Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Liana K: Toronto Mike'd #1265

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

In this 1265th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Liana Kerzner about her years working at 299 Queen Street West, how she ended up working with Ed the Sock, her mental health advocacy work and video games. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, the Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Moment Lab, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1265 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Season four of Yes, We Are Open,

the award-winning podcast from Moneris, hosted by FOTM Al Gregom al grego recycle my electronics.ca committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past the moment lab brand marketing and strategy pr advertising and production. You need the Moment Lab and Redley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to Toronto Mic'd is Leanna Kersner. Leanna Kersner, welcome back to Toronto Mic'd. Thank you. Good to be here. Is it Leanna

Kersner or do you prefer Leanna Kay or what about Leanna the Red? Which moniker do you prefer? Leanna the Red. My Norwegian friends will appreciate that one. But that is a real thing, right? Like that's in my head that you're no one is Leanna the Red. Did I dream that up? I've been called far worse. I've been called Red since my third grade bus driver

gave me that name. But we're supposed to do grown up things. I don't know. I like Leanna Cage because I have two names nobody can spell even though they're phonetic. But Leanna Kersner is the more grown up thing. How do you butcher the name Leanna Cage's because I have two names nobody can spell, even though they're phonetic. But Leanna Kersner is the more grown-up thing.

How do you butcher the name Leanna? I'm curious. I don't think I could mess that up. I think it's pretty straightforward. Leanna. Oh, like E-A-N-N-E. Yeah, I mean, I lived in Tennessee and Ohio as a kid. They loved their Leanna.

And Americans, for some odd reason, like to draw out the A, Leanna. And I guess I think it sounds fancier. But yeah, I don't know. Okay, breaking news. Hold on, though. Are you Canadian or American? I'm Canadian. Okay, so tell me this.

Like, when did the family move to the States and for how long? My dad was doing his P.Ed. It's like a phd only for education to become a gym teacher yeah and that's true uh but yes so it was you know i was i was a year old in tennessee and then um right i guess until i was like four around there um we lived lived in Ohio, Athens, Ohio, which was a very... Was that as nice as Athens, Greece? No. No. Okay, when did you come back to Canada?

I was around four. Okay, so you don't have many memories of living in the States. Just enough to affect my vowel pronunciation. Learning to speak in Tennessee made potty and party a fraught thing. You know, I have trouble pronouncing pretty basic words and maybe like I just don't remember, but maybe I was also raised in Ohio or something like that.

I'm just digging for some excuses here. Okay, so Leanna, this is not your Toronto Mike debut. No. But this is your first solo episode. This is Mike on Leanna, this is not your Toronto Mike debut. No. But this is your first solo episode. This is Mike on Leanna, which sounds dirty, but it's not. But you were here for episode 237, and I wrote a description at the time. Mike chats with Leanna Kay. So I was calling you Leanna Kay in that episode.

Where did Leanna the Red come from? I don't know. Do you like it? I pick up kind of names along the way people call me different things uh based cabbage is my favorite one there's quite a story behind that one what do you want to tell that story before i read this description um it involves the game dead or alive uh volleyball um dead or alive extreme three volleyball uh which is a game where a bunch of Dead or Alive Volleyball. Dead or Alive Extreme 3 Volleyball, which is a game where a bunch of really, you know,

pretty anime-style ladies play beach volleyball. And you can imagine the point of that game. But you get these gifts in your room at night because it's this whole resort thing. And you're playing the guy who's running the resort, so you have to keep all the ladies happy. one of the gifts was a whole cabbage and i'm like why would you give somebody a whole cabbage right anyway i'm gonna eat it so i had this very buxom bikini babe eat this whole cabbage and there are these like like like explosion things like

these shock waves whenever you spike the volleyball. And after she had eaten the whole cabbage, it just became super funny. Because digestive effects on cabbage. Only I can turn, you know, fan service bikini babes into a fart joke. But after that, it was based cabbage in gaming circles for quite a while.

Well, I'm sticking with Leanna Kay. Leanna the Red, though, you might want to consider switching over. But okay. So Mike chats with Leanna Kay and Stephen Kersner about live from Canada. It's Ed the Sock. Leanna's lady bits. Gamergate. Still don't understand it, but we're not going to talk about it today.

So that would have been 2014, 2015. Yeah, probably. What went wrong at MuchMusic? That could be a whole episode on itself. The Hard Rock Cafe closing. I guess that was what was going on. And why Canada prefers to eat her own. I gave Canada the gender of female.

I don't know why, but it would seem awkward not to do that. I did that. And that episode was like an hour 40. So you were here with steve steven kersner steven kersner is the creator and voice of ed the sock for people who don't know that name and that's how you got the name leanna kersner well yes he's my husband so you're not married though i want to be very very very clear about this you leanna are not married to ed the sock you are married to the creator and voice of Ed the Sock, Steve Kersner. Correct.

They are separate people. Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that. So where do we begin in your media career? Because I want to go back to 299 Queen Street. Well, I want to begin with the octopus on the can. Okay, okay. That's called Octopus Wants to Fight.

On the mic, Leanna, pop open your Great Lakes. Okay, now what is this? It is a pink octopus with four boxing gloves. It is an IPA, which is why I picked it. I didn't pick it for the picture. I'm not going to be that basic. But it is a very cute octopus. You can pick your beer because of the picture.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't. That is sacrilege. Okay, on the mic, though. Here we go. Ready? One, two, three. Oh, amazing.

Okay, now I'm going to follow suit here. I'm going to crack open a Burst, which is also an IPA. So thank you, Great Lakes Beer. I'm going to send some craft beer home with you, Leanna. Now I'm reading the can. Read the can while I tell you. But you didn't tell me this was an 8.8 alcohol percentage. All right.

Well, are you driving? No. Then go nuts, go crazy, enjoy the beer. I love this. See, this is why I picked it. Our pet octopus is a bit of a jerk. He's that guy who has a couple that either tells you how much he loves you or threatens to fight you.

This is right in my wheelhouse. Excellent. Enjoy. Okay. So clearly from the cabbage story and the fact that we talked about game or game anything, you've always loved video games. I'm just trying to understand like, yes, i want to hear about your love for video games but i also want to know like how do you get involved with media like you've got an interesting history that i think might be

overshadowed by the fact that you are often seen uh alongside uh this country's greatest sock yeah um i kind of fall into everything i do. So it's just life takes me. I was, you know, I was a child performer. I was a competitive dancer and I was in theater. What kind of dance? Tap primarily. I competed in tap jazz and modern, you know, contemporary dance. But tap was my thing.

And then my appendix blew up when I was 16. Yeah, I had gangrene. And so that was that. Okay, but wait, slow down, because I know many people close to me have had the appendix, like, I guess you're supposed to get it out before it bursts. That's right. It burst on you and that, like, where's the gangrene? They didn't recognize it was ruptured for two weeks. There was a stomach flu going around at the time. And it was misdiagnosed.

And because I grew up at Jane Finch, when I went into shock and got taken to the hospital, they spent hours trying to prove I was pregnant. Awesome. Oh, my God. Yeah, the joys of medicine in a marginalized neighborhood. And then it turned out by the time they went in and did exploratory surgery that it was, you know, the doctor said he could smell it the minute but do you have a high pain tolerance i do

okay that's part of the problem yes because there's some doctors think that you'd be thriving in pain lying on the you know what i mean and there you are if you're able to even stand up and like function they're like yeah it can't be that i've got all the ginger things so it takes enough anesthetic to knock out a horse to knock me out, and then, you know. Then what are you worried about the alcohol content there? Come on. Well, you were worried.

I wasn't. I just wanted to be prepared. Right. You're the responsible person in the room here. Okay, so you're a competitive dancer. You get a burst appendix. What was the gangrene? Is that like you lost a toe?

What's going on here? Well, it was on the inside. And so, yeah, so it healed funny. It was where the appendix was. And so, you know, I had a tube down my nose for God knows how long it felt like forever. But I, that was it. You know, when you're 16 years old and competitive and you're out for eight months, that's it. That's the ball game. That's your career. Yeah. Yeah. It just everything,

all the old injuries, once all the muscles atrophy, just come back. You can't come back from that. Some people can. I was like, I want a life, you know, that was probably the beginning of my interest in mental health subjects. Okay. But, uh, yeah, I want a life. you know, that was probably the beginning of my interest in mental health subjects. Okay. But, uh, yeah, I want a life. I want to do other things. And so I got into comedy.

I'd always been kind of interested in comedy. I, I did while I was dancing. I also did mascot work. Uh, I was a great Oscar, the grouch and Fred Flintstone. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I was at my height.

You don't get many girl characters and i was just fine with that i preferred playing where where are you playing these characters uh they did the i taught dance and so for the little kids they wanted to make it more interesting so that they got these big mascot suits and we had to have the the uh initiation day with the heads so the kids weren't terrified by them. That was always at least one kid cried, one kid was terrified. These are unlicensed. Yeah, well, they were officially rented costumes,

so it was like a licensing fee. And I also did, I worked as a clown for a flower shop. It was a promotional thing where I had, you know the people with the signs the sign spinners like joaquin phoenix and the joker right i was that so so what age are we just so i can follow along like are you in your early 20s and you're doing the sign spinning where are we here teenager yeah i was uh 16 17 years old okay. Well, that's actually the great age to be a clown spinning signs.

There's never a good age to be a clown. Clowns are derided. Shout out to Doodoo the Clown. Hey. Who's the cousin of my good friend, director and former child star, Stu Stone. Right.

So Doodoo the Clown, also an FOTM like you are. That was the weird thing about seeing the Joker movie an fotm like you are that that was the uh that was the weird thing about seeing the joker movie it's like oh this is hitting a little close to home okay oh my goodness okay yeah we gotta dive into that okay so keep going with your story and then uh because i'm obviously interested when you end up in the uh the world of ed well i i met i met steven at a at a bar and we got talking but you were not 16 anymore well no i well i was were you dressed as a clown close enough it was it was club gear uh but we started talking about the the dancers on the show and because of my dance

background and and i just i was in women's studies at york. And I was like, I think you can make it more interesting. And specifically what show? Ed's Night Party. What would become Ed and Red's Night Party. And that's the City TV iteration. That was the City TV one. I mean, I ended up working on the Much Music stuff as well, but it was the late night show.

So did you miss, like, I'm curious, did you ever catch the Ed the Sog that would appear on cable 10 i i'd seen the city tv stuff the the first couple seasons so i was i was familiar with it i really like humble howard right yeah yeah i really liked it uh see he was he was on the radio i listened to edge back in the day when it was humbleble and Fred. Sure. But so, yeah, it started talking. I said, I think you can keep the sexy, but make it more of a pageant so that it's not just for men. Women can get something out of it too. Can I ask questions along the way?

So when you're at this bar and you meet Steve Kersner, like how do you know, where do you discover in this conversation that steve kersner is ed the sock well he was because he doesn't look like ed the sock he didn't have the puppet out or anything he was doing hosting so ed was there oh my god okay that's how you know i was with another guy at the time long story short it ended up in a bar fight i threw him through a door i'm not gonna get into that i don't like talking about those parts of my life yada yada in the best part well that's the punch line we it's the it's the spotify version of the song

we just speed up the track so it can get into the time limit but i don't i talk about the less illustrious parts of my background because i think people should be allowed to be whole people right and this is where you know it gets into that strong female characters right as somebody who was that yeah that's not the best way to solve problems i joke all the time it's become kind of my thing that my inner voice is kratos from the god of war games see i gotta pretend i know all your gaming references oh you don you don't know God of War? God of War is one of the best things ever. I haven't played a video game since Mario Kart

on the Nintendo Wii. Okay, so you know Mario. Yeah. At least, okay. Of course. Well, I also should point out, as a young man, I was a big fan of the 8-bit Nintendo.

Yeah. And I owned it, and I played a lot of Mario, and then I did get the 16-bit Super Nintendo, and I played that quite a bit, but that was the last console I owned until I had kids, and they wanted a Wii, and I haven't had of Mario and then I did get the 16-bit Super Nintendo and I played that quite a bit but that was the last console I owned until I had kids and they wanted a Wii

and I haven't had anything since a Wii. You don't have a Switch? No. Oh, you know, my oldest son has a Switch. I've just never played with him. Is he into Tears of the Kingdom

right now? Who knows? You don't know? He's 21. I don't know what he's into. You don't know what games your kid plays? Should I?

Yes. I know that there's a big Pokemon phase. Oh, okay. Scarlet Violet, I think is the last one. I don't know. There were colors.

You're right. Yeah. And I remember buying him Pokemon games, but I actually don't know specifically what he's into. I do know my, like I got four kids

and my youngest son is big on like games on his laptop. Like he's not really, he doesn't use a console but again we do play periodically we still play mario kart on the nintendo wii which is probably from like 2009 nice like that nice okay so you in this bar where you meet steve kersner and you give him uh some good feedback on the city tv version of like Ed's night party or whatnot.

You have a boyfriend with you who you throw through a wall. Well, we broke up. Well, obviously you threw him through a wall, but did he deserve to get thrown through a wall? Well, he did because by that point,

like I said, I skipped to the end. I was already seeing Steven and, and the dude didn't take it that well. We broke it up. So you were seeing two guys at once. No, I don't do that.

No. All right. Um um better story i might steal that but so no we'd broken up and he showed up with another girl and for whatever reason he decided to force a confrontation and he kept touching me and i have a three strikes you're out rule don't touch me you could have a one strike you're out rule. Don't touch me. You could have a one strike, you're out rule. No, you got to give him a warning. Okay. You got to give him a warning.

You're doing that because he did date you? Like, was he grandfathered in? No, no, no. Because a regular guy gets one strike, right? No, everybody gets a warning with me. Really? Yeah, because I have such a fight response. It says, don't touch me.

I told you, don't touch me. Yeah. Third time. And it's over. And I grew up with't touch me. Yeah. Third time. And it's over. And I grew up with James Finch. We roll a certain way. And this was one of those times. And again, I'm not proud of this, but sexism worked in my favor because they threw him out.

Apparently they were looking for a reason. Nice. But yeah, I was sort of ambivalent about that because i i mean yes he laid hands first technically but it's different you know grabbing somebody's arm than hurling them across the dj booth into a door um but uh yeah they threw him out and probably if i'd been a man it would have been very different. So I acknowledge that. Well, he was touchy feely with you without your consent.

He was just trying to start stuff. Yeah. Fuck this guy. Well, I wasn't in the mood and it it's anybody. I am very, very egalitarian in my aggression. It doesn't matter who you are.

I give you warnings. If you ignore them, that's it. Boundaries exist for a reason, right? And at this time, so, because at some point, I'm sure you, well, you're about to get to the part where you're going to join, like, the production staff of Ed's Night Party. You're going to be a part of this team.

Well, I worked for free for six months was basically how it happened. I mean, that's the best way to get a job in media, show you can do it. But not everyone can do that, right? Like, I get this story a lot, though. This episode 12, 60, whatever. A lot of people can't afford to donate so many hours of their day for free

because how do they pay the rent and then feed themselves? It's a big problem with the system, especially in Canada. But did you have a side hustle? Did you have another gig that paid money? Well, i was young enough that i could do it right it it you gotta i i tell people i started young and that was my advantage and as much as we you know there are there are drawbacks to being a child star but you know when you start young you can take those risks. You don't have a mortgage. You don't have college debt. You can put yourself out there and fail and fail a lot and fail some more.

And so it was the Just for Laughs Festival was one of the first things I worked. And it just sort of, if you're there and you're sure you can do it, I mean, yes, you can get in the trap of, Toronto's really bad for no one wants to pay the person who will do it for free. So you do have to be careful, but you do, I mean, I work with a lot of people from the UK and Europe right now because there they have that culture of everybody helps each other out.

If one person makes it, we all make it. And they've got a much better attitude about that over there because they come through. In Canada, one person makes it and then you're Drake and you forget where you came from. Yes, I just name dropped.

I worked on a student film with another Degrassi guy and got that from them that Drake forgot. Which Degrassi guy? I'm not them that Drake forgot. Which Degrassi guy? I'm not going to say. Not going to say. Now you have my attention, Leigh-Anne. Yeah, I'm not going to say because I'm not dissing Drake.

I'm just stating fact, you know. He didn't start from the bottom. He grew up in Forest Hill. Yeah, but they rented. I'm not here. Jane Finch, Mike. Jane Finch. Forest hill is not the bottom i hear you i hear you and you know very young man and on a uh you know popular teen drama degrassi so the next generation so yeah okay so i've never met drake but he seems like he'd be

a decent guy i have no idea. Have you ever met him? No. Well, I don't know. Some of them have kind of some people I know, some people make an impression. But at Much Music, I think that was before Drake. Pre-Drake. I mean, I'm a big. But just pre-Drake.

Okay. Respect to Drake. I'm a huge Raptors fan. I give him total credit for being a part of that good for him and people you know people can have strengths in one area and weaknesses in the other but that wasn't the only story about Drake that he forgot where he came from interesting yeah it's funny meeting meeting so many musicians in much music I got a real respect for pop music that i did not have before okay let's get you to much music okay so let's get this going here so you're now in ed's world because

you're dating steve kersner is that right right and you had some uh great ideas for how to improve the program right i was told they're great i have to see them all and make my own judgments later. But okay, you've got good ideas and Steve's receptive to these ideas and you join as a, I mean it sounds like you worked a bunch of months for free, but at some point do they pay you to be a part-timer? Eventually and they

went out of their way to not pay me. They never paid me what I was worth, but that's much music. Nobody got paid. But is this when chum was owned chum owned this oh yeah this was i mean the before the sale to uh the first fromage we took over was fromage 99 so that kind of sticks a pin in that we'd done a couple of fromages before that kind of unofficially like ed hosted it wasn't produced by us right but yeah it was from modge 99 we finally got a hold of it and i got to apply that i mean the great thing about city tv and the great

thing about much music is i got to take all the things i learned in women's studies at york university and find out everything was wrong and found out how to do it properly so that see that's interesting like like when you apply it in the real world and you realize it's uh bullshit that's what people didn't realize about what i was doing i was when i started taking over the show and i know we're jumping jumping over when i started co-hosting yeah i started experimenting with the idea of the male gaze and sexual object you know sexual objectification and all that stuff and interviewing porn stars and getting to know them as people and all this stuff. It was a science experiment. Hmm. And we really do a disservice to women in those roles. And I found out about it firsthand. Like I can go and because I teach things like gender and game design.

Where do you teach this? I'm a guest lecturer. It used to be at Sheridan College, but the course moved to U of T. Look at you. Yeah. And so I've been doing it for years now. I love it. Wow.

And I do. Leanna the Red. Leanna the Red. Yeah. I have this one. I have this one. I have this one client. He's big into like Norse myth. He's going to love that when he listens to this.

But yeah, it more and more. It's just like, no, I don't say this as somebody who just consumes media. I'm someone who's worn a chainmail bikini. I can talk about this. Right. Right. And I think that matters. This,

when we talk about the depictions of women, it's the only expert opinion when somebody hasn't done it. Right. There's no ground truth. There's no, I did this and now I'm talking about it. It's all people, you know,

lobbing spit balls from across the room. It's a, it's the Taylor Swift song. You know, it's the people you know lobbing spitballs from across the room it's it's the taylor swift song you know it's the girls wearing sneakers um lobbing pot shots at the girls who wear short skirts yeah and and nobody talks from the perspective of the girl who wore the short skirt in the taylor swift song and that's what i wanted to do okay so i need to uh establish your the many hats you're wearing at uh the old like the city tv slash much music this is 299 queen street right right okay you know there's a documentary called

299 queen street yes okay let's put a bit about that i will talk to ed about that that's a promise i'm going to talk to ed about that okay i have the directory i'm going to talk to Ed about it so I'll save all that so you on the show Ed's Night Party which is a City TV show you are unpaid then you're part time and then at some point though

you're an associate producer then you're a producer and then a supervising producer credit to MuchMusic and City TV I was never unpaid on Ed's Night Party I was unpaid

on Just for Laughs so what was all that on paid Just for Laughs it was Just for Laughs and stuff like that. Yeah, by the time I actually started working on the Late Night Show, I did have an associate producer. I don't know if I started there.

Even if you start as like a part-timer and then you work your way up, they're still paying you for the hours that you put into Ed's Night Party. Yeah, I mean, I know somebody at the time went after chum for unpaid internships so i just want to make it clear that no i i thought that was somewhat unfair but yeah so no make anything clear you want because i'm going to mess things up okay i i am rough on chums so i want to give them credit where they you know they were decent. Okay, so I was like ground floor in the whole Ed experience, watching on Cable 10. You know, we've lost the host,

but one of the hosts, I- Eric Tunney. Eric Tunney, gone far too soon. But I loved Harlan Williams, for example. And I watched it and I laughed. I'm going to talk to Ed about a couple of other Cable 10 shows and one that came up in my episode recently

with Mark Weisblatt. But I need to understand how you fit into this whole Ed universe because Ed was like frat boy insult humor. Right. But you seem if I may, you seem a little smart for that. Like you seem

You can't be a smart frat boy. You can be it just see if it feels like a bit of a clash but like how do you slide in there and then you know your your uh perspective on things kind of changes the the show uh keeping the humor but kind of you know enlightening it a bit you know what i mean i had a dirty joke in my head and i'm gonna let no don't because i love dirty okay i slid in with a lot of lube let me explain the metaphor uh ed the thing i loved about ed and everything around ed is it was the freak show right and that's where i fit in i am a complete weirdo i mean one of my other references and if you don't know this one okay is it a video game reference no well then i might have a chance my other inner voice is billy butcher from the boys i don't get that one either you haven't seen the boys i know like are you gonna storm out

no because i haven't given you a lasagna yet but people people at home who are listening okay the boys this is a recent series that streams somewhere. Well, it's on Amazon Prime. It's shot in Toronto. I know. I know. It's a Carl Urban character. I believe like The Boys, I believe, opens with like the girlfriend of a character getting

like obliterated. And that character was played by a young woman who has been on this show. Awesome. What? You haven't seen it? No. Dude. dude anyway the boys is good so i should see the boys billy butcher is very very foul-mouthed he's working class british and all right so he uses language as a uh weapon and a shield but yeah i mean i have always when when i was six years old i thought lionel was me um so i always had that kind of guy you know do you have any seinfeld references or maybe simpsons uh yes we'll get to those because i want to get your references but keep going yeah okay

so yeah it it it wasn't that hard to fit in i really liked the whole ed thing i saw the subversiveness and that's the thing a lot of people miss was it wasn't you know it wasn't an earnest statement it was satirical is that like when nirvana releases a song called rape me and somebody's like, what a horrible song. Rape is terrible because they just don't get that it's actually anti-rape. And it's a metaphor. Right. Right.

I mean, am I the only one is the line there. Meaning, yeah, no, probably not. Yeah. I love Nirvana. The one that's held up most for me is Pearl Jam from that era. Second Nine Inch Nails. So closer is another one. Yes, right.

I'm a massive Pearl Jam fan. All right. Seen them live for double digits. So good. Big, big fan of Pearl Jam. So good. And they're still going. 10, one of the greatest albums ever made, Fight Me.

I can't fight you when I agree with you, Leanna liana so good i can't throw you to a door every song on that album is good no argument because and then unreleased singles like black or uh porch porch or release well those eventually got oh shit i think the singles i think the singles and i i don't i don't have wiki over i might be totally wrong here but the way remember it, because I was watching a lot of Munch music at the time. There's no video for Black. But you had, of course, the one-two punch of Even Flowing Alive. Yeah. Those were big singles, big videos.

And then, of course, Jeremy. I remember everybody shitting their pants over Jeremy. And it spoke to me. Because that's the story about a bullied kid. Yeah. And I think, if I interpreted that video correctly, pants over Jeremy and it spoke to me because that's the story about a bullied kid yeah and and uh I think I've interpreted that video correctly the kid blows his brains out in front of the class well he he attacks a teacher after being bullied because it's Jeremy spoke in class at home drawing pictures of mountaintops yeah and then the reason mountaintop I love arms raised in a v now the uh the reason i bring up black is

because black might be the greatest song that album but black was not released as a single like for some reason i have that in mind like there's no video it wasn't released as a single it's just an album track that they might of course they played it on cfy but you know no one can stop them from playing right right right right and that it's a that's a beautiful song yes um but yeah so i remember with jeremy the actually else's sky so why why can it be can it be mine yeah i actually i actually get this is gonna sound cheesy okay don't tell steve when you get home about this but i get like goose pimples you get the asmr like i uh Because I'm now hearing black in my headphones. Okay, the progressions in black are brilliant.

We can just talk about that album. Maybe later I'll play it and we can just like, you know. Yeah, it's a brilliant song. It's absolutely brilliant. But it's a breakup song. It's like an Adele song, only sung by a dude. We can do the Pearl Jam Adele continuum. You would never play black on fromage because there's nothing.

It's just good shit. Okay. There's no video anyway, but okay, let's get to the, so you're, do you remember Jeremy though? They had to bring the kid up on an award show and say,

this is Jeremy. He lives, he breathes. Cause people thought the kid was actually, but it was based on a true story, right? There wasn't Jeremy. There was. Yeah. And the big, I people thought the kid was actually but it was based on a true story right there wasn't jeremy there was yeah and the big i just remember the discussion was did jeremy shoot

the kids or did he shoot himself but you just see the kids reacted the blood on him he bit a teacher in the song and it just to me it was so ahead of its time and i've been talking about it a lot lately because it shows how the the the bullied become violent become the aggressor because they don't you know that's their way they say protest is the language of the unheard were you bullied as a ginger oh i was bullied for so many reasons people i mean i don't know do we still do it i feel like uh i'm you know you and i are similar vintage, but in the 80s, we would bully you for being a redhead. Oh, if that was the only thing I got bullied for. It was not. That wasn't, that was definitely not the worst.

I mean, that was before the whole kick a ginger thing. But I mean, that's part of the, that's a South Park reference. Yeah, I know. You said? I said Simpsons and I, you know. Yeah, okay. I feel shame. But yeah, I thought that was hilarious.

And then a court in Calgary actually upheld that the kids who kicked a ginger in real life were not at fault because TV told them to do it. Oh, that's bullshit. It's like, you're not accountable for your actions. You're stupid. That was clearly satire. I mean, that's the same thing. Ed got into trouble and I defended. I mean, that's the same thing.

Ed got into trouble and I defended. And one of the few CRTC complaints that were upheld against us was actually something I was fine with. And I was the affected group and no one cared. What can you give me specifics on that? It's pretty it's pretty dark and it's pretty blue. But I like dark. All right. All right.

There. Craig Campbell was the host at the time and he made a simile um a comparison using like or as i'm an english major from u of t leanna i know what a simile is were you just an english major you weren't like rhetoric and composition it was double major it was english and history oh well done the honors ba well done and look what i do today i host a podcast what period in history it was all over the place. Like you just had to satisfy get of something from, I don't know.

So what did you specialize in? American history, I think. I'm trying to remember. What period? This is the late 90s. Like pre-founding or civil war or?

I can't remember anything specific like that, but I had my 20 credits and I had satisfied all the requirements. I just satisfied the requirements. The joys of a minor. That was my other. Remember, this is a honors BA. This is not a, anything beyond that. like that but i had uh my 20 credits and i had satisfied all the require i just satisfied the requirements of a minor that was my this is a honors ba this is not a anything okay okay so

yeah it was craig it was a deliberately offensive line but i forget this was when i had a producer station so try to remember like it was something about you i well, I sassed something. I tend to do that, so it's a blur. But Craig said something like, yeah, redheads, they fuck like you're stabbing them. Now, that was clearly just an evocative image of, I understood it, and I laughed, but somebody complained. Well, it's absurd. You're laughing because it's absurd. It's absurd, but it's also- But if you break. Well, it's absurd. You're laughing because it's absurd. It's absurd, but it's also...

But if you break it down, it's disturbing. It is a reference to a particular enthusiasm when one is on the receiving end of an action that I could relate to. That's why I said this is an overshare. It was funny because it's kind of true. But someone reported the comment saying it encouraged violence against women and i was like that's

ridiculous it was just like not saying do it right and they upheld it and the the crtc complaint was hilarious because the precedent because they have to use precedent right in the ruling so the one was a sports announcer said the san jose sharks bitch slapped their opponents and that was considered not okay but that doesn't sound okay to me bitch slaps but okay here's what was okay according to them okay there was some sort of movie where a couple was having kind of a sexy camping trip and the guy decided to tie his girlfriend to a tree and smear with honey as sort of a kink experiment and he went off to do something a bear came along and raped and murdered the woman but that was okay that was allowed that's a movie you can give it like a rating or even people have to.

But you can't say bitch slapped, but you can laugh at the violent rape of a woman, a violent rape and murder of a woman by cocaine bear before cocaine bear existed. Like it's furry smut. It's not furry smut.

And that's okay. But you can't say bitch slapped. That's the joy joy what's the punishment so liana when the crtc makes a ruling like this because i didn't know about this uh what is the punishment you have to air a disclaimer before the show that said you were found in breach of crtc broadcast codes that's it oh so i thought maybe like they make ed do a psa or something they can yank your license if it's bad enough like city tv's license yeah they knew at the time that there were people that just i mean people would watch bravo

in space all day before it was ctv drama and ctv of course of course and just if they forgot to run a disclaimer or they ran the wrong disclaimer they'd phone in like this was a lifestyle for some people so it was the cost of doing business but that one i still stand by um that was just a metaphor it was intentionally offensive and i think we have to allow some some things that are dark i spend a lot of time on the internet i see a lot of dark humor but you have to allow those smaller things because when you think about it a woman being raped and murdered isn't funny and the fact that it's treated as funny because it involves a bear and kink when you drill down on that that's not good that's not only kink shaming it's furry shaming and it just come on that's not funny that's laughing at someone's anguish and pain and fear as opposed to a a reference that

was off color for a rather enjoyable act but you know what you're doing you're not comparing apples to apples here right you're comparing a television program over the air with a movie where you buy a ticket you see the rating and well it was run on tv oh there yeah because cdv ran movies cdtv ran movies yeah well this was also this was all did mark daly introduce it i uh always have a clip i play when he comes up didn't he have a great the following program contains adult themes nudity and coarse language viewer and parental discretion is advised. He had such a great voice and he was a one-take wonder. He was so

good. The voice is what we refer to. He just, what do we got? He'd blow through them. He was so good. People don't realize part of the thing. It's not just about having a good voice. It's about being able to get it in one take. Dude was a master. Mark Daly. Okay, now, so we've got you at in the 299 queen because you're working on ed's night

party ed and i remind me i know i'm gonna talk to ed shortly but uh ed how does it work how did they like uh transfer ed the sock from like having a city tv night party to being on much music a national uh oh here the nation's music station. Like, how did that transition happen? And did you just follow along? Ed was already doing stuff when I... Concurrently. Yeah, he was doing fill-in, but we got from Maj and we got the wham-bam as a permanent show.

He was doing flow, which was just sort of the daytime thing where you introduce videos. And it was always kind of fraught. I mean, I really give credit to Denise Donlan, who was always kind of fraught i mean i really give credit to denise donlon who was the the head of much music at the time she didn't get ed and the metaphor was that she'd chew through pencils when ed was on the air and she let it go and she didn't agree with it and she eventually came around to understanding what it was, but she was not on side at the time. And the hardest thing as an executive

to let something on the air that you personally don't like. So, you know, mad respect to Denise. She's one of the unsung heroes of Canadian media in general, but she really championed that idea that youth programming could be smart and relevant and actually tackle issues and was so mocked for it at the time and i i completely supported it i agreed with it and that's what i started to do when we came on air ed was an early supporter of pride the pride parade

ed marched in the pride parade with a shirt that said heterosexual because i'm like love it you know that was before we had the whole allyship thing that but you know it's like no you don't have to be directly directly affected to care about this stuff ed really pushed carabana because again i grew up at jane finch that was not something other people did that was something i did and that i loved loved working in youth programming as frustrating and difficult as it was it's the most rewarding stuff ever because you can actually teach critical thinking through entertainment and I it's not it's not educational right but I made sure that nothing was fudged I didn't do the Daily Show thing where I fudged a fact for a joke. I was the one going, no, no, no. We can't we can't lie for a punch line because the minute we're caught, we lose our authenticity. We lose our credibility. And the minute you lose young people, you have lost them forever. It's so important. Okay, let me ask you some specific questions about fromage. Okay, so this was a Christopher Ward invention.

He's an OG, I believe. That's right. He bust through the paper in episode one alongside some guy named John Roberts, but we haven't heard from him since. Okay, so Christopher Ward, he does these fromage things. Does he take over for Christopher Ward? Because I know even after Christopher left much,

he would come back and do the fromages. And then Ed, did Ed get the baton from Christopher Ward? Do you remember that? I believe Chris moved, because he wrote the song Black Velvet. He sure did. The Atlanta Mazza. He didn't move out, but he used to come back. I feel like he would come back for fromage.

And then he was, I believe he was, I could be wrong here, but he was shooting them remote, and then he was just like, this is diminishing returns for me. I don't want to do this anymore. And so they had Ed do it. Of course, from like 90, so your role with fromage is you're a producer of fromage. And a writer, yeah.

I was the person for Ed a lot of the time that the writers strike in the wj writer strike right now is fighting for the person on set who would feed lines live and it's a it's a tough job um interesting but it's really important because the talent i mean steven's brilliant but you you know you've got a lot going on it's like i need a line here two heads are better than one and so i'd come up with something real quick uh you're jackie the joke man i'm just yes okay my jokes are from this decade okay i love jackie i kid i that's a reference okay but uh yeah, so.

So tell me everything you did for Fromage. Yeah. Then I'm going to give you a couple of gifts and then I'm going to ask you if, you know, working at much is everything I hoped it would be for you. Okay, so Fromage we sort of hijacked from the original format. Sure. I don't know if it was the first big name video,

but it was a Mariah Carey feature video. And we tossed it in because it was, because it felt like shooting fish in the barrel, right? It was a whole bunch of videos that didn't get played because they didn't have much of a budget. And it just felt the wrong kind of mean. You know, these were people who didn't make bad choices they just didn't have a lot of money and so we're like let's start punching up you know we didn't call it like big

stars of cheesy cheesy videos we wanted to make it cheesy not bad right because half of it i don't know if you remember like back in the day they were french canadian videos that i remember mitsu was on one and i'm like i really liked mitsu at the time why is this bye-bye mon cowboy bye-bye mon cowboy yeah um but it was we're like let's actually make this catharsis programming let's use the overplayed overhyped schmaltzy beat you over the head thing and make it make it catharsis viewing at the end of the year. Oh my God, it was not popular. So I think we sort of cut it last minute and just put it on the air and they couldn't say

no. But are you the woman, are you the person who would choose the cheesy videos that would be Lampoon by Ed? I would do a long list that we then worked with Much Digital to do an online poll for. And it would, you know, they would vote down. Because, you know,

I wanted it to be popular opinion. I didn't want to be the one totally picking who got dunked on. But that's an early use of polls. Like that is... Oh, we were way ahead. If I take credit, we were way ahead of internet and credit we were way ahead of internet

and engagement did you invent the internet liana be honest i'm not al gore i get that i was on the other side of the uh parental advisory label back in the day i love my old school hip-hop but yeah it's uh we were like let's open it up and so when they dunk on it people feel, it's we were like, let's open it up. And so when they dunk on it, people feel like it's fair. Like I switched. But did anyone complain? I'm curious. Did anyone say like, hey, this isn't quite the spirit of Christopher Ward's fromage. Why is this sock messing with perfection?

I mean, did you get my letter is what I'm wondering. The station like much was really worried how the publicists were going to respond you're shitting all over mariah carey well it wasn't and you want to have right but let's use her as an let's pretend so you have mariah carey and much music wants mariah carey to come by for the interview because that's going to be a big deal for much music in the eyeballs and then whatever mariah's people were a lot better than some of the others i'll let i'll let can you can you name drop who are you who are you protecting leona ed do i'm protecting ed i'll forget to ask ed yeah i will let ed but are there any artists that did the major complaining to i don't know exactly like did somebody call up moses

and say i just saw a sock shit all over our person's video and now we're not going to bring him over. There was one guy who didn't get it, but most of the time the labels understood. But you have to drop this name. I feel like if you want your lasagna, this name has to

come out of your mouth right now. If it's not vegetarian lasagna, that is not right. Oh, you know, I fucked up. It's not vegetarian. So that is not right. You know what? I'll eat it. I'm hungry.

I'll let Ed drop that name. It was a PR person. It wasn't the group itself. You can't name this group. It's clearly Molly Crew, okay? No, no. The big one. Bon Jovi.

No, but that's closer. I i will wait uh it was something it was not actually our lady peace no it was not actually fromage it was a documentary they did and they only they only ran it for a brief window of time because they insisted that well if this big name rock star because it's rock i'm and Ed's working on a rock station right now, so I don't want to damage anything. Don't worry about Ed, okay? This is the other show, and you're going to spill some tea here. But they were afraid that he wouldn't come through and do much music.

And we were like, Strombo had already jumped to CBC at the time, and it's like, he's going to do Strombo's show anyway. Like, he's not going to do much now but yeah that was that was a real issue but most of the time i mean the creator of the is it trent resner it no i don't know no trent's got a sense of humor i'm just throwing darts yeah but uh um the creator of the hamster dance sent a thank you letter and the hip-hop acts really got it. They were like, if you're rocked by Ed, you know,

you've made it like they started recognizing you make that show. That means you matter. That means you've made a popular culture impact and they got it. They understood that, you know, because we were no longer using these small bands, we were using the big bands. If you made it,

it was a double-edged sword of, yeah, you got made fun of, but that meant you mattered. Right, right. Okay, I love it. Love it. I used to watch, for what it's worth, it was appointment viewing for me to watch from Ash. I'm just going to give you a couple of quick gifts.

I'm going to give you a wireless speaker, courtesy of Moneris. So you can listen to season four of Yes, We Are Open, which is an award-winning podcast hosted by fotm al grego who's been traveling this country talking to small business owners and entrepreneurs and sharing their inspiring stories so liana i know it's going to inspire the f out of you i'm very interested in checking out the built-in subwoofer on something yeah i know it actually sounds good because uh rob pruse is going to come on next week. Should you put it on like something wood

to amplify the subwoof? Apparently it has no business sounding as good as it does. That's what Rob says. He's the keyboardist from The Spoons. Oh, cool! But also, I'm worried about you when you're walking in the dark. I don't want you to trip and fall. This is a flashlight from

Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921 I won't make the joke I thought and you're vegan is that what I'm hearing well pescatarian but I'm also kosher so I don't eat milk and meat together I screwed up

the only other guest who said they don't combine dairy with meat is Mike Wilner who I used to watch on a cable, Newton Brook or whatever cable show in the same era of the sock. Newton Brook. There you go. What did I call it?

Newton Brook? No, no, no. It's Newton Brook. That's a very Jewish area. Okay. But also it ties in with your, your spouse. Yeah.

Well, yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm a little bit more militant about it than he is i think okay see now i have a clicky thing much respect to you don't click it uh we're doing great here that's oh i will say recycle my electronics is where you go when you have your your old electronics your old tech that you need to dispose of recycle my electronics.ca you just say where you are and they say,

drop it off here, really, in your neighborhood. What is it again? It's a place to RecycleMyElectronics.ca. You can safely dispose of your tech and you don't get all that chemical bullshit in our landfill. That's very useful. It is. RecycleMyElectronics.ca.

Okay, is there a story about you getting a rash from producing fromage? Oh, yes, there is. And where was this rash? On my forearms. Okay, when we did the retro, you know, the cheesiest videos of all time in 99, we went back and pulled things. It was Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto that was the video that broke everything

because the tape was so dirty but those tapes were so old that the oxide was falling off the tapes as i was carrying it and i mean ginger said sensitive skin but i had oxide burns oh my god on my forearms from carrying you could have owned shum limited i feel like you could have owned that place uh your lawsuit you didn't do that back then but yeah it was well it you sort of knew i mean i could have put a towel down i guess it it was so but that's fascinating because uh this guy who who's making this 299 queen street dog which i'm going to talk to ed about he was like given access to this dusty archive this library of old. So what is the format?

Are those VHS cassettes? What are those? Or is it a different kind of format for Instagram? It's like a bigger thing? It was commercial beta for the most part, but some of those were on three-quarter, old three-quarter machines. And some of them, there were even a few that were on like the one-inch film canisters. I don't even know what those were on like the one inch film canisters i don't even

know what those were we couldn't access those but some of the videos the only copy of the video was on an old new music air check and so we had to go back into that and those tapes pick up dirt yeah and they will transfer the dirt to the heads of the playback machine this is in the pre-digital era of course and so we we capture like a minute and a half of the video and then it would start getting picture distortion because the heads were so dirty and we go to the next machine and get another minute and then we get so we we trashed three whole three-quarter machines up in the on-air promo. It was the fifth floor of the editing bays overnight because we needed the – because Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto is an incredible but so campy.

I mean, it's up there with – what is it? Relax, don't do it. Yeah, Frankie says – Frankie goes to Hollywood. Frankie goes to Hollywood. Relax. It's up there with what was going on in the 80s, right? Absolutely. Okay.

Absolutely. Now, the work, so you're with Ed's Night Party. Now you're working on Much Music and you're doing Fromage and you're working on Ed's Big Wham Bam. Right. I have a big question. This is the real talk portion. I need you to be very honest with me, okay?

So, like, I guess because of my age and growing up watching a lot of much music, particularly in the 80s, but into the 90s, you know, I remember when they played Wonderwall every hour. So, what was it like working at Much Music? Like, you're somebody, a rare person who can tell me what it was like. Was it dreamy? You know, I need to know what it was like. I mean, this documentary that I referenced a couple times,

I haven't seen it. I'm not going to pay $200 to go see it at Roy Thompson Hall, so I don't know when it'll come streaming and I can check it out. But, you know, it's going to be a love letter to Much Music. Do you, did you, Leanna, like, write a love letter to much music what was your experience like liana's cracking open a beer here we go okay um i think what we did was important

now i biased you're funny liana yes i am thank you another ride everybody uh okay full disclosure my job was to stall so that management couldn't shut down the thing ed was doing that we knew they were mad at what a rule so i got yelled at a lot and a lot of things were my fault and it was just because it was live. I mean, you can't do this anymore because everything's on a delay, right? Technology means you cannot like fight the man this way anymore. Right. And in fairness, again, to the management, they didn't fire us.

So they were sort of in on it. But yeah, it wasn't the upper management it was the middle management that was trying to mind read management that just didn't get it and had no distress tolerance and again i think this is why i ended up in the mental health space but it was both incredibly rewarding and incredibly frustrating because it was that heyday of much music where the eye and eyes were happening where the much music video awards were happening where william shatner was just walking off the street one day go everyone's just standing around and leave again um it was access that you don't get anymore that it was an authenticity you could not fake like everything's

so pre-prefab and like orchestrated like like there is there's that you're right that whole idea of someone walking into the environment and then a spontaneous event happening i'm joking that i'm cracking a second beer well you didn't crack i mean i heard it that wasn't a sound effect it wasn't a sound effect but you know we're, we're Joe Rogan-ing this shit. Okay. I'm allergic to weed. So, you know. Oh.

But, yeah. You can be allergic to weed? I'm allergic. Oh, yeah. I guess I'm. Well, if you have a grass allergy, the protein, you're basically taking an allergy. Okay. You know what?

I never thought on this. Okay. So, you're allergic to grass. Yeah. Well, pretty much. Both the literal and the figurative grass. Two-thirds of the trees and, you know, two-thirds of the trees and you know three three quarters of the why aren't you in a bubble you could be like i don't know the mothership is

gonna come for me someday mike but yeah so i mean it was cool i got to get a sense of uh musicians as people and you know they started bringing in more non-musician celebrities as the years went on. But like I got an incredible respect for pop princesses like Christina Aguilera, Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado. The rock musicians were the really hard thing for me because they were such jerks and liars. And I was a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan. And Siamese Dream is one of my favorite albums of all time. Me too. And they were such horrible people to me that I couldn't listen to that album for like 10 years afterwards. Billie specifically?

Billie Corgan? Well, it was, in fairness to them, it was right before they broke up. So they were all really mad at each other. And Darcy had drug issues. Not, oh, okay. The worst drug story I had at MuchMusic. Steve Anthony. No.

No. No. That is baby's drug story. That's a joke. That's a joke. No, no, no, no, no. It was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And to this day, I cannot listen to the Chili Peppers because I thought it was the red hot chili peppers and to this day i cannot listen to the chili peppers

because i thought it was so dishonest because you know john's yeah well he's got his teeth came out right like from his addiction his ongoing stuff with addiction and that was they played it to death and i thought this was wrong that they went on and he was supposedly clean at the time and he i think you should experience life off drugs and then experience life on drugs and then experience life off drugs again. And they ran this to the youth audience over and over and over again,

which, okay, if he actually had kicked, that would have been one thing. But I remember interviewing him and he had a sleeve of medical tape on his arm and you could see the source on his arm. But if I may. Okay. So this scene.

That we were celebrating earlier. When we talked about. Rape me. And then we talked about Pearl Camp. Right. Like so. Kurt Cobain was addicted to heroin. Layne Staley.

Died essentially. From his addiction issues. Died very young. Well then you get guys like Michael Stipe. Right. Sure. But I mean. Even Scott Weiland.

I mean. I keep getting... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, all these bands that we adored and members of Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers have died from a heroin overdose. Hole, a member of Hole died from heroin overdose. Yeah. Of course, Pearl Jam only exists

because Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose. The guy from Mother Love Bones. Yeah. So it's like this this is and you know you talked about mental health which i hope we can touch on before we say goodbye here addiction is a mental health crisis right this is a disease right i think with the if you listen to the music um that was a lot of self-medicating too i mean kurt cobain especially kurt cobain is an unsung hero of gender nonconformity. I

remember when I was a teenager and how validating it was that he'd do entire shows in a dress. Yes, he would. I mean, nowadays, I think if Nirvana had come up now, I think Kurt would probably still be alive because whatever was going on there, he would have had a lot more or maybe they but would or maybe she would have had a lot more support but there was a lot going on with kurt and i think that is what resonated why uh nirvana was the seattle garage band of that era even though there were a lot of great technically better musicians i mean nirvana was a three-piece which matters but there was something about kurt's not just his his anguish but the the

fact that he was willing to talk about it through metaphor and if nobody knows the lyrics just smells like teen spirit but me but if you actually listen to that song it is up there with lady gaga's let's dances it is a very quiet heavily concealed cry for help and that was the big hit that he couldn't stand to play and then he you know he does covers like the man who sold the world he did a lot of stuff that Bowie set the table for. Of course. And I do think that a lot of that grunge, a lot of that era in music,

and I know I'm getting really like, rah, right now, but we were allowed to talk about things and let it all just barf out in our mustard-stained, bobby pin-held-together, faded black clothes of the grunge slash goth era we were allowed to bleed and we were allowed to say this is happening to me in a way that youth are

not now and i think that saved a lot of us and the fact that everything is so corralled and and regimented and culture war now we need a grunge goth alternative music something for today because kids have you know youth have all the same issues all the same struggles all the same i am working this out and the closest to me role models for them now are acts like Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion, and Cardi B. They're the ones that are willing to be flawed and let it all hang out and be imperfect in public. And, you know, it's not the same, right? Because that's all dance club, very poppy hip hop. But if you listen to any of those ladies' lyrics, it's incredibly subversive. Rihanna is doing some really subversive stuff.

And I know I'm jumping genres, but that's me. There's no type of music I don't like. That's because we're from the 80s where we heard the Def Leppard song right beside the Young MC song. I'm a Depeche Mode fan. I'm sorry. Or the cult song next to the-

Ed was dunking on Depeche Mode on his overnight radio show. And I'm like, I'm not going to pull privilege. I'm not going to say don't do that. But I love Depeche Mode. I can't imagine Ed dunking on anybody. I understand. I understand why Ed does not understand Depeche Mode. It's all good.

But hearing you talk about this, you're so eloquent when we talk about it. Is this why you started wellness wednesdays i just want to like find the draw the line between wellness wednesdays and uh it's not therapy how do i go okay aerosmith is the short term is a short version how do you go from music to video games to mental health aerosmith uh big aerosmith fan um but Aerosmith was one of the first bands to see the potential in video games. So they were one of the first bands that would allow video games to license their music. Is that like Guitar Band or Guitar Hero? I don't even know.

Guitar Hero was actually a nod to the fact that Aerosmith allowed their music to be... It was some car action game that Aerosmith was on like billboards and played on the radio or something like that. They were like the wing wing commander of music you know how Mark Hamill made a ton of music on wing commander because he was him Michael Ironside Tim Curry they understood the early power of voice acting in video games yeah they were way toxic twins they were speaking of drug abuse yeah they were way ahead of the curve well Aerosmith says they're lucky to be alive.

And, you know, they know that is luck. So they went from music to games. And I've been a gamer all my life. And so I started doing game stuff on the late night show and on Much Music because it's 18 to 34 male yeah right they're playing games and that was i mean slightly before halo became this huge thing but we were right there when halo and you know call of duty and gears of war all franchises franchises i really enjoy uh were huge yeah and so i'm like okay where music was in the 90s and early 2000s video games are now and so i started doing games and i was a a proper games journalist for for years i did an award

nominated piece on post-traumatic stress disorder and video games and and using video game technology to treat it but also some of the metaphors and all the war games um and so i started doing twitch do you know what twitch is yeah okay good so my twitch chats were becoming group therapy sessions people were telling in total strangers in public that they were being abused by their dad, that they were having all these issues, that they were having panic attacks, that they were having suicidal ideations. And I'm like, okay, if people are telling each other this stuff in this format, there is a need. And I was a peer counselor back in high school. And so I'm like, okay, let's try it again. Let's see if there's something there. So I started doing wellness wednesdays it actually

started as something called mountain mondays where every time there was a mountain in a video game i played this fake zen thing of okay everybody breathe in and out and look at the mountain and just be zen and i it was far cry 4 that started it because they it was set in Nepal and it was all this you know like esoteric stuff and it's like let's look at the mountain and be zen dude and it went to that that I ran out of mountains in games so I started doing Wellness Wednesday and then I realized that a lot of people can do gaming content really well not many people can do mental health stuff the way i do it as somebody who was part of the system and you know on the couch in so many ways for so many reasons over the years you know dancer the underlying thing i had uh anorexia i mean it's a

lifelong thing it's a constant fight but I was actively anorexic as a teen. I had to deal with almost dying multiple times. I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood. Then I was in the media as a teenage girl slash woman. I've lived in, you know, I've worked in male dominated fields, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2019 because I was stalked. Now that PTSD in 2019 because I was stalked now that I was diagnosed because I was stalked that wasn't what caused it and so I decided you know I pulled a Michael Landsberg and I decided to sort of talk about it and because people already thought I was crazy see the story about throwing an ex-boyfriend through a door and so I'm like what have I got to

lose you know I've already got all the stereotypes that come from being gender non-conforming gender atypical inner guy voice whatever you want to call it you know I've already been punished by society what do I have to lose and it was this this energy. The minute you start, the minute you have the centeredness, and I won't even call it bravery, it's the centeredness. It's just, this is me, and I don't care what people think. When you start talking, other people start talking, and we started having these great conversations, and that's where wellness wednesday

came from that's where it's not therapy came from it was the easiest pitch i've ever done because the the program director of the station at saga 962 was five months pregnant she's like i just want to say things suck and it's like yes awesome they it. It became this podcast thing. It got picked up on Sirius XM podcast. Okay. And then it's funny because I boomeranged back into men's mental health content. 80% and that's, it's probably more like a 90 of my personal one-on-one client base is male that's just my specialty it's also because women a lot of the mental health language is feminized because it dbt big parts of cbt therapy their types of therapy were developed by women right in major u.s cities it's very left coast the language is is very centered in that and

so a lot of guys bounce off of it and so a lot of what I do is just change the language for you know decent fundamental concepts but the last thing you want a guy to do when he's already struggling is make him feel weak and pathetic and I think a lot of the language does that so I go back to 90s rock and grunge and go, okay, how did they talk about it? I'll talk about it that way, you know. Today is the greatest. Okay, so It's Not Therapy, just to recap there, because you dropped, is it on Saga 960 and SiriusXM? Is that possible? It's everywhere.

It's everywhere. It's a podcast. Yes. Podcast everywhere. Saga has been amazing. Okay, because, you know, there are some people, I've actually, but there are some people on everywhere because it's a podcast. Yes. Podcasts everywhere. Saga has been amazing. Okay. Cause you know, there are some people I've actually,

but there are some people on that station who are like just a little, the other side of QAnon. Like I was just saying, there are some interesting people on Saga 960. You can't exist in the gaming space without encountering those people. And you know what? They're people. I mean,

the last time I was on the show, I was talking about Gamergate. There's a cross-section there. The way you bring people out of that is with non-judgment and kindness. And that is not a responsibility. If you can do it, you do it. But you have to keep the dialogue going with people who think differently than you. Because those people are a shining example of people who are hurting.

People treated, you know, the whole Marilyn Manson Columbine thing right it nuked his career for a really long time and Marilyn Manson's not a good dude but that wasn't fair that they okay the shooters listened to Marilyn Manson and so Marilyn Manson was to blame for, at that point, one of the worst school shootings in history. Sure, Columbine, yeah. And a lot of people just, you couldn't wear a black trench coat anymore. As somebody who lived in a black trench coat for two years of my teenage life, that spoke to me.

You know, and I love adolescence. That's my favorite age group because they're little assholes, but I can stop the damage that they spend 20 years of their life reclaiming. And, you know, you talk to some of these people and they were horrendously bullied as kids and they're bullied in the ways they still can't see by their parents, by the system. And as much as the QAnon stuff is what the fuck,

it's really important to remember those are still people. Well, good on you for it's not therapy because it sounds like it's helping a lot of people. And it sounds like there's a gap in our mental health system. I stop everybody on the word help because helping people is the way the mental health. Stop right there. There you go. I stop everybody on the word help.

I don't help people. You don't help people. I don't help people because I hear from a lot of clients. The idea of helping people is is the downward spiral right you start with songs like closer and you end up on hurt um right it's people take a lot of liberties people enforce power on people because they think they're helping and then they become coercive instead of persuasive and then people start hearing things like you have to use the tools you're not submitting to the process so on and so forth i provide information i provide frameworks i will walk with somebody i see myself as samwise gamgee you know i can't carry it for you mr frodo but i

can carry you that's not helping that. That's companionship. That's walking with them. But the minute you start thinking you're helping someone, you get into arrogance. And that's one of the big problems with the mental health system. Every improvement a person makes is their victory. Everything they achieve is theirs. I'm just happy to be the sidekick along for the ride. But you're not helping. I'm not helping. No, I'm not. I'm not a helper. I'm just happy to be the sidekick along for the ride. But you're not helping. I'm not helping. No, I'm not. I'm not a helper. I mean, that's, that's the inner voice, right? I'm not a helper. I'm not that, but it is also, I don't have the answers. What I do is this is what worked for me. Right. And I give people the opportunity to say, well, that doesn't work. And it's like,

okay, so what does? Working with children, working with adults, the most powerful thing you can do is make a suggestion, be prepared to have people shoot it down and make fun of it, and then be able to go, okay, what would you do? Because now they have to, right? Now they've just stomped on you for your idea. They have to offer something out. And for a lot of of people that's the first time they actually are truly seen by anybody in a really long time amazing i'm going to just shout out partners of this program that helped make that uh this great conversation happen the moment lab they're here for you liana k they do brand marketing strategy pr advertising and production you need the moment

lab i'm happy to introduce anyone listening to Matt and Jared at the Moment Lab, and they can deliver your PR strategy. They're good people, and they're good at what they do. But you mentioned a name. I just want to tie it all together. You mentioned the name Michael Lansbury. Yeah. And I'll just say that he's also an FOTM,

but he had a Cable 10 show back in the day with Steve Bacon. He did. Steve, they're both great guys. And I reunited on the show. I need to get Steve. Steve would do it. Steve's listening right now.

Cause Steve doesn't miss a Toronto mic episode. Steve is one of the greats. Oh, now he's going to be on your show for sure. No, no, no, no,

no. I, I, I got to do, Oh my God. I'm blanking on the name of his show. The Agenda. The Agenda, that's right. I was on The Agenda once, but it was a phenomenal experience. He is amazing.

Incredible sense of humor, incredible intellect. Great taste in podcasts. Great taste in podcasts. I did not know this, Steve, when I started talking about it. But you said landsberg and i reunited landsberg with pagan on toronto mike because they worked with they were at u of t i believe and they were they had a cable 10 show yeah uh that's 100 years ago now but they're yeah they're both good guys yeah i mean i mean michael's so atypical for sports right he was great when he

was a guest on it's not therapy but steve i was a guest on his show and he was... Off the record or which one? Off the record? No, he came on It's Not Therapy. Oh, okay. Michael Landsberg as part of Sick Not Weak. Right. But Steve, I was on his show and he was hands down one of the most gracious hosts...

He's great. ...in all of Canadian broadcasting. The agenda is absolutely great. I absolutely recommend it. And they do a lot of really great stuff. They do a lot of stories that other Canadian media doesn't cover, and they're not sexy, and they're really important.

I mean, Namagana Kiwanuka, speaking of which music, she's killing it on the Agenda. Yeah, like really, really, really great show. Can't say enough good about them. Okay, I know. I think I said we'd do an hour. I realize now we did like 90 minutes.

That's about right. But as we close out here, okay, so last time we saw Ed's night party was actually Ed and Red's night party. I believe I have the chronology. You're Red. I mean, that's where I get Leanna the Red from. That's right. That's where I'm getting it from, I think.

So would you co-host again with Ed? I don't know what you're, I know you're married to the creator of Ed. One of my favorite jobs I ever did was interviewing porn stars. I'd go back and do that in a second. It was fantastic. I would rather interview porn stars than musicians. Do you have any role at all in uh i believe there's a overnight rock show from the dirty schwa that uh features ed this sock do you have a role with that

production i do a segment called getting through the night on on ed's uh ed's show on uh 94.9 i think it is 94.9 the rock nice rock voice Nice rock voice. Well done. That's all I got. That's all I got. I have friends there. In fact, the PD over there, actually, I once said my Wii. This goes back to the Nintendo Wii that I once tweeted about how my Wii was broken and I want to play Mario Kart with my kids. And he drove his old Wii to my house and gave it to me. No way.

That's a true story. Wait, did you have that firmware thing? I don't know what I had. I don't know what I had. I don't know what I had. I had a broken Wii though and he gave me one that functioned and I could play my Mario Kart disc. That's pretty sweet. He's a sweet guy. The Rock is a great station.

I'll talk to Ed more about that. But Leanna, I'm glad we had a chance to go one-on-one here. This was fantastic and I learned I feel like I know you a lot better now. Leanna the Red, you are. 90s rock. Yeah, that's my jam. You know what?

At some point, you can come back and kick out the jams. Oh, we should just do our favorite albums in the 90s. Well, not albums. I would rather if you pick your 10 favorite songs, we'll play them and talk about them. I'm an album person. I'm not a song person. That's a different podcast, though. We'd be playing a lot of Tori Amos.

I like her cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Isn't it good? Have you heard her? Oh, God. She's done quite a few rock covers. Yeah, she does great covers. But yeah, I'll say I was at U of T when she played Convocation. No!

But I found her very attractive, and I definitely had a thing for Tori Amos. Did she have the four instrument thing where she played one backwards and one forward? She is incredible to see live. You have to see her live. And yeah, her tip jar, her Piano Bar Cafe segment in the shows are the best.

I have actually the bootlegs album where it's all just covers and they're incredible. You'll come back and kick out the jams. Yeah, 90s jams. We're doing it. And that brings us to the end of our 1,265th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Leanna is at Red Leanna K. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Moneris is at Moneris. Recycle My Electronics

are at EPRA underscore Canada. The Moment Lab are at The Moment Lab. And Rid. The moment lab are at the moment lab and Ridley funeral home are at Ridley F H. See you all next week. I want to take a street car downtown. Read Andrew Miller and wander around. Read Andrew Miller and wander around And drink some Guinness from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in

Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the snow, snow Warms me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray