Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Evelyn Macko: Toronto Mike'd #334

Episode Date: May 10, 2018

Mike chats with news broadcaster Evelyn Macko about her years at CFTR, Q107, 640 and 1010.

For Toronto Mic, I'm Evelyn Makko. Welcome to episode 334 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know that 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? GLB. Rude for you, Ontario. And Propertyinthe6.com. Toronto real estate done right.

And Paytm, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca and our newest sponsor, Camp Tournesol, the leading French summer camp provider in Ontario. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me is legendary news

broadcaster Evelyn Macko. I should start selling tickets. Where's your applause? I mean, I have one actually, but I like the authentic applause. It's in my head though. But Evelyn, what a pleasure.

Well, thank you. What a pleasure for me. Is that true? Or are you just being me? Of course, yeah. It's worth the drive to Acton. From Acton or from Collingwood? Something like that.

Okay, let's tell the people off the top. You have literally, you came all the way from Collingwood today. You can't say no to Toronto Mike. Right? I wish you'd share that with your friends in the industry, because some have actually said no, believe it or not. No! I want names.

John Derringer. No! Ever heard of him? Yeah, no. Yeah, John gave me a no. I've got a few no's. They're usually polite. Oh, and Dave Bookie, Dave Bookman, he was forever on CFNY. He was there for a long time, and now he's on Indie88, and I've been a big

fan forever. Bookie said no. Oh, dear. He must have had something to do. Maybe take out the trash, shovel the driveway. Listen, I don't, so I've had a few no's, but you gave me a yes, and it delighted me. And then you also, I could tell from the email exchange that you've actually,

you actually listen to this show. Is that right? I've heard some of your guests, yes. And most recently I went back to an interview you did with Maureen Holloway. Oh, she's great. Because this year, she is the recipient of the Rosalie Award. Please tell us, ignorant fools, what is the Rosalie Award? Well, it's named in honour of and after Rosalie Tremblay,

who was very instrumental in creating the sound for the Big Eight in Windsor. The CKLW. The voice, Mark Daly, came from there. True. Yep. And so did Dick Smythe. Who we're going to get to later because you worked with Dick. I did.

Where does Dick live? Dick's in Bracebridge having a great time stirring up shit. Oh, can I say that? You can saybridge, having a great time, stirring up shit. Oh, can I say that? You can say that, yeah. Okay. Stirring up shit. That's the glory of a podcast. Yay.

In Bracebridge and like rattling chains. I saw him do some ads recently. He was doing like commercials for something or other. Yeah, what was that? Pill or? It was a muscle thing. A cream? Lakota?

No. No, that's a different, but something like that. Yeah, something. Some kind of an animal. But I remember he's got the, he had the George Carlin, like, white ponytail. You know what I mean? And I was thinking, like, Bracebridge, like, if Evelyn Macko could make the trip from Collingwood, maybe I should have had you pick up Dick on the way here.

Yeah, it's not on the way. Sorry. Wait a minute. Okay, wait, because you go 11 to get to Bracebridge, right? That's like Muskoka Bracebridge? That's east. Going to Huntsville? Yeah, that's well east of where I am. Well east of, yeah. And you're up near like

Wasega Beach, kind of? 27? Is that the one? A little west of there. 26. You're close. Okay, because they go off like after Barrie, you've got to choose 26. This is a long time. You get the 400 extension or Highway 11. Okay. And you didn't just come for my podcast. You're doing other things in the city while you're here.

I'm going to stop and get my favorite bagels in the world at Griff's. Where's Griff's? Lawrence and Bathurst. Okay. Or Bathurst and Lawrence. Sure. Yeah, south of. The most fabulous bagel.

So whenever I can work it into the schedule and make the little circuit and do other errands, that's got to be a stop. Listen, if you can tie together a Toronto Mike appearance and those bagels, that sounds to me like a great Thursday. That sounds fantastic. Well, yeah, the Toronto Mike is number one.

Oh, you're very sweet to me. And when we met at the door, you said something about, like, how do I know you? Because you looked at me like you knew me. Yeah. But we're not talking know me like because you saw a tweet or you saw a picture on TorontoMike.com or something. But you mean you think you know me from, like, the real physical world. I'm just wondering if we've crossed paths somewhere because you do look familiar to me. Either you've been in the CFRB newsroom

or I think in one of your podcasts, you mentioned something about being at CFTR. And I thought, well, maybe you were an operator or something, I don't know. So first of all, I am thinking- You tell me, I'm asking the questions now. You're asking, go ahead. How do I know you?

I can tell you this. I have, there's, I'm 100% questions now. You're asking, go ahead. How do I know you? I can tell you this. I have, there's, I'm 100% sure we have never met because I would never forget meeting Evelyn Macko. Oh. This is the truth. And I mean, we're going to get into this later, but a little, little teaser is that I did, and I have spoken often about how I, my favorite station growing up was 680 CFTR. And my morning show was Tom Rivers.

Yes. I loved it. And so I've had people like Bob Callahan, the Callahan man, and like, well, Larry Fedorek and Chris James,

who now goes by KJ. I've worked with all of them. Yes. They're all fabulous. And that's great to hear too. And so when, so basically, I do talk a lot about CFTR,

especially when, of course, Jesse and Gene, of course, have been on the too. And so when, so basically I do talk a lot about CFTR, especially when, of course, Jesse and Jean, of course, have been on the show. Yeah. But that, I've never worked at CFTR,

I've never worked in radio. And I've never met, I know I've never met you because the moment I heard your voice at the door, like I want to know if you are aware, are you self-aware that you have this amazing, like authoritative voice? Like that's why I'm glad you read that intro

before the theme song like it's it's just like the voice of like the voice of god a female doom yeah okay like when dogma right speaking of george george carlin and dogma do you know this movie dogma of kevin smith i'm a little tangent but uh i think george carlin's in that and i think he's great in that and i think alanis morissettelin's in that. I think he's great in that. And I think Alanis Morissette plays God in that movie, for what it's worth. I'll have to look at that. Do you know you have a great voice? No, no.

And thank you for saying that. It always astounds me. I can just recall a time shopping with a girlfriend and trying on dresses or whatever. And somebody said, do you have a lanako? And I went, what? Like, how did you figure that out? So sometimes I'll get that and it still amazes me. I don't know how people, I guess, fans or listeners or whatever. So I don't know. It amazes me. But thank you for saying that. Talking about CFTR,

when I met you at the door, I said, I come bearing gifts. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, of course. How could I forget? And I said, don't and I said, literally, I said, don't give me anything, Evelyn. Do it on the air. And that's that's my secret sauce is we and I hope it doesn't come across as rude. But I like to press record and then do the get to know you stuff. But you come bearing gifts. For me. Totally spontaneous. I love it. I'm excited.

Now I'm excited. But if I don't like this gift, I have trouble faking I'm happy. So choose a hand. Okay. I choose your right hand. My right hand is this as I'm passing something to you. And look at how excited you are. Yes.

Yes. Because it's funny. I have a budding collection to my left here now. I knew at how excited you are. Yes, because it's funny. I have a button collection to my left here now. I knew that. So you knew that. 680 CFTR, $30,000 in total prizes button.

So is this like, can I ask you, is this a promotion where if I was seen wearing this on Toronto streets or something, I would qualify to win $30,000 or something like that? Somewhere in the 80s, yeah, definitely.

Like a Toronto T, City TV. Ziggy, Ziggy's been on this show from Much Music slash City TV. She's so clever. And she's still on the air at Zoomer. I want to say, is it Jazz? No, Zoomer. She's on the air at Zoomer.

She's working for Moses still. But okay. And if you got spotted wearing the Toronto T, they came up and gave you a prize or whatever. And as a kid, I thought that was the coolest thing. Like, oh my God. I love this button, but can I still qualify for the $30,000? No, come on.

I'm struck by the fact that it's $30,000. And back in the day, that's a lot of change. Now it won't even pay for half of a renovation of a kitchen. Back in the day, the prizes were often, if you were $680, maybe the prize would be $68. You know what I mean? I think we used to give out news awards for that. If you'd call in a news tip and we selected a news tip, I think it was of the week and then of the month.

And then the payout was larger for the month. So it was $6.80 for a week and then $68 for a month. That's amazing. Now, I'm so glad you gave this to me because I will treasure it. But I'm not like, this was, is this your only? No, I have two more. Oh, good. And you, so you held on to this for, do you have a guess what year it's from?

You guess? Like, are we guessing like? It's got to be the 80s. Late 80s? Like 88 or something? Probably mid. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So you have my left hand from which to choose. This is very interesting. It's here. You say what it is. Okay. Do you know what that is? I'm going to guess what this is.

Is this a urinal puck? No, but it's about the same size. Okay, sorry. Look, I was going to take a leak on this. I would never. No, no, don't. It was given away as a promotional thing. So we could explain that it looks like a urinal puck. I'm going to take a picture and tweet it. And I'll

definitely share this via Twitter, this picture. It's the great, the historic, I had this sticker, CFTR 680, the famous logo on something that looks like a urinal puck. But tell me what this is. Well, it's wrapped in cellophane very, very tightly, very compressed. What it is is actually about the size of a face cloth. It is a face cloth. Oh, wow. And if my memory serves me correctly,

during one of the Blue Jays games, we would give those out as, I guess you might describe it as a precursor to a terror towel, where you'd kind of wave it. Like a J-cloth. Yeah, but it's about the size of a face cloth. I can't believe they could vacuum pack it like this.

Isn't that amazing? I know. But I noticed you have a bicycle, so if you ever got hot and sweaty, you could just crack that little puppy open. See, the thing is I could never, ever open this. Clearly I have not. And there's a logo on the cloth, right?

No, it's just a white cloth. Oh, see, I would never open it then because the logo is the key part of this being a memento or whatever. And we used to have magnets that looked exactly like that also. That's amazing. The beautiful colors, the blue and the black and the yellow all stand out. Like you said, you're going to take a

picture and put it on your... Oh, for sure, for sure. No, thank you. So thank you so much. I have gifts. Now I need to give you gifts, okay? This will be how we get to know each other. Okay. Where do I begin?

Okay. For a moment, I thought, for a little while, I thought maybe your husband was joining us. But he's not here, obviously. Yeah, he's got something. He's parking in the car. But I have a six-pack for you. He might want you to share with him.

That's up to you guys. But that's from Great Lakes Brewery. And feel free to crack one open. Yeah, would I? It's all up to you. Oh, this is lovely. Great Lakes Brewery is a local craft brewery, fiercely independent, great people. They are proud sponsors of this program.

They've been sponsoring this program for years how lucky are you how lucky am I I love fiercely independent projects so I think they're great I mean the owner's been on it's great and yes

please enjoy that six pack thank you I shall bring that back to Collingwood I will hey Collingwood's got some stuff happening

but I'm really looking forward to this well that's okay because I did so these guys have been around 31 years, okay? Is that right? But I always joke with them, like, okay, so when they start, okay, craft beer, there wasn't a lot of craft breweries. Today, I think every other block, there's a new craft brewery opening.

There's a lot of craft. I know Collingwood's got some too, but nothing beats the Great Lakes Brewery. This is great. Tobacco, local. Yeah. Fabulous. Thank you so much. Enjoyacco, local. Yeah. Fabulous. Thank you so much.

Enjoy. But I have more gifts for you. So you brought me a couple of gifts. I got a couple of you. So six pack for you, Great Lakes Brewery. There's a pint glass. That's yours as well. Great pint glass from Brian Gerstein.

He's propertyinthesix.com. I think Collingwood is a, that's definitely not the GTA. So, but you're happy where you are. We'll talk about that. But Brian, great guy. He recorded a message for you. So let's hear from Brian. Okay.

Hi, Evelyn. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. We had Urbanation speak to us, the authoritative source for information on Toronto's condominium market. The biggest takeaway I got was that if you own a condo in the six, now is a great time to sell. As from 2019 to 21, there will be lots of new condo supply hitting the market. So selling now at the peak makes a lot of sense. When you combine it with the detached home market, not expected to bounce back until the middle of 2019, there's a huge opportunity to sell off your condo and move up when you still can. The gap between the two is as attractive as ever. Call me at 416-873-0292 to learn how.

Evelyn, before real estate, I worked in marketing for both Yamaha and Kawasaki and couldn't help notice in a recent interview you gave, you were on a Honda Cruiser. How did you develop your love of biking and how much did it kill you to have to wait so long to hit the road? Are you a biker?

And when I say biker, not my kind of biking where we pedal. You have like a motorcycle. I have some power. Yes. Tell me about this. Okay. I'm going to take it back to the husband. He was the one who had a motorcycle when we were in our relationship. And I used to ride

on the back. And it bugged the hell out of me. I'd always come back home after a ride with a stiff neck because I was kind of cocking my head, trying to look around him as we're going down the road. And I thought, that's nuts. I want to do this on my own. I want to be the driver. Be in the driver's seat. And so I took a course at, I think it was Centennial College at Eglinton and Vic Park. Is that where? I feel like Centennial, oh, maybe you're right, actually. I'm going to trust your memory there because I don't know.

I could be wrong on that. Nevertheless, I took the weekend motorcycle course and I failed it. I'm going to trust your memory there because I don't know. I could be wrong on that. Nevertheless, I took the weekend motorcycle course, and I failed it. Oh. And I felt miserable because here I am at the time working at Q107, and people knew me just from having worked there. Right. So by virtue of the fact of me failing,

that didn't humiliate me as much as the fact that it was Evelyn Macko from Q107 and those people knew that I failed the final test. Okay, let me just say that in my Venn diagram of like Q listeners and motorcycle riders, there's a lot of overlap. Like the rock come out of Q is probably the music of choice by your average motorcyclist.

Is that fair to say? Yeah, definitely. Anyway, I booked a retest, passed it, and my first bike was a Honda Shadow Ace 750, which is pretty large, pretty imposing. Again, I got to trust you on this one. I don't know my bikes, but I'm fascinated. The courses they put you on are either 125s or 250s, somewhere between a real bike and a scooter. Okay. bikes, but I'm fascinated. The courses they put you on are either 125s or 250s.

Somewhere between a real bike and a scooter. Okay. In terms of power. Sure, sure. And then recently sold that one and went to a CBF 1000. And that's bigger? Or it's faster? It's faster. Okay. Yeah, a little more power. So she chirps when you just turn that

throttle. It's like... Who makes this? This is a Honda. Honda, okay. And the snobby Harley people don't put their noses up at you for riding a Honda? You don't get any guff from any of the Harley guys? Somewhat. We, motorcycle people, call Harleys Milwaukee Vibrator.

Because they just shake the hell out of you. Holy shit. It's like you're going down the road and your eyes are going. Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. I did a test drive on one, a Sportster. And that's exactly what it was like being on a, on a, I don't want to say being on a vibrator. Like sitting on like a washing machine or whatever?

Well, I suppose if you've ever sat on a washing machine, I suppose. Who hasn't? That's what I want to know. That's Kate. That's, so I've never, I've never been on a motorcycle, but that culture fascinates me. Like it's very freeing and relaxing and you're out and you can smell the earth and feel the sun on your face. Maybe the bug's hitting your windscreen.

Right. You have to keep the windscreen down. Gotcha. But it is. You've got the proper clothing. Sometimes you get a little hot in the summer, but that's okay because if you fall off that bike,

you need skin on your body. Yeah, I can't even, I don't want to think about that. But you've never, obviously, you've never fallen off your bike. I have. You have, okay. So you were okay? It was my, it was the first bike, the Honda Shadow Ace.

Yeah. And I lost my husband at a stoplight, and it was maybe only the third time that I'd been on an extended little trip. Yeah. And I was a block away from the house. trip. And I was a block away from the house. And all insurance companies say, yeah, if you're going to have an accident, it's probably going to be close to your house. Well, and the thing in motorcycling, they also say, look where you go, and that's where you're going to go. I was tired, a block away from the house, lost him at the light. And I thought, we'll only have to make two turns, one to the right and then one to the left, and then we're home. Well, the him at the light, and I thought, we'll only have to make two turns, one to the right,

and then one to the left, and then we're home. Well, the turn to the left was exhausted. It's a pretty hefty weight bike. As I'm turning the corner, I'm looking at the curb instead of where I want to go, hit the curb, and I was launched off the bike. Oh, wow. Over the handlebars, and the next thing I remember is me landing on the sidewalk, my head going. Yeah. Bouncing. Yeah. On the sidewalk.

Yeah. And I'm kind of wincing, holding myself all together and my eyes are closed and I'm gritting my teeth and hearing that bounce. And my thought was, holy shit, am I ever lucky I've got a helmet on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I got to ever lucky I've got a helmet on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I got to meet a great neighbor.

He came out and helped me up. Yeah, I can imagine. Good. And there's the bike on its side, and it's dripping drip, drip, drip gasoline, and all I could think of was, ride this bicycle before, motorcycle, before Grant comes around the corner and sees that. Oh, right.

I'll never hear the end of it. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm trying to imagine, like, so how fast were you going when this happened approximately? Clutch out speed. Like, nothing. Okay. Because I have had, like, over the handlebar, I've had that a couple of times on the bicycle.

Right. And same thing. Like, I wear a helmet, and I've had the thud of the helmet hitting the ground. And then your first thing is you kind of have this quick assessment. Like it really only takes about a second, but you assess, is anything broken? Is any body breaking? Oh, and you realize like within one and a half, two seconds, like, oh, I'm going to be able to walk away from this. Well, I had to catch my breath because I pulled my arms into my body and landed on my side.

I kind of shifted something and briefly got the wind knocked out of me. Did you remember being airborne? I certainly didn't. I did, yes. Did you really? Wow. It's only the one time I went over the handlebars. Usually when I go down,

no one can see this, it's the side on my side. It's usually some wet wooden surface or uh ice snow because i go all year round and it's like bang and this time uh i had to jam on the brakes i was gonna go into lake ontario it's a long story but the quick break on the put me over the top but it happened the one time and i this is up like this is like on the waterfront and i was then you look around like did anyone see that like i'm looking around because it's like very you know don't even see that and then you're like, did anyone see that? Like, I'm looking around because it's like, did anyone see that?

And then you're like, with the dash cams and everything, is this going to go viral or something? This guy went over the head. What's hurt more, your body or your property?

Yeah, that's it. It's a tie. And then, so yes, you mentioned the oil spilling out of your bike. So you assess quickly,

anything broken on me, oh, I can walk away from this. And you're like, oh good, I'm walking away from this. That's a good thing. And then you're like,

okay, now let's look at the bike. And then, so I did damage my bike and it was a pain in the ass. I had walk away from this. And you're like, oh, good, I'm walking away from this. That's a good thing. And then you're like, okay, now let's look at the bike. So I did damage my bike, and it was a pain in the ass. I had to walk it home. But your bike needed some repairs as well. Yeah, my brake pedal was smooshed. But I got back on that. Better your brake pedal than your brain.

Absolutely. Now, Evelyn, your voice, a voice of God, and I'm loving it, but I have one request. You actually need to be almost more on the microphone. Can you believe it? I know, I know, because you're going to get comfy. I know and I'm loving it but I have one request. You actually need to be almost like more on the microphone. Can you believe it? I know, I know because you're going to get comfy.

I know, I'm sorry. And these mics were not cheap. I got to tell the people we talked about this briefly. $330 each but you really do got to be like

right in front of that mic because if you drift off like this, it's okay. Is this better? That's amazing. Is this any better? Oh, thank you so much. Just read the phone book

for me, Evelyn. Here it is. Please read it for me. Here it is. Which one? Great Lakes Brewery. Oh, I love that. Drink one now.

Say, Octopus Wants to Fight. Available now at Great Lakes Brewery. What's this one now? This one says, Oh, Lake Effect. Tank 10. Oh, yeah, that's a Lake Effect. Tank 10.

That looks like a Viking logo. No, it's a fisherman. Yeah, I think that's the, effect. Tank 10. That looks like a Viking logo. No, it's a fisherman. Yeah, I think that's the... Lake effect IPA. IPA. IPA, absolutely. What's IPA? Independent... I can't remember, but these are the... I don't know. I should know this, right?

I don't know. Sorry. Troy, email me what IPA stands for, please. But hey, let me change the channel briefly. Parlez-vous Francais? Un petit peu. I don't know what that means, but all I have is... A little bit.

Okay, a little bit. Come on, go to that French school that's sponsoring you. Oh, yeah, see, you're on the ball. Evelyn, speaking of great things like Great Lakes Beer and Brian Gerstein at propertyinthe6.com, Camp Tournesol. So they provide French camps in the GTA for tens of thousands of children ages 4 to 14.

So everyone, they're doing a three-month run because when it comes to summer camps, everyone books in, I hope I get the right months, March, April, or May. These are the three months that you put your kids into camp. What are we in now? We're mid-May here almost. So this is the last month of the year that I'll be talking about Camp Turnasol. And this is the time. You've been hearing me talk about Camp Ternusol for a couple

of months now. This is the time. Campt.ca Take a look at the different day camps and overnight programs that they offer and put your child, if your child's between the ages of 4 and 14, put them in a French camp. Do them a favor. Do yourself a favor, to be honest.

French camps for your child. And when you do register your child for a French camp at campT.ca, use the promo code Mike. M-I-K-E. Mike. I don't have very good French, Evelyn, and it's one of my great regrets. I feel like I should have cared more when I was learning French in primary school. You never know stuff like that. Hindsight's 20-20. All the things I change. Of course.

And think of all the things you've forgotten. I can't remember those things. See? I wish if I could think of those things I'd forgotten, they would be remembered. With age comes wisdom and you kind of go hmm. What did I do when I was 12? I can't believe I thought that was a urinal puck.

Like, I was envisioning like you go to the Maple Leaf Gardens or something for a hockey game, and there's the CFTR, but why would you ever want somebody urinating on your radio logo? Like, no, right? Well, yeah. This is why I've never worked in radio. And you thought I was at CFTR.

Oh, I wish I was at CFTR. That would have been fine. But we'll talk about that. Let's talk briefly about Paytm Canada. Paytm Canada is where you go to pay all of your bills in one place. It's the only app in Canada that gives you rewards for bill payments. And you get to choose how you pay. You can pay on your credit card like I do. You can pay through your bank account or cash. Yeah, they have a way you can actually pay with cash

through this app. It's really wicked awesome. If you want $10 just for listening to Toronto Mike, go to paytmcanada.ca, download the app, and then use the promo code TORONTOMIKE, one word, when you make your first bill payment, and they'll give you $10, and you can use that towards another bill.

I mean, I did it because that's a no-brainer. Free money. I'm not a rich man. I can't afford to say no to free money. So that's everybody's call to action. Evelyn, there's two news woman that I think of actually from my, you know, listening to, I love radio and I've been listening to radio since I was a little kid. I mentioned I loved CFTR first. But your voice, you do, and the other one is the wife of somebody who's been on this show many times, Mary Ellen Benninger. Isn't that weird? I know Mary Ellen.

And she's married to Alan Cross for those who listen to the show. Yes. Sorry. Was that my podcast? That's another podcast that wants you. I'm sorry. I'll turn it down. That's okay. Turn it off. If you only knew how many times my phone went off during this podcast, I cannot judge you. Alan Cross actually once took a phone call during

a recording of our podcast. Oh, awesome. Was it something that he could have used on air? No, he was closing business apparently. It was a very important call. But Mary Ellen Benninger, so you know her? Because she writes books now or something? Mary Ellen is an author now, sure.

I met Mary Ellen when she was married first to Eric Thomas, who's involved in Raceline Radio. CFT? He was on the... We're going to get to this too. Can I just say, I don't think we know that Mary Ellen Benninger was married to Eric Thomas from Raceline Radio on Sportsnet before Alan Cross. She loves the radio guys.

There you go. And I worked with Eric Thomas at CKTV in St. Catharines. 610. That's how I met E.T., Eric Thomas. And from there, he went out to Calgary, and I think that's where maybe they met? Not sure. But they came back to the area,

and I was friends with Eric. And then Mary Ellen was around also. So I helped them move into their first house. Wow. I always remark, it's become a broken record. It's such a small world. You can call it Toronto, the Canada media world.

Everyone's connected to each other. It's incestuous while being nomadic. Yeah. Yeah. It really, really is. I can't believe that.

Because this is just memories from childhood. Childhood, like a teenager. I don't think it sounds like you're a hundred years old. I'm only 25. Yeah.

The shirt is 25 years old now. So, uh, the, uh, the two voices I remember doing news on different stations I'd listened to throughout the last 30, 35 years or whatever.

Uh, yeah. Evelyn Macko, which of course, and, uh, Mary Ellen Benninger. Uh,

and that's funny that, uh, you, you helped her move into a home. Her nickname, Mebs. Mebs. Mary Ellen Benninger. Of course. Mary Ellen Ben a home. Her nickname, Mebs. Mebs. Mary Ellen Benninger.

Of course. Mary Ellen Benninger. Mary Ellen Benninger. It is a mouthful, isn't it? Mary Ellen Benninger. Yeah, you can't do that quickly. No, but that's great. So are you, well, let's start.

Let's start you at, can we start you at Humber College? Is this where you- Now or years ago? No, let's start the years ago. Okay. Is that where you- 70s? Yes. so tell us like you you went there because did you want to be in like you wanted to be in radio is that tell me how you

uh decided you wanted to be in radio and ended up at humber college back in the day i wanted to be in theater first and did some things with the oshawa little theater and it was a high school friend of mine her brother-in-law the friend is is Nancy Peacock, who I'm still Facebook friends with, and she lives out east. It was her brother-in-law who was going to Ryerson, noticed an article on the back page of the first section of the Toronto Star. Some guy by the name of Phil Stone, legendary from Chum, was starting this radio program at Humber College and was looking

for women. And this was for the second class, like second year, I guess. So we're talking about first year people like John Stahl was in the first year, John Hinnom was in the first year, Doug Barron, those are some of the names I remember. And then, so Nancy's brother-in-law suggested, okay, maybe you might want to try radio. They're looking for women. You might as well try. You're a woman. Just make a phone call.

Yeah, last I checked. Just make a phone call. See, you got nothing to lose. Right. I did. He called, Phil Stone called me in for an interview. I did some kind of what I would call an aptitude test. It's very topical, top of mind test, current events sort of thing. And at the end of that interview that morning, he said, you're in if you want to be. And I went, oh, wow. Okay. This is a

whole new career choice for me. This is going to be cool. Yeah. And I was still living in Oshawa, and Dave Dealey became a record rep. He lived in Bowmanville, and he would pick me up, and we'd go back and forth to school together. Wow. Yeah, and I was only there for the first semester because come summertime, so that was September until May. And then May, school lets out and they encourage you to try.

Like there was no internship programs like there is now. Right. Nothing as a requirement for graduation. So it was all experience for me to go to CKTB and St. Catharines. They were looking for summertime work. So I went there and learned so much that at the end of the summer, they offered me a full-time job, and I didn't go back to school. My mom was mortified.

You need that piece of paper. I tried to explain to her, you know what? I think, I don't know how I came to think this way, but my thinking was, you know what, I've got the experience. I'm learning on the job. If I go back to school, I've got to fight with 10 other people for one studio time for assignments. And back then, we're talking about reel-to-reels and editing with a razor blade, razor blade. And it's like, that's time-consuming in itself. So I never looked back. So I did what they now call

jobbed out. Jobbed out. That's the way to go. I mean, if the whole objective of the Humber College courses is to get you a gig and then you find yourself.

And I think it's really cool that you found something in St. Catharines, which is relatively close. Like, you didn't have to go to like, I don't know, Thunder Bay or a small town, Saskatchewan or something.

Or Wyerton. Right, right. Like St. Catharines, that's, I know where that is. I can drive there. And I know where that is.

That's in the 610, uh, CKTB. Uh, and that's, I mean, is that, is that where Larry Fedorek is now?

Where am I? Yes. Okay. I got to make sure I get. Larry spoke to my class at Humber a few semesters ago. He, I mean, is that where Larry Fedorek is now? Yes. Okay. I got to make sure I get. Larry spoke to my class at Humber a few semesters ago. He, his daughter, it turns out. He's so funny. Oh, no, he's been here a couple of times.

Oh, yeah. And he kicked out the jams too. That's a whole separate thing. We'll get to that too, because you're going to kick out a jam. I need to talk to you about other things first. But it's a fun, small world story is Larry Fedorek's daughter is best friends with my very good friend tara he's who's married to my really really really good friend alex patino so like i had no idea and like this this connection that yeah so so fedorek's daughter is best friends with

the wife of my very very close friend alex patina is kevin bacon and i know isn't that weird and it gets a little weirder i don't get too much, but Fedorek's living in the apartment I lived in. Briefly between marriages, I rented an apartment, and it was the same building. Oh, come on. But we didn't know it. In St. Catharines? No, this is in Etobicoke.

Oh, for heaven's sake. I know. Yeah, Fedorek lives in Etobicoke, and then he commutes to St. Catharines. Hi, Larry. He's great. Now, Larry Fedorek is great, and he's got the CFTR background, too,

which we'll get to. So you're at 610 CKTB, and that's where you start. I'm going to play a jam. Hopefully this takes you back, and then we can talk about this. Hold on here. Ian Thomas. You got it. On CHBR.

You hit the post. Thank you. Still gone. And I wanted to be a jock originally. Tell me, Ian. This song, what does this song mean to Evelyn Macko? Call in now. Is this the, and I love this name, okay?

The Wacko Macko Show? That's amazing. What was I thinking? No, it's natural. I don't know how it works for hard news. Well, it doesn't because I was doing a jock shift on radio station CHBR at Humber College and the license only allowed it to pretty much

go out into the neighborhood. Right. Nothing beyond the walls of Humber College kind of thing. And that was, I always kicked off my show with it. And then I guess I played it too much that the program director of the campus radio station, can I close it up, hid the album on me. Oh, wow.

Because we used to spin our own tunes. Yeah, well, that's the good old days. Albums,? Hid the album on me. Oh, wow. Because we used to spin our own tunes. Yeah, well, that's the good old days. Albums, 45s, all sorts of stuff. Queuing up records and everything else.

Yeah, it was great fun. But he should have been glad at least it was CanCon. You know what I mean? How clever was I? And of course, Ian Thomas' brother is SCTV Dave Thomas.

Dave Thomas. Which is a fun fact that most people do know, but some don't, surprisingly. And Rick Moranis also used to be, I think he did overnights, or at least was a technical operator at CFTR. Back, back, back, back, back in the day. That's good to know,

because my story is I had Ingrid Schumacher on the show, and Ingrid trained Rick Moranis on 104.5 Chum FM in like the late 70s. No kidding. Wow. Rick Moranis is the holdout. Okay. There's going to be a, I think it's, it is Martin Scorsese's doing like a documentary on SCTV, like a reunion thing.

Oh, that's going to be fabulous. But Rick Moranis is the big holdout. Like everybody's going to be there. He's because, I know way back when, after all the Honey, I Shrunk the Kid stuff and everything, his wife passed away, and I think he kind of retired from, like, movies to raise his kids or

something. And I think he makes very few appearances now. Like, he's become, he doesn't appear in any movies. Like, the last time he was in a movie was a long time ago. I think he's, for some reason, he's decided to just kind of, like, shy away from the limelight. Well, he's missed. He could have been a radio.

He could have been a jock in Toronto. I didn't know he... He could have been a big star. He was at CFTR. I think I just only knew about the Chum FM. Rick Moran is in Kansas. There you go. That's great.

Wacko Macko Show. So tell me about the transition. So here you are playing tunes like Painted Ladies here byan thomas and everything how do you become a news person well the so as the song's running out i noticed it's coming up to news time there's nobody sitting across from me in another room putting a newscast together and it's quite a nice little guitar piece here and it goes on and on 20 more seconds and you know it. And so I'm running to the other room, ripping the wire because there was a wire service there.

It was like a tickety tickety tickety tickety in the back. Just putting together what I thought was a newscast, ran back into the room and as the song now runs out, I hit the stinger for it. E-E-E-E or whatever the stinger was for news and read the news. And unbeknownst to me, elsewhere within the building of Humber College,

Phil Stone is doing what we call a scope. He's recording me and the show. And later on, when I had a class with him, later on in the day, when I had a class with him, he pulls out this reel-to-reel, and he asks the class, okay, I want you to decide, does Evelyn sound better as a newscaster or a jock? And they all went, oh, no, she sounds better, much better doing the news than she is a jock.

And that's really pretty much my fate. What is it? The die is cast? My fate was sealed. The rest is history, as they say. Is that crazy? That's it. Because what are the odds he's recording that, right?

Did he record everything, right? It was just a segment. So many of these stories of people like yourself with these long, great careers. It's like right place, right time. Sometimes it was, oh, Dan Shulman was on.

Okay, he's the voice of the Blue Jays. Well, not only. He does a lot of baseball. But Dan Schulman, somebody was trying to call a 590 in Albany, some jock that somebody was trying to call from ESPN Radio. But they accidentally got the stations confused, and they ended up talking to the wrong guy.

So Dan Schulman ends up talking to the – they discover him by accident because they called the wrong station. So Dan Shulman ends up talking to the... They discover him by accident because they called the wrong station. No kidding. And Dan Shulman ended up doing radio weekend stuff on ESPN,

which eventually led to all his ESPN play-by-play stuff. And I hear this story, Dan's telling me a story, and I realize, like, that's just a freaky fluke.

It's amazing how it turns out. Now you're like the voice of baseball in this world. It's a universe thing. Yeah. It really just universe thing. Yeah. It really just kind of happens that way sometimes. And what if that news person was there to do the news

and you never had to run in the other room and hit the stinger and do the news? Tough luck for them. Wow. Okay. Now I'm aching to get you the CFTR here. So tell me how you end up at 680 CFTR. Well, it wasn't 680 at the beginning.

It was just CFTR. Well, it wasn't 680 at the beginning. It was just CFTR. So here I am working in the newsroom at 610 CKTB. And there's a crash, car crash when I'm working, a shift. That closes the Queenie. And, you know, when you work in a small market, you get to know everybody. The cops, the ambulance people. I also had a beat out into the court system and doing police things and shootings and whatnot. Right.

So you work at contacts. And I found out that who was involved in the crash was Tim Horton. Oh, wow. Okay. On his way back to Buffalo. Right. And I can't remember exactly how this happened, how I happened to... It's possible that the news people at CFTR

on that coinciding shift in Toronto tapped into St. Catherine's resources. And so I was feeding them stories, doing pre-recorded stories for them. And I think that's how my foot got into that door. Bob Holliday, Robert Holliday, called me in for an interview. And that's how that happened. me in for an interview. So, and that's, that's how that happened. So unlike in the old days when program directors or news directors would go and drive out into elsewhere in the countryside and kind of call talent that way, listen to local radio and choose whomever, news people, choose whomever, news people, jocks,

sports people. That's how that happened for me. At least that's what they told me. Well, no, I mean, that story was, I mean, that's a massive story. The Tim Horton car crash, of course. He was still playing. That's the thing people forget. Yeah, he was still an active NHL player when he dies in that car.

That was in the 70s. Late 70s. Because I went to CFTR in 1980. And I handed in my resignation. Get this. Yeah. So I'm doing a noon newscast, putting it together with another person, or at least for another person. We're teamed up together.

And the other person I'm putting it together for is the general manager who came from CKEY. His name was Bob Reinhart. And so after that newscast at noon, I handed in my resignation because I knew I was coming to CFTR. And they were all laughing at me. And I thought, what the hell? Why are they laughing at me? It was April the 1st. Oh. It didn't even dawn on me. Honest to God. It was crazy.

Wow. Yeah. And do you start doing, are you starting at CFDR doing mornings? Or like, I'm trying to remember the timelines. When does Tom Rivers show up at CFDR? Because Tom Rivers was at CHum for a long time. But when does he end up at CFTR?

I'm not sure. I started in 1980, and I was doing a day shift, so day times. I was catching the bus in St. Catharines, 7 o'clock in the morning, and the route took me by the CN Tower as it was being built. So I could see that progression. Dropped me off King and Simcoe, and I would run over to the station, which was at Adelaide, Victoria. And then the shift ended before six o'clock,

and I beetled back to where I would have to pick up the bus. So I was commuting via Greycoach. Yeah, yeah. Back and forth to St. Catharines. Yeah, not too far from Eden Centre there, right? That's the, is that the Bay and Dundas or something? That's okay. That's a different green.

The Simcoe Hall. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Cool. So you're doing the day shift. And you're sure this isn't the 70s only? Because I feel like the CN Tower is done by 77. But maybe my, what do I remember?

Something, yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Because it was 1980 when I started. Gotcha, gotcha. What do I remember? Well, maybe top it off something, yeah. Because it was 1980 when I started. Gotcha. And it was later on that year, Robert Holliday was coming off. He was doing mornings. And I think he wanted to focus more on the administrative stuff. It's a lot of work.

Sure. You know, getting up that time of day. So he asked if I'd be interested, I went, uh, well, I guess, you know, like this naive little chick, um, with huge balls. And I seized the opportunity and had lots of good people around me to help me and guide me and mentor me. And I've always done mornings after that. Were there a lot of women in radio newsrooms at this time? I was the first woman on the air in Niagara. Okay, yeah. And the first woman doing morning news in Toronto radio. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, like I just mentioned Inga Schumacher, but I remember she starts at Chum FM in like late 70s or like 79 or something. But there weren't a lot of... As an announcer. Right. Yeah.

Absolutely. But not a lot of women in radio at the time. No, there weren't. So you're sort of a groundbreaker. Well, maybe not. I was also very much influenced by women I heard on the air in Buffalo. Okay. Because Niagara is right across the river.

And they had some rural powerhouse stations there, WKBW, WGR, WBEN. What else am I missing? Those were pretty much three or four of the powerhouses back then. And man, they had like a rapid fire. I think I developed a style that was somewhere between Drake, a Drake format, like a real shotgun kind of thing. But I didn't put it on.

That was just me. Yeah. I don't know. And that's the best way to be. Like, you don't have to put on a shtick. You just be Evelyn. You became a stylist. Right.

Really, I think. That's the best way to be. Like you don't have to put on a shtick. You just be Evelyn. You became a stylist. Right. Really? I think. Much, much the same as you can have people like Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck or all those great guitar players play a guitar, but it's how it's done. Right. That's right. Is Dick Smythe there at the time? When is Dick? Dick Smythe doesn't come over till, oh, I want to say late 80s.

Something like that. Okay. It's funny how it is when you. Because Larry Silver is now the news director. So let's talk about the people at CFTR. So you're up and then we'll talk about. Actually, let me play a little bit of like a promo for the Tom Rivers show here. I'm going to give away more CFTR Morning Man Tom Rivers.

This Thursday morning, you could win $5,000 if your birthday matches the one in this envelope. It's so easy. Just put your radio on CFTR. That's 680 on your AM dial. Then listen at 7.15 Thursday morning. We'll announce the birthday in this envelope. If it matches yours, you could win five grand. CFTR, more music, more fun,

and more free money. Somebody's going to win five grand Thursday morning at 7.15 on CFTR. Somebody like you. What a talent. So tell me what you can about working with Tom Rivers. Sharon Taylor was the program director at the time. There was a hurricane that had hit Jamaica. there was a hurricane that had hit Jamaica. So we did a hurricane relief radiothon at Nathan Phillips Square, and it was Tom. I did the news. Eric Thomas was also there, and Tom's operator, Doug Avery,

who I think now is in the Woodstock area. I'm not sure. So we did like a marathon, all day broadcast, all night kind of thing. And I went out with a microphone and was talking to people in the square. And it was not like, well, how are you? Little cutesy stuff. I was getting into it. What do you think of this? You know, getting people's opinions. And Sharon decided, I'm getting into it. What do you think of this? You know, getting people's opinions. And Sharon decided, wow, she can do more than just news. So she paired us on the, and we were, well, again, being the first woman, we was set up in another adjacent room to our newsroom. And that's CFMT? CFMT, Channel 47, Cable 4. So I remember this.

I remember Dick Smythe would be there doing commentaries on CFMT. You'd be on doing news breaks. So in between newscasts and doing bits with Tom, I'm back in this room doing my own makeup and putting my hair in curlers. So it was quite frantic and frenetic. And I can't believe that I

lived through the whole thing. They wouldn't even provide you with a makeup artist. Eventually. Eventually. Maybe because I put an eyeliner on my cheek or something. That was not on purpose.

But those were crazy, heady times. And, yeah, we miss Tom because he was one of those talents who could really create a picture and tell a story and engage people. And even someone like me, I'm driving somewhere and I hear him do this bit. I couldn't get out of the car until I heard the rest of the bit. So I don't think we have that kind of talent really much anymore. Oh, I stand corrected. There is a guy I'm listening to in Barrie, Rock 95. His name is Randy Richards.

Randy Richards. He does the afternoon show. He is awesome. And I wrote him and told him that. He's fabulous. And his news guy, Brett Glover, he should be working in Toronto. Glover, he should be working in Toronto. He's worked with and probably under Dan Blakely, with whom I've also worked.

Clever, creative, reminds me so much of when I was doing those 68-second news breaks. Concise, nice, tight, bright writing and the presentation, I have been described as a hand—I sound like an idiot. Wait a minute. No, no, no. You're the voice of God. Take over. Yeah, no. I've been described as a hand coming out of the radio, grabbing you by the throat and pulling you closer, as if to say—oh, sorry, I just went off mic, to pay attention. This is important. It's urgent or it's thought-provoking or it's heartbreaking. All that mixed in together. And Brett's got that.

Dan Blakely's got that. Really, really fabulous sounding people no i mean that's great that there's a you know there's some up-and-coming uh talent uh going back now in my time machine though i was listening that you mentioned uh you know with you and tom and and i remember like bits uh like i want to call is it the unfriendly giant oh my god okay so much fun and i remember because uh you mentioned eric thomas like so nowadays you talk about eric thomas everyone thinks of Is it the unfriendly giant? Oh my God. Okay. So much fun. And I remember because, uh, you mentioned Eric Thomas. Like,

so nowadays you talk about Eric Thomas. Everyone thinks of auto racing. Okay. Eric Thomas has become the auto racing guy. Like good branding on his part because now he's like, you know, if you need a guy to talk about some indie race or whatever, Eric Thomas is your guy race race line.

I think that's the name of the program. It is on a sports net. But, um, and there's another, by the way, there's another Eric Thomas who's at Sportsnet just to confuse things, doing like SportsCenter,

and he spells it a bit differently. But anyway, I got confused once on Twitter, but that's a long story. But this Eric Thomas, Raceline Radio, Eric Thomas was also involved in these unfriendly giant skits and all this like zany, zany madcap stuff that's really fun to listen to in the morning.

He's really talented. Eric Thomas did the voice of Jerome the giraffe and Rusty, I can't even do it. I won't even try. You can't match it. And Tom's writing and setting up the stories and then the silliness and then the payoff. Just magic. Magic. Yes, I agree, I agree. the stories and then uh the silliness and then the payoff just magic magic yes i agree i agree now dick smith tell me a little bit about working with dick smith because uh what what happens with

680 of course it's a top 40 station by the way that's the other thing that amazes amazes me is that you have this like a top 40 station that's kind of targeting teenagers like you know what i mean like this is but you still had you took the news very seriously back then. This is gone now, where your top 40 teenage station cares so much about delivering the news. That's kind of interesting. But it's all story selection, too.

It's relevancy and what's hitting your demographic, what's hitting your audience. Dick was also, is also, because I know he still writes, a very clever, brilliant, thought-provoking writer. And his presentation also is, hey, pay attention because this affects you. And here's how I'm writing it to make sure that you understand and pay attention because this affects you and here's how i'm writing it to make sure that you understand and pay attention well i remember i knew his voice of course from cftr and then uh because that's when i was introduced to dick smith because my age group and but but then i'd see him on cfmt and it was always interesting to me like these voices on the radio back then you know now the internet and

twitter and stuff and facebook like you kind of know what your jocks look like your favorite news people uh radio people but uh back then you never knew like you never knew like that tom rivers clip i played yes you would they do a commercial and you'd be like oh so that's what tom rivers looks like and then you'd be watching cfmt uh uh watching 47 cable four right yeah yeah and then you'd be all blonde here right anyway oh there's Evelyn Macko. Like, there's the voice. That's what Evelyn looks like. And, oh, Dick Smythe.

That's Dick Smythe. Like, it was fascinating. It was all kind of mystique. Yeah. Yeah. Myths got all blown out of the water. Oh, well, they got a face for radio. That's what we always used to say.

Right. Oh, that's great. But that's now other names I'm going to throw at you. So Dick Smythe, was it a good experience? He's still doing his comment. I need to get Dick Smythe here. I've got to figure that out. So he's at Bracebridge, right?

I don't even have to drive up there and take him here. I've got to get him. You should probably drive up there. I'm sure he wouldn't want to hop into the Miata and drive down here like he did with me in the back roads of Bracebridge going in for lunch one day with the top down. Oh, nice. Yeah. It was kind of frightening.

All right. I'm going to throw a few names at you, people I was interested in. Mike Cooper. Yep. Funny. Funny, funny, funny, clever, clever, and such an infectious laugh. Jerry Forbes. such an infectious laugh?

Jerry Forbes. Jerry Forbes, I really didn't work with all that much, but when I did, just such a real genuine man. Bill Hayes. Bill Hayes? Former guest of the show, and of course, father of Brian Hayes,

who people know from Overdrive on TSN radio, and brother of John Derringer, who said no to me. But we won't hang on that. That's all right. Yeah. He might change his mind one day. Bill's fun. He also spoke to my class, one of my classes at Humber College. Real?

And he also is very talented in the area of commercial voiceovers. Yes. He's got a great set of pipes. Wish I had his wallet. Larry Silver. Oh, my God. We love Larry Silver. He's the most irreverent guy.

An irreverent man. But you know what? I don't think... I don't know what I want to say. I don't want to throw him under the bus. No. Throw this man under the bus this time. He's such a character that I don't...

We loved him when we could in the 80s and the 90s, but I don't think his kind of sense of humor would survive much in the Me Too movement, I guess. Well, he'd have to reinvest. He'd have to adapt. Because you're right. The stuff you'd hear... He'd have to sew his lips shut.

You're right. It is a different time. Yes, certain definitely, 100%. And I haven't worked in an office in several years. But absolutely, I think the jokes and the kind of stuff that goes back and forth between colleagues today would be radically different from even even 15 20 years ago like i just think it'd be

radically different now you're absolutely right yeah so larry's lip shut there is there anyone else because i'm about to love you larry i'm about to uh transition cftr from top 40 uh to all news 680, which it still is today. And I'm going to play a clip that kind of transitions. But before I do, is there anyone else on the music side of 680 that you want to talk about just before I move on?

Dan Williamson, another talented voiceover man, very clever. I remember he did a joke, something, now it wouldn't play, but it was something about an old man and the punchline was assault with a dead weapon. So you can fill in in between.

So many of the jokes, by the way, Jesse and Gene real quick example. Oh my god. I had them on recently and I'm listening to their older clips just around my MSC. I used to listen to Jesse and Gene on, I listened to them on Q and then a little bit on 680 and 640. 640, yeah. Like,

they do bits where basically it's like, they're doing like a South Asian accent and all this stuff. Which, yes,

I remember at the time, no one, we didn't think twice about, like, I mean, the Simpsons have a character at Pooh, which is in the news lately

because it's done by a white man who does that voice. So what? Yeah, well, except today though, today,

if you're on terrestrial radio, there's not a chance, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that the white DJ breaks into a South Asian accent

and does a character. Like, it just wouldn't happen. No. But it was, it made CDs. Like, Jesse and Gene put out a CD of their greatest bits,

I think they called it. And it was on there. Like, this was a popular Jesse and Gene character. Oh, probably. Which is very interesting how greatest bits, I think they called it. And it was on there. This was a popular Jesse and Jean character. Oh, probably. Which is very interesting how... Yeah, pushing the envelope. Yeah, I'm with you on that, Pooh. But okay, let's...

Oh, anyone else before I play the clip? Oh, let me see. There was also Big Jim Brady. That's who my morning... I shouldn't say my morning man, but he was the morning man at the time when I transitioned into doing mornings. I missed him. George Hamburger, who they brought in from the States.

Bill Gardner. I wonder whatever happened to Bill Gardner. Yeah. No, I don't know. Nice man. I always used to go like that when I'd have to take in a piece of weather or copy or whatever. And he said,

why are you always knocking? There's a red light. And I said, well, I don't want to interrupt. It's called being nice. I learned a lot after there. It's like, boot the door open now.

Here's your goddamn weather. There's no red light on. Next time, get it yourself. That's funny. I'm kidding. All right, let's listen. I don't know how long to play this, but let's start it up

and then I'll fade it down and talk to you about this. Sure. Oh. Oh. I still get chills. Good morning. I'm Sandy Sanderson, Executive Vice President and General Manager of CFTR. This is a sad yet exciting moment in the history of this incredible radio station. It marks the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. And like all major transitions, it involves mixed emotions.

For nearly a quarter of a century, CFTR has been a powerhouse of today's music, appealing to a large and vibrant audience. Over the past several years, however, the popularity of contemporary music on the AM band has diminished and we find ourselves in a situation that requires a change. Effective immediately, CFTR will become known as 680 News, providing Toronto with an innovative information service that has never been available in this city or in this country before. In the next few months, you'll become aware of how the new 680 News will work for you, and I'm confident it'll soon become part of your day.

It's been a fabulous 22 years, and on behalf of the entire staff of CFTR, thank you for your generous support over the years. I'm sure the next 22 will prove to be just as exciting and challenging. But for now, this chapter has ended, and it's time to move on. Farewell to the old, hello to the news. This is 680 News. Good morning, it's 14 degrees at six o'clock on this Monday, June the 7th. I'm Dick Smythe and here's what's happening. There will be normal go transit service this morning.

Service on the weekend was normal as well. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, one week left in power, said farewell at Baycoma, Quebec last night. Canada's first all-news radio station is on the air. All news, all the time. After a Sunday of meetings, Premier Bob Ray says that his goal remains the same. To trim $2 billion from provincial expenditures. Morning showers, then sunny and warm, more rain forecast for tonight. I'm Peter Gross in sports. Jack Morris was himself yesterday.

Unfortunately, big upset in the French Open and a miracle finish in men's golf. This is John Hinnon with business. The Nikkei is down 38 points, gold is down $2, and the bank rate is expected to increase tomorrow. Now traffic and weather every 10 minutes on the ones. First, the check of 680 News Cantell traffic. Here's Russ Holden. Thank you, Nick. Good morning. Traffic around Metro just starting to fill in. Roads are a little bit wet, some light rain persisting, and as a result, roads could be a little bit slippery, but no problems to tell you about so far.

Accident-free TTC routes, they're all just beginning to build. Reasonable start to the morning, and we'll have another update in 10 minutes. A disturbance passing southern Ontario is bringing cloudy skies and a chance of showers this morning, about a 30% chance. That disturbance will pass through the area quite quickly. Following that, we'll have a mix of sun and clouds for the rest of the day. Winds will be light today and a high of 24 degrees as expected. That's two degrees above normal. This evening, an overnight cloud on the increase.

There is a rain beginning just before dawn, overnight low of 14 degrees. I'm Michelle Skinner from the Weather Network for 680. Wow. You know, 680 News has been on the air longer than CFTR 680 Top 40 ever was. It's been 25 years since then. It's incredible, that journey.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. Pulled the plug on a Friday. I was preparing to do my 9 o'clock news. And it was about 5-2. And I think Jesse and Jean were doing mornings. They were? Because I remember they told the story, but please continue.

This is fascinating. It was about five to nine. All my stuff was ready, and there was a lot of people flurrying about. Didn't really think anything of it, and I went in to master control with my stack of carts, my audio material for the newscast.

And Paul Fisher was there. He was the program director at CHFI at the time. And he was putting on this big, huge, like a 10-inch reel. And I said, well, look, number one, what are you doing here? Because it's CFDR, you're CHFI. And he says, well, there's no 9 o'clock news. I said, excuse me, what are you doing here? Because it's CFDR, you're CHFI. And he says, well, there's no nine o'clock news. I said, excuse me, what? Yeah, no, there's a nine o'clock news.

You must be confused. And he said, no, there's no nine o'clock news. And I didn't know what to think. Went back, started working the phones, running around talking to people and found out before the announcement was made what was going on. The jocks were being heralded at a nearby hotel

to be told that we're pulling the plug and this is happening. This was a Friday morning, Friday afternoon, about 1 o'clock. A bunch of us who remained, there was Dick, me, Marianne Summers, a couple of people from CHFI, Paul DeCourcy was doing news there, and I think Ben Steinfeld. Not quite clear on that. At least a handful. And there was also Larry and John there, and Peter, and I think Eric Thomas, not quite sure on that one. We were all heralded to the theater at Ryerson University for a press conference. And I remember Sandy describing what was coming in terms of 680 News as being a utility, how the public should use it like a light switch. There were marks, you know, like on the ones, you get traffic and weather on the absolute conditioning. So we had the weekend

to prepare and rehearse and practice. And by the time we got back to our newsroom, holy shit, there were wires hanging from the ceilings. There were workstations that had sprung up, little workstations with keyboards and hard drives and monitors and stuff. And that was all weekend and Monday morning. That's what you heard. Wow. Yeah. It was a whirlwind. I can't imagine.

So when Jesse and Gene were on, they tell that story. And I guess they literally, that afternoon or something, they strike up a deal with 640, which was still doing top 40. I read also that apparently, maybe this jump happened. Maybe. I don't know. You probably don't have any insight, but we'll find out in a moment. But 640 was talking about going all talk.

And 680 caught wind of this and it's possibly 680 wanted to get there first like you wanted to be first in and anyways it's very interesting time in toronto radio any of that right yeah but yeah fascinating that uh how how they kind of how they have to you know roll out so basically so it's fair to say i think everyone in the news department gets to stay and everybody else has to go is that kind of pretty much how it was yep just like what they did at chch um some of you people go over here and well that's even worse to be honest oh awful because that's worse let's talk about that briefly here because at least let me get this so when you're at cftr and're in the news department, so you're going to stick around

for 680 News. I don't know if you were on contract or full-time salary or whatever, but that didn't change. You stayed with your whatever you were at the top 40 station.

It rolled over into the news station for your compensation. I'm not sure what you mean by compensation. I didn't have a contract. They said, okay, you've got a job. Here's what you're doing. Dick Smythe's leading off the first 20 minutes.

Ev, you're doing the next 20 minutes. And then Marianne, you're doing the last 20 minutes in a one-hour cycle. Unlike today when it's a half hour cycle two anchors we had three anchors in the morning um and uh yeah that went it was uh Dick described it aptly as a sausage factory just pumping it out because it was also new. I can tell you that I do know 680 News was modeled after and tutored, I guess you might say, by WINS, New York, W-I-N-S. Okay.

The news station there. Right. Because their news director came, all I remember is his name was Mike, came to Toronto to help us through some of the rough spots, and here's where you can do this better, or like, why are you doing it this way, to give guidance, because this is what the product was modeled after. And he offered me a job in New York. Oh, in New York.

Yeah. And you turned it down. Yeah. Because you loved it here? I'm trying to, why did you turn down that job? Well. You were comfy? No, I wouldn't say I was comfy.

I was ready for this challenge like we were just starting to get our teeth into it. Right. So, and plus, what do I know about America necessarily? It was just a little bit too overwhelming at the time. We were working like 21 days straight, almost a month, every day, every day, every day until we had enough staff. So a lot of us were like dropping like flies just from

exhaustion and a mental thing. Yes. Thank you. Exactly. Let me explain. So my confusing question about compensation, it'll make more sense if I add this context, which is at CHCH. Yeah.

Because Mark Hebbshire came on this show like the next day to talk about his, because he was at CHCH. Yes. And he was in the room of people who were said, like, just get out of here.

We don't want you. Yeah. But there were other rooms, but it wasn't the same. Here's what happened in the other rooms. It was like, you're terminated

with your current, you're terminated, but this new shell company that now runs this place wants to rehire you at different terms so it's so to me that's to me that's radically different and grossly unfair because they're basically going to somebody who might let's say somebody's been there 15 years and let's make i need to use round numbers because i'm not bright but let's say they're making a hundred thousand okay nice round number nice round number though we still they'll go they might be in the room they're like okay you know you're that's gone

now like that company that hired you at a hundred thousand is gone so you're done no severance or anything because of all these bankruptcy rules or whatever no severance you're done but here's a new job offer where you can continue to work here doing what you've been doing for the last 15 years but this one now you now you make fifty thousand dollars yeah like this is what happened fired and but we'll hire you we'll hire you back to do the same thing at half the price and then there was of course there were rooms where like you're fired like mark hebscher was in this room you're fired he was in the wrong room he was in the wrong room and it's a what a story that is oh my god he was in the wrong but then he finally got in the right room he found out he's fired and there is no comeback at half the price but that to me uh

what chch did there i don't know what the price. But that to me, what CHCH did there, I don't know what happened there, but it doesn't smell right. I don't work in the industry. I don't know the laws and stuff, but that smells bad to me, what happened there. Well, and it's just cruel, especially when there was no pension.

Yeah, no pension, no severance, a lot of gross stuff. And then you at 680, though, you were in the right room at 680. Everything continued as normal, except obviously, I guess it's fair to say you're working much harder. Is that fair to say? Oh, yeah. Way harder.

At least you're not taking a reduction in salary. I understand. Yeah. No, there was no interruption. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So why do you eventually leave 680 News? Because, in all honesty, there were a lot of hires that were coming fresh out of college.

who hadn't paid any kind of dues anywhere and had no kind of experience, putting together newscasts for me, for Dick, for Marianne, for anybody else who were seasoned professionals. And as an editor, they had the final say, how you want to do the story, what stories, what order, how you're going to use the audio. And it was beyond an exercise in frustration, way beyond. Then you've got some people in higher management to whom you would go to express a concern to say, you know what, this isn't necessarily working this way. How about what if we pursue it this way to make it better? And then you'd get answers like

all this company owes you is a paycheck. Right. Pardon me. So fast forward to these times. No wonder there is not a lot of loyalty. Like Larry might say, you got the rats in charge of the cheese. You know, so, and to try and help them make the product better by guiding them, that was like, fuck off. They didn't want to hear you.

I don't want to hear you. Because you have, as an experienced news broadcaster, you would have valuable input, suggestions, and they were valuable input, suggestions, and they were dismissed, I suppose, because just read the news. Essentially, they're trying to make you like a

news-reading monkey or whatever. Yeah, like here's just a pile of stuff. Do it. Rewrite it. Well, no, no, no. You need to carry a common thread through it, like what's your thinking. Don't throw in this story. It doesn't matter to anybody. But this story does. So you need to put that one up higher instead of bury it.

You know what? Like being on the air, putting a newscast together, it's an art. There's a rhyme and a reason. And there's thinking and judgment behind it and reasons why you use the stories and when you do and in what order and how high up a profile this should be. And these kids were just putting papers together. But do you think these kids are in these positions because they demand a lesser salary?

No, they were cheap hires for sure. And at that time, we needed people. It's a 24-hour wheel. In general, in your experience, do you think radio tends to overvalue the cost of the resources over the experience and the seasoning of the resource? the experience and the seasoning of the resource. So what I mean, like often I hear about somebody who's very good and beloved, but they probably have a big salary because they've been there for like 30 years or whatever.

And they sort of get cast away and then somebody will come in who's clearly much greener, much less experienced, and usually in my opinion, not as strong yet because they haven't developed to that point. But you can just look at it and say, oh, this is a cost-cutting maneuver. I think there's some truth in that, especially now

that you're not working for a family-owned radio station anymore like Rogers. Like the Waters or the Slates. Right. Or even going back to St. Catharines, the Burgoyne family. Now you've got corporate and you're answering to that bottom line.

And we'll get to that because you literally could have like, the standard gets gobbled up by the astral, which gets gobbled up by the bell media. And we'll get to this because when I get you to the 1010 portion here, but leaving 680, so you're just not happy

and it's time to move on? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And as the universe opens, time, how the timing worked out was Kathleen Rankin was leaving Q107 and Talk640. And Dave Trafford, the news director. He's back on the air there. He's back on the air at 1010.

Yeah. Doing the MOTS. Right. The MOTS retired to look after their equestrian business in Arran or something. Yeah, doing the Mott's. Right, the Mott's retired to like look after their equestrian business in Arran or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very interesting.

That's a big thing for them. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I mean that timing worked out that they needed someone and here I was. Well, the city already knows your voice.

Already when they hear your voice, they're already thinking like there's integrity in that delivery when it comes to news. That's really thinking, like, there's integrity in that delivery. When it comes to news, that's really important. Integrity is, it matters in news.

It's one thing to be the guy who's like, it's the Rolling Stones, you know, but call them, like, you know. Yeah, but that's a different kind of integrity. You're right. That's the showmanship. You're right. That's what draws people in.

No, you're preaching to the choir on that one. But when it comes to news, when it comes to news, when Dave Trafford needs a news voice, you're, to me, you can't do better than Evelyn Macko. This is a no-brainer for Dave. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, and then, so I was doing the news on cue and 640. So, extra work again. And this is pre-chorus, right? It's pre-chorus. This is Wick, I believe. Right, right. Western, yes.

Wick, and then Shaw, because there were jokes about Wick Shaw. And then Chorus. So how long were you at the Q107 640? 1995 till 2001. So what's that? Six years? Seven years? Okay.

So we've got some questions here. Firstly, I want to talk about this culture. So this office, you broadcast out of North york is that right the q and young norton center right and what is it so this is the howard stern era right so they're uh simulcasting uh stern in the mornings on q107 so what's that like i know eventually they pull the plug and then derringer comes back and gets the mornings uh but like what can you can you share a little bit of what it was like working at Q107 and 640 back? You mean as it relates to my job? All of the above, yeah.

Oh, we had just the culture there. Well, there was a lot of sitting around and waiting, and there were a lot of phone calls, angry phone calls, because they just didn't get his, Stern's, humor. And he was ahead of himself in terms of being on terrestrial radio. His stuff wasn't working well with Canadian audience. Let me, let me help because I listened to the Stern show on cue and I stopped and

started, cause it was also on a WBUF in Buffalo was also doing Stern. And I started listening to the Buffalo feed. Here's why, because you're right. We have our CRTC stuff is our standards. It's especially when it comes to like French language stuff. And I remember this distinctly. So there was a lot more cutting out of the content on the Q107 feed of the Stern show than on the Buffalo feed. And of course, as a listener, you don't

want anything cut out, obviously. But yes, I definitely remember I guess somebody was at Q107 ready to do the delay button or the dump or whatever. Absolutely. I can't remember her name. I want to say Monica, but I have a picture of her. Very slight little girl. That's a fun

job. I suppose. Hey, what do you do? I edit Howard Stern. Oh, he's talking about the Frenchies in Quebec. Dump. Oh, yeah. It was crazy. Crazy. And a lot of people really just didn't like that kind of humor.

Is it because we're typically Canadian? What's a typical Canadian? Always apologizing for stuff and saying yes, please, no, thank you. Yeah. Maybe it's because he's in New York, he's in Manhattan, and who is this American?

Maybe there's a little bit of resentment that, hey, why are they putting this American show on? You want a local Canadian show? Maybe there's a bit of that. I actually like that. I still like Howard Stern. Oh, my husband does too. Just laugh his ass off. Some of the stuff's pretty funny,

but some of it's like, oh, come on, what are you, 12? No, you're right. But he does fill up a lot of hours in the week. And you're right, it's not all gold. You have to know kind of, you're right. Some of it's silly and you wish you wouldn't go there. But when he does have a good,

he's good at interviewing too. I find he doesn't play it safe like so many different interviewers when it comes in. And like, I'm not going to do today. I'm not playing it safe with Evelyn Macko. I'm asking the hard-hitting questions. May I ask you about some of these Q107 and 640 personalities that you've worked with?

Okay. All right. How about Marsha Lederman? She's very clever, very smart. She's out in BC now and I think writes for the Globe and Mail. Karen Horseman was there, right? I lost track of her. I think she was doing some stuff on CBC. Together, they did a really, right? Yeah. At 640? Lost track of her.

I think she was doing some stuff on CBC. But together, they did a really, really good show. Very thoughtful. They were very thorough. And it's good to see more women broadcasters. Yeah. That's always good to see. I agree.

I liked this guy. I think there was overlap. Please tell me if I'm wrong. Were you there when Brother Jake was there? Oh, God, yes. In Q107. Donna Saker was there, too. Jeff Chalmers was the... Right, Jeff Chalmers.

That's right. Yeah. You got to have Jeff Chalmers. I should. I know he also... I think he has some kind of a food truck, and he grows hot peppers. Oh, I sold. I know.

His wife had come over to our house, and we had a meal, and it was not hot peppers. Oh, I sold. I know. His wife had come over to our house and we had a meal and it was not hot enough. That's all I remember. Brother Jake, and I'm trying to remember, I get confused now, but Brother Jake, because I remember listening to some Brother Jake and he would do the champ and I've talked about this a lot on the show, but ever since I became

the champ. Yeah, I see your wife's got a cute angina. I said, pardon? Yeah. There's always a few. Yeah. No, that's a great example. But it's always fun.

Like I said, he said, pass the tea bag. Something like that. Anyways, there's some great ones. Or something about buying corn and says to the kid, can I box your ears for you? Or, I mean, now this is another joke that might not work today. In fact, I don't know, but it was like, hey champ, I heard your wife's quite the thespian. Like this is fun, right?

And he gets all like, he gets so mad. How dare you think my wife is a lesbian? I think, now you might know this more than I do, but I think there was a time when he went, returned to BC that the champ turned into an animated cartoon. Yeah, I have seen this too. I think it was an app asc that the champ turned into an animated cartoon yeah i have seen this too i think it was an app as well like i think there was an animated cartoon i don't know i definitely have seen it and i think it was an app and i think through the app you could you

could access old champ stuff uh so i don't know if that's still active or not this john gallagher got his gig at q i believe because he was i could keep his he was playing slowball in the Maritimes with Brother Jake, maybe in Nova Scotia or something. I know, again, it all connects. Brother Jake, is he still on the air in Vancouver? Yeah, and I think he just won some kind of an award.

He's been gone... Is he 110 years old now? He's been on the air forever. 120. How about, okay, friends of mine, I'm actually doing their show on Wednesday. I'm co-hosting because Fred is on vacation. But what about working with Humble and Fred? They're so sweet.

You think so? They just also spoke to my class at Humber. Oh, I know I speak in your class at Humber. Post grads, you can come anytime, especially doing this podcast. I'll come talk about how they can make even less money. We worked. Okay.

I don't know if that would mention the story in relation to me. Let me hear it. But it was the day of 9-11. Okay. Okay. So I have a 9-11 section, believe it or not here. So I'll wrap up some other names. Yes, because I know you were working the morning of 9-11 and that I know kind of the story

of Humble and Fred were on Talk 640 at the time. And I'm going to ask you about that in just a moment. Let me do a few more names. Then we're going to get to burn through these. Yeah, spill. Okay. So, and Jesse, you worked again with Jesse and Gene? Is this like a second tour of duty with Jesse and Gene?

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. They're both, I mean, sadly, Gene Valaitis was Morning Show. Roundhouse Radio. Yes. And they sold and shut it down. So I suppose he's an unrestricted free agent right now. Well, I hope he finds something because he's so talented.

He's so clever, so creative. He's a wordmeister. I mean, I think, yes. He was the rock jock guy who then became more of a talk radio guy. And if there's anybody who you can say radio's in their blood, it is he. You really, really missed it when he was out doing his other stuff. Yeah, I know.

Yeah, again. But Jesse is a multimillionaire. Is that right? Selling crystals to new age people or something like that? I think it's a little more than that. Okay. But somebody sent me a picture of his home in Wh I don't know, Whistler or something. And I was like, oh, he did all right.

He did all right. Hey, you don't get stuff like that without working hard. What about Al Joines, who was after, although he did leave for a bit and come back. It's not uninterrupted. But he was there for like 30 years. Genuine. He's a genuine person. You had him.

Yeah, he's been here. He came here right, he got let go. So, funny thing is that day, two Q107 personalities were let go. One of which was walked out. Your pass card doesn't work here anymore. Goodbye. That was Al Jones. Sorry, Al Joins. And the other one was Andy Frost,

who's still doing Psychedelic Sundays. At some point this month, I think he's going to have a farewell show or something. Really? Yeah, but anyway, they both been on the show. So Al joins. Yes, he's like the salt of the earth,

just nice guy, right? Yeah. He's a genuine nice man. Yeah. His son is best friends with my nephew. There you go. He's just crazy.

There you go. It all ties together. And Andy Frost's son is a first round draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers. No kidding. Oh, wow. Oh, Andy must be just like walking on air.

Proud papa. Because imagine the odds of your child. We all have, you know, my kid played hockey. But what are the odds your kid is a first-round draft pick of Andy Jones? Good for him. Morgan Frost hopefully has a long and successful career. Oh, way to go, Andy. And Andy, a good experience of Andy?

Just kind of like fly-by-passing-in-the-halls kind of thing, but he was always just a gentleman and, hi, how you doing, and keep up the good work. Can you do an impersonation of Andy Frost? No, I can't. I'm trying to think. What about people like Ian Grant? Ian Grant? Oh, my God. Talk to Ian Grant. He's radio, man. He is lovely. I'm trying to think. What about people like, what about Ian Grant? Ian Grant. Oh my God. Talk to Ian Grant.

He's radio, man. He is lovely. I should get Ian on the show. He was my program director briefly at 640. And his first day as a program director, he stopped by my desk and put down a piece of chocolate, whether it was lint chocolate or something.

It was chocolate. And I said, what the hell is this for? And he said, well, just in case I do something shitty down the road, you'll remember that this was a nice moment. That's a nice move. And so recently it's his birthday. So I put on Facebook, I said, I hope you have a lovely day and chocolate. And hopefully he remembered or at least recalled that little.

He's at, is he at 1010 right now? Yeah, he is. He's doing some weekend stuff. I don't know. But he was always... Man, he was always working with wires and engineering. Yeah. You know, he's so clever. I'm going to see if I can get him in here. Oh, yeah. You should.

Okay, so Larry Silver again. He just follows you around like a puppy. Yeah, rather. I don't think so. Jim Lang? Was he at... Jimmy. Jimmy googly eyes.

Googly eyes. He gave me a... Oh, Jim gave me a no. Sorry? Jim Lang gave me a no. Like off the top of your... He didn't? Yeah.

Oh, I'm going to have to speak with that lad. So he gave me a no and then I'm like, okay. He's an army brat. I'm moving on. Maybe that has something to do with it. He's a brat. Jimmy, you bad boy. Tell me now.

Were you almost the Toronto Argonauts PA announcer? Did I read that somewhere? Yeah. Well, I don't know. You really do. You're like the Brian Linehan of podcasting. Can I tell you? I just did an interview this week.

Do you know this publication called Broadcast Dialogue? Yes. It's been around forever. Right. Okay. So, gentlemen there, apparently he's in Vancouver. So,

uh, we couldn't do this in person cause that's a long drive, long bike ride for me. But, uh, we did it by phone. He phones, we had a phone conversation.

He asked me about Toronto Mike, the podcast. Uh, he listens and he loves it. Uh, and this was like in the mag, in the email newsletter today is this interview with me in this broadcast. I know.

Did you know you were being interviewed? Yes, of course. No, I did know. But yeah, so I mentioned that because what was the name? Did you just mention a name before I broke into my broadcast dialogue speech? You said something that triggered the story. And I'm trying to remember. Do you remember what you said before I broke it?

Toronto Argonauts? Sharon Taylor? Ian Grant? No, after that. Larry Silver? No, post that. Was it Toronto Argonauts? So why did I break into this?

Because somehow, and I'm trying to remember. I can't remember now, but something you said reminded me of something I said in this interview, and I can't remember. But yeah, so you did. Okay, I can't remember. Isn't that terrible? Yeah, I terrible really confused

that's okay but the toronto organauts you had oh yes brian linehan okay i remember now yeah you are the brian linehan of podcast right and i was asked in this interview that came out today or yesterday or something but i saw it today uh who my inspirations are and i said brian linehan because i liked the way he did his homework and he had these facts about his guests that weren't well-known or obvious. And the guests always seemed to appreciate being asked different things.

These people that he interviewed were interviewed 100,000 times. Because there was a familiarity and it made them feel comfortable. So I try to be the modern-day Brian Linehan. I'm trying to pick up the torch here. You're doing very well, my friend. Thank you.

Toronto Argonauts, you were almost the PA announcer somehow. Tell me the story. Well, I auditioned for it. We were at 640 and the company, I can't remember if it was Shaw or Wick or Coors or whomever, one of the three was trying to work out covering the Argonaut games.

And just for the hell of it, they thought, well, was trying to work out covering the Argonaut Games. Right. And just for the hell of it, they thought, well, maybe we might want to have a woman doing the... I can't even think of another. That's a not... Eventually we should... Yeah, why not? Even just that experience was so exciting and invigorating,

walking through an empty stadium into... And it's the dome, right? What I would call the bird's nest. And hearing my voice filling the stadium, it was crazy. Now you know how Andy Frost felt all those years. Oh, absolutely. Don Landry, just a fun fact.

Don Landry, another nice, fun guy. Yeah, he's been on the show. He is currently the PA announcer for the Toronto Argos, who have, of course, moved to BMO Field. Yeah. A little less cavernous now. Still, that's great.

It was an exciting opportunity. Just one of those things. They decided we better get a dude in here because it's too bleeding edge to get a woman voice. Maybe, whatever. They're lost. It was fun. Let's talk about that terrible day of September 11th, 2001. I want to hear it from you. So tell me,

you know, who you were working with and how that day unfolded for you. I'm in the newsroom at Young Norton Center, Q107 640. It's coming up to nine o'clock, preparing a newscast. And to my peripheral vision to the left, we had a series of five or six televisions that were suspended from the ceiling and all put on news stations, right? There's ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC, and CNN. And out of the corner of my eye, I see this black thing. And then I turn my head and start really watching the television. And I just pressed the intercom to upstairs. Bob Ouellette was the technical guy. Very, very good friend of mine.

Big friend of mine. Love this guy. He's related also. He's not related to me. Oh, he's going to say. But through the Dave Trafford connection. Okay. Anyway.

He's at The Rock right now in Oshawa, by the way, your hometown. Yeah, there you go. So I pressed the button to him. I said, I don't know what I'm going to say, but a plane has flown into the World Trade Building Center in New York. And he didn't say anything. I said, Bob, you there? He said, yeah, we'll go in five. And I had headphones with the

mic attachment. And I don't know where the information came from, but I knew how high the World Trade Center was. And I could see from the television counting down the floors what floor it hit. It was just, it was like a shark in a feeding frenzy. I felt like my eyes were rolling back in my head, and just all these words were coming out. I didn't know if they were making sense, but I knew the sense of urgency. That's adrenaline, I think.

What it was all about, something. And I'm still on the air. Bob comes beside me. I slide my earphone off one of the ear, and he whispers. He says, there's been a second plane. That was the moment for all of us. I turned and looked at him like, what? No, you've got to be wrong.

And then there it is on television. And Fred told me that he and Howard, Humble Howard, just sat there listening to me and watching television. It was probably the first time they didn't have anything to say about anything. Everybody was struck by the enormity of it. Stuart Myers

was the program director. He came into the newsroom and was leaning up against the table with his feet crossed ahead of him. And my, sorry, I'm going to be shot for that. Never. And his arms crossed across his chest. And he said, so this is how it's done.

Suddenly these rock jock guys, they suddenly decided to pay attention to the newsroom just on that day. It's like we're doing more than just speaking and playing audio clips and stuff. We actually have a brain, and we can actually tell stories without a script. Well, I mean, that's...

It was an awful day. And it went well into the day, into the afternoon. Ian Grant was there also. That's a day... He was in a meeting, and I think I asked somebody to phone him and text him.

And he didn't believe me at first. Like, he actually removed himself from this meeting and called me back and said, what the hell's going on? I said, no, Ian, really. Like, the world is changing, man. And then he came back and orchestrated the rest of the day's coverage.

And there weren't very many of us, but we did what we did. And that was a day when your words, like everything you said, mattered. Because we all found a place to tune in and get our updates that day. And we were all like you mentioned Humble and Fred, just we all clinged on every word because we you know what it's like. The first one in your mind, you have this. Oh, maybe it was a mistake, an accident.

Right. The second one. Now, you know, this is an orchestrated attack, but you don't know what's next. But here's the thing, too, is that that was an integral day for radio. Yes. And there will be more days like that where people will go to the radio first. Absolutely. No, you're absolutely right. Like, do I need to run and hide somewhere? And if I'm driving around, should I go and pick up my kids from school? You're not going to go home and watch that on television. You just not. No, and there will be, hopefully not, but you can theoretically, possibly, hopefully not, there will be a day where there's something happening where there's no,

you know, we don't have electricity, for example, okay? And in this situation, if you could broadcast over terrestrial airwaves, and we can all either either with battery-powered radios or in the cars or whatever, we will all be able to listen, and it'll matter. This communication is going to matter at some point. And I'm not talking about aliens have landed, Evelyn, and we need to know. Best example is the blackout. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The blackout. I also worked that day and broke that story in the afternoon. Mark Elliott was on the air. But here's where radio comes into play.

CFRB was the only radio station that had its own, I will say, generator that it didn't rely. Everybody else was off the air, but we weren't. Well, let's get you to CFRB. So good. Good segue there.

So 9-11, you're on the air at 640 in Q107. And I guess, of course, 102.1 too, right? At that point, they're all in the same family? No. You sure? No. Yeah. You mean the Edge?

When does the Edge join the family? Do you know? Not my family. No, but the Q107, 640. Like, the Edge joins... Are you sure? Yeah, no. Not in my...

Here's what... Okay, here. No, okay, hear me out. Evelyn, here's what I remember. Here's what... Okay, here. No, okay, hear me out, Evelyn. Here's what I remember. Humble and Fred were on 102.1, and I think this is 2000. If it's not, it's early 2001, before 9-11.

They become the morning show on 640. Okay, yeah. Because it's the same company. They're owned by the same company. Okay. So I think it's Chorus by then. I'm going to guess it's Chorus already. So it it's basically they're just moving down the hallway or whatever however it was situated but so in fact for the first couple of weeks uh before the humble and fred show launches

on what they called mojo radio 640 humble and fred were simulcasting their 102.1 show on 640 for a couple of weeks simulcasting and then of, they go to Windsor and get Dean Blundell who comes over and starts doing it. Because you do overlap with Dean. So all I'm saying is, at some point, and I think it's the late 90s, but at some point, the family of radio that Chorus owns today, 640,

Q107, and 102.1, they're all in the same gang, so to speak, at some point. I think they're all in the same gang when you're there. I think on 9-11. You don't remember this, right? I didn't do anything for them. Okay. Because Humble and Fred, okay, yeah, because they're the morning show on 640.

That's when you're talking to them. Okay. Okay. Regardless, you leave this family of stations. Not by choice. Common story. That was, of course, Bleeding Red. So let's get rid of a whole bunch of people,

but let's keep Evelyn and let's keep Chris Mavridis doing the news in the afternoon. But let's make them work an hour longer than normal. Do you know what happened to Chris? I don't. I don't.

He's a character. What an enigma. I think he went, he's in the States, California or something, writing scripts and stuff. I don't know. Netflix or HBO

and all these different things. Fantasy shows for sure. He's a listener to this podcast. He might be listening now, but you just dropped that name and I'm like, I can know this name. Yes, okay.

Sorry. Chicken and waffles. So what happens? They're bleeding. Sorry, you and Chris. So a bunch of people get let go. Right. And the only two people standing are he and me.

So basically the day gets moved from not overnights, day parts. Six till noon, but that still means you're in at four. Six till noon and then noon till six. And then I think it's BNCP runs overnight. Yeah. So that was just the two of us. And that was 2001. Right. And then I had nothing to do until Bill Carroll called me in February. Of 2002. Yes. Gotcha. Would I be interested in doing a couple of overnight shifts? Oh, really?

Okay. Yeah. For $125 a shift. Two nights a week. That's like, oh my God. That was very difficult. However.

Is that just tough on your pride? Like that you're sort of, it feels like you're starting from scratch or something? Yeah. Like you're fresh out of Humber again? Yeah, definitely. Okay. And that just tough on your pride? Like that you're sort of, it feels like you're starting from scratch or something? Like you're fresh out of Humber again? Yeah, definitely.

And it was tough slugging too because then you come in, a guy like Dave Agar comes in at 3 o'clock in the morning and I'll turn to him and say, there's no news. And he'll say, yes, I've heard. Oh, fuck off. And he'll say, yes, I've heard. Oh, fuck off. However, like I persevered. I reinvented myself. I hung around.

I stuck around. I did day parts. I did weekends. I did holiday shifts. holiday shifts. And eventually, like in the room in a closet, pretty much, is the news booth for what was then Easy Rock. And so I weaseled my way into doing that. And then eventually, both radio stations. And it's funny, too, because it got back to me that pat holiday was the general manager he thought i already was full-time before i was offered full-time but it was a long slug and hard fought reinvention wow but you uh you do it's like you're like uh in the movie like the phoenix rising from the ashes i love this in the movie, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

I love this in the movie. This will be like the Rocky montage or whatever. You fight your way back. That's what's, that's how it's going to be in the movie. So, uh, so yes, I've actually, I have been, I don't, I didn't meet you though. That's not where you remember. I think you're confusing me with the Trivago guy that's on TV all the time. Oh, please. I don't know.

You're a lot more attractive. Oh, are you kidding me? I think, I think he's really handsome. Am I crazy? The Trivago guy? You're crazy. Maybe I am. Yeah.

I haven't told that before. But okay. News Talk 1010 and Easy Rock and 99.9. At this time, we're all like on the same floor. Same floor. Yes. Because I remember, and it's a little bit later, but I remember like Rick Hodge would do Easy Rock mornings and 1010 and would run back and forth, if you will.

Yeah, that was very common in the day. Right, right, right. But you were co-hosting the Easy Rock Mornings show when Troy McCallum was filling in. Is that right? Yeah. He's a real smart, positive, positive cookie, real inspiration. And he calls me Evie Mack. Yeah, he was driving back and forth from Barry.

Again, another persistent man who had a goal, knew what he wanted. There's the brass ring. I'm going for it. And so here he is now. He's the program director at what is now Nucap, owned by Nucap. But it's boom. It's Easy Rock. He went from a fill-in guy to now he's a brand manager.

Doing very well. And they were just bought by Stingray. Have you heard this radio news? Yeah, but I don't know the implications. All I know is Stingray is going to own all the Nucap stations. So I don't know the implications either, except Nucap has been bought up by Stingray is going to own all the NuCap stations. So I don't know the implications either, except NuCap has been bought up by Stingray. That's what I know. Yeah.

Well, I hope they don't make any changes because he's awesome. He's doing great there because, I mean, I've had Stu Jeffries on the show. And Stu's doing great there. KJ, I already mentioned. May Potts is there. Yes. I love May Potts. But Boom's doing great there. KJ, I already mentioned. May Potts is there. Yes. I love May Potts. But Boom's doing very well. In fact, Boom is the primary reason

Q107 has recently had to kind of adjust their playlist to compete with Boom because Boom was taking a big chunk of that male demographic. Really? Boom's doing very well. A male demographic? I'm surprised. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. that's awesome yeah yeah yeah so yeah good

stuff there's your uh troy mccallum update so yeah i will so you're at 10 10 so okay great uh so you're doing like top of the hour newscasts on uh easy rock and then you're doing bottom of the hour on uh 10 10 which was still cfrb back then am i yeah yeah so let me still see if i'd be technically but you know sure branded that way yeah that's right. Now, I have a friend who's been on this podcast a couple of times, and she's currently doing news at News Talk 1010, and she tells me that she taught you what Blurg meant. Siobhan Morris. Siobhan Morris.

Lovely Siobhan. I don't even, and so I was chatting with her, like I said, a former colleague's coming over, and she told me that she taught you what Blurg meant and I this is the truth

I said now you need to teach me what Blurg means and then she her response she didn't she said you don't know what Blurg meant

and I felt really really stupid I'm feeling and I still feel stupid can you what does Blurg mean? yeah it's

it's from 30 Rock it's it's an expression isn't it kind of like blerg yeah i wrote her texted her i said what the hell does blerg mean and she wrote me back and explained it and we still have that running joke can i tell you a funny story with oh my god yeah um she would go across the street for a coffee run. And I hope I don't get into trouble for this or people think lesser of me. But I would always say, give me a Gary Coleman. And she'd say, what the hell is that? And I'd say, will I get into trouble for this?

No, I don't think so. Well, I hope not, please. I have a good heart. It's just newsroom crap. Give me a Gary Coleman. She goes, what's that? And I say, a good heart. It's just newsroom crap. Give me a Gary Coleman. She goes, what's that? And I say, a small black. So she gave me for one Christmas a coffee mug. On one side is a picture of Gary Coleman,

and on the other side it says, good morning, Ev. I still use that coffee cup and laugh. Okay, here's the thing about Siobhan. She was working in St. Catharines at the time. I'm in the News Talk 1010 newsroom. She's giving us information about what's happening with Marineland and covering it exceptionally well. I took notice of that, and I said to the news director,

we need to have her here. She's great. So there was agreement with my scouting, as it were. And yeah, we still occasionally talk. She owes you her career. Damn it. Yes, she does. Because she listens to this podcast.

Oh, awesome. So she's hearing these words right now. So hi, Siobhan. Hey, Siobhan, I need a new coffee cup. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I don't think that story crosses any lines. I think it's rather funny.

I hope not. You're right. As we said earlier, this is a strange time right now. And it's podcast-y. It is podcast-y. You're not going to lose your license, okay? CRTC can't touch me, is what you're telling me. I will fight for you.

Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Now, I said earlier, you know, so standard broadcasting was owned the station. And then Astral, how do you say it? Astral? Astral? If you're in Quebec.

Okay. Astral. Astral. Astral. Buys it up. Yeah. But then Astral is bought up by some conglomerate cable giant called Bell Media. I don't know if anyone's heard of that company.

So Bell Media now owns News Talk 1010. And there was a wave of cuts. And you were a victim of these Bell Media cuts. Is that true? True. And it's... So the three names at 1010 who got it.

One of... Katie Francios. Queens Park reporter. Reporter extraordinaire always getting scoops uh and amber jiro who's been here who had i heard her podcast um did you what did you think i mean i trust your opinion it's like uh because i got criticism from somebody who she she speaks her truth and there's nothing wrong with that. This is her feelings and me as a...

You tell me because I don't have any training here, right? So when somebody has an opinion and feelings about their experience, I let them share that and I mean that... I've always think, well, this woman of color

has this experience and these feelings. Who am I to suggest that she's got... her feelings are wrong? So my feeling is, I turn on the mic, and then she opens up and shares her experience 14 years at 1010. Yeah. Am I supposed to challenge her?

Of course not. Am I supposed to? No, right? To me, that'd be grossly inappropriate. For me, as this white man over here, to be challenging a woman of color on on her uh feelings and her experiences i don't think it would be appropriate for me to challenge her hard no you're you're right on that and it's her opinion and what happened to her and her

experiences like you say so she's got a story to tell also everybody has a story to tell yeah that's why you're here i'm gonna pick up your story. But these three women are women. That's a fun sentence to say. They laid off the three female staff. And do you believe, like, is there anything that irks you in that matter? Like the 1010 lineup right now,

I often say, they're not alone. 590 has the same situation. There's other stations too. Very, I always say, very male, white male dominated these lineups typically, these daytime, weekday. Do you think so? Well, 590, which is a sports station, 100%. I follow that station pretty closely, and they're all white males.

All the hosts during the weekdays are white males. Didn't they have Barb DiGiulio? They let her go a long time ago. Yeah. She's at 1010 now. I know. They let her go after 25 years or something there. She't they have Barb DiGiulio? They let her go a long time ago. Yeah, how stupid. They let her go after 25 years or something there. She's doing well at 1010, but here we go. We're advancing in our lives and our thinking

and way of doing things that she would be top of the heap at 590. Yeah, I mean, who didn't like Barb DiGiulio, right? When I speak of about weekday lineup here i speak of the morning show through the drive show okay so if you start the morning show then you get like a midday you get a few between like depends how they structure their time slots or

whatever but if you think of the morning show starting and then the drive home show is the closing of your weekday lineup okay if you look the, if you look at the faces of the people who are hosting, I'm not talking traffic people and I'm not even talking news people. I'm talking about the hosts, uh, five 90, it's all white guys, 10,

10 during that time. I, I described right there is a bunch of white guys. I believe pretty much. And then you, I mean, I did, I was happy to see 640 hired us,

Supriya Dwivedi, who is a woman of color. And they also have Kelly Cotrera there and they have, there's another female there. Like they've actually, I see, and I see that there's more diversity in their lineup that better reflects the city they serve. So I guess here's my question for you, since we're going to get into your teaching career

in a moment here. But do you think the 1010 on-air lineup reflects the city it broadcasts to the city of toronto do you think that it reflects in terms of talking about news or hosts hosts uh and do i think it reflects the city of toronto uh and should it reflect the city of toronto so if we if we know from the census that uh half of this city is not white is there there any responsibility anywhere for a program director to have hosts that reflect the city? That's a really interesting question. I don't know how to answer that because I've been removed from that environment. I am now more of a

more of a consumer of the product. So yes, I'm white, so I'm not sure that I could truthfully and confidently answer that to any kind of great satisfaction. I think you're going, if I was a person of color, I might listen to a station that had more of that makeup.

And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Like if you only have perspectives from white men, for example, I'm just using an example, non-white men will probably possibly tune out. Let's say possibly. But it's the relevancy, how they're relating to me. Right. You know, you start with, I think, a pond.

You throw a stone into the center of the pond and then the ripples are going out. At the center of that is heart and home. And then what's the other peripheral things that affect you? Like weather or did my street blow up? Am I going to have enough money for when I retire? The price of gasoline. All those kinds of things don't have any kind of a color distinction. It's all what affects you. But I'm thinking of when I'm traveling in the States and listening to some of those radio stations,

and you're going through where the demographic really is heavily of not even— People of color? And ethnicity. Here it's ethnicity rather... People of color? And ethnicity. Sure. Here it's ethnicity rather than more of color. But the price of gasoline, as I mentioned, doesn't know ethnicity. Nope. It all is my heart, my home, my wallet, my community.

What you teach, so this will, nice tie in here is that uh like you're currently teaching at humber college is that right this semester yeah this semester is just finished but yes because okay so i mean 1010 makes the mistake of letting uh evelyn macko go uh thank you i have no idea whose decision that was but you you give me the name and i'll i'll talk to that person just but uh you and a couple of others of course mentioned amber and katie uh also let go that day also let go that day was steve roberts from from oh chf oh virgin and chf from virgin right because that's about media yeah no he went to 680 you're right and then i was canned from there right and then i think he was also doing some stuff on chfi with aaron and with mike that's why i got I got confused. And was purged from there.

Now he's back in the family at Rogers. Good for him. Can't keep a good man down. Yeah. But you decided to teach. So after this experience with 1010, when they let you go, did you try to get back into the industry? No one would have me.

I've heard this story. Humble and Fred tell the same story. Humble and Fred, after same story. They couldn't... And Humble and Fred, after they got... They lost... Howard got a gig at Easy Rock, actually. And then it became Boom.

But then after that, Humble and Fred got back together podcasting. I know all about this. But they tried very hard to have their, you know, popular branded morning show back on terrestrial radio, but there were no takers.

Yeah, I don't have an answer for them. I don't have an answer for me. And it's just so depressing and demoralizing. Do you think it's because you don't want to do the $125 shift thing anymore? Is that part of it? Probably. And they just look at you and they're like,

yeah, you know, I don't know. I'm speaking in this second. Do you know what? I think CFTR 680 News made a mistake in not picking me up because I think me doing the news in the morning with Paul Cook would have been a fucking powerhouse.

I still think so. You know, it's not only... I say that think so. You know, it's not only... I say that out of love. Well, it's not only... They say, how many people listen to your podcast? And I go, well, you know, it's who's listening. People are listening, like, on the inside. You have a list of who's who.

You need to talk... You can talk to these people through this podcast. Like, it's because we could fix some of these mistakes. Like, you would be happy to return to the airwaves. Is that right? Or are you so happy teaching you want to get, like where are you at right now in your heart? That's a really interesting question.

In heart, I use the word heart because soon heart will play into a jam we're going to kick in. That's a teaser. I don't know. I really love teaching. I think that's my foretake. I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher

before I got into the Humber course so many years ago. So it's like that's come full circle for me. So I don't know if I'd really want to go back necessarily. But you would entertain offers, of course. You're open to discussions. Call me. Call Evelyn. Call me.

Don't be afraid. You can call me. When you're teaching these, because you're teaching people who want to be in radio, right? You're teaching young people who want to be in radio. Oh, yeah. When you see their faces in these classrooms,

are they all white people? Oh, no. I need to understand what's the demographic of the people in the schools for radio that want to be on these stations? I consider some of them

as too white male dominated. Like, is there a feeling? No, not at all. But, so I'm getting a mix of women and women of different ethnicities and fellas of different ages. I just had a man in my course at Humber

who was in his 50s. Oh, wow. It's not too late for me. Never. Never. And as long as they've got the drive, they're keen, they're eager, they really want and are open to all other suggestions rather than just pigeonholing themselves. rather than just pigeonholing themselves. For instance, I'll run into many young kids,

and I call them kids, and my kids, who want nothing else but to be on the air. Right. And I have to kind of steer them in a different direction maybe sometimes. Tough love, I think you call that. Well, you know, I can be really tough if I want to. But I don't want to piss on their cornflakes. Right. You know what I mean? You don't want to deflate their passion. Yes, you know, I can be really tough if I want to. But I don't want to piss on their cornflakes. Right. You know what I mean?

You don't want to deflate their passion. You don't want to, yes, you're right. You don't want to deflate the drive. At the same time, there's a pragmatic approach here where you want them to be able to have like a sustainable living in their career of choice and stuff, and you're trying to steer them in the right. As somebody once told me, I think it was my husband,

one word spoken, a thousand cannot undo. So somebody once said to me, you know what, you should learn how to write copy because you'll never make it on the air. Those words have stuck with me and they've kind of hurt. And somebody else also said to me along the way, you're not a very good writer. But you didn't listen to these people clearly. But those words still ring to these people, clearly. But those words still ring. They resonate. Right.

Maybe I overcompensate it by being thorough and accurate. I want to take your course. You're just doing this semester, but are you going to come back next year and teach it? In the fall, I'll be plugged into Seneca and hopefully at Humber. Oh, so you teach at Seneca and maybe Humber.

But, okay, all right. Sounds, I mean, we need to open. I love it. I really, really do. So you've heard my podcast a couple of times. Like, if I were your student, where would you, pretend I wanted to work in radio, pretend. Would you have a frank discussion with me? Like, maybe your talents are best

utilized elsewhere or would you encourage me to continue on my path? Well, this is all I know that you're doing and as far as I'm experiencing, you're doing this exceptionally well. Oh, yeah. I'm going to get an A. So, carry on. A+. A+. A+. You know, it's funny how you went to Humber and now

you're teaching a semester at Humber and you recently were named... You're in the Radio Humber Hall and now you're teaching a semester at Humber, and you recently were named. You're in the Radio Humber Hall of Fame? Imagine that. That's amazing. Imagine that. And that's the one near the racetrack, because I know the thing is right near where you are right now,

there's actually a Humber College campus. But this is all near the racetrack there. That's right, by the airport. I used to go to the airport on my days off or classes off, and you could go into the parking garage that wasn't like a Fort Knox kind of thing and go to the edge of the parking garage and watch the planes coming in and going. I used to do that. Oh, that's cool.

Love the smell of aviation fuel. Maybe that explains a lot. Fairy tales can come true It can happen to you If you're young at heart For it's hard you will find to be narrow of mind

if you're young at heart You can go to extremes with impossible schemes You can laugh to extremes with impossible schemes. You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams. And life gets more exciting with each passing day. And love is either in your heart or on its way.

Don't you know that it's worth the risk that you're under? Evelyn, tell me what this song means to you. It's our wedding song. I walked out from the inside of a balmy beach club to the deck outside in sunshine and family and friends and Dick and Larry and Dave Drafford.

And it was just like I skipped down what we had as an aisle. And it just resonates with me. And you're young at heart. Here's the best part. If you are among the very young at heart there you go

if you get old you die isn't that awful well they say age is a matter of mind if you don't mind it doesn't matter it's funny some people will ask um Grant and me if we have any kids. And I'll turn to him and he turns to me and we point at each other. We're each other's kids. I mean, you know, seriously? Like a woman of my age riding a motorcycle? Also golf. Ski a little bit.

Here's the best part. You have a little bit. Here's the best part. You have a head start if you are among the very young at heart. It's true. The other song that I really love is Smile. If your heart is breaking, smile, though your heart is aching.

That one. It's just kind of inspirational and message and inspirational. Is that a word? I have to look it up. It is now. I'm always looking up. Dictionary.com. I am my own worst enemy. You know, as a motorcycle mama, I thought you'd be

like an easy rider. You'd be doing like, was it Steppenwolf? Born to be Wild or something like that. That's what I was expecting. That's the second song. But that's beautiful. You brought some Chairman of the Board, some Frankie. Oh, man, that's just great.

So, Evelyn, they've made a mistake. The City of Toronto, all the program directors, anyone who has a news department has made a mistake that your voice is not currently on my terrestrial radio dial. I think that's a huge oversight and somebody needs to rectify this. Someone has to contact you and get you back on the air.

Yes, you should be teaching the young people. Continue to do that. But also, we need to get Evelyn back on our airwaves. You're so kind. I'll see what I can do.

Evelyn should also be drinking some Great Lakes Brewery. Enjoy it and pour it in the property in the 6.com pint glass and get your $10 from Paytm. And then, hey, it's never too late. I know you're over the age of 14, but go to French camp anyways. Just lie about your age. We just had a really good segue, huh?

There you go. Yeah. So thanks for doing this. Mike, this was so much fun. And safe travels back to Collingwood. Don't forget the bagels. But one day in the future, if you're ever back in this neck of the woods,

I'm going to try to get you to come do 10 songs with me. We'll catch up and do 10 songs. I call it kicking out the jams. You'd love it. So one day you got to come back. Pull out the Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire and I'm all over it. I love it.

I love it. Thank you. And that brings us to the end of our 334th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Evelyn is at I am News Broad, which I love, by the way. That's a great handle. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee. Paytm is at Paytm Canada. And Camp Tournesol is at Campors Devotee. Paytm is at Paytm Canada. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. In the words of the late, great Jim Brady, Come get me, Mother, I'm through. The future can hold all due for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you.

Oh, you know that's true because Everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow Won't stay today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away