Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - El Mo Gig Update: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1896

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

In this 1896th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike updates the Toronto Mike'd Universe as to where he's at with his El Mocambo headlining debut in two weeks before sharing audio of his appearance on Humble and Fred and his speech at Cam Gordon's Track Changes book launch in Kensington Market. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

I'm headlining at the Elma combo two weeks today. Two short weeks. Here's how things are shaping up. I've done writing. I literally took notes on bike rides over the last few months, and my performance is crafted. So now I plan to more or less memorize it. I just have to find a little time to do that.

I've shared with Rob Pruse. of spoons in honeymoon sweet fame, the musical cues. Rob is deciding now what he'll play for those parts. Note to self, jump on a Zoom with Rob. I've locked and loaded my grand finale. Special guests are involved. No, I'm not telling you who will be jumping on stage

with Rob and I for this exciting ending, but I think you're going to love it. Here's how I envision this evening at the Starlight Room at the Elma Combo going. At 7 p.m., Rob Pruse will entertain you by playing whatever the heck he wants. I hope there's some Mr. Dress-Up in the mix. At 7.55 p.m., Rob Pruse will play a specific banger that he co-wrote. At the conclusion of this song, I will leap on stage, grab the mic, and I'm going to go until 9.30 p.m.

That's 90 minutes. We'll see if I stick the landing. At 9.30 p.m., special guests are going to jump on stage. It's the grand finale. Tickets are now available via Eventbright. There's a link at Toronto mic.com if you click Elmo gig. And I hope to see you on May 21st at the Elma combo. For this one time only, I swear to you, as I speak into this microphone,

the morning of Thursday, May 7th, 2026, I have zero intention of ever doing anything like this again. It's kind of amazing how it happened in the first place, but that's in the one-man show. Here's an appearance I made on Humble and Fred's podcast last week, where we talked about this very event. So before we let you go, Michael, a couple months ago, we had a conversation. Mike said, yeah, I'm going to be doing a one-man show at the Elma Combo.

And I was like, wow, that's a big step. So why don't you explain it? Explain how this, I think it's a great story, actually, how this experiment, Mike's calling it a Mike Boone's social experiment or just out? No, I never used Mike Boone. It's Toronto Mike's social experience. Toronto, I guess, of course. Toronto Mike's.

And what is the social experiment, Toronto Mike? Well, you'll sort of, that's unveiled during the performance. But I will just say on May 21st, 2026, I think it's a Thursday night. I am at the Elma combo. And just so the listeners know, it's like, I got Rob Pruss from Spoons and Honeymoon Suite. So he was the Spoons guy who co-wrote romantic traffic. He's a keyboard guy. He's like on stage.

with me. So he's going to be, you know, he's going to be playing songs at like 7 p.m. And at 8 p.m. I grabbed the mic for 90 minutes and I deliver this crafted one-man show, basically. And then there's a big grand finale with special guests that will blow your mind. And this is happening. So is there any way you can give us a hint who the special guests are that will blow our minds? Well, I can't, I can't ruin it by giving you a, I can tell you offline, of course. But this is a, wouldn't that help sell tickets by telling people? I'd rather keep, see, the surprise is more important to me than sell. I get it.

Can you just put it in the chat here so we can all be wowed by it or no? As long as you don't. Yeah, we promise. No one, no one blurt it out. I will, I will, but I'm not on, I will. I will. So what is a 90-minute, Mike, Toronto Mike, what are you calling it? Well, I don't know what to call it because I don't know what it is because I've never done it.

And I don't plan to ever do it again. Like, I swear, as I. speak to you. I don't have any plans to ever do this against. So it's like I craft it. It's all authentic. Like it's all real. Like I share, I'm kind of vulnerable in this thing and I share observations and there's some humor and some heartfelt stuff

and it all kind of comes together and there's some musical elements to it which Rob Proust will handle, not me. And I don't know. I think it's a compelling, interesting 90 minutes that I'm going to deliver and I'm jazzed about it because it's a one time only lifetime thing. So you'll be

standing there with a mic or are you going to Yeah. Be behind a desk like your podcast or whatever. No, no, I'm serious. I know. I'm definitely not a sitting guy. Like, I know I sit for the podcast, but I like to, I'm going to be standing with a mic and talking to the audience. There's a little crowd work, depending who I see in the crowd.

I just hope I see somebody. Like, I don't want it to be an empty room. But even if there's one person there, I'm delivering the same show as if there's a hundred people there. So, Dan has a question for you. Oh, yes, Dan. It's called this social experiment. have you been doing miniature social experiments leading up to this big social? And that's part of it is, no, I'm not going to perform this anywhere until I do it at the Elmo combo.

So it's like the first time this is done is going to be in front of a live audience at the Elmo. So you're not rehearsing it or anything? Well, I mean, when I go on bike rides, I will say it to myself. Yeah. Well, that's why I want to ask. Like, have you, because when we talked about it a couple months ago, I said, listen, if you need any help, I'd be happy to help you craft it. in some way and, you know, whatever advice I could offer. And you were like, no, I just want

to go out there and raw dog raw dog it. That's actually in the show. Like I do, so you guys do make an appearance in the 90 minutes. Like, so as I reference things and observations. But my question to you was like, have you actually written it out? Yeah. So I in Google Docs over the last few months,

I've been writing parts of it and piecing it together. And now I have it crafted. So now it's literally like fine tuning it and memorizing it. Well, I was going to say, are you going to memorize it or take stuff up on stage? My goal is to memorize it and I might have like one cheat sheet with the sequencing of the parts.

I would recommend you do that. Yeah, so I'll have that in case of a murray. Because I'm worried I'll go off a tangent and then I'll forget where to come back to. So I have a little tiny cheat sheet. Yeah, I was going to say like, you know, even when, yeah, a lot of comics will do that. Maybe not bring it up on stage, but I would in your case definitely bring it up on stage. So at least you have the idea. This is the first subject and this is the second one.

So, yeah. So this is going to be like a Billy Crystal thing. What was his seven days or what was it again? Where he stands up there and talks about his life. I don't know because I never saw that. But it's, so this is not based on anything I've ever seen. Like, so it may be exactly like things that exist except that I created it from my brain. And it's, you know, it's, it's happening one time only.

If you miss it, you miss it. And there's no, you told me. No free tickets. No, I don't even control the ticketing. So there's a woman who paid for the Elmo. I didn't put money into this either. So a woman paid for the Elmo for me to do this. So I expect $0 and zero cents out of this.

Like, I don't expect any money out of it. I didn't put any money into it. And maybe that's why I care more about the surprise and the ticket sales, Fred, because I'm not to record it. So as I speak to you at this moment, I don't plan to record it, but I probably, I feel like I'll change my mind. a professional recording, but I'll have somebody set up a phone and record the 90 minutes.

You should. It'll be fun for you. Well, listen, man, lots of respect to you. That's not an easy thing to do. I was saying to Fred before the show, I mean, the longest I've ever done stand-up was an hour, and I've done some keynotes that are around an hour, an hour and 10, and it's a lot of talking.

You know, I know what I've bit off here, and it might be more than I can chew, but that might be part of the thing, is that I choke on this thing. So, like, what, it's happening, 90 minutes, and I got to stick the landing. There's a Howard story in this part that refers to that. And I got to just let the listeners know if anybody listening would like to have a Thursday night on the town at the Elmo to soak this in. If you go to Toronto Mike.com, there is a link at the top that reads Elmo gig. Click that and buy a ticket or two and come out and see me.

I'm not alone. You know, you have balls the size of Oklahoma. really because as Howard said that's not easy and you're putting yourself out there and uh good on you to have such an attitude yeah man yeah I'm too stupid to realize I should know you're not stupid not at all I'm big balls I'm in and in a way I know what you mean it's not you're not stupid it's just like you know it's it's like the old you don't know what you don't know and not knowing like you know is it's going to be great for you because I just will say one thing. I hope it goes

great. You know I do. But if it doesn't, you're going to have to burn the clothes you're wearing. Because I have bombed before and it does something to the fabric of those clothes. That clothes is a certain kind of smell. But I'm really getting an element from Mike

here that he doesn't care. Oh, yeah. Well, that's my superhuman strength, my power, if you will. I don't give a fuck. And again, I say this with respect. I know it might be your superpower. You don't care. But in the light of the day, in the moment, your body will. Listen, Toronto miced and look for Elmo gig and click on it. And as soon as you get some free tickets, Fred and I are there.

I actually don't think that's true. Oh, no, no. I definitely would go? I'm just not paying $60 for it. If I gave Fred a ticket right now, would Fred be there if I coughed up weekend? I'd have to, I got to check my grandson's baseball schedule. May 21st. Mike, you know I'd be there if the tickets.

What day of the week is that? It's a Thursday. night, Thursday night. All right, we got to go. Okay, bye. And here's my five-minute speech from Cam Gordon's track changes book launch in Kensington Market. I'm just throwing this in the mix, so it's archived for all eternity.

Welcome, everybody. Good to see you. Good looking, proud. I'm a Toronto Mike, and in the 1990s, I started a personal. homepage. Does anyone here remember the 1990s? Give it up for the 1990s. And then in 2002, I converted the personal homepage into a blog at TorontoMike.com. And then 10 years later, I launched my podcast, Toronto Miked.

And we're pretty close to 1900 episodes of Toronto Miked. Sounds like a big number, as I said, at length. But back in the heyday of blogging, I would get these emails from PR representatives. They'd send me emails. And like some of these events I took advantage of were pretty rad. Like I'd be courtside in a rafters game thanks to Gatorade. And GM would send me on like a road trip to Quebec. But I kept getting these emails from a Cameron Gordon.

And these emails would be completely ignored. And recently, Cam Gordon came over for an episode of Toronto Mike to talk about track changes. And he was kind of surprised. This is live on the mic. He surprised I would ignore these invitations to these stylish LG phone launch events. So in real time, I opened up the email that he sent me like 20 years ago or whatever. And I saw the two words that are my kryptonite the two words that guarantee I will not convert on your PR offer the two words jacket required so let's fast for it 2018 Cam Gordon is the director of communications at Twitter Canada does anyone here remember Twitter Canada and Cam again sent me an email

but he pitched himself as a guest on Toronto might and I thought it was time I unravel this mystery and explore who is this Cam Gordon fellow. So we picked a day and time in June 2018. And I liked him right away because he arrived with a Seattle Pilots t-shirt. And we had the most amazing 2.5 hour conversation. And I realized almost immediately this guy gets it. and he introduced me to his high school buddy, Stu Stone. Is Stu here by any chance? Stu Stone. Stu's working.

Stu's. Is it a work or a shoot? We'll never know with that. And then in March 2020, there was a global pandemic. Does anyone here remember the global pandemic? And KAN STU and I decided that we needed to do something to help the listenership through this traumatic ordeal. And we decided that every single week throughout the pandemic,

we would collect either in my backyard or virtually, and then eventually when we were allowed to be together in the basement. But we would kick out these thematic jams. We'd call this Pandemic Friday. One week, it might be our favorite grunge songs. Another week would be our favorite yacht rock. It might be Canadian songs covered by non-Canadian artists. You get the idea.

But we did this for, and I can't be. believe this number we did this for 76 weeks and then finally we had to we had to end it was killing me actually and we had a farewell finale live on the patio of Great Lakes Brewery in front of our our front of many of our listeners and we finally said goodbye after 76 weeks so I mentioned that I'm approaching 1900 episodes of Toronto Mike and I think at least a hundred of those remember the 76 pandemic Friday's. At least 100 of those include Cam Gordon. And what I like about Cam, what I admire about him is his attention to detail, his passion to, you know, archive the accurate, this important history

that is quickly disappearing. Oh, there's some other back there. This man, he gets it. He's one of us. Cam Gordon tracks changes. And I love the book, track changes, not just, Chapter 11, which is my favorite chapter. I love the book. I love the man. And it's my esteemed privilege and honor to welcome to the stage. Cam Gordon! I think we're going to do like an intimate and interact. I don't know. There's like stools here. Uh, thank you so much for the intro, Mike, and thank you all for coming tonight. See you on May 21st. All we need to do is we need to let the Rivley know to expect Nirvana the band. What we do? Call the Rivley from Now magazine?

Oh, hey, it's supposed to sit... Call the Rivley from Now Magazine. We already did the... You see? Oh, my God. It's just a reverse. We just got to break into Now Magazine. You just came up with it like, as if it was nothing. You're incredible.

I thought you'd say you're Kramer. Your Kramer. Actually, which one was Kramer? I think I'm a bit more Kramer than you. I mean, in the show. Was it the Jewish woman? The guy who came in the door. Yeah.

Jerry, I need a pickle. You got damn right.