Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Stu Stone: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1863

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

In this 1863rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with the remarkable Stu Stone about filmmaking, Iran, his relationship with Ross Atkins, his California journey, TSM Radio, and Cam Gordon's new book. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

What's going on Toronto Mike Universe? This is Stu Stone, Hall of Famer. First ballot Hall of Famer, undisputed Toronto Mike Hall of Famer, former co-host of Pandemic Fridays, former co-host of Toast, which has now gone on to be a successful thing without me. But I'll tell you what has not gone on to be successful without me. The Toronto Mike show needs more Stu Stone. We all know that.

So hopefully today's episode's going to be great. Hopefully it's going to count when you do your quarterly review of these episodes and I'll deliver the goods like I try to do. And hopefully everyone will have a wonderful time as Mike and Stu have some real talk. Welcome to episode 1,863 of Toronto, an award-winning podcast. Yes. Proudly brought to you. We got to talk about that. Yes.

Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great Lakesbeer.com for free. Local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh. Homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta. Meestro fresh. In Mississauga and Oakville, visit palma Pasta.com for more.

Fusion Corpso, Nick Iini's. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline. And Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. I'm the Mike in that podcast. Is that true? That's me. Check it out. Recyclemyelectronics.catea.clinelemyelectronics.c.a.

But you have a spin-off? Ask me anything. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling her electronics of the past. and Ridley Funeral Home. Brad's here at 5 o'clock today for a new episode of Life's Undertaking, but they're pillars of the community since 1921. And joining me today, returning to Toronto Mike, it is indeed FOTM Hall of Famer Stu Stone.

Yes. So great to be back here, Mike. So much to catch up on the very first thing that I'll mention for the folks that want some inside baseball, inside basement. I see some floating shelves have been installed. Oh, yes.

So how long has it been since you've been... I guess last quarter I was here for my quarterly visit. Those floating shelves weren't there when I was here. They probably went up during the Christmas break. But I see that you now

have a floating shelf. You've got a Mr. Mugg's book now that's been added. You have quite a collection brewing here. There's quite a museum happening here. Is that Doug Flutty? That is Doug Flutie. Wow.

Yeah. Anyway. The one and only. Happy to be back. and it's always, you know, I'd love to be back all the time, but, you know, I do treasure our time together. And I do, I am excited to be here on the penultimate episode before Cam Gordon comes to promote his book. And I'm excited to just chop it up with you and catch up, Mike. We got a lot of catching up to do.

So just before I press record, you made the observation that you're on and then at the, this is now 125 p.m. Because you got caught in the rain. I did. So you're a little late. Blame it on the rain, as Fab and Rob would say. And I think Fab and Rob, even though they weren't singing that song, I still think that was the best. They were ahead of their time, not to go on a tangent tier.

Go ahead. If you think about today's music, you know, with artificial intelligence and whatnot, there's plenty of people not singing songs anymore. So they were just ahead of their time. Ahead of the curve. Head of the curve. So, yeah, blame it on the rain. But at 6.45 p.m. today, so only mere hours from now,

Cam Gordon's going to be in that very chair that you're sitting in right now. So it is interesting. Leave a Fumpka remarked on this in our FOTM WhatsApp group that we are not doing like an OG toast episode. You guys are missing each other by mere hours.

That's crazy that you've booked us on the same day but not together. Well, okay, firstly, you were not supposed to be today. That's true. Yeah, yesterday. So you moved, and that's how this happened. You were going to be yesterday.

Cam was going to be today. And Cam kind of picked this day. day. Like, it's all tied up with promoting his book. He's on a book tour. Oh, he is. Where's he going? Well, I'm going to find out more of where he's going, but he is making appearances of people who, you know, with their eagle eyes, will have noticed Cam Gordon popping up in various podcasts and various shows because he's trying to sell a book. And he's got like an event coming up for his book track changes. Are you aware of this event in Kensington Market? I'm not aware of the event in Kenson Market, but I do support Cam and his endeavors, and I'm proud of him for

writing this book. You know, Mark Hebger has previously written books that we know a guy, a Perry Lefco, another writer that sells you his books when you see him. I don't know if you've had Greg Oliver on the show, but maybe you have, but Greg, you should have on the show. He writes lots of books. But Cam Gordon, the future Robert Munch, the future Judy Blume. Oh, yeah, she's still with us.

Cam, I expect his book to do very well. I know that he's a very eloquent speaker, so I can only imagine that his writing is even more eloquent. He's a classy guy, and I know that he has literally tracked Canadian music since I met him 100 years ago. So it's only fitting for Cam to be the guy who is the authorité on tracking Canadian music's history on the interwebs.

So congrats and a hearty muzzle to my buddy. Well, I want to revisit this later in the chat because maybe we record, you're going to tell me you just did it, but record something special. I can play for Cam later. We're going to, maybe I can get you to do like a... I feel like you could just play that for him, but sure. Well, we're going to revisit the track changes stuff. That's like a teaser. But you mentioned the name Judy Bloom. I did. Now, there is a documentary. It was actually the great FOTM Hall of Famer Mark Wiseblood who linked me to this. But, oh no, it was Cam. I'm giving Wiseblood credit for saying Cam sent me. But there was a Judy Bloom doc, so a man wanted to make this, you know, documentary about Judy Bloom, and Judy Bloom participated in that she sat down

for many, many hours of conversations with the filmmaker. But this is not, like, her, she's not, it's his doc about her, and she's just participating in it, okay? You with me? Yeah. But she's just, I guess she didn't like that it was a bit of a warts and all.

Like, it's not a love letter, like some of these dots. And she's not, she's refusing to promote it. What are the, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, Does Judy Bloom have? Well, I mean, I know she had freckles with freckle juice. I was a big Judy Blume head. Super Fudge was, Fudge was like the big character in Tales of a Fourth Grade, nothing.

Are you there, God, it's me, Margaret? Yeah, big deal. But the warts would be things about maybe, I don't know if it'd be about her married life and about having children. Does she have a controversial past that we don't know about? Well, it would be in this dark, right? Because this...

Well, didn't you watch it? No, I haven't seen the dark. Oh, oh, okay. No, this is all, quick question for you as a filmmaker, because this topic has been coming up on Toronto Mike lately, but the difference between a doc that is a love letter to the subject matter, and maybe has to be authorized by the subject matter or the corporation that owns the subject matter,

like this seems to be happening on the reg, and you don't get awards and all portrayal. You get a very glowing, loving, love letter, all the good stuff and all the, you know, the grimy stuff that's left aside. Like, what are your thoughts on those being documentaries versus what I would consider like a true documentary where the subject matter does not have to sign off on this. What are your thoughts on that?

I will say that you have a very astute observation and you can tell when somebody has their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, or I guess it would be the cookie batter, so to speak, because the cookies are being made. So that's a better analogy. But an example I could give off the top of the dome would be the Arnold Schwarzenegger document. I don't know if you watched that.

It was a Netflix documentary. No, I haven't seen it yet. But, like, clearly Arnold had editorial on it. But he exposed some stuff. Yeah, some stuff, but he's approving what is exposed. And so, you know, when I'm doing a show like Dark Side of the Ring, for example, we're tackling episodes where the person is in the episode, a lot of the time. The person is alive and I'm talking to them and they're telling me their story.

and they don't have editorial decisions on what's going to play out and what's not going to play out. But I would say, you know, objectively speaking, you know, when you're a documentary filmmaker and you are interviewing a subject that's participating in the process, you're not, you shouldn't really be trying, it shouldn't be a hit piece unless, you know, I don't know. I feel like, you know, define hit piece. I don't think the person. who is responsible for the Judy Blume doc would in any way think it was a hit piece.

Well, see, see, if she's unhappy with how it turned out, right. It's interesting. I mean, I have yet to, I've experienced some backlash from some Dark Side of the Ring episodes personally, so I can relate to, you know, and it's frustrating because you're like,

well, what did I do? You're just seeking the truth, right? I just interviewed you, you told me this stuff. What do you want me to do? But yeah, I mean, it's a tricky situation. Obviously, the best documentary are the ones that are unbiased and do just tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But I'll tell you, the chances of that actually being the case, Mike, are rare.

Even the documentaries that you think are 99% telling the truth, the whole truth. There's editorial. Well, you can usually see it in the credits. Yeah. They get a somehow producer credit or something. I know that I brought this example up recently. But by the way, I'm going to fact check myself in a minute because I got one little detail wrong. I want to get back to.

But there was a Jennifer Lopez doc that my wife watched, and it was just so, like, positive and glowing, and it's like from Lopez productions or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? No, well, people who self-produce a documentary... It's like a propaganda piece. Yeah, a little bit.

But you know what? It's also a propaganda piece when certain filmmakers go in with their own agenda, and they already know the script that they want to do before they even uncover the truth. You know, like, when you're pitching a documentary, You have to, unless you have financing and you can just go shoot this movie yourself and then go sell it, which is, God bless you, if that's the case. Right.

But in real life, if you want to sell a documentary pre-sell to Netflix or Crave or somebody, you have to go to them with your pitch. And you have to say, like, here's what I'm going to uncover. Here's what this documentary is about. You're kind of sticking to your, you have your tunnel vision on, and this is what you're trying to prove. It's like you're doing a scientific experiment. and you're not leaving room for actual science to disprove what you are trying to prove if I'm making any sense.

But I prefer to go into a situation and uncover the story as you go. Right. It's just harder to sell that if we're being honest. Even on a true crime documentary, this is something that Adam Rodness and myself over at 5'4-7 productions, as you call us, at 5-7...

What's the proper name? 5-7 films, Mike. I knew that. I knew that. But when we're even pitching like a true crime thing, and it's an active investigation. The network wants to know, well, what's going to be the result of the investigation? How the hell do I know?

The whole point is that this is an active investigation. And they want to know before they sign the check. See, that sounds like professional wrestling. Like, I need to know the outcome and then we'll figure out how to get there. They want to know the outcome before they get there a lot of the time. I'm sorry, I got to fact check myself because somebody somewhere is already yelling at their iPhone or something like that. But it's not actually a documentary. It's a book.

this guy's name is, believe it or not, his name is Oppenheimer. Oh, wow. So Mr. Oppenheimer, and I went to the link that can't say. Any relation? I don't know, maybe. But I went to the link. It's on the New York Times website, and it's behind a paywall, which I know you're a big fan, but I don't have the credentials to see it right now. But he's a 51-year-old guy who's a big-time fan, and Judy Blume agreed to be interviewed many, many hours of interviews with 88-year-old.

She's now 88. Judy Blume, and this book came out. Great year, 88. What's that one of the first rock and roll songs I think is called it's it's it's uh Ike Turner I think good guy solid guy not a great guy but no longer with us shout out to Ridley funeral home anyways all this is to say it's not a document at Ridley funeral home shout out everybody does okay you know I'm not condoning the uh the actions of Ike Turner but he did have one of the first rock and roll songs and it was called my 88 88's in the title this is quite the tangent but yeah I I I

think that you need to find out where the truth lies by having these conversations, which is in a small scale way what I'm trying to do over here is I want to talk to the principles, I want to talk to the directors, I want to talk to the people involved, and try to see if I can follow these threads and see where truth lies. That's all. We're just storytellers looking for the truth. I would be curious to watch it, but it's also like... What's a book? You can't watch it. Oh, I thought we were talking about the Judy Blumdocks still. I'm a fact-checking that it's not a documentary. Oh, it's a book. Okay, well, then good luck.

I mean, maybe what's the guy, basement dweller, is he still around? He likes to go to the library. I see him on Blue Sky. He's a big Danny Elwell fan. Maybe he'll check out the book and let us know. Okay. But if it was, you know,

it's just hard to imagine that Judy Blume would have dirt. But I guess everybody has dirt. Well, I read it yesterday, and I'm trying to remember, I don't want to misquoted. It was something about maybe having, like maybe,

it's about maybe having an abortion or something, that kind of dirt. Like, it's not real dirt. It's more like things she's not happy seeing print. Did that have to be in the book? Well, if it, I think it's part of the... Is it necessary to the Judy Bloom story to know that she had an abortion? If that's what it is, I don't know if it is.

But if you're trying to tell a story of Judy Bloom, that, and by the way, I don't remember if it's a miscarriage or an abortion. I can't remember now. It's something to that effect. But that would be part of her story, no? I don't know. I don't feel like, I know, I know. So just interesting with the dogs lately, I'm just thinking,

specifically, like, the 299 Queen Street West Dock was like a love letter to much music. You saw it, right? Yeah, I was there with you. Yeah, I know. Setting it up there. So it was very glowing and loving. There was no dirt. Not really, no.

I can't think of anything. They didn't even mention the word cocaine. Well, I mean, it was implied in that the after party. But, no, I agree with you. There's a difference between a love letter. But also, you know, it's got in, it's like we are living in such a, a click-baited society now that like you if someone has a chance to tell the Judy Blume story and they have a chance to mention something not great they're going to get

more attention people click on bad news more than they click on good news and all it takes is for you to watch the news to know that it's gross I don't know to Peter Gross definitely shout out to Peter Gross but the man can still do more push-ups than Jack Palance but I will say that you know especially now Yeah, well, shout out to a Ridley funeral home. Perfect. But it's interesting. I don't know.

I feel like there's, and I've had this conversation with some friends of mine recently about other world events in the news. Yeah. That life is very nuanced. Nothing is black and white. It's possible for good people to do bad things, Mike. And it's possible for bad people to do good things, Mike. Nothing is black and white.

Anybody who says that they are 100% good is lying. It's more possible that somebody that is 100% bad does something good than someone who is 100% good not doing something bad. Does that make sense? It makes complete sense. Can I just quote some activity? Shout out to Lindsay, by the way, who I practiced this on many calls. The name of the song, I struggled to come up with of 88 in the title. I want to thank Canada Kev for telling me it's called Rocket 88. Okay. It's one of the first rock and roll songs. Yes. So you're talking, I guess, mid-early 50s for that bad boy. Also, have you seen the Melania documentary, there might be a great example of...

I haven't seen it yet. I hear it's remarkable. That should be on the poster. Stu Stone, remarkable. I haven't seen that. I have a feeling... I don't see myself seeing that, but... I think it's on prime now.

Is it on prime? But it would be, if you were going to see it, it would be an exercise in, like, watching a propaganda piece. Maybe. I think it's pretty... I would say that that's a safe bet. Would you take that gig, though? If Donald Trump came up to you and said,

I want to hire you, give you some money to make the Melania film, but you know, you got to make it pretty glowing and positive there. Would you take that gig? I mean, what rate are we talking about? It's going to be a healthy rate for Steve Stone. It would be hard to say no to that remarkable man. Like, is there a line there? Like, you'll do that doc, but would you do, I don't know, would you do a glowing documentary about Putin? No.

Like, I just want to know where the line is. That, you probably, there's the line. I don't think I would probably be commissioned to do either of those documentaries. These are all hypotheticals. Very hypothetical. But listen, as somebody who does for a living, I can say that I have done documentaries several and have directed many episodes of a doc series. So I am very well versed in this world of being a quote-unquote investigative sort of filmmaker.

Right. And if I was to do a documentary on any subject, I would want the freedom to find out the real scoop and I would not want to make something that is uh you know I so so you're you're back pedaling a little bit I'm back pedaling a little bit because I was being you know sarcastic and joking because obviously I'm not being hired to do the millennia millennia doc so it's easy for me to joke with you about that Michael but uh in real life Mike yes sir uh you know if you were to speak to some of the other producers at dark side of the ring they would tell you that I am constantly on the phone battling for

this should be on the show. Make sure we include this. Don't cut that out. Warts and all. I'm very much about telling the whole story. And look it, I can, if you've ever seen Jack of All Trades,

I have. I put, I'm very vulnerable in that movie. So I talk it, I practice what I preach, is what I guess I'm trying to say. Oh, 100%.

And Jack of All Trades, I love that doc. It's kind of how we met, I guess that was fresh. when we first met, which was due to Cam Gordon, but we'll get to Cam later. But what I liked about that dog is you think it's one thing, but it's another.

Yeah, I like those documentaries that take a left turn. I'm excited that we were able to do that in ours, despite the fact that it was at the expense of my own, my own sanity and misery. Do you remember, maybe you've seen a documentary, I can't remember the exact title, but something about the Friedman's. Yeah, yeah.

What is the name of that dog? Is it keeping up with the free finding the freedmans or something like that? Keeping up with the freedmen's. Finding Friedman's. This is why Canada Kev is on the, but that's a good example of a doc where capturing the Friedman's. Capturing the Friedman's, right. And it's 20 plus years old now.

It's from 2003. But that doc, I remember similar to yours, is you think it's one way, but it's another, and it's kind of a mind-blowing mesmerizing experience. No, those are great. And I would also point, while we're just talking about documentaries, organically here, Mike, and I love that I could come here with no agenda, and we just talk like a couple of buddies catching up. That's my favorite part about coming here. So we never know

what we're going to talk about, including... Well, that would be boring. Yeah. So I would say if I was going to recommend a couple documentaries... Yeah, please. I love docs. I would say that well, from a wrestling perspective, beyond the mat is a fantastic documentary. I've seen that one. And there was a Brett Hart one as well, wrestling with shadows, also amazing. Yeah. but in, you know, taking wrestling out of the equation. Have you seen the staircase? Not only have I seen the staircase, but I've seen the reenactment of it for, I think, HBO.

Right, I didn't see that one. Yeah, but I'm all over the staircase. I love the staircase. I would have to say that that's the benchmark for documentary series just because it was so well done how they, in one episode, you see the defense side and you're like, oh, maybe he didn't do it. And then you see the prosecutor side of the next episode.

Well, he definitely did it. And just seeing the different perspectives and getting both sides of the story is so rare. That's, this is the creme de la creme. This, the staircase of people haven't seen it. Go see it. I even love the, uh, the owl part, right? Oh, yeah. It's the best.

It's just the best. Um, it's just such a great documentary because like I said, it's not narrow minded. It doesn't just keep, it doesn't go in there with a, with an objective. And it just shows you both sides and it allows you the viewer to make a decision. I think that that's the benchmark, if you're asking me. And obviously, you know... Well, you're the filmmaker. I've never made a film.

You have made many a piece of film or television. I appreciate you. And you're very good at it. Thank you, man. But, you know, it's not just because of me, obviously, that they're good. I have a great team and my partner, Adam. So humble. Everybody who, you know, the editors and everybody who has to put up with me to make those movies.

I thank them. But, yeah, Mike. I think that I'd love to talk more about documentaries with you. There's so many good ones. Let's bounce around. I know. We could just shout out our favorite. Hoop Dreams was great.

Yeah, hoop dreams is awesome. I would say, you know, making a murderer was pretty good that first season with Stephen Avery. Obviously, there's an objective there to make you feel a certain way about, like, this guy's innocence. Well, he wanted to be home for whatever it was, WrestleMania or whatever the hell. He said, you know, it really spoke to me. Right. But, you know, there's a lot of good docs out there.

And I think that the dock market has cooled off a bit, if we're being honest here. Well, tell me, because I'm going to see a documentary on Friday called Nash the Slash Rises Again. I would say that when Jack of All Trades came out on Netflix, this was in 2020 during the heart of the height of the pandemic. I would say that that's the height of documentary popularity because everyone was trapped at home. Right. And documentaries. Oh, so things like Tiger King and stuff. Yeah, documentaries were being.

Or the Michael Jordan last dance. That was awesome. Yeah. But, you know, documentaries were being consumed at record levels, whereas, like, documentaries were like, nobody gave a shit about documentaries for so long that all of a sudden, documentaries were the it thing. And I feel like it's cooled off a little bit

just because there's been such an oversaturation. Like, not everything needs a dock, you know? That's true. But if you look around, everything has a dock now. You know, there should be a documentary on Palma's, pasta, but maybe, you know, you know what I'm trying to say. It's like everything doesn't need a dock. No, like, for example,

the, was it called the fire festival? Yes. Like, that's worthy of a dock. That's an interesting story. But there was three of them. I know. I know. So it's like, oh, we got, you know, even Woodstock, okay? And I mean, I'm talking the 69 Woodstock, the OG Woodstock, and I'm talking about the 99, I know there's a 94 as well,

but there's the 99 woodstock, which is also an interesting dock in different ways. But, like, there are so many that come at you through different channels. Yeah, we got to make that dog And people do But the best docs Are the ones that make you feel something

You know And like that's very hard to do To have somebody watch something And not only become invested In a story in a character But become emotionally invested And that goes for scripted stuff too There's nothing better than watching a movie

Mike that makes you feel something You know Do you have a favorite for the Oscars this coming weekend For Best Picture? Let me look at the list here Do you have the list of those things? I think I've seen all of them. I've memorized it.

But weapons I saw, and I thought it was really great. Weapons is not nominated, though. It's not? No. Really? Really? Are you sure? Not for Best Picture.

Oh, well, what is? All right, so here's what's nominated. Off the top of my head, there's a movie called Train Dreams. I haven't seen it. Okay. There is a movie called Bagonia. Haven't seen it. Okay.

There's F1 with Brad Pitt. I haven't seen it. There's a movie called Hamnet. Haven't seen it. Okay. Have you seen anything? There's a movie called One Battle After Another. Saw that.

And did you enjoy that? Uh, I enjoyed a lot of it. Okay, so I think that's the favorite, to be honest. Yeah. I think that's the favorite here. I'm quickly trying to come up with the list, even though I've seen almost every movie on the list. There's a movie called, The Secret Agent. Yeah, go ahead.

It's hard. It's, I feel like that it's obnoxious for me to sit and what I just, I kind of want to backpedal a little bit on what I just said about one battle after another. Yeah. Because Paul Thomas Anderson is obviously a world-class filmmaker. I know what it takes to make a movie. I know what it takes for him to make the movie that he wants to make. So for me to be like, I liked parts of it or whatever, like, it's obnoxious. He's a master filmmaker.

However, that being said, you know, I don't think it's his best movie. Well, that's a high bar. I mean, this man made boogie nights. Boogie nights, magnolia. Yeah, there will be blood. Yeah, hopefully are better than this. Yeah, so I feel like, but I feel like Paul Thomas Anderson's fourth or fifth best movie is still better than 99%

of people's best movie. So what about Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein? Have you seen that? Didn't see that. Okay, what about the movie Marty Supreme? Now, I want to see that. I didn't see that. No, it's not that good. I mean, it's very subjective. I didn't think it was that good, but I didn't see that. There's a movie out of Norway called Sentimental Value,

but you got to kind of read this film. Yeah, didn't see that. Oh, here's the big one. I almost forgot, because I saw it so much earlier in the cycle. Sinners. Didn't see that, but I've heard good things about it. Yeah, that might get Michael Jordan, not the last dance Jordan, but it might get Michael B. Jordan the best actor. Yeah, I've heard a lot of good things about Sinner,

so I should, it's definitely on my... So you haven't seen enough, you can't tell me what you think will win because you've seen like one of these movies. Right, but that seems to be the case now more... And that's a, that's... There you go, Mike. I'm happy you just said that,

because that's a perfect... That's a perfect thing of what I just said, documentaries are cooling off. Seeing movies is cooling off. you're talking to somebody who's a movie buff and you just listed the best pictures and I've seen one of them. That's sad.

That's not a reflection on me. I gotta recommend Hamnet to you because I thought Hamnet was just fucking great and gorgeous. Yeah, I'd love to see, you know, I'd love to see good movies for sure. I'm also like not going to the movie theaters like I used to.

And I think most box office receipts would tell you that most people aren't. But I saw a movie recently that I thought was very, Very good. Nirvana, the band, the show. It's on my list. Tell me about it because I heard it's very Toronto.

Oh, it's the best. It's such a great movie, Mike. It's like, you know, I give it a 10. Did you watch it here? Yeah, I watched it in the theaters. You could have invited me to watch it with him. Who did you see it with? I saw it with Adam Rodness, the two of us saw it.

I want to get to know Adam better. He's never been in the basement. Yeah, he needs to come to the basement. I do think that that movie was absolutely incredible. I would call it a Toronto masterpiece. I want to see it. It's so funny. It's so well done.

And it's a lot in a lot of ways, you know, the style that Adam and I do, these guys do something like that. It's different than ours. But it's similar in some ways, just in the case that they, like, real people are sort of dragged into their chaos. But it is, they're amazing. You know, Matt and Jay and one of their prehistors. one of their producers, Matthew Miller, who I grew up across the street from. Wow.

But I'll tell you what. That movie's fucking great. It is so good. Well, I'm going to see it because I'm very excited about it. I would call it genius. Speaking of genius, I'm going to quickly shout out some live stream participants here because there's some names I think came through you because I don't recognize them from our, uh, uh-oh.

You know, weekly shows here. But, so we mentioned Moose Grumpy. Yes. Shout out Moose. Tobias Vaughn. Yes. Canada Kev. Yes.

Here's a name I think comes through you. Sean Hawaii. Sean Hawaii is a Toronto legend. Can you tell me about Sean Hawaii? Since you called him a legend. He is a legend. He is a DJ entertainer, social media influencer, sometimes political pundant, sometimes sports expert.

Where does Hawaii come from? I think it comes from a wrestling sort of thing. But it was like a wrestling gimmick back in the day. Okay. But Sean's a great guy. Mahalo to Sean Hawaii. Guy Smiley? I mean, Guy Smiley, as far as I know, is a character on Sesame Street.

Love Guy Smiley. Yes. All right, so he says, I stew in the house. Yes. That's actually Sean. And this guy just says he wants more glass tiger. So I like him already. Oh, yeah.

Sean Hawaii, there he is. Expert Sandwich eater. Yeah, he is the guy who does the sandwich reviews on social media. Okay. He's that guy as well. Guy Smiley, did he have a catchphrase? Hey, I don't know. Hey, you guys.

I don't remember. I don't remember. That's the Goonies guy. He comes out with the microphone. I'm trying to visualize this from like 50 years ago or whatever. I don't know if he had a catchphrase. Somebody find out if you had a catchphrase. I'm going to quickly wrap this up by saying hello to.

Okay, these are repeaters. But Mike says that sinners is incredible. Yes, I've heard that. I've got to check that out. I'll tell you another movie that is incredible that didn't come out this year. Yeah. But last year, it's called the Triangle of Sadness. I saw it.

I love it. It was great. Yeah, that was great. That's more than a few years ago, I think. Yeah, maybe. It was great. But I saw it in the theater. The last movie that I saw before Nirvana, the band, the movie, the show, or whatever.

You know, I saw that in the theater. The last movie I saw in the theater was a movie called The House Maid. You know what? My wife saw it on streaming or something. I mean, listen, it's not... Sidney Sweeney, right? It's not the type of movie that I would typically go see or watch, but I went with a friend that wanted to go see it.

Okay. And there was also some hype online about it. So it was like, all right, it's something to do. I'll tell you what. Yeah. I'm not that familiar with Sidney Sweeney's work. Okay. But I will say that...

I'm listening. She's like, she's not very shy. Well, you've obviously never watched Euphoria. I never watched Euphoria. Yeah, so I did. So I was like turning to, you know, during that movie, I was like, is this really, like, this girl really does this? Yeah. Is this what, is this what she does?

Is this her thing? man. Yeah, good for her. Well, in Euphoria, there's a guy who plays, like, well, her lover on the show and he plays the monster in Frankenstein. Oh, really? Yeah. And he played Elvis in the Priscilla. I don't know if you saw the film Priscilla. No.

Okay. So I'm going to do quick hits with you. Okay. And then we never know where things go. I don't have a big agenda with you. I just want to see where Stu is going. We just did a half an hour off the top there with no agenda. So I do want to ask you about something that happened last night. Oh, what happened? Bam, Adebeo scored.

83 points in an NBA game. Can you imagine? Well, that beats out the Kobe 81 against R. Raptors. So I kind of like pushing that down a bit. But it's unbelievable that he came out of nowhere. He's never come close before. No, I mean, I think that if you were to bet that Bam was going to get the record, you probably could retire today off the odds you would have gotten on that.

But also, it was a little bit, as the kids say, suss. Okay, well, the 100-point record is super suss. So tell me about how, uh, I mean, the guy was fouled like 43 times or something. Like 43 of his points were from the foul line. Not to take away from the achievement. I mean, I probably couldn't even score two points in an NBA game. Right.

But, you know, it felt like a little bit like the other team was sort of like rooting for him to get the record. When they're down 26 points with two minutes to go and they're fouling this guy every time he touches the ball. I feel like everybody's sort of in it to try to help him get it, which is kind of, cool in a way. It's a little suss in the sense of like this guy just broke Kobe's record. But it's kind of cool that, that, you know. Not Kobe's record because he actually broke, so LeBron James had the heat record, which was like 62 or something like that. Yeah. And this is now the new heat record, 83 points. So Kobe had obviously the second most, but the number one, which was super

sus because it was like a, everybody wanted him to do it. It was a whole thing. When Will Chamberlain hit 100 points, you and I did not watch that game live. But I wonder allowed with you Stu Stone, will we ever see anybody hit triple digits again when it comes to a points in NBA game? Well, we just saw BAM hit 83, so anything's possible, but I would say that to people who think that Miltz

100, or did I say, yeah, you're thinking of Milton Burrell. I was thinking of the great Miltz Steele CFL icon. Yes. But Wiltz, Wiltz Chamberlans, if people who are out there, and this is who think that that

100 point game is, and embellished stats. Definitely. You should see his off-the-court stats and whether those are embellished because he claims to have over 100,000 points off the court. He's in John Gallagher territory. Is John somebody that claims, makes those types of claims?

He gave us a number. So I used to produce a show of John Gallagher and Peter Gross. And it was called Gallagher and Gross saved the world. And I would sit here, they'd sit here, and it was pretty fucking amazing as I look back. I can't believe that happened. I still have the recordings. but one episode was about their sex lives

and they were comparing their number and Peter's number was like nine I'm not laughing at Peter's number being nine I'm laughing at you so casually outing his number but I guess he said it on his it's not like I'm telling tales at a school I think that he's a sweet guy to have enough for Pete's for Pete and I like to call him Pete

because we're fellow Hall of Famers but if for Pete's body counts to be single digits that really just increases my respect for him and his image as a sweet, wholesome, loving guy. But let me ask you this. He has a legal issue with regards to his insurance for his driving a car. And I've been helping him through this only in that he comes, when he does court appearances via Zoom, he comes and does it here.

He books me. What? That's amazing. Because he doesn't trust himself with the tech, and it's too important. Sure. But the best part is he blocks me. You should record those. You know what?

It's funny you say that. The first time he did it, I did record it. it and then I talked to him on Toronto Mike and played a little clip and we got in so much fucking trouble. Really? He got called before the judge. Oh no. Called into chambers. It's a huge offense to record these

court proceedings. Holy crap. I know. This is how it's funny you say that. And it's funny because I guess I never really knew explicitly it was against the law. Like I didn't see any disclaimer. Although this last time I came on, I saw a disclaimer at the front. Maybe it's the Toronto Mike Clause or something. It was like, it is forbidden to record, whatever,

whatever, so I record, I did, I recorded his first court appearance. And then we chatted about it and I play little clips of the judge saying this and then the lawyer saying that. And I went for a bike ride right after I published. And I had calls during the bike ride, one from an OPP officer who said, How did they get your number? Well, this OPP officer is also an FOTM. Got it. And he was on the radio and people could connect those dots.

But right away, this call comes in and I'm like, I'm taking the hands for you in my bike ride. And he's like, you need to remove that right away. you're going to be in serious trouble. He said he had already heard from a few listeners who was in this circle that basically said this guy's going to be in trouble. And then I did go home and edit it to beep out the recording stuff.

And then it was too late. Like a letter came to Peter Gross from the judge ordering him into court to stand before him to talk about this and explain this. And Peter said, what I can't believe he said, he said, in the court in front of the judge,

Peter said, I knew it was illegal. I knew it was probably illegal, which I felt was a bad move. It's like admitting the guilt I didn't think it was a good move because my truthful response was I didn't know it was illegal

and I won't do it again. I didn't know it was illegal either. Yeah, so I didn't know either. Although Peter went and for the judge and said, I knew it was probably illegal. But anyway, I wanted, I don't want to emphasize that. I wanted to ask you...

What was his legal problem? He's still got it going on. He, okay, I'll tell you. He had a car crash. Okay. While he was delivering for a food delivery service. I can't remember which one, okay? Peter Gross delivers for a food delivery service?

That's incredible. Well, he did, and now he can't drive at all. But then he gets in a car crash, and he gets dropped by his insurance, and he needs new insurance, so he's doing this call with an insurance. But why did he get dropped from his insurance? Because he didn't tell them he was a delivery driver? Maybe. That part I can't remember at this point.

But he does have another, he gets another opportunity with a place called intact or something, and he's doing the interview thing. And this is actually recorded, because I have the copy. And they ask him, do you have any previous at-fault accidents to disclose? And Peter Gross says, very truthfully to him, because he doesn't lie, he said, I've never had an at-fault accident, okay? Because in his mind, at-fault is this term applied by the insurance company, and the one that just happened hadn't been given that designation yet because it had just happened, and Peter felt it was due to Mother Nature, like it was an icy day

or something like that, and he didn't think it would be an at-fault. But it hadn't been designated at-fault. So he thinks he chooses it. I've never had an at-fault thing. Anyway, fast-forward six months. So he gets this insurance. Fast-forward six months. He gets dropped by the new insurance for misleading them in this interview because they find out about the accident from six months prior, which had then subsequently been called

at fault. So they basically say, hey, we're dropping you, but we're also applying something called Rule 5 to your file. And now, since then, every time Peter talks to any insurance company in this country, they see he's a Rule 5, which means intentionally misled an insurance company, and none of them will touch him except for this exorbit rate.

Like, he has to pay some mad rate of like $800 a month or something to get insurance because of the fact he's a Rule 5. Like a Rule 5 in baseball? Yeah, I know. Like, wasn't George Bell a Rule 5? I think so. I think George Bell was a Rule 5. I'm looking at my calendar.

Joe Be a Genie. That's from May 1986. By the way, do you remember Cecil Fielder? No, never heard of him. Well, that's for the inside baseball, for the real listeners, who will appreciate that. Okay. So, maybe I'll tell you about that one later, actually. Okay, so Peter Gross lied to his insurance company, but unintentionally?

Right, he felt he told the truth because he said, I've never had an at-fault crash, but this crash he had had to go to court for his crash? No, he's suing the insurance company for several things, but one is to get rid of the rule five, because he can't get insurance now. Got it. So this is all happening here. But here's the thing that happened last week when Peter Gross was down here. He did a Toronto mic'd episode right after his court appearance.

So he came down here, did a court appearance. He had a driver named Garnet Barnsdale, who is just a sweetheart of a man who's helping Peter. Sounds like a sweetheart with that name. He bets on the ponies and he does very well. Sounds like that. That tracks with Peter. Cam Gordon doesn't need to track that one. Well, Peter has the definitive Ontario horse racing podcast down the stretch.

Yeah. So long winded way of me saying, I said to Peter, he has a lawyer he doesn't quite like. He doesn't think his lawyer is very good. I listened. I don't know if the lawyer had done any homework, but, you know, Peter's eight grand deep with this lawyer. Eight grand? Yeah.

He may as well just got the car insurance at that point. So many things you're right about here, Stu. But one of the things is I said to Peter, on the recording of Toronto Mike that said, how did you choose your lawyer? Like, was he a referral? Did Lauren Honnickman pick him? And Peter told me, he looked at me and said,

I Googled lawyer and then I chose the first name that showed up in Google. which is probably a sponsored ad, right? And I said, Peter, I said, we have a mutual friend who is a lawyer and for free would recommend somebody or help you in this regard. Lauren Honickman. Yeah.

I said, Peter, like, to me, it's absolute crazy that Peter Gross doesn't pick up the phone or write an email and say, Lauren, here's my situation. I need a lawyer. Do you have any advice? I would suggest that I, first,

of all. There's a lot for you to process things. There's a, there's, if you would have bet on bam, bam, scoring 83 points in a basketball game and parlayed it with that we would be talking about Peter Gross's insurance lawsuit, you would have been generationally rich because there's no way that you could have predicted that this would be a topic of conversation. I am fascinated by Peter's situation here because it seems like, all of this could have been avoided.

All of it. You know, the lawyer bill, for sure, could have been avoided. The upfrontness with the insurance company to begin with. You know, saying like, well, I wasn't at fault and I wasn't an accident, but I was, like, he should have just said something there, no? You're right. He should have said, I had an accident, but it hasn't been deemed at fault. Like, yeah, because...

So what's the result of the lawsuit? It's going to another, there's some negotiation. It's going to another day. date. It keeps getting pushed. But the funny thing is, Stu, he blocks me, because he doesn't know how long it's going to be. So he blocks me for like a three-hour block, right? So he's like, and, you know, like, all my clients do this,

but every client who does this gets an invoice at the end of the episode or whatever. And Peter blocks me for three hours. And then he, of course, I don't send him an invoice. I give him a lasagna and send him on his way. Thank you to Palma Pasta. But it costs me a lot of money. It's very, it's, and these court dates keep getting pushed. So it's, you know,

dragged into this. It's costing me a fortune to host the Peter Gross court appearances. You should charge admission for people to come and just, like, sit in the peanut gallery and watch. Yeah, I got to find out if that's illegal here. So, again, quick hits on the bam, but I want to ask. Well, let's just wrap up this Peter Gross. Oh, yeah, of course.

I love talking about Peter. I love that man. I want to say, good luck to Peter on his legal journey. We're rooting for him. He might fire his lawyer and go alone. He's eight grand in. That's ridiculous. That's what he wants to do.

I would also like to say, and I don't, you know, I may regret saying this next thing, but just knowing Peter Gross slightly through you, I would assume that if he was to shake his family tree, there's a lawyer that would fall out of that tree, not to be stereotypical here. But, you know, at least a doctor or a lawyer or two, it's going to fall out of that family tree. Shocking to me that he used Google as opposed to, you know, to his own family lineage to find a lawyer. That's all I'm saying. I'm going to leave it at that.

You can't say that. Do you know Peter Gross, who's in his 70s now? Yes. You know his mom is still living independently and rocking and rolling? Does she have car insurance? That's a good question. That's a good question. But she's 104, I think.

You know, I'm happy to just come on this show, you know, once every couple months just to like give advice to these type of situations. See, I wish you listened to Toronto Mike. You know why? You would have so many interesting things to ask about. Like, this Peter Gross stuff came out in a recent episode. I asked you if you remembered Cecil Fielder. Obviously, there's a reason for that.

A recent guest. Was he on the show? Yeah, a guy came over, and he's a TikTok nostalgia guy. But he focuses on 80s and 90s nostalgia. And he wasn't doing a bit. Like, he saw the calendar, and he says, do you remember Cecil Fielder? And I almost threw him out of the basement, but I decided I'd let it go. He also then said, I mentioned Donovan Bailey had just been here like an hour before he got here or something doing his show.

And he said, do you remember when Donovan Bailey raised Michael Johnson in 150 meter at the domen was sign? And I swear to you, Stu, I was so offended that he asked me if I remembered Cecil Fielder. And if I remember the 150 meter race between Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey, I almost kicked him out. You should have. I just want to say something. I don't need to hire an $8,000. to defend myself, but I just open up the podcast app. What does it say my top show is on podcasts?

Oh, Toronto Mike. Okay, so for you to say that... Right beside Wilner. For you to say, and Wilner, I might unsubscribe to. I'm just kidding, but not, but yes. I want to know if there's a way for you to see... How can I see, like, the last episodes that I listened to? Oh, I would love to...

I don't know. That's what app you're using or whatever, but I'd love that you listen. I didn't mean to suggest you never listen. I guess the last time I listened to it was the FOTT. TM cast. Okay. Would have been my last episode. Well, we have another one coming up.

So I do listen to the show, Mike. I'm just, you know, I'm not a historian. You don't listen to toast, though, because you're a little bitter that I replaced you guys. I'm not bitter. I'm happy for those guys. And you know what? I'm a fan of Bob and I'm a fan of Rob. So for those guys to get Shine, why would I be upset?

I'm thrilled for those guys. And I love those guys. And Rob is so talented. And Bob almost hired me to be the voice of Kingston radio. You know you dodged a bullet with that one. So how could I be upset? at Bob. I love both of those guys. And Bob obviously is found a, he's a rebirth of sorts on Indy 88, right?

Indy 88, who's still part of my presets, my six, I have six stations on my band that my wife has given me. She has a band on FM. I have a band on FM. That's awesome. Six stations. One is Indy 88. I think I'm removing it. I'm just sick and tired. I click over and it's really super popified. Like the playlist on Indy88 is nothing like it was you know, two years ago, for example. Well, I'm still happy that Bob is... Oh, not Bob's ball. He has nothing to do with the music.

So, yeah, I'm not jealous at all of those guys, and I'm happy for them, and I'm saying that in sincerity. Well, they're laughing all the way to the bank, right? They are. I mean, me and Cam couldn't figure out how to monetize, these guys did, so, you know, they're taking that lasagna straight to the dome. You were friends of the Iron Sheik.

Yes. I know previously we covered in better detail your relationship of the Iron Sheik, but I do think of the Iron Sheik, Whenever I read for news updates on what's happening in Iran right now, there's a war in the Middle East. Is there? And I always wonder what the Iron Sheik would think about what's happening. Do you have any inclination what the Iron Sheik might say about this?

I could try to channel him. Like a medium? Well, I could call somebody that does a great Iron Sheik impression and see and have them have at it. But I'm just afraid of the language that would come out of their mouth. I don't tease me of a good time I wish you would do that I would have to like set it up ahead of time

because I just don't want him to say like this guy uses colorful language that the chic would But this person Oh okay But we know it's not really Dan Sheik Because he's passed away

But the real sheke Would have used Words like that too But anyway I will say this The Iron Sheik And I'm not speaking On behalf of him

I'm only speaking of what I've known From getting to know him Right And is that he escaped from Iran he used to be the bodyguard for the Shah of Iran back in the day he was he from what I know of the Sheik's history and someone else can correct me if I'm wrong here which I rarely am

there was another wrestler that was on like the Olympic wrestling team that was sort of speaking up against the regime back then and he got and he was killed and that caused Sheik and some other guys that were sort of Olympic style athletes to sort of get out of there I know that Sheik always dreamt of and I always spoke of wanting to go back to Iran and visit, but he couldn't because he was afraid that he would go back there and be arrested or killed or whatever because he had fled.

He came to America and he made a life for himself and beyond anybody's wildest dreams. You talk about the American dream. He's in the Goonies are good enough for me, video. Yeah. I mean, this is a guy that barely spoke a lick of English that. ended up becoming an international superstar with action figures and cartoons and all that type of stuff. So I would say that he probably would be on the side of being happy if there isn't a regime change there. If I was to gather that that would be Sheik's opinion.

And from what I've seen in general, the people who are Iranian seem to be happy. Like a bad guy got ousted. Yeah. But I think the latest news is that that bad guy's son, who's even more... Right. Can you be more conservative, I guess? You know, is now going to become the Ayatollah. Ayatollah.

Ayatollah. Yeah. So listen, I don't... I'm not an expert in what's happening by any means over there, but I would say that, like, just from the naked eye and seeing what I see, it seems that, like, the people that are... happy about it are Iranian people and people who are unhappy about it are just like protester type people

not picking sides here just saying as Wilner would say it's early so we have to things are changing but I can't I can't say that like you know what has gone it goes back to what I said earlier about that nuanced thing life is nuanced the fact that you have Donald Trump

in Israel as the people that are sort of pulling off this this war or whatever you want to call it. These are people who specifically Donald Trump has been, you know, he's a bad guy in the narrative for the last 10 years for sure. And with reason. He's the guy that like the media and conversations, he's a bad guy, right?

He's a heel. And certainly Israel has been portrayed as a heel by a lot of people for a long time, going back 70 years. So when you have these two heels teaming up to do something that could be presumably good, it breaks people's brains because they can't fathom like, how could this be a good thing if these two bad entities are doing this? And that goes to my point that I made earlier about life being nuanced. Bad people can do good things, Mike, and good people can do bad things.

There's nothing black and white about it. Now, I don't know what the motivation is for, I'm not here to get into that, but I am saying that from what I've seen I've never in my life and I'm sure you haven't Mike seen a country that is being bombed where the people in the country are celebrating that it's being bombed

I've never seen that in my life it's crazy in a it's just mind blowing that that's where we're at with that sure but we have to see if they can stick the landing right it's one thing to start this and remove this 86 year old yeah the game's not over yet we're in like the sixth inning but I will say that it is...

I don't think it's the sixth inning. It might be the third inning. Top of the second. Okay, so we're early in. We can agree on that. But I will say that, like, the idea of, like, the who is the, quote, unquote, good guys

in this situation. It's breaking people's brains. The world is not black and white. Right. It's breaking people's brains to look at this story and make, you know,

it's breaking people's brains because they've been trained to hate these two entities that have come together, presumably to do something positive. Depends who you ask. Would you accept a fat check to make a very glowing and positive documentary

about Netanyahu? It would be difficult to make 100% positive documentary on anybody. I don't think, I think he's got his full problems. So I wouldn't be able to do that. But I would say that, you know, when I speak to my friends that are in Israel,

and I did not expect to be talking about this year, but I'm happy to do so with you, Mike. There are people in Israel who don't like Netanyahu. Ralph Ben-Murigy doesn't like him. He's not in Israel, though. But I will say that, like Netanyahu, his popularity, if he has any popularity, is mostly with the fact that he is able to speak English to Americans and Canadians. That he's a Polish speaker.

He's a very good speaker. Now, you can like Obama or hate Obama. The guy was an amazing speaker. Netanyahu's not Obama, but he is, he's been something. somebody that has been speaking to the Western world for 50 years now. So he's obviously a polarizing guy in a lot of ways, and he's been compared to Trump in a lot of ways by the Israelis. But, you know, I don't think, like I said, I think it's nuanced.

Even that is nuanced. I don't think that he's 100% evil, if that's what you're asking. No, I just wanted to you to make the doc. I don't think that he's 100% evil. I don't think he's 100% good. Would I make a doc about Netanyahu? It's not really my lane because I would rather do some pop culture documentary.

Sure. But, you know, I would be open to talking about it. There's way more qualified people to do documentaries on Netanyahu is the real answer. If you're asking like Ted DiBiasey style, everybody's got a price, like what's due's price to do a documentary on... What is your price?

It's up for discussion. It's up for discussion. I would much rather do a documentary on the Blue Jays or on wrestling or on some pop culture thing that like some nostalgia thing. Like that's more my lane. Would you do a doc on Garth Orge and Rance Mullinix? I don't know who would watch it. I don't know who would watch it, but I do it. It's a much lower price to do that one.

Who, if you can only have one to be a part of our Blue Jade teams from the 80s into the 90s when it comes to Rance. but if you could only have one, would you be choosing Garth Orge or Rance Mullinix? To do a documentary on it? No, to have on your Blue Jays. Oh, because they were like a platoon, you're saying. Well, like, yeah, I'm just asking you if you could only have one on your Blue Jays,

Garth or Rans Malniz. My answer may have used to be Rance Malnix, but after listening to him on the pod, in his... Oh, you heard that one. And when he was talking shit about Dave Steve, you know, maybe I'm leaning towards, like, he's not a very good teammate

if he's, like, saying that Dave Steve shouldn't be a Hall of Famer. So maybe I'm going to go Garth Orch. But Rance does sound like a lovely man. Didn't you once say to me, Cam Gordon shouldn't be an FOTM Hall of Famer? Or did I mishear you? You may have misheard you.

I misheard you. My apologies. Stirring. We're going to get back to Cam, by the way. But are you watching the World Baseball Classic? Yeah, definitely. Are you aware that on Mario Day, Italy defeated the United States?

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. It's funny because apparently the American team already thought they had clinched. So they partied their ass off and they were like, you know... Really? I didn't hear this. They were dragging their feet because they won three games. So they thought that they had already punched their ticket.

So they obviously went into this game, hung over and punched drunk. And Italy, who like makes espressoes in the dugout as their home run celebration, which is awesome. What, you know, now we're set up, you know, by the time you listen to this, if it's not today, this is dated obviously. But Canada plays like after this episode. There is an opportunity that USA gets eliminated now as a result of that loss to Italy. Unbelievable.

That's remarkable. Now it's funny, we just accidentally referenced Punch Drunk Love, which is another Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Yes, it certainly is. And that's got Adam Sandler in it. And when I was saying I wasn't a big fan of Marty Supreme, I preferred uncut gems.

Yeah, that's a great movie. And that's an Adam Sandler joint. Yeah. Uncut Jem's is awesome. Yeah, that's the brothers. And this is just one of the brothers. Yes, and just one of the Safdi's. is behind Marty Supreme, not both of the Safis.

And what's his name? Timothy Shalameh. And some guy from Shark Tank. He's making the rounds. Oh, well, Salome is a fucking great actor. Yeah. He set a record, I think, for youngest person to be nominated for best actor three times. Wow.

He's tremendous. I think he's always great. I got to check him out. He's great. Now, a question came in from Hey Ref. Okay. Because previous episodes of Toronto Mike with Stu Stone, we've talked about you have a close relationship with Ross Atkins.

And Hey, Ref, is just curious, where did you meet Ross Atkins? And how did you guys become bosom buddies? I added the word bosom, by the way. Shout out to Tom Hanks and Peter Scolary. Yeah. Well, Ross is definitely a private person. I'm not asking for his sin number. Like, you can't tell us how you met them in?

That's pretty private. No, he lives in the same area as my sister. And my nephews... And what address is that exactly? And my nephews were younger at the time. They were like ding-dong ditching houses. And they were doing it to Ross's house. And I don't know if they knew that it was Ross or not,

but eventually they kind of figured it out. And they were sort of like ringing the bell and then like hiding in the bushes. and from what I understand, Ross finally had enough and came out. I was like, guys, don't be scared. Like, come and say hello. And he gave them a baseball or something.

And they went home and told my sister, like, she's like, where did you get that baseball? And they're like, oh, the guy there. Well, how did you get it? And then she brought the kids there to knock on the door to apologize. And he invited my sister in and they hid it off. They became friends. And since then, you know, this is already a decade ago.

he's, you know, part of the crew. He's always hanging out. He's around. And I've obviously developed my own friendship with him. But, yeah, he's the public persona of Ross and the guy that I hang out with are two different guys. And I'm not trying to, you know, step on that in any way. But I definitely, people say that I'm biased towards the J's. But you know what?

Last year, Mike, we've already covered this. That's not a bias. That was fact. I do believe, though, in my conversations with him that he knows more about baseball than I ever will. And I think that, you know, I kind of trust him the way that Peter Gross trusted his lawyer. Look, it's March 11th, okay? So as we speak, there's nothing I can say, what can I say? We could not have come closer to winning the World Series last year.

We've covered this in great detail. So the proof's in the pudding. Yeah, I feel like... I mean, we didn't win the World Series, but this is as close as you. can get without winning the World Series. Yeah, and I think that... And it was entertaining. And so does this mean that you're on the Blue Jays train this year?

Well, we'll talk about that maybe after. Oh, you don't know. You haven't made up your mind? No, I think... Last year wasn't enough to get you back invested? I, for myself, I liked how I played last year, where I came in for the playoffs. I had a blast. And I didn't waste so many hours of my life.

See, that's insulting. I know. Because like you're saying that I wasted hours of my life, like, actually watching the team? I'm speaking for myself. I'm not saying, you know, Moose Grumpy's on this live stream. I know she loves to tune in for a May game. So do I. For three hours on a Tuesday night.

So do I. I personally for myself, choose not to do that. But should this team make the playoffs like they did last year, I will start watching every inning I can. And if what happened last year happens again, I'm there for the freight, the hype train. I loved last postseason. Yeah, well.

And I don't feel, I thought, I was worried, oh, if I didn't, I didn't know any of these faces. Like I had to get to know them on the fly. I didn't watch any regular season baseball. So I was worried that would make it difficult to jump on a Ben-Wa-Wing because I'd never done this before. Getting to the finals is very, very difficult. And if you're basing your decision to be a Jays fan

that they're going to get to the finals every year, you may never be a Jays fan again. Ask a young Dan Marino how many more times he went to the Super Bowl. He didn't. It's not easy to do what the Jays did last year. But I will say that the chemistry, that the team has is unmatched as far as anything I've ever seen. And I said this to you last summer when I was on the show.

I said that I'd never seen a Jay's team like this. And this was, I thought was the best Blue Jays team I'd ever watched. And that includes 93 when they won. Does that include 1985? Well, it's, I don't see like, Oh yeah, you were born in the 80s. Depending on what website you go on. The 85 Blue Jays were a special group as well.

And that, I would say that the comp to the 85 Blue Jays, is more accurate than the comp to 92-93. Because 92-93, you had a lot of superstar free agents and acquisitions that came in. Sure. And the 85 team was the guys that came up together. So the comp to 85 is better. But I will say that this team was the most complete team because you had one through 24, whatever it is, 1 through 26.

Everybody got in every game. Everybody played. Everybody had a role. Hell of a ride. There wasn't a guy that was just like a left... Nobody's just riding the pine for the Blue Jays. Everybody had a role. Everybody was buying in.

And to see a complete team play like that is the opposite, Mike. It's the opposite of what we're seeing from the Toronto Maple Leafs this year, which is an absolute disaster. Well, I haven't tuned into the Leafs in a long time either. I'm not just doing this move where I skip the regular season.

It's not just a Jays thing. I'm trying it. I'm pretty much doing it of the Raptors. I'm pretty much. I'm doing it with the Leafs. It's pretty much like I need the stakes to be high, and then I'm going to dive right in. Just something I'm doing in my 50s, too.

When you get there, you might see. It's a different perspective. I might be getting there closer than you think, depending on which website you check. But I'm all in on the Blue Jays. Of course. I'll be watching as many, if not all the games as possible. I'll certainly be checking in on every single game

and every single box score like Moose, Grumpy, me and her, we have that in common. But I will say that it's GoJ's Go for Life for me. I'm a Blue Jays die hard and I want the best for this team and I want them to win it all. So badly. Me too.

Me too. Okay. But I will just point out the fact that you and I are both cheering for laundry here. Like we've been Jays fans forever. So there's no other team for me. I'm a Toronto guy. I love my Blue Jays. Love them since 82.

But you are biased because you are dear friends with the GM. Well, I would say that maybe you could say that, well, I'm not biased in my love for the Blue Jays. No, no, but you are biased in, even though you can point to the fact that, oh, look, this exciting team got to the finals. If someone was to tell me that Toronto, Mike, is a shitty podcaster, I would defend you, Mike. I would say, that's crazy. He got the Toronto Star cover. He got the podcast of the year award.

I did get that. So it's no different, Mike. It's like, yeah, I'm loyal to my friend. Sure. And I respect that. Is that called bias or is that a positive, you're taking something positive in putting a negative stamp on it? I'm not putting a negative stamp on it. You're calling it a bias when you should be celebrating my loyalty.

I love it. Okay. I love it. And if my dear friend were the GM of the Montreal Canadians, I would probably secretly root for their success just so my friend has success. One of my good friend, one of my longtime friend was on a show called The Voice. Yes, I know this show. Of course. So Allison, her name's Alison Porter.

She was a child actor, fantastic singer. She was Curly Sue in the Curly Sue movie. Wow, I do know this person, yes. So seeing her go on the voice and then she won the voice. When she won the voice, I was telling this to Adam Rodness the other day. It was like winning the super, it was like the greatest TV moment ever. It felt like I won the Super Bowl. Now, am I biased or am I happy for my friend's success?

But that's a contest. It's still a competition. The Blue Jays game is a competition. It's the same thing. My point is the moves leading up to the great success of 2025, you were viewing them with rose-colored glasses. Now, you ended up being correct. So it's tough to have this argument now.

That's why I'm going to quickly move on. Because you ended up being correct. You came on and you did 20 minutes off the top of a recent episode where you just told me how wrong I was. And I had to eat it and I deserved that. Canada Kev just nailed it. Stu knows good GMs can do bad things and bad GMs can do good things. Everything is nuanced, including general manager moves.

Anthony Santander has not turned out to be, the greatest signing. Did it matter? No, because the rest of the team stepped up. And the rest of the pieces were there. And I would say that, like, I can, and I don't want to spill anything about Ross because I respect his privacy,

but I will say that Ross was very, very years ago telling me about this guy that he thought was going to be the future of the team that people were crapping on named Ernie Clement. And boy, oh boy, was he right about that? Because Ernie is one of the most lovable players on planet Earth. Yep.

He is such a gamer. And, you know, he's right. He knows more than I do. I would have said, Ernie Clement, trade him if you can get this and that. And I would have been wrong. You would have been wrong.

Have you, did you ever meet Catherine O'Hara? I feel like I have. You would think that I would have some kind of story there. But like... You'd think you'd remember if you met her or not. Well, it's hard to say, because when I was a kid

and I was acting on shows like the Wayne and Schuster show or I was on Joe Flaherty show, You know, she was probably around. Andrea Martin special I did once when I was a kid. Like, I feel like Catherine O'Hara would have been around. But as a young, like a teen or a young adult or anything, like I have no interactions, other than the fact that I was a massive fan of Catherine O'Hara.

And I would say that obviously, you know, SETV is, everybody knows SETV, but if you get to people of a certain age, the credit that stands out is, home alone. You know, she's like the mom. She's everybody's mom. Right. In home alone. But I would say that like the career resurgence that she had during Schitt's Creek really elevated her to other, to another level of like, oh, she's funny to like, she's brilliant. I'm so happy that we were able to get all those seasons of Schitt's Creek with her. And I know she's done, gone on to do stuff after Schitt's Creek, too. The studio. Yeah, the studio. But, uh, she's,

She is a... Fellow Canuck, Seth Rogen. She was a powerhouse performer. She was a proud Canadian. She was so funny. And such a character, holy shit. When she commits to a character, she nails it. So I think that she'll be missed.

I'm getting sad just thinking about the fact that she's gone because she was really young. And it goes to show you, man. You've got to live your life, Mike. You never know. But Catherine O'Hara will be missed. From 5A to Funko, this is an instance. Instagram post, I follow you on Instagram, Stu, everybody should at Stu Stone, and I'll read the rest of it. From 5A to Funko, the three of us started our journey together as roommates almost 30 years ago, and now we can finally be together again as collectibles on a shelf.

And there was Devin Sawah, who was Casper, there was Stu Stone, that's you, who was Sprout, and that's the jolly green giant's, like, nephew or kid? What is Sprout? Is that related to him? I don't know. I didn't know. Is this nephew maybe? Well, anyways, it's... Little Green Sprout.

Little Green Sprout. And then Philip Glasser, who I feel might have appeared on Toronto Mike DeVia a call with you, I feel. Yeah, Fival the Mouse. Five of the Mouse. So, just... I have a question, which is, oh, like, what do you mean you were roommates almost 30 years ago?

I don't think I've ever explicitly asked you about... So when I moved to L.A. the first time in... Okay, well, there was two... There was a false start on my L.A. move. So I first... I've never covered this with you? No, I don't, I mean, I don't remember the specifics of the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I'll get it.

I can give you, do you want the long version or the short version? Just tell me the version, and then, uh, don't worry about the long version. Okay. We'll get to Cam. He's coming up next. I went to see a movie in the theaters in the early 90s called Mrs. Doubtfire. Yes, yes, guy. And in the movie, Mrs. Doubtfire, the girl that played the daughter, her name is Lisa Jacob. She was in the movie.

Mm-hmm. And I would... could not fucking believe that this girl who was a Toronto actor who I was in McDonald's commercials with and on all those credits I just dropped on the Catherine O'Hara segment, she was probably in all those two. I couldn't believe that I was watching someone I knew in a Robin Williams movie and I wanted to know how the hell that happened. And what I found out was that she moved to L.A. So what did I do, Mike? I called Lisa Jacob in L.A. and said, hey, I'm coming. They offered to rent me, they didn't have a room for rent, but they rented me their couch.

I paid them $500 a month. For a couch? Yes. Wow. For a couch. Wow. And this is in the 90s. This is in 95.

Wow. $500 a month, I paid them for their couch, which I stayed on their couch for a couple months. In their unfinished garage, on a pullout couch, another actor from Toronto was living there. a guy named Justin Lewis back then Louis Ferreira he's a hugely accomplished actor one of my favorite guys he was in Breaking Bad recently

but he's look him up Louis Ferreira he's been in a hundred things everybody knows who is he in Breaking Bad he was like one of the bat like one of the rivals sort of dealers on the show but he's he's starred in a million like look him up he's been in a million things he's a Canadian staple

and Louis I didn't have my driver's license I was Peter grossing back then. So Louis, I used to pay him $300 a week to drive me to my auditions. So I was, you know, I was a successful child actor. So like the money sounds crazy now just talking about it. But back then, this was, it was affordable considering the living I was making at that point, right? So Louis was driving me to my auditions. Now, I went in audition for a show called Married with Children, which you, have you heard of that? So I got the part. Love and marriage.

I got the part to play a kid that goes to the prom with Kelly. That was the episode. And I was so excited to do the role. Then it turned out I couldn't do the role. Why? Because I didn't have a visa. What's a visa? I didn't even know.

Right. Well, you got to get a visa in order to work. Well, how do I do that? Louis had one, right? I don't even know. By the way, quickly to tell you that he was Colonel Everett Young in a show called Stargate Universe. Yeah.

And he was a serial killer on Durham County. Yeah, he was the lead on that show. Wasn't Hugh Dylan the lead? I think Hugh Dylan was going after him. Okay, okay, gotcha. And he was John Pollock and missing. Yeah. And he was Art Blank in Saw 4 and Saw 5 and Saw 3D,

not to be confused with Saw Wa, but we'll get to that. Yes. No, so Louisa is the man. But where was I? Oh, yeah, so I came back, I had to come back to... You need a visa. Okay, so I had to come back to...

to Toronto and get a lawyer and figure that out. Like, I just didn't know any of that. So I come back to Toronto. And as soon as I land in Toronto, this is now 95, it's like if you go to L.A. And you come back to Toronto, all of a sudden, your profile changes in Toronto. I land in Toronto.

I book a movie called The Boys Club. That's how I meet Devon Sawa. Right. He's the co-star of the movie with me. And another guy named Dominic Sampronia, who is, he's now been on General Hospital for the last decade. playing Dante, the cop or whatever he is on there. So Devin and I hit it off.

We've become fast friends. We have the best summer of our life shooting this movie with Chris Penn, directed by John. Is Biff Naked in this? I remember. John Fawcett, the director, who went on to do Orphan Black later on. So we had the summer of our lives. I finally, so I end up, in order to get a visa,

I had to apply to get a thing, and I had to get letters, and you have to prove that you're who you say you are. and right anyway i end up getting the the clearance to go back to the states in january of 97 so it takes a year i go to move to l.a and i tell i call devon and i say hey have you ever considered moving to l.a and he's like no and i'm like well i'm going you should come with me like we could live together and he was like asked his mom and she spoke to my mom and however the negotiations worked out, Devin moved to L.A. Me and Devin lived in a studio apartment at a place called the Oakwoods, where every child

actor, whoever goes to L.A., that's where they start at the Oakwoods. It's like this fully furnished apartment's kind of complex that every industry implant that goes to L.A. before they sort of like settle in, they live at the Oakwoods. It's like Melrose Place? I'm trying to visualize it. It's bigger than Melrose Place. But ironically, the people that love... lived at the Oakwoods like our neighbors were the Wu-Tang Clan. And...

So your mom called them... Right. How's your mom doing, by the way? She's doing great. Good. Trudy. So, yeah. So we lived at the Oak Woods.

So the first... Within the first day of being at the Oak Woods and mingling with other child actors, I go to this party that Ben Savage walks into this party. Of course. And he's a big deal at the time, I guess, because, you know, boy meets world. And he walks in with Philip Glasser, Phil Glasser. and the two of them come in and they're sort of like the king shits of this party

and I'm the new guy, you know, like no one knows me yet but they will and somehow or another I get to talking with Phil and he's telling me that he was fivaled a mouse and I couldn't believe that he was like that's a mind blow. I didn't watch Boy Meets World but I watched American Tale

so I was marking out for... So Ben would be like oh you're the brother of Fred Savage Like he would just be... Well, he was, Ben, it was a very successful show. No, no, I mean, to you who wasn't watching Boy meets World, he'd be like, oh, you're the Wonder Years guys.

And I got along with Ben, by the way. We were friends. Okay. But Phil and I hit it off because he was a voiceover guy. Right. And I had come from my background at that point. It was Magic School Bus and all these other things going on. Like Phil and I were speaking the same language.

My pet monster. So Phil and he ended up staying in our studio apartment with us. Within a month. we got kicked out of the Oakwoods because we were three teenagers with no parents and no rules and we were throwing parties and we were getting Wu-Tang Clan

to buy us beers or whatever the hell we were doing. We got kicked out of there and the three of us moved into a place in Encino, California. The only reason why we moved to Encino is because we knew the movie Encino Man and that we had heard of Encino. We didn't know where it was, what it was, but we

knew the movie. Polly sure. So we were like, okay, Encino, that sounds good. So we moved into this place in the apartment It was a townhouse And the apartment The unit was 5A Which is the same unit as Jerry Seinfeld I believe on Seinfeld is 5A also

And shout out to Justin Trugman He has a Korean pop group called 5A But that's another conversation for another time The three of us live together In this apartment together And you have to understand This is at the height of Devin Sawah's Teen Beat magazine cover

you know, this was like entourage. Like the show entourage, that was us. Devin was Vincent Chase, right? And I was like Turtle E and Johnny Drama combined into one. And Phil Glasser was probably a combination of those two. The three

of us, the parties and the you could do a movie on this. Well, you can make the doc about that then. It was insane. Needless to say that we didn't last very long in that place either. We got kicked out of there. But we were roommates for the very first formative years of us all being in L.A. together.

Phil was an L.A. guy, so he kind of showed us the ropes. He showed us where, you know, he introduced us to a lot of people that became our friends. Phil was our guy on the ground. He was our fixer on the ground. Wow. And, and, you know, Devin's career exploded when he moved to L.A. So you're welcome. But he ended up landing idle hands.

and he ended up, you know, doing a movie called Wild America with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, which basically, if you were a teen beat kid, those are the two cover guys that are, and they're in a movie together, what? So, yeah, Devin's career really shot off. And then he obviously did Eminem Stan video. Right. And he just, like, was on another level than anybody at that point. And anyway, the fact that all three of us have Funko Pops now of characters that we played

was pretty cool to me. My buddy cable guy, Jeff, is the one that pointed it out to me. But, yeah, Devin played Casper when Casper comes to life in the Casper movie. Sure. I was the voice of the Little Green Jop, the Little Sprout in the... Who, by the way, confirmed by Moose Grumpy, apparently was the Green Giant's little friend. Oh, he's little friend. So not a son or a nephew or whatever.

Yeah, I can tell you that when the Green Sprout commercials were airing, I was probably in fifth grade, or grade five, as we say, in Canada. And it was such a big deal, Mike, at school that I was the Green Sprout, that I remember even doing it. Like, they had me do the voice on like the morning announcements at school. Like, it was such a big deal at the school that I was the Green Sprout. It's so funny. Because, like, by my old school before that, I was Chucky on my iPad Monster. And everyone will call me Chucky and Chucky and Chucky and Chucky.

Right. And so at the new school, it wasn't Chucky. It was like the Sprout. And I still remember the commercial, Mike. one of the commercials anyway, there was a whole campaign of them, but it was like, it was like, hi, I'm the Sprout. I got packed in here by accident and I got to get back to the valley really quickly. Green Giant Snibblitz Corner is picked at the peak of perfection, and it's got to be picked.

It was like, that's kind of like, I can't even believe I remember that. But, yeah, so I was the Sprout, and that was probably 10 or 11 commercials over a four-year period. And then Phil was Fival. So now all three of us have Funko Pops, and that's pretty funny. That's pretty cool. I love that story. I don't think I ever had that detail about the L.A. Like, I know at some point, I guess in that second run,

I guess that's where you'll meet somebody like a Dean McDermott or something like that. Yeah, well, Dean was friends with Louis. That's how I met Dean because Dean was boys with Louis. Now, Louis's a couple years older than me. So I had whoever his friend circle was, I became friends with them. And that's how I met Dean. And that's how I would have met other actors of this guy, Carmine, Giovonazzo, who was on CSI, New York.

but those were Louis boys. Wow. And so I would hang out with those guys. Rob Stewart, who was the lead on a show called Sweating Bullets. I don't know if you remember that show. Moose Grumpy, probably watched it. But, you know, those were Louis's friends. So, you know, I had a chance to really...

It sounds like, it sounds like, you know how they made them... It's not a dock. 24-hour party people. And they recreate the scene that was happening in Manchester. I feel like you could create like a fictionalized version. of this scene in the 1990s in Encino, California. I would say from 97 to 99 was a magical era. That era is hot right now because of the JFK Jr.

Carolyn Beset series Love Story, which my wife is watching, and I'm now sort of watching because I'm interested in the scene and I'm just interested in how they do it. You have to understand from our perspective, like we were teenagers, and Teen Beat Magazine and Tiger Beat and Pop and 16, these were magazines from YM. They don't exist anymore. Right.

This is a culture that is lost. No more Scott Bayo. But you have to understand the final era of that was our era. And I was roommates with the guy that was on the cover of every magazine for four years straight. Right. So we would get invited to like Planet Hollywood for a thing or a water park or we would go to all of these things. I remember the first person that she ever met in L.A., Jessica Alba, I remember seeing her at a party or at a water park thing. and then she didn't know anybody

and we invited her to parties and we took her out and then she kind of met people through us. There's a laundry list of people that met we were their fixer. I'm going to need that list, okay? Stu Stone. I love that story.

Okay. Now, I realize I do want to do a little cam segment before we say goodbye. Yes. And it's too easy to talk to you. You need to come over more frequently. Yeah, last thing, I just want to put a button on. Yeah, put a button on this.

Because this will keep people interested for next time. Right. But the way that I was felt like that I was in the last great era for like the teen stuff with the magazine era from 99. Then when I hooked up with Jamie Kennedy and we did our blowing up show, we're talking about this is 2004. I met Jamie in 99 also. We did a cartoon show together. But from 2003 to 2006 or seven or eight, we'll say, my run with Jamie, that's another last era of Hollywood.

So that's before social media. that's before TMZ and celebrities would actually go out now you go to LA nobody it's like influencers are celebrities that go out like you some guy with like a TikTok is the celebrity there but back when we went it would be like you know

this is the Paris Hilton Lindsay Lohan era of going out and you know I would go to a club and you would be like Evander Holyfield's to the left Jay Z's to the right Justin Timberlakes over there that's how it was and I would say it's probably the last golden era of Hollywood social life

was that era and it's over now. It's been completely decimated by the fact that everybody has a camera. Hi, I'm this friend. I got packed in here by accident and I've got to get back to the valley really quickly. Green Giant's nibble its corn has reached the peak of perfection and it's got to be picked. Did I tell you? It's fresh. Like corn in the cob without.

I'll take you back. Where did you find that? Goodbye. That's so funny. Canada Kev on the live stream. I heard you reference it and sent linked me to this YouTube video. It's crazy. I can't remember what I did last week, but I remember my lines from heavenly bodies.

I remember my lines from the green giant. That's 1989, by the way, that ad that we just watched there. That's unbelievable. Okay, that's remarkable. So one last, I need to fill in some cracks. I feel like when I make the documentary about Stu Stone, I have some cracks. One crack I have because I follow you on social media, there's a lot of references to an anniversary for something called TSM Radio.

Yes. And I feel like this part of your life. He's a blind spot. That's a blind. I feel like this is like, you seem to be a big wheel at the Cracker Factory when it comes to TSM radio. And I don't think that in this world have ever collided in any way. No, they haven't. And I'm surprised

Are you cheating on me is what I want to know. No, no, no. This was, okay, so 20 years ago. Predates me. 20 years ago, I started a podcast. And it was probably... Is that 06? It's December 05.

So you're ahead of me. I do my first podcast for Humble and Fred in December 06. Okay, so there you go. I mean, so you're a pioneer as well. Well, you're in first. But we were doing weekly shows in, Nobody knew what the hell was, you know, that's a whole other topic, a whole other conversation. That is. It comes to track changes.

But I will, but I will say this. When I, when our MTV show blowing up ended, I had seen, I had a relationship with some folks over at iTunes because we were doing weekly releases of our music on iTunes. So we, the episode would come out. Jamie and I do a Bob Sagitt song on the show and then you can go on iTunes and download the episode and watch. So I had a rapport. And I remember going with a word. Robin Bechtel, who's the woman that signed us at Warner Brothers, we were in Vegas for some reason or another with the iTunes folks.

She related to the Bechtel test? I don't think so. Okay. And the iTunes people were telling us about a new thing that they were trying called podcasts. And I was like, what's that? And they're like, well, it's just user-generated content. We're not sure even what it is. But we know that, like, there's an appetite for people to do user-generated stuff,

like this new thing YouTube was happening at the time. iTunes was trying to get into that world where they could have user-generated content and monetize it, right? Right. So I was like, shit, I'm in. I literally, Mike, for three, four years. And again, we should talk about this another time because it's fascinating. I think you'll be fascinated by it. And I like that we're going to touch on it now because it will tie in nicely with track change.

We're just going to touch on it. But I stopped. I didn't have an agent anymore. I stopped going on auditions or trying to worry about being in other people's things. and I went all in on podcasting and eventually live streaming. And for four, five, six, seven years, we were the show. TSM Radio was a show. We had, there wasn't, it was like when I was a child actors, there was only 10 child actors.

There was only 10 podcasts at the time. There was probably five people doing live streaming at the time. Now, obviously, the world has lapped me. And I wasn't a part of the monetization period as, as, as, you know, That exists now. But listen, we crawled so that other people could, like, run and burp. But we'll talk about it in another time. Yeah, like, I just wanted to get some context.

So I did an anniversary special. A 20th anniversary show. Like your return? Did this show continue without you or is a hiatus? No, it stopped. Okay. It stopped at some point. Gotcha.

But. So you recorded a 20th anniversary special. I was in L.A. over the holidays and got together with Cable Guy, Jeff, who was the guy who was my partner in crime here. And that fills in a crack there. this name you keep dropping. Yeah, Cable Guy Jeff was the guy that figured out how to get the show on iTunes. He was the guy that figured out how to live stream beyond. So he was like I was to Humble and Fred.

100%. You were Humble and Fred's Cable Guy, Jeff. Yes, I was. And Cable Guy Jeff, so there was a website, and now we're getting into too much of it now, but there was a website called stick cam.com. I remember this website. Okay, so stick cam was a place where it was really being used for teenagers trying to get girls to flash them.

Literally, that's what it was. But I saw this platform as a way to do something else. And so cable guy, Jeff figured out, like, see, you're looking at me on a webcam

right now, he figured out this part, which didn't exist yet, you're bored, and we had things at Radio Shack and hooked this into that into a camera. And now we could play clips.

We could play pre-recorded things. We could take phone calls. We turned it into a live stream show. And it ended up getting, you know, we had three million viewers at one point. Wow. That's like,

that's like an episode of FOT TM cast. Right. And the stick cam website ended up going under. And I sort of, you know, then I got into wrestling and then I started with 5-7 films.

So it was easy. I just keep evolve, you know. But where in this scenario do you come back home? I come back home in 2015 for the first time to visit because my sister had a baby with Adam. Okay. And we went to go visit.

But when does 5-7 comes out of you returning home, right? Yes, 5-7 films comes out of Adam and I getting a deal with Breakthrough Entertainment to make a horror movie, which ended up being Kirby Road. and we started a company. Joe Louis loves that movie.

Okay. Yeah, so Kirby Road happens, and Adam and I are like, well, we got to start a company for making a movie. Right. So that's, we started five, seven films out of necessity

because we just got a deal to do this horror movie. Does that make sense? No, it makes complete sense. When do you enter my world? Like, I know how you enter my world, but do you have any recollection? I know I could figure this out of my own website,

but we're talking, it's definitely, like, are we talking like 2018 maybe? Yeah, I think, well, it came from Cam coming on your show and Cam mentioned that he went to school with my pet monster and then you went off on it. This is exactly how it happened.

You exactly right. So Cam had been trying to get on the show for a long time and I was completely ignoring him. And at some point... Which is ironic is he had a thing called Completely ignored. Exactly. And he was director of communications at Twitter, Canada.

And that title actually made me more interested than anything. And I'm like, I'd like want to talk to the person with that title, but he also made it very clear. He listened and he got it. Like, that's a big, to me if you get the show. Do you remember Sesso Fielder? Okay.

So he comes on, we have a great chat, and then he starts talking about this high school friend. I just want to say, Mike, I understand right now you're playing chess, not checkers. This is a brilliant segue. But Adam Rondis is calling me right now. Should I answer the phone?

Yes, of course. Hey, Adam, you're on live right now on the Toronto Mike show. I'm answering the phone mid-interview here. Hello. Oh, shit, thank you. Is this a wrong number? No, no, this is the right number.

This is the right number. We're just talking about, we were just literally talking about the formation of 5-7 films, which happened out of necessity when we got the deal to do Kirby Road. Yeah, it was the flying V formation is the tactic we used. Yes. Mighty Ducks reference. It worked out.

It worked to get us, you know, as I do like to say, on the map. You know what I will say? Since Adam's calling right now, It's a perfect time to do this. You want Adam in the basement. You want him here. Now, do you want him here by himself, or should we come together? You want us to come together?

Adam, do you want to come on Toronto Mike with me? We'll book it. We'll put it in the books. And you'll come and tell your story? It's funny because every single time I bump into Toronto Mike himself, we have this conversation. I've yet been to be officially invited to the studio. Okay, well, I'm going to say it now yet.

Let's make it happen. All right. Well, then consider it done. I will find a date and we will come back and it will break the internet. Because, you know, they can't ignore that on the quarterly reviews. If Rodness is here, watch out FOTM. I'll call you back, Adam. All right, hanging up now.

I'll call you back. Like when Gilbert Godfrey called, he called my radio voice. Yeah, he called Bubba Bowie. He's real voice. So, yeah, I'm obviously segueing over to something. playing chess here. Like, you asked me a loaded question that you knew the answer to because you wanted me to say, Cam Gordon, and like, you're very good at what you do, Mike, but I, too, know how to play chess,

so I'm just calling what, calling it like I see it. Brilliant segue. Continue. Well, where was I? Okay, so Cam is hyping up this high school buddy and he's dropping these credits on me, and it's literally blowing my mind. And I say something to the effect of bring me that freak of nature you're just, describing. Bring me Stu Stone. You come over. Remember, Hebsy just did Hebsy on sport. You and Hebsy cross-passed. I couldn't believe it. There was a moment where I saw you meeting Hebsy. We're talking about sports line. Love Hebsy. You know, you're talking about sluggers. It's everything kind of came together. It's probably 2018, if I remember correctly. And then the rest is history with you two. Pandemic Fridays. And then, of course, toast. And it's amazing to me that Cam is on later today. But Cam Gordon has written a book. Yes. It's called track changes. Yes.

I'm going to pitch something to you and tell me if it's possible. There's a Chapter 11, and that's not your financial status. No. But in this book, which I have read, and I will talk with Cam in one detail. My Peter Gross is if he continues with his lawyer. Chapter 11 opens with these words, A backyard in South Atobico was one of my only destinations during the worst stretches of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is the opening, that's the lead, that's the opening line of Chapter 11. I don't know if you're prepared to do this. If I just shouted out some sponsors right now, could you close this episode of Toronto mic with a message to Cam and then perhaps could you, in your best performance voice, could you read the opening few paragraphs of Chapter 11? Sure, you're going to have to send it to me so I can have it on my screen here. Okay, so can I send it to your Gmail address?

Do you have my Gmail address? I don't even know if I use that. Oh, okay, no, sorry. I don't know why I said that because you're Stu Stone. I will send it to your 5-7 films address. Do that. And I'm doing it right now. Yeah, I can do that.

And I'm just going to put in here. You know, I have done audiobooks before him. You know, I've read audiobooks professionally before, Mike. So if Cam is listening to this and he wants me to do the audio book for him, like read his book for him so that people will listen to the audio book. Yeah. You get where I'm saying this. I know.

I see what you're saying. I can actually use this as a demo sort of sample. an audition of sorts that Cam could hear me do a reading of some of what you're about to send me and then he can make a decision whether he wants me to read his entire book as an audio book you could probably pay me a little less than the Netanyahu doc to do that but I'm down and I am I'm the voice of the Steveo documentary is that right or his book that's that's wild okay it's fun fact can you thank some sponsors of Toronto Mike, if you don't mind, while I piece this together really quickly here.

Should I just base it on what I'm seeing on the wall here? Well, you must know them by now. You're having the intro, but yes, yes, not. Yes. And then I'll fill in the cracks. Okay. So, you know, Toronto Mike could not happen without the support of our great sponsors and supporters, which include the Great Lakes Brewery,

including Octopus Wants to Fight, a delicious IPA if you're into that sort of thing. They have something for every palette. If you're a beer lover, you should be going to the Great Lakes Brewery and checking out their vast selection of various flavorings and offerings. Great Lakes Brewery, what a delicious, delicious sponsor. Let's not leave out the Fusion Corp. Nick Aeney's. He's got a podcast called Building Toronto Skyline.

Building Toronto Skyline. And, of course, the Fusion Corp does sound like something from Terminator 2 or something like that. but I assure you that the Fusion Corp is not. They are a positive entity. Well, Nick has a special message. He wants to let the listenership know that he's hosting a fundraiser for Brad Bradford. Oh, good. Who would like to be the next mayor of Toronto.

What do you think about that? And this is, well, Brad and I are going to talk about it on Toronto, Mike. But does he have your support? Brad and I will discuss that on Toronto, Mike. Are you an Olivia Chow fan? I'll, you know, I'm not here to. Oh, but you put me on the spot. But I'm not allowed to ask you.

I need to finish this date. I need to tell people it's April 2nd. And Fusion Corp is happy to sell tickets for you to come to this fundraiser for Brad Bradford. Good for you. I'm actually going to be there. Oh, good. Does that answer your question? Are you paying for a ticket?

No, because I'm getting paid to record it. Oh, that's smart. I got hired for the April 2nd Brad Bradford event. Get tickets and Nick wants you to know about that. You can tell people about recycle my electronics.ca. and I'm going to send this email over to you. Hopefully you get it. I did send you a PDF previously,

but I guess you don't have that. I went to my phone. Okay. So. Wait, you have other sponsors, though. Yeah, I want to thank Recyclemyeletronics.com. Let's not leave out Palma's Kitchen, home of the famous palma pasta and lasagna

that every guest of the Toronto Mike show for the last hundred years has been enjoying, myself included, available in vegetarian option. If that's your slice of pie, I will say that Mike Wilner, loves palma pasta and when I went to one of the live Toronto Mike events, oh,

I do recall at Palma's Kitchen. Wilner going up for seconds, possibly thirds. So if it's good enough for Mike Wilner, who hates everything, then it's good enough for me. Palma's Kitchen, don't forget to visit them in Mississauga, I believe. Yeah, they're in Mississauga. Fantastic, Stu. And let's not leave out the fact that Ridley Funeral Home,

a pillar of the community since 1900. In 21? If you or a loved one is dying, you're going to want to link up at the fine folks over at Ridley Funeral Home. He also has a podcast, not to be confused with like, Not that rabbi. What is their podcast? Not that kind of rabbi is the Ralph Benmergy podcast.

We just dropped a new episode this week. What's the funeral one? Life's undertaking. We're recording a new episode literally at 5 o'clock today. I love that. So shout out to them. And it's, you know, I would like to say that I'm one of the guys. Guys that really made shout out to Ridley Funeral Home a sticky thing around here.

And I'm happy that it has become sort of a catchphrase. We still haven't found out if Guy Smiley has a catchphrase. But Mike, Toronto Mike has a catchphrase. And that is shout out Ridley Funeral Home. Sadly, that is a catchphrase because, you know, unfortunately death is a part of life. How did I do with the ad reads? No, loved it, buddy. So did you get an email from me?

I did. Okay, so I know there's some white space between these two images. But that is the two images that I was hoping you could read. Okay. And I'm going to just be quiet and listen. You're going to read this opening of Chapter 11 in this new book, track changes. Give me a moment here to like pull it up.

So maybe just like talk amongst yourselves while I figured this out. Well, I didn't finish my thought that if you had old cables, old electronics, old devices, you would not want to throw them out in the garbage because those chemicals would end up in our landfill. I would highly recommend, and the whole TMD, family highly recommends Recycle myelectronics.ca. That's where you go, put in your postal code, and find out where you can drop

that all off to be properly recycled. There you go. And I guess track changes is also an unofficial sponsor. To be discussed tonight. An eloquent reading. And if Cam is listening to this, consider this an audition for the audiobook. Definitely proud of you for writing this book.

And I'm interested to read. This is a cold read, we call this in the business. A cold read by a warm friend. A backyard in South Atobico was one of my only destinations during the worst stretches of the COVID-19 pandemic. The backyard belongs to Mike Boone, known to thousands as Toronto Mike. For over two decades, Boone has been a relentless force online for years, producing podcasts, blog posts, and digital content. His energy is bound to. His work ethic unhinged.

I've always admired his sense of curiosity. Fastidiousness and fun. I think it's fastidiousness. What did I say? Fastidiousness. Fastidiousness. What is that? That's a word only Cam would know.

It is hyphenated, so it's tough to read it cold. Fastidiness. Fastidiousness and fun. Now I know why you wanted me to read this. Did you just blow the audition? That's what I want to know. No, I didn't because we would do a second. take. I would get a second crack at that line.

In March 2020, as the world was being told to shelter in place, Boone invited me and my high school pal Stu Stone to join him for a weekly music podcast called Pandemic Fridays. The podcast, a sub-series within his Toronto mic'd podcast, became a much-needed outlet for connection and creativity during an otherwise brutal time for us humans. Stone has been a close friend since our first day of grade nine. That's true. Depending on the day, he's an actor, director, voiceover artist, musician, pro wrestling manager, and or entrepreneur. He's probably best known for playing Jake Gyllenhaal's best friend in Donnie Darko,

although his IMD page lists dozens of other roles. That's a second page, so that's not a bad reading there. We couldn't be more different personality-wise, which is probably why we've always clicked on mic and off. Each episode of Pandemic Fridays focused on a music theme, for example, non-Canadian songs covered by Canadian artists, which each co-hosts sharing a handful of tracks that fit the description. Early episodes were recorded on Zoom

in keeping with the social distancing guidelines at the time. By late spring, we slowly shifted to recording in person, using Mike's backyard deck as a makeshift studio. I miss those days. Me too. Episodes were filled with laughs, life updates, and loads of fun facts. The goal might have been Siskel and Ebert, but the vibe usually landed somewhere closer to Beavis and Butthead.

The actual pandemic outlasted Pandemic Fridays as we decided to wrap the podcast after 76 weeks. That's crazy. That's a long run. I know. I know. Our final episode dropped in August of 2021, which feels like yesterday. Recorded live in front of friends and fans

on the patio of Great Lakes Brewery, a longtime sponsor and supporter of Mike's podcast. This is a very well-written little piece there that Cam put together. Obviously, I added some of my own flavor in certain spots, but Cam is a very, it seems like he's got a real knack for this writing thing. Well, that chapter 11 really spoke to me.

The whole book is great, and I'm going to talk about it in more detail later tonight. But any words for your friend, Cam Gordon, as he launches his very first book? I'm surprised that this is his first book because Cam has always been a person that has been a very creative guy and rather shy about his creativity growing up. And I'm happy to say that with the help of this very platform that he references in chapter 11, and, you know, myself and you, I feel like Cam came out of his shell in almost. his late 30s, early 40s were transformative years for him that maybe would have happened for others earlier in life, but I think it happened for him.

Now, this is a guy that was the head of communications for major companies, and I'm saying this about him, he was a shy guy. And so the fact that when I encountered Cam as an adult and found out that he was head of communications, you can imagine I was a little bit like, wow, that's Cam doing that? That's crazy. But it's not crazy because he's always had it in him. It just took a guy like Mike Boone and a guy like Stu Stone to help him feel comfortable enough to bring it out.

And I'm so happy that he's not only become one of the best podcast co-hosts. You know, he's obviously kept up doing appearances here on this show. He's a Hall of Famer. He's hilarious. But his writing, he's always been a great writer. And the fact, he's always written cool blogs and made really cool posts and observations, very detail-oriented guy, even back when we were in high school,

like when we would do fantasy baseball stuff, he was overly prepared for those drafts as far as, like, looking under the hood of, like, what each player brings to the table. So it doesn't surprise me that Cam wrote a book. It surprises me that it took this long

for Cam to write a book, and I'm excited for him to have success with this book and future success with future books. So Cam, Gordon, the author, congratulations to him, and he should be very proud of the accomplishment. And I wish him continued success in everything that he does. And it's about damn time that he wrote a book.

So congrats, Cam, and I love you. How's that? Should I have recorded that? No. I'm going to play that tonight for Cam Gordon. Oh, good. Well done, and good job of the reading. That fastidiousness word is tough.

What does that even mean? Detail-oriented? Would you say that that's you? Yeah. Okay, good. How did you butcher my favorite line, which was the, that was the line that praises Toronto, Mike. Let me see if I can do it. Maybe I'm playing chess with you.

It's like, that's the wrong line. Okay, so this is the line that really touched me here. Show me where, show us on the doll where it touched you, Mike. For over two decades, Boone has been a relentless force online for years. I actually don't like how he wrote that. For over two decades and then he said for years. Yeah. Like, that's redundant.

So I would have written it like this. He needed me to edit this. For over two decades, Boone has been a relentless force online, producing podcasts, blog posts, and digital content. His energy is boundless.

His work ethic unhinged. What does that mean? I've always admired his sense of curiosity, fastidiousness, and fun. So, Cam, we'll talk later. I'm not going to waste my fire here. But Stu, I feel like I have another 90 minutes of stuff

already loaded up my cranium. We'll do it again. We'll do it again. But we are going to do that episode with you and Adam. This is an official. And it's funny, I do bump into Adam a lot. And every time we, I don't know, there's some joke about how he should come on,

but I never actually extend the invitation. It has officially been extended. Adam, Rodness, and Stu Stone in the basement. Together. Like, Gino Vanelli, his brother. That's Ross. Russ. Ross. Ross Vanelli?

Ross Vanelli. Ross Vanelli. I think it's Ross. But yes, that's a great. I'll bring a guitar. I'll bring a guitar. And every time I ask you an uncomfortable question. I'll be like, can we get off of Kirby Road?

Stu, thanks for doing this, buddy. Thank you, Mike. I love doing this and I love you. And obviously, I love all the FOSS is out there. There's only one. Well, there's several. Cambrio? Well, there's more than him.

And all the FOTMs, proud to be a Hall of Famer. Congrats to Rob and Bob for being inducted into the Hall of Fame as well. very well deserved honor for those two. So congrats to those guys. You just reminded me saying, Rob, I know I'm interrupting you, but to tell you that, because I'm almost done my theme, to tell you that I didn't even ask you or talk to you about the fact I'm headlining at the Elma combo on May 21st.

Yeah. Like, I got to get you back before then. You'll get me back before then, and who even knows, maybe people who show up. You'll jump on stage. Yeah, yeah. So people can get a ticket now. This is important.

I need to get this through. Go to Torontomike.com. I have a link at the top that says Elmo gig. that'll take you to where you can buy tickets. I really hope I'm not with Rob Pruse on that stage talking to an empty room. You're not going to be because I'm sure the FOTMs, they show up. They will. Some are complaining that's ticketed.

Well, that's because you've been giving them free shit for all these years. My fault. You're right. It's on you. You're right. It's like how you asked me to pay for the lasagna today. You've been giving it to me for free for all these years. And that. And that.

And that. brings us to the end of our 1,863rd show. Go to Toronto Mike.com. Make sure you tell those toast guys that I congratulated them. I will. Well, Rob's going to hear it. It's Bob who listens sporadically, but Rob listens every episode. He's going to hear it.

Much love to all who made this possible. I'm still shocked. You didn't appear on DeGrassey. I'm shocked. I told you I couldn't. Oh, yeah. It was non-gien. Well, shout out to Great Lakes Brewery,

Palma Pasta, Nick Iini's, Recycle My Electronics, and of course, Ridley Funeral Home. See you all. Okay, so I'm recording tonight with Cam Gordon. We'll be live streaming, live.tronomite.com, 645 p.m. I don't know if I'll drop it tonight.

I might drop it tomorrow, which is Thursday, March 12th. Either way, Cam Gordon's next. See you all then.