Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Twitter's Cam Gordon: Toronto Mike'd #350

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

Mike and Twitter Canada's Cam Gordon take a frenetic romp through the fields of Toronto pop culture.

Welcome to episode 350 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know that 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? GLB, brewed for you, Ontario. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. And Paytm, an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from paytm.ca. And Camp Tournesol, the leading French summer camp provider in Ontario. I'm Mike from torontomike.com.

And joining me this week is Twitter's head of communications for Canada, the entire country, Cam Gordon. Welcome, Cam. Thank you for having me, Mike. It's great to be here. You're the head of communications for Twitter Canada. That's an impressive title, I think. Yeah, yeah. It's a great title. And you're right. I do stuff all over the country based here in Toronto, a born and bred GTA person. Oh, so you slipped into the 905 at some point? Yeah, like, you know, if I'm in Calgary or I'm in Vancouver, I'll just say, you know, I'm from Toronto. But I know, you know, here with a fellow local, I have to be a bit more specific.

Well, which 905? Mississauga? No. Brampton? No. Ajax? I actually grew up in York region in Thornhill. Thornhill. Yeah.

Yeah. That's okay. So is that about, what is it? Is it Shepard? What is the border? It's Steeles. So I grew up right near Don Mills and Steeles about like five minutes away. So close yet so far.

It was very tantalizing when I was growing up, going to Thornley Secondary School, being so close to the mecca that is Toronto yet so far. But we had a lot going on up in Toronto, or up in Thornhill, rather, back in the day. And I think we might touch on some of that in this episode. Well, that's what I'm hoping. I think this will be a frenetic, I don't know if I can call it manic, a manic romp through Toronto nostalgia and Toronto pop culture. And, you know, Thornhill, my dentist

is in Thornhill. That's my connection. Who's your dentist? Not my dentist. My dentist is not in Thornhill. I apologize. I need to be correct here. My doctor, my medical doctor is in Thornhill. Oh. Okay. Who's your medical doctor? Dr. Moll, my medical doctor is in Thornhill. Oh, okay. Who's your medical doctor? Dr. Moll, his name is.

Dr. Moll. M-O-L-L. And he's in Thornhill. He's off, yeah, Bathurst. Yeah, he's Thornhill. And so I've been to Thornhill. Okay. Yeah, a lot of quality medical professionals up there.

Some good bagels, some good shopping, some nice green spaces. It's fantastic. My parents still live there, so I still spend a decent amount of time up in New York region. Well, I'm glad you were specific here because I don't like it when people pass themselves off as Toronto and then you find out they're actually Thornhill. That's disingenuous to borrow a Ford term. Sure, of course. Well, I mean, you are a Toronto Mike. So, I mean, if anybody should be straight with you, I mean, yeah, you got to be more specific. I appreciate that.

Now, when you arrived here today, I was watching the last minute, literally the last minute of the World Cup match. It was Japan versus Colombia. And Japan won. And you had questions that told me that you're not following this at all like you're not into the world cup um a little tiny bit i mean i'm sort of aware that italy's not in it i'm sort of more aware of the the omissions and also just because of my job just you know

stuff i see on twitter and you know some of the stuff that twitter's doing around the world cup but yeah like i'm i'm not a soccer like you know what some of the stuff that Twitter's doing around the World Cup. But yeah, like I'm not a soccer or not a football guy. You haven't watched any of these matches. I've seen a little bit, mainly just in our lunch area. I know you've been to our office. We have the big screens in there. So I'll watch a little bit on our lunch break and chat with some of the guys. We have a couple of people in office.

We even have a simulation World Cup trophy. You may have seen I tweeted out a photo with Ivan, who's their head of sales at Twitter Canada. He posed with that. He actually had a soccer ball that said France on it, which is interesting. So that got some good engagement. I think I got about 20 likes on that.

But yeah, we have some soccer fans in the office, but not really me personally. No, but you're missing out because, I mean because I'm not a soccer guy. I never played soccer. Did you play as a kid soccer? A little bit. I never played outside of school. It's obviously the easiest sport to play. You really just need a ball.

Every kid, I felt like every kid in the world grew up playing in a soccer league, like some kind of a rec or what do you call it? House league soccer. But I've never had a... I've yet to play an organized game of soccer in my life like jim sure you're playing jim but i mean like my kids all play like my i have a soccer match tonight with my daughter like this is something kids do like you have a daughter right yes yeah she plays soccer i know she sees uh her sports synchronized swimming. That is so random. Yeah, but it's fun.

And no soccer balls in the pool. But yeah, I don't know. And I know for me, I was always a baseball guy. And my sister, she played a lot of volleyball. But yeah, we just weren't a soccer household at all. And I feel like, okay, so every four years, I become like a soccer fanatic, like an expert even. Like I'm really into these matches, but when the World Cup's not on,

I mean, I get into the Euro Cup a little bit, but really other than the World Cup and the odd, you know, TFC match that I attend or a playoff game I watch on TV or something, I really don't watch any soccer at all. But right now I'm all in. Like this is happening. And did you go to fc games

only when my buddy elvis lets me gives me his second uh supporters section ticket which is like once a year but i've got a good uh world cup memory and this sort of ties into nostalgia maybe this will be yeah yeah this is when i when i worked at kansas wonderland in high school now now we're getting back up into your region because we strayed too far. But I believe it was like 1994 when Brazil and Italy were in the finals. And I remember I was working the day that this game was going down. And, you know, this is now 25 years ago. But I just remember so many brawls that day.

Oh, wow. Really heightened security. A lot of fans from these respective teams had come out to Canada's Wonderland, at the time Paramount, Canada's Wonderland. Right. Flying the flag of Italy and Brazil and saw a lot of fights that day. I was serving funnel cakes in one of the restaurants by the front gate. And yeah, it was quite feisty.

That reminds me of when I would go to the $1 general admission seats at Exhibition Stadium. So at Dominion, they were $2, I think, or was it $4? Yeah, I think it was half price at Dominion if you went grocery shopping at Dominion. So you could get a ticket for either $1 or $2. I can't remember now. And you could get... It was general admission. But we would...

Like, for example, I would go to a game, Toronto versus, let's say, Detroit, okay? And all these drunken Detroit fans would be in the general admission, but we would, like, for example, I would go to a game, Toronto versus, let's say, Detroit, okay? And all these drunken Detroit fans would be in the general admission, and there would be pocket brawls, like, throughout the game, you'd see fights breaking out, and, like, I just thought that was baseball growing up. I didn't really, like, I don't know what I mean. It was normal. I mean, I'm 40, so,

you know, I definitely went to games at the C&E, but they were a little hazy. I was actually at the final game at the C&E. Okay. But yeah, in the bleachers, also kind of way out in left field and right field, it would get a bit dicey. I think it's because you remember there was those benches? You're just sitting on a bench. I think maybe people were sort of testy because their ass hurt or something.

But yeah, I mean... The last game at Exhibition Stadium, is that the one? Because I recorded this to VHS. That's how into this I was. George Bell hits a walk-off homer. That's right, against Texas, I believe. This guy, hold on here. Hi, I'm George Bell. You listen to Toronto Mike.

That's the guy who did it, George Bell. And of course, I know you've made this joke many times not to be confused with George Bell Arena. Yeah, which I'm at all the time, which is the irony of all ironies. But yeah, that guy was an old white guy, like a Parks and Rec guy in City Hall or something. Well, you know George Bell who played for the Jays.

I believe when he came up, he spelled his name with a J originally. There's some early baseball cards that happened. There was one baseball card that was spelled Jorge, J-O-R-G-E. And yeah, I don't know know i think he went to like you know remember when uh manny lee changed his name to manuel that's right manually so they sometimes they go back and forth do they want to you know i just just watching this match okay this is a match this columbia match and they're big star player although he didn't start because i

think he's he was hurt but he came in later uh hummus like i had no idea james was hummus in in spanish like my son's name is james and four years ago hummus of rodriguez i think is his name had a tremendous world cup like really great world cup so i got to know him then and i started calling for a long time i'd call my son hummus like hummus sounds better than james that's a cool cool name but hor gay that that's if i were a hor gay why would i want to be a George? It's pretty sweet. I mean, I guess he wanted to assimilate more to North American culture. You know, when he threw out the lines about his

purple ass and stuff, you know, kind of getting into more colloquial discussions later in his career. But, I mean, one of the greats, George Bell. I mean, I feel like we could do a whole episode. Feisty man. I could do a whole episode of George. And I have had long conversations with Mark Hebbshire recently because Hebbshire recorded that audio because he was at the Roberto

Alomar Golf Tournament, a charity golf tournament. And George and Lloyd, and we'll get to these guys, but George Lloyd and Jesse were there. So he got interviews with these cats. And then we record his podcast here, Hebbshire on Sports, and we air these interviews on Hebsey on Sports. So I've been listening to a lot of George. And Hebsey tells me that I think this might be why he wanted to be a George and not a Jorge. But George has always been very sensitive about his English, his command of the English language.

It's not as strong. We hear a Dominican player like Batista, and he speaks far more eloquently than I could ever dream to speak. But George learned English later in life, and he still doesn't quite have... That's why you never hear from him. He doesn't have a lot of confidence in his English. So he's hesitant to do interviews. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I don't think he was a major prospect coming up. I believe he was a real five guy from the Phillies, I believe. So maybe if he was a real five guy he was the phillies yeah i believe um so you know maybe if he was someone who's you know a higher profile prospect coming up where you know they're

they're called and now i'm sure it's part of count the entry package you know media training and all these things that you know me my fellow pr people although yeah probably but i'm thinking out you know who else never speaks in english is edwin. Edwin always has the interpreter. I'm trying to think. Edwin never speaks in English. It depends on, I'm not sure, maybe it has to do with your,

how much money you have growing up or something, which kind of, because I think you can go to American schools, and that's where you learn your English, so I guess it depends on if you're coming from poverty or not, but yeah, George Bell, we could do a whole episode on George Bell,

but I'm glad we're talking Blue Jays, because here's another tune I have queued up for us to talk about here. This is shakers rap. Do you remember this jam? You know what? I don't think I've heard this before. Well, then you're in for a treat. Yeah, like I really got into the J's heavily.

I think 88, 89, which obviously was, Mosby was kind of fading out by that point. Like I had the Blue Jay album and those two that came out during the postseason, the World Series years. Along came Joe with Robbie and Devo. That was more my vintage. This sounds very much like a Run DMC or Africa Bambada.

Let's listen to a little bit of Lloyd's flow here before we talk about Lloyd. It's pretty good. I'll fade it down. I'll bring it up for some other parts later. But so Lloyd Mosby, go ahead. Is that actually him? Yeah, that's him. Oh, my God.

Wow. No, I mean, he's he had the I just read an article. I think it was in The Athletic. I'm not sure. But where they called him aesthetically, they called Lloyd Mosby aesthetically pleasing was in the headline. Okay, sure. Okay.

Why not? Hold on. So Lloyd Mosby, Shaker Lloyd. And that was Rick Rubin that produced this, I'm sure. Do we know? I don't know. Sounds like it. And I like the cameo at the beginning. You get a little Tom Cheek at the beginning.

Swinging a drive. So this would be what? what like 86 I'm guessing 87 well first of all this sounds like Axl Foley this part here it does yeah it definitely has that sort of

mid 80s synthy Giorgio Moroder type vibe perhaps what was the name of that instrumental track from Beverly Hills Cop I think it was just

called Axl F. Was it not? Although I might be thinking of the Miami Vice thing. Same vintage. Then I do have Lloyd questions for you there. This also sounds like the Fat Boys. You ever listen to Fat Boys?

Yeah, I watched the movie Disorderly. Dis? Yeah, yeah. I watched the movie. Disorderly. Disorderly, yeah. You okay with it? So last week, there was a Pitch Talks. Now, first tell me, okay, what is your professional link to Pitch Talks? Yeah, absolutely. We recently, at Twitter Canada, we did an event called Twitter Friends that I know you're at.

I was there. Yeah, we did a number of, we announced at that event, a number of content partnerships with Canadian media companies and content creators. Homestand Sports, which is the parent company of Pitch Talks and Hoop Talks and Puck Talks, their fabulous array of events, which are, you know, loosely speaking, kind of the TED Talks. They're a fabulous array of events, which are loosely speaking kind of the TED Talks of sports. So yeah, we have a partnership with them at work, but it was also an event that I've been going to for the last few years. I'd seen past ones with Dan Schulman and

Buster Only when they brought him in. Went to one at the Phoenix. I was backstage with Kevin, who I've become friendly with, who's the owner. I met Pat Henkin back there. Nice. And, you know, Mike Wilner's back there, and Ben Nicholson-Smith, and Arden Swelling, Andrew Stodin, you know, all the Jays writers of the moment.

Stodin made the trip from Peterborough for the pitch talk. For this one? No, for the previous one. Yeah, I didn't realize until I heard on your show that he was based in Peterborough. He seems like such a... I'm trying to get him on, but it's a whole thing. You thought it was tough for you. It's a whole thing. Yeah, no, he'd be

great. He's awesome. Definitely one of my favorite baseball writers. So you would be out of Pitch Talks, even if you were not working for Twitter Canada? Yeah, totally. It's... I mean, this last one last week, I think we're about to talk about it. Some of the other ones, I'll go with my dad, which is great. Still up in Thornhill. It's kind of a father-son thing that we like to do together um it's always a lot

of fun just seeing the range of people they have because they always do a good mix of like journalists and then people you never would have heard of so this last one they had a baseball historian from uh i think like bowmanville areas were in some books i remember one of the previous ones they had a female softball player on that was pretty interesting. So good mix. And I don't know, I'm just such a big baseball nerd. Like I just eat that stuff up. So I watched the, there was a recording, like I guess it was streamed somewhere. Do you tell me this was, was this a Twitter thing?

I saw it somewhere. I can't remember. Yeah, well, they live stream most of their events on Twitter through a live streaming product that formerly known as Periscope. Right. So yeah, you could watch it live that night in an array of guests. And I know it went a little off the rails. Okay, yeah, let's talk.

Okay, so you're in the room, right? So this is hosted by Ashley Docking. Yes. Who I heard speak at the Twitter event. By the way, tell me now, I need to know the truth. I was grossly underdressed for this twitter event be honest with me i i don't know i mean you know as a lot of the agency folks in the room i know you got into this a little bit during your recent stephen brent episode that's right i forgot you

listened to the show yeah of course of course i'm i felt because alan and i had a we chatted a little bit alan cross he was there yeah and we talked we we we felt like uh we weren't cool enough for the room is uh i i would never say that it's sort of a mixed bag you know it's mainly people who work for ad agencies and uh media other media people uh actually i just noticed youtube just had an event at the same venue yesterday i don't know if you caught this on twitter youtube music event they didn't invite me to that yeah i did read about i did read about youtube music because it's just launching in canada now so i read uh somebody in the star mood horror um uh raju right yes mudha red you uh wrote about it i read about it this morning but um the twitter canada event so would i ever like for example did anybody tap you on the shoulder later and say

uh don't invite the guy in the short no no no no absolutely not uh i was actually telling i told multiple people that you were coming because you've got a number of guy in the shorts next time. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. I was actually telling, I told multiple people that you were coming because you've got a number of fans in the Twitter account office. None of them said hi to me. Yeah. In fact, they kicked me out. I don't know if I got there too early.

Well, that's just because we were just setting up. So that was nothing personal. It definitely wasn't the shorts that got you booted. I got the boot and then I came back. I was too early. But I thank you for inviting me. It was interesting. So Ashley Dawkin was there. I was too early. But I thank you for inviting me. It was interesting. So Ashley Dawkin was there.

She was the host of this Pitch Talks. I saw the stream. So I watched Dan Schulman was on. It's always great to hear Dan. At some point, Kevin Barker is on the stage and they're talking to him. And then Kelly joins. So Kelly Gruber joins Kevin Barker and Ashley Dawkin. And then tell me you're in the room at this time.

What was the reaction in the room when Kelly starts? Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I'll paint the picture a bit here. So I'm kind of in the center of the crowd on the floor. This was at the Rec Room, the new venue from Cineplex by the Rogers Center. I almost called it the Sky Dome. I guess it would be appropriate since we're talking about nostalgia. So a new entertainment facility. And yeah, there's maybe 100 people in the room or so or maybe 150 um and i mean there's not really that much to say

gruber comes up on stage he's a bit maybe about a minute late he's talking to some people off stage me and my dad actually had said hi to him earlier because you know this is a pretty interactive um event it's one of the great things about pitch talk you get to mingle with all these people Me and my dad actually had said hi to him earlier because, you know, this is a pretty interactive event. It's one of the great things about Pitchhawk. You get to mingle with all these people. Yeah, he was a little late coming up on stage. But when you met him before, could you smell booze on his breath? Was there any sign of inebriation?

It was really quick. I mean, I even remember back in the day, he's always been a bit quirky, I think. Well, I got a Kelly story, too. Yeah, and definitely had some, you know, kind of run-ins with a few different people. I don't think anything, like, totally out of the ordinary. I mean, you know, we talked to him for a minute, though, so, I mean, I don't think it would be a big enough sample size to make any sort of call. But, you know, he's sort of in and out, dipping in Lloyd Mosby,

the aforementioned Lloyd Mosby, was also there. I saw him and Mosby talking. Paul Beeston was in the room, too, which is just kind of crazy. He was just sort of walking around because that guy is, you know, a complete legend. But was he wearing socks? He was not wearing socks. My dad actually pointed this out. Because this was what he's famous for.

Yeah. I even grew up knowing, oh, Paul Beeston doesn't wear socks. He did not have a cigar. We wondered if he maybe had one in his inside pocket just for the second he got outside. But yeah, everyone's just kind of mixing and mixing. Dr. Ron Taylor was there, the former Jays doctor who also played for the Miracle Mets in the late 60s and also played basketball. 69, I think. Yeah, also played basketball at North Toronto with my Uncle Barry.

This is what I'm looking for from you. We're getting deep here, Mike. But let's get this Kelly thing. So Kelly said something like, we don't need her here or something. Yeah, he kind of like pounced off the stool he was on. We don't need this girl here. But is it because she was a girl or because they had some prior uh interaction that i i don't think he had although actually i believe mentioned that there was some offstage stuff as

well both with her and i believe some of the staff at the venue um so yeah i think you know it was something they were keeping an eye on and it it it kind of went off the rails early and and then he kind of turned on Barker and started asking him about oh so you're the guy who replaced Zani I heard that but then Barker said who's that which I didn't like that line I mean Barker

nice enough guy he accompanied his wife on my show Hazel May so he's been here in the basement but he didn't want to speak on the microphone. Of course. Yeah, no. So Gruber started asking about his attire a little bit.

Do you like the suit? And Gruber said something kind of on the sly, like I'm not the one going for a job. Oh, Vine for a job. Yeah, I'm not sure if he was talking to Barker or Ashley. I mean, I'm not really sure what he was getting at that. And they made some allusion like I'm a Texas boy and you got to mix it up because I'm a rough and tumble Texas.

Oh, yeah, because him and Barker were both Texas guys. Yeah, I mean, they're both from the South. We're Texas guys. We're just mixing it up or whatever. Yeah. So, I mean, to be honest, a lot of it did make sense. I watched the replay and I thought Ashley and Kevin handled it like complete pros on stage. But, you know, this whole whole thing was maybe three minutes.

It was really quick. They were the last feature panel. Somebody gave the kill. Whoever's in charge, I gave Ashley the kill sign. Yeah, it wasn't quite the comically oversized cane that you would see back in cartoons. I guess the modern version.

And that was the show. It was just kind of bizarre to see. It was kind of like, what the hell was that? I remember Chris, our head of sports, he was there and I just remember texting him because he was in a different part of the room. It was kind of a bit of WTF.

And yeah, it was sort of interesting to see the media picked up on it. Well, I was going to say, when you're in the room and this is happening, did any part of you think, oh, this is going to blow up up because it became a big uh a big toronto sports story yeah i i kind of wondered because i mean you know pitch talk has been around for a while so they have a pretty good profile and also there's just there's you know there was

other media in the room and some of the partners um so yeah i thought this might get out and you know kind of the retired athlete or you you know, retired celebrity or, you know, just celebrities behaving badly. Stories are always very popular. So I'm not super surprised this got out. And it's been kind of interesting because I know that I believe it was a Canadian press report. I think Gregory Strong was the first to write about it and then blogged TO. And then, you know, because it was a Canadian press, I think AP picked up on i even saw dick vitale tweet baby baby go but what are you doing he's watching his buddy shulman there that's why they do all those ncaa yeah so and you know obviously there was a ton

of tweets all sort of in the innocence lost category i used to have such respect for the triple play that wasn't it for the cycle fit the cycle. So on this note, so I was reminded because I was like, as I just said, I think I tweeted, I have questions for Kelly Gruber. That was it. And somebody tweeted at me.

I wish I remembered who it was to give them credit. But they said, you should go back and listen to your own podcast with Marty York. Because at the one hour mark of the Marty York podcast, he goes into a pretty detailed story that made Kelly Gruber look awfully bad. I listened to that episode. I recall kind of the high level stuff that he said about Kelly Gruber. And I think he had some stories about Paul Molitor.

Oh, yes, that's right. I remember the Paul Molitor story. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. They're Marty's stories. So the lawyers can contact Marty York. Marty's Marty. Marty's Marty. That's yeah. Well, Marty's Marty. So the lawyers can contact Marty. Marty's Marty. Marty's Marty. That's yeah. Well, Marty, Marty's Marty. That's the best way to put it, I think. But Marty had the story about Kelly Gruber.

And then I remembered when I was a teenager, I was working at the Run-A-Meet-In-Bluer McDonald's. It's attached to, it's right beside the subway station. So we're falling to another rabbit hole. Well, so I'm working at McDonald's and the legend of the location was that Kelly Gruber, I don't know, I guess him and his kids came in or something, and Kelly himself, and I didn't witness it firsthand, but people I trust working there gave me the full detail because they knew I was a massive Blue Jay fan. This is at the time.

That Kelly Gruber himself ordered seven quarter pounders with cheese. Seven. Gruber himself ordered seven quarter pounders with cheese seven this is and they said that the mess left behind by him and the kids eating they said was the the biggest mess they've ever had to clean up like this was the big story so a picture sort of a fryer tuck in rocket robin hood like take one bite throw it over the shoulder maybe like sort of a cookie monster type deal well so this is uh I'm gonna to say this is like early 90s, really early 90s. Well, he's still a Blue Jacket.

This is way more salacious than what Marty York said. I mean, you know, that stuff is one thing, but, you know, eating habits. Seven quarter pounds of cheese and a big mess left over. That was my Kelly Gruber story. But then, you know, you talk to people like, I talked to Hebsey about this yesterday on his podcast but uh you know kelly has a reputation for uh being a bit of a dink uh i think you can call him yeah well it's interesting because when all this stuff

surfaced i was just googling a little bit and i guess when he was on his way out of major league baseball with the angels there was some controversy because I think it was I think maybe Buck Rogers was managing the Angels. Former Expos manager, Buck Rogers. Not to be confused with the 60s TV character. $60,000 man. Steve Austin, right? It was Steve Austin.

Before my time. I'm just a 40-year-old young pup here. I just remembered. I have years on you. I got to get my framing right here. Please continue. But yeah, there was some controversy about, and I think it was the Angels' Mandarin,

thinking that he wasn't actually hurt. But you're talking about the famous Marty York story about him water skiing when he was rehabbing from an injury. Yeah, I remember. It all comes back to Marty. I remember that even back in the day on Primetime Sports that was discussed. And Gruber's a bit like george bell in that i don't think gruber was a big prospect he just kind of like grounded out and i guess you know he kind of came after in the wake of uh the garth orge rance malnix platoon at third base it was just

always like a big fan he was the bridge between the platoon you mentioned the famous molyneux org or uh garth orge orge platoon and uh of course um ed sprague ed sprague yeah so that was so your third base was anchored it was those yeah the platoon when i started watching baseball they were already there in place a molyneux and orange and they platooned and then you had grber who had that one MVP caliber season. Right. And one amazing year. And then Sprague was your starting third baseman in 93. Yeah.

And Sprague had the big home run in the 92 World Series. And remember, there was the controversy with his wife, Kristen Bad Sprague. Of course. Screwed us over. I remember I was at the Metro Bowl. So my high school, Michael Power, made the finals in baseball. And it was at the Dome. And I was there to watch this final match.

Final match. I'm watching too much soccer. This game. And Ed Sprague was there. And I yelled at Sprague, much to the delight of my classmates, who thought I was a hero. I stood up and I yelled at Ed Sprague, Your wife cheated us, Ed! The whole crowd thought it was amazing. I said that to Ed Sprague. Did Ed Sprague, your wife cheated us, Ed. The whole crowd thought it was amazing.

I said that to Ed Sprague. Did Ed Sprague react? Did he come at you? No, he never came at me. But I could tell he could hear me. It wasn't like there was 50,000 screaming fans at this Metro Bowl final. So he could definitely hear me.

But that was the line I yelled at Ed Sprague. Yeah, well, again, like after that home run in the World Series, I mean, that home run, I feel like, is almost a little underrated. Game two against the Braves off Jeff Reardon. If Braves win that game, Jays are going back to Toronto down

two. I'm glad you're bringing this up because a common discussion is biggest hit in Blue Jays history, and most people go to Joe Carter hitting the walk off in 93, but everybody who, a lot of people want to be the contrarian, and they all want to go with Alomar's Homer

in the 92 ALCS against Dennis Eckersley. That was the Thanksgiving game, because I was literally eating Thanksgiving and watching that game. It was a very long game, from what I recall. Because we were down. Yeah, well, that was a great game. I re-watched it recently.

Trust me, even though you know what's going to happen, you're going to be on the edge of your seat. That was a great game. But what is your opinion? What is the biggest hit in Blue Jays history? Well, I think that Alomar home run against Dennis Eckersley in the A's, I mean, it just has everything.

I mean, Eckersley was the supervillain. He even sort of looked like, you know, with the mustache and the hair. And if you recall, and you said you just watch it, he struck out someone to end the previous inning and he kind of did the fist pump and like was kind of mouthing stuff under his breath. And it just after the, I mean, Oakland always destroyed the Jays.

I remember that the 89 ALCS and Canseco hitting one in the upper deck and Ricky Anderson doing Ricky stuff. That sort of seemed like a passing of the torch moment. And I don't like that. Yeah, I do think that's the biggest home run and quite possibly the biggest hit in Jay's history, in my opinion. I was like, holy shit. Like, this is this is different. This feels different.

How old's your daughter? My daughter's nine. She's perfect for Camp Ternusul. You know this. And she's in French immersion, too. Even more reason to send your lovely... I'm assuming she's lovely. I've never met her.

She's adorable. She's adorable. Yeah. Send her to French camp. And if you're going to send your child to French camp this summer, hey, you got to do it soon. What is this?

Late June? Come on. Get on this. And then also, you want to send them to Camp turnusel which is now the largest french camps in ontario and they've been at it since 2001 they've got a french camp in the gta that will serve tens of thousands of children ages 4 to 14 so here's your uh call to action cam you You're going to go to campt.ca. There's a bunch. I'm looking at the programs now.

There's special programs just for French immersion. They got day camps for French immersion. They even have overnight programs for French immersion. But if your child's not French immersion, they still have a French experience for them. Even if they're Francophone or if they're no French experience, they've got an overnight or a day camp for your child. So go to camptea.ca,

sign up for French camp, do it, because you've got to send your kids to camp. It's coming up. Summer's almost here. And use the promo code Mike when you do it. So Camp Ternus still knows. You learned about their fine camps from listening to Cam Gordon on Toronto Mike. Gordon's a good last name.

Okay, Gordon might be the quintessential Canadian name. Like, there's so many great Canadian Gords. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, I actually get called Gord as, or Gordon a lot. You know, someone sends me an email. It's like, hey, Gordon. And often I'll sort of jokingly reply back.

I'm with the last name. Yeah, I had an interaction with a Canadian press reporter that I didn't really know. I think his last name was Black. And I just said, no problem, Black. We had a little giggle on email. You know, this is sort of the Calbert humor I'm after. Yeah, I mean, in music alone, I mean, Gord Downie, Gord Lightfoot, Gordy Lewis from Teenage Head. The guy with the double neck guitar for Big Sugar. Who's that again?

Oh, Gordy Johnson. Gore Johnson. Yeah, I don't know who this guy is. Yeah, yeah, Gore Johnson. I always remember he does a pretty good O Canada on that double neck guitar. That's right, yeah. Started the Jimi Hendrix. The Jimi Hendrix.

I actually interviewed Gordie Johnson a few years ago when I was writing for Chart Magazine. One of those guys, when you see the videos, you think, oh, this guy's going to be really cocky, and he seems like he has a real attitude. He was delightful. He was awesome to talk to. Really sharing, just super nice guy. You know, you've

got a lot of Canadian musicians down here in the basement. But I need to do more. I was hesitant to do musicians on this show because I like i always felt like like first of all every musician i've had so far i'm a legit fan of so it's been effortless to be honest but if i i didn't want to fake anything and i wasn't sure am i because i don't know like when i say i call that a double neck guitar is that what that's called like i'm not exactly yeah like i also like cheap trick there was a guy from cheap trick used to have them open for Pearl Jam in 98. It's still touring.

They're actually playing, I think, maybe tonight with Poison. Yes, because I just saw Joanne Wilder just tweeted, you can meet Brett Michael tonight and the guys from Cheap Trick. They're in town right now. Cheap Trick could walk through that door right now. It might happen. I mean, you know, anything can happen here on the Toronto. So you're 40, right?

So here's the first. You first getting back to my age no just to get the if you would remember this so the very first cheap trick song i ever heard was a cover of elvis presley's don't be cruel had a great video it seemed like maybe it was the same guy who did the video for like tom petty don't come around here no more it was very colorful and so like two things. First of all, I didn't know that was an Elvis. At the time, I'm watching so much music. I'm pretty young, I think.

I got to do the math on that. But I'm young enough that I'm forgiven for not knowing Don't Be Cruel was a cover. Like I didn't know it was a cover. Like that's when I learned Don't Be Cruel was an Elvis song. And I thought that so, and that's what I knew Cheap Trick as until basically I was going to go see them in 98. And then I thought I should learn about the banner stump that something.

And I learned all these rock hits you hear on cue or whatever. These are also Cheap Trick. You got Surrender and all that stuff. Yeah. But then they had the big power ballad off the same album as Don't Be Cruel called The Flame. You remember that? Of course. Yeah.

Yes. The Flame. After the fire and all the rain, I will still be The Flame. You remember that? Of course. Yeah. Yes, The Flame. After the fire and all the rain, I will still be The Flame or something. And of course, as a fan of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which I love that movie, and I loved it.

And that's got the... What is he... He quotes one of the famous Cheap Trick songs. Is it... Do you remember the big hit? Dream Police, Surrender, I Want You to Want Me. Yes, I Want You to Want Me. That's it. He's selling... That's right. lungs is it uh i do you remember the big dream dream police surrender i want you to want me yes i want you to want me that's it he's selling that's right he's selling tickets i think so he's trying to sell the band to somebody yeah they're such an interesting band because i mean

they're not really new wave band they're not really like a metal band they're not really a hard like they're kind of power pop i guess well they did that uh 70s show theme too right that's right yeah which is also a cover. Do you know who did the original? No. It's Big Star. Big Star. Yeah, out of Memphis.

Most noble for September girls. I know of it because the guy died a few years ago. Alex Chilton. Right. Also a... Is he from the Boxes? He was the singer for the Box Tots who did... A Letter.

The Letter. The Letter. Right right because i bought uh i bought i can't remember if it was who it was it was a like i used to be a big dr demento fan okay yeah and uh i want to say i want to say cheech and chong but i don't think it was cheech and chong but somebody somebody like that maybe it was cheech and chong i don't remember covered the letter and they called it uh it's vanna white pick me a letter vanna pick me a letter no one does the tom rivers air force like i can't remember but i bought the 45 single i remember i totally remember that vanna pick me a letter no one does it any better i dream about you that's why i think it's cheech marin because i'm doing it in like a mexican accent you know what i think you're right that was obviously during the peak uh pat sajak era oh well it's still uh pat but yeah but alex chilton was also a big producer he produced early albums from the cramps and uh then later on the

replacements had a song called alex chilton like it's just you know one of those cult musicians that never quite made it but you know had like a lot of big moments in the sun in spite of it all. I didn't think we'd be talking about Alex Chilton when I came down here. Do you watch any television? That's the question. I go through waves with television. I don't have Netflix.

I saw some shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I haven't watched anything recently. I watched stuff with my daughter. Like recently we've been getting into Hotel Hell and like the Gordon Ramsay suite of restaurant takeover type shows. Little clips we see on YouTube. I'm not a big TV guy, but I certainly was back in the day. But you mentioned Mad Men.

So you watched Mad Men? Yeah. Okay. So then you remember the great Peggy Olsen. So what I'm watching right now is Handmaid's Tale. Of course. Which stars Elizabeth Moss. So I'm watching it.

And I watch it on Crave TV. So I don't even know if I'm behind or what. But a new episode drops every Monday. So yesterday, my wife and I watched the most recent episode that's on Crave TV. So I don't know if that's the one people who get, like like regular TV, whatever. I don't know. So eerie parallels, like I'm just saying it's kind of freaky to watch this show. Like, you know, Canada's sort of comes off really well. Toronto particularly, we come off really well in this show. But in America, there's a lot of shit going down and women have lost

a lot of their freedoms and rights and stuff. And it's very interesting to kind of watch Handmaid's Tale and then watch the news and do some compares and contrasts. I have a good parallel to this.

Myself and my colleague, Jennifer Hollett, who's our head of news partnerships, her and I were actually... From Much Music? From Much Music. I'll just name drop Jen here because why not? Tell Jen to come on. Honestly, I... I've nudged her Much Music? From Much Music. I'll just name drop Jen here, because why not?

Tell Jen to come on. Honestly, I... I've nudged her. I sit right beside her, so I'll remind her that's what it was today. Kidnap her. Brought her over. But anyway, we were at City News for the first, in the just recently completed Ontario provincial election debate.

And, you know, it's outside the studio. There's a lot of... This is the one where, like, Doug... Well, he hired actors. Yeah, who we saw. Some of the people allegedly were actors, but there were also people... It was kind of a quiet protest,

but they were dressed up like people from The Handmaid's Tale with the robes and the hoods. That's the protest outfit right now. Yeah, and they were actually mainly ladies in their 60s and 70s, and there was signage talking about reproductive rights and stuff specifically targeting doug ford so i mean it all kind of comes around and it's just interesting i mean because you know margaret atwood you know one of those kind of seminal figures growing up

our entire lives and just seeing you know just this this new version it's not even the new version she's always been this person but you know this is a big hit show now margaret atwood is amazing on twitter too you know how she's continually big hit show now. Margaret Atwood is amazing on Twitter too. You know how she's continually reinvented herself. I mean, just a true, I used to see her, I lived in the annex.

I used to just see her in Dominion, like in the frozen food section too. And you know, she's not, she's a fairly diminutive lady. Right, right. But just amazing.

Well, that's amazing. Maybe I should get her on. Forget Jennifer. Maybe I should go for Margaret. Yeah, go for the both actually. Would they come on together? Do you think? Sure. Why not? Why not? Okay, so Margaret. Yeah, go for the God there. I want both, actually. Would they come on together, do you think? Sure.

Why not? Why not? Okay, so going back here, this is the jam I used to hear back in the day. We accidentally talked about Vanna, Pick Me a Letter by, I think, Cheech Marin. I'm giving him a lot of credit for that. I've got to find out who that was. I don't think it was Cheech, to be honest. Do you remember this one?

Morning, all. I'd like to tell you about when I was a young boy. I must have been three or four months old at the time. I didn't really know what I wanted, and if I did, I wouldn't have been able to tell anybody because all I could do was gurgle. So I sat there in my eye chair, thinking one day, looking at my tray and thinking,

what I'd give for a meal on there. So I started looking around to see what I could have. I was rubbing my eggy soldier in my head, trying to think. And I looked in the corner, and there's a little bread bin with its mouth open. Just staring at me like. And then I looked in, and I saw bread. I thought, oh yeah, I'll have toast. A little piece of toast.

So Father's Day just passed. Well, then I started getting older. So do you remember this at all? Toast by Street Band? No, I remember that name, Street Band. That was sort of like a Canadian band. No, there's another. Or maybe because Street Hard.

Yes, you're thinking, yes, yes. Because I only learned they existed when the lead singer died. And I was told, like, how did you miss them? And I'm like, I didn't hear them on my radio here. I feel like I've heard this twice. This seems the same vintage as, like, Mendelssohn Joe. Do you remember? Yeah, I remember watching.

I used to work at the Galleria Mall. And I would bike. I lived near, like, on Charles Street and Yonge. I lived right above the old Uptown Theater across from the Brass Rail. And I used to bike along Davenport. And I would see Mendelssohn Joe just kind of strolling along the street. Yeah, I remember this. This is a British thing.

And I think maybe, I don't know if Dr. Demento played this or not, but they used to play the video for this. Either they played the video for this on MuchMusic or Pete and Geetz used to play it or both or something. But I used to hear this as a kid.

And this is Toast. So on Sunday was Father's Day. Did you have a happy Father's Day? Yeah. Yeah. It was a great time up in the affirmation, Thornhill. Thornhill.

Yeah. Absolutely. I was at brunch. I went to brunch. All the kids all took me to brunch. I think my wife paid, though. But anyway, we went to brunch. And I started singing Toast.

And the kids looked at me like, that can't be a song. What is this? But I'm like, no, Toast is a song. And I will sing the song if I'm ordering toast at a restaurant. I wondered if you remembered it. No, I've definitely heard this. It's not Fish Heads, but it was maybe a little later than fish heads this also sort of sounds like Ian Dury

who did Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll so this is toast it's a bit menacing a little menacing see I don't know if that's like fish heads was like a Dr.acing. See, I don't know if that's like Fish Heads was like a Dr. Demento thing. I don't know if this was also...

Mendelssohn, Joe, you know, all these novelty hits. We don't have any... It's not the same anymore, the novelty. And Vanna, pick me a letter. We've accidentally done a lot of novelty. Mojo, Nixon, and Skid Roper. You remember them? I remember the names, but was there a jam? They were sort of halfway between a joke band and a real band.

They were sort of veering into they might be Giants territory, perhaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Istanbul, not Constantinople, which is an old folk song. But that video got a lot of airplay, too. I used to record that. A lot of great videos back in the day. Videos mattered back in the day. Yeah, that's for sure.

It's a big deal. I had a patreon call yesterday uh so everyone listening if you become a patron by going to patreon.com slash toronto mike you will get a notification when these are happening which is essentially a link and via this link you can listen to the call you can type in questions if you don't want to join the call but you can also there's a button you can press to actually i can promote you to the to the call like a like a like a call and show after like jay's talk or lee's talk or something like that and uh we did one yesterday and it went very well i think uh hebsey joined the call too so we got some uh almost like some bonus interesting content. I asked him some questions.

We talked about the Dan O'Toole episode. We talked about the Ann Romer episode. So I urge everyone listening to become patrons so that you can join these calls in the future because it's kind of interesting. You can ask any question you want about a previous guest. You can ask about future guests. It's kind of neat. So become a patron. Fantastic. Everyone should be doing that right now.

Do you drink beer, Cameron? Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. Would you like a six-pack of Great Lakes beer? Yeah. Oh, my God. There's one right here in front of me.

Just materialized. I got lots of gifts for you, actually. So that six-pack is courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. I know you're in Thornhill. It's too bad you're so far away. Well, no, that's not true. I live downtown. I'm from Thornhill.

Oh, you don't live in Thornhill anymore? No, no, no. Oh, sorry. I say that disparagingly. Like, who would live there? No, I actually haven't lived there in like 25 years. My apologies. Yeah, that's okay.

My notes don't have that detail here. That's okay. But on July 19th, there's going to be a Toronto Mike listener party at Great Lakes Brewery on the patio. So if you're interested in hanging out and you hear some music and have $5 pints and enjoying the atmosphere,

that is July 19th. This is fantastic. No, I might take you up on that. Yeah, you should. And that six pack is yours. Take it home. But you're going to need a pint glass to pour your cold Great Lakes beer into. Of course.

And I'm just ogling one here on the counter as well. And who's providing this one? That is courtesy of Brian Gerstein from propertyinthesix.com. That card there, it's a tradition. It's become a tradition for guests to comment on his appearance. I'm often told that he's a, they like, I think they like that photo. I don't, I mean, Brian took that photo 20 years ago, but I'm just kidding. That's how he looks.

That's a good photo. He looks like a man who knows a lot about real estate, for sure. And I know Brian's big on Twitter as well. Raptor's devotee. Yeah, he's a big Twitter user. Absolutely. That's fantastic. I'll definitely put both the beer and the pint glass to good use. And my daughter's only nine,

so she won't partake in it. But I'm having some friends over this weekend, so this will work out great. Don't let the nine-year-old drink the beer. I can't. Now that I'm SmartServe certified, I can't allow you to serve that beer to your nine-year-old daughter. You're authorized. I got a great question. This is a great question for you from Brian.

So let's hear from Brian. Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Cam. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mic'd. 416-873-0292 is the number to call or text me for any real estate needs you have in the next six months. Lots of buying opportunities out there now and variable mortgage rates are very attractive too. So let me help you take advantage while you can. There has never been a better time to move up.

Cam, if Mike would fill out the Twitter verification request form, what do you think of his chances of getting approved? Mike covers government, politics, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key areas of interest that affect Torontonians. I feel it is long overdue, and I am sure that his listeners would agree. Wow, really putting me on the spot here. Brian, that's a fantastic question. Yeah, the verification thing, there's a bit of exposition here. We get two questions, probably more than anything else. The verification, how can I get verified is one.

Do you want to take a guess at what the other one we get about Twitter is? You've probably seen this on the platform because we get a lot of questions about this. And here's a clue. Kim Kardashian recently tweeted about this. I'm sure you're a major fan of her. No, of course I'm a fan. Who isn't? But I'm not aware.

I don't follow her. Sorry. But I don't know. I don't follow her. Sorry. But I don't know. People want to edit their tweets? Yeah. Okay. That's it. Yeah.

Because I've had, on my bike rides, I solve the world's problems. I do this every single day. And I was thinking about that. Because on Facebook, I can edit my post and all these different... But on Twitter, once it's tweeted, I have to either delete it and retweet it. And I don't like my typos. It bothers me. Somebody has already retweeted that. Oh, no, it's gone now because i've deleted it now i'm doing it again uh but my thought is imagine this is a recipe for disaster if you let someone uh edit like you could post something like you could say something like skinheads are

bad and everyone will like it or something and then you can uh change it to skinheads aren't all bad and you know what i mean and it's like no it's bait and switch yeah i mean i i think if we ever did that there would have to be some kind of like track changes thing like on a google doc where you could actually see the history of like an audit an audit trail yeah yeah i mean and and you know i think facebook has that where it's you know if something you put on facebook has been changed. It says this has been edited. But is there any plans to allow Twitter users, before we get back to, of course, the most important thing. I'm totally trying to skirt the question. Okay, so the editing, is that going to come at some point?

Have you heard any rumblings at Twitter HQ about editing posts? I'll say this. I mean, there's no imminent announcement on this. But as you know, I mean, you've been on Twitter a long time. We're constantly updating the features of the platform. And quite often they are in response to what people are telling us or market research. So, you know, I guess stay tuned. I mean, nothing's imminent.

But, you know, Twitter is all the time. Is that the PR? Is that what Jennifer told you to say? Yeah, and I'm putting on my disgusting flack PR hat over here. Okay, well, the most important question, of course, and thank you, Brian. Toronto Mike. Sure. How the heck is Toronto Mike not verified on Twitter?

Like, is this an amateur hour at the Twitter HQ? What's going on over there? Hey, we're a busy office. No, we've actually, and you might have read about this, we've actually put our verification process on hold. If you recall back in the early days of Twitter, like verification was at the start primarily a tool to combat impersonation. Of course. Because you'd have, you know, kind of a million kind of fake Kanye West and a million fake Kim Kardashians running around Twitter.

You know, if you're on Twitter, you want to know who's the real one. Right. Gradually as the years went by, you know, we started using it for you want to know who's the real one right um graduates years went by you know we started using it for journalists and police departments and even brands and and journalists and all these other people um so i i think what we're doing now is we've taken a step back and just looking at the process overall and what works and what does i mean there's there's been a lot written on this topic and i think it's good that we just want to make sure when we reinstate the whole verification process

that we really want to get it right for what makes sense. Yeah, I've noticed if you're affiliated with the MSM, like if you're affiliated with a Rogers Communications radio station or something, I almost think that maybe Rogers sends a spreadsheet over to Twitter and then says, these are the accounts of the people that work here and you should verify them or something. Because all these MSM affiliated people, they all got there. Even if they

leave the job, they still seem to keep their verification. But independent guys like me, I guess you have to be way more famous and successful than me. Let's just see when it comes back and we can revisit this topic. Again, I've still got my PR hat squarely firmly planted are

we gonna circle back are we gonna put a pin in that and then circle yeah why don't we think outside the box and uh you know let's get disruptive down here and uh yeah disruptive that's what trottle mic is it's a disruptor no you you are like majorly disruptive as a long-time fan like i'm you know i mean you saw some of the companies we introduced at Twitterfront, companies like BetaKit, Homestand, Sports. I mean, you guys are really, I don't know. I mean, I think the major media partners have an eye on all you guys, what you're doing, where you accumulate these big audiences. And we're seeing lots of different examples. Do I have them shaking in their boots?

Shaking in their boots? I don't know. It's summer, so I'm not sure how many people are actually wearing uh boots but um like i got a story on this that i'm trying to tell without saying too much but let's put it this way a massive media company is worried about uh you know people that used to work for them and are no longer going to work for them uh coming on toronto mic'd and telling the true story like this is like this is a and i i learned this through a couple of uh great channels that i have no doubt that this is true and i i've seen i've seen something that proved that this is

actually true so i mean this is a big media company that is has a legit concern that somebody maybe two people are going to come here and tell the true story about some media company and their experience there. So it's like, if I don't exist, like where would you sort of like, where do you go? Cause everything seems to be run,

as you know, everything's run by Bell or Rogers, or you got your chorus and then you got your CBC, of course, but there's not a lot of independent channels. And there's certainly not that many where you can do kind of long-form interviews like you do. And I know there's been things over the years that, you know, you've been...

I know the example you always talk about is when Martin Streak passed away, that your website just blew up because you were one of the first ones on that. You know, even more recently, Ann Romer dropping the hints about running for Toronto City Councillor. She's seriously mulling it over. Yeah, which is kind of a Toronto Mike exclusive. Although that one, I know, it didn't blow up like the Kelly Gruber story. No, well, it's good you also clarified the city councillor he's seriously mulling it over yeah which is kind of a toronto mike exclusive

although that one i know it didn't blow up like the kelly gruber story no well it's good you also clarified the uh the attorney general of ontario that whole rumor that was swirling i'm not uh yeah the best part was me pretending like i didn't start that rumor that was my favorite part of that so i think i made a comment on that episode about who would write that or whatever but i mean my sources are impeccable i actually how do i say this carefully i don't want to disrupt too much here but you know i got to disrupt a little bit maybe somebody has changed that story a little bit to save face interesting i actually think the original story as written by yours truly i believe it to be true i just don't want to, I'm also not convinced that she didn't get those cake gift cards

when she left CP24. You know, who wouldn't want a cake gift? That was the most discerning thing, that she doesn't accept gifts because I envisioned all these cake gift cards. And I think you talked about cake at least like eight to ten times on that episode. So, you know, you go right to the heart

on these important matters. But that episode was like fantastic. Like, I loved it. Yeah. I'm sure you're going to deep dive when Mr uh mr 1236 i know he's coming in i believe later this week thursday yeah mutual friend you can do kind of the full recon i was gonna say i don't want too much overlap but uh yeah and he's uh his quarterly visits are personal highlights for me like i think he's great like i could yes of course i want to pump my own tires a little bit i'm disrupting i'm on the radar that's great but i mean the guys i look up to uh he's one mark

from 1236 and of course uh ed conroy retro ontario where would we be without ed conroy and i'd even put you know people like jesse brandon canada land you know all these you know kind of emergent voices and you i mean you're all big deals. Everyone listens. Like, again, I'm a PR guy, you know, by day. Like, we're well aware of all this stuff going on. And I think, you know, all you guys are doing is important and we're all paying attention. That's what I want to hear.

You're the PR guys of Canada. It's not how many, it's who's listening. Of course. Now, let's just do a little bio recap on you before we do some more of our name dropping here. But so when this, first of all, you're only 40. And I say that because I'm going to go back to 1992. Sure. But you're just a puppy in 92.

Like, are you? Yeah, I guess you are. You're a teenager, if my math is correct. Yeah, just barely. I guess I was like 15 or so. Yeah, that's a teenager. Come on. I've done my homework. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just barely. I guess I was like 15 or so. That's a teenager. Come on, I've done my homework. Tell me about Overtime.

Yeah, so Overtime was a short-lived sports talk show that I co-hosted with a couple of friends of mine. Child actor Stu Stone. You can IMDb him. He was a former child voice actor and also did some guest spots on programs like the Edison Twins back in the day. Oh, Edison Twins.

He was the voice of Chucky on My Pet Monster, which was one of his more famous roles. And he was also another big screen role he had. He was one of Jake Gyllenhaal's best friends in Donnie Darko. I love Donnie Darko. And My Pet Monster, a friend to you and me. That song still stuck in my head.

I think I was too old for that show, but I would see it on Global when I'm flipping around I love Donnie Darko and my pet monster, a friend to you and me. That song still stuck in my head. And I didn't even, I think I was too old for that show, but I would see on global when I'm flipping around. I'm like, I don't know, a Saturday or Sunday morning or something. Yeah. That song stuck in my head.

So, um, so yeah, so I co-hosted that show with Stu and my, my other friend, Ryan Pasternak. I'm still pals with those guys and see them every now and then. And this was related to,

uh, who's the Pasternak? Uh, Ralph Ben-Murray's wife is a Pasternak. Find out if there's a connection there. I'll check in with Ryan and I'll see. There's also Harley Pasternak, who's like a celebrity trainer from Toronto.

Well, there's a Boston... No, Boston. There's a Boston Bruin named Pasternak. I feel like he's missing an E or something. He is, because that's probably how it always was, because he's from Europe, and then it probably got changed when people crossed over. I think he scored a few times against the Leafs.

Yeah, yeah. My brother drafted him and easily... No, he finished second, actually. He had a huge lead because he had all the big scoring Bruins. And then the guy with all the big scoring Capitals caught him at the end. So that's how my hockey put went down. But this program, Overtime Sports Talk, around the same time, I'm watching a show, which I believe was recorded at Newton Cable on Channel 10. I'm watching a show with a guy named Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, I can't remember his last name, and a guy named Mike Wilner called Let's Talk Sports.

Yeah, I know this is- Was there any overlap? To be honest, I don't know. To get you a sense, again, to paint the picture of this, this was at a TV studio around Dufferin and Finch. This is before Rogers had amalgamated a lot of the cable companies. Again, I lived in Thornell at this time, but Stu's dad actually lived in North York,

which is how we end up in North York, because this was just available, Newton Cable, at the time. Although, you said you saw some of this programming here in Etobicoke. Well, I was on the other side of the Humber River, but it was called York. Not York Region, though, but actually called York. But definitely. Yeah. And this all seems like a million years ago now. So, you know, it was very like, needless to say, this is sort of the cliche, but it was very Wayne's World. You know, kind of the station manager and assistant and a couple of camera people. And that's about it.

We record against a fake brick wall. Yeah, I can see it in my mind's eye. This ran for maybe eight episodes in the fall of 92, which is awesome because it was in the wake of the Jay's First World series. But I mentioned the station manager at that time was actually someone

who's been down here in the basement, which is incredible. I cheated, so I won't answer it because I know who it is because I saw it in the note you sent me yeah that's us tell us who it was so it's actually stephen kersner uh known better as the bk bk how's that better known as better known as uh ed the sock ed the sock yeah was the station manager when you were doing uh overtime yeah so it was interesting. So again, this is 1992, and there was a lot of sort of Ed the Sock stuff around, but this was years before he was on Much Music,

and I'd never heard of Ed the Sock. I didn't know what this was. You didn't watch the Harlan Williams talk show we did on Cable 10? I think this was even before I was on City TV. No, no, no, but yeah, but his Cable 10 show was appointment viewing for me. Really? With Harlan Williams was the host. Well, again, we didn't yeah, but his Cable 10 show was appointment viewing for me. Really? With Harlan Williams was the host. Well, again, like we didn't get this up in Thornhill.

Like I would only see this Cable 10 while I'd be hanging out. We were so blessed. I had no idea. York. Well, we had a Classicom cable. We had our own star system. People like Carmen Salerno was our roving reporter on Thornhill. Busting Peep.

Do you remember Jag Baduria? Yeah, he was a car dealer. Wasn't he? Isn't Jag? Am I confusing him? No. Isn't he a car dealer? He was a disgraced politician. He did some lying. Yeah, I do remember. Yeah, I don't remember the exact story, but I think that was in York Region.

Don Cousins was the mayor. Doo-Doo the Clown was kind of bouncing around York Region at that time. And what made him famous a couple of years ago? Remind me. Doodoo the Clown actually rescued some ladies who were being harassed, I think, on a sidewalk kind of close to where the old Globe and Mail

building used to be or in Wellington. And he was in a car full of other clowns. But were these women being other clowns? Was this around the same time as the clown scares? Do you remember the clown scares? Oh, right.

The creepy clown. Or was that unrelated to the Dodo? That was sort of unrelated. This was... Dodo was coming from a gig with two other clowns, one of which was pregnant. He called out for some reason. And yeah, there was some lady, I think,

was just getting harassed verbally. And he said, Hop in the car. We'll rescue you. And there's actually video. That's actually video there's swearing in it I think City exclusive I mean this sounds like you got to go hard on a story yeah I'm sure

1236 could like to give you the full oral history oh I'll bet yeah Dudu was also Stu's cousin Brian Dudu I believe with his uncle and I think Dudu was an accountant by Dave but Dudu's met Jeff, with his uncle. And I think Dudu was an accountant by Dave, but Dudu's met Jennifer Valentine, was in

I think Happy Gilmore or something. Check him out. He's on Twitter. He's pretty good on Twitter. Okay, Dudu the Clown. What was the tie-in of Jennifer Valentine? He's just... I know because he used to go on Breakfast Television sometimes because he'd always appear at the C&E.

There's definitely seen photos of Doodoo, the Clan Jeff or Valentine hanging out. Oh, that's great. That's great. And also, because I can't spend an hour on your bio here, I want to get to the meat here again. But is this right? In 1994, you hosted an episode of the Fan 590 tryout camp show?

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Do you remember this? The Fan, this was when it sold 590 they on i think it was thursday nights they would just open the airways for an hour and you could basically apply i guess you probably sent in a letter at this time as pre-email um and me and my friend david uh went in and did an hour about whatever the sports talk of the day this was probably 94 95 but i remember george strombolopoulos was the producer at that time and again kind of the pre-fame he was producing primarily i think for spider jones at the time spider jones yeah and

this was also this that was an interesting time in my life because it was also around the time of the baseball strike when i did like a hard pivot into becoming like a hardcore music guy which i think was definitely in response to there being no baseball so i just decided to get into the indie rock of the day and i felt kind of hard and oh man we gotta do an episode on that oh my god some of it but totally yeah i mean okay let me ask you this then this is a jam okay so my cousin mark married a woman named valerie and and i don't see them i just because they're all the way in burlington which they might as well be in like paris france or whatever but they're in burlington i don't see them too much but every time i see her okay i the song. I bet I know

what song's coming. You probably know. I'll play a bit of it here because they're about your age and they have no memory of the song existing but I remember hearing this quite a bit

like I would call it a mild hit. Yeah, the material issue out of Chicago. Yes. Of course. One hand wonder

of the alternative modern rock ranks of the early 90s. Which is my jam. That's where I live, that scene. So I break into Valerie Loves Me. Valerie loves me. Give it a little bit more here. Like how it rocks at the chorus.

Oh, yeah. It's worth it. Okay, so I mean, I don't, and I have trouble, what I'm having trouble now is, I mean, I listened to a lot of 102.1. Sure. And I watched a lot of much music. Yeah. And some stuff was in both places. Some stuff was only i saw in much

because it didn't 102 didn't play it and some stuff 102 played i didn't see in much so sometimes my memory i can't remember where i would hear this a lot but i think much played a lot of this video yeah i i think so for some reason i think of this and the laws here she or there there she goes in the same kind of vintage. This I feel like I discovered in retrospect. And I was quite into a lot of the Chicago bands of that era. Urge Overkill and Liz Phair and Smashing Pumpkins. Like the Chicago Tortoise. A lot of good music coming out of Chicago in the 1990s for sure.

Yeah, you name some big, big bands there. My buddy just asked me if I want to see the Pumpkins and I'm so mad. I'm so mad. I saw the original Farewell Tour which was, I think, 2000, I think. It's when, like, Melissa Optimar was in the band. Yeah, and the main thing is, yeah,

what's her name? Retsky was still Retsky. Okay, Darcy. Darcy Retsky. Yeah. Like Gretzky with a W. That's right. But I was so disappointed in their I was so excited to be watching their farewell tour because I love the Pumpkins and I was so disappointed by the Corrigan just he changed up his

songs he didn't care there was no encore like I was so disappointed I refused to see Pumpkins again they were never a great live band I actually saw them play at Maple Leaf Gardens, if you could believe it. This was their second Toronto stop. Again, I'm like an encyclopedic music

nerd from this era. This was, I think, the second tour for that double album, the Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness. Of course. Grantley Buffalo opened another name from the past. And it was just pretty average. I mean, it wasn't horrible but again you know it's a stadium show or an arena show it was the only concert i ever saw at maple leaf gardens

i was sitting kind of the opposite over like one of the nets and they would be at the other net i actually saw them on the same tour at the phoenix they did like a very short tour that was awesome that they played two sets one was more acoustic i believe they were in their pajamas on stools acoustic inserts they came out into the full rock set uh played zero and bullet with butterfly wings a lot of the hits from that it that that was awesome the full thing was a mosh pit i was doing a lot of moshing and crowd surfing back then in uh bullet with butterfly wings uh there's a famous line of course like a like a jobe i it's like a Job, despite all my rage. Like what is that? Like a Job.

Job. Is that what I think? Well, there's the patience of Job. Like who's Job? He's some patient guy. Okay, so I've never Googled this. This is all going back to when this was a big hit, Butterfly Wings. But at the time, I was watching a lot of NBA basketball, of course,

and Jordan was big at the time. So in my mind, he was saying, Michael Jordan! Like in the Chicago... Yeah, you're right. It all made so much sense. But then somebody told me, when it was still kind of current,

that he was saying, like a Job, like Job in the Bible, J-O-B. And I don't know, I never even thought to Google this. He was pretty verbose. You know, that sounds about right for that

guy. Like, Billy Corgan's one of those guys. I have no doubt if he just said, I'm going to write a big hit album, he could still do it. He's just so obtuse. And he's gotten, like, really sort of odd, like some of the stuff he's been into now. Like, he's, you know, he owns a wrestling league now, and he

got really into baseball. He's saying, take me out to the ball game in Chicago. That's Eddie's's job come on yeah and eddie does yeah exactly he's the big cubs fan he wrote he wrote a song this is before they won it all which ruins everything so when the cubs couldn't win uh he wrote a song one day we'll go all the way and this beautiful song about the cubs and i always like had this like fantasy like's going to write the Maple Leaf equivalent? There's guys our age who are diehard Leaf fans that have never even had a taste of the finals yet. Who would do that?

Ron Hawkins? Not Ron Penrani, but Lois Lowe? Yeah, I'm the only guy in the world you can say Ron Hawkins to and not have to clarify. You know what's a great clip? I don't know if you've ever seen this. The night that the Tragically have played their last concert in Kingston Pearl Jam,

we're playing at Wrigley Field. I have seen this clip. That gave me chills because that was like a huge world collide. We got their grunge. We got the hip. We got baseball all coming together. You and I might be the target.

That was the moment for us. I'm telling you. My buddy Bob, Bingo Bob, who's been on the show many times, his big dream is coming true next week, and that he's going to travel with his family to Italy and watch Pearl Jam in

Rome. And today, it was announced that for the first time in the illustrious career of Pearl Jam, Eddie's lost his voice. We're one week out, okay? One week out, okay? So I think they're in London. They were supposed to be in London tonight, which is probably right now,

that time difference, pretty soon, pretty soon. But they canceled it or they postponed it because Eddie has no voice right now. And apparently this is the first time ever that they had to cancel a show because Eddie had no voice. That's brutal. You're exactly one week away

from Bingo Bob being in Rome to watch Pearl Jam. So now he's like, you can get your voice back in a week, right? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm not Eddie's doctor, but that's scary luck. Bad luck. I think it was in Rome that Kurt Cobain OD'd for the first time

as well. So Rome, not a good place for the grunge bands, really. And Kurt, I mean, I loved grunge and Eddie might be last man standing because... And I'll use the word grunge like i'll let i'll let like stone temple pilots go in there and i'll kind of extend it to them a bit i don't know if people like always have that argument is stone temple pilots grunge or not but

the sound was grungy sure of the time or whatever but they're all gone like because we can't count pumpkins as grunge no not really yeah it's it's i actually saw one of the mud honey played a free show at young bend us the other day and you know sort of you know it's them and i guess like the screaming trees are still around or those guys with the connor boys you just took me back to the single soundtrack yeah and then uh paul westerberg's on there but he's from minneapolis well yeah getting back to a replacement so and that's got on that track, I think there's a Soundgarden song in the single soundtrack. I'm trying to remember. Chris Cornell. Chris Cornell's

Seasons. That's right, yeah. One or two Temple of the Dog tracks. Two? No. Two Pearl Jam songs. No Temple of the Dog songs. Oh, that's right. It was the Mother Love Bone song. Was it on there maybe? Yeah, is it called Wood? What is the name of the guy? What is the Mother Love Bone song. Was on there maybe? They had...

Yeah. Is it called Wood? No. Wood is the name of the guy. What is the Alston James song? Yes, but it was named after Andrew Wood. That's right. I'm going to that.

So Pearl Jam's two songs are State of Love and Trust. Correct. Was on that. And something else that did not appear on 10. These were non-album tracks. Is it Breathe? Is that the name of the jam? Yeah.

Once. Not once. Was it?? Yeah. Once, not once. Was it not once? Once was on 10. So that's on Ocean. I think that was on 10. That was on 10. Yeah. In fact, Ocean had a video that never aired.

And I remember I've seen it. I bought the VHS of something or other. It had all the Pearl Jam videos on it. And there's an Ocean's video. And I never saw it on much. It was just kind of the band like at a beach kind of and and i don't know why uh a pearl jam could have a video for a great song that would never get much airplay yeah that that that album i never had i think my sister had it but the smashing pumpkin song on that drown i love that song still one of my favorite

pumpkin songs great soundtrack and screaming trees uh what was the big song that they had on that? It was great. Almost Lost You. I nearly lost you then. That's great. Yeah, I remember the video. They were on a, looked like a high school

football field, very Northwestern. That's great. Yeah. All right, so where am I here now? You went, then you worked.

So we're only up to 94. Hold on, we're going to burn through this. Canada's Wonderland. My only question is yeah uh we i i used to hear uh in fact i have a blog entry that ranks very highly for like canada's wonderland old map or something the old the one i remember smurf forest right smurf village i think the smurf village forest village force right there's a lot of smurf action back then uh the whitewater canyon that's what it's called right white where i can uh i would was there unreported accidents at whitewater canyon there was a lot of urban legends about candace wonderland both even before i started working

there there was also the sky writer guy allegedly pushed his girlfriend off it um to be honest i don't know like Like, you know, probably if someone died on Whitewater Canyon, this probably would have been in the news. You couldn't suppress that. Yeah. But you can suppress accidents probably. I would think,

well, it's sort of like the TTC, I imagine, you know, is this stuff, you know, unless someone's right there. But that's suicide. Like, if it's suicide, they don't report it. Right.

But everything else they report, well, we just had a murder right now. Well, yeah. And they did like a full, like a little press conference too. So, yeah. You don't have any inside like a little press conference too. So yeah. You don't have any inside scoop here. All your listeners will need to Google the Whitewater Canyon stuff.

They'll just end up on TorontoMake.com. It'll be infinite loop. Sometimes when I have something coming on, I'll have a memory of something and I'll Google it to remind myself. The first result is my own recollections of that memory that I wrote 15 years ago. I find as years go by, it's old tweets that I've written and stuff. It's like, oh yeah, I said this three years ago. But it's very helpful. Ann Romer is a good example.

I wanted to, what was all the Ann Romer specifics that was written about? And I Google it, of course. And now I'm on my own site reading what I wrote about Ann Romer. And it's kind of interesting. Well, you're like a digital marketing guy. You must have done wonders for SEO. No, yeah, absolutely. And where do you think I learned all my tactics?

In my sandbox called torontomic.com. Okay, then you hosted a radio show called The Sauce of Chaos at CFMU. What the hell is CFMU? And what is The Sauce of Chaos? So CFMU is the campus radio station McMaster University where I went for four years. I actually went to business school

the Michael DeGroote School of Business and yeah I co-hosted a radio show with my buddy Paul for two years. The Salsa Chaos I think was, I lifted the name off a fan site for Frank Black and the Pixies. At the time the Pixies and guided

by voices were my two bands like deep sort of indie rock at that time yeah um and there was there was i remember this website i think it was like a pixies fan site called the sauce of chaos i think it might have been a lyric from a frank black it's a great uh sentence to say i urge everybody listening to say the sauce of chaos yeah i google you could probably find if that actually is a lyric but yeah i hosted that show for two years at CFMU. Again, a lot of indie rock of the day and just sort of weird stuff. I really play a lot of like Spiritualize, Stereolab. I'm trying to think what bands were popular at that time.

Yeah, Canadian stuff. Sinospheric, a lot of the Sonic Onion bands out of Hamilton. Hayden. I think Hayden we play a lot because he had a second solo album. Hold on. I have a Hayden jam. I'm going to ask you about here. Wow. Did you just have that ready? Like, I don't think...

I also went to my high school. Oh, you're watching this all now. Loaded in there. Went to your high school. Yeah. Hesser date. Sorry, Hayden Desser. I think his name was Paul. Like we were saying, Paul Desser.

We used to see his grad picture. Lived very close to Gian Gomeschi, I believe. Another Thornley alumni. Okay, put a pin in the Gian thing. I'm going to get back to that. Spoiler. So Hayden, who I wrote a fan letter to when I picked up Everything I Long For

and spun the mess out of it. I wrote him like a snail mail piece of like, I thought he was the next Neil Young. I was sure. A lot of people, Spin Magazine thought he was too. Yeah, like and still quite popular. Yeah, I know. Great, well regarded and critically, critical darling. And, you know, yeah, I'm hoping to get him on this show one day.

I think he found a good lane. A lot of people seem to equate him with Beck back in the day, I seem to remember, which did not make sense at all. He was nothing like Beck and then later on people like Elliot Smith and kind of the brooding singer-songwriter

model, but Hayden was and is great. I love a lot of his music. Hold on. Does this part of Skates... To say what they want What could it be Or had he been True before me Seeing him in the store

I worked for That year Okay, my 2018 ears still love this song. This is fantastic. I mean, sort of teen angst. I don't know why this song always reminds me of the Rhea Statics record, Body Count. I think it's both about ice and and tragedy and just kind of like.

There's a guy I'm getting on. Badini's coming on. Yeah. Record body count. Yeah. Which was kind of a Ria Statics outlier. Like nothing else they had sounded like record body count. Two minute quirky.

But here's the thing. Young teenage Mike wanted more of that. And I mean, I grew to appreciate Ria Statics, but I wanted more of that and i mean i grew to appreciate real statics uh but i wanted more record body count i remember that came out right when i was just barely learning about music and i think i got confused because there was also that was also when the band body count ice tea was big yeah so you know it all sort of like mashes up in my mind of like what any of this stuff is. And it's I love just like thinking back to all those like bands I used to mix up in songs and thinking one band was really something else. And, you know, Cheap Trick, I thought, was like a hair metal band.

Yeah. You see the flame. You think this could be Whitesnake or Mr. Big or Extreme. Oh, my God. Extreme, right? That's the best example. Yeah. Extreme.

Perfect. And Extreme, because I had a buddy who was a metalhead and he was listening to a lot of extreme and it was really heavy shit before get the funk get the funk out the funk out but then of course uh the big hit more than words that was an outlier and that like that wasn't what extreme sounded like not at all that was mr big and get the Out, like, that could have been Boot Sauce. Boot Sauce, yes. Or Red Hot Chili Peppers. Boot Sauce, which was Canada's Red Hot Chili Peppers. Correct. Yeah, I know. Boot, thank you for mentioning, they had Bull, I think, was the name

of the album. But Boot Sauce, that's exactly what Get the Funk Out sounded like. Exactly. That stuff has not really aged well. I'm trying to think all the Boot Socks, like, everyone's a winner. Sorry'm trying to think all the boot socks like everyone's a winner sorry i shouldn't be right everyone's a winner i feel like bad we're drowning at hate and talking about boot sauce but uh well it's a long jam don't worry you got lots of time in this

one but when am i so this album everything i long for which had the big hit uh bad as they seem we've had a lot of much music play yeah the filmed in thornhill that's that's actually there's mowing the lawn or something we used to go by hayden's house and again this is i believe around the corner from where gomeshi lived i'm sorry that's okay it's okay we're gonna get back to him but uh here comes some neil young here see neil just showed up here i loved this song skates and i loved a lot i love that whole album i still will listen to everything i long for it's funny he's released many albums since and they're very good but when i decide i want to hear hayden i go back to. And it's funny, he's released many albums since and they're very good. But when I decide I want to hear Hayden, I go back to this album.

It's like super raw but really resonant. And again, I feel like it was a couple years after this came out when I... Actually, that's not true

because I knew in high school that he went to high school but it was a while. It was like, oh my God, this guy that went to our school. Oh, because he's older than you. Yeah, because he's...

He might be 10 years older. Is he 50 now? I would think so. He was long gone by the time I got into music or even got into high school. Well, that's my Brendan Shanahan story. Brendan Shanahan went to my high school, but we never overlapped because he's got some years on me.

He was gone before I showed up. Yeah, it's... I don't know. It's interesting to think of these kind of famous people going on to differing levels of fame who walk the same hallways as you once did. Okay, let's do the Gion thing now. So, because this band was, and who did I, oh yeah, Corky and the Juice Pigs.

Okay, have you heard the episode of Sean Cullen yet? Not yet. I know that just recently dropped, so I'll have to give that a listen. And I'm glad you said dropped because that's what us cool podcasters call it yeah and i sleazy pr folk like myself totally so um sean cullen was in that's where i first learned about him in corky and the juice pigs one of the songs that much music played a lot of because they had a video for it was remember which was kind of like a rem kind of a and i played it for sean and uh the uh uh okay what was i just yeah so we talked about kind of how at the beginning of bare naked ladies corky and the juice pigs used to tour with bare naked

ladies at the beginning bare naked ladies was kind of a silly kind of a they weren't they were kind of a silly we called the Canadian silly rock explosion where you know crashed us dummies were sort of in the mix and even reostatics got lumped in and I think lowest of the low did like it just because they're you hear that name lowest of the low and or maybe because you hear the name of the album Shakespeare my butt yeah sounds silly like

oh they're just joking around there's also you know the carpet frogs do you remember I remember the in spiral carpet yeah yeah and there's also the band the frogs who were sort of a porno rock Carpet Frogs. Do you remember? No, Carpet Frogs. I remember the, in Spiral Carpet, but that was a British band. Yeah. Yeah, and there was also the band The Frogs who were sort of a porno rock band.

But in the scene here, this, okay, I didn't know it was an explosion. I remember Barenaked Ladies because they were kind of, they were, you know, you could be my,

you'll go, oh no, kind of silly. Pretty silly. McDonald's Girl cover was played all the time on 102.1. I'm in love with McDonald's Girl.

And then you had, in the same scene with the Corky and the Juice Pigs and the Barenaked Ladies, you had Once I Was the King of Spain

kind of thing. And they were kind of a silly band. Very silly. Moxie Fruvis. But here's a jam that they put out and much music

played the hell out of here. This one too and I think 102 as well. But I, and I know you're not allowed to like anything Gian Gomeshi did but this song let's okay it's a very nice song it's a good theme for this episode too

i'd argue that the title applies to you and i you are right so this is your old friend gian gomeshi it's not my friend. He's like 10 years older than me. But yeah, Moxie Fruvis was a Thornley band. I went to Thornley Secondary School. They formed Wall at Thornley. And they would periodically come back and play concerts at school assemblies. Even once they were singing jams

like Stuck in the 90s and King of Spain. My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors. Do you remember that one? Yes, of course. That was a big one. They eventually put out an album called Thornhill 2 and I think they were trying

to rebrand themselves as like a jam band, like trying to go on tour. Yeah. Trying to get on the horde tour. I don't know what they were up to. Yeah, that this was all over much music. down to Cuba soon Reluctant to find he's stuck in the 90s again Yeah, that this was all over much music.

And also I think like Mix 99.9 like this is the big hit back in the day. Not really one that gets played much anymore. Now it's probably been blacklisted now. I think so. Yeah, now it's persona non gratis or whatever they say but uh

yeah i just want to say that uh that as the band goes they were silly and all this but uh this song i always thought was a nice song yeah well it seemed like bare naked ladies i mean you know the song brian wilson is kind of silly the lyrics but it's quite a serious song or no you're right and even what a good boy rain was a... Are you talking Milli Vanilli? No. How did... Okay, I'm going to get this right. Hold on. I'll turn down Gian, though.

He's interfering with my channeling of Stephen Page. Park Gian over there. Gian, sorry, brother. As it goes, If Milli Vanilli said you could blame it on the rain, what if you blame it on the rain? Tell me much could be gained. So if all else fails could blame it on the rain, what if you blame it on the rain? Tell me much could be gained. So if all else fails,

blame it on me. Blame it on me is the name of the song. I remember that. Sometimes I have to sing a song to get to what the hell the title is. Yeah. I mean, really, you know, say what you will about Baranakalees,

but like really clever lyricists. Did you have the yellow cassette? No. Well, again, like I was, by the time I was getting to music, like I was like, I was like Pixies, Dinosaur Junior. Okay, but tell me, what age are you?

Because maybe that's where... Because I know my age, which is three years older than you. But are you older when you get into music? Yeah, like again, like 92, 93. I was between the Leafs and the Jays at that time. And just being in grade 9 and grade 10. Another Bernickele song this is me in grade 9 baby yes another silly

silly one I just wasn't sort of paying attention to music that closely because I was just squarely focused on just being like the biggest sports nerd on the planet but again baseball strike and then you know oh like I heard a Sonic Youth song on the radio and definitely Smashing Pumpkins when that came out Siamese Dream

and Beck I'm a Loser and Sloan. Slowly got into it and then fell hard into music. It took me a long time to get back into sports, frankly. Probably after university. You had difficulty multitasking. Because a lot of us can do both.

Now I can, especially now working for Twitter Canada. It's a required job requirement. Everything but watching the World Cup matches. Exactly. All right. Now, I mean, there'll be more music tangents later. Don't worry.

But you did some freelance writing. Okay. So you're doing, you're actually, you mentioned this earlier, but you're writing for Chart Magazine. That's right. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

So I wrote for Chart for, I think, about five years. This is when, I don't know if you know Aaron Brophy. He's kind of in the Strombo inner circle. Now works for, does some stuff with Polaris Prize. I remember John Brophy. Yeah, no relation.

Or Mike Brophy was like the editor of the Hockey News. And I bumped into him at a Home Depot in Thornhill of all places. John Brophy? No.

Or Mike Brophy. Mike Brophy. Mike Brophy, okay. Yeah, Aaron, I'm not sure if there's any relation, but he was the editor at the time. Did a lot of reviews, interviews,

like people I interviewed during that time. Lily Allen, uh, LCD sound system. These are big names. Yeah. I don't think it was for that. Like Arcade Fire,

uh, Billy Talents. Love Billy Talents. Yeah. The Shins, Muse, you know, all the,

all those sort of like superstar 2000s acts. I kind of spoke to. Well, that's amazing. One time or another. Yeah. Sort of the guy from the Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr. I remember of spoke to... Well, that's amazing. One time or another. Yeah, sort of... The guy from The Strokes,

Albert Hammond Jr., I remember interviewing him. Okay, okay. And like tons of Canadian musicians like Kidding Cameras, Dears, Stars, like you name it. I spoke to some of the Broken Souls.

The Stills? I don't think I ever spoke to The Stills. There was that era where it was all the this. That's right. Like The Strokes, The Stills, The Hives. The where it was all the this. That's right. The strokes, the stills, the hives.

The hives, the vines. The vines. Like this was the thing. Yeah. There was the bravery. Do you remember that? The guy who kind of sounded like Morrissey.

I saw him at one of either, I think an edge fest at Downsview Park. Yeah. I just finished reading the book. It's called Meet Me

in the Bathroom. It's a recap of that entire New York thing from the early days. It's really well done. You know, talks with James Murphy and Julian Casablancas from The Strokes. The Strokes is...

I mean, I can go back to listen to that early 2000s Strokes and still love it. Like, it was just great. I also think The Strokes are going to be like an all-time great band. Like, it's going to be like timeless music. Like, it's funny because they were so hyped

when they came out. But I think they totally backed it up. Just a little. Totally not the strokes, whatever this is. Not the strokes. Okay. So what is this, Mike? So today, this morning, I take the kids to daycare.

I'm doing a little work. And I see World Cup's about to start. So I'm tuning in to see, oh, what do I got for me now? It's Colombia versus Japan. And I say out loud, no one's in the room, just myself. I said, next stop, the motherland. Yo, Kish, you went to Africa? No, Japan.

Oh, wow. Okay. Another Canadian hip-hop great, Kish. And he is one of the first famous people I ever met. So I didn't meet a lot of famous people. Later we'll get into some of the famous people you met. Was this at McDonald's too? No, this was at 333 Young.

It was HMV. And I was going to the basement to buy... I used to buy my hip-hop in the basement at HMV. Of course, yeah. And he was there. I think it was a bodyguard or a large friend. I didn't know if it was a large friend or a bodyguard. You could all use a large friend. And Kish was there he had like a I think it was a bodyguard or a large friend I didn't know if it was a large friend

or a bodyguard you could all use a large friend for sure and Kish was there and I was really into his album Order From Chaos

it's like Crates In Concrete and some other that was maybe the second album that's the second album that's the second album this was the one well this was a big single

but was he signing autographs or was he just no I just he was just going into shop and i was leaving and i said kish i love your stuff or something he goes thanks man or something like that was a large friend like holding all his CDs he was buying like he was on his way in maybe he's like a personal shopper of some sort maybe but um so kish i tweeted this morning at kish so kish is

now a voiceover actor in California. Like a successful voiceover guy. Andrew Kishino. Fantastic. And I thought of him. Japan won this match and it was a big upset, I think. And I thought of Kish. So what's the name of this song?

I Rhymed the World in 80 Days. Yes, yeah, okay. But you might remember... Dig this. Let the bass kick. But you might remember... You might remember the video for this single from the same album, Kish's Order From Chaos. I'll let her warm up a bit and tell you what was noteworthy about this video. This is very 91.

I totally dance this. This is great. Boss bitch, I'm out of the club and looking crisp. Pockets are fat and a rap that can't miss. Ladies, there's just too many to make a choice from. I'll saddle up and bust a smooth voice on them. Got it, let me buy a drink, you sweet thing. I kick gang, cause yo, I like to swing. Oops, turn around and bust a breath mint. So you know my breath don't stink and I'm back. What's your name again?

You say you like the tie, I like what's in your dress. So let me put the body to a test. Grab my hand and we'll stand and dance. Well, I'll show you what a pair of shoes are made for But what's this? Eyes are looking over in directions Scoping every bit of every bodily section Bet the next second she's gone She's a flirt, so I'm fluent

And she keeps singing to every man So in the video, the woman lip-syncing to this part, I believe, is Lucy from Degrassi. Whoa. Did you read the recent Toronto Life feature? part, I believe is Lucy from Degrassi. Whoa. Did you read the recent Toronto Life feature? Yes, I did. Fascinating stuff. I mean, I really had

no idea. Quite a dual upbringing. Anais Granovski, am I saying that right? Yeah. Lucy was always kind of the voice of reason. Especially when her and Bronco got together. They were just both so headstrong and smart and

reliable you know pacifist trying to break up fights at the cottage when like Joey and Snake were going at it I got lots of time for Lucy I mean Lucy you know she had her bumps you know a little shoplifting a little underage drinking back in the day

I remember in the Runnymede library I remember in the Runnymede library, that Bluer and Runnymede, yeah, close to Bluer and Runnymede there's a library. And our class went to a room in this library back in the late 80s or whatever to watch

a film. Literally, there was this film canister hooked up to the machine and it was Kids of Degrassi Street. This is before Degrassi, uh, junior high debuted. Okay. Here's,

here's a trivia question. Uh, so wheels, I believe it was wheels was in. Yes. The act. Yes. But I don't know if he played wheels,

but yeah, he changed his name. Derek McGrath. What's his name? Uh, let's just say Neil Hope. Neil, Neil Hope.

Yeah. Derek Wheeler. Derek wheels. Yeah. But he actually had a different name. It might have been the kids in Degrassi or maybe just early Degrassi. Do you know what his actual name was?

It wasn't Wheels. Okay, don't tell me. I remember the episode where his mom made him wear a reflective vest when he biked. And everybody, he was so ashamed that he had to embarrass by this. But by the end of the episode,

all the kids in the grassy they all uh thought it was a new cool trend and they were all wearing the vest so it was like a like fashion forward yeah what was his name i think it's sort of a b butch i'm not gonna touch that one no it's not but i think it was griff oh yeah it was griff it was griff 100% also wasn't there someone in Public Enemy? Yeah, Professor Griff, of course. Professor Griff. Yo, hey, Milk Toast. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, who got in trouble for some anti-Semitic comments in 1990. Yes, he did, yeah. 1990 was an interesting year. Was he the Deputy of Truth? Minister of... Minister of Truth, the different titles. Well, they had Security of the First World, the S1Ws, which were like the bodyguard guys.

And yes, Professor Griff, who I think was replaced by Sister Soulja, if I'm correct. That's right. And Terminator X, of course, was the DJ.

Of course. At some point, he retires to become an ostrich farmer. This is what I'm told. Yeah, I remember. And DJ Lord, I believe is his name,

takes over for Terminator X. The only two guys that kind of are from A to Z, I don't think there's a public enemy without these two guys, is Chuck D and Flava Flav. Pretty much. And still touring, I believe. They still see them. But not here in a long time. I know he

did that. He, when I wasn't even in town, but Chuck D came with Renegades of Funk? Is that what they're called? Oh, that's right. But no Flava Flav. There was no Profits of Rage.phets of Rage. Prophets of Rage. Yeah, with B-Real

and I think it was Tom Morello. Which, yes. And so he was here for that like a couple of years ago. But Public Enemy, the last time they were here and I watched them like a hawk. So if they come to town,

I'm going to see them. I saw them at the Sound Academy and I'm going to say that was like five years ago. Yeah, I remember they... I think they played at like Wake Stock in... Yes, I think they played at like Wake Stock in, um, Yes, I think you're right.

Or Sega Beach or something, too, which is like, wow. Like, who would have thought, you know, Public Enemy would ever be coming to a Sega Beach? They did a tour with a band, the Sisters of Mercy, if you can believe it. Do you remember them? They were like a gothic band. Yes, of course, Sisters of Mercy. I do remember. Yeah, and I remember writing something for

my blog where they actually played in Thunder Bay back in the day. Well, here's the thing about Public Enemy. And I noticed this when I saw it at the Sound Academy. Like in my mind, they are the best hip hop band of all time and legends. They're the Beatles of hip hop, for God's sakes. But they actually like, I mean, the tickets were going for like 15 bucks on Groupon. And it was really, and I mean, that show, by the way, Maestro and Mishy Mee both jumped on stage to do verses during that show.

Well, it's interesting because we're just now seeing sort of the first generation of hip-hop bands go on, you know, what I'll loosely call the casino circuit. Right. You know, they were peeing

at band shells and maybe... Like a Young MC or something. Yeah. Kind of level. Yeah. I actually saw... Do you remember Main Source? Do you remember Breaking Atoms?

They were one of the first great Toronto hip hop bands. Kind of. They played a free show last year in Toronto near David P. called Square. I think it was maybe during the Luminato Festival. Okay. Same deal. Maestro hopped on stage with them, threw down some rhymes.

On this, remember the night where Belly, not Belly the band that Biff Naked just told me about, but Belly the rapper. Not the grunge, throwing muses, offshoot Belly. Was it Feed the Trees? Feed the Tree, yeah, super connected. Feed the Tree particularly was a big hit.

And anyways, they only jumped in my mind again because Biff Naked was talking about Belly, was really talking about Belly, was really like talking about Belly. Like Belly the band. The band. Yeah. Not Belly the Drake associate. So Belly the Drake associate, when he played, this is during, I think it was during the

Pan Am Games, I think, or the something. But when he played that, that night that he played Nathan Phillips Square and said those bad words that caused controversy. Do you remember this? Yeah, I do remember. Yeah. I took my kids earlier in the day before the bad words that caused controversy. Yeah, I do remember. Yeah, I took my kids earlier in the day before the bad words. I took my kids to Roots of the Six with DJ Ron Nelson bringing to you Dream Warriors,

Mishy Mee and Maestro Freshness. I remember the show. I think I was out of town and that's Fantastic Voyage. Fantastic Voyage. Right. And he's been on the show, DJ Ron Nelson. And when he was, again, again, in in my mind's eye some of these cats are just bigger than i then i get a reality check and i realize oh you know you could probably you can

see public enemy they they don't sell out they do small venues like you can see them in thunder bay kind of deal like and it doesn't i don't understand no like the the folklore around them certainly you know outsizes kind of what the i guess the modern realities and not just in hip-hop and a lot of genres. I mean, not to get back to Kelly Gruber, but Blue Jay Legend. You can sort of just book them, fly them up.

You know, Lloyd Mosby. Yeah, Lloyd Mosby. I never... I've got to come back to Lloyd. So you were at that... There's a nice photo. Is it you and your dad and Lloyd Mosby?

That's right, yeah. And Chris, our head of sports at Twitter Canada, four of us. And he was awesome. We can crop him out, probably, Chris. Chris Harsey is a Mosby. Yeah. No, don't crop out Lloyd Mosby. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, it's sort of interesting, you know, that the celebrity never goes away. I mean, there's always going to be the audience. But, you know, every year that passes, you know, less and less people remember Mosby's heyday. I barely remember him playing for the Jays. No, you're right. And I mean, because I fell in love with baseball around 83 season, basically,

so Lloyd Mosby was a huge deal, but he's long gone before a World Series shows up. So yeah, totally. And I will say that now in my mind, when I think of celebrity, I've been educated by this being episode 350 so now i can pretty much you name a famous person in my mind will instantly put them in one of three buckets could never get them in my in my basement uh can definitely get them in my basement uh or i'm not too sure borderline maybe can get them in my basement like that's where i'm at now so drake like my daughter always because i wanted maestro on this show really badly and uh because i loved

maestro fresh west and i had him in the bucket can get him in i had him in that bucket can get him in my basement yeah okay but my daughter at the time who was much younger uh she was like uh you got to get drake he's toronto you gotta get drake and i have drake firmly in the never gonna get drake in my basement bucket so this is how I'm now gauging. Have you looked into sort of YouTube creators getting them down here? Kind of the AB family or the Lilly Sings, Matthew Santoro's of the world?

I know they're big deals. No, my daughter watches a lot of YouTube shows. Unboxing specialists, little kids who unbox. Oh, unboxing. I have another gift for you. That's right. So here, I'm giving you, I know people can't see unboxing. I have another gift for you. That's right. So here.

I'm giving you... I know people can't see this. I should have cameras in here. These are from... Do you remember Pete Fowler from CFNY? Of course, yes. And I have looked at some of the Lost Indie City stuff. So those are courtesy of Pete Fowler

because you're a music fan and you've dropped enough 90s music bands. Thank you. So I earned the, this is sort of like. Not everyone get and didn't get that. Yeah. I was going to use that as sort of a poor taste analogy, but I won't. Those are great.

No, I definitely, it's very cool what he's doing as a fan of a lot of that music. Are we ever going to finish your bio here? Okay. So then you, let me just, I'm going to jump ahead a bit here. Sure, yeah. Okay. So you did get a piece published in the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. Yeah, that was kind of interesting.

I think it's sort of another interesting nostalgia piece. I wrote for about two years a column called Off the Radar for a long forgotten Toronto tabloid called Toronto Special. Did you ever see this? Nope. I don't remember. Yeah, it was kind of like a jokey Toronto tabloid. But I would do this column about people from Toronto had sort of just disappeared. And this was the early 2000s. So before everyone you could find, I remember writing something about

Dick Smythe in there. Dick Smythe. Bill Walichka. Yes. Also a fellow Thornley graduate, I think was in Ottawa at the time. But I actually had someone contact me and said, you should write something about John Major. And I'm like, who's John Major? And they and they're like oh my god how do you not know him that's what I would say yeah it was like a big deal on Toronto Rocks and and Chum back in the day um at the time John was I believe in Minnesota and was actually had terminal cancer like it's really tragic and you know this was just I don't know if it's someone's family or friend just saying you know we'd like to get him memorialized somewhere. And I'm like, why me? But anyway, I wrote a little thing for Off the Radar and spoke to John and he was very nice. I mean, he was basically in like hospice care at the time. Like it was quite dramatic.

And I wrote that. And then I thought, holy shit, this is like a really important part of a specific time in Toronto. So I actually contacted the entertainment editor at the Star at the time. This was, I think, 2004, 2005. I said, hey, I'm sort of loosely a freelance writer and I just spoke to John Major and she knew all about him. I was like, oh my God,

would you write something for the Star? When I told him, you know, he's actually in Minnesota and is not well. It's the one article I ever read in Star. You know, it's basically

sort of a pre-obituary for john major it's sort of like tragic um but again you know but at least he gets to read it this way yeah and again you know sort of consistent with like a lot of this other stuff we've talked about today like a big part of kind of toronto folklore it was a big deal to me toronto rocks was a big deal to me yeah and everyone everybody remembers you know they'll say oh jd roberts right like you know uh because now john roberts from Fox News or wherever he's at now. But John Major was a big, big guy there. I think Brad Giffen, I want to say.

Yeah. And you know what? I'm trying to think. Was it Video Hits or was it Toronto Rocks? Video Hits was Samantha Taylor. Yeah, Samantha Taylor. Yeah, I think it was Toronto Rocks. That was CBC.

And then Toronto Rocks was City TV. Yeah. So this was, you know, maybe sort of five years before I was even aware of, you know, a lot of this. And the big thing, I always would tune in and then be like, okay, here's Helix, like Rocky, like a hurricane

would be like the kind of stuff you'd hear. You'd see the video. Exactly, or Let's Get Physical was probably big at that time with Olivia Newton-John. No, it was harder than that. It was harder than that.

Oh, Toronto Rocks. Yeah, Toronto Rocks was harder than that. So it was really like Platinum Blonde. I know that doesn't sound hard, right? But it's harder than Olivia Newton-John oh for sure wave babies for example i remember loving wave baby because these women these women in bikinis were on their stomachs but they had

their tops off i guess so they don't have tan lines okay you know so they're lying on their stomachs you can't see their breasts but you can see their topless because you see their backs and the guy from honeymoon suite had this big cold bucket of water. And he goes, all these hot chicks lined up, and he pours the water on their backs because they're all shocked by the cold. They're all going to get up. Like, get up, and they're going to be exposed.

It seems like David Lee Roth's manager must have had a hand in that. Oh, my God. This must be just like living in paradise. That's a great chant. Definitely a different time. I'm not sure that video with that... It sounds like a very

high concept video. Because you're thinking of California Girls, which, again, big hit. I didn't know it was a Beach Boys song when I first heard

David Lee... We have said that Just a Gigolo, which I think was a cover too. Just a Gigolo, everywhere I go. Big hit. And that was called Crazy from the Heat,

that album. And it was short. At the time, I was used to a certain length of a cassette, and this thing was like four, maybe four songs or something. It was like a really like an EP, I would call that. It came out hard after you left

Van Halen. But I remember his next solo album, that's the one with the song paradise and i thought paradise was a great jam i still love that song great summertime tune or down on spring break in in florida fantastic for sure so john major yeah uh we lost him too soon but yeah he was a big deal for guys my age listening to watching, watching Toronto Rocks. And I don't even remember him from the radio. Like to me, he's just Toronto Rocks guy. I know he's a chum DJ, but I missed his chum.

Time and place guy for sure. Now, okay. And you do a podcast now or is it a blog or is it both? Completely ignored. Yeah. Yeah. So completely ignored. I came up with the title.

It's sort of a tongue in cheek. Again, as the guy's worked in PR for a long time, there's a lot of bloggers out there. And, you know, a lot of them, you know, their traffic might not be that high. So it's a bit of a sly wink to that. It's also a line from at the time I was listening to a lot of Bright Eyes.

I don't know if you ever got into Bright Eyes music. I remember one radio hit from Bright Eyes, which you can probably tell me what it was. Luau. Never really had a ton of hits, but it was sort of a big deal for a time. I just thought it was a great name for a blog. And then a couple of years later,

I had the happenstance to meet a famous Toronto musician, Sammy Cohn, who's the drummer for The Watchmen. Yeah, exactly. And I chose the remix. Just thought for a moment, is that I have a lot of Watchmen stuff. for the Watchmen. Yeah, exactly. And I chose the remix. Stop for a moment. I have a lot of Watchmen stuff. I love Watchmen, but this is the remix to stereo,

which I thought I'd play because you don't hear the remix. I don't think I've heard this. Is this from a Greatest Hits album? This was like Cat Throne? I think exactly. I think it was a bonus track on a Greatest Hits album.

So it's very different than the stereo you heard on 102. Sounds a bit like Dead Can Dance or Enigma, perhaps some world beats for the Watchmen there. Wow, this is different. So Sammy Cone? Cone, yeah. Like David Cone. Right.

David Cone. Spelled differently, though. That guy could pitch. Yeah. Highly underrated band. They're fantastic. I mean, I saw them a couple times back in the day, including New Year's Eve at Mel Lastman Square.

Again, lots of moshing going on. I saw them, I think, at Frosh Week at McMaster. Nice. Eden Music Fest. Were you at this? No. Do you remember what that is? Last time I saw Watchmen was opening for the Tragically Hip on Canada Day at the Molson Amphitheater, and I remember thinking, fuck, these guys are good.

It was just great. They're great. I actually saw them last summer. They played at the C&E Bandshell, and I took my daughter up. Sammy gave her a little drum lesson. I have a little video of it. That's cute. It's great, and Sammy's awesome. So how did you get hooked?

Remind me, how did you get hooked up with Sammy? Well, Sammy at the time was actually working for Twitter Canada, so he's a colleague. It's funny, the first day I started, you're kind of just meeting everyone in the office, and you sort of looked at my Twitter bio and knew I was a music fan. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm in a band. I'm like twitter bio and knew as a music fan he's like oh

yeah i'm in a band i'm like anyone i would have heard is he's like oh the watchman i'm just like boneyard tree like come on dude like yes that album the boneyard tree album had uh all uncovered which is one of the sweetest canadian rock songs of all time so one of the better canadian singles of the 90s like absolutely. And a great video too because I can see the reflection in the car wheel or whatever. Yeah. The hubcap. Classic. So yeah, we've done the podcast for

I guess two or three years. We do it in seasons. It's kind of just, you know, two guys of a certain age talking about music. Sounds like my kind of podcast. Yeah, well, there's definitely been some overlap with some of our guests with Toronto Mike. We've had Alan. Name the overlaps.

We've had Alan Cross on. We've had Mr. 1236. Wait, wait a minute. I'm going to do this now. I'm going to be a dink. Ready? How many times did you have Alan Cross on? There's been no repeat guests.

Okay, so I've had him on three times, so that wins. Okay, very good. And there's no way you can compete with Mark. He's been on this show Double Digits. Is he your most often guest? Yeah, because he's clockwork four times a year. Okay, well, you'll definitely need to ask him about the 1236, the long-rumored 1236

podcast, too. I always get that update. Yeah, for sure. You should just do it here, right? I mean, Hebsey does his podcast here. I could just do his podcast here. But could just do his podcast here. But he's in bed with St. Joseph Media. That's right. Yeah.

Conflict or something. Yeah. So, who else? Sorry. Those are two great guests. Yeah. We've had other people that have not been down here in the basement. We've had Jay Ferguson from Sloan, Brendan Canning from Broken Social Scene. Eric Alper.

I'm surprised you haven't had him on. I've had his clients in. Like, Fred Penner. Okay. Yeah. Fred Penner is an Eric Alper I'm surprised you haven't had him on I've had his clients in like Fred Penner Fred Penner is an Eric Alper client and there was another one kind of a I'll tell it it's not that embarrassing so I reached out to Biff Naked to come on because Biff Naked

is my neighbor and I heard she was a Torontonian now and I love Biff Naked and I just wrote her an email and she's the sweetest thing got back to me she came over did a great episode Biff Naked and I just wrote her an email. Okay. And she's the sweetest thing. Got back to me. She came over, did a great episode.

Biff Naked. Biff fucking naked. And a month later, maybe four weeks later, after her great appearance, which I promoted the hell out of, I got a nice email

from Eric Alper telling me I could have Biff Naked on my show. Oh, fantastic. And I hope I wasn't too snarky yeah no

Eric's cool his daughter's amazing too Hannah I heard he's very involved in the We Day and she's written a book and you know

she's out there in the media too overachiever yeah no definitely definitely yeah high caliber

so I should have Eric on I never even thought I mean Eric's like an encyclopedic music guy too just super nice guy i've also had richard casso you remember him he was on much more music back in the day he was one of the much more

music hosts uh dalton higgins i don't think i was too familiar with the much more music people yeah yeah i mean it's sort of yeah it was a different time i felt like that felt like it was like your parents music or something i don't know well it was sort of like the adult contemporary version of Much Music, but they'd also do a little, I guess, primordial reality programming. And then I've also just had, you know, like Adam that I went to high school with. Like he's been on the podcast. Shoot the Shit. They're called Shoot the Shit episodes.

Exactly. Yeah. Lindsay Lynch, who now works for Shopify, but I worked with her at Twitter, had her on. Allie Mannion, give her a shout out. Also used to work at Twitter. She's now at Dibley. So, you know, it's sort of this... Oh, yeah. Dibley's Believe It or Not.

Sure. Why not? Why not? Yeah. Sort of an interesting cross-section I guess. Then a lot of episodes of Sammy and I just talking about stuff. But, like, I mean, that's what this episode is. And to be honest, I'm having such a good time. If there's somebody who... I remember I quoted her a few times on this,

but, uh, she loved the Ann Romer podcast. She told me, but it was too inside Toronto. She's from Edmonton and she's like, Jojo Chinto. Like,

and I said to her, I said, Oh, you, it's too inside Toronto. Is it? She goes, yeah.

Uh, and I said, uh, good. And I smiled. I said, that's exactly what I'm going for. You've done your job.

Yes. I want the Edmonton born and raised people to be scratching their head and go, this is way inside Toronto. That's what I want. Well, even like, you know, speak about specific McDonald's or like, I remember when I was saying in my little pre-brief, and I'm glad, I'm just going to throw this out, it's a

total non sequitur, but seeing Elvis Stoico return a VHS or a VCR at Future Shop in Richard Hill. That's a, no, I mean, and I want to get all of these. So, because I, one of mine, and he was, okay, this is a nice tie-in to completely ignore it, is that when I worked a game booth at the C&E,

and I worked it for three years, it was called Papa Ball. It's not there anymore, but I managed it in the third year. And I saw in the corner of my eye, I saw Pat Mastroianni, Joey Jeremiah from Degrassi. Another guy. And I said, Joey! Or something like that.

And I said, I love Degrassi. I said, I love it. Sure, he never gets that. I know. And he goes, oh, thanks, man.

He was really nice. Thanks, man. And I said, hey, you can play for free. And I just let him play pop-a-ball for free. Wow. And he seemed to really appreciate it.

Was he wearing the hat? I can't remember. I think he had hair back. I don't remember's wearing he wasn't wearing the hat that's for sure but uh i i heard he he did your show yeah he did he didn't drop that massive name yeah no i mean that that i was building up to that no we did a one hour episode about the music of degrassi and it was really fun because it was a combination of talking about the real bands whose music was featured in Degrassi. So The Spoons, I know it's another great Canadian, Gord Depp.

Had bands like Harem Scarem and Gowan, whose music was featured in the show. And who just played, and this is going to come up in the 1236 episode on Thursday, but apparently for the first time ever, Gowan played Mr. Roboto with sticks. Apparently they buried Mr. Roboto.

They don't play it since the original lead singer was kicked out. Dennis DeYoung. Right, because that's his scene, that robot stuff or whatever. They didn't like that, and that's why they kicked him out. And they don't play Mr. Roboto. I'll get more from Mark. But they played it for the first time, like apparently this past week. Finally, after 18 years of touring with Styx.

So Gowan's now performed Mr. Roboto. Yeah. So anyway, with the Pat slash Joey, we also talked about a lot of the fake bands of Degrassi. So obviously the Zit Remedy, but also the Gourmet Scum. Yeah, I don't remember the Gourmet Scum. They were sort of the fake band they were always going to see. I think it was maybe

a Gourmet Scum concert when Shane jumped off the Blur Viaduct and had brain damage. And then turned into Jonathan Torrance. I said, yeah, and the description shapeshifted into Jono. There was also a band I remember called The Savages who were

filming a video at Degrassi and now there's a Scottish indie band called The Savages. Not surprised because Savage Garden was a big band. And then, you know, Randy Macho Man Savage. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He was in Spider-Man.

Yeah, he was. Yeah. And he did a diss track and I wish I should load it up. I should load it up. Oh, Be the Man. Be a man, Hulk. Be a man, yeah. Don't be scared. You're running from the Macho Man. That's what I heard. See, he tries to rhyme scared with heard, which is not easy.

So he has to go, you're running scared. I still remember seeing him kick the shit out of Georgie Animal Steel. Like when he's sort of distracted by the beautiful Elizabeth. I watched, I was a big Macho Man fan.

I love that era with Georgie Animal Steel and Captain Lou Albano. Jake the Snake Roberts. And the DDT and he had Damien. Yeah, a lot of animals running around. Did you think of Coco Beware? Coco Beware and the Bulldog. British Bulldog.

Bulldog would come and chase Bobby Heenan around. You're right. Those were solid days. I just had Agnew on the show, Jason Agnew. So it gave me an excuse to play some old wrestling album cuts. Oh, okay. Perfect. I played For Everybody by Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Which that was a cover of a song called Fuck Everybody. Yeah, very rude. I'm glad they changed it. It was sort of like a bar band song from what I recall. Yeah, it was Joe something and the whate It was like out of New Jersey or something. Poor taste. Mike Angelo, maybe? Mike Angelo?

Not Frank D'Angelo. Not who? When is he coming down to the basement? I know this has been discussed. I'm too scared. I'm too scared. You'd have to do that at a third-party site. Yeah, we'll do that at Great Lakes.

Yeah, or what is the Cream Kanji, where he does his podcast at a bar? Oh, what's that? Because I had Dan Spearin on. Yeah, it was going to call it the Paradise Hotel. No, what is the Kareem Kanji, where he does his podcast at the bar? Oh, what's that? Because I had Dan Spearin on. Yeah, it was called the Paradise Hotel. No, what is that place called? The Something Hotel. I was on that show. Yeah, I was on Kareem's podcast, too.

It's a great little setup there. I know he's encroaching on your turf. Only when he... Who did he have on? I'm very angry at him because he got somebody to come on and talk about a subject that she refuses to talk about with me.

And I'm taking it very personally. Oh, interesting. Erica M. Oh, of course. Erica M. Friend of mine. Okay, well, tell it.

Okay, from no disrespect to her, I can't have her on unless I can talk about much music. Yeah. And she doesn't want to talk about much music. So we're at a,

basically we're at a standoff. You're on loggerheads. You know who'd be great if you could get on? I actually, I think I interviewed him for the off the radar feature, Michael Williams. I've asked him and he said he was too busy.

He's going by Graybeard or something. He's producing a lot of great music. And I actually had him. He said he's too busy. But the guy who said he wants to come on this summer is Master T. Oh, wow. Tony.

Tony Young, right? Tony Young. Yeah. Yeah. I've met him like once. He just seems like the nicest guy. Well, he did a campaign. I think Ed the Sock might have been.

He was trying to save much music because Bell Media allegedly is destroying much. I can't comment any further for fear of litigation, but they were going to try to save much music. Interesting. But another place,

the guys and gals at Paytm Canada told me they have a great downtown office. Like one of those cool, like, you know, the brick, exposed brick. It's just one of those cool downtown locations.

A lot like Twitter Canada. I was going to say, it sounds like Twitter Canada. Well, I took, if anyone follows me on Twitter, I tweeted a whole bunch of cool photos from that Twitter Canada. That was a cool space. And there's a photo of you and I in the blue room together. So I was going to say, because I'm playing the Paytm song, I was going to be talking about how I would record my episode

of Frank D'Angelo from Paytm's office. But of course, I could also record it from Twitter Canada's office. We'd have to talk about getting it signed in. Let's circle back to that one. Let's park that one. There's one thing we have

in common in addition to these great bands we all love in this Toronto Blue Jays. We, Cam, we have in common paying bills, whether it's. We, Cam, we have in common paying bills, whether it's cell phone, tuition, property taxes, rent, we all pay our fair share of bills. Paytm Canada, that's the only app in Canada that gives you rewards for bill payments. They've gamified the whole thing. You got to pay the bills anyways. They make it easy to do it on the app. It's so easy. It's practically fun. But they do two things that I'm

in love with. One is they let me pay all of my bills with my MasterCard so I can get my President's Choice points and I can get my free groceries. But the second thing they've done, which is great, which is every time I spend a dollar on a bill I have to pay anyways, they give me Paytm points and I can redeem them for special rewards. So, thank you, Paytm. Oh, yeah, you want $10? This is the most important part. I'm burying the lead here. But if you use the promo code TorontoMike

when you make your first bill payment with Paytm, you get $10. Immediately, you give $10 in Paytm cash. You can use that towards a bill payment or a rewards purchase. So, use the promo code Toronto Mike. This was one of my first, one of my first favorite jams because this interest,

they called interstitials. Am I saying that word right? Interstitial. This was a National Film Board short, a couple minutes long. I would see it all the time. Is this the Logger's Waltz? Yes. Very good. The Logger's

Waltz. Logger's, sure, yeah. An animated. Kate and Anna McGarrickle. Oh, one of which is? The mother of Rufus Wainwright. Rufus Wainwright, that's right. We both know some of the same.

I never knew this was the McGarrickle sisters. But that totally makes sense. Say I'm not sure that it's business of yours, but I do like to waltz with the log driver. For he goes purling down and down white water. That's where the log driver learns to step lightly. It's purling down and down white water. A log driver's waltz pleases girls completely. So for no reason other than when else am I going to play this great jam? Yeah, I'm actually

a big fan of the McGarigal sisters. I don't know if you ever dive deep into their category. No, but I should. Check out, there's a song called Go Now that's just like really kind of heartbreaking. I think it's called Go Now and then Heart Like a Wheel is another great one. They're sort of like

early 70s stuff. It's just incredible. I don't know. It's just incredible. Like, I don't know, like it's sort of, it's a little out of step with a lot of stuff I like, but that stuff just really hits. You got to have those outliers,

you know, you got to have those like, oh, I just like that. Totally, yeah. I know it doesn't fit with the rest of the stuff I like, but I just like that. Yeah, I mean,

that whole family of, yeah, pretty much all that I love. So you mentioned Elvis Stoico returning a VCR atcr at future shop yeah let's get back to that which is that's that's a great that's the kind of stuff i love any other examples that you can run down of famous people you encountered well i mean you know you sort of touched on it for guys like you and i and people who lived in toronto or gta their whole life everyone's got a million stories like this. I remember when I first started going to concerts in high school and it's like, oh my God, Ken from Rusty's here or there's Chris Murphy or...

Both those guys have been here. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, people are just, they're famous, but they're kind of around. I remember one that really sticks out. I was at Marche once. This is when, I guess it's still there, like on Yonge Street.

Yeah, near King and Yonge. Yeah. I was there. I don't know if it was with my mom or dad or maybe some guys from high school. And it was probably like just friends of mine. And Kevin Willis and Vince Carter from the Raptors were there. Amazing. Everyone was just looking at them because these two

just massive guys, especially Kevin Willis is like 7'1 and like his arms are like, you know, my waist. But just kind's like 7'1", and his arms are my waist. But just kind of like having brunch like everyone else. I think it was Vince's first year, so he wasn't quite Air Canada. He wasn't half man, half amazing

yet. Yeah, to quote Nas. Yeah, so that sort of comes to mind. I'm trying to think like other But that's amazing. So mind um i'm trying to think like other like but that's amazing so my comparable because while you think of another one uh is um i was again i was this time is that sam the record man at young and dundas and i was shopping for discs and in comes joe carter with he was wearing a world series ring wow and he picked up a disc like in the next thing and he

lined up he paid for it and then he left and i was with my brother i think at the time and we were like we didn't like we we we didn't like hey hi joe hey uh nice to meet you we didn't we didn't we left him alone but we just sort of like we're staring in awe like joe carter just came in and left and he probably picked up the moxie fruvis album or do you know what he was purchasing? Oh, I wish. I think at the time I went over to see what he picked up and it was something bluesy or jazzy. Like it wasn't like a top 40.

Interesting. I've got a good sports mashup sighting. I was at a friend of mine growing up, Mark. His dad worked for Redpath Sugar. So he would get a lot of tickets to events at the Maple Leaf Gardens. This was, I think this might have been a Leafs playoff game, possibly when they played San Jose in 94 or so. And they're pretty good seats because they were corporate seats.

It's just me and him. It was awesome. You know, I mean, like grade 11 Leaf playoff game is just sort of like this. And that was the second round. That's right. Yeah, I think it was that series. We looked down and this is like going deep into major league baseball, And that was the second round. That's right. Yeah. I think it was that series. We looked down and this is like going deep into Major League Baseball, but we saw Dick Schofield, who had a very short tenure.

Actually, this must have been 93 because he actually was the shorts up when Tony Fernandez was originally reacquired. Schofield got hurt. Right. And that's when they got Tony Fernandez back. 93, yeah. But Dick Schofield was there, played for the Anaheim or the california angels and he was actually there with kirk mccaskill right who was one of the few canadian born major league players at the time i think was maybe on the white socks uh born in capis casing although i think he grew up most of his life elsewhere but technically was you know we'll take him because he was technically born here but like dick scofield and kirk mccaskill

just watching a leaf game um you know we went to probably had them sign a napkin or like you know the back of a popcorn box or something i almost don't like to count like encounters with famous people at sporting events because that's where like you know 20 000 people or 50 000 people get together like it really increases your odds like because um i have a long list of those guys. I once took a leak in the urinal next to Snake from Degrassi. Wow. Never looked down. That's not my business. There's probably a snake pun in there somewhere, but you can look.

But in the same vein, no pun intended. There was a, before he was Drake, or at least before he was famous for being Drake, I remember being excited that Aubreyrey graham from degrassi the next generation was at the raptor game okay i can see him from my seats and he was at the raptor game yeah but that is true like sort of famous people at a game you know brian burke i went to a jay's game once in in the mid 90s and sat like right behind brian burke yeah i once went to uh and also concerts too like i saw red hot Chili Peppers and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stone Temple Pilots at the amphitheater

and sat right behind and a little bit to the side of David Wells. Boomer Wells was there. That sounds exactly right. Actually, I have two good actor stories at concerts. Now we're going to do kind of movie music mashup.

Both these artists i've already mentioned so i saw frank black uh teenager of the year teenager of the year he was playing at the horseshoe tavern um and i was by myself that night and i'm a pretty tall guy i'm six five so i was standing right at the back because i didn't want to block anyone i'm just by myself horses pretty small and i look over and there's a guy standing next to me i'm not really paying attention then i kind of take a closer look it's's actually Mike Myers. Oh my god. That's massive. Also by himself, wearing the

Roots Leaf Jacket. Is that the most famous person you've ever met? Well, I didn't say hi to him. He was just standing beside me. I gave him the look that I'm sure he's received like one billion times before. I don't really go introduce myself to like i don't either actually say like hey then this was but this is like 2000s

this is like peak austin powers yeah just there check out the frank block concert because i have a contest in the fan there's a contest in my family about who can meet the most famous person because i'm really good at meeting a certain level of celebrity but when you get up there i never meet any well you've met like andy mays the Skydivers. Oh, yes. Andy Mays is the most famous person I've... Andy Mays and Ron McClain, I think. Who would you say is the most famous that's been the base? Like probably Dan Shulman, I think, in terms of

global scope? You know what? It might be... It's funny that Elvis, my buddy who comes on sometimes, we had this argument before that week, that epic week, we were talking about this. And I didn't know about Dan yet because he came out. He was a blue bird. He flew out of the sky.

So before Dan, I had scheduled for the next day, I had scheduled Gord Stelic. Okay. And Elvis had this reasoning, this argument with me that Gord Stelic will be the most famous person I've had in my basement because he was a general manager of an NHL team. This was his... Now, I didn't agree that he would be the most famous person in my basement, but I took the argument. But what happened, I got to use a great line on him, which is, at the end of that week,

I wrote Elvis a message and said, I think it's fair to say Gord was not the most famous person in my basement this week. Because the day before, Dan Schulman is a much more famous person well it depends if you're talking like global fame or i don't know what there's pockets of sweden that know who that gord stelic for a cup of coffee was sure i mean he's with the rangers too is he assistant gm of the rangers i'd argue if is if can Canada, Maestro might be your most famous. What about Strombo? Yeah, actually, that's a good one. And Strombo, you know, has some audience, you know, in other countries too.

Ron McLean's been here. But here's the thing. Everyone who knows Ron probably knows Strombo, but there's a whole music world that doesn't know, like non-sports world that would know Strombo but not know Ron. So Ron, to me, he's all hockey. Now, more than hockey, sports, I'd'd say because he did some olympic stuff and everything but ron is sports canada english sports canada famous like no one else i'd say and strombo can eat into that by hosting uh hockey in canada for a bit but also has a whole like much music, Strombo, The Hour, The Hour,

CBC. So there's a whole, like I don't watch any sports, but I know Strombo, like a whole other world. So Strombo might be the answer to that question. Yeah. I think you need to do a Twitter poll is what you need to do on this topic.

Well, I wish I knew someone at Twitter that could show me where these polls are. Yeah, I can help you. I'll give you some pointers. I'll send you a tip sheet. You'll send me a Twitter video. I'll send you a PDF document by email. Thank you so much'll give you some pointers. I'll send you a tip sheet. You'll send me a Twitter video. I'll send you a PDF document by email. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. So there's lots of those stories. Another one, though, I wanted... I told you already the Kish one. So, okay. So I told you the Kish one. But you... Did any others come to you?

I do know of one of your stories. That's kind of a bizarre way, but maybe you met somebody at Wonderland? Wonderland, yeah. Like when I i was working there they used to i mean there'd be sort of just the people you'd see walking around the most famously i remember uh prior to them becoming finger 11 i saw the rainbow butt monkeys walking around in their entirety with the corduroy pants and they put the name back or something recently or something they just like i saw alan cross i think tweet about this like they just play in burlington where they're from as the rainbow but yeah yes i think it's like a one-off thing um yeah i again i worked in the funnel cake restaurant once in a while there'd be a celebrity guest that they'd pull

some of the food service people out to go service this private event and i actually washed dishes and was basically a bus boy for private event for fabio wow there's a famous guy yeah like super famous world famous yeah long flowing locks and like bird in the nose was that that was not at canada's wonderland though i i don't even know what that he was on a roller coaster and he was going down and a bird struck him in the nose and broke his nose that's right yeah. Yeah. So, wow. Yeah. No, I totally remember that.

So, yeah, this was like contest winners come win a luncheon with Fabio. Probably like Harlequin or something was the sponsor. And I never actually saw him, but I saw people who met Fabio. But you never saw Fabio? I never saw him. That changes the story a bit. Well, he was in the other room. It's nice that you worked his event,

but at some point you got to lay your eyes on the man. I probably like touched food that would touch his lips. And I never worked any of the events, but I worked for Wonderland for four years and Ian Ziering. Of course. Was always there. Steve Sanders. Steve Sanders of 90210,

I guess had perhaps some ties to the city of Toronto, but they'd always have like 90210 day and Ian Zierering was inevitably there. That's amazing. That's amazing. Now, because you worked at Canada's Wonderland, so you saw that, but I worked at the X for the three years.

And I remember, for example, Todd Stottlemyre and his wife would be walking around and I would go up and get an autograph. And I would always bust over to the Canadian, the Hockey Hall of Fame used to be on the C&E grounds. This is before they opened the one. And they would have, okay, from one to three,

Ed Olchek is signing autographs. And I was for sure in that lineup at some point between one and three. So I have a lot of autographs from that. People like Todd Gill, Eddie Olchek, who else? Mark Osborne, but people of that

ilk I would meet there. Yeah, the autograph signings were definitely a right of passage. I actually lined up to get Kelly Gruber's autograph. He had a very short-lived investment. This would have been probably 91. In a McDonald's franchise. No, no, no. I wish.

I wish. This was a sports memorabilia store that was near Don Mills and Cummer. Okay. The unfortunately titled Street of Cummer in North York. Two doors down from where I used to get my hair cut, a place called Hair Domination, which I'll just throw that in because it's the greatest name for a salon ever. I think it was called like Green Diamond Sports or something.

And in the opening day, Kelly Gruber was signing autographs. And I remember I was there with my two friends and actually got in an argument with an adult who thought we bud lined. And she said we were being jerks. Can you believe I'm just some kid from Thornhill? I want to get my Kelly Gruber baseball card. I went to Thornley's. Yeah, this is pre-Moxie Purvis.

But yeah, she called us jerks. And there was quite a lengthy line to get Kelly Gruber's autograph. And we eventually, everyone got their autographs, so it all happy ending. But yeah, I mean, yeah, the autograph signs, I saw Pat Borders, Paul Mulder signed autographs at Thornhill Square. So good. Actually, this is a good one. I saw Dan Daou. Yeah, of course.

Maple Leaf Great at the Miracle Mart at Don Mills and Steeles. And this is, for those of your listeners who don't remember, I would say a role player. Yeah, but if you did follow those mid to late 80s teams, Dan Daou was a key, kind of like a

builder Lego. Yeah, or like a Bill Berg or Mark Osborne type. Like a, you know, score a bit Randy Wood. Why do I always think of, not that he was tough or anything, but that's the era where I remember guys like Greg Tarian. Greg Tarian, yeah. Grinders. Guys that really shouldn't be on

NHL. Yeah, but Dan Du would probably get you like 12 goals. Bill Derlego got us Tom Fergus at a trade, I think. That's right. Yeah. And Tom Fergus, although he had many disappearances to treat his mysterious virus, when he did play, was a very talented little point producer.

Yeah, I remember Tom Fergus had a lot of groin issues. Groin? I remember a virus. Yeah. And I always had to, I remember because later, I thought, oh, maybe that's,

like, you know, in Forrest Gump when the wife died of a virus or whatever, and we're like, oh, I think that was AIDS. Like, I was wondering, what is this virus? Yeah, like sort of late 80s, early 90s Leafs was classic for kind of the urban legends. All the stories about Wendell Clark back in the day. Well, the big one, Wendell for sure. But definitely the Gary Lehman, Al F. Reidy story was everywhere.

Love Triangle. Yeah, which I think, did you touch on this? I don't remember. Maybe that was just you and I. Maybe it was you and I. I got that, yes, that was you and I offline, by the way. I'm trying to protect the people here, but I got the real story there. There's a real story there, and I got it. And I don't know if I want to.

Do you also remember, I might totally be remembering this wrong, but Gary Lehman once injured himself because he tried to jump over a fence fence and he sort of impaled himself like in his... Oh, shit. No, I don't remember that. He maybe scored 50 goals and he got us... He was in that big trade. Dougie Gilmore.

Dougie Gilmore, yeah. Of course. No, Gary Lehman seems like just one of those guys lost to history. I don't know if he shows up at alumni games. But he's on a short list. I know you're a bigger baseball fan, but you could probably name all the Maple Leaf 50 goal scorers. There's not very many. Rick Five did it three times. Anderchuk? Anderchuk. So one time

he split the season with Buffalo and Toronto and hit 50. That doesn't count. For the Grant Fear trade. Right. Darren Pupa. Darren Pupa, yeah. But he did score 50 the next season. So he is on the list. But the list is, I think this is it. This is it. I think it's three guys. I think you got Rick Five on that list. You have Anderchuk on that list. And you have Gary list is, I think this is it. This is it. I think it's three guys. I think you got Rick Five on that list.

You have Anderchuk on that list. And you have Gary Lehman. Yeah. I think that's it. There's no one else scored 50. Yeah. And we'll see if Austin Matthews gets there someday. I mean, you know, certainly can.

But just not that many people score 50 goals anywhere. No. Unless your name is Alex Ovechkin. It's tough to hit 50 anymore. Well, I see Ilya Kovalchuk is coming back to the league. So maybe he'll... He's been away for a while. What's his name?

He needs to come back. I always felt... Dadsuk needs to come back. Dadsuk. Yeah, he played in the Olympics. Did he not? Yeah, he's still good. He plays in the KHL.

Yeah. All right. Now, you mentioned Hayden went to your high school. Yeah. And then you briefly did this. I want to just bring it back, but Bill Wilichka

went to your high school. Bill Wilichka went to high school. Yeah, and he's... God, he's probably like mid-50s now so like a lot of these were like before my time but we look at their grad picture and stuff but did you uh have you ever heard you ever listen to indie 88 sure yeah of course you know carlin carlin's on the morning show and i know i told you this i'm aware of carlin yeah and i car Carlin, my tie to Carlin is one, he politely declined my invitation to come on the show. And I invited him because he's dating my very first best friend.

So my best friend in junior kindergarten, senior kindergarten, my best friend, his first cousin is now dating Carlin. Wow. And kind of the story is kind of even gets better. So this girl, her name is Dani. So Dani, who's dating Carlin. Dani works at Great Lakes Brewery. Oh my God. Now you're just blowing my mind.

Like this is... All this is a coincidence. It's all a guy. Is this a small town we're living in? Like, does everyone just know each... Like, this is ridiculous. So I thought it made sense. I thought, let's get Carlin on with Dani

and then we could do some talk about Great Lakes too. In addition, I'd like to talk to a guy at Indy 88. Totally. But I'm having, for some reason, the Indy 88 people don't seem to have a lot of interest in coming on. Actually, that's another guest we had on the Completely Ignored podcast. I think she's on CBC now, but Raina Duras. Yeah, she's on CBC too.

She's their music. And I hear her come on Metro Morning as the residential music expert. So she's doing all right over there. And Josie D die was recruited from um they brought her over from cfny to take over the morning show yeah it's been in obviously like bookie like and bookie i think you've invited but he's politely declined that was early days though early days i gotta say there's a toronto mic invite you get when i'm on episode like 70 yeah some people like bookie got and then there's the toronto mic is calling you accept the charges

now it's different he's also another guy i remember i was just getting to music seeing him because he was also remember i don't remember he was in a video for the inbreds do you remember that uh you will know oh but i always liked bookie i think i still like him i think he's a good broadcaster yeah he's uh sorry i was trying to draw a parallel. Yeah, he's sort of an interesting dude, for sure. But he's not the Kelly Gruber of radio. He's not like that. He's just a private guy. Well, I'm thinking...

I'm blanking on the guy's name from K-Rock. Rodney Bingenheim? Do you know this guy? No. There's a documentary, Rodney on the Rock. Oh, no. It seems like maybe... Is this K-Rock in which one?

There's an LA one? In LA. Yeah, great documentary, Rodney on the Rock. I'd look that up. All right. Okay, so Bill, I got to wrap this up to say that I always thought

Carlin sounds like Bill Walichka to my ears, like his cadence. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I could see that. I remember seeing Bill Walichka smoking a cigarette

once outside much and sort of like, oh my God, innocence laws shattered. Yeah, it's like, what, this guy's crazy. That's crazy that he's smoking. Meanwhile, inside, Steve Anthony's head first into a pile of white powder. Like a scarface. Say hello to my little friend, but there's Bill having a cigarette outside.

Okay, you tell me. There's a huge teen idol. I remember these magazines being very popular. They might still be, but what would I know? But when I was a teenager, I remember Tiger Beat. Tiger Beat, Pop. Right, and they'd have the same kind of collection of like five or six or seven cute boys.

Kirk Cameron was really popular. Fred Savage would be in the mix. Kirk Cameron and a couple of guys with the same first name, including this guy. Which would be Corey Haim. Corey Haim! The late, great Corey Haim.

In fact, I think Mark from 1236 has a Corey Haim story. Yeah, like Corey Haim, like in their latter years, was sort of, I think, just like hanging out in Toronto, maybe even with his mom. He, actually someone I dated

for a couple of years, said she was picked up by, or attempted pick picked up by Corey Haim at a party. Like this was just shortly before he died. He was kind of just in the corner minding his own business. So it sort of like regressed back into Toronto and, and Thornhill and GTA life. Cause I know he obviously had his struggles and, and tragically passed on.

Yeah. To your point, it was a big, big deal back in the day. Yeah, let's talk about some of this stuff like Lucas. I remember he was in Lucas with Charlie Sheen. Lost Boys. License to Drive. License to Drive, I thought it was hilarious because the guy said, don't spill my coffee. Remember this? The guy's like,

if one drop spills, you fail fail and i just thought that was great but uh yeah license to drive which had carol kane in it right it was carol kane am i confused well carol kane is now no one now because she's in that uh kimmy schmidt show that um tina fey produces for netflix if it didn't come out like 1993 okay why am i maybe carol cain what i think it was well i also remember i don't know if you remember this the cory's made us a few movies in the 90s that were a bit more of a provocative nature i heard of this these would come on late at night on the movie channel i mean there's a whole bunch i think this is where the

1236 angle comes in and I won't revisit it because I can't remember it but a lot of allegations that Corey Feldman is making that Corey Corey Haim's mom

might be denying a lot of mix and matching there's a lot of talk about boys in Hollywood being abused by powerful men that's right yeah well I think

Charlie Sheen there's a lot of allegations going around with that too but yeah it's super messy but I mean Corey Haim was big deal

big big freaking deal he was in tiger beat all the time totally and sad sad end but you went to high he was in your high school yeah and again sort of before my time but it was just part of thornell folklore speaking of great canadian gourds this was my i would say you know other than once you kind of get past the tales of fourth grade nothing and some judy bloom stuff whatever my first like young young person's author that i fell in love with was i love the characters bruno and boots and i read everything starring bruno and boots the author being gordon corman wow and not to be high school yeah it also went to my public school he wrote uh his first book,

This Can't Be Happening at McDonald Hall. I believe he wrote either when he was in public school or high school. Yes, you're right. And still writing today. One of my daughters, nine, one of her favorite authors. Just incredibly prolific. Those Bruno and Boots.

Yeah. Yeah, you said, This Can't Be Happening at McDonald Hall. Hi, Bruno and Boots. Later, like No Coins, Please. Oh, and another one I read. Who is Bugs Potter? Don't Care High's. McDonald's High, Bruno and Boots. Later, like No Coins Please. Oh, and another one I read. Who is Bugs Potter? Or Don't Care High. Don't Care High, yeah.

It was like Don Cary High. Oh, that's clever. They call it Don't Care High. Yeah, like just really prolific. And tried his hand at some adult books, kind of a Shel Silverstein type thing. But I think he lives in Long Island. Like he hasn't lived in Canada for a while.

He's not in Thornhill where Milos is. Milos, that's right. Milos Ranic who just almost won a tournament in, I think, Stuttgart. He lost to Roger Federer. He lost to the great one. No shame in losing to the best. No shame in being beaten by the best.

I didn't seem too swift, Dad. I said we were beaten by the best okay that's a simpsons thing well you can ignore that now there's a notorious figure who went to your he's younger than you yeah a notorious figure yeah and that is and i actually i was in japan when this all happened so i discovered this at a weird like time but obviously this was a big story on Twitter at the time. Alex Manassian, I think that's how you say his name, who was the guy who did the tragic van attack in Toronto earlier this year. I remember I discovered he went to Thornley because it was floating around that there were caps of his Facebook page.

And this stuff's just floating around as people try to piece together what's happening. And again, I'm in a hotel room in uh coyote that just sounds like is this a business or pleasure that no that was just like a personal vacation okay nice so i get up at like you know seven or whenever you went to the motherland yo yo cam you went to africa no japan japan yeah of course um but yeah i saw this this facebook page suggesting that this was this guy's facebook page and there's very little detail aside from the comment about the incel yeah but yeah I saw this Facebook page suggesting that this was this guy's Facebook page and there's very little detail aside from the

comment about the incil stuff that I'm sure a lot of your readers have read that's when I learned the term and then it's like holy shit it says he went to Thorne Thorne Lee and because there was earlier reports that he was from Richmond Hill

and then they actually interviewed some current students who went to school with him. And I guess he was in some programs there. But, yeah, like super, I mean, super infamous. I mean, needless to say, and I guess his trial's, you know, ongoing. But, yeah. Who would you say, though? So that's notorious there.

We'll call that infamous. But who would you say is the most famous person? Is it going to be, is it Hayden? Is it Corey Haim? Is it Gordon Corman? I think for fame, in Canada famous, I think the answer is Corey Haim. Yeah, I think Corey Haim. I mean, he definitely shone the brightest at any one moment. You know, I guess you could argue for longevity like Gordon Corman, but I don't know. I mean, that's a little more niche in terms of like... I don't think Gordon Corman, I think of, you know, I mean,

I read him, but I don't think he has a level of fame. Yeah. Well, the other high school in Thornhill at the time, like our rival school, Thornhill High School, another Hayden went there, Hayden Christensen. Oh my God. Yeah, and I'm not at all... The prequels. Yeah, and I'm not at all like a Star Wars guy.

So I'm just kind of like what I've never really seen, Star Wars. But I know that Hayden Christensen was in some of those prequels. I can't even speak about it intelligently. No, I mean, my oldest is now 16 and a half.

He was obsessed with the six that we had at the time, the six Star Wars movies that we had them on DVD and we would just watch them over and a half. He was obsessed with the six that we had at the time, the six Star Wars movies that we had them on DVD and we would just watch them over and over again. And he liked the prequels as much as the original trilogy

that I loved. So I saw a lot of like The Phantom Menace and what's the other one? Clone Wars. And I got to say, of those prequels, the only one I could stomach

and I even started to like was uh revenge of the sith the the other two uh adult unwatchable for an adult this had like natalie portman and samuel jackson yes sam jackson was me and mcgregor i think ewan mcgregor was uh uh of course he was obi-wan kenobi yeah i should have researched like i'm not sure what's happened to hayden christian i remember I saw this other movie with him. I think it was called Jumper. Okay. Or something where he's kind of like...

I think he's active. He's talking about a TV show. But anyway, I knew someone who was his babysitter. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, so... Okay, fine. So you mentioned...

Now you've mentioned... We've mentioned a few famous Thornhill people. Like, we talked about Milos Ranich. Yeah. We talked about Hayden Christensen. Any other famous Thornhill natives? I don't think he's from York Region necessarily, but

Andrew Wiggins, the NBA player, number one pick in the NBA draft, played my friend Mark, who I mentioned Mark. I'm trying to think when I mentioned him. Oh, he was the one whose dad had the seats where he saw Dick Schofield. Mark's like a teacher in York region now.

He actually coached against Andrew Wiggins a few times, I believe, at tournaments prior to him being drafted. Nice. Yeah, it's a real run of Canadian NBA players. We actually had a couple of guys from the junior team, including RJ Barrett, through our office at Twitter to do a Q&A. This was maybe about a year ago, but you know, he's, he's projecting to be like a top five pick.

I think in next year's draft. That's right. Yeah. Well, whenever he declares it's up to him, I guess. Cause you don't have, you can declare after one,

some, uh, some declare after two. It all depends. Yeah. So like with Wiggins and Jamal Murray and, uh, the,

the, speak of infamous Tristan Thompson. All right. Um, yeah, it's quite the slate of guys we have. It's going to be really interesting in the next Olympics if we can get all these guys together.

Well, that's always been the problem, though, right? We've always had this issue getting all the guys to play for Canada. In hockey, they all say, let me do it. In basketball, it's been tough, like historically, to get the best Canadian guys to play. Yeah, I feel like you almost need two of them in, and then the rest will come. But it could be

quite the squad we have. Let's bring Steve Nash out of retirement. Yeah, I think it's a go. Great conditioning. He's been playing a lot of soccer and stuff. Let's see if you know this CanCon classic. Beneath its snowy metal folding thing Let's see if you know this CanCon classic.

I've known people that have seen her play at the Thornhill Ladies Golf Course. Again, not a Thornhill native, but a current resident. She's a current resident. Next time you see her, tell her Toronto Mike once once i feel like my mom is friends of hers that had sayings and this is of course ann murray um and murray canadian songstress i saw a great photo on twitter just yesterday of ann murray and roberta bondar astronaut in a golf cart i don't know where they were they were in some charity event i'm like wow powerful duo it's like super impressive yeah like it was uh real one for the record books there.

But Anne-Marie, big, big deal. And as far as I know, still lives in Thornhill. I think she's quite private. Doesn't really get out there. I preface that. She's quite private, but she's actually quite active on Twitter. She actually retweeted this photo of her and the great astronaut Roberto Bondar. I'm going to tweet at her.

Anne-Marie, I now decided, I've just right now decided that my next Anne Romer will be Anne-Marie. Another Anne. I need a new conquest. I bet she'd have some really interesting stories that not really someone you know you think of, but was like huge.

Like you talked about who would be the most famous. Yes, because it's before our time. Because I grew up with Hippo in my bathtub. I think Anne-Marie's like a child singer, like Raffi. I have heard of Raffi. And then I learned as I get older, I realized yeah, she was massive. Have you ever read the

essay by Lester Bangs about Anne-Marie? Oh, I don't know. I would dig that up. It's quite a little off color, but if you like kind of the old rock and roll was it philip seymour hoffman wasn't he playing yeah that's right yeah almost famous by the way take that up uh my favorite actor at the time and i thought i always said if you want to you want me to watch a movie put philip seymour hoffman in that movie and i'll watch he's i mean

he he brought a lot of value to everything you You could just plug him in anywhere. And he's been gone like probably seven or eight years now. Philip Seymour Othman? Maybe. Maybe not that long. Maybe five years. Yeah. One of the greats for sure. Here's one of the greats.

Here's another CanCon classic as I clear out my CanCon closet. Yeah. Now I'm like reliving this list that I sent you of stuff. This is Dan Hill. Yes. Great, great singer-songwriter from the 80s, also brother of Lawrence Hill, who wrote The Book of Negroes

and some other great Canadian literature. But yeah, I threw Dan Hill on the list because my mom was a labor and delivery nurse growing up. And when she listens to this, I might be totally botching this, but I believe she delivered a baby for Dan Hill. Not obviously Dan Hill's wife or partner. Dan Hill? Breaking news. It was a miracle.

It was like that Ernst Schwarzenegger movie, Junior. I think nowadays we think of this song as being a little cheesy, maybe. A little schmaltzy. A little schmaltzy. A little fromage. A little schmaltzy. Yeah. But. Big hit at the time, though. Big hit at the time.

Sometimes when we touch. And I always think of the, what was our, we were not, in Canada, we were not USA for Africa. Oh, Tears Are Not Enough. Tears Are Not Enough. Dan Hill's on that. That's right. And Anne Murray's on that, too. Anne Murray's on it.

Geddy Lee. Neil Young. Platinum Blonde. Yeah, my mom also, I think, delivered a baby either for Platinum Blonde person or it might have been Honeymoon Suite. I think it was Platinum Blonde. So a lot of kind of famous folks

passing through North York labor and delivery. That's fantastic. And one more Thornhill native I'm just going to throw out there so we didn't forget is Mitch Marner. Mitch Marner, yeah. I'm not sure exactly what his roots in New York are, but according to Wikipedia, he's there.

And I confirmed this with my dad this week. He said, yeah, somewhere in Markham. Oh, and now we're going back to Indie Rock. Now I should let the people know, this has nothing to do with our manic, frenetic romp through Canadian nostalgia. Toronto references this and that. This is a song we're going to kick out together here. So, you know, it's already two and a half hours deep.

There's no jam kickings here today. But we are going to kick out this one song. So what are we listening to here? Yeah, so this is my all-time favorite band, Pavement. And this is a bit topical because I just saw their vocalist, Steve Malkmus, who's been solo for, God, the last 20 years now. He just played at Lee's Palace like two weeks ago. I went with my old boss and my friend Jeremy who works for TVO Ontario.

Jeremy! Oh, yeah. Yeah, that guy. Guys? Although he died, didn't he? Like the Pearl Tower show the pearl yeah he shot himself in front of his students uh last video they did until uh the one they did the cartoon one do the evolution the evolution yeah mcfarland that's right but uh i love pearl jam so um sorry

i don't mean to take from pavement here except jeremy the one reference i would go to before i did the obvious which is is the Pearl Jam Jeremy, is Jeremy the Bear on TV Ontario. I am a bear called Jeremy. Yes. I loved that show. He was so much fun. That whole show was great.

Like kind of stop motion. Yes. Yeah, it was claymation or stop motion, whatever the hell that stuff is. Very gentle. But this jam here we're listening to is Frontwards by Paisley. Yeah, which I thought was ironic after we said, let's listen to this, because everything we've talked about has been completely regressive um but yeah this this pavement one of those bands i discovered when baseball was on strike

and right place right time kind of one of the biggest indie rock bands of the 90s and i've just started continuing to listen to one of the few bands i've never ceased to interest me kind of that sloppy slack-jawed guitar heavy sloppy yeah i think it's a sloppy twice indie rock of the day awesome lyrics just kind of one of those bands when i first heard there was this band called pavement i just assumed they were a heavy metal yeah agreed it's just oh they sound heavy it's like pink floyd i thought was a heavy metal band. And I heard the, I don't know if you remember the song Cut Your Hair. It was their biggest hit. It would get a little airplay on 102.1. And I'm like, oh, this sort of sounds like Sloan.

Yeah, Cut Your Hair. Or this sounds like Weezer. Yeah, like Underwhelmed or something like that. Yeah, so, yeah, like I was lucky enough to have seen Pavement. Yeah, Cut Your Hair did get airplay, and I definitely remember it. Yeah, there was a video. They were all in the barbershop. Yeah yeah uh like super kind of snobby indie of the day like pavement but yeah you think it's really like helmet or something like it's gonna be some kind

of a wall of sound like a heavy yeah like it just sounds heavy like pavement's heavy uh but no they were they were kind of poppy uh and just very much of the era. And just, I have a lot of time for them. This is from a four song EP called Watery Domestic that I probably bought at like same direct from HMV back in the day. And that's it. I mean, you know, there's kind of hard fade out and yeah. Oh, now we're going to the next song too. A little like xylophone.

It's like this interstitial treat here. I have trouble saying that word by the way. Interstitial. I don't know where to put the hard T's versus the soft T's. I just suck at saying who am I to host a pot. That's interesting because that little xylophone part

is actually the... I always thought that was the intro to the next song. Apparently not. Apparently that's the end to the next song. According to... Apparently not. Apparently that's the end of that song. Wow. Now you know. Now I learned something new about my favorite band of all time.

So you listen to Toronto Mic'd. So I have to ask you as a listener, because a lot of times guests, they really don't know what the hell Toronto Mic'd is. And I can tell by looking at their eyes. Yeah. They're kind of like,

what is this that we're doing now for the next 90 minutes? But you've listened to a lot of episodes. you knew i'm a long time listener first time visitor so what how did it go like did you have a good experience is it what you thought it would be are you uh underwhelmed as uh chris murphy no this is this is everything i thought it would be in more it's great to see your space it's great to see the maestro autograph and the andre mug My Splashin' Boots record. Yeah, I mean, it's like Ed Conroy or 1236 and yourself. Just getting all this stuff, documenting it is important.

Because now, you know, everyone needs to know that Elvis Stoico returned to VCR in Future Shop in 1994. And now this is an official record, and we'll tweet about it. It'll be in the archives. This is an official record, and we'll tweet about it. It'll be in the archives. I hope it wasn't left. Remember, if you had a forehead VCR, you could get those good recordings. You needed the foreheads, though. That's right, yeah.

That was a big difference. Yeah, well, we were comfortably middle class, so we didn't quite splurge on that one. Well, thanks for doing this, Cam. Oh, weren't you going to give me presents? Did you forget oh yeah i'll give those to you once the mics i'm getting everyone i'm getting gifts i'll report back and if they're any good or if it's correct is it from you or from twitter canada uh it's from

myself and the family at twitter canada so did you is it are you out of pocket for these gifts uh let's just okay i'm excited i know some people it's rude to ask that question right how about this if you like them tweet out a photo of them. Okay. That's a social contract. That's a deal. And that brings us to the end of our 350th show. Cam, you got a round number, 350.

People were bidding on that. They wanted 350. I gave it to you. That's awesome. You can follow me on Twitter, at Toronto Mike. See, now we're hyping your day job. Cam, what are you on Twitter? I'm Cam underscore Gordon.

You can follow my kind of ramblings about music and what's up at Twitter Canada and just funny photos and whatnot from around Toronto and the GTA. And our friends at Great Lakes Brewery

are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Rafters Devotee. Paytm is at Paytm Canada. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all later this week with 1236. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and gray.

Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow won't stay today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.