Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Lisa Baker and Darren Frost: Toronto Mike'd #1186

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

In this 1186th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with stand up comics Lisa Baker and Darren Frost about being independent comics in Canada, the problems with Yuk-Yuk's, Just For Laughs and Canada Laughs on SirusXM, their new Beauty and the Beast tour and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1186 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. Electronic Products Recycling Association. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Ridley Funeral Home.

Pillars of the community since 1921 Canna Cabana the lowest prices on cannabis guaranteed over 100 stores across the country learn more at cannacabana.com and Sammy Cone Real Estate ask Sammy any real estate questions at sammy.cone atlyHomes.ca.

Joining me today, making her Toronto mic debut, is Lisa Baker and making his triumphant return to the program, Darren Frost. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. Good to be back. To both of you. Thank you. Good to be back. So let me tell the listenership, the FOTMs listening,

that I'm lucky that Darren Frost is in studio. I can reach out and grab him. Yes. Which I might do. It's a court order, so be careful. And you got a nice sweater on. Is that like a Christmas sweater? No, but my wife bought it for me, so of course it's nice. People always compliment the clothes my wife buys me.

No, very nice. Very nice sweater. And Lisa, you're joining us remotely. Whereabouts in the country do we find you today? I am in Edmonton. I'm at home. So my wife is from Edmonton, and I'm listening to you talk. That's not an Edmonton accent I'm picking up there.

What are you talking about? Well, it's the east side of Edmonton. It, that's not an Edmonton accent I'm picking up there. What are you talking about? Well, it's the east side of Edmonton. It's the east side of Edmonton. I'm originally from the east side of Edmonton, Millwoods area, southeast. My fiance says that when people are like, oh, she's got an accent. Where are you from? And he's like, Millwoods. Every time he says Millwoods.

So whereabouts were you raised, Lisa? Newfoundland. Shea Heights specifically. But yes, the capital city of Newfoundland is where I was born and raised. I have some screech here from my friend, FOTM, Heather Bambrick. Oh, yeah, my little tiny bottle. That's perfect for a first aid kit. That's if I need something in my coffee.

But okay, Lisa, so what a pleasure to finally connect with you. We had emailed each other because I put you on Humble and Fred's podcast in the past. But it's awesome to finally get that great Newfoundland voice on the Toronto Mic program. The accent, yeah. It's a good time. it's a good time. It's a good time. And, uh,

Darren, last time you were on the program in case listeners want to go back and get like a little more, uh, Darren Frost in their diet. I just, I listened to her episode on the way here. Oh,

did you? Yeah. To make sure I don't repeat myself. Oh, you can repeat yourself. Greatest hits. I call it, but,

uh, that was episode, uh, 1069. yourself. Greatest hits, I call it. But that was episode 1,000. 1,000 and 69. Was that on purpose? You wanted... Yes. It's 1169, isn't it? Oh, my God.

We were a bit early for that. Oh, okay. Actually, late. What is it? It's 1186. We missed it. That's just, you know, 17 years after the 69.

You came in with Kenny Robinson a legend and we talked about your life and times in comedy your rank and vile tour you did with Kenny and as I recall we talked about lots of the great comics

that you worked with but I remember it started off rocky do you remember how it began? of course I remember you brought up Kenny's dead mom. You were following the wrong Kenny Robinson. Not Kenny Robinson's mother just had a 100th birthday. You said, hey, happy birthday to your mom, Kenny. There was a silence. There's a silence inside silence. I don't know if your listeners know that. Maybe they do from listening to the show. There's a silence inside there that it's like, what?

I'm like, oh my God, Kenny's mom's dead. How's your mom doing, Lisa? I don't really have a relationship with my mother. Great start again. Perfect. As far as I know, she's doing well. Her and my kids, they're still great together. As far as I know, she's doing well. I can't believe every time Darren comes over here,

I find a way to mess it up in the game. But yeah, I did wish Kenny Robinson, I wished his mom a happy 100th birthday. And then it turns out she would have been a hundred possibly around there if she hadn't passed away years ago. And yeah, quite an awkward beginning to that conversation,

but we got through it, right? We got through it. Okay, now, Lisa, before I press record, we were kind of talking about like words that I mispronounce. What was the word you mentioned, Darren? Succession? No, I said a lot of people, like I say success.

So it's almost a hard C followed by a saucy success. But some people say success. Like they don't hit the hard C on it. I do the hard C. And you do, right? It's just, it's based on, I don't know, upbringing, how you hear it often enough. But I always say success, almost like suck, success. Right.

How do you say it, Lisa? Success. I say the C with the hard C followed by the soft C, yeah. But do Newfoundlanders ever use a soft C? sea followed by the soft sea yeah but did but newfoundlanders ever use a soft sea um i i don't know if i've ever heard a newfoundlander say success um i think they all say pretty much success it depends like the dialect is different depending on and the accent is very different depending on where you were in the island you could drive 10 minutes and people sound completely different it's like europe newfoundland's like Europe in that way.

Yeah, well, and apparently it's like that from what I understand just from followers that are living in the States. It's the same way in States that have very strong accents. Right. Because the one thing that cracks me up is people who will say, when I met my fiance, for example, I would say, I love your accent.

And he would say, I don't have an accent. And I was like, Oh, Albertans are the only people in the world that can speak completely unaffected. And that every single person in the world has an accent. So it just depends on where you are. You know what, what you're going to hear. But the other thing with Newfoundland too, is that I find there's a group, cause I'm from the city and people don't realize i'm from the city because of my accent is strong and i'm like yeah i'm from the city but i'm not an uppity arsehole like that tried to get rid of the accent because i felt like it made me um you

know sound stupid or something right um like it's just an accent it's just how i speak but yeah success anyone who said if someone said success to me I would probably I would probably spit on them Lisa for what it's worth uh I would lean in maybe you are leaning in but I act like it sounds like you're singing a song to me like when I listen to you talk I love it like yeah Darren it's great right well it's just different right like I don't live in the world where I want everything to be the same, right? It's like comedy. Everyone should be different. So when people go, I've never seen anything like you before.

Like, yeah, of course. That's what life is supposed to be about. Do we all want to just live like mindless drones and just being the same? No. So that's why you want to travel. You want to see and listen to new things. You know, that's just the way it is. My thing is, I always find it funny about Newfoundlanders is that people don't always pick up that it's Newfoundland at first.

They think it might be something else than that. So if you ever had that, like someone thinks that you're from somewhere, what's the weirdest place that someone thought you might be from your accent? Georgia. Wow. Right, right. Right. Because we'd be forgiven for thinking you were from the Maritimes, right?

Because it's very similar. You hear a bit of that in Nova Scot the Maritimes, right? Like, because it's very similar. You hear a bit of that in like Nova Scotia, et cetera, right? Yes, Cape Breton. So Cape Bretoners sound the most like Newfoundlanders out of any East Coasters I've met. It would be Cape Breton. And what cracks me up is when people um think I'm Irish oh yeah yeah yeah right I mean yeah but the funny part about it is is they'll say oh my god are you Irish and

I'll say no I'm from Newfoundland and suddenly my accent's an issue um it doesn't happen a whole lot but there are like I've worked with maybe a handful of people over the years the last 10 years um who just did not like newfoundlanders and so the irish accent they were fine with uh but the newfoundland accent one person told me it's the result of growing of living on an island where our language didn't evolve because we had no outside influence oh like madagascar i said well that applies to every fucking island in the world asshole it's like ireland australia every and far as that goes it really applies to everywhere in the world because what outside influence did we have before radio? Right. And when did radio come along?

Not that fucking long ago. And what did we do when our language started to evolve? Oh, we came up with words like fleek and bay and tried to make irregardless a thing. That's what we did. Is that you guys? Lisa, so, okay, so Lisa, Darren's already an FOTM. That means friend of Toronto Mike

here he is a savvy veteran making his second appearance and Darren did you get a lasagna last time you were on? I did yes and we ate it it was delicious so the Frost family enjoyed the palma pasta lasagna so Lisa I feel bad that I'm not able to hand you a frozen lasagna from palma pasta but should I ever have the pleasure of meeting you

oh no but listen listen she's gonna come and live with me for the two weeks while we're touring and we're going to eat the palma Pasta, but should I ever have the pleasure of meeting you? Oh, no, but listen, listen. She's going to come and live with me for the two weeks while we're touring, and we're going to eat the Palma Pasta. Yeah. Okay, let me know, Lisa. Email or Twitter, whatever floats your boat. Let me know how it tastes because everybody I hand this lasagna to tells me most delicious lasagna you can buy in a store.

Oh, nice. I die for a good lasagna, too buy in a store. Oh, nice. I die for a good lasagna too, I tell you. So as an FOTM, Darren Frost not only gets the lasagna again, he also gets some Great Lakes beer. Quick question. In Newfoundland, how would you say the word brewery? Brewery.

That's how I would say it. That's how I say it. I get flack. It's supposed to be two syllables. Make me think brewery, and I do brewery. I add in that. Like I'm not supposed, it's supposed to be two syllables. Maybe like brewery and I do brewery. Like I add in that. I always add, it's always brewery,

three, it's three. Well, it's spelled, but it is three syllables. Right. Because it's a brewery. Right. So it's like, you know what,

like a factory, brewery. It has the ER after the brew. Right. Okay, thank you. I love you already already here but how do you say the word please we're brewers brew right brewery brewery right right how do you say the word pasta uh so it depends uh if i'm in newfoundland it's pasta uh if i'm in edmonton it's pasta okay that's the other one. I mean, Jim Cuddy, who else just did that to me? Asked me why. I think it was Lorraine Sagato from the Parachute Club.

She's like, why do you say pasta? I legit just say pasta because that's what I thought it was. And apparently Canadians say pasta. Yeah, I say pasta. I say pasta, not pasta. Pasta sounds like P-A-W, like a dog made it. Right. I think I'm butchering that one,

but you said, it sounds like in Edmonton, you say pasta, right, Lisa? I say pasta. It's a weird thing for me. Well,

for two weeks, when you live with me, it's going to be pasta. You're not eating. Or not eating. Yeah. I just find it funny. Like there's certain words that I do say sort of like,

um, very properly, but it's, I believe it's just because our accent is so because that's why it's so difficult to be able to recreate the Newfoundland accent first of all there's so many of them but also because it's influenced by more than just Irish so there's certain words we'll say that sound British and and even words we use that are British I call the hood of my carabiners um so it's just like a weird thing some words i'll say without the accent almost okay so i'm actually so so i mentioned uh darren already in fotm now you lisa baker you're an fotm welcome to

the family thank you also an fotm is ron james uh and this is kind of for both of you but when i hear that talk uh by and by uh you know, like what's that musical they did about the 9-11 people? Come From Away. Right, which I loved. I loved it. But part of what I love about it is how you speak in Newfoundland. And I hear Ron James, so where is he from? Nova Scotia? He's from

Nova Scotia, yeah. He's a lovely man. Yeah, I was going to ask you, because soon we'll talk about how you two are kind of teaming up as two fiercely independent Canadian comics. But when I think of trendsetters and groundbreakers when it comes to independent Canadian comics, I always think of my friend FOTM, Ron James. Maybe we'll start with you, Lisa, and then we'll move over to Darren.

But what are your thoughts on the work and the career of Ron James? And have you ever had the pleasure of chatting him up and talking with him? I did get to meet him a couple of years ago. I was at the YYC Comedy Festival and he was sitting at the bar and somebody said, Ron James is at the bar. He had a show in town that night. And so we went over and introduced ourselves and started chatting with him. But it was really funny because one of the servers came over after Ron.

He just ran up to his room for a minute. And so the server had come over to ask, like, is that guy coming back? Because, of course, we were all running tags, right? And we were like, oh, yeah, yeah, he's just gone to his room. But he was like, before that, he was like, the guy that was just here. I said, which guy? And he goes, well, the man you were just talking to. I'm like, Ron James? And he goes, well, the man you were just talking to. I'm like, Ron James?

And he's like, I guess. And I'm like, Ron James! And then the other comic, he goes to him and does it and he does the same thing. He's like, Ron James! And the guy goes, I don't know. I go, oh, I can just imagine if

frickin' Rush walked in right now, you'd be like, or the hip like, yeah, I guess. Or April Wine. imagine if freaking rush walked in right now you'd be like or they hit like yeah i guess or april wine right april one but a trooper but it blew my mind um that yeah he didn't know who he was but he was very young now when ron james white haired at this point i noticed that uh he looks less like ron james since he lost the pigmentation this is this? This was only maybe four years ago. I think maybe three, four, yeah, tops. But I love watching careers like that

because for years, we've been fed this sort of story. Canadian comedy is almost like the Wizard of Oz, okay? So we all go off on this little adventure and we're hoping for the best. And there's all these people that are supposed to help us along the way and stuff like that, right?

But you never kind of know. And when you finally get to the wizard and they pull back the curtain, you realize it's a load of shit. Because for years, what they do is they gatekeep and they tell you. And at one point it was sort of true. I mean, Ron James and people like Trent MacLennan

and even, you know, you got Kenny and Darren here. They've managed to build a career in spite of the gatekeeping and the way the industry is, right? So when I look at comics like that, it's inspiring to me because I have it easier. I have the Internet. I have social media. Nowadays, a comedian can build a career and, you know, create a very polished set without ever setting foot inside of a comedy club. And so these guys did it years ago. They used it as much as they needed and then, you know, did their thing.

And to me, that's very inspiring. And I feel like nowadays, like I said, I have it so much easier. So it's definitely motivating to me when I see what people like Ron and Trent and Kenny and Darren and you get Mike Lynch out of Newfoundland like independently just doing their thing and unapologetically love it now Darren Frost can you be specific like with regards to this because I've had some comics on the show most recently Simon Rakoff actually had some wait there's a couple things I'm going well we'll start with what's like what's wrong with the comedy circuit in this country we talked about well Lisa mentioned gatekeepers can you be like super

specific here and what you mean by these gatekeepers before I do that the only thing I want to say about Ron James because we talked about him about last the last time I was here yeah Ron James does not get enough credit he is a trailblazer in his country in that yes he did it

side by side with the CBC, but he was still very fiercely independent. A lot of people don't know all those things that he did for CBC. He did his own production for them. It wasn't like the CBC came along with a golden sword and gave it to him. So he's the guy that started out by doing a show to 100 people in a small theater, came back the next year, did 150, came back the next year, did 300, then built it up to 700. So he's made his own path. And that is what the future of stand-up comedy is because of those gatekeepers, which I will now get into your comment about gatekeepers.

In the 90s, if you didn't have a comedy club saying you're going to be somebody or we're going to push you, you would not get on a showcase and therefore not get Just for Laughs or Winnipeg or these comedy festivals that everyone sits and goes, oh my God, my career is going to be somebody or we're going to push you you would not get on a showcase and therefore not get just for laughs or winnipeg or these comedy festivals that everyone sits and goes oh my god my career is going to be made by them but what you quickly find out is even when you do them unless someone specific is there and some groundwork is already done it's just another weekend and that's when you realize that like she said it's like the wizard of oz you pull back the curtain and there's nothing really there and that's when you have to say to yourself, okay, am I going to do this myself? Or am I just going to, you know, throw my hands up to the air of luck, and hopefully it all works out. And the ones that do that don't last. The ones that say, I'm going to take the

bull by the horns and do it myself will last. Is it difficult to find venues? Like, are there some venues that are, for example, the yuck yucks only and all, et cetera. And I'm just throwing out yuck yucks. Cause both me and Lisa for the last five years have been doing this, where we find our own venues. Sometimes it can be hard, but you know what? Everyone has got a live music venue in their town.

There's no different for a standup venue. It's just, instead of being a cover band or ACDC cover band, it's going to be a comedy show. And you know, it's all, you live or die based on the venues. I'm doing a run through Newfoundland and I'm doing school gyms in these very remote places in Labrador because that's pretty much all they have. And that's where they hold like all the big events right interesting now okay so let's let's uh let the cat out of the bag here you two are teaming up and you're gonna do an ontario tour yes this is toronto mic so most not everybody but most listeners are in uh the gta especially in ontario yep beauty and the beast yes i don't even have to ask who is the beauty and who is the beast because i'm looking at you two right now.

Of course. You kind of should, though. You kind of should. I got a bit of a reputation. Yeah. Wait till you hear the material. Then everyone decides at the end. And Lisa later.

There's no beauties at all. Lisa, later we're going to find out a little bit more because it's your first appearance, a little bit more of your origin story, et cetera. So and then I have questions about your tats as well. So that's all coming up soon. Beauty and the Beast, which by the way, if you want to see Beauty and the Beast, an adult comedy show, does that mean there's going to be naughty words in this comedy show? It doesn't mean it. It's for sure.

It's a definite. Yeah, there's definitely going to be naughty words for sure. A hundred percent. Yeah. LisaBakerComedy.com is where we should send people, right? Yes. I will just throw out some Ontario cities

that have tour dates. That's 10 days from now. January 22nd, you're in Kingston. Then on the 24th, you're in Cambridge, Ontario. I can bike there. January 25th, you're in Barrie. That's like a home date for Darren Frost.

That's right. It's in his backyard, right? Okay. On the 26th, Sault Ste. Marie. And it was in Blind River back in, it's January, how do you like that? January 27th, you're in the Hammer. No. No, it's Han-mer, which is a suburb of just a little bit outside of Sudbury.

But you can call it the Hammer. My bad here. I thought it was Hamilton there. I thought it was Hammer too. You know what it is? I've had this, it's been coming up lately that I have, and I'll show you this, Lisa. I have like my glasses on standby

because fives and sixes now on my computer look like the same number, fives and sixes. And that looked like Hammer. And then as I kind of pull back a bit, I say, oh, that's an N, not an M. Okay. So Hammer, which I didn't really know was a place, but I'm happy here. Gravenhurst. Yes.

On the 29th. The Patch. Shout out to Hawksley Workman. You're in Peterborough on January 31st. Then I think you guys might remember that Wheels from Degrassi went to see his dad. Yes. And where did he go to find his dad? Do you guys know?

No. Port Hope. I was assuming that because it was the next day, but I didn't want to cheat. Never make an assumption. I didn't want to cheat. That's February 1st. Then Brockville, February 2.

And then Cornwall, February 3rd. And then Alexandria. Now, part of mywall, February 3rd, and then Alexandria. Now, part of my ignorance, remind me, whereabouts is Alexandria? It's about a half an hour kind of northeast of Cornwall. Yeah, it's close. Okay, okay, okay. So I just wanted to get that, like we'll revisit that at the end. But Beauty and the Beast, you guys have teamed up here.

But back to this, like I've heard this from others, whereby you have to sort of, back in the day at least, you had to align yourself with, like, let's use Yuck Yucks as an example, because it's kind of the big one people know, right? Sure. And Mark Breslin's been on the show, and we kind of learned the origin story of Yuck Yucks and stuff. But, like, that

Yuck Yucks would be a gatekeeper. Yes. They are a gatekeeper. They're an agent. They're an agent. The Yuck Yucks origin story, and then we'd have Breslin played by whoever plays the Joker, because that's pretty much, it's, yeah. I don't know if you want to cut that out. I do. No, cut it out.

I want you to elaborate. I'm an asshole. I don't give a shit anymore. I want you to elaborate, Lisa, because this is Toronto Mike, so we need the real talk here. Let's hear it, because later I'm going to ask you about something Simon Rakoff brought up with me recently, but tell but tell me like get it to me straight doctor i can take it like how is yuck yucks difficult for uh comics like yourself and the problem and i don't and i

because there's a lot of times people will say to me like come to our town there's a yucks here and there are a couple of yucks clubs that i use um and it's because i've built a relationship with those um either the management or the owners you know either or to a point where you know it's we have a great working relationship um the problem with yucks is that there's no consistency and there's no transparency so like you know we're expected to not work for anyone because I was signed with them for 13 years up until April passed and I left.

And it was because there was no wiggle room, there was no negotiating. And I can understand when, why comics who reach a certain level leave because there's no give with them. There's no, they don't care, right? They don't care about the integrity of the show either like head office because they'll kind of put anyone on and so there was times i would be sitting home on a saturday night before my career really took off and i'd look at

the lineup at a yucks at yucks clubs you know because you can see them all over the country um and the amount of times i would see comedians and they're like three comedians on one weekend and none of them are on the roster so I'm like so let me get this straight I can't work for anyone but you because I signed a contract saying which is not worth the paper it's written on by the way but I'm not supposed to work

I'm supposed to be loyal to you but you cannot hire people that are not signed give them and I'm fine with them getting work, but let me do whatever I want if that's the case. So that would make me angry. The other thing was when you get a corporate gig, so a company would approach Yox, we want to hire a comic. I would get my contract from Yox.

It would say what I was making, but I never knew what the client was paying. Wow. And it's come out since that there's a new agent with them the last few years. His name is Alex Ross. And it's come out that he's comics have actually been like doing shows. I know one comic was doing a show and let's say he was making, he was doing three shows or two shows at 500 bucks each and they added another

show. And now he was only getting something like 200 and he was like, why am I only getting 200 for extra for that other show and the vent the person running the venue who booked him and paid head office was like oh no we paid the same for each show the agent was taking a bigger cut and they don't there's no transparency no and and even just um when i approached one of the clubs halifax yucks actually which is run by francois weber who is a comedian and also the agent oh that's another thing having comedians as agents poaching gigs as they're coming in fuck off and so then they have francois

on the east coast in halifax and i tried to do a door deal there like i was doing in the rest of the country and they do give door deals at that club to other comics not rostered and so I asked and I was told well he wasn't aware of my ability and I'm like really got your finger on the pulse of Canadian comedy hey friends why I just did two fucking cross Canada tours multiple sold-out shows that I produced myself but yeah nobody clearly you know what you're doing like you know and so that was it for me then i was like okay bye but that's why people leave because of this shit but lisa okay i'm a big pearl jam fan and i remember they went to like courts uh they were uh there was a uh issue of ticket master having this monopoly and it became apparent very quickly how like pretty much if you're that big a

band how impossible it is to tour north amer without, you know, ticket master venues. Like, like, so is it, so I know you mentioned school gyms and you'll, you'll, you'll find venues to keep it fiercely independent, but is,

is that a, that must limit, does it at all limit your earning potential? No, because I take the door everywhere I go. So, and then by doing this, so like,

for example, one of the gyms I'm renting is 50 bucks to rent it another one is 25 an hour that's a negligible expense right there's like i spend more on freaking coffee you know what i mean and then we have um because i don't like to use the big government i'll use a theater as long as it's locally um owned like by this community of the town or whatever right or by you know someone in the community and the rental rate isn't insane and I do prefer smaller theaters. Stand-up comedy does. It's not

a theater. It's intimate. It needs to be more intimate. Give me numbers. What's an ideal number for a headcount for a Lisa Baker? I'm doing $29.50 a ticket. Get rid of the fees and taxes and stuff.

So say you're getting like $25 a ticket. I sell 100 tickets. I'm taking the door. And I'm doing this, like when I'm in it, I'm doing this six to seven nights a week on a run. So if I'm in Alberta, I'll do Thursday, Friday, Saturday. But like when I'm on the road, I'm doing this every night. And so ideally for me, even 50 is profitable. But there's places I'll go and we'll sell 200 tickets.

Yeah, the model is based on if 50 people, like we're going Tuesday to Sunday. The model is 50 people. Because that's, you know, on a Tuesday, Wednesday night, not the easiest time to get people out. So yeah, maybe you only get 50 people. But on a Friday, Saturday, you'll get 100, 200. So the model is based on, I also agree. I don't want anything more than two to 300 people at a comedy show. That's my personal opinion.

You want to go see Kevin Hart and arena. Great. It's not the same thing. You want to go see Russell Peters and a Thunderdome. That's great. You're not my fan. You're not my comedy fan. I want to see 200 people jammed in somewhere there for my kind of comedy and that's niche it's all it's just niche marketing and and that's all it is and also too i do prefer using like i'll go to like pubs breweries and stuff like that and i like to use locally owned and operated businesses because it's money in the community it contributes to that local economy right and i just I just feel like it's more in line with who I am as a person. And I'm taking the door.

So like Darren said, if you're doing $100 to $200 on the weekends or more, but you're doing, like, I would rather sell the 50 tickets, make a couple hundred bucks, a few hundred bucks after expenses, than have a dead night and make nothing. Oh my god you're i love what you're saying like and i it's you know we're cut from the same cloth here like so the brewery i've been working with for years like i have events there they i mean darren's leaving with some fresh craft beer hopefully there's some left over when you get there lisa but they like they're fiercely independent family-run business they're not owned by,

most breweries are, microbreweries, yes. Yes. And they have, but they haven't been gobbled, gobbled up. They haven't taken the Brinks truck money that shows up in the driveway from InBev,

which is fancy word for Labatt's or Coors, Molson Coors, et cetera, et cetera. But they have a, yeah, they have a big room in the back where it would fit, I think 50 people for a beauty and the beast show. Yeah. And you guys take the door, like you said, and then they sell a big room in the back where it would fit, I think 50 people for a beauty and the beast show.

Yeah. And you guys take the door, like you said, and then, uh, they sell a lot of beer and a lot of people come out to their venue and discover it. Like this model makes so much sense for everybody and there's no big,

you know, conglomerate and, uh, there. The thing is, yeah, I mean, it's easy to,

uh, you know, knock the, the comedy club model, but it worked in the eighties and the 90s. And before there was social media and the ability to harness this energy yourself, you were kind of stuck. Now you don't have to rely on these gatekeepers anymore. If you want to work with them on the odd gig, like, you know, fine, you take the money and that's it. you know, fine, you take the money and that's it. But, you know, I've always been upfront with everybody I work with. I'm very honest. I don't lie to venues. I don't lie to anyone. It's my career. And we're not the first people to do this kind of thing. Like I said, Ron James did this, you know, 20 years ago on a different situation. Now we have the internet. Now we have TikTok. I mean, you know, Lisa, we just talked about this yesterday. There's a guy named Mike Lynch. He's

from Newfoundland. He tours independently himself and also a tour called The Best Kind, which is three Newfoundland comics. And they're killing it. But that's really all on the back of Mike Lynch harnessing the internet and having a fiercely independent crowd that supports their own.

So the thing about Newfoundlanders are they support their own. So when you have those two things that can merge together the harness of the internet and a fiercely um product and population that wants to support it it's a win-win why would you give that to comedy clubs right but at the end of the day this whole model of yours falls apart if you two aren't fucking funny like you have to be 100 i mean that's the other thing like you know russell peters everyone thinks was an overnight success russell was in the trenches almost 15 to 17 years before he popped he was ready for it he could go there's lots of people who have like millions of followers on

tiktok they'll book a club in the states and suck and guess what the crowd still doesn't care because they still get a picture with that person and they go look on monday morning at work i got my picture besides fred the frog you know that's what's more important to them that's the world we live in the fact that lisa has an act and she's a headliner is just gravy to whoever she pulls in because that means repeat business which means once again you can go back right yeah because you could you could not be funny and do one wrong right second wrong it's a screech effect, I call it. Screech from, you know, Dustin Diamond. He'd play a club once, and he would pack the place. But coming back a second time, it'd have to be a couple years

because people remember how much he wasn't that good. Well, since you mentioned Dustin Diamond, I need to shout out Ridley Funeral Home. Yes. And I have a gift for Darren here. Again, you're going to have to share this with Lisa when she's staying at your place. Sure. You never know, Darren, when you need... Did you get one of these last time? Yes, I Darren here. Again, you're going to have to share this with Lisa when she's staying at your place. Sure.

You never know, Darren, when you need... Did you get one of these last time? Yes, I saw it. Oh, you did? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Did I give you a flashlight last time? No, no.

Okay, you know what? Look, I'm going to call an audible here in the line of scrimmage. Let's see here. Okay. The flashlight, yeah. Darren Frost, I present to you from Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921,

a flashlight to keep you safe, buddy. I'll use this on stage. If anyone heckles, I'll just point the light right at them. Right, and tell them Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home will be there for a pickup. You don't stop this. You're going to need Ridley Funeral Homes. Lisa.

Yes. Do you smoke weed, Lisa Baker? I do indeed. All right, I'm flipping screens here. So I'm shouting out Canna Cabana. They have over 140 locations across the country and they will not be undersold on cannabis

or cannabis accessories. They're great people. I was having a chat with Andy there. We're going to do an episode on edibles in like about a month. But now I'm looking at you. Is it, again, I see you. No one else can see you, unfortunately, but you have,

how many tattoos do you have approximately? I think 12. Okay. Are they all on the left side? Like, did you just say, I'm going to, no,

no, no. So I had some back here on my shoulders. They're very tiny. Those will be covered up. They're just byproducts of a misfit. Starter tattoos. They're, yeah, they're not tiny those will be covered up they're just byproducts of a misstake starter tattoos they're yeah they're not good um well one is a ladybug and it's not good but the other one is um the playboy bunny you know the universal symbol oh my god of course do i know the playboy

bunny yeah do you know how old i am lisa yeah so i i'm trying to figure out what to cover it up with i keep thinking because i'm getting married in June, so I keep thinking maybe I'll just get like a veil or something tattooed onto the bunny just to show like I used to be a hoe, but now I'm a housewife. Congratulations on that, by the way. June nuptials. Beautiful. Yeah, we're getting married.

But then the rest I have. And you think she's angry now. Wait till she gets married. I know. I have a puffin on my left calf. Probably about this big. And he's got a pipe. So I have a puffin puffin.

The other ankle I have a tinkerbell. And she's hugging a weed plant. And then I've got a little tinkerbell outline here. I've got the magic mushroom. All right. You're cannabis friendly. I love it. Like, and then like here. I've got the magic mushroom. All right. You're cannabis friendly. I love it. Like,

and then like so many ideas. Sorry, go ahead. Well, my, my favorite ones, like I love my hand tattoos and my half sleeve, but my,

which goes in, it's a, it's a flame that goes into the third degree burn scar. And so it's like a cohesive piece. But, um, my favorite tattoos are these ones. Cause I have over here.

I ain't scared of you motherfuckers, Bernie Mac. And then over here I have to the extreme, I rock him like, like a vandal. Those are my tattoos. Robert Van Winkle. Was that his real name? Yes, that's right. Why would he ever change it if you were named Robert Van Winkle here? Okay. Lisa, love it. I see your vape in there. You are like, uh, God's gift to Canada, Cabana Okay. Lisa, love it. I see you're vaping there. You are like God's gift to Canada Cabana shoutouts. So love it, love it, love it so much. Now, I want to get the

Lisa Baker origin story and then revisit the Darren Frost origin story. And then I want to know how you two hooked up. Like, did you just, hey, you're an independent funny person. I'm an independent funny person. But first, Simon Ratkoff came on and talked about this, I guess just for laughs, now

control SiriusXM's Canada Laughs. Do I have that right, Darren? Yes. It's JFL now. And Simon was saying a lot of the money that would come to Canadian comics was from SiriusXM airing their comedy routines. Yes.

Yes. So the royalties. Right. But he was expressing concern that the way things were going with Just for Laughs that comics like him

were getting fucked up the arse. Is that a direct quote? No, I just Well, how about I just say arse? Yeah. Because I just felt like they probably say that

in Newfoundland. I don't know. We do. We say arse. Yeah. Can you two i mean again if you gotta you know if you want to tap out on this one and then i respect that but do you have anything to add to this i just try i'm trying to understand what is what just for

laughs is doing uh to be disrespect our canadian comics who need to make a living okay i just want to understand it better okay so here's the model the model was xm is a channel that played and they have a dedicated canadian channel and before just for laughs got involved they would play independent canadian artists and their tracks and we get paid for that right and on the side of payment there's two payments i don't want to get too technical for your listeners but there's an ownership a master and then a performance fee those are identical payments and they're equal so if you own your own masters like I do, I would get two payments for every time they play one of my tracks. So that was vital money for people, especially during COVID because we were

still getting paid. What happened is Just for Laughs came along and they now run that channel. So they make all decisions on who gets played well just for laughs owns a whole back catalog of tracks that they recorded at their festivals so if you think they're going to play darren frost more than their own track and get both those payments because they own them or at least a master payment which is half you're kidding yourself and then they are now recording and comics are lining up and jumping on these just for last recordings and they're playing them you still get your performers fee but you don't get the master fee who gets the master fee just for last does if you don't think that's a conflict of interest it's a conflict of

interest now i've had my issue with just for laughs i'm not a fan of them i don't think they're a fan of me i think sometimes they do a good job it's probably not an easy job but i've been someone that's been very vocal about this for years and people just roll their eyes until recently because up until recently no one's money's been affected well about three months ago everyone's money got affected everyone's money so my money shrank by uh 600 percent wow other comics money shrank by more than that you know and these are payments that comics need now i am you know i do cartoon voices and i book my own tours i'm not saying this is the bulk of my money but if you're a young comic or a comic that was relying on that money that's now gone unless you play ball and do these just for last recordings that's it to a nutshell well no wonder ratff was so pissed.

Right. And I can tell you, I can tell you this is, because I know when my mic is on and when it's off, I can tell you that I've had conversations with Brad Wheeler at The Globe about shining a light on this.

To me, this is a bigger story and it should be... I've been screaming about it for like five, ten years about the way that this business handles its comics and his disrespect. If I go to LA and I say, I come back from LA, everyone in this business will go,

Oh, come, come have a meeting. You know, they, they love to say they support Canada, but they really don't a lot of ways. What does somebody like a,

a Howie Mandel have to say about this? Like, has he ever, Howie Mandel co-owns just for laughs. That's why I mentioned, that's why I mentioned, you tell me, I did a mock. He did a video where he walked around his mansion telling all the comics

to cool down when we had a big fight about it and then I did a mock video about it where I mocked him I did the exact type thing in my house it's like I got nothing against Howie but I don't think Howie really understands I think just someone told him go hey say it's good for comics he's like okay I got time away from AGT you know I'll say it's good for say it's good for comics. He's like, okay, I got time away from AGT. I'll say it's good for comics. It's good for comics if they play ball with Just for Laughs, and then Just for Laughs gets richer at the end of the day because of this huge conflict of interest. It's like, hey, it's going to be better for you.

You know how you used to get 200% of your money? Now you're going to get 100% of your money. It's better for you. Explain it to me, please. Darren, I haven't been this angry since i found out that they uh they wanted to put a private spa on the on ontario place land this is at the selling ground yeah and i'm and i've been angry for a long time like i said i i don't think they're horrible people i did their business they're a business but the problem is they are

a business that takes government money they Their whole festival predominantly is funded with government grants and money. So therefore, they are not a corporation and they can do whatever they want in the business world. We fund this activity with our tax dollars. Which is a huge detail. Go ahead, Lisa. Well, the other side of that, too, is that which kind of bugs me is a lot of times, you know, these in the industry, you know, festivals, comedy clubs, they have this mentality of like, you need us more than we need you.

But the thing is, if every Canadian comedian was to say, because this is how, because when in talking about when JFL took over Canada Laughs, back in 2019 when that happened, it immediately, no one was really notified about it. And then one of the comics put it up, hey, this is what they're doing. we were about to do a showcase for JFL. So I immediately replied to the emails again and said, hey, you know, in light of recent events, it just wouldn't be ethical for me to do this showcase because my attitude was at the time, I didn't have a dog in the play.

I had no, I have two albums now, but I had no albums at the time, but it was in the future. And, but these were my colleagues. These were people that had helped me over the years, had helped me become the comic I was. And this was their ability to, you know, feed their families or themselves or whatever.

And so I just thought, I was like, you know what? I'm just not going to do it. And then a bunch of us in Edmonton were like, yep, we're not doing it. And then it started to a ripple effect. And so they started bringing back more of our content because I kept, because in the younger comics, I just wanted to grab them and shake them because they kept saying, well,

you don't want to shoot my shot. And I'm like, listen, you, you moron like you. And I never realized how much of a business sense I had, but I realized like very quickly. Cause I mean, you just follow the fucking numbers here. If they're surviving, if that festival runs on grants, and they need to have a certain amount of Canadian content to get those grants, but the Canadian content isn't willing to cooperate. We're like, nope, we're not doing it. We're not doing it.

The festival will be done. They would have to shut it down there's no if unless they can find somebody to throw money at it it's not going to happen so we have so much power we don't realize and we're still terrified of all of these people and so just trying to explain that you know we do have the power to be able to um you know kind of keep them in line but the problem with comedians is it's like herding kittens it's it's like herding kittens. It's like anything else. Somebody could tell you, I want you to drive five hours and do this gig for a hundred bucks.

And any sensible comedian would say, no, I'm not, buddy, I'm not starting up the car for that money, you know? And meanwhile, there's a comic that will do it. And that's the problem. That's the problem with the industry. Like Darren said, they're lining up to do these recordings when they should not be doing these recordings.

Wow. And I appreciate you guys talking about this because, I mean, yeah, if you're in the, like I'm thinking of like Humble Howard, right? Like he's kind of

into the scene and keeping track because he was a comic and he still kind of dips his toes in that water. But for the average Jane and Joe, it's really like this is a chance

to kind of find out. How is it possible, sorry to cut you off, No, it's really like this is a chance to kind of find out. How is it possible, sorry to cut you off. No, go ahead. That this festival, I'm killing my own career in a way here, but I'll survive. I'm like a cockroach in a nuclear war.

But how does it work that we give our tax dollars to something and they don't have to justify how they spend their money? Like why is there not, like if they get $10 million of tax grants and all that, why can't 5% have to go

in the pockets of Canadian performers, even 5%? There should be a measurable way that if you get tax dollars or any kind of grants, has to be spent

for Canadian entertainment. I get it. The business works on having Kevin Hart show up or Louis C.K. show up and that sells tickets. I get that. But you know what?

That should fund the idea that, that but you know what that should fund the idea that okay you know this also funds the ability for these canadians to be seen on the same stage and they're paid accordingly so other than other than these young comics like refusing to play ball like hearing you talk there lisa like like how do we fix this like give me some i mean we need to shine a light on this with like some help from people like uh the brad wheelers of the world etc but how like what is it is it a federal government thing like like how do we make this right like how do we find justice here well i mean unless we start asking that you know i guess for some kind of accountability some kind of you know paper trail evidence of you know how money guess for some kind of accountability, some kind of paper trail evidence of

how money is spent or whatever. But outside of that, I mean, you're never going to be able to get the comedians to cooperate. You're never going to get them on board. But comedians do very quickly realize that the credit doesn't mean anything. The credit doesn't do anything.

That's the worst part of it all. It is. It's a letdown for them. So when you say it doesn't pay their rent, what are we talking about? They're not going to be the next Jim Carrey because of it? Well, here, I'll give you an example. And I made this public years ago when we were all fighting XM and JFL. In 2005, I did the Just for Laughs nasty show,

which is the number one show at the festival. It's 15 shows. Let's do the math together. 15 shows at $50 the math together 15 shows at 50 ahead okay and a venue that holds 750 people okay that's over a half a million dollars at the door okay okay that's before we talk about government grant money right i got paid a hundred dollars per set i got paid fifteen hundred dollars total can, and I had to pay my agent their fee outside of that to do those 15 shows. 15 shows, $100 each.

All they could have said is, look, Darren, you're a comic, you're worth, I'll give you $500. That's still nothing compared to what they brought in the door before we talked about tax money and all that stuff. That's not fair money. But what they're saying is, hey, for four days, you're making $1,500. The average Joe, it's not about that. It's about your worth and what you deserve. Wow.

Wow. Well, no wonder you, like, And then they go, why are you so angry, Darren? You know, like, you're just an angry comic. That's what they'll say. That's what anyone will say. I'm just an angry comic. I'm bitter, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not really that bitter anymore because I've made my own path. You can't take away my accomplishments and you can't take away Lisa's accomplishments. I'm not saying tomorrow I wouldn't work with someone, but unless the thing corrects itself and they start doing a better job, I'm not going to. Well, this explains why you two

have teamed up here in this fiercely independent enterprise, Beauty and the Beast, an adult comedy show. And I mentioned like you can go to Lisa Baker Comedy, spelled like it sounds. Unlike when I tell people if they have a real estate question, they can write sammy.cone at properlyhomes.ca.

I have to spell Cone. Don't email me your real estate question. Darren's in Barrie. So yeah, but Sammy's Cone, I always have to tell people Cone K O H N because people default to like David cone and the cone heads, but it's K O H N. So Sam,

that, that is true. You can email right now. And he's also the drummer for the Watchmen. So if you have any questions about drumming, the Watchmen are a great band. That's Sammy. Dot cone at properly homes.

That's yay. But Lisa Baker, comedy.com is where you go to get the tickets for beauty and the beast. Again, it starts January 22nd in Kingston. It winds down in February 4th at, in Alexandria, Ontario.

How did you two meet and how did you two become a business partners? We met in Newfoundland when Darren came to work, when there was a yucks in St. John's and Darren came to do a show. How long ago? Oh God, Jesus. 15 years ago. Okay.

Had to be like, it's, it's been, it's been a minute. Yeah. And when did you start Lisa? I, well, I've been doing it, uh, I don't know, 16, 17 years. So roughly within the first year of you starting, I met you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

I had just gotten signed. Okay. So let's do this, Lisa. We're going to tell the story of you two as we tell your origin story. Yeah. Oh yeah. I had just gotten signed. Okay. So let's do this, Lisa. We're going to tell the story of you two as we tell your origin story. So like, perfect. Yeah. Like what?

You just realized you're, you're fucking funny and you should be doing this. Like, tell me what made you decide to get on stage and be so fearless with the standup. There was a guy in Newfoundland who was trying to start at the time. I had no idea what it would be called but now I know it was a booking agency and he was just looking for comedians and so I um I it was in the

newspaper that's how long ago it was and uh I called the number and I started doing these like almost sort of like booked shows but really almost like just like a booked mic and he would do them at various bars we didn't get paid or anything and then um yucks opened um and i would do like i would go to karaoke bars and ask we didn't have comedy clubs we didn't have comedy mics so i would go to karaoke clubs and ask for time and then eventually i just um i ended up, when the club opened, going there and did the, they used to have this comedy competition at Yucks, Great Canadian Laugh Off, and I did the local laugh off, came top three, and then I got signed. Okay, but getting signed, does that mean that you basically, Yuck Yuck said, will represent you or something like that? Okay. Yeah. So yucks was my agency and I met Kenny Robinson and Darren Frost on separate occasions, worked with both of them.

Darren was with Kate Davis in Newfoundland. And I can't remember. Oh no, I think Sam Easton was on the show with me and Kenny. I think he was hosting and I was meddling and that's when I met Kenny. So quite, quite some time ago. Well,

congratulations to Kenny's mom turning a hundred recently. That was some exciting news there okay so uh yeah you meet you meet darren but then uh is this your first tour together as just just you two independently this uh beauty she just did a show and she was on the show the weekend that i was on because i would always fly in a night early and watch the young comics like my whole thing is i like to watch the young comics in towns so sometimes i'd come in a night early and i'd watch the open mic night or or whatever and uh you know i saw her and the thing about about um newfoundland is they like i said they very much support their own and so there's other pockets of the country that there's a great um amounts of newfoundlanders so then they

all started kind of going to these pockets either individually or in groups and doing shows and shows on the island. And she started to pick up her pace and doing shows at the club. And then she made a very smart decision. I mean, I've never talked to her about this. The problem is when you're in a small pond, you can be great in a small pond. But if you want to know if you're really going to be able to be good, you have to leave the small pond and become good outside the pond. You can always go back to the pond.

And that's what she did. She went to Alberta. Okay. Love it. And did you ever ask Darren if he could get you a voiceover role on Total Dramarama? No, no, no. I have no pull. No pull at all.

No pull in here. Okay. So this, like, can you get me into the weeds here? I'm just trying to understand, do you guys just simply say, hey, let's like, I know that last time Darren was here, he was doing an independent thing with Kenny Robinson, but is it just simply like you two are like, hey, let's do something together.

Like this would be something we could tackle as a team here. I'm talking about this new tour. You know, sorry to talk so much about it what happened is a couple years ago before lisa started really touring on her own i tried to get a tour of newfoundland because she hadn't gone back in a long time and she was having trouble finding promoters to try to promote the tour and it was a no-brainer for me but i'm three provinces over i don't really know the newfoundland market it's like me trying to do a show in harlem i mean i don't know the places i don't know where to go but i still think it's wrong that if kenny hadn't

played there kind of thing so me and lisa were talking and i kept struggling trying to put together a tour i'm like hey i'm still going to try to pull this off then she pulled it off on her own and uh toured and was very successful and then she toured in alberta very successful putting these tours together. I put them together myself in Ontario because I know the market. So I just said, Lisa, let's join forces in Ontario. Let's see how it is.

Let's do a run of it because I do have a bigger plan for this. Originally, Beauty and the Beast was going to be a four-person show, a big, big show. But you know what? With COVID and everything returning back, it's very hard to pull off that kind of show.

So now we're just going to baby step this and see if we can build it into that four-person show that we want. Amazing. Was there any consideration for something like in the GTA, like a Mississauga thing or something, an Oshawa thing or something? I sent

messages to venues, but you know, you have to go with who gets back to you. That's the whole thing. If someone doesn't get back to you right away, that doesn't mean they're jazzed and they're not jazzed about it. It's a hard sell. These kinds of independent tours are all based on the fact that these venues are also partners and they want the show and they're excited about the show. Even on this tour, there are dates that we're selling tons of tickets because they were like, boom, within an hour, they sent an email back going, we want this show. Love it so much. So I had this event, like 100 people or something.

It was a TMLX11. It was at Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga. And they have this new room they're working on up there. Like in theory, now we're just, this is all hypothetical, obviously, but you could sell at lisabakercomedy.com, you could sell 100 tickets at whatever price, 50 bucks a pop, whatever you decide. Tickets are only 25 bucks, by the way, which is very, very low for a tour like this. But then I'm just, so this is just me thinking out loud, right? But you could theoretically do that in this nice, this great new room that they are building, developing or whatever at Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga.

And like in theory, then they can,, then, there's food from Palma. They can buy food from Palma Pasta because they're there. It's a win-win. And Great Lakes could sell cans of beer for five bucks a pop or whatever. And you could, for relatively little overhead, you could throw this thing together and you could do it and then you guys take whatever, most of the gate. Yes.

I'm not disagreeing with you. No, I know. This is all hypothetical, but I'm just trying to piece it all together. Unfortunately, the tour is now full and it's booked. I mean, I have a Monday night off, but that's a hard sell for anywhere. And we do need a night off. We can't go seven nights a week. I mean, we can, but it's...

No, no, no. I meant just theoretically. Yes, of course. Next time, you could get something closer to Toronto that way and it'd be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Darren, I couldn't help but notice something called Story Yelling. Yes.

Tell us what Story Yelling is. So Story Yelling is the album I recorded in January 2020, right before the pandemic started. I was putting out, you know, an album, a new release. I was going to tour every province in Canada. And then two months later, the whole world shut down. And so it's been released to XM and now it's getting its American broadcast, which has nothing to do with all that stuff we talked about before. That's completely separate because JFL has nothing to do with that channel. Uh, it's, it's going on raw dog this weekend, um, two o'clock on Friday and 8 PM Friday, and then four more times on the weekend,

the whole album is going to be played. Love it so much. Lisa Baker, is there an album you can promote? Something we can, you know, other than these, obviously we've been urging FOTMs to check out Beauty and the Beast. Not just because you two are, well, firstly, primarily because you're two funny people,

two funny Canadians that we want to support, but also the fact that all the money is going to the talent. Like to me, that's so like nourishing for my spirit that the money is going to the talent. Like what a novel idea here. But tell us if there's an album people can pick up at lisabakercomedy.com. Promote anything you want right now.

Well, you go to my website, you can buy tickets, you can buy merch, and you can download both my albums. My first album is called To Completion, and my second one is Super Newfie. I recorded both of those in a one-year period during the pandemic. Super Newfie. I love it. You're in Edmonton. You're happy. Is this a fiancé in Edmontonian? Yes. We'll now have something in common.

We will both have married Edmonton people, which isonian? Yes. We'll now have something in common. We will both have married Edmonton people, which is awesome. Any chance you'd move back to the east end of this beautiful country? Probably not, only because

as much as I would love... It's weird. When I'm here, I miss Newfoundland. When I'm in Newfoundland, I miss Edmonton. Yeah. If it was love, it's weird. When I'm here, I miss Newfoundland. When I'm in Newfoundland, I miss Edmonton. If it was closer, it'd be better, but the thing with Newfoundland is just that as a touring comic, it's so expensive to get out of there.

I can imagine. Yeah, and there's only so much work you can do on the island. It's tough to even visit. I have it on my, I guess you'd call it a bucket list or whatever, but basically, to visit newfoundland it's the uh it's so i took once did a road trip but i didn't have time like i got to prince edward island and then i had to bounce back like this was a few years back whatever and you know you can fly out to bc and do a thing again my wife is from alberta whatever although i've also never visited saskatchewan or manitoba so

there are like three provinces I have not been to. But I really want to visit Newfoundland. But it's just getting there, it's a whole thing. Like you got to clear your calendar for a visit to Newfoundland. But I will get out there at some point soon. This is my pledge to the Newfies out there. Can I say Newfie? Is that offensive?

I can call you Newfie. It depends on the person. The reason the super Newfie. Is that offensive? I can call you Newfie. It depends on the Newfie. The reason the super Newfie thing came about because I got so much shit from a handful of Newfoundlanders for using the term Newfie and so I designed a t-shirt that looks like Superman

but it's super Newfie and then I have the album. I can see it would be something where you can use the word and I can't. It's like... Oh no, they don't care. It's worse if you're a mainlander, but then say it to us too. Right. Yeah.

They're burnt out. Well, like Watley converted for the jokes, right on Seinfeld. So it's the same kind of spirit here. Okay. So Darren, Lisa,

this is your last chance. I don't want Darren driving back to Barry and thinking, oh shit, I wanted to say this, or I wanted to mention that. And I forgot. So this is your opportunity before I play a little Lois and Lo and play us out.

And Lisa, don't disappear from the Zoom because I want to get a screen cap of you so I can promote it with a picture of you and not just a picture of Darren by the tree out front. But this is your opportunity. I will recede into the background anything and if I hear nothing, I'll just play the music. Let me go first. So all I say

is anyone who wants to come to the show go to tiktok follow lisa baker watch her videos okay then go to youtube watch some of my stand up and some of lisa stand up and then if you have any friends in these towns let them know about it this is an independent tour we're using independent means to get the word out and support canadian comedy even if you don't go see us, go see independent Canadian comedy. Sales pitch over. And before I pass the mic to, shout out to Beastie Boys,

before I pass the mic to Lisa Baker, it is Hammer Ontario on January 28th. It is. I don't want people going to the Hammer, Hamilton, Ontario. Go to Hammer on January 28th. Lisa, what say you? Just the same as Darren. Just check us out on social media. We're both hilarious. Lisa, what say you? Just the same as Darren.

Like, just, you know, check us out on social media. You know, we're both hilarious. And, you know, it's going to be a great show, very balanced. And kind of like a wild card. So I think people should kind of come out. Because it's so much better live than what you, if you enjoy what you see online, it's a million times better in person. Love it. Lisa,

thanks so much for your time and making your Toronto mic debut. Maybe next time, if you're ever in the GTA, I'll get you down here into the basement. That would be a thrill, but it's been wonderful connecting with you and making you an FOTM. Thanks for having me. And Darren,

good to see you again, buddy. Uh, comedy whore.com. And always you again buddy comedywhore.com always a pleasure comedywhore.com love the hat we'll get that in the photo we're about to take but you know it's open door for you and I hope

Kenny's not still mad at me for the mother thing that was a innocent mistake but shout out to Kenny Robinson one of the legends love that guy and that brings us to the end of our 1,186th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Now, here's how you follow my guest today.

Lisa is at Lisa Baker Comedy on Twitter. And is it Comedy Horror? What is it again? Yes, Comedy Horror. ComedyHorror.com or DarrenFrost.com. DarrenFrost.com. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery or at Great Lakes Beer. That's right. I said Brewery. Palma Pasta. Is that Palma Pasta?

Or if you're Darren, it's Palma Pasta. Yes. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. More about them soon, but you can go to recyclemyelectronics.ca and find out where you can drop off your tech that you no longer need. You can recycle it safely and properly. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH.

Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. And Sammy Cone Real Estate is at Sammy Cohn, K-O-H-N. Lisa, don't go anywhere. I want to get that screen cap. And I'll see you all tomorrow when Richard Griffin, formerly of the Toronto Star and Toronto Blue Jays, makes his Toronto Mike debut with a very special co-host in the studio, Mark Hebbshire from Hebbsy on sports.

See you all then. Cause everything is rosy green