Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Toronto Mike'd #4

Episode Date: September 27, 2012

In this emotional episode, Toronto Mike reveals all... you don't want to miss it.

What up, Mike? Toronto! VK on the beat, uh-huh, check, uh-huh I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm in Toronto, Mike, we wanna get the city love My city love me back for my city love I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love

I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm in Toronto, Mike, we wanna get the city love From Toronto we wanna get the city love I'm a Toronto Mike Get the city love My city love me back For my city love Toronto Mike I'm feeling on the road Hey Rosie

Hey Mike We're back, it's episode 4 Hi everybody Thanks for hanging out with us Mike Wixson's here Hello So Mike, in episode three, you tantalized us with some news that you promised. Bugging us, Mike. Mike's going to share something very personal

with us. This is probably going to be the highest rated Toronto Mike podcast because there's been buzz. I've been seeing the buzz on the internet. People are talking. What's Mike going to reveal? What is the big reveal in episode four? What is the big reveal in episode four? Well, before I get to that.

Oh, yes. I forgot a shout out I promised in episode three. So I'm just going to get this out of the way real quick. It's coming. It's coming. I'm dying. So I've been playing on a slow pitch team for 10 years. We used to be called.

We originally were called Hooray for Everything. Then we changed our name to Raging Storm. And for the past few years, we've been Storm. And our season wound up What was the first name? Hooray for Everything Glad you changed that name I like that and that's a Simpsons reference if anybody

missed it but this is a shout out to loyal listener and teammate Colleen and her closet fan husband Mike Engel and mike's one of those guys he will tell you he doesn't care about that he doesn't listen he doesn't read but he knows everything in real time like and he's like he knows what you've talked about he's he's like a closet fan so

yeah so this is for colleen and mic a couple of my Storm teammates. Yeah, calling a mic. What's your news? So. Okay. Calling a mic for God's sake. Baseball, whatever. All right.

I'm glad I'm doing this in the comfort with you good friends here because this is... I'm sorry. It's awkward. Are you censoring me, Mr. Rick? All right, so this is a little heartfelt moment if I may have some serious tones here.

Okay. Let's see if I can give something serious. I'll look. That's the only one we have. Sorry. Rosie, take that toy away from him. He's abusing it. He's really good with it.

No, he's not. So, okay. I'll just do it like a band pink no i might say natural he's turning a little pink my natural hue so i uh used to write more often about my personal life or whatnot so if if you're a reader of Toronto, Mike, last update you had is probably something to the effect of happily married father of two living in his, you know, nice West Toronto three bedroom house. West Toronto. West Toronto, yo.

So a couple of years ago, On good amicable terms My now ex-wife And I Decided to part ways On that front So I We were separated Mike hit the train

Yeah so Mike Mike left the family home I just have to say That whistle I have a Thomas the Tank Engine whistle It's the same one. It's the same one.

That's awesome. This one's from Steam Whistle. Don't feed it to your kids. Sorry, Mike. Sorry, we are really not being serious. Guys, I'm crying over here. I'm in tears over here. God.

Whistling. Worst crowd ever for a personal news. Disrespectful. Well, it's good that it was amicable. That's always great when there's kids involved. So, good. There are two kids involved who I love very much and I'm closer with than ever. And they are doing super fantastic.

You have the most gorgeous children. We do. I love when you put pics of them on your site because they're just so cute. Yeah, you're probably thinking of Facebook. I do more of that on Facebook now, which most of you won't see. Well, the ones from when you recently went camping oh yeah yeah that's true one of them running and it just it's i feel like just yesterday you sent the email saying you you just had james and now he's like this big james is uh gonna be

11 soon he's almost 11 he's a very he's a he's a wonderful boy a wonderful man and then uh michelle's eight and a half oh not no she's eight and a bit and she's great as well and so the kids are great my ex and i are good friends like we chat all the time we're we get along fantastically like they're all in the family home that i still pay for and support and make sure everything's cool there i just have moved out into my own apartment so this sounds like it's news to you but i guy it happened a while ago so lots has happened since i moved out into my own apartment. So this sounds like it's news to you, but it happened a while ago. So lots has happened since I moved out. But the apartment's still in West End, right? I'm still in West Toronto.

I'm still in the 416. I consider it like a temporary stopping. At some point, I have to get something more permanent. But of course, then I started dating and I met a wonderful woman. She's wonderful. Yeah, she's talented and wonderful and I fell in love. Her name's Rosie.

Her name is Rosie. No. Oh my gosh. Did you know Rosie? Now Scott's going to be upset. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Finally, Mike noticed me. It's not Rosie.

Her name is Monica. And she went to Europe with me recently. And we got engaged in Paris at the top of the Eiffel Tower. You're engaged! So that's going to shock. Congratulations. Thank you. It's very exciting.

I just think if somebody came at that cold, that'll be a bit of a brain twister. He's got two wives? How do you have two wives? But I'm actually divorced. I'm not separated. I'm divorced. And like I said, things are... I have a great ex.

I hope so. Yeah. Something kind of gross about getting engaged if you're not divorced. Yeah, I don't think you do that. It's weird. It's not so done yet. It's not done.

Yeah. So things are great with my ex and things are wonderful with my kids and my kids love Monica and she's great with them and things are good

for Mike. So Toronto Mike is happy. Yay! Thank you. I love love. I'm like, I'm actually like Rosie's crying.

Mission accomplished. Aw, Rosie. I'm really happy for you. Congratulations. That's so nice. And congratulations to Monica'm really happy for you congratulations that's so nice and congratulations to Monica yeah thank you she's excited

so we're planning right now the wedding because it's going to be something cool and it's going to be in Toronto we're looking for like some venues and stuff and we're seeing an art gallery

in Parkdale like tomorrow to check out that space at Queen and Dufferin you think your hipsters will invite us to your wedding yeah hey anything's possible.

Will Humble Howard be the emcee? No. Will I be the best man? You will probably be the best man. Yeah! I went to your first wedding. Maybe I shouldn't come to your second wedding.

Oh, yeah, you're bad as fuck. Actually, Rosie will be the only person at the second wedding other than myself who was at the first wedding. I was at the first wedding. That's a true,

interesting little fact. I have to say, your first wedding, it was City Hall and it was one of the loveliest weddings I've ever been to. I'm telling you, I like to do things low-key. You think I do things big, I like to do low-key and cool. It was lovely. I see you as a low-key guy, actually. Thank you.

And so is Monica. She's very low-key. So this will be a cool little thing and it's going to happen probably in June or something. Awesome. Congratulations. That's nice, Mike. Congratulations. Now everybody who reads TorontoMike.com is up to date.

The good news is I think 5% of the readers will listen to this podcast. Well, that's ridiculous in itself. If you listen to the podcast, please be sure to tell your friends. Get them to download it and recommend it themselves. Speaking of things we forgot to do in episode three, I should tell everybody how they could contact us real quick. So I'm at torontomike.com. That's my blog for celebrating its 10-year anniversary next month.

Oh, my gosh. I know. Time flies. Thank you. And also on Twitter, at Toronto Mike. Thank you. And also on Twitter, at Toronto Mike. And Rosie has a wonderful blog website called MyTorontoScoop.com.

Yes, you can find me there. And I'm also on Twitter, Rosie in Toronto. Rosie in Toronto. By the way, if you start typing MyTorontoScoop.com, MyTorontoScoop.com comes up instantaneously on Google. It does? Yeah. That's awesome. It's? Yeah. That's awesome. It's the biggest thing since Groupon.

Well, after, I remember when I started it, I told you guys about this before, but I don't know anything about starting websites. So I went to GoDaddy, which I loathe because I hate their sexist commercials. Like I really, but unfortunately. It's a horrible place. It's awful.

I didn't want to, but they really do make it easy. If you know nothing about www.html and all that, they make it easy. About what? Forward slash, backslash, all that. They made it easy, so I actually started the website. But Mike, such a good friend. God love him. Fucking amazing.

I would always be asking him mike how do i fix this how do i do this because over the years mike has always provided my technical it support for whatever endeavor i'm doing and i think at some point i think i just tested you to the you were like we need to we need to start i needed to blow it up and start again and get off this yeah go itabby nonsense. It was terrible. And I'm so happy you did because it's just so much better now. Well, it's a great site. Thank you. Half the digital properties in Toronto I've given birth to at this point.

So I'm very proud. You know what? People don't give you enough credit. You take it yourself. They don't. That's right. You should take it. I'll tell you a funny story.

One time I didn't include the title for a turd pants episode. And so Mike, he took the liberty of titling it himself. you a funny story one time i didn't include the title for a turd pants episode and so mike he took the liberty of titling it himself and it said uh in this episode fluffy and mike talk about how great toronto mike is that's possibly true i don't remember and today we actually did that hey i'm on your site right now can i ask you a question this tokyo sushi on the queensway which is near us is it good om? OMG. It is so good. Don't say OMG. Not on this podcast.

Continue, please. Okay. Can we get them to deliver some sushi to us so we can review it on the show? They don't deliver yet. Can we pick it up and we'll review it on the show? You can pick it up. Yes. Okay.

So let's get in touch with them. Yeah. They're really good. I was actually genuinely excited because there's not a lot of good, like real good sushi and this is very close to my house. Is it close to us right here? Royal York. Yes, it is. Not too close.

Less than like an eight minute drive. It's right at Royal York and the Queensway. We would love it if you would invite us and we could review how delicious your stuff is and we'll eat for free. Thank you. Contact all the restaurants. I feel part of my site, in addition to finding you good deals.

Do the vendors contact you yet to give you free stuff to review? It's just starting. It happens to be six times a day. Well, you told me that. And now it's just starting. I have to ignore five out of six. Five out of six reviews? You know what they do?

Usually they Google Toronto Blog. And I'm top three. And I'll get an email five out of six. Five out of six reviews? You know what they do? They Google, usually they Google Toronto blog. Okay. And I'm top three and I'll get an email for the PR rep. This happens several, not even doing the exaggerating thing where it's like once a week and you say it several times a day. Every day, several times, I'll get a PR rep who says, can I send you this? Can I send you that? I get invitations.

I just got two invitations today to like, they're opening restaurant here, and there's some grand opening of this there. I'm telling you, it's crazy. I can't do it all. Can I start to do a food review for your site, for Toronto Mic? People could just send me a little bit of food. I'll try it. I'll make a little report for you. Sure.

I love free food. You love food. Yeah. That's how I got to be this size. Big, big man. He's slight. He's not big. He's a tiny, tiny man. The invitations are kind of fun,

especially because I'm home all the time because of my little guy, so things that get me out and that's, yeah, that was... Well, I have a Samsung Galaxy coming because, you know what, I can't even remember what I'm supposed to... There's some app on it.

They're sending me the phone so I can review the app. And I honestly just said yes to it today because it's from a PR rep who put me on court side for a Raptor game once and I never forgot it. I see how it works. Is it going to take me 10 years

before I start getting stuff like that? Courtney, her name is. But yeah, I mean, like Dell sent me a laptop, like an XPS. Just here's an XPS. Like things like that. And that's the stuff I say yes to. I say no to like 90% of the stuff right now. Like what would you say no to?

I said no to like three today. Just, I don't feel like being, I don't want the blog to become like a shill site. Yeah, because there is something. I hate sites like that. That's the thing. When you see sites like that. Every second entry is like an ad. Are we allowed to do this?

It's a fine line. You could do that. No one can see it. But it's a fine line. It's a fine line between recommending something legitimately, like The Wire, which has never sent me a penny. Of course. And pushing something because you got a free whatever.

You get a hard time from some of your fans when you talk about the free stuff you get. Ford. okay. So Ford. I love the PR marketing people at Ford Canada. I really sincerely dig those people. And they happen to be very nice to me. Like send me to Leaf Games and put me in a car for a week

and I dig them. But every time I do anything with them, I got to hear about it like I'm a sellout or whatever. I don't have to worry about that. Free food, I'll make sure that your review ends up somewhere in Toronto Mike someplace. So don't hesitate to send it to me. I would love a Galaxy phone too.

Anything you want, Rosie? Oh, I like food. I like clothes. Rosie wants peace and love. Yeah. No, I actually got rid of a lot of stuff recently. Big closet clear out. Oh, minimize.

Yeah. Simplify, simplify. Henry David Thoreau. Well, when you have a toddler, your house just becomes filled with plastic crap. It's just, there's just stuff. Melt it all. It feels like it just happens. I had this really nice minimal thing going and then now everywhere I turn, and things

make noise without, I thought they were turned off. In the middle of the night yeah oh my god it's creepy it's so creepy and it's there's just so there's just it's there's there is there is a bear it randomly says i love you and i feel it's a bit familiar it's like i don't really know you that well bear it's like i like i don't and i don't love you I love my child I don't love the bear but it's there's just stuff everywhere and I had to clear out a lot it's so yeah yeah I remember

when the kids were younger I remember those days we just moved and so cleaning up was ludicrous all right and I've got teenagers and still it was a full dumpster full of stuff before we actually packed and you think how did I afford this shit yeah it's it's crazy it's just most of it was a full dumpster full of stuff before we actually packed. And you think, how did I afford this shit? Yeah, it's crazy. Most of it was sent to me through Toronto Mike's website.

Yeah. I have notes, okay? So I do a quick little note before every episode. I've had one note on my paper since episode one. So I had it down for episode one. It got carried over to episode two. I somehow missed it on episode three and it's still staring at me. So if you don't mind, can I introduce the topic I wanted to talk about in episode one?

Go for it. Thank you. This is the topic is quite simply. I wrote down movies that make me cry. Such a good topic. Because when I watch, I recently watched Field of Dreams with my kids. Oh my God, I love that movie. And there's that, I can't even describe the scene.

I'll cry and I don't feel like crying on this podcast. This is not the, this is the emotional podcast. This is. I'm like still emotional about your personal stuff. Yeah, my declaration there. podcast. This is. I'm like still emotional about your personal stuff. Yeah, my declaration there. But the scene, obviously I'm talking about

the scene where he plays catch with his dad and I, my son, my almost 11 year old son, I put the shirt over my face because I started crying. I couldn't stop myself from crying. But I've seen this movie I would guess now 30 times

and every time, i know that scene i know it's coming i know what's happening i still cry your your eyes are actually my eyes maybe one of you two could pick this up but maybe it's like uh a whole other episode of my father issues because i don't actually know my dad and i watch this scene and this guy's like playing catch with his dad and i play catch with my son and I love it but I can't go play catch with my dad. It's just, it gets me. There's something too about baseball in movies. It's just so, it invokes such.

It's timeless and it's romantic. A lot of directors are really good at making it seem like a glorious game, aren't they? It really does and it seems to, you know, it just makes you just feel emotional like I feel like hockey doesn't invoke that. There's no clock you know why? There's no clock. Those sports our name is sport without a clock.

There's something when you remove the clock it could be it could take forever. A game could theoretically last forever. Something about the timeless element of the game makes it like super romantic. Sort of actually reminds me of a kind of emotional thing my dad told me. My parents split up when I was a teenager and my dad moved out. And it was hard, you know, for obviously for everybody.

And it was hard for him because, you know, you go from being with your kids every day. Oh, I know. I know. It's the hardest part. It's to not. And I remember he loves, my dad loves baseball as well. And I remember seeing him and, you know, you do your weekly, you have your routine and you see each other. And he said part of, you know, a few years later, when things got a little easier, he said, you know, part of what really got him through the toughest time was baseball because it was long and just soothing. And he's like just putting it on and listening to it. He was listening to it in the car.

And he had Tom Cheek back then, right? Tom Cheek and Jerry Howard. It was just something that sort of almost just like kind of cradled him a little bit in very long, lonely hours. Oh my God, this is an emotional podcast. So that's my field of dreams. Do you have a movie, Rosie, or you, Mike Wixon, that makes that? Because I have another one I'll introduce in a minute.

But every time you watch it, it just strikes that nerve and you cry. Well, Rosie, you're a girl. You cry at commercials. You know what? I didn't used to be like that. I think ever since, I don't know, getting older and having a little guy, I cry. Getting more sentimental? I do. I do cry a lot. I cry quite a bit more. I have children I cry to.

Yeah, it's... I just... Different reasons. Like insurance commercials make me cry now. It's really quite lame. Okay, the movies that made me cry. They're sort of kind of the cliche ones, but Titanic. I wept.

I wept. A lot of people died. I did. It just made me really... I also think it was emotional because I saw it in the old Westwood Theatre. Do you remember the old Westwood Theatre? Of course. I can't...

But really? Hadn't that closed down already? It was two days before it closed down. That building is still intact because they want to do condos and they can't get clearance or something. I thought it was going to be a courthouse. Whatever it is, they've hit some legal battles. I saw Robin Hood, the cartoon.

Oh my gosh. Two days before it closed. It was two bucks. I think they shut off all the ventilation so the all the emergency doors were open and i actually thought you know this this the air quality in here is not it's not good but i wept and i was like oh i'm not gonna cry so i did i cried i cried i cried i could see that um there's a couple of of and i don't even love animated movies that much but up and the triplets of belleville oh triplets Belleville. Did they make you cry too? No, that movie Up.

Jesus. I know. This is the old guy from Up, okay? You didn't like Up? Really? I'm going to cry right now. See? I know. It's really.

I'm going to get upset. It's a wonderful movie. It's a really wonderful movie. It's not a wonderful movie. It is. It's not a wonderful movie. In the first five minutes of the movie, Mike, we find out that this old man who's been left by himself for a bunch of years

started his life out falling in love with a woman who had a barren womb. Barren womb. And they show you this in the first... By the first ten minutes, I was so depressed. I was thinking, I should go get a prescription for something. You really want to take a pill?

I was like, God. And I came out of the movie and I came home and my kids were laughing at me. They're like, Mom, you've got to talk to Dad. How was the movie? I went, I want to die first. She said, good. That's the plan. That's awesome.

That's my number one. That's a good one. It killed me right away. I just wept through the whole thing. But actually, the movies that made me cry, I can't really watch again. Marley and Me really made me cry. Never saw it. Oh, you would love it.

It's so good. I don't know. But the final scene in Life is Beautiful, I cried and I kept crying as I left the theater and I cried in the car on the way home. That was just the saddest thing I've ever seen. How about the end of Good Will Hunting? That was a

sad little bit. It was sad. I don't know if I actually cried though. Oh, Saving Private Ryan. Oh my gosh. I lost it in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. Oh yeah, that's rough. That was crazy. I liked Good Will Hunting though, but I don't know if I cried. Here's the one that gets me every time.

I love this movie. Again, I've seen it a couple of dozen times. Every time I cry at the same scene, Big Fish, Tim Burton's Big Fish, gets me every time. At the end when the son, he's dying, and they talk about the story, and he sees the people there.

Every time, Big Fish. I will cry at the end of Big Fish every freaking time just before the Ed Vedder song comes on. It gets me every time. How about Old Yeller? Old Yeller. I've never seen Old Yeller. I just found the scene.

Hold on. Old Yeller's got rabies and he's got to be put down. No, Mama. There's no hope for him now, Travis. He's suffering. You know we've got to do it. I know, Mama.

Oh, now Rose is crying. Okay, that's really sad. Just a mama. He was my dog. He was my dog. I'll do it. He was my dog. He was my dog, too. I'll do it. Oh, my God. When I describe this episode, I'm going to describe it as saddest episode ever.

Saddest episode ever. It's very therapeutic. It's good. Cathartic. Cathartic. English major. Or was that me? I can't remember. Mike and I took a lot of English classes together.

U of T and Chaucer. Chaucer. Remember that textbook? It was like $100 or something. I couldn't even carry it. It didn't even fit in my green canvas knapsack. We had Chaucer together, poetry. Oh, I...

The poetry book was... Remember that teacher that hated me and she had that pickle up her ass and that was funny? We had a... We had a lot of... She was anti-humor. Do you remember the anti-humor teacher? She was... She was miserable, that woman.

I wish I could remember her name. And I love poetry. Google bum her. You should. You should do bad things to her on the internet if you could. You should do bad things to our history teacher from high school, too. But we won't talk about that. He's probably dead.

He probably is. You know it's been a while. We're 38, right? So he's probably dead. Are you 38 yet or not yet? Not yet. It's tough to think about that, isn't it? You start thinking about your teachers and stuff.

Just yesterday, you know they're dead for sure. Because he was 60-something, right? My kindergarten teacher's dead. No offense, guys. He could have been in the 30s. They're still dead. We're old. I lost a couple of primary school teachers to cancer.

I think about Mr. Blago, Mr. Iwasco. I think that school had something with asbestos now that I think about it. A lot of those teachers have died young. I'm not kidding. St. Pius X. Rest in peace to all of them. The patron saint of asbestos? Did you go to Catholic school?

Yeah. So did I. That's why I hate God so much. And that'll be episode five oh my god you don't hate god that's a whole other podcast for me to hate you thanks for listening everyone wow Cash Toronto Mike on iTunes. Download it each week, recommend it to a friend, and visit torontomike.com. I want to take a streetcar downtown Read Andrew Miller and wander around

And drink some Guinness from a tin