Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Event Audio Guru Sans Events: Toronto Mike'd #599

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

Mike chats with audio guru Andrew Stoakley about how social distancing has affected his livelihood.

Welcome to episode 599 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees From Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville StickerU.com Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos and decals For your home and your business The Keitner Group

They love helping buyers find their dream home Text TORONTOMIKE All one word to 59559 They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text Toronto Mike. All one word to 59559. And Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack. One of the most celebrated roots, country, bluegrass bands in Canadian music history. I'm Mike. From TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is audio guru Andrew Stokely. How's it going audio guru Andrew Stokely?

Oh, you know, I got a lot of free time on my hands right now. But at least the sun is shining today. Well, I have so many questions. But first, for those who aren't familiar with you, which is what's wrong with those people, you've been on several episodes of Toronto Mic'd. Remind us, like, what do you do for a living? Sure.

So I am a freelance television sound engineer or mixer or whatever. freelance television sound engineer or mixer or whatever. Uh, I mix live sound for TV, whether that be news entertainment, but mostly I mix sports. Um, I'm the head audio guy for the Toronto blue Jays for their broadcasts.

Uh, I do all the curling for sports net and CBC and sometimes TSN, although that changed this year. And then whatever else, sports, I fill in. NHL, NBA, I'm a backup for that guy. MLS, NLL, I was in Halifax a lot this year doing lacrosse for them. Yeah, I've had a busy, busy, busy year to 2020 up until this week. All right, so some questions I have. One is, are you what I'd call a busy, busy, busy year to 2020 up until this week. All right. So some questions I have.

One is, are you what I'd call a freelance? Like if you do the gig, you invoice from whatever your company's called, like a pay-as-you-go freelance resource? Yeah. I don't want to sound crude, but I'm a hired whore. Whoever's check clear, you know. As like everyone says, well, who, who,

who you work for? I said, whoever's check clears. Right. Right. Yeah. I'm, I'm a freelancer to the sense I'm,

I am incorporated. I have my own business. Uh, I am the, as I like to say, CEO, president, uh,

chief and, uh, head, uh, bottle washer, um, of Stokely audio. Okay. So that's the name of your, uh, your company is Stokely Audio. Okay, so that's the name of your company is Stokely Audio.

Yeah, mine's a numbered company because, honestly, I didn't want to pay the $1,500 fee to trademark my name. So it's, but colloquial, is that the word? Yeah. Yeah, it's Stokely Audio. That's what everybody calls it. All right. But when I cut my check to you, I got to cut it to, uh, your, whatever that numbered business. Correct. Yeah. Something, something, something, something, something Ontario Inc. All right. So firstly, before we dive into how the, uh, social distancing

has affected you, uh, I need to tell the world that I've never cut you a check. And I'm saying this in great praise of you. And I have put this on the record a hundred times that I'm going to make it 101. And that is to say that when I first started thinking of doing this back in

2012, I met you through my dear friend Rosie. And you were an early guest when we did it at the humble and fred studio like yeah in the old hood right like i'd say that's like august september like 2012 right and uh about right because i uh met you through Rosie, and you seemed to know what you were talking about when it came to audio. I really did believe in you correctly that you were an audio guru. And you helped me a great deal

with the very beginning of this podcast. The mic I'm talking to you right now, I purchased because you recommended I buy this mic. And listen to how good they sound still. I know. And that's, uh, yeah,

go ahead. I just said, I remember that. I remember the first time when you, when you emailed me and I said, listen, do you want to do it correctly or do you want to do it cheaply? Cause I said,

if you want to do it cheaply and wrong, I'm not the person to talk to because I don't like crappy audio and no one will listen to it. If the audio is crap, simple as that. And you also had certain at the old time, right? In the old, the old room that you were setting up in, uh, you know, even in the other place when you were in the, the, uh, the other location before you moved into your current house, right. You know, you wanted something that you could control. And so that's why I chose these microphones. I know some people I've listened to, they don't like being on the mics, but any professional radio guy or television guy that

you've had on know that these are proper broadcast microphones. Right. Right. And I think we bought three. I know you introduced me to your dealer. That sounds like we're making some kind of a drug deal. But you introduced me to your dealer. And I bought three microphones right off the bat, these Rode Procasters. And I bought a fourth since then. But you got me. This is obviously we were going back to 2012.

So the board I'm working on now did not actually exist. No. But the one you recommended, mackie was great and uh you know you helped me out with okay these are the cablings here's how it all cooks up and then bottom line is i owe you a debt of gratitude in that uh the one thing i knew nothing about going into this was recording the audio and you really helped fill that knowledge gap. So thank you. Oh, well, you know what? Like I said, I like to help out where I can.

I like good audio. And, you know, Rosie called me and said, you know, would you come? I said, for sure. And, you know, all weird happenstance with that whole thing. And I've been happy to watch you grow. And, you know, look you come? I said, for sure. And, you know, all, all weird happenstance with that whole thing. And, and I'm, I've been happy to watch you grow and, you know, look what you've done now. I can see your TMDS sign up behind you, you know, and, um, I I'm happy, you know, I don't, I, you know, I, I, I don't talk a lot on the, uh, on the website anymore, but that's mostly because I've been too busy and I, I hate to say that, but I've just been too busy.

But I still download and listen to every episode. It keeps me company when I'm on multiple planes or was on multiple planes. Right. And my daily commute back and forth, which should have been starting next week, back and forth to the Rogers Center. Well, we're going to get to that shortly. But there's a couple of other local podcasts we should shout out that i hear you you're kind of affiliated with so toronto miked of course we know your relationship with this

podcast you're the audio guru that helped set it up in the beginning but also uh like tell me a bit like like what have you done to help for example a tnt taggart and torrance just in the beginning you know what, when they were kind of just sorting out, actually, just funny, I was just talking to Jono a few minutes ago before we started recording. He was just checking in to see how I was, and I was checking in to see how he was. Nice. And, you know, they went through a whole bunch of iterations, and Jonathan just asked me, you know, he was looking for Mike, Mike recommendations and so forth. They are very, they record their episode, obviously differently. They record on their each separate devices while they're having a conversation.

And then Tim Oxford, uh, drummer for the Arkells, he produces that for them and then, and then sends it out. So I don't, I didn't have anything really to do on the back end. It's just mostly, you know, just helping them with deciding where they wanted to go to. I think now they're happy with what their format is, which is great. There's that one. What about Geeks and Beats? Yeah, with Michael and Alan. I've known them both for a really long time.

Michael, for an audio guy who's never done anything audio related, uh, Michael's done an outstanding job, uh, recording and producing that podcast. He does everything. And again, mostly we just have conversations in the background about simple stuff or silly stuff, you know, like this is happening here. What can I try? like this is happening here. What can I try? Uh, you know, um, and if I don't know the answer, I get Mr. Rob Johnston involved who, you know, is the true master of post-production, if you will. He is the pro tools maestro. Um, and I don't use a lot of pro tools anymore in my era just because in live we don't have time to do it. Uh, but yeah, it's mostly just been, you know, helping. I'm free to give advice.

If somebody wants to ask about microphones or what they should look at, that's my forte. Okay, drop your Twitter handle now just so people who hear that can tweet at you or something. Sure. It's simple.

Stokely Audio. S-T-O-A-K-L-E-Y-A-U-D-I-O. I just got to 900 followers. Good. Which is crazy. And they're real people. You didn't go buy 900 followers. Some people I know.

No. No. No. This has taken many, many, many years. And I'm up front. I tweet a lot about curling. I tweet a lot about baseball. And I tweet a lot about curling. I tweet a lot about baseball.

And I tweet a lot about barbecue. Right. Well, now it'll be more barbecue than the other two. So let's get to that. Okay. Now, I've often talked, when I had to explain what Andrew Stokely did, I'd often say, like,

when you're watching a Blue Jays game on Sportsnet and it's at the Dome, more likely than not, Andrew Stokely is in the bunker, like in a truck or something, making sure it sounds good. And of course, the curling, which I love your work, but not enough to actually watch curling. But that's my own shortfall. Like, that's on me.

I should embrace that sport. But you would normally, at this time of year, you'd be very busy right you'd be busy with the curling the again you said any you're a hired gun so the curling the baseball you would be basically uh any televised sporting event that needs an audio guru you'd you'd be a guy who might be doing that at this time of year normally correct yeah the easiest way to describe is anything you hear at home on the broadcast i'm responsible for if I'm doing that show. Sound effects, microphones, music, playback, anything.

Anything that makes noise in a broadcast comes through me. And normally, March, April, May are my three busiest months of the calendar year. And starting tomorrow, I was supposed to start basically 45 days straight. Wow. That's all gone. Okay, let's talk because I totally relate to this because a lot of my money now comes in from like, I'll set up in a boardroom of a financial services company

and we'll record like, I don't know, four or five episodes and then I'll take that content a boardroom of a financial services company and we'll record like I don't know four or five episodes and then I'll take that content home and do my thing but this week for example I had four gigs all four were canceled so uh when I don't do the gig I don't invoice which means I don't get paid and you're in the same boat right yeah yeah I'm a. I'm a pay to play or a play to pay. You know, if, uh, if I'm not there, uh, if nothing's happening, I'm not getting paid. And, and because I'm incorporated also, I'm not entitled to EI as of right now. So I'm in a holding pattern waiting to see what the government's going to do, because I'm not the only one self-employed people, people in the service industries, people in the arts, um, we're all in the same boat. And I imagine something will come.

I just actually this morning, uh, I was on the phone with my, uh, my accountant asking, you know, how I was doing. Cause if I'm not getting paid, guess who else isn't getting paid? I can't afford to pay my accountant. You know? So we were having, and we've, this is a 10 year relationship, 10 plus year relationship we've had, you know, and he, and he understands, he knows. Um, so we're all in the same boat. Like, uh, I've got some money socked away and luckily my wife has a good job. Um, which right now there's no threat of losing her job.

She's the communications manager for public health for the region of Niagara. She's been working 12-hour shifts the past two weeks and that's not changing. Right. So in a way, it's kind of good that I am home because I am basically holding the fort. Remind us, how old is your boy now?

He just turned 16. He, uh, he just got his G1 on Friday and, uh, he's actually doing his young drivers program this week, the March break class. There's only four kids in the class. So we felt comfortable, you know, sending him to that. So he's been doing that and he's miserable. You know, he thought he was actually driving. He didn't realize that this was just the classroom portion of it. And I was like, no, your driving comes after that. So when I pick him up today, we're going to go find a parking lot and go drive around, learn some stuff. Dude, I remember just a couple years ago, maybe even a little less, doing that exact same thing.

I went to Cloverdale Mall where they had the Target. Yeah, good old Cloverdale. Right. So that side where the Target was, it's just a big empty lot. And I took my crappy old Mazda and my, my boy who just turned 18. And basically that's exactly right. You just learn like cause and effect with like accelerator and break and you get a feel and man,

I guess I'll be doing it again with my daughter soon. Like you're doing it with your boy, but at least he's kind of independent. And, uh, I guess what I'm trying to get, let me, let me,

let me reiterate something you said, which I think is key is that you're typically, you're a dual income household and for a period of time, you're pretty much going to rely on your wife to provide for the whole family. Luckily, I have put money away, you know, that I would use to cover taxes because I do file taxes twice a year for the corporation, quarterly pay HST and all that. And that's what I was talking in my account this morning. I said the government sadly won't be getting a damn cent until this is all done. And I'm not, again, I'm not the only one in the boat because we're going to have to use some of that money that I've put aside to supplement a little bit. You know, we don't want to, I know that I know the banks have said, if you need to defer your mortgage payments that came out, you can do that up to six months. Right. That was just announced.

I don't really want to do that. I don't want to accrue the interest if I don't have to. I don't want to accrue the interest if I don't have to. So, but, you know, it's, it's, it's, we don't know. No one really knows at this point where we're going to be, how long we're going to be out. My gut is telling me that baseball won't be, I'm figuring June before baseball comes back at the earliest at this point.

You know, hearing you say that, it sounds awfully optimistic. I know, again, you said it, and I can't reiterate this enough, but nobody knows. I heard, so Doug Ford had his conference, and I heard a reporter ask him how long this would be going on for, and I had that moment of like, how the hell does Doug Ford know? And then the same question, I heard Justin Trudeau got the same question yesterday, and then I tweeted, stop asking politicians how long this will go on for because nobody's got the answer but uh you know so uh june sounds wonder like right now if you said mike go you can you can have june i would take that in a heartbeat because my my brain is thinking things are going to be like this till uh i don't know until september i don't know like i don't I don't have an answer, just like everybody else. But it sounds like you're in a good position

in that you do have the one income that still comes in. I just want to speak on behalf of my family that Monica is working from home and she, like your wife, she's still, you know, making her full pay. And I think that's a great luxury because although I haven't, like yourself, it sounds like you're going to be at zero for a while because there's no events to produce audio for. No, there's nothing unless somebody's going to start paying me to do stuff from home, you know? Um, and you know, I was talking to my accountant, I said, you know, this is, it's not like I can go out and try to find employment right now because as soon as everything comes back, if it comes back and it comes back at full force, right?

They haven't canceled basketball. They haven't canceled hockey. If all of a sudden we have baseball, hockey, NBA, MLS, all that going on as leagues are trying to get caught up and, and get their playoffs in, there's not going to be enough of us. I'm going to be like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. And I don't want to make light of it. Like, this sucks. And I will admit, I'm one of the lucky ones. I have a wife that has a job.

There's a lot of younger guys in our industry who are single self-employed like myself and for how long this lasts, I don't know. You know, it's, it's, but we have to do it. You know, this isn't, you know, listening to what my wife is saying when she comes home every night, she's surrounded by doctors and you know, they can't get the message out strong enough that stay home, only go out if you necessarily need something like groceries or whatever. And if you do go out, stay in small groups, practice social distancing. Like my son in his class this week, there's only four of them. They're there, you know, the teacher's like, yeah, no, I'm going to keep them separate. You know?

Right. And luckily at 16, it's not like kids in daycare where they're shoving everything in their mouth and they're, you know, eating dirt or whatever. You know, he understands he's got a little small ball of hand sanitizer. So it's a lot different. Um, but you know, it's the behemoth to the South of us that I'm more concerned about and what they will actually do if in fact they can stop it or stop the spread. It's all about, you know, that phrase flattening the curve, right? It's going to happen, but they need to be able to flatten out the spike so that the healthcare system doesn't come to a crunching

and then they can't treat anybody. Bingo. And the news came down today. So the fresh news today is that, you know, USA and Canada have some mutual decision that the border has been closed to non-essential traffic for each way. So it's a non-brainer. It should have been done a week ago, you know,

let traffic through, let it's going to be great. You know, let track, let, let, let trade continue, you know,

screen your drivers or whatever, but let trade, let trade, but no one needs to be driving to the U S no one needs to be driving to Canada right now. Right. You know, unless it's an emergency. And for that, you know, sadly for things, sadly for things like funerals or whatever,

I'm sure that will be, there'll be, there'll be exceptions made for cases, but it's unprecedented times. This is, you know, it's, it, it really is. It's, it's, it's scary, but it's not scary. I think people are not panicking yet because I think from what I've seen, like I went grocery shopping last night. There was lots of food in the store. There were items available. The panic buying is done, if you will, here. People who have a thousand rolls of toilet paper, good luck. rolls of toilet paper, good luck. You know, it was a great, I was reading an article the other day with the head of Kruger products. He said, we have more toilet paper stocked or supplied than the entire country could use, even if this causes, you know, extreme diet, which it doesn't like, that's what it's just people are are freaking out like the entire fresh vegetable section fully stocked last night at my zares here in niagara falls now if you wanted to get a can of peas yeah you had slimmer chances which i don't i don't get but anyway you know what it is it's about control i've been doing a lot of psychoanalysis on this uh and i think it's

about in times like this some people just need something they can control and they're like well i can go and have enough in my household to so if i never left my house for two months we would not starve to death and i think there's i think i don't the whole toilet paper thing i don't know i didn't partake in that but uh i think it is about having a semblance of control in a very uh unusual and atypical period in our lives. You mentioned, you said the word unprecedented, and that word probably gets tossed around more than any right now because it's the most appropriate term for what's happening.

None of us have lived through anything like this. The Spanish flu was a little before our time. A little before our time. There aren't too many people alive who lived through the Spanish flu. And we lived through SARS. We were in downtown Toronto. My son was born in 2004. The protocols we had to go through to get in and out of hospitals at that time were unreal.

H1N1 has been around, uh, you know, there had been other Corona viruses, but this is different. This is a different beast. And I am, I am not a health expert. So guess what? I, I tend to listen to people who have years of medical training, not to people on Facebook or Twitter or whatever. Right. Uh, you know, if this is what they're saying we should do, this is what we should do.

And there was a great, I can't remember who there was a quote. Somebody said, um, you know, and I'm paraphrasing, obviously, um,

we won't know if we overreacted too much, but we sure as hell would have known if we underreacted. I feel the same way about climate change. I'm not going to steer this convo into that, but I always feel like the people who are like, I'm not changing my behavior because I don't believe we're responsible for climate change. I always think the worst case scenario is you overreacted and we had a cleaner, we had cleaner air and a cleaner, healthier earth. I, you know, it's anyway, it's a quick aside there. Well, you know what?

No, it's true, Mike. This will, this is going to impact and affect people in ways that we don't know yet. I was just reading before we were, when the bubonic plague happened, it wiped out a third of Europe. What happened after that was all? The Renaissance began.

Who knows what this is going to do? There's a lot of people, a lot of artists, a lot of musicians who can't do anything except be at home. It's a forced period of creation. Who knows what's going to happen? You know, I'm hoping the schools will get back. Uh, you know, my son's really concerned. He's not concerned

about losing his year because you know what? Luckily he's a smart kid. He's, he's way smarter than I am. Um, but he's supposed to be working at camp this summer. That's what he's concerned about. He's supposed to leave June 19th and summer. That's what he's concerned about. He's supposed to leave June 19th and come home on the 4th of September. And he is so excited about doing that. And, you know, we talked about last night, I said, there's a chance, bud, that that might not happen or it might be half and he understands it, but you know, that's a tough pill to swallow when you're 16. No doubt. now uh we i think i tweeted this i think you agree that in the priority i don't want to make it sound like money is the priority one

here so number one priority is health and safety okay if we have if we don't have our health we have nothing so keeping and it sounds like your household right now is healthy is that fair to say okay yep everybody is good no one is showing any symptoms, any signs other than it's allergy season. yeah, everyone is healthy. So health, number one. Number two, maybe I'm

being a little, I'm being serious here, of course, that happiness. You know, life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. You got to keep a positive outlook and keep being creative in other ways. You know, so I think happiness is a strong number two. Like you got to be healthy and happy. This is where I'm going.

But I'll put money as a distant third here. But money, unfortunately, money is essential because where you and I are in a spot where we have an income coming into the household and where your income might be grinding to a halt, mine's just slowing down and shrinking, but not actually down to zero. I am saving childcare money. I was paying for quite a bit, a couple of grand a month for the two little ones, and that's gone down to zero. I won't i won't be bleeding out nobody should be crying for me so but let's talk about money for a minute

so we talked about how we're we're we're uh all in the same uh boat here and uh it's it's affecting all of us i feel for people out there listening for example people who pay, you know, we talked about getting like some relief on the mortgage. What about the people who pay rent, right? I mean, landlords need to throw a bone to people in this time. I'm thinking not everybody will be able to keep up with their rent if they're in the same boat you're in, where their income, which was supposed to be very high right now because of how much they'd be working, goes down to zero. Like there needs to be some high right now because of how much they'd be working comes to Z goes down to zero. Like there needs to be some relief for rent payers.

Absolutely. And, and that will come back to, uh, that will come back to the mortgage companies, banks allowing people who have two or three properties that they use for rental income. It's,

you know, well, they announced that there will be no evictions. So if you're a landlord and you have people in your homes, guess what? And they're not paying right now because they can't afford to pay you, guess what? They're still going to be there.

And I agree. It's just a steamrolling effect. Well, my nephew's mom works in the restaurant industry and she got laid off. So many people in these industries that have been shut down are laid off and told to go on EI. And so it's so tough for so many. And I guess if I can give one piece of reassuring,

I don't know if I can reassure people right now, but if I can tell people the fact that we're all in it together and we're all hurting, it just means we all need to be more patient with each other, more nicer to each other, kinder to each other, and understand that this is really hard for a lot of people. And you and I are not looking for, you know, tears or sympathy because there are so many people listening to us right now who have it so much worse. We're just very lucky that there's an income coming in and we're going to make it through this thing. Yeah, 100%. We have couples in my industry who are together who do the same thing. So they're at zero now.

And that's why I'm saying all along, the biggest thing for me would be boredom. you know, I'm saying all along, the biggest thing for me would be boredom. That, that honestly, going back to happiness, if you will, that will be my biggest thing. I'm used to, I'm a person who's used to doing 50 to 70 hours a week sometimes. Right. And, and, and I'm doing bupkis, you know, it's not nice enough outside for me to be able to go out and start working in the gardens or working in the lawns or doing stuff for my neighbors or whatever. Because it's not the season yet.

I got to wait a few more weeks. You know, I can't afford to go out and say, go buy a whole bunch of paint to paint a room. Because right now that doesn that doesn't, that justify the cost doesn't mean anything. So I'm basically just making sure that, you know, Indy gets up, he gets ready to do whatever he's, he's happy. He's playing video games. He's hanging out with his buddies online.

Right. He barely needs you. He's a, he's a, he's an adult. Yeah. He can, he can, he can cook his own meals if he needed to. But I'm trying to make sure that my wife, who's working insane amounts, and she's also doing her master's right now in communication. Wow.

Yeah. So not only is she dealing with all this at work, she's then coming home and she's doing all of her schoolwork. So I'm making sure dinner's ready, all this at work, she's then coming home and she's doing all of her schoolwork. So, you know, I'm making sure dinner's ready, that she's not worried about things like laundry, that I'm cleaning the house, uh, you know, looking after all that stuff. I am, I am Mrs. Doubtfire, Mr. Mom. And, and not that it wasn't, I mean, my wife and I have always had a great relationship that way because I grew up with two super anal retentive mothers, my mom and my stepmother,

who my room at school, at university, you could have eaten off the floor. I am a cleanly person. I like to keep things clean. Orderly, if you will. I tend to take after them, if you will. Right.

Maybe checking in once in a while here or doing this here. I'm telling you, I'm looking at you in the video. I know I didn't share the video with the public. I'm getting an exclusive Stokely video stream here, but it's good to see you. Like it almost, I feel good. I'm not seeing a lot of different people these days.

It's like family, except I did bike over to the No Frills yesterday and I was, I was, oh, there's people here. Like, look, there's actually human beings, but it's good to see you. Yeah. Hang in there because this has to end at some point. We don't have any crystal ball to say when, but at some point, society returns to normal. It sounds like

when that does happen, and I'm hoping this will also be the case for me, but when that does happen, you will be busier than ever. This will be a period of great growth. Then by the end of the 2020, maybe it all comes out in the wash. Who knows? I'm expecting it this way, Mike. I think what will happen is sports will come back at a staged return, if you will. I think the games will come

back to no fans in the stands because they'll want to get the games going. But they'll want us to broadcast. So we'll be back. And then eventually the games and I'm talking NBA, NHL, if those come back, I think baseball will start with open crowds because they'll push it back far enough, even if they only play half a season.

Right. And if they play half a season, they play half a season. And that's, you know, somebody said to me, they said, they said, oh, well, you've had this before. I said, no, no, we haven't had this before. We've never had this. They said, oh, well, you've had lockouts. I said, no, no, we haven't had this before. We've never had this. They said, oh, well, you've had lockouts. I said, lockouts and strikes are different.

We knew, we knew way in advance about baseball lockouts and the NHL strike. So we all prepared. We knew that there wasn't going to be a hockey. So guys shaved and we knew that. And not only that, but you could do curling, for example, when the hockey guys are locked out. Now everything's shut down. That's where they get you. There's nothing for example, when the hockey guys are locked out. Now, everything's shut down.

That's where they get you. There's nothing for you to do. And we didn't know. If I had known in September that this was going to be a thing, that this was going to do what it's going to do, I would have started putting way more money away, and I would have deferred. I pay twice.

I have a tax payment in January,, uh, a tax payment in January and I pay a tax payment in August. And if I had known this was going to happen, I would have taken that January payment and said, no, push it off for, you know, push it off for eight months or nine months. Right. You know, and, and we could have done that and it wasn't, it was, I mean, I'll be honest. I pay, it was a $28,000 tax bill I paid, you know, and that's corporate taxes and I'm happy to pay that. And I knew it was paying and I'd saved up for it and saved up for it and saved up for it.

And so I've got a similar one in August that's roughly the same price. And that's why I've got this money set aside that I always do. that's roughly the same price. And that's why I've got this money set aside that I always do. But if like, I'll be honest with everyone. I, I,

I'm calculating, I'm losing about $25,000 in income over the next two months. Right. Right. Because of overtime and whatever, you know, and it might seem a lot. Yeah. I,

I, I, I will freely admit it. I get paid well to do what I do, but with that, you get the experience and the expertise. Well, you're a guru.

They're not growing on trees. No, no, no, no, they don't hand out, but I don't, am I not the love guru?

Because that was a horrible, that's disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, you know, uh,

and some of that might come back. I'm not saying that the NHL NBA, some of that might come back, but the two curling events I've lost won't come back. That's gone. That's money gone. We'll not return. I will never see a return on investment on that, if you will. Um, and you know, if we lose three months of baseball, that stuff's not coming back. They're not going to extend the season into November. So I've basically, they've announced, you know, baseball won't be back mid April, which I highly doubt. Um, so that's an

additional, uh, baseball starts next week. So lost those two games I was basically working every day up until May 4th from now I was working I had two days off one day was a travel day home from New York and another day was just an actual day off before I had to fly to Calgary

to maybe reintroduce yourself to your wife and kid. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? And that's, that's, that's another thing. You know what? We've, we've gotten together, we've chatted with our neighbors, you know, um, my son and I, you know, this is a busy time. He's, he's, you know, 16 lots. Now I'm going to be to have lots of time to teach him how to drive without any worries. He might just not want to hang out with the old man. You know what I mean? Well, gas is nice and cheap, so you could do nice long road trips.

76 cents in Niagara this morning. Wow. I can't remember. The 90s maybe? It could have been. I remember, well, no, no, no, no. Because when we left Niagara in 2011, 2012, the ESO station, the Shell station there at the corner of Horner and...

Brownsland? Yeah. With like 55 cents. Oh, wow. Okay. See, time is a human construct. It's all blurred to me. I'm going to just promote a recent episode in that you mentioned now you didn't see this coming.

So you didn't make plans for this because none of us saw it coming. My buddy Joe, his family decided this would be the year that they would backpack around the world. And they left in July. And they've been going around the world. They're currently, I think I talked to him yesterday for, I talked to him yesterday for an episode of Toronto Mike. So I'm here to promote. Listen to Joe as we get an update on what does a family do

that's backpacking around the world? They were in Laos yesterday. The forgotten country, I call it. Cause it's like, no one ever talks about Laos. But I believe they're on a flight tomorrow. It might be there tonight, actually. But no, they're going to bed now. That's right.

Tomorrow, they're going to fly to Thailand. uh what do you do when you're like what do you do when a pandemic hits and borders are being shut down and the prime minister's calling you home and your family of five is in asia making their way around the world so an interesting episode with joe on toronto mike you should catch up on that because he didn't see it coming either. Also, I just want to let, uh, we talked a lot about how our wallets are being affected and I wanted to

kind of just, you know, talk about money, not it's priority three, a distant third. We're going to stay safe and healthy first. And we're going to try to keep, try to be happy because happiness is vital.

And then money third, but, uh, I'm going to be talking to Toronto Mike partners. So I'm going to talk to troy at great lakes brewery to find out how they've adapted to social distancing you know they're still selling fresh cans of great lakes beer at the uh retail store near uh down the street from the costco at queen elizabeth boulevard but you know and lcbo's are still open which means you

can still buy your great lakes there. But they do events there. I know this because I'm going to do a TMLX there as soon as it's safe. But, you know, we're going to talk about basically how they've adapted. I'm going to talk to Anthony at Palma Pasta because although you can't, you know, sit down at Palma's Kitchen and enjoy it at the table, you can still go to Palma Pasta and take out the food. enjoy it at the table, you can still go to Palma Pasta and take out the food. They're still making fresh lasagna safely and you can still buy it and you can still get it on skip the dishes, etc. So Palma Pasta, we're going to find out how they've adapted. I'm going to talk to Laura at StickerU.com and talk about what's changed with them. StickerU.com might be in the best

shape because they're a website that might be the safest form of anything is e-commerce there. We're going to talk to Austin from the Keitner Group because, you know, houses are still selling. In fact, interest rates are dropping. They're actually, I don't know if you're, you know, keeping in tabs of the markets and stuff, but that doesn't stop. So, well, what do you do about like open houses and home evaluations and Keitner group are doing a whole bunch of responsible things during this time of social distancing. We're going to talk to Austin Keitner. I'm going to talk to Banjo Dunk. What does a musician do? Like he had a big event we've been promoting for months in April at the, at Zoomer Hall. I, it hasn't officially been canceled, but you can bet your bottom dollar that's going. Yeah, yeah.

What does a musician do when you can't perform? And that's where, you know, so we're going to talk to Banjo Dunk about how he's adapting. And I'm actually going to also talk to Brad from Ridley Funeral Home. What happens if, heaven forbid, and why do I say that expression,

but somebody you care about passes away now. Typically, loved ones get together to cry on each other's shoulders and remember, what happens now? We're going to talk, find out what really funeral home, what happens in a time of social distancing in the funeral home business. So I'm putting that together, piecing that together.

It should be interesting to catch up with all the partners and find out how they're adapting. I'm so glad we got to catch up with audio guru, Andrew Stokely today, but he stays safe and keep in touch. And, uh, it's just nice to see your face, man. Yeah, it's good. Thanks. Yeah. You know what, uh, as Lawrence, uh, Nichols from, uh, lowest low, like to say, I'm, I'm holding the fort down here at Stokely Manor in Niagara. Yeah, you know, be kind, practice social distancing, wash your hands, check in on neighbors, check in on any elderly neighbors you might have. Just be kind to each other.

If anything, this will just, maybe this will pull some people's heads out of their asses and realize that we are we are one. We are all in this together and something like this could make that disappear in a second.

We're all in this together. Everything is rosy and grey. Thanks Stokely. Nice to talk to you, buddy. You too, Mike. Anytime, bud. And that brings us to the end of our 599th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at TorontoMike. Andrew is at StokelyAudio. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group. And Banjo Dunk is at Banjo Dunk with a C. See you all next week. and drink some goodness from a tin

cause my UI check has just come in ah where you been because everything is kind of rosy and green yeah the wind is cold but the snow is so warm this podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.