Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #1144

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

In this 1144th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Marc Weisblott from 12:36 about what you oughta know about the month that was October 2022. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Yes, We Are Open, The Advantaged Investor, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1144 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals. Palma Pasta. Fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entreals. Palma Pasta. Fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees.

The Yes, We Are Open podcast. A Moneris podcast production. The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. RecycleMyElectronics.ca Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling

our electronics of the past.ley funeral home pillars of the community since 1921. Canna cabana, the lowest prices on cannabis guaranteed and Sammy cone real estate. Ask Sammy, any real estate questions at Sammy dotCone at ProperlyHomes.ca. Joining me today to recap the month that was, October 2022, is Mark Weisblot. That's you, buddy.

You can do a little bit better than that. Oh, my goodness. I got to put this in my notes. Joining me today to recap the month that was, October 2022, is FOTM Hall of Famer Mark Weisblatt of 1236. Thank you. Getting to that, I got my first questions about 1236. In fact, first tell me how you're doing,

and then let me read a question that just came in from Charles Brandt. Toronto Mike, I am feeling incredibly impatient at the moment. I feel like I've been in some sort of emotional fog matching the current change of

seasons. In the process, I've been feeling like this late pandemic era is going to be one of transformation for all of us. It seems underway. It's definitely in the air. And that includes what has been going on with my media property, the one that was bequeathed to me at the end of the summer by St. Joseph Communications, the 1236 newsletter,

which is on my own. It's in my hands. You own that property, and I'm going to tee you up by reading this question that came in from Charles Brandt. He says, Hey, Toronto Mike,

what happened to 1236? I miss those daily emails. I hope he's dropping by for an October recap. Hashtag real talk. What the hell happened? season, I was all ready to go thinking, okay, at one point I did this reliably five days a week, every single weekday. How hard could it be to just focus on doing it on Thursdays only, just keep the flagship alive, maybe solicit a little bit of advertising, some shout outs to my friend Toronto Mike, looking for some new partnerships and a new way to do these things, which is still up in the air and ready to accept ideas, 1236 at 1236.ca, which is to say, I've got this influential email list to work with. I've got this brand name. As far as you're concerned, Toronto Mike, I've got the content to deliver to the people based on what's been going on.

And in the process, maybe there is money to be made with some partnerships in between the mentions. Now, last two episodes here, we've had VP of Sales, Tyler Campbell, is riding shotgun here on the episode, maybe to give him a little bit of inspiration. Maybe he was seeking some himself, sorting out some sort of business alliance to make that sustainable. But here's a here's a plot twist right now. The newsletter is hosted on Substack. We're in a time of tumult and turmoil involving Twitter dotcom with the takeover by Elon Musk. And here this email provider, Substack, has been stepping in and I think accelerated their rollout of certain features

which I knew were coming to perhaps enhance what I've been doing all this time. It involves, maybe this is a little bit of a hurdle here. It requires a critical mass of people to download a specific Substack app. I don't know if that's a bridge too far when you make this request, but the vision that I have at this time is here's an opportunity to deliver this 1236 Intel all through the day,

through the entire week, not tied to a specific point in time, and get people to follow the feed, run my own little chat room, a direct message group, if you will, get everybody on board who was a newsletter subscriber to Rhino Mike. What do you think? Could this work? I mean, this would be in conjunction with Substack, so there would be more going on with this app, more newsletters, more voices, more personalities than just mine.

How are you feeling? How are you feeling about it all? If you're relying on the masses downloading some Substack app to their smartphone, man, I'm sorry. sub stack app to their smartphone. Man, I'm sorry. I don't see it happening. I don't think that's going to happen.

I think you don't think, but what if it had, what if it had information you could not find anywhere else? Well, okay. Speaking for myself, what if you knew that this was where the action was and I was delivering something that was an improvement over anything you could find on Facebook or Twitter. Okay. I, you know me. I'm the biggest Mark Wiseblood fan there is.

I missed my 1236 newsletter. You know, before I get all, like, doomy and gloomy, is the reason we didn't get an October email, because you went the whole month of October without sending any 1236. Well, what can I say, Toronto Mike? I mean, other projects have come up, including my role, managing editor of the Canadian Jewish News. I have some turf to protect here as Canada's number one Jewish journalist. Any competition for that esteemed honour? Like, is there some other publication nipping at your heels? who come to get their TMDS services from Toronto Mike. And any number of them are a possible threat to my throat.

But what can I say, Mike? I have been in a mood. Yeah, I want to... You know what? At the same time, I'm also trying to gauge what people want out there. I mean, I started this 1236 era in 2015. I thought, you know, here we had the influx of venture-backed media companies in the United States. That was the glory days of BuzzFeed and Vice coming to Canada. You know, podcasts were still novel and new.

And I think it was also a period of time where the legacy newspaper companies were engaged in a lot of experimentation, right? This was a time of star touch at the Toronto Star. The tablet app, it was a point of pride that at the same time they were burning, I don't know, a million dollars a day on a tablet app that nobody was using. That I could start a daily email newsletter that could reach more people in a more interesting way for the tiniest fraction of the cost.

So at that point in time, I did feel like the David going up against those Goliaths. Now, seasons change and people change and things do evolve. I do find like in this latest 1236 session here with Toronto Mike, we will find that there are stories to tell. There are always things happening out there, even if we specifically stick to our domain. So this has mostly just been me for the month of October standing on the sidelines waiting to see how this will turn out.

But that's also how I'm feeling about my life in general. And all of this is kind of leaning on my ability to sequester myself in front of the computer for a certain number of hours a day. And I'm just not there yet at this time. I invite anyone who sees an opportunity there to hitch themselves to my wagon. Now, I'm very protective here of the fact that people signed up for this email newsletter list with very specific terms and conditions. I'm sure I can figure out how to make $102 a day just delivering spam, right? Like creating some kind of framework where I got in touch with someone who was in this industry. This reach is worth something to somebody, but it's not worth anything at all

if people start catching on to what's happening here and they start to unsubscribe. So if I'm going to connect with people on this level, they do have to be other people, other places, where what they're doing is compatible with the audience that I already have. So if you've been listening to these episodes all this time, I am open to whatever, and I do have a vision of where it can go. I'm going to ignore the haters and start playing around with this sub-stack

app, even send out an email. Not a hater, a realist. They're very soon informing people about the fact this new service is available. I'm going to kick the tires. I'm going to try it out. And if anybody, including Mr. Mike

Boone, the guy sitting right here, has any notion of what I can do, take advantage of this audience that is out there. Things sometimes have to go on hiatus. Different ideas are put on hold. This is not necessarily where I wanted to be, but here I am, back in your basement, recapping the event of October 2022, the first time in 90 months that the 1236 newsletter got delivered to no one. Look, I know I'm contractually obligated to recede into the background once a month here, but I need to ask you on a very human, very personal level, I want to make sure you're okay,

because, you know, yeah, you know, St. Joseph's Media parted ways with you, and now you're figuring out what's the next chapter, but, you know, when you disappear and we don't get the newsletter, we want to make sure you're okay, so... Yeah, yeah, okay, it's been nothing like that. Nothing at all.

And, in fact, there's other stuff that I've been up to in Jewish journalism with the CJN has been taking me in all sorts of directions that I didn't imagine before. And it has required a bit more of my bandwidth. So that's a good thing because the opportunity on this level did not exist for me a year or two ago when we got this project underway. Now, that's very niche, perhaps. I do think stuff is going on there that's of interest to anyone who's not an anti-Semite.

The cjn.ca is where my energies have gone. I've been working on some other projects, too, Mike. I think business is good. But the roots of what I'm doing here, the 1236 newsletter, all I can watch as you're leaving. Cause you got tired of my scheming. For the last time. It's me. Hi. I'm the problem.

It's me. At tea time. Everybody agrees. I'll stare directly at the sun. But never in the mirror. It must be exhausting. Always rooting for the antihero. See, there you go, Mike. I think this has been an anthem for the vibe shift.

Have you caught on to the current number one song in America by Taylor Swift? I did see that she's number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. But this is the real single. This is the one that's getting the radio airplay. What's this called? Stick around. I'm a little behind in my T-Swizzle. Anti-hero.

And definitely hearing that Midnight's Taylor Swift album, this one stood out as the big hit single. All the Swifties are very excited out there. And we'll definitely be hearing this song for like the entire the entire next year to come you know we've talked here over the years about how the Billboard charts have changed right you can't

you can't compare the current statistics to how it was with 1964 and the Beatles filling all the top five this is all driven by streaming. Everybody has access to all these songs. Most of them are listening for free.

These points are racking up their position on the chart. But I do still think there's a hierarchy when a certain kind of song is in the air that you know will be around for a real long time. And it's really like the public demand to stream this thing over and over again. So Antihero, I think, is a song that stands up, being played over and over and over again as you weave your way through the world trying to figure out this new hybrid environment. Have you also noticed, Mike, you and me have been mostly work-from-home people from the start.

We were doing it before it was cool, but I think in society, how are you feeling with the people in your life? These hybrid arrangements. No one has quite figured out what they want out of these situations yet. Well, Mrs. Toronto Mike works for a very large bank, and she has been ordered to appear in the office two days a week. And it's two days a week for now. Why?

Because there's like a labor shortage, and they're a little fearful that people will quit if they bump it up to three. There's a lot of caution out there. And I think in the process, people are sort of dissatisfied. But here we are in this late pandemic era, weighing what we want here in society. I mean, those who are privileged enough to have these kinds of careers that allow them to work at home any amount of time. There are some that are obviously digging it. any amount of time.

There are some that are obviously digging it. They found a way to make it their lifestyle, especially if they never had their job any other way. And then I think there are those who are a little bit confused about what they bargained for at this point in time. And I do think that affects something like putting out a media product at this time. Like who is the audience? What are their habits? What do they want to see? What do they want to know? I think there was a certain level of snark and sarcasm that drove what I was doing for any number of years. Perhaps I'm going to exhibit that here

again today. But definitely when we were on that heavy lockdown era, I also felt that there was a little less appetite for it. Maybe I could send more of a positive message. And as we're going to review here in our usual recap, I think this whole media industry is in various states of confusion and disarray, perhaps that we could not have predicted. Obviously, you get the usual sort of have predicted. Obviously, you get the usual sort of transformational layoffs and cutbacks and the proverbial taps on the shoulder of people being relieved of their duties before they're ready to go. But especially with the economic anxiety in the air, I don't know what I'm promising. It might take me another year or two

To get back to the mood of this newsletter Well in the meantime I've got the email addresses Collected for safekeeping I look forward to your visit First Thursday of every single month And today we're recording on November 3rd 2022

We're going to be doing this until I make the list In the memorial segment brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. Absolutely. Hope that's not any time too soon. But I do want to ask you what you thought of the fact that there were three FOTMs running in the municipal elections. We've had an election since the last time you were here. Three FOTMs ran. Three FOTMs won. None of those FOTMs were an incumbent. What say you, Mark Weisblatt, about that success? Well, none of them were an incumbent, but two

of them had been around, running unsuccessfully in recent elections. Earlier this year, one of them was Diane Sachs, the daughter of Dr. Morton Shulman of the Shulman File. You seem tickled by the fact that maybe the media industry is generally too young to find this interesting.

I'm too young, but I talked to the Peter Grosses of the world, and I'm aware of stuff that happened. I'm aware of the Beatles, for example, and their dominance of the charts in the 60s. The Shulman File on City TV. I think it would have aired in your conscious lifetime of surfing the dial, clicking channels around. Okay, what six-year-old who's not named Mark Weisblood is going to watch that? Here's the thing.

The presentation, are there retro-Ontario clips on YouTube of the Shulman File? It was a sort of show, just like how they would flick from the polka dot door to the credits of Doctor Who. If you were a little kid and you landed on the Shulman file, you would be confused by what you were seeing. Because it was like, in the words of Count Floyd, very scary stuff. And maybe you got the sense that there was something illicit going on here.

That these were conversations that you weren't allowed to see. That was all part of the Moses Nimer City TV style, right, in which everything that was presented on camera looked like a low-budget pornographic movie. And Dr. Morton Shulman, the Shulman file, was certainly in that milieu. Diane Sacks, you have a history with Diane Sacks. What is there to explain? Well, basically, I've been producing her podcast for years. It's called Green Economy Heroes, and it's a great podcast. And I quite like her.

She won, but I'm more excited to go hyper-local. In my backyard, I live in Ward 3. And FOTM Amber Morley defeated Mark Grimes, the incumbent. There was no incumbent in the Saks race, so the incumbent wasn't running, but there was in this ward, and Amber Morley, who I was hanging with the other

night, we can talk about that, but she won resoundingly, and I got notes from some great people you know and respect, from Paken, etc., to just say that I put her over the top I'm taking a partial credit on the Amber Morley victory look what an election can change because John Tory was was actually campaigning it had robocalls boosting the incumbent councillor Mark Grimes he wanted him to stay in office he He was a staunch ally of these right-wing sensibilities.

Yourself, as a resident of New Toronto, you would have been on the side of those dissatisfied with the way that Mark Grimes did business over the past couple of decades, and yet it was a real long shot that anybody could beat him. Now you're running into your new city councilor, Amber Morley, with John Tory, who just a couple weeks ago was actively campaigning to prevent her from getting elected. Now, John Tory is obviously a pro. He wants to play all sides of the fence, be a friend to everyone.

Did you get a sense then that Amber Morley and John Tory were now friends? Sure, absolutely. Without a doubt, John Tory wanted Mark Grimes to win. Mark Grimes lost. And now, to his credit, John Tory is working with Amber Morley at the Mimico Pumpkin Parade. That's what we were at the other night. And I had a good conversation with Amber, a private conversation. And then we took a photo of John Tory, and I had a private conversation with John Tory.

And I'm a mover and a shaker. Deal with it. The age difference between those two FOTM city councillors. 40 years. Forty years. About 40 years. Maybe more than that. We had a couple of city councillors, people who were part of their own family dynasties in downtown Toronto, guys who are on one side or another of 40 years old.

Both of them stepped aside expressing exasperation about the job. Like, here they were, around age 40, expressing the fact that the demands on them, as a downtown city councilor, talking to you about Mike Layton and Joe Cressy, both of them said they were too overwhelmed. They did their time. They were exhausted. They don't want to do this anymore. And for that

reason, I look at a situation like Diane Sachs, who is of an older generation. You know this woman. Born in the 40s. Do you think she is ready to take on the workload that's being presented to her? Age ain't nothing but a number. I can't go with you if your ageist

views here. I have no problem with that. I'm just being a realist. Okay, but based on the fact that someone of a whole generation or two younger than her, they were not running again on the basis

that this was a complicated job. Your phone is ringing all the time. This indeed might be a test of Diane Sachs' managerial skills to handle all the complaints that come along with the job. Are you planning to follow up? You'll have her down in the basement? You'll check in about how things are happening? Okay, well then, ask Ed Keenan of the Toronto Star when he's talking about being back reporting from City Hall

about what I'm talking about when it comes to the fact that a city councillor job requires a certain amount of energy that it might be more than somebody could handle if they're the age of a retiree. Are you suggesting there should be some ceiling on your chronological age? Like you cannot run for city council if you're over the age of 50? Is that what you're saying? I'm suggesting I didn't give it that much thought until Jack Layton's son was complaining that he could no longer handle the demands of the job.

Well, that's him, right? I don't use my broad brush here to paint everybody with that same color. I would say Dynastax, who I've known for a couple of years, and we don't agree on, you know, politically we have our differences, but we have a mad respect for each other. In Green Economy Heroes, great podcast. I think she's up for the challenge. She's a hard worker, smart, smart as a whip, or whip smart.

Anyway, she's up for the challenge, and I don't worry about the fact that she's in her 70s the third fotm to win election is barely even an fotm at all i mean let's face it if you come on the show this was quite a choreographed appearance to the point where he even brought his very own lawn chair that is true that was That was Stephen Del Duca. Now, what's his position? Mayor of Vaughan? What's his title? No longer affiliated with the Ontario Liberal Party.

And instead, like Andrea Horvath, who is now the mayor of Hamilton, Ontario. Yeah, Patrick Brown, somehow. And John Tory. Still the mayor of Hamilton, Ontario. Yeah, Patrick Brown, somehow. And John Tory. Still the mayor of Burlington. Do you get a sense here that this track is mainly only accessible to people with certain connections? So Stephen Del Duca, now the mayor of the city above Toronto.

City of Vaughan. So Monica saw, she saw, she heard on CBC Radio a conversation with Sean Desmond, and she said, hey, would you have Sean Desmond on the show? And I remember Sean Desmond. I said, yeah, I'd talk to a cat like that. And then I learned he's making the rounds. What's the state of Sean Desmond? Sean Desmond, who got a fair share of CanCom Radio Airplay, guess you would call him like a late boy band era Canadian level superstar.

He could draw a big crowd on the shopping mall circuit. Maybe some of the small town hockey arenas where on alternate nights you would get a concert by Headley. That was Sean Desmond's level of fame. That was Sean Desmond's level of fame. And after a while, he packed it in, and he was laying low, and he moved on until the past summer when he appeared at Drake's OVO Fest concert where he had the CanCon superstars. Remember that? It was the old school Canadian players

and they all came up on stage, did a medley of their greatest hits that included Sean Desmond. I think Bingo Bob went to that. By virtue of the fact that he got this amount of CanCon airplay during a certain point in time, there was a nostalgia associated with his music

with certain demographic older millennials who might have never imagined voluntarily attending a Sean Desmond concert, right? But they appreciated the throwback energy that he brought to the stage, and he credits Aubrey Drake Graham with patting him on the back, a job well done. You gotta get back in the game. And there we have, I think, a pretty good new single from Sean Desmond. But we're also at a point in time

where the whole Canadian content thing is starting to change. And this is a topic that has come up several times in different ways on Toronto Mic. And one of the main flashpoints is the fact that CBC Radio 3 was taken off the menu from Sirius XM. like $44 a song every time it was spun, which was a pretty generous deal, and it was something that was swung as part of allowing SiriusXM Satellite Radio

to do business in Canada that they had to direct a certain amount of money to recording artists, so not only musical ones, but also comedians, and they were changing up their arrangement of how it worked there. And you had some kvetching on an episode of Toronto Mic'd about the comedian side of the deal fading away.

Simon Rakoff. Simon Rakoff. And then he immediately regretted that he was blurting this out loud. He worried he was shooting himself in the foot. This somehow would have jeopardized his career. If I go by what these musicians were saying, between and maybe even 2 000 bucks a month in payments from satellite radio you realize this at a time when if you get if you get played on spotify you get i don't know

like three one thousandth of a cent uh what's the number i don't know get torkel campbell on the line to complain about all of this. And that it was a generous deal that the satellite radio companies had swung. 44 bucks a play. The average, by the way, if you're on terrestrial radio on FM station as a Canadian

act, what I understand, it's around a dollar per play, per song. That's for a considerably larger audience than I think the number that was ever listening to CBC Radio 3 using the SiriusXM platform. Now, I've gone off on various rants here, talking about people like Torkel Campbell,

who makes sport out of complaining about these things. That's the way the game is played. You know, you had 15, 16, 17 years of these opportunities with something like CBC Radio being on Sirius. And at the same time then, we've got a wrench thrown into it here because they're dropping CBC Radio 3, but they added a Canadian hip-hop channel. And the guy in charge of the hip-hop channel, another FOTM, a guy called Mastermind.

And so here the indie rock people are losing out on those payments in favor of playing more hip-hop. And in fact, those will become the beneficiaries of this amount of money. You see, we never hear from them, right? We only get the complainers amplified in the media at the same time that if you're an up-and-coming Canadian rap artist, it is in fact you who now has access to this platform where the indie rock people did not before. Cadence Weapon, you know that name, right? Of course. Raleigh Pemberton, if you looked into him as a FOTM, he would be a great guest down here.

He had his own memoir, Bedroom Rapper. Yeah. A piece that ran on TorontoLife.com. Very outspoken about the new economy of touring, that for someone in his situation, there is absolutely no way to make this game profitable under the current circumstance, which, of course, includes the lingering fear that someone in the touring party tests positive for COVID-19 and then all bets are off and you've got to turn around and go back home. Also in his book, I think he's very vocal about who has benefited from this Canadian grant system, right?

Who is getting the payments out there? So at the same time you had Torkel Campbell of Stars coming on Toronto, Mike, I gave him a piece of my mind when I was reacting to that episode after the fact there. He's in fact saying out loud that all these indie rock bands, all these white people who've benefited from that system, maybe it's time we get some equity in here. Maybe it's time that they step aside. So you see, there are always two sides to this story. And with terrestrial radio still having to play by these rules, KMCon rules were very much defined in the 20th century.

Time and time again here, we've talked about the fact that when they were setting up Canadian content, they rigged the whole system to payments for music. There was nothing ever in there that you had to pay people to talk on the radio. There was no money ever required to pay the DJs. And we're seeing a reflection of that in the automated way the radio is programmed now, right? An entire, like, middle-sized, small markets in Canada don't even need to have a local host anymore outside of the morning show, and sometimes even the morning show is being

syndicated. Yeah, Roz and Mocha. The system has to be overhauled somehow so that the payments can go to the people who are actually producing the on-air product. Otherwise, you've got nothing to give. There was no benefit, right? No reward to listening to this whole idea of a music stream with an intrusive number of commercials. People have been saying that for years, but now I think at some point in time, as the Liberal Party in Ottawa try to sort this whole Broadcasting Act thing out, there has to be some level of reform. We're seeing in the form of Rogers Radio saying

they were stuck playing 40% CanCon on some radio stations. If you got a license in the 21st century, they upped the CanCon from 35 to 40. They are arguing that if we want to compete with the streaming services out there, you got to give us a break. So when you've got a company like Rogers going to the CRTC, making this ask, I mean, Rogers has bigger fish to fry. You know, they got to try and salvage this deal involving all the assets of Shaw and a lot of politicking going on behind the scenes about how this is going to happen, the degree that Rogers wants to dominate. By comparison, this is small potato.

It's a little request. But I think it's a sign of things to come when we talk about the broadcast industry and performers gaining any benefit from this system. I mean, whole thing's got to be overhauled. And I don't think they're going to figure this out within a matter of months. I'm available for consultation

if you would like my opinions and my input on how to make terrestrial radio better. But then again, half the guests on Toronto Mic'd have an opinion about this game, especially Bingo Bob Ouellette, who was recently here.

And I think Bob has some interesting visions for what radio can be. Someone's just got to line them up for a bigger and better opportunity. Bingo Bob called me out on the podcast here about the fact that I was stating things that he was framing as speculation, as a fait accompli. That he had some insider info. And I don't know if I was then,

therefore, being hyperbolic. Did he seem to suggest that this was having a negative effect on his own career? Well, he doesn't want Chorus to hear... That thing that was spouting off about Bingo Bob? Bingo Bob does not want Chorus to hear on Tronamite... Well, they should listen to where I was deriving this from, an episode of Bob's Basement.

Yeah, but they don't want to hear you quote him as if he has insider intel. Go to the source. He may not have insider intel, but he does have informed speculation. And therefore, look, I'm pulling for Bingo Bob Ouellette if there is going to be anything here as far as terrestrial radio uh future is concerned speaking of terrestrial radio i had so many people asking me questions about happenings at 10 10 news talk 10 10 cfrb first thing i want to start this off by just saying i saw this social media post. Somebody screencapped it. I think it was on Facebook.

And then someone tweeted a screencap. Jim Richards basically seemed to be calling out whoever. He wasn't specific. People for saying he was fired when he said he was just taking a mental health leave. And I would just be asking you, I'm curious, Mark, is anyone else talking about it? Because we're the only ones who talk about it. And we never once said Jim Richards was fired.

We said it was very mysterious. We don't know what happened to Jim Richards. Yeah, he never changes LinkedIn. There was no status update to this. No, one like, I'll be back. And yet what happened with Jim, I think, is indicative of a larger web of complications involving what's happening with News Talk 1010,

the flagship for now, Bell Media Radio Station in Toronto. There's four people I want to talk about at 1010. So I want you to please talk about Jim Richards, who's back. Talk about FOTM Scott MacArthur. Scotty Mac has disappeared from the Rush Afternoon Drive. People want to know, is he done? They didn't say anything about him. He's just not there.

And then, of course, I have a clip of David Cooper talking about you because it sounds like, well, he said he's done his last show on 1010. He's just not there. And then, of course, I have a clip of David Cooper talking about you, because it sounds like, well, he said he's done his last show on 1010. He's gone. And then we can talk about this lawsuit. Jamil Javani? Well, we can start with Jamil Javani, because that made news, and he posted his own sub-stack update about what was happening here, where he is

suing Bell Media, one of several people out there who are in some level of litigation with Bell over personnel matters at this time. What's the name of the CP24 weatherwoman who also has a lawsuit happening? Patricia Juggernaut. PJ, fond of referring to herself in the third person. And we've got that. We've got eTalk facing a lawsuit still.

I don't think that's been resolved, Daniel Graham. But Jamil Javani is someone at News Talk 1010 who they created space for. Because the FOTM Barb DiGiulio had that time slot, right? Well, first they were trying out Jamil on the fringes. They put him on at 10 p.m., replaced another FOTM, DiGiulio had that time slot, right? Well, first they were trying out Jameel on the fringes. They put him on at 10 p.m., replaced another FOTM, John Pohl, and they gave Jameel Javani an hour to try and try out that show. Now, this was in high, heavy lockdown mode.

I think he was doing all this broadcasting from his very own kitchen table, but he seemed to be accustomed to the circumstances. And he sounded like he knew what he was doing, enough to the point when they had a whole bunch of cutbacks. Remember that big purge at Bell Media, February 2021? They took out several TSN sports radio stations. People were fired by Zoom. They played Green Day, Time of Your Life on the radio,

and then they cut to the funny format, just playing comedy clips and automated Bloomberg radio, and just the sense that Bell Media was not so into radio anymore, but in the process, provided an opening

for Jamil Javani to go from being on the sidelines of this radio station to getting that primetime slot. Barb's services were required no more. And it seems like based on what is in this lawsuit, Jamil Javani was picked for this role because of his background, because he is black. It was a situation where they found it politically expedient to give him the opportunity. What maybe they weren't expecting based on his claims was a guy who was actually harshly critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, a guy who would go on the air for three hours a night and rail against wokeness.

And his examples to me, I know, Mike, this programming is not your cup of tea, but I thought it was great, always well-researched, always had great things to rail on about. And as far as I could tell, a loyal base of people who would call in and talk with him about this stuff. This was going to be a new era of conservative talk radio in Canada with a fresh face, a young guy still in his mid-30s. I had not heard a show this electric since something like the late Ed Needham when he did that same evening time slot. I thought they had something good going on with Jameel.

Now, according to Bell Media, though, the ratings were cratered. Like, apparently the ratings with Barb DiGiulio, who had this 7 to 10 spot before Jamil, were stronger than they were. Well, I could imagine that, and maybe that's part of their reason for saying that they let him go. At the same time, based on the language in there,

was Mike Ben Dixon, the high-profile program director of the station, who was his mentor who did set him up for this situation. It mentions even in there he was told, like, if you get good at this, you can even be the successor to John Moore, more in the morning. You will get the morning show. You will get the top prize on this radio station.

Now, the sincerity of that statement maybe has to be tested in court. I don't know to what degree he meant like that was going to happen so fast. Maybe if he apprenticed for a decade or something, he could get there. But that he was generally told by management that he was doing a good job and he was on his way. What happens when that protector is not on the job anymore? It seemed like it was only a matter of weeks until the first mysterious disappearance, or maybe the second after Ryan Doyle from News Talk 1010, no explanation, no Jamil Javani on the radio anymore, just going to re-rolls at night, not saying he was there and him not making a public statement, which suggested

there was some sort of standoff that went into the New Year and ultimately we get this lawsuit. So we went for most of 2022 with a situation at CFRB that went like this. Jim Richards was put on an overnight show that you could tell from the start was breaking his heart. This guy had been around long enough. He did not put in all these years to be doing a lonely coast to coast overnight show while sequestered at home. I could only feel for the guy. I mean, you want to talk about me getting emo at the beginning of this episode here. I think Jim was definitely letting it all hang out that this was not a shift that he

wanted to do. He was in a situation where it depressed him, that he felt like he was being demoted, that he had to give it a lot of thought about what this was going to be, about how it could work. And he ultimately accepted the gig rather than what? I don't know. They would have packaged him out, been gone forever from this gig, from this job. Yeah, because he was co-hosting The Rush, and then they brought in, it's all going to come together here,

but they brought in Reshmeen Air and Scotty Mac. But if you follow it here in the interim, then they get rid of Ryan Doyle, and there's a role alongside Jay Mad Dog Michaels, Afternoon Drive. Right. Reunited together again,

Jim pretty much back in that daytime time slot that amidst different changes and scaling back the operations of the radio station, he had been kicked into overnights from. I was rooting for Jim Richards there, right? It was a comeback. He didn't want to do this overnight show. Just give the dude his old time slot back. Then all of a sudden, the new rush with Scott MacArthur and Reshme Nair comes in. No sign of Jim Richards anywhere. MIA

gone from the radio station explaining upon his return right after Canadian Thanksgiving. Jim Richards back on the air in that Jamil Javani time slot, 7 to 10 p.m., in that CFRB, but it's also these iHeartRadio stations from coast to coast doing this thing. News talk tonight, back in fine form. The Jim Richards you knew and loved, if you're inclined to listen to talk radio content between 7 and 11, but obviously, per the Jim Richards style,

nothing that is going to fall out of line with whatever the Bell Media Diversity and Inclusion Department wants to hear. Jim is smart enough. He's been hanging around there 25 years. He knows not touch that third rail. Questions about what happened to him. Why did he disappear?

Why was there no explanation about Jim Richards for eight months? This is getting to be a tradition here with CFRB, this radio station. Departures that are never quite explained. Nothing revealed on social media. Nobody's saying anything. People being tweeted at. Facebook, no responses to their questions. I'm glad if Jim Richards got a solid mental health break,

if in fact that's what happened here. He deserved it based on what they put him through. I mean, I can say that. He's not going to launch into this diatribe on the air. I fell for the guy as he was in a situation in which he didn't want to be, and maybe there was considerable burnout, and you can blame the pandemic to some degree. Because you're telling a guy who lives alone, right?

Like you're not allowed to leave your house anymore in order to do your job. I'm sure it was totally exasperating. It was tough on a lot of people. Listen, listen. I could have avoided eight months of what happened to Jim Richards' emails if Jim put one line on his Facebook or Instagram, one line to just say, taking some personal time. Okay, but maybe he was also, I don't even know what happened here.

Maybe he needed to think about it. Maybe he needed to consult with his people about whether there was an exit strategy that he wanted to pursue. Maybe there was another radio station that he could have been on. But the complete silence, the absolute complete silence is where the speculation, and we didn't say he was fired. We don't say someone's fired unless we know they're fucking fired. But the complete speculation that runs rampant

comes from the fact for eight months there wasn't a peep, not a syllable. Like, it's like they're playing this game, like, let's be completely mysterious and then surprise. So, Jim Richards is back. Let's just get that clear. But do we know what's going on with Scotty Mac? Is Scotty Mac at 1010 anymore?

Okay, here's the deal. They did it before and they're doing it again, right? A situation where people are tuning in to this show that it gave a lot of publicity to, The Rush, with Scott MacArthur, Scotty Mac at FOTM, who had what I assume, I don't speak sports, a high-profile job as a Blue Jays broadcaster for so many years. TSN, sure, sure. And eventually made this transformation here to doing news talk radio alongside Reshmi.

I would describe Scotty Mac's role maybe as more of the guy who was interviewing Reshmi, the seasoned newswoman, for her opinions on the news. You joked about when she was down there for her electric appearance. Yeah, she was great. More exciting than she manages to sound on that actual radio station. I should be your co-host on 1010. How Scott was always throwing to Reshmi, saying her name over and over and over again. Reshmi, Reshmi, Reshmi.

And it was, in fact, her being framed as the brains behind the operation. What does she need Scotty Mac for? I guess we're finding out because, as far as I know, the entire month of October came and went not only without a 1236 newsletter, but without Scott MacArthur on News Talk 1010. Now maybe there's a personal issue maybe there is something going on with him once again do you believe there should be some accountability that someone should explain like a little you would not be getting these messages in your inbox about people wondering what happened to him? I don't need people to disclose their private health situation.

I'm not asking people to disclose if they're struggling with something, be it mental health or of a disease or anything. I'm not saying that we deserve to know that I'm saying the complete silence. They don't, they just suddenly somebody is not on the air. There's they're no longer referenced. We went through this of Ryan Doyle and And they go on as if nothing's different. Nobody just says, you know,

Scotty Mac will be back, filling in for Scott MacArthur. They're just gone. And that's why the listenership wonders, has he been fired? And I actually sent a text to Scott MacArthur, just said, hey, hope you're okay. What's going on?

Scott never replied, which is strange because he submitted something for episode 1000. So I personally have no idea. I just hope he's well and I just hate this strategy from 1010 to be completely radio silent

on disappearances for months and months and months because it just leads to all this rampant speculation and then you get some social media posts from a Jim Richards like scowling the people

for suggesting he was fired when he was just taking an eight-month break. Good night. Farewell and amen to David Cooper. Someone who got the most attention for their stint doing the overnight show, which they had the audacity to still call the show gram, which was very much a Jim Richards thing. a showgram, which was very much a Jim Richards thing. When Jim was going through his trials and tribulations,

at first they gave David Cooper, a Torontonian who was now living in New York, who had spent 10 or 15 years working in Silicon Valley, helping make his dream come true. All this dude ever wanted to do was be on the radio. His first professional gig, an overnight live program heard coast to coast across Canada, courtesy of Bell. I had amazing admiration for what he managed to pull off. At the same time, his services were desired at CFRB

and for all these other radio stations out there. He was hustling. He was trying to become a volunteer at WFMU. That's the Jersey City, New Jersey radio station, which is the hippest of the hipsters. And you don't get paid for being on the air there, but it's definitely a status symbol and it's something that might've been a big boost

to his career that people in certain worlds would have known who he was. So at the same time, a guy is trying to get a job being paid nothing on a free form radio station. They didn't want him, but Bell Media, this gargantuan Canadian radio company, they were interested in putting David Cooper on the air, and he had a situation where for the better part of a year,

he was the special guest host without ever really promising any permanence, and this came to a graceful end. He got to do a final episode. He got to do goodbyes, including Jim Richards himself appearing on the show with some consolation that he would continue to do his appearances like he did before with Jim phoning in, hanging out on the sidelines of the radio station. Maybe when Jim Richards is on vacation, David Cooper will be back.

But in the process, what he leaves behind is a saga that somehow managed to involve me. Because I went on Toronto Mic'd to talk about David Cooper and this curious case. What is a guy sitting in a condominium in Manhattan doing broadcasting to all of Canada? What do they consider his credentials? And the fact that he was on the air talking a lot about his personal life, even mentioning his parents by name, got me Googling to figure out exactly who David Cooper was. And without getting into too many details, let me put it this way. My suspicion was this is a situation where he didn't really get to need being paid a lot of money. He was willing to work for the lowest possible amount

that Bell Media was willing to give, possibly even nothing. And this was not an indictment of his talents. I was not saying David Cooper was unqualified. It was just you and me speculating here about what it takes to make it in radio during the peak of COVID-19. Who is on the sidelines? Who's at the ready? Who's going to be plugged in, willing to take a job that requires some eternal commitment? job that requires some eternal commitment. He was taping interviews all day, going on live at night. I could hear the effort and the energy that he was putting into the job, but hanging over it all was the suspicion that he was doing this, if not for nothing, then pretty close to free. What we have left behind in the Toronto Mic'd archives, David Cooper responding to the allegations. You saved well, and now you're living off savings

while you pursue your dream. Yeah, you know, I heard Mark Weisblatt say something about me on the show. Yeah, he's called you, like, I don't know if he called you a trust fund kid or something like that. I can't remember. And I was upset when I heard it, And I'm like, you know what,

if this is triggering me, like, uh, I got to look inward. Why am I so, if it's not true, why is it triggering me? If it is true, is it? And, um, the fact is I did grow up comfortably, but I left Canada when I was 26 and I like worked really hard in that career, like kind of just away from this comfortable upbringing. Now I could say like, I'm very independent from my background, but at the same time, like everything that I, when you show up to that first job interview, even if your daddy doesn't get you the job or pays your rent, like you, you have these cues of growing up with privilege right like i wasn't when i when i interviewed at eventbrite for example um they didn't you know they're not

they don't know anyone in toronto and um and it's not your fault i'll just say it's not your fault that you had a comfortable upbringing like it was not even it's it's unfair to hold it against you that you're do my parents pay my rent no uh my girlfriend has a great tech job uh so she helps and um and yes i saved for 10 years i was part of two exits so i worked on the eventbrite ipo uh which is tanked but that's another discussion and then my second big job there that i had for a few years was a company that got acquired by a company called autodesk which their flagship offering is autocad um and And so I did well, I got lucky. I was in the right place at the right time, but I got to that place because like, you know, I was able to go to school and not have to

work a job, you know, like all these things that growing up comfortable give you, I brought with me to when I became independent and I became independent at around 25, 26. And I have no way to answer that other than like, yeah. I'm glad that you clarified everything here because I did sense from Mark Weisblatt that he was sort of resenting the fact that you, I don't know, he thought maybe your mom and dad were financing, that you were a rich kid basically.

No, I mean the narrative's true. I, I got, I got lucky in tech and, and like I got lucky in tech is when I arrived at Silicon Valley, like I flunked out of Dow housing my first year and I didn't, you know, a kid that didn't grow up in a comfortable background, that's it. But I got into university of Toronto on probation and my parents helped me. They, you know, there's no consequences for that. And so shit like that throughout my life is what enabled me to do well in Silicon Valley

and I have no defense for it. And that's why I was so triggered by Mark's comment. But at the end of the day, it's like, I can't help it, but I got to acknowledge it. And if you want to know the answer and you're being nosy, that's the best answer I can give. Have you ever had a more neurotic sounding therapy session in the entire history of this podcast? That was some real talk.

And I give credit to David Cooper for answering the allegations. I wasn't satisfied with what he had to say. It didn't mean he confirmed it. You know, what I'm saying was pretty much true. It just came down to what does it take to make it in radio on this level in 2022? It wouldn't have happened if he didn't want to do it, if he didn't have this dream and this drive.

I got to give him a lot of credit there. That's why I wanted to play that here, you know, to only wish the very best to David Cooper, somebody who was willing to go mano a mano with me. I'm still standing by waiting for Roz Weston's review of my appraisal of his book from last time around. Did you hear from Roz Weston? Not a word.

Anyone associated with him? Nope, not a word. But Did you hear from Roz Weston? Anyone associated with him? Nope, not a word. But I did hear from listeners. Broken by Roz Weston, currently making its way to a discount table near you. Well, many, many listeners enjoyed your book review of Roz's book. You know, subsequently he was in Hello Canada magazine.

There was an 11-page spread with Ross Weston. Wow. I was dunking on him last time about this narrative that he created. VP of sales was getting into it too, how he tearfully proposed to his girlfriend of like 15 years. Right, they have a kid together. With their 12-year-old daughter by their side, as if there was some kind of gigantic emotional hurdle that he had to overcome.

And maybe it was. And you do understand that he needed this cliffhanger in the book about proposing, because how else would you sell this thing, right? I don't know how many people want to read, besides you and me, about his adventures with Arlene Bynum or working as an intern for Howard Stern. I think I forgot to mention last time also, without naming names, he talks about being an intern for Shirley McQueen on Q107 and trying to work his way up in the whole media world. 11 pages in Hello Magazine, Roz Weston. I think there were like 440 words of copy

accompanying these pictures of Roz West and his family. We're just jealous because not only is he successful, you know, Ross and Mocha in many, many markets on the morning show, but he's also tall and handsome. And I don't think it's fair to have all three of those things. We gave him credit. Ross pulled it off. He made it to the top of his industry.

And remember. I'm just saying he's in a different league from David Cooper there, right? Like David Cooper, everything's like all uncertain and precarious. I think Ross Weston's image is of a, I don't know, six foot seven tall, gray bearded, gentle giant. You know, he manages to exude the confidence of a handsome man. Pretty much the opposite of David Cooper there. You know who else is a

handsome man with great confidence? Ian Hanomansing. That's a handsome man. Ian Hanomansing, you got to explain, has now joined TMU, Toronto Mike's Universe. A lot of this was off-the-record conversation, so I'm trying to. Yeah, he's a, okay, so a lot of this was like off the record conversation.

So I'm trying to think of quickly what's fit for public consumption. But basically he discovered Toronto Mike because he stumbled upon an episode I did with Brother Jake Edwards. And he knew Brother Jake from the Maritimes when Brother Jake was on the air in Halifax. Shout out to FOTM John Gallagher. So he finds an episode of Toronto Mike. Then he says, I like this because Ian's got good taste. So he says, who else is in the feed? And he goes, he wants to hear from Wendy Mesley.

He finds the Wendy Mesley episode. Then he finds another and he finds another and he finds another. And Ian sends me a note to say that, like, I've basically been in his headphones for hours and hours. And he's loving Toronto Mike. So Ian will at some point make his Toronto Mike debut, but I pulled a clip here. Yeah, and the outside chance that Ian Hanamansing made it about an hour into this episode.

Recently, we had the Battle of the Network Stars. Ian Hanamansing, in his role as the weekend anchor of The National, went to the studios of Fox News to meet a formerly Canadian colleague, best known to the Friends of Toronto Mike as J.D. Roberts. John, thank you very much for doing this. Great to sit with you, Ian. My sister is a huge fan of yours, as am I. I mean, if anyone has a sense of what it's like to cover the news,

to do this business from different perspectives, for different employers, it's you, and you do it through Canadian eyes. What has that journey taught you about this business? It's taught me that there's really kind of two sides to the news. Because whether it was at CBS or CNN, there tended to always be a leftward tilt to the news. And then here at Fox, it's a center-right perspective on the news. But not ignoring voices on the left. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Fox.

Hugely rated, especially in prime time. You described it as center-right. I mean, I've been watching a lot of Fox lately, getting ready for this interview. I don't see a lot of center. I see a lot of right. You know, it depends on which program you're watching. And then the analogy that I make, let me bring out my prop here. You have a prop. You're not allowed props. You know the rules. So here is the Washington Post, right? This is the first section of the Washington Post.

And here you have the news, right? And the news continues all the way through until page A22. And then you get, excuse my clumpiness, to the opinion page, right? And that's where you hear people's points of view. So in the same section, you've got news and you've got opinion. It's the same way here at Fox. Not your cup of tea, Mike. Fox News.

Not something you could imagine sitting back on a summer's day and watching John Roberts anchoring from the anchor desk. I'd watch old episodes of the new music on. But he's in a situation doing this daytime shift where he considers himself a guardian of the old school side of Fox. He doesn't want to be confused with Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. That the original concept from Roger Ailes was that they would have some distinction between news and opinion. That's what he's explaining there by dragging out a copy of the Washington Post.

In the process, I don't know where J.D. Roberts of Mississauga, Ontario, started talking like he was like Dan Rather from Houston, Texas, right? You've got a bit of an accent there after a certain number of years anchoring the news. I think maybe he's had to put on a certain persona. Definitely he has had work done, as I think you have to do at this point in time, to look less scary on HDTV if you're not naturally gifted with those Ross Weston looks. Definitely some plastic surgery magic there. And being questioned about his sincerity there, working for Fox.

I mean, look, at one point, in fact, J.D. was considered the heir apparent to Dan, rather. It was a long way down from saying 20 years ago you were going to be the next big thing on the CBS evening news to just being the midday anchor on Fox. Maybe he has a lot to answer for.

I don't know. Did you watch any more of this? How do you think your new FOT Emmy in Hannah Mansink did over there? See, if I had John Roberts on Toronto Mic'd, I would literally spend 95% of my time talking about Jeannie Becker and the new music and much music, and that's where I kind of spend my time. By the way, I once did a phone interview with John Roberts. That was for iWeekly, and perhaps it was presented to him

that it would be a Toronto Mike style nostalgia chat. And in fact, he objected to the ideas that I was asking about what was going on at the time, 2008 in American politics. He complained to the publicist who then got on the phone to complain to me. There was nothing you could do about it. I just got the sense that J.D. was giving her a heat for maybe putting him in a circumstance they didn't want to be in because, you know, at the time you had different blogs and

they picked up this story and they were quoting what he had to say about that, about the American political scene. Look, J.D. was just looking out for J.D. Was it CNN at the time trying to navigate this world, right? Eventually became the Fox News White House correspondent. The one time I was in Washington, D.C. We talked about this on the podcast. Right. I envisioned in advance, even told people I would like to run in to John Roberts on the street. And it actually happened. He was crossing the road, from the White House. I even have a photo. My very own 1236 TMZ picture to show for it, that I was crossing the street at the same time as John Roberts.

You got to hand it to the guy that he managed to reach these heights in the American media, I think, with Ian Hannah-Mansingh. Well, I don't think the publicist called the CBC afterwards and complained about that. J.D. is saying his sister is a big fan. Right. He sat down for it all. I do think, though, there are some curiosities, right? Maybe for him to answer for like, what is a nice Canadian boy? Rock and roll, much music, Vijay. What are you doing with your life in your Twilight broadcasting years? Isn't it money? You're playing along with the network of Donald Trump. But isn't it money?

Like he's got a good gig? Yeah, well, I mean, whatever. He's also got a second marriage, a second set of kids, and I think clearly some determination there to stay in the game, not get a tap on the shoulder, not be put out to pasture. Speaking of publicists, you got that spanking there. I guess

you heard, I don't know if you listened to Sharon and Bram. Say Bram, never say Brom. If you slip, he will call you out on it. And it is Bram, of course. Sharon and Bram, the publicist, chiming in on our Zoom to let me know I had one more question. Oh, we

should also mention, speaking of anchors, Omar Satchadina has a report from Uganda, 50th anniversary of Idi Amin I should also mention, speaking of anchors, Omar Sachedina has a report from Uganda. 50th anniversary of Idi Amin kicking all the South Asians out of there. And a backlash on Twitter, right? Nobody wants to see an ego feast for Omar Sachedina. They want their Lisa Laflamme back.

And meanwhile, she's off to greener pastures herself. What does it pay to be the keynote speaker in Toronto at a big real estate conference? This is like the kind of event that when the real estate bubble bursts, right? When the crash happens, like you'll have images of this thing. Like the last party that they had, the headliners are Simu Liu, Bill Clinton. But I think the biggest coup of all, Lisa Laflamme, which indicates, I mean, look, Omar Sachedina, who's the journalist now, right?

You can't be doing a keynote for real estate agents and then the next day go on the news to report about a real estate crash. So she's off to new frontiers. I don't know what's going to happen with this city news, but it is curious here. I mean, no tag days for this woman. We knew that everything would be just fine for her to work in a different milieu.

You know, she says La Flam, not La Flam. New York, I love you, but you're bringing me down. LCD Sound System. That was the final song played on 92.3 Alt Radio in New York City, a situation that we have envisioned many times here on Toronto Mic'd. What happens when they sign off the signal of CFNY? History of 92.3 in New York goes back a long time because it was

a home of the biggest morning radio show of all. Howard Stern. 92.3 K-Rock. Remember that? Even though that was a local station, they would always refer to the fact they were working there. He would do J.Pree on the air with the other DJs who were around. Initially, it was a classic

rock format, and then they pivoted to alternative. Howard Stern very much enthusing about the celebrities of the post-grunge era. This was where all the action was happening. I mean, we can question his sincerity, whether he actually cared to listen to the stuff, but there was big money to be made with the old rock format. Now, at one point then, they switched to Free FM, talk radio,

and it was Opie and Anthony who ended up being the successors to Howard Stern on 92.3 K-Rock after a little period where David Lee Roth was doing the morning show. The station went to top 40 for a little while, but then back to its roots with very much like a 2010s version of alt-rock radio that is to say extremely downsized, like basically no-name personalities on the air. There was some morning show guy named Kane who had been there in the Howard Stern era, but certainly this was diminished from what it was before, just spinning the heads like a nationally American,

syndicated, modern rock radio station that nobody was really giving any thought to until the day they announced they're taking the station off the air. They're replacing it with talk radio, news radio. 1010 Wins, which is the legacy all-news radio station in New York, model for Toronto 680 News, right? The news wheel, news all day, all the time.

For these things to be sustainable in the future, the assumption is they need to be on the FM dial, right? I mean, this is not the 1940s anymore. And for these formats to sustain and maybe even succeed, the FM dial is where it's at. There is no audience, no market anymore for this alternative rock jukebox, which then begs the question, how long do we end up with a situation in Toronto where we have not one but two radio stations who are playing this alternative format? Toronto where we have not one but two radio stations who are playing this alternative format now 102.1 the edge cf and y does not play very very much current music anymore I'm not much of

a listener but you look at their playlist on the website mostly throwbacks like 1979 by smashing yeah mostly sticking to the 90s the 2000s recognizing the fact that the audience such as it is isn't getting any younger, and they have defaulted. They've left it to Indie 88.1 to focus more on the newer songs, the newer sound, even though Indie 88 also has the 90s at 9 in the morning. I mean, you see definitely a retrenchment happening. You're waving the white flag, right?

We're recognizing that the listenership pool isn't going to get any younger. It's over. It's a thing of the past. The only destination for these radio stations is to end. So people got sentimental in New York because of the Howard Stern connection over there, even though the station had a few different incarnations since then.

I mean, the whole idea was 92.3 was the radio station that Stern built, and they did a morning show with the younger DJs on the station there who were reminiscing about the history of all that before they just switched to the all-news 1010 Wins feed. all that before they just switch to the all-news 1010 WINS feed. How long do you give Toronto to still have two FM radio stations

working in this format? Are the days numbered? Will we see more talk radio show up on Canada on FM? We've been wondering this for a real long time. Maybe some things work out over the CRTC, but if this is what it's going to take to make these stations sustainable, this is the this is what it's going to take to make the station sustainable,

this is the only direction which it's going to go. None of us would be surprised to learn that at the end of the year, CFNY was flipping formats. I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that in 2022. Do you have a prediction, or maybe an anticipation, of what would

be the best final song to ever play. I think they would probably close with a song like How Soon Is Now. That would be a jam they might, or Love Will Tear Us Apart, one of those kind of retro. With Alan Cross hanging around waiting to turn out the lights. Now, Chorus in Toronto still has Q107, turn out the lights.

Now, Chorus in Toronto still has Q107. And now we've gone the whole spring and summer and into the fall. John Derringer has not yet been technically replaced. We're wondering whether it's worth the expense of doing anything at all. But Ryan Parker, who was on the morning show, The Sidekick, with John garbutt we might have heard those anecdotes from jennifer valentine about uh him uh vaping in the studio uh keeping

john derringer company uh was at humble howard talked about ryan parker being recruited to a company uh jd into the washroom uh anecdotes like that uh like that surrounding John Derringer is kind of a distant memory. And whatever amount of money was paid to go away, I mean, we can only hope that he's able to figure things out and enjoy it. But still, speaking of radio departures, are things never explained? No John Derringer on the air anymore.

Are they going to relaunch his morning show? Ryan Parker has been implying as much on Twitter that he is still employed by the station. Maybe this other sidekick, John Garbutt too, that they will return a Q107 in some form. But I think enough time, this went down on Victoria Day weekend, enough time has passed that a relaunch will be very understated.

You know what I'm saying? Like it will not be a big publicity campaign that these guys are now the replacements for John Derringer. And I gotta wonder, after this many months of just running on this low-key autopilot, sounding like a Soviet radio station in the morning,

if there's any need to put any hoopla into it at all. That the days have passed, and in fact serendipitously, the disappearance of John Derringer happened at the right time? Stay tuned to Toronto Mike to find out.

I don't know if you're going to hear about it anywhere else. She went on seven after all. Mark Weisblatt, are you going to be at the Bandits premiere tonight? Absolutely not. I did appear at the premiere for Faking a Murder. Very happy to see Stu Stone, his production partner, Adam Rodness. Various FOTMs in the house, like Cambrio, Al Grego. Is Al going to be there?

No, I meant back at the review. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant tonight. No, back in June. I know Ian Service will be there tonight. Ian Service, who I met back in June. Right. Moose Grumpy's there tonight. You had a whole delegation.

You were like the scout leader, bringing everyone free into the theater including me and my reaction was to go for a walk as soon as as the movie started rolling there because i knew i couldn't sit through this whole thing but i went for a walk west end roncesvalles in toronto i came back in time to see that uh sitting in front of me sitting in front of me was Gordon Martineau. And I even got a shout out from Stu Stone at the end. I liked the little scrum outside. Cambrio pointed out

Devin Salwa, who I would not have recognized otherwise. He's an F-O-S-S friend of Stu Stone. And things were electric. Things were in the air. I was very proud of Stu the Jew that he managed to get this premiere happening

after two years of being locked down, unable to happen on his home turf. And from what I hear, they're going to happen all over again, right? There's going to be a red carpet premiere of Vandits? Tonight. Tonight, 8 p.m. at Scotiabank premiere of Vandits? Tonight. Tonight, 8pm at Scotiabank Theater. November 3rd.

Right. Okay. But then it runs for a week, so if people hear this later, you can get to it. And ultimately it will be destined for Hollywood Suite. Now, have we gotten to the bottom yet of whether the filming of Vandits was interrupted by the van being stolen in Winnipeg? Look, I

trust this Tony Napple guy. Was this a shoot or a work? I can't remember which is which, but this reallynipeg? Look, I trust this Tony Nappo guy. Was this a shoot or a work? I can't remember which is which, but this really did happen. I mean, I trust Tony Nappo. He was here last night. We were talking. He's a star of bandits,

and he tells me it really happened. So I think it really happened. That's how I'm going. I'm officially voting or casting my vote here that that did indeed happen in Winnipeg. Okay, I'm going to just wait. I want to take a moment because normally we crack open our GLB, but you ordered me to make you a coffee, Todd Shapiro style.

So you've been drinking coffee. Wait a second. The most I ever ask from you is a warm cup of black juice. Was it hot? Todd Shapiro, when he was on the podcast over many years ago, what did he ask you?

To cook him a plate of eggs before he would get behind the mic here? I have such bad feelings about that. I don't even want to remember, actually. But I'm glad you haven't got me slaving over a hot stove and scrambling you eggs. I was happy to make you the coffee,

but I just want to thank Great Lakes Brewery. That's fresh, delicious craft beer. And I was telling, oh, you cracked there. Okay, that's not even fresh. Okay, that's, I was going to get you one from the fridge, but Mark Weisblatt has cracked open his lager from Great Lakes Brewery. Thank you, Great Lakes.

Thank you, Palma Pasta. They're hosting us for TMLX11, and everybody listening should come out to Palma's Kitchen on December 3rd at noon. Let me get a little music in the background while we talk about all this wonderful stuff. StickerU.com, what amazing partners. They make these great Toronto Mike stickers.

And I actually, speaking of Bingo Bob Ouellette, I connected him with StickerU yesterday because it sounds like Chorus is going to make a large order and they need quality stickers quickly. And that's where StickerU.com comes in. Is that for the 102.1 format change? I signed an NDA. I cannot comment on that.

I'm not crediting Bingo Bob for that piece of insider information. Shout out to Canada Cabana. Last week in my backyard, did you listen? I had Hebsey, and I had Canada Kev, and I had Andy Palalis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How come you didn't invite me? I didn't know you'd want to come out to that. How come you didn't invite me?

I didn't know you'd want to come out to that. I think I got four smokes into my Canna Cabana starter pack. But we're going to do our next episode. Canada Cav, you couldn't get a better mentor when it comes to the act of consuming cannabis. So I know he's rooting for me here, but I've been slow to get in the habit. But I do love telling people September 1st, 2022. Right. The first time in my life I ever smoked weed. And I was inspired by my friend Toronto Mike.

You were puffing away there in the backyard? Yes. Stew Stone passed me a spliff. So, shout out to Cannacabana. They will not be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. Over 140 locations across this country. The next episode with Andy Palalas is going to be the edibles episode.

And I'm going to take an edible of his choosing at the beginning of the episode. And I will give you updates throughout our conversation as we kick out jams and talk. and I will give you updates throughout our conversation as we kick out jams and talk and I will let you know how I'm feeling with the edible. So those who don't want to smoke their weed, you know, they got beverages there,

they got edibles, they're great people. Okay, so I also would like to let anybody listening who has any real estate questions, let them know Sammy Cohn. Oh, oh, the very best. I mean, nobody better. Not only can you talk about what's happening in real estate

in Toronto, but it seems like he will answer any number of questions about what it was like to be the drummer for the Watchmen. Yep, drummer for the Watchmen, one of my favorite bands. Love those guys. Love Sammy. And you can reach him right now. Sammy.Cohn. Cohn is k-o-h-n at

properlyhomes.ca write sammy now ask him anything and tell him toronto mike sent ya okay man i got a gift for you mark wise blood did you get one of these in the past? Wireless speaker from Mineris? I got one before, but I will take one again because I know that I'm receiving this wireless speaker thanks to the cuddliest of the FOTMs, a guy named Al Grego. He's the host of Yes, We Are Open, a Mineris podcast production. He's going to be at TMLX 11 on December 3rd

because he's 10 for 10. He's going to go 11 for 11. Did you know Yes We Are Open was nominated for prestigious awards, Outstanding Business Series and Outstanding Branded Series. Way to go, Al Grego. He's kicking ass. He's taking names and he's been traveling the country

interviewing small Canadian businesses and telling their stories, the stories of their origin their origin struggles and future outlooks so you've got yes we are open uh you subscribe to a million podcasts including yes we are open and of course from raymond james canada i urge everybody to subscribe and listen to the advantaged investor podcast featuring insights from leading professionals. The Advantage Investor provides valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. I'll tell you about a podcast I listened to and liked because it featured my friend Toronto Mike.

I'm listening. It was Life's Undertaking. Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home. So he loves recording that here. I love doing it with him. And I love listening to it on triple speed. How do I sound on triple speed? You're doing alright. I can't do any worse.

If you're not listening to these 1236 episodes sped up, I don't know what your problem is. A lot of people can't do it. I actually have this conversation all the time because some podcasts I like at one time speed which is normal and sometimes I like it at like 1.6. I rarely exceed 1.6. I find it gets too,

especially if there's any music in there. So it's every podcast I treat a little bit differently. And I know a lot of people want to listen to Toronto Mike in one time speed as we naturally speak. Okay. Well, we got some good jams coming up. Thanks to Ridley Funeral Home. Do I got that right?

Ridley Funeral Home proudly sponsors the memorial segment of Toronto Mic'd. It's that time, everybody. Let's pay our respect to those who passed away in October 2022. I hate to tell you, but I got a bit of bad news I don't love you no more You see, life is like a circle Everything you do comes back to you Earth is long, sure I'll have to get you

Earth is long, sure I'll have to get you You roll the call, you miss the last payment The finance company came and towed it away You know the call, you missed the last payment. The finance company came and towed it away. Towed it away. And the money that you owe to your best friend, you don't owe him no more. Cause the rain that you bought me... Murphy's Law was a song by a couple of teenage girls recording

under the name of the duo Cherie. This song made number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100. Was it not Tyler Stewart who talked about the Barenaked Ladies, the old apartment, only kind of crept in there. Only got the lower end of Casey Kasem counting them down.

That you had that clip on the show. We had that after when Tyler came here, right? Of Casey Kasem shouting out Barenaked Ladies, old apartment. And I think it's an apt analogy because this song, Murphy's Law, it is just as clever as anything by BNL. Like the lyrics, remember? Like the concept of Murphy's Law that they're expressing in this song. A forerunner to Ironic byannis Morissette just explaining how

how Murphy's Law works and the the circumstances under which this applies uh Murphy's Law

by Cherie uh featured uh the daughter of a disco singer uh the singer

was uh Rosalind Hunt from Montreal her mother's name was Geraldine Geraldine Hunt originally from Chicago relocated to The singer was Rosalind Hunt from Montreal. Her mother's name was Geraldine. Geraldine Hunt, originally from Chicago, relocated to Montreal where the disco scene was happening in the mid-1970s and had a number one hit, 1980, on the Billboard Club chart called Can't Fake the Feeling. Didn't go very far in the pop charts. Disco sucks, backlash happening around that time.

Maybe it would have been heard on R&B radio, a little success in the UK. But Murphy's Law was a song she wrote for her daughter in Cherie. And that song made it on the Billboard chart, along with number one dance hit, made it cracked number 39 for one week. But as I was informed after the fact by Steve Sobchuk, a guy who used to be a DJ at the Roller Discos in Kitchener, Ontario, that that was a big song to roller skate to back in the day. And this was Geraldine Hunt a a disco singer uh from montreal at the at the peak of the disco age and and two kids who got into the business uh soul singer uh under the name freddie james who ended up being nominated winning juno awards and rosalind hunt of sherry

not a lot of attention for the fact that she died October 27th, age 77. Mike, this is all new to you, right? Yeah, I'm glad. Geraldine Hunt, the writer, co-writer of

Murphy's Law. You're glad? You're grateful? Well, you know, I'm not glad. You think this is deep research? This is the stuff the 1236 newsletter

would have been reporting. Well, let me clarify my comments. I managed to issue it over the month of October 2022. If I had my way, you know nobody would die if I had my way. Well, let me clarify my comments. I managed to issue it over the month of October 2022. If I had my way, you know nobody would die if I had my way. So, yes, we might be paying

respects to somebody like a Angela Lansbury, and everybody got that news, but what I like is that you bring information that I didn't hear. I didn't pick it up from the mainstream media, and you're here telling us that Geraldine Hunt passed away, and I didn't hear. I didn't pick it up from the mainstream media. And you're here telling us that Geraldine Hunt passed away. And I didn't know that jam.

I didn't know that story. And I didn't know Geraldine Hunt had passed on. Captain Phil Evans, formerly of CFNY. Not an FOTM, you know. Now of Vancouver, BC. He actually tipped us off to something for this month's Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment, speaking of secret celebrities out there.

It was a woman who at one point was, speaking of John Derringer, this woman for a few years was the morning host on Q107. She wasn't necessarily the anchor of the show at the time they were running Howard Stern, but in between she would show up and host the Toronto segments, mention things that were happening here, throw to the traffic and weather, and her name, Kelsa Kinsley. It was a gold rush boomtown which grew faster than any other U.S. city. For 150 years, it's been home to railroad tycoons

bohemians and dot comers to this day it remains on the cutting edge i'm kelsey kinsley come join us as we explore this amazing city san francisco on tab of all the musicians wow with courtney love out there yanni gets arrested how about that okay not the best quality there, but this is from some reel that has her appearances, including an anchor on a segment on the Jimmy Kimmel live show. She's doing like a parody newscast about Yanni, the new age guy, getting arrested. Kind of basic stuff. I mean, nobody ever pays any attention who the people are who show up on these little comedy bits that they maybe audition for.

But one of those people that played that kind of role was Kelsa Kinsley. Seemed to have a certain number of credits to her name. Maybe compare her career to Dan Duran, Humble and Fred's longtime announcer, right? Like she would be in movies, kind of showing up, anchoring the news or as a reporter, that she could fill that role, but that she also had these jobs in real life,

like Dan Duran, doing spots on the American Weather Channel and different entertainment shows. And the journey she was on took her from Vancouver to Toronto to play this role as, I guess, doing the throws between the segments on the Stern Show. Remember they had those real long commercial breaks that Howard Stern needed in each market, kind of a local host just to keep people tuned in.

I mean, if you were going to listen to, like, 18 minutes in a row of commercials, you know, you needed somebody to keep the attention flowing. Otherwise, they would tune out. And it was this woman who went by the name Kelsa Kinsley who had that role at the time in Toronto. And she even got a profile

by Peter Goddard, the recently memorialized Peter Goddard of the Toronto Star. I remembered this article because I don't think somebody in that situation had to be noticed very much, but that he was writing a radio column at the time, and his voice caught his ear, and he wrote a column about meeting her, and didn't she didn't look like her her voice sounded but just somebody who was was trying to make it in the media and this was a destination to at the time i mean hundreds of thousands of people would have heard her on q107 in the morning

show at least at least for a couple years in the in the late 1990s doing these bits in between the severely edited version of howard. They would like to remove entire segments if they were worried they were getting in trouble with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. Yeah, so that was also part of the gig there. Like, listening to the show,

she might have actually had these responsibilities, do some live editing if there was a segment that wasn't suitable for these sensitive Canadian ears. And we've talked about here about how the writing was on the wall for the Anna Howard Stern Toronto because he was broadcasting live to Buffalo at the same time. You could hear it live from Buffalo and then Toronto was on some kind of strange tape delay and there just wasn't much appeal,

and that made the way for John Derringer. But before John Derringer, there was Kelsa Kinsley, and from what I could tell just from scraps on Facebook, this was not a death that got any thorough media attention, but it just seemed like a tragic situation where a woman, I would assume, somewhere around in her 50s, who tried to make it in media and broadcasting in different ways across Canada into the United States, caught some breaks, but, you know, just like a heartbreaking thing.

We see this more and more. It's not going to go away any time in the future. You just kind of look at the Facebook page, and it's just like a sad situation. You know, her sister appears on that Facebook page saying, I'm her only next of kin, and there's a lot to sort out here, and we can only speculate as to what happens. So I think because nobody else is going to do this.

I'm answering, responding to what you just said before, Toronto Mike. Like, let's give a Ridley Funeral Home shout-out to Kelsa Kinsley. You know, somebody who did her best. Try and make it in the media, broadcasting, communications, and definitely died before her time. So a sad one. You know, she was known enough that Captain Phil knew her name, and I think he speculated correctly that I did too.

I don't even know the exact age or the day that she died. Very sort of here. She'll be missed, at least by us here, right? Listening, contemplating this. Kelsa Kinsley. ស្នាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានប� Thank you. Leisure Suit Larry. Mike, are you familiar with this video game? This was kind of like a late 80s personal computer thing. It was a little bit ribald,

a way for young boys to vicariously have the experience of trying to pick up women. If you were too young to do that in real life, you could play Leisure Suit Larry, and you could get that experience for yourself if you were the sort of computer geek who bought these early computer PC games that

you would load up on different disks. Did you play? Not part of your experience? I never played it. I had a roommate who had a game of Leisure Suit Larry. I think that's the only reason I knew what it was. Of course, it was popular enough that it got more sophisticated into the modern age of video games,

and Leisure Suit Larry ended up being voiced by an actor named Jan Robson. He lived in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, and worked in Vancouver as well as Hollywood. Look at his resume, filmography, and it's like he was in one episode of Knight Rider, one episode of The Facts of Life, one episode of One Day at a Time. I guess you call a guy like this a journeyman jobber.

How's this for a part? Party guest number 13 in Fatal Attraction. Okay? Somebody had to play that part, and it turned out to be Jan Robson. He was, he played Rod Serling of the Twilight Zone episode of Growing Pains. Wow. He also

was a Rod Serling lookalike in the sitcom Just the Ten of Us. That was also a Growing Pains sp-off show. Parker Lewis Can't Lose. He had a little voice part in Toy Story, Babylon 5, and Baywatch, and a thing in Hercules, did a voice thing in Pinky and the Brain,

a little part in a bug's life, an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, voice in Monsters, Inc., like one of these resumes where he was just working his way around, auditioning for parts all the time, I'm sure, but Leisure Suit Larry, as it advanced from this original

late 80s, early 90s personal computer thing, and the game got more sophisticated. You would have heard Larry's voice, a journeyman actor named Jan Robson. Guess what? Jan Robson died October 14, 2022 at age 68. His final appearance in Leisure Suit Larry as a character of Larry Laffer. Leisure Suit Larry, wet dreams dry twice. Which gives you some indication of the appeal there.

I think if you were a teenager playing Leisure Suit Larry 30 or 35 years ago, you were still following the game to this day, you might have to sit back and question what has become of your life? I don't know if Leisure Suit Larry has been very popular with the new generation of incels, but enough people out there know what this game is,

and I did too. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, 68 years old. We remember Jan Rabson. They're three sad souls, oh me, oh my, no brains, no heart, he's much too shy. But never mind you three, here's the wizard as you can see. Never mind you three. Here's the wizard as you can see. He'll fix that one, two, three.

In the funny place called the world of Oz. Oh, the world of Oz is a very funny place where everyone wears a funny, funny face. All the streets are paved with gold. And no one ever grows old. In that funny land lives the Wizard of Oz. Jules Bass. Rankin Bass was his production company. They started with his friend, Arthur Rankin Jr., one of the early productions from these guys

who were previously working at an ad agency. They started working animation, and they turned to Toronto to provide the voice talent for a show like Tales from the Wizard of Oz. You must remember this one.

Oh my god, yes, absolutely. Now that we're in November, soon we will be watching the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Yeah, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And by the way, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Yeah, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And by the way, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has now come up multiple recent times

in the history of the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment, but also someone who did the voice in there was ahead of the curve in terms of passing away and wants the focus of an episode of Toronto Might. Well, yeah, Bernard Cowan's children uh his two sons uh separately elliot uh cowan and uh rob cowan and that's peter gross calling me right now and he's not going to be mentioned on ridley funeral

homes memorial segment for a very long time he's uh healthy as a horse uh no pun intended because down the stretch is the definitive horse racing podcast but yeah we've talked about bernard cowan in great detail and of course also what's his first name souls what's souls yeah paul souls is someone that we mentioned here that would have been may 2021 that he died at age 90 another actor was alfie scopp who made it right to 101 when he died july uh of 2021 i wouldn't say with the members of the cast dying at those ages that there's some kind of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer curse. Right, like the poltergeist curse. But still with us, as far as I know, Carl Bannis,

one of the most wonderful voices in the history of Toronto. Still alive. Not only from TV commercials, but age 93, that you would have also heard him in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But weekend mornings, CFTO TV. We had The Land of Oz, a very funny place where everyone wears a funny, funny face. And the New Adventures of Pinocchio, which was also a Rankin-Bass production. Right.

That at the time had tapped in Toronto. But I think Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was like their breakthrough as far as being noticed in prime time in the American market. And that also included Little Drummer Boy and Frosty the Snowman. And there was a sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Santa Claus is Coming to Town, maybe. More about Pinocchio. And an animated film, 1982. Did you see this one at the time?

The Last Unicorn. That was also a production of Rankin Bass. And it was actually Jules Bass who was credited as the director of The Last Unicorn, I think. People of a certain age, Gen Xers, would remember seeing that in the theater. It had voices from Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow. We'll get to later another voice in that film, Angela Lansbury.

But I think that theme from The Wizard of Oz, definitely it extracts a certain sentimentality that I remember. There's nothing else to watch on TV at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning. And there was the cartoon playhouse, very reliably, right? It would be that and the hilarious House of Frightenstein, which were really the only things for my single-digit demographic to watch on television if you were up at the crack of dawn before anyone else in Toronto in late 70s, early 80s. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.

Jules Bass, dead at age 87 on October 25th, 2022. Now, Mark, before we get to a very famous person who passed away, I wanted to just pay some respects to a lesser-known person, but, you know, just as important, an FOTM, meaning that he listened to Toronto Mic'd on the reg, and he would send me emails, and he would tweet very supportive tweets to me. And this gentleman's name is Sean Hammond. And one of the things I remember most about Sean is that every year on my birthday,

I would get a tweet from Sean Hammond in which he would wish me happy birthday, and I would reply to say happy birthday to him because we shared a birthday. He loved Toronto Mic'd. He loved Toronto Mike. He loved a lot of the same music I did. And he was just a tremendous supporter and just seemed like a jolly fellow. Never met him in person, even though he often would tell me he wanted to make a TMLX event. But timing never worked out. But just this past June, when my birthday came and went, I realized I didn't have my

yearly tweet from Sean Hammond. And I, of course, I go to Twitter, I search his name, and I saw that he had just tweeted me as recently as like three days prior, something about I think the new Tragically Hip single came out or something about the Tragically Hip. And then I learned on Facebook that Sean Hammond, at a very young age, I want to say like 50 or so, passed away suddenly. And that's why I didn't get my yearly happy birthday from Sean Hammond. Sean Hammond acknowledged me on Twitter a few times too. And I'll credit him.

Maybe he was correct. He was listening to the tribute we did to Dave Bookman. He said I sounded very angry while I was reminiscing about my experiences with Bookie over there. I don't necessarily think he was wrong. And yes, I mean, in this new virtual world, it is always strange. These people that we have relationships with,

we're only going to be talking about this more and more when they pass away. And, you know, I mean, I know he listened to me speak. I read some of his tweets uh but that that was a full extent of it over there and so here we are talking to him on a segment that he would listen to right yes he would ridley funeral home memorial segment uh and i mean he passed away in june i just want to be clear can i say but you did get more information about him as the summer went on right like uh um we knew about but what, did you hear from family members?

His wife. So I tweeted something. At the time, I tweeted about Sean Hammond, and I think it was like Led Zepphead was his handle on Twitter. But I think it took a few months for his wife to get around to, you know, searching Twitter for his handle and seeing what was out there. So she only discovered it like last month or maybe two months ago that I had tweeted about Sean Hammond. And she just replied to say that he was such a great supporter of podcasts like mine

and just thanked me for the, I wrote a little piece on torontomic.com. But you're right. This is a new thing where, you know, we've talked in the past about, you know, FOTM, Becky Dinwoody passing away suddenly. That happened last March. And Sheila Knisiewicz, FOTM, passing away two Marches ago. Hopefully nothing happens this coming March. But these are two people that I'd met. Well, Becky actually went to high school with her, but we had met at TMLX events. And now this new dynamic of people you only know through email

and social media like Twitter that pass away. I've had people in the Patreon patrons pass away and it's like you're left with this empty feeling of like oh you kind of missed this person you'd never met and that seems to be a new dynamic in 2022. I'm also going to mention somebody who I only know for

very specific reason. He died at age 58 at the end of October. He was a comedian from New Brunswick named Tim Steeves. Remember Tim Steeves? He hosted a show called Game On. It was one of these cheap Canadian game shows. I don't know what the grand prize was on an episode if you won.

You got a pack of beer coasters. I mean, it was about sports trivia. It was a bunch of men sitting in lazy boy chairs, and they were answering questions about sports. Typical syndicated, cheap Canadian content stuff. As long as you were talking about things that happened in the past, trivia about sports history, right?

The show could just be in perpetual reruns forever, and they would tape like 10 episodes in a day, and they would end up on TV for years, and that's where you might have known Tim Steeves, also like a nightclub comic, ended up writing for this hour, it's 22 minutes, and Rick Mercer. But here's how I know they named Tim Steeves, also like a nightclub comic, ended up writing for this hour, it's 22 Minutes, and Rick Mercer. But here's how I know the name Tim Steeves, okay?

He was doing a segment on the Blue Jays broadcast, whatever it was at the time. I don't know, Channel 9, CF2 TV, Bayton CTV Network. It was a thing called Face in the Crowd, where he would find people, and they would present themselves as celebrity lookalikes. And you were supposed to call in and guess who this person was trying to impersonate.

One of the people that he ran into, or maybe enthusiastically volunteered, happened to be my father. Who did he look like? There's my dad doing a terrible imitation of perhaps the only celebrity younger than him who looked worse than he did rush limbaugh wow and i don't know that my father was very good and impersonating rush limbaugh uh i guess this was one of his one of his default schticks that maybe he related to the talk radio host that he had listened to him enough to do a simulation of his patter.

And somebody saw my father doing this thing and called in and won a prize. And it was Tim Steeves. I mean, this would be like a real 1990s struggling Toronto comedian sort of gig, right? Like stand outside. I mean, who comes be like a real 1990s struggling Toronto comedian sort of gig, right? Like, stand outside. I mean, who comes up with this stuff? Stand outside during a Blue Jays game.

Try to find someone who maybe thinks they look like a celebrity. Have them do some ramble on the air. And then if you're watching this, you could call in and win a prize? What kind of an excuse for content was this? But look, hey, it was a different time. Tim Steeves just trying to pay the bills before he got this other game show and got to do writing on 22 Minutes

and the Rick Mercer report. So someone who is fondly remembered. And because I didn't get around to rifling through the family collection of VHS tapes, so we still don't have my appearance on Just Like Mom, somewhere I know is my dad being interviewed by Tim Steves doing an embarrassing imitation of Rush Limbaugh. Tim Steves, dead at 58. My father's gone, too. Sorry about that. In the early morning rain

With a dollar in my hand With an aching in my heart My old pocket's full of sand I'm a long way from home Gotta miss my loved one so In the early morning rain With no place to go Down on runway number nine

747 Set to go But I'm stuck here On the ground Where the cold Wind blows Well the liquor Tasted good And the women

Were fast Well there she goes My friend She's a rolling Didn't we mention on a recent episode that Jerry Lee Lewis was the last man standing from the original class, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I think it might have even been VP of Sales who threw that in. Well, guess what? I think it might have even been VP of sales who threw that in. Well, guess what? You might have cursed the killer because here we had one of the bigger deaths here of October 2022.

October 18th, 87 years old. The end of the road for Jerry Lee Lewis. What was Jerry Lee Lewis doing singing the songs of Gordon Lightfoot? This was kind of like the last album that Jerry Lee Lewis recorded in his effort to still try and be a presence on the pop charts. 1973, so the rock and roll revival was on. Chuck Berry had a number one hit with My Ding-a-ling here he had the whole era of American Graffiti

and Happy Days, people were nostalgic about the 1950s and Jerry Lewis went to England to record some music with a whole bunch of hippies which included Peter Frampton young Peter Frampton who you could hear on this London

Session recorded album, which featured a whole bunch of cover versions, including the Gordon Lightfoot song, Early Morning Rain. Mike, did you know that this cover version existed? I did not. No, I did not. And the story goes with the British album from Jerry Lee Lewis. He was actually uncomfortable being out of his comfort zone, even though he was with Chuck Berry and Little Richard, a big show at Wembley Stadium. But this was the only time he ever recorded outside of Tennessee. But this was the only time he ever recorded outside of Tennessee.

And here you had a situation where 50 years ago, Jerry Lee Lewis, like in his mid-30s at the time, was very, very confused about the cultural change that was happening all around him. And this was pretty much the end of Jerry Jerry Lewis trying to seem like a hip revival act and eventually pivoted to country. Country music is where he found his comfort zone for the rest of his recording career. But here's the thing. You do remember when the Jerry Lewis biopic came out, right? Dennis Quaid.

Dennis Quaid, Great Balls of Fire. That included Winona Ryder being deflowered as his 13-year-old cousin. That's a story that I guess carried on right until the last words ever written about Jerry Lewis,

Myra Gale Brown. So when we had Dennis Quaid, Jerry Lewis, Great Balls of Fire, Jerry Lewis, Mike, was pretty much just around 50 years old. Jerry Lewis at that time on his sixth marriage was basically around the demographic that you and I now currently are. And he seemed like someone to us out of like a completely distant time and place, right? Like this was something that belonged to yesterday.

And I'm just here, Mike, to inform you that the fact that Jerry Lewis died at 87 meant the time that when this Jerry Lewis revival was underway, when you were watching on the big screen, he was like around 52. How does that make you feel? I mean, put that in perspective. I realize that times have changed

and our sense of chronology has warped from what it was before, but we grew up knowing the killer Jerry Lee Lewis as a relic of a whole other time. And I think it was always on our mind that Jerry Lee Lewis was staying alive, but he entered the pantheon of a club in which suddenly there seems to be a growing amount of members, people whose death was reported by TMZ.com before they actually died. Right.

Joining Tony Dow. Tony Dow and Tanya Roberts. Remember the case? Of course. And of course, don't forget the guy who's still alive, Lil Wayne. Yeah, Lil Wayne was the one that kind of cursed TMZ because forever people assume that it's an unreliable source, even though it started off having all these tipsters on the inside of the Hollywood morgue and people from every hospital. I mean, TMZ has also changed. I think

it is less reliable from before, not doing themselves any favors, right, to report death of Jerry Lewis. But then you get into this themselves any favors, right, to report death of Jerry Lewis. But then you get into this misinterpretation, right, where, like, it's announced that he's died, and then they retract the report, and then the assumption in the comment section is, I'm glad he's alive and well. Well, I hate to break it to you,

but he's not all that alive, and he's probably not very well. It's interesting that we played his cover of a Gordon Lightfoot jam. Another guy who was reported dead before his time. Yeah, but that one got even more complicated because that involved David Aiken, right? Canadian reporter putting his reputation on the line.

It was a phone call that involved Ronnie Hawkins as well. What was the story, though? Where was Gordon Lightfoot at the time he was actually sitting in a car? No, at the dentist chair, and suddenly reports had come out about his premature demise. But let's face it, at the time,

it wouldn't have been a surprise to hear that Gordon Lightfoot was no longer with us. I think him being pronounced dead on Twitter was actually good for his soul because ever since the Gordon Lightfoot comeback has kept rolling on. And I think he has a sense of humor about the fact that he keeps on playing on stages. He definitely beat back COVID-19 and it was his legendary manager, Bernie Fiedler, who said at one point to the press,

said Gordon Lightfoot, he looks like hell, but his health is fine. He's doing great. He's going to keep rolling forever. He's going to keep doing his daily walks, maybe peeking inside to see if anything's going on with Drake. Maybe we'll have a collaboration between them at the end after 21 Savage is finished working with Drake.

We'll have Drake and Gordon Lightfoot together forever. We can only hope. But another big bit of music news as far as the death is concerned is somebody from a group, a rap act that Drake discovered. You know, so we really never had no old money. We got a whole lot of new money, though. Young Metro, I don't trust you. Raindrops, drop top, smoking on cooking a hot box. Cooking on your bitch, yeah, dot, dot, dot. Cooking up in the crockpot pot. I'm trying to limit the number of N words that appear on this program.

I know, but that's a debate. I think that society might have to reckon with filling the ears of young people of all races with this kind of dialogue through hip-hop music. For so many years, you've said, okay, like, the fight is over. This sensibility has prevailed that if you are hearing the N-word in your hip-hop music, that if you're not a black person, it's not your place to sing along. Right. That's a position you take. I don't sing along. I don't want to sound like Bill Cosby here because we know how that turned out.

But maybe one day there will be a reckoning of how much we want to hear that word in our hip-hop. But look, it carries on, okay? I recognize that. That includes hearing Migos and their big breakthrough hit Bad and Bougie. And Take Off was the name of the rapper who was shot dead. Am I right about this? At a bowling alley while he was playing a game of dice.

Kirshnick Ball is his real name. And Takeoff who died November 1st. Breaking into November. Here's big news. 2022. One of the three members of Migos,

a trio from the Atlanta rap scene, which were originally brought to prominence with the endorsement of somebody named Drizzy Drake, who later took them on tour. There were three members. Somebody named Drizzy Drake who later took them on tour. There were three members. There was Quavo Offset.

He was the rapper on the last song ever played on Flow, 935. And the one who has now passed away, Takeoff. Not Takeoff to the great white north. Takeoff as in one word. And this was the chart-topping hit 2016. Little Uzi Vert bad

and bougie. Mike, any thoughts on Take Off, the latest relatively high-profile rap death? Although even Bob Lefsetz was speculating, why isn't there more attention paid to this? I mean, this is tragic. Like, I don't know if young black men get the respect in the media despite all the lip service that was paid,

that they're in a situation like this black men get the respect in the media despite all the lip service that was paid, that they're in a situation like this where, like, danger can strike at any time. Life is over. Finished. Snuffed out. Forever. 28 years old. Thoughts?

Anything? Tragic. Yeah, tragic. Shot dead. Young man. Terrible. My daughter and I were chatting about Migos and

this death. And she knows I'm a big fan of hip hop. I'm a massive fan of rap music and this style of rap is not my cup of tea to use that phrase. Well this is like Georgia rap. Centered in

Atlanta. There's a new book kind of chronicling how all this scene came to prominence. And people who weren't born with silver spoons in their mouths. And, you know, here you had a few cousins. And one of them, well, takeoff was Quavo's nephew. And before you know it, like, they're in the big leagues, playing arenas, opening for Drake. I guess there's a reason why Drake has to move around with a whole lot of bodyguards.

You can only hope for the best. But I don't know. Since the days of Biggie and Tupac, I don't know if it's gotten any safer to be in hip-hop than it was before. And so, November 1st, 2022, an American tragedy. The death, 28 years old. Takeoff. We came from nothing or something I don't try nobody, grit the trigger Call up the gang and they come and get you Grab me a river, get you in the shoes

Bad emotions Went to a party I danced all night I danced 16 days and I started up a fight When I'm kidding. You're out of luck. I'm rolling down the stairs. Too drunk to fuck.

Too drunk to fuck. Too drunk to fuck. Too drunk. Too fucked. Too drunk, too drunk, too drunk to fuck. You know, we got chided here by Steve Paikin for too much profanity on 1236 episodes. Well, Steve, how you like me now? There we have the song,

otherwise known as I am too inebriated to fornicate. I don't think Steve minds the swears in the songs. I like the art, the songs. Swear away. I don't like the radio edits. Like, I would have gone with that other jam. I would have picked the actual album track. But it is you and I swearing, I think, that he doesn't love.

But I don't think we've dropped a swear word today. D.H. Peligro was the drummer for a band i mean speaking of of names that would make your mother shudder i remember my very own mom wondering what was happening here when i was watching city tv the new music and they had a piece about the dead kennedys. What kind of name is that for a rock band? But of course, San Francisco punk legends led by Jello Biafra, who ended up outside of the band. And this became a big point of contention with Jello.

It was like, got into spoken word. He was like a more tedious version of Henry Rollins. And Jell-O Biafra was holding out. He didn't want a Levi's commercial, which would have made money for the band, I think, Holiday in Cambodia. That's the big jam. You know, we reached a point in time

where Levi's jeans would have seen that as the kind of anthem that would help them sell some apparel. But litigation over the years, but Dick Kennedy's did carry on without this man named Jello. And Darren Henley went by the stage name D.H. Pelligro. He was seen as, I guess, the brains behind the operation.

It kept them alive. And D.H. at one point in time, speaking of bands that had all kinds of members come and go, and some of them ended up in an early grave, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. When Jack Irons left the Chili Peppers, kicked out, 1988, the drummer from the Dead Kennedys was who they tapped to fill in the band, but he had all kinds of problems with drugs and alcohol. They ended up firing him uh that november and so outside of flea and anthony ketis uh the red hot chili peppers door kept on spinning

uh even though anthony ketis regretted having to having to get rid of him as a drummer there i mean this would have been a steadier gig. Dead Kennedys weren't playing big sports arenas. I was a big Peppers fan. So Chad Smith comes in and he drums on Mother's Milk. Still my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers album and I know critics never agree with me but maybe because it struck me

and hit me at the exact right time. But yeah, so the Jack Irons you mentioned, he goes on at some point to become Pearl Jam's drummer for a long, long, long time until he leaves that band. And they've had the Soundgarden drummer for a long time now. But yeah, Chad Smith comes in, and he's the spitting image of comic actor Will Ferrell. Who would have thought, like 40 years later,

the drummer for the Dead Kennedys dies? And I think, unlike how my mom reacted to seeing this 40 years ago, I don't know if the name the Dead Kennedys is all that shocking anymore. It's like God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols, right? It's like something that was shocking in a previous time. Like Marilyn Manson is as shocking as the Dead Kennedys. It was an accidental fall at his home that killed D.H. Peligro. You got to watch yourself. 63 years old.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Dead at 63 on October 28th, 2022. I'm into my life, I got so much love to show you Come into my life, boy I adore you Come into my life, I got so much love to show you Come into my life, boy I adore you Come into my life, I, I adore you. I'm into my life. I'll open the door if you come into my life. Boy, I adore you.

And I will treat you right. And I'll show you sweet melody that you want and need. For you hold the keys to my life Get on the floor with you Make our love strong and tight This song, Come Into My Life, by a singer named Joyce Sims, who died on October 13th, 2022, at age 63. Come Into My Life was hit more in the UK than America.

Produced by Curtis Mantronic. This was sort of the sound that I remember hearing on CKLN Sunday afternoon. The Dave's Dance Music Show. Dave Ahmad. Danny Elwell would also be on there with him. Scott Turner definitely knows this jam, okay? Come Into My Life. This was like the kind of warmer R&B sound that was bigger in the U.K. at the time than it was in the U.S.

And 1987, 1988. That would have been when this sounded like a sound a little ahead of its time. So top 10 on the U.S. R&B chart for Joy Sims, not to be confused with another singer, Kim Sims, too blind to see it. Mike, I think this is the point in time when I need to be talking to Scott Turner because he knows what I'm talking about here. But for those FOTMs who are plugged into this style of music,

here was another low-key music loss that I think worth remembering here because I knew this song. Okay. At least a little bit. It sounds like a lot of music of that time, but I do not remember. Curtis Mantronic group,

uh, group was called, uh, Mantronics. Uh, and this was one of the spinoffs from joy. Sims come into my life. Dead at 63,

October 13th, 2022. Shout out to Ridley funeral home. into my life. I got riding the storm out waiting for the thaw out all of home all night in the Rocky Mountain winter I wind by the snow Watching for the snow

I've been thinking lately Of what I'm missing in the city And I'm not missing a thing. Watching the full moon crossing the range. Riding the storm out. Riding the storm out. Riding the storm out. Riding the.O. Speedwagon.

It's one of those earlier songs before Kevin Cronin joined the band. Riding the Storm Out. Later had a live album, and he ended up being the singer on the song. But this was like the early REO sound, which included a bassist named Greg Philbin. Greg Philbin, who died in October of 2022, age 77, on October 23, 77 on October 23, praised by Kevin Cronin as being the originator of the prog-leaning extended instrumental section aspect of the original REO Speedwagon song. Now, Greg Philbin was only in the band until 1977. It was after that that REO Speedwagon, of course, started scaling the heights and became actual pop act to reckon with.

I mean, it was hits and afterwards. It's not riding the storm out, okay, that keeps him on the road to this day. When Kevin Cronin was in Toronto trying to figure out how to work the bike share, remember that one? Right. The reason that he was still touring to this day, playing the Budweiser stage, was not because of songs like this, but about the ones that he was still touring to this day, playing the Budweiser stage,

was not because of songs like this, but about the ones that followed. But there was an original era to REO Speedwagon, which didn't start with Kevin Cronin, and at one point then, Kevin Cronin left the band. And when he was on his own, trying to figure out a solo career,

he wrote a song called I Can't Fight This Feeling Any Longer. Like he was not in REO Speedwagon at the time. Put the song in his back pocket and of course a decade later it became the biggest hit. Speaking of the REO jams that keep paying the bills.

But I figure because he probably didn't hear about it anywhere else it was the original REO Speedwagon bassist Greg Philbin who died at age 77. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Let's ride the storm out. Right there, right on, come on I can't stand to see you sad I can't bear to hear you cry If you can't tell me what you need

All I can do is wonder why Someday, someway Someday, someway Someday, someway Maybe I'll understand you. After all you've done for me, all I really want to do is take the love you've brought my way and give it all right back to you Someday, someway Someday, someway Someday, someway Maybe you'll understand me You've taken everything

There are a certain number of songs that I can say I only know because I first saw them on SCTV. And that includes this song, Someday, Someway, as recorded by Robert Gordon, who died on October 18th, 2022. 75 years old. Remember, they would integrate musical guests into SCTV by making them part of the sketch. And in this case, it was a news report where Rick Moranis and FOTM Dave Thomas were doing their parodies of David Brinkley. That was Rick Moranis. And Dave Thomas as Walter Cronkite.

Walter Cronkite. This was from 1981, where they were doing a parody of this old-school American newscast reporting on the space shuttle where Robert Gordon and his rockabilly band were riding and played this song. About a year later, Someday Someway made the pop charts, thanks to the guy who wrote the song, who had previously been a member of the Broadway cast of Beatlemania.

That was Marshall Crenshaw. You following me here? Yep. So this was a song that Marshall Crenshaw wrote, I think before he started his own recording career, and it was covered by Robert Gordon. We talked before about Jerry Lee Lewis and the kind of original rock and roll revival,

and here was someone on the CBGB punk rock scene, a member of the band called The Tough Darts, and a live album called Live at CBGB's. Simple enough. And then Robert Gordon recorded with Link Wray, the guitar playing legend. Yeah, Link Wray, and signed to RCA Records and had a shot at the big time and with 1981, you know, respectably well with this record with the single Someday Someway, which did crack the Billboard Hot 100. And then a year later, Marshall Crenshaw put out his own version. I mean, they realized, right, they had something there

with that song, that it was good enough to be a hit. And in fact, got a second win there. And as a result, a little bit better known. Rockabilly Boogie is also a song that people know by Robert Gordon. That was from 1979, the Rockabilly Boogie. So for a guy who was essentially like a second generation rock and roll, rockabilly boogie. So for a guy who was essentially like a second generation rock and roll, rockabilly revivalist,

I think Robert Gordon came out okay. That is until the end of his life, October 18th, 2022. Remembering Robert Gordon, age 75. 75. and kick their toes and then go bowling in my pantyhose Oh yeah Oh I like boys who clear their thoughts and chew tobacco like mountain goats and they take me to the movies and they open up their coats

Oh yeah I like boys from Iowa to Illinois I like boys Oh, I like boys When I walked out of here after our last episode, the September recap, October 6, 2022, on the way home, scrolling around online, I found out about the death of judy tenuta

the love goddess claimed to have her own religion called judy ism and uh i'm sure mike like me she would just like someone who was always on tv yep through the 1980s guest appearance on one show or another, kind of like her accordion playing friend, Weird Al Yankovic. Like a clean kind of comedy, but a bit of a wacky edge. And you also had Emo Phillips kind of also in that scene. I think as kids, you know, we recognized that these people were on the edge of something, even if we didn't really know what it was.

With songs like this, I Like Boys, I don't know if a recording career was really in the cards for Judy Tanuta. Couldn't necessarily replicate the success level experienced by Weird Al. But she was on TV all the time and a frequent guest on the Howard Stern Show. She did commercials for Diet Dr. Pepper. She had a book called The Power of Judaism and got nominated for Grammy 1994.

An album called Attention, Butt Pirates and Lesbeterians. Another Grammy, an album called Attention Butt Pirates and Lesbeterians another Grammy an album called In Goddess We Trust just somebody who you would have assumed had been around forever and

would be around until the end of time but the end of the line for Judy Tanuta that came on October 6th 2022 72 years old Mike any Judy Tanuta memories here nothing specific she just seemed to be like you said everywhere and I feel like I was watching a lot of like

A&E maybe and they had improv in front of like a brick wall and I feel like she'd show up there I remember an accordion and she was funny like I remember her just being a funny part of the 80s. That's my memory of Judy there. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, the love goddess, Judy Tanuta, dead at 72. As the people here grow colder, I turn to my computer

And spend my evenings with it like a friend I was loading a new program I had ordered from a magazine Are you lonely? Are you lost? His voice comes home and summons

A press execute Hello I know that you've been feeling tired I bring you home And take the wrong to start again Hello I know that you're unhappy I know you are

And deeper understanding I know I fought such pleasure I don't know if the Kate Bush revival has any legs here besides the one track running up that hill. Just the one track. This was 2011, Deeper Understanding. It was a Kate Bush song from 1989, and then there was a remake,

and starring in the music video was a guy named Robbie Coltrane in a music video directed by Kate Bush. Robbie Coltrane, who died at age 72, October 14th, 2022. Where do you know Robbie Coltrane from? Well, I mean, he's famous now because he's in the Harry Potter movies. The bearded, you're a wizard, Harry. You know, I only saw the first one, but I remember him from that. And then I remembered him more from those like Nuns on the Run.

Those and what was the other one? There was a couple there in a row there that I remember Robbie Coltrane from. They were quite charming, those flicks. And also he played the Russian villain in the later James Bond movies. I'll take your word for it. Golden Eye and The World is Not Enough. I mean, later, like, later, like late 90s. You know, I've only ever seen one James Bond movie.

Pierce Brosnan era James Bond. A show called Cracker, which was like a British prestige TV show. Like from the 1990s. Yeah, yeah. And the kind of show that you see. Never watched it. One day I'll get around to binging on this. Mona Lisa with Bob Hoskins.

Remember that movie? Robbie Coltrane. No, but there's none on the run, but there was another one I watched quite a bit. And if you tell me the name, I'll get it. But I don't want you to run through the whole IMDB page there. I have ESP. Mike, you've got Google in front of you there. I have ESP. Mike, you've got Google

in front of you there. I will find out the name of the movie I am thinking of. It is in fact, I can report without a doubt, that it was called The Pope Must Die. Yeah, that's right. The Pope Must Die It.

Right. Like, graffitied tea on the movie poster there. So the song here, remembering Robbie Coltrane, tied in with Kate Bush in 2011 when there was a remake of this song. Deeper understanding about an intense relationship between a lonely man and his computer. Hey!

Guess which of those parts was played by Robbie Coltrane? The computer. And, you know, prophetic, right? I mean, Kate Bush was commenting on, maybe not the most original thought, but 1989 was when she originally foreshadowed this song, which by the time we got

to the music video in 2011, that was the beginning of everyday reality. I myself am trying to get out of that state of mind. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. At least I have I have some life left to live. I don't know. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. At least I have... Can of cabana? I have some life

left to live. I don't know. I'm sad. Robbie Coltrane, dead October 14th at age 72. Lord have mercy, I'm about to bust. And I still can't say anything. It's good news, though. But the studio, of course, wants to make the announcement. I can't say who.

Because one time, listen, I announced without knowing it. They asked me, is Will and Grace coming back? I said, uh-huh, it is. Well, I didn't know for sure. Well, I got in big trouble with everybody over at Will and Grace for running my big yap. Another time I was at Boston Pride. They said, what's up next, Mr. Jordan? This was years ago. I said, I'm going to be on American Horror Story with Lady Gaga. Well, they hadn't announced her yet. Oh, I got in trouble then,

too. It doesn't matter about me announcing, but to announce Lady Gaga. So I can't announce anything, but it's coming. Oh, I'm so happy. Wait till you hear, honey, you'll shriek. Leslie Jordan, who got wider recognition because he was posting these videos on Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic, age 67, when he died on October 24, 2022. Best known for his role on Will & Grace, as he mentioned there,

and the fact that Will & Grace got a second wind, second series, a revival in the late 2010s, and Leslie Jordan bragging online that he finally was able to afford his very first home going into his late 60s, that dreams can come true. He was on a sitcom that's currently on the air now, Call Me Cat, which is my umbilical.

Did you know that she had another show besides Jeopardy happening here? I think I saw it. I mean, we're not really living in the, yeah, along with So Help Me Todd. We're not really in the original age of Will and Grace anymore, when people would have known who Leslie Jordan was. But as you mentioned there also, he was in the franchise series, American Horror Story. Is that good? You ever seen that? mention there also uh he was in the franchise series of uh american american horror story

is that good you ever seen that i can't remember okay that's the kind of show that you put on and i'm just gonna go for a walk uh 67 years old and it seemed to be a situation situation where he was on his way to film scenes for the sitcom Call Me Cat. His car hit the side of a building in Hollywood. They assumed this was like a medical episode. This was not anything more complicated than that, but he was pronounced dead on the scene. People's hearts were broken because everybody got to know Leslie Jordan the last couple years. Their internet friend. He was 67 years old.

5.8 million Instagram followers mourning his death, as well as on the Ridley Funeral Home segment of Toronto Mic'd, segment of Toronto Mic'd Leslie Jordan dead at 67 October 24th 2022 Thank you. When people heard Angela Lansbury died at age 96 on October 11, 2022, I think the most typical reaction was, that's it?

She was only 96 years old? How long ago was it that Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher, was a fixture? I mean, that show ran on CBS for 12 years. I would think as we wind things down, you should find that other Murder, She Wrote song, right? Murder, She Wrote. Chaka, Demas, and Pliers, Can you pull that up on our way out?

I mean, I read a long run for Murder, She Wrote. Like, next to Law and Order, this thing could have still been running to this day. But, you know, enough residuals for 12 years of that show. We mentioned before The Last Unicorn as one of those animated movies that she did voice work for. And she was also in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and the animated version of Beauty and the Beast. Which was massive.

Lots of voice work for Angela Lansbury out there. And her time in the Broadway stage. for Angela Lansbury out there and her time in the Broadway stage. She starred in the musical Mame and Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. That's another one that won her a Tony Award.

But of course, given the age that she was born, 1925, I mean, she was happening in Hollywood through the 1940s. Gaslight, National was happening in Hollywood through the 1940s. Gaslight, National Velvet, The Picture of Dorian Gray. And 1962, real intense film at the time, The Manchurian Candidate. Sure. With Frank Sinatra in the lead. Long resume there, as befits anyone

who hung around for 96 years. 2014, the recently deceased Queen Elizabeth appointed her as the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire since she was originally from England and moved to the USA in 1951 but yeah this song I'm glad you pulled it up

runs through my head whenever we talk about murder she wrote turn it up turn it up turn it up turn it up That's a jam. Mark, always a pleasure. I look forward to your visit the first thursday of every month i'm glad that you didn't give up on this the way you uh took a pause on the newsletter hey hey hey one two three six dot ca gonna be testing the new sub stack chat if you're signed up you'll get an alert for when that is going on.

And welcome to ideas about what to do with the newsletter here. And that means finding a way maybe to make some money or at least entertain myself along with a significant audience and let's me and you Toronto Mike. But why did you ignore my

pitch to you as a way we could do business together and make money. What real talk are you dropping here? What bombshell is happening at the end of our episode? I'll remind you in a moment. I'll remind you. Look, good stuff to come. I mean, Mike, we got a great alliance here because I know.

I hear about it from people. You get messages in the DMs. People anticipating the next 1236 appearance here. Let's see what the future holds for this newsletter model and the 1236 name. You can find me on Twitter

as long as Twitter is still around until it dies. I might even pay $8 a month to get verified on there. What do you think of that one? I will not be doing that because it defeats the whole purpose of what verification is. I'm just here sowing the seeds of love and looking forward to a new era in the media ahead. And I do love coming down to this basement to update you and the rest of the FOTMs on different projects to come.

So newsletter ended up on pause in October. update you and the rest of the FOTMs on different projects to come. So newsletter ended up on pause in October. Let's see what November and December brings. The one thing I can guarantee is that one month from now, I'll be back in the basement with Toronto Mike. And that brings us to the end of our 1,144th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark Weisblot is at 1, 2, 3, 6.

Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U Moneris is at Moneris Raymond James Canada are at Raymond James CDN Recycle My Electronics are at E-P-R-A underscore Canada Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley F-H

Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore And Sammy Cohn is at Sammy Cohn, K-O-H-N. See you all Monday when my special guests are Dean McDermott and Mary Jo Eustace. I guess I'm damned 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. Because everything is rosy and gray. Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Sacré-Cœur

But I like it much better going down on Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow

warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine. And it won't go away. Because everything is rosy now. Everything is rosy. Yeah. Everything is rosy and gray. guitar solo