Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #1029

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Mike chats with Marc Weisblott of 12:36 about the current state of media in Canada and what you oughta know. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

Welcome to episode 1029 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. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees

from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana. The lowest prices on cannabis guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me this week to recap the month that was, March 2022,

is 1236's own Mark Weisblot. Mike, two years, the two-year anniversary of our first Zoom episode when we were all ordered to stay at home. I have absolutely no memory of recording any of that. I think you're hearing that a lot here two years after the fact. Shout out to Norm Wilner. Same goes for me. What was it like to be ordered to stay home through the spring of 2020?

Wondering when the day would come we would end up in the pandemic's final act. And I arrive here in your basement April 7th, 2022 with just one question, Mike. Here today, recording the show, are you going to give it to me, or am I going to give it to you? Can I choose option three, that neither of us give it to either of us? Let's review the evidence, Mike. This week, I haven't been feeling in tip-top shape. us. Let's review the evidence. This week I haven't been feeling in tip-top shape. See, this

scares me. I've been experiencing a bit of a cold, but I attribute it to the fact that I was frolicking in the sunshine over the weekend on a sunny day in a spring jacket. How come you didn't tell me this before you came in the back here? I think if I knew you had cold-like symptoms, I would say don't visit.

I feel like you should have disclosed this before you came in the door. But Mike, Mike, on the other side, you have been a hyper-social fellow. Absolutely. I saw you hanging out at the headquarters of Twitter Canada without wearing a mask. That's true. No mask. You go by there, what, they give you a free lunch? I got a free lunch.

Yeah. Yep. That happened. You get the red carpet rolled out for you by Cam Gordon from the show Toast. I was the first comms guest at the Twitter Canada HQ in two years. Me. Me. That was me.

I know you've been rolling around town on Toronto Mike's bike. I was at Jack Astor's, and we'll speak more about this in the memorial segment sponsored by Ridley Funeral Home, but I was at Jack Astor with some FOTMs this past weekend. All of this to say, spring is here, Mike, and you've been living your life. Yes, but here it is. But it's me who's been in more isolation in the past week waiting to come here on a Thursday afternoon.

I'm just warning you in advance that there's always a chance that either you or me might be contagious. Yes, but listen. Let me talk for a minute. Let me talk for a minute. We might be priced for this episode after it's over. But wise plot. This is what I don't understand.

I have no symptoms. I feel great. No one in the house has symptoms. Everyone's feeling great. You just disclosed to me and to the listenership that you feel symptoms. This is the rule. If you feel symptoms, we don't record indoors. But I'm convinced

I do not have these symptoms. I know, but based on what have you done a test? Of COVID-19. Okay. I've got no time for a test at all. Is this going to be the shortest 1236 episode ever? Is this going to be the one where you throw me out of here? I'm like Chris Rock.

I'm processing. Is this even more of a revelation when Ben Rayner went in your backyard last year and disclosed to you and Cam that he was suspicious about getting the second shot? And he had no symptoms, and we were outdoors. See, this is the thing. If I knew you had any symptom at all, I would have set this up in the backyard. I honestly, and we are going to do the show, I suppose,

but this is very, if I may, off the top, disappointing that you came into this basement with symptoms. And what I'm saying, Mike, is I am more suspicious of you. I know. Because you're the one who has been in contact with more people who were capable of spreading it around. But you have the symptoms. It's that time of the year. The wastewater data that I keep reading about on Twitter.

You notice on Twitter, the place where people hang out who always want to be proven right. And the smugness of social media, we've seen it shift over the years, right? First it was a bunch of tech bros, then the marketing people, the journalists got involved,

the celebrities, the sports figures, the politicians. And these days, when I go on Twitter, all I see are people hectoring one another for not wearing a mask.

We should have stayed longer in lockdown. Ontario should have somehow been the exception to the worldwide rule of obeying the rules. Meanwhile, your previous guest, the FOTM Stephen Del Duca, holds a maskless rally in a cramped hotel basement, which is the sort of thing they do to make it look like there's a big crowd in there, right? And they caught a lot of flack. Did you notice

that, Stephen Del Duca and the Ontario Liberal Party? Here they were preaching about how you should wear a mask, and none of them took any precautions at this rally, and today, April 7th, Stephen Del Duca calling for a return to the mask mandate in certain settings

under the circumstances. So this is where we are and yeah, Mike, looking forward to possibly infecting you on the name of recapping the month that was, March 2022.

You're going to feel so shitty if I get COVID and die, or I get COVID and someone in my home dies. You're going to feel terrible because this is recorded for all of eternity. And anyway, if I knew you were symptomatic, we would not be in the basement right now. Look, crank it up. Let's get to the point here, na. A, B, C, D, E, fuck you. You said you just needed space, and so I gave it.

Yeah, song for all of my haters. Remember, I mentioned this one on the Fromage 2021 episode. Avril Lavigne was mounting a comeback, which I don't know if it's been entirely unsuccessful, but Avril Lavigne is not 17 anymore, and this is the singer Gayle. The song A-B-C-D-E-F-U.

You into this? I do. No, I'm digging it. Sounds good. Ranking it up on TikTok. Sounds good. Fuck you and your mom and your sister and your job and your Craigslist couch and the way your voice sounds. Fuck you and your friends that I'll never see again. So, hater talk, where do you even begin? I have some contributions here as well, but do you want to start with Rob Farina?

Okay, well, maybe you should cue this up by explaining who Rob Farina? Okay, well, maybe you should cue this up by explaining who Rob Farina is and how he ended up on Toronto Mic'd. Might not be a name that everybody knows. Rob Farina listened to the Mike Cooper episode of Toronto Mic'd and he wrote me a nice email about how much he dug it and how much

he enjoys the podcast and then I asked him, hey, why don't you come on? Rob Farina is a, what did I asked him, hey, why don't you come on? Rob Freena is a, what did I call him? What's the term I was using for him? He is a radio executive. He's a kind of an experienced radio exec. Yeah, a lot of experience, but currently between jobs. Sure, he's between jobs.

He did some iHeartMedia stuff recently. And yet left already a huge legacy, like a lot of people. On the radio in Toronto today, were set up in their positions by Rob Farina, including Darren B. Lamb. And the mystery of Darren B. Lamb goes on because you ask everybody who was ever associated with this Toronto radio announcer and his career

what happened to him at CHF Hyde. Does no one have an answer they will say on the mic? Do you think maybe they're concealing something from you or that people genuinely do not know? No, they're being careful what they say on the mic, of course. Usually when we stop recording, I get the entire story. But yeah, I'm just waiting for someone to say something on the public record. But yeah, that happened.

I guess you're referring to the Daryl Henry episode of Toronto Mike because I asked him earlier this week. Yeah, Daryl Henry and Gord Rennie, Tish Eyston. Mike Cooper. Mike Cooper. Mike Cooper. I notice Rogers being very friendly with Toronto Mike, letting these people from CHFI come on the podcast. I don't believe these people recently have asked permission.

Better to ask forgiveness after the fact. So Rob Farina, architect of a lot of the radio that we've heard, talked about here on the Toronto Mic'd show. I have a history with him, and it dates back now, can you believe it, 30 years on what was, in my mind, my first real professional journalism assignment. This was with iWeekly. I'd just given up on this idea that I would get a Ryerson journalism degree, kind of dropped out of the school.

There it was, springtime. I had an opportunity to pursue pretty much whatever I wanted in the pages of this Torstar Alt Weekly publication. I weekly. And what would I do with this opportunity? I wanted to emulate the kinds of articles that I grew up reading. that I grew up reading, wanting to do the Toronto version of stuff that I would read in Spin Magazine, Cream, Musician, essentially the kind of stuff we talk about here on the podcast now. But 30 years ago, the medium that was available was the printed word, essentially to go behind

the scenes, find out how the sausage gets made, what keeps the music industry ticking. I grew up with an obsession with Top 40 radio, how the machinations of the whole thing worked with the music industry. Why not seize the moment and contact the one record company promotion person who I had heard of, a guy named Ivor Hamilton, see if I could shadow him on the job for a day as he made the rounds promoting some records.

Now, my primary motivation here was essentially, I just wanted to meet these people. I wanted to learn what they were doing for a living. And because I was outside the box being some kind of media co-op student, those opportunities didn't seem to be around anyhow, that I could leverage this idea that I was a writer with a platform, an opportunity to be printed and just ride around for a day with a guy like Ivor. Mike, you, if anyone could understand the appeal of this. Yeah, absolutely.

It's not like I had a podcast on which I could host somebody like him. I'd grown up listening to him on CFNY, knew he went into the record promotion business. My primary interest was just in meeting the man and find out what it was like. Tell him that I grew up listening to him. I always enjoyed what he did. I wanted to see what he was up to in his new career. And by virtue of the fact that people had heard of him

on a certain level, he was a Toronto celebrity who was now working behind the scenes. It seemed like a good enough idea for a puff piece to run in a Toronto City magazine. And that's where my problems started. Because in the course of reporting this article, I encountered a man who was working at 680 CFTR, a young assistant program director, a music director, whatever his position was, a guy named Rob Farina. And once again, it was a thrill to meet somebody in a role like this, the kind of job that I grew up, if not dreaming of doing myself, at least having a chance to hang with the personalities behind the scenes. And at that point in time, the way I could do it was by writing these stories.

And Rob Farina struck me as an entertaining, snarky kind of character. When me and Ivor rolled into his office, I thought, hey, I really like this guy. I want to follow up with him and find out if CFTR added the records to the rotation that Ivor was pitching him on behalf of Polygram Records. Well, I was looking for snarky comments. I was trying to find a fellow traveler. I was excited about the idea that this guy would be candid in what he had to say. And he made a remark to me that was tremendously entertaining. As far as I was concerned, this was going to be the highlight of the article, but it

wasn't going to be the headline. It wasn't the main feature of what I was writing about. But here we are 30 years later. It turns out it's the only thing that anybody remembers, and the only person who remembers it is Rob Farina. Okay, what was the headline? Oh, well, the headline was, I don't know. Well, this is Rob's bone of contention.

It was about Ivor Hamilton. That's the thing. Do you have the clip? Did you pull the clip? No, I didn't pull the clip. But Rob... Okay, he made it sound on the podcast like writing about him was the main purpose of the story, right?

But you took a quote from him. I took a quote. It's in the middle of the article. So I guess all I'm curious about. It meant nothing to anybody at all. So what I was wondering, I was trying, I would, look, Mike, you already blew it. I was setting it up for the idea that you had a clip. Oh, I had no idea.

I was going to lay into you. Well, I'm worse than you were laying into me for possibly infecting you with coronavirus. you were laying into me for possibly infecting you with coronavirus. Because there Rob Farina is kind of saying that way back when I brought him to the brink of ending his career because I prominently featured his comments in an article. His comment was something about Canadian content. When it comes to adding Canadian content on this radio station, we play whatever makes us gag the least. I thought that was hilarious. Great stuff. Print it.

Put in the story. This is how it feels there. I got to cut to the chase here. The guy is picking the music on CFTR. And so 30 years later, he's on the show with you. And make it sound like this was like the main draw of the story. This was like some scandalous centerpiece of what I was writing, what I was talking

about. It wasn't at all. It was just a little aside. But for some reason, somebody noticed it, and they went after him, right? And they said, Rob, how dare you say that about the fine Canadian records that we're programming on this Rogers radio station? How dare you disparage the songs that we're playing? What are you talking about?

If you were listening to AM Top 40 radio in the early 90s in Canada, this was when Alanis, one name Alanis, was the biggest star on the radio. The product, what they were playing, was completely mediocre, and I'm sorry that I hurt Rob's feelings. 30 years later,

that he's using your podcast to lay in to be about ruining his career. Nothing of the sort. All I care about is this. When Rob says you misquoted him in the piece. Well, I didn't misquote him. That's all I care about. If he wants to say that it's okay. He can just say he's misquoted all he wants.

But then my problem with you, Mike, is then you're like agreeing with him. You're like rolling along with him. Well, how do I know? That wasn't cool. No, you got to take my side. I can't take your side until I find out from you that he's making this up how am i it's not it's not that he's making it up okay but he's portraying a situation like somebody was out to get him when in all actuality it was it was me trying to flatter somebody who i was i was impressed with

the idea that this was a this was a character who was willing to cause chaos, who was willing to say something like that to somebody who called him asking for a quote in an article. So of course he had to do all kinds of damage control. Oh, I said this other thing, the way that he phrased it in detail, what he actually said at the time, it's, Mike, it is 30 years later. I know. It's amazing that this thing has burned in his brain. So I have come here to dispute the account of my incorrect reporting at the time. I didn't write anything wrong.

I wrote what the guy said to me. And it's not like I wanted to get him. It's not like I really cared. I thought it was a rare bit of candor for me who wanted to learn what it was like programming these radio

stations from within. I was tremendously entertained by what Rob Farina had to say. I'm sorry that it made it to print. People got mad at him and dragged him into a corner office and made him get on his knees and beg to keep his job, and he proceeded to have a spectacular career in the Canadian radio business,

and at one point even made it to doing some work in L.A. I was very happy to hear him on Toronto, Mike. And it's not like we're mortal enemies. I subsequently befriended the guy. I hung out with him on multiple occasions. Get this, Mike. He invited me to lunch to talk about writing a book about the history of Chum FM.

book about the history of Chum FM. Would you do that to somebody who you accused of ruining your life by misquoting you in an article in the newspaper? I have a note regarding the Rob Farina

episode myself, but I just want to just find the last sentence before we move on from this. So Rob's bone of contention, he said, is that you misquoted him in this quote. He was trying to say the opposite, but you're telling me he's lying about that. Because one of you, you can't both be right on this one. He says you misquoted him. You said you didn't misquote him.

My recollection is that I did not misquote him at all. Okay, okay. Okay, but he remembers it as being some kind of exercise in bad faith when it was in fact me trying to edify a fellow character, the sort of person I was excited to meet and happy to hear as someone who was actually listening to the radio, as I do to this day, keeping track of the hit records on CFTR.

And yeah, the CanCon couldn't have been any more mediocre than it was. I thought he made a wonderful point. Okay. Now I do want to just pass on a note from Rick Hodge, FOTM Rick Hodge, heard the Rob Farina episode of Toronto Mike and was rather upset. He wrote me a passionate email

because in Rick's opinion, and I think Rick is right, Rob made it sound like Rick was not particularly liked by Roger Ashby and Marilyn Dennis and Rick Hodge rightfully was offended by this because he said he got along great with both of them and they all got along and they all liked each

other. So any kind of thought that perhaps Roger and Marilyn didn't like Rick is false and I just wanted to make sure FOTMs listening to us right now know that that's the way it was, as per Rick Hodge.

And there you go, Rob Farina. How you like me now? The tables have turned. Okay. 30 years later, it's you being accused of wrongfully characterizing somebody else's feelings. Before we get to current radio, is there anyone else,

any other hater talk, anyone else you want to hit on? David Cooper, who you had on the show in early 2022, the man who was brought in to replace Jim Richards, and we'll talk a little more about the shuffling over there at News Talk 1010 CFRB. I'd like to announce here that while I initially endorsed David Cooper as a subversive overnight radio host, however many months later, I'd like to say that I am completely annoyed by his act. Oh.

I cannot tolerate listening to him anymore. Wow. Because I wonder why is this Heritage Canadian radio station having an on-air host, a live overnight show broadcasting from a Manhattan condo? Well, let's address this now. Let's recognize the fact that the person who's on the air should be in touch with the streets, right? Like, what's the point of this view from nowhere that's coming from David Cooper? And I laid into him for his privilege,

something that came out from Googling information about him and his background based on names that he was dropping on the air. And I'm throwing it down here. David Cooper, you got to get back to Toronto. I don't feel you deserve this job anymore. Well, let's talk about it now while we're talking, David Cooper, that there is a big announcement at 1010, talk 10 10 there's

a new afternoon drive so uh I suppose um I almost called him Mike Richards Jim Richards not Mike Richards Jim Richards was doing the afternoon drive after uh Ryan Doyle was let go and then uh Mad Dog Jay Michaels went to Montreal he got a gig in Montreal. So we had Jim Richards on Afternoon Drive, and David Cooper was doing Overnights, but now FOTM's Scotty Mac, Scott MacArthur, and Reshmi Nair, am I saying the last name right? Nair? I believe so. Reshmi Nair.

Reshmi Nair, who I share on the... She's very good. ...as the new Afternoon Drive host on News Talk 1010. So what does that mean for Jim Richards? Does he go back overnight? These are like proven talents there in the organization. Resh Miner was originally hired to do the CTV newscast on Quibi. Remember the Quibi?

Of course I do. Quibi smartphone newscast. Yeah, and lately she's been on CP24. Transform Hollywood. She was already around then, hired by Bell Media. Before that, she was working her way up at the CBC. And Scott MacArthur, F-O-T-M, Scott MacArthur, MacArthur, F-O-T-M, Scott MacArthur,

one of the hundreds of former fan 590 morning show hosts, also has a history there at the station because Bell Media, TSN, 1050, that's where he was employed before, and now the two frequencies have the same program director. Jeff McDonald. And this was already then a relationship that was established and an easy call to make. And Scotty Mac is now on the air in Afternoon Drive

starting April 11th. Which is Monday. What happens to Jim Richards? Well, I don't think Jim was having the greatest time. Kind of condemned to do this broadcasting at home, first in overnights and then the daytime, throwing him in first with Mad Dog after the disappearance of Ryan Doyle

and then with various co-hosts on his own. And once again, I don't think this idea of doing remote broadcasting, while absolutely deemed essential, I guess, by Bell Media at the beginning of the pandemic, don't allow anybody in the studio in the same room together. Look at us now, Mike, two years later. You're in your basement. Don't remind me. Possibly spreading in your basement. Don't remind me.

Possibly spreading the virus around. Don't remind me. And you hear a lot of Jim Richards struggling through a situation that he was put into, trying to figure out, hang on to his job. I don't know what happens next to Jim. Does he go back to that overnight show, which he vocally despised? Is it a constructive dismissal situation taking shape here? Will they still find room for Jim within the Bell Media paradigm?

But yeah, this whole thing having uh live and local talk radio which has been boulderized at bell media uh a lot less of it going on than there was before weekend mornings uh the morning show host dave trafffford, weekend host. He stepped aside. Did you know he's Bob Willett's podcasting business? Bob Willett's, I want to get it right, Bob Willett's sister-in-law's father-in-law.

Dave Trafford stepped aside and they replaced him with a simulcast of the CB24 morning breakfast show. You hear it for one week, maybe a month. You think, oh, this must be a temporary measure until they find the new host. It's like, come on. 2022.

There is no new host. This is the plan, just to have the computer program to flick over to the TV simulcast, let them handle it from here. But yeah, no more, listen, if we're going to take this AM talk radio seriously, if it's going to have any life up against podcasting, any reason to exist, you have that people in the studio, right? Like, if you own this property at the corner of Queen and John, the former headquarters of City TV and Much Music, which, by the way, quote-unquote, temporarily vacating the premises.

You saw that piece of news. Do you think they're ever coming back? I would guess not. vacating the premises. You saw that piece of news. Do you think they're ever coming back? I would guess not. They're building the Ontario line, and it's going to disrupt the flow of traffic,

that legendary part of Queen Street West. Why would they move out, construct a bunch of studios elsewhere, and then come back in, right? Like, that's the end of it. Welcome to the era of condominiums. A $299 Queen Street West. Let's buy one. Very nice building to live in.

I think that would be the future home of TMDS. How symbolic would that be? Maybe I'll share some space with Retro Ontario. At the very least, Zoomer Media would be thrilled to move back in, get the Speaker's Corner back up, rebrand the LiveEye truck coming out of the building. How disingenuous was that, right? They have a City Pulse truck, and they put the CP24 logo on it. Right.

Even though the vintage of the truck predates the existence of the thing that it's supposed to represent. So if you're going to set all this up, before you open that beer, the point is, why are you not using those facilities, right? Like, we can do this podcast in your basement. If there's any upper hand for what this telecom-owned corporate media is doing, it's to do something beyond what we can do down here. And we've just gone through a two year period where so much of this commercial talk radio has been inferior to what we can produce

this way. I don't know if there's any turning back, right? That's become a recurring discussion, especially with you and Hebsey talking about the future of sports talk radio. Is there any way for that product to compete? And I would have to say, yeah. I don't want to hear Jim Richards broadcasting from his house in Leslieville. We don't need David Cooper from an undisclosed luxury high-rise in New York City. Get these people back to where they belong,

or don't bother at all. And on that note, Mike, I will let you open your Great Lakes beer. I need this beer. Thank you, Great Lakes, for sending it over. I'm opening a burst IPA. Okay, I got to work with what I got. What do you want? I have an octopus upstairs in the fridge.

Look at you with your smart serve certification. That's right. So you let me know. I could run upstairs and get you an octopus. But that's a good beer. The beer was free. I'm going to take what I can get. Canuck Pale Ale for Mr. Wiseblood, which is a great beer.

Absolutely. That's their staple, man. Hey, do you want to do more radio, or do you want to hate on anyone else? Or are they one and the same? I was waiting for you to ask Mike Wilder the annual question. What do I do for a living?

I felt like if he'd been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. You don't think you would have gotten a different answer after six years? No. I think he's consistent. He doesn't really remember you, but he's happy to hear

that you went to the same school. He remembers me. We went to the same school. I would see him in CIUT at 91 St. George Street at the radio station. He talked about some of his memories of that.

It was a good chat. This is yesterday. I barely speak sports at all, but I listened to Mike Wilner and looking forward to you doing the Jays talk, phone-in reenactment. It'd listen to Mike Willner. Looking forward to you doing the Jay's Talk phone-in reenactment. It's going to happen this summer.

Someday in the backyard. Mike Willner would not come in the basement with you. No, he won't go in the basement with anyone. It's not a Mike thing. He doesn't do that right now. It was outdoors or bust because we didn't want to do it on Zoom. I was happy to do it in the backyard.

And if you had given me any hint that you had any cough of any nature, we would be in the backyard right now. And I'm still a little pissed at you. I'm a little pissed. So I'm monitoring you for symptoms, and I don't hear any. You don't have a fever or anything. What are your symptoms? I'm getting paranoid now.

I don't know. We haven't had to use the cough button here. Okay, no coughing. Not that I would know where to find it. FOTM Eric Alper. It's right there. You can't reach it. FOTM Eric Alper.

Yeah, I like this guy. A resource for some of your most memorable guest bookings. Sass Jordan, Gino Bonelli, and Molly Johnson. All three of those, which were three of my favorites. They all came through Eric. Any washed up CanCon superstar. Who needs a first rate publicist to keep their vanity alive. And have them show up on all the A-lister shows.

Andy Kim is a big Eric Alper guy. Eric Alper is your man. I'm not saying the man is bad at his job. I like him. But thanks to Toronto Mike, deigning to answer one of Eric Alper's questions. I can't remember which one it was. Oh, did I?

I rarely bite on those, but I might have bit on one. Do you remember what it is? See if you could find this. You might have to do a little search yourself. You know how to search Twitter mentions. Yes, I do. You know Cam Gordon of Twitter Canada.

Thanks to the fact that there was a shout out to that Eric Alper by Toronto Mike. I learned the most devastating news of all. Eric Alper has blocked the 1236 account on Twitter. Did you say something rude to him? What have I done to deserve this?

At the beginning of the year 2022, there was a piece that ran in the National Post. It was something like, what the most prominent Canadian celebrities that we're able to speak to, what are their New Year's resolutions, or their predictions for the year ahead, or

what are their hopes and dreams for Canada? You're a disruptor, Mark. You're like a bull in a china shop. As literate as I am in tracing the origins of Toronto Mike podcast guests, some of whom were in that feature on that list, the fact that Hannah Alper, Eric's daughter, was also featured in there. Right, I remember this now. I do remember this.

Within a matter of seconds, I made a quick calculation. Yeah. Oh, Biff Naked. She's also an Eric. All the Canadian celebrities highlighted here for this National Post media newspaper feature, every single one of them has a publicist named Eric Alper. And this offended you why?

I just need to understand. This is Eric doing a hell of a job for his client. Who said it offended me? Because you must have mentioned it in reply in Twitter and he said, fuck this guy,

and he blocked you. Is that what happened? He must have noticed it because Jesse Brown referenced it, gave me credit on the Canada Land podcast. He's like, fuck this guy. I'm trying to make a living here. Eric is a publicist.

He's doing what publicists do. If he figured out how to place a big, fluffy New Year's feature story, right? A time of year when nobody wanted to work on anything else. And he knows how to get that in all the newspapers. Right. From coast to coast to coast. As far as I'm concerned, that's worth giving the guy a high five. But there's also nothing wrong with pointing it out when you're able to pay attention,

when you know what he's up to. And that's my suspicion of how I got blocked on Twitter by that Eric Alper. It's either that or a bunch of other moments of merciless mockery over the years. But, yeah, I think that's what did me in. Sorry, Eric. Take it up with him when he's next here on the years. But yeah, I think that's what did me in. Sorry, Eric. Take it up with him when he's next here on the show. Okay? Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, I'm a lady

In the sun with your hair undone Can you hear me now calling your name From across the bay? A summer's day, laughing and hiding, chasing love out on Thunder Island. Okay, so you soured on David Cooper, but have you soured on your favorite radio station, Today 93.5? Yeah, this song is by request from Toronto Mike, because when I was extolling the virtues

of this new format, the Replace the Flow, I mentioned part of the novelty of this station. It's the first Toronto radio outlet I ever heard that plays both guys named Jay Ferguson. Still, I thought that was like an introductory format that's kind of gone from

Thunder Island. You said you didn't remember Thunder Island. Is this Ring a Bell? No, nothing. No? Okay. This was the original. I'll stick with my FOTM Jay Ferguson. Thank you very much. Jay Ferguson. No, nothing. Hippie yacht. I'll stick with my FOTM, Jay Ferguson. Thank you very much. Jay Ferguson.

Yeah, I was wondering out loud, is this format here to stay? Will the station sound this chaotic in the long haul? I certainly had my doubts, but it was why I was raving with enthusiasm about how, as far as corporate commercial radio in Toronto was concerned, Today Radio might have been the greatest I had ever heard, at least as far as music programming was concerned in this 21st century. What does this made for you. Well, look, it was only a matter of weeks before the stunting

started to fade away and a more conventional programming playlist started to appear. Now, it's still not bad. I would say on a scale it's more eclectic than

CHFI, Chum FM, Energy 95.3, the chorus station, the one that seems pretty hopeless. If I may, Mr. Wiseblood, eclectic is a code for

ratings poison. Yeah, you've learned from the best, huh? Rob Farina, who also said this station was going nowhere. But this is Stingray Radio, and you're more likely to have multiple stations in the market doing a variation on the same thing, right? They're all going for that same piece of the pie, and it's incumbent upon them to sound as much alike as possible

while at the same time being different enough from one another Pawn them to sound as much alike as possible, while at the same time being different enough from one another that they managed to steal some of the listeners away. You're not stealing anyone from Chum FM with this jam, with all due respect to the other Jay Ferguson. They gave up on Jay Ferguson's Thunder Island. What replaced it is a lot more conventional than before. And you know it as soon as they start playing Sophie Simmons, the daughter of Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed with her CanCon songs.

That's about as generic as it gets. You want to talk about Canadian content that makes you gag, and yet the right people seem to have been paid off for that one because it's rising on the Canadian radio charts. And look, I mean, there's still this idea of throwing in some country and some hip-hop and some retro and alternative rock songs, and alternative rock songs. But increasingly, this Today 93.5 is sounding like a conventional adult hits radio station.

And with this idea of doing social radio, that's what they call it. Like, have you heard that term? That's technically the word. Social radio, a way of integrating people's opinions, having these callers appear on the air in between the songs, extremely edited. These are not spontaneous talk radio calls, right? You're not going to hear anything that reminds you of the movie from Eric Boghossian and Oliver Stone. I mean, every call that makes it to the air has been heavily screened, if these are even real

callers at all. I think for the most part, they're just using ringers, like different actors who are contributing these calls and making them talk about the view from nowhere. They're commenting on topics where it's not specific to Toronto and it's not specific to Canada. It's not specific to anything at all. And Stingray Radio rolling out this format across the country with more cookie-cutter hosts, more of these generic personalities, Katie and Ed. You can hear them in Toronto evenings on Today Radio. Mike, you're just drawing a blank.

No, I'm watching the live stream. Katie and Ed. No, I don't know Katie and Ed. I don't know them, but you'll tell me. But on live.torontomic.com, we're live right now, and Basement Dweller has shown up. So hello to Basement Dweller. And he says that 12 36

is the only one mourning the loss of today's launching format won't get fooled again by these johnny come lately radio stations okay well yeah thanks avery hey katie and ed you just doxed the man he'll be all right katie and ed do mornings in Calgary, in Vancouver. Are we still talking Today Radio? Evenings in Toronto. Are you on their payroll? No, there's nothing here. Are you doing PR for them?

I gave up. I gave up on the station. Can't be bothered anymore. But at the same time, shortly after the Today Radio launches, another Toronto frequency ended up tweaking its format just enough that I wonder if they were inspired about going for a piece of that very same pie.

And that station turned out to be Indie 88, which has now started adding more of these top 40 pop songs and has more in common with a hit radio station

than it ever did before. With the gold teeth, your dark skin Lookin' at me like you know me I wonder if you got the G or the B Let me find out, I see you comin' over to me, yeah These days don't wait too long, me I'm missin' out, I know These days don't wait too long And I'm not forgivin' love away, but I want Someone to love me

I need Someone who love me I need Someone who needs me Cause it don't feel right when it's late at night And it's just me and my dreams So I want Hey Well, before we get back to your indie analysis, which I'm very interested in,

I want to say happy birthday to my youngest son, Jarvis, who turns eight on Saturday. And I'm very interested in. I want to say happy birthday to my youngest son, Jarvis, who turns eight on Saturday. And I'm thinking of Jarvis right now because Jarvis is a big Lil Nas X fan. Hey, kid's got good taste. And he's not that much younger than Lil Nas X. So wait, you're telling me Indie's playing this? Because I haven't tuned into Indie in a very long time,

but I didn't realize they had gone this. Yeah, this Lil Nas X song, I guess everybody can agree on it. It seems to fit into every kind of radio format. It's kind of like Circles by Post Malone. Yeah, Post Malone. Good example. It fits with everything. The entire spectrum of radio formats.

Hey Ya was played by every station in the city. And, you know, I'm scanning the playlist, and I saw a back-to-back Lil Nas X and Start Shopping by Dinosaur Jr., and it was on at like 4.34 in the morning or something in the 88. And I was thinking, I wish I was awake to hear that. But why don't you just go to Spotify

and build your playlist? I'm telling you, Mike, it is not the same, okay? I will listen to six, Mike, it is not the same. Okay? Okay. I will listen to six, eight, 12 hours in a row of radio just to hear those moments of music scheduling bliss. Okay, but no one has that kind of time. Present company accepted. But it's wonderful when it happens. Okay. And that's why I do put this stuff on Twitter.

And that's why I do put this stuff on Twitter because, look, respect to the characters that realize that this was something clever to put those juxtapositions out there even if it is in the middle of the night, even if nobody is listening at all. I want these radio programmers to know that I am paying attention. So it's definitely a whole bunch of these top 40 radio songs creeping onto Indie88, but it's all about the contrast, right? So you'll have a song like Gale, A-B-C-D-E-F-U, and then a punk song by Pop, Pop, the Toronto band, Pop band, you know pop of course pop the band so it's this whole idea of of putting all all this music in the same pool and and trying to to widen the audience for indie 80 and we'll see see how it goes i mean to me it's better than what they're doing over at cfny what was your question mike my question okay, so famously in the, you know,

the Toronto Mike circles, Brent, from Brent Radio there, Brent from Indie 88 was scheduled to kick out the jams on Toronto Mike. And I loaded up his 10 jams and he was coming over

and then he said, oh, I have to do this shift. I can't come over. And then he completely fucking ghosted me. And he's the only time somebody had jams sent in, loaded up,

and never ever came to kick him out. Mike, you could have put his career on the fast track. Well, I have a question. The day might have arrived for Brent sooner than it did to become a radio morning show host.

The three questions I've been asked in Toronto Radio over the last few months the most is one is, what happened to Brian Doyle? That's number one. Number two is now happening, where the fuck is Jim Richards?

Is he on overnights or is he gone? And then the third one is what happened to Matt? What happened to Matt at Indie 88? He was on the morning show. Matt Hart. And I think he's our kind of guy, right? He's like a Gen Xer who's obsessively literate and all these pop culture topics.

And I know that because I heard him on indie 88 for uh close to a decade where he was this morning show sidekick and coast and he survived multiple incarnations of this morning show they went through a whole bunch of hosts right uh it started with the way uh no brian and candace people people who sounded much better suited to mainstream commercial radio, where they both were before and after. There was Matt Hart riding along. He would do his, what's the word, music nerd? He was of the same genre, I would say, as Dave Bookman, as far as his aesthetic on the radio. That, to me, was the draw of Matt Hart, and he was later on with Raina, and then Josie Dye.

Josie Carlin. You know Carlin? You keep referencing Carlin. Because Carlin is engaged to marry Joe from T.O.'s cousin Danny and that's not the only link because Danny used to work at Great Lakes Brewery so I would see

Danny, Danny Sini working at GLB and then Joe would be like you know that's my cousin and it's like whoa and then she ends up in, I don't know when they're getting married but they're engaged I think Danny and Carlin. You see to anybody else has an amazingly uninteresting anecdote. Yeah, but it's shorter.

Your fucking anecdotes take longer. In the world of FODMs, that counts as a fun fact. Joe Sini was my very first best friend. We were best friends in junior kindergarten. That's like you and Wilner. You're going to have to make me a flow chart about how this relates to the co-host of the Indy 88 Morning Show. It relates to Carlin. Why did Matt leave the show?

Did he get fired? Matt Hart got the heave-ho. But why? To make room for Brent? I think he might be considered too old for the room. Really? They're trying to find this new audience. What is he, 35?

It's a younger demographic. He's way younger than Josie. More like mid- audience it's younger demographic he's way younger than josie more like mid-40s okay well way younger than josie right josie because josie's older than but maybe josie's about your age they needed more more more of that millennial energy on the radio morning that's what i chalk up the addition of brent too he does this back and forth bro thing with Carlin. They had a podcast going on for a while. I might have been the only listener. I didn't even know about this.

I've been very entertained by Brent on the Indie88 Saturday night show which I think he programs himself. Today comes on every 20 minutes telling you that this is pre-recorded because I'm not giving up my Saturday nights. Dude!

You don't give that away. That's authenticity. But this is the thing. I think it's taking away from my enthusiasm as a listener. Can I ask a— I want to at least believe that this guy loves his job enough that he's willing to come in on the weekend and not just rely on the voice tracking like so much of the other canned radio out there. What was your question?

My question is, and I don't know if you'll have the answer, but you might have an educated guess. If you're second banana on a smaller radio outfit like Indie 88, you're not Josie, who's the headliner of that morning show, who got recruited from CFNY. Let's say you're Carlin. What kind of scratch, what kind of money do you make

with a role like that? I know for a fact that Brent, the man who stood you up, what, three, four years ago? I'll never forget Brent. I'll never forget Brent. Brent has just turned 30, which sounds about right. Okay.

You know, rapidly aging Gen Xers here, but we do remember when if you heard that somebody was 30 years old on the local alternative rock radio station, you would think by now they should retire ivor hamilton of cfny was barely past 30 when he uh traded that in to get into the record industry okay but he was never uh you know 30 30 year old now now now has this more prominent role on the radio, and it's great for him. But in the process, they sacrificed Matt Hart,

who might have a good story to tell then of hanging out at Indy 88.1 for its first, what, eight and a half years? And look, nothing can replace Dave Bookman. When Bookie was doing that midday show, I thought he was in the zone. Of course, tragic that he died in the prime of his career, as far as I was concerned. That he was able to do that banter in between the songs on the radio and in a position where he was respected for his role on episode 1021, where you talked about CFNY, dropping the bomb was the fact that Dean Blundell

used to march into the program director's office, and Alan Cross was the program director at the time, and demand that Dave Bookman be taken off the air. Blundell thought Bookie was cramping his style. He thought Bookie sucked, is how I heard it from Alan. And shedding listeners that would not stick around to hear Blundell in the next morning. And I think Blundell's disparagement of Bookie

ultimately had an effect. Might not have been Alan Cross's decision, but you do recall, because it played out on TorontoMic.com, when Bookie was demoted for a guy named Fearless Fred. How could I forget? They put Bookie back on at night, no longer in the afternoon drive show.

Do you think now, given the evidence, that in fact Dean Blundell was responsible for that move being made. I think that's entirely possible. And I remember when I recorded episode 1021, which all listeners right now should make sure they listen to, because I'm very proud of it. I do know the reaction, the reaction from Fred Patterson to hearing this news about Blundell and Bookie was quite something too.

Like he was shocked. Anyone, forget about Bookie or anyone, anybody would go into a program director's office and demand that someone in another spot be fired. And here I thought Humble Howard was full of himself. Right. Being careful, Mike, not to attribute that

viewpoint to you. No, I was on the Humble and Fred show. I was on their program this morning. You can keep those emotions to you. No, I was on the Humble and Fred show. I was on their program this morning. You can keep those emotions to yourself. But Humble Howard would go and do his morning show, Humble and Fred. They'd punch out. They didn't

care what was going on the rest of the day. Whereas Dean Blundell was obsessed with the idea that Dave Bookman was cramping his style. Speaking of Dean Blundell, his network is going to be bringing us a new podcast

from Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. What do you know about this? Why is this podcast associated with Dean Blundell? What is the upside of Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley

getting involved with Dean Blundell as network of no-names? Is the idea here that they figure that he knows something that they don't? Because I look at the Dean Blundell podcast network and I see people who fall into two categories. I'm listening. People who are too young to deserve to be paid and people who are too old and established, retired, having had successful enough careers, too old to ask for any money at all.

successful enough careers to all to ask for any money at all. And look, a lot of 21st century media businesses have been built on this principle. But TMDS doesn't play that game. I don't see people passing through here on the premise that you're making promises like, okay, you'll get paid if the day comes that the money rolls in. Me and you, Mike, have both been through this experience enough before where people are, right, inviting you to do something on spec.

Yep. And it's kind of like, well, how could this person be lying to me? We have spent countless hours discussing with one another all these bad actors and scam artists out there who will tell you you're going to be paid and not come through in the end. And after you have these conversations with people, right, you assume, okay, this person is of the highest ethical caliber. They will not let me down.

Mike, I regret to inform you that a lot of the times they end up not paying you in the end i'm not saying i'm not saying i'm not saying uh the dean blundell podcast network operates on those principles but when i see dean himself centering himself in a world where I don't know if it matters if he has any dividends to give to anybody else, because it's a form of vanity media, right? It's young people who want to catch that first break. And it's people who are on the other end of that mountain who want to somehow stay in the game. other end of that mountain who want to somehow stay in the game. And perfect for the latter role, I think, are Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway, because they were both unceremoniously dismissed from their respective established careers. Wendy Mesley's story is well documented. We've talked about it here on the toronto mike podcast i can't

remember mike i do i did i defend did i defend her or i don't know it is important i was sticking up for the idea that uh she should be able to make comments in a private meeting in the right context in the right context internal meeting like that sounded like it might have been the right context. Yeah, I don't know the full story there. She just fell into the trap doing this Sunday morning hyper-woke talk show, and she wanted to play in this field, and these were the consequences. For her thinking, she thought she was on the right side in this woke war. There was no way that anybody would

implicate her, right? She was operating in good faith. Nobody would see her as the old, out-of-touch white woman. Well, guess what? At the end of the day, that's what they did. I mean, they ran reports on the CBC itself. The ombudsman came out and issued a report

saying, like, this was totally unfair. What are you, like, dragging Wendy Mesley on her own national newscast that she built with her bare hands? Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway, a podcast called Women of Ill Repute. I've got questions about that. You know, I was kind of jazzed for it until I learned where it was,

and then I lost all interest. But Maureen Holloway was on this other old Radio Guy podcast. Terry and Ted from Montreal. Terry DeMonte. I want to shout out Darren Shanahan and David Drolet, a couple of our Quebec listeners who are big fans of them. And while they were doing their old-timer radio banter, Maureen Holloway said on that podcast,

she signed a piece of paper that said as part of her exit package with Rogers, she's not allowed to disparage the company. Although subsequently on this Terry and Ted podcast, I wonder if a lawyer would think that she did because she was talking about being tapped on the shoulder. One of your favorite terms. Yes. Thank you, Christine Bentley.

I'm still trying to discern whether this, because sometimes it's a positive insinuation. I only think of it in the Christine Bentley context. Time's up. No, no. You have reverted to tapped on the shoulder also as a way of being called up to the big leagues. Okay, maybe it's just a... I don't know.

I'm all over the place. How many hours of this podcasting, Mike, are you doing a week? This is episode 1029. You can't be responsible for everything you say. And she referenced on there then being replaced by Pooja and Gurdip with what we've calculated here as an extremely

canned approach to radio programming. I would not put that high on the authenticity scale. As a result, pretty much impossible for me, a seasoned radio listener, to put up with for more than a few seconds at a time. I haven't sampled it yet. I'm not the target audience out there.

No. And that's where the Today Radio format trying to slip in. Because CHFI is still all about the Eric Carman hungry eyes. Dirty dancing soundtrack. Still a mainstay on there. And she did reference the fact that she recognized that she was too pale.

That's what Maureen Holloway said. I see. I have not heard this, but that's shocking she'd say that. So she was basically saying she was let go because she wasn't diverse enough. But also realistic about the fact that her time was up, because, as she referenced there on the show,

I'm remembering it well enough, when she first got into radio at 99.9 CKFM. Now, keep in mind, I'm the one telling you, I've been listening to Auntie Mo on Toronto Radio for her entire career, going back to the mid-'80s. She mentioned on there, interviewing Leonard Cohen. And I heard that interview on CKFM.

I like her, but she's been here twice. That's how far back me and Mo go. For the record, I really like, as I let Frank take us home here. But she's not going to give you the real talk. No, no, that's okay. I know this. At least not explicitly so. Although, she opened up a can of worms or two on this interview with Terry and Ted.

And including the fact that she recognized when she started, there were not a lot of women in radio and times change, demographic shift. It can happen to you. Yeah, this Frank Sinatra song was going to be a lead-up. Everything Happens to Me, because everything has happened to a certain FOTM who was on here a few weeks ago. Let's get into it.

Steve Paikin. Yes. And the episode you did, Refresh My Memory Here, with Bruce Dabigan. Frank versus Tony. The joke is I did a disclaimer off the top regarding

Bruce. When I look back, Bruce Dobigan was kind of going to bat for Tony Bennett. And I did a disclaimer because Bruce has some opinions he expresses very publicly that I passionately disagree with. So I just wanted to let people know. Having Bruce on the program to talk about

Tony versus Frank does not mean I endorse any of his thoughts on this than the other. It turns out shortly thereafter, I could have done a disclaimer for Pagan. Steve Pagan got into a spot of trouble.

Possibly what you might call an ethics violation. Although he wasn't implicated, and he continues to do a fine job at TV Ontario, making what was a sunshine list. That makes a lot of money. Comes out every spring. I think 360 salary at this point in time on the sunshine list.

Good for him. Research the Ontario salary disclosure. You can see how his salary has ticked up over the 25 years of this information being available. And you can compare and contrast how much Steve Paikin makes with his co-host, his understudy, NAMM. Yeah, F-O-T-M, NAMM. And did I hear on the Toronto Mike podcast or commenting that measuring her publicly disclosed salary against Steve Pagan indicates that today here, 20, 25 years later, she is in fact still making less money than Steve Pagan was once valued at TVO. Look, he's working for the Ontario Public Broadcaster. I realize this is not broadcasting controlled by the government, but Ontario Revenues established the OECA? It was the GOAT, Bill Davis,

who established this idea of having educational television for Ontario. And somehow, 50 years later, it is still around. And the flagship show is The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Well, Steve Paikin wrote a piece going to bat for Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton, Mayor Brown. You notice he wants to be known as Mayor Brown. And you know why? Why? Because if you Google Mayor Brown, you get better search results

than if you Google Patrick. That's right. Okay. That makes sense. He lost his leadership of the Ontario PCs. He would have been premier, but somebody had it in for him. And whatever circumstances were that got this story to CTV, which amounted to talking about how he was being a creepy dude with the young ladies.

That was pretty much the gist of it. He didn't do anything criminal. It was just a portrayal of his personality. That was the Me Too trend of the time, still trickling into 2018, and Patrick Brown had to step down, no longer the provincial PC leader, and it was ultimately up to Doug Ford

to beat Kathleen Wynne and land in office. And the gist of Steve Paikin's piece was Patrick Brown was done wrong by CTV. They did not retract the article, but they changed some of the facts in there, like was this young woman in the article, she was 19 rather than 18. I don't know. When you're down the road, when these are elements that are showing up in a story about you, maybe your credibility to become the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, run for prime minister, maybe there still should be questions around your character.

But after a lawsuit and all these years of legal wrangling, years of legal wrangling, Patrick Brown considered himself vindicated by the fact that CTV added a disclaimer that they got some facts wrong in this story, and it was Steve Paikin writing a piece effectively saying that had CTV not gotten these facts wrong, Patrick Brown would have been Premier of Ontario. Well, it turns out that Steve Paikin's wife, a woman named Francesca Grosso, was involved in the writing of a horrible autobiography, Takedown, written by Patrick Brown. I actually read this thing, took it out of the library.

Wow. From what I might have guessed guessed based on initially reading it, this was Patrick Brown who just blurted out a bunch of stuff. It was like a speech-to-text program, and maybe someone did a little bit of light editing on a bunch of rambling comments that he made. And maybe someone did a little bit of light editing on a bunch of rambling comments that he made. You know, they pressed send and printed up a bunch of copies of this book.

And it was him stating a case about how he was framed and a whole conspiracy against him. I would never have imagined that this book would have had a ghostwriter. That ghostwriter turned out to be Steve Paikin's wife. Dun, dun, dun. Now, this fact had been disclosed in a prior lawsuit. It was publicly out there, but it was part of an accusation against Patrick Brown. It had never been proven in court that Steve Paikin's wife was involved in writing the book.

Can I ask, do you feel Paikin should have disclosed this in his TVO article defending Patrick Brown? Here's the thing. When it came to light, he said he didn't know that his wife was a ghostwriter. But did he know he was at Patrick Brown. Here's the thing. When it came to light, he said he didn't know that his wife was a ghostwriter. But did he know he was at Patrick Brown's wedding? He knew that his wife worked on the book, but like she was some kind of consultant.

Okay. He did not know that her status in putting the book together was as the primary and principal ghostwriter, which itself is an incredible revelation, right? Because how would you not know? If you're the host of a show on Ontario's public broadcaster and your wife is ghostwriting a book from Patrick Brown,

how could she keep that a secret from you? And yet this was what Steve Paikin was claiming. And look, I have no reason not to believe him. It's just a little bit weird. Okay, Mark, there's no secret what I think of Steve Paikin was claiming and look I have no reason not to believe him it's just a little bit weird okay Mark there's no secret what I think of Steve Paikin what a tremendous FOTM he was on episode 1000 I'm with you but Mike we love seeing the

pratfalls of public figures this was Steve Paikin's time in the sun and you know look a few years ago he was the target. He was the victim. He was the one being dragged. I remember.

I remember. With the sexual misconduct accusations. But Mark. Which turned out to be so ridiculous. People have asked me what I think because I'm such a fan of Steve Paikin as a human being and as a broadcaster. And he's such a good FOTM.

And my honest thoughts are, even if you accept that Steve did not know his wife's involvement with the Patrick Brown book, even if you accept that, you cannot accept, like, I think he needs to disclose he's at Patrick Brown's wedding. And I am of the opinion that

attending Patrick Brown's wedding means you can't cover this man. Like, that's too close for comfort. How do you not know to disclose it? He's not only disclose it. That's a minimum, but perhaps you remove yourself, recuse yourself from covering Patrick Brown.

You're at the man's wedding. Michael, this is amazing. You're coming down harder on your friend than me. And you do think, I call it like I see it. In this case, knowing what he had been through and knowing that he had this relationship,

even if he didn't know that his wife was the ghostwriter, that she was paid $50,000. I'm not sure I got that right. Whatever it was, she got a check for writing this book with Patrick Brown, a family friend. How did he not know she was ghostwriting the book? What do you think should happen to Steve Paikin? Does this diminish his credibility as an impartial TVO talk show host? You've got to start disclosing shit. But part of the thing is, he's been around for so long.

He's got a cousin who's in trouble, a school trustee in Hamilton. I know, I read his piece. The cousin's husband got kicked out of the Ontario NDP. He's got kids who are working in politics. Last thought, then we've got to move on. He's got his son kicked out of the Ontario NDP. So Steve's excuse. Kids who are working in politics. Last thought, then we've got to move on. He's got his son, Zach, who was trying to be a member of parliament. Last thought, though.

He's got conflicts of interest all over the place. FOTM Steve Paikin's excuse for not disclosing this relationship with Patrick Brown is that he has so many conflicts of interest, he can't keep track of them all. So my advice to FOTM Steve Paikin is start fucking disclosing all of them. Thank you. You know, I don't want to skip over. Somewhere new. Close the door. You're new. You know, I don't want to skip over. I realize I'm playing this for Exclaim magazine, which turns 30,

but I really need to know what happened with Now magazine. To me, it's all like two sides of the same story. Because Exclaim magazine, which started off as like the West Queen West indie rock paper in Toronto, ended up being, you know, a slicker kind of national music magazine. Not a lot of personality in the writing there. It's kind of like, it's more like a catalog with advertising. It's got some support from different levels of government. Although with the federal arts funding,

it's important that there is a megaphone out there for people to talk about their projects and what they're up to. Ian Danzig, former DJ from CKLN, who had this idea for Exclaim, even though iWeekly had already started around that time. Big boom, early 90s, desktop publishing. He had this idea to do this paper. And he's still around.

30 years later, publishing a monthly magazine distributed all across Canada. I don't know when the last time was you picked up an issue of Exclaim. It's been a long time. Right. Originally, it wouldn't even have the word on its cover. It would just be those four icons, avatars. What do you call them? Emojis? Emojis, the way, yeah,

just like a swear word. So, shout out to Ian Danzig for hanging around this long. Even if that 30th anniversary is not much trace of the history, but there is a reference there that's like the most influential original artists who charted the history of Exclaim magazine.

And the oldest one reference, there's Eric's Trip. That's, I think, the only song I know from that. Halifax, Moncton, Moncton. Definitely Maritimes. You did one of those Pandemic Friday. I get my Eric's Trip and Thrush Hermit kind of mixed up sometimes. Maritimes, indie rock episodes here. I saw Eric's Trip.

With Jay Ferguson, who we talked earlier. They were the opening act for Sonic Youth at the Masonic Temple. That was their debut show in Toronto. So Eric's Trip, as far back as it goes, as far as the official history of X-Lame is concerned, but I thought a nice touch in there. Fiona Smythe, legendary Toronto comic artist, they gave her a page to remember what this paper used to be.

When I first picked up Exclaim, they didn't have articles about, like, Machine Gun Kelly, but that's what you find in there now. But hey, whatever pays the bills, whoever is picking up these papers, Kelly, but that's what you find in there now. But hey, whatever pays the bills, whoever is picking up these papers, and it's still important that there is some form of arts print media out there. And I'm wondering if we could say the same. There is no 1236 print edition yet. The symbolism of having an alternative weekly on the streets of every major market, even Save your money, just keep it digital. I believe symbolically it's a significant thing that you're in a metropolis with a vibrant enough scene that a paper can hit the streets every once in a while to capture the zeitgeist and telling you what's going on. No matter how many digital alternatives there might be,

there's still something about having that paper out there. But the business cannot run on sentimentality alone. And these characters came along and decided that they were going to salvage the assets of the two biggest alt-weeklies left in Canada, Now Magazine and the Georgia Straight. alt-weeklies left in Canada, Now Magazine and the Georgia Straight, ended up having, from what anybody could tell, very little idea about what they were doing. And that was before the pandemic hit. So in a situation where your advertising revenues are counting on live events happening around a city, Look, they were tossed into a distressing situation that really tested the value of something like Now Magazine to the market that it was trying to serve.

Now, it did continue publishing an issue once a week. I saw it for myself. You go to the PressReader app, like there was some layout and design done for a print version of Now Magazine. I'm not sure these papers were actually coming off the presses. I didn't know where to find them.

They would say they would be in the subway stations, and sometimes I would see them there, but they stopped delivering them to those green boxes. Remember, they were all around the city, Now Magazine boxes. You couldn't were all around the city, now magazine boxes. You couldn't find one there in 2020, 2021. And I think by now, a lot of those boxes have been sold for scrap. Media Central was the name of the company that bought the Georgia Strait and now.

It was like a penny stock. It seemed to be on the German Stock Exchange. I'm not financially literate enough to understand what sort of game they were playing, but it seemed to involve, at least at one point, having enough cash to give the founders of the paper a little bit of padding in their bank account. I think it was $750,000 for the Georgia Strait, $1 million for now. Maybe they had debts to pay for keeping these papers around, how much they ended up keeping for themselves. But these papers were on their last legs. Media Central vowed not only save these papers, but they were going to build a

whole media empire. They're going to buy the assets of every alternative weekly left in North America. And this is what they sold to their shareholders. Look, it was only a matter of time until it was revealed this wasn't going very well. And here into 2022, it was discovered, in fact, that this media central company had run out of money, filed for bankruptcy. They had at least one former employee who was suing them over a wrongful dismissal situation. The stock got delisted.

Whatever was happening here, it was looking grim. Reports that now magazine staffers weren't being paid for their work over a certain amount of time. And then one week in the winter, they abruptly announced on a Wednesday, we will not be printing this week's issue of NOW Magazine. Don't go looking for it anywhere. Not that you could have found it in the previous two years.

But looking at that announcement, something was up. Something's happening here. And then you started to see the reality of the situation that was happening, the reports of the bankruptcy, press releases they were issuing. Here I am putting some of this stuff on Twitter, looking in the weeds of Stockhouse and these other message boards out there with the shareholders trying to figure out what was the shell game here, what were they trying to achieve.

And in the end, then Media Central is bankrupt, but they announced the straight and now will continue to publish based on being subsidiaries of their own. This is where it gets very complicated. It may be living to survive another day. Here we are on April 7th, what they announced as the first Thursday in which NOW would be publishing monthly. And a month ago I thought

there's no way this is going to happen. Not going to be able to find NOW magazine on the streets. Nobody's going to be working there. Nobody's going to want to put this thing together. Norm Willner's moved on. Norm Willner moved on. He was one of the aggrieved parties. He was subtweeting about the fact that he had been in a situation where he was working for free.

He took a job with the Toronto International Film Festival. Sounds like the right fit. Cameron Bailey, who runs the place, was also at one point a movie critic for NOW. And you have the co-founder of NOW Magazine coming on Toronto Mic'd. Monday. Michael Holland. You'll be able to talk about a lot of the history there. I'll queue you up a few secret questions behind the scenes.

And the first monthly issue of Now, apparently, I saw it for myself, a digital version. I was in two subway stations on the way here. Nowhere. Nowhere to be found. I don't know if, a digital version. I was in two subway stations on the way here. Nowhere, nowhere to be found. I don't know if they printed this thing.

I'm not going to accuse anybody of anything. I don't know how elusive it is. I don't know if you can find this paper anywhere. I don't know that anybody will go looking for it. I don't know if anybody even knows Now Magazine is in business anymore. What I am saying is it's an important symbol of a cosmopolitan city to have a paper like this and michael hollett your upcoming toronto my guest entering the fray he's got a bunch of boomers

who've backed the idea that he could do a paper of his own uh national uh glossier magazine called next um but what next is missing among other other things? No haters, right? Everything that's in those glossy pages, all rah, rah, rah, positive reinforcement. And what made the Alt Weekly era magical? These were the papers where you could read cynicism and snark. Mike, is it all on our shoulders now to bring that attitude to the Gen Xers if nobody else out there is going to do it, we're going to have to do it in other mediums because a free newspaper isn't going to do the job anymore. And that's the story now.

And shout out to Michael Barclay, speaking of Exclaim, who just published a weighty book, 600 pages long. He's coming on to talk about it. book. 600 pages long. He's coming on to talk about it. And while I have minimal interest in the music scene that Michael Barclay is covering, like actually listening to his stuff, and he

knows that. Talked about that with him. I don't really care about that indie rock can-con at all. I gotta respect the effort. I will be devouring all 600 pages of Hearts on Fire by

Michael Barclay. Hearts on Fire, six years it changed Canadian music. 2000, 2005. Mark, have you signed up to the Cabana Club yet at canacabana.com? You know what? When the mask mandate was lifted,

I made a resolution. I announced it to my people. Mike, I'm going to celebrate freedom by starting to smoke weed. I am going to become a cannabis consumer. I'm going to go to my local legal marijuana dispensary.

I'm going to be educated. You're going to go to Canacabana. I'm going to be educated. You're going to go to Tana Cabana. I'm going to be educated on this product that is completely elusive to me. Now is the time for me to enter this new world without mask mandates. As soon as my current COVID case goes away, I am going to become a pothead. But despite making this declaration, figuring that I would follow through, Mike, I have not done it at all. What you're saying is I should follow through and you

have got just the place at which I could do it. In fact, I even have one of their toques. Canna Cabana. Absolutely unbeatable prices on cannabis and smoking accessories. There's always a sale going on. But when you sign up at Cabana Club,

you'll be first in the know. 100 plus locations across the country. What's the URL? Cabana Club? Canacabana.com. Canacabana.com. Canacabana.com. Let me write that down.

Cana, two N's. It's W-W-W-H-T-T-P. You got it, brother. Colon slash slash. Did you say colon? It's a colon, right? Okay. HannahCabana.com.

Dot com. And I'll let you know how it goes. All help appreciated. You've got enough FOTM potheads out there, right? Canada Kev. Oh, lots. Stu Stone. Stu Stone.

Mark Hebbshire. Who's going to educate me on how to shop at Canna Cabana? I think Levee Fumka and Moose Grumpy, I think they're all enjoying in different styles and formats. Listen, in addition to Canna Cabana, I want to thank StickerU, StickerU.com. That's where you get your 1236 stickers. You should plaster them all over this fine city.

That's what I do. Go to StickerU.com. Good people in Liberty Village. And of course, Palma Pasta. Mark, I hope you come out to the TMLX 11, which hopefully, variants notwithstanding, will be taking place at Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga in December 2022.

Wow, what delicious, authentic Italian food. Peter Gross is coming back next week because he needs more palma pasta in his diet. And of course now, Mark, as we listen to Alessia Cara with her cover of I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues. Yeah, yeah, this is real good. I didn't even know about this when it was released. Too many tribute albums out there. I didn't even know about this when it was released. Too many tribute albums out there.

But I was thinking of Elton John, who canceled these two-year delayed concerts in Toronto on his farewell tour, but then announced another date two days in September. Well, listen, before we run out of Alessia Cara, let me just thank Ridley Funeral Home for sponsoring the memorial segment of Toronto Mic'd. And I'm just going to warn FOTMs, it's going to be awfully personal off the top,

but it's something we need to do. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. There's a world container With your name on it And a billion ways to go berserk When the country quits on you it must be dinner and the hammer on this one is there's no dessert

he's the one who couldn't imagine all the people living life in peace good news you get to vanish Go to Cleveland

Be an indie smash The good news Is now you're smaller The bad news Is you can be smaller Than that Go sex and souls Be a reader

Get used Laugh at a funeral or two Go sex and souls, be a reader, get used Laugh at a funeral or two Laugh and laugh till all the chameleons turn black Laugh and laugh till you're told please don't come back Then fake incredulous say I just can't believe How'd it get this late so early Say ain't life a grand and I'm an allure Then drop into your haunted bunk

Go to your touchless time Down where the water's trying Go past the no tr's past this point sign What you'll find there are flaws in progress We're all songs of one song And that song is Don't Forget Okay, Mike, this is a big one. And a heavy song, which I don't know if I ever heard,

and if I ever heard it, I never gave it much thought until it showed up in my Toronto Mic'd podcast feed as a memorial tribute to your friend, FOTM Becky. Becky Dinwoody, do I got that right? Yes. Becky Dinwoody, who we lost in March 2022. And I had this song on repeat, and I gotta say, it's become a real tearjerker

for its residents because it was Becky who requested this in one of those FOTM jams you were doing during the pandemic, asking people to record their introduction, why this was their favorite song. Never participate in these events. Soft brand. But what Becky had to say juxtaposed with the song, it's there in the feed. And I don't think I'll ever forget this song, World Container, as a song that reminds me of somebody who I never met. And yet, through that memorial, I've got to say, Mike, it was the perfect tribute to your old friend, Becky. So I'll give you the floor to explain your history with her and how she ended up in the loop here with Toronto Mike. This is a tough one because, you know, we cover the significant deaths or deaths of interesting people in the previous month. We do this for Ridley Funeral Home every single month. And this is an FOTM, but not just an FOTM who passed away, but someone I

knew from high school. So Becky Dinwoody went to Michael Power High School, was in my class. I knew her well from high school. Then we, you know, we had OACs. So we wrap up our OACs. I went to U of T. Then we had OACs, so we wrap up our OACs. I went to U of T. I never saw her again. So I did not see Becky Dinwoody from that, whatever, last week of school at Power till about, I would say, two and a half to three years ago. She discovers the podcast and then discovers me on Twitter,

and we start to communicate via Twitter. She comes out to a couple of TMLX events. She was at the most recent TMLX event at Great Lakes Brewery in August, 2021. That was TMLX, let me get the right number. That was TMLX8. And she suddenly became this vibrant, like wonderful addition to the community.

And she became very good friends with several other FOTMs. And it was like, I think on episode 1000, when she submitted her clip, my response was to sing some, was it Peaches and Herb or whatever? Like some Reunited and It Feels So Good. So it was 20 something years since I had seen Becky.

And then she was back in my life and she was just a tremendous, like such a ray of light, so positive. What a tragically hip fan. She loved her 90s CanCon alt rock. So we had a lot in common. You know, that World Container was one of her favorite songs of all time.

And yes, in the feed, you can hear her tell you why she loved that song. But the fact that she's 48 years old, born in the same year as me, high school friend who passed away so suddenly, it's a little surreal. It's just so devastating, so tragic, so terribly sad. Yeah, more surreal than we're talking about somebody on a Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment who actually would listen to these segments.

Yeah, well, she loved these shows. And enjoy hearing our nonsense banter back and forth, and the fact she's no longer around. So as these things go, look, I learned more about Becky after she died. The fact that she went to U of T, right? At the same time as you, I guess you're the same age. It's a little bit of a big school. And then from Western, and she got a law degree. She became a lawyer.

But where she was working the last few years, if I got this right, Ontario Tech University. Right. Yep. I know she lived in the Cayman Islands for a while. It sounds like when she recorded Why She Loved That Song, World Container by the Tragically Hip, her favorite band of all time, she revealed that she had spent some time in Europe

and then she moved to Whitby and she spent the last several years living in Whitby and yeah, working out there in Durham County. Associate University Secretary and Judicial Officer. Big title. Composition you or I would never be eligible for. So Becky, clearly brilliant, despite the fact that she would enjoy listening to Stu Stone doing his shit here on Toronto Mike. You know, that's it.

You know, we lost, sadly, we lost an FOTM last March, March 2021. We lost Sheila Knisiewicz. But Sheila had the good sense to basically hate Pandemic Fridays. Okay. And I think she hated me even more. Yeah, maybe. So that's how good her taste was. But now Becky, now Becky,

on the other hand, absolutely loved pandemic Fridays and now toast. And she would be on the pirate stream. We would see Becky at live.torontomic.com during recordings, contributing and engaging. And I'm just going to say, not only because she's a listener and an FOTM, but because she's just a wonderful human being.

I'm going to miss the shit out of Becky Dinwoody, and I toast you and I drink this Great Lakes beer to you, Becky. Gone so far, just far too soon. Here's the thing. As aging Gen Xers, I think we're just starting to learn how to navigate the nature of these relationships. Because it's only going to happen more often, right? Like people who are your internet friends are going to die.

You don't want to be the first one to go. How did you find out that Becky had died, right? Yeah, good question. How do you get this shocking news transmitted to you, given the nature of your relationship? No, great question. Thankfully, Becky had told her brother Rob, Rob Dinwoody, about how much, you know, this guy she went to high school with

had this podcast called Toronto Mike, and she considered herself an FOTM. In the photo I posted of her at TMLX8 in the after party, after they left the brewery, went to a park, she's wearing a Toronto Mike sweater. She was a proud FOTM.

She loved her shouts out to Ridley Funeral Home and she told her brother Rob about this love of the FOTM community and everything. So she passes away. The very next morning. I get home from dropping off the kids. I have a Twitter DM from Rob and it says something to the effect of, I'm sorry to tell you that Becky passed away suddenly yesterday.

And I read it. I think I read that fucking thing five, six times before I realized that this wasn't some weird joke. This was, this was real. This was Becky's brother. I did check that out. And Becky was gone.

And then what do I do next? Of course, I share this news with other FOTMs. And I'm telling you, I got phone calls from FOTMs bawling, crying, because of the sudden nature of this passing. Becky is really missed. And yet, even though she heard hundreds of shout-outs, she did not utilize the services of Ridley Funeral Home.

But you and the FOTMs did go to a visitation. I did not go to the visitation. Where was that? When did that happen? There was a visitation on Sunday, and several FOTMs went. I actually went to the

post-visitation drinks in her memory. I took a pass on the visitations. It was not Ridley Funeral Home. No, it wasn't. And you are not going to hold that against her and her family. I think her family is from Rexdale, so it was far north of Ridley Funeral Home.

But we did all gather at Jack Astor's by the airport. I biked over. It was very kind of therapeutic thinking about Becky. And then I enjoyed drinks with some great FOTMs like Moose Grumpy and Lieve Fumpke and James Edgar

and Michael Lang. The Langer was there. I don't want to miss anyone. Andy Pandy was there. VP of Sales was there. Juan, of course, always by his beloved wife's side. That would be Lieve Fumpke

if you're following along at home. And I'm sure I missed someone, but I will say that all these great people were there. We had a beer and toasted Beck's memory. And it was pretty awesome that this community exists and to support each other, even when we have a fallen soldier and we lose a great one like Beck.

Hopefully the way we're talking about this isn't interpreting bad taste, right? have it i have it a good authority oh yeah sorry she enjoyed she enjoyed the fact that we would discuss people who died this way she'd be she would love this doing this with some some but can i assuredness before i get too far away the person who traveled the longest distance to be at the uhation and then the post-visitation drinks for Beck, Ian Service. The guy who created live.torontomike.com where Beck would engage with us so often. So I didn't want to forget Ian. And yeah, thanks to you, Mike, putting that in the feed.

I'm always going to tragically hip world container a song uh for becky how did it get so late so early that's the that's the line from the song rest in peace uh we're 48 years old march that's sadly true. March 2022. We will forever remember Becky Dinwoody. Hey! D-U-R-E-Y! Hey! Hey! D-U-R-E-Y! Hey! We keep on dancing to the rock and roll On Saturday night, Saturday night Dancing to the rhythm in our heart and soul On Saturday night, Saturday night

Aye, aye, aye, aye, I just can't wait Aye, aye, aye, aye, I got a day Saturday night. Peter Goddard. Long-time fixture of the Toronto Star. Died at age 78 in March of 2022. S-A-T-U-R-D-I-Y night by the Bay City Rollers. One of the reviews that Peter Goddard wrote that gave him the sort of backlash you could never imagine today, which was a throng of teenage girls

holding a protest at the One Young Street office of the Toronto Star. There are terrific photos of this you can find online to this day. There we were, the Bay City Rollers coming to Toronto, causing a mob scene with this proto-boy band style of pop.

And look, I mean, you would think it was a publicist or something that put them up to this after Peter Goddard wrote a scathing review in the newspaper. There is a bunch of teenagers holding signs. Perfect. How 1976 can you get? Sit on it, Goddard, was the writing on one of the signs.

Hey. Another one advising him to get a hearing aid. How dare you disparage our teen idols, even though the story of the Bay City Rollers is full of anecdotes that suggest that it was a total disaster area. They had their defenders way back when. And if they read a grumpy old man in the newspaper, a guy over 30 who didn't understand the appeal of what they were listening to, well, then they were definitely going to have their say.

Now, Peter Goddard spent most of his professional career working at the Toronto Star. He was there for 30-plus years. Originally brought over from the Toronto Telegram. Toronto Telegram, the telly, the paper that went under 1971. The Toronto Sun rose from those ashes. But in fact, Goddard was recruited over to the Star because I think at the time what they were missing was a house hippie,

guys who was in touch with the kids on the street. Based on my understanding of Toronto newspapers in the 1960s, the Star was the squarest newspaper of all. They had a pretty robust arts and entertainment section, but these are a bunch of old squares. This was the kind of paper where no reviewer, I'm not sure specifically in this case, but if the Beatles were was the kind of paper where, like, no reviewer, I'm not sure specifically in this case, but if the Beatles were coming to town, for example, like, the biggest newspaper

in the city could not be bothered to send somebody down to review the show. This was beneath the sage arts and entertainment writers who were working there. And it was Peter Goddard coming over from the telly, and he was at the Globe and Mail a little bit before then. He got an ethnomusicology degree from the University of Toronto. He completed whatever grades at the Royal Conservatory of Music, pianist in his own right, also working as a piano teacher, including to Gil Moore of Triumph, who gave a shout-out to Peter Goddard that he had taught him piano as a young man. But Peter Goddard's most monetizable talent of all

was being able to be the guy in the city's big newspaper in Toronto who was on top of absolutely everything that was going on in music, especially through the 1970s. The fact that, forget about what he had to say, just that he would attend a Bay City Rollers concert for the sake of writing about it, it was an essential part of the job. Bay City Rollers concert for the sake of writing about it. It was an essential part of the job.

And then the next night, he would go to some classical symphony show, jazz concert the night after that. The idea here was to chronicle everything that was happening, to be the guy who had seen it all, and he was eminently qualified for the job. And I think when you were in a newspaper on that level, in the Toronto Star, showing up on pretty much every doorstep in the city for so many years, people get to know you. They have a relationship with who you are. Gary Topp of the Garys in FOTM, he posted an appreciation of Peter Goddard, who was there in all the punk and new wave clubs, checking out what was happening here.

This was a total omnivore. This is how he got known, a guy who was in the music scene. You know, the Toronto Star subsequently had people doing the pop music beat, but it was Peter Goddard who established the template for everything that followed. Yeah, here's the thing. So without a doubt, I would read Peter Goddard because the star was the paper that showed up at the family home. And Peter's precisely the kind of guy I'd be interested in having over

for a conversation on Toronto Mic'd. And it's almost strange to me that somehow I missed him or he dodged the, I don't't know but i feel like maybe if he had come on he'd he'd be alive today but that's that's another another story okay but there was a book announcement last year that he was going to have a memoir book called private rock so he would have been here for sure that there was a a book deal that he signed i think it was house of a nancy uh they were going to be putting out a p Goddard book. Very intrigued about that. Because I think he had mostly laid pretty low

that he was around Toronto. You would still see his byline in this century, in the Toronto Star. Still writing like right through last year with these occasional contributions. Right. Not writing about pop music anymore. He was shuffled around at the start.

Once again, I think he aged out of that role of going to the boy band concerts, hanging out at the punk rock clubs. They brought in younger generations instead. Ultimately, FOTM, Ben Raynor took on that role, but Goddard was still at the start. He was writing about all kinds of arts. In fact, at one point, he did a column about radio.

He took that mantle. This was still in the era when it wasn't necessary to have somebody who was on the radio beat. What era? Can you be more specific? This would be mid to late 90s. There were regular articles about the radio industry written by

Peter Goddard. I would have read that. And he would do interviews and he would do profiles of people around town. And he was on top of it all. But the way things worked at the start also, they would go through these different downturns and start giving people the package. Sure. What Toronto Mike might call the tap on the shoulder.

And historically, I mean, if people, again, worked in this one young street environment in its heyday, they were usually packaged out. Right. Right. Like he could live the life of Boulevardier, you know, just like go out for lunch every day with different luminary around Toronto and hang out forever and just enjoy,

enjoy the fruits of his labors, right? Like he was this eminence grease upon the scene. And part of it was also that he wrote a bunch of these rock biographies. Remember when you would go to like a Kohl's bookstore in the mall, they would have, uh, when the music video era started MTV,

much music, there was suddenly demand for buying these paperback photo books of different rock stars. Like The Police, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, you name it. There would be demand for a quickie biography of them because of the level

of exposure they were receiving. There was no internet. Quick way to make a bunch of money and Peter Goddard definitely cashed a few of these checks. I think it was 15 different books that he has name on. The first one was like the Rolling Stones live, last tour, 1981. These old men, they'll never tour again.

That was a cash cow, and just kept on churning out these books with Philip Kamen, a Toronto photographer. A bunch of books by Peter Goddard. I think he made enough money off these books. This is what paid for him to have a farmhouse in the south of France. So he was back and forth between France. I just figured south of France.

It's always south of France. Yeah, I noticed that. No one talks about the north of France. I noticed that. Limousine region of France. Is that south enough for you? So Peter Goddard was back and forth, and I would see him around where he lived.

His house was at Avenue Road in DuPont. You'd always notice Peter Goddard, like he cast a very unique figure, right? Like he was the house hippie at the start, and he looked the part, and as an older man, he kind of embraced that eccentric artist look. And you could see him coming from a mile away.

That's what I'm telling you about. So I had a lot of sightings of Peter Goddard over the years. I have a clip. Do you want to hear it? Go for it. Peter Goddard. And I think Canada is beginning to forget him, so that sort of got me to look at him again. But I must warn everybody, if anybody, there's many, many books about Glenn Gould.

He's probably the most written about musician of our time. I didn't know that. Yeah, tons and tons and big fat ones. I mean, a lot of people said another book. Well, this is, I think, completely different in that many ways. Gould was after his own kind of dream, many dreams. But he was equally wistful. I mean, he was always going up to his cottage alone

and just being quiet and practicing the piano. He loved that. And I understand that. There's something deep in that. And I think it's very deeply Canadian about that. What's going on there? That's FOTM, interviewing Peter Goddard

from What She Said podcast. Kate Wheeler? Kate Wheeler and Christine Bentley. That is hypothetically when you would have had Peter Goddard on the show. He was promoting a book that he wrote called The Great Gould, about Glenn Gould, fellow midtown Toronto eccentric

with a plaque outside his old apartment building. And Peter Goddard, I mean, I know where he lived. I think there should be a plaque outside his house too. But maybe his wife still lives there. Doesn't want that attention. But he was that much of a Toronto legend. So looked up his obituary. The books that he wrote were about the Stones, the Who, David Bowie,

Duran Duran, Genesis, Michael Jackson, Police, Van Halen, The Cars, and Cyndi Lauper. And again, I think as far as moonlighting, as a newspaper critic was concerned, he made a few bucks out of those efforts, and in the late 80s, moved off the rock beat, and again, I think I remember him doing movie

reviews, and visual arts, criticism, and like, whatever, just an extremely literate, older guy. The people at iWeekly had you genuflect before Peter Goddard for the legacy. The legacy that he left.

So let's pour one out. A GLB, Peter Goddard, 78 years old. You had his wrong age down on the website originally. People came for Toronto Mike. Well, you know, the website I can edit. It's the tweet that got me in trouble because I Googled, I wrote the thing

and then I Googled it quickly to see how old he was and Google served up the wrong year, which I copied into the tweet. But at the time I realized I had the wrong year, thanks to you letting me know, so many people had like engaged with the tweet and retweeted it and subtweeted it that I didn't want to delete the tweet. So I

let it live and then I just replied back and said just to confirm he actually was 78 or whatever. But no one ever reads the correction. They only read, so I can tell you for the next couple of days, I had so many people letting me know I had Peter's age wrong. Yeah, Peter Goddard, dead at

78 a year after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, which we learn about from Gord Downie, right? That kind of made it a household word in Toronto. I'm very sad that we will not have Peter Goddard on Toronto Mic'd. Shout out then, RIP Peter Goddard. Thank you. I feel it all go round and round I feel my life, I feel my life I feel it all like a river flows

I feel my life, I feel my life Into the flow like a river to the sea. Into the flow and forever to be free. I feel my world go round and round. With no resistance to the motion I feel my life I sit and watch the river flow I feel my life I feel my life

Into the throat like a river to the sea Watch the river flow. I feel my life. I feel my life. Into the throat like a river to the sea. Into the throat where we're all the two and three. I feel my love go round and round. My mind wondering all the time. Lawrence Dang. Great Toronto thespian who, if you look up on Wikipedia in the first line,

says that he is best known for his role as Lieutenant Preston in the film Bride of Chucky. You know Bride of Chucky, right? I know the series. That's like Child's Play, Child's Play doll, Chucky. Yeah, shout out to, yeah, I watched the original Child's Play, for sure.

Aside of the theaters, I think. I think this was one of those sequels that was made in Toronto. Bride of Chucky. Fun fact, Bride of Chucky was the movie airing on MTV when they interrupted programming to pay tribute to Whitney Houston, who had just died. I'm not sure that's a fun fact,

but that's a great fact. Absolutely. I was just supposed to show you that. We're 10 years removed from the point where MTV just gave up on everything altogether, but they still interrupted the show when Whitney Houston passed away. Look, we're about to talk about FOTM,

Stu Stone, my co-host on Toast. I just want to point out that there was a fact revealed in the not-so-secret Twitter DM group today by Cam Gordon, in which he revealed, Cam Gordon, also my co-host on Toast, he revealed he has never seen a single episode of Saturday Night Live. That's a 40-something-year-old man born in the GTA, raised in the GTA, always living

in the GTA, who has never seen a single episode of Saturday Night Live. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, but we all know it was revealed on a different podcast where Cam Gordon was talking about this is Spinal Tap. Cam Gordon does not like comedy. No, he doesn't do comedy. He doesn't laugh. In fact, then I thought about it.

I just went to Twitter Canada and found Cam. Cam has never made me laugh. He's never been funny. Okay, back to the... This is a good segue. We're about to talk about Stu Stone. Mike, it was an awful segue. But we heard... Okay, but uh we heard okay that

song we heard was by boys brigade yes let's let's try to stay in the same lane for like 60 seconds well it's all related heavenly bodies yes was a film that was originally produced as a canadian tv movie with no theatrical aspirations whatsoever. Oh my God, it's all full circle. We talked about Wendy Mesley earlier, and now we're going to talk about somebody else, and it's all related. It was originally conceived by Lawrence Dane, who was an actor who had done his time doing bit parts in Hollywood. A lot of one-off appearances on TV shows. I think three episodes of Mission Impossible.

Three episodes of The FBI. Wow. But a lot of familiar American network TV shows. The Mod Squad. Right. He showed up two times. But not famous enough they couldn't come back to Canada with his tail between his legs. But enough credits to impress the producer Robert Lantos with the idea that he could write and produce

a Canadian answer to Flashdance. That movie would be called Heavenly Bodies. This relates to Peter Goddard, because in the mid-'80s in the Toronto Star, Heavenly Bodies got a tremendous amount of hype because it was a movie writer for the Toronto Star, a guy named Ron Bass. Remember Ron Bass?

Still around. Bass! No, Mystery Novels. Not Rob Bass. He was kind of like the guy who would write the celebrity puff pieces. He wasn't, I don't think, a movie critic per se. It's kind of like

Brian Linehan without the research. Right? Like a guy who would just deliver this copy about every big Hollywood movie that was coming out. A feature writer about film. The fact that he got this shot from his friend Lawrence Dane to be the co-writer of Heavenly Bodies.

Yes. Something that was documented in the newspaper. This is a big deal. Toronto star movie writer will be getting his shot on the silver screen thanks to the idea that producer Robert Lantos believed that they could make big bucks off of Heavenly Bodies, that it could be more than a TV movie.

It could even have a soundtrack released by EMI and have songs by Sparks and the Tubes, Bonnie Pointer. I mean, they were all like discarded leftover songs from the cutting room floor. Deep cuts. And that Canadian act, Boys Brigade. Right.

Into the flow that was part of Heavenly Bodies. And who starred in Heavenly Bodies? Cynthia Dale. In what? Putting the pieces together of this story they originally had an idea that heavenly bodies would be tied in with a magazine called playboy right and that heavenly bodies would be opening in theaters all across north america parallel with rolling stone magazine which also had an aerobics movie remember that you know what that one also had an aerobics movie. Remember that? Do you know what that one was called? An aerobics movie from Rolling Stone with John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis called Perfect.

This was a thing in the mid-1980s. Magazine connections to movies that were essentially a big screen version of the 20-minute workout. And that Playboy and Hugh Hefner would somehow be connected with Cynthia Dale. She would do a pictorial in the publication. and Hugh Hefner would somehow be connected with Cynthia Dale. She would do a pictorial in the publication. That's the way they did it back there in 1985. And for some reason, the deal fell through. Might have been better for Cynthia Dale in the end because these pictures just would have been on the internet forever.

Absolutely. And so Heavenly Bodies opened in the theaters. I think I even remember it playing you could actually pay money to see this thing and it sank like a stone and it just became it just became a punch line you know like worst canadian movie of all time this was just like total desperation like a stone lawrence lawrence dane who died in in march 2022 march march 21st at age 84 went back doing all his bit parts except now it was like in canadian movies instead of right american tv shows but on his imdb page always got that one that one movie that he was the co-writer and director of, Heavenly Buddies. The second person to die in 2022 to have a direct link to the co-host of Toast.

The first being the tragic death of Bob Saget. Right. First being the tragic death of Bob Saget. Right. And the second one we lost, who was a collaborator with Stuart Stone, Lawrence Dane. Here's the thing. Rolling with Saget was produced when Stuart Stone was an adult male. Right.

Heavenly Bodies featured Stu Stone as a child. And looking back on this clip, which has been on YouTube for, I don't know, 13 years, I never really bothered to look at it before I just speculated. What was Stu's role in this film? Because we have discussed it here without me actually having the evidence. Lawrence Dane, for directing this scene with Stu Stone, probably should have been in jail. Okay, let's hear it. I'm tired, darling.

Don't you think you've had enough? It's late. Just a bit more. Okay, Mom? That's Stu Stone. Okay. Now let's fetch the guns and things, said Huck. No, Huck, leave them there.

They're just the tricks that we have to go to robbing. We'll keep them there all the time and we'll hold our order. Mom, how do you say O-R-G-I-E-S? What? What are you reading? Tom Sawyer. Oh. Now, how do you say that word?

Orgies. Orgies. Just orgies. Now hurry up and finish that page, okay? And we'll hold Just orgies. Now hurry up and finish that page, okay? And we'll hold our orgies. Mom, what's an orgies? Do you remember what I told you about a man and woman being in love and making babies? Yes. Well, an orgy is people doing that without the love that makes it so nice.

How come Tom Sawyer's gonna have an orgies i think he's talking about something the pirates are gonna do do you have an orgies mom no in fact your mom hasn't had a lot of anything lately wow Wow. Okay, real talk, Mike. You have a son the same age that Stu Stone, Stuart Eisenstein, was when he made that clip. Would you not want the man who put those words in his mouth to end up on a sex offender registry? No, come on. Don't be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. I am sure.

sex offender registry. No, come on. Don't be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. I am sure. It's a seven-year-old Stu in a movie asking his mother if she has been in an orgy. But not what orgies mean. Have you ever participated in one? And Cynthia Dale, and I realize what the original premise here, what the setup was, right?

You were supposed to get lubricated for the idea then that you would see Cynthia Dale, and I realized what the original premise here, what the setup was, right? You were supposed to get lubricated for the idea then that you would see Cynthia Dale in the centerfold of Playboy magazine, and it would all tie in together. This was part of how Cynthia Dale was going to be a big star in the USA. That never came together here. And that Stu Stone is seven years old. And this history explains a lot about Stu, I realize here. Stu doesn't know. As a man in his mid-40s, the fact that he has stuff like this in his background.

Stu has no context for the words he's reading in the script. He has no idea what's going on. It's way over his head. How would you feel if you put your seven-year-old son into the world of acting here? Like, to support the family, I don't know. Podcasting isn't going well. You need some money. You need Jarvis, cute kid.

He can audition for roles. He can be on the screen. What would you think if a producer, a writer, a director told him to say this dialogue in a feature film? Sorry, Mark. What would be your reaction? I would imagine you would want this guy, you would want to put this guy in the hospital. I'm not nearly as enraged as you are,

but I do want to point out the fun fact that the late great Beck, myself, and Cynthia Dale all have something in common. We all went to the same high school. Lawrence Dane, subsequently, his roles beyond Br bride of chucky uh national lampoon senior trip uh 1995 right uh duct tape forever that was the that was the red green movie and jeff lumby who moved to the south of France. You could see him in there. And, I don't know, pretty much a role in, like,

every Canadian TV show produced in the decade of the 2000s. Oh, in the 2000s. No, no, he's trying to make it in Hollywood. There he is, you know, La Femme Nikita and Stargate SG-1 and Queer as Folk, that version they produced in Toronto. Poltergeist TV show.

Lots of credits there. Lots of credits there for Lauren Stain. As I mentioned, then Ron Bass alongside Peter Goddard in that same week in March lost his former collaborator, Lawrence Dane. And a footnote on Canadian film history, but one that is certainly unforgettable. of Cynthia Dale being asked to explain orgies

by a seven-year-old Stuart Stone. Got to say that's how I dream to be I dream I move I dream I groove Like Mike If I could be like Mike I wanna be like Mike Like Mike If I could be like Mike If I could be like Mike

Be like Mike Be like Mike Yeah I try. Just need to fly. Just one day if I could be that way. I'd do my move. Oh, I'd do my move. Like Mike.

If I could be like Mike. I wanna be, I wanna be like Mike. Like Mike. If I could be like Mike. Oh, yeah, I'd do my move. Like Mike. If I could be like Mike. Like Mike. I wanna be like Mike. Oh, yeah, Mike. Like Mike. Like Mike. I wanna be like Mike.

Eric Mercury was a vocalist on that Gatorade commercial, which, Mike, I could imagine you knowing that jingle in real time, not just because you would have been watching it as a commercial on TV sports, but because Be Like Mike is something that you could live up to. Me and one third of the men in this country named Mike. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that Michael Jordan jingle for Gatorade at the time,

anonymously sung by a soul music legend born in Toronto named Eric Mercury. Right there, his name was Unforgettable Brand. Like, who wouldn't want to listen to a record from a guy named Eric Mercury? Well, here's a little more. He gave it a shot. Got to the USA, late 1960s, and this was from his debut album, Electric Black Man. Kind of like Lenny Kravitz, but 20 years before the fact. That seemed to be the idea that Eric Mercury had about the niche that he could fill, but just remained a cult figure working his way around the U.S. music industry. Later signed to Enterprise Records, who was the big Stax Records historian,

would have known Eric Mercury in part as a resource for his work about the history of that soul R&B record label. Eric Mercury later got to Hollywood. He was in a late 70s movie called The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. Hollywood. He was in a late 70s movie called The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. And American Hot Wax. But never quite clicked as far as having that mainstream hit. Wrote songs for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. Oh, the Lakerie. Produced some of their records.

away, produced some of their records. And in the mid-80s, he had an album. I remember seeing Merc and Monk with the son of Thelonious Monk. But back to Toronto, and there he was, kind of like an elder statesman on the Canadian RNB scene. But again, to look back, like where would Eric Mercury's voice have been heard most of all? Shout out to David Friend of the Canadian press. I think a secret Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment fan because he's referenced it on Twitter that he throws these nuggets into these Canadian press obituaries specifically for me.

I don't want to leave that out, the fact that it was David Friend who highlighted Be Like Mike, vocals by Eric Mercury, Canadian R&B legend, dead on March 14th at age 77. Used to call me on You used to, you used to Woo! Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. The intro is not over yet. Keep that in mind, Mike.

How wonderful would it have been to be an AM radio disc jockey in 1972? All that talk up for the song Why Can't We Live Together by Timmy Thomas. Right. As you were grooving there, a more familiar backbeat for the fact that it showed up in, what year, 2015?

Unmistakable sample, of course. You got to pitch it up a bit and speed it up a bit maybe, but this is definitely You Used to pitch it up a bit and speed it up a bit maybe, but this is definitely You Used to Call Me on My Cell Phone. Hotline Bling. Drizzy. And Drizzy was far from the first

to pay homage to Why Can't We Live Together? In fact, there is a cover version of Timmy Thomas' song on the album Too Legit to Quit by MC Hammer. And it's possible

that that's where Drizzy Drake found out about it first. I mean, what else would follow as far as what a childhood Drake would have been listening to as far as rap music was concerned. He just doesn't want to admit it. So Timmy Thomas was like an academic,

a school teacher, professor, one of the above, who sidelined as a musician, and in watching newsreel footage of the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite, reporting about the number of deaths in Vietnam, he was inspired to write the song Why Can't We Live Together as a lament for what was going on in the world 50 years ago.

And had a successful enough song to top the Billboard R&B chart and on the pop charts made it all the way to number three. But a longer music career for Timmy Thomas wasn't in the cards. Thankfully, he had the kind of education where he could go back to a day job teaching, only to find out in 2015 that he had been prominently sampled on a song called Hotline Bling. And naturally, when you've got such a huge tune,

people tracking him down, wondering what he thought of getting this much attention how many years later, and expressed the sentiment that he just wanted to meet Drake, shake his hand, thank him for the royalty checks. And from what I could tell, that encounter never actually happened. Seems like typical Drake. Shake his hand. Thank him for the royalty checks. And from what I could tell, that encounter never actually happened. Seems like typical Drake. Like, I don't know.

Drake has got enough to deal with his father, right? Like running around Hollywood selling people selfies. Didn't want to have to deal with another annoying old guy. But Timmy Thomas thanked him for the money. And we lost him March 11th, 2022 at age 77. Timmy Thomas. Be the rain in your song Don't put that record on If you want to I'll be the one Be the tongue that will swallow you

Shame, shame, shame, shame Shame, shame, shame, shame Were we surprised to learn that Taylor Hawkins died? Like if you ranked it on the 1 to 10 scale of shocking celebrity deaths, where would you place hearing this news? Pretty shocking because, well, firstly, when you're a rock star, there's always the probability that something will go awry with your cocktail of different recreational and prescription drugs, okay? So that aside, I am surprised because Taylor just didn't seem

like he was going to die at 50 in that manner. So I'm mildly surprised. March 25th, 2022, when Taylor Hawkins was pronounced dead in Bogota, Colombia, and the autopsy that found whatever number of substances

in his body at the time. And after this run with the Foo Fighters, but Mike, you would know he was not the original Foo Fighters drummer. He was not. He was not the first. I think the first pick drummer is Dave Grohl because that first album he does himself,

right? Like as I recall, and I was a big Nirvana guy at the time, that first Foo Fighters album is just Dave and him. Okay. And him being a drummer himself, a clashing with the original drummer, William Gould Smith,

came in as a package deal from this band, Sunny Day Real Estate. It was William Gould Smith and Nate Mendel. It was them, it was Pat Smear, who had worked before with Nirvana, also went through his own drug period where he was out of the band. I think he's married to someone who used to work at Q107. Rebecca Gibb, and that's how Pat Smear is like BFFs with Bill Carroll.

That's how it is. Although I think Bill Carroll considers himself more of Pat Smear's friend than the other way around. I mean, let's be honest here. Okay, so my understanding is, what is it, The Color and the Shape, that's the second, that's the follow-up, right? The Color and the Shape.

That's a great fucking album. I think that's the one my hero wanted and ever long and ever. Yeah, so they get this other drummer, William Goldsmith, in there, and Dave Grohl does not like what he's doing. Right, so he redoes the parts. I'm redoing the parts.

You can go on tour in the band, but I'm going to be the drummer on Foo Fighters' records instead. Right, that's exactly right. So then it's the parts. I'm redoing the parts. You can go on tour in the band, but I'm going to be the drummer on Foo Fighters' records instead. Right. That's exactly right. So then it's the next album that we'll hear the drumming of Taylor Hawkins. And I'm sure you'll cover this, but he originally drummed for an FOTM.

Alanis Morissette. No, because she's not an FOTM. Oh, Sass Jordan. Sass Jordan. Which was his first professional gig. Yes, okay. So he was jumping for Sass. I mean, look, fate intervened because if it wasn't him hanging out,

if he was with Sass Jordan to this day, Taylor Hawkins would have ended up being in the Guess Who? Right? Like the scabs. But the guests who already have the original drummer. It's the only guy left. But Sass leads to Alanis, and Alanis leads to food. A much more glorious road awaited Taylor Hawkins.

Did you know that I was at the Alanis Morissette launch party in Toronto? Like the debut of Jagged Little Pill. I did not know that, but I'm not even surprised. I was in the room with Taylor Hawkins. I also saw Taylor Hawkins at Saturday Night Live, the one time I was in the studio audience of SNL. Okay, they were the band. Well, they were the band like once every season

for the last 25 years. Okay, so it's like a 5% chance that the Foo Fighters were on SNL if you were there in person. They happened to be there in 1999. We're going to play something for Taylor here that I think speaks to the fact that maybe in the Foo Fighters, the best drummer in the band was the singer and the best singer was the drummer.

You could put forward that argument. Okay, well, certainly there was a brotherhood there, right? Where like Dave Grohl considered Taylor Hawkins to be, you know, his identical twin. These guys were joined to the hip. Yeah, they were BFFs. Separated birth. I don't know. Good friends.

Whatever metaphor you want to name. Can the Foo Fighters continue without Taylor Hawkins? Sure. I heard some speculation that, in fact, the only way that Dave Grohl's agenda makes any sense is for Dave Grohl to then become the drummer of the Foo Fighters. Which might be the future. To become a singing drummer instead.

Make no mistake. The Foo Fighters is, in all due respect to these fantastic musicians and the Foo Fighters. Which might be the future. Like to become a singing drummer instead. Make no mistake. The Foo Fighters is in all due respect to these fantastic musicians and the Foo Fighters. It is Dave Grohl. Like the only necessary ingredient to continue with the Foo Fighters is Dave himself. So long as Dave wants to

continue, there will be Foo Fighters. I'm not so sure about that. Because they canceled the whole tour 2022 after waiting, you know, waiting out this pandemic to get back on the road. And I mean, look, whatever, Foo Fighters have a lot of haters out there, right? But they perfected this idea that they could be like an eternal touring band, right? Like didn't matter. Had that song, Shame, Shame, I thought last year, a pretty good attempt to have a contemporary top 40 hit

yeah it did all right it's tough for rock bands in 2022 no i never heard that they they seem to tune it up to try and make it in this world of tiktok with a certain kind of tune i dug it i thought it was all right but uh long legacy of the foo fighters which included turning their live act to i would say more of like a cabaret variety show right right? Like people would go to see the Foo Fighters. They didn't care what the Foo Fighters did on the stage. They'd invite people up from the audience to play with them. Rick Astley would make a cameo appearance, right? Like they could do whatever they wanted at a certain point in time.

So it got to the point where they would shine the spotlight on Taylor Hawkins. Give him a little turn. And I think you've got what it sounded like to hear Taylor Hawkins up on the stage. Can you find me? Can you find me? Somebody. Somebody to. Somebody to, somebody to love Somebody to love

Each morning I get up at night Can't bear the skin of my feet Take a look in the mirror Cry for what you do I spent all these years believing in you But I trust you can't go with me Somebody Somebody The band loved his Queen, that's for sure.

Also, this brings to mind the George Michael, Somebody to Love. Remember that? With Queen? Yes. At the Freddie Mercury tribute concert. Right. An enduring enough song. And this was from Lollapalooza, like the South American Lollapalooza. Argentina, I think, because it was professionally shot.

And as a result, we got this last footage of Taylor Hawkins up on the stage. Did you know also, Mike that did i ever mention i was i was at the uh the launch of the in utero album for nirvana in new york i know you never mentioned that in 1990 i love that album i mean i'm just i'm dropping these anecdotes here because somebody else might be impressed what was i doing at all shows? Puttering around at the back of the room, wondering if I should cut out and leave early. I don't know that I was into it, appreciated it at all. No, you were

wasted on you. I was at the Foo Fighters debut in Toronto with Mike Watt and Eddie Vedder. That was at the Opera House. That was in 1995. I think that was in the same period as the debut of Atlantis. Listen, this is

all wasted on you. This is all my shit. I'm all over this. I've seen Foo Fighters live. I fucking loved In Utero. This is my stuff. Well, here's the thing, Mike. It doesn't matter if you're paying attention at all. It doesn't matter if you spent the whole show looking at your phone. It's the fact that you're able, so many years later, unlike

Alan Cross, to say that you were there. I did notice, by the way, that they adjusted the algorithm on your beloved CFNY. Have a Foo Fighters tribute, even though it was news that broke on a Saturday. Somebody actually showed up, made the effort to change the code in the computer. Shout out to FOTM. Played Foo Fighters tribute. Interrupted the pre-programmed radio. My universe will never be the same I'm glad you came

You cast a spell on me, spell on me Outro Music I mean, we're playing this because Tom Parker, a member of the Wanted, one of those boy bands that came out of the show, The X Factor, a lot less successful than One Direction, maybe a little more laddish in that same milieu. Tom Parker, who died of a brain tumor March 30th at age 33. But also playing it just to show off my continued attention to Top 40 Radio for all these decades that I remember this song being played on the radio. You know it too?

Big time. Not just hearing it in the supermarket? No, I remember it permeated Toronto Mike's life. It was just around all the time. This was a big fucking jam. And look, Tom Parker really believed in this boy band deal because before he was in The Wanted, he was in a Take That tribute band.

Take That being the 90s version of the British boy band. And before that, he was managing Elvis Presley's career, as I remember. Also, while The Wanted were on a break, he was playing Danny Zuko in Greece on stages in the UK, like

dinner theater kind of celebrity. The Wanted reunited last fall. All these boy bands got to break up and get back together and then all their fans are middle-aged and they'll pay to go to nostalgic concerts again. It's a proven template. Sure.

Guess what? Six months later, we lost Tom Parker. Not around to be part of the deal. So rest in peace, Tom Parker, March 30th, age 33. Now the party's over I'm so tired Then I see you coming Out of nowhere Much communication in a motion

Without conversation or a notion A renaissance. Avalon. I mean, it's too bad people have to die for you to put a name to a legendary voice, but I think most FOTMs know Roxy Music's Avalon, and they know that there is a woman's voice on the song. You knew that, right, Mike? Absolutely. Iconic part of that 1982 Roxy Music album.

We consider this yacht rock. Roxy Music are reuniting, going on tour again. I mean, they can charge thousands of dollars for those seats. That's some prestige stuff, like 50-year anniversary tour. So tell me, whose voice are we hearing here? A woman, Haitian singer named Yannick Etienne. She died on March 30th at age 64.

And the reason that her life came to light is because in the days after she died, her son won the biggest Grammy Award of the night. Her son, Demille, he works with Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars. Silksonic. Silksonic, not to be confused with Slick Toxic. Right. They did not win the Grammy Award. Snubbed again.

So this R&B producer, he's also worked with her, and he won an Academy Award. This woman's son. That was from Judas and the Black Messiah in the Oscars the year before. So, I mean, this guy is racking up the awards, D. Mile. He mentioned in the glorious Silk Sonic acceptance speech that his mom had just died a few days before. And, yeah, it was a subject of curiosity,

like some French obituaries for her but you would think like maybe more attention to this trivial fact I thought was worth noting here so she worked on the Avalon song and then subsequent backing vocals with Brian Ferry

on some of the solo albums he did after the end of Roxy Music. Rest in peace, Yannick. I guess. It's French. Yannick Etienne. What a voice. Dead at 64. Woo!

Shout out to Canada. It was a cool and lovely breezy afternoon You could feel it cause it was the month of. So I left my gate and went out for a walk. As I passed the jet locks camp I heard them say. Passed the kitchen from the left side. As I pass the dreadlocks camp, I hear them sing. I hear them sing. I hear them sing. Pass the Gucci on the left and right side. Pass the Gucci on the left and right side. Okay, we grew up with this song in a slightly different iteration.

Right. For one, they changed the title. We all knew Pass the Duchy by Musical Youth. And that came out a year after Pass the Coochie by a group called the Mighty Diamonds. In March 2022,

we lost, if I got this right, two of the three members of Mighty Diamonds died two days apart. Wow. It was the lead singer, Donald Shaw, Tabby Diamond, shot and killed. And then in Kingston, Jamaican Hospital, the death of Fitzroy Simpson, Bunny Diamond. These guys were like the Ramones, right?

They all had the same last name going on there. And that leaves one mighty diamond of the three. Judge Diamond had two funerals to go to. So, Pass the Duchy, which has a Canadian connection because it interpolates a song, an instrumental called Full Up by Leroy Sibbles. Does his name come up on the show? Jamaican musician who then later moved to Toronto.

And somewhere on that record is also jackie matu another uh another reggae great again who uh worked that circuit uh originally from uh making records in jamaica and then establishing the canadian reggae scene dying pretty young but leroy sib Sibbles still walking the earth. And the credits on these reggae records were always pretty sketch. I think it was no less than Paul McCartney. Heard of him? I have.

He was being interviewed, and he was talking about how these old Jamaican 45s, how the credits on the records would always be dodgy. Right. And I mean, the joke there, Paul could certainly ride along with this. All these guys were like high all the time and like, had no sense of like who wrote this song. I don't know.

Just like put whatever name on it. What's the song? What's the song called? You know, just like make up a name and put it on the record. And so you've got all this, all this fantastic Jamaican music that has not enough of a paper trail

because nobody could figure out what was going on here, who was on the records, who deserved the credit. But past the coochie legendary, if only for musical youth adapting it, is past the dutchie. Rest in peace, two out of the dutchy. Rest in peace. Two out of the three mighty diamonds. I was here for quite a while I was down the hall just passing time

Last time we met was a low-lit room We were as close together as a riding room. We ate the food, we drank the wine. Everybody having a good time. Except you, you were talking about the end of the world. Mike, I've got to check in with you here, because last time on the Ridley Memorial segment, you remarked after the fact that you weren't so into the songs.

Like, it just wasn't a good enough flow. And I'm thinking, I have no control over who died. I can't put this playlist together, like pretend people are no longer around. It would be when Taylor Hawkins dies, and you're going to play a Foo Fighters song, don't choose the one you chose. That's all my point is. My point is

fucking ride the rails, man. Pick a hit. Pick a big jam that everybody knows and loves. Okay, but have my picks this time around here for March 2022, have they been okay? I know you like this song. It was a February recap that disappointed you. Although you said you like Screaming Trees.

Yeah. Look, sometimes you pick the most obscure album track from a big band just to be... No, I'm trying to impress Basement Dweller. I'm playing to the diehards. I literally... The hardcore fans. You pick the songs. Well, these are songs that resonated with me.

I never override your request. Without even asking, that this song from U2 until the end of the world is a jam that is Toronto Mike approved, right? I have no problem with this song. You co-sign, you endorse this song, it's in your wheelhouse, demographically it fits the music that young Mike was listening to.

Sure, but it's not like a member of U2 did not pass here, right? So now you will reveal to us who passed and who guessed. William Hurt was not a recording artist. Correct. He didn't make any songs. That is correct. And here's why I picked this one. But you could have picked a song

from The Big Chill. I remember seeing this really long, what is it? Four hours long? Five? A Vim Vendors film. Not a short ass movie. Until the end of the world. I think I saw it on Cumberland Theater, Christmas Eve or thereabouts.

Oh yeah, it's one of those movies where there's like seven different versions of the movie because there's like different director's cuts and versions for different countries. I don't know. It went on forever. Yeah, it was Christmas Eve 1991. And it was like the kind of movie you sit through. You don't even know what the hell's going on, but you come out of it.

Remember this feeling of a movie? Like you've seen a long art film and it's like, that was exhilarating. I've achieved something. I've consumed a piece of art. And that's how I felt after sitting through until the end of the world. I want you to pick the music for the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. And I'm going to play them as you pick them. I will never override you. Because if I'm doing it, I'm...

What are you talking about? You override me all the time. I never. I always... I just copy and paste your... William Hurt. Okay, before you get to William Hurt. We know William Hurt from a bunch of films, not just until the end of the world.

Hold on. So, what I would do is I would say, William Hurt, my brain would think The Big Chill, okay? And I would think, what a monster fucking soundtrack that was for Baby Boomers. Oh, I got sick and tired of that stuff. Back when it was happening. Sure. So I would have picked The Big Jam off the soundtrack for The Big Chill.

That's how I would have done it. But this is not me. This is you. Continue. I would have walked out of here, left my coronavirus oh no uh william hurt made a bunch of movies i guess he was kind of like the uh bewildered white guy right and it paid off in his latter days because he was in a marvel marvel cinematic universe a character uh originally what from the hulk avengers uh uh captain america no idea uh uh thaddeus ross i'm not seeing these Originally what? From the Hulk? Avengers? Captain America? No idea.

Thaddeus Ross. I'm not seeing these movies either. But also some Canadian movies. History of Violence. Yeah. Remember that one? It's a Cronenberg, right? Yeah, Cronenberg.

And speaking of Robert Lantos. That's a guy. Heavenly Bodies guy. William Hurt had a role in Sunshine, which was that Hungarian epic film from back in the day. But what else? Accidental Tourist, Broadcast News, I Love You to Death, Children of a Lesser God with Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God with Marlee Matlin, a deaf actress that, of course, was a big breakthrough Academy Award winner. Right.

ended up being a personal relationship for Marlee Matlin and William Hurt. And upon William Hurt's death, passages from Marlee Matlin's biography came out reminding us that William Hurt was not always a very good man and kind of went through that cycle of what? Like posthumous cancellation? Suddenly we shouldn't mourn for this guy too much. Like maybe at times he was a horrible human being. And even though by all accounts, you know,

they came to some resolution and he confessed to this assaultive situation that he was in. You don't want that to happen to you, right? Like imagine you die, legendary actor. You got this long biography and people are, people are mourning you.

Tributes to how important an actor you were. And then it's like a milkshake duck. Like, stop the presses. Let's not revere this dead man too much. But that's the opportunity that everybody has to make things right. William Hurt did what he could, and he was suffering from prostate cancer, like the last four years rough for him

and died on March 13th, one week before he would have turned 72. Hey, everybody, what's going to be the next song in our sing-along? I got one, I got one. What is it, Louis? It's a good song, too. We sang it before. What's the name of that song? It goes something like this.

How's it go? La-di-da-di-dum, la-di-da-di-dum, what's the name of that song? La-di-da-di-dum, la-di-da-di-dum, what's the name of that song? La-di-da-di-dum, la-di-da-di-dum, what's the name of that song? It goes la-di-da-di-dum, la-di-da-di-dum, something, something, birds. La-di-da-di-dum, la-di-da-di, I wish I remembered the words. What is it? La-di-da-di-dum, la-di-da-di-dum, what's the name of that song? I wish I remembered the words. Louis Delgado.

Emilio Delgado. Sorry. Yeah, it's Emilio. Louis was his character's name, Louis. Luis. What was it? Luis, Luis, okay. I watched This Is My Time, man. This is my guy.

I'm surprised I didn't remember it's Luis. Before I got all that wrong, we heard Luis of Sesame Street there before Bob came in. There we hear Luis from Sesame Street who died at age 81 on March 10th, 2022. He was with Susan? Or was Gordon with Susan?

Who's Gordon? Susan, right? Was the name of Luis's wife on Sesame Street. Maria. Maria. Who's Susan then? It was Susan and Gordon. It's been a long fucking time.

Holy smokes. But yeah, this was my jam in the 70s anyway. Emilio Delgado joined the cast of Sesame Street in 1971 and hung around until 2016 when his contract was not renewed. Like Bob McGrath had the same thing. How do you kick Louise off

of Sesame Street? This was like Sesame Street going woke. No matter how diverse the classic cast was, they were getting long in the tooth. Whatever ageism got in the way, we don't want these senior citizens telling kids how to behave.

The thing with Muppets are they don't get old. But the IRL cast of Sesame Street had some turnover. I mean, not everyone like Mr. Hooper could die in the middle of shooting the show. Don't remind me. In fact, they were retired instead. So, look, not a bad run, right? 45 years on the payroll of Sesame Street. And here's the thing. I think if you were on Sesame Street,

you could never be taken seriously after that doing an adult role, right? Like no one would want to be watching Heavenly Bodies and there is Luis from Sesame Street like in the middle of a scene, right? Was there a character in Typecast for Life? 227 who came from Sesame Street, or am I confusing this with Jack K? Like, Jack K? Jack K?

Was Jack K ever in Sesame Street? Or no, that's a fever dream I had once. This is too much for me to Google this point. But look, he gave it a shot. Emilio Delgado. He was in a season. He was a recurring character on Lou Grant. Did some episodes of Quincy and Falcon Quest.

Falcon Crest. Right. Crest. It's late. It's late. But would you watch these shows? And again, think like, what's this dude from Sesame Street doing in here? So it's good that they kept him on the payroll for all that time. La-di-da-di-da. What's the name of that song?

Fondly remembered. And also the fact that here in Canada, you know, it was kind of exotic that there was a Hispanic aspect to Sesame Street. In the Canadian version of Sesame Street, they replaced the segments with, like, French-Canadian stuff. Yeah, it was too old for that. Instead of the Spanish. But the fact that this was part of the diversity of America at the time,

70s and 80s, this was still pretty exotic up here, that there were, in fact, Spanish-speaking people. So, again, thanks to Emilio Delgado for explaining to us, along with Maria, what that part of America was all about. New and improved HandyRap 2 introduces Cling Plus. Oh, you ain't got a thing if you ain't got that cling. Do wrap, do wrap, do wrap. Oh, you ain't got a thing if you ain't got that cling. Do wrap, do wrap, do wrap, do wrap, do wrap. Handy Wrap 2 with Cling Plus has twice as much cling as before,

so it seals tighter to seal in freshness and flavor longer. Oh, you ain't got a thing. You ain't got that cling. New and improved handy wrap, too. It's a must to have that cling plus. Yeah, I love the story of Estelle Harris, right? She was a housewife in New York City, and there in middle age, her kids were grown,

and she's like, I can be that annoyingish boobie on television commercials and she auditioned and she got a bunch of these roles and if you look through youtube the history of estelle harris a lot of commercials anything to do with like constipation uh diarrhea antacids uh it was uh you could imagine right estelle har Harris, later of Seinfeld, like the perfect character to show up in these daytime TV commercials pushing products like these. But we mostly know her as Mrs. Costanza. Estelle, alongside Jerry Stiller.

Jerry Stiller was in a Ridley Funeral Home segment how many years ago? I don't know, a few years ago. Total track of time here. A few years ago. But both of George Costanza's parents who have died in the last

couple of years. Yeah, it was May 2020 that Jerry Stiller died. So in the past two years. And did you want to play another commercial? I queued up one from May 2020 that Jerry Stiller died. So in the past two years, Estelle Harris. And did you want to play another commercial? I queued up one from, it was a commercial after Estelle Harris was famous enough, a GLAAD commercial. So she was known enough that it was like kind of a big deal that George's mom was in your

commercial. And here in 2002, Estelle Harris cashing what I hope was a real big check on this character that she'd cultivated. It's melting. It's melting. Estelle Harris is mad. Mad. My lunch is melting. Estelle, you should have put it in Gladware. Gladware?

Gladware's tough, like Tupperware. Tough, huh? Tough enough to microwave over and over. No more melted macaroni? Nope, and you get all this Gladware for the price of one Tupperware. Oh, I love that. Yes. I want it.

No, no. Let's go. Don't get mad. Get gladware. They don't make them like that anymore. I loved in the obituaries what it was like. Estelle Harris, dead at 93, known for Seinfeld and playing Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story movies. Did I say Mr.?

Yeah. Yeah, she's all over those. There's a lot of, Sorry for the misgendering there. There's a lot of great voices in those. Now, many of them are actually passed away

because Don Rickles is one of the voice and Jim Varney is another voice. So we've lost a lot of those Toy Story voice actors. Okay. I have to catch up

on the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head cinematic universe. I feel like I'm missing out. Put the hammer down. Because we got a little convoy Rocking through the night Yeah, we got a little convoy It's your beautiful sight Come on and join our convoy Ain't nothing gonna get in our way We're gonna roll this truckin' convoy

Across the USA Convoy Yeah, 2022, Canada's national anthem. Convoy by C.W. McCall, who was a guy who worked in an ad agency, who caught on to the CB radio craze with this novel hit that made it 1975 all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Okay, ask me how I discovered this song. Mike, how did you discover C.W. McCall,

real name, Bill Fries? This was a character who was playing on the record. How did Convoy come into your life? Because when Homer bought his son Bart this two-way radio thing, he was singing that song, and I'm like, what is that? And that's when I discovered the song Convoy. Homer Simpson sang it in that early episode of The Simpsons.

His collaborator on these novelty trucking songs was Chip Davis, the guy who went on to create Mannheim steamroller. Remember, remember Mannheim? Of course. Of course. Bombastic, uh,

Christmas songs. Christmas songs. Sure. Of course. Of course. And there was a convoy movie, 1978 with, with,

uh, Chris Christopherson and Ellie, Ellie McGraw. That's how huge, how huge a Convoy was. Well, I mean, Ram Ranch, the gay porno song.

That one ended up being more of an anthem for what happened to the Canadian convoy. the experience of celebrating a convoy across the USA. The work of celebrating a convoy across the USA. The work of a man who called himself C.W. McCall. Made it all the way to 93.

Died on April 1. I'm real fast. Let me tell you what I'm thinking. This should come to pass. My name is Geek. I put them on as a shocker. Man, I love these blue blockers. Everything is clear. They block out the sun. Oh

yeah, I gotta get me some. Everything is groovy now. I'm the bull in my speech. This is what I do up and down Venice Beach. My name is Geek. I'm more than a hip hopper and I'll be cheek in my blue blockers. Yeah. Now, what do I mean? Yep, these sunglasses are really, really keen.

So there you have it, folks, out there in TV land. Get you some glasses. That's sweeping the land. Remember what I said on my hip hop? Yeah. Go get you some blue blockers. Now, yep, it's sweet. I'll see you later.

I got to make some money on the beach. Blue blockers. If you recall, the infomercial was hosted by the man who owned the patent to these devices. Do you recall? When Dr. Geek was found on Venice Beach, there was a guy holding a microphone. That man's name was Joe Sugarman, an entrepreneur who died on March 18th at age 83. Now, we already lost the Venice Beach rapper Dr. Geek 2014

and I suspect there was some speculation about whether he got paid for this seminal role in one of America's greatest infomercials. Like you could not put on your blue blockers without doing

the Dr. Geek rap, right? It was very popular in my home. I did the rap all the time. Any sunglasses at all? Yeah, that's right. I got to say, that ad must have, I don't know what I was watching. This is, of course, aged well before the internet, so there was more TV viewing happening.

But they aired that infomercial often, like a lot. Whatever I was watching, I was seeing that all the freaking time. Well, I think as far as legendary infomercial products were concerned, I don't know whether the blue blockers worked entirely as advertised, but they were

a product that you would want to use. Just like go outside and stare at the sun. And if they were good enough for Dr. Geek, they were good enough for you. And as a result, everybody remembers

Joe Sugarman. He made a whole lot of money. Joe Sugarman, dead at age 83. Somewhere out there Beneath the pale moonlight Someone's thinking of me

And loving me tonight Somewhere out there Someone saying a prayer That we'll find one another In that big somewhere out there Nehemia... You got that, Mike? Easy for you to say. Nehemia Persoff, an American actor

who died April 5th, aged 102. Well done. Born in Jerusalem before it was the state of Israel. Moved to the USA, served in the army, worked as a subway electrician,

started working his way onto Broadway through the actor's studio, met Elia Kazan, and in the car, driving Marlon Brando, when he made a speech about I could have been a contender,

is an actor who died a couple days ago. when he made his speech about I could have been a contender. Hey. As an actor who died a couple days ago, still walking the earth. Nechemia Peresov. So he had a whole bunch of roles. A lot of those one-off TV credits showed up in legendary movies

and did the voice of Papa Mauskiewicz in the animated film An American Tale with Fievel. Fievel the mouse.

And there were subsequent sequels of an American tale. Straight to video stuff. They kept calling back Papa Mauskiewicz, who died not long after. Jackie Mason, the father of Krusty the Clown. Yeah, Rabbi Krustofsky. Cut from the same cloth there. And I think part of the reason that Nehemia Peresov was thought of for an American tale

is that he plays also the father in the Barbra Streisand movie, Yentl. And that Barbra Streisand song, Papa, Can You Hear Me? He was the papa. So a guy old enough to be playing Barbra Streisand's father in a movie 40 years ago. A good, good long life. 40 years ago. A good long life. Made it to 102.

I think the perfect closer for this Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. But really, most of all, this one was for Becky Dinwoody, who loved listening to Toronto Mike and actually would devour what we did here. And it's bittersweet, if not surreal, to have included her here in this month's round for March of 2022. How do we do, Mike?

Is this the third longest episode of Toronto Mike yet? We did slip past my three-hour cap, but not that far past. We're going to end up about, I don't know, 306, 307. Hey, thanks everybody made it this far. And let's see what happens in the springtime of 2022. We're all bouncing back, trying to get out of the masks. And stay tuned, stand by to find out which one of us infected the other

with COVID-19. And that brings us to the end of our 1029th show. I threw it for a loop there, huh? That was a bit of a cliffhanger. I'm like, what are you talking about? No symptoms.

Okay, let's see by the weekend which one of us really got sick. Was it me or was it you? Tune in. I'm going to bet a lot of... Tune in in May. I would bet on door number three, which is neither of us. Neither one of us at all? That's what I would bet on.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. Go to 1236.ca to sign up for his weekday news burrito. It goes out at 1236 p.m. Yeah, yeah. My timing has been better lately through the past month. Richard Krause was calling me out, showing up in the inbox.

I have an email in the inbox right now from Richard Krause, coincidentally. What else? How am I going to do with my attempt to be a regular client at Canna Cabana? Where do I go? What's their website? Cannacabana.com. You can follow them on Twitter. They're at Cannacabana underscore.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Did I say Great Lakes yet? Great Lakes is at Great Lakes Beer. Yeah, yeah. I only went through one during this episode. You'd think I was two or three based on mistakes I was making at the end. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

And Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. See you all next week. And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up Roti and Grey Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow warms me today.

And your smile is fine, it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Cause everything is rosy and gray. Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain. And I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour But I like it much

better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today

And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy now Everything is rosy Everything is rosy and great Thank you.