Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ralph Benmergui: Toronto Mike'd #330

Episode Date: April 26, 2018

Mike chats with Ralph Benmergui about his years at CKLN, CBC Radio, hosting Midday and Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui! on CBC Television, doing mornings at JAZZ FM and his spirituality.

Welcome to episode 330 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know that 99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? GLB, brewed for you, Ontario. And propertyinthesix.com. Toronto Real Estate Done Right. And Paytm, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca. And our newest sponsor, Camp Tournesol, the leading French summer camp provider in Ontario. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com. And joining me is broadcaster Ralph Ben-Murgy.

Welcome to the legendary Toronto Mike studio, Ralph. Thank you, sir. It's great to see you. I went outside a little early because the sun was shining and it just feels good to stand in the sun after this winter we just survived. And I saw you. There's Ralph.

It was great. So thank you for coming. My pleasure. I actually got here a couple of minutes early and went out onto the main drag and just took in some air because I just finished doing a little radio this morning, so

I needed a little bit of a refresher and the sunshine was wonderful. And the main drag is Lakeshore. Please check your wallet and make sure it's still there. Sometimes it's a little sketchy on Lakeshore. It was very gentrified, I thought. You know, coumons and, you know. No, absolutely. And I do that

as a joke, but I love, like, I absolutely love this neighborhood. Yeah, you're not helping the real estate guys much when you do that. No, honestly, this, I will say it, sometimes on a Friday night or a Saturday night, my daughter doesn't love walking Lakeshore, but it's just, you know, some of the, some people spill out from the bars and have had a couple, maybe one too many. But I got to say, this is a very safe and great neighborhood that a lot of Torontonians aren't even familiar with. Like they don't even know this neck of the woods exists. It was another world. Mimico, all that. That was all another world.

I grew up downtown, so it was just like, wow, what do they do out there? This is like the suburbs to you then, for sure. How do you know? I want to say that Gare Joyce was on recently, and he brought you up. So how do you know Gare? I knew Gare because I used to do a show called Midday,

and he was one of our contributors. And then he started and flourished in a wonderful career as a great writer. And he was also one of these guys who could do sports in a thoughtful way. Yes. And being a sports fan who isn't, you know,

dragging my knuckles along the sidewalk, I appreciated the fact that there are some people, Stephen Brunt, people like that, who, Jeff Blair, people who are smart about sports. And I dig that because sports is, you know,

it's really just sort of a simulated warfare that we do, that we don't have to kill each other, but we can sort of die on the hill of last night, for instance. Last night's a great example. Last night, everything was happening. So if you're like me, who I enjoy all the home teams, if you will. And I mean, I did actually completely skip the Jays game because I love the Jays, but there's nothing less significant than a regular season baseball game. I can't agree with you.

It's my favorite sport. Mathematically. No, no, it's my favorite sport. I adore baseball because it has more nuance than blatant action. Oh, it's the lack of clock, I think, that does that. Yeah, but it's also this, you know, I interviewed Quincy Jones once, and he was talking about how different sports are about different parts of American culture. And baseball is the pastoral sport.

It's the one you do in a field. You use acoustic weaponry, as it were. You use a wooden bat and a cowhide ball. And basketball, he said, was hip-hop in that you move in these sort of improvisational ways, and everything happens so quickly, and it's here, it's there, it's here, it's there. And he sort of, he didn't understand hockey at all. But he said football was the industrial era of America. It was the machine churning its way down the field.

It was very cool. I mean, look, interviewing Quincy Jones is very cool. Well, he made news recently for that, where he went off on the Beatles, was it, he said? He went off on the Beatles, and he made a few claims that made headlines recently. I didn't pick them. But I will say, I absolutely adore baseball.

But last night, the stakes were so high that I found myself kind of doing hockey one, and then every time there was a break in the action or intermission, I'd watch the Raptors, and then I made sure I watched the last three or four minutes of the Raptor game in which we actually won. Thankfully, the Raptors won. Otherwise, we would have had

a golden sombrero in the city because the Jays lost. Unfortunately, the Leafs have been eliminated from Stanley Cup contests. I didn't even watch the Leafs because too many decades of profound disappointment, especially in the fact that they were so wildly popular in a corporate sense.

But the cynicism of $275 seats where you're not even sitting in them. When I go to very occasionally somebody in a business way would say, why don't you come to a game? And I just sit there in a mausoleum of an arena. I go to a Buffalo Sabres game, 75 bucks, 10 rows up from center ice. And people are people. They're real people watching a hockey game. No, that's a great point. That's a great point. I hate that part. Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you want good ambiance, have you been to a TFC match at BMO Field? I haven't. I haven't. Got to get yourself into the supporters section. It's like nothing else I've witnessed in

this city in terms of live sports. It's crazy. David Miller, former mayor, huge TFC fan. He goes even if it's 40 below. He doesn't care. How do you go when it's freezing? I remember when the Jays used to play outside of Exhibition Stadium and the metal

seats and it was frozen. Do you think we spend way too much time with sports in life? No, this is what I thought last night. Of course. But it's an escape, right? It's why do people go to the movies more during like depression times? To me, sports is one thing and one thing only, which is a complete escape.

But aren't you worried about what we're escaping from? Well, as long as you keep it all in perspective, right? Well, you don't, though. You just get to say there's no climate change. There's no nothing going on. We're all good. How about the Leafs?

It's divertissement, as they say in the French side of life, which Doug Ford would say is a pinky finger kind of conversation. But there you go. Listen, well, listen, we're going to dive in deep here. But you're the guy i want to talk to you about a gentleman who passed away recently because i follow you on twitter uh so we lost mike mcdonald uh fairly recently and i noticed this is what i noticed with mike my stand-up comic friends would tell me that he was they would tell me how amazing mike mcdonald was like they would just

rave and pour praise upon him as one of the greats. And then the average kind of person you talk to, they barely recognize the name. They might remember the face a little bit, but there seemed to be such a difference between the insider's view as a stand-up comics view of Mike McDonald and the average Joe. But you started as a stand-up, right? Yeah. Back in the day. Can you share with me, maybe just some thoughts on Mike McDonald and what he meant to the stand-up community? So the first time I saw Mike was at Yuck Yucks. We were all starting out, and he had come from Ottawa.

We were a few years in by the time he showed up. We'd all started at $1 a night at Church Street, 519 Church, and that's where Wednesday nights would be comedy night and there are some guys doing it there and then the yorkville club mark opened that and so people started coming and there was you know emerging talent mike shows up and it's it's just not like everybody else it's dangerous like you're watching this guy and you don't know what's going to happen you don't know if he's just going to walk off the stage and belt somebody like you don't know what's going to go on he does his tennis tennis racket rock star bit and brings the place down like just burns the place down and you know when these kinds of things would happen at the

club ever the comics would all look at each other like, I thought I was doing something. He's doing something. I'm not doing something. I'm just trying to get them to laugh. He's actually moving this place. So he was phenomenal. He also had serious social issues of how to relate to people. So he would talk to, if you were standing behind Mike at a party, you would see the person he was talking to, their face visibly change into one of first confusion and then frustration like, who is this guy? Why is he talking to me like this? And Mike would then move on and you would have to go up

or I always felt compelled to go up to them and go, he doesn't mean anything bad by it. He really doesn't. Because Mike and mean anything bad by it. He really doesn't. Because Mike and I had a mutual respect. He saw something in me. I saw something in him. We were good. And if he thought, okay, you're real, you can do this, then he was good with you. But he was also the guy who, if you were hanging around, you know, eating pizza up till four in the morning, playing cards playing cards smoking doing everything if if you were spritzing with other guys and you said something funny

mike would turn to you and go you got two weeks to use that or i'm taking it so you'd be like hey man like who are you to take my bit right which is you know always a thing in stand-up right but he just had this fabulous danger to him. It was just a really interesting way to be. And over the years, he came through self-discovery about being bipolar. He attempted to take his own life. He fought through depression. He ended up with a liver ravaged by hepatitis C that was dormant for 23 years. And all through that, what mattered to Mike was what was funny. And that was the crazy part. I remember seeing him once in L.A.

I was there on business doing some film junket thing or some awful thing like that. And he shows up at my hotel room and, you know, he could only talk about himself. Like he wasn't really good at, so how's the family? Like he knew everything about you, but it was not what he was doing. He was telling you his latest bit. Like, Mike would tell you, Mike would talk to you backstage at a club,

and then you'd realize he was actually trying, once he's on stage, you'd realize he was trying a bit on you. Right. Like, oh my God, you weren't even talking to me. But if you learn to appreciate him, and to understand the struggles that he had to go through, it didn't matter. You started to just see that he was great. The fact that Canadians don't know, like the fact that it wasn't a really big story is if you're in Canadian show

business, that's not a surprise. If you stay in this country or even if you go to LA and don't make it there and your work is mostly here, which is like a lot of comics. That's just the way it is. It's the witness protection program. I just had Ron James on and we had that exact discussion because he went to LA and he tried to make it and he came back and then he realized basically

that he was going to have to sew his own road here and do it himself. And yeah, he says the same thing. It's like the witness protection program. Yeah, and yet, you know, Ron has done wonderful work. Colin Mochrie actually made it in the United States and still came back because he just thought, I don't understand this place.

You know, because you're a Canadian. Right. I want to ask you, we spoke off the top that I have a sponsor who's a real estate agent. His name's Brian Gerstein. Firstly, I want to tell you we spoke off the top I have a sponsor who's a real estate agent his name is Brian Gerstein firstly I want to tell you there's a pint glass

sort of beside the Ikea cup full of water that is yours to take home from Brian a gift a parting gift

and it's from him you know Brian looks like Trump you know who said it Brian Williams no was it Brian Williams yeah I believe it was Brian Williams

who said the exact same thing he looks like Trump I think it's more of a Bill Pullman but he's got a Trump Pullman thing going on there he passed away Bill no I believe it was Brian Williams who said the exact same thing. He looks like Trump. I think it's more of a Bill Pullman. But he's got a Trump-Pullman thing going on there. He passed away, Bill. No, I think it's Paxton who passed away. Paxton passed away.

Bill Pullman is in what's that? He's in a lot of stuff, but he's similar to Paxton, but he's alive. That's the big difference. He's sort of the journeyman, the Larry Hillman of acting. I just saw him, and I can't remember the names of these people anymore, but the actress who played Mary Camden on Seventh Heaven,

who's married to Justin Timberlake, whose name will come to me in a couple minutes. Oh, God, I have no idea. Well, anyway, she was in a show I watched, and Bill Pullman was in that recently, and he was actually quite good in it. But he has a message for you that is a nice introduction to a topic. Brian Gershie. So propertyinthesix.com is his website. That's your pint glass from him.

Let's hear from Brian. Propertyinthesix.com Hi, Ralph. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Spring market has finally arrived. I know because I see on MLS all of the new and sold listings. and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Spring market has finally arrived. I know because I see on MLS all of the new and sold listings.

You may have noticed seeing tons of open house signs of late. Call me at 416-873-0292 if you want to take advantage of a suddenly hot market. Ralph, as you live in Hamilton, do you still see the city as Toronto's Brooklyn? So I was going to bring this up because, of course, there was a Toronto Star article, I believe, in which you're quoted as saying Hamilton is Toronto's Brooklyn. Yeah. You still feel that way? Yeah.

And you're still happy in Hamilton. Maybe for Michael Moniz, who wrote me, he's a lifelong Hamiltonian. He is curious why you chose to settle in Vancouver. He thought you lived in Vancouver. You never lived in Vancouver. No, no. But you did live in Toronto. I did. And now you're in Hamilton. Why did you make that choice? I spent most of my life in Toronto. I lived in Winnipeg for a couple years and Edmonton

for a couple years, but God knows why I did either. But I'm a Torontonian. I was born in Morocco, but we moved when I was... I'm the youngest, and we moved when I was two to Canada, to Toronto. So I'm Toronto, Toronto, Toronto. But Toronto got to a point for me that it really felt full. for space and for resources. And everything costs something, the stress of getting to this place in the right amount of time.

So if it says on your GPS it takes you 20 minutes, like even getting here. I was down in Liberty Village and I'm thinking, I wonder how long it'll take me. I mean, really how long it'll take me to get to Tobuco. I mean, I really don't know what's going on here. In Hamilton, everything's 10 minutes away. Right. So I kept showing up for things at the beginning,

like half an hour early. And they're like, what are you doing here? And I said, the GPS said 10 minutes, but I thought that was like by helicopter or something. You know, it wasn't the same thing. So there's a humane scale to half a million people. Hamilton is not, God loves suburbs, but I'm not a suburban guy.

And Hamilton is a pre-war city, so it is built for people to walk around in. And that neighborhood feeling was really important to me. I live right off of Main High Street in Hamilton that has lots of commercial stuff going on. It's beautiful on the west side. It's lovely. There's great things to do. My kids, my second brood of children can relax more.

They're not as heavily wired as my first kids were right downtown in Toronto. Now, that's not to say there aren't days where I walk around and go, I wish I could go back to Toronto. And then I start thinking about the cost of coming back to this city and how far you'd have to be from where you actually want to live and near a decent school for your kids. How are you going to possibly... And I just thought, what is going on here? Like, the real issue is that we can't afford to live the way we thought we could live.

The social contract is broken. And that's what this volatility all around us is about, is that we're in a situation now where people are thinking, wait a minute, you told me if I just showed up, shut up, and performed, it'd all be fine. Well, I did it. I don't have a pension. I don't know what's going on in work. There's precarity in all the work that's being offered.

60%. It just came out that 60% of work is precarious now in Ontario, which means there's no loyalty on either side. Right? So you got that. Then you've got the idea. I was just talking to a sound engineer doing some radio at Jazz FM, a young guy, and I showed him that stat because it came up on the screen while we were doing this morning show. He said, I can't ever imagine affording a house.

Now, a house is a North American fixation. There's no doubt about that. In Europe, nobody thinks this way. It's just like, I live in a good apartment. I grew up in an apartment. It's all good. But we're talking about what dream you were promised and what reality we're living. And because of that, we're looking to people who can pretend to be strong men, who have simple answers, the Trumps, the Fords, the rest of them, who just say what you want to

hear. Don't you worry. You'll never have to pay. And we're all taxpayers. We're not citizens anymore. We're just a commodified human being who doesn't want to pay for any services, but is really pissed off they're not getting any. So make up your mind. If you want these things, you're going to have to pay for them. That's the way it works. And once we're into that, citizens, okay, taxpayers are customers. Citizens have rights like taxpayers, but they also have duties and obligations. And our duty and obligation to our communities is just gone. We're just in our little bunker, watching the Leafs, watching the Raptors,

watching the TV, talking about TV shows, sitting around, because we've lost that sense of being together, like doing things together to create a society that's better. We're waiting for someone to serve us. Where's the stuff? I'm a customer. If you're going to make me a customer, then that's how I'm going to think. I'm a customer.

That's my rant. I love it. You're speaking to the choir. And Hamilton, I have a question, though, because I'm about to tell my wife we're moving to Hamilton because that was so compelling. But how are the bike trails in Hamilton? Oh, they're excellent. There's also the Escarpment, which has the Bruce Trail on it. Of course, yes.

So people go on there. The Radial Trail right near my house is an eight-minute walk from my house, and people just ride their bike all the way to Dundas. I did ride my bike all the way to Hamilton once. The Mohawk College. James B. did that once. Oh, yes. How did you do that?

So I actually took the long route, too. So I went to Milton and then across to, and this was part of the Ride to Conquer Cancer, by the way, organized by Princess Margaret Hospital. And yeah, it was 125 kilometer to get there. Why did you do the Ride to Conquer Cancer? Is it a personal thing? Well, if I think about it, I actually start to cry. But my dear friend, my kick, who was on my slow pitch team

and I had known forever, dear friend, I played third base. He's left fielder. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer after the season. And I told him, I'm doing the ride for you, buddy. He's my first pledger. He pledged $125 he did not have, by the way, because he had to quit his job and get

treatments. He actually passed away before the ride in June. and i wrote i i told because i'm still dear friends of his wife jordy and i said uh like i just thought a kick the whole time 125k i'd never done anything like that before and then you have to do 100 the next day you camp overnight at mohawk college they got tents up there and then the next morning you bike back to toronto but you you don't take the same route back because it's first first of all, going back great because it's mostly downhill because you have to climb that escarpment there. But going home, 100 kilometers only going back home, mostly downhill. So let me ask you something. Yeah, go ahead.

Your friend. Yes, Mike. God love him. How does that change the way you see life? Well, essentially, because he was only 32 when he passed away and I was older than Mike but one thing's for sure is I don't

take any of it for granted. You don't know when because we played that ball season because we play ball and then we had the playoffs in September and he got the diagnosis in October and then he was dead before the next season began. And it's one of those things where you have no idea what's coming around the bend.

Like I could find out, I had a physical yesterday and I could find out, I could get a call, come on in and be told something terrible. You just don't know. So you got to live every day as if you can't bank on living to 85. You got to kind of value and treasure this life. And it's not a rehearsal. Well, as Gore Downey said, this is no dress rehearsal.

This is our life. Yeah, it's not a rehearsal. I do workshops in aging and saging, which I'm doing tonight, actually. I'm doing two of them. And the first thing I ask is, how do you feel about aging? How do you feel about dying? And then I have people in my workshops, one of the exercises is to write your own obituary. And it's amazing how many people write that they live to a hundred. And then I said, okay, so there's two parts to that. One is you're trying to say, I'll just keep moving the goalpost and it

won't get me to which, um, Ram Dass, an American yogi, had a wonderful line where he said, death is not an error. It's not a failure. It's like taking off a tight shoe. So I love that one. But also I get them to write their obituaries and they say they want to live to 100. And I said, you know, living to 100 might not be the blessing you think it is, because there's a part of that that is, you may have to bury one of your own children. You probably would if you lived to 100. Your spouse, most of your friends. And it's not easy to be 100 physically. It's really a hard thing. It's not for sissies. So saying you want to live to 100 is not necessarily a great life. It's just trying to say I don't want to die.

And we live in a death-phobic culture. So the idea of dying is out of the question. It's a catastrophe. It should never happen to anyone. But when it happens when people are younger, like your friend, I guess it really just brings home the whole notion that, like you said, anyone can call you and say, by the way, Mike, listen, sorry, but it's over.

So you might as well make sure that when you say goodbye to your kids in the morning, you say it like you really mean it. Well, I'm glad you mentioned kids because what I noticed as I get older, to me, what becomes clearer than anything is that my most important job is to raise my children to be productive, healthy adults. So right now, and I have a lot of things I try to do. I'm a very busy guy, but I have four children. I have four. You know what's funny? I believe we have a similar situation here in that you have, correct me if I'm wrong,

but you have two children from your first marriage, two from your second. So me too. 31, 28, 12, and 8. All boys. Your gap is a bit bigger than mine because all boys. All boys. Wow. So I went boy-girl.

Thank you, Lord. That's amazing. Thank you, Lord. I went boy-girl and then 10 years later, boy-girl. Wow, lucky you. So what is that? 16, 14, 4, and 2 is what I've got going on. 16, 14, 4.

Oh, yes. So 10-year gap. I have a 20-year gap. Yes, you've got a much bigger gap. So what is that? 16, 14, 4, and 2 is what I've got going on. Yes, a 10-year gap. I have a 20-year gap. Yes, you've got a much bigger gap. So what is that like now? You're a little older now because and I still feel young and healthy that I'm keeping up with the 2-year-old and 4-year-old. You know, it's just my karma, right? Like I'm going to be a father

raising children my whole life and that's just going to be that. People are always saying, ah, it keeps you young. It doesn't keep you young. It just makes you not want to die. It gives you going to be that. People are always saying, ah, it keeps you young. It doesn't keep you young. It just makes you not want to die. Right. It gives you something to live for. Right, because you're going, I really don't want to have this kid go,

I don't know, my dad passed away when I was three. Exactly. Right? So I sort of keep doing the math. If I live this long, they'll be this old. If I live this, because I want to be there in case they need me, which is really the only real thing and being a parent is to me mostly a c-plus endeavor like I keep thinking

like at 9 30 on a Saturday morning I'm thinking I am rocking this dad thing I'm so there and at 10 14 I say the stupidest thing to one of my kids and i just think okay just flunked the morning you just flunked the morning you did not keep your cool or you said something sarcastic and i just think you know this is the whole thing of being a parent is it's a constant uh challenge to you to who are you really not who are you telling everybody you are what a wonderful man i met him yesterday and meanwhile your kids thinking my dad's a stinkhead. A total stinkhead. So you've got to find a way.

And to me, I don't know anything else. So I just get into it. I think it's important as a father is that I don't know everything. I do my best and then I learn from my mistakes. Don't try to be perfect. Right. Well, perfection doesn't exist. Good enough. Right, right best, and then I learn from my mistakes. Don't try to be perfect. Right. Well, perfection doesn't exist. Good enough.

Right, right, right, right. Perfection is nonsense. Here's a question about your children. Are any of them bilingual in terms of, do any of them speak French? One of them is in full immersion. Great. My teens are in full immersion, and I probably will put the other two in too, but that's fantastic.

Yes, and my wife speaks French. My first wife spoke French, and that's why the first two went into French immersion. Perfect. But now I'm at this point, so I have grade 9 French, which is very weak. My wife does not have any French except to say, whatever was the legal requirement, I guess that's grade 9. And I'm thinking, do I put these younger two in French immersion, like they're older siblings

even though no one at home well I guess the siblings are there but none of us speak mom and dad don't speak French I think I'll do it anyways sure

immersion is the only way to do it now if anyone's listening if anyone listening has children ages 4 to 14 put your kids in French camp.

If you want to watch your kids' French skills blossom over the summer, go to campt.ca. Sign up for one of their French, like I said off the top, they have the largest French camps in Ontario. Campt.ca. Sign up for a French camp. And if you use the promo code Mike, you get $20 off your first order this doesn't matter if your kid is French immersion francophone or has no French experience they have a day camp or an

overnight experience for your child French camp that's the way to go I wish I had gone to French camp Ralph because I think I'd have better French today. I didn't pick it up. We spoke Spanish in my house. So, okay. And do your kids speak any Spanish? No, because my wife doesn't speak Spanish. And, you know, if you're not speaking the language in the house, it's difficult.

And even I, as an immigrant kid, learned to answer in English because my brain was going, hey, we live here. I got to figure this out. Right. But if I'm in a Spanish milieu for any period of time, everything comes back.

And I find myself walking around, you know, talking to myself in Spanish to sort of make myself remember how to say things. Because you can forget the simplest stuff. I can imagine. I know as a kid, I watched a lot of Sesame Street, and they would do a lot

of Spanish stuff. Of course. See, when you go to America, you hear Spanish all around you. I'm so happy. That's the only really great part when I go to America, because I'm so ambivalent about it. That's not true. No? No. I did a three-year course in ordination program to become a spiritual director, and everybody was American. Mind you, at the time, they were making fun of me because Rob Ford was the mayor of Toronto. And they're going, look, I can't believe it.

So I went back for a men's workshop at a retreat center last year. And I was like, Trump had been elected. And I was like, hey, joke's on you. And now apparently the joke might be back on us again. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, this whole populist movement is a little concerning. It's faux populism. It is people with money

telling you that they are working class people and understand you just before they get into their escalade and drive off. It is a trope. It's a way of sucking people into an idea that you get them. And yes, there are a lot of people

who feel that they're not going to make it, they're not getting by. But the corporate world, the systemic racism, the wage suppression that's been going on so that no one's had a real rise in wages for literally decades, and yet the cost of living keeps going up and up. Those things are never answered because they're complex and they're nuanced. And when you get rid of nuance, you get tyranny. You get simple answers, people to blame for your problems, and a strong person who'll take care of everything. I'll drive that truck into the ring of fire myself. You actually think the ring of fire is about you driving a truck into the ring of fire to solve the problem of resource extraction, sustainability, indigenous rights, and the ability to monetize once the companies are in there.

This is you driving a truck into the ring of fire. I think you said it there. It's simple answers to complex questions. Yes, and we yearn for those, right? Who doesn't want somebody to, it's like when somebody tells you, you actually have an illness, you're relieved. Oh, I'm not nuts. I do it. Look, honey, you think I'm just complaining. This guy told me I have like this conjunctivitis thing in my eye. It's for real. So we yearn, uh, to have,

we are fearful of scarcity, which is why the fast food business exists. Sugar, salt, fat, sugar, salt, fat. The things that you need to eat to not starve to death. And yet we don't need any of them because we're not starving to death. So it's not, it's your lizard brain running your life saying fearless leader.

So there's a great book called Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff. It's a political communications book, and I do a fair amount of consulting in political communications. So in that one, it's quite simple. The conservative frame is the strict father. Stephen Harper, you know, look, this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you. Always has the right answer, an absolutism to them. The progressive frame is the nurturing parent. If there's something wrong with this person, there must be a reason for it.

So instead of locking them up, you try to figure out how to help them, or else they're just going to be animals when they get out and be even worse. So that's a progressive frame. The conservative frame is if you do something to me, you better pay in blood, right? Which works for about 33% of Canadians at all times. The question is, can you get another 10% to decide they're with you because they're getting more scared? And then you've got

yourself in this horrible past the post system, a majority. Ralph, I got to ask how strict are we on the 60 minutes we talked about? Relatively strict because I got to ask, how strict are we on the 60 minutes we talked about? Relatively strict because I got to get to Bathurst and Lawrence to meet an Israeli guy who's a broadcaster who wants to move to Canada. And I promised him I'd get there to see him. No, just only because I think that this 60 minutes is going to burn real fast here. But here, let's do this. Let me give you another gift here before I forget.

So you have the pint glass from Brian Gerstein, but you've got to pour something in that pint glass. So Great Lakes Brewery, that six-pack is for you to take home. Thank you very much. Local Craft Brewery. I'm just thinking about the weather now and the patio they have there at Great Lakes is going to be open, and I can't wait to have

a $5 pint on the patio. It's a fantastic place. So support this podcast. If you love this podcast, support the sponsors and Great Lakes Brewery. It's been there for a couple of years now

and they're fantastic. Restrained jubilation. That's what it says on the can. The cans are great. They've got great artwork. Canuck Pale Ale. Oh, it's a staple, Canuck Pale Ale.

You'll love it. You a beer guy? I'm not a big connoisseur, but I've grown to love a few IPAs from Great Lakes Beer. Did I give you an Octopus Wants to Fight in there? Well, there's an Over My Dad Body, which I kind of like.

Barrel Series. No, I'll find it. Hold on. There's two more left. Pompous Ass English Ale. That's popular. Lake Effect IPA. Okay, the Lake Effect's great. So the Lake Effect is a great IPA

that I enjoyed all winter long. They do have an Octopus Wants to Fight. Maybe I'll swap it out before you go if I can find one of the other cans. You'll love it. So can we talk briefly here about CKLN? CKLN, 88.1. Right, and you're news director and program producer. So how did you end up at CKLN, andKLN, 88.1. Right, and you were news director and program producer.

So how did you end up at CKLN, and what did you do there? Okay, so I'm, at this point in my early 20s, I'm an actor, a stand-up, I'm in showbiz. I really don't like being an actor. I really don't like the lack of control. Stand-up, at least you write the bit, you get on stage. Like, something is in your control. You can create an act, and you're not going to make, at least you write the bit, you get on stage, like something is in your control. You can create an act and you're not going to make, like you're starving anyway, like literally

starving. But being an actor, there was something about it that I just thought, this does not suit my character, where people can tell me whether I'm working or not and never tell me why. And you get rejected three times a week. And I just thought, I'm just not built for this. I like to be productive. I like to go somewhere every day and do something interesting and creative. And my sister was in the, she'd already done a BA at University of Ottawa, but she was at Ryerson in journalism.

So I said, hey, Marlene, can I audit the course? So she went and asked the teacher. I audited it. I thought, I actually kind of dug that. That was interesting because it kind of appealed to the trivia guy in me, the generalist guy in me, and I thought, this could be something. So my sister says, look, you better get some volunteer hours because they want to see that when you apply.

If you haven't done that, you could do really well on the entrance stuff and general knowledge and writing, but you might not get in because you didn't volunteer at a radio station, a TV cable station, whatever, newspaper. So I started writing some articles for the Ryersonian. Horrible articles. I wrote one on Mort Saul, actually. Smithsonian, horrible articles. I wrote one on Mort Saul, actually. But then my friend, who has been my friend since Yuck Yucks and is still one of my deepest, wonderful friends, who I worked with at CBC afterwards for years on end, he had become the station manager at CKLN,

Anton Leo, gifted man. And I said, Anton, hire me hire me like give me a hundred bucks a month or something and make me the news director because you don't have any news on the station right and god love anton he fell for it sure i you do you know what you're doing is i will i will because it was a we we when i, we just, within a week of me getting there, we went over the air, 14 watts. We went from being closed circuit, where you can only hear us in the buildings, to in Toronto. And that's when it happened. So I ended up creating a one-hour magazine show. We called it Newswave. And then I got four other journalism people, some of them in the program, some wanting to get in, to create. I said, here's the format. You got to do it. You

host it. So we did it. And I ended up at CKLN doing that while I was, I was also doing comedy night for the Students' Union where guys like Sam Kinison were showing up and they were booing them. They were booing them. Wow. I thought college crowds would be the coolest. They were the worst crowds ever. Is that right? Yeah. You think they love a Sam Kinison? No, they're like just left home.

They're drunk publicly on a regular basis because they can be. Their parents aren't there. And they just had no focus whatsoever. I used to go on stage with my coat still on and say, I hate you people. And they think that's so funny. And no, no, I'm so serious about this. I truly hate you. And because they were booing Sam Kinison, for God's sake. I mean, that's just nuts. That is nuts. That is nuts. And

you're so, I mean, being a stand-up comedy, being a stand-up comic must prepare you well for being on the air, on the radio. Well, what I've realized, I've done a lot of different things in my life, and what I've realized is that the thread is storytelling. That they're all storytelling, right? And that as a kid, I learned to tell stories to kind of make life better, right? This is now the fictional account of my life. I'll get you the parts that make you amused, and we'll move on, and you won't find out that, you know, it's not quite as rosy as it looks.

Right, you cherry pick. Yeah. And you learn how to keep the attention of the people who are listening to you. And you were drafted, essentially. So you're on CKLN 88.1, and you're drafted by the CBC to host their weekend show, Nightlines.

Well, I mean, that happened in a bit of a bump. Stuart McLean, God love him, who was a friend of mine and I produced a TV special with him, a Christmas special. Yes. But he was my first broadcast teacher at Ryerson when I got into the program. And in the second year near the end, he said, look, you don't need to be here. You can go.

Like, I know you have a year left, end, he said, look, you don't need to be here. You can go. I know you have a year left, but there's a job opening at CBC Winnipeg in radio as a researcher, as a booker. You should go for it. So I did. I went to the library. At the time, there was no internet. And looked up Winnipeg Free Press's, the hard copies that they had at the CBC Library, phone somebody that knew somebody to say, how do you put together your interviews? Is there a format? And I came into the interview with 15 story ideas and had never been to Winnipeg.

So I got the job as a chaser. And in the time I was there, I ended up knowing Ron Robinson, who was the host of Nightlines at the time. Ross Porter was the producer. And Ron came up to me at a baseball game we were playing at CBC in Winnipeg, and he said, I'm leaving, by the way, and you should go for the job. So I did, and Ross hired me, and I did that for a year.

And then I came back to Toronto, and just the rest of it was network radio at CBC and network television as well. I need to go back to Stuart McLean. Yeah. Because, you know, we talked about Mike McDonald, great loss. Stuart McLean, I listen to a lot of CBC Radio 1. Stuart McLean just has that folksy charm, I want to call it. I said to Morley, what are we doing?

Why are we doing this? Morley. What are we doing? Why are we doing this morally? I remember when I went to see him in Brantford. I think it's the Rose Theater. And we'd already agreed we were going to do this Christmas show. And we were going to shoot it in Belleville at a theater there, the Empire Theater. And I thought, I better go see one of his shows.

And it was a blizzard, a blizzard. The place was packed. People didn't care that they were actually endangering their life to get to see Stewart. It was like religion. And he had such a heartfelt thing going. And I'd known him for years. Like we stayed friends all the way through when I came back from Winnipeg. We stayed friends all the way through when I came back from Winnipeg. Seriously quirky man and really gifted storyteller. He just devoted himself to that. It was like being a minstrel. They were on the road for months at a time.

We did the Christmas special, and he had a sardonic sense of humor. He had a wicked little sense of humor, so it had nothing to do with... I said to him at one point, you know this town you've made up, these people, they're just so idyllic. He said, well, there's nothing wrong with dreaming. And he was a lovely man, and it broke my heart when he got sick, and when he died,

it was just one of those mornings where you turn on the radio, and Stuart McLean has passed away and you're just like, oh, he's a lovely man. You said it's a storytelling, right? Tell me a story. And Stuart was tremendous at that. He's definitely

missed. But he left behind a beautiful legacy, right? All you can really do is try to be useful. And he's useful. He he's useful. He helps people to get through life. Now, so you're in Winnipeg doing... So it's a weekend version of Brave New Waves, right? Yeah, it was different than Brave New Waves.

Brent Bambury was doing Brave New Waves in Montreal. And I thought he was brilliant at that show. Absolutely brilliant. He ended up replacing me on Midday years later, which is kind of funny. Your paths keep crossing. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And he's still at CBC Radio. Well, at the time, people used to think he and I looked alike, and they'd always ask him if he was Ralph. And he said to me, I'm getting really tired of people saying, are you Ralph Ben-Murray? He's like, no, I'm Brent Banbrief. That's okay.

He's like, oh, sorry, you're the other one. Hi, Brent. That's funny. That's funny. But you do end up, oh, sorry, you're the other one. Hi, Brent. That's funny. That's funny. But you do end up, like you said, you came back to Toronto. And so how do I get you to midday? I want to get you to midday here. Is it, you hosted Primetime.

Yeah, Primetime was a great show. We had so much fun doing Primetime. And then I was living in Cannington, Ontario, actually. And I woke up one morning and there was the paper and it said that Peter Downey was leaving midday. And you've got to pay attention to the parts where you kind of leap up inside yourself and think, oh, that would be good. And I thought that. And I went for the, after I'd sort of insinuated myself into the,

at least getting a couple of days on air to audition for them, when they were deciding to give me the job, Suzanne Boyce, who ended up as the senior programmer at CTV after, she wanted me. She was the exec producer of the show. And Mark Starwich, who was the grand poobah and ran the journal, had me come in. In those days, you could smoke in your office,

so he was smoking his pipe. And he said, so it says here. this is where anton had helped me we would always um audition each other for uh jobs we would interview each other so we could know what the best answers would be so they said i said look anton they're going to say you were a stand-up like this is a current affair show and people think whatever you did is the only thing you are. Right. And I said, what am I going to do? He goes, here's your line. Having a sense of humor is having the sense to know when to use your humor.

And I went, oh, that is fantastic. That's gold. That is gold. So then I go in and, of course, Mark leans back in his chair and puffs on his pipe and says, so it says here you were a stand-up. That wasn't serious, was it? And I said, well, yeah, it's how I ate. And he said, but I don't see how that works in this kind of a milieu. And then I gave him the line and then he let it be. And then I found out later that Mark and this wonderful man,

Dars Fardy, who was head of current affairs at Newfoundland, said to Suzanne, okay, you can hire him, but if this doesn't work out, you're fired too. And she said, knock yourself out. And we ended up having a great time, Valerie and I. We really had a great time. It's one of the best programming periods in my professional life. And that transition from radio to television,

like how was that? Because. Well, I'd done some acting. So I, you know, a friend of mine who passed away, actually was murdered,

who was a comic, was, gave me a great piece of advice once when I said, I was doing some acting. I was in some littlest hobo or some ridiculous thing. And I wasn't happy doing it. And I didn't think I looked particularly good on camera. Just something about me was wrong. My eyes were too big. Something was weird. So I said, Michael, what do I do? And he said, and Michael was, by his own words, And Michael was, by his own words, a flaming queen. And he says to me, Ralph, never make love to the camera.

Let the camera make love to you. So when I went in to do Midday, I remembered that, that I don't have to try to find the camera. Do my own thing and the camera will find you. You're already being recorded. Don't put extra effort in. But Valerie also taught me to lean into it, right? And you read a lot of teleprompter. So if you were just reading, you kind of look stunned because you're just reading off the front of a camera because the lines are going right over the lens. Right.

And she said, every once in a while, take a breath and look down, look at your page and then look back up and you'll find that it breaks the trance-like look on your face. So everybody was really helpful and gave me really nice tips. And then we just had a really good time. Amazing. Now I'm going to play a clip. So this is something from 1989 and I'll start it here while we talk about it. I won't play it all because it's two and a half minutes and I don't want to take any time from our discussion here. But this is called

Program X-Pitch. It's smart warm funny and funky Paces everything. I think it's just time to settle down with a good old-fashioned national nightly show I am begging you. I have a two and a half year old son. He needs to eat Please I'm begging you something happening in this country at that time of night. That's fun paces everything I don't know good music It's more part of a feeling and part of a small and intimate setting late at night. Do you remember recording this? I do. I can't remember who I was for.

Carol Reynolds. So what it sounds like to me when I listen to this pitch... I did this with Alan Novak. Alan and I ended up doing tons of documentaries for Vision TV actually. He's still a very dear friend. It sounds like you're pitching Friday Night with Ralph Ben-M Vision TV, actually. He's still a very dear friend.

It sounds like you're pitching Friday Night with Ralph Ben-Murray, possibly. What? I wasn't. We were pitching something to, I think, City that we just wanted to do a variety show. I grew up with Ed Sullivan, right? Right. So I didn't want to be a big part of a show. I wanted to stand on the side and go, here's the next act. So when I ended up doing Ed Sullivan, right? Right. So I didn't want to be a big part of a show. I wanted to stand on the side and go, here's the next act. So I ended up, when I ended up doing Friday Night,

that kind of all got bastardized. Is it a talk show? Is it a stand-up late night show? Is it a music variety show? Everybody wanted it to be something. And it was sort of the whole place on Brian Lanahan, the late Brian Lanahan. City Lines. He came in and watched a rehearsal just before we started and said to George Anthony, who was the head of comedy and variety at the time, said, my God, you've put the entire building on his back. And I didn't find that out until about a year later, but it kind of felt like that. We had such good intentions to do a Canadian, purely Canadian, variety show. I thought we were ready.

to do a Canadian, purely Canadian, variety show. I thought we were ready. And what I learned in doing that show was that we as Canadians are more comfortable with a low-status approach than a high-status approach. So the show before me that was canceled for me was Tommy Hunter. The show after me was Rita McNeil. Right. So kind of white, Christian, small-town Canadian. I was this guy with a funny name

from the biggest city in the country, flashy, splashy show that was just like, we're ready. Yeah, like a downtown Toronto hipster. Right. And that was not what people were looking for. And it's funny that project, sorry, what do you call it? Program X, that pitch that we heard briefly there from 1989, that that was for City TV and Moses, I guess, because this Friday night was kind of like the CBC trying to be more like City TV, I think. Well, I'd come from another generation.

I was in my 30s, right? I wasn't Tommy Hunter. No, no, you were the hippest guy in the room. Yeah, whatever that means. Whatever that means. As my friend Joey Axe always says, if you say you're cool, you've just lost it. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Being cool means... Hey, I'm cool. Okay, first of all, that would never happen. That's exactly right. Earlier, you mentioned James B. B. James B. He was...

So he was actually... So your house band at the beginning was just called The House, I guess. That was, so he was actually, so I'm just, so your house band at the beginning was just called The House, I guess. That was Matt Zimbel. Okay.

Yeah, who does Manteca. And that, so, and of course, Friday night, for those who don't know, doesn't last particularly long. So it comes out at, 17, what was it?

17 months? Because your last episode is the last day of 93, is your last episode. Junk House, New Year's Eve show. Tom Wilson, I love Junkhouse.

Yeah. Love it. He's a Hamilton guy, right? He certainly is. One of his kids goes to our school. Do you live anywhere near Stephen Brunt, by the way? Stephen's in the west side, but he's in a different part of the west side. Okay.

I have a little tangent there. I keep meaning to have coffee with him because I love Stephen Brunt. He's coming back. He's been here. Say hi for me if I don't hear you. He's coming back to kick out the jam. So we're going to, and hopefully I'm going to, because I love Stephen Brent. He's coming back. He's been here. Say hi for me. He's coming back to kick out the jam. So we're going to, and hopefully I'm going to,

I'm watching my clock. I think since you were supposed to start at 11, you were expected to be here till noon. So the fact we started a little bit earlier means I can probably take you till noon. Am I correct? Okay. Okay. Perfect.

Perfect. Perfect. Uh, so yeah. What do you think of this hour plus podcast thing? Do you find people want that or that you're not sure? What do you think? Oh, yeah.

So my only thought on the time is that it be a compelling discussion. Sometimes it makes sense to make it about an hour, but sometimes when Gord Stelic was here telling stories about Harold Ballard in the 1980s, we went two and a half hours. Now, do people listen to two and a half hours. Now, do people listen at two and a half hours? Yeah, I think Stephen Brunt did two hours.

It all depends. The nice thing about podcasting is I don't have a producer saying, hey, we've got to be 59 minutes or whatever. See, in mainstream, you're always thinking about keeping it short. Right. So I only think about keeping it short when guests like yourself say... I've got to keep it short. It happened recently with Dan Shulman. So Dan Shulman, you love baseball. Shulman I only think about keeping it short when guests like yourself say- I got to keep it short. Yeah.

It happened recently with Dan Schulman. So Dan Schulman, you love baseball. Schulman comes over and he says, I only have 45 minutes. And I looked at him and I said, Dan, respectfully, I got two hours of stuff I need to talk to you about. Can we do a little better than 45? I have no leverage here. Tell me something about Schulman. Schulman, yeah.

Why is he back? He's back because he's on his second. In fact, he said he was getting married next week when he was here. So I think he might have got married either last week or next week. So he he back? He's back because he's on his second. In fact, he said he was getting married next week when he was here so I think he might have got married either last week or next week. So he came back for love.

He came back to spend more time with his family. That's what I thought. Yes, 100%. He always lived in, by the way,

he always lived here. I know, but he was seriously one of the best baseball guys in America. I mean, he's just gifted. You know,

now that Vince Scully's retired, can we say he's the best guy on the planet? I don't know enough of the best baseball guys in America. I mean, he's just gifted. You know, now that Vince Scully's retired, can we say he's the best guy on the planet? Well, I don't know enough of the other guys, but I know that Shulman, to me, is just a wonderful broadcaster, as is Buck, by the way, and Wilner, I'm a huge fan of Mike Wilner. Okay, I'm a huge fan of Wilner as well.

I was kind of hoping he'd get the chair. Me too. But here's the problem with Wilner, and I know this because he's been over here three times, and I get the emails. His Jay's Talk persona, which is a very pragmatic approach to callers and fans. Yeah, and he's in your face.

Which I like. Yeah. It's polarizing. So I think what I believe has happened is... I'm one of those guys, so I get it. Right, right. So the people who hate Wilner's persona on Jay's Talk, they consider him arrogant and condescending. They who hate Wilner's persona on Jay's talk, they consider him arrogant and condescending.

They really hate Wilner. And I believe that because he's polarizing on Jay's talk and the people who dislike him there, I believe that affected the decision Rodgers made. I know, but baseball, the one issue I have with baseball is the conservatism of it. Is that everyone, you know, the Bautista bat flip to me was just remarkable in how it was like, that's not the way you behave. Not nobody. That's not the way you behave. Ron McLean told me that he didn't like the bat flip. I have a t-shirt with the bat flip on it. I would not be surprised that Ron didn't like it because Ron thinks in a conservative way about the way you're supposed to be in sports. I love Ron. I think he's a gifted guy. But culturally, I'm just not there.

I think sport should have a spunk, sense of humor, spice. I guess because I come from a Latin background. To me, it's just like, seriously? Like, we're all supposed to pretend that nothing happened after I hit that? Like, you know what? I'm taking this bat, and it's going! I love it. I love it.

I love it. Oh, it's just great. So, you know what? I'm taking this back and it's going. I love it. I love it. I love it. Oh, it's just great. So I, you know, I'm a Mike fan. Yeah, I'm a big,

so yeah, right. So Mike, and not just because his daughter and my daughter are in the same competitive dance team. Competitive dance?

Yeah. It's just a big racket. I tried to steer her into, um, What the hell is competitive dance? It's a, I believe it to be a big cash grab

by these dance studios, but she loves it, Michelle. She's 13 now, almost 14, and she loves it. And Wilner's got a daughter in the same club, got a dance studio. All right, so Shulman's back

for his family. Shulman is back for family reasons, and he is fantastic. But he also said 45 minutes, and then I talked him into 60 minutes. I have no leverage here. You're so generous to come into my basement

and field these questions. But I got him up to 60. You're at 60. That's the only time I look at a clock. Otherwise, I organically sense when it's over and I play this out. Sometimes it's an hour. Sometimes it's two and a half hours. I don't look at the clock. Isn't it ever like 20 minutes and this person

has nothing? It's been a long time. I don't know which is his name, but he's close to you. He's on Hits FM in St. Catharines. Hits FM. 97.7.

97.7. I'm still pissed off they let Paulie Morris go from Hits FM. I'm still ticked off about that. Are you an avid St. Catharines radio listener?

No, but... Scoopier. But I'm a radio fan and I always liked the music coming out of Hits FM because it was rock. It was new stuff and classic stuff, but not classic rock, but like 90s stuff, I guess. They had a good

hard rock sound I can't find anywhere else. 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, aughts. That would be like a boom. Boom FM. Boom. My 12-year-old loves Boom FM. He sings these songs from the 70s. I'm like, how do you know that?

And he knows the lyrics. That's a little old because my 4-year-old sings Elton John's I'm Still Standing all the time, which is 80s. Give him Tumbleweed Connection. Oh, seriously, Tumbleweed Connection is one of my favorite Elton John albums. I'll do that. It's brilliant.

He got that from a movie called Sing that has songs in it and there's a big scene around I'm Still Standing by Elton John albums. I'll do that. It's brilliant. Anything, because he got that from, there's a movie called Sing that has songs in it, and there's a big scene around I'm Still Standing by Elton John. Are you not, having raised all these different children, an expert on every kid's movie ever made? Yeah. We could do an hour on that. Yeah, and I have my favorites,

which I steer, like Moana is a big one in the house right now. But yeah, absolutely. How about Zootopia? Yep, that was a big one for a long time. Turbo? Turbo did not come into the home yet, no. Oh, yeah.

Is that like a cars thing or a planes thing? Well, Turbo's about a snail who gets into the Indy 500. Okay, no. With two Mexican guys who have a taco stand. Have you seen Coco? Yeah. It was fine. The Book of Life looked like Coco to me. Okay, so you're fine because Yeah. It was fine.

The Book of Life looked like Coco to me. Okay, so you're fine. Because I thought it was great, and then my friend hated it, and I... What about box trolls? You mean trolls? No, box trolls. No, I only know the one with Justin Timberlake,

the trolls. Man, box trolls, where they pop in and out of boxes and stuff. They're all scared. I've got to catch up here. Very European and freaky and interesting. Okay, so... I'm sorry.

I know, because I have a clock with you, remember? If you were Gord Stelic, I would be going down the... Harold! Harold! Put your underwear on. I can listen to Gord Stelic. What a horrible thing Harold Ballard was. But apparently, he had a generous streak...

I don't care. A generous side to him. Who cares? With charities. Look, you can't be awful and then go, but I'm a really nice guy. Look, you decided. Your karma is you hit people with your cane. No, you're right.

You're horrible to your players. You abuse people constantly. I don't care how much money you gave to what. You suck. Yeah, he does suck. And I went to see his, just because it's nearby here called Park Lawn Cemetery, I went to see his grave.

And Jeff Merrick, you know from hockey? So he worked at Park Lawn when Harold died and put the dirt on the casket that Harold Ballard was in. Okay? So I was texting with Jeff Merrick.

And Harold threw it back. Yeah, well, I was just saying, hey, I can't find this. Where is it? And he helped me find it. I took a photo, and I tweeted a picture of Harold Ballard's grave. So many people telling me to take a piss on it.

Oh, my God. I know. That's a whole social media issue. That's a whole social media issue. Okay, so Friday night failed. I noticed that. In a nutshell, is it trying to be too much? Because if you go to the wiki page for the Friday night with Ralph Ben-Murray,

they kind of want to blame your hosting style. And I don't think that's particularly fair. Poor writing. No, no, no. Inability to attract high-caliber guests. What I realized about myself, a few things in doing that, was first of all, I think a fall from grace, if you survive it, is a good thing.

It's good for your character. So I don't have any problems with the fact that I had one show that didn't work and 14 that I really enjoyed. I'm good with that. But what I also learned in doing it was I'm not the guy who's willing to do absolutely anything for the sake of entertaining you. And that to be in that position, you should be that person. You know, when I think of the guys I started with, like Jim Carrey and guys like that, Jim was a hundred percent in. There wasn't a thing he wouldn't do. And he was hilarious because of it. Absolutely hilarious. But I wasn't, there was always a part of me that said, I will want to be taken seriously when this is over.

And I don't know if I can, if I do what this thing needs of me. So there was a look on me that was uncomfortable. My hands, I was wringing my hands. You know, I don't, if you're willing to believe people when they say you're great at things, you know, when you're on your way up to that place, and you're the hottest guy, and you're the interesting blah, blah, blah, you better believe them when they tell you you're horrible too.

And I was just not very good at doing that show. And I tried. The only thing for me was, hey, what are you so angry about? At least I'm trying to do Canadian talent. And there were still lots of people who to this day come up to me. And, you know, I'm sure if they don't like it, they're not going to be those same people who come up to me. But there's lots of people who come up to me and say, I loved your show. I used to watch it every Friday. And I just think, great, that's great. Some people were happy. I'm very happy we give national TV

exposure to all kinds of Canadian talent who were never going to get on. You know, anything from the Rayo Statics to the first big national appearance where the Barenaked Ladies was on our first show. Junkhouse Tea Party. Like, you know, we just had all kinds of really interesting people on stand-up comics getting to do stuff. So for me, sue me. The problem is in the States, you fail at a show, nobody cares. They know that you're now known as a name, so that's the commodity they sell. In Canada, it's like, well, I can't believe you did that. We eat our young here. Well, look, we're self-deprecating people, and there's a really good part to that. We don't believe all the nonsense, the hype.

In America, everything's so hyped. Here, it's like we can barely remember what the anthem is. We look at the words because we know they keep changing, right? In America, you take your hat off, you sing it with all you've got. Yeah, the handles on the heart. Here, you shuffle your feet. You wonder if anybody else is singing it. Do I have to? So that's a good part of being Canadian, because, you shuffle your feet. You wonder if anybody else is singing it. Do I have to?

That's a good part of being Canadian, because nationalism can be a disease. It's not just something that makes... I'm proud. Hey, relax. From up above, this is just a ball. There are no lines on it. Let's just chill out and try to share the place a bit. That's exactly

right. Before we move on from your Friday night show, I just got to play a little clip here. Oh, look, an audience. Join me every Friday night at 11 o'clock. It's our new time.

See you then. Friday night with Ralph Ben-Murgy. A new time right after Kids in the Hall. Fridays at 11, 11.30 in Newton Blatt. Yeah, because we were

supposed to go on at 10 because the National had been moved to 9. So the entire schedule had changed as well. So we went on at 10 the first time, and we got like a million viewers. And then we went to our regular time of 11, and we got half a million viewers.

And then it just kept going down from there to quarter of a million. Now, I have a listener, a Twitter question from Andrew Ward. Thank you, Andrew. Andrew uses the numerical number three instead of an E in Andrew Ward, if you want to follow him. Yeah, just to be difficult. What's that about, mister? Yeah, let's talk. All over.

He says, Ralph brought listeners along. He's talking about uh jazz fm by the way where i was this morning doing i was filling in on the morning show i love jazz fm and i i do things with them whenever i can well i want to hear more about jazz fm because uh andrew says ralph brought listeners a lot of comfort especially during snowstorms when he went back to radio doing mornings on jazz fm what was the transition like back to radio and as an iron man in all facets of So why don't we use this as a chance to chat a little bit about your show on Jazz FM? Well, I'll answer the last question first because any multi-barreled question gets its last one first. Medium I like best is radio, by far.

gets its last one first. Medium I like best is radio, by far. You're not as distracted by the things that happen on television, the cues you take, and it's intimate. It's a hot medium. You have to engage it. You have to imagine what I look like. You have to imagine what Mike looks like.

You have to imagine what we're talking about, like the fact that I'm wearing a large cherry on top of my head at this very moment in time. I once did a show on primetime where something had happened about somebody being nude somewhere, so we did an all-nude show on the radio, and somebody wrote in and said, how dare you go on the radio with no clothes on? I was like, what are you doing?

So that answers that. It's theater of the mind, right? Oh, yeah, come on now. Oh, look, a helicopter just landed. I mean, come on. Get in the ballgame. So what was the other part? Oh, Jazz FM.

So, yeah, so I was leaving the CBC. I'd gone from being on air to doing a lot of producing. I'd produced a show called Nerve, which was about teenagers for teenagers, and it was really about teenagers for teenagers, not for parents of teenagers. We won a Japan Prize for Youth

Television, a worldwide prize, and we won the Yorkton Short Film Festival and TV Award for Youth Programming for that show, and it lasted one year. I did a show called Smart Ask, which was kind of a reach for the top show, but we had lost the rights to the name Reach for the Top. So we had to call it something else.

So I called it Smart Ask, which the president said, or the vice president of TV said, I don't know if you want to do that. Well, they have a show called Schitt's Creek now. Yeah, that's a bit cheeky. It's like, oh, for the love of Pete. But anyway, I was doing a lot more producing at that point. And my friend Ross had come from Winnipeg, where I'd done Nightlines with him many, many years before.

And he was going to be the guy running the jazz station. So he said, do you want to do jazz station. So I said, he said, do you want to do the morning show? I said, well, it might kill me, but I don't know what's next really. And I love jazz and let's do it. So I did it for six years, getting up at, like today, I got up at 4.30. I thought, I remember this You've got to be in bed by 9 or you're toast. Oh, man. And so that, you couldn't be, you could not be a Toronto sports fan or fanatic and have a bedtime at 9 p.m.

I went to bed when the score was 4-3 in the Leaf game. But you know what? I've learned to just look on my Sportsnet app and just look at scores as they go by and just thumb it down until it refreshes. I still get the tension of the game. It still freaks me out. There's a lot of TV a person.

I don't watch much TV, but I do admit I have a problem with live sports. I do watch a lot of live sports. That is TV. It really eats you up after a while. Look, the whole thing I have a problem with live sports. I do watch a lot of live sports. I guess that is TV right now. Yeah, that is TV. And it really eats you up after a while.

Look, the whole thing in this workshop I'm doing where Aging and Saging, I said to one of the groups, it's incredible how much energy we spend not being here. I mean, we will do anything not to be here. Like everybody knows that meditation is a fantastic thing to do for your health, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. Won't do it. But a Raptors game, I'm on.

Because I don't have to do anything. I can just consume the product. Yeah. So is sports sort of like the McDonald's of... Sports is... I'm trying to tie them together here. Sports is self-medication. Self-medication. But it's still better than heroin, right?

Like, so if I watch this... Well, I don't know. I don't do heroin. You haven't done heroin. No. I don't recommend you... The trick is don't start. I think that's my tip for you.

Don't start. Thank you. Not that I... You're an opioid counselor. That's very kind. Oh, man. I just had Ken... You know Ken Daniels,

who was at CBC Sports? Yeah. Yeah, he was just here. Isn't he in Detroit or something? He does Blue Jays. Sorry, what did I say that for? Tigers games. Oh, no, Red Wings.

Red Wings. You see, I remember Ken Daniels. Isn't that crazy? Ken Daniels. Is he all right? Is he good? He's great. His son, sadly, passed away from the fentanyl.

I guess he had an opiate addiction and fentanyl. And 23 years old. And he comes in now. And what he had an opiate addiction and fentanyl and 23 years old. And he comes in now, and what he's doing now is he's raising awareness. Apparently in America particularly, there's this, they're not, they're rehab,

like rehab, they pretend to be rehabilitation centers, but they just milk you your health plan and your insurance. And they're not, they're only there to do that. He calls them predatory rehab facilities. And he's raising awareness

because the opiate epidemic is very serious stuff. And the fentanyl, so a little fentanyl can kill you. Killed his son. The heart explodes while he sleeps, essentially. It slows the body down to the point of morbidity.

But that's just, I'm so sorry to hear that. No, it's very sorry to hear that. I mean, that's one of the things when you have kids, right? You just keep praying that you'll die, and they can remember you, but you never want to think that they could die, and you'll have to remember them. It's just...

I don't know who to attribute this quote to, but I read it once. Having children is like your heart being outside of your body. Even on Wednesday, the horrific van attack. Yeah, the van attack. My brain, I do this roll call in my head. Where is everybody

right now? Are any of the kids near North York? Because my teens are all over the place. You can't think like that either because that's random and there's no protecting yourself from random. What are you going to tell people? The problem with media, now I'm not talking about the van attack to be clear, but the problem

with the media representations that we now live with is that we believe we are living in mortal chaos at all times. That everything is upside down. that you need to be protected from this horrible world. Well, I don't know about you, but what I see when I walk my kids to school is a whole bunch of other people who love their children, walking them to school, giving them a kiss on the

forehead, even if they don't want it, and saying, have a great day. We are 98.5% fantastic as human beings, and media overrepresentation of violence because it grabs attention is making us think that we are something else. You're right. We have less war. We live longer. We eat better.

All of these things are true, and yet if you ask people, they say, well, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. Now, at the other side of that, we are in complete climate denial, because it is so existential a threat, so big a threat, we don't know what to do with it. So we just go, you know what?

I only know this, so I'm going to keep it going as long as I can, and that's it. Now, well said. These random, you can't change your life, you can't, you can't. I don't believe, I don't, definitely don't bubble. Like I said, my teens are up and out and about on the TTC on their own, completely independent. There's no bubble wrapping here.

There's no, oh, avoid crowds. No, nothing changed after Wednesday's attack. I just was thinking. Is this Jeff Buckley's version? This is Jeff Buckley's version. I love Jeff Buckley. And he passed away. But we're all passing away.

It's the way it works. That's a great equalizer. Like, we're all going to die. Yeah, but a star explodes, and the energy that it releases pushes together gases that create a new star. That's the way the world and the universe work. We are in the process and the flow of creation.

So when people say, what's God? I say, it's a process. It's not a thing. It's that we're in the middle of this flow. It's God-ing say, what's God? I say, it's a process. It's not a thing. It's that we're in the middle of this flow. It's God-ing. But is that God? Yes. Or is that nature? No, nature. What is nature? Where did it come from?

Where does everything come from? I don't know. It's okay not to know. Mystery should be an important part of your life. Cherish it. Worship it. It's a wonderful thing to not know. But if you don't know, why would you put yourself on the side of there is a God as opposed to there's probably not a God. And if there is a God, he's not intervening.

Because it gives you humility. It makes you realize you are not the biggest thing in this picture. You are just a little speck and a little ball in a universe filled with hundreds of millions of galaxies. Forget stars, galaxies. So if that's what we are, then you're our cell. So your only choice in life is, am I a cancerous cell or am I a healthy cell?

And that's your work every day. So do that and connect yourself to the unknowable and say, whatever you are, unbelievable! Thanks! And that's a religious process. You had Leonard Cohen on Friday night. I did. I had him and I did two long-form interviews with him on radio.

He's funny. Listen to the lyrics. Listen to the lyrics. She broke your throne and she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the hallelujah. Hallelujah. I have a tremendous version of Gore Downey doing this song for a movie called St. Ralph that I could share with you because it was never released and you would love it.

My bad. I mean, Leonard Cohen is, I said to him, you're a Buddhist now. And he said, no, no, I'm a Jew. And I said, no, I mean, come on, you've just been six years at a monastery. And he said, Ralph, we are what we come from. It's all within our own religions. We just have to look for it. What your job is is to build a fence around the sacred of your life.

And if you don't, your life will just be the profane. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. So why the Jeff Buckley version of Hallelujah? There's something haunting about his version of it. There's something worshipful about it. Listen to him, he's whispering in your ear. He's just talking about making love. When I moved in you, and the holy dove moved too. He's talking about making love.

It's remarkable. Leonard Cohen's last album, he has a song called Hineni, which is Hebrew for I am here. And the spiritual question is not where is God? The spiritual question is where am I? That's your work. And you're a Jewish spiritual director. Yeah.

And I would use the term, but I don't know how to pronounce it. A mashpia? A mashpia, a teacher. Yeah. I learn a lot from people. And you did My Israel. I did. That was for Vision TV? Yeah, I'm going to Israel in August.

It's going to be fun. Three weeks. Are you going to film something there? No, no, no. My family. We're all just going. Like a pilgrimage? No.

It's just going to Israel. Oh, you could do that too. You know, because the thing is, it's the only place if you're Jewish that you're in the dominant culture. Where everything is kind of Jewish, even though there's a whole mix of cultures and religions in Israel. It's the way in Canada, the dominant culture is Christian. You don't notice it, and you don't need to worship in that way because everybody's Christian, aren't they? And 85% of us are.

So Christmas is Christmas. If you go to Christmas Day in Israel, which I've been, not one visual cue that it's Christmas. And it was like, wow, I've never experienced this. It's always been a tsunami of Christmas. You're right. I suppose that's the only country in the world where... Unless you're Muslim.

If you're Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu, Christmas is irrelevant. But you see, just saying that, where you said it was the only country in the world, is because you come from a country where you think everybody's Christian, aren't they? No. No, as soon as I said that, I really...

A billion people are Muslim. How stupid that sounds. Well, what's the biggest Muslim country in the world? Indonesia. Yeah, I did not know that. Right, because you think Muslim is an Arab. Right. Right, no.

Jews, are they a race of people? No. Anyone could be. You could be a Jew. It's a choice. So, a common guest, a frequent guest, is Mark Wiseblood from 1236, and I actually

asked him about this, because I hear Judaism referred to as a race and as a religion. It's not a race. He says it's a race. No, it's not a race. You're not born into the racial group of being a Jew. Anyone can convert to Judaism. Yeah, Sammy Davis Jr., for example.

Right, converted to Judaism. But it's also a race in some sense. And I speak as a Gentile. This is what Mark told me. Well, I'd be glad to discuss it with Mark. It's a religion. It's a religion. It's a religion. On that note, though,

should it be convenient for you at a later time, I left a lot of good topics on the table here I wanted to get to, and I would love a second crack at this. Sure. This was thoroughly enjoyable for me, Ralph. Thank you so much for dropping by. Thank you for your interest.

I truly appreciate it. And I love Hallelujah, and one of my favorite songs of all time, and I do see the allure of the Jeff Buckley version, but I am going to send you the Gore Downey version

he did for King Ralph. You will love it. Excellent. And that brings us to the end of our 330th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Ralph is at Ralph Benmerge.

Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Ralph Benmergy. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. PayTM is at PayTM Canada. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. It's my UI check I just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything

Is kind of Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the snow Warms me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine