Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #1045

Episode Date: May 5, 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 Duer Pants and Shorts.

Welcome to episode 104.5. Shout out to FOTM Roger Ashby 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. Dewar, the world's most comfortable pants and shorts and t-shirts, by the way. This feels amazing. 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 canna cabana.com joining me this week to recap the month that was april 2022

is 12 36 his own mark wise blot may 5 5th, 2022. Do you know whose birthday it is today? Is it yours? It's the seventh anniversary of the 1236 newsletter first being available to the public. Well, happy birthday to the 1236 newsletter still available. It had to happen sometime, right? Like one out of 365 days of the year, and it just so happens it's on Cinco de Mayo.

Seven years of a newsletter pretty much every day of the week. Six years of me paying a visit to the basement of Toronto, Mike. Two years of the coronavirus pandemic, even though coming here on the subway has gotten less traumatizing with time. It's actually quite busy on there, and the mask compliance seems to be pretty good, given that's something they can't enforce. And here we are, and it is a period of pivoting that we're about to enter here. Some suspense that will unfold in the months ahead.

Figuring out what I'm going to do. And as we wind our way to another memorial segment brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home, wind our way to another memorial segment brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. What are we going to talk about, Mike? A whole bunch of stuff, including a follow-up from my visit here last month and

something I might have left behind. Well, let's talk about that right now. Do you have any symptoms right now? Any symptoms of COVID-19? Are you COVID-19 positive? I mean, I've had a little cough that I haven't been able to shake in at least 30 days. Yeah, yeah. You did it again. Well, it's fading away. It's been the same stubborn

scenario all this time. Okay, but what was the reaction, right? I mean, look, I was doing a comedy routine. Can I tell you what the truth? You want the real talk? What was the reaction, right? I mean, look, I was doing a comedy routine. It was like the best comedy routines. It was derived from real life, right? We're in a period with the Omicron variant going around. Everybody was afraid to be together once again. Do you want the real talk? What happened?

What went down after I left your basement one month ago? Most importantly is I never did contract whatever you had. Like, I didn't get a cold. I never got a sniffle. I never had a cough. I still feel great, so I dodged the COVID bullet there. That's the most important thing. Well, I'm glad to hear that, too, because I was worried you were going to give something to me.

You see, we both came out clean. But you did get feedback about that episode, right? People were listening. They were wondering what was going on. Yeah, a lot of people were like, what the hell? You've got to give me a heads up,

and then I would have moved it to the backyard. But here's the most significant fallout. So a couple of days after your visit, so you visited on a Thursday, first Thursday of every month, and then on the Saturday, there was a family party for my eight-year-old, Jarvis, and my brother, brother Steve heard your appearance

on Toronto Mic, because he listens to every 1236 episode of Toronto Mic. He heard that you had symptoms, and you were with me for three hours down here unmasked, and he and his family decided that if they were going to Jarvis' birthday party, they were going to be fully masked the whole time, and that's what happened because of you. And yet you allowed me back into your basement again. Do you know

why I let you back in? Because in the end it wasn't really so bad. Because of this. Listen closely, Mark Weisblatt. Hello again, I'm Peter Gross. You may remember me from such Toronto-miked episodes as 380, 497, 686, 709, 766, and of course the unforgettable 902. It is today my esteemed honour, privilege, and contractual obligation

to announce the second inductee into the FOTM Hall of Fame. First of all, FOTM? What does that stand for? Flatulence of Terrestrial Monsters? No. Formulation of Troubled Ministers? No, no, no, no! Fishing off the Mountain?

I don't think so. Oh, oh, oh! Friends of off the mountain. I don't think so. Oh, oh, oh! Friends of Toronto Mike. Now, where was I? Oh, the second inductee into the FOTM Hall of Fame, joining Mr. Retro Ontario Ed Conroy, is Mr. 1236 Mark Weisblot. Congratulations, Mark.

Congratulations, Mark! Mike, you're the second inductee into the FOTM Hall of Fame. Congratulations, Mark. Congratulations, Mark. Mike. You're the second inductee into the FOTM Hall of Fame. How wonderful of you to do that on my 1236 newsletter birthday. And mainly because you didn't give me COVID last month. So, yeah, you're worthy. Is that all it takes? How do you feel?

Yeah, you're worthy. Is that all it takes? How do you feel? Look, you've done 1,045 episodes without any guests on the show dying, passing away. That's true. And we've reached 1,045 without any guests giving you COVID-19. I feel that's something to celebrate. A lot more important than my induction into the Toronto-like Hall of Fame. You must just let us know.

The listenership is wondering, how do you feel right now? You just found out from Peter Gross, the legend that is, that you're in the FOTM Hall of Fame. You're only the second member inducted after Retro Ontario, Ed Conroy. How do you feel? Is it okay if I don't really feel anything at all? I wasted it. That's it. Can I rescind this? Okay at all? I wasted it. That's it.

Can I rescind this? Okay. Too late now. It's happened. Okay, so let's... They can't take that away from me. I'm glad you got Ed Conroy in there first. Well, I'm glad you're in.

What did I do to deserve this honor? Well, you know what they say. Quantity is better than quality. So eventually, you, you're worthy. Let's be serious for a moment. Should I be excited about the fact that I got in the Hall of Fame before Stu Stone? Yes, there's something.

You guys can talk about that at the Pickle Barrel when you have your summit. That counts for a lot. Thank you, Mike. I'm honored. It's a privilege and a pleasure after coming down here. What, have we lost count? I'm honored. It's a privilege and a pleasure after coming down here. What? Have we lost count?

How many times since we moved into monthly appearance mode have I been here on Toronto Mike? Well, I think we've created a lot of fireworks together. The best is yet to come as far as the possibilities ahead of us here in the after times. This is your 50th appearance on Toronto Mike is this one right now. And I didn't actually know that till right now.

Who's counting? I'm counting. Is that you're just, no, you're making it up. I've documented it at torontomike.com. This is number 50. 50, 50, 50 consecutive what? No, because there were a couple before.

50 appearances. This includes our Requiem for Chum. I demand a recount. Get Tyler Campbell, VP of sales couple before. 50 appearances in a row. This includes our Requiem for Chum. I demand a recount. Get Tyler Campbell, VP of Sales, on the horn. It's got to be more than that, Mike. It's 50. It doesn't matter. It's 50.

We've centered ourselves in a position. We're ready for the future. We've managed to drop more names, smear more reputations, cultivate more drama among the people that we talk about here in every single 1236 episode. I'm just looking forward to the future because my only motivation in coming down here every month is I'm never satisfied with the product I leave behind. And the way I see it, we're just doing this over and over again until we get this right. Will our April 2022 recap be the Toronto Mic'd episode that I am finally satisfied by. Peter Gross throwing down the gauntlet. We had better try and pull this off.

I'm cracking open a Great Lakes beer. This is a burst. I actually enjoyed some Sunnyside with Ian Service, F-O-T-M, Ian Service, at Great Lakes earlier in the week. It was delicious. Great to see Ian. But here's one for you.

I know you've got a coffee because just like Todd Shapiro, you demand a coffee when you visit. But here's my crack. Todd demanded more than that. So cheers to you, the latest inductee into the FOTM Hall of Fame. Yeah, yeah. Weather's getting warmer out there. It was bound to happen eventually.

And once again, I can engage in that ritual of going down to the Great Lake with a can of GLB. Okay, there's a whole bunch here for you. Decompressing after the show. So let's get into it. Let's start with recent episodes of Toronto Mike. Oh, okay, yeah. Toronto Mike. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Always a lot on the agenda there because part of our monthly ritual became recapping other people who you talk to since I was last in the basement. It's more fun than when I do it with Elvis and find out he didn't listen to anything. I've actually listened to pretty much all of the shows. Mike, what do you got? Who talked to Toronto Mike in April of 2022? Well, do you want to start with Jackie Delaney? Because

she dropped a truth bomb in the middle of her debut. And I did pull a short clip, and then maybe you can tell us what you think. You ready? Yeah, if you pulled the clip, we've got to listen. Bring on Jackie Delaney. Here we go. What about John Derringer, who's been there for 100 years or so at this point?

I worked with John Derringer later in the Q107 experience and later in my career. Working with John Derringer was one of the things that lent itself to my leaving radio altogether. That was the worst experience that I had in radio. Would you be willing to elaborate? Like, what do you mean? Because John is, and I've never had him on the show, but I have asked him on the show, and he's politely declined. But he's one of the radio legends of his generation in this marketplace.

Yeah, well, the way he treats, um, female co-hosts is also legendary. What say you Mark Weisblatt about those words from Jackie Delaney? I noticed then you didn't, you didn't want to go deeper. You didn't, you didn't ask for any more specific. Would you like,

I mean, I did ask her to elaborate. She gave a little more. Was I supposed to, I don't know. You're the one branding yourself as the next generation Brian Linehan. I don't think Brian would have pressed any further. This is not a verdict on my interviewing skills.

She gave enough. She gave enough. You thought that was sufficient. What did you think as a listener? I'm in Toronto, Mike. I think you've pretty much secured yourself an eternal no from John Derringer. But all I did was ask her about working with the legend that is John Derringer. But all I did was ask her about working with the legend that is John Derringer.

In my defense, I just asked that question, which is pretty innocuous. You've had multiple people on the podcast. And usually the answer is something to the effect of John Derringer is an excellent broadcaster. That's usually the answer. So the fact that Jackie gave a little more there. Do you think in previous interviews,

the reveal was in the information that wasn't coming out along the way. Derringer, look, I mean, pretty much as long as I've been listening to Toronto Radio and paying attention to the personalities there,

he's had a place on the air and in the glory days of q107 he was somebody that i always paid attention to uh it was a privilege to have met him a few times along the way uh and i think uh the morning show that he currently does is a remarkable example of absolute corporate radio banality. I don't think there is anything that he currently says on the air that is going to stir up chit-chat between people who aren't listening. And yet, on the occasion when he hit 20 years of doing the morning show on Q107, he acknowledged that the game has changed.

Remember, he would have the tool of the day and these other features on the air that were all about ridiculing authority and public personalities and launching into these rants and beating people down. And that's really no longer how the game is played. That's not how you stay employed with a company like Chorus Entertainment. By all accounts, his paycheck has been a healthy one as the anchorman of their Toronto classic hits, rock, whatever radio station, and he likes to keep it that way, likes being on the air.

So I don't really give any deep thought to the current state of John Derringer. He has not been on my mind. I don't even think he's come up that much. Yeah, but he's on your list. All the discussions we've had. He's on my list. My list of what? Well, your list of five Toronto Mic'd episodes to discuss.

He was number one. John Derringer or Jackie Delaney? Oh, Jackie Delaney. Jackie Delaney, who weaved her way through the ranks of Toronto radio stations. I was interested to hear. She went to Humber College as a mature student. Right. She wanted to get into broadcasting and obviously very ambitious, right? Like she wasn't just biding her time.

She was already into adulthood and had a desire to make it in radio. And the way she described it, different experiences, what CFRB and the Fan 590 and Q107 ultimately walked away from it all feeling pretty disillusioned. It sounds like Don, John Derringer was part of the reason reason she was happy to leave radio behind. But also notable for being one of those guests who is to the right of Toronto Mike on the political spectrum. You're fond of putting me into that category too. You wouldn't necessarily be wrong. But if you're going to put me there, you also got to make room for the other member of the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame, Ed Conroy. Right.

No, right. Because he and I both share those libertarian principles. Right. Are you upset or offended by the idea that two members of the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame might have a political persuasion different from you? Who do you think chose the inductees into the FOTM Hall of Fame? Do you think there was some kind of a vote? Do you think it was a democracy?

I literally, as dictator of this program, I chose you and Ed to be the first two inductees. So I do not really give a rat's ass about your political stripes. Yeah, yeah, okay. You got a point. But at the same time, what is it going to take me and Ed

to get you into our tribe, right? Like, you see us as opposed to you. And you see Jackie Delaney, who is a committed conservative, right? Like, you see us as opposed to you. And you see Jackie Delaney, who is a committed conservative, right? Committed conservative. She's on the campaign trail. Big C, big C. But she's also backing and boosting

Pierre Polievra. He had that incident with the Steam Whistle Brewery where they issued memos to the media because there was a blog to your article here's a bunch of twitter randos who are angry uh about the steam whistle thing they turned it into a headline and you know blog to more people look at that website than all the canadian newspapers combined that's a level of clout that they have at this point that's why zoomer media paid 15 million dollars for the website and uh and they had to put out this letter.

And you talked about that as well with Jackie Delaney. Yeah, that was the night before. So what she does now, she works for a senator. She works in the Senate of Canada. Do you remember the senator's name? Are they all interchangeable? Nobody knows who they are. But she went from the Sun News Network.

She was even an actual sunshine girl. Do you have the numbers? How many former sunshine girls? Is Jan Wilder one? No, she was not Playboy. I don't know. And really though, there you got that truth bomb real talk

about Derringer discouraging a woman from continuing in the radio business. I guess you don't want to have that hovering over your head. You don't want somebody talking about that on the record of the Toronto Mike podcast. And you don't want us repeating it here. So I don't want to damage the reputation of good old J.D. If you hang out in this industry long enough, they're naturally going to be people who are angry at you, right?

And some head-butting over the years in the studio about how to make things work and get things right. But look, ultimately, he became the guy in charge. He was entrusted to take over this Q107 morning show. He was the franchise. He was the guy who started working at that radio station when he was 21 years old. Still there today. Almost 40 years later, he calls

the shots, but it is obviously a legitimate point of view. If somebody comes away from that saying, I did not have a great experience, the challenge for you Toronto Mike is to find out any more from other people who might have something

different to say about working with John Derrick on Q107. Earlier this week married couple power couple Amy Skye and Mark Jordan came over and sat in those chairs right there and they we chatted and they kicked out the jams and you had something you'd like to say about Amy Skye. Well, I was looking for any potential discussion points that you could pass along to your guest here, this musical power couple. And I was reminded of the fact that, along with her history in the music business,

that Amy Skye pivoted to have a little career going on in the world of multi-level marketing. And you knew all about this, but you did not think it was appropriate to bring it up. You know, their initial visit, we were really talking about the music and the new album. And there are two kids that are now musicians. And it just seemed kind of strange. Hey, tell me about the mlm you do in the side it's not like it's an illegal activity not an illegal activity and uh certainly something a dream that a lot of people have invested in this uh cosmetics company swedish company called our bone and uh you have amy sky she's uh executive national Vice President of Harbone in Canada.

And when you get into the MLM industry, you find yourself landing on a bunch of websites. Maybe there's some sort of search engine optimization going on where it's easy to find articles and blog posts that are explaining a point of view that this is not all that's cracked up to be. And you buy into these cosmetics like Tupperware parties, right? This is Avon is the name that people associate with makeup. People used to buy, sell to their friends through an MLM MLM and people dragging her name into it, right, as somebody who is perpetuating a business that doesn't have the highest principles. Also intertwined with all this is former Canadian television personality Camilla Scott, who is also working for Arbonne. And in both cases, they both said that they found themselves in a position

where their show business career was not something they could count on and they needed a different income stream. I'm going to give Amy Skye some credit because on her own website, she posted a rebuttal to all these people questioning what it was that she was involved with. And I've got to say, it was a compelling enough case for the idea that, in fact, they are not committing any kind of fraud in what they're up to. She believes in what she's doing, and I've got to wish her the best. But at the same time, is it a little strange

that you hear about these people in Canadian show business that built up this career who find themselves in middle age working for a cosmetics MLM? How do you feel about that? 10 years ago, if you had said that to me,

I would be kind of shocked. Like, wow, really? Like you're not making enough money in your music career? But after doing 1,045 episodes of Toronto Mike's, that does not surprise me in the least. No, sir. Not even a little surprising.

I used to see Amy Skye and Mark Jordan walking around the Annex neighborhood because at least at the time they had a house around there on a very prestigious street. Their neighbors included Adrian Clarkson and John Ralston Saul. Wow. Margaret Atwood. Woo. And Cameron Gordon.

Wow. Head of communications for Twitter Canada. Co-host of Toast. Also lived around there in an apartment building. Here's a mind blow. For four years, Cam Gordon lived across the street from me. That's too much. That's too much for me to handle.

I didn't know him at the time. So that was my history with Amy Skye, and that was another guest PR email you had on here. You weren't dodging his PR emails? I dodged his PR emails for like a decade. You know, can I invite you to this, whatever, this Rico event with Theo Fleury,

whatever the hell it was. I just, anyway, I've been dodging it for a long time. No, no, back then you would have found me frustratingly wandering the streets among the stars. And Mark Jordan and Amy Skye and their kids were people I saw pretty much every day. Speaking of stars, the cowboy dancer is a big deal in my humble opinion. Cowboy dancer, we already discussed Summertime Summertime.

He fathered a couple of Major League Baseball players in Dalton and Tristan. And reading between the lines, that might not have been the only kids that he brought into the world, at least based on a comment that he made. And yet, it was open to interpretation

based on something that he said, which I gotta admit, I don't think I've ever heard a celebrity interview in my entire life where somebody made a comment like this one. So I basically was curious, A, why did you stop making music? Because he's got unreleased stuff. He dropped a couple of singles and then the rest are in.

I mean, you were making the argument. You were a legend of the greater Toronto area. We want more music. You were the fixture, the focal point of the electric circus on City TV. Somebody believed in you enough. They had this idea that you could be a star you could be the freedom williams of canada right doing these knockoffs of the cnc music factory right uh and i'm the one that decoded for you that in fact that was

the style that he was he was trying to remove but his yeah it's explanation about why he left show business behind which blew my mind so when i it, I actually, almost like I had to process it for a minute. So Kay Pompei, Ken Pompei said he cannot get back into music and he had to leave music because attractive women would throw themselves at him and he would be unable to resist them because he loves women. What is the implication there? Right? Like, what is he trying to say outside of bragging about his heterosexuality, which again, extremely candid, you know, especially nowadays. You don't hear a lot of people talking that way. Right.

But it sounded like he had a lot going on. Right? Right, right? Do I want to continue with all the ladies who are flinging themselves at me day or night? Or do I want to fulfill what I feel is my destiny to be a husband and a dad to some superstar baseball players. Right. And I guess it was good for the sake of people kind that he came to the conclusion that he was going to go for door number two. He was going to say goodbye to all the women who wanted to get down with the cowboy dancer from Electric Circus. But I was surprised because I said,

hey, have you considered going back to music? Like, you know, it's never too late. Go back to it. Clearly, he loved it very much. And the fact that he said no, because it would still happen. These women would throw themselves at him, and then he would not be able to resist.

And I was thinking, poor Mrs. Pompey, who's going to hear this episode. The only thing keeping the cowboy dancer faithful is that women are not throwing themselves at him. You could probably do a whole other 90-minute interrogation

on this point alone. What went down there that here, 30 years later, he's still talking about this, and this is something that weighs heavily on his mind? Okay, talk to me. I was blown away by the back-to-back of decisive Derek Kristoff and then George Shavalo's son Mitch the very next day,

but that decisive episode was one for the animals here. That was amazing. What was the deal there? How did the Decisive end up in your basement? That was a connection through Stu Stone. No, nothing. No, nothing. Rolling with Saget.

He was part of Stu Stone. Jamie Kennedy, that whole scene? No. No, nothing to do with it. Way before I ever met the great Stu Stone, I had an email relationship with Derek Kristoff because I wanted Decisive on Toronto Mike. This is about seven years ago. I wanted Decisive on Toronto Mike because I like his story. I like his music. And at the time, you know,

I was like, I want this guy. And he was going to come from Barrie, but it never worked out. And then he kind of disappeared on me and I kind of let it go and then i just basically saw he was back doing stuff and i reached out and said hey let's do it now and he was like yeah man i'm coming over we're gonna talk and it was amazing but he did co-write the bob saget song oh yeah yeah okay like that was a happy coincidence i brought stew into that episode it was like a wonderful convergence of fotOTMs that he had this existing professional relationship. Now, what was his image? He was going to be like the Canadian answer to Eminem? Is that what he was trying to cultivate?

I know he had a song that was inspired by the documentary about the band Anvil on one of his albums. But you got the real talk, the explanation for why a decade went by that we didn't hear anything about the decisive at all. He was so honest. And then, you know, this episode was going great. And then unbeknownst to him, I had secretly behind the scenes

arranged that Stu Stone would zoom in and surprise him. And that was just like stellar. And we got a bunch of truth bombs about Stu. Like what's her name, Kendra Jade? Kendra Jade being Stu Stone's date. Just stellar. And we got a bunch of truth bombs about Stu. What's her name? Kendra Jade? Kendra Jade being Stu Stone's date. That was a big one.

Okay, yeah. How do you describe it in wrestling terms? Was that a work? Work or a shoot. Or a shoot. Yeah, he says it was real, which means it is a... Which one's the one that's real? Work, right? Shoot?

Work? I don't know. Maybe we need to get Stu Stone back on the line. You're making it sound like he's so hard to find. He is on Toronto Mike the third Thursday of the month for Toast with Cam Gordon. Brutal honesty then here from Decisive, and subsequently then in your talk about George Chiavolo Toast with Cam Gordon. Brutal honesty then here from Decisive, and subsequently then in your talk about George Chiavolo and the tragedies he experienced.

Now, explain it to me here in short form, because I can't articulate it myself. This related to Spider Jones, who was the rare Toronto Mic guest to be broadcasting on a telephone. I enjoyed that. I thought it suited Spider Jones. We couldn't get his mic to work on Zoom. And his generation, Spider Jones.

I said, Spider, I'll just phone you. Toronto radio legend before that from the world of boxing. Double shock power. Explain to me what the drama was going on and the scoop you got here on Toronto Mic'd. Basically, Spider comes on Toronto Mic'd, tells his story, which is inspiring and wonderful. I love Spider Jones.

And then I get an email from Mitch Shavalo, who's the lone surviving son of George. And Mitch is like, I'm tired of Spider telling this story. I've talked to Muhammad Ali's widow, and I talked to my dad, and we don't think this is true at all. And he's living off this false legacy. And I'm like, I'm like, dude, you want to come on Toronto Mike to talk about your dad, that's fine. I said, and then at the end, you can say what you got to say. But let's let's talk about George, not Spider. So we do 90 minutes on George, and it's really wonderful because, well, it's a tragic

story, but he's got the five kids of, five? Yeah, four, five kids, and three have passed away due to suicide. And his, of course, George's wife, Lynn, who is Mitch's mother takes her own life a couple of days after the funeral for one of her sons who died so I mean there's so much tragedy and you know George is a survivor and all this and Mitch is a survivor and all this and his sister is a survivor and all this and it's really like a wonderful thing and then at the very end like 90 minutes deep it's been wonderful I'm like is there anything you want to share before I play us off with lowest of the low? And then he goes, I was hoping he was going to skip it

because it was a great 90 minutes. But then Mitch goes into his spider thing. So he does his spider thing. Right after this recording, I pick up my phone and I phone Spider Jones. And I say, Spider, this is what just happened with Mitch. I haven't dropped it yet. Did you want to respond?

And I'll just stitch that to the end. And I'll record you right now if you want to respond to these things that Mitch has said. And Spider said, it's okay. Thanks for the opportunity. I'll just let it go. I'm not going to respond to this. And then that was that. I dropped it and the rest is history.

Also in the past month, one of the most epic guests on Toronto Mic suggested by me. That's true. Upon the death of Gilbert Gottfried, who we'll talk about, of course, later in the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. Right. Me scanning the archives of Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. He's in Colossal Podcast.

Actually, at the forefront of my mind, wondering if there were ever any FOTMs who had been on the show with Gilbert Gottfried. And it turned out there were none. And it was something that we could rectify and we could make it happen fast. And it was my idea specifically because I knew that Daveave thomas yep dave thomas of sctv not the not the late wendy's founder hamburger guy co-founder not dave thomas from rocket ship seven on right buffalo's wkbw right dave thomas as the beaver as they originally built him on sctv

remember this in the opening credits at a time when I didn't even know what that was in reference to. Dave Thomas, who's, what is this, the beaver? And of course that's the credits for Leave It to Beaver. And it was Dave Thomas as the beaver at the end. So I saw Dave Thomas'

appearances on not only Gilbert Gottfried podcast, but also he had co-written a novel. And it seemed like he was willing to talk to pretty much anyone. The barrier to entry to Dave Thomas to get him on a show didn't seem like there would have been a lot of people in the way that it was actually possible to send an email to Dave Thomas and with very little little hesitation get him to appear on the show guess what toronto mike that's exactly what happened so yeah so full credit to you for uh basically giving me the confidence to invite dave thomas on and i just want to say thank you to dave

thomas because a thank you to dave thomas what about thank you to me i just did did you not hear it first of all i put you in the fucking Hall of Fame about a half an hour ago, and the first thing I said was full credit to you for giving me the confidence to invite you. Yeah, this doesn't, I think I tweeted this at you, but this episode does not exist without you. Sorry for not paying attention. Come on. This episode, for the record, everybody, there is no Dave Thomas on Toronto Mike about the Gray Mark Wise blot. Okay.

But you've got, whatever, you've got the whole rap down here. You've passed 1,000 episodes, as you remind people, every single day. And I think, though, when you bring in somebody like Dave Thomas from SCTV zooming in from his home, where? Hollywood, California? Somewhere in L.A. I don't know, near L.A. or something. Yeah. Then you've got the template.

Oh, yeah. So you've got the structure in place for a show, right? Like, you're not confused about what do you do with the fact that you've got this guy, you know how to structure it into an episode that went on for over two hours. But you did not know that he

was going to hang around for that long. I was prepared for him to have to go after an hour, but at the same time, I was going to go until I felt I couldn't go anymore. I will just say that A, he's very interesting. b uh he's had a fantastic career with a lot of like gta connections i like it when there's a tie to this neck of the woods and he fucking didn't watch the clock like the dude i felt like maybe i could have gone three hours it was unbelievable i now i'm sort of like that that junkie looking for another hit like where, where do I get the next Dave Thomas?

Who's going to give me that amount of time with that level of storytelling? And that was a perfect storm. Right? And when you bring somebody like Dave Thomas on the show, you find out that someone like Dave Thomas will always have like one obsessed fan out

there in the wilderness of social media. Young woman that Dave Thomas himself suggested should maybe get a boyfriend rather than tweet and Facebook about him all day long. Do you think it was all right? Do you think he was unsettled by me? Dave Thomas is here. She was 72 years old.

She runs a website devoted to him. For a real long time. Yeah. Like, I don't, like, I don't know. I can tell you that there were no,

there wasn't a moment where I felt this was unsafe or this person was dangerous or whatever. I, it, and all I did is I asked her to send in her questions. And then near the end of the episode, I said, let me run through the Emily questions.

And she seemed like, I mean, she said it made her, made her year. Like it was like, I mean, she said it made her year. Like, it was like, I think it was a great moment for her. I'm not going to, like, speculate if this is anything other than just a diehard fan. It is a little weird. Somebody who wasn't even born when Dave Thomas sort of left the public eye.

It's weird. For the most part. Moved behind the scenes. Lots of weird out there. And we learned about Grace Under Fire. Yeah. And stuff about working on Bones, a show with David Boreanaz.

And David Boreanaz's father, who was on Buffalo TV, under the name Dave Thomas, because Boreanaz was too ethnic. You know, he ended up moving to Philadelphia. No. And he had a long career as the old-time Philadelphia TV weatherman,

like the Dave Duvall when he was to Toronto. Or like the Commander Tom. Yeah, Tom Jules in Buffalo. Yeah, exactly. And he retired. Commander Tom was my Dave Thomas for my age. So Dave Thomas, a guy with two fake names, Dave Thomas, Dave Roberts, actually.

David Boreanaz Sr. Right, right. He, in fact, ended up being the main TV weatherman in Philadelphia for all of those years. For Dave Thomas. And next, you've got Dave Thomas's brother. Yeah. Not Rick Moranis. I'm working on that one.

But Ian Thomas. Who is also a singer songwriter lunch at allen's with uh mark jordan like and there's that'll mean i mean there's four members of that lunch at allen's but i will have had three on when i get ian on so ian is coming on later this month and that'll be amazing okay not a bad recap there's your trade-off for putting me in the toronto mike hall of fame let's talk Fame. We just spent over half an hour discussing all these people who are on your show. It's your notes. They didn't even get around to me. You gotta disclose that I'm literally

going through your list. And those episodes were all on your list. Here's what I really want to talk about. I want to learn about this podcast that you have been producing for the past few weeks. And it's a show called Toronto Legends. And it's a show called Toronto Legends. And your Apple Bomb.

I know nothing about where this guy came from. All I know is there's a whole stable of TMDS podcasts. You've got people like Mark Hebbshire, Dana Levinson, Peter Gross. Am I missing any names here? You work on a show with Ralph Ben-Murray. Donovan Bailey. Donovan Bailey. And then somebody shows up.

The Feminine Warriors. Feminine Warriors. Dr. Mike Hart. Yep. Who's coming on Toronto Mike, by the way. The right-wing doctor. Chef Jordan Wagman. There's a lot of greats there.

Chef Jordan Wagman. Big fan of putting weed. Lauren Honigman, who paused his, but we're going to get that going again. Putting weed into his recipe. So you want to know what happened? So I hear this guy, Andrew Applebaum, never heard of this guy in my life. And I was impressed with how pure his podcast style was. What's the deal here?

Is he paying you to produce these shows for him? Of course. Is that the arrangement that's underway? Do you want the story or not? Yeah, where does this guy come from, this idea that he's going to do a whole bunch of podcasts? I think he's done more episodes the last few weeks than Toronto Mike.

That's impossible. He reads his Toronto Star, and he reads the Together section, and you might know the headline, Talk of the Town, how Toronto Mike podcaster Mike reached 1,000 episodes. Shout out to FOTM Jele Blanc. So he reads this at the, I don't know, the kitchen table one morning and he's like, let me check this

out. That seems interesting. And he loves Toronto Mic'd and he realizes he wants to make his own Toronto Mic'd. So he reaches out to, who better to reach out to than Toronto Mic'd himself if you want to start your own Toronto Mike. Toronto Legends is his show that I produce for money at TMDS. I got four kids to feed. I got to put them through university. It's a great show. Lieve Fumpke told me it reminds her of listening to the old

CBC shows in the backseat of her dad's car back in the day. Andrew Applebaum is very good at this. Very pure, very honest, very genuine. I don't necessarily... It might be better, very genuine. I don't necessarily... It might be better than my show. I don't want to compare it to the Chris Farley show sketch on Saturday Night Live.

Do you like stuff? But I would say there is a genuine honesty there that he's putting across when he interviews these people. Alan Bester. I'm very charmed when I hear about this guy, Andrew Applebaum. And he's had as guests on his show are these people that I'm very charmed when I hear about this guy, Andrew Applebaum, and he's had, as guests on his show, are these people

that he already knows that he's met through the years? No, like we had, I've been doing a lot of different business experiences. I found out through Googling. He once owned

in downtown Toronto, Food Court, one of those cereal bars, which seems like a great idea at the time, but then you realize maybe the cereal bar doesn't get a lot

of repeat business, right? Like you buy coffee every day. I don't know if like buying a cereal to eat in a food court is the kind of ritual you can get somebody to come back for 250 times a year. But it doesn't matter because whatever, the path closed down. There was no business in that anyway. Fun while it lasted. He's inviting people. He's interested.

Sort of same. So basically we've had many consultations. We've had brunch together. I've been doing a lot of podcast consultation with him. The secret, as you know, with Dave Thomas is to ask. And he's been asking people he's interested in talking to, you know, be it the world's greatest Leaf fan, Mike Wilson, or Alan Bester, or, you know, this chef, or, you know,

we'll get to another one in a minute. Yeah, yeah, and a couple of journalist types on. I enjoyed hearing Dave LeBlanc, who writes an architecture column for the Globe and Mail, and he's worked at Bell Media, CFRB. At one point, he would be on the air doing his architecture thing with John Donabee. And Edwards, Peter Edwards.

His history. Jamie Bradburn, who writes these quizzes that show up in the start. He's been writing about Toronto history for a real long time. I wouldn't have heard these people interviewed in any other context. I like it, too. He's like a farm system. And I think the fact that you've got Andrew Applebaum, like he's sort of determined to extract stories from these people who are like,

I don't know if they're too obscure to be on Toronto Biked, because based on 1,045 episodes, your standards aren't that high. But he comes at them with a certain angle, right, that is a lot softer. I was a guest on his show. Don't forget. Than people would expect when they came into your basement, subject to a certain kind of interrogation. Like, there's not really a prerequisite to appearing on Toronto Legends, right? Like he kind of goes with the flow.

Like you've had guests who've been a disaster because they don't really understand what you're doing here. You listen to Toronto Legends. Like he's not at that point yet, right? So it's kind of like everything goes. Anybody fits. He had Mark Saltzman on the podcast. Who's never been on this show.

This guy never found a tech company freebie that he didn't like. But I enjoyed hearing the backstory from his point of view. Should I have him on Toronto Mike? About how it came to that point. I should have Mark on Toronto Mike, right? I don't know if someone whose schhtick is so devoid of cynicism could actually fit here in the format right like the way that you are extracting stories from people you you can't be a cheerleader for absolutely everything and if this guy has

figured out how to make a good living just kind of riding along the idea that all these tech companies will just like keep sending him free stuff and he'll go on the air and enthuse about how much he loves it all. They figured out the game, right, to get this radio airtime, get these companies to pay for more power to him. But that's a different style of media, I think, than yours. Well, talk to me about this episode Andrew Applebaum did with Larry. One of the pitfalls, I think, and this is some stuff going on behind the curtain.

When you invite guests on the show this way, there is always the opportunity for impersonation. You could be duped. And it's interesting to note, though, here in my show, so I'm at, this is episode 1045, but let's say it's, I don't know, 700 unique guests. People like yourself have been over 50 freaking times. I don't know, 700 unique guests. People like yourself have been over 50 freaking times. But I've never, ever been interviewing someone who was other than that whom I thought they were.

Is that a convoluted? Have I had too many drinks here? You've got to do a recount on my number of appearances there. Oh, no, I'm certain. It's 50. I'm certain. By the same token, yeah. I mean, outside of the idea,

I could imagine someone like Stu Stone, right? If you'd never met him before, like sending over somebody to pretend that he's Stu and Stu very gleefully like rubbing his hands together. Don't you think I would catch on pretty quick? Wouldn't I catch on pretty quick if there was a fake, the first time I've never met Stu, obviously in this scenario,

but first time someone else is pretending to be stew could you get that by me okay well then this is the difference between a seasoned podcaster who's done a thousand shows decade of experience behind them and somebody who gets into podcasting because they saw toronto mike on the front page of the newspaper there There's room for error, and the possibility that you're going to be doing an interview, if I'm correct, the clip you've got was billed as the guy, and I'll explain this one to you a bit further, Larry Ronsberg, I believe a real estate mogul who was involved in bringing back a restaurant called Seahide Famous Chinese Food.

Andrew, I guess, contacted him, was intrigued enough to do an interview and find out the backstory there. And the objects in the podcast, it turned out, may not have been exactly as they appear. You want to find that clip and then we can decode it right here. If okay with you, let's go all the way back to the beginning of Larry Ronsberg. Where were you born and if you don't mind describing your upbringing. Sure.

Yeah, I was born in Toronto in 1956 and had a very kind of typical upbringing in North Toronto, Bathurst and Sheppard area. Okay. And, uh, you know, for C-High was always kind of, you know, the cornerstone restaurant weekly experience for my family. And I, like so many others, uh, in, in the local kind of mid Toronto, North Toronto community. And so, you know, always knew that I had it in me one day to enter the hospitality and food and beverage business. Where did you go to high school?

I went to Northview. All right. At Finch and Bathurst. And you really did stay in the community. And after Northview, where'd you go? I went to York University where I studied business. Okay, so let's set the table here firstly Andrew is great at what he does and I thoroughly enjoy the Toronto Legends podcast

and I urge everyone listening to subscribe because there is an episode of Toronto Mic'd in there I did an episode with Andrew and he did that in person here but asking questions like where were you born where did you grow up what school did you go to those are not difficult questions to answer.

If the person on the line is the person who you think that you're talking to. So this was Andrew who thought he was speaking with this Larry gentleman from Seahe. And I will point out, it was done via Zoom. And Larry, quote unquote Larry, his camera wouldn't work with Zoom. So Larry said, I can't turn on my camera. Okay. Yeah. Whatever.

Okay. So can you give me the... You can tell where this was going. Go ahead. Right? So the guy who Andrew Applebaum was talking to was not Larry Ronsberg, but some kind of impersonator who there in the clip, you can hear in the

background, somebody is feeding him lines to help him answer the most basic of questions. And maybe your new friend Andrew, a little too green? I don't know, Torontoite, would you have picked up on something like that?

Would you have been suspicious? Could you have even clued in, paid attention? I mean, you're nervous about you wanting to get all your questions in, get things right. You can be punked. You can be pranked under circumstances like these. Yeah, the Zoom camera's off. This guy did a good job, this fake Larry,

because it was not Larry. And you know this for sure absolutely that was not late and how did this information come to light well there were the woodward and bernstein characters who investigated this fraud perpetuated upon toronto legends with andrew albaba i don't want to violate the trust that andrew's put in me some stuff has to stay behind the curtain but let's just say, it's safe to say that was not Larry from Seaheim, but it was somebody from Seaheim.

I mean, it ended up being a half an hour promotion for the Seaheim restaurant. It was somebody from Seaheim. It just wasn't Larry. Yeah, it's alright. You might not know much about this, right? This is a genre of Chinese restaurants where the clientele was entirely Jewish. And in a certain part of North York, North Toronto, a few restaurants like that,

there was China House, one still around House of Chan, and the Seahide one, which had this real tacky decor, real Chinese food kitsch. I don't think an actual Chinese person was ever a customer in there. I don't think they would ever take it seriously, right? But it had this clientele like in the Jewish community. And Larry Ronsberg, this real estate guy, he bought the rights to the name that it closed down from its original location and resurrected it

as a takeout spot somewhere up there in Thornhill. And yeah, he was looking for press. Like I was on the receiving end of press releases and it seemed to succeed. I don't know exactly what he's done. Like he's taken the name of an old Chinese restaurant, started a new one. I mean, if he thinks there's a business there,

I don't know if sending an impersonator to do your interviews for you is a very credible way to bring an old business back. So that's what's going on with C-High. And I look forward to more Toronto Legends episodes from Andrew Applebaum. Glad to meet the guy. Now that I'm in the Toronto White Hall of Fame, do you think he'll invite me on the show? I'm going to recommend you.

You'd be fantastic. With one condition. But could you do an hour? One condition. I'm keeping the camera off okay so i know you're going somewhere with this Harry Styles, but can I hijack it? And just because I'm thinking of the word style. And I just want to say I'm wearing a new pair of pants from Dewar Pants,

new sponsors of this freaking program. And these are so damn comfortable. And this t-shirt, see this t-shirt? Dewar t-shirt. Like this is, I feel like, what did Ned Flanders say? I'm wearing nothing at all. Like it feels amazing. So I finally look good.

I have the least style on the planet, but I look good. And this, apparently, I can go biking in these pants, and then I can waltz right into the boardroom and be taken seriously. This is my dream outfit, man. Stuff you can bike in, but still looks

good if you have to have an adult look. This is like your Tom's Place, right? Or your Harry Rosen. You wouldn't know what to do with clothing like they sell. So soon I'll have a promo code where you can save money and then you can let them know that you heard about it on Toronto Mike. So for right now, I just want to say, welcome to the family doer, D-U-E-R,

the world's most comfortable pants and shorts. And fuck, I'm going to add t-shirts in there too. It feels great. And now that you've done a sponsor mention, I'm going to throw in the opening of a can of GLB. It's a good thing the camera's not on you, Mark, because you're spilling that GLB. But okay, Harry Styles,

the only guy with more styles than me right now. Why did I play that jam as it was? Well, I always like these interludes that reflect what's been going on the past month. And that Harry Styles song is the latest one, I think, to transcend all the different radio formats. Could you hear that song being played now on 102.1 The Edge in D88, which has gone to more of a pop format? So there's Harry Styles, Teen Idol from One Direction. So you like this direction because I would be like...

Well, crossing over, well, I think we're finding more hit songs out there that are designed like Lil Nas X, Gale, ABCDEFU, Circles by Post Malone. Genre blenders. Yeah, more songs that fit on every kind of format. So it's blurring the distinction between alternative radio, adult contemporary, top 40, like a song that you would hear on the maximum number of radio stations. Like Hey Ya.

Hey Ya was on all the stations. It's an interesting time then in the pop music cycle that you're having more and more hits like this. Billie Eilish would be another example. And, you know, at the same time, then you wonder what's the difference between one radio station and another. If they're all playing from that same pool of songs and yet if you want to chart the history of these things uh it is symbolic of maybe a tie turning uh that

these radio formats are now increasingly more the same than they are different and i think indy 88 is doing a fine job of mixing it up more these days. Do you know what question I'm getting these days more than any other question? Maybe the same question you were getting one month ago. Where is Jim Richards? Where is he? Is he gone?

I regret to inform you that all the shreds of online evidence seem to point to the fact that he is no longer employed. But I don't know that for sure, because nobody's announced anything at all, which is very strange for someone who was on CFRB News Talk 1010 for close to a quarter century, like he was coming up on 25 years of being a talk radio host. First on Late Night Show, Nightside, and the showgram in the afternoon.

And then they shoveled him off the air. He was brought in when Ryan Doyle was set packing. We've now confirmed that over the months. That was an involuntary departure. I think it was obvious. On Ryan Doyle was set packing. We've now confirmed that over the months. That was an involuntary departure. I think it was obvious. On Ryan Doyle's part. Jay Michaels. Jay Mad Dog Michaels now in the morning.

Shome in Montreal. Relocated. New opportunity. New life. Heritage Rock Radio Station. But Jim Richards, odd man out. Because Jimards got already shuffled around back when they did a bell media purge in the winter of 2021 what's known to this

day as the let's talk layoffs that came right on the heels of that annual mental health day they decided to clean house and get rid of a whole bunch of aspects of the radio company, including the whole news department of CFRB. Hey, just to confirm here, let me pretend I'm Mike Wallace for a minute here. We actually, you don't know definitively that Jim Richards is gone. You just know he's not being talked about or being heard on the air. He's not currently on the air. Right.

And his time slot that he was filling in is where Ryan Doyle stepped in. Because he remarked on Twitter that it was insulting to the personalities that built up these brands. Joe Graham. They took the rush, which was Ryan and Jay. They handed the name over to their new hand-picked hosts who had all allegiances within the company, FOTM's Scott MacArthur, Scotty Mac, Reshmi Nair, who was originally hired for CTV News on Quibi, and moved to CP24,

very talented newscaster, talk radio. I don't know if that was her ambition, trying to make it work, and they're billing their show as the new Rush, with no reference to the old Rush. Leading Ryan Doyle on Twitter, who was reacting to me, New Coke was an infamous failure in 1985. It comes down to the fact that can't you come up with a new name? Why are you trying to create these associations with these hosts who disappeared without much explanation at all?

And even though the bad dog got to say goodbye and explain to her who was going, you know that it's like a tiny fraction of people listening could remember or if they heard him say goodbye. And you tell me. You've got the back end of TorontoMike.com. Are people still Googling these guys, wondering where they are? You do all these posts about these radio changes. That's how we got talking about them on the podcast after all these years. It's still all Pooja and Gurdeep all the time in the back end of the searches that will probably get you to Toronto. Okay.

And then we get to a recent FOTM and an enemy of mine. Wow. What a change. David Cooper. Wow. And it's funny. I don't get a lot of emails about what we talk about here, but I got one about David Cooper. Really?

What did it say? Somebody who shall not be named. Do I know this person? I would say it's a very respected person with ties to the radio business, even though it is not their day job.

They would be literate in the ways of News Talk 1010. They're in the loop. Who want to express some agreement about the fact about what is this guy trying to portray himself as being some kind of rags to riches story. But the only reason he's on the air is because he's coming at it from a position of privilege

that allows him to be the overnight broadcaster on these bell radio stations across the country. And I don't have a problem with rich people. Inherit all the money you want and then make sure to invite me over to your house. I'd like to hang out with you. But in this case, it's a situation where I think his financial position allowed him to essentially work

pretty much for free, right? Auditioning on the air with Jim Richards. Like he would be the sidekick. He would be zooming in from his residence in New York City. He would do these bits with Jim in the middle of the night, and Jim was unhappy

with the scenario that he was putting here. He spoke openly on the air. I thought it was very compelling, very honest. I can relate in a lot of ways. He had put in a quarter century in his career, you know, they shunted him off, sentenced him to this late night show. He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to be there. You know, there was maybe the opportunity there that he could reach a wider audience across the country. But you also don't find like this is not the Larry King show on the mutual radio network. Like there isn't a pool of callers. There aren't enough listeners out there,

right? Like it's just not the mindshare. I'm a national overnight radio person across Canada. It's slim pickings as far as the idea that people are just going to call in and you can create this entire culture around the show, compounded by the fact that they wouldn't even let him in the studio. So he's doing this from his house in Leslieville,

and as far as I know, they were in a situation in Bell Media where they actually weren't letting people come into work if they could do it from home. That situation continuing pretty much to this day. They're just here on May 5th, like starting to allow people to come back into the studio there. I'm sure that's some kind of Bell boardroom policy. It doesn't make any sense. And I was happy for my pal Jim,

because I thought if anyone could make something out of this late night opportunity, do this show from two 50 Richmond street corner of queen and John, you know, tap into the energy, the night life of the city, which has come back right now as we speak, and that he could do this live all night Canadian radio show, turn it into the stuff of legend. But that wasn't going to happen when he was trapped in his trapped in his spare bedroom. And you could hear that frustration on the air. They give him the afternoon show to fill in. Parachute him in when Ryan Doyle shuffles out the door.

Program director Mike Van Dixon. Service is not welcome anymore. They're breaking up the old band. But it seemed like Jim could survive. Right? Like they would find a place for him on the air somehow. Behind his back. Seemed like they schemed this idea of putting in the new rush as their new radio show. And very much as we've talked here over the last couple years about what's happened in corporate radio.

How a guy like Greg Brady becomes the morning man at CFIQ. New call letters. Which is 640, everybody. AM640, former global news radio. IQ, I guess, supposed to hear that, subliminally realizes the radio station can make me smart. Scotty Mack, like Greg Brady, former sports radio guy, suddenly talking about the news.

You know, you see some comments online, like their approach is very preachy, right? Like this is sort of a safe and squishy kind of liberal style of talk radio, very much different and distinct from this firebrand, you know, angry AM talk radio thing as before, bringing in these lifestyle topics.

Just trying to figure out what to do with AM talk radio. I'm just saying Mike Ben Dixon, you got to have here on the show one of these days for Toronto Mike. Talk about being the teenage program director of CFRB, put in this position of managing all these shows. I think it's a fascinating story. I don't think he would stand for the product that they're putting right out there on the new rush.

We're only a month in. And what's the point here? Just have talk radio voices on the air, people between jobs. Does Scotty Mac want to go back to sports? Does Reshme Nair, qualified TV anchor, you know, she might as well be hosting CTV National News instead. It's nice that these people are in the loop, that they made the right friends. But it's left Jim Richards out in the cold.

Where is Jim Richards going to go? And then they announced on News Talk 1010 Bell Media Radio they're bringing back a live evening show. Not Jim Richards, Mark Toohey hosting a show on the Ontario election, other stuff, doing live time. Kind of an innocuous talk radio. It's a little more of a right-leaning guy. Delivers the goods,

basic old-school stuff, not very confrontational or argumentative. Friendly enough, it seems to work. Again, no Jim Richards. No Jim Richards anywhere to be found. Where is Jim Richards now? That's the question. So, Andrew Ward, I should point out the,

what is this, the first Thursday of every single month at 2 p.m., you're in my basement to do these, you know, let's face it, three-hour recaps of the previous month. And we do live stream it at live.toronomike.com, the pirate stream, so it's not recorded. So if you miss it, you miss it. And I just want to shout out a few people

who have comments on this subject matter at live.toronomike.com. One is Andrew Ward. By the way, Andrew's curious. I'm curious too. Is your email, do you have a public email that you would share with people if they want to email you

or would you rather they just DM you on Twitter? You can DM on Twitter. DM 1236 on Twitter if you want to get a hold of him because Andrew's asking about that. Okay, but he says, Jim Richards may still be on the books because they are waiting until he dilutes his accumulated vacation.

Just a guess. And that's Andrew Ward. And then I just want to shout out Basement Dweller. Basement Dweller says David Cooper should really be airing on the imaginary Drek FM where good taste goes to die.

Why is David Cooper's show called The Showgram? That was not a coinage from Jim Richards alone. I think it originated from a DJ named Rocky Allen, and who was the guy who did the late, late show, Craig Kilbourne. I think he also called his thing The Showgram. It's been around. Is that like the program, like a radio thing?

But in Toronto, people know the Jim Richards Showgram. David Cooper is still doing a thing branded as the showgram. It's very confusing, because this originated with Jim Richards, but he's gone. Gone and forgotten, right? Like, no reference to him at all. I think they still refer

to David Cooper, special guest host. Yeah, okay, but can I say... They gave him a producer, this guy Ben Harrison, who I always had some laughs with on Twitter and stuff. There's a technical producer. They seem to be creating a bit of a crew, maybe a bit of a culture around this show. But Jim Richards, the originator, the OG.

No, that's bullshit. No offense to Jim Richards. If you want to roll your own, do what I'm doing. But Bell Media owns Showgram. Bell Media owns The Rush. Well, I mean, they don't really own anything at all. I mean, somebody, I guess, somebody else. I mean, Humble and Fred had their trademark registered.

They had to pay five grand to get that back from Chorus. My question for you is, does St. Joseph's Media own 1236, or does Mark Weisblatt own 1236? Well, that's a question to be answered over the next few months. You know who owns Toronto Mike? This guy right here. Mark Weisblatt owned 1236. Well, that's a question to be answered over the next few months. You know who owns Toronto Mic'd? This guy right here. No, I think it's like a bad faith scene.

The rush, the showgram. If these identifications mean anything at all to anybody who's a legacy listener of CFRB, they associate it with specific voices. The legacy listeners ain't going anywhere. You know that, right? Well, I mean, they've done everything possible to remove people from the air, right? Like, they got rid of a live weekend morning show. They replaced it with a CP24 simulcast.

FOTM Jason Agnew couldn't show up one week, couldn't make it for his live trivia show, and they have to put a notice. I think it's embarrassing. They've got no one on the bench, right? They've got no one to fill in when he can't make it for his live trivia show, and they have to put a notice. I think it's embarrassing. They've got no one on the bench, right? They've got no one to fill in when he can't make it. Why don't they just let Jim hang out Sunday morning 9 to noon? Lord Honnock's going to do it. He's nowhere to be found. He's not around.

This is a badly managed radio station. It gets back to the fact. I don't even know if Bell wants to be in the radio business at all, and that's where it's at. And look, that was a really good run for Jim Richards. If we're not going to hear him back in the incarnation that we were in before, flexible enough to hear him in different ways. You know, you've got this stuff like 93.5 Today Radio.

They're trying to spark it up. Well, not anymore. That was a romance last night. But then again, at one point, I'm old enough to remember when David Cooper was your favorite. So things change in the wise butt world. I don't think, look, I don't think with all his talent, Jim Richards is done.

But whether or not this Bell media empire has any place for him, I don't know. I mean, these guys, BFF Strombo on Apple Music, you know, they cut back Strombo's hours. He was doing a live afternoon drive. I've never heard the show. Radio show on Apple Music, and they moved him to do an hour a night,

which means somebody came to the conclusion that nobody wanted to hear that much Strombo on these Apple Music airwaves. And, you know, got a feel for it. The guy's probably getting paid the same either way, right? And they're not even giving him the A-list guests. When they have, like, Arcade Fire, they send them over to Zane Lowe. Oh, because he gets Papa Roach. Zane Lowe, yeah.

So Arcade Fire goes to Zane Lowe. Oh, because he gets Papa Roach. Zane Lowe, yeah. So Arcade Fire goes to Zane Lowe. Papa Roach, interviewed by Strombo, kind of a grunge 90s alt-rock nostalgia thing. It's okay. I know

the guy's having enough fun, but for a little while at least I enjoyed the idea of live afternoon drive with Strombo and Apple Music took that away.

They didn't want to do it. They didn't want to do it anymore. Can I tell you my radio pet peeve? And I barely pay attention anymore for this reason, but you'll hear somebody like a popular morning show radio host, let's say FOTM Roz Weston, who I quite like personally, and we do exchange the odd

DM. He's a good FOTM. And I feel he's going to have to come back because he's got a memoir coming out. Well, hold on. He's got to sell some books. Well, thanks for spoiling the story here. But he teases the big announcement. This is what he'll do. He'll be like, I don't know, Monday morning at,

I don't know, Monday morning at 8 o'clock, I have a big announcement. And they'll tease it through the week. And all start getting emails from people. Is Roz quitting? Is he going to a new show? As if a guy working for Rogers radio can use the social media platform to announce that he's getting a job at another radio station

well okay so this and I will literally tell people like uh just you know one time there was a big Q107 announcement that Derringer hyped like it was the second coming oh I remember that yeah the biggest thing ever it's like what the Rolling Stones are playing in the El Macombo he's like this is gonna be the in in the in the century that I've been working for Q107, the greatest thing that ever happened. Jennifer Valentine is going to be my co-host. You had the Rolling Stones coming back to the Elmo. I'm just making stuff up.

So let me finish my Ross Weston story. I wanted to be right. It's hype, hype, hype. Over-the-top hype. And the big announcement is basically Ross Weston telling us that he's gonna write a memoir. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, never again, my friend. Okay, but look, you gotta admit that's pretty good for a

guy who was like an intern with Howard Stern, who ends up being famous enough that somebody is interested in publishing his book. Just make the fucking announcement. Don't tell us for a week that you're going to make a big announcement about the fact that you're writing the memoir. Don't hype it as some big week that you're going to make a big announcement about the fact that you're writing the memoir. Don't hype it as some big event that you're going to reveal this memoir that you wrote.

The Ross Weston episode of Toronto Mike is, is, is, is epic and great. And it's all in there. Go listen to that. But I'm just saying, just say it like,

Hey, I'm writing a memoir. This is something you can buy on this date. I hope you do. Like you don't need to say, I'm going to make that announcement at 7 a.m. on Monday. Yeah, you're right. Of course I'm right. But at the same time, a guy who was pouring

coffee for Mad Dog and Billy 20 years ago, now he's got double day to publish his book. You've got the Ross Mocha show all across Canada. So just announce it. Just announce it. It's a big enough deal. So he claims that when he publishes his memoir, he's going to tell the real story about what it was to be

Roz Weston, not his real name. I know. Do you think that'll be in the book? I don't know. Is it Ross or Russ? There was some deliberation. It's Russ, I think. One of the above.

Roz of Rogers Radio, Kiss Radio, Entertainment Tonight Canada. I thought the announcement was he was going to move to Rogers. Maybe that'll still happen, do some Rogers entertainment show rather than global. And look, the whole idea that in this oversharing era that you will want to pick up a book by radio DJ Roz Weston called A Little Bit Broken, where you will get the true, unfiltered story about what it was like to grow up as Roz and have, what is it, on Dana Levinson's podcast,

every single guest talks about how they have anxiety. These are like luxury issues for you to have. Roz Weston will confess that he's not the cocky, self-confident guy that the radio makes him out to be. And you know the game. I mean, he's creating the framework to make it look like he's a more dramatic and compelling personality than he actually might be.

And the same situation playing out here on the Pooja and Gurdip morning show. And I know this is a very sensitive topic, right? Because they're trying to make a bit out of the fact that infertility was an issue for Pooja. Talking about it here, frankly, on her radio show, that she was trying to have a baby with her husband for however many years, trying IVF and everything else, and now a situation where, congratulations, the baby's about to be born through a surrogate mother, and they're trying to turn this into an arc that people can follow on the radio show so i

think you get into trouble if you criticize the execution right of a bit like this right where they said we're doing a major announcement right and then you gotta sit through like three horrible songs and this awkward banter where gerdeep is trying to interview her and trying to create the suspense. And these people don't know what they're doing because they're novices. They're newbies. They've never done this radio before. Their expertise was in TV.

And at the same time, if you criticize this, you can't say anything, right? Because this is a serious thing that this woman has gone through. You feel for her. But how do you feel about this, Mike? Like if you put this in a situation where you are marketing and packaging your personal problems, and yet you execute it in such a ham-fisted way that it's excruciating to listen to. Firstly. This same stage in CHFI, right, where Aaron Davis lost her daughter.

Mike Cooper lost his wife. These are serious, serious family tragedies. And I do think sort of you put yourself in a position where you're up for critique, right? Like, that's how I feel about this. What's your take, not having listened to this big announcement on the radio show? You're the sucker. Again, and I had no idea what the Pooja announcement

was going to be. My congratulations to the Handa family. That sounds wonderful. It's amazing. It's terrific. And if you want to hear a chilling, tragic story of infertility, I would recommend the Terry Hart episode of Toronto Mike. It'll break your heart in two.

Just be warned. Look, Maureen Holloway also, I think she was on Q107 at the time, talked about a cancer thing that she was dealing with. Okay, but here, back to this. We counted these people to bare their souls on the air. Yeah, that's right. Because it would be shitty if they didn't. But what if they do a bad job?

Right? Are we allowed to complain? Yes, go ahead and complain. But I'm not complaining on this one. I didn't hear it. I will say you're the sucker who bit. I didn't know what the announcement was going to be, but when I heard Pooja and

Handa have an announcement at 7am on Monday, it could have been anything. I knew I would find out on Twitter from you. When Mark Wiseblood tweets it from at 1236, I'll be well aware that Pooja is having a baby, uh,

from, uh, and that's great news, but I sure wasn't going to have my tune in for the announcement. You either listen to the CHFI morning show, and I know, shout out to Stephanie Wilkinson and some other FOTMs who enjoy that, or you don't.

I'm not tuning in to hear the announcement. I'll make you sit through like 70 commercials. Right. Eric Carman singing hungry eyes, right? Like they've got the whole formula here. Can I tell you about, can I tell you? Keep you locked in for half an hour.

Inside story quickly is, as you know, every year I volunteer for Toronto Miracle, feeding Toronto's hungry. And I did, this year I put some music in the episode just to spice it up a bit. So it's not all about like how we have to feed our food insecure in the city. So I put in songs about like, just some songs, like Waiting for a miracle by bruce colburn etc etc and i put in

hungry eyes and i thought it was funny hungry eyes in this episode about feeding toronto's food insecure and i got a note from uh someone at toronto miracle would you mind swapping that out for a different song they thought it was insensitive. And of course it was, which is what I thought was funny about it. But I did swap it out. And you won't hear hungry eyes on that episode of Toronto Mike. You hear it a bunch of times on CHFI. What else are we getting to before the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment? Firstly, I want to ask you something.

Something you said last month. You said you were going to become a pothead. And I actually cut that clip out and I sent it to Andy Palalis at Canna Cabana. And he loved what you had to say about taking up weed. What's the status of you becoming a pothead, a stoner? Mike, I regret to inform you, I've not done anything at all.

Maybe when I meet Stu Stone for the Pickle Barrel Summit, he'll give me some tips on how to get into it there. But listen, the New York Times had an article about the overload of cannabis shops in Toronto, right? Like, we went through this pandemic period where everything closed down and you go through certain parts of town,

Queen Street West, right? We used to count on all these counterculture clothing and record and bookstores, and now it's like all about weed. Like there's absolutely nothing else going on. It's like weed and fast food for delivery, and that's everything that retail has become. So I think with all these weed stores out there,

they need new customers. I am seriously contemplating volunteering myself to be someone who makes a regular stop at Canna Cabana not just because they sponsor toronto mike but i think it might be it might help improve my life canna cabana was created by and for people who love weed love to smoke it buy it chat about it and share it with their friends yeah you know what the market will correct itself and in most of those places you see popping up are not going to survive but canna cabana who's been there since the beginning they have over 100 stores across this fine country and they know their shit and they totally they speak the language the language of stoners so if you love cannabis and you're looking for unbeatable prices on cannabis

and smoking accessories canna cabana man always a sale going on so for what you're telling me at the source what is his position ceo i think he's like chief financial or i should know his fucking title even better he's got a big title he wants customers like me right like he hears my testimonial here on the show he's very he's very excited with the idea that i will spend four figures a year on shopping at Canna Cabana. So keep us posted, like every month when you come on. By the way, there will be, I can't wait to promote this right now. There will be a special episode of Toronto Mic'd

with Andy from Canna Cabana in the backyard with Stu Stone. Stu Stone and Andy are both going to be on Toronto Mike, and we're going to be in the backyard, which means combustibles are allowed out there, and we're going to totally kick out the stoner jams. It's going to be fucking awesome. Is that Stu Stone calling me right now?

No. What else on the agenda here? In recapping April 2022, you keep talking about Matea Roach. And I figure we can't do a podcast without talking about her. And she revealed here this week on Jeopardy that she was part of the choir, choir, choir, backing up Rick Astley. You know, they would do these celebrity cameos with the choir singing, never going to give you up. And, you know, that's like a very Toronto thing, but I would imagine people watching Jeopardy!

around the continent would think, like, how did that even happen, right? Like, how do you end up just being, like, in a choir with Rick Astley at one of these choir events? So, good plug for them there. And Matea Roach showed up on episode of Canada Land with shortcuts.

She's ignoring my tweets on her. Jonathan Goldsby. I was surprised, but not surprised how literate she was. Like in all this Jesse Brown woke speak. She was totally into it. She knew all the references. She knew

everything about Canada land. You got to think, where did she find the time? And part of the discussion on there, one of the duly noted items was the fact that she was characterized by an NBC News article as a lesbian tutor. They highlighted the fact. You saw this, Mike. Yeah, because she put lesbian in her Twitter bio. But I guess in this world of identity politics, especially post-pandemic, I guess people are

trying to sort out their feelings, right? About how it's appropriate to be defined. Like, is it discriminatory to say somebody's a lesbian? Are you excluding other people? Should you be calling her queer? Like, what are her pronouns? How do we

define people out there anymore? Do you want my thoughts on that? Yeah. It's her words. She chose to be identified as lesbian. Therefore, it is fair game to identify her as lesbian. And I think it's great because there are not too many people identifying as like an old school lesbian out there.

So she's waving the flag for the lesbians and for Canada. She got a shout out in the House of Commons. I guess there's suspense now because that's the thing, right? Like, she's doing all these interviews with each passing show, and she can never give away at what point she loses. And her streak will end and she won't be on Jeopardy again. But it was mentioned she told her parents. Her parents gave an interview, too.

Oh, they could slip up. Her parents admitted. I don't know how it works at the NBA. Is she allowed to tell her parents? Maybe you're an interview too. Oh, because they could slip up. Her parents admitted. I don't know how it works at the NBA. Is she allowed to tell her parents? Maybe you're allowed to tell certain

family members. Because she's at 22 in terms of broadcast. If you live 22, 23, she's 23 years old. If she matches the wins for age, you've got a clickbait

headline right there. Right. She's in fifth overall for consecutive wins on Jeopardy. But she'll be in the Tournament of Champions regardless, which is kind of exciting. So, Matea Roach

on Canada Land. Could you get her on Toronto Mike? A couple, so I have only a couple of tweets where I asked her to come on, and could she DM me and we'll arrange this? Because I actually would love to have Matea Roach on Toronto Mike. So,

so far nothing, but I mean, you know, I'm not Jesse Brown. I'm not CBC. You know, I'm just a guy in my basement. She's not that far away. You got Dave Thomas from SCTV. And Ian Thomas coming soon. Ian Thomas in the background. Hold on.

I remember this song on the radio. They kept on playing. They still play it to this day on Boom 97.3 Canadian content. Every Sunday morning at 6am you can count on hearing Hold On by Santana written by Ian Thomas.

Love it. Looking forward to your grilling there. What else? Andrew Ward got a request. He wanted me to talk about McLean's Magazine. Even though I do know some behind the scenes dirt. I don't Andrew Ward got a request. He wanted me to talk about McLean's magazine, even though I do know some behind-the-scenes dirt. I don't know what I can say. Like, they

brought over people that work at Toronto Life magazine to reinvent McLean's. Other people walked away, including political writer Paul Wells. You know Paul Wells, right? A familiar face. Inklis. Inklis Wells.

Quit Twitter, but now on Substack, doing his own independent newsletter thing and other people, and kind of veering away. Trying to do a, what do you think of this? Like a national version of Toronto Life magazine. Toronto Life has a very specific formula.

They're going to try to move it to McLean's. As I was informed, you know, they got to work with what they've got. St. Joseph Media took over this magazine from Rogers. They kept it alive. They want to make this thing a success. We'll see what happens there. And that partly involves less political coverage.

And the situation was such that Paul Wells stepped aside to go it alone. Toronto Star. Did you follow on Toronto Star? Announced a new CEO, Marina Glogovac, who at one point helped make Now Magazine a big business. You had Michael Hollett also on the show in the past month. She was there in the 90s when the Alt Weekly was making a lot of money.

They find a bunch of tweets from her where she was opposed to lockdowns. And as someone who escaped from life behind the Iron Curtain, not a big fan of the public health measures that were underway, she put it on Twitter, and that turned out to be a big mistake. Stand by, see what happens at Taurus Star 2 Marina Glogovac, and we might be seeing the end of Vice Media,

which was going to be a self-contained empire worth many billions of dollars, but reality sets in. You can't lose cash, drain money, be in debt forever. And the story of Vice Media that also might be coming to an end.

And the 25th anniversary. These things are all kind of arbitrary out there. I mean, everything's eventually going to hit one of those round numbers. Just like 1,000 episodes, 10 years eventually going to hit one of those round numbers. Just like a thousand episodes, 10 years of Toronto Mike drinking in L.A. You mentioned Andrew Ward and you talked about

McLean's for Andrew and I'll just say Andrew's a huge fan of Palma Pasta. He's always doing pickups at Palma Pasta. Go to palmapasta.com. Delicious, authentic Italian food and great supporters of this program for many years. Speaking of great supporters of this program, stickeru.com. That's where you get the 1236 stickers that you're going to plaster over the city.

You got to do that man Just plaster them Yeah yeah it could happen We're going to figure it out Go big or go home brother We're going to figure it out over the next few months Get busy living or get busy dying We're moving into the after times And speaking of dying

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home Do you listen to Life's Undertaking with Brad Jones? Yeah yeah I got there. We're very grateful to Brad Jones for, I think, enjoying our memorial segment every month so much that he put his money where his mouth was and became the sponsor of this segment of the episodes every month with 1236.

Where do you find this podcast? Where do you go? How do you listen to the wit and wisdom of funeral director Brad Jones? If you're listening, you must be podcast savvy if you're listening to a 1236 episode of Toronto Mic. I feel like there's not many people who could ever hear these words right now

if they weren't fluent in podcasting, but it's wherever you get your podcasts. You know, I use podcast addict. I know a lot of people like Apple podcasts. Of course, Spotify is a big player. Google's out there. You can use Stitcher tune in.

I got a hundred more to name. You ready? But whatever you use, search for life's undertaking by Ridley funeral homes, Brad Jones, subscribe, enjoy. Thank you to Ridley Funeral Home for sponsoring this

memorial segment of Toronto Mic'd with 1236's Mark Weisblot pay tribute without paying a fortune go to RidleyFuneralHome.com. L.A. L.A. L.A.

L.A. L.A. L.A. L.A. L.A. L.A. L.A. L.A.

L.A. So I asked you what the hell am I doing Drinking in L.A. At 26 He's alive, man. Alive. Yeah, my first job. What the hell am I doing drinking in L.A. at 26? He's alive, man. Alive. Yeah, my first guy right. L.A.

L.A. All right. All right. All right. I like the way you smile at me. I felt the heat that enveloped me. And what I saw, I liked to see. I never knew where evil grew. I should have steered away from you. My friend told me to keep clear of you, but something drew me near to you.

I never knew where evil grew. Evil grows in the dark, where the sun it never shines. Evil grows in cracks and holes, and lives in people's minds. Evil grew, it's part of you, and now it seems to be, that every time I look at you Evil grows in me Where Evil Grows by the Poppy Family.

Staple of AM, all these radio stations in Canada. Featuring the voice of Susan Jax who died on April 25th. April 25th at age 73 in Surrey, BC. And, you know, the song from the early 70s

was the kind of tune I think in subsequent decades it took on like this cult following. The punk band DOA did a cover version of it because there's something sinister about it. But at the same time, like a Christian

rock apocalyptic undercurrent. Like I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in. Kind of like psychedelic in there somewhere. It's kind of funky. Yeah, something subversive out here. And the Poppy family became the name of the group by a young married couple, Susan and Terry Jacks.

They originally met because she was on CBC TV show Music Hop. Is that with David Marsden? I think they had different regional versions of the show. So you had Alex Trebek as the host at one point in time. And Music Hop was what brought Terry and Susan Jaxx together. And they had a number one hit song on the American charts, and it was a tune called

Which Way You Going, Billy. Number two on Billboard, okay? Let me get that right. These are things that I massacre Stu Stone for. Shout out to Creedence Clearwater Revival. These details wrong. Number one in Canada, number two in the USA. Billy was originally, which way are you going?

Buddy. But Billy was the name of the brother of Susan Jax. And, you know, you look back at these stories, the old bits about somebody like her, and you realize these people's dalliance with fame, pretty short-lived. In fact, this was a young married couple, meant that as soon as their marriage imploded,

the whole act went along with it. And so it was Terry Jacks who ended up recording Seasons in the Sun. That was the number one hit in 1974. But by that point, if I got the timeline correct, he left his marriage behind. And Susan Jackax was no longer married to him in this short period of time she ended up marrying a CFL player

so you know there was no big bank account that came along with that one Ted Dushinsky and I do remember this song from Canadian AM radio called All the Tea in China by Susan Jax but everybody remember this song from Canadian AM radio called All the Tea in China by Susan Jackson. But everybody remember this, Which Way You Going, Billie?

And Billie's name came up again because Billie donated a kidney to his sister, Susan. That became a fun fact, Billy was helping keep alive the woman who sang his name in the song. And later, among other people who kind of looked up to her and brought her out for a revival, the new pornographers. You can imagine how they would have been inspired by this poppy family style. Well, it turned out a few years after this kidney transplant, it was kidney disease. End of the life of Susan Jacks. Dead April 25th at age 73. Where evil grows and which way you go in Billy.

You are my whole thing. My heart and my soul, babe. I'd have nothing to show, babe. If you should go. You are my whole babe My heart and my soul babe I'd have nothing to show babe If you should go away

You are mine Oh, nobody could satisfy My passion for love deep down inside like you. Baby, I believe in you. Oh, nobody could understand. I try to put up with this kind of man like you. Baby, I believe in you. And in spite of it all, I can still say she belongs to me.

She belongs to me. She belongs to me. And it's so nice just to know you're there. Speaking of Canadian AM radio jams, I don't know if you heard ever Nobody by Doucette. I do not recognize this jam, but the next one I'm going to play I think I can even remember when that was like a new tune

that you would hear on these stations like 590 CKY Nobody Music from Doucette. Jerry Doucette. Jerry Doucette was a guy from Montreal by Hamilton. Ended up in Vancouver.

Tried to make a bunch of rock bands that wasn't working out. Like, barricaded himself in a basement until he would come out and write a hit. Signed with the songs that he made to Mushroom Records, a label that was from Vancouver. Heart were the most famous band,

and Mushroom Records had the contacts, the connections, the right palms to grease, whatever it took to get a song on the radio. And then when Jerry Descent died at age 70 on April 18th, the song people remembered most of all. Mama, let him play some rock and roll. Oh, yeah, that's more like it. And this song you knew, right?

This was in the Toronto Mike Library of Canadian Classic Rock. Yes, sir. Let that boy play some rock and roll. Jazz is much too crazy. He can't play it when he's old. He's too young for the blues. He's still inside his first pair of shoes. He's just a baby.

Give that boy some freedom. Let him move around. Don't get in his way You'll only bring him down Mama, won't you let him Let him play some rock and roll Let him play some rock and roll Let him play some rock and roll

Sounds a bit like David Lee Roth. And predates people really hearing about Van Halen, 1977. Yeah. Kind of, you have a picture of your mind, right? Who at that time would have been this character of Mama? Mama is a hindrance to the idea of her son playing rock and roll. She's standing in the way, right? Her arms are folded. She's got in the way. Her arms are

folded. She's got a scowl on her face. Whoever this mama character was meant to be. Maybe like Vicky Lawrence on Mama's Family. That was kind of the vision of Mama. I feel here

a couple generations down the line it would be the reverse. It would be like, Mama, can you please turn that rock and roll shit down? This is not the kind of music the kids of today would want to listen to. Back in 1977, a rallying

cry, right? Like an anthem. We could pump our fists to this song. Even though he had those AIM Radio follow-ups, I don't think most people gave any thought to Jerry Doucette beyond this song. And there he is on YouTube playing it with, like, what, high school musical band. Just a few years ago, his whole legacy was this song.

Bigger deal at West, right? Yeah, I think. I mean, whatever it was, it kept it going for all these years that enough people in Canada knew the song. Mama Let Him Play. It became one of those anthems kind of synonymous with, I don't know, FUBAR, Trailer Park Boys, Letter Keddy, right? Like, it was the sound of that whole culture.

Maybe we should defer to FOTM's Taggart and Torrance to explain the appeal of this song. Those bods, they understand all this Canadianity. I mean, it did get on the lower reaches of the American Billboard charts. And I don't know that this was like a big hit in Canada, but listen to this. Crank it up. I mean, this is like the anthem. This is the sound of Muskoka in the middle of the night, right?

Cranking up these tunes. So far away from any culture that I identify with at all. Far away from any culture that I identify with at all. But out here in New Toronto, I could imagine you cranking this song in Marie Curtis Park. Well, right next to like your Max Webster or whatever, your Coney Hatch. Yeah, this shit is like the Mimico National Anthem. Shout out to Bob Sigurini. The deuce is loose. I mean, when you're giving your albums a title like that,

you must know the market that you're going for. Doucette, 1979. Most promising group of the year at the Juno Awards, which was like a cursed designation. Not only that, they would nominate people who ran for decades, like Long John Baldry. This is what led David Marsden to start the UNO Awards. His friend, Long John Baldry, was like 45 years

old. He'd been, you know, Elton John's mentor, and it's like, you know, 1981, and he's the most promising nominee. And that's when Doucette won over Streetheart, Max Webster,

Tease. That's a deep cut. T-E-A-Z-E. And Zaun. Mama, let him play that rock and roll. Rest in peace. Jerry Doucette, April 18th, dead at 70. We'll be right back. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. Falling on pretend While I'm worried how to make The wind that put a bullet In your head

Oh Sarah We'll know the struggle And use you In my convictions In the words that I have read Oh Sarah Each day so many lies Here's a jam from around 25 years ago, and I think it was that point in time

when people believed that music that sounded like this could sell millions of copies. Like, there was genuine hope that if you had this art rock music like King Cobb Steely, experimental band from Toronto, and just gave them the right push from a major record label, that all the kids would get into the sound. Remember this jam when it was played on Canadian radio? I think Video on MuchMusic2.

King Cobb Steely, a band with two guys named Kevin, Kevin Wynn, Kevin Lynn, and they had all sorts of adjacent members. I think their day job, they worked as clerks at the Driftwood Music Store on Queen Street West. Remember this at all? The third member of their core was a guy named Michael Armstrong.

Michael Armstrong, who died of a cardiac event age 58 in April 2022. And I don't know that I would have pulled up a track from King Cobb Steely under any other circumstance,

but here just to acknowledge this local Toronto musician on the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial Segment. Before Michael Armstrong was in King Cobb Steely, he was in another band that I know will be the main focus of an upcoming episode of Toronto Mic'd. And that band is Change of Heart, which has now been around in Toronto for like 40 years. Lots of stories to tell from the leader, Ian Blurton. I saw on Twitter, what, you got a date? Do you know when that's happening?

July. July, coming here on the show. And Michael Armstrong, who we lost in April, was an original member of the band. Change of heart on this song. The closest thing they had, I felt, in the 1980s to a college radio hit record.

You can adjudicate this coming up with author Michael Barclay. Monday. He's on Monday. This song called Tax Decline. Making and breaking Suddenly hoping I could tell you It would be a different sort of hell Without me Could you

Make your Hell Without me Was that thunder Or bad fire Was she really lonely Was that thunder or backfire? Was she really lonely or just singing a song? Was that thunder or backfire? Was she really lonely or just singing a song? song When

could we start listening to each other Could we stop each other and fight away some of the boredom Some of tomorrow's drag time Was that pattern on a

I like this song more than I thought I did. It only took like 33 years. Pat's declined by Change of Heart featuring featuring the late percussionist Michael Armstrong. And Change of Heart also got swept into that major label feeding frenzy. They won

a contest, CFNY. $100,000 direct-to-disc, whatever they called it. Had this album out by EMI. Discovery to Disc? Discovery to Disc. Although they'd been around for a while. It was like the most promising vocalist of the year being Long John Baldry. Like Change of Heart had been around for 15 years.

Well, shout out to FOTM. Newly discovered. John Bora, who also played with Change of Heart. Yeah, that's right. discovered. John Borah, who also played with Change of Heart. Yeah, that's right. And so, Michael Armstrong, before King Cobb Steely was part of Change

of Heart, and I remember this jam when it was current. I think I'll have to talk with Michael Barclay about how those two bands, Change of Heart, King Cobb Steely, represented like the great late 90s hope

for what would become of Canadian indie rock, that the major label system, that EMI, would back these bands. And what he writes about in his book, whatever it's called, I can't remember. Do you remember? 2000 to 2005. I can't remember the rest, to be honest. But I have been reading it.

And so the message of his book was these were the bands in the book Hearts on Fire. There he is. By the way, I read it all, every single page. I want you to impress upon him that fact because I feel like Michael Barclay. I've never met him. He seems like a frenemy. He thinks I'm the last person who would read every page of something he's written. He brought his own microphone last time he came over.

He's the only guest in the history of Toronto Mike to bring his own mic. You bring him in the backyard. So Michael Armstrong certainly rode a certain level of success, I would say, within Canada. He got to see the bright lights at least, the feeling of opportunity that would come from being in these bands. And definitely on my mind when we learned through King Cobb Steely and Change of Heart was the members they played with in the band who spread the message that he had passed away. who spread the message that he had passed away.

And Change of Heart was the kind of band that would have been exposed on the radio station CFNY, the indie music show called Streets of Ontario, which dovetails into somebody else, sadly, that we have to talk about, a guy named Peter Goodwin. Now, kind of playing around here, because this song is not by Peter Goodwin, right? You know there was a guy named Peter Godwin. Now, kind of playing around here, because this song is not by Peter Goodwin, right? You know there was a guy named Peter Godwin, a British musician who you would hear on CFNY. And at the time, at least, there was this voice on the radio station.

I think Scott Turner, who was ever on at the time, might have had to point out that Peter Godwin and Peter Goodwin were not the same person, not one and the same. And I don't know much about Peter Godwin, but Peter Goodwin was someone I had the pleasure of meeting at the same time that I met his wife, who was also heard on CFN1, also heard on episode 1021 of Toronto Mike.

The woman named Liz Janik went from overnights to midday on CFNY. And these people were so pleasant. I don't know if they were members of the Church of Latter-day Saints, but they had that vibe of just being abundantly kind. Like Ned Flanders kind? Yeah, I would even go so far as to say that,

which is juxtaposed with the idea that they were in this world of underground alternative music. But I understood the appeal. And they met each other through the radio station, so David Marsden would have been some kind of matchmaker peter goodwin was a was a newscaster on the air liz jannica young radio dj a single mom and they made a great couple and they ended up co-hosting the indie indie radio show these were the kinds of roles that they had the station, that were part of the CRTC commitment, right? Like you had to give exposure,

pay some money into the cultivation development of these young underground indie artists. And I thought they did a great job. I feel not only making people's dream come true of being played on the CFNY airwaves, right? Imagine you drop off a cassette at the radio station. And it was kind of like, ironically enough, it was like this Peter Godwin music,

but like a crappier basement version of these songs, right? Like everybody went out and bought this synthesizer equipment. They thought, okay, I can be the next Depeche Mode, the next Human League. You could imagine at the time, right? Like, uh, everybody went out and bought this, uh, synthesizer equipment. They thought, okay, I can be the next, the next Depeche Mode, the next Human League. You could imagine at the time, right? Like the dream was real. Like you didn't even need any, any great musical training or aptitude to, to fashion yourself, uh, this type of person. And this was the stuff that was exposed on the streets of Ontario. I actually pulled a song by another band called Tall, of Ontario actually pulled a song by another band called Tall New Buildings.

And this is stuff of infamy because Tall New Buildings morphed into an acapella act named Moxie Fruvis. Which means we've got a cancelled personality on this song. You know who I'm talking about.

You know who I'm talking about. But this was perfect. This was like the sound of the streets of Ontario on CFNY. A lot of stuff like this, right, made by guys like John Gomeschi. John Gomeschi. John Gomeschi. He went to high school, not at the same time because he's older, but the same high school as Cam Gordon and Stu Stone, rightornley yeah thornley secondary school and top of the honor

noah mince went there as well and he had those great gomeshi stories uh during his deep dive like this player piano stuff so imagine being peter goodwin going through the slush pile of all these songs, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, figure out what would be deserving of some airtime on CF Hawaii. And yet I remember them boosting tall new buildings. Sorry for their loss. Sorry for what this music is synonymous with now. But I still like Stuck in the 90s.

There's a couple of Moxie jams I still like. Is that okay? You gotta work that one out on you. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Dave Bookman. Bookie, he's in that video. Moxie flew this song for a second. Okay, and he ended up getting,

Bookie ended up taking on this role that Peter Goodwin had a decade before at CFNY. Talent Scout, host of the Indie Hour show. on this role that Peter Goodwin had a decade before at CFNY. Talent Scout, host of the Indie Hour show. In that episode 1021, 1021, where Liz Janik was on the Zoom,

I think she, somebody asked her at some point, how's Peter doing? And she said she was sad to report he was gravely ill. That was the first indication we had that Peter was sick. And then I know I got an email from David Marsden when, as David would write, yeah, he found his wings. I think that's how David Marsden would do it.

Peter found his wings. And then I tweeted about it, and Mark Hebbshire had great things to say about Peter. He knew him from Hamilton. Yeah, that's right. All that time after he had left CFMY, he was still around working behind the scenes in the music, sorry, media industry. No longer on the air, but newscasting at a few other radio stations.

In Kitchener, 103.5 in Orangeville, but then got a job as one of the producers on CHCH TV 11. And so for a while, he would have worked with Hebsey, Mark Hepshire, on the show that's there behind the scenes. But somewhere in between CFNY and him getting back in TV newsroom, him getting back in TV newsroom, Liz Janik and Peter Goodwin were actually handed the reins of a radio station of their own, like an owner who had the idea that they could replicate the success of CFNY, and they would do it out of Niagara Falls, Ontario. And not a lot of people really know about this story

because I don't think it worked out in the way that they were expecting it to. For one thing, you couldn't really, at the time, pick up this radio station in Toronto at all. But it was FM 101, the planet. Woo! And it had the call letters C-K-E-Y, weirdly enough. Those were there for the taking. Wow.

You can find a story from the Buffalo News where they were ready to launch this thing. And, you know, at the time they brought this credibility to what they were doing there, that they were going to mount this CFNY Challenger. People were always lamenting, longing for the idea, why don't we bring back that old school spirit of radio? They got a shot. It just didn't work out. Where things happened on the bright side for Peter and Liz

was they connected with another FOTM. I think I got this right. and Liz was they connected with another FOTM. I think I got this right. Dave Charles, as radio consultants, involved in bringing that CFNY sound to radio stations across America. And from what I understand, they were pretty successful at this. And this was somewhere in between the original spirit of radio and when the grunge era took over that they

fashioned the format for these different radio stations like like in chicago q101 to bring this like synthesizer based new music sound a lot of anglophilia and and bring it to radio stations that didn't know where to begin and play a lot of Depeche Mode, right? Like actually capitalize on this idea that this is where the future was going to be. What were you going to say? Yeah, I was going to say like Depeche Mode, New Order. Is this the style you're describing?

The pre-grunge kind of what you'd hear? Yeah, before like the whole corporate grunge thing steamrolled everything that was in the way. Before Nevermind? I think they had a couple of pretty good years there. So in my one meetup that I remember with Liz and Peter, they were sharing with me anecdotes. Remember this guy? He had a song. Oh, the guy went by the name Latour.

Yeah. had a song oh uh the guy the guy went by the name la tour yeah and the song was the song was called people are still having sex do you remember this at all this is this was a this was about 30 years ago and uh they were they were involved in in making a a radio hit out of this guy who just wanted to get on Dr. Demento. And the next thing you know, he had a top 40 radio hit. I believe thanks to them, because I remember talking about it with Liz and Peter. Overall, I would think, fascinating, eclectic Toronto media

career. He ended up raising Liz's son as his own under the same roof and we lost Toronto's Peter Goodwin April 8th at age 67.... C'est temps de voir ce que tu peux faire Te montrer que tu parles et pas en l'air

Vas-y, n'aie pas peur, vas-y, je compte sur toi C'est en l'air, si tu y crois Attention, ça va commencer Do you realize we've gone from La Tour to Le Fleur? Not bad. Guy Le Fleur, the most famous Canadian to die, I think, April 2022. April 22nd is when we lost Guyila Fleur at age 70. And that turned out to be a major national news story, right? Like a state funeral in Quebec.

Quebec with a whole cultural universe of its own, which was very much on display. Yes, not a state funeral, a national funeral is how they would define it. La Belle Provence. Most significant Canadian death of the month. But on the heels of another one, I'll just shout out here because I don't see him on your list. But there was another prolific goal scorer

who passed away just before Mike Bossy. Yeah, Mike Bossy and Guy Lafleur. And I think both stellar examples of 70s NHL personal branding, right? Everybody knew that those were the good hockey cards. And

Guy Lafleur, who gained enough fame by that point. How many Stanley Cups did he win in the 1970s? I mean, enough to the point. Well, four in a row. Four in a row, and then, what, number five? Lots of Stanley Cups. And reached that apex in his fame where somebody got the idea that a disco album was the medium through which we could capitalize

on the fame of Guy Lafleur. And listening to this music, there was, by the end of the 70s, no quality control in disco. No one knew the difference between good disco and bad disco. It was just like if you would have something that sounded like this, it was good enough. It was adequate. I mean, this is the point.

You had Mickey Mouse disco and Sesame Street disco. Why not? Disco on by Guy Lafleur. Look like the kind of guy want to hang out in discotheque. And of course, we're spinning the French version, but there's also an English version, right? Like there's like two versions of this

Lafleur disco album. This is the A Francais. And out there is a CBC News report of the launch party for the Guyila Fleur disco album, right? And they're expecting this thing to sell hundreds of thousands of copies, I guess. Just like you talk about here on the podcast about how hockey books are always guaranteed success with a certain demographic. Christmas time every year, so I'm sure under the tree where a lot of these. Oh. Gila Fleur disc albums listened to once, you know,

end up sold for a dime at a garage sale a few months later. Shout out to Regine, the founder of the discotheque. That's also a deeper cut. Since we're talking about discos, she also died at 92 in April, April 2022. So the pop culture of Gila Fleur had very wide tentacles, right? Like once you reach this level of fame as a hockey star, before Wayne Gretzky came along, there were a lot of people who figured they could get rich

off of putting you in a commercial, having you do a product endorsement, absolutely anything. And it turned out it was timely because you had somebody, a guest on Toronto Mike, who once did a commercial with Guy Lafleur. That man's name was Dave Thomas. I'm Bob McKenzie. This is my brother Doug. How's it going, eh?

And we're having a motion with Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur, eh? Yeah, Lafleur, that's like a real hockey name. What's that mean, eh? Like the wolf or the lion, eh? No, Lafleur means the flower. Well, like a tough flower, eh? Like a dogwood or a snapdragon, eh? Roses have thorns, eh? They're tough.

You're tough. Bob and Doug McKenzie and Gila Fleur. And this was after Gila Fleur was parodied on SCTV, and that clip made the rounds. You saw that one, right? It was Gila Fleur. Daryl Sittler, played by John Candy and Joe Flaherty as

Gila Fleur doing Cornabix parody serial commercial on SCTV. But in real life, he was, again, like raking in the dough. Car commercials, beer commercials, hair restoration commercials. Everyone wanted a piece of Guy Lafleur. He ended up, do I got this story right? wanted a piece of Guy Lafleur. He ended up, do I got this story right?

He ended up retiring from the Montreal Canadiens when he was barely past his prime. This was in the mid-1980s. It was, what, an impasse with the ownership, a dispute over his contract, what would happen to him. I'm of an age where I don't remember Guy Lafleur on Le Habitant. I only remember Guy as a New York Ranger in Quebec Nordique. So it was like a fake retirement, wasn't it? Kind of like a pseudo-departure.

Because he didn't want to make the entire province of Quebec mad at him by instantly turning up on an American team. I think his stock was still at the point where it would have been the stuff of great betrayal. This is before Wayne Gretzky left Edmonton to play in L.A. But then a couple years later, there's Guy Lafleur again showing up playing for Americans. First New York Rangers, but then coming back home. Right. Quebec Nordique.

No doubt there was something novel in the idea of having Guy Lafleur around, even if by that point he was an aging hockey player. Later got into the restaurant business, and that didn't end well. Later got into the restaurant business, and that didn't end well. Did not follow the same success experienced by the Wayne Gretzky's restaurant, even though that's also not around anymore. But who wouldn't want to hang out with Guy Lafleur, right? Hockey legend.

Seemed like a nice guy. Flower Power, that was the name of his fruit juice energy drink. And courtesy of the Canadian Jewish News where I, for some reason, hold the title managing editor. I was involved in sharing the story of Gila Fleur

posing as a Jewish person wearing a prayer shawl, holding a prayer book, wearing a skull cap on his head because a teenage student at McGill University doing a photo project, he went up to Guy Lafleur and he said, do you want to pose in this thing? Like, could you imagine this happening today? Right.

Where he just went, like, to the side door of the Montreal Forum, goes up to Guy Lafleur and nervously asks him, do something like this? And he agreed. He said yes. And so there is a photo out there. You can find it at the cjn.ca along with the back story about how Guy Lafleur ended up dressing like a Jew for like 10 seconds. But the photographer who kept this picture in a shopping bag

for all these years, and he has sister put it on Facebook to memorialize the great Gila Fleur, dead at 70. Was it April 22nd, 2022? 2022. Straight feet pull me right on Out of control all the night Feet under me, you're running through my brain Make me your cyborg superstar

Get in the mood and it won't matter who you are Running in the thick of the night Under the city lights Part of the key Cutting the trees you ride Running in the thick of the night People make believe Gilbert Gottfried, cast member of the

late night television show Thick of the Night, hosted by legendary Canadian Alan Thicke. Gilbert Gottfried, dead at 67 on April 12th in what was one of the stranger revelations of a celebrity death because the first most people heard about it was on twitter from jason alexander george from seinfeld who tweeted that gilbert godfrey had died and at first people were confused they thought what is this some kind of conceptual joke is this related to some kind of movie they're promoting? Is this a way for Gilbert Gottfried to sell more videos on Cameo,

from which he had already extracted millions of dollars doing these personalized videos in the last couple of years? What was going on, right? Why is it first we're hearing that Gilbert Gottfried died from a fellow comedic personality that we didn't even know he had any relationship with at all. I would guess the suspicion was that he was privy to this information, but it was supposed to be announced in a more formal way. But with Twitter in his hand and on his phone, it was in fact Jason Alexander who broke the news.

Leading to a lot of confusion, including here at TMDS. We're in the middle of recording an episode with Peter Gross. Right. That was quite the episode. You didn't talk about that. The news broke. Yeah. Peter Gross, who had an audition live on the podcast.

Right. Live.torontomike.com. I think Levi Fumka wrote that Gilbert Gottfried died. And yeah, I had to kind of process it in real time during that crazy episode. So you're trying to deal with your feelings? You were a big Gilbert Gottfried fan? I would say I'm a big fan. I listened to his podcast

and was continuously inspired by his podcast in what I'm doing here right now with you on Toronto Mike. I often envision that Toronto Mike was essentially doing what Gilbert was doing for old Hollywood. I'm doing it for old Toronto. And there you are. You're distracted and distraught that Gilbert Godfrey died. And at the same time, Peter Gross is distracted and distraught

because he didn't know what day his audition was scheduled for. That was great. By the way, I listened back three times. And we'll get back to Gilbert because this is quite the loss. And I did not know he was unwell because they didn't publicize that information. So it was quite shocking to hear he had died. I literally was just shocking to hear he had died. I just heard, I was just, like, I literally was just listening to him.

But I had that whole Peter Gross was basically like, things were happening. I listened back, what was I going to say? I listened back a few times, and it is wild how it unfolds, and I did not edit a stitch out of it. So if you hear eight seconds of silence, that's how much silence we had. It was all real

as it happened. And one of my favorite episodes of all time. A Toronto connection to Gilbert Gottfried's death. The fact that, as far as I could tell, he did his last live performance at the Paradise Theatre. Hey, I've been there. Bluer and Ossington in Toronto. And that was just less than a month earlier that he did a couple of live shows, and that was the last public opportunity to see Gilbert Gottfried performing on stage.

And in the process, the announcement of his death, we found out that he had been ill for a while and, in fact, was hiding his health condition from the public, keeping it a secret, which is in redolent of Norm MacDonald, who we heard about last fall, again, under circumstances where he kept it low-key. Now, Gilbert Gottfried's appearance did change in recent years, right? The fans of his podcast, I'm a member of that Facebook group, people were reflecting that they noticed that his health might have been going in a downward direction. You could see it visually if you saw pictures of him, but I think generally people would look at it, okay, whatever. He's

aging in a certain way, right? By this point, he's in his mid-60s. But yes, it turned out the fact that he was suffering and struggling for a while, yet continuing to perform. He had tour dates. He was still on the road, showed up, made it to a show in Toronto after a couple years of the pandemic. And with Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast, which became a culture on its own, had just gotten back doing live episodes in the studio. And the last one which they released was with Brenda Vaccaro. And they got like one last round of doing it live

after a couple years on Zoom where he had pulled up stakes. But they did by 10 p.m. And it was mostly in Florida. I don't like it when, Gilbert, fantastic. I don't know who, but I don't like it when podcasters have like say they have a three hours of good stuff and they say oh this is a two-parter and it comes out in two parts i think i think you get into one part if you pay that was that was okay that was in fact the whole game going on there and the journey of the podcast

the whole culture on its own i mean dave Dave Thomas was a guest a couple of times. He's also been on Toronto Mic'd. And how would you describe, for those who've never heard of the Gilbert Godfrey podcast? I've listened a whole bunch of times. It was him and a sidekick, Frank Santopadre. Yeah. A friend he made who was kind of on the fringes of showbiz. Joey Behar.

He works on The View. That's his day job with ABC. But he's a good straight man. Well, The View gets a lot of attention. I mean, if you're going to anonymously work behind the scenes of a TV show, I would imagine that's a pretty decent gig to have. I think he did a good job because Gilbert's so bananas, you need that straight guy to kind of keep things going. Gilbert Godfrey had this pal who was originally just a young fan

and they grew up together into older age. And it was Gilbert Gottfried's wife who was in a situation where he had lost his job with Aflac, the Aflac duck. And that was due to what? What land? Do you remember any of this?

Yeah, yeah, it was Japanese. It was the tsunami in Japan. It was a joke. I know that it was a, you know, it was Japanese. It was the tsunami in Japan. It was a joke. I know that it offended, a natural disaster happened in Japan. Was it a tsunami? An earthquake. Earthquake. Earthquake.

Maybe both. And tweeting jokes on Twitter. And I think we'll look back at the decade of the 2010s because Twitter keeps evolving. I don't know if the Elon Musk era of Twitter will lead to this situation. People are smartening up, right? You don't hear these stories as much about people getting fired because of Twitter anymore. But it was a lucrative gig to be the Aflac duck. Right.

Most of their business was in Japan. I think that was really the reason that they started to see Gilbert Gottfried as a liability. He needed a new gig. His wife, Dara, heard him talking on the phone to Frank. They would get into all these obscure reminiscences about showbiz. She recognized that these two guys together had this chemistry, right? Just like fun facts and mind blows. We should turn this into a commercial product.

And what else would you do in the 2010s except podcasting? What other medium would there be? And so there he had Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast, and it rejuvenated the whole business of being Gilbert, right? It was no longer just, okay, stand-up comedy and show up cameo roles in all these movies. Problem Child is the one that people keep mentioning. It all goes back to the fact that Gilbert Gottfried originally was part of the original scab cast

of Saturday Night Live back in 1980. They didn't know what to do with him at all. You look back, people are like, Gilbert Gottfried on Saturday Night Live? I gotta look up. Like, he must have done all these outrageous, amazing things on the show. And he was barely in any sketches at all.

And when he was on, it was like so muted. You don't even recognize it as the same guy. I should say, I fell in love with Gilbert, not from the podcast, but before that, from Howard Stern. Howard Stern. He would come in. He ended up being blacklisted. He was no longer part of the new woke Howard Stern show.

So they wouldn't let him come in and do these diatribes anymore. And it would end up being he would come in, make his appearance, and hang out and make comments on the Robin Quiver's new cast. Also, something they don't do anymore on Howard Stern. I know you haven't listened in years. I haven't listened in a long time, but I used to listen all the time. Why Toronto Mike is, at this point, a better show than anything from Howard Stern. is at this point a better show than anything from Howard Stern.

You're much more complicated when you go into all sorts of discourse. You wouldn't hear from Stern anymore. So it was, I don't know, what were they, kind of 122 Gilbert Gottfried appearances, a lot of tape, and I think they did like a sanitized tribute.

They made sure that none of the actual outrageous things from Gilbert Gottfried made it to the tribute. He was on for so many hours. And, yeah, the recognition he got from Howard Stern and the recognition in more recent years that he got from being on Cameo. And I think it was because he would do these personalized videos and they would, like, price him on a level where it could make him a ton of money, but it wasn't so expensive, right, that people, I think $175, you get a personalized message from Gilbert Gottfried. We've talked before about the value of these cameos.

I mentioned, you know, Poojan Gurdip. Would you pay for a cameo from them? Eric Alper, was he worth $5? Ask Tyler. I didn't pay the $5. VP of sales. He would have done it for me for free. Enriched Eric Alper's cameo from them? Eric Alper. Was he worth $5? Ask Tyler. I didn't pay the $5. VP of sales. He would have done it for me for free.

Enriched Eric Alper's cameo camp. But $175 for a personal message from Gilbert Gottfried? That's a pretty good deal. And it turned out he was raking in the money like never before. Couple million a year, right?

I heard a couple million a year. 200 hours, okay? One minute at a time. 200 hours of videos from Gilbert Gottfried. Cameo just announced a whole bunch of layoffs. I think Cameo had to lay off a quarter of its staff because Gilbert Gottfried died. I think he represented most of the money they were making at this company. Do you want me to play this? All because he figured it out.

Yeah, a commercial from Gilbert Gottfried. I think just hear a little bit from him. I pulled that one from Shudini, which was a commercial he did, I believe, after the Aflac money went away. Bending over to put your shoes on is a back-breaking

chore. One wrong step, you can end up on the floor. And trying to get them off can hurt even more. Well, now the Shudini, the world's first shoe horn that lets you get your shoes on and off with ease. Shoe-deeny has a telescoping handle that gives you the reach you need so you can slip your shoes on without bending over. And unlike regular shoe horns, Shudini has a patented grip clip

that holds your shoe in place while you take it off. Just slide it in and slip them off. Shudini works with all your shoes. You can even use them on sneakers. Now, Dave on the live stream, live.torontomic.com, Dave says that Gilbert went to the hospital right after the final show with Brenda Vaccaro. Yeah, Brenda Vaccaro.

Vaccaro, right. I think the Shudini commercial, this is part of the magic of Gilbert Gottfried. Because there he was with access to the highest echelon of show business, right? He's in the Disney movie, played the voice of the... Iago. What? Parrot? What is that? Iago? I don't know.

A macaw? Is that the name of the bird? Did I get that right? And at the same time, his voice did not sound out of place doing one of these late night infomercials. Like he could play both ends of the spectrum. And this is what was so subversive about him. And you'd read these appreciations

from people like Penn Jillette, right? They'd recognize like this guy was a personality like no other. I mean, this guy is like operating on so many levels. And I like personalities like that. No one else could replicate no matter how hard they tried. Rumor has it that through my rumored 50 appearances, I swear it's more, on the Toronto Mike podcast, that when people encounter my voice for the first time, they think I am doing a shtick like Gilbert Gottfried. Right.

Yes, that's true. Evidence has been produced over the years, including a phone call to the Howard Stern Show telling Gary Delabate can't make it. It can't come in. This was the tape. This was the tape. This was the proof. Gilbert Gottfried dropping his facade and recorded with his real voice. Yeah, Stu Stone, who on toast we talked about Gilbert passing. Stu's been in green rooms of Gilbert waiting to go on things,

and Gilbert talks like, I'm talking to you right now. And you see glimpses of that when he was on Saturday Night Live, right? Sometimes he's doing the Gilbert character. This is 40-plus years ago. It wasn't fully developed yet. But the assumption then that when you hear me talking, that I'm putting on a performance like Gilbert Gottfried, this is an opportunity, Toronto Mike,

for you to verify that when you hear me talking, this is not a Gilbert Godfrey thing. I'm talking like this anyway, pretty much most of the time. It's a little amplified. It's affected. There's a microphone before my face. But you're right. You know, when people first hear you on my show.

Carry on and go through life with a tone that's all that different from this one here. What voice is this from? Aladdin. Aladdin, he plays a parrot. And in fact, they wanted Gilbert for this. They even drew the parrot to look like him even before they gave him the part because they only had Gilbert in mind. And here's a little bit of Gilbert.

I have a point to make here. This is my point about how there's two different Gilberts. The on-air persona and the off-air persona. And they're both scary. All right, here's Gilbert as the parrot. I can't believe it. I just don't believe it. We're never going to get a hold of that stupid lamp.

Just forget it. Look at this. Look at this. I'm so ticked off that I'm molting. Patience, Thiago. Patience. Chazine was obviously less than worthy. Oh, there's a big surprise.

Have you ever watched these cartoons? Oh, yes. Okay. Now, what are you saying? Well, you should see them. You know how when celebrities watch their work on The Tonight Show, you should see Gilbert very serious during his clip. Oh, he's not making a sound.

I like when they start crying during their own thing. He just brought everything out. That he sat and listened to. Now listen to, in contrast, this is off-the-air Gilbert. Oh. This is Gilbert calling Gary from years ago on the answering machine. Yes. And this is Gilbert's real voice.

All right. Just as scary. Yes. All right, but it's a whole different guy. All right, here it is. Yeah, Gary, it's Gilbert. You're kidding. I'll definitely be there tomorrow, but if you could call me up and just tell me what exactly is going on tomorrow,

who's going to be there and everything like that. That's the scariest over. Wow. People are afraid of the... That's serial killer shit. So thanks to John who just sent that over. Yeah, there you go. The infamous voicemail to Bubba Booey.

The Gilbert Gottfried podcast, amazing archive. I was going through some of it. That's how I was inspired to tell you to get Dave Thomas on the show. Right. Like these amazingly thorough episodes. And again, like the line between the real Gilbert and the schtick, the persona. I don't know. He didn't really drop his voice, but it's kind of like you get this.

You've listened to tons of episodes yourself too, right? This more encyclopedic version of Gilbert Gottfried comes out in that episode while still continuing to do the voice. The Gilbert Gottfried funeral, which I think was archived on the internet, and you've got Jeff Ross, one of his comedian buddies. Susie Essman, who's like the female version of Gilbert Godfrey.

Alan Zweibel, who had a history with Saturday Night Live and everything else, and his podcast co-host Frank Santropadre. And then Paul Schaefer comes up, very reverently does this Jewish prayer, the Kaddish, in honor of Gilbert and even the fact that Paul Schaefer comes up, very reverently does this Jewish prayer, the Kaddish, in honor of Gilbert and even the fact that Paul Schaefer

knew the words, the meaning of these Aramaic words he was saying. No funeral like this before. You got the Gilbert Godfrey documentary from about five years ago. Did you ever see that one? Talks about his family life. And he talks about stealing all the shampoos and the soaps from

hotels. And just like the most unlikely character to get married and have kids, but it all happened for him. What a loss. What a loss. He created this life, this love story, and again, like raking it in from doing these cameo videos after all these years that Gilbert Gottfried's laugh.

Somewhere out there, you know, the fact that this company could not carry on without him. Rest in peace to a hero of yours and mine, Toronto Mike, Gilbert Godfrey, dead April 12, 2022, 67 years old. But I'm still here. I'm still around. Not going anywhere at all. At least for now. Right? You never know. She likes me. She likes me.

She's playing hard to get. She's playing hard to get. She likes me. She likes me. She's playing hard to get. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she's into me Cause when she passes by And say hi I can tell by her smile That she's just a beast

She's playing I don't think She can see my pushing her But I can feel her crushing me She's playing hard to get She did want to meet She's playing I'm living my dream here, right? Because I grew up imagining I could host a radio show in which you just threw to a song like this one. She's Playing Hard to Get by High Five.

At one point, as far as I was concerned, this was the greatest rock and roll band in the world. Wow. Do you remember High Five? They had a number one hit song. It was called I Like the Way. You kissed me when we were playing the kissing game. I know it well.

CFDR played the hell out of it. Yeah, you were in high school at the time. Did you play the kissing game? Would this have been a song played, spin the bottle? I was in primary school, I think. 1991? Oh, was it 91? I like the way you...

Give me a break. Really? Okay, no, I was in high school. I thought it was like 88. I thought it was like 88. I thought that was like 88. My apologies. To appreciate a high five. I love this act.

Unironically, first three albums, quality all the way through, up and down. And this was a second album. So you gravitated... This sound... She's playing hard to get. You gravitated towards this and said, that's my jam right there. That's my jam. That's my jam.

Okay, wow. I mean, 30 years later. What did you think of Another Bad Creation? Well, that's the thing. Like, is anybody going to be around here all these decades later to properly audit which one of these acts, these black boy bands, had the stuff? Because everybody thinks of boys to men right that's the one that comes to mind they had the most

the biggest hits the most staying power but there was a whole hierarchy at the time and I thought high five were ahead of the curve well guess what Toronto Mike in the story of high five you also got a little bit of tragedy including the fact that the front man for the group, Tony Thompson,

he died about 15 years ago, and that was an addiction that he had. He was found dead near High Five's hometown of Waco, Texas. He was found dead beside an air conditioner that he was attempting to inhale from. And a toxic amount of Freon ended up being a tragic, tragic situation. Well, going back to the heyday of High Five, another member of the group, a guy named Roderick Clark. Roderick Poo Clark. That was his nickname.

He ended up paralyzed from the chest down as a result of a car accident. And so that was also part of the tragedy of High Five, and we lost Roderick Poo Clark, age 49, on April 17, 2022, part of the tragedy of High Five. The whole band, in fact, was involved in that

accident after their third album came out. It took that many years for us to lose another member. Two High Five guys down. Three to go. You hear about this tragic loss. It's got me pumping up the jam, cranking up the song.

So remember that one well. I love that song. Glad to play it here for Ridley Funeral Home. I spent the night in a motel room Eyes cast like steel I drank the wine they had left on my table. I knew the morning wasn't too far. I smoked my last pack of foreign cigarettes.

I stayed home late to the fire. But I was dark and the land is cold. It's frozen right to the bone And just like firewood I burn up Just like firewood Just like firewood I burn up 500 miles I've gone today Tomorrow it's 500 more You would have heard this song in the 1980s

on the Spirit of Radio CFNY. Toronto Mike, if you want to... In the 80s, I was listening to CFTR. Just Like Firewood, a song by an Australian punk band called The Saints. This is like 10 years later. Improbably ending up

with as close as they could come to a mainstream hit just like Firewood at that point with the rise of these other Australian bands. I don't know. You name them. Midnight Oil. Midnight Oil.

In Excess. There was a window for the Saints to try and get some recognition. Crowded House? In Canada and the USA. Does this remind you? They're from New Zealand. I mean, down under. It's similar. It's all the same.

That'll just piss them off if we tell you that they're the same. Their toilet water flushes in the opposite direction. I learned that on The Simpsons. It's an urban legend. Whatever else we learned about that place. So just like Firewood, which was like the one corporate radio hit from what

was at the time in the mid 70s, Australia's Australia's answer to the Ramones. And Punk Rock, I mean, it's not a style you associate with Australia, but the lead singer, Chris

Bailey, who died on April 9th at age 65, he was the front man with the Saints. Just like Firewood, known well enough as a song that it was covered by Bruce Springsteen. You can look that one up. Bruce Springsteen with Pommerello walking on

the dark side of the E Street band, getting a little bit experimental. Although, a lot of Bruce Springsteen's covers are kind of out there. The songs that he took on were more obscure than the obvious covers, and that included

The Saints, Just Like Firewood. Big legacy out there from Chris Bailey, Dead at 65. Oh, Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind, hey, Mickey Hey, Mickey Oh, Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind, hey, Mickey Hey, Mickey Oh, Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind, hey, Mickey Hey, Mickey Oh, Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind, hey, baby Hey, baby You've been around all night and that's a little long Why is it interesting enough that we needed to play Mickey by Tony Basil?

Because the man who played the drums on this song passed away at the age of 70 in April 2022. And the drummer on Mickey by Tony Basil became more famous as the fictional drummer for Spinal Tap. Wow. They went through a lot of drummers. That was the whole thing, right? Well, exactly. But the one who showed up in the press photos, the one who is meant to be a representative of Spinal Tap in their heyday,

that ended up being Rick Parnell. And when Spinal Tap went on tour, so even though he died in the movie, continuity error here. Right. There he was playing the drums on the stage, and part of the shtick was they explained this was the twin brother of Mick Shrimpton, who was the character in the movie.

Springton, there will be no encore. Follow it all there. Any excuse for Simpson's reference. You know, I mean, he was in Faltering Health, Rick Parnell. There was a GoFundMe for the guy. Pardon me for judging here in the third hour of a podcast when you look up at a go fund me and you see celebrity donors and they give a certain amount of money it's someone like harry shearer yeah and then you look at have you ever done this you look

at how much money he gave to the go fund me and you think harry shearer oh yeah he's got some cash he could do better than sure one thousand dollars. Wow. How much did he give? Rick Parnell. Only $1,000? See, that would be like me giving a loonie. Michael McKean, $250. Now, I'm not sure what their relationship was with the guy. But it is better than nothing.

Publicly on GoFundMe, whatever that means. I guess now they're paying for his cremation, funeral expenses. But way back when, he was seen in the movie and on stage as a drummer for Spinal Tap in a band called Atomic Rooster. What's that? Progressive Rock? Okay, so not Steve Stevie's. What was it?

Atomic Playboys? Who was it again? The Atomic Playboys. Well, it was Atomic Rooster, and it was a drumming gig. He replaced Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and from there became a studio drummer, including on one of the albums. Yeah, not Steve Stevens, but Lisa Dalbello. Whoa, that's tango.

One of her albums had from the early 80s. Okay, FOTM Sister-in-Law. She was still a teenager drumming by Rick Parnell. So at the time, Rick Parnell drumming for Lisa Dalbella, who was an actual teenager, Tony Basil was not a teenager. Right. This woman was pushing 40

when this song Mickey came out, and I think that was an amazing bit of performance art. Are you old enough to remember when that song even was a hit? People assume this was maybe like Miley Cyrus at the time. Katy Perry. I don't know. Right?

Someone real young doing this song. No, it was by that point an older woman who had been around in the music industry. Right. She was the choreographer for the Once in a Lifetime video by the Talking Heads. She was involved in the 1960s. Tammy Show on ABC television. heads. She was involved in the 1960s Tammy show on ABC television, and she sort of put on

this cheerleading persona to have, I think, a totally unexpected hit of her own. That was that song, Mickey. And then part of Rick Parnell's story is he was invited to join the band Journey, and that would have been a legit stadium rock job.

Big time. In the mid-1980s. And he regretted turning them down. And so the irony here that one of the doomed drummers of Spinal Tap, Mick Shrimpton, now dead in real life. Rick Shrimpton, now dead in real life. Rick Shrimpton. No, Rick Parnell.

Mick Shrimpton, dead at 70. All of the above. I blew it. I didn't hit the post. And now we're into the Judds. Well, listen, I went to... Naomi Judds. We'll talk about it. I'm sorry this person passed.

It sounds like she had some rough times, but I couldn't find a single Judd song that I found even half decent. Why didn't you ask your mom? The world's biggest fan of Kenny Rogers. She did have her hugs and kisses mug, so I'm sure she knows her Judds. You got to get her on the phone.

You got to ask her. No, it lacked that. It didn't have the crossover appeal. This was sort of still classified as exclusively country music. And in my life is where he sits. He always wants to be. I've never been so in love. He beats all I've ever seen. Mama, he's crazy. He's crazy over me.

Mama, He's Crazy. That was the breakthrough hit from the Judds. That was a hit. Oh, country hit. Well, country hit. Country hit, sure. I mean, it was in the Zeitgeist. It's no George Jones, I'll just say that.

A mother and daughter act where the mother and daughter, I think, were as close at age as you could get for mother and daughter duo. Like her daughter who was born Christina

Chiminella. Born to Naomi Judd when she was 18 years of age, who later changed her name to Wynonna. And if you're watching the Nashville Network in the mid-1980s, you would have seen a lot of talk about the Judds. Sure. And then subsequently, Naomi Judd had another daughter. Ended up pretty famous in her own right. Yeah.

Big time. Ashley? Ashley Judd. Drawing a blank there. It was Wynonna and Ashley who announced at the end of April 2022, at age 76, April 30th, that their mother had died as a consequence of mental illness.

That her demons had gotten the best of her. And that that was the cause of her death. And then subsequently we learned that Naomi Judd, in fact, died by suicide. You had thoughts about this one? Crossed your mind? No, no, when I read the... Any consideration at all?

When they published, I guess, the family put out a statement. I saw it on Twitter, I think, but maybe it was on Instagram originally. But anyway, when I read it, I guess the family put out a statement. I saw it on Twitter, I think, but maybe it was on Instagram originally. But anyway, when I read it, I just assumed suicide. They said mental health took over. And yet, typically these things aren't publicized, right? People don't

find a reason to make that specific detail public. Like, she was 76 years old. They could have been more vague about it. But why are we... We gotta stop that, right? right? It's like, this is mental health crisis. We've got to stop stigmatizing this mental health

crisis. So adding to the tragedy there was this happened just before the Judds were going to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Which is not as impressive as the FOTM Hall of Fame, which has a new member, Mark Wiseblood. We're doing what we can,

and in fact, under the circumstances, Naomi Judd did not live to see it, but her daughters were there to accept that on her behalf and acknowledging that their tragedy, that they lost their mother, the disease of mental illness and hopefully a scenario that removes the stigma encourages other people to seek help and that advocacy is the best they

could do rest in peace naomi judd dead april 30, 2022 at age 76. The baby's getting anxious The hour's getting late The night is almost over She can't wait Things are complicated My love is in her hands And there's no more waiting She understands The blasters get harder

And my love is perfection I'm talking of my love For her collection Collection Blaster, caster Grab a hold of me faster I gotta say, the kids today have no idea about the music of Kiss. Everybody knows the makeup, the branding, the logo, but this has come up over the years.

The actual Kiss discography. You hear a lot of rock and roll all night and party every day. But, you know, Kiss put out so many of these albums, a whole assembly line, especially during the 70s and 80s. And there's so much mediocrity on these records. Agreed. And at the same time, obviously, they had enough dedicated fans who memorized every single song and still go on the Kiss cruise,

you know, requesting all these obscurities in the concert, and they can't play them anymore because Paul Stanley basically lost his voice. Like, there's a lot of lip syncing up on the Kiss stage. Kiss might be the most overrated band in the history of rock and roll. I don't know if they're overrated. I think they're ridiculous in a very specific way that's hard to understand if you're a newcomer to it all. Like, you have to have a Talmudic understanding

of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley and everything they did, how they made it happen, how they got to be known and recognized, and how prepubescent boys would be grooving to a song about a plaster caster. Mike, help me out here. What were they trying to say with a song like this? What were they trying to say with a song like this? This is not like a little kid who would have a plaster cast maybe because he broke his arm or his leg. What they were talking about was the creation of a phallic symbol based on a pouring plaster around the genitals of a rock star. Your dink. Embalming it.

Putting it on the shelf to the end of time as a symbol of just how well hung you are. And whether he believed in this stuff or not, this is how Gene Simmons made his millions,

singing songs like this. Okay, what's the name of the woman we lost? Where did we get the idea from? A woman named Cynthia Albatron. Albatron. Also known as Cynthia Plaster Caster. Right. And she found her mentor in a guy who i think he he died at a younger age people didn't

really get to the point of what kind of perv he really was frank zappa uh he got he got out of the way of the me too era even though there was alex winter's documentary uh that touch touched on all of this. The fact that even though he tried to make it out like he was a loyal husband, very devoted to his domestic life, he had the group, the GTOs, he very much enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh. He was not like, what's his name, the electric circus cowboy dancer?

Kay Pompei. Kay Pompei. Frank Zappa was in a situation where he was able to partake of the groupie experience and bragged about it, and that was between him and his wife. However she felt about this, Frank Zappa was first in line for the plaster caster and encouraged her to seek out other rock stars, right? Like Hunt Down, Jimi Hendrix, and the MC5, and later on it was Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys and the Buzzcocks, Pete Shelley, and then also get into doing, in more enlightened age,

plaster casts of women above the belt. A little more complicated. And in that case it was Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Peaches from Toronto, Meryl Nisker. And in that case, it was Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And Peaches, you know, from Toronto. Meryl Nisker, you know, she also, like Frank Zappa, would have been right in there getting this treatment too. Immortalized in a song, Plaster Caster.

I think when Kiss started to run out of ideas. But it was good for the brand. And I think some of these infamous groupies are dying on us here. We had Kathy Evelyn Smith, at one point Gordon Lightfoot's girlfriend, and she was there in the room when John Belushi died. Right. We had her in Ridley Funeral Home not too long ago. Connie Hamsey, Sweet Connie.

So if these things come in three, I would classify Cynthia Albatron. Cynthia Plaster Caster, April 2022, dead at 74. And another track connected to Kiss. I'll explain in a second. There's moochin' all over, even in St. Louis So baby get ready, I'm kissin' you Oh baby, cause summertime is the kissin' time USA So treat me right, don't make me fight The battle of New Orleans tonight They're kissin' on beaches. See the shiny sea.

Smooching on bedsheets. Need the kissing tree. Lipstick on collar. Done in Tennessee. So my baby come on now. Start accusing me. Oh, oh, cause summertime is, there's a kiss in time. Bobby Rydell.

One of those early rock and roll teen idols who died April 5th at age 79. I think Marge Simpson was a big Bobby Rydell fan. I know it all came back to The Simpsons today, but I think that was one of the storylines. You wouldn't hear that reference today in The Simpsons. That would have been, what, like 30 seasons ago that you would be talking about Marge Simpson being a fan

from the early 60s. When was Lisa born? Was she born in 2014? Anyway. Okay, so Bobby Rydell racking up the hits, one of those early teen idols, American Bandstand. I mean, as soon as The Beatles landed in the hits, one of those early teen idols, American Bandstand.

I mean, as soon as the Beatles landed in the USA, all these guys, you know, their career came to an end. Had to hit the oldie circuit after that point in time. But this early hit, Kissin' Time by Bobby Rydell. Can you even pull that up before we go? Kiss did a remake of this song, and it was in the early days of the band KISS, and they were looking for a hit, and whoever it was,

Neil Bogart, Casablanca Records, had this idea, because KISS in Time mentions a whole bunch of cities. It was probably the early KISS strategy. Like if they mentioned a bunch of cities in the song, then they would get airplay, and you ended up with Kissin' Time recreated by Kiss. There you go. Sing it, Paul.

It sounds like Sweet Little Sixteen or the Beach Boys surfing USA all over California. Yeah, yeah, it's total garbage. I think on this song you get Gene and Paul Stanley and Peter Criss. The greatest time is kissing time. USA, rest in peace. Bobby Rydell, the originator of it all, dead at 79. Imagine being 79 years old and your career was over like 58 years ago. That's true.

How would you feel? I'll let you know. Okay. One more for you know. Okay. One more for the road. Why not? Ooh, every day there's something new, baby. Honey, to keep me loving you. loving you and with every

passing minute oh baby so much joy wrapped up in it oh heaven must have sent you from above oh

heaven must have sent your precious love And now I've got a song to sing Telling the world about the joy you bring And you gave me A reason for living And who you taught me You taught me the meaning of giving Oh, heaven must have sent you

Hey, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell, your precious love. A timeless jam, right? You don't need Drake and Rihanna. Why bother? You can go back to the original and best. And the guitarist on this song with the studio backing act, the Funk Brothers, a guy named Joe Messina. Legendary guitar work on that song while Joe Messina died April 4th at age 93.

Joe Messina was also the band leader on a children's television show hosted by Soupy Sales. Speaking of Howard Stern. Yeah, characters you would only know because, I guess, put on the facade that he was feuding with Soupy for so many decades. Did you know, because I did not

until I read Joe Messina's obituary, that guys like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and John Coltrane, they were on the Soupy Sales show with Joe Messina backing them up. And Soupy Sales' sons, who became rock musicians in their own right. You knew that, right? Tony Hunt Sales with Iggy Pop, with David Bowie, Tin Machine. Supie sales maybe deserves more credit than he received.

So there's his band leader, a member of the Funk Brothers. You want at the end, this is how I got in the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame, by bringing us to someone who died at a good old age, 93 years and 93 tears. We lost Joe Messina. And that's a wrap on the Toronto Mic'd 1236 Memorial Segment brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. And congrats once again. Congrats on your Hall of Fame.

What's it called? You're not nominated. You're in the Hall of Fame. I'm inducted. You know what? I've got to call Ed Conroy tomorrow. We've got to talk about some collaboration stuff. And I don't know, Mike.

We're going to have this conversation without you. Will you feel left out that two members of the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame will be conferring and not let you in on the chat. No man. You're welcome to join us. I love it when FOTMs get together. I think it's beautiful.

I saw you were going to bask in this one tomorrow. David Alter was tweeting yesterday about some pre-game thing some pre-Maple Leaf game thing with Stu Stone. I was like, what? What am I reading here? Stu Stone, David Alter? I love when FOTMs get together.

Was this the first three-hour episode of Toronto Mic'd that I'm going to walk away from satisfied with? Like, am I going to feel like finally, after six years of appearing on the podcast, that I managed a performance that I'm willing to enshrine to the end of time? If God forbid I can't get back here ever again, will I be pleased with the Hall of Fame legacy that I left. Tune in in June. Find out the answers to all that and more.

Thank you, Toronto Mic'd, for the honor, the induction, and the glory that comes with being in the Toronto Mic'd Podcast Hall of Fame. And that brings us to the end of our 1045th show. Shout out to FOTM Rick Hodge. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mic. Mark is at 1236. 1236. Go at 1236. 1236.

Go to 1236.ca. Subscribe to his newsletter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar are at Dewar Performance. These pants feel great. Can't wait to take a photo in my new T-shirt.

Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all next week. Actually, it's 7.30 tonight, but, you know, next week. Yeah, yeah. Plus enough. And they're brokerage stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can