Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ralph Benmergui: Toronto Mike'd #1434

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

In this 1434th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Ralph Benmergui about ageing, Stuart McLean, Friday Night! with Ralph Benmergui, Buffy Sainte-Marie, October 7th and having hope. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada and Electronic Products Recycling Association. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Friday nights belong to CBC. Today you got it all figured out, man! Exploding at 10 with kids in the hall. It's scary! Then it's music, it's comedy. At 11 it's Friday night with Ralph and Murky. Followed by... It's not easy being on this side of the cue cards.

The Larry Sanders Show! All for laughs! Carol, where are you saying this? Back to back, Friday night and it all starts at 10 only on TDC! Welcome to episode 1434 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. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future, means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

Today, returning to Toronto Miked, after too long an absence, is Ralph Ben-Murgy. Welcome back, Ralph. Ralphgy Welcome back Ralph. Thank you I'm sorry about your head Should be how many people are smacked their heads on this low-hanging fruit? His long even all right, so a couple of things is one I was let's at least disclose I was starting to say the sentence, watch your head. What are you, a Republican? How many people have smacked their heads on this?

I don't have a number, there's been a few. I don't have a number. Remember, there's been, I don't know, there's been like 600 plus people who have come down to record down here, and I would say maybe two or three have slammed it like you just did. That hurt. I don't understand.

Why don't you have a piece of foam that you just, like you've got everything else rigged out. That way, even if I do hit my head, it's soft. I think that's a good idea, and maybe I will implement that. It's a good suggestion. So I do have the sticker. Obviously that's not sufficient,

because there's a big sticker that says check your head. No, because I was talking to you and looking around and Looking for my chair. I know you were distracted and also I think I'm I was resonant of the fact that you Have been in this basement many many times like you've been I even mentioned it before I hit my head I even said it as I was coming down the stairs, right? I still did it because it's just, it's counterintuitive that there's a thing there. Your first visit, no, totally, you're totally right.

It's a very low ceiling and it makes no sense. And then I would say that if it was your first visit here, like the first time Ralph Bidmeier, I think I would have said it like a few times going down the stairs. I think I hit my head then. Yeah, I think you did. I think I did.

At least you're consistent. Honestly. Okay. Other than the fact that you might be concussed right now. Yeah, I apologize I really do apologize. How how are you doing? Like how how's your health? How you feeling? How's Ralph been murky? I'm good I'm good. I'm I Got a lot of people around me who aren't Are doing so well. Oh no.

Yeah, but it's partly age, but most of them are in their 50s, so. Yeah, come on, Ralph, that's not age, okay? I thought you were gonna tell me they're in their late 80s or something. No, no, once you're in your 50s, you start to, okay, so in your early 40s, if you're at a party, all you have to say if you wanna have a crowd around you

is my back has just been killing me. I'm having back spasms. So that's your 40s. Your 50s is, did you hear about so and so? They've got cancer. And then when you get into 60s, 70s, and 80s, it's just, you know, he's dead. That's dead.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Yeah, exactly. Better call Ridley. Better call Ridley. Now I'm a little concerned. Better call Ridley. I'm a little concerned though, because I'm this close to being in my 50s.

Like I'm, you know, and I had a health thing last year, but like as I talk to you now, I, so okay. What was that? Blood clot on my brain. Oh my God. You don't know about this. See how, how, what do you think? I just, yeah, well I thought you were, uh, say how's Mike doing? Ralph. Okay. So how disconnected from the Toronto Mike universe have you become that you

don't even know about this? This was, this was big TMU news. Toronto Mike universe news in March, 20, 23, that I had a blood clot in the brain. You're admonishing me for not. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, let Miley hurt. Cause I, I was six months ago. What was I up to? I know everything about you, Ralph. No, you don't.

So I had a blood. Yeah. So my bottom line is that I had a blood clot on the brain, which is not a good thing. And then, so how did you even know? I had a four day long intense compression headache and I finally did a zoom or some remote meeting with my my my my doctor my family doctor and she's like I'm concerned it's a brain bleed. Would you please go straight to emergency at St. Joe's and

I'll fax over a requisition form or something like that to tell them what I'd like them to take a look at your brain or whatever. And basically I won't give the long version here, but ER doctors, like it was probably migraine. ER docs, like, you know, it's a migraine dude, but your doctor wants me to look at your brain and I'm going to satisfy her request because, you know, I have respect for another medical doctor. And they give me a CT scan. And then an hour later, he calls me in a room and he goes,

I'm sorry, I was very wrong. You have a very rare condition and I can't remember the full name anymore, but it's basically, it is a blood clot on your brain. And I was admitted to the stroke ward at St. Joe's overnight, so there you go, Ralph. She must have been very frightened. Well, I didn't know what that meant.

Like, are they gonna crack open my skull and do something? Yeah, no, I would have been really, get the out of it. I've killed a lot of it. Okay, so I'm now speaking to you almost a year later. Yeah. And as you know, you were. In full sentences, I might add. And yeah, well, that's it.

I figured if I could have any, because I do have a bit of brain damage, but they said it was nothing that would cause me any issues, although speaking to you now, you can probably think, oh, he's really slipping here. But I did, like you were parked across the street about five, 10 minutes ago, and I did bike by you. So I'm well enough that I went on a beautiful bike ride

on this February 21st day. Well thank God for that. I feel great. Yeah, but that's one of those mortality tugs on the shoulder of like, hey, this isn't forever, it's a rental. Well Ralph, so the treatment is, you go on this blood thinner, that's the treatment.

Oh, which one? Apotex, apoxaban, apaxaban. Apax on your house, my friend. There's a lot of them. There's Plavix. Yeah, I'm on Apaxaban. I had to get to that. Yeah, I'm on Apaxaban. It's like a modern one. But they put you on that and then eventually the hematologist, like when, it took a long time, but eventually this thing goes away on it and it goes away on its own. And then they do an MRI and they say,

oh, you're no longer in trouble there, buddy. And then the hematologist says, oh, like we tested you for everything we have a test for and you're negative. So we can't find a blood disorder that you have that would cause this. So you can stop taking your blood thinners now. But fast forward. Yeah.

I'm back in emergency shortly thereafter with another blood clot. This one's in my arm. I have a blood clot in my arm. And then they basically say, okay, we don't have a test for what you have. Like they'll and then they basically say okay We don't have a test for what you have like they'll check out some stuff But you we don't have a test for what you have but you have something that causes blood clots Therefore you are to take blood thinners

Indefinitely, that's their magic word indefinitely. So I've taken two of those a day forever now and I don't have any I probably will do that forever Wow, there you go Call Ridley. Oh, I've been meeting with Ridley. He's giving me a sweet discount. Well, that's that's it. I'm very sorry. I'm sorry to hear you've got some people in your life that are unwell.

Yeah, yeah. And one of our dear relatives just passed away yesterday. Oh, so yeah, it's You know, I don't know everybody's got their own View of things, you know when somebody passes away there's people who are just like well, you know, you had a good life Right and there's other people are like this is the worst thing that's ever happened I'm kind of in the middle. I'm kind of like but does it depend on the age? Let me ask you, if Jimmy Carter dies tomorrow. Which.

Which could happen, right? Definitely could happen. What time is it, Ralph? Hold on. That's what Jimmy's asking. It was President's Day. Tell him to read Teal. Yeah, he's gonna set a record.

Longest time spent in hospice care, but okay. So Jimmy Carter, if he dies tomorrow, there won't be any, people will be like, what a great life, a life well lived, and there'll be tributes, but no one's gonna be like, crying about how we lost this great man, will they? Am I out to lunch on that one? Well, you know, there's a piece of that where you go,

oh, what we lost is what he stood for, what we've lost is a good soldier in this world. Right. Right? So that you can feel a loss for. And you know, who's to say how anybody reacts to death? Because we're in a death phobic culture anyway, we're not supposed to die. It's really an insult.

It's like I was busy, like what are you doing? You know, it's not something we're supposed to embrace in any way. We're not supposed to die in our 50s. Oh, we're not supposed to die, period. I'm doing a workshop next week on aging and saging and one of the things I do is I have people write their obituary so that they can be aware

of the fact that they're going to be dead one day. And as they write, many of them will say that they lived to like 97, died quietly with their family and loved ones around them. They just want the ideal exit. And even 97 is like, can I get to 100? But I looked at the stat that in the 1800s, early 1800s, life expectancy was 25 years.

25 years, and now we're going, somebody dies at 74, it's like it was so young. Yes. So it's all relative. It's all relative. But when it happens, you better call Ridley. I'm calling Ridley, I got them on speed dialing, are you kidding me?

It reminds me of that joke, like I hope I die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather and not yelling and screaming like his passengers. Oh wow. Is that too darn? Well you are the yuck yucks guy. Bang my head on the thing again. I just interviewed Mark Breslin from

my Not That Kind of Rabbi podcast. And like you, an older father, no offense. But like. He was started even older than me. Right, his kid's like a teenager, right? Yeah, he's 14 or 13, yeah, Jackson. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you about that. But I wanted to let you know about something.

So you recently came up on Toronto Mic'd, even though you're so unplugged from the TMU, you came up on Toronto Mic'd. Again, again, unplugged, yeah TMU you came up again unplugged shocking that you just learned now that your beloved Toronto mic friend former producer that he had a blood clot in his brain and you didn't know for a whole year but okay do you know who visited uh i know you don't know but i'm gonna ask you rhetorically do you know who visited this basement and did not hit her head but she was here uh about maybe three weeks ago you get one guess a woman visited this basement three weeks ago and sat in that very chair for

a lengthy discussion she didn't hit her head she did not hit her head wait a minute that doesn't mean she's a you know yeah a little person with you Hillary Clinton that's a good see that's your clothes your clothes what Kim Campbell somebody that you also had on your podcast. There's a clue. Cheetah Rivera. Did you? No.

She just passed away, right? Yes. Okay, shout out to her. That's why she wasn't here three weeks ago. She wanted to be here, but she missed the chance. She was here in spirit. Yeah. Absolutely.

I know you believe in that stuff, so you, you know, I'm not messing around there. Okay, it is Kathleen Wynn. Oh, yeah. Actually, I'm not messing around there. Okay, it is Kathleen Winn. Oh yeah, actually I saw the thing on Twitter, which I refuse to call the stupid name. Right. Yeah, I saw that, the picture of you and her. So why am I bringing it up to you, Ralph?

Not only because she was on your show, but do you remember, I wanted to jog your memory here, do you remember scheduling? Yes. Okay, so, and you, I'll just revisit it, but you said to me and I tell me if I'm misquoting you because I don't want to misquote you Something to the effect of we can't ask the 25th premier of this province to visit your basement and bang her head Yeah, no, we can't right right. I did. Yeah, I said that and then I did came here She came here because I forgot to tell her not to come here because we read humble and Fred studio

That's right. And you know what? I love that woman. She was so nice about it, right? She was just like no big deal It's okay, you know knocked on your door your wife. Yeah, my wife was like a buddy You're a That was that conversation was only a backbencher at that point. So it was like, well, it's not like the premier was visiting, but uh, I, I just wanted to, uh, ask you how you feel about that. Kathleen Wynn told me at that time, cause we had an email exchange. She said, I would absolutely have,

she's not that type of person that wouldn't go into some basement. Like she, she doesn't have those errors about her. She would be very comfortable to sit in this basement and talk to you, and then I just feel, now again, this is a long time ago. But. Can I ask after 1,400 of these plus, why don't you move to a bigger space? Like what's it gonna kill you?

That would mean another location. There's no more space in this house. Like I have four kids, Ralph. You have four kids, but your kids, these are adults, a couple of these are adults, right? Now, where am I gonna put this studio? Like, why do you think, why do you, Ralph, why do you think I'm in the corner of my basement

with a very low ceiling? Because this is the best spot in the home? It's because it's literally the only spot left in the home. Like, I am here because I started off before child number three was born. I was, there was a room I had, a studio room. Then child, I was advised nicely by my wife, Monica, that that room was going to Jarvis,

and I needed to vacate. And then I did, went here, because there was no other space in this home. Do you have a garage? I have a shed, I don't have a garage. There's no garage in this home. Oh, a shed. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Get yourself one of those big Canadian tire sheds. Get a little heater. Get a little heater, okay, that's what you would do with me rather than come to basement but Kathleen I'm just small okay so this is a because it ties into your agent and sage in that yes we had a great conversation Kathleen and I it was a wonderful conversation and I just we did revisit that story that Ralph didn't think that you should come into the basement because she was a premier of this fine province but she said she of course she was happy to do it and she

did do it and it was a great convo, and we talked quite a bit about her grappling with aging because she has a, I don't want to misquote this either, but a disorder that requires steroids. Okay. Autoimmune disorder. Yes. And she takes steroids, which causes her some weight gain,

and I guess they call it like a moon phase or something and she she's uncomfortable of her appearance and then because of these steroids she had an Achilles injury and she couldn't run she can't run anymore right so she's in the pool now which is great yes I read something she wrote that was lovely about that that's right so this was a great big part of our convo and I was thinking of you because you're always talking about aging and saging yeah well, well you know she's such an interesting person because she's willing to discuss the realities of life, not the performance of life, right?

So she's always been grounded that way. You know, considering the leadership we have, well leadership we have in the province right now. It's sad that people thought she was, even in her own party, there were people who were like, she's too lefty, right? But she was doing things like $17 billion of transit investment, a real green plan. And now nothing. And now we're actually going backwards.

So I wish there was more people like her But I think that she's very conscious of her aging and very present for it So that's the kind of person you want to be you don't want to keep pretending you're you're 32 Like look at you. You're just about to be 50 and you're already thinking. Oh my god Already bought my casket What at Ridley's yeah, no you're you're already thinking, oh my God, I can't. 50. I already bought my casket. At Ridley's. How do you feel about becoming 50? Oh well, I just, you know, I think age is a measurement

of time since birth, right? So it's just, I don't have many thoughts other than. Are you thinking, I can't think of myself as young anymore? I haven't thought of myself as young in quite some... I feel like I was... I turned... I just advanced my psychological age ahead of time to kind of brace for it. So I feel like, I don't know, I don't think 50 is much different than 49 to me.

It's just another year there, but I still feel great. So I think as long as I'm active and I'm able to get out there on the bike and I still feel great, so I think as long as I'm active and I'm able to get out there on the bike and I still have my keen cognitive abilities, that is to be determined if I ever had such cognitive abilities, but if I stay sharp and curious cat and I can still get out there and bike, I don't, I'll turn 60, I'll turn 70. I like the way you slow down

when you say the word cognitive. Cognitive. Well, you know, a lot of syllables in the word cognitive. Tug-ditive. Well, you know, a lot of syllables in that word now. I can't say brewery. I can't say physician. You just did. No, it takes everything I've got to get my mouth to do it. Physician.

There is a line in this intro, because nothing scripted except that intro I do, and there's a line, valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain, so there's part and I can't I have to slow down and Focus on the syllables or I won't finish Canadian Like I'll just skip the N and Canadian and I'll kind of roll off it So I definitely have your perspective Canadian valuable perspective for Canadian investors So I have to nail the end before I go into the eye and investors like I'm very like conscious of it because I know

There are words. I I go into the I in investors. Like I'm very like conscious of it because I know there are words I butcher on the reg. Do you ever, did you ever take voice lessons? No. No, he says with duration. No, because I would sound better. You speak for a living. I do speak for a living. La la la la la.

Did you, did you? Because you were. Contacting school. Mm mm mm, na na na, na, la, la, la, la, ah, ah, ow, around. And that way, the muscles in your mouth are more capable of saying things. Is it too late for me? No, it's not. Never too late. Never too late. I used to have a voice teacher who'd make us lie on the floor in acting school,

and he wanted you to tense your body and then release the tension and one of the things he said for tensing your buttocks was squeeze lemons and I thought well there's an image. Well when life gives you lemons Ralph. Squeeze them. Okay I want to play a clip because I want to talk about somebody who, you know, a lot of death early in this chat Ralph, but, and it's only gonna get worse from here, but we lost somebody seven years ago I want to have a little chat with you about, and I will play a little bit of this gentleman before we talk. The letter from Stephanie arrived the following week. Dear dad,

they've got it at lunchtime. He showed it to Moralee after supper. Did you tell her to write this said Dave? No said Moralee, I didn't. Dear dad, mom told me you've been worried about dying. She told me that's why you were writing your eulogy. I want to apologize for making fun of you. I'm sorry I laughed at you. I'm sorry I made fun of it. When Paula's dad died, she had to talk at his funeral. I started wondering what I would say if I had to talk at yours. I decided I would tell people about the eye patch. Do you remember all that? I think I was about six. I don't even remember why I had to wear that stupid patch. All I remember was that Dr. Milne said I had to wear an eye

patch and that I refused. Nothing was going to make me wear that eye patch. I cried all the way home from the doctor's office. When we got into the house, you sat me down at the kitchen table. You pulled out two eye patches and you put the first one on over your own eye. You said we would have a deal. You said that I would wear my eye patch until Dr. Milne told me I could take it off and you would wear yours until I told you to take it off. I said, but people are going to look at you funny and you said, well if they do I guess I can talk to you about it. You might know how that feels. Do you remember how we decorated them? I think you drew a huge, gross, red eye on yours. And you wore it for a whole week before I let you take it off. You wore it to work,

and when you took the car to the garage and out to dinner at the Turlington's. I can't believe I made you do that. If I had to talk at your funeral, I'd tell people a story about the eye patch, and then I'd tell them that that's the kind of dad you were, that you'd do anything for me and Sam, even if it made you, P.S. I don't want you to die. If you die I'm going to kill you." Dave took Stephanie's letter to the store. He keeps it in the drawer by the cash. He read it the other day at lunch. Sometimes when he reads it, it makes him happy. Sometimes it makes him cry. Mary hasn't been back to the store, though she has been over to dinner. And all in all, it was a successful evening.

Dave still has the coffin. It's still in the back of the record store. There's a whole display of 45s in it. Teenage death songs. Thank you very much. Remind me, I know you produced Stuart McLean's Christmas special and the children's quiz show Smart Ask for CBC. But would you mind sharing some memories of your buddy Stuart McLean who passed away seven years ago?

And I said to him, morally, yeah, no. I first met Stuart when I was a mature student at the journalism school at what was then called Ryerson. And it was, I was a mature student at the journalism school at what was then called Ryerson. And it was, I was 27, and it was, no, 28, because it was the second year, it was my broadcast class. And Stuart, who had been a very successful producer at CBC in Toronto, a national documentary, Sunday Morning Guy, excellent work,

and talk and tape with Peter Zawsky in Morningside. He had taken another job as well as a professor of broadcast media at Ryerson, and I was in his class, and he and I just sort of started a friendship there, and he was kind of intrigued because I wasn't 18, and I'd kind of been out in the world and the fact that I'd done stand-up to him was like wow that's so interesting and I remember there was

a Gil Scott Heron concert at the Bamboo maybe at the Rivoli I can't remember and I said, do you know who he is? And he said, no, no, I've never heard of him. And I said, well, come with me. So we went and he loved it. He thought it was great. So the year was ending and he said, you know, you don't really need to be here. Like, you should just get out in the world and get a job. There's a job at CBC Radio in Winnipeg.

Why don't you just apply for it? So I did, I didn't finish my degree at Ryerson. I had one year left. And I went, I got it, and I'd never lived in Winnipeg, and I got the job, and now if I went, and that was history. And then we kept in touch over the years and then I wanted to do a Christmas special with him. I remember I went out to Brantford, I think, to a theater there and to watch one of his shows before we started doing our own tapings in Belleville.

And it was a snowstorm and it was packed. People were willing to risk their lives to go and hear him. And it was like church, you know? I mean, he was the preacher and he spoke right to people's hearts and they just loved what he did. And you know, when we were getting together to do our TV thing, he did a lot of touring and he loved being on the road.

He loved the tour bus with his band and you know, and Jen and everybody and you know, they just did a great show somewhere and it was like a Jackson Browns running on empty album. Like they, except for the cocaine part, but they were, they were living it and loving it. And he just loved that group of that band of gypsies that he had. Doug Wilde was his music director, and he just had a great time.

And then we found out he had cancer. And it was one of those ones where every next piece of news isn't better than the last piece of news, instead of the other way around right and I didn't get to see him very much in that period. He just didn't want to see people all that much So I spoke to him through his the woman Meg Masters who did all the writing with him and She was she was knowing what was going on And then I remember I turned on the radio one morning in my kitchen and I just heard the news that he had died. It was one of those moments,

right? We just go, oh, oh, okay, that's, oh. Because a guy like that, you know, he was doing good work in the world. And I think a lot of people really loved what he did with that. He did a lot of different things in his life, but that whole series, I remember we were driving to Belleville to do one of the parts of the Christmas special. And his own life was nothing like the life that he had created. Dave and Morley? Yeah, none of that.

I mean, he'd been divorced, he had two kids, he was a guy living in Toronto, he was always on the road. And I said, you know, do you ever feel like a disconnect? That you're telling people this idyllic life and your life is like everybody else's, messy and complicated. He goes, no, I'm giving them a story. I'm giving them a story that has values in it, about an aspirational place in life. So I really, I miss him.

He was a wonderful spirit in Canadian culture. Seven years gone, surprises me to hear it's been seven years. But I wonder, looking at the Canadian media landscape today in 2014, do we have a Stuart McLean in this country today? A storyteller. I don't think we do. I'm just reading a book right now. In the Jewish tradition, a storyteller is called a Magid.

And what happens is that whatever the situation, they have a wonderful story to tell about it. And all we start with, the story is told, and then off they go. And he was one of those. The other one was the one in the States, his Prairie Home Companion. Right. Right.

So I don't know if we have the patience or time for that right now. We've become much coarser, I think, and much more agitated and defensive about everything. We're not sure what we can talk about anymore. So today's Stuart McLean is on TikTok making nine second videos for people without tolerance or patience for a longer form.

Nine seconds. Well, we do have some social satirists. I mean, here in Canada, we have Brittle Star. Have you interviewed him yet? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I met him at a Rob Proust concert in Oakville, too So yeah, he's been on the program, but you think I think he's very you might be right, but he's also very Safe like I find brittle star also very Corporate friendly safe not the Stuart McLean was friendly safe not that Stuart McLean was out there walking on. No, Stuart wasn't exactly Bill Scott Herring. Right, the revolution will not be televised.

Yeah, I wasn't doing a B movie. No, I'd say Brittle Star actually has a really good ability to take the story of the day and kind of push it back on you without it being a rant. You know, he's doing real parody of things, real satire of things, but I really like his stuff. I don't know if I'm. Well, he's very good at packaging it up in a very digestible, viral piece. Like, he could put together a good quality video,

good musicianship, and good production. And he's like you, except for the head-hitting part, he does it all in a garage. Yeah, he was smart, because he zoomed in for his Toronto mic'd appearance and didn't have to worry about hitting his head. But he's probably got electricity in that garage. You need a garage.

I need a garage. This house didn't come with a garage. We gotta see what we can do. Maybe I need to move and find some more. Would you actually move. I don't think you would I have very little appetite to move But really how long have you been in this house 11 years almost 11 years? No, not that long and right because this is you know I'm on marriage number two here, and this is our home that we bought together And I think maybe marriage number three

Did not mean I Monica, I didn't mean that. I did not mean that. I don't. I just said she's not listening. My guy hit my head. She only listens when Roz and Mocha are on the program. So I think I saw the which one's the tall one. Roz Weston. Yeah, I don't know him at all. Real name Russ.

Well, Russ, I saw him in the Sobeys. Did you? Yeah. Which Sobeys? I need to know where Roz is. It was in Waterdown. I was taking my kid tobe is I need to know where Ross is hanging it was in water down I was taking my kid to tutoring and had to pick up some groceries for our dinner that night My wife asked me to pick something up and he's really tall, right? He's very so he's like five or something He would have hit his shoulder. He's been down here and he did not hit his head Right Leo Rodin's has been down here didn't hit his head. But he did throw a basketball 40 feet and had a glass of wine.

No. Wine and twine he calls that. I know. See here I watch. See you're in the Leo Roudens universe, it's the Toronto Mike Deen universe, you're not in. No, I know who you've got on. I just, you know what?

I don't. You want to know the thing about podcasts? Yeah. I do one, you do one. If I listen to a podcast, I literally within the first 10 minutes, I nod off. I just nod off. There's something about a voice after a voice after, and I'm just like, and I don't want to be like that, but.

That's an interesting reaction because what if the voice is saying interesting things that you're interested in? That's what frustrates me when I sort of wake up again for a moment I think what if I just I just missed the whole thing. Okay, but if you were on a Sunday morning, let's go back about 10 years and Sunday morning and Michael Enright is going to have a long form interview a 60 minute they'll break for you know news at the bottom top of the hour, but it's going to be 60 minutes which is something you don't get from the rest your radio unless CBC radio one has is doing it for whatever reason but Michael Enright has somebody interesting and they're gonna talk for

60 whole minutes like okay You're nodding off listening to Michael Enright on CBC radio one No, because because we never because it's Michael Enright We never did them set more than 17 minutes in the segment, so. You did a segment, you did three people in an hour, not one. And right now somebody else, Roz should come in here and do this next segment.

Roz isn't doing 17 minutes, he's doing 2.5 minutes each segment. Is he a nice guy? Seems like a nice guy. I thought he was good. We bonded over our mutual admiration for a Canadian singer-songwriter named Custom, and we were both fans of this album, Custom, made called F.A.S.T., so we kind of hit it

off through that. I liked my time with Roz Weston, and even with Mocha too. He was a good Mocha frapp, not his real name either, and he was a good guy. You think? Mocha frapp, yeah. Well, Roz is from Acton, Ontario. I just remember they named a street for him in Acton. Oh, crap. Yeah. Well, Ross is from Acton, Ontario. I just remember they named like a street for him in Acton. Oh, wow. So yeah, that's the it's worth the drive to see Ross Weston's laneway here. Hey, there's somebody so okay, I'm glad you're here. It's been a

long time, but something happened and I was thinking as it was happening, wonder what my friend Ralph Ben-Murgy would have to say about this. And then I just needed to wait for you to get your ass to Toronto and sit here so I can ask you. Even though Brittle Star zoomed in, but okay, we'll keep talking. Yeah, but Brittle Star doesn't get back on this program until he, unless he's in person.

So there's not- What's with you and the in-person thing? You know, it is a schlep for a lot of people. But that's why, that's why, we have zoomed, right? You have zoomed in. And Brittle Star did get to zoom in right you have zoomed in and Brittle Star did get to zoom in. I just zoomed with Zappa Costa because he's in Edmonton Alberta and I zoomed yeah Alfie Zappa Costa zoomed in. He composed the pizza nova jingle.

Real Italian flavor a pizza you can savor. Now I only eat Poma Pasta pizza, but that's a good jingle he's got there. But okay, so I do the odd Zoom, but for returning guests, I don't like to Zoom with returning guests. So I would rather wait till you had another reason to be in the city. Did you come here to Toronto for this only? Only, I'm going home after this.

Okay, I thought maybe you had a- I drove in from Hamilton, I'm going home after this. Okay. I thought maybe you had a... I drove in from Hamilton. I'm driving home and you know... Okay. The good Lord will and the traffic will let me through. So I want to make it worth your while here. Okay. But I wanted to get your take on something that happened and my reaction in real time, I found interesting my reaction and I was wondering how Ralph reacted. Can you please walk us through your reaction to the CBC documentary, W, is it, what's their documentary series called?

Not W-5. Fifth Estate. Fifth Estate, thank you. When it revealed that Buffy St. Marie was an Italian American woman, and that she had, you saw the doc, did you see the doc? I read the stuff, and I found it difficult. I need to know how you processed that,

what you took from that, how you feel about it today, many months later. Well, okay, so several things. One is I have no right to speak about indigenous identification or misidentification. I don't ever believe that Buffy was in any way insincere or profiteering. I think she aligned a part of her soul with indigenous life. I think it felt to me like a certain glee and gotcha and shaming thing was going on. And I also feel like we've taken identity politics into places where we're just even more atomized and isolated than we have been before.

We're down to just in your house and even then, maybe you're not saying the right thing. And I just feel like we need more latitude and more grace and compassion and kindness towards each other, not more, you're not from my team, you're from your team. You know, I think we're from team Planet Earth and that's what's missing about everything right now is we just don't get it

that we just think it's about who we identify as being and yet I've I felt differently about the so-called me that I am Throughout my life. I've thought of myself in one way thought of myself in another and I just feel like Leave it man. Like she did good work, she did kindness, you know? She brought Indigenous music into the mainstream, and I don't really have a problem with that. Yeah, maybe she was born in her genetics for that, but her soul said something else and that's what she became. said something else and that's what she became.

All right. If I may, Ralph, so she won many an award, including a, a Juneau that was, uh, what's the term I guess, intended to be presented to someone, uh, an indigenous person, an indigenous artist. Okay. So if we believe in the, the evidence is compelling and I've noticed that since then Buffy's official bio has been changed a little bit to reflect this fact that she doesn't you know, she doesn't have indigenous people are not in her life until she's in her early 20s. Okay, so she's born and raised in America to an Italian American family. Beverly Saint Santa, Santa, Angela or something like or something like that. I can't remember. It doesn't matter now, but Buffy St. Marie is the name she took. And she won these awards that were intended for indigenous artists.

That means there's an indigenous artist not winning the award because Buffy won the award. So it's not quite the same as like, oh, she brought a lot of love into the world and she introduced a lot of people to indigenous music because she is accepting these awards that are no longer going to an indigenous artist. And yet I can't help but feel like this woman who I don't know she must be close to 80 if not. Yeah over 80. Yeah that this is what's left this is how we want to show her the door And I guess that makes me sad I don't say people are right You know, oh, yeah, you know she should have and then she didn't and so she should To me it's just I just see this person who's being

publicly humiliated and it's almost the sort of You know that school yard fight fight fight fight and and I saw that in politics all the time Is that you really wanted to find a way to to? Assassinate someone's character and any wedge you could get in there to do it you would do it You know like what Doug Ford did to Steve Clark who was his housing minister is disgraceful He made the guy do these things to carve into the green belt He lied to everyone that he wasn't going to do that and he did it and then he throws the guy under the bus Is it and his chief of staff? It's their fault. I worked in politics. There's not a damn chance That they did that on their own. Not a chance in hell.

The Premier's office has complete control of the party and if they don't, the Premier should take the fall. But that's the kind of culture we live in now where the glee of throwing someone under the bus is more important than the issue. Yes, Buffy received awards as an indigenous person somewhere in herself. Maybe she thought this is what I like. There's almost every major Buddhist in North America leader is Jewish. Sharon Salzburg, Jack Cornfield, Joseph Goldstein, the list goes on. Ram Dass, not Buddhist, but Hindu, Ram Dass, Jewish. So are they charlatans? Are they fakes? Should they just stick to being Jewish? Or can they

literally speak for the Buddhist community of North America and have hundreds of thousands of people listen to and hang on their every word? Yeah. Okay. I get your point here, except for the fact that Buffy clearly misled people because she could have disclosed, she would not have won the Juneau Award for Indigenous artistry that she won if she disclosed what she knew to be true, which is that she was living in America

as a white woman into her early 20s, right? Like this is the difference. She could have disclosed that, and then she never would have won those awards. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. But there's a reason she didn't disclose it. Because she was winning the awards. Because she must have felt,

there was some sense of, you know, that letter she wrote to her brother, for example, like from the lawyer that said, don't interfere with my ability to make money. Like, I'm not gonna pretend I know what's in Buffy St. Marie's heart or mind. But I will say that if you it's not like she thought maybe, you know, she maybe she knew she was born and raised in America because she's in her early 20s when she Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she was wrong. She misled us. And this is where I come from. Because I watched her on Sesame

Street. The show I watched as a very young boy with Sesame Street and I loved Buffy St Marie and says I always referred to her in Toronto Mike. That's my second mother I love this woman love this one and I what I felt was hurt right and then because I was hurt I felt angry at her For misleading me because it would be if I used look me in the eyes right now and said Mike all those times I told you I was a Moroccan shoe Dude I'm a of Irish descent from the hammer and it's like I would be like, okay Ralph skew e we ask you. Okay. Shout out to Steve Pagan. Yeah I is he ever come on your podcast? I don't think, you know what?

Steve and I did a thing on jazz radio where we talked together about the news of the day. And we both still talk about it and Steve is always just like, if I wasn't doing TVO, I'd want to just do that with you every day and just jam on the news. What time is it? Maybe that will come true for you.

I'll say one thing. Let's wrap up. Yeah. Wrap up the Buffy cause then I want to ask you about something else. And then there's a very important subject. I understand the hurt and I understand the feeling of betrayal. And I'm not saying she was right to do it. I'm just saying I feel bad for her as a human being that in her 80s it's all been kind of taken apart. And I don't know what her motivations were,

but I kind of wish it had never happened, that she would have just gotten to leave this earth as somebody who advanced indigenous music and culture. But you know. Well we agree on that. But I. Yeah, she was wrong to do it, right? I wish, yeah, I wish she had just been honest with us

from the get go. I guess once you're in it, it's almost too late. Once you've lied, I guess, it's when do I tell the truth about this because it's like that Yesterday movie where the guy is the only guy who knows the Beatles songs. And he just doesn't know how to tell people because he's getting so much good from it. Right, okay, finally got to talk to you

about Buffy St. Marie. It's been bugging me for months right here. I'm gonna play another clip because I wanna just have a brief, again, this is a little bit of a recap because we have had you on the show many, many times and we've talked about a lot of this stuff, but I wanna talk to you just a little more

about something from the early nineties. And then I want to get very, very serious with you, Ralph and Murky. So let's be silly before we get serious and listen to this. Oh, Canada, it's Friday night with Ralph and Murky. On the show tonight, Ralph's musical guests, Spirit of the West and Ofra Harnoway. Comedians Mark Dennison and Neil Lamy. Special guests, comedian Mike McDonald, author Dr. Margaret Bookstrand, and our musical director James B. and the Look People.

I'm your guest announcer, Stephen Page of Very Naked Ladies. And now, welcome the man in the middle of the mayhem, Ralph VanMurky! Thank you, thank you very much. I just kissed a bare naked lady. And I'm richer for it. You know, okay, something happened in rehearsal today. We were goofing around, as is our want. And one of our writers did a really unusual impression, so we figured, hey, why not have him do it for you?

So, Larry, could you come out here for a sec? Larry. This is Larry Horowitz, one of our writers and a fine comedian. You have an impression to do? Why don't you just wail away, big guy. Okay, I do an impression of the Toronto subway stopping at Yonge and Bloor. I'm going to fade it down Ralph. No, please do.

Alright so this happened. I remember this in real time. So I opened the show, kind of a cold open, with like a CBC trailer or whatever, an ad for, it was Kids in the Hall. Yes. Then it was You. Yes. And then it was HBO's The Larry Sanders Show.

And I was thinking, I'm like, that's kind of a cool Friday night. Like I was thinking like, I could see myself getting settled in for that. That would a cool Friday night. I was thinking I could see myself getting settled in for that, that would be my Friday night. I'd be watching CBC television in the early 90s and I'd be watching those three programs. You're the meat in that sandwich.

Yeah. So? Okay, so what strikes me is that, hey, we had Friday night with Ralph Ben-Murgy, but it's from 1992 to 1993. 17 shows. That's how many we did. See, I think that would blow someone's mind to find out there were only 17 episodes of Friday night with Ralph Ben-Murgy.

Well, you know, it's weird because people sometimes, they see my name or hear my voice or something, they'll say, I used to watch you all the time. 17 times. And I think, okay, well, no. You watched me for a year and a half in that incarnation. Well, you were on Midday with Valerie Pringle. I was on Midday for a few years.

I was in Primetime and radio. Lots of shows. This is the only one that crashed and burned. And so when I listen to it, I'm always a bit pained, because it's one of those, yeah, no, it wasn't fun. I didn't have fun doing that show. That was a lot of, there was way too much attention. Brian Lanahan was, George Anthony was the head of variety

and Brian was a good friend of his. So Brian came to a rehearsal or a tech something just before our first show. And then he went up to George after watching it all and watching everything going on around in the studio. He just said, my God, you people have put the entire building on his shoulders. I don't know if that's a good idea. And I think he was right. And I foolishly let them put the entire building

on my shoulders. And you know, I've always, you know, I think we've talked about this. For me, what I learned was we are not people who are high status people, that we want big and glam and all that stuff and high urban and funky suits and all that, we're low status. Like the show before, show that was canceled for me was the good Lord, Tommy Hunter. And the show they put on after.

Can I guess? Rita McNeil. That's right. So think about that. Yeah. Tommy Hunter, Rita McNeil. And we're talking bedrock white Canadian Christian stuff. And there's this guy with a weird name

and a high urban set and big sound and everyone was Canadian. Toronto guy. Yeah, all I wanted to do when I pitched the show was the Ed Sullivan show, but the Canadian version. Just only Canadian acts. And I literally said I wanna stand in the tuxedo and say, here's the next act. And they were like, Yvonne Fissan was like,

no, you can't just do that. You gotta do stand up and you gotta do interviews. And so we did and it was the wrong idea. The next show I did after that was in the atrium at the CBC building with a bunch of stools and maybe 20 people watching. And that was okay, because I realized low status is more where we're comfortable.

Yeah, Tommy Hunter and Rita McNeil like it's like one of these things is not like the other. Yeah, me. But I'm listening to that we just played like we only played about 90 seconds of that episode, one of the 17 episodes and we hear okay, Stephen Page is doing the PA announcing. So did you have a different person each episode doing that? No, Tabby Johnson did the first year and then in the second year when Mark. Mark Breslin took over.

Yeah, the deal was, it wasn't really my show anymore at that point. I was just the host. So James B was brought in with the look people. James is like a brother to me. We've known each other forever. But none of the other choices were mine. I just did the show. And by then I just sort of like, I was tired. I was just like, please. So okay, so we only have 17 in total. How many episodes before you were,

your heart was tapping out of this project? Well, when we did the first one, we actually did it at nine o'clock because the last episode, episode, the last program for the national at 11 was, no, we did it at 10, yeah. This is during that period, CBC fucked with the national part of my friends

because they went with Prime, because I just had Pamela Wallen, I just had her on the show and we were talking about that. You know, primetime news. Yeah, so she was on, so I was, I said, they wanted me to go the next week after they'd made the switch and I foolishly said, no, I'll go on that week.

And I got like a million people and watching and Don Cherry and Scott Thompson on the couch and everybody thought, my God, it's a hit. It's gonna be great. And then the next week, when we went into our regular time slot, half a million people, not a million people. And then from then, it just eroded slowly but surely

like a bad tooth. I would, by the way, just for the record, I'm throwing it out there, I would totally listen to a podcast that was Don Cherry with Scott Thompson. Like that would be the, that's the duo. Yeah, no, it was Joe Bodelay, the late Joe Bodelay was the guy who put that together as a segment

and it was brilliant. Wow, that's a duo right there. But okay, so you got Stephen Page in that particular clip, you got Stephen Page doing the voiceover, that's cool. Bare Naked Ladies, Stephen Page in 1993 or whatever. Your musical guest that night was Spirit of the West. Yes. You know, shadowed the Ridley funeral home.

But wow, Spirit of the freaking West. And you got Mike McDonald on the program. Yes. Who almost had a fight with John Haslick, who was the Globe reporter backstage before before the who came out because he Mike hated him for writing badly about him, and Hasikoff took no crap from anyone. So they were literally toe to toe in the green room, and I had to separate them and go, guys, guys.

Reminds me of an episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi with Lou Skizes and Ralph Merrigan. I was holding you guys back down here. Is he still doing his show? I completely checked out, I don't know what show he was ever doing. He was, what is he doing? doing a show, I completely checked out. I don't know what show he was ever doing. He was. Yes, it was a happy capitalist and he had all he's six. No, already.

Yeah, he had a show. No, he had that, except that hasn't he hasn't had that in years, like way before the pandemic that was over. So they they started done well at figure skating so well that I actually there was a Russian young, as you know, there's a young Russian skater who they deemed cheated. I can't remember what violation. Drug in her system, she wasn't allowed,

like a performance enhancing drug or something. Dr. Pepper, I think it was. Oh, so and then they said, okay, you're disqualified Russia and we had finished fourth as a team figure skating in these Olympics and that included Lou Skizis' daughter. And they, like logically, we would sit here and say, oh, we were fourth, they disqualified first, everybody moves up a rung.

Canadians didn't. No. We didn't get the bronze. That's bullshit. Which is our national aspiration is go for the bronze, right, sir? I can't go with you on that one since I'm such a good friend of Donovan Bailey.

I can't run with you on that one, but pun in tendency, I'm dropping names now, but I'm here to drop names I'm just here to tell you that 17 episodes of your show. Yeah, and I know Breslin doing that part James B These are both FOTM's we'll talk about Breslin again in a minute But I'm telling you that's a kind of a cool show like I kind of wish I could go back and watch I'm sorry. I reject. Oh, you know what? I can't even look at it But but isn't that kind of cool to have Stephen Page doing that you got spirit the West coming Mike McDonald If there's an episode of Don Sherry and Scott Thompson sitting together on a couch, yeah, like hook it to my veins

Yeah, no Leonard Cohen. It was beautiful the Leonard Cohen part Why did why did Canada Stanley reject you? Is it because you're Jewish? No You know why? Stuart McLean, Rita McNeil, Tommy Hunter. I know, you know how many people have posited that idea to me? You know, it's antisemitic. It's just like, I've spent most of my life

not wanting to look under a rock for every antisemite. Mind you, I would say that right now. I'm segwaying here. Yeah, right now it's not quite like that. I'm segwaying, but did you, okay, I don't know, you can't prove a negative, obviously. We can never, ever say that right now. I'm segwaying here. Yeah, right now it's not quite like that. I'm segwaying, but did you, okay, I don't know, you can't prove a negative, obviously. We can never, ever say that.

But it is strange that Tommy Hunter does well, Rita McNeil does well. We just had a chat about Stuart McClain, who is in that, cut from that. Stop, stop. I did not perform well enough in that role. There wasn't enough of me. Like guys I grew up in comedy with,

they went for it 120%. Jim Carrey, Howie, you know, every, you know, McDonald, Norm McDonald, they were completely devoted to funny. There was always a part of me that just thought if I go completely there, I can't come back because the other part of me ain to funny. There was always a part of me that just thought if I go completely there, I can't come back because the other part of me ain't funny. And it needs a voice too.

So I was reticent. I could see it whenever I'll see if somebody posts a clip on social media. I can see my hands, I'm wringing my hands. I can see that I'm not comfortable in this. I thought my ambition was that I would climb the mountain. Like when I, my book, I thought he was dead. Peter Mansbridge wrote on the back, you know,

Ralph was one of the most talented, I think it was Ralph was one of the most talented people to walk through the doors of the CBC and he knew it. Right? And that was the doors of the CBC and he knew it. Right? Right. And that was the kind of hubris that walked me into a corner facing the wall instead of to my real self. Then hold my hand on this little walk we're going to do here because let's take religion out of this. Okay. Religion aside. So Judaism aside. See what I'm doing here. Okay. I had

a conversation. It was a little different here. Okay. I had a conversation. Yeah, it was a little different configuration I think I had the desk turned around before I introduced the camera Hebs is the only reason the camera is here like there's a camera here and the only reason the camera is here and that's why This desk is like this is because hebs he wanted it So thank you mark hebbs here for forcing the cameras in here like six years ago, but okay, I digress So George Strom Belopolis who is not Jewish. Okay, George It's all Greek to me, okay so George and I are chatting about him as

The host of hockey night in Canada. So I think there's some parallels here. Okay. Yes, absolutely Right. So he took over for Ron McClain because as it turns out Gary Bettman and Ron McClain had an issue and This is what led to they wanted James Duffy for Ron McLean, because as it turns out, Gary Bettman and Ron McLean had an issue. And this is what led to they wanted James Duffy, by the way, who was a far more Ron McLean ask, right. But Duffy stayed loyal to TSN and he got a big deal. And everybody else got a big deal thanks to them trying to get Duffy. But okay, so George Strombolopoulos takes the deal and the big challenge. Okay. George looked me in the eyes and explained we're trying to explain why does why is Canada rejecting you as host of Canada of hockey night

in Canada and George told me that even though George is actually he identifies as a straight guy But he felt there was stuff at play here. There was homophobia at play He felt what they saw in George was a Queen Street guy. Yeah This guy's got an earring. Yeah, this guy wears his pants like that. This guy is Toronto. He's not from the tribe. The tribe is white guys from Canada who are hyper masculine and a man's a man's a man.

And he was an artiste and they looked at him at that around that table. Like, what the hell did they give us this guy for? So then could we not suggest that maybe we've seen this movie before, that Amer, sorry, America. America. Canada. America.

You've got a good voice. Canada. Yes. So we speak now in, even though it's Etobicoke, it's still the megacities, we're in Toronto here, so we're close to the downtown Toronto here, I can bike there in 35 minutes. So we're here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada chatting about what does Canada embrace, right?

Canada likes Stuart McLean, Canada likes Tommy Hunter. Canada isn't Toronto. Canada is not Toronto. Right, so LA isn't American. So, but Canada also, when they're watching, this is what George told me, George Stroumboulopoulos, is that outside of Toronto, and there's many, many Canadians, most Canadians don't live in Toronto. They, even though we like to pretend we are Canada, but most Canadians don't live in Toronto.

And they were rejecting George for being too Queen Street Toronto, and they rejected him. Maybe you were rejected, not because you're Jewish, but because you were a cool, cocky Toronto guy. Yes, that's part of it for sure. Most of them probably had no idea I was Jewish. They had no idea what Ben Mergi even meant. Right? They were just like whatever, but just like George,

I reached for a ring I shouldn't have reached for. I thought, no, this is next and I am king of the world. And for George, it was too tempting to go, you know what, I could radically change. Da da da da da da da da da da. And yet, when he did it, he found, I think, the same kind of thing that I found, is I'm in the wrong room here.

And I really felt for him, and I just thought, well, there's your Waterloo, but then what did it do? Same thing it did to me. It made him return to a much more authentic version of himself. And so it was a necessary blessing and a curse. You had to go through it to wash the ambition out of your hair and just get on with your life

and be yourself, right? You gave it a go. Gave it a go and you know what? I'll never regret giving it a go. You know, I had a friend who, for some reason never talks to me anymore. I tried to ask him and he never gave me a go. Who is it? I wanna know. No, no, no.

But he had this great line when we were high school kids where he just said, dare to be great. Like you've got to have the courage to go, I'm gonna go for it, even though this might be a really big splat, I gotta try. So I was doing that too. And so was George. And let's face it, Strombolopolis and Ben-Murgy,

we call those our ethnic names. Yeah, that's not a great law firm. Strombolopolis and Ben-Murgy. Yeah, no, it's more like Schwartz and Cohen. All right, my friend, here. So I want to get- Torey and Torey. Not that we haven't been serious, but I do want to get serious with you. All right. But friend here. So I want to get- Tori and Tori. Not that we haven't been serious, but I do want to get serious with you.

All right. But before we get serious. Okay. I'm also serious about this. I am serious about my financial investments. Look, I don't know, Ralph. You got a guy, you got a gal, you got a financial advisor.

Okay. So even if you have a person or if you manage your own investment plans, I would highly recommend you subscribe to the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. It will provide the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals. My guy used to be a Raymond James.

Good people at Raymond James. Shout out to my boy Jerry Scott. Yeah, I know a lot of people at Raymond James, good people. What were you saying there? People who need people. Is that Barbra Streisand? Yes, of course. Are the love, okay.

I am going to record on Friday with my good friend Stu Stone. Okay, so Stu Stone, huge Barbra Streisand fan. I have tried to like Barbra Streisand. I find it too, it's just too polished and pure. I find her voice kind of boring. So you don't like Celine Dion either. I don't like Celine Dion at all.

Right, because you find it too. Right, I like Adele's voice because there's a bit of a sandpaper in there. There's a bit of a something. There's a lot of voices I quite like. I'll give you a Janis Joplin over a Barbers. I like Amy Winehouse. I like Amy Winehouse. Nina Simone. Yeah. Yeah, you want earthy. So I listened to a great deal of Barbara to try to see what all the fuss was about and it just didn't take and gave it a good go.

It's kind of it's almost a gymnastic voice vocal range like the singers that can do that I don't know they have to use their gift I guess but they can really do three octaves and not kid around Oh, yeah, I know I can see technically this is a brilliant Brilliant singer and at the time, you know when she first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show She was not a glamorous looking woman. She had a big nose and she looked very Jewish and different and That wasn't what people were doing. It was much more, you know, waspy presentational stuff So she was a real pioneer in that, you know, she had she had real chutzpah She had real nerve and of course good actress as well. Yeah, very good actress. The way we were is a wonderful movie Hubble

Hello. I love you Hubble stars born and yeah stars were gentle Until we watched we watched it if she wasn't singing in yet. It would have been a very good movie I didn't want a musical didn't want a musical. Okay here. Yeah, I want it. What I want to do I know you're us you still are you still working for the Green Party? I do I'm a strategic advisor to the Ontario Green Party, not the Federal Green Party. Mike Schreiner's been on this program twice. Mike Schreiner is, I'm telling you this,

having worked with lots of politicians, this is a person you want in politics. This is what you want, somebody of his integrity. I've known him for 14 years, and he's never failed me on that level. He's just really a wonderful, sincere, smart, and humble guy. He's just great, and he's doing a great job,

punching so high above his weight. And they just got their second MPP, Ashlyn Clancy from Kitchener Center. Been working with her a bit too, and very exciting, very exciting. You know, even Mike there, he got his first appearance via Zoom, but I made him visit for the second one.

So I said, so it's not just you, Ralph. I'm like, no, you know, I know you're the leader of the Green Party of Ontario, but you're gonna be in the basement if you're gonna return to Toronto, Mike. Like this power thing. I am drunk with power, Ralph. You have no idea, you have no idea.

Drunk with my Great Lakes beer. I knew you were gonna say that. Okay,. I am drunk with power, Ralph. You have no idea. You have no idea. Drunk with my Great Lakes beer. I knew you were gonna say that. Okay, but I am actually, I'm asking about the Green Party because I am going to tell you that if you have, at home, in Hamilton there, Ralph, if you have a drawer full of cables or old phones, there's old electronics, don't throw it in the garbage

because the chemicals end up in our landfill and I know you wouldn't want that. But you can. Where do I throw it? You go to recyclemyelectronics.ca, you stick in your postal code, and it'll spit out these AP, sorry, EPRA accredited places where you can drop off your old electronics to be properly recycled.

What's it called again? Recyclemyelectronics.ca. I thought you were gonna break into the Monorail song. Do you ever watch The Simpsons? Like is this something off your radar? You know, we're watching lately is Family Guy. Okay, Family Guy, but The Simpsons. A 14 year old likes it.

I like Family Guy, but I love The Simpsons. And there is a Conan O'Brien written episode called Monorail. And I thought you were gonna like, what's that called? Monorail, cause it's kind of doing a spin on the Music Man. You ever seen the music man? So Conan is kinda-

Stands for pool. Right. Trouble, trouble right here. In River City. That's right. Right, and basically this monorail is modeled after that. And my daughter, my seven year old, has recently discovered the monorail episode

of The Simpsons, because early in the monorail episode, Lisa Simpson says our last name and my seven year old loves this scene when Lisa says her last name. So the monorail, it's Marge versus the monorail. How would your seven year old rank you as a father? I do ask her periodically. She says I'm the best father. And I said, well, what are you comparing me to?

Then you can get out of your closet now? Join the family for some dinner. Oh we had dinner Her birthday is coming up. She'll be eight soon a lot of excitement going on your Fairies Your fairly beautiful beautiful. So shout out to Paul my pasta Ralph I'm gonna invite you to TMLX 15. It's on June 27th from 6 to 9 p.m.

You know why I don't come? Because it's Toronto? No, because I'm essentially an introverted person and I don't... So why are you here today? No, no, one on one I'm fine and an audience is fine, but being in social party things where I don't know people, I don't, I very, very...

But that's where I would introduce you to like-minded, interesting people. I don't, I very, very uncomfortable. But that's where I would introduce you to like-minded, interesting people. But you see, it's even more embarrassing. It's just like, this is Ralph. You sound like Humble Howard, right? He's a bit like that. He kinda makes these awkward appearances. That's right.

It's because he's socially awkward. Yes. Because he's a, maybe, I don't know. You sound similar. I am similar. That's why you like, I know you take it personally when I don't come. Well, you know. I say, what, you sound similar. I am similar, that's why you like, I know you take it personally when I don't come. Well, you know.

Say what, you too busy? Well, I would love to see you at TMLX 15 because not only is Great Lakes gonna buy you your first beer, but also Palma Past is gonna feed you, but most importantly, it is my 50th birthday, so if you came to TMLX 15, it would mean a lot to me. Oh, that's nice. Throwing it, just throwing it out there.

Okay, you ready to get serious? See you, Clowdell. Cause I was, you know, I thought about you at the Buffy Sainte Marie news breaking. Yes. And then I thought about you again. That I'm not Jewish? Okay, go ahead.

I was worried you weren't really born in Morocco. Oh no. How old were you when you came to Canada? I was about to turn two. Oh yeah, I could hardly hold that one against you. You might have thought you were born in Morocco and how would you know? You're only 10 years. I was.

I'm the youngest. My brothers were 11 and 10. My sister was five. The gauge gap there. Okay. 11. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Another generation of kids. Really? You know that. Yeah, I do. I do. I do know that. Yeah, you and I both do the same thing.

The two children marriage one, two children marriage two. Okay. Now I want to ask you if you let's talk a little bit about, if you don't mind, uh, October 7th. So, okay. So I remember it's funny how you learn about what happened October 7th, cause I learned about the Hamas attack on Israel from a Facebook post by FOTM Andrea Ruse. Like I was just, I woke up in the morning, I was just peeling through, catching up on a few things on social media, and then she posted about this horrific attack that took place, and then I had to go to the news and find out

what are we talking about. But Ralph, how did you react when you learned about what happened on October 7th? Well, it's an interesting part of Jewish identity threaded through by the idea of intergenerational trauma, right, that there is an inherent bias towards a fear of a nihilism, that we are going to,

eventually someone's going to get it right, and we are going to be removed from the earth. And I have tried to live my life, not looking over my shoulder, or trying to decide if somebody was being an anti-Semite or whatever it is. And there's been something that has existed only, mostly in my lifetime, which is the state of Israel. I was in a meeting of people at a synagogue about where does Israel fit into the identity of this synagogue and this young guy, 16 year old, who had been in Israel on October 7th, he was in an educational thing and when it happened,

he had to leave because they were in a state of war. And he said, we cannot survive without Israel. Without an Israel we will not survive as a people and I pointed out as did one of the clergy who were there, well we've survived for 2,000 years without a country. That it's an idea Israel. Not to say that there isn't an indigenous reality to Jews in Israel, there is. And I'm of basically the Arab Jewish diaspora, so I'm perfectly aware that it was safer to live in Arab lands up until the state of Israel was formed than it was to live in Christian lands for Jews. So all of these things come up at the same time. And there's sort of, you know, there's this idea

that Israel could maintain its untenable, in my opinion, status quo through hard power. And that's how they were going to keep what they have. And if you're in Israel, you know, we have good friends who live there and we visit with them. And if you're in Israel, up until then, you're thinking, we've got this covered, you know, everything's under control. We can't, we have people who want us dead all around us, every country around us,

if they'd had their druthers would kill us immediately. And knowing that, instead of the naivete of, you know, they just want their own land. Well, if the people of the First Nations here decided to come into Toronto and kill 1,100 people, you'd be on it in a big way. So yeah, do I think, there's a wonderful podcast done

by the Hartman Institute in Israel. And right now they're doing an Israel at war series of podcasts and it's Daniel Hartman who runs the Hartman Center, his father founded it, and another man named Yossi Klein Halevi who's a very smart and interesting commentator. And Halevi said at one point, this is two weeks into the horribleness that's now the reality. He said, you know, on October 6th, Israel was this close to civil war. On October 8th, it was at war.

And then everything was put on hold. But I will tell you that the Israel that existed on October 6th, I found the regime in power and the kinds of things going on absolutely abhorrent. I mean there are two ministers in that cabinet, Ben Gavir and Smritiq. These people are racist, horrible human beings in what they are saying about the Palestinians in the region. Horrible. The settler movement, the ultra-orthodox movement, all of these things. And I feel like the diasporic Jew has just let this fester. It's their business, you know, we can't say anything.

And the thing that's not understood is the actions of that government and the actions of that country and Netanyahu who for me has always been just a horrible idea, he's like Trump to the power of 10 in terms of survival, he just keeps coming back like a bad dream. But there he is and I think that that kind of reality is what's destroying the moral character of the country and I The diaspora has to speak up because whatever happens there People think it's us now where the where the diasporic Jew carries the weight of the actions of that government and

the weight of the actions of that government. And the governments before it that decided that containment and oppression were the best tools in the face of people who literally put in their constitutions, we will kill all of them. You know, when people say from the river to the sea, they interviewed a bunch of American students who were protesting from the river to the sea and said, you know what river are you talking about?

They didn't know. What sea are you talking about? They didn't know. But they loved the idea that they were fighting for an underdog, and I get that. But for the love of God, would you please at least, like if people took six months to read about the complex colonial reality of the Middle East, not just Israel.

No, you're colonizers. First of all, give me a break. Where do you think you're standing here in Canada? You're on stolen land. So colonize yourself into a coma, right? So, but in this particular case, Jordan isn't even, it was totally made up country. The Hashemites who ruled Jordan

and rule non-Hashemite Palestinians, 70 to 80% of the population is not even them, they were at Mecca and got kicked out by the Sauds and the consolation prizes were Iraq and Jordan. So the King Hussein of Jordan is not native to the region. Lebanon was a French colony. Syria was, Lebanon and Syria were French colonies, right? Palestine was a British protectorate colony, right?

Even Egypt was under that. So colonization has always been there and has always ruined everything. But now we have a situation where Netanyahu, to maintain power, has the ridiculous goal of wiping Hamas off the map. What he's done is create the next generation of Hamas. That's what he's done is create the next generation of Hamas. That's what he's done. And the disproportionate reaction is not acceptable. Yet, in a Jewish perspective, for many Jewish people, there is the trauma and the annihilism that over the centuries, literally, in Iran, it is perfectly acceptable

in the legislature to get up and say death to Israel. Perfectly acceptable. Right, death to the United States, death to Israel. But they are literally trying to construct through Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Hamas in the region, Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Hamas in the region, through Assad, who is an Alawite, Shiite, in a Sunni majority, Syria. That's all proxies of the Iranians fighting the Iranian war against Israel and through Israel fighting America

so Nobody is really in charge of their destiny here. They're all puppets of ridiculous things and I think that This has to stop it should have stopped Ages ago, but I do say to people Don't get too self-righteous about what you would have done in this situation. If the people of this country who have a right to that horrible indignation of the, I mean, we've already legitimately said that we were trying genocide on the indigenous people of this country. We've been trying to eradicate their existence, kill the Indian in the child. It was a policy and we still, we still are doing everything we

can to rob them of resources, rob them of independence, rob them of justice and dignity and then here we are telling people you know you should be better than that. So that's what I think. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I I know you agree with this. There's been a since October 7th, there's been a surge in anti-Semitic behavior, anti-Semitism in this country. Yeah. And prior to October 7th, Jews have been disproportionately attacked, if you will, with hate in this country. Well, that one's tricky.

That one's tricky. Yeah, because if I'm of a disadvantaged, okay, right, so if you're Jewish, you're not white enough to be white, you're not minority enough to be minority, right? Right. So that's what it is to be Jewish in this culture. But what I would say is that for the people, it's complicated.

If you're from underrepresented populations, if you're from oppressed populations, if you're from people of color populations, the amount of racism and bigotry that you get on a daily basis often is not worth reporting. It's a given. It's like, oh, whatever, as if they're going to do something to help us.

If you're Jewish, it's easier to phone it in, right, and to get extra police protection. If you're a person of color and poverty to phone it in, right, and to get extra police protection. If you're a person of color and poverty in East End Hamilton, it's harder to get somebody to show up. I think I know what you mean. So, you know, you'll talk to somebody who will explain that they were pulled over for DWB, driving while black.

But you're not pulled over for driving while Jewish. No. As a matter of fact, if I looked at somebody and thought, even if you could recognize them as Jewish, and they were in a Lexus or whatever, you'd think, yeah, OK. First of all, you look white most of the time, so that's fine.

White people are supposed to drive good cars. Black people, what'd you do to get this car? So there's an inherent, look, the whole thing is my response to October 7th was a Buddhist response, not a Jewish response. It was that our, we are not to kill, and we are to have compassion for everyone and everything in this world that we exist in. Everything.

So, this dramatic surge of anti-Semitism that you're experiencing, Jews in this country are experiencing right now, is that simply because some Canadians are unable to differentiate between Jewish and Israel, like they're being equated. So you may look at the response and policies of the country of Israel, and you may not agree with that. It sounds like you don't agree with that. No, I don't, I don't agree with that. But that is not akin to being anti-Semitic.

These are two mutually exclusive things, but some people are unable to separate. This is a feeling I get from talking to people for the last few months, that I'm against Israel's response in Gaza, and that is spilling into somehow holding all Jews in this country accountable for these actions of Netanyahu. Yeah, I mean, look, you can look at an Italian

and say they're Italian and they're doing this thing because they're Italian, but you don't say it's because they're Catholics. You say it's because they're Italian. So there's been an ability to separate the two ideas. Israel as a country is not even 75 years old. 75 years old. I have sweatshirts that are 75 years old. I mean, this is ridiculous.

So, but, once we're in a situation like that, this, the desire to be identified as the Jewish state puts you in a place where that's the first identifier that people go to. And remember, Jews are, look, when I talk to Jewish groups, I say, it's a rental. This country is, they're all rentals. I mean, they can be good rentals for a while.

Well, Morocco was a rental for 500 years. And then, 1956 happened. The colonizers left the region in chaos. Israel had already won one war in 1948 and the Suez war was the next one. They were gonna win that one. After they won the second one, it was no longer a fluke. And then Nasser rose to power in Egypt

and Pan-Arab nationalism, they'd thrown off the Ottomans. So Pan-Arab nationalism took hold and we were no longer welcomed. It was like, you know, show them the door. So people without a place to say that it's theirs, right? That you can go there for safety. And that's what Israel is to Jewish people. It's the last resort for a lot of Jews.

There's a lot of Jewish people perfectly happy to live in the diaspora, and there's others who think you're not being Jewish enough if you don't return to Israel. Right. Okay, I'm not gonna name names here, but there are two musicians who are also FOTMs. That's all I'm gonna say. And I know this story,

because I know this story to be true, essentially, which is that one of these people went on Facebook and voiced pro-Palestinian sentiments in that the people of Gaza should not be annihilated essentially by Israel because of the actions of Hamas on October 7th. And then this other person who is of Jewish descent wanted nothing to do with their longtime musician friend. Like it's like, you're dead to me. In fact, they wouldn't go to a party if that person was at the party because the person, this musician who posted this pro-Palestine sentiment on Facebook, was deemed by this

Jewish person to be an anti-Semite and they didn't want to be friends with that person anymore. Like this is just a small example that I know to be true that I've kind of been exposed to recently of what I think is happening all over the place. There is a sentiment out there that if you go, I know Humblehauer was talking about his daughter goes to these pro-Palestinian rallies and I don't think her mother likes it very much,

but can you be pro-Palestine and not be anti-Semitic? Like where? Yes. Okay. So that's why I said I have the Buddhist approach. I'm not being glib, by the way, with that. It's not like, oh, that's a nice affectation. I'm telling you that because it's about being a human being. These are not things that should happen

to human beings, none of it. And what we've done instead is, it's just like what we were talking earlier about what identity are you, what tribe are you in. You're in the tribe of humanity and every action we take will dictate what comes forward out of that reality. But if we don't have true compassion

and we don't practice it on a daily basis, I do guided meditations with people in workshops and one-on-one and counseling about cultivating your compassion, being able to see the humanity in the other person. Once you start deciding that, well, you know what, we had to kill them, it's collateral damage,

or I had to go into that kibbutz and decapitate that person in front of their wife and then shoot them. I had to. And then somebody says, no, we have to bomb them, and they hide behind human shields. What are we going to do? You're still talking about killing people. And the leadership of both sides in this particular

conflict are bankrupt in every way. Hamas is, the Palestinian Authority is, and for me the Israeli government at this point is bankrupt. I mean Netanyahu just doesn't want to go to jail. And if he gets out of power, they can finish his criminal prosecution and he can go to jail. So he's going to drag this thing out for as long as he can

till he can twist the country back to his will and then continue on. It's a disgrace what's going on. So what do we do here at home in Canada to like what do we do about this surge in anti-Semitism? Like it's so disturbing, so disturbing to me. I know you, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're're you're you're you're you know, well aware all too well aware of this But what do we do like how can we fix this problem here in Canada? It's it's every look the one thing I've realized about everything. I'm writing a book right now about climate change and spirituality

climate change and environmental spirituality and environmentalism is skis is right in the prologue So I'm writing this book, and really it just keeps occurring to me that there's a thing in Judaism called Tikkun Olam, which is repair of the world, right? What I say to people now who tell me that it's time for Tikkun Olam is no,

before you do Tikkun Olam, you have to do tikkun hanefesh, you have to do repair of your soul, you have to do repair of the self. That what our work is, is not out there with team jerseys on about who we are and who likes us and who hates us, it's about cultivating within ourselves the real true humanity of who we are

and then sharing that with other people the revolution is inside Gandhi revolutionized himself and that revolutionized India. That's what he did. He was thrown off a train as a Entitled Hindu who should not be in first class get the hell out of here thrown off with a suitcase and his reaction was to become As authentically Hindu as he possibly could be but to take into account that I will not kill for my cause Not anyone who kills for their cause has Lost their cause they've become what they hate and we just got to stop on all levels

The you know the The people in Hamas, true, they've grown up their whole life. I interviewed a guy when I did an Israel documentary who was a documentary maker who was Palestinian. He said, I had no idea there was even such a thing as a Holocaust until I was 30. I mean, no idea. And I said, well, what did you think when you found out? He said well, I have to rethink everything. I thought these people I was told these people were just coming here to kill us

That they hate us and I said well the people on the other side are hearing the same thing So until people it's like John Lennon. What if they gave a war and nobody came? Right one of these days that would be the best idea. You know what, we're not going to die for you. You wanna go out there, tell you what, we'll make it a reality show, and Netanyahu can get in the ring with Haneeah, and they can see who lives and dies, and even then, it won't matter, you'll just get a prize.

Right, just we gotta stop it, and we can only stop it inside ourselves. It's like being an offender bender, and someone is Asian who hit you from behind and next thing you know you're spouting these racial epithets at them that you didn't even remember were in your psyche. It's because that's what fear does to us. A cornered animal attacks. We attack when we feel like we're... and anti-Semitism is just another one of the symptoms

of the fact that we are in a situation, an existential situation in this country that we're in denial about. Climate change is going to change, is already changing everything. We're probably not gonna make it out of this. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to change, we're addicted. In the writing that I'm doing gonna make it out of this. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to change. We're addicted.

You know, in the writing that I'm doing, I realized, oh my God, we should have a bottle with gasoline on the front of it, and then a glass, and I'm talking to you about the petrostate and how wonderful it is, and I go, excuse me, sorry. And then, you know, somebody says to me, hey man, I can quit whenever I want.

We're addicts to this way of life, and we're willing to die for it. So I saw a meme the other day, on that note, I saw a meme the other day and it was just an animated GIF so it was like a little video. And it was showing Las Vegas after the Super Bowl. So they track these private jets, okay? So basically, you see, yeah, you saw it.

So you're watching all these private jets departing Las Vegas airport there after the Super Bowl. Cause it wasn't just Taylor Swift. There were, you know. No, no, I think it was like 1,650. Right. And then, then, okay. So Mike in Southern Etobicoke here,

legit, if he can bike somewhere, he bikes somewhere. He won't drive the car if he can bike it. Okay. This is how I live. This is me by the way. I'm Mike in Southern Etobicoke. I gotta make sure you know who we're talking about here But bottom line is I really do try to have the smallest carbon footprint I can have within like, you know In this lifestyle I have the four kids and everything and all you know paper straws and all that right? but there is a sense of like

Throwing on my arms and like like, you know, okay What's the point if these private jets are all just going to fly off after a football game? Like, what is my little biking around? It makes me feel good. So that's I there's many other benefits as well. So I'm not saying I'm doing it all for Mother Earth, but it does. There is a sense of Mike in Southern Novitobicoke doesn't mean anything considering what China is doing, what's happening in Russia, what's happening. Like there is a sense of hopelessness. Yeah, what China's doing, what's happening in Russia, what's happening, like there is a sense of hopelessness

of what I can do, because I have great influence over exactly four, maybe more, because I have a little bit of influence over my wife and some others in my family and some people who listen to me, but really it's four people and I've been instilling these values forever about if you can walk, walk, if you can bike, bike,

all these things I've been encouraging my kids. You realize you're saying this into a microphone That there are people listening. Okay. Yeah, so yes, okay I forgot Rod in the circle, but I you know, I did not press record realms. How's your family's not listening? I Be shocked at half my family was listening. But all this is to say I do become Overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness. So I want wanna tie these things because I just saw the clock here because I could talk to you for hours, you gotta come back.

But with the antisemitism which is surging in this country, that bullshit's pissing me off. So that's happening. And this whole sense of the climate crisis we're in, and you're right, people are like playing the fiddles on the deck of the Titanic here. I feel on all these fronts, I'm feeling a sense of hopelessness, right? But what do you have hope like can you give us a ride for either of these two channels the fucking?

Antisemitism pisses me off just like racism pisses me off just like misogyny pisses me off But then with this climate change this climate crisis. Oh Ralph talk to me. All right, so Angry over here Ralph, right? me. All right, so getting angry over here, Ralph, right? So yeah, so right. Riding that bike. Yeah, is an act of defiance to an entire society that has said getting a car. Yes. But in Arizona, there is a developer who created a town with no cars, no cars allowed.

You can't, there's a transit system and there's bike paths and there's a cafe society, so the housing is all close to each other and there are these courtyards with tables in them and only local retailers, no chains. And there's a guy in there who said, I'm actually originally from Arizona. I left because I couldn't take it anymore.

You know, Phoenix and shopping malls and cities and deserts that shouldn't be there and stupid. And I left and I found out about this place and I came back. And behind them are some people sitting at these tables with umbrellas and he goes and I lived in a place in an apartment building in Phoenix where I didn't know anybody like I have no idea who they were right now that guy behind me that's Bruce the other person over there that's Mary these are people that I now know because we got a chance to meet each other what people have to do is for one thing I will say,

is stop treating politics as those crooks and those idiots and get involved. The only way to, I can't believe when people go, I'm not really into politics. Oh, so somebody else, okay, Doug Ford. 18% of eligible voters voted for Doug Ford in the last election and he has a massive majority. So we sit there and we go, oh no we don't need to change the voting system, oh no I don't really care about politics. Well guess

what, you don't care about them and the guy ripped up every green contract in this province and set us back 15 years minimum on trying to catch up to this disaster. So that's number one, is actually bother. Number two is change yourself. Don't try to change other people. The fact that you go buy somebody on a bicycle or you get on this microphone and somebody realizes you did 35K today.

31K, Ralph, I don't wanna oversell it. Right? And that people go You know what I should get on my bike once in a while That's that's the revolution the revolution is not you know what happens in real revolutions a power vacuum is formed and even worse People come in to take over you don't want that you don't want drastic extreme change with violence You want people to start affecting each other and caring about each other because that's resonant.

And the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be televised. It'll be podcasted, Ralph. It will be. The revolution will be podcasted. Wow. Okay, you like that, okay. I like the way you pointed on that one.

You there, boy, what is big as me? What a charming little boy. Before I play the lowest of the low here, what's going on, you mentioned you're still working with the Green Party, but what else is going on in your world? I know you sat down with Breslin. Yeah, I do my podcast, Not That Kind of Rabbi,

which is available everywhere. It's at the CJN, the Canadian Jewish News is now. Okay, so can I ask questions about this? Okay, so this is the first time we've talked about this, but people on this program remember us talking many times about Toronto Mike. I'm gonna talk about myself in the third person. That's the kind of guy I've become, Ralph.

All this success went to my head. Well, it was also a blood clot went to my head. So maybe that's it. But that was a Toronto Mike TMBS production. And he did that together. Then I get introduced to somebody at Canadian Jewish News. And then they said basically in a nutshell was. Thanks, we got it from here.

Can you please forward, can you please, sorry, redirect the XML, it's an RSS file, we'll XML the XML file to our new our server because we're taking over not that kind of Rabbi and then not that kind of rabbi which you and I worked on together like this was something we kind of Birthed together and we worked on I talked about loose skis is and Kathleen went earlier. Yes. This was gone, but then I thought okay I Had wished at the time I'm being very honest with you, we don't have a lot of time. We have a few minutes here. But I felt at the time, Ralph could could have could fold me up and just man to man person human to human be like, Mike, I'm moving my show to the Canadian Jewish news. Here's why it's nothing personal love you man. But you never once all I got was this person I don't know telling me to redirect the feed, and I never once had anything from you, and I was happy for you, but I was also like. That's why you never talked to me again.

No, well, that's not true, because you're sitting in my basement right now. Yeah, but only now, because I reached out. I don't, yeah. Well, we don't have time for a full dead hair. Now, two things. One is. But I was hurt by the lack of,

because I'm only a one human. It might be, you're not working with Microsoft here, right? This is me, myself, and I who work here. And it was like, he pulled it, but he never once had a little phone call to say, Mike, here's what I'm doing. Can I say? First of all, I'm very sorry.

It was very insensitive of me. And I really shouldn't have done that. So I'm asking you to forgive me, because I'm very sorry. Well, I wouldn't have invited you over if I couldn't forgive you. And the other one was, I had stopped doing it for at least six months at that point,

and I think I just felt like, oh, well, we know it's dead. It's not happening, because I'm too busy, because I was working on the Green Party campaign, and I just thought, I don't have time for this. I can't do it, and it just dwindled off into nothing So I was insensitive to the fact that we had done this together and I'm really sorry about that But I'm glad you're still with the the Canadian Jewish news, I know we have a mutual friend there

We got a shout out Mark wise blot. Yeah has been kind of giving me updates. So the other things are I I do a half-hour one-on-one interview show for Yes TV. Yeah, and that's I think on Sunday nights. I don't have cable. I didn't know this. You have a television show. Yeah, I have a television show and I do half hour one-on-ones and I do it with two friends of mine who were the producers of Little Mosque on the Prairie and they live in Hamilton and we do it with them and have a wonderful time. So I do that.

I do spiritual counseling. I do workshops. RalphBenMurgy.ca. I wrote a second book about a drummer, the most recorded drummer in the world, named J.R. Robinson that nobody knows but everybody hears. So this climate change spirituality book is the third book. That's the third book. Yes. The second hasn't come out yet. No the second one is they're trying to sell it in states. He's done everything. Like he's played with everybody you can possibly imagine. 10,000 sessions, 6,000 recordings. It's unbelievable.

I love those stories. Yeah. So there's there's that. And then there's the, the climate and spirituality book. Uh, so I do that. And, uh, yeah, I just stumble through this life. Now I feel really bad. Well, will you come back in the summer? Will you come back? And, uh, I'll even come to your 50 thing. No, no, I feel really bad. You know what? I didn't even realize it.

Well, I just felt it was very you made it very impersonal. That like I wasn't going to be crying or mad, but I thought I'm right. I thought of us as friends and we birthed this thing. And I kept thinking, why isn't he ever like he doesn't have to well, I show again. I am only human. I'm a human being. And I am also human. Yes. And that brings us to the end of our 1434th

show 1434. You can follow me on Twitter and blue Sky Metronome Mike. Ralph says, go to Ralphandmergie.ca because there'll be everything there. And it's like one stop shop here for all your Rafael requirements. Cause that's your real name, Rafael. Requirements is actually my middle name. I wanted the alliteration. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery.

They got a new podcast I'm producing called Between Two Fermenters and we're recording on Friday episode 2 it's very good. Palma Pasta. Recycle My Electronics dot CA. Raymond James Canada. And Ridley Fun home. Is he breathing? Shadow to Brad Jones. See you all Tomorrow, this is fun everybody Liza Fromer drops by to kick out Chams and sitting in the studio

all the way from New York will be her first crush who was the keyboardist for the Spoons her first crush is a guy named Rob Pruce and Rob's gonna sit there while Liza sits there and kicks out her favorite songs and Rob is gonna react and it's gonna be magic, Ralph.

That's what's going on over here. Magic. Magic. See you all then. It's tomorrow, 2 p.m. You can watch us at live.torontomic.com. Peace and love. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow You can watch us at live.torontomike.com. Peace and love. I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain

And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Sacre-Cœur