Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Peter Gross: Toronto Mike'd #380

Episode Date: September 25, 2018

Mike chats with Peter Gross about his stints at City TV and 680 as well as his love for fried chicken, horse racing and more.

Welcome to episode 380 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know, Peter, that 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? I didn't know that, no. GLB, now you know it I didn't know that, no. GLB. Now you know. It's brewed for you, Ontario. And Propertyinthe6.com

Toronto Real Estate Done Right. And PayTM, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from PayTM.ca and Census Design and Build, providing architectural design, interior design, and turnkey construction services across the GTA. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me is 680 News sportscaster, Peter Gross.

Welcome. Okay, so this is the 380th podcast that you've done? Mr. Peter Gross. Welcome. Well, good morning. Okay, so this is the 380th podcast that you've done? I saved my best for 380. So you found 379 people more interesting, more relevant than me. That's okay. That's okay. I just like to know where I stand.

That's impossible. And anyone who listens to this show knows what a fan I am of the, what I call the glory days of City TV. Okay. I won't shut up about it. I have complete episodes with Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario etc. where we just talk about the good old days

of City TV. So this is an absolute pleasure for me. Well, there's hours and hours of material if you want to go back to 1976 to 86. My first 10 years at City TV was a remarkable experience that's for sure. Good. This is a six-hour podcast.

My nap is in 45 minutes. Okay. Speed it up. We have to speed this up. Okay. So let's dive right in. And you noted that I'm not much for small talk before the recording. I like to get to know the guest live.

I hope that doesn't come across as rude. I never really thought. Maybe these guests come in and they think I'm rude because I don't want to chat. No, no. You know what? I like the idea that I barely made it down the stairs. You put the headphones on and here we go.

That's great. I don't like to waste time. Well, now that I learned you have an app coming up, I'm glad I got right to it. This is valuable time. In fact, I'm going to cut to the chase. Actually, I'm going to save this part for later. How about you set this up by telling me a little bit about the pre-City TV Peter Gross.

How do you end up at City TV? Well, that's interesting. I was driving taxi in the early 70s in Toronto. There is a story that I picked Moses Neimer up, which isn't true i never did pick moses neimer up but i believe i picked phyllis switzer up and i was interested in the whole process that was going on at city tv and uh might have been 1973 okay um they had a show with the host william ronald you know who william ronald was he was this character he was a little over the host William Ronald. Do you know who William Ronald was? I do not. He was this character. He was a little over the top, wore a black cape,

and hosted a show called Anything Goes. And I showed up with a hot plate and a marijuana plant. And my intention was to fry up, dry out some marijuana on the hot plate and smoke a joint on live TV. I was a mature young fellow at that time. That's great. And it was interesting because he freaked out. He was a little bit upset and kind of cut me off. But Phyllis Switzer, the woman who founded City TV, took me aside and said, that was great. I love that. was great i love that and kind of put put a bug into my head that maybe i should come by again and uh just kind of sum it up in a few sentences i ended up driving the one city television

cameraman don purser around in my taxi from time to time their one city television van would break down and i may have once or twice grabbed the mic and interviewed somebody. And that was my first taste of television. Amazing. So you're there driving around the cameraman periodically, but how do you parlay that into on-air appearances? How does that switch happen?

Well, around the fall and winter of 1975, just from going in the building, meeting people, I started writing the sportscast for $5 a night for John Mitter. They had a thing called City World News. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And I think they're still paying that rate i think and then uh maybe i uh gene taylor hosted a show in the afternoons the gene taylor show bright bright very funny comic stand-up comedian hosted a show there and i started hanging out at the fryer's tavern and doing stand-up doing poor stand-up comedy by the

way and then he invited me to a new year's party and this is where the story of me driving or picking up moses in my cab m he asked me to go file a report on a friend of his named damien lee who uh was promoting the cross great cross canada race where people would drive or hitchhike or ride bicycles or paddle their canoes across canada and he was holding a promotional thing at the inn on the park uh it was a belly flop contest okay and this was my first appearance on tv and i was wearing my three-piece bar mitzvah suit and i and i it just struck me that the most natural thing i could possibly do was to jump off the diving board at the end in my extra with my suit on. Right.

And that's what I did, and Moses loved it, and that led to other assignments. Now, my observation, and I was not watching in the 70s, but I was watching throughout the 80s, but what I remember about City TV and why I always preferred City TV was the character. Like the personalities and the character. It seemed interesting and real and funky and cool.

Like I was really drawn to it. And you were definitely one of those characters on City TV. Well, you've hit right on it. Moses wanted characters playing a role in the drama, in the theater that was Toronto. He did not want a stereotypical handsome guy in a suit giving some abstract report. He liked me because I had bad hair, I was pockmarked, I had energy, and I would do anything. So he encouraged me to do that, to break the prototypical substance that was reporting up to that point. Now, I was on the phone, coincidentally, I was on the phone yesterday of Gene Volitis from Jesse and Gene. And you worked with Gene at CFTR, at least he tells me. Yes.

But he had a story. And I'm going to share the story. After I play a clip from Brian Gerstein, Brian is a real estate sales representative of PSR Brokerage. He's at propertyinthesix.com. Brian wants to give you a gift. There's a pint glass in front of you. That is yours to take home, courtesy of Brian Gerstein at Property in the Six. He can never have enough pint glasses.

I know, you're right about that. And before I play Brian's clip in which he asks a question, which segues nicely into what Gene Velitis told me yesterday, I want to give you something to pour into the Property in the Six pint glass. That six-pack of fresh craft beer, that's courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery, that's also yours to take home with you. Fantastic. Best day of myy. That's also yours to take home with you. Fantastic. Best day of my life.

That's hilarious. I feel good and sad at the same time. There was this girl of 30, that was a better day. Wandering off here. I hope so. So yeah, the six-pack, courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. Where abouts do you live? Are you a 9-year-old?

I live in Mississauga, Cothra, Lakeshore area. Oh my god. You're so close to Great Lakes Brewery. Whereabouts do you live? Are you a 9-0? I live in Mississauga, Cothra, Lakeshore area. Oh my God. You're so close to Great Lakes Brewery. You know they have a fantastic patio on a nice day, which would not be today. It's going to rain all day.

But on a nice day, there's nothing better than a $5 pint on the patio at Great Lakes Brewery. So there's a six-pack to get you started. You got a pint glass. Now let's listen to Brian Gerstein from propertyinthesix.com. Hi, Peter. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto

Mic'd. Also, a huge Peter Gross fan. I can be reached by caller text at 416-873-0292 for all of your real estate needs. Did you know that the additional price paid for a detached home in 416 versus a condo is now only 113% of the price? You would have paid 206% of the price of a condo, so over double as recently as February 2017. The conclusion then is to buy a detached home now before the gap widens, which it will. Peter, I read your last meal on earth would be fried chicken, which coincidentally coincides with the opening of Korean-style My My Chicken. Oh, okay.

That's unusual. That's never happened before. Fix that. I know. I have no idea. He was talking about fried chicken. Oh, okay. That's unusual. That's never happened before. Fix that. I know. You know, I have no idea. He was talking about fried chicken. I need to hear some more. Oh my god. First time for everything, Peter. I loaded that up last night. I should have played it through to make sure

it was all there. That's never happened before. But I can tell you that he was... Buy My Chicken is opening up in Thornhill and he wondered if you had ever tried it because there's a location, I think, downtown, and what your favorite place in Toronto is for fried chicken. Where do you recommend we go for some good fried chicken?

You're going to get a really interesting answer to this. I published a horse racing paper called Down the Stretch, which we put it at Woodbine, and I've been doing that for 11 years, and I'm a big horse player. The fried chicken at Woodbine is wonderful, and any time I'm there, I eat that fried chicken.

A little on the greasy side, but I like that fried chicken. I can take Kentucky Fried. I do like the hot wings. Sometimes the Popeyes is okay, although a little too much crap on the outside of the chicken. Gotcha, gotcha. But I love fried chicken. Now, I have more horse racing stuff for you later

because a couple of things tie in nicely with that. But Gene Valaitis tells a story about going out, he's going out to a bar. I guess he used to play softball. It was like 680, had a team, like a slow pitch or a softball team. Okay. And you'd play with him.

And afterwards, you'd go to a bar and he swears to me, and you're not with him. And afterwards, you'd go to a bar, and he swears to me. You're not like a giant here. You're not a 6'6 big linebacker guy here. No, I'm not. You're about my size, and I'm being kind to you. But he says he counted.

He thinks you downed 80, 8-0. He thinks you downed 80 chicken wings. Well, that would be... I'll tell you, this is a story I tell quite a lot. One of the greatest mornings of my life was when Kentucky Fried Chicken introduced their hot wings. Okay. This was probably 1994. I don't know the exact date.

And so 6.30 in the morning, they brought in a bucket of 100 fried hot wings. And I was the only one in the unit who thought that this was a wonderful thing. And I must have eaten half of them. So 80 seems a little much, but... He might have been exaggerating. I do like... Well, that's showbiz.

I love chicken and I like wings. But Gene tells it... The way he tells it is, I guess there was an order for the table and then you made your order. Let's pretend it was 80, even though it couldn't have been that much. And I think he made a remark about how,

it's okay, Peter, we've already ordered for the table, but that order was just for you. That was the Peter Gross order of chicken. So you're a big fan of the chicken, basically. Yes, I am very much so. Okay, that's good stuff. Good stuff.

Now let me make sure that it's not just the Brian clip. Let me make sure something else plays here. Hold on. Okay, so it's just my Brian clip was corrupt. Brian, I apologize, but we got a good answer for Peter nonetheless. And Peter has your pint glass. He's going to pour one out for himself tonight after his nap.

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and when you install it and make your first bill payment, use the promo code Toronto Mike. All one word. They'll give you $10 in Paytm cash right away. I did it. You should do it, Peter. It's $10.

You can use that money towards another bill or you could buy in the... Maybe there's like possibly some gift cards for chicken wings in their list of reward vendors. That would entice me. So do that. Paytm.ca. Good people there. And $10 is

$10 is $10. You got to do that. Now, Peter, I know you best as a sports commenter. I mean, you've done a lot of different things. We're going to play some clips. But at what point in your career at City TV did you start doing the sports on the TV? Oh, boy.

So we started essentially early in 1976. And at the time, there were two reporters, myself and a fellow named Ken Sherman. And Ken was a more conventional type, very bright, serious reporter. And I was the joker in the deck. But because there were only two reporters, they sent me out on any variety of stories. And I think the thing in which we broke the mold was

this crazy story about a guy who'd robbed a pizza parlor and, and they wanted me to do the story on it. So I just going to move on that mic. Sorry. I don't want to miss the syllable. Yeah. So I don't know what the real details were, but I reported that they,

they caught the thief by following the mozzarella tracings in the snow. And then they decided, well, this, this guy, we really can't have him doing serious stories. And, uh, so, so they, they started putting me on the, on the sports cast. And that was a really good place for me because sports was something in which you could fool around a lot. And Moses Neimer, who created city television and created created City Pulse, had this word, kinetics, that he wanted to see things moving. He hated the interview.

It was not kinetic. He wanted things to be moving. And that's why the anchors didn't sit behind a desk, right? They were moving around the environment. He wanted things to be moving. And so that was something that he said to me, take part in all these sports events. I want to see you moving.

So that was something that I enjoyed. And so there was a lot of that in my work. I didn't talk about the people water skiing. I water skied. I didn't talk about Nicky Furlano fighting. I fought Nicky Furlano, etc., etc., etc. I mentioned I had some clips to play, so I'm going to play some now. I'm curious about this.

Yeah, there's some great ones here. Let's start with this clip of you, some ska clip, if you will. Let me play it, and then you can respond. For the following part of the presentation, I get to do my impression of City Television President Moses president moses nine now this particular piece of videotape isn't exactly going to change the future of television newscasting however it is a lot of fun and it's very reflective of the type of access we offer the citizens of the community of toronto now this particular tape came about when a group of students at george harvey collegiate

produced their own rock and roll hit record and they approached us so we thought it was good we went into the school for a day and this is the outcome. Students are reminded today's school is closed for the day. This was Rodney making this video. George Harvey. If you turn out Rogers Road, two blocks north, on the left, that's my high school. Wow, you know it still. Oh, yeah. Amazing.

It's catching me in my head very bright. How about what year are we talking here? Oh, 83. We got every race, green, color. You know, what's funny is I made this before I, in 1991, my son was born, and he ended up going to George Arden. Oh, get out of here. Yeah.

That's great. Pretty good jam for, that's pretty good, pretty good song. And really, when you think 1983, I don't know when the first actual video was made, but that was one of the very first. Yeah, you were right there with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, I think, in 83, for sure, for sure. Now, here's another one. You do a pretty good impression of Moses, right? You do a good impression. I don't know how good it is, but we had fun with it. Well, you do a pretty good Columbo as well.

I do a better Columbo. That's my one impression. Now, we teased this a couple episodes ago. I mentioned Retro Ontario was on, and we talked about Columbo versus Moses, but let's listen to this. I'm delighted to meet you. You know, my wife watches City TV all the time. Brian Linehan, Mickey Moore,

she thinks Gordon Martin was yummy. You know, if I could get your autograph, I got a piece of paper right here. Would you like a piece of candy bar? Excuse me, I'm a busy man. Do you mind telling me what you're doing here? I'm Inspector DeLombo. I'm with the Metro Police Department on a special assignment.

You're a policeman? You come into my office, you're dressed like that, you tell me you're a policeman, you expect me to think you got any kind of credibility dressed like that? You know, sir, my boss said the same thing to me just the other day. You know, Mr. DeLumbo, anybody comes into my office dressed like that, they don't end up working for me, they don't end up on television. Pretty good Moses, if I say so.

How did Moses respond to that? Oh, Moses was such a good sport. And I think he appreciated that if he was big enough to be impersonated, he must have been a star. Again, if it was something that no other TV station would do,

that was fine with Moses. Good. Now, you mentioned in that clip when you were at Colombo there, you mentioned Brian Linehan. Do you have any Brian stories? Because I try to model some of my interviewing style on the guy. Brian died a long time ago, didn't he?

I mean, Gord Martineau I can talk about. Oh, I got Gord, because I got a Gord clip coming up. We're going to talk about Gord for sure, because he announces when you step down from doing sports at City TV, he's kind of announcing it. And I got a Gord clip coming up. We're going to talk about Gord for sure. Because he announces when you step down from doing sports at City TV, he's kind of announcing it. And I got some questions there.

So we'll get to Gord for sure. And yeah, I know I'm not putting you on the spot here, but anytime you want to share a story by any of the old City TV personalities, you come to the right place. Because I'm just going to run down a laundry list here of other sports guys. So for example, these are like City TV sports legends. You had John Saunders. Yep. Any John story Saunders. Yep.

Any John story? He also passed away. Just, well, I guess my favorite story. First of all, John Saunders was a tremendously talented man. And he ended up working for ESPN. I think ESPN. Yeah, I think so. But shortly after he left City TV, he took a job with WMAR in Baltimore.

And that was the year, now I'm trying to think, I think that we're talking 1983 again, where a Canadian honed a horse named Sonny's Halo won the Kentucky Derby. So I had to go and bet everything I had on him in the Preakness. And I got in touch with John Saunders, and he invited me, and he got me a pass, and we actually watched the race from the rooftop of the Pimlico racetrack. And I remember as we were driving to the track, he was a diabetic.

So we're driving to the track, he undoes his pants, pulls his pants down to his knees, and as he's driving, jabs himself with the insulin. Insulin, right. That was remarkable. And I bet $700 US,

probably the biggest bet I've ever made in my life, on Sonny's Halo, and he was done around the far turn. Oh. He ran very poorly. I mean, like I said, there's a natural segue coming up in terms of talking about the horses,

and you do that publication still, so we know you're big on the ponies there, but, uh, was that a learning experience? Like, was that just, did you, did you start capping yourself in terms of what the most? No, it was a learning experience because I never again would bet on a horse that won its last race. And if you want me to go on and talk for hours and hours, why you should never bet a horse that, because the time to bet it was then. Okay. Cause yes, it's like

you got to buy low, sell high, right? This is contrary to that. Mark Hebtscher comes over here twice a week to do a podcast and he was big on it. I mean, you must have crossed his path at the horse races too. He was really big on it and now he won't touch it because he considered himself an addict.

It's a slippery slope, right? I've got a serious gambling disorder. I'm aware of that. But in terms of if you've got a serious alcoholic disorder, that's bad. If you've got a serious drug disorder, you're going to die. But gambling is not going to shorten my life by one day. So what I'm dealing with on a day-to-day basis is just bet what you can afford to bet,

or a little bit more. The key to gambling responsibly is don't bet more than you can afford to lose. So this is what Mark does now, because Mark will say, okay, I'm going to spend $20 today. And then he basically, when $20 is gone, that's it. He considers that was

the cost of the fun he had or whatever. You have to have discipline and have these personal caps, I guess. In theory, that's great. I'm incapable of doing that. But do you want to hear a really good gambling story? Of course, yeah. Let's do it. For about 25 years now, I've been going to Saratoga with Jim McKinney,

who is like the greatest guy. I'm going to get to him next after John Saunders. We can talk about Jim McKinney. who is like this the greatest i'm just gonna get to him next we can talk about jim mckinney well we can go on for hours with jim what the most wonderful guy in the world but so this year off we go to saratoga and i got two two thousand us burning a hole in my pocket i'm so excited i'm going to be gambling for 10 days with jim mckinney um halfway to uh saratoga along the interstate is a dinky little racetrack called finger lakes and actually as we're driving to finger lakes he's driving and i've got the first race on my phone so we're watching the first race and he hits the winner i didn't because the winner was two to five

i don't want a heavy favorite we pulled into the lot. It's now 20 minutes to the next race. And I say to Jim, I'm going into the slots to play some video poker. Because like I said, I got $2,000. I put $50 into the machine and wasn't really paying attention. I'm just hitting numbers. Just hitting, just hitting. Five minutes in, I hit a Royal Flush and win $10,000. Wow. Okay.

And they withheld 3 900 for irs but that's fine so i figure all i'm thinking now is how am i going to tell jim so i walk out with this look on my face like i've just lost two hundred dollars but it doesn't really well it doesn't really matter because we're here to gamble. And I said to him, how'd you make out in the double? He says, oh, I hit the double. I said, how much did it pay? He says, it paid $6. And I said, I got a story for you.

And I tell him. That's amazing, amazing. Yeah, I thought, there's another guy, Jim McKinney. I thought he was fantastic on City TV Sports. Maybe too much character and personality for the modern day version of the station i don't know i know you oh this jim mckinney but i can't say enough about him what a what a an amazing guy he's um up to his eyeballs in self-contempt he hates himself

because he drank during his hockey career and if you talk to him, he'll say, God gave me one gift and I fucked it up. I'd hate to say that only because he actually had multiple gifts because he was a tremendous broadcaster. Yeah, he had some broadcast gifts. No pressure here either, but at some point, would you ever let Jim know, assuming

you have a decent time here today, would you say, hey, Jim, maybe you should do Toronto Mic'd if he's got some time in Toronto? I'll run it by him.'ll try i'd love to have jim mckay he's he's he's a strange um he has the the least ego of any person i've ever met in the in this business um he he doesn't like when he would do you know some of us we when we did stories we'd say when's it on when's it on i want this to play i want want this to play. I want this to play. He didn't care. He didn't care.

He'll tell you that he was not a good broadcaster. Our opinion of him is higher than his own opinion. When he was fired at City TV, he said, of course you're firing me because you've got better people. Then he should come on for the ego boost. How's that? I'll run it by him. If you like, I'll give you his number. Oh, I'd love it.

You'd probably hate me for that. Yeah, well, I'll blame you when he gets mad at me. So we talked about John Saunders and Jim McKinney and any other Jim McKinney stories that come up, let them loose. But what about working with a two-time Toronto Mike de Guest, Spike Gallagher, John Gallagher? Gallagher's a character, isn't he?

You think so? I mean, he's the perfect Moses Nymer character. He's very, very over the top. I'll tell you a story. He may not appreciate me telling this story. No, he tells so many stories that would not be appreciated by the people he's talking about.

So I'm going to tell you. We talk about Jim McKinney. Jim didn't care if he went out and did a field story when it ran. Gallagher, if he did something, he monitored a phone message saying you didn't run my piece yesterday so f you i'm not coming in to do the story and they suspended him for a couple of days oh wow he he was very he really wanted his stuff to run that's all i can tell you i hear no it sounds about right he was talking about how he was doing city TV sports, city stuff at night, and then he would be waking up and doing Q107 stuff.

And he's very vocal about how the city stuff, he said, paid peanuts, but he made big money at Q. Do you think for all his greatness and visionary aspects of Moses, did he compensate fairly? Oh, Moses was, you know what? I'm almost at the point now where I'm making more at 680 News than I made in 1984 at City TV. All right.

Well, do you want to hear a story about negotiating for a salary? Yeah, of course. This is a favorite story. It's a story time. And this hurt me because I was such an asshole. But I was making $37,000 in, let's say, 1982. Pretty good money. That's good money in 1982.

And the producer, I won't tell you his name. We have a strange way. He was an interesting character. He says, I have to negotiate with you for your new contract and he offers me 40 and i say nah i had a massive ego and moses was telling me how wonderful i was so i was thinking i could make way more money uh after several meetings with with this fellow we shook hands on $45,000. I think a two year contract for $45,000.

And I remember going home to my mom because my mom was always sure that I was going to like be such a jerk that I would ruin what it was. This good thing. You'd be back. I'm in for two years for 45,000. And I think my father, my father was a dentist. He says,

I never made that kind of money. Wow. Wow. So I was very pleased with myself. Anyways, after a week or two producer comes back to me and he says, those numbers we tossed around, they won't work. I said, we didn't toss numbers around. We sure cans. And I said to him, now you can't get me for 45. so we have some more discussions and he offers me 50 and he offers me 52 and he offers me 55 and i said i like 55 but i want more for the second year and he says that's it that's it i'm fed up with you i'm not talking to you anymore i said fine moses because you asked the question did m Moses compensate fairly? Moses calls him into his office.

This was like a two minute conversation. And he says to me, what's the problem? And I said, well, you know, we shook hands on 45. And he says to me, so what? You think you deserve more money because we reneged on a deal with you? And I said, yes, I do. And he says, so do I. Yes, I do. And he says, so do I.

And he says to me, what if we make it 55 for 18 months and 60 for the next 18 months? So we get a 36-month contract. I said, that'll do it. And that's how I ended up getting essentially 10,000 more a year than I shook hands on at City TV. But the downside was that that producer hated my guts from that point on. That's worth it, right? And made life as miserable as he possibly could. Oh, that's great. That's a great story.

But yeah, Moses liked to make stars out of his people. And there was, you know, I don't know if you found it, but there's a couple of really well-made City Pulse sports promos. I don't know how you... I have sports. I mean, I don't know if these are the ones you're referring to, but do you want me to play? I have a 1983 City Pulse sports team.

You want to hear that one? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's play that right now. Is John Saunders the sexiest sportscaster in Canada? Give me a break. Is Jim Taddy Toronto's brightest new reporter? Okay, coach, here we go.

Is Peter Gross the most innovative sports director in captivity? 14th round one, something like this. City Falls Sports, covering the home teams and investigating the visitors. I've got to take the downtown question. Peter Gross, Jim Taddy, and John Saunders. Out of your television and into your lives, the CityPulse sports team. See it on City.

1983. And that ended with the three of us skating into the camera, you know, spraying the ice chips, and then, of course, I fall down. Now, I forget that Jim Taddy was there, okay? And it's funny. I was talking about Mark Hebbshire earlier, and, of course, they were on Sportsline together forever.

But what was it like? What's Jim Taddy like? A little too straight for City TV, I think. And he had a very strange experience. On his first day at City TV, the station manager calls him in and says to him, can we do something about the bags under your eyes? What a welcoming. So, Taddy didn't like that very much.

And, well, I'll tell you another Taddy story. I'm very fond of Jim Taddy. Don't get me wrong. But time and space. I wanted him. I was the sports director for a while. And I wanted him. I thought the sports director for a while, and I wanted him, I thought this would be a terrific story,

there was a men's gay baseball tournament, right? I said, go cover that. He goes, oh no, oh no, as if he would be tarred.

Oh no. As if he would become gay. You can imagine today, that would just be a fun piece for most people. Sure. But he absolutely refused to cover that on the premise that people would think he was gay. I don't know. Oh, the times have changed, that's for sure.

Yeah. That's for sure. Now, what about Russ Salzberg? Russ Salzberg! Russ Salzberg! That's a funny one there was a period of time towards the middle of 1984 where I was the sports director

but I was really the sports dictator I don't think anyone should ever let me be a boss again and every single faction in the building were trying to get me out of doing running the sports department for various reasons. One of which was I was doing three to four minutes of high school sports and not doing the Leafs and the Blue Jays. Like I was minimizing because my thinking was everyone else is doing that. I don't have to do that. because my thinking was,

everyone else is doing that. I don't have to do that. And City TV had really morphed from being this pain-in-the-ass little station to being a major player on the air. And if we were a major player, we had to emphasize, and I didn't want to. Well, speaking of the Jays,

I got a fantastic clip to play, and I have so many questions about it. But first, I just want to give a shout-out to Census Design and I have so many questions about it, but first, I just want to give a shout out to Census Design and Build. So, Census Design and Build, they provide architectural design, interior design, and turnkey construction services across the GTA. or call them at 416-931-1422. You can schedule your zoning and cost project feasibility study. And when you're doing that, tell them Toronto Mike sent you. And you can even throw in that Peter Gross says it's okay, too.

Peter Gross says it's okay. All right. Now, I'm trying to. Yeah, go ahead. Well, we're talking about Russ Salzberg. Yes. And in parenthesis, we have to say Russ Salzberg became a big, big star in New York. But he applied to City TV and I got his resume and I threw it out immediately.

I said, I'm not going to hire a guy from New York. I'll hire a guy from Toronto. But as they were trying to get rid of me, I went on vacation in the summer of 84. And when I came back, Ross had been hired. And he was very nice enough sequoias for the first couple of weeks. And then he'd gone out and he'd done, he called them interviews. Not interviews. Interviews.

And there were like three or four of them. Yeah. And McKinney ran them on the six o'clock show. So I came into that. I'm not sure how this went down, but I remember I cornered McKinney. I said, why did you run so many of those talking heads? We hate talking heads. And Russ overheard and he went nose to nose with me. Imagine this guy three weeks into his job saying you don't know what you're talking about you don't know what you're talking about so russ and i didn't exactly get along um i do know that all the time that he was working at city tv he was applying to these new york stations and he was the perfect guy i mean he ended up making an absolute crap load i'm

sure with wwar and he's very famous for that split screen with mike tyson which one is that uh remind me he's interviewing mike tyson and tyson is swearing okay and russ is saying mike what do you have to use such language for and and tyson goes well if you don't like it just turn off your fucking tv and and and uh russ does turn off your fucking TV set. And Russ does turn off Mike Tyson in the middle of the interview. He says, we don't have to put up with that. Oh, by the way, before I forget, Mark Weisblot from 1236 said that he remembers, because he went to school in North York, and he remembers a supply teacher in North York that he says was your twin.

No, my older brother, Dan. So not your twin, just an older brother. And poor Dan didn't like it when people brought me up, so he would deny that he was my brother. But he couldn't, apparently, and I didn't meet the man, but Mark tells me that he thought you were twins. That's how much the similarity was, as he recalls. I don't know.

Sometimes I look in the mirror. Unfortunately, Dan passed away from it. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, but sometimes I look in the mirror. Unfortunately, Dan passed away from it. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, but sometimes I look in the mirror and I see my brother Dan. Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. He said it was right at the height of your TV fame,

so I guess he got a little attention. Yeah, that was a burden for Dan because Dan was a completely different person from me and very, very private and didn't want people asking him questions about his life or his family. And I met a lot of people that he ended up teaching. Very interesting.

Now, you mentioned that you would, you know, if you were talking about, I don't know, skydiving, you'd be skydiving. You were like out there doing different things, kinetics and all this. Let me just play a little clip I found of you talking about traffic in Toronto. Let's listen to this. But maybe the union isn't completely to blame, as Stephen Lewis pointed out in his editorial comment last night. The TTC knew the government would intervene at some point, so they didn't do anything. They didn't care much about us, did they?

But maybe it's us, all of us, who are to blame for this outrageous traffic. Maybe if we all just filled up the cars. Look over there. Look at that guy sitting alone in his car. There's we all just filled up the cars. Look over there. Look at that guy sitting alone in his car. There's only one guy in three empty seats. Well, you should see it now, Peter. You know what? That was a seminal story that I did.

And you couldn't really tell from the audio. I did this on University Avenue walking in and amongst the cars in traffic. That was my point. Kinetics. I was crawling over the hood as I'm shouting into the camera. Right.

And Moses loved that because it defined what he meant by the reporter being involved. I totally appreciate that vision too of Moses because you're right, we felt it. We felt the energy. Like by moving, you're creating energy and we felt it and that was the differentiator.

That's why- You need to get Moses Neimer on your open mic. I'm working on it. I noticed there was a lot of buzz about different people who worked for Moses were receiving calls from the Globe and Mail. Did you get any calls from the Globe and Mail? I think once a guy did call. Like John Gallagher got a call, Steve Anthony got a call.

Basically, this is going back now almost a year, so this hasn't materialized. But there was clearly something being investigated regarding the Me Too movement and Moses. And again, I don't know anything. I don't speculate. But I think maybe he wanted to control his interviews for a little bit, possibly. I'm guessing.

Moses is famous for having a very exciting sex life, let me tell you that. Yes. But my admiration for Moses Neimer is enormous. I think that if you ask me at any particular time in my life who is the most fascinating individual I've ever met, it's Moses Neimer. Yeah, and he's still got the Zoomer empire. He's still doing things over there.

So I guess to answer your question, I would absolutely love to have Moses on, and I have a person working on this. There's a guy I know working on a website for Moses, the aforementioned Retro Ontario, and they're archiving the ongoing history of Moses. And I put the bug in his ear to try to get for Moses, the aforementioned Retro Ontario, and they're archiving the ongoing history of Moses. And I put the bug in his ear to try to get to Moses

and see if he would be... I'd be willing to go to Zoomer and do it there even, like whatever I can do to make that happen. So I want to talk to the visionary. Absolutely.

Now, I teased this clip earlier. This is a song, Laurie Brown. Oh, oh, Opportunity Knocks. No, this is not Opportunity Knocks. It sounds like I missed one. Oh, Opportunity Knocks. No, this is not Opportunity Knocks. It sounds like I missed one. Oh, Opportunity Knocks with Laurie Brown.

What is this? This is... Oh, the Blue Jays song? The Blue Jays song. Let's play it because it's kind of fascinating and you can tell me what the heck this is. But let's listen. It's one more.

Then the man at the plate must be Jesse and George. And I'll bring it down, but we'll listen to it in the background. But this is The Ballad of Jesse and George. And I think it's 86. Yeah. So this is you and Laurie Brown. You sound like you're... Sonny and Cher. I was going to say, more like I'm getting like a...

Captain and Tennille. When the Pogues did Fairytale of New York with Christy McCall. That's what I'm getting out of this jam, which is a compliment, by the way. There's an interesting video that I think you probably gleaned this from. Is it Dave Steve spraying you with a hose? No, that's from something else. Okay, tell me, tell me. You want to know?

Yeah. Well, things unwound for me at City TV in 1986. Sex, drug, rock and roll. Mostly the middle one there. And I ended up quitting. And for the last piece that I did in 1986, I lip synced Singing in the Rain. As a way of sending. I have it. and for the last piece that I did in 1986, I lip synced Singing in the Rain.

As a way of sending... I have it. I have the clip. I have this clip. So we're going to get to this clip for sure. It's going to be the original Singing in the Rain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The visual, you're right. But what we did is we used every possible water thing. So I'm walking through a car wash

and Paul Godfrey spraying me with a hose and Dave Steve spraying me with a hose. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was my way of saying, I may seem really screwed up to you, but I'll get through this. Well, we have to explore this, but first you have to explain

the Ballad of Jesse and George. Was this just a fun little thing you and Laurie did? Well, I wrote that and I or this, but first you have to explain the Ballad of Jesse and George. Was this just a fun little thing you and Laurie did? I wrote that and I talked a couple of friends into putting up about $5,000 to cover the cost of producing it and producing the video and pressing it and got a little bit screwed

by the Blue Jays because they promised to play it during a Yankees doubleheader and then refused to play it. It's as simple as that. We thought if they played it that one time, it would give it a real jumpstart. And you were selling, what, 45 singles?

There were 45s. I've still got a couple. It's pretty good. It's not fantastic, but it's a lot of fun in the videos. And Laurie Brown, I didn't know she was such a great singer. What was she like?

She's a sweetheart. I guess we produced a movie called Butterbump and the Eighth. Oh, I got that too. It was a song, Opportunity Knocks, that she sings on. And Opportunity Knocks is a bright little song. Okay, you know what then? I didn't realize that's what it was called. I have that song.

Oh, do you? Oh, play that. Everything's coming. Everything's coming. We're just flying off in all directions here, aren't we? First, I need to ask about a friend. She came on recently, and we had a great chat, and we've had a great correspondence.

I would regard her as a friend. But let me just play this clip of someone else joining City Pulse in 86 and then we'll talk about what happened to you. I'm not waiting around here. Here, welcome to our new head. Come on. There's a new player on the sports team at City TV.

I don't think Martina has anything to worry about. We've got Ann Romer, an ace reporter whose energy is going to keep City Pulse on top. It's shaping up to be a great threesome. And one, and two. They're doing it City style. That's how it's done. The City sports team, Salzburg, Romer, and McKinney, every night on City Pulse.

The eyes of Toronto. So is that before your departure? Oh, no, that was after. That was after. That was after. That was after. That was after. That was after.

That was after. Okay, because I have... after. That was after. That was after. Okay, because I have... Okay, okay, okay. So let's do some real talk here. You quit in 86? Yeah. And you alluded to some substance abuse? Yeah.

So I did cocaine for about two years straight and became a real lunatic. I mean, at the time, I i don't know have you ever done a lot of cocaine you know i've i've never uh done any cocaine okay well don't do any cocaine okay that's my recommendation i smoked pot for a long time and then just got into the cocaine and uh there's no tragedy in my life in which you say oh it was so awful you know my family was wiped out in a car crash i just started doing cocaine cocaine because I was doing cocaine and just became psychotic, just became an absolute ridiculous individual. But at the time when you're immersed in it, you're saying, why is all this happening to me?

You're blaming everybody else. And long and short is they got really, really pissed off with me. They didn't fire me. I just decided that I would pull a power trip and quit, and they would beg me to come back. And I quit, and I got a letter from the station manager that said, good luck. That was it.

So, you know know and it takes you some time you go through a little bit of therapy and some sessions and you realize holy shit that was that was me that was me you know wrecking me you take ownership you do you become accountable for your actions but but at but at the time it's it's like why is everything what's everything going wrong okay so my confusion is this. You were doing The World According to Gross, right? Yeah. In fact, but these clips I have, so did you come back to City?

I came back in 2000. Okay, but you weren't, so there's no, you're not on City in 87, for example? From 86 to 2000. Okay, let me play. It was a wasteland. There was no me. I hear you. We've got to explore that further. But let me just play this real quick here. I suppose by the end of the summer of 1984,

a lot of people felt that I'd run the gamut of sports, that I'd done every gag, that I'd interviewed every guy, that I'd done every silly thing. So I was funneled into this thing called the World According to Gross, which I guess was like the cherry on top of the sundae at the end of the show. Two minutes that was meant to please and put a smile on everyone's face

and did just about everything imaginable in the streets of Toronto and put a lot of Torontonians on TV. Emerson, Jim, you guys are straight, right? Yeah. I'll put you on TV if one of you kisses the other, okay? Okay. Go ahead.

Okay, so am I wrong to think that was 87 yeah uh in in the um by the fall of 1984 i was essentially squeezed out of um doing sports but they gave me another huge raise moses came to me this will seem really strange. Stephen Lewis was doing these editorials. Stephen Lewis, one of the most brilliant men on the planet. Stephen Lewis would come in to the studio without a script. He was supposed to do a minute 45 editorial without saying ah or stumbling. He would go from A to B to C.

And at 144, look in the camera and go, and that's the way I feel. It was phenomenal. I can't say six words without a script in front of me in the mornings at 680 News. So anyways, Stephen Lewis became the Canadian emissary to the United Nations in terms of the whole aids thing right something to do with that so moses calls me his office he says i'm losing this guy who does these great editorials now i got a gap and i need to fill it with something and i think it should be you

but different he so he wanted me to do the kicker the comedy at the end of the uh the show and that that was the world the birth of the world of the show. And that was the birth of the world according to Gross. Which, you know, in retrospect was a far more challenging, far more exciting thing than doing sports. Well, let's listen to this here. Be here. Peter Gross' final sportscast. Everyone's making too much about this.

City Pulse's Peter Gross leaves the sports department. What kind of stories do they want me to do? To take on a new challenge. Peter, why not think of yourself as a daily columnist what can landers the world according to gross i've been reading about the boat's itinerary steaming chinese food weeknights on city falls peter gross's offbeat look at toronto human comedy of toronto so that's it the world according to gross so you they took you off the sports commentaries for you to do this World According to Gross.

Yeah. And now you mentioned this earlier, and then we can talk about some Gord and others. But let me play this. This is sort of the farewell story here. The end of an era at City Pulse. This is Peter Gross' final day at work. He's been a unique, visible part of City TV for more than a decade.

Peter has decided to pursue other interests, and all of us, of course, wish him the very best. Tonight, his farewell song. You're lip-syncing this, as you mentioned, with the footage of you getting wet. Yeah. So the audio, we'll put it down. It's a great jam anyways, but you need to see the audio, we'll put it down. It's a great jam anyways, but

you need to see the video and you can find it on YouTube. And I'll put it down because Gordon Martin is going to come back and he's going to tease something that we're going to talk about next. That whole, you've gone to hit that line that they gave about you're going to pursue other interests or whatever.

Now you just up and quit because you're in some cocaine-fueled frenzy. Yeah, that's a nice, simple way of putting it. I needed some help. Was there a lot? I mean, I only know most of this from Steve Anthony, and he says he was never doing coke when he was on the air, he says, but he was definitely enjoying cocaine in his private life and whatnot.

Was there coke at the 299 Queen? Was there lines of coke? No. No. No. I certainly had access to it in my personal life. There might have been a couple people that I was working with that I shared with.

It's funny. When you're doing drugs, you have friends who are doing drugs with you. Of course. Now that I'm not doing drugs, I have friends that I don't do drugs with. Did you ever do drugs with Steve Anthony? No, I never did.

Oh. You're the only one. Yeah. Well, he could probably say the same about me. No, I mean, I was in pretty deep. Wow. And it created, for lack of anything else, it created some financial problems.

Well, it sounds like you had a gambling problem, too. So, this is not good math, Peter. I'm doing the math here. No, no, no. You're bang on there. That's not good math here. But you did, it sounds like you got help at some point after you quit CityTV. You got help, professional help.

And please tell me, are you clean and sober? And I don't mean, of course, you're still going to enjoy a beverage like a Great Lakes beer, but no more cocaine in your life. Oh, good. I quit cocaine in, I think it was 1985. And at the time I thought, well, I can always smoke pot for the rest of my life.

And then I began to experience some issues with pot. Having trouble sleeping, chest pains, a lot of heartburn. So I decided to quit pot, and I quit pot Well, I'll tell you the story about it. Yeah, pause that, actually, because I think Gord's coming back here. Okay, okay. You saved the best for last. Good job.

This may be Peter's last working day here at City TV, but it's not the last day we have to enjoy the grocer's talents. On August 28th, one week from tonight, City features one hour of gross. From 7 to 7.30, it's not the last day we have to enjoy the grocer's talents. On August 28th, one week from tonight, City features one hour of gross. From 7 to 7.30, it's Gross is History. It's a collection of his many unique on-air moments here at City TV. And from 7.30 to 8 o'clock, it's Butter Bump and the 8th, an original half-hour story. Written by Peter.

That's next Thursday night here on City TV. Great job, huh? No, Peter, you're wonderful. We love you and best of everything to you. It's Teeny Petty. Yeah. Teeny's another one I've got to get on City TV. Great job, huh? No, Peter, you're wonderful. We love you and best of everything to you. It's Teeny Petty. Yeah. Teeny's another one I've got to get on this show.

I love Teeny Petty. I've got to get her on the show. But where are we here? We've got a lot of things going on. I want to hear more about, yeah, tell me the story about the substance abuse in the mid-80s

that you conquered. I shouldn't have brought it up. That's the real talk, Peter. Because the fact that you've been clean since, was it 85? You've been clean and sober since 85. Yeah, yeah. Which real talk, Peter. Because the fact that you've been clean, was it 85? You've been clean and sober since 85, which is good.

Congrats. Well, I've never drunk. Very little interest in alcohol. In moderation. Okay. Well, you can share the Great Lakes with friends. Sure, I will. But no, well, I'll tell you a horror story.

One night, I think I went through six grams of Coke. And do you ever hear the story of Len Bias? Yes, of course. Len Bias was a huge basketball star, 270 pounds, did a tiny bit of Coke and his breathing stopped and he died. I'm not quite Len Bias' size. No, you're not. Like I was 140 pounds

And one night I'm telling you this because no one ever Hears this show No it's just private Peter I'm not even recording this These squiggly lines are fiction No this is easy to talk about because this is And by the way yeah I hope you're comfortable talking about it

I'm not trying to make you talk about it It's so long ago But I did six grams of coke um i i was uh i had hash oil marijuana hash valium and and a 26 urbana set and i was i don't think i was trying to kill myself but i wanted to see where i would get and and i remember that i was i was flying and falling at the same time and it was uh and then then at about nine o'clock the next morning i'm still up of course and i'm chopping the last gram of coke with one hand and phoning the psychiatrist with the other hand wow yeah you said some level you were trying to kill yourself

i'd say that sounds like uh we kill an elephant. But what do I know? Well, I think that over the course of, I guess I did coke for about three years, and I built up a resistance to it. But what did you get out of it exactly? Was it, there was a, you got addicted to riding this high? Is it? And remember, you're talking to a guy who's never done it, so I'm. Why is it? And remember, you're talking to a guy who's never done it. If you do coke, you get really excited about things. But the problem is after an hour, you need more. I mean, I was banging on people's doors at 3 in the morning. One night, I scored a couple of i i don't

know if you're familiar with how the the the cocaine dealers will fold it up in an envelope you get a little triangular envelope and i'd gotten two of these and somehow dropped them before i got in my car went down home realized what i had done got back in my car drove 200 miles an hour back to the spot like like a complete imbecile like an addict and sure yeah yeah i did things that were very much very much addicted to it i got very lucky at the end the last four or five times i did coke it made me feel shitty i felt bad. And I didn't want to go into group therapy because I was very self-conscious that people, you know, because I was a big star. It's hard to be anonymous. Without a doubt, you were Toronto famous.

Yeah. So I ended up with this counselor who, he was hitting on me, or my impression was he was hitting on me. Or my impression was he's hitting on me. Kept asking me to give him a hug. Kept saying, I want you not to do any dope this week for me. And I'm thinking, no, I need to not do any for me. And somehow at that time in my life, I saw A, how much damage I'd done to myself by doing the drugs. B, realized that the last four or five, six times I'd done it, it was just painful.

It wasn't even enjoyable. And now I got this guy suggesting that I have a homosexual relationship with him. And I'm not homophobic. I just didn't want anything wrong with that. It was, it was, I just found, I put all these things together. I said, this is humiliating. This is really terrible. And I've created this. And without going through a 12 step program, without going through really extensive therapy i just said i'm going to create this level of denial if i never do coke again i don't have a problem that was my solution and i have not done i've not done coke that was a 80 was that 85 and then in 88 i'll tell you the story about quitting

marijuana um i'll tell it quickly because you want to move on to something else. No, but that's here about you quitting marijuana. So I'm out of work. I'm in this crappy little third floor apartment in a guy's house. No money, no job, no girlfriend. You know, the least exciting moment of my life. And it's November 22nd and I'm watching the 25th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and I had a little amount of grass. And I'm thinking to myself, what have I done for the last 25 years and realized that I'd spent so much time buying and selling and separating seeds from marijuana, and I flushed that pot down the toilet.

I have not smoked grass since November 22nd, 1988. So now that's 12, that's 30 years since I've done any illegal drugs. Even though it's going to be legal soon, you're not going to tempt fate. The next time I smoke pot is when the doctor tells me that I got inoperable cancer. All right, for medicinal purposes and therapeutic purposes. Listen, no, I'm so happy that you've kicked all the substances, and it sounds like you've got a good handle on the gambling addiction as well. No, I don't.

Any addictions I need to know about left? Pizza? Just chicken wings. No, the gambling's very bad. It needs to be constantly addressed. But do you have a sponsor for that? I don't even know how it works. That is a chemical addiction, right?

Because you're addicted to some rush you get when you have money on the line. I'm presently in a state of mind in which I've decided not to gamble for a while, but simply because, Jesus, I can't believe what I'm admitting to you. You should be as I should. Simply because my financial situation is absurd considering what I'm making and how much, how unflexible I am with my finances. Fortunately, what I'm making still covers all of my bills and I can put money away.

But, but, uh, you know, I look back at the last three, four years and I really lost that much money gambling. So I'm trying to address it. We heard from a Gord Martineau. Before I get us to Butterball,

I almost called it Butterball on the 8th, but it's Butterbump on the 8th. Before we get there, and I've got the song, and I've got to hear about that, can you tell me a little bit about working with Gord Martineau? Well, Gord Martineau was very much a blue-collar guy. He was the opposite of Ted Baxter. You look at Ted Baxter,

that unskilled, very talentless, less idiot, who thought he was more important than everyone. And then there's Gordon Martineau, who got it, his best friends were like the studio technicians. I'll tell you that

the one time that most impressed me about Gordon Martin Was the day that the planes ran into the Twin Towers And I went in They didn't want me to do a silly story that day But I showed up I watched him at 9 in the morning Stuff was flying, stuff was changing And he worked till midnight that night

Without missing a beat Just the definitive pro One of the strongest on-air guys ever without missing a beat. Just the definitive pro. One of the strongest on-air guys ever in terms of relaying news and yet making you feel that he was talking to you. So, Martino, terrific guy, Martino. I have not had the pleasure of having Martino on the show yet, although I would like him on the show,

but I did have Ann Roszkowski on the show, and she actually talked about that day, September 11, 2001. We went into great depth. I mean, Toronto looks for a trustworthy face, somebody to give them the news, and they would come to City TV.

Gord and Anne. How about Anne Martineau? Anne Martineau. Oh my goodness. Anne Roszkowski. What was it like working with Ann? well Ann's a pro too, she was a little more hot wired than Gord I remember a funny experience with Ann Roszkowski she came out of an editing room with curlers

in her hair and because I'm very reactive I went wow she got really upset she would get very angry if a hair was out of place and the cameraman didn't tell her. But she was a terrific reporter and a good foil to Martineau. Would it surprise you if I told you that Anne told us on the show,

you think you're revealing a lot, go listen to the Anne Roszkowski interview, which, by the way, for everyone listening, Anne has told me she wants to come back for part two, so that's exciting. But in part one, Anne Roszkowski opened up about how she says for three years, Gord would not speak to her unless the red light was on

and they were on the air for three years. I'm not aware of that. Okay. Because their chemistry was pretty good on camera. Yeah, on camera, for sure. But it sounds like... But they're two very different people. Sure.

But there's the Gordon Ann. And now Butter Bump in the Eighth. So I'm going to play this, and then you're going to tell me what Butter Bump in the Booze Brothers. They were the in-house band at City TV. Oh, sure, buddy. How you doing? Under attack. No need to quit. Take another crack. Now there's this pony rent six panels and twelve. Some people keep that info all to themselves. You want a winner?

This is the case. I'm betting. Okay, now, it sounds like you're telling me this is the same vocalists we heard on the Ballad of Jesse and George? Well, I didn't sing on this one. That's not you doing a pretty damn good music. No, it's another character. That's Laurie? That's Laurie Brown.

I did not know that. Good stuff. Tell me what Butter Bumpin' the 8th was. I'll just bring it down and we can hear you. What was it? Well, it's not a terribly good little half-hour movie. And I can say that because I wrote it and directed it. But how did you get that opportunity?

That's pretty amazing you had an opportunity to write and direct. I'll tell you what happened was Moses was involved. Moses wanted to produce new drama he wanted to get canadian scripts on the air and i think a deal fell through and around the time that a deal fell through i had written this script because i wanted to write about the horse betting experience and um he hated my script but he he moses sometimes deals with in with spite city television was created out of spite because the cbc would not adequately promote him so he says i'll show you so he basically said we're going to produce this movie even though we think your script sucks he made me

rewrite it and do this and that. And so some very interesting aspects in that the three leads from Butterbump, and it really isn't worth it. It's a story about a guy who falls for a beautiful woman at the track, gets a tip on a horse, has a relationship with a track rat, a kid who likes to hang out at the track. He scores real big on butter bump, and then the woman rips him off.

Okay, and that's because he wasn't paying attention to what was going on. But the three leads, Jonathan Welsh, Nancy Dolman. I'm sorry, I can't remember the boy's name. They're all dead now. Oh, no. Jonathan died of some kind of organ dysfunction. Nancy died a few years ago from cancer. And the young boy was in a car crash and died.

This is like the poltergeist jinx. But Nancy Dolman was Marty Short's wife. Beautiful, beautiful woman, talented woman. And one of the most exciting days of my life was Marty showed up one day while we were shooting. So I said to him, be an extra in the film. So be the guy who's walking out of the track and gives our lead actor your racing form right as he goes in so of course marty comes walking out

lays the racing form in jonathan welsh's hands and then does a prat fall into a garbage can so my i forever i will say that I once directed Marty Short. It's true, my friend, it's true. That's a fantastic story, Butterbump. Now you're not going to tell me Butterbump has also passed away, right? Well, there was a horse called Butterbump. He actually came fifth in the Queen's Plate.

Oh, wow. And it was a horse that I bet on for whatever reason, and I love the name. So when I wrote a movie, I, I, that's the name of it. Great name.

Mike Rogotsky is a listener and he wanted me, this is a nice segue into the horse racing part, which is he wants me to ask you, what does horse racing need to do not only to survive, but thrive? He says, this is from a casual racing fan. So do you have an answer for,

for Mike? Oh, yeah, I do. But I don't know that you want me to go on for 30 minutes. The biggest problem with horse racing is that the constituency at the track is my age. White men in their 60s and 70s. To keep horse racing alive and relevant, it needs to attract an audience of people 20 to 30 to 40.

We go to Saratoga every year. The crowd at Saratoga is very young and very rich. You've got these guys in these $2,000 suits with their beautiful girlfriends on their arms. But that only works for six weeks at Saratoga how do you how do you make that happen at woodbine how do you make that happen at belmont and aqueduct and delmar and um you've got um frank stranick has done wonderful things with gulfstream racetrack and what he's done is he's placed gulfstream racetrack in the middle of a rodeoo Drive type high class shops and restaurants. And so he's made horse racing very relevant. And he's got the slots there.

And they prosper with the slots money. I have ideas that the racing industry knows that I'm interested in producing for them. But you have to really educate people. And it's very difficult to the fact that betting on the horses is the best break you get for your betting dollar in Canada. People don't know that. No, I didn't. Well, I'll tell you.

This is an actual statistic. If you were to throw $6 into 649 every Wednesday and every Saturday and throw $6 at random, you know, just press the button and the track will make the bet for you. In the daily double, you will cash more than $10 200 times as often at the track for that same amount of money when you bet six dollars on 649 and get three out of six and they pay you ten dollars right um you're getting approximately six percent of the math if you were to get uh the same the same bet at the same odds at the racetrack would pay you about $108. But you get $10 from 649. Interesting.

So just the mathematics of betting the horses is so superior to any scratch ticket, to pro line, to any of the lotteries. But people don't understand that. What's the name of your publication? Called Down the Stretch. So how does somebody get Down the Stretch? Well, it's online.

Downthestretchnewspaper.com. And we put it in bins at the racetrack. And how often do you write this? It's about every six weeks. It takes me that long to collect. The advertising is very long. Do you think this guy, Brian Gerershne, would like to advertise? Yeah, he got his number on your cup

there. He's a big fan, he says, of me. Then he should advertise my paper. Give it a go. Yeah, for sure. Give it a go. Okay, great. Now, you directed and wrote Butter Bump in the 8th because, of course, you know your horses. You love your horses.

And this quick question here from a guy named Unikey99, and please tell me what this means to you because it doesn't mean anything to me, but he says, question for Peter Gross. He did a low budget with a John Belushi type of guy named Cooley. As I recall, Cooley was a legend at Leaside High.

I believe that he became a mail carrier. I saw him in his uniform at a midtown strip club called Cheaters. Do you know what this means? Yeah. What is that? Cooley is a guy named Mike Kukulowicz who unfortunately passed away in 2000

from a type of leukemia. But in 1971, in 1970, 1969, there was a film called Going Down the Road with don shabib did you of course very much won all kinds of awards wonderful film he was basically given at the time carte blanche i think it was 270 000 to produce um i i know the producer wanted to be able to produce a kid's film with with nudity and smoking drugs and everything. So he wrote this, it's a very gentle film called Ripoff

about these naive Don Mills type high school kids who think they can start a commune and then realize that they're just not grown up and it sort of doesn't have an ending, which is the biggest failure of the movie. And I auditioned for that movie. And when I biggest failure of the movie. And I auditioned for that movie. And when I auditioned for the movie, instead

of the director, there was this pudgy guy with a big red beard in a blue jean jumpsuit. So I was just an asshole. Anyways, that pudgy guy in the blue jean jumpsuit. I thought I was tripping out when I was reading this description from Unikey99. I'm like, does this exist oh yeah good okay so he remembers if you

look up um it's called virgin territory you can find it on okay the whole film anyways that the guy i auditioned for was don shabib and he was looking for an immature kid and i auditioned seven times he ultimately gave me the part and and he hired uh this guy mike kakulowicz who was not an actor but he was just an outrageous character that they found at uh leeside high school right um and so we became very good friends uh mike kakulowicz and myself after making that movie which was an amazing experience in itself although i don't think shabib hates the movie don shabib hates that movie which was an amazing experience in itself. Although I don't think,

Shabib hates the movie. Don Shabib hates that movie. Disowning that film. Pretty well, yeah. All right, I mentioned yesterday, just yesterday, Humble and Fred were here, and that was episode 279.

You're here for, sorry, 379. This is 380. And I mentioned that, I asked Freddy, I said, because I knew you worked at CFNY, and I asked Freddy about your time at CFNY. So it sounds like you have this, you quit City TV, you have to deal with your substance abuse issues, and you have to kind of deal with that to get your health back, if you will. And at what point do you mount your comeback in media? Like, what's the next, uh, move for you? Well, I guess, um,

for a couple of years, I just, I, I scraped together whatever I could, um, one way or another. Uh, I can't really be specific. I don't know. I think I borrowed a lot of money from my mother, quite frankly. Um, I was, uh, driving, I ended up driving taxi in Brampton and working at CFNY. CFNY hired me, but they paid me like, I think it was $50 an editorial. So it was like $200 a week or something. And then Reiner Schwartz fired me for an editorial I did that was offensive. And he fired me two days before Christmas, and a courier comes to the door in the middle of a blizzard with a check for $1,000. I mean, I was thrilled. So you had a short stint at CFMI.

Yeah, yeah, really. I don't think it lasted a year. But at some point, you did do some on-air music show hosting. It wasn't just comedy. Oh, once, maybe. Only? Okay, because that's just from Fred. I was talking to him.

I think once I DJed and I don't think I was very good. Well, here's something for your ego here because I brought you up on the show and then Fred started

talking about you and I cut out a little excerpt here. This is Fred Patterson from Humble and Fred talking about you, Peter Gross. I used to study him

because I used to like his writing because he could say a lot in few words and it's, you know, being on rock radio and being a sportscaster, that was very important. He had the world according to Gross. And very smart man. Smart man. Loves the horses.

Loves the ponies. Loves the ponies. Yeah. And a great writer too. Yeah. Very good writer And a great writer too. Yeah. Very good writer. Because I'd listen to his sportscast and I think, geez, you know, when I got longer than him

on CFM1, I think he was on two minutes and he said a lot. And then I would listen and think, oh, okay. So I learned a lot from that guy. So there you go.

You know how you say a lot in two minutes? Talk real fast. Is that the trick? Well, cocaine helps with that, right? Bad joke. Okay. Now, I know nap time is here.

I know, I know, I know. And I apologize to you, but I want to get you to CFTR. So it sounds like Reiner Schwartz lets you go just before Christmas. You don't have the gig in CFY anymore. Then I know you do some work. Do you have a column in Star Week? I did that for a year. Okay.

And that was. That's the Toronto Stars TV guide. Thanks for reminding me because I was trying to remember how I got any money. And there's a few. I've got all the, I've saved them all. Some of them are pretty good. But I enjoy writing. I mean, I do.

I've been gifted with the ability to write and i study it and i like to read uh rosie de mano who's a sensational writer and trent frayne i don't know if you remember trent frayne no trent frayne um uh was a wonderful writer was with the globe and mail uh sports writer a really old school um you know i got the horse right here the dance ball review that's what i think about um so you know you you look and see what those guys are doing and what they how they they break the mold and so the writing has always been an important tool for me um so i'm fired in december from cfny i'm driving taxi in Brampton. And just a sidebar, I met a woman who worked in the office of the taxi,

and I had two children with her. So you see how things sort of morph together? No. So how many kids do you have? I've got two children. Two children. Good for you. By this woman, who, by the way, was 21 years younger than me,

and about 11, 12 years ago, broke up with me to take up with a man 11 years younger than her, which is, you know, you got to honor that. That's a big gap between you and the next guy. Listen, I say this because we all get along. We're very good friends. It's worked out really well. Come February, I think it's February of 19.

No, I'm taking it as February of the year 2000. Okay. No, it couldn't have been 2000. 1980. 1990. 1990. 90, yes. CFTR wanted to hire Debbie Van Kiekebelt

to be their sportscaster. And they said, but you've got to be in at four in the morning. She says, no, I've got two children. I can't do that. And they said, I think they said to her, well, what do you suggest? She said, well, why don't you get Peter Gross?

So Larry, do you know Larry Silver? Yes, I do. What a great character Larry Silver is. I hear, because Evelyn Macko was telling me some Silver stories. Oh, one of the funniest all-time human beings. So Silver calls me in in and they hired me. They hired me. It was like for, I don't know, $32,000

I think. But I was desperate. I was just thrilled to be back. So I was there for 10 years. From 1990 to 2000. And of course, so you start there. That's a rock radio station, right? That's why Jesse and Gene are there. And then they do that. Is it 93 when they flip to the old? Oh, that was, that, that was like taking, you've undone cocaine,

so you probably haven't done acid. But acid, if you take acid, and I only took acid like three times, but you know, you're thinking there's no effect, there's no effect. And suddenly, holy wow, man. So they, I'm always, I'm never in the loop with these things. Sure. And just out of the blue, they, it was a Thursday. They said,

we've just fired all of our disc jockeys. And on Monday we're becoming an all new station. And I was in the right place at the right time. And they made me the sports director. You were in the right department, right? Cause everybody in your, like Evelyn Macko and everyone in news was kept on.

Yeah. And yourself and there's others. Yeah. You guys were kept on and all the rock jocks, like the Jesse and Jeans, for example, they were all turfed. Yep, they were all given envelopes. Man, okay. So 1990, and you were there for how long did you say? A decade?

Yeah, and I left in April of 2000 because City TV offered me much more money to come back to City TV, which turned out to be a horrible experience. Why? Oh, God. I went back to City TV. Well, they wanted a weathercaster for the weekend. And so they said to me, if you do World According to Gross three days a week and do the weather on the weekend, we'll bring you back. And it was really important. And I did accomplish something. I wanted to go back and be clean and show that I could just apply myself to the work.

Because, like I said, I was a moron. Right. I could have done so much more with World According to Gross in 85, 86. But I was, it embarrasses me to say, I would come in many times having done coke all night long and just do the story as quickly as I could. Peter, addiction is a disease, right? Essentially, you were afflicted with a disease. And I insulted the work. I insulted the work. And I ruined something for me. And so I thought, you know what, here's a chance to come back. And what I did for four years from 2000 to 2004 was I came in every day. I was the first reporter

in. I had to fight to get cameras. I put everything I could into making the work as good as I possibly could. I was not doing any drugs whatsoever. and strangely and i think this is the truth the work wasn't as good as it was when i was right part part of the reason was that they made me do everything a minute 10 or less okay and in 85 86 if i wanted to go three minutes i could go three minutes and sometimes sometimes that's really indulgent, but sometimes it really works. You made a little movie, you know? Sure, sure. So there, and then there was another problem that I could not grasp that things had changed 180 degrees. What was acceptable and required and beloved in 1986 didn't go down.

I was going to ask you about this, and the words I was going to use is political correctness. How did political correctness, I want to say taint your brilliance, if you will, for these bits? I'm going to try to keep this as brisk as possible. There was a news director there who ruled like a despot, like a dictator he was brilliant he was nasty uh he made

women cry um the me too movement would have destroyed him at the time um and there was a producer who was terrified of the the new of the news director. So I would, so if you're following, the news director said to me, you better be funny or I'll fire you. Now being funny is pushing the envelope, is doing brave stuff. So I would go out and I would do stuff that I knew the audience would like. You were always pushing the envelope. The producer would see this and he would be scared that the news director would get on his ass. So three out of five of my stories never made it to air.

The ones that did make it to air were the really ordinary ones. The blander ones. The safer ones. So it was like taking Carlos Delgado and at the end of the year saying, well, you didn't have 40 home runs. You only had 17 home runs and you didn't have 45 doubles. You only had 11 and your batting average wasn't two 90.

It was two 30. Cause that's all we saw. So after, I thought you were going to say, it would be like going to Carlos Delgado and saying, we need you to bunt more. Well, they, they, they never told me they just didn't run my stuff. And some of it was infuriating. There were times in which

many many times in which i knew i'd done something that was outrageous and hilarious and harmless the important thing was harmless something the audience would love and um they wouldn't run it and was moses in charge at this time like where are we in the uh yeah moses was still there the boss okay well moses it's funny funny, Moses was fun about the same time I was. Anyways, in April of 19, of 2000, the news director hauls me and says, we're firing you, and here's your settlement. And I just, I remember walking out of the station

just part of me relieved because it had been a miserable experience, and then part of me terrified because it had been a miserable experience and then part of me terrified, what do I do now? And I mean, I heard you on 680 CFTR just the day I wrote you. I wrote you because I was in the car and I heard your voice

and I went to myself, I want to talk to Peter Gross. And then I think I tweeted out like, because you don't reply to your tweets. Are you aware? Do you know you're on Twitter? Peter the Gross? And then I think I tweeted out, like, because you don't reply to your tweets. Are you aware? Do you know you're on Twitter? Peter the Gross? Yeah, I had an intern who helped me with tweets, and then I lost the intern.

You know what? First of all, I get an awful lot of attention. I'm on the air a lot. Right. And at the end of the day, I don't feel like I need to. I realize tweets are good. Tweeting is good. But I just got nothing to say.

No, but that was my channel to say, hey, can you follow me so I can send you a DM? Which is just basically to ask you for your email. But somebody on Twitter replied to my tweet at you knowing maybe that you were never going to reply saying, Peter would be amazing. Here's his personal email address. And this is how this came to be.

Which is fantastic. So how did you end up for, I guess, the second tour of duty at 680 CFTR, now All News Radio? They decided to make some changes. I know that John Hinnon, who was the news director at the time, always liked my work.

So in 2006, I think they took Larry Silver. My gift was Larry Silver's downfall. They took Larry Silver off of the sports. Did they put him on KISS? I don't know. And now they had an opening at the sports, and they asked me to come back. And the money was okay.

And you're there today. Now I'm in my 11th year of my second go-round and uh i guess my goal now is to be the world's oldest sportscaster i mean it's 680 news is great um you know i i alluded to the fact that there was some really uh poisoned environment at city television the second time i got there and when i got back to 680 news what i recognize is that it's the most unpoisoned environment possible you just come in and do the work isn't that nice and i'm left to my own devices now now there's people who who kick in and say maybe you should do this could we have this that's fine you know because everyone's got

got an opinion on sports like why would you hire somebody because you like their work and they're good at what they do and then tell them how to do it like to me if you're going to hire the best person for the job you're going to hire a peter gross who knows how to put these commentaries together knows what he's doing get out of the way uh and let him do his thing well don't interfere the interesting thing about 680 news and they they appreciate that i've got this point of view um the sports comes on at 15 and 45 whether the listener wants it or not right and and the audience is 15 avid sports fan 35 sports fan 60 don't give a fuck right So my job is not to be completely informative and tell you who the Green Bay Packers picked with their 68th draft pick.

It's to make it interesting. My job, more than anything else, is to hold that audience for a minute and a half so they stay tuned for the business report, the traffic, and the weather. And I believe that I have a grasp of that better than any of the other sportscasters there because all the other sportscasters there

are with the fan. Right. And when you're on the fan, that Green Bay Packers 68th draft pick might mean something. You're so right because if you're listening to the fan, you are a sports diehard. But if you're listening to 680,

there's a good chance you're a very casual or not even a fan. And you know what? I find it's way more important for me to engage the 50% of the audience that are women than the 15% that are avid sports fans. If I piss off those 15%, but I have the women saying, that guy's interesting. I'll put a Justin Bieber clip to illustrate something. Right. And some people in the newsroom will go, what did you do that for? But the women like that.

No, good for you. So to close out here, and by the way, this has been amazing. Like I know we went a little longer than you probably anticipated, but there's a lot of great stories. So I get time and a half. Well, yeah, you can have another beer maybe.

But I wanted to, so A, I completely, thoroughly love this. But can we get, as I look at you now that we've been talking for 90 minutes, you're at 680 News. Is Peter Gross happy? How are things? I'm probably, considering the damage I've tried to inflict on myself, I'm a really well-adjusted human being. I wake up every day.

I don't want to do harm to anybody. I want to, any way I can, bring a bright moment to someone else's life. I've got four cats, two children, a grandchild. Oh, good for you. How old's your grandchild? Three and a half. You need to have him here. See, I got a four-year-old. Three and a half. You need to have him here. See, I got a four-year-old. Oh, he's something. Listen, I have a 95-year-old mother who is in extraordinary health, who's an absolutely very, very special person.

Everywhere I go, people say, Marilyn, wow. I mean, she's a knockout. She's something. So I'm a very, very lucky person. Yeah. I have an adventure every day. So the answer to your question, I'm an extremely, very lucky person. Yeah. I have an adventure every day. So the answer to your question, I'm an extremely happy person. Good. Listen to me.

I'm telling you, I'm so happy that you beat the addictions. It sounds like two out of three are taken. We got rid of the cocaine addiction and the pot addiction. And it sort of sounds to me, I'm not going to pry too much here, but you're still kind of wrestling with that gambling addiction. I'm going to gamble for too much here, but you're still kind of wrestling with that gambling addiction. I'm going to gamble for the rest of my life. But the question is within reason.

I've got to do it within reason. And that's a constant debate with me. I guess if you can afford to lose, then go nuts. How is that for a rule of thumb? There are guys who've got 10 jalopies in their garage and they spend thousands of years. So if I do it like that, if I say, you know, if I make $100,000 a year and I'm spending $5,000 gambling, that's okay. If I'm spending $20,000, $30,000, that's not okay. And that's the world according to Gross.

That brings us to the end of our 380th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Peter is at Peter the Gross, but he's not checking that, so don't waste your time sending him anything important there. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. So Peter, you've got his contact information in that

cup there, so you can contact Brian. And PayTM is at PayTM Canada. so you can contact Brian. And Paytm is at Paytm Canada. See you all next week. Thank you. won't be today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away cause everything is rosy and green well you've been under my skin for more than eight years