Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Michael Hainsworth and Alan Cross: Toronto Mike'd #249

Episode Date: July 5, 2017

Mike chats with Michael Hainsworth and Alan Cross about the return of Geeks and Beats, Michael's career in radio and television, and what's new with Alan since episode 66.

Welcome to episode 249 of Toronto Mike, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me is Michael Hainsworth and Alan Cross. Oh, you should have seen Alan's face.

Wait a second. You've got sponsors? Not one, but two. Two of them. How many do we have? Zilch. Zilch. Nothing.

Geschvichto. Oh, but don't poach my sponsors. I already see that glitter in your eye. We had a big meeting about sponsors with like a big shot distribution company. And they said, yeah, so we've got a couple of clients. And one of them is, and she was very impressed by this figure of 30 CPM.

Oh, yeah. And I had to put my hand up, but I said, I'm sorry. I apologize. What does 30 CPM mean? She says $30 per 1,000 listeners. And she said that's a really good one because normally we get 10. Exactly. But there was another alternative.

We could sell mattresses on the podcast. Okay, I know. Is the mattress, is it Casper? Oh, there's Casper. There's a whole bunch of them now. But the gist was, unlike a per X number of listeners you got, it was for every mattress you sell, you get $50. And I ran the numbers on it.

It was something in the neighborhood of 2.5 million mattresses I would need to replace my salary. You never say never. my salary. You never say never. Yeah. Now, Michael, first of all, this is the first time we've had the pleasure of meeting,

so I want to say welcome to the Toronto Mic Studios. Thank you for the invitation. This is great. And Alan, it's an old hat for you. Welcome back. But the last time I was here, we were in another location

in the complex. This is Studio 3B? Okay, yeah. So, true, you were episode 66. For those listening at home who want to go back and revisit the ongoing history of Alan Cross, that's episode 66. That's so long ago we recorded on the second floor. I had a nice room just for recording podcasts and for working.

Just like Michael has. Yeah. Except then baby number three showed up, and for working. Just like Michael has. Yeah. Except then baby number three showed up, and I got booted to the basement. See, there's your mistake right there. Yeah, that's right. See, I got the big snip after baby number one. Really? I did.

We were done at one. A friend of mine said- One and done. When you have one child, they become a part of your life. When you have two children, you become a part of their lives. And we sort of talked that out and figured that, no, you know what? I think we're good with one.

I found that same thing with dogs. Yeah, but you had two dogs. No, no, but we had one dog and the dog was part of our lives. Yes. Now we have two dogs and we're doing nothing but things for the dog. Well, and now I have to edit out the barks

on our podcast. You have no idea how much time I spend editing out unusual grunts and noises coming from these animals. Yes. And Alan, too. Well, I'm most of it, but there is a dog that sleeps under the console when we do our work.

Later in this episode, I need many details about how you record your podcast, which is making a triumphant return, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. From the ashes might be a good description. And that is Geeks and Beats. And Alan, I have a question for you also later about another podcast I listen to that features you.

So you're all over the... I don't know what he's talking about. Technical production by Rob Johnson. Oh, that one. Okay, alright. Well, just a few questions about that. Okay. You guys, I mean,

Alan, you tweet a lot and I'm sure some of your tweets might even go viral, but what would be your most popular tweet? Do you have any idea? Yeah, there was one where I said something

disparaging about Kim Kardashian, which I deleted after about 15 minutes because I thought this was a bad idea. But that blew up into something that has taught me a lesson that do not tweet indiscriminately.

Was it indiscriminate? Was it just something off the cuff that just popped into your head? It was, and it was ill-advised, which is why I deleted it 15 minutes later, because that's not in keeping with my personality and what I really believe. Oh, okay. I was trying to be, I don't know, funny, edgy, whatever. It just didn't work.

But, of course, in the Internet world, 15 minutes might as well be 15 million years. That's because you're famous. Yeah. If you're regular Joe, you get away with that. You can kill it after 15 minutes, and it's like it never happened. If you're any name at all. This one got me written up in the Huffington Post. So we just won't even revisit it.

But it was written up in the Huffington Post by a jamoke. Come on. Careful. Oh, yes. I don't even know what that word is. What is that? Jamoke. I didn't know what jamoke was until I was watching a Dane Cook special.

And I don't... Why were you watching a Dane Cook special? Okay, you know what? He appeals to my dad joke sense of humor. I will stand by the Dane Cook. I do like the Dane Cook. Okay, so he called... Have you ever heard his thing with the girlfriend in the remote control for the TV?

No. No, I'm not that big of a Dane Cook guy. Okay, well, it's not a dad joke. Well, I got to find out what this word means. But he used the word jamoke, and I thought that's a hilarious word. I need to figure out what it is. And the etymology of the word is layabouts in Italy, I believe in the 1920s, guys who would sit in the cafes, sipping their lattes, not actually accomplishing anything for society at large.

Jamoke. Jamoke. I was worried it was something offensive. I wasn't- Well, you could be offended by it, like the Huffington Post guy. He's probably offended by it, and now I don't have a career. Okay, so the duck arrived this late last week. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hang on, hang on. That's a bit of a nonsense. No, it makes sense. Yeah, go ahead. It's because of the popular tweets question. This is how it all ties together. So I tweeted about the giant duck on Friday. And this thing, I just took note of what we were at.

We're at well over 5,600 retweets and 16,000 likes. You have 5,600 retweets? Yeah. And 16,000 likes. And this is something I tweeted off. Who the hell are you? I know. And I just wondered if you guys had any experience with that.

It's a bit nuts. No, I have 55,000 Twitter followers, and I've never had anything retweeted like that. But the duck was a really contentious issue. My wife works for the Ontario 150 Secretariat. And so she was, as a media person, was taking a lot of flack and getting a lot of input from people

who were thinking, $750,000 for bringing a giant rubber duck to Toronto? What is this government thinking? Sidebar, she gets to take the duck home at the end of some questions. Yeah, great. It's going to be in my backyard forever. Anyway, the duck,

that's all people wanted to see when they went down to Harbourfront this past weekend on Canada Day. So there were so many people down there that the city of Toronto was completely overwhelmed by the garbage the people left behind. I saw that.

Yeah. Can we get back to your 5,600 retweets? I'm pulling up on my phone here. What is it that you said? So I tweeted, did we learn nothing from the Trojan War? Oh, I saw that tweet. I didn't see 5,600 retweets of it.

Yeah, and 16,000 likes. Yeah, so the premise being is that who knows what's inside that damn duck. Right. Right. What would you think would be in the duck other than Trojans? I'll tell you what it would be. It's a very delicious foie gras. In a related note, Trojans as a condom brand.

Is that really the image you want to project? Failure to contain? Says the guy who got snipped after one kid. By the way, you know the two kids. You're wise, but at the same time, I did the two kids twice. So in my first marriage, I had two kids. And then I had a second marriage where I've had two kids. So you've upgraded?

I wouldn't use that word. I'm a very happy man and I have four beautiful children now. Oh, you still have the other two. I thought you upgraded the children. Never, never. No, they're still around. But if I had snipped after one, then you know, yeah. And now I'm at a point though with the four, I feel I can get snipped. I would highly recommend it. Okay, so here's the thing about getting the big snip that you need to understand. It really isn't uncomfortable. It is more awkward than anything else. Now, if you can picture the plumbing

necessary to make this happen, if you are lying on your back, the plumbing is technically on the underside, but if you roll onto your stomach, your butt's in the way, So they go in from the top, as it were. And like I said, they've given you the medicine. You don't feel the pain. It just feels weird. And what it means, after your entire life of protecting that area of your body with

everything in you, I've got to protect this. It felt like a little old lady rooting around looking for a mint. It was the strangest thing, going through her purse, looking back, pulling things aside, trying to find it, and then they find it, right? And then they do the snip and then the cauterization.

Now, remember, you're lying on your back and you're looking down towards your feet. And of course, the guy on the other end is trying to have a conversation with you. So I'm going fishing this weekend. What are you up to? It's the weirdest thing. So you stare at the ceiling.

And as you're staring at the ceiling, then you smell the cauterization. Oh, which is the burn flash. It's the burn flash. That is such a unique smell. And I looked down, and hand to God, this was more than just a metaphor. Hand to God, I looked down.

And remember, it's an operating room, so the air was fairly still. I looked down, and this little brown mushroom cloud slowly lifted its way from my crotch and up. And I watched it all the way to the ceiling in this perfect nuclear mushroom cloud format. It was the weirdest thing. And no one giggled at the size of your member? You didn't have any... Well, here's the problem with that, is that when you go in, of course, it's cold.

And much like the water... It's a shrinkage. You've got the frightened turtle routine, right? It shrinks? Well, the other part of it, too, is that they need to shave that particular area, and they need to use iodine to, I guess, make it clean. Right.

And where do you think they keep the iodine? In the freezer. In the freezer. Well, the fridge. So Elga comes out. She's like 700 pounds. She's got one of those crazy moles that follows you wherever you look. And it's not this pornography-style, 23-year-old buxom blonde kind of scenario. So now at this point, you know, pornography style, 23-year-old buxom blonde kind of scenario. So now at this point, you're kind of going, all right, well, here's my junk.

And she does her business. And you move on. You just sort of accept that this is what you need to do if you never want to have another child. Like, no joke. I literally said to my doctor, I think I'm ready to get snipped. And he wrote down the name of a clinic I should go to. And it's sitting in my wallet right now. That's how close I am to getting this done. In the 21 my doctor, I think I'm ready to get snipped, and he wrote down the name of a clinic I should go to, and it's sitting in my wallet right now. That's how close I am to getting this done.

In the 21st century, I thought this was like an inpatient or an outpatient sort of thing where you literally walk in, they do the business, and then you walk out. So when I went in for that consultation... Yeah. Oh, you were ready to go. I start to pull down my pants, and the guy's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not doing this here and now.

I'm like, oh, sorry. Interesting. Thank you for giving me the heads up. I'm like, oh, sorry. Interesting. Thank you for giving me the heads up. So I know I'm going to make two trips. So it's not quite a drive-through Tim Hortons thing. No, exactly. All right, some business to attend to, because I got lots of questions for both of you.

But firstly, Great Lakes Brewery, local craft brewery, wants to send you guys home with a six-pack each. Each. That doesn't look like a six-pack. How Each. That doesn't look like a six-pack. How many are there? This looks like a five-pack. One, two, three. I think your kids have gotten into the beer.

Yeah, I've only got five in my mind. We'll take care of that before you depart. The rationale there is that if I leave an empty slot, it makes it convenient for people because you're also getting a pint glass from Brian Gerstein at propertyinthesix.com. Is this a place on Lakeshore? This is not a place on Lakeshore.

What is this? Wait a second. Is this a real estate guy? It is. Well, we had a real estate guy lined up and he bailed on us. It's not Brian, is it? No, and I don't think that he bailed on us as much as we didn't follow through. I was listening to your episode with Lewskies.

Yes, okay, yeah, yes. The only other BNN guy And I don't think that he bailed on us as much as we didn't follow through. I was listening to your episode with Lewskies as Mr. Money Guy. Yes, okay, yeah, yes. The only other BNN guy to be in this basement. And I am totally with you. From a performer perspective, from that side of the business, that's what I'm interested in when it comes to this line of work. I don't want to be the sales weasel. I don't want to be the guy knocking down doors.

But you're both, the problem with, as I see it, is you're probably both that way. You're both the creative, confident people. There's no yang to our yin. No, we need a sales guy. I need a sales guy. We need to go in together. But you've got sales.

That's true, but they all hunted me down. How? Why? What are we doing wrong? Everything, apparently. The Property and the 6, longtime listener, big fan of the show. I know he's listening now.

Hi, Brian. In fact, actually, on that note, let's hear his notes, if you will. Propertyinthe6.com Call Brian at 416-873-0292 if you're planning to buy and or sell in the next six months just by meeting brian you'll receive a free property in the six pint glass like alan and

michael and he'll give you a six pack of great lakes beer uh not a five pack like i'm so far given alan and michael So just give them a shout and no obligation to sign anything. Just have a conversation. Brian, again, 416 873 0292 and Brian, you're not allowed to

bail on me for the for Michael and Alan's podcast. All because Alan has a better voice than I do. There's more than just a voice. What are we doing wrong? Well, clearly we're not going to get Great Lakes Brewery. Well, no. Because we start every episode with either,

well, I have the martini and you have some... Some exotic Far Eastern drink. Right. You could always modify that script and start with a cold pint of Great Lakes beer. See, I don't drink... Can I say that? Yeah, of course.

I'm not a... Real talk. I'm not much of a beer drinker. I'm not a beer drinker at all, but Michael and I share a passion for certain types of spirits. Yes. Martini is as far as I'll go,

as far as that's concerned. I'll have two tops because after the third, you know, they say, martinis are like panty remover. And on the third, my panties are on the floor. Yes, it's true., they say, martinis are like panty remover. And on the third, my panties are on the floor. Yes, it's true.

All I know about martinis are what I've seen on MASH. I brought an official Geeks. Can we do that at the end or do we do it now? Well, we usually

start a show with it. It would be a lot more interesting. The show would be a lot more interesting if we did it now. You want to give this a check? How long are we talking here?

Alan's not going to take a phone call, is he? No, no, no. I brought the official Geeks and Beats cooler. And by the way, an official Geeks and Beats shot glass for you that you get to keep. That's a fair trade. I give you the pint glass.

If in fact it showed up on time. So let's just pretend this is an official... Okay, so... Oh, I see. It's radio. It's broadcast. I can pretend you've given me one. We've got a shaker. Here's the shaker. And yours to keep, official Geeks and Beats Tito's Handmade Vodka, which Alan

is the one who turned me on to. Yes, this is handmade in Austin, totally gluten-free. I think I'm a martini virgin. Does that excite you in any way? I think so. Come on.

Jesus, Mike. All right. All right. And then we've got the olives and the olive juice. Okay, well, okay. So Michael's going to make you something called a dirty martini,

which is something I find absolutely repulsive. Which is, it's more filthy than dirty. By the time you finish drinking it, you're going to need antibiotics. This is true. So he is going to make you one of his signature dirty martinis. If you go to his house and you have a party or go for dinner, whatever it is,

everybody is offered a dirty martini. I respectfully decline because I find them gross. However, he is. That's okay. That's just why there are three martini glasses and one is reserved for my martini, which is slightly different than everybody else's. No, no, you're going to get the same thing. Tough luck.

Okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to do two parts Tito's Handmade. So in this case, we'll go a little extra big here. You know, Tito's Handmade is also a very big podcast sponsor. We should talk to them. We really should. I need as much of this free nonsense as I can get. Okay, so then, and here's what I do.

I have to admit, I cut a little bit of water into it. With the juice? No, this is, so it's two parts vodka, one part water, and the reason why is you want to make an extra dry martini, all right? So, you know, this is the vermouth, right? So to make an extra dry martini, what you do is you unscrew the cap, and then you wave it around the martini shaker three times. One, two, three, done. And then you put the lid right back on. Okay. You don't want to have anything to do with that.

No. But what you do want to have to do is... I'll tell you what vermouth is good for. Okay. Risotto. You need it to make good risotto. Risotto? Yes, absolutely.

Really? I didn't know that. And then you do a little bit less than half, a little bit more than half of the olive juice. Now, when I get this at a bar, sometimes they look at me funny because they stick their fingers into the olive jar to get the olives, and so their fingers are getting into the juice. And I'm like, you've got a lot of vodka here. Trust me, I don't think I have to worry about catching anything.

All right, so once you've got that in. Shake it up. Shake it up. I don't think I have to worry about catching anything. All right, so once you've got that in... Shake it up. Shake it up. Now, James Bond prefers his martinis shaken, not stirred. Which is wrong, actually.

Why? Because martinis should be stirred, because if you're shaking it, as you are now, you're actually bruising the vodka. You're bruising the vodka, and you are breaking the shards of the ice off into the vodka, which dilutes it. And that's exactly why a secret agent has it shaken. Because if you had it stirred, it would be more potent and therefore he'd be unable to fulfill his duties. Which includes a failure to launch if he has too many of those things.

Okay, so here you go. Let me pass this over to you. I got to stick my fingers in the martini. Don't spill it on this soundboard here. Yeah, okay, one. It'll be fine. Now, the other thing about olives in a martini, it is bad luck to have a martini with fewer than three olives.

It is true. There you go. There you go. All right. Okay, so this is yours. No, no, this is yours. For God's sake. All right, fine.

It's going to be potent. That's okay. You're going to be okay? I just... All right, fine. It's going to be potent. That's okay. You're going to be okay? I just... All right. See, I've been working out in the sun all day, so I'm just going to have a little taste. I'm not going to work today.

No, no, no. I've got the week off. I'm rebuilding my front porch. Oh, do you want a little bit more than that? No, no, no, because then I've got to drive. You're in the middle of nowhere. What are you talking about? I've got to drive, too.

You can walk from here for crying out loud. No, listen. Okay, you ready? Yes. Hang on. There we go. That's the stuff. No, listen. Okay, you ready? Yes. Hang on. There we go. That's the stuff.

There we go. Okay. Thank you. And that's how we start the show. Ew. Yeah. Tell me what makes it filthy or dirty. It's the olive brine.

That's what makes it dirty. You can order one without, and of course, there'll be vermouth in it, and that sort of gives it a gin-like taste to it, even though it's vodka, and I'm not a fan of that. Gin also makes me ornery, so I don't do the gin. Now, the fact that we're making these martinis with vodka is heresy to a lot of people because That's true. Real martini aficionados will say that gin is the only spirit that should be used. It has been said. However, they are wrong.

According to us. Is it me, or are there a lot of rules to the martini game? Well, this is why I got into it, because I don't generally drink, but there is a ceremony associated with it, and that's what appealed to me, was that you have people over, you're doing this nonsense,

you look like a professional. You don't know what you're doing, but it doesn't matter. You're making a good noise. And it's a conversation piece. Hearing you talk about it was entertaining. It's better than going to the fridge and then cracking open a Molson Canadian or just pouring a rum and coke. Or a Great Lakes beer, if you will. Sorry, sorry.

Are they bringing the stubbies back at Great Lakes beer? Because others have. No bottles, even. It's all cans. Is it? I don't know what that means, but I'll trust you on that. So there you go. There's a Geeks and Beats official martini,

and we will put the Geeks and Beats official shot glass on the website if you would, for some ridiculous reason, like to buy one. Oh! Oh! Oh! What happened here? I just dropped it all into my cooler bag. That's okay. That's okay. So long as I don't get pulled over on the drive home.

Well, thank you for that. Now, Michael, since it's your first time here, we need to do a little bit of a visit of your bio here and just chat about what you've done, where you're at, and then we can dive into the podcast and everything. If I have to, I will drink quietly in the corner. Yes, please do.

So, before you ended up on the business news and on BNN, essentially, you were in radio. I spent 11 years in radio. On my 10th anniversary in radio, I bought myself a microphone, like an old... You know the microphone that sat on David Letterman's desk? Of course, yeah. The RCA-44.

I wanted that, and I went out and I looked for an RCA-44, and they were thousands of dollars. And I didn't want one to use. I just wanted to have one to mark my 10th year. I found one from the guy who invented that microphone. He got upset with RCA, quit the company, and started up his own company. The Olsen M102 is the microphone that I have, and it's still a pill capsule style, but it's smaller. And so that sat on my desk for my 10th anniversary in have. And it's still a pill capsule style, but it's smaller. And so that sat on my desk for my 10th anniversary in radio. And then one year later, I went into TV.

That's right. I was going to say, you celebrated 10 years and you got the hell out of there. So what stations? I know I have a tweet from a guy named Mike Wilner. Oh, yeah. I know Mike. And he wanted me to ask you

how much you enjoyed working with him in those early days. So tell us all where you worked with Mike and what stations you were at. Mike Wildner and I had such a weird relationship because he sat directly opposite me in the newsroom. And what they did at the 680 News newsroom was you had a studio for the anchors, but when you threw to sports or threw to the business guy, they were out in the newsroom because it's a busy newsroom environment. And you could hear everybody else do everything else.

And so Wilner sat across me, and he is a barker. When he's on the radio, you can't get anything accomplished. You have to wait for the guy to finish. He is that loud and that commanding in the room. And when you're trying to work your ass off over time that sort of thing grates on you a little bit so he and i had a bit of a a bit of a difficult relationship early on until i came to understand really who this guy is and what he's all about and i love mike now absolutely he taught me a word speaking of words this is turning into a word show

yeah uh jamoke and penultimate yeah uh You don't know that? You know that in The Sopranos, this is the penultimate episode and then you get anxiously away. Right, it's second from last. Yeah, the second last episode. At that time, I had no idea what the hell penultimate meant, and my thought was why is a jock sniffer saying weird words

like that that most people wouldn't know? Is it just me, or does it just strike you as an odd word to say in a sports report? He's just showing off his U of T knowledge. That was my thought. Thank you for confirming it 20 years later. By the way, this ties

in nicely, because Wilner was in here last week, because he brought with him his 10 favorite songs of all time. And we played them and chatted about why he loved each one. We call it Kick Out the Jams, we call it. Mark Hebbshire has been in here doing it, Siobhan Morris from 1010.

Yep. And you two are not doing that today, but you did bring with you your favorite songs of all time, which we will play and discuss later in this program. Okay. So like a mini teaser. How long is this program? This will be a good, solid 60 to 90 minutes of pure joy.

I'm okay. Pure joy. I got no place to go. So 680 News, that's where you were for, were you at 680 for all 11 years? No, I was at 680 for six years. I actually started in radio at age 17 at what was then CKFM, 99.9.

I don't even know what it is now. It's now Virgin Radio. It's Virgin Radio, right? And so what I would do is I ran what they call the voice tracks. So overnight, you didn't want to... The DJ didn't need to come in for the midnight to 6 a.m. shift. He'd come in at 2 in the afternoon, look at his playlist, go, coming up next, this was, that is, and all that kind of stuff. News is next. And I would be the guy running those tapes in between all of the songs.

And that's where I got my start. So that was at 17. I'd do the midnight to 6 a.m., or 5.30 technically, because the morning show started then. I'd get on the subway, ride the subway to high school, crash in the cafeteria for an hour, go to class, and fall asleep that afternoon in the middle of business class. But they didn't give me grief about it because they knew it wasn't because I was out partying the night before. It was because I had found something I wanted to do, and I was in the process of getting to it. I was a grocery clerk. I can't imagine how cool it would be to do what you were doing. Oh my god. I don't think I had

as much fun in radio as I did probably in my first year, where you're the only guy in the studio, you're the only guy in the building at three in the morning, you and the security guy. If something goes wrong, it's up to you to fix it. It tells you something about radio, that they would turn a

100,000 watt flamethrowing music operation over to a 17-year-old. Oh, yeah. But I was an Alex P. Keaton character, which serves me well at BNN. I think I dropped that reference on Lou Skeezes, didn't I? Yes, you did. There you go. It all comes back to family ties.

So you're at CKFM, and then what you... And then I went up, literally, up the hallway to CFRB 1010. I worked at what is now Newstalk 1010, but at the time, as CFRB, the mighty Double 10, was still playing music. I worked doing Jukebox Saturday Night with Bill Deegan, and Calling All Britons with Ray Sonnen. Oh, God. Yeah, all those old big band type stuff. And my favorite part of that 30-minute show on a Saturday was when his wife would read

the football scores. Have you ever heard British soccer scores? Football scores are done. A lot of nils, I think. Exactly. And she had this terrible delivery. It was all like this. Tottenham 3, Yorkshire 3, Tottenham Hill 0,

Tottenham Home 3. Like, what? And it would go on forever. You got those terribly wrong, didn't you? Oh, I probably got it all wrong because I wasn't paying attention. The only one I paid attention to, I worked with Mark Cullen doing the Garden Show. And one day we had this crazy technical screw-up. Andy Barry, broadcast legend, huge geek, had decided he was going to build a talk radio system using Macintosh and touchscreens. And the idea being is that you'd hit line three on the Mac, and that would inform the producer that that was the next line you wanted to go to. You could pass messages back and forth.

And then one day, he decided he would have fun and do a clip show, famous movie moments. And so he would tap on the screen and it would play a magic movie moment. And people would guess what it was. And then he'd move on to the next one, tap it again, and it would play a different clip. Well, he forgot to dismantle that software

after that show. And sure enough, that Saturday morning, I'm in there with Mark Cullen. We're talking to a guy about grass. And Mark goes to hit line one to cue up the first caller. And instead of cueing up the first caller, it plays that scene from

when Harry met Sarah. I'll have what she's having. And we have no idea where this sound is coming from. I wasn't working on the Barry show. I didn't know what he was doing at the time. And all I hear is this incredible sound coming from somewhere. He took us three commercial breaks to figure out that every time he touched the screen, Meg Ryan orgasm.

The mighty 10 1010. Hey, that's got to be a big-time station to cut your teeth at CFRB. That's the biggest station in Canada for talk, right? It was huge for me. It absolutely was. And from there, I went to Small Town Radio. I went to the Mighty CFOS AM560 in Owen Sound.

And when I asked the boss who hired me, because all the DJs were saying, you want to be in music radio? What are you going to school for? Just get out there and learn the craft. And I thought, no, I need a piece of paper. And I asked my first boss, if I didn't have this piece of paper,

would you have hired me? I had CFRB on my resume for crying out loud. And she said, no, I would not have hired you. So it did open a door. What did you do at CFOS? At CFOS in Owenstown, I was a reporter slash anchor. I anchored the morning news Saturdays and Sundays. And then Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, I was a reporter.

And I would have to go to all these small town councils. And oh my god. I did that too in Kenora. What a bunch of crazies. I know. You want to find just the weirdest politicians in the world go to small town Ontario. Do you remember how much you were paid for that full-time gig? All I know now is that I get paid more in one year than I would

have gotten paid in 12 years working there. I remember working in Kenora, Ontario, as first a music guy, then the news guy, going to all the same town council meetings and public forums and police reports and all that sort of stuff. $825 a month. Wow. Yeah. My favorite small town politician story was, you remember a few years back, Wyerton Willie died, right? Sort of, yeah. Wyerton Willie, the big prognosticator, died. They went into his warren to pull him out for the big event, and he had been dead. The problem is he had been dead, apparently, for quite some time. And so what they did was they did this procession.

The problem is you can't do a procession with a half-rotted rodent so set that aside for a moment I'm up there 10 years earlier and I'm talking to Mr. Town Counselor over in Wyrton and he says you're new here I've got something

for you and he hands me a postcard and the postcard has him dressed in white alongside Sam Bauer who is the handler of Wyrton Willie also dressed in white because Willie isauer, who is the handler of Wyerton Willie, also dressed in white because Willie is an albino rodent. And they're both leaning in with their top hats to listen to what he has to say in this photo. And when he hands me the postcard, he said, by the way, don't tell anyone, but this Willie is stuffed. Because it's just so much easier to take photos with a rodent who's already posing.

So when they found this dead rodent 10 years later decomposing in his warren, they had to pull out the fake one, and they did a town procession through the whole neighborhood, and the media was there. Is this an exclusive? This is an exclusive. Wow. And they used the stuffed version with little quarters on his eyes because, of course, they couldn't use the real one. If you thought my duck tweet went viral, wait until this one leaks.

That's crazy. And then, okay, then you come back. Is this when you come to 680? Yes. Well, a little bit shortly after that. I came back to Toronto for my then-girlfriend. So shortly after that, I came back to Toronto for my then-girlfriend. I had been driving back and forth between Owen Sound and Toronto for the then-love of my life,

and I just couldn't take it anymore. And somebody offered me a job in the city, and I said, you know what? I don't want to do this. I'm a Torontonian at heart. I had never seen so much snow in my entire life than in Owen Sound, Ontario. The love of your life, you met a new love of your life at 680? That is correct. I want to get your loves clear.

I don't want to confuse all your loves. That one, she and I went our separate ways. That was all my fault. And then, lucky me, I actually met my future wife, Anne Deuce, who is now working at Queens Park. She describes her job as, it's my job to make things go away. And for many years, people know that name from 680 News, right? Yeah, absolutely. She and I would play footsie under the console as we co-anchored.

Listen, never start a relationship with somebody you work with because it only turns to marriage. Okay. So you guys have something in common here. We do. Would you like to know how much Alan and I have in common? Well, yes, please. Okay. So how Alan and I met was through our wives.

And one thing they teach you in radio at the very early stages when you're just getting going is you have to find a sound. You have to find something that works for you. And one of the best things you can do is find someone whose read, as they call it, you respect. And literally mimic it. Do exactly what they do. Be a word behind them on the radio. Speak out loud.

Do exactly what they do. And that's what my wife did with a woman named Mary Ellen Benninger. And so she would be driving to and from her radio job, listening to the Big Shot in Toronto at CFNY do her job. And if you listen to these two women, they actually sound quite similar. And once you've figured out what they do, you then make it your own, tweak it, play with it, add your own personality. And so that's what Anne would do. Unbeknownst to Anne and Mary Ellen at the time,

while I was in college, you know, 18, 19, going to radio school for this sort of thing, I did the exact same thing with Alan Cross. Get out of here! It's so weird, isn't it? Now you know the rest of the story. Well, that's not even the rest of the story, because Mary Ellen and Anne were working side-by-side at 680

long after I left for Business News Network, and Anne says, oh my god, your husband is Alan Cross? We have to have dinner. And it was the weirdest thing, a night out at an Italian restaurant on the Danforth, me and my wife sitting side by side looking at us 12 years into the future.

That's crazy. Yeah, very strange. It's a small world, eh? Very incestuous, yes. And so you mentioned you took off. You left for TV. TV was calling. You had to see your face on the screen.

Business news. BNN? TV was calling as much as radio was saying, you know what, if you really want to make any more money, you're going to have to... What year was this? Oh, God. Well, I've been at the Business News Network now

for almost more than 16 years. Okay, so... This was 2001, probably. All right,? Oh, God. Well, I've been at the Business News Network now for almost more than 16 years. Okay, so... This was 2001, probably. All right, so yeah, 2001. And we're getting into a period of real contraction in the radio business. Oh, yeah. 2000, 2001, 2002. But all news radio was doing really well.

Yeah, it was. really well. 680 News, when they first launched, people thought they were nuts to dump all hit radio, CFTR, in favor of news radio. And for the longest time, it did not take off. And by the time I left, it actually had found its footing. OJ Simpson played a role in that, but also management at the time went more infotainment. And when I was asked to go to the business department, I gladly took it because it was a bubble, as it were. I didn't have to go out and ask the mayor, boxers or briefs, because it was on the cover of GQ magazine that week.

So you kind of found your niche, if you will, with business news. Yeah. Yeah, I've always been fascinated by stories. And if you get over the hump of numbers, it's still all about the story. You're the longest serving on-air personality at BNN. Which is funny because in broadcasting, if you are still there after five years, they say, what the hell is wrong with you? And then the five years that follow,

so you're 10 years in, they're like, wow, this guy's clearly deadwood. But then once I got into that third, that trifecta of five-year stints, people realized I was trying to create something. More people watch me deliver business news today than anyone else in the country. And that sounds like a big boast. It's not saying a hell of a lot. I think I've got 2.2 million viewers or something like that. But you parlayed, so the BNN, obviously the business news and the clothes and you're doing the BNN stuff, but you're also getting to do CTV stuff, right?

Because you get to appear on like CTV television. Well, that's the funny thing about it. Have you had Mike Epple on yet? Not yet, no. Ask Mike Epple why he gave up the job that I now have for CTV because I didn't understand it for the life of me. When we, when there was a whole series of amalgamations about eight, ten years ago,

and so he was working for C, he had left 680 to go to CTV, and he was doing the CTV News Channel reports and all that kind of stuff, and then when we were all amalgamated, he was promised work on BNN, and so I don't know what happened with that. But he seemed to be disappointed that he wasn't doing BNN stuff. He was still doing exclusively CTV stuff. Next thing I knew, he was gone. And they knocked on my door and said, hey, would you like to do this? And more people will watch me do the 6 o'clock news on CFTO in Toronto

than will watch me in a month on BNN. It's amazing. It's amazing how many eyeballs hit those CTV newscasts across the country. Well, there's enough of them. I mean, Bell Media is this giant conglomerate now, probably the biggest in the country? It is. It is. So,

with all the channels and all the outlets and all the platforms, I'm surprised you're not on MTV or much music yet. I was going to say. Well, some of our guys are actually on The Morning Show, the Your Morning Morning Show. We are feeding

all of those properties. The only thing we don't really feed is, to your point, eTalk and TSN. I got an interesting question for you that I'm going to ask it

just as it was written by AtPhotoBlair on Twitter. And hopefully there's a story here because I had no idea. But he says, get Michael Hainsworth

to talk about his grandfather, the mayor of Toronto. What? You never told me this. Yeah, my grandfather used to be the mayor of Toronto. Who? His name is Fred Beavis, or was Beavis, as in Beavis and Butthead.

Of course. Long before Beavis and Butthead. I was going to break into my impression. Please do. All right, Alan, your turn. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so it's actually kind of a neat little love story, because in the 70s, I think it was now, David Crombie had decided he didn't want to be mayor anymore. He wanted to run for politics at a higher level, and so he vacated his position. And so they needed to come up with some sort of solution to that, and they said,

okay, who wants to be mayor? And more than one person put their hand up, and it was my grandfather and June, June Rollins? No. Was it June Rollins? Yes. I don't think it was June Rollins. Is the internet on, do we have the internet on computers here? Because we can pull that up on the Wikipedia. Let me do it. What do you want? What do you want here? Just pull up Fred Beavis. Anyway, the point being is that it was his life dream to be the mayor of the city. He was a 31-year veteran politician.

It was his wife's dream. She was his campaign manager. And she contracted cancer. Yeah. And so as she was in the late stages of it, this opportunity to be mayor came up, but there was a catch. We would anoint you mayor for, I think it was like eight or nine months remaining in the term. Who was it? John Sewell.

No, John Sewell left. No, preceded by David Crombie, succeeded by John Sewell. Right, he was the interim mayor, so that's why Wikipedia doesn't reflect that. But the point being is that he and this other politician put their hands up, and he realized if he took this job, that it came with the string of, you can't actually run for mayor after being mayor, anointed mayor. I understand that. Completely makes sense. And he took it because he knew that it was his only shot of his wife seeing him with the chain of office around his neck. Right.

And so he gave up the shot of actually being a John Tory-esque, very John Tory-esque. As a matter of fact, his previous job, his previous career was a roofer, and his nickname was the Honest Roofer. If you've ever had a roofer... I have, yes. You know how difficult that can be. But this woman who sadly contracts cancer, that's your grandmother. That's my grandmother.

And she dies with him, I believe, shortly after he had left office. But she sat down for the Kavook sitting, which is every mayor gets a portrait. And they get a portrait with their spouse. And so I actually have that in my home office, in the home studio. Geeks and Beats Studio 3B East has the two of them and the look of pride on her face. That's beautiful.

As she's fighting cancer, yet still sitting valiantly for this photo. Do you think you could have got this gig at BNN delivering important business news if you had the last name Beavis? Oh, of course not. No, no, because you can't say Beavis now, and it means... Not after the 90s, no way.

Exactly, yeah. Shut up, Beavis. Well, ironically, my brother's nickname for me was Big Nose, and mine for him was Butthead. And that was the 80s. Better than Cornholio, I think. So, Photo Blair, thank you for tipping me off. I had no clue, but your grandfather was mayor of Toronto. That's a fascinating story.

It was really weird. I got to do all sorts of neat things that kids my age couldn't do. For example, we would go to Centerville on the island, but we wouldn't take the ferry. He'd go straight down to the fireboat, and the firefighters would take us across. Little things that you could do in the 70s and 80s that there's no way you'd get away with now. It's not quite New York City level corruption, but... Right, exactly.

Fireboat. All right, Michael, if it's cool with you, I pause. I'm fascinated. We're going to get back to you, but I have some Alan Cross questions for a moment here. So do I! Yeah, okay. Bring them on. I need, okay, because I have some Alan Cross questions for a moment here. So do I. Yeah, okay.

Bring them on. I need, okay, because, wait, episode 66 was a long time ago, so three and a half years ago. We need to get a few updates. So last time we spoke to you, Alan, you were at a station called Indy 88. Yes. And you called yourself like a guidance counselor. That was my title. It was actually on my business card.

Did you come up with that or did they come up with that? I think we were sitting around drinking one day, and somebody mentioned that, and I said, yes, let's go with that. Sounds much better than consultant. But you are now back where we first came to know and love you. You're back at 102.1. Yes, so I've been back there for three years. And all the people responsible for asking me to leave

the original time are no longer there because they themselves have been asked to leave. And I'm in the midst of some contract renegotiations to have me there for another three years. Oh, cool. I was thinking maybe they heard you on Toronto Mic'd and they say, we've got to get this guy back. I don't know what happened.

I think some consultants came in and they did some radio cue testing. And they found out that my name kept coming up very, very high. And they thought, okay, well, this radio station's in the dumper. We better get the guy back. I think you and Alan, I was going to say Alan Shepard. You and Chris Shepard, you and Chris Shepard, as far as I'm concerned, are the two voices

of CFNY, FM 102. Probably so. Shep was one of the guys that took me under his wing when I first got there in 1986. Oh, wow.

And I was invited to come in and see him on Saturday nights when, at the time, he was still doing his Wheels of Steel thing from the studio

before we went out and did things in clubs. Now, was this high atop the donut shop, or was this in the old house in Brandon? No, this was high atop the donut shop. The house had been destroyed by that point, so we were in the strip mall at 83 Kennedy Road South. I worked with people in radio who worked in the house. Yeah, the little yellow house. And one of the stories that I got was the window in the control room where the DJ would sit, that was the window you would pull your car up to. Very true.

To put in a request for a song. And his first night, people would pull up, honk the horn, he'd wave, they'd wave, and then he'd ignore them. And he said to the next DJ, you know, it's the strangest thing. People just pull up to the window and they honk and they wave. It's the strangest thing. He says, no, no, no, you're supposed to open the window and ask what they want to hear. You know, speaking of Brampton, you know, I have a lot of old CFNY DJs come over and chat about the days, whether it be Ivor Hamilton or Scott Turner, you name it.

And a lot of them, I won't name names, but they think maybe you scammed your way into getting all the old records. I did not scam. Is there any possible no no here's exactly what happened 1995 yeah uh the station which was called the edge by that time was moving to its new digs at one dundas street west and if you remember the middle 90s digital ruled and the idea was that anything analog was old-fashioned, useless, and was just taking up space. So they were going to throw out the entire CFNY library, and the staff would have absolutely nothing to do that. We were absolutely abhorred at the idea. So I rented a rider truck one day. I backed it up to the front

door of the radio station after everybody had actually moved downtown and took as many records and record shelves as I could. As many? I thought you had all of them. No, I don't have many of them because some of the other staff, Captain Phil,

Ivor Scott, and a few people in the office also took theirs. So I took about 10,000 of them, and they're safely in my basement. Wow. It's a wall. It's the whole wall. Oh, you haven't seen the new office yet.

No, I haven't seen the new office. No, but it's a whole wall of records that are all from the old CFNY vinyl library. So it was all above board. Totally. And I have an agreement with Ivor Hamilton. It is written in our wills. And this is a true story.

Two things. One, delete my browser. That's true. Number two, whoever goes first gets the other guy's music. Wow, that's crazy. So my wife is hoping and praying that I go first. Because Ivor's collection, he works for Universal Music Canada. Right.

So you can just imagine the amount of stuff that he has. My wife is terrified that I might get all of his stuff. So do I have to petition Ivers now? See, I was under the impression that the reason why you completely ignored my incredible hint-dropping every year around my birthday that I would like the original pressing

of the Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me from the CFNY Music Library... I don't know if I have that. Because somebody may have got to it before me CFNY Music Library. I don't know if I have that. Because somebody may have got to it before me. I'll check. I thought you were blowing me up because you didn't want to break the collection. No. I'll go look, but I don't...

See, that album came out right around the time that we were converting the entire album to compact disc. Yes. So it's very possible. And again, remember, this is... disc. Yes. So it's very possible. And again, remember, this is, is that because we, that'd be 87? Yep. We would have played that record until we got the CD version, at which point we would

have said, oh, stupid vinyl, and gotten rid of it. I'll check, but I don't think I have that one in my collection. The only Cure stuff I have are all the weird 12-inch remixes that never made it to the CD. So, Alan, what would you say you do now at CFNY? That is an excellent question. I spend most of my time at home because my studio and my resources at home are much more readily available and useful

than if I were to go into the building. So I only go into the building once a week, if that. And because I have a studio that's completely connected to every aspect of Chorus Key, I can do everything remotely. It's funny, Lew Skies, real quick,

he does this every day. He does a hit on many hits, and he says he's never been to Chorus Key. Well, that's not true. I've seen him there. But Lew lives not too far from me in Oakville. And we've got something called a Tileline Genie, which hooks into the internet, which delivers us broadcast quality signals from our homes.

He called it an ISDN. It was 1996. I think I teased him in the wrong direction there. Because what do I know? No, no, no. Not an ISDN line. No. Better than that.

So you have a show at 6 p.m. Yeah. So I do ongoing history of new music and everything that than that. So you have a show at 6 p.m. Yeah, so I do ongoing history of new music and everything that involves that. I do the 6 to 7 p.m. show Monday to Friday, and then I am on call for doing a variety of other things, sometimes some stuff in the office, some voice work. And then with the way Chorus is operating now, having purchased Shaw Communications,

or not... Shaw Media. Shaw Media. Right. I do stuff for Global TV and ET Canada and any of their other properties. Well, I was going to say, let's say somebody from pop alternative music dies right now while we're talking. Chris Cornell? You're going to have a busy night, right? Oh, yeah. alternative music dies right now while we're talking. You're going to have a busy night, right? Yeah, Chris Cornell.

Chris Cornell dies, and you have to do hits and appearances on a whole bunch of, I guess, chorus properties. Well, let's just say that the last year and a half has been very, very busy. So I'll get a call from some friend or some source in L.A. or New York saying,

David Bowie just died. It's like, oh, crap. There goes my day. Because it's all about you. Yeah, it's all about me. It's all about me. That's the worst thing that happened to Alan Cross. And then Prince will die, or Chris Cornell will die, or Scott Weiland will die.

And there I am sending you a message saying, hey, can we go on Skype? Can we come on the show? I think the record was Prince. I think I did, the day that Prince died, I think I did 19 TV and radio interviews. Wow. In an 18-hour period.

I did 16 with Bowie. I remember that. Well, good for you that you are now the top-of-mind guy they throw to when that happens. I am going to defend that position until I die, because I've spent so many years getting to this point that I want to be the person that everybody thinks about when there's breaking news in the world of music. Okay, so does that mean that all of the crap the kids today are listening to when they're on my lawn, you're up to speed on all of that still? A lot of it, yeah. Really?

A lot of it, I am. I don't know how... I go into the men's room. I work at 299 Queen, so it's a big TV building. And radio, too, because that's where a lot of the Bell Media properties are. Ziggy was here last week. We talked about 299. It's a beautiful building. And you go into the men's room, and they have the speakers

because there was once a time when it was important to know what was currently on the air while you were taking a leak. Because you had seven minutes, max, or three, or whatever it was, while seven minutes was free bird. Indigata De Vida.

Maybe 13 minutes. Exactly. And every time I go in there, it's the same four songs and I have no idea who these people are. When they did the Much Music Video Awards one year, the Call Me Maybe girl was doing her sound check, and I got that damn song stuck in my head.

It's catchy, yeah. Oh, my God, it drove me nuts. And for 25 more minutes, I had that damn song stuck in my head. And I go into my newsroom, and I'm talking to somebody, and I say, that damn song stuck in my head. That crazy girl. And I turn around, and she's standing right behind me. How old's your kid now?

She is 11 going on 17. 17? She's more right behind me. How old's your kid now? She is 11 going on 17. 17? She's more like 42. I mean that in the most... I was trying to figure out what you meant by that. No, no, no. I mean, that's a... You know who she reminds me of? Who?

Lily on Modern Family. Yes. And you know who she reminds me of? You pull up a picture of Kate Bush at 16. She's a spitting image as far as I'm concerned. And who's your major music crush? Kate Bush. She's a spitting image as far as I'm concerned. And who is your major music crush? Kate Bush. That's a little creepy.

It is a little weird, I'll admit that. Let's go, now, ongoing history of new music. I've listened to it forever on the radio, but suddenly I can subscribe to it on iTunes in podcast form. So what changed exactly? Well, we got tired of waiting for the regulations

to catch up to reality. So what we started doing is taking basically the voice track, the produced voice track of the radio show, cutting out almost all of the music

and then just posting it and waiting to see what happens. Yeah, because I've grilled Robby. We mentioned off the top technical production by Rob Johnston. So I'm friendly with Rob and we chat.

And he tells me it is exactly the same except the song is shorter. Yes. That's because of a variety of copyright regulations that are insurmountable at this point when it comes to podcasts. So we thought we'd just go ahead and do it because nobody else was going to do it for us.

Let's just see what happens. And I can tell you that, as of today, whatever we've got posted up there has been downloaded 260,000 times. How did you get over the lawyer issue? We didn't ask. Okay, because in our line of work, when the boss says,

let me run it by legal, you know the answer's no. We just didn't. Basically, that was it. Well, how big are the testicles on your boss? Because I've never worked for anyone who said, you know what? Screw the lawyers. Well, that's true.

But we decided that in the case of podcasts, we had to strike because things are getting really, really big in this universe. And if we waited any longer, we ran the risk of becoming irrelevant or missing our window. So we just decided to go ahead and do it. And we kept it under the radar for a little while. And now it's well-known within the company all the way up to the CEO.

And they just shrug their shoulders. Don't have anything, you know, when it comes to the music, just keep it really to the minimum. So like 10 seconds clips or 15 seconds or whatever it is. Our podcast is screwed then. Well, I don't think anybody is actually listening to our podcast.

So Geeks and Beats, which we'll get to in great detail very, very shortly, but Geeks and Beats, you two own Geeks and Beats. You guys own it. It's a handshake operation that we do basically as professional development on our own time. And Ongoing History New Music is a chorus property. Yes.

I am a work-for-hire contract employee, which means I am expected to deliver a certain number of products to them, Ongoing History being one of them. And once it is delivered, it is their property to exploit as they see fit. So essentially you can't take it with you, as they say. No, no, no, no. I do not own it. There was a time back. I thought you did.

Well, around 2004, 2005, they realized, chorus lawyers realized that, you know what? We don't have any formal agreement with this guy saying that we own this stuff. Huh. So we're going to do a one-time buyout. So it's possible one day it could be the ongoing history of new music with Joe Blow. Well, when I left Chorus in 2011 or was asked to leave, there were plans to try and replace me. And after a week or two, they gave up. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, I've been doing this. I wouldn't do it. If they asked me, I'd say, no, are you kidding me? This is the thing. I've been doing this since 1993. And it's like having... I've been doing this since 1993.

And it's like having... Ryan Seacrest couldn't even do New Year's Eve in Times Square. He had to keep bringing out Dick Clark. It was Dick Clark's Ryan Seacrest. Or Ryan Seacrest, Dick Clark's. Exactly. And even after Dick had the stroke and couldn't talk, they still had to have him there because he was so intimately identified with that event and that broadcast. I have a feeling

that was lawyers. Well, it could have been. I'm glad it's now a podcast because I can hear it on demand, and I hope you don't get any cease and desist because I'd like to keep hearing it. I tell every record label, I tell every collective that, hey, look what we're doing. You idiots,

if you were really smart, what you would do is figure out a strategy, a legal strategy for podcasting and music, so you're not leaving so much bloody money on the table. Plus, think about the damage they do to themselves if they came down on you guys like a ton of brats. Well, yeah, and we're telling them, look it, we want to pay you. We want to make this available on demand.

We want to make this available on demand. We want to make this into streams. But because of the regulatory situation in Canada regarding on-demand, semi-on-demand and streams, we can't do it. We can't follow the rules. So we're either going to do it this way until you guys figure it out, or we're not going to do it at all. In any case, you need to be thinking about this because this is the future. Let's just have a little commercial heel for podcasts. The podcasting business in the United States is going to be worth $200 million by the end of this year, probably closer to a billion dollars in 2018. And it's all mattress sales. Well, whatever it is, it is a big, big thing that is not going

away now. It is no longer, well, we are in your basement, but it is no longer a guy in his basement doing, you know, speaking into the microphone on his Mac. This is, it's properly produced stuff with good guests, good content, good

production, and with good sponsors. So, people, get your heads out of your ass and start getting involved in the podcast world. You have a big fan in Andrew Stokely. Oh, Andrew, yes. And in fact, I've seen his Geeks and Beats mug. He takes it with him when he travels. Hashtag GNB travel.

What was it? GNB Mug Tour 2017. Andrew, just today, he mentioned his three favorite podcasts. G&B Travel. What was it? G&B Mug Tour 2017. Yes. Andrew, just today, he mentioned his three favorite podcasts. Because he's in New York right now because he did the audio for the Jays game that happened this afternoon in New York. He does a lot of sports audio. The one he, I don't know, he does curling. He does a lot of curling and a lot of baseball. That's true.

And some hockey and this and that. But I asked him, what's your three favorite podcasts? His three favorite podcasts are Geeks and Beats that. I asked him, what's your three favorite podcasts? His three favorite podcasts are Geeks and Beats, which is coming back, by the way. We're going to talk about that, but it's making a great comeback. Taggart and Torrens, otherwise known as TNT.

With Jeremy Taggart. Jeremy Taggart and Jonathan Torrens. And this one, Toronto Mic'd. Those are his three favorite podcasts. Wait, there's one missing from that. No, no. We had us, TNT, and him. Screw are his three favorite podcasts. Wait, there's one missing from that. No, no, we had us, TNT, and him. Screw us, me. Oh, yeah, right. It's all about you.

Come on. Geeks and Beats, that's where it's at. You own that, remember. That's the one to put. That's true. We do own this. What's half of nothing? Yeah, exactly. Early days. How many mattress sales have we made so far?

None. How many billion dollars is that industry in America? Because it's at least $200 in Canada. Yeah, the problem with podcasting in Canada is we're probably

about five years behind. I agree. But I do have a beer sponsor. Did I mention that? Stop rubbing it in! Marcasaur has a question on Twitter. He wants me to ask you,

apparently, a journal of Musical Things, is that right? Yes. Is that the URL? That's your website where you have news every day. Do you own that?

Yes, I do. Do you own that? Chorus doesn't own that. No. A Journal of Musical Things. He says he's noticed it's attracting a lot of Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell

suicide conspiracy nutters. Oh, I know. For the longest time, I was into the Kurt Cobain was murdered thing, but the longer I study it, the more I think about it, it was just one of those messy

things that happened in life, and there was no conspiracy whatsoever. But try telling that to some people. And I think the post I wrote on the suicide, the murder being bullshit, I think it has the most comments of any other post I've ever written. And everybody is just dead against me saying that.

Well, now they think you're part of the conspiracy, part of the cover-up. You know what? They're nuts. Be careful. No, they're right. They're right. He is part of the conspiracy, part of the cover-up. You know what? They're nuts, you know. Be careful of these. They're nuts. No, they're right. They're right. He is part of the conspiracy.

Well, the problem is that a number of years ago, I got to know Courtney Love quite well. Right. So apparently I've been bought off by the widow Cobain. You've told me Courtney Love's story. Oh, yeah. I don't know if that's such a friendly relationship. Well, it's an okay relationship. I haven't heard from her for a while,

but I was actually called to testify against her in a libel trial. Right. And when I was called up onto the stand at the L.A. County Courthouse... The O.J. Courthouse. The O.J. Courthouse. In fact, it was courtroom number 56,

and it looked exactly... They're all identical, and they looked exactly like what we saw with the OT trial. Did you demand to see gloves? No, but I was on that side of the courtroom. So Judge Ito would have been to my right, and then the jury, which was a trial by jury, was to my left.

Very, very small courtroom. And when I didn't throw her under the bus, I guess she thought kindly of me. So when there was a break, she says, why don't you come up to my hotel room tonight? I thought, uh-oh, okay. This could be interesting. He who dies with the most stories wins. This is a good one.

I like that line. So I pull up to the Chatemont Hotel, where she was, and as I hand my keys to the valet parking, because everything is valet parking in Los Angeles, what comes on the radio? Heart-shaped box by Nirvana. Oh, you spilled your martini. Wait a minute, you spilled your empty martini glass. You drank all of that. Is it a seven or a six? Courtney will do that to you. So anyway, I go up to her room,

and we sit and we talk about stuff for about an hour, and then she says, I've had a couple of Xanaxes and some tequila. I better go to bed. I guess you better. Oh, wait! Come with me. I have to take my supplements. So we go into the little kitchenette in her room, and she opens the

cupboard and pulls out, you know, vitamin B12 and vitamin D and vitamin A and vitamin C, and she says, hold up your hand. So I hold up my hand, and she grabs a jar, and this giant pile of green pills lands in my palm. And I go, what's this? And she goes, chlorophyll. Keeps the vagina smelling fresh. Oh. No scratch and sniff test at the end of that?

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Corny love. She's a great actress, you know. Every time I see her in a film, I think, she's a great actress. She should have done more. I went to see her a couple of years ago in a small production off-Broadway in New York, and she was really good. Occasionally, we text back and forth.

I actually have a serious fondness for her. Text her right now. Ask her exactly what she's doing right now and see if she answers over the course of this conversation. You need to know precisely what you're doing at this moment. Okay, I'm going to do that. I actually have something I have to tell her. Okay, I'll continue.

Okay, so there's another gentleman on Sock. His name is Sock Theo. I hope I'm saying that right. S-O-C-T-H-E-O. And he says, Ask Alan who was difficult to interview and his thoughts on talking to Scott Weiland from STP at the Bay in 2010. I was there and it was odd.

Yeah, he was... That was a difficult interview because Scott has a reputation of being odd during interviews and you never knew what kind of Scott you were going to get. Was he going to be lucid? Was he going to be cheerful? Was he going to be surly? Was he going to be non-responsive? And that day he was okay, but you got the feeling that there was some kind of substance at work, a mild one, and he was just happy to be in his element. He really likes clothes, or light clothes,

and he really liked having fashion models around him. So he was actually in a pretty good space. What happened was, after he finished, is that he got up and walked off immediately with a $4,000 lav mic pack still attached to him. We've had wireless microphones at BNN where we've had to go to people's homes to retrieve them.

To retrieve them, yeah. Because the intern forgot to take it off. Yeah, that's right. So he was an odd one. The most difficult interview I ever had was with a British man called The Beautiful South. Oh, yeah. They came directly from Pearson Airport

to 83 Kennedy Road South, and they were drunken surly after a long transatlantic flight, and they were also missing some big football match, and I have no idea which one it was. Was it Tottenham? Could have been Tottenham, or probably Hull.

It was probably Hull. Anyway, they came into the studio, and we were doing this live, and usually you would come and sit in front of one of the microphones, but each of these guys, I think there were five or six of them, decided to perch around the perimeter of the studio. And every question I asked was answered with either a, eh, yeah, no, or a shrug.

A radio shrug. Yeah, a radio shrug. Those are shrug. Yeah, a radio shrug. Those are the best. They were already all six feet away from the nearest microphone, and that interview, I think, lasted 45 seconds. Oh, man. So that was the most embarrassing interview I ever had was with Leonard Cohen.

In 1988, he came in with the I'm Your Man album, which, for reasons that we still don't understand, was launched as an alternative album, as an electropop album. And I was a dumb kid. I didn't know that people studied his lyrics at a PhD level, and he was such a famous poet and writer and icon from the 1960s. So he comes in, and he sits down in front of me, and he's got his Gatain cigarette, and I say,

welcome to CFNY. This is one of our live mic interviews. Would you mind if I called you Lenny? And he took a big drag on that Gatain and blew the smoke into my face and said, don't. And you didn't. I didn't. All right, while you text Courtney Love. Yeah, ask Michael a question. And you didn't. I didn't. All right, while you text Courtney Love...

Yeah, ask Michael a question. I'm going to play you, first of all, some old Alan Cross. We're going to listen for about a minute here. Superb album from Martin Ansell from CFNY. That's called The Englishman Abroad. Actually, the title track of that Rupert Hime-produced production. How's that for language? Rupert Hime-produced production. And psychedelic first for David in there with Heartbreak Beat, This is me?

I promise you, it's you. We're so hungover. Robin Leach. He's back in town. I thought they stopped his kind of customs. Anyway, he'll be here tonight at 6 p.m. to officially kick things off. And he'll also be available for autographs and to answer questions. I wonder if he'll shout the answers.

Judging by his TV programs, the man doesn't know how to talk quietly, does he? At least he can talk. Who am I to say things? Anyway, admission to the show is $6 for adults, $4 for seniors. Good deal. It's 17 after 3. This is Alan Cross above the donut shop across from the chicken place. And so far, so good. Halfway through the morning, and my voice hasn't dropped out yet completely.

Where did you get that? Wow. A CD. There was an anniversary, Spirit of Radio anniversary. That's on there? That's on there, yeah. It's like 1991 or something? No, Rupert Ryan. That would be earlier than that. I've been doing it overnights. So that would not have been any later than summer 87.

Sounds like you had been to a concert either the night before or you'd been out of the night. Yeah, I used to have terrible bouts of laryngitis, and they would still make me work. And they didn't really stop until, like, on my tonsils out in, like, 1991 or 92. So that was me. Wow. I would have never guessed that.

Ian wants to know, how come Teenage Head don't get their due when the Yanks and Brits talk about punk history? Problem is that they had bad management. Well, not bad management, bad luck. Teenage Head was on the way to becoming something absolutely massive in the early part of the 1980s.

You might remember the Ontario Place Riot and all the things that were happening with them. But then one of their guys got involved in a terrible traffic accident just before they were supposed to go on what would have been a triumphant tour of the United States, and they never recovered from that.

Nickelback. This David Russ wants to know, how come... He says, please explain why some folks hate Nickelback. I like a few tunes. Just found out I'm a dweeb for not knowing. Can I still like them? This is David.

Well, I think, you know, here's my thinking. Respect all music like what you want or listen to what you want. I don't. Michael likes Carly Rae Jepsen. We don't judge her. Apparently I do. You know what? The whole Nickelback thing to me is interesting from the Canadiana perspective of it. Canadians

love to tear down Canadian worldwide success stories. It doesn't matter what you're doing, how good you are at it. If the world loves you, Canadians hate you. This is true, but the hate for Nickelback extends worldwide. And I think it's completely unreasonable. There are many, many other bands that are worthy of your hate than Nickelback. They're a very competent rock band. But isn't that the problem? Nickelback comes across as corporate rock,

much like Phil Collins and Genesis did. Maybe. But even Phil Collins and Genesis and Toto and Boston and some of those corporate rock bands were not as so viciously decried as what we see with Nickelback. I don't get it. I respect Nickelback for what they do.

They are a meat and potatoes rock band who talk about peeling off a roll of 50s and getting shit-faced on a Saturday night. That's what they do. And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that the coasts in both countries, Canada and the United States, where the tastemakers and the critics are, they're the ones who have decreed that Nickelback and bands like Smash Mouth are awful. Meanwhile, everything in the middle, they love them.

There's a gentleman named Mark Weisblot who has an email newsletter called 1236. Oh, that's him. Yeah, and Mark, and you might know Mark maybe. Oh, yes. We used to hate Mark Weisblot at 680 News back in the day. He was just some guy who had an opinion but wasn't in the business. How dare he tell us how to do our jobs?

Do you subscribe to his 1236 newsletter? No, because I have to confess, back in those days, he was the guy that we all loved to hate. So he sort of fell off my radar when I went into TV. I didn't even know he was still doing it. I'd forgotten about him, and I see the 1236 thing every once in a

while, but I didn't realize it was him. So he comes here once a quarter, so four times a year, he comes here to just for like, basically for two hours, we talk about all the media changes in the country. He gives his opinions on things. So he's been here, you know, several times at this point. Last time he was

here, he went off on you, Mr. Cross. Of course. Because of your Sergeant Pepper expose of sorts. I guess you were pushing the Sergeant Pepper story, and I think he's calling bullshit on the story. Oh, okay. So here's the Sergeant Pepper story as it was told to me.

Yes, please. When the Beatles came to Toronto for the very last time in August of 1966, they were assigned an RCMP constable from the Aurora Detachment whose job was to look after them while they were in Toronto for about a 24, 30-hour period. He was a very clean-cut guy

who didn't really like these screaming girls and the Beatles and their long hair and all the rest of it. But he was charmed by the band, and the band was charmed by him because they were able to break him down. And they had a very good talk. They had a very good time. And then they parted, and they never saw each other again. Now, if we go back to 1964 and or 1965,

there was a time when the Beatles were in Toronto and they were given four OPP patches by a constable at Malton International Airport. I remember that. And like many things the Beatles were given at that time, these things were just thrown into a bag and forgotten. But in early 1967, when they were having their costumes made for the Sgt. Pepper project, somebody found these patches. And together with a theatrical costume company in Britain, they decided that they were going to put one of these patches on Paul's left shoulder.

And the thinking was, well, we can maybe give a shout out to this cop who is such a good guy to us when we were in Toronto. And it turns out that this cop's name was Sergeant Randall Pepper. Now, there are many stories about where the name Sergeant Pepper came from. One of them has to do with a flight that Paul McCartney was taking with Mal Evans, one of the Beatles' confidants. And they were mulling around this idea of coming up with a fake band

so the Beatles could experiment beyond what they were doing as the Beatles. This would give them license to do things that they would never have done under the Beatles' name. So at the time, there were names like Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and The Holding Company.

And they thought, well, you know, why don't we have one of these long, pretentious names that seem to be in vogue right now, especially in places like San Francisco? So the story was that Paul and Mal looked around on the airplane where they were, and they saw some salt and pepper packages, and that, oh, Pepper, that's a good name,

and somehow that became Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. What's Wiseblood's problem with that story? Yeah, you know, there's nothing to say that both those stories aren't correct, and that, you know, this certainly explains the OPP patch on Paul's shoulder. It's Sergeant Pepper, an actual Sergeant Pepper that they met and actually worked with. And then there's the Salt-N-Pepa story from the airplane flight. So maybe they all came together, and that's the truth.

Wise Blot just challenges Alan Cross on the Sgt. Pepper thing in that it's fiction, didn't happen, and he's pushing this fake news. No, I got it from the family of Randall Pepper who died in 1970. See, this is why we hated Mark Weisblot back in the early days of 680 News.

And this is the story that's been passed down from this family who now is living in London, Ontario. What's Weisblatt's proof there? Come on. Come on, pal. You're fake news. You're going to listen to his episode. I didn't pull the clip because I'm a very busy man.

Here's Miss Love. Courtney Love has texted Alan Cross. We're talking about a project that I'm working on involving Primary Wave. Primary Wave is one of those companies that handles the likeness and image of bands and dead celebrities. And Primary Wave takes care of Kurt Cobain. And I'm going to be working on another project that involves another artist involving Primary Wave. So I just asked her what she thought about it. Tweet her now and ask her what she's wearing,

just to see what her response is. Gents, I need to hear about Geeks and Beats, the podcast. Never heard of it. It came like a comet. It shone very bright. We all talked about it, and then all of a sudden it was gone. But you have some exciting news to announce? We're back, baby!

So maybe tell the people who haven't listened to Geeks and Beats the premise, because it's kind of a funky premise. Well, one of those dinners on the Danforth with Mary Ellen Benninger and Deuce, Alan Cross and TV's Michael Hainsworth, we were chatting, and I had just pulled the plug on a podcast I had previously been doing with a friend of mine

because he didn't lift a finger for the damn thing, and I had warned him time and time again, listen, dude, we got stuff. And then something else happened in his personal life that made it difficult to continue. And so that was an excellent excuse to pull the plug on that. But the itch. As much as I've been in TV now for 16 some odd, 17 years almost, I still feel like a radio guy

at heart. And I thoroughly enjoyed the production of the podcast and the whole genre. And so I was itching to get back into it. And I was looking to relaunch it with that guy. And next thing I know, I'm sitting across from Alan, and out of nowhere he says, we should do a podcast together. I'm like, well, sold. He says, well, what do you want to do? Well, I don't know, what do you want to do? And his response, we should do it on music technology.

And my thought was twofold. One, I don't know anything about music, and two, who wants to listen to a podcast every week about Pro Tools? Yeah. So it evolved from music technology to music and technology, and it gave us sort of that split personality that now exists on the show today. But the premise I'm thinking of is this is a fake Rolling Stone-type publication. It's not fake. Yes.

Am I speaking too much out of school? No, no, no. This is back to my theater of the mind and my love of radio. It's not fake. Is that I wanted to create a persona of the show itself. For example, it broadcasts out of the Flim building. Do you know what the Flim building is? If you don't know what the Flim building is, Toronto Mike, you're in big fat trouble.

The skinny building. No, no, no. No, no, no. The Flynn Building was the headquarters of WKRP in Cincinnati. Is that right? That is correct. I've watched WKRP in Cincinnati. I did not know it had that name. The Flynn Building is the building in which the radio station was housed.

The show ends with Catch Geeks and Beats on a newsstand near you. Right. And the actual logo is literally stolen from Rolling Stone. Because they didn't trademark the font. The font is called Acid Bath. And anyone can download the font, and anyone can create their own Rolling Stone-style magazine. Cool name.

And so we wanted to sort of have a nod to that musical component and to the news element of it as well, because I thought one of the most effective ways to drive ear balls to the podcast was eyeballs on a website. So we built a full-on news website. We actually have a staff. We don't pay them anything, but we have a staff of writers who put together

some really neat stuff to make it feel like it's a real news organization. Weirdly, Geeks and Beats has more staff than A Journal of Musical Things. By a factor of... We have 11 people on the show.

I've got two others. Wow. So when we corresponded about this appearance, you were copying a woman named Vanessa. Yes, Vanessa Azzoli. Right. Yes. So I was impressed right off the bat that you got people. Like there seems to be some kind of a organizer person attached

to the emails. She's the executive producer. This time around, yes. Well, this was the deal. Is that when we put the show on hiatus, there were a whole bunch of different reasons for that. I'm going to ask you next is why did you stop? There were just, I was extraordinarily busy with all the outside stuff that I was doing. And I was worried about losing my job. TV is in a very difficult place right now and has been for a while.

And TV is now... What did she have to say? You do this on our podcast, too. You put it on mute for crying out loud? Was it your first time in a studio? See, this is all from Courtney. See? We believe you. We trust you.

You know Courtney. Would it shock you if I told you Courtney would also answer my texts? Dun, dun, dun! But a different Courtney. Okay, shock you if I told you Courtney would also answer my texts? Dun, dun, dun. But a different Courtney. Right. Okay, sorry, go ahead. So the other thing was that I was in a position where I felt that at any moment they could tap me on the shoulder and kick me out of TV land.

And if I was out of a job, I needed something that put me at the top of the marquee. Because it is Geeks and Beats with Alan Cross and Michael Hainsworth. People aren't tuning in to listen to me for crying out loud. They're here for Alan. So I thought, I have to do something that is just me. And so I launched something called Where's My Jetpack?

And I learned a couple of things about myself. And one of the things I learned was that if I don't have a firm, regular deadline with other people relying on me to meet that deadline, I'd just sit on my ass and watch Oprah. You need the discipline. Right. Discipline is a very difficult thing to develop. Some people can do it easily. Some people can't.

And it shouldn't be seen as a weakness because there are just some things that go along with the creative process that sometimes just don't lend themselves to discipline. Well, I'm a product of broadcasting, where most people, their boss comes to them, they say, OK, we're going to need that TPS report. You've got three weeks to do it. Whereas in my line of work, I'm working on an hourly deadline. So if I don't have something firm that requires me to be present for something specific, I just don't have that discipline. And so after a year and a half of only putting out two episodes of Where's My Jetpack, I thought, I need to have something a little more...

That is awful, by the way. It is just terrible, isn't it? The third episode, which I've already got halfway edited, because the premise behind Where's My Jetpack was when we were kids, we were promised flying cars, jetpacks, food in pill form, things like that. Sidebar, the only one that I'm really disappointed we don't have is food in pill form. I am not a foodie by any stretch. I've seen you eat. Exactly. I'd rather pop a pill and keep on moving.

Having said that, the third episode was, Where's My Sex Bot? Almost every other episode of Geeks and Beats, at some point, Alan steers the conversation down to sex bots. Oh, it's me! It's me that steers the... Excuse me. If you go on the Twitter machine,

I think the intertron will back us up on this. As a matter of fact, somebody ran a poll. I did see that. Because what we had done is we had a very special musical guest plan for the season premiere episode, and we weren't going to tell anybody who it is. We only hinted that we've been trying to get this person on for quite some time. And if you're a fan of the Geeks and Beats, you know that the musical guest every single episode is Sting. And at no point in the show do we ever say, sorry,

we don't have sting. We just pretend it doesn't exist. Which, again, brings us back to that theater of the mind. It's a rip-off of Jimmy Kimmel. Right, the Matt Damon thing. Right, with Matt Damon, exactly. And so when we had posted, who do you think the musical guest is going to be? Somebody's response was, I think the more important question is, how many

minutes into the show before Alan turns the conversation to sex bots? Oh, that's funny. And Vanessa Azzoli worked on Jetpack with me, as well as on the previous incarnation of Geeks and Beats. And so she came back because part of the reason why

one of the only ways that we would bring the show back is if we had somebody who did everything but the actual podcast. Because there is so much behind the scenes. I need a Vanessa for this. There you go. Can I have Vanessa? Vanessa is already taken.

Vanessa, if you're listening, I could give you beer. Yes. Well, we actually give her a cut of the Patreon, which I had warned her in advance that will probably amount to her being able to take her man out for a nice meal once a month. At McDonald's. Yeah. Patreon, you know, I didn't even push man out for a nice meal once a month. At McDonald's. Yeah.

Patreon, you know, I didn't even push it off the top. I have a Patreon, and I'm underwhelmed by the response by the loyal listeners. Were you similarly underwhelmed? It sounds like it from the tone there. I'm not underwhelmed by it. I'm not surprised that we're not raking in the dough on it, considering the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty crappy in the podcast world.

There are just so many to weed through. And I think Jesse Brown over at Canada Land has swooped up all the cash from all of us in Canada who are podcasting. Yeah, like $15,000 a month or something. I think the guy makes $185,000 a year. He's already a multimillionaire. He's an investor in those bit strips that sold to Facebook or somebody like that.

He doesn't even need to do that. You're the business guy. Why wasn't I tipped off on this stuff? Do you know about the bit strips acquisition? I think it's Facebook that bought bit strips. You should know this. Sure. Yes.

I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in an episode. Wait, did you say there was no episodes for a year and a half? And it's only now? When's the return date? Is it today? This was the first episode in a year and a half. Wow. And I'm crushed you didn't listen to find out that it was

a grand total of two minutes and fifty seconds long. Because our big fabulous musical guest, who had been promoting that was going to be the guy to relaunch the show with us, never showed. So we put the actual relaunch off

for one more week. That's funny. This is from the Express. Sex robots are the future of intimate relationships, a groundbreaking new study has claimed, but experts have also

issued warnings over certain aspects of controversial technology. See, this is turning into an episode of Geeks and Beats, which, by the way, because Vanessa, what we did with Where's My Jetpack was it was a bigger

picture think piece kind of scenario. You had a three-minute web video series, and then more information available on a website, companion content, and she wrote all of the research for the episode. So as a matter of fact, we're going to take that unpublished, multi-page document that she did, and we are going to turn that... We are definitely going to be doing a sex-bot-heavy episode of Geeks and Beats. Listen, that story I read

was posted 14 hours ago. Sex-bots are the future. That's what you've been saying for five years now on the show. I'm just saying. You'll see. My thoughts when Geeks and Beats, I always want to say Geek and Beats,

Geeks and Beats, its original incarnation there, I felt like it was heavily edited. It seemed like that would be a lot of work. Oh, it was an insane amount of work. So how long would it take you for an episode? You did all that, right? Alan said. I feel very bad. Michael did all the hard work. We would spend probably 45 to 55 minutes recording an episode. You did all that, right? No, I feel very bad. Michael did all the hard work.

We would spend probably 45 to 55 minutes recording an episode. And drinking. And drinking along the way. Which, by the way, I noticed Alan finished his martini, and you have had yours as well. Did you enjoy it? Did I finish it? Was it okay? You don't have to worry about offending me if you didn't like it, but it looks like

it's empty. It is definitely empty, and I did enjoy it. Excellent. And I'm glad I finally popped my martini cherry or olive or whatever. Your martini olive, exactly. What were we talking about? How long it takes you to edit an episode of Keats and Peets.

So it was about 45 minutes of recording, and then I would probably spend about three hours to three and a half, maybe four hours editing it in the early days. Because, again, that brings us back to my radio roots. My first four years in radio was spent behind the scenes as a technical guy. So that's what I bring to the Pro Tools account every week,

is almost every um will be edited out if it's not relevant. Alan and I record the show via Skype from his studio and my studio, and then he drop boxes me his side of the conversation. But because we're physically not present there to catch each other's body language, we'll step over each other. You can edit all of that out and fix that. If someone's going to give me 30 minutes of their time, I want to give them high-quality stuff in return so that they'll come back.

Well, good for you. My only concern was that if it takes you too long to get an episode to where you're satisfied, then it may not be worthwhile for you to continue. That was my thought at the time. I thought that might have led to your... Well, that's exactly what happened. It was after spending three hours editing a show, I still had

to do the social media. I still had to do the website. I still had to coordinate all the stories with the writers. I still had to edit those stories with the writers. It's a lot of work. So is it different this time? Anything different? Yeah, Vanessa does everything. And all we do is the podcast. Until I poach her. And then you're going to be in big trouble. Exactly. Except that

I still do all the editing of the show itself. But you like that, right? I love it. I just want to make sure that you like that. But this is the problem is that the show was actually at one point airing on four Bell Media radio stations as well. That was the other problem. Which meant that we had not only... Right, it was on 1010 for a while.

It was. Right. It had to be 42 minutes. It could be 42 minutes and 12 seconds. It had to be 42 minutes and had to be X number of segments, X length as well. And I would get about 30 minutes in to a 42- show which now is probably about 2.5 hours of editing I'm like oh my god when is this going to end and I knew when your brain

says I don't want to do this anymore you have to stop doing it so this incarnation will not be on the radio we don't think it needs to be which is good because it allows us to say things we otherwise wouldn't say that's right and we don't have to worry about editing things down to 42 minutes or whatever it is.

It'll be somewhere between 27 and 35 minutes. Well, we had read a survey or a study somewhere that had said that people listen to most podcasts for no more than 24 minutes. That's my mistake then. I was just going to say, no one's listening to any of this crap. So with that in mind, we're going to do a 30-minute show. And if it's 32 minutes, that's great. If it's 28 minutes, all the better.

Welcome back to a crowded podcasting marketplace. There's always room for you two. I'm glad you're back. And before I lose Alan, because I think he's already starting his car... No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just looking at the Widow Cobain tweets that are coming back to me.

Excellent. Or texts. Can we kick out the jams, guys, really briefly here at the end here? All right, okay. Michael, we're going to start with you. I can't wait to hear what you picked. Go.

Okay, fine. Here's the thing. Whenever a song starts, don't you feel like you have to talk to the post? I do. Because when you're listening to a song starts, don't you feel like you have to talk to the post? I do. Because when you're listening to a song, you really want to say, here's the English beat. But you want to do it more, and you want to take it absolutely to the post. Peter in the bathroom, please don't freak.

The door is open, just you and me. Can I take you to a restaurant that's got glass tables? You can watch yourself while you are eating. Michael, why do you love Mirror in the Bathroom by The English Beat? Well, there are two primary stories for me. Did something fall? Your phone. Story number one has to do with when this song came out. I was not cool enough to listen to the English beat at the time the English beat were cool.

As a matter of fact, in the 90s, when we all got CD burners, and we were mixing our own CDs for the car, I had a five-disc anthology that I created myself of all of the coolest music that I never listened to in high school called Too Cool for Me Volumes 1 through 5. That's great. And actually, it was a page from the CFNY days when they came out with the same sort of thing.

And so this was perhaps that song that epitomized how uncool I was in high school. Yet once I was in university and I was picking up this music, I was like, I really wish I had been listening to this five years earlier. The other one is that we actually interviewed David Wakeling of English Beat on Geeks and Beats. He was in town, and the strangest thing was is you would think that a guy of his caliber talking to you at, it was like, the interview was scheduled for like 8 in the morning, and I said to Alan, I said, what are the chances a rocker is going to be up

at 8 in the morning? Well, there's no way this guy's going to call, but he did, and we talked to him. But before we spoke to him, I asked people, what should I ask Dave Wakeling of the English beat? Like, this guy is so cool and he contributed so much

to my 80s that I never actually enjoyed in the 80s so I waited till then. Because you weren't cool enough. Right. And one question I got was ask him

where the mirror in the bathroom is. Now, there's the side of me that says, I'm not gonna ask Mr. Big Shot Musician where the mirror in mirror in the bathroom is. Like you just know Erica M asked that on Much Music at the time all those years ago. But as the conversation continued I thought okay you know what I'm just

gonna go for it and I threw the tweeter under the bus. This person's tweeted in and asked this question. I really wanted to know the answer myself. I do that too. I'll hide behind the tweeter. Right. I hid behind the tweet. And I asked, this person wants to know where the mirror is in the bathroom. And he had an answer. It wasn't like he just pulled it out of his ass somewhere someday. He said he was working in construction, hating that job, and there he had to get up bright and early, and he got up that early morning, and he's in the bathroom of his sister's apartment because he's crashed on her couch because he's broke. And he's looking at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, and he's telling himself,

just get through the day. Just do the job. Go in. Do the job. And on his motorcycle ride to the construction site, he finished writing the day. Just do the job. Go in, do the job. And on his motorcycle ride to the construction site, he finished writing the song in his head. Wow.

That's why I picked that song. Excellent song, too. Thank you. I would think so. I'm trying to get my daughter, all 11 years old of her, into ska. And she's quite receptive, because it's got quite the beat. You've got to start with no doubt, I think. That's like the gateway. No, I think you can

actually get into specials in the English beat right off the top. That's what I'm doing. Good for you. Don't sugarcoat it. I'm doing it wrong again. Let's hear Alan Cross's jam. Hey, hang on. You were like, oh, I want to hear which one you're going with. No, I approve of that.

I do. I'm surprised. You're surprised? What did you expect? Oh, I thought. Phil Collins. Rick Astley. I was going to say Rick Astley. But, oh, okay.

You're a closet cool guy. Okay. He's a wannabe cool guy. No, no, no, no. No, no, he's right. He's right. He's earned the opportunity to be cool. I was going to say, maybe we'd hear some Nickelback.

And the English beat, by the way. I know this is something you'd hear on the ongoing history of new music, but in England, they're just the beat. It's only over here in North America we call them the English beat. Well, there's actually two beats now. There are two English beats now. There are two English beats. Dave Wakeling lives in Los Angeles.

Ranking Roger. And Ranking Roger is in the UK. They've sort of split things. Like a schism. They won't explain what it was. No, they won't, but they basically stay to their respective territories. Yeah, so in other words,

they travel each separately as the English beat and just have sort of a demarcation line. Which is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, basically. Yeah. Interesting. Ah, okay. Sometimes you can see a couple so close together it gets hard to distinguish which one is which.

And bits of them disappear into a space that forms between them. This we could identify as the secret world. Now this is Peter Gabriel. It is a song called Secret World from the Us album. The studio version is just okay. But the live version is absolutely magical. What, does it have a three-minute post? It does.

You can do the weather and sports. Well, on the DVD, it actually runs about 12 minutes. Till I could see the face behind the face. All that I've done before, I've left no trace. Down by the railway side, in our secret world, we were colliding In all the places we were hiding love What was it we were thinking of? Now, a couple of stories here. First of all, if I play drums,

and if I could go back in time to be a member of anybody's band, I would go back and be Peter Gabriel's drummer sometime from 86 through to about 1995 because he had one of the greatest live bands ever, led by Tony Levin, the bass player. Fantastic band. Seen them many, many times. bass player. Fantastic band. Seen them many, many times. In 1992, I was also asked to escort some winners to Rochester, New York, where we were going to see a dress rehearsal for the Secret World Tour. And at the War Memorial Auditorium in Rochester, they had set up the entire stage and they went through the show front to back complete with all the stage pattern all the effects in front of 60 people and i was one of those 60 people and at one one point in the show

and it was a full-on show they peter gabriel does um shaking the tree and everybody in the arena was able to get up on stage and dance around the tree with Peter Gabriel and his band, including me. Wow. And this song, Secret World, was the final song of the night, and it has one of the greatest stage exits you will ever see in a rock and roll setting. And I urge everybody to get,

either go to YouTube and see it or check out the Blu-ray and see how the show ends. It is forever one of my favorite songs. Did he and Kate Bush ever have a thing? Because I knew they did a duet, but they seemed so simpatico. Last week I played it.

In fact, the last episode of this podcast, I played it because that's how Ziggy ended her mush music show. I called it the hug song because the video is just Kate Bush. Rotating and hugging. Yeah, right. I didn't know that Salisbury Hill was about Peter Gabriel's decision to leave Genesis. And it's a real place.

Yes, that I did know. Yeah, in your back. But if you listen to the lyrics, it's got a Jesus Christ undertone to it that I just assumed it was a religious song. No, it was about him deciding in 1975 that he was done with Genesis, and he had been paralyzed by a terrible bout of stage fright

for a number of years, and then decided that, no, this isn't going in the direction that I want it to go, so I'm leaving. And he turned into this avant-garde rock performer for the next few years before things broke wide open with the So album in 1986 and songs like Sledgehammer. Unrelated, how many fibers in your broadcaster body were screaming out as you were talking over the vocals? Every one of them. Isn't that, I can't do it. No, I can't.

It freaks me out. Yeah. Mike? I can do it. No, when a record's on, you don't talk. See, this is what drives me nuts about a lot of British presenters on the radio. Oh, yeah? Because what they end up doing

is they talk up to the vocals at the beginning of the song and then as the song ends or they actually talk over the last verse of the song as it fades out that's the British style of radio it drives me nuts

oh yeah I bet all joking aside it's a big pet peeve of mine when you tread on the song no I don't like it you can't walk the post man no guys this was a great pleasure Michael it was fantastic joking aside, it's a big pet peeve of mine when you tread on the song. You can't walk the post, man. Guys, this was a great pleasure. Michael, it was fantastic to meet

you. We're done? We could do another hour if you'd like. I urge everybody, though, to listen to the newly restored and revigorated Geeks and Beats podcast with Michael Hainsworth and Alan Cross.

I flipped it for you, Michael. I appreciate that. It works better that way. I'm okay with it. Go ahead. And that brings us to the end of our 249th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and Michael is at Hainsworth TV.

Alan is at Alan Cross. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. And Property in the Six is at Brian Gerstein. Call us. Yes. Call Brian today.

See you all next week. It's kind of rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy and gray. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter