Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Peter Gross: Toronto Mike'd #1205
Episode Date: February 17, 2023In this 1205th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike catches up with FOTM Hall of Famer Peter Gross before Peter kicks out the horse racing jams. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brew...ery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.
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Welcome to episode 1205 of Toronto Mic'd.
Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery,
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good times, and brewing amazing beer.
Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA.
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Joining me today is FOTM Hall of Famer, Peter Gross.
Peter, how's it going?
It's going reasonably well.
What does reasonably well mean?
It means you're still alive, but things could be better?
I pulled my back out.
Really?
I'm in pain.
Can you still do, because you came over here famously on your 72nd birthday?
71st?
You came over and did 71 or 72 push-ups.
Oh, come on.
Don't shortchange.
I did 92.
I do 100 push-ups every morning.
So your back can't be so bad if you could do 100 push-ups.
Well, I've skipped the push-ups for three days.
So what happened?
Were you lifting something?
What happened?
It was a door dashing incident.
Okay, your door...
So as disclosed at TMLX11 at Palmer's Kitchen back in December,
you are now subsidizing your income by door dashing.
Yeah, and actually, it's kind of addictive.
So I'm enjoying it.
But I got called to PetSmart.
Okay.
And I don't even know what that has to do with it.
Who's eating the pets?
What's going on here?
I don't know what this has to do with PetSmart.
It was like a cabinet in an Ikea-like box.
It was eight feet long.
It barely fit into my little Nissan Micra.
was eight feet long it barely fit into my little uh nissan micro and upon arrival the gentleman who had ordered it we got it out of the car it was it was 200 pounds and wow and i i pulled some
muscles see you're not listen i don't know what the rules are at door dashing but it's one thing
when you're delivering like somebody's big mac combo or whatever but 200 pound items that's above and beyond and then ironically so um driving's okay because i'm sitting there it's been it's it's
putting my shoes and socks on that's that's real difficult and uh but ironically yesterday yeah and
i'm referring to friday because i realize you're going to drop this subsequently yeah um i get
called back to pet smart and i'm thinking in my head, boy, I hope it's not a couple of bags of 50-pound bags of cat litter,
and it was two 50-pound bags of cat litter
going to the fourth floor of an apartment.
You're really earning that buck, as Snoop would say.
I've got a few leaves in me, a leves.
I've got some painkillers going.
That's like ibuprofen, right?
Yeah.
Is that like an Advil?
Okay.
Let me ask you this, though.
So basically, time will heal this wound.
You just sort of strained a muscle, and you're just waiting for some time to go by, and this will be back to normal?
This is what I'm anticipating, yeah.
So you haven't been able to do your 100 push-ups since?
I could do the push-ups, but I always do the push-ups in tandem with 110 sit-ups, and I definitely can't do the sit-ups but i always do the push-ups in tandem with 110 sit-ups and i definitely can't do the sit-ups and the sit-ups complained when i tried to do the push-ups that they were being
left out of the equation so okay let me look at you for a minute here uh look at you you're you're
in the best shape of your life right now i'm doing pretty well yeah that's amazing and how old are
you now well i was 72 and a half on january 21st at my age you like to celebrate the extra 72 and
a half look i, I just talked
to an 89 year old. Okay. So you're like a spring chicken. You know what? In about seven weeks,
we're celebrating my mother's 100th birthday. And Marilyn is such a control freak. She's
organizing it. She's doing the whole thing. I love that you called your mom by her first name there.
Are you going to rollerblade to your mom's house or is that only on your birthday? I do that you called your mom by her first name there. Are you going to rollerblade to your mom's house, or is that only on your birthday you do that?
I do that on my birthday.
It remains to be seen whether I do it this year,
but there's no reason why I couldn't.
Amazing. Okay, good for your mom.
Happy birthday to Marilyn.
Now, Peter, I need to know, other than the bad back,
how has life been treating you since you were inducted
into the FOTM Hall of Fame at TMLX11?
Well, you know, it's the paparazzi at the door, the young women calling me for dates.
You wish. Now, the door dashing, you mentioned it's addictive. Is it because you have some kind
of a dashboard or KPIs that say, okay, here's how many orders you did. Like it's gamified. I like that expression, gamified.
Exactly.
They give you stats.
I have a 98% completion rate. I have a 96% acceptance rate.
I've done 2,175 deliveries.
I've got 92 five out of five stars from customers so what you do is and then they
break down every single order so you can look back and and you know how it does sound fun like
if you have the time and you need to make some extra cash i find that it suits you you know
suddenly it was friday i i go out monday and i go oh my god this is going to be a long week
and the next thing you know, it's Friday.
You're living the life.
Okay.
So you're still, we're going to talk later because you're going to kick out your favorite horse racing jams. And then that'll give us an opportunity to talk further about Down the Stretch, the definitive Ontario horse racing podcast.
And you still have your Down the Stretch newsletter.
We're going to get into all that.
I'm going to, I'm seeking a acting update. Like famously you came on Toronto Mike and then
you got a text from your agent that said, Hey, how come you're not on this audition zoom?
And we did it live. We recorded the whole thing and you booked that gig.
Have you booked anything since then? No, there was a strange thing happened that, um, uh, Ron
Berry, who was my agent quit there was just a whole
bunch of crap going down he couldn't take it anymore and he quit and he put me on to another
person she sent me two auditions and i turned both of them down and i haven't heard from her in three
months so what's her name i'm on her lisa burke okay i actually just i was uh producing a podcast
for someone else her name is helen Helen Tanzi and she's a photographer.
And she had on a woman, very interesting woman.
She was like a child actor in some things that, you know,
young people would have watched.
And now she's an agent, but she's particularly interested
in people over the age of 50.
Like this is her sweet spot because there's a lot of like opportunities
for people over the age of 50.
And all I could think about was you.
Can I introduce you to her?
Yeah, because apparently I'm in this other woman's bad books.
Yeah, no, F that other woman.
All apologies.
I'm sure she's lovely.
But let's get you hooked up with this other person who I think, you know.
Okay, good.
Yeah, I'll go that way.
Let's try to do that.
I'll go that way.
Because I really, this was the role I got through the audition while I was on with you was for a thing called Fear Thy Neighbor.
Okay.
And I don't know if you've seen it.
I actually saw it.
Well, I saw your clips.
I think you shared it on social media.
It was such a treat.
And because these people were just so skilled and so professional and we were treated so nicely.
And I was in not every scene but many
scenes yeah so it wasn't like sitting around you know waiting eight hours for your one line
and uh just a lot of fun and really satisfying do you know off the top of your head where it's
streaming like where could you see fear by the fear thy neighbor shows up 10 30 or 11 o'clock
on the ctv one of the CTV networks. I mean,
if you've got the,
the TV,
the contraptions on your set,
you type in for thy neighbor.
You'll find it.
And this,
the episode I'm in,
and I believe is called blood on the lawn.
Whoa.
I kill a guy in it.
But remember,
we heard your audition.
So,
uh,
you just spoiled it,
right?
Cause I was,
uh,
I was going to withhold that detail that you murder somebody,
but we do hear you. You're upset with the neighbor and you get pretty, uh, hot and that detail that you murdered somebody. But we do hear you're upset with the neighbor
and you get pretty hot.
And that's how you book the role.
I think you booked the role
because you were performing for me.
Like having me here,
you're putting on a show for me.
And that brought out your A game.
Very possibly.
Whatever I did in your little quaint basement.
I love that we recorded that.
Like the whole thing is recorded.
Like you can go back and listen to you booking that gig.
It's amazing.
Amazing.
That was a very interesting afternoon.
All right, we're going to kick out horse racing.
But first, let's get serious for a moment.
I'm hoping, you know, with a big shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, a sponsor here.
Can we talk about the late, great David Onley? Yeah, very. I, you
know, almost on a daily basis, you hear someone important or famous who dies and you shrug your
shoulders. But I was very sad to hear that David passed. I had the pleasure, this is going back
many years, at City Television of sitting at a desk and he was on the opposite side of the desk
he was doing weather and science and i was doing tomfoolery which is an important part of any
you were doing the world according to gross uh it may have been during that period i just nobody
this is like a cliche no one has anything unpleasant to say about david onley one of the the great human beings and um had a
very difficult life health-wise you know he contracted polio as a child in the 50s and then
ended up becoming the lieutenant governor of of ontario um yeah no uh i think a big thanks to
ann romer i think uh for putting his name forward for that. I don't know how that happened.
She's taking credit for that.
He told me a wonderful story.
He's driving up the Don Valley Parkway and the phone rings and it's Stephen Harper.
And of course, you're not supposed to be talking on the phone.
So he had to pull off the Don Valley Parkway
to have Stephen Harper say,
you've been selected as Ontario's next Lieutenant Governor.
Yeah, storied career. But I want to, you know, because you worked with the Mid Ontario's next Lieutenant Governor. Yeah, storied career.
But I want to, you know, because you worked with the Mid-City,
I just want to go back there.
But firstly, I got a text from Lorne Honigman.
Now, you attend these birthday parties.
Remind me of the cameraman, Bill Attensoff.
Bill Attensoff.
Attensoff.
I always get a syllable mixed up there.
Actually, I know we're talking about David.
We're going to get back to David here.
But can you quickly surmise the story of bill because that's quite the story of
what happened to cameraman bill i guess about eight years ago bill bill was just such a great
guy well he is such a great guy but um terrific athlete good looking man um working was really important owning his own house was important playing tennis
golf uh bowling we played squash all the time i'm sort of surfing out of the story here and
we would play squash and i never got hurt playing squash but dozens of times i drilled the ball into
his back or hit him in the face with the backhand. So seven, eight, whenever it was, it was October.
November 2010.
Thank you.
November 2010?
I know, you said eight years ago,
but I'm here to give you the harsh reality that it is.
So he's working nights.
And he was one of the head of the camera department,
but he was working nights nights got called to a police
incident the bad guy had jumped from an apartment building so fortunately for bill there were
ambulances there and bill had this style of shooting he was like a human tripod he would
spread his legs yeah plant the camera on his shoulder and he was just so smooth. So he did that. And this guy just in a Cadillac, I believe.
Yeah, Lincoln Continental.
Okay.
And by the way, it's not 2010.
Sorry, this article is dated 2010.
It's a Christmas Day thing of Bill Attensoff.
Attensoff.
I always miss that syllable.
But actually his incident goes back to 2000 and...
Oh, you know what?
It is 2010.
Continue, Peter.
My apologies.
Anyways, a guy in a Lincoln Continental,
an elderly man,
just ran him down.
Kipling and Albion Road.
Yeah, it was an apartment building
and the bad guy had jumped
and I guess it was a suicide of some bizarre sort.
And there was this explicit video that ran for a while
that you could see Bill going flying.
He gets hit, smashed in the legs, goes flying over the car,
breaks his neck, breaks his back.
He hit his head on the windshield, so required like 45 staples.
They removed the lower part of one leg because it
was yeah they amputated his left leg yeah yeah and as uh he's got some ability in his left arm but
he's a quadriplegic he's a quadriplegic and he's blind and um wow and but i i know how terrible
that sounds when you visit bill you don't get an ounce of self-pity from him. He chats and he talks and he laughs and we tell stories.
He shot hundreds of my reports, hundreds of Jim McKinney's reports.
He was a superb sports cameraman.
Wow.
He's the only one in the world who could shoot baseball with one camera.
Baseball is a very difficult sport to
shoot with one camera because the guy hits the ball into right field but the runner at third's
tagging up where do you go what do you do and he knew his baseball so well that instinctively he
would shoot the outfielder catching the ball and then swish pan and catch the guy coming in from
third to score so why am i talking about Bill? I think that's quite the story.
But you have this birthday party for Bill every August?
Yes.
Okay, I think it was August.
His birthday is in August, yeah.
So Lauren tells me, you know, and you tell me,
were you at the one in August 2022?
Yeah, yeah.
And you probably referred to the fact that David Onley was there,
and there's a lovely picture of all of us.
Yeah, David was there, and Lauren says David was just in great spirits and is telling great stories.
And what a great time everybody had in August 2022.
So it is quite sudden and quite tragic to lose David Onley all of a sudden here in January 2023.
So how many years approximately,
I won't hold you to the date here,
but how many years approximately did you guys work together at City TV?
Well, I was at City from 76 to 86.
I'm not sure when David came in, but it's a wonderful story.
I'll tell you, the first time he was on TV,
my mother phoned me and she says, I'm practically in tears to see a man like David.
Because my mother's one of these people who believes everyone deserves an opportunity.
David Onley never dreamed he would be on TV,
because earlier he always needed a cane, and he was in the wheelchair.
As the years went on, he was permanently in the wheelchair i guess very very difficult when he walked he had polio and the polio ravaged his
partial paralysis from polio as a three-year-old i think and um moses neimer was this kind of guy
who didn't care what color a person's skin was how difficult the letters and the names were or if a guy was in a wheelchair
he recognized that david onley was extremely bright really knew his stuff and i think he'd
heard something that david had done on the radio phoned him up and said i want you to do science
be a science reporter for city tv and apparently apparently David was just blown away because he never anticipated it.
I suspect he never even applied to a TV
because he was a guy with a cane and a wheelchair.
I was just talking to Lloyd Robertson
and Lloyd tells me that David got his media...
What a name drop.
I know.
That's what I do on this show.
David got his media beginnings with Lloyd.
So before City TV, Lloyd Robertson would have him on to talk about,
I don't know, something science or something.
But then, of course, he joined City TV,
and that's where people like me discovered David Onley
because he was a fixture of the City Pulse newscasts,
and then he's a day-oner on breakfast television.
And, yeah, I mean, great loss.
I know Ann Romer, F, FOTM and Romer
was particularly, uh, close with David. They were besties and, uh, she got to be with him
on the day that he passed away. But, uh, like you said, Peter, nobody has a bad word to say
about David only. I interviewed David. Uh, I mean, I wanted to interview David and when he, uh,
I interviewed David.
I mean, I wanted to interview David.
And when he represented the queen at the queen's plate,
I had an angle for my newspaper down the stretch.
So I go to Queen's Park.
And it's very funny because I sat across from him for years.
So I go to Queen's Park and like a valet comes out and says, here, Mr. Gross, have a seat here.
And it's this big, large, ornate room.
And in comes David.
And I'm in hysterics because it's this big large ornate room and in comes david and i'm in hysterics
because it's like meeting the queen right except that it's david onley and you think like if you
you know that movie sliding doors or whatever like uh that could be you man you could have
been lieutenant governor of ontario i don't think so can you imagine i would love to live in a
province where peter gross is the lieutenant governor.
I don't know what I'd have to offer.
So our condolences to David's wife and his children
and everyone who knew and loved David Onley.
Just sounds like a great man.
He was a great man.
I don't say that about many people.
And that's one of the few people who've gone recently that uh makes me sad
i don't know if this will cheer you up peter but i do have a large meat lasagna for you from
palma pasta complete change of emotions there yeah i love i love them you know i'm not saying
this just because yeah yeah they sponsor your show. The Palma lasagna is the best.
I know.
You're preaching to the choir here,
and that's why I have you on as often as possible
because you're going to have leftovers.
I should point out your grandson is right now playing with my son.
They're both eight years old, so maybe they'll hit it off.
And maybe I'll get you on here more often
because you can just bring the grandson, you can hang out with jervis you know in my life i've i've gotten gigs
that paid me 500 600 a thousand dollars a day i'm here for that five pound lasagna that all it is
i can barely lift it it's got to be more than five pounds but yes okay the lasagna is yours did you
grab some when you were at TMLX11,
when you were inducted into the FOTM Hall of Fame,
what a great honor that was.
Did you hear that audio recording?
I actually quickly went to grab the audio that you recorded
to induct yourself into the FOTM Hall of Fame.
And the Google Drive link was dead.
Like it was no longer there and I couldn't pull it.
But it is in the recording that we made at TMLX 11
at Palma's Kitchen in early December,
I think the first Saturday of December.
But did you grab some lasagna that day?
Because Palma was feeding everybody who showed up
and Palma pasta delicious.
I know you're not much of a drinker,
but for anyone who enjoys delicious, fresh craft beer,
Great Lakes Brewery is where you you go they're a fiercely independent
toronto brewery family owned and we love great lakes you used to smoke weed and now you just
like grow cannabis because you can but you're you're no longer uh indulging in the well i can't
i grew some a few years ago and i rolled a little skinny joint, took three, four hits and got horribly paranoid for three hours.
Okay.
Now that it's leaked, because yeah, now that the year is like we got pot and we have no pot.
Like now that it's legalized, they have these strains.
Like they have it down to a real science.
Like you can talk to your bud tender at Canna Cabana and try a different strain.
And then, you know, everyone's body reacts differently
to different strains,
but you can actually find the strain
that works for you.
I'm just letting you know
the good people at Canada Cabana,
not only are they wise
in the world of cannabis,
but they will not be undersold
on cannabis or cannabis accessories.
And I want to shout out EPRA
because you can go to recycle my electronics.ca
and find out like, where is the closest place to me where I can, you know, drop off my old
electronics so they can be safely recycled. Like I don't want people listening to this program.
I don't know what will die. The laptop will die or the phone will die or whatever the piece of tech is that
dies. Don't throw it in the garbage. There's a lot of components and stuff in that device that
needs to be safely recycled. And that's why you go to recycle my electronics.ca. And last but not
least, Peter Gross, if anyone listening to us right now has any questions whatsoever about real estate,
us right now has any questions whatsoever about real estate the man is to ask is sammy cone not only is he the drummer for the watchman but when he's not drumming for the watchman he's one of our
greatest real estate agents sammy.cone k-o-h-n at properlyhomes.ca tell me, Peter Gross, about the process in coming up with great horse racing songs.
So I'm in now my fourth year of producing the Down the Stretch podcast,
and you provide me with numbers, and the numbers are very satisfying.
To me, if you're at all interested in horse racing in Ontario,
your first stop is the excellent podcast Down the Stretch.
Well, thank you for that.
And I say that with no hint of bias,
even though the host and producer of the program
is sitting across the table from me right now.
So in...
Pause. Just soak it in, Peter.
You're doing a great job. early fred patterson from humble
and fred has told me many times he modeled the way he would write his sports bits the sports
commentaries that would air on cfny in the uh mainly in the 80s and 90s because he was on the
show before uh humble howard comes to town he modeled his writing style on yours because he, like many of us, thought the way that you write something and package it together to make it so delicious and accessible for us normies is brilliant.
You have a talent, Peter, and that's what Moses saw, and that's what I see.
So Fred Patterson, just another person whose entire career
is predicated
through me.
Exactly.
Jason Portuando,
Catherine Humphries,
Jim McKinney.
Jason will be here Tuesday.
Okay, Jason's great.
Completely lost my train of thought,
but you were asking me about...
I want to know,
like, okay,
so we're about to kick out
and in fact,
I have 11 jams,
which I find interesting
because I only asked for 10, Peter.
Follow these instructions. But I have 11 horse racing jams that find interesting. I only asked for 10, Peter. Follow these instructions.
But I have 11 horse racing jams that we're going to kick out right now.
Like what?
Was this an easy thing to do?
These songs just came off the top of your head?
Or did you have to do some homework, some research?
Let us in there.
You're a great writer, but let's get a little info here.
Sort of a melange.
The first few weeks of January, there's not a lot of great stories happening in horse racing.
You know, I wake up every Monday with no minutes of product for my podcast, and I get anxiety attacks.
And then, you know, now I'm sitting Saturday.
I got 25 minutes sitting on my edit pad right now.
So I thought, jeez, let's find horse racing songs.
And, of course, I Google horse racing songs.
Now, I knew of some.
I suppose we're going to play a song called Zenyatta by a woman named Lisa G. Fly.
Don't play it now, which I love.
And I thought, I wonder what other songs there are.
And one by one by one,
uh,
I,
I,
I found there's several,
um,
by the way that there's a story about the 11th,
which you'll appreciate because I put 10 into the podcast that aired a couple of weeks ago.
And Johnny Gallagher called me the other day.
John Gallagher.
And for whatever reason,
I,
I said to him,
yeah, I just did a podcast with all these horse racing songs.
And he started going, I got the horse right here.
The name is Paul Revere.
And I went, holy shit, I didn't put that one in.
Because that's a classic from Guys and Dolls.
So that's the one that I sent you recently.
So I just started looking up horse racing songs.
I just found some gems.
The Betty Grable one.
You know, you're doing spoilers here.
We should go.
Don't tell us what's coming.
Let's go one by one.
We'll play it.
Then I'll bring it down, and then we'll talk about each one.
So is the first one Stu Ball?
Peter, have you never kicked out the jams before in Toronto, Mike?
You don't go as the first one's Stu Ball.
I haven't been.
I'm going to play it.
You'll know it. Okay. Then I'll fade fade it down and then I'll say something like that's the
hollies stew ball and then we'll chat about it fine it's fine by the way our mics are unidirectional
no one else can hear this but it's amazing how I can hear like I don't know if somebody's renovating
their house next door or what I don't know if you can hear it maybe you can't hear it I think it's
a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Yeah.
I think, yeah, I think there's something going down here.
Here we go, Peter.
Here's the question before I kick out this first one.
Are you ready to kick out the horse racing jam?
I am so ready. long intro
you want to talk it up can you hit the post
i have no idea And I wished he were mine
He never drank water
He always drank wine
His bridal was silver
And his it was gold
But the worth of his saddle
Peter's giving me directions to fade down.
Whose show is this, Peter Gross?
It's such a terrible song.
The fairgrounds was crying
All right, tell us why you chose this so-called terrible song, Peter.
This is the Hollies with Stew Ball.
Well, if you put 10 or 11 horse racing songs together,
one of them has to be the worst,
and I think this is the worst of the bunch.
My problem is he never drank water.
He only drank wine.
You know, the stewards would have something to say about that.
Bob Baffert had a horse disqualified a few months ago
because they found traces of alcohol in its system,
and he claimed that the horse ate hay that a groom had pissed on.
Did you see?
That's not true, by the way.
I made that up.
That's an extrapolation of what happened to Bob Baffert.
But did you see the tweet?
Who was it?
Who's the woman who was in our basement doing it down the stretch?
She's very good.
Jennifer Morrison.
Yes, Jennifer Morrison tweeted today, and I was reading it,
where there's a race in California or something where, like, I don't know,
10 of the 12 horses were trained by Bob Baffert.
And this guy's dirty, right?
This guy's greasy.
There's evidence that he's danced around the legalities.
But 10 out of 12 horses.
Like, dare I use this term in front of you, Peter, but that's gross.
Yeah.
It's funny.
Our friend Garnet Barnsdale texted the page out of the racing program with all those horses trained by Barns.
The Pacific Stakes or something.
You know, Garnet's the guy who gets jealous every time you say that your favorite lasagna is Palma Pasta.
He accepts that.
He makes a pretty good lasagna.
Anyways, okay, that's enough of stew ball.
By the way, I looked it up.
There's never been a horse called stew ball.
You would think someone would name a horse.
There's never been a horse called stew ball.
I have things to say about this song.
Does this song remind you of any other song?
He always
said why.
And so this is Christmas.
There you go. And what have you
done? This is
Happy Christmas War Is Over by John
Lennon. So which came first, the stew ball
or Happy Christmas? This one's
50 years old, so the Hollies are going to sue
John Lennon. Okay, because I'm now going to
Google it because I know nothing about the Hollies' Stu Ball,
and I'm now going to confirm this is happening in real time,
just like when you did that audition here.
Stu Ball was first recorded, oh, it's a cover, actually.
Did you know that?
Did you ever dig in to find out this interesting information
that Stu Ball is not a Hollies original?
Did you know that?
I did not.
It was recorded by the Greenbrier Boys in 1961.
I'm telling you, I did not know this until right now. This the Greenbrier Boys in 1961 I'm telling you I did not
know this till right now this to me is a mind
blow. Happy Christmas War Is Over
by John Lennon sounds
eerily similar to this
song
oh I see the Hollies
called it Stew Ball but the original
name of this song
no it is a Skew Ball
was the original name. Skew Ball. S-k-e-w skewball so anyway that
that jam that we just heard to me sounds just like happy christmas war is over and that's a
mind blow to me i can't wait to kick out your second jam because uh there's a fun fact about
this song as well oh i think without giving it away um i've got two songs in a row that aren't, for all intents and purposes, horse racing songs,
but the references are iconic.
So let me start this guy up, bring it down,
and when that horse racing reference comes up,
I'll turn it up again so people can hear it
because it's a little buried in this one, but here we go.
Son of a gun.
I love this song, Peter.
Yes, this was a classic.
And I love who's singing background in the chorus.
Which is?
I don't know.
Mick Jagger.
You'll hear it.
They share the same mouth, don't they?
That's true, that's true.
Carly Simon.
With Steven Tyler from Aerosmith.
Yes. self-gave out and all the girls dreamed that they'd be
your partner, they'd be
your partner and
you're so vain
you probably think this song is
about you, you're so vain
you're so vain
I'll bet you think this
song is about you
don't you, don't you tell me a little more about, do you have any more to share and then I do I'll bet you think this song is about you Is this the line now?
I know it's coming later So tell me a little more about
Do you have any more to share?
And then I do want to bring it up
When you hear the Mick in the background
And then I do want to bring out the horse racing part
But Carly Simon, you're so vain
Which I think on surface
A lot of people would not know
Has anything to do with horse racing
And the fact that she refers to
A place that Jim McKinney and I live in our fantasies.
Love it.
Love it.
I saw Jim McKinney in the Harold Ballard documentary.
I'm getting a lot of feedback on that.
I wish I'd seen it.
It's on Jim.
It's free.
I think we hear Mick here.
Ready?
Listen.
You're so vain.
Oh, yeah.
You probably think this song is about you.
You're so vain.
You're so vain.
I bet you think this song is about you.
It's one of those things where you hear it a million times,
and then once you are told, oh, that's Mick Jagger,
that's all you can hear is Mick.
It's very clear.
But, yeah, I actually was a bit disappointed
with the Harold Ballard documentary.
I felt it was very safe.
Zero new information and not much better
than something you and I might produce here at TMDS.
I was a little disappointed,
but Jim McKinney, great as always.
Or is this it?
I had some dreams,
they were clouds in my coffee.
Oh, another chorus. After this chorus.
How's Jim McKinney doing?
Jim's doing great.
He did not point out
in that Ballard story that he
used to bring Ballard pot
and that Ballard used to have hookers up.
See? That's the shit we needed in that
doc. Something real like that. Because that's a story you've been told by Jim See? That's the shit we needed in that doc.
Something real like that.
Because that's a story you've been told by Jim McKinney,
and we believe Jim.
Here it is.
He went up to San Antonga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your leotard up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun Another great verse.
Any truth to the rumor that Carly Simon was singing about you?
No, we met briefly in the 60s,
and I was a little young.
Jim McKinney and I drove his car to Saratoga,
and our horses naturally lost.
Love it, you know?
I like this one.
It's like a surprise horse racing song,
Carly Simon, You're So Vain.
I'm trying to remember now.
Was it Warren Beatty?
We never found out who she's singing about, right?
I have no idea.
I heard it might be Warren Beatty.
I didn't break down the song.
I found a reference to Sarah Togan's song, and I threw it in.
But you knew you were coming on Toronto Mike to kick it out, right?
Well, I'm clearly unprepared.
Okay, well, here's another great jam from a band I...
Oh, a band.
Well, you're giving that one away, aren't you?
I love.
Straight down the Mississippi
River to the Gulf of Mexico
To Lake Charles, Louisiana Straight down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
To Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Little Bessie, girl.
Who's singing?
The band.
No, no.
The voice.
Robbie Robertson.
If there's anything that she could do.
Up on Cripple Creek.
She sends me if I spring a leap. She mends me. I don't have to speak. She defends me. Actually, before I get the hay mail, it's leave on helm on lead vocals in this song.
So your drummer is singing this song.
Here we go.
She bet on one horse to win and i bet on another to show odds were in my favor
i had them five to one and that nag to win came around the track sure enough we had won
interesting she bet the winner. He bet the show.
But sure enough, we had won.
Love it, buddy.
Love it.
Up on Cripple Creek, one of the better-known band songs.
Do you know what the A-side is to this single?
Not a clue.
I love it.
Did you do any homework?
The A-side is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,
which I think might be probably the second best band song.
That's a Robbie Robertson song.
But yeah, Levon Helm is singing this song.
He also sings The Wait and No Longer With Us.
A shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.
So maybe extrapolate or elaborate, I should say,
on the horse racing reference.
So much like Carly Simon's song, you got a whole verse here, a horse racing verse.
It's just such an iconic song.
It's such a familiar song, especially to those of us from the 60s.
And such a cool song.
And that verse is always, I mean, when I was thinking,
I've got to come up with some horse racing songs,
that one was immediately top of mind.
The band performed this song
on the Ed Sullivan Show in November 1969.
Were you watching, Peter?
Possibly.
Well, I was probably watching for Topo Gigio.
Yes, I get that reference.
Or Wayne and Schuster.
Wayne and Schuster were on the Ed Sullivan show like 30 times.
I think they have the record.
I think most appearances, I believe.
And of course, you can hear them play this song on The Last Waltz,
which is a Scorsese documentary film.
Fantastic.
All music fans know it well.
I'm just checking.
So it peaks at number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100,
but it goes to number 10 on the Canadian RPM Singles charts. It's pretty sad that we only have two members of this band still with us.
So we're down to two.
Like the Beatles.
Yeah, but the Beatles were only four.
These guys.
So yeah, it's a smaller percentage.
But yeah, we're down to, of course, Robbie Robertson,
very active out there and less active,
but still with us, Garth Hudson. Thank you. Is this the Dan Fogelberg one?
That's the last spoiler alert out of you.
No, it's Christopher.
Christopher, huh?
It was springtime in Kentucky.
Nineteen ninety
five.
Well the sun was
hot and the grass
was green.
It was good to be
alive.
And thousands came
from miles around
on the first weekend
in May.
To cheer the winner
home on Darby Day.
On Darby Day.
Nobody refers to the Kentucky Derby as Derby Day.
Well, the hero of this story that I bring to you today
is a horse by the name of Thunder Gulch, born in the U.S.
Found by Islands Demi-O-Burn and trained by D. Wayne Lucas
And owned by Michael Tabor from Monaco
Oh, Kentucky, I've got you in my heart
It's burning like a fire in my soul. Woo!
Oh, Kentucky, I've seen it in my dreams that I'm gonna bring a winner home.
Yes, I'm gonna bring a winner home.
This is a real horse racing song.
Well, I don't like it.
Tell me why.
I don't have to tell you about the word scansion.
You know what the word scansion means?
Scansion?
You mean like in a hockey game?
You got those...
SCA and scansion.
Scansion in music is where the words and the lyrics match the rhythm of the music.
I'm learning something.
You're like a musicologist.
The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel were genius about making the words match the music.
This song has no scansion.
I mean, that business about train by D-Way Lucas doesn't match where the music is going.
Right.
And it's kind of like a very poor version of Bernie Taupin and Elton John
where someone wrote the lyrics and then he tried to set it to music.
Right.
It's like shoehorning in these lyrics to that beat there.
So this is Krista Berg, of course, who I know best
because when I was in primary school, I'm a little younger than you, Peter,
but when I was in primary school and we had the slow dances,
the go-to slow dance jam was
Lady in Red goes dancing with me.
Krista Byrd.
How was the scansion in that song?
Oh my goodness.
The scansion was pretty fucking good
in that song.
It was a big deal, you know,
because then you could put your hands
on their hips or whatever.
You know, with good scansion,
you can get laid.
I don't know if I's getting laid in primary school,
but yeah, one day, one day.
One day, Peter.
Okay, so tell me, is there any more information on,
this is about a Kentucky Derby horse.
Is it a fictional tale?
Is it real?
No, no, Thunder Gulch won the 1995 Kentucky Derby
at odds of 21 to 1,
and won, I think he won the Traverse
and one or two other big races. So yeah, he had a pretty good record. He was a one and one. I think he won the Traverse and some one or two other big races.
So he had he had a pretty good record.
He was a pretty good horse.
Not sure that he deserves a song called The Legend of Thunder Gulch, but this may have been produced in 1996.
Is there any connection?
Like, I know Christenberg.
Where is he from?
He's from like, is he from Ireland?
He's from he's a Britishish singer, so he's from...
I googled horse racing songs.
Yeah, but then you know, here's Peter.
You google horse racing songs, you come up with 10 songs.
But then you have in your calendar that you're going to kick out these jams on Toronto Mike.
You never thought for a minute, like, maybe we would talk about the songs?
Like, do a little homework?
I talked about the songs.
I might not give you the lasagna today.
I told you I didn't like the lyrics.
I didn't like the way they were assembled.
All right, let's roll into the next jam here.
Let's roll into it.
They get better.
I'm digging them already.
I'll let Chris take me home, and we're going to get to your Dan Fogelberg. guitar solo Born in the valley
And raised in the trees
Of western Kentucky
On wobbly knees
With mama beside you
To help you along
You'll soon be a-growing up strong
All the long lazy mornings in pastures of green the sun on
your withers
the wind in your
mane
will never
prepare you
for what lies
ahead
the run
for the rose is so rare
And it's a run for the roses
As fast as you can
Your fate is delivered
Your moment's at hand.
It's the chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance.
And it's high time you joined in the dance.
It's high time you joined in the dance.
How do we feel about this Kentucky Derby, Jim?
Well, to maintain the theme,
I don't have any kind of historical presence for this song.
But Run for the Roses is the actual nickname for that race.
Yeah, yeah, and I can assure you that in Louisville, Kentucky,
on the first Saturday in May,
this song is playing on every news show
when they throw to the story about the Kentucky Derby.
Well, do you know this song was commissioned by ABC for
its telecast of the Kentucky Derby
in 1980? I didn't know that.
Did you say 1880? No.
The television...
It was just black and white back then. I heard Moses
was producing that show in
1880. Any truth to that? No.
The other Moses. Okay.
So the running of the Derby in 1980 is where
this song premieres. It was part of its
preview special here. But now Dan
of course, Vogelberg
passed away. Shout out to
Ridley Funeral Home. We lost him in
2007. Cancer took him.
My goodness.
No, no. Sad news. Sad news.
But this jam is, yeah, I
would say the definitive
Kentucky Derby jam.
And Kentucky Derby is
the, for us
casuals, it is the, and I think
Queen's Plate is the best, of course, because I love
Woodbine and their support of the
Down the Stretch podcast, but the world famous
race, it's still the Kentucky
Derby, right? Sure.
Look, you've got your computer in front of you. Google
1980 Kentucky Derby winner. Was it
Cannon Arrow II? Was it Genuine Risk?
I'll tell you.
Thank you for asking. I was hoping.
I do have a computer in front of me and I can tell you
that it was Genuine
Risk. How about that, eh?
How about that? That's Mel Allen,
right? That's great.
And thank you, Dan, for this wonderful
run for the roses. It's going to lead us right into the's great. And thank you Dan for this wonderful run
for the roses. It's going to lead us right into
the next one.
Oh!
There's bingo Oh, there's bingo
Where the turf meets the surf
Down at old Elmar.
Take a plane, take a train, take a car.
There's a smile on every face, and a winner in each race.
Where the turf meets the surf at Del Mar.
I love that.
All right.
The turf meets the surf at Del Mar.
Rio Del Mar.
Shout out to the Macarena.
Okay, talk to me.
Anything to say about... I know Bing Crosby is a big deal in the horse racing world, right? Well, Macarena. Okay, talk to me. Anything to say about,
I know Bing Crosby is a big deal in the horse racing world, right?
Well, in the late 30s, I believe,
I hope I got my dates right,
Bing Crosby and some of his wealthy friends
decided to build a racetrack
where all of the Hollywood famous people could hang out.
So when you go to Del Mar,
there are posters everywhere of Bing Crosby
and other famous movie stars and
dignitaries of the day.
Wow.
Um,
Jim McKinney,
Clint Nickerson and I went to Del Mar.
I'm trying to,
was it,
uh,
Oh eight might've been Oh eight Oh nine.
It's wonderful.
Oh God.
It's so gorgeous because when you're in the stands,
you can see the mountains,
uh,
to the North of you and the mountains to the north of you.
Nice.
And the Pacific to the left of you.
And it's a gorgeous track.
And they couldn't have been.
They were so nice to us.
Free admission, free parking, free food.
Wow.
We even cashed some bets.
And then, sadly, in the intervening year, Clint died of cancer,
our third buddy.
We went out to Victoria for a celebration of his life
and his wife Elisa
gave me a bag of his ashes.
We took those ashes down to Del Mar
and we scattered them
on the walking ring
and in our twisted way of thinking,
some of the great horses in the world
have clint's dna on their hooves so and that's that i mean i love that song um the the beauty
for kenny and i because we're a couple of betting degenerates when you're at delmar at 10 o'clock in
the morning the first races are going off at saratoga and woodbine right and gulf stream right
so you go to the off-track betting portion of the track,
and you play the races for two, two and a half hours.
And then at 1 o'clock Pacific time, the races at Del Mar begin.
And we would go up to the press box, which was nicely appointed,
and there was food.
There was a little dining room.
And they had a woman there.
It wasn't cafeteria food.
She would make food.
There was fried chicken.
There was pot roast.
There were hamburgers.
It was, we have to go back to Del Mar.
You got to go back to Del Mar.
And I'm just reading up on all the different things that, you know,
that Bing Crosby liked to wet his beak all over the place here.
He was breeding racehorses and he co-owned,
this one I didn't even know until right now,
but he co-owned
the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Oh.
Did you know that,
Peter Gross?
I did not know that.
Oh,
I did not know that.
Hey,
you want to kick out
another jam?
Sure.
I feel tears welling up
calling deep inside
like my heart's
sprung up in praise.
You can't hit the post
on this one.
And the stab of loneliness
sharp and painful
that I may never shake. Now you might say that I was taking it hard You can't hit the post on this one. And here comes pride at the backstretch. Heartaches are going to the inside.
My tears are holding back.
They're trying not to fall.
My heart's out of the running.
True love stretched for another's sake.
The race is on and it looks like heartaches.
And the winner loses all.
The race is on, Peter Gross.
George Jones.
I love this song because of the metaphor
and the wonderful lyrics.
You know, to use horse racing terms as a metaphor
for being in love and having your heart broken.
Fantastic.
And then the pace of the song matches the pace of a
horse race.
Well, George Jones,
arguably the
greatest country singer of
all time.
Any comments on that, Peter?
I paused for a reaction and I got nothing
here. You're out of practice.
I would never say George Jones is the greatest country singer of all time
because I'd have trouble naming a few.
Arguably.
Arguably.
But more people than not will probably name him number one.
But yeah, true story.
True story.
Now, it's funny because down the stretch,
the definitive Ontario horse racing podcast.
The greatest horse racing podcast of all time.
But you produce it. So you package it together. all time. But it's, you know, you produce it,
so you package it together,
and if you flub it, you re-record,
and, you know, there's editing involved.
And I just wonder,
maybe you're out of practice with the live.
You used to be on 680 News live, right?
I think I got fired for not being live one day.
I've stopped talking about that because you threaded me with a lawsuit.
My comfort level is to take information that I find attractive and edit it together.
And the attractiveness of that to me is that, yes, I can record my voice over three or four times until I get it right.
I can throw in the horse race exactly where i want it so you you don't have to hit the post live because you will
manipulate it i don't know how interesting this is but it is i was editing um a couple of my
stories this morning one of the guys i interviewed kept going uh uh and the the edit pad that i have
allows me to go in and take out all the hours.
Sure, sure.
It picks the pace up and makes the guy sound more fun.
You can clean it up, package it together,
and then it's a very well-produced package
to a piece of audio,
very informative and entertaining
because it's Peter Gross, for God's sakes.
Ask Freddie P.
But on this program,
what I enjoy is that we're live to air.
Of course I could fix this in post, but I
won't because I love the idea that
this is as it happened
in my basement on this day.
Are you ready for another horse racing jam?
Well, I'm sure at some point you'll
repeatedly embarrass me for not being prepared,
but yes. This was the one you added
today.
Yes, for the year today.
From Guys and Dolls.
Shout out to John Gallagher.
I got the horse right here.
The name is Paul Revere.
And here's a guy that says
your foe when it's clear.
Can do.
Can do.
This guy says the horse can do.
If he says the horse can do.
Can do.
Can do.
I'm picking Valentine because on the morning line,
the guy's got him figured at five to nine.
But make it epitaph, he wins it by a half.
Don't do this here in the telegram.
So this gives me an excuse to ask you more John Gallagher questions.
So how is he doing?
Gallagher sounded great.
He called me the other night,
told me he loved me.
Well, that's a bad sign.
I feel like that's what you say
just before you die.
We should do a wellness check on him.
Well, I suggested to him
that we do a show with you
and he's very keen to do it.
You know, I got a very sweet,
loving note from John myself
in the past couple of weeks
where he was Googling his old friend Henny, Brian Henderson.
So he's Googling Henderson.
And, of course, when one Googles Brian Henderson, he ended up on something I wrote on TorontoMike.com where I basically pasted down this really nice note, an email I got from Brian Henderson.
Now, believe it or not, Peter, the email was sent
before Henny passed away. Okay. He didn't send it from the afterworld or whatever, but I got a nice
note from John Gallagher that he, I guess he was touched by these words from his old pal,
Brian Henderson. And the fact that I just picture like a late at night, John Gallagher,
Googling his friends who have passed and then calling his friend Peter Gross to say he loves him.
I don't know, man.
That sounds like John's not wrapping it up, right?
He's not going anywhere.
He sounded fine, and we had an animated.
I like to hear from him.
He's a character.
I like characters.
Come on, you're in my basement right now, Peter Gross.
I love characters, and I think John Gallagher is one of the uh more entertaining toronto characters we did 40 45 uh gallagher gross and 35 were good right here
in this bit yeah but 35 were good um and i i have never worked with anyone like john gallagher i
mean sometimes you just have to sit back and let him roll his vortex i loved it when he would bring
his book and then he would be telling a story. Let's say Stevie Nicks came up.
Let's use her as a hypothetical example
because she just announced a tour.
She's coming to Toronto later this year.
Stevie Nicks, he'll like read his passage from his book
he wrote about his encounter with Stevie Nicks.
He'll just do that at this table here.
He'll say it like it's off the top of his head,
but he's reading from his book.
Yeah.
But the book's quite extraordinary.
That book.
I was shocked when the Pulitzer Prize nominees came out
and I didn't see John Gallagher's name.
It blew my mind right there.
Oh my God.
Earlier in this program,
you were begging for some Betty Grable.
And you know what?
You're going to get some, Peter.
All the songs include this.
Call to the Post.
Call to the Post.
By the way, this is pre-Marilyn Monroe.
And she's stunning.
The male sex. That's men.
Dirty old men.
Beware of them
If you're a member of
The frail sex
That's women.
Beautiful women.
Romantic men
Will promise anything
To win you.
But the odds aren't with you.
Oh, the cards.
Whoa.
I love the birds.
Whoa. You're better off betting on a horse
Than betting on a man
You're better off betting on a long shot
Or an also red
A horse may not be able to hold you tight
But he doesn't want to wander from the stable night
You can make book that the nag you pick
Doesn't stop to look at another chick
A man will only cause you tears and trouble
Better off betting on a horse.
So, sister, play it smart.
Betty Grable.
You know, Betty Grable, you compared her to Marilyn Monroe,
does live 20 years longer than Marilyn lived,
but still gone far too soon.
Do you know Betty Grable died at 56 years young?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Okay, I know,
normally I throw to you
to talk about your jam,
but I'm worried
you're going to come out empty.
Any more words for me
regarding the great Betty Grable?
Only that as I googled
horse racing songs,
this was an absolute revelation.
I wasn't aware of it.
I was in hysterics when I saw it.
Look it up. First first of all she's
gorgeous it's really really sexy but the lyrics uh were clearly written by someone who's a chronic
horse player you're better off betting the daily double
so my kind of song this is a Peter Gross jam everybody Here I don't
Yeah you know Betty Grable
For us youngsters
You know the under 50 crowd
I don't know a lot about her
Neither did I
I think this was
Did I give you notes
Did I say 1951
For this song
I got no such
I wish I had notes from you Peter
No I just got the notes
This might be as far back as 1951.
And Marilyn Monroe kind of erupted
in the late 50s and early 60s.
Absolutely.
Kind of stole her sex symbol thing
she was doing here.
I see now her bathing suit poster
made her the number one pin-up girl
of World War II.
And that surpassed Rita Hayworth.
So yeah, this was a pin-up queen here,
Betty Grable.
Her legs were insured by her studio
for $1 million.
That was a publicity stunt, of course,
but she said,
I became a star for two reasons,
and I'm standing on them.
So she credits her legs.
I don't know.
Is it creepy to put in my search history, Betty Grable's legs?
Is that okay?
You know what trainers say about horses?
No legs, no horse.
I think they say no feet, no horse.
Well, Betty Grable lived and died by that.
I'm looking now at Betty Grable's legs.
And, yeah, these gams are great.
Well done.
Those are worthy of a one million
dollar insurance policy.
Okay, Peter, I'll send you these for your
personal collection
later. Betty Grable's legs.
But, uh...
Men are nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble.
A horse is a good, clean
animal.
Better than getting on a
bike. That's the story of my life,
sisters. That's how it happened to me.
Get a horse.
Oh, okay.
Lots to say about this.
Do you want to hit the post or no?
There was no telling.
I can't. You missed it.
The day they sold hip number
703.
Not too bad looking, little bit furry. She'll do for someone I can't. You missed it. Lisa G. Fly. I know nothing about Lisa G. Fly, but she has a great voice.
Tell me anything you know about her.
Well, I have a very sad story about Lisa G. Fly.
I'm ready.
I wanted to interview her about this song,
and I found her on Facebook and messaged her,
and she never got back to me, and I was very dismayed.
And when I did a little research, she died of cancer in 2016.
Oh, it's heartbreaking. Yeah. I was like,
what is this going to be? And
that is awful.
But Zenyatta, what do you
know about Zenyatta? Just that there was
a police song, right? There was a
police song called
Zenyatta Mandata. She may have
been named after the song. Zenyatta
was this spectacular racing filly slash mare
who won all but one of her races.
The only race she lost was the last race of her career,
which was the Breeders' Cup Classic,
the most important race of the year.
But she'd won that race the year before.
Oh.
You know, I went to the obituary for Lisa with a Z by the way
Lisa G Fly so just to
hijack your story there
she had a battle with cancer
and
can I swear on this program
fuck cancer I just want to put that on the record
I found that sad
but does Zenyatta
deserve a song in which she's declared the greatest resource
we've ever seen and the answer is yes wow um and the beautiful thing about zenyatta the great thing
about zenyatta she was always written by mike smith who was almost my age by the way wow he's
in his 50s zenyatta was always last zenyatta never went to the lead right zenyatta like there are horses uh
secretariat would go to the lead and say catch me i'll see you later i'll bury you zenyatta would
trail by 20 lengths and you think oh my god she's one to two and then no matter how fast or how slow
the front horses went zenyatta would just get into gear and start circling um
what the best line in that song by lisa g fly why is it you fly uh it's like it's like lies
liza manelli is i'm gonna say liza the best the best line in that song is she's not gonna lose
she's checking with mike on which gear to use and it was just wonderful there's a compilation of all of her
wins in every race she's last circles the field and wins except for that readers cup classic at
the end where she was last circled the field and missed by i think it's half a length so this
reminds me of the 2022 kentucky derby winner rich strike am i right Peter, you're the expert, but this is the horse that was,
the odds were incredible, but it was way back, way back.
And then just sort of found that extra gear and just caught everybody.
Yeah.
I'm offended that you think any song of Zenyatta reminds you of Rich Strike.
Why?
Rich Strike won the Kentucky Derby.
Yeah, because Rich Strike won the Kentucky Derby and was a spectacular.
80 to 1 odds.
Yeah.
Came off the pace
came scooting up the inside it was unbelievable yeah i can watch that replay over and over again
i can tell you let me tell you something about a rich strike as opposed to rich strike never won
again in fact do you want to hear an amazing statistic of course um in 2022 there were three
races in the united states for the triple crown the k Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont stakes.
In 2022, there were three triple crown races in Canada,
the Queen's Plate, the Prince of Wales and the Breeders' Stakes.
Those races were won by six different horses.
So no, no, that's, that, that's oddity number one.
Number two, none of those six horses ever won again.
That's unbelievable. It's believable. It's because it happened. That's a mind ever won again. That's unbelievable.
It's believable.
It's because it happened.
That's a mind blow.
Yeah.
That's a mind blow here.
I love your final jam because this is going to be some great Peter Gross stories.
I love it. It involves more than one FOTM.
Are you ready here for your final jam, Peter?
I'm trying to remember.
Well, this is your song.
Oh, okay.
Can't forget this one.
Hey, I'm proud of this one.
This is yours, brother.
Call the post again.
That's right.
This is a very lively video that you can find if you look for it.
Lori Brown.
The beautiful Laurie Brown.
She nails it.
That's Michael Hayden of The Booze Mothers.
Woo!
Take it on the crack. All right, Peter. This is a fun fact for you
You ready? You're sitting down
In 1986 there was a TV movie called Butter Bump in the Eighth
Do you know who wrote and directed this TV movie?
I'm vaguely aware of the person
Did you know he's in the FOTM Hall of Fame?
Yes
And it's not Stu Stone
Who is it?
Peter Gross.
In the mid-80s, Moses was trying to produce drama,
and he had some circumstance in which a series of productions didn't come through.
And around the same time, I took him this script, and he said, fine, we'll make it.
You beat him into submission.
There's a wonderful scene with Moses.
But wait, can I, yeah, okay, so I have a few questions
because you wrote and directed this thing.
Do you remember at all what your budget was?
Like, did you have anything to do with the budget?
No.
But I will tell you a very tragic angle on this.
The lead actor was Jonathan Welsh.
The lead actress was Nancy Dolman.
And the young boy who
plays the kid in the movie, it was named
Sean Roberge. They're all dead.
What? That's like the poltergeist curse.
There's a butter bump in the eighth curse.
We know. But you and Laurie are still with us.
Nancy Dolman was married to
Marty Short. And I think she had breast
cancer. Marty showed up
one day. I directed Marty Short in a
scene in this movie. That's my biggest claim
to fame. Sean Roberge was
killed in a car accident
several years ago and
I don't have
many details about Jonathan Welsh.
Jonathan was a good friend of mine
for quite a while and then I
don't know if we drifted apart and then one day I read
a very tiny little blurb in the paper that he died.
The Sean Roberge, that is terrible.
He was like 24, 23 years old when he got a road accident
early in the morning of July 29, 1996.
Oh, I hope there's no curse.
But Moses, who, you know, the executive producer, Moses is still with us.
This song, we can hear Lori Brown on this song, and she's thriving, doing well.
She looks like she's in her 30s, which I don't think is mathematically possible.
You're thriving. You're kicking ass, taking names.
So I would say, I'm not sure there's a curse, but that is an unfortunate series of events that those three...
So, wait, how did Jonathan Welsh die?
What did you say about Jonathan?
I'm not sure.
I don't have the details of it.
Because he died at 57,
so that's way too early, too.
I don't know if...
He was famous for ENG.
Yeah.
Right.
I'm just...
And he was in Adderley and Goosebumps
and his last credit was from 2002.
He had a number of canadian series he was very
total recall he was a good actor yeah he seemed to seem to work a lot which is half the battle but
that eng he got 96 episodes since both nancy and jonathan are gone i can tell you
let's hear it a saucy fact that we had a makeout scene where Jonathan basically seduces Nancy.
And I can tell you that they went at it quite aggressively.
Was Martin Short on set?
No, no, no.
I love Marty Short, so I feel guilty telling this story.
And I can also tell you that before that scene, Jonathan did a fair amount of coke.
Okay. I come here for
the coke content you gave
us the great goods on Jeannie Becker
in the back of that limousine shout out to
Jeannie Becker but before we
say goodbye and I go up to the freezer get
your lasagna I know your son
your grandson and
my son are playing happily
upstairs we might have to leave them for the afternoon.
But anyone else you can tell us quickly you watched Duke Coke?
Okay, we know John Gallagher.
We know Jeannie Becker.
We now know the actor in Butter Bump and the Eighth.
Anyone else you want to shout out who did Coke?
I did a lot of Coke with the director-writer of Butter Bump and the Eighth.
I bet.
But not in a long time.
We always have to preface this
by letting them know
Peter's sober now.
The thing that we've emphasized
is that my drug-taking days
ended in 1986,
which makes it, you know,
so what is that?
37 years ago.
I've spent most of,
I've spent over half my life clean.
Although I got some
a leave in me today.
And that
brings us to the end
of our 1,205th episode
of Toronto Mic'd.
You can follow me on Twitter.
I'm at Toronto Mike.
Peter is at Peter the Gross.
Subscribe to his excellent podcast on Ontario horse racing, Down the Stretch.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.
Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.
Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada.
Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH.
And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore.
Smoke them if you got them.
Our next guest on Toronto Mic'd is CP24's crime specialist, Steve Ryan. 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
Cause everything is rosy and green
Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day
But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who
Maybe the one
who doesn't realize
There's a thousand
shades of grey
Cause I know that's true
Yes, I do
I know it's true
Yeah, I know it's true
How about you?
They're picking up trash and they're putting down roads
They're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes
And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can
Maybe I'm not.
And maybe I am.
But who gives a damn?
Because everything is coming up.
Rosy and gray.
Yeah, the wind is cold.
But the smell of snow warms me today.
And your smile is fine.
And it's just like mine.
And it won't go away
Cause everything is rosy and green
Well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain
And I've kissed you in places I better not name
And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour
But I like it much better going down on you
Yeah, you know that's true
Because everything is coming up
Rosy and green
Yeah, the wind is cold
But the smell of snow
Warms us today
And your smile is fine
And it's just like mine
And it won't go away
Cause everything is
Rosie now
Everything is Rosie
Yeah, everything is
Rosie and Gray Yeah, everything is rosy and gray.