Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - James Bow: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1761

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

In this 1761st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with author James Bow about The Unwritten Books trilogy, Icarus Down, The Night Girl and how Doctor Who made him the writer he is today. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, the Waterfront BIA, Blue Sky Agency and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

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it's Bo. James Bo. James, how are you? I'm fine, thank you. And it is Bo. It's not Bao, right? Oh, yeah. Everybody, you got it right first time. Because it's got to sound like Bond, James Bond. It didn't help. That was, it didn't help that my locker number at high school was double, was zero,

seven, is that right. Yeah, that is right. 007. And that was after, you know, they were already teasing me about it. And then they got this locker was like, well, that's it. Well, you know, my, uh, my first born has a very similar name. And it sounds like James Bond as well. Oh.

So I, I know this, like when you're James Bo, it's like they're going to make the 007 jokes. Although I will say, I feel like when we were growing up, 007 was a bigger deal. I don't know. I feel like there's so much going. on now. I don't think the kids today are making the James Bond cracks about my son, James Boone. But you never know. So what high school was this? Oh, Harvard Collegiate. Okay. So you're, you're a Toronto guy. Yeah, I was born and raised in the city. He lived on

McCall Street just north of Baldwin. Used to grab those ground beef buns at the Yingsing bakery. We've long since passed away. That's a cherish memory. Okay, you've got to bury me in all these name checks. Shout out to Ridley funeral home on that one there. So you're born and raised

in Toronto. So we're going to find out everything there is to know about you, James. You've come to the, it's like going to a therapist or whatever. We're going to dissect you and find out what's going on. But I want to make sure, before we get rock in here, I want to make sure you know where you are because yesterday's guest,

had no idea where she was or what was happening. Like she had a driver bring her here because she was told by some trusted friends that she had to do this. And there she was, but I could tell looking in her eyes as we were chatting that she said, she did not know what was going on.

Do you know where you are, James Bow? Well, I'm in your studio. I'm seeing a lot of, a lot of history in here. Sam the Record Man poster right over there. That's a Kurt Swinghammer composition there. Yeah, shout out anything you see, like anything that's... Oh, yeah, the Jay's memorabilia.

I mean, I'm being taken back to my childhood back in the... through the 80s, and fortunately, we left the city for Kitchener when I went to the University of Waterloo in 91. So I'm here because this is a... It feels like a Toronto institution, and I've written a book that... very much a love letter to Toronto. Okay, what's the name of this book? My latest novel, it's actually a reissue, it's called The Night Girl.

It's been put out by Shadow Paw Press earlier this month, and it's an urban fantasy set in Toronto, tells the typical story of a young man who comes to the big city looking for work and finds it as an admin assistant for an employment agency that finds work for goblins and trolls. Okay, okay. I'm digging this vibe here. So we are going to talk more about this book. We're going to talk more about all your books and, of course, the Toronto connections to everything here. I do want to make sure I'm clear about the fact that yesterday's guest may not know like where she was or what was happening, but I think she was amazing.

So absolutely amazing. It's not every day you get a 902 or I think I called her Claire once, which is her character's name on 90210. But I'll try not to make that mistake again. But she was amazing. So check out yesterday's episode. One more correction, James, I want to make while I got you sitting here all comfy. So this correction is a couple of episodes ago. I had Avi Federer Green on, who's a prolific film producer.

And your book's called The Night Girl? Yes. We got to pitch this book to Avi. That's a Netflix series or a movie. That's something, right? Oh, yeah, definitely, I mean, maybe Shastbury would like to have a crack at it. Yeah. Well, we've got to talk to Avi, but Avi Feddergreen was over.

And then he mentioned on his podcast, his excellent podcast, which is called Unleashed. He mentioned that he had, his next guest was Megan Follows. Do you know Megan Follows? Yes, I mean, you can't grow up without the Anne of Green Gables. But I also remember her appearance on the Maiden Canada television series. if you remember, the one that spoofed the Canadian movie and television industry. Yes, okay, did it have a tragically hip theme song?

Oh, yes, yeah, saw a movie once. Yeah, blow it high dough. Yeah. Yes, it's funny, yeah. Okay, keep going. This is all the Megan follows. Oh, yeah, and she shows up. I mean, this is a parody of the company

that makes Rotaf and Lee and the Anna Green Gables movie, and she shows up, you know, as the child star of their, you know, their comparable show and, you know, and she is bitter, you know, the head executive says, you know, we made you, we could break you and she's like, you rob my childhood. I think Avi should have you in as the co-host for the Megan Follows episode. So when I hear Megan Follows, of course, there's, of course, there's Anna Green Gables, of course, but my first thought was a TV movie, a CBC TV movie.

I watched when I was 10 years old. and I could, like, I closed, and I never even knew he was going to say the name Megan Follow, so this came to me immediately, and I closed my eyes, and I could see Megan Follows starring in this movie about hockey, and I could see the male lead was Janik Bison, I hope I say that properly,

but the guy from Murdoch Mysteries, like I could see his face, young Yannick, in this movie with Megan Follows, and then as I thought on it for like a mil, you know, everything's real time, no edits, and I thought about it for like, I don't know, a millisecond. And I thought the name of this movie is,

she shoots, she scores. She shoots, she scores. This is the name that I thought it was. And then very shortly after wrapping up the recording, I learned that title would have made no sense because Megan Follows played a goaltender. Okay, she wasn't scoring. Okay, so she shoots, which is hard to say, by way.

Can you say it, James? Say she shoots, she scores quickly. Oh, tongue twister. She shoots, she scores. You're better at this than I am. Okay, that's why you're here. But this movie was called Hockey Night. Do you have any memory of a CBC movie with Megan Follows playing a goaltender called

Hockey Night? It may be vague memories, but I do not recall seeing that show. I guess it hit me at the right time, you know, 10 years old, kind of exciting to see this. And it's called Hockey Night. But you're the writer. We're going to dive into how, you know, how prolific a writer. You're the Avi Federer of young adult novels, I'd say here. But isn't that a good, like, and not that it makes sense because she's a goaltender,

but she shoots, she scores is a better title than hockey night, right? I would think so. It's sort of like, it'll be, I could see a movie like a league of their own in hockey. Yeah. Okay, so you agree with me. I feel like I invented a better title. It just makes no sense. But, you know, when did things have to make sense, right, James?

For sure. Okay. So I wanted to issue the official correction. So, James, you, you live in. Kitchener now. Yes. I sometimes call it like having met the relationship I maintain with Toronto is like a grandparent's relationship with their kid.

You get to come in, you get to love them, you get to hold them, and when they start to smell, you leave. So you're in South of Tobolco now, but it's not the heat of summer. So it doesn't stink too badly. But if you get too close to certain parts of a lake right now, there's this like rotting fish smell. I smell it sometimes on my bike rides. Consider yourself warned.

Fair enough. Now, let's before we get to the Kitchener, because I know you moved to Kitchener for, you mentioned University of Waterloo, right? Yes. Okay, and that's like early 90s. So you actually, because you looked at this shopper's drug mart calendar for the Toronto Blue Jays,

which I have set on May 1986, because that's George Bell's month. Okay, so it's fixed on May 86. But you leave the city just before things get exciting with the Jays because you saw some great runs, but you were gone for the 92 and 93 World Series. Well, yeah, but Toronto's influence extends way beyond Toronto. I remember being at university,

and I think it was the 92 series, the first one, and people were at a night class, and Lee J's game was going to be on the professors. Yeah, we're not going to get much done here. This is like the 72 series. Oh, that's a good comparison. I just did an episode. It was a great episode with Steve Paken, Bruce Dobigan,

and the member of parliament for Atobico Lake Shore here, whose name is James Maloney. We did a great tribute to Ken Dryden. Oh, yeah. Highly recommend Ken Dryden. But were you even alive in 72? Yeah, that was actually the year I was born, so. So you don't remember much of that action, though,

but you did get to watch, even in Kitchener, they rolled out the TVs or whatever for the 92, 93 World Series. Oh, absolutely. Okay, good. But you, so 91 is when you leave the big smoke here. Yes. Prior to that, you touched on it. But I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about growing up in Toronto.

And specifically, would you speak about your mother, Patricia, and her role in your life and shaping you as a writer? Well, I lived, as I said, right downtown just up the street from the College of Design. And just, you know, right off from the heart of it. Chinatown. And so I had a very, very urban experience. Still, I wouldn't call it, I wouldn't say that it was any harm in that. I was like a two minute walk from school. My mother stayed, was a stay-at-home mom at the time, and while working on her writing. And so I had friends and family, but a very,

urban environment to grow up in. And I think that, in many ways, sort of sparked my love of cities and of transit. And when I went to the University of Waterloo, I was to study urban and regional planning. So part of me is like there's a boy who's never grown up who always loves trains, but also there was an appreciation of urban form. And as a result, I didn't get my driver's license until I was 23 because I didn't need one because the TTC was my first car. Right. So, yeah, that was my experience and didn't really click until coming out of that,

going into university and then, you know, meeting people from other locales, just how different that was. And, you know, some of those things you're proud of is like, hey, Toronto, we are the, we have the world's tallest freestanding structure. We have streetcars, which nobody else does, or very few do. And, you know, this is something that you're proud of. But at the same time, when you come out of there, people don't quite understand it. They're like, whoa, you lived downtown.

Were you, like, scared? Were you always on the run? where did you get your, you know, where did you get your green type of thing? It's like, well, we went to the ravines. Right. No, Toronto, I mean, again, downtown maybe a bit less. You got your Trinity Bellwoods and you got certain pockets or whatever. But, you know, I'm talking to you here from South Atobico,

and I spent a lot of time on the Humber Trail. Oh, yeah. Sometimes you forget you're in a big city. I'm telling you, it is pretty greeny. But when you said, where do you get your greens? You know what I thought you were referring to? Where do you score your weed in the big? smoke. Well, I managed to avoid all of that.

No, no, and that was, of course, in the good old days when it was illegal to consume cannabis in this fine country. That was kind of a goody-to-shoes in some respects. But, okay, so were you legal drinking age when you consumed your first alcoholic beverage? Well, I mean, to confess, my father probably slipped me a bit of his beer. Like a sip or two. Yeah. But you didn't get, like a, here's a full beer, beer, 17-year-old James. So I can't really remember what my first time was drinking beer,

which tells me that wasn't a very, you know, shocking or auspicious moment. It was just, hey, I'm old enough, I can have one. Yeah, I'm here, I'm prying to find out how goody two shoes you are. Absolutely. So on that note, though, since we mentioned the B word beer, I now would love to present you with some fresh craft beer. You can take back to Kitchener. This is from Great Lakes Brewery.

You can get that in Kitchener. Oh, for sure. But, yeah, thank you so much. Have you ever had a can of GLB in your life? Unfortunately not. I mean, I've done steam whistle. Waterloo has, you know, with Waterloo Brewery, Waterloo Dark. Sure.

So, and I'm a fan of a good stout. But I don't have any stout for you. Well, I'll take a lager. Okay. So you've definitely got a summer ale. You got yourself the premium logger, and you have a pale ale, which is the Kinnock, which is they're a big seller. But what you have is this is a special

because they stop brewing it for the season. It's called the Sunnyside Session IPA. In fact, shout out to FOTM Ian Service who made the trip to GLB to buy, he knew, because I told him on Toronto Mike, they brewed their last batch of Sunnyside because I produced the Great Lakes podcast

so I get this inside scoop here. And I tipped off Ian and Ian bought himself some cases because the next time he'll be able to do so will be probably, I think, maybe May 2026. So James, you got a can of Sunnyside here. Nice. Thank you. So you're, you mentioned your mom wrote. Could you be, could you elaborate? What kind of a writer was Patricia Bo? My parents were both librarians. They met in library school. And so my mother's

always had a love of books and fiction. I vaguely recall she was trying to sell short stories in romance and in science fiction. She did manage to get one out through, I think, magazine called Star Lost. And one of my memories is her of her meeting with the editor at this donut shop that was a favorite of mine at Queen and John, which is now a Starbucks. And the area is surprisingly unchanged. But across the street from the famous 299 Queen Street West. Exactly. So I remember that, I remember that. And she was always, she, This was something that she wanted to do. She did eventually get published in writing young adult fiction.

And she was a tireless champion and supporter of my own attempts at fiction, which at the time would have been fan fiction because I was a fan of Doctor Who. And Dr. Who is, I think, if anybody wants to write, the best way to do it is to just write. One of the best ways to write is to write fan fiction, and Dr. Who fanfiction is the best for that because it's the most flexible format in fiction.

They dress it up in science fiction circles, but it's really comes down to it's a wizard with a magical cabinet that can drop them into any story, anywhere in the universe, regardless of genre. So you have the setup all

there, you just roll out everything else. So how young are you when you're cutting your teeth by writing Doctor Who fan fiction. Well, my first stuff is pretty young. I'm like talking grade eight, but I was working on producing a fan fiction magazine through high school, and it came out in my final year. Unfortunately, that stuff is in print. You don't want to, I mean, sometimes you just don't want to see what the sausage,

what goes into the sausage. But the thing about fan fiction is that there are other fan fiction. is that there are other fans with you. I was a member of the Doctor Who Information Network. It was the Doctor Who fan club of Canada at the time, and they had magazines that they weren't much older than me, these people, were working on, and I was welcomed into that group, and when you have fans reading your stuff,

they're happy to read, A, they're happy to read, you have your audience, and they're also willing to critique and critique in a kind way that helps lift you up and improve your work. So that proved to be a great foundation for my writing. Now, are we talking about zines? Like, how exactly would you distribute some Doctor Who's fanfiction? It was, these were classic zines.

I was, we were, what we were using, we were parking ourselves in front of photocopiers at Kinkos and collating and using the Sirlock spider with the whole kachunk thing. You know, it's funny, you talk about your neighborhood you grew up in and then I think of the art gallery. And then I think of James Sheddon, the great, another James, a lot of James, my son, you, James Shetton,

but he likes to be called Jim Shetton as well. So Jim, great FOTM, but he was a little older than us, by the way, but he was the man behind many a great zine. And this whole culture, you know, this pre-internet era of zines, you had to be there, but it was quite a movement.

And I could see a Doctor Who fan fiction zine being pretty rad back then. Oh, yeah. It was a lot of fun. And the joy of putting together, working with other people, and producing something that you can hold in your hand, that never goes away. That led me to even do my own anthology later on recently, a previous book to The Night Girl. Well, shut it out.

Shut out. Okay. With all your books early and often. Tales from the Silence. It's set in the universe of the YAA science fiction book The Sun Runners about what happens if the Earth pushes back global climate change far enough that they're able to establish colonies throughout the inner solar system but then environmental catastrophe casts up to them and they collapse.

So all support of the inner solar system colonies ends. These people are on their own. They're not going to be interfered with but then they have nobody to help. them should anything go wrong what happens then and with tales in the silence i commissioned ten writers uh from my contacts with young adult fiction um through science fiction and fantasy even a couple of people i remember who grew up with me and dr who fandum to write stories set in this universe i told them basically this is what roughly what's happening on mercury venus mars and the astray belt go and we put that together and that was also released by shadow paw press and uh that just

brought me right back to my fanzine days i need to talk to you a little further about dr who here so sure so it's your mom who introduces you to dr who or did you discover it more organically oh it was my uh it was an aunt my mom's sister but uh i've been able thanks to dr who fans been able to sort to peg this to the year 1978. And it was, and I know the exact episode, believe it not, Genesis is the Daleks episode six. It was on TV, Ontario. And she was watching it.

She said, we were visiting in Kitchener. She was in Kitchener. And we were visiting her. And she says, I need to see this. Okay. And we happened to tag in along with this. And I saw this in this, like, weird robot tank thingies with these, like, skirts and the, whatever, the half-spears and stuff,

it's like, this is the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. And I didn't, so I didn't really stay and watch, but it clicked with my parents. And they continued to watch it on TV, Ontario as it went through, and watching it with them, eventually got into it and became a lot more interested in it than they were. And so by the time they had sort of had their fill, I was a Dived in the Wool fan.

Okay. So it's important distinction to make here is that you are precisely two years older than me, okay? Okay. So, because you were born the year of the Summit series, and I was born in 74. See how quickly I can do this math. That's why I'm such an award-nominated podcast host. But I shared this a couple of times on Toronto Mike, not in a while, but particularly if Ed Conroy came over from retro Ontario, we would discuss this.

I think there's a phenomenon for Ontario, Ontarians. Are we Ontarians? I'd call us Ontarians. Okay, Ontarians of a certain vintage. It's a very short, small range. I happen to land in it. But I would be parked in front of TVO to watch a show called Pocod Door. Oh, yes.

Did you watch Pocateod Door and Poccuroo? And it was always amazing that, you know, this guy always never saw him about the Poceroo. I missed him again. It's like, you're in the suit, aren't you? Oh, you and I were clearly gifted because, we clued in immediately. Oh, that guy's in this suit. That's why he never saw this guy.

So I would be, and I almost, I wonder about the times right, but I feel like it was around 6 o'clock. It was actually 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock. See, I'm glad you're here. Okay, so I'd be part because I loved Pokeru. Do you remember the names of the four stuffed animals?

If you were to bench them now, I would go, oh, yeah. I have them memorized. Okay, one was named Bear. Oh, yes. What a creative name for a teddy bear. Bear. Then there was Marigold? Yes. There was a

marigold. Oh gosh. There's Humpty and there's Dumpty. I feel like is it Humpty, Dumpty, Marigold, and Bear? That sounds familiar. If someone on the live stream can fact check, I got that damn hockey movie wrong with me and follow. I don't want to keep issuing corrections. I remember being, yeah,

Humpty, Dumpty, Marigold, and Bear. So, yeah. I'm watching, this is a weekday ritual, I guess I get parked in front of the TV. I still kind of can visualize this room in the basement. And the jocty music at the end. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what else the fun thing?

So you mentioned, oh, I missed him again. Okay, well, that guy's in the damn suit. The other big thing, like, almost like when Bart Simpson would write on a chalkboard, like a recurring thing, or Gonzo in the Muppet movie or something, they would zoom into one of the dots on the door, because the polka dot door, There's a door of Pocodots on it, amazingly enough. And they would go through one of them in order to show you this little film. Like, oh, here's how sausages are made.

And you'd go through a hole, and then you'd see the making sausages, okay? To borrow your expression. But one of the things I would do is predict which hole we were going to go through because multiple holes had a hinge on it. Like you could see a hinge, and you know, well, we're going through one of these hinged holes, and then you have to kind of predict which hole. It's sort of like, it's early sports betting, if you want. That's cool.

So I would do that. Okay, so enough about Pocododore. Should we go on? By the way, I watched, I'm still watching it, but I revisited ER because I watched it in the 90s of my first wife, and now I'm watching it on demand. Thank you, Stella. But Gloria Rubens has a prominent character for years on ER,

and when she would come on the screen, she plays, what was the name of her character? I should know, it'll come to me in a minute. But Buley, Jeannie Boulay, is her character's name. But I would, to my wife, who was not raised, raised in Ontario and is seven years younger. I have to point out every time, oh, she was on Pocodador.

There you go. Okay, so I'm going to play this for you, and then we're going to talk about this, and then we're going to find out about you in writing and all that important stuff. So here we go. For sure. So, James, imagine, if you will, a young boy watching Pocoda Door. Pocoda Door has ended, and before you have a chance to, I don't know, leave the TV, this is the sound, the visuals are haunting anyway, but this is the sound I would hear.

I don't know what makes the sound, I can tell you, it's scared the bejesies out of me. Yeah, people have said that. You actually have the theme from 1980 when they juiced it up. Earlier than that, they had the original theme, which hadn't been changed much from 1963, and the whole tunnel effect. And you cannot think of more... The tunnel effect, yes. You cannot think of a more jarring tonal shift between the polka dot door, the polka dot door.

So is the other version, is the version you're talking about? Is it scarier than this one? Yes, because... Oh, I pulled the wrong version. Okay. Okay. So, and I now see on the live stream, so two things are true here. One is Jeremy Hopkins, the official Toronto historian of the Toronto Mike podcast, tells us we got the names right. So of course we know Pokeroo. It was Bear, Marigold, Humpty, and Dumpty, so we nailed it, okay? But Mike is telling me that I picked the wrong one, so he's agreeing with you.

So I'm going to do this very quickly and pull up the, I'm going to YouTube for this, because I don't have it loaded up. And James, we're going to see how quickly we can find the Doctor Who theme. Hold on. I can't believe it. Okay, so because I am, so 74, I'm probably watching. The top one. The top one. Okay, and that is the face.

Okay, so let me shut down this version. Goodbye to the 80s version. Okay, you're the kinder, gentler version. This is the one that would greet me when I finished polka dot door. So let's go in here. Okay, let's hope this works. Okay, okay, I'm looking at it too. James, if I wet my pants, don't mind, okay?

It's very traumatizing for me. Yeah, this tunnel. That face and that hair. No wonder I wear my hair like this. I was indoctrinated young. This sound, I don't know what instrument it is. Is it the same thing they use in good vibrations from the beach? You have to talk to.

A pheromin? Oh, it might be, but you'll have to talk to somebody. They know. There are people out there who know. This is much scarier. And this is the one. So this is the one. So literally,

literally, James, I was traumatized and poisoned against Doctor Who were, to this day, I can't consume any Doctor Who media, no matter how good you tell me it is, because of that being so afraid, I'd get that face with that hair and that tunnel and that sound. I made the mistake of showing to my kids because I watched this young,

I figured they could watch this young, and I show them the new episode, Blink with the Weeping Angels. Maybe not have been the right idea because these are like angel statues that are fast, faster than you can imagine, but they are statues only when you're looking at them. When you look away and then turn back,

they have moved. Okay. And how old were your kids when you expose them to this horror? Too young. They have not let me forget. They have not let me forget. You know, I often think about, because I got four kids, and I know what I'll expose them to when. And I think back of what I was exposed to, and I wonder, like, no wonder I'm so messed up.

One of the movies, as a very young kid, I watched over and over and over again, was Time Bandits. Oh, I remember Time Bandits. Yes, that is, I messed with your head. And it's, I think it was, I think this is my memory. I think there was like a, what was it called, First Choice or Super Channel or something? It had a free, free weekend. Remember the free weekend? I do.

I mean, I remember First Choice Super Channel. And, yeah, I remember when pay-per-view or pay channels were a big new thing. Yeah, and they'd give you like a free weekend because I, we didn't never have this channel. We never paid for this channel. But I would get like VHS tapes and record lots of things. And I definitely had Time Bandits recorded the VHS. and I definitely, I guess because back in these days, it's hard to tell kids these days

how little media we had at our fingertips. Like you had what was on the television and then if you were like lucky in the early 80s, you might have VHS cassettes or something. So I watched so much Time Bandits and it's kind of like kind of freaky for a young kid to watch Time Bandits, but that's what you did.

I saw that in the theater. My parents were quite happy to expose me to some interesting things. This explains how you became an author. So that's exactly where we're going here. So it sounds like your mother who wrote, it sounded like young adult fiction. Is that why you became a young adult fiction author? Possibly.

I never really set out to just the way that I wrote seems to make me fall into that more often than not. I find what I return to again and again with storytelling is people sort of finding out who they are in the story. So, I mean, the whole coming of age story is a very powerful trope. And just you can use it so many ways. And when do you come of age? You come of age when you're young. And so that's where I ended up doing.

If you're lucky. Yes. The Night Girl is the only story I have, which is not technically Y.A. I wrote it the same way as all my other stuff. So, again, tends to get confused as YA. But it's technically new adult because the main character is 21. And I did find, because I was making jokes about office humor and stuff like that, the teens didn't really find it very interesting.

20-somethings loved it. Okay, I have some very specific, the nightgirl questions, actually. I'm going to quickly just reveal something. thing that was shared on the live stream that it's not a theramine that I hear like in good vibrations or something. It's tape loops and oscillators. So Jeremy, so Mike talks about how it's mostly oscillators and tape loops. And then Jeremy talks about the tape manipulation techniques and stuff to create that, what I deem a very frightening sound. The radiophonic workshop was famous for putting this stuff together.

Shout out to the BBC over there. Now, I do want, again, let me give you a couple of gifts here. And then we're going to find out why you didn't become an urban planner. Like you're at Waterloo to study urban planning because that's a real job and you're going to get yourself a real job. And here you are in Toronto Mike's basement talking about, well, midnight girl, but you have so many books under your belt. And there's another section to this conversation we're going to have, which has nothing to do with books. it's tied to writing. That's a teaser. It's going to come later in this conversation. But James, may I gift you a frozen lasagna from Palma pasta. Do you enjoy lasagna?

I do. I do. Very rarely do I hear, oh, I don't like lasagna? What a delicious food lasagna. I'm like, do I want to know somebody who doesn't like lasagna? Oh, no. Get out of my basement if you don't like lasagna. But Palma pasta, they make delicious authentic Italian food. They're in Mississauga and Oakville, so it's a bit of a trek from Kitchener, but it's worth the drive, but you're going to leave here when you go back to Kitchener, you're going to have a large lasagna with you.

Sure. Thank you very much. And James, I'm also going to, I feel like Monty Hall over here. I'm going to give you a measuring tape, courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Ridley Funeral Home is owned by Brad Jones, and he's going to be here later today to record a new episode of Life's

Undertaking, his fantastic podcast. So, James, measure what you wish. What are you measuring over there, James? Do I really want to know? What's the size of that box? It's a foot. It's a big lasagna. They should call that a foot long.

Okay. So what's a foot over there, James? We're working blue today. Okay. So I've given you some wonderful gifts, but now I'm going to give you the gift of knowledge, which is if you have old electronics, old devices, old computers in Kitchener, James, you don't throw them in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill. You're here.

Go to recycle my electronics. CA, put your postal code in and find out where to drop it all off to be properly recycled. As it happens, I have some stuff that I need to get rid of, but the place that we used to go to shut down. Well, listen, you're going to go to Recycle My Electronics.com. And you can thank me later. For sure. That's the deal here. I have an episode coming up soon with the good people at the Waterfront BIA, and we're going to talk about some amazing events happening on the waterfront because there's still a little summer left.

And the waterfront is a place to be. So look forward to that episode about Toronto's waterfront. Have you spent any quality time on our waterfront, James? Lots of times on the waterfront. It was a refuge in the summertime when things got too hot. And it's a hopping place today. Absolutely. And I also like to go out to the beaches quite often.

Okay. Shout out to the beaches. That's on the other end of the city. the harborfront area there, there's so much going on. I will shout out specifically something exciting that happens at Jarvis and Queens Key.

That's where GLB Brew Pub is. So shout out again to the good partners at Great League's Brewery. But that's also where TMLX20 is taking place on September 25th from 6 to 9 p.m. So we'll be at GLB Brew Pub, not the brewery in Southern Etopico. I don't want anyone going to the wrong location.

We're at the GLB Brew Pub 6 o'clock, September 20. I want to say thank you to Blue Sky Agency that's owned by a good guy named Doug Mills and they well as I mentioned

in the introduction they how do I wear that they basically create creative productive work environments there's a lot of back to office

going on for better or worse you're being called back to the office so if you have any responsibility to create an office space that will be, you know, comfortable and creative, inspiring. Talk to Doug Mills at Blue Sky Agency. It's Doug at bluesky agency.com. He's specifically keen to discuss silence, quiet, comfortable, and customizable office pods. I've been in one of these. These are

like, what is it again, a phone booth that, uh, Dr. Who is going, what is going on there? That's a police box. Police box, but do you make phone call? You're talking to a guy who has avoided all things, Doctor Who? It's a thing from the 60s, apparently, where British police officers had these around England and maybe all of the UK, where it was just a box where they could, like, sit out of the weather, and it had a phone that they could call headquarters with. Okay.

And they were sort of ubiquitous, and the whole idea of the doctor's time ship, the TARDIS, is that it can blend into things, blend in to its settings. And since this thing was always around, that was a common thing for it to show up as. But then its circuit got stuck, so it's been like that ever since, even though police boxes are long gone from the UK.

Well, these office pods that Sylan makes and distributed by Blue Sky Agency are a lot like those, okay? So I'd say get yourself your own TARDIS here at Blue Sky Agency. Okay, so why you're at Waterloo, early 90s, you are studying to become an urban planner. What happened, James? The 1990s recession.

I mean, I've joked semi-seriously. I graduated just after, you know, at the last days of Bob Ray's administration and just before Mike Harris had taken over. And so I got it, I ended up getting whacked two ways. Personally, I thought Barbara gave us the best government that we could at the time. You know, he's an FOTM like you, a friend of Toronto-Mank. Nice. I think, but it was a really harsh recession, and so the public, the private sector jobs were just not available.

So I remember I was trying to go into Waterloo's co-op program, which was this new thing that they were really getting into. And in the, in the 1992, they sat us down and said, don't take it. We cannot guarantee you a placement. That was how bad things were. And so I sat out and just went straight class education and graduated in 1995 with my bachelor's degree and then Mike Harris became premier

and immediately slashed the government workforce. So I ended up competing with senior managers with 10 years of experience for entry-level jobs. That's kind of happening now. Yeah. I mean, to this day, my planning, class, my graduating class, is like half either not employed in planning. They found something else, especially when the tech sector really took its rise in the late 90s. Or they were in

Florida, which was the only real growth area at the time. So I sent out a couple hundred resumes, had a couple of interviews. Some went well, but they said, it's like, well, there's just a lot of people out there. So did not, did not land anything in the planning sector. So I could type, though. So I had temp jobs to help build up my savings. And from that, ended up falling into a database management job, even though I had never worked with databases before, but I could type.

And the tech companies weren't picky. And so that's how I ended up working in the tech sector before the big Nortel bubble. Okay. So when does, when, like, what was your first book that you published? Well, first book was, uh, came, was the unwritten girl. That came out in 2006. But, I mean, I started writing. That's part of that trilogy. Yeah, the unwritten books trilogy. I started writing that back in 2002. Um, I'd left my job at the tech sector, but it was trying to find, I was still keeping the bills paid with the mid-assistent position.

and stuff like that. And I just realized that of all the things that I liked about all my other positions, the urban planning work, even the database work, which was kind of soulless and soul draining. What I liked the most was the chance to write and to create, have something physical at the end that you could hold and say, I made this. And I had been in writing

Doctor Who fan fiction for a while. And I just decided, it's time to see if I can create my own universe and start writing stories that could stand on their own. And that became

the base idea that became the Unwritten Girl, Fathom Five, and the Young City produced by the Dundering Group. Okay, and again, these are targeting young adults, or younger readers. Younger readers. At the time, I was rereading Madeline Langles of Rinkle in Time, and it was one of the things that sparked this whole series is,

I mean, Rinkle in Time is a classic, but one thing I liked is Meg Murray's story, how she has to save her brother, and there's this friend who's really the black sheep of his family quite estranged from his rather abusive family who befriends her and they work on saving her brother and her father together

and there's, you know, there's young, this is a friendship thing but there's just such a strong chemistry between the two but there's a sequel called A Wind in the Door and the characters are now 16 and they have another sort of similar adventure where they are working together but they are also dealing with deeper feelings for each other that they are kind of in denial over

and that just sort of struck at the romantic part of me and I wanted to see what was next and technically what was next was a swiftly tilting planet also a renowned book of Madeline Langles but Meg is now 24 married and expecting her first child so I'm like Madeline you missed a step

why didn't you why did you miss a step and so that was a catalyst for the unwritten book series because i wanted to see this where we had two people that came together as friends and worked together through their teenage years and fell in love through the you know through a long period of time and i wanted to see all stages of that and so that's how you know unwritten girl they're 12 and trying to save rosemary's rosemary rosemary's brother from the land of fiction in fathom Five, they're 15. The story is focused on Peter and deals with sirens in off of Tobamori in Georgian Bay and the shipwrecks there. They actually have some place called the Fathom five Marine Park. And then the young city is there 18 and going off to separate universities

helping their brother move into his downtown Toronto apartment. They fall through a crack in the floor and end up in the Tattle Creek. And when they walk out, it's 1884 Toronto. And they have to make a life there for however long until I can find a way back. Very cool. Okay, so we got the unwritten books. That's a trilogy. You mentioned Dundern published that. But is it tough, I've never written a book.

I can barely read a book. But is it difficult to get published? It is. It takes a heck of a lot of persistence. I mean, luck has way more to do with the public. publishing of a book than people like to admit. But, yeah, I mean, the story is Madeline Langel took the wrinkle in time to 12 publishers,

all of whom said no before she finally got it published. I took it to, I took the Unwritten Girl to about that many, and there are plenty of other people, famous people, who have had longer and significantly more rejections before they finally get that. that big break.

And even when you get that big break, then you have to work on the next big break. Well, can I ask you something? So you're James Bo, you're just a guy. There's no disrespect intended here, because I'm just a guy too. But you're just a guy in Kitchener who can write. And meanwhile, I'm wondering,

because yesterday I mentioned my guest, Kathleen Robertson, was here. And she was talking about how difficult it is for her to get TV series made. So she doesn't write books, but she writes a series. like she just wrote Swimming of Sharks

which was originally a movie of Kevin Spacey in the 90s which I thought was a pretty damn good movie actually but she wrote this and she's a showrunner and she's how difficult it is to get done and I was thinking oh my god like this woman was on Beverly Hills 902 and oh and most people know her face

and her name and she's having such a difficult time getting things made how does a guy in Kitchener get anything made like I'm wondering do you find it difficult when like celebrities like people who are already famous kind of enter your realm and the doors kind of fly open for them because they're famous and how difficult that makes it for a guy named Bo, James Bo? I mean, the writing community definitely has, have their stories about, you know, the frustrations

that come with trying to get anywhere with your writing. I think ultimately you just have to love writing. The reality is most writers, in Canada don't make their living from their writing. They have day jobs, and the writing is a passion that they do after hours or between breaks or, you know, when their kids are asleep. You hear that story a lot. It's like a side hustle. Very much so.

My wife, Aaron Bow, is also a writer more famous than me, an award winner. And one thing that we did was when the... my eldest kid was born. How she got to write was we would take my eldest, you know, put in the car seat and drive from Kitchener to London through the backwoods. And we have, you know, the music on, and Aaron would be typing away working on her story. And we always aimed for a chapter's indigo in Kitchener

because they had a coffee shop so that, and also those Brio train sets so that, you know, Wayfinder would play. Tell the name, by the way, Wayfinder. They chose that name. They were born Vivian, but they picked

the name. Okay. And so we're sticking with that. And so they would play with the trains and Aaron will watch them and I would be sitting at the coffee shop and I would be doing my writing. So that's how we made the time.

Okay. Do you ever consider self-publishing? Well, I mean, the only way to really be successful at that is, aside from, again, persistence, is to take your fan base with you like Robert Sawyer does. He has made a name for himself so he can do practically anything he wants, although, I mean, he's welcome to correct me, and he knows what it takes a lot more than I would. but I have actually done that for one of the books that got away, the Dream King's daughter. It was accepted by a scholastic, but then the pandemic happened,

and so it got canceled, and so it became the book that got away, and I said, okay, well, I'm just going to release this on my blog, chapter by chapter, and then anybody who wants it, they can get as an e-book or as a print-on-demand, and at least it's out there now. In that setting, you know, you talk about urban settings, but that's a rural Saskatchewan setting. Yeah, urban fantasy set in rural Saskatchewan.

That's a great tag, I thought. Small town Saskatchewan. Well, now Chapel Rhone has made Saskatchewan very trendy, you know, because she says she's moving to Saskatchewan in one of her recent singles. Okay, so hold on, I get some of the questions for you. So we talked about the Unwritten Books Trilogy. I'm going to be asking you some questions about the Nightgirl, But I'm wondering if you could speak, because you mentioned your wife, Aaron, is an award-winning author, but you're also an award-winning author.

Oh, that would be Icarus Down. Yeah, Icarus Down. And if you go to, like, what is it, Goodreads, or if you want to sort by, like, what's the most popular James Bow book that people want to discuss, it actually is Icarus Down. Scholastic has been really good to me with that book. I managed to find my way to them, thanks to a writing agent. and finding them takes persistence. And so that was just materialized after, it's actually my sixth book that I wrote,

the way, the production, you know, the data publication in terms of the date of writing shifts. The Night Girl was my fourth novel, The Dream King's Daughter was fifth, Icarus' down was six, but Icarus down got published first because I think it was definitely a strong science fiction novel and Scholastic gave it a chance and it won the Aurora Award for Best

Y.A. Science fiction in 2017. Got me on a press release alongside Robert Sawyer and Margaret Atwood, so that's a bucket list fulfilled. Well, I was going to say, also it lets you rewrite the first line of your bio because henceforth you could talk about you are now an award-winning author. Fair enough. You're not making that up. I'm looking at it right here, the Aurora Award for young adult science fiction novel, Icarus Down. So the Night Girl, this is the book that actually takes place in downtown Toronto. In the Path Network. Oh, yes, in Path.

Well, so I do have questions for you. Maybe you can speak a bit more about the Night Girl, but specifically, I understand that you got threatened with a lawsuit by the Sea and Tower because of this book. So I need that story. Okay. Well, the Night Girl that's being released. now is a reissue. It was originally published in 2019 by Roots Publications,

American Boutique publisher with a fantastic editor who really gave it her best shot, but it's still a boutique operation, and so unfortunately they couldn't keep going. But they produced, they worked hard in producing this book, and they put together a cover, which they,

which feature where the CN Tower features prominently. as a symbol of Toronto. And they, to do that, they purchased a license a photograph from a photographing, photography licensing website and created the cover from that. Did everything absolutely legally.

Except that on the day, the day that the book officially released, I received an email from an officer at Canada Land's Corporation, the people that own the C.N. Tower, who said that my book was, my cover was in violation of their trademark and that I should, essentially, it was a cease and desist. Essentially, they were asking me to pulp the first run of the book. And so I'm not ashamed to admit that I freaked out a little, but I talked to my wife about this.

And she was very supportive. She said, this is an opportunity for publicity. and if you want to do this, I will support you. And I'm also indebted to the organization Science Fiction Canada, just a group of science fiction writers and authors, Canadian science fiction writers and authors. So I was on their mailing list, and so I vented to them saying, this is what's happening to me.

And Corey Dr. Rowe, who is passionate about these copyright issues and took me under his wing and put me in touch with, I'm doing this off the top of my head, but Ray Bouchholz, a lawyer who is willing to work pro bono. And we crafted a response, which was, A, you cannot copyright a building in Canada. That is strictly said in law, right there. any photograph of any public building taken from a publicly accessible location is the exclusive copyright of the photographer.

The photographer can then sell that picture and do with it as they pleased, which is what we respect. That's the law that we followed. So they have no copyright claim, but they made a trademark claim saying, and the argument there we made is like that's silly because the whole point of trademark is to prevent brand, and brand damage. So nobody is going to think that the CN Tower is producing a series of urban fantasy novels with strong female protagonists. And nobody's going to think that this is a guidebook that says the CN Tower is infested with goins and trolls and thus not go.

So there is no confusion, there is no damage here. You have no case. And we put this letter, which basically said, uh-uh. and sent it to the Candelands Corporation, and then sent it to David, David. Corductoral, no. David Bickle, I think. Okay, okay.

I mean, I just talked to the guy at when words collide. He has a new book, a horror book out, but I'm blacking on his name. So I think it's David Bickle. If I'm wrong, I apologize. But anyway, he was working for the Toronto Star. He, and he, we sent the letter to him, and he published it. And then it went decently viral and attracted a fair amount of attention

and probably gave the Candelands a bit of a day, which is fine because they gave me one, too. And in the end, sort of Candelands responded by basically they didn't agree with our assessment, but they basically said, we're not going to carry this any further. So they walked away and we got to keep our cover. Okay, so Jayho on the live stream, live dot Toronto Mike.com, shares that the CN Tower did this to a bunch of people, like with these kind of claims. In Jeremy's opinion, they're dicks. Okay, that's a quote from Jeremy Hopkins, not yours truly. When I was playing House League hockey at the Swansea Hockey Association, we played at Rennie Park.

And this is early 80s, James. But my team that I played for was called the C&D. Tower is sponsored by the C&Tower. So, you know, I got the warm fuzzies for the CN Tower playing for the C. We went 0 and 15 one year, which is a true story. And I did not score a goal that season. That's a sad but true. But the next season, I played for Sam's auto repair and we had much more success.

That's my SHA history. Someone's got to document the Swansea Hockey history. So I'm looking at the cover of the Night Girl now and I see the C&Tower there. And I did not know this, but I'm happy to hear this, that you cannot copyright a building in public. If you take a picture from a public place and it happens to be a public building, it makes sense. You can't copyright that. Right? Absolutely. And one thing I noticed my, you know, research took me about five minutes of Google searching, but I found like five other books that had the C&Tower prominently on their covers. And I reached out to those authors, including Leah

Bobbitt, fellow science fiction writer for Scholastic. And I mean, her book above had the C&Tower front in the center. It's like, did you even hear from these people? And it's like, no, this is, this is totally bizarre. And I kind of, I mean, this is pure speculation on my part, but I think they were looking for a small fry that they could crush. They could take to a, they could take things to a higher level with that victory in their pocket. And so I'm really quite pleased that I didn't back down. When I think of, you know, covers of things with the CN Tower on it, Right away, my brain thinks about a major release by the rapper known as Drake. Drake had an album called Views.

It was originally going to be called Views from the Six. And then I noticed the Six got removed from the title, and it was just released as Views. But it is Drake sitting on the Santa, like the San-Tal. You've seen it, right? So prominent. I believe that photo was put together by David Cronenberg's daughter, who I wish I could remember her name right now.

Somebody will tell me that in the live stream here. But yeah, if Drake can release views with him sitting on the Sien Tower like that, James Bo, you can release your fine book, The Night Girl. Yeah. Well, the new release has a different cover by Bibliophic, but they were made sure to put the Sian Tower in there as well. And when we made a cake to celebrate its release, I asked the cake makers to please put the Sietteau on the front of the cake.

Well, now I'm looking at my Toronto Mike logo, which is right there, and I'm wondering, maybe I could stick a C-N-Tower in there somewhere. Like, what would it be? Maybe that T could be the C-N-Tower. There's some opportunities there to stick a- Oh, we'll see. I just feel like doing it just the mess of them. By the way, when you said that it was released by Roots, and then you explained it was a boutique in the States.

But my initial thoughts were, oh, roots. Well, I should clarify, roots spelled R-E-U-T-S. Right. So nothing to do with, because you and I are of an age when these roots, you know, sweatshirts and sweatpants were so massive. I remember going to like warehouse sales or whatever by wholesale root stuff. And it was like, you know, this was the hottest thing in school. Like you had to have your roots, uh, hoodie or whatever.

I remember roots for sure. Yeah. You know, now that I'm saying it out loud, I'm like, they were comfortable. Like I was, Roots should sponsor this program and outfit me in some, I did once when my son, my thirdborn was born, Roots reached out and said, would I do this father's day, digital ad campaign for Father's Day where they sent over a professional photographer and they took pictures of me in Little Jarvis

when he was like a month, a couple months old. I guess, yeah, he's born in April. This was in June or for June. But anyway, I did it. And I remember being in this campaign. And they gave me this nice shirt to wear, this button-up shirt. And then I was shocked at the end

when they took the shirt with them. Now, they did give me a $200 gift card for whatever. That was my compensation, which is better than nothing. But, and I got to keep the photos. But I was always struck by the fact that they were going to take the shirt away. Like, you think they'd give me that shirt, right, James? Oh, well, I guess they had to use it somewhere else. But then forevermore, when I was on the, and this is going to tie in nicely to the next topic I want to discuss with you.

But when I was forever on Twitter at Toronto Mike for years, whenever I first discovered it until pretty recently, I had my, like, my, who are you, whatever, the bio, it read, the shirt in my profile pick is not my own. that's because I was in that I was using the roots photo but I didn't that was not my shirt and I did not get to keep it I feel better just sharing all this

with you by the way okay so this is where I want to go before we say goodbye so obviously if people want to know more about you and buy these books and learn about all the books because I mean

we talked about the trilogy and the night girl and we talked about Icarus down but you've got a lot of how many books have you written or published I should say I have seven books of fiction, including one anthology, and then a number of nonfiction books for kids. These are produced by education publishers to address the school curriculum, and those can be pretty quick things to put together.

They say, you have a topic, you have 32 pages to work with, one on our desk in a month. Oh, quick and dirty. Quick and dirty. Well, you know, you've got to research your stuff. This is like crowding for a college exam, except you have to write it in a language that kids will appreciate. So that's a lot of fun, but an entirely different process to writing a novel.

But that helps put food on the table. It does. I just hope AI doesn't take that gig for you because I feel AI would do a horrific job. Oh, yeah. You don't want to have AI textbooks. You'll get some really weird things entering the lexicon. They'll tell you Toronto Mike is a show hosted by a former 640 morning man,

Mike Stafford. if you let AI write something. So you never know what you can get. So I want to tell the listenership right now about a website. It is bow-jamesbow.ca. B-O-W-James-B-O-W.ca. Because I've been checking it out, James, and I have a few things I want to ask you about here.

So one is it's a great place to go to find out about all your books, and that's kind of everything. You want to sell some books, and you want people. These are good books, award-winning books like Icarus Down, and, of course, the Night Girl that almost got you soon, or whatever, C-Synthesist from the C-N Tower, which is a great story. And I'm all over

bow-jamesbow.ca, and I realize you've been doing something that I've also been doing, and you've been doing it since 2002, and that's when I started mine. But bow-jamesbow.coma is a true blog. Yep, I started it as a blog. Back when blogging was cool,

and I'm still wondering what the heck happened. Can we talk about this? like we're like-minded here. Oh, yeah. Okay, so I'm going to quote you. And I think I saw this on your blog, I think. But here's what you wrote. Before it was X, I guess.

I don't know. Twitter has no credibility, and Facebook is not as fun anymore. And I'm wondering if this might be a good time to get back into more regular use of this blog. You wrote that, James. Yes, it did. I figured the social media organizations are, trying to control, you know, they're trying to control what you're, what you see through clicks, and that drowns out, that drowns out your voice. You end up speaking to avoid more often than

not. So what can they not take away from me? They can, they can't take away what I pay to have hosted. So that's what I, that's what I have. This venue has always been here, and I can make better use of it. So that's what I'm going to do. Well, let's, let's, let's have a little. little chat about this because I agree 100% with you. So I consider Toronto mic.com, like my little slice of digital real estate that I own. Okay, because, you know, I own the domain name and then I pay for the hosting, much like you do for bowjamesbow.ca.

And this format blog, when I think I discovered it like around 2001, I feel like I discovered this burgeoning new format. Yeah, that's about the time. Yeah. So prior to that, I had a website. But it was essentially what I would call a personal home page. Yeah. Okay?

And I would write things, but there was no archival system, no date-based permalink system in place, no CMS in the background to kind of manage this whole thing. So it was basically, it was an HTML website, and I would write about thoughts. I'd have thoughts, and I want to share. You and I are both similar, and we want to write about things and share thoughts and maybe have discussions about various issues of the details. day, whatnot. But you and I both in the same calendar year 2002, we start blogs. And I noticed you talked about back in the days. So I think, I don't know, 2004 is peak blog or something,

but, uh, well, there was, we had a decent Canadian blogosphere until at least, it was 2010. We started, I started noticing that the comments started to go away. But, uh, back in the day, um, the Canadian political blogosphere was one blogosphere. We didn't have as much, I mean, there was blogging Tories, there were lib bloggers, blogging NDP, but they shared and linked to each other. There was a lot more of a national conversation between parties and even that was available in the states of the time that you could even imagine having now. So in your opinion, I have my own opinions, but I want to hear your opinion, James.

What do you think killed the blog? Oh, social media killed the blogging star. just like funnels yeah um i mean yeah we moved over to uh facebook which is i mean a lot easier to use for somebody who isn't techy like us uh they you know it makes it easy for them so and it sort of grabs them and holds them and just and then they just know the way they just know how to keep you there and so is that just absorbs more and more of you all audience. I joined Facebook to, I think, not only stay in touch with friends and family, but also to say, hey, I have this blog, you know, promote the blog, but they then, those posts mysteriously

don't really attract much attention. They want you to stay on the site, not to go off it. It's an algorithm that determines what gets served up to whom, and you're 100% right. And I do, You know, you mentioned less technical people, but if you don't want to worry about like, oh, I got to have a domain name or I need hosting, like of those two words, they're like, I don't know what that is. I don't want anything to do with it. You'll probably be sharing your thoughts on a social media where, you know, you don't pay any money out of your pocket. You pay with your data. Yeah. Yeah.

Although blue sky does remind me of the early days of the social media, of the social media sites. There's a lot less algorithm happening there. and a lot more community happening. Well, this is where we hooked up on Blue Sky. For sure. Who said it again? Supriya Devetti said this, that Blue Sky was basically the home for Twitter refugees.

Definitely. And it reminds me of the early days of Twitter back before it collapsed as a, well, I, do you have an FCC that would like censor making? No, you can swear. Yeah, well, but just... It's the CRTC has no regulation here. Yeah, but I don't want to really... If I started, I wouldn't stop, just...

But, okay, so I was there, right? So I was kind of following this closely. A DRFOTM was literally Director of Communications at Twitter, Canada, until Elon took over and turfed almost all the people who worked at that office at King and Strawn that I would visit for events and there was kind of a good vibe going on there. So essentially, when Elon buys,

Twitter, it's the beginning of the end of that social media site, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I was, I took the, when I saw that one of my old employers had basically shut down their feed saying, we're going to do this now. I was able to talk to my, my employer, I was working as communications offices, we can't stay on this site. We're not going to be credible if we do. So we're only there. I'm only keeping my, my accounts up. to prevent cyber squatting. Me too. That's exactly right.

So I didn't delete my Toronto Mike account. I just, it's dormant. I don't post. I don't like. I don't check. Yep. But I am like you.

And you are, like I did, you used your domain name as your username on Blue Sky. That was a neat little thing that they gave us. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're Bojamesbow. And I am Torontomike.com on the Blue Sky. Come join us and feel what Twitter felt like back in the day here. So when Twitter went to shit, And Facebook, that algorithm,

I do maintain a presence there to promote things and to see, like, who had a baby or whatever. But it's pretty, it's a tire fire over there. And it's mainly just ads, but not just ads. Like, it's not just an ad for, hey, Roots is having a sale, okay? Fake, like, here's the big phenomenon on Facebook that's driving me nuts. As you'll see an ad saying, oh, I'll make this all up, okay? but the Kitchener Hotel,

oh, that's a bad example. I can't even make a fake example. You're the writer. Okay, Kitchener Shoe Warehouse. We've been around since 1973. This institution, sadly, Mary and Jim are shutting it down after so many years a good service in the community. You know, you've loved this.

We're going to have a going out of business sale, your last chance. We'll miss you guys. We've been here forever. Like they present, like they've been there, an institution, and then they have a link and you'd click it and get a sale and you would be ripped off because they'd bought something garbage and they sold it to you at a great markup or whatever. But this whole story about the fact we've been in Kitchener

for 30 years, we're going to miss you guys. They invented it, of course. The domain name was registered like a month ago and they fake pictures and all this. But people are stupid, James. Well, they're just not equipped to deal with the change in technology. They just, things are moving too fast for a lot of us to just keep up with. But they are prey to meta and enables the praying.

That allows to be preyed upon. I mean, that was one of the fears when we were looking into the information age. It's like, you're going to leave people behind because of people who don't have the tech. It's similar to how we're entering into a cashless society. What do we do with people who just cannot get credit cards, cannot get credit. You're disenfranchising them. Well, I often wonder, like, let's say you want to see Neil Young,

but you don't have a smartphone. Like, are you shit out of luck? Like, I had to have a Ticketmaster app on my phone, and it was tapped at the gate. Like, at least, you know, now this is gone, but it wasn't that long ago. Maybe it was pre-pandemic, but you could have the option of printing this PDF.

And, you know, you can go to a library and get a PDF printed, and then that'll get scanned at the door. But those days are gone. Yeah. It's as much as, we are passionate, we should be caring about accessibility. There are some issues of accessibility that are being added and making things harder for people. When I was in Germany for work purposes, we're going back now.

I'm going to say 2012 or something like that, my first trip. But I would return for a few years, I would go there periodically, particularly Frankfurt. And they just simply wouldn't use credit cards and they would always use cash. but I had literally just spent a week in Copenhagen where there was no cash. Like in Copenhagen, everything was credit card or bank card, no cash to be seen. And then I go to Frankfurt and nobody will use credit cards.

And I was asking, you know, my German friends, like, why is everything cash only? Every time we go to lunch, we have cash, you know, you got to have your euros or whatever. And they said the German, they don't want anybody tracking what they spend where. Like there's no audit trail with cash.

And it really gets you thinking, like now that we've moved away from cash, like there are systems now tracking everything you buy and everywhere you buy it well yeah i mean that's the price for the convenience etc but uh you you can understand that mentality of like i'll use cash and you can't track shit yeah that's one of the one of my later projects it's underway it's called the curator of forgotten things and it's going to be a not a ya book but the concept is it's in the near future all the job has been automated and and everybody is technically unemployed, but they are being kept fed and happy and a roof over the head with a national minimum of income.

But the catch is there a dementia spreads across the human race, and the only people that are unaffected by it are, A, left-handed, and B, are either employed or are so interested in their hobbies and dedicated to their hobbies that it's, as if it's a career to them. So basically, people are saved by their passions. And the whole concept of this is, when we ask people to describe themselves, who are they? They'll give you your name, they'll tell you where they're from,

they'll tell you what they do. Right. You know, what you do is a key part of your identity. So what happens to your identity when what you do goes away. And so I'm exploring that and... But this is not for young adults. This is like for adults?

Yeah, it's... I guess same market as the night girl because it's about work, but it's still also about identity. It's sort of kind of like a severance vibe to it, right? Like that seems kind of hot right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's all about workplace. This is what do you do when you, you know, just don't have that and you have to, you, how do you make a, how do you make a fulfilling life? I mean, many people can do this, but.

You just bike all the time. Yeah. I've got to crack the cone. Yeah. But that's one thing that we have to look at, I think, going forward. All right. Just to put a pun intended here, I'm going to put a bow on this blog talk. Okay.

So you're still blogging. So you've been, you know, you've had comes and goes and sp-but, but you've been blogging since 2002. And I'm just, I guess this is a PSA, a public service announcement here to say that blogging is the shit. Like, essentially, you're a little slice of real estate where you can share your thoughts and link out, and then you could have conversations, people. I'm just here to say that all of you who have decided, you know, social media is where I post,

those big giant tech companies can do whatever they want with your data, with your info, they can serve it up to whoever, they can block it from whoever. I say we bring back the blog. Here, yeah. And one last thing here, since I'm ranting and raving at you, James, the blog, every blog, yours, mine, we have what's called an RSS feed. I never understood why I think was this too technical it didn't catch on but just my thoughts and then I want to hear thoughts but so people are like oh I don't want to go to a different site like I got to go to bow James bow does see I got to go to Toronto mic.com every day find out what he wrote no I follow so many people who are blogging and the way I follow all these bloggers is I subscribe to their RSS feed I use a service called feedly so feed dot LY I used to use Google Reader and Google shot it dead out back as Google often did with things I enjoyed.

But Google killed Google Reader. I migrated painlessly and I've been using it for years now, Feedly, and I subscribe in Feedly. And yes, I have it on my phone and I have it in my browser and I will, once a day, I'll read my feeds on Feedly. And what did James write anything today? And there's like many, many, many blogs I subscribe to. You could subscribe to both the Bo Jamesbow.ca blog and the Toronto Microw. dot com blog, and you'll never actually have to go to those sites.

Yep. And I'm also making myself available on Patreon. Anybody can sign up for membership for free and get my posts to their email. What is it? Patreon.com slash what? Oh, shoot. You didn't know that big question. I did not know that big question.

Because I do want to talk about Patreon too. So you have a Patreon. I'm glad you mentioned it. Because I decided on September 1st when I said, okay, so one of my sponsors was seasonal. It was the Toronto Maple Leaf baseball team, but they only sponsored through August. So I was down a sponsor in September and

wasn't able to get a new one because I'm busy, okay? By the way, if anybody wants to sponsor, Trottomike. Hit me up, Mike at Tronomike.com. Okay, so I said, I'm going to put into the intro and outro, the new and improved Patreon, and I'm going to focus on that. But here's the thing, James.

I said it because I knew if I put it in the intro, it'll force me to actually make it new and improved. Like now I have to go into Patreon and clean up things and get it all organized. But I actually, it's September 12. I've been saying it all month and I haven't got around to it yet. So I have this out of order.

I got to find time maybe this weekend to sort it out. But you have a Patreon people should find. Yeah, I'll mention it on my blog. So, go. Bojamesbow.com. Yes. I have a Patreon account, patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. Everybody, we just talked about cashless society.

Whip out those credit cards. and become a patron to keep James writing and to keep me podcasting and to keep all this going. Oh, James, do you want me to bring down the... What do you got there? Well, actually, I brought you a gift. There's a couple of things.

This will go very well with your background here because one of the story plots is that the trolls are digging Toronto subway. And so we have a Toronto subway map if drugged by trolls. Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. Works for a real troll.

Thank you. The Night Girl. Okay, I love Subway Maps and stuff like this. Okay, thank you. Yes. Thank you. And I should also mention that I will be at Back of Phoenix Books on the evening of Thursday, September 18th.

I think that's the 18th. Definitely next Thursday. From 6 to late, we'll be celebrating the launch, the relaunch of the Night Girl, and I will be having cake with the CN Tower on it. Good for you. You know, don't, don't let the bastards grind you down. Okay, and thank you again for the gift. I love it when guests bring me a gift.

So thank you. And how was this, James? Was it worth the drive from Kitchener? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank God. Okay, well, you did get a lasagna. Definitely.

And there's, I don't need much of an excuse to visit Toronto. Visit any time, James. It was really a pleasure. We talked about all my favorite things, Dr. Who, blogging. And then we got to learn about, what makes you tick and learn about some of the fine books you've written. I urge people to go to bowjamesbow.ca. Subscribe to his blog and buy some books if you have a young adult in your life.

Thank you. Thanks for doing this, buddy. Very welcome. 1761. Checking out your number here. 1761. And that brings us to the end of our 1,761 show. go to

Toronto Mike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible. That's patrons like you. Go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike. Become a member today. I promise to go in there and clean it up and fix it up

and bring it up to code. I'm going to do it soon. But maybe give me the money first and then I'll get in there. I'm going to do that soon. Great Lakes Brewery. They're hosting us on September 25th at the GLB Brew Pub for TMLX20.

Palmipasta. We'll get back to Palma's Kitchen in late. I think it'll be late November. We'll be back there for TMLX21. We love our Palma Pasta. Toronto's Waterfront, BIA, Recycle My Electronics.Ca, Blue Sky Agency, and Ridley Funeral Home, I actually have Brad Jones here in mere minutes.

See you all. Checking my calendar. See you all next week. When, my special guest, It might be Laura Hubert from the Leslie Spit Trio, but on Tuesday it's definitely going to be Humble Howard Glassman. It's a big week coming up. Don't you dare miss it. See you all then.

Thank you. Thank you.