Nobody knows Noah

Nobody Knows Joe is the podcast that proves age is just a number.

Hosted by Joseph - a hospitality veteran who’s spent decades in the restaurant and bar scene - this show is equal parts wild stories, unfiltered laughs, and hard-earned wisdom. Joe isn’t your typical 58-year-old. He still goes out. He still parties. And he’s still the life of it.

From behind-the-bar confessions to outrageous life moments, unexpected interviews, and surprisingly sharp advice, Nobody Knows Joe dives into the chaos, comedy, and clarity that only real experience can deliver.

You think you know Joe?
Trust us - you don’t.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This podcast is brought to you by Reading Glasses.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

So my name is Joseph, and this is Nobody Knows Joseph, and today I'm with the guest, uh Noah Mintz, a good friend of mine from 30 years back.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Nobody does know Joseph. You know what? You know what Brennan said when I told him I was coming to do this tonight? He said, You're an enigma.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

I'm an enigma.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

You're an enigma. That's a good word to describe you. Nobody does know Joseph. I forgot it was called that at that moment. And then it's it's fitting.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

So we grew up in Toronto many, many, many years so far.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Technically, technically North York at the time. North York. And then I was Thornhill.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

You were ever in Thornhill? I was Thornhill. I was Thornhill. I was Richmond Hill too.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Oh geez, that's that's hardcore. That was hardcore. Yeah. But uh we grew up never past steels. I was always like just walking distance to steel. See the big difference was No, you Green Lane is very much past steels. I was too young for Green Lane. I mean, okay, so Green Lane, I was like eight, eight to ten, and then we moved to Don Mills and Steels, Young's Steels, Bayview and Steels, Bathers and Steels. Okay, yeah, Bathers and Steels, we ended up. So I was always growing up as a teenager, and was the difference between Richmond Hill and Thornhill, or at least where I was growing up. You could walk to TTC, and that made the biggest difference. Because Markham Transit was no good.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

No, I don't even remember Markham Transit because I never You got driven everywhere? Yeah, but we I I remember hanging out like we were talking a couple minutes. We were talking about our old hangouts of one was a restaurant called Toby's.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Yeah. That's North York.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

That was that was uh it was a plaza between Finch and uh Finch and Steel's off of Young Street. Yeah. Toby's. Toby's had a good burger.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

We should we should take the this this the bus down Young Street and then and then get out and basically at the subway and you could walk the stuff. You can walk down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

I remember once I was hungry, I had two Toby's burger after dinner. After my mummy dinner, I had two big Toby burgers. That's when I can eat. Chicken wings, yeah. Uh 10 cents to 25 cents.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

But we had those we had the a realization that we were both at the Picklebarrow Plaza. Let's talk about some Picklebarrow Plaza experiences because there are a few of them I have. I have I have childhood experiences at Pickleboro Plaza, and I have teenager experiences at Picklebarrow Plaza.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I had teenagers, never a child. Child that used to hang around the Laura Leaf Plaza.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Oh yeah, no, never went there.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Oh yeah. We have to be at the Laura Lee.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

There was a Yak Yaks there, wasn't there?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

No, but they had a car from Starski and Hutch in the gas station there parked all the time at Laurel Leaf Plaza.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Huh.

unknown 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

That's pretty cool. That was pretty true. General Lee. No, no, that's uh that's no no. Starski and Hutch was a red and white uh Oh, General Lee was the Dukes of Hazards. General Lee was the Dukes of Hazards. You can't you can't drive that around anymore. We've got to be careful with that one.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Do you want to hear my um childhood uh Picobaro Plaza story?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Oh just go for it. Let's see here.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So when I was uh a kid, my mom was very stingy with uh with money. And uh you know them over the days of uh the early 80s, the days of uh arcades. Oh yeah. I'd ask her to give me a quarter, just a quarter, just I can go down to the billiards. Remember the billiards? Oh yeah. Down to the billiards and play a video game. Finally, one day she gave it up. She gave up a quarter, like every time bucking her for a quarter. Gave me a quarter. I went down there and there's like there's like Frogger, it was like Space Invader, it was a Pac-Man, it was all of them. But for some reason, I don't know why, I decided to play foosball now by myself. I didn't know what it was. So I'm like, put my quarter in the foosball thing, get the ball. I'm like, I don't know. I put the ball there, I went like that, and the ball went up in the air and hit the guy behind the counter, his old old man. And he's like, You're done. And he kicked me out. So I went upstairs and whatever. And my mom's like, Why are you back so quickly? I'm like, uh, it's not that. She's like, What happened? I'm like, nah, it was nothing. She's like, she's like, we're going right down back there. She grabs me and pulls me down there, and and she's like, Tell me what happened in front of him. And I'm like, I played the game and this and that. And she yells at him and tells him to give my quarterback. And he's like, Lady, you're crazy. Okay, here's your quarterback. And I'm like, get out of here. And she's like, now play it. And I'm like, what? She's like, play your game. So I had to like figure out how to play foosball by myself, because my mom wasn't gonna play with me, and and not hit this guy in the head again. And I'm really embarrassed. And uh, and then yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

No, we had a we had a Steinberg's by our house. So what me and my buddy used to do is go there, one person distracts the person at the counter, and the other one takes four or five uh bottles, walks out the door, come in the other door, and you get cash. And there used to be a quarter deposit for the bottles. So they used to give us fifty, seventy-five cents, a dollar.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

A couple years later they opened up uh Peter the Fisherman at uh it was uh the Markham not Mark Markham Place. There's now shops at 404. Okay. And then they opened a video game place in there. Yeah, I used to. If you got really good test results, they would give you four tokens. Oh yeah? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

No, I used to I used to venture down to uh what was it? Young in uh Dundas. Oh, fun time. I used to come down here, down to I used to come down.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

What about what about Bathurst Street? They had uh pool tables.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

They had a pool table, uh Young and Young and Steels downstairs. You have a it had a great pool hall. Yeah. Baths and French had a great bowling alley.

unknown 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

But there was like Bathurst maybe Bathurst and Finch it was like a in the early 80s, it was like a video game fun place.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Oh, that's behind Nino Diversia.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

And it became a whatabagel, I think.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, behind Nino Diversia they used to have a an arcade there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, Howie Beck went to Nunanbrook.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah. So then uh we did that. But but you want to go back to Laura Leaf and the Pickle Barrel there, where all the cool kids hung out.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

That was high school, so that was a different story.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

That's all the cool kids.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, there was a McDu we used to call it the McDonald's class at that time.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, I hung out in the McDonald's because I wasn't cool enough to be in the picklebarrel a while ago. And I had cousins who went there and they were cool and they didn't want to talk to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

There was a time, maybe when we were 14 or 15, there was like a hundred kids and they all decided to pile into the McDonald's at the same time and jump up and down. That was nuts. That eighties, like that like when you watch those John Hughes films, films, like I think that's exactly what high school was like in the 80s. I don't think they were like exaggerated, like maybe it's like 90s films like Mean Girls who were like kind of exaggerated, but I think like and like and these kids, some of these kids were like real fucking assholes.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, they were bad, bad kids.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, and they used to hang out at the Picklebrot Plaza, and they'd be like, old people walk by and be like, be like, fuck your old. And like just they just say terrible things to these people because they were just assholes.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Yeah, but yeah, like we used to hang out at night until like midnight. And just our parents did not no cell phones, like no one had a quarter for the payphone because you don't want to give that up. Your parents didn't know where you were. It was just so crazy. And you get on a bike, and then we used to go play pool in those billiards in high school. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Like, and then we'd hang and then everybody'd be hanging out for some reason just hanging in front of that plaza. That's before like I this I think like in the 80s, like loitering was a was a fun thing to do. I don't think it really I think maybe in the 90s they kind of outlawed.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

I think McDonald's was everyone at any corner there was a McDonald's, people always hung around there and then you know, again.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

There's no McDonald's there anymore.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

No?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

No, it's a Tim Hortons. Oh like for years.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Oh yeah, I haven't been there.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

That that McDonald's, like that was my childhood McDonald's because I lived across the street.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Is the picklebarrel still there? No. Picklebarrel's gone, gone, gone. Is it gone gone? I have no idea. But pickleb remember remember how good picklebarrel was when we were younger.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

The ribs. Picklebarrel ribs was so good.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

A giant lutka.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

The lutka.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Uh but then in the nine nineties it got bad. And then it it just went downhill.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Everything just got I think I think the older people kept going there and the younger people didn't. But but my brother had his bar mitzvah there. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yeah. You know what's funny about that? I actually uh scanned like hundreds of pictures last night. And one of them was Aubrey's bar mitzvah.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Well, do you scanned it to that disc thing to put it on uh no?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

I've got this, I bought this like Epson scan. I had this idea that I'd I'd buy an Epson picture scanner, like a little mini one, and then I'd I'd use it for a month and return it to Amazon. Well, it's been like two years, and I'm still fucking scanning pictures. You know how long it takes to take an an album and take the pictures out and scan them and put the pictures back? It's an eight-hour job.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah, I got so many albums.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

My mom's like, I'm seeing meeting her for lunch on Friday, and she's like, Bring my albums. I'm like, you've had them for like four decades. You know what? I need I need a couple years to scan these pictures. It's a lot of work. Like, if I could just pull them out and keep them out, it would be a couple hours. But but to like pull each picture out, run it through the scanner and then put each picture back in it.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Last night I was out I was at home and I was watching TV and I'm thinking to myself, my age, her age, we've been through pictures to video cams to digital to now iPhones and recorders, Walkman, Sony Walkman, you know. Oh, before that we had the boom box. You walk around with the boom box on your shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Boombox back.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Is it back?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Back. There's a company called We Are Rewind. And they're doing Walkmans and Boomboxes. I own I own their Walkman, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

You know, we went through that, then then the Walkman, and then you had the little micro Walkman, whatever, the smaller one. And all of a sudden you had the iPad. Oh uh what's it called? The iPod. iPod. No, the little one, the what was it called?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

The iPod shuffle? There was an iPod. iPod was the first one.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

It was the iPod shuffle?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

The iPod shuffle was the little one. The very, very first one that came up.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Well, the long one.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, it was called an iPod. And it was it was get a little audio nerdy here. It was 128 kilobits. So we went from like vinyl records to we went kind of down a little bit to cassettes. Right. Because vinyl records sounded better than c sounded better than cassettes. Good cassette sounded pretty good. Then we went majorly up to CDs. Yes. Then we went way down with bipods. People didn't know that. There were 128 kilobits, like really low quality. But people didn't really know they were low quality.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Was A-Track better quality? Because you're in the music industry. Was A-Track better than uh terrible?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Because A-track is technically it's it's four tracks. Um, but like in in in in it's physically four tracks. Um but it's because the the tape is really small and you've got four tracks crammed into it, it's pretty poor quality. Oh, is it? Okay. And it runs at a very slow scale.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

I I remember going into like record stores and going to the back and trying to find bootlegs of concerts. My first bootleg was uh Led Zeppelin concert.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, on Young Street, south of uh south of Bloor, those record stores had all the bootleg records.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Live live live concerts on ones. How do you remember this?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Do you remember waiting in line like for a concert ticket? Like hours.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I used to wait on Max Milk, uh Bathers and Steels, Max Milk sold tickets. Come on. Sold tickets, and I got tickets to see the who uh from this max milk.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Can I tell you a story? The the so uh this is another story about my mom. My mom pretty much screwed me up, but for like stupid shit like that. All mother's it. This is this is another stupid, stupid story. So when I was in grade uh nine, I was gonna ask this girl out and I was gonna take her to a Cindy Lauper concert, and my mom, and I asked my mom to drive me to Sears so I could buy the Cindy Locker ticket from the ticket master there. Sears at Young and Young and Steeles. What was that mall called? Hillcrett?

SPEAKER_02 12:55

No, town and country. Town and country.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

I don't think it's called a town and country.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

I think it's Center Point Mall now.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah, town and country. So and she's like, it's like, why are you buying two pair two tickets? I'm like, well, I'm buying it for some girl, I'm gonna ask her on a date. My mom's like, like my brother's in the backseat, they're like, Who is she? Who is she? And I'm like, just some girl, I'm gonna ask him on a date. The first girl I'm ever gonna ask out. My mom's like quiet and she drives right by the Sears. I'm like, I'm like, why didn't we stop at the Sears? And she's like, it's like your father and I are gonna talk about it. And I'm like, I go out, what? And then we get home and she goes, Is she Jewish? And I'm like, My mom, my parents were never like super Jewy. Like, you know, we went to temple, blah blah super Jewish. And I'm like, I don't know. I probably not. She's got red hair, I don't think so. And uh okay, we'll get back to you. I'm like, get back to me about what? I don't understand. Well, you're gonna let me get take me to get these tickets?

SPEAKER_03 13:53

What's the meeting? And then meeting of the minds to see if I thought I could date.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

She couldn't handle her oldest son asking a girl out. Like just that's how fucking crazy it was. And I got really pissed off about it. Um, but I never did go.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

I listened to my I I don't I never dated in junior high or high school.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I didn't because of that incident, I decided never to do it again. I was like, I was I threw on Howard Jones What is Love and kept putting it on a repeat, and I decided, okay, fine. If you don't let me ask this girl out, I'm never gonna ask a girl out. When I years later, when I told this to a shrink, you know what he said?

SPEAKER_03 14:43

What did he say?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

He said, why don't you just why weren't you just like every other kid and and to do it anyway? Ask her out anyway. That's what any other kid would have done. And I'm like, Are you supposed to say that? I was like, he's like, he's like, my job is to like you know, make you think. So like think about why why didn't why didn't you ask this girl out? And I'm like, uh anyway, why don't you defy your parents? You know?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

And I he's right, I should have defied them, but I'm gonna think I know, but in the 80s you really didn't defy your parents.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

My brother did. My brother was on Degrassi Junior High, got kicked off that.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Because because because he had an older brother.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Right, who followed the rules.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Who followed the rules, and he's like, you know what? I'm the youngest of my family. Yeah. So my brother and sister, by the time I came, my parents were tired, and that was just a menace. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, do whatever you need to do, just don't be in our hair.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

You don't seem like the youngest to me. No? Because my brother is like classic youngest, like mama's boy, like very sensitive, serial monogamous. Oh god. Yeah, he's like he's uh not rebellious at all.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

I'm very rebellious. Monogamous, yes. You know, I I did something stupid in the summer, which I pain for in my mind all the time, but I'm getting over it.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

But I don't know. That doesn't seem like monogamy breaking to me, but whatever.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

But you know, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

If you can stick your dick in it, it's not it's not cheating.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

I hear different. I hear different. That's what I think. That's what you think.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Dick has to go into something. A hand, a a face, a body part, even an armpit. It's gotta go. Dick's gotta go in something.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Well, it didn't go, but that's fine. I'm living with that. But my mother was crazy because you know, I had my room, and I would go to school in the morning, my bed would be under my window, and all my stuff would be one of the I come home and my bed's on another wall. I'm like, what are you doing? And she's like, It's my roof, my rules. I'm like, yeah, but it's my room. Oh, I put a lock on, she broke the lock off. My mom was an army sergeant.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Okay, my mom would never no, my parents would never, never mess with our rooms.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yeah, no, she would come in.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

You know, she did the laundry scream at you to clean it up, but uh my mom would clean it.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

She wouldn't scream at us, she would do everything. And she's doing everything, she's smoking a cigarette and having a coffee. Lily, two packs a day she smoked. That's why I don't smoke cigarettes and I don't drink coffee. My dad smoked.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

My mom didn't. My dad would smoke downstairs, mostly pipes, but he would smoke cigarettes. He died of lung cancer, so there you go.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Have you ever tried a pipe?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

I don't even know what to do. You have to pack it in and you gotta light it or something. I don't know. It's just too much work. Too much work.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah, I don't know. I but I do like the smell of pipe tobacco. Well, probably because I grew up with it. I like the smell of pipe tobacco. It's really nice.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

It's sweet. My parents were cool by never locking up any alcohol. The alcohol was always free. And that's why at 14 I started drinking my ass off. And I never did.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

No drugs, no drinking.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

No drugs. Yeah. No, just drinking, a lot of drinking, a lot of bad stuff. And then when I got my license, even worse. You know, drinking and driving back in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Oh man, I was I never did it, but I was in the car with people. Like they were on acid. Acid was big in the 80s. Acid and uh and hash.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

That was big in the acid was big in the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, but 80s people were doing that.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

You know?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

They were doing um they look like nerds.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

I thought they looked like those candy that on a wrapper.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, that's what they look like. The candy on the wrapper. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Right? And then you just had like pills and they just they were like candy.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah, you just yeah, you just I didn't try to acid till I was 35.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

No, no, no. One time.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

One time for an album about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Names for shapes that don't exist. It's not streaming on uh on Napster somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

What band was that?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Noah's Arkworld. That was the last last Noah's Arkworld album.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

That was the last album.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

2009. The names for sh that's what on my asset trip I had I kept seeing shapes that I didn't recognize, and I would give them names.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Well, isn't that the same as uh Brian Wilson with the animals? I don't know. With the sounds of animals. Remember he did that uh that album, Animals?

SPEAKER_01 19:08

I don't know much about Brian Brian Wilson. The Beach Boys? Smile. It's the only thing I know.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

So you're into music. Yeah. What did you what kind of music? We only had AM when we were kids. FM didn't come in until like the late 80s.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yes. Oh well, I don't know about that. Is that true? I mean, I didn't never listen to FM when I was a kid. I felt like I was an adult thing. In our cars. Maybe you're right.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

In my parents' car, they only had an AM. And at home, you know, the radio was only AM.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I was late to music. I listened to grade uh seven and eight. I listened to mostly um mostly comedy music, Dr. Demento. I listened to Weird El Yankovic, Dr. Demento. Uh used to tape the Dr. Demento uh show. Do you ever watch that? Listen to that on Q107? No. It's comedy music. Comedy music for grade seven and eight. Grade nine is when I the summer before grade nine is when I got into music. I got into Howard Jones, Cindy Lauper, all the 80s, uh all the 80s stuff, and then and then really into it summer of grade. You want to hear something crazy? Summer of grade nine, ten, I like started like wearing eyeliner, started looking like and then I met this girl at camp, like that was a CIT. I met this girl who's also CIT. And she introduced me to all this cool music, like Joy Division and Japan. And out of the blue, this girl messaged me like a month ago. We went for coffee. Oh yeah? Yeah, and she's like telling me she remembers December. I know I didn't remember what she looked like before.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Did she look off for her age?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, I guess so. Fifty-six, I guess. I mean, she looked she looked fine. But I don't remember what she looked like before. So yeah, but you know what? When I mean I don't remember what I used to love.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

I used to love Black Sabbath when I was a kid, and everyone was always laughing. You know, like, how you listen to that devil music? And then then rap came in.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I mean, I got into metal when I was in like grade like six and seven. Like I listened to my first album. I'm a few years older than you. Yeah. My first album was Number of the Beast.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Number of the Beast.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Uh uh Iron Maiden. Six, six, six. The number of the beast.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Um that's a good karaoke song, you should do one.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

I I bought that album because I thought the album cover was cool.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

So album cover cool. I what do you I I remember in art, I remember in grade seven in art, we used to do photo, we have to do pictures of albums, and everyone used to do the Boston one with that flying saucer.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Do you know what's it says on that album? It says no synthesizers were used in the making of this recording. Uh actually, for my Barmamitzvah is when I first started getting into music. I got a gift certificate for Sam the Record Man. You want to hear the four albums I bought?

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

First album.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

I'll start with the cool one. I got Talking Head Stop Making Sense. Okay. Or not stop making sense. Uh the one with uh uh with um Burning Down the House. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

That one.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

S uh then I got Men Without Hats. Men Without Yep. And then I got Lana Ritchie and uh Long Oh Night Okay, not hello.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

It's immediately that I really liked All Night Wrong. And then the fourth album was a mistake because I went to the guy and I said, I go, uh, I want the album that has a song like come on feel the noise, girls rock the boys, and he's like Def Leppard. I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's Def Leopard. He's like, it's Def Leopard. Of course it was Quiet Riot. Yeah. But I was like, I was like, alright, I'll get the Deaf Leppard Pyromania, which turned out to be a far superior album to Quiet Riot. Yeah. So come on, feel the noise. So and that was and I listened to Pyromania, like beginning to end.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah, but back back to our thing. You see, we went to albums, to cassettes. Yeah. Like these kids don't understand that. Like, what was your first CD that you bought?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Never, I don't know, never mind, probably.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Mine was Genesis Mama.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Oh shit. Because I didn't get a port I until 90, 90, 91, I didn't get a portable CD player. I didn't have one before that.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

And then we went through the you remember now there's like you just call and you have these movies on like Netflix and all that? We had to have VHS.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

We had to struggle, man. We had to know how far we had to walk to school. I'm not even kidding, because I I I literally had to walk like a kilometer and a half to school. Uh I think we were the last Gen X was the last generation to see the transfer of analog to digital. That like by the time like we started in an all-analog world, and we and we fully immersed ourselves in all digital, and we and we but we saw the transition because like okay, 70s was pretty much all analog, behind the scenes it was going digital. The 80s, like we were the first gen to get computers in our school, like real, real, real mini uh real personal P PC, personal computers. We had the Commodore pets in our in our computer. So we were the we were the first gen to have uh like actual computing in elementary school and and have software. Do you know from a grade eight uh science uh fair I wrote this is how this is how computer smart I was at the time. Of course they labeled me as like like borderline stupid, but it was like but I was I was I w I I would have said other words, but I didn't. The the uh I wrote uh in my grade eight uh science fair project, I wrote an uh a piece of educational software on my VIC 20. And they were like, they all thought I cheated. I wrote it in basic. Basic was simple. I didn't they're all like, you know, you need to know math to be good at computer, and you got your average in math is about 22%. So I'm like, basic, you don't need to know math, and they didn't understand what I was talking about. They even put me in a remedial class for computers, and they told me to pretend I didn't know anything about computers. So I and then I to high school, I'm like, I'm gonna take computer science. And they were like, No, you need to be good at math. I'm like, but I've been using computers for two years now, and I don't and I can program computers. And they're like, and they're like, nope, need math. Yeah, it's all about 100101100 crap. And then by the late 80s, I was getting into like uh BBS's, which are like the early internet stuff.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Yeah. But again, as our as as hopefully people out there who are listening, the one or two people, but hopefully they all understand that I was the small I was the youngest in the child, so I was the converter. So my dad was flapping in the back of the hand and said, change a channel. So I have to walk to TV and change the channel.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, but why do we call it a converter?

SPEAKER_02 25:57

What?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Why do we call it a converter?

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Because it used to convert channels. That's what I thought. I don't know. Remember you had the the Gerald with the long string. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

And you plug it in, click, click, click, click, click, click. But why do we call it a converter?

SPEAKER_02 26:11

I have no idea. That's what you told me.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

You know, you know somebody's old when they when they they're like instead of pass me the remote, they're like, pass me the converter. Like, the fuck are you talking about, converter?

SPEAKER_02 26:21

I that's how it's no. I know, but this is a question cordless.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Why was it called a converter? What was it converting? It must have been converting something. Must have been converting the the the frequency to to I don't know, the UHF, UHF to VHF. How?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

But just think, think the next generation. So my nephew who's in his teens, late teens, his kids aren't going to know anything. They're going to know AI. Which we will know, I have no clue about AI. Oh my god. ChatGTP and all that.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Let me tell you something about AI. A little bit of a tangent here, a little bit separate thing. But it's like it's like people are like, oh, it's gonna ruin everything, it's gonna like take over everything. Look, like I basically programmed in a like a really complicated thing for my website today with help of AI. Now I got some skills like to put it all together, but I can't code and I can't and I can't do math. Like I'm terrible with math. And it's like yet it a it a it allowed me to to put this like really cool code on my website and do something. When someone signs up to the mastering service, it sends them all this stuff, it makes a new Dropbox folder, all this stuff. So like what it would have cost me four or five thousand dollars to get done before, plus I'd probably be totally unhappy with it and not use it, because I've done that many times because people don't understand vision. I can explain what I want and it can do it. So when people are saying like AI is gonna wreck a bunch of things, put a bunch of people out of work. Number one, nobody wants to fucking work anyway. So putting you out of work is not such a bad thing. And then when you get out of work, then you can come up with some ideas, and now it could have taken you years and tens of thousands of dollars in development money. You can now just have like you can tell the idea that to to AI, and it will tell you how to do this idea. And sometimes, if it's a software idea, it will do it for you. And people can like create things now. People in like poor neighborhoods, all they need is access to a computer. They don't even have to pay for this because cloud is you can program things completely for free. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

But you know, as we were growing up, what was the biggest thing everyone always thought, oh, there will be no jobs for us because we're the young and the old people don't want to leave. It's the same thing. Trevor Burrus, Jr. But that's true. The old people are scared of it because they don't know the technology and the young people know all the stuff. So the young people can take over all their jobs. So the old people are like, yeah, it's gonna wreck us, it's gonna do all this, because they're afraid of their own ability to do this.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Aaron Powell But you know what? But but if it if yes and yes, there's gonna be job yes, but there's gonna be jobs that are gonna be need to be filled. But most people don't want to don't want these jobs. No. And and if and the what's the alternative to not having a job is working for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

I know, but it's not about it's not about it. I know, but it's not about jobs. It's about the older generation. Like we're in that cusp, right? That you know, we we and we're creative in our own ways, right? That we understand this. But the people who aren't creative, who who got stuck being uncreative, they're afraid because what am I gonna do? You know, I don't understand this, you know, like me, I'm a business guy. You know, take one take one part of my business away, I'll find another one. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? Take one of your businesses away, you'll pick up a guitar and do another one.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

What do you say about the the the older people? Like, you know, it's not older, it's our age. COVID didn't do good enough a job.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Hey. We're not starting there, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Um, I know that, but it's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

But it's an uncreative, you know what it was? It's the cool kid.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Nobody wants to work for for for fifteen bucks an hour, sixteen, whatever minimum wage is right now. Nobody, not even the people who are doing it. So if it eliminates those those things. I mean well, let's go back to the 80s for a second. What were we gonna pay? Remember my remember my job at Canada's Wonderland was three three dollars and fifteen cents an hour.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I worked at I worked at a convenience store for two fifty an hour.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

That's why you said I would steal from Canada's Wonderland because it it at $3 an hour, what's the point of even showing up? Uh even then.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

I could tell you stories of uh you know walking home at midnight and uh getting tired and just going to someone's garage and taking a bike.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

I never did that. I didn't come in my neighbor's garage and steal and because she her husband she divorced her husband and he put all his Playboys in the in the garage and I I just I'd steal two magazines at a time into the box.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

And do you remember yeah, I remember they used to come in brown bags. The Playboy used to come in brown bags and they would be delivered to someone's house.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

And then my mom threw out my best porn. No, she threw them all out one day. They were like all these Playboys. I'm like, I was like, That's nothing porn, it's Playboy.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

That's nothing. My parent my mom threw out all my hockey cards, and I had so many rookies of Wing Gretzky. I could have been somewhere in an island relaxing, but my ex-wife threw all my old records, so I guess.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

You know? She thought I was done with them because I had them in storage.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah, like people don't know. Yeah, that's why I'm a collector. I collect everything. I have everything under the sun I collect.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, I don't really collect everything. I collect tequila, but I don't drink it that much, so it's easy to collect.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

I collect tequila, but I don't drink it much. Well, I now I don't, but I used to drink a ton. I collect money.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

I collect gold bars, I collect Oh, well doing pretty good with those gold bars right now, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

You know, I'm just a collector. And my next kick is I collect. It's not for me, it's all for my kids.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Yeah, I guess. Doesn't do any good if they don't sell them. Well, that's up to them. It's like my guitars and all my equipment. It's like I mean, at least you can use it. Gold bar, what can you do with it? That's why I like look at like a guitar. A guitar is a great investment because it it'll probably go up. Even if it doesn't, it'll stay the same price. And you can use it. You could do stuff with it.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

But if you don't take care of it, it'll go warp.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

You can take care of it a little bit. No, no, but if you don't usually if you buy a v uh vintage one, they're pretty solid. But you have to, you know, make sure it will go up in value. And it's like but it's like gold, it's just like you can't do anything with it. Like it's like it's I know I until you cash in, it's just useless, just sitting there. Yeah. You bought it, it sits in a box and it could be used in thousands of computers to make it r make them run run better.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

But you know, collecting is collecting. But yeah, again, I grew up poor, so you know, having things is what do you mean by poor? Lower middle class, would you say? I grew up in an apartment.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Right?

SPEAKER_01 32:59

We always had a house.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Right, but you know, immigrants. I'm an immigrant. Right. Right? I wasn't born here. My parents weren't born here. My both my parents were military people, so there's a lot that being being raised by a military mother isn't what everyone thinks it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Did your parents own a house in the eighties?

SPEAKER_02 33:19

No.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Oh, see my parents owned a house in the 80s at twenty twenty-two percent interest.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

You know? I mean, my brother and my sister bought a house in uh eighty-nine at I think it was sixteen percent interest.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Jesus. How do people do that? I don't get it.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Like It just did. But you gotta remember the houses are different. The house was a hundred thousand dollars, not a million. You know, this boom is ridiculous. It's it's artificial.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah. My parents never could really build up equity though, because they were always moving. So I know, but that's why we live steals all the way down.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Steels all the way. Well, you want to stay in the Jewish corridor too.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

My mom just liked redecorating. She liked f getting a new place. They liked it, like they thought they were moving up in the world and they were just moving in a more you happy.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

That's all that matters. I'm happy. That's all that matters.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Um, but I don't know. I don't I don't know. I think they were happy. I think they just they were making good decisions. So I'm like, I bought my place, don't really have a mortgage anymore. I'm like, I'm staying there. I don't think I'm never gonna move from there.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Yeah. Your kids today's day and age in Toronto, will they be able to buy afford a house?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

No. That's why they don't live here. Right? They don't.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

You know what I mean? They can't afford it. Like you know, we grew up in in different times, but we had the ability to do things. And today's day and age kids, if they don't have a parent with money helping them at the beginning, it ain't happening. Right. It's too hard. It's too hard because there's so many things out there that they want.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

I mean w we were in the 80s, even 90s, we were like, okay, let's like I remember the 90s, so I I when I moved out, I was a bit later because I was in a band and we were touring. And I rented a whole house for $1,400. And funny enough, the sister of my roommate still rents that place. And I think she's paying $1450 now. But it's like I remember I went for dinner at this is like 94. Went for dinner 93, 94, I went for dinner at uh Suzdale, not Suesdale, one of these places, and it was 11 bucks. I'm like, wow, I'm spending a lot of money on dinner. It's like it was there was less to do, but like rent rent was affordable, everything was affordable, and we but we were there was still like shit going on. There was still like corruption, there was still, you know, obviously the markets were manipulated, but we were innocent all that because life was affordable. It didn't bother us. Now a pair of jeans cost 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Levi's cost 20 bucks. What do they cost now? 200? I don't know. I I don't know. I paid rent in 1990. I paid rent was six hundred dollars a month. Six hundred dollars. It's crazy. My car, my car, I I financed my car for $150 a month.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Right. And but what's more crazy about that is like starting starting salary in like ninety-five isn't so far off what starting salary is now. So I my starting salary in ninety-seven I mean it was low, but then it quickly went up to 40,000. So 40, let's say 40,000 in 97. My kid started uh a bike a bike bike mechanic, and he was working salary like last year for 56,000. That's what 30 years later almost? So so the costs are three, four times amount, but salaries aren't three, four times the amount.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

I'm I haven't built I I haven't raised my rates since 2005. I don't think I can. I have more competition, there's like it's just it's stuck at a rate. I can get busier, but I can't really raise my rates. So uh the 90s was that last great time. I mean, there's less stuff. There was less stuff, let's be honest. Like, there's less stuff in Toronto.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

But it was that last great time in Toronto where like Toronto was had art everywhere, it was affordable, it was like Yeah, people going out to clubs, to bars, people going to concerts, everything was like a concert with 40 bucks. You can't go see a concert for under 500. I went to see Oasis with my daughter, and for the two tickets, I was what was it, seven hundred dollars for two tickets. Yeah. If I go to a leaf game, it's a thousand bucks.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

I remember I went to some 2005, I went to some bullshit bar in Yorkville, and it was I remember I got two coronas and they're like 20. Like, 20 what? They're like 20 dollars. I'm like, for two beers? I'm like I was I was floored that there were ten dollars each for these beers.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Forget that. I had a vodka Red Bull, two of those. How much do you think those were?

unknown 38:28

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

When? Uh probably 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Yeah, how much? $40. And she's like, it's $40 for two. I say, are you gonna show your tits or what's going on here? Like, like really, if I'm at a strip card.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

That's expensive. In in now, I look at a ten dollar beer, it's not expensive at all. It's just normal. That's just like I guess whatever your cost.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, one of my places, I won't go for less. It's like I go raise the prices now.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

It's like But you could you could go to like 90s, early 2000s, you go to any bar in Toronto, like any like like cool, whatever bar, you get a you get a fifth you get a fifty for five bucks.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

But in the nineties, eighties and nineties, what I what I've known is everywhere was cool. Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't an area everywhere was cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Right. Well we didn't have like you know there wasn't Osington, there wasn't like uh there wasn't like Queen West. I mean there was Queen West, but it wasn't Queen West West.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Again, I remember walking on Queen Queen in uh Spadine area with all the local shops, all the ma and pa shops, all the cool shit. Now it's all big box. It's like you you don't have foot tracking. There there you had you people will get style and people, you know, like what do you think about like so people are posting about Queen West like dying?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Like that's like every other shop is closed. Who would you put the blame on for that? Like you think that like I mean like I know from my experience that my my um government and landlords. Landlords, because my experience is my my business, I mean they raised our rent 12 grand last year, right? And it's like and they just they just expect to get more every year no matter what. Like it's like and sometimes it's arbitrary, sometimes it's just to a huge increase.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

So it's like And like I said before someone living in a house who bought it twenty years ago for four hundred thousand and now it's worth two point five, to me, that house was worth six hundred thousand. It's like it it it's again, it's it's greed, yeah, it's construction that's the what it is. I don't want to say what it is, but we all know what it is, right? It's the unions. Unions have destroyed this country so much.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Not not for like rents on on stores on Queen Street and again, yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

How?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Stores that like little moments, governments, government, union government. People had cool stores and they were paying like four thousand a month for rent. Right. Then all of a sudden it was eight thousand a month for it. They're like, oh, we can't stay open. They're like the landlord's like, eh, who cares? Because the government they're just waiting for Tim Hortons to come.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Right, but then the government also doesn't charge them tax because if you had vacancy, there's all these rules before you have vacancy taxes.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

I don't maybe anymore. Maybe it was just a period of time. I think it was a period of time, but now I think after COVID they got rid of the vacancy tax.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

It's it's ridiculous. It's the government. It's uh they're allowing these houses market to go like this.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah, I don't like houses not I think like this the the retail is more of a concern for me because like it's like if you all you got left is like the super popular lined up fucking lunch lady places and Tim Hortons uh an egg slot or whatever, you know, American brands, like you don't have any of these like cool little shops anymore because every single landlord wants like like a super high performer in there. Then you lose I mean you lose what became unique about the place and then people leave.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

And not just that. What I've uh noticed in Toronto is a landlord would be nice and give you something, and then you become cool, and then they want your money. The landlord then wants like you're cool, you're making money, I want that. And then you jack up the rent.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

And they have to leave, and some of them don't open again.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 42:21

So it's not so many great stores have only been closed because of rent got too high. Other than I mean, they were doing well. I mean, look at us.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Restaurants, restaurants too. Yeah. Restaurants too.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

My business is thriving, but it's like but eventually it's gonna be like I every year that my rent goes up, it just I just make less money. So at some point it's gonna be like like I don't want to make this little money because of my rent. Like it's like, what's the point of doing this anymore? And then they won't care. They'll find someone else to get in there.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

I know, but then what do people do? They go to their basement, reboot their basement, spend the money on their basement, and have their studio in their basement.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

They will, but it loses something, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:06

It loses a lot, but yeah.

unknown 43:09

You know.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

But I mean look in New York City, there's no more recording studios. No, no, they're all condos now.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

They're all condos.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

There's no more recording industry in New York City. There's a record industry. Right. There's no more recording industry. And all the best studios were in New York City.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Well, condos uh hopefully are are dead, you know, like way, way too saturated.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Well, they built these tiny little stupid little condos, and it's like no one wants to live in 400 square feet.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Yeah, you don't you just lie on your couch, open the bathroom door, and you can take a whiz and hit the toilet. It's like that's how small it is. I know.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Kitchens in your bathroom. It's kitchens in your bedroom. Yeah. It's weird.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Yeah, it's way too small. It's like again.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

So where do we go from here then?

SPEAKER_02 43:57

Where do we go from here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

How do we make this? But how do you how do you you you said you want to be mayor one time?

SPEAKER_02 44:04

I w I wanted to run for mayor one time. How would I change things?

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Oh easy. I would start with I would start from the top to the bottom. I always stop with the government first. I would start with the unions, then the construction.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

People are pretty pro-union. I mean I'm not anti-union. Like you are, you have you had a bad experience, but it's like but it's like a lot like I mean Toronto is a very union strong union. Right, but the people want unions.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

The people want yeah, people don't understand. The problem with the union is again, this is how your your t-shirt is costing fifty dollars opposed to twenty dollars because you have to pay all your union dues. This is why teachers always ask for money, because the union's taking half of their paycheck as union dues. That's why the teachers' union is the strongest union out there. They make so much money, the union. And the teachers are like, Well, I'm not taking this thing home. I'm not taking as much money home.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

But it just as easily you could say, like, my ex-wife's old job, like it's like they're a Swedish company, like it was a language school. And they were gonna fire most of their staff and hire only part-time people. So for each full-time job, they were gonna hire two part-time people. Okay. So they didn't have to pay anything any benefits or anything like that. Okay. It was just this Swedish company. Like they didn't give a shit. And my wife, she unionized the company, so they and they weren't allowed to do that. Okay. And now they're a very thriving school. So they didn't they did not go get hurt by that. But it's like it's like how how do you deal with that? How do you deal with people who just who companies that decide, well, if you gotta pay benefits, well, we're just gonna hire only part-time people and not have to give any benefits. Like that's before they're unionized. So they they get unionized, so they they can't do that. Like, nope, how can people live if they only got part-time work?

SPEAKER_02 45:54

How do people live with only part-time work?

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Like there was like 15 teachers hired at this place. Yeah, and they were gonna fire them all, basically. Right. And only hire part-time teachers. So for every so every teacher had like uh, I think it was uh eight to ten classes a week, and that was a full-time job. Right. So instead they'd hire twice as many teachers, and uh each teacher only gets three classes a week. Okay. And then but they don't have to pay any benefits.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

So I mean, without a union, they that would they would have gone ahead with that.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

And that's so what? Well, what's the difference between that and and then someone bringing AI to the picture when people saying, oh, that's gonna take our jobs? What's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Because I think I think i if a company's hiring AI instead of people, which is a good thing. Which that will happen. Which will happen for some things.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Which will happen.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah, I think it's different because the only reason they were doing it was because this was your this is your ex-wife.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

That's why it's different.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

No, I did I had no connection to her at the time other than being Max wife. But it was like uh but regardless of that fact, it's like like it was just some mind some mindless company in Sweden that couldn't give a crap about Toronto. So I mean it's it seems to be a a uh something just based on greed and no and like you can't you can't take 15 people who have full-time jobs and replace it with with 30 people who can't make all 30 people now can't make a living at that work.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

But why? Why can't you do that?

SPEAKER_01 47:33

I don't know. What why why why is it's wrong, it's not ethical.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

I think so. It's not wrong, it's life.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Well, then why isn't every company do it?

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Be because some people have tried and some people look at the numbers in the long run and say we can't do it. But then it's like saying to me, Well, you know what, in the 90s, why isn't everyone like Nirvana or Proljam? Why isn't all the bands from Seattle great? Why only a few? Because that's what life is about.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

I know, but you want to talk about music. All my all my heroes of all my musical heroes are like major pro-union, you know, people like like like like Billy Bragg and the Clash and you know, like uh if I'm sitting on a million dollars, I'll be pro union too.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

But uh you know what I mean? They weren't pro-union.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Billy Bragg sitting on a million dollars. But I don't think Billy Bragg's sitting on a million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Trust me, he's sitting. He has a library, he has his he has his royalties, he has all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Uh but in the same way, you could say like if you didn't have a bad experience, maybe you wouldn't be so brave.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

No, it'd always be because I'm a businessman. Business isn't if business is about cutthroat since time began. Yeah. It's always about cutthroat.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

It's kind of what happened at Toronto.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

You know? You know. It's all about cutthroat.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Yeah. But I don't I think you'd agree, you wouldn't want Queen West to be all Tim Hortons and subways. You know, there needs to be like like places that don't make a lot of money. There needs to be like jobs for people who aren't making a millionaires.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

I'm not into the big stores. I'm not into the Tim Hortons or all the big box stores. But you know what? If that's what this wants to turn into, let it. You c you you know what? The only way to fight against it is by letting it demolish itself. Because those big box stores, you protest by not going there. Don't go to Tim Hortons. You know what? You don't the GP goes. If if if if when give me give me two days in Toronto. Give me two days in Toronto, okay, and everyone doesn't go fill up their gas tanks. For two days, no one goes into a gas station for two days, all Toronto. Trust me, those gas companies will feel it and they'll say, you know what, something has to be done here.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

It only works if they if for those two days No one goes. No, but it only works if for those two days they choose alternate transportation. If if they still drive, then they just gotta gonna go on the third day. Like it's like they're they're still using the same amount of gas in those two days they don't go to the gas stations. It only works if they take all masks, take TTC or all walk or all fine. Yeah, but people don't look the the GP is like 80% of the population, the general public.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

And those people don't give a shit about nothing. So it's a 20% that live in Toronto, and maybe it's a higher number in Toronto, I don't know, but that like are here because there's it offers us something unique. It offers us something interesting. But once it gets completely homogenized, then who wants it? Like it's like the okay, we were talking about the food trends, like the Italian sandwiches. Everybody every week there's a new Italian sandwich place.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Eventually people are gonna be like, I'm just they all taste the same to me now. It's all the same Italian sandwich.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

One does it on a cabaccia, the other does it on a two, two, three years ago you had the Smash Burger. Everywhere with Smash Burger. I hate Smash Burgers. I hate them. You know what I mean? I hate Smash Burgers.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

But it's it's the GP that perpetuates these things. Like like people like me aren't aren't going every week to an Italian sandwich place because for fuck's sake, we used to go to Tironi in 1990, get a get a get a uh Provolone and and and uh and uh and uh prosciutto on on Focaccia, and it was fantastic. And it was a perfect Italian sandwich. But I never thought to myself, here's what we need more, is we need more Italian sandwich places. Like it's like it's like it's just the there's that 80% that are driving all this. 80% that just don't give a shit about nothing. They never will give a shit about anything. But it's a 20% that like that everyone does everything for. Like it's like that we the first person to open up the the the Italian sandwich shop in Toronto, the trendy one, was doing it for that 20%. That 20% were like, this is great. And then the 80% came along and go, yeah, this is great. Open 15 more. So it's like, I don't know. I feel like, you know, that's like I we're always doing it for the 20%. We're always doing it like, you know, you're what are you doing your podcast for? Not the 80%, the 80% aren't gonna listen to it. No, it's a it's that it's that small percentage you're gonna I'm doing it for myself.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Unless Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan goes, hey, you gotta listen to you don't know Joe, and then the 80% will mindlessly listen to it. They don't even know what they're listening to. They're like, like, oh, did you hear Joe? You talk about this yet. Like, they're just yeah, they're just like Toronto. I think that 80%, 80-20 in Toronto was probably 60-40 in the 90s. Uh-huh. That's what was better about the city. We had 40% of like people who were interested in things, and like and I think Jeff Stober really saw that when he opened up the Drake. Because when the Drake opened in 2005, everything changed. Everything changed. There was because had you used to practice there at the Drake. But you know there's nothing around.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

I know, but even in the 80s, 70s and 80s, I was not a cool kid. Right? You had classes of kids who were cool, nerdy, jocks, tokers.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

You know a friend of mine just told me they who's a high school teacher, he there's no more cliques in high school.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

There's no more clicks. There's no more, you know, like I remember in in high school it used to be, you know, cigarette alley, but people that's what people wanted to smoke. You know? Then you had the jock alley where you walked and hopefully no one, you know, throws you in the locker or whatever. Now everyone's cool. Everyone, all these kids, everyone's cool. There's no nerdy kids. You know, like I'm not a great I'm not the best looking guy in the world, but there is no more PewDieQ and oh he's very handsome. It's all everyone's like accepting of everyone.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Yeah, but I think if you go to that that 80% of that the GP, I think they're still looking at the like, I mean the like the Instagram, like the whole like uh looks maxing and all this, like there's like so much like like who's more pretty on Instagram Instagram is all filters.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

It's all it's all wrong, it's all ugly. Look up looks maxing, it's a real look ma yeah, I'm not an Instagram kind of guy.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Yeah, it's like just these terrible human beings who try to make themselves as good look good looking as possible.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

So I remember I went to Art Basel in 2017 or 18, and I went to an art show and I saw this guy walk around and I literally followed him and he looked like Ken from Barbie.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

That's like what l this clavicular looks maxing guy's like and I and I and I went to my buddy, I'm like, Do you know this guy?

SPEAKER_02 54:38

And he goes, Yeah, I read about him. This guy did all this plastic surgery to look like Ken.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Oh you know Well this looks this clavicular guy smashes his smashes his uh cheekbones so they till they so they with a hammer so they they grow they when they repair themselves they they they calcify and become more defined. It's called looks maxing. It's like making yourself as good looking as possible. Because he says that that brains, money, none of that stuff matters. All that matters is how good looking you are because the rest all comes.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Well, the other day, I will only reason I'm shaved is because I did microneedling.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

I don't even know what that is.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

It's uh it's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

You ever done threading?

SPEAKER_02 55:21

No. No, have you done threading? I don't really know what it is. I've done facials, I a little threading, I think, has to do with your eyebrows.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

I think they're making smaller. I have no idea. I don't do that. I'm not uh I'm not that.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

I told you I use uh I use uh Korean eye cream when I remember, but I usually forget. I have like a little tiny bottle that's this big. Yeah. And I had it for about a year and a half. Like I keep forgetting to do I keep forgetting to moisturize. I just started um I just started uh conditioning my hair.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

Conditioning your hair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

My hair guy said, don't use shampoo, just use just use your conditioner. And uh yeah, but I I never always have hair.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

I know. I'm not that lucky, I don't have uh hair. I do on the sides and in the front, but you got some hair. I'm 6'5, so people can't really see you when I'm standing. So I'm okay that way. And again, in the 80s, which was really cool, long hair on guys. Well, used to I used to have hair down to my ass.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

A lot of guys have long hair now. It's still a thing. And now it's like there's no rules when it comes to hair right now. Now it's like you can be long hair, short hair, it doesn't really matter. I don't know. Yeah, I don't see it. Hairs aren't as trendy hairs hairs in the 80s. When you look back at pictures from the 80s, like yes, clothes, but it's mostly hair that tells us if it's eighties or seventies. Because 70s people had no product hair and like frizzy hair, and they like really like and they grew it long with frizzy, with frizzy no product hair. In the 80s, they still had kind of long hair, but they got really into product.

SPEAKER_02 56:59

But in the 70s, uh most guys had beards in the entertainment world. In the 80s, they were clean shaven because of Don Johnson and uh Miami Vice.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

That's true. Although, did you ever have a Miami device?

SPEAKER_02 57:11

No.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

It was you could buy it at Sears. It was a it was a it was uh an electric shaver that did a bad job. I'm telling you, it's a real thing. A Miami device. I almost stole it from Sears. Instead, I sold uh Nevermind the Bullocks by uh Sex Pistols. Yeah, I thought I you know what I had the foresight at the time to think the Miami device is gonna be cool in like 30 years from now. Of course, I'm sure it is. If you go on eBay, I bet you it's like 50, six, sixty bucks. Miami device.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

I've never heard of it before.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

Miami device. Just a electric grazer, but did a bad job. Give you the gave you the Miami Device shadow.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

So you're at an hour right now.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

Great. I I think we're I think now we're on the Miami device. I think this podcast was brought to you by Island Diaz Rum. What rum do you drink? That's a terrible tagline.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

I want to thank everyone for my uh third or fourth episode, and I want to thank Noah for joining me on my first guest here. Hopefully you have many, and hopefully he comes back if I haven't scared him uh a little.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

As long as there's Island Diaz, I will come back.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

As long as there's Island Diaz.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

Even though I was drinking this.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Well, you know what? Next time maybe I'll get you and uh our other friend to come home. We went for dinner.

SPEAKER_01 58:27

Yeah, yeah, that's that'd be a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

You know, they'll have the three of us uh commits.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

I don't know if this is cool enough for him to do, but we'll see. I won't say his name. He's gotten less uh less cool in his older age, so I think uh he might be open to things now. So yeah. I think his I think his partner is is taking taking over for the cool stuff and doing all the cool things. A lot of podcasts these days.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Anyone welcome here who's cool or not cool. Let's have fun and that's all that matters. And again, thanks everyone for joining me and thanks Noah. Hello over there. Yes. Thank you so much for all your work.