Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - David Cooper: Toronto Mike'd #991

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

In this episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with David Cooper about why he left a lucrative software job for radio, how he ended up doing overnights on 1010 from New York City and when he'll lose the "guest host" moniker. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

Welcome to episode 991 of Toronto Mic'd, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta.

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Joining me this week, making his Torontoonto mic debut is canada's least relevant broadcaster david cooper how you doing david good yeah that was my my cue to talk wasn't it i should just point out canada's least relevant broadcaster you wrote that that's your own words by my own admission yeah yeah and uh that's that's like quite the claim because there's some pretty irrelevant uh broadcasters in this country but you're the least relevant i aim high mike i aim high uh how the hell are you doing i'm doing doing well, yeah. I'm excited, too. A little nervous to do your 1,000th episode. All right, you got the number wrong.

I wanted to be big 1,000, Mike, you know? And I had stress diarrhea before I came on, but I'm doing well now. What does Freddie P call that? He calls that an excitement dump. An excitement dump. Yeah, you know, I get, see, I'm nervous for everything, and so I'm just this highly anxious person. So it's kind of like a superpower if I'm interviewing someone really intimidating or just ordering a coffee. It's kind of at a 10 at all times. So we're at a 10 right now. All right, my friend, we're going to get into this. I need to know though, off the top, are you DB Cooper?

I am not. You're not the first person to ask. The age doesn't line up. He would have been born a little before me. Don't have any relation, but my initials are DT Cooper, so it's close. Right. When Mad Men was winding down, there were some fan fiction theories on how they'll end it. And one I read was that Don Draper was D.B. Cooper.

That was the theory. But that did not happen. No, it did not. And nor am I. Let's establish for the people listening who the hell you are. So, David Cooper. It's a great question. And I'm wondering who I am

because I'm wondering why I'm here, who I am to you, who I am to anyone. Because I know who I am to myself and it's not much. So I'm curious what you're about to say. Well, I'm going to say the reason you're here is because every month I have a gentleman named Mark Weisblot. He comes over, sits in my basement, and we talk for three hours about like everything and anything that happened in the previous month in the like the country's like zeit zeitgeist of media and we'll go on about okay look what's happening here uh ryan doyle like we're getting this ryan doyle's gone like where did ryan doyle go and then he'll talk about you know jim richards is the showgram he's got this guy on this guy david cooper and he'll go

on about david cooper and i'll be just listening because I I'll admit to you right now like I don't listen to a lot of uh terrestrial radio these days that that's not CBC Radio 1 and you can uh you know you can chastise me all you like but I'm learning about David Cooper from my friend uh Mark Weisblatt from 1236 so you went on like my radar when he mentioned you and then the next month he mentioned you again and at some point i'm like i want to talk to this david cooper guy that wise block keeps talking about yeah it's funny you should mention i uh i discovered you because one of our listeners is also a listener of yours and he said you were talked about and obviously i'm i'm an insecure narcissist i gotta listen to it right uh so So I heard those spots and it kind of

piqued my interest too. So I'm glad we've kind of converged on this gentleman who you know, who I don't know, but who has mentioned me on your show. Well, even where are you right now? New York? Where are you? I live in New York City. Yeah. I grew up in Toronto where I believe your podcast is focused. What was your first clue? Yeah. I mean, there are people named Cleveland who don't live in Cleveland. So I just, it's hard to really...

Go ahead. They're named after a president, I think. The people named Cleveland. Now, so you're from Toronto, so you're a Toronto guy, but you're currently in New York City. But even in New York City, you can subscribe to Mark's daily email newsletter.

Like you could subscribe at Mark's daily email newsletter. Like you could subscribe at 1236.ca and get like a wallop of wise blot. That's actually a good tagline. A wallop of wise blot every single day, if you like. A wallop of wise blot. I like it. I like it. Yeah. So yeah. What would you like to discuss about that?

Okay. So let's start. Mark, Mark, Marky Mike. Yeah, I'm Mike, actually. Mark is the other guy. So how did you end up doing the overnights on 1010? That's a great question. It's a long story. I mean, how long do you want?

What version? Take your time. Yeah. I mean, do you want to talk about how I got into radio? Yeah, sure. Start there. Like, yeah, talk to talk about how I got into radio? Yeah, sure. Start there. Yeah, talk to us about how you get into radio and then eventually how you end up on 1010

where Mark Weisblatt would discover you and then tell me all about you and then end up in this wonderful episode 991 where I finally made contact with... You know, anyone can be on episode 1000. That's the thing. Anyone can record themselves for 30 to 90 seconds and email it to me, this recording just about Toronto Mike,

and it's going to appear on episode 1000. There will be hundreds of people in episode 1000. And I may well be one of them. So there it is. Yeah. I'd always wanted to try standup comedy. I kept like a running, a running log of my jokes

for what the first five minutes would be. I mean, I was scared to put up my hand in class in university. I was scared in a meeting at work to speak up, even when I knew the answer. So I think for me, stand-up was not only like something I wanted to try, but something to help me get over anxiety, you know? Sure. Very same anxiety we mentioned at the top.

Go ahead. No, it's okay. I mean, I'll come in at the gaps or whatever, but stand up as a kid. So were you going to yuck yucks and stuff? No, so I mean, it gets even great. So I studied software engineering at University of Toronto

and I never thought I could like have a good job, you know? And then my friend, while I was working at some ad agency in Toronto, building like Facebook apps, like this kind of small website things, he's like, come to Silicon Valley. And I ended up, my work sent me there, um, for a conference. So I worked at one of these miles Nadal, um, ad agencies in Toronto. He owns like a bunch of ad agencies. So I got hired out of undergrad. For some reason, they hired me.

I had no experience. And the work on my resume had not gone well. I'd worked for a few professors. And like, if they ever were going to call my references, those professors were not going to give me a good reference. But it looked good on paper. So I got the job. But a year into that, my friend was like, hey, come to Silicon Valley. I'm working at this small company called Facebook. So I went down there. And then all my friends who I went to school with had good jobs and real lives and made good money and all this kind of stuff. So I moved to San Francisco and that was when I was 26 or five or something. Well, that sounds like where you want to be, right? You're in the center of it all. Yeah. At the time. Yeah. So when you answer the question, yuck, yucks, I never even,

I never got into comedy in Toronto. I got into comedy at San Francisco. So the Holy Grail rooms were like, I don't know, Purple Onion, Cobbs, this kind of thing. So when you ask yuck yucks, no, no. And I always sucked at stand-up anyway. Do you have any stand-up inspirationsations like stand-up heroes that you were trying to emulate oh yeah it's a mix right i mean like andy kaufman's kind of dated um no i don't okay maybe it depends who you're talking to i know you're a much younger man than me but uh andy kaufman i don't i think that's uh evergreen yeah oh well sure it's like it's this mix between

and i really like adult swim so like kind of. I don't know if you watch the Tim and Eric show, like that kind of thing. And then like, I love Larry David. I'm very Jewy. I talk about being a Jew on the radio every five seconds. I'm surprised we don't get more antisemitic tweets and texts, but, um, so, so that, that, that's the inspiration. I mean, it's like a mix between like Larry David, Andy Kaufman. I love Joan Rivers. She's like my mix between like larry david andy kaufman i love joan rivers she's like my favorite um like that kind of stuff i think there's a yuck yucks joan rivers connection because i believe mark breslin uh went to la to work with joan on her uh her her her talk show that she had for a while like i think so marklin started Yuck Yucks. For two weeks on the Fox one? I believe so, yeah.

That Johnny Carson ruined her life and her husband committed suicide and I'll never forgive Johnny Carson? That's the one. That's the one, yeah. I get upset when I think about that, Mike. Yeah, that's a pretty shitty move by Johnny Carson there, for sure. Completely, I guess, just blackballed her. Joan was dead to him

and never talked to him again. Never made peace before he died. And he died. He's one of those guys who was like, he's all over the place. He retires. And the next thing you know, he's dead. It's like he should have just kept working. You know what I mean? Some people just they're like, work, work, work, stop dead. Yeah. My grandfather worked until

like 97. He retired in 97. He died in 98 or 9 oh my god your grandfather was andy rooney i think yeah i mean he like way go home at three i mean he would like he doesn't understand that he think he was getting faxed but really it was emails being printed off for him i'm pretty sure that is there's a couple of people that jump to the top of my mind like that like andy rooney's one like one day i'm watching 60 minutes and andy rooney's like signing off for the last time me and my typewriters and then like the next day i'm like oh andy rooney died like it's like right away but the other guy is um uh who created peanuts uh who the hell is the uh charlie

in the show i have no idea oh come on we all know who created uh schultz we all know yeah schultz we know schultz schultz he love know Schultz. Schultz, we love him, know him. Charles Schultz. Went to Hebrew school with him. Charles Schultz, like, after a long career writing Charlie Brown comics, Peanuts or whatever, he's like, my final strip is airing. He draws it up. It airs. And it's like, I feel like the next day, it's like Charles Schultz up and died. Like, it's like, these people live to work.

And then when they stop working, it's like that's it. They just expire. They do. All right. Shall I continue? I mean, where do you want to take this one? Yeah. If I do the tangents, I just got recently diagnosed by Tom Wilson from Junkhouse.

He recently diagnosed me with ADHD. So please understand, it's beyond my control. Okay. No, I'm the same way. This is going to be an incoherent mess, which I love. No, it's going to be wonderful. That's my favorite control. Okay. No, I'm the same way. This is going to be an incoherent mess, which I love. No, it's going to be wonderful. That's my favorite kind of show.

But just Saturday, so I have a teenage daughter and I have two little kids. You have a daughter. You're bragging. It's fine. I don't. It's no big deal.

I procreated four different times. Okay. I just want to make sure you know that before we continue. But one of them, forget it, he's out in Waterloo.

But everyone else went to dinner at my mom's house on Saturday. So my wife is there. My mom is there. My teenage daughter. And this Tom Wilson observation comes up at the table. We start talking about it. And the next thing you know, they have me doing these surveys online. And apparently, yeah, I have totally ADHD. Not that I don't want to treat it or anything, because I love it. Whatever it is, I love it. Seriously, it's i love it whatever it is i love it like seriously like it's my superpower but it's interesting that uh this could be true and i might only be coming

to this realization in my late 40s so well i technically have one my ex-wife uh well we were still married but separated got pregnant so i mean it's not from me but my wife got pregnant and had a child so i mean it's technically one did sign, actually, I can't talk about that. All right, so I'll get you back on track because I always try to come back. But you're in Silicon Valley working for the company that would one day decide

we want to be called Meta. This is the decision. No, my friends were. Oh, your friends were there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, come check it out. And I went down there and I decided to quit my job,

went down there for three months, interviewed a bunch of places, took a job at a company called Eventbrite. It's like a competitor to Ticketmaster. I know it well, of course. I've been invited to many an Eventbrite thing. And somewhere

along the line, my marriage blows up, there's a drug problem, blah, yada, yada, yada. If we're talking about radio, forget about all that stuff. But are you being serious? Because I can't tell if you're doing a bit or if that's true so your drug problem what's that is it your drug problem my drug problem i've been sober since september 2019 okay so yes may i may i ask uh what kind of drugs are we talking about here yeah uh ketamine mdma i shouldn't be saying this stuff i'm gonna get in trouble somehow well i mean first of first of all, if you were addicted and you're in recovery,

I think people will simply be grateful that you're being honest about your... But the main offender is mixing Xanax and booze. That was the real kicker. Okay, so let's get the awkward thing off. Let's get this awkward moment out of the way, which is that this program happens to be sponsored by a craft brewery.

So we just... I'm just telling you, David, I'm not giving you, David, I'm not giving you any, but some people can handle some delicious craft beer. Yes, I'm not one of them, but those who can, I support. Go ahead.

So none for them. Okay. Also, I want to give some love to canacabana.com for all your cannabis needs. There's 100 locations across this country. Become a Canacabana member and save money. They won't be beat on price, these guys. They're awesome. So for all your cannabis needs,

there's Canna Cabana. Again, for the beer requirements, nothing beats Great Lakes Brewery. I'm sorry to hear about your problems and I'm glad that you're sober now for over two years, it sounds like. Two years and four months. Good for you, buddy. Good thank you mike um the story the pacing of the story is slower than i would like

but i somewhere along the line i'm divorced i bottom out i mean it's one of several bottoms not the lowest one i've hit but like i'm just gonna try stand up i got nothing to lose okay and that that is that so i do that for a year and i i become a resident at a really shitty i'm about to say crappy because i think i'm on commercial radio a shitty club called um the purple onion now it was a great club robin williams had a special there that club closed and then they reopened in a basement with the same branding so when i say purple onion it's not the flex that those who know the room um would would expect it was a garbage room but i was doing doing stand up there four or five nights a week um and then in 2014 i said to myself i get these crazy new year's resolutions like i gotta do stand up at least once a week no matter where i am in the world which was cool i

ended up doing stand up in like tokyo and stockholm and every year i go to this drugged out festival in the desert called burning man of course so okay, okay. You're one of those guys. Yeah. One of those guys. Very cool. Very cool. And I'm like, okay, I got to get booked on a showcase here. I'm there for more than a week.

And the only things I could find were mix mics. And I didn't want to go up and tell like a Holocaust joke after someone was telling a story about how their like cat died and was crying. You know, like this is the kind of thing. So I'm like, I'm going to do my own showcase. So I did my own stage, did my own show. Someone's like, go to the radio station and advertise your showcase. There's a radio.

It's a city with 70,000 people. They have an FM radio station. It's got pretty big reach because it streams online. And it's really one of the few touch points to the outside world from the event. So I go to the station. That's the first time i'm ever on the air it's 2014 okay and again remind me how how old are you approximately in 2014 well um it's 2022 and i'm 35 okay so uh that would make me 34 i don't know you do i studied math in university but we didn't learn numbers it was like all letters.

Do you think every city has a purple onion? I feel like that's a common name for it. Only because I'll just point out that another sponsor of this program. Are you going to go and do another sponsor right now? It's stickeru.com. But the founder of StickerU, by the way, get your stickers and decals from stickeru.com. I love StickerU. They're great people. We're in Liberty Village.

But the founder, his name is Andrew Witkin. but the founder his name is andrew whitkin his dad his name is barry whitkin he founded this like coffee shop in yorkville in the early 60s called the purple onion where like a joni mitchell would come or like uh whatever yeah well under a different name though she had a different name back then uh but bottom line is uh that's like a historic like uh we're a folk music venue in this city like in the early 60s the purple onion so yeah every city i mean maybe um i i don't know i i that was before my time and i didn't fart around yorkville much uh in the 60s okay so you have some radio experience at Burning Man? No, no, no, no. I just go in and I say that I'm doing a show. Like I do a,

like just an announcement. All right. But like it, I really loved it. So I kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back. And I convinced the station manager

to give me a show the next year. Just one show, two hour spot. Right. So that would have been 2015, 2016. I don't know. Something before yesterday at least a week ago more than 40 years ago okay and you so you did this and with the uh i guess

i'm wondering how this gets you uh thinking you can actually have like a career in radio no no i'm not there so i'm like okay and so i'm anxious i'm freaking out months in advance i've got a two hour spot i don't know what to do. I'm freaking out, you know? And so I start hitting up my comedian friends who have radio shows and podcasts. Okay. This is like three or four months. Anybody I've heard of?

No, God, no. No. I don't know anyone you've heard of, Mike. I don't know why I'm here. Well, you know that, you know, Jim Richards, right? Hey, we're going to get to this. Obviously, I have some 1010 questions when we get there, which will be, I assume, in a couple hours.

Which I'm sure I'll successfully dodge all of them, but I look forward to those. Am I right in my assumption that you've never met Jim Richards? Is that correct? In person? In person. Incorrect. Okay.

I was in Toronto in August. I believe it was August. And we met. We had coffee at the distillery district. I believe it was August. And we met. We had coffee at the distillery district. I got married there. Okay. So you had a coffee. I guess that was Balzac's.

Something like that. Yeah, there's a Balzac's in the distillery. This episode brought to you by Balzac's. They're one of the great sponsors of Toronto, Mike. One day. You can get a great coffee there and a Danish and a bagel. Did I get it right? Well, I did have them serve the coffee at my wedding.

That's no joke. But they're future sponsors. But Balls Axe is in the distillery district. You met Jim Richards. Jim Richards, by the way, for what it's worth, and you're not allowed to partake, my friend, because we're going to keep you clean and sober there, but he's a big Great Lakes brewery fan.

I know he's a big fan of that brewery. Yeah. So he could be. I mean, he is big fan of that brewery. So he could be. He is for the purposes of your sponsors. I know he is because I actually have a photo of me and Jim Richards in the brewery. He's back there where they're making the beer. Love it.

Love that. Alright, continue my friend. He's taller than I thought and I'm shorter than he thought. I'm like 2 foot 8, Mike. I weigh 125 pounds. I'm not a large man. You could just clap your hands and i'd have a pancake of a head um all right i'm still with you man you're telling you're still telling your story so and then and then what happens is i finally get booked on well the first podcast i do is it's like divorce it's called ask a divorce a i don't even think it's around anymore it's just local comedians in san francisco it's these

two divorced women interviewing people who are divorced. I'm, of course, separated at the time. That was fine. Wasn't much. But then my friend books me on his show. And it's just, it's like a, it's real like two friends talking nonsense podcast. Sure. But their friendship was predicated on the one friend's sobriety.

So let's call it, my one friend is Dan. His friend is Bob. friend is bob dan and bob right bob is supposed to be sober in order for them to be best friends and do this podcast i'm the guest bob shows up drunk it's the first time he's been drinking in like a few years and it becomes this very intimate very serious like i'm mediating a friendship between two people i'm helping talk to a guy about how he can get clean tomorrow and how to not beat up on himself too much. And it's just like oddly intimate and wonderful experience.

And that day I'm like, I want to do this the rest of my life. I found my medium. Fuck stand up. Good. No, man, I'm actually was just waiting for you to finish that thought. But that's so you you realize the light goes on. You realize you're Mr. David Cooper realizes cooper realizes okay i want to be on the radio now you're coming to radio at a point where there's you know where i'm going to this like it's

one thing to be like okay we just lost dr johnny fever okay yeah uh like again i'm a little older than you i was a big wkrp like i would i would tell you now that wkrp is the reason i went into radio except i never went into radio, so that would be complete bullshit. I never had a minute where I got paid to be on radio. I would have gone into radio thanks to WKRP in Cincinnati if I had even

20% of the Tom Rivers pipes or something. You know what I mean? If I felt my voice was any good, I probably would have wanted to go to radio. That was back when there were overnight shifts. I probably would have wanted to go to radio but that was back when like there were overnight shifts I know we're gonna get to your overnight shift but there were overnight shifts in like all markets and there was all markets had

their own programming like I just got a email today from Mocha from Roz and Mocha and it's a lovely audio thing for episode 1000 and I'm thinking when he was like this guy used to be like a Toronto radio guy I think they have like Roz and Mocha on like across the country in like 100 markets. And we're going to get into that because you're across the country in different like

iHeartMedia markets and stuff. But here you are deciding you want a career in radio when like all the money's gone, all the opportunities have dissipated. Like it's tough letting, right? I told my mother I my mother i told my mother i'm changing careers because i hate money and there's some truth to that um right right so yeah i mean so that happens and like i mean i had i had always like loved live radio i listened to stern in the car when i was a kid and my dad would always shut it off when it got to in the gutter

and that made me want to listen more you know and that i never thought i could do it like i just i like i lacked the imagination i guess but you did it like what so so like like i guess what puts you on the i heart radio which is like the fancy schmancy handle for bell media i guess but what puts you on their radar like what makes them realize there's a david cooper yeah i can just i can rush through the story now. So I do the show at Burning Man. It's okay. It's a nightmare, but they take pity on me and I keep on showing up and volunteering at the station. Eventually a few years pass. I start my own podcast, which I do. I mean, it's still technically around, but I stopped once I started working with Jim last year. I did 200 episodes. I always was used to joke on the podcast,

it's not a podcast, it's a radio show, because we'd stream it on a couple unknown online stations with a listenership of like- What's the name of this podcast? It's called This Is Going Well, I Think, with David Cooper. Okay. And is that sort of like your sizzle reel?

Like, you know, you're cutting your teeth? So I'm like just, I'm as an amateur, as a hobbyist, I'm trying to do two to four hours of radio self-producing a week you know I'm doing what you're doing except you have listeners you know um I I um and these are where some of the running gags that I that I have today like I always address I always address our listenership of one you know like things like this these are all things that are it's kind of like a it's like i had a i had someone on who was a little higher profile in california not here and he was like kind of talking down to me on the show he's like this is your open mic for when you eventually

like become bigger and i felt really offended by it but it was true but when okay so you cut your teeth podcasting but of course as you know from this rambling story, one of the joys of podcasting, in my humble opinion, is that we don't have formation. Like we don't have it where after 22 minutes, we got to do a commercial break and then there's a back sell. Like I can, you can do this in half an hour or I can do this in, you know, 90 minutes. Like I'm pretty flex and we're going to go with the flow

and see how this goes and all that. Like how do you transition from like a free flowing medium like podcasting to a very unforgiving, strict format like terrestrial radio? You know, it's a great question, but I started raging when you said that I was rambling and I did not listen to any of that question, Mike, at all. And I'm quite upset with you. No, I it's the call And I'm quite upset with you. No, I, it's the callers. It's the live aspect. It's the unforgiving nature of it that I was craving. And I couldn't get podcasting. It's what I wanted. Do you know what I'm saying? Like this, this kind of like, it's a bunch of friends talking. I don't know who any of these characters are. A name

comes up, who the hell, unless you're, it's like incomprehensible, some podcasts, because it's like, it's so insidery right i i didn't want that and i tried so desperately not to have that and it was like a kind of an uphill battle because i'm kind of pretending at this point pretending that i'm on a radio show and i'm not so what happens first uh the mighty 1010 or uh wmfu do i have my right call well it's funny they They're WMFU. That's one of their call signs in East Orange.

They have two licenses. One's WFMU. One's WMFU. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You know, so I fast forward a few years. I'm getting to be a decent hobbyist. You know, decent amateur. And I'm staff at this Burning Man

event. So I've got four or five shows a year. They're, they're letting me go. They're paying for me to go and my girlfriend to go. And, you know, we're like, we have a credential. Like it's, it's, it's still stupid, but this is big for me at the time. And, um, I do a bit one year. It's kind of funny. I'm like, I'm going to call my 70 year old Jewish mother. This might've been 2018, 17, 19, who knows time.

I call my 70 year old Jewish mother and I, I'm like, well, first of all, I'm plotting to do this the whole show. And what I'm plotting to do is call her and tell her that when I was about 10, 11, 12,

bad with time, Mike, um, I masturbating in the bed next to her and my grandmother's a little condo in Miami. Wow. Okay. Wow. I'm like, I gotta call my mom and my grandmother's a little condo in Miami. Wow. Okay. Wow.

I'm like, I got to call my mom and do that live. You with me? I'm with you, man. Uh, are you? Yeah.

Well, I'm just thinking that's young, but yeah, I'm with you. If you're, I would have been watching the scramble channel all day. Seven, eight,

nine. Wow. Okay. I'm with you, buddy. So I was watching the scramble channel all day and my grandmother was in like her little second bedroom because there's only one queen bed and i'm sharing with my mom and i i do i do well she's sleeping i'm a 10 and i do i do that and i decide i'm going to call her

on live radio and tell her that and my girlfriend's on the studio she's on a mic and she's trying to talk me out of it so you got these two narratives right she's doing that right and then i'm i'm like doing it. And so I do it. And my mom, she's very funny. She handled it well. If I had said that to her at dinner, she'd smack me over the head. But if I do it on radio, it's like kind of like Tom Green and his parents, I guess.

I'm going to, the story's almost over. No, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. And then this guy comes to the station who was going to do a show with someone else. He's just like a volunteer. And he's like, hey, I'm in radio. And I'm starting to get the idea I want to quit my job and do this like professionally. Right. This guy comes up to me. He's like, I'm in radio.

That was amazing. I'm a fan. I'm like, oh, shut up. If you like me, you have bad taste. And he's like, my name's George. Like, it's nice to meet you. And I'm like, I know who you are. I'm Canadian. And it's nice to meet you and i'm like i know you are i'm canadian uh and it's uh george strombolov wow not just canada's canada's boyfriend right there i

suppose uh and we and that's it and i we become friends and he's like sort of like a mentor i guess he's like never answers my texts but when i do get him when i do i get end up hanging out with him he's very well this is all sense. Like it's all crystallizing now. I feel like all the pieces are fitting together because of course, Strombo, also an FOTM like yourself,

Strombo is BFFs with Jim Richards. Yeah. So of course, when there is an opportunity, obviously when there's some opportunity on this show, Graham,

we'll talk about names and stuff in a minute, but George is telling his buddy, like, I know this guy from Burning Man. I don't know that that's how it happened because the person who introduced me to Jim is the former program director at 1010. So Strombo...

Is that a Mike Ben Dixon? Sounds right, yeah. You're allowed to say his name. Like, he existed. He's not there anymore. Did he? Yeah. I mean, yeah.

I just forget. I'm bad with names, bad with dates. I've told you this already. I always find it interesting. We can't say the name Mike Ben Dixon. Who said we can't say the name Mike Ben Dixon? I just forgot his name. It sounded like you were trying to be discreet or something.

I'm not being discreet. I'm the least discreet person who's ever going to do this. No, I'm kidding. I'm episode 1,000. This is very exciting. This is your 1,000th episode. anyone can be episode a thousand uh even george strombollopolis okay so i'm gonna pause for a minute to read your bio this is your like i heart media bio you ready my friend who writes like as a not he's not like a staff writer for the new

york times he just like gets a few articles in there he wrote that for me well let's hear it it's pretty good stuff. David Cooper is a human train wreck and Canadian living in New York City. His extensive broadcasting credentials include briefly saying hello to Malcolm Gladwell and having a 30-minute phone call with

Canadian radio personality Rick Moranis. Okay, pause. That my mother arranged. That's in the new bio. Okay, so he was Rick Allen on Chem FM. Yeah, of course you know all this stuff. See, I wanted it to make me sound pathetic but it was too vague. I hate that

part of the bio because it's like he just talked to me for 30 minutes on the phone like I'm nothing. You know, the idea is all Malcolm Gladwell did was say hello to me, which is what happened, and all Rick Moranis did was talk to me for 30 minutes. It's not like I interviewed him or anything. You know, I like Malcolm Gladwell as much as anybody, and I

enjoy his revisionist history podcast, but it really lost its way. Like, to me, it started out as this thing where it's like, okay, this is this thing that happened, and, you know, the common thought and the shared thought and the zeitgeist is that it was this way. But in fact, it was that way.

And let's explain why like this was kind of the idea at least the premise at the beginning and there were some tremendous episodes i'm thinking of like the brian the american brian williams not our canadian brian williams but that episode you know what do you know about brian williams well what if i told you this and how reliable is a memory and where were you in 9-11 what if i told you that you were actually whatever like it was really smart really interesting and then as it went on, it became more about, I found it was more like, oh, this Cascade soap is

really good at cleaning your dishes. My mind is blowing at how fucking good this is. Anyway, I just, so Malcolm, if you're listening, try to go back to where you started because I thought it was a very strong premise and then you lost your way. Okay. And Rick Moranis. Yeah, Malcolm. Yeah, Malcolm. He's a Toronto guy.

So he's an also, you and I and him are all three U of T people. Ah, there you go. My Alma mater. Is that right? Did I get that right? Yeah, it's an obscure little university here in Toronto, and we're three people that went there. We went to a tiny school in Cambridge.

Maybe you've heard of it. It's the Cambridge Clown College where I received my PhD. Like Homer Simpson. Like Homer Simpson. And Rick Moranis, this really happened. You had a 30 minute call with him. That's amazing. My dad's... He's a pretty private guy

but basically my parents went to high school with him. And so my mom, when I moved to New York, she's like, my mom thinks she knows people. And she's like, I'm going to introduce you to people in New York and show business. I'm like, okay, mom, she had no one. And I kept pestering her. And then finally the only name she could think of was Rick Moranis. And I thought this was so funny. And I started talking about it on the show for months and I'm like, it's never going to happen. But then one day my mom lined

it up. I mean, I think it's amazing. One thing I'll just go off on is, I don't know if you're in New York City, you ever bump into a Marty Scorsese? No, but I do live where he grew up. Well, if you see him, just kick him in the shins and tell him Toronto Mike wants to know where the fuck is the SCTV documentary? Because he's got this thing.

It was filmed years ago, pre-pandemic. So Rick Moranis is involved, which was a big deal because he had kind of been absent for a long time. uh we've got everybody there in winter garden elgin theater whatever the fuck that's called and they film this thing and it's sort of like with marty until he gets like inspired to finish it i guess like he keeps doing other things because he's barnon scorsese yeah let's get that thing out there did you see pretensesend? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure I did. Sure I did.

Yeah. He keeps getting distracted by things like that. His sequel might be you, actually. Okay, so. She's a goddamn national treasure, Fran.

Have you bumped into Fran? No, I bumped into nobody. You stop asking me if I know people. All right, let me finish your bio. Let me finish your bio. Fine. After growing up in Toronto,

woo, that's how you got on Toronto Mike. Okay. David fled to San Francisco where he was introduced to radio almost by accident. While dabbling in stand-up comedy, David wandered into a radio station

to promote one of his shows. Something terrible clicked that day and there was no turning back. Okay, so far, this is really nicely aligning with the story you told me, but here we go. I'm full of shit, but my lies are consistent.

You just, yeah, you read the playbook before you came on. Since 2016, David has hosted various radio shows on independent stations around San Francisco, including a wacky call-in program called This Is Going Well, I think, visible from a coffee shop window. His experiment with a phone booth in the desert was showcased in an npr episode long story okay tell me that story right now before i continue reading your bio so i set up i put out a thing online where it said obviously

burning man i'm making it seem like it's not because it's like it's you don't want to roll the eyes in the back of the head but that's what when we say desert that's what i mean um basically i is very few touch points with the outside world like i was saying at this art festival or whatever you want to fucking call it romp drugged out hippies whatever you want to call it um so i i are at the station has access to the internet because we have a live stream so i built a little voip keep in mind i'm a former computer programmer i'm then a computer program i build a voip line that like connects a random phone in the desert to strangers and i take all the calls and i got consent

like implicitly by just saying your call may be monitored of all these calls i'd like 20 30 hours of calls of just some hippie picking up a random phone that said information, that's it, and then being connected with a stranger in the real world. I like this premise. And, like, there's one girl who, like, was on acid for the first time, and she was really scared, and she connected with some guy in Oakland who was, like, going to a sex party, like an orgy. And he's talking her through her first acid experience, and she's being really curious about the orgy like these are the calls

that happen very cool uh go on sorry oh i just have no skill i have no editing skills and so i they just sat there and then my friend who uh works at npr at the san francisco affiliate k-a-l-w he's like i want to turn this into a story so So I sent him the archive and we, you know, we had all the phone numbers of the people that were connected. So for some of them, we like made sure really that we had consent because the calls were pretty intimate. Even though we got consent, I didn't feel good about airing certain, like that call I just described to you, I wouldn't have felt good about airing. Well, and NPR has probably got a whole different standard, I would think. Yeah. Like different than my standard. Keep in mind, it's the Bay Area affiliate.

I'm talking myself up for a buy. I mean, it was on NPR. Right, okay. It was kind of really cool to hear my voice come out of my car stereo back when I had at least a car. But so yeah, that's the story. Okay.

That's the piece. I enjoy that story. And that's a cool idea too. Okay, the rest of the bio goes, and at the end of 2020, David quit his lucrative career as a software engineer to pursue radio opportunities full-time quote-unquote like an idiot and that's a direct quote from your overbearing jewish mother yeah okay so that's all end of 2020 like we're

talking here early 2022 so this is all relatively new and already you're on the toronto mic radar so this is i hope you're uh this is something has gone wrong with you i i mean the show must be it was great i people love it i i looked you up i listened to a few you're fantastic but this is the beginning of the end having me here mike this is evidence that i because sometimes people are like oh you need a big name to get the clicks. And I'm like, no, fuck that.

Like, that's not what this is about. I'll have a David Cooper on. Okay. I want to see how low I can go and keep my audience. That's what you're doing. Will your overbearing, again,

your words, will your overbearing Jewish mother listen to this episode of Toronto Mike? She is aloof. She does not understand technology. I'm not even convinced she's ever heard me on the radio she's been on the show more than she's heard that's funny uh that's like when letterman would have his mom on the program remember uh she'd be like covering the uh the olympics or whatever and lillihammer or something like that um great so our i've worked with a bunch of

different producers but we have one producer lydia and she wanted to get um so porn hub last year released a 2021 infographic like all the tech companies what are the top keywords what are this what are that and so we're thinking late night show porn hubs in montreal it's got the canadian angle we want someone from porn hub to go over their infographic and porn hub said yes and then when lydia was like okay we're going on christmas break soon where's the person porn hubs like wait a And then when Lydia was like, okay, we're going on Christmas break soon. Where's the person? Pornhub's like, wait a few weeks. And we're like, fuck that. No, we wanted the, you said you were going to give us someone this week. So we were going to scrap the bit. And I said, wait, I'll have my mom go over this infographic with me. And it was just such a funny piece because she doesn't understand what's happening. Like I briefed her. I said,

we're going to go through these terms. And if you don't know what they are, I'll tell you. And you're going to comment on them as if you work at a porn website. And my mom, when I said Pornhub, she said, I don't listen to that station, honey. She didn't understand what was happening. She didn't know what a MILF was. So yeah, that's the kind of stuff my mom has done on the show. That's comedy gold when the subject's not self-aware. Once your mom becomes self-aware, it's all ruined, right?

It's never going to happen, Mike. All right, last paragraph of this bio. David's on-air style oscillates between frenzied comedy and confession booth sincerity, blurring the lines between his personal relationships and on-air ones in a way both intimate and arguably intrusive. He can be heard nightly as contributor on the nationally syndicated Late Showgram with Jim Richards on iHeartRadio, Canada's talk network, doing the occasional guest spot on WFMU in New York, New Jersey,

and every year in the Nevada desert on Burning Man Information Radio, every year in the Nevada desert on Burning Man Information Radio, BMIR 94.5 FM, where he has interviewed everyone from stripper clowns from stripper clowns to George Straubelopoulos. Wow. Hashtag name drop, yeah. That's the bio. Good for you.

You got the big names there. Malcolm Gladwell, George Straubelopoulos. The first paragraphs I wish I could execute better the idea is to make me seem pathetic like I know no one and here's two celebrities who wouldn't give me the time of day no I get it it's good yeah so okay so now that so I guess now is the time of the uh in the episode where you tell us um specifically like who reached out to you from bell media and what did they offer you and do they pay you they do pay me uh it's millions mike it's it's uh it's it's billions um i'm just my my it's like my third private jet is not yeah they pay me they pay me but

i'm lucky that i worked in tech for 10 years i'll say that well then of course i'm naturally curious and if i'm being nosy that's fine you can tell me but uh you're in new york city and you're i mean i i kind of have an idea what overnights would pay on uh you know canadian radio i haven't i think they pay i not enough to live in new york city like no do you maybe like under a bridge or something but uh so did you just, you saved well from this lucrative, I saw the word lucrative in your bio. You saved well and now you're living off savings while you pursue your dream. Yeah, you know, I heard Mark Weisblatt say something about me on the show. Yeah, he's called you, I don't know if he called you a trust fund kid or something like that. I can't remember. And I was upset when I heard it. And I'm like,

you know what, if this is triggering me, like, I got to look inward. Why am I so if it's not true, why is it triggering me? If it is true, is it? And the fact is, I did grow up comfortably. But I left Canada when I was 26. And I like worked really hard in that career, like kind of just away from this comfortable upbringing. Now I could say like, I'm very independent from my background, but at the same time, like everything that I, when you show up to that first job interview, even if your daddy doesn't get you the job or pays your rent, like you, you have these cues of growing up with privilege right like i wasn't when i when i interviewed at eventbrite for example um they didn't you know they're not

they don't know anyone in toronto and um and it's not your fault i'll just say it's not your fault that you had a comfortable upbringing like it was not even it's it's unfair to hold it against you that you're do my parents pay my rent uh no. My girlfriend has a great tech job, so she helps. And yes, I saved for 10 years. I was part of two exits. So I worked on the Eventbrite IPO, which is tanked, but that's another discussion. And then my second big job there that I had for a few years was a company that got acquired by a company called Autodesk, which their flagship offering is AutoCAD. And so I did well, I got lucky. I was in the right place at the

right time, but I got to that place because like, you know, I was able to go to school and not have to work a job, you know, like all these things that growing up comfortable give you, I brought with me to when I became independent independent and i became independent around 25 26 and i have i have nothing to i have no way to answer that other than like yeah i'm glad that you clarified everything here because i did sense from uh wise mark wise blot that he was sort of resenting the fact that you i don't know he's he thought maybe your mom and dad were financing. You were a rich kid, basically. No, I mean, the narrative's true. I got lucky in tech.

And I got lucky in tech because when I arrived at Silicon Valley, I flunked out of Dow Housing my first year. And I didn't, you know, a kid that didn't grow up in a comfortable background, that's it. But I got into University of Toronto on probation and my parents helped me. There's no consequences for that and so like shit like that throughout my life is what enabled me to do well in silicon valley and i have no defense for it and that's why i was so triggered by mark's comment but at the end of the day it's like i can't help it but i got to acknowledge it and that's that's that's if you want to know the answer and you're being nosy

that's the best answer i can give you well Well, is there anything else you heard on Toronto Mic'd that you want to rebut here? Like this is your opportunity to set your record straight. No, I love that Mark kind of like, because usually people, they discover me and they can't fucking stand me. Most people who, there are literally people who text in nice stuff to the show.

And when I open up the thread of their texts over the last month, they're like, get David the fuck off the air. Where'sim to like david that was great and it's always i grow on people like a goddamn cancer or fungus you have a good rap on you like even in this hour we've been chatting uh i would say you've got a good rap on you that would be the term i would use but i hear so one of our listeners like check out toronto mike this guy from 1236 is talking about you and this guy from 1236 is talking about you and this guy's saying these nice things and I'm like this is very strange um and then I tune

in a few weeks later and he's like oh I misjudged him he's some spoiler he changed his mind but I'm sure because he's here on Thursday so actually this week he's here because it's Monday and he'll be here Thursday for his January recap and he will have listened to this episode and he'll give a so tune in to the return of wise blood on every month he comes over and he will have listened to this episode. And he'll give a, so tune in to the Return of Wise Blood. Every month he comes over and he'll have a thorough review of your appearance here today. And I'm curious if you want him back.

I'm so flattered he liked me in the first place. And if he wants to change his story and judge me that way, honestly, I don't think I have a defense to it. I mean, in many ways, he's right. It's not like I'm living in my parents' condo in New York. You know, I have a bunch of savings that I'm blowing through. And my girlfriend has a very good job.

And it's all kind of budgeted out in my mind. I can pursue radio for X amount of years until I have to go back to tech. How many years is that? That I won't answer. Okay, let me actually read some comments that came in from listeners of your program who also follow me on Twitter. Like, I want to shout out Lawrence Miller. Lawrence Miller says, I've always wondered how he ended up on Jim's show to begin with. I wonder if it stays named Showgram, which is a Jim Richards exclusive.

It is his brand. It is. What I do know is during the holidays holidays the rumor mill stated the show would be canceled and at the last minute they got called back can you address this rumor mill that lawrence miller is tapped into yeah i um i don't know where that came from uh i i i i've been asked to guest host it kind of like for i guess four months now because i believe it's through february um i i don't know where that came from uh so i can't address it if there's more information about where it came from then maybe i could address it but well you're gonna like this one this is the cleaning guy

the cleaning guy writes in looking forward to hearing david cooper on your podcast mike he has made the showgram his own. Time to drop the guest host moniker. I've been starting to call myself permanent temporary guest host. So on that note, though, so they bring you on. It sounds like they bring you on to fill in for Jim on the show gram. Go ahead. I mean, I was talking to management Ben Dixon about possibly having a show. I sent him a demo reel and he's like, we'll give you a night. You can try it out. And, but then I sent him a demo and he went dark and I'm like, okay, fuck.

He heard my clips and he never wants to speak to me again. But then he came back to me around January saying, maybe you could have your own overnight show. And we were just talking, he brought in their syndication arm. You know, I don't want to get too dropping like names and specifics, but I was like, holy shit, I just quit my job. job and like i might have a show and then something happened in february i forget what and then jim's on overnights um and then ben dixon's like you gotta wait i i we can't we just wait and then about a month later he's like how'd you like

to come on just do an hour spot every night i, yeah, it's certainly less than your own show. But, you know, it's all I could have hoped for having just quit my job with nothing. Like nothing. And it's all very relatively quick. This is happening. I know. I still can't believe it. I'm like, sometimes I look in the mirror.

I'm like, what the fuck is happening? How do I have a job in radio with no experience other than just like banging my head against the wall as a hobbyist for five years? I mean, you might have the only overnight live show I can think of in this country. I don't know. Like there's not a lot in New York, but, um, okay. So just to remind people, you can be heard throughout this month of February, even though technically we're talking in January because it's the 31st, but you can be heard throughout. At least they committed that throughout February. I think.

I mean, I'm on the schedule. They could change it. I don't know. I mean, they can do whatever they want. That's one thing. You know, you're beholden to the man, as they say. But your overnights on 1010 and other iHeartMedia. So this program, the showgram that you are now hosting, because Jim Richards is doing afternoons on 1010 and other iHeartMedia. So this program, the showgram that you are now hosting

because Jim Richards is doing afternoons on 1010, this is a national show? This is throughout the country? Yeah, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Windsor, Hamilton, Kelowna, Victoria, London, St. Catharines. Oh, look at you. Wow, okay. I see you say that, but I'm like,

someone's going to find out. Like there's some mistake and tomorrow it'll be done well i mean you must know that every boss you have in the bell media chain is going to listen to this episode right like that you must know that that would explain the um the diarrhea you uh referenced off the top no i i didn't know that but now i do i wonder if this will get me fired if You know, I doubt that. I mean, maybe, who knows? You've interviewed many people from Bell Media before,

so I figured. Oh, yeah, I know. I've had, in fact, I've had both. Let me see. I've never had, you know, Jim Richards, one day Jim Richards said I could call him on the air, so me and my buddy Elvis were kind of doing an episode, and we phoned Jim Richards. This is around the time that John Tory was stepping down from the radio to run for mayor,

which, spoiler alert, he actually ends up winning that election. So I remember. And he's still there today. I made an official request through the mayoral website. I made an official request for the mayor, john tory to recognize the 1000th episode of toronto mike i've never heard back but i filled in all the forums and everything just for shits and giggles to see what would happen so this is the thousandth episode mike so i mean he's not this is 991 okay so here i'm back now so jim richards of course was long time after he's been

there forever at 10 10 he's beloved by the listeners of 10 10 but there was you're right you you alluded to it but there was this big like cost-cutting thing in bell media land that hit 10 10 and like news people were let go a lot of changes i think barb julio was let go uh ted wallachian's over i mean weekend show was canceled and uh jim richards was removed from the daytime lineup and then there was some speculation like is jim still with the company is he not and then we learned jim was going to take this overnight role on the showground which was going to be overnight on the on the network but now let's fast forward a little bit uh to a few months ago four months ago whatever something happens with the rush the rush is the afternoon drive show on 1010.

This is where I was going. Jay Michaels and Ryan Doyle have been over here and they've sat in the basement to tell me all about the Rush. As far as I know, the Rush was very popular with the subset of people that would be listening to AM talk radio in the city and they loved the Rush. But something happened with Ryan Doyle because suddenly he was not on the show and then they stopped mentioning his name and then they took his name off the show. That's always a bad sign, okay? So Jim Richards, I guess,

slid in the chair next to Jay Michaels and that gave an opportunity to you. I suppose if that's what you think happened. Do I have this correct? correct i mean this is not even anything scandalous this is just fact i'm just some kid who's doing overnights i have there's a lot of opacity yes jim has been doing the daytime show you can hear it from two to six which would mean he's not doing overnight right which would mean i had been filling in for him when he was ready for this my friend are you sitting down are you ready for this go ahead j michaels who used to be known as mad dog and is a good fotm he's been over here

at least three times yeah he's been on your show he's been on my show that's a fact i've seen the photos now j michael episodes go ahead j michaels this is a mind blow for you j michaels has announced publicly so this is not some off the record text he sent me this is a public declaration from j michaels he's leaving the mighty 1010 i heard that on friday it was a lovely episode a lot of goodbyes it was it was nice but uh me hearing that episode of him leaving is probably as much information as you have and it's all i have so whatever the question is go ahead but it can't hurt no none of this can hurt you because the way i if you follow these dots it's really starting to

sound like jim richards is going to get the afternoon drive spot on 10 10 like it really does look like he's going to leave overnights so if if jim richards permanently leaves overnights for the afternoon drive which is now vacated like Like, I mean, if Jay Michaels is gone and Ryan Doyle, as we mentioned, mysteriously already disappeared, then that is an opportunity for David Cooper. I suppose.

And to be clear, with the narrative you just get, I can't confirm any of it because I don't know. But none of that is anything that's not like public information. Well, yeah yeah but like basic like argumentative style it's like you tell you tell something with a premise and then you ask

an unrelated question if i if i answer the unrelated question i'm implicitly accepting the premise and i'm just telling you i can neither accept nor uh deny your premise because i rewind the tape though uh ryan doyle is no longer with the show yeah but i'm just go go ahead um do you know why do you know why ryan doyle's gone from 10 10 no that's your safest answer because your bosses are listening what i know mike and like i don't know who you think i am that i can answer these questions or is it just you can't get anyone who can't answer your disadvantages you know no i know you don't have the answers here. The disadvantage to you, I suppose, is that you're in New York City,

so you connect remotely to a show. But back in the normal radio days, like when I'm watching the great Dr. Johnny Fever, he'd put his feet up in the, there's a room there, he'd put his feet up with a coffee, and Venus Flytrap might kind of stroll in, and they might be like, yo, you heard what happened to Les Nesman,

Les the other day. And they'd have a little like chatter because they're physically in the same space at the same time. That's gone for you. So the pandemic, I think, really expanded the imagination of all stations across like this country and the Canada

that people could be remote. It's not that they didn't have the technology up until 2020. It's they just, I think a lot of stations failed with the imagination there and uh so i think that i don't think without without the pandemic i could do this no idea yeah you're right i think the pen even on toronto mic like the fact that we're doing this okay if we go back three years let's say we go back to january

2019 i would probably not be doing this with you because I had this ridiculous rule that if you wanted to come on Toronto Mic, you physically had to get here. I just heard from James Duthie the other day and he's like, Mike, he goes, I do lots of podcasts. He goes, yours is the only podcast

where I had to, you know, where I chose to drive from, he's in Aurora and I'm in Southern Etobicoke, okay? And he said he did the drive because there was no remote option for Toronto Mic'd and he wanted to do Toronto Mic'd. But you, my friend can sit in your comfy home studio there in New York city and you

can come on in because the pandemic has, it didn't force me. Yeah, I guess he forced me in a way. It has allowed me to open it up to people who geographically could not be here. And I think this is happening worldwide. I mean, I was in an industry prior that was already doing this.

You know, I managed a team at Autodesk. Four people were in the office with me. One was in Salt Lake City. One was in Portland. And where was my, oh, good. I think, Jesus, I have a bad memory. I think five of them were in the office with me. Right.

No, my last full-time job, like my last corporate job was with, I reported into Frankfurt, Germany. And I always said that, that job sort of ran on Skype. It was.

Yeah. I mean, we were Zoom, but same difference. Right. Right. But here we are doing this and you're able to, to dial in from your New York City

and be on the iHeartMedia network. But if the question is, like, is there an opportunity? I don't know. But wouldn't you like to know, considering, I mean, Jay's done. Like, Jay Michaels announced that was his last show. That was Friday. And I understand he's off to Montrealreal to do like a a dream fm morning show gig maybe it's chome i don't know but that's pretty awesome and i think he's a great

guy so i just want to say congrats yeah to mad dog but i'm excited to hear what's next just oh he's a sweetheart he's a good good guy yeah so jay's moving on i don't again we uh i can ask this of everybody but nobody's saying anything but r Doyle, when he's ready to talk, he knows he can come on Toronto Mike for his exit interview and haven't met him. Don't know him. I mean, you know, we don't know what's going on there. So you're off the hook there. So, so Ryan Doyle aside, something happened. He's not there. Okay. One day he'll tell his story. Mad Dog chose to leave. That's fine. But, uh, I understand Jim Richards would prefer an afternoon drive slot to an overnight like i believe he's been very public about this so if uh all the uh if they

they if all these pieces fall into place jim is your afternoon drive there's now a vacant spot on what is called the showgram i'm sure they rebrand that because that is a gym thing showgram and you know but if you have an overnight show uh you my friend are in the right spot at the right time yeah i mean i don't know what they'll do and i it's not just in the you know there's it's a syndicated show i don't have any window into how this decision is made um the fact of the matter is i'm happy to be guest hosting it it's a great joy um i'm like both humbled that they would consider me at all for one show ever. It's a lot of fun. I'm happy to do it on a temporary basis and like,

we'll see, we'll see what, see what happens. Everyone's like, aren't you freaked out about what the future holds? I'm like, no, happy to be doing what I'm doing.

And, and honestly, I'm happy to be doing the work, you know, a show that's five hours a night, five days a week is a lot of effort to execute. And when I think of like doing a podcast for two hours a week and having a day job and having no listeners, when we switch into like what I'm doing now, having the one listener out there.

When do you sleep, buddy? When do you sleep? That's a great question. Never. You know know i'm surprised we're doing this so early in the morning right now uh what is it 4 p.m right yeah i i i don't know i i go to bed late and i wake up late and my girlfriend runs and does a nine to five she hates it and it's tough it's not easy and i mean i know we're only recent. We only recently came to this epiphany of yours that you want to be in radio. And in my opinion, you're overachieving in that short period of time.

Like there's lots of people who go to like Humber College for radio and have been trying for years to get what you've got right now. They deserve it. Everyone. Honestly, someone on the street who just the newscaster with the microphones like, hey, what do you think of this car crash car crash and they can barely talk into the mic that person would do a better job than me but uh and you don't have a lot of answers to these basic things like it's like i'm on the calendar this week that's like mcdonald's right when you work at mcdonald's you go on the schedule don't don't i'm not like if you want what do you what do you expect me to say when you start a question like that i'm curious uh what the long-term goal here is.

Like, is a long-term goal- For me? Yeah, for you, of course, for you. Like, is it to have a job in radio or is it to be like, okay, one day I want to have like an afternoon drive or a morning show shift? Because, you know, the morning shows where all the money is, but it sounds like money is not your primary motivator here.

So that might not matter. Eventually it will be. Eventually I will run out of cash. I'll have to move to Brooklyn or something. I mean, I got the green card. So it's tough. I don't have citizenship yet. So it's tough to like move back to Canada

because you don't have the right to leave when you have a green card. Oh, so there's a danger though. You could come home and then it's possible some border guard could be a dick and disallow you entry back in the country? Into the U.S.? Into the U.S., yeah. Only if I take residency elsewhere. Okay.

They can't deny me entry because they don't like me, but if I've been living in Canada, working in Canada, unless I apply for what's called a re-entry permit, yeah, after six months to a year, they can take away your green card. Lots of factors at play, which begs the question now, and you mentioned your girlfriend who's got a good tech job and everything so would you would you consider uh coming home i'd certainly consider it i i want to work in this industry um i love the job um i can't tell you what the plans are for the slot because i don't know but i can tell you what my plans are i want to be on the air i know that media is changing maybe what i do is a little

more like new media kind of thing i don't know i don't know what it looks like in 10 years mike no but you're uh again you're coming from new media and i think uh the future of radio is new media like i believe it's the future is yeah podcasting yeah i think podcasts i but there's something lost when it's not live, right? I mean, like to just, there's something so special about that live experience and maybe new media recreates it. You know, live podcasts or something like this.

Okay, I agree with you. Live is good, but like, so you're doing it overnight and you have callers, right? Like, so is there a- We have one or two. I was going to ask you. Sometimes the struggle- What kind of activity are we talking about?

I mean, live is really important when things are happening. Like, I don't know, breaking news. I suppose. But for me, live's important because I like interacting with people. True. That's true. That's true. So I would love to run a highly interactive, weird show.

Dude, I got to say, I had no idea what to expect when uh i had that moment where weisblot was going again he turned his basically this is all his fault because and i'm glad but he's like i love this guy and then he's like what the fuck was he thinking he loved me well he came to his senses and he's like i don't love this guy anymore and it's like it's funny because when he said he loved you that did not spark this moment where i'm like i want to put him on the show but the minute he said he stopped liking you i'm like that's why i had to stop and say okay well at least he's talking about me like i can't believe this guy's talking about me what the fuck i need this guy on the show and i have no idea what to expect except uh i can see why you have uh an overnight spot on the i heart mediaMedia network because yeah, you're good at this.

I suppose. I've got way too much practice. Believe me, it took me a lot. I don't think I'm good at it. I think I'm like just starting to get a voice and just starting to have the beginnings of being like maybe okay at it. But I have peers like who did stand up with me

in Sanisco who like after a year they moved to la they have the special the book deal and like i just i try not to compare myself to my peers but i'm just like i it's just take it it's just like it's just so difficult and i put so much time i give myself to this and i yeah it's a tough shift though man like you know you're talking about when do you sleep and your girlfriend's nine to five, but that can get to you after. Especially because you've disclosed to us very courageously that you have some anxiety issues, et cetera.

All of them. You've got to be careful. I mean, I have five milligrams of propranolol before coming on your show. I was nervous. And was it worth it? Because I've been told I'm like quite the intimidating presence of course i could handle bullies i grew up in a pretty my brothers were sociopaths

not that you're a bully i'm just not i'm not scared i knew you were gonna ask me questions that were like well what what did i not ask you that you were worried about because i mean i didn't i don't know what you could be worried about of course i'm gonna ask you if you know anything about ryan doyle and of course i'm gonna ask you about like do you know exactly where jay michaels it's like a lose-lose for me to be asked those questions but if you don't know you don't know what you could be worried about. Of course, I'm going to ask you if you know anything about Ryan Doyle. And of course, I'm going to ask you about, like, do you know exactly where Jay Michaels is going? It's like a lose-lose for me to be asked those questions. But if you don't know, you don't know. I don't know the answer. So that's what you say.

You know, it's like, what do you want me to say? I do shows for this company and they're good to me. And like, that's all I can say. Well, this company should wisen up and lose the temporary host moniker like that uh like that i'm just happy to be doing this show well i hope i hope they make it permanent and uh you get you get to keep living the dream you know and then one day down the line when john moore retires or he gets uh seduced to uh metro morning on cbc radio one then we slide in david cooper and

that's your uh fulfillment of your problem is there's a problem there and it's like i am neither good nor terribly interested in news in news i'm trying and my producer ben is pushing me in that direction and i'm glad i'm trying it because it's one thing to say that's not me i don't want to do it right you're coming from a place of like because i don't know how i'm scared i know i think i'm bad at it so i'm trying it i do a little bit of it every show i'm getting better at it well let me tell you this quick quick toronto story so uh radio story is i used to have a commute this is way before i worked for the frankfurt company i would drive to like a regular person i'd drive to work in the morning and drive back so on the drive home I might listen to like a primetime sports

with Bob McCowan on 590, or I found on 640 this guy named Mike Stafford. And Mike Stafford would do like pop culture stuff, okay? And one of the things he would do was Simpsons trivia. And I'm telling you, I fucking loved it. I love Simpsons trivia. I love the pop culture stuff. A lot of that leaks its way into the trono mic repertoire here but then i guess fast forward at

some point he gets the morning show and i'm tuning in one day or whatever just to check out like how does stafford sound now that he's a morning man here and he's talking about like city council and and i'm telling you like i'm tapping out i like, where the fuck is my Simpsons trivia? Like, what is this? I don't need the inanities of like City Hall. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I'm just not sure that's my voice.

So it's like, first of all, I can't imagine a world where they give me any opportunity, any station, anywhere, in any country, any city. But if they did, it's like, I don't know that I would want to do it. And so it's like, yeah, sure. I could have a daytime slot, but whoever's giving me that slot many years down the line, if everything lines up and I can't imagine it would like, I assume tomorrow I'll be fired. Um, but, uh, but like, I just, I would, it would want to be like a, like, I guess Howard Stern comes to mind, like that's a morning slot, but it's, they're not really, I guess Robin does the news, but it's not really you're right that not until robin's news but it's you're right there's a lot of chatter about current events but you're right

that's kind of all over the place uh but now interviews and the interactiveness okay what about this man before we say goodbye here what about the fact that there's this established afternoon drive brand on on 1010 called the rush but the two rush guys are gone okay but jim richards is there and ready to assume duties because i think it's going to be better for his mental health and people i think he belongs there but he just two seats on the rush like what about the rush you know where i'm going here. What about the rush with Jim Richards and David Cooper? I love Jim. He,

uh, I would go to bat for him in any way I could possibly can. Um, he was asked to work with a kid with no experience last year and he did, had a great attitude and it took me months to figure out what was going on. And he held my hand and he had no business doing that. And he really taught me a lot really quickly. And we're really good friends,

but I can't imagine a world where him and I would converge on a daytime show. I mean, maybe some real talk there. I appreciate that. When you were here visiting and meeting Jim Richards, Jim Richards, did you pay for lunch or did he, or did you guys expense it?

We split it, Mike. Bell, Bell media wouldn't pick up that tab for you two. Don't do that. See, this is like, you know what I'm saying? You start with a question. If I answer yes or no, I'm accepting your premise. And I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to play that game. I know how to not play that game and I won't. That's a ridiculous question. Look, that's not ridiculous that I think you're a great broadcaster and you have a bright future ahead of you. I go out with a friend on a weekend and you're expecting a company to pick up the tab?

Like, what? Okay. Mike. Two colleagues finally meet and they have lunch, and I actually would expect the parent company to pick up that tab. Having been at a tech company, you know, worth a lot, lunch and I would I actually would expect the uh the parent company to pick up that tab having been at a tech company you know worth a lot and having a card and also all my reports having a charge card we would not we would pay it you know a company that is like in Silicon Valley so I have that

experience and I can tell you two friends going on the weekend the company does not pick up the tap I don't know what was going on with your Frankfurt company, but maybe some weird tech stuff that could have been illegal. Two guys meeting for the first time who are going to be on the radio together because you came in from New York, company picks up the tab. But this is a great debate. This is the kind of stuff, have me on the showgram one night and we'll discuss this. I think the company should pick up the tab in that situation. That's not two buddies going out for drinks and having a good time. That's actually you guys meeting for the first time and you're going to be on the air together and you're building a rapport and some chemistry. Just my two cents. Just my two cents, buddy. Anything you want to

share before we listen to some lowest of the low, I will tell you that I enjoyed this conversation and you're now an FOTM and i hope you're honored with that moniker um i'm i'm humbled mike a great pleasure it was to come here and uh and and chat with you uh you're a you're a mensch it was a great mitzvah i now have a platform i i engage with your listeners they know who i am right Right. Episode 1,000. It was a hit. Well, record something for that. No joke.

There's still time because this is 991. So record something at your leisure or leisure, if you will. Record something and email it to me. Let's call the whole thing off. So what's the protocol? We play some music. I leave. We play some music.

We come back. What's going on here? All right. I'm going to read an outro. And then at the end of this, though, we play some music, we come back. What's going on here? Alright, I'm going to read an outro and then at the end of this, though, we will pose. This is going to sound silly, but we're going to pose for a screen cap of us on Zoom together

so I can promote. Because, you know, you got great hair and I didn't really know it until... I showered for you, Mike. And that's a thick head of hair, right? I'm looking here. Propecia. I'm on anti-balding medication. Hair talk with David and Mike. How about that on the iHeartMedia network?

Sure. And that, that brings us to the end of our 991st show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. David, how can we follow you on Twitter? Sure. I have over one follower. It's my mom.

They're all my mom. She just created a bunch of accounts. She doesn't understand how Twitter works. And the handle is DT that's Delta Tango Cooper. C-O-O-P-E-R. Follow DT Cooper, not DB Cooper, because DB Cooper would be like 100 years old right now, I think. And you're not. So follow DT Cooper. Cooper, not D.B. Cooper, because D.B. Cooper would be like 100 years old right now, I think.

And you're not, so follow D.T. Cooper. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer, no beer for David. Palma Pasta. If you want delicious, authentic Italian food, my friend, next time you're in town, let me know. I'll hook you up with some delicious Palma Pasta. Follow them on Twitter, at Palma Pasta.

Sticker U is at Sticker U. palmapasta follow them on twitter at palmapasta sticker you is that sticker you ridley funeral home they're at ridley fh and canna cabana are at canna cabana underscore see you all tomorrow and my special guest is terry david mulligan Mulligan.