Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Rick Hunter: Toronto Mike'd #1068

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

In this 1068th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Rick Hunter a.k.a. Rick Murray about his five years at 1050 CHUM. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

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the lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Today, making his Toronto Mic'd debut is radio veteran Rick Hunter. Howdy. Welcome, Rick. Thank you, sir. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. Is Rick Hunter your real name? No, real name is Rick Murray. And we get into how the Hunter came about. It's kind of an interesting story. But on Facebook, I sort of use the composite Rick Murray Hunter. So I cover both people that knew me under the former and people that knew me the latter, you know, in radio. Because Rick Hunter, it just, it's too good to be true, right?

Like I know you, you chum guys, and we'll get to that origin story on your name because if it's interesting, I want to hear it. But Rick Hunter, that's too good to be true. Well, it's, it's, it is. It's too good to be true. It's not real. Did you want to save the story for when you get to it chronologically, or did you want to give us the... Well, I can

give it to you now, and then we'll probably get into other aspects of what I'm going to talk about. But as I know you know, and listeners, I was very good friends with Roger Ashby. We met in 10th grade in high school. His family had moved from Orangeville, I believe, to Waterloo. And we met in 10th grade, and we had a lot of stuff in common.

We followed the top 40 charts. We collected them. We listened to top 40 radio, WLS, WCFL in Chicago, WABC, and so forth, BZ in Boston. So we bonded right away. And then he took me over to his house, to his basement, where I know you know he had this station. And I've got some stories about that, too, that have probably never been told. But anyway, he had a whole jock staff.

He made up a whole lineup in this fictitious station that was in his head. Wow. And one of his jocks, his evening jock, was Rick Hunter. And I used to go in his basement with him, and we'd do radio shows. And I said, if I ever, for whatever, I never thought I would, but if I ever get on the radio, I'm going to be Rick Hunter. And his Rick Hunter was RIC, so I just added the K. And when I was on my first on-air job,

they wanted me to change my name because there was a John Murray in the competing station. So I said, okay, I'll be Rick Hunter. So that's it. Okay, I'm glad you brought up, first of all, I love that story, and I'm glad you brought up Roger Ashby because the reason we're chatting right now is I received, and this is shortly after the recording

of episode 1050 of Toronto Mic'd. So I'll take this opportunity that if there's anyone listening who's got that itch or that hunger, if you will, for more 1050 chum nostalgia, I strongly urge you to find episode 1050 of Toronto Mic'd.

A bunch of people you worked with, Rick, joined me. It was fabulous. It was a great episode. I had been invited to that one as well, and I wasn't able to participate. And that's when Roger said, you know, you ought to go on. You could present Chum from the unique perspective of a board operator. And that's, I guess, when he contacted you.

Right. So I got an email from Roger shortly after 10.50 recorded. And it basically said, Mike, you have got to talk with Rick Hunter. And I said, sold. I know that you worked with Roger at,31 Yonge Street and you go all the way back but I didn't realize you go that far back. Do you have any stories of Roger before he was heard on

our airwaves? Well, I don't know whether he's told these stories. I don't think he'll mind. His very first job was flipping hamburgers at an A&W when he was about 16. And one summer also, he repaired high school textbooks at Waterloo Collegiate. So those were his pre-radio jobs.

And he got a part-time job in 1967, decided he liked that better. And I also had one only off job before I got into radio. And I also had one only off job before I got into radio. I worked at Canadian Tire in the parts department selling carburetors and tires and batteries. I used to install them, too. So I got my first part-time job in Kitchener as well. I thought, this is a lot better than heavy lifting and battery acid stains and holes in my jeans. It was clean work.

Right. So, so Rick, when you're in, you know, young, super young, how old were you when you met Roger?

We were 15, 1964, September. So you're hanging out playing radio in Roger Ashby's basement and you're, you're assuming the role of Rick Hunter without the K. And like, is that when you guys both decided that, you decided that you'd love to be in radio? I know Roger always wanted to be. No, Roger goes way, way back, as I know you know.

But for me, if I hadn't met Roger, I don't think I ever would have been near a radio station. It completely changed my life when I met him. Not knowing that at the time, how the profound effect it would have on the rest of my life. Not knowing that at the time, how the profound effect it would have on the rest of my life. But I got to give him credit. Meeting him was totally a profound thing. All right, so let's go back then.

Sure. I think it sounds like we're going back to maybe 1969. That's always a good year to go back to. 1969 maybe. You're still a very young man. You're like 20 years old. But at that point, so this is basically how you get your job at 1050 Chum.

But just before that, if we maybe go back even further, what's your first radio job? First radio job was in Kitchener, Waterloo, with Roger and I. We got together. in Kitchener, Waterloo, where Roger and I got together. He had gotten into the radio station CKKW in Kitchener as a board operator, part-time.

And then the FM station was signing on. He got a job part-time at the FM station. He relinquished his job as a board operator. He'd only been doing it about a month. And then he recommended me, and I got in as a part-time board operator. So I worked two years running every kind of show for what they call block programming, from country music to talk shows to easy listening, beautiful music, whatever.

And that's what I did four days a week uh part-time and in the summer I did some uh part-time down in the tv station ckco tv at a tv audio and one of my unknown claims to fame is on the romper room uh canadian romper room I was mr music for a while so where you hit the music and so you know they go mr music please and then you hit the music and they go, Mr. Music, please. And then you hit the button. So I was Mr. Music on Romper Room for a couple of episodes. That's amazing. I love those stories. You never know who you're

talking to. You never know who's on the Zoom with you. That's where I was, in Kitchener and then Toronto followed after that. Okay, and Kitchener's your hometown, so that was awfully convenient for you. And it's, nowadays we're calling it, I'll have to check my notes what it's called now, Toronto Metropolitan University, that's what it says here, TMU. But, of course, back in the late 60s there, it was Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.

So this is, you know, you decided to go there because that would, you know, prepare you for a life in radio. Well, I thought that might be an option. That's where Roger had planned to go as well. He never got into CKOC and Ryerson never gave him his deposit back. But I had never gone as far as applying. But it was certainly probably where I would have headed

had I not got into CHUM. Okay, so you never did attend Ryerson. You just planned to go there. Is that right? Right. Possibly. Potentially. It was on your list of possibilities. Okay, so please tell me how the heck does a young Rick Murray, who would be known as Rick Hunter, but how did you get that job at 1050 Chum? Okay, well, once again, it has connections to Roger, and he was working at CKOC doing evenings. Dave Charles was doing afternoon drive-by, and it was an honor to have that on the show.

Dave and Roger were good friends. They shared an apartment together in Hamilton, and one day Roger called me and he said, said hey we're going to go to chum uh this was a sunday night overnight into monday morning uh saying that we're going to visit hal weaver so jock who was a friend of dave charles particularly because we've read work at ckoc and been hired at chum to do weekends and things hal was doing the all-night show on a Sunday night, midnight to five. He said, we're going to go visit Hal. Do you want to come along?

So I drove and met them in Hamilton, and then we drove with Dave or whoever to CHUM. And we're standing in there in the control room with Hal doing his show. And just very off the cuff, I just kind of casually said, hey, did he have any openings for board operators? And to my surprise, he said, well, actually, as a matter of fact, I think they're hiring right now. Wow. And so really, who do I contact? He said, Jay Robert Wood.

There's a name. Okay. So, uh, we went, I ended up leaving short, you know, whenever I went back to Kitchener, got home at like five in the morning, decided I'd just sleep. Wouldn't go back to kitchener got home at like five in the morning decided i'd just sleep wouldn't go back to a school out there i was in grade 13 and instead i'm going to when i wake up in the afternoon i'm going to call jay robert who had called him said hello my name is rick murray i'm a board op in kitchen i'm wondering if you have any openings for board ops and he said i'll never forget his words he said well as a matter of fact we're always looking for good people he said yeah and he invited me to come in for an interview on the this was a Monday I called

went in on a Tuesday uh he hired me on Wednesday and from Wednesday to Friday I decided I was going to quit school grade 13 and he wanted me to start that Sunday on a training shift with Chuck McCoy and then start full-time that Monday. We have a noon show with J. Mike Wilson and Chuck in the evening. So it all happened within a week. I mean, it was just within a week I quit school, left home, moved to Toronto, started a full-time job. It was, like, very fast.

Yeah, whirlwind. Very much. But,wind and like very much, but like dream come true, right? This is unbelievable. Well, my mom and dad, you know, well,

I don't know if you're doing the right thing, but they of course later realized it was the right thing. I mean, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work at CHUM and all the things that that would bring. And of course I, I don't care what they said, I would have gone anyway.

You might have done that job for free. Probably, yeah. If I could live for free there, I might have, yeah. Right, crash on somebody's couch. Okay, I'm curious. I'm going to have a few questions along the way, just as a guy who, you know, I'm too young to kind of remember the heyday of 1050Chum as a top 40 institution.

But as you know from episode 1050 and others, I'm fascinated with the history. What can you tell us about J. Robert Wood? Well, Bob Wood, he was a programmer originally from Winnipeg. Before he came to Chum, he was programming a station in St. Thomas, Ontario, in the south of London, a very successful station, CHLO. And he had been brought into Chum in 1968 and introduced the break format, if you will, the boss radio type of thing, along with added personality to it. And he is the one that transformed Chomba from a top 50 station

with all kinds of crazy zany jocks and, you know, the stuff they did then to a tighter, more streamlined sound, brought in some new jocks and people like that. And he hired me. And he didn't, like you were the only board op he ever hired. Is that right? I think he hired one or two others after me, but not long after I started,

he brought in Warren Costner from Winnipeg, who became the supervisor of the board ops. Warren replaced Doug Thompson, who I know you know well, who was leaving to go to los angeles so warren became the supervisor of the ward ops and did all the subsequent hiring but i was actually hired by by bob wood yeah no i haven't i haven't i'm laughing because i have an interesting relationship with doug thompson but you probably heard uh when he when he came over to cut and that's by the way I'll tell people listening

that if they do go to episode 1050, I tag that on the end, this kind of a neat little run through the history of 1050 as a top 40 station. And Doug is our guide with some fantastic audio. But... So Doug Thompson... I heard it.

I heard the audio. Yeah, it was wonderful. Yeah, no, he brought the great audio, and I was more than happy to share it with the universe. So what kind of guy was Doug? I mean, he's still with us. I don't mean to speak like I'm shouting out Ridley Funeral Home here, but what was it like?

He was horrible. He was horrible to work with. I'm kidding. Doug was a wonderful guy. We just sort of got along right away, right from beginning he was doing production by and he would be doing a lot of the dubbing of the commercials uh to cart tape to play on the air and so he would be there uh well into the evening and my shift at that time was 5 to 11 p.m so we crossed paths a lot he'd come in the control room and put new carts he dubbed into the racks.

He was a very easygoing guy, and we still keep in touch a lot and are friends to this day. He's a great guy. Amazing. And another name you mentioned, so these are all FOTMs, by the way, Friends of Toronto Mike, and you are now an FOTM, so welcome to the family. Thank you.

Glad to be. Good company. You're in good at FOTM, so welcome to the family. Thank you. Glad to be. Good company. You're in good company because you mentioned, of course, Roger Ashby, who's been on a couple of times. And then you mentioned, who else did you mention? Dave Charles, of course. And he was fantastic. But then you mentioned Chuck McCoy.

Now, Chuck McCoy is one of the voices you'll hear on episode 1050. What can you share with us about Chuck? Well, Chuck was the first jock I worked with. He was there during my training shift that Sunday morning from 6 to 10, I think it was. And a little story from that while we're on it is Chuck often broke new records. I don't mean break them, like throw them against the wall.

I meant be the first to play them on the radio in Canada. And at the time, Chum was competing with CKFH. But Bob Wood had connections in the United States who would ship him U.S. copies of records to get on the radio first in Toronto and in Canada for anybody else. So it happened this Sunday morning. There was a courier that came to the front door at Chum with this record that Bob had sought out and secured. And Chuck was there and Bob knew it was going to be there. He said, air it once an hour an hour twice an hour and make sure you play this little whisper thing that says a 10 50 chum exclusive or something like that it was so ckfh couldn't

tape the song and play it themselves so you put in this little little trick and he put in these little whisper things over top so they couldn't feel it anyway the song was get back by the beatles so uh chuck and i were the first to air Get Back by the Beatles anywhere in Canada that Sunday morning on my training shift. So that was kind of fun. But anyway, Chuck, I ended up working with him. My shift when I started full-time was with J. Mike Wilson from 5 till 7, and Chuck from 7 to 11.

He was just a – I couldn't have had a better guy to start with. He was so easygoing, which is what I needed because I was kind of a fish out of water there at first, nervous and just living in the big city and stuff. And he was really a calming effect on me and we kept in touch. And he's another terrific guy that I really appreciate working with him when I did.

Because you're so darn young. I mean, 1969, if you were quitting grade 13 for this gig, well, that's a young man. I was 20. I just turned 20. Okay. Okay. Okay. Still.

Wow. Okay. So, God, so many people want to ask you. Go ahead. But let's, where do I be? Maybe, can you start by telling us dummies like me who have never worked, despite what you may have heard, I've never worked a minute in radio. And I've really only like a casual sense of what a board operator does. You want to tell us normies who don't work in the industry, what the heck were the responsibilities of a board op like yourself?

work in the industry, what the heck were the responsibilities of a board op like yourself? Well, a border operator, the jocks were the stars at CHUM, obviously. That's what you heard on the radio. But the board ops ultimately controlled the majority of the overall sound of the radio station of what the listeners heard. Basically, everything you heard on the radio, whether it was a commercial playing into the next commercial, into the next commercial, into a jingle, into a record, that was all performed by a board up. And back then, it wasn't like it is now with computers that have audio files that you can put into auto

and nothing will run forever. Each one of those elements, commercial each jingle so far was all manually started by punching a button on the board each one and uh you had to maintain tightness it had to be seamless uh you had to be consistent and i guess borrowing from from a lexicon of the famous record producer Phil Spector it was like a wall of sound you had to maintain so that was the function

that was one function the technical aspect the other function was to be kind of a psychologist for the jock to keep them up as best as possible because you know jocks are like everybody else they'd come in on dawn days they'd you know burn their breakfast or something or you know they coming in in a bad mood so you had to try to keep bring them up or keep them up and maintain that

for for the shift and um laugh at their, even if they weren't funny sometimes. So it was a dual job, really. It was the technical precision and the psychologist aspect of it as well. Okay, Rick, but I can only imagine, again, never worked in radio, but I've been dealing, especially this last couple of weeks, I've been dealing with radio egos, even from my little perch here in my little independent home studio here. Like, what was that like? I mean, I know from the history of Toronto Radio,

what a big station 1050 Chum was back then. Right. I mean, were these all decent guys? I can only imagine that some of these guys must have had massive egos that you had to, you know to massage. Well, almost all of them were decent guys. And I'm not going to mention them, but there were a couple that had really big egos.

And there were very, very few. I did a piece on the Chum Tribute site, basically about the things I'm talking about, what a board op was in my days at Chum. And I counted them up. I worked with 22 jocks in five years. And I would say that virtually almost every one of them was easy. There were a couple. One of them, he was a very short stint.

Uh, one of them, uh, he was a very short stint. It's probably the most, uh, vivid example of an ego difficult to work with. This guy was brought in on the weekends to do a couple of all night shows. He's worked in San Diego and, uh, he had long hair halfway down to his elbows and uh he was uh doing a lot of uh hallucinogenic let's say when he was doing his show and we didn't get along at all i don't we just like we're just oil and water you know so it got so bad that you know he was in his studio i was in mine there was a glass partition he went out to his car and he brought a blanket from his car and he put it up over the window so we didn't have to we didn't have to look at one another wow and we just communicated you know you had the intercom

so we could still perform the show you had the intercom and you had the the cue button they would hit a button that would ring a buzzer and that would be your cue to hit the next spot or whatever. But, yeah, so we did the rest of the show with him with a blanket between us. So that was the most vivid example of somebody that was a little out there and hard to work with. But he didn't last very long. He wasn't there long.

Well, no wonder. But if there's 22, I mean, you mentioned you work with 22 jocks during your five years at 1050 Jump. The odds of all 22 being sweetheart, not very good. But if there's 22, I mean, you mentioned you work with 22 jocks during your five years at 1050 Jump. The odds of all 22 being sweetheart, not very good. I mean, you were bound to have a couple of bad actors. Well, no, really. They maybe had egos, but there was never, I didn't conflict really with any of them. Right.

Within this one I mentioned. I didn't conflict really with any of them. Right. Other than this one I mentioned. No. You know, like Rivers had, obviously had a big ego, but Rivers was a sweetheart to work with. John Rohde and J. Michael Wilson.

Well, how about we do this then? Let's do this. Yeah, just go through them. Yeah, I just asked you about, so we opened with Chuck McCoy because I only got to meet him. Although he couldn't get his, so I know this,

you mentioned to me before I pressed record that this is your first zoom. So I'm kind of excited to be a part of your first ever zoom. But when Chuck came on for episode 10 50, I can't remember. I no longer remember if he couldn't put on his, I think he couldn't get his video to work because I never ever did see him, but I could, of course his voice is on the episode,

but we talked about him and you guys have that great connection with Get Back from the Beatles you're the first in the country to play it of course and that's a number one hit on the chum chart that's I mean you know the Beatles this just in

Toronto Mike reports the Beatles were a big deal in the 1960s okay so let's talk about another name you mentioned, J. Michael Wilson. Talk to me about J. Michael Wilson. Well, J. Mike was the very first jock I worked with. Here I was only doing part-time board work at Gittsner, and suddenly I'm thrown into the afternoon drive show at 5 o'clock. And Mike's show was very challenging because he had a character that he did on a show called Rodney the Rodent.

And what this was is it was a rat named Rodney. And he would record off-air, of course, during a record. He would record a bit where he was having interaction and dialogue with with his rodent and he knew exactly just how many how much pauses to leave between and he would ask question rodney what do you think of it well actually when he did it well rodney what do you think of this he recorded it at a much slower speed with his voice because the way you got it up to the speed of the rodent was there was a little cylinder you put over the capstan of the Ampex tape recorder when the pinch roller pressed against it, it would speed up the tape. So he knew just how to pace his voice

to that when he put this, he called it a doofar when you put this thing on the on the capstan it would speed it up so it sounded like a rat and it was difficult to do you know it was a lot of pressure and the one great story from that is one time right in the middle of playing the bit on the air the doofar started slipping off. So I was going, Michael, I wonder how this is going to go. So I had to dump out of it, go to a commercial, and Mike was not pleased.

And from that point, every time we did, before we aired the bit, he would always say, doofers on, volume up, meaning the product. Every time, because he kind of got burned on that one, but it didn't happen very often. It was difficult. But he was a good guy to work with, too.

I had a lot of fun with him. Well, guys named Mike are typically good dudes. There you go. Do you have any audio of Rodney Rodent in your personal collection? You know, probably not. I have very little. I don't know why.

I mean, we air checked. We had to run hour-long reels 24-7 at Chum. And I don't know why. I just, you know, I don't think of it then. I'll pull some stuff off of my work. I think you have one I sent you at my last show at Chum. Oh, no, yeah. We're going to hear some.

I will just give a little teaser for the listenership that uh a great fotm will be heard in this clip jim van horn so that's gonna come that's gonna come later and i can't wait to play that but that's wild to hear like you know the rodney rodent story and i mean i i don't know what the capstan of an ampex tape desk deck looks like or anything, but this doofar here, in real time, you would think all that was pre-done and then ready for you to just fire it off on a card or something. Are you kidding?

Things weren't that simple. That sounds exciting. I'll tell you, I can't relate to that. But I do, there are things, like I'm going to fire off elements, and you heard the intro, and then, so I'm doing all that in real time. This is all live to tape because I think that stuff you're describing, now you're not the host, you're the op, but

to me, if I were ever in radio, I would want to op my own board because that's the fun stuff. Plus, what you're running there, I assume, is all on computer. We had no computers back then. Like I said, it was all like i said it was all mechanical it was it was manual right you had you had each commercial was on a cartridge tape that

was like a similar to an eight track right and the records that was another thing the uh the turntables we had back then were these monstrous turntables back in the 50s and the early 60s uh most radio stations had these 18 inch in diameter turntables mccurdy's and the reason they had them is back in the 50s and early 60s a lot of the national commercials came in on what they called transcriptions and they were 18 inch wide like record album 18 inch wide vinyl and so they had to have a turntable wide enough to play these transcriptions so play these transcriptions so then when transcriptions were phased out stations still had invested in these 18 inch turntables so that's what they had at chum when i started there and so you were playing seven inch

45s on these monstrous 18 inch diameter uh turntables That's part of it. I mean, you're dealing with these turntables and carts, and you had to make sure you had everything in the right order and in the right machine. And it had to be so tight. Yeah, and the tightness. It was a high stress, six hours a day. Is that why you only lasted five years? I mean, I don't want to blow, I want to get to this later.

No, no, no. I got to go do something else. I would have kept on going, but other things happened that led to me, to my transition. But we'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. Okay. So I do want to shout out.

So on the PirateStream, live.torontomic.com, where we are live, I just want to shout out Andrew Ward, who just said he loves my haircut. So Andrew, I needed a little pick me up there. Thank you so much for complimenting he loves my haircut. So, Andrew, I needed a little pick-me-up there. Thank you so much for complimenting me on my haircut. Okay, here's the name, and I believe he's still with us. You'll tell me. I believe he is, and I haven't been able to kind of get a hold of this gentleman because I wanted him on Trotter Mike because I believe he was doing voiceover work

on Much Music and stuff. We're going to find out now, but tell me about John Rohde. music and stuff. We're going to find out now. Tell me about John Rohde. Rohde was an incredible guy. Of all the jocks I worked with, he had a very high IQ.

He was extremely clever, creative sense of humor. He was unique in that he was into the occult and witchcraft and things. And I had heard, although I can't substantiate this, but he used to hold seances at his house.

But he was just an incredible wit, very unique, one-of-a-kind sense of humor. An example of that is there was a song in 1969, a reggae song by Desmond Decker and the Aces and it was called Israelites. Yes, I know it. Very good. I love that song. Yeah. John would come off the end of that and he said well there's something to decorate your Hanukkah

bush with. Israelites. So that's a good example of he was just very one of a kind, and he was just, he's now a vendor. He owns his own, he makes wine, and very successful, too, somewhere in Ontario. Are you still in touch with him?

No, no. I don't think a lot of people are. Some, I think a couple have, but John, no, he doesn't keep, he's not on social media very much. He's off the grid, but it sounds like he's still in the province though. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And you worked with him on the afternoon drive. Is that right? That's right. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Well, if you're listening, John, you can do a seance on Toronto Mic'd if you like. That would be kind of cool. Alright, my friend. Here's a guy who we lost too soon, but I did not hear him on 1050 Chum, but I listened to him all the time on 680 CFDR when I was a kid.

Talk to me about Shotgun Tom Rivers. Okay. Well, I was the first board at Tom's first board up at Chum. And actually, when he started, I met him. He was relatively thin. He wasn't the big guy he turned out to be. His real name was Tom Lockridge.

He's from Michigan. He was hired, I think, like four times and fired three times. Just a great guy to work with. Very high energy for the most part uh we did some great uh intense shows just uh we used to have these uh shows on the friday start friday afternoon at five or a million dollar weekend and he was always really up for those, and they were just great. Tom was an interesting character. He didn't like to be told what to do. He sometimes bucked authority, if you will.

The one that comes to mind is some of the jocks had spilled some food all over the desk or something. And so Bob Wood put out this memo saying, no more eating on the air, no more food. Eat before you come in, eat when you get off the air, but no more food in the jock booth or in the control room for the board office too. So of course, what Tom did is there was a restaurant just up the road from Chum called Seniors. And they had an upstairs that was fairly fine dining, actually. So Tom, one evening, just after this memo came out, he ordered a five-course meal from Seniors that he had delivered, complete with those silver tops, those cloches, as they call them. And Bob Wood, actually, walked in on this, saw this.

It was like a big spread all over the desk, spread all this five course meal. And he just looked at it, shook his head, walked out. One of this Tom story too. And Tom was at CKLW for a while. And he brought one of our board ops, Phil Anderson with him. One other Tom story too. Tom was at CKLW for a while. And he brought one of our board ops, Phil Anderson, with him. So I went down to Windsor to meet them one time.

And we had, Tom was on until I think midnight. And we wanted to go over to Detroit to see James Brown at one of the theaters there. And so before we went over, we partook of a little weed, if you will. So I was a little buzzed or whatever. And so Bill and Tom thought they'd play a trick on me. And when we went from the Canadian side to the U.S. side, you know, you don't stop until you get to the U.S. side. But they, I was, didn't realize what was going on. They said, you want to jump the border? So we went through the Canadian side and I thought that we had jumped the border without stopping at customs.

I was freaking out. My God. That was kind of, that was kind of a fun tale too. But yeah, Tom was a practical joker a lot too. when Mike Cooper was here which is only a couple of months ago he was sitting here running through his history which was quite a lot of great stories

but he told one story about punching Tom in the nose at some chum Christmas party wow I've never heard that one I only knew Coop briefly Coop had just started and I was on my way out the last six months

where I did the all night, wore off the all night show. I'll explain that later. But so I operated some shows with him. I remember I operated his first show and I remember what he did is he wrote down everything he said before he did it.

He was, I sure as time went on, he didn't do that. But on his first shows at Trump, everything he said before he did it. Sure, as time went on, he didn't do that, but on his first shows at Trump, he wrote down everything he was going to say for every break. As you know, when the record was on, he wrote down what he was going to say next and put it up there and read it off the sheet. But great job, man. Incredible talent.

Well, great, boys. Incredible career. And maybe in those early days, improv wasn't his thing. He's like, why leave it to chance? I'll just script this out. I remember he was very nervous on the air. I'm sure he'll admit to that.

I mean, he wouldn't. No, I can't. A lot of people are listening. I prefer to felt safe by writing things down to get it out smoothly. Now, you mentioned weed. So, well, first question is, whereabouts do we find you today?

So you're joining us on Zoom, but whereabouts are you? Oh, okay. Well, I'm retired for nine years now. I'm in West Central Florida, about 25 miles northwest of Tampa, about eight miles from the Gulf of Mexico, as the crow flies.

I'm in a town called Newport Ritchie, Florida. Pardon my ignorance. What are the laws regarding recreational use of cannabis in Florida? So far, only medical. Okay, medicinal. Okay, well. It's probably not far behind. We have a great governor that would probably bring that in soon. But as of this point, it's not legal recreational. bring that in soon. But as of this point, it's not legal recreational.

Well, let me just take like 30 seconds to give some mad love and respect to Canna Cabana because when you're north of the 49th parallel here where it's completely legal for recreational use. There's a great chain of stores called Canna Cabana

up here and they won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories and they're great chain of stores called Canna Cabana up here, and they won't be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories, and they're great partners of this program. So shout out to Canna Cabana. I mean, maybe I won't ask you since it's not legal down there, but when you're up here. No, I don't. No, I don't.

No longer partaking. Probably not. I did when I was in Los Angeles doing radio out there for a while, but it's been a long, long time, and even then sparingly. Never a regular user. Do you drink beer? Sure. More wine. I like nice

cabs, red wine. I like a lot of wine, but I'll drink sure. I can't help you of the wine, but when you're in town and when I meet you, I'll score you some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. It's delicious. You'll love it.

And they brew it right here in southern Etobicoke. So much love. And I will just quickly, before I ask you about the late, great Terry Steele, I would like to shout out Great Lakes because they're going to host TMLXX which is the 10th Toronto Mike listener experience and it's going to happen September 1st from 6 to 9pm at Great Lakes Brewery here in Southern Etobicoke and I mean I'm planning it out

it's going to be awesome we're going to celebrate 10 years of Toronto Mike and I know you're in Florida but if you are in town of course FOTM Rick Hunter is invited to... I'll get up there eventually. My passport has lapsed.

I need a new passport before I can come on up there. I was going to say, you have some very lovely parting gifts. Although I know I'm not there to get them, but give them to Roger if you want. He'll appreciate that.

You know, Roger's first visit, I believe, when he dropped by, two things I never forgot about the Roger Ashby. Well, really, it's one thing I never forgot and then one interesting fact. But the thing I never forgot is, as you know, he's a lovely man. But he said, normally, at the time, there were no sponsors and shows were about 60 minutes or so, maybe up to 90. But he says to me, Mike, I've got 30 minutes, not a minute more.

And I remember I kept my promise and we nailed the 30-minute mark. But I'm not even sure. I've heard that one. Yeah, it was short. 30 minutes. I was prepared to go 90 with the legend, but he only had 30 minutes. But also, he came just a little early because I didn't yet have the delicious lasagna from Palma Pasta to give

him. So, if he comes back or if you come back, this lasagna from Palma Pasta is incredible. Go to palmapasta.com. They're in Mississauga and Oakville. Now, tell me, Rick, about Terry Steele, the Gentle Giant. Again, I was his first board op, I believe,

when he started. He came from Virginia, I believe, the station. Just like the stories you've heard, he was a sweetheart, a big guy, but just a very sweet guy. All business on the air.

I mean, he came in and he was focused for his three or four hour shift or whatever it was uh and he was the consummate consummate uh professional i'd say uh just a wonderful man and uh remember he had a watch they had these watches that came out at the time there was one of the first LED watches, a digital watch. It was made by Pulsar, I believe. And he had, it was there about a $300, $400 watch, which is out of reach

for a salary of a board op. But he always had this Pulsar watch. And man, I want a watch like yours. They had this great watch, but a great talent, and very sad that everything had happened. Well, can you enlighten us? So far, as we've talked about these specific jocks,

and we won't talk about all 22, but we'll highlight some of the known names. But luckily, other than Tom Rivers, I believe so far everybody's still with us. Yeah, Tom passed away, I believe, in the late 50s, I believe. But what happened with Terry? Well, you know, I don't really know the whole story uh i believe it was i i don't know i i i heard it was accidental um but i i'm not really sure i i was in the u.s by the time by that time and uh i i don't really i can't comment on that i don't

really know if you don't know you don't know. No, if you don't know, you don't know. It's better to... I don't want to speculate. Don't speculate. Don't speculate. Okay. But no longer with us. Here's a gentleman I know is with us because he's been on Toronto Mike twice

in 2022 alone and he's become a great FOTM. I know him as Scott Carpenter, the boogeyman. Well, Scott and I have been longtime friends. We were very, very good friends. Went to Chum again. I was one of his first board ops.

And high energy guy. Great on the radio. He became a really good personal friend. He and his wife, when I was going through some difficult times, he and his wife at the time had me over for dinner after the shift and things like that. And Scott was, Pat, as you know, Pat Bergen, was very instrumental in helping me with my transition to coming to the United States, he and his wife sponsored me,

which is they had to guarantee that if, that I wouldn't be, if I were to become a slacker and off the social security system, that they would support me financially. Of course, I never had to do that, but he had to sign paperwork and things that he would vouch for my, you know, that I would, that he would vouch for my, you know,

that I would, that he would cover for me if I couldn't make it financially. And his, his brother also helped in the process as well when I got into the state. So he was a big help and I'll always be grateful for all that help he gave me. Amazing. Yeah.

He's high, high energy on the air. He kind of told a story of how that happened, but there's all that, uh, grease dance stuff Dance stuff, Greaser stuff from the American Graffiti fad, if you will. board up, if you will, for those dances. And he used to come in to the also Sproxerathuster from 2001. It was

quite a production. And they were a lot of fun going around the high schools. Like sock hops, really, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I watched in the late 70s, early 80s, I was a big fan of Happy Days, which was kind of like the big nostalgia trip

back to the sock hop days we're talking about there. But okay, very cool. Now we've done so much talk about Roger Ashby, but I don't want you to be like post Zoom, you've hung up on the Zoom and you're like, oh, I didn't tell this story. Drain the Swamp, anything you want to say about your friend Roger Ashby, who only recently left our airwaves. And I don't think he wanted to leave our airwaves, but it depends. But it was time for him to go. And now he hosts, I guess, an oldies program that's syndicated. But talk to me about Roger.

Yeah. Well, I mean, the bottom line is we were best friends. We remain best friends. There was a time when I was at CFTR and he was a chum that we kind of kept our distance from one another. And there were actual times that we were on competing against one another on the air at the same time. But no, we've been best friends. I love the guy. Frankly, if it wasn't for Roger,

I wouldn't be in radio. Simple as that. I don't know what I'd be doing. I can't imagine something. What the heck would I have done with my life if I hadn't been arrived? It was a pivotal point in meeting him in my life. What can I say?

Did you consider even for a moment dropping that K in Rick Hunter out of tribute to the man? No. No. It got crazy enough just having to remember a different last name with a different spelling of the first name. At least I was able

to maintain the first name. Hopefully Roger's listening now and we can say, hello, Roger! Hey! Reg! Duke Roberts! What's his nickname? Reg? Yeah, that's a long story.

He's known also as Reg. Okay. Reg, okay. Next time I see him in person, I'll say, hey, Reg. Okay. I love that, yeah. Next time I see him in person, I'll say, hey, Reg. Okay. Oh, you'll love that. Yeah. Tell me about Duke Roberts. Well, Duke, again, I worked with him primarily the first time when he was known as Gary Duke.

CKFH, who was competing with Chum at the time in 1969, had actually hired Bob Storer, is his legal name, had hired him from Montreal, I believe, to come over to CKFH under the name Bob Baker. And Bob Wood, as was his want from time to time, heard of this new hiring at CKFH, knew who he was, and strategically got a hold of Duke and said, how would you like to come to Chum instead? And made a counteroffer, more money. And that's how Duke, as Gary Duke, came to Chum. And another side story to that is CKFH was left having spent all this money on a jock jingle,

you know, where they sing your name and they're named Bob Baker. So the next jock they hired, they told him, you've got to be Bob Baker. Oh, that's funny. Because we don't want to waste money. We spent all this money on getting these jingle singers to do your name.

So you're going to be Bob Baker. But anyway, that's another story. But yeah, it was Gary Duke. We did Midday together. A good story there is two stories, actually. He loved rhythm R&B artists, black artists, Motown, Aretha. He would have played, the whole show would have played nothing but Aretha and Aretha from the House of Franklin, as he called her. But Aretha and, you know, Aretha from the House of Franklin, as he called her.

But I was given instructions by Bob Wood not to let him play more than a couple in a row. So there was one day he wanted to play like three or four, and I just refused to play them. I said, no, man. So he got a little upset, and he came in one day, and he actually removed. I had a Bobby Sherman record queued up. And he actually came in and took the record off the turntable and the other Duke story is he had

actually what I want to tell is we had another board off a chum named Dan Plouffe and Dan was a joker and worked with Duke for a while and loved to get these guys going Duke was playing a Jethro Tull record and he didn't and worked with Duke for a while and loved to get these guys going. Duke was playing a Jethro Tull record,

and he didn't know a lot about the artist per se, and he said, what do you know about Jethro Tull? He said, oh, they're a folk group from northern Michigan. So Duke went on, 1050 drum, Duke Roberts, there's a folk group from northern Michigan, Jethro Tull. And then I guess the next day, somebody came up to me and said, what are you talking about?

They're from England. So he came up, you know, oh, Ploeper, you lied to me. So, yeah. So he was fun. He was fun to work with. Pretty intense sometimes. Ended up going to see,

oh, he went to CKLW after that, after Gary Duke. Okay. And he wanted to bring me along as his board operator there. And this is another little known story too. I don't even know if Roger remembers this, but Paul Drew, the program director of CKLW called Roger and a guy named Hugh Turnbull called me at Chum and we both offered

us jobs at CKLW to come together so Roger was offered the all-night show at CKLW turned it down immediately uh I had always wanted to work at CKLW before I got into Chum so I thought well I'm going to see if I can get more money out of Chum. So I went in to Bob Wood's office and said, I got an offer to go to CKLW. He was so typical Bob Wood. He was so cool. He turned around in his chair. He had a wall calendar. Looked and says, well, what day will you

be leaving? I said, well, I don't know. Calling your bluff. Oh, yeah. I never again play that kind of trick, but he ended up giving me a little more money. you know, I don't know. Calling your bluff. So you get, oh yeah, he was just, never again play that kind of trick. But he ended up

giving me a little more money to stay on. Okay, good for that. That was another good Duke story. He wanted us to come to work with him.

Okay, because, you know, in that alternate universe, like, you know, now we talk about these,

you know, different, what do they call them, the meta universes out there, where Roger Ashby leaves, it changes the history of Toronto radio. Then you don't have a Roger, Rick and Marilyn and his bank account probably

isn't quite as healthy. It's a whole different story. He's doing all right. Yeah, I hear he did all right. Okay. Now what is it you mentioned briefly there? I got to follow up on it, but you just mentioned, you know, like you just mentioned, and I've heard stories like this from other stations, but you don't want to play more than two black artists in a row. Is that just like a general racist... No, no, no. What is that reasoning?

That was just one category of songs. Oh, R&B. It's just for balance on the radio station. You don't want to play four female records in a row. You don't want to play four or five male records in a row. Got to mix it up. It's just to kind of balance it to give it variety and give the overall. So that's all it was.

Okay. The R&B records were just one category to not overdo it right only cares because mtv which i never saw because i live in canada and we had eventually got much music but mtv kind of infamously uh didn't play any black artists in the beginning it was a long time before michael jackson and prince were uh making the rotation, but that's just a sad little piece of history there. Okay, here's a name for you, my friend, that came up on my program, Toronto Mic'd, recently because there's a gentleman named Blair Packham

who's become a very good FOTM, and he was the lead singer for the Jitters. But before that, he used to work at U of T Radio, and he talks about Jungle J. Nelson's son being a jock there. And I was wondering what you could tell us about the late J. Nelson.

That was much later. You want to talk about Jungle, about J? Yeah, not his son, him. Yeah, J. Nelson Sr. I didn't get to know J. very well. He's one of the probably the only day part, if you will, time of day that I never did. I never boarded up the morning show, except I think there was one time when the morning board op slept in,

and I had to work the first half hour or so with Jay. But I never worked with Jay. I mean, I knew him. I'd see him, you know, pass him in the hall and so forth. But I never really worked with him or got to know him. It's interesting, these names, because of course, famously there's all these fake radio names, because that

was the style at the time. But your friend Roger is like the only one. Were there any others? Was he the only one who kept his name? Trying to think. Mike Cooper. I mike cooper's is roman okay i think that's his real name uh if i'm not mistaken correct me haven't correct me if i'm wrong but i believe that's his name okay uh off the top of my head i can't think of any others. I think they were all different names. All right. Please tell me about Johnny Mitchell. James Rowley III, speaking of original.

John was another character. He came from Michigan. There was this Michigan wave of jocks that Bob Wood hired. It was Rivers and Johnny Mitchell and before that, J. Michael Wilson. And Mitchell I did midday with. He was a funny guy. He was funny on the air, but he was even funnier off the air.

He liked to tell a lot of jokes. He did a great Groucho Marx impersonation that he would do off the air during our show. And of course, he became much later. He went back to the U.S. as Sonny Fox. And he was instrumental on the SiriusXM comedy channels and things like that. He got very involved with comedy. And a great job as Sonny Fox.

And of course, another one was no longer with us. Unfortunately, he passed away three or four years ago. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Sometimes in this business I'm in, when I'm learning about history, you find out about somebody and you hear the stories and then you have to be hit with the, sadly, they passed away a few years ago. Indeed. You just missed him. It's sad but true. All right, my friend, what about Dr. Don, Don Reagan?

but all right my friend what about dr don and don reagan oh well he was a weekend guy he'd come from cklw uh where he was bob clark i believe uh but anyway yeah he helped out in programming and music and he was basically a weekend guy but he he uh i think you probably got this in my notes because i think i know where you got the notes but he was he helped me, I think you probably got this in my notes. Cause I think I know where you got the notes, but he was, he helped me a lot when I was making the transition, um, to a jock. He gave me some,

a couple of really good pointers that I've always, uh, I've kept, uh, close with me that helped me out in my early days when I was on the air, just little things, you know, little things,

little tidbits of advice from somebody that really knew what he was talking about. Okay, so now that you've let that cat out of the bag, because up until now, Rick, we're talking about you as a board op, you know, you're manning the station and keeping the jocks' egos in check. But what is this about you, you know, going on the other side of the microphone there? But what is this about you going on the other side of the microphone there? Okay, well, that happened by late 1973. I was approaching five years at Chum. I was at the top of the pay scale.

It was like $11,000 or whatever, which was quite a bit of money because some of the weekend jocks were only making maybe $20,000. I was driving a Porsche 914 and uh doing well but chum because i was at the top of the pay scale they had wanted to to justify the pay and so forth have me move into other areas specifically into production, producing commercials, dubbing, and so forth. And that's where they wanted to move me. And I didn't want to do that. I always liked being close to the last part of what goes out on the air, like the jock or the op.

I liked being right at the last couple of links to what goes leaves the radio station to go to the transmitter I like the on-air aspect of it, you know, isn't the chalk I like being that part of it. So really I said well My only option here is if I want to do this I was either try get a job as a board out somewhere else, which wasn't likely as most stations didn't have them So I decided on I'm gonna go on the other side of the glass. So I, for my last six months there, requested if I could go on the operate, run board on the all night show. So I could come in at nine o'clock at night when the production facility was

empty and practice making disc jockey tapes, which I did. And I had critiques from robert wood who helped me out and uh gave me pointers and things and critique critique some of my shows and things i sat out tapes and eventually uh got a job in kingston ontario ckw us not doing the evening show but that's why i made the switch as a chum of forced my hand. I had never, ever imagined I would get on the air, but it turned out I did, and it opened up a whole new long career for me. Okay, so now we get the puzzle.

It's starting to take shape here. So it's not so much that you didn't want to leave Chum, but you were drawn towards this opportunity that you wanted to follow. So you left for something better for you. Yeah. I had to go to a smaller station. You're not going to start in Toronto.

I had to go to a smaller market, which I did. And I was actually lucky. Kingston is a pretty good-sized market, so I was fortunate to do that. And I was going to say about Chum, you know, Chum, I owe a lot to as well. It was like a paid education in what it takes to be a major market.

Just jockey, just observing these guys six hours a day, six days a week. Just seeing how they did little things, how they conducted themselves. It was almost, I think, kind of like osmosis. I think a lot of it I just kind of absorbed, not knowing someday I might use that. But that was really instrumental in my, I guess,

rapid development as a jock, because I was only in Kingston two and a half years when I came back to Toronto to see FGR. So I think there was a lot of that chum effect that I'm indebted to. Again, that all comes back to chum. All comes back to chum. And then before we talk about that last shift in April 1974, I'm wondering, would you mind, okay, so, you know, we talk so much about

these jocks, you know, chum charts and the, all the, like, everybody knew these names and these, you know, Scott Carpenter and Jim Van Horn and all these, Mike Cooper, whatever, Roger Ashby, all these big names, Tom Rivers, but, like, would you mind shouting out the board

ops? Like, so, how many board ops approximately, I don't know if you've counted them, but, like, how the board ops? How many board ops approximately? I don't know if you've counted them, but how many board ops have worked there in that five-year period, if you had to guess? Maybe 15 or more. Do you want to shout out some of them?

Just name drop to some of the people. Well, there were a couple of board ops that came from CKLW. Larry Menken, who was Nelson's board op for quite a while. Dave Mazmanian, who is no longer with us as well, sadly. There was Bob McMillan. There was Dan Plouffe, who I worked with. Several others, I guess, that are coming to mind right now.

But yeah, we were a great group of people. And we all did a great job. We were part of a team. Amazing. Okay, now I'm going to just shout out a few more of the partners that helped to fuel the real talk here. And basically make it possible where we can spend an hour or so together and capture all the Rick Hunter memories and stories. And,

you know, this, this audio hopefully outlives the both of us, uh, on that note, on that note, shout out to Ridley funeral home pillars of this community since 1921. And,

uh, I do want to congratulate, uh, the good people at Ridley Funeral Home and primarily because they won the Grilled Cheese Challenge which is this event that takes place in this neighborhood. This happened one

weekend ago so much love to Ridley Funeral Home and StickerU.com if anyone out there needs stickers and this would be applicable to you as well in Florida, but you go to stickeru.com, Y-O-U dot com. You upload your image and you can get your high quality stickers

sent directly to your door. Also decals and badges and just so many things you can get at stickeru.com. And it's the highest of quality and they're such good people. So much love to stickeru.com. And it's the highest of quality. And they're such good people. So much love to StickerU.com. And last but not least, Rick, before we talk about that last shift, I want to thank Dewar Pants, the world's most comfortable pants and shorts.

And I'll throw in t-shirts too. Like their shirts are amazing too. And listeners can save 15% right now and help the show by using the promo code TMDS. And you can do that in the retail store on Queen Street here in Toronto. Or go to doer.ca, D-U-E-R dot C-A. And then online you can use the promo code TMDS. It's rugged. It's comfortable.

They look great. It's really ideal for me. So thank you, Dewar, and thank you, Rick. This has been amazing. We're not done yet. We're not done yet. I do have audio to play, but what do you remember about that last shift on 1050 Chum in April 1974?

Sad, bittersweet, wondering whether I was doing the right thing, making that transition a lot of unknown. Was it a good move? Would it be a bad move? I guess sadness, I guess. But Jim was great. Jim Van Horn was on. You know, this is

4 o'clock in the morning, his final hour. You're going to play a piece from him. He really got up for it. You know, I mean, a lot of times the fourth hour, fifth hour of an all night show, you're dragging your butt. But yeah, he was on fire. And I tried to go out with a bang too. I think I was really spot on with my work. Now, listeners...

I should tell listeners, because I'm going to play a very short clip of Jim Van Horn on April 19th, 1974. And if listeners want to find... There's like the entire 4 to 5 a.m. 60-minute unscoped audio is actually

on a website, Dale Patterson's Rock Radio Scrapbook. It's a website. And the entire MP3 is there if people want to hear the whole hour. But I did curve out just a little bit. You ready to hear this, Rick? Let her go. I want to congratulate all the qualifiers I had for the Chevrolet.

Jane Elson is up next on Music Radio with more chances for you to win. Have yourself a good day. We'll see you all tonight at 9. Good night, all. Goodbye, Rick. Bye. Did you choose that song? No, Jim did, but he was good. We played a couple of songs in that last hour that I requested that he played for me.

Denise by Randy and the Rainbows, I think was in that. One of my all-time favorite songs. There were a couple of others, too. But, yeah, we had to sort of basically stick with them in the format. We couldn't go nuts and do the Jack format. Right, playing what you want. Right. So, okay, it sounds like thanks to your friendship with Roger Ashby,

you find yourself in radio, but you're a board operator. And it sounds to me, talking to you, that when you start at 1050 Chum as a board op, you're not thinking of one day you want to be doing what, you know, doing what, uh, you know, Roger did. You didn't want to be on the mic, but things changed. And after five years as a chum board op, it was time to move on to Kingston. So why don't you, um, this is going to succinctly run us down, bring us up to speed here. you leave for Kingston and maybe just rapid fire, tell us everything that happened post-Chum for you. Oh my goodness.

I've been in the my on-air career was I think there was 11 years in Toronto as a jock and then 26 years in the U.S. I was a jock for 37 years.

The chum was just a little small part of my career, a very big part, as I've mentioned. But no, the majority of my career as a jock, and most of it in the United States. I've been in the U.S. since 1988. Now, okay, so I was going to say, we're going to run this down, but is this going to be like the theme song

to WKRP in Cincinnati? All over the map. Well, a little bit. Okay, let's hear it. Hit me with the cities you've been on the air in after Toronto and Kingston. Okay, well, I initially left Canada, went to Los Angeles,

got a job at a nationwide network called Transstar Radio. They were owned at one point by Dick Clark. I worked for Dick Clark for a while. This national radio is satellite delivered, live 24-7. The company I worked for had nine different formats, so nine separate sets of jocks. had nine different formats, so nine separate sets of jocks. We all had our individual affiliates. I was on roughly 135 stations nationwide from Hawaii to the East Coast, playing oldies. I was on the oldies channel.

Did that. I also did some country music in L.A. at KLAC, a legendary country station. I've got to mention right there, KLAC is something that's interesting for Toronto people. KLAC in Los Angeles, at one point, in a one-and-a-half-year period, there were five ex-Toronto jocks that worked at KLAC. Can you name them? Yeah, Scott Carpenter, who did Morning. Can you name them?

Yeah, Scott Carpenter, who did Morning. He was succeeded by Jim Brady, who worked at CFTR, of course. Stan Campbell was there for a while. He was the next CFGM Richmond Hill PD, a country station. He actually hired me. John Major was there. Wow. Doing afternoon drive for a while before he quit for his TV career.

Right, John Ross. Major got me in. John got me in at KLAC, so I was the fifth one. None of us were there at the same time, but it was five ex-Toronto jobs at KLAC in about a year and a half. That's wild. And that's in LA. What's after LA? Okay, after LA, I wanted to get out of LA.

Hated the fires, floods, earthquakes, smog, all of that. Wanted to come back closer to home. Ended up working in Lansing, Michigan, in Lansing Radio. That was difficult, you know, coming back from having worked major market radio for so many years. market radio for so many years uh worked there for about four years and uh was fired for various reasons and then i ended up getting a break and i worked at womc a big oldie station in detroit worked there for nine years uh and then i transferred within cbs radio who owned womc at the time to come down here to q105 wrBQ, which is a legendary station as well. And that's where I ended my career about nine years ago. Now, is this you deciding to retire or is this somebody saying time's up, it's time to retire?

Well, this was in a period where there were ownership changes and gradually radio there are very few live disc jockeys and radio anymore everything is either voice track or syndicated I was in that transition period where they were reducing staff and my contract wasn't renewed so yeah it was just kind of they were faith it was a new company come came in Beasley CBS sold their stations in Tampa and Beasley Broadcasting took over and they started phasing people out and changing things around.

Rick, I love this man. I know you're a Rick Murray but if you don't mind, I'm going to think of you as Rick Hunter from 1050 Chum. This was amazing. Well, it was a big part of my career, five years but it was very influential, very significant years of my time. Did you enjoy this journey down memory lane here today?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It was everything I thought it might be. It was real nice meeting you, and last, it's great. And one day when you're up here visiting the big smoke here, let me know and I'll bike over and shake your hand. This was great. I hear you're a cyclist, so absolutely. You won't catch me biking to you.

But if you want to come to me, that's fine. Absolutely. I'd love to meet you in person, Mike. Have bike, we'll travel. Have bike or Mike? And that brings us to the end of our 1068th show.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Now, Rick, are you on any social media where people could follow Rick Murray Hunter? Yeah, just as that. I'm on Facebook. Rick Murray Hunter. M-U-R-R-A-Y-H-U-N-T. Rick Murray Hunter. He's on Facebook. Our friends

at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta's at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar are at Dewar Performance. That promo code is TMDS. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. Subscribe to Brad

Jones' excellent podcast, Life's Undertaking. And Canna Cabana are at Kana Cabana underscore. See you all tomorrow. And my special guest is Kenny Robinson and Darren, his comedy partner for rank and vile. It should be fun. These are standupile. It should be fun. These are stand-up comics. It should be a blast.

See you all then.