Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Edward Keenan: Toronto Mike'd #183

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

Mike chats with Toronto Star journalist Edward Keenan about what's making waves in Toronto this summer.

Welcome to episode 183 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and joining me this week is Toronto star journalist Edward Keenan. A return appearance. Return journalist Edward Keenan. A return appearance. A comeback. You know, not everyone gets an invitation back. I'm very flattered. When I saw

it there on Twitter, the suggestion that I should come back, I thought I had to jump on it right away before you had time to think about it. You know what? And because you know I'm such a nice guy, I would say come on just because it was out on Twitter. Well, I was suggested by,

actually I should have looked it up before I even came on. I was suggested by one of your followers. So I thank him for that. That follower concerns me

in one regard in that he follows Marty York and retweets Marty York a lot. Marty York is right for the globe.

And then I then my buddy Elvis is coming over tomorrow and I was going to talk to him about this, but since you brought it up, you know that Groucho Marx line, like, I don't want to be the member of any club

that would have me as a member? So I don't know how you reshape that, but do I want a follower who worships, prays at the altar of Marty York? When is Marty York's appearance?

That's my question. He came on. Oh, did he come on? You missed it. Oh, I missed that one. Although David Schultz made me promise to stop. The good news is that that means I have one to go back and listen to. You know, that is the good news.

I say that to people when they discover this for the first time. I'm going, I wish I were you. You have 180 episodes. 183 now. Oh, yeah. Well, after this one, including this one. And I assume, of course, they've heard one to like it. So I had to do a little math.

I did a little math there. One reason I like it when you come on is that it gives me an excuse to play some Pearl Jam. All right. Last time you were on, I think we had a deal that your byline in the star was going to switch from Edward Keenan to Eddie Keenan. Eddie Keenan, yeah. Well, you know, things take time at the star. It's a big institution. It's like turning an ocean liner ship. So, you know, something as big as a byline change, we got to slow it in. You know, I just shared the video of uh your printing press and vaughn yeah and there's a

cool video and i guess they're outsourcing and then someone made an interesting point like can you imagine the guys in that video and it's great video but it's like hey we just outsourced your jobs and you're done but can you do this and yeah you're gonna be out of a job but um we need the content that's gonna get it's gonna go viral ah I mean, I figure I wasn't involved in making that, obviously. I'm not friends with the guys who worked up in the plant or anything. Actually, back when I worked at iWeekly, we went up there. We switched to the Vaughn plant. We had been being printed on a different plant.

And we switched to the Vaughn plant, and I went up for a tour. And it is, like, an amazing place. And the people there were very nice to me. And I imagine that's a bittersweet and almost ironic thing. Like, we're going to shoot this for our tablet edition that's putting you out of business. Exactly. But I also think a lot of them might be leavened somewhat by having a record of this, right? Like, this is the end of this thing we did here.

And here's a tribute to that of sorts. And maybe they look at the world around them and they say, this is just the way the wind is blowing these days and this was an inevitable...

Yeah, I guess. I guess. I don't know. Somebody wrote a comment where they mimicked how the conversation went. It was like, hey, Bob,

we got this guy coming in and he's going to film whatever. Like, for Star Touch, this is basically the reason you're out of a job now that you probably had for, like, since the early 90s or whatever. I don't want to sound weird. It was a great video, and I shared it happily. Yeah, I mean, and there's kind of a gallows humor to that or whatever.

But, I mean, I think the thing is that Star Touch, obviously, isn't what put the printing plant out of business so much as just, yeah, the whole trend in the industry. And it's much more web-based, actually, which is the big threat that's changed everything. And we're all kind of scrabbling, but we're still

going to be printing printed newspapers. We still do. We just outsource that to the same company that's printing a bunch of other newspapers now. printed newspapers. We still do. We just outsource that to the same company that's printing a bunch of other newspapers now. By the way, I want desperately to try this. I'm a Toronto Star reader.

I want to try the StarTouch, but I don't have any tablets. You might think that's a tablet, but it's running Windows, believe it or not. Basically, I have no device. You have an oversized, tablet-sized touchscreen device in front of you that it's not an Android and it's not an iOS device.

Correct. And I have an Android phone, and StarTouch says I can't go on my device. So I've tried everything in the house. Nothing will take StarTouch, so I'm just sort of left on the... And I just wish I could maybe there's a way

on my brows my laptop I have heard this a lot and I thought and initially I was saying inside if we're doing a new different kind of edition

it needs to work on phones too and I think you know there's an evolving I don't want to get into things that will get me fired first of all

I don't want to also get into things that are way above my, or different than my job description. I'm not intimately involved in these decisions. But that said, it was explained to me, for the sake, anyway, that there are probably some people like you who would really like to look at StarTouch and at least try it out on their phone.

But LapRess before the Star and now the Star did a lot of research into how people use different devices. And people who read on their phones often surf in from social media. They're clicking links. They're looking at the website. They're looking for breaking news. People who read things on their tablets specifically, like iPads and Android, Samsung, Galaxies and all of that stuff,

are doing more magazine-y style stuff. They play games on there. They spend longer with one thing. So to the extent that the tablet app, which has similar content but with some different presentations and features to the website, it's sort of customized for tablet style reading in the hope that you get people who are reading there to,

they'd say engage, and I'm trying not to use buzzwords, but to sit with it for longer, to look through it, to read it more like traditional print readers would buy the paper and flip through it and read the things that interested them and see every page. And advertisers love that kind of stuff, right? They love engagement. They love the length of your session and all of that.

Web hits are really good, and they're an important part of our business, but we have a hard time making any money off of them because web advertising is real cheap. Right. And I'm sure I'm the anomaly here. I'm sure that people... Well, I mean, I do hear it a lot, I think, from people who would legitimately like to at least look at it so they know what they're talking about.

I don't know if the experts inside the company, I mean, I gotta trust them to some extent, but their research leads them to believe that most of people like you who honestly, sincerely, earnestly would take a good look at it but probably wouldn't regularly read it there. And so the investment it would take to build it for the iPhone or the, you know, whatever, wouldn't pay off. You'd get a few looky-loos, and then it's not actually... And actually the way the tablet looks, I can tell you because I've seen it. I have an iPad that I look at it all the time. It doesn't shrink down

as well. It's not like a HTML 5 where it automatically adjusts to different formats. It's meant to be looked at at a certain size with photos taking up X amount of the page and a column of text. And it would have a hard time converting automatically to a tiny screen.

Yeah, and I'm not blaming Edward Keenan for this, except that I... That's where the blame usually belongs. I don't have a lot of Toronto... You know, you're here now officially the spokesperson for the Toronto Star, so, you know. By the way, by the way, your byline might still say Edward, but if people want to go back and listen to our episode 143.

So in 143, that's the magic number. That's sort of like the bio, the Edward Keenan bio. That's where we deal with my life to this point, where I live, where our kids play hockey. Right. There's a lot of like junction stuff in that episode. The exhibition. Right.

Yeah. And here's one of the things I learned in that episode is that you no longer enjoy the alcohol. That's right. Right. Yeah. And so one of the, I don't know if you call it quandary. Let's have a quick chat about this.

So when guests come on this podcast, this is since your last episode. So this is the first time you've been here since I have a quick chat about this. So when guests come on this podcast, this is since your last episode, so this is the first time you've been here since I have a beer sponsor. You have a beer sponsor, which is great news. Thank you, yeah. And part of the deal is I present a six-pack to every guest. Right. I gladly take it, and my wife will gladly drink it.

Well, that's it. So I asked on Twitter, I asked on Twitter, like, just didn't drop your name or anything. I don't know if I can answer that, but you did say it on the last or anything. I don't know if I'm connected to that. But you did say it on the last podcast, so it wasn't like I'm talking to a school. But I just, you know, the ethics of presenting, like, a six-pack of beer to somebody who is, like, a clean and sober. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a, I don't know that I'm typical, necessarily, of, like, a sober alcoholic or whatever.

Everybody has their own programs and everybody has their own struggles. And I don't find it an ongoing daily challenge. But even when I first quit, we never cleared all the alcohol out of our house. My wife still drinks. She has a glass of wine. So she'll drink with you.

Gin and tonic or a beer. She'll drink with me in the room. Right, that's what I mean. And sort of make snide comments across the room, make fun of me and stuff. No. But yeah, I mean, other people might have a more challenging time with it.

So I certainly appreciate the courtesy of thinking it through. I wasn't sure, like, should I not let you take it? Like, would that be a good thing to do? No, it's just some people on Twitter are like... What are you, my sponsor? Yeah, what an asshole thing to do. Like a clean and sober alcoholic, giving them a six-pack.

Like, what an asshole thing to do. Like, we find out, like, you never make it home. You end up in a ditch somewhere, drinking the Great Lakes beer. That would be unrelated. That's just, you know. Oh, that's right. Tomorrow. All right, never mind.

So you're taking that for your wife. Absolutely. So if I follow up with your lovely wife, Rebecca, right. Tomorrow. All right, never mind. So you're taking that for your wife. So if I follow up with your lovely wife, Rebecca, right? Yep. I'm going to follow up with her tomorrow. If she says, what beer? Then I'm coming after you. I know where you work. Then you'll know it went to my other wife.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. There's things I can't talk about. Sorry. By the way, your episode 143 is the only episode I have in the collection that has a long beep in it. We censored a chunk. Yeah, for legal reasons. So I just want you to be careful this time. And I wonder if the legal ban on what we were discussing, which we only realized after the fact was still in place.

It's still in place now. But I should check with the lawyer about whether at some point in the future it could be revealed because that information is no longer under a court order. And then can I retroactively re-uncensor?

Does it still exist somewhere in the archive? You got the outtakes? You know, funny story is it did exist until earlier this week when I was preparing for John Gallagher's arrival and I sparked up this little MacBook. I can't have this information in the house with John Gallagher here because sensitive things can happen. No joke.

Yeah, you should hear the stories I heard. But this guy, I'm pointing to the MacBook, the 2011 MacBook Pro, would not start up, and I had to go get a new hard drive, and I didn't have a backup. So I actually no longer have that. Ah, okay. So you're safe. All right.

Fair enough. Unless NSA or what's the Canadian NSA? CSIS? CSIS, yeah. Yeah, if they have a copy, maybe. Yeah, I think Gallagher might have smugg? CSIS? CSIS, yeah. Yeah, if they have a copy, maybe. Yeah, I think Gallagher might have smuggled them one out. Gallagher. I think of the prop comic or whatever. Gallagher.

All right. So 143, everybody's probably already stopped listening to this one. They've already gone to 143 and they're listening to our C&E stories. And where are we up to now? 183. Wow. 40 episodes ago. On the note of like, so this is the new MacBook,

and the last episode was David Schultz from the Globe and Mail, the competitor newspaper. Is there a big rivalry? Like you guys play slow pitch or anything? We don't. I think we should. Actually, there is like a star slow pitch softball team, and I'm not on it.

Why not? And it's actually a great source of irritation to me. No, because the people on it have their own little club, and they don't want Ed dragging down the average, I guess. Eddie. So I'm not on it. But I don't think they play against other media outlets. There's probably not enough.

I think we should. You can't make a full league. There's a cricket team, I think we should. You can't make a full league. There's a cricket team, a star cricket team. And I actually was coaching in a t-ball tournament the weekend that their once a year cricket game

took place, so I couldn't join. I've never played cricket, but the pitch goes out like, you know, hey, we can teach you. There are a few Indian and English

employees who grew up playing cricket, and they teach the other unlucky volunteers. And then there's some kind of charity cricket tournament, but I missed that too. Cool. But yeah, there is a big rivalry between the star and the globe, but I think it exists more at the management level than at the journalist level. I have a lot of friends who work there. Not that Schultz.

That Schultz episode. Rob Johnston. I don't know if you remember the ongoing history of new music with Alan Cross. You might remember this little part. It goes, Alan would say, technical production by Rob Johnston. Right.

So that guy took my file. He felt it was too quiet. In my words, and he said it was about right, he compressed the shit out of that file. And all this is to say I'm trying to figure out how to make it louder. And it sounds really good now. And the hard drive is fine. And we are recording this.

So I'm 183 episodes in and I'm still figuring out the post production stuff. You would just take the shit and compress it. And once the shit is compressed... It sounds great! I always compress it, but I didn't compress the shit out of it. That was my mistake. It's the shit that's in there that screws up the sound.

Oh, that's funny. So that beer is for your wife. It's from Great Lakes Beer, and it's very good. They do a little kind of a dick move over there. Like, I fell in love with this beer they have called The Octopus Wants to Fight. And then they discontinue? Right, right.

Or seasonal? Yeah. So I have a guy there who literally drops off beer. Like, this would be good for the old Eddie, not the new Eddie. So he comes over. You'll see it's all over the place. My 14-year-old sleeps around the corner, and I got to count the beers and make sure they're not disappearing. I'm like, hey, bring some extra. Octopus wants to fight.

He's like, oh, the brewmaster isn't making that, and he stopped selling it or making it or whatever. They get you into a kind, and then they pull it. Yeah, yeah. Muskoka did that a lot too where they have all these like, they're for a limited time only. And at iWeekly they used to send us samples, right? Because they're hoping we would write about them.

Occasionally we'd put them in the food and drink section and be like, hey, this new pumpkin brew just came out, blah, blah, blah. It tastes nice. And then you go to buy it and it doesn't exist anymore. It's like the worst drug dealer trick is like, here, let me blah. It tastes nice. Then you go to buy it and it doesn't exist anymore. The worst drug dealer trick is like, hey, let me give you a free sample. Now that you're hooked, no, sorry,

we don't do that anymore. You're old enough to remember back when we released Disney movies that way. Do you remember? Yeah, and it'd be like, oh, Snow White's coming out for a limited engagement. They'd pull it and then 10 years later it would come out again or whatever. Yeah, before DVD, I guess. Even VCRs were really common. for a limited engagement, they'd pull it and then 10 years later it would come out again or whatever? Yeah, before...

DVD, I guess? Even VCRs were really common. That was this great residual... I mean, most movies would go into rep houses, right? Right, right. Back in the 70s and whatnot. And you'd go to a grindhouse

or whatever, but you'd also go to various reps' houses, like the Roxy and the Bloor, even still, it's there, the Hot Dogs Bloor now.

Right. And you could see like Casablanca and stuff because otherwise you'd never see them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Disney had their own sweet gig where they'd like release it back out into first run theaters every decade or something. Right, right.

And it's like, oh, Snow White's coming out next year and then the year after that, Peter Pan. And then Cinderella. What's that Zippity-Doo-Dah one? That's Cinderella, right? No, Songs of the South. So I saw that, I'm going to guess like 83, because I'm trying to do it by how old I was,

but around 82, 83, me and my best friend Joe saw Songs of the South, and I was singing Zippity-Doo-Dah for days. That's how I remember this. And then later as an adult, somebody's like, oh, that's a racist movie. And you're like, you have no idea that's a racist movie and you're like you have no idea that's a racist movie but I don't know I was five or something

when I saw it right yeah something like that alright great the beer is good and your wife will enjoy it just before we get into you know we're going to do like

a cross city checkup okay apologies Rex Murphy doesn't do that show he's done with that show but we're going to do a cross city checkup but first so last year,

the following three bands came down the street for free concerts. When I say down the street, there's a park down the street from here, and every night for three successive nights, it's on the lake, essentially. Sam Smith Park, it's called. It's a beautiful park.

Yeah, it's beautiful. And last year, I saw Spoons, Kim Mitchell, and Glass Tiger on successive nights. Glass Tiger! For free, yeah. How about that? Before Alan Frew had a stroke, although he's recovered now. This was like a real tie-in to the old chum chart theme that you've been talking about lately.

Right. talking about lately. Glass Tiger for a long time has, in my imagination, occupied that CanCon space of 80s Canadian content. With Platinum Blonde. Platinum Blonde, Glass Tiger. Corey Hart. Oh yeah. Corey Hart was the first concert I ever went to see. Is that right? At the

Exhibition Stadium. I was going to say the Forum. With my own money. I had gone and saw 1964 as the Beatles and Donovan say the Forum. With my own money. I had gone and saw 1964 as the Beatles and Donovan at the Forum, and I'd seen Raffi or whatever. Raffi's the best. I was in grade 5 or 6 or whatever when Sunglasses at Night

and Boy in the Box were huge monster hits. He played with Chalk Circle at Exhibition Stadium, and my brother and I bought tickets. Can I blow your mind? And we had to buy my dad a ticket too. Because we weren't allowed to go otherwise. No, that's fair trade, I think. But

Chalk Circle was my first concert. Really? At the Old Forum at Ontario Place. The revolving stage. Yeah. And what was the other thing you said that sparked a memory there?

Holy smokes. It'll come back to me. It'll come back to me, but my buddy Murray would love to hear that you saw Corey Hart because to this day, my buddy Murray, who coaches my son at George Bell Hockey, I still see him wearing those Corey Hart T-shirts, and he's still a big Corey Hart guy. Corey Hart's back, isn't he? He had retired, right? Yeah, he's doing stuff.

And then I saw something in social media recently of him doing a concert somewhere. I just remembered what I was going to tell you. This is key. You sitting down? Good. Yeah. According to a guest on this podcast,

I'm going to let you guess, a guest on this podcast, so the Boy in the Box, the big hit by Corey Hart from the album, I think the album was called Boy in the Box, the big hit by Corey Hart from the album, I think the album was called Boy in the Box, is about or was written about this person who has been on Toronto Mic'd. Was written about this person who has been on Toronto Mic'd? So somebody who's been a guest on this podcast claims that

Boy in the Box was written by Corey Hart about him. It's about Dan Gallagher, isn't it? No. Oh. But you got the wrong Gallagher anyways, because Dan is no longer with us, okay? I'm sorry. He's this test pattern guy.

He was great. I would love to have him on. Yeah. If only he were not dead. Now I'm sad. If I had the old hard drive, I would have music. I would be terrible at this. Do you want me to just tell you?

But is the boxing question a television? Is that what the metaphor is? Well, okay. No, he was in a DJ box at a Montreal radio station in the early 80s. I feel bad for you. I'm going to tell you. I don't know. Steve Anthony.

Really? Yep. Wow. So unless Steve Anthony is full of shit. I don't know. Steve Anthony. Really? Yep. Wow. So unless Steve Anthony is full of shit. I didn't know that Steve Anthony came here from Montreal. I knew him as a much music, city TV personality. I heard him on the radio. He was on CFNY for a bit, right?

He took over from Pete and Geetz. Yeah, he's between the Humble and Fred and the Pete and Geetz. He was on with Freddie P. Yeah. But yeah, I did not know that. There you go. As Humble and Fred would have Peeting Geeks. He was on with Freddie P. Yeah. But yeah, I did not know that. There you go. As Humble and Fred would have once upon a time said. I did not know that.

I think that was Johnny Carson. I did not know that. I did not know that. They used to have a bit on their CFNY show. It was called that. I'll dig it up and add it to my soundboard. Oh, so where am I going with this? Okay, so I saw Spoons and I saw Kim Mitchell and Glass Tiger.

This year, I'm a little bit underwhelmed. I'm going to play... This is another trivia segment. No, no trivia here. Did I load this in? Here I am. Give it up! R-O-T-K! What you got?

Rock! And what you gonna do? Rock you! So, can you name a second song by the band Helix? A second song by the band Helix? No, I cannot. No shame in that. I can't either. So Helix is now the first night's big band that's playing. And I only know this Rock You. I'm not sure, like, even though it's free and it's down the street.

So I probably will end up going. Like, I'll probably be right in front of the stage. Because it's live Even though it's free and it's down the street. So I probably will end up going. I'll probably be right in front of the stage. Because it's live music and it's free and it's down the street. But I was trying to think, why don't I know any other Helix songs? You remember back, I just told you two minutes ago that the first concert I ever went to see was Corey Hart. And I'd never been to a big rock concert before. So my friends and I, grade five friends or whatever, were all sitting around trying to figure out what it'd be like and they'd be like can you imagine how many times he's gonna play never surrender oh and we just assumed

that he would play his hits like a lot like they did on the radio right come back in and and I wonder cuz cuz that rock you song has like hours long sing-along potential. Helix could just... The whole concert could be that. Nobody could name a second song, but perhaps Helix could just keep a sing-along going on like that for an hour or so with a call and response with the audience. Why not?

Give them what they want. Just give us 60 minutes of Rock You. Give it an hour again! And then for the encore, the unplugged version. There you go. You can just script it down or whatever. It's late at again. And then for the encore, the unplugged version. There you go. You can just, you know, script it down or whatever. And, you know, it's late at night.

Blues it up a little bit, yeah. Do people have lighters anymore? Do you have a lighter? Yeah, but they hold their cell phones now. Oh, yeah. I don't, yeah. The flashlight. It's not the same thing. From the cell phone.

Yeah, so anyway, so I have Helix and then Sass Jordan, who I'm actually thinking would be okay. I can name a number of Sass Jordan songs that played on MuchMusic. Yeah. So there you go. All right. Patreon.com slash Toronto Mike is where you crowdfund this. Quick shout out to Karina Del Cor.

I hope the T is silent. That's how I would say it if I were a Karina Del Cor. But I just want to say hi to her because she's a big time, like she's a transplanted Torontonian in British Columbia. And she used to be one of those like moderators on the pension plan puppets leaf blog 10 years ago. So once in a while she would link to my stuff. If I wrote about Bill Barilko or whatever, I'd write about Dmitry Yaskovic or whatever. She would link to it. And I thought, oh, that's cool. Like, thank you, Karina. And then she contributed to the Patreon campaign just last week.

Me and apparently she's donating her money that she used to spend on like Toronto Star and Toronto Globe on me and Canada Land's Jesse Brown. So those are the two she's funding. So thank you, Karina, for going to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. I see Ed just took his wallet out. This is exciting. And give what you can and keep this sucker going. Much appreciated.

David Holland retired. Yeah. Is that an opening for you that you'd be interested in that gig? Well, yeah. I mean, publisher, CEO is a pretty sweet gig. I hear the pay is good. But yeah, the publisher, John Cruikshank, retired earlier this year, and David Holland had been fulfilling that role in the acting publisher as well as the CEO,

and now he's announced that he's going to retire. the acting publisher as well as the CEO, and now he's announced that he's going to retire. So I imagine that in the fall or something, I guess at the end of this retirement process, there's an opening to bring in new blood sort of for both of those positions or for one person to fulfill both of those and have all the authority they need, I guess,

to try to do something different. I mean, when Cruikshank retired, he said that he thought New Blood was needed to kind of take this institution into the future, right? Because the industry's changing, and I think very few people have even pretended they know what it's going to look like in 10 years. But yeah, you know, I'll submit my CV.

You have nothing to lose. The worst they can say is no, but he wasn't there that long. I just was surprised at how... I mean, he was with the company for quite a long time. No, but in that role, not very long. Maybe he couldn't get the developers to put that StarTouch in some kind of an app on Windows. So just us idiots could call it up on our laptop.

Forget the tablet. Most of my stuff I do on the laptop. I try the tablet. If I need a small device to do something quick, I take out my big fat LG phone and I do it there. I never felt the need for something between that phone and the laptop. I just have this here because it's convenient for all my important Edward Keenan notes. That's where you keep them, on your Windows tablet. Did I really see in the Toronto Star recently a shocking headline about tearing down the CN Tower?

Was that a haze? Yeah, there was an op-ed piece. On the opinion page, we have a couple regular columnists, and then we have, you know, the mayor wrote something there recently about the Scarborough subway, and various experts and people with opinions from around the city, you know, file op-eds,

put them in there. And so one of those was suggesting that maybe the CN Tower could be torn down to make way for real estate development based on the premise that the land it sits on is like outrageously valuable now. Sure it is. The dollar is king and that nothing is sacred. But my understanding is that, first of all, the CN Tower is actually on crown land. It's owned by a crown corporation, and so it's actually, it's not in private hands, despite what it said in the op-ed. It's owned by the government. But then beyond that, it's

covered by all kinds of heritage legislation, and basically, in order to knock it down, to clear the way for real development, you would need the city and the province and the federal government to all really want that to happen. And I have a very hard time seeing that. Because I think actually, like, we can talk about it. And I actually do write quite a lot of sentimental columns about what I feel like the value of what I think are like heritage Toronto landmarks are to the city. Yes. And it's a foggy sort of value. It's like the value in our memories and in our own idea of what this place is and what

makes it what it is and all of that, right? And an example of that is like they're moving the Henry Moore sculpture, that big round climey thing from the front of the IGO to the back, or Honest Ed's is going to be knocked down, and I can't imagine what that corner looks like without those blinking lights and all of that. Whether I ever shop there, it's like a landmark in my mind. The CN Tower, though, is actually

the defining image of Toronto. The skyline is recognizable immediately because of the CN Tower. When you want to make a shirt with a logo on it that says Toronto, it's got

the CN Tower on it. It's like the one symbol that internationally says okay, this is Toronto. It'd be like tearing down the Eiffel Tower. Paris isn't going to consider this. They haven't considered it for a long time. It was originally supposed to be temporary, the Eiffel Tower. Oh, the Eiffel Tower, right.

Yeah, but then they're like, what can you do? Yeah, now we've got to keep this. But I just retweeted the provocative headline article with an as if. Like, just, I don't even, I know that it's got a lot of eyeballs, I'm sure a lot of chatter like this,

but this is never, who would float the, you'd be shot for... Just the whole concept is disturbing. And I mean, the guy who wrote it was one of the people involved in designing and building it, like one of the engineers, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. So, I mean, he might have

his own reasons. I mean, he might legitimately feel like it's not being properly valued or that it's in a long-term kind of threat. But he also mentions in it that the engineering and construction, he thinks, could stand up for a few hundred more years. Yeah. Like that it's not going to crumble and fall apart

as long as you maintain it regularly. So, but I honestly, reading it and then thinking about it and then looking around, couldn't see any reason why that would actually be a live topic of discussion. No, it can't be. No, and first of all, Drake's sitting up there, so Drake would have to move. Yeah, he'd have to move Drake.

My Swansea Hockey Association team in 85-86 was the CN Towers. Really? Yeah, the CN Towers. We went 0-12 that season. I was just looking up something about Skydome recently, and I actually didn't find it. I was trying to find out if legitimately it did sell out every seat for every Blue Jays game

for the first seven years or something, which is what I remember. That's how I remember it, too. But I was trying to make that point to somebody. And then I couldn't find it. But what I did find was the whole naming contest. And one of the finalists was Tower Dome. It was almost going to be called Tower Dome.

I remember in the Star, I remember reading a bunch of the possibilities. And those two people, there was two tickets for life that were the prize for naming. I know there were multiple Sky Dome entries, and they draw one or whatever. I feel bad for one of the guys who submitted Sky Dome

and didn't get... And didn't actually get the tickets for life. I feel bad for those guys. But I remember a lot of talk. You're right. There was talk about Thunderdome and things like this. Mad Max was rather popular, I guess. I don't know.

I mean, that's how we wound up with Raptors, right? Yeah. Which I'm not a fan of. Hey, there's a dinosaur movie! So we almost, we could have named our dome that way, too. I was thinking, like,

Pleasure Dome, because of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song. But that was like, yeah, that was like a good five years earlier or whatever. But yeah, it was lingering.

No, but during the, it wasn't. Because wasn't it 89? But when was the Frankie stuff? Frankie, I think it's got to be 85, 86. My brain has it like 84, 85,

but it could be off. It was a popular suggestion around my grade school classroom, so it was still fresh enough in our minds that we thought... Maybe we thought now it had passed into legend and it was everybody's property, and that's why you could name the Blue Jays home stadium that.

Yeah, well, it would have been great. Anything's better than Rogers Center, so that would have been great. All right, so that's the entire thing. I think it was just disturbing. Can you imagine them tearing it down? It would be traumatizing for this entire city. Yeah, and I think there was actually a lot of people who didn't want it to be built, right? There was this huge, like,

debate at City Hall, and all these city councillors were saying it's like a gimmick, and it's going to be an eyesore, and it's going to be dangerous. Birds are going to fly into it, which birds do. And, you know, probably a plane is going to crash into it at some point because they won't see it, and we

got the island airport right there um and then i have a poster actually that somebody an old hippie uh gave me as a piece of toronto memorabilia it's like a poster that shows the cn tower falling zone and it was like beware if you're within these you know right 10 square blocks because if the cn tower falls over it's going to land on you. It was like scare tactics to anti-CN Tower scare tactics that were going around at the time. Even after it was built, my father-in-law told me that he and his

friends always had this joke that the CN Tower is the best view of Toronto mostly because you can't see the CN Tower if you're in it. A lot of people don't like it, but I think even now, even looking back, even people who thought it was gimmicky and stupid and ugly and all of that agree it's just there now.

It's like erasing Mount Rushmore. Right. If I suggested to you, let's carve the faces of some iconic presidents into the side of a mountain You might say that's kind of dumb But once you've done it and it's been there for 50 years Or whatever then you're not going to

Uncarve it Did you know it's unfinished? The CN Tower or Mount Rushmore? I hope the Mount Rushmore Like if you see what it was supposed to be I don't know if they ran out of money or what But it's actually unfinished It was supposed to be like I don't know if they ran out of money or what, but it's actually unfinished.

It was supposed to be like their whole bodies? I think so. Let's not talk about tearing down the CN Tower. It's upsetting me. The other thing I read just the other day, TTC, which is free for kids 12 and under. I don't know if non-parents even know this. You know it. A lot of them do.

The people who follow city politics do because it was like one of the first things that John Tory announced. He had this big transit announcement. He brought all those kids out, and he announced both that it was going to be free for kids under 12, which was supposed to grow all the headlines and did, and that he was also reintroducing

a whole bunch of new bus service that had been cut under Rob Ford. So that was a good news day. But yeah, I have three kids and it's great. It's wonderful. Yeah, I got three under 12. One looks like he's 25, so he doesn't get

to do that anymore. But the other three get to. But then I saw, was it somebody from the TTC? It was Andy, I think, who said he thought kids should bring ID to prove they're under 12. It's all part. Okay. Yeah.

Presto. The whole Presto card. Have you got a Presto card? No, because I bike everywhere. No, it's a fiasco, right? And every time I mention something, I don't have a Presto card either. I actually tried to buy one at one point, and then I had to go somewhere else and do something else. I just always wind up paying the cash fare because

it's just faster than getting a stupid Presto card. But we're in a day and age now, not when they started developing Presto like 12 years ago, but we're in a day and age now where almost everybody has a phone in their pocket where you could use Apple Pay or something like it

to just like, bleep, bleep, you're through. There is technology that exists in every donut shop in the city, in every variety store, where you can tap your MasterCard or your bank card on it, and it will just take, doop, just the cash fare right out of your bank account. But instead, they developed this whole proprietary Presto system, and you have to, when you're getting on and off the GO train, you have to tap on and tap off. It's very important that you tap off. When you're getting on a streetcar, you just tap on. But then if you're going on to a different vehicle, I don't know.

It's very complicated. And part of that is that now they have these kids under 12 are free, but where they have like these proof of payment or automated payment systems, the kids are going to need their own money-free presto card, potentially with photo ID on it, which is going to mean that the casual person who

mostly has a minivan and drives their kids everywhere, but suddenly it's like, oh, hey, we're going on a family trip down to the Sky Rogers Center or the Island or whatever. Maybe we'll leave the car at home and we'll go. I got $325 in my pocket.

The kids are free. But then it's like, oh, no. If they don't go and get their photo card. And now you need a photo ID to prove that you're a student if you want to use the student fare. Yes. So the alternative is now, instead of having any child fare, is like if your kids don't have your ID proving they're eight years old, then they're going to have to pay the full adult cash fair.

So suddenly for your family of five, you're up to like $15, $17 just to get on. And so it's like, oh, maybe we won't leave the car at home, right? Maybe we'll pay for the parking. Yeah, maybe we'll pay the $10. But this is supposed to make people's lives easier, especially low-income people who really depend on transit. But in general, kids who need to get somewhere to their piano lesson,

it's only two bus stops away. Maybe the kid can just go, right? Yeah, my daughter just takes trips on Bluer. My kids don't need passports because they're under 12, right? So they don't have them. My kids, their health cards don't have photos on them until they get to I don't know what age because my kids haven't reached it yet.

So they literally don't have any photo ID. So now if we perceive them to ever want to ride the TTC at any point, we've got to make some special trip down to the Sherbourne Photo ID Center. And now here's my question. What identification do I have to provide them to prove that the kid is underage? Right. Like, I don't know.

It just seems like we've got to, like, and I expect maybe this will just go away. Because a lot of times these trial balloons come out and everybody who's reasonable goes, that's stupid! Right. And then they go, oh, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're just tossing it around as an idea. We're just kind of kidding. And so I'm kind of hoping that this turns out to be one of those ideas, but you never know. Yeah, why do we... We're such a great city in so many regards, but sometimes we get things like this so very wrong. And it's like... One of the things... I don't know what the number was.

Go ahead. I was going to tie it to this Scarborough subway, but I don't want you to burst an artillery or whatever. But capillary, what am I bursting? You're bursting your blood vessels. I'm going to burst out the artillery. It's going to be like shells exploding. I was like, what word did I just say?

Guns going up. Right. So there was like one station they were going to add in Scarborough. And I feel like I saw somebody giving you a heck on Twitter because you're talking as a West End person about Scarborough and you were disrespecting something Scarborough. But I digress. But this was like big dollars.

I can't remember the number. You'll remind me. You're talking about the Scarborough subway station? Right, right, right. It's over $3.1 billion. And then when you see the usage and what you get for that and everything,

and then you think sane people, sanity would prevail, but it seems to keep marching forward. Can you give me an update on that? Yeah, that's actually

as we speak, which is July 6th when we're recording this episode. It's actually July 7th. I hate to tell you that. No, not in my mind, baby. It's July 6th for the whole rest recording this episode. It's actually July 7th. I hate to tell you that. No, not in my mind, baby. It's July 6th for the whole rest of the summer.

No, okay, so it's July 7th. I don't want to be that guy. But whether it was July 6th or July 7th, it would still be true that next Tuesday, city council is having a meeting at which they'll be re-debating again. It's like death and... No, no.

See, there are two certainties in Toronto political debate. The Scarborough subway extension debate and taxes, right? And death is actually less certain than those because they will never die. Those two topics will never, ever die. So we're re-debating them next Tuesday at the city council meeting. And, okay, I have for years, and it has been years now, I think probably seven years, that this debate's been a live topic at City Hall. City Hall. I have been arguing that I think as somebody who lived in Scarborough until I was 29, on and off, as somebody whose parents still live in Scarborough, my brother-in-law

who's an immigrant to Canada and my sister who's married to him and their two kids live in Scarborough and he can't drive because he has a vision and won't allow it. They depend on public transit. I think they would be better served. I think most of Scarborough would be better served with a more extensive LRT network. Modern LRT, not the old RT, not the streetcars,

but modern high-speed light rail transit. I think you could build a much bigger network for the same money. Not even cheaping out and spending less money. I think you could build a much bigger network for the same money. Not even cheaping out and spending less money. I think you could build a much bigger network for the same money. There are people who do not believe that

and beyond that, I think the idea of a subway extension, Scarborough has three subway stops right now, Victoria Park, Warden and Kennedy, but the idea of an extension deep into the center of Scarborough, at the Scarborough Town Center, the site of the mall there,

is symbolically important to them. Also, I mean, there is an argument that for people who already are traveling to the Scarborough Center as their sort of way to transfer, a one-stop extension where they don't need to change trains, they're already on the train, will speed up their commute by a few minutes, right? So for that group of people, this is a bonus.

I don't think it's justified. But I think I'm coming to a point where I think, sorry, before I even move on, the planning department who has said this one-stop extension should go with a 25-stop new LRT that goes out to the Scarborough campus of U of T, which I think is great, actually, that proposal, and with a couple new stops on the go RER, which will now be every 10 minutes or less, it'll be part of SmartTrack, it should be integrated with the TTC, that that will serve some of those people, that these three things go together, and they believe that largely the symbolic value, I think, of the subway extension will spur, you know, huge new development around the Civic Center, the Sound Center area, that otherwise wouldn't be there. The idea, the psychological idea of having this subway station that connects you to the rest of the city

will make it a more attractive spot to build condos, but also offices and all of that. I'm skeptical that that's the case. But I think that they've also packaged in the downtown relief line, which is needed, whether we build the Scarborough subway extension or not, to take pressure off the Yonge line, which is overloaded. We can't build anything else until we build the downtown relief line

because there's no space to squeeze more people. So I think that whole package of things is more important than the subway extension one way or the other. And I think it's actually a fairly significant waste of money to include that one-stop subway extension

instead of a better LRT network. But what's more important to me at this point, what I slowly have been realizing, is that for all the bad blood and distraction this generates, this bigger plan, which is probably more like a $20 billion or $30 billion plan, is more important.

Like, if it all goes together, I still will have thought we wasted a couple billion dollars that we could have better spent on that part of it. But if getting hung up on that one part of it means the whole plan gets screwed up, I think that's actually going to be worse for the city.

I've been banging on my head against the wall for so long, and people get so mad at me, or else they cheer me on, but I'm actually at the point where we need to make a decision. I hope we make the right point where we need to make a decision. And I hope we make the right decision. But if we make the wrong decision, I hope we make it in the right way. I hope we don't throw out

all the other good stuff. Oh, the baby with the bathwater. We'll just throw out the baby but we'll keep the bathwater. That'll be very Toronto-like. Because dirty bathwater is just the perfect thing. Pardon my ignorance. And some of the listeners who don't live and breathe this stuff.

No, that was important to hear. But what was it exactly we had in place? What was that LRT plan we had in place that Rob Ford tried to kill on day one? Transit City. And I remember there was a penalty for canceling this. And I remember being infuriated because Rob Ford never seemed to understand what an LRT was. He kept referring to LRT as a streetcar. He had fundamental issues with what this was.

Now, the thing is, in Rob Ford's defense, I so seldom over the course of my career got to utter those words In Rob Ford's defense there are certain points in the past where the TTC would call its streetcars LRT vehicles because that just means light rail transit So technically

a streetcar is a form of LRT And so when they built Harborfront and St. Clair the right-of-ways the TTC was originally calling those LRTs. And now it has a whole different kind of train on that existing Scarborough Corridor that they call RT, which stands for Rapid Transit, Scarborough Rapid Transit, SRT. Neither of those are what we've been talking about now. The things that they've been building in Paris and other cities, Houston, other cities around North America, across North America, around the world, are sort of like an above-ground subway. They run in trains, like three to five cars in a row, usually three, I think. The ones we are buying, I think three is the maximum length of a train.

But still, they're trains like a subway is. They hold a lot of passengers. They're capable, depending on where they are, of moving about as fast as a subway moves, right? Now, in places, and now in the case of Eglinton, we're building this Eglinton Crosstown. And even if you're not a transit geek, you'll know Eglinton's been under massive construction for the last couple of years. And that's because we're actually tunneling underground through the middle part of the city,

the part with all the office towers and all of that stuff, where the road is very narrow. They're tunneling it underground. And it's going to be essentially a subway with these smaller cars, right? But then that's going to come above ground in Scarborough, where the Eglinton Avenue is eight lanes wide, right? Right.

And surrounded by big box malls on either side. And that's not a value judgment. If you drive Eglinton and Vic Park, that's what you'll see, right? There's lots of space. And so there'll be like a St. Clair-style streetcar corridor in the middle with these LRT trains in it, but there'll be stations like every 500 meters, like instead of at every street corner. And now what we have to trust them is that they're not going to screw up how the traffic

light work and all of that. Sure. We've been assured by these experts that the trains are going to work really well with the traffic lights and they're going to be timed and all of that. So we'll see. But in the case of this big Scarborough subway showdown, we're not even talking about that. They're not going to come up on the street at all. It's a corridor that already exists that's off the road.

It's like hydro and sewage corridors. There's a bunch of bridges that go over the roads. Rob Ford used to say they're going to tear up the roads and we'll have these streetcars coming down the middle of the streets. People in Scarborough don't want that. And it's like, in this case, one very thing we're actually debating right

now is that we could have these LRT trains which would be one platform up from the existing subway. So it'd be like when you change trains at Young and Bloor. Yeah, Young and Bloor, yeah. You go up one flight of stairs, you get on one of these LRT cars, and it would go through the corridor and let you off at one of the other stops

and never go anywhere near the street. Never encounter cars because they're on the street where you're not. Never encounter cars because they're on the street where you're not. Or we can dig a six-kilometer tunnel under the existing roads. Those are the options we're looking at. I don't understand because I'm not an engineer, and I'm skeptical. I keep being told by experts that it's not plausible, but my brain has a hard time processing that information.

I don't understand why, if we're building the subway extension, we couldn't just have it run in that RT corridor. Why does it have to be tunneled under McCowan Road? Why couldn't it just run in the same existing off-road corridor that's already there, use the same bridges? They say that in places it's too narrow for subway cars, and okay, but is it possibly be more expensive to widen that bridge than it is to dig a six-kilometer tunnel?

Really? I don't know. But they say it is. So, I mean, that's the big debate, and it's coming this month, and I doubt we'll have heard the end of it. No, man, I was going to say, look, I've been hearing the debates. The big debate is always coming and always happening, and then it just feels like we tread water on this whole transit portfolio.

Like, I don't know. Like, we don't do anything. Here's the bright side version, which I often don't provide, the bright side version. We need some hope. Since you're throwing your hands up in despair, I will say that there have been a big debate coming for, as you say, like, let's say 13 years

since David Miller was elected and really started talking about transit, right? But 10 years anyway since he announced Transit City. The big debate's coming, and we constantly grind back and forth and we spent $85 million to cancel the old Transit City and that money's still wasted. It's gone

down the tubes. $85 million. That's a lot of money, right? That's a lot of gravy. So this has all happened and we're still pounding our heads against each other. But in the meantime, there's a subway extension to York University and Vaughan that is

almost finished being built. It actually literally has been gotten built, and I have to recheck the dates, but it's supposed to open by the Pan Am Games, but that didn't happen. But we're within a year now or two years of that opening.

And the Eglinton Crosstown a big chunk of it is so that's the Eglinton LRT that I was just talking about it's been getting built and it's like actually getting built it's supposed to open in 2020 so we're like four years away now but that will be as long as

almost the Bloor-Danforth subway line that's not a small piece of Tranvent infrastructure. The Eglinton line is going to be a big giant cross town, cross city and then that's supposed to be extended out to the airport and out

to Scarborough U of T campus. That's another phase. In the meantime, some transit got built. Out of all these debates it seems like every time we're still locked wrestling each other but something springs loose

and it's like no look they built something they got one station they got a thing over there there's progress I'm I want to hear your thoughts on Kevin Durant because real quick Drake drops KD

drops references to Kevin Durant twice on this Views album have you heard Views yet? is it part of your job to listen to Drake's music? I've heard much of it I like a lot of it I think this will be a big hit because I always give it the wrong name.

It's called Too Good, and it's with Rihanna, and I suspect at some point this will be a big hit. Totally earworm. I was walking around the other day singing this to myself all day, and I couldn't get it out of my head. It is an earworm, yeah. The hooking here is good. As soon as, yeah.

I was driving my kids to school, and we often listened to hit radio because my kids are total tailors. You're listening to Raz and Boca. I usually listen to Raz and Boca. It's absolutely true. And they played this when I was on my way back, and all day I was like singing it. No, I'm with you. I'm feeling it too, although I keep calling it Last Night.

I keep telling my daughter, oh, I like Last Night, and she likes to make fun'm feeling it too. Although I keep calling it last night. I keep telling my daughter, oh, I like last night and she likes to make fun of me. Is it too good to you? Too good. Too good. Yeah, yeah. I'm waiting for her.

Here she is. No, that's okay. Anyway, she'll come. So what am I saying? Oh, yeah. So he, you know, and he famously was, I don't know,

he was fined or the Raptors were fined because he was like recruiting Kevin Durant when he was under contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder. So then Durant, who I think the rumors were... Here she is.

That's Riri. That's what we call her. These two are so good together. Like, they're just... They can't do wrong together. You're right. I'm with you. That real jerk video.

Yes, it's very sexy, right? Can we say that? It's getting hot in here, Eddie. What's going on here? All right. So, well's very sexy, right? Can we say that? It's getting hot in here. Eddie, what's going on here? All right. So, well, yeah, he signs with the 73-win team. I hate this new thing that the NBA stars are doing, like all grouping up to get these rings or whatever.

I know LeBron started this. Did LeBron start it? Yeah, with Bosh and Wade. And now Wade's going to Chicago, but that's a different news item. But yeah, I mean, Golden State, holy cow, right? Yeah. I mean, you just set the record

for wins in a season, but they did lose the championship. They did lose the championship, which is just because LeBron is that remarkable. Yeah. It's unbelievable. But I mean, I think, hey, good for them

and good for him, right? But it seems weird to me, bizarrely weird. I also understand that Steph Curry had a bowel man call, and he wasn't quite Steph Curry yet when he signed his long-term contract. So he's getting $12 million a year, which sounds like a lot, but by NBA standards, it's close to the league minimum, right? He's making like what T-Ross makes, right? So I understand that that is a real factor that allows this to happen,

but still, the reason a league has salary caps and minimums is so that it's impossible to just stock up with all the league's biggest stars. And yet, I'm not an NBA fanatic, so I don't have actually the years in my head, but LeBron, Steph Curry, and KD are the last three people to win MVP, aren't they? I think Curry won, I believe Curry's won twice. He's won twice in a row, yeah. So the last three MVPs are Durant, Curry, and KD. Right, right, but I mean the last three people to win. Okay, yeah. So the last three MVPs are Durant, Curry, and Curry. Right, right. But I mean the last three people to win.

Okay, yeah. So there you go. So now you have the two people who most recently won MVP are on the same team. And Klay Thompson is now like the fourth or fifth best guy on that team. He's not even the Pippen anymore. Now he's like the... Yeah, but he's totally like the second best shooter in the league, potentially second best shooter in the history of the NBA.

Right, right. And is there enough ball for all these guys? I know you're not my NBA guy, but that'll be interesting to see. I don't know. I mean, my sense about this, not just in basketball, but in almost every sport that I've watched, is that these dream teams tend to underperform what you think they're going to. And maybe there's like chemistry issues or like,

I mean, these all seem like pretty unselfish guys, really. And Durant and Westbrook were already kind of sharing the show in a way that, well, they were so fun to watch in the playoffs this year. But I mean, I'm interested to see it. I don't know that it's good for the league. I know this now makes everybody hate Golden State, but I'm going to have fun watching them for a while anyway.

And then we'll see. I mean, I don't know. I'm glad it happened in the West. Like, I would hate to see it in Boston or Chicago. Chicago was playing those guys all the time. But it's just, I like the feeling. I still feel we are probably the second best team in the East is my feeling today.

I'm just glad that that's all happening over there. I guess my Toronto spin on that was how come Drake failed to deliver? I feel like Drake, that was our ace in the hole. He was going to deliver Kevin to the Raptors. That's a hard sell though. The thing is that Drake is the Raptors' ambassador.

And, I mean, he takes some flack here and there, as a lot of big stars do. But I think he's legitimately big time, right? Like, he's not Toronto famous, like Steve Anthony, maybe. He's not Toronto famous. I talk to Germans all the time as part of my other world. He's the real deal. He's big famous in the world.

He's famous. Listen to him and Riri, right? Yeah. But, yeah, he couldn't close the deal, and I'm not sure. I mean, if you have the option, though, of going to the, like, winningest team in NBA history and potentially making them better and being a part of that, like the best team in history and what you would hope then would be a championship team,

maybe multiple championship team, then, I mean, that's hard to turn down, right? I mean, do you feel like, and you're probably better equipped to answer this than me, do you think the Toronto Raptors were one KD away from the championship, like from winning the championship? That's exactly. Do you think he finishes the puzzle?

Yes. I feel like the Lowry-DeRozan duo, great, you know, got us to game six of the conference final. But we're missing the A. You know what I mean? We have the Pippen. I'm always going back to that. We got the Pippen, but we don't have the Jordan.

We needed the Jordan. And there's only a handful of guys like that. And Durant's one of them. So adding Durant, and then you still have DeRozan, and you still have Lowry, and you still have a very deep bench. The Raptors are a very good team, but we are not capable of beating LeBron and the Cavs right now. If you add LeBron, we can do that.

It's like a cliche. In today's NBA, you need a superstar. Last year's Raptors were the chance to try and put that to the test. God bless them. That was fun. When they won game three and four, it's like, holy smokes, is this happening?

The thing is, I didn't ever get my hopes up about KD because But yeah, this thing's like, holy smokes, is this happening? Yeah. I mean, so yeah. But the thing is, I didn't ever get my hopes up about KD because I had started hearing here and there, like before the playoffs were even over, that he'd already told the Raptors he wasn't interested. Yeah, no, there was no, like the talk was Boston. Yeah, yeah. Or Miami was trying to make a play,

but Wade wasn't playing along with them. That's the thing now in the NBA. Your general manager brings all the stars to try and sell you, right? Which is fascinating to me because that's never how I thought of it happening. Well, LeBron and Bosh and Wade, they cooked it up at a USA. They were American teammates in some tournament or at a world championships, and they cooked it up there. We're going to do this together.

They had four years together and they did have four births in the final and they won two of them. You can hardly call it a failure. They went to four finals and won two of them. What Durant missed is the opportunity to come to a country where his initials are the same

as the initials for a treasured national food. Right. Look at the endorsements. Come on, the endorsement potential. Orange macaroni. Cardinal Oficial is actually a spokesperson for Kraft Dinner. Really? Yep. Oh, wow. You didn't see that coming.

It all ties in together. Drake with the Raptors, and Cardi with the KD. Right, right. And by the way, I got a DM today from Maestro Fresh West. No way. Really? I'm going to show you later.

I would never lie to you about that. Yeah. Telling me that he still wants to do Toronto Mike. He hasn't forgotten because he went a little quiet on me. Right. I didn't want to pester him because he's the maestro. And he's still into it and he's going to come at me with dates. And I was just so happy to see the DM from Maestro.

Oh, that's amazing. I know. I was like, forget this Edward Keenan nonsense. The maestro is coming on. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I wouldn't have felt bad if you had canceled because he was coming. Yeah, yeah. This is a throwdown.

Hey, the 1010 show you had. Yeah. So did David Eddy bump you? Like, what's going on? I mean, yeah. Hey, the 1010 show you had, did David Eddy bump you? What's going on? I mean, yeah, essentially he did. David and I were on Sunday nights together there for a while. I started before him,

and then he took the time slot after me. And so we were head-to-head. We're friends. Friendly, at least. You don't want me to take him out? No, no. But he and Mike Ben Dixon at Newstalk came up with this idea, which I actually think is kind of exciting,

that like six nights a week, I think, or five nights a week. Anyway, is it six? I think it's six. Holy cow. Six nights a week, they're doing like a four-hour nighttime slot, right? From 10 till 2 a.m. This is live. Yeah.

And actually, Newstalk has had 10 to midnight as a live slot on weeknights and weekends since I had been there at 10 to 11 for a while. But having that rollover at midnight and having live programming at 1 in the morning. Instead of Art Bell or whatever they were doing. Yeah. Syndicated stuff. Or reruns or rerolls. I'm rolling Fred's podcast at one point. Oh, yeah.

That's right. They were midnight to 2 a.m. or something for a long time. Yeah, and stuff like that. They were picking up syndicated content. Tiger to Torrens. Were they on the overnight? No, they were probably at a weeknight evening. I think they were live now that I think about it.

But I mean, I think I like David, and I also like the concept of having this nighttime guy. So I was excited for him. And this is the honest truth. Because, I mean, obviously if there was bad blood, if my nose was out of joint about it, I would open up that vein and let people in. But Mike

contacted me and said, here, here's our plan for Sunday night. Do you want an earlier time slot? Which, in radio terms, like Sunday radio terms, the earlier time slots are actually better time slots, better quote-unquote. They have more listeners. There are more people tuned to radios

at that time of day. It was actually in a way offering me a promotion. That's the only time slot he had available. I can't remember if it was 8 o'clock or 7 o'clock or something like that. It was earlier in the day. I said

and I knew what it was. It like, you, you could take that earlier time slot for sure if you wanted. Um, and he had offered me other time slots, more desirable time slots actually earlier on, just when they came available and he thought I might be a good fit for it, right? Uh, but my answer then was the same as it has been now, is that actually like my kids are young and I work a lot of hours in my day job. A lot of time days,

anyway. And sort of like Saturday and Sunday afternoons are kind of like hockey coaching, t-ball coaching, like take the kids to the park time. It's like, I mean, it feels like such a sitcom dad thing to say that that's family time, but it

really is like the only time I have with my family. And so I said, at this point in our life, I don't really want a Sunday afternoon show where I'm going to have to, with prep time and travel and everything, I can't coach my kids in T-Bowl. I probably won't even be able to watch them. We go to all these weekend tournaments in the summer, whereas normally I'd be getting home at Sunday at 9.

I drop the kids off. They go to bed. There's T-Bowl tournaments? I head on down. Oh, yeah, yeah. We can talk about that in a second if you want. Save that one here. But so I still do a weekly panel on John Moore's show on Thursday mornings.

I'm still a regular guest on the live drive. I co-host with Ryan once or twice a month often on the live drive. I'm still sort of on their roster of filling guys to call when somebody goes on vacation or needs a day off.

But it just wasn't working out. I mean, I missed the show, actually. I had a lot of fun doing it. Part of me is enjoying having Sunday nights off, but part of me is also missing having that outlet. So you're going to visit here on Sunday nights. But at the same time, it just wasn't going to work for both of us. And I think the prospect of making a go of live, like overnight radio,

and giving Dave and Eddie a chance to do that is also kind of worth it, right? So yeah, that's the truth. It should have a lot more conflict and anger involved in it. No, that makes complete sense to me. You're right. Earlier, that makes complete sense to me. You're right. Earlier, that's your time with the three kids. I had no idea because my oldest did t-ball

and my third born is only two, but he will do t-ball. And I couldn't get my daughter to do t-ball to save my life. She did soccer, but she would not do t-ball. My daughter plays t-ball and I'm a coach of her house lake team. She also plays on a rep team.

At High Park, which is where we play t-ball. That's where my son played. Yeah. It's relatively... There are some parks where the t-ball is kind of like a free-for-all, where they don't actually even have a game. I've seen this, yeah.

One kid hits the ball, and then parents throw out a bunch of balls so everybody gets to field something. That's not how they do it at Hyde Park. In Hyde Park, there are rules. We chalk the baselines. We have a scoreboard in the outfield. And you update it between half innings?

Yeah, yeah. And there's a home run fence, and I remember a kid who could routinely clear the bases on the fence. So the thing is that the more disorganized T-ball leagues, they tend to like graduate kids to what they call rookie ball, which is where there's a pitching machine at like age seven. Okay.

Whereas in Hyde Park, they keep them in T-ball until they're eight, until after they're eight, and then they move straight to little league. Right. You know, nobody wants me to go into the... It's been explained to me that there's different schools of thought about baseball development, but at High Park, they believe in the organized, structured T-ball as a way to teach kids defense

and whatever. Because of that, then they have these seven- and eight-year-old rep teams. There are four... There are two eight-year-old rep teams, two seven-year-old rep teams, and then there's a girls' rep team, all playing out of the T-Ball League at Hyde Park. So I'm an assistant coach now,

basically because my daughter's on the team, of the Diamonds, the Hyde Park Diamonds, which are a traveling representative team of Hyde Park T-Ball. So we had just two weeks ago, we went to Stony Creek in Hamilton, and we played a weekend-long tournament there. And it's actually, like, hilariously fun. Like, the kids are six to nine,

and yet it's surprisingly entertaining baseball to watch, right? Like, these kids are actually good. They can actually feel the ball. They can play double plays. They can hit home runs. It's just fun for me to be a part of. My daughter,

she had a similar experience at George Bell. She was enjoying playing baseball, but she's like, there were two girls on her team. Then she found out that there's this girls team she could join as well. She didn't have to make a decision. She could just join that too. She sort of bonds with these other girls and now they don't play in like a girls divisions and stuff like that they go and they play against teams that are all

boys they play against co-ed teams but they play together and and they're like this sisterhood of baseball and they have a blast so it's fun for me to watch them and her really enjoy the game and feel like it's her thing, right? Like it's their thing. That's beautiful. But it is kind of bizarre. Every time it comes up where it's like, oh, I'm out of town for a t-ball

tournament, and people are like, wait, wait, t-ball? What? Like six-year-olds? Yeah, it is kind of weird. You know, I realize now now because my boy didn't, he wasn't on those select teams. He was just in the house league. So you don't travel. You go to the same time and everything.

No, yeah. And the house leagues are fun too, right? Like for most of my kids and with hockey and everything, like that's all we really want as a family out of sports is like go once a week or twice a week and just have a good time right so far that's all i know because i've only had the two kids go through it and then no one's been how do i say this exceptional to a point where i had that tap on the shoulder when the coach is saying i only

dance yeah yeah with dance i got the tap on the shoulder and it's like yeah and you know and and now so my daughter does competitive dance but it's nothing like sports it's completely different but yeah a lot of house league in my past but we'll see my wife said she was like in gymnastics And now, so my daughter does competitive dance, but it's nothing like sports. It's completely different. But yeah, a lot of house league in my past, but we'll see. My wife said she was liking gymnastics or ballet. No, was it gymnastics? And then her coach said,

you should really hire a private coach. Like she's gone as far as we can take her and you should really hire a private coach and she could compete more competitively. And her parents were like, that's it, you're out of gymnastics. Now you're done. You're not doing this anymore. It's like, that's the sign that this is about to get way too serious

and we don't want, no, you can't do anything anymore. That's right. It's not good for the wallet. Climb in the backyard, that's all. All right, so from T-Ball, that's great. And that 10-10 show for the family, that's the right thing to do. I've got to ask you about the Pride Parade and the Black Lives Matter stunt. I feel

kind of... I haven't commented much on this because I feel strange as a heterosexual white man. Do I even get to have an opinion on this? It's one of those kind of tricky... We're two heterosexual white guys that are going to talk about the Pride Parade and the Black Lives Matter.

I think there are really legitimate complaints about us being the arbiters of that, right? I mean, I don't buy all of the rhetoric that says you need to belong to a certain identity group to have an informed opinion on something. opinion on something, but I also get that two white straight guys sitting out here in a basement in Etobicoke determining what the Pride Committee's rules should be or what Black Lives Matter should make their priorities is not

really... The thing is, too, that this is an issue where I honestly don't know what I think. That's a weird thing for me to say out loud because often when I don't know what I think, I just don't write about something or I just don't weigh in. And I think that there are several interesting, overlapping, competing ideas

of what pride means and what the relationship between parade participants and the organizers and the broader community should be. And then there are a bunch of people's opinions about the legitimacy of Black Lives Matter's complaints against the police department, which I actually think their tactics are their own, but I think the core complaints that Black Lives Matter have about the relationship between black people in Toronto and the police department in Toronto are...

There's a lot to them, right? And there's a lot there that needs to be resolved. And I've written about that. And I think they are entitled, as honored guests and as queer people themselves, to

address their concerns to pride. And pride is a place that traditionally has protests. But I think the other strain of it, just for the sake of unpacking it and not for pontificating, because as I say, I don't have any conclusions about it, is that I think for a lot of people with an attachment to the parade, people in the community who I've heard from with an attachment to parade, the parade was a desire, a demand,

that the participants in the parade be included as full members of society. And over time, as that transformed, the participation of corporate sponsors and politicians and police departments is seen as an embrace of that

initial demand, that we're here, we're queer, get used to it. And they say, you know what? We're not just going to get used to it. We're going to join you, right? And that was why the call for Rob Ford to participate was so powerful, is because even if he had issues that he had to get over,

they were issues for him to get over, right? Right. And people thought, the claim was, that he had a responsibility to get over them and in Right. And people thought, the claim was, that he had a responsibility to get over them and in the doing of his job, appear in that parade as a signal of the city's embrace of the parade, right? And so then the official participation

of the police department would be seen from that point of view to be like that the police department embraces the LGBTQ2S community, and not only that, that members of that community are part of the police department, the police department considers themselves members of that community, and that if the reality or if what they practice doesn't always line up with what they preach, they're still here proclaiming this is what we believe,

right? And that that would be symbolically important. But I think, like, then Black Lives Matter comes and says as we, as members of this community too, the people marching that parade, as members of the broader LGBTQ community, saying,

we don't feel safe in an environment that embraces this group. I mean, you've got an interesting tension there, and I'm trying to talk through what I see as some of the major sticking points of it. But I don't know, first of all, from where you started, and maybe I shouldn't have opened my mouth, but I don't know that I'm the person to weigh in on it. But beyond that, I actually don't know what my conclusions are.

I actually don't know. I don't think I certainly don't believe that anybody in this scenario did anything horribly wrong. I think protest and argument are in the finest traditions of the Pride Festival and the Pride Parade, right? And internal, sometimes bitter internal arguments are certainly a Pride tradition themselves. Like, there's QIAA, but there were, like,

historic fights inside the community about the Dyke March, about the Trans March, about all kinds of other things. It's a community that I think, to its credit, I believe, has often aired its dirty laundry in public, has often said, these are the things we need to talk about and resolve, and hasn't shied away from doing that in public,

even when other people say, oh, whoa, that's not how you make friends, right? So, I mean, it's interesting for me, and I'm actually enjoying, for all that rambling, because I'm just such a long-winded, pompous guy, for all that rambling, what I'm enjoying as a professional journalist in my day job is not writing about it, but hearing and listening and reading what other people who are directly involved in it are saying.

Because I think there are multiple points of view that are interesting on this. Margaret Wente called them bullies. Mm-hmm. And then, so, and I'm with you. Like, I'm not even sure what I think. I just know that Black Lives Matter is, you used the word guest.

It just seems like if you're a guest, and it's the pride parade that maybe... Yeah, yeah, you traditionally don't say, show up as the honored guest. It just seems like you're a guest, and it's the pride parade. You traditionally don't show up as the honored guest at a party and then say, shut this party down! Right, right, right. It just seems that seems, and yeah, it just seems like that. Although, remember, Marlon Brando wins the Oscar and doesn't go in and accept it himself.

Instead, he sends... What was her name? He sent a Native American woman to make a political statement on his behalf. It's like when you're the honored guest, you get to march to the front of the parade, you're put in a position where you... Especially in an inherently political festival like that,

where it's like if you're the keynote speaker at a conference. You get to decide what you're going to say. And maybe it seems ingracious to some people to say, what I'm going to say is that the people who organize this conference are jerks, right? Or have a lot of work to do, or whatever. But also, they had clearly invited you because they thought you had something valuable to say.

It's also like when you invite Black Lives Matter to come to participate in your march, like, you know who that organization is too. You know what they do. You know what their shtick is, right? And I use that in the most endearing way. I don't mean to insult them by saying that's your shtick. But like protests and sit-ins and disruptive protests,

that's what they do. That's why we know who they are, right? And so, you know, yeah. I mean, I think, I don't know, Margaret Wente is going to do what Margaret Wente does. And she's certainly entitled to her opinion as well. But I mean, I don't know that she means the same thing when she

says bully as I mean when I say bully. Right. And Sue Ann Levy too, who was in the parade. So she brings an interesting perspective to that. She has echoed similar sentiments. Yeah. I think Sue Ann's going to say what Sue Ann says.

And I think Sue Ann is certainly more... I was going to say... She may be in a better position in many ways to offer qualified comment than I am. Not just because she's a lesbian, but because she's been an active participant in a debate, often as a critic, about Pride for several years in the QA,

the Queers of Israeli Apartheid group, about other things. Like, I mean, as a member of the community and as a critic of the Pride organization, she has a position that she has, and it's not necessarily the one I would decide I would be on anyway, but Sue Ann and I are in that position quite a lot. Do you think Black Lives Matter gets a fair shake from the conservative media?

Again, I don't know. That's fair. You know what I often think? You didn't know about Star Touch either. No, no. You know what I often think about listening to you? You don't even see really debates between the conservative media and Black Lives Matter.

What you see is debates about Black Lives Matter and the conservative media and commentary about the conservative media or the mainstream media or the white media in general from Black Lives Matter. But I think there's a larger debate, argument that's taking place, again, indirectly between black activists and racial identity activists,

as well as trans activists and other modern feminist and gender and racial activist groups, and then conservative media across North America. And what I see often, though, is like, are these people giving each other a fair shake? It's like, I don't understand them speaking the same language, right? Like, so somebody will talk about a system of white supremacy, which they understand to mean, and you read, like, say, Tenehisi Coates, this writer in the United States, a memoir in his blog at The Atlantic and his other writing. He, like, lays out fairly clearly what he means.

And he's talking about a superstructure of society that starts with racism but goes through a banking system that wouldn't allow black Americans to own property over generations. It goes right down to which neighborhoods people live in, how those neighborhoods are produced. It's a system, right? So we come to a point where a whole generation of activists understand that when they say something's racist, it doesn't even imply that there's a person with a bigoted, openly bigoted, consciously bigoted opinion behind that.

They're talking about a system that works in a way that has oppressed people, right? You can believe that or you can not believe it, but that's what they mean, right? But then what will happen is that one of those people will say, that's a racist, blah, blah, blah. And Jerry Agar will say, because he has a different understanding of what that word means, and he'll say, are you saying that that guy is like a member of the Ku Klux Klan

and would like to lynch you? Are you saying that guy hates black people? And then they call each other racist or they call each other bigots and they call each other whatever and and then you're watching and you're seeing the initial argument now these people have profound differences of opinion on the very basic thing but when they started arguing what they're arguing over is a a misunderstanding of what each other are talking about right and they never move off of that, right? And I feel like this happens all the time. And then they accuse each other. And I don't even mean to say it's six and one and a half dozen of the other. I think, like, the antagonisms are not always evenly distributed. But what I

watch most often happen is that people who don't even understand what each other are talking about fight as if they better understand than each other right like yeah well you called me that and it's like no no no you didn't understand what i said it's like oh no now you're condescending to me i understood you just fine and plus what you meant to say was this and it's like well no that's not what i meant to say but now i understand you're attacking me because you hate me and it's like, well, no, that's not what I meant to say. But now I understand you're attacking me because you hate me. And it's like, well, no, no, that's not what I said. And like, so a lot of the times when it comes to, especially, I feel like there are two solitudes there. And it's not even like getting into grounds of like where you can adjudicate who gave who a fair shake. It's like these people are speaking about different issues and they're speaking different languages and they're talking past each other all the time. And I wish I was the guy to get in the middle and translate,

but I would probably just make it worse because there's probably a million things I don't understand about it. Yeah, the transit was clearer, so that's what we're looking at here. Hey, you earlier told me it was July 6th, even though it was July 7th. That's what we're looking at here. Hey, you earlier told me it was July 6th, even though it was July 7th. That's right.

But July 6th happened to be the anniversary of Martin Streak's passing. It was, and I was thinking about that when I was on my way here. Because you thought it was July 6th today. No, actually, on my way here, I may well have thought it was July 6th, but I was aware that yesterday was the anniversary of his passing. And I didn't know Martin Streak at all, but I knew him as a radio personality, but also I used to go to the Phoenix regularly.

I was like a regular in the 90s when he hosted. I was there a lot of the 90s too. And so it really saddened me when he died. Yeah, me too. And that was 2009. So that was seven years ago yesterday. And just a quick story for everybody, and maybe you'll find this interesting too,

is so when Martin Streak first passed away, there was a website he owned called martinstreak.com. That was his domain he owned. And I guess over the year that passed, those emails you might get that say hey your domain name is expiring or going to his email address that no one could access so it lapsed

and somebody jumped on it and there was just ads there so for years when I'd go to martinstreak.com there'd just be ads it was like one of those scrapers and they do that so that was for years and uh i even talked ubiquitous synergy seeker is a local band you might know and i was even they lent me

access to their lawyers to see if there was anything we could do to get it back to the family the markets and i took i was on this working on this for quite a while we ended up there was nothing we could do we this was owned was fairly owned by someone else, blah, blah, blah. Then about, I don't know, a month or two ago, I get an email from somebody saying, hey, because I used to tweet about this as it was happening. So I was like, hey, I think it's available.

Just say, hey, I think martinstreet.com is available. And I'm like, oh, it can't be available. I go through my thing, my registrar, and I see it's available. I buy it because I figure now I own this before someone else squats on this. And I got ads there. So just yesterday on the anniversary of Martin Streak's passing, I put up a little page at martinstreak.com where you could link to David Marsden's five hours of tribute audio to Streak. Wow.

hours of tribute audio to Streak. Wow. And the three hours that 102.1 did shortly thereafter that the aforementioned Rob Johnston helped produce for them, the chorus one. He compressed the shit out of that stuff too. Yeah, he compressed.

He told me he compressed the shit out of this Martin Streak tribute. So, eight hours plus available. Just stream it. I don't know if I have the legal right to do it. That's amazing. So that's hours plus available. Just stream it. I don't know if I have the legal right to do it, but I have the chance.

So that's at martinstreak.com? Right. And this is a brand new happening in that it's back in like, I guess, you know, if Martin's mom or if somebody in Martin's family

wants this, like I'd happily transfer it over or whatever, but until it's in the right hands there. But it's associated with his name again instead of like whatever ad factory had bought it

to scrap it anyway. And at least now you can go there and you can click in here It's associated with his name again instead of whatever ad factory had bought it. Exactly. And at least now you can go there and you can click and hear people who worked with him and loved him and knew him talking about him and playing the songs that he loved. To me, it's all about the music when it comes to Streak, and there it is. Absolutely. That's great. So there's an update on that. That's kind of happy news on the anniversary

of a sad occasion. I can't believe it was available. Like, I was just so happy to get it back from the ad scraper guys. It was just a victory there for the good guys,

if you will. Holy smokes. You know, we've gone like an hour and a half already. Yeah, I was just looking at my phone. Do you have somewhere

you're going to be? Or should I wrap this up? Well, you know, in the next while. I don't have to go to the door right now. We'll do this super fast. Here we go fast. The Toronto sign that they have at Nathan Phillips Square. So why is there even...

I mean, I've heard you write. I've seen you write about this. But it's well worth the money to keep that sign. People love that sign. It absolutely is, right? It's like tearing down the same tower. I think part of the quoted cost of it, too, was to make a replica sign that would tour around the city. I think they should just abandon that idea, right?

And I think they did, actually. But so, in the end, they did the right thing. They're not going to get rid of it. But there are always people, whenever a quote comes forward and is like, this is what something costs, right? This thing we all like, it's going to cost a little bit of money to keep having it. At City Home, there's always people who are like, well, maybe we can just put off that decision. Maybe we'll just study a little more. But that sounds like Rob Ford.

Rob Ford would be the guy who would say stuff like that. Yeah, but there's a bunch of them who are still like that. Like Rob Ford was the extreme end of that spectrum, right? But there's a bunch of people on city council who routinely think... I mean, to me, they seem penny-wise, pound-foolish, right? There are people who always think, like, that if we just scrape every nickel and dime,

then we'll never have to raise taxes, and we'll never have to... I mean, now, these are the same people who will, like, spend an extra billion dollars to open the Gardner a little bit faster or extend it another kilometer, right? Like, but it's always the nickel and dime things. And I feel like it's, like, because, like, they can envision what a million dollars is, right? And they can envision what a million dollars is, right? And they can envision what that

means to their constituents, but somehow like billions and billions of dollars. Like, this is a ridiculous amount of money. You're right. We're borrowing it and we're going to pay it off over a generation. I don't even know, right? It's like the way you might cut coupons, right? To save 35 cents because you're going

down to buy a coffee. But then when you go to buy a house in the Toronto real estate market, it's like, all right, $500,000 over asking, plus an extra $50,000 on the land transfer tax, plus whatever, right? You're exactly right. You're in crazy spending mood. But no, they were going to chintz out on that Toronto sign, and I'm glad they didn't.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. So their sanity prevailed there. That's good. The boat tree house in Bloor West Village. The old lady.

This was like a back and forth and yeah, yeah. So I guess they have to tear this down. They got to tear it down. Yeah,

yeah. I mean, they can appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board and they might. That will cost them a significant amount of money. I'm not sure they'd get a different result.

Can I ask you, if the 91-year-old or whatever who filed a complaint passes away of natural causes tomorrow, does this... Yeah, well, she's not even the one who launched the complaint. Why did I think that? They say it's her daughter. I mean, she's the one, when you knock on the door next door and say, what do you think of that treehouse? And she says, like, I don't like it, right?

But she's not the one who officially complained. It's like another neighbor who lived down the block who happens to be her daughter. But there was bad blood there to begin with. And, like, I don't know. I'm reluctant to make that guy too much of a champion because it is pretty obnoxious where it is and how it was built and all of that.

And he did have a lot of warning, right? He kind of claimed he was blindsided, but when you go back through the history of the correspondence, he was told over a period of years, like, this thing's not okay. It's not okay. That's funny. But, yeah, I mean, the thing is that it seems like, and it obviously captured people's imagination,

because this is the kind of thing that I write about this type of stuff a lot, and I think it really resonates with people. Because we can relate to it. I feel like these nitpickers from City Hall are coming around and just stomping out every little bit of independence or fun or whatever, every stupid lemonade stand or kid playing road hockey or whatever, they're all going to like, you know, but it's the same thing, right? Skating on the Grenadier Pond.

All the anti-fun bylaws. Yeah, exactly. And so, I mean, this is clearly part of that, but I don't feel like he's the best champion for the fun side on this because it's a bit more complicated in his case. Yeah. Back in that same area, I guess,

pretty much where you would be coaching your T-ball girls there. So the Cappy Bears were both safe and sound, and they're back in the zoo. Okay, good for them. Yeah. And it's just like one year after the peacock went on his walkabout, too. I'm thinking that the High Park Zoo has this like... You know how Amish people

when they get to be 18 or whatever, they go and they live among the people and then if they come back, they're accepted in the community. I'm wondering if the animals in the High Park Zoo have started something similar where it's like, okay, now it's your turn. You have to go out there and you go out and you see

what it's like and then if you come back, you're in. I don't know. My two-year-old saw one of the yaks take this huge dump. And he was like, couldn't believe it. The yaks are the stinkiest animal in the zoo. My son's first anecdote was about the yaks at the Hyde Park Zoo. He was talking a little bit in words here and there.

But we had walked through the zoo. And then we were later back at home in his bedroom and he was like, he strung together a few words but into a really bare-bones story where it's like, the yaks. Stinky, stinky yaks. And then a baby yak. And it was like this sequence that had happened where he saw the yaks and he

smelled the yaks, then the baby yak came around the corner and like, so the yaks stand out to me as came around the corner. So the yaks stand out to me as the feature of the Hyde Park Zoo because of the olfactory assault that just strikes you as you come anywhere and you hear their

cage. Do you have any insight into the reappearance of Ann Romer lately? This is the third tour. I do not. Any information I have about it actually comes from reading your blog. So I'm the source for your insight. You're my source,

so I don't know that we're going to move the ball very far down the field if we rehash that Ann Romer. I will never name my sources, even afterwards. I will never name my sources, but exceptional sources. It's unclear to me.

So is Anne herself, is what you're saying. You're saying Anne Romer told you this story herself. Next best source. No, I actually... Her husband? Steve Podborski?

It's the next husband. Oh, really? Yeah, a long time ago, I think. Has he been a guest on the show? You didn't listen to John Gallagher. He said, when she was... He tells a story

that Anne Romer was going down the aisle with Steve Adborski and says to him, I'm making a huge mistake. He's Job in Arrested Development. I got this story from John Gallagher last week. Now this is an extra special reason for John Gallagher. So wait, did Gallagher clear this up for you then? No, I mean, I think

I know. I just wondered if you knew. Here's what I'm unclear on, on the whole ongoing saga, is when she left and she thought she was going to go back to being a flight attendant, which is what I take it to mean. She actually wanted to be a flight attendant again. She wanted to be a flight attendant again. And then she realized...

She got her compensation package. This is how it was explained to me. From the flight attendant. From the airline. Right, right. So she actually had landed the gig.

Yes, yes. Like somebody had said, oh yes, we'll hire you as a flight attendant. My understanding is she got as far as basically the number, I don't know,

the number was something like $30,000 or something. Yeah. The number, she basically breaks down in tears that she cannot do that for that money and realizes she made another, like the Steve Podborski marriage, she basically breaks down in tears that she cannot do that for that money and realizes she made another,

like the Steve Podborski marriage, she made another huge mistake, and then she basically works on coming back. But she must have known before she quit her other job, at least ballpark. Like, did she think, was she going to be the celebrity? Did they, like, heavily recruit her to be like? Oh, like they'd sell the tickets for a premium

because of the Ann Romer flights? I would pay more to have Ann Romer. Because no matter what field you're thinking about going into, you negotiate with your boss. You'd have a roundabout. But you have an idea of the ballpark of what people in that field earn. Like before I quit my job.

Especially if you've done that job before. Right. Right. You know, that's, that's where I want Anne Romer to come on this show so I can get those answers. Cause you're right.

In fact, usually the questions come from the next retirement. So that one is ridiculous, but it's like, okay, but the next, cause the next, and you know,

some people are like, like, cause doesn't she know like to become like attorney general of Ontario, you have, some people are like, because doesn't she know to become Attorney General of Ontario, you have to be an elected MPP? Yeah. Well, that's the other one. Are you sure you don't mean... You know, I asked my source that.

It's just in the blogs. It's not Lieutenant Governor. No, because I asked my source. That's what I thought, too, because of David Onley. Yeah, yeah. And they were buddies. Or like Deputy Minister of something.

And it's possible that my source might have that wrong, right? That's why it's all hearsay, if you will, speculation and hearsay. I don't have to censor this part like I had to in my last Edward Keenan episode. This one I'm not going to worry about. And I tried to tweet at Bell Media's PR Twitter handle, and I'm engaging them. Like, hey, maybe Anne could come sit in the Keenan chair here, and we could just chat about this.

I'm not anti-Anne. She's a friendly face on my TV for decades. Off and on with some bizarre retirement interruptions. I'm a pretty fair guy. I'm not out to get Anne, but I would like to have a chat about this. No, it is interesting. I mean, she retired twice? Twice, yes.

The thing is, she retires twice with big farewells and cake and co-workers give her presents. Like, this happened twice. And each time she's been back, and when she comes back, they never acknowledge the initial... That she was ever gone, right?

They pretend it never happened. Which I kind of get why, but it's really kind of weird to have a huge, hey, Anne's retiring, and then coming back as if she never left in the first place. And to do it twice. The one time, give you a pass, like, okay,

you changed your mind, you came back, good for you. But twice. You had cake twice. It is kind of strange, yeah. And it's not like, this happens a lot. See, in radio, the opposite thing happens, where certainly when people retire, like Dave Agar retired from Newstalk 1010, he got like a big send-off, right?

Yes, Mike Cooper. And he was there forever, right? So it's like, and well-learned. But often, more often, the way people leave a radio station is like, and it's brutal, right? So it's like, and well learned. But often, more often, the way people leave a radio station is like, and it's brutal, right? Because it's like,

they're gone, but then the station never acknowledges that they ever existed, right? Exactly. Like they don't answer, they don't talk about them on the air,

they don't like... Like when Fred got fired from the mix and Humble at some point just decided he would, you know, he gave out his BlackBrain number and said to the people listening,

call me and I'll tell you what happened. Because it was too weird not to mention that the Humble and Fred show is now just the Humble show. Yeah, I mean, because like, yeah, people have been listening for years. They have a relationship with this person. And all of a sudden, like, the next day, and often it's exactly that, where it's like the same co-hosts or the rest of the friendly staff. Mad Dog and Billy is now Mad Dog and Nora. Like what happened to Billy?

Yeah. And they're like, who? Who? What? You don't mention the B word. Yeah. So, I mean, it's good that she gets the big going away parties, but it is weird that they never even talk about it. If you were her colleague and twice you had bought her,

let's say a hundred dollar gift card from the keg or something, right? Aren't you pissed right now? Like she's back. Yeah. And she's there like eating the keg gear, steak. She's got the takeout keg.

And you know, you bought her that gift card. Oh my God. I eat a keg every day now. Cause I got all these gift cards. Holy smokes. Um, all right. I'm going to skip a bunch of stuff I realize we talked too much about the boat treehouse

it took up too much time you're at High Park, the cherry blossoms never came this year I know I think the star did write about it and I wrote about it I wanted to say I did miss the cherry blossoms but I didn't miss the crowds I biked through High Park all the time

and it's ridiculous in the peak cherry blossom time. And it was kind of nice not having that. Yeah, and there's, like, the last couple years, I mentioned that my kids play, you know, the high park baseball league and the t-ball. So there's, like, always this opening day, right? This official opening day that happens. Yeah.

It's, like, almost always in the same weekend that the cherry blossoms are in bloom. So what happens is there are like 14 T-ball teams and like 12 Little League teams. So all the players from all of those teams are all in the park at the same time. Now, usually it's only like two teams playing each other, but instead it's like all the kids and all their parents

for like hundreds of them, right? And they're all there for the opening day. And that's usually the kickoff weekend of High Park soccer too. So they're in the same thing. And then there's all the people who are cherry blossoms. So two years ago, we actually had to park our car on a net. Wow.

If people can know that part of the city. That's like a 15-minute walk. You couldn't even do Clendennen or something like that. Oh, wait. The park is like a traffic jam, gridlocked. You can't even drive around in the park. And then Bloor Street and High Park Avenue and Humberside, all the streets in between are just...

And it's weird because it's the sleepiest part of the city, but it's like the DVP during rush hour, right? Because of the cherry blossoms. And so it was actually nice to have a year off from that. That's how I felt. They are phenomenal to see. Yeah, and they're like nature's fireworks. Even I always stop.

I go on weekdays and I go in there and I take my pictures or whatever. But they'll be back, right? You've talked to the horticulturists. It is kind of weird when you go down there, too. Like, I guess people get into the, it's like park people and, like, whatever. They get into the scene of watching them. But I do find it kind of weird.

I find the cherry blossoms themselves, like nature's fireworks, like they're kind of fun to see. Yeah. But it is weird when you go there and there are all these crowds there that it's like, well, now here's'm i'm not just looking at these cherry blossoms i'm like a participant in a crowd of like thousands of people who are all oohing and aahing taking pictures and like setting picnics up all around yeah yeah yeah uh yeah these trees like it's like it's a bizarre scene to be a part of like you know it's like i was on a train in italy going to cinque tara i hope i said that right. The five. It's beautiful on the Riviera there.

And my wife says to me, if we get off at this stop, we can go see the Tower of Pisa. Right. And maybe I'll live to regret this. I took a pass

on the Tower of Pisa. Okay? I wanted to get to Cinque Terre and I took a pass. We decided not to stop and go do the Pisa thing because I envisioned

the Pisa thing would be like that. Like, you got this thing there but it's just all these people doing the tricks, and I know no one can see what I'm doing, but that trick where it looks like you're pushing it. Or you're holding up the Pisa. So anyway, it sounds like that's what the cherry blossoms.

It's like there's a Don DeLillo novel in White Noise. There's that scene where it's the most photographed barn in the world. It's just a plain old red barn, but it's like because it has this sign, and then everybody takes photos of it, and then you participate in this ritual of doing the thing where you take the pictures of it.

It's like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes that's kind of interesting to participate in something like that, but sometimes, yeah, you feel like, well, maybe I could just skip that part. Yeah, like everyone's doing that, so I'm going to go do this. Like I know what the Leaning Tower of Pisa looks like because I've seen the movies and I've seen the postcards. And it's the only thing there. You get off, you stop, and do everything, and it's doing that, so I'm going to go do this. Act out. Like, I know what the Leaning Tower of Pisa looks like, because I've seen the movies and I've seen the postcards. And it's the only thing there.

You get off, you stop and do everything, and it's the only thing there. Okay, the last thing, skipping all this. You know there's a Euro Cup match going on, but anyway. Last thing here. Pot dispensaries, wanted to ask you real quick. So they all kind of sprout up. Yeah.

And when are the liberal governments just going to end up selling them at LCBOs anyways, right? Yeah, I mean, they're not going to... I think those pot dispensaries are like prospectors, right? Like, in addition to, like, they're opening in anticipation of pot being made legal, but they're trying to stake a claim there, right? They're trying to be the pioneers where it's like, oh, legalize us, right? You're looking for, you're grasping around for a system of how this is going to be allowed.

Well, we're already here, right? It's a risky business venture. And they have reason to believe's too strong a word, but I mean, there are other cities in which pot dispensaries, privately run pot dispensaries

are allowed and they're certified by the government. But you can buy beer in a convenience store in those places. That's not what the liberal government has in mind. And yeah, we're most likely to see it in the LCBO. And if not in the LCBO, we're going to see it through some government distribution channel instead of licensed.

I mean, I don't see why they wouldn't do it the same way they do alcohol, where there are bars, right? I mean, I think they should have beer in corner stores and all of that. I don't know why it's so important that the government control it, but it's almost certainly going to be the case, right? Now, I don't think the police should be going out and busting and doing high-profile raids on all of these places.

I actually think there should be sort of a more... Knowing that the law is going to change, I think the directive from the Attorney General and whatnot... If Ann Romer was there, we wouldn't be in this position, right? But I think the directive from the Attorney General should be to, like, not

enforce this unless there are bigger implicating circumstances, right? Because you don't know what the legal status of it is. Can you imagine being in prison for possession today and then the law changes and you still got to serve out your stupid sentence? Yeah. Ridiculous. So you're not – do you frequent, because the junction where you're from, they're popping up there too because they're all over. There's a few, yeah.

No, I'm not a big pot smoker. I never was. There's no big quitting story. It's bad for you, no? It actually knocks me right out. I just don't enjoy it. Cocaine, on the other hand, that's a hell of a drug. I hear Steve Anthony and Gallagher

lived together and apparently there was piles of it everywhere. That's what I understand. Did Steve Anthony tell you that? Steve admitted to partaking and John Gallagher said he did too, but not for 17 years. He's 17 years without, but he still drinks, but he doesn't do the Coke.

The Coke, he's 17 years past. Right. The Coca-Cola, yeah, all the time. You know what though? I've never seen Coke. Cocaine. I've never seen cocaine. Like in person. I know. I don't know if I have the wrong like, I'm in the wrong circle of friends or what, but I've never seen it. Or maybe the

right circle of friends. The dispensary circle. We gotta end on that note. That's a good sentiment. Our kids might listen to this episode. That's one to growary circle. We got to end on that note. That's, that's a good sentiment. Our kids might listen to this episode. That's one to grow on. I loved one to grow on. And that brings us to the end of our 183rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and Ed,

Eddie Edward is at the Keenan wire. And our friends at Great Lakes brewerwery are at Great Lakes Beer. Rebecca's getting the beer, though, and I'm going to follow her. See you all next week. It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or do For me and you But I'm a much better man for having known you