Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jeff Domet a.k.a. DJ Shawarma: Toronto Mike'd #544

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

Mike chats with Jeff Domet about his years producing radio for Corus, Hockey Night in Canada and SiriusXM, his new role producing podcasts for The Athletic, and his DJ Shawarma persona.

Welcome to episode 544 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Bryan Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Ridley Funeral Home. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week, I was just, because I was stuck on how to bill you.

Are you Jeff Domet? Are you DJ Schwarma? Are you both? How do you want to? I'm all of them and my old friend Bill Waters named me Punch during my Leafs lunch days with Jeff Merrick.

Your friend Jeff. I like Jeff a lot. How's it going? Did you hear a recent episode of Toronto Mic'd with Gallagher and Gross by any chance? I haven't, no. That's okay. I'm going to forgive you for that. But John Gallagher, we were talking about who's going to replace Don Cherry.

Nobody. And we're going to replace Don Cherry. Nobody. And we're going to dive into that because you have some excellent perspectives on that. But I suggested just spitballing. I just said, well, maybe they'll throw Burke in there. And he says, oh, Ron McLean and Burke, that'll be okay or something. This is John Gallagher talking. And then I said, well, maybe they'll reset it and put Merrick in there. I just said this, just spitballing.

And Gallagher's reaction was hilarious. He decided to let the world know he deems Jeff Merrick an eight-year-old girl, I think was his sign. Oh, really? Jeff will be pleased to hear that. And firstly, I corrected him and said, you should say eight-year-old boy. I guess so. Why? Because of his haircut?

I don't know. And I tried to get more like gal because i said did you have a guy did you have a run-in because you know gallagher like hebsey like humble who we're going to talk to like like people like this they aren't universally beloved right like you can love them but you can also hate them like they're kind of polarizing guys they're like i guess they can be yeah for. So Gallagher's one of those guys. Like, you know, Peter Gross, and then we'll get to you.

Peter Gross, I don't know anyone who doesn't like Peter Gross. I don't know if you've ever met him. I've never met him, but I've listened to him for years. You just like him because he's a genuine nice guy and you like him.

But Gallagher, I mean, a lot of guys love Gallagher and a lot of guys hate Gallagher. Right. The persona is, you can either take him or leave him, right? Right. So I was asking.

He'd rather leave our good friend Jeff Merrick? Right. So I was trying to figure out why Gallagher? Why do you not like Merrick? And he just, he can't articulate it very well, but he kind of didn't like his voice, his presentation. Anyway, Gallagher is not a fan of Jeff Merrick. Well, I am. I like Jeff's voice, his presentation, his haircut, his youthful good looks. He looks younger than he is because he's probably 65 now, right?

I think he's got two years left until retirement. So I think he's 63 this July. But he always played younger on TV. I always joke because remember when we heard about, you know, when Rodgers, you might have heard Rodgers like paid a lot of money to get Hockey Night in Canada. Did you know this? They did?

Yeah. They paid this money to the National Hockey League? Right. And then they made some changes and then they brought on some different people, including George Strombolopoulos who we'll talk about and uh brother and uh yeah and uh jeff merrick and my other brother and they uh referred to this like it was the new fresh face and i was thinking to myself these are like guys

in their mid-40s yeah you know what i mean like this is the new fresh face but they do they both do play quite young yeah they do yeah i know uh, I know. A little too young for Spike. Yeah. And I was offended at the eight-year-old girl. I wasn't offended at the eight-year-old part, but the whole idea like, because girls aren't as good as boys. Like what if Carolyn Cameron ends up in the Ron McLean seat?

She could one day. Right. They love her. And she's done a lovely job this year on Hockey Central, the 6.30 show, the 7 o'clock show, whenever it's on. And yeah, they're quite high on her. And why not? Why not?

Jeff, like yourself, Carolyn is, is it Caroline or Carolyn? Remind me. Carolyn. Carolyn is a FOTM. So we root for her on this show. So we'll see what happens there. We'll dive in. I've been looking forward to this

because we already have a built-in rapport because I don't know how I missed you because we were both in, not at the same time, obviously, but we were both in the Humble and Fred family. You know what I mean? Yes. I had moved on to the CBC and Hockey Night in Canada,

but obviously once you're in the Humble and Fred world, you never do quite leave. And that's fine with me. They're like my two, well, Freddie's like my mom and Howard's like my dad. But yeah, when you started to get to know H&F, I had moved on. Well, first of all started to get to know HNF, I had moved on. Well, first of all, I got to know them when they were no longer on the radio.

That's right. So they're digital only, as they say. We're going to talk about this too, but you know them from working with them in their actual terrestrial radio days at Chorus, right? It was my very first job in 1997. I was an intern with Humble and Fred. And it was my very first job in 1997 i was an intern with humble and fred and it was i i said you know what this is uh 22 years later i still pinch myself man i do because i listened because i listened to them and i wanted to get into radio all my life i played radio

with my sister donna as my newsman on 10 50 chum i'd record i'd record chum and uh and then take out the mage or uh um jungle jane elson and and and record my intros that's awesome and jerry forbes and uh and donna would be my newsman and uh i loved wkrp me too and the whole mystique behind that. And I wanted to do this my whole life, but I didn't. I didn't go to school for it. And my sister Stephanie suggested

that I finally get off my ass and offer my services at something like Cable 10 in Mississauga. I didn't take her advice for that. I went to a movie theater that was opening where Howard and Fred were doing a remote, and I gave them a letter offering my services. I'd be their whipping boy.

You'd do anything to me. I just want in. Well, they loved that. And they loved it. They called me the next day and said, come on down to the station tomorrow morning. Have a look around. Watch us work.

We'll see if we like you. And I guess they did, because I've been in the business ever since. Do you remember which movie theater was opening? See the details I'm stuck on? No, that's fine. It was at that point called the Coliseum in Mississauga at Square One.

And they were doing a live remote at this brand new theater. Right, right, right, right. Yes, I do know this. I bought them a box of donuts from Tim Hortons as well. Oh, that would do it, I think. Well, yeah. Nice soft bellies.

All right. So you've got that whole... But I got to know you during the Martin streak. Like the whole... Like I know that DJ Craig G and Pete fowler came over to promote this event and then in that conversation when we were kicking out the jams for martin streak uh we were talking about the event show oh thanks man thanks we were talking about the event that was going to happen at the opera house and then i the light went on in my head which is like hey i would like to be

recording from the event and have people attending the event to share their stories about Marty. That was a great show. Thank you. And you were on that show. Yes. And I probably had met you at Humble and Fred things, but maybe just, I don't even know if you ever said hi. I don't remember you.

It was either a Christmas party or it was just when they first started doing their Humble and Fred Radio.com. There might have just been a listener party, right? Right. Did you attend the December 2006 recording at Dan Duran's house? No, I wasn't there. But I was at a podcast down on Queen Street East.

The 25th anniversary. That's what it was? Yeah. Kiprios was there, and Tyler Stewart was there. I was there with my baby boy. Okay, yes. Okay, so I was there too. So it was interesting how our paths crossed,

but then we got to know each other, and we will get into this as well, because you're DJ Shwarma. I am DJ. I am. I was DJ Shwarma. into this as well but uh because you're dj shawarma i am dj i am i was dj shawarma uh i uh i had the pleasure of being the fill-in guy for dj dwight uh working with martin at the kingdom in burlington the pho. It was a blast. It was something I never thought that I'd get the chance to do.

And it was amazing being able to work with Streak. And did you get that because you were in the right place at the right time? I think being in the right place at the right time is classic for being in this business. I think they liked me. I was a good guy. You were reliable. I was reliable. Which is huge.

I think I was not a threat to DJ Dwight to take his gig. Right. But when he wasn't there, he knew that it was in good hands, but that I didn't aspire to be a club DJ. I had bigger things on the horizon, so I wasn't a threat. I hear you. Fascinating. Fascinating. So before we dive into all those interesting areas, can we start with talking about, well, I still have energy left to discuss it. Because I think I'm going to chat about it with you now, because we'll explain why you're a good person to talk to about this.

And then I have to bring it up on Wednesday because Dave Hodge is in here. I saw Dave last night. Did you? Where did you see him? Jim Hewson, who's being inducted into Hockey's Hall of Fame today as the winner of the Foster Hewitt Award, had a little party last night, and it was a blast seeing so many people that

I've had the pleasure to work with at Hockey Night and I got to meet Dave. I've never met Dave and I wanted to go up to him last night and I did and I congratulated him on a lovely job he did hosting the memorial for Dave Bookman back last May at the Horseshoe. And he did do a great job. And he spoke wonderfully about Huey last night. It was a pleasure. What I like about Hodge is he can, yeah, sure, he can do the sports thing or whatever.

He can do it all. But he, yeah, what he really should be doing is the music thing. Like this is where you can see the eyes. This is the passion in the belly. And perhaps a little stand-up comedy too.ave's very funny very dry very dry i love that i love the good dry wit and and yeah he's he's uh his passion for music is it's it's and and and i learned this about huey huey's the same way didn't know Jim was tell us common people who Huey is

Jim Hewson he's the voice of Hockey Night in Canada Hewson Huey I get it now I didn't know we called him Huey only if you know him well Mike where was my invitation to this event yesterday you missed a great party I'm sorry I don't have that control you didn't get a plus one on this thing

I did get a plus one I I took my lovely bride, Michelle. Oh, because Michelle got the ticket. Yeah, Michelle got the ticket. Okay, so it's all small world, of course. That's what I love about doing this show here. But let's hear your, well, maybe preface it by, no, I'm trying to think. Do I set you up as like an expert in this field?

We'll get to that. But you worked for Hockey Night in Canada Radio. I did for eight years, eight great years, before Rogers came by and changed my life. And so many others. Okay, but when Rogers buys up Hockey Night in Canada, the worst deal in broadcast history in this country.

How does it affect the radio? Because the radio, doesn't it end up on Sirius XM, or how does this work? Yeah, the CBC owned the show. And we had one year left broadcasting on Sirius XM. But it was Dead Man Walking in 2014-15, the first year that Rogers had control of Hockey Night.

Gotcha. And although Scott Moore, a lovely man who hired me at the CBC, tried to keep the show going, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was looking to get paid for this little old show, and they were asking way too much money for Rogers to take it on and broadcast it on Sirius XM's NHL Network Radio. So it died.

Okay. But this is how you know people like Jim Hewson and stuff, right? Yes. I mean, all the Hockey Night personalities like Huey and Simmer, that's Craig Simpson, Gals, Gary Galley, Glenn Healy, that's Heels. Okay, Mike?

That one I know, I think. Yeah. And I saw Heels last night, too. One of the great talents. Tell him to come on this show. I want to get the guy. He's awesome. And actually, he works last night too. One of the great talents. Tell him to come on this show. I want to get the guy. He's awesome. And actually he works close by to where you live.

All right. Well, hook me up after. I'm serious. Cause I always liked him and thought he got a raw deal. Yeah, absolutely. Like many of you.

Yeah. Yeah. Glenn is so well-rounded and he's now taking care of the players as the executive director of the NHL alumni and their offices are just on Kipling. Oh wow. Okay. Right at the Leafs practice facility but anyway um yeah we had access to everybody ron don uh jim kelly kelly was one of our co-hosts cassie was a co-host craig simpson was a co-host with jeff merrick as the host first then gourd stelic right gourd my buddy gourd yeah everybody's buddy gourd oh yeah you submitted a question for gourd i've never seen a guy eat sushi with a fork and knife but gourd stellick does he's one of the

nicest humans in the business yeah i mean by far i literally reached out on a friday and said hey will you come back on like come back monday and talk to me more like i enjoyed the first round so much and he was there like you know he was there 10 30 ish whatever it was on the next he was on time he was on time yeah it's okay it's freezing rain by the way i'm okay with cold i had the best bike rides this weekend because it's dry on the roads and it's cold and when you layer up and it's you're hot again you know you oh you're hot quickly too right especially. Especially the way you ride. But this weather sucks. Yeah, this is not bike riding weather. I am going to Humber College this afternoon

and I was always planning to bike to the North Campus, I should point out. I was always planning to bike to it, but this is freezing rain. You were going to bike from where you live to Woodbine? That's not that far a ride. It's not that far a ride it's not that far a ride oh my god when i walk upstairs from my basement i need to grab a chair i need to get one of those nice little uh when i go to danforth yeah when i go to the dance right when i go they're always advertised on like the cbc news

network i know just late at night. That's the demo watch. Yeah, it is. I'm going to the Danforth Music Hall to see the Watchmen. In fact, I got a little contest I'm going to tell people about. Maybe I do it right now. If I were more on the ball, I would already be... I want to win those tickets. Well, you can win.

Okay. So, when I go to this event, which, by the way, the Watchmen are at the Danforth Music Hall November 23rd, and they're with the Grapes of Wrath. That's a great double bill. I know. And Danny actually sang a cappella at the party for Dave Bookman in May. I think he sang a Billy Bragg song. I was trying to recall last night, and Dave Hodge couldn't remember. He loved Billy Bragg, too.

Yeah, he did, yeah. And it was a standout from a bunch of wonderful performances that night. Well, I'm going to ask you soon, at some point, I'm going to ask you to share more thoughts of Dave Bookman, who left us far too soon.

I have a sad story about Dave. Okay, save it. I want to have some sad stories about Dave. Now, it's November 23rd. It's at Danforth Music Hall and I have a couple of

tickets I'm giving away. So just tweet at me why you should go. Just tweet at me why should you get these tickets to see The Watchmen.

I'm at Toronto Mike, by the way, on Twitter. So do it because the odds of winning are pretty good right now. I don't know,

there's only 10 entries or something but I'm not even giving out a ticket plus one. I'm giving out two tickets. So two of you are going to win. And I'm going to be there. So yeah. Enter the contest

Schwarma. Okay. I will. The Grapes of Wrath. Now and again I think the record was. That was the last vinyl record I ever bought. Oh wow. Yeah. They were great. All the things I've done. That's theirs right? Yeah. They're really good. Are they from Saskatchewan no they're vancouver they're british columbia i'm getting them confused with the northern pikes i think yeah there's there's both great bands actually

yeah they are okay so what so you have some experience of hockey night in canada uh tell me uh what did you think of the uh don cherry? So many emotions. I know the man with the lights off, the mics off, and he is a gentle, dear, sweet man. And he gives of his time to thousands. And he stands up for the little man in our country. But you can't say that shit, Mike.

And he's been saying things like that for decades. But as Ron said on Saturday night and last Sunday night on Hometown Hockey, we're living in a different world now and have been for a few years. And it finally caught up to him i've never seen it last as long as it did on twitter the the trending of of grapes and firing him and you people and and and that and i knew that this is this is it this is the end and it's it's quite sad because we all grew up with him. And at times we drank, as respectfully as I can say,

we drank his Kool-Aid as kids watching him. Keep your head up and you got to play physical. Yeah. And it's sad that it had to end like this. It's sad to see that a friendship between him and Ron is, I won't say fractured, but I don't say fractured, but I don't think it's been the best week for their friendship.

And it's too bad. I hate goodbyes, so it's too bad it had to end like that. But you can't say stuff like that. And it finally caught up to him. Do you think Don feels that Ron should somehow quit and protest or something? Yeah, I'm sure he does. Are you a real friend to someone if you're going to ask them or expect them to do something like that? Right, right, right.

Like, why should you both lose your jobs? Don said the words. And Ron, I was surprised initially at the amount of grief Ron got for... I should say this, okay? Right after I saw it happen, I tweeted that I was disappointed in Ron because I felt Don was just being Don. And this is the same Don he's been forever.

He's been on brand and this has been Don forever. So I felt that's Don being Don. And that's not right. You're right. You can't say that shit. But that is not a surprise to hear Don say those words. I wasn't surprised. No. It's not a surprise to hear him say that. And

many times, Ron has called him on stuff like that. Not so much, you know, Swedes, chicken Swedes and French Canadians not wearing visors. But yeah, he will call him on stuff. And stuff happens, and he missed it.

He wasn't really, maybe it's because, oh, I've heard this before on Remembrance Day weekend. I know where he's going. And he zoned out, or maybe Brian Spear was talking in his ear. I don't know. I know he had to throw to a clip. Yeah, the same clip they've been playing for a few years now, which is a nice tribute.

I've been in that control room, and yeah, there are times where Ron is being talked to while Don is presenting. So that's highly probable that that happened. And you can miss it. Nobody talks about that's highly probable that that happened. And you can miss it.

Nobody talks about that. Right. No, you're right. Because you're right. Don's just doing his thing, but Ron's driving it. I wanted to ask you a bit about this because I've heard from sources that Ron essentially produces this Coach's Corner. Yeah, they both do.

Yeah, they essentially produce the entire show. Coach's Corner? Yeah, they both do. Yeah, they essentially produce the entire show. You know, like if Elliot and Kelly want to show a clip of Connor McDavid's highlight reel goal, they can't show it until Coach's Corner plays it. Don's like, oh, I can't play it now if Kelly and Elliot are talking about it.

Interesting, interesting. And that's kind of ridiculous, but it's an old school way mentality of thinking about how presenting it. But why the hell can't we see that Connor McDavid goal more than once and hear everyone's opinion on it? Right. But shouldn't there be a producer

that Ron and Don would answer to on that segment? Like, shouldn't there be an actual producer in charge of all that as opposed to Ron and Don being in charge of all that as opposed to Ron and Don being in charge of all that? Yeah. So is it just that they've,

I just want to understand because Dave Hodge tweeted something about knowing when you're bigger than the brand or whatever. And that's been one of the major problems of Hockey Night in Canada

when the CBC ran it and when when and with sports net running it now and i actually tweeted or facebooked out i can't remember that i i don't think that don loses his job if the cbc is in charge oh interesting because they even in 2019 yeah i do i think even with this twitter Twitter uproar. Yeah, and they shut down the CRTC or the CSBC or whatever. They shut down the CBC News website as well. It's so funny, too, that people still think the CBC has a say unless they just don't get it.

I had this argument with so many on Twitter. I almost stopped doing it. But people, yeah, how can, yeah, they feel the CBC is, although, can I ask, this is another thing I learned, and it makes sense. If you air something on CBC,

isn't CBC at the end of the day responsible for that content? Like, if the buck stops there, like, let's say it was far worse than this, something far more hateful, heaven forbid, or whatever. No, because Sportsnet has editorial control over those control over but aren't you responsible still and i understand that deal of course that's their sub broadcasting the content controlled by rogers i understand that as well as anybody but uh if you're still if with the buck at the end of the day if something

happened that needs some ramifications cbc would be responsible for what went out over cbc airways which is why that deal never made like it's kind of a weird deal right it is a very weird deal and when they spun it to us the day that they signed it they were talking about how oh it's great we can get free promotion on our network uh for you know battle of the blades and some cooking show their podcasts yeah and all that stuff. Oh, that's wonderful. We can get all that free promotion while they spend all the money producing the hockey. And some of you will get to stay employed

and work on hockey still, maybe. But no, because you're just pressing a button, right? Sub, what do you call it? Subbroadcast. Yeah, you're just providing the air feed. Right. They're doing everything else huh and they just re-upped that deal i know they signed like another

an extension on that yeah i don't know how long it might be years maybe oh i don't think it's six it was six i think to begin with or three to begin with i feel like it might be another six but maybe this being the first year of it but regardless it's a messed up deal and a lot of people are confused by that. Now, okay, so Ron McLean went on Hockey Night in Canada. I don't know what they called it, but he went on that spot on Saturday to do like what I would call monologue. Yeah, first year intermission.

I thought it was lovely. And of course, it's Ron McLean, right? Like that's his bread and butter is speaking to the nation. And the apology was genuine. His explanation and his reach out to Don was heartfelt. And he still got the crap kicked out of him on Twitter. Yes, because I had the same initial reaction. I thought it was from the heart and it was sincere.

And I thought he did a great job. So I tweeted as much. I just shared that. I felt, I really felt like that was and I thought he did a great job. Absolutely it was sincere. So I tweeted as much. I just shared that. I felt, I really felt like that was what I call real talk on this show. Like he was here

and he was, because I've had, I've had Ron McLean here and it felt very unscripted and very much just him speaking from the heart and I thought it was great and a lot of people

right away, that was awful television, how awkward, that was rambling, I don't know, like a lot of people, even people like, although Damien Cox,

he might be slowly morphing into Marty York. I don't know. Like a lot of people, even people like, although Damien Cox, he might be slowly morphing into Marty York. I don't know. I know who Marty York is. Have you detected that? Damien's been busy the last few weeks on Twitter with the whole grape thing. So I wasn't surprised that Damien did not like Ron's monologue there.

But a lot of people did not feel the same way I felt about it. And I thought maybe that's because this is, hypothesized on twitter i like ron therefore i liked what i saw but if you if you were watching that and you didn't like ron or you were against ron because you felt he i don't know threw his buddy under the bus or whatever you didn't like that like whatever you felt about ron going into that monologue you probably came out of it with that feeling. That's how I felt. I think that's fair. I think that's dead balls accurate, bud. I do. And it's a shame because, like I said, how can you ask? Are you

a real friend if you ask your friend to follow you down that dangerous rabbit hole? No, you're not. Man, so like yourself i'm uh i'm just shocked at how many people are still they still see it as a freedom of speech thing they think ron i saw a buddy of mine a good buddy of mine just turned 50 years old i like this guy very much he copied and pasted this big thing on facebook today and i always they kind of changed the quote like they left some parts out of the quote, but basically saying like this,

why do people think he's talking about immigrants? This was the point. I never read it that way. Why are these people on social media thinking he's talking about immigrants? Are we, we had a point now where there's, there's, there's now tens of thousands of Canadians who are now have now decided Don was just talking about you and I

when he posted, when he said those words about you people, you come here for the milk and honey, blah, blah, blah. Are we that, is that the game we're playing now? Do you have any doubt

who Don was referring to? He said he should have, he was talking about everybody. You know what? I didn't have a poppy this year for the first time. I work from home. I don't go out a lot.

I go to the grocery store. I love the troops. I get emotional on November 11th weekend when they do the whole presentation at the Scotiabank Center or Arena, whatever it's called, I get emotional during the anthem. I didn't wear the poppy this year

because I'd lose them or I'd stab myself, and I just didn't. I'm you people this year. But I support them. Do I think that he meant all of of us he said he did after the fact i also speak don cherry like you probably do and thousands of others across the country including ron mclean right don's delivery at times even though he's been on the air for 38 years can be choppy he doesn't finish his thought sometimes but we know where he's going we know though he's been on the air for 38 years can be choppy he doesn't finish his thought

sometimes but we know where he's going we know what he's thinking so tell me what he was saying i think he was saying both i do but what does he mean by you come here like that's the part so the you people i can buy into him that's his that's a don Cherry-ism for a group of people he's not happy with right now. You people, you come here for the milk and honey. To me, that's the part, that you come here for the milk and honey, and the least you could do is cough up two bucks for a poppy or whatever. To me, without a doubt,

I don't have a doubt in my mind and heart that he's referring to new Canadians when he refers to you come here. Because who's coming here? I didn't come here. He's not talking to me. You're right. Sadly, you're right.

He is referencing new Canadians at that moment. He is. Are you as sick of this as I am now? I'm so tired of it, I gotta say. Yeah, I feel bad for people that worked with him so closely i feel bad for him he's 85 years old this is you know he looked forward to this every saturday night and now he doesn't have it um i am sick of it though and i'm sure ron's sick of, and I'm sure Don's sick of it, too.

And all the people closely associated with them, many that I saw last night at Jim Hewson's party. What do you believe will be in store for Ron McClain going forward? Does he still do something during the first intermission? A lot of this, of course, will be your speculation here, but you'd have a good perspective on this. In my opinion, it's a good chance to get the show back on the rails. At TSN, do you think James Duthie and Bob McKenzie executive produced the show?

I don't. I don't think so. No. I think they're comfortable in their own skin to be able to come and do their job, and obviously they're going to add their input with their expertise, how many years they've done it. Excuse me, Mike, sorry. You know, you're so emotional about this issue,

it's choking you up. Or my son's cold is finally getting to me. Oh, because I don't want that. Well, sorry, Mike. Do you have water, though, or did you want me to get you water? I do, I have water. Do you have a water sponsor? No.

You should get one. Here. While you drink that water, just since you mentioned water sponsor, definitely not water. You are going home with a six-pack of fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewing. Yay! So, yeah, I pulled one randomly, and it's my favorite. Octopus wants to fight. But here's the... That's Ringo's favorite beer, favorite. Octopus wants to fight. But here's the...

That's Ringo's favorite beer too. Octopus's Garden, right. The Canuck Pale Ale there, that's Gordy Levesque, by the way. So good people at Great Lakes Brewery. They're actually hosting a Christmas market on the 8th. That's a Sunday, December 8th at their retail store, which is 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard.

That's not far from, that's down the street from the Costco. That's what I tell people. The day before Great Lakes Brewery has their Christmas market, I'm having TMLX 5, the Toronto Mic Listener Experience, the fifth one. We're doing it live from, this

time we've changed venues. We're doing it live from, this time we've changed venues. We're doing it at Palma's Kitchen. So Palma Pasta has four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. One of them is Palma's Kitchen. This is a 10,000 square feet retail space, hot table, just fantastic new facility. And it's near Mavis and Burnham Thorpe. But, you know, find the address for Palma's Kitchen

and be there Saturday,cember 7th at noon to three o'clock we're going to be recording live people can jump on the mic if they wish there's going to be a free pasta free fresh pasta courtesy of palma pasta there'll be beer courtesy of great lakes i got a gift from sticker you by the way there's a toronto mic sticker for you from sticker you as well jeff and they're going to give out these really cool magnet badges that we can all enjoy. So I can't wait for December 7th and meet as many of you as possible. Jeff, here, I'm putting you on the spot here. Will I see you at TMLX5?

Yeah, you will. Okay, good. You'll jump on a mic and say hi to everybody. Will you wear the Martin Streak shirt? Keep it locked and cranked. And how do we get one of those?

Pete Fowler made this for me. This is a custom job. Yeah, it's a custom job. I love it. Yeah, sure.

I'll watch it again. What's Martin's middle name? Because I always see MCS. What was the C standing for? I don't know.

Does Pete know? I don't know. You know, Pete's a nice guy. He's a lovely guy. He helped out so much with that gotta tell him. He's a lovely guy. My five-year-old. He helped out so much with that tribute. Okay.

He was sort of brought in late to it, and we couldn't have done it without him. Well, I don't think he could have done it without you. I understand the straws that were really stirring that drink were probably Pete Fowler, yourself, and DJ Craig G. Is there anyone who was a... Pina Crispo. Oh, yes.

Pina. I got to know her there. She's a crackerjack, isn't she? She wouldn't hit her head on my low ceiling. No, she's such a nice little package of goodness. And she was the Inside Edge. Pina, the Inside Edge girl? Was that her?

Pina, the Inside Edge girl. She worked in promotions for The Q and Mojo and 102.1. And it was actually her and I that, she'd always post something so lovely and heartfelt about Marty every year. And I think it was the ninth anniversary, I Facebooked her and I said, you know what? We should really try to do something for the 10th.

And then we did absolutely nothing about it. And I saw her at the Bookie Memorial and we started talking about it and brought Craig into it and Pete found his way and DJ Paul Dhingra, who was Marty's legendary live-to-air DJ. Yeah, so I got to say to Pina,

if she's listening, when I was doing the live, that was great practice for the TMLX4 where I was doing a similar thing, setting up four microphones and going live or whatever. In fact, we're doing that on TMLX5, which is December 7th. You should come. Did I mention that? By the way, I have a frozen meat lasagna.

Yeah, frozen meat lasagna for you in the freezer. Don't leave here without it. I won't. I'm going to crush that thing. But don't eat it yourself. It's dangerous. Perhaps I'll let my wife and my two lovely children in on it. How old are your kids?

Emily just turned 14 last Fridayiday and ryan is 11 yeah 14 i got a 15 year old so i know i know what that's like but she's good girl she's good girl yeah not mine too i gotta say i hear horror stories but we don't have that experience yet yeah and i'll let you know she's an old soul because mine's turning 16 oh she's 15 and a half now and still great like so i will let you know if it comes. She's an old soul. Because mine's turning 16, oh, she's 15 and a half now and still great. Like, so I will let you know if I, because I'm a little ahead

of you on the, because my son's turning 18 in January. No problems at all. I have more problems with my five-year-old than I've ever had with my 18-year-old.

This is a true story. So speaking of the five-year-old real quick to get this back to Pete Fowler and then I want to talk about Pina for a second but my five-year-old got an OPP pin from Pete Fowler

that he loved and he lost it. And he said, daddy, daddy, I want another OPP pin. And I said, well, you got to ask Pete Fowler, like, do you want to call him up? And he goes, yes. First of all, I should point out my two teenagers would never have done this in a million years. They would never phone up like a friend of their,

especially forget the fact he's a police officer, but just phone up like a friend of their especially forget the fact he's a police officer but just phone up one of my friends and ask for something like they just would be way too shy really i can tell you now james and michelle would never ever ever done that but not the five-year-old five-year-old i pushed in the number for pete fowler and handed him the phone and he held it and i just listened because he got a voicemail and he left it and it was something like uh uh hi Pete, this is Jarvis. My daddy is Toronto Mike. Could you, Toronto Mike,

could you please send me another OPP pin or something? And in the mail. Two days later, right? Well, yeah, shortly thereafter, he got a gift from Pete Fowler. So thank you, Pete. Thank you, Pina though, because doing that live to air from the opera house uh

guest wrangling i didn't realize how would i do the guest wrangling i know how to do it at my events because i have a sign-in sheet and i make sure i get to everybody but i mean how do i get like how do i get dj craig off of this craig g off the mic so i can bring in like may pots for example or whatever and pina helped a great deal and deal in bringing me like Daryl Spring and things like that. Oh, Daryl. How about him, eh? Yeah. Yeah.

I just, he and I went to see Tool together last week. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was fantastic. Everybody was fantastic. Only one person I think said no when Pina approached him. Only one person.

Same for me. You asked me to ask someone to come on and they said no. Neil Mann. Yeah. That's the one who said no. Okay. That's right. So I didn't know. Yeah. So Neil Mann said no neil man yeah that's the one who said no okay that's right so i didn't know yeah so neil man said no which is fine whatever but everybody else said yes and it was absolutely uh amazing so yeah it was so thank you pina

for your help with that can we do this now oh go ahead wait can i finish my thought on hnic and oh yeah what should happen for the first intermission? Of course. It should be, in my opinion, what TSN does. The panel. Let's not try to reinvent anything anymore for hockey. The only way Rogers Sportsnet is going to make money off this deal, and I'm sorry to the other six Canadian NHL markets, is if the Toronto Maple Leafs are great, and they play seven game series times four and win the damn stanley cup right that's the only way you're making money because

in montreal the ratings are split because of the french broadcast toronto is the only thing that will make back their 5.2 billion billion 12-year deal. And that... Which, did I mention, was the worst deal in broadcast history in Canada? The only thing they should do is put Kelly and Elliot and Ron and whoever their guest panelist is on in the first period. Stop talking about who is going to replace Don Cherry. Nobody replaces Don Cherry. And this is the chance for Rogers Sportsnet

to break that mold and break the analysts and hosts being the bigger story than the actual players that play the game itself. Let's focus on that. That's what the league wants, and that's what deep down rogers sports net wants they just want to do a hockey show like tsn by the way this is why the rest of the country

hates us because uh you're right these ratings live and die with the success of the the toronto based franchise they do i know i know that but it's's tough to tell a Canucks fan out there that they just don't bring the eyeballs, no matter what. They will bring the eyeballs if they're in the Stanley Cup final like they were in 2011, but not like the Maple Leafs. It won't be off the charts, record-breaking numbers. It's just as simple as that. And what happens if the Leafs miss the playoffs, which is a very big possibility this year?

Well, the coach loses his job. I don't think he makes it till Christmas. He might not. He might not. But you know the one that I think is to blame for their troubles? Kyle Dubas. No. The president.

Shanahan. He had no reason to get rid of Lou lamorello and you and damien but but the fear was he'd lose dubest isn't that the whole idea that you had to wasn't to the colorado avalanche right no somebody yeah it was it was the abs but they're they're fine joe sakic is is making good trades and that's a great team the fear is you're going to lose kyle dubas nobody else was jonesing for kyle dubas and you can always as the president of the team decline another team's opportunity to speak to him if you want to keep him so badly they had contract negotiations coming up with their three best young players and it was not a time for a

for a kid who'd never done it before to step in to try and figure it out lou would not have paid william nylander mitch marner and austin matthews as much money as they got and he'd have a little more money to throw a backup goaltender for a backup goaltender. For a backup goaltender. And can we just say the Toronto Maple Leafs problems are all because last season, Kyle Dubas waived Curtis McElhinney, and they haven't been able to get that important win on back-to-back

nights since he's been gone. That's insane. This is a non-wavering, non-debatable issue that Anderson is not going to play back-to-backs. Yeah, and I think Mike better change his tune on that. I'm not saying for the rest of the year. The poor bugger can't play every game,

but I think he's going to have to suck it up and play him on back-to-backs to get them out of this funk. Who does he think he is, Grand Fury? Come on, you can't do that. I remember that. I know, of course I remember that. 79 games, right? Yeah. 79 of of 82 if you want to talk about records that will never be broken you can just use a lot of records but that one yeah yeah ovi might catch gretzky's goals

might yeah maybe nobody's ever playing 79 games at in an 82 game season in goal. Again. That is a virtual certainty. Absolutely. And who's got it? Is it... Who's got the game streak for goaltenders? One of those old school guys. Was it... Not Hull.

Was it Hull? Yeah. Glenn Hull? Yeah, I think. Yeah. I think it's... Maybe he played 500 games in a row or something. Yeah, that'll never obviously be done again either.

You're not getting to 15 games in a row. No, you're not. Only in the playoffs. Because of travel and because of the schedule. Only in the playoffs. Right, right, right. I'm going to start us off. So you've already kind of given us a little bit of the origin story.

Oh, by the way, I want to let people know something about StickerU before I forget. people know something about sticker you before I forget that they won the bronze award for print design, uh, for the world's largest sticker store interior at the print action awards. This happened on November 7th at the Palais Royale in Toronto. And they're very proud. So you can like, right.

I, yes, I bike vital. I broke my pain. I was coming home from the ubiquitous synergy seeker 10th anniversary party. Yes. And I'm biking home, which is,

I mean, I'm moving West on the Martin Goodman Trail. And right beside the Palais Royal, somebody who was coming east was in my lane and hit me. And I went head over and I thought I broke my ribs, but it turned out that was negative. It was just bruised. And then I did break

this pinky and it hasn't been the same since. Well, condolences on that pinky. Have you ever seen a concert there at the Palais Royal? No, but I listened. I had the Sloan did something there i own yeah i was there oh yeah the floor moved for that and blur blur what the hell was the name yeah they uh the the record with tender on it um uh they were uh they uh presented that album in full, in order, that night. And again, the floor moved that night. I can tell you, I was chatting up,

there's a guy who wrote a book called The Flyer Vault. Okay. So I was reading this weekend. I went analog. I was reading a Dead Tree book. It felt really good. But I was checking out this Flyer Vault, and the two people wrote it,

but the main guy who wrote it, Tate is his last name, and I can't remember his first name. Daniel Tate maybe but he is coming on this show because he talks about toronto's concert history and yeah palais royale is uh yeah i was all over that thing and a non-existent there's a place called the mimico which was like a roller rink and mimico which is long gone now but it's like for example the first time james brown ever played canada he played yeah it's a lot of interesting shit i've never heard that one yeah so okay so uh yeah the palais royale uh is where they won that award okay so let's do this we've already talked about how you got the gig with humble and fred uh so how does that kind of like how does that turn you into a chorus employee like you just did a good job?

I did. I did a good job for H&F. My first teacher in radio was Jason Dangerboy Bar, their producer. Oh man, I love that guy so much for what he taught me. And I wouldn't be sitting here right now without Jason and Howard and Fred and scary bald-headed Pete Cugno. Right. My first teachers in radio. Because I did not go to school for this.

What did you go to school for? I didn't go to school. I took a year off after high school and I'm into my 28th year of taking one year off from high school. And that was always a thing that sat heavily on me. And can I say a bad word on this? Fred told me, fuck school, this is where you learn. And he was right. And I did as much as I could do,

whether it be cutting a promo or archiving stuff or finding funny clips for Howard and Fred to play in the morning and just watching Jay and clips for Howard and Fred to play in the morning and just watching Jay and Pete and Howard and Fred and Sandra Plagakis right as closely as I could and then that matured into being able to uh actually get paid as a promo person uh handing out phone cards with Humble and Fred's likeness on them uh to working the street level studio and handing out phone cards with Humble and Fred's likeness on them, to working the street-level studio and handing out prizes to listeners. Is this the Bathurst and Bloor one? No, sadly, this is first 204 Yonge Street,

and then when they did the facelift for Yonge Street, it became 228 Yonge Street. So it was a great way to get paid and still be interning with Humble and Fred. And the boss, who I owe everything to in this business stewart myers still to this day my first boss in radio was my best boss strombo says the same thing does he strombo credits stewart myers with uh shaping his career you knew exactly where you stood with stew you knew exactly what he wanted there was no head games there were there was none of that bullshit and uh again he's somebody and

he left so quickly after a few months with mojo to go back to western canada and i never really had the chance to thank him for what he's meant to me in my career wow and his daughter is now on the air she's on the edge. I remember her as a little kid. Wow. But all those people that I mentioned and Jim McCourty and the great Robbie J, Rob Johnston are people that taught me so much in this business. And that's where my schooling was interning for Humble and Fred. And I was at the right place at the right time to take over for Chris Pack

as the producer of Live in Toronto with Kim Hughes and her street reporter, Dave Bookman, in September of 1998. Did you listen to the Kim Hughes episode of Toronto Mic'd? I didn't. You gotta do that. I would like to. You gotta do that.

So much there to unpack. First of all, it's very interesting to me knowing what you're doing now, which we'll kind of save for review later, and knowing what Robbie J is doing now. Yeah. Isn't that wild? You and Robbie were great resources to me

when I was getting my gig with The Athletic. I'm a podcast producer for... Spoiler alert. Just kidding. Yeah, for that publication. And I was able to pick yours and Rob's brains. We can tell the people you came over here. I did.

I watched you interview Gregor from the Toronto Star. Right, Gregor Chisholm. That's right. That's right. Okay, yeah. And funny thing is this morning, Bill King reached out to me. Bill King is a jazz guy, but he's got a show on CIU too. And he's like, there's a young woman who's interested in being a sports media professional uh can she come sit in an

episode of hebsey on sports so i sent her an email and said of course you can and she was here today but in my mind i'm thinking because i'm talking to these i just talked to durham college kids and i'm going to talk to humboldt college kids so i was thinking maybe 1920 this is what i'm thinking of age right she comes to the door with her dad she's in grade 11 wow yeah and she was here yeah and she was sitting down here to watch how how hebsey does his thing i hope she makes it i it's clearly it's it's in her blood and passion if she's wanting to look into this when she's in grade 11 but you shadowed me if you will to see how i do toronto mike and how i produce podcasts cool Cool. And you did the same thing with Robbie J?

I was going to, but then I got hired way too quick and I didn't have time to go out to the beach to see Robbie. But he spent some good time with me on the phone and talked me through it and settled my nerves. And when I edit, if robbie's listening i i think about him a lot when i'm putting it together because that was another thing that i did i would go into his production room or jim mccourty uh in his production room and i would look over their shoulders as they

edited promos and commercials and whatnot or the ongoing history of new music and i i there's always a a special place in in my heart when i'm editing what i do now uh for robbie jay amazing and it's great to hear you give props to for example jason bar who's now uh in ottawa yeah he's uh living the dream uh in town. But he's kicking ass. Like he and his partner. Chris Biggs. They got relieved of their duties from what? The mix and the edge. And they started to investigate podcasting very early.

Yeah. So proud of how he has formed and bounced back from being. I use them as a case study. Did you? I use them as a case study because I talk about podcasting. I use them as a case study all the time as an example of two guys who barely even knew each other. Yes. But basically, they created a brand. I'll say in their basement.

I don't know if it was really in their basement. I think they went to Swish LA. But yes, they build this brand. They create a logo and they start podcasting. Next thing you know, this is a real viable entity that Bell Media purchased for 97.7. They made that. It's a beautiful story.

It really is. Which is why it's made its way into my examples. Humble and Fred are in there too. Absolutely. Oh, I was so proud of how hard they worked too. I don't think they ever worked as hard as they did when they left radio to start up podcast now they have to sell they have to do it all themselves you know build the studio they're howard's producing the audio himself i know i watched him do it a few

months ago i got a good kick out of that and yeah and just bringing in you know bringing in the music and stuff like i was for example i was going to bring this in when we talked about, I can save it, but I'll do a different version. But I was going to bring this in when we were talking about. But you know, get to do it yourself and in real time here. I remember the day that we lost the rights to play this song. Oh, that was a, that was a chaotic day at the cbc yeah the tsn says they white knighted it or something because uh yeah clayman right

yeah she was asking way too much money and uh i guess scott moore uh um played her bluff and she said now screw it i'm gonna go sell it and make some money before I die. And she did. And now I hear it in commercials and stuff like Bell Media must license it for commercials like Pepsi. Yeah, Pepsi used it. I saw that last night and they use it a lot. They use it a lot on their

lunchtime shows. Oh, anything. Yeah, TSN will use it for anything hockey related. Which is smart. Yeah, sure, because it's anything hockey which is smart yeah sure because it's the hockey song yeah it used to be my ringtone oh that's funny yeah it's great great piece of music i'm gonna play a different version of it later when we get to you when we get to the hockey night in canada radio here so okay so uh great um and this is back when jason bar was talking in a scottish accent when he was on that's right so in danger by that's wild when you think

about it because he doesn't use his real voice until Dean Blundell shows up. That's right. It's crazy. Yeah, it is insane. And it's funny, he came on the show and I'm looking at the clock.

We've already done like twice as long as I did with Barr. Like he just wasn't particularly verbose that day. Oh, Christ. That's funny to me. I mean, I'm a behind the scenes guy. And when you asked me to do this i was like really well maybe if you have a half an hour go listen to the jason bar because

he was very nice 30 minutes yeah he was very nice very nice lovely guy but didn't have much to say it was wild that's insane i know because for a radio guy i was like okay because i'm used to radio guys having lots to say so you these people are all helping you humble and fred help you out and what's your relationship like with humble and fred today uh i try not to get emotional uh uh answering this question but um you know when you go through a a change like i did in this past summer getting relieved from serious xm because they fired you they laid me off yeah there's a difference mike what. What is the difference? Firing you is you're gone from the building right away

and you get nothing from us. Okay. Okay. I don't use it that way. See, it's interesting. But is that like a... Because I always think anyone can be fired and you just have to sever them fairly.

Like that's a whole separate layer. A layoff is, you know, we want to keep you, but we are cost-cutting. It is not job performance related. I mean, hell, the boss walked me out and he said, you deserve better than this. People in this building would do good to watch how hard you work and all that.

You know, it was nice to hear. But you had a movie star salary. Thanks a lot, Pete. I'll tell my kids. But yeah, you make too much money in this business. You're a prime candidate to go. And I was the last full-timer hired at that place. So it made perfect business sense to let me go.

But you find out who your real friends are, right? I told Merrick, it's like somebody's died. The only difference is they don't bring you a nice lasagna but they do call and they tell you to hang in there yeah they love you tell you they're sorry yeah and I mean Howard and Fred were both very attentive and always have been and uh have always rooted for me and you know more know, more importantly, I think, you know, they've gotten to know my family, Michelle and the kids, my mom and dad and my brother and my two sisters, and they root for them too. It's a sincere, genuine friendship.

And, you know, I still have dreams that I'm producing their show and I wake up confused. I'm like, wait, am I still doing that? No. I don't know if you could afford to do that today. No, I couldn't. I couldn't. But they mean the world to me.

Very nice. Very nice. So in addition, so at Chorus, because obviously, again, I guess you, did you specifically tell me, like, did you, there was a job opening at Chorus you got because of how good you Yeah, I reluctantly left a free gig with Humble and Fred to go work for Kim Hughes and Bookie on Live in Toronto because I didn't want to leave Howard and Fred because that's who I listened to growing up. And now I get to work with them, and they're the morning show,

and I'm Chicken Shawarma, and some girls know me, and stuff like that. And do you want to tell us all how you got the nickname Chicken Shawarma? Yeah, Howard. Howard names all the interns. And once we figured out that I was going to stay, he said, what kind of a last name is Domet anyway? And I said, well, it's Lebanese.

And he pointed at me and he said, we're going to call you a hummus boy. And then he looked over at Danger and he said, no, we got a boy already. We can't do that chicken shawarma we're gonna call you chicken shawarma and jay's in there and pete and freddie and howard and they all start laughing i didn't know what the hell howard was talking about i had never had that's not a food you're familiar with it's not a food i'm familiar with i do know lebanese

food but i didn't know that right i i i left them that day and i called my brother on a pay phone at the eaton center and i said chris they want to call me chicken shawarma and he said oh that's funny you know i said what the hell is that and he he pointed me in the direction of shawarma's king in the uh food court at the eaton center and i went and i ate my very first one and i've been eating them ever since that's funny that's funny it was when does shapiro show up later uh todd was much later he he was on h and f when i was fully ensconced in live in toronto with george and bookie right because george takes over for kim hughes yeah about four months after i got there uh george took over in january 99 and that changed my life again forever okay let's so let's talk okay kim hughes um have you ever had any contact with her since she left uh chorus

i haven't no because i have i know i'm gonna listen to that she's lovely she's great but i didn't know her before but uh yeah she's she's different you, she... Uses big words? Yeah, sure. She would call me her esteemed producer, Jeff Domet. And Stuart was like, just call him Chicken Shawarma. That's his name. Yeah, she was classier. She was. I always thought she was very well-spoken and articulate.

She is. Yeah, probably didn't fit on the... You're right. Probably was maybe a little too... Things were changing. Too smart. So, you know, Stu didn't want theghan wigs played at six o'clock and uh right that's offspring time that is offspring time it is yeah i know and that's how it's done and so that's uh that was one of the reasons i think the change was made she was uh hesitant to, resistant to go along with how the channel was being programmed.

And Strombo's a star in the making. He is. You need to give him a... He is. This is an overnight guy that had a huge popularity because he spoke to the kids that listened to the channel and he had a natural way of connecting with people with the listeners and the people that he was uh interviewing and his very first interview was a friend of mine ron

hawkins oh yeah who came into the trailer the temporary trailer that we were on uh working at um uh while while the studio was being rebuilt on young street Street with a Save Kim Hughes or a Kim Hughes Forever, Fuck the Edge, whatever, T-shirt, right? And I'm like, oh, God, this is one of my heroes, Ron Hawkins, coming in. He's making waves. And he and George had a lovely time together. Oh, sure.

At the end of the day, George was looking for a new place to live, and Ron was setting him up with a couple of apartments that he knew were available and they were fast friends. Well, they're both great FOTMs. They are. I love Ron Hawkins. And me too. Strombo's great too.

So Strombo helped shape you into the man you are today. So I was big into archiving the Humble and Fred promos and bits and stuff on that. And I would be working late at night, or I guess early in the morning, before Howard and Fred would come in when George was on the air. And George and I would talk about how we were going to take over the world and take over this station and work together. Because we both sort of had the same philosophies and work ethic and all that. And then come January 1999, here we are,

and it actually came true. And it's the afternoon drive, which is next to the morning show is the biggest slot. Well, Alan had the official afternoon drive from two till six. We were six to eight. But yeah, it's a part of afternoon drive in this damn town. Right, right.

There are highways. So yeah, it was insane that we got to work together. And when I was hired to be the producer again for Live in Toronto, like the second time around after Kim left, Stu said, what's the difference between an operator and a producer? And I said, an operator is just a monkey who presses buttons and a producer contributes and helps shape. And he said, be a producer and i said an operator is just a monkey who presses buttons and a producer contributes and helps shape and he said be a producer and i mean that was that was huge when

the boss is is telling you that he believes in you right this kid that came with donuts and a letter saying you can whip the shit out of me how Howard and Fred, if you want to. I just want to play in your world. It meant, I've said this phrase a few times on this podcast today, it meant the world to me. And it helped get me to where I am today. Wow. Now I want to hear you tell me about Dave Bookman. Like the man you knew and worked with on Live in Toronto there,

and any stories you want to share about Bookie? Dave and I, Dave ended up being my best friend in radio for a period of about seven years. And I loved him. I still love him. He and I shared a love of food and music and sports. And we were both kind of shy. And so we respected each other's limits to be in places with a lot of people. And I felt like I protected him and he protected me. We were really good, close friends until I left for the CBC. And, you know, I recently found out that there was a rift between us

that I had no idea about. I had some thoughts that maybe something wasn't right. I used to call Dave when I left the Edge to chat with him, but it wasn't the same. He seemed distant, distracted, and like he wanted to get me off the phone. And in respecting Dave's introverted ways, I stopped pushing.

I saw him, I think Toronto was hosting the Grey Cup in 2008, 7 or 8, and I saw him broadcasting outside of the CBC when I was coming home, and I went into his location and said hello to him, and it just wasn't the same and i couldn't figure out why there was a a falling out that i had with mutual friends uh of his and i and uh it had something to do over a club gig something as petty as that and uh i thought is he taking sides but i I respected Dave's privacy that I didn't want to push him into any uncomfortable conversation I loved him so much I didn't want to do that

I thought about him every day like I think about Martin Streak every day but Dave was alive and I never called him because I didn't want to inconvenience him. It's the saddest fricking story because he was like a brother to me. And I found out that a week before he had his medical issue, that he asked the person that I was fighting with, I guess my name came up and he said said aren't we in a fight with him and they said no i mean maybe i had a disagreement with him for 10 seconds but and he thought that he had been fighting with me and siding with that person for

nine ten years wow ten years the last time i saw dave was at martin streaks wake at the charlotte pool uh room on charlotte street in toronto and i saw him in the line and michelle and i waved to him and i said hey dave and he said hey swarm and that's the last time i saw him but i thought about him every day and i'm like I miss him I would love to talk to him about the bat flip or the raps or you know the low getting back together or anything like that but for some reason I just I I thought I was doing him a favor not having an uncomfortable conversation anyway he found out that there was no fight right and. And he said, I'm not in a fight with him. I got to call him. And he had his aneurysm or stroke,

whatever, a week later. We never did talk again. That is the saddest story I've ever heard. It's just, life is so- He was like my best friend in radio. And so the way I come to terms with it is he was my best friend for the time that he needed to be my best friend. But it's taught me some lessons that, you know, even if you're friends with a strange guy or girl that doesn't like confrontation, push. Because life's short.

And I could have had so many more nice times with him that is yeah man i'm so i'm sorry yeah sorry for your loss uh all our loss he was a well that's the thing is when it comes to people like bookie or martin streak brace yourself i'm about to ask you about him now i always like i feel like the city it's a loss for the city. Yeah, for both of them. And then you talk to people like yourself who it wasn't, these are, this is a friend of yours. You know, you'd have private conversations with

and you realize that, oh yeah, he belongs to all of us, but not on the level he belongs to someone like yourself. So my condolences on Bookie's untimely passing. And I guess it's been 10 years, 10 years this last July that Martin Streak took his own life. And we already talked, you're DJ Schwarma. Yeah.

I was his fill-in DJ. And this is, again, a legend, a giant uh he controlled and owned the room any room that he was in uh but he was your friend and he wanted to help you especially if you were a little guy he gave me great advice the first night that i uh dj'd for him at the kingdom where i thought i was going to barf before going on the air. I was so nervous. And he just put his arm around me and he said, Schwarm, you wouldn't be here if we didn't think you could do it.

Don't fuck it up. And so we had some lovely times. And I actually DJed for him at a gig that wasn't on the air that I kind of forget about because it was, I don't think we did it for that long, but it was really cool to work with someone like that. Again, I didn't expect to ever do anything like that. And I'm grateful that I had the chance to work with him. Did you have any contact with Martin following his,

you don't like the word firing, but he was laid off by Chorus in 2009. Yeah. Did you have any contact with him after that a phone call uh and some facebook stuff uh but not enough and and you know you know what happened to him man you wish that uh that you had more i think the last time i saw him was the um previous september He was at my house. He met my boy who had been born earlier that year. It was, you know, it's funny.

I remember, like, I worked for Hockey Night in Canada Radio and we got the summers off, right? We go straight through. And in 2009, I remember where i was at 2 p.m uh on what was it july 9th right no uh july 6th that's my tummy growling i can't wait for the uh the lasagna is frozen i gotta warn you you can't okay i'll suck on it on the way home but um i remember where I was at 2 p.m. on the 6th of July 2009, and that's around the time where he put up that Facebook post. I was getting a massage.

Because, you know, you just shut down in the summertime when you're a hockey guy, right? And you didn't get an invitation to Bob McKenzie's cottage. No, I didn't know Bob well at that point. That would be great to get that invite. It's hard to get that invitation. Oh, no. Yeah.

I don't think Duffy's got it yet. I think Duffy has. I don't think Jay and Dan have gotten it. Oh, maybe that's it. Okay. But anyway, it's funny that you remember where you were at the timestamp of his last post. So, okay, when you see that Facebook status update, did you see it before you learned of his passing?

No, I didn't. Um, Jeff Merrick called me that night and he said, Josie Dye, uh, called him and said that, uh,

Martin had died, that he had taken his own life. And, uh, I remember talking to George that night. He was in LA. He texted me and he said, is this true?

And I, I said, yeah, I just got off the phone with Jeff and Josie got the information. And yeah, sadly. What a waste because I think we talked about this at his party or I talked with Howard about it on their podcast back in September. The way things have gone in our industry, there was a place for him.

Look what you're doing. Look what George does with his concerts in his house. There was a place for Marty to continue to go on. But it wasn't just about breaking up with a girl or losing the only job he ever had and the fact that he had never gone on a job interview before it was you know he was sick well that's just it and i think it's dangerous territory to even try to put yourself into martin streak's mindset right at the time he decides uh he he had decided clearly the world was better off

with him not in it or, and this is not something I ever, I would even, you know, depression is a very serious illness and I, lucky enough, I'm not afflicted with it and I cannot put myself in that mindset. I can't either. And like I said, when we first started talking about Streaker, like when he entered a room, he owned it. And everyone gravitated towards him. Guys wanted to be him. Girls wanted to be with him. Right. And his job was the coolest.

He'd talk on the radio and hit those posts. And he'd drink his Jager. And he'd shoot pool and flirt with some girls and tell some boys some stories. Right. Perfect job. Yeah. If anyone, I should just remind people

that recording that we did in the lobby of the Opera House during the Party for Marty is an episode of Toronto Mic. I can't remember the number, but I think I called it Party for Marty. It's about three hours long? Yeah, it's about three hours long. In fact, I end that thing, I'm leaving, because I saw the guy from USS,

the human kebab, and I was chatting him up with Roddy Colmer. And then I'm leaving, and then I hear moments later, Strombo shows up. So I never did get Strombo on that. I wish Georgie had showed up earlier, but he had some,

what the hell is it called, the film fest stuff that he was doing. TIFF. Oh. But it would have been great to hear him talk that night. All right, so some loss we've talked about with Martin Streak and with, of course, Dave Bookman here. So I'll take a moment here to tell people

that if you're out there and you've experienced loss in this past year, holidays and hope, candlelight service. Join Brad and the good people at Ridley Funeral Home at the Assembly Hall. The Assembly Hall, not too far from where the Leafs practice, actually, like Kipling and Lakeshore.

Wednesday, December 4th at 7 p.m., it's Ridley Funeral Home's annual free memorial service in honour of those loved ones who have passed away and cannot be with us this holiday season, if you want more information about the Holiday and Hope Candlelight Service at the Assembly Hall on December 4th

you can visit RidleyFuneralHome.com or you can call 416-259-3705 416-259-3705. Okay, Sean, we're going to turn the channel here and lighten things up if that's possible. So we talked about the Humble Infrared Show. That gets you in the doors at Chorus and then we go do live in Toronto, of course,

with both Kim Hughes and then Strombo. And later, Brother Bill. Brother Bill. When Georgie left. He's a guy, if he ever pays a visit to the city again, I'm getting him on this show. We communicate a lot, but he's in White Rocks. Yes, he is.

Yeah. That's where Jim Hewson lives. Is that right? I was there in August. Lovely. Yeah, it was pretty cool. It is a beautiful place. Now, and there's literally a White Rock.

I climbed it. And Neil's, Brother Bill, he's a beautiful human being. He's another brother to me. Neil Morrison. And I don't throw that around lightly. Just stay in with the sadness. I lost my own brother when he was 32 to a very rare form of cancer. So people like Dave Buckman and Martin Streak and George Strombolopoulos,

Rob Johnson, Carlos Benavides, Jason Hughes, and Brother Bill. And I consider them brothers too. Man, I'm sorry again for your loss here. And again, if Howard and Fred are listening, you're not my brothers. They don't listen. They told me they don't listen. You're my dad and my mom. No worries.

They're very proud of not listening to this program. Okay. I think they're getting T-shirts made. I'm not too sure. I don't listen worries i they're very proud of not listening to this program okay i think they're getting t-shirts made i'm not too sure i don't listen to toronto mic so but they're still fotm so produce you also worked at bill waters you mentioned uh he gave you uh what was his nickname for you punch punch okay and you're doing leaf's lunch on am 640 because that was a chorus station as well yeah i left live in toronto in april of 2001 my last show uh dave bookman and brother bill got lowest of the low to play two songs live at the edge at 228 young for

me it was awesome which songs they sang um i think they sang a city full of cowards and i think i asked for night of the living assholehole and Ron and Steve looked at Brother and Bill shook his head. He's like, you got to play one of the radio hits. I don't think it was Rosie and Gray. I think they might have done Bleed a Little While or something like that. Well, still great.

They're all great. Well, they played My Basement, so I can empathize here. This is fantastic. They're wonderful people. Wonderful people. They are. So yeah, I left LIT in April of 1 for Mojo Radio.

We kicked that off with Humble Fred and Dearsweet Bingo Bob. And that was a tough, tough project to work on. Mojo? Do you want to elaborate? Because I remember Mojo. Yeah. I mean, I think it was ahead of its time. Or behind its time.

It depends how you look at it. I think Chorus Radio didn't support it as much as they painted that picture that they were going to in the beginning, and they got very scared quickly. And then when the planes hit the towers, everyone wanted news. They didn't want any fun.

And it hurt us very quickly. That was terrible. The greatest victim of 9-11 were you guys. I suppose I made it sound like that. Do I need to tell people that's a joke? I never know anymore. That's a joke. Don't tweet, Mike.

But of course, that was bad timing for the launch of Mojo Radio which was talk radio for guys. And Andrew Crystal and Jeff Merrick had a show. Is that Mojo or AM640? I get confused with the brand. Oh, geez. It's still Mojo, and I produced them.

After Howard and Fred left in summer 03 for The Mix, or Virgin, or whatever the hell it's called, I stuck around and produced five hours of talk radio. Andrew Crystal from 10 till 12, The Leafs Lunch with Merrick and Bill Waters from 12 till 2, and then one hour solo of Jeff, 2 till 3. Okay, we both concur that Jim Merrick,

sorry, Jim Merrick, that's how well I know the guy, Jim Merrick. Jeff Merrick is a great guy. We both concur. He worked at Great Lakes Brewery. Did you know that? Fun fact. Get that on the bingo card, Al.

I think it belongs there. You should. And he buried Harold Ballard. All right. We're going to get that on there, too. Thank you, Jeff, for that. I think we're contractually obligated to tell that story. That's a great story.

I'm in. I'm all in. He helped me find Harold Ballard's grave when I was a That's awesome. Park Launceston. He used to broadcast a game with Bob Makowitz and George Strombolopoulos in the nude on Friday and Saturday nights

on the fan. In the nude. Not in their underwear, but in the nude. Well, maybe underwear, but it sounds better in the nude, right? They did one better

than the chili peppers. They took the socks off. Right. Well, it helps when your dad is the program director. I suppose. It doesn't hurt at least. But look at the careers that thing launched. Those are all great guys, too. Insane dad is the program director. I suppose. It doesn't hurt at least.

But look at the careers that thing launched. Those are all great guys too. Amazing, the game. Now, let me just check in here. Okay, and Andrew Crystal, who I have met and I have talked to on the phone, and I think he's a weirdo. He is a weirdo.

The first time I ever met him was my first day in radio when I was sitting in that chair off to the side of howard as an invited guest to see uh to look around and see if we like you and andrew came in to do some sort of uh interview hit uh entertainment hit for the humble and fred show in june of 97 and i thought who the hell is this guy? He's sweating profusely and, you know, little sniffles. And that's how I met Andy. And a nice enough fellow, but probably the single most difficult person I've ever worked with in my life. I almost, anyway, I won't get into too many details, but I was going to have him on the show.

And then we had a weird call and I backtracked a little bit. Hold off for a bit, Mike, I would say. That's my advice to you. But he was the morning man in 590. He did for about 12 minutes. Yeah, he did that for sure. That was after Brady and... I get my Brady things mixed up

because there were so many different Brady iterations. So many of them. But that was when Brady and... Don Collins did that, right? I know Don Collins did Blundell. Did Don Collins... Do we also blame Collins for... I believe so, yeah.

I think that he was first doing the old Jeff Blair time slot and then they moved him to the mornings for 12 seconds. So Brady and... Was it Brady... I can't... Which one was it? Brady and Lang?

Who get... Brady and Lang? Who get, Brady and Lang? Or is it, or is it Stelic and Landry? No. No. No, it was Brady and Lang

and then Jim got relieved. Gotcha. Jim got relieved, right? Flubber. Yeah. I'll tell you something about him later. He's great.

But okay, so Andrew Crystal had a few minutes in the morning. I know Lumby was keeping the seat warm during the summer. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah. Before they brought in Andy Crystal. I got intoumbie was keeping the seat warm during the summer. Jeff Lumbie before they brought in Andy Crist on the September. I got into it on Facebook with Jeff.

He's too... He's got to declare his bias better, in my opinion, because we know how he's connected. First of all, his BFF is Ron McLean, right? Yes. And there's something... I don't know if his wife represents Don Cherry, but there's something... There's some definite connection he has to Don Cherry beyond being a fan

of Don Cherry. Can we agree on that? Yeah, probably. I got into it with Jeff a few years ago, and now we're not friends on Facebook. I had to cut him loose because something to do with Jim Hewson. He didn't like Huey's call. He wanted Bob Cole. I guess, you know, you want a Bob Cole misidentifying player.

Well, we all want Bob Cole over Hewson, don't we? I know. I would rather have Bob Cole than Jim Hewson. That voice, that time when we were kids, maybe Mike, but I want someone who actually knows what the hell is going on.

You got your wish. Calling my game. And I got my wish. I got my guy. Hall of Famer, Jim Hewson. Love him. You got to declare that bias too.

I would like to have Jim, next time you're talking to Huey, tell him to come on Toronto Mike. I will. He'd have a good time. I'll also try and reach out to Jeff Lumby and maybe become his friend again.

Well, Lumby, I will say, I've had him on the show, Jeff Lumby, and of course, Lumby goes back with Humble Howard. He's fantastic.

Yeah, he's great. I think he's great, but his politics are a little wonky. He was really angry for some reason at the young teenage woman who was trying to make noise about climate change.

Greta? Yeah. Right. But he was very angry with her. Like that to me is a, lights go off like alarm bells when you get that angry at a teenage girl who, regardless of whether she's on the spectrum or not, she's passionate about climate change,

which scientists will tell you is a real thing we should be passionate about. Amen. And time is ticking. And to get mad at her, let's check yourself. What's that about? Yeah. But we both like Lumbee.

He just, he is a bit wonky. Yeah, he is a bit wonky. And he's very, very angry at what went down with Don Cherry. Very angry. So passionate there. Okay. Why you leave chorus for CBC?

Yeah. Jeff left in September of 07. And this is a month into the Bill Waters show. The show that was designed to take down Bob McCowan at the fan. Which would never happen because we weren't on TV. We didn't have an endless budget. We didn't have the commitment from the host. And we were hockey guys you know i didn't

want to tune in to hear jeff and bill talk about roy holiday or um but overdrive is vince carter yeah but um although brian and it's an excellent show it was a show i was up for uh getting a job with uh this past summer um brian is phenomenal and can go anywhere uh any sport and with jeff and jamie i think they're both um trying i think they're uh jeff's a blue jays fan so there's some more uh um input from him for the Jays, but they go pretty silent, Mike, when they have someone like Masai on or, you know, give me another one. You know, it's just the NFL insider. TFC or whatever, whatever's their hockey.

It's the Brian Hayes show for those segments, essentially. Gotcha. Yeah, I hear good things. Like our mutual friend Fred Patterson tells me it's the it's amazing he loves uh overdrive they all three of them work together beautifully so it sounds like the only uh the only uh show that was going to take down bob mccowan was uh actually primetime sports itself and uh they found a way to make that problem go away for the competitors. They did, yeah. They did.

And it wasn't going to be Bill, who I think of as family as well. I loved my time working on Leafs Lunch, the original, the good Leafs Lunch with him and Jeffy. And it was a hard decision to leave him, not Chorus, who had... It was a hard decision to leave him, not Chorus, who had... They're not listening, Jeff. You have a safe space. They have treated so many of my friends and my colleagues poorly.

And I don't have a lot of good things to say about them, but I'm grateful for the opportunity they did give me in getting into this business. But I don't have a lot of nice feelings near the end, but I was conflicted about leaving Bill. But I knew that it was time to get paid like an adult and go and work for something that was a dream of mine since I was a little kid. And, oh yeah, give us the elevator pitch of what exactly were you doing with CBC? Well, Hockey Night in Canada started on radio and 52 years later, we resurrected it

as an afternoon drive show with Jeff Merrick and the co-host Kelly Rudy, Cassie Campbell-Pascal and Craig Simpson. And I was the producer. So it was three hours of Leafs lunch. Was Friedman ever on the show? Yeah, Elliot was a contributor. And he filled in for Jeff a couple of times

when Jeffy wasn't able to host. And where did you record this? Friedman, yeah, he's a good guy. We recorded on the third floor in the CBC building. Elliot is a good guy. I'd go through a wall for that guy. I told him that last night. He's got the worst mustache, though.

Can November end? I know. Wash your face. He's lovely. I love Elliot. You know what? I met him once in an off season. He had this big beard, and I was thinking,

rock that during Hockey Day in Canada. That looked good. But you've got to shave her down. Do you because chris johnson's got a beard just know like it's not like lou lamorello's in charge of hockey night in canada right again in my business you feel like you know these guys because you've talked to them on the phone for years right first time i met lou was in dallas i feel in 2017 at the draft and I was going to leave the goatee on going to the arena for the draft and then at the last second I thought no I'm going to shave her down and Mike Zeisberger introduced me to Lou and I'm like I'm so glad I shaved I didn't want him

giving me a sideways look I'm like Lou I've talked to you for 15 years and this is the first time I've met you and I'm clean shaven. Okay, so it sounded like you were telling me you blame Rogers for the end of Hockey Night in Canada Radio? You have to. In a way, I mean, they tried to keep it. I blame the CBC for being

too greedy in asking Rogers for way too much money for the name Hockey Night in Canada Radio. For the name, Mike. You'd think that would be part of the bundle. Like you spend the $5.2 billion, you get all the Hockey Night in Canada everything. It wasn't because it just wasn't.

But how could, okay, so CBC, how could they own the name Hockey Night in Canada Radio? They own the name Hockey Night in canada still they okay so that doesn't come in the farm it out for rogers no i okay they own the logo they own all that okay and they they i probably just one of those fun facts i might have known at some point and can't remember i know so i mean rogers um the the insane deal that they signed with the NHL helped with the demise of the show. And then CBC being too greedy and not just letting the name HNIC Radio go for an affordable price helped with the demise. And I worked for CBC News for a year. God love the, what's it called?

The National? The union. Oh, the union. For protecting me for a year. But then I had to resign because I mean, I wasn't doing a good job. I wasn't feeling it.

I was grateful to them for keeping me on and employed for a year. But my wife, Michelle, said, okay, you can just be dad. We'll figure it out. And SiriusXM called a day later and said, come on over okay and

what did you do milman nelson milman yeah fotm nelson milman he was right he was there now tell me how long were you at uh serious xm radio four seasons okay what did you do there i was the producer of the afternoon drive show the power play uh which uh had the host scott lachlan and boomer gordon for the first year the second year i we desperately needed changes those two fellas hated each other and it was terrible radio and um we had an opportunity to get patrick o'sullivan former nhler uh an author uh into the fold and the boss dropped the ball on that. And we started with Corey Hirsch for two weeks with Scott Laughlin and Hirsch

was out of his league. And even Scott realized that. And our boss to his credit made the change quickly and Patrick and Greg Gilbert would co-host that show that second year with Scotty. The third year it was scott and patrick full-time and my last year uh the boss moved scott fired patrick i think patrick is untapped talent he could be something with the right people working with him and the the last year was steve coulias with matthew barnaby i think gare joyce think Gare Joyce helped Pastor Joe Sullivan with the book.

He wrote that book. Yeah. Right. Breaking away. Right. FOTM Gare Joyce. There's a shout out for him. Look at it all.

Yeah. I even didn't even, I had others I could have dropped, but then I thought, should I lean in on the FOTM? Because. Why not? It's your show. It's your podcast. Damn right.

I'm going to lean in on the in on the effort plus I was 15 minutes late because of the traffic so you can do whatever you want you can keep the lasagna but please don't I want it did you oh it's in the freezer it's all yours did you have a positive experience at Sirius XM I did not I did not I came from serious from hockey night in Canada

big budget big time. Bosses that were able to guide me and my talent. And I had talent coming out every orifice. All of them. All of them. Fantastic. Don't visualize that. And I was very excited to go to SiriusXM

to get out of news and go back to my wheelhouse. I was very excited to work with Nelson Millman and learn from the legend. Unfortunately, that was his first and last year there. I'm grateful to him for getting me in there, but it's a small operation and it's not run very well in Canada. I can't say much.

My wife looked at my contract again last night and she said, you'd be a good boy tomorrow with Mike. But I can say that I was disappointed in how little I saw of our boss, Mark Redman, and my immediate, not my immediate boss, but the production VP, John Lewis. These are two guys that I saw more of at the CBC

when we were broadcasting Hockey Night in Canada radio on Sirius XM. Then I saw in our own building. And the support that we lacked from their leadership, I think is why Nelson said to hell with this. This is, I'm retiring now. I don't need this shit. And I was disappointed that he left because I really wanted to learn from him

because I think I wanted to run the operation one day. What the hell was I thinking? It's not Andy Travis. It's not Stuart Myers. It's not the heyday. Andy Travis. Mrs. Carlson thought he had good hair and good teeth as i recall yeah right and he did handsome man yeah he he's they put the kiss what was the uh you know because

when you buy that show on dvd at least i've heard this uh they had to they couldn't afford all the music they played yeah they so they have some canned like fake music maybe like music and they had to get voiceover actors to uh voiceover john Andy and Venus and whoever might have been talking over music at a time. Right. It's all baked into one layer. Yeah, exactly. My sister Donna was able to get me a box set a few years ago for Christmas that had, I think, about 90% of the music added back in, which was a hell of an improvement.

I think the first discs she bought me a few years earlier, just season one, it was like 65% original music. I mean, I loved that show, and I watched it in syndication, and I remember one big scene was Paul Anka, she's having my baby, for example. Right now. indication and i remember like one big scene was paul anka she's having my baby for example right now what a wonderful wonderful way to say you love me what a great show okay the other show that suffers from the same syndrome is wonder years oh yeah yeah because then i guess they there's a difference licensing when you say whatever for so they also had i don't even think they i don't

even think wonder years if you stream it or whatever i don't even think Wonder Years, if you stream it or whatever, I don't even think it can have the Beatles song as performed by Joe Cocker. That's insane. I know. But remember, for a while, Married of Children could not have the Frank Sinatra love and marriage for a while. And they had to use a sound alike. And then I think they changed that to get it back or something.

A lot of shows in the 80s and 90s have that problem, 70s. I know Beverly Hills 90210, I got back into that after the summer. Which they canceled that, you know. They did. And that's a shame because I don't think, and I hope Netflix or Amazon grabs hold of it because it was very funny. Those actors bought in and started poking fun at themselves and the show. It was a good ride.

I enjoyed those six episodes. But they have trouble with the music? They did. I was a big REM fan, and I remember when Jason Priestley left, they played the song Night Swimming. Yeah, good song. That's such a great album, Automatic. And yeah, they had to Like that song in the show

When he was leaving I still remember speaking of Tyler Stewart I still remember the Barenaked Ladies playing the Peach Pit That was a big deal for us It was a huge deal for us And Jason Priestley was not there For when they were on the show Performing as themselves for the Peach Pit

But later that year I think he Direct the old apartment video. Yes. Yes, he definitely did. He definitely did. Oh, the rest is... By the way, it all comes back to Gare Joyce because, you know, Gare Joyce's book series

about the hockey playing detective or whatever is the origin for private... Eyes. Private eyes. Thank you. On Global. Private practice, private parts. No, private eyes on Global with Jason Priestley. On Global. Private practice, private parts. No, private eyes on Global with Jason Priestley.

That's right. Woo! Love him. Look at that. Yeah, that's great. And when they're filming that, which is done here, I think Gare should bring Jason on Toronto Mic'd and we'll have a little chat about it.

Oh, I would be here as a fanboy for Brandon Walsh. I'll sell tickets for that, for Brandon Walsh. I'm buying, Mike. He can have the pasta. All right, so you had an unhappy experience at SiriusXM. I'll sell tickets for that for Brandon Walsh. I'm buying, Mike. He can have the pasta. All right, so you had an unhappy experience at SiriusXM. We're trying not to get you in trouble, but I will say, to get you out of trouble,

I will say that Humble and Fred have come on this show to talk about the five years that they were the morning show for Canada Laughs. Yes. And they, unlike Todd Shapiro, for example, who would go to Liberty Village and go to the SiriusXM office to record. Like myself. Like yourself.

Humble and Fred didn't do it that way. They did it from their own studio and sent it in. But they were not redoed after five years. And I can tell you, Humble and Fred came on this show and took a huge dump all over the management at SiriusXM. So I don't know. For what that's worth. In the United States,

I feel like the leadership is a lot stronger, and they are concerned with content and sales. But in Canada, I feel like all their concern is how many new cars have SiriusXM hardware in it and how many people are going to re-up after the three months free. They're not concerned about the content that is being pushed out. And it shows. And like I said, those two gentlemen that I mentioned, who I was really looking forward to working with, I barely saw them in the four years that I was there. Do you think it has something to do with the fact that you can get howard stern when you

you know you're a canadian getting serious xm uh you're you know you're still you don't have to listen to these canadian stations i don't even know how many canadian stations there are there's there's canada laughs and there's canada talks i don't know what else there is but and there's and uh well that might be it bud okay so that's like 166 no no no there's um uh the verge uh so it's like an uh there's a bunch of channels i'm thinking of talk ones i guess maybe they only have the two for yeah i know because i know shapiro was on canada laughs and they bumped him over to canada talks that's right yeah all right so i okay and i so maybe we'll you had a bad experience. I wanted it to be so much better because it was with the NHL.

It was hockey pure. So I didn't have to worry about developing contacts with baseball or any other sport. I was excited about it. And at the end of the day, I was disappointed at how it all played out. It's not sour grapes for losing my job because the new gig is lovely. I absolutely adore it. Let's get to the new gig here. So I already played the Hockey Night in Canada theme there.

Did you remember this beauty? Bring it. Is that Lisa Simpson on the set? Ha ha ha ha. I'm going to see if you can name this artist. Who is it? The Shuffle Demons. Oh, I was going to say that.

All right. I've been wanting to play that for a while, and you gave me a good excuse to play it, and then I'm like, oh, Mike, you forgot to play it here. So before we get into the new gig, because I have a bunch of questions, you know, I run my own, I run TMDS. I don't know if you know this,

but we're producing podcasts here. I know. That's exciting. It is exciting, because I want to find out what's going on with you and The Athletic. But first, this is a word from Brian Master. Hi, it's Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams to Realty Solutions Brokerage. I like working by referral.

I love working with people, finding out what they need and where they want to go. So every month I put out an item of value called the Client Appreciation Program. And this is really great material. It's all about, well, for one thing, the way the real estate market is, but other things like, well, this month is how to turn your home into a smart home. We've also had things about how to throw a party on a budget, some travel tips. It's really great stuff. And it comes out once a month called the Client Appreciation Program. I'd love to get you on it. It's easy to do. Send me an email to letsgetyouhomeatkw.com. And I'll send that out once a month via snail mail and follow it up with an email that's something

related to the item of value. You can't miss. It's great information. It's something you can share with your friends. I'm Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage. Thrilled to be on Toronto Mic'd. And thank you, Brian. And all FOTMs should be sending an email to letsgetyouhomeatkw.com just to tell Brian you want on his snail mailing list. It would help the show. And like I said, this is not a sales push.

There's no like, hey, buy and or sell your house right now. It is just valuable information and education for homeowners and home renters so let's get you home at kw.com okay jeff so there was like you literally saw like a job opening for like podcast producer tell me how you uh how this came to be i got laid off on july 9th of 2019 and you know i tweeted it out and i guess i've got a lot of nice friends in this business um and james myrtle from the athletic he's the editor-in-chief of the nhl umbrella uh direct messaged me and said jeff before you make any moves talk to me let me know what you're

going to do because we're getting into the podcast game heavy this september and you'd be perfect for it and mike that fueled me big time gave me hope right because i was terrified that this was it i was done because i'm 47 and how many more times can i go through this uh i think i've been laid off three times and and it was never job performance. Okay, Mike, I'm a great guy. I was never even thinking that. There was one opportunity in terrestrial radio with TSN radio,

the fine afternoon drive show, and that intrigued me. But this one at The Athletic excited me because even though I wanted to be on the radio since I was six years old and my dreams did come true, I was tired. And this gave me an opportunity to learn something new and refuel my jets and get with the times.

And now I'm looking back, I'm glad when James Myrtle DMed me, I told him, no, thank you. I'm not interested. Because it really opened the doors for you. Yeah, thanks a lot, Mike. FOTM James Myrtle, who's been on a couple of times. And yes.

He's not short. No, I was going to say, thank goodness I got the new sticker that says check your head. You know, his son clark uh is i think five years old he'd have to duck coming down to this that's amazing that kid oh yeah i think yeah i think he was a newborn or something when jeff made his first appearance i mean james james i mean james made his first i have a son named james so i should know these things i have a son named james name ryan okay my son named James. I should know these things. I have a son named James. I have a son named Ryan. Okay. My son named James, his middle name is Ryan.

My son, Ryan's middle name is Chris. And your wife's name is the same as my oldest daughter's name. Michelle. So do you have any, any, any Morgans in the family? We got no Morgans.

Do you have any Emilys? No, but I have a Jarvis. Okay. I can do this all day. So what exactly have you been up to at The Athletic? I'm now not just playing host here. I'm now, even if I wasn't recording,

I'm very interested in this. So I produce podcasts for six local markets. The combined Anaheim, LA with Josh Cooper and former NHLer Shane O'Brien. I'm in St. Louis with Jeremy Rutherford and former St. Louis Blue, Barrett Jackman. Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver all have local market podcasts that we record twice a week. One is free everywhere, and then the second one is exclusive to The Athletic

and I produce for the great Scott Burnside and Pierre Lebrun and their Two Man Advantage National Hockey League podcast once a week every Wednesday. Do they do that one in Toronto? Scotty is based in Atlanta and Pierre is in the

Annex. And as you know, it's amazing. Technology is amazing. So tomorrow I'll talk to Coop and O'Brien in Anaheim or LA, wherever the hell they live and talk Ducks and Kings. So what's the technology that's allowing you

to record them remotely? Something called Clean Feed. And I just basically invite them to join. And so after I leave here, I'll be talking to Barrett Jackman and Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic in St. Louis. I'll email them. They'll click on the link.

They've got their headset microphone. Yep. And I drop my mic and they record for 30 minutes and we put it together. I put it together. Amazing. Okay. I love it, Mike. No, I mean, I love it too it together. I put it together. Amazing. Okay. I love it,

Mike. No, I mean, I love it too, buddy. We, I'm telling you the synergies. This is two days in a row where I've actually wore pants.

Okay. I wore pants to the, to the Jim Houston thing. I wore pants last week to go see tool with Daryl spring. I'm wearing pants today. I'm going to wear pants on Wednesday when I drive out to see Carlos Benavides and talk to his kids at Conestega. Am I saying

that right? Conestega College? But other than that, I work in my pajamas, baby. I love it. Okay. I was going to ask if there was some kind of an office you went into? No. They had offices in San Francisco and they've got offices in New York. Otherwise, they're remote podcast

producers. Isn't it great? It is. It's a thing of beauty and it was not offices in New York. Otherwise they're the remote podcast producers. Isn't it great? It is. It's, it's, it's a thing of beauty and, and it was not in my wheelhouse. And,

uh, after the first two days I thought, Oh my God, I'm screwed. I can't do this. And then a light just went on this. But why did you think that? Cause I was overwhelmed with all the new, uh,

uh, systems and it wasn't radio that I could do with both hands tied behind my back and blindfolded. Yeah, you had some learning to do. It's the best thing that could happen to me at this age to be able to figure out something new. Who's producing the Toronto podcast? Oh, there's a great fellow named Tyler Hunt.

He actually worked, he taught me so much my first month at The Athletic. As far as I'm concerned, he's the employee of the month for as long as he wants it. A great resource to learn from. And he was actually a producer over at TSN Radio as well for a time. But yeah, he puts together James and Jonas's Leafs broadcast, Craig Custance's, the one in Boston, Pittsburgh, a lot of them. Raptors, Blue Jays, he does as well. And I'm guessing if he went on vacation, maybe you sub in? He is going on vacation in December,

and I'm going to be doing some of his shows. There you go. And Ty doesn't know it yet, but when we go to Jamaica in March, he's doing my shows. Nice, nice. Now, you mentioned the free one of course that's obvious easy to do that because you uh you know your publicly accessible web server and your your xml sit sitting on a publicly accessible web server and then people are getting it to whatever apple

podcast or google whatever but the one where you have to have the subscription so you can't put that in your feed right because otherwise they could just share it with like non, like do you know the technology behind how you keep non-subscribers out of the non-free ones? Yeah, you have to have, it's on the Athletic. The Athletic app. It's on the Athletic app on their website. It's only through the app.

I got you. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So with respect to the Winnipeg one and Burnside and LeBron, the two-man advantage, they record about an hour and 30 minutes of it is made available free

and the entire hour is exclusive to the athletic. The other guys record twice a week. Anything coming down the pipe you want to tease or is it you'd be in trouble for... No, we're doing an all-decade special edition of each podcast coming up for US Thanksgiving release. So, you know, the team's all-decade teams, players, and for Scott and Pierre,

we're going to figure something out. Let's forget the decade's ending. It is. It doesn't feel like it, right? It really doesn't. I think it has something to do with how happy the news is politically in our country and to our neighbors down south.

Oh, I watched this show. It's like an HBO, BBC co-production thing or whatever, but I streamed it on Crave, okay? So it's called Years by Years. That's what it's called. It's six episodes because the Brits, they don't like to do things longer than that. got six up i think maybe five even i can't remember

five or six episodes but this thing it's like the not too distant future so it spans 15 years from like right now until whatever 15 years from now is 20 34 whatever the hell that is yeah math is fun i stumbled but i got it now i'm telling you i'm you, I'm here to say that I don't like a lot of TV. And I thought this thing was excellent. What's it called? Years by Years. And you got it off of Crave. No, it's not.

It's not called that. I skewed this up many times. It's called Years and Years. And it's available on Crave because it's an HBO thing. And you get HBO stuff through Crave. And it was really, really good. And it was really smart. And it's basically like, if Trump did you know Trump does this and you kind

of fast forward in time you kind of jump ahead in time and you live through the next 15 years of what could happen and then you kind of look back and say oh that moment in 2019 when we could have stood up and said something uh we didn't and this is what has happened 15 years later. Well, I got to watch that. It's a really, really well done too. Well written and well produced. And it's really fantastic. I got to check that out. Check it out.

Buddy, I freaking love this. And you were an FOTM before today's episode, but I'm glad we got to know each other better during the Party for Marty stuff. Yeah. You're a cool cat. It was a blast. Thanks so much for having me. And how about this music?

Right. You mentioned Rosie and Gray earlier. I was like, oh, we're going to hear that soon. So I remember when the Low got back together and they performed at the warehouse. I want to say this is November of 2000. And Ron saw me standing in the middle and he said, our friend Jeff Domet's been a big supporter of ours.

We're going to send out this next song to him. It was Salesman Cheats and Liars. I love him and Steve. I know Steve's left the band and Lawrence. Yeah, Steve, who's been on the show to kick out the jams, is no longer in the band. But I did see him in the band. I think it was 2012 or something at the Horseshoe. He was still there, Steve Stanley.

At Christmas time. The great friend of the show who listens is Lawrence Nichols. I love Lawrence. What a nice guy. Because I don't know if Ron, not a Luddite at all, but kind of not a smartphone-carrying kind of guy, Ron Hawkins. So when you need to coordinate things like lowest of the low playing your event, because they play TMLS 3.

You call Lawrence. things like lowest of the low playing your event because they play tml i know three you don't call lauren yeah and then laurence talks to ron and gets back to you and uh laurence is was fantastic and again him and ron are open on many times and i'll have them on again they're fantastic but you are fantastic jeff thank you amazing it's fun oh i hope i didn't piss off anyone i don't think so but i'm gonna give you another gift. I, before I forget, this is from the electric city candle company and it's a special needs adults make candles. Nice.

And they sell the candles. I think it's like 10 bucks a pop for these kids. They're really nice candles. They're scented. You've got one in there and all the proceeds goes so that they can play hockey. So it's a special needs hockey league. And they're actually really striving

to raise some money to buy a used van for their travels so that they could travel to these different hockey games and stuff. So I want to say that if you want to learn more about the candles and buy candles

because they're a good holiday gift, Christmas gift. And again, what a cause. Again, I should point out, I didn't take a penny from these guys for this. This is not actually a sponsor, but I just love what they're doing so much but electriccitycandles.com to buy the candles and if you want to learn about the hockey team

uh electriccityspecialneedshockey.com and that brings us to the end of our 544th show you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Jeff, you're at Jeff Domet. I am. Jeff dot Domet, I think. I don't think Twitter has dots. I think it does.

Underscores maybe, but not dots. I don't think Twitter has dots. Instagram has dots. I don't think Twitter has dots. I think it's at Jeff Domet, but he's going to check before the end. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Brian Master, send him an email at letsgetyouhome at kw.com. Capadia is at Capadia LLP. Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. And you are at Jeff Domet? At Jeff Domet, yeah. There's no periods.

The Instagram is dot Domet, sorry. I know myself. And Humber College, I'm coming for you. I'm going to teach you about podcasts. Maybe I'll bring Jeff Domet with you, with me. We'll do it together. All right, nice. See you all next week. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today.

And your smile is fine, it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Cause everything is rosy and gray.