Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Phillippa Cranston on Her Brother Toller: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1811

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

In this 1811th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Phillippa Cranston about her facinating life and extraordinary brother Toller Cranston who was a figure skating champion and prolific artist. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, RetroFestive.ca and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

I brought a hammer and a chisel and I tried to wear away inhibition. And what I think that I brought was, in a sense, a certain spontaneity and a certain flaunting in the face of inhibition. I'm in Toronto where you want to get the city love. I'm from Toronto where you want to get the city love. I'm in Toronto, like we want to get the city love. So my city love me back for my city love. Welcome to episode 1,811 of Toronto Mike.

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Today, making her Toronto Mike's debut, it's Philippa, Cranston. How you doing there? Philippa, did I get that okay? You got that perfectly, Mike, thanks. Well, what a pleasure it is to meet you. I'm just going to boost you on this end. But I want to give some love to a FOTM who connected us. if you don't mind off the top. FOTM, Filippa, is a friend of Toronto Mike. You are now a FOTM.

Thank you. I'm honored. Well, thank you for being here. This is amazing. So, I want to give some love to the beloved and talented. Her head is growing, just listening to this right now. Mary Ormsby. How do you know Mary Ormsby? Well, I'm really proud to say that both Mary and I are Sutherland House author, Southern House, the greatest publisher of nonfiction Canadian works ever. But there's also a sports connection, obviously. Mary was a sports writer, some renown for many, many years, and wrote the wonderful book about Ben Johnson. Yes. So Mary's path with an athlete and my lifetime with a brother athlete crossed years ago. But I think we also found a certain kind of sympathico between us, because both of us had struggled to find an agent wanting to

or a publisher wanting to publish our both, I think, amazing books. And so we both fell upon Ken White. We think that he has impeccable taste, and he was extremely wise to choose us, and we're very grateful. So we met because of the books. We met because of our paths. We met because of our struggle, and we continue because of our persistence.

Okay, shout out to Ken White. Yes. I was at the book launch. It was on the Danforth. Do you say in the Danforth or on the Danforth? I think you could say either or maybe. on the Danforth. It was the Ben Johnson book,

and Ben and Mary paid a visit to this very basement for a wonderful episode last year. I know they did. Okay, did you listen? Of course. So you know what you're... I get worried, you know? You know what you're in store for here.

Yes, I do. Is that good or bad? Oh, it's definitely good. But Mary did say kind words about this studio. And what word did you use again? I remember being surprised because I always think this is like, last place left in the house and you do what you can with it,

but I never look at the studio and think, oh, what a nice studio. I don't think she used the word nice, but she definitely said things like funky, eclectic, charming, way out, cool, amazing. Okay, authentic maybe? Definitely. Because there's no, you can tell. You look at it and you say, oh, no designer worked on this space. I don't know.

It's pretty perfect. Yeah, it's practically perfect in every way because it is so radically imperfect and natural. But a pleasure to be here. So I'm going to read, we'll talk about Mary more, maybe later. I could talk about Mary all day. I remember, I have Steve Simmons on the program occasionally, and Steve Simmons will also sing the praises of Mary Ormsby. But they were on the fan together, a sports radio show.

I believe, and not that it was, I can't remember how often she was on, but Mary Ormsby is probably the first Canadian woman to have a sports radio program. I don't. Yeah, I know. I'm going to throw it out there. Yeah. So that's what I'm doing. Philippa, I'm now, if that's not true, we should start saying it's true.

But I believe that to be true. I can't comment. You're tapping out on that one. If Mary did it, then I'm sure that it was perfect. So I'm going to read Mary's email to me, but I feel like we haven't stated this fact yet. But your name, Philippa Cranston. And sometimes I want to say Philippa, would you change it for me? No.

No, in Mexico, I'm Philippa. But it's a funny name and people have stumbled over it forever. Philippa, please, who is your brother? Who was your brother? My brother was Taller Cranston. I never know if it was or is. I just struggled with that myself. I know I'm still struggling with it.

I think my brother is Taller Cranston, who is a two-time Olympian, six-time Canadian figure skating champion, author of seven books, artist of 20,000-plus, spectacular paintings. difficult, challenging, prickly, flamboyant, outrageous, selfish, generous, and amazing younger brother. He passed away suddenly almost 11 years ago in his home, at his home, in San Miguel de Mexico,

where he'd been living and working as an artist for 23 years. A prolific artist. Very prolific. So I've read, well, you had two books. We're going to get into this. I'm going to read the email from Marion. We're going to get into this because a little about you. a lot about your brother,

stuff I learned about your brother, taller that I didn't know, but I learned from your book, and we're going to really get into it here. And I think everyone listening of a certain age is well familiar with the very famous Tallde Cranston. Yes, it would be absolutely true. And a certain age seems to be...

Well, we're going to fix that, okay? Advancing like all of us. Where would you say that cutoff line is? I think it's 45. I was going to say 50, but 45 maybe. Yeah. Somewhere between 45 and 50. I used to be, I'd say your mother would know, but now I'm saying your grandmother would know.

My wife is slightly under 45, and I was having this chat with her. And I will say, because I had an event on Saturday, and it was in Mississauga at Palma's Kitchen. So shout out to Palma Pasta. I do have for you, Philippa, I have a large lasagna in my freezer that is yours. Oh, fantastic. Do you like lasagna? Of course. You're going to love this.

It doesn't. But I had Carla Collins on the program. She dropped by. You know Carla Collins? I don't. Okay, so. Okay, now I do that. I asked, I said to my way.

I'm not a Toronto person. So where are you, where are you from? I'm, well, I live in the Ottawa Valley near Arn Pryor. My family roots, my dad's from Arn Pryor, and I live in what was our family summer cottage on the Ottawa River. Okay, so I do believe being from Toronto is a huge advantage maybe in knowing the name Carla Collins. And my wife is from Edmonton, so she also gets excused. But I just said to my wife, I said, oh, Carla Collins dropped by. And she said, who?

And I said, oh, my goodness. And then at some point later, I said, you know, I'm going to talk to Taller Cranston's sister. She wrote this amazing book. And my wife is like, who's Taller Cranston? And I'm like, oh, she's born in the 80s. Well, there you go. Yeah. Well, you have red hair.

My goal in life seems to be to remind people who Taller Cranston is, and it's my pleasure and my challenge. Well, I'm going to help you with that today. This episode will be a little about you, a lot about Taller. but I did, I think you missed it there, but I'm going to repeat it because it's very important. I like to focus on my guest's hair. You have great hair. Thanks. It's cool.

Thank you. And it does in the ceiling, which Mary knows, although Mary was in the backyard. You know this. Okay. I always do the recordings down here for 13 years, but there was a brief period of time where COVID-19 arrived and we were told, you can't be inside with people. So I moved it to the backyard, and Mary Ormsby and Paul Hunter were backyard. guests so they don't they probably didn't oh and then mary came back with ben johnson and that's when

she saw the studio so she was here with ben johnson of course but your hair would hit the ceiling is that fair to say i think it is here's the note from mary arm's bee and then we're going to get into it by the way with the with the palm of pasta lasagna i have fresh craft beer for you from great lakes brewery did mary tell you this would happen no she did not this is a complete surprise well we got a surprise what she did say though is when is the last time somebody did something really nice and generous for you. I didn't know it was going to be today. So this is great.

Okay, well, then let me just do the trifecta here. I know you're going to love this. This is a measuring tape from Ridley Funeral Home. Listen to Brad Jones's Life's Undertaking because we're recording at 4 p.m. And he's going to make a major announcement of something that I know about, but he hasn't shared with the public yet. And he says he's going to do it on Life's Undertaking today at 4 p.m. We're going to record it.

I'll drop it like an hour later. But people should really tune in because Brad has something to say. and it's rather important. But that is a measuring tape. You may measure what you wish. Thank you. It's very excellent for picture frames and paintings. Right.

Okay, we're going to get into all of it. Hey, Mike. This is Mary Armstrongsby writing me an email. Hey, Mike. Hope all as well. Oh, very nice, Mary, everything's good. If I may be so bold, so sometimes I'll answer like her with a different tone,

so you know it's not what she wrote about me. No, you may be so bold because you're Mary Frickin'Omsby. Oh, my goodness. Okay. I'd like to suggest a timely potential guest for you, the 50th anniversary of iconic Canadian figure skater Taller Cranston's Olympic bronze

coincides with the 2026 games in Cortina and Taller's incredibly talented writer-author sister Philippa has written a new book out this month on Taller's spectacular art. I've included Philippa's website below and you can read more about her and her eclectic background. She's also hilarious.

no pressure, has tons of Toller stories and is a great conversation list and has big energy. I think you would love her. She also has cautionary tips from a horrific ex-executorship legal battle, I do need to know about this, which you will see in her background bio. She has written a 2024 book in tribute to Toller and has established a foundation in his name,

so there's lots of stuff to talk about. I think all of Philippa's contact deeds are on her website. If you're interested, and I hope you are, take care, Mary. So when Mary Ormsby suggests a guest and says, you should have this person on, you had me at hello. Let's book this right away. So thank you to Mary.

Yes, thank you to Mary. I'm very grateful. Can you live up to those big words, though? I'm not at all sure that I can, but like, taller, you fake it until you do it. You fake it until you make it, or you do it, sorry. Let me, my first question for you to get us rolling is a question I actually pulled from your book, okay? This will be evidence I read it, okay?

So, what was it like growing up with Taller Cranston? Yeah, it's a question that I am asked periodically, and the answer is ordinary. It was incredibly ordinary. We were extremely ordinary, middle-class family, southwestern Ontario. Do your chores, take out the garbage, feed the dog, expected to do okay, at least in school. And it was very ordinary. It was also clear from the earliest time that Taller was. an unusual child. He had a imaginary friend called Glunk Glunk

that we would step on periodically and would cause great outrage with Taller. But it was very ordinary. And I think that's one of the reasons that Taller continues to appeal and resonate with people is that nobody, although he had a huge, enormous flamboyant personality, there was a certain amount of wit and self-effacing charm behind it. He knew it was put on. Everybody knew it was put on. So he didn't scare people, and men, women of all ages, responded to him because I think they knew in his heart, in his soul, he was just an ordinary, very ordinary Canadian boy who grew

into a brilliantly talented artist. I was going to ask, at what point does this ordinary Canadian become an extraordinary person? I think from very, very early on, I remember when he was maybe three, that he paraded himself. We lived in Galt, Ontario at the time, downtown to the local police station, I believe, wearing nothing but my mother's swayed pumps. Absolutely nothing. I do remember he was returned by a very...

Oh, nothing at all? Nothing whatsoever at the age of three. He, I mean, we both used to, we would have shows, we would do dramatic performances and things for after dinner and for the parents and the aunts and uncles in the evening. But I know I do remember from a very early age,

he would walk on his toes like a ballerina with his toes bend over or something. I'm sure that would have Paul Veronica Tennant. So he always, he was very athletic. My dad was athletic. And I do think he could have done any sport in the world. He was talented with track and field. He could have been a high jumper or a diver, competitive diver. But he found his way to skating when he ballet doors closed in his face

because he learned that men never got to wear toe shoes. So he moved to figure skating. That was maybe, it wasn't super young, maybe age seven, eight. But from the get-go, he showed a lot of talent. He showed a fearlessness. He showed passion, even as a little kid. And he certainly loved the limelight, which came to him early on. So was there a figure skater he perhaps, I don't know, saw on television or something?

Or he's like, that's what I want to do. No, it was me, and certainly not on television. It was in the Kirkland Lake skating carnival that he was taken as a little boy and I was probably an icicle or something in the chorus. But it was the first time that he apparently announced to my parents that that is what he wanted to do. So no, it wasn't anything nearly as glamorous as television.

I'm not even sure we had a television in those days, as a matter of fact. Very interesting. So like you talk about, you know, he was fairly ordinary, but his name sure wasn't ordinary. No, but taller is a family name. It's not a made-up name. The tallers were British came from Britain and Cranston, a Scottish background. All of the roots are in Ontario.

But that could only be one, right? There could only be one taller. I know he remember he said one time that somebody said to him that, oh, I know someone whose name is taller and he said impossible. There is only one. That's right. I read that. That's great.

It's funny. I just had a former Toronto Blue. Jay, who Mary Armstrongsby will remember, but his name is Rance Mullinix. And for the life of me, I can think of two rances. Like, there's Rance Mollinix who was, you know, in my life throughout the 80s. And there was Rance Howard, who was Ron Howard's dad. And I would see him on screen. But I couldn't think of another rance.

But as I sit here with you, Philippa, Philip. I'm going to call you Felipe for Mexico. Mexican. Yes, that's fine. I'm thinking there is no other taller that can come to mind. So if you do encounter one in the wild, that's a great line from taller, your brother. because there could only be one. Yes.

So, not only that unique first name, but is it true? His middle names are Shalito in Montague? No, it is absolutely not true. But that's another kind of funny, Tolar-y thing. My father was Montague, Montague, Shilito, S-H-I-L, who was named after some kind of military general, English, I think, many years ago.

Not Romeo and Juliet. No, I don't think so. But Taller's formal name is Taller Montyue James, but he thought that the James part was boring, so he substituted it, but he never spelled it correctly, never pronounced it correctly, and to this day in Wikipedia and various other places. In even important places, I have a note from Stephen Harper

because the flag that was flying on the Peace Tower, the day that Toller passed away, was claimed by Lorraine Harper, the wife of the at the time Prime Minister. And there was a very nice little note from Stephen Harper to taller, Shalito, Cranston. So it's, no, that was not his name, but he fancied it. He thought it was fancier and more interesting, more colorful.

He has said many times that he doesn't think he could have become who he became if his name had been Bob or Jim or something. So he always liked being taller. Well, that's interesting, because he lived up to this, this unique name as what a unique individual. And I'm going to speak for like-minded. Canadians like me who know him as a figure skating great, who didn't realize what an artist he was. Oh, he did realize.

No, he did. I didn't. No. Well, I don't know, don't you think, because Canadians, people, ordinary people like you and me, knew that he was something special. He came just after Don Jackson, who was an absolute giant in world figure skating, and still is an astoundingly iconic Canadian. But taller and Don Jackson were almost the divide.

lighting line between a very stiff, not stiff, yeah, stiff kind of skating. They were poured into these little tuxedo things. Don Jackson often said he couldn't lift his arms much above his shoulder. And Taller changed the way skating costumes were, the way skating was, the way expression was, arms and hands and fingers and toes and head and neck and position. Taller made that change. And so Canadians knew that. They might not have expressed it in terms of artistry, but they knew it was something different.

and they knew that the judges were very, very, very slow to accept that. Taller was pilloried by the judges for years and years, and they would mark him down so low in the school figures, which are now, thankfully, obsolete. But so low, he'd finish six, seventh, eighth in the school figures, and then have to claw his way up to maybe fourth, the most odious position for any athlete just off the podium. But he's remembered, you know, he stopped competing,

competitively in the mid-70s and here we are in 1926 and probably if you asked most Canadians to name three figure skaters his name would be there yeah yeah well I played this game so firstly I'm gonna just correct you I'm gonna Robert Lawson you that's our official fact checker but it's 2026 because you said 1926 oh but you know what well time flies some people think I had a podcast in 1926 seriously this happened I'm gonna shed that's okay but it's like what do me 1926. Trust me, it's all going too fast. I'm glad you did.

You know, Robert Lawson, the spirit of Robert Lawson is with us here today. And he's still with us, by the way, before people freak out there. But I do want to just say hi to a couple people on the live stream real quick because there's a chap, a beloved member of the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe, which you are now in, okay? You have no idea that you are now in the TMU. But I want to say hi to Canada Kev. Canada Kev, it was great to see you at Palmis Kitchen on Saturday for TMLX21.

That was amazing. But I also want to shout out a newcomer. Canada Kev's, and a lot of listeners will be interested in this, I think Canada Kev's sister has joined us and is going by the handle Canada Gen. And Canada Jen says there will only ever be one taller in my mind. Canada Jen, big figure skating fan and big fan of your brother. Yeah, thank you, Canada, Jen. Canada, Jen.

Okay, we got a lot of proud Canadians on the line here. So one thing you mentioned that finishing fourth, and I was reading that in the book, like the difference it's amazing in figure skating and at these you know Olympic events particularly the difference between fourth and third oh it's hideous it's just hideous my heart just aches for somebody who misses the podium by a millionth of a second or one mark or it's just so hard like fourth you're just one of the many people who miss the podium but third you're celebrated forever as the bronze medalist that's exactly right yes it's true geez and you're left and i said it in the, I think I said it in the, well, maybe it was Mary Ormsby when I was reading her note, but your

brother does win a Olympic bronze. He did win an Olympic bronze. Are things different, like the way we look at Taller Cranston in the history, are things different if that's a fourth place finish? How do you mean different? Well, I just mean that the fact that once you get bronze, it's like now, okay, you've got an Olympic medal. Like it sort of changes, it opens all the doors.

Oh, 100%. Yeah, huge. It's huge. And it almost doesn't matter the color. The metal is what's important. an Olympian is super important. I know Taller had a lot, I don't know if bitterness is exactly the right word,

resentment. You know, it was not good because in those days, back in the 70s, there was a kind of hierarchy and you had to earn your way up the ladder because it was such a judge sport and the criteria were never terribly clear to people. And so you'd start

in your first year at an international level and maybe you'd be 15th and then maybe you'd be 12th and, you know, you'd work your way up. And the year that Taller won his bronze medal he was definitely slated to be on the podium he paid his dues and it was going on but there's kind of

an incredible story with that earlier the year of the year of that Olympics taller got a call from a coach in the US saying taller I have a plane ticket for you come to my skating school and I think it was Colorado and I will promise to make you an Olympic champion and taller

said well I have to leave Mrs. Burka Ellen Burka who was his long time coach here in Toronto and who put together they actually changed figure skating. Taller said, well, I have to leave Ellen Burka, and the fellow said, yes, you will. And Taller said, well, no, it's out of the question. And the guy put the phone down and called John Curry in England

and said, John, I have a plane ticket for you. You come to me and I'll make you an Olympic champion, which is exactly what happened. So John Curry left his coach in England and did become Olympic champion, but he also died tragically. I think with him, I can't remember exactly, maybe 10 or 15 years in Taller,

often said, and I went on for another 40 years trying to prove myself, which he did. Okay, all of this is very interesting, but it speaks to the character of your brother, though, that I love that loyalty. Yes, yeah. And not only that the loyalty there, but how he can use this fuel to drive him for his remaining years. That's exactly the word that he used to. He said that it fueled him, and he felt that he had something to prove.

And it really wasn't until towards the end of his life when he died at 8. 65 that he really accepted that he was an artist, he was legitimate talent, that he didn't need to prove himself to other people, and he was an Olympian. And for him being an Olympian, he came to that, but it took a long, long time. Because, I mean, a lot of Canadians would say he was robbed, and in a way he kind of was, but I think it was his destiny. He was always very big talking about chase your destiny and find your destiny and pursue your destiny. And he did that. He believed that in his heart and his soul and his destiny was to be

on the podium but not with the gold and to continue to prove himself and work like stink every day of his life. So you've referenced a couple of times I think you used the B word, bitter, but then you kind of called it back, you walked it back a bit, but I, so when you say he was robbed

because 1976 I was prancing around in diapers so so 1976, but remind me again how he was robbed. Well, in those days, for figure skaters, they would have to do these school figures, which I actually think are important, and most serious skaters would agree are important. The discipline, the control, the repetition, the commitment, the understanding, all of that

is super important, and I think it's lost. In a way, it's like cursive writing for kids in school these days. They've lost that ability to write, to control their hand. In any case, the figures shockingly counted for 660% when taller was skating. And it was patterns that would be traced on the ice and the judges would go out in their rubber boots and shuffle around and kick the snow off and look to see how close are the tracings and so on and so on. But nobody watched it, nobody could see it,

nobody could evaluate it, nobody could judge for themselves if the tracings were close or whether the centers were clean or whatever the hell they were looking for. I have no idea. And then the free skating part, those spins and the jumps and so on, We're 40%. That has changed. Now there are no school figures at all, none, zero.

Taller won the free skating, won the gold medal in the free skating component multiple times. But when you combined it with the 60% figure thing, he would end up fourth on a good day. That's fascinating to me. And so it's the same skates happen from the same competitors in 2026 at the Olympics. Yes. Where would Taller likely have finished?

Well, that's a really good question. question too because they did they have made efforts over the years to quantify things because it was a judge sport it was known to be political the eastern block countries would gang up and you know it was it was crazy back in the 70s they have made efforts to try to standardize things but it's very difficult to standardize something that's artistic but what's happened is that you can standardize jumps either you jump you know seven times or three times there's a difference or you spin 47 times or 14 times there's a difference or you spin 47 times or 14 times there's a difference difference. But what is very impossible to quantify is do you give the audience goosebumps? Do you, you know, does the hair stand up on the back of your neck? Do you feel like you're going to be on the verge of tears because it's so beautiful? They've still had trouble quantifying that. So the pendulum has swung so much to the technical and the pressure on these young skaters is absolutely horrific. And a lot of times they're concentrating so hard on a triple jump or a quadruple jump that they forget the music. They forget who they are and where they are. Exactly. So what you'll hear from most people, and I definitely am outspoken and biased somewhat, is that a lot of skating today just leaves people cold. They're forgettable. The kids are working their hard out, but it's forgettable.

Right. Like, yeah, because it's like a checklist, right? Yeah. You got to do this. And I know that I'm sure next year I'll be an expert again. Every four years, I'm a figure skating expert. Yeah, exactly. Like the triple lots are there's all these sow cows.

Yeah, I just like saying sow cow cow. How often, I haven't said sow cows since the last month. I haven't either. No, it's a funny word. It's funny. You got your checklist. Okay, yes, you did that, you did that, you did that. But what Toller brought was this artistry.

And that kind of is a nice segue to where I do want to go in a moment. But here's what I'm thinking I want to do. I want to learn a little more about you, my esteemed guest here. And then we'll come back to Toller Cranston. And I'm particularly interested in the Mexico chapter of his life. and then what you know brings you here today and everything but philippa since i've trained myself not to say filippa that's a that's a philippa well like i feel like if you're philippa you're philippa like i'm not you know i feel like i'll try to do philippa and then maybe i'll slip in when we get to

mexico i'll slip in philippa but a little bit about you because i'm reading about you and it's your like you clearly are taller's sister because of how creative and how talented you are. So, for example, I read that you're a writer or producer on hundreds of films and video projects, including Seekers, which is a 32-part national television series focused on indigenous youth issues, and that you've been writing fiction. So maybe, why don't you pat yourself on the back here and just tell us a little bit about you? Well, that's a flattering sort of question. I think I would start by saying that a few years ago, my husband and I had a consulting, have a consulting company, which has kind of gone by the by since Taller's life has taken

up an enormous amount of the last 10 years. But the last things we were doing were working with a lot of marginalized young people in particular, at risk youth and so on. And we developed a program based on the theory of multiple intelligence. And it's not actually a theory. It's real. But everybody has multiple intelligence, people have verbal smarts and body smarts and word smarts and logic smarts and all kinds of different smarts. And what a lot of at-risk people, marginalized populations, don't understand is how much talent they have. Huge amounts of talent experience capacities that they don't know about. So I think, you know, I think I have certain amount of talent, but I believe absolutely that everybody does. It's just that maybe partly

because of my work and partly because of my own life path, I've discovered a lot of those things and I'm more aware of them. And at this ripe old age, I draw on everything. And my goal is to bring taller's multiple talents to the awareness of Canadians. And wherever I go in non-taller parts of my life is to help reflect back to people, especially young people in Mexico and young people in some of these taller legacy projects we're working on, that they do have talent, they do have ability, they do have skills, and they just need to understand it and make it work for them. Some have said your brother taller was the goat, greatest of all time, but I need to ask you

about goats, okay? Look, I'm working with me here, okay? Yeah, I can do that. I don't see where this is going. I don't have a writer here, okay, Philippa, this is all off the lid here. And, you know, I might have drain damage, who knows. I read that your husband, who is a professor. Yes.

That you guys started a dairy goat enterprise. We did. Like, I mean, I can tell you more. Like, you built the first dairy processing plant in Canada in 40 years. Yes, we did. So what's up of this goat action that you and your husband were up to back in the day there? Well, this was back in the early 70s. And we became a, we were, you know, kind of post.

post-hippie generation. We were both teaching at the University of Western Ontario, but living in the country and living the life, as people did. And we had one goat, which led to two, which led to ten, which led to a curiosity about the history of goats and goat milk and understanding that a lot of infants or people with celiac conditions and other things were allergic to cow milk, and that led us to, well, what can we do about this, which made us foolishly maybe, or poor timing, unlucky timing, in the early 80s to build a dairy processing plant when interest rates in 1982 went from like 5% to 27% which is like credit card territory which was hideous and anyway we found ourselves bankrupt

on a goat farm with five degrees between us and an enormous amount of experience which by the way has paid for itself 50,000 times over the years you know having had your nose rubbed in the dirt and having had to pick yourself up and rebuild a life and re-find your identity, these are very strengthening and empowering things. They also make you much less tolerant to nonsense. So I'm grateful for those experiences, but it was very, very difficult at the time. So if you're less tolerant, taller, rents, you did there, that's like being allergic to bullshit, right?

Yes, that is exactly what it is. And I try to tell this to my children as well. You're talking to bigger groups than I talk to. I just talk to my four kids. But, like, if you learn from the experience, it wasn't a mistake or a waste of time. 100%. And taller would say that, too, that you embrace failure as a friend. We're taller's exact words.

And it's true because I absolutely don't believe that there's such a thing as failure. There is such a thing as stupidity. If you go and do it again and again and again. Right. Without changing some variable there. You have to process the lessons. But, no, I definitely don't think that that failure is. bad thing it's something to be embraced and to produce growth the uh by the back to the goats

before we're going to move on for the go i'm i was going to do 60 minutes with you on the goats here but so easily so we so it sounds like you learned a lot from this experience and those interest rates sound uh insane to me uh 20 like 27 percent something like that that's what the interest rates is if i go to uh you know cousin guido and his uh his friends well they want to charge me that kind of We had education and we had pre-goat diversion careers to rebuild. But a lot of the farmers at the time didn't have that. So family farms were going under. Farmers were at their wits.

And it was the most heartbreaking dreadful time. It just, it was awful. And you pasteurized and packaged goat milk. Yes. You made ice cream, cheese, yogurt, and then you would deliver this product to health food stores throughout central and southwestern Ontario. Yes. Okay, what was the name of this goat processing, this dairy processing plant?

The dairy was called Capricor, C-O-R-E. We were going to make it Capricor C-O-R-P-S as in the business, but it would have been pronounced as CapraCorp's, which prophetically maybe it kind of was. And then it would need to be brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. Exactly. Exactly. We just couldn't have financially sustained the 40, 50 years it would take to get to the funeral home part.

Now, okay, so you, she, so the goat stuff, we talked about, so these, the films, so you, like, so you would produce films. Yes. Okay, and I did shout out seekers here, but you got a, like, a long list of, like, hundreds of film credits. Well, most of them were industrial, you know, for public sector clients, a lot of government work, a lot of, yeah, I mean, I did wrote publications, I wrote a book for the armed forces on combat first aid, I'm quite an expert on NBC nuclear biological chemical defense. Well, who isn't, okay?

Dime a dozen. Exactly. I know. My guest, Amor, was also an expert on, so nuclear, I can't even say nuclear. How many people butcher that? Nuclear, biological, and chemical defense in the military and best practices in early childhood education, in indigenous communities. So you're a very talented woman in your own.

I want to say you're more than just taller sisters. what I'm trying to get to you. Well, thank you, Mike. But, you know, when you're just a contractor, you do whatever jobs come to you. And same as what you're doing now. Everybody's story that comes here, I'm sure leaves a little something with you

and you leave with them. But it was fascinating. I learned so much about so many things and you don't have to go into any great depth, but it was great. It was wonderful. So there's a period of time between your brother retiring from figure skating

and then up and moving to Mexico. Yes. So what can you just share with us and also shout out your books again like people are getting a little taste here today but if people want to read and i i enjoyed it thoroughly like she'll shut i know that the two books but shout shout out these books regarding your brother yeah i always forget to talk about the books i'm here to remind you here talking about taller the first book is called taller cranston ice paint passion and and it's it's unusual i think as biographies go because i knew that

the figure skating judging as we've talked about a little bit earlier and the art and gender issues and all these kinds of things, I'm not remotely equipped or qualified or pretentious enough to attempt to write about those things, but I can write about what he was like as a little boy and what he was like, what the estate sale in Mexico was like, 18,000 items in 40 days, which is pretty crazy. So what I did was invite people who do have the credibility and the authority about those areas to write. So each chapter in the biography is anchored by someone who does have the credentials and the authority and the respect to comment on figure skating, judging, or where taller fits in a world of contemporary artists, or

various other kinds of things. And this is your first non-fiction book. It was my first non-fiction book, and I also thought, if I ask a whole pile of people to contribute to this book in some fashion, then they'll all feel obliged to, at least if not buy it, get one and talk about it. it and that's how it will be distributed but again it brings us back to the Titan Ken White took up this book and so so it's actually a published biography but there are comments and perspectives and observations for more than 150 different

people and one of the things that pleases me immensely at the end of the book there's a kind of index of all the people who contributed because I knew that the skaters wouldn't know anything about the Mexicans the Mexicans wouldn't know about the artists and the artist wouldn't know about Mexico. So there's a little tiny bio, three four line bio of each person and it would range from somebody famous, Jeannie Becker, Veronica Tennant

I actually learned of your brother's passing from Jeannie Becker. Right, she was the first to confirm it. It was kind of amazing. But there's also the Mexican driver and the gardener and the maid who discovered him the morning that he was found deceased in Mexico. And I

love that his life crossed so many different areas and I wanted perspectives from all different aspects of his life and I think it combines for a much richer richer portrait of a fairly complex and definitely colorful person. So people can buy taller Cranston, ice, paint, passion. You can buy it now, congratulations, because I understand it's already won

five international awards. Ten, okay, my bio's at a date. Double that, ten. Ten, yeah. That's amazing. And it ranks consistently ranks in multiple Amazon categories, including figure skating, Olympics, and LGBTQ plus. So pick up taller, Cranston, ice paint, passion. I'm just going to read something from Canada Jen. It's going to have to roll off my tongue.

I'm so used to saying Canada Kev. But I'm going to read something from Canada Jen on the live stream. And then we'll find out what your brother was up to and why he left Canada for Mexico. and we'll get into the Mexico part of his life with the art particularly, and we'll pick it up there. But I want to say on the live stream that Canada Jen writes,

the judging system in general, we're talking figures skating here, not your book 11 or 10 awards or whatever. The judging system in general is next to impossible for non-experts to understand. I completely resonate with your reference to performances giving the audience goosebumps. Those are the performances over the decades

that I remember. You, and she says this about you, Philippa, you're a renaissance woman. Goats, books, movies. Yeah, but the multiple intelligence thing that I talked about says that everything connects, everything has a reason, and everything's related. But multiple means more than one. Yes. So what am I doing wrong?

I don't have multiple intelligence. Nonsense. Look at you're sitting here with a studio that's amazing. I don't even know what buttons I'm pressing over here. Incredible equipment and lights and stuff. It's crazy. There's a lot going on here. Okay, so your brother,

taller, after he retires as a figure skater, just give us a taste of his life in person. And then, please, I'm very interested in why he leaves Canada for Mexico. Yeah. Well, I think it was in 1993 that he moved to Mexico. So let me see. He would have been 40. Yeah, about 40.

So, obviously, his skating days, he was still doing some exhibition skating, but any of the competitive was over, and he was really trying to find himself. And he also was an outrageous spender. He never kept two pennies, and he could live much more cheaply and luxuriously in Mexico, and the weather, of course, is amazing, and the colors and the light. So he moved to San Miguel de Iende, which is a Spanish colonial city, halfway between Mexico City and the U.S. border in the mountains, but it's always been for 100 years, an artistic community. it was an artistic center and had been forever. So it was not only a haven for artists of all media, but also craftsmen and taller found the metal workers and the woodworkers and the carvers and the weavers

and the tinsmiths and the glassblowers, and they could create anything he could possibly imagine. So he was kind of in heaven there, and he either was painting, and because he was an Olympian with only a bronze but still a metal, he would get up at 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in the morning and was at in his studio, just as he had done in his skating days. He had a very prodigious work ethic.

And so he could live there. He could, it was a cash society. He didn't have to keep records. There were piles and piles of unopened mildewy bills from Revenue Canada and so on, stuck in various pots around the property. He just didn't care. He could live the way he wanted to without much record keeping and paint his brains out and create every day of his life, which he did.

This estate that he lived on, It was a garden paradise. It was. Yeah, it was pretty magnificent. And he lives there and he works there and he's creating this art. And I want you to bang home the point how prolific he was. I've seen all this art. But he was painting every day.

He was painting every day and not just one thing but multiple things. And in between doing things with metal and glass and so on and so on. The figure that I've fixed on and continue to repeat his 20,000 original paintings in his lifetime, I've seen him, quote, as high as 70,000, but he exaggerates considerably more than I do. But 20,000, the gallerists that work with him said that that's kind of reasonable in the course of his life. So when he passes away, and my condolences, I know it's been, what, you said, 11 years ago? Yeah, just about 11 now. Geez, I can't believe it.

Okay, when he passes away, there's about 20,000 items on his estate property. Yes, there were. Not paintings, but he was not only an artist, but a shopper. And so there were maybe six, seven, eight hundred massive ceramic, Mexican ceramic platters and plates and bowls and stuff that were on every wall, every ceiling, all over this massive property that extended from one block to the next in Mexico. And it was a garden, jungley kind of paradise. Yes, there were 18,000 items. They were counted, excluding the original paintings of which there were 400 and some on the property. and um but this begs okay so i did i read this from you that it was his desire your brother

taller's desire to live a quote unquote simplified minimalistic life yes that is what he left toronto to do and he announced to the world to everyone that would quote him and publish his commentary that he would go to mexico and live in white and devote himself to his painting and that lasted he left canada with his skates and his uh paints and And that's about it. Everything was sold, a massive week-long sale at Waddington's years ago, and the contents of his property in Cabbage Town were auctioned off and off he went. But, you know, being in all this dazzling color and extraordinary artistic and artisanal talent in Mexico,

it wasn't long before he started shopping and rebuilding his place. But talk about changing your mind, right? Like, like, so it's one, you know, a minimalistic life to focus on your art in such a garland. in paradise. That sounds amazing to me. Yes. And then to accumulate almost 20,000 pieces. Things. Yes. So

when he passes away suddenly, and hopefully this doesn't trigger you in any way, but like how did you receive the news? And like kind of I would say far too young. What, 65? 65 is definitely far too young. I'll just comment on that first. For one thing,

if he had lived till 75 or 85, I'd be dead and there wouldn't be two books. about taller Cranston. Oh, that's not true, because you're here now and you look great, and he would be 75 now? Yeah, he would. You might have to up those numbers. I know. I know. I don't know.

I think he would have micromanaged me into oblivion. I probably would have killed him, so I'm not sure that it would have happened. Sorry, what was the first part of your question? I guess I'm wondering how you Oh, yeah, how I got the news. No, it was, no, I didn't. I got a call from somebody saying,

hey, shit, I just heard that your brother died. I said, what? Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. I mean, we weren't in regular touch in those days at all. We weren't, there wasn't anything particularly estranged. But anyway, I'd not heard such a thing. He was busy.

He was very busy getting up much earlier than I did. But I called a friend who I knew was at the National Figure Skating Championships in Kingston, Ontario, that were going on that very day and thought, well, if anybody knows about taller, it'll be somebody at the skating championships. and I called her and said, hey, this is a silly question, but did you happen to hear anything about tolerance? She said, oh, my God, it's just come across the PA system. And so that's what happened.

I think it was, Jeannie Becker was the first that confirmed it, but it was extraordinary that the entire figure skating world of Canada was in one building, in one place in this country on that day. 24 hours later, everybody would have dispersed, but that made it a kind of astounding story and also sort of appropriate. Taller stopped traffic during his lifetime and stopped the show when he passed away.

And so what I'm told by people who were there at the time that the arena fell into a dead silence. The press booth went into a stunned silence and then everybody started trying to confirm whether this news was true or not true. And it in some ways couldn't have happened at a more better time for Taller. it made his death every bit as dramatic as he would have wanted it to be, I think.

It was stunning news. Yes, it was stunning news. And we're talking January 2015. Yes, 23rd, January 23rd, 2015, which is absolutely stunning news. So what's your reaction? Like, I can't imagine your brother, 65 years old. And do we have a cause of death? Yeah, so it was a massive heart attack.

I didn't know that, obviously, for the first few days. about what my reaction was, was, holy smokes, what, now what, I waited for, I waited. Holy smokes, you can do better than that. I might warm up to that. So I waited, I waited for news, you know. I mean, all the media was buzzing.

There were articles from the New York Times and the globe and the star, and, you know, they were doing retrospectives on this great Canadian legend, legendary taller Crancent dead at 65. But there was no news, nothing about a funeral, nothing about anything. And finally, after two days or three days, I called a niece, who's a lawyer, said, what the hell?

What do I do? And she said, call external affairs, which I did, and they were amazing and liaised with the embassy in Mexico. And I discovered to my complete horror, it still horrifies me, that my brother is on a slab in a morgue in Mexico waiting to be claimed. And so I went to claim my brother and bring him home or deal with it. And it was on that trip where I went only just to get him tucked away into a dignified safety. resting place that I discovered that he had died without a valid will. He did have a will but it was a two-page handwritten scrawl that he

banged off when he was trying to get a loan, yet another loan from somebody and the sole beneficiary of that will had pre-deceased taller by a couple of years which meant that the whole estate was uncertain and so a process ensued which is the same as what would happen here in Canada or North America where is there a wife is there a husband, is there a parent, is there a brother, you know, eventually it gets down

the line to brothers and sisters, which is how my two younger brothers and I came to be responsible for the estate. And then between my two brothers and myself, I was selected to be the executor, and that's where my administrative journey with Toller's estate began. Okay, let's pause there because I have questions. You were the estate trustee, and this is a 10-year journey. We're barely 10 years beyond, but you had to resolve your brother's estate and you got i want to hear some stories about this this horror story but i do want to thank just a few more partners here before we pick it up there but i want to thank recycle myelectronics dot cae uh did did taller have any tech stuff going on in mexico or was

absolutely not he was the least tech person in the world he couldn't use a cell phone he couldn't do anything except a bank card which i know people like this uh i call them luddites yes he was absolutely a ludite yeah so tallerer Although he's in Mexico, I don't think Recycle My Electronics.C.A. would work in Mexico, but it works here in Canada. If you go to that website and put in your address, it'll tell you a place near you, you can drop off your old electronics, your old devices, your old cables, so that it gets properly recycled, and those chemicals do not end up in our landfill. So thank you, RecycleMyElectronics.ca. And thank you, Nick Iienes. He's going to be here Friday morning.

He's got a couple of great podcasts that we record here. building Toronto skyline and building success and I know we have an episode of building Toronto Skyline on Friday morning but thank you to Nick Iini's Infusion Corp I heard he had a beer with Brad Bradford yesterday Brad Bradford who is also an FOTM like you he was at TMLX 21 on Saturday and of course we enjoyed Palma Pasta and we enjoyed Great Lakes beer

and last but not least I would like to give some love to I have given love to everybody but again much love to Ridley Funeral Home and again Brad Jones is here at 4 o'clock he's got something to share with the listenership that's a 4 o'clock recording I know what it is but I'm not going to spoil it

and it's pretty heavy but speaking of heavy Philippa can you tell me a little bit I know that this was a decade in the making here What was the issue and why was it so trying to, when you were estate trustee for your brother? I wish that I could tell you what the issue was. I don't have a clue.

I don't have a clue. What I can tell you is that 18,000 items on the estate were dispersed. 450 paintings and original artworks were brought back to Canada and two 53-foot containers. Two properties were sold. Mexican extortionists, blackmailers, thugs, and gun-toting creeps were dealt with. The property deeds, which were completely out of whack in Mexico, were aligned. The property was re-servayed. Everything was done, and after all of that was done, my brothers decided or felt somehow

that they had been cheated and began a litigation. At no time did they say, at no time did they produce a single smidgen of evidence, not a single solitary piece of paper, not a number, not a date, not an account, but the litigation went on for 10 years and cost the estate more than a million dollars and a spectacular waste of time. It was really awful, but, but I don't actually, just like going bankrupt on a goat farm, I do not regret a minute along the way. I've heard so many extraordinary stories about taller. My impression of him sometimes was, and it's true, that he could be very selfish and self-absorred, but he was also spectacularly generous and responsible for the career of a lot of

artists, athletes, and performers. And this time, talking to people and meeting people and hearing stories about my brother has been just an immense gift to me and have informed my multiple award-winning biography and now the new art book. So I don't regret, I don't regret any of it, but What the issue was, I honestly couldn't tell you. Anybody who's curious and thinks this makes no sense, Philippa, you must not be telling the truth. You must have been the corrupt, incompetent, stupid person that you were alleged to be. I would say simply Google, Taller Estate Brothers fraud,

and you can read the transcripts of... There was a trial, a three-week trial, Mike, and I was on the stand for 11 days from morning till night, and in the end was found to be completely vindicated to have acted with complete integrity and authority and absolutely no problem whatsoever with my accounting and my records and my performance, my execution of my duties

as a state administrator. So what was in my brother's head? I couldn't tell you. I don't know. It's like the scene in Black Christmas, tis the season, you know, but the call is coming from inside the house. like I just think of that because that a lot of that you had to go through and you make you know I love your attitude on it which is it gave you some great stories you know which are invaluable I know that and you acquired a boatload of so you got the stories and hard earned wisdom as well through that experience but right I'm sorry to hear this because it's always some extra it's like Shakespeare and we talked about Romeo and Juliet earlier but like when it's the the family like it's just I'm sorry that you had to go through all that

Well, it happened, but it's given me book number three in the taller series, which will come out in the spring, which has to do with the journey. And I'll just tell you the book is called The New Book, Executor, Battle, Scars, and Wisdom. And the subtitle is, it's a little bit long-winded, but very descriptive. It says, Lessons from the Ten Year Soul-Destroying, Financially Horrifying, Utterly Uplifting, Journey, precedent-setting journey of the taller Cranston estate. And that's what it is, because I came to understand through my journey, which was hideous and dreadful,

that there are a lot of estates that go south, often not as extreme as what happened to me, but there are lessons not in how to prevent it necessarily, but in how to manage yourself through it, which is so difficult. I was not prepared to be vilified publicly in media, and even by law firms, and so on, being accused of all kinds of things were just outrageous. It was very difficult.

But I think I have a lot to share with people to help them get some perspective on how they can conduct themselves through something that's very challenging and difficult. What is it about money that makes people act a little bit? I'm going to be careful of the word, but just complete the sentence yourself. But money seems to do this to be false. I don't know. I'm not sure that it's money. think one of the senior lawyers that I talked to at some point along the way said that it all goes

back to the, it all goes back to the sandbox, that there's longstanding resentments that often people don't understand. There's jealousies, there's fear, there's cowardice, there's, I have no idea what I don't intend to analyze, or I couldn't speculate, but I don't believe that it has to do with money. It certainly couldn't have in this case, because the state had been essentially settled, bequests had been delivered or distributions had been made. It wasn't like all the money was sitting in a pot waiting to be divided, but somehow my brothers felt that they'd been hard done by that they'd been cheated. And I don't, I don't know why, because there was, because A, they weren't, and B, there was no evidence whatsoever. So I don't know. I think it has to do with

control. I think it has to do with all family dynamics, I think, and these days, when families are so much more blended culturally and generationally and with multiple marriages and stepchildren and children. I'm told that 70% of estates go off the rail, some more or less extreme, but that's a pretty high percentage. Plus, estates are a lot bigger these days, and there's more money at stake,

so there's more stuff to fight over. But often I think it has to do with the teapot or the dog or the cottage, more than just dollars and cents. And this is in the book. This will be the third of the trilogy. Yes. And that's coming out spring 2026.

Yes. Not 1926. I just want to make sure I clarify that. But I feel like we didn't shout out the second book. So, okay. So if we're all following along at home here, because you're so prolific and renaissance here, but the book, the first book and the book that's all about your brother, Toller, that's called Taller Cranston, Ice, Paint, Passion.

And then the third book, which is not yet out, is going to be about the state planning. That's sorry, state planning. and that's a whole different book, I believe. But this hell you went through the last decade with the estate that your brother left in Mexico. But remind us about the second book, what is it called, and I have it, but what is it called and what's in it?

Yeah, the second book is called Taller Crenston, artistic impression, which brings us back to the figure skating, judging thing, because back in Toller's Day, in the free skating portion, the judges would give two sets of marks, one for technical merit, one for artistic impression so it's a little bit of a nod to his skating background but it has to do with his art with his prolific output as an artist and it's i'm extremely proud of this book

and i think taller would be very very thrilled too it's unbelievably beautiful the book is just spectacularly the colors like i i it's astounding it's the timing of this episode is wild to me because a a beloved fotm who makes excellent films his name is alan swig do you know Alan's wag? I know the name. So Alan, who was at TMLX21 on a Saturday, it was excellent to see Alan, but he listens to Toronto mic, he's been on a few times, and he correctly called me out. I lack episodes regarding the arts. Like, it seems to be, I'm uncomfortable in this world, and it's a blind spot, so it's not top of mind. And I need people like, you know, be it Mary Armsby or Alan's bike, I need people to kind of poke me and say, hey, this is something you should talk about

or whatever, so I have a blind spot for the arts. But I'm looking at the art of your brother and, you know, so many hundreds and thousands of pieces, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of pieces. Thousands. Thousands. Right, thousands of pieces. And the colors and just his, his, his art is beautiful.

And there's so many great pieces. And this book is also now available. Yes, I'm extremely proud of this book. Again, Southern House, yay Canada. Kennewhite. Listen, I'm going to put a poster of Kenne White. I have a memory. You should have Ken White on your show.

Okay, so you're a memory I have, okay. Because he can talk equally about politics. I would have Ken White on the show, of course. Now, I have a memory. It was outside of the Nunes Pub, I believe, on the Danforth, where Mary Ormsby was having a book launch for the Ben Johnson book. And I remember I was inside there chatting up my friend Ben, because thanks to the visit from Ben, Ben and I are buds.

Like, we chat via email. I see him at different things. He smiles when he sees me, but he's a very nice man. So I remember being at the event And I remember a lot of cool cats talking to I saw Steve Simmons there, et cetera, et cetera. But then I'm outside the venue because I biked there

And I saw a couple more people I knew And then I saw Dominic Shulow show up, okay? He was like one of the first videographers that Moses Nymer had at City TV Which is a very Toronto thing. Yes. But you probably know about Moses and his enterprise. But I remember chatting of Dominic

and he was going in and I said, oh, you're here for the book launch? And he goes, actually, I'm here to talk to Ken White. Like, I have this, so Ken White, I think he's like the straw stirring the drink here. I think so. He's just amazing. I just have so much respect for him.

I was saying to someone the other day, when I was at UCLA doing a master's degree in film, I had a professor in screenwriting who was able to, to eviscerate somebody's paper without, without the slightest ounce of resentment and with the person feeling like they'd just receive the greatest gift gift ever.

I don't, Ken certainly hasn't eviscerated me or anybody else I know, but he has this extraordinary ability

to just radiate sense and all of us just adore him. Well, shout out to future FOTM Ken White.

We'll make that happen. I know one more taller thing I want to add on here, and then I have a completely

unrelated thing I want to ask you about before we say goodbye, but you've been amazing. How was this? It was great.

It was great, fun. I listened to to a lot of podcast. I've just started mostly political and mostly about Canada because I cannot rely on getting decent news from traditional Canadian media. So what do you listen to? I listen to Charlie Angus is my new hero. He's just the best. Is he? Yeah, I've been here a couple times. I think he's just... Well, he's the punk rock politician. Yeah, he's, he's great. I mean,

his combination of wit and joy and fact is just amazing. Oh, I'm a big fan too. And he came on and he went off on Wayne Gretzky in this basement. And then that clip made it to this hour has 22 minutes. so I was getting these notes like you were on this hour's 20 minutes and I'm like really? And I found it online eventually and it's like oh they showed video from a Toronto mic where Charlie Angus went off

on Wayne Gretzky like Wayne Gris you failed us Wayne it was pretty cool but shout out to Charlie Angus La Tron J was the name of the Queen Street I heard Jim Cuddy turn 70 yesterday I'm just thinking of Queen Street 80s artist but Jim Cuddy's 70 believe it or not that ages all of us but okay

It does. All right so Charlie Angus what else do you listen to? I listen to The Midas Touch podcast, there's a funny little guy. I think he's in Vancouver called Guard the Leaf. And he talks, his thing is about Canadian tourism and how it's drastically affecting the U.S. and how the U.S. keeps saying, oh, it's just the exchange rate or all they'll come back or when the weather gets cold.

But no, we will not. I get mad when I find out somebody goes out for pleasure. Me too. Me too. You're like-minded. You, me and Duncan Fremlin, okay? I don't. Yeah, no, it's true.

Anyway, there are a bunch of, you know, and once you start with these podcasts, then the algorithms find you, so I get presented with all kinds of other things. But I'm really, really proud of where Canada is right now. I've always had a thing about Canada, and it's much more so now, which makes me much more proud of taller than I ever could have been. Yes. And I think that Canadians need to know about our icons. And you said, your wife, not just your wife, but several generations of Canadians, don't have a clue. who taller is or Leonard Cohen or Gordon Lightfoot or Joni Mitchell. But at least those last two individuals were around the last, like in Canada and

in our minds idol last. I don't know, when did Leonard pass away, but it must be getting 10 years ago. It must be getting to be 10 now. But your brother goes to Mexico and sort of disappears from the zeitos. Well, he went as a figure skater, but he lived as an artist. And now my new book, which brings us back to that, is really establishing him as the artist that he always knew himself to be. So his tombstone in Mexico

in the Gringo section of the Pantheon, the Guadalupe Cemetery, just says taller artist. It doesn't say Crenston. It's just taller artist. That's what he would have wanted. And he's on a cemetery tour.

He's on a city tour on San Miguel, and he's a kind of a place where gringoes go to pay their respects every year on the day of the dead. Oh, you must. It's fabulous. I think I produce a show for Humble and Fred, and I believe Freddie goes there occasionally,

and there's like a lot of Canadians there. A lot, yeah. I want to go. Well, you must. You want to go with me? I'll go as a tour guide. Let's go. No, it's fabulous.

It's terrific. Okay. Now, I do want to ask you about the Taller Cranston Foundation. Yes. Taller International.com, by the way, is where you can go to learn more, but what is the Taller Cranston Foundation? Well, it's a kind of composite, what's the word, depository,

repository of everything taller. Again, my goal is to make sure. Yeah, it's a consolidation. One-stop shopping for all things taller. That's exactly what it is. So, of course, there's all the biographical stuff in the archive of lots of video, lots of footage, lots of stories, lots of references, but more than that, a lot of his influence,

the effect that he had on other people, that's the thing that blew me away when he died, was how many people, they weren't talking about as medals or as performance. They were talking about, Taller Cranston made me brave, and Taller Cranston gave me the power and the confidence to live authentically and to be who I am

and to pursue my artistic or performance or whatever kind of destiny. Taller would have said destiny. So we have started a lot of initiatives and programs that will take forward the values that Taller stood for. For example, there are a series of Taller Cranston Memorial Scholarship, with the Canadian Olympic Foundation. There's a partnership with taller legacy scholarships

with World Figure Sport in Lake Placid, New York. There's a taller Cranston reference library in San Miguel de Iende. There's a new taller Cranston Chasing Destiny Award with the Ontario Society of Artists, and we have a bunch of other new programs coming on that will equip and empower young people, getting back to what I said earlier with the, based on the theory of multiple intelligence,

empowering LGBT young people, performers, artists to pursue their destiny and to embrace failure and to go forward in their life with courage. So, Taller, we talked earlier we talked about Canada and how you're even more proud of your country now seeing what's happening in the United States and in light of the fact, the fun fact, not so fun fact, the President of the United States

has threatened to annex this sovereign nation of ours that we love. Do you think there was any scenario, any possibility that taller could have focused on his art and lived the life he wanted to live in Canada instead of going to Mexico? What a good question. No, I don't actually think so. I think Canada's such a good question. I think that Canada didn't embrace their artists as we should have.

Well, we tend to eat or young. Well, eat them or ignore them. And taller wasn't an ordinary sort of person I think he became taller Crensen mainly because he was skating in Europe and bringing the house down in Moscow and in Berlin and in London and suddenly Canada, not the fans

but the establishment, the media and so on this was back in the 70s I guess 70s and early 80s. I think as an artist it was very difficult. The woman who was a curator at the AGO back in the day just waved her hand dismissively and said he's a decorative artist So if you have a taller Crensen painting, well, hold on to it and enjoy it. But in fact, a taller Crensen painting sold recently for $70,000.

And even more recently, there was a bunch of pieces that sold for over $40,000 to international collectors. So he's a serious artist. Well, how many pieces do you have? Probably about 20. Okay. You're going to, like, is there a price? Of course there's a price. You can see them at the Donna Child Fine Art Gallery here in Toronto.

There's a spectacular display. Not just pieces that belong to me, but... You're going to gift me a piece right now? Actually, I am. I have one in the car. I'll go get it for you. I can't tell. There's no wink there, so I can't tell.

I can't say that it's an original six-by-six-foot oil, but I do have a little taller crants and piece for you. But is it an original? It's a print. It's a print. Okay, listen, that's amazing, because I'm going to go back-to-back of art episodes because tomorrow I've got an art episode.

You know, and Charlie Angus said that, too, because I'd send him a copy of Toller's book, just because I knew Taller was a resistor, and he's a resistor, just a month or so ago. Or in the same game. And he, Charlie Angus, very kindly published my letter. It was just a written letter, like a stamp on it kind of letter.

And somebody went to the trouble to retype it and put some photos of taller. And then I got a whack of mail that was just so incredibly gratifying. I heard from people that I went to, you know, Rody McNichols' birthday party when I was seven. People that never heard from before, but I understand there are resistors everywhere We're everywhere. Listen, you're in a safe space here because I am part of the resistance. Oh, good.

And, you know, he gets this orange blob down south in that country. He gets easily distracted by all these different ridiculous things going on. Can't focus on one thing. But my concern is he will remember the 51st state stuff and he'll go back to focusing on that. He was quite focused on it for a while. And I'm fully prepared. I'm staying in good shape. like I'm if there needs to be a resistant I got like I mentioned I have kids I got my wife I heard her upstairs even though she wasn't familiar with Talta Cranston she's going to make her listen and read your book she's going to be very familiar but like I'm ready like I don't know send them to the Philippines or something somewhere safe out of the way and I'm ready to I'm ready to fight I've thought about what I'm ready to do and it's pretty much anything I'm sure that it's something I mean I come from you know protesting Vietnam when I was at UCLA in the 60s

So, yeah, I'm ready. So we'll be in touch. We need, like, a... An underground something. Underground something. The signal group... Tap three times. And a code or something,

like maybe it'll be like the goat milk has been pasturized. Okay? And when we all get this, the goat milk is in bad. We all just, we all take the next step. And it's like, okay, we need to get you. The family, the, my poor nine-year-old daughter, you guys are going off to visit some long-lost cousin in the Philippines or something like that. Exactly.

And we're going to, we're going to fight. We're going to resists. because I'm very serious. And this is why, and again, I get some flack for this. There's a WhatsApp group where FOTMs. And I legit, if I hear somebody say, yeah, I'm going to go to Vegas and play the slots. Or if I hear something like, oh, yeah, we're going to see a Blue Jays game in Pittsburgh or whatever. Like, whatever I hear.

I'm going to New York City for the New Year's Eve. And I realize, oh, so you're actually going to cross the border and spend time and money in what I deem to be enemy territory. I get pissed off. Like, it legit upsets me. I don't want to hear about it. I know. I don't have anything tactful or understanding or compassionate to say. Spend your money.

It's a big world. It is a big world. And there's Mexico, for example. And there's a lot of Canada. And usually these same people who are off to Vegas will be like, yeah, I've been to three provinces or whatever. But I'm saying there's a lot going on up here. And, uh, wow.

Okay. So I know how I want to close, but I do want to thank one more partner. This is what I was reaching for. I'm like, I have one more partner I want to thank. And it's like my favorite partner. So retrofestive.ca, they have a, like, I have a store you can visit in Oakville. You've got to pop into RetroFestive family run show. Ty, the Christmas guy, was at TMLX21, giving out laying lamps.

It was amazing. Here's a real-life Google review for RetroFestive, okay? Quote, this store is amazing. Every nostalgic or pop culture thing you could possibly imagine, great socks, T-shirts, toys, mugs, and books. I loved it. And that was Cynthia who wrote that on Google reviews. And if the listenership wants to go to retrofestive.ca, poke around.

If you buy something, you can save 10% at checkout with the promo code, FOTM. So much love to RetroFestive. Tis the season, Philippa. And I know exactly how I want to close, okay? And don't worry, we've got a few minutes of this song before I got to do my extra. But you are a competitive duplicate. bridge player and you hold the rank of Ruby Life Master.

I got no idea what a Ruby Life Master is, but I am thoroughly impressed. As you should be. Okay, so tell me, just give me a little bit of your bridge life. Well, I think like a lot of people, we learn Bridge at the cottage in the summer. That was a yuker guy, though, but yeah. A lot of yucer. Well, it's a beginning.

Yeah. So Bridge, you were not just a player, but you are a competitive. competitive player. Yes, I am. And you're a Ruby life master. Yes, I am. Can you give me an idea what that means? Is that like winning a bronze at the Olympics? No, it's probably more like a silver. Okay. So I'm in the presence. Forget all this science stuff and this goat milk and these books and this art and all this stuff. You are a Ruby Lifemaster, duplicate bridge player. Yeah, well, I would say that Bridge teaches you humility and patience, both of which were very necessary this last.

last 10 years with Toller's estate. Okay, and stay tuned for the trilogy. It's like Star Wars, okay? This is a trilogy. The next book will be all about that. So I want to say thank you very much for being here. Thank you, Mike. This was fun. I'm glad we did this. Thank you to Mary Ormsby for connecting us. That's what we do in the TMU. We connect people. I feel like I missed out on Bridge. I got to say both of my grandmothers. I had two. They both independently, because I don't remember them ever being together.

They might have been together at my parents' wedding, but it was not there. This is a fact. So, these grandmothers both always wanted to play yuker when I was a kid growing up. And I was like in yuker, yuker, yuker, yuker, and then I went to school. In high school, it was all yuker, yuker, you can barely say that. And then with my kids and all my wives, I've had multiple, okay? This, it's always yuker, yuker, yuker. I feel like Yucur took the oxygen out of bridge, but the hardcore people like you, you're all about the bridge.

We're all about the losing and picking yourself up and going at it again. Words to live by. And that brings us to the end of our 1,811th show. Go to TorontoMyck.com for all your Toronto Mike needs and much love to all who made this possible. I really mean it.

Looking for a new sponsor for January. So reach out, Mike at TorontoMike.com. But I love these partners that make it all possible. is retro festive, Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Nicayini's, Recycle My Electronics, and Ridley Funeral Home. I mentioned an art episode. I want to get this right, Philippa. Her name, and she's a great filmmaker, her name is Annette Mangard, two A's in Mangard. I hope I said it right.

She's Danish, Danish Canadian, but she made this film about a artist we're going to hear all about. The artist's name, this is very dramatic. The artist's name is Nobuyo Kubota. Nobuyo, nobu, I'm going to find out how to say it. But man, we're going to dive into the art of noburo Kubota. We'll fix that in post. Thanks for all listening. See you tomorrow.

I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.