Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ripkin!: Toronto Mike'd #883

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Mike chats with the radio broadcaster formerly known as Ripkin! about Mojo Radio: Talk Radio for Guys.

Welcome to episode 883 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Online for free local home delivery and the GTA. McKay CEO Forums. The highest impact and least time intensive peer group for over 1,200 CEOs, executives, and business owners around the world. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business.

Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski. He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is the radio broadcaster formerly

known as Ripken, Rick Lowen. Welcome, Rick. Yeah, thanks. How are you? Good. Right off the top, my friend, because I only know you as Ripken. Where did the name Ripken come from? Okay, so my name is Richard Peter Keith. So that's RPK. So growing up in high school, if you take RPK, it's Ripk. And they threw in an N at the end, and it's Ripken. And then nobody really called me that except in junior high and a little bit of high school. And then when I got, I used to do standup comedy with Humble Howard.

Wow. And I used to do standup comedy under the name Ripken. That's all he knew me as. I got hired at Mojo, the program director there, like the nickname. There you go. Okay. And that's, we should point out, it's not ripken like cal ripken jr because you're k k-i-n not k-e-n that's right he spells it incorrectly remember it was billy ripken who had the uh fuck face on the bottom of his back bat you remember this do you remember this at all billy ripken took that photo for the baseball card and fuck face was written yeah was that was that cal ripken's least less talented brother or what exactly his uh okay i don't remember i was at cal ripken's last game ever though oh wow okay that's we i was i was at mojo and we did a contest because my name was ripken so we said

join ripken with ripken it was a you know how people love plays on words or alliterations or whatever and so and then my my co-host producer, Johnny B got thrown in jail in Baltimore overnight for allegedly scalping tickets. It was quite an event. I don't think my bosses even know that story, but. Well, let's get all those stories on the record here today. So, but thanks for doing this, buddy. This episode came about because I was chatting with my buddy,

Bob Willett about Mojo Radio. I think he's the guy. He tells me he's the guy who pressed the button to put Mojo on the radio that first day or whatever. Bingo Bob. Yeah, Bingo Bob. Exactly. And he's like, you know, Ripken's on Twitter. You can reach out to him.

And I'm like, I want to talk to Ripken. So awesome. Whereabouts are you? You in Winnipeg? Where are you right now? About 20 miles southeast of Winnipeg. Just a little town called Linden, actually, on a few acres. Not even kind of in the middle.

A place where no FedEx or Perlite or none of them can ever find. That's where I am. Keeps you out of trouble. So let's get you to Mojo. And then I got a bunch of questions and comments from people, but you mentioned like, you mentioned stand up with Humble Howard. So what, what, before, before Mojo radio, give me the bio, like the, the Rick Lowen bio here. What were you up to?

Oh, well, I mean, lots of stuff, but kind of on-air entertainment-wise, I started comedy in the mid-'80s, and then that's where I met Humble Howard because Yuck Yucks had kind of a national chain, all these little towns across at least Western Canada anyway, and of course in Toronto they had four locations, whatever. And then, so we kept in touch we were good buddies we kept in touch and then i did a sports show for a number of years then a buddy and i worked in florida uh doing a sports show there in tampa for a year completely

illegally under the table for cash wow it was great by the way it was like one of the best years ever and that's the two sports guys that's exactly right wow my partner was down there on holidays and he handed out this is how old it was he handed out vhs tapes of our tv show we were on public access and one guy got back to us and said i'll hire you and we lived in a hotel across the street for free and he every two weeks he handed us an envelope with a1,000 worth of cash. And we had accommodations taken care of. And we did that for almost a year.

It was great. And then that station got bought out by a big conglomerate. And then they looked and said, where are these guys' contracts? And they said, well, they don't have any. And he goes, well, we can't do that. So then we, I don't know if we got fired because we were never technically hired. Right.

And we did that. And then, yeah, and then we did radio for a while. I don't know if we got fired because we were never technically hired. Right. We did that. And then, yeah, and then we did radio for a while. And then I had my own morning show on a talk station here in Winnipeg. And then the national, TSN wanted to go nationally. I don't know if you remember that when TSN was going to have a national. Yeah, the team. Not TSN. That was actually Chum that was going national with the team so uh

was it yeah you're probably right yeah chum chum because they flipped uh 10 50 here to the team right right right so then they they wanted they got i guess i don't know how maybe i applied i can't remember they wanted to interview me then howard got wind of it he told our his boss stewart someone or other stewart myers thank you very nice really like really bad hairpiece his daughter's his daughter is on the air now at uh 102.1 here oh is that right on the edge oh nice yeah on the edge sorry bad hairpiece is redundant from what i understand now he's he's he's going on natural, so good for him anyway. So then they wanted to hire me, so they got into just a little bit of a bidding war. And then I went with Mojo because I didn't think anyone in Toronto cared about Winnipeg.

And Winnipeg certainly didn't care about Toronto. And I sort of proved that proved to be right because that national broadcast thing didn't work very well no dude you made the right call i've had so many people in fact i'm working on a little documentary series about the team because from paul romanuk to uh jim van horn like we can go down the like uh steve simmons i mean all the people i've had on steven brunt the people i've had on from the team they all have this this a terrible story like just. Like just how it ends. So, so abruptly, I mean, Romanek is still pissed off about it. So I think. When I was trying to decide, I actually had coffee with him. Okay.

No, that's not true. We had, well, he had worked, no, he worked for the team, right? Yeah. He did work for the team. Yeah, he did. And then he got let go or whatever. There was some acrimony there. And then, well, it was just funny there. You know what it was? So I had an interview with these team guys, I guess at 1050. And I'm like prairie guy and I'm overwhelmed by snacks and high rises and all this stuff. And they were trying to convince me because they had the broadcast rights, I think, for the Raptors at the time, which the Raptors in early 2000s weren't very good or whatever. And I kept saying, well, yeah, but the Leafs are the thing here.

And they kept going, no, no, no, no. The Leafs aren't. It's the Raptors. Everyone loves the Raptors. And of course, once the official meeting was over, everyone literally was just talking about the Leafs like sort of anecdotally for the next 20 minutes. I would see. I told you guys, that's all you care about is the Leafs.

And they didn't have the Leaf broadcast. So, yeah. So and then I just went to Mojo because I knew Howard and I thought it would be a better fit. I mean, six of one half doesn't matter. I think Romanek was let go in a year. I was let go in two years. So I don't know.

You said I made the right call. You made the right call. I mean, we'll get into the Mojo deeper here. But that TSN, it was only, I think, a year and a half they gave it before they played Little Less Conversation by Elvis and went back to, you know, old and oldies or whatever. Right. And then at Mojo, yeah. And then at that time, I thought I had made the right call, clearly, because they went belly up before Mojo. So you're right. In that brief microcosm, I thought, yes, I made the right call.

OK, a couple more notes pre-Mojo here to set the table. Because you're being a little humble here, no pun intended there, because you won the funniest comic in Winnipeg contest. This is in the mid-80s, I guess. Yeah. Like, you were legit. Like, you performed at the Comedy Store in LA.

Yeah, that's a really long story. I won't bore you with the details. So there was a local hospitality group. So, you know, in the, I don't know, you're not as old. What are you, like mid-40s? Yeah, I's a really long story. I won't bore you with the details. So there was a local hospitality group. So, you know, in the, I don't know, you're not as old. What are you, like mid-40s? Yeah, I just turned 47. Okay, yeah. So, but in the 80s, comedy was like the rock and roll.

Like there was, I think Winnipeg had 10 comedy clubs, of course, comedy spelled with a K. And every little place had their own comedy thing. So you could work seven nights a week and get paid pretty well, actually. So this one hospitality group that has a bunch of hotels and comedy clubs held this contest though the short version of this story is they they assumed another guy was going to win because they had never heard of me so when i won they wanted me to fly to la under another name because they had already bought the ticket because in those days it was much cheaper

to buy way in advance right and i wouldn't and then they were they threatened not to fly me and then i threatened that i was going to go to the press if they and it was just a debacle and then it was an all expense paid trip hotel spending money we got there with this guy and his girlfriend and they we got to this beautiful hotel we were waiting waiting for our room key. And he says, no, you're not staying here. And he handed me $450 Canadian. And at that time, the exchange rate was, I think that was worth 300 US. And he said, you're on your own for a week. Literally, like that had to include.

And I brought a friend. It might have included everything. It was just. But fortunately, my friend knew a girl that he had met in Greece the year before. And she lived a couple of miles away. So she gave us our car every day or her car. And we actually got to drive around. We had a great time. Yeah. I could go on and on and on. Dude, I love these stories. This is like, yeah, the rock and roll in the eighties, a standup comedy. I can see the brick wall now. Like,

you know, well, yeah. You mean at the comedy, at the comedy? Yeah. Like A&E, I think was it A&E that used to broadcast the, uh, the standup comedy from yeah i think it was and just just to put a final a final point on that so then when we got to the comedy store turns out these guys that that sponsored this contest that i went down hadn't arranged it at all so the comedy store didn't know i was coming and so they're in this back room begging this one of the people to let me perform because they hadn't arranged it yet and i don't know whether they paid him some money or they anyway they got me on stage so that was my claim to fame i guess so you've got some bonafides here a stand-up here and you talked about the two sports guys was that your brother that was the

other sports guy no actually he's my second cousin okay when you grew up in southern manitoba everyone's your second cousin but we were like sort of friends before we knew we were cousins but we happen to have the same last name so that's funny okay yeah because uh okay awesome now maybe just because i'm uh i work with humble howard now i'm just naturally curious what kind of stand-up was he back then like like was he was he funny i mean of course i guess you're funny if you can work for uh breslin's chain there or whatever but like can you give us a little taste of what the humble howard was like uh pre before he got to uh edge 102 you know we all think we're funny and when we don't get laughs we always blame the audience right

right um and and comedians never laugh at other comedians you just say that's funny right so all the if there's four comedians working the one guy's on stage or girl or whatever and then the three are in the back they say something funny oh that's funny but we never i mean i know he's pretty pretty uh intellectual which doesn't necessarily go over saturday night second crowd, right? So neither did I. I think that they just needed, sorry, this is terrible. I mean, I thought, put it this way.

I thought he was very funny. I thought I was very funny. Sometimes the crowd didn't think we were very funny, but he was a feature act and he could do 50 minutes, no problem, and entertain people. So yeah, I'd say he's pretty funny. Yeah, and it led to a pretty good radio career for the man. He did radio before he did comedy, right?

So he was doing radio in Moose Jaw, I think. And then he quit that to do comedy. Yeah, you're 100% right. He starts in Moose Jaw. I think he's in Vancouver for a bit or something. Yeah, that makes sense. Seafox maybe or something back in Vancouver. But then you're right.

He does the whole Eagles of California. He tries out the comedy. And then he ends up in Montreal, I guess. And that's where he's working with Lumbie, Jeff Lumbie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think that's the story is they recruited him from Montreal to come do the morning show. And for those people not into radio, Lumbie is the guy on the Red Green Show. Which one? The Red Green Show. Right. Right. He's sort of the sidekick guy.

Yeah, he's like a sewage guy. He's a funny guy that Jeff Lum. Yeah, really funny guy. For sure. So, okay. So, as you tell us, you're kind of playing. It sounds like you're playing chums the team off against this Mojo radio that was launching. When did Mojo launch?

2000? 2001. 2001. Okay. So we'll get to this. But 9-11, of course, is September 11th, 2001. Much earlier that year is when Mojo signs on. By the way, can I call you Ripken or you want me to call you Rick?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter? Okay. Maybe I should call you Rick since that's your name. But your banner, I guess you should know that your banner still hangs proudly at the real McCoy

in Scarborough. Oh, nice. Yeah, good burgers. Is it really still there? I'm not kidding you. It's still there. So Mojo's long gone, as we'll discuss. You know that I had to pay for that banner out of my own money, eh? No, no, I didn't know that. The station wouldn't pay for it, yeah.

Oh, my God. It's like the best advertising the station ever got, I'd say, was that real McCoy banner that's actually still there. There was a bit of a disconnect between that. Yeah, whatever. It's so short-sighted. But all that story, this is the show to air all that stuff. But there's a hamburger there at the real McCoy. like short-sighted it sort of but all that story this is the show to air all that stuff but the uh

there's a hamburger there at the real mccoy uh and i'm on the other end of the city so i don't get out to scurv real much but when i do i get to the real mccoy they got a hamburger it's got a bacon and cheese on it it's uh they call it the mojo burger yeah still eh yeah it's stuck in time there so that's awesome i'm gonna play my friend I'm going to play a little news report about the launch of Mojo because it'll kind of let people know what's happening here, and then we'll see how many details we can extract from that cranium of yours. So let me play a little. This is from Global News back in 2001.

One of the city's AM radio stations will head in a brand new direction next week. The station now known as Talk 640 is aiming to put stubble on the face of Canadian radio by programming exclusively to men. Rob Davidson wrote that and he has a story. The launch of a new radio station devoted to, dedicated to, things guys like. Talk 640, an AM station best known for carrying Leaf games up till now, is narrowing its focus even more, calling itself Mojo Radio. Mojo. Mojo. This is a radio station that men haven't been missing because it hasn't existed.

The on-air types will be tackling such weighty subjects as... Saving money. Men are interested in music. Men are interested in sports. And sex. And sex. There'll be some of that. Men are interested in... Did I mention they're interested in sex? But is Toronto ready for an all-guy radio station?

Women, tools, cars, stuff like that. Would you listen to that? I listen to that anyways without the radio. Yeah, I listen to tools and cars. I watch Bob Vila. I watch all that stuff. If you look at any other male-oriented industry, like magazines, for example,

25% of men's magazines are purchased by women. A New talk radio station that talks about what guys think about most. Calling itself the Maxim Magazine of the Airwaves, Mojo Radio even has a resident sex therapist. She's Dr. Date, who regular viewers may recall from a previous appearance. I've been missing you. The bed's been a cold and lonely place. Who are you going to be talking to in your show, do you think? I think mostly males, because I would think so. But females are welcome, too.

And just how desperate are these guys to get good media coverage? I just want to say Rob Davidson is one of the finest broadcasters I've ever known. Hi, Susan. Bye. I'm Rob Davison with Humble. Ah, now that's desperation, isn't it? Mojo Radio hits the airwaves April 23rd, although they will be having dry runs for the next couple of days, Bev. Hits it on the 23rd.

23rd. People will be listening. Guys will. Yeah. And apparently women. That's right. Maybe even Susan. Oh, absolutely.

Humble would like that. Bev, did Rob audition for that segment or? They assigned it, Susan. Oh, absolutely. Humble would like that. Bev, did Rob audition for that segment? They assigned it, Susan. Anyway, sun and clouds tomorrow. So there you go. That sets the table nicely. So tell us any details you remember. But you were there for day one of Mojo Radio?

Okay. you were there for day one of Mojo Radio? Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, it was funny because I had no, nobody told me it was going to be like the maximum, sorry, the maximum of the airwaves. I thought it was just going to be edgy.

And I was a columnist in the star Vinay. Vinay Menon. Menon. Come on. No, I don't think he francophones his name come on it's just menon isn't it oh i don't know i i just always say i don't know i met him because he wanted to do a story about me so he did a story and what i said in there was if i had known sort of what the raison d'etre of the station would be i never would i never would have taken the job like seriously i didn't know it was supposed to be like all sexual like yeah having said that it turned out great i had i had almost complete autonomy in that three hours and as i said johnny be my producer slash co-host or whatever he and i gelled perfectly and it was the best radio time i've ever had but i

didn't understand i was going to be surrounded by guys like Spider Jones, who, if you know who that is, he was one of the first people on, and literally the first words out of his mouth on the first show was, we mentioned it was a call-in station, a call-in show, and he goes, when did you get your first boner? And I thought, well, that's literally the first sentence out of his mouth. And I'm going, oh boy, this is going to be just a complete nightmare. But anyway, so that, but yeah, I just found out sort of after the fact that it was going to be this Howard Stern-ish kind of station or wannabe anyway. So if you had known that, you might've taken the team gig.

I absolutely would. Yeah, I would never have taken Mojo. And then, and that i mean we however far we want to get and that's sort of one of the reasons i i got fired or whatever because the the culture from some of the people there was absolutely horrible and i'm not a prude and whatever i don't mind swearing and whatever but some of that i mean the emails you get every morning from some of the things just just the horribly pornographic emails. And there seemed to be some people that didn't understand what Maxim meant.

They thought it meant penthouse, I think, you know? And it got really weird. But I don't regret taking the choice in hindsight. Just if I had known, I would never would have done it. Interesting. Now, it's amazing they didn't give you that premise before you took the gig. Like, that seems like that should be the first sentence they say to you.

And I'll take some blame for that. It could be some naivete on my part. Maybe I was just so overwhelmed with moving to Toronto and working with Humble and being able to sort of go from here to there that maybe I didn't want to know. I don't know. I don't necessarily blame them for that. that maybe I didn't want to know. I don't know. I don't necessarily blame them for that. Humble had a lot of pull, apparently, because he also got, you know,

Lou Skeez's, his gig at Mojo Radio. They go way back to the Calgary days. Yeah, the broadcast news. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. So very interesting. And I don't think I would have got that job. Well, I know I wouldn't have got that job without Humble pulling some strings

with the aforementioned Stuart Myers. Absolutely. Amazing. Okay, so I i'm gonna sprinkle in comments i got from uh listeners of this program when i said that we were going to talk about mojo radio okay so i'll sprinkle that in while i prod for more details here uh somebody who calls themselves uh health health said loved mojo radio hated to see it go still have some stickers from back then my old boss has had a few bands and one of his bands was the only one that ever played live there and then he goes on to say i remember andy curran and greg gotovitz from goto they recorded two songs for the intro of the mojo leaf games, the Puck Stops Here, and one that I can't remember the name of.

So anyway, Health has some fond memories of Mojo Radio, which is nice. Good for Health. I don't know anything about that. I don't remember anything about those comments about the songs or who those people are, but sure. I can tell you that I know these people that they've actually been on, but yeah, there was a band called

Gato, and there was a band called Coney Hatch. Oh, I know. Andy Curren's from Coney Hatch. Didn't they have a cowbell and a song or something? Oh, well, yes. You're probably thinking of April Wine, I feel. But you're right. They all had...

No, I'm not thinking of April Wine. Every time I hear a cowbell, I think of April Wine. No, no. That's Ooh, What a Night. No, I'm not thinking of April. Why? Every time I hear a cowbell, I think of April wine, but that's, that's what a night. No, I'm not thinking of, I'm not thinking of April.

I'm old enough to know who Cody hatches. Okay. Just checking in there. Yeah. My apologies. I forget that you're, you got a couple of years on me here. Okay.

It's really me. I'm trying to keep them all. How do I separate all these like late seventies bands? By the way, are we live? Well, we are, we're live, but that's more of of a backup most people will hear us on the podcast which will drop like 15 minutes after we uh wrap up here but but I don't edit anyway so it's sort of the same difference here

okay so uh a couple more comments here uh cam gordon says solid shout out to bob vila uh he's talking about that that clip we just played from the global news rob johnston says never heard of it so i guess robbie j was involved because he was working at uh it was chorus that owned mojo radio right you bet yeah so he's a long he was a long time he's back there now actually but rob johnston was a long time chorus guy um he's making a crack, but Rob Johnston was a long-time chorus guy. He's making a crack there, I think. Melanie Martin, who's been on the program, Melanie Martin says her first job was mojo model,

but then she put an emoji of a guy vomiting, so I don't think she was proud of this job as a mojo model. You know what? Both those things can be accurate. Yeah. Now, okay. What was the... Oh, and Bob Willett, who I mentioned. Bob Willett tells us that he was the one who pressed the button

to put Mojo Radio on the air back in the day here. And Gabe chimed in to just to remind us that the real McCoy at Markham and what is that? Bri Morton? I don't even know how to say that squirrel bone name but they still sell the mojo burger and they have that banner up that says that ripken named it the best burger if anyone out there listening now can send that picture to you can you send it to me i'd love to see you know i've got the name of the burger place i've yeah the real mccoy uh've, I've taken a photo of that banner. I got to go to my Flickr account and find it.

And then I'll, I'll flip it to you later for sure. I've got a photo of that. You have it on your LinkedIn account. No, it's on my Flickr account. Yeah. It didn't make LinkedIn.

Hey, so, okay. So Maxim magazine on the radio talk radio for guys. What was the, like, what was the initial, do you remember what was the like what was the initial do you remember what it was like the initial feedback uh were they like it seems controversial uh like i don't i

don't think it would fly today but i'm just wondering what was it like what was the feedback like what was the reaction when you guys launched well i think just the early on you know the quick culling of guys like spider Jones and this doctor date or whatever, those people didn't last very long because I think they thought they could just literally talk about sex the whole time and everyone would do it. And they didn't think they had to be clever. They could just, you know, mention penis or something, and then that would be good. So I think the initial reaction, even maybe not even public,

but for management was, well, we can't do that. I mean, you say what you want. You can be as edgy as you want. It still has to be entertaining. It still has to be clever, right? You can't just mail it in. I mean, I'm not a huge Howard Stern fan, but I also realize he's a pretty smart guy and he doesn't, well, maybe not even anymore at all, but he didn't just have topless women on. He was a pretty edgy, smart guy, right? So I guess the initial reaction was we sort of had to weed out some of the really kind of gratuitous crap. And then sort of find a bit of a rhythm, I guess, would be the answer. Now, you don't last as long as Mojo, right? How long do you last on the air at Mojo Radio? Two years. Okay, two years. Okay. I had last on the air at Mojo Radio? Two years.

Okay, two years. I had a three-year contract, and I lasted two years. Okay. A couple more comments here, and then I'm going to ask you about how 9-11 affects things at the Mojo Radio. But how's that for a teaser? Mark V says, this is his opinion, it was a flop.

for a teaser. Mark V says, this is his opinion, it was a flop. My theory is that it was trying to play off the Howard Stern thing on Q. Now, Howard Stern was being simulcast on Q107 at the time. Was this just Chorus trying to capture the male,

younger male demo here because they have Howard Stern on the FM? I can't comment on Chorus. As far as I'm concerned, Chorus is evil, so whatever. I thought Howard Stern, I think he was in Montreal. I didn't know. I thought, wasn't Derringer on Q107 in the morning then? Derringer eventually does.

Oh, maybe at that point. I get my years wrong, but I know that Q had Howard Stern for a few years. I think Derringer, because I golfed with him a few times he's a good guy I I think Derringer was there from when I was there I'm not sure but I remember Howard Stern I remember us thinking that this is a kind of a knee-jerk reaction to Howard Stern in Montreal I think I don't know that's that's my recollection it's a long time ago and my memory is pretty bad but uh yeah I think there was this need to capitalize on kind of this kind of vulgar stuff.

You know, that's that was my take on it. Kara brings up your pal Dr. Date here, says Dr. Date showed up on a local Rogers TV sex dating show a few years later. I don't recall her real name, though. So Kara is just thinking out loud there. But I actually have no memory of Dr. Date on Mojo Radio. Yeah, I can't imagine she was on for more than a couple of months. And then they had Mae Potts, who was great. But Mae Potts didn't fit what we were trying to do, whatever it is we were trying to do.

You know, just a very nice, pleasant, entertaining, middle-aged woman that wasn't, not edgy, but, you know, great. So she didn't, I don't know how long she lasted. She got moved a little bit and then didn't last as long as me anyway. So, yeah, I mean, it's tough to fill 24 hours with edgy smart people, I guess, or maybe I, you know, I don't know what they were thinking. I mean, I know that I didn't, nobody ever pressured me to cause I was never that kind of guy I never did that kind

of stuff so uh like the sex stuff kind of the low-hanging fruit so but nobody ever even remotely pressured me in fact what I remember is some of the other shows going what what we don't have to do this stuff we can do more stuff like Rick andny do you know so i'm not trying to blow smoke on my ass i'm just saying that nobody ever said to me oh you need to be more you know kind of raw uh i think we were raw enough in our own way politically entertainment sports or whatever we talked about we didn't have to attack talk about sex all the time so listen here's what we're going to do in a moment we're going to walk through the schedule and talk about these so so i'm going to because i have some things to say about may potts and then uh you know you mentioned spider jones and everything we're going to walk through the schedule and talk about these so so i'm gonna because i have some things to say about may potts and then uh you know you mentioned spider jones and everything we're going to walk through the schedule in just a moment i'm just going to say patrick lee

chimed in to say there was a mojo radio here in new york city on 95.5 fm when scott shannon started in the early 90s and then patrick points out that scott is to new york what roger ash Scott is to New York what Roger Ashby is to Toronto. Thank you, Patrick. Who's Roger Ashby? Roger Ashby is forever he was part of Roger, Rick and Marilyn, which was a big Chum FM morning show here.

I didn't know his last name. He was on the old 1050 Chum way before then when they were a popular top 40 station. Marilyn maryland's the one that does the show now where she's had like a lot of face work done right that's maryland that's maryland yes yeah she's still on she's still on so they got rid of like they got rid of uh rick hodge a long time ago and then they then they they retired roger a few years ago but maryland is still there. Absolutely.

Ted says, Mojo stepped up huge and bought the Leafs broadcast rights for a season or two. I also won a used Subaru from Humble and Fred that we drove for four years. It really helped our family get through a rough patch back then. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, no, they didn't. Well, they did buy the rights. So when they changed to Mojo, I think it was just called what? News 640?

I don't know what it was called. Talk 640. They had the rights to the Leafs. They changed to Mojo and that was a huge bit of consternation for the Leafs because nowhere in their contract did they think to say, oh, if you guys change to a kind of a maximum thing, we can take our rights away.

And so they were just, you know, Ken Dryden was the president then, and he was completely perplexed as to what to do legally. They just didn't want us, Mojo, to have the rights because you've got, you know, Spider Jones talking about boners. And then like literally the next thing, it's like the Leafs lunch, right? And it's like Ken Dryden's going, we can't have kids listening, but we want kids. Yeah. So it was a huge deal. I think then after a year or so, the rights were up and then they bid for them again. And my guess would be then the Leafs could put in a lot more riders into the thing saying you can't do this, this, this, this, or whatever.

I'm glad you brought that up because I've had a few private convo. Actually, I don't even think they're private. I think somewhere on Torontoonto mic with fred patterson and he really does point to that kendra iden moment as like sort of a moment when they had to sort of neuter their approach to this thing because kendra iden it sounds like i guess you know he's trying to sell this made beliefs thing and it's family values and all this stuff and uh yeah like you said if spiders on there talking about boners uh ken wasn't too pleased at all. And apparently, although, you know, apparently, yeah, this was a big deal in changing the tone of things over there at Mojo Radio.

And Spider was just kind of stupid. But still lots of the programming was very kind of sexually oriented, which so I don't want to just, you know, throw him under the bus. That's easy. But, you know, still a lot of the. That's, that's easy, but you know, still a lot of the shows were doing stuff that certainly wasn't family oriented. Right. Right. Uh, Oh, Chris, one last note from Chris, and then we're going to walk through this lineup here. But, uh, Chris says, uh, I listened to live audio wrestling on Mojo and he goes, that was actually,

that was the only time he tuned in and he was missing out on the Ripken show, but, uh, live audio wrestling, of course, uh, I believe that was a Jeff Merrick's show at the time time he tuned in. He was missing out on the Ripken show. But live audio wrestling, of course, I believe that was Jeff Merrick's show at the time. Yeah, yeah. So shout out to Sportsnet's Jeff Merrick. Okay, so Rick, here we are. We're going to walk through this lineup. You ready, buddy?

Yeah. Mornings. This was 5 a.m. to 9.20. That's an interesting time, but that's what I have in my notes here. Humble and Fred. So essentially Humble and Fred had been on 102.1 for over a decade. They got there in 89. Humble left for a bit, came back, but that was a long running successful morning show on 102.1. And they moved it to AM 640 to be the morning show on Mojo Radio on Mojo radio. And, uh, yeah.

And it sounds like Humble's the reason you're following them, but what, what would you say about Humble and Fred as a morning show on Mojo radio? Oh, they were great. You know, Humble, yeah, they, they were so welcoming and, and I'm guessing, I'm guessing they moved for the money. I know. At one point I was golfing with Humble. I said, how much do you make? He said, you don't even want to know. So I don don't i'm trying to think he's probably making 400 grand a year or something that would be my guess but um yeah because i knew him a little bit and we had

spent some time with him and his family uh so um yeah i mean and then bingo bob was their producer and shawarma was their um kind of the guy that lined up the interviews and stuff or whatever. Right. So, yeah, I mean, there was no egos there. We all just got along really well, actually. And replacing, of course, replacing Humble and Fred on 102.1 when they moved to the AM dial was the Dean Blundell. So they brought in Dean Blundell from Windsor. Didn't he have a dad in the business?

Wasn't that a nepotism hire? Yeah, but I thought his dad was a Rogers guy. Well, either. Yeah, he's definitely. These CEOs make calls. You hire my daughter, I'll hire. I'm not saying he didn't have his own, as you say, bona fides.

I'm just saying that I was just wondering if that was the guy. Yeah, and he, yeah, whatever. That's correct. If you haven't heard, Dean's not my cup of tea. I think that's the guy. Yeah, and he, yeah, whatever. That's correct. If you haven't heard, Dean's not my cup of tea. I think that's the thing. Yeah, me neither. Yeah, I think he tries too hard to be kind of shock people.

I hate the shock stuff. It just drives me nuts. And a couple of guys who were part of the Humble and Fragile stuck around to join, to stay with 102.1 and Dean Blundell. And that was Danger Boy, who, of course course real name Jason Barr, who's on the air in Ottawa right now. And Todd Shapiro. You know what Humble was calling

Todd Shapiro at the time? Retod. Retod. Retod. I never knew those guys. Plus, can I just point out too that it's funny, when you go to Toronto,

when you've lived in Manitoba or Florida or wherever, they throw out names like everyone in Canada knows who they are, right? And then you go, like, even the first time I met Derringer, I go, yeah, well, it's Derringer. Yeah, nobody in Winnipeg knows who John Derringer is, right? Nobody knows who Humble and Fred is, no offense. Nobody knows who Danger Boy is. So, you know, you kind of have to learn all that stuff.

And they're a little bit offended that they think that every, like even Roger Ashby. You don't know who Roger, no, I don't know who Roger is. But you did, Ripken, you did spend a couple of years in the market. So, you know, I thought maybe, and you shared a building. I'm sure you shared the building with the Blundell show, right? No, no, no, no. Blundell was at the foot of, like on Yonge Street.

Oh, you know, you're right. Where was Mojo? We were up on the floor there on the tower there. Okay, my apologies. Okay, you're right. They were street level. Right, right, right.

They weren't our sisters. They weren't chorus. Were they all chorus? They were all chorus at that time, I believe. Yeah, Q107, 102.1, and 640, I believe. I never got the sense that uh that we were sister stations whatever anyway no we weren't in the same studio okay uh gotcha gotcha

okay so after humble and fred uh ripken and and there's an exclamation mark on that that's significant here stupid eh so you gotta say control. That wasn't my idea. It wasn't like you had to shout out my name, you know? So Ripken, and that was you. And again, we learned that that comes from, your name is Richard Peter Keith Lowen. That's right. And sorry, you keep, and I don't,

Johnny B, is that the name of your name? Yeah, so John Borden, you know. So I get hired, Stuart Myers. Yeah, Stuart Myers, the first day, I think, he says, Ripken, this is Johnny, but he's going to be your producer. Here's my credit card. Go out and get to know each other. And so we went downtown.

When we first started, our station was up north of, like it was on Yonge Street, but like- Oh, Norton. What's that? Yonge and Norton? Norton. Yeah, that makes sense like like past the 401 right right north of the 401 yeah i've kind of forgotten my geography but so we went out and i know we spent six hours and four hundred dollars and and we i mean we've we're still really good

friends i was at his cabin a couple years ago like he is i mean we just clicked like literally immediately we clicked right away and and so he was as instrumental as whatever our success and failures were. He was just as instrumental as I was. Great guy. Just a super guy. Awesome. So you guys started at 9.20 and that went till noon. So that's quite a...

I don't remember 9.20. Maybe if you say so. Well, maybe they changed it at some point. I grabbed this from like the first week, I think, the first week's lineup. They might have tweaked things. Humble and Fred, the last 45 minutes was probably on tape, if I know them.

Humble was probably on the course at 10 and they probably just quickly recorded something and then just went to a tape or something. You're probably right. He's always on that course. And then you mentioned May Potts. Now, I've had her on to chat about this. She really never fit on Mojo and she was not happy and she did not last long at all and again it's

kind of one of those things where i don't know if they told her you're leaving 102.1 for mojo or if they if she had a say in the matter but she had a long much like humble and fred she was on 102.1 well much longer than humble and fred she was an institution on 102.1. And yeah, Mojo Magazine is what they called her show, but it didn't last very long. Yeah, Mojo is kind of like the Leafs of the NHL. It's where careers go to get ruined, you know? Oh, by the way, so you were speculating, like, why did Humble and Fred go?

It must be for the money. The two reasons I've heard from them the most is, one, they felt, at the age of 40 or whatever, they felt they were getting too old for like a youth like a young alternative rock station like yeah they probably hated the music they were playing absolutely oh I think Fred liked the music but I think Howard wanted uh he says he did he says he did yeah okay unless he's blowing smoke up my ass but um Howard definitely preferred like a steely Dan, if you will.

And they like, yeah, fair enough. And they like to talk. And, you know, when you're on music radio, you have to talk for so and so long. And then you have to play songs. And then they got to just talk all the time. And I think that probably had a lot to do with it, too, because you just get so much. You can literally tell these 20-minute stories, right? Without your program director, you have to play a song at some point.

Well, you nailed it. That was the other reason is that they were always of the belief that people wanted more humble and Fred, but they were playing these, whatever, seven songs an hour or whatever. And then they got to talk more. And today their podcast,

they just talk for, you know, they talk for two hours straight now. Right. And the oral gold sometimes doesn't, you know, you don't mind that until like five or six or seven minutes into a story, right? And then all of a sudden this gem comes out and you would never have gotten there if you had to play a song. So completely right. Exactly. Now after May Potts, which was... Did I just say oral gold? I think I just said oral gold, didn't I? Sorry about that. Okay. So Mojo Radio of Maypods was 12 to 2 p.m. And then definitely Derringer for an hour.

So Derringer was doing double duty. There's a lot of Ds in that sentence. So definitely Derringer. Derringer doing double duty. That's like six Ds. He's from two to three. And then this is, I'm very interested in a chat with you about this gentleman. And I know his son is listening now, so be careful what you say.

But although he's heard it all. Dirt Radio with Scruff Connors. Yeah. What can you tell me about working with the legendary Scruff Connors? Well, first of all, I didn't work with them, right? I mean, you know, what time did he start? Two o'clock. No, three o'clock.

Three o'clock. So I'm long gone, right? So I'm nine to noon. So I'm probably after 1, 1.30, I'm gone because we get up early to do the show and then we make some calls through the next show. So I probably saw him once a month or something. And I had heard all that. He used to be in Winnipeg, so I

knew all the stuff that followed him, all the accusations, true or not, whatever. And I had mentioned earlier about these emails that would go around. He was often the author of these things. So I, I had no use for him at all. I couldn't believe they hired him and I had no issue.

And I thought his show was absolutely drivel and it was just mindless and it was offensive. And I had no use for him at all. Gotcha. Now his son is actually on the air in Winnipeg now. Uh, TJ Conn Gotcha. Now, his son is actually on the air in Winnipeg now. Really? TJ Connors. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Is there a station called City something? Yeah.

Yeah, he's on that. I believe he's the morning show host over there in Winnipeg. Oh, okay. That also plays music that I don't want to listen to. And I'm not really in, I don't follow it that closely. Gotcha. But what kind of music, like if you're going to listen to some tunes, what kind of music do you gravitate towards?

Me? Oh, I like classic rock and folk. I'm a folk guy. Folk guy. So like, is that like, what exactly is that? Is that like the Kingston trio?

What are we talking here? Like. Oh, how old do you think I am? And that's good. I get up every morning listening to Louie Louie. Joan Baez. Who are we talking about here?

Well, John Prine was, I don't know if you've ever, he just passed away last year. COVID. He was like literally my, he's the reason I learned how to play guitar. Of course. Yeah. Ben Kaplan, Sky Diggers, Blue Rodeo. I'm a big fan of Blue Rodeo. That's not really folk, but Blue Rodeo. And then any classic rock. You mentioned April Wine. Real kind of middle class, white trash, Eagles. Steve Miller.

Sure. My playlist. I had my 40th high school reunion a couple years ago. I was in charge of the music. I literally just plugged my phone in and played it, and it was all the music we all grew up with, so I didn't even have to edit anything. First of all, I'm glad you mentioned the Sky D diggers i think they're one of the most underrated

bands in the country i love sky diggers yeah yeah yeah so that kind of stuff i mean i don't i yeah i don't my wife really likes like she's a svengali moist pearl jam kind of chick and it's like i don't even whatever not my thing shout out to to David Usher of Moist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's met him. And the funny you mentioned, I had forgotten Derringer did that two to three or whatever he did. Yeah, two to three. And, you know, that was funny, too, because Derringer, I mean, he's great and he can talk or whatever without any notes.

And it almost seems to me that he, like like walked in one day and there was maybe like someone was late and he just started talking and then Myers goes like why don't you just do a show all right I guess so like you know and he's got so many fans and really like loyal fans that you know he could I mean he knew everyone he'd one phone call and he got anyone on the show so I think it was an afterthought. It was a good afterthought, but I don't think, you know,

it was one of those things where they went, why don't you do an hour? All right. Well, Hey, I know Maypots is on the air in this market on a station called boom, but, but,

but Darren, you're still on cue. Like he's the only one who's still where he was when Mojo was on. Like he's still going. Is Kim Mitchell still on the air? Kim Mitchell's long gone now. Sadly. Uh, he's not on the air anymore. No. Okay. We had Mitchell's long gone now, sadly. He's not on the air anymore.

No. Okay. We had him on the show a few times. He was a real right wing dude, eh? I didn't know that. I had him on last summer for the, I had no idea about his politics though. Well, when we had him on,

when we had him on, I seem to recall, I could be, we know we had a bunch of people on. I seem to recall that it was kind of the stuff he said, but right wing 20 years ago, it wasn't like you know

anti-vax you know crazy now that just meant that you uh that you liked who was your who was your premier then i can't remember his name oh mike harris yeah he was maybe mike harris right wing that that would be like so middle of the road milk toast now right i got it's the the goalposts have moved over the last wasn't here Harris the guy that wanted all the welfare people to work? Yeah, that's him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Kim Mitchell,

shout out to Max Webster since we're talking about all these big Canadian bands from the late 70s here. Okay, so after... So, Scruff Connors, you don't have time for Scruff.

Those stories are legendary, though. But remember, he was famous, of course, in this market for being on the Q Morning Zoo. Did they call it that? I think it was called that. but he was on the q morning zoo mornings with i think uh he would take turns with uh brother jake edwards kind of doing q107 jake was a winnipeg guy for a long time i that's that guy did the champ right well he he licensed the champ from mclean and mclean and he, and that was a big deal for us high school kids

when he was doing that on cue. Okay, so here's a guy who just lost his gig on the same. He was there until like a month ago. Mike Stafford, he was the afternoon drive on Mojo Radio and was the morning show host on Global News Radio 640 until like a month ago. What can you say about Mike stafford again didn't know much about him kind of a hermit guy just kind of like literally lights down low sunglasses uh you know

just talked like like intellect like you know had the memory like you wouldn't believe his show wasn't my cup of tea uh again i don't really have much to to go on there but we i don't think i ever said hi to him like if there was a forced staff meeting i would have gone a but i don't know well it's amazing he did last from the you know first day of mojo until like last month uh yeah long time run on the same station there and he had the morning show there last last uh time he was on the air but okay so mike stafford had four to seven and uh spider jones who you've talked already quite a bit about but he had his two-hour show after stafford and it sounds like he was talking about boners and stuff yeah was there an eight did he have an eight was it like the boner hour was did he have a name for the show no he just says just said spider jones i think and he was a boxer and he every every

analogy he ever had to anything was about boxing right it didn't matter you could talk about politics and go oh that's like going in the third round when you're tired and you could talk about uh you know uh climate change and he go oh i remember when i was everything was about boxing it was just it was and i don't know where where's pedigree pedigree i don't know where he came from because i i just kind of you know parachuted into toronto and i didn't know where his pedigree came from. I don't know where he came from because I just kind of, you know, parachuted into Toronto and I didn't know any of these people. So he must have come from radio somewhere. But, man, he was a piece of work, that guy.

I think maybe he was on 590, maybe the sports station 590 or 1010 CFRB. I don't know. But it's interesting. He had that clip of Don King, double shot power. There you go. Yeah. Everything was go. Yeah. Everything was boxing. Okay.

And then you had a Mojo Radiohead sports. I don't know which sports. It sounds like they had a lot of different things. They had the Leafs. They had some NFL. I don't even remember them now, but they had the Phantoms. I think that was like an AHL team maybe that was here. I did the color for the Argos one year.os okay so they had the argos for a year and they had me it was jim lang jim

lang uh he was on sports net for years i don't know he's at a station now doing sports i think uh he's at a station uh in markham which is a bit north of the city called the region okay and then so jim lang is being play by play and then i was being colored with another guy named brian warren who was just the cheesiest guy ever. And so here's what happened. So what's the impresario that went to jail for tax evasion? Gino Empry? Who are we talking about here?

I know. I know. On Toronto's Broadway there, Drabinski? Oh, Garth Drabinski. Right. So all of a sudden, he was, remember, so the Argonauts hired him to produce the halftime shows. Right. And so all of a sudden,

and that's when Dennis Miller was doing Monday Night Football. And so Drabinsky got on his head, we need like a comic sidekick third guy to be funny. So I had to audition. I'm sitting in this tiny room with Jim Lang. We're watching a game from the year before, an Argonaut game on a tiny little color screen with a VHS tape. And we're watching that. And then Garth Drabinski sitting like three feet

from me and we're supposed to be funny or I am. And then anyway, he hires me the next day and or whatever. And so, yeah. And then we had Brian Warren, who is an ex-player, but he was also a pastor on the 700 Club. Oh, wow. And he kept using his past. Every time we'd fly, he'd go up to the flight attendant. He'd go, listen, that's Pastor Warren. I'm wondering if I could, I got a bad knee. I wonder if I could get to the first class, you know, and I was like, whatever, dude, come on. Anyway, but the argues, the argues were so bad then.

Pinball was the president pinball clements and they were so down and he can't even name their quarterbacks and they were so bad and every time we would do the game the guy back at the station the operator would go can you turn up the crowd noise and we go there there isn't any crowd noise oh like it was just terrible but we did have the argument and i would have before the game, I would have books, literally 50 books of season tickets. And I couldn't give them away. And I gather nothing's changed.

Well, they did move, though, out of the Dome. So they're no longer in that cavernous Dome they're in. Yeah, but they still don't draw as many as the Toronto FC, right? Not even close, no. Toronto FC sells out BMO Field, and the Argos get like half of it filled up. Yeah. So, yes, we did have the Argos.

All right. Now, Mojo Sex Show with Rebecca. I'm going to burn through some of these. These are like evenings, late night and weekends. But there was a, yeah, it was called Mojo Sex Show with Rebecca Rosenblatt. And that was Dr. Date, right? Is that Dr. Date? Okay, I didn't.

I think so. Okay. Okay? Okay, I didn't know. Okay, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. But Art Bell was on overnights, of course. I loved Art Bell. But you had Art Bell. And then on weekends, you had our local Art Bell, who's Gary Bell.

Oh, Spaceman. I'm telling you, they should have given him. He was like, and he was our, so when we were doing the articles, I was talking about the operator. He would do so he kind of do whatever and he was like i mean i love dart bell but they should have given gary bell way more airtime because he's one of those guys didn't matter what conspiracy you that you laid out in front of him his answer would always be it's true and then and then he could just go oh yeah he was great i remember yeah i remember gary bell yeah i think he passed away he did pass away yeah he got in some hot water for

some uh i would call anti-semitic remarks he made uh with a conspiracy who hasn't who hasn't and then yes did you find out on your research about me too or not uh i was gonna be careful on how to bring it up. Like I did, but then I was going to let... You can do whatever you want. Speaking of which, by the way, I'm just wondering, and you can edit this out except you don't edit it. I've got like, I've got all the time in the world.

You got to go? No, I've got all the time in the world, but I have about 20 minutes of battery time left and I'm going to have to do something to get up, charge it because I'm in my loft. I have a loft minutes of battery time left and I'm going to have to do something to get up, uh, uh, charge it. Cause I'm in my loft. I have a loft above my shop.

Do you want to run and grab the charger right now? And well, if this is a time that suits, can you like fill in for two minutes? Oh my God. I have things. I want to thank some sponsors of the program. So you go get your charger.

Oh, you're such a shill. I'm surprised you didn't ask me to leave for two minutes. Listen, I'll work with it. Okay, you go get that charger, and I'll tell the good people who made this possible. I run all the time in the world. I just don't have all the battery time. I'll go get the charger.

Go get the charger, buddy. Cool. All right. Big thank you to Great Lakes Brewery. They help fuel the real talk here. Of course, Ripken is in Winnipeg, so I can't get him any Great Lakes. But when I do meet him here, eventually I'll hook him up with fresh craft beer

from Great Lakes Brewery. Of course, a lasagna from Palma Pasta. Thank you to the good people. I know they're happy at Palma Pasta because Italy won the Euro Cup. A lot of celebrations going on in the family, Pachucci family and beyond. I want to thank StickerU.com.

This is the Toronto Mike sticker holding it up for the Facebook stream. They make great quality stickers and decals and temporary tattoos and stuff.

Really good partners of the program and they're located in Liberty Village here in Toronto. But you can go to StickerU.com from anywhere

in the world and you can order quality stickers from StickerU. Ridley funeral home. They're pillars of the community since 1921. I'm hoping, uh,

uh, Doug there, um, Brad, sorry, Doug, Doug, Doug,

Doug Gilmore. I'm hoping Brad Jones is able to make it to T M L X seven. Cause we're all getting together in Marie Curtis park. You can, uh, email me or DM me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike to get the map, but we're all going to meet in Marie Curtis Park Friday, this Friday coming up 6 p.m. for TMLX 7.

I'll bring some cold bevies and we'll just, it's a low key TMLX event and we'll check in with each other and see how everybody's doing. So I hope you can make it to that. Thank you again to Ridley Funeral Home and Brad Jones there. I want to thank Mike Majeski. If you're looking to buy and or sell in the next six months, go to realestatelove.ca, reach out to Mike Majeski, and let him know that Toronto Mike sent you. He's a good man. Have a good conversation with him about real estate in the city.

And last but not least, our newest sponsor, very, very happy to have them on board, McKay CEO Forums. They have a podcast called the CEO Edge Podcast. I've been posting episodes on torontomike.com. They're fireside chats with inspiring CEOs and thought leaders.

And I strongly urge you to subscribe and check it out. Again, the podcast is called the CEO Edge Podcast. And it's from McKay CEO Forums. And just checking in. How are you doing, Rick? Good. Awesome. You got the charger plugged in?

I do. I'm good to go for another four hours. We're almost done here, but I have a few more names that the listenership will be very... I took that term listenership from Scruff Connors, by the way, so he was good for that,

the listenership. All right. I want to just run down some names of people that were involved with the station that people listening to us know. Evelyn Macko. So the news...

I'm going to name a bunch of the news people. Evelyn Mako, Jim Lang, James McPhee, Sandy Salerno, David Melbourne, Kathleen Rankin, Chris Mavridis,

who didn't last long. There you go. Now you're hitting on it. Yeah, I know the first two and the last one. I don't know the ones in the middle. Okay.

So tell me about the ones you know. Evelyn Mako, Jim Lang, and Chris Mavridis. Oh, Evelyn's just great. Lots of fun. Just a constant pro. I mean, she's still on the air, I think, right? If she is, it's up at like Wasega Beach or something.

She was great. Jim Lang, of course. Yeah, we did the Argos together. At the time, he was in the Sportsnet studios, so we didn't see him. He would do like the Sportsnet breaks or whatever. Right. But then we would chat a little bit sometimes. And then I got to know him during the Argos, doing the Argos. Great guy. And then Mavridis was, like I said, me, Johnny B, Johnny Bordigno. And then Mavridis, we, because Mavridis would do the news on my show for three hours, like every hour and the stuff that we would do, the three of us, we would.

And that was, that was one. I don't have a lot of positive to say about management at Mojo, of course, as I call them evil, but they let us kind of do whatever we wanted. And we would have so much fun, do it, just making shit up. And, and you know, when you do stuff overseas, there's always a delay. This is just one example I could think of. And mavridis would do and he always had this very kind of a ted knight for mary tyler we were kind of a voice you know on the news today right and it was very affected and uh and and so we would do stuff where he would he would say he

was at the world cup and whatever and then there'd be like the longer the interview went the the the longer this gaps in time would go. Right. So we'd go, Hey, Chris, what's going on? Great. We're doing great. Right. Well, actually management would say, you guys, you can't have dead air for so long. We, Oh yeah, no, that's funny. Dead air is funny. And so it would get, the gaps would get longer and longer to the point where finally management

says you can't have 20 second gaps anyway. And of course he was just in the other room, but we pretended that he was, and people actually believed that he would be actually in Europe or whatever. So yeah, yeah. He was a great guy. Yeah. I got to know him quite well over the last few years. Cause he's a big fan of this podcast. So we've had, you know, back when we could meet for brunch and stuff, we would hook up.

Didn't he, he dated the, the, the the drummer for our lady peace didn't he date that guy's girlfriend now we're talking here with some real talk here i will plead ignorance on this story and ask you how much you're willing to divulge here uh so the drummer the drummer is uh jeremy taggart yeah yeah yeah and i think i think taggart was dating a girl, and then when they broke up, I think McReady's dated her. Very possible. Oh, look at you. Okay, I guess you are two good friends then. I didn't say anything untowards happened.

No, no, no. I just said that. Fantastic story. I can't confirm or deny those allegations. No, no, no, no. There's no allegation. Oh, you mean in other words, Jeremy? Oh, it didn't.

Okay, whatever. I don't know if there was an overlap or not. I don't have that. Well, I didn't know there was an overlap either. I just, it didn't matter. And I would never have known who Jeremy Taggart was, except my wife is a huge Our Lady Peace fan. So when we came to Toronto,

she couldn't believe that she got to meet him. And I'm going, I don't know who he is. And she goes, you know, Rain Maida? And I go, no. And she goes, he's married to, uh, Chantel Krabiez. I go, I know who she is. Cause she's from Winnipeg. And her parents have a pool company. So anyway, it's, you know, that's funny. Just a shout out to my wife because she loved all these Toronto centric rock

bands that I had never heard of. So I got to meet a lot of them in the studio. And then, so she would get, if she, if they knew I was interviewing someone, she'd come in and just happened to be there and go, Oh, I didn't know you were here.

And she'd get pictures. But we got, we had a six month old at the time. We got pictures taken with my six month old and all the Nickelback guys. Cause they weren't famous yet. So anyways, yeah. But anyway,

that's, it sounds like, but it sounds, yeah. Shout out to Chris Mavridis. I know he's listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds like your wife.

Is he still working in Winnipeg? Sorry, in Toronto? I think. It's hard. He's signed all these NDAs. Yeah. And he's super weird about talking about this, but there was a New York thing he was doing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some big media outlets like from CBS to some big streaming companies, I'm probably not supposed to name, that he was doing these top secret projects for like super interesting, mysterious guy who I've, you know, at some point I'll get him on the show and see how much he'll share. But he's always waving this NDA around like I can't talk about it. So I have no idea. And it could be completely made up.

Like none of it could have even happened, right? It's possible an interesting guy a very interesting guy chris maridi okay yeah and by the way your wife and i have a similar musical tastes so uh shout out to you uh and what was i gonna say oh yeah winnipeg band real quick because i'm friendly with most of these guys and they're all in toronto or thereabouts now but uh what, were you at all a fan of the Watchmen? That's Graves, right? David Graves? Yeah, Danny Graves, yeah. Danny Graves, right?

I know his brother Dave. You know that his brother Dave's on like the Israeli bobsled team or something, right? I knew they did a benefit for the Israeli bobsled team. Okay, so I kind of knew this story, but yeah, okay. Yeah, so I didn't know Danny really. I mean, I knew him because of the Watchmen. But his brother Dave, I got to know a little bit just because we were both bounders in Winnipeg and I, but yeah, so, and then, and then, uh, this is getting way off.

When I was in Calgary doing the Argos, uh, Stampeder game, I went for a walk and there's Dave Graves just like walking down the street and we said hi to each other. And yeah, I knew Danny was in Toronto and he's still doing like music stuff right well he's doing there's three things going on in danny's world one is yeah they're still doing music like he'll do stuff with joey serlin and he'll do stuff like solo and he'll do some watchman stuff they got a few gigs coming up but also he runs a bar in parkdale called uh motel bar i believe it's called. And by the way, whenever the Winnipeg Jets are on TV, that's the bar you go to to watch the Jets. Like that's where the Winnipeggers go.

Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There used to be one on Queen West. Was it the Beverly or something else? There used to be a place that I would go to to watch Jets games. No, that's not true. I don't think the Jets were in Toronto when I was there. Oh, they were in Phoenix. No, there was watch Jets games. No, that's not true. I don't think the Jets were in Toronto when I was there. Oh, they were in Phoenix.

No, there was a Jets social. Yeah, forget about that. No, they were in, is it Atlanta? What team did you get, Atlanta Thrashers? Well, yeah, our team went to Phoenix. Yeah, and then Atlanta came to you. Atlanta, yeah. Gotcha.

Oh, yeah, and the third thing that Danny Graves does is he does a lot of work for CBC Radio, I think Radio 2. I think they call it CBC Music now. But he's on the air quite a bit on CBC, so he's doing well. Yeah, well, no, yeah, so I, but again, that music isn't my type of music, but yeah, we had, I mean, so Andy Frost and I bonded, because Andy Frost was a Winnipegger too, right, and so, you know, from Street Heart to Harlequin to Lover Boy and all those bands, Right. But Andy was on city of them at the time. So he knew all those guys and he's probably, I'm going to say five years older than me. And so, you know,

at city FM in those days, like any rock radio station in any city, you know, you had the bands in and you were smoking all night and drinking and sitting around the thing, literally playing LPs. Right. And so he grew up in that era. So we bonded over some of the classic. And then there was Howling Now. You wouldn't even know these names, but Howling Now. There was Sally and the Screws and all these different Winnipeg bands that everyone knew at social.

I don't know if you're familiar with the social. We have socials in Manitoba. So you guys don't have them in Ontario. And what is a social? It's usually a fundraiser not necessarily and uh and then you have uh people pay like 10 bucks to get in and then it's five bucks a drink or two bucks a drink or whatever in my day okay and then you at 10 o'clock you serve old dutch potato chips and kubasa and cheese and you make and rye bread and you make sandwiches and then you sell arm's length tickets for Texas Mickey and then the bride and

groom, if it's for that, make $5,000 towards their wedding. A little bit maybe like Jack and Jill would be now in your thing, except often with a live band in Winnipeg or Manitoba. Amazing. By the way, do you do an Andy Frost impression by any chance? No, no, I don't. I got into trouble with him once. Tell me. Because Humble and Fred got in trouble with Andy. winnipeg or manitoba amazing by the way do you do an andy frost impression by any chance no no i don't i got into trouble with him once tell me so because humble and fred got in trouble with andy frost once i met his wife at a thing and she i this whatever 20 years ago she was gorgeous that's all i remember i know that's terrible but for this story that that's the only germane thing you need to know so the next day on the air I think he was doing something and we were on the air together and just

chatting about a Leafs thing or whatever. And I mentioned, I said, Oh, dude, you, you married way above your station. I mean, Holy crap. I met your wife. She's beautiful. Right. And we all laughed about it. After we came off the air, he pulled me aside and he said, dude, that was not cool. And I go, what did I do? And he goes, that thing about you, me, Mary, like you're implying that like i'm not worthy and i wonder no dude it was just a joke any guy would sure any guy would say that right and he was like he was i had to literally go on the air the next day and apologize to him wow okay i've heard stories like

this that you were offended and it was like all right and. And I thought maybe he had, in that sense, I thought there was some Winnipeg sensibility, but I guess either I didn't have it or he didn't. One of us didn't have the sensibility. That bet you're doing, most guys appreciate it because A, it's self-deprecating to the guy, which I love. I love being roasted.

Make fun of me. It's fun. And then it also compliments the beauty of your wife, which makes most guys feel good. So it's really shocking that somebody would actually take offense to that particular bit. There isn't a guy I know other than Andy Frost that wouldn't admit they, never mind they can't even believe they got married,

that any woman would actually want to live. Yeah, so it did seem a little weird. But I mean, I don't want to paint a negative story or whatever. That was just one story I remember what Andy doing. He doesn't do the announcing anymore, right? No, he does not. No. Cause psychedelic Sunday finished up and then Andy left Q107.

He hasn't done the announcing at leaf games for a long time now. But, but here's the key thing in Andy's life, of course, is that his son, Morgan Frost plays for the Philadelphia Flyers. Right, right,

right. And it is really, really a strong player. I mean, if you're the worst player in the Flyers, you're going to do all right. But he's a pretty great young player. So, shed him to him.

Yeah, good for him. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, you know Rod Black, right? So, his son just got drafted in... Yeah, Major League Baseball, yeah. Yeah, yesterday, which is cool. Yeah, Tyler, yeah, 33rd overall. Right, okay, yeah, you're on it.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rod's a good one. I mean, he's not in Winnipeg anymore, but he's a good Winnipeg guy. And when we started out, so there's two sports guys we talked about an hour ago,

we were just a couple of schmucks and Rod was a, was a, you know, a legitimate sports broadcaster. And he, in fact, all the guys here in Winnipeg, he was super nice to us and like kind of knew where we were coming from

and helped us and didn't like, look at us, like get these guys out of here, whatever. He's always been like a super nice to us and like kind of knew where we were coming from and helped us and didn't like, look at us, like get these guys out of here, whatever. He's always been like a super nice guy. Again, I wouldn't call him a friend, but he's always been really nice to me. And when we were starting out, he helped us a lot, actually. Yeah. Great guy. Rod's a great guy. Rod Black. Now by any chance, I'm thinking Alan Cross was a Winnipeg guy, right? Yeah. He was more of a, like, so I only worked in music radio for like,

my first radio job was at City FM, 92 City FM. I worked like midnight to six in the morning. I was just telling my two boys about it, about how times have changed exactly, about how we had this giant room and everyone could smoke and everyone did smoke. And my friends could come in at two in the morning and say, play Pink Floyd side one. And I go, all right. You know, so it was, you know,

now people on the air don't have any say in what music they play, right. It's all on the computer. They hit the space bar and they play it or whatever. So I did that for about six months. So I never really was into music radio, but of course I know who Alan Croy, he's like the musicologist of the world now, right? Yeah. He's still got the got the ongoing history of new music. Yeah, and anytime CBC or CTV needs,

like when these guys sued Led Zeppelin because they thought they stole their opening riff, that was a news story a little while ago. Of course, the first person they go to is, well, the first person they go to is, who's the lead guitar player for Triumph? Rick Emmett. Oh, Rick Emmett, yes. Yeah uh yes yeah who was by the way he was one of my i thought you were gonna ask me who my favorite guest is and it was gonna be rick emmett oh yeah who's your favorite guy i actually have rick emmett in the

toronto mic schedule uh because he wrote a book of poetry or something and he he was so he he was on the show and i play guitar badly but I always had a guitar in the studio. So if Colin James or Jim Cuddy or Rick Emmett would come in and they would say, oh, I didn't bring my guitar. I go, oh, I have one here. And so in this case, Rick knew he was going to play a little bit. I told him to bring his guitar. And so he came in the studio with his $8,000 handcrafted guitar. And I had my $40 Costa Rican guitar that I had in my studio.

And so we, we just made up a contest on the spot. We played the beginning of she's young. She's what wants to be free. Catch the magic power of the music in me. Right. So anyway, there's an opening riff in D.

So what we were on radio. So one of us was going to play the opening riff. And then the other person was going to play the opening riff and then the other person was going to play the opening riff. And then the listener had to decide who was who so that I went first. And then Rick went. So I went on my, like as badly as I play with my $40 guitar.

And then Rick went next. And the first caller that called in got it wrong. And Rick, he, he couldn't stop laughing. He goes, why am I even practicing? Why do I have a good guitar if people can't even tell the difference?

And that goes to sensibility, right? I mean, he wasn't offended at all. He just thought it was the funniest thing. So it was a really funny time we had with him. I think he's a good golfer, if I'm remembering. I think so. I feel like... Derringer wasn't, by the way.

Derringer thought he was, but he wasn't very good. I took money off Derringer all the time because he didn't want toer thought he was, but he wasn't very good. I took money off Derringer all the time because he didn't want to take strokes from me. So he always played even up. And I kept saying, but you're way worse than me. And so he'd play with these guys and he played for stupid money, right? A little bit out of my realm.

And I went, oh, I'll play for you. And I would beat him all the time. And he would go, I can't believe I lost. I go, dude, you're like a 20 handicap. What do you expect, right? Anyway, it was very funny. All right, Mojo Radio, though. we've got to wrap this up with Mojo because again, I've talked to other people who are at Mojo and they tell me there's sort of a before and after with 9-11 because Mojo was kind of irreverent

and trying to be something like funny and less serious. 9-11 happens and then for a period of time, everything has to be kind of hard news and serious, right? Because if we remember that time and, you know, people weren't sort of, most people were not ready for being silly and irreverent. It just seemed like everything was, you know, heavy and very serious. I don't know what you're,

so I'm curious for your thoughts. Do you think, how do you think 9-11 affected the format of Mojo Radio? Well, firstly, so I was on the air when when the planes hit so that was my nine to noon wow so we were on the air and in fact just a little aside when when the second plane hit yeah the aforementioned johnny borden on johnny b is literally and i have it on it's on the air i you know if you'd done your research you would have

asked me to pull some audio no i'm kidding So literally the second plate hits while I'm on the air. We're all watching CNN. Yeah. And Johnny B says, that's bin Laden. He literally just says it. Like right then. Right. Which, of course, turned out to be true.

I never changed my... I was never like the sex, edgy, weird, raw, just knee-jerk guy. I mean, we talked tons of politics. We had, who was the guy that was premier for Ernie someone or other Ernie Eves. Ernie Eves. And then his, and then the guy that beat him was, it was a left wing guy. Dalton McGinty. Yeah. So, so we had these guys on all the time and politicians and, and never had the prime minister, but we had cabinet members. And I love politics.

We talk tons of politics. So for me, it didn't change at all. We talked more about the Middle East, obviously, and the disparity between the, you know, how rich the North Americans are. The fact that we have, you know, appetizers, which means that you order food while you're waiting for food. You know, no wonder they hate us. Right. Right. Although I would say flying a plane into a building is an overreaction to wings, but no pun intended. So no, I, to be honest with you, this is the first I've heard of that.

Okay. So that might be the humble and Fred perception mainly there, I think. Yeah. I do know. I mentioned that we went to see Cal Ripken's last game. And that was, I'm going to say October. So 9-11 was September 11th. I'm going to say this is like October 11th. So we actually flew to Baltimore a month after. And then I do remember that like the American airports were just filled with Marines with

loaded guns. But no, I don't remember changing my approach to what I did at all so how does it end for you at Mojo Radio you alluded now again I was going to be delicate here and see what you tell me but I have heard stories of

and I'll say it so you can hear it so we went down to the all-star game NHL all-star game was in sunrise florida um would have been i guess in march i'm guessing and uh hummel and fred were there i was there um i think i paid for my own i had a i had a press pass but i think i paid for my own thing but hummel and fred were taking some listeners down our sales people some of our sales people went down we went down to the game hummel howard as know is Jewish I don't know if you're aware of that yes I've heard yes all right uh and and he talks about

it all the time um I'm a Mennonite and not your Toronto like Daryl Sittler St. Jacob's Elmer Mennonites you know like we we drink and and say shit and stuff so uh and in in manitoba the mennonites kind of rule they they own everything okay like they want all the every time there's some rich dude it's a mennonite guy right and we were sitting outside at this outdoor restaurant oh i oh and then so and then with salespeople and then then I went in and I had bare feet because my sandals were the thing. And then the maitre d' or the sommelier or whatever said, oh, dude, you can't come here with bare feet. Oh, okay. I went back and I didn't realize at the time that was a big thing. Because one of our saleswomen said, I can't believe you showed

up here with bare feet. And I'm going, well, I'm in Florida. I just didn't, you know, some decks you can go barefoot. Anyway. So I'm talking to Humble and some other people, and I'm talking exactly about in Manitoba, we have all these Mennonites that run everything. And then now I have to be careful because I'm going to get, it's going to happen all again. But I'm talking to Humble Howard, who is a Jewish guy. And I'm saying, and in Toronto, it seems like a lot of Jewish people own a lot of things. And in Toronto, it seems like a lot of Jewish people own a lot of things. That's what I said. And the saleswoman heard it and was appalled and thought I was anti-Semitic.

And then it just got, and she hated me anyway, because every time I had an idea for another show, and then I even had, I had an idea for a golf show on Saturday morning and I got a sponsor. And then I went to JJ, who was the operations manager, Jimmy Johnson, right? Does that make sense? Yeah. JJ. Yeah. Jim Johnson, Jimmy Johnson, right? Does that make sense? Yeah. JJ. Yeah. Jim Johnson. JJ Johnson, right. JJ Johnson, yeah. And he says, oh, I talked to her.

And then I talked to her and she just got, you could just see her seething that I was sort of in her, like I was getting sponsor money. She's a saleswoman. She's supposed to do it, not me, right? So she had it in for me from the beginning. So then all of a sudden I get called in and I hear this stuff that I've been anti-semitic and I go well that never happened and so I get humble and Fred in and humble goes that never happened and then they and and then right at the same time I

wrote a big long letter to the human resources manager because of all these horrible pornographic emails we got every morning right and I had a long meeting with her. And so my theory would be that, that letter that I wrote in a meeting I had with the human rights person, they probably just didn't want to air their dirty laundry in public. And they had just changed. Like Stuart Myers wasn't there anymore. We had a new guy. I can't remember his name. Do you know his name? You seem to know everything else about Mojo radio. You have to give me a clue and then I can fill in the rest, but I don't, I don't know. I didn't have a toupee. Does that help? Doesn't narrow it down for you anyway. And he has a LinkedIn account, I think anyway. So

he calls me in, he says, we're going in a new direction, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and the human resources woman is in the meeting at the time. And I'm going, is this because I was complaining about all the horrible stuff going on here? No, no, no, no. We're going in a new direction and we can't afford your salary anymore. Anyway, I had a contract. I got paid. Oh, I'm not allowed to say how much.

Let's just say I didn't, I got what what i deserved i don't know i don't know i mean it's 20 years ago i suppose i still am bound by the nda that mavridis would wave around they claimed it was about money it wasn't because i got paid whatever i was owed so it wasn't about money uh i think that the saleswoman her name name was Renee and JJ and the new, I think they just wanted me to disappear because I had documented so much horrible stuff going on internally at the station for so long. They just maybe thought I was going to go to the press or that it would become public, or maybe I was just going to be like a,

a bad guy to have around the office for morale. I think they just wanted me to go away. So they said, here's your money. Just get out of here. Was it Gord Harris? Is that the name that you're trying to come up with? Okay. Because Danny Elwell is helping us out. Anyway, that's my theory because the anti-Semitic stuff,

which is funny. I have a friend, Corey Russell, who works with McCowan, the sunglasses sports guy. Yeah, he's no longer on the radio, but he's got a podcast now. Yeah, Bob McCown. So my buddy worked for Fadoo productions for years. I think still does.

They just produced the go-go's documentary. The go-go's are. Yeah. Yes. And so, and he said too, so he's a Toronto guy and he said, Oh yeah,

he heard it was like some, I was some anti-Semitic guy and I'm going, yeah, no, that, I mean, I'm not, but I understand that's what people,

yeah. Oh, and then the other thing was just a tight end. There was the owner of the Brass Rail. I know it well. I used to live across the street from the Brass Rail. Okay. Whoever that was, I had said something on the air that he didn't like. And then he went to Stuart Myers and said,

I'm going to pull your advertising if he doesn't apologize. And it turns out that the thing he listened to, I was on holidays. And when i go on holidays there's a producer guy that decides what to replay so the first time i had said it was no problem but the second time it got replayed by management and then he heard it and then he got mad and my argument was well i didn't the second time i didn't have anything to do with that guy played it and he obviously didn't think it was. Anyway, it just got, they just wanted to get rid of me. So, and then, yeah, it was a real cluster, you know what.

A clusterfuck. Now you go back to Winnipeg. So I guess you, so you said you served two of your three years. You served your time, I suppose. I served, yeah. And then they, it sounds like they have to pay you, they pay you out like the rest of your contract. So they pay you not to be on the air for a while.

Okay. That's right. And give us on the air for a while. Okay. That's right. And give us like a, that's a while ago now. Do you, so that was like 2002, no, 2003.

Right. Okay. And also just, just to add insult to injury, it was, it was, it was, uh,

they fired me April fool's day. And it was like six weeks before I was getting married, you know? So then I was like, Oh, thanks guys. So we, and we had already at the venue booked and everything. So it was like, we before i was getting married you know so then it's like oh thanks guys so we and we already had the venue booked and everything so it's like we couldn't just leave we had to like stick around for two months to get married oh that's the worst i hear you yeah i mean it would

turn out to be a great wedding but anyway oh man so what what's life been like for you post mojo here some some people probably haven't heard from ripken since 2003. I got to say Ripken because there's an exclamation mark at the end. But since 2003. Yeah, no, I, you know, I came back and I dabbled. I did some filling in. I did, I worked at City FM for a year, I think, doing evenings and weekends. Then I worked at CBC for a couple of years, just like as a CBC one, doing a column once a week. Okay. just kind of

whatever i wanted and then you know you know and then cbc of course every two years they have their focus groups that decide they're getting rid of all their columnists and then they hire them back on a freelance basis like three weeks later anyway so i did that for a couple of years and then um and then my wife and i we have two foster kids we have two special needs foster kids so it's sort of uh they're getting older now, but it's sort of, I've got to be around all the time. In fact, one of them is sleeping right now. So I kind of have to,

one of us has to kind of be around all the time to make sure they don't get into trouble. So I haven't done any media. I mean, I did actually, I did a post Leafs post game show. I was going to pick your brain about how you, I have a mixer. I have all this stuff here. I was using OBS. I don't know. Do you use open broadcast system

or do you use something different to do your podcast? I know we're getting technical now. Quite literally, I simply bake up an ISMP3 file and then I edit an XML file that pushes it out to subscribers.

I did a Leafs, sorry, a Leafs, a Jets postgame show. I did that from my loft here. But nothing media-wise, seriously. Just kind of, like I said, I have three acres. It's always something to do. Wow. We're in a drought, so you got to water the crap out of the garden and drive my guys around and try to be a decent.

And that's rewarding, man. That sounds amazing. You're there for your boys and that's, that's got to be fulfilling and nourishing. It's a real change. Yeah. It's a real change. I would still love to, I think I'm, you know, I, I'm, it's a little bit like Humble and Fred when you said they got too old for the edge. I think like now getting a job, although there's so many bob and jack and billy

stations that all have 70 year olds working on them right you'd think well that's the joke they realize now they were wrong like at the time they thought they were getting too old for the edge but they really like howard stern is still doing his thing and he's pushing what is he pushing 70 now like he's you know and you look at all these classic rock stations and all their you know now i'll listen to a classic rock station and the DJ is like 30 and he's, what he's supposed to relate to me. He goes, yeah, I remember when my dad played a cassette of the Beach Boys and I'm going, well,

why don't they get someone on that actually played a cassette of the Beach Boys. Right. So, yeah. So, you know, radio would be good, but there's nobody knocking down my door and I'm not trying real hard. And so it's the way it is you know well dude you just did a kick-ass job in your toronto mic debut here honestly i gotta tell you this though that was like thoroughly entertaining for me and we got a lot of good info out of you and i appreciate you making some time for me man that was great and so what's what's how long have you been doing this? Let me think. 2012, summer of 2012. So nine years now. And so you're, are you just in your basement or what?

Yeah, this is my basement. Exactly. So I do like, I try to do backyard recordings so that I'll set it up. Obviously you're on zoom. So it's no point in me going in the backyard, but I often do backyard recordings during COVID. And then before COVID, most people would come down in the basement with me here. Oh, nice. And is it a living? Is it a vocation?

Is it a hobby? Okay, so the new world is you cobble these different revenue streams together. And the next thing you know, I got four kids myself. And suddenly you can support the family, et cetera. So I would say I have my podcast, which has Payne sponsors, but that alone isn't going to put my kids through university.

So I also produce podcasts for people. So I produce Humble and Fred, Ralph Ben-Murgy's, Dana Love's. Ralph Ben-Murgy is still alive? Come on. I used to love watching Midday, but it was because of Valerie Pringle. I had a crush on Valerie Pringle. Oh, and he's an old Yucks guy, Ralph.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't work with him, but I shared a stage with him. Okay. All those guys. Sorry, go ahead. Who? No, just every one of Brent Buck's writers. I look at the credits, and I go, oh, I used to work with him.

I worked with him. I worked with him. Well, because Ralph has a podcast called Not That Kind of Rabbi and sometimes he'll have on a guest like, I'll say, John Wing Jr. Yeah, there's a guy. John Wing Jr. will come on and I listen to these tales, these stories

and they'll talk about, oh yeah, when Jim Carrey was playing yuck-yucks and Breslin, because Breslin's told me he sat down here and told me he didn't think Jim Carrey was very good. This is the, you know, Breslin. But that sounds like Breslin, you know, I mean, he's such a piece of work. I remember when in 1985, I just thought I would start doing stand-up comedy, maybe 84, I think 85. And we had all the Yuck Yucks and there was one other club.

It's called Rumors and actually it's still here. it's the only surviving club that was run by our mayor Sam Cates was our mayor for a long time but before he was the mayor he was an entrepreneur guy okay and it's still the only comedy club and then I and I was just starting out and Jerry Seinfeld was performing and I and he was doing two shows long story short I sat down with him in between shows and we chatted for like an hour and a half my girlfriend and I and him for an hour and a half. And I was a big fan of his because I watched, I wanted to be a comic. So I was watching all these guys on Carson and Letterman doing their six minutes. So he kind of came in as an unknown a little bit, but I sort of knew everything about him because I was, you know, him and Larry Miller and Jim Brogan and all these guys, Paul Reiser,

none of these guys were famous yet, right? Right. But I was huge fans of theirs. I was trying to do the, who are these guys? I was trying to talk like them and do that ephemeral humor that they were doing and stuff. But yeah, there's just tons of those guys. And yeah, right.

I had forgotten that Ralph Ben-Murray did. He was never a comic, though. He said, no. I had forgotten that Ralph Ben-Murray did. He was never a comic though. No, but he says he would, he would, I don't know if you'd be at the host of Yuck Yuck shows or something. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So, and I don't know how much standup he did, but another gentleman whose podcast I produce and was kind of around Yuck Yucks at the same time as Larry Fedorek. And Larry Fedorek went on to have a long radio career himself.

I don't know him. Why do people need their podcasts produced? Sorry, I'm not humble and afraid that technologically idiotic. No, no, no. Production is different

for every client. For Humble and Fred, for example, it's primarily, uh, me filling up their guest calendars. So every, every, there's a, they have a guest that zooms in to their morning recording every episode.

So I kind of coordinate that and invite people on for that. Like I would have like you, for example, would be amazing. One day at eight 15 Eastern time, you zoom in and, uh, have a chat with Humble and Fred

talking about the good old days. Like I would- Anytime. Yeah, well, we'll do that actually. We're going to do it. I guess you're an hour, so for you it would be like 7.15, but can you do that 7.15?

If I'm not golfing, I'm around. Or just even just talking golf, because as you know, that's all Howard does. I thought he was a pilot. I thought he stopped golfing with his blue plane. He's back to golf. Yeah. He hasn't flown in a while, but he's, he's fully back to golf. Like, like he and I didn't, we didn't have a falling out per se, but like he didn't,

he didn't back me up as much as I was hoping in my mind. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus. I, I, when, when I got fired, I didn't think that he backed me up as much as I was hoping in my mind. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus. I, when I got fired, I didn't think that he backed me up as much as he should have. I thought he could have interjected enough for me to keep my job and maybe he did and he couldn't, I don't know. So we didn't talk for quite a while. As producer,

I can tell you know, what's compelling radio. It's not technically not radio, but what's compelling broadcast is you popping on Humble and Fred and having that conversation. Like I just, I would love to listen to it, man. Yeah, no problem. And we've, we've sort of court. I mean, I follow him on Facebook. I think I've messaged him a few times. I know he doesn't drink anymore.

No, he stopped drinking. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, so I know a little bit about, I know he and Randy split up. That was quite a while ago. Yeah. That's a big one. We were at their house, you know, quite a few times to to my wife and i when we had a six month old we were at their house quite a bit when their daughters were young and stuff so we were you know and he came to our house we lived in the beaches and and he would he would come down and we'd have great evenings and the neighbors couldn't believe that humble wasn't was across

the street right right right because he was like the cause to live in those days. So I would have no trouble doing that and talking about whatever. I don't think there's any bad blood, at least not for me anymore. Well, I'm going to make that happen, buddy. And thanks again for this. I had all these Mojo questions. And again, so bottom line is you leave Mojo

because of that unfortunate situation where you're accused of anti-Semitism for your remarks. And the human resources thing, yeah. And the human resources thing. And the human resources thing. And then it's not that long. I don't know how long Mojo goes for, but at some point Mojo Radio turns into, what do they call it?

Talk 640 or whatever the heck they branded that as. Did Humble and Fred eventually get fired? No, no, no, they didn't. They didn't get fired. They actually got seduced by Standard Broadcasting and went to Mix 99.9, a decision I think Fred regrets to this day

because they don't last long in the mix because they never really fit there. But they basically left for big bucks from Standard. Yeah, and I know there's a guy named Andrew, someone or other that took over from me. Oh, Andrew Crystal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you know about him? He's bananas. Yeah, yeah. He was batshit crazy. There's no question about that. Oh, yes. If anybody, yeah. Go ahead.

When Humble and Fred left and there was Andrew Crystal, I mean, it was sort of just a patchwork of, you know, batshit crazy people at that point.

And they're trying to, like I said, Myers left, just put a life for me because the guy that I'm thinking about came to City FM a few years later and I worked there for a little bit. Yeah. But, and then I just think it was mismanaged. I think the idea was, was mismanaged from the beginning. And I think that, that it I think that I don't have anything good to say about management at Mojo Radio

while I was there at all. It could be sour grapes though. And that brings us to the end of our 883rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Rick, how can people follow you on Twitter? At Rick Lowen? Yeah, exactly. And it's L-O-E-W-E-N? You got that right. I just need, I think, another 10,000 followers to get my checkmark. I can't get one. And I'm very close with the Director of Communications at Twitter Canada.

He's in my backyard every week and I can't seem to get one. You still can't get one? No, no. Yeah. I know. Yeah, I'm at Rick Lowen on Twitter. That's it. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery.

They're at Great Lakes Beer. McKay CEO Forums. They're at McKay CEO Forums. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home. They're at Ridley FH. And Mike Majeski is on Instagram at Majeski Group Homes. See you all next week.

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