Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #944

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Mike chats with Marc Weisblott of 12:36 about the current state of media in Canada and what you oughta know.

Toronto Mic is brought to you by the Yes, We Are Open podcast, a Moneris podcast production, telling the stories of Canadian small businesses and their perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. Subscribe to this podcast at yesweareopenpodcast.com. Welcome to episode 944 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA.

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pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski of Remax Specialist Majeski Group, who's ripping up the GTA real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me to recap the month that was October 2021 is 1236's own Mark Weisblot. Right on time for our monthly appointment, Mike. A month ago, it was a subject of much drama as I missed two buses at Islington Subway Station,

showing up late, figuring that I had to somehow compensate for my tardiness, and we proceeded to do what? The longest single-sitting episode in the history of Toronto Mike. Was I right about that? The last 1236 episode recap of the podcast. I don't know because there's a, there's an American hardcore episode with a brother, Bill, Cam Gordon and I,

that might be right there, but it was a long one. Your bus was lost and I'm glad that it didn't get lost today, buddy. Good to see you. Welcome back. And in the process here, the trade-off is we'll try and, and get this one done in under three hours' time.

Well, there's a first time for everything. Every episode, Mike, at least partway through, there's you speculating on how much time we have left until you've got to pick up the kids. You've got to pick up the kids today? Monica's going to do it, actually. Until you've got to pick up the kids. You got to pick up the kids today. Monica's going to do it, actually.

Until you've got another client to deal with standing by, another podcast to record. You're the last item on my calendar for the day. And yet, in the last episode, there was so much pent-up anxiety that I felt like I could qualify to be a guest on Dana Levinson's show. You'd notice on there that's the issue that every single guest seems to have. Even a beautiful woman like Cheryl Hickey could suffer from anxiety. But whatever I brought last time around in terms of the tone generated a rare, nasty comment on the TorontoMike.com website.

Was it from Liz? You know what? I didn't note the name, but it seemed to be a real guy. Here was what they said. You can let the Gilbert Gottfried impersonator know that his comments about Paul Myers are bogus. What a thing to pick on, because this was just a little aside. Name dropping.

Right. I think that's what I accused Mike Myers' brother of. Right. What a douchey, loud mouth. L-O-U-D in caps. I think that commenter, whoever that is, who we should point out, edited that comment. So that was the initial. Well, it didn't end there.

Hey, Mark, at least he's met the people that he's talking about. That's a low blow. And then here, referencing something we discussed, maybe you should call your email newsletter 1248. That's a good zinger. I think that's fair game. Because that's when it normally comes out. I got mine at 114. I think that's fair game. Because that's when it normally comes out. I got mine at 1.14.

I don't know, 1.14 or something. You know, it was on a Toronto Mic'd episode where Richard Krause, of all people, brought up the fact that he rarely gets his 12.36 newsletter at 12.36, which is good because it means he's waiting for it to come every single day. And over at 12.36 headquarters, we now describe it as meeting the Richard Krause deadline. That is to say, Richard's name has entered the lexicon as far as being the person that I'm a little bit late. Other times I can't control the machinery that processes an email from getting from point A to point B. But look, whoever was it that left this comment, which seemed to indicate they were paying a lot of attention to what we discuss here, actually follows the discourse of 1236. They then edited the comment to just advise in capital letters that I stop screaming,

which I don't know if I can do anything about that. This is how I sound for the purpose of the discussion that we're having here. I'm not going to get into why I decided to take this tone when I made these broadcast appearances. It was something I adopted at a younger age when I did these shows back when I was in high school on CIUT.

And I kind of like developed this voice. But this is my actual voice. This is the thing, right? Yeah, I mean, I've talked to you. How often do you get the idea that I'm putting something on? See, okay, if? Yeah, I mean, I've talked to you. How often do you get the idea that I'm putting something on? See, okay, if I may. I mean, I can tone it down,

but this is the way I talk. Now, we've all heard, I think, there's a phone call that Gilbert Gottfried made to Bubba Booey about appearing on Humble, Humble, Humble. No, I don't think it was Humble and Fred. I think it was Howard Stern, actually.

And anyways, this phone call, which has been aired by Howard Stern many times, you hear Gilbert Gottfried in his natural speaking voice, and it's nothing like this voice you hear on his podcast or stand-up or whatever. You, who I've spoken to often without a microphone turned on,

sound the same. So this is you. And by the way, don't change a thing. There's a reason I have you over once a month for three hours. It's because you deliver the goods. Don't change a thing. There's a reason I have you over once a month for three hours. It's because you deliver the goods. Don't change a thing. And Gilbert Gottfried will also break into song or he'll do an imitation of Jerry Seinfeld. And you can hear that that is not Gilbert's actual voice.

So he does let it slip for comedic effect from time to time. Now, on the last episode episode we also did a deconstruction of Chris Shepard on Humble and Fred, and you can hear Chris Shepard moving away from the public eye. This was the one public appearance he had done in something like a 15-year period

up until now, and couldn't you tell that he was straining to play that character of Chris Shepard? Often imitated, never duplicated. With his three PhDs and my university degree from the University of Canada. And I walked into a room and there was Margaret Atwood. Shep, what are you doing here?

And I think we came away, the takeaway of that episode was you actually don't want Chris Shepard to do a deep dive because it'll be like a never meet your hero situation. He's not my hero. He'll be putting on that persona or you'll just be disappointed that in fact, as you discussed last time, right, you were doing a what? A festival carnival, something like that. Ronald McDonald. Yeah.

That you saw. Blue West Village. Being a regular guy. What? Talking on the telephone, getting into a car. You saw Ronald McDonald unmasked. He dropped his persona and asked me if his car had arrived yet, and it was shocking.

It was shocking. And by that point, you're like in high school. You're a teenager. I'm in high school. And this was disturbing to you, right? Imagine being the age of your little kids and seeing Ronald McDonald dropping the persona. See, that's what I liked about Doodoo the Clown.

We talked for whatever it was, 60 to 90 minutes. He never dropped that persona. He was in full makeup and full regalia. Okay, just letting you know that I'm not a fast food mascot character. This is the real me. Okay, a couple of notes. One is that the VP of sales has checked the statistics, and he's come to tell us that our episode was 314 last month and american hardcore

with brother bill and cam gordon that was actually 324 so you were 10 minutes short of the all-time that was a tag team on a pandemic that was three of us and there's only two and uh so there you go put that in the the ledger uh ty Tyler, that I had the longest single guest. He just delivers the stats. Single sitting episode in the history of Toronto Mike. I want to give a shout out here to Neil Morrison, brother Bill, who has been posting from his old CFNY archive. He seemed to be a pretty prolific taper.

He produced me at the Howard Stern Press Conference in 1997. He dug that up somewhere. And also on a SoundCloud, a whole bunch of clips from different shifts that he had on CFNY. So it's him doing a session interview performance with Crowded House when they were still fitting the format of the radio station. Another one with Foo Fighters. And from 1990, an overnight shift of Brother Bill on CFNY.

And I got to say, I put this on Twitter, you could not hear a single person anywhere on the radio today, at least in this country, any type of station, college, commercial, whatever, who was more excited about being on the air than Brother Billy, as he was back then. And I think he slips up on his name even somewhere down the line because it's not his real name, right? He was just trying it out for size on the radio.

The way he sounds in that air check, like knowing that he was taking the reins of of his favorite radio station that he that he got to be on there. You would you would never hear anything like that today. I was I was absolutely riveted by the experience of listening to Brother Bill from 31 years ago, September 1990. And I think I actually did meet him around that time, Brother Bill. A bit of a flashback there. You might want to check that out. Sometimes the bad guy wins.

Sometimes the good guy dies. When the screen goes black, I'll be with you in the back on the bright side, on the bright side. Sometimes the good things don't last. Time flies and life goes fast. Bye. I'm a party, I'm a sinner. Got no hope, not a sliver. I'd rather drop dead than be a quitter. I'd rather drop dead, I'd rather drop dead. I'm a party, I'm a sinner.

What do we got here? Grandson? Grandson? Not his real name. Jordan Benjamin, who grew up in the Eglinton West area of Toronto, as Wikipedia says. And not to be confused with Jordan Binnington, a goaltender who won a Stanley Cup, I believe.

Did he also grow up in Forest Hill? Possibly, possibly. I guess you say like Eglinton West, the West side. If you know that, that part of Eglinton is kind of divided on economic and racial lines. So I'm sure not too far West down Eglinton. So this grandson,

Toronto singer, kind of bedroom trap pop performer, definitely making waves because here on a remix of his song, he got, I think, the two biggest names you could have as far as like the elder statespersons of Top 40 Radio today,

and that's Kesha. You know Kesha? TikTok. She invented TikTok. And Travis Barker, the drummer from Blink-182. Suddenly he's all over the place now. He's on that Willow Smith jam I kicked out for the guys on Pandemic Friday that my daughter introduced me to.

There you go. Between your teenage daughter and me, I think we're keeping you up on everything that you need to know. So here is big things ahead for Grandson based on the company that he keeps. All right. Great way to kick us off. We're going to run down some previous episodes of Toronto Mic'd. I used to do this with Elvis back in the day just to hear he hasn't listened to any of them.

So let's start with Rick. Okay, so this is the point where we start going over the past episodes, and then once this segment ends up lasting like 20 or 30 or 40 minutes long, you accuse me of talking too much about the topics that I brought along. Okay, so I'm going to crack open a cold Great Lakes beer. This is an octopus wants to fight. I'm going to do the same. So glad you're here.

Okay, on the mic. All right, brother, talk to me about a very recent episode, which I enjoyed thoroughly. This is the Rick Mercer Toronto Mike debut. Yeah, it came up on there that Rick was willing to come over, even into the TMDS basement studios, but because he's got a comedy memoir

talking to Canadians that he's trying to plug and push all over the media. This is the season, right? So this is the promote your book so they can sell copies during the holidays season, and I've noticed a few guests have suddenly popped up. Like, can we, not necessarily them.

It usually is the book publisher. Can we put this person on your show? Amongst those, and we'll get to him later, Peter Mansbridge. But Rick Mercer is one of those guys. Rick Mercer magically became available because he's trying to sell copies of his book, Talking to Canadians. But what I liked was that I got, you know, me and Rick connected on Zoom. And I really felt like I could ask him anything for as long as I wanted. We did a 90-minute deep dive.

And what I thought was refreshing there, let me preface by saying, I don't think Rick Mercer has ever spoken to me. Right? Like, his flavor of comedy is not something that my tastes would have generally intersected with. He's just this side of Ron James. I would know what he was up to if he did a bit with a politician that made some headlines, right?

He jumped naked in the lake with Bob Ray. Go to Harvey's with John Kretchen, sure. And, you know, sometimes you would see a rant, and if it was something topical of him moving through the graffiti alley, you would check that out. It, you know, sometimes you would see a rant, and if it was something topical of him moving through the graffiti alley, you would check that out.

It would be quick, only a minute long. You know, he claims that he figured out this format even before there was such a thing as social media viral videos. But I would not say that I stan Rick Mercer to any degree. One thing that I found refreshing about his appearance on the podcast is he is unapologetic about the fact that he wants to be known, recognized, famous for his creativity. You caught on to that, I'm sure.

And it's kind of refreshing, right? I mean, there are other people out there who, if you sat them down, maybe they're better off remaining nameless. And you ask them, you know, did you get into show business because you wanted to be a star? They would launch into a 90-minute dissertation about how they're actually kind of humble and they're really doing this for everybody else out there.

Set your mind free about what kind of personalities I'm talking about. Not Rick Mercer, though. Going on three decades of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. I remember when that launched, it was a spinoff of CODCO.

So it has some momentum there, and here they were bringing this kind of new satire program to Canada. Again, not really my thing. This government comedy where you pretend that you're skewering politicians, but you're actually just throwing softballs all around. Back then, it had more of an edge than it does today. You would have situations like Rob Ford confronted in his driveway. Remember that one?

That was seen as 22 minutes pushing the envelope because they were willing to violate somebody's privacy just by showing up on the driveway to the point where they had to call the cops. But look, Rick Mercer ultimately wants to be everybody's friend. And he wants to have a lot of fans. And he wants to have a lot of people and he wants to have a lot of people know and recognize and care about what he is creatively doing. In that sense, I thought the interview that you did with him was kind of like an introduction to somebody who's been around for so long,

as far as I can tell, isn't going to go away. And part of the reason I think he isn't going to go away is because he's determined to keep doing it. Like nothing in there indicated that he was going to coast through this for the next 50 years of his life. Like he wants to be known as a creative personality. And he enjoys the recognition that he gets for it. So thumbs up there for, I thought, an unusually candid kind of puff piece Zoom interview where Rick was just on to sell books. And yet, unlike another elder of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I think

he was happy to be asked about absolutely anything. Now, yeah, the other one in there, a Zoom interview this month, Peter Mansbridge. How did that go for you? So it started with, so I had an hour. I negotiated to get an hour with Peter Mansbridge, which sometimes with these people, it's almost like you're asking for the whole day or something. Like, can I get a whole 60 minutes? Because, you know, I don't really want to do this if I can't get 60 minutes. That's why I like that Rick Mercer let me go 90 minutes. But okay, so I had an hour with Mansbridge. His first sentence to me when we connected on Zoom was something to the effect of,

is it okay if we do this shorter, maybe 40 minutes, because he's got a whole bunch of media things lined up. He's got his own podcast to record, The Bridge. But I enjoyed Peter Man's Bridge, chatting with him for the hour I took. But without a doubt, he wanted to get back to the book, as they say. Basically, the benchmark for me,

when I know it's all about the book and it's not going to be any real talk, is the Kiprios episode. So that was episode 700. Kiprios was selling something. Yeah, he was selling a book. And I would ask him about something and he'd be like it's in the book and that's that when i hear it's in the book that i kind of check out like i'm done and yet the peter mansbridge discussion

was a lot better than what i think is going down in history as the worst toronto miked episode of all time in your opinion let me hear it. I know which one it is. Michael Landsberg. Doing an exit interview. What was it? The Monday after he announced he was leaving TSN. And telling you with a straight face. And I'm kind of glad you didn't push back too much on him.

Because it was a window into how these things work, right? There he is talking about, I'm gone from TSN after, what was it, 37 years since they started doing Sports Desk and on the Radio Morning Show and trying to get you to believe on this Real Talk podcast that this was an entirely mutual decision where he just decided arbitrarily on a Friday morning that he was going to bow out from this job that he's held his entire adult life. And this was entirely amicable and voluntary. And it was just something on a whim. He's going to figure out the rest of his life, the rest of his career. He was confident enough he could do new things.

But the whole idea that this was not somehow negotiated, right? He tried to pull a fast one on you. And he got away with it. Well, okay. You let him get away with it. Now, I think we have a document. Hold on. We have a document of a certain disposition.

Which, look, it's real talk in its own way. Okay. Because we heard in that episode how these things are spun when you provide a forum in which it could happen. Am I saving myself here? Am I making you less mad? Let me explain. Let me explain.

Let me explain. Am I saving myself here? Am I making you less mad? Let me explain. Let me explain. Let me explain. I can't stop down and call the man a liar because I don't believe him. Right?

So you make it so. I don't know if you would be calling him a liar. You would be challenging him on the narrative that he was trying to sell. And I, by the way, I believe that after, how long has Michael Landsberg been at this? I mean, let's face it, he demanded more disclosure when he would be interviewing like Big John Studd on Off the

Record, King Kong Bundy, Honky Tonk Man. How about this guy? No one can see it because we're not recording any video. Like, George Animal Steel. Michael Landsberg, at one point in time, was seen as an insightful interviewer. That was part of his game, right? Even when he was interviewing these World Wrestling Federation personalities,

which I know helped his off-the-record show get bigger than it was originally expected to be. And there he comes on to Toronto Mike, and he does not provide the same level of disclosure that he would have demanded from others. You follow me here? He knows what it is to do a journalistic interview. But remember, yet he controlled the narrative,

and in the process, yeah, I'm going to say, somewhat kiddingly, I mean, in terms of production, presentation, nothing like that, it was the worst episode ever of Toronto Mike, and Michael Landsberg might even agree. There's a comment on the live stream. They're a little surprised you didn't

pick on the Greg Brady episode as your least favorite. Oh, well, we'll get to that a little bit later. Let me then give some props to the opposite of Michael Landsberg, and that is Rod Black. Yes. Because Rod Black got the same tap on the shoulder,

but Rod Black was also revealing of the fact that this was not an instantaneous decision. Of course it wasn't. Right. And that, in fact, it was negotiated over what? A period of months? Many months? It was months.

A couple of years? And the fact that he's gone here in the middle of the action, right? Like shows and games that he was expected scheduled to appear on are now rawed blacklists. Right. CFL games, yep. Because he was given that package on the way out of Bell Media and TSN for, what, over three decades. Not quite the Michael Landsberg run, but close enough.

And Rod Black, who over the last few months became a very enthusiastic FOTM. And you might actually say that part of the reason that he savored the form you were providing him is because he was having to think, what am I going to do? How am I going to present myself in this post-corporate media world? If I have to fend for myself, if I can't get Rogers or Chorus or whatever to give me a job doing something else in Canada somehow,

I gotta figure out this landscape and what my place might be in. And I think that explains how he became so loyal. Loyal to the point where he gave you a call on the day that his exit was announced. Let me tell people a little behind the scenes which is I spoke to Rod Black twice

that day. So that was the day the announcement came down on Twitter. We had a chat, a phone call. I was on a bike ride and Rod called and that was unrecorded. And I would refer to that as an off the record, no pun intended for Michael Landsberg, but we had a chat and then we arranged

to connect later that night to where I was allowed to record it and share it with the FOTMs. And then what you heard was an unedited, the episode was probably the shortest numbered episode in the history of Toronto Mic'd, which is quite the opposite of what this episode is going to be. It runs the gamut here.

But yeah, I was basically, I didn't edit a stitch. You even heard the ring of the phone as my Google phone called him. But yeah, Rod Black was amazing. He's always amazing. What a tremendous FOTM he's become. A little more real talk in the past month that I enjoyed came from Ann Roszkowski.

Cheers to the poster child, if you will. When I think of what is Toronto Mic'd, I think of Ann Roszkowski sitting in that seat right there. The best guest in the history of this entire podcast possibly but I did tweet that and then the next day Humble Howard and Humble and Fred don't get me started brought it up like how could I say Ann Ruskowski is one of the best guests because she is I know that's what I said because she is because she is and she did it twice what like five years apart between appearances?

It's one thing to deliver that. You think, oh, that's like you caught it once. That was an amazing time. But that's not going to happen a second time. And then part of the reason you don't have her over is you don't want to fuck

with the formula. You got the one killer. Leave it at that. But then we did basically agree that she'd come in from Prince Edward County and she would appear on the show again.

And she hit it out of the park again. Like she's just fucking amazing. Jeff Hutchison is another one. You see with me, unlike with your buddy Elvis, when we review the episodes, I'm the one who brings them up. Whereas when it's you doing the recap with Elvis, I know you haven't done it in a while,

but it's like you have to ask about the episodes because he has absolutely no clue. I gotta get Elvis back for Festivus. And the guy works in the social media industry. But he's capable of keeping track. Well, you also put links on there. No, yeah, I do. Yeah, he sees there. And yet somehow

he completely misses. Maybe he's got you blocked on that social media system. I think I would need to get a Tim or a Sid on to get Elvis' attention. He seems to be obsessed with those two. Okay, Jeff Hutchison again. Not my wheelhouse as far as media personalities go. He was on Canada AM for a really long time. What else did he do?

He just sort of like one of those. Bowling for dollars. Oh, that was it. Blue Jays banter. That was Kitchener, right? Yes. C-K-C-O-T-V. Yeah.

But just, you know, he was kind of like a reliable performer there in the CTV television network over the years. When it came to being on Toronto Mic'd, we're talking now five years since the abrupt cancellation of Canada AM. At which point he had actually been given a send-off, a retirement. He got, okay, his retirement was in motion before they were told Canada AM was gone. So the timing was such that he was on his way out anyways with the farewell tour, if you will,

and then everybody got the big surprise, this thing's done. And now one of them is a member of parliament, Marcy and Ianan so it can work out in different ways but jeff hutchison of an age yeah where he was what sitting by by the sea he's in pei he's very happy and uh he was one of the guys i could tell he'd been listening to toronto mike hearing all his buddies on the show and sort of waiting for an invitation. Like I wish he had reached out. Like I only invited him because I came across Retro Ontario shared a clip of Blue Jays banter

and I had this wave of nostalgia. I used to watch Blue Jays banter and somehow that ended up with a chat in the, as many of these things end up as a chat in our top secret, not so secret FOTM DM group on Twitter. And maybe it was the VP of sales who mentioned bowling for dollars. Next thing you know it, I'm writing my buddy Hebsey and saying, you got a contact email for Hutchinson. And that rest is history. And yet a good story about sticking out long enough at one company

to get that gold watch, which is a story that is not going to be able to be told in future generations. And revealing of what went down towards the end, where he would have been seen as yesterday's man on yesterday's show. They shuffled Canada AM right out of there, replaced it with this Your Morning

Show with Ben Mulrooney. I think on the last episode, we were going to talk about Ben and his departure to try and be a TV production executive. We didn't even get to that. But then you're kind of apathetic because you don't care about your morning, and yet you were on your morning. So we talk about all these shows you've never heard in your life, right? We get into these deep dives about, and yet the one show you were on is of absolutely no interest to you.

Fun fact, the original co-host of Toronto Mic'd, because in the early days, there were two of us hosting the show. People forget Rosie and Gray was a shout-out to the two hosts of Toronto Mic'd. She is a producer on Your Morning, so I think she sticks my name in on a bunch of different... And look, I think that show came a little too late for good old Benedict Mulrooney to be hate-watched. Is that the name?

What is the name? Benedict. I thought it was Benjamin. He's Benedict? No, Benedict Mulrooney all the way. Wow. Today I learned. But you know what?

I mean, look, there was a time when he was the most reviled man on Canadian television at the height of Canadian Idol. And John Doyle would write these scathing columns about how horrible a host he was. And he'd talk daily in all these celebrity suck-ups. But look, ultimately, I think Ben vindicated himself enough to credibly fit into this pseudo-news show. I mean, a lot of it was just like, here's a recap of what happened yesterday on the internet, viral videos and whatever else. But look, nobody questioned Ben Mulroney's ability to do this job by the time he got it. I just think by the time he got it, attention to anything,

like being a Canadian news morning show host, it had scattered so much, right, that by the time we got to 2016, 17, 18, who would even know that Ben Mulroney was doing Canadian morning television? Unless you happen to see it on a screen in a hospital or a nursing home. It's a national CTV morning show. I just assume that that's what the masses watch. Like, I know I don't watch anything in the morning. Well, it certainly was an economical formula.

It was a way of putting a fresh coat of paint on the idea of this morning show. If they did surveys and they found Canada AM was seen as a show for old people, they tried to youth in it up and put Ben in the center of it all. I mean, I think also part of the show has been doing a coast to coast weather forecast every 10 minutes. I don't know if anybody wanted to watch that. I don't know if that's maybe a little bit exhausting. But at the same time, I just think these things have been researched and developed to the point where they figured, okay, if anybody's watching, that's what they want.

They want to hear what the weather is like across the country in the process. So I think not the spotlight Ben was looking for, not the spotlight Brandon Gones was looking for not the spotlight brandon gones was looking for what happened to him well he also walked away and started his own youtube show with big money sponsors i never hear anything about it we might have talked about that here over the years i don't know if it matters uh what his view count is even though i think it's been building over the course of 2021 gaining you know mild momentum to be like the YouTube generation newscaster for Canada. There's definitely something there.

He got people to invest in him and we'll see where it goes. But yeah, he also walked off the job like this. Can we clarify something? Even if he's got only 10,000 views on YouTube for something, that is still better than the number of people watching your morning. And definitely none of those are in the demographic that's going to be watching CTV at 7am. Let's clarify something that I think people are

confused about. So even Jeff Hutchinson seemed confused about this fax, because he was lumping in like, who would I say, he was lumping in guys like Landsberg and Rod Black, because that news broke, I think, while we were chatting.

They worked together on Canada AM. And Ben Mulroney in the same bucket of like, big salary, got to go. Ben Mulroney is like 45 years old. He's got a whole other career here to conquer. And it's in television production, Hollywood stuff behind the scenes, right? He's spent all this time schmoozing with these people.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are his BFFs. I think he's going for it. Does he still work for Bell Media? That was the implication, yes. That he will do projects and try to sell them in Hollywood. Like Kevin Frankish project? No, absolutely not. This, I think, is a legitimate

thing, at least in the sense that he has the opportunity to give it a try, whether or not it succeeds. That he will, in fact, be the connector of Bell Media with Hollywood, and he has this role where he can develop projects, and because he's got his in with BCE, they'll green light anything that he gets, any channel in the United States attached to, Bell Media will go for. That's the assumption. That is what was implied. As long as he finds a partner that will bring it to international markets.

Then we'll see Ben Mulroney's name attached to this stuff, and best of luck. Listen, it ain't easy. Not everybody succeeds, but he is in the privileged position to make it happen despite what happened to his wife. Right.

Now, another, I don't know, victim of cost cutting maybe. I'll hear your opinion in a moment, but Leo Roudens was on Raptors telecasts on Sportsnet as long as they've existed and he's no longer on Sportsnet, but he did make his way down to the basement here to talk about it last week.

And what, accepting of the fact that he got a quarter century of doing this under his belt? What choice does he have? Yeah, he's still at TSN, so it's not, you know, he's still on... Well, the choice he has is maybe to be critical of the idea that there is some sort of discrimination involved. If you want to call it discrimination in reverse.

You mean, yeah, reverse discrimination? They're trying to put a different face on this programming. Is it still reverse if it happens on every level of the industry? At what point is it not reverse anymore? If you want to see it that way. I mean, look look eventually the demographics are just indicating okay it's time to put this guy out to pasture but what i i can't remember offhand like what what does leo reitman's expect to do next or do you make enough money in all

these years that he really doesn't care like what did you get out of interviewing him is he is he looking for the next fix no i mean? He's still working at TSN. Another team to call games for? No, I didn't get that vibe at all. I think he's happy to still be at TSN covering the Raptors. He'll miss his buddy Rod Black there, of course, but they're going to reunite on Toronto Mike. That might be episode 1,000.

But I didn't get a sense that Leo's going to move on to do something else. He's just not on Sportsnet anymore. Okay, and that's because, so what would have been the percentage of his workload that he has now been relieved of? Is that half of the game? Yeah, 50%. He was doing analysis beside Matt Devlin on Sportsnet. That's what Jack Armstrong does on TSN.

He was just the panel guy on TSN. So, I mean, he's probably working, I don't know, 35% of what he used to do. But not bad, right? Leo Routens loses a job and he hightails it right over here. Realizing that he can do the real talk. I think he really enjoys this format too

and he digs it. He loved his first time here and he was excited to come back a second time. Just wait till you get Michael Landsberg back in the basement to tell you the real story of what happened to him. I guess we're waiting for, what, the period to

expire? On that note, can we make an announcement that might be exciting? Right, so on that note, Scott, Scotty Mac, as we call him, Scott MacArthur, is very interested in a return, but he's waiting for a magic moment similar to what you just described.

And when that moment passes, he'll be down here again. And after it happens, we'll be deconstructing it here on a 1236 episode of Toronto Mike. Can I hit the post? Am I going to hit the post? Mike, hitting the post.

Are we playing Tears for Fears because Donnie Darko turned 20 years old? Is that why we're doing that? I brought up Tears for Fears. It's a new Tears for Fears single, which I didn't think much of at first, but I got into after a little while. This is the first new material from Tears for Fears in 17 years. Wow. It's a comeback album that got botched in 2004

and got wrapped up in the life of Roland Orzabal and some of what he's been through on the way to deciding to get back in the studio with Kurt Smith, the other guy from Tears for Fears. Remember at one point, Kurt Smith left Tears for Fears and the whole thing, like, I'm working here with this egomaniac. There's no room for me anymore.

I might as well leave the band. Just let him carry on without me. But just like Daryl Hall and John Oates, it was not the same. Oh, and the guy, Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, I feel, and maybe we could throw Andrew Ridgely in there. Yeah, just not the same without the sidekick, even if his contributions were overshadowed

by the other guy. And so reading about this new Tears for Fears album made me anticipate what's ahead and got me sentimental about the fact that I have been listening to Tears for Fears for some like 40 years. And that was definitely like a CFNY thing. This would have been an act that you would have heard first and foremost on the radio. 102.1 out of Brampton, Ontario.

Everything Tears for Fears before Songs from the Big Chair, CFNY. And then when Songs from the Big Chair breaks, that's like everywhere. That's everything. Well, and before Songs from the Big Chair, one of those cases of a British band that was bigger in Canada before the U.S. Even to the point, I do remember this, in the mid-1980s, like the Tears for Fears, their biggest hits, Shout, and Everybody Wants

to Rule the World, and Mother's Talk, remember that one? Those were actually hits in Canada before the United States. That's why you're here, buddy. They moved in

on a different, earlier wave that you really felt ahead of the curve, and you might know that when it came to make another one of their huge videos, Head Over Heels, they filmed it at the University. And you might know that when it came to make another one of their huge videos,

Head Over Heels, they filmed it at the University of Toronto. You know that, Mike. I do know that, yes. You're an alum of that sacred school. I am, yes. And I think that's one of the things that I'm proudest of. Did you know Robards, I did not know until Paykin, I think Paykin told me, but Robards Library, which is the big library on St. George

that looks like a, I don't know, it looks like a big bird or something. Yeah, right across from where the radio station was until they threw that old house down. But did you know that's named after a premier, Robards, who took his own life? Did you know this? Did you know this?

He took his own life? That's the thing. I think there was more of a stigma attached, so maybe you don't want to promote that aspect of it too much. He can... Shed told me about that. I honestly had no idea that our former Premier Robards, who the library is named after,

took his own life. I had no idea. Tears for Fears also makes me want to give a shout-out to a new recurring theme on Toronto Mike. Pandemic Fridays is no more. I murdered Pandemic Fridays. And I don't regret it.

The likes of me and Liz are rejoicing at the fact that we don't necessarily have to process Stew Stone every seven days. No, listen. I enjoyed every minute I spent with Stew Stone on Pandemic Fridays. At least I'm not leaving nasty comments on your website about Stu Stone. He was off to bigger things anyhow.

Not Morning Radio in Kingston, Ontario, but rather shooting a new film, making an actual movie. So he's in Winnipeg right now, for those who don't know. Stu's making a new movie. Do you remember the name of this thing? Somebody's told us.

You can look it up while I talk about this other series you're doing. Do you want to? You tell me about it. You're the stew stand in the room. I don't know that I care so much about what this movie is called. Progressive Past of Modern Melodies.

If I've got this correctly, this is the newest forum for Cam Gordon, head of communications at Twitter Canada. That's his part-time job, his full-time job, his guest on Toronto Mic'd. And Progressive Past of Modern Melodies is what now? A monthly series where you're going to get together and dig through the ongoing history of new music. But modifying the name and doing it in a context where Cam can get together with people who who worked in the industry and specifically in that first episode.

CFNY veterans, Neil, Brother Billy Morrison, and Ivor Hamilton. Brother Bill was not the guest on that episode. Brother Bill is actually a core member of the hosting team. So it's going to be Brother Bill, Cam Gordon, and I. And we're trying to make it monthly.

It depends on some scheduling conflicts we have. But we have these ideas, these music-themed episodes that we're going to make it monthly. It depends on some scheduling conflicts we have, but we wanted, we have these ideas, these music themed episodes that we're going to dive deep into a much like American hardcore, which prior to today was the longest episode of Toronto Mike. We're, we're going to see if we can get there.

Okay. So Ivor Hamilton was a guest and, uh, I think he's got a pretty good memory as far as being able to recall in that podcast you did talking about the evolution of different songs on CFNY. How something went from being a record that he picked up at the record peddler, an import that he picked up at the airport that somebody brought back from England, something that he read about in a music magazine, and how it went from being played once or twice on the radio to becoming a legitimate hit. Just like I think those early tears for fears records would have been right. And, uh,

therefore, as far as a premier episode of a concept goes, uh, definitely, uh, delivered the goods until I realized that based on the questions from Cameron Gordon, Ivor was giving a lot of wrong answers as far as

responding to whether certain records were played on CFNY. Now, this would have been after his time as a music director there. Ivor is celebrating what? Well over 30 years. 32, 3, 4 at Polygram Universal Records.

He moved his way through different mergers to be, I think, one of the last Canadian record company employees standing, going back to the 80s and 90s. He's still there, loving his job, working in the music business. At the time, it would have been a real sellout. Some guy from CFNY is going to work for a record company could you uh could you imagine anything more evil and here's a fun fact at the time when when iver uh first started his job i wanted to meet him iver hamilton and i wrote an article about hanging out with iver hamilton just really

just because i wanted to know what it was like of him making the rounds trying to promote a record. And somebody I quoted in that article got in a bit of trouble. Not worth getting into here. Oh, that's the good stuff. It was all kind of very dramatic, just shadowing Ivor Hamilton for a day, a job shadow experience as he worked his way.

Of course, I wanted to see what is it like for the promo guy to sell a record, pitch his stuff at different radio stations, over at Much Music, stuff like that. I go back that far almost 30 years now with Ivor Hamilton. I mean, I was basically still a student at the time, and he was very biting. That's where we first met. But Ivor, in answering questions about

did 102.1 The Edge play this song or that song? Did they play Lucas with the lid off? Did they play Cantaloupe by Us 3? How did CFNY acknowledge Sheryl Crow? So how confident are you about that one? I'm pretty confident because I think I was paying attention to this. I think with more and more confidence over the years, I was paying more attention to this stuff than absolutely anyone else.

That I don't dispute. I don't dispute that. I mean, how would I have known this at the time? But are we talking about— How would I have realized that people were not listening as closely as I was? I thought there was a whole tribe out there. Right now we realize it's like you and me and Cam Gordon were the only people that were thin slicing

what was and wasn't played on the radio to that degree. I would take a mental note of certain things. If I would hear that, oh, they're suddenly playing a song that I deemed rather poppy for the station, I would take a mental note. And I personally don't think on any kind of regular rotation at all that those two songs you're at, Lucas with the Lidoff and Cantaloupes

what's it called again? Us Three? What's it called? Us Three. Us Three. It was on Blue Nail Records. It was like sampling old jazz. And again, remember, I was toggling between Much Music and 102.1. This was like, that was it for me, okay? For a long time. And I would always

mentally note the songs that would get played on one but not the other. Oh, Lowest of the Low is on this one, but they're not on Much Music. And those songs were huge Much Music songs. High rotation on Much Music, but I did not hear them. If it's not

collected amongst the scraps of paper that Scott Turner carries over here inside a binder every year or so. Shout out to Scott Turner. It might as well have never existed. But some of this stuff is documented. It's on old websites that you can find in the Internet Archive. Like there was an argument about to what degree did CFNY play Counting Crows. That's right.

And you can find proof of this somewhere out there. And it doesn't, you know, if somebody doesn't have this off the top of their head, you can find evidence to win this, win this parlor game. I look forward to subsequent episodes about what was and wasn't played. Is this the concept of the monthly show? That was actually just the theme for the first episode.

So this is, this is, because I thought we could just, we could just go on forever. A scrutinizing old CFNY playlist. It sounds like you'll be a future guest when we revisit that topic. It sounds like I have no choice. Can I tell you...

Who am I missing? So when I have on and I discover like a Scott Turner or an Ivor Hamilton or a Mark Weisblot or a Retro Ontario or a Cam Gordon, I need the list of these people I've yet to speak to because sometimes people, I miss people. I have a black hole spot and I miss it.

Well, and talk about Massey Hall with David McPherson. You did mention one, that was Elliot Lefkoe. Yes, yes, I know he's missing. Who flatly turned you down and then subsequently, very strange, wrote a flattering review of the podcast. He loves Toronto Mike. He just doesn't want to appear on it. And you can't get him.

And just like his old buddy, I know they were close, Dave Bookman, who also turned you down, might have been the only Toronto Mike guest to pass away. Well, except he was never a guest. He was never a guest. So I don't know. It's just these deep dives isn't everybody's thing.

Did I mention Hazel McCallion's coming on? Okay, let's not jinx that before it happens. Alright, my friend. I'm going to play a song that'll segue us into our next topic here. You uncovered this jam. Let's hear it. Come and listen to a story of a man named Ted. Just a

humble lawyer trying to earn a little bread until he had an epiphany to put a Rogers cable on the back of your TV. Goodbye, rabbit ears. Hello, Mr. Rogers. Hello, Bieber. Now before too long, Ted becomes a millionaire.

He and wife Loretta living life without a care. And then one day, his young son, Egg, climbed up onto his knee and said, What's next, Ted? Cellular phones, video stores, internet, Blue Jays, Rogers Center. And now you see the Rogers name in almost every home. They even got a thing they call the Rogers Telephone. And if you ever ask him how he came to have such luck he says I'm just a humble lawyer and I'm trying to earn a buck. Well he did that all right and then some. Even got his son running cable and telecom and retail.

Now that's what I call delegating. Yes, sir, cable is his label. Okay, we're moving on to Rogers, but I have two pieces of important info to pass on before you take the mic and talk about this Rogers saga. One is that the new Stu Stone movie that he's filming in Winnipeg is called Bandits. Apparently it's not a biopic on Billy Van, but it's called Bandits.

Are you telling me that was worth interrupting our flow for? No, but this was. Uncle Bobby Cox has shown up on the Pirate Stream to tell us that Lucas's dad, Lucas with the lid off, his dad founded Pottery Barn. The mic is yours, Mr. Weisblot. Rogers Communications. A shout out there to the Canada Land podcast, which I was invited to be on last week, by the way.

And why did you turn it down? I wasn't really in the mood. Because he's not Toronto Mike. He just has more money than I do. He's just Jesse Brown. I mean, I didn't turn it down on the grounds that I wasn't going to do it again sometime. But the invitation

that came in was to talk about Rogers. And first and foremost, I don't think I could have articulated anything all that different about the dispute, the boardroom brawl that's going on there. But yeah, I also knew in the back of my mind I wanted to save it for Toronto Mike.

That warms the cockles of my heart. We'll do Canada Land another day. Let me know when Jesse gives you three hours a month. Obviously. Oh, no. By the way, he will give me three hours at a time. He edited it. It's like crazy.

Like, absolutely. The thing you if you actually listen to Canada Land, maybe it's not quite smart lists as far as the post-production involved. That's Fred Patterson's favorite podcast. It's quite heavily edited to get to the point, which can sometimes be a challenge when the guest happens to be me. But any appearance that I made on Canada Land was more like, let's say, three times the length of what showed up in the final.

I believe it. Everyone's editing. It's the coolest fad now. Well, I have no control over that. So, look, I'm honored to be thought of by Jesse Brown when it came to the topic of Rogers and the dispute, the drama that's going on there that he thought I would be a good guest, but we'll do another topic another day.

Still, he covered it with somebody else and dug up that promo commercial for Rogers. Was it for internal use only? I kind of remember hearing it on the airwaves. I'm not very sure. I only discovered it when you linked me to it. What is it? Beverly Hillbilliesy it didn't even make it to uh youtube that's how obscure that video is and talking about his son edward how he put him in charge of different divisions in the company uh situation where he wasn't going to let one of his heirs uh just coast his way uh up to the top he was

gonna make him work. You know, laying cable, doing all the grunt jobs, answering customer service telephones, whatever that you had to do to make it look like your kid was getting the job entirely on merit and not on the grounds of just because his dad happens to run the place. But here, Canadians have been drawn into the saga of Rogers Communications, at first thanks to the fact that the CFO, Chief Financial Officer, did you catch wind of this?

The butt dialing? It wasn't a name you would have heard before. Yeah, that he was leaving the company, the CFO. You know, there was no reason why. Tony Stafferi being his name. That was at the end of September. So there were headlines, CFO leaving the company, no reason given. People wondering what was going on. Then it came out that the reason that the CEO of Rogers currently,

you know the guy's name? Joe Natale. Yes. He was hired over from TELUS to fill that CEO role, which is done by an outsider, specifically because that was part of Ted Rogers' wishes, that even though there was a succession plan intact, that the whole idea was there, that his wife Loretta and his kids would inherit the company, it was on the condition that they would have

some kind of outsider in charge. have some kind of outsider in charge. And that was written in the company constitution, the family trust, whatever it was. This is a thing that Toronto Mayor John Tory is mixed in with, that he, in fact, has a role to play in that family trust. That's how he ended up skipping off work for a day to mediate a family discussion to figure out what to do with the fact that Edward Rogers, Edward Rogers III, son of Ted, wanted the outsider boss of the company gone. even at the cost of a $200 million severance package for Joe Natale, that he would join that club of people who were being paid, okay, nine figures not to work anymore. That was part of his contract.

That was part of the deal. Edward Rogers wanted him gone. This comes at a time when Rogers tried to snap up Shaw and become a much bigger telecom company across Canada. How can these dollar figures be in the equation? Well, because as we've discussed here over the years, including when Edwards' wife, Suzanne Rogers, put an Instagram photo of the family with a thumbs up from Donald Trump, had to apologize for doing that. This was because Rogers is running the kind of business where people send them money in the mail every month, right? Like, the cash flow is never going to stop until the end of time, as long as there are cellular telephones around.

They've got that business locked and loaded. They're going to take Shaw Communications, right? It's going to be Rodgers versus Bell. The space for smaller players is going to get even smaller. Rogers is going to dominate forever to the point where getting rid of the guy in charge, paying him $200 million to go away,

it's just chump change, not a big deal. And this is what Edward had in mind. This was part of his plan revealed to Joe Natale because of a butt dial. And a conversation he heard on a patio. Must have been pretty luxurious restaurant they were talking from.

And if it wasn't for that, presumably all this would have happened more quietly behind the scenes. I think it was at Kelsey's, by the way. I'm not sure, though. I have to check my sources. There we have Martha Rogers. Fake chiropractor. She lost her license at some point. That was another little Canada land revelation.

Found that out. It's specifically her and her mother, Loretta, who were opposed to Edward's plan, doing what they could to block it in the boardroom. Edward was going to replace the membership of the board of directors to get his way, to see things through, and the whole idea that because of the family trust, the other family members, in fact, can have veto power

if they disagree with the methods of Edward. Martha Rogers climbs on to Twitter where she has, I don't know, 500 followers. Guess what? Looking right now, she's got 15,000 people following on Twitter, waiting for her to deliver the next tweet. Here's the thing, though. Initially, it was the middle of the night. Friday, Saturday night, said,

I'm going to reveal the truth about Edward and Suzanne every hour on the hour. And like Jesse Brown, a little disappointed, like she didn't deliver the goods. She did not tweet every hour on the hour. I don't know what state she was in at three o'clock in the morning, but she was not as prolific as she promised to be here on this Thursday, November 4th. Also this morning, a tweet, as I said from the start, I'll be tweeting continuously and you can stop me anytime by ceasing, desisting, and stepping down. Well, guess what? Like, crickets have kind of followed.

But she keeps insinuating that she's going to reveal something about this photo with Donald Trump, that she's sitting on that little bit of intel about an association that they have. Another thing is Navigator Limited. You've heard of Navigator? Of course, of course. Kind of rush in and do this spin control. The idea that they've been hired by Team Edward

here to tell us that story. It's all going to be solved in court in British Columbia. That's where Rogers is incorporated for whatever reason. We're going to decide what kind of power Edward has. Smart money is he's going to win this in the end.

The way that everything is structured there it's actually taking Edward's side. I don't know. Maybe we'll find out what's going on with Suzanne Rogers before this is all over. Maybe we'll find out what they were doing at Mar-a-Lago with Trump. Now I've got you in my sights.

With these hungry eyes. Speaking of Rodgers, can we talk about CHFI? Well, Eric Carman from Dirty Dancing must be our cue because CHFI play this song more than any other, I think, in their playlist these days. Like this chestnut from 1987-88. This is the sound of 98.1 CHFI Toronto Music Mix. It's the song you're most likely to hear at any given day, any given time, if you tune in that radio station.

Here's the unsolved mystery here on November 4th. What is this radio station going to sound like in the future? Are they going to keep the adult contemporary format that they're doing now, even though it seemed like they were being walloped in the ratings? The Big Money demo seems to like. Chum, 104.5. Marilyn Dennis and Jamar have the winning hand. And as we discussed here over the course of the summer into fall,

changes at CHFI, which first involved a send-off to the longtime morning show producer, Ian the General MacArthur. I think I have a real soft spot for this guy. Not the least bit because of the fact that here, only in his early to mid-50s, they put him out to pasture. They said, we don't need you anymore, after spending over 30 years as a producer of a morning radio show that made multi millions of dollars for Rogers from Don Daynard to Aaron Davis.

Aaron Davis being fired, coming back again. Mike Cooper. This was a money machine. I don't even know what Ian the General did, but it must have been magic because because his morning show ruled the ratings in Toronto for all this time. The fact that it's sinking a little bit now, the fact that Darren B. Lamb ghosted his own morning show for a while, Mike Cooper comes back in with Maureen Holloway, another terrific FOTM. Maureen Holloway, I disclose, I have been listening to her on Toronto radio for at least 35 years. That seemed to be a mind blow that I could keep track of the radio for that long, that I've known who Mo is for all this time, even once corresponded with her.

Shout out to Mo. That was back in the radDigest.com days when I was a big radio gossip monger. But I know, look, I know these people are at least aware of 1236. Love talking to them every day, and especially when an old soldier like Maureen Holloway is suddenly fired for the first time in her career, gets that tap on the shoulder at CH5.

What we surmise, the tale will have to wait for her to come back here to tell, is how far in advance did she know that she was a goner? Right. Or was this more of a sudden thing as it seemed to be presented online? Right. What is, what, yeah. What were you going to say? What's going to replace Maureen Holloway and CH5?

Well, okay. Well, we've been talking forever about where the heck Gurdip and Pooja resurfaced because they both quit CP24, popular duo on the CP24 Breakfast Show. And, you know, we've been speculating through the last several episodes of Mark Weisblatt on Toronto

Mic. I think I'm at the point now where I think they're going to be the new morning show duo at CHFI. But what say you? Well, I mean, look, process of elimination indicates as much, including the fact that they put a temporary morning host. Brooke C was a DJ on Kiss 92.5, suddenly speaking to the Eric Carman Hungry Eyes crowd.

And special guest sidekick Tracy Moore from City Line on CTV. And just like what happened the past month, City News and 680 News merging. Maybe a little correlation to a greater degree at Rogers between radio and television. For which this duo of Gurdip Aluwalia and Pooja Honda would be perfect, right? They have TV experience. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Can you combine that with putting them on the radio? Because, you know, Roz and Mocha, and I only know this from Elvis,

believe it or not. Elvis has started watching breakfast television because he's such a Sid Sixero fan. They found the one of them out there, Elvis. So Elvis tells me that Roz and Mocha will do hits on Breakfast. I had no idea. At least somebody's watching. Right. Paying attention to what's going on.

I would then sort of extrapolate that Pooja and Gurdip on CHFI would similarly appear on Breakfast television. And, yeah, that would be the indication. And I do wonder if all this uh uh boardroom brawling at rogers has in fact delayed huh the evolution of could there be some kind of a non-compete they're just waiting to expire like if you quit that could be happening as well but i think in the process if the look uh again like that merger of uh city news 680 happened there is no more independent i know i took a photo of Carl Hansky's car

and he called me a stalker. And they couldn't even match the... It was parked on the street. They couldn't even match the fonts on their vehicle. This multi-billion dollar company couldn't even get that right. Well, they're matched, but one's italicized. And in the process, 680 City News,

so it's now considered all one united entity. Sure. Okay, that's fine. So FOT now considered all one united entity. Sure. Okay, that's fine. So FOTM. Shout out to FOTM. Who are we looking at? Mike Apple. Of course, he's great.

He's great. And the other business guy. Richard Southern. Richard Southern. Right. They're both good FOTM. I think they have more fun than anybody else. What about Michelle Mackey?

Michelle Mackey is also there. She's trying to be more of a straight newswoman? Okay, but let's focus here. Okay, so it's all one entity. It's all one of the same, and I know it's because they changed up the website, and it's got the staff of City News, and they hung on to Mark Daly, right? Because he died on the job. He's still allowed, unlike every other ex-personality,

to have his own page on the website. But that's a significant detail there. He was never fired. He passed away while employed. Yeah, he was the one guy of that generation that they did not deliberately put out to pasture. It just would have happened like a year or two later. Right.

Eventually, of course. For Gordon Martineau. Eventually it would happen. Although Cynthia Mulligan's still hanging and they're doing well. Okay. Some sort of overhaul at CHFI. And the notion that this dynamic CP24 breakfast duo, Pooja and Gurdip, which let's face it, that's amazing.

These are different kinds of names that you don't associate with the WASP-y regime of Canadian media. There are no Jesse and Gene, right? Especially at Rogers. For all I know, Ted is rolling in his grave over the idea that he's letting people with names like that show up. No, listen.

That was the old stock. This is the most diverse city in the world. Yeah, but we all know the media didn't reflect that. That's a given. And of course there are people who take that too far. But I think it does reflect a period of time where someone like Ted Rogers would have been completely oblivious to these considerations. Right?

Like, even if somebody told him that you should be reflecting the multiculturalism of the city, he would not have been able to process the thought. No, that was more of a Moses thing, a Moses vision. Yeah, okay. That was more of a Moses thing, a Moses vision. Yeah, okay. And the whole idea was that 680 Rogers would be this white bread style of broadcasting. So here we have a little evolution revolution there. It doesn't mean that Maureen Holloway should be unemployed to eternity.

She should be forced to walk the plank, never be on the air ever again forever. But this speaks to the fact that Maureen finally got herself one of those salaries that puts a target on your back. Like there's something to that. Like she now makes enough cabbage that she could be cut to save a bunch of money. Okay, but here's the thing. I found Pooja and Gurdip and they were on this service called Memo.

Did you want me to go there? Yeah, if you could find one of those. So we all know about Cameo. That became like a big pandemic thing where you could write in and get a message from your favorite celebrity to wish you a happy birthday. You know, a cast member from your favorite television show. Suddenly they have nothing better to do than to give you a shout out. As it was found that it was Kevin from The Office. Did you catch wind of that?

He was actually the most popular of all the celebrities on Cameo, Brian Baumgartner, because of The Office being big with kids today. Everybody loves Kevin. But this other thing shows up called memo and it's got, uh, the same premise, right? You got a personalized message from a celebrity, uh, and, uh, there's some overlap there with, uh, cameo people, I guess they're free agents. Uh, you actually will find multiple FOTMs on there. Just look at the homepage here and, you know, a whole bunch of, is this geotargeted or whatever?

A whole bunch of legendary Leafs, Boria Salming, Wendell Clark, Doug Gilmore. You can all buy a message for them. You want to hear one? And they're on memo. We've got Pooja and Gradeep offering both personal messages and corporate ones. Buck Martinez is here. There you go. Maybe you can get him to record a message.

Get vaccinated. Get vaccinated. Get vaccinated. Hey, let's play a Gurdip. Listen, for $99.50, the price listed here, he'll do it all. I mean, Buck Martinez. Look, half the price of Eric Estrada. Happy birthday from your favorite media personality, Gurdip Al-Awali.

I don't know that I'm your favorite, but I just went ahead and declared myself your favorite. I understand it's your birthday, and I also understand that during your mat leave, you basically watch the show every single morning with your baby daughter, Adeline. Now, look, I know Adeline can't speak just yet. No, no, I don't think it's dated. I think it's new. I think he's referring to the show in the present tense. See, Mike, this is smoking gun I think he's referring to the show in the present tense. See? Mike!

This is smoking gun, like he's still talking about himself as an active media personality. But we don't know this is current. He might have recorded this when he was on CP24. I believe... No, no. Doesn't it say on the page, former CP24 personality? Sure, but they

might change the page without... Peddling these after the fact. What can you find there? You're a guy who knows about SEO. What can you discover in the metadata about when these things were recorded? Hey, what's going on, Lauren and Sutter? Just wanted to wish you a very, very happy birthday.

That's to you, Lauren Eakins, and to Sutter. Look, I hear you're missing me in the morning, so I wanted to send you a special birthday shout-out. I hope you'll follow me on my next journey. I hope I can announce it morning, so I wanted to send you a special birthday shout-out. Missing me, this one's more current. I hope you'll follow me on my next journey. I hope I can announce it soon, and I hope to be making your mornings again soon as well. Woo, there's a big clue.

I understand Sutter is three years old. Is that in human years or dog years? Probably human years, right? Because dog years would put Sutter at about 21 or so. I don't know, math isn't my sport. Anyways, big shout-out to you, and a happy birthday to you and Sutter from your family. How much does it cost for this

wonderful video from Gurdeep? Would you believe that you can get a personalized video from Gurdeep Alawalia? Now you know how to pronounce his last name too, Mike. You're never going to get that wrong again. Alawalia. You can get it for $40. Can I tell you this? 24-hour delivery. You got to tack on 20 more bucks. If you told me it was $4,

I'd lose all interest. I want Gurdeep to record a video for me for free because he wants to it's like going to a strip club oh she got naked for me yeah if this is a guy you're watching on tv every single morning i don't might not wire that way no interest look you're you're overestimating the way the hoi polloi perceives these things, right? Like, there is still a percentage of the population, even if they're not going to care about Ben Mulroney anymore, who sees Gurdip on television. It's like, hey, Gurdip mentioned my name.

He knows who I am. I think that's enough validation for the people who would be excited about this. You have every local personality come into your basement, okay? You're completely jaded and cynical about how all this works. Anyway, okay, so $40 for Gurdip. $20 more bucks if you want it within a day, as if he has anything better to do. It's $160 extra bucks if it's for companies, but if you want him to do a marketing video,

he will do it for $1,500. And he's paid more than Pooja. She asks base rate, $32. Marketing video, $322. And based on this memo page, guess what? No one's looking for Pooja. I think it's Gurdip. He's got the special sauce.

Is it safe to say that she's nothing without him? Stand by and see if they get this CHFI job. Gurdip is childless, right? Without children. Is that the deal? And Pooja has children, right? It's possible that this is simply like Pooja

can't be bothered. She's busy. She can't be bothered. It's possible Pooja would be more popular if she raised her price. I mean, compare and contrast, right? Gurdip will do a shout out to your company, a marketing video for $1,500

Canadian dollars. That's how he values himself but for puja and he has a sports side like i feel like 22 he can uh cross over to the sports fan them because he's done a lot of you know tsn stuff and everything but this jam what am i listening to this is elton john and Dua Lipa. Turn it up. I've got a cold heart Heart done by you Something's looking better, baby Just pass it through And I think it's gonna be a long, long time Till touchdown brings me round again to find

Another man, I think I am at home Oh no, no, no And this is what I should have said Well I thought it but I kept it here I got into this game of trying to figure out who will be the oldest rock star to make a record that is considered a genuine success, right? Not only being a big chart hit, but actually being something credible that people would want to voluntarily listen to. And this comes out now of, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 years of listening to all these classic rock artists, first and foremost, the Rolling Stones, putting out a new album that nobody really pays

any attention to or cares about, right? Maybe it gets a write-up in Rolling Stone magazine, four or five stars, how great it is, but quickly forgotten because it's disposable compared to the classic stuff. And so informally, I've been trying to keep track over recent years, you know, who will be, who will be the classic rock artist into their 70s, if not their 80s, to come up with a song that lives up to the legacy of their old repertoire? We can't expect that from the surviving Beatles, even though Paul McCartney had that song with Kanye West and Rihanna, 2015. Six seconds or something? Four or five seconds. And that was a great one.

I thought that was a breakthrough. But you don't hear Paul's voice on that song. I just want to point out. But Paul owns it as a song. Like, I believe he genuinely, it wasn't just featuring Paul McCartney as an aside. He did the song in concert, you see, subsequently. So he took ownership of that as part of the history of the Beatles.

When the kids listen to that jam, they think they're listening to Kanye and Rihanna. But I'm interested in it and have put it on repeat thousands of times because it's got Paul McCartney. And he was looking very airbrushed in that video. And look, who knows? Paul McCartney may have another number one hit in him someday. But you know who's going to get their first? Elton John. Because of that song that he did with Dua Lipa. But you know who's going to get there first? Elton John.

Because of that song that he did with Dua Lipa. Have you heard this one? This is actually a genuine pop radio hit right now. Cold Heart, which was generated from a mashup involving multiple Elton John songs. Do you remember what we just heard? Do you recognize the songs in there? Of course.

Rocket Man and the Cold Cold Heart part. One of the later Elton John ballads. Sacrifice. Not as familiar as Sacrifice. So that's what they're referencing. There was a great Sports Illustrated VHS. If you subscribe to Sports Illustrated, they sent you this VHS cassette of a montage of great sports moments.

And Joe Montana is releasing the football. He's throwing it like this rocket. And you can see like they did some digital effect where you can see the flames of the ball as he throws his rocket. And you hear Rocket Man. And I thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw. You can see the flames of the ball as he throws his rocket. And you hear Rocket Man. And I thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw. The backstory on that, then,

is that Elton did not want to reprise the Rocket Man thing. That they thought singing it was a little played out and enlisted Dua Lipa as part of his lockdown sessions. They got a genuine hit out of it. There's another reference in there, a 1976 song from Elton John, Where's the Shura? Oh. That's that Shura.

I'm more of an Elton's greatest hits fan. Of the cold, cold heart. And then there's a fourth Elton John song referenced in there, in the bridge. And that's one that I remember from the chum chart. Yes. 1983 called Kiss the Bride. And you might remember that this was in Elton John's face as a heterosexual.

Sure. When he was married to a woman. Even Rocket Man, he talks, and I know he didn't write the lyrics, but Bernie Taupin did. But he does talk about his wife. But I think Kiss the Bride was at the point where Elton John was, shall we say, trying to present as straighter as part of his comeback with that Too Low for Zero album. And you might then remember that song, Kiss the Bride, from that same album.

It was I'm Still Standing. I guess that's why they call it the blues. These are all city TV shows theme songs. And that was after Elton was in the wilderness for a while, I think. And it was because it kind of ruined his rock and roll credibility. You know what I mean? He was going the way of the disco acts where like a real rock radio station wouldn't touch Elton anymore.

This is what kept George Michael in the closet so long, was seeing what happened to his buddy Elton. And he was still kind of aiming for that AM dial. And even though in America, like AM radio was out of the way, you still had 1050 Chum. I remember hearing Kiss the Bride. I looked up the history of Kiss the Bride.

There it was on the Chum chart. And I put on the 1236 Twitter how looking at Elton and Dua Lipa referencing Kiss the Bride, that in fact, here we are 38 years later. It's as close as you can get to a song from 1983 re-entering its way back onto Chump. I have to do my part for this Chump chart geekery.

I love it. It includes being under the delusion that this is like a continuation of formats and approaches to the radio station principles. I mean, there were decades when they didn't even have a song Chump chart at all. What were you going to say? There's a song on Top 40 radio, and I can't even credit my

oldest daughter with this. It's actually my youngest daughter who seems to like this song, and she's only five. And it really, it sounds to my ears like Let's Get Physical by Olivia Newton-John, but it's not, this woman is not saying Let's Get Physical. I had to do some more homework, but it's a Top

40 jam, like a top 40 jam, like current top 40 jam, which sounds like let's get physical. Isn't that, is that also Dua Lipa? Yeah, maybe. So-called physical?

You can do, you can do your research in the meantime. I'm just saying, I, so I hear like early 80s stuff. And, and I mean, I,

we talk about that massive weekend hit sounds an awful lot like a couple of jams. It sounds a bit like a couple of jams. It sounds a bit like Aha! Take On Me. But it also sounds a lot like Rod Stewart's Young Turks. The big jam from... Or are you talking about Kiss Me More by Doja Cat? Is that it? That's the one. Okay, Doja Cat featuring SZA.

Okay, so that sounds to me like Let's Get Physical. I know this stuff because more than ever, it's kind of like a later pandemic thing that I got into. I'm listening more and more to top 40 radio stations. I've talked about here. Getting more into the idea of hearing radio, mostly American stations, that will play the same songs every 90 minutes

over and over again. That's just something I got into, including that Elton John. Yeah, comfort listening. That Doja Cat one, that's the one. McMorgan likes the Doja Cat song. If you into, including that Elton John. Yeah, comfort listening. That Doja Cat one. That's the one. McMorgan likes the Doja Cat song. If you want to find that in the meantime. She likes cats anyway. Well, I try to make a point.

You can look that up if you want. I was going to say, so the fact that we've got 38 years between Elton John's Kiss the Bride referenced on the Chum chart. I put that on Twitter, and I believe my spirit animal there at Chum, Caitlin Green, sidekick on The Morning Show. She does these What's Trending newscasts there with Marilyn and Jamar.

She was away for a while, just recently came back. I believe she actually appreciates the fact that I'm paying this rapt attention to the history of CHUM. And I was retweeted on the official Chum account. Like, you know, at least for that, at least I got a fleeting flashback to being, you know, like, 9, 10, 11 years old and calling in on the radio station.

One New Year's Eve, I called in and I guessed the entire top 10 of the year end 1983 on Chum. Like, I was actually right on what the year end 1983 on Chump. Wow. Like I was actually right on what the year end top 10 would be, except I transposed two of the songs, so I was not 100% correct, so I didn't win the prize.

I need to ask you about a name at CHFI who's no longer on the air and tell me what you know about her. Tish Eyston? Do you know the name Tish Eyston? Is that a name that you knew? Did I say it correctly? Yeah.

Well, she's been around a while. I think before that, CJZ, Easy Rock, kind of one of those swing shift people filling in the drive times, evenings, and weekends, voice track. Maybe she was doing a shift on a whole bunch of different Rogers radio stations out there. But yeah, they let her go. That was seen as, again, a sign of shifting

sands over there. They also changed her production director, and it's an FOTM who's now doing a re-imaging of CHFY. Blind Derek Derrick. Wellesman, you had him in the basement, what, decades ago? I'm looking at his Blue Jay thing. When was he here? He was an earlier guest. Was he still

on Dean Blundell's show? Or that was after that? No, no, it's post-Blundell. Talking about what led to Dean Blundell being canceled and how they talked about the trial where he was on the jury. Was he the foreman? And that led to the elimination of Dean Blundell on CHFI. Well, his credibility intact because he worked at this Boom 97.3, responsible for the production there. Enough to be called up to CHFI.

So whatever is going on behind the scenes at CHFI, it is Derek Welsman, as we speak, who is twirling the knobs and making things happen. Including, I don't know, maybe they'll change the name of the station. Maybe it will not be CHFI anymore. They're not going to fuck with that. In honor of, it will be CFER, in honor of Edward Rogers, when he emerges triumphant. Put, stamp his initials on the radio station.

Those are hungry eyes. Did you want to talk about, okay. I have to tell you about Tish, though. I have to tell you, fans of Tish Eyston, this is important. Oh, Tish. I thought you said Kish. Noiston this is important oh tish i thought you said kish no i love her of of uh rhyme the world in 80 days andrew casino uh that's a bit yeah he made like five bucks what happened with uh tish fill me in tish is making her toronto mic debut in

early december she's locked and loaded to visit not a zoom visit the tmds studio and do you think you'll get real talk out of her about what only one way to find out wise blood i gotta i gotta rough her up a little and see what comes out are we gonna talk about peter sherman okay do the sherman thing yes please let's talk about peter sherman he was on the show a couple of weeks ago he came over talk to me about peter sherman i think p think Peter Sherman acquitted himself in the visit that he made here to TMDS. What do you mean exactly? I mean, I think that even last month when I was here, I mischaracterized what happened to him because I was working off of a bunch of tweets, a True North website report by Sue Ann Levy that was considerably torqued and maybe didn't even fully understand the situation,

and yet appended with that story was a recording of the segment that led to the end of Peter Sherman on Global News Radio AM640. And you had that segment. You played it initially for Ann Roszkowski. That's right. To give her judgment about this incident that found a woman from Ryerson who works in consent education, Farah, not Farah, Farah?

Farah Khan. Farah Khan. And there she was a guest on the air with Peter Sherman, and they were talking about a new initiative to train bartenders in Ontario, along with their SmartServe certification. Mike Boone has a SmartServe membership card. I am SmartServe certified.

I can serve you alcohol as I just did. You sat there and did an exam. You didn't cheat? You can't. You couldn't. I wouldn't anyway, but you couldn't. I can't tell you how impossible it would have been to cheat. They want to see everything in the room. They listen closely.

They look at everything. All the software open on your computer. You cannot cheat on this exam. You are enlisted to pour cans of GLB. Was there even any pouring involved? Yeah, yeah. Or did aServe mean just hand somebody over a can?

No, I did a lot of pouring. And not only did I work that grilled cheese festival, I then worked Rib Fest in Centennial Park. I've never worked so damn hard for like a hundred bucks, I'm telling you, buddy.

Yeah, but it's a good side hustle. I loved it. Because it keeps you in the good graces of GLB here. I pretend I'm Woody on Cheers. Bring the beer and help lubricate the real talk here for... Labor of love.

How many years now? Almost 10. So Farrakhan did not appreciate the way that Peter Sherman characterized a situation where a young woman would find herself in a dangerous situation in a nightclub for which Ontario Smart Service stepping in and trying to train bartenders to be a little more vigilant. of a young female relative from a small town, staying with the family, and she was going out of the town clubbing, and she was dressed a certain way, and she didn't maybe understand the ways of the big city,

and it was Peter Sherman who referenced that she maybe needed a little bit of fatherly caution lest she get herself into trouble. Those were the words. Yeah, those are the words that triggered the issue here. Right. That he put it that way. And Farrakhan waiting on the line to give, again, give her credit, been great speaker, a different point of view, something that is definitely different from what conservative AmTalk radio listeners want to hear,

saying that in a situation like that, you should not characterize a young woman as getting herself into trouble. She is not first and foremost, if at all, responsible for the trouble that she is getting into. And this was a point of contention. Here we were getting into semantics, some thin slicing of language, and I think a legitimate debate. And even Peter Sherman agrees that he would have been willing to have a dialogue with her whether or not this is an appropriate thing to say. The kind of discussion upon which you would want to develop a fair and balanced talk radio

station. But under the circumstances, here he has a situation where his guest, in fact, took issue with what he was saying and quickly recused herself from the conversation do i got this right so she wasn't uh willing to talk to him any longer right because she objected to the way she was putting it and took to twitter right to amplify her offense of people who would never be listening to any talk radio station at all. Right.

Well, not on the AM dial. How terribly she was treated there, taking offense with Peter Sherman, rather than having a discussion with him on the air, a discussion he was perfectly willing to have. But what's interesting is... A discussion he's willing to have on your podcast someday. Right.

If you can get... So he doesn't blame her as much as he finds fault in what subsequently happened. Right? That these weaponized tactics of complaining on Twitter send the human resources department

at Chorus into some kind of panic mode. Like, we've got to do something about this so this never happens again. How will we make sure it never happens again? Let's make sure Peter Sherman never appears on our airwaves any longer.

I said it a million times. I said it to Ann. I said it to Peter, to his face. But it's easy to get rid of that pay-as-you-go fill-in guy. That's an effortless rule. Easier than it might have been to get rid of Mike Stafford. Yeah, right. You don't even have to go through HR for this. So there he was doing remote broadcasting from his home at Niagara-on-the-Lake,

where he lives now. I think he was doing it remote anyway before the pandemic, so even more so now. He was already rigged up for this stuff and Peter Sherman with a loud, booming voice. And that also came up as an issue. That, like, the way he presents himself, yeah, it's not for everyone.

There would be guests on the show who would maybe find that a little bit of an ambush, am I correct in saying? Like, he owns up to that. No doubt. Putting on that talk radio bluster can seem like a little bit of a broadside. I listen to lots of people in these headphones.

I'm being attacked by this loudmouth. I listen to lots of people in these headphones, I'm being attacked by this loud mouth. I listen to lots of people in these headphones. What is this, episode 944? I don't think I have anyone on these headphones that quite sounds like Peter Sherman. Well, it's certainly not me who's competing with him. You're in a different octave, though. I'm doing my best.

You might be loud and proud, but you're not up in that. And Peter Sherman started out Montreal's radio DJ, and then he became broadcast executive. He talked about how he ran standard broadcasting at one point. Not to interrupt. I know we're going to wrap up this Peter Sherman analysis and how Greg Brady comes into play, but it is interesting that this appearance

of Farah Khan on the 640 talk show that got him relieved of his duties as fill-in host at 640. show that got him relieved of his duties as fill-in host at 640. That's a done deal. But it also resulted in Peter Sherman being booted from the Tarion board.

And yet it wasn't confirmed why. I mean, the timing was impeccable. Subsequently, certain correspondence has been shared with me that basically say it was that appearance on 640 that was the impetus for removing Peter Sherman from the board. So it caused, Peter Sherman, that incident with Farrakhan, not only cost him his fill-in duties at 640, it cost him his role on the Tarion board.

Now, he made a bunch of money because he sold a voicemail company. Right. And that led to him getting back into broadcasting on CFRB as a fill and talk radio host. And then he had a run. I think he was in there with John Tory. What was originally supposed to be like the comeback of the Ontario progressive conservative party did that for a little while.

John Tory, Tim, Tim Hudak. He didn't stick around for the Doug Ford era long enough and got back and doing fill-in radio hosting on 640. But as he referenced in his interview with you then, he's looking into legal action here. And it's not because he's,

it's not that he wants like the 100 bucks a shift that he was getting paid by 640. If he was even getting paid that much at all, it's the damage to his reputation. I mean, he was not specific. It might have been as high as $100 an hour. He might have been making a whole $100 an hour. But, okay, well, he is...

Well, is this fair? I've talked to lawyers. I've talked to lawyers about this. Do you think he was treated fairly under the circumstances? I was, if you listen to that great episode of Peter Sherman on Toronto Mic, I said several times that the punishment did not fit the crime, in my humble opinion. And don't you think that current 640 Morning Show host, Greg Brady, is an absolute weasel for going on the radio and issuing an apology to the fact that here on this radio station, which at least at one point, I don't know what they're planning to do anymore,

was formatted in a way to have discussion and debate. Greg Brady goes on his new morning show and expresses regret for the fact that a guest took issue with how they were spoken to on the air in the context of having a two-way conversation about it. What is Greg Brady doing apologizing for that? He is undermining what was at least, at least before he came along, to me, the entire point of the radio station was to have people in arguments with one another, right? I mean, we're recognizing

that the topics that are on the air, whether political, social, economic, whatever, that you are in fact occasionally finding two opposing forces who are having, like we tend to have here, I think, Mike, on this episode, we might have had more arguments than ever here in our five-year friendship on this show. But you can take it. I can handle it. We can deal. We're going to leave here as amicably exhausted as we always do.

There was no point in this conversation when you imagine me storming out of your basement or you kicking me out of your house. And I would think, okay, at this point in time, somebody willing to come on a radio station like that, maybe they should understand, okay, the host is not going to agree with you or contextualize things in a way that you'll find favor with. So the whole point is to go on the air and tell them that they're saying things wrong. Not cut and run, hang up the phone,

go on Twitter and tell everybody about it. Then have the management of chorus, again, hit the panic button and get rid of you then to the point where Farrakhan had to say, I didn't want this guy fired. That wasn't what I was setting up to do. So maybe there's a bit of a generation gap and we know that a lot of people maybe don't realize

the power of Twitter. Wait, how old is Farrakhan? She's not a kid. I don't know somewhere. I think she's an older millennial, younger Gen Xer, somewhere in that range. Probably about Monica's age, which puts her as the youngest of the Gen Xers.

Okay, so look, the AM talk radio arena isn't her thing. But anybody that has grown up. Not my thing either. Well, let's sing this format. This is what you hear. Look, this is what it's all about. Like, there's no show without having this degree of disagreement about anything, right? You don't say, like, I was upset, I was offended,

this is the worst thing ever. Maybe you should do a little research at the time and realize the nature of the situation. Why is Greg Brady? Well, let me ask you. What is the name of this Greg Brady radio morning show? Toronto Today, like the most generic, ineffectual thing possible.

His radio morning show should be called The Woke Show. Like, I feel that would be a brilliant move. It would get international attention, and it would actually brand what Greg Brady is trying to do. What seems to be his mission. Why his appearance on Toronto Mic was his second worst episode of all time. Really? I enjoyed it. He steps in to the shoes of Mike Stafford, right?

of all time. Really? I enjoyed it. He steps in to the shoes of Mike Stafford, right? And his whole idea is to bat cleanup

for Chorus Entertainment. Like, he's trying to right the wrongs of this confrontational talk radio. Supriya Dwivetti quit

and Mike Stafford got canned and a bunch of John Oakley's contributors aren't welcome on the air anymore, right?

They're trying to clean house there at Chorus to the point where their stock price, advertisers aren't complaining. They're trying to do the safest possible version of AM Talk Radio while still making it sound like it did before. Greg Brady has the voice. He has the chops to give him that much to deliver the goods that if you're a 905 or driving to work or whatever you put him on,

you figure listening to what's on there before. But the actual substance of what he's talking about is entirely about being apologetic. It's total wokeness. Like, this is the definition. This is how woke became a pejorative word because of these middle-aged white guys like Greg Brady, right, who go on the air and say, you know, my purpose, my agenda'm going to save the global news radio network by putting my stamp on this style to the point where no guest is ever offended again. And we can do a reasonable

facsimile of this style of radio. And we're going to do it by repudiating somebody like Peter Sherman. Like this style of radio is not welcome here anymore. Greg Brady made it clear with his apology, what a weasel. I'm glad he got the gig to replace Mike Stafford. You know, good for his family and everything else. There he got thrown out from being one of the white men of the fan 590.

Tried his best to hang on to that job at Sportsnet. They didn't want him there anymore. Whatever. Somebody's got to do these morning radio shows for whatever audience they can get. Might as well. It might as well be Greg. But you kind of wish that a guy like that would take a stand and defend his colleague a little bit and stick up for this

approach to talk radio. And I wasn't getting that from Greg Brady at all. That's where I stand on Peter Sherman. Thanks to his appearance on Toronto Mike, I think for setting me straight. Like I'm more on his side in this than before. And I don't mean to discredit what his guest had a problem with and I like the idea that you would actually have a rematch on the Toronto Mike's podcast because this is a forum where this could happen. Right?

Because you're not getting into like a five alarm fire mode just because somebody had a dispute with what something else said. And this is now the cautiousness of corporate Canadian media. I mean, this will be the case study we can refer to for years to come. Milk toast.

Totally milk toast. And congratulations to Greg Brady. Good luck making this thing happen, I suggest. And face it, this would be great publicity. What if they said, the name of our new morning show is Woke? Like, international attention. It would be the best press AM640 has gotten ever. So, unlike my Hebzion Sports co-host,

who I'm going to be with tomorrow morning, Mark Hebzer, Mark Hebzer went to England with Greg Brady, okay? Those guys are buds. I have never gone to England with tomorrow morning. Mark Hebbshire. Mark Hebbshire went to England with Greg Brady. Okay, those guys are buds. I have never gone to England with Greg Brady. I've never even met Greg Brady. And guess what? I don't even care about Greg Brady.

No, but you do care about Greg Brady. Don't lie. It's a cheap rhetorical device so that I can come in here and pretend to be upset about something. Okay. I will just say for the record here that because he's been on the show

several times, all my experiences with Greg Brady have been good experiences. Uh, I positive, even from the very beginning when we, I would ask him questions about the ride to conquer cancer. When I was doing that for my buddy, my kick.

So all my experiences with Greg Brady have been positive. His recent appearance in the backyard in which he disclosed the toxic work environment he endured at the Fan 590 which resulted in him leaving the station. I thought it was very open and honest. I felt it was sincere. So again, I'm not ready to go with you on the

Greg Brady's a weasel route. Also, I would just point out that sometimes management approaches you to declare something on the station's behalf. We don't know that Greg Brady acted on his own. Kind of like a hostage video. Look, it was Ryan Jesperson who—

He stole my real talk. It's fine. They let him go in Edmonton, and I heard him on the Sound Off podcast with Matt Cundall. Great listen every week. A little insight into the media industry, mostly radio. And there, Ryan Jesperson was very clear that it was not the radio station itself that had a problem with him. It was, in fact, chorus, like the corporate side, the upper level.

Okay, so they're trying, Global News Radio is trying to rebrand everything. They didn't like the idea that he was causing heat, that he was upsetting politicians. This was not something they were associated with anymore. He walks away, does his thing on his own, and I think he's got a bigger audience than ever being fiercely independent there, doing his real talk thing for the people of Alberta

and talked about how he set this whole thing up, cost him $40,000. Really? To set up this whole studio and deliver the goods every day. Go head-to-head with the radio station. I did it cheaper for that. Digitally online. $40,000, right? Where did that go? He's yet another one.

I mean, he's a younger generation, guy in his 40s. He's coming at it from a different perspective. He's in this for long haul. But we'll look forward to Peter Sherman. He also has a podcast coming. Yeah. He wants to be vindicated, right? He doesn't want to last act in his 50-year career

to be this shaming and shading by Chorus Entertainment. He enjoys talking into a microphone and you don't need a station to do that anymore. You can cut out the middleman and go straight to the people. Preach, brother, preach. You know, that's what we're doing here. That's what TMDS is all about.

Can I give you some stuff because you're here? Let me just stop down right now. And this is the first time I've been able to give you this, so I want to do it right now before we get to the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment of these Toronto Mic'd 1236 episodes. I think you should play a song that I put on a playlist by Dominic Triano,

because I want to talk a bit about him. And I feel this is like good. Okay. It's good. You know what it is? Like it's good background music while you talk about the sponsors. All right. So this is the first time I've been able to give it to you.

And apparently it's going to be the last time I give it to you, which is a whole. It's okay. Because it is a wireless speaker speaker courtesy of Moneris. And you know what you're going to do with that wireless speaker? Do you know what you're going to do with that, Mr. Weisblatt? I'm going to think about Al Grego and his Moneris podcast, Yes, We Are Open. Yeah, that's a typical Thursday for you. But yeah, the Yes, We Are Open podcast is hosted by FOTM Al Grego.

He's been traveling the country interviewing small Canadian businesses. If Al Grego knocked on my door, I would be so happy to see him because he's like a big stuffed teddy bear. You would want to lie down with

Al Grego, have him cuddle with you while he recites the Soundgarden discography whispering into your ear. That's the kind of guy Al Grego is perfectly suited to do this kind of podcast, right, where he's traveling around

talking to people about their business. You've been listening, right? You've been listening to Yes, We Are Open. Yeah, I wish I had a business so Al Grego could knock on my door. I noticed there's two parts to the story. have to have a business and you need to be a mineras client i think that's the uh that's a lot of work i might just stick with the speaker but shout out to fotm stephanie wilkinson who has an episode i think maybe the first episode i don't want to speak uh without knowing my facts i should check in here. But without a doubt, there's a Stephanie

Wilkinson episode of Yes, We Are Open. Go to YesWeAreOpenPodcast.com Subscribe to the podcast. Listen to Al Grego talk to these small Canadian business owners and find out about their

struggles, their future outlook, and you'll learn something. It's helpful and motivational. I got a great deal out of it. I'm an entrepreneur, you know. I'm an entrepreneur! Is that what you're doing here? I couldn't tell.

I'm trying. I'm trying here. So you got a speaker. I can't believe you get a speaker. We've been enjoying our Great Lakes beer. There's palm pasta. Thank you for the lasagna. Shout out to palmapasta.com. But I know this for a fact. We've been enjoying our Great Lakes beer. There's palm pasta. Thank you for the lasagna.

Shout out to palmapasta.com. But I know this for a fact. I checked in with my friends at Chef Drop, okay? Chef Drop want to give you $75. Have you redeemed it yet? I'm actually going to get in trouble here for not taking something for free. Is that what's going on? Why haven't you redeemed your $75? There's chefs, these amazing

chefs, these amazing restaurants here. Mike, better you tell everybody else listening how they can get in on this. Now the whole point of doing this plug... Only if you promise. Redeem your $75 gift card for a period of time. Mike, let me ask you. If I'm just listening to this 1236 episode of Toronto Mic'd,

how could I get ChefDrop to my door? You go to ChefDrop.ca, you pick out a fantastic meal, and you get $50 off if you spend at least $100. So go to ChefDrop.ca and use the promo code

FOTM50. 5-0. This is an amazing deal. Do it up. But your deal, $75 if you spend 75 or less. What the hell are you worried about me for? What does it matter to you what I do? Because the meals

are delicious. This is amazing. They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Well, that's BS. Chefdrop.ca is here for you, Mark. I want to shout out a few other sponsors who help make this possible. StickerU.com. I don't know how many Toronto Mike stickers you have now,

but enough to wallpaper your kitchen, I think. Yeah, enough to fill a whole laptop computer. Majeski, Mike Majeski. He's ripping up the GTA real estate scene. Go to realestatelove.ca. But when you reach, this is important, FOTM, if Mike's going to sign on for 2022, you need to reach out to Mike Majeski and let him know.

Toronto Mike's in charge. Seriously, see, find if you've got a million or two in coins hiding inside your sofa. Put them all in that piggy bank and bring them over to Mimico Mike. Remember that. It makes you money. McKay's CEO forums are the highest impact and least time intensive peer group for over 1,200 CEOs.

Their new podcast is called the CEO Edge Podcast. I post new episodes on Trotter by Debbie. Way, way, way too edgy for me. I mean, I'm working my way up in the world. Nancy's a hell of a host, and she does these fireside chats. I'm not yet a CEO, but maybe I should start listening. It'll help me get there. You're absolutely right.

And you know what? It's time, my friend. Hey, do you want to say anything? Before I shout out the final sponsor that leads us into the memorial section of Toronto Mike, would you like to say a few words here about the artists we're listening to? Dominic Triano. Dominic Triano. There is now a book about him,

about his life. An unsung hero in the Canadian musical landscape. Well, to the point, I think where it was, it was a good time to get a biography about him out there. And I do remember being in the same room as Dominic Triano at one of the most important events in Toronto music history.

It was the press conference where the band Bush X got the name Bush handed over to them by Dominic Triano, who had held the rights in Canada to the name Bush. And that's why they had to add an X to their name on their Canadian releases. And I know that I'm dealing with a vintage Gen Xer. I had a Bush X CD. It says X on mine. This day, 2021,

like when you're talking with Brother Bill and Cam Gordon about the progressive past of modern melodies. Somebody will just nonchalantly refer to Bush-X as the name of the band. Well, with lyrics like, I'm never alone, I'm alone all the time. Good thing Kurt Cobain died so that

Gavin Rossdale could take over. So remember Bush-X. So 1997 at the Big Bop, Reverb, whatever that room was called at the time, there was in fact a press conference where the rights were going to be handed over in exchange for a charitable donation.

There was Dominic, Dominic Triano, who at the time was only in his early 50ss and yet the fact that he was in uh the toronto group mandala and uh the guess who after after randy bachman and the james gang and had that disco song we all need love like here was somebody that he stepped out of a whole different era right and he wasn't even that much older than we are today and he seemed at the time like kind of out of a whole different era, right? And he wasn't even that much older than we are today. And he seemed at the time like kind of out of his element, like he didn't fully understand what was happening here with all these grunge kids. And yet in the process, he had liberated the Bush name.

So the book is called Dominic Triano, His Life in Music. The author is a guy named Mark Doble. He worked with Dominic Triano's brother, Frank Triano. And in fact, Dominic died at age 59 in 2005. And just in skimming his Wikipedia page, at the bottom there mentions that his family donated a life-size reproduction of his Telecaster guitar to the refurbished Brunswick house.

So in other words, when they reopened it as a Rexall, there on Bloor Street in the annex, it was like Dominic Trajano's guitar, I guess, I don't think I was ever in there, hung up on the wall like here's a genuine evidence of the rock and roll legacy of this

building. There's like an essay from Alan Cross, I remember Raina, Raina Duras, she was making fun of how ridiculous this was. She also knows Alan Cross really wasn't there, and there they made sure to let all the Rexall customers know this was once the Brunswick House, Albert's Hall, legendary venue in the annex in Toronto. Now a Rexall, and the Rexall is not there anymore. Like, it shut down this year, I guess just due to lack of business.

Couldn't justify the rent or whatever during the pandemic. Rexall at the Brunswick House did not last long. So then when they had the Dominic Triano book launch party, instead they had to go to a different drugstore. This is what's keeping the history of Toronto music alive. An IDA. Shoppers Drug Mart, right? Across from the young Dundas Square.

Or whatever the square is going to be called after Dundas. Across from the Eaton Centre. And they've got the Friars Music Museum in there. And duly noting that they had the book launch party for Dominic Triano's book inside Shopper's Drug Mart. Isn't it ironic that Shopper's Drug Mart is fulfilling the dream that Rexall couldn't do, keeping the Toronto music heritage alive in the context of a drugstore.

It's alive and well at Friars Music Museum. It led me to wonder if, in fact, the guitar was moved from one Toronto drugstore to another, moved from one Toronto drugstore to another, and that was Dominic Triano with his big CanCon disco song,

We All Need Love. Let's move on. For the record, I now recall the story. I bought Bush, 16 Stone it was called, and it was by Bush. And I was excited that my version of the CD had Bush on it because shortly after its release in Canada,

they had to start calling it Bush X for the aforementioned reason. And I said, okay, now all these schlubs are hearing like come down or whatever and they're, or Little Things. Is that the big hit I'm trying? It's the Little Thing. I think it was Little Thing. Anyway, bottom line is I was proud that mine said Bush, not Bush X. But then, do you know where this story is going?

Then that moment you're describing happened and then all the CDs said Bush and I now then realized I needed one that said Bush X if I were going to be different because everyone's the same Bush. And time marches on and now Gavin Rossdale is the classic, is the old guy, the classic rock artist.

And we all get old, but there was that magical time, 1997. Right. I think spring 97, the Toronto press conference where the rights to the name Bush in Canada. Oh, Everything Zen. That was a big jam too. Everything Zen. And I think even that was a little late

because I don't think Bush really burned it up and had another hit again on the level that they had prior to that time well um swallowed you remember this that was a big fucking jam swallowed that was off the follow-up to 16 stone look unlike unlike uh kirk cobain he stole his entire act from. Better to fade away than to burn out. But yeah, I mean, look, you can see Bush on a bill with Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray. Really? Oh, my goodness. Burlington Sound of Music Festival. The Casino Circuit.

Finger 11? Ever Clear. Played his shows till the end of time. So, okay, those careers are dying. But here, let's get serious for a moment. Ridley Funeral Home. You can pay tribute without paying a fortune. Go to RidleyFuneralHome.com.

We appreciate their support. Stu Stone actually tweeted a photo, I guess saying he's heading to Winnipeg or something, and he was donning the Ridley Funeral Home toque. So I'm kind of sad we're in the basement, not the backyard. I could be wearing my Ridley Funeral Home toque. So I'm kind of sad we're in the basement, not the backyard. I could be wearing my Ridley Funeral Home toque. But they're great supporters of the real talk.

And they have stepped up to sponsor this memorial section, or segment, if you will, of Mark Weisblatt. We've been doing that for years and we still can't get it right. I mean, you're still like tripping over the words. It's a segment.

Ridley Funeral Home Memorial Segment. Right. I like that. On the 1236 episodes of Toronto Mic'd. Thank you. Shines on my Ontario morning He said this through A dramatic leak of tone To say a vital link Has died, has come Self-control

Is a vice with the plays And history And I will sooner than take All back All that's said to a young girl The sun still shines on my Ontario morning. Constant confirmation of comprehension. New speak is the thrill. New speak is the thrill.

Times are sad I've been very fun But I want you to know Mike, I always think about the fact that on one of these memorial segments, we talked about David Berman of... Purple Mountains. Purple Mountains.

Of course. Silver Jews. And how I brought this jam along when we memorialized him here on Toronto. Mike, you'd never heard it before, and how this became a song that you were listening to over and over again. I spent many, many, many weeks with that song. Like, it tapped into something, yeah. And we reviewed here over the years how it has that effect when you heard that somebody died, right?

You fire up a jam that you might have never heard before, never given much thought to, and suddenly it becomes a lot more evocative. So that's what I'm saying Now that you know The drummer on this song Died Here In

October 2021 And tell the people Adam Adam Balsam Was his name And this was A band they played in Part of that

Arts and Crafts Torontopia Music scene Band called The Most Serene Republic You ever heard that name?

Maybe you heard that song on CBC Music Radio. I don't know, the Stars remake. All the arts and crafts stuff. Fantastic, yeah. And Adam had moved on to a couple other bands, The Wilderness of Manitoba, another band called Mad Ones. So here was a guy on the Toronto hipster music scene,

and that included this song, Ontario Morning. And, you know, I think as soon as you tune in to the tragedy that he died at 42, it's like, you know, you focus on the drums, you think about the song. What happened, man? That's way too... Somebody from this band is not with us anymore.

Well, they said natural causes. At a balsam age. 42. And that was what I had in mind to kick off this segment. Where do we go from here? What are the Watergate hearings all about? I want to explain what they're about tonight because there are a lot of people that haven't been heard from

and a lot of people have been smeared. People have been walking up and testifying at watergate and say what did you do and he said i was a secret agent for 19 years and people would give me money in an envelope i'd meet him in an alley what was the code name of your contact he called me jeb and i called him mr president it was a lot of that the president's a fascinating figure so uh i've worked with him for a long time you know i've been actually forming his name with my mouth for 20 years. It's kind of a reflex action now. So he's an exciting guy.

Eugene McCarthy, who once ran for president, was describing Nixon once. And he said, Nixon is the kind of a guy who, if you were drowning 20 feet from shore, would throw you a 15-foot rope. feet from shore would throw you a 15-foot rope. And then Kissinger would go on television and would say that the president had met you more than halfway. That's what it meant. Mort Sahl, the original political stand-up comedian, died October 26 at age 94. The whole idea of

getting up on a stage and talking about politics in the context of a modern comedy act, even though Will Rogers was considered

a forbearer in bringing in that genre, it was Mort Sahl who provided counter-programming to that whole kind of cat skills style of comedy, you know, the take my wife please, and started bringing politics into it. At a time when all this attention was heaped upon Dave Chappelle or even those opposing Dave Chappelle like Hannah Gadsby, a headline in the New York Times read, there would be no Hannah Gadsby or Dave Chappelle without Mort Sahl. Maher, Dennis Miller, anyone who came along with this idea that you incorporate a talking politics, that you would have that level of literacy, bring that into a stand-up act rather than just telling sticky jokes. It was Mort Sahl who was the OG who brought that into the counterculture, the Hungry Eye nightclub in San Francisco in the 1950s into the 60s.

And yet, at the same time, the consensus was he never got the respect that he was due as an innovator, that he sort of faded away after that initial popularity, and it was partly because of the JFK assassination. And here the fact that he was disputing the conclusion of the Warren Commission, of the Warren Commission, in fact, having a different opinion in terms of the conclusion that John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald alone. I think I got that right.

And Mort Sahl, there we heard a clip of him in somewhere around 1973. You sort of see him doing a comeback. You know, he's gotten a little more hippified. They're the kind of dapper dude wearing a sweater, holding a newspaper. That was part of his act. That was how he displayed to the audience that he was going to be talking about the news

with a newspaper in his hand, whether or not he actually opened the paper to consult that he was going, whatever he was going to talk about. But then again, like a lot of years in the wilderness for Mort Sahl until he experienced a bit of a resurgence, by which point he was a senior citizen. Enter the point where I was in the same room as Mort Sahl.

What? Buying tickets to see him perform live at the Leah Poslans Theatre in Toronto, Bathurst and Shepherd area, where it was advertised that Mort Sahl would be on this, you know, pretty small stage, mostly a place where

they have, like, theatre productions for kids. Splash of boots. That somebody had booked the room for Mort Sahl to make a rare appearance in Toronto. It seemed weird enough. Why is he there and not some sort of comedy club? Mark Breslin would happily have had him at Yuck Yucks or whatever. In fact, I remember Mark Breslin being there

because there couldn't have been more than 20 people who showed up in Toronto fall of 2007 to see Mort Sahl. This was not a thing a lot of people knew about. Maybe they had high hopes that all the old fellow Jews around Bathurst and Sheppard would catch wind of this show. I don't know how they promoted it. I don't know who would have even known that it was happening. It was just the experience of being in the room

with this comedy legend with what turned out to be not too many other people. It was like, I don't know, 30 bucks to see the show? Went with my brother. Mort Sahl comes out. He's holding the newspaper. You know, he's dressed in his sweater,

so I guess you could you could recognize him in his uh relatively advanced age and it was clear after a second mortzall had not come there with any prepared material at all all he's gonna do is like answer questions from the audience for as long as he could take it then he was gonna walk off stage and if the tickets were 30 bucks and he was going to walk off stage. And if the tickets were $30, I don't know. It cost more than a dollar per minute for the experience of watching Mort answering questions from the crowd

in a really weird way. It was worth every cent. Like, just the whole idea to see this happening, right? To see what it would be like, a rare appearance for somebody like him in Toronto at that time. Comedy lion in winter, big influence. He died at 94, so he would have been 14 years ago.

Yeah, just around age 80 at the time. Now, Mort Sahl could be claimed as Canadian because he was born in Montreal, and his mother was from Montreal. But it was a thing where he spent the first seven years of his life there. And so Canadian born to a Canadian mother.

If we can claim Vladdy Guerrero Jr., we can claim Mort here. Could you claim Steph Curry as Canadian? But he wasn't born here. Mort saw then, his parents met because it was his father who took out, I think, a personal ad in a

poetry magazine. Keep in mind, that's like a hundred years ago. So you know he came from real beatniks. If you could say a hundred years ago that your parents met from a poetry magazine ad, I think right there you were ahead of the curve. And Mort Sahl's dad moved to L.A., trying to be a Hollywood writer, couldn't catch a break,ed up working for the FBI, which might have inspired a bit of Mort's comedy there.

He joined the ROTC during World War II, dropped out of high school, joined the army because he lied about his age. And ultimately, after working as a used car salesman, he was, I guess, some kind of messenger around Hollywood. He found this style of stand-up talking politics there in the 1950s. He made friends like Dick Cavett, Woody Allen, Steve Allen. Woody Allen, Steve Allen, and here was just like a regular guy saying what nobody was allowed to say at the time.

The whole idea of being this political commentator working in the comedic domain was pretty out there. But again, he was kind of blacklisted, even mentions his income. 1963, before John F. Kennedy was shot, he made a million dollars that year. The year after, he was down to 13 grand. Wow.

Look, I've lived off 13 grand, but if you made a million dollars the year before, I think that would be a bit of a comedown. And subsequently he was doing his act, still answering questions, being that off-the-cuff raconteur. Maybe it was better they kept his Toronto appearance to under 30 minutes.

I don't know how much anybody needed to hear of him in that mode, but you can find videos of him online. He was streaming live on social media right up until everything got shut down in 2020. And then having been 94 years of age, not an entire shock that we lost Mort Sahl, age 94, October 2021. If you want it, you can have it That's what you said

But I don't want the things that you leave behind Take the pictures, take the windows and the walls But baby, won't you leave me my peace of mind? Oh, such a waste of time Oh, such a waste I still want you, baby Heaven, heaven help me Talk to strangers

Heaven, help me over Help me over you Talk to strangers. Mike, I can no longer listen to any ballad associated with George Michael without thinking of your brother, your buddy Elvis. He's almost your brother. Right, he wept. Shedding a tear. He wept. Weeping upon contemplation about the death of George Michael.

And you rock. These shades you're rocking are kind of Faith era George Michael sunglasses. Now, no one can see you right now, but you do look a little bit like George Michael. I got them off the rack at Rexall. I was so excited after my cataract surgery that I would finally be able to afford cheap drugstore sunglasses after years of relying on these clip-ons. Brian Master gave me these. These are Jewel 88 shades.

That's a collector's item. They changed the name of the radio station to Light 88.5. See, I'm out of the loop here. Shout out to Evanov Group. Yeah, so I've got my cheap sunglasses now that I don't have to wear prescription lenses anymore. I traded in $1,200 glasses for ones that cost $19.99.

Well, you look like George Michael, and I hear George Michael on this song. And Dion Estes was like the third member of Wham! He was the bass player who was right up there, front lines with Andrew Ridgely

and George Michael. Especially when they got into their stadium rock days. Edge of Heaven, those last Wham! songs. Remember the Wham! rap? Wham! rap, yeah, which they also remade towards the end, I think. Oh, maybe 91. Yeah, you're right, 91. 90, 80.

Wham was done in 1986, okay? But Dion Estes, the bass player, stayed with George Michael on his solo album. His solo act as well. his solo album. His solo act as well. And it was around after the Faith album, 1989, that Dion Estes had his one hit ballad called

Heaven Help Me. And the fact that anybody listening to the song at all had a lot to do with the backing vocals. It's like when you hear somebody's watching me and you realize, oh, that's Michael Jackson. It was like they ran out of singles from faith and the demand was there for one more uh one more george michael song

and faith had a lot of freaking singles but you know what album helped me hit the spot i don't mean to take the spotlight away from the gentleman who passed away here but i will say make it big was one of the first cassette albums i owned that I loved every song on it. I thought Make It Big was fantastic. George Michael, of course. When did he die? That was Christmas. 2016 or 2015.

Yeah, we're coming up quick to a world without George Michael for five years. You know what else we're coming up to? We're going to hear that fucking uh last christmas uh ad nauseum i'm sorry but i'm not a big fan it's only november 4th it starts when chfi flipped yet well uh we saw rudolph the red-nosed reindeer in the 1236 newsletter is uh showing up on cbs tv on november 22nd and somebody pointed out they never show rudolph the red-nosed reindeer before thanksgiving u.s thanksgiving they're jumping the gun this year maybe it's a reflection of the November 22nd, and somebody pointed out they never show Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer before Thanksgiving. U.S. Thanksgiving.

They're jumping the gun this year. Maybe it's a reflection of the fact that people don't pay much attention to broadcast TV anymore. You've got to get in there. And we're supposed to wait until Remembrance Day. You're supposed to pay tribute on Remembrance Day, and then on the 12th of November you can turn your flip over to Christmas nonsense. Dion Estes, Heaven Help

Me, also around that time, a project called Boogie Box High. And I wondered, it's a kind of record that like Scott Turner would be the only other person I could think of who would have known

about this side project run by George Michael's cousin. And there was a cover on there of Jive Talk and the Bee Gees song. And that's also, I think, like George Michael and Dion Estes singing on there. But Heaven Help Me was the ballad. Remember this? When it was a hit in 1989? Was this like your 680 CFTR listening case? This is probably, I think I'm still on,

although I might have switched to Q by, no, I switched to Q at this point. Like I was big on The Rock coming out of Q107 by this point. Oh, by that point you were keeping track of the top 10 of 10. So I hear that right. If K-Sane wants to keep his dog. Right, exactly. So, you know, I got to hear some Copperhead Road

from Steve Earl or whatever. So basically it was 680 CFTR. And then at some point, I graduated, if you will, to Q107. And then I went down to 102.1 around the time Humble and Fred take over. And I stayed there. And that's the end. That's the rest of the story. And what?

You never heard Heaven Help Me Again in your life? I don't remember that song. Until now. I don't remember that song. Until now. I don't remember that song. But when he passed away, I think you are the gentleman who tweeted a link to it and I checked it out and I could hear George Michael on it, which I thought was cool. And beyond George Michael, what was the list?

Tina Turner, Frank Zappa, George Clinton, Annie Lennox, Edgar Winter, What was the list? Tina Turner, Frank Zappa, George Clinton, Annie Lennox, Edgar Winter, Aaron Neville, and Sir Elton John, all part of Dion Estes, and who he played with as a dreadlocked bass player. And in recent years, Dion Estes was in a band of which another member died in October 2021. So remember when we talked about how two members of Cinderella died on the same month?

And here we had a situation where in October 2021, two members of a band named Switch. Is this Yacht Rock? Thank you. There'll never be a better love There'll never be a better love There'll never be a better love. Since we are lying here for the first time, you and I, show me what you do for me. me what you do for me and then we'll lie

don't try to hide your nature no other girl could never reach you there'll never be The girl could never reach you. There'll never be a better girl. There'll never be a better girl. There'll never be a better girl. There'll never be a better girl. Okay, where does this fit on the yacht ski scale?

That's what the Beyond Yacht Rock podcast used to use. Out of 100, how yacht rock do you think you'll never be by Switch? Oh, no, to me, and again, I'm not the expert Stu Stone is, but to my ears, I hear a well-crafted piece of music that belongs in the Yacht Rock category. Yacht Rock crossed with Quiet Storm, kind of latter-day Motown records. This was a sound they were peddling in the post-Jackson 5 era

because Switch was a band that involved members of our particular family. A name you might recognize because the family name was DaBarge. Of course, El DaBarge, of course.

But it was the older brothers of El DaBarge. So we had Bobby DeBarge, who died in 1995, 39 years old. And the other main player in Switch was Tommy DeBarge, who died at age 64 on October 21st. And what was Dion Estes doing with Switch?

They were still working the circuit as Retro R&B Act reconstituted with other members of the DeBarge family. If you follow me here, Mike, there was Switch, which had two DeBarge brothers, and then there was the band DeBarge, which had the younger siblings named DeBarge. The first two DeBarge albums from the early 1980s are two of the greatest albums ever released by Motown that people don't give too much thought to.

Wow. L. DeBarge and his sister Bunny DeBarge. I think these were like defining albums of everything that followed in R&B for the next 40 years. Just showing off my scholarship here, okay? But here was the deal. The DeBarge family had a lot of addiction issues.

I don't know if anyone escaped the curse here. Like, it was clear across the whole family. A lot of problems to the point where when it came time for the third DeBarge album, what was supposed to be their big pop breakthrough, Rhythm

of the Night, they could not even get the whole sibling act into the studio together. That, in fact, it was a fake DeBarge branding on the album. By that point, it was El DeBarge who was like the straightest arrow, at least at the time, that he was able to deliver the goods, By that point, it was El DeBarge, who was like the straightest arrow, at least at the time,

that he was able to deliver the goods, and that's where we have DeBarge, Rhythm of the Night, and El DeBarge on the Facts of Life, one of the great sitcom musical appearances ever. And then when El DeBarge broke out on his own as a solo act, Who's Johnny?

Who's Johnny? Who's Johnny? By L. DeBarge from the made-in-Toronto movie Short Circuit. Yeah, Johnny Five. So all of this started back when... Wait, but Short Circuit 2 was made in Toronto. Not one. Was it? I think only Short Circuit 2.

How deep do you dive on all this you I'm doing that from an old memory which is unreliable my apologies but Short Circuit 2 is definitely Toronto and Short Circuit 1? I feel like that might not have been Toronto do you want to look it up? we're a long way from

remember when the website Torontoist used to do these posts where they would decode all of the Toronto locations in a movie? Sure, like Police Academy and all that stuff. Three men and a baby. And you would sort of suddenly appreciate these movies in a new way because... Strange Brew. I love the Strange Brew.

I regret to inform myself that Short Circuit was not filmed in Toronto. No, it was two. It was two. See, that's what I'm here for. And that he was not a South Asian man doing that accent in Short Circuit. You know, shout out to Michelle Pfeiffer. Okay, Fisher Stevens.

And that was kind of the end of the run, the original run for DeBarge on Motown. Too many drugs, too much despair. It didn't work out at all. But they were younger and more innocent once, and that included the song You'll Never Be.

And so we've got Tommy DeBarge joining Bobby DeBarge among the great soul artists in the sky. There'll never be. There'll never be.

Is that a word? There'll never be. There'll never be. There, there... Is that a word? There'll never be. There'll never be. Like, instead of there will never be, it's there'll never be. And it was L. DeBarge, at least in a condition where he noted on Instagram

a tribute after a lengthy illness. Very sad about now that he's lost two of his brothers, Bobby and Tommy DeBarge. Some quiet storm, yacht rock, a little bit of a loss here in October 2021. Okay. Oh, I never knew I loved you Till you left me Oh, I never knew I cared Till you were gone me oh I can't

tell you we're gone I was young and foolish

I don't know what I was doing I

didn't want to lost it to go oh

I can't tell you we're gone so I gotta get up early I'm loving the yoga. So I gotta get up early in the morning.

Find me the yoga. So I gotta get up early in the morning. Find me the yoga. So I gotta get up early in the morning. Mike, you know I really loved writing about the R&B music scene. That was in the 1990s in iWeekly. And you know that there is no way anybody would have let me get away with that today. Like they would say, what's this annoying Jewish guy doing writing about black music? You know, give it to somebody who's got an affiliation with the artists and the songs.

And I find that a little bit sad, but I'm willing to accept it because I'm trying a little harder than making $50 for a record review nowadays. And it would never happen again. But it's a memory of a different time. And clearly I love the stuff. I kept

up on it all thanks to the fact that I got all these free promo CDs. I think I was on top of black music in Toronto more than anyone else who wasn't black anyway. I mean, there was no flow radio station or anything. I don't know that I had a whole

lot of reference points who I could compare it to. I'm not talking about hip-hop here, right? Like, I'm not trying to rank myself with DJ Ron Nelson or somebody, but I'm saying, like... Right, Errol Nazareth doesn't need to watch this back. The singing, the vocal stuff. I was back then...

I was back then the Jewish dude who was on top of it all, and if anybody had a problem with that, I never heard from them anyway. And that was it, and this is now. So instead of having a forum to publish my appreciation of this music, we bury

my knowledge here in the third hour of a Toronto Mike podcast. And we hope nobody has a problem with the fact that I enjoy the history of R&B. I think anybody who's still listening is basically like they

deserve this. They've earned this. They're in it to win it. I think the fans... Okay, but do you think there's a context as... I don't know because there aren't these gigs like there used to be. Like you have John Caramonica. Right? Not a black man. And he covers hip-hop and stuff for the New York Times quite credibly.

Like he's been in this game for a while. But do you think, do you buy into this idea? Oh, you're not from this particular racial, ethnic type of background. You don't have the right to be a journalist covering this stuff. Because I think about this a lot because I was pretty embedded with it back in the day. That's all I'm saying. Like the other day I was bragging to somebody. I was so excited to meet Dwayne Wiggins of Tony, Tony, Tony.

If you would even know who that was back in like 1993. Like I sat down with him, did an interview in a hotel for 10, 15 minutes. I felt so cool. Felt like I made it in the world. Me and Dwayne just talking shop, hanging out. But I think today you would get a bit of a backlash. Give this gig to somebody who understands

it. Why couldn't I understand it? Why couldn't I like the music as much as anybody else? Are you suggesting that a white man can't cover... I'm suggesting that in this age of Twitter, you constantly see these assertions being made. I'm not saying anybody's trying to cancel me. I'm not saying I'm suggesting that in this age of Twitter, right, you constantly see these assertions being made.

I'm not saying anybody's trying to cancel me. I'm not saying I'm being attacked. I'm saying you would be, at a certain point, you would be told to step aside, right, or share the spotlight. This is not a job for you. Interesting. Could I start reviewing, like, do a thing where I just review Bollywood movies? Could I do that?

By the way, happy to have all the way to everybody who's celebrating. You could talk about whatever you want because, like, do a thing where I just review Bollywood movies. Could I do that? By the way, happy to have all the way to everybody who's celebrating. You could talk about whatever you want because, look, I don't have a bad thing to say about, you know, the Gap Band as opposed to the fact that the guy died. That's the only reason we're bringing it up here. But that song we played, I actually know it better as a cover by Robert Palmer. Like, I know the Robert Palmermer cover i was on a cassette i

owned and i used to enjoy it and would you be able to get away with doing that these days right like if the sure if the gap band song got a whitewash by by robert palmer and if that was a hit on the radio formats well i think in that respect things are a little bit more united like the artist would pay heed to the originator, right? Maybe they would record the song along with them as the backing act. But look, Robert Palmer is long gone. Yep, he is. And just like Switch, so are two brothers from the Gap Band.

It was Robert Wilson who died in 2010. It was Robert Wilson who died in 2010. And here in October 2021, we heard of the death of Ronnie Wilson. So those were three brothers in the Gap Band. The third one was Charlie Wilson. And he's still around. He's kind of like one of these go-to guest vocalists on the hip-hop scene. Even Kanye West has called in Charlie Wilson to do vocals on his songs, kind of a younger version of what Ronald Isley does, right,

where you need these old-school guys, add a little bit of flavor to these hip-hop songs if you can afford them. So the Gap Band from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they are named after three streets in Tulsa. Greenwood, Archer, and Pine are the three streets that were named in memory of the Tulsa race massacre in Oklahoma. But, of course, it was not a horrifying sound from the Gap Band. In fact, they were a big party act. And that was songs like Oops Upside Your Head. Upside Your Head.

Oops Upside Your Head. And also You Dropped a Bomb on Me. Remember. And also You Dropped a Bomb on Me. Remember that one? You Dropped a Bomb on Me? I'd have to hear it, but maybe. Don't make me sing. And what was, in fact, their highest charting pop hit, also number one on the R&B chart from 1982,

Early in the Morning. You know, on iHeartRadio on the app you can hear old Casey Kasem shows American Top 40 from the 70s and 80s and I always get excited when I hear Casey queuing up a song that did not make it too far high up the charts because it's a song that you rarely hear nowadays right so you'll be listening to the playback of an old Casey Kasem episode and there's like some Gino Vannelli song that peaked at number 31 or whatever. And we used to be able to get

those off YouTube in the Gino Vannelli episode courtesy of me. You've got clips of Casey Kasem. Archived for all of eternity. So thank you for that. And you won't find it anywhere else until the algorithms figure out how to bust all this stuff and find every illegal song on a Toronto mic episode.

So I also think of those Casey Kasem shows where you will hear these songs from the Gap Band, which were big black music hits, but I think in a pop context, not so huge. And that's where like a Robert Palmer would have been able to step in and cover it for an audience that would not have known the song before. There you go.

A feel-good hit to commemorate the fact that we lost Ronnie Wilson in October 2021. Ten years ago On a cold dark night There was someone killed Neath the town hall light Just a few at the scene And they all did agree That the man who ran Looked a lot like me

Well, the judge said, son What's your alibi If you're somewhere else Well, you don't have to die And I spoke a naughty word Though it meant my life I'd been in the arms Of my best friend's wife

She walks these hills My best friend's wife. She walks these hills in a long black veil. She visits my grave when the night winds wail. Nobody knows, Lord, nobody sees Nobody knows but me Well, the sky falls high And eternity nears You know, we talked before about Gilbert Gottfried slipping into his real voice. And the song that Mick Jagger did with the Chieftains, I don't know every song mick jagger ever recorded but i wonder if this is the purest sound of what mick jagger actually sounds like when he's not vamping on the stage

right like you hear in his vocals here like a different sort of persona than than than mick jagger uh feeling like he has to be mick this is like the Mick Jagger that you would find if you actually found him off the grid, just kind of like hanging out, hanging back, having a normal one that Mick Jagger would sound like he does on this recording of The Long Black Veil, recorded with the Chieftains. And on October 12th, we lost Patti Maloney,

who was considered the leader of the Irish music revival by fronting the Chieftains, who ended up putting out 44 albums over the years, leading up to his death at age 83. And with that discography, you know, a lot of Irish instrumental music, but also the occasional record with an all-star cast. This was the album The Long Black Veil,

came out in 1995, and along with Mick Jagger was also the remake with the chieftains of Van Morrison's Have I Told You Lately, legendary track by that point, a familiar enough song, but the Chieftains version kind of accentuated it, and a memorable performance. It was even on a David Letterman compilation album of Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor,

and Patti Maloney of the Chieftains playing it together as a trio. Now, one of those people is not like the other, which is to say that I don't think Patty Maloney made any headlines for doing anything that was kind of weird. Sinead O'Connor, you can't say the same about, and especially in the time of COVID-19, you can't say the same about Van Morrison. Reminding here that on last year's Fromage 2020, as we turn the corner to the end of 2021,

we featured that No More Lockdown song. Remember? Of course I remember. By Van Morrison. Just getting you in the mood here. I hope you're ready. As we compile that list. Sometime in December,

we'll have to revisit reviving the Christopher Ward, not Ed the Sock, legacy of Fromage by recapping the cheesiest tunes of the year gone by. Would you believe, Mike, I have a secret Spotify playlist. Which I have been maintaining ever since we ended the last episode to make sure that I don't miss anything for Fromage 2021.

So stand by. I mean, I might, like last time, holding out for when these publications do their worst songs of the year list. You know, we had a couple last year's Fromage, which I have to confess I only heard about because other people wrote about them. But I'm trying to stay ahead of the curve, so I might actually show my dominion here over the concept.

We might have to break out the Fromage list even before the end of the year so that I'm not influenced by any of those other options. And maybe we'll do it around the time Dave Hodge drops by. Coming down to the basement, Dave Hodge? Back, vaccinated? Actually, backyard. He is vaccinated.

I'm vaccinated. He's a little bit older, though. Wants to be a little bit careful. He'd be more comfortable in the backyard. And I said, yep. Bundle up, buddy. Do you have a date for that dave hodge uh yes we do absolutely hodge 100 okay so and we're ready to update i think in the middle of the memorial

segment make making our date uh uh what what am i up against i want to come by after november 25 okay so that we got a clear runway there anytime Anytime in December, I will be after Dave Hodge in doing the opposite of Dave Hodge's list. I would love, let me just cue this up because he's not hearing this. I want to hear Dave Hodge's reaction to the fact that you found another FOTM who's going to come in every year and do the counterpoint to the Dave Hodge list. See what he says. The cheesiest cheese of the year.

Tell him I was a buddy of Dave Bookman and at least he'll think I'm all right. I'll see if any songs appear on both lists. Because you often have those songs that appear on the best of and worst of. Well, maybe there's motivation to make sure that happens. So I'm standing by here for Dave Hodge. But where do we leave off? Chieftains, Patty Maloney, a big loss for Irish music because before any of U2 or whatever, Cranberries came along, right?

It was Patty Maloney of the Chieftains who may not have been playing rock and roll, but he was the one that brought Irish music into that generation. Patti Maloney, fare thee well, at age... What did we say? Just trying to wrap this bit up here.

Do you remember? No, but when you say a number, then I'm going into this next segment, which will help... Died October 12th in Dublin, Ireland, where he was born, at age 83. When we first moved to New York, we had a great apartment that was dirt cheap.

And we found out why it was so cheap. Our friend Amy said there was a great apartment in her building. Dirt cheap, but it's a hotel for women. Okay, we made one adjustment. Now these other ladies know us as Buffy and Hildegard. But they also know us as Kip and Henry, Buffy and Hildy's brothers. I am crazy about the blonde. This experience is going to make a great book.

See, it's all perfectly normal. I don't need you to worry for me Cause I'm alright I don't want you to tell me It's time to come home I don't care what you say anymore This is my life Go ahead with your own life Leave me alone

I never said you had to offer me a second chance I never said I was a victim of circumstance I still belong Don't get me wrong You can speak your mind But not on my time I don't care what you say anymore. This is my life.

Go ahead with your own life. Leave me alone. We forgot on those sitcom themes. They end cold. Because, you know, you gotta stay tuned. I'm shocked. Commercial break. So I watched this show in syndication.

I watched it in syndication. And you notice, like, I think every memorial segment, we have at least one sitcom that you and I, Gen X podcasters, grew up with, which is maybe a reflection of the fact that we're getting older, right? I mean, here's these people we grew up with as kids seeing on TV. Sure, but I do not remember the intro being that long. It must have been cut for syndication.

Like there's no way they played that much Billy Joel in the syndicated Bosom Buddies I was watching on whatever it was, CFMT or Global or whatever. And yet, I don't know, because Bosom Buddies only lasted two seasons, only had 37 episodes. I believe that. But that's not enough to have run in syndication.

But I saw it in syndication. You had to have, well, you saw it in reruns, but to get in the rotation, the roster. You need 100? You had to hit 13 weeks. No, 65 was usually the minimum. Because I watched Bosom Buddies, and there's no way I was tuning in

on a Tuesday night at 8 o'clock. What, 1980 to 82? I was like seven years old or something. And of course, a reflection of a different era where two single men who want to be roommates in an apartment can only afford one that they could find. It's a bit like Three's Company, right? And the rules of the apartment, the landlord is

we can only have ladies living here. Shout out to Mr. Roper. Because that was the same idea. Like, you can live here, but not if you're straight, because you can't have an unmarried guy and girl living together. And their female foil on the show, Donna Dixon. Yeah. Dan Aykroyd.

Soon enough married to Dan Aykroyd, and still to this day. So there was Tom Hanks on Buzz and Buddies, and a guy who died in October 2021, Peter Scolari. And he was on track, I think, to at least keep pace with Tom Hanks when it came to a certain level of fame. Because after Bosom Buddies, for the rest of the 80s, there he was on the show New Heart. Right. The second iteration of the Bob Newhart sitcom show. So as Tom Hanks was moving up in the world as a movie star, there was Peter Scolari on TV every weekend.

What was a pretty big show. It was a big show. Especially with that older CBS generation. It was a big show. And then you start to wonder, okay, whatever happened to the guy? And it came out years later. Okay, well, he confessed to Oprah. I mean, that's where you go.

We got something to say. What happened? Do you remember? What was the story? No, when I put up my hand there, it was because most recently I know him as the father on Girls. Like, this was his big, but please tell me the story. You know, a couple of decades along the way. Let me do the math.

After a while, he, in fact, discussed his substance abuse issues. Okay, okay. And the fact that he was struggling with bipolar disorder. So this is not like a guest of Dana Levinson just talking about how they have anxiety. This guy had to deal with some heavy stuff. On the DL is a great program. And a whole lot more. And, in fact, one of the gigs that he picked up

after he fell off track was, there was a TV version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Okay. Oh, he'd be Rick Moranis' character. Yeah, Rick Moranis. That makes sense. Wasn't interested in doing this stuff. In fact, yeah, late 90s, like right after Rick Mercer.

Sorry, Rick Moranis. Oh, Rick Mercer. That's the whole Toronto Mike FOTM. I'm only one beer in, okay? When Rick Moranis walked away from it all, there was Peter Scolari, a role ready for him, right? The geeky dad with the big round glasses. Yeah.

I can see it. But again, like as far as him uh getting gigs and having roles things were pretty sparse but i i think uh it made people even more intrigued they turned up on lena dunham's show uh girls playing the father where did i hear that of the main character hannah hannah horvath i heard it i used to watch Girls. You know what? I think Girls is the only one of all those prestige TV shows that I have seen every single episode of. Yes. I've also seen every episode of Girls.

That was the one through whatever illegal bootleg stream that I was most loyal to. I watch Girls like I watched The Simpsons 20 years earlier. So you don't watch Curb Your Enthusiasm? I watch it, but I'm not a completist. I know absolutely having watched every... There's a new episode that drops Sunday. Never missed a week.

Yeah, we're still in the zone of Curb, but it was Girls where I never missed an episode, and there was Peter Scolari. Colin Quinn was in Girls, and Colin Quinn is the most recent guest of your doppelganger on his podcast. My doppelganger? Are podcast. Doppelganger? Are you agreeing with a troll comment?

Sorry, your vocal doppelganger. What he had to say about my voice. Okay, Peter Scolari. Plot twist, I'm the troll. With girls. The calls coming from inside the head. Just like his TV daughter, Lena Dunham, he appeared nude on the show, right?

Like he was going for it. He came out as gay or something? He was a gay man? Yeah, that was, I guess, also part of it. Hey, whatever happened to his... He needed to maximize the drama here for these young millennial women and what they were going through. Whatever happened... Him trying to school his daughter, Lena Dunham, right?

Like, get it together. You're not... You've got to figure things out in life. You're a train wreck. Whatever happened to Peter Scolari's, what happened to his co-star in Bosom Buddies? Do we know what happened to that guy? Tom Hanks.

Well, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. That's right. In Australia. That's how it all got started. And can I just say the first, and again, Tom Hanks has not passed away, but the first time i saw tom hanks was in family ties he played the uncle who was an alcoholic and was drinking like the uh whatever he could get his hands on in the baking the baking drawer okay here's the thing though might be like a mandela effect there because the the uh syndicated uh bosomies did not use the Billy Jules song,

My Life, in the theme song. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm absolutely sure because Wikipedia has told me, can you find a song by Stephanie Mills called Shake Me Loose? That was the theme song that was used for the reruns, I guess, because couldn't get the rights to Billy Jules' song or they didn't want to pay Billy Jules. Music rights forever. So it was a song called Shake Me Loose that

would have shown up after the original run of Boots and Buddies, if that rings a bell at all. They're capable of finding it there. Okay, here we go. I'd like to be J. Paul Getty

That girl's got potential Okay, here we go. I'd like to be J. Paul Getty. That girl's got potential. But the only thing that's essential is having a friend like you. But you can try to shake the hoops. You can leave if you've got a mind to. My mind is fucking blowing, wise blood. I can't believe it. So, okay, that's fascinating because...

I mean, do you recognize this at all? Is this something in your memory bank? I can't remember it either. I just remember... Well, this is like the concept in 1980s sitcom theme sound, isn't it? Like when people would parody an 80s sitcom theme on Saturday Night Live or whatever. Remember that?

Oh, yeah, like Too Many Cooks. Too Many Cooks. That was it also. This was the sound they were going for. Like that Full House theme thing. And that was a singer who had a few hits of her own from the Wiz play, Stephanie Mills. Wow, okay. So I'm right and I'm wrong. I'm right.

It was much shorter on syndication, but it was a different song. Not the same song. There you go. We did not hear Billy Joel on syndication. Do you remember the name of the drag character played by Peter Scolari?

Do you remember what name his character on the show used when dressed as a woman trying to pass as female? I don't remember. Hildegard. Hildegard, yeah. I heard it in the opening. Yes, of course.

Yes, yes. They say it in that long opening. And Tom Hanks was Buffy. Buffy, right. Not the Vampire Slayer. No, this is pre-Vampire Slayer. Shout out to the late, great Luke Perry, who was in the Vampire Slayer. No, this is pre-Vampire Slayer. Shout out to the late, great Luke Perry, who was in the Vampire Slayer.

Okay, so let's not miss a beat in ending our tribute to Peter Scolari, dead at age 66, October 22, 2021. Must we say goodbye To be sung in a Russian accent Each time we part My heart wants to die I'll be here my friend Come to me then

I'll be your love Till the end of time This is the second time we're hearing Karamiya on a Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. Let's flash back to whatever day it was that we lost Nikolai Volkov the fake Russian from the World Wrestling Federation 2018

were we doing a memorial segment at the time? I can't remember regardless I can tell you this all the episodes we've done Pandemic Friday listeners remember. We pay tribute to all of the great WWF wrestlers on Pandemic Friday. Now, if I ask young Mike, who sings Karamia, what would your answer be?

Nikolai Volkov. Nikolai Volkov. That's for sure. 100%. There's no way you knew that this was already a hit before you were I did not know and I also would be able to do the Russian national anthem as performed by Nikolai Volkov

I can still hear it in my head Karamiya was originally a British song David David Whitfield was the crooner who did that in the 50s like real pre-Beatles British music

but covered by Jay and the Americans which was I guess one of those American rock bands that tried to be an incredible simulation of the Fab Four and the Singer Four for its run. On the charts was a guy who took the name Jay Black, no relation to Rod Black.

Or Frank Black. And we know that for sure, first of all, because his real name was David Blatt. first of all because his real name was david blatt uh and we also know that because he joined the band jay and the americans uh replacing a guy whose name was actually jay or john trainer who had left and they need a new jay right kind of like how all these uh old-time radio djs would just take a fake name based on the jingles that they had on the carts. Right. And you would have to pick one of the fake radio names. The same thing happened.

That's how David Black, sorry, David Blatt became Jay Black. Do I got that right? Did I say that correctly? Yep. And Cara Mia followed Come a little bit closer on the heels of their mid-60s hits. I would say based on the taste of my late father, Jay and the Americans is one of those rock groups

that people got into who were too old to know about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Like my dad could not have named one Beatles song, but he knew the entire Jay and the Americans discography. Like they were aiming for an audience that was, you know, a little too old to be at concerts with screaming teenagers and wanted a little more, a little more sophistication in their rock music. That's, that's how Jay, that's what Jay and the Americans mean to me, which, which is almost nothing.

But if you, if you look up, if you look up the history of this guy, Jay and the Americans ended up in the late sixties, becoming one of those rock and roll revival acts. Like they would do cover versions of old rock and roll songs even if they weren't Jay and the American songs. It was just a way of staying on the charts and touring.

This is around the time that Sha Na Na emerged at Woodstock that they had a run of one of these bands that would just like be an oldies act. And you would go to the show. You wouldn't care if it, you wouldn't even remember. had run of one of these bands that would just like be an oldies act. And you would go to the show. You wouldn't care if it – you wouldn't even remember. The audience wouldn't even know if the songs they were doing were by Jay and the Americans or if they're by the Drifters or whatever. You know what I mean?

Like they would just perform a repertoire of old doo-wop and rock and roll. And the older audience, guys like my dad, wouldn't know the difference. And Jay Black ended up having big gambling debt due to addictions in the mid-2000s. He went bankrupt. And at one point, he had to sell the rights to the name Jay Black and Jay and the Americans and it was his ex-bandmates who took over the name and he could no longer

be Jay and the Americans on the road. Bit of a struggle there but in the last decade struggling with Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and 11 days short of turning 83 years old. R.I.P. J Black and Caramia. But let the good times roll In case God doesn't show

And I want these words to make things right But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life Who does he think he is? If that's the worst you got Better put your fingers back to the key One night and one more time Thanks for the memories. Even though they weren't so bad.

He tastes like you, sweetheart. One night and one more time. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for the memories. He tastes like you, sweetheart. Oh. He tastes like you, sweetheart Pete Wentz, a Fallout boy, who is not the front man for Fallout Boy. Fallout Boy is one of those bands where the most famous guy in the group is not the singer.

Kind of like Cheap Trick or Motley Crue. Van Halen? The singer is like a sidekick to Pete Wentz who writes the song. And we're wrapping up this Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment because Pete Wentz is the second cousin once removed of General Colin Powell. Oh. His maternal grandfather's cousin. that's a unique credit to have among rock stars that you have any relation to such a personality at all. And yet it's come up time and time again

because look, Mike, it's a fun fact. It's also a fun fact that Fall Out Boy is named after a character on The Simpsons. And it's also a fun fact that Fall Out Boy are still around to this day. And that they've managed to bridge the generation. Sugar, we're going down. You know this song was produced by Babyface, the R&B crooner. I did not know that.

This is how they caught that sound in a bottle where you still hear this song to this day. But we woke up on October 18th, 2021, to hear that Colin Powell had died from complications of COVID-19, which raised a bit of an alarm, right? Whether you're pro-vax or anti-vax, I guess you could use this as a point in whichever direction that this is proof that the vaccine works or it didn't work. Yeah, he was already being treated for blood cancer. So it was already an issue in the air,

whether or not you then add him to the list of victims of COVID-19. COVID had help. Let's put it that way. But one of the great American Republican legends, dead at age 84, October 18th, 2021. Thanks for the memories, General Colin Powell.

I'm checking the official clock here. A shade over three hours. As I thought it would be a three-hour episode, we kind of nailed it. We're only a couple of minutes away. We didn't talk about Let's Go Brandon. We didn't talk about Debbie and the young woman who died.

Maybe that one will come up next time. That one actually wasn't. I guess when I caught, when I took my snapshot of the notes Debbie and the young woman who died. Maybe that one will come up next time. That one actually wasn't. I guess when I caught, when I took my snapshot of the notes, that hadn't appeared yet. So I didn't actually have Debbie. I think that story isn't over yet, though, and how Six Buzz is being accused of exploiting this helpless young woman.

We did not talk about sports gambling and its influence on media. Maybe we'll get to that next month. And the 50th birthday of the Toronto Sun. And Pam Seidel, former of City TV, and her husband, David Eddy, moving to the country and writing about it in Toronto Life and regretting their decision. And I'm only mentioning all these things that were on the list and we didn't get to because we do have FOTMs at the end of an episode, right?

They listen to it all. And you said things were left over and we start getting messages like, why did you leave stuff on the cutting room floor? Why did you cut off this episode? After three hours, I wanted to hear more. There are your notes that we left behind. I get dozy after the three hour mark. You got to keep me engaged here. We got to say more. There are your notes that we left behind. I get dozy after the three-hour mark. You got to keep me engaged here.

Mike, Mike, thank you. Thank you to Jarvis and Morgan, children of this home, for scoring the Halloween candy that kept me going right through till the end. The Great Lakes beer was not enough. They listen. They're going to hear that I stole their Doritos from the Halloween bag. I actually went hard. I got to say, I got a problem. I have a problem.

I went so hard on the chocolate, not the candy and the chips and stuff, but the chocolate that they got for Halloween in the bags. I went so hard on that the last few days. I feel like I just hate myself. I have a problem. I need help. And that

that brings us to the end of our 944th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark has a fantastic daily newsletter. You can subscribe at 1236.ca and you can follow Mark on Twitter. He's a good follow at 1236. That's at 1236. Numer at 1-2-3-6.

Numerically, our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Chef Drop is at GetChefDrop. Again, the new promo code is FOTM50. Save 50 bucks. Moneris is at Moneris. McKay's CEO Forums are at McKay's CEO Forums. Palma Pasta is at Palma pasta sticker. You they're at six.

They're at sticker. You Ridley funeral home. They're at Ridley FH and Mike Majeski of Remax specialist Majeski group. They're at Majeski group homes on Instagram. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls.

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