Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Your Blog Sucks #5

Episode Date: July 1, 2013

Mike and Elvis discuss what sucks this week.

And now, it's time for Your Blog Sucks. Welcome to Your Blog Sucks. I'm Mike from torontomike.com, and joining me is my brother from another mother, Elvis. Episode 5 begins now. Episode 5 begins now. We have a packed house here today, Mike. You know, you said that every week and it's been empty. And now we have a packed house and nobody's going to believe you.

It's packed. It always is packed. The band, Humble, and the studio audience. And we just have an extraordinary amount of people here. And you know what? Humble nails that every frigging time. He does. That's why he's a pro. It's one take. In and out.

And he never listens to the rest of the show. It's really disappointing. Comes in, does his little cue, and then he's gone. So in this room is Mrs. Elvis and Mrs. Toronto Mike and two Elvis juniors and two Toronto Mike juniors. That is four offspring between us. It's quite the house right now. Lots of folks.

I'm excited. I'm pumped. This is the most people I've ever recorded in front of, so I'm a little bit nervous and uh frankly there could be the most amount of people listening to this podcast ever right now as well i can't imagine that there's going to be more than actually you know the amount of people that are here well i'm not sure about that i heard episode four was shared uh throughout the philippines get out of here and And Edmonton. Oh, beautiful.

So it was quite popular. We just added we. I'm speaking like as if I had anything to do with this. But they just added Tagalog, whatever the Filipino language is, to LinkedIn. Tagalog. Sure. Tagalog. I don't know how to actually say it.

Tagalog is actually better known now as Filipino. Yes. Which is easier to say. But we, LinkedIn publicized it as Tagalog or whatever, however you say it. My apologies to the Filipino people. Tagalog. Yes. How come I can say it?

I don't know. I'm whiter than you are. But it's funny that my status update was, you know, I got Google Translate to say, welcome to our friends in philippines and uh people were asking me if i was actually in manila at the time and you thought of me when you know i did not i was like you thought of humble just because i'm speaking filipino doesn't mean that i'm actually in the philippines but i guess i could understand why people thought that I just thought we'd start this show with a little tune. You know what?

I realize now I had no idea that this song had this opening. You know what sucks, Elvis? What sucks, Mike? Politicizing absolutely everything. What do, Mike? Politicizing absolutely everything. What do you mean? Well, James Gandolfini passed away, I don't know, a week ago maybe. Since our last recording. And when James Gandolfini passed away, I decided I'd link to my 10 favorite TV characters of all time.

One of which is Tony Soprano. We've talked a lot about that show. You've never seen it. We've never watched one episode. We've never watched one episode. I've never watched one episode. We've never talked about it ever. It must have been Il Duce.

I get you two confused all the time. You know two Italian guys and you get those two Italian people people uh confused i know three italian guys because there's also domenico my buddy domenico but anyway i would i linked to my 10 favorite tv characters one of whom is tony soprano and then somebody on the on torontomike.com called me out for like the fact that all 10 of my favorite TV characters are men. So apparently I violated some political correctness law because I didn't include a token woman in my top 10. Well, it's ridiculous that you have to include a female character.

I mean, I guess they could have argued that you didn't include like an alien character either because there's lots of aliens. Like Alf. Right. It was a great character. It was a great character. it was a great category it was a good character great character not sure where he would land on the alien best alien character list of tv though but he'd probably be in the top 10 given that there's likely not even 10 um it's ridiculous it's ridiculous i was trying to go through this

list myself because after i saw that comment i'm like okay well who would i put on that list then as a as a great female television character that's what i was thinking too like what woman did i overlook it's hard to come up with a woman female character that was better than any of the ones that you had listed i mean i certainly like dana scully i wouldn't have listed all the ones that you listed but i would have replaced them with other male characters i think i it would it would they certainly have been there have been good female but I would have replaced them with other male characters, I think. They certainly have been good female characters on television, obviously, but I wouldn't suggest that they ever would crack the top ten yet, anyway. And it's not because they're women,

it's just because they haven't been as good as male characters. Well, maybe what sucks is that writers don't write great female characters. That's a good one. Thank you. That's a good one. We're going to edit this and do this again. You know what sucks Elvis? But I mean, I guess for me, the one that came to, came to mind was Elaine Bennis. I mean, she's a brilliant, that's a brilliant character.

But is she better than George? No. Exactly. Like I was thinking, I was going to have Carmela Soprano. I know you didn't watch the Sopranos, but she was a great character, but she was, I didn't, I wouldn't put her above Tony. Right. And Scully actually was a fine character, but I liked molder better right or the cigarette smoking man or whatever

i wouldn't i wouldn't i mean i wasn't a huge fan of either one of them but i the cigarette smoking man was probably my favorite character in that in that show um or chupacabra one of those who was canadian by the way uh cigarette smoking man and those were not real cigarettes that he smoked did you know that they were um no like herb i heard that on Mad Men, they smoke herbal cigarettes. Oh, really? Yeah, and on Mad Men's another example. There's some, Peggy Olsen is a fantastic character. I like Peggy.

Some could argue that Peggy Olsen is what Mad Men's really about. But is she better than Don Draper slash Dick Whitman? I say no. Right. Did you ever watch that? I borrowed season one from you, right? You did, and I never watched it.

I freaking love that show. I never watched it, and it's on my list of shows to watch. Okay, so tell me. I'm waiting for it to finish. Yeah, that's what I'm doing with Game of Thrones. So tell me the best female character on TV in your humble opinion. I'm going to guess that it's Elaine Bennis. That's probably my best guess.

I'm trying to think of any, I mean, my favorite shows, and I can't. I really struggle to come up with, because you look at my other favorite comedy of all time is The Office, the British version, and there's no real female characters that stick out there, and I don't know. You know, I'm trying to come up with one,

and I can't think of a character i can't think of one and i think that's just terrible we need to write better female characters i would agree but you know what else sucks mike what sucks elvis some context of this one remember last week when i talked about uh lists and how i hated lists well i'm gonna try and incorporate a list into all of a list into at least one of my It Sucks. And so for me, one of my This Sucks is bands I didn't appreciate. Since we've purchased a car that comes with Sirius XM, I've been listening to a lot of lithium, Channel 34,

which is essentially music from the 90s that was rock or grunge, however it is that you want to describe it. Grunge and 90s alt rock. Right, sure, however it is that you want to describe it. That's how they describe it. I've been listening to it. So I've been reintroduced to a lot of music that I listened to a lot, obviously, during that time and just fell in love with.

And I've come across, I've made the realization that there's bands from that time and previous times that I didn't appreciate then, but I do now. And really have sort of jumped into listening to these bands, not only on Sirius, but then also doing a lot of background research. So I've got three, the top three bands that I feel I didn't appreciate when I was a teenager and into my early 20s that I probably should have. Okay, go. I love lists. So the first one is, and this is probably the band that, you know,

for most people are going to be like, what are you crazy? You didn't like these guys when they were out. But Alice in Chains. Alice in Chains. For me, I mean, listening to their music music now i'm getting a completely different uh completely different feeling completely different appreciation for this band phenomenal phenomenal music love them and i didn't appreciate them at all when i was younger let me uh i can say something similar but i was way ahead of you as usual so when that band was releasing like dirt and all that stuff in the 90s, I was a casual fan because I was crazy about their contemporaries like Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden.

Like those were my bands. So Alice in Chains was just like I was a casual fan. And then in the late 90s, I dove into their catalog and I started to listen to more Alice in Chains and almost all of those bands I just mentioned. Like I rediscovered them and appreciated them more in the late 90s. I think that I was sort of coming at it from the same way. For me, it was Nirvana and Soundgarden and those types of bands. And when Alice in Chains came around, I was like, you know what, I don't like these guys

because I like the bands that influence them if I can put words in their mouth. So for me, that was probably the reason why I didn't like them. And again, it wasn't like I didn't like them. I just, I was probably even less of a casual fan than you. I just, I knew that they were there. I knew their songs, but I didn't have that full appreciation. You liked

Man in the Box and maybe the hits or... And Rooster. Rooster, absolutely. The other band, and this one is going to sound a little cheesy perhaps, because I one is going to sound a little cheesy, perhaps, because I think they kind of have a cheese element to them. And certainly they were in the news a lot in Canada because they had this band name issue, but Bush X, or Bush.

And Gavin Rosdell was a pretty boy and got together with Gwen Stefani and all that. So he's certainly not, you know, I understand why I didn't like them. I probably didn't like them because of their image more than anything else. Or maybe because they were British and you felt grunge was like a Seattle thing? No. Is that possible?

Because I know they got some flack for stealing the grunge sound, but they were like a UK band. I mean, there's a ton of bands that stole that sound, though. That is true. That were really crappy, right? Puddle of Mud? Creed?

Remember Puddle of Mud? Creed and all that stuff um but yeah bush bush uh they love god they love the jesus um but bush x is is definitely one that i've i've just appreciated more i i like their songs i like their they're catchy they i think they do a good job the good musicians and and certainly you know gavin's got the chops to be a good lead man. Yeah, I don't agree with that one, only because I fully appreciated them when 16 Stone came out, which was the soundtrack to my NHL 93 Nintendo 16-bit marathon games. That was the soundtrack.

The little things and Glitter and all that. Yeah, crazy good. And then the other band, and this one's going to sound kind of funny because if anybody who does know me in real life knows that I'm a big fan of these guys and always have been a big fan of these guys, but I've always been a fan of their popular music, their hits. And recently, over the last number of years, I've dived into their catalog, dove into their catalog. And Queen is just a phenomenal, phenomenal band. I mean, Freddie Mercury is just,

he's probably one of the greatest lead guys of all time. Their concerts and their videos were just, they're just amazing. You go back and watch them right now, and you're like, this is rock. This is just so amazing, such amazing music, showmanship, the whole nine yards. But it is funny to go back and

watch these, these videos now and say, how did anyone not know that he wasn't gay? It was like a big surprise, you know, like, Oh, let's keep it under wraps. And you watch it now. And obviously living in a society where it's a lot more open, uh, it is amusing to me to, to suggest that we didn't actually know that. You know, I, I never, I still don't fully appreciate Queen. Like, I like their hits, and I'm all for Bohemian Rhapsody or whatever, and I think he's an amazing showman or whatever, but I can take or leave Queen. Is that terrible to say?

No, it's not, because I was once there. But his vocal range, it was just phenomenal. There's a great clip on the internet of him and Bowie, just the vocals of him and Bowie doing Under Pressure, and it's breathtaking. It's great. Cool. You know what sucks?

What sucks, Mike? Having to go into the office after being used to working from home for the last couple of years. I hear you. So I've been working from home for, I guess, almost two years, two years in October, and I've got this routine down, Pat, I'm telling you, I got it down and it's a great routine. And I have my swim at noon and I make my coffee at the same time and I get a lot done and it's very relaxing and it's wonderful. But this week I had to go to one young street for meetings

every single day, like nine to five. And I had to get, like, I had to go to one young street for meetings every single day like nine to five and i had to get like i had to physically get there like first i have to like clean myself up and no i like that i like the ambience so do i the studio is uh give her the microphone there's a third microphone studio audiences is putting up a fight here so basically you have to like uh prep yourself like you got to cleanse yourself and make yourself like suitable for external observation. And then you got to get yourself to some place. And then you got this, this social aspect and there's people and you got to like engage with them. And then you got, you got a lunch at 12 and then you got to, you leave at five, whatever. I mean, I'm sorry. I don't know how I did that for over a day. I did that for so

long. Now it was tough. I found it tough all week. It's just, I have a, I don't know how I did that for over a day. I did that for so long. Structurally. Now it was tough. I found it tough all week. It's just so different. You have to get somewhere. I usually put a robe on and move over to the living room. How did you find socializing with people that you worked with? I don't know. It's fine.

I'm used to doing it on Skype, and it's a little different in person. I think the hardest part was actually getting myself to one young street and back did you transit or drive well i was i had this infinity uh m37 so i wanted to drive and i can expense the parking and i wanted to enjoy this like luxury sports car thing sure and that was pretty fine it was awesome one day there was a car accident at jameson on the gardener and i think I sat there for 40 minutes and I was like, I can't believe people do this. I was like so mad. I was like, people just sit here for 40 minutes. And other than that, though, it was pretty fine.

But I guess it sucks that you have to go into an office. It's tough to go back. It really is. But at the same time, for most normal people, they need social interaction. I know that you don't. Not me. This is it right now. Look at how many people are in my living room right now there's a little girl playing

of a soccer ball and she's got this polka dot dress and there's this other little girl who's like she's just like calling for me right now i think she's looking at me she's looking at you yeah she's looking at her dad i think she's looking at the neil young picture up here i got do you like it that's a pretty good picture of rain meta absolutely very good that's rain meta you know what sucks mike what sucks elvis not liking hawaiian pizza who doesn't like hawaiian Do you like it? That's a pretty good picture of Rain Mata. Absolutely. Very good. That's Rain Mata. You know what sucks, Mike? What sucks, Elvis? Not liking Hawaiian pizza.

Who doesn't like Hawaiian pizza? You have ham, pineapple mixed in with your tomato sauce. It's heaven on earth, really. All right, so some context. We're going to order pizza tonight for the Toronto Mike and Elvis families. And my family, well, sorry, me and my kids want pepperoni pizza because we're freaking boring. But Mrs. Toronto Mike wants Hawaiian pizza. And you and Mrs. Elvis have agreed

Hawaiian pizza is where it's at. I don't believe in a pineapple on pizza. It's sweet. Why are you putting something sweet on your pizza? Because a sophisticated palate can handle multiple multiple i don't understand and pizza's spicy and uh i don't understand the the sweet it's like having chocolate covered pretzels they suck because pretzels are salty snacks and then you put sweet on them i don't like the sweet and sweet hold on hold on let's rewind it here you can't say

something sucks when i say it sucks you you can't. That's against the rules of the show. That's like a bonus. That's a bonus suck. That's against the rule. You've already got one up on me. You know, I go to Pizza Pizza, and they got a Jose Bautista cutout, and he's standing there, and it goes, his favorite pizza is Hawaiian pizza. And I shake my head, and what's wrong with you, Joey Batts?

Like, what's wrong with you, Elvis? You're such a munchie cake for ordering Pizzaja cake for ordering i like the ham that is a different that's a different podcast altogether that you can use that one next week so your is hawaiian pizza uh one of elvis's favorite pizzas i wouldn't say it's a favorite pizza but it's a pizza that i wouldn't turn away absolutely so you're saying okay to it because mrs toronto mike wants it no no i'm saying okay to it because Mrs. Toronto Mike wants it. No, no, no. I'm saying okay to it because I do enjoy Hawaiian pizza every once in a while. Now, I will tell you what the favorite pizza is of my oldest daughter. Tell me.

It would be black olives, green olives, and artichokes. Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. She has a severe salt deficiency apparently that she needs to rectify with every meal. Yeah, that's a lot of sodium. Yeah. You know what sucks? What sucks, Mike?

Stacking a team like the Miami Heat have done to win their two in a row and to go to their three championships in a row. That announcement, that decision LeBron made, I'm still quite pissed off about it because essentially the greatest player in the game today decided he would go play with his all-star friends, Chris Bosh and

Dwayne Wade, on a team that had just won a championship like three years earlier or whatnot. I think it was like three years earlier. They stacked this team. They've gone to the finals three years in a row. Now they've won two in a row. I just think it sucks. I like the old way when Michael Jordan sort of had to suck of his team for a while,

and then they added a few parts, and then you get a pip in, and next thing you know, you're ringing off six championships in eight years or whatnot. I miss those days. The Spurs. I've got no problem with it. I think if you ask LeBron James, he did suck for a while. With the Cavs. With the Cavs, and just happened to transplant into another situation that was a lot better

because of him being there. So I don't have a problem with stacking teams. I really don't, as long as it's done fairly. And there's, I mean, the situation around the stacking of this team, I agree, sucks. I mean, they all got together at some U.S. event or something. They all decided they planned this and said, hey, yeah. Yeah, the idea is that they were talking apparently in the back of the plane and the bus and stuff in between events and said, hey, it would be great if in two years when we're all free agents

that we sign with the same team. And meanwhile, Bosch is tweeting that he's torn. He doesn't know if he'll return to Toronto. He's torn. Meanwhile, he had no intention of ever returning to Toronto. And LeBron teases Cleveland in the same fashion, if not worse than that. Don't get me wrong. It sucks.

The situation around the decision sucks. Totally, I'm with you there. So you're okay if... Stacking a team, I have no problems with it. It happens all the time. Teams get stacked because either they sign a bunch of free agents, they have a good general manager, and they're able to trade and draft properly.

I've got no issues with stacking a team. The Yankees have done it for years and years and years. My issue, and the part that I'll agree with you on is the decision. That whole, I'm making air quotes here, the decision sucked. That whole hype around it, it was just, it was dumb. Stacking a team, the decision, everything about this Miami Heat team that's won two in a row sucks. I agree. You know what else sucks, Mike? What sucks, Elvis? Canada Day. Okay, this is a little sacrilegious here. I can't believe you said that. What sucks about Canada Day? Canada Day

sucks. Sucks hard, and here's why. Tell me. Canada Day is the day we celebrate Canada's birthday, the day that Canada became a constitutional monarchy, July 1st, 1867. And that's the problem. It's a constitutional monarchy. We're not free. There's nothing. We're not celebrating anything in terms of freedom. It's not our Independence Day. That's sometimes how Americans describe it, that it's Canada's Independence Day.

It's not. It's not. We're not free. We're not a free country. We're not able to do whatever it is that we want. And until then, Canada Day sucks. Until the day comes when we are actually in charge of our own destiny, Canada Day

sucks. So you think Canada Day sucks because there's some fine print that says the Governor General is the... It's no fine print. Just ask Australia right now. They got rid of their... The party toppled their... The lesbian. She's a lesbian in Australia too?

Yeah. What is it with female politician leaders? We got the premier here is a lesbian, and now I didn't realize she was a lesbian in Australia. Yeah, I believe she's an atheist, a lesbian. Like, she's quite interesting. Right. So anyway, so they got rid of the prime minister in Australia

and replaced her with the old prime minister, and the governor-general is in a situation now where she has to decide, actually, it's a female governor general as well, has to decide what to do here. And she's called in lawyers and all this kind of stuff. So now you have essentially another unelected official deciding on the fate of Australia's government, which is so contrary to everything that we grow up with in terms of the way in which democracy is supposed to run, et cetera, et cetera. It's just insane. We've had the governor general here multiple times over the last five or six years deciding the fate of the Harper government. Just ridiculous. Until we have a free country, Canada Day will never mean what it's supposed to mean. Elvis, that was well said. And I agree,

we need to lose this silly, archaic monarchy element. And I don't know why we hold on to it like some old relic that keeps us warm and reminds us of the good old days or something. It's time to lose it. A great Canadian reference there, bringing up relic during our Canada Day. Oh, Beachcombers. Yeah, our Canada Day conversation. Did you watch Beachcombers? See now, name another great female character on the Beachcombers. There was that native uh that first nations uh

aboriginal person better than relic no no no no you know now they think about it like you think of larry sanders show and you think of hank kingsley and you just think of all the great characters hey now all these great shows and this is a slight tangent we'll get right back you're right they build the great roles for men. That's what sucks. We went back. We got to get back to the Canada Day discussion. Yeah, you think of Happy Days, best character. You know, like there could be lots of choices.

Ralph Melf. Fonz. Fonz. Ralph Melf or Al. Not so good, Al. For me, it's Fonz. But, you know. Arthur Fonzarelli.

That's right. Anyway. The one thing I will say, though, is when USA was going into, when George W. Bush was going into Iraq, and we, our parliament, we had a vote, and we decided not to join them, despite the fact they were our greatest ally, and they wanted us to come to Iraq with them. We didn't go, you know, we did it on our own. So sometimes we have a little streak of independence here, Elvis. We do. But I mean, at the end of the day, what time to lose the terms and conditions. It's not official.

It's kind of like we still live at home, you know, 146 years later on Monday and we're still living with our parents. You know, we need to branch out and actually go live on our own. Well, you know what else sucks? What else sucks, Mike? Stolen lasagna. Stolen lasagna. Do we have time for a little story?

I see the pizza's arrived, so I'm going to have to tell this quickly. Stolen lasagna could be really good, actually, if you're the one who's stealing it. But I suspect that's not the case. That's wrong. That's wrong. So I got married. I don't know if I mentioned that. I got married on June 15, and you were there.

And I catered the event with amazing Italian food from Palma Pasta. And part of that was an appetizer thing that was meat lasagna. Did you enjoy the meat lasagna? It was wonderful. It was excellent. You're not just saying that? I actually want to go to Palma Pasta. Il Duce?

Nope, not at all. I told him and his lovely wife that. She was lovely. I was surprised. A lovely woman married Il Duce. Yeah, he's kind of a jackass. I'm still surprised that Mrs. Elvis here appears to have her sight, like she appears to be able to see.

Mrs. Elvis enjoyed conversations with Mrs. Il Duce as well. She was a very lovely lovely woman that's mind blowing so this um we catered it and at the end of the night there was a lot of leftover food we bought more food and then we needed and there was lots of leftover food and of all like the asparagus and the the chicken and there's lots of food but what i was anxious to find was the big like 65 tray of lasagna that was left over because my kids love that lasagna. It would have been like two or three meals for this family basically. It was excellent. Yes and I paid for it you know so I wanted to bring it home and then stick it in the fridge

and then we could have it over the next couple of days. The kids would love it. James would love it. It would be fantastic. I couldn't find this lasagna. I don't, I didn't, I couldn't find it. And I was there until very late, 2 a.m. loading up the car with things to bring home. And I could never find this lasagna. Then days later, my mom got a call from her friend, Sharon, who was at the wedding. Oh no. And Sharon said, hey, why don't you come over and have some of this lasagna that I was so graciously given. So my mom gets this message that Sharon was given this lasagna and Sharon's got the lasagna and invites my mom over to have some of it because this is a lot of lasagna for a single woman. I never gave her this lasagna. Monica never gave her this lasagna. Sharon stole the $65 tray of meat lasagna. Now,

have you talked to El Duce about this? No. You think El Duce gave it to her? It could very well be the case. Now, I'm not sure why El Duce would give it to your mom's friend. Do you think El Duce mistook her for my mom? As Mrs. Elvis and I were leaving, he suggested to us that we take some lasagna home. Okay, well, this is mind-blowing detail, Elvis.

Because he said that there was a lot left over. And Mrs. Elvis, I'm not sure if I can see you. Are you nodding in agreement? Were you there? Mrs. Elvis? Were you there to see this? Were you offered meat lasagna by Il Duce at the end of the wedding? Did you hear that conversation?

No. No, apparently not. Okay, Elvis, you did hear it. Il Duce offered us lasagna to take home, and I said no, because, I mean, I would just say no. No, because I paid for that frigging lasagna. Well, I mean, if I had remembered that, I probably would have thought about that. You can have the asparagus. So he offered lasagna to me.

Now, I'm not sure if he would just offer it to anybody, right? But you may want to check with him, because maybe he thought that was your mom. That's what happened. I will check. That would explain it it because i'm trying to figure out why would she steal what was this broad's name sharon fucking bitch she stole your lasagna you know what i actually confirmed because apparently i say things and i think we're talking in private and then this internet thing people are listening and they're talking about it and sharing it if i ever find this sharon woman okay i confirmed confirmed Sharon does not even have an email address,

nor does Sharon have internet access. Sharon is not hearing this podcast. Okay. And once I stop recording, I'm going to give you something else that sucks that I wasn't allowed to record, but it might be the best of all. Well,

you know what? I, Sharon may not have stolen it, but I think for the sake of the podcast, she stole it and she should return it. She should go and buy you

another tray of lasagna and return it. She should go to Palma Pasta and buy another $65 tray of lasagna. Damn it. Oh, that's crazy. Thanks for listening.

You know what all sucks? What? Your blog. Your blog sucks.