Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bruce Dowbiggin Kicks Out the Jams: Toronto Mike'd #966

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Mike catches up with Bruce Dowbiggin before he kicks out the jams.

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Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville and Ridley Funeral Home pillars of the community since 1921 I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and returning to Toronto Mike

to kick out the jams is Bruce Dobigan. Welcome back, Bruce. How you doing? Good. Good to be with you again. Well, I was going to say, we actually saw each other on Friday. Was it Friday night? I've lost track.

Yeah, Friday night. You were on the FOTM open holiday Zoom, and it was great to see you there. Yeah, I was in Dallas trying to get a negative test so that I could comply with the 72-hour rule to get back into Canada. I'm glad it worked out for you because you're back in Canada. I am. I'm in Calgary. Yep, we're back in the Western office. We let you back. We? I didn't know you were We're back in the Western office. We let you back. That's... We. We. I didn't know you were on talking terms with the prime minister.

Of course, me and JT, hang. But I want to just go back to Friday real quick. We've got a bunch of ground to cover before we kick out the jams. Go ahead. So you had a really interesting debate. In fact, this is when I disappeared. You notice I left for five minutes, but you and Hebsey, Mark Hebsey, were debating the Lou Marsh Award. And for the record, what is your take on this situation? Because Mark Hebsey is very keen to have the name replaced because of comments Lou Marsh wrote about Indigenous peoples. And he was not in favor of a boycott of the berlin olympics but what are your thoughts on this bruce well i uh i i i have a i have a i've always felt like

the the award was too dominated by the toronto star not just because of lou marsh but there was always toronto and toronto star bias to it right which was especially noticeable when you got outside of toronto and you didn't know who any of these people were. And I thought the pics reflected the gestalt of Toronto, you know. And so I always thought that it needed to be expanded. I didn't know too much about Lou Marsh and his career or anything he'd written or said or whatever. He's a man of his time. He's a man of his time. And I don't think many people

would hold up to the litmus test that's being demanded of people these days. But I have no problem with them changing it. I think there are people who we should have honored. And my suggestion that day was, well, why don't we rename it either for Alison Gordon or for Christy Blatchford, who were trailblazing women sports reporters. And I thought that was an idea that they should consider. And I do really like that. And considering apparently there's this affiliation with the Toronto Stars, so the Alison Gordon suggestion makes a great deal of sense to me.

Well, I worked in the beat with Alison, and we were friends. And she put up with abuse. I saw the way Reggie Jackson treated her. You know, he'd stand there naked and he'd fondle himself. And then he'd like bend over in front of her, et cetera. And it was very difficult for her. And she was a pro. She didn't complain particularly. I think there were times when she said stuff.

Just really an admirable person. She wrote books and for a long time had health issues that she was battling. So, yeah, she'd be fantastic. I always, and of course I always admired Blatch, but the problem for Blatch is she wouldn't probably have the newspapers, but the Toronto Star. So the star people might not be too amenable to her. Okay. Good suggestion. And while I'm chatting, catching up on some of these, you know, FOTMs I've spoken to recently,

I had a chat, a phone call with Brian Williams yesterday, and I'm catching up on some of these, you know, FOTMs I've spoken to recently, I had a chat, a phone call with Brian Williams yesterday. And I'm curious, what are your thoughts? So Brian Williams is ending his career after five decades. What are your thoughts on Brian? Well, I tweeted out when I heard the news that, you know, I said that Brian and the position he was in, and I was just starting at CBLT. Brian could have, you know, put me down. He could have made me feel like a third, third grader. Who are you? Blah, blah, blah. The guy was always solicitous of me. He was kind. There was one day I got sick at the last minute and Brian stepped in to do my

show. We've talked many times over the years when I had a podcast, I had him on. He was, he was a real pros pro. I mean, I have nothing but great things to say about him. He was sort of in his own way, he was slightly eccentric. You know, everybody talks about the watch stuff. Brian was also obsessed a little bit about his wardrobe and stuff. And people would go into the CBC building to do shows and Brian would be in the stairwell practicing his intros, practicing his spontaneity, as we used to say. And I'd come by, and he'd say,

Bruce, does this tie in this jacket go together? Does this work together? And I'd say, yeah, it looks pretty good, Brian. You know, he had some wonderful eccentricities, and he was willing, and he was a good example to me, he was willing to take on tough subjects. Yeah, and on that note of eccentricities, willing and he was a good example to me he was willing to take on tough subjects yeah and uh on that note of eccentricities um tougher word to spell it better than i can say it but uh i find

it very interesting too he's very particular with like because for example i'm booking him on another show and it's like call me on this day so we can schedule a call for this day uh regarding this day like there's a lot of very specifics around phone calls and you can hear him go through his calendar and he's kind of going through it and he kind of gives you a narration on what he's up to there. And I find it very quaint, sort of the way he

organizes his calendar and his probably a landline, his phone conversations. I don't know if he told you the story when you talked to him yesterday, but the story he always told people said, well, Brian, you were at the top of your game in Canada. Why didn't you go to the United States? And the story he always tells is he went home to see his wife.

I think it's Geraldine and said, I just got an offer from the United States to go work here, there, whatever it is. And what do you think? And she said, Brian, the kids and I are gonna miss you in other words she wasn't she wasn't moving and that was the signal to brian if you wanted to stay married to me you were staying in toronto and well since we're talking to brian i always think about the olympics i associate brian with the olympics uh what are your thoughts on we got a beijing olympics coming up here should canada boycott games? I think for practical reasons,

are we going to have a situation where Conor McDavid or one of the Canadians goes over there and because of some testing thing ends up having to stay in China for five weeks? I mean, the entire Olympic movement has to look at this and say, hey, what's going on? We can't just take these people out of the NHL season for five or six weeks.

I think that gives them a convenient excuse where they don't have to tell the Chinese, oh, by the way, you run concentration camps and all these other things that offend us. I was covering sports when the Moscow Olympics happened, and the feeling was very strong to boycott at that time. In retrospect, it did nothing because no one followed up. And my fear would be that we would take a stand on the Chinese Olympics and say, okay, we're not going. And okay, well, we've made the stand. And then we would completely forget about it and go back to placating the Chinese.

Brian reminded, because we were talking about this situation on the phone yesterday, unrecorded, I'll tell you, but that he reminded me that, you know, China got these Olympics by default, sort of like there was a couple of, I think, Oslo and another city that's like a, I think maybe even a German city. Anyway, there was other cities that sort of dropped out in the running. They bailed out. Yeah, and sort of China was like last country standing on this one.

Well, and I don't know where it's going to go because there was a plebiscite here in Calgary to do the 2026 Olympics. And I think if you're looking at Olympics, Winter Olympics, successful ones, Calgary might've been the first really successful one in terms of finances, didn't leave everybody broke. People who live here or have been here

know the legacy that was left in terms of facilities, et cetera. And the vote was put here and people in Calgary said, no, we don't want the cost. We don't want these people coming in here with all of their, you know, their friends from places like China, etc. We don't want them. So it just to me, I think that they've got to go find somewhere else to play this hockey tournament and have the hockey. And listen, I've said this a long time, too, about the Olympics and the problem, how massive it's gotten and how tough it is. Why doesn't the NHL just schedule an Olympic tournament every four years? One year it can be in Europe, one year it can be in North America.

That's where the people are interested in it for time zones. Having the gold medal game played at three in the morning our time is ridiculous. I was in Nagano when I was doing the game there for the gold medal. I'm like, nobody's awake. Nobody's hearing this. Have it somewhere where people can see it. Right.

A lot of us Canadians didn't tune in for that gold medal because we were still pissed at the whenever we lost the Czech Republic. I can't. Was that semis? It might even have been quarters. I can tell you, I was literally right beside the bench, the Canadian bench when that was going on. I was doing work for CBC, but I was also working on one of my books called The Bison

Man. And at that point I was working with Dominic Hoschuk and Hoschuk was the goalie who I was concentrating on in the book. And so there I was, and I can tell you, I won't name names, but I can tell you there were guys in the Canadian bench who wanted no part of that shootout, who didn't want to go there, didn't want to go near it. And several of them, in fact, had shots and didn't want to take those shots. I won't name names. Oh, it was the great one on that list. No, he was he was fine with doing Steve Eisenman was on the bench. Although Eisenman wasn't necessarily a good breakaway guy. But it was an odd Olympics for the Canadian team, of course, because you'll remember that they named Eric Lindros as the captain. And that was really controversial.

Right. All right, my friend, before we go any further, I want to talk about the book you wrote with your son, and then we're going to kick out the jams. Can't wait to talk music with you. But I want to tell the listeners that this is not your first appearance on Toronto Mic'd. You're in Calgary now, so we're on Zoom.

But you did make the trek to the TMDS studio, and that was back. I've got the details here. Actually, almost exactly two years ago. It was December 11th, 2019. So we just had a random visit. I got the picture. And you have a lasagna in your hand.

Who enjoyed the lasagna? Your son? My son literally lives about two miles from your studios. So it was quite an easy trip for us. And, you know, he and his wife being newlyweds, they needed more than that. Plus, I think it might have melted on the way back to Calgary, the lasagna. But he enjoyed it very much. And my son loves to eat.

So it was. So thank you, Palma Pasta, for providing Bruce's son with the lasagna. And did you receive some Great Leagues beer that day? I did. I drank a little bit of it with my son before I left Toronto. And then I left the rest to him again because, as you know now, we can't go through customs with beer or any kind of liquids in your... Right, right, right.

So what I will let people know that if they want to go back to hear like the A to Z of Bruce Dobigan's career, I'll read the description here. So this was episode five, five, six. And the description I wrote at the time is Mike chats of sports writer and broadcaster Bruce Dobigan about his years at CBC, the Calgary Herald, the Globe and Mail, his thoughts on Don Cherry. I think that was in the news at the time. Gerald, The Globe and Mail, his thoughts on Don Cherry. I think that was in the news at the time. Alan Eagleson, of course, Donald Trump,

his Twitter persona, and his new book, Cap in Hand. So there's 95 minutes there with Bruce. We talked about Cap in Hand. But you have a new book out that I've been reading. Tell us about, in exact science, the six most compelling draft years in NHL history. Well, this is a project, my first project working with my son. He runs a stats center for TSN.

He's a rain man. He knows everything. And he does all of my fact checking for my other books. And we've been talking about it for a while. And he came up with the concept of the six drafts. I've written about drafts in some of my previous books. I went to the draft with Glenn Sather for Vice and Men, the one in Buffalo where they drafted the Swiss Miss, Michael Reeson. And so I spent a lot of time around drafts. And I like them because that's where the agents are. That's where the general managers are. It's a place where a lot

of stuff happens. And if you're a journalist, you can get the whole hockey industry in one place. So we decided we were going to do this thing about which would be the most significant drafts in history. I don't remember why exactly six, other than the fact that we came up with six that we both agreed on, I guess. And the idea was to look into what made them unique. And, of course, you have situations like the 79 draft, in which Wayne Gretzky, the draft dodger, who's never been drafted into the NHL, he completely scattered everything. And we had the first draft, of course, is LeFleur and Zion.

They were the number one and two guys. We reveal in the book that, in fact, Sam Pollock had a deal with Detroit to get both picks on the night before the draft and his staff said i don't i don't think so wow wow and that that's what i'll call it like a fun fact i suppose that gretzky was never drafted it's always fun when you have a like when my son was getting into hockey and you can kind of blow their minds of that one because in today like our mindset today right it's like oh we had that lottery for sydney crosby but every

once in a while you get these you know know, these, these blue chip clear number ones. And the whole idea that Gretzky was never drafted and therefore was never eligible. I suppose he was never eligible for the rookie of the year because is that it also, bringing Gretzky in that year, forced the NHL to change the drafting age to 18. Because if Gretzky was going to play the next year in the NHL, it had to be 18. And so it meant that a whole bunch of players who were playing maybe in the WHA or somewhere else were're eligible for the draft. And so the Oilers ended up not only with Gretzky, but they drafted Messier, Kevin Lowe, Glenn Anderson, and I've forgotten who the fourth person is. I don't have it. Yari Curry? I don't know. No, it wasn't Curry.

But anyhow, they drafted four core guys all in the one draft year. And if you look at that draft, the top people in the draft, it's probably that and 2003 are the best drafts in NHL history. And that's how a franchise wins five Stanley cups in the span of a, I guess that was a decade. Yeah. Well, the current,

the current Oilers have had plenty of first draft picks. They've done bupkis. So that that's something we addressed later in the book about, yes, you can get lots of first round picks, but you have to know what to do. Okay. So firstly,

that's really cool. You wrote it with your, your son, Evan and in exact science, the six most compelling draft years in NHL history. I think you picked six probably because when we think of like NHL, we think original six and then there's some nice. There you go.

There you go. Also the cover has Ron Ellis where I remember six. There you go. Who, by the way, I is your friend and you missed him on the FOTM Zoom because he was on early because he was going to that Leafs game, but that's Steve Pakins.

I believe that's Steve Pakins' favorite player of all time. We'll talk about Pakins a little bit with the music selection. Okay, okay, good. I'm holding on to a couple other topics for your jams too. So I'll just quickly burn through a couple, just two FOTM questions came in for you. Yeah.

Ken Coward wants me to ask you, how do you decide, and I'll read it me to ask you, how do you decide, and I'll read it verbatim here, how do you decide what to give a shit about and how do you come up with ideas for books? They suggest themselves. I mean, the first book, I never thought I'd write a first book,

but at the time I was doing so much work on Eagleson, the pension lawsuit, I'd gotten to be friends with Carl Brewer. I just all of a sudden had a lot of material and it wrote itself that way. My publishers have come to me a couple of times with suggestions. The book about the stick called cleverly The Stick was my publisher's idea. So was A Vice in Men. And other ones have suggested themselves over the years, just the timing was right. This last one, as I say, because of my son, it was something that was going to work.

I've always been fascinated, as I say, with drafts. And one of the ideas that came out of that is I just think salary caps are ruining pro sports. cap in hand the two books ago three books ago in which i argue that sports in north america should be run like europe with relegation and progress and promotion and all that sort of stuff uh the way we're doing it right now just rewards ineptitude and so you got like the nfl which is any team can win any day playing lousy football right exactly uh okay and that was actually sunday i don't watch a lot of football to be honest but i watched uh two compelling i enjoyed two overtime games on sunday because i enjoyed the uh the uh the the bills buccaneers game that the bills came back went to overtime and eventually lost there but then then in the great cup it turned out uh i saw on twitter i guess late in

the fourth quarter they said hey it's it's close I said, oh, I got to see how this high-stakes game ends and a couple of overtime games on Sunday. Yeah, well, I grew up in Montreal as an Alouettes fan when the CFL meant everything. Sort of lost touch with it a little bit while I was in Toronto. I covered the CFL, but it wasn't anything that compelled me. But when I moved to the West, it's, you know, blood and bone out here. My next-door neighbor is a Saskatchewan fan, and it's everything to them when I moved to the West, it's, you know, blood and bone out here. My next door neighbor

is a Saskatchewan fan and it's everything to them. It's everything to them. And so it sort of rekindled my interest in the league. Well, I feel that way about, I mean, Hamilton's close, but they're not, you know,

that's not GTA. Hamilton is a, you know, a community unto itself. And Hamilton, even more so, because at least every other team in the CFL has an NHL team. But in Hamilton, like that's it.

No, Saskatchewan doesn't. Oh my god, yeah. I'm so sorry. Saskatchewan does not have an NHL team. Okay, so there's a couple... But Ryder fans are equally divided between the Oilers and the Flames. Depending on which part of Saskatchewan you're from, you either root for the Oilers or you root for the Flames. Shame on me. Shame on me. Okay, so last

question here. We're going to thank some sponsors and then we're going to kick out jams here. I'm looking forward to it. But Sid Carlin for Bruce. Yes, sir. I guess I'll preface this before I read Sid's question. I actually put together with the help of the VP of Sales, Tyler Campbell, I put together

a micumentary on the Harold Ballard stories that I was told by guests of the program. So it's just a little collection. I recently did one on the Harold Ballard stories that I was told by guests of the program. So it's just a little collection. I recently did one on the pen flip, by the way, you should check out, like everybody talking about what they,

Dave Hodge. Right. Dave Hodge's pen flip. And there's one on the team 1050 experience that, you know, before there was a TSN 1050. Okay. But Sid wants me to ask you if you have any good Maple Leaf Garden stories, be it Harold Ballard or Eddie Shaq or anything of that nature.

Well, I don't know. You should have got Brian to tell you the story about, he doesn't like to tell it, but according to Brian, he had forgotten his briefcase in the press box one night, and he went back to fetch it. And this was like two hours after the game. He'd done a show, et cetera. And all the lights are down in Maple Leaf Gardens.

He's struggling around in the dark. And he heads to the ice surface. And the lights are on. And he looks up. And there's Harold Ballard and King Clancy riding the Zamboni around the ice. Let's just say they had company. I won't get into more than that. They had company on top of the Zamboni, and they were riding around there.

This is Brian's story. My favorite Brian first-person story is, you remember the time that, you remember the time the RCMP charged Harold with having guns in his apartment? Do you remember that was a big foo-fro for a while? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, so that breaks the night before, the morning of a press conference, and I think they're introducing Mirko Fritscher, one of the Czech guys that the Leafs drafted to no great effect. So, we all go down to the press room, to the hot stove lounge, and we're all

sitting there, and Harold's doing his usual whatever, and then finally they open up for questions, and somebody says, Harold, what's this thing about the guns and what you're doing with guns up in your apartment? And Harold just launches into this tirade. Can you swear on this show?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay. You goddamn guys from that fucking model school down on Carlton Street, Jarvis Street. And he just like launches

into this whole assault on the media. He goes on for a while, cools out the room. Mirko Freacher is thinking like, am I still in the Soviet Union? What's going on here? So sort of after a while, Harold loses all his enthusiasm. So, okay, let's go have lunch.

So everybody goes off to have lunch. And we're all talking, what's going to happen? We all got this on video. We got our lead for the show that night, the whole thing. So I don't know what to think so i'm leaving the hot stove lounge this is the old one in the old gardens right uh there's harold sitting right beside the door and in those days he had a cane and he's sitting there with the cane under his chin and as we walk by he looks at us and goes thanks for

coming thanks for coming glad to have you here come on back next time it's just like nothing happened that was har. I mean, I urge all the listeners, go find the collection of Harold Ballard stories. Cause you know, be it Gord, Gord Stelix all over that thing. And Ken Daniels and a whole bunch of interesting FOTM.

So do that. So quick, thank you to some sponsors that made this jam kicking possible. We talked about Palma Pasta and Great Lakes Brewery, but I want to thank very much. I would like to thank ChefDrop. Anyone listening right now can save $50 on their first order at chefdrop.ca

if they use the promo code FOTM50. There's some amazing restaurants and chefs involved in these prepared meal kits that get shipped directly to your door. But unfortunately, Bruce, it's only southern Ontario. So your son can take advantage, but you cannot get that to Calgary.

My brother lives near you, too. He's not that far away. His office isn't that far away. OK, we'll take care of him. Now, I want to thank Moneris because Moneris has a great podcast called Yes, We Are Open. It's actually hosted by FOTM Al Grego. Al's been traveling the country.

I'm sure he's made his way out west. I saw he was in Saskatoon to do one interview. But he's been traveling the country interviewing small Canadian businesses and then he tells the story of their origin, their struggles, their future outlook. And if you're a small business owner or an entrepreneur like myself, you can find the podcast at yesweareopenpodcast.com.

It's very helpful and motivational. My father was a small businessman. My brother's a small businessman. Check it out. I know exactly. That's a book that needs to be written. You got it. You got it.

And I'm actually wearing the Sticker you t-shirt today to represent fly the flag here, but for stickers decals, they're an e-commerce business. So they're available in Calgary as well, Bruce, but upload your image, get your high quality sticker shipped directly to your door.

Much love to sticker you.com and much love to Ridley funeral home. They're here in new Toronto 14th and Lake shore. And Brad Jones there is a tremendous FOTM. You can pay tribute without paying a fortune. Learn more at RidleyFuneralHome.com.

And when I said I was out of questions for you, I lied because I have one more very important question for you. Bruce Dobigan, are you ready to kick out the jams? Ready as I'm going to be.

Now, my jams will be a little different. I'm looking forward to this, buddy. Yeah. And I think I smell a Steve Paikin story coming. Yeah. Under my skin I've got you Deep in the heart of me So deep in my heart That you're really a part of me

I've got you Under my skin The chairman of the board. One and only, singing Cole Porter. Talk to me, why did you choose Frank Sinatra's I've Got You Under My Skin? I grew up with music in my house. My mother used to sing in the troupe shows.

My father and mother realized years later when they met that my father had been at a show my mother had sung at during the war. And so we're always surrounded by this kind of music. The debate in our place, the same debate I have with Bacon, is Tony Bennett versus Frank Sinatra, who's the greatest of that era. The other reason that I, well, there's a few reasons I chose this song. As I said, I think it's the epitome of big band music. This is a Nelson Riddle Orchestra, just a fantastic, fantastic arrangement.

There's a trombone solo in the middle. I think it's by Barney Nezio. I think that's who did it. At the time I was playing trombone. I played trombone for about 15 years coming out of high school. And the trombone lick in this is just sensational there is so much about this and and when you read nelson riddle's notes about how he arranged it he was looking at he loved the bolero uh revels bolero which of course we all learned about in the movie tan and he he

decided he was going to have that sort of sequential building and building and building to a climax thing at the back end of this song and if you you listen to the end of it, you'll see just bit by bit by bit, he goes up and up and up. And then finally the brass and everybody just kicks in. And there's nothing, there's nothing like a big band when they all just hit it. Do you want to hear the, let's turn it up for the last 90 seconds here. Sure, go ahead. ¶¶ I would sacrifice anything, come what might, for the sake of having you here.

You know, Steve Bacon has kicked out the jams, and of course he did kick out some Frank Sinatra, of course, of course, of course, but he also drops that delicious fun fact on you. I hope I get the right details because he'll let me know if I get it wrong. But Sinatra's first ever Billboard Hot 100 number one was written by a Toronto gal. Yes. I'll never smile again.

Yes. Gosh, her name all of a sudden. Her husband died in the war. I believe it was in the war i believe it was in the war i'll google it while you tell the story here yeah and i can't remember the name anyhow uh she wrote the song and yeah it it's it's it was a big song during the war because so many people lost people ruth low ruth low there you go and she had toronto toronto woman and uh it might even there might be a second fun fact to that,

which is maybe that's the debut of the billboard hot 100. And maybe that's the first ever number one on the billboard, but it's definitely Frank's first number one. So the other thing about this record, that's significant for people who don't give a flying flip about, about big band music, et cetera. This was recorded in the classic Capitol music studios in Los Angeles. These are the studios that are later used by the birds and a lot of the Laurel Canyon bands and all

the people who came out of there, the wrecking crew, you know, Glenn Campbell and the wrecking crew, all those people. This is the classics too. They still use it to this day. There's a really good Sirius XM channel with Dwight Yoakam and he talks about all the recording studios in Southern California that he's been in and he did a long thing about this, talking about walking into the studio realizing this is where Frank Sinatra recorded so much. We're off to a great start. You ready for your second

jam? Yeah, go ahead. Start slow. Pavarotti, of course. Want me to talk about it? Your chance. Up to you. I can talk about it. Here, I'll bring it down, and then we can always bring it up later. Okay.

All right, talk to us, Bruce. Pavarotti singing in La Boheme. C'est l'idemana. It's basically a solo where Rodolfo, the poet, touches Mimi's hands and they're cold. They're living in a garret. She's dying of consumption. And this is the aria from La Boheme.

The reason I chose, well, I love opera too. Again, from growing up with my mother, music in the house. When I came back from backpacking around the world in 1978, I was looking for a job and ended up getting a job with the Canadian Opera Company. And in those days, they used to have their offices in the Flatiron Building, which, as you know, down on Front Street, right near what was the St. Lawrence Centre. And I didn't know anything about opera other than my mother listened to it.

And we used to hear Bob Kerr and the CBC2, Channel 2, people play opera music. And the Met on Saturday afternoon, I'd heard those all my life, but I know nothing about it. And I have to tell you that the two industries that I've encountered in my life where the people are the best, the wine industry and the opera people. I've worked with actors. I've worked with singers. I've worked with all sorts of people. The opera people were fantastic. Is it because they're so wealthy, they have no worries in the world? They're not wealthy. I mean, the thing is that if it wasn't for wealthy people and government's opera itself, we wouldn't see it. I mean, there's not enough support for it. But the thing about it,

Mike, that's so fun is that they love what they're doing so much. I remember being in the rehearsal rooms. We did Carmen the first year. We did it over at the Royal Alex. And I remember being in the rehearsal rooms and the first time that the soloist really opened up. And I mean, the hair goes up in the back of your neck. You don't have to be an opera fan to go, wow, this is absolutely sensational stuff. And so I had a great time hanging out with them. There's a great ELO song called Rock Aria by Jeff Lynn in which he talks about partying with the opera people and how they were singing at a party.

It's one of those better songs I like. I'm now thinking of the recent guest uh spoons uh those spoons maybe if you will areas and symphonies great jam from them so yeah yeah uh boehm is probably my favorite opera and if you love the movie uh what's moonlight moonlight the uh norman jewison movie was shared in moonstruck moruck. That's the opera they go to see at the Met is Boehm when they're having all of that drama. And it makes the movie so much better too.

It sort of backpins the movie. But I don't love every opera. I'm not one of those geeks who goes all the time. But there's ten operas that I will go and see at any time. I sit there and people next to me fall asleep. I don't care. I just love the opera. And what I, I mean, I have a heads me fall asleep and they, I don't care. I just love the opera. And what I,

I mean, I have a, I have a heads up on your jam. So I've sort of snuck ahead here, took a peek, but I love the, we're going to kind of cover a wide array of genres and styles. And this is going to be fun,

but I'll let Lucia. Go ahead. No, I was going to let him take us home here. parlate voi, de parlare qui siete. Vi piaccio di. Buccini, fantastic. Wow. What were you saying before Luciano rudely interrupted you there?

No, no, just that the Bugs Bunny cartoon ruined opera for a lot of people. That's right. People haven't recovered from the cartoon, which is brilliant. Also, though, introduced a lot of people to's right people haven't recovered from the cartoon which is also though introduced a lot of people to it so it's sort of it's somewhat in some ways but but the human voice is just it when it's done in that fashion it's amazing and and it's hard for people to talk about sinatra again yeah uh the breath control that they have sinatra learned how to sing through 10 12 12 bars. He watched Tommy Dorsey, who was the trombonist who played the band, who ran the band that Sinatra came in when

he was a young man. He watched him play and he learned how to breathe from him. And if you listen to Pavarotti, you don't hear any breaks. You don't hear where he's gasping for air. I mean, the control that they have over, as they call it, their organ. The control they have over their organ, as they call it, is just fantastic. When I'm in the shower, I think I sound like that. Apparently I don't. But here's something. You get the bass tones.

Right. That's great acoustics. Alright. Can't wait to kick this one out. And then I have some questions about a documentary I watched recently. Here we go. One, two, three, four. One, two. Let me tell you how it will be.

There's one for you, 19 for me. Cause I'm the taxman Yeah, I'm the taxman Should five percent appear too small Be thankful I don't take it all Cause I'm the tax man Yeah, I'm the tax man If you drive a car, call the tax man

George Harrison. Did I hear some cowbell in there? There's some cowbell in there. George Harrison. Did I hear some cowbell in there? Was it? There's some cowbell in there. A little more cowbell. Always a little more cowbell. Of course,

this comes from Revolver. As you all know, I was, I was trying to intimidate you into letting me just nominate Revolver in general as the, as the greatest Beatle effort. I had a debate on yesterday morning with Eric DeHotchick, who is, of course, the sports writer, etc., over which is the greatest Beatle album.

And he opts for, like a lot of people do, for Sgt. Pepper. I think Revolver is probably the greatest because it's at the end. They're still working in the traditional formats, two to three minute formats, well, three minute formats plus for pop songs. But they've graduated to new sounds, new things. As you can hear, George Harrison

getting very political about how much they were being taxed at the time. Right. Yeah, it's the album, the range of stuff George plays, of course, sitar. There's a whole Eastern meditation sound in that. This and and rubber soul to me are the are these kind of the apogee of the beatles uh careers after that it gets a little baroque and it gets a little fancy and and they you know they don't so much well they maybe come back to it and get back which is of course where you want to go well yeah and i'll get there in a moment but uh one thing i'll say about this album is this is the one with eleanor rigby on it which is the jam i was going

to choose for you. And then you asked for Taxman. So, yeah, because you were telling me pick anyone. I picked one. You said, no, pick this one. Well, I could have said Andrew Bird can sing. I could. I'm only sleeping.

There's just tons of fantastic tracks. And the other thing about it, and this also gets back to get back, is that for those of us who are so old, we were around when these records came out. It's hard for people today to understand who love the Beatles, but it's hard to understand what it was like to hear those sounds for the first time. Nobody was doing those. I said the Beatles didn't invent fire, but they learned how to sort of redirect rock and roll fire. And the format that they created, no one's ever surpassed it. People equaled it maybe, but not surpassed it. And to hear that, that was fantastic. And I have to tell you a personal story. I have four brothers and one brother, Peter, loves music. He's the one

who's not too far from me. His business is just near by you. He was the big music guy. I just listened to music. And on Christmas morning, my mother got the signals mixed up and I got Revolver. And I think my brother got a Beach Boys album. And was he pissed at me? The daggers that I saw all Christmas day for my brother, who was a year older than me, because I got the album he wanted. And of course, being a little brother, did I play that record that day? The vinyl was burning. I love it. I love it.

Did you watch, Bruce, did you ever watch Mad Men, the TV show? All of it, yeah. Okay. I love that scene. I guess, you know, you're leaving the 50s and now the 60s are here. And this sort of this scene, I guess it was Don Draper sitting in his chair and he puts on the vinyl. And Tomorrow Never Knows is what he listens to. That's right.

And that's from this album too that's right there's just so many there's so many uh the songs are fantastic i wouldn't say they're necessarily their hit parade songs they're you know it wasn't like hello goodbye kind of songs or eight days a week type songs but they were songs that they basically just you know they were they were employing all sorts of new stuff in the format that had made them famous. And they're talking about politics. They're talking about religion. You know, they throw in yellow submarine because Ringo's got to do something.

Yeah, you know. But I would argue Tomorrow Never Knows remains, I think, the trippiest Beatles jam. I think that's the most psychedelic trippy jam they've ever done. But we hated it. We didn't know what it was. We said, why the Beatles?

Why is he doing this stuff? You know, the thing about Taxman, too, of course, is you get George doing the count-in for the music. And the count-in he's doing isn't even in the rhythm that they're going to do it in. I don't understand. But we were like, we're in the studio with the Beatles. Wow, listen to them. You know, the proscenium But we were like, we're in the studio with the Beatles. Wow, listen to them.

You know, the proscenium arch has fallen and we're in the studio with the Beatles. On that note, many of us, I know you have, because I've written some, a piece you wrote about it, but I've spent, you know, eight hours in the studio

with the Beatles recently. So Get Back is the Disney, the Disney Plus documentary by Peter Jackson. I thought your thoughts were rather interesting. And I will preface this because a lot of people, when I said, oh, Bruce is coming back,

you get the people who are like, oh, that right-wing Trumper. People seem to think I'm only allowed to talk to people who are the left-wing pinkos, as Don Cherry might refer to us as. You may soon only be allowed to talk to those people. I don't know if Facebook closed it. Look, as I told you the last time, I make no excuses for Trump. He was what he was, but he represented something that's very important in American politics. And the reaction of people in my business, the media business, to Trump and the Trump

revolution has ruined journalism as we knew it. I won't go into it much more than that other than both sides but in particular the left has lost its mind because they're so obsessed with this guy and there's a lot more worth it a lot more of this in the the first bruce dover appearance but i don't want to get what i what i like is i like when intelligent people can have a civil discussion about things and when even when i completely disagree with the vast majority of what they're saying and you fall into that category so like i enjoy talking i enjoy talking to you i respect your opinions that i often disagree on on subject matter like that one of the things i just really quickly to touch on

the get back is maybe you can succinctly, maybe remind us of where you blog, not the public broadcaster, and share a little bit of your thoughts on the get back doc. Well, I was thinking of how to approach it. And I figured there'd be lots of people would have lots of different opinions. And one thing I've learned over the years is to try to have one really good idea as opposed to get five or six ideas in there. Oh, I like this, and then I like this. My idea was to talk about John Lennon. One of the things that really annoys me is the beatification of John Lennon, the appleization of John Lennon because of the song Imagine. And there's a whole generation of people who think that John Lennon was the guy in the robes and the long hair, ooey-gooey kind of, you know, world peace guy. And the great thing about

this documentary is it shows the real John Lennon. During the get-back sessions, he had a nasty heroin addiction. He was dealing with drugs at the time. He was a pugnacious guy. He was hard to love. He was brilliant, of course. His music stands up for itself. But he wasn't a commodity. He wasn't an easy guy to get your arms around. He didn't want you to get your arms around him. And that's one of the things that I think the documentary does, is it shows the real John Lennon, and that he's, as they like to say, a tortured genius in some ways. I felt like as it progressed and they got closer to the rooftop performance there, that it seemed like John enjoyed the, you know,

jamming with his buddy Paul more as it went on. And he just seemed to be kind of just having a fun time, you know? And even when that, when that hidden microphone scene, which they didn't know they were being recorded, the way he kind of stands up for George, who, of course, is sort of the, he's sort of the, I don't want to call him grumpy, because he, but he felt like, you know, he, what do you do when you're surrounded by a couple of the most gifted songwriters on the planet, and you have your own songs and your own expression. But I,

I, what I like, as you know, I like a deep dive. So I just like the whole idea that you get, this is a, a, a substantial chunk of the Beatles in 1969,

I guess it was. And you're just sort of a fly on the wall. And I, I, I personally loved it. Like I personally loved it. Yeah. Well, of course

george was pissed because as you say he he had this whole catalog of stuff they wouldn't let him onto the record right they'd let ringo do act naturally in yellow submarine and some throwaway thing but he couldn't get a lot of these songs on there and uh yes the documentary does show his disaffection you can see exactly why what's interesting too but and you just hit on it really well is the relationship between mccartney and Lennon specifically, but the loyalty that they had to each other. And when that loyalty was destroyed, that was it. That was it. They really, the bond, everything they'd gone through, this group of four guys sort of in this pod that they'd gone through life, protecting each other to a certain extent.

You could always talk to Paul or John, and you'd get an honest opinion about who you were or where you were at. And once John finds out that Paul's doing his record and George has got his record, et cetera, John just kind of, that's it, he loses it. And that's when he kind of falls into the Yoko camp. In particular, the New York City scene, he kind of leaves Britain. And from then on, he's in North America, getting drunk with Harry Nilsson and putting a Tampax on his head in a night

club in Los Angeles, all this stupid stuff. But Hey, I just, I just think it's really good to put a real people on the screen. And in particular with Lennon, because you know, the Apple people, everyone knows that the tone, when you turn on your Apple computer is from day in the life. And of course, Apple, the name is because of the Apple Corporation. And they want to beatify him. And he's not a beatification. He's not a saint.

He was a guy who was many edges and such. I'm going to misquote it, but I think George says something like he wasn't a saint, but sometimes he was. There was some interesting George Harrison observation about John Lennon, which I thought was interesting. Well, he was thinking deeper thoughts than any of them were. Well, George was into mysticism and Eastern religion, but that's not necessarily the kind of things that John was thinking of. And again, remember, John wrote songs like Run For Your Life. There's a bunch of songs, well, a few few songs he wrote which are direct threats against women i mean again this is not a guy who right you know who who you can easily put into thinking oh what a lovely guy no right he was wearing the robes and he's in the queen elizabeth hotel in montreal with yoko and they're singing

i was in montreal when that happened and all of the disc jockeys from the montreal stations who i listened to all got invited into the hotel room and the stories we heard for weeks afterwards Was John Donahby there? I don't know if John was on the air in Montreal No, no, I feel, oh yeah, you're right

he probably was He might have driven down, he might have taken the train down I'm sure some Toronto guys did too My friend, I could almost talk to you forever One last little note and get back you have to remind yourself that other than Ringo driven down he might have taken the train down i'm sure some toronto guys did too right my friend i could almost talk to you forever one last little note and get back is if you have to remind yourself that other than ringo who is a couple years older than the guys uh you know these are all men in their 20s like it's just sort of kind of you know think back these are late 20s but still they're in their 20s and it's kind of amazing when you think on that and then also to consider that you know

john only had like another decade left like it's kind, well, he's been dead longer than we knew him alive. And I said something in the column, a throwaway line, just we don't know what the back half of his life would have been. He might have become, I don't know, Paul Simon and reinvented music styles. Or he might have been a complete idiot. He may have, who knows what he might have been, but we don't know and and that's the great unknown with a lot of artists and i talked about some of the opera composers too i mean several of them had great hits and then died in their in their 20s and 30s and so we don't know what else they might have done well let's get to sort of like buddy holly i often think of buddy we're going to get to the fourth jam but buddy holly died at 23

years old like and think of the catalog you left behind. Yeah. Or Otis Redding's another guy. Yeah, and Otis Redding's another guy, I think, about what was Otis going to do. But, well. Hank Williams in particular, because the genre he was writing was eminently repeatable. He could have stayed in that and done that for 34 years. That was country music.

Sure. And he was dead in a car on new year's eve at 25 right and yeah as you say uh with buddy holly same thing i i don't know the buddy would have worked out in the long run in the same way i think buddy would have been like gary puckett and ended up producing records for other people writing and then sort of gone there i don't know whether he'd have been able to make the move into the 60s i don't know that's just me interesting okay let's get to your fourth jam i was driving across the burning desert when i spotted six jet planes Leaving six white vapor trails

Across the bleak terrain It was the hexagram of the heavens It was the strings of my guitar Amelia, it was just a false alarm Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell. A couple of stories why I chose. I would suggest this is maybe necessarily my favorite Joni Mitchell song of all.

Maybe A Case of You and some others. Maybe I've listened to more. But I chose it for two reasons. The first was that when I was backpacking the first time in Europe in 1973, I was in North Africa. I was in Algeria, in Iran. I was in an English school. I'd stayed overnight there.

And I was introduced to two things. Artichoke hearts, which I'd never had before. And then they put on blue. And, you know, here I was introduced to two things artichoke hearts which I'd never had before and then they put on blue and you know here I was lonely you know I was traveling around I had seen my friends and stuff for a while I was doing the requisite thing and and blue camp comes on and you know it's just it's just a deep dive into melancholy and and relationships that aren't working all that sort of stuff just totally stunned me so by the time i got home i went and found a copy of for the roses the album for the roses that's the one with the big fold out in the middle where joni's standing on a rock and big sir buck naked in the in the middle of the day and everything

about joni mitchell just she's an artist she's willing to try things she's willing to open up and and uh experiment with things she every woman singer, you know, all the people today, the Serena Riders, all of these people, they all, it goes back to Joni and what she did and how she established women as creative artists able to do this stuff. So this song I chose because it shows her transitioning out of her pop sort of milieu into the jazzy, freeform stuff.

You got Jaco Pistorius, the fretless bass, the sounds that are great. The other travel story for this is that I was driving across North America with my son's car, driving it from Toronto to Calgary. And I took the Southern route down through Milwaukee and then heading West towards Montana. And if people in the east don't know distances in the west, distances in the west, take a distance in the east, you know, Montreal, Toronto, and multiply it by like five or six. That's a drive in the west. In any event, the highways are long and they're straight. I was on I-90 and it was hot. It was July and I was headed towards Little Bighorn because I wanted to see the Custer Battlefield. And it was hot. And so I

just put this record on because she was doing the same thing when she was traveling. She wrote this song about traveling across the United States. And that's it just synced up so perfectly with my feelings at the time, heading west into what is my was my new reality is my new reality that I've become a Westerner, trying to understand everything, trying to understand the people I know in the east. I've lived in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calner, trying to understand everything, trying to understand the people I know in the East. I've lived in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, trying to understand all these people as I head West on this hot day to go and see Little Bighorn, which if you haven't seen it, by the way, certainly in the summer, fantastic, fantastic place.

Spooky, mystical, and listening to Joni Mitchell at the same time. Beautiful, man. I'm going to blow your mind with this fun fact, which is I'm wearing this StickerU t-shirt because StickerU is a great sponsor of the program. But the founder of StickerU is a guy named Andrew Witkin. Andrew's dad is named Barry Witkin. He actually drives the StickerMobile

that delivers stickers around here. But Barry Witkin, he and a couple of buddies were the owners of the Purple Onion which was a uh coffee shop in Yorkville in the early 60s and Joni Anderson which is what she was performing as at the time uh played the Purple Onion owned by so that there's a complete direct connection here Joni Anderson played the Purple Onion from Saskatchewan yes yeah I think born in Alberta though, if I remember correctly,

like born, I think she was born in Fort McLeod, but she grew up in Saskatchewan and, and there's a lot about her that is Saskatchewan. You know, there's the, the open spaces as they call it, the living sky.

That's that idea of being in the West. And it seems to have gotten to her and she's, she's, she's totally a poet. And you mentioning mentioning the the purple onion of course the riverboat was the other one that where a lot of the stars were yeah go ahead no no i'm just gonna say i'm gonna be telling a few stories going forward my my best friend the guy who was my best man at my wedding uh he ended up working for the two

bernies who owned the riverboat and then they ran true North records, et cetera. And this is Rob Bennett. And I don't know if you've ever met Rob or known, known of Rob, but he, you went to one of the concerts he's promoted over the years, all sorts of places, U of T, Convocation Hall, St. Lawrence Center, the, the, what do you call it? What used to be the O'Keeffe Center and the Molson Amphitheater. Yeah, I think it's the Sony Center now. Is that what they're calling it?

I don't know. Whoever's paying the check right now. That's a good. Hey, it's B's and S. I understand it. So anyway, Rob, through Rob, and we'll talk about it in a few of these stories going forward here, that Rob, I met a lot of these people,

went to a lot of great concerts because of him. And he started with Dan Hill. The two of them were basically sort of, Dan, I think, was bussing at the riverboat. And they let him sing once in a while. And, of course, it was in the middle of the winter and he played with bare feet. And I remember Rob coming home to this play. We shared an apartment in those days. And coming home and playing his song, You Make Me Want to Be.

That was the Dan Hill song. And he just threw it on the disc. And, of course, in those days, the vinyl. And we both sat there and must have listened to it 10 times. Wow. And going, wow, this is a great, great song. I love it. I got to get your buddy on this program to talk about all these great shows.

I'll see. He's having some health issues. So I'll see if he's up to it. Sure. Now the Bernies, of course, are Finkelstein and Fiedler. Those are the Bernies. And Finkelstein is an FOTM. So he's up to it. Sure. Now the Bernies, of course, are Finkelstein and Fiedler. Those are the Bernies and Finkelstein is an FOTM. So he's made the trek.

Your name is Bruce. There will be Bruce on this program, but none of Bernie Finkelstein's favorite Bruce. I love Bruce Coburn. I played, we used to play

in the Wine and Vinyl League and it was all of the bars and the recording companies in Toronto. They all had softball teams. And I play, I think Bruce was there. Murray McLaughlin was on the team at one point. Ronnie Abramson. And we played against Sam, the record man, Sam Snyderman. I've forgotten his name.

Bob Snyderman, I guess. We played against his team. And I always remember we were playing in Bellwoods Park one beautiful summer evening, and Peter Frampton was playing the CNE, and that was at the time across, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, you know, all that sort of stuff, his hit songs.

And we were playing softball to the accompaniment of Peter Frampton. Just fantastic. I love those stories. And then you mentioned Sam Snyderman, so I just have to point out that his son was in Blue Peter, you know, the new wave band Blue Peter. Yeah, I do. I didn't know he was in it, but I know the band.

Yeah, he's a member of Blue Peter. All right, my friend. And they used to be, by the way, the Bernie's office was that circular apartment building just north of Maple Leaf Gardens on Church Street. So if you're walking north after the game, there was a big circular apartment building right there. That was where the Bernie's were. I love the fact that if you're walking north after the game there was a big circular apartment building right there that was where the bernies were i love the fact that if you go back to that era in this city you've got okay the bernies are over here uh the gary's are over here yeah and of course they're all they're all mad at at uh what's in michael uh forgotten his name all of a sudden who who had the business of the gardens who he and bill ballard michael cole yeah they all hated michael cole

because he he dominated the gardens and they couldn't get the big acts in there all right just before we leave joni uh mitchell uh she made a very it's it's been a while since she made a public appearance but she did so i believe it was last week yeah she was honored by at the uh by uh president biden there and um she had a stroke, of course, about, I don't know, five or six years ago. But the fact that she's out and about is amazing. So long may she run.

She's a Saskatchewan girl. Like Gordie Howe, it takes a lot to take them out. They're hardy people. Okay. Jam, I hope you cleared your schedule. This is going to take a while.

Jam number five. Here we go. Here we go. you you left your mark on me it's permanent a tattoo pierce the skin and the blood runs through oh my baby

the way you move Oh, my baby. The way you move is right in time. The way you move is right in time. I'm bringing this one down early because I see I have a truncated file. That's my bad. But Lucinda Williams, please. Fantastic. Tell me why you chose this jam. Wheels on a Gravel Road, the album.

Might be the most erotic song a woman has ever... Maybe that and Jetem, probably. The back part of it, she sounds like she's masturbating. I think that's basically what she's describing. But it's in a kind of a... It's the end of the day, you know, I've had a drink and

not much going on. I'm thinking about this guy and I'm hot for this guy. It's a great song that way. Well, I just shout out to Carol Pope, though, who did tell us that she would cream her jeans, I believe, in high school. That's true. But she didn't write that song. That was a song that Carol got, I think, Jerry Lee Lewis, I think. He didn't write it. Somebody wrote it back in the Brill Building days. So it wasn't her. But yes, I know the song.

But to tie that quickly, though, I believe maybe before that song, actually, but one of the Garys, and I wish I remembered which one. One of the Garys might have been Gary Taub. It might have been Gary Cormier, though. I actually don't remember. But worked very closely with Kiro Poe. No, that's okay. My executive assistant has entered the room.

I'm just asking her to get me a cup of tea. Oh, no. I apologize. You're like the Beatles in that Get Back, Dog. You just need more tea. But please, you keep telling me more. Right in Time is the name of that jam. Yeah, I mean, it's a fantastic record.

It was the one that broke her as an artist. I, you know, I'm like Lynyrd Skynyrd. I love the Southeast of the United States. I don't mean Florida. I haven't traveled in Alabama and traveled in Mississippi, Louisiana. The people are fantastic. They're just really natural, great people.

She has the sound of that part of the country just absolutely nailed. She has become a quintessential songwriter. And, again, my friend Rob Bennett promoted her at Masey Hall. And she opened for Levon Helm when Levon was on his last fumes. And she was the opener. And I got a chance to go backstage and see her. And Rob would invite me back. A lot of times I wouldn't go because I didn't want to bug them.

They just performed. They were tired or whatever. But I just had to look at Lucinda thinking of this song and think this is a woman. This is not a girl. This is not, you know, a little pixelated thing. This is a real woman who's talking about her desire for this guy. She finished his work. She takes off her jewelry and her clothes and lies in the bed and looks at the ceiling as she says. It's a great song, but you could have chosen almost anything from this record and you would have had a winner. She continues to write good stuff to this day. Love it, my friend. Okay, we're going to cook with gas here. Jam number six. We were standing.

Standing by peaceful waters. Standing by peaceful waters Standing by peaceful waters Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Many years ago, along the Illinois-Wisconsin border, there was this Indian tribe. They found two babies in the woods, white babies. One of them was named Elizabeth. She was the fairer of the two, while the smaller and more fragile one was named Marie. Having never seen white girls before and living on the two lakes

known as the Twin Lakes, they named the larger, more beautiful lake Lake Elizabeth. And thus the smaller lake that was hidden from the highway became known forever as Lake Marie. We were standing Standing by peaceful waters

Standing by peaceful waters Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Lake Marie. Great John Prime, who passed away last year. When I was making the list up, you wanted stories. And so some of the songs I chose because there's stories behind them, more than just, oh, I really like this song. Again, my friend Rob promoted John a number of times. The first time I remember, it was a double bill at Convocation Hall.

Tom Waits, I think, opened. And then John Cryan was the lead act. And when Rob would have concerts there, I would work as an usher or whatever. And I was up in the balcony and working there, and there was a really attractive young woman who was also working there at the time. And I spent most of my time during that concert trying to, you know, hey, let's go somewhere after, right? And so I think I'm kind of getting there, et cetera.

So the concert ends, and I go and do a couple of things. I go to the assigned meeting spot with this young woman. She never showed up. And I said, well, what happened? Did anybody see? I don't even remember what her name was. Oh, she got on the John Prine bus. She got to London, Ontario.

And I thought, oh, man, I just lost out to this guy, the bass player from John Prine. So let's fast forward years later. We're in Calgary. John comes to play the Jubilee Auditorium, and Rob is promoting him once again, and once again, we get to go backstage and see John. And I've got a copy of Bruised Orange, the album

that he made. It's a fantastic album. Bruised Orange is... He's writing a fantastic... Bob Dylan thinks he's the best songwriter, and so do I. And so I bring back the album cover, and there's John, and by this point, he's had the first of his health things, and he's had the surgery, and they back the album cover and there's John and by this point he's had the first of his health things

and he's had the surgery and they've taken part of his throat away. You know, he looks like a gnome. He's kind of funny looking but always the sense of humor and I tell him

this same story and I said, yeah, because of you and your band I lost a date with this girl and he said,

the bass player, was that Ronnie something or other? And I said, I don't know what his name was that Ronnie something or other? And I said, I don't know what his name was. He said, yeah, that sounds like the kind of thing he'd do.

So, I know. There's a story, a circle story there. You can't compete with that, Bruce. no. The other reason for this song too,

by the way, is of course, he references Canada in it. There's a lyric in which he said, his wife and him were having troubles. We went up to Canada to heal our marriage and to try to catch some fish. Maybe a John Prine line.

Shout out to Dale Cadeau. He was actually also on that FOTM open Zoom on Friday that you participated in. And Dale just dropped into the live stream and is very pleased to hear some John Prine off the bat so he's digging the prine so wonderful guy and creative to the end um you know a great attitude i think

there's i think uh strombo had him come to his house his strombo does stuff in his living room yeah and i think one of the last things that he did in toronto that john prine did was he played strombo's living room and if you can find that appearance, it's really fantastic. John's so understated, just a great writer. Album after album. Jesus, The Missing Years. That's the album that this song comes from.

And everything on it's worth hearing. Love it. Awkward change of gears here, but a question just came in from an FOTM and I'd like to ask them while I have you. And he's just quickly wondering what you think of the current state of the Toronto Raptors um we'll always have 2019 I guess they can't take that away from us yeah I mean one of the things that bothers me is that is that Toronto sports teams tend to portray themselves,

their ownership, as a small market or we can't compete. Toronto is the fourth largest urban market in North America. You should be able to spend like everybody else. And if you're in the NBA and you ain't spending, you ain't trying. But having said that, they did spend for a short period of time, like the Blue Jays have done sporadically over the years. And they got the championship. But I think sporadically over the years. Right. And they got,

they got the championship, but I think it's going to be a long haul. I'm a Pistons fan and it's even worse for the Pistons. So, I mean, they're, they're trying to rebuild, but they don't, they haven't had a championship in a long time and they're even further

below the Raptors. So I think the Raptors are about three players away from knowing who, who they're going to be the next time. Right. But I like Barnes. And yeah. And while we rebuild here, I suppose, it's interesting that we're one-tenth of a second away because the buzzer beater that didn't actually...

was one-tenth of a second late. If that had been counted, we're on a five-game winning streak. So there's a little bit of... How do you like that logic? By the way, thank you... You always got to look for the silver lining. That's right. Thank you, Scott Allen, for the Raptor question.

Let's kick out another jam. She left Dallas for California With an old friend At her side Well he did not say much But one year later He'd ask her To be his wife

And the lights Of L.A. County Looked like diamonds In the sky When you're driving through the hours With an old friend at your side One year later, I left Houston With an old friend at my side

Well, it did not say much But it was a beauty of a coal black fortified And the lights of L.A. County they look like diamonds in the sky

When you're driving through the hours with an old friend at your side. So I drove on all day long. And I drove on. Lyle's relentless here. Lyle Lovett, L.A. County.

It's not giving you any breaks to break in. The disc jockey's always looking for the break to throw in the commercial. Yeah, that's a lot of love and of course, just a tremendously versatile guy. He's an actor. He's been an actor,

of course. Robert Altman took a liking to him. I think PJ Anderson had him in his movies too. And just a really versatile guy. This comes to me

on the album Pontiac and it showed sort of his, the first album that showed his real versatility. There's a song on it called If I Had a Boat, I think it's called. And it sort of sounds like this nice folk song, but then it turns into kind of an absurdist thing.

And by the end of it, it's like, what's his name, with the melting watches paintings, you know, that sort of stuff. Salvador Dali? Salvador Dali. It becomes like a Dali painting. But he has this range, and he loves, of course, Texas Swing. He doesn't necessarily imitate Bob Wills and those people, but he pays homage to Texas Swing.

He's funny. He has great, great lyrics, et cetera. So, of course, personal story yet again. Rob Bennett, my friend, promotes him. And this was at Ontario Place. I'm going to guess the 1990s. I can't remember which year. And you remember Ontario Place? You had the revolving

stage. Yeah, the Forum. The Forum. Yeah, the revolving stage. And it's Lyle Lovett. And he's playing in his band and he's doing a great show and I'm enjoying it. All of a sudden, my friend Rob comes out. And this is days when you have to have a cable with a phone. He's got a phone in his hand.

And he comes out and he says to Lyle in between songs, look, there's a phone call. She insisted that she speak to you right away. And OK, well, whatever. And so he picks up the phone. Hey, baby. Yeah. So I'm playing this really funky place. We're going around in a circle and it's down by the lake.

And he's describing the whole thing. And he says, yeah, I miss you, too. I'll see you tomorrow. OK, I'll see you tomorrow. And he hands the phone back to Rob. Rob goes off the stage. Everybody in the crowd's going like, what the hell is this about? He starts the concert again. And OK, we go. I go backstage afterwards to see Rob. And I said, what was all that about? He said, oh, you know who was on the phone? And I said, no. And it was, of course, his fiance. The next day he was getting married to- Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts. Julia, thank you dear. Julia Roberts. And he's talking to her on the stage. It was just a surreal moment. And indeed, the next day he went and got talking to her on the stage. It was just a surreal moment.

And indeed, the next day he went and got married to her. Didn't work out, but that was Lyle. You know, very unexpected guy. His big band stuff is fantastic all the time. Now, is that your wife I hear in the background? Yes, yes. She's got her come and show everybody your Christmas outfit.

She's wearing her Christmas outfit here getting ready. There you go. Where am I standing? You're right there. There you go. Nice to meet you. Are there any jams, Bruce, dedicated to your wife here? All of them. I've been married almost 40 years. I've learned

enough to say, oh, all of them. Absolutely. That's such a festive. Such a festive. Well, probably Lucinda Williams. She loves Lucinda Williams. So I would say that would be the closest one that I've chosen here. I'm trying to tell stories.

All right, my friend. Three more to go. We'll call this the Anti-Penultimate Jam. Let's get to go. We'll call this the Anti-Penultimate Jam. Let's get to it. ¶¶ I'm going to pick up a little gun. And together we're going to go out tonight and make that highway run. You don't have to call me Lieutenant Rosie and I don't want to be your son. You're the only lover I'm ever going to need. Just a little girl's time. I'm going to need you. Little guns downtown and rubber movers Trying out his attitude on all the cats Papa's on the corner

Waiting for the bus Mama, she's only in the window Waiting up for us She'll be there in that shuttle to rustle upstairs Cause you know we ain't gonna die I'm here on business, baby I'm only here for fun And those are the ones

Rosalina, jump on the lighter Say, Rita, come sit by my fire I just wanna be your lover, ain't no lie We'll call him the other Bruce. No, I'm the other Bruce. He is the Bruce. He legitimized the name Bruce for us, though. Bruce's have had things, intimations about our name I didn't like, but he legitimized it. Yeah, you know what I really hate are people who say, somebody becomes popular and you say,

yeah, but you should have heard him when he was younger. He was even better. I hate those people. I'm now going to be one of those people. I mean, I don't think Bruce Springsteen ever got any better than The Wild, The Innocent, The E Street Shuffle, The Variety, etc. And then, of course, he hit all of his legal problems, couldn't record for two years, Born to Run came out, which is a sensational record.

But this is a fantastic song, fantastic record, shows everything that he's going to be, what he is, what he's going to be, the versatility, the energy. And I also have this theory that Bruce Springsteen, to a certain extent, he's almost a Jordan Peterson figure for men. I don't think he translates to women quite the same way. I think there's a male role that he plays that a lot of guys have found very comforting and messaging, etc. So there's a lot of things about Springsteen I like.

His current role as a spokesperson for Jeep is not one of them, but that's another story. You want stories, however, so Bruce Springsteen stories. So again, my friend Rob is promoting Springsteen in Toronto. And I was busy. I guess I was doing the TV. And he calls me. It's like 10.30 on a Sunday night. He says, come on down here.

We're having dinner and I want you to come down and meet somebody. I said, Rob's 1030. I got to go to bed. I got two shows to do tomorrow. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And he says, no, no, no. He says, you got to come. You got to go. He does this from time to time. I said, I can't go. I can't go this time. So the next day I call him up and said, what was that all about? He said, Oh, we're just going out for dinner with Bruce Springsteen. So I'm like,

oh, gee, couldn't you have just sort of hinted? I would have gone to see, I just stayed up till three in the morning and then he stayed up

and went around town. Another story with Rob and not me particularly, but Rob and Springsteen, he was playing in Montreal and he had, I guess he had an off night and so he's showing him around and he phoned up a couple of people we knew in Montreal,

people who did get out of their bed. And they ended up on Mount Royal having a snowball fight with Bruce Springsteen at like one in the morning beneath the cross on Mount Royal with Bruce Springsteen. They went and they cruised around a bunch of music clubs in old Montreal, etc. That's the real Bruce Springsteen in that sense. He's a little bit like Robin Williams. He's a guy who really likes to please people. He likes to please them with his art and to share his bounty and what his

life has become when he can. And just one final story. We have right across the street from where I live is the Spruce Meadows equestrian site. And Bruce Springsteen's daughter jumps there, which is always a sign that you've made more money than God is that you can afford horses and the equestrian set. But anyhow, he's been here just across the street. He didn't call either. I mean,

Rob called Bruce didn't call to say, Hey Bruce, come on over. We have a Bruce moment. Didn't happen. I love it, man. As you can imagine, many a male of your vintage has kicked out Bruce Springsteen on this program. It is very reliable that if I see especially a sports broadcaster, reporter, or presenter. Hello. Yeah. So the sports media people, especially the dudes as you mentioned, absolutely love

Bruce and I can hear why. I don't mean this as an insult to other people but he's not afraid of his masculinity in most of his songs. He's not apologizing for his masculinity. It gets him into trouble. It doesn't always work out.

Sometimes it's gothically bad. Sometimes it's fantastic. The romantic songs for his wife and his lovers and stuff. He's not afraid of his masculinity. And for a lot of guys, that's an important message to hear these days. For sure. He's in an, and here's, I'm going to bring in another fun fact that astute listeners will have heard me drop this one a couple of times but yeah bruce you haven't heard me drop this one yet so he's in an exclusive club of artists who uh when they sing their own songs have never hit number one on the billboard hot 100 so bruce has peaked at number two but his song recorded by another artist has hit number one so i ask you bruce can you name the song bruce springsteen wrote that went to number one on the billboard hot 100?

And can you name the song that he performed, wrote and performed that went to number peaked at number two? Well, the one that went to number one, I believe is blinded by the light. I believe that is correct for man, right? That is correct.

And what was the, what was the second question? Okay. So Bruce's highest, his biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 is a song that peaked at number two. This is a song he performed himself that he wrote and performed.

Performed, but he didn't write it? No, he did write it, actually. Yeah, no, he did write it. Yeah, he wrote it. I think Bruce doesn't, pretty much Bruce writes all his stuff, right? Oh, yeah. That's why I was double checking.

Sorry, I shouldn't be. He might have sung a Woody Guthrie song song i don't know that's true okay so what is the what is the highest performing uh single in the history of bruce springsteen recorded music this is a guess i'm just going to guess born in the usa that's a very good guess because it's on that album but it's actually dancing in the dark dancing in the dark that's right because he had the actress come up on the stage courtney cox courtney cox and the whole well hey listen i think that was around the time courtney was playing uh michael j alex p keaton if you will the michael j fox character on family ties was playing his girlfriend i believe that was a

quite the moment for courtney there's so much stuff that i couldn't put in here uh i have no RRNB. As you know, I sent you a list. I sent you a list of a hundred songs. You know, all the other things are on my mind. And I just apologize for the stuff that's not in there.

Please don't send him a note and say, this guy, all he does is listen to white male singers or whatever it is. And white, white people. Cause that's, that's not my interest, but yeah,

I apologize. You got two more to go here, but you're actually not going to earn any favors. I love this artist too, but I got to talk to you about his recent work, which is a little more problematic. But let's kick out this jam. Jacky Walser said, it was written tea The kind of love you got knocked me off my feet

Let it all hang out Oh, let it all hang out Yeah, you know, I was so wide up Don't need no coffee in my cup Let it all hang out There you go. I'm so wide up. Don't need no coffee in my cup. Let it all hang out. Let it all hang out. Watch this.

Dang-a-lang-a-lang, dang-a-lang-a-lang, dang. Dang-a-lang-a-lang, dang-a-lang-a-lang, dang. Doo-da-doo-da. Ann Morrison. Ivan Morrison. I don't know if you've seen the movie Belfast, which is probably going to win Academy Awards. His music is all the music through it. Because Van is from Belfast, grew up at that same time

with the Troubles, as they say. Right. And just, it's hard to imagine a person being more fertile musically. He's at my age now, and he just kicks out records like it's nothing. He's got, apparently he's got a catalog of zillions of songs he hasn't released, etc. But it's the classic example of loving somebody's music, but not necessarily always being able to get your arms around him. He's a cranky old Irishman.

Probably he'd be an old drunk priest in the 18th century or the 17th century because there wouldn't have been any kind of minstrel role that he could have played. You know, personally, he's very taciturn. I think anybody who's gone to see Vann's concerts, lives, will know that his relationship with his band is sometimes he gets a little bit a little bit outbursts he was playing here in Calgary and the the ribbon section didn't come in on time and he he does one of these knee and he basically scolds them on stage and oh yeah he's it's must be a hard he must be a hard guy to work for but but the variety of

music and the continuing interest in in trying to create uh playing with the chieftains on one side the lyrical side this is his tribute to r&b um and again a first time hearing thing i i didn't know much about van my brother had had some of his records the first time really crystallized i was at the uc playhouse on huron street i'd gone in we're doing a rehearsal because in my theater days, and we went in for rehearsal and they played Moon Dance. In fact, they played that whole album while we were setting up. And that was when I said, hey, this is different. This is something I've got to pay attention to. So my life would be nothing without his beautiful outfits. But my listening life would be nothing unless I had Van Morrison to play from time to time.

Listening life would be nothing unless I had Van Morrison to play from time to time. Now, as you speak to us from Calgary, Alberta, is his recent anti-lockdown music popular in that neck of the woods? Because Van's gone in some anti-lockdown. He's an artist in the sense his arguments that he's making are about censorship,ression etc he feels that people should be able to speak he feels that artists should be able to speak um well you know a perfect example is the movie amadeus the one about mozart sure uh and and everybody's like oh yeah what it was it was miloš form and the czech director doing an analogy because in those days the communist world was still alive. He was talking about what it's like to be in a system, in a society where you cannot express yourself as an artist. He was talking about the strictures on an artist versus society.

And what Van is doing is he's pushing the boundaries of that right now. These are things he believes about free speech, et cetera. And as an old time liberal, I believe we have to listen to people like that. I don't say that that's the only voice. I'm not saying that's the right voice. But I'm saying that in a dynamic society, you've got to listen to everybody's opinion. And I'm personally more comfortable with Van's anti-lockdown protest than Eric Clapton, I believe, who leans more anti-vax. And maybe spend a moment

before we kick out your final jam here since I'm holding you hostage right now. But all you hear about in the news right now is Omicron this, Omicron that because apparently this is one contagious virus. So if you're into the case counting, there's going to be a lot of cases. We don't yet know, as I speak to you,

we don't yet know whether i speak to you we don't yet know uh whether you know the fully vaccinated healthy people like us are gonna be could be hospitalized like that our vaccinations might keep us out of the hospital which is really all i'm asking of my vaccination is if i get covid uh don't get me so sick i need to be hospitalized like that's that's my one ask of the vaccination and so far it's holding up up. So what's getting to me though, is that Omicron, again, a little rant here, but if Omicron is as contagious

as they say it is, and apparently far more contagious than Delta, which was far more contagious than the classic version we got used to, I suppose. If it's as contagious as they say it is, it's going to rip through us.

It's going to rip through. And if the unvaccinated people amongst us, and I don't know if that's 10 or 15% of adults, whatever that is, if the unvaccinated people amongst us and I don't know if that's 10 or 15% of adults whatever that is, if the unvaccinated people amongst us start clogging up the ICUs, I worry about me hitting I don't know, I'm on my bike ride and I have

a terrible crash and now the ICU is jammed full of anti-vaxxers I don't know, I personally wish everybody would vaccinate themselves so that we can defang this virus. I don't know what your thoughts are on all this, Bruce Dobigan. We've been on for a long time. We could be on a very long time talking about this. I guess my current feeling about this is that the crisis that we're facing at the moment is a crisis of our health care,

not playing whack-a-mole with viruses anymore. I think that we need to stop counting every case that a person might have come in contact with, et cetera. I think we have to pay attention, as you just pointed out, to the hospitals, to the delivery systems, et cetera, so that people, like when you wipe out on your bike, that at least there's a bed for you to, to expire on, on a gurney. But then we have those. And what we have now is a failure of our healthcare system and the Americans too. I don't, I'm not, this isn't necessarily a single parent, but we have a failure of our healthcare system to be able to accommodate these

kinds of emergencies. And that's the debate we need to have, which is how do we do this in the future? Look, there's 500 people in this country. In a country of 38 million people, there's 500 people in this country who are serious or more with COVID. That's nothing. It's such a small amount. And yet our healthcare system apparently can't sustain this. So that's, to me, is the argument. What are we going to do going forward? Will we pay the money to do it? And do we have the political will? I hear you, Bruce. Love it.

Let me just say this, that if it, let's say, let's say when, when more science and research comes in, we learn, okay, if you're otherwise healthy and fully vaccinated, you won't be spending any time in the hospital with this Omicron variant of COVID-19. Okay. Let's say we, we realize that's the case, which is what I'm hoping here. Then if you are an adult who has chosen not to be vaccinated, here's my idea.

Tell me why I'm out to lunch with this. So I'm an adult, a Canadian adult, who has decided I'm not going to get the vaccination. Then I get COVID because Omicron is contagious as all hell. And I end up in ICU ward. In Ontario, we have OHIP, as you recall. So maybe in that instance,

if I've opted out of the vaccination, all the treatments for me with COVID-19 are billable. Like I should get an invoice at the end of my stay in the hospital and OHIP should not cover me. You don't do that with people who smoke. You don't do that with drug users. You don't do that with morbidly obese people who are all basically,

we know that their behaviors are ones that are going to end up in the hospital. We do not do that to them. We don't discriminate. And why all of a sudden have we decided to discriminate against this particular group? And when you say the unvaxxed, there's a lot of people are unvaxxed for a lot of reasons. There's a number of people who've already had COVID and are saying, I don't need it. I have antibodies. Don't give me that.

I don't want to take the needle. I'm okay. I don't have to do that. So there's all sorts of reasons why there's anti-vaxxers. But the idea that now all of a sudden we're going to do the triage, like David Frum, who's become sort of out of whatever he is down in the States working for the Atlantic, who's saying we need to triage people who are unvaxxed people. Well, hey, David, how about you also triage the people who are morbidly obese in the press corps? How about the drunks and the alcoholics and the drug abusers

and the smokers in the press corps? Are you going to triage them? Because if you're not, then you can't start applying this standard. See, I will have to clear my schedule. We're going to need a couple more hours on this alright my friend how about this how about we kick out your final jam something mellow yeah this is nothing like what we just discussed now that we're all fired up here we go

yeah when you were mine I was still playing and promises I was still playing And promises I made Were just words I was saying I was playing you for a fool

Breaking love's precious rules I did you so wrong Guess you knew all along That I had my boss lie for me To say I was working late And my friends all about for me Well, that slipped out to me today But baby, now I see I was only cheating me

Before you go I just want you to know That I've had a change of heart I've had a change of heart The perfect song to calm me down after our great debate, Bruce. The Judds. It's like a last dance at a high school dance. You get the one to get everybody out the door, you do the slow dance

so they can all have one slow dance. Wynonna Judd singing Naomi, her mother's song. Nashville is kind of almost the creative center of the United States these days. You don't have to like country music to like a lot of what's happening and the musicality.

The Judds are, this is from 1988. I mean, I could have chosen all sorts of people Trisha Yearwood Miranda Lambert the strong female figure is is a reality in country music they produce fantastic records uh Loretta Lynn I mean Loretta's been cutting records uh with uh with what's name from the White Stripes they're getting producers are getting to do different stuff I mean country music is just really interesting and for me again moving to the west where this is more of a reality where country music is more of a reality is also you know hearing it more etc kind of an acceptance of you know another type of music and how much

how much I love country when it's done right. And as you know, country music lyrics are always, you know, they're the best lyricists going like, what's the name? The famous song of Conway Twitty, you're the reason our kids are ugly. I mean, they can do a song like that. Hello darling. Yeah. Hello darling. And hang up the phone and all that stuff. But it's anyhow, I just, I just like the country milieu. I like a lot of the people.

They're so creative. We've had Lyle Lovett, who's very much country. We've had Lucinda Williams, et cetera. So I've sort of been biased towards that in the selection of songs. And I just love, love the tone in her voice. This song is fantastic. Mama She's Crazy is on the same record with her mom, and that was when they were duet.

She records on her own now, and I don't hear as much of her. People like her and Casey Musgraves is my new favorite country female singer. And I just missed, by the way, seeing Chris Stapleton in Florida. When I was down in Florida, my neighbors saw Chris Stapleton on a double bill with Sheryl Crow. I missed it. Chris Stapleton is fantastic. So it's my tribute to country music. I chose one.

There you go. Bruce, what a thrill. Man, we got to do this again sometime. But I loved talking music with you, buddy. That was fun. And listen, you do a great job. And I really appreciate what you're doing, the stuff you're laying down

and getting all these people on the record, etc. It's great. And I always appreciate the invitation. And this song I close every episode with. So your episode, let's get the right number here, Mike. Come on, let's get organized. Your episode 966.

And they've all ended with Lowest of the Lows, Rosie and Gray from Shakespeare, My Butt. And I just saw on Twitter, by the way, a member with Lowest of the Lows, Rosie and Gray from Shakespeare My Butt. And I just saw on Twitter, by the way, a member of Lowest of the Low was on that FOTM open Zoom that you were on Friday night.

Yeah, that's right. And I saw that Shakespeare My Butt, this album, turns 30 years old tomorrow. So happy birthday to Shakespeare My Butt. 30 years old. Yeah.

Wow. That's fantastic. Tell people where they can find it, where they can find the recording of this thing too. So I can tell people. Oh my God. Well, listen,

I'm going to do a little extra here and then I'll take a photo with you after via zoom, believe it or not. And then I'll make sure you're locked and loaded with everything. Cause I'm not going to notice by the way, I'm wearing my Oregon ducks. It's an Oregon ducks, Marcus Mariota.

What could haveucks shirt. It's an Oregon Ducks, Marcus Mariota, what could have been shirt. And that brings us to the end of our 966th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. And Bruce, remind us, what is your Twitter handle? Not the

Public Broadcaster is my website. And at Doughboy is my Twitter site. So D-O-W-B-O-Y. B-B-O-Y. Yes. Okay. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Chef Drop is at Get Chef Drop.

Mineris is at Mineris. McKay CEO Forums are at McKay CEO Forums. Subscribe to their fantastic CEO Edge podcast. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. And Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. See you all next week.