxiety there? Yeah, I think, you know, leading up to it

and going to the first song, and the place was packed, and the table right in front of the stage, my wife was sitting. And my wife is like my biggest critic so yeah but once we got into the first song it just becomes you're just playing again and then

you just start to feed off of it and I love it I get such a rush out of doing that I'm going to put on some learning to fly while we keep talking about this so tell me how many gigs do you have lined up for We Ain't Petty? We have another one coming up in March 25th at a place called Brooks Sports Bar and Grill

that is in Bolton, Ontario, so north of the city. Tickets are $10 for that, and you can get them by calling the club. And I don't have the number off the top of my head, but if you Google Brooks Sports Bar and Grill, you'll be able to. But tickets are selling fast. I mean, they're going really well. And really, these days, this is how times have changed.

Because when I was a band in the 80s, you just recorded your band on a cassette, you'd give it to bar owners, and then they would decide, now they want a video. Now they want a website. So we were fortunate enough that the show was videotaped uh you know in a really good quality two camera shoot so we're in the process of putting a demo video together i'm in the process of putting a website together and then we start shopping that and then we can start getting more gigs and uh we're hoping we're getting requests from people all over the map to

come and play so i'd absolutely love to do it. You need to bill it as a We Ain't Petty featuring Barry Davis. Yeah, that's what some people have said to me, and you know, why not? I mean, I don't know. No, I know you're too humble a guy for that. I call the guys I play with the heart fakers, because we're not really the heartbreakers.

Now, that's you doing your best Tom Petty, and it might be better that you look like you and sound like Tom Petty that might not be a bad thing I have seen people that look like him but don't sound like him so I'd rather I think you've got the better mix

so I came to Tom Petty because in high school I picked up this album what was the name of this album? Full Moon Fever. His first solo album. And really the beginning of his relationship with Jeff Lynne, who really became a big influence for him. The thing about Petty is that he has played with so many people. I mean, you think about it, he's a Wilbury. We're talking Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne. They're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Yeah, he is. on the 25th in Bolton, like we're doing 30 songs. So that's, you know, good two plus hours of music. And even that,

we're like, oh, but we're not doing that. We don't have room for that one. Like there's so many songs to choose from. So yeah, we're looking forward to that. And just so many,

so many, yeah, another great one right there. Dude, I mean, I know you got gigs you got to get to, so I can't do this, but I could easily play Tom Petty hits for the next 45 minutes. Dude, I mean, I know you got gigs you got to get to, so I can't do this, but I could easily play Tom Petty hits for the next 45 minutes. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. And if you have a chance to see his documentary on Netflix called Running Down a Dream, it's like three and a half hours, and it's just amazing viewing. Really, really good viewing. Every one of these songs you're playing, we do. This was from Damn the Torpedoes. This was his breakthrough album, 1979. Well, this is it.

So Full Moon Fever, I pick up Full Moon Fever on CD. I bought it at 333 HMV downtown. Full Moon Fever. And it was like a playthrough, like everything. We could literally do that entire CD. And that's the thing. And his second solo album called Wildflowers is another one that is just filled with great song after great song. This is our closer.

Might be the best driving song ever, right? Oh, yeah. So now Full Moon Fever, now I go back and hear his older stuff. But since Full Moon Fever, you know, a lot of big popular videos and big hits. This is if you're going to be traveling Wilburys, like that was Handle With Care. Like that was amazing. Do you know that how things began with him and Bob Dylan? Tell me.

Was that Bob Dylan was going on tour and he didn't have a backing band. And producer who was working with both of them said, I wonder if Petty would do it. And they thought, oh, you know, Tom Petty's headlining arenas. He's not going to back up Bob Dylan. So they proposed to him. They said, Tom, how about this? You guys do a set as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers open up and then stay on

stage and be Bob's backup band. And Tom said, absolutely. I'd love to. So that was his you know, so there they were. Dylan did an entire tour and his band was the Traveling Wilburys Tom Petty had

Johnny Cash record I Won't Back Down and in fact Petty says he wishes that he had never recorded that he wishes that Johnny Cash's was the only version

because he loves that one so much the same thing was said by Trent Reznor for Hurt he wrote that song for Johnny Cash to sing at that stage it's pretty amazing. Those American recordings by

Cash, by the way, are all pretty freaking stellar. Rusty Cage, you name it. I don't know exactly the album, but there was one album where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were his band for the entire album. And then, of course, if you're a fan of Nirvana, or a fan of the Foo Fighters,

well, Dave Grohl, this was 1991, and Tom Petty had just released the album Wildflowers, and they were asked to play on Saturday Night Live. And at the time, they didn't have a drummer. They were between drummers, and they didn't know what to do. So Tom Petty called Dave Grohl because he was a big fan and said, hey, would you mind playing with us on Saturday Night Live? And Grohl just dropped the phone and said, I'll do it. And if you get a chance to go on YouTube and watch it, Dave Grohl still has the big hair, and he's a complete wild man on the drums. And they play a song that's off Wildflowers called Honey Beat.

And I didn't really know that song very well until I saw that. And now it's like, oh, we've got to put that song on our set because it's such a cool song. Wow, wow, wow. Okay, so did you tell us the website's in development? Is that right? Website's in development. When it is up,

it will be weaintpetty.com. We do have a Facebook page that is up now and running, so I'd love people to get on there and like the Facebook page. And on that Facebook page, you'll see all the information regarding our upcoming gig

and any new gigs. And we'll have some more videos posted on there soon, too. Barry, this was awesome. I really appreciate it. My pleasure'll have some more videos posted on there soon too. Barry, this was awesome. I really appreciate it. My pleasure, Mike. I'd love to do it again. I'm going to hold you to that.

You're going to regret saying that. I didn't swear, so that's something I haven't done yet. Do you want to drop a quick F-bomb on the way out or no? In case it's a real tape, do you want to keep it clean? You've got four kids. I can't be doing that stuff. All right. Then you're smart.

You're smart. I'm so well-trained, and that's the thing, because when I'm off the air I swear a lot and people always say how is it that when you're on TV you never swear

and there's just something that turns on. The mic, it's like once the mic is there you can't swear. I burped on air. Have you? I've had hiccups on air

but never, never have I sworn. And that brings us to the end of our 223rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Barry is at Barry Davis underscore.

Don't forget the underscore. It was already an at Barry Davis. Go figure. Boo. And our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. And Chef's Plate is at Chef's Plate CA. See you all next week. See you next week.