Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jim Slotek: Toronto Mike'd #347

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

Mike chats with longtime Toronto Sun entertainment columnist Jim Slotek about working at the paper for over three decades. Jim shares some tremendous stories and updates us on what he's up to now with his latest venture, Original Cin.

Hi, I'm George Bell. You're listening to Toronto Mic. Welcome to episode 347 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know, Jim, that 99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? Either in one form or another, I guess. GLB, brewed for you, Ontario. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. And Paytm, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot.

Download the app today from paytm.ca. And Camp Tournesol, the leading French summer camp provider in Ontario. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me this week is longtime Toronto Sun writer Jim Slotek. Welcome, Jim. Thank you for having me. I think that opening with George Bell would have been better if you just said, if you don't listen to it, you can kiss my purple butt.

I love that quote. I loved that player. Can I tell you, growing up, I was a big Blue Jays fan, massive Blue Jays fan. And my favorite player was George Bell. And for that reason, every time I play any organized sport, I put the number 11 on my back, if I can, for George Bell. I love

that whole outfield. I love George Bell. I especially love the shaker. And Barfield could nail anybody from right field at home plate. It was a great outfield. A cannon for an arm. I have visions of deep in right field, Barfield throwing a strike to Ernie Witt or whatever and gunning the guy down. Amazing. field a cannon for an arm i have visions of like deep and right field bell as a bell barfield throwing a strike to like ernie witt or whatever and gunning the guy down amazing or buck or buck

yeah buck uh i remember buck i just get over that mendoza line i think that's what we hooked for but jim uh you we have a mutual friend we were just chatting about uh because uh mark hebbshire he was at uh rob Robbie Alomar's golf tournament on Friday. So this is what are we recording on? This is Monday. And on Friday, he was at a golf tournament and he was playing golf with that outfield. That very same outfield. Yeah. I mean, Facebook should have a jealous button. And he was, this is the thing. So Hebsey records his podcast, Hebsey on Sports, here. In fact, this afternoon we're recording an episode.

He's going to sit where you're sitting. And he knows about my love of George Bell. So that, off the top, I played what he recorded from George on Friday. So it's like, I can shut this down right now. I got George Bell to say. You can die. I'm done. There you are.

Thanks for coming. It's great to meet you um you know bill brio very much very yeah we go back a very long way and in fact the last couple of years three years three years in a row i think uh we traveled covering the amazing race canada together so we've been in india uh and beijing and vietnam is he really as nice as he seemed to be when I met him? Is that the real Bill Brio? He's really a nice guy? No, he's a horrible person.

He remains one of my best friends. He is a really nice guy. And I rent his cottage, so I can't say anything about it. Oh, whereabouts? It's a place called Oliphant, which is near Sobble Beach. Oh, that sounds nice.

Yeah. Okay, I'll be there. Let me know what week you got it. I'll be there. I mean, you week you got it. I'll be there. Did you, I mean, you did cover, we're going to get to this, but you covered comedy for The Sun. You know, Brio's a former part of a very popular troupe, if you will. Yeah, Bullock and Brio, or Brio and Bullock, depending on, yeah, that was one of the first,

first, I think that might have been when I first met him, was they had a community access Cable 10 show. And it went on from there he covered television as well so obviously our paths crossed a lot over the years and and he worked at the sun for uh for some time yeah you know i've obviously recommended him to the editor at the time and uh he was there for several years so he uh so my ties to bill uh other than reading his work uh is that he plays hockey with my very first best friend. So in junior kindergarten, I met a guy named Joe, and we

became best friends. And it turned, Joe plays hockey with Bill Breo. And Joe, who went to the same high school as me, Michael Power, that's where Bill's a little older than us, so we didn't overlap. But Bill went to the same high school, Michael Power. So there's our... Small world. Yeah.

And tell us how you know Hebsey. You know, I don't think I ever interviewed him during my time as a TV critic. I obviously watched him on Sportsline back then a lot. Yes, guy. There were occasions where entertainment assignments and sports assignments would overlap. And we would run into each other there. He invited me to some of his celebrity golf tournaments and I'm trying to think. I think

I had some occasions to deal with him. For three years, I was a writer on the NHL Awards. So that's my sports connection. And I even got a Gemini nomination for comedy writing for one of them. It was a thin year. Codco won.

Codco always won, right? Yeah, well, yeah. I didn't have to worry about winning or having an acceptance. But it was an honor being nominated. It certainly was. And I told this story a million times, and I'll do it really quickly, is that I have a friend who won a Gemini. He's a cameraman, and his CBC documentary

won, so he got a trophy, one of those... This is the Gemini. It's not whatever it is now. Yeah, it was supposed to be like two faces. It was like an optical illusion trophy. So I took a photo with his trophy, and I said I won a Gemini for best blog. This is back before the podcast when I just had a blog.

Yeah, yeah. And far too many people didn't realize the joke and were sincerely congratulating me on winning a Gemini for best blog. And then I felt really bad. Do they have one yet? They should have. It's too late now.

The Screen Awards need like for your computer screen, like best blog. Anything on a screen. That's right. That's where they can expand. But great to meet you. Bill said great things about you, and I said I got to get Jim in here. Thanks for coming.

Thanks to you. Thanks to him. Now, a couple of current event things, before I update people on some things. I'm finding this Trump versus Trudeau thing kind of fascinating. I don't know if you're on top of this. Oh yeah, of course. I mean, it's unavoidable. If I wanted to not be on top of it,

I would pretty much have to turn off all my devices. Which some people have done, I think. I find it, every once in a while, I was listening to The Current today, for example, and they were talking about it on CBC. And once in a while, you hear an expert mention the facts, and then you realize that Trump took a gig, like a really important gig and shows no like interest or desire in learning about the gig like it seems fascinating

to me like i worked uh and i'll cover this in a minute but i worked a beer garden on saturday and i did like extensive training to get certified so i could legally pour beer in this province and i also uh i took it really seriously like how to pour it with very little head. Yeah, my son has that certificate. Yeah, it's called SmartServe. SmartServe, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I don't feel like,

I don't feel like Trump has taken his job as seriously as I took the beer pouring gig. Clearly, the man watches TV a lot and people even know exactly when he's watching, when he's watching Fox and Friends, when he's watching the MSNBC to get mad or CNN. His day is pretty much transparent. In the middle of the night, he tweets. So I'm not sure when he does any actual presidenting, but it's probably built in there. There's very little contact with the press, from what I understand. His lunch with Mike Pence is planned in advance, and the Big Macs arrive.

Right. Yeah, I think he's done a lot to indicate to people just how maybe unimportant the job of president is, except as a symbol. A figurehead, if you will. Something people can project on. In his case, some of their more ugly feelings. But tariffs are real. You're more than just a mouthpiece when you can...

Actual real tariffs can be implemented. There's a part of me that says, you know when people shut down the government but life goes on? I think that the actual people affected by this will get the wheels moving. I think Congress ultimately will have more power. I think that the actual people affected by this will get the wheels moving. I think Congress ultimately will have more power.

I think so many people are going to be affected on both sides of the border that something that Trump did in a hissy fit will be overturned. I don't think people need to worry about it that much. Kind of like we worked around our mayor for a few years. Toronto kind of figured out a way to work around him. Some things didn't get done. You know, transit kind of was at a standstill in terms of imagining and developing and plotting. Right, but life, more or less, life went on.

I've survived a lot of ends of the world, is what I say at this point in my life. That's right. And then Trump, he left the G6 plus one, as I now call it, but the G7. He left it early. I guess he was upset at the Russia thing because he really wants Russia back in there. And then he leaves early and he goes, of course, to North Korea. And then he's tweeting, I guess, maybe he's tweeting on the plane or something, on Air Force One or something. sure of uh i've been disputed by his own government like apparently he's got it all backwards and uh in north korea i was listening to analysts because he's going to meet tomorrow with kim jong-un and i heard analysts say that this is actually this was end game and goal for kim jong-un was

getting the recognition as he's a nuclear power now he's got a one-on-one meeting with the american president like this was the goal and the dream and it's been already handed to him. So disarming is, the experts say, not going to happen. But Trump has already delivered what he seeked, which was like validation on the world stage. He's a big player. You're saying Trump was outsmarted. Right. You could knock me over with a wrecking ball. Awesome.

Now, Bill Brio, that was a a french name but he didn't have any french but jim slow tech slow tech is not a french name so but do you speak any french uh i i do um enough to get by to ask directions and stuff like that i did take an immersion for a while you know many many decades ago but it really comes down to when you practice and so uh it's been a long time would it come back to you? Like if I immersed you, like, I don't know. I can pretty,

I, I, I'm going to say no. Well, this is a call to all parents and grandparents who have children or grandchildren ages four to 14. It's not too late to register them for French camp this summer. What are we mid-June now?

you gotta do this now though you gotta go to campt.ca this is the largest French camps in the GTA there's tens of thousands of children who attend Camp Tournesol camps and it doesn't matter if your child is francophone in French immersion or has no French experience they have a day camp or overnight experience for them get your child in French camp

and watch your child's French skills bloom over the summer and you'll also get to have a good time. So what you do is campt.ca See what's going on. And when you register your child or grandchild heck, or nephew or niece,

I won't get picky here. Use the promo code Mike and you get $20 off your first order. So you save a bit of money and then it lets Camp Ternussel know that you heard about him by listening to Jim Slotek on Toronto Mic'd. Everybody wins. Jim, you're over 14.

Is that correct? I'm somewhat over 14. We can't get you in one of these Camp Ternussel camps unfortunately. It's too late for you. Do you enjoy, and this is not, you don't have to, I need the honest answer. Do you enjoy a cold beer on a hot day? Absolutely.

Okay, good. Beer and whiskey, man. Wine is my third choice. Wine finishes third. Well, beer I can help you with here. Okay. In front of you, I feel like. I'm not going to have to chug these, am I?

Do you want to? It's kind of early in the morning and I drove here. I'd have to be... I would... Oh, no. Because I'd be responsible for you until you sober up if I get you loaded. That's my responsibility.

That is it. I would make you sleep on the couch for a few hours and then... But it's a handsome looking collection. That is from Great Lakes Brewery. And yeah, that six pack goes home with you today. Enjoy. Well, thank you. And this gives me a chance. So I alluded to this earlier, but I want to update listeners and share this with

you that on Saturday, so two days ago, there was a local grilled cheese challenge. They shut down Lakeshore and they had like, there was on one end, which was the other end, 3rd Street, they had like kids stuff so the kids could play and stuff. And then they had all this food vendors kind of making your way towards seventh. But then at seventh street, which is also Islington,

it changes names at Lakeshore. They had a stage for great music all day. And then the beer tent, which was Great Lakes Breweries beer tent. And I worked the whole day. I worked very hard. And I did cash. I did pouring for a while. I did cash for a while. It was relentless and a whole lot of fun. And I had never done anything like that.

Like I've never ever had a job where I served alcohol. And it was a lot of fun. Oh, really? I did. Tell me what you did. I was a bartender in Thunder Bay at the, I think, now defunct Red Oak Inn. And I was even an underage bartender for a while because I started as a janitor there and my friends were all in the bar.

Somebody arranged to have me transferred. And I was a big kid. Yeah. Nobody thought to look at my job application. So for a while when I was 17 and the drinking age was 18, I was bartending. But you can serve it. Yes, you're right. Drinking age was 18 back then? age was 18, I was bartending. Yes, you're right. Drinking age was 18 back then?

It was 18 back then. Okay, gotcha. Because now you can still serve at 18, but you can't serve someone unless they're 19. Right. That's the current rule. Is that right? Okay. So this is obviously in the days before SmartServe.

It was. And these were the crazy days of the Ontario liquor laws where you basically needed a hazmat certificate because you couldn't take your drink from one table to the next. You had to call a trained professional like me to come and move your drink for you. That was one of the crazy things. So we've actually come a long way

because one of the complaints is there's this gate around the beer garden. There's a gate. You're not allowed to take the beer beyond the gate. That's against the liquor laws or whatever. And, you know, we can't even walk this closed down street. We can't walk over a

beer. And I'm like, Ontario law is like, don't talk to me. Talk to somebody higher on the food chain. Talk to the hand. Right. But it sounds like it was far more stringent if you couldn't take your beer from one table to the next without some kind of... It was insane. I had no idea it was that strict.

You could be at the stand-up bar, but your drink had to stay at the bar. If it was a table, your drink had to stay at the table. If you wanted to move to another table with your friends, you would have to talk to one of the staff. Wow. As I say, a trained hazmat professional like myself. Illegal and underage.

A 17-year-old kid is going to do it because he's a big kid. But it was an interesting place because it started as a band bar, you know, bands from Toronto and it was CanCon era. And then Saturday Night Fever hit and it became a disco and we became miserable.

But part of it was just getting to know all the musicians that came to town. Was there anybody who dropped by? Was it Red Oak Inn? Is that what it was called? The Red Oak Inn, yeah. It was the Dick to know all the musicians that came to town. Was there anybody who dropped by? Was it Red Oak Inn? Is that what it was called? The Red Oak Inn, yeah. It was the Dick Turpin Pub, which I think was also the same name as a pub at the Royal York at the time.

And it became Crazy Dick's Disco. It's like Disco Stew. So before it became Disco, did any bands drop by that ended up being a band that I might have heard on the radio at some point? Where any stillness? Like, oh, a Young Blue Rodeo came by or anything like that?

It was the 70s. It was CanCon. So it was bands like Dublin Corporation and Charity Brown and Patti Dahlquist and Patsy Gallant came through. So no April Wine coming through.

Too big for the Red Oak Inn. Well, they all had one hit. That was the crazy thing about them. Gary and Dave, they had like, might as well rain until September. These are 70s hits. Actual 70s can't go on hits. So once you get that, and that's true for a lot of bands. Once you get the one radio single, then it's like people will kind of, some people will come see you.

And then you'll kind of close with your big hit or whatever. But it's like you get the one radio hit, and then you're a draw. Yeah. I think Wednesday played. They were the ones who did Last Kiss and Teen Angel. They did all these 70s covers of these 50s hits, and then, of course, Pearl Jam did—it was Last Kiss. It was Last Kiss. Believe it or not, because I'm a big Pearl Jam did, it was Last Kiss. It was Last Kiss.

And believe it or not, it's kind of because I'm a big Pearl Jam fan, but believe it or not, that remains their biggest hit of all time is that cover of Last Kiss. That's crazy. And they didn't take any, all the proceeds from that single went to, I can't remember which charity. Like Mad or something? Something important. Yeah, that would make sense, right? But never in the song does it say that drinking was involved but uh some charity received the benefits of last kiss but uh it's their biggest hit and i find that interesting because there's such a such a great band for so

long and their biggest hit is a cover of last kiss they did but it was great because all these bands that were from toronto where i was dying to move to uh were in thunder bay and you know once the bar closed there was nowhere to go in Thunder Bay. So it was always to somebody's house for a house party. And I was still going to school, so that affected my grades. Were you going to school in Thunder Bay? It was during my last year of high school. And I had one year at Lakehead University.

The short version is I reached for the top team, went to the national finals. And one of the prizes was a year's free tuition at Lakehead U. And my joke was that second prize was two years free tuition at Lakehead U. But I used that time to build more money in my bank account.

And also the credits were accepted at Ryerson Journalism School, so I didn't have to take electives. And of course, Reach for the Top, which I remember watching Reach for the Top on television. I don't know when it stopped being on television, but do you remember the host's name? At the time, it was a guy named Bill Guest.

Okay, Bill Guest. It was post-Alex Trebek. Just post-Alex Trebek. Just missed Alex Trebek. The Trebek, that's too bad. But it was a pretty cool thing because, you know, they dragged teams of nerds

from all over the country for the national finals and oh i mean sometimes but like mike stafford uh was on the on the team that won the national finals okay so mike stafford who's been on a couple of times i like mike a lot he's been to jeopardy too so you can you can parlay your reach to reach for the time i'm in a pub trivia league here that our team has uh one of our players won the most money of any Canadian on Jeopardy. Wow.

Yeah, his name's Doug Hickton. Okay, and I was always fascinated with Reach for the Top watching on TV because I was captain of my W5H team

in primary school. Oh, yeah. And so, I mean, at the time, I mean, I'm still like, I don't go to bars

and play trivia or anything like that, so you would destroy me. But I was always good at like, I call them fun facts, but remembering trivia and being interested in trivia. And, you know, like even to this day, I'll be like with my brother, well, my brothers too. I'll be like a first Blue Jay to 100 RBIs, you know,

like in all these things. Well, there was a round last week that even people who were big Blue Jay fans, it was guys who were with the Blue Jays for a cup of coffee, like all-stars. Like Frank Viola. After I heard the answer, I remembered, yeah, he was,

wasn't he? Or Phil Necro. Oh, I remember that. Yeah, it was Omar Vizquel. Right. It's kind of like on the Raptors side, Akeem Olajuwon. Or Alonzo Mourning. Does anyone remember Alonzo Mourning as a Raptor? I don't think he suited up. I don't think Zoe even came to, like, got on a plane to Toronto.

He was like a Raptor in name only. I don't think he played, actually. But Akeem played, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just was injured and passed it. And that was it, really. But I remember the Phil Negro. I remember because those years, I mean, we listened to George Bell's clip.

But my heyday for Blue Jaysays where i listened to or watched every game and uh was like i would say 83 to 93 through 93 like that decade was my uh from from 84 to to 95 i was in two groups of uh of people who had consortiums of season tickets. So I actually had, I would go to about 20 games for a lot of that time. And it was because, you know, field level seats when we started were seven bucks a piece. But one of them, Ted Wallachian started the consortium. I was in that one.

And that was the field level one. And the other was row one of the first deck on the third baseline. And that's where I was sitting when Carter hit that home run down the third baseline. It was one of the first deck on the third baseline and that's where i was sitting when carter hit that home run down the third baseline it was one of those movies one of those things like a movie where time stands still and the ball is so close to me i feel like i can reach out and grab it which would have been a bad thing i that's the moment and uh the bart man of yeah that's right that's right oh yeah could you imagine? You need really long arms.

But Dan Schulman was just over here and he was stuck in an elevator in the dome when that ball leaves the park. So he's in the dome but he's stuck in an elevator. But he heard all the noise. Yeah, he knew something was going on and then he found out very quickly when he got out of there. Well, I was in the Suffering Fans Club for so long that I remember distinctly when Carter was up to bat. He'd struck out

twice already and I was already thinking ahead to, well, there's always game seven tomorrow. Right. And then that happened. It was like the exact opposite of what I thought was going to happen. What a moment, eh? Like, what a moment. And that call, and in fact, well, speaking of showman, he named his new, he's got a podcast now of Rogers and he calls it Swingin' a Belt. And that's a Tom Cheek call. But I think in the call, and I mean, I watched it on TV,

so I didn't hear the call live. But the call is Swingin' a Drive, deep left field. And then it's that touch them all, Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life. But when you hear that, it's goosebumps, man. Goosebumps.

Well, yeah, I was there. It was crazy. And it was the second year in a row. I'm jealous, yeah. Yeah, we had to win in Atlanta the was crazy. And it was the second year in a row. I'm jealous, yeah. Yeah, we had to win in Atlanta the first time. But I'm very jealous that you were there. That would have been amazing. But yeah, obviously all those years I was keeping score.

I'd learned to score a game, which I did in L.A. I was actually at the game where Kirk Gibson hit that home run. Wow. And a guy from the Wall Street Journal in me, like in the press box, taught me how to score. My job, I'd been sent there to get celebrity quotes at the ballgame. And I can say this now because he wasn't supposed to do it, but Howie Starkman, who used to be the publicity guy for the Jays, got me a literal map to the stars, like where their boxes were. And my number one thing was to try and get into Frank Sinatra's box. And I got in fairly easily because Frank Sinatra wasn't there.

But Don Rickles was and his whole family. So when people forget that Jose Canseco also hit a grand slam in that game. And I was sitting next to Don Rickles when that happened, and he said, oh, look at him. He's doing the rumba all the way around, doing a marimba. You know, he did a bunch of Latino. Right. But so you've been at two.

I mean, if you do a list right now, if I said right now, let's do a list of the 10 biggest home runs in World Series history, you've been at two of them. Yeah. I wasn't there for Mazeroski's. I was at two. Is that the shot heard around the world? Is that what you mean?

Yeah. I think that's what they call it. Yeah. It was the first walk-off home run, World Series winning home runs. Yeah. There's only been two, right? There's only been two. Yeah.

Carter's was the second. And we didn't call them walk-offs back then. I distinctly remember retroactively calling it a walk-off, but at the time, nobody called that a walk-off. I have no memory of it being called a walk-off, but at the time, nobody called that a walk-off. I have no memory of it being called a walk-off. Well, when Tim Lin fielded that grounder in Atlanta... The oldest Nixon bunt. Yeah, yeah.

I was in the bar, the Copa, in the booth with Steve Anthony, because I was at this thing, and he saw me and invited me in, so there I was at the end of it, and immediately, as I said, Jays won the World Series. Somebody smashed the booth. So the place erupted into celebration and violence at the same time.

Yeah, yeah. And Steve remembers that well. Oh, wow. Because it came up recently. By the way, you touched on Stafford. Now another two-timer here, Steve Anthony, who's a fantastic guest because he's got great stories. And it's amazing. So he wasn't, I'm trying to think of what era that was, 92. So I'm trying to think, is that coked up Steve Anthony? I'm trying to do the math in my head.

Those were different times. Yeah. The 80s were more prime time. I think by the 90s, it wasn't as prevalent in the industry, but certainly, but the broadcast industry was heavy and music industry, obviously. Well, how often did you walk into a room and see a pie, a big white pie, picture a mound like in Scarface or something? A certain suite at the Broadcast Executive Society Christmas party every year.

There'd be one. I can say that. Somebody was, please, Mike, remember who this was, but somebody was at the opening of the City TV

when it went to Vancouver. Oh, Dan O'Toole. So from Jay and Dan on TSN. Okay. Dan O'Toole was in Vancouver for the opening

of Moses opened City TV in Vancouver. Right. And he was at the launch party. And he says attractive women would have platters, but they would have,

it would be joints. He didn't say there was mountains of coke. But he said that they would pass out joints. Like he said, it was the most over the top. I was at a Tommy Chong party

like that at the Toronto International Film Festival. Just after, it was a documentary about his time he spent in jail for drug paraphernalia. And the young women would offer you brownies at the door. And all they would say was,

you're welcome to have some, more than three, and you're on your own. And Tommy was in a VIP area with a giant butt in the middle of the table that was the size of a palm frond. A fatty, we call that. Oddly, my wife was catering that night, like cheeses and stuff like that. And our dog got skunked and she got skunked

putting him in the house. But she was luckily working the only party in the city where you could be skunked and not be noticeable. That is fantastic. Man, did you ever partake or no? You just observed? I'm going to, no, okay.

You know, I was in my 20s at the time. So yeah, I partook. But not with the white stuff or just the green stuff? A little of both, it's okay. We don't judge here. Those were the times. And it wasn't, I didn't have a problem. It was especially, you know, it was cost prohibitive to have a problem in my case.

That's right. So it was usually people who could afford it that had problems is what I'm going to say. All right. I'm going to give you another gift here. These stories, I could do... You got six hours for me, right? We could just talk about these old stories for six hours. We'll run out of hard drive space, maybe.

Okay, there's a pint glass. So beside the Great Lakes beer that you're taking home with you, there's a pint glass. That is also yours. Not a real estate, done right. That is, yes, propertyinthesix.com. So if anybody wants to contact Brian Gerstein... I have a house.

Well, he'll talk to anyone looking to buy and or sell in the next six months. Just have a coffee with Brian. That's one reason I took my buyout was because I have a paid-up house in Toronto. Yeah, we're going to get to the buyout because you wrote one of the, I would say one of the greatest exit columns.

Is that what you call it? I guess that's what you call it. I'm calling it an exit column. I'm coining that phrase. There's been a lot in the last few years. you call it. I'm calling it an exit column, coining that phrase. There's been a lot in the sun the last few years. Screw you guys, I'm out of here. Yeah, that's the alternative. But we'll definitely get to that.

So you need the pint glass to pour the beer into. So now you're all set. You can get hammered tonight. I am. See, if I were gainfully employed at an ethical newspaper, they would say I can't take freebies. They all do, though. I've had, I don't know,

are there any ethical newspapers left? Because I have employed people from the big publications and they all take it. Soon enough, you can probably remove the word ethical from that sentence. I don't think, maybe, maybe,

I'm trying to think, I won't name names, obviously, but there might have been a CBC person who said they couldn't accept it, possibly. But there's never been a newspaper person on the show who said i cannot accept this gift for appearing on the joke the joke we had uh when i when i first started the sun was it was that the policy was if it's too heavy to carry you can't you can't accept it that's good that works that works now brian great guy honest guy if you're looking to buy and or sell in the next six months,

have a coffee with Brian Gerstein at propertyinthesix.com. Brian has a question for you, Jim, and I want you to listen to it because I want to hear your response to this one. It's a good one. Okay. Propertyinthesix.com Hi, Jim.

Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. 416-873-0292 is the number to call or text me for any real estate needs you have. There are bargains galore out there on the buying side during the summer period and it is a fantastic time to move up. Jim, I read a real touching story by you on Otis, your 15-year-old Wheaton Terrier who recently passed. I am sorry for your loss. Before Otis, you had a cat.

What if any pet is next on the horizon, or is it too soon to even reflect on that, as everybody's morning is different? Well, that's a good question. And he read it in Zoomer magazine, which is where I do a lot of my writing now. And that's Moses. We just talked about Moses, right? Yeah, and I'm crossing my fingers that he doesn't notice that I'm writing for him

because sometimes I would be cheeky about him back in the day. But everybody was. But yeah, Otis lived to be 15, and it's only been about three weeks since he passed, so it's still a little raw. But yeah, we had a cat before, and that was actually one of the reasons why we ended up with the dog was because the next time we got a cat, my three and a half or four year old son turned out to be allergic to cats all of a sudden.

He wasn't when he was like an infant. And so we went looking for, and Bill Brio took our cat. All things circle back to Brio. As they should. And the cat is still alive, the dog. Okay. But so we went looking for hypoallergenic breeds. So we went looking for hypoallergenic breeds.

And your choices are some kind of doodle Portuguese water dog like Obama had and some weird little foo-foo dogs like Bisson Frise. Or a Wheaton Terrier, which is 40 pounds of fun. And that's how we ended up with him. We got him as a puppy. Both my sons, my oldest son is 28, and the majority of his life was spent with this dog. 15 years, you said? Yeah, he just made it to 15. So looking forward, we'll probably get another dog

because we're dog people. And we were involved in the startup of Wolfstock, which was started by a woman named Marlene Cook. But my memory is that I came up with the name. Great name. And we're still involved in it. There are new owners now, but I was a celebrity judge, and my wife wrangles celebrities for the event.

And she has a dog blog. She's still in the blog era. Well, she could win a Gemini if she keeps that up. It's called canineculture.ca. And so we're still dog people. So it won't be an iguana or something like that. Chub chub or something. Chub chub.

Chub chub, that's right. And so at some point it will be. For a time, we'll probably take a few trips not worrying about the dog or having to take a dog with us somewhere. I don't know if you've ever traveled with a dog in a car. I remember us stopping on the way to her parents' place in Durham, North Carolina. We stopped in Beckley, West Virginia and went to like eight hotels before we found one that would take a dog.

It's really hard to travel with a dog. No, I've never had to do it. But again, I will repeat what Brian said. I'm sorry that you lost your beloved dog. That is a good run, 15 years, but it's never... And he got to skunk Tommy Chong in his life, you know, and fight

like four raccoons, a couple of pit bulls, and you name it. Dave's not here, man. A surge of squirrels everywhere. Oh, man. Otis did well. Did well. Now, so you said you were in Thunder Bay because you got the free year from Reach for the Top,

which is, that's amazing. I'm impressed. If you want to, throughout the episode, if you want to throw trivia questions at me, let's see how awful I am. But how do you end up, because you end up in the big smoke, so how do you end up in Toronto?

Well, there were no journalism schools, obviously, in Thunder Bay. I did manage to get a byline at 17 in the Chronicle Journal, the comical urinal we used to call it. But my eye was on journalism school, and there were really only three

significant ones university-wise, and that was Western, Ryerson. Ryerson wasn't even a university then it was a polytechnical institute uh and carlton and i went i went to carlton uh for for an interview and i saw that it was way outside of what even passed for a fun downtown in ottawa so it was like in the middle of what i felt was nowhere and then i went to to be interviewed at ryerson and it was, damn, it's right behind Sam the Record Man. That really was what swung me because whatever I did when I came to Toronto, I always made sure I spent a couple hundred bucks

on records at Sam's. For sure. And so what little money I had, Sam took a lot of it at that point. But just everything about being right in downtown Toronto and living in a roach-infested apartment that I loved being in. And, you know, it was just the best experience. And you had three daily papers at that time that I managed to do something,

whether it was election night volunteer work or stuff like that. My second year, I interned at the Star for the summer. And my third year, I starteded at the Star for the summer. And my third year, I started as a proofreader for The Sun before I went to the Ottawa Citizen for three years. Now, okay, yes, yes. So you go to The Citizen, but how do you end up full-time at The Sun? Is this... Okay, well... Actually, can I ask you about something I read?

I mentioned you had this great exit column. That's what I'm calling it, right? Sure. And you allude to the night John Lennon was killed. Where were you and what do you remember from that night? That's when I was in Ryerson but working after school as a proofreader. This was offset lithography days, so there was cutting and pasting and all that stuff that went on in the back

and we were just about ready to put it to bed and let the presses roll when the word came and it was on the TV news and Walter Cronkite and all that stuff and we're scrapping this

we're scrapping the first six pages or eight pages or whatever it was. They would get people who were going to be going to New York as soon as bloody possible on side. And then the rest of us, it was grab every story that there was, all the information. And I was there basically reading it and making sure that there were no typos

as this whole new version of that day's paper went to bed, like probably an hour and a half later. It was slapped together that fast. Well, in addition to the fact you're a university student and you're doing the proofreading, but you're also a music fan. And I was editor of the Daily Paper at the time, so my day was long. And you were a music fan, right? So you were probably, you tell me, I'm long. And you were a music fan, right?

So you were probably, you tell me, I'm going to guess you were a big Beatles guy, a big John Lennon fan. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. My friends and I had about three straight days of drinking as sort of a wake for Lennon. It was hard to accept at the time. And it was a great time musically to be in Toronto because Ryerson was right across the street from this bar called The Edge where the police played among others

and all kinds of B-52s and every punk band, everybody that played CBGBs played The Edge, it seemed like. Cool. So not only are you kind of getting the news, Lennon's been killed outside the Dakota in New York City, but then you're so you have not only are you kind of getting the news you know lennon's been been killed outside the dakota in new york city but then you're tearing up you have this edition ready to go i guess ready to roll and uh stop the presses who got to say stop the presses yeah it wasn't me but i've seen i i saw the presses many times uh but yeah it was just it was just one of those things you did there was a a real vitality in newspapers because it wasn't like you just called up the webpage

and just changed the information. Right. I mean, there was 30,000 square feet of presses that had to be stopped and start roaring again, full of new information. My memory is that they scrapped the whole edition and just made a new one because what they had were

editions through the night where they could change things, but this was such a big story that they kind of created an instant special section. And like you said, it's all coming over the wire, I guess, so you just cobble together every wire story and then your proofreading and that's a...

I can't remember who, it might have been Mark Bonacoski or somebody like that writing the, and certainly the entertainment people would have been writing instant, you know, reminiscences and thoughts on, I don't know if people thought guns were a problem at that point, you know, but it's, yeah, it was quite a night and it was my first sort of total adrenaline experience in newspapers. You know, I can imagine you'd be riding adrenaline in a state like that,

just a friend. That was me on Saturday when there was a mad rush for beer at the beer tent. You know, I just had to ride the adrenaline so I can relate to that. I had been at the Star during, like, murders, and, you know, there was a murder not far from here, actually, at the Boulevard Tavern, or the home of the guy who owned the Boulevard Tavern. I know this story very well.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And I was actually the first person there. They sent the intern, when it came over the radio, just get there as fast as possible and tell us what's happening. And I actually got there like a minute or two before the cops. So there wasn't even any yellow tape yet. two before the cops. So there wasn't even any yellow tape yet. And I looked inside the window and

sort of saw like a fuzzy version of what had happened and then was like yanked back and had to show the cops. Not too long ago, I went back into the archives to read the articles of the day about this murder. My name, there's about 12

people on the Toronto Star's byline that day and I'm one of them. Christy Blatchford had the lead on it. She edited everybody's copy into hers. So that inn that you allude to, that became a swingers club called JJ's. And it actually, only in the last year was it sold, and they've painted over the JJ's sign, and it's now for lease. So that inn that... Yeah. So that was an adrenaline experience as well,

but not in any kind of a nostalgic way for me. I think that was the day I decided that this is not the part of journalism I want to be in. Gotcha, gotcha. So you end up at the Ottawa Citizen, and how do you make your way from Ottawa Citizen to Toronto to work for The Sun? Well, I was an entertainment writer there.

So, okay, a lot of my work brought me to either Toronto or Montreal. I covered the TIFF back when it was the Festival of Festivals in 82 as an Ottawa Citizen correspondent. And I had a girlfriend who was working at The Sun. We had actually broken up quite recently at that point, but she phoned me and said, I don't know if you want to hear from me or not, but there's a posting for a TV critic.

And I know you had Stephen Brunt on recently, right? He was on Thursday, I want to say, so four days ago. So I went in there and I said, thanks for the info. I went in there and pitched myself to George Anthony, who was the editor at the time, and Kathy Brooks, who was the co-editor. And I impressed them. And apparently, I supplanted Mr. Brunt as the top candidate. His wife was, I think, assistant city editor or something. So there was an in there for him. But had I not taken that job at The Sun, his life and mine

might have been quite a bit different. Very interesting. I love how those stories, that's crazy. Now, what role, though, does Gary Dunford play in all this? Yeah, I didn't know him, but he did live and still does live up in the Ottawa Valley, these days near Barry's Bay. And he would read my stuff in The Citizen. And at that point where the editors were talking around, we got this new guy from The Ottawa Citizen who has also thrown his hat in. And apparently he said, I read him all the time. He's so funny, I don't know what he's doing

at The Ottawa Citizen. That's a compliment. Yeah, it was. And we got to be great pals later, Dunford and I. He's a big personality, like Gary Dunford on page six. Yeah, yeah. He really owned that. That was his real estate for a very long time.

That was a very different son back then from what it is today. Well, on that note, though, let me play an old clip. Now, what year did you join the sun full-time 1983 okay then you were at the sun when this aired let me play this clip hey down here i've been making tonado famous in the toronto sun for years now and what thanks do i get zip so i'm walking now here's the thing see i'm gonna hide out somewhere in the sun every day so don't tell them where i am sure they'll entice you with daily cash prizes. They'll seduce you with a chance at a 1986 Pontiac Sunbird

with sunroof and other neat stuff. They'll probably even offer trips for two. But be a pal. Don't turn me in. You're history, Donato. Don't do it. Don't do it. Find Donato's bird.

I remember that promotion very well, yeah. I think maybe 85, I want to say, promotion very well. Yeah. I think maybe, uh, 85, I want to say around that time. that's probably about right. Yeah. I started in November of 83.

Um, and it was, yeah, it's, it's easy to remember because it was, it was November 4th and my wedding anniversary is November 5th. So the, the two jive very,

very nicely. Uh, can we reminisce a bit about the Toronto, cause you know, we'll talk a bit about what the Toronto Sun seems to represent today, but at this period, there were so many big personalities.

It was a different paper you alluded to. Can you share a little, maybe memories of some of the big personalities at the Sun during this period? Oh, it was, some of the personalities were gonzo. I mean, Mackenzie Porter, who wrote a whole column about how Indian soldiers have better hygiene because they would never poo in a public toilet.

They bring their own little, I don't know. He'd just go off on these weird things. Barbara Meehl was writing there. She was actually the first female editor at a newspaper in Canada. I mean, that's the odd thing about The Sun is that it was conservative and it embraced some pretty harsh positions,

but if you worked there, they treated you great. I mean, they had the first same-sex benefits, like marriage or relationship benefits. I didn or relationship benefits. Even as they're ranting against it in print. Yeah, they had

the first woman editor. They had all of this stuff. Their benefits package was great. They had profit sharing. They had Christmas bonus. They had a sabbatical program, which I made use of. All of these things.

It was Doug Creighton who, the 20th anniversary party of the sun was at the Sky Dome. Like he booked the whole Sky Dome and threw a monstrous party. So it was basically as much money as was coming into the sun, and it was a lot, because at one point the circulation hit 300,000 a day. lot because at one point the circulation hit 300 000 a day um it was it was freely spent by by a guy who that's what he did you know and um it i you're talking you're talking to a guy who helped

start a union at that place in 2003 and that was because the time came when we had to realize no this isn't this isn't doug's paper but, it changed. Yeah. People said, no, this is just business. So, okay, well, we'll deal with it like business. But back then, it really was, you know, there'd be a conference in Vegas they'd send you to, or there'd be a contest where they'd send you with readers on a ship, on a cruise ship. The promotions department was huge.

And the characters, well, it's interesting that they had a lot of left-leaning columnists at the time. The paper obviously had its side, but they loved to see columnists go at it. They had Eric Margolis, who was pro-Arab in most things Middle East and had a lot of insight into stuff like that. They even had Sheila Copps was a columnist.

Rachel Giese, the LGBT activist, started out as a Sun columnist. They loved the give and take because they felt it sold papers. And now you've got to be on message on things like that. But our entertainment department had Wilder Penfield, who only worked at night. Like, he'd be there at 3 in the morning. You hardly ever saw him. But, you know, he would hit whatever clubs and whatever. George Anthony, who went on

to be a CBC exec, but he had his own private booth at Spago's. He was totally Mr. Hollywood. And The Sun was one of the only supporters in the media for TIFF when it started, that first year as the Festival of Festivals. you name a department, George Gross was the, uh, was the sports editor. Um, and, and he was a colorful guy. Uh, it's, it just, um, it just everywhere, everywhere you looked were people who really enjoyed what they were doing and that was infectious. That was, that was contagious. So whatever anybody thought about, about their actual editorial position of the day, A, you were allowed your own opinions in print, and I gave mine freely.

You were allowed to counter their opinions. And yeah, just basically working there did not reflect how the paper sounded a lot of the time. I'm going to play one more ad, one more ad for The Sun, and then one more ad for Toronto Mic'd here. But let's listen to one more ad from back in the day this one's a little later i don't know late 80s i think let's listen

the way i see it it's okay for the editor to pack some extra fat but a newspaper shouldn't That's a late 80s... John Downing. How could I forget him? That's a late 80s soundtrack there. Yeah, yeah. And John was a voluminous guy, both in voice and size. And that's what he meant,

packing a little extra fat. Right. You had to see the visual for that one. That was not a radio ad. That was definitely a television ad. I want to speak to you, Jim, about PayTM Canada. This is an app that you can manage all of your, but you manage all your bills in this app. I've been using it for a long time now. And every bill I pay, whether it be my credit card or my property taxes, my natural gas, my hydro, every bill natural gas, my hydro.

Every bill I pay, I pay through this app. It costs me nothing to use the app. There's no surcharges, but it makes it super easy. And what I like, there's a couple of things I like the most about this app in addition to the convenience. I like that I can pay all my bills on my credit card. The only bill I pay from my bank account is the credit card bill

because you can't pay your credit card bill with another credit card. That's not allowed. But every other bill goes on my credit card. The only bill I pay from my bank account is the credit card bill because you can't pay your credit card bill with another credit card. That's not allowed. But every other bill goes on my MasterCard so I can earn the President's Choice points

I get with my MasterCard. Get free groceries. See how clever I am, Jim? I get the Aeroplan. There you go. But there's some bills where you can't pay with your credit card.

You can do it in PayTM and that's super convenient. And also you earn points that you can redeem within the app too. So it's like the gamified bill payments. You can earn points for paying the bills you have to pay anyways. They make it super easy and convenient. And you can use your credit card for every bill except your credit card bills. So go to paytm.ca. And if you want 10 bucks just for trying it, here's the secret. You download the app for free.

you want 10 bucks just for trying it here's the secret you download the app for free when you make your first bill payment use the promo code toronto mike all one word they'll give you ten dollars in cash that you can use towards another bill so it i did this it's free money just lie in there pick it up enjoy you'd be a fool not to jim don't do it now we're still talking i know you want to get paid tm going i'm no fool. I'm no fool. $10, Jim's going to pick it up. That's what I say. All right. Now I have a question here from one of your many fans out there.

So Andrew Ward, he writes, we're in a golden age of excellent writing for anything on television, but nothing comes close to the, and he's using a word. I'm going to read it to you, and you tell me if this is a German, I'm guessing it's a German word. Gesamtkontenzwerk? Gesamtkontenzwerk? I can't say this word.

It sounds like Ojibwe, possibly. Is it Ojibwe? No, the way you read it. Oh, yeah. It sounds like, yeah, it's probably a German word. It's a German word. That was Dallas.

From the music to the sets, from the dialogue to the chemistry of the cast this is a long one what was it like watching that show as a critic and what was it like to meet the greatest hero and villain larry hagman who struggled for years as an actor after i dream of genie at his house in malibu so So you met Larry Hagman in Malibu. Please tell this story. Okay. Yeah, he would have these parties at his house for Dallas.

And his house was on the beach in Malibu in between Linda Ronstad's house and Burgess Meredith's house. In fact, one year, I think his septic tank broke and people had to use the one in Burgess Meredith's guest house. Oh, great. But so there was a whole crew of television critics that were bussed into this really great party full of stars from the show. And at one point, a couple of us, some of the younger critics just decided to get away

from the crowd and go wandering around. And we found his video room. And bearing in mind, this was like 85. So he had a satellite dish and back then they were like the ones in erosiba looking looking for extraterrestrial life that's how big the thing was but you know we're trying to figure out how to work and he came to get away from the crowd for a minute and found us in there and he says uh well maybe you guys would like to see a movie by a real director. So he put on a VHS of Beware the Blob, which was directed by Larry Hagman.

Oh. And it opens with a kitten in a field and it just goes on for too long. And at one point he says, well, it's kind of boring right now, but don't worry, that little effort gets it in about five minutes. And then I got up and started to look around

at the art on his walls, and he got up with me and started to explain that it was made out of cremated human remains. Wow, that's grotesque. I don't know, is that something? It was a work of, and it's a name I will never forget, Barton Ledice Benesh, an expatriate Czech artist who himself died just a couple of years ago.

The New York Times had an obituary for him. And apparently what happened, he called that house the house that Genie built because he used the money from I Dream of Genie to buy this place. And everything had been cleared out except an urn of this guy's ashes, a guy named Hans Schneider. He called the art installation The Remains of Hans Schneider because he apparently could never find Hans Schneider or his family, so he hired this artist to do stuff.

And you were talking about cocaine earlier. One of the things in Plexiglas was the guy's ashes laid out like lines of coke with a rolled-up $10 bill with Larry Hagman's face on it. And it said, The Three Lines of Larry Hagman. It was an ornate presentation. And years later, he got a liver transplant after his alcoholism and all the rest of it. And I remember reading the Wire story and it said his liver and spleen were donated to a conceptual artist.

And that's all it said. And I didn't even have to ask. It's not like there's a lot of artists who deal in human remains. conceptual artist. And that's all it said. And I didn't even have to ask, you know, it was, it's, it's not like there's a lot of artists who, who deal in human remains, you know, whose, whose medium is human remains. So, um, yeah, that was pretty weird. It was a, it was a weird night, I have to say. Um, but the, the guy was engaging. He was, he was a, he was a really nice guy. Everybody I dealt with on that show. And I met Howard Keel, the old actor was there, and we talked about his movies he did with Esther Williams and stuff like that.

It's kind of cool to have that trivia there when you're talking to somebody who goes back to the golden age of movies who's on this show. There were a lot of old, famous actors on that show. And I mean, I was too young for Who Shot J.R. I kind of remember it around me, but I was too young to actually know what that really was.

But I will say it inspired a wonderful two-part Simpson cliffhanger, Who Shot Mr. Burns, which was great. And it was followed shortly thereafter by the final episode or season finale of Dynasty where they machine gunned the entire cast at a wedding in Moldavia, the fictional country of Moldavia, not to be confused with Moldova. Right, right.

And I actually had a t-shirt full of bullet holes with red on it that said, I survived Moldavia. And it was a ploy to renegotiate everybody's contracts. Oh, yes. Do you live or do you die? But everybody waited for that next year of Dynasty to see who survived the shooting. And most of them did.

I guess they all took a cut in pay. They all took a cut in pay. Oh, man. That was an interesting time when you had your Dynasties, your Dallases, your Falcon Crests. These primetime soaps or whatever were a really big deal in the 80s. Yeah, yeah. These were massive. massive it was and miniseries miniseries were huge uh back then um i i read an article recently in vanity fair about tv critics now a lot of them are like hanging it up because there's just so much

it's an impossible job there are so many good shows and to really cover them properly you have to watch it all well i talked to Bill Brio about this. I suffer personally. I suffer from paradox of choice. There's too many ways to watch too much great television that I don't know what to watch. I end up watching junk on television. Every series is the greatest series since The Wire, and I just can't focus on one. There's too much.

The way we used to do it, and there'd be 25 new shows that they'd show you, is you watch the first episode and write about it and then forget about it. But now all these shows demand your attention because you want the arc and all the rest of it. And Bill and I, a couple of years ago, went to New York together to be on the set of Gotham.

And it happened that it was at the time one of my wife's favorite shows, and I was watching it with her, so I knew everything was going on. Bill had done the old school things, seen the first episode, maybe two episodes, but he was coming to me for updates on, what is she talking about? What's going on here? Right, right. You were desperate, yeah? Yeah.

There's a lot going on. That's still on, but I stopped watching it after about season three. Okay. Well, that's happened to me too. A lot of shows are great and I just ended up bailing.

Actually, yes, this is just real quick aside before the internet era. So I loved ER. Yeah. And I watched ER appointment viewing. It was a Thursday night or whatever.

I watched it. I loved it. Must see TV. Yes, exactly. Yes. It was a big deal to me and I thought it was really great. night so whatever i watched it i loved it must see tv yes exactly yes it was a big deal to me and i thought it was really great and my yesterday we were watching my wife was watching 13 reasons why on netflix and there was a character and she said she said i recognize that girl and i said oh i don't i don't know her and she goes to imdb and says oh she was on er for like i don't know eight years like starting in 2004 or something like that

and by which time you'd stopped watching. Right, right. And I said, because apparently ER went a long time, but I told her, I said, oh, I stopped watching ER when Green died, Dr. Mark. Yeah, yeah.

So he died. It was a wonderful episode. And I decided at the time, I'm done. That was like nine years or something. I don't know. I stopped reading comic books

when the X-Men still had no Wolverine. Right. You know, things happen. Right. But she was like, you, so I always talk to her, you know, I loved ER or whatever. I feel like I watched ER,

but it turns out I watched half of ER. Like, ER went like... The good half. I watched the first half, yeah. And she's like, oh, you just left because the character died? And I'm like, yeah,

I really liked Mark Green and they killed him off and I was done with the show. It's hard to say why it happens, you know, but it's fatigue. Right. And they start to repeat themselves too. Right, right, right. And we already had,

George Clooney was already going on to be a movie star. And Julianna Margulies. Right, right. Those are the good old days, as I say. But I digress. So you joined The Sun to cover television. Right, which I did for five years. And then finally I'd

had enough. And you had enough and then how did you kind of morph your TV thing into the comedy beat? How did you pull off that? It was sort of independent of that. At the beginning Just for Laughs in 85 offered a junket. And The Sun

as John Downing implied, was quite lean and was willing to accept junkets because they'd rather not pay to send you places. And so I was at one of the first, it might have been the second Just for Laughs. And Norm MacDonald, who I knew in Ottawa, he was a friend in Ottawa who had yet to do even an open mic.

Wow. And a year later, a little over a year after I'd left Ottawa, he was on the gala. Like, I saw him do his open mic, and there he was on the gala. They say you need 10 years before you do that kind of stuff. But he was, like, at that level already. He was that good. Yeah. And Mike MacDonald, you know, who was amazing.

Right. It was, and, and at that year, I ended up going 20 straight years to Just for Laughs and became very close with a lot of the organizers

and all the rest of it. And, yeah, and there were hellish parties in the 80s, of course, going back to what we were talking about earlier. So,

and then locally, you know, one thing led to another, and I just was a fan of comedy, and especially comedy that took place in clubs. And so I got to know a lot of the people from that time. And some of them, like Russell Peters, I was the first person to ever write anything about him in 1992. It was just a blurb, really. But I called him Indo-Canadian homeboy,

and he loved it. To the extent that when he got to be huge and on the Forbes list, my editor said, do you think you go back with Russell, right? And I said, yeah. And he said, do you think he would let you go on, join his tour? And I said, I don't know, I'll call him.

And he was like, yeah, we're hitting DC tomorrow. Why don't you just head out? Awesome. So it's, and it was like yeah we're hitting dc tomorrow and should just uh head out awesome so it's and it was only because uh i had supported him way back when and that's that means a lot to to most of these guys that hit it because you know without the early push they wouldn't be there i can imagine uh okay a lot to unpack here uh so the so at the time this is when uh yuck yucks had a monopoly of sorts, right? Yeah, there were a lot of tries. And now they finally seem to be alternatives.

And it really started with open mics. And there are like cannabis comedy clubs now and all that stuff. But back then, it seemed like one failed endeavor after another to battle. And there was tough business practices involved that at one point brought to the attention of the Competition Bureau, but that never stuck. But basically, it was the case of Mark Breslin, the owner, saying you can't serve two masters, I guess, as it were.

You want to work our club, and then you want to work the competition. You've got to choose one. And the competition wasn't going to offer them a national tour, which at one point in the 80s was good for like $1,000 a week if you just hit yuck-yucks after yuck-yucks. And you're, you know, you're what, 25 years old. Yeah, what are you going to do?

Right, right, right. Now, you mentioned Norm. Now, I've got to say, if you tell me now to come up with a list, the people who I find the funniest, Norm MacDonald is very high on this list. I find him hilarious. He was hilarious then. He has failings as a person that you can entirely gloss over because he's so entertaining. One of those failings at the time was that he never had any money and you had to buy him beer. Is this because he enjoys gambling, right? That's a norm thing? He likes gambling. And I think the gambling, he's such a good gambler

because he's such a good liar. And my favorite lie that he pulled with a totally straight face was when he had that sitcom. Yeah, with Artie Lang. Yeah, where he played an ex-hockey player who was kicked out for gambling. And so he told the Television Critics Association, we're talking like about 120 guys from different newspapers, including the Globe and Mail, that he played junior hockey for the Ottawa 67s against Wayne Gretzky. You didn't have to know hockey very well to know that this was impossible for several reasons. One, the timing was all wrong. Gretzky

got into the NHL like at 18 and he was playing in the WHA at 17. Yes, he was. But other people didn't have the advantage of knowing Norm back then. And I ended up writing a column saying, look, all the times we were drinking in the Hogs End pub at the Nepean

Sportsplex, he never once said, no more for me. I've got a game against Cornwall in an hour. That's right. But it got printed everywhere, including the Globe and Mail, that he played junior hockey for the 67s. I even phoned the 67s just to confirm that maybe he didn't have this secret life.

No, he never did that. But it got printed, and that's how journalism worked and probably still works today. I remember that Norm show because it had Aunt Jackie. What's a great... Who's the actress

who plays Aunt Jackie on Roseanne? Laurie Metcalf was in that show too. And that was... I like the show because it had a theme song that was by Doug and the Slugs, which I remember... Yeah, that was very cool.

I used to hear them all the time on CFTR. Norm, here's a bit of trivia for you. Yeah, please. As far as I know, Norm is still the last Canadian on the cast

of Saturday Night Live. Really? Yeah. I would never have guessed that. Everybody was, you know, because of Lorne Michaels, they always think of it

as this place where Canadians go, but it's been a long time since there was a Canadian regular cast member. Right, right. Oh, man. You got me now.

We did a couple of Simpsons references already, but the greatest Simpson guest star of all time will always be Phil Hartman, who is a Canadian who was on Saturday Night Live. He was a regular. He was the glue. He was a whole bunch of characters that kind of disappeared after.

They called him the glue. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But one more Norm thing I was going to say is that I used to watch, in the early days, I watched a lot of Conan O'Brien's show, and I thought it was hilarious, and I would stay up to watch Conan. And I liked primarily because he wrote for The Simpsons in the glory days,

and I loved his humor in the year 2000 and all that stuff. But he had Norm MacDonald on once, and Courtney Thorne-Smith was the guest, and she was talking about doing a movie with who's the guy with the big red hair the prop comic Carrot Top. Carrot Top yeah it was called Chairman

of the Board and there's a back and forth there's a back and forth between Conan and Norm where Norm was I've never laughed so hard at anything my own life

I'm just I got to pull this clip. He was so sharp and it was all like improv off the top but he was so bang on and it was it remains improv off the top but he was so bang on and it was it remains maybe the funniest piece of live television i've ever witnessed i gotta dig that up on youtube but i digress here so who are the biggest uh i mean i guess uh sam kinnison and robin williams

you wrote about on uh yeah and uh if we're just talking dead guys, I mean, I knew Mitch Hedberg, and he was a very funny, very different guy. Yeah, you list those guys. I mean, Dennis Wolfberg and, gosh, dead guys, dead guys. You know, there's so many. As long as we're throwing big names around, there was a Canadian who should have been big. Eric Tunney was one

of the funniest guys I ever saw. Ed DeSoc's been on the show and we talked a lot about Eric because he was one of the co-hosts after Harlan Williams, I think.

He was amazing. He didn't do a lot of the kind of shtick other people did. He didn't try to be self-effacing. He was a handsome guy with a cool swagger.

He always wore the suit or almost a tux or something. Yeah, great swagger. He would have jazz or blues or rockabilly playing behind him. And he'd do a mean version of The Way I Walk, a song that Elvis loved, which was by a Canadian. And it just didn't happen. And so for every Russell Peters, there's somebody like an Eric Tunney who it should didn't happen. And so for every Russell Peters,

there's somebody like an Eric Tunney who it should have happened for. So thank you for talking about Eric because I watched him when he was host, co-host? How do you do that with Ed DeSoc? But he was a co-host of Ed DeSoc. Yeah, he was an Ed DeSoc co-host for a while, yeah. And I mean, his...

As was Humble Howard. Humble Howard. I think the first I remember is Harland Williams. Harland, yeah. He went on to have a pretty good Howard. I think the first I remember is Harland Williams. Harland, yeah. He went on to have a pretty good career. There's another guy I thought would be way bigger.

But at least he, at least I can go into, there's something about Mary and stuff. He got into big comedies that we still watch. Yes. There's something about Mary.

And he's still a big comic. Right. Yeah, he was hilarious, Harland Williams. I think he was great. But he could have been Jim Carrey big, or I would have guessed.

Yeah, he sure didn't. But one guy I thought you were going to mention in terms of it never happened for him because he's a comics comic who just passed away and you already mentioned his name, Mike McDonald. And I always say this, when I have comics on the show or people who are in comedy, like Ralph Ben-Murray is a good example,

who knew Mike back in the stand-up days, back in the day. These people will talk about Mike McDonald the way somebody might talk about a Robin Williams. Well, and Mike McDonald mentored and influenced a lot of people. Robin Williams has a Mike McDonald, and that is a guy named Steve Pearl, who if you ever saw him, you saw so much of what Robin Williams ended up doing.

And he did consider him a mentor. And a lot of sort of L.A. comedy store type comics would talk about Steve Pearl that way. And nobody ever happened to. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, I know. So you're covering comedy. Now, I have a question for you, though, from Twitter. His name is Elias Bernie.

So Elias says, ask him what it was like covering the press conference when Howard Stern brought his show to Q107 in Toronto. From what I remember, it was a dumpster fire. Yeah, it was a satellite press conference, too. I think it was on his show. conference too uh i think i think was on his show um and the the funny thing was i had been in the studio with him on his show like two weeks earlier because private parts had come out the movie and i was there for the junket for that and a couple of us got to go be be in there while he did his show so i was sitting like six feet away from him i was not acknowledged on air or anything like that i was just there right but um i and then I had a big long interview with him after, and I think he's a really

kind of sweet guy, uh, when, when he's not deliberately trying to provoke people, you know, and I, I thought about this when, when, uh, I saw that tweet, um, and you know, if, if you just said in, in 2017, about, about a000 guys are going to be named as being sexual abusers, 1,000 famous guys, you would expect Howard Stern would be one of them just by the tone of his show and the strippers and everything like that. Oddly, nobody's accused Howard of anything. That's a good point. It was truly an act, truly a character. He's still doing it. But the reaction, the overreaction, I'm going to say, in Canada,

like I remember a woman who was on Global who now is press secretary for a conservative senator who said, people are saying you're going to harm the country. And I was like, oh my God, really? And his reaction was somewhat similar. And he did one out of Shom in Montreal as well. Right. Although it didn't last as long there as it did on Q107, as I recall.

No, no, because Chum pulled the plug everywhere. They were going to carry his show on City. At one point, they were talking about doing one of those, like they did in, they do a lot that now where they give you an on-camera version of the radio show.

Sort of a, yeah, like Bob McCowan show on Front Times Sports. But they just like caved to all of it. And, you know, the Broadcast Standards Council, I mean, I don't know what their actual powers are, but they were

in a constant state of lather. Well, I had John Scholes from Q107 on who just got let go from Q, actually. And John was talking about, there was a woman hired who was just at Q107 who was like the dump button presser because of course, it got censored for American radio.

But we had different standards. The big difference was you couldn't disparage French Canadians, for example. There was a significant difference in our standards versus the American standards. And ours were far more strict. So a lot of stuff that would air in Buffalo, no problem, had to be dumped before Q would air it. And they had somebody who that was her job. And it's weird because the Broadcast Standards Council obviously is an industry group that are there

to prevent the government from complaining about what you're doing. So I personally think self-censorship is the worst kind. It's far worse than anything the government would ever do. I'm a, confess, a big Howard Stern fan fan i listened to a lot

of howard stern but i would listen on the buffalo station because i got there was more of the show intact when you listen on q they would sometimes have these really long commercial breaks and you would go to you know wbuf i think it was and you would hear that oh they dumped out but this is still live right yeah i i think uh i think he's a great interviewer. I loved when he'd get celebrities on, especially because all the stuff that they have handlers to keep them from saying, they say. And it was like my wish dream as an interviewer.

When he'd get to, you know, this is Candy, she's here going to be talking about butter or whatever. I'm with you. That part got a little boring to me after a while and and i have serious in my car now and i and i hardly ever go to that channel but at the time you know i i gave it a good listen and like i say if i knew he was going to be interviewing a celebrity then and then i wanted to see if they if they gave, then yeah, I would listen in. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's the question from Elias Bernie.

So thank you, Elias. I did not, I should have turned that off. Okay. The, okay, let me turn off my phone. Bad host here who did not turn off his phone. My apologies. I remember another question from that press conference. Somebody said, how do you think they'd feel in New York if they brought in a Canadian to do a morning show?

And he said, you know, a Canadian broadcaster like Peter Jennings? Yeah, that's right. He had the answer right. I don't think anybody would care. That's right. Nobody would care. That's exactly right. That's funny.

Now, let's talk about the darker days here. So the Sun, Quebec Corps takes over, and then you mentioned earlier that you led the Union drive. And can you share a little more detail? Like there's some bad blood here, right? Well, it went surprisingly well. I mean, Quebec Corps, they're used to dealing with unions, sometimes brutally, but at least they understand dealing with a union better than they understood the sort of culture that they bought at the Sun, where the company was supposed to do things out of the goodness of its heart.

And it was like, heart? What is that? So when we did that, I mean, obviously, 13 people stood up and said we're starting a drive. They publicly said it. It was in the news. And if you fail, you're pretty much assured you're gone. But we had half the newsroom sign cards within 24 hours. And it passed by 75%. When we negotiated our first contract, there had to be a strike vote because that's what Quebec Corps does.

They have a final offer, and then they see how big a strike vote you get, and then they have a new final offer. And I'll always remember that strike vote because one of our biggest supporters was Bob McDonald, who was about as far right a columnist as you could ever get, but he also hated Pierre-Carllaude Pelletot with a passion. So when we got our strike vote, here's this old conservative standing on a table yelling as loud as he could, you know, cheering. And I felt really good that day because it meant, you know, there is some point at which people of different political views can come together and leave other stuff behind. And the other thing I remember very well is that the all-nighter

that finally got us our contract, and it was a very good contract, took place while the Dalai Lama was in town. And the Dalai Lama's lamas were in the conference room across from us chanting mantras all night and boiling some kind of soup in the middle of their conference table. So I also credit our first contract to the Dalai Lama. Oh, that's fantastic. This leads nicely because you mentioned the paper, the Toronto Sun, was a right-wing newspaper,

if you will, but you're not a right-wing guy. You're kind of a lefty. You're not the token lefty, but you were one of the more left. I was one of the ones in the attic. But no, like I say, they never told me I couldn't write something. I wrote stuff saying, yeah, climate change is real and stuff like that. Stuff I couldn't get away with now. The late Ed Greenspan wrote a column saying, why do we need unions?

We've got labor laws now. And I said, Rob Granatstein was the editor at the time. I said, can I answer this, Lodable? And he said, absolutely. And so I wrote it and yeah, I was allowed to do it. There were some letters to the editor but I think one of the appeals to me as opposed to spending my career at the Star

was when I wrote something like that, I wasn't preaching to the choir. It wasn't like I'd be getting backpats all over the place. And it's good that people hear their opinions. Yeah, for sure, for sure. But now that segues nicely to this one more question from Andrew Ward, which this is a great segue. A lot of media pundits label the politics of print media.

They say now Toronto is left, Toronto Star is liberal, Globe and Mail and National Post are right. And Toronto Sun is so right, you'd think it left for the States years ago. This is Andrew Ward's question, by the way. Did this sort of thing ever make it hard for the content you produced? Or did you ever have a moral dilemma with an employer? So that kind of, I guess I should have asked that before you. Yeah, I mean, I partially answered that question in that there was a lot of room for other opinions. And really, if there was an understanding, I think it's a real old school journalistic thing that if you only have one set of opinions, you've got a vacuum. And so even Fox back in the day,

when they had Hannity and Combs, they needed,. They needed a pug liberal to take Hannity's punches. So that content had to be there, and that's how they felt. Now, I happen to know that their corporate model now is Breitbart because like every other media company on the planet, they see no future for print. In fact, 2020 has been the date given as the death of print since at least 2011 or something. I've heard it over and over again, and it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So every major company has been trying to find ways to make it online.

And Breitbart, for what it's worth, has managed a relatively profitable business model. has managed a relatively profitable business model. And when I was told this by one of the higher-ups, I said, but it's toxic. And he said, well, you know, we don't have to be that bad or something like that. But it involved finding a Trump. You know, they needed their Trump.

And it was going to be Kevin O'Leary, but that didn't happen. Maybe they have one now in Doug Ford. but it's, it's built around staying on message. And so the only two things really, I think that matter in the sun now to, to a huge extent, well, they're still big on local news, although this, the staff is, is, is low, but it's their, their message and sports.

They let, at one time the sun was where you went for sports and entertainment. Entertainment, they didn't care. And there's really only Liz Braun and Jane Stevenson left. But just before Christmas, the number of entertainment writers who left...

Okay, let's do that. So there's PostMedia. So PostMedia takes ownership after Quebec Corps. It's PostMedia, right? Yeah, Quebec Corps sold it about three, four years ago. Right. And you're right. You have Liz Braun and Jane Stevenson, you mentioned,

but basically the original entertainment section is not... All at the same time. Last year, there was Bruce Kirkland, the film critic. Bill Harris, the TV writer. There was Steve Tilley, the games and technology writer. There was me. And if I'm missing somebody, I'm going to be mad. But that was a good chunk of the department right there. That's a lot of farewell columns or exit columns, as I called them earlier.

So can you give us a bit of detail on, like, did they approach you and ask you to leave? Or did they offer a package? PostMedia needed, they just barely avoided bankruptcy by trading equity for, trading debt for equity, which is some kind of Wall Street thing that Paul Godfrey did in the summer before I left. But they needed to shed something like 800 employees across PostMedia. So they had a voluntary buyout offer, which involved a salary extension and a whole lot of conditions that a lot of people took. And some people took that. And then there was also, after they announced their layoffs following that, in our union contract, it allowed you to ask for what was called a voluntary resignation, which meant you saved a job. And in my case, because I was there as long as I was and had the salary that I was, I saved more than one job.

In fact, three of us saved five jobs on the way out. So they gave me money and extended my health benefits for a year and a half, and off I went. Now, how you got to that point was they decided that everybody had to show up at their desk five days a week, eight hours a day. Now, I know anybody who listens to this is going to say, well, what's wrong with that? Well, our job wasn't like that. There's things we had to do at night. There's things we had to do in the morning. It was hard to structure it that way.

And some days you would be more productive than others and you'd have X number of articles to do. And if you finished them early, you had to pretend you were busy. I'm sure there are a few offices like that. If they know that you finished the work you had to do, your reward for your efficiency would be more work. Basically, the star has done this too, like reassign people. And that's another thing.

You're a movie critic and thing you know you're a you're a movie critic and next day you're covering a murder you know it's if if we go back to where i started that's that's like going back to square one and so that's like more general news so at one point you're of course you focused on your uh what is it like if it's tv and then it's uh comedy but this is like yeah like i'm sure they're doing this now with Liz Braun and Jane Stevenson, where it's general news. And I did for a while, too, at the end. I made a joke that if your cat is eaten by a coyote,

I may be first on the scene. And in fact, I did end up doing coyote stories. So it came true. And the union part, being the finally, and the union part, being the unit chair and a union executive, it's a hard thing to be when all these layoffs are happening. I mean, you're holding a lot of hands. People are starting to blame you for when things go wrong,

and there's a lot of highly paid people looking for loopholes in the contract. So it just finally, all of it put together, I guess, was the thing. Now tell me about Original Sin. And Sin, I spell, it's C-I-N. Yeah, if you use an S and Google it, you'll come up with something entirely different. But yeah, part of the reason I left was that my job technically didn't exist any longer. In fact, the metrics that they used online said that people

don't read movie reviews. And so I got a hold of some ex-print movie critics, some very, very good ones. Liam Lacey from The Globe, he'd taken two years and gone to Spain and came back and he was looking to write. So I started this blog and it's called original-sin, C-I-N, originalsin.ca. It's easy to do. I took Keanu Reeves' advice and got a Squarespace account, although it has its limitations, and we're thinking of where we go from here.

But Liam is one. Karen Gordon from CBC. Bonnie Laufer, who used to be on Global. She does stuff on CHCH now, but we take the TV interviews she gets and transcribe them and make them into print. And Kim Hughes,

who used to be at Now Magazine. And was on CFNY, right? She was, yeah. Back in the day. Live in Toronto, I think, was that her? That might be, yeah. I'm having

spirit of radio flashbacks. I don't have Kim's CV in front of me. I'm pretty sure I remember her. Yeah, she was on CFNY. But they were all on board. Hey, let's go do it. And we approached all the movie companies and they invited us to various things.

We even get interviews, invited to interviews. So, yeah. And I promised myself I would do this as long as it doesn't stress me out, as long as we're having fun. And it's a place people can go and read real criticisms of things that usually aren't just superheroes. You know, we find movies we like. You're right about that.

I mean, everything's a superhero movie now. I'm way behind on my superhero movies. The last superhero movie I watched, I think, might be the... Oh, I did watch that new Spider-Man reboot, but I thought it might, I thought it might be the first Avengers. That's how far back I was going to go on this one, but I don't, I'm way behind. I was on the junket for that one. Um, yeah, it's, uh, we, we do, we do everything. And, and, uh, I've been a juror on four film festivals now, uh, since then twice on the Canadian Italian once, once in the

Japanese Toronto Japanese. And I was a TIFF juror last year, which is something I never had time to do when I was actually covering the thing. Um, so we can, we can do what we want. And, um, it's, it's been a pretty good, pretty good, uh, gig for me, uh, since I left, because I found out there were a lot of places that would pay me money to write. And there are things like travel writing. My wife and I just got back from a trip to Japan, which ran in the sun, ironically enough, like my byline has appeared. Interesting. I was going to ask about Original Sin and if it's been monetized. But is it exposure? It's an exposure thing right now. I mean, we've been approached for ads.

Squarespace is not built for direct ads that you buy yourself or you sell yourself. It's one of those things where if you want ads, you have to do like Google AdSense or something. Sure. Which is not what we're interested in. So somewhere down the road, we may have to switch this to like a proper website. Well, you know, that's what I'm going to, that's a side conversation I'll bug you about later, but I'm about to do just that, my own digital services company. Oh, okay.

That's my bag. We can always talk. Give me your card. Yeah, I'll give you my card. Well, we've been talking about podcasts and stuff like that as well. But, you know, we've got a certain number of people who just want to read reviews and interviews. And then from there, we want to figure out what we want to do next while keeping our identity, which is, you know, people read Liam Lacey. I mean, it's way different from reading your average young movie blogger.

He knows it all. And he sub-references. It's unbelievable. It makes me nuts when I have to link the references when I'm putting it online. So now that you're writing, you're essentially, you're writing for digital, but if it's primarily for exposure because you're making your money through other writing channels or whatever, then you didn't have to worry about what seems to plague. I think I've read something you wrote about print versus digital and what detracts from the work when you're writing for digital because you need to write it.

Keywords and stuff like that. I'm guessing you need to write about, if you wrote something about Kim Kardashian's butt, for example. Yeah, well, there's that. But even the physical way you present the story, how you write it, I've been given all the stuff about make sure there's a keyword and a lead,

you know, and stuff, which is nothing I ever had to think about before. And so, and it's just a strange life for a freelance writer now because the majority of the work is digital. There's still print, and print still pays way more than digital so i hang on to the to the print gigs i have like i've got two articles in the next zoomer and i think i have two in the one after that but at the same time they just started a website and i'm on that every week so even though it doesn't pay as

well as as the print i'm writing more frequently there. So you sort of balance off these things. In total, how many years were you at The Sun? 33. 33. That's crazy. Now before, we're going to kick out a jam together very, very, very shortly. And again, I urge people to go read your exit column on The Sun. It's easy to find via Google, but you did a great job.

It's one of the first things that comes up when you Google my name, actually. Which is better than it could be. But tell me, is there any other highlights or stories you want to share before we kick out a jam together from those 33 years? There's some listed in that column, but is there any personal favorites you want to tell? Since you were asking, I will freely admit that I've always liked my herb. And I could do a whole thing of just these stories like the Tommy Chong one. But Mr. Miyagi, Pat Morita. I was on the set of a movie that was never released except to straight to video. And it was called Collision Course.

It was a cop buddy movie with Jay Leno and Pat Morita. Oh, yeah. And I was on set in Detroit, had an interview with Jay Leno, and it was fine. You know, he was always a sociable interview, and that was it in his trailer. And then I go to Pat Morita's. He's got an assistant rolling him a big fatty,

and he goes to the fridge and tosses me a tall boy a butt. And so I sat down down and he lit up. And there I was with Arnold from Happy Days. Yeah, I was going to say, yes, that's Arnold from Happy Days. Miyagi-san. Yes, and that original proper Karate Kid. What a great movie. I was the right age for that movie.

So in that movie, I was like, that was a perfect age. Absolutely loved it. Yeah, absolutely loved it. So you can do those kind of stories or stuff you've seen. I mean, I don't know. It's kind of hard to assemble because there's thousands of celebrities I've interviewed over the years. Oh, yeah. And again, there are some stories in your farewell exit. because there's thousands of celebrities I've interviewed over the years. Oh, yeah. No, I'm...

And again, there are some stories in your farewell exit. Oh, yeah, sitting in the captain's chair in the Enterprise. Okay, let's talk about that because you're a huge Star Trek guy, right? Yeah, very much. And I was... When The Next Generation was being filmed but hadn't debuted yet on air, they allowed four of us on set

and it was so not a thing. hadn't debuted yet on air, they allowed four of us on set. And it was so not a thing. I mean, Star Trek fans, I guess, were aware it was coming and were anticipating it, but there was very little security. Our guides for the day were Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes, who were hilarious.

In fact, we were laughing so hard, we were just like 10 feet away from where they were shooting a scene and the director, Rob Bowman, came and gave us Holy Hell. For any Trekkies listening, it's the first episode with the Traveler. And yeah, there we were.

But I also got to eat in the commissary with the cast in Paramount. And so I was sitting opposite Michael Dorn in full wharf. He had the turtle on his head and everything. And he was eating a salad, which I teased him about a Klingon eating a salad. But it was just

an incredible day. And as I say, I got to sit in the captain's chair. I got to play with the transporter controls. And who... Somebody sang the Star Trek theme to you over the phone. It was... Oh, Nichelle Nichols. Look at that. And you still have that file? I do. I do.

That'll be like my George Bell file. You would just. It's, because I interviewed her years earlier when she brought a one-woman show to Toronto. And I guess she's like 90 now or something, but she'll occasionally do some things. I said, well, when am I going to hear you sing again? And she just started singing the Star Trek theme theme not with the lyrics that it supposedly has but just going i went and went through the whole the whole song and the only part marring it is one point where i'm saying i hear myself mutter i'm so glad i'm recording this but but there she she went

right through it and said there now you heard me oh man that's great that's great uh now before we kick out this jam i'm so just to tie up this toronto sun thing now today uh when people talk about the toronto sun they they talk about a mouthpiece for the pc party it's so conservative you know joe warmington and this and that and but when people hear you worked 33 years at the sun do you find yourself explaining like it wasn't always like that do you kind of you need to give them a little context of what paper you joined versus the paper it is today the the tweet you got reflects an understanding a lot of people have if you grew up with with the sun because it wasn't just those those opinions. Those editorial opinions obviously were controversial at the time,

especially on issues like gays and cops. I got a few speeding tickets because our cops are tops paper. But that was the extent of it. And as I say, there were sort of a lot of loopholes in their thinking. But yeah, now is different. It's very different. And I think people who've been here long enough to remember the old sun know that it is.

I don't know where it goes from there, but for 33 years, it was not a bad place to work. Let's play a jam together, shall we? Ah. And when I see the sign that points one way The lot we used to pass by every day. Just walk away, Renee. He won't see me follow you back home. The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same.

You're not to blame. Tell us why you love this jam. Well, it's the Walk Away Renee by Left Bank. They were a very unusual art rock band in the 60s. This was one of their couple of top 40 hits. This was the top 10 hit. They made really sweet music. Here's a bit of trivia for you.

One of the early voices in the studio with them was a 16-year-old Steven Tyler. Wow. Yeah. But I gave this up to Henny on 1050 Chum when they gave up the Golden Oldies format. He said, do you want anything you want us to play on the last day? So that was mine. I hope it doesn't carry a curse now. But it just really is a beautiful

song. It's up there with Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks. I just like really nice tunes. And they use a lot of minors and sevenths. It's just very imaginative music. I have this series.

It's part of Toronto Mic'd where I have people come back a second time to kick out the jams. So beforehand, in fact, Stephen Brunt just did this last week. So did Vic Router, actually. They tell me their 10 favorite songs of all time. I load them up, and then we play them one at a time,

and they share with me why they love that song. It's really, you need to listen to this. It's amazing. Somebody, and I don't have the dad in front of me to tell you who it was, but this jam was kicked out at least by one person who kicked out the jams. It was one of their favorite songs of all time.

You're right. We don't hear a lot about the left bank. I mean, if you come up, the average Joe my age, I don't think knows the left bank, but this song is gorgeous. 65, 66, somewhere around there. They had two other songs. One was called Pretty Ballerina, which was top 40, and it's a song I like very much as well.

And one called Desiree. Desiree. Desiree. Jim, this was an absolute pleasure. Those are fantastic stories. You had a fantastic career and it continues with the original Sin with a C. Yep. Very important for Googling. It is. Absolutely. And we can still

read your work here and there. So Zoomer, you're just showing up in different places if you go to everythingzoomer.com you can find a bunch of stuff I've written because I write about once a week and the issues as well and most months I have something

in movie entertainment which is the thing you get from Rogers, the movie magazine and I've written for them for a very long time. And other than that, yeah, read Original Sin. Read Original Sin. And that brings us to the end of our 347th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Jim, you're at Jim Slotek? I think. Yeah, I am. Good for you. I am at me Mike. Jim, you're at Jim Slotek? I think. Yeah, I am. Good for you. I am at me right now. At you right now. Our friends at

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See you all next week.