Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ralph Benmergui and Brent Bambury: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1586

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

In this 1586th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike gets out of the way and let's Ralph Benmergui and Brent Bambury talk. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1586 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free. Local home delivery in the GTA Palma Pasta Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville

The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada Learn how to plan, invest, and live smarter Season 7 of Yes We Are Open, an award-winning podcast from Minaris, hosted by FOTM Al Greggo, Recycle My Electronics.ca, committing to our planet's future, means properly recycling our electronics of the past, and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, together in the basement, what a moment, it's Ralph Ben-Murgy and Brent Bambery. Hey, hello, hello, hello. How the heck are you guys doing?

Starting with you, Ralph, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing very well. I'm doing very well. I'm doing very well because on the 5th of November, I was walking home from viewing what we can call an election in the United States, and I decided I'm out. I'm out. I can't do this with this anymore.

I decided to get rid of any social media apps I have and stopped listening to news and stopped reading about the circus of chaos because I just thought this is not the answer to anything anymore. And decided to focus on the work I do as a spiritual director and thought, that's enough. It's not like I'm going to hide in a mountain or anything.

Right. But I just think we're doing, we're doing a circus, you know, I'm just tired of the circus. So other than that, I mean, actually, that's making me much happier. Well, you know, I kind of circus, you know, I'm just tired of the circus. So other than that, I mean actually, that's making me much happier. Well, you know, I kind of did, you know, I wasn't as big a politico as you were, like so I wasn't watching CNN and stuff, but I was still taking it in,

and very interested in this world around me and what was going on to the South. And since that election, I too have withdrawn somewhat, like news I need to know is getting to me, I'm still, you know, listening to... Yeah, but what do you need to know? Like CP24, I go to the is getting to me. I'm still listening to... Yeah, but what do you need to know? Like CP24.

I go to the gym, and CP24 is every possible negative story they can find. One after, like, they don't, bus in Karachi hits telephone pole. I mean, they just don't care. It's just more of an adrenaline drug of, look out, look out! And that's not even an algorithm directed directly at you.

Exactly. And that's what's happening at social media. They're finding what it is that you click on and then they're feeding it to you. What upsets you. Yeah, exactly. Which is just like, I'm tired of being duped, life is short, and I'd rather work on trying to become

a better human being to the people I love and to the general population, frankly. I don't know, I think when you grew up consuming media in the pre-digital era, like we did, right, we were part of the pre-digital era of media, I think you can be a little more discerning, and I think that there are things that you can reject wholesale and that you can other things that you can focus on. I mean,

I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what's going to happen next in the United States, but the thing that I want to be attentive to is who's going to be hurt. Who are the people that are going to be damaged by, by, you know, this kind of wholesale stuff that's about to happen. But on the other hand, maybe nobody will be. Maybe there'll just be a bunch of people who are enriched by it.

I mean, I guess the other side of that is someone's damaged but someone pays the cost of full blown corruption. Maybe a bunch of people will be enriched by it and those people are the people that you expected to screw somebody anyway somewhere. Yeah, but when you say who's it gonna hurt, I'd rather work with the people who are hurt. Yeah.

And not be trying to figure out what's the best way to say these guys are crazy or these guys are crazy. And I just feel like we're in such a strange place as people now. There's existential crises that we can't put our arms around. Right, like, how do you put your arms around the fact that the climate is changing? I've been trying to write a book for like a year now

on climate as a spiritual crisis. Sacredness, awe, these things are gone from our life. We are God, and we're lousy at it. So I'm trying to understand how to talk to people. The first line I wrote for the book was, if you want to bum people out at a dinner party, two things, you can say, climate crisis or God. Either one of those.

They're like, ah, now one of those. Yeah, well, so I just met you outside for a second. We had a beautiful hug. Yes. And it was so great to touch you again. Yeah. How long has it been? It's been a while.

Oh, it's been a while. Like, I haven't been at CBC. I mean, I used to touch him all the time, so. Lucky man. I want to say something about the first inspiration I got from Brent. Yeah. Brent was doing Brave New Waves in Montreal and I was in Winnipeg and I inherited Nightlines,

which was the weekend overnight show, which had a different vibe. But I was listening to Brent before I got the job, and his beginning of the show was a cold opening. There's no sound, there's no music, he would just say something and then, and boom, the song would come on. And I thought, ooh, I have a lot to learn from this guy. I really thought, oh my God, he understands my ear. Like he's talking into my head.

So that was just total respect for that. So the cold opening, I inherited that from the show when it began because I took that show over about 18 months into its creation. But I loved it and I knew that it was a punch in the face, a turning of the page for the network, for the things that had been on that network all day and then suddenly people are allowed to go Yeah, you know and start head banging or whatever they want the next hour or so

And luckily the people who were in charge of us were asleep. Yeah, so they were asleep even when they were awake You so yeah, so management for us, it was like they were in a different country. And they kind of were, because I was in Quebec and you were in Winnipeg, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you did a bit one time about calling management to ask them a question.

Yeah. And how all that happened was the phone rang and rang and rang, right? Because they never, they were, I kind of thought they were sort of afraid of us, they sort of thought, oh, they're trouble, they're gonna cost us our jobs or whatever, but they also didn't understand us. So those were two strikes that actually benefited us

in some way because- Yeah, yeah, Ross and I decided one night, Ross Porter was my producer, and Ross said, what do you want to do? I said, you know, why don't we take some of the newscast and dub it into a Robert LaPage piece, right? And we did, and it was really cool.

Then they gave us a phone call. Hi, it's us. You can't use news clips on your show with music. Yeah, but it was, you can't. You just can't. I was like, okay. Just thought I'd try. You know, but, you know,

for both of us, I think, and certainly you've been there a lot longer than I have in the end, but it's always kind of been stranger in a strange land. Right? Yeah. But there's value to being an outsider. And I think when you are an outsider, then you can, it's easier to empathize.

I don't know whether that makes any sense or whether that's a little bit too reductive, but I do think when you see yourself as not being part of the. I mean, you were from Moncton. St. John, yeah. I was from New Brunswick, yeah. Yeah, you were from New Brunswick.

I am from New Brunswick. Yeah, and that matters when you're in Toronto. Oh yeah, right. Because you're like, you know, people back home are not thinking about this. It's like the first time the Blue Jays were almost winning their division, Mansbridge gets on and talks about it

being a national thing. Right. And I'm in Winnipeg, nobody cares. Right, right, right. Nobody gives a shit. It's true, isn a shit. Yeah, so it was really interesting, like the Toronto centrism, which when I finally did a variety show, that was my biggest mistake,

was oh, like big time, let's do big time. But you're from here, you're born here, right? Well, I was born in Morocco. We came here to Toronto when I was a kid, when I was very small. So I grew up in Morocco. We came here to Toronto when I was a kid, when I was very small. So I grew up in Toronto. So for me, this was a normal thing. So when I went out to University of Alberta

for acting school, some kid would say, so where are you from? And I'd go, Toronto. And he'd go, oh. And my mom was there. What are you doing? You know, oh, but you know, in Montreal where I, where I settled after, I mean, that was the first big city that I lived in the first city that had like a

subway, you know? Um, and I mean, the mode of transportation at the sandwich shop, but the, the, and it was, it was, it was fun to make fun of Toronto. And actually when I moved to Toronto, you know, I, I, I remember like, I was partying a lot, it was in my mid thirties and I arrived in Toronto and I called my friends up and I said, okay, I'm going to meet you at the club tonight, you know, and, and then they, they called me back and said, where, where are you? It's like 10 minutes before closing and I was still getting ready to go out, you know, and that was how, that was the way that people in Montreal saw the

city, you know, and, uh, but, but Eric, right now, and I think that probably some of them still do. I haven't, I haven't lived in Montreal for a long time, but of course Toronto is like massive and I had to multivalent. I miss it right now. I've been away for nine years living in Hamilton, uh, raising two more kids.

But I have to say, when I wanted to leave, the reason was I just felt like there was a soullessness. It was too many people and not enough infrastructure for that many people. I left Toronto too in 2002, I moved to Ottawa. And I was glad to get out when I did. But then, Toronto's the only city I've returned to. I've lived in several cities across the country. This is the only city I've ever come back to.

Now, you know, I've got a kid, a house, and I'm gonna be here until I die in debt, but I'll die in debt, but this is the end for me. Like, you know, this is- How old's your kid? Five. Five. I became a dad at 59

Mike's met my kid right you something you met my kid what's his name Micah Micah nice yeah yeah well it's an Old Testament name hey yeah but Ralph you're a right guy you're an older dad too right you can relate well I have a 38 year old a 35 year old I've met those kids a 19 year old and a 35 year old. I've met those kids. A 19 year old and a 15 year old. The 15 year old just changed my wiki page. He just sent me a text. He said, dad, how's this? And then at the end he puts,

and of course his favorite of the four sons. You had four boys. I had four boys. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I really wanted to have a girl because I just wanted the experience of trying to raise a girl.

You know the sad thing when we found out the fourth Mr. Wiseguy was coming, I just thought, oh, well, I'm kind of relieved because being a woman in this world is not a great thing. And I was depressed about that I just thought really that's actually true. How does a woman walk down a downtown street after 10 o'clock at night? How does a woman accept getting paid one-third less than a man doing the same job? How many times is a woman harassed and physically molested in her life?

And I just thought, okay, that would have been tough. It's not like, do you wanna date my daughter? No, it would have been like, what are you doing? How many times can a woman run for president and be beaten by a candidate who is far less deserving? Yeah, yeah. My 19-year-old's taking American studies at U of T and he was home just now,

a lifeguard and he does some shifts in Hamilton when he's still at school. And he came in last night. I didn't want to really talk about the election even though we used to talk in great detail about every possible outcome. So I said, why do you think he won? And he talked about the fact that the incumbent

had too much baggage and all this. And I thought, yeah, okay. I said, but on the other hand, a lot of Americans, and a lot of people would say, oh, a woman wouldn't know how to handle an economy. Trump would, because he's billionaire, so obviously he knows how to handle an economy. Trump would because he's billionaire, so obviously he knows how to find money, but a woman wouldn't know how to handle money.

And I just thought, and he just looked at me like, oh yeah, I guess, yeah. I was like, okay. It's tough. Yeah. So this episode is going exactly as I hoped it would go, where I stay out of the way and I just listen. I really do want that for the next hour, but I'm going to just set the

table by saying, Brent, you mentioned I met your son and it's because you were at Lampton Arena to get skates for him, right? To get skates for me, actually. Oh, for you. I thought it was for your boy. Okay. So I was at Lampton Arena because my third born had a game there. And then I see Brent Bambry in the lobby. It's just felt like a fish out of water. Like Brent, what are you doing here? And you were picking up the game there. And then I see Brent Bambry in the lobby. It's just felt like a fish out of water. Like Brent, what are you doing here? And you were picking up the skates. And then you reminded me that when you were on Toronto,

Mike, and that was February, 2023 episode 1212. And I'll read the description real quick. Mike chats with CBC's Brent Bambry about brave new waves midday, which I'm going to ask you guys about in a moment. Go day six and fatherhood. So you said on that episode, we discussed having you back Brent with Ralph Ben-Murgy in the basement. And you were very excited.

So like literally, I think I texted Ralph or wrote him an email from the game at Lambton Arena and said, hey, would you visit if Brent were here to have a chat with Brent Bambery on Toronto Mike? And Ralph, you were all into it. So that's really how this came to be. All right, you want to talk about bumping into someone? Yeah I'm in Israel with my wife and we're on the beach and we're walking and It's Tel Aviv and you know beach there's nice and I look up and I go Brent

Ralph no, what the fuck are you doing here? And I look up and I go, Brent? Ralph? No. What the fuck are you doing here? And he goes, what do you mean what am I doing here? I'm having a vacation. I've just been to Jordan. I'm just looking around and I'm like, okay, this is really weird, right?

I can't imagine it. That's weirder than Lambton Arena. Yeah, well, the way that I remember it is I'm walking along the beach. I'm thinking it's beautiful. I've never been there before. It's, it's, it's, you know, it, it's a head trip. And suddenly there's a guy standing in front of me in a Toronto Maple Leafs hat, and he says, hi. And honestly, I drew a complete blank, even though I probably had seen you like within the last couple of years or something, right?

But I couldn't, it's just one of those things where your mind is working. Yeah. Yeah. Out of context. It was the context was all wrong. But you know, just back to Lampton Marina for a moment. Yeah. Because do you remember I told you a story about Ralph when I was there, which

when we, when we bumped into each other and cause I was buying skates and the S the thing that immediately flashed into my mind Was you skating with Bobby or oh, yeah? And I and that was one of the coolest things right and it's one of those things that you got to do When you were doing like a national program back in the days of the monoculture, right? And you were do things about or by the way could barely skate. He was very like, oh okay, I'll do this, but I can't stand on knees for too long. His knees were completely shot.

But it was just doing that. But you would do anything. It was really weird. We were out. This was midday. Yeah, so when I'm doing midday, I just started. And the first thing we do is go out west and do this big, massive, special

a week of shooting. It's insane. We're in Prince Rupert. We're all these places. At one point, we're at this bridge where they do bungee jumping. And without even thinking about it, I went, I can do that.

Why don't we shoot me doing that? And then they went, and then Suzanne Boyce, who was the executive producer went, no, no, no, no, you're not doing that. I said, why? And I'm arguing with her and I lose. And I go back to my hotel room and I think, what was I thinking?

But when you're doing those kinds of shows, you're not you anymore. You're just sort of doing, like you want people to live vicariously through what you're doing. Yeah, you're an avatar for the possibility of what could happen to anybody. Yeah, exactly. But you skating with Bobby Orr,

like weren't you, are you a good enough skater? Oh yeah. Really? I was, yeah, I mean, being Moroccans, it's not like your parents are like, I think I was a teacher at a skate. So I just tried to keep up, my friends, in those days, as part of a city budget,

you had outdoor rinks built in all the public schools all over the city, a hockey cushion. And they'd flood the rink and there'd be a guy in a little shed and if he was a nice one, he'd let you change your skates in there. And then you'd skate till your feet were numb, and you'd hit tar every once in a while underneath the ice, or grass, or something, and you'd go flying.

But we did that, but my friends, some of them ended up playing pro hockey, so I had to try to keep up and keep up. But I didn't actually get into a house league until I was 13. And the guy says, what position you play? And I was like, defense. Left or right, and I shot left even though I'm right handed.

I said left, and he goes, we have too many on the left, stay on the right. I'm like, oh, okay. And we're playing, and I end up completely by accident scoring two goals. Okay, after this, I end up on a select team. I end up on the high school hockey team. And I never scored two goals again in a game in my life.

It was just, for one, I just drifted in front of the net, and there was the puck, and I kind of hit it, and I thought, oh, this is how this works. This is cool. So are you like a Jets fan now because you used to live in Winnipeg? No, I mean, I was the Leafs fan for a long time and then hockey, became disenchanted with hockey.

Yeah, I know a lot of people that that happened to. But what about, so did you want your kids to play? One of my kids, my second, Chas, he played a lot and he was really good. And he also made the select team at the same house league league we were in. So he had, I had number two, he has number two. I actually just gave him back one of his All-Star jerseys.

And now his step-kid, she has number two. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so. That is great. So hockey Ralph was not like part of your identity Ah, but I know it was because my dad Soccer or football was pretty well non-existent in Canada in the late 50s early 60s, right? Yes. Nobody cared about it You never did it at school It wasn't part of the phys ed but my father and all his friends were like bereft like what are we gonna do?

Like these people just they they're savages, they don't understand hockey, soccer. So they found out that hockey's kinda like soccer. There's a goalie, there's defense, there's strikers, there's offside. They got it, they got it enough. So they took the passion from soccer when they used to go over to Andalucía in Spain,

you know, the cities in the south, and he would go with his brothers and they would watch C division and B division Spanish soccer. You have pictures of them in their top coats with their green shaded glasses and all the rest. And they took all that and so when they watched a Leaf game, my brothers and I and him would watch

and he'd see somebody, you know, Ron Ellis was going in on net or Paul Henderson, he'd go, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! And then they'd score and he'd go, scores! So I'm at my friend's house and we're watching a game and Leafs are in, shoot, and I yell, scores! And they look at me like, what are you, nuts or something? I said, ooh, okay, wrong, right sport, wrong passion. I met Ron Ellis through the day.

Oh, did you? Yeah, when they were closing down Maple Leaf Gardens. Yeah. I went and did a piece with Ron Ellis and we walked around the garden together. Oh, cool. It was great. Did you go up the gondola?

I don't think we went up the gondola. I don't remember. I mean, but all of that stuff was just very cool. That was part of your day. And the next day, you're interviewing somebody who made cookies or something, right? It was just like, your life kind of, so it all evened out.

Peace for tea. Peace for tea. Exactly. That guy could talk about anything for eight minutes. It was unbelievable. This is an orange. It's like, you're gonna talk about it. We eat them all.

This kind of orange is a blood orange. It's just like gold. And he was in New Brunswick. Yes he was. Now he's in Nova Scotia. He's got like a huge empire. He's gigantic. I know.

But only if you're in the maritime. All right, I need like water or something. Well, okay, well let me set you up and I'll run up and get you some water here real quick here. So let me ask you the big question. I'll run up get you water. Yes, I'm Jewish. I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. Okay. Brent's not Jewish. Brent, you're not Jewish? Okay. This is so... It could be. Midday... I think there might be some Jews in my lineage somewhere, but yeah. Yeah. Midday is something you have in common. So my big question I want you guys to

speak to while I go get a glass of water. How often were you confused for each other? Like I'm going to assume that Brent Bambury and Ralph Ben-Murphy were sometimes confused for one another. Okay. So that started a lot longer before midday because there was a picture of you, I think in the radio guide. Remember radio guide was like a publication that CBC used to do.

There was a picture of you in radio guide and you were interviewing a celebrity. It was somebody famous. Right. And I don't remember who and they, they wrote underneath it Brent Bambry talks to so-and-so and it was you. But we looked a little bit alike. Yeah. In the day.

Right. We did kind of look alike because I'm part Jewish, right? So you're a part Moroccan. Yeah. because I'm part Jewish, right? So. You're part Moroccan. Yeah, part Moroccan. And so there was that, and then we did follow each other around a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you did. Because Brave New Way's Night Lines, midday, midday.

Yeah, and then you became a giant sort of late night celebrity. For 10 minutes. And did that program. And. You know, I was saying to my wife yesterday, she said, I said, I'm gonna go talk with Brent tomorrow. She said, he's been at the CBC for,

like, you left ages ago compared to him. He's been there a really long time. So she said, so he does the weekend show now, but how long can someone do a show? I said, I don't know, day six he's been doing for quite a while. And I just said, I used to have an itch after two years, three years,

I gotta do something else. I was also, I was not staff, I was contract. So I had to keep pitching every year to find a new show, which kept me alive, you know, because a lot of the staff people, God love them, but they had a kind of look, a glaze. Because they were bulletproof. There was nothing you could do.

They'd stay forever. But I just thought I should have, when I went through everything I went through with Friday night, I thought, you know, if I just stayed at midday, I mean, I just done the Gemini Awards, everybody wanted me to do something, and I thought, here's, you know, ambition took over,

and I just thought, I would have been probably a lot happier if I'd stayed there for a while, and probably ended up in current affairs, because my problem, which was your problem, was people want you to be one thing. Like you do current affairs, or you do news, or you do variety, or you do radio, or you do television. And both you and I have moved through both those things

and there's no difference. It's a candy store, just have fun and do shows. But it also means that when you walk from a radio variety radio variety show into an interview with with someone to get a job doing midday Mark Star which was the executive producer of both the journal and midday and he would just he had the interview with me He was smoking his pipe because smoke in your office, right? So he's smoking his pipe and he goes, and my friend Anton Leo, who's still like a brother to me,

we used to prep each other for interviews and he asked me, so he said, well here's one, you were a standup comic? And I said, I know, what am I gonna say about that? And he said, having a sense of humor is having the sense to know when to use your humor. And I went, ooh, good one, Nino, good one, I'm doing that, I'm doing that.

So I walk in there and of course Mark walks right into it and he goes, but he goes like this, he goes, you're a standup comedian. That wasn't serious, was it? And I said, well, yeah, it's how I ate. So yeah, it was pretty serious for me. And then I used Anton's line, and that was that, and he moved on.

But he did say to Suzanne Boyce, who was our executive producer, yours and mine, said, okay, you can have him, but if he screws this up, you're fired. And she said, no problem. She didn't tell me that for about a year, but she had a lot of guts. I loved the way she had that show.

When the Gulf War happened, we had the best time of day for live interviews with them, right? And they were gonna take, the journal was gonna take over the slot. And Suzanne just said, you do that, I quit. Because I mean, I'm not here to just be something until you really need the A-Team. Barbara has the night, we get the day.

And Barbara was, literally. Barbara Frum. Yeah, Barbara Frum was, I come in, she goes, well what do you have to wear? Because she was coming in a little early for her show. And I said, this is it. And she looked at the shirt and she went, this shirt hasn't been pressed.

Went and started ironing my shirt. And I'm like, you're from Donaia and my shirt. She was so kind to new people who came in. I mean, certainly my experience, that was my experience with her. And she was very, very kind to me and encouraging. Oh yeah. And we used the same set and the same offices, right?

And one of Starwitz's things was that he always loved to have a giant portrait of the queen in every unit that he ever kind of ran from As It Happens, because he was one of the big producers at As It Happens during its formative period, and then into the journal in midday. But midday was always sort of the toy show to the journal, right?

Because we were, I think that in part it was created to justify the cost, right? So you've got this set that's always lit and you've got people that are there and so you've gotta put more programming out. Look, there was no competition. We were the only national noontime television show, global, after we'd done it for our global, started doing it.

One of the reasons I got into journalism is I was sitting on the couch in my bathrobe at noon or something in the annex, living with some friends, and I'd been an actor in a standup and been in a band. So I'm sitting there and I'm rolling a joint of hash and tobacco at noon. As Moroccans do.

As Moroccans do, keef, as Moroccans do. And so I like to join in the news starts and I see Mike Anscombe who was a sports guy was now doing, anchoring the news. And I realized he was reading a teleprompter and I just looked at it and I looked at it completely as an acting job. And I thought, I could do that.

And they pay you much better than standard. And there's work every day. And there's work every day, yeah. Because for me the big thing was to be productive every day. We didn't like being an actor and waiting for someone to tell me I could work. But then I just sort of put that aside and my sister had decided to take a journalism degree

and I asked her, I realized I don't want to be an actor. I don't. I told everybody I asked her, oh, I realized I don't want to be an actor, I don't. I told everybody I did for, you know, I went to acting school, got kicked out the way you should. And so she goes and I said, can I audit? And she, well, I'll ask the teacher. And the teacher was Joan Donaldson. Oh yeah.

Who, poor thing, she started, what was it called at the beginning? News World, she started in Montreal at the CBC building in Montreal. She walked out to go across the street and a bike courier hit her. And she was in the hospital in a coma and then got a heart attack. And she was in a coma for a long time. And she was in a coma for a long time. And she was in a coma for a long time. And she was in a coma for a long time.

And she was in a coma for a long time. And she was in a coma for a long time. And she was in a coma for a long time go across the street and a bike courier hit her, and she was in the hospital in a coma and then died. Oh my. But she was in a coma for years. Yeah, years. Years. And now there are scholarships named after her,

and so it's a prestigious scholarship to receive. I just want to go back to something you said about being there for a long time and the glazed look and everything. Yeah, yeah. Because I have been there for many, many decades. And I've been doing day six for over 10 years now, which when you get to be my age, 10 years goes by a lot more quickly than it did when you were 30, right?

But it's, you know, I have a great unit that has some people who are extremely, uh, experienced on it and some people who cycle through who are young and learning. And that combination is really for me, that's, that's wonderful, right? I have these people that know exactly what an interview should be and where we should start and where it should end. And then I have people who are smart, who are tuned into what's happening in the world, who have many different kinds of connections to many different kinds of media. And I learned from them as well. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I,

I'm probably not going to be there for super long, you know, for a lot longer in part because I want to be around when my little guy, um, it starts doing more things, you know, when he's, when he's in grade school and stuff, I want to be available to him. Um, and, uh, but, but creating, I took a year off when, when, when we adopted our son. And, um, that was challenging in a lot of ways for me not to have the kind of the ability to create, to put something out But because I have the same compulsion to you know

I want to I want to I want to be doing some I want to be saying something and I don't really Care what people you know, I don't it's not important for me to have it reflected back at me Like it was at one point it wasn't about you know knowing that I was making yeah, you're not thinking can I do this anymore? Yeah, you're thinking what, can I do this anymore? Yeah. You're thinking, what can I do with this? Right, and I'm not thinking I need praise for it or I need to be recognized for it.

I just need to be doing it. Yeah, as you get older, it's interesting because I work with people sometimes doing aging to saging workshops. How do you turn being older into a value in a society that doesn't value getting older, right? And part of that is a spiritual shift from ego to basically a no-self idea, that you're not, everything isn't about you trying to construct a personality, it's about you being available to what is.

And I found that in my spiritual journey, it was also my interviewing journey. Because to me, interviewing is the absolute core of what made any of it interesting for me. And now when I interview somebody, like I do this TV show that's, half hour TV show that is seen by almost no one, and it's fine, I enjoy doing it.

But I just do one on one. And I find I prepare almost nothing now. Literally almost nothing. I'll look at a, I'll Google for a few minutes somebody and just get a w Wiki or whatever of them. But I'm just there to be available. And I don't have an agenda. So I just talk to people.

And it's like when you were in, well, when I was in standup, if you wanted to play with the audience, I didn't like being a standup doing bits. I liked hosting. Because it was like writing in the sand. It was over and you couldn't do it again the next night, whatever that night was.

But I would just talk to people in the audience and they would make it funny, not me. So what do you do for a living? I'm an accountant. Oh, and the whole audience would laugh, filling in their own idea where an accountant is Did you get out much? Yeah, and then you just keep going with that, right? but for me the interviewing is about I

Mean I do a meditative practice and it fits perfectly to how to sit and then talk to somebody because you're there to hear and They everyone has a story. Everyone has a story. Even if they tell you, I don't really have a story. Right. Okay.

So let's just start talking and see what happens. And then there's a trap door that opens in the second level and you go down into it and it's, it's true. It there, there is this moment in an interview where it goes beyond whatever you suspected or whatever you expected to get. And I mean, this is when the interview really works, right?

And some people are too close, they'll never let you in there. But then some people accidentally just open up and suddenly you're in a different place. When Peter McKay was an up and coming star in the Conservative Party, I was doing a summer Phil show for Zosky, we called it the summer side, when he was doing a summer Phil show for Zosky. We called it the summer side

when he was doing Morning Side. So I'm doing this and one of the producers says to me, anybody you wanna talk to in the 17 minute slot, in the long form slot? And I was just like, Peter McKay. This guy, everybody's talking about him, let's do it. And I was doing some research on him and I thought, this guy loves playing rugby. And he wasn't raised by his father, Elmer McKay,

who was a cabinet minister in the Trudeau years. He was raised by his mother, who was a social worker. So when I start the interview I said, so you like to play rugby? And he's like, yeah, oh, yeah, I love it. What is it about rugby you love? And he tells me all this stuff. So did you do John Sawotsky's interview?

Yes. Yeah, so John Sawotsky taught me almost everything that mattered. I did it twice. I came back six months later and he went, you did this already. I said, no, no, let's do this again. Because he was brilliant at foundation

and interviews create a foundation, a trust moment with someone. And then you pursue. And the biggest mistake made by most broadcasters that I listen to is they think the 60 minutes style of just pursuing someone you start and immediately they go Oh this guy's after me. I'm gonna hide in the corner particularly things like politicians So with McKay I spoke about his mother at one point and you could tell He was so happy that someone actually acknowledged his mother was his biggest influence, not his famous father, right?

And at the end of it, my last question was, so what scrum do you like more, the press gallery or the game? Oh, the game. But he felt like I got him. So that's all you need, right? Like, one more story, John Travolta, they used to get five minutes on a junket, right?

Five minutes, and they own the tape. They don't like what they hear, they keep the tape. And so I get a phone call from the producer, I was working in the arts stuff, and she says, apparently it's three minutes this time. And I said, are you serious? She said, yep, they're giving you three minutes.

Now, it was for a movie that sucked, The General's Daughter. I mean, this was an awful film, you know, so he could make $20 million. So I read some things about him. He'd just done a film in Vancouver. I knew he was a Scientologist, da da da da. So I thought, okay, I'm not gonna say anything about this movie, and I'm sure he'll be relieved.

And I sit with him and I say, what's it like flying into Vancouver? And he goes, oh, oh, I love, because he flies his own plane. He's a pilot, yeah. He goes, oh, I love flying in the Vancouver, you know, because you turn you're turning the the plane Towards the water and you've got to hit it just right to go just over the water and hit the front of the runway

Oh and the lights on the way in and the map. I just love it. It's great and I go Why do you barnstorm alley? Whatever it was their name from Cheers why do you barnstorm Ali, whatever her name was, from Cheers? Kirstie Ali's house, because I'd read they were neighbors, and that he barnstorms her. And he goes, well, first of all, she asks me to. And secondly, she runs out on the balcony

and just sways while I fly 12 feet above her head, but I love it. And then Kirstie Allen is a Scientologist. So I say, what's an assist? And he goes, in Scientology? I said, yeah. Oh, well, it's kind of a laying on of hands, but you don't touch the person, it's an aura thing.

And I have talked about Scientology without saying, why do you do that? And then I asked the last question is, what effect does having millions of dollars had on your ability to make friends? Looks at me and the girl underneath is trying to wrap me up and he goes, no, that's the best question I've been asked to date.

Now here's the thing, there are people who I thought were really there for me and they stabbed me in the thing, if you, you know, there are people who I thought were really there for me and they stabbed me in the back. But the goodness is, the friends you had before, the friends you keep now, that's what matters. The people who love you in your life, just stick with them. And I walked out and I thought, that was the most fun interview I think I've done in years.

Three minutes, right? Because then it's a, just because, the excuse for interviewers is, well I only have a few minutes with them. Yeah, yeah I know and I've done a million junkets and it is, but it is nerve wracking because they're watching you and like you said, they can close, they can decide to shut down the camera.

Except but we're from a major market. Yeah. So it's not like you're from Des Moines. Yeah, yeah. No, you can't ask them that, but with you, you're Toronto, they've got to, film-wise, that's their second biggest market in North America, so they've got to be cool. So interviewing, what's been your evolution? Well, I, Swatski was very influential for me. What you were saying about, you know, people think that the Mike Wallace, uh,

prosecutor version where he's, you know, where you ask close ended questions that only have a yes or no answer. And you can see people shutting down and actually retreating from playing the game. You know, the, the, it's the opposite of getting them to be open with you and it's the opposite of, you know, the way people really talk to each other when they're revealing things, right?

But I think that there's something else too, which is, like I think Zawadzki was a bit harsh in terms of how people connect as people, as interpersonal moments of warmth or sharing, that kind of thing. I think you see, because you... Even though he did emphasize foundation, create a bond, then pursue, then mop up. Yeah, then the mop up.

I remember that, yeah. Just throw something in at the end because you still got a minute. Yeah, and you want to kind of reemphasize the point that you were driving towards too And so the mop up is a way of kind of putting the so you thought he had a Lacked a certain humanity to the process. I think he wanted us to be less human and more kind of probing I guess I mean, I don't know I did I

kind of probing, I don't know. I felt like there was, he wanted to suppress the personality of the people asking the questions. So what do you think now when you see that journalists have to be online as well as on air, and they have to have a persona, and it becomes, it's like that moment in broadcast news where William Hertzd says, and I think we're gonna be okay

when he's got his first major on-air live hit nationwide. And the producer goes, well who the fuck asked what you're doing? And I just thought, you know, because we all, the line's been crossed. I mean, I know way too much about the personality of a lot of journalists now. It's just like really, I'm not,

like I'm here to, you're supposed to, we had a, Mike, our famous Toronto Mike, Mike sets me up, I was doing a podcast with him, Not That Kind of Rabbi, at the time we did it together, sets me up with a guy who's a climate denier. Lou Schizos. Lou Schizos, who said, I'm never gonna come to your show again after I did it,

but this guy was telling me that climate is a hoax and the sun's thermostat is broken, and people emailed and said, why didn't you take him apart? And I was like, it's not my job. My job is to let you find out what Lou Skizas thinks. And you decide for yourself whether, I'm not there to debate the guy,

I'm there to interview. In other words, I need you to see who the person is, and this is who he was. And he wanted me to fight with him. Compelling audio. I mean, I have debated with people, and it's hard, It's, you know, and I've also had people accuse me of debating with them when I really think I

was just trying to get them to reveal their point and they were failing to do it or argue their point. They failed to do so, you know, I mean, you can't, you don't want to make your personality, the story, you don't want to make your beliefs and your biases, the story. Right. And that's, and that's definitely, I mean that's definitely something that I think a lot of people in CBC are accused of and especially in this climate where You know, there's there's a lot of animosity towards CBC right now It's been like this for a long. It's true. That's true There it has been like this and and you know, I think we've always tilted left on social issues

And why wouldn't we you know, like we're not going to You know, I this is now this is this is my opinion. So yeah, I'm not talking about you know, but I but I've always you know, I've always felt that that it was okay to I've always felt that it was that it was okay to reveal, you know empathy for people. And often when you're talking about certain issues, you're taking the side of the person who's been hurt by something more powerful. Yeah, I'm really wary of that, because I've heard hosts who at the end of an interview

with someone who is sympathetic, totally side with them. And I think to myself, your job isn't to become an ally of this person because you might find out six months later that they have, God forbid, molested children. Right, like that, who was that kids show guy in England? Seville, Jimmy Seville. Seville, yeah. I mean, he was completely depraved as a human being

and yet he was this lovable character. And I'm just saying that if you say to somebody, basically, I love what you're doing, keep it up, good work. And which I've literally heard from major network hosts and just thought, seriously? You're giving the guy the gold star, the pat in the back, it's not your business. Your business is to let me know who he is and I'll decide if I like him,

but I don't need you to approve of the guest. I don't know, I mean, I've definitely talked to people who've experienced trauma and I felt that, that I felt that I have wanted to, I've wanted to, I think, you know, and it's not my favorite thing to talk about. I think it's very difficult to resolve trauma in somebody's life.

I was just talking to somebody about this. We were talking about, I was talking to a friend of mine about the list of Nazis that the federal government will not release right and and I was Saying the problem with this story is not that these people are not exposed because many of them are dead now The problem is that we as a society allowed a bunch of people into the country that other people who had been hurt by them had to then accept as equal citizens in their country. And they had to, so if you were a Jewish immigrant

that came to this country in the 1940s and the guy that ran this corner store where you bought your groceries was somebody that you knew, uh, betrayed your people, right? You know, and sent them on pogroms or sent them to their deaths and now you're in Canada and you have to, you're all equal suddenly. Right. So there's that trauma that goes unrecognized and that is not, it's not something that people, it's not some, there's no way to resolve that, right?

And now the country. You want it to be heard. Right, of course. And now the country's still holding onto this list of people, it's a way of still negating that trauma in people. And part of me feels like this is a huge injustice, right? This is an injustice.

And I feel like it's okay to express that this is an injustice. I think that sometimes you have to let that come out. So you mentioned Valerie Pringle. Valerie was famous for crying on the air. She would cry during an interview. I mean, which, again, that's a broadcast news trope as well. And I remember Jen Wong interviewing her

in the Globe and Mail and saying, so, you cry on air, right? And Valerie said, I'm not a robot, you know? And I think there's a part of doing this where you do have to identify as a human being, and you have to, and part of being a human being is expressing some kind of empathy. I totally agree with you.

So that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to. Because I open, I really try to keep my heart open when I'm doing an interview with someone. But that's not what I was thinking of. I was thinking of a person who says they're doing advocacy of some kind for a group, and then I congratulate them for doing such good work.

Right, okay. Then it's just like, wait a minute. You don't know anything about this person. You can feel for the story is being told. And you have to be skeptical. I think skepticism is a big, of course, that's why we ask questions, right? I mean, that's skepticism is asking questions. But, but you know, and I'm just, I, uh, the re there are points where I can tell that I, more of me is coming across than probably

should be or maybe that I'm more comfortable with. I'm not the most open book, right? As a person, I'm not somebody who like, you know, wants to always, I'm not somebody who's always tried to export my values or anything. But there are points where, you know, empathy and human empathy is called for. And it is tricky, and you can cross a line. And there are gonna be people that might get pissed off about that too, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, but I was thinking about when I was driving here, I was thinking, you and I worked in this culture of the CBC for a long time, you longer than I. And they always talk about the left wing bias of the CBC, and I thought, you know, it's just, it's not accurate. It is a corporate environment. I remember once on midday, near the beginning

of when I was there in a story meeting, I brought up a story and people were like, oh, that could be interesting, where'd you get that from? Because usually in broadcast you're pulling from print who do all the heavy lifting and then you just pimp it. And I said, Now Magazine. And they went, Now Magazine? This is from Now Magazine?

I said, yeah, it's a really good story. And they were like, we don't do Now Magazine stories. We do global mail stories. we do Toronto Star stories. And that kind of built in bias, and the other thing is self-censorship. In any large organization, there is a set of values that are handed to you of this is who we are and this is what we do.

This is how we've always done things. Right, and this is what we actually believe is credible and this is not credible. And so you internalize this censorship and you don't need someone to tell you not to say it. You already know, if I say this, I'll be in trouble and I might lose my job. So there is a lot of that that goes on and there is risk adversity in any large organization and a lack of sensitivity that goes on, and there is risk adversity in any large organization, and a lack of sensitivity at the fingertips of an organization.

Like, you know how many times people at the CBC are let go just before they are eligible for full-time employment? It's just heartbreaking to see that. But that's why it's good that we had that Kafkaesque relationship with our managers back when we were doing late night radio, right? Because the risk, the risk aversion was less, was less pronounced then, because they wouldn't answer the phone anyways. And generally, so, you know, uh,

look, yeah, it is, there were lots of times when I came to Toronto, uh, when, you know, I would pitch a story and there was just kind of ignorance around the stuff that I was pitching and so it was dismissed and it would have been a great story and I'd pitch guests that went on to become huge, you know, but because they'd never heard of them at the time, they didn't get agreement and it was frustrating.

It's interesting to be an alternate thinker in a conformist culture. I mean, even what you've done with day six, it's sort of like Sunday edition on acid, right? Right, because you're taking things and you're thinking laterally. Yeah, trying to, yeah. Well, yeah, because I mean, I was talking to somebody

about, I was talking to somebody about, I was just on a spiritual retreat for three days down in the States right after the election. And we were talking about, people always talk about, well, look, I don't believe in God. And when I work with people, my first question is always, okay, tell me about the God you don't believe in. And they always tell you stuff like, that makes you go, okay, let me get this straight. It's like, what you don't believe in is a guy with a beard on a throne with a naughty and nice list. And I said, that's Santa God. So, I don't believe in Santa God either. But what this guy was talking, as a rabbi was within a group thing, and he said, you know, people think vertically.

They just think even about God. He said, oh, they point up there as if there's this guy up there. And he says, the thing that I've discovered that makes my life interesting is I think horizontally. And I think, you I think the good creatives are always laterally thinking. Somebody says something and you don't go,

and then we'll follow that right up the, no, then you go, oh, squeesh. And then you get a whole different idea out of it because it's like three things away from that where you go, now that would be a good thing to do. And when I listen to your show, I feel like they do that over there. Yeah, we try to.

Yeah, yeah, you're not just going, okay, so stay on the nose and do this exactly. I wanted to do a podcast at one point for the CBC when they had me come back for a few weeks, and I said, I wanna do a show called Why. So a car bomb blew up in Karachi, why? Because these separatists wanted this blah, blah, blah, blah, and they're associated with the Taliban, why?

Because the Taliban represent for them a certain way of life and a fundamentalist point of view, which is literal and certain, why? Because we live in an era, you know, and just eight whys till you get to the bottom of something. And it's like. That's how I talk to my kid. That's how my kid talks to me.

Oh yeah, your kid is always like, why? Yeah, exactly. Why? And then of course as a parent at a certain point, you go, okay, you know why? Just because. Because I said so. I don't know okay I

want it I want to remind you something yeah so when you were when you were hosting midday I was a columnist on midday and I was sometimes here and we would I would do the show with you then I come to the story meeting afterwards and I was here one time and you had done a funny little doc for the show and it was it was about the film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival. And at the end of it, you're standing outside a theater and you're saying, you know, I think it was Jean-Luc Godard

who said, and you lean back on a limousine, and suddenly the horn honks and someone says, hey, don't touch my car! And it was so funny. It was a good joke. And, but, but at, in the story meeting, they hated it. Yeah. Nobody liked it. And I was like, are you kidding? That was so funny. They're all trying to be taken seriously. Right. Right. Right. I mean,

that's the whole thing. I wanted to know what Jean-Luc Godard said. It was insane. Um, but, but that was, that wanted to know what Jean-Luc Godard said. It was insane. But that was kind of what you're up against when you're dealing with an institution. It's also humor and journalism. Where did it make you? Right, like you were a comic. That wasn't serious, was it?

It's just, oh, I have to look like I'm always serious or you won't believe me, right? Like when I hear you doing your show I hear an energy Coming towards me and the energy sometimes is really enthusiastic about something and sometimes it's just nuance But it's always a current that's running through and you that way you can pivot to funny or pivot to serious Right, you don't know, you know, you're not like And right was ironic. Mm-hmm, right, but don't have, you know, you're not like, and right was ironic, right? But he was a damn good journalist. But he was an ironic,

his humor was always in the ironic sort of lapsed Catholic way. Right? I loved it. And, and, and, and, you know, so, so morning side, which I think you actually, you guest hosted it. So I never go, it was gone by the time I was at the point, but, but, uh, uh, you know, so Zosky ran it for, for many, many years and Zosky was this giant presence at CBC and Morningside was like the flagship show and it was eclectic and it was folksy and it was kind of rural. Like he had a Zosky had a kind of,

he loved talking to farmers in Saskatchewan or button collectors in Nova Scotia or, you know, there was always, so you could do a 15 minute interview with somebody who collected, I don't know, you know, sleigh bells or something. And then Enright had it for a year. I think it was still called This Country in the Morning. No, no, it was this morning.

It was this morning. Oh no, that was later. This was Enright, Enright had it for a year. I think it was still called This Country in the Morning. No, no, it was this morning. It was this morning. Oh no, that was later. This was Enright. Enright had an interim, Zosky left, and Enright came in and he had that show for about a year. This was in the 70s. And then Avril Benoit? And then it, yeah.

But when Enright did it, it was urban and zany and crazy. And everybody hated it because it was not Sosky. And I think Enright looks back at that time as being one of the big failures that he had at CBC. But when I first met Enright, I said, you know what, I loved you on that show. It was kind of like David Letterman. And I was living in New Brunswick at the time

when I listened to him, but it was so not, it was so not rural and so not folksy. It had that kind of, that sort of smart, smart ass urban, kind of machine to it. And he was so great at it and I loved it. And to me that was, that said, oh, CBC can do this as well. But at the time, CBC radio was really committed to,

voice of the pioneer type stuff, right? It just had that. Well, you know, but they understood their audience. Oh yeah. NBC radio was really committed to, voice of the pioneer type stuff, right? It just had that. Well, you know, but they understood their audience. Oh yeah. In that once you leave Toronto and you're driving across the country, you're not in Kansas anymore.

You're in a different country. I certainly as a Spanish Moroccan Jew, when I'd leave Toronto, I'd really, small town Canada was like, oh wow, like if I moved here, even when I went to the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and people would say, you're the first Jew I've ever met. And it'd be like, you like my horns?

Like, I don't know what to do with this, right? And they just sort of look at you, and you realize you now represented every Jewish person on earth. Because if you spit in the street, that means Jews spit in the street, right? So, what he had though was also, and I loved the format.

That was my favorite format, three hour magazine. I just loved it and I hate that they don't do that now. Matt has a show and then Tom has a show, and then that commotion thing just drives me up a wall. But you know, I can't listen to the right show. But three hours a day. And I like the guy, I think he's a good broadcaster. But do I need a water cooler,

Netflix conversation every day? No, I don't. But we used to do, like on Brave New Wave, it was five or six hours a night, for five nights a week. That was a long haul, that was crazy. And you start for the Maritime, so you were one hour, I was two hours.

That's right, yeah. So we started taping at 10. 10, yeah. And walk out at three in the morning or something. In Winnipeg, the middle of winter, minus 30 something. It was grim. And during the day, you're normal, trying to book the thing or do the music.

We had a lot of fun. I thought Brave New Ways had way more edge than we did on Nightlines. We were much more into just classic FM, where you could go from literally almost a classical music piece to an ambient piece to a heavy new order piece. And then, you know, so that's what I loved about it, because I'd grown up on classic FM.

Yes, yes. You know, like Shum FM and Chum because I'd grown up on classic FM. Yes, yes. You know, Shum FM and Chum FM when it was really Chum FM. The cover of Donald Figg and the Night Fly, right? That's right. I mean, that is pretty, and it is pretty seductive, that whole idea. No, but we were definitely like,

we're gonna play some hardcore, we're gonna play some, you know, anarchic socialist music. Oh yeah, yeah, you guys were- It was out there, right? You guys went deep. Yeah, yeah, and we. You guys went deep. Yeah, yeah, and we're gonna play,

then we're gonna do like a half hour throbbing gristle concert. So it's. Well we did Deja Vu Do. Yeah, they were great. For a Halloween show, we did Deja Vu Do live in Winnipeg and the Cowboy Junkies, because I'd gone, they were,

I'd heard about this band, the Cowboy Junkies, because I'd gone, they were, I'd heard about this band, The Cowboy Junkies, and they were playing in this really, nobody was there bar in Winnipeg in the dead of winter, where there was about 12 people in the audience, and the first band was a three person power trio, and they finish and nine of the 12 people leave with them, because they were their friends, and I'm sitting there, and Margot Timmons

is literally facing the back wall, because she can't believe she's doing this for nobody, and I walk up to them after, and I go, you guys, after your show tomorrow night, are you doing anything? And they're looking at me like, who's this guy? And they said, why? I said, I do a CBC show, overnight show,

why don't you come by and we'll talk. So they came by and we did the interview and then we phoned them up and said, we want you on our Halloween show and they go, yeah, that'd be great. And they go, are you guys union? And they said, no. I said, you gotta be union if we broadcast you.

And he was like, no, we don't wanna be union. He said, it's a national show, you gotta be union. So they joined the union to get on the show. It's great. That was, I mean, that was also something that mattered then, like having a national program. Yeah. And whereas now media is so fragmented, it doesn't really matter whether you having a national program. Yeah. And whereas now media is so fragmented, it doesn't really

matter whether you have a national program. Everything's national. Yeah. Everything's international. And everything, exactly. So, but at that time it felt like insane to think, okay, and I love saying that, hey Canada, this is what we're doing tonight.

You know, I love talking to the country because we were, that was that we had listeners across. You can't even get some guy in Colorado who had a satellite. Yeah Oh, yeah, we had lots of listeners in places like Ann Arbor and Seattle Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then and then our show get picked up by WXPN in Philadelphia And then that was that was cool. How long did you do? Ten years just about ten years really. Yeah. Yeah So remember what I said earlier ten years when you're you know in your 50s

It goes by really quickly, but that was so it was a long years. God. So remember what I said earlier, 10 years when you're, you know, in your fifties, it goes by really quickly, but that was, so it wasn't long. God, I did two years, no, a year and a half on nightlines. If yeah. Really that short. Yeah. Ron Robinson was doing it. And I, I was booking, uh, Louise Penny was the afternoon show for, uh, uh, hosting Winnipeg. Yes. I, uh, The great writer, Louise Penn. Yeah, yeah.

So at the time she was not doing that. She was a host. She ended up in Quebec doing it as well. I knew Louise. And so Louise, we book Imo Phillips. And so I pre-talk Imo and he gives me a great line, I said, how you enjoying Winnipeg? He said, well, you know, it's been raining for three days but you know, it's a dry rain.

And I said, what a great frickin' line. So I put it in the interview and I was on my way to Thompson, to Lynn Lake, Manitoba, her friend of mine was getting married, this is hundreds of miles away from me. So we're driving towards it, and I'm listening to the interview, because I'm not there, and she goes, and joining me now, playing at, I can't remember the comedy club's name,

Emo Phillips, hello Emo, and he goes, oh, you're one hot bag of estrogen, mama. I'm in the car going, I am so fucked. Yeah, I come in on a Monday and they're like, never again, no more comics. I said, I don't know, the rest of it was pretty funny. Yeah. Sorry, Brian. I just, when I was doing, so I did, I went to Ottawa

after when Midday got canceled, I went to Ottawa and I did the afternoon show. So I was doing a daily show in a market where CBC was like huge, right? And I loved it. And of course, again, it was because I just wanted to work, right? And I was glad to get out of Toronto at that time.

But, and it was fun to be, you know, in the culture of a station where there were people committed to putting on shows all day long. Yeah, yeah. And, but one day, one day, you know, the way the news worked, the way the local news worked was there was a little booth and at two o'clock it went, it went hot. So you didn't have to turn on the mic.

You just had to push the news cart to play the news theme and then you had to read the news. And I was, I was listening at my desk and it was two o'clock news. I said, okay, here it comes. And so it, you know, it, I was waiting for the news theme to play, but it didn't play. And so I heard somebody rustling papers and kind somebody rustling papers, and so I knew, oh, something's about to happen here. And then I just heard, fuck. And, you know, because she lost it. She didn't know where she, she couldn't get it right.

Somebody get Lawrence. So then Lawrence Wall, who was the news director. He just retired. Yeah, yeah, lovely guy, funny, dry as hell. And he came in a little later and looked at me, he had a big smile on his face and he said, we started a newscast. What the fuck today? And I said, really? I said, you know what? Actually, Lawrence, I heard that. I said, were her grandparents listening?

Her grandparents, her Sunday school teacher, but anyway, it was just, it was just one of those things. And he was a classic announcer. Oh yeah. Well, he did the official time signal. Oh yeah, absolutely. So gentlemen, I'm thoroughly enjoying this. Are you still here?

I know, I was gonna say. Showing gravy straight. So here's what I'd love to do with your permission here. I just wanna very briefly walk through Midday, that's the show you guys had in common. And then I'm going to give you some gifts and then I'm going to get the heck out of the way again. And basically until you guys tap out, you can talk about whatever you like. What was the scene for midday?

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum bum bum bum. Something like that. Midday with Valerie Pringle and Brent Bambray. Right, right, I never did it with Valerie. No, no, because Valerie. I did it as a guest host with Valerie. Yeah, but you were doing it with Tina? With Tina, Tina got the job, so it was Tina and... Kevin Newman.

Kevin Newman, right, it was Tina and Kevin Newman and then Kevin left to go to ABC. Right. And then I got the job. Okay, so in the beginning, in the beginning, 1985, okay, so we take us back to the drive of 85, shout out to number 11, George Bell. So 1985, can you guys name the original hosts of Midday?

It was either Bill Cameron, or... No, Peter was second. I think Keith Morrison? Yep. Keith Morrison and Valerie, right? I was very yeah, so Bill and Keith I guess rotated or something to I don't know but the Keith Morrison Bill Cameron and Valerie Pringle are there any case was first and then he went to LA yeah to do the news and was married to Matthew Perry's mother, Suzanne.

Suzanne Perry, who had been a press secretary to Trudeau. That's right. And then they, uh, he was a stepdad to Matthew Perry. That is correct. Okay, so then- What do we win? You're doing well. Oh, here's a fun fact for you on our way, just a brief little midday chatter here.

Fun fact is one of the, uh, people considered to be a host of midday in the beginning with Dave Hodge. Did you know this? No. Oh, really? Yeah. I was considered for, well, Dave Hodge, by the way, in this basement next week. So, I love Dave Hodge. He's going to tell us his a hundred favorite songs of 2024. The powder blue jacket. Yeah. But a lovely guy. I, I hosted an event at, it was a Christmas event and it is the drunkest I've ever been in public. It was insane.

I love you man. I really love you. But Dave was there and oh man, Paul Coffee was there. Your hair. It was a huge event. Snap it off your head. The tragically hip were there. But anyway. Wow, that's a huge event. He was he was he was off your head. The tragically hip were there. But anyway, wow, that's a big event. Ralph, you took over for Peter Downey.

Like, so maybe just a brief, how did you get that gig? And did you know that one of the people you were kind of going against is your good friend, Stuart McLean? Yes, I did. I was in Cannington, living in Cannington. I was doing Prime Time, a show on, which I really loved doing, Canada's Show About Show Business. And I'd taken over from Stan Carew, who'd done the first year, but they weren't getting what they wanted, so they got me. So I was doing that for two years and I'm at home in Cannington and I

Look in the newspaper and Sid Adelman has written that they're looking for a host for midday and that they've been looking for a while but there were a lot of people being interviewed and In my life there's been certain jobs where I've just gone Just something has jumped in me and I, ooh, I'd love to do that. And I thought, this is gonna be tough, because I'm coming from variety and from radio, and they don't know if I can do this. But I thought, I'm gonna go for it.

And I phoned, and in those days, they had this blue sticky memo things, and they put them on the door of the person and you'd have to take them all and phone these people back. So Suzanne calls me, Suzanne Boyce called me back and said, oh, well sure, why don't you come in and we'll have a chat.

So we had a chat and then she said, okay, well we'll put you on for a week. So I went on for the week with Valerie and Peter Downey and them had not been getting along, shall we say. So I start to do the audition week and I do the first day and Stuart calls me up. Hi, it's Stuart.

Hi Stuart, what's going on? We're competing for the job. Oh my gosh. I said, should I do it? And your voice, and then, I saw him walking down the street. And I said, morally? And he went, you know, I hate when you do that.

I said, I know, I know, but I was talking to morally. We were doing a Christmas special once up in Belleville, TV one, I'm driving, Stuart's sitting there, it takes a while to get to Belleville, and I go, do you not find it odd that you have this whole story, storybook village, and meanwhile you're divorced,, your kids and you are arguing in real life, and he goes, Ralph, it's a story. I'm not trying to pretend that's my life.

I said, but nobody knows that. They actually think that you don't live a morally. They do, actually. He had that kind of mystique around him. Oh, absolutely. He loved doing that thing. So anyway, I said, well, you know, sorry, but let's see what happens. And then I did the week and I realized this is going well. And then they said, we're gonna offer you the job. And it was a really weird moment because I realized for one thing, I have no suits.

I work in radio, right? So I had to go and buy suits and I felt so awkward because the woman that did Valerie's hair did my makeup and hair. She did my hair. I counted how many sprays of hairspray. One day. Yeah, Teresa.

I said, Teresa, stop doing that much. She said, I don't do that much. I'm not doing that much. I said, okay, fine. The next day I go, I'm going to count how many of these she does. And she stops at the end, I go, okay, I counted. 17 sprays on my head. I said, like my head's gonna fall off.

Just leave me alone. Okay. You told me once that one of the things you hated about that job was the monkey suit. That's what you called it. Yeah, yeah, because it's all theater. I was sitting with Tina one time, and the scene had ended and we were doing,

you know, there's a lot of sitting around because you're doing pre-tapes all morning, and then they packaged the whole thing together for the show. And I said to her, this is theater. And she went, no it's not, it's journalism. And I went, Tina. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Midday, and then the journal, and the camera comes right,

I'm Ralph Ben-Murgyky and take me seriously for Christ's sake Right and she was just like oh, I said come on this theater I mean if I was sitting here in a t-shirt you'd be like what the fuck is that guy doing sitting there with a tea? Meanwhile in radio you're sitting there with a t-shirt. Yes. Yeah, but but a midday. I would often wear shorts Yeah, and so you wear us from the waist up so we gotshirt. Yes, yeah. But on midday, I would often wear shorts. Yeah, I did. And so you would wear us from the waist up. So we got up, we were going, we were telling people we were going to Nunavut. So I said, why don't we like,

because she was wearing shorts, I was wearing shorts, why don't we get up at the end and we'll get a little suitcase and we'll just go, okay, see ya. That's great. And then Suzanne phones down, no, no, do not keep that. That wasn't funny. I said it was funny, because okay, it was funny, but no.

And Valerie was game, she was the best. And you left, like you said earlier, to become host of Friday Night with Ralph Ben-Murray. Well, I had this moment and I thought, I would love to do the Ed Sullivan show with only Canadian talent. I said, literally, I said to Yvonne Fittsand, I said, I wanna wear a tuxedo,

I wanna stand on the side and go, and here's the Tragically Hip, and here's whoever, right? And everyone was Canadian on this show. And he said, no, no, no, we'll do this, but you can't do the tuxedo thing. You gotta be a standup, you gotta be a talk show host. You gotta be, and it became everybody's show.

And Brian Lanahan came to one of the dress rehearsals before the first show, and he said to George Anthony, there's Brian, and he said to George Anthony, they's Brian and he said to George George Anthony They've put the entire building on his back. Do you realize that and Georgia was Trying to tell me to book people that Tom Tommy Hunter had booked You know, we had a huge fight about that and he just went what's too late now Well, you're so knocked on me hunter off the air.. You killed Tommy Hunter. Yeah, I killed Tommy Hunter, and then what did they do when they killed me?

Rita McNeil. Rita McNeil killed you. So what does that tell you about what people wanted? Not a Spanish Moroccan Jew named Ben Mergi. Is Ben your first name? No, it's son of, nevermind. So on midday, Ralph, you're replaced by Kevin Newman, and Kevin is replaced by Brent Bambury.

So Brent, did you have to audition? Did you go against any heavyweights to land that? I didn't have to talk to Starwitz. Like I think things were a little bit looser by the time I came along. But did you have an audition week? I kind of had an audition, I think I had an audition two weeks

and it was a bit of a slog. I don't think it was, I don't think it was the happiest time. Right. Um, but they ended up offering me the job and I got it. And so I went, why did you want it? I wanted it because I was, well, I had been doing brave new waves then I was, I moved from brave new ways to that. And I wanted to do something that would give me a little bit more profile. I'd been doing television as a contributor to midday and as a guest host. And I felt like I knew

how to do it, you know? And I liked being on TV at that time. It was kind of fun. But there were things that I ended up missing. I do think it it's really hard to do kind of this kind of an interview on a television show. Like it's all about the visuals and it's all about, you know, and midday actually kind of it, sometimes the interviews went on for too long for a TV show. Like if you watched it in, in, in fast motion, it was just like a heads going back and forth, you know? Um, and uh, but, but, totally different animals though, TV. Yeah. And I love the traveling. I love traveling. I loved going to, I went to, you know, and but, but totally different animals, though, TV. Yeah. And I love the traveling. I love traveling.

I loved going to, I went to, you know, I went to where James Bay meets Hudson's Bay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I get to see, but nobody gets to see us like, and meet cool people there too. I mean, it was really, really great. Radio to me is, is by far my favorite media. You know, I still do jazz, the jazz FM thing once in a while. I did six years of morning show at jazz

when I left CBC. But for me, this is the intimate medium radio. This is the theater of the mind and all that, but it's also, it's a hot medium. You have to imagine the person. Didn't you always find when you actually meet somebody who didn't ever see you, that they wouldn't believe you were you?

Oh yeah. I got that all the time. Well they thought Brent was Ralph Ben-Murky. Yeah. And they thought I was Brent Banbury. Do you know how many times I got, so Brent, no, no, I'm not Brent, I'm Ralph. Oh no, right.

Ralph Brent-Murky. Ben-Brent-Furgy. Could I play just a little audio from June 30th 2000 so you'll hear this in your speaker here. You accept credit cards you can't have a party without balloons and without music and the arrogant worms have written a special party song for midday the worms are known for writing music that makes you cry here are Trevor Strong Chris Patterson and Mike McCormick collectively known as the Arrogant Worms. It's the last episode of Midday Ever, right?

And you know, it was a sad thing, right? It was a very sad day and I was unemployed the day after this. And I remember one of the last things when I said goodbye, one of the last images, and they used this on the national one, they did a little story about it that night. I did this kind of, it was almost like a zen movement where I just, I took my hands and put them down between my knees and then I raised my arms up.

Like it was a letting go, right? That was just an image of, I just wanted to let it all go. Because I didn't have a job, I didn't know what I was gonna do next. I felt, I was 40 years old, which felt really old at the time, you know? And I felt like, what the hell is gonna happen to me now? But you gotta have the leaps of faith, right?

Yeah, you've gotta know that there's gonna be a next thing and then when you're in the next thing, you'll be in that thing. Yeah. And then, you know, that's kind of a... But why did mid-day come to an end? Oh, so it was, I think part of the reason was because CTV was running Wheel of Fortune against us,

you know? Yeah. And it just sucked all of the ratings out of it. It was just people wanted to, you know, they didn't want to have information anymore. They didn't want that much talk. You know, it was also they were getting more competition at that time of day. There were more noontime magazine shows that were on the air. When I was doing it, there was nobody doing it. So we had no competition. You either listened, watched us or you didn't watch. You know, many people I've talked to who were in university or college?

Right, that watched the show. That watched the show. And the other huge cohort were Maritimers because they went home for lunch. They were human beings. They actually went home and I go, how did you watch the show? You worked, you said, well, you go home for lunch.

We didn't call it lunch at the Maritimers, we called it dinner. Yeah, that's right, that's right. And the evening meal was supper. Yeah, yeah. It was you guys or it was the Flintstones. I think those were the options. So this final day, the Arrogant Worms there,

you can find this on YouTube. It's quite a funny little farewell to midday by the Arrogant Worms, remember those guys. So June 30th, 2000, Ralph, I take it you came back for that final episode. You were there? Oh God. I believe all former hosts were there over there were there with Keith and Bill all of us shown yeah and yeah and I think I mean I guess Valerie must have been

there and I think everybody came back and Bill passed away yeah his son played house league with one of my boys. I loved Bill. Oh, he's a great guy. Again, dry, dry, dry. Oh my God. So funny. Bill Cameron.

He said, his advice when I got midday was, try to make sure they take the hanger out of the back of your jacket. And they sit down. And the pickle out of their ass. And I said, thanks Bill, that works for me. Okay, I'm gonna give you a few gifts and then you guys take me home,

I'll just be quiet and I'll play an extra one. Brand new extra by Rob Proust by the way, so stay tuned for a brand new extra. First time I've ever played it. How many shows have you done? 1586, this is a, yeah, 1586. Don't you find the way he interviews fascinating? Yeah.

Because people, like, he bothered me for a year and I thought, who is this guy, what does he want? And then I finally thought, okay, he's asking nice every time, so fine. I'm polite. So I go, and I'm like, whatever, I have no idea who this person is, and we do this interview, and then I go home and I go, I actually liked that, that was fun.

And that was episode 330, which we recorded in April 2018. Mike chats with Ralph Ben-Murray about his years at CKLN, CBC Radio, hosting Midday and Friday night with Ralph Ben-Murray on CBC. And still we're doing the same shit. Mornings at Jazz FM, we talked about Mike McDonald, Stuart McLean, fatherhood, Hamilton,

your spirituality. What more do you want? Morally, I said to morally. I've taken some mushrooms more. I'm seeing the world a whole different way. I'm laughing more. Gentlemen, what are you doing on Saturday, this coming Saturday, which is November 30th, 2024? I'm putting you on the spot because the 17th Toronto mic

listener experience is happening at Palmer's Kitchen in Mississauga from noon to 3pm. And everybody who can hear my voice right now is invited. And if you guys showed up, you could jump on one of the open mics and wish everybody a happy festive season and say hello, people, the FOTM's in attendance would love to see you. Here's the best thing you see, because I get to go, I'm sorry, it's Shabbat.

Ah. I don't go out. I don't go out and work and do errands. But the real reason is because my weekends are serious family time. You're busy. No, just, you know. No family.

My wife works, she's a psychotherapist, she works very hard all week. She used to be a journalist for 15 years. I think she was just winding that up when I saw you guys in Israel. That's right. And she was parliamentary Israel. That's right. Yeah, and she was Parliamentary Bureau for CTV and she worked at Global Queen's Park Bureau chief and then she went I'm done

and I Like to spend my weekends Yesterday we did 14,000 steps. I know you ride a bicycle further than anyone on the planet. That is true, right? It's getting to be a Worry about personal best for kilometers biked every calendar month except one. I'm gonna later today I'll hit a thousand for the month of November Great. I'm gonna hit 14,000 kilometers in 2020. Let me ask you a question about this. Cause cause I am, I, I bike too. And I, I biked, I took my kid to daycare on a bicycle.

I lived down, I sort of lived downtown. Um, but the daycare was right downtown. Um, and it feels like being a cyclist is political now. Absolutely. And so I just wanted to know how you feel about that. It's almost like you want to avoid saying it to certain people because you don't want them to kind of. It's been. Be vegan. Yeah. Yeah, it absolutely has been politicized

and it's kind of unfortunate because now they're ripping up lanes that I literally use every single week and that Bloor and the Young, those two particularly, I was at Young and Eglinton earlier this week for an event and I took the Young down to Bloor and Bloor across to Royal York and it was super safe and I felt very secure and now they're gonna rip that up and put me in the lanes with the President.

And Montreal does it very well. Montreal did it before there was even a demand. They built lanes,, but I mean so really, you know Toronto Is in so many ways? often disappointing In terms of this stuff, but this isn't Toronto's thing This is a Doug Ford thing and he should you know stay in his lane as they say it just feels like good Well when his brother got elected wasn't that the first thing he said was the war on cars is over and I thought,

if this is a war, you guys fucking have it. You've nailed it. But you know, I think that it'll be, it's temporary. The lanes will be back at some point at great expense. It's like a million bucks. Yeah, I know. And you know, like Brent, so this morning, my eight year old and I, we biked to her,

I took her to school on the bike. It's great. It's locked up at the school and then I'm gonna pick her up and we're gonna bike to swimming lessons, which at 5.30 I, we biked to hers. I took her to school on the bike. It was locked up at the school. And then I'm gonna pick her up and we're gonna bike to swimming lessons, which at 5.30, and then we're gonna bike home. So I get the family biking. I go everywhere I can. I said, Young and Eglinton from here.

It's like, okay, if I can bike it, I can bike it. And I'm gonna continue to bike with or without bike lanes because I biked in the 90s when we had no infrastructure. That's right, that's right. I did then too, but you got doored a lot. Yeah. You know what? I'm a... You gotta be careful. Look in the side view mirror. too, but you know, you got doored a lot. Yeah. You know what? I'm a...

You gotta be careful. Oh, wow. Oh, Jesus. Brent's got an injury in his left pinky. I had surgery on this and... I broke a pinky. It never came back? It never came back.

No, no. That's from cycling. I've got a few broken bones. That was a great promo. Yeah. Okay, so be careful. I just make sure that I got space. I'll take a lane.

That's one thing. And I'm adamant. So I will take the lane November 30th. Uh, I, I, I'd love to come and I would love to bring my son, but, but I can't because I have a Jewish reason coming, which is part of the Jewish. No. Oh, no. But my, so, but it is that I'm going to see cabaret.

I'm going to see the fall of the Weimar Republic, uh, set to song and dance. Cause a friend of mine is, is in it. So I have to, it is a good show. I will burn through this so I can pass the mic back to you guys. You can just take us home here, but I want to thank Palmer's kitchen for hosting us because they're going to feed everybody who comes out to the event on Saturday at noon, they're going to give you a hot meal there. And I do have lasagnas in my freezer for you two gentlemen. I know Brent, you got one just

last year. I did. I did. Was it good? Yeah, we fed the family. Are you kidding? It was great. Loaves and fishes. It was terrific. Okay. You're going to get more lasagna. I have fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery for you guys. And Great Lakes will also have a beer at the event TMLX 17 at Palma's Kitchen on Saturday. So everybody come out. There's some cool people that are going to show up Do you have a burial plot from Ridley? Exactly. I have a measuring tape from Ridley Funeral Home for what to measure my corpse

Brent what are you gonna measure? Someone's got to do it. It's a gig. Thank you Ridley Funeral Home. There's wireless speakers for you. Those are from Monaris. So you can listen to season seven of Yes We Are Open, which is an award winning podcast where Al Grego went to the, we talked about Winnipeg earlier with Ralph.

Al went to Winnipeg and he talked to the co-owners, their twin sisters, they own Jenna Rae Cakes. And they talked about their dream 15 years ago in their small apartment. After watching an episode of cake boss, they decided to start a business. It's growing into a legitimate business despite numerous legal and logistical hurdles. And those kind of stories trials and tribulations with small business owners is what you'll find on Yes, we are open the award winning podcast from mineras and you guys can listen to that with your new wireless speakers

Whoo, I'm waiting pausing for applause. Okay, last but not least those USB keys. Those are courtesy of recycle my electronics dot Cliff hacking was here last week. He's the man in charge over there. I literally dropped a box of old Laptops and some old cables. I dropped it off at a recycle my electronics dot CA location week he's the man in charge over there I literally dropped a box of old laptops and some old cables I dropped it off at a recycle my electronics dot CA location staples near Shoei Gardens if you're curious so go to recycle my electronics dot CA stick in your postal code find out where you can drop off your old tech your old electronics your old cables to be properly recycled so those chemicals do not end up in our landfill. You got it?

I love the wagging finger part of that. I just saw a documentary on Netflix about how we are building these laptops and we're building these smartphones. Shopping, the shopping one? It's called Buy Now. Yeah, Buy Now. Or something like that.

But it's like, there's no consideration to end of life and you can't pop open this laptop and put in new memory or give it a larger hard drive or replace the battery Yeah, you know guys you throw it out. Yeah, but you know I mean I I do a strategic Communications for Green Party of Ontario. Yes, so trying to talk to people about things that are hard to explain like externalities all the things that the company doesn't have any responsibility for, a circular economy, which in Europe is now normal.

We live in such a backwater of consumption. We just keep devouring everything in sight. And if you look in between elections, two years out, you will see that the environment is second probably, in terms of what people care about, first or second or third. And then six weeks out from an election, it's at the very bottom of the list.

It's like the fact that this guy can give you 200 bucks and stuff him in your shirt as he's going, by the way, you can get beer around the corner. And a billion dollars to do that and another billion to do that. And we still fall for this crap is what made me go November 5th. I'm done, I'm done trying to convince people of this.

The only thing, the revolution is within. If you can have a revolution within, you can have a moment with someone and both of you can be here, be here in this short time we have, be here. I'm just so disillusioned with the way we are so amnesia. You know, that's the only word I can tell you, just amnesia. That's spot, but, but, but,

there's an inflection point, right? Like the country's burning. And when the country burns, more greenhouse gases are emitted. And so the feedback loop is getting tighter. And being a dad now of a young kid, I think about it all the time, right? Like what is this world?

I think about is this house that we live? Like what is this world? I think about, you know, is this house that we live in, which is the only one that probably we'll ever be able to afford, is it going to be, in 20 years, is it going to be an oven? Like is this house going to still be providing shelter in the environment that we're going to leave, that my son's going to inherit?

You know, like I think about it all the time. And I, you know, and I don't know whether it's too late and leave that my son's gonna inherit. I think about it all the time. And I don't know whether it's too late to actually effect change. I don't believe it is, from what I can tell, but I think that we're getting there. But my God, don't you feel that you have to be engaged in order to, like you say that you're not.

But I'm not doing this to not be engaged. I'm doing it because I believe that if you don't change from the inside, the change won't come from the outside because you can go on the air and tell me that there's a fire in early March or late February, a forest, you know, wildfire in Alberta. I will only treat it as that moment.

Oh, there was a fire, oh, and now the fire's out. When an entire town burns down, lay lit and dead, people just talk about resilience. I'm gonna pop out. You know, there's books, Peter Marshall wrote a book on climate communications called Don't Even Think About It, because we can't take this in and still buy into neoliberal capitalism

that is absolutely extracting everything they can from you as a person, me as a person, and from the Earth. That's why I focus on the crisis as a spiritual one. If nothing is sacred, then who cares? Take everything you can. The whole idea is to amass a private fortune. And yet, what is the biggest problem, one of the biggest problems we have in the world right now?

Loneliness. The World Health Organization is calling it a global epidemic, equivalent to a pack and a half of cigarettes a day in terms of the toll it takes on us. And all we want to do is live in our own house, not have to deal with anybody, and just take shit until we're, how many people have type two diabetes now? How many people?

And what is it, watch a double, a bacon double cheeseburger being sold on television. Like with your kid, with my grandkids and with my kids, what I do is I mock the commercial the minute it comes on. The shit, you know, Silverado. I'm going to drive it right into your head and kill you. Silverado. Right?

And yet, we're now reliant on these people to fund us. The CBC's television funding is almost completely dried up and it has to turn itself into a private TV station and compete directly instead of being the public broadcaster that cares to tell you what your country truly is about. They have to define some show, why did Midday go? Because the eyeballs weren't there anymore. Because of what?

Wheel of fricking fortune. Right? So that mediocrity that passes as culture, you know, and then guys telling you that we're going to strip bike lanes out because you got two more minutes on your commute. So we've just got the wrong stuff going. So I got to change that within me. That's a hard enough job and try to do it with my family.

And then whoever you can affect, we do Sabbath dinners on a Friday night so people can come together. You know how hard it is to do and how many people go, well, you know, I said I was coming, I'm not. It's not a roller skating fuckin' party, it's Sabbath. Right, it's stop. One day a week, six days you do, one day you be,

just one day, turn it off. If we turned off that phone, all of us around the world, at the same time, you'd save one seventh of the energy that we are now spewing out. We're more greenhouse gas emissions now, not less than five years ago, we have more. So what do you tell your kid? And can you change the world for your kid?

But maybe you can change how you are with your kid and then that kid has an effect and who knows what they'll be. One person can do a lot. So do it like that. That's my rant, sorry. You take your kid biking to school as you do, right? And you try to keep them safe,

but you also try to let them know how beautiful the world is. And that there are things that transcend us that we hope will be here before that have been here always. And we hope we'll be here after we're gone. You know, I mean, it is hard to communicate the values that you're talking about. Yeah. But I think, I think that it's, I think that it's, it's possible. And I think that there are ways you can do it subtly. And some of it really is conscious resistance of the things that are being shoveled at you all the time.

Yeah. So what do you think you'll do after you do day six? After I do, oh, well, I'm gonna be a full-time dad, I think. Yeah. And then, I don't know, I mean, I think I've got 10 years of that, and then, I don't know, I mean, I think I've got 10 years of that, and then, I don't know, I mean, what do you think? I don't know what it's gonna be like to be, you know,

a senior citizen a decade into it. Well, you know, I must say that I was so used to every two weeks a check landed in the bank account. And I did that for, when I was 30 till I was, I don't know, maybe 60, 62, when I worked at Sheridan with the president there for five years, and Queens Park, and then no more. And then I really had to go through a year

of staying confused, because all of a sudden it was, I've got to go through a year of staying confused. Yeah, because all of a sudden it was I've got to generate work Mm-hmm, and it's much harder to be a freelancer than to be in a thing But I would say that the compass for me was to be true to what I really believed It was good. Even if it what the money wasn't obvious and just thought The money will come and it does I took me about a year almost two years to realize Just be yourself. It'll come it'll come So for me, that was the only thing is stay confused

You know if I had an answer right away, but probably was the wrong one. It's like a rebound You know a boyfriend or a rebound girlfriend. You just say, no, not yet. It's probably gonna be the bad decision. Just wait for it. So I think that kind of helps. I don't, I don't, I don't know why I'm thinking about this, but, but when I just the year before the pandemic, I got accredited to scuba dive, which was something I've wanted to do all my life. And, uh, you know, being in that environment,

like being weightless under the ocean, and, you know, and the sense of vulnerability that you have when you're breathing through a tube, and, you know, if you go up too fast, your blood will boil and all of those things. But at the same time, learning to let go of that, and, you know, seeing sea turtles and, learning to let go of that and, uh, you know,

seeing sea turtles and, um, giant swarms of sardines and, uh, other marine life. It was, uh, it was kind of life-changing and I'd like to do more. I'd like to do more of that kind of thing. I'd like to do some of that with my kid. And then also like to maybe try to figure out a way of, um, you know, connecting to the ocean in a political way. Through volunteer work or something. So I'm living in Landlock, Toronto,

so it's gonna be hard to do, but I think I can do it. But I grew up on the coast, and I do feel this connection that... We got a lake, Brent. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the visibility is like. The visibility up, um, uh, up in the, uh, like, uh, uh,

Georgian Bay is insane. Like you can actually see wrecks on the bottom when you're, when you're in a boat. Um, so I think there'll be lots of opportunities, but that's kind of what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that I'd like to connect with, with, uh, also you can use your skillset, right, to tell stories, to connect us. Because to me, that's what I mean about awe. We don't have awe.

But when I see a really well-made piece about natural world, I think two things. One is, oh my God. Even if you don't believe there's a God, which is absolutely fine, because it doesn't help you to understand anything. I get it. But how miraculous is this world we live in?

The things that balance, the harmony, we're the disruptor, and when you see it. Yeah, we're the disruptor, and most of our lives we spend interacting with a tiny fragment of it. Oh, well, we're the disruptor and most of our lives we spend like Interacting with a tiny fragment of it. Oh, well, we're on pavement. Yeah three stars in the sky. One of them is a jet. Yes Once you see a skyscape you said wow, I think we promised Brent at the beginning 60 minutes. Is that what he said to you? How many minutes is it? Yeah, how many minutes is it? I'm not gonna tell you. He's gonna be on 60 minutes? Wow.

I'm the new host of 60 minutes. What do you think? I gotta say, that was magic. Before I thank you guys thoroughly, I just wanna say thank you to Rob Pruse. Are you a fan of the Spoons? Oh, of course, yeah. Well, Pruse spent all night composing a new closing theme

that would evade the algorithm that detects I'm using unlicensed music. This was the plan, okay? Wow, that's sick. Because I close every episode with Rosie and Grey from Shakespeare, My Butt, which is a lowest of the low song.

I'm gonna see them at the Rivoli next week. Can't wait to see those guys. But it gets caught by the bots, even though I have permission. And then I said, Rob, just throw something that has a bit of Rosie and Grey in it. I wanted a little bit of the friendly giant. I'm hearing it now in the headphones here. Nice. And then I said, throw me some pizza Nova jingle. Zappa Costa

did this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's Zappa Costa. And guess what this pizza Nova it goes into. I'm Dominic Nova heart Nova heart no no actually this is romantic traffic romantic traffic which Rob Bruce has a co-writing Credit on so it's all here looking for feedback. I have to loop it because it's not quite long enough, but well, oh, oh, yes I wanted some kids in the hall theme. Oh Speaking of the Rivoli here, So this will loop a little bit, but I want to thank you two gentlemen. Shadowy man of the shadowy planet. Don Pyle was just here.

I love Don. And he came, he's cutting hair for half the FOTM's. That's great. You got any hair under that hat? A little bit, yep. Okay, Don Pyle will take care of you. That's the only thing I have left. You're doing well.

Damn right I'm doing well. You're doing very well, you guys should be proud. But I want to thank you, Ralph Ben-Murgy. Thank you. You came all doing well damn, right? I'm doing doing very well You guys should be proud, but I want to thank you Ralph Ben-Murray. He came all the way from the hammer I just want to say and this is I don't want to I don't want to be I'm so glad you're still here Thank you. They know it's been a I've had a few I know you Book is I thought he was dead. Yeah No, yeah, no my wife looked at me yesterday She just some picture of me. She said I like you when you had your nose. Did you have like a

Relationship with your nose like like Barbara Streisand does you know where yeah Did you believe that it was no and and it was part of who you were? Absolutely. Well, look trust me if they took half your nose out and then you had a different nose and you now look like Stephen King. Michael Jackson? I literally had a woman walk up to me when we were in North Carolina or something and she said, my son won't come out of the room. I said, okay, why?

She said, because he's convinced you're Stephen King. Oh my God. Are you Stephen King? I said Would it be better if I was? So I don't know I said what no, I don't want to break his heart. I'm not Stephen King So she comes back the next day goes still doesn't believe me This used to be a Jewish nose, trust me. Well, can I donate some of my Irish nose to you? You can have a good chunk of it, if you'd like. You say that.

And by the way, I had a great chat with your wife at Kelsey's. You did. At the Humble and Fred Event. You did. The most beautiful, intelligent, vibrant, lovely woman I've ever met in my entire life. My wife, Monica? No, mine. We should do like a double date. Yes. What do you Monica? No, mine. We should do like a double date. What do you think?

I'm serious. Of course, but do we have to ride our bikes there? You know what? I'll bike to the Hamilton and I'll put Monica in the trailer. How long does that take? I've done it. I know you've done it. You've done everything. It took many hours. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. I have an e-bike. Anything that puts less cars on the street makes me very, very happy. I was always saying, bullshit e-bike. Anything that puts less cars on the street makes me very happy. I was always saying the bullshit e-bike. No, I'm happy for that. Did you not catch that moment?

I said I'm happy for that. I'm happy for that. So I'm happy for this. So Brent, thanks for reminding me at Lambton Arena and that we made this happen. Yeah. Just being a fly on the wall and listening to you guys talk for 90 minutes was incredible. So thank you both sincerely. Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. And that brings us to the end of our 1000, the friendly giants in my ear. How can I focus? I got to think on this new closing theme. I said morally. And that brings us to the end of our 15,586th show. You can go to

trontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs and also trontomike.com on Blue Sky. That's where I'm posting these days, having a good time with the engagement there. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. They're sending beer to TMLX17. Palm A Pasta, they're hosting us at tmlx17. That's November 30th. Everybody come out. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. Hope to see Cliff hacking there. Raymond James Canada. Minaris, Al Grego will be there. Come say hi, pulling his beard. And Ridley Funeral Home, Brad Jones will be there. See you all tomorrow when my special, I'm vamping because I don't have this loaded up. I'm going to find out who is my guest tomorrow.

It is Rob Nash. This guy's from Winnipeg. Inspiring story. He's been traveling around the country talking to school people about suicidal ideation. And he's got a great music that goes along of it it'll be inspiring as heck Rob Nash in the basement tomorrow see you all then I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

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little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a So So That's what I did with him.