Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - REWINDER with Blair Packham:Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1924

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

On this 1924th episode of Toronto Mike'd, and 5th episode of Rewinder, Mike chats with Blair Packham about what's new in Canadian media over the previous quarter.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Middle finger is killing me for some reason. I'm giving people the finger. Yeah. That might be it. Yeah. With the pack of who is also known as Blair and Mikey Boon Boon too. Rewind.

Looking back and yippy hopping on the air for the quarterly review. Rewind. Skidly-Budley-Buddy-Bobbidi-Noodly. A moohom is also known as Blair. And Mikey Boon-Boon too. Welcome to episode 1,924. I'm eating these.

Chocolate covered almonds and I can still my teeth. Delicious. 1,924 of Toronto Mic'd, an award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great Lakesbeer.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. Toronto Maple Leaves Baseball.

Catch a game at Christy Pits this summer. No ticket required. I think Yassie L. Pueig hit three dingers yesterday. Crazy. Fusion Corp's own Nick Aeney's. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline. And Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.ca.cating to our planet's future means

properly recycling our electronics of the past and Ridley Funeral Home. Brad will be here in a couple of hours, Blair, we got to get rocking. But they're pillars of the community since 1921. And joining me today for this fifth episode of Rewinder, it's Blair Packum. How are you, Blair?

I am fantastic. How are you? I'm good. I will ask you off the top how you're feeling because this was scheduled for Thursday. Thursday of last week. And then you said, I'm sick. And then I thought two things. One is, we can't record if you're sick.

And then two, we're going to miss you at TMLX-22 at Great Links Brewery. So how are you feeling? I'm feeling almost normal. I don't want to go into too many details because it involves. I don't want to brag. I say no more, yeah. Yeah, really? Should I say no more?

I don't want to brag, but it involves my urologist. Let's put it that way. Oh. I don't want to brag, but my prostate is bigger than this basement. Whoa. Okay, I mean. That's all I really need to say. But this wasn't this like a bug or a flu?

No, no, not at all. No, it's a side effect. It's a side effect. Yeah, it's a side effect. It just meant that I didn't get any sleep at all for four nights in a row. I mean, when I say at all, I mean, almost at all. I would sleep for 10 minutes here and five minutes there. And the rest of the time I had to go to the bathroom.

That's, I'm sorry. But are you getting a treatment for this? Yes. Yes. Yes. And no. I mean, the thing is, this is the condition. condition of an older man.

Many older men have this, men in their 50s and 60s and onwards. And I've been living with this since 2014. 2013. However, this has never happened. This is unprecedented for me. Usually it's, at most, it's one night. And I, you know, and I, this is unbelievable. Okay, but Fred Patterson from Humble and Fred, Freddie P, as we call him.

Yeah. He had a similar story. Sorry? He had a similar story, right? A stimulus story. Okay. A story stimulus story. He had a story similar to yours.

And he got a thing where it's called a terp. Yeah, terp. Yeah. And like he, for a little while he had like a little bag. Oh, that I didn't know. Because they re-rude everything. And for a little while, because he came over once with this bag.

Wow. And then they reroute it. And he said it's the best thing he ever did. I don't know if terp's an option for you. I don't know exactly what you got over there. I mean, you're making it sound very appealing with a little bag. I have to say. I actually had no idea that it involved a little bag, an ostomy bag of any sort.

That's what it's called. I was already thinking, yeah, I don't want to do terp because the risk of ED erectile dysfunction is huge. Oh, I wouldn't risk anything. Like permanent erectile dysfunction. Oh, my God. Permanent unfixable. Well, I mean fixable, but anyway. I'm not a doctor, as you know.

I'm not a urologist. But I think if the risk is greater than zero for ED. I was hoping you'd examine me, though. It may not be a doctor. No. Yeah. There are, to my knowledge, there are three procedures. TIRP is the most common one and most commonly done,

but the risk of ED is exceedingly high. As I understand it, now if there's a urologist listening, who has a different, more knowledge than me, which of course would be any urologist. Right. Even the bad ones no more than you. Absolutely. And I would love to hear more about it.

But I did, a fellow broadcaster, and I think he talked about this publicly, Jeff Woods Jeff Woods Exactly Jeff Woods You do better than I do Jeff that's right You know what

Thank you I don't have ED because the way you said that It moved Jeff Jeff Jeff had prostate cancer And he elected to have

one of the other alternative procedures But it's not covered by Ohip And Oh he did it go fund me He did a go fund me Yes And I contributed it happily

because I thought, fuck, I may need this sometime soon. He owes you for yours. Well, I don't know. It doesn't have to be... Do you want me to do... Pass a hat around at the next TMLX event? And then we'll pay for your whatever it's called. Yes, it's $25,000.

So yes. Apparently, according to Jeff, anyway, he had great success with it and is, like, is thrilled. Now, I don't... I had a biopsy a hundred years ago. The weirdest procedure you'll ever have, by the way. Not going to describe it, but it was weird. And I was clear. That was in 2014, so who knows?

12 years have passed. Yeah, well, okay, to keep me posted because I'm now 52 years old, and I know the higher older you get, the more likely you'll have a prostate thing. Yeah, exactly. You're only a little ahead of me here. I need to know what I'm going to look forward to, having to urinate every 10 minutes.

Sounds wonderful. Here's the thing that it was so frustrating, and I promise we'll stop talking about it in a second. No, this is important to talk about men's health like this. When you've had pets and when you've had kids, you know, when you're young, you don't want to talk about bodily functions. People talk about, you know, pooing or whatever. And it's like... Humble and Fred love talking about this time.

Well, that's the thing. But you get older and you get used to this stuff. And so I don't mind talking about it, but I know lots of people mind hearing about it. But I would say this, the, I would get up, this is in the, like last week, I would get up, go to the bathroom, which is down the hall in my tiny house. By the time I got back from the bathroom to my bedroom, I had to go again. I had to go again. It sounds like meat-marish. It was torture.

It really was. You just sleep in the bathtub. Yeah, basically. I mean, at four in the morning at one point, I had a bath thinking, well, I'm here. Maybe it'll loosen things up, you know, so. So I, because I'm just learning now, but isn't there any kind of a medicine or a pill or something? I've been taking the medicine, but, you know, sometimes medication stops working or maybe I missed a day. I don't think I did.

So you might have to take some bathroom breaks during this chat. I might. The door's right there. Thank you. Just go what you need to go. No, it's calm down, thankfully. But, but, yeah, I might have to. You said, you didn't really sleep because you always had to urinate.

Let's see, it was Sunday night was not great. Monday night was horrific. Tuesday night was horrific. Wednesday night got slightly better. Thursday night got slightly better. And then since then, it's like last night, dig this. I got up five. Dig this.

I got up five. Yeah, I'll do it like, Jeff, with dig this. Dig this, folks. It moved again. He always says it, and it sounds like he's smiling, you know, which is great. dig this folks. I got up five times last night and it was a blessing because it was only five times. I got up five times and the fifth time, by the way, it was when I got up in the morning. So really it was four times. And it meant that I had two and a half hours of solid sleep on several instances.

Okay. So yeah. Firstly, I know people don't want to hear about it, but then just pause the show if you didn't want to eat, whatever. I don't care actually because I feel like we don't talk enough about this and men should talk about their health too. like, I think so too, but, you know. Prostates the thing you should be like, so you went and saw us urologist when this started? When this started way back when, yes, and I've seen him, I see him once a year at this point because he's not, he's not concerned unless it's cancer. I mean, I shouldn't say that.

He would be concerned if it's, he said two things, if it's cancer or if it's impeding your life. Now, we're at that point where it's possibly impeding my life. I mean, if this is just a blip, which one hopes, then I'm good for a while. but if this becomes a regular feature, and I did have it happen to me while I was away in Colombia. Which I want to hear about. One night.

Okay. Because it is impeding your life because you missed TMLX-22 because of this. I wanted to be, I really sincerely, genuinely wanted to be there. And then I thought, well, if Rob Proust can let you down at the Elma Combo, I can let you down at the... Rob Proust did let me down at the Elma-combo. You came to the rescue, so...

I did. This is your first time on the mic since you saved the day, and I want to say thank you because you were amazing. And your buddy, Doug, once he heard you were involved, suddenly I had a great recording of everything. So if I had known that you were going to get me like a free, proper recording by Doug McClement, I would have had you booked long ago.

Well, Doug, now I have, so you just expressed, not a regret, but if I had known, if I had known that the audience would be so receptive, I would have been more upbeat and aggressive in my performance. because I was just trying to fit in. And sometimes that's the right thing to do. But I really felt after I thought, fuck, I could have gone for it a bit more in terms of, because I can be funnier and I can be more dynamic.

Oh, you held back. I held back. You showed some restraint. Well, because it's your night. Yeah, but we weren't on at the same time. No, I know. But for some reason, I had this feeling. Because you were too good.

And then I'm going to like, this guy sucks. Bring back Blair. No, it wasn't that. It was more that I felt like these are your people. and they're in a public space for the first time in a while, and they want to catch up. And I don't want to be the guy up there. Hey, everybody, I'm playing.

Excuse me. I didn't want to be back. So I held back. And I'm not saying like, fuck, you should, I'm amazing. You should see me normally. I'm just saying I could have done more. Interesting. Yeah.

And I know what you mean by that because I used to record during all the TMLX event. So I used to set up my studio on the Great Lakes patio and I would record. during a TMLX event. And I stopped recording at Great Lakes Brewery because I realized everybody just wanted to catch up. Like the recording was in the way. So I know what you're talking about. There's an element of that when you're at Palmer's Kitchen, in fact.

Yeah, so that's the only time I do record. Right. But I think that the times that I've gone, it's gotten less. And particularly when you have Alan Swig objecting to Brad Bradford. Yeah, which was hugely entertaining. And I think it focused the room. instantly, which was great. It was good stuff.

Yeah. Good stuff. Okay, so we did miss you at, I do want to know about Columbia, but I want to say, we missed you at TMLX. I do want to thank everybody who came out because it was a great turnout. Great Lakes Brewery were fantastic hosts. Everybody loved their fresh craft beer and palma pasta sent over such delicious food. But for the third year in a row, I think, they send over 100 meatballs.

I'm going to talk to Anthony. A hundred's not cutting it because when I eat, it's always near the very very very. end because I'm chatting with everybody and, you know, it's like a wedding or whatever. They all want to meet the groom or whatever. For the third year in a row, I did not get a meatball and I love the palm of pasta meatballs. Oh, wow. So we need more meatballs. But I am pleased to report this year.

I did get delicious cookies. This is not a euphemism, but I love Leslie Taylor's cookies. Yes, they are amazing. In fact, my mom yesterday, because she was taking my two older kids out to celebrate their graduation. and she said to me, can you connect me to Leslie Taylor? I want to buy her cookies from her.

These are the best cookies my mom ever had at TMLX22 from Leslie Taylor. I would concur. I mean, there was one at Palmer's Kitchen. Yeah, she brought them in. Okay. So good. Well, I know in the past,

I missed out on the cookies, and this year I did not. So thank you, Leslie, for making the cookies. Thank you, Levy Famka, for bringing, what do you call it, name tag? for everybody so I could see who the hell I was talking to. Great turnout. Everything was perfect.

The only thing missing was Blair Packham. Well, I'm feeling bad. You should feel awful that you chose urination over TM, the Toronto Mike Nation. Good one. Thank you. Okay, so Columbia, because I don't want to skip this. Colombia, yeah. And they're still alive in the World Cup.

Losiente. And Canada is alive in the World Cup, too. I guess that's Spanish, right? Yeah. My team, Japan, I became a Japan fan when I was gifted jerseys. Adidas gave me these jerseys. And now I'm like, oh, that's my team. They just lost minutes ago, minutes ago, Blair Packard.

Wow. Brazil beat Japan. No, Abla, I suppose. But there's Portuguese in Brazil. I know. I just want you to know that. I'm just, I'm basically giving you all of my Spanish right now. All right.

So in a nutshell, how the hell was Colombia? Colombia was amazing. It was quite, like quite an experience in some. many ways. I had a breakup and I was, and I felt like I needed to get out. Was it the woman who was in the room when you were here of Andy Stokansky? Yes, yes, in fact. And she's lovely and it's, I'm sad that it happened.

And I bet she is too, but we haven't talked about it. And that's fine. She's been calling me every day to talk about it. Well, yes, that would surprise me. But anyway, I don't, like I don't, I don't. I'm not mad or anything, but I was sad. Sure. And when she and I met back in September,

I had been planning to go somewhere on my own. I was going to go to Portugal. So, and then we met, and for our third date, she said, I should go with you. So we ended up going to Berlin together for a week. And then we were together for months, you know, for six months or eight months, something like that. And you were very much in love?

I, yes, I would say, yes, I would. I think you said it on the public record. Yeah, and I would say... Yeah, and I would say both of us felt that way and felt very strong. You and I both felt that way. Yeah. So I did think, well, if we're breaking up, for good reasons, I think, unfortunately, but if we're breaking up, then I would like to get back to our regularly scheduled program,

which was me traveling on my own. And so I honestly, what I've been doing is I just go on Expedia and I start thinking of destinations and then I test out those dates and I test out the prices. And I could get to Columbia for seven nights, seven nights in a four-star hotel and airfare return for $1,467. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to do it. That won't get your hotel room in Toronto. I know. And the breakfast was included and it was delicious breakfast.

It really was healthy breakfast every day. So you went to Columbia by yourself? Yep. What's it like to travel alone? Well, I've done it a few times. And now, by the way, having done this one, I actually just today was looking at Thailand. And what was the other one? Another destination anyway.

You should go to the Philippines? Yes, perhaps I should. Monica might have family there. I think she does. Yeah, okay. So we'll commit Monica right now. Monica has family who will welcome me there. Absolutely.

So I decided to go alone. And it was odd in some ways as it is, you know, but I'm good with my own company. And I met some people, right, like pretty soon into the trip. Bob Reed, the aforementioned Bob Reed. Right. He has a friend who lives, who's from Fort Erie, but who lives in Medellin. And so he connected me with Mike, lovely guy. And Mike introduced me to his fiancé.

Lovely woman, and she introduced me to her sister, lovely woman. And the four of us hung out. We spent a whole day together, which is lovely, going to this eco, basically this eco park. We went up the side of a mountain in a cable car, and it was amazing. And then the woman and I had a date, going to a jazz club. A romantic date. Well, did she know you were Blair Packab of the Jitters?

Yes, I'm widely known in Columbia as, as Blair Packham of the jitters. No, no, but, you know, we got along. She didn't speak very much English, and I didn't speak very much Spanish. Right. And so it was fun, actually, being with her. And she was really lovely,

and we had a really nice time. And the jazz we went to see was exceptional. And I'm not particularly a jazz fan. So for me, it was a bit of an eye-opener. Okay, okay, you're no Ralph Ben-Murgy when it comes to jazz. I am definitely not. Okay, love it. So are you going back to Columbia?

Like, what's the status? is you, women, women. Oh, no, we're just friends. Oh, you just had a good week. We've WhatsApped a few times just to say hello and so forth. But no, we're just friends. And likewise, I'd love to see all of them again. They're all lovely people.

But there was another guy. There was a character there who I met, who was in the next hotel room. And like I came out of my room, closed the door, and he opened his door instantly and said, hey man, how's it going? And I was like, hello? And he said, so what's going on? What are you here for? And I said, where are you from?

And I told him Toronto, he went, that's a lot. long way, man, Canada. He said, I'm from Austin, Texas, and he seemed very hyper. And I said, I said, I'm traveling alone. You know, I had a breakup. And I sort of feel like, you know, getting out of my own. And he said, yes, similar for me. Yeah, similar for me. And I said, okay, cool. And what brings you here specifically? And he said, the women and cocaine. And he wasn't kidding. Like, I didn't see him. Just like the stereotype. That's what you first thought when you think of Columbia. Yeah. And I didn't see him doing either of those things. You know, but that was his, that was his reason.

The woman in cocaine, okay. Like a scar-faced sequel. Now, that said, the only exposure I had to cocaine, not that I didn't have any actual exposure to it, but the only hint of it, really, other than him saying that, was I was walking down the street one night. And just lovely neighborhood.

It's a huge area called El Ploblado in Medellino. It's a design-forward, pretty moneyed city. And it's lovely. And I'm walking down the street and this guy's walking towards me. And as he walks past me, he goes, I've got everything. And I thought, okay, there's your cocaine connection. It should connect. Yeah, but I did not.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. Okay, you weren't the snowman on this trip. No. Never, ever have I been the snowman. Okay, wow. Yeah. It's funny how just coincidentally, before we pressed record, I asked you if you ever tried crack cocaine, remember?

Yeah, and I said I'd be open. You were totally open to it because I was talking about. my chocolate covered almonds. And I said, they're like crack cocaine. And then I said, I actually haven't tried crack. I just assumed they're like chocolate covered almonds. Right? And then I asked you if you tried crack cocaine.

And now we found out you were in Columbia. You didn't do any Coke. Shout out to Juan, who I saw at TMLX22 on Thursday, who is from Columbia. That's well. Okay, I'd just tying it all together. My experience with, so just before I left, about a week before I left, I just booked the trip and I was playing this show actually at a horse farm and it was lovely. There were two people there. There was a woman and a man and the woman was wearing a cap like a

cyclist's cyclist cap that said Columbia on the brim and then she had a shirt that said Columbia and then she had sneakers on that said Columbia. So she's trying to tell you here. Yeah so I went over and I said are you from Columbia? And she said yes. Yes. Why do you ask? Yeah she was almost about to say how did You know. How did you know? And I said, I'm going, it was only two days before I left. I said, I'm going there on Monday for the first time, never been. And she said, have a great time.

And I thought, oh, okay. I thought she would say, where are you going or something? She said, I've never been. Yeah. But the people there are exceptionally friendly. Okay. Beautiful people, I have to say, beautiful people. Like, you mean attractive people or lovely inside or both?

Both, okay, okay. Obviously not everybody. We went to the neighborhood where Pablo Escobar ruled in his final days. and did a walking tour, and that was eye-opening. But it was also a beautiful experience. Did you ever see the 30-for-30 documentary, a tale of two Escobars about Pablo Escobar and there's a player on Columbia's team who had an own goal,

I think it was 94, but it was a World Cup, and an own goal that knocked Columbia out. And then I don't think it was related, but he was later gunned down, and there were rumors that it was like a mob him, hit because he cost Columbia the match. I don't believe that was ever, like, proven or whatever. But this was an interesting documentary that tied these two events together.

Life is really cheap in areas like that. Life is a funny way of catching up on you. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. But one has the feeling that 10 years ago in Medellin, there are areas where life was exceedingly cheap. And so to me, it wouldn't surprise me if he had been gunned down.

Oh, he was gunned down. No, no, but if he had been gunned down because of the loss. The old goal. Okay, I look to Escobar's. 30 for 30. Okay. We got to get into it. Lots of cover here.

But that's amazing. That's a great endorsement for Columbia. I've also, I have traveled alone for work. Like, oh, you got to go to Copenhagen for a week. Or you have to go to Berlin for a week. Like these, Amsterdam for a week. These are actual places I've gone solo because the company I worked for want to have meetings or whatever. But I've never actually gone other than work.

duck trips. I've never traveled alone. It was really something. It's something I will definitely do again. You have a different experience. Good to hear. Okay. So let's get into it. I'm going to do what I do with Rewindor. I'm just going to ramble about things that happened in the past quarter and you can react. Maybe you'll have an interesting story that's tied to it.

Maybe you have some insight. But again, the chocolate covered almonds. I was, because I recorded with. the wonderful people at Esri, and you were late, and I wanted to see the end, and I watched the end of the Brazil-Japan knockout match, okay? It was like 1-1, very late, extra time, actually. And I was watching it, rooting for Japan,

wearing my Japan jersey, and eating these chocolate-covered almonds like I was starving to death, and they were going out of fashion, and it was just a disaster. I don't think these are very good for you, Blair. Like, I don't think there's any health benefits to chocolate-covered almonds.

I think you're probably correct. But I ate so many. Okay. By the way, what did you think? Because I, it does, I haven't talked about it much on Toronto Mike. And I don't think I've had anyone on who actually witnessed it. What did you think of the Elmo show? Oh, I thought it was great.

I think it might be the first person on Toronto Mike, who was in the room. I was in the room, but here's the thing. When you first went on, I was in the dressing room. And the dressing room was off to the side, right? Right. And when you come out of the dressing room, the whole room, the whole room, room and so there's you on stage and it's like when I used to play the Cameron house someone comes in the room and all eyes go and look at the person coming in as opposed to the band

on stage so I didn't want to do that to you. What a gentleman. So I found a way out of that dressing room. Climb through a window. Well it led to a stairway and then I thought well oh you know I could set off an alarm or I could go up these stairs so I went up the stairs found myself on the second floor and then an employee was coming along and I said I'm looking for Doug McClement and and she directed me to the control room. And so I actually heard your show with Doug with Doug who is recording. Yeah. Amazing.

I had no idea. I think there will be some Elmo performance discussion on the FOTM cast that records a week today. Okay. With the VP of Sales and Cam Gordon who were both in attendance. Yes. So that's in the schedule. But I was just curious as somebody who heard it. Like, because I, at first I thought, oh, I felt like it went well, like I had a vision.

And then I didn't know anymore. I thought, oh, maybe it didn't go well. Like, because all the people, like my son and my brother all said wonderful things about it. I'm like, oh, what are they going to say? They're like related to me. Yeah, yeah. I would say you have to mute, not mute, like fully, but you have to lower down those compliments. You also have to put aside your, I mean, welcome to the world of life.

performance. You have to put aside your self-doubts later. You have to, you know, you've said a number of times, you're never going to do this again. That's a big difference because you're always going to do it again. Yeah. So you're trying to improve for next time. Yeah. And you also have to not beat yourself up about it. It's really important. Right. Well, I definitely didn't do that. Well, good. And you definitely have to recognize that it's a night. It's a single evening for lots of people and not nearly as monumental for you as it is. Right. Everybody else. And come on. You got lowest of the load and Blair Packham. What more did you want from the Alma Cup? Okay, so more of that next week.

Okay, so there's actually a lot of radio stuff. So I think, like, we're going to go hard till 5 p.m. It's now 337. Okay. And there's a lot of radio. I got some radio. Okay, good. So lots of radio, but I also have some clips that are kind of radio,

and this is like my dumping ground. I'm going to, let's geek out on Toronto Radio. I've been told nobody talks about radio stuff anymore. Have you heard this? Like, radio seems like nobody's talking about it. nobody cares. Let's like give a shit and talk about Toronto Radio for a bit. That's how I feel. Radio has meant so much to me for my entire life. And I've had a peripheral involvement in it, you know, here and there, as you know, and through my dad, you know, I was

just saying to somebody the other day. Remind us what your dad did. My dad was, was president of finance at standard broadcasting. Before that, he was vice president at CTV for a number of years for like eight years. But he was with standard broadcasting. And so, and that started when I was eight years old. So I was saying to someone just the other day because she mentioned the CRTC. Now, I don't know. Like it didn't occur to me until she just said it. I thought, fuck, I've been listening to the, I've heard the letters CRTC my entire life from the time I was eight years old. So it's just natural and normal for me. Other people need to have it explain to them what the CRTC is, Canadian Radio Television Commission. But it's been a big part of my life. So I'm a big radio supporter. Do I listen as often? as I should. Probably not. I listen to CBC Radio 1.

You're exactly like me, where I'm a big supporter. I listened to a lot. I didn't have any family members working in the industry. And also, you had a show on 1010 with Bob Reed. I did for 11 years, and I had a show on Q107 for a year. Right. Yeah. Right. And you've told the great Derringer's story. He called you some homophobic comment. What did he say? He called, he said, and we have Matt Greenberg of the jitters and also the lead singer, Fudge. and I was like, what? And he said, Fudge Packham.

Like that. And I thought, you dick. Okay, so that ties in. That's a good segue here. So let me play a little clip. It's actually four minutes long, but let's just listen and do this. We're also making it put this.

Maureen Holloway was on Toronto mic last week. And going in, it was like, oh, of course I have a million Daringer questions. But I know that this human rights tribunal is still before the courts. Like they're getting back there in August. and a decision happens, I think, in September. And Maureen is really afraid of fucking it up by saying stuff she's not supposed to say.

So she's very conscious about talking about all of that. So I found another radio, spicy, much like those palm pasta meatballs, I just adore. Okay, this is like a spicy Toronto radio meatball. You ready? Yep. Whatever happened to Darren. What the fuck happened to Darren B. Lamb?

Oh, I wish I knew. I do know. I do know. He left. he left in a disgraceful manner highly unprofessional and and whiny and cowardly and kind of that defines him um it was during covid and we were working from home both of us because but everybody else in the morning show was in the studio in macarthur gordonny christine cardoso we're all in there and they'd put up all sorts of barriers as we did we'd all sorts of plastic and all that and then and this is kind of

gets a little nepotistic here. So they, Rogers put in all these protocols to deal with COVID. And actually my husband, who was working for Rogers at the time in real estate and human resources, he was also part of implementing all the, the safety constraints. And I said to my, to said to him, John, I want to go back. If, if you think it's safe, and he's like, you know, babe, it's my job to make it safe. But I said, if you think it's safe, I want to go back in the studio because I think we're really missing something.

there was a bit of a delay and I want to be back with the team and and but Darren didn't want to go and so we were all like okay he wasn't the easiest person to work with to begin with right and anyway I was in the midst of making plans to go back after Christmas and he was going off to BC with his husband to look they were building a house out there and he never came back He never came back from vacation and the company refused to tell us what was going on, but they kept saying he's coming back. He had written us an email saying he wishes us well. And I was saying to management, he's gone.

What are you talking about? He's gone. And they were like, no, no, no, no, he's coming back. We're just working some things out. And then we had a new program director. Wendy Deff had left and there's just a whole lot of stuff going on and we had a new guy who came in

who had no idea what he was doing no idea how to deal with people who had a lot I mean he came from a smaller market he had no idea how to deal with talent you can tell right now I'm already getting exasperated thinking about it so they said to me well he said

between us I don't think Darren's coming back who would you like to work with and I you know it's funny because I actually suggested Gritieh Balliwell Yeah. Right. Gere Deev and I were playing golf at that time

and or were and, but then a couple of weeks go by and they stopped talking to me. And I'm like, well, what are we doing about the show? And they brought Mike Cooper in. Right. As an interim host. And Mike and I got on like a house on fire because he's a consummate professional. He's like, okay, his opinions are a little dated.

But the five of us, Mike and Gord and Ian, who had all worked together before. And Christine, Mike and Christina worked together. We were like an island of misfit toys, but man, did we get on. And without any guidance, we did some really great radio. We were all together in the studio, in the middle of COVID, with no support. In fact, they insisted when we were doing, we were identifying the station, we'd say, I'd have to say, oh, it's Darren and Moe with Maureen Holloway and Mike Cooper.

Like that was insulting to the listener. And the listeners were all like, where's Darren? Where's Darren? Right. And we weren't allowed to say a word. And this went on, my contract was coming up. And I thought, well, what's the writing on the wall here? And I'm not stupid.

Right. I was told that they had, it's not that they weren't going to renew my option. They just hadn't picked it up. And Julie Adam, who was running everything at the time, said, of course they, of course we're renewing. And then, and they're not. I got screwed. I got screwed. But you know what?

It was money. It was money. They were paying me a lot of money and my contract was up and they decided why throw, you know, I'm not a spring chicken, although I don't know what difference that would make. Joy B. R is 82. And they did not renew my contract and I left. And what happened to Darren?

Who the fuck knows? Who the fuck cares? Wow. Wow. Telling it like it is. Maureen Hollow. There's a lot of meat on that bone there. Yeah.

It just all kind of came out. four minutes and 18 seconds. What the fuck happened to Darren B. Lamb? So I'm curious. Are you even aware of who is Darren B. Lamb? Have you heard this name? Yes. Oh, for sure. I've heard all of their names.

But have I heard them? Only some of them. I've heard Maureen. I mean, Maureen is a veteran and she's been around for 100 years. And she was on Q&7 for a long time. Yeah, yeah, sure. And I'm sure I've met her a bunch of times, actually. But Darren, I only knew by name.

Didn't actually know what he was like on the air. Never heard that show. Right. I know Mike Cooper. was brought in to replace Rick Hodge, who left Roger, Rick, and Maryland a very successful. We'll get back to Maryland in a moment, as you can imagine.

But Rick Hodge was recruited by standard broadcasting to work a combo, it was a combo 10-10 and what was called Easy Rock. Yes, right. Which is now boom. Boom, yeah. Right. And he was recruited, and they filled his spot on Chum FM with a guy who I didn't know of at the time, but his name was Darren B. Lamb.

Well, it's good that he has the B there to distinguish him from all the other Darren Lambs that I know. Right. Darren B. Lamb. Right. Now, and then he was, then he went on and was teamed with Aaron Davis on CHFI, another monster morning show. Because of course, Marine Holloway was recruited from Q107 to replace Aaron Davis and join Darren B. Lamb. And then you got that story there. So Aaron heard this episode of Toronto Mike. Oh, right. Okay. And then she records a show

with her dear friend Lisa Brandt. Okay. Who is also an FOTM. So all these people are FOTMs, okay, friends of Toronto Mike. But here's a minute from Aaron Davis's podcast. You ready? Yep. So this is right after they played the ending of that clip I just played. Okay. Although they didn't, I don't think she played the, who the fuck knows, who the fuck cares. I guess you can't swear on the, I think it's called Gracefully and Frankly. This is the name of the podcast by Lisa Brandt and Aaron Davis. And I don't think they like swear words. It's very clean. Like your

grandma could listen. Okay. But here we go. Oh, Mo. Yeah. The one and only Maureen Holloway with Toronto Mike, Mike Boone. Yeah, I love it. You know what? This is good. What they put her through at that radio station is absolutely inhumane. Yeah. To make somebody go on the air and pretend that everything's okay, to not be able to tell the truth to listeners. I mean, authenticity is what it's all about. And Rogers stamp that out.

So good for Mo, good for Maureen for telling the truth and a great place to tell it with Toronto, Mike. But the whole point of it is that we built our show for 30 damn years on that radio station on authenticity, on being really. on laughing and crying and sharing people's little wins and great losses, including our own. And then, you know, just for Rogers to go, do-de-do, nothing to see here. Anyway, Mo spills the beans, the tea, the whole thing. And it is Toronto Mike, the podcast.

So find it, listen to it, and tell them who sent you. Is it Toronto Mike the podcast, Blair Beckham? No, it's Toronto Mike the man, and it's Toronto Mike D. So you get it. Yeah, I definitely get it. Because I was wondering aloud. I know, I heard you. Oh, yeah, that was, that's right.

This is not a numbered nip. I did a 10-minute thing before TMLX. And somebody, one person did write me in and said, don't you dare change the name because these people can't figure it out. Like, keep it Toronto-Miked. And I am going to keep it Toronto-Mike, but it's just funny because early, in the more, in the episode with Maureen Holloway, she was surprised that the show was called Toronto-Miked.

Oh, well. Like, in that episode, she's like, Toronto-Miked? Isn't it Toronto-Miked? and I had to explain to her the whole thing you just understood. I think branding is more important to the branded than it is to the brandy. You know, and I think that's fine. And I think it's understandable,

but I wouldn't get too hung up about it. Oh, no. I'm not changing a damn thing. No, and I wouldn't worry about it as well. What, now was it Aaron Davis saying the stuff about authenticity and so forth? Okay, because I didn't recognize her voice instantly. But it's remote, so it's a little, it's not like us and write it.

on these mics. Exactly. We're like radio like Jeff Woods. Yeah, exactly. I do. But, um, hello there. I do think, I do. Sorry, that was terrible. It moved again. Yeah. He made yourself move. You know what? I often make myself.

So it's not, um, she's, she's so correct. The thing, I had this discussion with somebody about radio just the other day. It's, it's, it's, needs to be authentic. Yeah. It needs to be local. And live. And live. All three I like.

Live. In the studio. In the studio. Because, you know, if you're doing it at home, I think what Maureen was saying about during COVID days, completely understandable. There's a worldwide pandemic, of course. But ideally, you're in the same room. You're interacting with other humans.

And that's what makes it engaging. And the problem with the world we're in right now, many problems with the world we're in right now, but in terms of radio. Give me the list. I'm taking notes. It's a long list. But in terms of radio, you know, I think that's something that people undervalue, and they don't check it out because they've got their phones in their hands all the time. And they're not going to search up, you know, a online feed for some radio station.

If radio were able to present itself in a podcast manner, what I mean is if there were a thing like Apple podcasts, but it, and I guess there are, that present radio. And you could, like, search up your favorite show. Well, there are. They're like tune in, and then there's the one from IHeart Media or whatever. Yeah. There's that one from, I think it's from Denmark or something where it was the The Garden? The earliest one, the garden, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so they're not all there, but it depends on. Yeah. But I mean, if there was some way of convincing the people who are, no offense, who addicted to podcasts to check out local radio,

I think that those qualities that I named are, you know, important. And I think they'd value them more. But it's a matter of exposure and so forth. Well, you know, I like it when, well, Bob Willett was also absent from TMLX-22. He's also absent from the Elmo gig, but both times he told me he was on the air in the 88. Like he physically goes to the studio in Toronto, Liberty Village, 40 Hanna Avenue. You can go check it out. Maybe he's got a sticker for your sunglasses or something. But he, you know, he goes on the air and he's local and he's live.

And, you know, Bob's authentic enough. he's telling you stories about his car breaking down or whatever. Like, they're doing it right. Yeah, I agree. I don't know if you're going to cover this item in, but I'm going to jump in if it's okay.

Do it because I was going to do an indie 88 thing. Did you want to do it after that? I'll do it after that because it's not Indian 88. And then don't forget to come back to whatever you're thinking there. So, because, you know, I'm always thinking like a great grandmaster chess player.

I think many moves ahead. Oh, I know. You're so strategic. Right. So I'm already. was moving us to Indy, that's why I introduced Bob Bluette. See what I'm doing here? But what I'm trying to figure out is

where the chocolate covered almonds come in because I know it's going to come up again. It was unbelievable. The way I inhaled them like I haven't eaten in many, many, many, many weeks. Okay, all right, goodness gracious. So when Bob was here for toast, I asked him about a significant change to the

Indy 88 lineup. Do you ever tune into Indy 88? Sometimes in the car. So, yeah, so the funny thing is, on the same, I sometimes tune in to Indy 88 in the car. You might have noticed, if you've listened lately, that the playlist is very different than the way I remember. Yeah, that great indie artist, Bruce Springsteen, for instance,

you know, who's never been indie in his life. I mean, as a recording artist. Right. Right. But I know that's not really. But that's not what indie means. No, I know. I know.

And yet. I always have the correct people. I know, because that's the assumption people make. And they're wrong, including me. It's now called, the company that owns Indy is now called Radio Labs or Radio Lab, one of those two. I can't remember there's an S at the end of Lab. But Radio Lab is not Rogers, it's not Chorus, it's not Bell, and therefore they consider themselves rather indie. I see.

So it comes from the owner. So it's not the music. I forgot his first name, Grossman? Yes. Yes. Chris. Chris Grossman. That's the chap.

Is that right? who has a home on the water on the lake. And he, uh, uh, I see the Indy 88 car parked in his driveway as I bike by. Oh yeah. And,

and he owns a bunch of stations as, as I understand. They got like smaller, they don't have, this is the only Toronto one. Yeah, like the dock or something. You got like moose or dock.

Right, right. Right. So I asked Bob. I said, Bob, Brent. His name is Brent.

He was one third of the morning show on Indy 88. And I learned Brent was fired. Like he was on a vacation. I don't know if he went to Columbia, but he went away for two weeks. Right.

And he came back for one shift. And after that one shift, he was called into a room. And you know the rest of this story. So I asked Bob. I said, what's going on? Brent's been let go from Indy 88. There was big news

from Indy 88 this past week. Yeah. Brent, who was one third of the morning show, was let go. Yeah. Do you have any insight? into what happened there. I was away.

So I still haven't been in the building since it, since it happened to be completely honest. I'm not trying to avoid the question. I received the email about it. I was surprised, but not shocked. It is a three person morning show is for an independently owned radio station is expensive. Let's be honest.

This is cost cutting probably. It's cost cutting. And I think there's probably something to do with, I don't want to be smirch. Brent, he's a good guy, but perhaps maybe not, maybe not the sound

that the, the owner is going for right now. That's all, you know, and again, it doesn't mean he's not a great broadcaster. It doesn't mean it doesn't have a great few. He was there 14 years.

He does a great podcast with one of the guys from, uh, born ruffians. Oh, um, about the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's really funny.

Yeah, it's a really good podcast. I love that band. Yeah. Born ruffians are great. Yeah. So he, he,

um, he's a very talented broadcaster. He will, he'll, he'll land on his feet somewhere. But I don't, yeah, it was a cost cutting, first and foremost, I would say. But again, I don't, I don't know. That's my guess. I literally, I literally haven't. Look, the numbers, look, if you, I mean, I'm not speaking at a turn here.

This book wasn't great for indie after that we've had three great books in a row. This was not a great book. I had a great book. But if I do say, so you're going to be the new morning show. My shows, I got my bonus. I, I, I, I, my show, my, my shift's. did well. But again,

it's evenings. I have a question, Bob, because the former leads in this new trio, which is now a duo, and remind me, Carlin and who?

Carlin and Jackie. Jackie. I almost said Josie. But that's where I'm going of this. Josie, who was the main person

in that morning show previously, who left for chum, is now going against that because she's the new Maryland Dennis. Yep, she'll be going against them

with Nat Hunter. Right, from BC. Yeah. who's been on air here in Toronto before. Okay, a new name to me, but maybe I want to say. She was a mixed 99-9 days. Her and Karen Steele are good friends from what I know. But that is interesting that maybe people familiar in the 88.

It's just interesting to me. Josie is now actually going to be the morning show host at Chum. And that's one of the stations you shout out as you're trying to take a piece of that pie with your head here and et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. You look at who's got the big pieces of the pie. Oh, Chom, CHFI and boom. All right.

So we'll see if I, huh? It's crazy. C.J.I is a juggernaut and their number one overall. That's crazy. At this event where I got the Japan jersey that I'm wearing right now, I was hanging with Gurdip. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Who edited at the end of that thing? Oh, yeah. Gerdip, who was mentioned by Maureen Holloway because she thought he'd make a good replacement for Jeremy B. Lamb. And then, of course, Rogers just scooped up both Pujahanda and Gerdip from CP-24, bringing a new morning show to CHFI, and hurting breakfast television rivals CP 24 breakfast at the same time.

Well, yes. Good for them. Corporate culture. Corporate culture, right. That's called a win-win. Although I am told that the morning show on CHFI underperforms the station. Because that's the station where if you go to the office, they're often playing CHFI.

And these devices that, I don't know how many people are wearing them, but someone's wearing them, I guess. But these devices can tell what station you're being exposed. to by this encoding in the frequency. And there's a lot of, not votes, but there's a lot of listeners of CHFI because of this. And the morning show when you're not at the office underperforms the rest of the day on CHFI.

Oh. There's some insight into you. So CHFI's morning show not doing as well as CHFI does the rest of the day. I would like to interject for a moment and just say, I am, as noted earlier in the show, I am 67 years old. and with my attendant problems. I'm not going to go into any more detail.

It's okay. You can go back to eating. But as a veteran human being, a human being who's been around for a while, I want to say, and around broadcasting, by the way, not only on the air, but behind the scenes and so forth, I have never in my life met anyone who has contributed to the numbers, to the books, to the ratings in any way for telling.

television or radio. I've never met anyone who had a Nielsen box on their TV, who wore the device you just described. Or had the diary? Or had the diary who contributed in any way to any rating ever at all. And I tend to think I'm not, I know it's not true, but I wonder if it's a scam.

It's definitely not a scam, but I believe the number of people wearing the device, this new PPM device that can tell the encoding, because in the back of the day, they gave you a diary and you had to write it in. Yeah. But people would write in stuff to make them seem smarter. Yeah.

People do. And they answer questions in different ways than reality. So now you wear this like a pager type thing. And it says, oh, you were at the dentist and you heard Chum FM at the dentist. Okay, you listen to the Chum FM for a while. Or in your car, you're listening to Q107 with Shauna and the Derringer guys. That was interesting when I talked to Maureen about that. People listen to the Maureen Holloway episode.

It's fantastic. But I don't personally know anyone who's had a device, but I know just one or two of those can totally affect the results of a ratings period. Yeah. Like, so I don't know with how small that sample size is that they extrapolate for this entire giant city. And how accurate can that be? But, you know, I'm not a statistician, obviously. And, you know, and that's the business there is.

It's not a scam. It's just maybe it's easy to. No, it's not a scam, of course. Maybe it's pretty easy to, like, rig it or play it or something. Well, perhaps. Now, someone who I... Do you know Stan Meisner? I know this name.

Oh, I think so. I know this name, Stan. You could look up. Stan had hits in the 80s. Okay. One chance. He used to come into the Elman combo in the 80s, and I would see him and say,

from the stage in the middle of a song, ladies and gentlemen, it's Stan, one chance, Meisner. Can you sing a little one chance? Just give me one chance. And then there's a background vocal that actually is the hook, so I can't do that.

But anyway, you should look it up. It's a good song. Okay. So Stan had hits, and then he became president of the Socan Foundation. Okay. And then he was president of the Songwriters Association of Canada when I was his vice president, along with Rick Emmett. And Stan then became president of the Socan board.

And so he's been working behind the scenes for a long, long time. His brother Michael, delightful guy, lovely guy. Both of them, delightful people. But his brother Michael worked for Nielsen in New York, the ratings company. Right. And he was a statistician or is a statistician. But he never explained to me the vagaries of putting together those numbers. They got 50 pagers and the extrapolate. Yeah, exactly.

That's all you need to know here. By the way, that news we were talking about with Bob is Brent has gone from Indy88. So it sounds like it's cost cutting. Okay, that's what it really does look like. But then Bob just point out Chris Grossman, who's the boss. Yes. From Radio Lab. Maybe that wasn't, maybe Brent's stick, his style wasn't exact.

what Chris is looking for in this new era of where they're going after chum and CHFI and boom they're no longer as cool okay there's a lot of like mainstream pop hits being played on indie 88 now they uh the person I was discussing numbers with and so forth the other day uh was saying that they beat um they beat edge they beat uh CF and Y the other day in in the ratings which is unusual and hasn't I think it's the first time that's happened, but it was considered a big victory. There you go. So Brent's gone from Indy88, that's radio news, but another little piece of news that correspondent Mark Weisblot made me aware of today is that Lana Gay and Adam Ricard,

one of whom said no to her Toronto Mike to invitation. The other did come over and there was an episode with Adam, but they swapped shifts like permanently. So it used to be that Adam Ricard was midday's and then Lana was the afternoon drive. And now, Lana Gay is the midday host and Adam Ricard is Afternoon Drive. So there's another change at Indy 8. So lots of changes happening there. Yeah. Now I have an item to insert.

Jazz FM. Talk to me about Jazz FM. Jazz FM. You know radio lady. Of course. Sharon Taylor, of course. Who doesn't? Yes.

Well, Sharon Taylor is now the managing general manager of Jazz FM. She's moved back from Winnipeg. She is, as the interim general manager, but I don't know how interim it'll be. This is huge, Blair. Well, I think so, yeah. I didn't have that on my list. I didn't even know about this.

I figured I would be the one. You brought the heat today. There you go. So it was Sharon that I was discussing the books with and discussing, you know, and, you know, how things work and so forth. Is she going to get Ben Murgie another shot? I feel like Ben Murgie deserves a regular shift. Well, all I know, I, you know, I can't speak out of school. And I actually don't know.

This is Toronto Mike. What I can say is I know she met Ralph for the first. time the other day. Maybe it was on the phone. I'm not sure. Maybe he came in from a little. Ralph was at the Elmo. Oh, was he? I didn't see him. You know, Ralph and I, this is how far he and I go back. I, in 1979, when I decided, I'm going to be a musician and I'm going to drop out of school, I auditioned for a band called The Stingers. The Stingers were a cover band, 60s cover band.

Ralph was the singer in The Stingers. Wow. And he was leaving to, not to go to stand-up, comedy yet. He was going to do that later, but he was leaving and they're looking for a singer. I didn't pass the audition. I'm not even sure I sang. I went to hear them set up in a club somewhere like in the daytime. But here's the funny thing. David Quinton Steinberg became their drummer. And Michael Zweig, who played with the jitters most recently, but was with Burton Cummings for 100 years, was their guitarist. And Michael became my roommate. And the stingers became a big

part of my life. And Ralph, I would go see. I did sound for them at the Elma Combo a number of times downstairs. You're blowing my mind there. And Ralph was the singer. And I remember he used to sing Eve of Destruction. And I love Ralph, by the way. I love that song too. But he used to sing Eve of Destruction and he would something,

hear about the bombs in red china. And then you have smoked meat here down on Spadina. Back when Spadina was more of a Jewish neighborhood. But he would do stuff like that to the lyrics. And I used to get annoyed because I think, no, the songs are the songs. Wait, does the Stingers with Ralph, lead vocals, have any studio recordings? No, because they were a cover band.

I'm dying to play some for Ralph. 60s tribute band, yeah. Okay. Someone, someone, Saul Keshen, I'm trying to think of the other members, they would have recordings, I'm sure. Well, your homework is to dig me up the recording of Ralph on lead vocals with the stingers.

Okay. That's a great little tidbit about Sharon Taylor. Yeah. Because beloved FOTM and at one time was your driver. The one time. time. And now she's heading up, well, she's working with Jazz FM. And I guess she let me drive that one time because she didn't drive me. I, I drove to that. But you know, a guy who formerly ran Jazz FM had his lawyer send me like cease and desist, but they weren't season to sit. They were like, edit or delete these episodes or I'm suing your ass. Like I got this lawyer letter. Did you do that? No. And I got a lawyer. Yeah. Who's jazz musician named Ron Davis.

I know Ron. Okay, symphronic. Ron Davis. And we basically, he made me realize that. Nobody can do that to you. No, you don't have to do that because everything that was discussed was also published in the Globe and Mail. Like everything I said was also published in the Globe and Mail. Right.

And also suggested to me that I take that lawyer letter and I posted on Toronto Mike.com for everybody to see. That was the advice. And I did that. Well, I have two things to say about that. One is that person in question, not the lawyer, but the person. I think we can say his name. Well, you can say his name. But he was, he appeared, he was on a CBC show at Christmas time in the year 1999.

No, yeah, the year 1999. And I had just made my first post-Jitters album. And he was talking about Christmas releases on CD. And he said, but the one that I'll be giving to all my friends and family is everything that's good by Blair Packam. And he held it up on TV. And I happened to be standing beside Rob Brooks from Capitol Records, turned to me and he said, do you have a label? And I said, no, it's Indy.

And he said, we'll put it out. Wow. Yeah. So next thing you know, I'm on capital. You're blowing my mind again. And that was because that guy said that. Now, the second thing I would like to say about that guy is the stuff that happened, I don't know the details and I don't have an opinion on it except to say this.

But you probably read about it in the Globe of America. Yes, yes. I mean, of course I have an opinion on it. What I mean is I don't have an informed opinion. so I'm not going to comment on that, but I will say this. It has huge ripples. It continues to ripple throughout that community in negative and some positive ways. But it's amazing to me that some stuff can go down that ends up being, anyway, you know,

and I don't know. I'm not describing the details and I hope I don't get a cease and desist letter for talking about it. And then just put it on Toronto mic.com when you get it. Yeah, yeah, it'll be safe. But I am not impugning anyone. And the story on either side, I don't know. I really don't know. But all I do know is it continues to resonate.

Absolutely. You heard Nat Hunter and Josie Die mentioned by Bob Wollett in that clip I played. Yes, I did. Nat Hunter and Josie Die are the new, this was only named since our last rewinder, the new hosts of the Chum 104.5 Morning Show. That's who's replacing Marilyn Dennis. Amazing. Wow.

So Josie, I know. No, she's been over here. I quite like her. I like her very much, actually. But she was a long-time 102.1 person, a long-time indie 88. And then she went, when Meredith Shaw left Chum to be a host of breakfast television, that vacancy was filled by Josie Dye, who I thought was going to be going to mornings with her afternoon co-host, Jamar McNeil.

But no, he's going to stay in afternoons. Josie's going to mornings, and Nat Hunter is coming from Vancouver. Amazing. Amazing. So Marilyn's done. I think we should spend a moment because although she was too busy to come on Toronto Mike, Marilyn Dennis spent 40 years hosting a big Toronto morning show. 40 years.

That's amazing. That's unbelievable, really. She is iconic in every sense of the word. You know, Jim Richards, who is a friend, not a real-life friend, although we know each other, certainly we worked at News Talk 1010 together. Right. I like Jim Richards. I love Jim Richards. He's a lovely guy, but we're Facebook friends, and he comments on stuff of mine,

and I comment on stuff of his and so forth. And I've been on his show a few times as a guest, talking about my prostate or something. Sure. But I'll do 90 minutes on that. I think I did. You will. I was about to say. He did say on his Facebook just the other day, he said he was in a hallway somewhere. And Marilyn Dennis said, hello, Jim Richards to him. And he thought, she actually knows my name. And he meant it in the nicest way. He was so impressed that she, this icon of broadcasting would know who he is. Do you want to hear the last minute and eight seconds of Marilyn Dennis's radio career on Chum 104.5?

Yes, I would. I will always be proud to say that I worked at Chum, always. And to you, the Chum listening family, from the kids who fell asleep with the transistor radio under the pillow, to everyone who has us on in the car, the kitchen, are streaming on their phones right now, you have always been the heartbeat of this station. I want to go back to 40 years ago, if we could.

This is when I was on my way to the interview at Chum FM at 1331 Youngstreet. What a big day that was. I was in the back of a cab, and this song came on the radio, and I remember thinking, I am never going to forget this song, where I was, how I felt.

And the title of the song will say it all. Boy, I really do need this. This is Mike and the Mechanics. All I need is a miracle. And it's been just that. Thank you so much, everybody. Thanks for listening. There you go, Blair Packham.

An emotional farewell by Marilyn and Tennessee. Very moving, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I met her only a couple of times over the years, but she seemed lovely. Very, very kind and nice. 1331 Youngstreet, Chum FM loomed large in my history as well, and I remember their phone number, 8709132.

You were at Chumbug. I was. Yeah. But yes, it's a monumental kind of thing when you think about it. Absolutely. So I think it starts on Monday. I think it starts today maybe. I mean, I don't know, because I don't, shocking to hear this.

I actually don't listen to Chum FM. But. Right. If Nat Hunter and Josie Dye are listening, come on Toronto Miked and talk about this new era, this new morning show. Nat Hunter left a Vancouver show called Move 103.5, and she moved here.

And of course, Josie Dye was already on the station doing afternoon drive. They're now in charge. Here's a person, speaking of people who have never been on Toronto, Mike, Maryland Dennis was too busy. And this woman was supposed to come on and then it all fell apart in a very weird fashion. But I don't know if it was her.

I believe it was her fiancant. say regardless. We all root for this woman. Patricia, I gotta say the name right. Patricia Jagernoth. Do you know this name? Do you know Patricia J? I actually don't.

So she was doing, this is just very quickly, but she was like a weather presenter on CP 24. Okay. Very positive, sunny disposition. So always smiling would tell you the weather and she was a fixture on CP 24. And at some point she quit and filed a human rights,

I think she filed some kind of a human rights, I don't know what the terminology is, I'm not a Lauren Honickman, by the way, but she filed something regarding human rights against Bell Media, claiming that she never got a full-time gig, she was always part-time, and she said it was racially motivated,

and there was stuff in there about how she wasn't treated the same as the meteorologist, because she was not a meteorologist, she was a weather presenter, and this was, like, ongoing for a long time. At some point, she said, oh, we resolved it, and it's over. So this is not before any courts or anything like that. It's done.

I don't know what happened there at all. She didn't say nobody's talking here. But she has resurfaced as the morning show at Flow 98.7. So I don't know if flow, as you know, used to be 93.5. That was it? Yeah. And then it became something called Today Radio. And now it's a country station.

Like I think those PPM devices we talked about earlier that we think 50 people have, None of them are listening to this country station. I don't think, I think there's more people in this room than listen to this country station. Okay. But they gave the logo and the branding flow to a station that was called G98.7. And they have like, they carry the spirit of flow on 98.7. And they said farewell to their morning show that you Blair Packham probably never heard. It was called Ace and Marlin in the morning.

They said goodbye to Ace and Marlin. and they replaced them with Patricia J and somebody who's got the very cool handle specs. That happened. Wow. Yes, well, what more can you say? Also, here's a familiar name to the Flow listeners back when it was on 93.5. Peter Cash has returned in his hosting afternoons.

So there's a lot of changes happening at Flow 98.7. And if anybody out there has heard Patricia Jay doing mornings and has a review, hit me up. at Toronto mic.com. I want to know how she's doing. That's my response, by the way, wow. Yeah, it's a good response. No, it's idiotic is what it is. You got to say something.

You're like, I don't know this name. I don't know the name. I've never heard them. I don't know what an ace is or a Marlin is or Peter Cash or a specs. Well, I didn't know there was a country station in Toronto. So that's interesting to me. Yeah, because no one's listening. No.

And the only Peter Cash I know is Andrew Cash's brother from the Cash brothers. Right. Right. And this is spelled K-A-S-H, Peter Cash, in the afternoon. Right. Any relation I wonder to Maureen Forrester and Victor Cash? No, I say no. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say Peter Cash is probably not his real last name. Oh, okay. Maybe it's short in the name. I don't think he's the same relation. But Linda Cash, who is an F-O-T-M.

Yes, the daughter of the aforementioned. Morin Forrester. And I opened that episode by Plain Maureen singing. Yes. Oh, yes. And then getting the reaction. It was one of my favorite moments. And it's what made me reconsider this whole, because we talked earlier about it has live and local, right? Yeah.

That's important to me to a point where I say no to most guests who can't get their ass in this basement studio. Right, right. And now, was Linda doing it by... She did it remotely from Peterborough area. Because she lives in Peterborough. Right. And it was so good.

It made me wonder, why am I always in my own way? Like, why do I give a fuck, Blair Packham if they're in the basement? But it's more fun for me. But it was a great moment and it was remote. And there are going to be moments that are just great, but there are also going to be moments that are diminished because they're on

Zoom or whatever. So, you know, I think setting a standard for yourself that you can be flexible on is a good idea. You mentioned you're a CBC Radio 1 listener. Yes. I am as well. Do you listen to Metro Morning? I do.

Then you know, Blair Packham, that there is a successor finally named for FOTM David Common, who left to be the host of CBC Morning Live on the CBC News Network. So David Common said goodbye, and now the new Metro Morning host has been announced, and it is Chris Glover, who has a 17-year career with CBC.

He started in Halifax, and he was in Winnipeg, and he's been in the Washington, D.C. Bureau, and now he's been on Marketplace. and now he's the host of Metro Morning. So Chris Glover has been named the new host of Metro Morning. Oh, amazing. That's a plum gig, no question. Yeah, absolutely.

Especially if they're not doing any more rotating. I was a huge fan of Matt Galloway as the host of that show, but I am... No one did it better. I remain a huge fan of him on the current. I think he's exceptional. I wish, like Evan Solomon before him, I wish he would run for public office,

only because he's so articulate, so smart, so in the moment. I really think he's exceptional. Now, I believe I used to read his music reviews in that magazine. Yes, you did. Yeah. And I didn't always agree with those music reviews because they didn't mention the jitters mostly, you know. Shame on you, Matt FOTM, Matt Galloway.

Exactly. But, no, I also had the feeling he wouldn't really like the jitters if he heard them. But beyond that, I'm a great admirer of his. So I kind of start listening to Metro Morning when Andy Berry is the host. Yep, me too. So Andy Barry, who was also great. I have a story about him, but I won't care. Still with us, by the way.

You can't tell this story. I know. I know. Good stuff. I get it later. I get it by the tree, Toronto tree. So Andy Barry passes the baton to Matt Galloway. Now, after Matt leaves, they bring in, I believe this was Ismaili Alpha, who did not work

because he's too light and less. hard-hitting journalistic styles, okay? Like, your Metro Morning host has to have a good, you know. That's to be well-rounded. Yes, and you have to be able to go out a counselor over whatever, go out Olivia Chow over something. It can't be, so I think Ismaili Alpha, who's sister, I knew his sister, but he's from Winnipeg, too.

Ismaili Alpha is better as like the host of fresh air on the weekends, where it's fluffy. Super light. Lighter is what I mean, okay, not fluffy. So he did not last very long, and then David Common came in, and now we have Chris Glover. Continues the run of male hosts of Metro Morning. Yeah, well, there is that.

I could swear that there was somebody in between Andy Berry and Matt Calloway. See, I think it was a handoff from Andy Berry to Matt Galloway because Matt Galloway was the here and now host. And I believe Matt Galloway took over for Andy Berry. I could be wrong, Blair. This is off the lid, right? Like, I remember, I was a listener. I don't think anyone was between those two.

You sure it wasn't Wally Crowder? No, it was not Wally Crowder. who did 50 years. We talked about Marilyn Dennis doing 40 years hosting a morning show. Wally Crowder was host of a morning show for 50 years. Unbelievable. Back when everyone listened to radio

and half of those stations were tuned to 10-10. My father told me when he worked there. He said, did you know that many people bought radios, purchased radios, you know, in the 1930s or 40s, and they never changed the station from CFRB? You know, I believe it. Yeah.

And now there's no news team at CFRB. Do you know that? I didn't know that. I haven't been keeping up at all. It's been a while, actually. Yeah. Bob Reed tells me he updates me now and again, but it sounds pretty dire. There's no news.

Yeah, it is pretty dire here. Have you ever been down to their station? Yeah, so you mentioned Jim Richards. I met Jim Richards because Humble Howard was promoting a book when he got fired from Boom. He got fired from Boom. No, he got fired. I can't remember when he got fired. He got fired from something.

I think it was boom. And he had a book. and he was promoting it on Jim Richard's show and I went with him and just to see how the sausage gets made so I have been in the studio because when they first moved from Young and St. Clair.

Oh, but that's where I was. Two St. Clair West. Yeah, that's where my dad worked. When I got my job there with Bob Reed, I went in to meet the program director and his office was my dad's old office. That was really interesting because I had been there like in grade seven.

That's a mind blow. Yeah, to get my allowance. But when they moved downtown to the city building, they... It's right beside 299 Queen Street West. Yeah. And there was this whole sort of bullpen area off to the side of the broadcasting part, right? So there's the newsroom, which I never set foot in, actually. And then there's the control room for the main recording. And then there's a few other little studios off to the side.

And but then leading into that area to get there from the elevator, you had to go through this sort of bullpen. pen of offices, like cubicles and so forth. And it was a whole sea of people buzzing, and they had some rooms off to the side that had glass sliding doors where they could have meetings and stuff. But it was super busy. And within two to three years, it was empty, like a ghost town.

And they'd moved all the furniture out. And there was nothing going on. Those glass enclosed rooms got used. Jerry Agar used one for his morning meeting to prep for the show. every day, and probably still does. But the rest of that whole area, it's just like wasted real estate. It's amazing. Jeez, wow.

Yeah. Okay, how the mighty have diminished. Okay. This one was well covered on Toronto Mike because she came over for an exit interview. I like it when people have long, great careers, and then they retire on their own, and then they come over and talk about their careers here. So everybody should be mandatory. Do your exit interview on Toronto Mike.

Yeah, hint, hint, Marilyn Dennis. Yeah, Marilyn, get your ass over here. I'm sick of this shit. Get over here, okay. Susan Bonner did that. You're a CBC listener. And I won't play off. I played it for her, actually, the whole thing.

Okay. Finally tonight. And it is final. My last broadcast at CBC. I am moving on. It's the right time for me to do this. And yet it is hard to say goodbye. It was 1985 when I joined CBC News, posted first to Saskatoon, then Calgary, Halifax,

Montreal, Toronto, a decade in our Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa, then Washington, D.C., all of that in television. I joined radio, and this program then called the world at 6th in 2014. I have been so lucky to live and travel all over Canada to cover major news stories across the U.S. and beyond. I brought a little bit of everywhere I've been to this job. And I hope I brought it to you. And that's what's special about CBC, not me. If you listen to this program, you care about what is happening in your community, your country, your world.

And you care about context. You want the facts, the meaning, the impact on people. I am just one of many people at CBC who try to deliver on that with what we have seen, what we have learned, what we know. It's my voice, supported by many who approach this work as a mission of sorts. As I leave this place I have loved, I want to thank all the people I've worked with on all the programs in all the places. The camera and sound crews, the editors, researchers, signers, writers, producers, directors, the technicians, the reporters, the technicians, the reporters, hosts, the support staff. my wonderful colleagues across this country and beyond.

And huge gratitude to the stellar team here at your world tonight. I cannot thank them enough for everything. And I want to thank you our listeners for letting us tell your stories, letting us into your work and your lives, giving us your expertise, your time. It is a shared endeavor. that I have cherished. So, for one last time,

thank you for joining us. I say proudly, for CBC News. I'm Susan Bonner, over and out. You'll be seeing that Olympic logo on a lot more things. So there's still three minutes to go, Blair, and I put it all on that episode of Susan Bonner.

People can check it out there, but there's another emotional farewell. That has me emotional. Yeah. Of course, you know. You can cry on this show, I'm tearing up a little bit on her behalf, but also on my own. The bathroom's over there.

Thank you. Yeah, it's, it's just backed up. That's all. That's a whole different issue. That is, yeah. It had me reflecting on my own endings. I don't mean in radio specifically, so sorry, I'm going to make it all about me for about two minutes.

Go ahead. Well, just thinking about how, you know, you get older and things change and things end in a way that you hadn't necessarily anticipated. For instance, I've had a few jobs over the years. Well, the radio show with Bob Reed, which I enjoyed immensely, but was a bit of a grind in some ways, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

It ended because Mike Ben Dixon was the program director at the time, and his mandate was to change things on the weekend, and after 11 years of doing that show, a number of them under Mike's direction, he canceled us, and I don't blame him. It was his job. But was Ted Wallis and the guy he replaced you, No, no, we were on in the evenings.

Okay, okay. Yeah, no, no, I don't think so. In fact, I think they possibly went to pre-recorded material. Or even paid programming. A paid programming, possibly, yeah. But, but, so those instances where, you know, my jobs have ended, I used to promote a concert series at the Royal Conservatory, and, uh, yeah, uh, that just ended. You know, sort of one of the sponsors was like, yeah, no, we're, after 25 years,

we're going to stop doing it or whatever. The point is that I didn't have that emotional end, ending the way Susan Bonner is expressing her feelings about. But I'm about to have that, I think, with my teaching job. And not tomorrow, not next week, possibly not in September. I don't know when. But it's starting to feel like an ending is coming for me. And it's made me surprisingly emotional because I had this feeling.

I took the teaching aspect very passionately. I took it very seriously and I was passionate about it, teaching in the independent music production program at Seneca College. and love interfacing with the students and feeling like I'm actually helping and so forth. But, you know, the music business has changed irrevocably. And I have lots of relevant things to say about songwriting, which is one of the courses I teach. But I just don't know how relevant I seem and appearing relevant is as important as being relevant. You know, and at 67, if I were 18 years old and some 67-year-old guys telling me how to write a song,

I'd be suspicious. I don't know how much I'd listen. So I feel like while it may be coming to a natural end, I also feel sad because I've enjoyed it so much. Sure. moving to me not only because of the personal reasons, but also because what she said about, and I believe her, I agree with her 100% about if you're listening to this show, if you're regularly listening to CBC, you care. You care about the facts, you care about context. And I really believe that's true.

She went into greater depth, I think, than Marilyn Dennis did, for instance, in a similar emotional farewell. But I think that reflects the two broadcasters, the institutions that they're coming from. And I think that that's an important thing to note. I know CBC has many detractors in this country, and I think it's a shame, frankly. I don't think everything... But all with a conservative bent. Well, exactly. And I think that it's biased, frankly.

But on the other hand, I guess I'm biased the other way. But anyway, I agreed with her. I found it moving and I feel for her. But at the same time, life is all about change. And maybe she'll take up pickleball. Like I will. I make fun of the retirees who play pickleball only because it just seems like such a knee-jerk thing.

Well, I guess I've got to take up pickleball now. It seems like a lack of imagination. but on the other hand, I guess if you love it, you love it, you know. And I've noticed, because I follow you on Strava, but I've noticed you've been biking quite a bit lately. I'm, as of today, 25 times this season, and my goal is 75 times. I've done more than 25 times, but 25 times up the pottery road hill. Which is amazing. It is amazing.

I told you on my feather, I can't get up that hill. Yeah, you said, that's amazing. It's the one behind you. It's a single speed. And I cannot, and I'm, I'm, I'm. I think I'm in extremely good cycling shape. Absolutely. You don't have to be.

And I cannot generate the energy required to rotate the pedals to get up the pottery road hill because there is no gear to help me. It's a single speed. Yeah. I'm saying that's a steep hill and you going up that every day. That's great. It's, thank you. It's been a struggle, especially after being sick last week. but,

just where depends when you go up there. No, thankfully I haven't got a problem that way. There's nothing unexpected happening on my... Right. You know when it's happening. Oh, yeah. It's just happening all the fucking time.

But, you know, I'm glad we can swear on this show. Keep us posted. Okay. So I just saw the clock and it's, now I realize, we did spend 90 minutes on radio. So here.

One more name on radio and then we're going to cook up some change. There's TV stuff too, obviously. We're going to cook of gas here. Okay. Blair Packham. But I want to shed out a chap, because I mentioned I don't listen to Chum FM. I'm sorry, but I also don't listen to 640.

I used to have a commute, and I would tune in to an afternoon drive show when Mike Stafford was hosting, because he often did things like Simpsons trivia, and I really liked the way Mike Stafford would spin a yarn and tie things together. He seemed very sharp, and I really like Stafford. So I would sometimes pause there if I wasn't listening to the Bobcat on 590 or whatever. I can't believe this is a long time ago now. I haven't had to commute in a long, long time. But on 640 for a long time now was a news person named Dave Bradley. Do you know the name Dave Bradley?

I do, yeah. He just quit Chorus. So he's got another thing he wants to do. He quit Chorus and said farewell to AM 640. That's news. I'm giving you the news, Blair. It's a long time. So Dave Bradley has quit Chorus and I wanted to shout that out.

Now, we're going to, these are. big items, but you're going to respond. Okay. I'm going to read the night. You're going to respond. CBC will no longer air, well, they own the branding Hockey Night in Canada. But they'll no longer air NHL games. That is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I'm not particularly a hockey fan, but to me that's amazing. What a, what a moment, really. It's the end of an era. end of an era. No question. We use that expression a lot, but it actually is perfect for this situation. It is the end of an era. Absolutely. And they own that branding, so I'm sure they'll do something else with it.

I don't know, amateur sports or whatnot. But, yeah, I won't be NHL because Rogers controls the NHL in this country. They coughed up the big bucks, and they probably want to sell Sportsnet subscriptions. Probably, yeah. Now, Keith Pelly's name has come up a few times. MLSE. He runs MLSE. Oh, okay, okay.

I worked for him on a couple of projects way, way back. TSN, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's kind of come up because nowadays, you can pay $1,500 and your kid can hold a flag at center ice. Like, everything is for sale with Keith Pelling. Right, okay. Well, yeah, so I did music for a couple of shows that he was sort of executive producing on,

and I'll tell you another time. But they're funny stories, at least the one I'm thinking of. Well, keep me post it. I know that he was in charge of the PGA in Europe. Oh, yes. And golf fanatic, Humble Howard went to Europe and got like a free tour of some European golf courses or something. Because of Keith. Oh, that's so nice.

There you go. Yeah. This is a big news item. City news. City news. I used to call that place City Pulse. But now it's city news. They have cut ties with Queens Park reporter Tina Yazdani.

They felt that she had been warned. this is a whole thing we need to stay tuned on because Tina has filed suit for like wrongful dismissal. And City News says that she wasn't adhering to their standards. And I understand that there's a lot of smell here. For example, when she was let go as the Queens Park reporter for City News, a couple of her stories about the Ford government that were negative about Doug Ford's government

were deleted from the website without explanation. So she was let go, her stories that were. were negative about Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative Party in Queens Park were removed and she has filed suit against Rogers for wrongful dismissal. We need to keep our good eye on this story, Blair.

I agree. I have been consistently surprised as I moved through the world of, or on the periphery I should say of the world of broadcasting at the number of broadcasters who are who are right wing and who hanged out together and

hang out with... Give me their names, Blair. I need all these right-winged broadcast. I got a long list of them. Maybe people who would surprise you. But so to hear that someone who is allegedly biased, you know, allegedly,

because there's no allegedness in terms of what Doug Ford, the horror that he is delivering. Look, I biked by Ontario Place today, okay? Yeah. Yeah. So you can see physical evidence of it. But in any case,

I don't know if it's biased to be reporting the facts about the Doug Ford government. But anyway, I think anytime someone who's leaning that way is silenced, I think that's a big problem. We need to watch us. And we know the facts are we've seen the Instagram account of Suzanne Rogers, okay, Ed's wife, about smiling with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and saying positive things about their encounters

with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Like, these are the facts we know of. So we need to be. following these stories. Yeah. And that's what we're here for on ReWinder. That's right. Are we?

Oh, okay. Speaking of Rogers. Yes. Speaking of Rogers, I think we talked about this last time. Buck Martinez retired. Yes. As a TV analyst, but they hadn't named the successor yet. That's how long it's been.

By the way, we didn't mention this off the top, but we were supposed to do this episode of Rewinder in early June. Yeah, that's right. And then I don't know if we missed it because you came over with Andy Stokansky. Yeah, and it is Stochansky, by the way. I said it wrong. the first time too. Yeah.

Andy Stochansky. Right. Andy Sank. Okay. I've been struggling with the surname of the hero who scored the goal against South Africa yesterday.

His name's Stephen Eustachio. But I've been, I get it. I say Eustachio, and then I think because my wife made a joke and called him Mustachio

because he has a mustache, but it's Eustachio. Anyways, I'm working on these enunciations over here. But you want to know, the season's been going on a long time, that Jays have lost like six in a row. But Joe Siddell, who's an FOTM,

he got the Buck Martinez job as TV analyst. Joe Siddell, a lovely man. That's great. Yeah, we're here to celebrate. Now, here's a name, you mentioned right-wing broadcasters. I had no idea, but the name Travis Dan Raj. Okay? This guy was let go from, yeah, he was let go from CBC,

and he was in, he was, he's got a podcast now where he talks to like, right-wing lunatics. It's bad shit crazy stuff. I didn't see it coming. I think a joke was made by somebody about Patricia Jaganov has more like journalistic integrity now than Travis here. And I did invite Travis on

because I would love to have Travis on to talk about all this. But here's the tidbit I took a note on and then you can respond if you know anything about what's going on with Travis Dan Raj. But he wrote, he was invited to testify at the standing committee for Canadian Heritage. Okay?

Here's the quote. Oh yeah, okay. So what did I write here? It did not look good for him, is what I wrote. I wrote this so long ago. It's like dusty now. It seems he didn't like how the operation was run and that his show, which was called Canada Tonight,

this was a CBC national show, was explicitly supposed to be a news of the day show rather than a political show and it followed two hours of power and politics. So he testified at the Standing Committee he didn't like the way his show was treated. He felt there was a left-wing bias that was kind of suppressing the quality of his guests, et cetera.

And now he's got a podcast, and I can't remember the name of these guys, but these right-wing pundits and people, like Daniel Smith and stuff, come on. And this is what's happening in his life. And if Travis is listening, and we had an exchange when he left CBC, because I really wanted him on Toronto mic,

then he said he had listened, and he liked the show, and he said, maybe, and it never happened. But Travis Dan Raj, come on Toronto Mike, then we need to talk about all of this. I have so many freaking questions for this guy. Right. I'm putting it out there. I don't know anything.

You have no questions for Travis Daner. Well, I don't right now. I do remember reading about this when his show ended and so forth. I do remember the story, but I don't have any knowledge of him at all. No further insight at this time. We didn't go to high school together. Do you know the name? He's a lot younger than me.

He's a lot younger than me. A lot younger than me. Everybody's a lot younger than me. Do you know the name Vic Router? No, it's a great name. It sounds like Wally Crowder. Vic Router,

best known, he covered many, many, I mean, this guy was on CFTR back in the 70s as a news and sports reporter, but then he went to Global, then he went to CBC,

but then he got the job most people know him from. He was like a day oneer at TSN. We're talking September 1985. Wow. And he did a lot of stuff, like soccer and hockey and baseball and Formula One.

Would have worked on the show? that I did music for. Probably, but I think he's most famous now for his curling coverage. And he's got a signature sign-off, not sign-off, a signature phrase he uses in his curling coverage, make the final. Have you heard this? I think he says that in other sports too,

but like the Jays will play whatever. They'll play. Who would the Jays play, Texas Rangers or something? And make the final. I haven't heard that because my exposure to sports is so minimal, but I know exactly when I'll be using it myself. Make the final. That's three year nations tonight.

Make the final. So Vic Router retired. And then I said, Vic, because Vic's been on twice. He's been over here. He was amazing both times. He was a big chum bug. And I said, Vic, come over for your exit interview. He said, Mike, I love your show.

I loved our two visits. He said, I am now disappearing. Like, he's gone. Right. Some people do that when they retire. And maybe that's a good thing. Yeah. Okay.

So he's gone. Scott Oak. Do you know the name Scott Oak? I do. but again. You're not a sports guy, so I have to carry the weight with the sports ones.

Exactly. I'll just sit and go, uh-huh. He retired. So following these Stanley Cup playoffs, are you even aware of who won the Stanley Cup? No. It's fine. There are people who don't care about this stuff.

I just wonder, do you know who won the Stanley Cup? It is funny, though. You know, think about this. If somebody tells you about a band you've never heard of, and maybe you're overhearing. Yeah, like the stingers.

Right. No, but like a recording band and so forth. And maybe they're, or they're from England and they're talking about, oh, so and so and such and such. And you're thinking, I have no idea who the hell these people are. And so forth. And it just sounds like gibberish. That's the way sports sounds to me.

And it's no... But even CBC news updates would say, oh, the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup tonight, beating the Vegas Golden Knights. Right. And I would think two terrible team names. But, you know, whatever. This is a story of hurricane. That's a great song.

Yeah, well, you live it in Toronto. Ruben Carter. Oh, yes, he's, yeah. That's true. It is a great song. Not at the time of that writing, though. No. But they did make a nice movie because Norman Jewison made a great movie about it.

That's right. We're here to fill you all in it. Okay, but Scott Oak. Yeah. Long time fixture. Speaking of Hockey Night in Canada, he announced after the, that after these most recent Stanley Cup playoffs were the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. he is retiring.

Okay? So here's a guy, he got his start in Newfoundland, I believe, and he went to CBC, and he was working in St. John's, and then I guess in 74, he became a full-time employee of CBC. He moved to Winnipeg. He anchored sports for CBC Winnipeg.

They had a show called 24 hours, and he stayed there until 1989, and then he became a fixture on hockey night in Canada. but he has retired. Scott Oak, he was good. I just want to say in my defense, not that I feel attacked, but I just,

no, but I want to say to the sports fans who are thinking, really? You don't care about sports? Sports is ridiculous. No, I don't want to say that. I want to say the opposite. I wish I could care more

because I would feel more connected to humanity. And it's not... Can I ask you about a soccer tournament going on right now? Like, did you follow it at all? Apparently there's a soccer tournament

going on right now. But you have, like, yesterday. I heard that Canada won. Right. Because I asked my son, why are those cars honking? There were two cars that went by. And they honked. And they honked.

So yesterday was Sunday, June 28th. And there was a, the first knockout match was Canada versus South Africa. And it was a 3 p.m. start. And there was nothing in the world, like maybe if somebody I really loved were having like surgery or something, but there was almost, or something, you know, something, there's nothing in the world that was going to keep me from watching that match at 3 o'clock. I was all in. It was an event.

and I watched every minute of this thing, and then we did win that match, thanks to Stephen Yustakio. And thanks to the work that you did, because you did say we, we did. We did, yeah. Well, Canada won. I am a member of Canada.

This is a fact, okay? You've got the medal and everything? I'm proud Canadian. Oh, I see. Blair, I understand not caring about sports. What I don't quite get is when the whole country is excited about this global tournament. Outside the Olympics, this is as big as it gets.

Well, here's the thing. In my circles, and they're small, nobody cares. So it's not that nobody cares and we think we're better. It's that we just... So your son doesn't care. No, and we don't talk about it. It's not like we're like, we really don't care about the World Cup or anything like that. It's not...

You're indifferent to it. Well, yeah, and I'm happy that people are happy. Like when the Raptors won and everybody was downtown, that would be the last place that I would go. Now, nothing to do with the raptors themselves, nothing to do with basketball, nothing to do with feeling superior or anything. It's just, I don't know. Like, I find it hard to get excited about other, like, I love music.

That's my thing. Okay, okay, I hear you. I love music too. And again, I really, I have to stress, this is why I interjected it. You wish you could care. I wish I could. I really do. Just like, here's the thing, I wish I could be religious.

because it seems like life would be simpler if one just believed. But I don't. I don't believe. I don't believe either. And so, but if I did, I think life would be easier. So, you know, I'm, and I, so please, listener, gentle, gentle listener. Well, they are and they are. You could just join a bunch of people.

Maybe at a public, there's so many places you go in public and hang around other Canadian soccer fans who are going to watch these. These are knockout matches. So if you, when you move on, and if you live, lose, you're done. So they're high stakes. And the whole world is watching this tournament. That doesn't excite me. I don't care if the whole world is watching.

I don't know. It just doesn't do anything for me. And being with other humans does, like at a concert experience, seeing Bruce Springsteen and where the audience, they aren't the idiots who were in front of me last time, who were taking selfies of themselves with Bruce in the background the whole time, standing up right in front of me and so forth. And clearly they were there too for social media. media and they were there for, you know, to show their friends or whatever.

But I was sitting there deeply moved by the songs. And I could tell that many, many, many other people were too. And for me, that's moving. Okay. I don't know. No judgments. I'm just finding interesting. Like, can I ask you quick, quick, last thing on the way here.

Yeah. In 1996, when it was a 100 meter final from Atlanta, did you make sure you watched live the 100 meter final because you knew Donovan Bailey was a favorite? it. I think I was writing a song. Okay. I, you know, again, interesting, that's all. It's just, it's just not, I don't know, I don't, I wish it were different, but it would feel fake to me to be suddenly, woo-hoo, you know,

raptors, you know, or whatever. Like, it, it's just because I wouldn't be feeling it. Now, would I, would I, would I, it would be real, like, you'd be like, Donovan would win, and I, I record it of Donovan this morning, that's why I was thinking of that, but Donovan would win, and you would feel proper. pride that this guy from Oakville is wearing a maple leaf on his, you know, his shirt or whatever. Right. And he is the fastest man in the world and no one has ever run faster and he has won a gold medal

for our country. You'd feel nothing there. I honestly, and again, I have to stress, it's not superiority. It's not, it's, I just would feel nothing. I, like the fact that a team from Toronto who get paid very, very, very, very well to perform sports at a very, very high level. The fact that they win, I think good for them, but it doesn't bring in... And that's different than the World Cup.

Like, I hear what you're saying about club teams. You're right. Like the Leafs or the Raptors or the Blue Jays, right? It just doesn't bring me any joy, and I don't feel like we did this. I don't feel like we had anything the fuck to do with it. What if Canada wins the World Cup? Well, I'll be happy for the rest of the Canadians who will be happy. If Canada's in the gold, what's that called?

The Final, the World Cup final. You won't, you will not, you will not, tune in live to watch it. I don't think so. I mean, I've watched Super Bowls here and there because I was invited to a Super Bowl party and I didn't want to be a dick and sit there and go, I don't know why you guys like sports, you know. But I swear I'm not being a dick right now.

I wish it were different. I genuinely, sincerely do. But it's not. And I don't feel like when you say about Donovan Bailey wearing a shirt with a Maple Leaf Representing Canada. Is he? Yes. Well, in what sense?

He's running. He was raised and lives in Canada. Yeah, so what? Like, he's running for himself. He wants to win. He wants to be... No, let's stick with Donovan Bailey. All right.

Because you brought it up. I did bring it up. He's running for himself. He trained for himself. He wants to be the fastest man in the world. Now, if I were friends with Donovan Bailey, I'd be like, fucking thrilled. I'd be over the moon for him.

Right, that's different. Because he's my friend who I actually care about. But because I'm not friends with him, I think good for him. But that's about the extent of it. And again, I don't want to sound like a monster in a world. No, you're others are like. Dan Duran, for example, who's on the Humble and Fred show. He cares less about sports than you do.

Well, that's good to know because I feel like a bit of a monster. Because the world is... Right now you would, because we're in the round of 16. Yeah. And not everybody. I don't even know what that means. Right. Right.

Well, there's 16 countries will be left in the World Cup. Okay. So the top 16. And Canada's never been close to this far. So it is a huge... This next match, which might be against... It might be against the Netherlands, but could also be against Morocco,

depending on what happens today. But let's say it's the Netherlands, right? You know, the rich football history of the Dutch, right? Like, imagine the Netherlands versus Canada to see who goes to the final eight, if you will, in this World Cup tournament. I think most Canadians who... There are many Canadians who...

There are many Canadians who will not give a shit and will go walk the dog. And I don't think they're bad people. No, they're not bad people. No, no, I just, but I feel. But you seem like such a person who's like, you've got your, like, like, you're so involved in pop culture. Yeah. There's a lot of people who just don't give a fuck about anything. And it's like, I don't give a shit about the world.

No, no, no. I'm passionate about a lot of things. Right. So it's interesting that you can't get drawn in even at this point when it's a knockout, it's final 16. It's a knockout game against the Dutch. To me, it doesn't, like, it. It hasn't increased the stakes at all. Like, I'm not thinking, oh, boy, I better get on board now.

You know, I don't think that. It just doesn't. The, the, I was saying to Owen, my son earlier today, we were talking about a particular scene in Breaking Bad. And he was talking about how effective the music was. And I said, remember the composer's name? And because this is the stuff we talk about. We don't talk about the Blue Jays or the Leafs or whatever.

And he said, Dave Porter. And I said, yep. Dave Porter and I said now there's a guy No there's a guy though Dave Porter who all his life as a musician would be compared to Dave Porter from Stacks Volt Records where Steve Cropper was a producer

and a songwriter and so forth and Otis Redding was one of the artists etc etc and Owen responded and had some comments of his own that's what we talk about and that's what I'm passionate about I have that chat my son all the time too Steve Cropper No but you don't have that I feel

like my passion for Steve Cropper's telecaster goes deeper than most people who give a shit about these things. I give a shit about different things, I guess is what I'm saying. All right. Are you affronted? No. Okay, good. I know, no. I, there's a lot. I know, but also, I just was curious because I like you and I'm curious. And I know where my mind is at with this damn tournament. I mean, it's kept me from having closer friendships with people in my life. Because they do care. And I, I, I sincerely lamented. See, I've become, as I get older, I can't do,

I cannot do a June 29th regular season Jay's game and give a shit. Like I can't. But I gave a lot of shits. Okay, that's some great expression. Yeah. When the Jays were,

when there was a game, God, for God's sakes, we were in game seven of the World Series, right? Like, nothing was going to keep my eyes away being glued on this

game seven of the World Series. The stakes were high. I need the stakes to be high. The stakes feel very, very high right now. I guess I feel, I lack the imagination to have that affect me. I don't know.

I happen to know when Canada's playing next. When? On Saturday afternoon. Okay. Morocco or some of the Netherlands? Well, we don't know. That part, I don't know. I know. I'm really burning with gas because I got really funeral home coming in here. I want to say, congrats to Andrew Bell, who retired from BNN Bloomberg. Bloomberg. He was, he had a 44-year journalism career. Holy moly. I know. Andrew Bell. I can't. Bloomberg. I mean, like, I don't, business news.

I treat business news the way you treat sports. Robert Fife, this is a name I know. I like Robert Fife. He retired as Ottawa Bureau Chief at the Globe and Mail, 71 years old, Mr. Fife. And this was an extensive career. He was at Sun Media National Post. He was the Canadian press,

Canwest News Service, you know, CTV. What a name if you follow federal politics in this country. Robert Fife is retired. Yes. Okay. You mentioned you love music. Yes, I do. Okay.

I want to shout out somebody we lost in the music world. Okay. And this is brought to you by Ridley Funeral Home. Ridley Funeral Home has a podcast that they're going to record

in like 10 minutes. That's why I'm rushing here. Clive Davis passed away. Yeah, monumental figure. Controversial figure. Tell me more. Well, Clive Davis, first of all,

was probably the first widely known to the public music executive. And it was because he was a bit of a self-promoter. He got fired by Columbia and started his own label, Arista Records. And he had an ear for hits. He signed Patty Smith, the New York poet, songwriter, rocker. Who I saw open at... Who did they open for again? Who's the...

You continue your story. Why I remember who the hell was the... I remember... I saw her perform recently. He had... He had good taste when it came to music, but he leaned towards the hits and the hit people that he signed

while they had massive hit records. They didn't have careers that lasted. So there's a difference between someone who has a hit and someone, or even a series of hits, and someone who has a career. And the career people, like Bruce Springsteen, his first hit was not born to run,

which by the... way was his third album. He didn't have a hit until his fourth album. It was Hungry Heart. And that was a charting hit. And I'm not sure it got higher than in the 30s or the 20s on the billboard chart. So there are artists who don't have actual hits who have long, long, long careers. And Clive Davis had a tendency to sign the ones who had the... But he did help shape the career of Bruce. Like Clive Davis helped shape the career of Bruce Springsteen. That I didn't know. That's interesting. Because I took the note here.

So he helped shape the careers of Whitney Houston. Yes, for sure. Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, Janice Joplin, Alicia Keys, Kerry Underwood, and many, many others. And he passed away at 94.

Right, right. And I'm not sure in what way he shaped the careers of the various people you named. Except that he was the president of Columbia Records when they were signed to Columbia. So there's one more loss I want to ask you about. But here, so that's how we're going to close with this law.

I want to ask you about. I got a little music queued up too. But these people passed away since the last rewinder, and I want to shout them out. Longtime C.H.C.H. News anchor, Dan McLean. Did you ever tune into... I did, and I enjoyed him. I liked his vibe, a lot.

Agreed. Yeah. Good vibe. What about Dina Christie? Dina Christie, I'm sorry to hear of her passing. She, one of my best friends in high school is Fiona Christie, her younger sister. And the last time I saw Fiona, I had a, drink with her and Dina actually at Say What on Front Street.

And yeah, Dinah was very, very nice. And I used to enjoy watching her on party game before I knew that she was my future friend, Fiona's sister. Future friend. Yeah. And then Fiona and I became friends.

And, yeah. Dina Christie was lovely. You mentioned Matt Galloway in Now Magazine. And of course, we had the battle of the Alt Weekly's, Now Magazine versus I Weekly. And William Burrell, passed away. Do you remember reading

the great William Burrell in I Weekly? Yes, very much so. Yeah. He, yeah, music critic and man about town, I suppose. Yeah, very opinionated, which is always welcome. I remember really enjoying his stuff. And he wrote a book about Hemingway's time in Toronto. Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. He did do that.

He ran for mayor, like as a gimmicky thing or whatever. Hemingway lived on Bathurst Street. And he worked at the Toronto. Star. That's right. And Torstar owned I Weekly. Right. And Mark Weisblot worked there. And Mark Weisblot owned Torstar. There you go. Don't fact-check

that, Robert Lawson. Some like that. Well, here's a pass. And I'm going to play a little clip from I mentioned I liked CityPulse back in the day. In his weekly comment tonight on the state of Canadian Confederation, CityPulse Stephen Lewis talks about where we go from here on in. Now that the Quebec

referendum is over. Boy, what a mess. Maybe René Leveck was right. Maybe we can't straighten this country out. You would have thought after the referendum that the rest of us in English-speaking Canada would calm down, cool down, moderate, be flexible. Instead, Brian Peckford goes charging off

as though he was an East Coast potentate, and Peter Lohyd sounds like a feudal baron and Sterling Lion behaves like some prairie Neanderthal. And then the feds and Alberta are at each other's throats again over oil pricing. If this is constitutional reform, I think I'd prefer committing Harakiri At least the exit would be dignified.

But, ah, say the skeptics, don't be so fast. There is a meeting at June the 9th at Harrington Lake called by the Prime Minister. True. And Pierre Trudeau wants to keep it private. I think he's right. I don't think I want to hear what they say about each other until they finally come to their senses. But somewhere along the way,

the Prime Minister and the premiers are going to have to stop speaking in generalities and get down to specifics. Because that, of course, is the only way to find a common meeting. ground. All those buzzwords, those fancy phrases, renewed constitution, renewed federalism, dominion provincial cost sharing, they mean nothing until they become specific. They are mere abstractions. And there's more to it than that. There's another problem looming on the horizon. Pierre Trudeau is going to have to accord special status to certain groups. For example, some special status to territorial governments, some special status to opposition leaders,

some special status above all to native peoples. Otherwise, the whole reformation, if that's what it's called, just won't take. You know, Pierre Trudeau is right about one thing. If there isn't significant change in the next eight or ten months, then René Leveque is going to go to the people of the province of Quebec with the simplest and most compelling slogan of them all. I told you so.

Toronto's young artists and performers have captured the attention of the attention. There's more Gord Marno, but that man we listened to there was Stephen Lewis. He passed away. That's Avey Lewis's father. That's right. What a towering figure. Absolutely. Yeah.

And you don't hear anunciation like that. I didn't mean the pronunciation. I meant the enunciation. And he speaks with a lilt at the end of his sentences. Sentences. And he pronounces every T unlike. So we lost him. But here's how we're closing.

You ready? Yep. Yeah. Spinning wheel Got to go around So cry-ended pony Let the spinning wheel Spin'

Blair Packum Holy moly I've never listened to that On headphones before What a great recording Like you can hear the room Around the drums And the horns

Well let's listen a bit more Hold on Sorry to interrupt you Right a painted pony Let the spinning wheel turn Just let it And show you The color

So psychedelic. Oh, there we go. I forgot about that part, flanging his voice. Oh, yeah. Did you ever meet David Clayton Thomas? He was a guest on my radio show with Bob Reed. And an interesting vibe from him. He was kind of annoyed.

And the interesting vibe, but what a singer. And the only time I remember hearing that song a lot was on Chum A. M. with a transistor radio under my pillow. As I think Maryland said that. Yeah, of course. And I did that too, but mainly it was Blue Jays games, but you can't relate to that. I can't. Why the hell would you do that? No, I was so into radio at the time that I used to scan the dial for trying to get the farthest radio station I could find. I got Walla Walla Washington once.

Wow, that is far. Yeah, late at night. I was excited if there's Cleveland, there's whatever. No, you're in Washington State. Across the continent. Yeah. But David Clayton Thomas, in imitable voice, a great singer, big personality. And I saw him once solo, but with a big band, Lupamante, leading the band at Massey Hall.

And it was really great, really great. And, you know, he cut his teeth work in the clubs on Young Street. He certainly did. He was part of the Young Street Sound, which Nicholas Jennings can tell you all about. Yeah, he was a seminal part of Toronto's music. scene. We lost David Claydon Thomas. He was once in,

he was working with Eric Alper for many years and Alper is a good friend of the show. Yeah. And he worked it out where David Clayton Thomas was making his Toronto mic debut and it was confirmed by Eric in the calendar and something happened last minute where he was David Clayton Thomas said he was

in a recording session or something and couldn't do it and I said, okay, we'll reschedule. Well, that never happened. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Like I say, interesting vibe. I tend to think he was, you know, he wanted to do what he wanted to do. And so he made. He did it his way.

And so that day he didn't feel like doing Toronto Mike. Today I don't feel like doing anything. That's the kind of song they're playing on Indy 88 these days. Bruno Mars. There's a lot of Bruno Mars on Indy 88 these days. Blair, we did more radio talk in this episode of Rewinder than you'll hear anywhere else. That's true. No one's talking radio anymore.

And I made my Mia Kulpah about sports as well. It felt like you thought we were all going to attack you. Well, sports people, you know, they... To each is all, Blair. They tend to be pretty adrenaline-driven, and they're tribal. I don't have time for most of them. Tribal as well, and, you know. Well, that's true.

But, like, no. Like, I think, you know, it's one of those things where you can't lose if you do not play. Like, if you don't, you know, you won't have your heartbroken when Canada loses in a shootout to the Netherlands in the Renderlands. in the round of 16 because you did not play this game here. I will not. You're correct. But if this won't happen. Yeah.

Because I understand the situation. I'm a realist. But if Canada went on to the World Cup final, I would invite you over and make you watch and experience this moment. You know why I would say yes? Because it would be you and it would be a social situation. We have a date. We have a date.

But on my own, I'd rather read or listen to music. Oh. We have a few seconds, but I forgot to mention Steve's music closed. Yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, Steve's music was when they came to town. At the time, I think I thought Long & McQuaid were dominating everything, and therefore Steve's music will be a beautiful breath of fresh air.

And they were. So I went to both regularly, but ultimately Longa McQuaid had my heart. But, yeah, it was iconic on Queen Street West. And I skipped the mailbag segment because I am up against it. another recording, but a walk of life wrote in after the last episode of Rewinder and wrote, I enjoy how conversational these episodes are.

It's like being in a room, having a beer, listening to friends, vent and rant. Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. Thank you. Those are very kind words.

And that brings us to the end of our 1,924th show. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. And much love to all who made this possible. That is Great Lakes Brewery. Palma Pasta.

Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Nick Ieini's Recycle MyElectronics.ca. And Ridley Funeral Home. I'm recording with Brad Jones in mere minutes. See you all tomorrow. Who's coming over tomorrow, Blair. Do you know? I don't.

How dare you? Donovan Bailey. He was this morning. We do usually Mondays, once a week. Joel Greenberg will be here. Nice. 11 a.m. Yeah, say hello from me.

I will. Joel Greenberg. Actually, he wants to share an observation he has regarding the theater scene in Canada and anti-Semitism. Oh, that's interesting. I'd like to hear about that. You'll hear it tomorrow.

Yeah. See you all then.