Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Rewinder with Blair Packham: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1813

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

In this 1813th episode of Toronto Mike'd, and 3rd episode of Rewinder, Mike chats with Blair Packham about what's happening in the Canadian media landscape. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, RetroFestive.ca and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Rewind up With the pack of moo is also known as Blair And Mikey Boon Boon 2 Rewind up Looking back and yippy hopping on the air For the quarterly review Rewind up Skiddy-Budely

Rewind up Bipidi-Bobbidi-Noodly Rewind With the pack of moo is also known as Blair And Mikey Boon Boon 2 Still great That's the third time Still cracks me up

You did a great job. Thank you. Mikey Boon Boon. Thank you. For the quarterly review. That's right. For the quarterly. Yes.

Yes, Guy. Yes, Guy. Welcome to episode 1,813 of Toronto Mike. Proudly brought to you by Retrofestive.ca, Canada's pop culture and Christmas store. Great Lakes Burrude. Order online at Great Lakes Beer.com for free, local, home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.

Visit palma Pasta.com for more. Nick Aini's. He's from Fusion Corp, Development's, Inc., and he's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and building success. Two podcasts you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A. 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 for this third episode of Rewinder, it's Blair Packam. Tis me. welcome back Flair Packham

It's been I guess Three months If every quarter If a quarter is three months I'm just doing the math On my abacus over here It's been three months since I've seen you That's right

We haven't seen each other in the interim have we Well here's the thing So we're going to catch up with you off the top Because you actually live an interesting life But Two TMLX events have happened Since I last saw you Yes

TMLX 20 Which was at the GLB Brew Pub At Jervis and Queenskey And just last weekend TMLX-21, which was at Palma's Kitchen and Mississauga, and that was a live recording. You attended neither of these events. That is correct, and I actually feel bad about both of them. The one, I had a good excuse for both, but less of a good excuse for this last one because

it was really that I was tired. That's actually, you know, you could have caught a ride with maybe with Alan Swig who was there. That's right, Alan, and maybe Simon Rackoff. He was not there, though. But I know that Jim Shedden was there. Yes, I like Jim. I don't know Jim very well, but you're right. No, it's just that I was tired.

I had played the night before, and I was playing the next day. I played with the jitters the night before, and the next day, I was playing a gig in, hold on, Font Hill, Fon Hill, Ontario. So we're going to cover a lot of ground in this first part, which is like, what's new with Blair Packham? I'm going to call this. That's the name of this segment, because it's international, so we're going to even leave the country.

But while we're still in Toronto. Okay. So should I just go on on prompted? Well, I'm kind of prompting you, but I was like a little bit of the jitters. What have I been up to? Okay, so there's a jitters thing going on. Well, tell me, let's start with the jitters. You played Hughes Room.

Tell us what's happening in Jittersland. Well, we got together again to play for the second time since the pandemic. Um, and it was, uh, it was at Hughes Room on the 28th of November and it was really great actually. It was like really great. I'm still getting people sending me messages saying, you know, can't get that out of my mind. You guys were so great. You know, I get messages on Facebook and it's amazing actually. Can you name check who was in the jitters in this iteration?

This iteration was the same as last year's. Um, it was, uh, me, uh, Matthew Greenberg, our original bassist, um, and David Steinberg, our oft-time drummer, David Quentin Steinberg. Of course. Of the P.O.T.M. David Quentin Stainberg. That's right. Of the Peterborough, Quentin Steinberg. You might know them. They have a large property. Anyway.

But then we were joined, as we often have been over the years, by Vic Darcy, Victor Darcy on keyboards. And replacing the missing Danny Levy was Michael Zweig. See how it all comes together? Yeah. So Michael's Wig. FOTM, Michael Z. Yeah, Michael Z. He and I, so Alan's brother,

brilliant guitar player, lovely guy, dear friend of mine, we were roommates back in 1980 and 81, and I think for about a year and a half, two and a half years, something like that. And I just love playing music with him.

We've had a band together in the 90s. Anyway, he's a wonderful guy. Well, he's very talented. Yeah, very talented. Really, really great singer and a great guitar player. I missed Danny Levy. Why was Danny Levy not part of these? He's a key member.

He was a founding member with me. It was our band, and then we invited Matt Greenberg in, and then we found a drummer. Initially, we found a guy named Dave Taylor, who remains a friend of mine. But then Glenn Martin joined the band for a long time, and Glenn and I don't hang out. I wish I saw him more,

but I think his feelings have been hurt by the fact that he hasn't been part of these reunions. But the reunions are always spearheaded by David Steinberg, David Quinton Steinberg, who's a drummer. Yeah. And it would seem weird to me to go to David. Great idea, Dave. Now, I'm just going to call Glenn, you know.

And those, you mean, you should know, because he's an FOTM, but he's from the Mauds. Yeah. And he's played in Alex Lifeson's new outfit, envy of none. That's right, and he's... The Rush lawyer? Yes, and he's Rush's lawyer. He's got a new album coming out pretty soon. Jeez.

So he's a lovely fellow, but it's not, none of that plays into why we haven't played with Glenn. It's really just the sort of, well, David Drum, drove this bus and to then say to him, okay, thanks Dave for the idea. And then also I'm just not in touch with Glenn, whereas I talk to David pretty much every day. So, but I do feel a little bad about both, David, about, sorry, about both Glenn.

And Glenn's a left-handed drummer, too. That makes it complicated for him. You can't just come and sit in. I don't even know what that means. Oh, it just means, so if you're playing like this. You need a special kit? No, no, it just means that the kit is switched around so that you're playing left-handed.

I got you now. So what it means is that if you're playing on a regular right-handed kit, you can only play so much because the drums aren't in the right positions. Gotcha. Yeah. So anyway, between him and Danny Levy, in addition to feeling great about the jitters gig, I also feel a little bad because Danny has a particular way of playing that was really a huge part of the jitters sound.

And although Michael is great, it's just a different approach. Well, yeah, Michael is great, but it would be good to get Danny back. Yeah. here's hoping it happens one day soon and like do you already know have you already talked to jane harbury like when do you play hugh's room next like this is a happening thing yeah it's it's a happening thing it won't be for at least a year because i think what happens with legacy acts like ours is people will come i mean there's only two or three songs that people are going to maybe know i mean that's reality right they're going to know that song you just played maybe that's when i need you

they're going to know closer every day they're going to know last to the red hot those yes they might Big three. Till the fever breaks, they might know bridge is burning. You know, maybe if they're a real fan. But that album, can we even get that album that Bridges, that bridge, that's the lost album, I think you can get it on Spotify now.

Really? Not that I'm a fan of Spotify. But I think so. I mean, you could look it up while we speak if you want. Not to. Maybe Radio Lady will look it up for me. Yeah, exactly. She's on the live stream here.

Okay, so a lot of ground to cover. So that's amazing, the jitters. Had a great time. Had a nice full house, like not sold out, which is fine by me. Well, it's not fine by me. What is a sellout at Hughes? Sell out at Hughes is about 200 people.

200 people. We're about 120. Okay, that's good. Very respectable for a band of our legacy. And what I was trying to get at when I was saying the three songs or four songs that people would know is that you're committing for the evening's entertainment. You're not just there to hear, you know, these eyes or, you know, a American woman. I don't know why I'm picking on the guess who, but they get lots of hits. Yeah, they have a million hits.

We don't. And so I have no illusions about that. but I do know we fucking rock and we were funny and we were charming and it was a really good night. Well,

you got a good rap on you. Yeah, yeah. That's why you were in radio. Okay, that's why you're co-hosting Rewinder. I want to,

and again, we're not finished catching up with you because there's a couple other big things I want to touch on. But I do want to just remind the listenership

what Rewinder is real quick here. I have a tendency to roll into Rwinder like everybody knows what the hell it is and then I'm like, oh, I should reset

this thing real quick here, which is that we have a quarterly episode with Cam Gordon and Tyler Campbell called FOTM cast and it's super meta inside baseball in that one the next episode is January 2nd 2026 but I felt like okay we're going inside for FOTM cast we need to look outside like for the great unwashed something that sort of does something similar but obviously not the same as what Mark wiseblot might have done when he was a regular guest on Toronto Mike right shout out to Mark wiseblood who is definitely listening right now.

Nice. Hi, Mark. Hello to Mark. Yeah, hello to Mark. You're not going to do your impression of Mark Wise. No, I'm not. You retired that impression? I retired it. I decided to only do, I do three impressions only.

Okay, who are the three you do? Who do you do? I've done this before. Okay, you did it again. It's the greatest hits. Well, I do Alan Rickman. Hello, Severus Snape. Wow.

I also do Jettemi ions. They're very similar. Yes, and Shaggy. Oh. I can hear it. It wasn't me. Mr. Boombastic. Mr. Boombastic.

Stop that, Shaggy. I've had enough. Oh, sorry, Alan. You can see if you can differentiate between these three. No, there's no differentiation. But you do a good wise blot and people can find it in the archives. I suppose that's true. Maybe your first visit.

My feeling about, I really like Mark, and we, at the TMLX events, we have conversed and I've really enjoyed it. And if there's, honestly, I'm serious about this. If there's a slightest chance I've heard his feelings by doing that impression, I don't want to do it. No, I think, you know what? People have done impressions of me

and even if I love them, I think, you know what, fuck off. I was done with love and you haven't done it in a while, but I don't think he was upset at it at all. I don't know for sure, but... He's ripe for parody. Like, to be honest, like, I don't, I think he... He's a real character on, you know, on the air.

But he's got a unique delivery style. And I think when you have such a distinct, unique delivery style, and you're so beloved as 1236's own Mark Wiseblood is, you're ripe for parity. Like, it comes up the package. Sure, or ripe for loving tribute, you know, but, um, but I, I just don't want to, I don't know. Well, I'm hoping, here's my hope for, and I think this has come up a couple of times recently,

but 2025 is the first calendar year in, I think, a decade that featured no Mark Wiseblood on Toronto Mike. At all. None. Because in 2024, he appeared one time, because he showed up at Christy, fits when we were recording at a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball game. But 2025 has no Mark Wiseblot on Toronto Mike, first time in a long time,

and I don't want that to repeat in 2026. Well, yeah, well, if Mark is listening and I suspect he might be, I hope he hears that message as one that's meant to be encouraging and hopeful and so forth. Okay, before, let's close, because it's going to segue into a quick partner mention, and then we're going to roll with, again, rewinder. We're going to look at radio, television, print. We're going to shed out Ridley funeral home on a couple of notes.

We have a lot of ground to cover. We do this every single quarter. But you went to Berlin. I went to Berlin in a fit of spontaneity. And I went with a woman. It was our third date. Okay. So. Yeah. And it wasn't a disaster.

Here's the thing. Could have been a total disaster. But we both agreed that worst case scenario will get a plane ticket and go home, you know, separately. But it didn't turn out like that. It was great. I mean, we, you know, we're not together as a couple, but we're really dear friends. Because after that, after we got home from Berlin and really had a spectacular time, really. Berlin is an amazing city. And I could have maybe enjoyed it as much with somebody else.

But this woman, whose name is Tanya, was fantastic. And, like, just sort of game for, like, going places and trying things and new restaurants and, you know, and so forth. And we traveled around Berlin on those electric screens. scooters, those rental scooters everywhere. Like we didn't take an Uber the whole time we were there. We didn't take a bus. We were on these scooters in the middle of the night coming on. We went dancing.

I don't go dancing, but I did in Berlin. And coming home in the middle of the night from dancing on these scooters back to our really nice hotel. And it was a relatively cheap holiday too. So on the way home, she said, I'm going to New York next week to visit a friend who's dying, unfortunately. But she said, I could extend my trip a little bit if you wanted to come join me. So I did.

So I went to New York with her as well. and I'm a little embarrassed about going to the States during this elbow-ups period, but, you know, a woman, if anybody could convince me, it would be a woman. This is a terrible pun that is intended, but for the warm embrace of a woman, that trumps your commitment to the sovereign nation. Well, I don't believe that my going to New York, you know, with my new friend, was going to cause the downfall of Canada, but I also didn't trumpet it, no pun intended, on Facebook, because I wasn't proud of it, but I'm also not ashamed of it.

It is what it is. You know, you don't want to piss off Mr. Swinghammer. No, and I probably would, although I don't know that he knows. I did run into him on the street recently. It was lovely to see him, but I didn't say, hey, by the way, I just went to New York. Guess where I was? Enemy territory. Well, I mean, I have to say, the people that I visited there, I have friends there, and the people

I visited were talking less about Trump than we do here. There wasn't this palpable sense of imminent fascism. It just felt like New York. Okay. So I have a question. I'm not defending it. I'm going to ask about the woman though. Okay.

So again, you weren't committed. That just is code for that you could date other people, right? Yeah. But you're obviously your date, you said it was a third date. So you're seeing a woman who you obviously like enough that you'll go to Berlin and then New York. Yeah. Which is a wild third date.

Like, this is crazy talk here. And what's the current status of this relationship? We're friends. Not lovers. She's away right now. Yeah. She's away right now in Costa Rica. And we'll see where we...

It's sort of a day-by-day kind of thing. She lives in Collingwood, so it's not geographically convenient. And there are other reasons that are hers to share should she choose to. But there are other reasons why this relationship status makes a lot of sense for for her, for both of us. And so I won't go into them in, you know, in public. Well, later, I'll ask you about that. But when you said day by day, I was going to correct you and say, that's not the jitters. Okay, that's dug in the slugs. Yes, who you feel are a huge influence for some reason. Listen, I haven't brought it up in years. That's true. Because I took the note, I took the memo.

So that's from episode one. But you did say day by day. And I have an update about the jitters. Speaking of the jitters, yeah. Carlos Delgado is on the live stream. Okay. And Carlos Delgado reports that the jitters, and louder than words are both on Spotify. But that's not, what is the name of this? Isn't there another album that was? No, no. That is, thank you, Carlos.

Okay, louder than words. That is the, that is the name of the lost second album. It was deleted by, by EMI before they were sold to Universal. Right. I guess Universal has revised. It's been resurrected.

Yeah, yeah. Because the people are demanding. I don't know about that, but there are, like, honestly, those are some good songs. Like, you know, I can say that because. great production. Well, they were co-written by Jules Shear, who's one of my favorite songwriters ever.

So sometimes I'm singing those words that, you know, maybe a verse that he wrote or, or, you know, a chorus we wrote together or whatever. And I'm thinking, man, that's good. You know, there's, I mean, I could sing them for you right now. I mean, I just, sure. Go ahead. Yeah. No, well, no, I need accompaniment. You need.

Okay. Yeah. But honestly, seriously, like, playing them the other night was a real privilege because those songs, the first album with Last of the Red Hot Fools and Closer every day, it's a strong. It's a strong record in some ways, but there are also some lyrics on there that I'm not that proud of. Whereas on the second album, there isn't a word that I'm not proud of.

It's all of it. And it's not as poppy, but it's a really, those are some good songs. Have you considered re-recording those songs with the new lyrics you've written and then calling it Blair's version? Like the first album, the song.

Yeah, the first album. The only thing that's really egregious to me is the bridge of closer every day. I believe I've quoted myself on this podcast in the past. I don't like the words to the bridge specifically of closer every day. I know you're racking your brain.

Can you do it? Just to hear me because I have a lot going on here. Okay, so this is, remember, if you're familiar with the song, it's about feeling optimistic about, you know, love and life and things are happening, man. And then we get to the chorus where I have doubts because in a bridge, you know,

you want a bit of a change in point of view. or a change in mood or whatever. So I had doubts that I was getting in too deep. Okay, so far so good. I was always in a daze and I couldn't get to sleep. Okay, no, no, don't do that. I heard worse.

But you had faith, and you always had the time. The time. I think, wow, what a low bar. You always had the time. You made the time. Now, here, this is the kicker. We finally found the answer. that's okay

and now everything is fine oh you rhymed fine with fine no fine with time time right but the thing that makes me laugh so much is like you know when you ask me how are you doing I'll go I'm fine it's like it's not great it's not like it's not excited and here I'm talking about the love of my life

or life or something and everything's fine you know as far as like I don't love these lyrics okay you're always going to be your own harshest critic I don't think anyone said to themselves oh these are awful lyrics I think I've heard so much worse, you know. I think they're fine. And I don't, I wouldn't touch a thing. Even Blair's version should be the same lyrics. Well, yeah. I mean, I have thought of re-recording, because we've had

offers to license the songs for various commercials and, and film and TV and stuff like that. Yeah. These days, probably more ironically than anything else. But the masters are owned by Universal. Right. And they have no interest in doing so unless the money's really great. You got to, you got to re-record these things. And, uh, people do all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Chuck Barry did a whole album of his greatest hits for Mercury when he signed to that label. He was originally on chess, and he did the versions that he played live of Johnny Be Good and stuff like that. They were terrible, though.

They're like modern recording technology, so they sounded clean. Right. But they were, like, they had, they evolved over the years when he was playing them live. And so they were sort of jammy and not very tight and they lacked that original energy. And so I don't want to do that. Well, I had on this very program since your last visit. I had the great singer-songwriter Paula Cole. Oh, you did.

That's so great. She is a great singer-songwriter. And she got, somebody owned her Masters and there was a huge ugly fighter or whatever. And she re-recorded, I don't want to wait. Yeah. I like that we said that together. Yeah, for, I think it's for maybe it was for Dawson's Creek streaming.

Like it was something like that where they, because they had a fake song. They used to, it was Jan Arden, actually. They commissioned Jan Arden to record a song. And that was what you would hear is the opening theme of Dawson's Creek on certain streaming services, not, I don't want to wait, which is everybody thinks of it because it aired on TV that way. But there was like Paula's version, she re-recorded it and they used that because they couldn't

whatever was going on with whoever owns these masters. So it's always interesting to hear artists and who owns the masters and do they re-record their stuff. Right. I mean, we, in the 90s, we got a call from Alberta Telecom. I got a call from Alberta Telecom and the, I should say, the ad agency representing at Alberta Telecom. wanting to license closer every day because of its association with the Oilers.

So this is in Alberta. It would have been a province-wide campaign that would have paid up front $20,000. Now, how it works when you license a song to a commercial or to a TV show or whatever is there are two sides to the license. One is the master use, which is the recording. And the other is the song. And it's important to make a distinction that the song is distinct from the recording, right? the song, if I sing it, uh, closer every day, I don't suddenly turn into a vinyl record turning on a turntable. Right. I'm just singing the song, which exists in the air as intellectual

property. Right. That song was written by four of the jitters, the, the, the four jitters at the time. And, um, we didn't have a keeper player yet. And, uh, so there were four songwriters, equal songwriters. So we would have received up front for the song, we would have received $2,500 bucks each. And the owners of the master would receive $10,000, right? So totaling $20,000. EMI at the time, 90s, didn't want to do it. So I called the woman I knew in business affairs because we were on that label. So I knew the people, right? And I called and I said, whatever her name was, and I honestly don't remember. Judy, what's going on with this Alberta Telecom? They made it, you know about this? And she said, oh, yeah, it's too much trouble. I said, no, what do you mean? Too much

trouble and she said well it's not enough money and i said it's for alberta only and it's enough money for us and we wrote the songs all you have to do is say yes and and she didn't she said it's too much trouble we'd have to get legal involved and i said you're legal you are legal and that's your department and all you have to do is sign right literally and i said it would mean $2,500 for each of the band members which is significant 10,000 may not be significant to you guys right but to each of us 2,500 is significant and she wouldn't budge. Well, I see, I love these inside stories here. Yeah. Okay, but

before we spend, you know, two hours talking about Blair Packham, although I know, there's one more topic here to segue us over. We do have to get to rewind her because there's some ground. Rewind. But I understand you attended the Andy Kim Christmas show. I did. I did. It was fabulous.

Massey Hall. Andy sent me a text earlier, I guess, what was that, Wednesday night? He sent me a text like Friday of last week. A week. he'd go and he said, I have two tickets for you for the... Oh, I didn't get the text like that. Come on, Andy. Well, I got yours, and I said, Mike doesn't want to go.

He thinks you're stupid. No, I don't know. I would never say that. But he, and so it was very kind of him to do that. And then I went with Sharon, with Radio Lady. She did not drive me. I drove her there. She's in town. She's in town. Yeah, it's fantastic. We've had a great visit so far, and she's leaving tomorrow, unfortunately.

But she could have come to TMLX-21 at at Pomas Kinch. She certainly could have. She didn't, but she could have. So she and I went to the Andy Kim Christmas show sitting beside Denise Donnellan and Murray McLaughlin. Wow. And all the, like all of your FOTMs.

Yeah, all the guests were in the, yeah, in the, exactly. We're in the, we're in the row with us. And I had a great chat with Denise. But Sharon and I had somewhere to go after. So we had to leave at the intermission because we couldn't get up during the show. We're deep in this row, in the middle of this row. Right. And then Andy texts me today to saying, did you not get your tickets?

And I texted back, yes, it was a great show. And he said, I shouted you out from the stage, thanking you for taking me on the songwriting tour, which is how we got to know each other, which is what led to me producing the first Andy Kim Christmas show. You produced the first Andy Kim Christmas show. Where was it located? It was at the Mod Club.

Right. And it was 21 years ago. Wow. And was Kim Clark Chapness involved? Not with that. Okay, because he talks about it being his idea. Well, it may have been his idea. I don't know.

It's funny how it all connects. but King Clark Champness talks about having this idea for this Andy Kim Christmas. It sounds like you are the producer and I'm at the Mod Club. I couldn't claim that it was my idea. Right. You know, as far as I knew maybe it was Andy's

some trouble here. Andy's idea. Yeah, he, someone said, we want to do a show and I'm like, I can help you with that. Right. So I got, you know, the house band together and I, the CBC recorded it for broadcast

and then I spent months mixing it. Because it was a long show. It was like 90 minutes and I had to mix each song individually. and nothing ever happened with the recording, unfortunately, but now it would be a great artifact. Yeah, I'll throw it in, for Christmas, I'll throw it in the Toronto Mike podcast feed.

Let's dig that up here. I know you were there only there for half of it, I guess, but can you name check some artists that you saw performing at the Andy Kim Christian show? Well, there were two young women who I wasn't familiar with, and that's, you know, probably my age, probably a generational thing. Maybe they're famous.

I don't know. Rev was one. I think it's spelled R-E-V-E. and the other one, the other woman, I don't remember her name, but Andy Stachansky performed. Who I've been trying to book since I met him in your kitchen? Yeah, Andy's a lovely, lovely guy, and he did my favorite song that, it's funny, you know,

my friend, my Berlin friend, and I've only had one fight, and it was about Andy's song. She didn't like it. And it's like one of my favorite songs ever, so I took it personally, which I shouldn't have because I had nothing to do with writing it. But I was like, how can you not like this song? It's so inspirational.

He did the song Shine, which is so great. And so he was great. Tom Wilson performed. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Andy Kim, of course, himself performed.

This is just the first half. Oh, gosh. I'm sure Sloan is there, right? Sloan was there. I saw Chris Murphy out on the stage getting ready, like getting his stuff ready in the break as I was leaving.

And I didn't wave to him because I was really self-conscious about leaving because we were clearly the only people who were leaving. Everyone else, it was stuffed. and everyone else was staying. And I felt bad.

I wish we didn't have another plan. Well, Andy Kim's Christmas show, another huge success. I'm sure there were members of Bear Naked Ladies there as well, typically. Probably. I didn't actually see any. Well, I saw Andy Kim recently at the premiere, the Ontario premiere of Biff Naked's documentary. Oh, Biff Naked was one of the performers. I didn't see her, but yes.

Yeah, Biff and, you know, the tie that binds is Andy Kim is connected to Biff Naked because they both work very closely with. Eric Alper. Yes. So there's your connection there. Okay. So it all comes together. But I want to just let the listenership know that this episode of Rewindor,

which will actually begin now, is proudly brought to you by retrofestive.ca. And if you go to retrofestive.ca right now and you use the promo code FOTM, you will save 10%. And this is just a great website to peruse with all the Christmas stuff and the pop culture stuff. And I'm just going to randomly. read a Google review. I wrote a bunch down. Here's one. My brain wanted to explode when I walked into this place.

So much to see. Fun experience brought back old memories. So that's a Google review. And of course, the store is in Oakville. But you can go to retrofestive.ca right now. So, Blair, I have, as you know, I organize this quarterly episode. And this is our third one. So I feel like your third one, you've figured out the beats here. I've finally figured it out. Well, you have the easiest job because you just show up and be Blair. I just react.

I have to actually. Whereas you have to act because you have to put on a veneer of sophistication. Google, Google, I'm not talking to you. Did I say the G word? I don't think so. Oh, did I? But yeah, so you can't. Oh, yeah, I said reviews.

Right, right, right. You can't just act like yourself. You have to put on that fake personality that everyone loves. Well, I'll be doing that tomorrow morning because I am the Grand Marshal for the Atobico Santa Claus Parade. You are. That's amazing. I think it's, um, I'm still kind of. of processing it all. It just seems like it must be

a mistake, but they asked for my Toronto Mike logo and everything for this banner like it's happening and it's tomorrow morning. And it's tomorrow morning. And they've told me to where to be at a certain time and where the route goes and I guess I lead and then Santa closes is how this thing works. So there you go.

At what time? The parade starts at 10 a.m. at like first street and Lake Shore. And then it works its way west to 35th Street. Okay. You never know. Olin and I have to to go to IKEA. Okay, well, okay, so let me say this.

Yeah. I have been promised, Ridley Funeral Home will have a hot chocolate for me, ready for me when I get to 14th in Lakeshore, and I could just say, hey, we're going to need a hot chocolate for Owen and Blair Paco. Okay, all right. So, but what time do you say it starts at 10?

Okay, that's reasonable. Yeah, 10 a.m. And I don't think it's very long, right? You're only going to 35 blocks. I bet you this thing ends around 1115 or something like that. Right, okay. All right. We have to go to IKEA, and so we'll either go,

there first. You'll be close. Yeah, exactly. You will be close. That's our favorite IKEA. We're going to begin, well, that's, that's the only IKEA for me here in South of the Tobaccoa. I don't get up to Leslie. It's almost equidistant to go to Leslie for us. Right. All right. We're going to start

with radio. And this segment is brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Great Lakes gave us all some fresh craft beer at TMLX21 last weekend, and they have sent over some fresh craft beer for you, Blair Packham. Oh, that's amazing. Shout out to GLB. This one, I get to

This is, so it's a light logger. They call it a super light, but it's a nice logger because you can take down a few of those and you won't be slurring your speech. It's a lower alcohol. Yeah, finally. Yeah, finally. I've been enjoying that one.

Yeah, that's super light. I love the graphics on it. It's like retro styles there. Like 1950s car or something like that. You know, the good old days when you could drink and drive. Morgan Davis, that great, do you know Morgan Davis? No. Oh, fantastic blues performer.

He used to be in a band with David Wilcox back when David Wilcox wasn't doing what you just did. That's all I know from David Wilcox. They had a couple of, he had the David Wilcox band, but he also had the Knights of the Mystic Sea. And Morgan Davis was in that band, and he's a funny, funny guy. But he used to say from the stage, remember folks, just when he's wrapping up, don't drink and drive. If you do, you might hit a bump and spill your drink. We've come a long way, baby. Those for the good old days.

Okay. So this, this, and some of these you'll react to because you'll have a connection to the name or you'll have the question or whatever. But I think last is, again, one thing I learned about a quarter is it's three months. So some of this stuff is a bit dusty. So I take notes throughout the three months and then we do it here. Okay. They were looking for a new music director at Boom 973 because veteran Wayne Webster retired. He's also an FOTM. Do you know Wayne Webster?

Oh, yes. Wayne and I go way back I was just signing into live Toronto, by the way, I just want to be able to keep your eye on there in case there's some radio lady questions coming. Exactly, I want to see the comments. Can't just be Carlos Delgana? I know, I see Carlos's comment there. That's great. Thank you.

Yes, sorry. Yes, I know Wayne Webster. Yes. Wayne and I go way, way back. He's just a lovely guy. I think I might have met him around, well, definitely in the 90s. And he's always, he was always, he was always very soft-spoken. Yeah, he's, he's very soft-spoken. Yeah, and he speaks deliberately.

Right. And, but, you know, when I would have a release and I would want to see if I can get some feature play on, you know, Mix 99 at the time or whatever, I would, I would visit him and he would, you know, listen to the music with seriousness. And he would say, I think we could probably add this track to feature play. He said, we're not going to add it to regular rotation, because that's the reality when you have an independent, like if the station isn't geared to, like, 88 is a little more geared towards

actual independent music, but most stations aren't. Although less so now than... Yeah, less so now. Agreed. Agreed. But it's changed quite a bit. Yeah, it's kind of a misnomer of the name. But anyway, Wayne was always generous and he would do what he said. He would say, you know, he'd do what he says and says what he would do

and a very nice, kind guy. And he appeared at my songwriting workshop at least a couple of times talking about what would be necessary for people. You know, in terms of songwriters, like they're thinking, well, radio what do I need to do in terms of, you know, because, you know, it's, anyway, he would give the insider's scoop on that, and he was very generous with his time. So I salute Wayne, he's a lovely

fellow. Yeah, you had a big retirement party. I know Bob Willett was there, a big old Bob. Now, the replacement has been named. The new music director at Stingray's Boom 97.3 is a chap named named Alex Hindmarsh, but it could also be Hindmarsh, but I think it might be Hindmarsh. I think it's Heinemarsh, and I think I know Alex. I can't remember under what circumstance, but he will not fill Wayne's shoes. I'm lying. They're big shoes.

They're big shoes. But I'm wondering, so this station plays like 70s, 80s, 90s stuff, right? Hit stuff. Oh, boy. Do they play, and which, do they play the too big jitterous?

Well, they won't now that I made that joke about him. It was just a joke, Alex. I'm just kidding. No, Alex and I know each other. I'm trying to think of how. Okay. Maybe we're Facebook friends. Okay.

Well, he's got the big shoes to fill. But I think last of the Red Hot Fools and closer every day would be appropriate for Boom, 97.2. I think so, too. Yes, I've had great chats with May Potts on the air, and they have played those songs while I've been there. FOTA May Potts. Okay, now here's big news from CBC Radio 1. Do you ever listen to CBC Radio 1? I do, yeah, in the car usually.

Yeah, me too. So we have a new host of Here and Now. Oh, boy. Because there was a chap there named Aramraj. who I thought was the new host. Yeah, me too. But I was wrong. He was interim host, and I think he's hosting Ontario Mornings now or something like that.

But the new host of here and now is a young woman named Farah Morali. Okay. So I don't know her. Yeah, she's, I've actually invited her on Toronto Mike, so we could get to know her better, and we will try to make that happen for sure. So speaking of CBC Radio 1, I have more news from CBC Radio 1. This is big news. regarding the very popular Metro Morning.

Yes. The host, who is also an FOTM, I need to shout that out. David Common, so David Common was the host there for quite a while now. He has, he's leaving Metro Morning, and he's going to take over for future FOTM, Heather Hisccox, who is, was on CBC News Network, and David Common is going to host CBC Morning Live, because Heather Hisccox has announced her retirement. So she's already aired her last broadcast,

but I think she's with the mothership until the end of 2025. But Heather Hyscox, congratulations on your retirement. She says she'll come over and that'll be cool. David Common is going to move to that spot, which means there is now as we speak an opening to host Metro Morning on CBC Radio 1. Finally, my dream. I was going to ask, any interest in this? Oh, yeah.

I would love to do that, but I don't think I'm the right fit. Well, you got to apply. That's how the CBC works. There is that, but I also think, for a variety of reasons. I mean, I think I'm an old white guy. Well, David Common's a white guy. Yeah, but he's moving on. And I feel like CBC would, it would be in the public broadcaster's best interest to seek someone who isn't that.

And I think that's, and by the way, I fully endorse that plan. I think it's the right thing to do. And so, no, I won't be applying for that. But honestly, I'd love to do a gig. like that. But that's an interesting point. So forever it was a straight white guy named Andy Barry. He was there a long time.

Yep. And then it was Matt Galloway, who was a person of color and an FOTM. And just an unbelievably great broadcaster. Like what a journalist. What a, I'm a huge fan. And I wasn't a fan when he was writing for,

was it Now magazine? Yep. I feel like he reviewed the jitters badly. I don't know if he did. How dare you? But for some reason I held, I had something against him And so when he appeared on CBC radio, I was like, ah, this guy.

Right. And he was host of here and now before he got the Metro Morning game. That's right. And I just think he's great. Yeah. I really do. I agree. I mean, I think he goes in depth.

I think he hosts the current now. Yes. And he's warm and engaging and funny and obviously has a great depth of knowledge. No argument here. So the replacement for Matt when he moved to the current was Ismaili Alpha. Yes. Well, I think his struggle, and again, is the hard news. stuff. Yes, that's what I felt. Like, I thought he was great as a

as a warm, engaging host. Right. But yes, I agree. I agree. But so they, what they did is they moved him to, I think, fresh air or something. He does a weekend morning show. He came from Winnipeg, by the way, for that gig. And, of course, was replaced by David Common, who is now moving on. And it is interesting. Typically, they do fill these spots from, like, within the CBC. It's tough for an outsider, but you never know. But I was thinking, just this is me, pure speculation on rewind her here, but if a guy like John Moore, who is currently the morning show host on 10-10, like if he had, I feel like he could move to the public broadcaster, just like Andy Barry did,

and he could be there for another decade. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And meanwhile, you know, things are shrinking so much at New Stock 10-10. I haven't been in the building now in, oh, well, since 2019, but I understand it's a ghost town. Well, later in the mailbag, there's a question about it from you. It's all going to tie together here. Okay. So there is an opening.

When I think about people I know who would be good fits there, one person I think, well, Kelly Cottre would be great there. There's other people I know who would be great there. But Garvia Bailey, if she wanted the gig, and I have no idea, would be great in that role. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. What a great broadcaster. Great broadcaster. Okay.

Look, here we are fixing all these problems for CBC here. Okay. Meanwhile, this picks up again in February, but since we last talked, the Jennifer Valentine Human Rights Tribunal. Right. Yes. You ever met Jennifer Valentine? have a long, long, long, long, long time ago. A long, long time ago.

Boy, your voice is sounding good. You sound like Don McLean there. You did. I'm going to do the full version, so give us a couple of hours here. I would be the gravelly version of Don McLean, but you have nice clarity to your voice. Well, I had a little coffee in me there and smoothed it out a bit. But Jennifer, so there's some of this was covered by the CBC, so you can kind of catch up on it. But it is very interesting to follow this.

I find it fascinating, and it picks up again in February. Yeah, I'm, Derringer, I, I don't know, I, whenever I was on the rock report, he would make fun of me. Oh, you mentioned, he would use a homophobic, uh, joke regarding your last, every time, yeah, every time. He would, he would say, and nice to see you again, fudge. And I, at first, I was like, what? Right. And then he said, fudge, pack him.

And I was like, you know, he did that off the air, right? No. Oh, he did it on the air. Yeah, yeah. Times were so different. Like, I mean, I used to listen to Howard Stern and, and he would do similar. type things, but it's amazing how times have changed. I feel that Howard Stern was, first of all, has evolved incredibly, but also it was

grossly misunderstood by crass people who thought that all I have to do is say something outrageous or something rude to somebody and I can be like Howard Stern. Meanwhile, Howard Stern would say something outrageous and would say rude things, but he was also thoughtful and he would also go deep and so forth. You know, I dated someone for a few years actually who was, I think. think the fact that I enjoyed Howard Stern worked well against me in our relationship. I think it was one of the reasons

she broke up with me. It's interesting because earlier you mentioned one of the, the only fight you had with this lady friend of yours, you went to Berlin Tanya, the be good Tanya. The only fight was about, yeah, was the only, was that was a song that she didn't dig that you loved it?

Yeah, an Andy Cichensky song, and yeah. But then I was thinking so, and then of course you like this, Howard Stern, he goes, but I was just thinking to my relationship with Monica. We've been married 12 years now. But man, in the Venn diagram of songs I love and songs she love, like they're almost two circles side by side.

It's like, no, like, I like my things and she's like, what's going on? And she likes her things. And I'm like, that's like awful. Like, it's just terrible. She loves Christmas music, for example. And I like, I think I like about five Christmas songs or whatever.

Right. I'm not a Christmas music person as well. It's important to me that the person I'm hanging out with, uh, that we have some overlap for sure. Oh, but we have overlap in other areas. Yes. And, and, and, and, and, and certainly Tanya and I, you know, as my, my dear friend, she and I have lots of overlap in lots of areas. And in fact, in music as well, she is, um, she's not very, um, knowledgeable about music. And I think she wouldn't take that as an insult. She, uh, but she's very enthusiastic about discovering new music. And she actually, uh, follows various, um, various, various, uh,

Instagrams and so forth. Trackstar, for instance. I don't know if you know that one. It's great. And it learns about stuff and remembers it. And it's like, oh yeah, this guy,

I remember he did such and such and she'll tell me an anecdote about somebody who, you know, maybe passed on or whatever. And I'll say, that's right. How did you know that?

And she'll say, track star. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. So, yeah, we had this argument about Andy Sachanski's song.

And I still don't get it. And I think she wouldn't, it's not like she's planning her flag on that. Oh, so we had a, you know, we do toast every month, okay? Yes.

So it's Bob and I and Rob Pruss. Yes, who I saw in New York. We had dinner together. We're bearing the lead here. We got some more radio to get to, but we've got to take a little tangent here, tangential mic. Who called it that?

Supriah, maybe. So we'll get to her in a minute. Okay. But crap, what was I going to say about Rob Proust? Oh, sorry. You did an episode of toast. Oh, yes. I just remembered.

So we had on Fred Malin. Oh, I love Fred. Fred made me breakfast the last time I was in National. I see how this world works. But then he wanted to usher me out. It was like breakfast, but not too long. Okay, well, he's a busy man. Yeah, exactly.

But the subject matter that came up was walking in Memphis. Oh, yeah. By Martin. Sure, great song. Who's a friend of Fred Malin? Oh, of course he is. Yeah, Fred would know him, of course. Yeah.

And we were basically talking about that song quite a bit. And Bob and I, even though it's not a genre we ever, like, we're exposed to, but we both love that song. Like, what are your thoughts on that song? Because where I'm going with this with Rob is Rob likes everything. He's a liker. He likes everything. And for some reason, he didn't like that song. And then I can tell the listenership afterwards, we were going to have us three interview Mark Cohen, arranged by Fred Mullen.

And Rob Proust tapped out, like, I don't want to do it. And I'm like, this is the most gung-ho liker. He likes everything. And suddenly there's an artist slash song. he doesn't like and it's walking in Memphis by Mark Kohn? I'm baffled by that because, you know, as much as, like, first of all, everybody loves that song. It's so likable. If you've heard it, you like it.

Or at least you like the share version. Yeah, yeah, that's right. But it's, but it's, it's great. And I see nothing objectionable about Mark Kahn himself. Is it Kahn or Kohn? I believe it's C-O-N-N. I think it's, C-O-H-N. C-O-H-H-N. Isn't that Kohn?

Cone, you're right. Thank you. I don't know. All right, Mike. You're right. You like to hear that. You're right. So, yeah, no, I know nothing objectionable of the artist,

nothing objectionable of the song. Not only nothing objectionable, which sounds like weak praise. Right. It's like as a story, it's a great story. It's, it's, uh, goes from A to B to C. Yeah. It's really well constructed. It's moving, which is the song's job.

Right. You know, that's the job of a song. But this is similar to like, oh, your, your lady friend suddenly doesn't like this Andy Stochansky song. And it's sort of like all of a sudden, oh, Proust doesn't like it all. Like doesn't like walking in Memphis. I just find that. That odd, yeah, yeah.

Okay, we'll have to have a human rights tribunal about this, I think. Okay, so I'm going to tie a few radio stories together here because we're going to get to television, but... Yes, I'm still laughing at my lady friend. Well, I'm a girlfriend. I don't know what she is to do. No, she's my friend. She's my friend. She's a friend who happens to be a lady.

That's correct. She's a lady. Yes. Oh, you know what? As soon as you went into the Tom Jones... Can you hear? Did it unplug? What's going on here?

It's all good. Okay, I see. You dropped your phone. I was watching the live screen. Okay, well, listen, don't worry about the live stream. We're doing a live program here. I call it the live scream, by the way. Rushme Nair, who was at TMLX21 the other day at Palma's Kitchen.

She is going to come back in 2026, early 2026. She's going to come back on Toronto Mike in this basement alongside FOTM Supriya Devetti. So it's going to be Supriya and Rushme. And I think that'll be fascinating because I have similar experiences on AM Talk Radio in this market. Right. That would be very interesting. Yeah, they had similar stories. I think Supriya got a worse than Rushme, but they both walked away because the listenership rejected them, and they're both women of color. Yeah. And I think talk radio, AM talk radio anyway, is a tough, is no country for women of color. Yeah, I wouldn't

necessarily make that blanket. I was trying to make it like the movie. Right. No country for old men. Right, but I think you have a point. I think it's a tough audience for sure. I I have to say on Facebook I used to get friend requests from people from the News Talk 1010 audience and I would accept them because I thought, well, I'm doing this show and I should promote it and so forth. But then if there was any trouble to be made in any of the comments, maybe I'd post something political or somebody else would. But if there's any trouble to be had, it would be the News Talk 10 people and I had to end up blocking them. Like not as a group, but just one by one. Imagine you're a morning show host, a woman of color, and imagine what you'd get.

Yeah, exactly. And I know Jim Richards gets a bunch of stuff. Jim Ritchell, because he's a reasonable man who loves his Great Lakes beer. Exactly. So, Supriah DeVetti was over here fairly recently since your last visit with Mike Stafford. Oh, okay. So reuniting, that was a morning show crew at 640. So we've talked a bit about 10-10, but the rivals down the dial there is AM 640. And there are big changes at AM 640.

And I even pulled a clip because it's going to come back to FOTM, Mike Stafford. But the big change at AM 640 is John Oakley, who's been on that show since he was recruited from 10-10 to replace Humble and Fred, who were leaving 640 for Mixed 99.9. So this is like 2002, 2001, I think it's 2002. When Owen was born. Okay, so probably conceived while listening to Humble and Fred on the audio radio. I mean, the amount of sex that I had listening to Humble and Fred.

Well, it's amazing he turned out so well. It was mostly Fred. It was his voice. It was, oh my God. When he was a goo head. Yeah. Oh, don't say that, Mike. I might just, I'm getting around.

Clean that up, Blair. Clean up your mess here. Okay, so what I'm saying is John Oakley, who has been there a long time. Yes. Had aired his last broadcast on 640 last Friday. Right. He's done. Wow, that's amazing.

Did you ever meet John Oakley? I don't think I ever did. He's a mysterious guy because I'll say, so obviously I've taken a couple of runs at getting John Oakley on Toronto mic, and it's just crickets. Like, I don't get a note, you don't hear anything back. But then I had a live recording from the GLB Brew Pub because

640 was having a party. This is when Amanda Coupito was the program director. And everybody at the station, and everybody who appeared on the station, which was a lot of global people, too, like Anthony Farnall and people like that, they were all in the room, and I was recording in the corner, and one by one, they'd come over.

Greg Brady, Alex Pearson, Ed Keenan was there, I don't want to, Kelly Catrera, some producers, some global people, lots of people. A bunch of people I like. But guess who somehow avoided this event? He didn't, nothing didn't come over. He wasn't even there. He somehow, he was the only on-air personality who wasn't at this party.

Well, I suppose there's a couple of things. That maybe he wants to be mysterious, but also. He's private, maybe. Yes, and when you're the top dog at a station, you can do that. You cannot show up at the station event. I certainly wasn't true when I was at News Talk 1010 because I wasn't the top talk.

But, you know, John Moore might opt to not be there depending on the event. Well, that would be a 10-10 event. Yeah, I need be, no, but I'm just saying if it was a station event, you know, when you're, when you... But typically, you want to show you're a team player, I feel like... Yes, but I think that maybe, you know, there's egos involved.

I mean, I have no idea. I don't know. I think I get the vibe. Again, never met the man. Yeah. Okay. Never been in the same room as a man. as far as I know.

Right. But I get the vibe that he is just Uber private. So he, you know, he does his show and he, by all accounts, does a great job. He was on the radio for 40 years plus. But he's currently off the radio, no longer at 640. And I actually received a clip from the show because Joe Warmington was one of his final guests. I guess this is the last week, Oakley was on 640. He had Joe Warmington on.

Do you know Joe Warmington? No, never met. So he writes for the son. Yeah, I was, okay, so Joe Warmington chatted with me about Oakley, and I was quoted, this is last week, maybe two weeks ago, but I think it was last week, I was quoted in the Toronto Sun as like a radio expert who was pontificating on like basically the legacy of John Oakley in this market.

Like I was quoted as a radio expert. Interesting, considering you haven't spoken with John Oakley, but never met the man. But I mean, when you think about your position in all of this, and I did wonder why. why you wouldn't apply for the CBC spot. Oh, my God. But, um... What time did to get to wake up for that one?

Yeah, well, there's that. You could cycle down, though. Um, the, uh, but what, but when you think about your position in, in this world, you're one of the few people paying attention. And you're not just paying attention to the one station you listen to in the morning or whatever. Right. You're paying attention to the whole panoply.

Well, I'm paying attention to 640 now. And I don't know if I've heard 640 since I had a commute back in 2007 and Stafford was doing Simpson's trivia on a drive home show. Right, right. But you're still paying attention to who's where and who's doing what and who's getting hired and who's getting fired and so forth. And in a way that I don't think anyone else is. There used to be, of course, media that covered broadcasting, but there isn't anymore. So you're it.

So Joe Warmington needs to quote a radio expert. He's going to go to Toronto Mike. Well, I don't know about that, but he certainly did. Yeah, he did. And I think, Joe, I don't know him. I don't know, Joe, but it seems to me a guy who has a daily column. It's daily, isn't it? I think it's daily, but I can't.

Don't call me. I'm not a Toronto Sine expert. It might be three times a week. Whatever it is, I bet he's got deadlines and he's got to fill, you know, you need content. And he talks to Mike Boone and he's thinking, okay, I can use this. And he did. And I pulled a clip of Joe Warmington talking to John Oakley. Now, the recording is done where somebody just recorded it like from an external speaker.

So it's a bit of a potato quality. But here's about a minute because I find it interesting when they talk about Stafford on the air at 640 because you know the story, and listeners of Toronto, Mike, know the story of how Stafford was ousted and what's happened since then. But let's listen. We're talking with a friend Joe Warmington, columnist with the Toronto Sun, friend of the Oakley Show. We go back a long way, and Joe, to a certain extent, you know where the bodies are buried or how they got buried. In fact, you just invoke the name of one of our erstwhile colleagues, Mike Stafford. Now, interestingly enough, you know, he had made a reference, I guess.

This was considered to be a perceived attempt at a joke. uh in reference to ontario premier dug ford who's going to join us shortly at the bottom of the hour but you know what uh mike had said this in an eternal meeting it was a screen grab that was taken by the program director of all people and he fed it to the media i mean this is what we went through in kind of that george floyd panic area and canceled culture you know the people were being torpedoed i mean i certainly uh felt the indebted dignity of it as well, you know, I guess got by relatively unscathed. Mike had to walk the plank. I mean, did you have any of that going on at the sun? I don't know about the sun,

but I certainly covered a lot of it. I mean, Don Cherry comes to mind. I don't think I did enough to help Mike, and I feel bad about it, but you can only take on so many battles like this. You know, we're in fighting for people all the time. Well, there's a taste of John Oakley and Joe Warmington on 640 talking a little bit about the outsting of Mike Stafford. I just think it's interesting when you hear that. Yeah, it is. Weird background noises, though.

I know. Was that in the house or in the recording? Yeah, both of us were looking around. Like, what's going on? Maybe he was on his end because the guy recorded it was just like a speaker and they were just recording it from my house. I think it's on the recording. What I did find interesting because I went to the 640 website to find the podcast so I could get a

proper audio feed of that and they did not publish that episode as a podcast. That is interesting. Yeah. So somebody said, nope, and it makes it difficult to find this audio if you don't have the podcast, but somebody recorded it and got it to me. So there you go.

John Oakley retires, and I put quotes on that because I get a vibe like you got a tap and said, Time's Up, we're not renewing your contract. So we don't know if he'll resurface somewhere, but John Oakley, as far as we know, has retired from radio after over four decades. Over four decades in radio. That is really unusual. You know, when I talk about the show that I had on NewsFoc 1010 with Bob Reed, which was called in the studio,

I will say to people, you know, ran 11 years, which is some kind of record in AM radio, particularly. It's a long time. Yeah, it's a long time. I mean, it's not actually a record, but it is a long time in radio, and 40 years is unbelievable. That's great.

There you go. So if John's listening, you're invited in the basement to chat about your career. You mentioned Indy 88 earlier. Big changes there. Yeah. So let me get this right. There are a number of stations in the GTA owned by Local Radio Lab.

This is the company, and they have many stations, and they've decided to take their indie brand and apply it to some of these other stations. For example, in Milton, there is now 101.3 Indy FM. And in Orangeville, there's now 101.5 Indy FM. And in Alaston, there's now 92.1 indie FM. And in Bolton, there's now 102.7 indie FM. FM. So that's what? Now, if you count 88.1, you've got five indie stations in, I don't know if Alaston is GTA or whatever, but you know what I mean in the surrounding area. It's a conglomerate.

Yeah. Which is the opposite of indie. Well, that's right. So we had this chat with Bob Willett, but people do sometimes think indie is the music they play. Like you're playing indie music. Yeah. And we could talk about how that term has been bastardized. But it actually, it does reference the fact. that it's this outfit, which is called Local Radio Lab, is not Rogers, Chorus, or Bell. Okay.

That's what it means. It's like, we're not even Stingray. Like it's like, no, we're, like, they're not a big fish. They've got a bunch of stations, but they're smaller market stations. So they're indie. I'm not looking for a job in radio,

so I don't have to worry about offending them. And I don't mean to offend them, but I would say that's a gossamer thin reason for calling your company. that because it, of course, people will think of it as referring to the music. And they'll be very wrong, because the reason I played walking in Memphis is because FOTM Bob Willett played that song that morning. They voice track these things, these morning shows.

So Bob Willett is voice tracking the indie FM morning show in Milton, and he's playing Walking in Memphis by Marcone, and that ain't indie. No, it was never indie, ever. It was on a major label from the beginning, and nothing wrong with that. But, you know, they're like trying to, not that the company is trying to do that, but the idea that people, you call something indie and that makes it more authentic and makes it more truthful is not necessarily so. It's just not true.

No, I know. So the term indie has been bastardized. It has been. Joel Grossman is the name of the guy who owns local radio lab. And he's, you know, he's now he's got all these stations using the same kind of branding. So it almost looks like it's getting set up to be sold to one of the bigger, bigger outlets or something. That is what happens in radio. isn't it? Yeah, Radio Lady would have some stuff

to say about that. Well, Radio Lady, we need to know what's going on here. I'm going to quote Joel Grossman because I have a quote from him. This came from broadcast dialogue. Who will talk about in a moment? But this is what Joel says. Actually, it's not from broadcast dialogue. I think I pulled this from like literally from the local radio lab press release. But it says

this rebrand has been a year in the making and we're so excited to finally share what we've been working on behind the scenes. Bringing our stations together under the Indy FM brand lets us launch a fresh talent lineup, refreshed programming and shared contesting across the entire network. We're really proud of where Indy FM is headed, and I'd personally like to say a big thank you to everyone who's been listening and supporting us. Well, that's great. Good for that. Who wrote that? ChatG-T-T. I don't know about that. Okay. Hey, did I tell you about my adventure

with Chat-T-T-T? Tell me. I did what I used to call an ego-surf. I may have told you this Yeah I may have told you this Because it was actually back in the summer But I'll tell you again quickly Because I've started it Okay

Then we'll get to TV I yeah I looked up my I asked chat GPT To tell me about Blair Packam And it told me Various things that were correct A couple of things that were arguable

A couple of things that were Wrong That I like for instance That I teach at U of T And that's just confusion Between the fact that I went to U of T I have my degree from UFT Right, you were on the air of Mark Wiseblood.

Yeah, yeah, but it, yeah, exactly. Mark was a few years younger than me. No, he always gets irritated when I say that. You know, I'm a tech kid younger than you. I'm just joking, Mark. So, no, but it said that I was best known, my band, the Jitters, was best known for their song Call of the Wild. Whoa, that's not true. Well, Call of the Wild is not a song I've ever written, nor do I have any association with a song called Call of the Wild.

and so I asked tell me about the song Call of the Wild and it told me that it was an anthemic song I asked for a quote of the lyrics because I thought maybe I could write it and it said it can't quote the lyrics because of copyright restrictions however the song is very meaningful to audiences everywhere and fans of the jitters

and so I then said I love the anthemic chorus can you tell me the lyrics and it said no I can't for copyright reasons but what is it about the chorus that you love so much and I said I love that it's anthemic and then I said

I love the lyric And I just made something up Right Oh, oh, oh yeah It's no time to be mild It's time for the call of the wild So I typed that in And it said aren't

ChatsyPD said Aren't those lyrics great Audiences everywhere Love those lyrics It was such bullshit So you've obviously doing this As a test or whatever Check out what you're saying about you

I have no time for it Like I won't even Just I have no time for it The one time I was pitched something, it was not chat GPT, it was the Google AI but who was telling me about Mike Stafford hosting Toronto Mike and everything. I realized like,

oh great, like two of these things are going to be true. One is going to be misleading and the other is going to be completely made up and you have to figure it all out from there. It's more trouble and it's worth. I had a friend who did use Google AI for, to make an audio recording.

Tell me about Blair Packham and he sent it to me. And it's a voice that sounds similar to Jeff Woods. So an authoritative broadcast voice. Oh, that's a sexy voice. Yeah, and a woman who also had a good broadcast voice. The two of them having a conversation, she's like, so this guy, this guy, Blair Packham, a songwriter, a singer, very talented guy.

Can you tell me about him? Well, yeah, it's funny. You should ask that, Susan. You know, Blair, if you look into this guy's career, it's really kind of amazing. This thing went on for a half an hour with these people talking about me, and they're not even real people,

and they sounded so real. because they were going and then of course there's also you know like they're stumbling over some words here and they're like real humans and they didn't actually they didn't talk about Call of the Wild now that I think of it but anyway well okay so we got

that one corrected thank you Robert Lawson fact checking them I believe but we're moving from radio to television and this segment Blair is brought to you by Palma Pasta they hosted us on Saturday at TMLX21

They fed everybody, and they have a lasagna here for you, delicious Palma Pasta lasagna for you, Blair Packam. I'm thrilled. And I'm going to remind people, I had a couple of people come up and go, you know, we do our catering with Palma Pasta. It's so like, it's economical and delicious. Like, it's a deadly combo if you ask me, like if you have a holiday party, I don't know,

if you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, whatever's going on, Palma Pasta catering. Go to palmapasta.com. You can thank me later. In the store itself, I didn't get to TMLX this year, but when I've been in the past, the store is amazing. And I actually have gone back to buy Christmas gifts, like stocking stuffers of, you know, little jars of all of it.

It is amazing. It's an amazing store and they're so friendly. And it's, I just, I love it. Well, hit up retrofest in on your way back east. You go to Palma's kitchen. Yep. And then you can drop by Great Lakes Brewery at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard in Atobico. So this is what you do.

So we have sadly a firing here to lead us off. It's an FOTM in the past quarter. Donovan Bennett was let go by Sportsnet. I had a couple of visits with Donovan Bennett. I think we did a Zoom during the pandemic, if I remember correctly. And I believe I had, believe it or not, I believe Donovan was my special guest with Garvia Bailey. We did a special episode titled Being Black in Toronto.

And Donovan, Donovan, who is a black man and Garvia Bailey, who's a black woman. And you. And me who listened. I did a lot of listening, Blair. I'm a good listener. I do not know, I don't pretend to know what it is like to be a black person in Toronto. Fair enough. Interesting in learning.

But deep, I'm going to call this person Deep Throat. I received a message from Deep Throat and I'm just going to read it, okay? We're not suggesting anything untoward here. I'm going to read it. Okay. And then people can, can wonder aloud. But Deep Throat learned of Donovan Bennett's firing and sent me this. And again.

My lawyer wants me to assure everybody, we're not suggesting anything untoward. These are just facts that I confirmed. And I'm not even here. Blair is like, Blair doesn't know what's going on. Yeah, no. But what else is new? I haven't heard this. I don't know what this is.

It reads, Greg Sansoni took over in January 2023, since colon, this is what it reads. Eric Thomas out. Cabby out. Cliff Floyd, out. Anthony Stewart, out Arashma Dany out Donovan Bennett

out Hannah Ryan I always put you the same sing demoted off conference finals so not out but demoted off conference finals Savannah Hamilton

out notice a pattern so this note came in and I know who it's from I'm just not going to name the person it came from who has sensed and again I almost regret

saying the first part because I'm not trying to connect it to any individual. And I'm not suggesting anything untoward at all. I want to be clear about that. But has detected a trend in people of color being let go over the last couple of years. Yeah. Yeah.

So again, I know people are going to speculate that, and I know what's being suggested there. But I received this and I thought I would read it during Rewinder because I was going to talk about Donovan Bennett anyways, who was a fine broadcast. and a very good FOTM. Right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know the situation well enough to comment on it directly, just to say that... What can we say? Well, I think that we're in very interesting times,

and it may be that that suggestion is correct. It may be, I don't know. We don't know. But, you know, given the times we live in, where there's a backlash against DEI and political correctness, both of which I think are, to me, are both, you know, unless taken to illogical extremes, they're both logical and they're human and they're, it's a good, those are good things. But I know I have friends who would disagree

with me. And they, you know, some of these friends have been given permission, uh, in general by the politics of the time to, uh, to be, in my opinion, regressive. So, um, if that's the case in this, I and I have no idea, but if that's the case, that's very sad, I think. And, you know, you speak of this time, and I think that is a great segue for something that happened over the past quarter, which is a gentleman named Charlie Kirk was murdered, and a talk show host I quite like, and I think you're a fan as well, but Jimmy Kimmel made what I would call an innocuous comment about it, did not laugh at the death or celebrate the death in any matter at all. But his comments caused him to be suspended, and this was a big brouhaha for a while, that Jimmy Kimmel was. suspended because he made comments following the murder of Charlie Kirk, but then subsequently

he was brought back and he's currently back on the air as we speak. But all of that, as you recall, which was a fodder for talk radio, for water cooler conversations, for a big, big topic of conversation came and went during this past quarter. Yeah, it's, uh, it was quite a time, um, this past quarter. So yeah, the that, all that stuff is dismaying. Um, the fact that Jimmy Kimmel was brought back is fine by me. I did find things were so heated in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder that you couldn't even say anything about it unless you were publicly, you know, mourning his death. And, you know, I mourn the death of any human, but, you know, even when Trump inevitably goes, I don't know if I'll mourn that particularly. But what I'm saying is, you know, it's always, they're always loved ones who are going to be unhappy.

and Charlie Kirk was a highly influential fellow. I didn't agree with anything that he said necessarily. But if you even hinted at that on social media, you would get excoriated by people saying that you're celebrating his murder, which is not, there's a huge amount of gray area in there. You know, you can disagree with someone's politics and still think it's a tragedy that they get murdered. Now, I did see people celebrating his murder.

Those people are fucked. None named Blair Packham. No, that's not, I think that's inappropriate. That said, it's better to say nothing. And so I opted. That's what I always always preach is that if you can't say something nice about somebody when they die, like you don't have to say anything at all. No, you can wait, at least light a little time.

You know, it's, you know, taking it away from Charlie Kirk for a second, when some rock star dies and people weigh in, inevitably, because most of my friends are musicians or music fans. Right. When they weigh in, they often feel the need to say, well, I was never a fan of their music, It's still sad that they died. Unnecessary detail. Yeah, and it's like, okay, I don't care that you weren't a fan. Like, it has nothing to do with anything.

And it's like you're planting your flag on that to prove how cool you are. Right. No, that's exactly what it is. And it's such an unnecessary detail at that time. I've done it. I did it years ago and I stopped doing it because I realized that's stupid. It's not about me. Right.

So I would rather not comment. Now, I don't know if this isn't the appropriate time because we're still talking about TV, but Steve Cropper died the other day. Well, you can do that now. we have other deaths we can remark on but Steve Cropzell now as you know he's prolific in many

ways which you'll tell us now again we're going to do a little out of order and come back to Kirk but he also produced Doc of the Bay sitting on the dock of the bay co-wrote it in fact and he wrote in the midnight hour he wrote I think he co-wrote maybe I think Isaac Hayes wrote

Soul Man but he played guitar on it Steve Cropper Steve Cropper was the house producer and songwriter for Stax Records in Memphis so all those Stacks records Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding you know the the Bar K's and the

Booker T and the MGs etc so many he was one of the MGs he was one of the MGs and he Green onions yeah he was and he co-wrote green onions you know so he wrote or produced or co-wrote a million million sellers really a terrific

terrific guy I got to play three gigs with him and they were all huge experiences and and I got to when we did Soul Man and I was one of the singers when it came time to go play it Steve it was amazing to me that

there he was Steve Cropper and I'm saying play it Steve to the guy who Wow like a blues brother yeah so and he told me a joke that I continue to tell to this day that I'm not going to tell you only not because it's off color in any way but it's long and I've probably told you before

because it's really long well maybe we close with it if I have no I don't know it's a lot Okay, okay. But anyway, Steve Crawford. Significant passing this week. We had a good time. We played a show in Hawaii. And the other artist on the, you know, the other artist on the bill was Alice Cooper. Wow. Well, you are close with Bob Ezrin. Well, you were. I was at one time. Yes. And he still take your calls or no. I don't know. I haven't tried to call him. Because I want him on Toronto Mike. Now he's come home. When I see him in a public place, which is rare. But when I see him, he always goes, hey, Blair. And then just keep walking.

That's more than it happens. If I say. If I see him when I'm marching in the Santa Claus parade tomorrow, he won't know who the hell I am. But I do think, I think I shouted you out. He came up organically in a conversation recently, Bob Ezrin, and he's from the wall and all this.

And I'm like, and he also worked on those jitters demos back in the day. Like, I made sure to work you into that convoys. He did. He did I, the great thing was he, you know, Bob had a bigger vision.

So he would imagine, like, instead of these three minute pop songs, he'd be like three minute pop song, and then we, what are we going to do with it? kind of thing. And so he sat down at the piano as we were demoing a song and he said, okay, I'm thinking

of a coda that kind of goes like this and he starts playing on the piano, blung, dung, dang, dang, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, and Danny, the guitar player goes, well, Danny goes, uh, Bob, isn't that like the coda to Layla? Yeah. And Bob goes, what? And then he goes, oh, well, we'll change it. We'll change it a little bit. We'll change a note here or there.

So it never ended up surviving, but I thought it was so funny. His brain was just always going, you know. Yeah, that might be the most famous coda in the history. Exactly. It was kind of like Bob. Come on. You must know that's late. Share it to Martin Scorsese.

Okay. So back to television for a moment here. And a fact that I shared at the time, but I think it's interesting is that this tells you where I'm at. I learned the name Charlie Kirk when I heard he was killed. Or at least when he shot. I don't know if they announced his death right away. But I did not know the name Charlie Kirk.

I did. I tend to follow this stuff. it causes my stomach to royal and so forth, and I shouldn't. But I was fully aware of who Charlie Kirk was. I know who the other right-wing commenters are. Yeah, see, I don't watch, even though I'm a correspondent on CNN,

I don't actually watch any, like, CNN or Fox News or anything. I, yeah, I don't either. I don't watch either of those, but I do listen to what's called MS now, MSNBC. Okay. although with some reservation because of how they've handled themselves in the wake of Trump's election. Anyway, but yeah, so I was aware of who he was, and I found his views very disagreeable, for me, very disagreeable. And I found his method, people have said he's just trying to get a dialogue going.

It's like, yeah, with college students who are ill-prepared to debate the topics that he throws at them and then interrupts them and talks over them. Now, if I had typed that on my Facebook, you know, two months ago, I would lose a whole lot of friends and I'd be excoriated in public and so forth. But it's still true. And if you quote Charlie Kirk's words back to those people, they say, he never said that, but he did. And there's video of him. And then they say, it's AI, which it's not.

And he'd been saying stuff like that, you know, offensive stuff for years. So, yeah, I was aware of who he was, and I wasn't a fan. What I'm intrigued by, though, is the way his widow has handled his passing. really maximizing its potential for, you know, for an audience and for donations and fundraising for political candidates and so forth. And I'm thinking, well, I guess that's in line. That fits the brand. You know, you want, maybe she's mourning in private.

I don't know. Well, I'm on Reddit, okay, this is my source. So I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. And hugging JD dance and the way that I hug you. No, I would say more sexually. much to my disappointment. Yeah, like the way I hug you.

Yeah, I was going to say, no, you don't hug me sexually. I've been waiting for it. It's the hair that I really like. The fact that your hair is so headphone independent, like, there's your hair, and you take those phones off, and it'll pop back up, you know,

and my hair will just sit flat. It'll be apparent to everyone that I've been wearing headphones or a toque or something. Carla Collins was at TMLX21. Yes, I heard that. She made a comment about how we had the two, we had the best hair in showbiz. she said, because she's got a lot of crazy

hair going on. Yeah, she's got big hair for sure. Yeah. She's got big hair. All right, do you know the name Travis Dan Raj? No, I don't. So he, well, he's been all, he's been everywhere, man, but his most recent stop was CBC and he had a show on CBC, but he left under some strange circumstances and then

he launched a podcast in which he would play, he played in the first episode anyway. Like audio, he recorded secretly of like HR meetings he had with CBC and stuff like this. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I just took a note here to say that, like, since we last recorded Travis Dan Raj, who I've invited on Toronto

Mike, he's yet to take me up on the invitation, but he's rattling cages at the CBC, that is for sure, but he's no longer with CBC. And that happened since since, I think he was carrying, or maybe Carmen Wong, who is a co-host of his, was

carrying a bat. And I saw the photo with a baseball bat. And then I remember FOTM Bradford, who was at TMLX-21. He was in the sun holding a bat and I then had Alan Zweig hold a bat for his photo by Toronto Tree. And you could hold a bat today. I'm just saying we could do another bat photo here.

Well, that's hilarious given the Brad Bradford, Alan's Wig almost showdown last year. Yeah, and they were on the mic together at the same time and they both made a comment. I'm getting too predictable because of course I put Brad Bradford and Alan's Wig on the mic at the same time. Of course you did. Yeah, that's great. I got to mix it up a bit. I wish I had seen that.

Well, I recorded it. I'm sure it wasn't as eventful. No, because Alan took a high road on that one. Yeah. Well, he's definitely, he's, he's a gentleman. There's no question. Well, he says he was an asshole and now he's less of an asshole, I think. Well, I wonder, I mean, I wouldn't have characterized him as an asshole,

but I would say Alan could be difficult and curmudgeonly at times, sometimes contrarian and argumentative, but, you know, that's probably because he's, you know, first of all, I love Alan's wagon. I've known him for a hundred years, so I feel I can say that. And you played with his brother just. Yeah, and I love his brother. as well, but I do believe that Alan has

mellowed, no question. Every time I've seen him, every time we've gotten together for coffee, it always strikes me like, oh, right, this is the new Alan's wag. Not that he was so terrible before I loved him, you know, but... And we like him that way. Yeah, yeah. So don't get too soft. No, exactly. It's part of what it makes him who he is.

Don Cherry, there's a name you know, and not the musician. I'm not friends with Don Cherry. We speculated this, I think, in a previous rewinder. We played the clip of his finale, you know, Tudaloo. where it was suggested that was the finale of his podcast. And then he went on Joe Warmington, speaking of Joe Warmington, and he's all over this episode, but he and Joe Warmington talked,

and Joe Warmington wrote that Don said, no, it's just over for the season. He'll be back when the hockey returns in the fall of 2025. Well, I can now definitively state, everyone knew this except Joe. Don Cherry's podcast is over. So the broadcasting life of Don Cherry has come to an end, and you can just enjoy his remaining years offline.

How old is Don Cherry? 90 something. Oh my goodness. I actually put him in his 80s. So good for him and yes, I think, I mean, unless it's the kind of thing that drives him, you know, well, he's done.

I think maybe his son made the decision for him. Right. Okay. Well, yeah, then good for him. And I hope he enjoys his remaining years. So there you go. Melanie Ng, kind of known to anyone who would

know her possibly from city news and she was on breakfast television and then she left breakfast television, but she was recently on city news. Well, she has left the city. Okay, I was going to say Elvis has left the building. So Melanie Ng departs city news and the city of Toronto. She and her family have up and moved to Calgary, Alberta.

That's really funny. I actually, just before you said Calgary, I thought to Calgary. Okay, you should have said it out loud. You could have won the prize. I could have won this. You ended up wrong. I mean, I know Vancouver, but no, Calgary. So there you go, Melanie Ing, you don't see her on TV.

She up and left the city with her family. Okay, let's talk some music. You know your music. This segment of Rewinder is brought to you by Recycle My Electronics.C.A. Because Blair, you know, if you have old cables, old devices, old electronics, you don't throw that in the garbage. Those chemicals end up in our landfill. You go to Recyclemyelectronics.com. Put in your postal code and find out where you can drop that off.

That's great. And yes, and not only... Is it better for landfills to not put that stuff in there? But that stuff actually can be. There are valuable components to your electronics that can be recycled in a very positive way. So speaking of your postal code, tomorrow night I will be not performing, but I will be at the Danforth Music Hall tomorrow night. So I'll be in your hood, sort of.

And you'll be there to see? The Trues. Oh, of course. Say hi to the trues. If you end up talking to them. Well, they were in this basement recently, the brothers anyways. They're lovely guys. They taught at our songwriting workshop.

Lovely people. They were mentors. They really are. They really are. They're lovely people. And we did a few shows together, songwriter shows, a couple. So yeah, they're lovely guys. They were lovely.

I did kind of, I think, really one after another. I did the trues, the two main, the main singer and the main guitarist. And I also did the same kind of combo for Finger 11, like back to back. And it was interesting to compare and contrast. Like Finger 11 was ahead of the truth. by about a decade or whatever. But they both break at 97-7 hits FM in St. Catherine. Oh, interesting.

Well, that's a great station. Yeah. Well, the White House of Rock, and shout out to Polly Morris, whose daughter is currently covering provincial politics for CTV. Oh, wow. Chauvin-M-Morris. Oh, of course. FOTM, who I knew very vaguely from News Talk 1010.

She was, yeah, she got out of the news department before the news department got out of there. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know all those connections. Well, listen, that's what did you come here for. Did you know Christy Knight? I know of her, of course. I never met her.

I did it. We almost had her on Toronto, Mike, but yeah. She was my mentor at Q107. Okay. And did the... She was at Hits for a long time. Yeah, she went to hits from there. And then she and I co-hosted her show a couple of times,

where she had me as a guest co-host. It was for, I believe it was called The Rock Report. And I, you know, and I was there with her. It was great. All right. Let's talk a little music. of what happens in the past quarter, Toronto's Velvet Underground announces its closure.

Yeah, another venue bites the dust, and that's a drag. Now, I never played there. No, I did a songwriting thing there once, yeah. So, but that's the only time. So I wasn't really familiar with it that much, but, you know, it's a shame when a venue goes down. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to ask you if you ever played Velvet Underground here,

but it's gone. And I know you're good friends with Rick Emmett. Yes. And you guys even, like, have work together. Yeah, I engineered his, his, uh, audio book for his last book, uh, 10 telecaster tales. And then I recorded the audio I engineered I didn't produce. I engineered the recording of his, uh, that album, 10 telecaster tales. Well, there's been, uh, I'm actually personally confused by the whole announcement,

but it sounds like Rick Emmett and Triumph, have, uh, they're going to do some kind of multimedia tribute act. Uh, do you have any insight at all? Do you know anything of what I'm talking about? This is entirely news to me. I haven't talked to Rick in a little while. Okay. So I should give him a call.

On my way home, I'm going to call and find out. Call Rick and find out exactly what's going. Because it's a bit convoluted, but it seems to include people who aren't in triumph, but maybe had moments in triumph. And I'm not, I'm not sure, is it going to be the OG band, the trio, are they going to be like holograms or will they come in and just guest appearances? But something's going on with the brand triumph. And it's some kind of a.

multimedia tribute act thing and we need to find out what's going on for the next episode of Rewindor. I can, I'm going to make a note. Find out from Rick Emmett, F-O-T-M-Rick Emmett, who you drove to Christy Pits one day to be honored by Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball.

I'm playing Nellie Furtado. Have you ever met Nellie Furtado? No. You're missing out. I love this song. I just think it's so, I mean, I know it's old, old at this point, but it still sounds really hip to me.

And her vocal, like, her performance is so great. And what a chorus. Man, this song is like hook-a-rama. Do you think Rob Proust would like this song? Yes. Well, no, actually, now that he's confounded us by not liking walking in Memphis. Right. I had a great dinner with Rob in New York.

Anything you can share because you guys are both mean a great deal to me. Oh, well, you know, he's just a mensch. He's a lovely guy and he met us in between shows. It was on the weekend, so he had a matinee and then an evening show for Mamma Mia. And so he met us for dinner at his favorite Vietnamese foe place. Was his wife there, or no, he just came to you. No, it was Rob and I, Tanya, and then we met with my good friend, Jesse Larner, who used to live in Toronto and his wife, Constance. Jesse is an author who has written this, I mean, among other things, he's a writer.

he wrote this great book about Mount Rushmore and about the... Putting Trump on there? No, this is an older book but about the racism behind it and the, I mean it's quite a story quite a story.

So anyway, it was great to see Jesse. I used to know him. He worked with Matt Greenberg in a restaurant when the jitters were first formed and so Jesse's like part of my history and when I go to New York if I get a chance I see him. Okay, but you had a chance.

a great time with FOTM Rob Proust. Yeah, I think Rob enjoyed meeting. My ears were burning. Did I come up at all? Like, hey, we talked to all about you. We played together at a TMLX at Great Lakes Brewery. Here's a funny thing.

Rob, when I was introducing Rob to Jesse, I said, and Rob apparently played on our album, and I've forgotten. And Rob laughed and said, yes, I played on your hit. And I was like, really? Like, I couldn't. Yeah, that's wild. It was embarrassing. I know, because I remember.

remember so much. And yet that, I remember Rob playing on the record. I just don't remember I had the guys from Honeymoon Sweet here and they didn't remember Rob being in the band. That's amazing. I think Rob is so nice. Yeah. So unlike a me or you or Zweig who have a bit of sandpaper and get memorable because you're not perfect, Rob is so nice. I think he can be forgotten at times because he doesn't do outrageous things. Right. Maybe. Yeah. He doesn't say rude things or punch anybody like he's just a sweetheart you know you've thrown a few haymakers in your time that's because he won't sexy hug me do you know why i played nelly frittato no i was thinking that has nothing to do with rob bruce nelly frittato has announced her retirement from live performing

wow well i i you know what i think i have i've mixed feelings about it because although i've never seen nelly perform so it's not like i'm an avid fan thinking no don't do it but i am thinking i flawed people who are able to make transitions in life and who are able to make a decision rather than just letting things atrophy. And so I think good for her. I'm in the process of... But isn't she my age? Maybe she's younger than me, actually. She's younger than you, I think. Yeah. But she's, yeah, she's youthful. And, uh, but I, I'm in the middle of making transitions myself that, that have required making decisions. And that's, it's challenging because, you know, um, but as you get older, you know, life changes. Life's all about change. I've been telling my students. I've been telling my

students that and you know they're 20 years old so they don't believe it because you know things seem the same to them more or less but it's all about change and it doesn't stop it doesn't the only constant is change yes write that down use it in your class yes and uh and death and taxes but um i know people who have avoided one of those things death yeah yeah i um shout out to ridley funeral home all i was all i was suggesting to them though was that they have to be adaptable and they have to and when and it's when we resist change that that often problems start. So it's not like you have to go around.

I can't fight it. Yeah, well, you can only fight it so much. I also opined that the reason people hang on to tradition is because they're trying to stop time in some way. So, you know, my family always vacations at Disneyland or whatever. And it's like, yeah, but then somebody dies or somebody gets sick and can't go or something's changed. They're going to change no matter how much you try and hang on to a tradition.

Now, I'm not saying don't, because traditions give us comfort for sure. I'm just saying be aware Speaking of death Yes speaking of death We're gonna cover just a few what I call Like these are not gonna be the biggest deaths But these are the kind of deaths Where it may be rewinders

The only program That's gonna actually reference these deaths possibly We already talked about Steve Cropper Who is being remembered far and wide Because of his His role in popular music, rock and roll We mentioned Otis Redding You know stacks

Who's the professor at York University who is the Stacks expert. He showed up in the Stacks. Oh, Rob Bowman. Yeah. He's returning to Toronto Mike early in 2026. He's got a new book out about, I think it's about Muscle Shores.

Shoals, I think. Sholes, yeah. Not Shores. Sholes. But anyway, he's fantastic. He'll be back here soon. I just want to shut that out in passing. He's so great.

He's done such great work over the years, over decades. I saw him at the Gary Top Book release in the red room of 888 Young. I really wanted to go to that, and I don't know why I didn't. Yeah, me too. I know. Rob Pruss was there. And Dave Steinberg. The mods, of course.

Of course. And Gary Topp was instrumental, no pun intended, in the mods career. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was honored. That was the greatest achievement. That was my greatest achievement until tomorrow when I'm the Grand Marshal of the Santa Class Break, because I was the moderator of the panel at that event.

I understand you did a great job. Well, I, I'm glad to hear that because I had never done that before. But these significant deaths we're going to discuss are brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. They'll have a great hot chocolate at the Atobico Santa Claus parade tomorrow. And they have sent over a measuring tape for you, Blair Packham. How many of those measuring tapes you got now? Enough to start a store. Blair's measuring tape Emporium opening soon in the eastern.

York. Okay. I have nothing if not ambitious. Love Ridley Funeral Home because it's a family run. So it's independent. It's not a conglomerate. They can say they're indie. Yes. Indy Ridley. They're indie. GLB is indie. Palmaposta is indie. See how this works here. And also they only sell Canadian caskets, which I think is rad and good people there. And Brad Jones has a great podcast called Life's Undertaking. So one name I wanted to ask you about, unless you had something you were going to say there.

Not about Ridley Funeral Home, although I, I, I, support their indiness and their indiness and the work they do um but rick emmett replied to my text okay what did he say he said um all will be revealed over the next okay so maybe that's why it's confusing because it sounds like they've announced something's happening and they've dropped hints but they haven't spelled it out yet so so next rewinder will give the deeds yeah that's going on with rick emmon and triumph here okay are you familiar with the broadcaster known as beverly thompson is that name ring a bell but i don't yeah i'm sorry If I showed you a picture.

I'm familiar. So if I showed you a picture, Beverly Thompson, she was on the air here. I'm just calling her up. Sadly, she has passed away in September, September 14th, 2025.

She was best known probably from, she was on Canada AM co-hosting with Seamus O'Regan. Yes. She was on also CTV news channel. She actually has spent some time at Global, being on the news there. So she was all over... I'm sure I've seen her, yeah.

Because when she was at CTV, they had the 2010 Olympics, and she actually was co-hosting the Olympic morning program. And she also reported on the first inauguration of Barack Obama. So she was a big deal, and sadly,

she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she succumbed to this terrible disease at the very young age. of 61. Oh my goodness. And so fast. Well, I think she fought it. I think she maybe had multiple bouts. She was an active figure when it came to raising funds

for charities like the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. I know she was a voice for people. And then sadly it took her awful news. So this is from September. But I just wanted to say that I enjoyed her work and I enjoyed seeing her on her televisions and

she will be missed. Yes. Also, again, this is the Ridley Funeral Home segment, so there's going to be some death. Do you know the name Howard Christensen? Yes, but remind me, though, I'm sorry to be such a blank slate here. Listen, I don't give you, although this document is shared with you. You could theoretically peek at it over the past few months. I didn't know that.

Oh, okay. I never do that. Now you know, now you know. I will, I'll be better prepared next time. I like the blindside you with all this going on here. So I'm, uh, what I know him best from is he founded broadcast dialogue and I still will, once a week, peek at the broadcast dialogue. Connie Thesson is there and others,

and I will check out, you know, what's going on in the Canadian media zeitgeist. It's kind of a, you know, you mentioned we're one of the few places talking about radio and this, and that's one of the other few places. You're right, I had forgotten. Yes, you're right.

And he passed away, so I just wanted to pay respect to the founder of Broadcast Dialogue, Howard Christensen. And here, I'm wondering if you know this name because of your father's career in radio and your exposure to it, but do you know the name

Bill Brady and he was a long time London broadcaster and he is actually he was an order of Canada recipient and he had a short stint at CKE which maybe would make him known to some Toronto listeners but Bill Brady passed away does that name mean anything it does yeah yeah a veteran broadcaster yeah so our condolences very much yeah to them and of course we've already discussed Steve Cropper but I didn't want to just talk about all the big names that you're going to be hearing about everywhere and everybody will be talking about because these people, I feel, are more local

and they're doing a lot of work that I respect and I want it to pay tribute. Beverly, Howard, Bill, and Steve. Okay, oh, Steve, international guy. But Canadianity, this section I call Canadianity, and it is brought to you by Nick Aienis who happened to be in this very basement this morning. I spent some time with Nick.

I'm going to have them on Toronto mic next Friday. because I got questions for him for my show. But Nick has a couple of great podcasts here. He has a podcast called Building Toronto Skyline and another one called Building Success. Steve Paken was a recent guest on that one. And Steve Paken, I texted him to say he'd be great for the Metro Morning Job. And he had less than zero interest in that gig.

I think he's really liking his new fiercely independent career now that he's no longer full-time at TVO. Indy. He's indie. He's gone in again. You know what? There's no one more indie than yours truly, okay? But Steve's catching up there.

Steve's catching up there. So thank you to Nick Iini's Enfusion Corp Construction, uh, incorporated, uh, what's the name of that company? Fusion Corp, I'll just leave it there. And I got to nail the P. He says I was skipping the P infusion corp. But here's a couple of, uh, Canadianity items I wanted to discuss.

One is this. Jersey milk. Did you ever consume a chocolate? bar, known as Jersey milk. Oh, yeah, baby. Did you like it? Yes, very much. I was a chocolate bar aficionado, hence my, my girlish figure.

I thought I was just thinking you're looking good. Oh, I appreciate you. You're still biking? I'm rowing now because I'm finding it too cold to bike. And water? No, I'm rowing in the basement. Okay, that. Yeah, no, but I'm doing it diligently.

Fine, so you can't only, because maybe I'm speaking as a guy who's going to be biking to the Danborg Music Hall tomorrow. Exactly, yeah. But you won't, you won't bike when the. temperatures go below zero? Zero. Minus... You're like Monica.

She taps out at like 15 degrees. No, I tap out at 5 or 6 degrees. Yeah. Like, it just gets... And I don't have proper winter wear. That's the thing. My hands get cold. The pro tip here is just get a good pair of gloves

and wear a balaclava. And then the rest is just the proper layering. And then something on your feet that's not running shoes. The thing that threw me off the last couple of times I rode was the trail is blocked off in the Don Valley near where I live where they're putting in the Ontario line

and so the construction is getting in the way. Messing with your trails. I hate that. And it's just after a couple of times of running up against this block trail and then having to backtrack and so forth. It added more kilometers to my total but it was annoying. And especially because I had appointments to get to.

I hear you. So you got destination rides. But yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm a cycling enthusiast, but now how did we get? Oh, Jersey milk. Well, yeah, because you're looking good, but you do love your chocolate bars. I do love my junk food. Not junk food, like McDonald's and stuff, but chocolate bars. Jersey milk.

I like, yeah, there were a bunch of, that was Nielsen's, right? Yes, yes. So Nielsen's made a bunch of candy bars that I really liked. And not that I was an aficionado in that I knew who invented this or that, but just I liked him. So. So we had Jersey milk from 19. 24 to 2025. That's over 100 years, but they are no longer making Jersey milks. Right. Well, that's a shame. The chocolate was so great compared to, say, Hershey's chocolate.

I was a big fan of Jersey milk. Yeah, yeah. I like, there's a bunch that I still think of fondly. If I ever find a burnt almond, I would like that. That's a Cadbury's burnt almond, but it's not widely available for some reason. Well, I wanted to shout out the Jersey milk. That's a good run. It's a good one. I like bridge mixture. And I also kind of like the cherry blossom, which to me, both bridge mixture. I have a cherry blossom here because, you know, the guy who has been talked about quite a bit on this program, Rob Proust gave this to me, and because I've never had one. Well, have you had it yet? Is it an empty box? No, it's still in there. I was going to like maybe live stream my cherry blossom eating.

Break it out now. Well, I'm a fan. But both that and bridge mixture, to me, are old lady chocolate. And yet I have no problem eating them. This news is pretty fresh here. This comes from a chap named Brett Chang. And Brett Chang reports that Alex Taylor and I have bought back the peak. Five years from now, we believe it can be the largest independent media business in Canada. And we're putting our foot on the gas to get there.

In 2020, Alex and I created the peak. And over the next three years, along with our incredibly talented team, grew it to the point someone wanted to buy it from us. We said yes, it was a good opportunity, and to be completely honest, we needed the cash. Media has changed a lot since we started a tiny newsletter during the depths of COVID. Some things are now more difficult, but there are some real opportunities. We're focused on the latter. Don't worry, we're not going to mess of a good thing, but we think it can be better, and there are a lot of new ideas to try and products to launch.

So this is basically the peak, if you don't know, it was sold to Moses Nymer's company at Zumer for $5 million, which was comprised of $3.5 million cash on closing, and then I guess $1.5 million promissory note. That's how they roll. And again, pure speculation, but I'm not even sure that ever happened, but it's back in the hands of the founders. So the peak serves busy Canadian professionals and business leaders with the top global business finance and tech stories of the day,

packaged in a smart fast in easily digestible format. That's the PR statement. So there you go. It was sold off to Moses and Zumer and now it's back. So funny. I mean, not funny, but as a completely passive observer of all the machinations in the media world, it just never stops.

It's, you know, change is the one constant. Right. You know, people buying, selling, downsizing, most often, sometimes expanding, various endeavors. Founders cashing out, yeah, it's an interesting world. Yeah, I would like to know if Alex or Brett are listening, I would like to know of that $5 million deal. Because I was thinking, okay, would you sell TMDS for,

I would sell TMDS for $5 million? I'd buy it for $5 million. Do you have that kind of cash? Well, come in a check. I think in the car. Go get it, no way here. It's a briefcase comes down. It's a gym bag.

Oh, that's even cooler. I feel like a gym bags are cooler. Like Jackie Brown. Exactly. Yeah, the Raptors bag. It was a Raptors bag. Who was I friends with who, oh my goodness. Kept his money in a gym bag?

No, I'm just flashed back. We were having dinner. I was having dinner with Lisa Delbello. Oh, you know what? Another person I met in your kitchen who I'm trying to get on Toronto Mike. She was telling me about, about. Let's tango. Sorry.

You and your voice. Wow. couldn't do that um but no she was telling me about um about being sharing a a living space in los angeles with pam greer from jacky of course yeah the the jacky brown the those great black poitation exactly so and how they had a conflict but they worked it out and uh she said she was just the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life she would come down ready to go out and Lisa would be like, oh my God, like she was speechless with how beautiful Pam Greer was. I can only imagine.

Now, how do we get Lisa Del Bello on Toronto Mike? Do you know I'm collecting all the tiers are not enough performers? Well, Lisa and I have been hanging out a little bit more, not so much in the last... Bring her over. You can co-host. Well, I will ask her if she'll do that. She's, you know, she feels for some reason that her stories aren't interesting. Oh, my God.

She said that and it's like, are you kidding me? Like her stories, oh my God. First of all, she'll name, not name drop, she'll name check. Because it's not name dropping. With her, it's very modest. She'll name check somebody like if you're in the music industry and if you've been in the music industry for any length of time, you know these names. Like she'll say Bobby Columbia, for instance, and I'll be like, oh my God, like from blood, sweat

and tears and she'll say yes, but by now he was an A&R man. He was my A&R man. And I'm like, oh, my God. I could do it 90 minutes on two. Tears are not enough. Just get her over here. This is your homework. Well, that's probably what she's afraid of.

You're doing 90 minutes on tears or not enough. Because I think for her that was probably just a little blip. Okay, well, fine. You know, I'll do a half an hour. Just because it was so meaningful to you. Well, we're going to cover a lot of ground. Okay. Listen, this is my show.

It's not Toronto Leeson. I think you could have Stu Stone by and just have him sit and watch while she talks about Jeff Pekaro, her boyfriend. Okay, well, I can make that happen. So don't tempt me of a good time. Okay, Blair. How often did you enjoy a pint at the Imperial Pub? I did quite a few times over the years,

but not like I wouldn't go multiple times in a year. I would meet somebody there, you know, whatever. But over the years, yeah, I enjoyed that space a lot. It was good. It was a nice spot. It's now done. Even that sign has gone already. That iconic sign.

Yeah. So 81 years that Imperial Pub was not too far there from Young and Dundas. No, a real. Ryerson a hangout. Real, yeah, now known as the TMU, but not this TMU, a different TMU. And November 15th was the last round of drinks. And I think shortly before that,

I was there with Robert Lawson, the official fact checker of the Toronto Mike podcast, and Cam Gordon, who's in the FOTM Hall of Fame, and his wife, who may or may not be a journalist known as MF, and we were all enjoying a pint at the Imperial Pub, and it's just sad that it's going to be gone after 81 years. Yes. Yeah, it's sad. Any kind of hangout that goes away, I feel a little sad about it, because there are people whose lives were sort of invested. It was like their cheers, you know,

it was a place where everybody knew your name. I didn't have that. I have that a little bit at Noonan's Pub on Danforth, which I love. Jane Noonan. I'll be down the street tomorrow night. There you go. It's just three doors away. Jane Noonan is the proprietoress, and she comes all the way from St. John's and bought the pub, I don't know, before COVID, I guess. And she's been great in terms of hiring local talent, including me occasionally, but also just some great acts. Tim Bovacanti plays there a lot.

They have a great open mic on Monday nights. Anyway, it's the... And he's with the guest, who now? Is he? I believe so. Yes, he's been... Well, he's been with Burden for years. But he's going to be, I believe he'll be in the...

I believe so, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, Tim knows... I think that's amazing. I heard from his wife recently. Jenny? Yeah. Yeah, Jenny's great.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay, and you brought him on this show, and you can do the same with Del Bello. Okay. All right. One last note before I go to the mailbag, because this question involves you. But Kevin Shea, who is a beloved FOTM, he's been on many times to either talk about his A&R career with Attic Records and more. Nicest guy in show business other than Steve Waxman.

Well, now that Rob Proust is anti-Marcoe, I think you're right. That really turned my feelings about Rob Proust, like totally. So Kevin Shea has announced, though, he is retiring from his longtime gig at the Hockey Hall of Fame. he's retiring. So just wanted to give some love to Kevin Shea, who opened the TMLX we had last November at Palmas Cajian. He opened it with a tremendous 21-minute story. And the joke is some people are like,

you gave this guy 21 minutes off the top, and I'm like, yeah, because it was a great 21-minute story. You can't rush that story. That's right. So we love Kevin Shea and congrats and good luck in retirement, Kevin Shea. That's like my Steve Cropper joke, by the way, 21 minutes, which is why we won't be sharing.

Oh, wow. Oh, jeez. Okay. I need to hear that one later. Okay, mailbag. You can open the next TMLX of the Steve Kropper's story, 21 minutes off the time. I don't know if I can. Kevin Shane.

Is it a good story or not? No, it's not a story. It's a joke that Steve Kropper could barely tell me because he was laughing so hard. He told it to me in a car while we went shopping in Hawaii with his wife, Angel, who is a lovely person. I really enjoyed hanging out with him. Love it. Here's the mail bag. I got a question.

He goes, hey, Mike. I am a long time. I know. I'm taking a deep breath. Hey, Mike. Are you not going to answer yourself? I am a loyal listener of your podcasts over the last few years. Yeah. Going back and listening to episodes that I have not listened to. Always very interesting and entertaining.

I just listened to Lou Pomante. Pomante. Am I saying it right? Yeah. Pomonte. When I last saw Nellifertado perform, it was at the Hall of Fame, I guess. Right, and Luce the band leader, yeah. And Lou is the band leader. He's unbelievable.

He's a wonderful player. He played on Last Red Hot Fools, too, by the way. Everyone did. Okay. Very entertaining. Yeah. Absolutely. Sweet Lou.

Okay. Have you ever heard... Have you ever heard of Bob Reed? He was a host on Talk 10-10 for many years and is a long-time musician. Is the current keyboardist for the Toronto cover band, Taylor Made Band, who play monthly at Timothy's on Browns Line. That's a South Othovoicoe, huh? and also at drums and flats on Avenue Road. He seems to have a great knowledge of the Canadian music scene.

He may be a good interview for you. Your fan, Alan McAulino. Nice. That's a nice note for Alan McAulino. I save that note for you because Andy Stochansky, Lisa Del Bello. Apparently, I've seen in your living room. I've got a wish list. I've seen Bob Reed in your living room.

Yes. Yeah, and you're asking. Tell the listenership, how do you know Bob Reed? Oh, well, okay. So Bob and I did our show on News Talk 1010 for 11 years. It was called In the Studio, as I previously mentioned. And I got on that show because I was a guest. I was invited to be a guest on an episode about songwriting

with the great songwriter and musician Greg Wired. So we co-guested. I know Greg, because he's been on Humble and Fred show, which I produce. Okay, and he's a wonderful performer and a really. really good guy. So we were on as guests together. And I remember it was at the station. It was live at the station, live on the air at the time, which when he and, when Bob and I did the show later, we didn't do, we hardly ever did one live. But this was live and Greg Godavitz was the co-host with Bob Reed. And I remember thinking, wow, Greg's pretty good at this. And I also thought,

I could do this. And I also thought Bob's wife, Gina, was there. And I thought, she's hot. Those are all my thoughts. All those thoughts I want. And I thought I really like Bob. And it was really around that time my marriage was coming apart and I was very unhappy. And I wanted, I needed a change. I had been writing music for film and TV for a long time. And I wanted to keep doing that. But the work wasn't coming and I'm about to get divorced very likely. And it's, and it's a scary time. And so I called Bob thinking, and I said, I want to be in radio. I want to do. you do i think i could do a good job at it i have some radio experience and so forth do you have any suggestions for me and we you know i bought him a beer and and he and he was very complimentary

about the jitters about my work i ended up being the most booked guest on their show so on on his show with gregg godovitz so uh so bob was really helpful and we became friends through that and then um gregg was moving out of town to calgary is where everybody moves apparently and he was moving to Calgary and at first he wanted to see if he could do the show remotely but CFRB wasn't into that idea because it would have cost money at that time the internet wasn't you need an ISDN line

exactly which is a rental you were paying bell for the rental of the phone lines so they didn't want to do it and so then Bob asked him somewhat cagely well who do you think would be a good guest host and Bob had already asked me if I wanted to be you know if I wanted to take over but he wanted it to come from Greg

because he knew Greg might get mad if Bob suggested it himself. So Greg suggested me. So then with that in mind, I took over the co-hosting thing and then turned out Greg wasn't coming back. He ended up coming back. But by then I'd been doing the show for three years

or something longer than Greg had been doing it. So at that point, Bob was comfortable and I ended up the co-host for Bob with 11 years. Now Bob's a terrific musician and he's a songwriter and he just loves. loves music. He eats and sleeps and drinks music. And yeah, we have that in common, but we also, we just really like each other. You know, it's fun to hang out with him. And not to bury the lead, but I have met Bob Reed in your living room. There you go. Well, yeah. Although I do recall

him having like little to no interest in being on this program. Yeah. Do you recall that? I do. And I don't know why. I honestly don't know why. So I get this note from Alan, a very thoughtful note, Alan, hope to see it at a future TMLX event. And it's about getting Bob Reed on and, you know, he's on 10-10. And I'm like, yeah, he was on 10-10. For 11 years, the guy he was chatting with is Blair

Packham, who comes on every quarter free winder. And I remember you introducing me to Bob and I felt like it was maybe because Bob might, you know, visit the basement here. And Bob made it pretty clear. I felt that, you know, nice to meet you, but I didn't get any vibes. He's coming down here anytime soon. That is,

I would say that's entirely accurate. I haven't asked him recently, but when I did ask him, he seemed uninterested. We're going to get Stochansky and we're going to get Lisa Del Bello. That's right. Bob, you're off the hook. You don't have to come on Toronto, Mike. Don't worry. But there you go, the mailbag.

And I would just let the listenership know that every quarter I read an email or two. Just send it to Mike at tronomike.com about whatever you want us to discuss on, or read on the Rewinder episode. And just put, if you don't mind, put Rewinder in the subject line so I know it's for Rewinder. and we'll read it because Blair, you will be back here. So January, February, you'll be back here in early March for another episode of Rewinder. I'm waiting with bated breath. No, this is always so much fun.

Thank you for having me. And Merry Christmas to you. Yes, happy holidays to everyone. And I'll see you at the Trues tomorrow at the Denver Music Hall. I'll be outside busking. You know what? Not a bad idea. Thank you for doing.

doing this, man. You are one of my favorite FOT. I say this to all the FOTMs. No, you're one of my favorite FOTMs, and I love that we have a, I'm going to get a visit from you four times a year. Yeah, minimum. And then I'll see you at live events and, and. Well, I don't know. The last two I didn't see you there. Well, I'm trying to,

scarcity is, you know, scarcity makes me more valuable. And that! Shout out to Stu Stone. And that brings us to the end of our 1,000. 800 and 13th show, 1813. Wow. What a great year that was.

You know what? Yesterday's episode, I said it. When I said it in the intro, I said episode 1812, and I go, like the war. Like the war, so much like the war. This podcast is so much like the war of 1812. Absolutely. Well, yesterday's was anyway. Well, I think the war went for a couple years. We're still in the war.

Did you burn down the White House? That's what I want to know. I always think of Laura Seacord, warning the Brits that the Americans were planning an invasion. That's why I think of Laura Sechord because of the chocolate and the Jersey mill. We're tying everything back together. I'm still upset. Laura Seacord was in Cloverdale Mall.

She was. She was. And she's no longer there. Shout out the Laura Seacord. My next guest on Toronto Mike. No. Go to tronomomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Can you name the bonus jams? Oh.

Is that Mark Daly? Oh, subdivision. Oh, subdivision. Yeah, right. So Rob Proust cooked this up recently as a new one, but that's Mr. Dressup. Shout out to FOTM Stephen Stone. This is DeGrassy. I got to read this outro real quick, though. But let's do one more.

This is my favorite coming up. Right here. Wait. I like that. I like that. Okay. Much love to all who made this possible. That's retro festive.

Go to the store in Oakville. Coconut Door. Go to retrofestive. everybody, use the promo code FOTM, Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Nick Iini's, Recycle My Electronics.C.A and Ridley Funeral Home.

See you all. Next week, we're going to talk consumers distributing on Monday. See you then.