Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley: Toronto Mike'd #1067

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

In this 1067th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Wendy Mesley about her exit from CBC and Maureen Holloway about her exit from CHFI and her experience with John Derringer. There's also talk of Maureen and Wendy's new podcast, my recent experiences being bullied and threatened by Mike Bullard, Dean Blundell and Fearless Fred, and so much more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

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Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. more at canacabana.com. Today, making her Toronto mic'd debut is Wendy Mesley. Hello. And returning to the program is Maureen Holloway. Welcome, ladies. Hello. How's everybody doing today? You're not in my basement. So tell us, where are you geographically? And then how,

how the heck are you? Well, I am, excuse me. I got a bit of a cold, but I'm on the Southern end of Lake Simcoe and the waves are massive. Do you ever surf those waves, Wendy?

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's my thing. But I do it in an old-fashioned way. And John Kerry used to do it. So let's not go there.

I'm in St. Andrews-by-the-Sea in New Brunswick. And the sea is calm. And I'm at the last phase of a three-week road trip through Quebec and Gaspésie. And then I'll be heading home, trip through Quebec and Gaspésie and then I'll be heading home I think on Sunday or Monday the day that our podcast starts and should be home by Wednesday driving through Maine and upstate New York I just want to say Wendy

this is what we're going to be doing Mike is all his sponsors and all that this once we get some yeah I was trying to figure out what the posters were and then yeah they're all it's not that he, like, it's not that Mike does beer and drugs all the time. They're legal, Wendy.

Legal drugs. They're legal. They're legal. And the funeral home is a really nice touch, I think. It sort of completes the whole life cycle. One does not lead to the other. No, no. Well, I will, I'll stay away from that one.

But what a pleasure. Okay, so so much ground to cover. I was thinking, like, I could do an episode with Wendy alone, of course. She's been a fixture on the Canadian media scene for decades. Like, I could just dive deep into the Wendy Mesley life and times. But then, of course, Maureen Holloway is here. I could do several hours with Maureen just talking about everything.

So I could ask like an open, silly question, like what's new? Wendy, what's new? Well, we're about to launch our podcast. We were going to launch it on Friday, but then as Maureen said, the dog ate it. What really happened there? I saw that tweet, but what happened?

Did a file get corrupted? No, no, no. No, it was just there's so many bits and pieces, and we are new to this, and it's not just the podcast, although the podcast is the largest part of the project, but the website that we had to get up, and now what happened is we realized that a few people suggest we should send out a press release because people might care that

we're doing this. So, so really that's what it's about. We're putting out a press release today. And also for some reason, somebody said, and I can't remember who, cause we've had so many cooks stirring the pot that maybe Friday is not the best day to launch um i'm not really sure why but monday would be better i feel like this is some to me you know you're talking to a guy and despite what you might have heard on the internet i've actually never worked in radio i feel like i need to tell people i actually don't come from the mainstream media like you two i can't wait to you know talk about that because now you're in this brave new digital frontier which is where i live like i was born in this world you merely adopted it yes i know we're newcomers we're moving in most yeah i know there's i always say this even

though some people have trouble understanding what this expression means but a rising tide does rise all boats like uh this is good yeah there you go i'll paraphrase that but okay so the mainstream media which is not doing so well we're going to talk about all of this um absolutely absolutely but a lot of what you say there about you know press release and friday this sounds really old dusty old school stuff to me like i believe that this is an authentic time completely like an organic authentic time like you just drop the app. You don't look at your calendar or your time of day. You drop it. You do things like Toronto Mike to get the word out. You establish your social media base and you just be your compelling, interesting selves. And then people will find you. And then

word of mouth. The best friend you'll have is somebody will say, I love this show. And they'll tell their five friends and they'll tell their brother and their mom. And then those people will listen and say, I dig these ladies. I love this show. And they'll tell their five friends like really, and it doesn't happen overnight,

but you guys hit the ground running because you're famous. Both of you are famous people. Like that helps. That does help. Yeah. Canadian famous. That does help. We're Canadian famous. I was expecting, when I was trying to talk Maureen into this, and there may have been some wine involved,

I said we were going to get all of these super famous Jane Fonda kind of people. They're all going to come on and they're all going to be so happy to come on even though we don't exist. Or didn't. and things have things have changed a little bit since that so it's uh we're getting there so we're going to talk a little about the podcast then i have some questions for each of you and then we're going to talk more

about the podcast and what is the name of your new podcast women of ill repute which has absolutely nothing to do with anything that maureen or I have ever done in our lives. It's going to ask you that we find, uh, we find women of ill repute or anybody of ill repute to be more interesting than people who aren't. But do you consider yourselves women of ill repute? It's a saucy,

sassy kind of implication. It's playful. Um, neither Wendy nor I have done anything bad ever in our lives um but uh there's been a certain amount of notoriety uh surrounding Wendy's departure from the CBC yes and my departure from both Q107 and CHFI so the name is sort of an acknowledge that you know what there's difficulty in everybody's past. And the best thing to do if you're proud of yourself and you're strong and you're fearless is to just be a little bit brazen about it and unapologetic.

And often you find that the shit that you go through sometimes opens the door to a better place. So that's we are the women of ill repute. And we want to talk to other women who aren't missing who didn't necessarily get to where they are by being nice. Okay, so we're going to talk, like I said, at the end of this chat, we're going to dive a little deeper into what the hell this podcast is going to be. And again, I'll remind people, you said Monday, right, Wendy? So is that the 20th, June 20th? You can listen to this? Okay, exciting. So I have a lot more questions.

But yeah. I wish you had come to TMDS. There'd be no dogs eating your homework. That's another conversation. That's another conversation. Okay. I do want to start because this is going to help us understand how you two are, you know, a duo here. Midtown Gord

sent in this question. He's curious, what's the connection between Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley? So, like, how did you guys hook up as buddies? Well, we're twins. Sorry, go ahead. We're twins. We've only been friends for about four or five years.

We've always known of each other. And our paths have crossed socially. And we know a lot of people in common. But John Moore from news talk 1010 formally introduced us and then we started having dinner parties um the six of us with our partners or the three of us john and wendy and you've their partners right but really the more the more interesting thing is that we're like we're we're um strangely linked for so many reasons um we uh okay well we're in no particular order um

we're both breast cancer survivors we both started our careers as uh traffic reporters at ckfm which is now virgin wow working for the same news director who took us both under his wing, but at different times. We have, geez, Wendy, we have short hair. Yeah, you could pass for sisters. We could. Our mothers died within two weeks of each other. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, in the midst of the pandemic. That's just, what am I living out, Wendy?

I mean, a whole pile more. I don't know. I think that Maureen has always had a part of her that wanted to be a journalist and i've always had a part of me that wanted to be a comedian and and which maureen insists is much harder um and we just i don't know we just bonded i mean it was it was really weird that we have all of these things in common, but it's sort of beyond that because it's, I guess it's that we both see ourselves and admire in others when they're trying to be brave and they're trying to fight something and they're trying to be funny. And I think everything in life is kind of funny. And if you're not laughing, then there's something much worse going on. So we had all of these things in common, which was weird.

But we kind of just, I don't know, we bonded. And it was John Moore. Yeah. And OK, well, so firstly, shout out to John Moore, who I quite like. And we've had some nice conversations. And he was literally scheduled to come over and do a Toronto Mic'd episode. And I think he was leaving the door, leaving the 1010 studio. And somebody who's no longer the program director there asked him, like, I don't know, he told I think he was leaving the door, leaving the 1010 studio and somebody who's no longer the program director

there asked him, like, I don't know, he told him where he was going and he was told he was not allowed to do Toronto Mic'd. It's still the case. Still, like, yeah, he's so, I just find that fascinating when I hear, like, John Moore is not allowed to come on this program. Like, I'm so dangerous.

He doesn't do any interviews outside. I think it's a policy. I've heard him on CBC. It's all I'm so dangerous. He doesn't do any interviews outside. I think it's a policy. I've heard him on CBC. It's all I'm going to say. Oh, that's right. That's right. I know. I don't really know.

You'd have to ask him, but of course you can't. But I'm not, you know, maybe he'll, yeah, I like the man and I am glad he brought you two together because hearing that little, like, you know, all your connections. Yeah, it makes sense. You'd be fast friends. And also, as a guy who observes Canadian media, around the same period of time, you two veterans of your respective media channels found yourselves free agents, free spirits, like it's sort of similar timelines that now you're sort of available to do whatever you want outside the MSM. to do whatever you want outside the MSM? Well, I became retired.

I don't really like that word, but I left the CBC before Maureen left CHFI. Right. And I was trying to figure out what to do and nothing quite made sense. And then Maureen left. And yeah, it wasn't like, I think we still want to make the world a better place. We both still want to keep laughing

and we both still want to do something. But yeah, we came we came together after after a year the timing was impeccable well i'm only just meeting you and wendy but uh i've known maureen for a long time there's a photo by the way maureen i think your first visit here you've been here a couple of times and you've kicked out the jams and people should go back and listen to maureen holloway on tronamite because it's fantastic but you have a there's a picture of you holding my youngest when she was like like a baby and I see that photo because you know I do this thing where on this day like so on this day this person came over that person came over and I kind of on

Twitter I'll remind people they can still listen to this episode even though it might be two three four or five years old so whenever I see that come across and it's time for that episode to be promoted on the socials, I think, oh my goodness, my sweet sweet, who I watched her play soccer last night, my sweet Morgan, in your arms at that age, like forever.

Warm fuzzies for Maureen Holloway. For sure. How old is she now, Mike? She is six. She's the most beautiful baby. All your children gorgeous i gotta say i'm uh and i've seen pictures of your family also gorgeous maureen but i'm uh very blessed and father's day is sunday and i'm like you know i got four healthy smart you know uh well-adjusted children i'm so proud of and so madly in love with like all the other noise that's going on

this week and you know it can stuff it because I'm the richest man in town are we going to talk about that well hey you want to talk about now or do you want to you can talk about it now if you have any questions we can do it now and then I want to do a little chat with Wendy and then a little catch up with Maureen and then a little more about the podcast because some interesting questions came in but do you have any questions about Toronto Mike? Okay. So the reason why I think it's relevant is because I've come out of a bullying situation and I've been quite public about it recently with regards to my time at Q107 and I've been forever indebted to Jennifer Valentine for going public about it. But oddly enough,

we decided that Wendy and I would talk to you quite a while ago but in the last week you yourself have become uh the subject of online uh and on air on air in terms of podcasts of bullying and you know maybe you could tell us a bit about that because one thing that we found is that men very rarely cop to being bullied for some reason they don't like to admit that they're being victimized right but you're being bullied by um can we say names yes of course i did yeah yeah well dean blundell who's a bad boy of radio now has a podcast is just really being abusive towards you and then for some reason fearless fred these are guys i actually have time for. So I'm shocked and dismayed to see

and to hear that this is happening. And then out of the woodwork, Mike Bullard pokes his disgusting head and they're all jumping all over you. So Wendy, I mean, we're going to turn the tables for a second. Tell us what's going on. Okay.

I'm happy to talk about this, but I have to ask a question first. Have either of you heard episode 1066 of Toronto Mike? And it's okay if you haven't. I just want to know before I talk about this. I haven't. Sorry, so go ahead. I haven't either. Okay, so you need, this is sort of homework for you ladies, okay?

Oh, I did listen to it. I just listened to it two nights ago. Oh, okay, you did. And then, Wendy, you got it. That's your homework then. You got it. Because even though it looks like it's a 90-minute thing and you're like, I don't have 90 minutes for Toronto Mike,

it's only a half an hour. I actually, there's an extra 60 minutes that's not from this month. Okay, so the first 30 minutes of episode 1066, which happens to be the episode just before this one. So Maureen, I'm kind of glad I'm talking to you now. And again, complete coincidence. This has been in the schedule for a long time.

In fact, this conversation was scheduled for early June, and then we actually bumped it to now, and then everything broke with the Derringer story. So it's just happenstance. But it is actually and I have questions for you about John Derringer, but it is actually the John Derringer

story? The Jennifer Valentine video that dropped on the Saturday of the long weekend, the May 2-4 long weekend. She drops that on a Saturday morning. Me being Toronto Mike and what I do is I write about media and radio and such. So I basically wrote a post on torontomike.com called the allegations against John Derringer or something like that. And all I did was I linked to Jennifer's video and then I linked to a tweet from Maureen Holloway and I linked to Jackie Delaney on Toronto Mic

because a month earlier she told, for the first time on my show, somebody started talking about the abuse of, the alleged abuse of John Derringer. So I write this post and mainstream media takes a few days. It's a long weekend. It took a little while for them to wake up

and realize what's going on. So for a few days, for better or worse, and it sounds like I'm not trying to, I'm just telling the facts. TorontoMike.com was the go-to place to read about the allegations against John Derringer. That's just a fact. So when Dean Blundell does his podcast on the Tuesday after the long weekend, he just goes, he lashes at me for piling on John derringer and he calls me the worst words in the world with the most vitriol in his voice and i was actually like dumbfounded like why does he passionately hate me i've never met the man i don't call him a shithead or a dick or you know i don't ever call him names or even like hit below the belt or anything like i didn't understand

where it came from that he had such passionate hatred for Toronto Mike. And he spews this into his podcast. So of course, on my show of Mark Weisblatt, once a month he comes on for a very, very, very deep dive. It came up and I kind of just asked him, leave me alone. Dean Blundell, leave me the fuck alone. That's my exact quote. And I didn't want anything to do with this man. I don't want anything to do with him. Leave me alone. Stop talking about me on your podcast. Then the next time, the next Tuesday, when Dean Blundell records his podcast, it's a much longer, harder hitting,

you know, fuck this Toronto Mike piece of shit, worst human in the world, because he starts to quote or reference stories that Fearless Fred told him about me. Things that are so grossly untrue. Apparently, according to Fearless Fred back in 2009, I was photoshopping photos of his wife onto gangbang pictures and sharing them via my platforms. That was the first doozy. So I hear that and I'm like, whoa, this is a little different than what a human piece of shit or a human piece of garbage. But then right away, then afterwards, he's like, this Toronto Mike is the same guy who blamed Fearless Fred for the suicide of Martin Streak.

Oh, my God. And that resulted in hundreds of abusive emails to Fearless Fred because I was perpetuating this myth via my platform. So anyways, the most horrible things, so I did right away, I called my lawyer. That was the first thing I did. Shout out to my lawyers. I call him up and I tell him, he just said these big gross lies.

Like this is black and white libel. And then I started a three, and I know this is all about me, but we turned the tables here. The three prong strategy on this was number one, my lawyer wanted me to do a content audit of torontomic.com for everything i've ever written about fearless fred and every comment left about him just even though i knew there was nothing like that but he didn't want to find out there was something about his fearless fred's wife or his family or something so i did that it took a long but of course, never anything. It's always about

his broadcasting ability. Like what he says into a microphone as a broadcaster, there's never anything personal or below the belt or unfair. So secondly, he wanted me to try my best to get a private conversation with fearless Fred Kennedy to let him know he's had the wrong guy for 13 years. And he can stop sharing this story about me to his colleagues and friends because I never did any of that. He's got the wrong guy. I can't tell you Maureen and Wendy how hard I've tried for the last 10 days to get just a private brief audience with this man. Multiple mutual friends have spoken to Fearless Fred, said here's his number, call him. You were wrong about him. You owe him an apology have a conversation unrecorded private off the record he absolutely 100 refuses to speak to me or acknowledge he was

wrong and this is probably the man who's going to end up getting john derringer's job on q107 wow which is an interesting side project so wait just just throw and then bullard piled on oh my god and then bullard who apparently is buddies with my God. That's all, right? And then Bullard, who apparently is buddies with Blundell, for no apps, I've never thought of Bullard in years. Never thought of him, never talked about him on my podcast,

never tweeted at him, never wrote about him on TorontoMike.com. Completely forgot he existed on the planet. And out of nowhere, a third party, just a listener of Toronto Mike, tweeted at him and said, if you want to get your story out, Mike,

you know, he thinks he's been wronged by Cynthia Mulligan and the justice system. If you want to get your story out, Mike, go on Toronto Mike, the Toronto Mike. This was a tweet from someone else, but it tags me in it. I wish this gentleman never did this because it somehow poked this bear who started telling me to fuck off. I'm, I'm on, I, I, uh, i kiss the ass of my guests and i'm i'm this terrible that i'm a pussy he goes into my dms yeah he goes into oh he says um i think i tweeted about thank you humble and fred for talking having me on the show i produce that show but thank you for having me trying to me on the show to talk about all this i'm talking to you about now and then mike bullard said uh i'm a crybaby, a pussy,

all these things, like public tweets. But then he goes into my DMs. Remember, I did not want anything to do with Mike Bullard. Never want anything to do with him. He's in my DMs over the last couple of days

with threats that have me talking to Toronto Police Services now about the fact that I'm being physically threatened by Mike Bullard. Like, this is happening right now. I was on the phone with police before I jumped

between Hebsey on sports and this episode of Toronto Mike. I'm on the phone with police about Mike Bullard. I'm on the phone with lawyers about Dean Blundell and Fearless Fred. This is my week. Thank you for letting me vent. I want to ask

Wendy a question on your behalf, because Mike and I just spoke very briefly before you joined the Zoom. Do you take the high road or do you... Yeah. Do you take the high road and dust it under the carpet? Or do you go in fighting? My situation was not nearly as extreme no one was accusing me of causing the suicide of anyone or photoshopping people to look like whatever

he's been accused of and there was no actual threats so uh for that you have to fight back and even in my situation that is one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't fight back at what had happened at CBC that people were using me and accusing me of all kinds of of racist behavior which was not at all the case but I was not allowed to speak out unless I actually left the CBC because there's human resources involved and investigations involved and processes and unions and you can't hire your own lawyer and you can't fight for yourself and if you speak out in any way that is uh seen as offensive to the cdc then then that creates other problems so for a year i didn't do anything i just tried to figure out what the hell was going on and to deal with my own health

my own health and my own reputation but my own reputation. But my reputation suffered because I did not fight back. So I think Mike, what you're doing, it's, it's, it's important. It's like completely over the top, what happened to you. But you also need to even what happened to me, I, you know, was hoping that the CBC would actually treat me appropriately. Maybe I should have just quit and started just blasting people and, and whatever with, and hired a lawyer and paid a gazillion dollars an hour and completely walked away from the company where I had basically given 40 years of my life.

Maybe, maybe I should have done that, but I, but I didn't. Anyway, I think what you're going through, Mike, is just appalling and beyond the pale and you're right to fight back. So that's what episode 1066 was, which I dropped Wednesday morning. And again, the first half hour is literally, cause there's a, I have a lot of audio of all this. Like I have fearless Fred going on humble and Fred and going off on me. And then I have to Dean Blundell, the last, whatever.

The thing is I, after I dropped it Wednesday, yesterday on Dean's podcast, he doubled down and called me like a loser and, you know, all these things. So he's completely like, forget owning that he's got the wrong guy he was mistaken and apologizing like the thought that he'd apologize to me give it up because he's just gonna double down on the lies but yeah i want to maybe we just interweave all of our stories i'm glad this is quite the trio here because wendy the the perception on the street and i i want to hear in your words what happened but the perception on the street is that you used the n-word

in an internal CBC meeting and this has led to your suspension and eventual leaving the CBC where you've been since 79 or something what happened? I actually went to CTV first in 79

but CBC since like forever, forever. So what actually how I was, I was on a phone call, it was right, it was, it was a weird, it was a very strange time, because George Floyd had just been murdered by the police, and everybody was rightly angry. rightly angry. We were also all working from home because we all thought we were going to die from COVID. So it was just, it was just a very, it was like, it was two years ago. So it was a very, very strange time. And I was on a phone call, which is what we did instead of being in the office, where there was a woman who was going to be on our panel talking about journalism in Canada. And she was from Saskatchewan and she was a journalist and she was called the N-word all the time. And I was so upset on the phone call that I used the whole word. And I shouldn't have. I apologize immediately.

I apologize profusely afterwards. Past history at CBC was things like that would happen and they'd be covered up. But that's not the way that I roll. I apologize. But it just it was used, I think, by CBC to create this whole thing about we're not racist. She's the racist shit on her. So I mean, that's obviously it was a lot more complicated than that. But for a year, I felt I couldn't speak out. And I saw my reputation and my career and my show and

everything else be tossed into the garbage, even though. And it became such a situation that people did not, other than Maureen and a few other people, people did not want to publicly be seen to be associated with me, even though privately they're all like, oh, Wendy, this is crazy. They've thrown you under the bus. What the hell is going on? We know you're not a racist. You fought for all of these things all your life. Like, what the what the hell is going on? We know you're not a racist. You fought for all of these things all your life. Like what the, what the hell? And meanwhile, as anyone looked at the CBC and the problems that it's got with inequality. So yeah, I felt, uh, and meanwhile, like I, I think I spent

my life fighting for inequality, fighting against corruption, fighting against inequality. So not fighting for equality. Well, that's what we're going to do on the podcast, right? Fighting for inequality with Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. No, no, no, repeat. You know what? You'd have a similar audience. I think the Blundell audience would be interested in that.

Possibly, possibly. Okay, Wendy. Okay. So I have some questions here. Firstly, and I mean, this goes without saying, but I want, you know, in your words, this is a good chance for you to correct the record because when people hear in 2022, when they hear even,

I've always believed context is everything, okay? I've always believed that in proper context, you have to look at the context because saying that Wendy said the N word, okay? The context is missing from that statement, but people don't usually dig beyond that. Like they, that's it. It's,

it's, it's, again, you, you admit that even in an internal meeting, you got to say the N word. Like I've been saying, you don't say the N word,

you say the N word. It's very confusing, right? When you hear it said like that. No, no, no, I should have.

And I acknowledged that immediately. And I was horrified that I didn't know that fulton better and that i didn't that i yeah i guess where i'm going is context was king but not anymore like now it's a third rail of sorts like it's uh i don't know i mean i i actually think the context matters like tina fey who's bigger than all of us uh she had on her Series 30 rock, she had a bunch of people in blackface. She said, contact, context, doesn't matter, it's wrong. And I agree, there should be no blackface anywhere. And I should not have used that word. But I think there is a huge difference between saying that word

because you're upset that someone's being called that and actually calling somebody that. So I think context actually does make a difference. But I agree with you. But excuse for me using that word. I agree with you. Like hearing you tell that story, it's that you're you're you're not you know, you're there angered that any human being would call any other human being the N word. And in this anger in an internal call because you of course are a professional broadcaster for four decades plus like you're not you're not on the air this is a private internal calling you it does leak out in the passion of your disgust i suppose but once you utter the word it gets into an hr universe and you're pretty much muzzled in silence, when your exit was

negotiated, were they fair to you at the end? I don't want the first page of your obituary to be, she said the N-word in an internal meeting. Disgraced broadcaster, yeah. Because I'll just remind the people, and I know normally when you come on, we do more of a deeper dive,

but that you were anchor of the National, you were host of when you come on, we do more of a deeper dive, but that, you know, you were anchor of The National. You were host of Undercurrents, Disclosure, Marketplace. You hosted the Sunday morning talk show weekly with Wendy Mesley. Like you are one of Canada's great broadcasters of the last four decades. Yeah, no, I there's a few questions in there. It was I did expect that I would be punished appropriately. But I, I also thought that ultimately I would be forgiven instead of being thrown

under the bus, which is how it felt. So no, it didn't end well. I, after, after trying to apologize and, you know,

going through the whole process of, I can't remember what the title of the person had, but the sort of the learning coach or whatever. And, and he was like, you're a fucking underdog. This is this is crazy. Like, like, this is nuts. And then they offered me, we're going to take away your show. And we've trashed your reputation. But here, do you want to come in and read some copy? I said, Okay, I guess it's time to go. And so I tried to negotiate something that would make it a little bit more

respectable for after having been there for 40 years, but I have a pension. So I'm like, I'm not really complaining. I've left with a pension. Well, you've got a waterfront property. Is that what I see outside your window there? We have, yeah, we have 50 feet. Ask Maureen what she's got. What do you got there? What are you packing? Well, no, I'm not at at my cottage i'm at a friend's cottage but we do have a cottage with 2 000 feet of frontage but you can't get there

you can only get there by boat so yeah so no it didn't end well and and you know the cbc had been accused of uh systemic racism like two weeks before at the CRTC. And if you looked at the management, like there were no black, brown, or they were all like white old people. And I'm a white old person, so I shouldn't be complaining. But yeah, it didn't end well. So here I am, quasi-retired, but not fully retired because Maureen makes me work too hard during this podcast.

And let's face it, you enjoy working. Maybe I'm guessing wrong, you tell me, but you're far too young to start you know you're the gardening phase of your life uh nothing against gardening no but but but yeah no i'm i it's nice to be able to get older and to appreciate uh life and to have some chuckles and have some friends and look at the stars and have a glass of wine and and not have to go in and do like I was pretty lucky at CBC I the the for the last 20 years I've been able to sort of do stuff that I thought was important most of the time so it was it was a pretty happy relationship until until the end but now I've got even more time to do more stuff

with people I love like Maureen. Okay, amazing. We're going to get back to Maureen in a second. Joe Louis did want to know, is there any chance, Wendy, you'd ever surface in the mainstream media again? No. That's okay.

You know why? Because I'm kind of sick and tired of people talking about mainstream media and then some other media that exists. It's all the same now like to me you could have a bigger forum and a bigger voice being completely independent broadcasters in 2022 like you don't need the cbc so many people have reached out to maureen and i and uh even though very few people spoke up for me publicly during this whole thing a lot of people

reached out privately and so i've got like quite thing, a lot of people reached out privately. And so I've got like quite a, a large network of people who are like dying to feel like they thought that I and Maureen did some good journalism or some good broadcasting over the years. And so, yeah, I hope that I, I don't need to go back to mainstream media for that. And no one's like, no one's listening to that or watching that anyway. It's a, it's a shrinking pie. Okay. Now you mentioned, you know, Maureen Holloway,

also Maureen's on this call. I just realized I can ask her directly. Maureen, when did you show up here? I was chatting with my new friend, Wendy. All right. Where do I go with you? Last time we talked, you had taken over for Aaron Davis at CHFI. I want to shout out Aaron Davis because she's a true ally and become a very good friend. And I just want to say hello to Aaron if she's listening.

I think she might be. But okay. Maureen, you're at CHFI, but you were co-hosting with Darren B. Lamb. What happened to Darren? Because I know Mike Cooper, who recently made his Toronto Mike debut, and we had a good chat,

but, and he was, you know, and I asked him the same question, but what happened to Darren B. Lamb? I don't know. I don't know. And I know that sounds like such a evasive answer,

but he went on vacation in February of two, of 20, what are we? 2020? Yeah. Last, no, it would have in February of 2020. Yeah. No, it would have been February of last year. 2021. 2021. Okay.

And he never came back. He sold his house a few weeks later. And I believe he is living on the West Coast with his partner. And we were never, he blocked, he, he, uh, blocked all of his colleagues on social media and, um, we were never told why. In fact, we weren't, we were told for a long time that he would be coming back eventually, but they would not tell us why he had left or, and they didn't seem to know, actually, we had new management at the time a new program director and he seemed to be as confused as anybody um i'm not going to go too deeply into this darren b lamb was not an easy person to work with aaron will tell you the same thing marilyn will tell

you the same thing um and uh but we we made good radio um what usually the discomfort i had with working with him was behind the scenes and i don't think it leaked across but i don't know maybe he just decided he didn't want to have anything to do with any of us it would have been nice to have a goodbye explanation but he just took off and they immediately started saying oh well uh are my pdc give me a list of all the people you'd like to work with and um i thought okay well they're going to rebuild the show around me and that'll be great um how exciting and i i started to think about that and they said in the meantime we're going to put mike cooper in and i was like oh you know what i love mike i mean he's uh working with Mike was hilarious because

the first thing he did the first show that he came on, he said, you know, I think the gays really like me. And we're like, oh my God, Mike's 70. But I mean, he just, he doesn't have, he's just a pure spirit. There's never any

malice or hatred and we had a really good time with him. And the CHFI audience already is super familiar with Mike Cooper and already loves him. So it makes sense. So we had a good time, but Mike was never supposed to be there permanently. So I kept thinking, well, get back to me and let me know who the new host is going to be. And in the middle of all this, my contract was ending at the end of the year and then all of a sudden they said well we're not going to be renewing it you imagine the crestfallen reaction so really what and it turns out that they'd already approached puja and gurdip in april of that. So they basically decided pretty quickly, we're going to

use this opportunity to clean house. And we're going to hire these new people who and I do not hold and Gurdip is actually a friend and I play golf with him and John Moore every Thursday, but not last summer. For some reason, Gurdip was always busy last summer. And it turned out because he knew that he was going to take over from me and they see if I told him, if he told me, he'd be jeopardizing his job. So it was a really underhanded kind of horrible way. I asked to leave early.

I left October 1st and they paid me to the end of the contract. And that was that. Well, lots for me to process here. So, okay. So they, and I do remember, this is something I did write about and speculate on, especially when Mark Weisblatt,

when he comes over once a month for the three hour deep dive, everything kind of comes up. But Pooja left CP24 first and then Gurdip shortly thereafter. And it was just pure speculation. Because they're clearly going to show up on something. And I just thought they'd end up on television, maybe breakfast television. And maybe that is the long-term plan. Go ahead.

It's a preemptive move by Rogers by taking Pooja and Gurdip, who were hugely popular on a Bell morning show, they take them out. Right. And they plop them into CHFI. So that gives breathing room to breakfast television, which is a Rogers property. So it was a good strategic move.

I mean, I don't fault them for that. I'd fault them for the lack of communication, the lack of clarity, and really shabby treatment of somebody who would own, like, my ratings were, our ratings were good. Well, I mean. There was no real reason to let us go yeah i'm sorry like i am sorry because i yes you're somebody in the media and i'm sure the bullards and blendels will say here i am kissing the ass of a guest again except i legit like your work as a broadcaster i think you're very talented and i like you as a person you've been over a couple of times we've had many conversations like i'm sorry

that this happened to you at CHFI. You deserve better. Well, you know what? Yeah. Wendy and I are actually very nice people that have had shitty things happen to them, and the same applies to you. So I think that it's very important to move on, though. Ultimately, you can't be better.

Because we've also had wonderful things happen to us. And so, you know, if you accept one, then you accept the other. We're deserving. And it sounds like you're financially A-OK. So on that front, there's no concern. That's not, you know, no, we're not making any money. We don't have sponsors.

No, I'm referring to your... Oh, in general? Yeah, in general. Yeah, well, Mike, I've been working for 40 years myself. Right. And I did make good coin towards've been working for 40 years myself. Right. And I did make good coin towards the end, certainly in the last 15 years. And all that Derringer money you were receiving.

I was going to say, I got Derringer pay. I got paid really well by the people at Chorus, certainly because I'm good at what I do, but also because I put up with a lot of shit, and they sweetened the deal. Well, this is, again, fascinating that you guys are on the show today and uh very soon we will talk more about your new podcast venture which people should be checking out on monday but now i need to go back to derringer so again the derringer post i did triggered some uh online bullies to go at me which i've been grappling with

all week that's episode 1066 if you haven't heard that by now. But now I need to ask you, because Maureen, like your first visit, not your second visit, because I got the hint really quickly. I remember the first visit you asked me about Derringer and I said he's a great broadcaster. Yes. And I actually, okay, yeah, no. So let's, and I'm not, don't worry, I'm not going to play the clip, but people can hear it. I don't edit these things right but uh a hundred percent i'll tell you the truth which is uh i had heard stories like i had been i have friends in the industry who have been telling me stories forever and you can probably guess who some of them are but i had heard stories and i don't believe in like i don't out people like uh if you have to disclose it if it's of that nature like i'm not going to like to I'm pretty fair on these things. I'm not

going to blindside you with something that you're not that you might not want to talk about. I will ask because it would be ridiculous if I didn't. I will ask what it was like working with John Derringer. I remember how you handled the question. It was like screaming volumes that you said as you just said

he's a great broadcaster. I stand by that. He he's a great broadcaster. And I stand by that. He's a very talented broadcaster. And then your second visit to kick out the jams, I decided not to say the words. Like, I wasn't going to say the words John Derringer because I didn't, I got the hint. Like, don't talk to me about John Derringer,

particularly, you know, at that point in your life. But here we are in 2020. Now that Jennifer Valentine dropped that video and then other people like Andrea Ruse and Jackie Delaney and Colleen Rusholm. Colleen is an employee, of course. So she has not gone public. Yeah, well, I'll go interview her.

Just talk to us. She told Humble Howard Glassman explicitly he had permission to uh quote her like i would never out her either until she was ready because i know she works for chorus but she gave humble permission to include her in yeah so that's the only reason i i'm comfortable dropping her name but so i wouldn't do it without her permission obviously but can you tell us now that you're like not going to be so diplomatic and careful and i won't hear about i haven't been i made the week that it broke uh the after the may weekend when uh one day no

i was on my own on this one i was approached by kevin donovan at the star cbc news chris glubber um liz braun uh and it was funny because jennifer because Jennifer Valentine and I know each other, but there was no, I had no idea she was going to do this. We somehow kind of managed to divide up the people that wanted to talk to us and were very public about it. So, yeah, I came right out and told everybody. It wasn't, you know, Mike, it's important. He wasn't, he didn't bully me constantly.

He bullied the two guys that he worked with constantly, particularly John Garbutt. I witnessed it. You know, I mean, just small things. Like Ryan Parker, who does not smoke, had to go out and have a, and stand with John while he had a cigarette. Towards the end, he had to go to the bathroom with him. All right. So like, you could see all this going on and there were racist and misogynist comments that I just kind of, that's not, that's pretty common in radio. But John only turned his

fury on me once or twice, well, maybe three times all told. And the first time I went to the general manager. The second time, okay, there were two major incidences. The second time, which happened years later, I went all the way up and they did an internal investigation, which resulted in me being moved to Afternoons. May I ask questions along the way? Okay, because I do have questions about this and I have heard these stories as well. But people are asking,

did Q107 let Kim Mitchell go for you to... Yeah. No, Kim was at the end of his contract. He was planning on retiring. I think they did move him out. They ushered him out a little prematurely because they needed a place to put me. But the idea was that Kim was going to move on.

And I think they paid out his contract. I really don't know. But they created a situation where it was comfortable for Kim to go. Of course, he probably had a heart attack afterwards. So I had people going, you gave Kim Mitchell a heart attack, like me. And, you know, I love Kim, and I thought he was a really good broadcaster. And his numbers in the afternoon were great.

I tanked the afternoons. But I wasn't given any choice, right? And you were with John, right? John Scholes? Did I say that right? Scholes? Yeah, Scholes in the afternoon. He's a good FOTM himself, by the way. He's a good guy, but he wasn't, and I say this with love on my heart,

he wasn't, I'm an actor and a reactor, and he was, he just, he was in awe. I'd say something funny and he would do this. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's not good for radio. He would cover his mouth to hide his laughter i was like dude i only want you to do one thing and that's make you laugh at my jokes okay so let me step back a bit here though so the second time you complained and you went all the way up i guess

you're not naming names or whatever uh but you know i mean it's up to you see who you can look and see who was uh working there so So Blair Bartram was the program director. Dave Farrow was the general manager. Mario Cicchini was the president of radio and Doug Murphy was the CEO. Now throw in some more HR people and lawyers. And those were the people that I, and Hal Blackadar, the former head of radio for chorus conducted the the internal investigation Okay, Wendy, hang in there

we're going to get back to you soon I know this might be a go for a swim No, no, no, there's just something brewing but I'm all good It's amazing what happened to Maureen Okay, Maureen you talk about, I think it was in the Star

I read it with the Kevin Donovan piece or something, I can't remember now, but you'll remind me. But you were offered, so because your complaints to Derringer, you were offered the afternoon drive and some money? Is this the- No, no money. No more money, although I was being paid morning show money. Right.

And they put me into afternoons. A few people have accused me online of like, why didn't you speak up? I thought it was speaking up. I thought taking it to HR was speaking up. I didn't have the they did the investigation, all the people who were who had witnessed this abuse did not back me up. OK, now there's a current I don't know if it's done yet, but the, you know, chorus put out a statement that they were doing a third party investigation. Yeah. Yeah. So they hired somebody who actually doesn't work for them. Right. Or does work for them, but yeah. Okay. Just, yes. I know.

So it's a third party, meaning it's a law firm, but of course they're hired by Chorus. So Chorus will pay their big invoice or whatever. But okay. Yeah. Have you been spoken to by this lawyer? So you've talked on the record for this investigation. I have not spoken on the record. I don't have any problem telling you this.

There are files with my name on them at chorus where I gave evidence. It was called contemporaneous evidence, meaning I reported what happened at the time and it's there and that should be enough for them. Why did they, what did they need to hear from me now? Right. Okay. So that's where I'm at. And when you, when you when you you know you were with john derringer for years right because you would do it remotely from your your home office the first 10 years i worked from home and in the last five years they asked me to give up the uh the other gigs i was doing across the country right and to come into the studio and be a full-fledged co-host and i think it's when i went into the room that i mean it still lasted longer than anybody else, but it just wasn't a healthy place to be. But had you, like, were you aware of what had happened to other women who had

co-hosted with? Yes. Jackie Delaney, much to my dismay, had approached me years ago with her concerns with Derringer, but I was working from home and I'd never witnessed any of it. And I, and I just said, Jackie, I can't help you i mean i believe you right but i can't can't corroborate what you're experiencing because uh i have not witnessed it i'm not there so i do feel bad about that right um andrea ruse i knew it i knew it happened to colleen i knew it oh but right there wasn't there wasn't what were you gonna do this is long before the me too movement there really was and I was afraid of losing my job. Well, let's dwell on that.

Okay, so this is what I feel, because I have this, I feel what you feel, like I feel like you're, you want a job, right? Radio jobs, like high-paying radio jobs are, you know, rare, and when you get one, you don't want to lose it, because it's like, oh, I got one of the high-paying radio jobs, right? Yeah, yeah. You don't want to fuck that up. Like that's, no,

and I didn't. And John Derringer, you know, until the long weekend that just passed in May was one of those Toronto radio icons. When I had Jackie Delaney on, I said like, I was surprised to hear this.

He's like a, a legend of his generation. Like, so really, I'm not sure why, what would people expect you to do publicly? Like you did an internal complaint, but are you supposed to tweet about how John Derringer is bullying you?

Like that would just cost you your livelihood, I would think at the time. Yeah. And let's, let's, let's point out that Jen had been gone a year when she spoke up. Right. Okay. So what was your reaction? And again, then we're going to bring it back to the podcast, but what was your reaction, Maureen Holloway, when you woke up Saturday or at whatever point Saturday, somebody said, have you seen this yet? And you watched the Jennifer Valentine video.

I was gardening as old ladies do. By the lake on your property with your family. I'm just jealous, Maureen. I know. I was in the city and John and I were, John, my husband, cause that'd be weird. John Derringer and I were gardening. Right. There's a story. Yeah. John, my husband and I were out back fixing something

and Aiden, our eldest son called and he said, did you see Jennifer? I've never stopped to think why would my son be following Jennifer Valentine? But it was all over the place, right? He said, did you see Jennifer? I've never stopped to think, why would my son be following Jennifer Valentine? But it was all over the place, right? He said, did you see Jen Valentine's video? And he said, take a look at it and call me back. And I took a look at it and I called him back. He said, you got to say something. You got to do something.

Right. Because you realize it's been seven years since I left the company. Right. And I just, I thought, well, I've just said this is brave and true when i back her up 100 and there was this feeling of they finally see that the emperor has no clothes this is going to happen this is going to and then you just saw it swell and there was this feeling of vindication and relief and some sadness. Cause a lot of people are going,

like, I don't know what's going to happen to Ryan Parker and John Garbutt. They were bullied too. I don't know. Great question because I can go both sides on this. I can see the, the enablers and complicit. And at the same time,

what would I do in that position when they had, they want to, they don't have the Maureen Holloway salary, but they have a job in radio, which is very exciting and important for a lot of people and now they have this job and let's face it i think if you went against derringer in one of those roles you were gone like this was the culture at chorus there that you would be no longer working there and that on that i don't know what's going to happen to them i wish those boys well i kind of uh um hurt that they weren't there for me garbett stayed in touch parker just you know disappeared uh from my world because he had no choice um there's a difference between you know they

they were enablers but i don't blame them because they were victims as well what a story this this this whole episode should be a book, you know, let's, but we're, but we're, but we don't want to live there. Right. Certainly Wendy and I don't want to live there. And eventually you're not going to want to live here either, though. I don't think you do. I know you're living here right now, but you know, there's this stuff happened to us and, and we've dealt with it the best we can. And, and now we, we've got, we've got better, better and bigger fish to fry.

Yeah, that's really what the podcast is. It's called Women of Ill Repute, which is a little bit saucy and a little bit of a nod perhaps to people who want it to be a nod, but it's not. It's really about how everybody tries to be brave and funny. And we're not going to try and solve all the problems of the world. We're not going to try and do the very serious journalism thing that I did. And we're not going to try and solve all the problems of the world. We're not going to try and do the very serious journalism thing that I did. And we're not going to do the comedy show.

We're going to do something in between. We're going to just talk to people, have real conversations with people, because I think that's where our heads are. And I think that's certainly where your audience is. It's not with mainstream media has just become, it's, I don't know. It's just not as healthy and as interesting.

And that's certainly not the only place to go anymore. So, so yeah, that's, that's not, that's not what we're going to be doing. Wendy, perfect,

you know, perfect segue here. Cause now I want to talk about the woman of ill repute and the podcast very quickly before we dive into that, which people can, you know, subscribe and listen to on Monday. So it's coming soon, but I want to just thank a few people that are helping to put my kids through

university and helping to keep Toronto Mike going in the real talk going. So we can have conversations like this authentic on unfiltered, no, no editing, you know, straight from your mouths. I won't call you horses. That sounds rude.

But I want to thank some wonderful supporters of the show. Palma Pasta. Maureen, you must have got a lasagna from me at some point. The best lasagna. It's like unbelievable. I mean that sincerely.

No, I don't think Maureen would bullshit me on that one. I believe her. They were remarkably good. I actually went back and bought another one. You can send me the cannabis. Well, that's a new one. Okay. But Wendy, this is what you're missing by zooming in.

At some point when you return, maybe to kick out the jams, you got to be sitting right over here. I'll give you some lasagna from Palma Pasta. You'll love it. Also, Fresh Craft Beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Wonderful sponsors. They're going to be hosting TMLXX, the 10th Toronto Mike Listener Experience.

It's happening September 1st from 6 to 9 p.m. It's going to be amazing. We're celebrating 10 years of Toronto Mike. In 10 years, you guys will be celebrating 10 years of the woman of ill repute. You're invited, of course. Everyone's invited, all FOTMs. But thank you for hosting that Great Lakes Brewery.

Ridley Funeral Home, wonderful institution in this community that I live in of New Toronto. And Brad Jones at Ridley Funeral Home has a great podcast called Life's Undertaking. And I'm a proud producer of that show. Thank you, Ridley Funeral Home. Can of Cabana, they won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. Either of you two enjoying cannabis? Never. I have never.

I have never inhaled. Ever. Ever. Never planned to. Right. You can take it other ways, I'll just remind you. Edibles? No, I wouldn't do that. Edibles, oils, but Maureen, have you ever partaken in the cannabis? Yeah. No shame. I smoked a joint on

Toronto Mike like two weeks ago. I have never been high on air, though that would be interesting. Now you can do that. Maybe you can't do that on terrestrial radio, but you could do it on your podcast. No, I'm a supporter. But send free samples anytime because I'm open

minded. Wendy, I get high with you any day. That would be amazing. Oh, it's great. Not that Wendy does get high. I get Wendy's more of a wine gal. That's the feeling. No, no, no. Wendy is a good time girl as much as any of us are.

So thank you to StickerU.com. When you guys get your Women of Ill Repute logo made up, the stickers, go to StickerU.com, upload the image, and get these stickers and decals. It's wonderful. And last but not least, I've been looking fly AF lately because I've been wearing my Dewar pants and shorts, the world's most comfortable pants.

And even my daughter, my 17-year-old daughter, I'm going to her high school graduation next week. I missed my oldest high school graduation because they canceled it due to COVID. I'm still angry about it. I'm like, but now I get to go to one of my kids' graduations and she wants me to look good.

So I told her I'm wearing these Dewar pants and this Dewar shirt. And she says, dad, she gave me the thumbs up. She says, I'm going to look great. So thank you, Dewar. Anyone listening could save 15% right now in the retail store on Queen Street or online at Dewer.ca.

Go to, use the promo code TMDS. Okay, Woman of Ill Repute. I know you touched on it here, Wendy. I'm trying to visualize it. I'm going to hear it Monday. But is it like, do you have guests? Is it you two just shooting the breeze? Are you talking about topical news stories?

What is this podcast? Yeah, we thought we knew what we were doing and basically came up with the idea that we would write an intro where we kind of futz around and then we would do a bio of the person and then we would do the interview with them and we'd maybe do a minor trim,

but more or less leave it as is. And then we'd close the mic and then, you know, we'd shit all over them. We'd say, oh, wow. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Most of the time we would say, wow, she was so amazing. I wish I'd asked her something. And then halfway through, we realized this is weird. Like, why don't we let them listen to the intro? So like halfway through, we and they, they're sort of like, ha ha ha, or no,

no, no, or at least they're on. So we're learning and we're hoping to get, uh, uh, yeah, we're hoping to get lots of sponsors.

So I'm just looking at your posters right now. Well, like, so this is my 1067th episode. So without a doubt, it can take that long now. Well, I should point out again,

I wasn't famous. I never worked in broadcasting. So without a doubt, it took me about 60 episodes, 60 episodes to figure out what Toronto Mic'd was. And then once I could see what it was, now you'll see, like we're doing it now, there's no editing to this episode. You're getting the intro and outro. It's all live. Not a stitch, not a second. Completely. I like the authentic feel of it. And YouTube being such pros, like you don't need to worry about like overproduction on the woman of ill repute. You guys can just do your thing.

Am I wrong? Well, that's that. No, you're not wrong. And we had to learn that too. We had to, this is, so we have 10 episodes that. No, you're not wrong. And we had to learn that, too. We had to this is so we have 10 episodes that we are we're launching with three and then we'll drop one every two weeks and we'll keep rolling.

So we we've got 10 in the can and and we'll do more. So there won't be it's not like we're going to do a season and then a break in a season where we hope to keep doing. Well, there's no seasons and podcasting. Yeah, but you know what I mean? Things like your first batch, if you will, or your first series maybe is the better word right um it it's taken us a while first of all to find to learn how to dance together right um because we're both as we're it's very clear we're both bossy pants control freaks um so it's and we'd never worked before together so that was bumpy but i we, just listening to what we've done, you'll hear it.

You'll hear that we'll get a lot more comfortable with each other. And then there was the chase, getting guests. We were used to other people doing this. I mean, Wendy at CBC had, you know, hundreds of people working for her. You weren't a one-woman show at CBC, not a one-woman operation, Wendy.

No, hundreds, actually hundreds, if not thousands of people. I didn't start doing my own chase, but it's difficult. But you know what? Yeah. Well, I mean, Maureen had people who actually wanted to promote things. I was like, aye, it's Marketplace. We want to accuse you of killing your neighbor. Do you want to come on?

And they go, yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. So we had to find we identify the women so we have a list we have a uh you know an excel sheet with about 140 names on it well some of them include you know dolly parton and the queen i think dolly would do it the queen would be quite the get wow yeah she'd be hard to get no but seriously we've got a yeah a long list of women so we'd say so so and so and then we were like no they're not really they're too nice they've never they have to have some sort of edge they have to have some sandpaper

you're looking for a little sandpaper little sandpaper and these women and and not too safe not too safe let's give you an example marilyn dennis who is the nicest woman in the world and a dear friend of mine she agreed to do it but she said and she said i want to come on i want to talk about aging i want to talk about cosmetic surgery i'd happily tell you what i've had done to myself she had a little post-it note that she read from so we were like okay we can have these really lovely women on but they have to be willing to go to a place that they wouldn't necessarily go to in a conventional interview. And we found that as this went on,

that we were starting to find a groove. And we have a stellar lineup of people. We also have a stellar lineup of people who said no, much to our shock and dismay, for whatever their reasons. We should come here. I feel like we should have more of a collaboration, like the Toronto Mike's Universe and the Women for whatever their reasons. We should come here. I feel like we should have more of a collaboration

like the Toronto Mike universe and the woman of ill repeat. I'm actually certain. Now I know you, I said it off the top as a joke, but sincerely, I wish I was working with you guys on this.

Like I can see it. I just wish you, we had been working together on this. And funny thing is Marilyn Dennis, who agreed to do your show, famously when I invited her on Toronto Mike, her people told me she's too busy to do Toronto Mike. So thank you, Marilyn Dennis, who agreed to do your show, famously, when I invited her on Toronto Mic'd, her people told me

she's too busy to do Toronto Mic'd. So thank you, Marilyn. She's got people. We did weigh heavily on some friends, but we also talked to people we never met. Marie Hannon, who is probably Canada's

top defense lawyer. Right. The Gomeshi lawyer. The Gomeshi. She's done so much more than that. She was fantastic. And she was funny. And she was funny. She's done so much more than that. She was fantastic. And we didn't know her. And she was funny.

Yeah, she was funny. Down to earth. Even Jody Wilson-Raybould, who everybody knows for the SNC-Lavalin thing and for standing up to Trudeau and having big fights with everybody in government and caring so deeply about fighting for Indigenous rights. Right.

She was on and she talked about, you know, family and why not having a kid. She'd crack jokes and told stories about Justin Trudeau. She was on and she talked about family and why not having a kid. She cracked jokes and told stories about Justin Trudeau. She was great. So it's just like people in podcasts, they have a chance to breathe and they have a chance to be real. That's it. It's lovely.

We also had a couple, and we're not going to name names, but you'll have to listen to the whole series, that we thought would be walks in the park and turned out to be really cranky and like a couple of times rude. And I'm used to rude. Yeah, I was like, she was like, like her. She was like me. So anyway, it's everything. Yeah. Okay, so now I'm understanding it's you two and a guest will join you. It's got I'm gonna just compare it to another popular podcast, which I actually don't like because I find it too safe, too scripted, and not enough authenticity.

But people love it. Smartless, okay? You've heard Smartless? Okay. I understand people love it, and I get why, because there's big fucking names dropping on that show. I had to listen to my man Eddie Vedder on that show, and Eddie Vedder, he ain't coming into my basement.

We'll never say never because Chuck D did Toronto Mike, so you never say never. But I know I had to drop that one. He into my basement. So we'll never say never because Chuck D did Toronto Mike. So you never say never. But I know I had to drop that one. He's my hero. Well, I'm surprised that you say that it's super scripted because that's what I like about it is that it feels very conversational and they've got their shtick. Like I think they're like 55-year-old white guys who are talking about white guy stories in Hollywood. So it's a little limited, but they're super clever the way that they play off of each other.

So I know they got their stick. I have listened to, like, you know, I've been doing this long enough, you know, and listen to enough where it's, I find it very,

I find it scripted. I think a lot of people will think, Oh, I'm a fly on the wall for this conversation. And it's very, very, very safe. If you listen,

smart list avoids all the interesting stuff. And they'll have a guest on, I don't know, Sean Penn, for example. Well, come on. And I'll listen. Yeah, Sean Penn's saving lives in Haiti and all this stuff and whatever. But you're thinking,

oh, these three items about Sean Penn, you're not asking these three because they might be a little sandpaper, as they say. So hopefully you guys bring just a bit more real talk to the, to the game than maybe that very safe, you know, they're not going to talk about, you're not going to talk anything about Donald Trump, for example. It's like,

you're avoiding this big elephant in the room. Like, okay, we're not talking about that big thing over here because we're not going to get political and we're not going to. Yeah. Well, I, I agree with you. Like sometimes I'm dying for them to say to the person that they're talking to, well, then you did this really dickhead thing. But they never go there. Maureen and I, we're not really interested in having scumbags on our show, so we don't have a lot of those sort of hard questions to ask.

But if it's screaming to be asked. Right. Wendy will ask it. Wendy will ask it. I have to step in here and say, she's a terrier. She is a journalist. She wants the story.

She will ask uncomfortable questions, not necessarily to put the guest in a tough place, but because she wants to hear the story. And I mean, this is what, I don't know if I've told you this, Wendy. Maybe I have. It's one of the things I love about working with her. She's really good at what she does.

And I get to sit there and make jokes. Right. Yeah. But, but anyway, Maureen is just super clever. So there's lots of different ways. You compliment each other nicely,

which will be to the benefit of the listener. And do you want to tease a couple of, I mean, you did tease some big names, but my question is hearing these women of ill repute, will you have dudes on the show? Yes, we will. And we want to, we started off with women because it's called women of ill repute. Although like we said, we may be,

you can perceive us to be the women of ill repute, but yeah, we kind of wanted women, non-binary people. We didn't get any non-binary people because that wasn't the first they have to be non-binary then interesting like we're not going about it that way but yeah we'd love to open it up to men and i think we will um and i don't want to have to change the name but we'll see it's it's absolutely a possibility okay looking forward to uh to hearing that if a guest was coming on, let's say Sean Penwood said he'd come on

but he said, but you can't ask me, I'm going to just pick something out of the Sean Pen catalog. You can't ask me about punching a photographer in the nose or something. Like that's out of bounds. But that's what I want to know. Would you agree? Because I I've had a policy for 10 years. You're not allowed to tell me I can't talk about

something that everybody wants. You can't come on my show. I'm trying to think of the one example. It was early, and she eventually came on the show and loved it. But I asked Erica M years ago to come on Toronto Mike because she's precisely the kind of person I want to talk to. And she told me she was sick and tired of talking about much music. So she'd come on, but we couldn't talk about much music.

And then we politely decided that this show is not going to happen because I can't have Erica M. I couldn't have Maureen Holloway on this program right now without asking about John Derringer. And I couldn't have Wendy Mesley on my program right now without asking about her exit from CBC after 40 plus years. Yeah, we know that. Would you have a guest on who said you can't ask about this?

Even if it was a big, big name. We haven't had that yet. We have said to people, we aren't here to ambush you. And we're picking people that we admire, maybe not completely, but somewhat at least. But we have said to people, if there's something where there's a no-go, let us know and we'll talk about it. But we haven't promised not to. And I'm having flashbacks to an interview I did with Steve Martin. And the deal was, he was in Toronto to promote a Group of Seven thing.

And the deal was that we talked about the Group of Seven, the art, and not about him with an arrow through his head. And afterwards, I'm like, why didn't I? Like, why didn't I just freaking break the rules? Like, it was so stupid. I had Steve Martin in front of me and I'm not allowed to do anything stupid. So-

You know, I hate to bring up his name again, but you, I mean, I brought it up earlier when you mentioned one of your guests, but there's that famous viral YouTube video of Billy Bob Thornton going on. Yeah. And I think the deal was don't ask him about acting or something. Yeah.

And the fact that anyone in the, on that staff agreed to that, I find fascinating that, you know, the CBC would that anyone on that staff agreed to that, I find fascinating that, you know, the CBC would allow somebody on with that caveat. Well, one thing that we did find,

and I think anybody who hosts a show on, whether it's mainstream or podcasting, is the publicists and the publishers and the people that get between you

and the guest. Yes. Quite often it's them that say, oh, do not ask so-and-so about this. And then I remember years ago interviewing Lindsay Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac, and the record rep said,

do not ask him about Stevie Nicks. She had just had an overdose or something. It was a long time ago. And so I go in there, and we're talking about this and that, and he brings it up. He says, well, you know, Stevie's got this ongoing, you know, she's fighting the good fight.

She just had an overdose. I'm like, okay, well, apparently it didn't come from you. So, you know, like Wendy said, get in the situation, feel it out. And if you have a question, then ask it. The worst they can do is go Billy Bob Thornton on your ass. Right. I did an interview with Idris Elba and I was told do do not ask it was during the period where he was being talked about being the next james bond and i would do not ask him that question i was like whatever i didn't

hear that so we do the the whole interview and he promotes whatever he was promoting at that time and he was he was so nice and so natural and he actually listened to questions he was actually not like a lot of hollywood people that uh were not like that so i asked him about the james bond thing and he was like he was completely open and he was made a joke about being a black guy being the first you know the non-white james bond and right it was all great so i think sometimes you uh yeah it's whether or not you make the promise we haven't made the promise yet no No, we're not making the promise. Okay, and I love hearing that, you know, he's a good dude because Idris Elba is Stringer Bell in the greatest television show I've ever seen.

Love The Wire. My goodness. Okay, so one more question. By the way, you guys have been fantastic and I've thoroughly enjoyed this. And Wendy, you're now an FOTM. That means Friend of Toronto Mike. So congratulations. Wow, thank you. really enjoy this. And Wendy, you're now an FOTM. That means friend of Toronto Mike. So congratulations. Wow.

Thank you. Maureen already had her stripes or her badge of honor there, but it's always a pleasure, Mike. It really is. When I opened, when I said you guys were coming on a lot of people, you know,

sure. Yeah. You know, talk about Derringer and what happened with Wendy there at CBC, of course, but there's another question that kept popping up and I'm naturally curious too. So we opened by talking about my story. I've been like relentlessly bullied by Dean Blundell for years. And you can

go listen to episode 1066 and hear exactly the vile and the vitriol that he spews at me unfairly. It's really gross. Like if you listen to it, it would gross you out. I promise you that. So one question I kept getting is, and I want to hear from you ladies, you can clear the air on this and explain it, but Mystery Fan, for example, writes in, why are they associated with Dean Blundell? And then YYZ Gord writes in and goes, I am legitimately interested in the origin story

of their podcast and how they ended up on the Dean Blundell podcast network. So straight up, ladies, again. We're not. We're not. Yeah, okay. So straight up ladies again, we're not, we're not. Yeah. Okay. So explain,

explain where the confusion comes from. Cause I've, I've dug into this and you know, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to pull punches, but I have seen on broadcast dialogue and elsewhere, a press release about the merger of the sound off network and the Dean

Blundell network. And they're touting and celebrating this. So if you're on the sound off network, you're on the Dean Blundell Network and vice versa. Like I have read these with my own eyes, but I want to hear your voices on this one. I'll let Maureen handle this one. As far as I'm concerned, I have nothing to do with Dean Blundell. We're working with Matt Cundall at SoundOff Productions. That's exactly what I would echo.

Matt is an old friend. He's a wonderful source of all things radio. Now podcasting, he has guided us through this. He has a business association with Dean, but the two entities are completely separate. all of this surfaced after we agreed to be with Matt. But that being said, Matt is standing by us and we're standing by Matt. Okay. And the two have nothing to do with each other. And whether Matt continues his association with Dean is his decision, but it doesn't, our podcast will not be advertised or promoted on Dean Blundell's network and conversely.

And Matt has told you this because Matt made a lot of noise about the merger of these networks. I'm not inventing this. I don't know Matt at all except it sounds like he's good to you which means I like the man. Yes, he's good to us. If he has any kind of ethics or morality or good sense

from a marketing standpoint, he might want to divorce Dean Blundell's network, especially because this perception's out there. Because of that, we've merged our networks and then seen that, oh, you're working with the SoundOff network, which means you're on the Dean Blundell network. So I would let you ladies know,

whether you know it or not, you're on the Dean Blundell network, even though you don't think you have anything to do with Dean Blundell. And that stink will be around. And I just wish it didn't exist. Well, nothing, I know, I know, but that's, like I said, these things

happen in a certain order and obviously we would have objected more strenuously had all this been going on, but we got into bed with Matt four months ago. Have you asked Matt to get out of bed with Dean? We have asked him about it.

He assures us that the twain shall never meet that. But then, you know what, Mike, that's his decision. Yeah, no, I know.

I know. I'm just thinking of how, how it would affect the perception of the woman of ill repute. Oh, I hope it doesn't. I really hope it doesn't. I doubt very much that people who want to listen to us will also be listening to Dean,

but maybe they are. I mean, that's not, that is beyond our control. But what is in your control is the, the launch is definitely Monday, right? Because I know it got pushed a couple of times, but this is launching Monday. No, it just got pushed once. Okay, it just pushed once. Okay, no, this, yeah, this got pushed. You're right.

Okay. So Monday, your podcast launches, and I wish you all the success in the world. Before I play us out here with some lowest of the low, because you two, you know, we right okay so monday your podcast launches and i wish you all the success in the world before i play us out here with some lowest of the low because you two you know we talked about any advice for me at this point in my battles with uh fearless fred dean blendell and mike bullard like i can go to the police about bullard then start ignoring him which is my plan so we'll put that aside but what would you do would you just now would you start now that i said my piece in 1066 would you then just start

ignoring and just keep doing yeah i think at this point i think at this point you've said you've said what you had to say in the last episode was certainly this one and you've made it very clear online uh and you're talking to a lawyer i would just shut it at this point now, I would not engage. Shut her down. Did you say shut her down? Bye. That's smartless. Yeah, I'm just joking around. I know. That.

Our website is womenofillrepute.com or womenofillrepute.ca. You go there and everything you will need, all the episodes will be there, biographies, pretty pictures, Or womenofillrepute.ca. You go there and everything you will need, all the episodes will be there, biographies, pretty pictures, or wherever you get your podcasts. As they say. Come to our website, womenofillrepute.com.

There we are. There's my big... Well, no, that's what I wanted. Womenofillrepute.com. And in a moment, we're going to get your Twitter handles for people who want to follow you on Twitter but I have to say the magic words

shout out to Stu Stone and that brings us to the end of our 1067th show you can follow me on Twitter I'm at Toronto Mike okay let's start

with you Wendy since you're making your debut how do we follow you on Twitter? Wendy underscore Mesley, at Wendy underscore Mesley. Follow Wendy at Wendy underscore Mesley. Maureen, how do we follow you on Twitter?

At Maureen Holloway, M-A-U-R-E-E-N-H-O-L-L-O-W-A-Y. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery they're at Great Lakes Beer Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta Sticker U is at Sticker U Dewar are at Dewar Performance Dewar again D-U-E-R say 15% with the promo code

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