Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #1060

Episode Date: June 2, 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.

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Joining me this week to recap the wild month of May 2022 is FOTM Hall of Famer Mark Weisblatt from 1236. You got it in there. FOTM Hall of Famer. Just to assure you that as the past month progressed, I was more and more flattered by the honor that you bestowed upon me. I was startled to be given that distinction as a friend of Toronto Mike. And now I'm in the Toronto Mike FOTM Hall of Fame alongside Ed Conroy, Retro Ontario. Who I saw on the weekend.

I went to Liberty Village, and right outside the Zoomerplex, he's trying to recreate the magic that was Speaker's Corner. The Vox Box. And they got their first celebrity contribution there from FOTM. Steven Del Duca. Well, I beat him to it. He's a second, I think.

The Zoomerplex and put on Twitter video of himself being approached by a purportedly random young man. and he was startled by the fact that somebody recognized him as I was to be entered into the FOTM Hall of Fame. Like, he couldn't believe it, even though I wasn't quite sure whether or not this kid was a ringer, but he went up to Stephen Del Duca, and said, I see you on CP24 all the time. That'll do it. That'll do it. I love your stuff. I follow your work.

Wow. And after all this Ontario election campaigning here of the past month, two years before, ever since he was elected, the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. I regret to inform you, Michael Boone, that after we record here, it might be the end of the line for Stephen Del Duca. after we record here, it might be the end of the line for Stephen Del Duca, but you always remember him as the one guest on Toronto Mike who came here bringing his own chair. That's correct. And that was like a COVID thing where there was a little bit of concern that somehow you would spread the virus on your lawn furniture.

Is that what was happening here? I understood it was a COVID thing. And yes, he had a handler, if you will, a person with him, and she had a chair for him. So we did not use the TMDS backyard furniture that you're using today. Yeah, I mean, look, it's just fine with me.

I'm thrilled to be out here in the backyard for the first time on a voluntary basis. For the past two summers, there was this whole idea that you weren't going to let people in the house. Even by the end of last summer when we were all double vaccinated, you had a bit of

hesitation. Well, at that point, why do it? Because you can just do it back here. You were holding up a certain standard, but there we spent most of the fall and winter into the spring in your basement, nice to feel free out in the open air. And while we're here in the middle of the afternoon,

we'll be visited by Kareem, your neighbor Kareem. He's more of an evening visitor, I think. He made his podcast debut. What did you think? What did you think? What did you think? I need to know. What did you think of the Stoner episode with Andy Palalas of Canada Cabana, Stu Stone, Canada Kev, and Kareem? What were your thoughts?

Well, my first thought was when Kareem moved into the house next door, little did he know that he was walking into the middle of a sitcom. Quite a cast of characters there. I feel Stu works better in an ensemble setting as you were getting high in the backyard, and I could tell your guests were getting higher and higher by the end there.

It was nonsense. You've got Stu leading the conversation, talking about different types of bongs, right? Like, I've got one made out of, talking about different types of bongs, right? Like, I've got one made out of glass, a different one made out of ceramics. Maybe I was stuck for a smoking apparatus. I had to make one out of aluminum foil. And you threatened, a couple of months ago, you said you were going to become a stoner. You were going to become a Canna Cabana regular.

I beat you to it, buddy. Was that your first time getting high on the mic? The first time on a podcast. Yes, of course, of course. I've got tipsy on the mic, but I've never got high on the mic. And that was, yeah, the first time. First time I've smoked anything, I think, since I was a teenager. Okay.

That's a long time ago. It's a work in progress. You've got Andy from Canna Cabana. He's ready to serve me. CannaCabana.com. Good people. And you notice how Stu has got Canna Cabana now involved in the premiere. I don't know if you'll make an appearance.

You'll tell me in a minute. But the Faking a Murderer is having a premiere at the Review Cinema. I think it's the 22nd. Do you know June 22nd? Anyway, I'm going to be there, and I'm going to get some other FOTMs to come out. It's going to be a fun night. You should come.

As long as I can use my phone in the middle of the screening. Okay, hold on. In case I'm underwhelmed by what I'm seeing on screen. I don't care. I've seen that movie before. I am calling it TMLX 9.5 like it's not an official tmlx event but it's like a 0.5 which is like okay well then i can always uh hang out with you in the lobby but here's where i don't know if i have the attention span for a full fake and a

murder cinematic stew stone even though there are cans of great Lakes beer in that movie. And earlier today, I was at Great Lakes Brewery, and we have locked it down. We've sealed the deal. TMLXX, a.k.a. TMLX10, will be at Great Lakes Brewery from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, September 1st. Let me crack open a Sunnyside IPA here in celebration. What do you got there? Canuck.

Well, I got to work with what you gave me. Well, I gave you one of everything. Well, you got a couple of IPAs. You got a lager and an ale. You covered the gamut there. And you got an octopus there, too. Canuck Pale Ale. In the background before that was a song by Dragonette.

Martina Sorbara and I figured, as we were talking about Stephen Del Duca and the Ontario election because it was her dad, Gregory Sorbara, who held the seat that Stephen Del Duca ended up taking over then lost.

Now he's on track to lose it again. Just promise me that's the end of the election talk. I have no time for election talk today. Okay, well, we had in the past month, as we'll talk about here, the first FOTM podcasting guest to pass away. And on deck here, the first FOTM politician to lose an election in a major way. And hopefully the only one tonight. We'll see. But Blair Packham, this is the jam, the earworm, last of the Red Hot Fools.

And yes, everybody, we have Derringer talk coming, okay? Lots of Derringer talk coming, okay? Lots of Derringer talk coming. But we're going to open with Blair Packham because I think you'll tell me if I'm incorrect, but is Blair Packham the first guest to do a lengthy and pretty damn good Mark Weisblot impression? Not only did Blair Packham do his best to simulate my syntax on the microphone, but it was also a very contentious episode for me

because as the discussion unraveled, increasingly we heard Blair Packham putting me in scenarios that I could not have possibly been into because I wasn't old enough at the time. Okay, so explain. He's listening to me thinking of me as a peer, right? Like a fellow boomer, okay? Blair Packham of the jitters who talked about being in school with Steve Leckie of the Vile Tones.

We learned from Stu Stone that you can't trust the official age of any performer out there. They're always susceptible to changing dates, which is something I certainly understand. But Blair Packham had me in with a generation that it was statistically impossible for me to be a part of. He's telling stories that have me in the background of stuff that was happening when I was in grade school. It would have been impossible for me to be hanging around back then. But over the course of your discussion, I gradually got the sense that I wished I knew Blair Packham at the time. Had he come to my door, introduced himself, taken me under his wing, right?

Like he would be some kind of mentor and introduce me to this great world that he was able to access when he was getting started with the Jitters. But when he had his first music video, the one where he was dressed up as Boy George, Michael Jackson, and ZZ Top. I mean, I was in junior high watching this video on Toronto Rocks. I wasn't living that far away from downtown Toronto, but we were a world apart. So that's where I took issue with Blair Packham describing me. So I pulled the clip. Total Gen Xer as hanging around on Queen Street West,

U of T radio station with a generation that's older than mine. Not only would Paken and Landsberg have been at the CIUT at that time, but also Andrew Crystal. I got a great story, but I can't put it on the air, but about Andrew Crystal and Blair Packham crossing paths at U of T Radio. But so obviously... Yeah, it wasn't even CIUT at the time. It didn't have the FM license, if anything went by.

Was it like closed circuit? Yeah, closed circuit. Maybe it't have the FM license, if anything went by. Was it like closed circuit? Yeah, closed circuit. Maybe it was on cable FM radio and if it had call letters at all they were CJUT. Okay, but I pulled a clip. Not CIUT. I went above and beyond and I pulled a clip. I pulled a few different clips. You made

this much effort. But this is a couple of minutes, but it's worth it. When it's Blair making fun of me. Because I think there might be, in fact, I know there will be listeners of your monthly appearance here, first Thursday of every month, who did not hear the Blair Packham visit from a couple of Fridays ago. By the way, fantastic episode with Blair Packham. Hell of a return. I got handed to Blair, who showed up in your backyard.

It was Pete Fowler who introduced you? Sergeant Pete Fowler? Yes, the first time was in the backyard. And yes, it was Pete Fowler who introduced us. And Blair Packham comes over, figures he's going to do a pretty standard podcasting interview, talk about his life and career, where he's been, immediately peeved by the fact that here's Toronto Mike in the tradition of Gino Vannelli refusing to get off black cars,

harping on the legacy of Blair Packham's biggest hit, the jitter song, Last of the Red Hot Fools. And would you say that he was irritable about the fact that you were asking him all these questions about this single song from no, no, no, 35 years ago when he wanted to talk about everything he's done since. I don't think he loved career.

I don't think he loved my, uh, many comparisons, uh, to Doug and the slugs. And also of course, Huey Lewis in the news. Like I went hard on that.

If you notice, I pulled a song from each band, and to my ears they sound very, very, very similar. But as he said in his return a couple of weeks ago, it does sound similar. But anyway, can I play this clip and then we'll come back to Blair? Blair Packham goes back

home processing the experience that he has and realizes through the Toronto Mic'd podcast. There's an entire universe out there that he has never discovered before, right? And so listening episode after episode after episode, suddenly he's plugging in to the narratives and the storyline being created here around Toronto Mic'd. And he comes back here a fully literate FOTF, right? He knows all the inside references.

Same thing happened to Paken, by the way. Same thing happened to Paken. And it happens more often than you think, where people aren't familiar with the show. They come on, they dig the vibe, and then they go listen to something else, and then they're hooked. And that's how we get to the point where Blair Packham feels that he has the freedom to go in on me.

Yeah, that's right. Do you or Mark Weisblatt, who actually is not a fan, I don't think. That's the thing that got me hooked on the podcast. Okay, yeah, that's where I was going. So, yeah, tell me this story. Okay, so I listened back to the episode you and I did, which I loved. And, of course, what's second best to talking about yourself for 90 minutes? It's listening to yourself talk about yourself for 90 minutes.

So I did that. And then I had to listen to another episode where Mark talked about my episode. Yeah, it's pretty meta, right? Yeah. Because WiseBot will review episodes that stuck out to him during the previous month. So he said, you know, I mean,

why would anybody... He's going to hate me for doing this. He's going to now review me doing that and he'll hate me. Yeah, and it'll keep going. The cycle continues. Yeah, Mark, I don't know you. I mean, I think we've met maybe over the years, but honestly, I love listening to his visits with you. I really do.

All three hours. Yeah, well, and I do. I'll be doing laundry and stuff around the house, and I'll listen, and sometimes he says something that pisses me off, and other times, like most of the time, I'm agreeing with him. But I do think it's funny that you, as the host,

recede into the background. And he'll do the wrap-up and everything, and you'll be sort of trying to jump in and say, Because I don't want to talk over him. No, how could you? How could you possibly? So anyway, he said, now why anyone would think that the jitters were a commercial prop,

that they could make money off of the jitters, even back then they were unfashionable. That's a pretty good wise buy. Thank you. Yeah, I thought so too. I think he's right. Like, I think he's right. I don't argue with that.

Like, we weren't. We were not New Order. We were not U2. We were not, you know, the bands that had that guy singing. To me, they all sounded the same at the time. Blair Packham converted to Toronto Mike. He's an FOTM. He converted to believing what I had to say about him

in our tradition of reviewing the reviewers, going over the recent episodes of Toronto Mike, of reviewing the reviewers, going over the recent episodes of Toronto Mic'd, and always doing our part to let everybody know how I felt about some of your deep dives. So the latest one with Blair Packham. He's right. I do recede into the background. I got a lot out of this one,

including learning the fact that he was what? The recording engineer on REM concert at Larry's Hideaway in the summer of 1983. And this is a jam from that recording, right? And unlike Blair's perception of how old I am and where I'd been, I would have been sequestered at sleepover camp at the time that this summer 1983 REM concert was going down.

But I wish I could have been there. All I had were my REM cassettes out in the wilderness. And this was really the only thing I cared about. I went back and listened to Larry's Hideaway recording, the reissue that was part of the Murmur anniversary edition, and I didn't even realize this song was played by R.E.M. that night because this is an R.E.M. song. How literate, Mike, did you ever get in the R.E.M. album catalog?

This would have been on the subsequent album, Reckoning. But they were already playing it on the road in 1983. And Blair Packham was there. But I was not. That's where I got on the bat phone. I had to intercede over the fact that this guy, who's at least a dozen years older than me

is telling stories, characterizing me as like a background player on the scene. I could acknowledge that he would have recognized my name, that he would have known the music articles that I was writing in

iWeekly through the 1990s. It might have registered there. It tells you a lot, though, right? Because when you're out there doing this thing, you figure that your name attached to something that you're saying, that it's registering with people, that they can remember the words that came out of your mouth or something you put down on paper or on the screen. But nobody's brain works that way. Except maybe mine.

With that degree of retention. So the fact that Blair Packham knew who I am. That was maybe no surprise. Maybe the fact that I was part of CIUT. When it had an FM license. Late 1980s. early 1990s. Maybe he remembered me from back then, but here's where Blair and I are cosmically connected because he talked about being the son of a broadcasting executive who came to the U of T radio station as a teenager, like a young teenager.

What did he say? 13, 14 years old? Maybe 15. 15, 9th, 10th grade. How he was doing his Saturday shift on the closed circuit station. Maybe not being listened to by anyone at all, but thrilled to be playing radio, being that boy DJ on the closed-circuit airwaves, and then running into another kid named Kevin Nelson,

whose father was still on the radio in Toronto in the morning, Jungle J of 1050 Trump. You know, Kevin Nelson went on to do real radio. He was a morning guy for a long time in Ottawa. And also, tragically, like his father, he passed away at a young age. And there is part of the story of the University of Toronto radio station, which indeed I spent time with. But by that point in time, it was 15,000 watts on the FM dial. I must have been speaking to somebody,

an audience that would have included Blair Packham. As for the jitters in reconsidering the music that they made and the legacy they left, the connection with REM, I think, goes a bit deeper because it got me also thinking about the producers of those early REM albums. It was two guys, Mitch Easter at a group called Let's Active and the other producer, Don Dixon, who was also a singer-songwriter.

I think that's the guy Blair Packham was ripping off. There are two of you? Look up the song Praying Mantis by Don Dixon. I think that is what Blair Packham was going for. He can correct me if I'm wrong. He saw himself in the light of those critically acclaimed REM associates. And here we are, three or four decades later, comes over to Toronto Mike's house.

This guy in the basement's comparing his life's work to Huey Lewis in the news. Finally, I understood where you might have let Blair pack him down. To be continued, because we've got a lot to talk about here regarding Q107. Do you recognize the relevance of this song, Mike, and where it comes from? Do you know who's playing? I do recognize it now.

I know it's Joe Satriani. Shout out to my buddy Joe, who is a big Joe Satriani fan. So this would be somehow one of Derringer's theme songs? Tell me. Yes, Surfing with the Alien by Joe Satriani, which I remember in the late 1980s was a theme song of the 6 o'clock rock report on Q107. At least in the era when the co-host happened to be a guy named John Derringer. Made a lot of news this past month that I guess, despite my protestations,

we can't avoid talking about here. It is the biggest story in Toronto media from May 2022. How could you ignore it? But do you think it will have legs that go through June? Do you think this is something that's going to linger, that people are going to give a lot of thought about, that the implications and ramifications of Jennifer Valentine posting this video on Victoria Day weekend. I mean, do you think that once we get into the summer, like this is going to be a thing that's remembered forever?

Absolutely. Now, listen, Mark, I'm going to give it a bit of context here because, you know, this is a serious operation. So Jennifer Valentine dropped her video on like a Saturday of a long weekend, the May 2-4, Victoria Day long weekend. And a month before that, Jackie Delaney came on Toronto Mic'd and Jackie said this. Did you work closely with any of the Q107 legends we've known

from the several decades? We talked about Andy Frost, who's no longer there, but 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. Okay. 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? Like, cause John is a,

and I've never had him on the show, but I have asked him on the show and he's politely declined, but, uh, 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 so to my knowledge that's the first time now i've been asking you know co-hosts of john derringer be it uh you know calling rush home or uh maureen holloway i've been asking them about you know working with john derringer for a decade now and this jackie delaney clip my knowledge, is the first time something like that was put in public, at least, I mean, excluding maybe what you'd read in Frank magazine back in the day, because I've seen those excerpts and stuff. But then on Saturday, the Saturday of the

long weekend, so this is a couple of Saturdays ago, just to give it context, and then I want to hear your thoughts. Jennifer Valentine dropped a video. I won't play the whole thing because it's very long, but you know how to find it.. Jennifer Valentine dropped a video. I won't play the whole thing because it's very long, but you know how to find it. You've probably heard it already. Here's the first two minutes. What would you do if a coworker screamed at you, belittled you, called you names,

shut you out, brought you to tears, and then laughed when he told you to cry all you want, that he didn't feel one bit sorry for you, and let you know with utter conviction that if you went to HR, they would choose him. All this while three other men watched uncomfortably, yet supported him because they knew what would happen to them if they went against him. You see, they had witnessed the same scenario many times before, but no one found it necessary to warn you about it before you accepted the job. Would you take a dream job working as a radio host if you knew you would be working with a co-host with accusations of prior abusive behavior

towards women, and that you would also be exposed to two, sometimes three men vaping in an enclosed room for four hours a day with no ventilation. Would you complain about it? Would you complain about it if you knew that women before you were moved from that room, eliminated because they spoke up? Would you complain knowing they would choose to support the man no matter what issues were brought forward and it would put your job in jeopardy?

Because history had proved that. What would you do? My name is Jennifer Valentine and I have spent most of my life in the television broadcasting field. I basically grew up working on a popular morning TV show, and I have had some amazing experiences unearthing community stories, sometimes interviewing celebrities, highlighting incredible charities, and striving to make a difference in my small part of the world.

My whole life, I have always been an optimistic, can-do person the world. My whole life, I have always been an optimistic, can-do person. But like anything in life, there are good times and there are not so good times. Times you don't talk about because as a woman, you want to keep your job. You want to work again. You don't want to be known as a troublemaker. But sometimes enough is enough. So there's a little context that happened again on the Saturday of the long weekend. And then Mark Weisblatt, what happened next? Oh, well, I went to torontomike.com where I read a gradually evolving blog post collecting the allegations against John Derringer. And we went

through one of those cycles there on a long holiday weekend where people start wondering is there some kind of media blackout here? Are people not wanting to pay attention to this video that's been posted here?

This developing story? As if people aren't accessing something posted on Facebook in even greater numbers than an article, especially a paywalled article, that shows up on a website of a newspaper, right? But I guess, you know, here we are, especially the Gen Xers, one foot in the old media, one foot in the new, right? especially the Gen Xers, one foot in the old media, one foot in the new, right? Psychologically, it's this whole idea, which has got to go away.

We've got to move on from this at some point in time. That even though I've been able to digest all this information and find out everything I wanted to about the situation at hand, it is somehow being suppressed from the attention of other people. How do you feel about this whole cycle that we go through, Mike, when it comes to stories like this one? I mean, especially on a long weekend, right? Like there was the possibility of this thing getting more coverage as we got into Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ashley Habnall talked a little bit about that. Some more of the stories that came out as a result of people doing interviews, probing this a little bit further. But the whole idea that there instantaneously has to be breaking news, wire service update. Let Jennifer Valentine have that moment and what she had to say. That was a compelling enough video, right? Does there need to be some sort of follow-up? Mark, the fact is Toronto Mike, and I'm speaking of myself in the third person now. That's where I'm at these days.

But Toronto Mike is far more nimble and can react far quicker than the mainstream media that we're referring to. It takes a little time for these big... You can't just turn around a giant boat like that. The reaction people were really waiting for was chorus entertainment to respond somehow to their flagship Toronto radio morning man. Yes, his page had not their flagship Toronto radio morning man. Yes, his page had not yet been removed from the website.

Would Derringer in the morning live to broadcast another day? Would he go on the air and try and make amends somehow, even though that would have been breaking the format, the whole concept of what he was doing on the radio the last few years. I could not possibly imagine. Of course, it made sense for them to say that his show is on hiatus. You got to make sure the legal language is correct there while the whole situation is investigated. legal language is correct there while the whole situation is investigated, but it definitely got a lot of people tripping down memory lane and wondering about how Derringer, John Derringer, real name John Hayes,

ended up being the voice of Q107, how he ended up in this position, how this legacy was solidified, that he was a voice of the station in the course of these allegations, that he essentially ran the whole place himself, right? Like it was him who decided who got to be his co-host on the air. It was him who called the shots, even if there was someone else who held the title of being his boss. That was a gist of what Jennifer Valentine was saying, right? She was powerless beyond just being annoyed with him. There was no recourse, right?

Human resource department, whatever. Nothing she could do about it there. Now, subsequently, though, I will point out, I, we, the royal we, we've heard from Maureen Holloway and Colleen Rusholm and Andrea Ruse just to name three others who have gone

public with very similar stories. So I will point out it's not just Jackie Delaney and Jennifer Valentine. That's five women right there. And there are more who have not gone public. And I've spoken to more women who basically have asked me to not go public, but they wanted me to know their story.

When I first caught on to Q107, early to mid-1980s, you would hear bits like Bob Mackiewicz. Bob Mackiewicz Sr. He'd be doing his street beat segments. And this song by the Gang of Four was like his theme song. This is a lot different from the marketing of Q107 in the 21st century of classic rock.

You would not hear this Gang of Four song on Q107 today. We talked about this many times. I was a big Q107 guy for periods of the mid to late 80s. Maybe leaking until grunge hits, basically. Maybe I was dabbling with Q. Today, I feel like Q107 has

been boomified. It really does feel like boom came on the scene, started to eat their lunch, and then the playlist on cue kind of morphed a little bit to include some of the boom songs. Yeah, yeah. Not much acknowledgement of the vast

legacy of the radio station, aside from the fact that John Derringer first showed up there in 1984. He was an apprentice. He had an older brother who was in radio. Bill Hayes, FOTM, Bill Hayes. Sweetheart. Did some other gigs, worked his way up the ladder of markets around the country,

came back to Toronto, got to be part of Q107 in Evening's Afternoon Drive. Rockin' John Derringer. And where I first discovered him, specifically on the 6 o'clock Rock Report, which was like a foreground show. And in the process, these guys had access to information. You weren't going to find this any other way. They were getting this same-day rock and roll news.

Like rapid facts. Hot off the wire. Yeah, contacts everywhere. Whether it was press releases from record companies or work in the phones. You could listen at 6 p.m. on Q&A 7. You could find out all kinds of stuff you wouldn't hear about any other way. They would introduce new records, stuff that would make the playlist, stuff you'd never hear again.

I remember them doing a phone-in segment where it was Derringer and Makowitz. They were talking about the Smiths who would become a big deal on CFNY, and they were adjudicating the music of Morrissey and saying, are we missing anything here by not playing this music? Phone in, have a discussion. Tell us about it. This is one of those early times when I got on Q107 on the radio. I would have already been around CIUT at that point in time,

but it wasn't beneath me. It wasn't off-brand calling Q107. If I was hearing something that outraged me, in this case, it was Steve Ward and John Derringer. They were going through some kind of list. Ward and John Derringer, they were going through some kind of list. Rolling Stone magazine top

100, 500, 1,000 singles of all time. And they were bewildered by the placement of the message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I mean, they were just dragging

rap and everything that it represented. I mean, Mike, you were a teenager at the time. You could imagine on the rock and roll station that they would have no problem undermining what this music meant. To them, it was a fraud. It was a farce. It was a joke, right? They called it rap crap, I think was the term. Something that sounds like this couldn't be critically taken seriously as music at all. There I am in high school.

I was 16, 17 years old. I had to get on the air about how ridiculous these guys were sounding in not understanding the relevance of Grandmaster Flash and how something like this could be considered a legendary song. At the time, just a few years after it came out. And they heard what I had to say. Like, they put me on the air we had i don't know six seven eight minute discussion you could you could have imagined how that went where i was

i i was laying into these guys and and we had it out happened on q and a seven over the over the toronto airwaves like this is this is what this is what radio meant at the time. And there were people on there, including John Derringer, who considered this an intriguing enough approach to radio. Like, it was an honor to be taken seriously by these people at all. And they gave me the airtime to talk about it. I don't know if I was the best person in Toronto to be explaining hip-hop. Probably not.

These 30-something white men. I don't know. I think I did a pretty fine job. I mean, I'm the one who made it a priority in my life. You're no Farley Flex. I got respect for what I had to say. Okay, but Mark, Mark, just to bring us back here. I'm not saying it was entirely articulate, but look, somebody had to do it.

I had to step in and again, props at the time to this guy, John Derringer. I think he heard there was this whiny guy on the phone. He's very passionate about all of this. Let's put him on the air. So that was perhaps the first time I talked at any length to John Derringer. I met him before. I won a contest at Q107. They let me go into some kind of storage closet.

They were throwing out a whole bunch of 45s. I won a prize. If this was a prize at all, just salvage all the singles that nobody else wanted before they ended up in... Sure, but Q's been a big station for over 40 years. But what happened on the Tuesday following the long weekend? Obviously, people tuned in to hear,

would John Derenge be on the air? I knew there was no chance he'd be on the air. And of course, he wasn't on the air. They had a replacement. Dan Chan was doing the show. Are you sure you knew there was no chance he'd be on the air, and of course he wasn't on the air. They had a replacement. Dan Chen was doing the show. Are you sure you knew there was no chance? I tuned to that morning. I was talking to Humble and Fred the day before because they had a big Tuesday

show planned with Jackie Delaney, and we can talk about that in a bit. But they both said they were 100% sure that John Derringer would not be on the air, and they did a good job of convincing me. And then there's Dan Chen, and he's one of the newer weekend fill-in guys there.

He's working for seven different chorus radio stations at once doing voice tracks. Well, I mean, you're listening to like a broadcast from the Soviet Union, right? Like this thing is completely somber. He's not going to acknowledge the situation. Why he's filling in what he's not gonna acknowledge no no no no but the

website was scrubbed right the website was scrubbed and that's par for they put out a release because i actually reached out to chorus pr because i had that entry the allegations against john release i would call it a response to media inquiries it was it was not it was i got the same one on their corporate website but it wasn't put on Facebook and Twitter. Like the typical Q107 listener, they would not necessarily have known what was happening. You're right, until they Googled it. And when they Googled it, they would end up on my site

because it was the, it might still be, but it was at the time before the MSM picked it up. It was the place to go to find out what everybody was saying about John Derringer. And that's why I reached out to Chorus PR and asked them for a statement, which I could put on that page. Yeah, you even got a link in the 1236 newsletter.

And the Toronto Sun with Liz Braun. And subsequently, Liz and I chatted, and Liz is coming over for an episode of Toronto Mike. Okay. How do you feel about your role, Toronto Mike, in these controversies when they emerge? Do you feel you have a responsibility here? Yes. Let me tell you.

I had a moment on, I don't know, after the Jennifer Ballantyne thing came out. I already had the Jackie Delaney quote. It was on my show. And then suddenly there were more statements from Maureen Holloway and Andrea Ruse. And then eventually with Humble and Fred getting permission from Colleen Rusholm to make a statement on her behalf. So all this was happening. And I guess on the weekend, I felt like if I don't do this, who will?

Like that sounds pretty damn fucking arrogant when I hear myself say it out loud. But really, like, who else was going to put all this together and publish a page with, like, the allegations against John Derringer? Because this is a significant Toronto radio story. And I, for better or worse, I have a reputation as a guy you would go to for Toronto Radio Stories. I have conversations with these people. I mentioned I had invited John Derringer on Toronto Mic'd several times over the past decade. And he always politely declined. It was always a nice exchange where he just said, not now, maybe one day kind of deal.

Clearly, maybe we have some kind of insight into why he was not interested in the real talk here. But I always liked John Derringer. I would consider myself a fan of him because I like these big Toronto radio legends. And I felt like I should write something on TorontoMic.com

because that's what I do. And if you read what I wrote and read it very carefully, I don't make any editorialized commentary. I don't say it very carefully, I don't make any editorialized commentary. I don't say anything such as, I don't go like saying, John Derringer's an asshole. He fucking sucks. I hope he's fired.

I make no such claims at all. All I do is link out to what the woman was saying. And then I post the chorus statement. It's just me quoting other people's pieces. So I felt like I should put that page together. Then Reddit picked it up and a bunch of other places. And then Jennifer, I got notes from many of the women involved thanking me for the piece. And I got phone calls from women who haven't gone public thanking me for the piece. And I will just say, I don't know if this is where you were going, but there's a former Toronto radio show host who took umbrage with my involvement in this story. And I then,

I will say this gentleman who's been bullying me and harassing me for years for no reason at all. He invents things and then goes at me for no good reason. I think maybe, possibly, my allegation would be that he might be a sociopath. I don't know. But he, this person I'm referring to, makes it very, very difficult for me to be an ally for the woman who I've been abused by

Derringer and others through these years. That's all I'm going to say about that. About Dean Blundell? Yes. He's making I'm going to say about that. About Dean Blundell. Yes. He's making it difficult for you how? First of all, who's listening to

his online radio show? I see a lot of fake followers. You sound like Freddie P. I had conversations with Brother Bill. I see a spammy website that he attaches his name to. He's got a whole podcasting network. I'm not sure what the appeal is,

what he's selling all these people on. I haven't been able to find any explanation about who's backing him. Well, what's particularly gross. Who's invested in Dean Blundell as some kind of digital media guru. Here, I got a clip. Must be somebody out there. What's particularly disturbing to me,

gross even, is when I hear that Maureen Holloway is launching a podcast with Wendy Mesley, which is good for them. They should have a voice and have a podcast. And then I hear it's on the Dean Blundell Network. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's happening there?

We got to get to work. We got to fix that one. Maureen Holloway, who's booked on Toronto Mic'd in mid-June. She's coming up in a couple of weeks now with Wendy Mesley. She's aligned her brand with Dean Blundell's. So essentially, after going public about her own experience

with the bullying of John Derringer. Right. She's in bed. She's jumping in bed with Dean. She's associating herself with somebody based on his latest comments. Do you want to hear them? A personality that I would think we would want to steer clear of. And we're stepping on some thorns here, Mike, by bringing Dean Wendell into the conversation.

Well, let me play it. Let me play it, and then I'll just make a very succinct statement, and then we'll move on. Okay, let's go. Dean Blundell. And I'll also say this, that a lot of the people that have come forward to dunk on this individual who has since been fired as of this morning, that show does not exist. Is that official? Official. That his show does not exist. A lot of fucking losers are coming out to dunk on him right now.

Like this asshole Toronto Mike. He is the biggest piece of shit on this planet. He is a radio jock sniffing piece of shit who is using like legitimate terror of individuals on all sides of this to up his profile. Stay away from him. He's human fucking garbage. So fucking unfair. I don't know what he's talking about, and that's why it's difficult to be an ally.

Let's talk about optics and the fact that because of the attention that this story has received, it reached a lot of people who haven't really given a lot of thought to John Derringer and Q107, but given the fact that he goes back now close to 40 years as a voice in the Toronto market. Of course, at one point he left for Showman, Montreal, and five years on the fan 590,

but mostly synonymous with Q107. He might have been the whatever happened to file for a lot of people who've moved on, listening to other radio stations. There are no radio stations at all, but it was a reminder that he was still around. And I think as far as chorus entertainment is concerned, part of what they have to try and keep a lid on here is the perception that John Derringer was doing some

kind of shock jock radio show because it was anything but right like so you hear these allegations from Jennifer Valentine and maybe maybe you could draw the conclusion that essentially the kind of morning radio that Derringer was doing to this day was like I don't know a bunch of guys in a room sitting around talking about like strategies, strategies to take the best dick pic. Or, you know, which interns have been hanging around the radio station that we wanted to bang. Or, you know, what's the best food to eat to accomplish a certain degree of sonic flatulence. accomplish a certain degree of sonic flatulence. These are the kinds of topics you would have associated with a typical Howard Stern impersonator,

and John Derringer over the past 20 years has very much moved away from doing that type of radio. I mean, Mike, you were not much of a listener, but if you were tuned into Derringer in the morning, I don't know what kind of segments you would hear. Tool of the day. Sidekicks. No, he got rid of tool of the day, too.

So you Google back in time, and there were stories out there of Derringer getting in trouble, lawsuits being launched against him for him crossing a libelous line when it came, talking about certain people, they eliminated that stuff entirely from his radio broadcast. These are just people sitting around, I don't know, reading these listicles they find off the internet. I don't know, you know, what breakfast cereals do you remember your mom buying for you in the 1970s? Right.

Now, hey, let's go over this list of cars that were popular back in the 80s and 90s. Yeah, favorite sports movies, whatever. And him in there with Ryan Parker, the kid, and Flare Boy. I learned along the way, John Garbutt, Ryan Parker, the two John Derringer guys, they went back a long way, like they were friends in high school. So I think that enhances the drama around here, that not only were they in a position where they were protecting John Derringer against any of these accusations, but the fact they were reliant upon one another for the roles that they had as his sidekicks on the show. Now, very strategic move on Derringer's part to keep his programming from being permeated by any outsiders who may not agree with his idea of how to do things. Then these stories start coming out one after another,

not entirely new because some of them were published 20 years ago in an item in Frank Magazine. They were corroborated with allegations from a woman who was John Derringer's co-host in Montreal. Peppermint Patty or something? As this information comes out, Peppermint Patty was her name. I've heard, yes. If that is her real name.

Right. You start to realize that he was just better off doing radio with these two guys around, and the whole idea of a woman as a co-host, as a sidekick, was no longer all that necessary given the experience that they had there with Jennifer Valentine, which on a recent episode of Toronto Mic, we talked about how Jennifer Valentine, who had been unceremoniously dumped from breakfast television, remember that? It was on an April Fool's Day.

Right. I had Kevin Frankish back here talking about what really went down there. People thought it was some kind of joke, and Derringer teed up the idea of getting this new woman to co-host with him. It was the most exciting event in the history of Q107. I remember you were predicting the announcement was that the Rolling Stones were going to play the Elmo. Listen, it was just a way of trying to make it sound more interesting than it was.

The only big announcement by a morning show host in this city lately that can compete with that is the Roz Weston announcement that he's writing a book about Roz Weston. And leaving Entertainment Tonight Canada. Yeah, he's got to leave Entertainment Tonight to focus on writing that memoir. Okay, but you're digressing here. So we hear the story how these different women all talk about having bad experiences with John Derger and in the case of Maureen Holloway, the real talk starts coming out. Things she could not talk about when she was on Toronto Mike. You'll have her back. Do you know why she didn't want to disclose this stuff on the mic here when she was talking about how she had a pretty amiable relationship there at Q107?

How she was doing these bits, the last word, doing them syndicated, all kinds of morning shows across Canada. Derringer took a shine to her, wanted her on the air more and more, eventually positioned her as Derringer's co-host, Derringer in the morning with Maureen Holloway. Could it be, as she explains the situation, that she did complain about the treatment in the workplace. I guess, would you categorize these allegations as bullying?

I mean, it's just a guy getting angry, going off, right? Like, losing his temper. Aggressive workplace bullying, maybe, is how I might describe it. The best advice for anyone collaborating with other people professionally is don't yell at people, right? Like, don't fly off the, right? Like don't, don't fly off the handle. Don't start screaming. But,

uh, this was, this was the situation in which, in which Maureen Holloway had entered. She had been around radio for a real long time. I was a Mo fan going back to the mid 1980s. As I've, I've talked about here.

I've been following her career from one radio station to another. It seemed like a career pinnacle for her to be alongside Derringer. How she explained it in interviews after the fact in the past couple weeks after the Jennifer Valentine video came out was the fact that her time working on the show sounded like living hell. When she complained to management about the situation, they tried to cushion it by offering her more money. More money.

And she's able to brag to this day. She was the highest paid sidekick on all of Canadian radio. But eventually they offered her a good six-figure chunk of money and also the afternoon drive show. Yeah, that came on the second round of complaints where she described it as a situation she wanted to extricate herself from and maybe was a bit of an awkward fit because, as she explained, she was not a jock.

She wasn't the DJ. She was on there with another FOTM. John Scholes. And he was the one who did the back sell on the records that Maureen Holloway would do for bits. But! She can't avoid acknowledging the fact when it came to putting up appearances

and the way Derringer Morning Show with Maureen Holloway was a cash cow for chorus. It was successful at bringing them more of a female listenership. I mean, once again, the public perception of Q107 would have been people who weren't listeners. I'm not listening to a heavy metal station. I don't want to hear Ozzy and Motorhead and Iron Maiden at 7.30 in the morning, right? I mean, in order to make this thing viable in the 21st century,

they had to position it away from that image, and you could tell that Maureen Holloway was a part of how they were doing that. Now, she's a pro, and you can find all the videos out there and the stories and the pictures from that era. She looked like she was having a pretty good time. Sure. The red light's on. And suddenly we hear that that wasn't always like that behind the scenes.

She ended up exiting that situation. It sounded like for her it was the best opportunity possible, including the fact that came with a fatter paycheck and more opportunities. Eventually, she got to 98.1 CHFI. And Derringer was in a situation where he did not have a female co-host at all. When they announced Jennifer Valentine, you can still read

the press announcement out there from the time. It was Program Director Blair Bartram. Now works at CHFI. The producer of the Pooja and Gurdip Morning Show. And he quoted a saying in there, and this is the way these radio executives think. Our female demographic, the listenership went down. The station is skewing to male.

We need to get our numbers up. We needed to find an Elaine to our Seinfeld. I would not compare the rhetoric delivered by John Derringer as being aligned with stand-up comedy, one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. But hey, whatever floats your boat. And the fact that the Derringer diatribes had mostly become drivel, this inoffensive dialogue that he was doing every morning there, I wouldn't say that it was something that I was disturbed by.

I mean, I knew it was going on, and it was just something that I didn't need to listen to. As a fan of radio, there was nothing in it for me. In all these years of doing these 1236 episodes of Toronto Mike, when did anything John Derringer ever talk about on the air ever come up? It was a sound of white noise. It was totally meaningless. And this was a contradiction of the previous decade.

At one point, he had Ty Domi launching a lawsuit against him because he went to a tirade on the air about how Ty Domi was charging money for charitable appearances. I don't know how that one was settled. And then, around the year 2003, him and Corris, they were sued for big bucks by a judge because Derringer went off on him on the air about he was giving lenient sentences in cases of abuse. He was a judge sentencing people to periods of time that John Derringer on the radio thought was ridiculous. on the radio thought was ridiculous, and it was a cause that he had taken on,

got him enough attention to the point where we find out that a charity got in touch with him based on what he was saying on the air. They knew he was being sued for his comments defending the rights of abuse victims, and they made John Derringer the main spokesman and fundraiser for a charity that was popularly known as Abuse Hurts. Then we get the irony of Kevin Donovan of The Star reporting, and you could tell he delivered this story

with a little bit of glee. Every old-school reporter likes the irony of putting a headline out there, you know, abuse charity parts ways with Toronto radio host John Derringer after allegations of abuse. And the woman running the charity, of course, said she had no idea.

And she said what a lot of people said about this guy. And this is the thing, right? There's this whole idea that we're out here trying to root out the bad men and we possibly found the biggest fish of all. But here's the thing. When it came to his public image, John Derringer was increasingly a saint. He was doing great things for the community out there.

If he was talking about women on the air at all, it wasn't a kind of objectification. It was probably him talking about how he loves his wife and his daughters, his daughter who has autism, the struggles that she's going through. So in public, we moved away from that shock jock image and the whole idea that he was doing dangerous radio on Q107 out to offend people. Essentially, Derringer became the 21st century version of Wally Crowder doing the least offensive radio of all.

I would say at least in his last little while, Roger Ashby on Chum FM had more edge than listening to Derringer on Q107. Maybe this would hurt his feelings. How this relates to your enemy Dean Blundell is the fact that they were working for the same company in two different radio stations at Chorus. They had positioned the wall of men. No other telecom-owned radio company cared about that demographic anymore. Here was a situation with the heritage of Q107 and CFNY

trying to figure out how to do something with AM640, Mojo Radio, right? That like, well, while other companies have given up on the male demographic outside of sports radio stations, that chorus entertainment was capable of delivering the goods for advertisers, a certain kind of radio attitude would live on over there.

And the counterpart to the reinvention of John Derringer when they got Howard Stern out of the way on Q107 was going to be Dean Blundell on 102.1 The Edge. And Dean Blundell is one to talk. And Mike, feel free to weigh in on this one. I don't think the legacy of the Dean Blundell show and his treatment of his colleagues and co-hosts is all that clean. I think there are enough stories going around about this guy.

And on the podcast he did about Derringer, he pretty much admitted it. But he comes at it from the position that that wasn't the real me. I was delusional. I was drunk. I was going through a divorce. The guy who you heard on the air was me playing a character. I was being the guy on the radio who was doing a job that I was hired to do. You know, one time I met Dean Blundell.

For some reason, he found it necessary to let me know that he doesn't actually like the music they play on CFNY. Goes home after the show and he cranks up James Taylor. And I guess he wants to have this more private image, right? Where he's into meditation. I don't know, working on his gardening in the backyard. But what they were projecting over the air in the 2000s on CFNY might have been the most misogynist radio of all. Didn't they have an event called Sausage Fest with Dean Blundell?

So at the same time, you've got this whole bullying culture, which I wouldn't think was particularly kind to women. It also involved the persona of being this morning radio DJ who would bully everybody who came into your path, didn't matter what gender they were. And that legacy seems to be hanging over the head of Dean Blundell. There you go, Mike. I mentioned his name. What do you think? Despite what Dean Blundell said about me in that clip I played, I was not dunking on John

Derringer. I was merely amplifying and sharing stories from a woman. My wish for Dean Blundell, and this is like my final word about him, and then that's it. My wish is that he would leave me the fuck alone. Leave me alone, Dean Blundell. Go pick on somebody else. Humble and Fred play a crucial role in the drama that we're recapping here, partly because they found themselves in a situation about 20 years ago where they were working in

the same building as John Derringer at the time that he was anointed the morning man on Q107. I had some interactions around there at Chorus Entertainment on the invitation of Humble Howard, who initially wanted me to be part of Mojo Radio 640. We can try and dissect his motivations, what exactly he felt he needed me around for. I can say based on a few weeks of trying it out, it didn't end very well. I'm not friends with Humble and Fred,

even though their daily podcast show... Well, they remember things you said to Howard Stern. This is still in their mindset that you said things to Howard Stern about them copying you. Okay, and they forget about all the other stuff, right? Because I also remember a personality who wasn't very skilled at human resources. His name is Humble Howard. And listening to his recent episodes

about John Derringer, I think he's at the point in his life that he admits as much, right? Like, he was talking about at one point the company, Chorus Entertainment, had to send him some kind of anger management therapy for what he was going through.

He owns that, yes. But I was happy to play along with the whole idea that the morning radio dj was some kind of demigod right and here i was this this weasley guy calling in on the radio show you know years after my my my uninvited cameo on q107 i would call in with humble and fred you remember that you remember hearing me on the 100 humble and Fred show? 100%. It would be like before 7 a.m. 100%.

I would hear you on Humble and Fred show. If I called in. And I appreciated it because I knew I wouldn't be on there if Howard didn't want me to. I remember this unique delivery.

If he didn't find that there was something in me that he was willing to align with. You want to know something? When I heard that, and I don't know if I was in university or... You thought, 25 years later I'm going to have a don't know if I was in university or... You thought,

25 years later, I'm going to have a podcast and he's going to be sitting in my backyard. I said, I'm going to give that man three hours a month. Okay.

No, I heard you on Humble and Bread Show because I listened throughout the 90s and I thought, I like this guy's, I like the rap on this guy

and I like how he sounds on the air. True story. Okay, and a little later on, I tried to do a radio show on Talk 640 when they changed the format. That was also a disaster, but it was over pretty

quick. And it was a fun experience. I should disclose, though. Shouldn't I disclose? I guess I don't have to. I'm not Steve Paikin here, but I will disclose that I produced the Humble and Fred show. So what are you saying there about the guys? Because they did a big Tuesday show. Well, I mean, I went through the entire 1990s. I had unfinished business.

I had enough of an opportunity. Maybe I can see something or turn this into something. I don't know that I had the temperament of being a journalist working in an office where I tried to get those opportunities. They eluded me. I figured part of being some kind of freelancer just means getting your name out there. And even though I had this RadioDigest.com

online column where I again was dunking on Humble and Fred, but I was having fun. Of course, I took it very personally. One time Fred Patterson sees me on the sidewalk outside Young and Dundas, tells me to fuck off right to my face. But even a couple years later when they were

launching Mojo, I kept on going back for more. Figured, I have nothing to lose. These guys seem to be into this game. But I had a front row seat at one point in time when they were trying to get this Mojo radio thing underway and they had

moved over from CFNY. Even though they had never done talk radio in their entire lives. I do remember Humble and Fred thinking they were immediately going to conquer this thing. All they'd do was switch from 102.1 to AM640, and all their listeners would move over to the AM dial with them, and we know to this day that didn't work, because their biggest fan of all, Toronto Mike Boone, didn't make the switch, right? Like, you weren't going to start listening to AM radio just because Humble and Fred were on there?

But remember, the replacement on 102.1 was never my cup of tea. He wasn't your cup of tea either. But he was the one who was suddenly going on the air. I mean, this was still the aftermath, the hangover, Woodstock 99, right? So this alternative radio station, which had always been about progressive politics and forward thinking and all kinds of diversity and inclusion, you know, all of a sudden the music on there is Tool, Corn, Limp Bizkit.

I don't know, you fill in the blanks. Dean Blundell was like a voice. A puddle of mud. He was in the blanks. Dean Blundell was like a voice. Puddle of Mud? He was compatible. That's it. Blurry. Here's Blurry by Puddle of Mud. Everything is blurry.

And it was Dean Blundell with a voice that was compatible with that, more so than Humble and Friends. Somehow they were convinced. They convinced themselves that they were too old for this FM radio thing. They would go over to AM radio instead. And I think it was only a matter of days before it sunk into this was maybe not such a great idea. And there, right down the hall, John Derringer,

I guess it was Howard Stern initially at the time, but John Derringer eventually put in this position to do the Q107 morning show. And just imagine Humble and Fred sitting in a studio down the hall talking to nearly no one. I mean, this might as well have been a closed-circuit university radio station. They were broadcasting on, and they missed their shot. They missed their shot of being on Q107.

So I think as I listen to parts of the Humble and Fred podcast, I mean, Toronto Mike, you're the producer of the show. You're aware of what's going on there. I hear every minute of every episode. The draw for a guy like me is to listen to Humble and Fred regretting the mistakes they made over the course of their radio career. So the first thing was leaving CFNY. And I do believe they still could have been on that station.

To this day, they could have retooled the radio station around them. They just went in for this whole new metal thing, right? They wanted the puddle of mud guy to do the morning show, which meant that there was no room for Humble and Freddie anymore. They should have been in there all along. There was also in the 1990s, you hear about Humble and Fred anymore. They should have been in there all along. There was also in the 1990s you'll hear about Humble and Fred getting an offer from Q107 to take over their

distressed morning show, which would have been a situation of Q107 having lost a lot of listeners, CFNY wanting to bring them back. And this would have been in the revolving door of Brother Jake and Jesse and Gene and Stuart Connors. Let's get Humble and Fred in there.

They talk about how they got an offer, and it was the greatest thing that ever happened to them because at that point, the owners of CFNY were able to match that or surpass that, and they were well on their way. They were finally being paid what they felt they were owed, which was big league radio money. Yeah, you know, $200,000 each or something like that. Oh, yeah.

Did you go over them in one episode to the best of your ability? I'm the one who's always prodding you to ask people how much money they made. So in the recent Derringer episodes of Humble and Fat, I'm listening to this absolute fan fiction. Freddie P. Licking Howard's ass about what a great morning man he would have been

on the Q107 morning show. Had this happened, had fate intervened, had Maureen Holloway's whistleblowing send Derringer out of there. I don't know. 2014 and they needed an emergency replacement. If I may. had Maureen Holloway's whistleblowing sent Derringer out of there in, I don't know, 2014, and they needed an emergency replacement.

If I may, if I may. Call on Humble Howard. And I know there's some inherent biases here. But this is in comparison. Whose inherent bias? Mine, yours, or theirs? Mine, mine, because they cut me a check every month, right? So, but I will say in all honesty that that comment

from Freddie P is in comparison to the morning show talents of John Derringer. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. I listen to several thousand hours of radio every single week if that's possible, wouldn't you say Humble Howard Glassman is a better broadcaster

than John Derringer? Yes! Yeah, that's what that comment means. But not for the audience of Q107, right? Derringer's coming at it from a guy who can relate to that blue-collar perspective, a guy who's working for the weekend to get on his motorcycle, a guy who lives or dies by the result of the Leaf game that night. Howard Glassman is not that guy, right? No, I see your point. If he was that guy, I would never have related to him.

So I agree with you and Freddie P. I think Freddie P.'s comment that humble Howard Glassman was the best broadcaster in the building, even though I believe that, and I have an inside source on this, Money Talks, as we know, and the fact is Derringer in this Q107 show was bringing in more dollar bills than Humble and Fred

on CFOI. So this probably explains the preference for John Derringer, but the better broadcaster was, without a doubt, Humble and Fred and Humble Howard Glassman driving that show. Okay, but in a situation where you've got to hang on to the audience

that you have. Right, no, I get your point, too. The only new listeners you're going to get, this was part of the logic of bringing in a Jennifer Valentine. Yeah, he's no Brother James, right? Q107 wanted to take listeners away from Boom 97.3, right, or CHFI, or whatever. So let's bring in Jennifer, a name people know from Breakfast Television,

and suddenly people will sample Q107 before listening to Chum FM, and then they'll hear Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, or maybe I'm Amazed by Paul McCartney, you know, like a very narrow playlist. Sure. You know, far from the legacy of New Wave and heavy metal songs or whatever you would have heard on Q107 before. Once it got to the 21st century, it was 2000. Q107 went classic rock.

Now it's like, what is it? The greatest music of all time, or however they position it there. Maybe stuff from the 2000s, if it's CanCon, Alanis, or Nickelback, but musically speaking. Tragically hip, yeah. It's a very safe-sounding radio station, and I'm not going to argue that it should be anything but. You know, all those years they had

Psychedelic Sunday with Andy Frost, you wouldn't hear a psychedelic song at all. There was no psychedelia played on Psychedelic Sunday. Your song by Elton John is not what they called psychedelic

back in the day. A lot of that late 60s. Barely. At the end, nothing at all. But it didn't matter. It was all about optics. It was all about branding. It was all about presentation.

So you could essentially have what amounted to throwback late 60s, 70s rock radio show if you called it Psychedelic Sunday. The audience was baked in. They were baked while they were listening to the radio station. And there was no need to go too far off brand. It was a whole idea that if somebody was a Q107 listener before, if they got to the 2020s

without finding an alternative, listening to podcasts, some other platform, then maybe we could nurture this audience, do something with it. It got to the point where Q107 in the last couple of years was able to trumpet itself

as the number one radio station in Toronto. Like they put it on billboards and everything. It was a verifiable fact. Through Numeris, they had the most tuning of all. They must have been doing something right. But the on-air presentation, we go through this, it seems like every month

here at Toronto Mic it's not what it used to be when you listen to the DJ segments on a radio show, as I'm always trying to explain to you here, it's extremely disjointed right, it's not like somebody sitting there spinning records and working the phones maybe posting on Facebook, they show up for a shift

I don't know exactly how the delegation of duties is concerned, but it seems to surround the idea that the day's work for the typical work-a-day DJ at Chorus Entertainment is working on seven different radio stations at once. And they're recording these bits, and when

Neil Peart dies, you don't get a breaking news alert because there's no one around. There's no one on mic. It takes an hour to get around to being able to interrupt what's already on the hard drive or the voice tracker or stuff like that.

It's all quite comical for us to snark about on the outside. We've moved on from taking radio like this seriously, but there was enough of an audience that still did. And for a company like Chorus Entertainment, there were still profits to be reaped

as long as you leveraged the technology and you were in a situation where you weren't paying somebody money to do very much at all, except just these voice tracks in between records simulate this idea of being a DJ from before. Derringer was protected, though, in the sense that he was worth something

as a live, morning, morning Toronto only radio DJ. I mean, there is systemic, as I connect these dots, you know, and again, I've been getting these calls from Deep Throat telling me lots of things, some of which I can publicize and some I can't.

And I'm connecting these dots. I feel like I'm a Lester Freeman in The Wire and I've got these photos and I'm drawing on the blackboard and I'm connecting these things. There's systemic protection here. Like, you know, starting from the top in the executives at Chorus, this protection of John Derringer and this, you know,

discarding and taking care of any woman who speak up, you know, this is what I think is the big story that's coming up. Like, yeah, John Derringer, it's easy to part ways. We'll never hear his voice on Q107 again. But like, what about these executives who protected him and empowered him and allowed this to become the culture at Chorus for so many years? And it's Humble and Fred take a very specific personal interest seeing these people offered up for a sacrifice under the circumstances.

And yes, the fact that they would employ different kind of strategies around the fact there was a woman complaining that she was being bullied by John Derringer. Again, it was Maureen Holloway who was emphasized multiple times in multiple ways that this wasn't specifically a thing that he directed at women, This wasn't specifically a thing that he directed at women, that she alleges she saw the same behavior towards the guys who were in the studio there. But it seemed like being John Derringer's female co-host was a specific role that they had to fill. And obviously, if you've got some kind of control freak behavior that's being alleged here, try to be careful in what I say and how I say it. I don't want you to have to get your lawyer, Ron Davis, on the line. I've got two now. That it was, who? You got a second lawyer now?

Lorne Honickman. Oh, of course. Shout out to Ron Davis. And yes, people, there are two lawyers on speed dial here at TMDS so it's not a good look if it's a woman who's complaining about this stuff

relative to if if the co-host was a guy especially the ones who have been in the studio with John Derger for all these years and at one point they put his own brother in the morning show with him to be like a newsman, sidekick, Bill Hayes. Yeah, FOTM Bill Hayes.

I thought that was an interesting experiment. Right, well, when CFNY hired the siblings, you came on this program. And again, everyone, the first Thursday of every month is Mike Wise back. But you were here to be like, no, that's not true. Your own company had a sibling morningjo at one point in time. So, Mark, where are we at? Like, what's next? You know, because there's another, you mentioned Mojo Radio a couple of times.

There's somebody else I want to talk to before the, I want to talk about before the. The hell if I know, Mike. Look, it was time to move on anyway. Okay. What the hell if I know, Mike? Look, it was time to move on anyway, okay? Like, John Derringer had signed a 10-year contract, and in their discussion of the gamesmanship about how they walked away from Chorus Entertainment,

ended up at Mix 99.9, a radio station where they were treated even worse. Humble and Fred say that Chorus was in a situation where they realized that there was competition out there. You better lock these guys down, right? Dean Blundell, John Derringer, they got signed to long-term contracts. Five and then a 10-year deal for Derringer to be on 2010 to 2020. Maybe the pandemic was a factor and realizing that he could pretty much work from home, he might have been doing that before anyhow, that it was easy enough for him to coast along.

And look, why not do it if you're getting paid $2,000 or $3,000 for every segment you do about what breakfast cereals you remember your mom serving you as a kid? Pretty lucrative work, right? But it's a lot different from what podcasting represents, and it's catering to an entirely different audience now. And it was overdue for this style of radio to adapt, so maybe Q&A 7 Morning Show can carry on with Dan Chen doing this Soviet

Union style broadcast in the morning. He soberly announces the time and temperature and who won the game last night. You're only as good as your call letters. I mean, Q107 is the star, right? The logo. And this is a good opportunity for me to promote episode 171.

1,000 and 71. 1,071. Forgot to carry the one. 1,071. 1,071. Forgot to carry the 1. 1,071 of Toronto Mike, which will be all about CILQ, Q107. I would not predict

the legacy of John Derringer is replaced in the near term with something designed to draw a lot of publicity to Q107. Maybe it's a chance for Chorus to retool what it is doing in the Toronto market with an old rock radio station, a new rock radio station, and they got Y108 from Hamilton.

And then we've got another factor involved here, which is the prospect of Chorus Entertainment being broken up altogether. And Rogers moving in. We're going by FOTM Bob Ouellette. Hope he's doing okay. Bingo Bob. Yeah, he's got some new episodes of Bob's Basement coming soon, so he's doing alright.

And that it is considered a foregone conclusion that a lot of these Chorus radio stations will become property of Rogers as soon as the regulations are adjusted a little bit and allow a single company to own more than two AMs and two FMs in a single market. And even more consolidation will come. And in the process, I don't know, an even more anonymous and generic product on Q107. I can't imagine in the wake of this them doing anything in the morning show that's designed to draw a lot of attention.

Might even be Derringer's sidekicks who end up taking over the morning show. Okay, I want to ask you about this. Okay, so as far as I understand, the show has been put on hiatus. Well, yeah, Mike, I'm not the third-party independent investigator. Okay, let me ask you this. I don't know who comes out of this. Forget all that. There's third parties investigating and whatever.

But let me ask you this as just a fan of radio. Would Q107 want a morning show that makes people remember John Derringer? Would they want a name? Because people will say things like, what about Craig Venn? And then people will say, what about Maureen Holloway? And then you'll hear these names. Or what about his two sidekicks you mentioned? Flair Boy, and what are the names again?

Tell me. Look, I remember Ryan Parker originally was Derringer's intern. And again, when things sound a little more dangerous, when I would tune in to hear these dramas play out over the air, Derringer's intern. And again, when things sound a little more dangerous, when I would tune in to hear these dramas play out over the air, Derringer went on the air one morning, a whole tirade about the fact that he had this intern working hard, Ryan Parker, 20 years ago, and they refused to pay this guy.

And John Derringer had to pay a minimum wage, I don't know, seven, eight bucks an hour out of his own pocket because the company was too cheap. But all these names that I just mentioned, the first thought a listener is going to have is of John Derringer because they're all affiliated and related to John Derringer. Whatever it is, you've got to serve the audience you've got. You have to.

You need a fresh start. Alan Cross has his voice all over Q107. Does the liners and pompous ongoing history of new music speeches that now appear as interstitials on Q107. And I think they've been running ongoing history of new music on Q107. Chorus picked up a vinyl tap. Okay, yeah. Randy Bachman, after he was dumped by the CBC for being an old white man. They've got some kind of product there.

I don't know what people associate Q107 with. I don't even know if there's much of an audience left. Well, they need a fresh start. That's not paying attention to anything at all. Like Alan Cross, because he's voiced all over the stage, he gets credit as he's the guy that's running the place. I don't think that could be further from the truth. Not even close.

He's been very clear. Just a hired gun. The program director by the way, Q107, is a woman for the last few years, Tammy Cole. I think she's in charge of this whole chorus Toronto cluster. For all I know, she's running 39 different radio stations at once. Because they all seem to

have the same DJs doing the voice tracks. So it all must be the same kind of format on all these stations at the same time that you can essentially in a 40 hour work week run an entire radio chain for an entire company. I don't know who the

protectors were of John Derringer who deserves, who's at risk who's going to get in trouble about their job. Gotta tune into Humble and Fred when they put in their next three-day week after another vacation.

Just for the summer. All dialed in here to what they're up to because of this Derringer discourse. I don't know if we've added anything to it here. Hopefully it's entertaining. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to congratulate John Derringer on a successful

career in Toronto Radio that he managed to hang in there for all these years and be a face and a voice for a certain kind of broadcasting that he outlasted pretty much everybody he ever worked with.

To get that far, the guy must have been a talented communicator. He must have represented something that the Toronto market needed. I mean, they gave him a Radio Broadcasting Hall of Fame award. They had a big party, 40th anniversary of Q107 about five years ago. He managed to create this legendary career. It's unfortunate that he had all this sideshow that allegedly involved screaming at people. Do you not think he's in a scenario right now in a situation where he's

wondering where it all went wrong? And so we have another disgraced radio broadcaster. We've chronicled here what happened to Dean Blundell. And again with Dean, right? I mean, you know, he tries to make it look like he's such a cool dude. He's just there doing a sketchy online radio show, right? And the whole premise is that, like, he's too good to be on corporate broadcast radio. After they canceled him at CFNY, he tried real hard to get back in there, right?

They had him on the Fan 590 doing the morning show. He's filling in on News Talk 1010 on CFRB in the afternoon. He was doing these daily call-ins on 94.9 The Rock. I think you knew he was essentially doing this for free, just trying to get back into the business. And the listener reaction to Dean was unfavorable enough. They let him go from a job that he wasn't being paid for at all. And then he pivoted to doing this online thing.

And you've got to ask, Wendy Mesley, Maureen holloway two two strong women legendary broadcasters again who also i think both uh both found their corporate careers ending in a way that they didn't want to uh whatever the situation is i guess just goes to show that if you reach certain heights you you don't always get a retirement party at the end. Not everybody can be Roger Ashby rounding people up in a ballroom to celebrate their great career. That, in fact, can end in a weird way, and we also saw it, too, at Chorus with Mike Stafford and whatever happened to him.

So Mike Stafford, Dean Blundell, John Derringer, I don't think we're going to be seeing the likes of personalities like those around A Chorus Entertainment anymore. And it's all for the best, given all the other options, all the other platforms, all the other alternatives out there. I think it's a good thing

that John Derringer has been spared the idea of having this victory lap with this stuff hovering over him. And I could only wish him the best in whatever lies ahead for the future. The consensus is he made a lot of money. He won't be moving back in, sleeping on his brother's couch. He won't be in a situation where he can't afford to live.

But of course, as we get wrapped up in this situation, we start evaluating, was it all worth it, right? If you were in this position, Mike, wouldn't you reflect, okay, did I actually have to allegedly fly off the handle as many times as I did? I could have been nicer. Could have been more dignified. None of this would have happened to me in the end.

It's a teachable moment for us all. What's next for Q107? Stay tuned to Toronto Mic'd because I guess as long as y'all have me back, we'll be talking about it here when nobody else will. Did I try to do an imitation of Andrew Crystal? Crystal Nation awakened. This was go-to music. You know the song? Prodigy.

Fire starter. Yeah, big fucking hit. Yeah, of course. If you wanted to be known as a talk radio guy, just like Eric Boghossian, movie talk radio, Oliver Stone, bad to the bone, you need a signature to let people know

it was your time. Taking over the airwaves. I remember Firestarter being the song employed by Andrew Crystal, the first guest of the Toronto Mic'd podcast to die. It's the end of an era. Now, some clarification here. He is not the first FOTM to pass away. You've had voices on the podcast

who we have talked about here in a Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment who have died. Sheila Koniesiewicz, Becky Dinwoody, but what Andrew Crystal is, is he's the first guest, like your typical Toronto Mike guest.

And there's been, you know, hundreds of these, I don't know, 600 plus. He's the first guest of Toronto Mike ever to pass away. First of all, Mike, I'd like to say I'm glad it wasn't me. That's what Gary Joyce DM'd me. He said, I'm glad it wasn't me. Second of all, you did meet Andrew Crystal in person, right? You had him on Zoom for the episode

that you did in peak pandemic times. I don't even think you were letting people into the backyard yet. He didn't want to visit anyways. I don't know if you re-listened. I actually re-listened

to that episode I had with Andrew Crystal when I mowed the lawn because initially when I finished recording with Andrew Crystal, I was disappointed with the episode I actually

promoted it low key sometimes I'll low key you know my promotion if I'm not proud of the product I will don't worry but with Andrew Crystal I felt like he was doing shtick you know you get him on the zoom or phone or whatever and he was I think it was zoom and he

was doing like bits about you know Mike Stafford. Who's the afternoon drive guy on 640? What? Right now? John Oakley. So John Oakley, he would do these bits. And then I was like, I don't like it when a guest comes in with material. But then when I re-listened back,

it seems like I let him get that out of the system. And then we had a really interesting conversation and I liked what he had to say. And I got to know the real Andrew throughout that 90 minutes. Yeah, well I knew Andrew Crystal better than you.

We go back to an era when these guys, John Oakley and Mike Stafford, he was on the radio with them. He did the show on Mojo Radio 640 that was in between the two. But let me just finish how I knew him is through Humble and Fred again. So because I've been involved with the Humble and Fred show for 10 years, almost 11 years, Crystal was a buddy of theirs,

particularly Howard's. At events and things, at the Horseshoe and here and there, I'd meet Andrew Crystal and I'd kind of have... And he would phone me. He would phone me for a period of time. I'd get a call and he would say the most batshit, crazy, grossest

thing and he would go on telling you about it, whatever. I won't even repeat it here because it's a little disturbing. Yeah, yeah. He was a weirdo, right? He would phone me too. Weirdo. I was on his list. Well, I was glad when I left his list.

But I must have known him better than you because I was not surprised by these digressions at all. That was pure unfiltered Andrew Crystal. Oh, I'm sure you knew him better than me. We didn't hang at Starbucks together. That was pure unfiltered Andrew Crystal. We didn't hang at Starbucks together. To launch into this stuff. Let me talk a little bit about Andrew Crystal.

I first knew Andrew Crystal as a voice that I would hear on the radio doing these syndicated radio bits called Entertainment Today. They would be on these FM radio stations like CKFM 99.9. It would be on these fm radio stations like ckfm 99.9 it would be andrew crystal's voice teeing up like uh some some sound bites clips from movie junkets and this was a little rackety going on with his longtime pal ian grant who's still in toronto radio to this day, doing sponsored content programming on News Talk 1010 CFRB.

And these guys were a great team and got a bit of a refresher from Ian about what was behind all this, doing a little prep work for coming on Toronto Mic'd. It was a situation where they figured out how to get this thing syndicated all across the country on these FM radio stations. Do you remember? There used to be more of these on the FM dial. These sponsored segments, which you could sell advertising for at a premium

because they were framed around content. You would introduce a thing. Coming up next, Tom Cruise will talk about how he prepared to be a bartender and cocktail. Right. Stay tuned. And you could charge a higher rate for the commercial because you had a bit of a cliffhanger there.

And it was Andrew Crystal who was the voice that I heard on there doing, entertainment today. I mean, how lame could you get for a Canadian radio segment? There's entertainment tonight on the television. Let's do entertainment today on the radio. But that's what it was called. Subsequently, met Crystal for a second at the Sonic Workshop. He was working with Toronto radio legend David Pritchard,

who I at one point tried to launch a project with. Didn't get anywhere at all, but it was fun to be around this legendary, groovy, free-form FM radio guy, the late David Pritchard. And Andrew was around the studio there. And then I remember seeing him again in Toronto at a bookstore and recognizing him because we'd met before, and it was a situation where he was talking quite loudly about stuff that was going on in the media business in his career.

And you know when you're out in public and you do a little eavesdropping and you know you've caught a big fish? Like that there's someone around talking about some things from behind the scenes? There was no social media in those days. This is early 1990s. And I remember just being riveted, like listening to Crystal having this loud public conversation,

no holds barred, didn't censor anything that he had to say. I can't remember exactly what he disclosed, if he said anything important at all. Flash forward about 10 years, in the aforementioned period of time, when I was invited to lurk around Mojo Radio, when they were trying to figure out what to do with AM640. When I felt that I had some unfinished business, like I would return to the radio airwaves that had previously let me down,

put appearances on the air, maybe would turn into some kind of job. Not as realistic. Didn't expect it to go any particular way. But a lot of people were hovering around a chorus in Mojo Radio at the time. One of them went on to have a brilliant career. The co-host of live audio wrestling, Jeff Merrick.

He was also angling for some airtime. At one point, we collaborated when he was offered this minimum wage gig to do this Mojo magazine. And now, of course, Jeff Merrick, one of the great hockey minds. When's he come back on Toronto Mic'd? We talked very recently, and he says we've got to do it this summer. Tell him I say hi. I will.

And in the midst of everything that was happening there, Andrew Crystal was looking for a way to get on the talk radio airwaves. His friend Ian Grant had set him up with a gig on 640, doing like, again, these radio weekend sponsored content infomercials. Memorable name for a show. Cover your ass with Andrew Crystal, which was essentially paid airtime from different law firms, ambulance chasers, workplace disability lawyers. I don't know. Whoever wanted to pay for the opportunity to be interviewed by Crystal.

But what he really wanted to do after all these years of doing this crappy paid programming, it was also about a five-year period, where him and Ian, they traveled around the world on the dime of different countries. There are tourism boards. It was a show called Discover Your World, one of these weekend afternoon CanCon shows that nobody would watch, you know, on CHCH, Channel 11. You know when you would be flipping the dial,

there was nothing on TV, and you would just land on these Canadian shows, and these were the travelogues that were sponsored by the respective countries. I don't know if they went to any war-torn nations or anyone looking for some image rehab. There's a video archived online of Crystal hanging around Hong Kong doing a segment there, totally bought and paid for by their tourist board. He wanted something bigger.

He wanted to be an old school talk radio guy. And given his association with Mojo Radio 640, this was the way he was going to get it. And that's around the time I first started talking to Crystal. And I think we

bonded over one of his fill-in shifts. I think they moved him in there after FOTM. Spider Jones. Spider Jones. Vanished from the station. He didn't understand what was happening over there at all, right? So suddenly there was a nighttime time slot open for Andrew Crystal fill-in.

You have this guy on the air as a guest. Norman Finkelstein, very controversial author, wrote a book at the time called The Holocaust Industry. This is like a Jewish guy who was launching all this invective about how the fact that the Jews were exaggerating their genocide.

Try and get sympathy from the world and they didn't deserve it at all. Norman Finkelstein is still around, hanging out with the Palestinian cause. And I'm a big free speech kind of guy. And as far as I was concerned, this Norman Finkelstein doing a critical interview with Andrew Crystal, I didn't think there was anything particularly objectionable about this at all. But let's face it, Mike, this is the kind of thing,

if you introduce on the Canadian airwaves, you can lose your license for having a guest like this on a Canadian talk show. Minimizing the Holocaust, that'll lose you your license. I understand that is something enshrined in Canadian law, and they're trying to even make the laws even firmer than they already are. I mean, look, I'm the managing editor of the Canadian Jewish News, okay? I'm not pro-Holocaust denial.

But I defended the idea. I mean, this is where the culture was at 20 years ago. And I think Kristol had to do some damage control. Like, everything he dreamed of being on talk radio was about to crash and burn because he had this guest on the air. He had these, you know, big complaints from these Jewish advocacy groups. B'nai B'rith, whoever it was, Canadian Jewish Congress were on the line. And he needed my insight as to how to respond to these people who were coming under fire. And Andrew was a friend of the Jews.

In fact, at that point, his partner was a Jewish woman. Curiously enough, I think she was less than half his age at the time. He was in his early 40s by then. He died at 63. This is 20 years ago. I would have told you he was a lot younger. And from what I can recall, we bonded over these discussions we were having about how to respond to these people.

I just did it for the lulz, right? It's like me coming on here. There was no Toronto Mike podcast for me to discuss these things on. I had to have these conversations with Andrew Crystal over the phone. And as a result, I launched into what I would call a relationship with Andrew Crystal. Not necessarily friends. But I think I was way up there in his phone call list. And he must have been one of the first people I ever met who was totally addicted to his Blackberry.

Talking about two decades ago now, right? I might as well be one of those people. We're all one of those people today. Who's this Palm Pilot? Back in 2002, 2003, you know, the whole idea of like walking around, like totally typing on your device and calling people while you, while you stomp up and down the streets, talking loudly, letting passersby eavesdrop on what you're saying about how you're going to conquer Toronto Talk Radio. All you have to do is assassinate certain people, get them out of the way.

And the opportunity finally came for Crystal when another FOTM, Rick Lowen, lost his shift. Ironically, that was another Jewish thing. Ripken, yeah, with Humble Howard. That lost his show on the air. When he was having, what, a very loud conversation? I thought he was at a hockey game. A hockey game at a bar. I think at an I think, at an All-Star game in Florida,

and he was just japering back and forth about, I don't know, the Mennonites versus the Jews, which of us come from people who are more cheap, and somebody overheard this, and they took offense to what he was saying, and they canceled Ripken. They disappeared him from the air, but it seemed like in the end they did him a favor. The way he describes it 20 years later, as far as he was concerned, no love was lost. He did his time. He tried something out, and they paid him to go away.

Enter Andrew Crystal. Suddenly, a mid-morning Toronto talk radio shift was open for him. And so, by the fact that he lived at the Manulife Center in Yorkville, I wasn't that far away, I was in a situation, I don't think I was ever more unemployed than I was at the time. Fun fact, Blair Packham used to live in the same building. And fun fact, I'm a lot younger than Blair Packham and Andrew Crystal. So I understand. Please continue.

I mean, Andrew Crystal might have told people he was my age. Just be warned. This is a three-hour podcast, okay? Just be warned. Please continue. And so we would have these periodic discussions in the coffee shop of the Indigo store at the Manual Life Center. Once again, just talking loudly, not caring who the hell was overhearing what we're talking about.

It would just be like Tuesdays with Crystal. Except Tuesdays with Crystal would go on until like Friday afternoon. Right? Once you were dialed in with this guy, he would never let you go. And so, I'm

hearing these stories, and it was Humble Howard talking to Steve Paikin, and they were both reflecting upon the wildlife of the guy that they knew, and they're talking about how he would be calling them all of the time. Or texting. I don't think I had any special place in Andrew Crystal's life and mind. I was just another person to have me on his list. It was just part of being this amazing

character that he was. The bananas thing. Being in constant communication with all these characters out there, I'm not sure for what reason. I guess building his career, but it seemed like he just got the greatest joy out of talking to people all the time, mostly talking about himself. Well, when you get to his career, but it seemed like he just got the greatest joy out of talking to people all the time, mostly talking about himself.

Well, when you get to his death, I'll tell you, maybe I'll quickly share it now, is that I've heard from three different people who were texting with Andrew Crystal into the wee hours of early Sunday, which would be like late night Saturday, shortly before he passed away. Three different people who are thinking, he sent me the last text of his life. Right, because Humble Howard, yeah. I might be able to produce 30 other people. That's right.

Who got the last text of Andrew Crystal's life. 30 people think they got the last text of Andrew Crystal's life. I was not one of those people. Okay, so I was there listening to more of the Shakespearean drama surrounding Chorus Cluster in Toronto. In a situation where they installed Andrew Crystal to fill the space left by Ripken, and Humble and Fred moved on. John Oakley came in, and Andrew Crystal seemed to finally get his shot to be a provocative 9 a.m. to noon talk radio guy.

Lots of time in the afternoon to hold court at the Starbucks. Be a provocative 9 a.m. to noon talk radio guy. Lots of time in the afternoon to hold court at the Starbucks. By the way, the same time at Indigo, he was constantly loading up on big hardcover history books. Like, you would hang out with this guy, and he would just stock up on these volumes. Like he was going to the beer store, getting ready for the weekend. Except in this case, his drug was that he wanted to devour every book that was out there

about the history of the world. I'm not sure. Somebody did mention the fact that his apartment had this massive library. Although I could only guess that he would he would buy the books and then take them back because i could not i could not imagine on the amount of money he was making remember he told me it was sixty thousand dollars to do the the midday talk show am talk show for chorusorus Radio.

And from time to time I would be in touch with them, including one memorable morning when Mike Bullard was appearing on CFRB with Bill Carroll. This was a pivotal point in the evolution of the Mike Bullard TV talk show. Remember when Mike Bullard walked away from CTV to join Global? Yes. And this was going to be the biggest thing to ever happen to Global TV. They had stolen away CTV's biggest star.

What happens instead? CTV buys the rights to The Daily Show. They immediately put that in the Bullard time slot, and nobody's around watching Bullard late night. Then Conan O'Brien comes to Toronto and does his shows out of here and just leaving Mike Bullard in the dust. Nobody cared about him in the media at all. And soon enough, his talk show was a different memory.

But before all that happened, he's on CFRB to talk about his big plans about how he's finally going to do things right. Mistreated at CTV Global. They're going to treat him like a king with a late-night show. I tipped off Crystal to the fact that Mike Bullard was going to be on 9 a.m. doing an hour with Bill Carroll. And Crystal's reaction? He did an hour about Mike Bullard, the worst talk show host in Canadian history.

So at the same time, people are on 640 laying into Mike Bullard. people are on 640 laying into Mike Bullard he's on 1010 telling Bill Carroll about how brilliant he is and Bill Carroll just sucking it up about how great this show is going to be this was amazing stuff

tapping on the radio, imagine flipping back and forth the stations, right? There's Mike Bullard on one station talking about what a genius he is, Bill Carroll playing along on the other station, Andrew Crystal with that morning show topic, why does Mike Bullard on one station talking about what a genius he is. Bill Carroll playing along on the other station. Andrew Crystal with that morning show topic, why does Mike Bullard suck so bad? Crystal on AM640 went on for about a year until the following summer, and then they were making programming changes. They decided they didn't need him anymore. Even at $60,000 a year, he was expendable.

They were changing direction. They were moving away from the whole Mojo Radio thing. And Andrew Crystal and his Blackberry gets on the phone. Steve Couch, program director of CFRB, tells him all about his tale of woe. I've been fired from 640. They don't want me anymore.

Quickly swings a deal with Steve Couch to host a show on CFRB. That evening. On the same day he got fired from 640. So he goes down in history, I would think. This is unparalleled. You got to hear Andrew Crystal on two different Toronto radio stations within the same, I don't know, 12-hour time frame.

That was legendary stuff. Okay, so out of all that, he was still doing fill-ins at CFRB, but it wasn't getting very far. I think it might have been too extreme for that format. You know, CFRB ultimately, to this day, is still a grandparent station, no matter what the host of the new Rush will tell you the demographic is forever old.

I would say her talk radio is the opposite of Andrew Crystal. And as a result Rogers was launching FM talk radio stations in the East Coast, Maritimes first FM FM talk radio stations in the East Coast, Maritimes, first FM talk radio stations of their kind.

I mean, there had been the CKO Network, but this was a new thing for a company like Rogers. Maritime Morning was a show, and they flew Crystal out there, and Rogers recognized a star, especially in that particular pond where he could be a big fish. And I think the whole idea of hearing Andrew Crystal on the air there created a sensation,

got into all kinds of political debates. He got in trouble on CTV News Network. They were doing talk radio host debate. He said Charles Adler at the time was a big conservative supporter, and Crystal said something like, you know, you would have voted for Hitler in Nazi Germany. You're so blindly guided by your leader. And Charles Adler responds without rage, how dare you say that. I'm the descendant of survivors.

That kind of old school talk radio rhetoric back and forth. At the end of the day, it was all about fun. Then he ends up getting arrested on a domestic violence charge. This is where maybe things started to turn sideways there, although where the charges dismissed or withdrawn or a settlement ended up, he was living with this woman and he had to pay restitution, breaking her computer. It did not jeopardize his opportunities at the time with the company.

Might've been a different story now, 15 years later. And Rogers recognized that they had something Andrew Crystal, they would move him back to Toronto to play a role in the sports radio station 590 The Fan. This is where Andrew Crystal became more of a topic of conversation than ever, right? Because he was weird enough of a guy to begin with. It was even weirder. They were going to take this guy and turn him into a sports

radio host, let alone the morning man for the Fan 590. Do you remember hearing him at the time? Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think the legend was that they were trying to get Strombo to do the the morning show and then i know bobcat was a big backer like a big supporter of crystal and thought crystal was great and bobcat bob mccowan had some pull okay so a bit of an interruption from the revolving door of of greg brady and andrew walker right they went

through different phases where the same guys same white men of the fan 590 would like rotate in different shifts. Right. So Crystal was on midday or afternoons and then tried him out in the morning. I mean, he got a lot of press, a lot of attention. Then Rogers had a contract with him.

They wanted to fulfill their promise to keep him employed and they made him a personality on City News. This is around the time they were starting a 24-hour-a-day Rogers City News TV channel to compete with CP24, which everyone still thinks to this day. A lot of people tell you that's still part of City TV. They were attempting some kind of market distinction and provided Crystal with the opportunity to do live hits, be that kind of offbeat TV reporter. Something that City TV needed bad, right?

It was part of that whole Moses Nimer legacy where you would have these characters out there. Somebody had the idea we can bring him back and Crystal can be that guy. It happened that he fell right into the lap of Rob Ford and the whole Rob Ford era. There is a clip online. I don't know if you bothered with it. Got to wrap it up here anyway. It was an opportune time for Crystal to become Rob Ford's best media friend. I don't know if a lot of people were watching at the time.

It was very entertaining. Again, it lived up to Crystal's whole showbiz aesthetic. His time in TV didn't last long. Faded away. You know, poking around online, I find some SoundCloud demos that Crystal did for CKNW Talk Radio in Vancouver. So there's evidence out there that somewhere after 2014, 15, he was trying to get back in.

Somebody believed in him enough. They would give him a shot. Maybe this was part of the global news radio thing where they wanted to put him on the air. He gave it his best shot. And then in subsequent years, he ended up with a show on SiriusXM. Now, again, I've been making more Humble and Fred references in this episode than I ever have before.

But I was curious again, what they would say about crystal. And they were like taking pity on the guy, right? Like this guy could have been a brilliant Toronto talk radio host. And instead there he is in, in Siberia talking to nobody on the, on the low end of Canadian satellite radio,

low bandwidth. Nobody even knows these channels exist. They're out there. This is like your, I recognize you have some FOTMs who have shows on this Sirius, Canada Talks, Radio Station, Humble and Fred were there for a while.

I guess with the experience they had, they realized it's not really much of anything at all when it comes to reaching an audience. But I will quote something that Crystal said, and I said it on the episode with you because in the tradition of Marc Maron, who re-uploads an episode when a guest dies, now that's also a thing you can find

from Toronto Mic'd, I guess. The tradition has begun. I don't know how that's going to work when it's a 50-time guest like me. Well, that'll take a special micumentary. 50 episodes in the feed when Cam Gordon passes away? Am I going to be deluged

with reposts of every Pandemic Friday and PPMM and Fun Facts episode? We'll play them all by ear. Tears are not enough. We'll be ringing out from the bell towers when we lose Cam Gordon.

But we're talking about Andrew Crystal here who did die at age 63. And one of the things he said on your episode was, I don't work for radio, radio works for me. And from what I could tell, he was doing all right, running his own custom communications company, making videos, doing strategies, hosting events for different special interest groups and unions, and even, contentiously enough, the People's Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier.

They had some online commercials. I heard Crystal's voice on there. I don't know if that reflected any particular political persuasion. I don't think he even cared, right? He was cashing a check. It was a gig. So I believe, as far as I can tell, this thing of SiriusXM, which, by the way, led Peter Mansbridge to give a tribute to him, because they were colleagues, both doing these satellite radio shows. Cynthia Dale

booked on Toronto Mike on a channel nobody listened to. But Crystal Nation, Custom Communications, seemed like he built up brilliant enough business there. And plus, you know, if you know this, Mike is a sole practitioner in the communications industry.

I think part of the fun was you also got to hang out with Andrew Crystal. I mean, that's an acquired taste, but compared to the typical person who was doing this kind of work, I would think that was a trip if the right kind of client landed on this guy. One more thing. I was looking back into the archives because during my relationship with crystal and i would find out these little tidbits about the fact that for example at one point he at least claimed to have dated kim cattrall just like our prime minister pierre elliott trudeau and this is at the time

the sex in the city was the hottest show on TV. So that was something to brag about, even though he didn't disclose. I don't know whether this was for an hour or a month or a decade. Did he date Kendra Jade? That's what I wanted to know. Can't compete with Stu Stone and that guest on Jerry Springer. You know, by the way, Kendra Jade, her husband, ended up being that guy from the Rockstar Reality show. Yes, I did know that.

What was his name? You can look that one up. Lucas Rossi. Yes. How did I manage that recall? Right. One more thing about Crystal then. During our time together,

we would be talking a lot about blogging and bloggers. This was around the time that the Toronto Mike website would have launched and all the excitement over there. And, you know, it was early 2000s. I would not have wanted to take any money from this guy. Down that way, madness lies. You can only help a guy like this out for free. I might have bought me a few coffees.

But the whole idea that, okay, he would pack out this stuff in his BlackBerry and I would turn it into somewhat more readable prose. And I thought, let me look back at andrewcrystal.blogspot.com. Have some fond memories of the stuff we collaborated on. I hadn't read these things since they were initially posted there. And then the first line I noticed, it was a piece about celebrities, again, a Jewish thing, celebrities getting into the

Kabbalah. The first line of the piece, vacuous twats like Madonna and Demi Moore. And it's like, oh dear. I don't know if I want to be associated with this. Well, he was a character. Listen. I don't think I'm going to be linking to this as a TBT of something that i was proud on on working on but yeah that was a tenor of the times

he was a true character so you might call him a weirdo the funny thing is in that aforementioned blair packham episode he came up organically because of course he didn't pass away till after that it was friday and he passed away away late Saturday, early Sunday. But we talked about how he was batshit crazy, but a true character and entertaining and sharp as a tack. And I gravitate towards these characters, and I quite like these characters, and we're running out of these characters. So I will say Andrew Crystal will be missed.

Yes, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. We'll get to the memorial segment as usual. But a special place for Andrew Crystal, dead at 63. Are you ready? Yes, I am. They say you a superstar now. Damn, I guess I am. You might be the man, well, that's unless I am. Okay, I'll confess I am.

You know where you get your quality stickers and decals from, Mark? Oh, oh, oh! I know the answer. I know the answer because I'm in the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame. The place that you go is called StickerU. StickerU.com. Upload your image and order your stickers and decals and temporary tattoos and this and that and delivered safely to your door. Quality, quality product and excellent people.

They're headquartered in Liberty Village. Speaking of retail stores in Toronto, Dewar, which is actually based in British Columbia, but they opened a new retail store in Toronto on Queen Street West. Dewar

make the world's most comfortable pants and shorts. Tomorrow I'm speaking, I'm not speaking, I'm moderating a panel at the O'Cannabis conference by the airport. And I'll be wearing my Dewar pants and my Dewar shirt because I

look so damn good in Dewar clothing. So duer.ca if you want to buy online or go to the new retail store on Queen Street. But use the promo code TMDS because you'll save 15%. And much love as always to Palma Pasta. I was at Great Lakes Brewery earlier today

to lock down the location and date for TMLXX. That's TMLX10. And it's going to be September 1st at 6 to 9 p.m. at Great Lakes Brewery. And of course, I'll be reaching out to Palma Pasta because Palma Pasta will be feeding the FOTMs at TMLXX on September 1st, 2022. So you'll get delicious, authentic Italian food. And while I'm shouting out the partners of Toronto Mic'd, the Canna Cabana episode

with Stu, Kareem, and Canada Kev was awesome. I know we talked about it early in this episode, but that was several hours ago. So I'll just say again. Those guys were all professional smokers. There was no room for me there at all. In fact, Mike, I felt you're

out of place until you sparked one up towards the end of the episode. You know, when in Rome, right? When in Rome. I even titled that episode, sort of like how friends would title an episode, the one in which Toronto Mike smokes a joint. So listen to that. We have in the background here.

What a jam. Eminem. M plus M. M plus M. Mike, they were just guests on your podcast. That was a short-lived... They didn't like this name, though, right? Mark Gain didn't like... Martha and the Muffins.

Yeah, well, Mark Gain... Yeah, that episode was great. I don't know what your thoughts are. I'm hopefully going to get that in a minute. But Mark Gane didn't want to be a muffin anymore, so they changed the name. And then they changed it back because they realized people knew them as Martha and the Muffins.

I got reflecting on their stuff, including this song, right? I think this is inspired by Marshall McLuhan, like, cooling the medium. Although, I don't know where I don't know where that would have ever come up or whoever explained that to me. But this was a big radio jam.

You listen to this episode, you get a new appreciation for what they've done and how far they've come and the fact that they are still around. This is already 40 years since they rode Commercial Peak. Echo Beach. Echo Beach and black stations, white stations.

Right. And cooling the medium. And we have talked about here on a previous episode of Toronto Mic'd how my father inspired a book written by Marshall McLuhan. Right. The medium is the massage because of a junkyard slogan that my dad had written on the family business. Kind of personal mind blow,

although I figure somebody's got to be impressed by that. And I only figured this out a few years ago. So there is my connection to Marshall McLuhan and also reflected in the song title, Cooling the Medium. Did you enjoy it? So you enjoyed the episode. I thought it was fantastic

because I had them in studio. And as usual, the first few minutes, guests like that, Martha and the Muffins, they aren't quite sure where they are and what's going on. And you have to kind of like quickly like get them to relax and earn their trust. Just hold my hand. We're going for a ride. And then they're into it.

Then I'll come back nine months from now to be quoting things that I said on here. It's just like our friend from the jitters. I wanted to shout out Mike Hannafit. Yeah. Who also outed himself as a 1236 episode fanatic. He loves it, yeah. And he was convinced I have never heard his name before. And I regret to inform you that I have.

I do remember Mike Hannafit from Sports on CFNY and Sports on CFRB. And he did a terrific job of recapping his career. So even if you haven't heard of this guy, you get this little journey about what it was like to be an 80s and 90s radio sportscaster. Oh, I loved it. I loved having Mike on the show. And then I got an email

this morning from FOTM Steve Pakin because Hannifin dropped Pakin's name and said that they worked one game together at U of T football, I think.

And Pakin wanted me to know he absolutely does remember Mike Hannifin and I gave Pakin Mike's email address. And once again, I've reunited Steve Pagan with a name from his past. Do not get me started on Torkel Campbell of stars. Okay, you know what? I loved it.

Even though I want to hear your thoughts. And as usual, you'll be brutally honest. Let's get to our memorial segment, Mike. I was going to say, you had an FOTM also making rock and roll news. I would have heard about this on Q107 on 6 o'clock Rock Report. Sass Jordan controversially in Rolling Stone magazine talking about the death of Taylor Hawkins. And this was a situation where Rolling Stone talked to multiple peers

of Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters, right? And they all said, oh, we were quoted out of context because they were all claiming that Taylor Hawkins had told them they were burnt out. He was burnt out. I would much rather hear

what you thought about Torquil Campbell. I'm shouting out Sass Jordan, one of your favorite FOTMs. I do like her. That I give her credit here, right? Because she did not, I mean, she has nothing to lose anyhow.

Okay. Her husband's a lead singer of the fake Guess Who, right? Fake Guess Who. She did not deny that this story was inaccurate, right? She said it was correct, that she was friends with this guy, her former drummer, and he did say it was like a punishing scenario that he was put in working for the Foo Fighters. But I understand Dave Grohl is a king of rock and roll.

These other people don't want to upset him by saying he was working his drummer too hard. Before we segue to the memorial segment brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921, what did you think of the Torquill Campbell episode? No, no, no! I'm not going there. I need to know. I'm not going there.

Then I'm shutting it down. I'm like Hebsey. When he doesn't want to talk about something, you can read enough into his refusal to go there. Let's just put that on the list for next time, okay? Are we all right? Thank you, Mike. A young man grown and an old man pain The way she took my money was a cry and shame Mary Lou, Mary Lou

She took my diamond ring Mary Lou, Mary Lou She took my watch and chain Mary Lou She took the keys to my Cadillac car Jumped in my kitty and she drove her far Left me stranded in a Kalamazoo, making her a fortune off of food like you.

She got her a rich man, had a dozen kids, drove that cat until he flipped his lid. She took my diamond ring. Ronnie Hawkins. I would rank him as the most prominent passing as far as Canadiana is concerned. And

Ronnie Hawkins, who initially wasn't Canadian at all. You knew the story about romping Ronnie Hawkins, right? That he was from Huntsville, Arkansas. Yeah, he's a big Bill Clinton buddy. So he claimed he's a big Bill Clinton buddy. So he claimed.

Although I think Bill Clinton liked having the hawk around because it was like, okay, do you think I'm lewd and rude and crude? I'm not an animal like this guy. He could point to Ronnie Hawkins, even though I think it was all for show that Ronnie Hawkins portrayed himself as a guy who was lusting after the ladies. Because the way his life is told,

it was a bit of a shtick. And in fact, his priority was mentoring young musicians. And most legendarily, those young musicians included a band with roots in Stratford, Ontario, called The Band. And his association with them, along with Bob Dylan,

this is what made Ronnie Hawkins a legendary figure, even as that original rockabilly music fell out of favor. And as we've talked about here on this Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment, a lot of these original rock and roll guys, the stuff they were doing got old really fast, right? Like, if you had a bit of success with songs about Mary Lou, by the time the Beatles came along,

British Invasion, 1964, and then the psychedelic era took hold, right? Like, you were yesterday's news. The kids didn't want to listen to you anymore. And Ronnie Hawkins fell into the fortune of having John Lennon, Nyoko Ono, stay at his house. The Hawkstone Estate, which was a place he newly moved into in the Kawarthas. And through his connections in this rock and roll universe,

it became a hideaway where John and Yoko could go on one of their trips to Toronto. Sean and Yoko could go on one of their trips to Toronto. And Ronnie Hawkins dined out for decades on the story that he left him a whole closet full of clothes, $9,000 worth of long-distance phone calls. Imagine that, right? Yeah, I think it was Yoko was calling back home. How many emergencies were going on at the time? Well, there were fires to put all over the place at the time in the business of the Beatles.

And you'd imagine John Lennon had to have a lot of discussions, a lot of talking to as he embarked on his post-Beatles career. So then 1970, after Ronnie Hawkins was seen as a relic of the past, he made a self-titled album that was going to be his comeback. And in fact, John Lennon recorded an endorsement. And you can even find it on YouTube, just a way of trying to enhance Ronnie Hawkins and get him back on the comeback trail with a sound like this one, which got some attention in Canada.

What's this song called? It's a single that he put out at the time. Down in the Alley. Down in the Alley. The B-side is a song by Carl Perkins, Matchbox, which the Beatles also did. Not even a half decade earlier. But again, like the whole idea of the Beatles singing Carl Perkins.

That was out of the way. That was a thing of the past. Here's a mind blow. On the weekend that Ronnie Hawkins died, in the province of Ontario, Ringo Starr launched his latest tour, and the first song he performed on the stage with the all-star band was Matchbox.

The song that he did with the Beatles. That is a mind blow. And I know... FOTM Michael Lang was at that concert. I first heard of Ronnie Hawkins more in the early 1980s,

and by that point I think he became a bit of a caricature. Okay, before you continue with that, I'll tell you young Mike knew Ron Hawkins as the guy in the fur jacket at Nathan Phillips Square on City TV. Young Mike knew Ron Hawkins as the guy from Lowest of the Low.

That was teenage Mike. But young Mike knew romping Ronnie Hawkins. Romping. Yeah, he'd have a fur jacket on. He'd be singing at Nathan Phillips Square, and I'd be watching on City TV. That's how I knew this guy, every New Year's Eve.

And that was it. And then I would learn subsequently about the band and Bob Dylan and the Hawks there and his young streak, Cock... What's the name of that damn venue? I've talked about this so many times with Johnny Dover. Cockdoor? Cockdoor. Right, that's my French.

Cockdoor? And once again, we had an attempt at a Ryan Hawkins comeback. It was in the early 1980s, if you queued that up. I remember this song on the Chum Chart in summer 1981. Yeah, that sounds right. Just about a year ago I set out on the road Seeking my fame and fortune

Looking for that pot of gold Things got bad Things got worse I guess you know the tune Oh Lord I'm stuck in Lodi again I rode in on a greyhound I'll be walking out

Okay, Stuck in Lodi by Clearwater Revival. Okay. I need another beer. John Fogerty's song, Stuck in Lodi. And this was like a Canadian AM radio country hit, although it also got spun on chum. Okay, now that's a burst. You're opening a Great Lakes Brewery Burst IPA. I love burst.

I think that's my new favorite, surpassing the Octopus Wants to Fight. Even though today I'm actually drinking Sunnyside because it's summertime to this music by ronnie hawkins in the early 80s nobody nobody would mistake this for something that was contemporary at the time right here's like a guy he's in his mid-40s seen it all done it all kind of slowing down the album that came out with this single was called A Legend in His Spare Time. And I suspect at that point in time, you had the whole idea of the hawk as this legend of the Toronto music scene. He had a big all-star 60th birthday bash

on the stage of Massey Hall. And doing those City TV New Year's Eve bashes with Gordon Martineau and really like, I don't know, a 30, even 40-year victory lap for Ronnie Hawkins to be enshrined as this kind of Toronto legend. But again, now that we're in that age range, Gen Xers, right? It's interesting to see how somebody

that would have been up here 40 years ago, you were already old news. Like the whole idea of being an aging rock star, somebody whose legacy and legend belong to the past. This was the kind of music you would end up doing here. And then Mary Lou got a revival because it was a theme of

Prom Night 2. Mary Lou. Ron Oliver of the Silver Basketball directed Prom Night 2. I'm still waiting for Ron Oliver to appear on Toronto Night. Last week to Ed Conroy about this last week.

I said, look, I want him on and I only want to talk about the Ron Oliver show on YTV. Yeah, well, YTV, but now he's making Hallmark Christmas movies. Yawn. Anyway, that's the last I remember of an attempt at a contemporary Ronnie Hawkins comeback.

By that point, he was over 50 years old. And again, a situation where he could just hang out and be this legendary historical figure. George Strombolopoulos did a photo op with every Canadian celebrity, every celebrity period that crossed through a show. Have you ever looked at Strombo on social media? Whenever somebody dies, quick on the draw.

He's got a picture of himself with them, always in the archives. Shades of John Gallagher. Ready to go at any given moment. There's a clip out there of the hawk on the Strombo show on the CBC talking about how Pierre Trudeau offered him some weed way back around 1970. And in fact, alleging that the Prime Minister of Canada was a cannabis dealer on the side. Second Pierre Elliott Trudeau reference of the show. Dealer on the side.

Second Pierre Elliott Trudeau reference of the show. May 29th, age 87. Rest in peace, romping Ronnie Hawkins. Big Bird on the block. Big Bird on the block. Yeah. Big Bird. Huh? I'm a brown boy. ਬੀਗ ਬੁਰ੍ਡ ਆਮਾ ਆਮਾ ਬਰਾਂ ਬੋਈ Mike, were you following this story at all about this rapper who had moved to Brampton, Ontario,

Punjabi rapper Moose Wala. Yeah, I only learned of his existence when he died, which is not an uncommon occurrence. And yet at the same time, you look at his YouTube channel, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of views. Well, there's a billion people in India. Right? And Moosewala, who had moved to Brampton on a student visa to finish, I think, like an engineering degree, started making these videos and became a big Punjabi star. Shot dead in India, May 29th at age 28. I can't pretend I understand what is happening here.

This is more complicated than Biggie and Tupac combined. And I guess as part of this gangster rap image that Moose Walla was cultivating, he made a lot of references to Tupac. And it was raised that, in fact, one of his most recent songs acknowledged Tupac Shakur. In the process, a lot of the songs that he was putting out there, records he was making in his videos. Glorification of gun culture, okay? In that sense, maybe not a surprise that he was essentially assassinated and that his life came to an end. But this was the musical style of Moose Wala,

and then I learned in the process, he did a love song, and it turned out on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day a couple years ago, he had the world's biggest Valentine's Day track on all of YouTube. And this is what it sounded like. ਕਾਲੀ ਰੇਂਜ ਵਾਰੀ ਕਾਂ ਆ ਗਾਲ ਬਡੀ ਲਮਬੀ ਆ ਇੱਤੇ ਮੁਕਦੀ ਨੀ ਵੇ ਤੁ ਭੀ ਮੈ ਨੂ ਦੇਖਦਾ ਨੀ ਆਕ ਪਰਕੇ ਆ ਤੇ ਆਇ ਵੀ ਵੇਰੇ ਗੋਲੇ ਗਦੇ ਰੁਕਦੀ ਨੀ ਵੇ ਰੀਸਨ ਨੇ ਵਡੇ ਆ ਮੈ ਬਨਦੇ ਨੀ ਮੂ ਬਨਦੇ ਨੀ ਮੂ ਬਨਦੇ ਨੀ ਮੂ ਸੁਨੀ ਜਲਿ ਜਟਾ ਇਸ ਓਲ ਬਾਟ ਸੁ ਤੇਰਾ ਕਰਦੀ ਆ ਕੇਨਾ ਵੇਰਾ ਕਰਦਾ ਨ Okay, so he's respectful enough of women. That didn't go hand in hand with Moosa Walla's gangster rap, but he was definitely dabbling in politics.

In fact, that's why he moved back home. And there's a complicated situation involving the Calistani separatists that he was aligning himself with and allegedly allegations that this political viewpoint was linked to his assassination, that there might have been some kind of government conspiracy that his security was taken away from him

guns and gangs playing a dangerous game ended up with us losing Moose Walla age 28 28 years old on May 29th. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. guitar solo

I'm sippin' Florida Canyon lime juice It's 3 a.m. Blow a fruit fly Off the rim of my glass The radio's playing Super Chunk And the friends of Dean Martinez. Mike, you went to Bruce Coburn's concert, Massey Hall, a few weeks ago. I went with the VP of sales. My condolences to the VP of Sales who said goodbye to his beloved dog.

Thinking of you, Tyler. And I want to thank the aforementioned several hours ago. We talked about Canada Kev who was smoking weed on this very same deck a couple of nights ago. Canada Kev gifted us the tickets and Bruce Colburn was amazing at Massey Hall.

Did he do the song Last Night of the World, which is, as far as I'm concerned, one of his best latter-day tunes? No, but we had a great... 1999, this one came out. It had, like, that fin de siècle... Oh, actually, you know what? I apologize. Absolutely, no, he did play this, and it was great. Absolutely. He was on fire.

But he's still with us, Yeah, Bruce Coburn alive and well. We're playing this in honor of a guy named Michael Rycraft. Died at age 65. And I think through the tributes and obituaries

he got even more attention for a fascinating creative legacy that he left behind, which included being the guy who did the graphic design for Roots Music Recordings in Canada. Also concert posters. He would curate concerts himself, tributes to Tom Waits, other people at Hughes Room in Toronto. And I know for a fact he was a close friend of FOTM, Blair Packham.

This is the Blair Show. He's going to love it. I did my research here. So condolences to Blair Packham on your loss with Michael Rycraft, a man called Rycraft. He weaved his way through different forms of Canadian show business, including stand-up comedy and magic shows. And when cable TV, network pay TV called The C Channel, launched in Canada. He was one of the personalities on the air who would do magic tricks in between the shows. But in the process, kind of wandered around, had an opportunity to relocate to San Francisco,

and he ended up working for the Lusty Lady, which was an erotic dance club where he spent a lot of time. Whatever marketing was involved with Strip Club in San Francisco, Michael Rycraft was your man. So when he came back to Toronto, he found his calling doing this graphic design. And this album from 1999 by Bruce Coburn was the first on his list. It was the beginning of his relationship with True North Records and FOTM,

Bernie Finkelstein. And in the process, if there was an aesthetic, a way of graphically representing a certain form of Canadian roots music. If it was done well, it probably was related to a man called Rycraft. He had some health struggles over the years. And I think, look, if you know that your time is up, I don't know. You get more attention. We've seen this in the past few years.

You get more people kind of wrapped up in your ordeal and expressing their sympathy for what you're going through if you're able to say goodbye. And he was someone who was all over Facebook. So he was posting about that he was in the ICU. He was in a position where he figured these were going to be his last nights of the ICU. He was in a position where he figured these were going to be his last nights of the world.

And essentially, he signed off over a series of Facebook posts. I don't know if it's something that you or I would do, Mike. We'll see when we get there. You never know. I'll live stream it, maybe.

It seemed to be on brand. It fit well in the life of Michael Rycraft. Dead on May 16th at age 65. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Sundown in the Paris of the prairie We kings of all treasures buried All you hear are the rusted breezes Pushing around with a vain Jesus The simple lighter receives the killer's face

Maybe it's someone standing in a killer's place Twenty years for nothing, well, there's nothing new Besides, no one's interested in something you didn't do. We, kings and pretty things. David Milgaard, who died at age 69 on May 15th, 2022. He became a legendary Canadian figure because he was wrongfully imprisoned 23 years. Wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of a nursing student named Gail Miller in Saskatoon.

And this was a story where his family advocated for his release, took some time to make it happen. And it was a tragically hip who became part of the David Milgaard story because of a song that they released called 38 Years Old. So let me get the chronology right. 38 Years Old is not about David Milgaard. But people thought it was about David Milgaard.

So they would talk to Gore Downie and the Tragically Hip about David Milgaard. Okay. So they would talk to Gore Downey and the Tragically Hip about David Milgaard. Oh, interesting. Because they figured this whole story, 38 years old, which is what? That's about the Millhaven prisoner escape. It's in the lyrics. Millhaven maximum security. Beautiful song. 38 years old.

But it is a fictional tale, I think. Because he talks about my older brother, Mike, and he has a Mike. But anyway, fictional story. Okay, but also characterizing the ordeal of being a prisoner. You've been locked up your whole adult life, and this, in fact, was a situation that David Milgaard was also going through. So that was a connection. So it took me, not quite 38 years, but close enough to get that story straight and

know that Wheat Kings was in fact the song that the Tragically Hip wrote in honor of the exoneration of David Milgaarden. Quick story, when he was first released and got a lot of

media attention for being set free, my roommate at the time, he was doing his waiter at the Olive Garden and wasn't up on all the news. And he dutifully reported to me that he had served a celebrity that day. Jeffrey Dahmer had been in the restaurant. And I had to correct him. But we got a good laugh out of all that. Jeffrey Dahmer might have been a lot guiltier than David Milgaard.

Dead at 69, May 15, right. Oh, ribbit. Come shout and sing, join in the ring. It could be queen or it could be king. You go your way and I'll go mine. As long as you just make it fine. The rain will shine So I'm drinking wine Some even dress like Frankenstein

Move up your waist Your body line But just you do it Right on time The wild thing It is a wild thing The wild thing You don't remember this song from

Ralph Ben-Murgy on the CBC Nightlines. At the time this movie, Something Wild, was originally released. Here was the song at the end of the movie, Sister Carol Wild Thing. And it was a favorite of Ralph Ben-Murgy's radio show. Shout out to Ralph Ben-Murgy. You can mention that to Ralph. See if he's impressed by that. I don't think he would care in the least what I'm talking about. I mean, he was just there to talk between the records.

This is a big day for Ralph. He's got to see how his Green Party does provincially. Something Wild was the first major movie role for Ray Liotta. Liotta or Liotta? I'm going with Liotta. Okay, I'm going with Liotta. Liotta or Liotta? I'm going with Liotta. Okay, I'm going with Liotta. But you're the Italian here, so I trust your judgment.

You know, before that, he was in a movie with Pia Zadora, The Lonely Lady. But something wild. And my mom will remind me, my mom was an avid watcher of the soap opera Another World. And my mom, whenever he became big, I guess it was Goodfellas when he became super big,

but my mom would remind me and let me know, oh, I know him from Another World. Fun fact. Something Wild needed a good gangster, talent gangster. That was part of the storyline with Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels and I would imagine that directly influenced Martin Scorsese to cast Ray Liotta as Henry Hill or Liotta

yeah and he was also had that back to back because he was not only was he Henry Hill in Goodfellas which was amazing still a top five movie for me. But he was also Ty Cobb in...

Wait, who was he? Was he Ty Cobb? Who was he? He was Ty Cobb, right? No, he wasn't Ty Cobb. He was not Ty Cobb. What? Field of Dreams. Who did he play in? Shoeless Joe Jackson. Right. Ty Cobb was the asshole that they wouldn't let play or whatever. Yeah. He was Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams,

which is based on a Canadian's short story. Called Shoeless Joe. Right. Warren Kinsella. And he never made a movie with Frank D'Angelo. He didn't get that bad. Credit to his perseverance. People were surprised that he died at age 67.

Big news. Ray Liotta or Liotta. 67 years old, May 26, 2022. Thank you. Please let me make a true confession I have never been in love before But since you came in my direction I've had a change A change of heart My girl said come a dime a dozen

I fed them the things they love to hear I never was wanting for a lover But I never knew what true love was indeed Girl, I'm in love with you But I never knew what true love was indeed. Girl, I'm in love with you. Sure, as the sky is blue. Just let me go to you. Yes, girl, my love is true.

Girl, I'm in love with you. Bernard Wright is an R&B singer who died at age 58 on May 19th, 2022. I just figure you're not going to hear this on any Canadian radio station. Nobody working for any of these radio stations would know this song, except for Scott Turner. You've got to find out if you would have heard this when he was programming the rhythm radio, Chow. Chow AM 530. I could imagine on there in Toronto you would have heard

Who Do You Love by Bernard Wright. And this song ended up being sampled, including most prominently by LL Cool J. Can you place this sample? Place the song. Yeah. What? Six Minutes of Pleasure? Tell me. I don't remember.

Loungin'. Loungin' by LL Cool J. Which was Ladies Love Cool Jams. One of his later songs. Legendary soul train hit here. Bernard Wright. Who do you love? Died in a traffic accident.

I feel like if your fame is faded away, you're more likely to die in a situation like that one. you don't hear people who are still riding limousines. Oh, I see what you're saying. Usually it's a plane crash when you're rich

and famous, or a helicopter crash. It was just a normal guy. Who do you love? By Bernard Wright. Dead at 58. Precious and fragile things Need special handling My God, what have we done to you? We always tried to share The tenderest of cares

Now look what we have put you through Things get damaged, things get broken I thought we'd manage, But words left unspoken Left us so written There was so little left to give Mike, here's one of those situations where I enrage you by picking out a jam from a popular band that you've never heard before. And you're wondering, what's up with that?

Like, what is running through my mind? I felt this Depeche Mode song. This track, Precious, from 2005. This was like the Depeche Mode victory lap. Mode Victory Lap. I'd forgotten about this track until I saw it name-checked in an obituary by Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine.

We've got similar enough tastes and into the 21st century Depeche Mode, wanting to do something beyond being seen as an oldies act, even though by that point in time it was unavoidable, and they nonetheless did their best by coming up with

what is kind of like the last Depeche Mode hit song. Precious, have you ever heard this before? Probably. Did this resonate with you at any point in time? Well, like I was never a deep cut Depeche Mode guy. I was like, I enjoyed the hits, as they say. And so, you know, I don't know if I know this jam,

but I've likely heard it. I respect any of these acts who pass their prime. We've been counting some of those here over the years. Managed to come up with a memorable song. Because of the cloud coverage, see how low the planes are flying? It's whenever there's

clouds up above, we get really low-flying jets making their way up north over there to YYZ. Shout-out to YYZ Gord, who's on the live stream, by the way. But anyway, that's what's distracting me here. We're in the backyard, by the way, if we mention that, and it's not the nicest of days. Like, rain is threatening to come down, and it's kind of cool now. But please, sorry.

Depeche Mode, big fucking band. Andy Fletcher, an enigma amongst the members of Depeche Mode. But he hung in there all along. There was Dave Gahan, front man in the group. I met him once. I did an interview. He was babbling incoherently. Wow.

Shortly thereafter, I found out that he was in the lowest ebb of his life as a drug addict and clinically dead. So I don't think he remembers much about talking to me. Martin Gore, the songwriter. And then Andrew Fletcher, who was along for the ride. Initially, it was him who put the band together with Vince Clark,

who had left for Erasure. Nobody knew what his position was. Fletch of Depeche Mode. He would be on stage with the band, but he wasn't really on the records. I guess maybe he was the creative director, but I'm not even sure if he did that. the records i guess maybe he was the creative director but i'm not even sure if he did that it was more just like he handled the business side but they made him

part of the group and it was a subversive enough thing in that way and the fact that he was there all along and in the in the latter days as a trio depeche mode alan Wilder was the guy who had left, so you had Depeche Mode, which was basically a duo. I guess Depeche Mode could live on, but it was kind of like Depeche Mode wasn't Depeche Mode without Andy Fletcher, and it's him we lost on May 26 at age 60. We'll be right back. Move yourself You always live your life Never thinking of the future Prove yourself

You are the move you make Take your chances, win or lose See yourself You are the steps you take You and you and that's the only way Shake, shake yourself Okay, Mike, you know this jam. There's no denying. Of course I do. Of course I do.

I remember hearing this for the very first time when the song came out. I might have even heard it on Q107. People talk about what's that epochal song that you heard. It was a mind blow. You couldn't believe what you were hearing here. And I think Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes. One of those jams when it first came out, it had that effect. Like, what is this?

Where is this coming from? Who's making all of these sounds? And that was the Yes comeback along with the producer Trevor Horn. This was a regrouping of Yes after they had fallen apart for the first time. But through these multiple breakups and mergers and legal proceedings, the guy who hung out the longest of a member of Yes,

even though he was not a founding member of the band, drummer called Alan White. And Alan White died at age 72 on May 26. And of course, Owner of the Lonely Heart, this is not a song known for its natural drums. But part of the story

of the song was here's where Alan White got into the synthesizer Fairlight programming that was involved in putting together a creation like this one. Turn it up!

That's the stuff. And I would say Alan White was associated with another song which in its time, I would like to clarify, a time before I was born. That song was Instant Karma by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band. Alan White's association with John Lennon, which originated with the Rock and Roll Revival

live piece in Toronto concert, 1969. That seems to come up here every few weeks. Might have come up before in talking about Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins. Later, Alan White on Instant Karma and the album Imagine. But then, 1972, there was a vacancy. A vacancy, and yes, Bill Bruford, the original drummer, had left. And Alan White officially was a member of Yes for 50 years, including outlasting John Anderson as the singer

who had tried to leave a couple times previously. But Alan White there all along. And curious Ridley Funeral Home Memorial, sending it for the singer John Anderson because two of his collaborators died within about a week of another. And the other song also represented something that I remember hearing on the radio and couldn't believe what I was hearing here.

It was like a song that came from a universe that I didn't quite understand. And that was The Friends of Mr. Cairo. I'm playing with those sound effects, by the way. Like, you would hear this on the radio as a lead-up to the song. And this part, the talking. Gangsta shit.

We gotta leave him here, honey. We gotta keep on talking. I promise you that. Will you, Johnny? I don't care what he talks about. I just can't wait for him like this. Listen to me here. I can handle it. you, Johnny? I don't care what he talks about. I just can't wait for him like this. Listen, give me here. I can handle it.

Oh, Johnny, no. The cops are outside. Luca's in the car. Come on, let's get the hell out of this town. We're going to be dead. I know we are. Listen, we've got three million. Listen, Smug, we've got three million in the can here.

We'll look after him. I'll send the person his love. Come on, let's just get out of this place. Break the door. Is this coming from a video that I sent you? I figure if it's the official video, you get the best fidelity of all. No, I'm looking now at the waveform, and it's pretty damn low. And as you see, I'm giving her all she's got, Captain. Okay, doing no justice whatsoever to John Anderson's falsetto, but here's

the first I heard of a Greek musician named Vangelis. Vangelis or Vangelis? I'm surprised you don't know. I remember hearing on the radio, John

and V Jealous. We chatted about this in the top secret FOTM DM group and I think it was BP of Sales who said he was getting one-nighted Bangkok vibes from this jam. And I can hear that.

He was originally part of a psychedelic Greek group called Aphrodite's Child. But in connecting with John Anderson of Yes, while he was on a break from the main band, one of their

aforementioned breakups, The Friends of Mr. Cairo. A huge radio hit in Canada, as well as Europe and the UK, I'll Find My Way Home. Maybe I could have picked that one for better fidelity. Chariots of Fire then became his even bigger American hit.

The, the title, the titles to the movie. Uh, one of the most unlikely American number one hit singles round 1982. And then other soundtracks like blade runner, uh, cosmos with, uh with Carl Sagan,

and kind of all-purpose dramatic music maker. We lost Angelus May 17th at age 79. There we go. Huh. If you've made it this far, you can cope with our

blunders. Yeah, not sure what happened there, to be honest. But I'm glad it's back. Thank you. Yes, speaking of incidental instrumental music, this David Bowie one from the Low album, A New Career in a New Town, featuring guitarist Ricky Gardner, died May 13th at age 73. Do you know this one?

Does this ring a bell? Nope. This is a deep cut. Do not know this one. From the Berlin years of David Bowie, that he had composed a song that he thought transcended any lyrics. You would know the other song where Ricky Gardner plays a famous riff, and that's the opening to The Passenger.

Oh, Iggy Pop. By Iggy Pop. Sure. But, of course, you don't choose that jam because I'll recognize it. I need to be discovering new music. I'm just showing off. And in 1995, Ricky Gardner wrote a piece of music about the liberation of Auschwitz. He considered that the most important thing he ever did.

But he also had an association with David Bowie and Iggy Pop and Tony Visconti, the producer and name deep in the credits of albums like David Bowie's Low. You know, another David Bowie song from that album, Sound and Vision. And the Iggy Pop Lust for Life album with that passenger riff. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Ricky Gardner, Dead at 73. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! There's a message I'm receiving And it's coming in clear But it's not the one that I need to hear So if seeing is believing You better take another look Cause I'm halfway gone And I'm hardly there

What if, what if I find you made a mistake What if, what if It's worth the chance that you take? I would never want to see you standing in the light of fire. You're the one who has to come to grips with your own desires. Do you hear what I'm saying? Yeah, we're always up here for a little 1980s action movie cheese,

and this was a theme song by Tommy Shaw of Styx from the movie Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins. I don't know, Mike, would you have paid to see this in a movie theater? I distinctly remember, I think I have the right trip to the theater, that that was playing and Goonies were playing at the same time, if my memory is correct. And we all went to Goonies, but I remember my buddy, Mark Williams,

I still remember his name, his mom and her friend went to see Remo Williams. This is a memory I have. Is that possible? Dick Clark was the producer who was adapting these pulp fiction novels to the screen. And here's the thing. Remo Williams' adventure begins, but the Remo Williams adventure didn't continue.

That's right. The adventure beginning was also the end. And playing Remo Williams was an actor named Fred Ward, who died on May 8th at age 79. Now, he was in a movie that had a sequel. Oh, I know. What? Tremors. Tremors.

There you go. Which was very good. I remember the first Tremors, thoroughly enjoying that. That was Kevin Bacon, Tremor, and Reba McIntyre. Right. Right. And you know who else? The guy from, the dad from Family Ties, Michael Gross. I was a big Family Ties guy.

You know, shout out to Michael J. Fox. And the dad from Family Ties was in that movie. I remember he was playing, like, such a different role from, like, Stephen Keaton. Tell me that's not a made-up memory. I want my memories to be accurate. Damn it. Michael Gross in that thing? Yes.

Tremors. Let's get a mustache. I can see him now in my mind's eye. Rip Fred Ward, though. Michael Gross was in Tremors, I can now confirm. But, I mean, look, here we are with a sequel to Top Gun, 35 years after the fact. Don't spoil it, I haven't seen the first one yet. The whole idea of how they tried to mark and package these movies, right?

Like, we got an action-packed theme song here from Tommy Shaw. How could this movie go wrong? song here from Tommy Shaw. How could this movie go wrong? But it didn't seem like the Remo Williams franchise was built to last even though they had hope for a spin-off.

But this song was Remo's theme. And as far as I can tell, Fred Ward also never ended up appearing in a Frank D'Angelo movie. He had that much going for him. And he played Ronald Reagan in a French political thriller. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.

Fred Ward, dead at 79. When the night has come And the land is dark And the moon is the only light we'll see. Be afraid just as long as you stand by me. Darling, stand by me. Proud to be country people. 1430 CKFH. I remember after the urban cowboy craze around that time, the Toronto Blue Jays games would air on this radio station. I later became the fan.

I was still speaking sports enough at the time that I would listen to Tom Cheek and Early Win and Mark Hebsher hanging up on people on his open line sports radio talk show. Wow. But then in between all the sports coverage, they'd play country music. And it was like completely foreign to me. What is this honky tonk shit? Completely foreign to me. What is this honky-tonk shit?

But on the AM dial, Mickey Gilly resonated with a song called Stand By Me. Maybe at a time when I wasn't aware this was a cover version at all. That's my entire recollection, personally. Speaking of Mickey Gilly, we'll get to age 86 to end the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment of another country music star. And it was a fact that he ran his own nightclub,

the world's biggest honky-tonk, called Gillies, which was known for having a mechanical bull, which was a co-star in the John Travolta movie. Did you know that Gillies nightclub burned down 10 years later in 1990? I did not know that. I did not know that. And then there was a rodeo arena part of the building there.

And by 2005, it was torn down. But once upon a time, Mickey Gilley was a big country music star. And it turned out that his biggest hit in the country music tradition was taking a song from a black artist and making it sound as white as humanly possible in the form of the song

Stand By Me. Thank you Michael Boone Toronto Mike for Standing By Me and Ridley Funeral Home. You know, I meant to ask you before the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment, I meant to ask you if you had an update on Jim Richards. No Jim Richards talk today.

No Jim Richards and some other cutting room floor stuff, which we will get to in about a month. And news on the future of the 1236 newsletter. That's the stuff we talk about when the microphones are off. We made it this far, okay? I'm willing to share that much with you. Is Jim Richards returning to 1010 or is he finished with 1010? Stay tuned.

We'll get to that. We'll talk about Torkel Campbell on the next episode. I do want to hear what you thought of Torkel Campbell. We left on the cutting room floor a death of a former Canadian TV star named Julie Amato. I want to talk about that one, so I'm holding that over for the list. Let the record show the only death I put on the cutting room floor because we're over three hours. But once again, Mark, what a pleasure.

You kicked ass. You took names. Can't wait to do this again in... What month are we in? In July. Okay, early July. The first Thursday of July. You'll be back.

Good thing not a lot of celebrities died, right? Give us more time to ramble around about John Derringer. You made a statement romping Ronnie Hawkins being the biggest name to pass away in May and I was thinking Ray Liotta was a bigger name, but maybe that's my good fella's

bias. I'm talking about within the greater Toronto area. Yes, absolutely. Everybody remembers the Hawk. Good long life! Toronto Central. In the greater Toronto area. Of course. Yes, absolutely. Everybody remembers the hawk. Good long life. And I hope the same for you and me too. Huh, Mike?

And that brings us to the end of our 1060th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 12361236. 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.

The promo code is TMDS. Ridley Funeral Home are at RidleyFH. And Canna Cabana are at CannaCabana underscore. See you all Sunday when my special guest is... Mom, what? Orgies? Cynthia Dale. I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? I'm picking up trash and then putting down ropes

And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am This is the best that I can. Maybe I'm not. And maybe I am. But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up. Rosy and gray.

Yeah, the wind is cold. But the smell of snow warms me today. And your smile is fine. And it's just like mine mine And it won't go away Cause everything is Rosy and great Well I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain

And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms us today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.

Because everything is rosy now. Everything is rosy, yeah. Everything is rosy and everything is rosy and gray.