Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Morgan Campbell: Toronto Mike'd #1422

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In this 1422nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Morgan Campbell about his career at the Toronto Star and CBC and his fighting family. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada and Electronic Products Recycling Association. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1422 of Toronto Miked. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.

RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today making his Toronto Mike debut is Morgan Campbell. Welcome to Toronto Mike Morgan.

It's great to be here, man. Morgan is- I didn't realize you were a pro wrestling fan. I'm looking at this Georgie Animal Steel action figure, which I also had that same figure. Okay, so my fandom is like literally like from WrestleMania till like 1988 or so and then I fall off but like for that brief period of time But that's the best time to have watched wrestling right 85 through about 92 Who are your favorite wrestlers because I had a favorite but did you have a favorite? Macho Man Savage obviously yeah, and he was probably a

Stone Cold Steve Austin gets credit for being, you know, this antihero because in wrestling you had baby faces and you had heels and when Stone Cold Steve Austin came to the WWF as it was at the time, he was supposed to be a pure heel. But people just fell in love with the idea that this guy would trash talk and beat up on his boss and he became, so he still acted like a heel but he was popular he was the antihero but the macho man was kind of that yeah 15 years previous and that he's this kinetically energetic super arrogant guy but you still kind of liked him no a hundred percent but I felt similar about Rowdy Roddy Piper yeah like they kind

of they positioned him as the like I guess you call it a heel and kind of the bad guy or whatever. But meanwhile, I loved the guy. Like I rooted so hard for Rowdy Roddy Piper and Piper's pit and all that. It's just glorious. It's glorious. But it's nice to meet you, man. Hey, it's great to be here. I feel like I feel like you should have made your debut long ago, but better late than never.

Here you are now. There was a point where you hit me up. It was right before the pandemic and then the schedules got scrambled. And then, uh, okay. But let the record show I hit Morgan up many years ago, but here we are. We're finally here. I just had to wait for you to publish a book. This is how it works here, but welcome.

And again, she's a busy and not on the mic, but we'll just, uh, point out that in the room right now, Perdita Felician, world champion, Hurtlist. That's an honor. Like when you go places with your wife, do you like, Oh, all eyes on her. Like, do you feel like banana for the most part, but I'm used to it. I'll say hello. Hello everybody. Hello. Okay. There he is. Now, now Perdita is now an FOTM that's friend of Toronto Mike. So we're going to get in there cause we have a hard out cause you're off to the social. Where'd you come from right now?

Hamilton? We were in Hamilton. Like CHCH? Yes. Okay. Shout out to CHCH, home of the hilarious House of Fridenstein. Yeah. And also Maple Leaf Wrestling.

With red Billy Red Lions. Yeah. And he'd always say, don't you dare miss it. Yeah. And also I watched a lot of OUAA football on CHCH when I was in high school. Do you remember who was doing play-by-play for that? Oh, I can picture the guy. I just can't remember his name. Okay. Lots of Hamilton memories.

Yes. And Smith and Smith, which eventually became like the Red Green show, but there was that was a CHCH thing that I would watch back in the day. Smith and Smith with Steve Smith, who is red green. So just shouting out all the Hamilton references. Okay, my friend. So let's go. We're going to talk about your new memoir. My fighting family, borders and bloodlines and the battles that made us, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

And if it looks like I haven't cracked this openness, cause I read the PDF version because I think I'm going blind. Like I, I couldn't, I'm like, I'm, I wrote the, I can, I get a PDF version and I can read it on my laptop because I'm like, I couldn't I'm like, I'm I wrote the book, I can I get a PDF version and I can read it on my laptop because I'm having trouble like I have to get really well lit and then glasses. It's a whole production, but we're going to talk about that. I got some music to kind of guide us along, but I just need a little like a little origin story on Morgan Campbell. I want to kind of start the beginning like you interned at the

Detroit News. Yes. So when did you realize you wanted to be a journalist and what brought you to the Detroit News? And just give me a taste of what that was like. All right. I'm going to, I might have to ask you to re ask some of those questions. I'll try to tackle them in order. Well, you can ask yourself questions. Like this is not the CBC. So no, no, me wanting to become a journalist, the Coles Notes version of it is, and I detail this in the book, is that about midway through high school it starts occurring to me that I could be a writer. But the thing was, you know, the novelists that we studied in English class, like they tended to die either broke or unhappy or undiscovered.

You know, like we read Moby Dick and Herman Melville, like he didn't make any money while he was alive, but you know, 50, 60, 70 years after he dies, Moby Dick is required reading and Herman Melville is not getting any of these royalties. So I wanted to- Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Right. So what I wanted to do was write for a living, tell stories for a living, and still get a steady paycheck. And in the mid nineties, in stark contrast to today,

in the mid nineties journalism seemed like a way to be able to do that. So that's how I became a journalist. Okay. And your next question was how, how I'm curious. Okay. So did, did, cause we know about, we're going to talk a little bit about you at the Toronto star. That's where I discover Morgan Campbell.

Most people listening are like, oh yeah, I remember. I first learned of him at the Toronto star. But what was it like at the hopefully, what was it like at the Detroit news? So the way I got that job was my senior year at Northwestern, I went to the university at Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism, right outside Chicago.

So like Medill is famous because Mike Wilbon went there, Brent Musburger, Greenie from ESPN, like Chanel Jones from the Today Show, she was a year behind me, we're good friends. So that, you know, people like that, they put Medilla School of Journalism on the map. But basically I graduated from there, and my senior year you do all these interviews with these different newspapers, different publications, because you're trying to figure out what you wanna do

when you graduate. And they are recruiting. And so I had some internship offers with the New Times, which was like an alternative News Weekly like this. This type of publication doesn't even exist anymore, but they were great for like developing writers. Because- Is this like a now magazine?

Very much so, except like- The original. Bigger, yeah, and more muscular, you know? Okay. You know, and they had a paper in Phoenix, and they had one in Broward County, Florida, and they're like, you can work at either one of these. But then also the Detroit News came along and

said we want to offer you an internship. So I thought to myself all these people are offering internships and they're offering full-time jobs because no one does that in journalism straight out of school and so no one's offering benefits and if I'm down here in the US with no benefits and I break my leg I am screwed right? So I said to myself let me go to the Detroit news because if I work in Detroit I can live in Windsor if something happens to me in Detroit all I'm gonna tell anyone is it get me across the river And I'll go see a doctor from there. It's smart. You got a no hip card. That was how I wound up with the Detroit news Yes, see you never know what the true That was how I wound up with the Detroit news.

Yes. See, you never know what the true story is, but that makes complete sense to me. It's like whatever happens there, just drive me over the border, dump me off at the side of the road and now you can call 911. Exactly. And you can get your broken leg healed without going broke. Yes. What a country we live in here.

Holy smokes. Okay. So tell me how you end up at the Toronto Star. By the way, when you said Broward County, I realized like every four years I hear that word. Like I don't hear it unless there's a, it's a night election night and they're breaking down Florida. It's just north of Miami. So it's where it's where Fort Lauderdale, uh, sunrise plantation, that part of Florida. Every four years you hear about Broward County, but I never hear about it. Like, so I'll hear about it in November essentially, but there there's a teaser there.

Well if you watch the Florida Panthers in the NHL, they play in Broward County. You know what? I didn't even know that. Yes. That's how much I'm watching. Maybe if the Leafs are playing Florida and I got nothing going on, I'm watching Florida Panthers. Okay, so please tell me how you end up at the largest newspaper in the country. You want the full story? Yeah, I mean you got the heart out. I need as much story as we can go.

Let's rock. Long story is, the first time I applied for an internship at the Toronto Star, they rejected me, but they were nice enough to send me a letter and it was addressed to Ms. Campbell. Dear Ms. Campbell, we don't need you. That's maximum respect, right? Yeah, so that was February, that was January of 1999.

Okay. February of 1999, it's Black History Month, and they're like, oh, we gotta do some stories about black people. And Ashanti Infantry, really good friend of mine, I had never met her, but she winds up doing this story, she's like, I wanna profile youngest black people who have really interesting, unusual jobs. So she calls, you know, she meets like, I want to profile youngish black people who have really interesting, unusual jobs.

So she calls, you know, she meets like, I think an engineer, she meets like a young pastor. And then she calls the Royal Conservatory of Music. She's like, do you guys have any black students? They're like, yeah, we have one. Her name is Dana Campbell. She is a soprano. She's an opera singer.

So Shanty's like, I gotta meet her, I want to come write about her. So Shanty goes up there and interviews my big sister Dana. And then Dana says, I have a brother that's just finishing journalism school, can I put you in touch? And Shanty's like, sure. So I get in touch with Shanty and then the next time I'm in Toronto, Shanty brings me downtown to The Star when they were back at One Young Street. And Young, yeah. And introduces me to Sharon Burnside who was in charge of like hiring, like this job doesn't even exist anymore. It's like training, development, and diversity, right? But now like newspapers, they're so gutted now like these are opulent

luxuries to a newspaper now. They're just like, hey can we afford to turn the lights on? Perfect. All right, let's go. Anyway, so I go hang out with Ashanti for an afternoon I hang out with Sharon Birdside for an afternoon so the next time I applied for an internship was the summer of 2000 they remembered who I was and so now they're like yeah come on down for an interview I had to play hooky from my day job to go fly to Toronto. What was that day job? So I was working at a website called schoolsports.com. This was in Boston. Okay. And I had to play hooky from there to fly to Toronto to interview

at the star. So when I got back from that interview, they figured out I was playing hooky and they fired me, but I already had the job offer in Toronto. So basically I had, I got two weeks severance pay, but I was going to quit after one week anyway. So basically I had I got I got two weeks severance pay but I was gonna quit after one week anyway so I actually got an extra week of money out of that. Yeah, you played it perfect actually. So that's how I wound up at the Star for the first time as an intern, yes. Okay so you spent what how long we at the Star? You're there a long time. Yeah like maybe 18 years total because I started there in September of 2000 and then there was a period while I was gone because after my internship they just let us all go.

And then I came back April of 2002 as the scoreboard page editor. Like that job doesn't even exist anymore. And I tell this story a lot, versions of it. Basically the only way I got out of that job was that I did an eight part series on a high school basketball team from Scarborough. And that series got nominated for a

National Newspaper Award. And it was, the fact that I got nominated, that was the only thing that got me out of the scoreboard page job, because that was where the stepping stone meets the glass ceiling. And so, because I was doing the scoreboard page, which is thankless work, and I was writing a little bit on the side, so I was basically doing one and a half jobs for one salary.

And there was no plans to promote me. But once my name is connected with this National Newspaper Award, then they got to promote me because they can't send me to the ceremony and have people ask me what I cover. And I tell them, I don't cover anything because I keep getting passed over for promotions and they will not give me a writing job so they couldn't have that so very quickly I got bumped back up into reporting and then from there it was news back and forth between news and

sports for a while a few years in business a few years back in sports and that was my career at the start okay any chance I could get you to name check some of the people you worked with at the star like like like I mean I will tell you just a couple weeks ago Haroon Siddiqui was here. Yep. He he wrote a memoir. Yes. But he's an older dude. We'll get to this.

I have questions. OK. But writing a memoir when you're a young man. But I I ain't that young. Well go ask my niece how young I am. I'm thinking like if you were getting 90 you mentioned 99 like I feel like we're the same age I mean we will find out maybe you want to tell me I'm 47 Yeah, I'm my left knee some mornings feels like about 62

But you know it depends but your age is whether 47 is young or not I'm thinking like oh the good old days when I was 47. I'm looking in the rear view mirror here He's just a kid as Paulie Walnuts would say just a kid. Yes the kid All right So who who are you? You have any mentors at the star you want to shout out? That's as you mentioned, that's a shrinking pie. So like when I think of what the sports section was like when you got there and what it's like now.

Oh, man. Randy Starkman was really good to me. Oh, man. Because when I came here, I am this intern. You know, literally my first first couple weeks in the sports department at the start, it was October of 2000, so the Sydney Olympics were just wrapping up. And so most of the sports department, this was back when they had budget to travel to these things, they were gone and they were

on their way back and they were decompressing from Australia, so I was really busy, but then when they all came back, there was not as much for me to do. But Randy was really good about mentoring me. When I wrote a good story, he would let me know, put me in touch with some people that helped me write some of the first few feature stories

that really put me on the map. He put me in touch with Troy Ross, the boxer. Troy's claim to fame, other than the fact that he was a two-time Olympian as a boxer is that he was a really talented like fashion designer. So he would design and like make his own kit, his own shorts, his own uniform.

And he had like other fighters, pro fighters too, like wearing Ross wear stuff, right? And so Randy put me in touch with him because I wanted to, right? And so Randy put me in touch, because I wanted to do something on Troy, and Randy put me in touch with, Randy had the guy's number, he's like, here, call him. And you know, and he could have been selfish about that. But he wasn't, you know?

By all accounts, Randy Starkman, a sweetheart. I did recently record with Mary Hines, his wife, and it was a great episode. Like if you ever bored Mary Hines and Steve Paik in here, we did a whole Randy Starkman session. So the next time you have Perdita on, when it's the Perdita episode, when you got an hour to talk to Perdita.

And she has committed to this. Ask her about Randy and Mary. 100%. They were all great friends. Taking a note right now, absolutely. All right, so, oh sorry, Randy Starkman, absolutely was a mentor to you. Anyone else you want to shout out at the journal store?

Oh man. Yeah, Ashanti Infantry, obviously. So, oh sorry, Randy Starkman absolutely was a mentor to you. Anyone else you want to shout out at the journal? Oh man. Ashanti. Yeah, Ashanti Infantry obviously. I don't want to start naming too many individuals because I don't want to leave people out, but like Mary Ornsby, Paul Hunter, Marks Walensky, Dave Fesschuck, Dave Perkins obviously, Chris Zeljkiewicz, Dan Girard, am I just naming people that worked in this one department? For a moment I thought you were naming FOTM.

Rick Matsumoto I always appreciated because he, like every year he was retiring except he never retired. It was like boxing, it's my last fight and he'd always come back. But what would happen was like, you know like boxing. And I'm, that's my last fight. And he'd always come back. But what would happen was like, you know, there are a couple of years I got to cover the Argos and I got a lot of mileage out of covering the Argos because Rick was like, oh, I think it's my last year. And so he would just disappear in vacation all summer.

And then in the fall, he'd be like, hey, I'm back. So I got, I got a lot of clips and good memories out of the fact that Matsumoto was like always On the way to retirement, but never quite retiring. I love that move. That's like the motley crew move I think they signed some contract that this would be their final tour and they were done Yeah, and then like it was like who's gonna enforce this contract that they signed You can't take that to like the judge and say look they cannot tour again We have a signed deal that they're done touring, but OK.

Yeah. And so a few people, but like who also want to who really helped me at the star. Doug Cudmore, who was the business editor, Irene Gentle, who was the business editor before him and Jennifer Quinn, just because and she's now the head of communications for the Raptors because I had you know there were times at the Star when my career was on life support like if you guys Google John Filson and all the scandals that he caused like I worked for him and that guy tried to end my career. Can you elaborate just a little bit there? What did he, he threw you under a bus?

What did he- Oh yeah, so basically he came to the sports department towards the end of 2010. And it became clear that he was targeting certain people to drive them either out of the apartment or out of the company. And so I was one of his targets because within two weeks of him arriving

at the sports department, he demoted me from baseball writer to just general assignment reporter. And with so with me and him, every week there was something a complaint. Why do you think he targeted you? I don't know, because there was. You must have a I mean, you know, allegedly, I don't know if we're supposed to use these words. No, well, with him, it's hard to say, because again, when that, you know, allegedly, I don't know if we're supposed to use these words. No, well, with him, it's hard to say because again, when that scandal blew up with him,

like all kinds of people came forward with stories about how he had mistreated them. So it might not have been anything. It had a lot more to do with him than it did with me. Right. Yeah, but he demoted me. You know, I haven't working in this thankless general assignment role after two years on the baseball beat. And then eventually just kicked me out of the department in August of 2011.

And that move, I sort of read it as part of a constructive dismissal. You know, the hope being that maybe I would dislike my new job and just leave because that's One way you can save money, right? Create these mismatches between The person and their job right they get bored. They get frustrated they need constructive dismissal because well that was what happened at the start because That week there were probably about 24 25 reporters

who got moved to new departments without consultation, without notice, and without any input on where they would be heading. And a bunch of them did, because then these buyouts came not too much longer after that, and a bunch of people took the buyouts because they're like, I don't want to do this. And so that was part of it.

But what happened was I wound up working for Irene Gentle in the business department, and she was really cool. And she let me develop the sports business beat. And so, to go from John Filson, and I have no problem saying his name, I have no problem explaining how and why we don't get along. Every now and then I check up on him because I know at some point he's gonna become

somebody's boss and I gotta make sure he ain't mine. You know what I mean? Well you gotta keep tabs on this, yeah. Yeah, and so, cause he was pretty shameless about like targeting me for mistreatment. And so, yeah, I have no problems telling people what went down between me and him. No

Wow, okay. So we'll put that aside now the at the Toronto Star Business versus sports. What was your what was your where was your heart at? Like, where was your passion there? Well, so what happened was I got sent to the business department with no notice, right? No consultation and I sat down with Irene Jentzel and I was like, look, you could send me out here to write about mutual funds or whatever, but I don't know anything about mutual funds. Your audience is made of people who would either like to know about mutual funds or who already know about mutual funds, so there's not much

I can really tell them, right? But what I do have is all this experience covering sports. And I already have a lot of experience covering off the field issues. So I said to her, why don't you let me take some time and start exploring sports as a business, sports as an industry, in all the ways that sports, and the sports and the money coincide,

the sports and the advertising, sports and the marketing coincide. And she's like, yeah, go, do it, knock yourself out. And so that's what she let, and so I was always thankful to her for letting me do that because that, you know, it opened up a new phase of my career. And then when Doug Cudmore came on as a business editor, yeah, you know, he could have come in and be like, everyone's going to do things my way. But he saw this thing was working and he's smart enough to be like, hey, if this is this thing ain't broke, I ain't breaking it and I ain't fixing it. I'm gonna let it go. So I was always thankful to him

for coming at me that way. And then with Jennifer, she eventually became the sports editor. And then when I went to her and said, hey, can I come back to sports? She again could have been like, don't you dare propose that to me, you little worker bee. I'm the boss, you're a peon.

She said, no, cool, perfect, because I remember, because she'd been gone from the Star Wars, she was like, yeah, I remember your work, you're good, you're smart, let's do it. And then we went to the bosses, and at first the bosses were like, no, how dare this peon, worker bee, try to tell us where he should work.

But then like three weeks later, because they knew it was a good idea, but just had to be their idea, because they couldn't take that it was my idea. So like three weeks later, because they knew it was a good idea, but just had to be their idea because they couldn't take that it was my idea. So then three weeks later, one of the bosses was like, hey, I have an idea. Why don't you go back to sports? I was like, oh really, where'd you get that idea?

It's not like we were sitting in here talking about it three weeks ago. I don't know where you got it. Great idea, boss. Yes. You did it again. Exactly. Well, okay, so you mentioned mutual funds.

So I just need to pause for a very quick moment to tell you if you needed to learn about mutual funds, so I just need to pause for a very quick moment to tell you if you needed to learn about mutual funds, there is now a great podcast you should subscribe to. I'm just going to shout it out. The Advantage Investor from Raymond James Canada. So Morgan, whether you already work with a trusted financial advisor or currently manage your own investment plans, the advantaged investor provides the engaging

wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals. So you're all set. Wow. That was, that was almost like watching an episode of how many works on YouTube. That's pretty good, man. You know, my daughter's name is Morgan. I just got to shout out my youngest, Morgan, and she was very excited. I think you're the first Morgan to come over.

Good stuff. I told her, I told her, well, it's kind of funny. I told her a, a Morgan was coming over and she was very excited. I think you're the first Morgan to come over good. I told her I told her well It's kind of funny. I told her a Morgan was coming over and she's very excited. I said yeah It's a boy Morgan like cuz my Morgan's a girl. Yeah, and yeah, she I love the name Morgan It's like perfect for all genders on yes planet exactly in my I have I have a sister named Dana and a sister named Courtney I asked my mom if they just chose the names ahead of time and she said no, but that sounds like something to do.

Yeah, I think all three of those names work for all genders on this planet. So cool, cool name. Now, why did you leave the Toronto Star? This is a big question, Morgan. So basically- Real talk. question Morgan. So basically I was just at a point where you know I was bumping up against some more glass ceilings and there was more I wanted to be able to do like I don't want to be able to flex some writing muscles and get into like

bigger assignments become a columnist, things like that, but it was impossible to get promoted. Every year there's, someone's coming up with some different reason why I'd love to be able to promote you with this, I'd love to be able to promote you with that. Okay. And, but then the other thing that was happening

is basically every year, and I don't know if the company planned it this way, it just worked out this way way that they would offer buyouts and so I Just told myself like either they will promote me Or they will give me more than a year's salary to leave here and whichever of these things happen is the thing I'm gonna do whichever these things happens first. So year after year You know, I'm kind of on this treadmill And every year they say,

hey, voluntary separation packages. Right. Send an email to HR if you want us to run the numbers. So every yard send the email to HR and like every year the number would get bigger and basically the bigger the number gets, the faster HR gets back to you. Do you see what I'm saying? Well, because they think you'll take them up on the offer.

Yeah, they want you out of there. They want you off the payroll. When you're young, they will get back to you when you get to you. But once you're over 40, those emails cross in cyberspace, man. So we got to... So we can finally cut this baggage loose. Yes, we got to the end of 2019. It was around November 2019 and the call goes out for,

hey, who wants to buy out? And I emailed HR, said, how much y'all gonna give me? And they came back quick, quick, quick, 54 weeks. So I said to my wife, hey, they're gonna give me 54 weeks pay to leave, should I do it? She's like, hell yeah, do it. So then I did it Gave you the thumbs up on that one. Okay, by the way, okay So so you you took the buyout so chunk of cash to go do something else or more of a salary continuance

Okay, better. That's better for you than a chunk of cash. Yeah. Look, I know this game exactly playing it smart Okay and then okay so before I ask you about the CBC, and then I promise you, we're going to spend a good chunk of time on my fighting family, because I quite enjoyed it. And I even have music to... I took so much time to prepare the musical journey we're going to take together more again. And I have my eye on the clock.

All is good now. But before we get you to the CBC, can you please share with us how you met and fell in love with world champion Perdita Feliciano? Like seriously, that's amazing, man. Long story short, it was one point we had met on a flight towards the end of October 2004, but she had a boyfriend, I had a girlfriend, we just met, you know.

We were just making small talk at baggage claim, and I gave her my card, but that was that, and after that I didn't really think about it. Right. And about two and a half years later, it's like March of 2007, I'm going to interview Andre Dury from the Toronto Argonauts.

So he had just finished up at York University. Right. And his story was that he had destroyed his knee a couple of years before that. And to the point where he couldn't walk, he had destroyed his knee a couple years before that, and to the point where he couldn't walk, he had no feeling in his leg. And then finally the nerves had repaired themselves and he rebuilt his knee and he did this long rehab process

and now he's finally training for the CFL draft combine. So that's when I go meet him. And except that he delayed me, he's like, oh, I'm gonna be an hour late. So he threw my schedule off. But like that hour delay, I'm arriving at the track as Perdida's leaving, so I'm going to find Andre and this girl runs past me and I was like,

I think I know her, but I'm about to know her. So then I turn around, she had gone out to the lobby and I turn around, I may or may not have jogged out to the lobby, I might have walked, I might have jogged, depends on who you ask. And I see her, she's in the lobby, she's stretching, she's doing like this calf stretch, and then we start talking, we were both single this time.

And it went from there, she gave me her email address and her phone number. I waited a day to call her and then you got to have some game right? Like I'm impressed. I'm just giving you some props here. It was two or three days. It's 48 hours. 48 hours. That sounds that sounds right to me. Okay. Now how do you get this? Let's cover quickly. Just just how do you get the gig at the CBC? What are you doing now at the CBC? And then I have a question for you from the great FOTM Dave Badini. OK, so basically, I'll tell you this, though. Yeah, because it has to do with, you know, my career because you talk to like other people about me, like people that don't like me.

I don't give a shit. But like the people that like are these people? I need to write down these names. I mentioned one of them. That's true. But then like other people, like other writers, ask them, well, what's Morgan's deal with the star? And they will tell you basically the same thing I would tell you, which is that,

great writer, really good reporter, capable of great work, but I didn't really have anyone in that company like, powerful decision maker who felt like my success was their success, right? Which is how you wind up hitting the glass ceiling, because there's no powerful person saying, this person needs a push. Right?

For years at the Star is, oh, we don't quite know what to do with you. We don't quite know what to do with you. You don't fit in the box. Yeah. So what happens though is, you know how it is like when you leave a media job these days, especially if you if you leave of your own free will You do the Twitter thread, you know I'm doing this Twitter thread on the Friday night that I left the star about leaving the star, right and like as I'm tweeting this Out I get DMs from two people

One of them is Scott Sellers Like we should acknowledge there is a fourth person in the room everybody. Yeah Scott Sellers is here as well from Penguin Random House like and he's like What are you working on? Let's meet in the new year to discuss ideas, right? Which is Born. Yeah, and then another was Chris Wilson from the CBC Who is like hey, let's work on some stuff in the new year, right? So for all these years of we don't know what to do with you,

we don't know what to do with you, we don't know what to do with you. There are people that were familiar with my work that were like, we know just what we would do with him. So that was how I wound up becoming the first senior contributor at CBC Sports. Amazing, and you're still at CBC and that Twitter thread, it sounds like, yeah, you announced your free agency. Yes, exactly. But it might be gone now because I put my Twitter into this app that deletes posts after a certain, after a month or so.

So why is that? Just because I don't want that much of me hanging around on the internet forever. You know, and you say, especially now, like you say one thing that you think you're being funny and you forget about it. And it might not even get much engagement at the time. But if that joke doesn't age well, and then two years later somebody finds it, like they throw it back in your face and now you got to defend something that you barely remember

saying. And it's all out of context. Yes. The moment's gone. I hear you right. All right. That's smart. Smart. A lot of smart happening here.

Now, Dave Badini, another smart guy. Yes. He says, Morgan runs Centennial Hill every day. So I used to when I lived in the West End, I used to run it periodically. And then what we used to do is, again, back before our knees started going on strike, a friend, I have a few friends who is four of us who are all born the same week, the same year. And then we're also all like into running. Right. So what we would do is we would have this group birthday party and the birthday party was we would run up and down the hill at Centennial Park. So that's what he's referring to. Whereabouts in the universe do you live now? You've left that neck of the woods? Now I'm in Ajax.

I had no idea. Okay. So I'm from the West End, my wife is from the East End. We got married and my Perdita was like, as a married couple, we should compromise on where to live. You're from the East, I'm from, you're from the West, I'm from the East, and the compromise is you move to the East. And that was the compromise. All right, because Perdita's from Oshawa, right? Born in Oshawa, grew up in Pickering.

Okay, all right, okay, so once you get East of Young, I'm all lost here, so. That was me for a long time, but now listen, I know it very well. Now you know it. So the question from Dave Badini is about the, you know, back when you ran Centennial Hill and I read your book and you reference Centennial Stadium and I know that well as well. Now, Dave wants to know your thoughts on that stadium is being renamed

for Rob Ford. I can think of a local government making for a couple of reasons. One, that park, that whole complex is named Centennial for a reason, because it opened in 1967, 100 years after confederation. Now if we are proud Canadians what we don't do is take a name that celebrates the 100th anniversary of this awesome country and move it to the background because we want to foreground an individual. Is Rob Ford more important than the country itself? No, he's not. No. And it'd be different too, if he were a well-loved,

well-regarded, well-remembered mayor and he's not, right? So you think this is purely a political maneuver by Olivia to Doug? I maybe, I don't know. And the other thing is, you see all kinds of, like in Mississauga, you had the Hershey Center, right? And if Hershey had not sponsored it, it would be called something else, right? But Hershey cut a check to the city of Mississauga for the name Hershey Center.

Now it's Paramount Fine Foods. Paramount cut a check to the city of Mississauga. Now, if Rob Ford or the backers of Rob Ford want to say to this city where they had to just raise property taxes because the city never has money because you guys have had two consecutive austerity mayors and the lowest property taxes in the province. See, this city ain't never got money.

Now, if the backers of this Rob Ford Stadium Resolution wanna come up with $10 million to buy the naming rights, that's something different. Just like BMO Field is owned by the city and BMO cuts this check for naming rights to the field. If they want to do that, that's something different. But this here, just naming it after Rob Ford is ridiculous. And since it's insulting, frankly,

and it's never gonna be Rob Ford Stadium to me, it's always gonna be Centennial Park Stadium or Centennial. Well, great question, Dave. And yeah, great answer, Morgan. Now, aren't you a little young to be writing a memoir? No. So you could because I feel like memoir. I mean, I went Haroon was here and he had a memoir and I'm like, he's he's significantly older than you, as you know.

And I still felt like, are you dying? Like, are like are you unwell like is this a farewell to a life well-lived because you're younger than I am Morgan and you're not you know yet 50 but why now to write your memoir well one was that I took the buyout from the job so I had time that was when I had time. That was when I had time. So let's say I had, well, I mean, full-time jobs don't really exist in journalism anymore, but let's say I had fantasy world now indulge me. There's some other full-time job I'm in, then I don't know when I'm going to have another opportunity to sit down and write a memoir. And so it was the right time because I had the time. And Scott made Scott approach to you, as you mentioned earlier, and, uh,

I was tinkering with some ideas and then Scott came to me. He's got, uh, messaged me and said, Hey, let's get together in the new year. And then, uh, yeah. So we went to breakfast in February, it was right before the pandemic and he's like, so what are you thinking? So I asked him, I was like, have you ever heard of Boy Wonders by Cahal Kelly, who's another good friend of mine, we worked together at the Star, and he blurbed this book. And he's like, yeah, of course, I commissioned that book. I was like, okay, cool. So I was like, picture a book that like, splits the difference between Boy Wonders by Cahal

Kelly and What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young. Put those two books together and that's what I'm thinking of. And he's like, okay, cool. Can you have a proposal back to me in four weeks or three weeks? Something like that. It was a pretty tight turnaround. I was like, sure. And so in between him saying that to me and turning in the proposal was like when they decided

to shut everything down. It was like mid-March 2021. But yeah, you know, we got the book done. We got the 2020. 2020. Sorry. You know, we got the deal done virtually, you know, over Zoom and email and all of that. So we made it work.

You made it work. Now there's's a few different threads I wanna pull out from reading this book. Again, book, it's available now. Oh yeah. My Fighting Family Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us by Morgan Campbell. But I thought a little, just a little music here, a few threads I wanna pull in.

["Fighting Family Borders and Bloodlines"] The Entertainer. threads I want to pull in. The Entertainer. Yes. Did you know why I'm playing this song? I think so. So that's Scott Joplin that wrote that. And Scott Joplin was like one of the early pop music stars, to the extent that that existed back in like the Tin Pan Alley days, right?

so the thing about Scott Joplin is that he had a nephew that went to grade school with my great-grandfather and so the thing about that detail in the book is that other people in my family did not know that. So when I was fact checking with my mom, I was like, did you know that Gramps went to grade school and, you know, and back then you had to build the schoolhouse that they

built this school because that was the picture they had just built the schoolhouse. Right. And there's this picture of all these boys. Is this Chicago? This is in Texas. Texas. Okay. Right. There's a picture of all these black boys and a teacher

Standing outside the schoolhouse that they had just built and then my grandpa's like that guy right there is your great-grandfather That guy right there is Scott Joplin's nephew Wow and And so I Asked my mom about that and my mom was like I had no idea So grandpa was just sitting on that. He just decided to tell me one day. He's just sitting on this gem of an anecdote. So what made, and the reason this is in the book is to get your audience caught up.

My grandfather was a musician. He played jazz, which is how we wound up moving to Canada. He got booked. Claude Jones, Jr. Yes. So he got, he was well known in Chicago, but these Canadian agents were just adamant about booking him and he didn't want to come, but eventually my grandmother talked to me in the coming.

And when he fell in love with Toronto and he wound up moving here, then my parents followed a couple years after that. But like, again, our whole presence here in Canada owes to the fact that he is a musician. The fact that he is a musician owes to the fact that he had an older sister who, she's about eight years older than he was, so she was graduating high school. He's still in grade school just playing, taking piano lessons.

And she wants to go to junior college, she wants to become a librarian. Her parents, my great grandparents, they're like, look, we can't afford the son's piano lessons and the daughter's junior college. And basically they're like, you're a woman. This is what they say to my great aunt. You're a woman, you don't need a career. Your brother needs a career. Piano might be his career,

we're gonna invest in your brother. So the money's going to your brother. Good career. Piano might be his career, we're gonna invest in your brother. So the money's going to your brother, good luck to you. And she winds up working like she becomes, you know, she didn't have a lot of options, you know? And she winds up becoming a domestic and that was her job for 50 years. And so when my parents,

when my mom's, not both my parents, but my mom's side of the family, when they tell that story to us, they frame it strictly as a decision that was sexist, the sexist decision, which it was. Right. But all these years later, grandpa, but it's still like a, it's a weird thing to do,

to decide that piano is gonna be more important than a job, because for most people, still piano is a hobby. You don't put your kids in piano lessons thinking that they're going to make a living doing this. And it never quite made sense to me like why would they do this. But two things I found out about my grandfather, my mom told me he was born in the call, C-A-U-L, call, in an amniotic sac. And a lot of old folks, you know, from my great grandparents' generation,

when you come out of, your mom gives birth to you and you're wrapped in this amniotic sac, like that's his great omen. And that's a sign to them that you're gonna be special. So there's that. And at the same time, well, much later, grandpa's like, yeah, this is Scott Joplin's nephew who's buddies with your great-grandfather.

And they all wound up in Chicago at the same time. So that nephew's son was friends with my grandfather growing up. So now I put those pieces back together. I'm like, oh, okay. So it's not just that my great-grandparents were sexist, which they were, but they also have this kid who's born in an amniotic sac,

born in the call. Yes. So they think he's going to be special. And at the same time, Gramps had grown up with a guy who was one degree of separation from somebody who'd made a fortune playing piano. So in Gramps' mind, this is, hey man, of course this is going to work out because it worked out for my friend's uncle. So.

And you're literally, you're literally only here today because your grandfather, Claude Jones Jr. came to Canada. Yes, 100%. And so. From Chicago. Yeah, and so like, my grandpa didn't mind people thinking that we owed everything to him

because none of y'all would be here if I wasn't here as a musician. But wasn't really cool, but was not as quick to acknowledge that he actually owed everything to his big sister. Because if she did not allow herself to be pushed aside, if she wasn't forced to give up her dreams so that he could play piano, we wouldn't be here

because he wouldn't have what he has. No, Morgan, when I, when I first got my copy of my fighting family, like initially I'm like, oh, like it's going to be about in fighting in Morgan Campbell's family. Like there's some of that. There's some of that for sure. But there's a line you wrote in the book. I just want to quote you in the book. If you were black and American and wanted something, anything, you would have to fight. Like this thread of fighting for, you know,

and being a black. And again, your family, you're a Canadian, but that's only because Claude Jones Jr. came here with his musical talent. And otherwise, it was Chicago. And like, speak to that the the the title my fighting family Well the title The title was initially just the title of a chapter, you know

It's an early chapter in the book where I kind of set up the characters and the conflicts that Take place in that chapter, but some of them that were also gonna pay off Later on and so that line about having to fight for everything that was in reference to my grandfather when he would tell us The story of how he integrated his schools ROTC which for Canadians, it's like a cadet program that a lot of American high schools have so it's like You learn how to be in the military and you march in formation all this stuff and their high school in Chicago learn how to be in the military, new marching formation, all this stuff.

And their high school in Chicago, Fanger High School had some black kids, but not a lot, because again, that city is highly segregated. And it was just sort of happenstance that their boundary kind of skimmed the bottom of a black neighborhood. So they had some black students. Then my grandpa, they lived in a white neighborhood.

They were the only black family in the white neighborhood. So he was there too. And he tried to join the ROTC and the teacher would just make up these rules about not to keep him out. He said, oh no, we're not allowed to have black kids in the ROTC. And my grandpa was like, where is this written down?

What are you talking about? This is Chicago. Right. You know, you guys don't have it. So he winds up going to the school board unbeknownst to his parents, because his parents are from the old country and back down south, like for the most part, you didn't rile up white people like that. school board unbeknownst to his parents because his parents are from the old country

and back down south, like for the most part, you didn't rile up white people like that because you didn't know what they would do in retribution. But he's like, oh, that's Chicago. There's no rule saying I can't be in the ROTC. This guy's making up rules. I'm gonna go to the school board. So that's what he did, right?

And the thing is, so yeah. You gotta fight. So for yeah, you have to advocate for yourself. You have to fight otherwise. Like, you know, the world doesn't necessarily care what you want or what you need, especially if you're black. And so you can wind wind up being marginalized unless you advocate for yourself. If you were black and American and wanted something, yes, anything you would have to fight. Yes. And so it's also me making sense of my grandpa because in this book, in terms of the family fights, he's in almost all of them.

And if they don't involve him to start, like he jumps in. And part of it is that he just likes attention and he likes control. But there's also this idea that like he grew up having to fight for stuff all the time. And he just kind of uses that as a template to handle like everything so like you know there's a day-to-day disagreement with someone in your family that's like him going to the school boards like I got a win right I'm gonna do whatever I can to win so

that's that's where that title came from and then my agent Martha Webb said that would make a great title for the book. So that's how it became the title of the book. By the way, I remember Cypress Hill sampling this. Yeah. Of course. Hand on the pump. Hand on the pump, right? Let's get a little vocal here.

Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl. And you, you are my girl. And no one can hurt you. Gene Chandler, so tell the audience, tell the listenership, why did Mike decide to play Duke of her own? Okay? So My mom's dad, Claude Jones. He's a musician and at their house in Chicago he had this big Steinway piano and

He had all this recording equipment and he also had photography equipment because he was also a photographer. And so all kinds of people would come by the house, like famous musicians would come by just because they were friends and they would hang out with my grandparents. And then all these other musicians would come by just to like practice or to like record demos, right? And then he could also take their pictures

and be like, hey, look, here's a mock-up of an album. Here's how an album might look. And so some of them were really, really good. And then some of them were bad. And they also had a, sorry, lost my train of thought for a second. They also had a stereo system that they could play the sound either from Claude's stereo or from the recording studio all through the house so that people could listen. So somebody was really good or really bad

he would turn on the stereo and then the other people in the house could hear it they were good they would enjoy it if they were bad they would laugh. So what happens is one day this woman comes over with three or four guys and she's like hey I want to record a demo of this song I've written and they start... so my grandpa's looking at the song, he's like, this song, it's on paper, looks like it's gonna suck. I'll play it anyway, you guys are paying. So he starts playing and they start singing and he's like, ooh, these guys are bad, this song is bad. He turns on the stereo so that my mom and my aunt and

my grandmother in the kitchen can hear it. And these guys start singing, do, do, do, do cover. And then my mom and my aunt, theyke, duke, duke, duke of Earl. And then my mom and my aunt, they start cracking up. They're like, what is this garbage? Who are these people? And then there's a point in the second verse where the guy says, as we walk through my dukedom and my aunt just lost it, she starts cracking up.

And so in between takes, my grandpa comes in to the kitchen, he's like, you guys gotta go because they're making too much noise. They're gonna mess up the recording. So he kicks them out of the house, and then from there, they just forget, because there's so many people that would come through making so many, like recording so many forgettable songs,

and the only reason you remember some of them is because they were so bad. And so they think Bernice Williams and these guys are gonna join the list of the people you remember for being bad, and then a few months later, they start hearing this song on the radio and like, what is this? And so I don't think they told, they told like a few of their closest friends that like, yeah, these guys had actually come by the house and we laughed them out of the house. But like they weren't, they weren't bragging about the fact that that's

amazing, right? That's amazing. That's amazing. Hey, do you and Perdita and you had children, right? You have a daughter, how old is your, do you and Perdita and you had children, right? We have a daughter. You have a daughter. How old is your daughter now? Four or she'll be five in the spring. I feel like that's prime lasagna eating years. Okay.

I feel like does your family enjoy Italian food? Oh, my daughter was singing about pizza just yesterday. Okay. You know, that's a more a, okay. I'll sing for you. I have before you leave, I have a large lasagna. It's frozen in my freezer right now, but Palma Pasta sent over lasagna for you guys. I appreciate it.

So that box is empty, but it'll be cool when you leave here. So there's a thank you Palma Pasta for the lasagna. And also I've got some fresh craft beer for you to bring home. And that's courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. I appreciate that. We're taking care of you, Morgan. Sounds good. And there is a measuring tape there because you never know when you need to measure something.

And that is courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. And we recorded a new episode of Life's Undertaking. That's Ridley Funeral Home's podcast that Brad Jones hosts. And that dropped last night. People should check that out. But Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921. We love the people at Ridley Funeral Home.

And that measuring tape is for you. You're taking care of you Do you get these the swag from the social are they gonna give you lasagna at the side out it? Are they gonna give you beer? You know, come on. Just remember that. Okay, so All right. Now I realized we're gonna have to cook with gas here. That's fine. I will just quickly shout out recycle my electronics dot CA because Morgan if you have that drawer at home filled with old cables and old Devices, maybe your old blackberry from back in the day or whatever and this stuff can't be thrown in the garbage because the chemicals end up in our landfill go to recycle my electronics dot ca and

You can find a place near you where you can drop it off to be properly recycled. You got your marching orders there find a place near you where you can drop it off to be properly recycled. You got your marching orders there? 100%. Okay, so let's, uh, this is tis the season actually. This is the perfect time for this song. We are the best, shufflin' crew, shufflin' on down, doin' it for you We're so bad, we know we're good, blowin' your mind like we knew we would You know we're just, streettin' for fun, streettin' our stuff for everyone We're not here to start no trouble, we're just here to do the Super Bowl show

Well they call me Sweetness and I like to dance, runnin' the ball is like makin' moments We had the goal since training camp to give Chicago a Super Bowl champ. And we're not doing this because we're greedy. The Bears are doing it to feed the needy. We didn't come here to look for trouble. We just come hitting through the Super Bowl shop. This is Beatty Williams and I'm world class.

I like running, but I love to get the pass. I don't even want to fade this down, I love it. But please tell me what you're thinking about as you listen to the Super Bowl shuffle. That's my favorite line, I'm as smooth as a chocolate swirl, I dance a little freaky so watch me girl. So Walter Payton, sweetness, I like to dance, running the balls like making romance, he was my first favorite athlete. And so my parents are from Chicago, they are hardcore Chicagoans, right?

And big Bears fans. And one of the things I've noticed is that I have become my parents. Like in middle age, I watch a lot of Chicago Bears and every Sunday I watch them and I complain. I watch them and I complain because they are not good. And they are generationally bad. This is, this is, they haven't been good consistently since probably the 1940s, since my parents were in daycare.

If people even had daycare back then. But for the most part, they lose a lot more than they win. Every few years they'll be good. And then 1985, they were very good. Very good. So they were a very exciting team. Well be good and then 1985 they were very good very good so they were a Very exciting team and well not exciting, but they were well if you were a Bears fan It was exciting just to watch them. I think that was a very exciting team

I'm gonna say people on defense every week and then just pound you with Walter Payton It was exciting cuz Jim McMahon and the whole yeah And McMahon was sort of his maverick. Yes, and so and they had these characters and they were arrogant enough to go Make this song about winning the Super Bowl During the regular season. This is the thing that people don't understand They do not make this song like on the way like during the bye week between the Super Bowl This was like probably November. They're like we think we're gonna win the Super Bowl. Let's go make a song about it Yeah, they don't win the Super Bowl everybody points at this as like, you know, being overconfident.

Yes. So the other thing about that season is that, like, when you read memoirs like this one that are in essays, there's always one chapter that's way longer than the rest of the chapters. Usually that's the last chapter. So as I handed this book to my editor, Jordan Ginsburg, he's like, this Super Bowl Shuffle chapter is really long. I'm like, yeah, every memoir and essays has a really long chapter, usually at the end, but this one just for me just happens to be a third of the way through the book.

And so the thing about that year in our family was that my parents is hardcore Chicago Bears fans You know, they they had us all watching the Bears and the Bears were like this Binding forces gravitational center for our family But that's also the same year that my parents marriage is falling apart and like the but the thing That keeps us together at least for that year is The Bears and there's a scene where we have this big family counseling session, but it's on a Monday night. And it's the same Monday that the Bears are scheduled

to play the Miami Dolphins. If you guys remember that season, if you're old enough, and if you're young enough, you can Google it. Because the Bears were trying to go undefeated that season, and the only team that was really good enough to stop them, to slow them down was the Miami Dolphins. Right. And it was a big deal to be able to see that game,

but the schedule had us right up against kickoff. So, you know, we do this, the family counseling session is very intense, especially from my dad's side, because he's feeling things that he doesn't like talking about to anyone let alone a therapist but like the second it was over man he has a listen to the car like guys we gotta go right home kickoff was at 907 we got home probably 858 in there and then my parents sent me to bed I woke up thinking the Bears had won my

mom broke the news and you know at that point I was like nine. Yeah. And I thought I was too old to cry over sports. The outcome of the sports event. I was wrong. I cried. It's interesting. I didn't, I didn't weep, but I cried. You cried. It's interesting that the dolphins break up that undefeated season because the dolphins are the only team to go into that was the subplot. Exactly. Like Mercury Morris and and larry zonka coming back out to put a hex on the bears and is it true that every every season when the last team loses for the first time they still get together and it might be red and celebrate knowing them and that is probably a hundred percent true was it was it Tom Brady had that undefeated

season and they lost to yes in the Super Bowl to Manning. New York Giants. The New York Giants. Yeah. David Tyree had that that catch off of his helmet. Of course. Rodney Harrison hanging on him. Who do you have in this year's Super Bowl? Kansas City. I'm with I don't like betting against the Patrick Mahomes. Like, I think that's a bad idea.

Yeah, their defense is too good. You know, the defense will keep them in the game. You know, and Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes, it's a cliche to say someone just finds a way to win because the only way you can keep finding ways to win is if you're that good. So it's not just about him finding ways to win in the clutch. It's because he is very good and very prepared

and he's very resourceful. But these are all also measures of functions of his skill and his preparation and not just some intangible Absolutely now you've referenced your dad a few times your dad's name was Pete Campbell. Yes Also a character of Mad Men. Did you yes? Yeah. Yeah Not so good Bob. Okay. Shout out to Pete Campbell there the actor who plays Pete Campbell My wife and I met him at the the Ontario Center. Wow. And she was married to Alexis, well, I guess they are still married, Alexis Bledel, who was in town filming the Handmaid's Tale.

Okay. So there's my brush of greatness. Now I have a new brush of greatness, great as I met your wife. So that'll be my new story. Now. Okay. So your dad, I would just, do you mind sharing a little bit about the fight between your dad and Jamaican Carl. Yeah. So one of the subplots in this book, right, is how we as African Americans, you

know, function in this country, function as black people in a country where most of the people are white, but also as African Americans in a city where most of the black people are not from the United States. And so what happens is, you know, we grew up out in Mississauga and in Northwest Mississauga in the, you know, seventies, late seventies, early eighties, not a ton of black people. There's some, but like not so many that you can like, act picky about whether or not you're going to make friends with them or whatever. Like, you got black neighbors, you try to make friends. And so, you know, there's a couple

of Jamaican families on the street. You know, and they were, you know, my dad was friends with them for a while, but then, some of them he was still cool with, but then this dude, Carl, and he had a wife, and then they had a daughter, and the daughter was a couple years bigger than my sister Dana.

And she was sort of like a neighborhood bully. And so what happens is Dana and the daughter get into it and then the dads get involved. And so my dad and Jamaican Carl, they start fighting. And then my mom runs up the street. Jamaican Carl's wife now comes out with a two by four. She wants to hit my dad with a two by four like she's Hacksaw Jim Duggan or something, right? Thing about my mom is my mom is short.

My mom's probably five feet tall. You wouldn't know it just the way people dress. She's just wearing a sweatshirt or whatever. She's a little woman, but my mom is tremendously strong and very fast. So the woman comes out with a two by four. My mom's like grabs a two by four and like body checks her and she goes falling down. Throws a two by four away. So now the Jamaican Carl's wife, the two dads are still fighting. At some point Jamaican Carl like grabs a brick and the brick skims my dad across the forehead. Wow.

So Jamaican Carl's wife says to the daughter, go get the knife. And then my mom steps in front of the daughter and she says, don't go get that knife unless you wanna get cut. Daughter's like, maybe I won't get the knife. Cause then again, she just seen my mom like body slam her mom and she's like, she don't know what my mom will or won't do if she comes out here with a knife. So she stays put and eventually the wrestling match between the parents, between the dads, it peters out.

And that was dad. Plun intended. Yeah, exactly. And then that was dad and my dad and Pete Campbell and Jamaican Carl going toe to toe on the lawn. You know, over just like some little kid stuff, you know? Your memoir, My Fighting Family,

tells the incredible history of your family's battles across the generations and reckons with what it means being a black Canadian with strong American roots. Like before we say goodbye today, and I do want to find out what your next project's going to be, like what you got in the pipeline, what you're thinking of next. But I mean, that's a big question and people should definitely read this book and absorb it and ponder it. But what does it mean being a black Canadian

with strong American roots? Oh, it can mean a lot of things. And this is one of the questions, I don't know that there's a one sentence or one paragraph answer to that question. That's why I have a 300 page answer to that question. So one of the things I try to explore, and my good friend, Belmoni Jones, who wrote a blurb for the book, he lays it out in the sense that he says, well, this book explores a question of the black experience, like an aspect of

the black experience that people don't usually touch on, which is what it was like for those of us who went so far north that we left the country. So in one sense, I want, you know, this is like a dispatch from Canada for black America and a love letter to black America from across the border. But I did also really want to highlight because here in Canada and especially here in Toronto, you know, we say we throw around the phrase black community when really like the people here who live here in Toronto who's who embody the range of phenotypes that we call black, that goes from people that look like Dwayne Johnson,

you know, all the way to people that look like Pascal Seacombe, there's a lot of shades of black and brown in between that, but we say black community. Meanwhile, people on that spectrum of phenotypes come from all over the place. And there are a lot of different stories, a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different ways of getting here. A lot of people on that spectrum of phenotypes that have been here for a long time, been in Canada for generations.

So what I wanted to do is like the story of African Americans in this multicultural black community often gets glossed over and what I wanted to do is really highlight what it's like for black Americans in this country why we come here why some of us stay why some of us go back why some of us go back, why some of us go back and forth. One of your lines in the book was, Canada gave us a chance. So what did you mean by that? Canada gave us a chance. Yes, so that was the same year, the Super Bowl shuffle year, because the other thing

that's happening, my parents' marriage is falling apart, but also I am among the worst behaved students in the history of Manaville village public school. It's always, listen, if they should have just had a locker for me in the principal's office, like they knew me. I was a regular, right? Like if I had a, like if I had a way I liked my coffee, they would have known it. That's how often I was in there.

You see what I'm saying? And so my mom would point this out to me though later when I'm old enough to understand because she's like, look, you wound up in counseling because the teachers saw that you were talented. So you were this bad kid, but you did really well on standardized test scores. And so they knew you had some talent that they didn't want to waste.

So they actually cared enough and took the time to try to get to the bottom of this problem, like why you're acting like this. And so the point she would make to me, and it's true, is that in a big segregated, big city American educational system, public school, where these schools are often like chronically underfunded, overstressed, you can't guarantee that teachers, regardless of how well you do on your standardized tests, are gonna take the time and be able to access a network

of specialists who can help you get to the bottom of the problem. Like the thing that's much more likely is that you just get labeled a problem and you just wind up in trouble all the time and in this pipeline that goes from schools to prisons. And so the Peel Board of Education, which is now the Peel District School Board, like they gave us a chance.

And I don't know that I would have had that chance if I had grown up in Chicago or Detroit or Buffalo or wherever. Right. It makes complete sense. And I really do hope people pick up a copy of my Fighting Family and then they can, they can, you know, learn more about the Campbell family and tracing your family's roots from the rural American South to Chicago and of course then finally to Canada where you are today. I'm glad you're here and I'm glad we had this conversation. Really appreciate it man. I appreciate you having me. What are you working on next?

Do you want to team up? Well no, in the ways and I point out to you that the writing is a lot like boxing so I feel like the guy who is just one a hellacious 12 round fight by decision Still beat up and bruised and in the ring the the Interviewer says who do you want next? I'm like I haven't thought about that. I just Beat up on this guy and what the fighters always say in that situation is I'm gonna go back and talk to my team Talk to my manager and see what's next. All right, now I'm going to read from the chapter Morgan versus virginity. Oh, geez. Okay. Who wins that battle? I guess you have to hit me. It was closer than it should have

been. Okay. And that brings us to the end of our and twenty second show. I can't wait for Perdita to make her debut Is it next year? 2025 Sorry, I actually I muted your mic because I thought it was too much air But I unmuted it now so so you had you're actually working on a book for you I am and it should be out in a year if I meet my deadline which is in six days And you'll be down here for a chat Are you gonna bring Morgan?

Yeah, maybe. OK. Morgan can be supportive. Well, if he likes a lasagna, he'll be back. Exactly. That's for sure. You can follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky. I'm at Toronto Mike Morgan.

Is there anywhere in social media we could follow the adventures of Morgan Campbell? I'm on Twitter at Morgan P. Campbell. I'm on Instagram. Same handle. I guess I'm on LinkedIn for like the work nerds. That's about it. All right. I'll tag you in all those places when this goes live in about five minutes.

Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Recycle My Electronics, Raymond James Canada, and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all Monday when my special guest in the studio is the former premier of this fine province Kathleen Wynn making her Toronto Mike debut. See you all then. It's rosy and gray I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who, yeah I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of gray

Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true