Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Marc Weisblott from 12:36: Toronto Mike'd #968

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

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

See, I was doing a bit. You follow? You follow? Welcome to episode 968 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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for your home and your business. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. And Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me for his monthly visit

is 1236's own Mark Weisblot Mike I am here halfway through the month to recap a month that is long forgotten November 2021 but as far as

I'm concerned this is our regular 1236 year ender because I will be back before New Year's Eve when we'll be continuing our annual tradition of Fromage 2021. Well, I can never have enough Weisblot in my diet. I'm here. This is the first time.

Let's tell the people that you were here before I was. You were in the studio before I'm here. This is the first time. Let's tell the people that you were here before I was. You were in the studio before I was here. It's about time, partly because I took the day off doing the newsletter. Here on December 16th, 2021, I'm having deja vu to March 13th, 2020. That feeling of dread in the air that everything's going to shut down all over again. I couldn't get my newsletter out that day, and I felt like, again, here, Thursday, just before the holiday season,

the mood just wasn't right. People can get their panic headlines from elsewhere. I don't know. You just came back from your bike ride. I literally got back. How does it feel out there here in the age of Omicron? So I was safely, I was at the Bentway. There's some space outdoors in the Bentway where Cam Gordon,

that's right, that's right. FOTM Cam Gordon and I were drinking cold Great Lakes beer. So not only is this the first time you were in the studio before I got home, because of course you have your own key, but also this is also a rare time where I started drinking before a 1236 episode. I've been pre-drinking. All right. I better catch up to you then, Mike.

Okay. Crack one open. Thank you, Great Lakes beer. Crack open is cold. Shout out to Great Lakes brewery. Octopus then, Mike. Okay, crack one open. Thank you, Great Lakes Beer. Crack open is cold. Shout out to Great Lakes Brewery. Octopus wants to fight. Okay, on the mic. Okay, and I'm going to crack open a burst.

This is a tasty, fresh IPA from Great Lakes Brewery. Fantastic friends of the program. We appreciate their support. Okay, you're out there on the bent way with FOTM Cam Gordon. Yes. Is he the one going into the Toronto Mike Hall of Fame? Is it Cam? I don't want to reveal it.

No, I don't want to reveal it. Is it him who's got this designation? I don't want to tip my ear. Because I sure hope it's not Stu Stone. What's wrong? Why can't it be Stu Stone? Who's the first one to be inducted there? Due to an abundance of caution.

I know, Mike, your little kids, you put on Twitter, they were sent home a note, or you get nowadays by email, telling you what? They got to bring home all their stuff, just in case school doesn't return in January. Where are you? How are you feeling about this? At the same time you're talking about being six

feet apart from meeting Cam Gordon, the most overly cautious FOTM I know, right? He wouldn't even come inside when there was a thunderstorm on the verge of electrocuting

you out on the patio. I think MF is the actual one who's driving that bus, but I will point out I never said I was six feet away from Cam Gordon. We were very close, but we were outdoors. And where I'm at with this is fucking keep those schools open. Best thing that ever happened to my kids. They're

thriving. Keep the damn schools open and everything else. I don't know. You're here now in my basement. Not only that, but it's what? Like 16 degrees Celsius outside. It's the 16th of December. Why aren't we in the backyard studio? What are we doing down here? But it's not quite...

It's pretty windy out there. Out of an abundance of caution, we're here downstairs. And fortunately, I think unlike last year. I mean, you made me do that year-end fromage special. Yeah, I made you. I put a gun to your head. In're here downstairs. And fortunately, I think unlike last year, I mean, you made me do that year-end fromage special. Yeah, I made you. I put a gun to your head. In the freezing rain. That's right. But I don't think there was any alternative. And it was

partly a stunt. We didn't have a vaccination at that point. It was me coming to you saying last year, a spontaneous decision. Okay, you had Dave Hodge count down his top 100 songs of 2020, now 2021 who's looking after all the cringe worthy music that has happened in the past year i think christopher

ward was returning to kick out the jams at the same time so because of chris ward uh being like top of mind in the fotm zeitgeist we were thinking on like fromage right like it was just top of mind in the FOTM zeitgeist. We were thinking on fromage, right? It was just top of mind. And you're the best man for the job. I can't wait to come back. You've got his approval, right? You've got his blessing. David Kines, one of the original architects of Mudge Music, they're in for this. We're taking

back fromage to do a year-end music special, kicking out the jams, which I have spent the entire 12 months compiling. So last year's Fromage was very abrupt, kind of a last-minute assembly. And I'm telling you, Mike,

what's ahead at the end of December is 12 months of deep thinking. What are the tunes that qualify here for this resurrection of a year-end thing much music used to do with Christopher Ward? Yep. And as usual, when we do this special, we'll explain how it was taken over,

a hostile takeover by Ed the Sock, which did not keep in line with the original spirit. We're taking it back. Fromage 2021. Take back the fromage. You mentioned Stew Stone, and I'm going to follow up on that. But first, I'm going to make you listen to Peter Gross for a minute. So react to this, talk Stew, and then we'll get into it.

For 76 successive weeks, A Weary Nation was entertained by Pandemic Friday episodes of Toronto Mic'd, a welcome distraction during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Then, on August 27th, in front of an adoring crowd of FOTMs on the patio of Great Lakes Brewery at TMLX8, it came to an abrupt end. It was over. Toronto Mic'd was exhausted and went camping. Cam Gordon retreated to the cozy bosom of MF and PPMM, and Stu Stone fled to Winnipeg to film a movie. A nation wept. But do you believe in miracles? Pandemic Fridays with Toronto Mike, Cam Gordon and Stu Stone will return in January 2022.

That's right. The band is getting back together with more fun facts and mind blows. Only this time they'll record on the third Thursday of every month live at live.torontomike.com and they'll have a new name. Pandemic Fridays are now toast. Welcome back, boys. You're just trolling me with that one, aren't you? Now, let me ask you, the cozy bosom of MF? Who wrote that one? I wrote the script.

That was you, okay. Does anybody even know what you're talking about? But don't you think that's talking about? This is Cam Gordon's significant other, who has I would say some moderate celebrity status in the Toronto media. And therefore her full

name is never used. Right. Do you think that she's okay with this? Reference to her as a serious journalist? I was very proud of that script. And again, MF is pretty vague. And I feel like those who get it, get it.

And those who don't, well, fuck them. What do you think about Toast? I need to know your honest reaction. Well, this is only happening because Stu Stone couldn't follow up and get that job on the radio in Kingston, Ontario, right? That was his dream gig. Offer to him. He did not pursue that job as aggressively.

And Stu, you as his agent. And I... With the program director. Jesse... Bingo, Bob. I was showing Jesse's... So Jesse actually is the name of the gentleman who got that gig.

Bob Ouellette hired Jesse out of Ottawa and his tickets to his job. Jesse Reynolds. Morning show co-host from Ottawa who was unceremoniously ditched so that they could replace him with an American syndicated show. Now called Brooke and Jeffrey, which was before Brooke and Jubal. which was before Brooke and Jubal. And Jesse Reynolds is the name of the guy who got Stew Stone's job. How's Jesse going to feel there, knowing that he was a second choice? Well, I'm going to try to get Stew and Jesse on Toronto Mike together to discuss.

Jack of all trades and bandits standing by for more Stew Stone. But are you excited about Toast, the return of Pandemic Fridays? It's got a new name, but we're going to bring it back. How do you feel? I'm just slightly annoyed at the fact that you've booked these boys to come in on the third Thursday of every month. Mike, I might want those

time slots. You got the first Thursday of every month. This is perfect. It means that we have a nice balance. Mike, check the calendar. It's the third Thursday of the month. It took me. It means that we have a nice balance. Mike, check the calendar! It's the third Thursday of the month. It took me this long to get here. But I had to postpone last week.

It was too cold and too dark. Brighter days ahead for everybody here, despite the threat of COVID-19. Don't worry about Omicron. Just enjoy this episode of Toronto Mike threat of COVID-19. Don't worry about Omicron. Just enjoy this episode of Toronto Mike 12-12-36.

What am I, what FOTM am I listening to? Let's hear a bit. Yeah, last year, remember, we had a cover version of Bye Bye Mong Cowboy, the Mitsu song. Right. Last year on the Fromage list. And that was from a band called Trapper. and that was from a band called Trapper. And the singer on this track, M. Griner, who once performed with David Bowie,

and in a memoir or some book she wrote about singing and songwriting, revealed something that I don't think was public knowledge before. Did you know that at the time she was on tour with David Bowie, she was dating David Bowie's son? No, no, I did not know that. That's a recent revelation. I guess Zoe Bowie, who then changed his name to Duncan Jones, grew up to be a filmmaker. Making amends here then With this power ballad From Trapper

An 80s arena rock Tribute act Turning out not to be Just cover versions But M. Griner and guitarist Sean Kelly And I think this song has the stuff Turn it up

Turn it up Turn it up Turn it up Turn it up Even though we let. Turn it up. Turn it up. Turn it up. Even though we let it go, the laughter and the song, it showed. We could have made it.

See, that's the real deal. That's an authentic sound. Just showing they're not just about the Mitsu cover version. I feel I had to compensate for putting them on that fromage list last year. Sincere question from a lover of rock and roll. And I ask this as a great segue into radio, because I have a couple of radio topics I need to talk to you about off the top. But where exactly, where does a rock song with M. Griner on vocals,

where does that fit into the Canadian radio landscape? It gets played on the Toronto Mic podcast and mentioned in the 1236 newsletter. I think that's about it. And that's really all you can hope for in 2021. You had M. Griner on as a podcast guest a long time ago, right? What are we up to in episode numbers? Like, you can calculate, do the math

as we round the corner to 1,000 episodes. Yeah, she dropped by. I can tell you this. It was very shortly after her appearance that David Bowie passed away. So when did he die?

2016, I think? So, yeah, like she literally was here a week before. Episode 154. What are we at today 968 968

do you think you could break out the calculator and figure out how many episodes have gone by I'm a little more prolific in the meantime since I lost the full time job I've become a little more prolific here but my friend speaking of radio can we just start with something because I get so many emails

and DMs and I was going to say snail mail, but I actually didn't get any snail mail. But I'm getting phone calls. People are saying, Mike, where the hell is Ryan Doyle on Newstalk 1010? I wanted to say, though, last week, as we were trying to negotiate what would be the right time for me to come in?

Because there was concern that you had to pick up the kids. Monica would be busy at work. I only had so many hours in the day. But I still gave you two and a half hours to three hours. But it was your assertion that if we're going to talk about these radio topics, what's going on at CHFI? Right. CFRB.

News Talk 1010. This is going to require at least an hour of the podcast. And I'm looking at this message thinking, Mike, what do you take me for? Now, I'm not saying that we haven't spent an hour or more discussing topics like this in the past, but there might be a ceiling in terms of how much there is to say about what's, what's going on with the state of Pooja and Gurdip in the morning show.

Don't worry about Pooja and Gurdip. Where's Ryan Doyle? You want to talk about Ryan Doyle? Why? Because you, you even put a Toronto Mike.com posting about it. Yeah, because A, he's an FOTM, right? So I always look out for FOTMs.

He's an FOTM. He was on an afternoon drive of a prominent AM station, CFRB. He was there with another FOTM, Jay Michaels, who we used to call Mad Dog. And then he was off the show, but they still called it Jay and Ryan, the rush of Jay and Ryan. But he wasn't on the show for weeks. There were fill-ins like Jim Richards, which we'll get to.

And then all of a sudden the name of the show changed. It's interesting that Jay has never told us anything about Ryan. They're clearly under instruction not to mention the name Ryan Doyle or reference him at all. More hilariously than that, J. Michael started taking over all the commercials, all the product endorsements that were being voiced by Ryan Doyle. So what happened to Ryan Doyle? Suddenly replaced by the voice of Mad Dog.

Thanks to LinkedIn, which Ryan Doyle updated, Thanks to LinkedIn, which Ryan Doyle updated, I learned that he was with this radio station for 25 years and 8 months. Wow, and he's not that old a dude. I think I'm older than he is. That's a pretty good run. This is like a college internship. Humber College turned into a job for life over a quarter century, one form or another with the radio station.

I can remember as a producer for John Oakley, did that transfer over to working with Jim Richards, Bill Carroll, eventually getting on the air first at night. That was with John Downs. Remember John Downs? He's an FOTM. You see him on Twitter. He's kind of an embittered ex-radio guy. And you know,

whatever, when you're only in your mid-40s, I don't know if that grumpy persona is going to get you very far. We've gone through a wave where a lot of people tried their hand at doing online and print journalism, and it didn't work out, and their dreams were dashed, right? And they take pride in calling themselves a recovering journalist for the rest of their lives, while they

went off to get a better paying job, usually something like public relations or some other form of communications or working for the government or whatever, but they like brandishing this idea, right? Like, I fought the war. I was there in the trenches. I'm a survivor of the great media industry meltdown, and I don't know, in terms of radio, if people can wear it that well. I don't know if it can get you any place by going through life after you've gone through, especially 25 years, working for one radio station. The only employer you've had in your entire adult life, right, and trying to make that your brand. I mean, it's good for coming down here and giving the real talk,

unloading, unleashing, explaining what went down, what was it like to get that tap on the shoulder. You've gotten a lot of great podcasting content out of those stories. Yeah, two this week. If somebody wants to keep quiet about the fact that they've been dismissed from the station, is that really so bad?

But no one's asking for personal information. They want to they want to make a professional transition into doing something else maybe into an entirely different industry i don't know if they need to amplify and broadcast you're missing the point that things came to an end you let's all hypothetically if it's a personal reason or something's going on that's none of our fucking business then it is none of our fucking business and i don't need to know i'm suggesting a simple one line uh ryan doyle is no longer with the station uh we are not at liberty to discuss the details of his dismissal even that to me is something how did he end up doing afternoon drive? It was because John Tory was their drive home host on News Talk 1010.

He paused his political career the whole time, of course, angling for a way back in to run against Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto. Ended up being an election against Doug Ford. Now John Tory's in place around the corner to his third term. But, you know, there was a period where John Tory did a competent job as a voice of the elite establishment on CFRB 1010.

He was the right guy for that job at that time. You know, for somebody who, I guess, had been a media executive at Rogers Communications. And what was he? He was running a CFL at one point in time. CFL commissioner. Yeah. John Tory.

You know, he had all this business experience. And he brought that to the radio show. And I think it set him up nicely to become mayor. And when he started running for mayor, that was it for his on-air radio career, and they slotted Ryan Doyle in there. For some reason, he wasn't confident or qualified to do the show on his own, so they would always give him a co-host. And there would be rotating co-hosts on this afternoon drive with Ryan Doyle.

They ditched J. Michael's Mad Dog from Virgin Radio. Maybe they thought he was getting a little long in the tooth to do that format. No longer top 40 guy, and he declared that he would be going, getting into talk radio soon. I don't think anybody believed him, but their Mad Dog pulled it off, and I think since then he's done well in afternoon drive. Shake-up at Bell Media, early 2021. Bodies flying out the window, even though everybody was stuck at home.

Barb DiGiulio, Ted Wallachian, these kind of bodies, right? All the news people. Jim Richards, who had also been with CFRB for all that time, also putting in close to that quarter century. They take him off daytime, and they sentence him to do this national overnight show. And Jim himself has said on the air multiple times, I've heard this with my own ears, it depressed him.

He couldn't get out of bed for a few weeks because he was contemplating whether he should take this gig, whether he should take this offer. There he scales his way up to the pinnacle of Canadian talk radio, kicked back to doing this overnight show. Maybe they appeased it, explained it would be broadcast nationally. He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to be there. Especially stuck broadcasting from home. They got rid of Ryan Doyle. They gave Jim Richards

basically his old time slot back. Now he does four hours instead of two and he's got a co-host. Are you suggesting that the Ryan Doyle dismissal is of a personal nature and therefore we should not pry? I'm saying that no matter what happened to that the Ryan Doyle dismissal is of a personal nature and therefore we should not pry.

I'm saying that no matter what happened to Ryan Doyle, that it was perhaps a mistake to remove Jim Richards from primetime radio. And he's back where he needs to be. And look, I mean, everybody's sense of time has been warped so much in 2021. I don't even think too many people noticed he was gone. And there he is now back doing this afternoon rush show.

The overnights at CFRB and Bell Media nationally are now done by this guy, David Cooper. I think I gave him a bit too much credit last time. Now that I hear him explaining himself a little bit more on the air, where he came from and where he's going, he's just like a rich kid from Toronto who fell into doing this radio thing. And once he started explaining a bit of his background, I did a little bit of Googling about where he came from, who his parents are.

I wasn't so into him anymore because there he is on the airplane and it's, aw, shocks, I'm just a starving artist trying to make a thing and that's not the real story. But look, he's got a smooth delivery and he ends up doing this overnight show and

I don't think it really matters. I don't think any stars are going to be made. Everybody says we wish there could be live radio in Canada. Why is everything taped and prerecorded and voice-tracked and out of the USA? I mean, they've got this guy sitting in a condo in New York City doing a national Canadian radio show. I'm not so impressed, but we'll see what happens

with David Cooper. But we got Jim Richards back, okay? Jim Richards got his daytime radio show back. That's not official. That's speculation. It's official enough for me. Joe Loria, a big fan of yours, wanted me to ask you a couple of questions.

I'll save one for a little after the Pooja and Gurdip update, but he wanted me to ask you, couple of questions. I'll save one for a little after the Pooja and Gurdip update. He wanted me to ask you, is Jim Richards a permanent member of the Rush now? You're saying permanent enough. Is that what you're saying? Permanent enough. Well, I'm saying it was a clerical error

to ever move him anywhere else. Do you think the Ryan Doyle dismissal is related to the men sorry, how do you call them, the men, remember I've been drinking all day, but the Mike Ben Dixon dismissal? Yeah, probably. Because they were buds who came up together

in the ranks of that radio station. They both had the same mentors. Ted Wallachian came by to kick out the jams. What did you think of that? I love just feedback from you on episodes. Ted Wallachian came by to kick out the jams. What did you think of that? I love just feedback from you on episodes. It sounded like Ted Wallachian has come back to life after his bout with COVID-19. It woke him up.

It seemed like having his death declared on the air by 100-year-old Hazel McCallion maybe shook him out of a certain complacency uh that was that was mike ben dixon on on 10 10 right like um yeah they got rid they got rid of uh ted wallachian a couple weeks earlier right that's what you have to do to have your existence acknowledged on the air uh after you are terminated in this way. You have to have serious rumors circulating around that you have ceased to exist. And that's what happened to Ted Walsh.

And Mike Bendixson was like his protege with that Ted Walsh morning radio show. They were awkwardly trying to turn the Wally Crowder style of radio into something with more of a news orientation. Yeah, I think Mike Ben Dixon did an okay job. I don't know why the program director of CFRB has to be mentioned on the air every 10 to 15 minutes. Remember when Steve Couch became a household name for anybody

who was a listener of the station? Because it couldn't stop referring to him. Every host, three times an hour, would throw in the name Steve Couch. May I make a confession? Well, the confession is what? You don't listen to these radio stations at all. I don't think I've ever heard a minute. I might have, like,

as a teenager, heard a couple of minutes of the Mott's. I don't think I've ever heard a minute. I might have, like, as a teenager, heard a couple of minutes of the Mots. Is that possible? I've never heard 1010. And I've got it on my clock radio all the time. That's why we're a good duo here. To the point where, if I move the dial anywhere else, I'm confused. I give a shit about what's going on there.

I might not listen. Do you? Okay, so Mike Ben Dixon, a Gen Xer, who found himself in charge of the biggest talk radio stations in Canada, first in Montreal, CJAD, then Toronto CFRB. Right. So you do need an hour to talk about these two radio stations. He must have had some good ideas because he hung in there for a while,

from Standard to Astral to Bell Media. His own LinkedIn has changed. He sees himself as some kind of consultant. A lot of unemployed radio people out there looking for tips on how to start a podcast. That's the default status for anyone who gets fired from radio is suddenly they're a consultant

and maybe even a podcast. Listen, if you have podcast questions, you talk to Toronto Mike. Okay, well, you might think that I have nothing better to do than sit around and enumerate these things, and you might be right. How many people did Mike Ben Dixon preside over the dismissal of, right?

Like, he had been in charge of these stations for so long that firing people from radio was something he was accustomed to. Hatchet man, right? And so one day they just came for him instead but there's we've gone through month after month that's related to turmoil at these telecom owned media companies okay and you cannot you know you can't sit there for uh let alone a year like a decade or two and see wave after wave of people being tapped on the shoulder and said that you can't be here anymore and go into a state of shock when they tell you it's your turn.

Before we get to another telecom-owned station with changes, let's talk about a radio, a company that does not own any telecom, Chorus. Okay, so they have 640, Global News Radio, GNR 640. In your opinion, Mr. Weisblot, 640 is going woker. Well, Greg Brady is leading the charge on that one. Your favorite.

He listened to your appearance on Toronto Mike last week. I hope you know. What did he think? He feels... I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he listened. What can I say? Look, he got this morning radio show job from Mike Stafford, alright? He wouldn't be there if Mike

Stafford didn't take the fall. You make it sound like he's helping it, like doing it for his buddy, but Stafford and we would agree on this, right? That Stafford shot himself in the foot. I should be careful with my terminology here in case it comes back to haunt us. But, basically these were self-inflicted wounds by Mike Stafford shot himself in the foot. I should be careful with my terminology here in case it comes back to haunt us. But basically

these were self-inflicted wounds by Mike Stafford. Right? Okay, so look. Good luck. Greg Brady on the morning show on 640. There he is in my estimation, right? I think he's there to project the sort of voice that

people associate with AM Talk Radio but the substance of what he's saying and how he's saying it is based on the idea here of trying to change the conversation and not say anything that can get the chorus share price in trouble. That's ultimately the tightrope that somebody like him is walking every day. And the way to do that is to become woker than before. Make sure nothing happens to you along the lines of what happened to Peter Sherman. And Greg Brady, he faced some backlash,

which came after he allowed Desmond Cole on the air to spout off about a controversial speech, a Zoom talk he gave to the Toronto District School Board, in which he started going on about the need to give Israel back to the Palestinians, get all the colonial Jewish people out of there, whatever. Same sort of things that Art Bergman talked about when he was on Toronto Mic'd. And the facilitators of the speech were saying, Desmond Cole, this is not what we invited you on here to talk about, right?

We thought you were giving a speech about anti-black racism. What are you getting into the Middle East for? And then he blasted them and explained that there were no conditions on what he could say. He seemed to have a whole agenda there, and Greg Brady had him on the air to talk about this without pushing back. He just let Desmond Cole bring that same script that the Toronto District School Board didn't want to hear, transmitting it over the airwaves of 640. And he got complaints about that, right?

Then he has to invite this other activist on from a Jewish organization, Honest Reporting. And Greg Brady, I guess, had to admit that he didn't do a good enough job journalistically of letting these assertions go on the air unchecked. He owned up to his mistake. He's owning up to his mistake, or he's just bumbling through the job trying to figure out how to do this style of news radio.

Maybe Peter Sherman had a point after all. Maybe you do need people on the air who are willing to go toe-to-toe and have a debate and not be discouraged by the idea that they might hang up the phone and then complain to everybody about it on Twitter about how terribly you treated them. I mean, that was the gist of what Peter Sherman was complaining about, right? And Greg Brady there, he's at the forefront of trying to clean up the mess that these people made

and bring in a new era of woke Canadian AM talk radio, which is, it does not, these people do not listen to the AM dial. Like it's not even, it's not a sustainable proposition in the slightest. These dashboard pounding 905 people are not going to go in for this stuff. And you're not going to start attracting new listeners.

The CBC Metro morning audience is not going to suddenly tune in at AM 640. The ratings... Oh, the ad break alone would kill them. It would kill me. Yeah, there's not going to be some big migration over there. I'm not sure what they're doing, but Greg Brady, he's doing his best.

Don't worry about these semi-articulate ramblings that I'm offering here. Listen, Greg, all I'm doing is delivering the goods based on what Toronto Mike asks me to do. The degree to which I actually care about this stuff varies depending on the day of the week and whatever mood I'm in. I wish him the greatest luck and success. But Toronto Today with Greg Brady, I got to say, isn't the kind of show that I'm going to be changing

my listening habits for. It's not going to be my thing. And based on a hire that they made at 640, it's going to be even more Greg Brady's in the future, which is to say we're probably hearing the last of John Oakley on the air, who's in this semi-retirement gig. And over time, they told him he could no longer have these right-wing ranters come on the air.

Conrad Black. No coincidence. First episode of the Peter Sherman podcast. He's the featured guest. No longer welcome on 640. Mark Stein would no longer appear after what they told Conrad

and Sue Ann Levy made a fuss about the fact that she was told her phone-in services are no longer welcome. And instead, what's what's John Oakley doing in the afternoon? So panel discussions with a bunch of public relations people. I don't know if he wants to do this job.

Look, they told him to take a hike. They're paying him too much to do this morning show. As far as I understand it, he negotiated just to stay on in the afternoon because he doesn't want to do anything else in his life. They give him like, I don't know, 16 weeks of vacation a year. They pay him probably like they paid John Tory,

which is to say minimum wage. He might not even cash a check. But I wonder if they'll put somebody else in there instead and try to redefine this global news radio. Is Ryan Doyle progressive enough and woke enough for the afternoon drive on global news radio 640? Well, stranger things have happened. And if they are trying to cut into the audience of another radio station, that is usually the move that you make.

At one point, Bill Carroll showed up on 640 doing a show from Los Angeles, a local Toronto show that was mostly pre-recorded earlier in the day. And they wanted him on the air so much, they thought he would be a quick fix and bring any kind of audience to the station. And we've seen it with other rival radio stations out there. Talk in a moment about CHFI. That is the move, that you just recruit somebody from elsewhere on the dial and put them in that time slot. But a woman named Amanda Cupido, a press release from Chorus, announcing she was now in charge of talk and talent at Global News Radio AM640.

I listen to Humble and Fred. I listen to Humble and Fred because I usually scan Humble and Fred to hear when they're talking about radio. It's those embittered discussions that give me life. That's the best thing about the Humble and Fred show

is when they pop off about their former employers and sitting by the phone waiting for that call to come in and save AM640, you know, 20 years after the Mojo radio disaster. Right? You're the producer of the Humble and Friends show. I am the producer of the Humble and Friends show.

And you're willing to say, if not Humble and Friends themselves are willing to say, they would be excited to get that phone call. Excited, yes. From a major Toronto radio station. I'm not sure. Saying, come in and we need you to save our frequency. We're out of ideas.

We don't have anything else on our minds. Well, that's a ridiculous proposition. Come on here, bring Toronto Mike with you. They would be delighted to get the call. You can fill this air time with whatever you want but that's not to say that they would stop doing what they're doing and take the gig

money talks they would find a way so Humble and Fred I guess we're saying it's a lost cause good luck to this Amanda Cupido she can do whatever work she wants We're saying it's a lost cause. You know, good luck to this Amanda Cupido. Go all traffic.

She can do whatever work she wants. Nobody's going to listen to this radio station one way or the other. It's over. People listen to podcasts. Look at how Sportsnet fan 590 capitulated, recognizing that's the way people listen these days. I don't know what you can do with being like the less popular news talk radio station in town. Right, right.

Good luck to everyone. So Joe Loria, who had the great question earlier about Jim Richards, wants me to ask you, this is him, ask Mark, is the fan drive time in serious trouble or are they committed to this podcast as radio strategy long term? Well, you keep better score of this stuff than me. And it usually involves talking to Mark Hampshire. What options do they have?

Like, I don't understand. What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to hire back Bob McCowan and put him in the afternoon drive? Like, at some point, you have to recruit a younger audience. I know you've got another sports media roundtable coming up. Yeah, it's scheduled. Yeah, absolutely.

So there'll be lots of chatter on that. Early, early 2022. And actually, I have a very special episode coming up. I almost don't want to talk about it. But Mike Richards is essentially, he wants 90 minutes to just go off on terrestrial AM radio. And you talked about it here during your holiday Zoom. Yeah, where were you in that holiday zoom i was looking for eavesdropping it was uh taken was there uh mike richards was there of course

mike apple all the mics were there it was pretty uh pretty a member of the lowest of the low was there lawrence a lot of great people were on that zoom cam gordon was my co-host. Okay, Mike Richards stuck doing his show, but making money thanks to sports gambling sponsorships, which he is more than happy to take, transmitted on that obscure Mississauga radio station. Mike Richards' verdict there on that Zoom was, it's over, right? Mike Richards' verdict there on that Zoom was it's over. Right? There's nothing that Bell and Rogers can do any longer to save this idea. Pandora's out of the box.

AM sports radio talk. People have moved on. Right. No turning back. Toothpaste is out of the tube. And while he certainly speaks with an agenda, himself as a veteran of Sportsnet Radio and TSN, we'll find out if he's right. And we'll find out, I think, in 2022 if people are going back to the office, if old listening patterns return again. How are people going to listen to the radio?

And we've said here month after month, in the end, podcasting has won. When it comes to credibility, when it comes to the content that gets people talking, you're unlikely to hear anything about something somebody said on an AM talk radio station unless it was like a blow up involving Peter Sherman. Or if you cry. Like when Jim Richards cried off a board of directors. You have to do something different. Jim Richards cried and Jim Richards won't stop reminding you that he's cried.

It's now been part of building his brand. Where the future lies, I don't know. The challenge of trying to make it work on AM Talk Radio. Mike Van Dixon got replaced by the program director of TSN Radio in Toronto. Do you remember the gentleman's name? He was the program director there. Jeff McDonald? Jeff McDonald.

And maybe a bell. They saw that he knew what he was doing. That afternoon overdrive show got a bit of buzz. Can they bring that magic over to talk radio? News Talk 1010. More of it will be nationally syndicated. Less of it will be local to Toronto. Very little of it is now after the morning show.

This is a song by Sting. Remember Sting? Gordon Sumner. He's a good digger. A good friend of a couple of FOTMs. Gary Topp and Gary Cormier. The Garys. It came up recently.

By the way, the Greg Brady episode of Toronto Mic'd, the recent one, because he's been on several times, but the recent one, Tish Eyston was telling me that she thoroughly enjoyed it. So shout out to Tish Eyston. Oh, yeah, Tish Eyston, who until recently was doing weekends and nighttime voice tracks on FM 98.1 CHFI,

kind of radio station where you once might have heard the new single from Sting. But right now you wouldn't hear that at all if they would have even considered Sting age-appropriate for their audience at this point. You know, I've been on that campaign looking for the oldest rock star with the best song.

We talked about Elton John and Dua Lipa, although that's like Elton John covering himself. Could Sting, with that tune, Rushing Water from his new album, represent the best effort from somebody over 70. I like Neil Young's new single. They've still got it. Neil Young, not that he'll ever be played on anything close to CHFI.

But the quality control from Neil Young has been a little scatterbrained for the past 30 or 40 years. Sure. has been a little scatterbrain for the past 30 or 40 years. And so it's with some trepidation that one approaches any Neil Young record, let alone trying to remember the difference from one to the other. But Sting, Sting, remember Sting? Sure.

From Saturday Night Live, making copies with Rob Schneider. Of course, of course. Making copies, on Schneider. Of course, of course. Making copies. On the copy, yeah, of course, of course. There was a new record by Sting. Just throwing that in as my nomination for someone over 70 who's been around for a while. Nice.

Sounded like they've still got it because Sting doesn't have it. He's over 70? Yeah, Sting, I think just this year, 1951. Nice. Sounded like they've still got it because Sting doesn't have it. He's over 70? Yeah, Sting just this year, 1951. Wow. Sting does not have to make a new record. No. He doesn't need the money. In the past 20 years

his rock albums have been few and far between. Shout out to Sting for still making the effort. And great YouTube video. Do you know Rick Beato? He's like a music YouTube guy.

Gets a lot into the science of sound and how rock music works. And Sting or his people, they recognize this. This is the kind of guy that you go to these days when you're trying to promote a new record, right?

You don't hustle waiting for that commercial radio airplay that's not going to happen. You follow the audience. You go where they are. And I think that video that Sting made with Rick Beato

did a lot to put his new record on the radar. But back to CHFI. Let me set it up this way so there were two episodes this it's been a busy week on toronto mic i think this is episode five of the week i got a sixth one happening tomorrow because there was this surprise dr liza dr liza came wanted to come on and talk about how she got fucked over by a dragon manjeet on dragon's den and then there was a whole ordeal where i was offering Manjeet an opportunity

to come on and give her side of the story. And I got ghosted by Manjeet, which I feel is quite appropriate because Manjeet ghosted Dr. Liza three times. So people should listen to that episode. But Kyle Christie came on to explain why the hell he left CP24. And explain how he managed to be

the better looking version of you. Right. But only 22% better looking. And he is a bit younger, so he's got an advantage. But he's the one that says he's better looking, right? Like he's got the vanity of a guy that's been on TV. He dresses better. He will not concede the point, the concept.

He never said he was better looking than me. That you might be the handsomer man. He never said he was. I said he was better looking and he didn't argue. But I think he would agree... Okay, well, right there. The fact that he didn't argue means that he agrees. That Kyle Christie is

a better looking version of you. Right. And we would all agree, Kyle Christie without a doubt is a far better dresser than I am. Like, he dresses with style where I literally just pick a comfortable t-shirt or whatever. And then we go, you're in the business of real talk.

And what's he doing? I dress authentically. Real estate videos. Wise blot. Listen closely. Pooja Handa and Gurdip Alawalia. We've been talking for months about how they were going to resurface on CHFI, especially after Maureen Holloway.

And I gotta say, you have been credited with this scoop. I've been told, I said, I said when Maureen Holloway. And I've got to say, you have been credited with this scoop. I've been told, I said, when Maureen Holloway got the ax, I made my pivot. And how much of that is owed to me doing the math? Well, no, I think when FOTM Maureen Holloway got the ax, which was a surprise, I think many people, including us, all came to the correct conclusion simultaneously.

So regardless, it was made official. Pooja and Gurdeep are the new morning show on CHFI. What say you, Mark Wiseblood, about this development? I gotta say, nothing like showing that we're moving into a new multicultural era of Toronto media than the Pooja and Gurdip morning show being accompanied by the music of Perry Como and Bing Crosby as CHMI is currently in all Christmas mode. And you notice that it's only at the most wonderful time of the year where suddenly

it's okay to play music from the 1940s on modern, contemporary radio stations. For some reason, this stuff was considered appropriate and year after year, the Christmas format turns out to be a winner

in the ratings. The advertisers love it. That's when you hear the radio station all over the retail world, even though last year at this time things were on hiatus, and this year things are still a bit dodgy. But the assumption is that Christmas music will give the station a boost. And standing by here wondering what's going to become of Rogers Media and their flagship adult contemporary radio station, CHFI. Will it sound the same in 2022, that is, with the music they play, as it did before they brought in Pooja and Gurdeep.

And they're saying they're just doing like a preview of their morning show to come. So there they were hired from CP24, from doing the CP24 breakfast. Here was this television duo that somebody at Rogers had. Yeah, what I think was a pretty bright idea, that this pair represents a certain kind of milquetoast mainstream in Canadian media. Listening to them, even just a little bit on the day that they debuted,

don't mistake the fact that these people are coming in from a different direction, that they're atypical mainstream radio personalities, don't start thinking they have any sort of edge, right? Like, if anything, this is blunter than any style of radio before. Like, Maureen Holloway was capable of being subversive. She had been around rock radio on Q107 doing her other people's business gossip chat in the morning uh there was uh definitely a harsh sarcasm that she was capable of and i think it was it was reflected

uh in something that she put on twitter did you did notice a tweet when people were speculating about what happened to her? For the record, I have neither, quote, hung up my mic nor retired. This bitch has plenty more to say. Please stand by. Those are words that would not be welcomed in the hallowed halls of Rogers Media.

What I like about her is she always had that edge to her where she could kind of go that way or she can also... And what if it's something that's not welcome at Rogers Media anymore? Unless you're the disbarred chiropractor sister of Edward Rogers spouting off on Twitter about your family feud, the corporate style, the products that are presented by Rogers Media, just like Bell and Chorus, have gotten safer and safer and safer. We're in this new era in which it's dangerous to put anything over the airwaves

that can affect your stock price, that can lead to people on Twitter complaining to advertisers. Everybody's been empowered with this ability to take a clip and amplify it on social media, even if they're taking it out of context. Exhibit A, once again, Peter Sherman, media, even if they're taking it out of context. Exhibit A, once again, Peter Sherman, the way that he was portrayed and named and shamed out of his broadcasting career. Is it maybe at this point a liability to have someone like Maureen Holloway on the air? Maybe they were looking at

it like, in fact, we need people who are maybe a little bit younger. We need to try and skew this station in a different direction. They've got that familiarity from being on television, CP24. And maybe they can then shift the demographics of the old school CHFI in the end of an era, the end of that legacy of Don Daynard and Aaron Davis, Darren B. Lamb, who mysteriously disappeared earlier this year. And as soon as they fired Maureen Holloway, there was Darren B. Lamb back on Twitter expressing his gratitude, right?

After like eight months of silence radio silence suddenly he was confessing uh to the fact that he was no longer with the company whatever went down there maybe it worked out for him once again another guy in his mid-50s might as well be the prime of his life talking about how he's retired. Just like Ian the General, Ian MacArthur. Right. Right? Suddenly a lot of gratified retirements from people who might have, like, 15 or 20 more years of work ahead of them.

Good for Maureen Holloway, right, to say that on Twitter. Right. Because, okay, maybe she's got money in the bank. I don't think that's good enough when you get fired for the first time in a 35 radio career in the way that she was. There's some dignity here that she wants to protect and project. In her exit settlement or whatever you want to call it, her severance, there's a tradeoff, right? Like she gets paid. Good for you, Mo.

But the trade-off is that she cannot speak publicly, like disparage her former employee in public. Well, then what's the point? And how long is it going to take for her to return to Toronto, Mike? Has there been some form of correspondence? Yes, of course. Of course. And she wants to come back. We need to wait a little bit,

similar to how we're waiting for Scott McArthur to come back. She wants to come back. We need to wait a little bit, similar to how we're waiting for Scott McArthur to come back. He wants to come back. Again, I just got to the Kyle Christie one. He's been gone for a few years, even though he says he quit, so it's a little different. We've still got Maureen Holloway on Twitter and Instagram, and she's got those outlets

for the real talk. I happen to like her very much. Well, we have a TMDS show with Maureen Holloway. We have never discussed that. Tish Eyston, then, was also dismissed. Although, maybe she was a pay-as-you-go participant. Yeah, it's tough to say because she's a weekend warrior, as they say. It was an easier breakup on her part,

and you did a nearly two-hour deep dive with Tish, one of Toronto's secret media celebrities. Yes, because I mentioned to Humble and Fred this morning. I'm on the show every Thursday. I go on Humble and Fred, and I just mentioned Tish Eyston. I had a great chat with her yesterday, and neither had ever heard the name Tish Eyston before, and these are two people who make a living in radio.

There you go. You just hear this soothing voice on Toronto radio for however many decades. What a voice. She also does a whole bunch of voiceovers. Her catalog runs deep, right? She does true crime bunch of voiceovers. Her catalog runs deep, right? She does true crime documentaries, video games. Great

resume there, but I thought as far as somebody telling a story about how they fell into a radio career from working at the front desk of a holiday inn. I'll tell you straight up when there's an episode I'm underwhelmed by, but the Tish one,

sneaky, sneaky interesting. Like, I didn't know what to expect. I knew she was at CHFI for another station I've never listened to. She was at CHFI for like 17 years

and she was dismissed and I wanted to talk to her about that. But even if you look at like her Thunder Bay years, like, what do I know about Thunder Bay radio? Like, super interesting

in how she got her start at the Toronto's Club 54. What was it called about Thunder Bay Radio? Super interesting in how she got her start at Toronto's Club 54. What was it called? Heaven? Heaven? The whole story I found very interesting. In Toronto? Heaven? In the CN Tower? Ed Conroy, Retro Ontario.

Who's here next week? Oh, he's actually on Zoom, but he'll be on the show next week for Christmas Crackers Volume 4. Ask him about the disco at the top of the CN Tower. Tish Eyston, also adamant about the idea that she is not retired. Right. Just because she is

no longer fitting into the plans of Rogers Media does not mean that she is using that R word. Right. But I continue to be morbidly fascinated by the people who do use it. To have reached a point in your career

where you're being reluctantly put out of work, yet you're trying to spin it that you've reached some state of freedom 55. And maybe you've got money in the bank, but I feel like we've got more respect for the people who are not going gently into that good night. And I got to say, is money everything?

Like to me, do I said, if I make enough money, if TMDS suddenly makes enough money, I can retire. But isn't there something about a creative outlet and doing things you love for yourself? Maybe not necessarily for a cable company or whatever, but there's something like, I don't even,

I can't even imagine what does retirement look like for me? Like a lot of these things I'm doing are great passions. Look for me, it's never going to happen. I've just put in like 30 years of trying to make it as a journalist. Well, you can keep coming here forever. Maybe,

maybe I'm halfway there. Look, I mean, as long as you've got something to say and you've got an audience willing to hear it. We went through a whole era. We remember it well, Mike, 15, 20 years ago, where if somebody would be removed from the radio, they would start a blog, right?

Oh, yeah. Read my thoughts at CanadianThinker.com, where I'm going to exercise my might, tell you what I think about the world. But there was kind of a sadness and desperation I felt back then about these enterprises. And usually people would start these things with a lot of fire and fury, and then the day would come they would just give up.

Because it's a lot of work. They would start posting. It's a lot of work. It would be like they'd leave a post, I'll be back in a few minutes, a few days, and then never come back again. Two years later, another post. Oh, I think I'm getting back to my blog soon. Be right back.

Stand by. And then you'd never hear from them again because they were trying to get back into the business. And now maybe reality sinks in for some of these veterans that there is no business to get back into. Or the business to get back into is one that you're going to have to create for yourself. Okay, on that note, I'm going to ask you kindly to maybe address these in two-minute chunks. Here we go. At least you didn't make me review every single episode of Toronto Mike that went down since I was last here.

Well, just right around the corner, as we speak next week, is Festivus. And you haven't had your buddy Elvis here in a while. I'm looking forward then when you review every single episode of Toronto Mic'd in the past year. Could you imagine? Your lifelong high school friend can tell you over and over again that he never listened. Never knew him in high school. I know him post high school. He tried to get me a job in porn.

No, I don't know Elvis from high school this is probably i know him uh post high school he tried to get me a job in porn this is no i don't know elvis from high school i met elvis you'll have to explain after all i feel like we've done it so i've got the wrong impression i never knew him in high school no not a high school buddy uh but i will tell you elvis who i've known i have known for quite a while uh i actually have now tipped over from finding it kind of fun and charming that he never listened to toronto mike where i realized on friday when he was amongst the fotms which are people like I actually have now tipped over from finding it kind of fun and charming that he never listened to Toronto Mike, where I realized on Friday when he was amongst the FOTMs, which are people who actually listen to every show practically, I had a moment where he kind of did his whole like, oh, I don't listen to any Toronto Mike episodes.

And it actually irked me. Like I flipped over now where I'm now officially like kind of like not interested in talking to someone who openly dislikes the show so he's still coming over for fest i was gonna say don't let him in the house in which case it means you'll just be recording in the backyard yeah we'll see okay you wanted to mention though i think rick the temp so rick the temp who is a great new fotm he had a great debut in my opinion a great debut in the summer in the backyard. I thought it was a lot of fun. Rick Campanella. Campanelli.

Oh, yeah. Who's Campanella? Is that a baseball player? I feel like maybe that's a Yankees catcher or something. Okay. So Rick Campanelli, my apologies to Rick, he is on the new morning show at 103.5. Is that still called the Z?

What is that? Z-103? I should know this shit. Roy Campanella. That's who I'm thinking of. Roy Campanella. How many beers are you in? I'm okay still.

I'm on my first one. I was with Cam at the Bentway here. Rick Campanelli, Stumbling enough. I was with Cam at the Bentway here. Rick Campanelli, whose career had somehow been reduced to doing posts about tomato sauce on Instagram. Prego. After being told that his services were no longer required

on Entertainment Tonight Canada, following a lengthy run on Much Music. Oh, Cheryl Hickey says she wants to come on Toronto, Mike. I had a chat with her the other day. Little FYI. And as far as survival in the media business, it was, what, a decade for Rick the Temp on Much Music? And then, what, 15 years on Entertainment Tonight?

Sounds about right. He had a good run. Over a decade. Close enough. Somewhere in there they gave him a morning sidekick job on CFNY, which was like everything they've done there in the last decade. Right. Total disaster.

But Rick needed a job, even though, once again, very candid about the reality of this media career that he got by accident because he wanted to contest a bunch of music. Right? He saw it as a blessing. Like, none of this would have happened. where having a last name like Campanelli is still considered an asset to their plans, something that their core audience can relate to. If you like that Euro trash music. Look, Joey Vendetta at one point did the morning show on 103.5.

Was it Z-103? Am I reading between the lines? Tony Monaco. Okay, so Italian-Canadian. Tony Monaco was doing the morning show before. 40% of my high school, speaking of my high school, was of Italian descent, like Italian-Canadians whose parents emigrated.

Okay, well, somebody's got to look after this audience here, right? And if other stations think that catering to the Italians is some form of white supremacy, then good on the Evanov Radio Group for stepping in, making this station more Italian than ever by bringing Rick the Temp. And, like,

I'm not being facetious here. Legitimately, that is the core audience for Z103. Have you listened? It's a huge community. How does he sound? Even beyond Woodbridge. I listened on the first day to Rick just to check if this was real, if it wasn't a mirage and he was there.

Z103 morning show. It sounded all right. Look, I mean, he's there with Sandra, a sidekick. No last name required when you're Sandra. Not officially. Like Cher and Madonna. Okay. Rick Campanelli and Sandra on the Z morning show,

landing on his feet then. I think you can put that in the column of guests on Toronto Mic'd who were unemployed at the time. Right. Who in fairly short order. Do you think his episode had anything to do with it? Probably. Got him back in the game. It's happened before.

It's happened before. Probably. It reignited his career. Now, here's a name I don't know. Tell me who this gentleman is. I'm probably missing out. Bill Anderson. Bill Anderson has retired from Classical 96.3. Yeah, Bill Anderson

was a long time. Mr. Anderson. I remember Bill Anderson from The Sound of Our Toronto, 99.9 CKFM, probably around the same time Maureen Holloway was on there, mid-1980s. He was a country music guy

on CFGM. And this goes back to the 1990s when the classical radio station from Coburg, CFMX, was looking to get a little slicker. And now the station that's owned by Zoomer Media, Moses Nimer, at the time it was independent operation out there in the woods of Coburg and brought in Bill Anderson to do this classical radio morning show,

which if you were a classical purist, you would probably think, not that you would have ever heard him on the radio before, but how dare this country radio DJ come into our classical radio station and pretend that he could pronounce the names of all the composers? And yet, it was a big part of the success of that radio station, that they took somebody who was not just a classical music snob and put him on there and made the station more accessible. And I would say into mid to late 90s, classical 96 CFMX had going on. That became one of my favorite Toronto radio stations because I think at the time you could tell that they were crafting the radio station in a nuanced fashion

that these more corporate radio stations weren't bothering with anymore. If you had nostalgia, even just for the idea of what CFNY or Chum FM or Q107 used to be, that is to say people on the air who were very passionate about the music, doing these foreground features, teaching you about things. By then, you could turn on Classical 96, and you could automatically feel smarter by having this radio station wafting through the room. And it appealed to me at a certain time in my life. wafting through the room.

And it appealed to me at a certain time in my life. And for all these years, like a quarter century, there was Bill Anderson on Classical 96, stuck around when the station became a part of the Zoomer media empire. And when he gave his sign-off speech, here's a guy who was genuinely well into retirement age, thanking Moses Nimer for the Zoomer philosophy that here into my senior citizenship, I am still considered a viable radio personality.

You might think other corporations could learn from that in terms of keeping an older person around. And I thought that was a nice touch in the goodbye speech from Bill Anderson on Classical 96.3. Another DJ who left AM740, Zoomer Radio, was Norm Edwards. And he was originally from when that AM740 first signed on in Toronto.

Remember that 20 years ago? They got the license. It used to be the AM radio station. Of course. CBC. Right, of course, of course. And there was Norm Edwards on the Afternoon Express, also retiring after all these years.

And what's going on in Montreal with MC Mario, and is he related to Luigi? You know, I was thinking about MC Mario because of the nostalgia trip we went down in dissecting whatever happened to Chris Shepard an episode or two ago we played Chris Shepard's

final media appearance which was on a podcast with Humble and Fred, and coming maybe to the conclusion that Chris Shepard would be a terrible guest for Toronto Mic'd,

because the story that Chris Shepard has to tell has very little relationship to the truth. But it's three PhDs, and how he's been involved in all these intellectual pursuits. As far as we could tell from different sources,

FOTMs, what's Chris Shepard doing? Day trading in his mansion somewhere, Costa Rica, or maybe just in the hinterlands of Ontario. But around the time that Chris Shepard first started getting popular, doing these live-to-air dance music broadcasts in Toronto, we had a parallel

Montreal. And that was a guy named Mario Tremblay. Oh, from the Montreal Canadians. MC Mario, who did a dance music show that ran

on what at the time was CJ FM. That was the Mix 96 radio station, now Virgin Radio. 30 years later, he was still on the air

doing these Saturday night dance party shows. MC Mario, also like Chris Shepard, had compilation albums, compilation CDs. But as far as you can tell, Mike, I mean, you're the test case. Like, you'd never heard of the guy. Not known outside of Montreal. Don't know MC Mario. I don't remember if he was heard in Toronto at any point in time.

I don't remember if he was heard in Toronto at any point in time, but like so many of a certain age, tapped on the shoulder by Bell Media and told your time is done here on the airwaves and very grateful for the fact that he had hung out for all these years. Therefore, file him away with Ryan Doyle, Mike Bendixson, MC Mario no longer with Bell Media. Devil without cause You heard me screaming And 20 years later, bitch, I still fucking mean it Fuck a fucker, you ain't never met a motherfucker like this

Kiss my ass and you can suck a dick Sideways, my way, or the highway Listen up, ain't nothing changed Here I still don't give a fuck So what the fuck's up with all the backlash? You snowflakes, here's a news flash. Ain't nobody gonna tell me how to live. Are we jumping the gun here on Fromage 2021?

Like, should this not be in our compilation of cheesiest songs of the year? Thankfully, I think on my list are enough Canadian rock bands trying a little too hard here in the past year. Let's shout out then Hamilton, Ontario rock band Monster Truck. Big in the Fox News headlines, at least for one day, when this kid rock song came out. His comeback to that rap and roll sound of the late 90s everybody loved it back then right we're all into the irony of of kid rock i'm like a cowboy you want another confession here's another confession here in the 2020s this somehow has

gotten a little too dangerous now his politics ridiculous, but in terms of the jam, I still dig this, whatever you call this, this hybrid between, I guess it's a metal, southern rock, rap hybrid, and only Kid Rock delivers that. This song reminds me

of American Badass, and I'm not ashamed to tell you a song I did not love. Ironically, I just loved it. And that was Kid Rock. Yeah, that was Kid Rock. And it sounded a lot like that.

Okay, but that's a better version of this. Before the presidency of Donald Trump. Yes. Now, Monster Truck were a legitimate Canadian indie rock band who got airplay on mainstream rock radio stations like Bingo Bob Ouellette would know. 94.9 The Rock. You would have heard the original version

of Monster Trucks. So that song... Don't Tell Me How To Live. So can I ask this? Because I missed that single, but... Don't tell me how to live. That was like a song unto itself well before Kid Rock entered the train.

Yeah, 2015 on the charts. Number 8 on the Canadian rock radio charts, and number 27 in the USA. It's not bad. It's a catchy hook. It made some inroads. Yeah, okay. Enough for Kid Rock, a competitor on those same radio charts,

or at least people close to Kid Rock to be familiar enough to it that they recognize that Don't Tell Me How To Live could get a second life as the hook for the Kid Rock comeback single. And that's exactly what happened

somewhere in November November 2021. Danko Jones. FOTM Danko Jones. FOTM Danko Jones, please. You sure you want to admit that? I don't disown my FOTM. You never missed an opportunity to be an opportunist.

But I haven't taken the title from loose skis as yet, so Danko can definitely keep that title. Danko Jones taking issue with Monster Truck, associating them with Kid Rock. And so we're just one more degree of separation from everything represented by the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. And it was Danko Jones who hammered away at this point on Twitter.

And in what I would think is unusual for the tweets of Danko Jones, got some pushback from Monster Truck. They called out his calling them out, saying this guy is just trying to ride our coattails. We played on this song. It was a job that we were hired for. You should enjoy it. And who is Danko Jones,

who never stops talking about how he was like the 17th opening act on the side stage of some European festival where Motorhead was a headliner 17 years ago. To suggest that doing a song with Kid Rock was tantamount with endorsing all of the policies of the Republican Party of the United States. Who's your favorite?

Who's your favorite of these three people? I need to know right now. Danko Jones, Greg Brady, and Stu Stone. Who's your favorite? I'll cut Stu Stone some slack because he's coming back with toast. And it's called toast because they're kicking out the jams. You said there were multiple, multiple meanings.

Whenever you watch an interesting, you ever read about the origins of rap and you do, maybe you dive into a documentary on the evolution of rap. You learn about how the reggae DJs would toast the crowd. Like they'd grab the mic,

they're spinning their jams, they'd grab the mic and they would toast the crowd. Like they'd grab the mic, they're doing, spinning their jams, they'd grab the mic and they would toast the crowd. And this essentially is the origin of rapping, toasting the crowd. So there's that whole concept. And of course,

what's best on toast? Jam, right? So we're going to be kicking out jams. We're going to be toasting the FOTMs. And man, I just thought it was

better than having the word pandemic in the title. Where were we? Danko Jones calling out Monster Truck, but I think Monster Truck kind of won in the end. I mean, look, you can't dispute the idea that people would have a problem with the politics of Kid Rock. Here is a Trump fan playing to the great unmasked and unvaxxed masses of America. But, hey, it was a song. It got them on the radar.

Don't tell me how to live. And, I mean, do you think that kid rock covering the song having them on the track do you think that that somehow damages monster trucks career in in canada no i don't think so if you i don't think so and also i don't even think that uh not to get into like a jeremy taggart discussion like we've had in the past here but but I don't think that's a cover anyways. If you have the original artist and they're doing their part, it's more of a hybrid mashup type deal, but it ain't a cover.

Kid Rock's not covering Monster Truck. Look, whatever the case, Danko Jones thinks he deserves all of their fans. Therefore, I don't know. Listen to Danko Jones. Give him a try. Give him a play

on YouTube or Spotify. Put another one five hundredth of a cent in his pocket. He needs a break. Let me dedicate this jam to my good friend Prosiemski Zolt. Przemski, this is for you, buddy. What the hell is this?

A Polish song about cocaine? Yeah, Pat Foran, the consumer reporter from CTV News. Have you heard of Pat Foran? Yeah, of course. He's on your side. He's not quite the fighter that Peter Silverman was. No, I definitely know this guy. I don't think Pat Foran has ever been a physical smackdown with the rogue politician.

Buddy. We don't have Peter Silverman to kick around anymore. We're stuck with Pat Foran and Sean O'Shea of Global News. I know him, too. Yeah. Sean O'Shea of Global News. I know him too. Consumer reporter Pat Foran with classic headline November 2021 on CTV. Walmart pulls children's toy that swears and sings in Polish about doing cocaine.

The thing is, the cocaine-wrapping, dancing cactus had made headlines before over the years, but it seemed like Walmart Canada did not get the memo, and it was a grandmother in Toronto who paid $26. Is that a good price, Mike? You've bought a lot of kids' toys. $26? Is that a good price, Mike? You've bought a lot of kids' toys. I mean, to be honest, $26 for a rapping and dancing toy robot cactus? Now, another confession is that I'm ashamed to say I haven't bought that many toys. Even though I have lots of children, for terrible misogynistic sexist reasons,

it seems like the moms have been buying most of the toys. That sounds terrible to say it out loud, but I don't think, I don't know if that's a good deal or not. It sounds a little... $25.85 for the Dancing Cactus toy, Talking Cactus twist learning toy.

Okay, it turns out they might have sold a bunch of these before, but they never before sold it to a Canadian grandmother who speaks Polish. Oh, yeah. She understood the words. Babcia. That was a babcia. Polish grandmothers are babcia.

To this Polish rap song called Where is the White Eel? That was the translation. We got a great headline out of it. And no more dancing cactus rapping about cocaine available in Canada at Walmart. Sorry, kids.

Christmas is canceled. I got a feeling. Oh, please believe me I'd hate to miss the train Oh yeah Oh yeah Yeah yeah yeah And if you leave me

I won't be late again Oh no Oh no No no no I won't be late again. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah! Oh, I'm not a freak. Do we need one more podcast to talk about the Beatles Get Back documentary? Well, guess what?

Mike, we're going to talk about it here. Did you watch the Beatles Get Back on Disney Plus? I watched every minute of it. I found a bootleg stream in the classic tradition. You know that the Get Back album was originally leaked because John Lennon gave it to some hippie in Toronto, 1969, September. I think I know that because of you. I don't think it was a very well-told story.

And yet, from Toronto, it somehow made it to the AM Buffalo Airwaves, WKBW 1520 radio. And there, in some late night, was the first radio airplay ever received by the album, Get Back, which has only now been properly resurrected as part of the box set of Let It Be. Was it Dan Matheson who brought home the Sergeant Pepper? No, no, Dave Charles, who was an FOTM with a lot of radio stories talking about

being the first to what? Get it off a plane? Deliver it on the Concorde? Got it here on the eve of its North American release that he played. Dave Charles. What a good episode that was.

And yet that was legal. The Beatles' Get Back story I think is better because they were dealing with contraband material. Only because John Lennon was out of his mind. Heroin or whatever it was.

And he just like hands some guy this acetate not even thinking about where it would end up. And that's how a lot of these Get Back tracks ended up out there before the fact. Like, taped off the radio.

And that was part of the legacy about this orphaned Beatles album at the end. So tell me what you thought of the Get Back doc by Peter Jackson. You know, I saw the movie Let It Be in the theater at the Imperial Six in Toronto. Now, of course, I was not actually born when it came out, but when John Lennon died,

there was a double bill of help and Let It Be. We're talking then December 1980 and still at the point before there was much of a home video business, that the way to see Let It Be was on the big screen, in tribute to John Lennon at the Imperial Six in Toronto. Rumors are exaggerated about how hard that original Let It Be movie is to find.

Have you seen it in the last 20, 30, 40 years that it would show up maybe on City TV? Like it's possible, but I can't remember. It was around, but the whole wrap on the movie was the fact that it wasn't well done. This Michael Lindsay hog did a disservice. He portrayed the Beatles as this doom and gloom

breaking up Enterprise towards the end. Movie really had no narrative. It didn't portray really any of the characters in good light that it was ultimately a failed experiment that Paul McCartney in particular was embarrassed about for all these years. And now with, well, no one needs us to tell them about this, with Peter Jackson, a restoration project

with the Beatles. Let it be a get-back documentary. Putting the narrative back in its place and telling the truth. Vindicating Yoko Ono. Well, she's still with us. That's part of it all. And we'll talk about the Beatles on Fromage 2021.

A little bit more, I think, about where the Beatles are today. I was going to give a shout-out to Jesse Hawken on Twitter, who made international headlines thanks to a Twitter thread that you might have seen in the 1236 newsletter.

More reason to subscribe that you would have seen news about how he went mega-viral for doing a Twitter thread which dragged out all the rock documentary cliches. Did you see any of this? Where the usual suspects would always be trotted out to offer their sound bites in the middle of every documentary.

You always have Dave Grohl willing to talk to absolutely anyone. Lars Ulrich. There's never a camera that he doesn't like just to make these cliched statements attesting to the greatness of a band who you're watching in this documentary. Trent Reznor was also a good one in there. James Corden.

You could imagine with a different filmmaker, somebody would have gone to James Corden, right, to talk about how he did his carpool karaoke with Paul McCartney. That qualifies him to be a Beatles expert. And Toronto's own Jesse Hawken, who has a podcast of his own, Junk Filter, I Feel a Good FOTM Someday. And he had this Twitter thread that was so incisive that Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed that this Twitter thread spells the death to rock documentary cliches. Wow.

Dave Grohl will never give another soundbite again. Wow. That Jesse Hawken, in fact, killed them dead. Wow. And so over 50 years after the Beatles bootleg that circulated onto radio in Buffalo, a little bit of a legacy. And I'm sure Peter Jackson himself, by the way, has shown up on these Beatle geek podcasts. Right. Like the most obscure podcasts out there,

doing interviews and telling these podcasters how much he's loved listening to their shows. And there's a whole network of Beatles podcasts out there. I think I've mentioned them before. Two guys from Ireland do one called Nothing Is Real, which is most recommended of all. The Beatle Brains of Ireland. So I don't know, Mike, if you're, here I'm talking about like over 40 years ago.

You know, I forced my whole family to go to the Imperial Six to see Let It Be. I don't know where you've been on the Beatles all these years. Would you have considered yourself a fan? Because I was definitely one of those adolescent scholars. I wasn't alive when the Beatles were an active recording act, but I devoured everything that I could about them at a certain time in my life. I'm a big fan of popular culture

and drinking in as much as I can about what I missed having been born in the mid-70s. I think the Beatles are great. How's that for a statement? I like the Beatles fine. I don't have this like hyper-focused, intense passion to become a Beatles historian, but I love the documentary, which says something,

and I enjoy listening to the Beatles and I enjoy learning new things about the Beatles. And watching those albums being made, Let It Be and Abbey Road, the consensus is now people can appreciate them more because they've seen how the Beatles in 1969 wrote the songs and put it all together. There's a song

on Let It Be. It's been like, I call it hiding in plain sight because I owned Let It Be. I owned a lot of Beatles CDs in my day and I never really thought about this song or played it that often, but since I saw the documentary, I've been all over it all the time is dig a pony so dig a pony would be an example of a song i appreciate

a great deal more having seen this documentary and uh because i'm talking about you know playing music i just got to ask you straight up mark weisblatt uh where is your maneras branded bluetooth speaker like did you take it home and set itot, where is your Moneris branded Bluetooth speaker? Did you take it home and set it up somewhere? Where is it? Well, unusually for me, with a gift that I received from Toronto Mic'd, I have actually unpacked the box. Wow.

And I've got it sitting on a coffee table, still waiting to figure out how does this work? But at the same time. It's easy to make it work. It doesn't matter because as I stare at it every day, wondering when I'm finally going to get around to technically rigging this up. Right, right. It reminds me that the great FOTM, Al Grego,

does a podcast called Yes, We Are Open. You see? Advertising works. Here's an idea. Like, you do listen to most episodes. You mentioned off the top before I pressed record that there was one episode you skipped. But that's a rarity, right? You typically listen to every episode.

Of Toronto Mike. Right. Of Toronto Mike. So why don't you, you want to do all the sponsor mentions? Do you want me to tell you which one I skipped? Which episode I didn't listen to? Well, I know, but you can tell the FOTMs. Bruce Dobigit.

It was actually interesting. I know you're not a Bruce fan, but I thought his jam kicking earlier this week was pretty damn good. See, I thought you would accuse me of being on Bruce's side because he's such a right-wing political character. He's a Trumper. Mostly just a troll. A guy who, do I got this right,

doesn't feel like he was treated well in the Toronto media, kind of walked away from the whole thing, feeling a little bit embittered about his experience. I think he's a good example of a guy I enjoy. I actually legit enjoy talking to Bruce Dobig and enjoy discussing

and debating and I loved kicking out the jams with him even though I disagree with the vast majority of what he expresses. Did you agree with the vast majority of his songs? Like, did he put Don't Tell Me How to Live by Kid Rock in his all-time top ten? There was Pavarotti, there was Beatles, there was Bruce Springsteen, there was Joni Mitchell. Another boomer dad. Look, shout out to Dave Hodge.

Yeah. Who always delivers every year. Can you even remember what his number one song was? Oh, KC Musgraves, was it? There's two of these, I call them like country rock hybrid artists that he loves both of them. So I'm going to go KC Musgraves. You're wrong. Brandi Carlile.

That's the other one. Elton John's best friend. My apologies. I consider Casey Musgraves and what's the other one? Brandi Carlile to be cut from similar cloth. Casey Musgraves performed naked on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, but she's good too.

That's her most recent claim to fame. And The War on Dr drugs, number two. Right. From Dave Hodge. Go to Hodge100.com. Yes. Thanks to VP of Sales. And you guys picked up the baton from the late Dave Bookman

as far as being the facilitators. I'm not even sure I knew I did that, except that I'm honored that I did. And your belief is you will continue to do the hodge 100 for every year of either your life or the life of dave hodge that he will continue into his 80s 90s maybe even beyond to be as hip as he has been in terms of keeping up with this rootsy music? Here's hoping here. He's made it to what age? Mid-70s?

I never asked him, but I get a mid-70s vibe from him. And you also did a Mike Umentary. Dave Hodgson turning 77 January 8th. There you go. There you go. Yeah, Mike Umentary. Mike Umentary about the pen flip. What did you think of that?

With Dave Hodgson's permission. He's totally into this. What did you think of that? With Dave Hodge's permission. He's totally into this. What did you think? Even though... I mean, the personal brand of Dave Hodge is not a guy who's big on humor and irony. But I feel like deep down inside, he enjoys the idea

that here, like 35 years later, you're so fixated upon the pen flip i got a lot of got him canned from hockey night in canada a lot of people sent me notes to say they love the pen flip doc like things like i never if you had told me like like that's one guy i think one note it came from actually banjo dunk uh banjo dunk speaking of stomping tom which we weren't uh banjo dunk said like if i tell my american friends that I just enjoyed this deep dive into the pen flip, they're going to look at me like I'm an alien.

There's something about that pen flip and putting the stories together that I enjoy doing. Might as well mention here then, you've also had three quarters of the spoons on Toronto Mind. I'm just missing the drummer now, right? What's the drummer's name?

Do you remember? Derek Ross. I'm getting there. And Hawksley Workman, the hawk. Yes. Always a reliable visitor. He's a great FOTM. Also, let me shout out PPOMM. Did I say that right?

I don't do the O. Like, I skip the O. Progressive Past of modern melodies. Not to be confused with the cozy bosom of MF. I was proud of my script. Look, look, I had no problem with it, okay? I was just looking after. I wrote that.

I sent it over to Peter Gross. I said, let's do this, buddy. And you talked about a history of Canadian punk with Ralph Alfonso, a guy who was there. I look forward to more of those episodes. I even suggested you do one about Buffalo. Buffalo.

With Nicholas Piccolis? Canadian music industry. Or a guy, Tom Calderon, who's the program director of Public Radio. I never once, other than Commander Tom or Irv Weinstein, radio-wise, I guess is what I'm saying, in terms of radio, I stuck to local. I never once wanted to tune in at Buffalo Stadium.

And yet your musical patron saint's lowest of the low, they just played Buffalo. Yes, Buffalo. And they're the biggest band of all in that town. Yeah, but because of 102.1, that's why. Okay, so WBFO, I should have mentioned that with the radio stuff. That's a new one. The Bridge, college radio for adults, which has no live DJs yet,

but I think an interesting experiment. It's like HD radio from Buffalo, in trying to do what FOTM's Scott Turner tried to do on Spirit of Radio Sunday, which was filtered through that older kind of modern rock audience. And even though it's on some kind of shuffle autopilot right now, you can tell. Like they're putting a genuine effort into the playlist there and you hear this mashup of musical tastes from both Buffalo and Toronto. I was going to say Dan Matheson once of CTV

for all those years. Also a memorable guest for the Real Talk about the broadcasting business. And Damien Cox, who got into a little scrap with uh mark hebbshire hebsey over the renaming of the lou marsh trophy which included uh mark hebbshire writing something on the website of the canadian jewish news uh to get his revenge on Damien Cox, holding firm and not changing the name of the Lou Marsh Trophy.

Well, he said he's got a third party reviewing it. Lou Marsh was like a total racist. And everything that the Toronto Star rails against in society, right? Change the name of Dundas Square, Dundas Street, Dundas Subway Station. Topple all the colonial statues that the Lou Marsh Trophy lives on just because the guy used to be sports editor of the Star. I think we're covered. What else do you want to say?

Should I do a second GLB? Why don't you talk about the sponsors? Thank you, Great Lakes. Thank you, Palma Pasta. I'm actually catering my, we're doing a Christmas Eve thing for the family here, and it's going to be catered by Palma Pasta because it's delicious, authentic Italian food.

Go to palmapasta.com. And also, also, the whole family would wonder what's wrong with you if you got your food from anywhere else. Right. But there's one other option. We've done like 300 episodes this year talking about how much you love Palma Pasta. When it comes to Italian food,

Palma Pasta is a slam dunk. But if I want, let's say I want Mexican food or I want, you know, Momofuku noodle bar or if I want pies by Squires or Richmond Station or Uncle Ray's food and liquor or Union Chicken or the Carbon Bar, if I'm looking for something like that, I go to chefdrop.ca. And I urge all FOTMs to support Chef Drop,

where not only is delicious prepared meal kits shipped directly to your door in Southern Ontario, but they stepped up to help fuel the real talk. So use the promo code FOTM50, F-O-T-M-5-0 and you can save $50 off your first order. But you know what we never concluded here? You've got the Moneris branded Bluetooth speaker which you're gonna hook up because that's how you're gonna listen to,

am I remembering correctly, Al Grego, you found him cuddly? Was that your word? I don't wanna misquote you. Well, my point was, it's very exciting if Al Grego comes and knocks on your door, demanding that you sit down with him and talk about how your business survived the pandemic.

Yeah, you know, there's another FOTM. What greater experience could you possibly get? I learned earlier this week that the great FOTM who helps, well, you know, he does send me an invoice, so it's not all out of the goodness of his heart, but he hosts this audio that you're listening to right now. The great Ian Service is a future guest on Yes, We Are Open, hosted by FOTM Al Grego.

I got all confused about this inner circle of FOTMs because I thought Al Grego was also a guy you knew from high school, but no. He just barged into your house one day and said he wanted to see how to make a podcast. He loved Toronto Mic'd, and I got an email. I'm a listener. Not only a listener, but a rock star.

Yeah, well, I didn't know it at the time. I found out later he was a rock star, so of course I hired him with Great Lakes Beer to perform at a couple of three TMLX nights. So all these guys I know you think I knew from high school, the truth is Rosie I knew from high school, but, well, Joe from TO I knew from high school. And, okay, just to keep track, this is a deep cut.

Rosie was the co-host on the original iteration of Toronto Mott. Yeah, like the first, the first 30 episodes at least. And yet she has never returned to talk on the podcast Toronto Mike in all the years since. Are you on good terms with Rosie? What went down there? Very good. Very good terms of Rosie. And yet, what is it? She wouldn't fit

into what this discourse has become? Like the way we talk here, Rosie just wouldn't get the gist. It definitely morphed like you'd be able to follow it was something which is basically rosie and i shooting the shit this long but the whole idea was she was she had professional broadcasting experience and you did not right i you're right she was on the weather network so you would see her on tv this was a big deal when your friend from high school's on tv like oh look there's rosie giving us the weather so she was on

the weather network so when was on the Weather Network. So when I started Toronto Mic'd, I wanted somebody I had good chemistry with who I liked a lot and respected, but was well-spoken and had some kind of like broadcasting experience because I had zero. So my first and only call was to Rosie and she said, I'm in.

And we started Toronto Mic'd and we did it for like, and at some point she got a job on Terrestrial Radio on the region where Ann Romer is today. So she actually left Toronto Mic'd because she didn't think she was allowed to do Toronto Mic'd and the region. And that's when I phoned

Elvis and said I need to... The region? How could the region possibly care about her doing Toronto Mike? She's like the peak best then of this enterprise. Part of the early history.

Because it starts taking off. Oh, by the way, we've got somebody in the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment also who we can compare to Rosie. She's in all these earliest episodes. And you do have FOTMs who are digging through the catalog. Like, they're

listening to you from nine years ago. Right, right. Bumbling and fumbling your way around the podcast. I think YYZ, Gord. Never imagining the day when you would have luminaries like Greg Brady come over to your house. Right, like Damien Cox takes my phone calls now

okay i was on the phone the phone with brian williams earlier this week peter gross considers you his personal psychiatrist i write scripts for peter gross to to uh do voiceover okay so so yes yes we are open is a great podcast. But another great podcast is the CEO Edge podcast from McKay CEO Forums. And it's Nancy McKay conducting these fireside chats with inspiring CEOs and thought leaders. And I post a new episode on torontomike.com every single week.

So check out the CEO Edge podcast. Go to yesweareopenpodcast.com to subscribe to Al Grego's Moneris podcast. Sticker you.com to subscribe to Al Grego's Moneris podcast. StickerU.com. Man, I think it was with Bruce Dobigan we were talking about Joni Mitchell, who is, of course, was Joni Anderson, speaking of Anderson. And Joni Anderson played the Purple Onion. And that was owned by Barry Witkin, father of Andrew Witkin,

who is the founder of StickerU.com. Get your stickers at StickerU.com. But I noticed they're not on Queen Street West anymore. They had a storefront there for a little while. Well, COVID, I don't know what happened with COVID. COVID was kind of a weirdo. They moved the store elsewhere. What is it?

Liberty Village? I think you can Google that. I have to go check it out. I mean, look, the empty storefronts are rampant on the former hipster strip of Toronto. We'll see where it goes.

Mark, without further ado, I looked at the clock here. Now I want to make sure I give you something from our primary sponsor when you visit. Ridley Funeral Home has brought over a couple of items for you. One is a safety light. So, yeah, if you pull the paper here, I feel like this. I know that we're not recording this video, but here.

So this here is a, look at that. You can, what a safety light. I want you to stay safe out there. It's getting dark at like 4 o'clock. Sorry to put that in your eyes. But that's a light. Now, what I took out of the bag, and I heard Tish Eyston was particularly enamored

with this gift. That you gave her a Ridley Funeral Home measuring tape. Now, this is done, what, to measure body parts of a dead body that rolls into the board? No, leave that to the experts. Is that what this is for? But I was charmed by Tish Eyston saying that you gave her a measuring tape, and she really appreciated it.

Yeah, because she keeps one in her purse at all times here. How do I make it? You press the button in the middle. See the button? You press the button. Whoa, see that? Look at that. So now Mark Wise,

Blatt from 1236. Can you tell that my people don't generally work as handymen? Okay, so Tish Eyston walks around with a measuring tape and you gave her a new one sponsored by Ridley Funeral Home. I think it's my time

to start walking around with a measuring tape too. You never know. it comes in handy. And this flashlight thingy. And that's going to keep you safe because Ridley doesn't want to see you anytime soon. Let's just thank the good people. And again, is this an apparatus

that's used in the process of picking up bodies? I got the hand sanitizer. But you know how it works. Ridley doesn't pick up the body. They pick up the body from a morgue or works. Ridley doesn't pick up the body. They pick up the body from like a morgue or something. Ridley Funeral Home. Took, also very useful in the process of putting caskets into the ground. What do we have?

I have an umbrella. So if it's rainy, it helps you out. I have a Ridley Funeral Home umbrella, which I quite like, and a baseball cap as well. But they've been great sponsors. And you know what? They first came on board of Toronto Mike's because they wanted to

sponsor the memorial segment. Which is truly awesome. I mean, shout out to FOTM Brad Jones that he actually appreciates that we do this every month as the last part of every episode. And he was interested in

sponsoring it. But what I have yet to receive is one of those Ridley Funeral Home signs. Oh, the funeral sign. That goes on the cars. The sign that you put on your car when a funeral is happening here. Of course, we don't hope that we need the services of Ridley Funeral Home anytime soon.

But what's that slogan again, Mike, every time leading into the memorial segment to remind people what Ridley Funeral Home can do for them? You can pay tribute without paying a fortune. Go to RidleyFuneralHome.com. Come on! Forget my past If you wanna get with me Better make it fast Now don't go wasting My precious time Get your act together We could be just fine

I'll tell you what I want What I really, really want Don't tell me what you want What you really, really want I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna I wanna really, really, really wanna Take a sip If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.

Make it last forever, friendship never ends. If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give. Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is. What you think about that? Now you know how. Mel Lastman died at age 88. That's the way it is. What you think about that? Now you know how. Mel Lastman died at age 88. And even though this is a November recap episode, we did not get to November 2021.

Here we are two weeks later, so we'll cover a few December 2021 deaths, too. And December 11th, 2021 was a day we lost Mel Lastman, the Toronto mayor of the megacity from 1998 through 2003, who made international headlines when he made a public appeal for Ginger Spice, Jerry Halliwell, to rejoin the Spice Girls because she had left the group. They were coming to Toronto and his granddaughters were so upset by this development that they asked their Zadie, the mayor of Toronto, to make a public appeal for Jerry to come back. And that was one of the episodes that figured prominently in the obituaries for Mel Lastman. He was just that kind of mayor.

Before Rob Ford came along, here we had the first megacity mayor who was a quirky kind of populist. By that point, he had spent 25 years as mayor of North York, my former home, the borough of North York, which became a city unto itself,

got its own downtown, its own Shepherd Subway. And in the process of all that, the amalgamation of Toronto gave Mel Lastman the chance to enter the big time, the big show at Toronto City Hall presiding over city council. Mike, memories of Mel Lastman. Did you have any at all? No, just that I knew of him before he was our mega city mayor because he was a very prominent mayor

of North York. I was living in York, not York region, but the York, the borough. Well, there was also the at the time, the Metro Council. So the individual mayors would also gather in downtown Toronto, ultimately at Metro Hall, to debate the issues that were the domain of the Toronto city before amalgamation. And did you mention Best Boy? What's it called again?

Yeah, Bad Boy Furniture. You don't know Aspen was worth $10 million in 1972 when he first ran for mayor. That's 50 years ago. So, of course, the nobody tagline was always popular. Well, that was later on. He had two sons. Blaine? Two sides of Mel Lastman. Yeah, Blaine Lastman, who revived the furniture store chain with his TV commercials with Mel Lastman on there.

At the time, he was mayor of North York. No conflict of interest there. Yeah, right, right. And the other son, Dale Lastman, who became a high-powered corporate lawyer. And respectively, the daughters of his sons, the same ones who were so upset about Jerry leaving the Spice Girls, they have gone into their respective businesses.

Like one granddaughter is a lawyer, and the other one is in the commercials for Bad Boy now, taking over. Okay, good. Where Grandpa left off. He's one of those Toronto figures that was always around when I was growing up and just seemed to be just one of those characters.

Like I never, I wouldn't say I was a Mel fan, or he never got my vote for example, but I always, who did you vote for? What was it? Barbara Hall. And then, uh,

he ran for reelection and the assumption was he was going to win. Of course, a second term. That was, uh, I probably voted for Ben Kerr, uh, you know,

a big Ben Kerr fan. Tukor Gomberg was the bike riding, uh, activist. Remember that? Uh, 2000 election. Enza. Enza supermodel, who also ran against Mel. It was kind of

a joke on the second term. And it was in that second term of Mel Lastman in the early 2000s that the gaffes just kept on coming. For example, when there was an Olympic delegation to lobby bidding on the Olympics going to Africa, and Mel Astman makes a comment about, I'm not going to Kenya. They'll be

boiling me in a pot of water if I show up there. Which I remember at the time thinking... ...apologizing for that. At the time, I remember thinking, oh my god, this is so embarrassing. But I subsequently have lived through the Rob Ford mayoral... mayoral?

Say the word. Maybe that's too many GLBs. Mayoral. Mayoral reign. And that comment about the pots boiling you in Kenya almost sounds charming and quaint when I compare. At the time, there was also the Moose in the City campaign.

I think you can still find some decorated moose still around Toronto. Different artists decorate some mooses. One is still there in Yorkville. People like to make jokes about him bringing in the army because we had that huge snowfall. The big 1999 snowstorm.

I always thought it was a smart idea. Sue Ann Levy, who of course believes that Mel Lastman should still be the mayor of Toronto, even after death. Right. She's pointed out that in fact, people joked about Mayor Lastman calling in the army when in fact, like now the army's called in to administer COVID-19 vaccines. Yeah. Mel got a bad rap for that.

It was not so out of bounds to suggest that the, what else is the Canadian army doing all day? It made sense to me at the time, and it still makes sense to me, and I think it's just one of those things where the rest of Canada likes to take shots at Toronto. Like, this is just part of a sport for the rest of Canada,

and that was a great opportunity to do so. You also might remember then the Louis brothers, two middle-aged men who came forward in late 2000 to say, Mal Lastman is our father. Oh, I do remember this. And we would like him to give us a large sum of money. And a little more digging found that these guys were in a lot of debt, maybe even bankrupt by that point in time. And the Louie brothers, it turned out that Mel had given their mother $27,500 to go away,

not bug him about his paternity, but he had a 14-year affair with this woman, Grace Louie, and Marilyn Lastman, who died at the beginning of 2020, said that Mel really couldn't carry on without her and famously kidnapped, allegedly so, right at the time that Mel's political career started in North York. And to this day, they're still looking for the real kidnappers who, whoever kidnapped Marilyn Lastman back in 1973. They're out there somewhere with whoever killed Harry and Honey and Barry

Sherman. That's it. And there you go. Mel Lastman, December 11th, 2021. Dead at 88. Make you feel Gotta groove You gotta groove No, no, no

You gotta groove Yeah, people gotta move Now, this FOTM is still alive and well. This is, of course, Gino Vanelli. is still alive and well. This is, of course, Gino Vanelli. Is Gino Vanelli the greatest FOTM?

When you write the book on a thousand episodes of Toronto Mike, I should write the book. I got some stories. Gino is going to be going to be way up there. But yeah,

people got to move by Gino Vanelli. You know, Michael Barclay once told me I should write a book. Like we had a conversation where he said, you know, this would be a very interesting book.

So, you know, it might happen one day. You're writing your memoirs one tweet at a time, as far as I'm concerned. And we can't stop talking about that day that Gino Vanelli and his sidekick brother came into the basement. And as part of that episode,

courtesy of yours truly, you had some clips of Gino Vanelli counted down by Casey Kasem, how he got on the American Billboard charts. And you can trace Gino Vanelli's success in the 70s in the USA to one radio station. That was Windsor radio station CKLWW The Big Eight AM800 And it was on November 23rd, 24th That we lost Rosalie Tremblay Now, not too many Canadian radio music directors Can get national obituary treatments But when it came to Rosalie

Who died at age 82, the girl with the golden ear became such a legendary figure for the fact that she ran this radio station out of Windsor, Ontario, which, of course, was picked up in Detroit and became, at that point, the most influential radio station

in North America for its ability to make the hits out of Windsor, Ontario that would spread across America. And as a result, she got a song written about her by Bob Seger, a tribute called Rosalie. No music, no music to your seat She's got the power of protein Queen Rosalie Rosalie Rosalie

She's got the blessing, comes from all the corners, corners of the world So fantastic she's everybody's favorite little record girl She knows music, I know

music, Do you see She's got the power She's got the power Rosalie Rosalie Rosalie Rosalie It was pointed out that Rosalie Tremblay could not bring herself to program this tribute song to her on the radio, but Bob Seger's song that was later covered by Thin Lizzy,

Phil Linnett, Rosalie. And so in the process of remembering all the hits that Rosalie Tremblay made on CKLW between 1968 and 1984, Elton John, Benny and the Jets came up a lot because it was airplay on CKLW that she picked this track off of the, the goodbye yellow brick road album, uh, by Elton John that she, uh,

designated it, uh, hit song. No, this was pretty quirky as far as Elton's output was concerned at that time, 1974, not only making this a radio hit but because it was heard in Detroit

it scaled up the black music charts and in the world of R&B radio did you know this Mike this was like the most popular Elton John song amongst black people and there's a clip of Elton John song amongst black people. And there's a clip of Elton

performing it on Soul Train. And the recently dead Biz Marquis even did his own salute to Betty and the Jets with the Beastie Boys. I think I know that because I subscribed to the 1236 newsletter. I went to 1236.ca

I subscribed. I do believe I got that tidbit in that newsletter when Rosalie Tremblay passed away. And it's 50 years later and Elton John is still being heard on the radio. Maybe even like number one on the 104.5 chum chart

before the year is out. You know, there's no, I mean, there's still the legacy of these radio stations in Windsor. They still have AM AM radio oldies in Windsor,

owned by Bell Media. Whatever the station is that plays the Roger Ashby morning show. But CKLW is now a talk radio station. 800 in Windsor, Ontario. And a whole documentary on the Big Eight gets into how they tried to move it to the FM dial, right?

By the mid-'80s, AM radio was falling out of fashion. And the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission would not allow the programming of top 40 radio on FM. That commissioner resentfully stated that FM radio is for easy listening. Keep those teens tuned to the AM dial. Well, by the mid-80s in the market of Windsor, Detroit, that was no longer a viable business, and they canceled the plans for what was going to be called the Fox Radio in Detroit. This is all in that Big 8 documentary,

and Rosalie Tremblay was out of a job. But at one point into the 1980s, she ended up programming CKEY 590 in Toronto, doing the oldies over there. But the memories of the music introduced to the radio by Rosalie Tremblay were flying all around upon her death in November 2021, and include the fact that on AM Radio Windsor in the early 1980s,

this is like seven years after Autobahn by Kraftwerk, she gave rotation to a follow-up song called Pocket Calculator. I'm the operator with my pocket calculator. Pocket Calculator. I am adding and subtracting I'm controlling and composing I'm the operator with my pocket calculator And there you go.

People talk about Kraftwerk and the influence that this German band had on hip-hop. And Rosalie Tremblay played a role, if you want to trace how it got there. Like, how did Kraftwerk become big with black music audiences in Detroit? It all came back to the Big Eight. CKLW, how's that for a mind blow?

Or is that just a fun fact? That's a fun fact right there. I love it. Okay, and shout out to Florian Schneider from Kraftwerk who died in 2020. Pocket Calculator, the kind of song that you would have only heard first on the Big 8 CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, which was a whole different legacy from the one of CFNY.

We also lost one of those architects here in November 2021. Those little whispers start to shake the floor And the noise can be heard From the corporate doors Excuse me for mentioning But there's people here And people out there With people ears I'm looking for a record

And talking on the phone And I ain't your average Radio clone I'm an FM shark And I play them as I see There ain't no strings Pulling on me And why is my station

We're the only one We don't make much money But we sure have fun We won't play a record Just because it's a hit But we love New Wave And the punk girls' tits Yeah, nothing like throwing in a problematic line

that 40 years later we can all be ashamed about. But that was the song, Working on the Radio, Legendary 45 by the 102.1 Band. And whatever year they recorded that one, did you ever figure out Working on the Radio? It was part of the history of CFNY. 86? I can't remember. No, earlier than that.

Earlier than that. And at one point in the tumultuous history of 102.1 in Brampton, Ontario, the same old CRTC was looking to revoke their broadcast license because it fell into bankruptcy. And this was like a song to raise awareness about what was going on, working on the radio okay i just uh dominic triano and teenage head 79 how's that 1979 yeah that sounds i went to torontomic.com for the uh as my source brad mcnally uh was at the forefront of working

on the radio and at that point uh he was considered one of the sage voices of the radio station. And here he was, a Canadian, who had started his radio career in 1972 in Australia. So he was raised around the world, whatever his parents were doing, brought him to different countries

and started in Ontario radio, working at CFOR in Orillia, hearing CFNY, just like FOTM's Scott Turner, was determined to get a job there. And this being the late 1970s with David Marsden coming in as the program director broke through, especially with a show called The Eclectic Spirit with Brad McNally, along with other shifts that he did on the station, McNally's matinee. Now, this is before my time listening to CFNY. In fact, even if I was old enough,

even though everybody claims that they were rapturously tuned in to what was being beamed out of Brampton, it was not an easy station to pick up in your home if you lived in Toronto. Like, you've gone through the stories here enough with different guests that you've had, like Geetz Romo, right?

Until CFNY could be heard from the top of the CN Tower, I do remember that signal was complicated. Listening to CFNY was not something that everyone in Toronto could do. Of course, this is back in the day when people would break out their wire hangers and make their own antennas. This part of the history of the station I remember, even though before I became a CFNY listener, Brad McNally was long gone. But people always spoke about the legend of the eclectic spirit. This was a forerunner to what Danny Elwell later did on there, the alternative bedtime hour.

This was like a late-night refuge for those ambient sounds and deep dives into progressive rock. Brad McNally was the person that the kids listened to to hear about what music we had to take seriously. But eventually, the success that he had brought him back to Australia and becoming a major player in radio over there, not only on the air but behind the scenes as a program director and a consultant. And we did hear, I believe it was Dave Charles,

who worked with Brad McNally in Australia. And so for all these years, all these nostalgists who were reminiscing about about the origins of the spirit of radio cfny the radio station rush wrote a song about uh the glory days of david marsden and ivor hamilton uh there seemed to be a missing piece in the fact that brad mcnally had gone down under right and. And yet was having major success there. Not only that, but in radio stations all around the world. Do you want to hear some Brad from 1979 as he sounded on CFNY? Why not?

For those of us who were too young, get in that head space of what people were building those wire hanger antennas about. It was the band we saw emerge in the early 1970s with new and fresh ideas. It was and still is a band of personalities. The first lineup featured Brian Ferry, an ex-teacher, Graham Simpson on bass, Andy Mackay on bass, on saxophone rather, Paul Thompson on drums, Brian Eno, the electronics man, and the band actually had several guitarists, Roger Bunn, David Olist, and they finally

settled for Phil Manzanera. Their first LP came out in 1972, and by that time, Grant Simpson left the band due to a nervous breakdown. He was replaced by Rick Canton, and the band in that form cut one of their very first singles, Virginia Plain. Well, for the past little bit, 20 minutes or so here at CFNY-FM 102.1, we've been listening to cuts from the first three Roxy Music LPs. Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, which we just heard, which is the one with the mand Lear on the cover, and Stranded. We'll be back with more after this.

There you go, the commercials that were kind of a buzzkill once you were getting into that Roxy Music super session on CFNY. David Marsden said all these years later people would speak to him about Brad McNally, the impression that he left for them on the radio. Now, his radio career came to a halt in 2016 because he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and a rough ride there with brain cancer for the past few years. In his last days, there were some Zoom calls that they did on Facebook.

Legends of CFNY reminiscing about the station, like a last message to Brad McNally, who they knew would not be with us much longer. Brad McNally. Did you get an age on Brad McNally, who they knew would not be with us much longer. Brad McNally. Did you get an age on Brad McNally? Lost the battle with cancer there back in November 2021. Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack I went out for a ride and I never went back Like a river that don't know where it's flown I took a wrong turn and I just kept going

Everybody's got a hungry heart Everybody's got a hungry heart. Everybody's got a hungry heart. Lay down your money and you play your part. Everybody's got a hungry, hungry heart. Okay, a deep cut here, but what else is the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment for? But what else is the Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment for? Cal Rudman was a name that I knew because I used to listen to a Sunday night show on 1050 Chum called Nine O'Clock Rock, hosted by the late John Major.

And this was like the new music was to television. This was on 1050 Chum Music Magazine on the radio. For a little kid like me trying to learn a little bit about the music industry, what made all this stuff tick, what was going on backstage, who was making the decisions about what you heard on the radio at the time, I mean, this was the portal to everything that I needed to know. And I remembered hearing Roger Ashby, who would do a weekly call with Cal Rudman, who was the publisher of something called the Friday Morning Quarterback. And the idea that this guy was a player in the music and radio industry was reinforced because if you watched the Today Show

or maybe Merv Griffin, Cal Rudman would come on there and make appearances. Here was this guy into his 50s telling you what were the new hits that were hip with the kids. In other words, 40 years ago, Cal Rudman was the person who I aspire to be today. Kind of weird, though. 40 years ago, Cal Rudman was the person who I aspire to be today. Oh. Wow. Kind of weird, though. Like, why would this guy be so into telling us what was going on with teenage music?

Well, it turned out a book a decade later called Hitmen, some investigative journalism by writer Frederick Dannen, named Cal Rudman as one of those personalities who was involved in what we would call a modern day version of payola that is being subsidized

by the record companies to big up certain singles and artists and shall we say artificially influence their placements on the charts what i'm trying to say here is cal rudman wasn't calling into roger ashby every week for his health it was part of his business model that he was building with FMQB, and that included going on Merv Griffin and talking about certain new singles,

and the insinuation here was based on that book, that he was accepting cash payments, perhaps in stuffed envelopes to influence what was ranked as popular music in America, even if it really wasn't. Case in point, a clip on YouTube shows him talking about what a great pop star Scott Baio is about to be. And Cal Rudman goes on there, introduces Chachi as the next big thing in pop music. He sings a song.

And Merv brings Scott Bayo over to the couch. And there's Cal Rudman sitting there looking at this guy so longingly. Like, here's my next big cash cow. And from all accounts, and based on philanthropic donations that he made, this racket was actually quite kind to Cal Rudman. This man made a mint. And the influence that he had in the industry was such, that's why we played Bruce Springsteen, hungry heart there,

that he was the guy who went to Bruce Springsteen. And Bruce Springsteen came to him with advice on how Bruce Springsteen could have a hit. Like how he could crack the pop charts. And it was Cal's advice to tell Bruce Springsteen, who just sold his whole publishing contract to Sony Music, what was the number they were throwing around? Five, $500 million?

$500 million. And Hungry Heart, obviously a big part of that. It was Cal Rudman's advice that you should write a song that girls will like. And that Bruce Springsteen, up until that point, was too male in his appeal through the 1970s. And Cal Rudman was also a wrestling guy. That is to say he was the Billy Red Lions of Philadelphia.

And you can see clips of Killer Cal interviewing all the WWF superstars even during the 1980s when wrestling became big business, still doing this small-town wrestling interview show in between the matches on television in, in Philadelphia. Do you think Stu Stone has ever heard of killer cow? I'll bet you he has. Okay. We'll,

we'll look into that on toast. Uh, Cal, Cal Rudman, uh, who died December 1st at age 91. Speaking of 1050 chump in my formative years, five-man electrical band when it came to their catalog.

Before I think I knew the song Signs, I knew this one called Absolutely Right. You know why I knew it? Because it's two minutes and 17 seconds long. So if you are trying to fill your Canadian content percentages, run them out at the end of the day, what they used to call the beaver hour on the radio,

absolutely right by Five Man Electrical Band was a very convenient song to pick. I might have heard this like every single night in the early 80s on Chum. Les Emerson, who died at age 77 on December 10th of COVID-19.

We haven't heard a lot of these deaths lately. Now, a five-man electrical band best known for the song Signs. And if you didn't know the version by a five-man electrical band, then you knew the one by the Sacramento, California hair metal band, Tesla. Big hit.

Big hit on QNH 7 Top 10 of 10, and you knew they were playing it five times more than any other song because it was CanCon. Now, the song Signs, which I always loved as a kid, there was a PSA that would air on TV in this market where it was literally showing like traffic signs and stuff,

like safety signs. And that's, that was the song for the PSA. And I think it was basically a PSA to say like, obey the traffic signs. Like if it says fucking yield, that doesn't mean speed up. You know what I mean? Like, so yeah, that's one of the first places I was hearing signs. Yeah. Sign, sign everywhere. Sign, sign long-haired hippies need not apply. No, long-haired freaky people need not apply. Freaky people. Yeah, I think so. So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why.

He said, son, you look like a fine, upstanding young man. I think you'll do. So I took off my hat and said, imagine that. Me working for you. I love this song. That is better recall than I have on anything. Any topic. Mike, I don't remember anything at all. No, that's not true. But there you go.

Reciting all the lyrics written by Les Emerson. I might know every, I actually think I do know every word to that song by the five-man electric guitar. Did you have that cassette? I bought that one. It was unplugged. Tesla. Oh, Tesla. Yeah, song by the five-man electric. Did you have that cassette? I bought that one. It was unplugged. Tesla. Oh, Tesla.

Yeah, which was a five-man acoustic jam. Acoustical jam. A five-man acoustic jam, I think. But that was a big hit, too, and it brought it to a whole new audience. And Tesla. Did you know they added the F word in there? It wasn't blocking out the scenery. It was effing up the scenery.

Making my mind do this, don't do that. And I made up my own little sign. I made up my own effing sign. Fucking sign. Said, thank you, Lord, for thinking about me and my life and doing fine. Signs, signs. You want to sing it with me, buddy? Now, Les Emerson, originally uh from five man electrical band

and keep in mind like this was this was a struggling rock band in ottawa called the staccatos they saw the hippies were coming and five man electrical band was a a name change that they made it was a smart decision a little bit of marketing right staccatos that's like something out of 1963 right five man electrical band connoted that you were really with it you smoke marijuana the whole thing in fact even even one of their album covers originally uh goodbyes and butterfliesflies, that was in 1970, originally had a marijuana plant on the cover. And it doesn't matter if they were really into this stuff.

Maybe it was just marketing. Les Emerson, who continued to live in Ottawa and might have been the most famous rock star in town. And Signs was a song that he bragged that he lived off of. I can imagine, actually. That would do quite well. Well into his retirement, early retirement, which was aided and abetted by Fat Boy Slim, Norman Cook, a song called Don't Let the Man Get You Down.

And that Les Emerson suddenly loved the idea of being sampled based on the checks that were provided by this association. But it seemed between that and the Tesla cover version and the old East Radio CanCon airplay that it was not just a one-hit wonder in terms of signs, even though that was his big hit in the USA, and that when Les Emerson died in Ottawa, age 77, December 10th, that he is fondly remembered

as the greatest rock star to have remained in the nation's capital after all these years. Les Emerson. Catch reflections Catch reflections Catch reflections of your mind I can see behind The attitude you wear With your clothes And your modern hair

How did you know That don't give a cast hair All up holes And nobody knows That don't give a cast and all the polls. And nobody knows. Your attitude never ends. Because you live by one street rule. Never blow your cool.

Or you will lose your friends. The Sugar Shop. Ever heard of The Sugar Shop. Ever heard of The Sugar Shop? No, I remember a 50s jam called The Sugar Shack that was on my golden oldies cassette that I quite loved, but I do not know the gold in The Sugar Shop. The Sugar Shop originated in 1967 in Toronto. A Canadian answer to the Mamas and the Papas. Sounds like an answer to the Mamas and Papas.

Best known for one of the members, Victor Garber. Oh, wow. There's a name, of course. There's a big fucking deal. And the second guy in the group who died on December 7th, 2021, his name was Peter Mann. And it was Peter Mann who was the lesser known legend of the sugar shop. You know, this group got big enough. They were assigned to Capitol Records in L.A.

They appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. There's a clip of them on there. Also Johnny Carson. You know Johnny Carson lost all his old tapes. Don't look for... They recorded over those original Johnny Carson episodes. Like Laurie Bower singers or whatever.

Yeah, that's the thing. The Sugar Shop were not that successful because I think they were too derivative. Kind of contrived. Here they were trying to do something that could not get them even the cult status.

They were looking for another vocal group from Toronto from the same era called The Free Design. Which all the hipsters talk about as the greatest thing ever to this day, but the sugar shop generally forgotten. And there we go.

This sunshine pop kind of went out of fashion, and Peter Mann started something called the Canadian Rock Theater, and they did a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in Toronto 50 years later. There is another production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Toronto 50 years later. There is another production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Bingo Bob went. I went to an Argos game with Bob, and he said he just saw the production that's at downtown. And here a decade later, Peter Mann latched on to something where maybe his vocal group experience came in handy.

He became the producer of the Nylons. Hey! And that was the acapella Canadian group that had also international success and currently to this day in FOTM, Billy Newton Davis. Absolutely. He was a later member of the Nylons.

But this is the 1980s Nylons. Yeah, this is the In the Jungle. I won't even try to hit that note. But yeah, there was a moment. Or Kiss Him Goodbye was a big Nylons jam I'd hear on the jungle. I won't even try to hit that note. But yeah, there was a moment. Or a kiss him goodbye was a big Nylons jam I'd hear on the radio. Yeah, acapella group out of the ice cream parlor in Yorkville.

And it was, in fact, Peter Mann, who was behind the board making it happen during their glory days. Also credited in his obituaries, names like Isaac Hayes, Donovan, Fred Penner, Rita McNeil, Anne Murray, KD Lang, Elton John, lots of name drops. Big names there. And nominated for Juno Awards with the Nylons. Peter Mann, dead at 81, December 7th, 2021.

Speaking of bingo, Bob, here's one of our favorite gems. Mike, I was trying to digest the summary of a film called Nothing But Trouble on Wikipedia. Right. A movie from 1991. Yeah, Demi Moore's in that, Dan Aykroyd. Quasi-Canadian film. Dan Aykroyd, John Candy. Right. Big cast.

And in reading the summary of this film, I could not understand what was going on. Imagine sitting in the theater watching this thing for 90 minutes, let alone trying to understand what was happening on Wikipedia. But part of the storyline of the movie involved the digital underground performing in a court of law with the recently deceased Shock G and the long-dead Tupac Shakur. That's his major label debut, if you will, for Tupac Shakur. That's his major label debut, if you will,

for Tupac in the same song. For sure. Should we turn up this part? Whatever the point was of Nothing But Trouble, the story was credited to a guy named Peter Ackroyd who happened to be Dan Ackroyd's younger brother.

And we lost Peter Ackroyd in 2021, November 6th. He died in Spokane, Washington at age 65. And his death was announced in a way that was more interesting than most. in a way that was more interesting than most. Saturday Night Live will have a memorial card at the end of each episode if it's in a week where someone with any association with SNL died. There were a host, a musical guest, a cast member, even the most obscure SNL cast member,

like Tony Risotto, would get a memorial card in the week he died with SNL. Just a little thing to remember their legacy. But, of course, this ends up being mentioned on Twitter, and maybe there's an article about it that Lorne Michaels and SNL made sure to acknowledge some obscure reference from the history of the show right before they said the goodnight. As far as I know, Peter Ackroyd is the first person to have his death announced in this way on Saturday Night Live. Because he was not a cast member.

No, he was credited as a featured player in those episodes of Saturday Night Live around the point when it got into a little bit of free fall when Dan Aykroyd had left for the Blues Brothers. The Gilbert Godfrey era. No, before the Gilbert. 1979, 1980. Okay, gotcha. And here you

had this period in Saturday Night Live where because the main players were moving away from the show, they brought in the brothers of the guys on Saturday Night Live to kind of try and fill their place. Eventually, Jim

Belushi settled in there. That was more into the 1980s. He became a prominent player, especially after the fact that John Belushi died. It made Jim Belushi seem like a more credible presence on the show.

He was carrying the torch, continuing the legacy. But also Brian Doyle Murray, who was the brother of Bill Murray. And a little bit for Peter Ackroyd, who starred in one of those Tom Schiller short films, it was called Java Junkie.

And on the official Saturday Night Live Twitter account, they posted that video as a recognition of the fact that Peter Ackroyd, besides doing some writing on SNL in that fifth season, that he also got a little bit of airtime. Then he was involved in this Nothing But Trouble movie, whatever happened to that, like one of the big incoherent disasters right up there with Bruce Willis and Hudson Hawk.

That also comes to mind from that era as an unintelligible comedy film beyond this bit from digital underground. But then he worked with Dan Aykroyd on a Canadian show called Sci-Factor, a sci-fi show. Remember this? Dan Aykroyd was a host of Sci-Factor, and Peter Aykroyd was a co-creator behind the scenes. And later on, him and Jim Belushi teamed up for a Blues Brothers cartoon series.

See? Wow. The Sibling Association came in handy over there, and he did some other bit roles related to Coneheads and Dragnet, Spies Like Us. Shout out to Paul McCartney. Theme song. Other adjacent things related to Dan Aykroyd.

But it was Dan Aykroyd who explained that two weeks before his 66th birthday, Peter Aykroyd died from, I've got to pronounce this condition right. It's sepsis. Do you know? Septicemia caused by an untreated abdominal hernia? That sounds like something that Dan Aykroyd would be able to articulate more properly than me. And on the November 20th episode of Saturday Night Live, we had an announcement of the death of Peter Ackroyd.

Surprising and perhaps surreal, but a tribute to his legacy and the fact that this mostly forgotten character in the history of SNL was remembered that way, I thought that was very nice. So RIP Peter Ackroyd, RIP Shock G, and RIP Tupac Shakur. Me and Magdalena We're driving south through Monterey.

As the sun is slowly sinking into a distant ocean wave. And I don't know if I've ever loved any other. Have as much as I do in this life she's under. The biggest musical death since we last visited here with a Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment was December 10th, 2021. Good thing we're into December here because don't want to be late in saluting the great Mike Nesmith. Mike, what are your thoughts about your namesake there, Papa Nez? I loved the Monkees because MuchMusic started airing the shit out of these Monkey reruns. I want to say like late 80s, but you'll probably correct me. Well, 1986.

And that was totally copying MTV, which dusted these off. Okay, which I was oblivious to. And it was part of like moving away from 24-7 music videos, trying to program things that people would schedule time to watch. Musical, like Partridge Family, and things that were kind of musical in nature. And The Monkees was one of the shows that he played a lot, and I loved the show.

I remember one summer, I tried to tune in every day to catch my Monkees fix on much music. Now, the deal back then was the fact that by 1986 people had mostly forgotten about the monkeys and I would love to meet the hipster who says that they were like really into

the monkeys all through the 1970s because during that period it definitely became a joke it was completely forgotten about the monkeys had entire albums in their catalog that were obscure the day that they came out.

And this movie, Head, which anyone will try to convince you was like a cult classic that people have spent the past half century talking about. I know, as a pre-teen Beatles obsessive, I didn't hear, read, listen to anything about the Monkees at all.

They were completely tossed into the dustbin of history. Nobody cared. And I think a lot of it had to do with the indifference of Mike Nesmith. Like the guy was determined to move on and prove himself as a credible musician in his own right. And that included the fact that he had his own group after the Monkees called the First National Band. And he's considered like the pioneer of this Americana country rock.

And he had written this song performed by Linda Ronstadt, Stone Ponies. That was a different drum. And at the same time that the Monkees were joked about, they were considered the prefab for, there was Mike Nesmith doing this side hustle where he was considered a legit and genuine songwriter and clearly wanted to lean into that. And he left the others, Davey and Mickey and Peter Tork, behind and got into doing his own music.

There was also the fact that Michael Nesmith came into a very large sum of money. Right, right. Michael Nesmith came into a very large sum of money. Right, right. Thanks to his mother, who died, it turns out, at age 56. She was 56 years old and had $50 million in the bank. Liquid paper, right? Due to the fact that she invented liquid paper.

I did just drop the name Gilbert Gottfried, and I didn't do that because some people told me once that you sounded like him. I don't think you sound like him. I dropped his name because I actually fairly recently, I'm going to say within the last six weeks, I listened to Michael Nesmith on Gilbert's podcast, and he went into great detail about his mom inventing liquid paper. It was really an interesting story. And look, it got him out of whatever debt he was in at the end of the 1970s. And he started to become this music entrepreneur

that included starting a show on the Nickelodeon network called Pop Clips. The idea that there would be a music video show. And that was the forerunner to music television 24 hours a day on MTV. Even though

his negotiation skills to be part of that deal weren't great. What did it matter? He had $50 million to his name. Believed in this music video concept enough to make, at the time, what was considered a great innovation, elephant parts. That is to say, he released an album that took the form of a cassette released on VHS and beta. And even if the music wasn't very memorable, it was at the time a big deal that here was a guy with this legendary music history that was putting his music out on video rather than LP and cassette. He was the executive producer of Repo Man. on video rather than LP and cassette.

He was the executive producer of Repo Man. I would assume his investment there got some return with that movie, cult classic Emilio Estevez. And in 1985 on the NBC network, Elephant Parts was spun into its own comedy TV show called Television Parts. I remember seeing this on NBC in 1985. This was like part of the search to find a successor to Saturday Night Live before Lorne Michaels came back to SNL. And you would find this kind of experimental comedy.

Where else would it have been in the mid-80s? You wouldn't find this on YouTube or Netflix. There weren't many cable channels around. And there it was Michael Nesmith in the big show doing this series on NBC, which nobody watched.

But in the archives, you've got the first major appearances of Jerry Seinfeld, Arsenio Hall, gary shandling all part of this experimental video comedy show the monkeys are resurrected by mtv but they were already getting the band back together for a greatest hits album and a tour and uh there michael nesmith of course, invited to rejoin the reunion of the Monkees, and he sits the whole thing out. They cannot get the original band back together. He was defiant about the fact that he had better things to do

than play all these amphitheaters to little kids who were watching the Monkees on MTV. He was the Samantha of Sex and the City. No, not for me. That was it. Really stubborn about it, even though they kept pleading, and he would make his guest appearances, but it was only about ten years later that the Monkees reunited for an album, reunion album, where they played

all the instruments, wrote all the songs on their own, and there was Michael Nesmith back in the fray, but he still wouldn't go on tour or anything like that. Now, what ended up happening was the other monkeys started dying off. Right. And there we hear that song, Me and Magdalena,

which was from their album in 2016. And that ballad was considered the greatest monkey song of all time. Wow. After all they had been through, that Mike and Mickey were doing that duet written by Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie, me and Magdalena. Wow. And that was one of the songs that they ended up taking on the road.

So by that point, we lost Davy Jones. Peter Tork, I remember coming up in a previous Ridley Funeral Home Memorial segment. And there was this whole idea that Mike and Mickey would do one last run, one last series of concerts, one last way to remember the Monkees. And then the pandemic hit. Dates were canceled, and obviously they weren't on the road, and people were wondering, would the monkeys, would we ever see the two surviving monkeys again?

And Mike Nesmith, who refused to tour for all those years, was particularly determined to get out there, say goodbye to all his fans one last time. And when the show was on the road, there was some controversy. I don't know if he caught wind on this. There were even insinuations of elder abuse. No, I missed that. Okay, that clearly Mike was struggling with something.

Oh, Nesmith, yeah. Not me. That he didn't seem like he was all there, that he had had health issues beforehand, and that people were genuinely worried and wondering what was happening here. Were they going to kill Mike Nesmith by keeping him on the road? And the guy who ended up being in charge of the whole Monkees thing,

a guy named Andrew Sandoval, he was very defiant. Michael Nesmith, he doesn't need the money. He wants to say goodbye to his fans. And that's exactly what he did, and he did it just in time. Because that Monkees tour wrapped up shortly before. because that Monkees tour wrapped up shortly before. We heard of the death of Michael Nesmith on December 10th of heart failure. But he's also a Christian scientist,

and that factored into the fact that he wasn't big on the modern medicine treatments available to him. You don't hear that about a lot of celebrities. But that was the way he was raised. Michael Nesmith! And we could go on and on

as others have about the influence of the Monkees, but I thought they're me and Magdalena. R.I.P. Michael Nesmith. 10, 11, 2, I'll be going strong and so are you. We're going to rock around, rock tonight. Mark, did you listen to the very cuddly Al Grego when he was on Toronto Mike fairly recently? I did, as a matter of fact, and I know that for whatever reason you made a reference to the long-lost brother from Happy Days, Chuck Cunningham.

He doesn't come up often on Toronto Mike. That might be the only time. But for whatever reason, something Al said sparked my memory of Chuck going up those stairs and never coming back. And then I think it was like the very next day we learned that one of the Chucks had died.

Little do you know, he was already dead. Right. Because Gavin O'Harely, in case there's any wondering what ethnicity he came from, he died on September 15th, 2021. But this was not something that a lot of people knew about at the time because who gave any thought to whatever happened to Chuck Cunningham except for Al Grego and Toronto Mike.

And so in the very first episodes of happy days, there was an older sibling in the Cunningham household named Chuck, older, older brother to Richie and Joni. And the greatness of Happy Days was the fact that the entire history of the show, there was no continuity whatsoever. Right. Right.

Like, Happy Days was about the 50s in 1974. Right. Ten years later, we've talked about this over the years. By the time Happy Days ended, it was taking place in 1984. Well, remember, Mork and Mindy. Like, even though the characters hadn't actually aged. Mork and Mindy spins out of Happy Days. So how does a 50s show spin off a guy who's super 70s?

Well, he was Mork from Mork. He was capable of time travel. Right, but was Pam Dauber, was it there? I guess not. Nobody paid any attention to this stuff anyhow. Okay. And therefore, by the time travel. Right, but was Pam Dauber, was it there? I guess not. Nobody paid any attention to this stuff anyhow. Okay. And therefore, by the time Happy Days ended, and there was a big wedding at the end of...

Yeah, Joni loves Chachi, don't you know? Joni and Chachi. Not so good, Al. There was a dad, Tom Bosley, Howard Cunningham, proclaiming a toast to our two children. Like the last episode of Happy Days. This became canonical. Right.

That, in fact, Chuck Cunningham was not only written out of the show, but as far as the writers were concerned, he never was alive. Right. Well, this is like when Peggy Bundy was pregnant and they said, oops, and then they never referenced it again. It's one of those things you can do. But that was really egregious. Of course.

Come on. This is like Rosie on the first 59 episodes of Toronto Mike. I never wrote her out. Those episodes are available today. Shout out to Rosie. Well, the original Happy Days episodes are also out there in syndication, you would think. Who's this big, gawky, Irish, red-headed guy stumbling around the Cunningham household? I feel like my memory, anyway, could be very wrong, but he had a basketball in his hand.

He had just shot hoops or whatever, and then he went upstairs with his basketball, and then we never saw him again. Okay, but you know that this, okay, there were two Chuck Cunninghams, right? Yes. Over the course of the series. Does it even matter what the name of the other one was, or in which order

they appeared? All I know is one Chuck Cunningham died. Oh. Right. Gavin O'Herlihy on September 15, 2021. He stayed in acting. He had a whole bunch of

screen credits. He didn't disappear. And Ron Howard even gave him a part in a movie called Willow, directed by Ron Howard. Of course I know Willow. And you can see the original Chuck Cunningham in there, just like how Ron Howard would always put his brother Clint in the movies. Of course, Clint Howard. He was kind of into these Easter eggs.

And so Chuck Cunningham, he even showed up in an episode of Twin Peaks, and his IMDb page kept on growing. But there at the age of 70, Gavin O'Hare-Lehie, one of the two, the first guy to play Chuck Cunningham. Sun shining from your eyes Sleepy face Smiling into mine

Sunday morning Lots of time with nothing to do Oh, this is Margot Gurion, who died November 8th, 2021. Speaking of cult icons of a certain age, that this woman, Margot Gurian, released an album in 1968 called Take a Picture. Here was a song Sunday Morning that was a hit for Spanky and Our Gang. Also the singer named Oliver. And just one of those cult recording artists who nobody gave much thought to. In league with the Monkees, I think, except she didn't have a sitcom. They started rerunning on MTV.

And speaking of Oliver, I mean, that's another character that appeared on a popular sitcom and then sort of disappeared. Wasn't it Cousin Oliver? Yeah, this was Oliver the singer. Good morning. Please, sir, may I have some morning? Good morning, starshine. And so I figured I would throw in this jam

as a bit of a memory for Margot Gurion, the most obscure music obituary we could find, and I can tell that we're skipping over a bunch of music ones. Is that only because I just looked at the clock? I only skipped three for the record, because I know some people are keeping track of that kind of thing, but I only skipped three.

We can get to them maybe on the From Lodge episode. What were you going to say? Come on, come on. Talk over Diana Krall. I dare you. If you burn through this one, and you can do the other three in like one minute, only because we're at three hours,

and I've got to eat something or I'm going to die. Mike, you invite me to come over and do these episodes. This might be the least amount I've left on the cutting room floor ever. I think I only left one item before we got to the obituary. I deserve at least the amount of respect that you give. I just didn't know if we should do... Stew stone. Oh, you always get that. The Tori spelling, I wasn't sure.

That's the only one I skipped. Did you want to, in one sentence, tell me what the hell you were going to tell me about Tori Spelling? And her marriage to Dean McDermott? Dean McDermott is a future FOTM because I had him sitting right here at the table and he looked me in the eyes and says, I promise when I'm in Toronto, I'm going to come over here and do

Toronto Mike. Well then, you might be on TMZ after you get the scoop of what happened to his marriage. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? You know who else we left out? Speaking of Chuck Cunningham was Eddie Mecca. Carmine from Laverne and Shirley. Well, you know what? Well, here, tell me why I'm playing this jam.

Okay, this is a shout-out. November 17th, we lost a great songwriter who also worked with the aforementioned Margot Gurion, involved in her career, and it was a guy named Dave Frishberg. And some of the greatest wordplay in the great American songbook is credited to Dave Frishberg,

which included I'm Just a Bill from Schoolhouse Rock. I remember that one well. On ABC. That was his best known song of all. That's the best of the bunch, maybe, I think. I would say that's the best of the Schoolhouse Rock. A lot of wordplay in the other songs he's known for, including this one. Peel Me a Grape.

Which for a period of time Baby Morgan would do because she didn't like the taste of the skin of the grapes. And for a period of time baby Morgan would do because she didn't like the taste of the skin of the grapes and for a little while she was peeling her grapes to eat her grapes which I thought was ridiculous because the skin's like the best part. Okay, well, you can play her this song

and Dave Frishberg I think would be considered a song smith in league with Elvis Costello, the husband of Diana Krall. It all makes sense. And he died at 88 on November 17th. I'm going to meet a fellow you all know and like, a guy from the neighborhood, a former fighter, a former dancer.

He was good in both fields, but I think he's best as a singer. So I'd like to present Harvey Ragusa and the Radices. You know I'd go from rags to riches You know you say you can Throw your pockets, baby, empty I'd be a millionaire There you go. I knew we couldn't end this episode

without a shout-out to Carmine Ragusa from Laverne and Shirley because it pairs well with Chuck from Happy Days. But there Carmine made it all the way through the run of Laverne and Shirley. I feel like Carmine even became like the main character of Laverne and Shirley at one point in time after Penny Marshall started ghosting the show

and they had more Carmine-centric episodes dead at 69 on November 27th. One more from Stephen Sondheim. Hey, Dean, how easy, will you? She's coming to the phone. Hello, Marie. I don't know if you remember me, but we met last week. She remembers him. We're sunk.

He's gonna get the axe from her. What would you say to seeing a picture? I pass! How does a combination of Johnny Mac Brown and Bessie Love hit ya? Right between the eyes. Well, she said I have one hell of a nerve calling her at 7 o'clock on Saturday night. She said naturally she already has a date. on Saturday night. She said naturally she already has a date. The moon's like a million watt

electric light. It shines up the city as it climbs. And I gotta spend another Saturday night at home with the Sunday Times. Stephen Sondheim, who died on November 26 at age 91. I don't know, Mike, if you were ever much of a musical theater guy,

but you knew the name Stephen Sondheim. I know that when Krusty the Clown had his final... Send in the Clowns. Send in the Clowns was the sideshow Mel. And Sondheim died right before Big Screen Movie Revival. West Side Story. Yes, of course. Which was based on lyrics that he wrote.

Saturday Night. Here was his first major musical theater endeavor, which goes all the way back to 1954. And for everything else about Stephen Sondheim, you can use Google. I was going to say, I left off the list. For Anne Rice, Guns N' Roses, Sympathy for the Devil.

Do you think you could find that? To give a shout out here to Interview with the Vampire. That's from the spaghetti incident as I recall. It's from the Tom Cruise Tom Cruise movie of

Interview with the Vampire. Interview with the Vampire. Absolutely. Here we go. The reason I felt like we were missing something in not remembering Anne Rice, not the oldest of the month. That would be Sondheim on this list. But that Anne Rice who died December 11th, 2021 at age 80. Because I'm thinking of your buddy Elvis here.

Elvis is a big Guns N' Roses fan, right? Yeah, we both are. I'm a big Guns N' Roses fan. Yeah, absolutely. I went to see Gunners with Elvis for sure. I didn't want to leave out the last song by Axl and Slash in the original era of Guns N' Roses, Sympathy. Sympathy for the Devil.

When Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, the damn sure pilot washed his hands and sealed his fate. Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name. Oh, yeah. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game. I noticed George Strombolopoulos, who never misses an opportunity to put on social media

that he interfaced with someone who recently died. You've ever noticed that? I would do the same thing. Faster than TorontoMike.com. Except Strombol has selfies with the dead celebrities. Here's the difference. All you've got is a stock photo. There's a difference, right? All you've got is a stock photo. There's a difference, right?

None of the guests of Toronto Mic'd, not a single guest of Toronto Mic'd has ever died, so you don't know what I'm going to do. Of course I'm going to share my picture with the guest who died. Are you kidding me? So I don't blame Strombo for that.

Listen, just another exercise in personal branding. You're no stranger to that. Mike, we covered what we could. You're hungry. The kids are screaming upstairs. Let's reunite in late December. We'll see where we're at with memorials,

but first and foremost, the Fromage 2021 episode of Toronto Mic'd. And I'm two beers in, courtesy of GLB. I don't think I slurred too many words. No, none. But I did what I could. Well, again, always a pleasure. There's a reason I give you three hours every month and it sounds like this month you're getting uh six hours well we'll see how long the from how long is fromage

2021 i'm thinking by the end of the month we'll get to nine hours but uh oh like your kids your kids might not might not go for that um they can. And therefore, if you made it to the end here, join us between Christmas and New Year's. Well, I can be more specific than that. It's in my calendar. And I will not be forced into the backyard no matter what happens here with the Omicron. I don't have a crystal ball.

We'll see what happens. I'm hoping to get my third shot next week. Now, listen. I'll see if I can match'm hoping to get my third shot next week. Now, listen. I'll see if I can match you. The 28th, for those keeping score, those who care, care a lot. If you made it this deep into the episode, we know you give a shit. December 28th at 2 p.m., Mark Weisblatt from 1236 is going to be here, assuming that's allowed and we can do that.

He's going to be here, and we're going to do Fromage 2021. It better be allowed. I've been working on it the entire year. I'm getting that booster, Mike, okay? I'm going for it, just with you in mind. I can't wait. And that brings us to the end of our 968th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Mark is at 1236. That's one, two, three, six. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Chef Drop is at Get Chef Drop. Moneris is at Moneris. McKay CEO Forums are at McKay CEO Forums. Palma Pasta. See, I'm hungry just thinking about it. Palma Pay CEO forums Palma Pasta see I'm hungry just thinking about it

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