Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #1091

Episode Date: August 4, 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 Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1091 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta.

Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Redley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana, the lowest prices on cannabis, guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. country. Learn more at canacabana.com Today

documenting the month that was July 2022 It's Mark Weisblot from 1236 Hey Toronto Mike That's your do-do-the-clown

impression, right? Yeah, let's see how I did. You can pull that clip from when you had do-do-the-clown impression, right? Yeah, let's see how I did. You can pull that clip from when you had do-do-the-clown here last year. I'm the next best thing, having come here on this sweltering August 4th afternoon to talk about the month that was, as well as, by your request, the month that was, as well as, by your request, get into what's going on behind the scenes of the 1236 newsletter, that which was the original premise for me to come on your show, having started this thing where I'd be covering what was going on in Toronto and beyond,

the lunchtime tabloid, the news burrito. It gave me the platform I needed to be the kind of media personality that could come on everyone's favorite local podcast with most of the people listening being not quite sure what he does. of the people listening being not quite sure what he does. But over the course of multiple months, started off six years ago doing this on a quarterly basis, went to monthly in 2019. There were a few months that I didn't appear. Other months, you sentenced me to do the episode on Zoom.

Yeah, that was what I did. I did that. You came back in the backyard for a period of time. You were terrified that I would infect your children with COVID-19. I think we're over that now, Mike. You're now quadruple vaccinated. You went to the front of the line. There wasn't a vaccine for a very

long time. It was common practice not to collect outside of your home unit. You make it sound like this was some Toronto Mike paranoia. What I'm trying to say... Do you not remember? We have come this far for me to be here in your basement

today and deliver something of a scoop, an exclusive about what's going on behind the curtain of the newsletter that brought us here together every day. Okay, thank you for that. That's a great summary. Now I need to set the table a little further.

So I'm on Twitter. Wonderful app, wonderful website. I'm on Twitter. There's a tweet from you at 1236 and it reads, Wonderful app, wonderful website. I'm on Twitter. There's a tweet from you at 1236, and it reads, the 88th and final month of the 1236 newsletter under current management. Log on for the journey.

So please address those remarks. What are you talking about? This is the 88th and final month of the newsletter under current management. And who is the management? This is the 88th and final month of the newsletter under current management. And who is the management? Is that St. Joseph's Media? I'm going to need to open up a can of GLB. Okay, crack it on the mic.

Okay, you got the burst. So I'm digging. I actually had Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home over yesterday. He loves the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment, which we'll get to in about 90 minutes. We'll see how it goes. But he loves the IPAs from Great Lakes, and I do too.

So you just cracked open a burst. I am now cracking open a Sunnyside IPA because I sense there's a big announcement coming. But I'll just tell the FOTMs I have no idea what's coming. You don't have some music, a little drum roll, some sort of segue? Do I? Put us in a little mood that some music a little drum roll some sort of segue do i put us in a little mood that's not a general that's a guess applause okay i don't have okay you know what i don't have a drum roll let me you really want one let me just check i might have one here hold on uh this is important okay sample set this came with my, here it is. Ready?

Yes. Oh. Don't you have an announcement to make? What is the announcement? So 88 months ago, I initiated doing this daily newsletter through St. Joseph Media, St. Joseph Communications, SJC Media, as they're formally known today. And I was informed, given a whole lot of advance warning, that effective the end of August 2022, 1236 will not be an SJC Media product anymore. And, you know, the feeling I got when they delivered this news was actually one of relief because it had been experienced

for the past couple of years as we're recapping all the trauma we went through having to work under pandemic conditions where I was hanging in, hanging around, hoping for some new revelations. My involvement with this company, which started off as a side project of Toronto Life magazine and initially got enough buzz that it was determined that the thing could fly on its own. And it was a few exciting years there of delivering this dispatch every single day at 12.36 p.m. and building up an audience in Toronto and beyond with a certain sort of flavor, in Toronto and beyond with a certain sort of flavor,

the kind of news roundup inspired by social media, something that I had attempted in several previous incarnations, that here we could be at the forefront of the daily newsletter frontier. At the same time, this was a project for an evolving media company that they had all kinds of online projects going on, some experimental stuff, and I got to play a role influencing and inspiring other things they did, stuff that was more corporately successful. that was more corporately successful. But I never expected this thing to last forever until the end of time. And it just had felt like things were changing at SJC Media

to the point where not only were my services not a fit anymore, but I think we're seeing the end of a certain kind of digital disruption. We just went through a decade or two in which all sorts of people were paid by larger media entities to experiment, you know, figure out what to do online. How can we make money off the internet? And for me, there's some fulfillment in having worked with this company to have reached the end of the line. The experiment is over. Things were conducted. Conclusions were reached. And the takeaway here is that the 1236 name and the newsletter and a significant influential email list of people receiving the newsletter,

I am getting custody of all these things. They are handing it over, and it's for me to figure out whatever it is that I can do to continue the 1236 newsletter as we have known it, or go in a few different directions without reaching the point where I've disrupted people's attentions to the point where they unfollow and unsubscribe, right? The whole game here is to hang on to the audience that was developed and find a way to do it with the tools that are out there. Toronto Mike has been a huge inspiration.

We did a 1236 episode, you might remember the day, Toronto Mike, on which you got fired from your final corporate day job. Remember that afternoon? Well, they wanted me to move to Frankfurt, and I said no, and then they packaged me out. Yes, I remember. This is with Elvis, right? Beforehand, when they broke the news to you,

I was rolling into your basement for another round of recapping the people who died, and there you're telling me. Here at Toronto Mike, a man with four children to feed, a mortgage to pay, all the levels above this basement.

You would have to find a new way to make a living. If I remember correctly, Mike, I was particularly encouraging. I thought that through the podcast, you had developed the foundation on which you could build an empire of your own. No, you were very encouraging.

And I just find it interesting that I realize as I sit here that if we had a private conversation five years ago, I might be spilled into the microphone right now. Like I have no idea what's coming next. But absolutely. I do remember the feeling of what's next. Okay. And I remember the, uh, the anxiety and the uneasy feeling of where does the next paycheck come from when you stop getting money from the software company in Germany. So, uh, without a doubt, you and I had some good conversations around that time. And then I did what I did and I have no regrets in doing what I did. I'm glad

I did what I did. You even invited your buddy Elvis to come over and give you a career counseling session. Because I had to make a decision. Do I do it on my own or do I go take another corporate gig? This was a very real discussion. In hindsight, I don't know what the hesitation was, but

when you're in that moment, there's something easy, like about the guaranteed twice a month deposit into your bank account that comes from a corporate gig. It almost breeds like, I will say this, that in hindsight, there really was no conversation to be had. But in the moment, I seriously had a real decision to make. And then thanks to conversations with people like you and Elvis, I realized what I needed to do. I delivered you your very first corporate client. Yes, that's true. You did. I think Hebsey's like the first client who wasn't named Mike. And you definitely did deliver my first corporate client. And I actually broke a lot of eggs with that client so that other clients now enjoy a delicious omelet on the daily.

We're talking about this on the show because I figured there are people out there who are compelled enough by what's going on behind the scenes, right? We're here doing these 1236 episodes every month. We're dissecting what everybody else is doing in media. I'm usually the one attacking them for getting it all wrong. If I'm going to do something next, I want to do it right. And here's the thing. I do have other stuff going on. So it's not a situation where I was entirely dependent on doing this

newsletter at 1236. For a little while, I invested in that possibility, but then I diversified. Other opportunities came up. One of those things we talk about here is the role that I play with the Canadian Jewish news, and that's been a big deal for me too, being at the center of developing a new model for this kind of community media, non-profit. Now it's going to be supported by charitable donors. There's a lot to look forward to on that front. Doing pretty much everything that I have ever learned in the media is being applied to that job.

And the future is bright and there's a lot to look forward to from here. And then there's some other stealth stuff that I've been doing on the side. At the same time, I'm here every month as your guest doing this episode as a guy who writes a newsletter called 1236. Mike, I'm trying to extract from people like you the determination

to carry on, to have that will to survive, and to find a new model for this style of email, newsletter, or communication, which if you haven't noticed over this period of seven years that I was doing it with SJC, it became kind of a big deal. A whole company sub-stack came out of nowhere. company, Substack, came out of nowhere. I am using that particular platform, even though I haven't been charging for subscriptions. I'm watching them rumble about how they're going to develop the technology even further, how people can start to create their own private social networks. At the same time, inspired by Toronto Mike, the prospect of paid advertising. And it's amazing how you've managed to rack up those sponsors.

Me asking you, me asking them, how do I get a piece of that action? But at the same time, I enter into an existential state of mind and I'm wondering, how much does any of this stuff have to be done after all? Like, is it important to me? Is it significant to the community at large that I continue to derive some sort of income of this sort of journalist just because I figured out a way how to do it consistently for the past seven years? What do you think, Mike?

Like, is there a future in this for me? Or do I just bite the bullet and approach it from the angle that I'm here to have some fun? Maybe I can help some people out, boost some other people's careers. Not treat this as having any particular destination. Mike, I'm looking for your wisdom. What do you think we can do? I'm just quickly deciding what's fit for public consumption, but I did pitch an idea to you that I believe in. Believe it or not, I actually pitch an idea to you that I believe in. Believe it or not, I actually told that idea to Tyler, the VP of sales, this morning

because he looked out his living room window and he saw my great head of hair in line to get my kids into a camp this morning and he waltzed over in his Crocs, by the way, and then I told him this idea I had for you and I. And I have an idea. We're 1236 and Toronto Mike work together for the betterment of all.

Let's see what can happen. That's why I thought it was worthwhile off the top. If anybody out there listening has an idea for what I can do, right? So I don't want to hear some pie-in-the-sky speculative internet idea. I've been there. I've done that. I can't go through the motions of trying to create something out of nothing and exasperate myself, hoping something will happen. I've had that experience. It never

ended well. And the renaissance that I got to feel seven years ago working for this company, St. Joseph Media, was some sort of liberation from having to experience that anxiety all the time. I'm not looking to go back to have that happen again. I'm also very wary of the process where you put in a press release and you make all sorts of pronouncements about here's the big thing that I'm launching, everything that's going to happen next. I mean, if you're capitalized at a certain level, if you're a guy like Ben Smith who had worked for the New York Times and BuzzFeed and he's doing a startup called Semaphore, and that's capitalized investments, venture capitalists believing in him to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, then you can get away with that kind of activity. I've lived and learned that if I'm going to do something at this age, at this stage, I got to get it right. What I've got to offer is this 1236 brand name,

a certain sensibility, and a certain number of email recipients who are accustomed to getting something every single day. How can I communicate with people in new ways? And what's the euphemism that you use? can I communicate with people in new ways? And what's the euphemism that you use? Partners who are delivering the real talk? I guess this is a more graceful way of saying these people are sending you money to mention their product in between all your rants on the podcast. That's it. Helping to fuel the real talk. Helping to fuel 1236.

We reflect here every month on what the media is doing wrong, what it needs to do to get things right, and my feeling about my seven years of experience there with SJC Media, with SJC Media. What started off as the publishers of a few Canadian magazines spun off from what was primarily a printing company in Toronto. Its stable of publications

has gotten even bigger. We've talked about that over the past three years. Rogers wanted to get out of the magazine business, and they determined that St. Joe's was a good custodian to keep these magazines alive. Now, in a certain era, when I was younger, a lot more immature, didn't really know what I was doing, just wanted somebody to give me a job fooling around on the internet,

I might have been the one snarking about the fact that McLean's or Toronto Life or Chatelaine, to whatever extent I care about what's happening there. I would have looked at their websites. I would have looked at what they were putting out in terms of multimedia, maybe podcasts. I would have said that they were weak. They weren't delivering the goods. But we've now gone through a period of enough experimentation,

something for which I was proud to be a part, that they know what works, they know what's going to deliver the revenues, and the daily email newsletter ain't it. Not on that scale. But is there a level, Toronto Mike, on which we can make this kind of thing work in the same way that you producing

podcasts in your basement has been a smashing success, right? If you took your business model and you tried to attach it to a Bell or Chorus or Rogers, I don't think that would make any sense anymore, right? Like they wouldn't know what to do with you there. I feel the same way about the bigger media matrix. I'm not looking to connect myself to a large publisher, even though I would accept their inquiries. I'd be happy to get a paycheck for not doing much work at all.

Can I ask? I have questions. Okay. So, I mean, I happen to know you control the means of distribution here like you don't need saint joseph's media what saint joseph's media has done if i'm correct you'll correct me if i'm wrong they have been giving you money right they gave me money and they gave me they gave me a chance to participate well really money in the development of a media the rest yes okay, but everything involved with what you do

at St. Joseph's Media, you can do without St. Joseph's Media. The big piece that disappears at the end of this month is that they're not going to put money in your bank account. At the same time, though, I was also enthusiastic about the idea of contributing to the evolution of stuff, right? Like, this isn't only a job. I guess you might even call it a hobby. How I spend my leisure time scrolling around online, finding a way to harness all the information that I can find. So I was also driven by the belief that when it came to finding stuff out

based on scrolling around online, Mike, you got to admit, I'm the greatest it ever was. I knew more about this stuff than anyone in this town. Oh, ask yourself this. Why would I open my mics up to somebody for three hours a month? I mean, Stu and Cam accepted, and they don't even get to the three-hour mark, but that's a different animal.

But you are it, right? I've been your, I don't know, and they don't even get to the three-hour mark, but that's a different animal. But you are it, right? I've been your, I don't know, one of your biggest supporters, biggest believers. I said, here's three hours. Say your thing, because no one else does it like you. But I got to tell you, St. Joseph's Media, in my opinion, having observed you for the last several years,

St. Joseph's Media, yeah, money's one thing. We have to replace that money. That's fine. We could do that. But St. Joseph's Media is the feather that's one thing. We have to replace that money. That's fine. We could do that. But St. Joseph's media is the feather that Dumbo thought he needed to fly, okay? So Dumbo thinks he needs that feather to fly. I don't know if you've seen Dumbo, okay? I've seen it a few dozen times.

But he didn't need the feather. It was always him. And I'm here to tell you that 1236 that I've come to know and love and respect, it's always been you, brother. It is you. At the same time, respect. It's always been you, brother. It is you. At the same time, I think it's harder than you think because motivation to roll out of bed every day

and deliver the goods, it's got to come from somewhere, right? So it's me looking at this evolving company, the president of the media company, Ken Hunt, who's been an awesome supporter. He's the one sending me on my way with all of these assets, right? He could say no. He could say, we've got control over this stuff.

We want to take it on for another media project that somebody else is in charge of who isn't you. Then they'd face my wrath if they did that. He wants to see me succeed in another form, in another fashion. I want to show him that I can make it happen. So up until this point, it was me watching somebody like him figure out what he could do to specifically bring magazines into the future of media.

And here, seven years later, big success story with Toronto Life magazine. Seven years later, big success story with Toronto Life magazine. And now he's expected to replicate that success with other titles that they've got going on at St. Joe's. I would be happy to be kept on some sort of list. Somebody he could call in the future to bring back in. To play a part and participate in a future project. But for right now, they're doubling down on a very specific thing. And by the way, podcasting also plays a role here.

That's a factor as well. For a year or two, I talked about the fact there was a 1236 podcast under development. Right. What happened there? You would tease me every single episode. When is this thing going to launch i'm telling you we actually recorded a couple of pilot episodes really i'm not saying i was particularly comfortable i didn't have my security blanket toronto mic by my side no because i'm just learning about this what was going what was going to happen to it all but at the same time i think think the smart decision was made. We rendered like we're just not going to bother with this thing.

Who was your co-host? They couldn't see. Did you have another co-host? I'm not going to get into too many details. Was he better than me, Mark? If I'm alive long enough, maybe we will critique the demo. Oh, yeah. Send it over.

That we made for a 1236 podcast going back five years ago. Maybe it's better than this? What do I know? I'm not saying it was very well conceived, but I give the company credit because they let me explore this for a little while and then we decided collectively I was on board with this decision.

I wasn't disappointed at all. There's no viability at this time to doing this. And if you can't find a sponsor, if you don't see any money in it at all, it's better just not to bother. I'm glad that there's not a legacy out there, a big launch, a press release, a party debuting the 1236 podcast, and then like so many digital projects that came before, tuckering out after, I don't know, three or four episodes, right?

People wondering whatever happened to your 1236 podcast strategy. Okay, okay. But you are in this very similar situation to where I am where there's this brand. Okay, TMDS is just an umbrella corporation, but it actually stands for Toronto Mic Digital Services. Fun fact.

So Toronto Mic'd as a brand is me, okay? It's me. So there is no Toronto Mic'd without me. It's literally me. 12.36 as a brand, which in my circle is a big fucking deal, is you. You're 12.36.

We'll figure out how to monetize it. You deliver the goods. No one's better at what you do than you are, I had this idea that I pitched you earlier that I'm not going to spit in the microphone right now, but it involves 1236 and TMDS working together you know, we know what

you're great at, we know what I'm great at we bundle that together we help brands and we work together, there's a great future for you Mark, 1236 is not dead. Your association with 1236 is what's dying here. Let's walk together into the uncanny valley. Mike, from what I can tell,

you're about to adopt me as your fifth child. Were you ever looking for a 50-year-old son? Now that you mention it, I wasn't looking for one. I'm the one that you're looking for. The president ignites Dining bowls for the lay Anyone who will tease Of just and equal Lies on the table Unbroken

Shelter in the mass This is FOTM. Rise, rise, rise. Rise like a ghost. This is FOTM, Ian Blurton. This is Like a Ghost, new music from Ian. What did you think of Ian Blurton's Toronto Mike debut? You see this guy, Ian Blurton, 40-year veteran of the Toronto indie rock scene. If you saw him careening towards you on the sidewalk, you would duck, you would get out of the way,

you would think, who is this messing character with a big gray beard? This guy looks like a mean motherfucker. Turns out, he's a real sweetheart. And he proved it by coming into your backyard and talking about all his career in Toronto, going back to 1982 with the band Change of Heart. We're always around, right? I mean, I came of age knowing who Change of Heart were.

I was at Campus Radio when they were considered significant on that scene. No, Blair Packham is too old to have been in campus radio in the time of change of heart. Okay, quick. Blair Packham is going to play live at TMLXX, and that is, I want all the FOTMs to know,

September 1st, 6-9pm, Great Lakes Brewery, Southern Etobicoke location. And my question for you, I meant to ask it in that previous segment, but you were so passionately explaining what's happening with the 1236 brand. But on September 1st, as I'm preparing

for TMLXX, will I receive a 1236 newsletter at 1236 p.m. Eastern? On that date? Yeah, on September 1st. I'm not going to promise to be making a live appearance

anywhere. I'm not even asking that. I'm asking if there's going to be a dig in my inbox. I mean, look, I'm looking for answers. That's why I'm inviting anyone to give me an idea. I can be attached to big media. I can do

a bespoke project on my own. The future is bright. The answer is you don't know. Maybe is the answer. I enjoy the fact that I don't know. We're giving people a cliffhanger. Let's see what happens. But back to Ian Blurton.

I was going to say one of the things that I think needs more representation in the media are all of us aging Gen Xers, right? I don't think we have a lot of icons, particularly in Toronto, who've actually stuck with it. And when you reflect upon your recent FOTM guest, Ian Blurton, right? Here is a guy who is determined to see it through. And when you reflect upon your recent FOTM guest, Ian Blurton, right?

Here is a guy who is determined to see it through. I'm listening to his new album. I'm thinking, this guy is making more commercial-sounding music than ever. My first instinct is to think, like, how can he get this thing on the radio? You know, is there a way to get a greater level of attention? Can he finally be vindicated for all the years that he put in? Here he's got this slickly produced rock sound with melodies and harmonies. Sounds like he put a lot of work into it. Mike, you're the guy that interviewed him.

What do you think is the prospect for a guy like Ian Blurton these days in the music business? He can come by for a deep dive interview with you, right? But how does somebody like him get listened to more here in 2022, maybe more than he ever did before? Oh, I'm not sure that's a priority for Ian. I think Ian is going to make his dollars producing music for other artists, and I think he's going to make the music for Love of the

Game, man. It's just he's going to follow his passions and make what he's feeling. He did drop that bomb on us in that episode that Change of Heart are going to make some new music, and I'm telling you, when Change of Heart play that show at the Horseshoe or wherever that they're going to play, I want to be there, man.

This is a band. I've been revisiting their catalog, you know, from Herstory to, you know, Trigger, you name it. Great jams, man. Underappreciated, I know you said early 80s, but I'll say late 80s, 90s alt-rock band out of the city. And Ian was amazing. I just, amazing And Ian was amazing.

Amazing. He was great. He must have learned something from all the years working in studios there because it's reflected his album. I was more impressed with it than I thought I would be. Ian Blurton's... Rave reviews from 1236. Ian Blurton's Future Now, the album.

Second Skin with artwork, photography by Rick McGinnis, who's also a great Toronto aging Gen Xer artistic legend. So before, I want to hear about the bookie unveiling, and I got a jam for that. But are there any other Toronto Mic'd episodes you can shout out since your last visit? Did you listen to Gowan, for example? Yeah, I'm here on the heels of Lawrence Gowan.

I noticed a few articles on different websites. Could Gowan's strange animal be having a Kate Bush Stranger Things moment? Sounds like an helper. Yeah, the byline on those articles, you gotta be a little suspicious when the guy who's writing the hype happens to be the paid publicist,

the form of Eric Alper. Sure, well, I can disclose to you that it's Alper who had Gowan meet me on Zoom, although Alper, who I, I'm a big Alper guy. I know you're less so, but I think he's a great guy. Eric Alper did tell me that Gowan was in the USA, and then he had to Zoom in because he's in the States. And I said, okay, that makes sense.

And then I get on the Zoom with him, and he's like, yeah, I'm here by the Scarborough Bluffs. So that doesn't sound like the States. Yeah, Gowan, definitely a lifer. So we had a trademark Toronto Mike deep dive episode with Gowan, a long time coming. A lot of FOTMs were huge Gowan fans. People with like an encyclopedic knowledge of his entire career

coming at you with questions. I do that for every episode. Most episodes I'm like, you got a question you want me to ask, whatever. And you usually get a handful of things. But for Gowan it was blowing up there. Like you got a question you want me to ask? Whatever. And you usually get a handful of things. But for Gowan, it was blowing up there. Everybody had a question for Gowan. And the song is You're a Strange Animal. We all grew up with that one.

From the movie Nope, directed by Jordan Peele. Also has Corey Hart, Sunglasses at Night. That's like a slowed down, chopped and screwed version of the song. Future FOTM Corey Hart. So it turns out, I think, working on it. Jordan Peele doing more for 1980s CanCon than any other filmmaker in this entire country. Hal Johnson of Body Break. Yes.

I got around to interviewing Hal Johnson several years before you, and there was only one thing that I was assigned to talk to him about. Hal, why did you shave your mustache? This was the subject of a post-media investigative report that lives on forever on the website, bodybreak.com. What was the state of Hal's facial hair? Thick and full in all its glory.

I kind of think, hope, like in my heart of hearts, maybe he grew it for me. You know, because I met him on the set of Toronto Legends, and I could tell from my interaction with him that he loved the show and wanted to be an FOTM. And I was more than happy to make that happen, but he didn't have a mustache at that point. So we put it in the calendar and he had enough time to grow a mustache,

but he had a full thick, luscious, beautiful mustache. Hal Johnson, Hal Johnson believes in fan service. He realized I could not appear on Toronto Mike without my mustache.

How would he have been able to face the questions that you would have been firing off? And Joanne made an appearance too. So I kept my duo streak intact. Speaking of duos, I'm curious because this is kind of right up your alley is this kind of stuff, but a lot of Attic

records chatter because Kevin Shea and Steve Waxman came over and then the next week I had Al Mayer on the program and a lot of interesting Attic stories. Yeah, fascinating history. Speaking of Canadian content

of Attic records, how the whole company evolved and had a couple of dudes who used to work as publicists there, and in the process, I think we heard more about Weird Al Yankovic in the last few weeks of Toronto Mic. Any time in history, to the point where you had someone on Twitter who was tweeting to Weird Al that in between his two Toronto shows at the Danforth Music Hall, they should make time to come over and hang in your backyard.

You didn't get any follow-up from all that? At the very least, could James B. have helped you somehow in making a match? For the record, when that comes grassroots like that, I just leave it be. It's nice

and all, but if i want weird al i'll start to go and i do want weird al but i also you know i i pick my battle so to speak so like i'll know who can help me make that happen if it's even possible and this one i didn't interfere with the grassroots initiative by that uh that passionate fotmM. Jeff Woods. Right. In early July, made an appearance with a very special episode of the Sunday Night Sex Show with Toronto Mike. What did you think? Was that a juicy app or what?

You finally got to seriously pose a question that Stu Stone has been asking since 1984. What's an orgy? And with Jeff Woods, Jeff Woods, formerly of Q107, legends of classic rock. What is it? Records? Records and rock stars.

Records and rock stars. Jeff Woods pivoting to porno. A big way. To the point where you had to unfollow him on Instagram. Because you're not into skimming your feed while on the couch. That's right. With content that's not safe for work. I didn't unfollow Jeff Woods.

It's called the Blue Records. Blue Hotel. Blue Hotel. And it's a bunch of tits and ass, and that's all fine with me, but sometimes I'm sitting beside my six-year-old daughter, and I'm flipping through my feeds or whatever, and when a pair of tits show up,

it's like, whoa, it's a bit jarring. And it's like, I don't want to have to, like, be hiding my screen. I never know when the ass will show up. So I just felt it was better to lose that content. But on that Jeff Woods episode, talk about threesomes and foursomes and fivesomes. Okay, and speaking of twosomes,

gruesome twosomes, I just want to shout out that since you were last here, I had Leo Roudens and Rod Black here together, which was great fun. And then the very next week, I had Damian Cox and Gord Stelic here together. And those kind of duos reuniting in person in the basement are super exciting for me.

I wouldn't want to do them necessarily on Zoom, but the fact that they were here, there was an energy in the room, I thoroughly enjoyed both of those episodes. Some competition for Cam Gordon and Stu Stone. I had a Cam Gordon sighting this month, let me talk about, regarding the unveiling of a plaque for Dave Bookman.

I'm a side labyrinth being over Cracks along under the trees I know this town grounded in a compass Dave Bookman. outcomes such a come down lately afternoon with the shades drawn down kept saying I just wanted to see it saying what's wrong with that needle shaking outlines in a compass every outcome such a come down

I knew it when I saw it So I did just what I wanted So I hooked you with it I knew I did this when I saw it I saw your boyfriend at the Port Authority Sort of fucked up place Well, so I averted my sight Remember when we did our tribute to Dave Bookman

and played this jam at the end, Old Friends by Pine Grove, because I had a moment there on Twitter where I heard Bookie spin this record on his voice track Sunday show on Indie 88. And I don't know if it was the final communication I had with him, but a song, Old Friends by Pine Grove, reminds me of him. As we talked about in that episode, I did not have much direct communication with the guy in the last decade and a half of his life. But I think there was a story that I had to tell about someone who was an influence and an inspiration

at a time where here was somebody who was a decade and change older than me. decade and change older than me, and yet we found a lot of common ground and aspirations that we shared. And even though hanging out at the Horseshoe Tavern was not really my idea of a good time, I recognize that was a sacred space for Dave Bookman. And that is where on display from now until the end of time, you can find a Heritage Toronto plaque in Dave Bookman's honor. So how was I going to miss that morning, taking a week off, decompressing the evolution of the 1236 newsletter,

made it down to the horseshoe on a Tuesday morning, and there was a pretty big crowd of people gathering there, and standing tall above them all, a man you can never miss in a mob, Cam Gordon, from the Toronto Mike series Toast

and the progressive past of Modern Melody. So always a thrill to see Cam break from work at Twitter Canada. And in fact, it wasn't me who left this time. It was Cam. He had to get back to work. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't play hooky through the morning.

Couldn't play hooky for bookie. Couldn't play, couldn't play hooky for bookie. And even though I might've also been into the idea, like the stew stone movie premiere, where I disappeared for the entire length of the film to go for a walk. There was a, there was a bench where, where I hung out I hung out and I watched Bookie being honored.

And there was members of Billy Talent, July Talk, Lowest of the Low, a member to Broken Social Scene, and Dave Bedini of the Rio Statics, Broken Social Scene, and Dave Bedini of the Rio Statics, who a few minutes earlier on Twitter acknowledged me comparing this song to something by the Rio Statics. Although, I think it was Cam Gordon who gave me that idea. Let's hear a bit of this. and i fell in love with a boy it was kind of lame i was rambo and he was paul valaine my my my imagination so many cringes and heroin binges I was coming off the hinges

Living on the fringes of My, my, my Imagination Oh yeah Enough about me now You gotta talk about the people, baby So who is this? The 1975.

Did you know there's a British band by that name? I'm holding out for the 1974. That's it, one year after you were born. Now, you know, it sounds like, to my ears, it sounds a bit like that big sound we had, which I quite enjoyed in the late, sorry, like around 2009 or so, 2008, 2009, that indie rock sound. I'm thinking of Wolf Parade, I'll Believe in Anything,, sorry, like around 2009 or so, 2008, 2009, that indie rock sound.

I'm thinking of Wolf Parade, I'll Believe in Anything, like that kind of jam. Shout out to Michael Barclay and his new book. I'm into this track, great radio record, even if you can't necessarily hear it on the Toronto airwaves, and if it really matters anymore, but maybe it'll show up on Indie 88. So of course at this bookie event, Indie 88 was representing a big way. It was Josie Dye, who was the host of this

bookie plaque unveiling. And there I saw her morning show sidekicks. Josie Dye is candy. These gentlemen are the backbeat. Carlin, Carlin. Carlin Burton. And Brent.

I think Brent Albrecht. Brent's the guy who stood me up to kick out the jams. And Carlin's engaged to be married to Joe from T.O.'s Cousin. Can you believe I was going to confront Brent about the fact that he stood you up? That he was supposed to appear on your show? Who does that? This is in the history, the 10 year history of Toronto Mike's. He's the only guy who said

I'm coming over, these are the 10 songs I want to kick out. I get the songs, I load them in the soundboard, Brent ghosts me, I never hear from him again. If you ever do hear from Brent, I figure this is a call that will get him in touch. You got to hold him to his original jams, right?

Like no editing, no changes. What year was this? 2017, 18, 19? You are not allowed to like any different music. You are not permitted to revise your choices. So in that respect, I guess, this counted as a radio event. And Indie88 never replaced Bookie at all. Like, they didn't even try.

They're doing a thing on Sunday nights where they're replaying big, big shiny tunes LPs. Because we can't do that ourselves. A specialty show. And they're really dedicated to the bit here, to the point where now they're up to big shiny tunes seven.

So, in Toronto, the 88.1 FM frequency, the former CKLN, this is by far the worst hour of music ever heard on that station. With Too Bad by Nickelback. Youth of the Nation by P.O.D. Stained, It's Been a While. I guess that was their big hit.

But then there's like Big Shiny Tunes 7. There are tracks on this album like Puddle of Mud. Like it's not even a hit song, right? It's like the third follow-up. Is it She Hates Me? To the track, no, not even She Hates Me, no, a track that everybody knows. Of course, Sum 41, Chad Kroger, Hero.

Chad Kroger featuring Josie Scott. What was that? You know who's on drums for the video? What superhero movie was that from? Spider-Man. Spider-Man that? You know who's on drums for the video? What superhero movie was that from? Spider-Man. Spider-Man. Do you know who's on drums for the video? An FOTM. You want to take a shot?

Who? I can't remember. Jeremy Taggart. Jeremy Taggart, I guess, needed a paycheck. Well, he's just in the video. I don't even think it was needed a paycheck. Pretending to be part of a solo project. I think it was supposed to be Matt Cameron from Pearl Jam.

Formerly from Soundgarden. So Matt Cameron from Soundgarden. Also like a Papa Roach song on this album. Again, it's not the hit song. It's not something everybody knows. It's like The Leftovers. Okay, okay. It's what they swept off the factory floor and danko

jones okay like uh this big shiny tunes is it bounce is it 20 years old love lover call by danko jones you know what that is i guess the inclusion here was supposed to be another another step on the danko jones elevator to fame. Since you're talking radio, I'm going to jump in there, if you don't mind. Because on the live, somewhere, I'm not going to say where, I forgot who I was talking to, everything's so secretive.

But I did get somebody who was hoping you'd reference. Were there changes at your former favorite station, Today Radio? The brother, not Brother Bill, but Brother Neil. Today Radio really broke my heart, right? Because I came on here. I tried Neil. Well, yeah, that Today Radio really broke my heart, right? Because I came on here condemning the fact that they launched with this playlist that was so eclectic. I was constantly being surprised.

Review the tapes. I told you. One mind blow after another. I thought, how could a corporate radio station be this thrilling? And they just reverted to a variation on Out of Contemporary Station. You bid on the stuntman. You're better than that. Still a few surprises there.

They also have a lousy website. I don't know how Stingray, an interactive radio station, you can't even figure out what's going on on the air. Terrible website. The entire premise of the radio station is that you interact with the people that are on there you don't shallow week playlist okay terrible website i'm a deep enough playlist but not not not not enough to keep me tuned in after the first and these uh bits they do these calls are they

still sound pretty contrived and stay out one one phony phone call right after and so what was in it for you because they also play ads on that station like they literally will stop and go play like six commercials like what and these names that these are not the great personalities of our time there's no bookie equivalent there's not even a strombo equivalent like these people who are speaking to set up these songs are not known or interesting so what what yeah what was in it for me uh The thrill of never knowing what I was going to hear next. The idea that behind the curtain there was some kind of curator that was into the idea of creating these moments of music scheduling bliss. I never knew what was going to happen.

I would get that little chill up my spine hearing, I don't know, Nick Lowe's Cruel to be Kind on the radio. It made me emotional about maybe being a little kid and hearing this on my transistor radio at the time. You get you too. Showed I was capable. It doesn't matter. I've talked to you before about how I wished I was up in the middle of the night

hearing surprising segues that I would come across in a radio station playlist. But yeah, this Today Radio was anonymous enough to the point where they had a morning show co-host who just disappeared. Her name was Nikki Bolch. And no one noticed except you and Brother Neil. And Brother Neil and this other gentleman with a British accent, Paul Harper. I think he's doing it by himself in the morning. But, yeah, okay, you were right, Toronto Mike. This radio station is not for me.

There's nothing here to hold my attention to. But at the same time, Vancouver recently was introduced to this same radio format. I guess they call it social radio. The whole idea of taking these listener calls, doing these fluffy breaks, talk radio style about certain topics. The consensus is a lot of these calls are set up and staged,

not necessarily real, and that they're kept generic enough that they can re-roll these things at any time, on any station, anywhere in the nation. So Vancouver had an FM station called The Peak, which was originally Adult Album Alternative. I guess it turned into more contemporary modern rock. This thing is owned by Pattison, and Pattison runs these today radio stations in other cities,

other Western Canadian markets where it's called NOW Radio, and it must be successful enough because Vancouver got a turn. Vancouver got to experience what it was to have a station like this one. And in the process did something that I haven't seen a Canadian radio station doing before, a commercial radio station. What's that? Moving the terrestrial radio product over to digital. So an HD2 channel and, of course, streaming online.

You can access the continuation of this Vancouver radio station called The Peak with live announcers, a morning show, afternoon drive. As far as I can tell, this is unprecedented, that here a station is believing enough to make at least a little investment to try it out to say, can we take our audience that was listening on FM and can we make them listen online instead or at least through HD radio in the car? Can we use these different technological platforms to convert them in different ways? Mike, do you think this can work? Do you think this can happen?

Telling people who were listening on FM radio today. Went through examples like Bob McCowan, right, who's off of, off the fan, Roger Sportsnet. And then he goes digital, does a YouTube show. Okay, you've got five minutes. He's convinced that out of the gate, he's going to get hundreds of thousands of viewers. You want to hear him answer a question for Brian Gerstein. Ask him about the expos. And Bob, giving you the time of day, like, here I

am, you know, walking my way back from the bathroom during dinner. As one FOTM put it. And just by being online that all these people would flock to Bob McCow in there. Right? And you had a lot of pomposity from this type of person who thinks just by saying I'm continuing what I was doing on Terrestrial Radio but doing it digitally instead, everybody will find me and everybody will move over there. It's even a bigger gamble when an entire commercial radio station, the people who are listening,

if they're listening, they're accustomed to hearing it on FM, the killer app in this regard. You know, the one thing they could count on was that the radio station might be there when you switch the ignition on in your car, right? This is the way that most people are accustomed when you switch the ignition on in your car, right? Absolutely. This is the way that most people are accustomed

to streaming radio stations like this. Mark, that's the only reason radio continues to make money is because of the automobile. Like, that's it. Asking them to take that extra step when there are still in Vancouver competitive FM on a rock station. So we talk about this Sonic Radio, the one that FOTMJ Brody went to work for,

the one that launched with stunting rage against the machine, their censored-style Rogers radio. And we saw how punk rock Rogers really is, what happened to them when they're, they, they had an entire nationwide system failure on that, on that particular Friday. A lot of people were, were raging against the machine.

That's right. Yes. Yeah, that's right. That even a weekend had to cancel his show at the Rogers center that night. I remember. Yeah. I'm not a Rogers customer,

but you know, you caught wind of this because the rest of the night, I remember. See, I'm not a Rogers customer, but you caught wind of this because the rest of the country was melting down. Taking terrestrial radio personalities in and putting them on digital, I think the strategy would have worked better if they ramped up over a period of months that they did something

that was more experimental on FM radio, something that was transformative. I don't know, they broke format in a way that people never imagined before. They figured out how to make this pretty conventional alternative rock station sound like it was really revolutionary. I don't mean playing Rage Against the Machine over and over again for two days. And then you could invite people

to make the switch and flip over. I don't think it works the same way when you're doing very mainstream commercial stuff on the radio, and then you're telling people to listen to us in a digital format. You know what I mean? They should have ramped up to making these changes.

They should have gotten people ready. They, they should have become critically acclaimed, created this level of fascination rather than just saying on one Friday, if you want to listen to us anymore in the future, you're going to have to do in a different way. We're not going to be on your FM radio anymore. Well,

once you've decided I'm, you know, I'm streaming, now you've got, I mean, everyone from David Marsden to George Strombolopoulos is available via streaming, right? Like now you've opened yourself up to this whole different audience. Terrestrial radio, for all its flaws, its saving grace, as we said earlier, was that you can turn the ignition on in your car and pull in the live signal.

Now, it might not be live and local, but you can pull it in. So, internet killed the radio star. As far as the personnel is there, look, better that they're able to continue applying their trade rather than just getting a severance payment and being told to go away. But you know what usually happens under these circumstances. It's foreshadowing the point where they can't be bothered anymore because they're never quite seeing the numbers there.

And one of the things I also have to keep in mind with the future of the 1236 newsletter is getting this form of digital media attention is harder than it looks and a lot of people including ones that have come on toronto mic'd assume that by default they're going to acquire this audience just because they have a known name can i ask you about that because they did something big before right that they're just going to inherit all this attention you know what i haven't heard about in a while and and I'm curious how it's going. I personally haven't dove in to listen,

but I should and I will at some point. But how's the Woman of Ill Repute doing? Well, I listened to a post-media podcast with Anthony Fury of the Toronto Sun, the full comment podcast. And the guest on there was a one-on-one interview with Wendy Mesley. And she got even deeper into her whole debacle there with the CBC. I don't know if she said anything different than when she was on with Maureen Holloway on your podcast.

They got into talking a lot more about the culture war. And you know what? There was a situation, by the way, at at Radio Canada where there trouble and ultimately parting ways with the CBC. On the French side, as you could imagine in Quebec, a lot of these old school broadcasters were defending free speech. They were saying, we don't want the Canadian Radio Television Telecommunications Commission to meddle in our programming and saying what we can and cannot say. to meddle in our programming and saying what we can and cannot say. And so it was a fascinating situation with two solitudes where, in fact, the broadcasters on the French CBC were defending the same thing, the same book title that Wendy Mesley was referring to in a private producer phone call

that this said on the air finds itself with more defenders who are working on the French side of the CBC. They talked about that over there, but at the same time, Wendy Mesley threw in a little appeal for sponsors. Like, how's the podcast going? I don't know if it's done that way. Do you think, though, it's bad form, right?

Like, I started off this episode with a whole rant about how I'm trying to find a sustainable future for what I do in newsletters. To sort of go in public place and say, we're looking for money. Does somebody want to pay us to do our podcast? I didn't say it was bad form. Maybe I'm saying it's bad form. It's a little desperate. Does it get you anywhere?

It might sound different to you coming from... Somebody hearing that? It sounds different coming from Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley because you're well aware of their careers and that they're both different waterfront properties having these conversations. So it does resonate different hearing that two wealthy, older women asking for money is different

than the guy who puts it up in his basement. I don't necessarily think they're looking for money to live. So what's the money for? That's a situation that you and I might be more familiar with. So if the kids are all going to get to university Well, it's a form of validation.

I think above all, right? Just to get that corporate stamp on what you're doing that here's somebody here's a bank here's somebody who believes in us by wanting to attach themselves to our podcast project okay well if that's all it is vanity then sell

your sponsorship packages for a dollar nobody will know it was a dollar except you and the vendor is that how it's done is that some of the vendor. Is that how it's done? Is that how some of the greats are doing it? Typically, we don't do it for vanity. I would love to, yeah.

Ask what I. I've got a plot twist for you then, Toronto Mike. Okay, because then I have one more radio question. This post-media podcast was referenced on a weekly show called Canada Land. Jesse Brown. With Jesse Brown. Right. Do you still listen to that? Jesse Brown. With Jesse Brown. Right. And he...

Do you still listen to that? He deconstructed the podcasting experience of Wendy Mesley trying to make a comeback. And I think, based on a clip of that podcast, you could hear, with all due respect to the producers involved in that program, the producers involved in that program, I think you could hear that it was a style, an approach that they were taking that I think is out of sync with the real talk, right? Like, it was too slick. It was too produced. It didn't have that real talk sensibility of a rough-and-tumble podcast. Now, in theory, there are hundreds of thousands of people who might be more drawn to that style than the scatterbrained way that we do things over here.

You hear from all these big fans of smartless. And did Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley even mention that as an inspiration for what they wanted to do? Sure they did. But when I hear these well-heeled Hollywood actors doing this overproduced, probably a little bit scripted kind of programming, where you just know that there are so many agents and managers and handlers involved that no way are they ever going to go off script. And I think when you've got that fear ingrained in you, when you've been so trained in the

corporate media style, it's not a thing that you can unlearn. And maybe the idea of promising these uncensored conversations is not for everybody to do. But when Jesse Brown was talking about the women of ill repute, he mentioned the show as an association with Dean Blundell. Oh, did he? This is interesting to me.

Okay, because I know that it's Matt Cundall, right? Matt Cundall's trying to like, you know, I've had a call from him, like a phone call from him trying to disassociate like Dean's involvement but meanwhile I keep I've seen the press releases in which they celebrate the fact that the Dean Blundell

network and the Matt Cundall network are merged one and the same exactly so where do you think you got that idea he just like typed the names into Google and Dean Blundell is attached to the show with Lauren Holloway and Wayne DeMeslie, even though they disavowed him. Right?

But Dean tweeted about, like— Even though they wanted nothing to do with how he was portraying you and his role in defending John Derringer. We went through that whole drama in the past few months, including this allegation, this accusation that you had unleashed an army that was photoshopping Fearless Fred's wife into gangbang photos and accusing him of murdering Martin Streak and all these over-the-top accusations. And as of this episode,

as far as I could tell, something that you retweeted yourself, this is still going on a little bit, right? Like, just one final ember of attention where Dean Blundell is still thinking of you as the enemy.

So I don't read any Dean Blundell tweets, or the other guy, for that matter, whose name I never did mention. And then the third guy, the guy who's going to be the morning show host at Q107, has been, quote-unquote... Is he up for the job there? I thought he was the evening host in Winnipeg, but that's part of the job now.

You've got to work on three or four different radio stations at once. Okay, hold on. So with respect to Cam Gordon, he's completely ignored me. Okay, so only Cam gets that reference, but that amuses me. So where are we at here? Dean will do a tweet about how, oh, this person's misinformation, this is how it works. Somebody will spread misinformation this way or something. And then, you know, a couple of people, a couple of FOTMs will reply and say, oh, you mean like the misinformation you said about Toronto Mike? And then Dean would reply, like this happened yesterday, I think, he'll reply and say something to the effect of, oh, Mike did that himself. In which case,

like I'm tired of talking about it. I don't tell the story anymore. But episode 1066 lives on in the Toronto Mike archive. And if anyone is even remotely curious as to what the hell happened and what I did to myself, just go listen to the first half hour of episode 1066. Meanwhile, it's only been like two and a half months since the John Derringer

allegations emerged. And don't you find that the whole story has run out of oxygen? Like, no one's really interested anymore to the point where maybe Chorus Entertainment, in fact, have outrun any scandal here. Are they going to be putting out a report? Is this some third-party internal investigation? They're going to be releasing their findings.

But it seemed like the women who were coming forward about John Derringer generally did not want to participate in talking to these third-party human resource law firm investigators because they were told to sign an NDA, that it was all going to be confidential, they were being intimidated somehow. What's the endgame here?

What's the result? I'm sure that Mike, it just ends with fearless Fred. No one has ever heard of fearless Fred. The new morning host on Q107. I noticed also Dan Chen is still pinch hitting in there as well. And he really brings it with what I described as the soviet style broadcasting on the morning show where it's where it's so somber right like no jokes no humor right you know doing like your basic weather report telling you who won the game last night i don't know something in the

news they read some listicle off the internet about i don don't know, what are the greatest binge watch shows of all time or just completely benign content. All right. So you want to know what's going on? So as I survey the landscape here, I would say there was most definitely a corporate strategy deployed, which is an effective one, which is to do nothing, say nothing for a while until people forget about it or move on. And that seems to be what's going on. So I suspect at some point in early September that this radio station will announce a new morning show.

And then behind the scenes, they will have given X dollars to John Derringer to go away and be quiet about all this. And this is my, based on just some Facebook posts from Jackie Delaney, and then, you know, licking my finger and sticking it in the air and seeing which way the wind is blowing. I suspect that's how this will all go down.

But, you know, that'll be that. Derringer won't be heard. The question I have is I'm curious to know what happens to those two guys beside Derringer. I have no idea exactly what Chorus does with the... What are their names again? John Garbutt. And what...

Please help me. Ryan Parker. Ryan Parker. Ryan Parker. I didn't listen to Q in the morning. But those two gentlemen, I have no clue what happens to them. You don't spend that many years on morning radio without people remembering who you were.

And John Derringer obviously had fans out there and this includes people who would think under the circumstances that he was wrong. Right? Like, he's the morning man on Q107. And anyone who gets the short form

version of the story, who's not listening to three hour long episodes of Toronto Mike. Which is most people. Where we deconstruct what happened here. I think they would look at it and say that he got a raw deal under the circumstances. They want John Derringer back. You see these people commenting on Facebook whenever there's some promo thing for Q107 that they're doing their best. But the bottom line here is, will his disappearance from the radio station result in the loss of even a single listener, right?

Like the format and the type of attention it's received and the people who've got their dial glued to 107.1, if they were listening all this time, is another radio station going to do anything that's going to move them away? No, they're just on autopilot. This is the type of listener that's left out there. There's no chance that somebody's like, it's as viable a product as it was before

when they were paying a million dollars a year for Morning Man. Okay, but there must be some greater than one people who are like, oh, I loved Derringer. He's not here. Let me check out this Stu Jeffries fellow down the dial. I mean, I don't know how many people that is or if it matters, but you know. I think if they were going to move over, it would have happened by now.

I mean, whatever you have to superficially do to get people to change their listening habits out there. But yeah, we've come to the consensus conclusion that John Derringer is a non-factor. He's been set off to an early retirement. Might have happened anyway in the next year or two.

All for the best. We did predict that after the 10-year, you know, million-dollar-a-year deal expired, we thought he was gone. Yeah, well, just because they're not into paying these types of salaries anymore. Nothing to do with specifically him. It's everybody on that level. Anybody who is not going to do three or four different radio shifts in different cities at the same time.

Right. Now, one thing I'll leave you with is that, so if Derringer gets X dollars to go home and don't talk about this, a lot of that is to, you can theoreticize that it's to protect executives at Chorus. There's the accountability from the executives. And again, I have a paper here beside me with the names because

somebody thought I was Kevin Donovan and Deep Throat called me and said, hey, these are the names. This is what they did during that time to enable him and protect him. And I got some stories, right? But I'm not, you know, that's not, you know, within reason, I'm not really that guy. I don't have time for that.

What about Dean Blundell, the guy who leaked the names of the crowd funder for the convoy? I think he'd be very much into finding out confidential information, leaking it on his show. Like, he'd be willing to take positions if it got him any kind of attention at this time. You've already given him more attention than I planned to in this episode. But before I play this piece of CanCon that was in the news, and I want to get your take on it, before we leave radio,

anything to say about lineup changes at 640? And I only bring it up because a couple of FOTMs seem to be affected. Am I supposed to have an opinion on this at all? So Alex Pearson who had been off the air for many months because I get lots of tweets and emails like

where's Alex? Is she still at the company? And I had an exchange of Alex actually when a bunch of these shitheads were piling on me and it was very nice supportive note. And you're in Alex Pearson's corner right? Even though politically you're on opposite sides of the spectrum. Politically we're on opposite sides.

I like the lady and her fun is for Hamilton Punk, okay? Alex Pearson is back during the day, I guess. And I guess she took the Kelly Cotrera spot. And Kelly Cotrera, who's a beloved FOTM, and shows up in that aforementioned episode 1066 because she's co-hosting with Humble and Fred when Fearless Fred calls in. People should check that out. Kelly Cotrera now has the, what is it?

Is it the afternoon drive? Noon to three. And then John Oakley. John Oakley, who, as far as I can tell, has been forced to apologize, to inform guests that they can no longer appear on his show. All sorts of notes from the top, of course, entertainment

telling him they don't want this inflammatory libertarian content anymore. John Oakley, who took credit, who got credit for bringing Rob Ford to the forefront to become mayor of Toronto. This was a three-ring circus that John Oakley was running in the afternoon.

He doesn't want to retire, as far as I can tell. He's just phoning in there every day. So it's John Oakley still with Chorus. Afternoon Drive, FOTM. Greg Brady in the morning. You know my thoughts about him. And out of the running here are two milk-toast global TV personalities. One of whom is an FOTM. I got to be nice in what I say.

You don't have to be nice. That's Alan Carter. He's an anchorman. The other one, Jeff MacArthur. Alan Carter is the anchorman. The other one, Jeff MacArthur. Not much there by way of bringing diversity to the AM dial. But they knew how to follow the rules,

and I guess they weren't censured at any time for bringing the wrong opinion to the radio. We'll see how long it lasts. Look, we're standing by. We're speculating if Chorus ceases to be in the radio business. We've heard it from people who actually still currently work there that they see an imminent day coming when the Chorus radio division is broken up because it's just not getting out of the red

as far as Chorus Entertainment and its stock price, and these things are better off, I don't know, maybe with bigger owners, maybe with smaller ones, and that is the end of the line for the legacy over there at Chorus. In the meantime, it's just to maintain these radio stations so that they can be worth anything at all. News Talk 1010, CFRB, iHeartRadio Canada, still continuing with a format that is increasingly pre-recorded.

Simulcasting CP24 on the weekend mornings, that is not a temporary measure. Clearly, they're into the idea of putting TV on the radio whenever possible. The Rush with Rush Menaire, one of the greatest FOTMs of all time. Still trying to find her way on the radio, filling in on television weeks after she told you it wasn't something that she was interested in doing anymore.

How do you feel about that, Toronto Mike? I always know what I'm talking about, Mark. I'm not surprised. David Cooper, still doing the all-night show, radio stations across Canada, from his condominium in New York City. He took over from Jim Richards on the late-night showgram. Any update there?

Because that's the most common question I get. Where did Jim Richards go? late night show gram. Any update there? Cause that's the most common question. Where did Jim Richards go? Yeah. Any idea? Taking time off. He's going to resurface Dallas, Bobby Ewing, taking a shower.

Where have you been? I get that reference. Will he, you know, they don't lack for time slots to put him on. Uh, they're running enough rerolls ands and they need other programming there. He could do a weekend morning show.

They're not currently making any effort in this regard if that's going to happen. But David Cooper, who I was beefing with over the course of multiple episodes, initially giving this guy credit that he was trying to make it in radio. He was volunteering at WFMU in Jersey City.

And I thought, okay, this guy's the real deal. He's coming from the underground. There he is on the biggest hipster radio station in America at the same time that he was doing what they presented as an internship on CFRB, doing these bits with Jim Richards. Jim Richards moves to plug a hole in daytime after Ryan Doyle was out the door, and I felt like David Cooper was kind of being smug

about the situation that he was in. He just inherited this radio show, speculating enough here that the reason that a guy like that gets to be a cross-Canada overnight radio guy on iHeartRadio, Bell Media, is because they don't have to pay him a lot of money. He is able to pay his bills in other ways. He's got money in the bank.

Did he pretty much corroborate my theory when he was on with you? He did not respond to the accusations directly, but he said it disturbed him. The people were talking about him in that way. And perhaps he brought it up to his psychiatrist that he wanted to analyze why this was triggering to him. I'm here to report that subsequently, in listening to David Cooper, News Talk 1010,

radio stations all beyond Toronto, all across Canada, Bell Media, free, live, overnight programming there, long time coming in its way. It was supposed to be Jim Richards' show. David Cooper sounds like he's trying really hard. Like he's auditioning for his job every single night.

So he's no longer being aloof about the fact that he's on the radio. Sounds like he really wants to be there. And I'm listening closely to them downplaying the showgram. Because that was Jim Richards' trademark. And that was a subject of some consternation.

Why are you taking this name of a program, even though Jim took it from Craig Kilborn back when he was on CBS. But Jim adopted it. Well, that name goes way back. He adopted the showgram as his own.

Oh, yeah, there was a guy, Rocky Allen showgram. He was in Morning Man New York. Buffalo. But you're right, on CFRB, showgram is Jim Richards. So you'd think they would rebrand it. But they still refer to the showgram, but I can hear David Cooper. He's downplaying it. He's not saying showgram as much as before.

I heard an old program. All night show, late night show, whatever it is. I did hear myself say on this program, I can't remember how I was listening to myself from many, many years ago, but I heard myself say into this very microphone that Q on CBC should rebrand with a new host. So now that Gian Gomeschi was gone. I caught wind they were calling off that show altogether.

Not for any specific reason, just like a budgetary thing, but it seems to be hanging on. And it's still here. And I think Tom Power, he might be a good FOTM. No, you're right. He's on my list. He's on my list. You know, he's delivering the goods, but it's not what it was. It's not what they thought it would be because the pandemic definitely a factor there because

they thought it would be like an arts version of as it happens, which is to say it would translate into the digital space. It would be syndicated on public radio across America. And here's the thing. Say what you want about Gian Gomeschi, but he was the face of the franchise. It all surrounded him. And he seemed to be gaining ground

and getting some success of being this kind of American public radio personality because there was nobody really out there in NPR public radio doing those style of arts interviews and all that, of course, fell away. And now he's off in an obscure corner of the internet doing this Iranian diaspora thing. He's stuck in the 90s, okay? He's stuck in the 90s. But you know what? He is doing it.

And I think there's something to be said for the fact that you are able to continue to have a specialized niche media career for a particular kind of community and just carry on doing what you do. I will even admit to listening to some of the John Gomeshi podcasts, even though I'm not too familiar with the topics or where he's coming from as far as talking to this Iranian diaspora community. Not much of a language that I speak, but it's sort of surreal to hear him doing like a podcast in real time to think that this guy who was an outcast on every level, things that he certainly brought upon himself,

no matter what the ruling was in the courts, that he is in fact in Toronto broadcasting every day. People are backing him. People believe. Jean Gomeschi. We'll see what happens with Tom Power and the CBC show Q. You're the real tough cookie with a long history Of breaking little hearts like the one in me That's okay, let's see how you do it

Pull up your tubes, let's get down to it Hit me with your best shot You know, the first time I ever did a professional interview in a Toronto hotel room. It involved going to the Four Seasons Hotel to talk to Pat Benatar. Who I believe had the second video ever played on MTV. You better run. This is 10 years later, so I'm, I don't know, 19, 20 years old. And Pat Benatar had put out a blues album. So she had reached that point in her middle-aged career where she could maybe no longer be taken seriously. Things moved a lot faster than the glory days of MTV.

Once you were cast aside for being in the older generation, it was pretty much impossible to make your way back yet. So this was Pat Benatar trying to move into her adult contemporary years with her husband, guitarist Neil Giraldo, to this day by her side. He gets co-billing with her. He's always been part of the act. And so for a free magazine that was distributed by HMV, I got a few assignments to do these interviews. I interviewed Harem Scarum,

Naughty by Nature, the two guys from Erasure, I remember writing an article about. Harem Scarum from Degrassi Schools Out. I love how I mentioned those other names, and that's the one that pings you. That's the one you're impressed by. And so

I went into a hotel room to do this puff piece about Pat Benatar, who must have noticed that she was old enough to be my mom, because she asked me how old I was. And I thought, okay, Pat Benatar,

I'm half your age, but here I am trying to pass myself off as a grizzled veteran of the music media writing for a brochure put out by HMV, and that's my Pat Benatar story.

Now, this song is in the news recently because I read and I only read the tweet, so 240 characters. You didn't read about it in the 1236 newsletter? Yeah, well, okay. I do read my 1236 actually before I get to the Ridley Funeral Home memorial segment of this episode. I do

have a quick thing to say about something I read today in the 1236 newsletter. Should I talk about Hit Me With Your Best Shot first? Or do you feel that people ride along with the typical Toronto Mike experience where you come back around to a topic after 15 or 20 minutes of moving away? Anyone who listens to Pandemic Fridays, now known as Toast, already knows that Hit Me With Your Best Shot is CanCon. But maybe you

can succinctly fold that into the story of why this song was in the news this week. Pat Benatar declared that given some of these American mass shootings and victims of gun violence that she is no longer at this time going to perform this signature song in concert. I don't know. If you went to see Pat Benatar at some county fair amphitheater, you might even be asking for a refund if you didn't get to hear this particular hit. I'd want her to play that three times. Hit Me With Your Best Shot was written by Eddie Schwartz of Toronto.

Right. And it was a big payday for him. I mean, 42 years later, this thing is still played on these classic radio stations every single day. And I checked, and these radio stations

are not doing the cowardly thing where they decide there'll be some ramifications if they pull it off the playlist. Although, I don't know. It is the middle of summer. Maybe they didn't get off, get around to removing the song in time.

But Pat Benatar says, she doesn't want to perform Hit Me With Your Best Shot anymore. Now, I'm as sensitive as anyone. You know that, okay? I'm like the dad and family ties. Very sensitive. Shout out to Michael Gross.

But okay, I think it's silly. Like, to me, it's silly. That song, which I've known for my whole life almost, like, I don't, what do you visualize in your head when you hear that song do you think of a sniper shooting bullets into people i sure don't like i think this is a weird overreaction knee-jerk thing that doesn't make a lot of sense to me i think it's very silly well she does sing in the song hit me with your best shot fire away yeah But it's well-documented, including on one of those behind-the-vinyl videos

from Boom 97.3 Radio, because there's a lot of FOTMs in those behind-the-vinyl videos. Have you ever noticed? The Gowan and Gino Vanelli. Heard into a studio at Young and St. Clair. Maestro Freshwines. Whoever Eric Alper can get on the line to appear on YouTube. Sass Jordan.

They have appeared on this little video series show. And it's there that A. Schwartz explains that he was in his mid-20s. He was doing a form of therapy, some hippie stuff called bioenergetics. And part of the therapy involved punching pillows. And the pillow punching process inspired him to write the song Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

So it's not about shooting a gun at all. I thought it was Cupid's arrow. What was the newsletter thing you wanted to mention? I just want to say that you know I bike every day. That's no secret. I try to get 30 to 40 in a day in a nice weather like we're getting these days. I have actually found myself avoiding a go-to route where I would leave the waterfront trail and I would go Colburn Lodge north into High Park.

And I would do a few loops of High Park. And now I find myself staying on the waterfront trail and continuing on to ontario place or today i went to young street but i'm avoiding high park and it's uh for the reasons you well know because i heard i read about it in my 1236 newsletter today but some guy got a ticket for a rolling stop in high park people someone got a ticket for going 26, riding his bike, bicycle, 26 kilometers an hour in Hyde Park. He got a speeding ticket. What the fuck is up with

TPS targeting cyclists in Hyde Park? Go do something effective and leave cyclists alone. Now, luckily in Ontario there's something called the Sunshine List and it allows you to look up the salary of anyone who's making over $100,000 a year. And it comes in handy in a case like this because you can find out to what extent these cycle cops are providing a revenue stream for the city.

And they're paid accordingly for their service based on what people presume to be a quota of tickets that they have to give out. And so the motivation behind ticketing the cyclists, just like certain neighborhoods in Toronto that are very lucrative by slapping tickets on the car, that the operation of these traffic services in Toronto is motivated by bringing a certain level of revenue rather than anything to do with safety out there. And you're coming from the perspective

that you should leave the cyclists alone. Leave the guy going 26k an hour in Hyde Park, which I bike a lot, okay, and the guy who does the rolling stop at the stop signs. I happen to treat every stop sign I encounter on my bike as a yield sign anyways. I've been doing that for the last signs. I happen to treat every stop sign I encounter on my bike as a yield sign anyways. I've been doing that for the last 15 years I've been biking.

I think that what you're doing here is sending a big, loud fucking message to the world to, you know, don't bike! Don't bike! To the city, I should say. Toronto. Don't bike! Don't bike! I think we should be doing the exact opposite, which is get out of your stinking cars and get on a bicycle

because it's better for your heart. It's better for the environment. It's better for your wallet. And it's better for this city, this hundreds and hundreds of year old city. Get out of your car. Get onto your bike. And this message from TPS is mind-boggling to me.

This was a public service message. Oh, and one last thing. If I get one more motorist who tells me... If I get one more tweet or whatever from a motorist telling me, the rules apply to cars and bikes. You have to stop at a stop sign, and you can't go over 20 kilometers an hour in Hyde Park. If I get one more of those, you're muted.

And yet, just like you have yet to be infected by COVID-19, I'm assuming, based on what you have to say, you have never been ticketed as a cyclist in this town. Never, and I can't... I've always been honest. By the way, I've been hiding in plain sight. I used to write about this on torontomic.com. I'm not...

It's never been a secret. I decided when I started cycling again every day about a decade ago, I would practice the Idaho stop. I find it safer and more enjoyable every day about a decade ago, I would practice the Idaho stop. I find it safer and more enjoyable for me as a cyclist. And I find it uber safe. The Idaho stop basically does this. If it's a red light, I treat it like a stop sign. And if it's a stop sign, I treat it like a yield sign. That doesn't mean when I was on Yonge Street today, I was treating red lights like stop signs. I stop at the red lights on young street but when there's no cars around and i'm at a stop sign i look in all directions and if there's no

pedestrians and there's no cyclists and there's no vehicles i slow down a bit take a look around and then i continue with my progress my momentum my my body fueled momentum okay i'm on pedal power here and if i get a red light and there's no cars around and it's, I don't know, it's late at night, there's no cars, there's no people, there's no bikes, I stop, look all directions, and then I go. I've been doing that for a decade. I feel safe doing that. And I enjoy cycling the city that way. And I think more people should get out of their cars

and get onto the bikes. Why is it when I come into your basement, you're always telling me this is your show? Mike, you can say whatever you want. Well, I recede into the background, shout out to BP. Okay, I also want to, before we get to the Ridley Funeral Home segment

of Toronto Mic'd, which is coming up right now, I want to thank Palma Pasta, who's going to feed everybody at TMLXX. So FOTMs, if you haven't put this in your calendar yet, do it right now. September 1st, 2022, from 6 to 9 p.m. The Southern Etobicoke location of Great Lakes Beer. So Great Lakes is going to host.

Your first beer is on them. Palma Pasta is going to feed you. Canna Cabana, I have a conversation coming up with Andy from Canna Cabana and what we can do for FOTMs regarding Canna Cabana. Yeah, what's he going to do to teach me how to smoke weed? Well, we'll talk. I think I don't know how, I don't want to say anything about

that because I don't know if Great Lakes wants just, I don't know if you can smoke in Great Lakes. I don't want to get them in trouble but the after party in the public park for sure. So Canada Cab, bring your supply brother. Stu Stone and I are ready. Hopefully Kareem will be there too and my new pothead friend Mark Weisblatt is ready to go. But if you want pot or even ediblesibles you don't have to smoke it you can drink it even

uh they won't be sold on can they won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories canna cabana is where you go sticker you is where you go for those 1236 stickers you're going to get with the relaunch where you, yeah, yeah, for sure. Every brand out there, wonderful company. Let's slap those stickers all around town and then not deliver the newsletter, which is my greatest fear. And yesterday, 5 p.m. yesterday, Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home

walked over here from 14th and Lakeshore, where Ridley Funeral Homes is located, and Brad Jones sat in the seat you're in right now and we talked about cards and we talked about euchre and how it applies to life and it was a wonderful half hour and you can hear that right now. It's the latest episode of Life's Undertaking

which is Brad Jones' podcast and I love being a part of that. What say you? You had the mic in your hand. Okay, this wasn't like Stu Stone, jack of all trades. No. Father in the business of baseball cards.

That's the best you got, okay. I was supposed to have a comment. I'm doing my best. Are you cracking open another one? Okay, Wiseblood's on his second beer, everybody. And that's another burst. Okay, I have a Canuck for you if you're ready for round three.

I know you're not driving home, so go crazy. Go nuts. That's what I say. I'm not even riding a bike. Well, you know, you can ride a bike with a few beers in you. Just be careful. I will now pass the torch to you, my friend. Here we go. Let's remember some of those we lost in

July 2022. If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. If you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise. For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain, because today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic. Every teddy bear who's been good is sure of a treat today. There's lots of marvelous things to eat and some wonderful games to play. Beneath the trees where nobody sees, they'll hide and seek as long as they please. Cause that's the way the teddy bears hunt their picnic. Picnic time for teddy bears.

The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today. Watch them catch them unaware. And see them picnic on their holiday. See them gaily gather round, they love to play and shout, they never have any cares. At six o'clock their mummies and daddies will take them home to bed, because they're tired of little teddy bears. Because they're tired of little teddy bears. Because the pirates are standing there. Because the pirates are standing there. You go down in the woods today. Tony Malone was the front man for a Toronto band called Drastic Measures,

best known for this cover version of a 1932 kid's song called the Teddy Bears Picnic. When we talk about some of the Canadian songs that were fixtures on CFNY, this would be way up on the

list of a certain sound at a certain time. Tony Malone had previously been in a Toronto pioneering Queen Street West Beverly Tavern band called The Dishes along with Stephen Davey. He's also no longer with us.

And with drastic measures with this sound, got a big record deal with CBS Records of Canada. And they pinned some high hopes on this to be a mainstream new wave music breakthrough for Canada. When you had Lawrence Gowan on here, in fact, he also talked about being signed to CBS Records during that period and put out a first album that flopped out there

in the marketplace at the time. The CBS Records Canada track record wasn't all that great, even though they had this novelty hit on CFNY and Drastic Measures became like a hipster band

around town. So I grew up with a version by Anne Murray. And I know every word to that song because I played Anne Murray's There's a Hippo in My Bathtub. It was like one of my

first favorite albums. We're talking vinyl here and I would spin it all the time. And I gotta say, Anne Murray's version is way better than that Drastic Mesh's version. Rest in peace, though, and shout out to Billy. Yeah, I think

if you were born in a southern Ontario hospital in the 1970s, along with a birth certificate, you were provided with a copy of the album by Anne Murray. Here's a twist on Tony Malone. Okay, yeah.

And maybe there's a cautionary tale for everyone out there in how you want to be remembered. Because it's 40 years after he had that little bit of recognition for the teddy bear's picnic. He became known for being an abrasive kind of personality on a website called Facebook. And when the news of his death emerged, I noticed a lot of comments about people saying

he was an unpleasant personality who took political positions that I personally found unpleasant. And I thought, okay, what did Tony Malone do to get this reputation out there? I don't know. Did he once say he kind of agrees with something that was said by Donald Trump? I was going to say, it sounds like a temper.

You can get canceled for anything these days. Or anti-vaxxers, anti-vaxxers. It seemed to go a lot by Donald Trump, right? I was going to say, it sounds like a Trump-er. You can get canceled for anything these days. Or anti-vaxxers, anti-vaxxers. It seemed to go a lot deeper than that, okay? Like, down the rabbit hole of all kinds of conspiracies, racist stuff, anti-Semitism, crackpot beliefs about the government. Now, in an earlier time, if you thought these things,

before Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook, who would ever know that these were your beliefs, right? Just your buddies, yeah. Maybe not even that. Maybe you could just keep all this to yourself. You could listen to your conspiracy theorists on cassette. I don't know, tune into the spaceman Gary Bell on the late night radio. You could generally keep these thoughts private, but especially during the

COVID-19 pandemic, a certain kind of personality, I would say also the kind of person who 40 years earlier tried to be a star playing music that was punk and new wave might have gotten a little bit too into the idea of confronting people on Facebook and constantly posting things that were socially unacceptable. posting things that were socially unacceptable. And so when he died, you had a number of tributes that were, I guess, trying to make an excuse for the fact that he fell into this mindset, even though he might have had some weird things to say over the past few years. have had some weird things to say over the past few years. I realize that we all watched him get into these crackpot beliefs. He was still a great creative communicator and what he contributed to the music scene in Toronto. I saw at least one person who said,

I'm not playing this game, right? I'm not falling for this. In fact, he was a disreputable character, and I'm willing to come out and say that. I cannot memorialize this guy. Like, you know, deep in his heart, he was actually a kind character. He presented himself as a pretty ugly and unpleasant person when it came to spouting his beliefs on social media.

Do you think maybe that's a signal for us aging Gen Xers? That if you're inclined to doing stuff like this, you might want to think about the future. How you want to be remembered upon your demise. As not as somebody who was getting into Facebook fights all the time, right? Like there was some poll that came out today about, you know, a massive percent of Canadians would rather disappear from the internet. They don't want to be on Google.

They would rather have their whole history scrubbed. And I think when you reflect on what a guy like this leaves behind, how he's remembered, do you want on the day you die, people to get into all kinds of Facebook threads discussing what kind of person you were? Did you have hate in your heart or were you just playing a character the the the the best thing you can do under circumstances like these is never tweet right like just don't like keep your opinions to yourself pretend we're back in the 20th century when you didn't you didn't have to pretend to have an opinion about everything especially if you're not getting paid, because you might find yourself espousing things that essentially ruin your reputation.

I got reflecting upon this. Maybe this is heavier than you thought it was going to go after we heard that teddy bear's picnic there. But it's what I got to thinking about after the death of Tony Malone. So it's one thing you're right, because there's categories, right? Like we've all, at least I've had people I thought were friends who suddenly turned into these like massive,

like I'll call them like Trumpers or freedom convoy people. And yeah, like it's difficult to see that every day and you end up unfollowing them and it can affect your like real life relationship with these people. But what it sounds like with this gentleman, what's his name, Malone?

Tony Malone. Tony malone tony malone tony malone you gotta know how to pony okay tony malone yeah really tony seely in fact malone what's the stage name if you sound like if you once you introduce hate like racism anti-semitism any any sort of like homophobia like The hate on that level, I got zero tolerance for this. This can totally, 100% tarnish everything that happened previous once you start to publish those types of sentiments.

A cautionary tale. When you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise. guitar solo We'll be right back. On a clean corvette To catch you day and night all the time Now if you're ready to dive into overdrive Baby, we like to roam It's like you're running away On some high-octane Every time you need to fall in love

Don't you take a ride, ride, ride, ride. On hell and then it's over. It's the only way that you can travel. Don't have to. Not a bad jam, huh? Still holds up. For a guy who used to be in the Eagles, Don Felder,

the song from the movie version of Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal taking a ride. And Heavy Metal Magazine was brought to North America by a gentleman from Montreal,

Sean Kelly. Sean Kelly, who died July 11th at age 81, found himself one of the original cast of characters of a magazine called The National Lampoon. characters of a magazine called The National Lampoon. National Lampoon, 1971 to 1978, for the last few years there. He was one of the editors-in-chief and left behind a lot of stuff that influenced the shape of American humor, including a lot of comedy at the expense of Canada.

And I do remember there was a National Lampoon special edition, slightly higher in Canada, co-written by Sean Kelly. So one of the things that Sean Kelly was responsible for was a National Lampoon stage musical that was also an influence in what became Saturday Night Live, a musical called Lemmings. I know Sean Kelly's nephew, Jesse Hawken, famous on Twitter, great character in Toronto.

Sure. He's a real mirth maker, very much in the tradition of his uncle Sean living up to his legacy every single day. And in tribute to his uncle, Jesse shared a piece from Lemmings that as far as he was concerned was one of his uncle's greatest work.

And who am I to argue? So this piece from Lemmings is a parody of a certain singer-songwriter with a style that I think you can recognize. Yes. Yeah. Hitching down the freeways of my soulful moody mind Baby, why'd you treat me so unkind? I miss your paisley curtains and your morning butter toast

But my highway toes are coming to the coast shooting up the highway on the road map of my wrist maybe I've just scratched you off my list

miss your tie dyed bed sheets and your pretty spearmint mouth But my highway clothes are coming to the south Farewell, New York City, with your streets that flash like strobes. Farewell, Carolina, where I left my frontal lobes. Known but for my agent, a photographer from life. Can you guess who is doing this imitation of James Taylor? Someone from the history of National Lampoon. He was eventually in Saturday Night Live and a filmmaker of his own, improvised comedy movies,

and a member of a heavy metal group called Spinal Tap. Christopher Guest. Christopher Guest. Did you already know this? I knew it, no, but I, based on your clues, I had it before you got to Spinal Tap. Okay, Mike, you win. Well, what do I win? James Taylor parody, co-written by Christopher Guest and Sean Kelly.

So over the course of his time working for National Lampoon, he was the one who uncovered a kind of raunchy French graphic novel comic magazine called Metal Hurlant, Howling Metal, and brought it to National Lampoon and said here is an idea that we can appropriate and we can do our own American version of a magazine called Heavy Metal. So Sean Kelly, not only National Lampoon, but if you do remember Heavy Metal

or the Heavy Metal Canadian animated movie, it would have been him who brought it to your attention. Later on, Sean Kelly got into writing for Kids TV. One of his credits, the magic school bus. Shout out to Stu Stone. Later on, he was writing about the Catholic saints and quite recently, in fact, hosting a podcast about individual Catholic saints

and their influence on him. Not a name everybody knew, but I think a great contributor to the history of Canadian comedy. Rest in peace. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, 81 years old, Sean Kelly.

Now, if you were on a classic rock radio station, this would be quite a thing to hit the post, right? Right, Mike? You blew it. I'll fix it in post. The guns are getting closer The sweat force likes to do The fell from the trees in Tripoli In the spring

I'm way high I can't take it anymore I'm wet high I can't take it anymore I'm wet high By the sample I insure Wet high Yes, I'm burning to the core I need rain Cast out from the jungle

Okay, you know in the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment, we've done this enough times that I kind of front-loaded with things that are Canadian content because I figure if we're going to lose people over the course of reminding everyone of the people who died, we'll get the ones out of the way that are a little closer to home. Things that we can relate to. And then we widen our lens to cover celebrities from other places and eventually ending the segment in Toronto Mike tradition with the oldest person who died during the month.

Why was this? Because you like ending on a high note? You don't want a depressing story of somebody who died young. I don't want to end with a 32-year-old guy who died of cancer or something. Somewhere in between, dead July 14th at age 65 was the producer of these early albums by Red Ryder. A man named

Michael James Jackson. Michael James Jackson. I mean, the name Michael Jackson was already taken by the time he got into the music industry.

Would Lunatic Fringe be in this group? Is that the era we're talking about? With the early Red Ryder albums. Yeah, that would have been one of them. Because for jams like White Hot and Lunatic Fringe, they still hold up and sound great to my ears.

I'm always impressed when I hear the early Tom Cochran, Red Ryder stuff. And these records did make some inroads in the United States. Just checking here, it was not Lunatic Fringe with Michael James Jackson. They moved on to another producer. But White Hot sounds great here. Like, you know, future FOTM Tom Cochran and I were going to chat about this. And so Red Rider, which Tom Cochran originally was not a member of.

He joined an existing Toronto group. He was trying to make it on his own under an eponymous band name. He was signed to Capitol Records as Cochran. They did the soundtrack for the Xavier Hollander movie, My Pleasure is Your Business. So Tom Cochran went way back, trying to find his footing in his career, and it was joining Red Ryder, where he had Magic Formula, but Red Ryder was not, it wasn't Tom Cochran's backing band.

It happened to be that Tom Cochran emerged as the star of the show, and he ended up getting top billing over Red Ryder itself. Okay, so this goes back to the first album. This is the one that was produced by Michael James Jackson. I think the production on this jam alone would be a credit that you could trade up from, even if it wasn't the breakthrough that they expected in the United States. Definitely got Red Ryder on the map in Canada. Michael James Jackson ended up having very close association with a band called Kiss

at a time when they were transitioning from wearing makeup to having no makeup at all. So during that era of KISS, where you go from Creatures of the Night into Lick It Up, there was Michael James Jackson behind the board, and Paul Stanley saying this guy was his soulmate, and Paul Stanley saying this guy was a soulmate, that he was the one that kept KISS alive at the time when they were losing members. They had no hope. Gene Simmons pretty much disappeared

and that KISS was saved by Michael James Jackson and he's the one who's allowed them to continue to have a farewell tour to this day. who's allowed them to continue to have a farewell tour to this day. So not a lot of credits in his history. He ended up working with some other bands like L.A. Guns and Hurricane. This was like, I guess, D-list, late 80s, early 90s hair metal. But it's ultimately his name attached to those KISS albums that kept on getting him invited to all the KISS conventions,

talking on the KISS podcast. But when you do get around to FOTM, Tom Cochran, you can ask him about his producer. You heard it here first. Michael James Jackson, dead at 65. A day at Canada's Wonderland is a day like no other. 30 hair-raising rides. 5 live shows over 20 performances daily.

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Come for the day of your life today at Canada's Wonderland. Shout out to Ed Conroy, Retro Ontario, for not only providing that clip, if you're going to find a Canada's Wonderland commercial on YouTube from 1981, chances are Ed Conroy had something to do with it. But as I discovered this week, a close family friend, a guy named Mike Filey, who was one of the foremost historians

and a guy who wrote the Way We Were column for the Toronto Sun. The Wonderland tie-in is that before he found his footing as a full-time historian, Mike Filey was a publicist. He worked for the Canadian National Exhibition, the CNE, and in fact he was there at the beginning of Canada's Wonderland. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Mike Filey and Ed Conroy's dad were close friends. Joe Warmington, the Toronto Sun, wrote a column remembering Mike Filey,

and in fact, it is Ed's dad, Eric Conroy, who's quoted in there. So I would think that here you have Ed Conroy, got to come through with all his clips of retro Ontario. You think, where did the guy get the inspiration from this stuff? In fact, Mike Filey was the one who set him on the road to building a career as this sort of historian. Did you know any of this before? No, well, here's another thing. I've taken a few shots at getting Mike Filey on Toronto Mic'd over the past 10 years.

Because you can imagine the number of requests I'd get to have Mike Filey on. Like, it would be a natural that I'd have this guy on Toronto Mike. Then I took a few shots and I never got a no, I never got a yes. I never got any reply at all. But knowing now that a FOTM hall of famer was a close personal friend of Mike Filey, like he should have like just slam dunk made that happen. And then Mike would be alive today.

You know, we got so caught up in talking about the future of my 1236 newsletter business that you forgot to introduce me off the top as a member of the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame. Well, I'm distracted here.

How do you feel? People want to know. We'll take a moment here. Mike Feilly, we're going to finish chatting about him, but you are now one of four members of the FOTM Hall of Fame. Last time you were here, the first Thursday of July 2022, you were half of the Hall of Fame. You and Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario. Now you're a quarter of the Hall of Fame. What do you say about that?

You mean am I uncomfortable to be a member of the same club as Stu Stone? Right. I think if he keeps making as many mistakes as he does on toast, claiming that certain records didn't chart, things weren't as popular as they turned out to be. I think his last one was claiming that 1999 by Prince was never actually a hit. More mistakes from Stu Stone.

I'm going to have to reconsider my membership. Just like Erin Davis said she was reconsidering her membership in the Canadian Radio Hall of Fame because John Derringer's in there. Mike Filey made a name for himself. He became a familiar voice, I think, because of the number of appearances he did on the radio. He was a regular on CFRB, later on Zoomer Radio,

had his own show there, Mike Filey's Toronto on AM640. Did all sorts of guided walking tours around Toronto. And he wrote the original quickie book about the history of Sky Dome, which was also in the news in the past week because of renovations that are underway there. Unfortunately, Mike Filey, who won't be around to see it, but I think with all the books and the columns and what he wrote about the history of Toronto, and I think a pioneer,

because the whole idea of being a Toronto historian became a more marketable thing in the age of the internet. Back then, 1970s, 80s, I think this was a lot more eccentric. I don't know what your starting point would be, or a lot of people out there might have thought that Toronto was too boring to care about, right? Like the whole idea of doing historical tours around town. What is there to see? What is there to look at? I don't know. Once you schlep your way up to Casa Loma, you've pretty much seen it all. And here was a character who appeared on the radio and I thought brought to life a lot of the faces and places that were behind the

history of the city. And like a lot of people on this level, I think it was partly because he had the inspiration to do it at a time when nobody else could be bothered, right? Nobody else thought about that. So Heritage Toronto, the existing organization responsible for that Dave Bookman plaque, every other plaque you see around Toronto, historical plaque, Purple Onion,

all these places that are being marked with these plaques around the city. Coincidentally, I tweeted a photo of one just on my bike ride today, the one for the Joy Oil Station, which has been sitting alongside the waterfront trail. It's been there for years. They took it from Windermere and Lakeshore, and they preserved it, which is nice, except there's been a chain-link fence around it forever. So I took a photo.

Is this part of the deal? Like, we have the chain-link fence around the Joy Oil station. But yeah, those plaques, I stop and read them all the time, yeah. 50 years ago, nobody thought much of this idea. 50 years later, there are now more than 900 Heritage Toronto plaques around the city.

And one for the Lancaster bomber that I sent to Bingo. Not Bingo. Sorry, not to Bingo. I didn't send it to Bingo. I sent it to Brother Bill because Brother Bill's dad, I believe, flew the Lancaster in WW2. Every plaque tells a story. Mike Filey was a guy I recognize that. Dead at 80, maybe 81, July 30th, 2022.

Shout out to Mike Filey. Rest in peace. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. When you were on the set making Star Wars, did you have an inkling at the time that it would be a great box office success? Well, we thought that it might, it would be successful, but nobody realized how successful it would be. Did it create any kind of an interest in astrology for you while you're working on it? Not really, no. I want to say on behalf of my five kids that you are fantastic, and I'm sure they wish they were here. Well, now that you've had a taste of Star Wars, will you be involved in the sequel?

Yes. And in a similar role, Peter? Very similar. In fact, the same character. Well, this is the film that Irene spoke of then. She said that you were going into a film now. Yes. Are they going to call it Son of Star Wars?

They don't know what the title's going to be or even when it's going to be shot. So, who knows? I know I've been offered the part, so... Peter, you're not only famous as an actor, but I think you're famous for your height. How tall do you stand? Seven feet two. Is that all?

Well, yeah, seven two, yes. We've adopted the metric system here in Canada. Can you give us that in meters? It's about two meters thirty. Well, what do you know? He did. I didn't think he'd be able to do that. Thank you, Peter Mayhew, for being with us. It's been a pleasure.

You've had a blast. Here's a guessing game. I haven't done enough research on that audio clip. Is the guy we're going to talk about, Alan Spraggett, is he the guy who sounds more like me, or is he the other guy hosting that interview with Chewbacca? I don't know. I took the link and I created the MP3. I never saw the video, so I don't know.

Okay. Age 90. March 26, 1932. Somewhere in that clip we heard from at the time on a CBC quiz show, celebrity quiz show called Beyond Reason. At the time, host of the show was a guy named Alan Spraggett. Previous to that, he was a minister in the United Church of Canada and then got a job as the religion editor of the Toronto Star. Do you even remember the Toronto series have like a robust religion section on Saturday?

They would have all kinds of ads from churches that would run alongside the religion. I skipped it, but I kind of remember it being there. And then he got into talking and writing about ESP, psychics. This was a trend at the time, and that Alan Sprague became Toronto authority all over the media. That question that we heard in that clip. Talking about extrasensory perception. question that we heard in that clip. Talking about extra sensory perception.

He asks, now that you've been in Star Wars, he's talking to the guy who's in the Chewbacca suit, Peter Mayhew. He's like, now that you're in Star Wars, are you more interested in astrology? But he means astronomy, right? He doesn't mean Cancer and Gemini and

all that nonsense. Just goes to show you that just because you're on the CBC in the 1970s doesn't mean you were any more coherent than we can be. Just goes to show you that just because you were on the CBC in the 1970s doesn't mean you were any more coherent than we can be just talking away in your basement here. Comforting to know. With our Great Lakes beer.

People made mistakes back then, yeah, even if they weren't drinking on the job. Okay, what happened to Alan Spraggan? Here's the deal. Oh, ESP. 1979. Didn't see this one coming. He was charged with two counts of gross indecency

winnipeg accused by uh some young men of being involved in in decent behavior which uh which you might consider gross and even though uh Alan Spraggett proved that he wasn't even in Winnipeg at the time, that they were just making the whole story up and he was acquitted of the charges, we're talking about an era in which this kind of thing was hanging over your head. It would have been pretty difficult

to get your old career back. But Pete and Geetz of CFNYFM one of whom is an FOTM and one of whom must have been a peer of Alan Spraggett from Old School Toronto Broadcasting

that would be Pete Pete Griffin rest in peace that Alan Spraggett came on the Pete and Geet show and did a daily horoscope segment, part of trying to make a comeback. But a situation where he was mostly in the where are they now file

and all the pioneering work he did on the paranormal topics, which made him an interesting guy, undone by a situation of an accusation, which turned out not to be true. And yet, he lived for over 40 more years. Alan Spraggett, dead at 90. On today's show, we've got over $3,000 in cash and prizes up for grabs welcome to canada's

favorite game it's your move and here's the star of it's your move paul hanover hi thank you hello welcome once again it's your move our charade show of course where the contestants bid against each other for the chance to act out a charade, and they have to do it in the time they bid for. Otherwise, they don't get the point. And if they get three points, they've got themselves a game. If they get two games, they have a match. Five matches, they can have some grand prizes. Now, there are some no-nos along the way.

What's the no-no sign? Oh, yeah. A Canadian game show, so you know those grand prizes probably weren't any good. Like a bag of Quaker oats oatmeal or something. and game show, so you know those grand prizes probably weren't any good. Like a bag of Quaker oats oatmeal or something. Like a giant Hershey's chocolate bar. Like a page of coupons

for the pop shop. These were the prizes when I was on Just Like Mom. It's Your Move was a CTV game show which dated back to the 60s, and that had a revival in the 70s into the 80s. And the same guy who kept coming back for more,

host Hamilton, Ontario, broadcaster Paul Hanover, who died at age 96 on July 11th, 2022. He was the mayor of the morning in Hamilton for all the decades that he worked on CHML, which is now a chorus talk radio station. Back then it would have been mostly interspersed with music like CFRB. But for the Hammer,

they're a full-service radio station. So just like Wally Crowder was to Toronto, Paul Hanover was to Hamilton. Paul Hanover was not his real name. He was born Solomon Yanover, a member of the tribe. And after retiring from CHML,

after all those years, he made a comeback in the late 80s, appearing as the morning man on what was relaunched in Hamilton as K-Lite Radio. And the mayor of the morning got to perform once more on the FM dial, 1029 K-Lite in Hamilton. And a good long life for a media personality.

We don't talk about a lot of radio guys who make it to 96. For a media personality. We don't talk about a lot of radio guys who make it to 96. It's like the average death is decades before that, I think, if they've been in the radio business. The mountains of coke that you find in these radio stations. I think also waking up that early in the morning also has an effect on the well-being. Well, Andy Barry's still with us. What's he at?

As far as I know, not 96 years old. Not 96, but he's probably 86. And so a great long life for Paul Hanover, mostly known if you grew up with him on the radio in Hamilton, but for that cheap Canadian game show. 17 years on and off as a host of CTV's It's Your Move. You truly know it You look good Trying your best to show it

If I were you, I would True love and affection These are nice But when a money man walks in the room Girl, you look more than twice. You look once. You look twice. Can I rap to you sugar tonight?

Donald Trump-like version. Maybe that's what you need. Look, man, it was the 90s. And The Time with Morris Day, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and their ghost writer Prince did a song called Donald Trump Black Version. And before we find out who passed away, I just need to apologize to Mr. Berry that I aged him up quite a bit. So I did a quick Google. Apparently the man's 77 years old. I had him at 88.

And that tells you what I know. and that tells you what I know. Ivana Trump, who I deliberated deeply about whether or not to put her in with the Canadian members of the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment because, like Kamala Harris, she spent time living in Montreal. Did you know?

That's a stretch. Kamala Harris doesn't belong in the Canadian section either when she passes away. Well, two years that Ivana Trump spent in Montreal in one of her multiple previous relationships. You spent 10 years in a country and you're now eligible for their Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. Just want to understand. I don't know, Mike. Who makes the rules?

So, okay, I'm thinking Michelle Mackey was just here kicking out the jams. Jams that reminded me of your jams. Similar style, taste of music. But Michelle Mackey spent a couple of years

living in Australia. So when she dies in whatever that'll be, 75 years from now, the Australian Mike is going to be remembering her in the Australian section of the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial. Here's what's going to happen, though, as we continue going through the deaths each and every month.

We've discussed this enough here. The number of famous people is only going to increase, right? Like, there's going to be more and more celebrity deaths as time goes on. I'm not going to like it. Because the number of celebrities increased over the decades. But you've got to have a bar, right? So we're talking about people who were famous in the 40s or 50s or 60s. There were not as many famous people back then.

By the time you make your way to the 70s, 80s, 90s, in terms of when they were born, your way to the 70s, 80s, 90s, in terms of when they were born. We see these obituaries every single day. Read on TMZ, some reality TV star that you never heard of has passed away. Yeah, but we're not going to waste our time on some reality star we never heard of. How do you know? Because they've been passing away all along. We haven't referred to them. The one thing with the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment is it's never going to end.

It's going to outlive you. It's going to outlive me. There's always going to be people talk about how they're gone. And in July, July 14th, 2022, big headlines here because the first wife of a president of the United States passed away. Buried on his golf course. She might have done for tax breaks. She fell down the stairs, right? That's what they say.

And it was fascinating how Ivana Trump, around the time of this song, from the time, you know, there were all sorts of headlines, Liz Smith in the New York Post and beyond about how much she reviled the Donald, how he cheated on her. But she ended up being pretty nice.

I mean, she didn't have really a bad word to say about Donald Trump at the time when she could have cashed in. I don't know if there were payments provided to her, but of course she developed her own notorious tabloid career and making appearances on home shopping channels. And remarrying an Italian aristocrat. Some kind of count. And then later on, a much younger man. Who became another husband of hers.

23 years younger. I don't know what her sons and daughter thought about all that, but she was definitely a character. So that's the history of Ivana Trump, not to be confused with her daughter Ivanka Trump, who was much more in the public eye during the presidency and I think the end of an era. So at a time when it was a kitschy thing to talk about Donald Trump in hip-hop,

even the Beastie Boys on Paul's Boutique gave Donald Trump a shout-out. Do you remember in Toronto, there was a public school that had a time capsule? This was around 2016, and someone had written in the time capsule, Donald Trump, are you still alive? This was around 1991.

And wasn't it novel? Like, you know, what was this foreshadowing? What did this teenager see that he imagined when this time capsule opened that Donald Trump would become the president of the United States? But a lot of people forget. You must remember when Donald Trump was constantly in the headlines for being this New York real estate tycoon. Of course. Art of the deal.

Of course. Spy magazine. Graydon Carter had a lot to do with building that notoriety for him. And he ended up going broke, going bankrupt. And the drama surrounding Donald Trump, which we constantly heard about as he switched wives over to Marla Maples. But Ivana Trump, always a main character

that people were interested in talking to, even though they had no idea why. She was famous for just about nothing. She would have been an Instagram influencer if that was happening back then. Think of all the opportunities that there would have been for her to monetize, but I think she did an okay job at the time and traded up in terms of husbands, but on July 14th, 2022, age 73, blunt impact injuries after she fell down the stairs at her home on the Upper East Side

and their funeral attended by her ex-husband Donald Trump. White version. Not the black version. Orange version. guitar solo Any opportunity to break out the smooth jazz remake of the theme from Leave It to Beaver, which I'm not sure, did we do this before in a Ridley Funeral Memorial segment when Eddie Haskell died? Probably.

Yeah, I don't remember anymore. You're like a jukebox. Hit the right number, you're going to get it. So this is from the new Leave it to Beaver. What's up? It's not that good. I would actually prefer the OG version, but I'm just receding into the background.

Well, you know who did this version? Walter Murphy, the guy who did a fifth of Beethoven on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the disco version, Beethoven's fifth. The theme from the new Leave It to Beaver, how wonderful it was in the mid-1980s when these unemployed former child actors, Stu Stone is still waiting for the call to reprise a role that he did as a kid

that people wanted you to get back into acting again. Was this after Back to the Beach? Because there was that resurgence. I remember this, like, all of a sudden, all of the baby boomers stuff or whatever was being reprocessed for us, young boomers stuff or whatever was uh being reprocessed processed for us to young gen xers or whatever but like i remember seeing barbara belingsley and uh jerry mathers and tony dow on uh on back to the beach and it was like shortly thereafter they tried the reboot

here with the new well it happened before well first you have you have June Cleaver in the movie Airplane. Yeah, she talked jive. Talking jive. Amazing. And I think that put her back on the radar. And a CBS reunion TV movie from 1983. Okay, okay. I'm pretty sure I watch this in real time because I, like Sebastian Bach of Skid Row,

would watch Leave it to Beaver on CKVR every day at lunchtime. Whenever I was off school, whenever I was home, we had access to this show up against the Flintstones on CFTO. And Leave it to Beaver in reruns, even though it was from the late 50s, early 60s. I saw a lot of Leave it to Beaver in the early 80s. I was familiar enough with the concept of the show that I heard that there was going to be a reunion. Leave it to Beaver, except they're now grown-ups. But by that point, Ward had passed away.

Right. And all you had was June Barbara Billingsley reuniting with Beave, Wally, and you can't forget Eddie Haskell. Right. And Lumpy Rutherford. Right. And except for Jerry Mathers as a beaver, all these people are dead. Jerry Mathers as a beaver. All these people are dead. Joining the cast of Leave it to Beaver in Heaven,

Tony Dow, who died on July 27th at age 77 under strange circumstances where his death was reported by all mainstream media outlets a day before it actually happened because there was a post on his official Facebook page that he had passed away. Kind of a teachable moment there that that in itself is not enough of a source, even for Associated Press or New York Times or whoever it was, TMZ. They had to delete their posts or put a disclaimer on it that this actually hasn't happened yet.

But he was in a hospice. It was a circumstance where it was going to happen any minute now. Saw some comment, oh, he's actually alive and well. Well, he's not actually that well. Someone else, this happened to somebody else recently, right? Somebody else, they announced this person was passed,

but it was actually like the next day that they passed. Do you remember off the top of your head off the top of my head we talk about 20 dead celebrities every month happened recently with a celebrity but i'll google it while you tell us more about tony dow tony dow uh tony dow who uh of course had this uh uh teenage teenage acting role uh ended up joining the U.S. National Guard when I guess it wasn't going the way he imagined or maybe he was just a patriotic American, so he spent most of the 60s in that military service

and got back into doing TV cameo appearances again. But was there any situation where anyone would have had a serious TV role for Wally Cleaver? I could imagine the pornography business may be willing to give him a shot. He did do a parody of Wally in the Kentucky Fried Movie? That was also the same guys who did Airplane, Zucker Abrams Zucker. Yeah, I mean, I loved Naked Gun as a kid, and then I went back and watched Airplane, and they're still two of my favorite movies of all time.

But in 1983, his ship came in when they did the Still the Beaver TV movie, and that followed by the disney channel saying let's make this into a regular show and all of a sudden leave it to beaver the new leave it to beaver was back on the air again uh from the disney channel to uh tbs and i remember this show actually ran in toronto on cfmt channel 47 you know how there would be syndicated sitcoms that would run like on Sunday afternoon? Sure, yes. Flipping around the dial, nothing good is on.

There'd be this category of television. Out of this world. Just like competent enough that you were willing to stick with it, right? Like fun, family-friendly content like the new Leave It to beaver with with uh tony dow uh as the years went by he became a serious sculptor he was working in bronze uh he was part of an exhibition at the louvre good accent there buddy good accent Good accent. Paris, France.

I've been outside of it. Didn't get inside. I think mostly for Ward. Sorry, Wally. Wally, right? Wally Cleaver. Yeah, Tony Dell. For Wally and the Beaver.

There's a lot of money in doing these fan expos. Look, if there's money for Stu Stone in these fan expos, there's got to be a pile of cash sitting there for Beaver. Could fly out every weekend to some remote airport hotel, charge people 300 bucks, take a picture with you. Who would turn that down? No, nobody. I think the person I was thinking of was Biz Marquis.

I think Biz Marquis, they announced he died, but he actually hadn't died yet, and he died like days later or something. I think that's who I'm thinking of. But yeah, Tony Dow. Yeah, Tony Dow then joining Biz Marquis. You're right. You remembered. I cheated to remind myself. That people

pronounced dead before it happened, but by all accounts he was not in a condition to read his own obituary. Right. Shout out to ridley funeral home tony dow dead at 77 july 27th 2022 You know he talks so hip, man You twist him a melon, man Come on, away from that man You know he's gonna take away your promised land

Hey good lady, he just want what you got You know he'll never stop Until he's taken the law Hey, hey, hey Gonna spam, pat your fire He can change your desire Don't you know he can Make you forget you're a man Gonna spam, pat your fire He can change your desire I was looking through the discography of Happy Mondays,

wondering if there was a different song that we could play in honor of Paul Ryder, the brother of Sean Ryder, who was the front man for this Mad Chester group. I'll go through the Happy Mondays discography, and I think most of these songs are unlistenable now. Do you know any other Happy Mondays songs? I do remember when their first records came out. I'm not saying I'm Brother Bill here,

but I was happy to what was happening in Mad Chester at the time. The pills and thrills and belly aches. You were a big Inspiral Carpets guy. Not my scene. But I knew about Happy Mondays well before they did this song, which is actually a cover version. Really? Totally.

Of a song called Step On, which was their biggest hit of all. The original title of the song, He's Gonna Step On You Again by a guy named John Kongos. And John Kongos' kids, also from South Africa, like him, they had their own band. Kongos, did that ring a bell? There was a band called Kongos.

Come With Me Now. That was a song that was a modern rock hit. Come With Me Now. Early in the 2010s. a modern rock hit. Come with me now. Early in the 2010s. No, I do remember the song quite okay. So that's part of the lineage of Step On by Happy Mondays, which made it to number 57. Unlike Stu Stone, I checked my references here.

Number 57 on the US Hot 100, but number five in the UK. And I think one of those British songs that was a bigger hit in Canada, maybe bigger than anywhere else, because of CFNY. Maybe much music, airplay, and that whole Anglo-file thing.

It's got that whole Love and Rockets feel, right? You got that kind of so alive feel and this was originally recorded for an Elektra Records 40th anniversary

tribute album there were a number of tracks off that that were played at time on CFNY there was like The Doors covered by The Cure

and there was Motorcycle Mama by the Sugar Cubes. It was those modern rock acts that were signed to the label that were covering the more obscure original songs, including Step On. It came off good enough that they saved it for themselves,

and they released it as a single of their own. Today I learned that this is a cover. I'm now very excited when there's a song I discover is a cover, because I've been spending so much time researching those songs you don't realize are covers that this is a new one for my list. So thank you, Mark Weisblatt.

The album after that was produced by the TomTom Club. Chris France and Tina Weymouth, yes, please. But of course, these guys were all living on ecstasy and Sean and Paul Ryder, But, of course, these guys were all living on ecstasy. And Sean and Paul Ryder, the brother act, broke apart.

Bez was a member of Happy Mondays. And that was a novelty at the time because he was in the band, but he didn't do anything at all. He didn't play an instrument, just a singer in the background. But it was Paul Ryder, who was part of this Brother Act, and who died July 15th, 2022 at age 58. guitar solo You are my life I have to go

Have me any way you want to Just take care and love me till my Tension's gone Cause you are My starship Come take me Up tonight And don't

Be late Yes you are My starship Take me up tonight And don't delay Yeah, because I can't find a radio show that acknowledges somebody like this died, I have to come down to Toronto Mike's basement

to recognize someone like Michael Henderson, who was a bass player originally known for playing with Miles Davis on his real heavy early 70s albums like Jack Johnson. Michael Henderson, who then later became a vocalist of his own. Perhaps I'd be listening to a Casey Kasem, American Top 40 from iHeartRadio, 1976, and peaking on the pop chart at number 27, You Are My Starship,

with Michael Henderson on vocals, even though it's mainly credited to a jazz drummer named Norman Connors. So some 70s jazz fusion crossover here. And Michael Henderson, who continued as this kind of soul vocalist, look up one of his later albums called Slingshot, where he poses on the cover in a speedo. Your reaction

could only be, look at the unit on that guy. And with Slingshot as the album title, perhaps there was no accident there. Ask Jeff Woods what he thinks about what they were going for. Michael Henderson, you are my starship.

Dead age 71, July 19th, 2022. Like I tell you about my baby You know she come around About five feet four From her head to the ground Now she come around here Just about midnight Remember it feel so good Made me feel alright And her name is G

L O I I G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloria, I'm gonna shout all night, Gloria, gonna shout at every place, Gloria, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can't leave out the Shadows of Night, Gloria, because July 29th, 2022, we lost Jim Sawns, the lead vocalist on that dirty track, Gloria. Where would you know Gloria from?

Them. Oh, and then Patti Smith had a cover too too but them right that's the van morrison band but uh but the shadows of night uh the the garage band that did the cover version of van morrison and pioneering pioneering punk rockers i i i think uh they'll go they'll go down in history i remember for that little stephen van zant ended up championing the Shadows of Night as part of his Underground Garage radio show, satellite radio channel. He was on the Underground Garage tour with the Romantics, and they played with Cheap Trick.

So they kept the fire alive into the 21st century of the Shadows of Night, mostly because of their conversion of Gloria. Jim Sawns, dead, age 75. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Many guys have come to you With a line that wasn't true And you pass them by Pass them by Though you're in the serene

And their lines don't mean a thing Why don't you let me try Let me try Now I don't wear a diamond ring I don't even know a song to sing. All I know is la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, me. I love you. Oh, baby, please now.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, me. I love you. The Delphonics. One of the most perfect songs of all time. La la means I love you. Jackie Brown, the Quentin Tarantino movie, had a couple of Delphonics jams. Even before that, New Kids on the Block were responsible for a little Delphonics comeback there

covering another one of their songs, Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time? Which was from the first New Kids on the Block album and it was reissued when they ran a singles from Hangin' Tough. That's how deep my New Kids knowledge goes.

Shout out to FOTM Andy Pandy. Loves our new kids on the block. And Bingo Bob Ouellette. One of the most closeted new kids on the block fans. Not so closeted. Yeah, well, I'm right there with him. We had the game remix, Bob and I. I think we bonded over that.

And so, I think new kids on the block got me even more into the Delphonics. And I remember paying like 25 bucks for an import cassette of their greatest hits from the late 60s, early 70s. William Hart, who had a nickname Poogie, he died at age 77, July 15th, 2022. And one more guy from the Delphonics left, which is William's brother, Wilbert Hart, still with us. But Delphonics, remembered by me on the memorial segment from Ridley

Funeral Home. Let the record show, though, I'm playing this jam. This is under protest, because I do what I'm told here on 1236 Episodes, but this is Frank D'Angelo, and you wanted a couple of Frankie D songs,

I personally think disrespectful to these two gentlemen we're going to talk about. But again, it's your segment. If you can do better, bring it on. James Caan and Paul Sorvino. We lost them both in the month of July. And among their many credits were appearances in the cinematic oeuvre of Frank D'Angelo. Thanks to the open checkbook of Barry Sherman, that they would come to the greater Toronto area

and participate in these gangster films that Frank D'Angelo was churning out there with as little preparation as possible. With the passing of Barry Sherman, I don't believe it's possible for these

movies to be made anymore. James Kahn, you James Kahn. You a James Kahn fan? Well, I'm a Godfather fan, and that makes me a James Kahn fan. Yeah, he's great in Godfather. James Kahn, who died July 6th at age

82. So he's gone through one of his divorces, and the fact that he appeared in this movie, Sicilian Vampire, it came out in court. He had to explain, listen, doing this for the paycheck. Might be ruining my legacy here, but

Frank wants my services to appear in his fake gangster film. But I understand the allure is that you get a paper bag with unmarked bills in it, and therefore you don't need to tell your ex-wife or your uh you know the tax the tax people so it's like the fact that comes out in court is inconvenient right because the

whole idea is that there's under the table and again allegedly under the table cash i haven't done all my research there all i know is you would have seen James Caan in Sicilian Vampire and then later on in the Red Maple Leaf. And in both films, along with him, taking that same cash

was Paul Sorvino and his daughter. His daughter, Mira Sorvino, Academy Award winner His daughter, Mira Sorvino. Academy Award winner. Who died at age 83 on July 25th, 2022. I once spoke to Paul Sorvino on the phone. How did that go?

It was an interview for Ladd magazine called Bikini, which ended up going nowhere. Never paid me a dime. I thought it would be some kind of breakthrough into American publishing. They had some assignment like do interviews, advice from dad. They did print the article, and I was so annoyed about how they treated me. From the start, they had no intention of paying any money at all. So I told Paul Servino at the time on the phone, I said, you know, people say that I remind them of your daughter's boyfriend,

Quentin Tarantino. I said, well, you sound like him too. Okay, better than Gilbert Gottfried. That's all I remember from my 20 minutes on the phone with the late Paul Sorvino. Had I been playing paparazzi on

the set of Frank D'Angelo movies. Might have seen him again. Okay, so James Caan, I mean, he's done, like younger people, like my kids would tell you, he's an elf. Okay, elf is a modern day classic

or whatever. Every Christmas time, you used to watch elf. I think elf is grossly overrated, but that's okay. But Frank D'Angelo, so James Caan is known for Godfather, but Frank, not Frank D'Angelo, sorry, why is is known for Godfather, but Frank, not Frank D'Angelo, sorry.

Why is his name in my mind? Paul Sorvino, of course, is from Goodfellas. And, you know, Godfather and Goodfellas are like, you can't do any better than that. You can't do any better than that. And yet, once we got into the 2010s, for a price, you get these guys to appear in your movies. Well, you got to eat.

Like, I don't judge anybody for, you know, you gotta eat. It's legal to act in Frank D'Angelo movies. You get paid. You know, no shame in that game. I'm not gonna shame you. Speaking of goodfellas, we learned from Joe Flaherty echoing Dave Thomas on the Toronto Mike's podcast

that the Martin Scorsese SCTV documentary is never gonna see the light of day. And, in fact, Joe Flaherty is saying he can now write an expose. He wants to tell all. I figure the Toronto Mic'd podcast might be the media. Well, you know, his late brother's wife is an FOTM. So his late brother's widow is an FOTM. I don't want to say

we'll be talking about Joe Flaherty in the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment soon, but he is 81 years old. So get on that soon. I'm going to get on it. I'm going to get on it.

Okay. What's left? Do you believe this? It says there are four million rats in this city. Can you imagine some dude going around counting rats? Four million.

That's one rat per person. When I lived in the ghetto, I killed my rat. But I kept getting somebody else's. Hey, listen. You want your motorist outfit today? Oh, no. I'll just take the red, white, and beige shirt. Thank you.

How you doing? What's your permit for the business here? Well, I'm working on it. It's coming along fine. Working on it. Um, you think Mark would be interested? He can make some good bucks. How's he doing? Is he okay? I don't know. But you know, he's got to get started in something because the way he's going, he's going to end up doing time. It's hard raising a son these days, huh? You know, I try to talk to him and tell him that he's got to be able to make his own way.

But every time it starts, his mother's yelling and screaming and trying to take a fight and their insults. Kids shouldn't hear this kind of stuff. Kids don't mind yelling, screaming and fighting. just as long as there's love in the home get out of here bill russell with gary coleman name a more iconic duo i mean uh height difference three or four times the size of his co-star in that movie. Gary Coleman had his feature film debut. It was called on the right track. Uh,

Maureen Stapleton, Norman fell. Wow. And Bill Russell with Gary Coleman playing a shoe shine boy who lives in a locker in the, in the Chicago train station. Wow. It came out in 1981, I remember.

Actually, might have even wanted to see this film in the cinema. I don't know if I ever followed through. Well, I was a big Gary Coleman fan. I would have had to stick with Gary Coleman's TV movies instead. They kept trying to make him famous, right? To be something else besides Arnold from Different Strokes. It never really worked. The Boy of the 200 IQ is one I remember watching on TV.

I was a huge fan of Different Strokes. What kind of typecast, right? Because it's like, it's just Gary Coleman. Was Gary Coleman believable playing a character different from, what you talking about, Willis? There's a kid with the broken halo and Jimmy the Kid. And then you get into the 90s and Gary Coleman kind of a joke. Bill Russell.

Bill Russell, champion. Bill Russell, I guess, if you were a charismatic NBA star, salaries weren't what they are today, and he had to find some kind of second career as a media personality, which Bill Russell did for a while. What else?

Was there anything else that he did, or it was just the fact that he had used to be in the NBA? You're so focused on what he did after his NBA career, but let's not... What else am I good for? Okay, yes, I noticed another name you missed, which we're going to get to at the very end, but I know sports is not your forte,

but if you look at his career, NCAA and NBA career, Bill Russell is the one word I can think of is champion. This guy led his teams to the championship, I think 11 titles with the Celtics? I mean, come on now. I don't think there's a single athlete in North American sports that you can point to in team sports that had a better, more successful championship run than Bill Russell.

Okay, good for him. Weren't the Boston Celtics known for being kind of racist? Wasn't there always the mindset that in Boston they didn't take kindly to the idea of black players on the team. Then even greater props to Bill Russell for overcoming that kind of bullshit and still excelling and delivering and delivering championships to that city. Amazing. And he hosted Saturday Night Live.

And I hope he did better than the great one. Than Wayne Gretzky? Right. And I hope he did better than the great one. Than Wayne Gretzky? Right. So Bill Russell, basketball legend, did it 88 on July 31st, 2022. The Day Will Dawn in the Future When you will journey through time The stars listen hear them pleading They know

dear earthlings what you're needing Be true bring peace and love with you Be free For that is your nature Believe Though others say it's only

Pretend that your star track Will never end Everybody knows this song. Few people know that it was originally written with lyrics. But thanks to Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura, who died July 30th at age 89. who died July 30th at age 89. She managed to preserve the words on wax in honor of Gene Roddenberry. Not only did she appear in the Star Trek show, but she had a personal romance with him.

And then Gene Roddenberry moved on to marry the actress known as Majel Barrett. So it turned out that on Star Trek in the cast of

Star Trek, you had two lady friends of Gene Roddenberry in the show. Majel Barrett died in 2008. Not many Star Trek originals left. Two. We're counting down. Two? Who do you count as two?

William Shatner. And the guy who played... There's another guy. I'm exposing myself as a guy who never watched Star Trek, but there's another guy of the main deck or whatever crew. His name is... I'm just vamping for you

to tell you that his name is... He's got a great name and I'm going to give it to you in a second here. I'm not fixing this in post. I don't care what you say. Do you have the name there? Well, the correct answer is

two other stars who are not William Shatner. Oh don't care what you say. Do you have the name there? Well, the correct answer is two other stars who are not William Shatner. Oh, yeah. George Takai. I don't know why I forgot him. He's obvious. George Takai and William Shatner are the two obvious ones. But there is a third who's still alive. And I'm embarrassed I forgot George Takai. Walter Koenig.

Right. My apologies to the Trekkers out there. Chekhov. Anyway. I am to Star Trek as Mark Wiseblood is to sports. And to Star Trek. I thought you'd be a big Star Trek guy. I saw a couple of movies and theaters.

I used to know more about it than I do. I had a traumatic experience in the Wrath of Khan in the movie theater. The Runnymede Theater when the slugs go crawl up the face and go in the ear okay which really got to me i had to leave the theater i was so distraught i think that was my uh what was cam gordon's moment uh the sperm scene and look who's talking like sort of that was my sperm scene and look who's talking but i also did go back to theaters uh as an older guy to see

the one of the whales, okay? There's a Star Trek film with whales and I quite enjoyed it. And that's my Star Trek history. Nichelle Nichols suffered a stroke in 2015, diagnosed with dementia in 2018. So this was a death that was not a surprise. People paying attention.

She wasn't arguing with William Shatner any longer or showing up at the fan conventions. No one likes William Shatner on that cast, right? Like I hear George Takai talk about it a lot. That's why he's going to outlive them all. I think George Takai was, I mean, I used to hear him on Howard Stern all the time, but I heard him on the Gilbert Gottfried podcast,

and yeah, it sounds like our boy Shatner is a bit of a dink. Let's see who makes it to the end. Let's see who is the last original Star Trek star standing. But of course, with all the Trekkies and Trekkers, a lot of sentimental tributes to the pioneering TV character, Lieutenant Uhura. I might look like the skies pounding away There's so much to say I face the voice, no doubt has no choice An edge cannot be choice

Wanting to be To hear and to see Flying to the sky But the purpose is laughing. Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Okay, speaking of the last man standing, it's Mickey Dolenz, the last of the original four monkeys, alive and well on the road after Michael Nesmith.

Nes died in December, and this month, July, the creator of the monkeys, Bob Rafelson, died July 23rd at age 89. Monkeys, originally his idea. Says he thought about the show even before the Beatles came along.

And it was, of course, the Beatles that kicked this into high gear and got a deal on TV. And then subsequently Bob Rafelson, known as the main collaborator of Jack Nicholson, starting with the Monkees movie Head. And, you know, in history, this song from Head, I think if you look back

you get kind of weirded out how did the monkeys go from a TV show to making this psychedelic film on the space of two or three years but it was as they tell it very much premeditated to deconstruct the image of this band didn't do much for the monkeys

it did more for Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson. Because then we moved on to Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. And I think as the years went by,

even though he was a filmmaker, that Bob Rafelson's main job was just to be Jack Nicholson's buddy, which you could imagine being a full-time job, right? Get to go to a lot of Lakers games. So Bob Rafelson, who made New Hollywood what it was, died July 23rd at age 89. Monty Norman, the composer of the James Bond theme. Born Monty Nazarevich, 1928.

Made it to age 94. You know, in the background earlier was that Grace Jones slave to the rhythm. I put that on a playlist because I read the book by Chris Blackwell of Island Records. Didn't get to mention that before, but his mother was Ian Fleming's

girlfriend, and out of that Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, got a start in the music industry behind the scenes of James Bond, got his start in the music industry behind the scenes of James Bond. And that, in fact, he was the one who engineered the music of

Monty Norman. Are you a James Bond fan? Again, like Star Trek, I got into it at a certain time in life, but never retained enough to be able to toss out the references. I've only ever seen one. I've only ever seen one. So sort of like Star Trek where I never got into it.

But where I know this song best is this is the theme to a video game I used to play in the early to mid 80s called Spy Hunter. So shout out to Spy Hunter. And at some point, I believe I had Spy Hunter on the Commodore 64 and this was the song. And shout out to Monty Norman who I think had like 60

rich years of life all because of this composition. Doing this for Dr. No. I think this set him up for the long haul. I'm letting you go long today, Mark, because of the personal discussion off the top. I'm giving you some bonus time, so don't waste it. guitar solo A little boy was born nearby some 50 years ago.

His name was Mo, Mo, Mo. They called him Clyde, Mo, so they didn't call him Joe. They called him Mo, Mo, Mo. Did you know George Harrison wrote a tribute song to Warner Brothers record executive Mo Austin, who died July 31st at age 95? This wasn't released publicly, but made it to YouTube. It was a private tribute that George Harrison wrote for him, and it was Mo Austin at the helm of Warner Brothers Records,

Reprise, later DreamWorks, that he specialized in being the kind of record label guy that was extremely accommodating to the artists that he worked with. His own memoir telling his whole story. The first rock band that he signed to the Reprise record label was the Kinks. They saw Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival.

He signed him up too. And the deep, deep catalog of Warner Brothers records. A lot of legends who never really sold a lot but were critically acclaimed. Mo Austin was at the helm all the way up into the 1980s

when he was the one that lured R.E.M. away from I.R.S. Records. And at the time, that was a big gap.ured REM away from IRS Records. And at the time, that was a big gap. Remember this? REM signed a record deal for a lot of money. Then they never sold the same number of albums again. But it definitely set them up for life.

Yeah, Monster was a big release with the record deal, right? Yeah, it was a big release with the record deal, right? Yeah, it was a big release at Salvation Army and the Value Village from all the people who bought the CDs. What's the Frequency, Kenneth, and all that? I remember it being a big deal, no? I think that was part of the decline and fall, but soon after that, Mo went from Warner Brothers to starting up DreamWorks. So a guy like this remembered very much for all the artists that he shepherded through

Warner Brothers. You might remember Prince got mad at the record label for exploiting him. But his name is pretty much on the whole history of rock. And that included George Harrison expressing his gratitude to Morris Ostrovsky, better known as Moe Austin, dead at 95 on July 31st. Now stop the music, stop the rock and roll. This is the end of Mark Weisblatt's list, but I'm

throwing one in at the end. How old was Mo? 95! Okay. So there's a name that's not on your list, but as the residential sports fan in this dynamic duo here, I want to play a call.

So we all, most of us, enjoy Joe Carter's walk-off homer. Hey, hey, hey. Even me. I enjoyed it too. Breaking news. Okay, I didn't suggest that. Don't leave me out of this discussion. So we all saw Joe Carter hit the walk-off in Game 6 against the Phillies.

That was the second of two World Series in a row we clinched that night. And Sean McDonough was doing the play-by-play on TV, and I watched it on TV. Of course, Tom Cheek was in the booth doing the play-by-play for Canadian radio. But what I didn't hear, except many, many years later, I heard it for the first time, is that Vin Scully called the game for American Radio, and here is that call.

This crowd has hollered itself weak. Henderson at second, Milotor at first, one out of the ninth. 6-5 Philadelphia. Stottle, Meyer, and Castillo throwing in case of extra innings. Fastball is hit to left field. Down the line. In the corner.

Home run. Thank you. Joe Carter who took the 2-0 pitch for a strike right down the middle, hits the 2-1 pitch over the left field wall. And the Toronto Blue Jays come back with three in the bottom of ninth inning to become the world's champions yet again. The final score, Toronto 8 Philadelphia 6 Vince Scully 94 years old we lost him this past week and what's remarkable and a record I suspect will never get broken 67 years

he was the voice of the same franchise the Dodgers they moved from Brooklyn to LA but Vince Scully man whether it be you know Kirk Gibson hitting that home run for the Dodgers. They moved from Brooklyn to LA, but Vince Scully, man, whether it be, you know, Kirk Gibson hitting that home run for the Dodgers on one leg, or

that home run from Joel Carter. He's the man when it comes to baseball play-by-play. There was no one better. I was trying to figure out if he was ever in a movie with Gary Coleman. Maybe the kid from Left Field, but couldn't find that reference there.

So thank you, Toronto Mike, for finding a Toronto clip of the late, great Vin Scully. And that brings us to our 1091st show. It was a long one. We hit, what, three hours, 13 minutes. Well done, Mark.

Thanks for joining me. We had a lot to say, okay? Tune in next month to find out what happens to the newsletter that comes out at 1236. But still going for August, okay? Still getting paid. I don't, I'm manning my word. I don't let people down. Pay me for a service.

I got to deliver this. You know how the math works, right? First Thursday of the month will be September 1st, the day of TMLXX. So you're going to be here. What are we now? Until 5 p.mpm on September 1st TMLXX takes place at 6pm

you gotta go buddy Great Lakes come to TMLXX you're already gonna be here you gotta go you're making plans for the rest of my life on that note help me figure out what to do with this newsletter and we'll talk

thank you Toronto Mike for On that note, help me figure out what to do with this newsletter, and we'll talk. Thank you, Toronto Mike, for 88 months of the 1236 newsletter published by SJC Media. We'll hope to continue the story in a new way in September 2022. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all tomorrow. And my special guest is Jeff Burrows from the Tea Party. I know it's true How about you? I'm picking up trash and then putting down ropes And then 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

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

And it won't go away. Cause everything is rosy and green. 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 Cause everything is Rosie now Everything is Rosie Yeah everything is Rosie and Gray Yeah Everything is rosy and gray