Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ralph Benmergui: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1793

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

In this 1793rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Ralph Benmergui in an attempt to make sense of it all. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, Blue Sky Agency, Kindling, RetroFestive.ca and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Live from the Boon Basement, it's time for the 4,558, whatever, of Toronto, Mike. I'm his guest, Rolf Bumungu. What a pro. And that wasn't even scripted, everybody. You'd never tell Maybe next time we script it for you Welcome to episode Welcome to episode 1,7993 of Toronto

Proudly brought to you by retrofestive.C.A Canada's pop culture and Christmas store Great Lakes Brewery Order online for free local homes delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Blue Sky Agency, ask Doug Mills about how Silen delivers the space to focus, collaborate,

and recharge. Nick Aini's, he's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Building Success, two podcasts you ought to listen to. Kindling, go to shopkindling.ca for free one-hour cannabis delivery. Recycle my electronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to Toronto-Miked.

It's my rabbi, but not that kind of rabbi. Ralph, Ben Murgie. Welcome back, Ralph. Thank you, Michael. Always, like, I'm always instantly calmed when I see you. You have a calming presence to you. Oh, tell that to my wife. I will.

Just call her up. Did I tell you this about your wife, who I like very much? Smart woman, attractive, way too good for you. Yeah, way too good for me. But she does, she has a blog, and I was reading on her blog about some very interesting insight she had regarding loss and mourning the loss of loved ones. And then my friend and co-host, I guess he's the host of Life's Undertaking, Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home, I said, Brad, we need to talk to Courtney, your wife, Ralph, about what

she wrote. Like, it would be perfect for Life's Undertaking 22 minutes via Zoom. True. Your wife said no. I know. But why? She's a news person. Like, she's comfortable in front of a mic.

Well, she's a psychotherapist now. But yeah, she was. But she's always been a bit shy. I mean, for a woman of her intelligence, her beauty, her sensitivity, I've never understood it. But I've learned not to fight it. I have a question now. Okay.

Hit me of all your questions. We have a lot of time here. Kindling. Yeah. One hour, like a person can't last more than one hour. They've got to get it to me in the hour. It's more like I actually chatted with my. Michael Davis from Kinling yesterday.

He's got a podcast. He came over. And I was asking him about like, okay, let's say there's a game seven of the World Series and your team is playing. Like, they have analytics. They can see an uptick around 7 p.m. People will place an order so that it arrives for game time. I mean, they can see this.

Like Halloween's a big night and that was actually game six as well. But yeah, it's very convenient because you order online at shopkinling. And less than an hour later, it's like at your door. Wow. I just find the whole idea that you've got to have it now. Well, that's the age we live in, Ralph, right? Apparently. You're ordering Big Macs and they're ordering coffee for McDonald's. Yeah, I don't do that.

But you know what? Game 7, I was in Connecticut at a retreat with 100 men. All of them American except me and my son and both of the rabbis who were there who were helping to run things. so we were by the time that happened there was a sweat lodge going on and a fire pit thing going on and drumming which i was doing with a friend of mine who we we drum all weekend and uh i went into our room my son and i watched the game i kind of went numb when the number nine hitter rojas yeah hit a home run something in me just shriveled up And I just thought, I don't know why, but I can't, I thought, none of this is real from here on in.

And when they had the broken bat double play to end the game, I sort of thought, what do you mean? Is that the game's over? I don't get it. And my son was so disappointed, but my youngest son was devastated because he's watched every inning of every game all year. And my wife was devastated. She's a huge hockey fan. A hockey fan, baseball fan. Maybe both.

No, just baseball. Yeah, I know. She doesn't like hockey. Well, this was a very likable team, Ralph, right? Like a lot of people, including myself, sort of fall in love of this particular team. Yeah, but we weren't bandwagoners. We've been there from day one for every season. So totally watching, but it was, I mean, just the idea that we were in a game seven in the World Series was just enough for me.

I just thought, come on. I mean, we could win or we could lose. It was all one play or another. The whole series was even up. And there's something about being even up with a billionaire baseball club, which is kind of cool. So I just love baseball.

To me, I interviewed Quincy Jones once, and he said, baseball is like acoustic music, like wooden music. It's pastoral. There's a field. You know, it's a summer game.

And I just love it. Like, the guy can hit, a single and a tight game, get to first and have a nice conversation with the opposing player. I see that, yeah. Hi, how you doing? How's the kids? Everything all right? You know, and in hockey, it's like, maybe I could change the momentum by punching this person

into submission. That'll do it. Right. Right, which I don't dig anymore at all. I never did dig fighting, even when I played hockey. There are interesting differences between those two sports, because at the end of a series in baseball, you pop the champagne. Like, if you, if you clinch the pennant. If you win your wild card series, every step along the way,

the beer and champagne is flowing and they have a huge celebration. But in hockey, no, no, not only is there, but there's no celebration until you win the Stanley Cup. That's one big difference. And the other thing is, at the end of every series in hockey, they line up and shake hands.

Yeah. You don't have that formal hand-shaking. No, not in baseball. You congratulate your own team. My wife has pointed out that she wished they did that. Yeah. But they only do that in playoff hockey. They don't do it in regular season hockey.

At the end of a series. But do you feel like maybe there's a little too much celebration on your way to the World Series in Major League Baseball? Well, it's a six-month span of 162 games before you even get to playoffs. And they get like, what,

one day off every two weeks. And they're like really grinding. So for me, I don't care. I mean, they can spray it all over the place and have a few drinks. I don't care. It's just fun to see them win. And for all the bandwagoners,

I hope you stick with it. I'm okay with, I mean, I did a band. This particular season, I actually became a bandwagoner. Like, I kind of took a pass on the regular season, and I got interested in the final weekend, and I was there for every single playoff game,

every inning, except I went to bed, like, after 12 innings on that 18- inning game. Yeah, I went to bed at midnight, 12-30, No, 12.30, quarter to one. Right. One of my sons was up till two, and the other one was up till three till the end. Wow. What I remember before I don't remember anything, so I guess I fall asleep. But I remember the bases were loaded, and Lucas was at the plate, and he grounded out to first. I think he had a full count. Like, I remember thinking, oh, like, you know, walk in a run, and then we did end this now.

But anyway, we lost that game in 18. But what a series, right? So many moments. Well, I love when Toronto just catches fire. It's cool. Yeah. But I'm glad. I'm curious for your thoughts. There was some sentiment, I think Steve Paken and others were saying, hey, we need a parade for this team because, you know. Yeah, I actually said that. I was driving back from the, well, my son was, one of my sons was doing all the driving back from this retreat, this spiritual retreat we were on. And I said, you know, they should have a parade for the Jays, just because, what a magical season, what a magical chemistry they had. And he was just like, no, no, I mean, the players would hate it. I don't think the players would participate.

Yeah, they just feel like, no, we lost. I can't stand here and go, oh, Toronto, I love you. Like, parades are for champions. I guess. I think Guerrero was in Cancun the next day. Like, I don't think there's any appetite to do a parade. And I'm glad we didn't do anything like that. I mean, let's win the championship and then we can have a big-ass parade.

how it works, Ralph. Well, the Raptors, that was huge. Oh, yeah, 2019. Yeah, that was like a million people. I actually got a copy. Mark Hebscher has a new book. Hebsy has a book on sports media, but it interweaves like his biography, his life with the history of sports media in this country. It's actually really good. He's going to be at, this is an opportunity for me to invite you and Courtney and your many children and your many friends, Ralph. But I have many children. What are you talking about? We're tied up in that regard. You're tied up, exactly. Do all your kids live in Canada?

Yes. Okay. Pagan's got four kids, and I think they're all in a different country. Yeah, well, Zach's out in Europe somewhere. And, yeah, no, I'm going to the Eastern Final of the CFL with Paken on Saturday. I guess that's in Hamilton, then. It is in Hamilton. And I happen to have an Angelo Mosca, Hamilton, Ticat's Jersey.

I remember who did he fight? Remember that press conference when you started fighting somebody? No. Yeah. this is later in his life but okay so I'm just going to do this invitation and then I'm okay sorry no no please this is a fun combo

we're going to cover a lot of ground here today I have a lot of questions for you as you can imagine it's been a while since you've been here it's been oh yeah so what I'm inviting you to yes and I hope you show up at this I might I usually don't you know that I know you don't but I did notice you came out to a humble and Fred event in Burlington's because you kept bugging me about it well because I produced that show and I was paid to bug you

right well I'm so now I'm pay I'm now bugging you for free. All right. Okay. November 29. And listeners, this is for you too. I'm very serious right now. I don't think I've been promoting this hard enough.

November 29, it is the last Saturday of November. At noon, if you come to Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga, the second floor, we're going to have a live recording, and this is what's going to happen. You will pop on the mic and say hello to everybody and happy holidays and just be there. People want to be around you, Ralph. So you can do that, but you also get a meal, and you can order whatever you want from the hot table. It's on the house, okay?

So Palma pasta is paying for your meal. It could be pasta or it could be chicken. It could be, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of great options. Do they have vegetarian options? Of course. Of course. Just asking. Of course, of course, of course.

So Palma pasta will feed you. Where is it? Like, it's kind of close to like Mavis and Burnhamthorpe. Well, that doesn't help. Well, I'm going to give you an address. Okay. I'm going to give you an adjutant. It's called Paul. If you went into Google and you put Palma's Kitchen. Yes. You couldn't miss it, Palm's Kitchen. But I can always put this into an email for you. But it's easy to find. You could Google TMLX.

And will you be upset with me if I don't show up? Yeah, I'm going to be pissed at you. I was pissed at you before. I'll be pissed at you again. Okay. I tell you, for most of these things on weekends, it's kind of family time. So. I'll bring them. Okay. But okay, in addition to feeding everybody who shows up. Yeah. I am bringing cold, fresh beer from Great Lakes brewery. bring the beer, you'll get the palm of pasta. But this is kind of exciting.

There's a new sponsor called retrofestive.ca. Ralph, we all know that you celebrate Christmas. You're a big Christmas man. I tried to have a tree one year, many years ago in my first marriage. And I just went, I can't. Was she a Gentile? No, well, she was a convert, but no, I can't. I just couldn't have the tree in the house.

Well, let's call this a Hanukkah gift, okay? Okay, that's a good. This is a moose mug. as seen in National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. Like it's a mug? It's a ceramic mug. It's a mug. It looks like that picture there.

It's a moose mug. Oh, wow. And you can take that home with you and drink whatever you want from that. Is there one in here? Yeah, there is. That's yours. Well, now I've got a honeyka gift for one of my children. Here's an inappropriate moose mug.

Well, it's appropriate as far as I'm concerned. And I will thank, I do want to thank RetroFestive. Thank you, RestroFestive. They are going to give everybody a temporary, off if you use the code FOTM at retrofestive.ca. This is Canada's pop culture and Christmas store.

So, welcome aboard RetroFestive. You've got a gift, but this is a long-winded way of me for me to say that everyone who comes to TMLX21 on November 29 gets a gift from RetroFestive. And I don't know what the gift is, but Ty the Christmas guy says he's spending at least

$1,000 on gifts for the first 75 people who come to TMLX21. So this is awesome it's a free event i see you you pop on the mic you get some italian food you get a beer you get a gift i want to see you there ralph no pressure i want to see you there okay a lot of ground i want to cover but you keep you reference to this spiritual retreat yes can you tell me i mean it sounds like you guys are like become like cavemen or something what's going on over there you're drumming on

rocks and then you're in a sweat lodge i didn't go in the sweat lodge i can't do that sort of thing doesn't jive with my chemistry but um it's a three okay starts on a friday and at this retreat center in connecticut just over the border from new york state and uh it's beautiful country it's it's the berkshers it's just beautiful and uh we do it in late autumn so you get all the colors uh and it's about a hundred men of different ages this year we have had 20 men under 35, which was great, because you don't just want, you know, graybeards like me walking around going, hey, I haven't seen you in a year. My head hurts. So, no, we go and it's, they're Jewish. Everybody's Jewish. And it's a really interesting thing. I was talking

to one of the, the man who actually co-founded it 34 years ago. And I said, you know, some of the new guys, when they show up. They get a hug from a man, but it's a real hug. It's not man hug where you sort of take the guy's hand and bring them in towards you and slap them in the back twice

and walk away. Then they're going, man, these guys are like, they really hug you. And I said, yeah, it's kind of part of the deal. But what we had this year, I was a co-chair this year, and we did eco-spirituality.

And when they asked me last year, would you, you know, chair at this? year, I said, only if we do eco-spirituality. And they went, what's that? And I said, it's about connecting yourself to the natural world as part of the natural world, not as some sort of petting zoo, you know, nature thing over there, that you're part of, you are the natural world if you ground yourself in it. So we did a whole bunch of stuff around that, and we do service on a Friday night and a Saturday morning. I'm involved with something called

Aleph Canada. I'm the executive director of Olive Canada now. And there's Aleph in the United States, which is an ordination program that I did to become a spiritual director, but also they ordained rabbis and cantors and chaplains. So it's a wonderful thing to do. And I do this as part of what's called Jewish Renewal, which is not a denomination. It's more like an innovation factory for how to regain spirituality for people. A lot of people, the statistic is in the next five years, in North America, they expect five, no, nine thousand religious institutions of one form or another to close. Because people don't relate. They're not resonating. They're being, they sit, they watch, they go home, you know, they put on nice clothes

to do it. But they don't get a spiritual and embodied spiritual experience. So renewal is about bringing things like meditation and breath and yoga and all those things into your thing, enchanting and slowing down the service and just taking pieces of it and, you know, really just reflecting and not just a presentation by clergy to a group of people who aren't paying attention, frankly, quite often. There's some that work very well in a traditional way, but we are not traditional. We also get a lot of people who are LGBTQ, who don't feel like they belong to other kinds of denominations. There's a new one in Toronto, a renewal congregation that started in Toronto. I went to the high holiday services. We had 150 people. It was great, called Hussadei, and it's fantastic.

So anyway, through Aleph, Canada, I'm working with people all across Canada who are doing renewal congregations. Okay, you've introduced some big things here, Ralph. So, okay, so I'm going to spell Aleph because it took me a while to catch on, too. It is A-L-E-P-H. Yeah, it's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Aleph, Bait, Gimaldalid, so beta would be Bait. Right. You know, alpha is olive, al-S, so from the Greek to the Hebrew, to the Arabic.

And it's Aleph-Canada.ca. Yes. and if you dig it at all, please donate so we can create our capacity because I've inherited something that has really need some donation stuff going on so that we can really jazz it and have a great. I just had connected a guy, an old friend in Nelson, B.C., who has got a small thing going in his own home once a month in a renewal way, with a rabbi in Regina who has a spare Torah that somebody gave back from a community that no longer exists.

And he's giving that Torah to my friend and Nelson, and that's part of what I do, is just connect people and get them to, you know, continue to grow Jewish renewal. So you said inherited, that's a term you use. But, like, how did you get this? Is this like a new gig for you? Like you're running the ALF Canada?

Yeah, it happened in, I guess, January, February, I wrote, maybe even December, I wrote on my Facebook, one of my Facebook pages, my personal one, I wrote that I go every year to this men's retreat. It's a fantastic

spiritual experience in the service part of it as well, in Friday night and Saturday and morning services. And I come back to Southern Ontario and there's nothing, nada, the biggest Jewish population in Canada and nothing. And so I got a direct

message from a rabbi who I'd done some coursework, teaching a course for her years ago in Montreal. And she said, hi, it's me. We should talk. I said, okay. So we got on a Zoom and she said, listen, I'm winding down Aleph in Canada. But I think you should do it. And I laughed. I literally laughed. And she said, I'm only kind of half kidding. And then we had a nice long conversation about things and then I had a few more and then we figured out a way to actually not make it a volunteer thing but a paid thing but not a lot but

just enough to keep my attention on it and off I went and I thought what have I done but I'm really digging it actually it's a real challenge to sort of figure out how to create an organic

and growing movement to inject spirituality back into what has where many people become a more abundant religious peace. Religion is not spirituality. They're not the same thing. But is that a base, like is that a mandatory

prerequisite? Like if I remember my university days, it's like, oh, I can't take that. I don't have the mandatory prerequisite. But you need to be Jewish? No. Well, no. I think everybody learns from everybody. Like, we learned from the Buddhists for instance in renewal

about non-duality. That things are not separate from you. You are part of everything and everything is part of you, right, which is the basis of a spiritual experience. Spirituality is a relationship thing. Between you and yourself, you and the other, and you and the earth and the cosmos, right?

So religion is an attempt to build community with a fitness program. So Sabbath, every Friday night to Saturday is a Sabbath, if I want a spiritual six-pack, I got to go to the gym Right Right? Like if you don't go to the gym

You don't get the six pack So for people They should create ritual pieces That they can incorporate into their life For some people like me and other people They meditate Other people Use body work and breath work

Breathwork. Breathworks become very big And what you're really trying to do Is jump over your own brain And experience your spirit life. I mean, do you realize there's two trillion galaxies? Galaxies. You're breaking my brain, Ralph. Two trillion

galaxies, not stars. Billions of stars in the galaxies. But doesn't this tend to make you feel insignificant? Well, it makes me... Like if you dwell on that for even a moment, you realize, oh, I'm a grain of sand in the Sahara. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand in the entire planet Earth. So what

that does, for me, it does make me feeling significant. It makes me get perspective on this isn't about some thing we call God that talks about, how's Ralph doing today? Right. It's said, come on. That's not what I'm doing here. It's more just understanding you're in an enormous cosmic flow. Right. Of creation, energy. So you are born, and you find yourself wanting to procreate, right? It's an urge you have in life. Animals, they create. We create our work. You create this podcast.

People feel the urge to create. Well, the whole universe is full of that energy. And we're just floating in it. Like when I do workshops with people, I say, so, okay, let's get the God thing out of the way. When I say God, so when I say God, what do you think God is? Well, I've seen God on The Simpsons. He's got a big, long white beard. No, you're not getting away with it.

What do you think God is? God, I, okay, honestly, we've had this chat on, not the kind of rabbi, but I feel like God is sort of a man-made spiritual being that's somehow overseeing all of the universe. Man-made? Yes. So it's really a fiction that makes us feel better? Yeah, like it's sort of just, yes, I think it makes a lot of people feel better. Okay, so I think that that's the Santa God. the guy with a man with a beard and a naughty and nice list on a throne.

Right. So it's a noun. It's a thing. A thing, yes. I don't do that. I do a verb. So tell me, Ralph, what is God? Who is God?

What is God? There is no who is God. Okay. God is just a, it's not a being. It's a place making name for the unknowable. When you said, don't you feel insignificant when there's two trillion galaxies? No. I feel like, don't try to pretend you're not.

know what's going on here because I haven't a clue what the big picture is. So that big picture that's always in motion and in action, you can use the word God for it or you can just call it. Okay, so talk to me like I'm a four-year-old here for a moment, Ralph, because I have the intellect of a four-year-old. Okay, you've wet your pants. Can I take a moment? I've got to change my diaper over here. Yeah, exactly. But I just, please help me out. So when you refer to God, yes. And you say this is like a, it's a placeholder for what, the energy? Like, please, your words, explain God

because you do realize many people think of God as some kind of a being. Yeah, absolutely. I don't. Because I don't think in dual terms that I'm me and you're you and this is that. I think we're all made of the same stardust, right?

So I think that God is an action. It's an action of creation. I can't possibly know the origin or content or of it. I just know I'm in it. So if I'm in it, I have one job. I can either be a cancerous cell in that body or I can be a helpful cell, a good cell in that body. Don't you think, Ralph, you're confusing things by referring to this as God? No, I think I'm asking people to take a

different look because what happens... It's rebranded. All right, so here's the thing. Here's the joke. The joke is the student runs into the rabbi from the sanctuary and goes Rabbi, there's mice in the synagogue. Right there, there's mice. And the rabbi goes, don't worry about it. He goes, no, I mean,

they're going to eat the Torah. It's made of parchment. They're going to eat it. It goes, okay, fine, relax. Here's what you do. You go, you make little yarmulkas, little keepers, put them on their heads, give them a bar mitzvah, and you'll never see them again. I get it. Right? So that's what happens to

people get this pediatric version of God that they think kids can understand. They become adolescents and go, what are you talking about? And they walk away. And they never explore the idea that there's something mystic and unbelievable going on out here.

And we're just a dirtball floating in the middle of it. Yeah, but this dirt ball is fucking it up. No, we're fucking up to dirtball. Well, that's what I mean. I meant, sorry, that's what I mean, exactly. But like... I think you know why? Because nothing, we don't...

This is exactly what our weekend was about. You don't have a sacred relationship with this earth. You don't have a sacred relationship with each other. Things are not sacred. They're profane. That's why you can extract whatever you want from them and out of you. So I only look at you as, what you see you to me? Are you going to advance my career?

You know when you went to those parties and somebody goes, what do you do? Of course. And you tell them and they start looking around you as opposed to talking to you. Right, because they realize you can't help them? You can't help them. So if you talk... Unless they need a podcast.

If you did it as a... Exactly. But if you did it as a sacred thing, a relationship thing. Right. Really trying to talk to the sacred part of them, not the what it used to you to me part. That's what we need. That's our problem. Is that nothing is sacred.

I like the vibes here. I'm digging what you're saying here. But you said, though, 100 men came out to this retreat. Yeah. And I'm thinking, can we get a billion men to that retreat next time? Like, I feel like... But they all go back into their communities and they affect their communities. Right.

But it just seems like... And I know you have to do something. Public Enemy, okay? Yes. Public Enemy released a new song I was listening to this week. And it's basically the theme is like, do something. Because people seem to be asleep at the wheel. Like, it seems like people are kind of sleep.

Maybe it's because you get your cannabis in under an hour. Maybe it's because every TV show, every movie you've ever heard of is a click away from consuming over, you know, just a continuous loop. You can go upstairs now and watch, you know, every season of ER that, you know, you can go do that right now if you want. Like, for whatever reason, people are sleepwalking as the world is on fire. Why do you think you're sleepwalking? Because I don't have a sense. I was raised to think that when there was a political unrest or

you know that punk would rise and then through the art particularly maybe great music there would be an uprising of sorts right and I feel like I realize this during Trump's first term it's not happening anymore like it just feels to me like there are people like yourself who are spreading the good word

and having your retreats in LFCanada.ca.a And I'm trying to do my little part with this particular podcast you're on it and I'm trying to do my part when you know this is going to be a lovely gathering on November 29th of good FOTM's like I'm trying to do what I can but it doesn't feel like there's enough

there's enough numbers to make a difference anywhere. Okay, so two things. And I have specifics we'll get into but what were you going to say? Two things. One is the revolution's not out there it's inside.

It's in you. Right. You've got, so there's this thing in Judaism called Tikunolam, which is repair of the world. But what I say is, before you get to repairing the world, repair your soul, Tikuna Nefish, repair Tikunha Adama, repair the earth, and then, you know, go for the big banana. But the point is that when you look at people who are kind of paralyzed the way you're describing them, it's because they're overwhelmed. How am I supposed to put my arms around climate change, for instance?

It is too big for me. So I'm reduced to standing in my kitchen, throwing things into different blue boxes, 10% of which will be recycled, because the game is rigged on that one. But what I think, those who control the levers of power need to make sure that you and I are contented cows

sitting in our houses watching whatever and that we still have enough work that we don't start to revolt because the minute the middle class says hey this is fucked up you've got a revolution but right now you've got poor people disenfranchised middle class people feeling like nothing's enough

and rich people saying run away get on a thing go to be go to Mars so it's nuts what we're doing I find myself sitting here and you'll tell me about this great retreat, which sounds like it was a good time for you and your sons, and it sounds like it was very beneficial to you. Oh, yeah. Every year I do it.

It's wonderful. But I'm sitting here thinking, like, you know, he went to Connecticut. Like, that's the country where the ice, the raids, and they're picking out kindergarten teachers and disappearing them. And it just seems like, and this is a country where the president earlier this calendar year talked openly about how we should be the 51st state and maybe he needs to devastate us economically so that we beg to be the 51st state. Like, these are on the record statements from the President of the United States.

Like, I'm actually disappointed you're crossing the border. Well, my wife was too. She didn't want me to go. But I went to be with people of like mind and of sacred intention. And to think that Americans are all Donald Trump supporters, I mean, look at the results of the elections that just went by. I want to ask you about that. I mean, come on.

you had states flipping to Democrat governors that hadn't done it in years. You have state legislatures going Democrat that hadn't in years. You have Madmani who is bringing what Bernie Sanders started. The embarrassing part is the democratic socialism that they're talking about. Where's the NDP on this? They gave up on it years ago trying to get power. You don't, you know. They don't even have a leader.

right now. No, they don't. But even when they had one, except for a kind of anomaly when Jack Layton managed to get 100 seats, that's just a one-off. But whatever happened to good old-fashioned democratic socialism, we're not supposed to say anything about it. I think it's our systems that don't work. And what I think you're seeing in the United States with Donald Trump is the white supremacist backlash. It's happened ever since Obama. that no, wait a minute, we're not going there. I have a feeling, I've always had a feeling that America is engaged in a slow-motion civil war, that there's, the middle of the country is not L.A. and New York and the coasts.

They're entirely different countries. But, you know, we have some of the same things here. We can't kid ourselves. So me not going to be with people who have good intention and spiritual direction doesn't make anything any better. And I'm the kind of guy who looks at the planet and thinks, really? We draw these fake lines on everything and kill each other over it?

Right. I mean... But we do. Well, I was in Germany years ago. I had to give a talk, Canadian club talks, they were doing. Al-Waxman couldn't go. So they sent me. So I was in...

Remember, we had bases in Baden and Larger Germany. Baden, Baden and LAR, where two Canadian forces bases were, Air Force bases, I think. And so I went there to talk. So we go on, my driver takes us to, we want to go to Alsace-Lorraine over the German border to France. So we go, okay, so here we go. I've got my passport ready. I'm already, we're getting near the border. I'm looking on the sides of the road as we're driving and thinking,

boy, people were killing each other in these forests and tanks were rolling over these roads. And then we get to the border, there's nobody there. Nobody. And I said to my driver, well, where's the border person? And he said, oh, no, no, it's the European Union now. And I thought all those people, dead bodies that are rotting in that forest for nothing. And we do this all the time.

And I just, so even elbows up, for me was like, hey, no, no, no, we're the guys who don't even remember what words got changed in the national anthem. We don't get up and, you know, have honor guards and military uniforms every 10 minutes. We're Canadians. And we're Canadians as a loose confederation of people who really, if you think about it, this is an impossible country that shouldn't be together, but that's the beauty of it. So for me, all this nascent nationalism is very worrying. Look, people say religion kills people.

If it wasn't religion, it'd be your bowling league. It'd be, I'm a, you know, soccer goons. It's always, there's two parts to people, the tribal and the universal. We need more universal, less tribal. Okay, it's a million places I want to go, but a real quick hit here. Yeah. Do you feel like Canada's sovereignty is being threatened? No.

I think the man's a clown, but I don't underestimate it. Powerful clown, though. Well, powerful for a while. Remember, he's in his 80s, and he's not going to get any younger. But he's not the problem. He's the symptom. I think our systems are blatantly showing that things are not fair. That you have people in tents and parks. you have middle class people who haven't seen a rise in wages in real terms in 45 years.

You see a capitalist system that is for the rich, and you see people really trying to get at each other in frustration. So I think that Donald Trump will be, what Donald Trump, Thomas Friedman was saying this on a podcast, What America has lost is the world's trust. People don't trust because it's an erratic, psychotic regime. There's a comic who had a, you know, what's his name, Miller, the Stephen Miller, is that his name? The guy who's the deputy White House. Yes, I know who you talk about.

Yeah, it's funny, I think it's Steve Miller, but I think that's a musician. He's Jewish from California, and there was a comic doing a bit about MAGA, and he was going, no, I think it's going really, really well. And then he'd do another thing about MAGA, and then he finally said, and hey, kudos to the regime. I mean, how often can you actually get a Jewish Nazi? That's fantastic. Stephen Miller confirmed.

Oh, yeah, he's horrible, horrible. Like, the worst parts of what's in the underbelly of a lot of people have now been given permission. But the midterms, for me, are a hopeful period of time where Americans can take back what they, if the midterms go the Democrats way and they regain Congress, he's done. Well, Trump ignores Congress anyways. Well, he's a, you know, tariffs and all this. He ignores it because he doesn't ignore it. Well, he bypasses it.

He bypassed, no, he does more than that. He intimidates it. He says to every Republican, if you actually want a chance of winning, then you, You have to do what I say. You have to get out of my way. And if you don't, I'll primary you out. I'll get rid of you. But that didn't work this time, right?

I mean, he kept endorsing people in the elections last week, and they didn't win. So if you look at the polls of what people approve of, they don't approve of him. Pierre Pahliav in Canada, you know, there are people, the guy who just crossed the Florida, the liberals said, too negative. He's just too negative for me. He just never stopped. Like, he talks about chaos in the streets. Do you know the two safest countries in the world?

Japan and Canada. And he's talking about it as if there are people rolling over your hood of your car while you're driving with AKAs. I mean, just nonsense, bullshit. Listen, I hear from people in the 905, okay, so we don't have to go that far away. People in 905 are like, oh, I'm so glad I left that shithole Toronto. Like, I hear these comments and stuff.

And I'm like, are we talking about the same Toronto? Like, I'll be, you know, you left the city, though. You left for Hamilton. Yeah, I left for Hamilton because the city had, I didn't feel the city could maintain itself with three million people in it. Because I couldn't get around. I was frustrated. People weren't being kind.

Nobody said hello as I walked by. In Hamilton, anybody you walk by. They say hello. It's just Tom Wilson. Everything's 10 minutes away. It's just a different. Now, do I miss the diversity and the richness and the liveliness of Toronto? Yes.

Do I miss the anxiety of, will I have a parking spot, the anxiety of how am I going to get around, the anxiety of how much things cost? No. So nobody has tackled that. No, no, no. As you know, my hack for that is I just bike everywhere, but I know not everybody is to think everywhere. But even then, a lot of people don't ride, not because they don't want to, because they feel very

unsafe. Even the bike lanes on bluer, right? I mean, you've got still there today. Yeah, but you've got delivery basically motorcycles flying down that stuff. I do. Yes, that is a new development. And scooters that are, you know, battery power, they go flying down that street. They're not bicycles. So it's all out of whack. It's all in whack. So a lot of ground. I feel like we're still just warming up here. But can I drill in a little bit for your thoughts on what happened in New York City

on Tuesday? So, and I hope I say it right. Zoran Mamdani. Did I get that right? Zoran. Momdani. M-A-M-D-A-N-I. Mamdani. Yes.

Right? Okay. Hindu mother, Muslim father. So that's a first. These are first. So, I mean, it's the young, he's 34 years old. So he's the youngest mayor of New York in like 100 years or something like that. And what does he just drop the fun fact?

But he's the first of South Asian heritage. He's the first born in Africa. I'm talking about being a mayor of Toronto. he's the first Muslim there of New York. Did I say Toronto? New York City. I meant New York City, everybody. What are your thoughts on his victory?

Very progressive. Yeah. I mean, now he comes up against the machine. And he has to figure out at 34 years of age how to work against and for the powers that are all around him in a city that has a deep amount of diversity in terms of its income, it's pedigree. So he has a lot ahead of him. He's a wonderful communicator,

and that matters. He's a hopeful sign for me that I'm a Democratic socialist. So he's a hopeful sign for me that if he can even get two or three big things done, it'll have been worth it. But it also is a sea change.

I mean, when you see Mario Cuomo, or not Mario. Yeah, Andrew. Andrew. No, yeah. Andrew Cuomo. Right. So you see him, you see the establishment of the Democratic Party. I think it was good because it scares them and makes them realize that the Bernie Sanders

faction of the party is alive and well and is making big gains. And they need that because. Look, fundamentally, I think the hypercapitalism we live with is our biggest problem. Not Donald Trump. He's just a symptom of that hypercapital. It's an oligarchy, which is no different than what's running Russia. You know, a bunch of billionaires, and in Putin's regime, if you don't agree, if you're a journalist, they'll kill you in a stairwell.

But if you're a billionaire, they'll either try to throw you in jail or exile you. That's what Trump would like to do. If you, you know, buzzwords for anti-Semitism are like Soros. George Soros, oh, okay, we're talking about a Jewish guy. All right, I get it. Jews run the world. Well, if Jews run the world, they're doing a shitty job of not gaining really bad attention for it. Okay, I'm going to bring it closer to home here on that note.

So Mayor Olivia Chow, mayor of Toronto. She has taken some heat from Jewish groups particularly, but she, called the Gaza War a genocide. Right. I look to you, Ralph Ben-Murgy. What are your thoughts on the fact, and she has, she has said basically, she has defended her actions. She kind of says she's going to follow the lead of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Right. So that's the lead she's following on this one by calling this war on Gaza by Israel a genocide. What are your thoughts on all this? So for me, I think that a lot of people I can only speak towards North American Judaism, Jewishness at this point.

And I would say that for a lot of people, they've turned to religion into Israelism. And so it's Israel right or wrong, right? It's really hard to speak out and not be called a self-hating Jew. for me, I think what's the Israel I first visited years ago and the Israel of today are night and day and I think the Israel of today because they're one thing

they have one of the most horrible voting systems purely proportional voting so if you get three or four percent of the vote you get three or four percent of the Knesset, the legislature. Right? So you have fringe parties that control over the main parties because you need them for a coalition. Netanyahu, for me, has always been an awful, awful influence in Israel, and will do anything to stay in power and has so far succeeded to do just that.

But the hard right, racist, bigoted, horribly intentioned fringe players, who are now a foreign minister and defense and are destroying the dream of Israel. You know, Reb Zalman Shachter Shalomi, Rabbi Zalman Shacker Shalom, was the founder of Jewish Renewal. And I was rereading one of his first books called Paradigm Shift.

And in it, he talks about what Israel he would see. And it was fascinating because he said, Jerusalem should be an international city owned by no one. It should be the capital of the United Nations. That's where it should be. Not in New York City, not in one of the empires of the world. It should be in Jerusalem. It should be an international city.

And the Israeli Defense Force should be the first to volunteer to be peacekeepers in the world. That's how he saw it. And when I think of what's going on now, And when I think of these bloodthirsty settlers who are attacking Palestinians, I say shame on us. Shame. I don't say they're right and we're wrong. You do not want to be in a fundamentalist militia that will throw a homosexual off the top of a building. You do not want to be that either.

Right. So everybody's wrong and everybody's right. That's the problem. So what I think is that the whole rethink has to happen. Imagine the Middle East where everyone was working together in that region. You know how powerful that region would be between oil money and technology and innovation and climate change initiatives that are changing the world? You know drip irrigation where you have like looks like a long hose and little pinholes in it?

Yes. That was invented in Israel. That saved the Indian agricultural economy. We could be working together, everybody. Enough already. You're not different than me. You are me. But that's not realistic.

What do you mean that's not realistic? What's not realistic is killing people for not... Yuval Hariri, wonderful thinker and writer, philosopher and historian, he said, we don't kill each other over land. We kill each other over stories, my story and your story. So the indigenous story, the white settler story, the Jewish person story, like, it's all a bunch of made-up nonsense. And I guarantee you, the vast majority of people who have five minutes left to live go, what the hell are we up to? What are we doing?

Why are we doing this? Why are we making these false choices and hating and hating? That's why I say the revolution's inside you, not outside. If you can stop being that kind of person, that's a revolution. Do you, Ralph Ben-Murgy, do you think that, you know, Netanyahu's punishing war on Gaza is a genocide? I don't know. I don't care because what it's done is alienate everybody in the conversation. You either are with it or against it.

What I think is that the Netanyahu government is, murderous disproportionate and yet I also think if we were living here and the indigenous people of this country too decided

we're going to go into Toronto killed 1,200 people most of them just people going to concerts kill them and then take 250 of them back into the reserve if that happened here all the people who think

this is awful. They would be cheering for the army to go in and attack. What Netanyahu did was not just react to what happened. What he did was become a murderous, awful, awful human being. Going way, way, way, way too far. All of it's way too far. Hamas, way too far. the Israeli right hardcore right way too far Trump way too far this is a very dangerous time in the world there's all kinds of things to be worried about

you know if China and America actually decided to cooperate we would have innovations that you wouldn't believe they have a $7,000 electric vehicle in China we're not allowed to see it because it'll ruin our auto industry they have $30,000 EV tractor trailers Europeans buy them, we don't, right?

So there's all this nonsense because we actually think that these are separate countries on this dirtball. That's why I think it's important to know it's a dirtball. Stop taking it so seriously and stop thinking you're the biggest thing in the movie. I just want to shout out Shy Klein, who came over. He was at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th,

and we talked for two hours about all his... He took a lot of photos of that day. he's a photographer. And I just recommended highly to listen to Shai Klein talk about being at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7th, was that 2023. Very interesting. What do you learn from it?

What I learned is, well, what is there to learn? What I took in was his very interesting way of accounting, you know, minute by minute, how it was dealing with Israeli officers and just to be on the ground there. Now he was a little bit under the influence, but he's very open about what he was experiencing and how he saved his friend's life and everything. And yeah, it was a horrific, horrific day

for just a bunch of kids who wanted to go take some drugs and enjoy some EDM, some music. And if you isolated it, it would be, why did that happen? That's awful. But if you put it in the chain of events that have been going on since 48 and before, since the 20s, you understand that everybody's stuck. I did a documentary series on Israel years ago, My Israel.

And I was on the plane on the way back with my co-producer, Alan Novak. And he said, so, what do you think? Because we knew we had to come home and edit, right? And I said, everybody's a victim. Everybody I spoke to, family in the West Bank, settlers in the West Bank. Religious people, secular people, people in circles with Palestinian and Israelis together who've lost loved ones to these horrible atrocities over the years. But every one of them thought they were a victim. And if you think you're a victim,

you can't imagine yourself as a perpetrator. And I think one of the crises of identity going on for Israel is having lived as the victim, they now have to live as a perpetrator, right? The worst thing that happened to Israel is in 1967 in the occupation of the West Bank in Gaza. Gaza was run by the Egyptians, and the West Bank was run by the Jordanians. And it's all made up.

There was no such country as Jordan. King Hussein is not from there. He's from Saudi Arabia. Hussein Klan was kicked out by the Sauds, and they relocated to Iraq and Jordan and made monarchies in places where there were no such people. Syria and Lebanon were French colonial pieces. The English were in Israel. People don't understand. These were, within 200 years, completely fiction-based.

The Ottoman Empire existed before that, and that was just one large Ottoman tract of land. The only one that was legitimately there from beginning to land was Egypt. All the rest of it's made up. So now we're killing each other over made up places and stories of who we are. We are doing that, but I want to ask you on this note about a couple of false equivalencies, one of which is that I have noticed in conversations, that there is an equivalency being made by some people, Hamas and Palestine. like right so so when we talk about october 7th which was a horrific invasion of a sovereign nation

like i'm not i'm not going to it was awful and in horrific and but that was hamas invading israel in hamas a terrorist organization needs to needs to be eradicated right so but Israel right and its formation had uh what people were calling terrorists the hagana they were terrorists. You always call people terrorists. We used to call them guerrillas, right? It was guerrilla asymmetric warfare, you know, resistance. And all those elements are true in these pieces. The thing with the other overlay is fanaticism. And my father always used to say, the minute you feel that someone is a fanatic, watch out. And there are fanatics in the right wing of the Israeli government who are hateful.

There are fanatics in the Muslim world who are hateful. But there are, you know what, Palestinians who just want to take their kids to school every day and make a living. Israelis, same thing. So what you have instead is people accusing each other of being the one who's wrong when the whole idea of killing people to get your way is wrong. And I don't care where it's coming from. And it's considered naive to want peace.

you know what I watched the film Gandhi again I watch it about every three years because it's a three hour film but it inspires me every time I mean how much courage does it take to walk up to somebody who has a baton knowing they're going to hit you in the head

and yet not fight back like what they did in Portland when Trump tried to you know we're invading port because it's a hellhole and everybody got into fur costumes of bears and bunnies and nude bicycle trips. That was perfect.

That to me is the response to this stuff. Not, I'm going to hate you back. So back to the equivalency, right? So Hamas is not Palestine. Well, Islamic jihad, is it Palestine? Is Hamas Palestine? Is the Palestinian Authority, which is just a puppet of Israel at this point

and completely corrupted Palestine? What is Palestine? Well, what is Palestine? Palestine is a name for a geographic region that has amorphous ideas of what their boundaries are. You ask five different people, and they'll tell you five different Palestinians. What I think is that the people, like Hamas, for instance, was originally funded through Israel to divide and conquer, and then got out of, you know, they lost control of it. Iran, why does nobody talk about Iran?

Iran has been funding the destabilization campaign against Israel, the eradication of Israel, complete eradication, kill every Jew in Israel. And people should realize that when you have Israelis saying kill Arab Palestinians, you also have these Iran as a government function, of saying death to now it's called Zionists death to Israel

death to Israel as a chant and Hamas ended up taking over Gaza there was no democracy to it they just started killing people from the Palestinian Authority and driving them back to the West Bank

and took over the region and instituted Islamic Sharia orthodoxy in Israel you have Orthodox Jews who want to run a seeocracy in Israel. So you have all these elements where everybody's screwing up big time. And we're not helping by making sure they all have weapons. Well, okay. Oh, my goodness.

So one last equivalency to ask you about, and I know we've talked about this in the past, but it seems with some people that if you criticize Netanyahu and you criticize Israel's actions, particularly with regards to Gaza, and if you dare label it a genocide, that you are being anti-Semitic. Not the same thing.

Please speak further on that, because I 100% agree with you that you can be... You're not anti-Semitic if you're critical of Israeli policy. Right. Well, because Israel as a nation with a government is worthy of

deep critical analysis my deeper critical analysis is Israel is losing its way as a country now does that have anything to do with my Jewish life in Canada now if you think to yourself oh Jewish

oh you guys because we have 2,000 years of scapegoating 2,000 years of blood libel and priests in pulpits saying we're Christ killers right? We have 2,000 years of it and it pops its head up

every once in a while given an opportunity what we are is a privileged minority in the eyes of North Americans there are two privileged minorities in the eyes of North Americans Jews and Asians you think of Asians as hardworking people very smart very good at what they do you know you think of jews as all have money no you know no problems and they really run things why is that we have all these jews running things you know there's a book

called empire of their own how the jews invented hollywood i interviewed the guy years ago great book about the five jew jew jewish men who started hollywood all the major studios and he said i said the subtitle of your book How the Jews Invented Hollywood Did the publishers have any problem with that? He was in New York, I was in Toronto, I couldn't see him and there was just pause

and then he goes that was the struggle of my life they would not put it on the book I said no no you gotta put it on the book these five Jews invented Hollywood and finally they relented but he had to fight like hell

because they thought I just wrote a piece about the new show, Nobody Wants This? Yes, I wanted to ask you about that. So nobody wants this. A reform rabbi falls in love with a Gentile woman. And in the show itself,

he's basically doing a primer on Judaism. He explains Sabbath, he explains Purim, these holidays, all this stuff. And I thought, how interesting considering Seinfeld was a show with five Jewish people as actors in it, six, if you include Jerry Stiller, as actors in it.

None of them ever mentioned being Jewish. Never made one reference to that. And they end up naming one of the characters George Costanza. Right. Like he's Greek. Right. So that's what America has always done with Jewish identity in pop culture, is put it under a bushel. Just hide it.

this show which was conceived as someone pointed out in the feed on my Facebook page this show was conceived and pitched and and shot the first season before or at the beginnings of anti-Semitism rising in North America and around the world again but make no mistake and I'm amazed it's a hit because it is openly Jewish right But what I find interesting is people don't seem to understand how quickly someone can turn to historic tropes that are hateful. So Jews own the media. Tell that to Rupert Murdoch, right?

You know, tell that to the people who run major corporations around the world. And yet, what it's done is make people. not trust Jewish people. If I said the word Jew, if we went out right now for lunch, and I went, oh, I met this girl, she's Jewish, you know, that loud. Every head in that restaurant would turn towards us.

If I said, well, you know, I'm a Jew, that word is explosive. It's a powerful word, but it's a whole group of people who have lived with awful things done to them and when I think of Israel, I get it. I get why there was a want and a need for an Israel

because we were at the whim and fancy of every country in the world and if their population decided, let's kill some of them. They did. They just did. Let's not let them in. 60 years ago in Toronto, let's make sure there's a quota on how many Jews can be in the medical faculty. You know, that was just a flat.

The Royal Canadian Yacht Club, no Jews allowed. The Granite Club, no Jews allowed. The major golf courses around the city, no Jews allowed. So what was the sign in the beaches? No Irish, no Jews, no dogs. That was Q Beach. I thought that wasn't possibly an urban legend. No, no, no.

Look, the Irish had it just as bad as we did. I mean, the poor Irish who came to Toronto and were in the slums around what became the Old City Hall. That was awful. I mean, people are awful to each other sometimes. And I'm trying to live a life where I'm not considered naive for thinking people could be really kind to each other too because there's eight and a half billion people,

but our news represents a very small majority of them. I mean, there were 14 million Jews in the entire world. Eight and a half billion people, 14 million. and yet what's the hubbub wiggers in China the Tibetans exiled from Tibet by the Chinese

the Sudan Civil War I mean the Congo just atrocities everywhere if we're going to go march in the streets let's march about all of them so you don't think Mayor Olivia Chow should have to resign because she's called it a

genocide I don't think she should have to resign. I think she's allowed to believe what she wants to believe. If you don't want to vote for her, don't. But if you do, because she, you know, got the gardener cleaned up two years early, then go, knock yourself out, right? But it's not up to me, like, I don't like anybody crushing anybody's idea of what's going on right now. Because whatever you want to call it, it was wrong and horrible.

and every level at every step, wrong and horrible. So let's just knock off the self-righteousness and start to realize that we need to do more to be kind to each other. That's, oh, I'm wearing my, it's cool to be kind hoodie. Cool to be kind in the right measure. No, no, we're going to change the song, man. It's cool to be kind.

Shout out to sunshine and broccoli. Okay, so, wow. Okay, by the way, do you think John Tori runs again from there? Oh, I hope not. But it's being floated around as a... No, he's mulling it over. You're asking me, I'm telling you, I hope not, because he was at best a middle manager.

There was no vision. Mr. Dithers. The problem with Toronto for me is where's the vision? Like, even the playfulness and the artistry, it's in pockets, but as a city, I find this in North American politics almost all the time. Very little imagination and very little courage. Did you notice, though, and you probably, you probably watch this Sportsnet feed,

but if you watch the Fox feed of the World Series, we looked really, like, we were ready for our close-up. I got to say, this city looked amazing. Like, they kept doing these drone shots off the water, and then you see the skyline, and then you come to the dome, which we really do look good on film. And then you see the parking tickets. And then you see I'm locking my bike up outside the dome. And then you see me not locking my bike.

my electric bike outside. But Union Station, that's the other thing that was floating around during this World Series. They kept showing the footprint of Dodgers Stadium, and it's just parking lots. It's parking lots. Right? But... Chavez Ravine. And I can tell you, my wife is working at Young, and...

Where is she? York and Queenskey right now. And she takes the go train to Union Station, and then it's a short walk. But most savvy Jay's fans know the Go to Union Station, take either subway or go. Well, from Hamilton, I go to Aldershaw, take the go, get out, walk for 10 minutes into the stadium. Slick, right? Getting home's not fun. You've got to run for the go train. Well, that's true.

I had that problem with Bruce Springsteen. I was like, oh, the last go is coming. Oh, how was Springsteen? So this is a couple of November's ago. Yeah. And it was my first time seeing Bruce Springsteen. And it was, this might be the closest I've come to a religious experience. It was an unbelievable experience watching him go for three plus hours.

It was unbelievable. He's unbelievable. I haven't seen him since born to run. It was at the Maple Leaf Gardens in the Concert Bowl, which was half the gardens. And then I saw him at the gardens again with the next album. And it was... Nebraska the next album?

No, no, no. There was another one. Okay, Nebraska's the one before born in USA. Yeah, so he's... It was a rock and roll show, no doubt. Are you going to see the biopic? Yeah. But what I loved about Springsteen,

with, I don't know, 14,000 people in the stadium is that he made it as intimate as a coffee shop, as a cafe, that he was just singing to you and telling you stories. And what a consummate performer. This is a guy who gives it 120% every time he goes out there. But I haven't seen him in years. I don't go to concerts anymore. No, I was gifted these tickets. A listener wanted me to experience Bruce and gifted me four tickets.

Wow. That's the kind of list that I'm telling you. And you didn't invite me, you. I invited my brother, his wife, and my wife. So you were next. Like I had a fifth ticket. It was going to be Ralph, Ralph, Benmergy. Yeah, you don't know.

That's not true. So, but what was interesting is when I saw Bruce, and I actually dropped a special episode in the Toronto Mike feed about my experience, seeing Bruce, like, because it was such a religious experience. You've got to get the wild, innocent, and the East Street Shuffle. It's a great album. I've been consuming a lot more Bruce since this November 2023 show. But, oh, yeah, this was the night after the re-election of Donald Trump.

That was the night after. So November 5th, I guess, 20, 20. What a sad feeling, eh? But it was very interesting because Bruce was a bit late, which was unlike him. It was a bit late. But they said there was some getting flying in from Hamilton, I believe, or something, some delays somewhere in that chain of events. But it was the night after the election.

He kind of opened up with a prayer for his country, and it was a song. And it was just unbelievable. But here, so we're going to lighten things up a bit, but I just want to thank a couple more. partners of this program, Mr. Ben-Murgy. So we talked about taking the go or the TTC and walking from union. A lot of people, Ralph Ben-Murgy, have been called back to the office. Are you aware of this?

Yes, I am. So I don't talk to a lot of people about this, but I do sleep with a woman who works for a big bank, okay? And she has been called back four days a week. Four days a week? How does she feel about it? Doesn't love it because it started, you know how it worked during COVID. It was five days a week. week you were at home and then they added I think one day they said come in one day a week

and then they said two days a week and then for quite a while through the summer it was three days a week which she was fine with but then all of a sudden in September it was four days a week so she doesn't love it but she's a she's a very good employee and makes the bank trillions of dollars Ralph so that's what's important here right she's you know she's got a job anyway it's a but she can't call the shots you know she can't call the shots so Wednesday's her work from home day. Every group, they have these groups at the Big Bank and

they don't want all the groups having the same Friday to work from home because of office space. Really, it's about office space. And that's actually where I'm going here. Which is, if you need creative or dynamic work environments for your employees or if you're responsible for an office,

talk to Doug Mills from Blue Sky Agency. He can tell you about the silent pods, for example. You can get privacy pods and he's got a great solutions for you. Doug Mills is Doug at blue sky agency.ca. So he's the man to talk to for dynamic and creative work environments. You got a Ralph.

So does he do co-workspaces to? Yes. Like so any configuration, so office furniture, he works with these brands like silent and green furniture concept in Ruiyard. And he's actually, he's an absolute sweetheart, Doug Mills. he's sponsoring the show through November.

And if any, you can write him about, you know, you can talk to him about the Blue J game if you like. But it's Doug at blue sky agency.com, let him know you're an FOTM, and he'll answer all your questions about dynamic and creative work environments. Do you get to play music on the show anymore? Well, yeah, of course.

I have, you know who's on the show tomorrow? Who? Your friend, because we've been on all three of us together on Toronto Mike, Hawksley Workman. Oh, cool. Tomorrow's Hawksley Workman. You know, it was here yesterday. Who?

Finger 11. From Burlington. Burlington's own, Finger 11. And next week, the trues are coming over. So, yeah, there's a lot of music being played on Toronto Mike here. Okay. So just to remind you, Ralph, and the listenership, that if you have old electronics, old cables, old devices,

you don't throw it in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfills, go to Recycle MyElectronics.com. dot CA, put in your poster code and find out where you can drop off those cables, those electronics. Recycle. Myelectronics. Dot C.A. I've done this.

So I eat my own dog food around here, as they say. I can't tell you how many cables pile up. And I had cables that I had a million. Don't throw them in the garbage because it's like the lazy way to go is throw it, chuck it in the garbage. Dot CA. Recycle my electronics. C.A.

Okay. That's where you go. And last but not least. See? This would be interesting to you, I think. Just this week, I recorded a new episode of Building Toronto Skyline with Nick Iini's. He's the host of the show with Jennifer McKelvey. And we were talking about building homes in this country and what the Mark Carney Liberal Party plans

to do about that. But he has another podcast called Building Success. And his guest this week was Steve Paken. So Nick Ianis and Steve Paken had a great chat. Pagan's hard, eh? Paken is, you know, since he left his full-time TV-O gig. He's free and last, free and last. Of course he's happy.

What a segue, because I want to ask you about a job opening because I was chatting with Steve Paken about this today. Oh, and before I forget, before I tell you about this job opening to find out if you're interested, because you'd be great at this. Lauren Honickman wants me to say hello to you. Oh, hi. Chatted with Lauren this morning.

We did stand up together years and years ago, and then you became a lawyer, and then he was on City TV. In the other order, though. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's right. He did the City thing. And then he got his law degree. Then he got his law degree.

And now he's working with his son. Oh, cool. Asher Hanekman. So they're working together. But he's actually a talking head on a, it was a craved documentary about the murder of Christine Jessup. And he covered that for City TV. And he's almost like a narrator of this thing.

And he was mentioning to me this morning that they're going to air this crave documentary on CTV Saturday night. So that'll give it a lot more eyeballs. CTV. CTV. Saturday night the Christine Jessup dog So that's just a side

So hi Lauren Hi to Lauren Oh yeah The job opening Okay Mike You're hosting Toronto Mike's here Wake up Okay

Metro morning As you know Ralph That is the morning show here in Toronto On CBC Radio 1 David Common host David Comum FOTM David Common

Is leaving Oh This was just announced today Because as you know Heather Hisccox is retiring, and she hosts CBC Morning Live on the television network. David's doing that? David is going to get that gig.

It's weird. He's good. Why do you think that's weird? I'm curious. I don't mean to... David, by way, lives in a Tobico, so I don't mean to... I just think comedy is a very smart guy. He's got a ton of experience.

I would rather have seen him later in the day. I don't know who watches TV in the morning, frankly. I mean, I'm sure people, no, people do, but I'm not one of them. It's just too much for me. I don't turn on the TV in the morning either. Yeah, I mean, look, those shifts are brutal. Metro morning, that Heather's show. Right.

It's worse on TV because you've got to do makeup. So you've got to get there even earlier. But man, like, he's been getting up at 3.30 in the morning. Shoot me now. Well, I was curious. I'm doing Jazz FM next week in the morning. I'm doing the morning show, and it starts at seven. Yeah.

I can get there at 6.30. Not 3.30. Yeah, that's a big difference there. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. But he's a very talented guy. So, okay, so Heather Hiscoggs retires. Her last show is tomorrow, I think, actually.

And David Common takes over in February. I think he's going to have his last Metro morning hosting on January 16th, 2020. They need a fill. There is, I actually was looking into this. So, of course, Andy Barry was there for a long time. I actually only start listening to Metro Morning during the Andy Berry era, but, you know. Matt Galloway. So it was Andy Barry when I start listening, of course.

Matt Galloway takes over for Andy Berry. He had a good run there. I think he went nine years. Oh, yeah, and a half years. Long run. Then finally, after a bunch of guest host, you know, things, they had Ismaila Alpha. You remember Ismail Alpha? Ismail Alpha.

And then he went, I don't know, you see, this is the thing about CBC, Regist, right now, people just disappear. They host, like right now of Farrelli. Oh, the Here and Now. Yeah, here and now. So here and now had a host, finally.

He's just puttering along. Romraj. Yeah, next thing you know, he disappears. He was interim. Apparently he was interim after Jill Deacon resigned. Well, nobody said anything. And the next thing I know it's what's her first name? Farah. Farah Morali.

So all of a sudden, it's just Farrellian here and now. And she's the permanent host of here and now. And then you think, well, what happened to this guy? I mean, where's he go? And now you got comedy. But he's not let go, Ram Raj. He's just doing something else.

But similar to Ismail, I always say the first thing. Smila Alpha. I used to know his sister, a stand-up comic, actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But Ismila Alpha. Yeah. They moved him to weekends.

Yeah. So he's in fresh. I don't know if it's called fresh air. It is called fresh air. I did it for a while a few years ago. But never a great fit, to be quite honest. as a listener, he was never a great fit for Metro morning. And finally, after more guest hosting, David Common got the gig in October 2023, but he's now

leaving. So there is now an opening. I'm curious, if it's not you, Ralph Ben Margie, it should be you. No, it shouldn't be me. Tell me why it should not be you. You're not interested in waking up at 3.30 in the morning? No, it's more than that. I went in to fill in for here and now a few times when Jill was not well. Your phone's ringing. Do you think that's CBC right now asking if you're interested in the thing? Fancy that. They're watching line. Oh, I'm so touched. No. And when I got there, I realized I looked at the board for where they book the guests and they put them on a board so you can see. And I realized that 35 years earlier in Winnipeg, I had been the guy booking guests in that exact same format. I mean exact, the 610, the 620, the 640,

The 650, you've got to book these three then. The 720, what's the best? 720 is the best slot. And I just thought, no, no, no, no. The ideas are not generating the format. The format is generating the ideas. And I just felt like there's no risk-taking at this point. They believe that it works the way it works and you don't mess with it.

And that's fine, but that's not me. You know what I enjoy doing? Fresh air. because nobody was really watching it at that point. They'd lost their host, and Sandy Moe was still producing it. And we had a great time. I just started adding things to it. And I'm sure the people upstairs didn't like it,

but I just thought, you should have fun with the show. And I don't think there's a lot of fun room in those formats. Do you have an idea, like if you were king for a day and you could put somebody in the Metro Morning scene, seat. Do you have anybody in mind? I'd have to think about that. What about Garvia Bailey? She's fine. She's good. Don't say Steve Paken because he's not interested.

Oh, God, no. I'd like somebody who doesn't sound like everybody else sounds. Because there's this thing that happens. I kind of prided myself in my 21 years at the CBC that I tried to become as much myself. as I could. In some shows, that was harder than others. But I didn't really want to sound like everybody else sounds once they're there for a while. You know, it's like how you pronounce Ottawa if you work on the national. Ralph Ben-Murgy, CBC News, Hawthewa. What? Wait, there's an H in there? Yeah. Hardwall. And I just thought, oh my God. How does CBC want you to say Toronto. Toronto. I failed the announced test when I came from Winnipeg where I'd been for a couple

years. I was doing prime time in Toronto. And oh, I want to stop for a second. There was an article recently about late-night talk shows in Canada. You and Bullard. That's it. No, I'm kidding. Andrew. I've forgotten his name. He's written lots of things about comedy he wrote anyways he wrote to call him okay it was the first I'm embarrassed I can't remember his name but he was the first person

who I read who had a different take on why my show didn't work and why didn't you why did he think your show did not work he thought the forces were were aligned against it working that there was too many

mandates in there that they moved the national to to nine, and that screwed up everybody's watching habits. Like, he had all these reasons that I've never been kind enough to myself to think about. I just think, I did the wrong show, and I made mistakes and blah, blah, blah, and I learned from it, and it's all good. We can't just blame James B?

No. And you can't blame Mark, and you can't play. Can I ask you about somebody who I believe wrote for your... Anyways, I was really appreciated that he was sympathetic to what I was trying to do. because my wife read an article about me taking the hosting job with Valerie at midday and it was written by Antonia Zabreseus. FOTM.

And Antonia was so not kind in that review. She was trying to say he might actually be good at this by telling people how awful I was as a human. And I just thought, wow. But I realized I was quite used to reading that kind of stuff. I read readers. People thought it was great. People thought it was horrible. But it did become a punchline. But my wife read that review and she was like, oh my God, that's awful. She wanted to call her and go, what the fuck? What is wrong with you? Right. And I just said,

I'd like to record that call. I said, hon, hon, you can't believe the good reviews and not believe the bad reviews. If you're going to live in the world of reviews, they have another job to do. They're entertaining an audience and they have to have strong opinions to do it. I'm trying to just do my work, right? But anyways, it was very nice that I got somebody seeing me from a different point of view than even I was seeing me. It was much more sympathetic. That was kind. Do you know the name Donna Lipchuk? Of course. So Donna, who passed away, only 65 years old, but didn't she write for Friday night? She did some writing for us. Steve Schuster did some writing, Lawrence Morgan Stern, Lauren Froman.

We had a bunch of people who did writing. That's another thing is Andrew wrote that the writing room was not strong at all. And you know what? The writing room was a bit of a mess. And if we had, you know, you know how many writers there are on late night shows in America? Well, I think it's a large number. Yeah, it's about 14 at any given time. I would bet.

I do know when Stephen Colbert announced. that CBS was canceling his show at the end of the year or whatever. He said that 200 people worked on the show. Yeah. And I was flabbergasted that 200 people work on that late night show. Well, everything from the control room to the writing room, to the booking people, to the band. I mean, you just keep piling up people.

Still, if you had to guess, and I know you don't have an exact number, but what would be the number for Friday night with Ralph Benmergy? Including everybody, the crew and everyone. I'd say about 70 people. 70 versus 200. Yeah, but our show cost $100,000 bucks an episode, right? And it was once a week. That's an apples and oranges comparison.

We weren't doing a nightly talk show. Buller did a nightly talk show. Yeah, another. And so did Strombollahis. So that red chair show on CBC? Yeah, yeah, he did that one. Okay, yeah, he definitely did that one. I didn't know if we'd call that a late night talk show.

he had one-on-one interviews I got awfully close to his guests I love the strombo hey I'm just going to bring in a comment because I had heard from some good sources that the no Jews or dog sign never actually existed

come on so I'm just saying according to my correspondent from 1236 Mark Wiseblood who I know you Wise Blot said that Wise Blot says I'm just going to quote him okay

No Jews or dog sign never existed in Toronto so far as any researcher has been able to find. So there's been zero evidence, but I've heard this for years, this no Jews or dog sign, but apparently there is no evidence that this sign ever existed.

I just wanted to bring that up because I had been told it was an urban legend. I'd love to know it where I got it. Well, it's out there. I've heard it from multiple sources. It's discussed quite often. All right, well, I believe Mark, so... But I mean, then again,

the North York Synagogue was vandalized for the 10th time this year, so we have video evidence of this. I was watching the video the other day. So anti-Semitism absolutely exists, but that sign may not have existed. Okay. Aren't you working on a Valerie Pringle,

Ralph Ben-Murge union on Toronto Mike? I've been honestly extremely busy. Like, I had no headspace, but when I was driving here, I thought, ooh, I'm supposed to do that. So I'll get in touch with Valerie. I haven't seen her in quite a while, so. Well, I'd love to do it.

So I just want to make sure you know. I'd love to have Valerie Pringle and Ralph Benmergy. I mean, I got you in Brent, Bambury, Bambury, you know, Brent and you were, who have often been. Yeah, and you guys, the fun thing is that you guys would have been mistaken for each other at CPC back in the day. Aren't you Brent? No, I'm not. Aren't you, Ralph, no, I'm not. Great episode.

Yeah. So we're going to do you in Valerie. Almost done here. You've been amazing. Do you know the name David Himmelfarb? He just passed away, didn't he? Just passed away. And I wondered if you had knowing him

because I was interested in the fact he was the one-time manager of kids in the hall. I didn't know him, really. I mean, I'd heard his name, but I didn't know him. Donna, I knew, Donna Lepchuk. Donna used to hang around at Yuck Yuck's at the very beginning. And we thought, oh, she was a waitress at one point.

What's her story? And she had this incredibly dry and acerbic sense of humor and then she started writing for i magazine yes and she wrote very well and one of the things about her i always enjoyed is she she was never she could write with a real point to what she was saying but she wasn't a bitter person she was an ironic person to me but she wasn't a bitter person and you know a lot of people in comedy were pretty bitter she wasn't one of them so yeah she'll be missed i want to close by talking about your podcast not that kind of rabbi off the top you talked about the spiritual retreat you crossed into enemy territory for and you talked about

eco-spirituality and my first thought was Dr. David Sidenberg's episode of not that kind of rabbi which was all about eco-spirituality indeed indeed so neo-hacid that's the name of his his website right neohassad.org yeah great guy he's got a book called cabala and ecology yeah absolutely so he's a real rabbi Yes, he's an actual rabbi Not that kind of rabbi So let's just get this out Which is that

I worked with you and not that kind of rabbi for years Yes, you still are again Well, that's where we're going here, my brother So Canadian Jewish News Yeah They carried it for three years And so is there a reason why your podcast Is no longer with CJN

The Canadian Jewish News? Because CJN decided to have too many podcasts and they had to, you know, barrel down. So they chose a few that they wanted to keep going. And Michael Freeman, who was my producer, was very kind and saying, you know, listen, we're moving to something else. And I was like, no problem. So now I'm carried through the Olive United States website and newsletter.

And that's a nice big audience. I've been getting lots of new people checking out not that kind of rabbi, the Facebook page. I've got some new ones that I'm going to be recording next week, by the way. A rabbi who is really interesting, Rami Shapiro, who's as much an artist and a poet as he has a rabbi and a real renewal force. And he just got in touch with me because I put out a thing for spiritual directors.

It's the whole end of this thing. Anyways, I put out this thing and I had a typo in it, and I didn't know him, but he wrote me and said, and made fun of the typo and had fun with it. And I said, hey, I can't believe it's you. Would you like to be on my podcast? And I have one, which I've already recorded. I think I sent it to you.

Yes, I did. Is this about circumcision? Yes. It dropped three days ago. Oh, I didn't even know that. It dropped on Tuesday. All right. I should have done the social media thing on.

A little off the top, it's called. I'm looking at it right now. It's 47 minutes long, and it's about circumcision. And how a lot of Jewish people, or families are opting out of circumcision. They just don't want to do it. In the 70s, even us Gentiles had it done. Everybody had it done for a while.

But the guy I talked to was the head of pediatric surgery at sick kids. And he's what's called a mohel, a moyle. And he does circumcisions. And so I said, is there a healthy, there used to be this thing, it's healthier. And I thought, is that actually true? And he said, well, actually it is true. less STDs, less HIV, less infections, urinary tract infections,

because the force can hold and carry some things you don't want it to hold and carry. But he just said a lot of people are just going, no, this is too painful, I don't want to hear about it. Well, a lot of people are probably saying, like, I'll stick with my out-of-the-box settings, right? Because you don't need, you don't need, and again, I am circumcised, and I declare, I'll show you later,

I will show you later. No, thanks. But you come out of the box with four skin and why modify it with... Well, I mean, you have... I mean, I'm not talking about religious practices. You have two kidneys, but you only need one. You have a spleen, but you can do it. I like the spare. I like the spare.

But obviously, if you need a kidney, call me up. You have an appendix and you don't need it. That's true. And gallbladder, too, right? And tonsils. Yeah, that's true. Right, so there's lots of stuff in the body. It's just like, I haven't got rid of that yet.

By way, Moyal, which I learned from... a little off the top, the latest episode of Not That Kind of Rabbi with Ralph Ben-Murgy. I learned it's spelled M-O-H-E-L. I did not know that. M-O-L. But I learned about Moyals from Seinfeld. So there was some Judaism that...

Yes, but nobody admitted they were Jewish. But there's a Moyle to perform a circumcision. Larry David, the guy right, like nobody said anything. Festivist, not, you know, come on. Right. Right? No, you know, your point is valid, but I did learn about the Moyle from Seinfeld and...

Do I get goodies? Well, have I not given you goodies? Okay, so you got the moose mug. What about the... You have the Ridley Funeral Home Machine Tape. You have beer, and I know you're not a big beer guy, but you might have a family member or a neighbor. Your neighbor would love fresh craft beer from Great Lakes.

Give them a drink, they fight with their fists. What about the lasagna thing? Well, okay, I have a lasagna for you, but it's... Don't yell at me. No, I'm yelling at you because it's a beef lasagna and I'm mildly embarrassed. The rest of my family eats beef once in a while. Because I have one in my freezer, because Paul Mopost. has the vegetarian options,

but I actually was really busy and screwed up. I tried to get a vegetarian lasagna when vegetarians are coming over and I screwed up. For example, the great Mike Wilner, I would bike to him a vegetarian lasagna just to make sure... Well, bike to Hamilton, you can bike. I've done it before.

How long does it take? Well, this was for the ride to conquer cancer, so it doesn't really count. It took hours. You know that Burlington visit to Kelsey's? Yeah. I bike to that. How long did that take you?

I can tell you, I can't remember off the top of my head. Like an hour and a half or something? It was like 50K. So what does that take me? I don't know. Two hours. A couple hours. Yeah.

My wife can do 20K easily in an hour. 20K? I laugh at 20K, okay? Just kidding, Courtney. Okay. Courtney, future guest on life's undertaking. I don't know about that. I gave up.

I got the message. Listen, I said, come on, hon, you can do this. And she was like, no, I don't want to do it. It makes me uncomfortable. Well, you make me very comfortable. And let's not wait so long to get you back on the mic, but I'm going to try to get you on the mic on November 29th at Palmer's Kitchen for TMLX-21. You'll really try hard.

I'll do my best. I'll do my best. Thanks for doing this, buddy. Hey, no problem. My pleasure. Enjoy that moose mug. It's a Hanukka gift for you. When is Hanukkah this year?

I don't know. I think it's like the 14th of December. So sometimes it sort of aligns. It's a lunar calendar. It's not your Christian calendar. You know what? I'm going to celebrate Hanukkah this year. Does it make sense to have a new year in the fall

or a new year in the middle of winter? I rest my case. And that! That brings us to the end of our 100 and, what is it? 1,7003rd show. Oh, it's close. Maybe my favorite. So sad.

I'm so sad. Go to Torontomike.com for all your Toronto mic needs. Again, Ralph is now with, Aleph. Oliph. Alif, E-P-H, Aleph, Canada, one word.ca. Don't eat now.

Don't give him your money. Don't give him the money. After you become a patron of Toronto, Mike, give him the rest. Okay. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Retro Festive, our newest sponsor.

We love you at Retro Festive. They're giving everyone a gift at TMLX-21. Great Lakes Brewery, delicious beer, Palma pasta. We got a lasagna for Ralph. Nick Aini's.

Let's get a couple of great podcast. Kinnelling. go to shopkinling.ca. An hour. Less than an hour. Thank God. Recycle my electronics.ca. Blue Sky Agency and Ridley Funeral Home.

See you tomorrow and my special guest is Hawksley Workman. Hi, Hawk. I'm going to see him in Guelph. You should come to that show. I should. We'll hang out in Guelph. Yes, I'll do that. Let's do it.

See you there, Ralph. All right, bye. Thank you.