Fearless Fred Can't Load the Dishwasher Properly

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. 

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Fearless red is the afternoon host on Q 107 in Toronto. We last had him on the show eight and a half years ago. Like, seriously, folks, where does the time go? Fearless Fred on Toronto's rock station. We've known one another since the early 90s, and he and I have worked often at the same stations like Annapolis Valley radio the bear in Edmonton and power 97 in Winnipeg, but always in different eras. Since he was last on the show, he changed radio stations from edge to Q, 107, same employer, same building, and Fred and I have seen one another a few times since then, largely on my trips to Toronto. Well, I'm skipping my spring Toronto trip this year, and this episode will serve as our catch up conversation, and you get to listen in.

I do invite people back on this thing. You know, some people have appeared 234, times, especially the consultants, because they always have new things to say. But I think of, you know, fearless Fred, like, I just see you around enough. I feel like we're always in constant contact. I'm like, Yeah, well, I just had Fred on the show. And it turns out, I had Fred on the show in 2016 when I first started,

Fearless Fred  1:23  
yeah, yeah. I was, that's when I was doing mornings. It was a dark time for me. Man,

Matt Cundill  1:30  
you were doing mornings at edge, 102, and who's your co host at the time? Mel Mariani,

Fearless Fred  1:37  
who's now working in Niagara Falls, St Catharines, she's doing great. She's on one of those stations that bell let go of. I forget the company that owns it now, but she's very happy, like she's very, very happy, and it makes me very happy for her. We didn't have one of those, like weird Morning Show fall apart things. I'm a huge supporter of her, not only as a human but as a talent too. I think she's way better than some people have assumed she is, and it makes me angry.

Matt Cundill  2:05  
There are a lot of people who do have like that falling out, where we're never going to be friends again. Because the I've always thought that the relationship you have to have to have a successful morning show is a co dependent one. It's just where. And of course, that's enabled by a program director, and it's enabled by management, and and it's enabled by money, the way most co dependent relationships are, and so a lot of them do fizzle out. And I'm glad that yours with Melanie didn't. But have you had one that has

Fearless Fred  2:33  
not really because she's the only co host that I ever really had. I did a lot of stuff with Reina before she left the edge and then went to Indy and CBC and now PBS, but we were never co host. We just she was always on the air with me all the time, but no, like not really, but I like to think I'm pretty easy to get along with, so you kind of really got to put an effort in for me to dislike you.

Matt Cundill  2:57  
You're the type of person I couldn't have a co dependent relationship with because they wouldn't know how to prop you

Fearless Fred  3:03  
up. No, it's kind of a mess. I don't know what's going on. Somehow it's working.

Matt Cundill  3:08  
Yeah, and you mentioned, you know about mornings and mornings being sort of dark and different, and you were offered mornings a few times since then, and you said, No, I'll just preface that I turned down mornings very quickly. I knew it wasn't going to work for me. I'm not very sharp first thing in the morning. I'm busy. You know, I had three boys at a young age, and there just wasn't going to be time and room for mornings in my life. But we'll have plenty of time to do afternoons. Was your experience kind of the same?

Fearless Fred  3:39  
I don't know it's hard to because my very first gig, the very first time I went in, Darren Harvey, who, you know, who I still love, and I still talk to all the time. I told him that our very first meeting, one day, I'm going to do mornings at the edge. And then it becomes this thing where you're just you're fighting for it, you're fighting for it, you're fighting for it. And it's this all consuming thing that you have to have. And I've been telling myself that I was going to do mornings at the edge for it was at the time, it was like 15 years, you know, straight, that I was going to do mornings there. And it was always this, like, nebulous thing Far, far away. And then when the opportunity came, it came close, because Dean was let go, and then there was a programming shift, and then they brought in Dominic diamond and Josie dye and Greg Bucha, who were three people that I all love, and I don't think they're monster talents. I talked with Josie just the other day, actually, but I remember being so mad about it, if anything is dumping gasoline on that desire to be there, that need to have that shift, where the reality of what the shift was wasn't even really factoring into the equation. And I do wonder that if it had been much more structured and smooth of getting in there, if I may have had a little bit more hesitation, but I. The way it all worked out was that there was this transition after Dean, things weren't working out. And it was like, the middle of August, and then they were like, so do you guys want this gig? And then it was like, Well, yeah, there was no question. It was just like, Absolutely, we're gonna take this gig. We have to take this gig. And I can remember it was really cool, like, we went to the Loblaws. There's a Loblaws across the street, and we had to go to afternoons, knowing that next week we're going to be doing mornings. And we, like, walked across the street. It was like, Wow, it's really happening. And I remember Mel was talking to my wife, and we're all excited. We're all happy. And the thing was, the station was in a lot of transition. There was there's movement above us and there was movement below us. And it's hard to be the anchor of a station that is shaking all over and I talked to you about this in person, I was starting to smell what was happening, and I knew that there was things happening all around us, and it was we thought that we were going to have some stability with us. And the thing that was frustrating was, there was these transitions in management that I'm talking about, but we had this General Sales Manager named Matt Dawson. Normally, you're on the morning show or you're on air and you're fighting with sales, you're fighting with sales. But no, Matt Dawson was our biggest fan, and he was awesome. And the thing about Matt Dawson is he's not like fawning over you, supporting you. He's got teeth, and it was amazing to have someone like that supporting you. So we felt really confident. We're really good, and we're have this great relationship. And then our program director got let go, and a new program director came in, Matt Dawson, got taken away because he took a new position on a national level, and it just felt like everything around us changed everything overnight, and it was really taxing. And our new program director, when he came in, he and I, we just not everybody's gonna gel. We didn't really gel, and I know that he always saw me as a drive guy, not a morning guy, and maybe he was right, or maybe I just didn't react properly to the transitions that were happening around me, but I do know that my experience with mornings made me very hesitant to do it again, especially if there's a lot of movement going on around you, it's a lot easier to have control of your show, to not have people constantly telling you what you're doing. If you were alone and you were in afternoons, man, and I remember one time we had lunch at an Earl's in Winnipeg, and I was telling you, I want to co host. I want to co host. And I remember the way you took a sip on your drink. You're like, do you? Then I was like, Absolutely. Why would you not want to because, like, always listening to you and Jake, I'm like, it's the best. It's lightning in a bottle. It's so good. But then you realize that you can have lightning in a bottle. I think that Melanie and I when we were doing afternoons. I'm not saying we're Matt and Jake or anything here, okay, but we were pretty good. We were pretty we're pretty good. I loved the vibe that we had on afternoons, and I think that that relationship when we got to mornings shifted a bit. And I think that the sound that we had on afternoons worked so well because we were so much more arrested. And then there were factors at play. And I don't know, I felt like as soon as we took over mornings, and there was all the changes that were it felt like it was working really well at first, and then things started to fall apart. And I'm very hesitant to ever do mornings again. Not to say that I wouldn't, but like I very not a fan of the idea of it, and I've got great supports around me. Andrea Dunn. I talked about this when I got the award for the syndicated show, and she's a huge factor in that. And I am very lucky, and I'm also old enough to recognize when it's good and it's good. So I'm deliberately not touching anything right now. I'm straight ahead where I am on cue.

Matt Cundill  9:24  
I love the fact that mornings might not have been your thing, but I can totally get why. You see management, especially the program director, is so tired and worn out from the morning show and beating them down, they have no energy left for you in the afternoon, often you're a relief for whatever crappy day they're having, and they're just happy that you showed up for work. Oh

Fearless Fred  9:46  
yeah, you know, it's funny. I had this conversation with Jillian foot actually doing mornings at Q 104 in Halifax. Now, yeah, Q 104 in Halifax. I love Jillian, and I'm gonna get. Into why I love Jillian and what makes her a great broadcaster and a great human being. She's willing to give you shit when you need it. But I was saying how it feels like I'm at this point now professionally, where do you talk with the program director just being grateful you're just there like now they don't come down on me for the things that I feel make me me. And I feel like, when you're starting, you have a lot of people coming down on you, saying, that's not working, that doesn't work. Don't do this. You shouldn't do this. You should never do this. And then they'll be like, You know what? You need to listen to. You need to listen to Kevin and bean. And so you listen to Kevin and bean, and they're just doing all of the things that you just got told you're not supposed to be doing and then you try to be like, Yeah, but dude, that's what they're doing, yeah, but they're a heritage show. You know their heritage show, they've been around a while. They can do that stuff, and then now I'm a heritage show and but that's not saying that they weren't right about a lot of things. Ryan Zimmerman was always really hard on me on his program director couch, like he was always like, knuckling down on me to build forward momentum and all those things. But I feel like there's still a lot of stuff that I would never get away with, like a decade ago, that they expect me to do today. And Jillian and I were venting to each other about so much shit you take when you're coming up from program directors and all that to refine your style, and then you get to this point where they just let you do whatever you want, and you're like, I was doing this years ago, but that's kind of like an ego thing. Like, I do think that a lot of the sound that I have is really reflective of the input that I was getting from those people, especially the forward momentum thing, threading that stuff in. I think that's a huge deal. It was actually I refused to do it. I got mad about it when they're like, Okay, when you're finished your break and you've got your out, then say, and in 15 minutes, blah, blah, blah. Those are things that I thought only worked with a co host, and I still think that too. But then I listened to Howard Stern, and I listened to him, like the way he teases content about how he'll cut himself off mid break tease and then get back into what he's doing. And I totally stole that from him. And I do it all the time because it works, and I think it cuts through. Because if you're building up to the peak of your story, and then you go, Oh, wait, I forgot one thing before I forget dash for the cash coming up at the end of the hour. So 20 minutes, somebody's gonna run it, but anyways, like I was saying, and then back in. So that's something that I'm always doing. I'm really rambling, and I apologize.

Matt Cundill  12:31  
No, if you and I, by the way, we're on the radio, I, as the host, would have to say, and by the way, we're speaking with fearless red, but we don't have to do that because it's a podcast, and it just starts from end to end, to end, and there's like, an entire cover, and your picture's on the cover of the show. I do want to talk a little bit about those teases, because I understand the tease that you just gave as an example there. The one I don't get that I hear on the radio often is something, something, something has happened, and we're going to tell you about that in nine minutes, and then it goes into the song. And I'm like, why would you give me this tease for something that I can Google?

Fearless Fred  13:04  
I do that but differently. I think if you're teasing a story, you can't tease the story. You have to tease like a metaphor about the story. So like, let's just say Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake Gyllenhaal is doing the new Roadhouse movie. The Roadhouse movie got announced. Roadhouse two, the sequel that it has coming out. I'm not gonna do you're not gonna guess what. Jake Gyllenhaal movie is getting a sequel. We'll tell you in 10 minutes. No, that's bad, because just like what you said, and Dave Farrow always used to say this to me, give me something I can't get on my phone. Well, I'm a mess. I'm gonna give you something you're never gonna get on your phone. So my tease was, listen Jason Statham, the working man doing great, doing great in the box office, but I have got a movie that he can do with Jake Gyllenhaal and Guy Ritchie, that's going to involve him hitting on the moms of children with bicycles, and I'll tell you why within the next 10 minutes, like that, because then that makes no sense. But it's got Jason Statham it's threading through with a bunch of stuff, so you can still tease it, but you got to do it something that's a little bit different, and that's just something I'm making up off the top of my head based on a break that I may have done today, but I did not tease. But, like, I know what you're saying. I still think that tease can work. I just think that you've got to be very clever about how you're doing it. Do you watch the onion radio news? Like, do you remember the onion radio news? They ate network news so well that, like, they did it better. They did it better than news does. Like, are there bullets in your body? Stay tuned for five minutes. Those are the types of things that they'll do. And I'm like, That's so good. Like, are there bullets in my body? Stay tuned for more. Like, okay, all right. I'm in like. Those types of teases are brilliant. So if you've got to be clever in the way you're teasing stuff, you can't give them the meat or give them enough bread crumbs that they'll just go find it on their own. Yeah. Well, you remember

Matt Cundill  15:10  
at the bear once, you know, we ran cfrn News promos in the afternoon. There were spots right coming up tonight on cfrn News, and it was Val oskoski, the people helper who came on and said, It's 15 seconds. Hey, tonight on cfrn tv, we're going to tell you what to do if your car is on fire. So the spot ended, I guess I'm going to say it's get out. Jake said, No, stay and we argued about it for four minutes.

Fearless Fred  15:39  
That's great. Like, to me, that's brilliant radio. I love that, like, just off the cuff, brilliant stuff. And I think the money you say off the cuff, like, people think that you're talking about, like, chum cast stuff. I don't think that's what it is. I think it's like because you learn. It's like music, man, it's like music. You just learn. Bring it home. We're out, pull the pin, we're done. And you just have an instinct for it, especially when you've been doing it with somebody, and you just know their sound like when I left Trident there and went to power doing overnights before BJ and Hal came in, and I would just hang out to watch them do their show and just ask them if they needed stuff, and just watching them do their show to get that rhythm. I profoundly, profoundly influenced by BJ Burke and Hal Anderson is just I cannot. It's in the D and Ace Burpee as well. Like being in that building surrounded by those talents, I could never be as cool as Jim Jones. So I had to focus on Ace Burpee and BJ and Hal, and just hope that I never said anything loud enough for them to make fun of me, because they're funnier than

Matt Cundill  16:46  
I Yeah, and Hal Anderson is one of those guys that everybody gets along with Hal, because he'll find a way to make the relationship work.

Fearless Fred  16:53  
Oh, he put me in my place plenty of times, man, he made the relationship work. But I knew the like the tears. I knew where I was in that relationship. If I got too big for my britches, he had no problem putting me in my place, and I deserved it, because I'd been fired so many times before I got there. I needed somebody who was gonna put me in my place.

Matt Cundill  17:14  
You only got fired twice before, and then you got fired port Hawkesbury.

Fearless Fred  17:20  
Where else get fired from, and then in Dryden. But when you're fired at the beginning of your career, and you have nowhere else to go, like, if I got fired today, like, I'm pretty sure I would find something a lot quicker. But when you're doing like, swing in Port Hawkesbury and then swing in Dryden, Ontario, no one's going, Oh, this guy's got it. Let's give it. Let's give him a shot. He's great, no, especially in that era when it was like, everyone had those, like, big voices. Everyone sounded good, and they sounded smooth. And I remember getting to Winnipeg, and the first time listening to power 97 it was psychedelic Sunday with Andy frost. Like, those are some pipes. And then the next morning, listening to Jim Jones, who his delivery was just so smooth, like he was so cool. He sounded so cool on the air, I could never do that.

Matt Cundill  18:17  
And just the right amount of sarcasm to deliver the hoof to the nuts when required. Yeah, I just hear, like, the little punch lines that he would put out there. That's great. Your house looks like a Joey's,

Fearless Fred  18:31  
yeah? So good one time. He's like, I remember this. He was doing something on the air, and he's just on the air going, God damn it, don't we have any scissors in the studio? Oh, not since Fred got here, no. And they just moved on. And I really always so cool. It's so cool. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  18:52  
yeah. I mean, and being prepped, by the way, I mean being prepped in the morning versus the afternoon. I just remember not being prepped for the morning show, and it's because my idea of prep was really just consuming life before two o'clock and then taking it and going on the air. That was, that was prep.

Fearless Fred  19:07  
We had a system. So watching Dean Blundell prep, by the way, I was always amazed at the level of prep that he would put in. And when I was at the bear the Paul Brown show with Paul, you can Jillian super prep show. And then when I got to the edge, they had this such off the cuff vibe, you're thinking, oh well, they just roll in and have a time. But Dean would be there till 1231 every day, every day, prepping for the next day. And I remember talking to him, and he goes, I'll do all this prep, and then I'll come in in the morning. I might only use half of it. And I'm like, Well, when you get here, he goes four. I'm in at four every day. He goes sometimes, if I've got like, a bar gig or something, I might not even come home. I'll go right to the station, and then I'll just get it done. So we had a system with Mel and I when we were doing mornings. Is we had, like, a docking. It like a an email document, and we would go over it together, and I would prep, and then she would prep, and then we'd have a phone call at like, 637 at night, and we'd go over everything that we wanted to talk about, and then we'd get in in the morning, and then we would, like, piece it all together. We wouldn't break things down where they needed to go, because something could happen in the late evening, and we'd have to, like, switch out prep on the fly. You know, you have to prep twice when you're doing mornings versus drive you can really just prep once. And I'm not at the point where I if I see something break in the afternoon, unless it's super pressing, I'll let it float until the next day, because I don't need to break every story My take is going to be my take. If I'm scrounging for PrEP, like if it's dead, I'll go with what's happening on the fly, but I try and always leave stuff on the back burner for the next day. And sometimes you could have a story that you're doing on the show and you could do it again. You could do it a second time the next day with a completely new angle, because the story evolves, you know,

Matt Cundill  21:02  
yeah, that's interesting. You said about the take and because there's always a rush to be first and to get your comment out quickly, and the first impression you might have on something is not the right one, and you're about getting it right, not necessarily being first,

Fearless Fred  21:17  
yeah? The Denzel Washington thing, yeah, Christian Hall was always on me about stop trying to be first about everything. Take a breath. Relax. This was when I was like his evenings guys like your evenings in Winnipeg, your notes were like, oh, oh, man. The story just broke wide open because an evening guy in Winnipeg talked about it. Just relax. Let the facts sift out, see how other people touch it, and then give your own unique take on it the next day that's structured and put together. And you're always like you say, you're always so focused on being first, first, first, first. Like, just relax, man, take a breath. It's fine, because a story breaks on Tuesday. You know, big thing happens on Tuesday, you see your buddies on the weekend, when you're golfing, you're talking about that story again. So don't feel the need to, like, discuss it's not gone. It's not gone. Those things come up. Just bring it up again. Analyze what you said yesterday on air today. You know, yesterday, we're talking about this. But now I'm thinking, maybe I'm wrong. And this is, you know, there's no harm in doing that. I think radio people have this one and done mentality, and that's not good.

Matt Cundill  22:28  
Oh, I think it has taken a very, very, very long time to realize that we're using content once, and we're throwing it away and it never comes back and says, Oh, maybe I'll just put it in SoundCloud, or maybe I'll put it here. But, you know, you have an opportunity, and you're, by the way, you're very good at voice tracking. It's something I just never, I didn't really grow up around it. I didn't have, I always had my own show. I never voice tracked at any other markets. But you're very good at capturing, you know, and telling stories. Voice tracked, I know you recorded it earlier, whether it's like you're on evenings or you're on afternoon drive. And so I'm asking you're doing a show in Toronto, but then how do you decide what bits to save and which to take over to voice track and other radio stations when, when it goes out across Canada?

Fearless Fred  23:17  
So again, big thanks to donner. She's awesome. This works for me because of the way I deliver. I talk, talk, talk, talk, and I take a breath. So this morning, when I was hanging out with the kids, and then, like those gaps, those pauses, and what I consciously do is I throw in because I big the kill, kill thing from David Bannerman. Big call out for David Bannerman, keep it live. Keep it local. So I always have to throw in localisms to my content when I'm doing but before I do, I always make sure that I'm phrasing it in a way where it can be pulled out of the sentence and it's not going to lose anything. And so then when I'm putting those breaks into the network folder for dinner, she knows, and we've been working together for so long, she knows that I'll make it easier on her, because when you're working with other people, you've got to make it easy or they're not going to want to do it, and if they don't want to do it, it's not going to sound as good. And it sounds as good because we're always back and forth. And she'll critique my shows when I send them, she'll be like, that was actually a really good show yesterday. And it's like, what about the rest of the show? It's like, are they? Are they? Okay? So then we'll do stuff that's evergreen, and we'll do stuff that's timely, and if it's something that's like, if it happened on the weekend, I'll say something so yesterday on the weekend like and then she can cut it out and so that if it's aired on Monday in Toronto, she can still play it on Wednesday in another market. And it's all just, you've got to know if you open the microphone, you should know if you're doing stuff that you want to be syndicated somewhere else, because I can't talk about. So Doug Ford wanting to dig a tunnel under the 401 for my show in Edmonton. Like, people don't like Toronto and Edmonton, so me talking about the highway and congestion, they're not going to go, Wow, that's fascinating. They're going to be like, I do not care, because when I lived in Edmonton, I hated Toronto so much, especially the leafs always preempting Oilers games. Hate, hate, hate, hate. I hated it. So you got to know before you turn on the microphone what you're going to do and where it's going, where the audio is going, what you want to do with it, your intentions,

Matt Cundill  25:32  
by the way, the leafs are playing right now. And I thought to myself, maybe Fred wants to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs game.

Fearless Fred  25:39  
No, no, no. Why do a segment on my show Brian beliefs, and he's like, a die hard leafs guy, so, like, I'll be kept abreast with texts from him about what's going on. And you're more important to me than the leafs, just so you know, well,

Matt Cundill  25:55  
there's also a contingent of people out there who will watch the Toronto Maple Leafs just to see them lose the same way that people want to see the Cowboys lose or the Raiders lose. Or

Fearless Fred  26:06  
I don't hate watch. I do like the leafs. I do like the leaves. I have a soft spot. My dad is a leafs guy, so I grew up in a leafs household, but when we moved to Edmonton, the Oilers were my team. So they're my team, you know. So I cheered for the Oilers, and he cheered for the leafs. And his favorite thing is when the leafs are further in the playoffs than the Oilers, which hasn't happened in a few years. But he called me the infamous Boston game. He called me going into the third period, chirping me relentlessly about how the Oilers were on the golf course and the leafs, this is their year. Turn on the TV and watch the season finale of Mad Men. Watch Mad Men, and then just flip on my phone to check the score. I lost it. I called my dad, and I no answer. So I know he's avoiding me, so I call again. My mother answers the phone. He doesn't want to talk to you, put him on the phone, get him on the phone, and he just came over and hung up the phone. That was it great day.

Matt Cundill  27:10  
Yeah, you know, that was 12 years ago, that infamous 2013, meltdown to the Bruins in one period. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  27:16  
what a meltdown. It wasn't even one period. It's like five minutes, and people don't

Matt Cundill  27:23  
even talk about the other notorious meltdown, which was against the Montreal Canadians in 2020 coughing up a three game to one lead against them and losing a game in overtime and then melting down. It's wonderful to watch. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  27:37  
I would say, you know, what's interesting is, when you're in Toronto, like, you'd think that everyone, like, lives and breathes for the leafs, and not really. I'd say, like, half the people in Toronto hate the leafs, because half of Toronto isn't from Toronto. They're all, like, they just, they're transplants, like me. They've all got their own team. Like, I like it when the leafs do well, because it's good for the community. And I think that when you're talking about being on the air, I'm very obvious that I love the Oilers like I'm very obvious that I'm an Oilers fan, but I never, ever dump on the leafs when I'm on the air. I'll make fun of but you always run it through that filter of, if they do good, it is great for the community. It is great for the businesses. And you you take that angle that's very genuine of it's good for the community, and that's just good radio, because you had a lot of advertisers that want that team to do good because they're hinging money on it. So that's the angle that I always take when I'm talking about the leaf when I'm on the air, because it's important.

Matt Cundill  28:34  
Yeah, it's true, though. Like, I mean, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are not my team. I don't really care too much about the Winnipeg Jets. I'll take in the odd game, but the people around me and the city is happier when they're winning, and it's just much better. And listen, I mean, the Canadians are my team. I grew up three blocks from the forum. That's going to be tough to squeeze out of me. I spent eight years in Edmonton, and I totally get the Oilers thing much the same way you do, right? Like i That's my team in the Western Conference. If the Oilers play the Jets, I'll be fairly conflicted. It's tough. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  29:07  
I love the Jets, because when the Jets left in the 90s, that was when Peter Pocklington was talking about selling the team, and they build the whole Owners Group and all that stuff. So I as an Oilers fan, there is always a love for the Jets, because it was like, when they left, it was like, we're next. Oh, no. So it's hard to dump on the Jets. Man,

Matt Cundill  29:27  
I have crazy theories about the Toronto Maple Leafs and why they don't win, but you would be well suited to answer this because you're not a crazy, die hard fan. I think the media, I think the Toronto Sun, I think sports radio really brings the team and the expectations, and you know how much they really believe in these players to such a high level that they're destined to fail, as opposed to Montreal, where the journal is going to give the captain a C the next morning in the paper and call him out.

Fearless Fred  29:58  
Yeah, I remember. Dave Bookman, who had a great way of describing it, the leaves open the season, and they lose like five straight, and then they win three in a row. And after that third win, everyone's like, plan the parade. It's happening. Plan that parade. And then it's when they lose again. It's outrage. How dare you. How dare you. So it is akin to that. But it's never like, there's never a so much a worship, but as a like, how could you do you owe me? You owe this city like it's this weird thing. And I think, honestly, when you want to talk about weird theories, I think it starts with the games and the way that they are produced, like when you watch a leafs game, and you don't get to see this when you're watching them on TV, when you go to a leafs game before the game starts, there's like a 10 minute black and white historical documentary, and it's all black and white because they haven't won a cup since things were colored.

Matt Cundill  31:03  
They just recently won a playoff series in high definition.

Fearless Fred  31:06  
Yeah. It's like, Geez, it's insane to me that there's so much history. It's like, you know what it is? It's like comics, and they're drowning everything in canon. Is what it is. There's so much look at what we did all this goal in 1962 it was the greatest goal. Here's eight different black and white things about it, and it's like, and then they'll have, like, a shot of Wendell Clark dishing out a great check. There's just this weird. We're the best. We're so good with so much history. And it's like, you're bored by the time the game starts, and half the bowl is empty. And I think that plays a huge factor with the leafs at their home games. The lower bowl is empty. Half the upper bowl is empty because it's all people with business tickets, and it's it's insulting. It's insulting to like the Fandom of the leafs is outside. The fandom is outside, and like watching it on the big screens, that's where the fans are. The people inside are people that have access and connections and money to get those tickets. And it is really frustrating. I feel like my love of the leafs has been lessened since coming to Toronto. You know, we're talking more about the leafs than we are radio. I love this is great.

Matt Cundill  32:27  
Well, we're talking about Toronto, I mean, and you're working at, you've worked at two of the bigger stations in Toronto over the last many years, 16 years, 16 years now. And so you're also qualified to give a very objective view. I could not have this conversation with Sarah Burke. I could not have this conversation with Jim Lang. No, but

Fearless Fred  32:50  
whenever you criticize the leafs, it's like, sure, you, you. Well, who's better? And it's like, well, perhaps, yeah. Like, like, there's when you talk history, like the leafs game. It's like this weird thing. It's just, it's like it's drowning in Cannon, and it's like there's this almost like, it's almost like this propagandesque opening to every game. And like, I love Wendell Clark, I love Doug Gilmore, Felix, pop van is one of my all time favorite goaltenders ever, but I don't need to watch a five minute documentary about their impact before the game starts. Like, fire up the crowd, but it's like, the thing about the crowd in the games doesn't want to get fired up because they're not really even paying attention, and they just made it more expensive to go to the games. It's like we're talking about economic downturns and recessions and, well, the leafs just raised their prices Ken, so it's like they care about the community. You know, it's frustrating. Like, I remember when the Jets came back their first season back, I went to a game in Winnipeg, and they make more noise when clearing the puck from their zone, then you'll hear and and there's like 5000 less people in the rink. You'll hear more noise clearing the puck from their zone than you will when a goal gets scored. But outside, I would say, outside the the maple leaf square that they have there is the same as you get with the moss pit and in Winnipeg, like those outside people, that's the fans like, that's the real fandom right there, because they're standing there in the rain broke and cold, just believing in the team. You know,

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Matt Cundill  35:07  
slash apps. I'm reminded, by the way, of who you've worked with, whether it was at edge or at Q, and you've had to follow some drama in the building. So Dean Blundell leaving is one example.

Fearless Fred  35:20  
There were talks when Dean left. The thing was, is when Dean left, the plan was that I was being groomed for mornings, like that was the plan, and I was aware of the plan, and I knew that that's what they were they were talking about doing, and then all those plans fell apart. Your perspective changes when you're an adult, and you've got other adults, and then they've got kids, and then it's this real life thing that they got to put food on their table, and you don't want to be taking anyone's lunch. That, to me, is a definition of somebody who's a good person versus a bad person. I don't need anything, so I'm not going to take anything from anyone. I'm very happy where I am very happy, so I don't want to do anything like that. And it's like, were those talks even serious? I don't know. They're always throwing things around, so who knows. But then you got your afternoon show. That was a good thing. I love afternoons. I do. I love it so much. Give me some go train hacks. Oh, the GO train. It's the best. I think you take the GO train to Oshawa, right? Duh. Ajax. So I do all of my comic book writing on the go train. That's the key. Some people like, I prep for my show. No, no, no. For your mental health, you need to separate different channels. So when I get to the GO train, and I get on the go train, my focus is on comic books. So I'm doing all my comic book writing when I'm on the train. And I think that that's good for me, because being a nerdy guy by nature, you have a tendency of putting your own interests onto the show that maybe aren't really what your listeners care about. You know, they don't. Might not care about all that stuff, but I do. So I find that if I do that on the train, on my way in, I scratch that itch and I'm done. I don't need to talk about that on the air. It's completely out. It's gone. It's gone. Then when I get to work, I find it easier to prep smarter. Prep smarter for what I'm doing for the show. When you said drama, I thought you're going to talk about when I came to Toronto, like, that's that was drama, dude.

Matt Cundill  37:32  
What was going on? What drama Did I forget to mention? So

Fearless Fred  37:35  
there were shifts that were made. Barry Taylor, who'd been on air forever, was let go. And Martin streak, who'd been on air like since the Chris Shepherd days, the live to airs like the amount of heritage that that guy had in the market and in radio in general,

Matt Cundill  37:56  
he was let go. Well, he was one of the last connections to when they called it CF, and why?

Fearless Fred  38:02  
Yeah, and he fell victim to suicide, and it was a really tumultuous time. And the thing is, is like, as a radio person, right? Like, as you're a radio person, you have, it's like game in the sense of like you're hunting, and the biggest game, the biggest target, the biggest game trophy you want is to work at the edge, like it was so cool. Chris Shepherd pirate radio, like I listened to it all the time. I didn't even like the music, but I'd listen to the way he was on the air. And then when internet radio, like, not internet radio, but like, you could listen to streams online, I would listen to what they were doing on the air, just to hear it. And it was so cool, and it was so big, and it was like the top of the mountain, so you wanted to be there, right? But that growing up with it aspect wasn't there. I didn't have that connection to the station, and I found it difficult when I got here with the abuse that happened to handle it. I was like, I took it personally, because I felt like I've worked my whole career to get here, because I did like I said in my very first job interview, I said I was going to work there, and then when Martin passed, it was like, they need Martin was let go. So when he was let go, there was all this anger because of like you said, He's that last connection to the CF NY days. And there was anger, there was outrage at the station, and I know that everyone that was still working had to deal with a lot of it, especially, even though they they're all heritage, like they'd all been there for so long, and then this new, random guy comes in, where it's like, you know, that they would not have get let go if this guy hadn't been hired. And that to me, like nothing that has happened since, anything that has happened even remotely touches that. And I think the reason could be, is that I've got tools like mental health tools. I. That I learned to deal with when all this stuff went down, shit,

Matt Cundill  40:04  
Storm protectors. Yeah. So

Fearless Fred  40:07  
also I and I know I'm such a unique little flower. I'm not this unique little flower, but I have my own sound. I have my own way of doing things. It was really refined a lot by I would say Ace Burpee was a huge influence, and it was much more, not pantomime, but the edge. When I got here, and I feel like it's, it's so man, we're just so cool, like we just do cool stuff, like we're cool. And Dean was just like, don't even step into my my yard. I will eat you for breakfast. And then you had Josie on mid days. And Josie is like, like a scene queen, in the sense that she's been to every show, she knows, every promoter, she knows, every venue, she's interviewed every band. She's been on this station forever and ever. She does mid days, like she's it. And then Dave Bookman, who has sat down to interview the biggest stars in the world, period. And then I am none of those things. I am none of those things. I am this completely different thing. I'm gonna talk about a Star Wars thing or a Star Trek thing, and then I'm gonna tie it into something about dinosaurs, like it was such a shift that it was very difficult. And I Oh, man, the amount of hate mail and the amount of stuff that happened then it was like to me, like nothing can touch it, like nothing can touch it. And I think what it was was you get this new job, your dream job, you're supposed to be the happiest guy in the world. You're supposed to be so happy. Because nobody that was sending this miserable hate mail, nobody even for a second thought. What does this job mean to this guy? The assumption is you're just coming in and eating someone's lunch. Like, that's what the assumption is, that you don't have any care. And it's like, Dude, I have just as much profound love for being here as anyone else. But it's a it's different. That's really all it is. When we were we went and saw when I was at King stack, we went to Toronto to see Rage Against the Machine, and I sold my mini disc player that I needed for school. I just sold it so that I have money to buy tickets to go to the show. And then I, like, we were Toronto, as soon as we got to, like, there's the big apple that's that's in every car commercial. You see that giant Apple, that roadside attraction, that giant Apple. I made them turn on the radio to listen, and I refused to listen to anything else. And I was like, listening to it the whole time. Walked up Yonge Street just to look and just like, look inside the studio. And it was so cool. It meant so much to me. And then to get here, to finally get here, after like, more than a decade of working, to get here, and then it's like you don't deserve it. I really hurt like it hurts so much. I don't think anything I've ever dealt with professionally will ever hold a light, and to be honest, I hope nothing ever does, because I was pretty brutal. I don't want anything to be worse than that. So yeah, like when you when you bring up drama like nothing else touches it compared to that and I, and I have to give so much love to Dean Blundell, because he didn't need to be nice to me at all. He didn't need me. I'm nothing. I am a nobody, and he is like the man, like he is the man. And he was bent over backwards, nice. And I think what it was was that I was such a weirdo, that he was just like, what is what is going on in that brain? Like, sometimes you would talk to me about, like, so what are you thinking about? What's what's going on? I was like, well, oh, the Blackest Night event with DC Comics right now is insane, dude. You gotta be reading it. What's the Green Lantern? Uh, okay, so why? And then I would try and explain to him, and I could just, you know, when you're talking to someone you're like, they're really trying. They're really trying here, but like, and he would always check in with me. Our first Christmas in town. He invited me and my wife over for dinner. He was very focused on making sure that I was like, I was coping with things, and that no matter how bad things got, he'd be like, buddy, it's going to get better. Like, trust me, you just stick it out. You're doing great. He was so supportive. And it's weird, because he has this reputation as being this really mean guy, but I honestly don't know if I would have been able to last without him being the guy that he was, because he made it possible for me to hand. Into all this because knowing that he had been through stuff similar, look where he is now, I thanked him repeatedly about it, but I don't think you know, remember on uh, Wayne's World, when he goes, I love you. Man, no no, that's cool. It's cool. No no, I really love you. Man, like I feel like I'm that when I talk to him, because I'll see him, like, I'll see him this summer. And I'm like, Listen, man, I just don't want you to know, like, it really meant a lot to me, a lot to me, because it was there. I didn't talk about the Jillian foot thing. That's another thing you started. And then, yeah, I'm terrible at broadcasting. I'm sorry. It's a podcast. There's no rules like this. We can so Jillian Foote is in that category for very specific reasons. We went to college together, King stack, yeah, I'm one week older than her, exactly. And when we were in Edmonton, she was doing mornings, and I was on evenings, and I went through this breakup, and it was like, it was kind of a messy breakup. It was very, very messy breakup, and I was so emotional, and so, wow, wow, wow. And so pity me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and my attitude was in the toilet, like I didn't I was probably close to getting fired, and this is why I know it's probably close to getting fired, because morning show gets, like, three weeks of vacation around Christmas, and so Jillian is gone. She's like, in Nova Scotia, and she calls me while she's on vacation from Nova Scotia, while she's hammered. And I like, hello, and she rips into me so hard, dude, like about how I'm insulting everyone that I work with because I'm not taking it seriously, and they're all working so hard, and I'm just acting like I deserve it. I have this amazing opportunity, and then she keeps leaning on this. It's insulting. I'm insulted like I'm mad. I'm insulted that you're acting like this. And I remember being like, Man, I must really be shitty for her to call me up and tell me off like this. And it was a great a great wake up call. And I remember leaving and being like, I gotta stop being such an idiot. Gotta get my life together. And so then I turned it around, like I clocked the show, and I would come in to sit down with the boss, like every day before my shift, to go over my prep and trying to find like, learning how to articulate, like local, local, local content. Like all my prep had to come from local sources, like I had to watch the new newscast and write down prep from it and find a way to make those stories work. And it was all because Jillian and I think that that catalyst, that term, when I started doing that with my prep and the way I did my show, it changed everything for me, because it used to be, you try and find the weirdest, wildest out there stories, but then it's like, what does that mean to anybody in town that's listening? So then what you do is you try and find a way to make everything local, everything local, and it's all started because of that. So that's why I wanted to talk about Jillian, because she's amazing.

Matt Cundill  48:22  
I mean, she probably called you at one o'clock in the morning in Nova Scotia. What's that about? 10 o'clock in Alberta, and the keys pale out. Are you drinking a keys right now?

Fearless Fred  48:33  
No, man, I'm drinking the moose is loose, baby, a

Matt Cundill  48:36  
moose head. Oh, I was just going to mention that the keys goes down differently in the Maritimes. It

Fearless Fred  48:42  
does. It does. You were always all about the keys, because you would I made you start putting me on your email list when I was, like, working in Port Hawkesbury, and I was like, this nobody, because it made me feel cool, because then I've got, oh, it's fucking Matt condos fucking sending me fucking emails. I'm the coolest guy ever.

Matt Cundill  49:00  
It was before newsletters were a thing. And I think, I think what it was,

Fearless Fred  49:03  
yeah, but you would talk about what the bear was doing the music shifts. I remember when the new tool album came out, you you talked about how, like, like, listening to tools cover of No Quarter in your minivan was the raddest, and it made me feel so good, like, I remember quotes from it, like, I'm creepy, I'm sorry, but yeah, like your breakdowns, and you'd always talk about soccer and leave me alone. I'm having a Keith and I'm like, wow, those are like it. Like it a lot. That

Matt Cundill  49:33  
was, I think the way I finished the email to everybody is, leave me alone. I'm having a piece.

Fearless Fred  49:37  
I remember that I didn't start drinking Keith's because you were drinking it. That's weird. That never happened.

Matt Cundill  49:44  
I was just excited that I could get Keith's in Edmonton. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  49:49  
my dad's a big Keith's guy, but he's from Cape Breton, so

Matt Cundill  49:53  
I drank schooner when I went to Acadia, old man beer. What was that about?

Fearless Fred  49:57  
Well, you know why I'm drinking the the moose. That is that, like, presidential pack that they did. I'm in this really big like, rah, rah, rah, support, Canadian, Canadian, Canadian. I got like, a new beer from Mill Street today, a local brewer, but I can't drink it on camera. How could we keep it ticker on the down line? Yeah,

Matt Cundill  50:17  
got it. You mentioned your dad. You took him to a bills game. How much fun was that? Oh,

Fearless Fred  50:23  
it got really emotional. Dude, Mel Mariani, her husband, came with he's a huge jets guy. We're always talking. We're gonna go watch a Jets bills game together. And then my parents are getting older, and they were coming to visit, and I wanted to take my dad to see a bills game on because it's our year, because it's our year. Obviously, every year, every year, it's our year. And Nicholas pickles, former host of venue and arcade top 10, is the he does mornings in Buffalo. And I've messaged back and forth him a few times about other things, and I know that he is the in stadium announcer for the team, and I messaged him, saying, Listen, man, I'm not looking for free tickets. I'm not looking even for a deal. I would just really like to get good tickets, not pay out the nose through a scalper or anything for them. I'm not asking for if it's not, if it's inconvenient, don't do it. But then he's like, he goes to, what, like, What game did you want to go and want to go to the bills, Jets game? And it was like, we're doing this in like, September, so we don't know what the season is going to be like. And he goes, I think I can hook you up. And then it was explaining, like, how my dad is coming. And it's like, I go, I'm not saying it'll be our last opportunity, but there's not going to be many more, and I'd really like to make it a like a good game, so like good seats I'm willing to pay. So we were on the 40 yard line, third row, on the bills side, and then he got us on field passes for the pre game warm up. But we were on the jet side of the field for the pre game warm up, and Tyler Conklin said hi to us when I like Tyler Conklin, even though he plays for the Jets, he's he's great. Tie to him. He's fantastic when I played Madden. He's always good. So we were on the field and I was having the best day. It was so awesome. And being there with my dad, watching the Jets get destroyed. And what was funny was Brad Mel's husband comes with his brother, and he's wearing like, Sanchez, everything jets, everything like and the thing was, is the Jets are getting killed so bad that the people behind us, like, Bill's mafia, bought him a beer, like they felt so bad for him. Oh, man, they're losing so bad. Brad's hilarious. He's such a great guy. And then, like, they bought him a beer, and then the guy's like, you know what? Though Sanchez was a good quarterback. You guys were pretty good back. When you had said just he was a good guy, he's a really good quarterback.

Matt Cundill  53:03  
Yeah, they had Eric Mangini, was the coach, and I think they went to one or two AFC championships. They

Fearless Fred  53:09  
did. That was the last big run, and I remember they were pushing really hard in that era. But yeah, seeing the bills is pretty dope. Like, I'm a Giants guy, the bills are my number two, and I think I like them more because I'm so close, but I do love the giant scene, even though that was the dumbest, dumbest bit of Office negotiating I've ever seen last season.

Matt Cundill  53:33  
What you mean when they let say Juan Barclay? Go, yeah, yeah, that guy, even the kid is a better manager for his dad's career. Dad, go get the number two draft pick, whoever Washington took, Jaden Daniels, right? Like, Go get him, Dad. You're only gonna have his job once the kid just wants his dad to keep the job.

Fearless Fred  53:53  
Yeah, like that. Oh. What a joke. What a joke. And,

Matt Cundill  53:59  
you know, those moves get made in program director offices every day across North America, dumb shit like that.

Fearless Fred  54:09  
Trust me, this guy's got it. They got they're good. I was the Daniel Jones for the edge. I'm assuming a lot of people thought, but no, I stuck around. I'm like, you talk about all these movies and all these things happening. There are times where I feel like a cockroach. I always say that to Joanne Wilder that I'm the cockroach. I'm surviving somehow. I'm still here. I'm in the hallways. I'm just thriving. Yeah, Joanne Wilder is someone who's seen it all. Man. Oh, she can write a book. You can write a book. No, like, I'll write the forward to her book, but she's working with someone like Joanne Wilder is a huge, huge deal, because you kind of take a read from what's happening in the building based on what's going on in mid days for me, and the way Josie ran her show versus the way I ran my. Show are so different, so dramatically different. And when I went to Q, like, it's Q 107, man, like, it's kind of a big deal. Like to walk in and do drive there is huge. And so was very focused on always making sure that Joanne liked me. I shut my mouth when Joanne talks, I don't talk. I just listen. She says things she's got insight. She's done it. She's been doing her shift my entire career. So I have nothing to say to her. I cannot tell her anything that she does not already know. So I shut my mouth and I listen because she's Joanne Wilder, and that's it. Huge impact on me when I got to Kyo,

Matt Cundill  55:47  
I did want to point out that Nicholas pickles does mornings at kiss 98 five, which is an audit C station. They do have the rights to the Buffalo Bills, because WGR is the affiliate station, and I do listen to that station, because all at radio station is, is just therapy for Buffalo Bills fans. They just talk all the time about all the wrong moves that are being made. And you know, as we're recording this three days ago, the general manager called in to say, what are you guys talking about? I'm doing my job here, and you guys don't even know

Fearless Fred  56:18  
anything. He is super cool, man. Nicholas was really, really nice, really supportive, and was on YTV for a while. Yes, that's how I knew he was. And it was I was hesitant to call him, very hesitant to like, even drop that that text and be like, Hey, man. And then he bought the tickets out of his own pocket, and I paid him back the trust involved,

Matt Cundill  56:41  
outstanding. I'm glad your dad got to go and experience that. Yeah, hey, do you get back to the

Fearless Fred  56:48  
Maritimes? My parents just moved back. They left Edmonton. They're, they left Edmonton, they're, they moved back. They're moving to Halifax. So I'll be going back a lot. I love, I love the Maritimes. I love the East Coast. You just, you get off the plane, it just feels like, you just feel like you're decompressing, you know, you get off the plane, you fly to Toronto from Halifax. You feel life speed up when you get off that plane. You feel it like, maybe I'm way older now, like because when I was young, I just wanted to be here. I wanted to be here so bad, but I would love to go back to the East Coast. I'd love to go to live in Halifax, but still be able to work at Q 107 somehow we'll figure out a way to make it work. I think so

Matt Cundill  57:36  
though. Well, you'll have to start your show an hour earlier, right?

Fearless Fred  57:40  
Yeah, I do love Nova Scotia driving around the air the way the air feels. Just everything about it is awesome. There's just something about the East Coast. And when I was younger, I don't think I really got it. Now I'm a lot older, and I just absolutely love it. I really do.

Matt Cundill  58:00  
I wanted to race by those five years and just get to the next thing. And the next thing turned out to be all going to work evenings or overnights in Montreal. And I was like, and then you just raced, and it's like, oh, that was pretty good. And then the best part is you go back to the Maritimes, and I went to the valley, and Darren Harvey's still there, and we pick we pick up right where we left off, and you go to Mike Mitchell, and nothing's changed. It's just your friendships. Just carry on. Mike Mitchell, Oh, he's so good. I'm doing such a bad job here. Darren Harvey, by the way, works in Kentville for the stingray station 89 3k rock, actually, it's called rewind now. And Mike Mitchell works at Annapolis Valley radio magic, 94 nine. Well, that's what it was known as. Then it's still known. It still known as AVR and magic 94 nine. And he's the programming guy for all of maritime broadcast there. Sorry, now I caught everyone up.

Fearless Fred  58:54  
He's just so cool. Like, he's good, he's got great delivery. It's funny. You you when I was young, like you talk, you just want to be through it. You just want to be through you just want to be through it. I refused to listen to what they were doing on the air because I was too focused on listening to stuff in bigger markets, thinking, Oh, it's bigger, it's better. It's bigger, it's better. That is not the case at all. Darren Harvey's advice that he gave me in air checks my first gig, like doing overnights on magic 97 before it was 94 nine, like was magic, 97 seven, I think, is what it was. Those pieces of input and that advice that he gave me then are things I still use today. Just this week, we had a client provided copy, and it was, hey, Q 107 listeners, was how the spot opened. And I was like, now you never talk to more than one person. It's always you. That was my first, first hair check lesson. I'm Darren Harvey. That's my friend. I remember it, and I remember like it's such basic thing that you don't know, but it's like no one hears for other people. They only hear for themselves. So think about it, when you're listening, when someone says you on the radio and you hear it, it's you, it's me, it's not them, it's me. They're saying you. They don't if they say you guys, it's less personal. He said that, and I remember, like, like, Galaxy ring, you know what I mean? Like, my whole life has just changed, man. But it's like, that is radio 101, that is, like, one of the most important basic, simple lessons that you could ever give you, you you not me, me, not you guys, you, you, you, you, always you. And still, like doing breaks. If I catch myself leaning towards me, I still go through the uncle Darren filter and I say, us, us. Like, listen to this idea. Look, we're gonna cash in huge, me and me, we're going to cash in huge. Like, I'm always giving my business tips on there, my ridiculous business ideas, and it's always like, we just got to get some perceived money together. You and me, we're going to cash in nobody else. Don't tell anybody. It's just for us. All right, we're cashing in large. So keep it secret. If anybody else is in the car, tell them to get out. Pull over, kick him out of the car, because this is a big one, and it's like, there's three people in the car. All three of those people think I'm talking to just the other two guys have got to get out of the car. But it's like, you don't think about that. And then Darren Harvey was the guy that told me that, and it's probably like, it's one of the most important things you'll ever know to do in radio.

Matt Cundill  1:01:40  
So one of the things that Darren and I have spoken about, like the last number of times that we've talked, once in person, twice on the phone, is mental health and mental health and radio stations and managing it. And I remember I had to start doing that in my late 20s, and I can only imagine that today, it's harder because there's less people around, but at the same time, we're more conscious of it, but we're always working on this because it's again, this is a business where we're in front of a microphone, often alone, speaking, creating, doing, and we're never really sure where we stand after we're done our work. Yeah, like,

Fearless Fred  1:02:21  
when you brought up mental health, I initially thought you were talking about the concept of people, like with substance abuse issues and all that stuff. And that's a huge thing.

Matt Cundill  1:02:29  
Well, that's part of it. That's what happens. If you don't take care of your mental health, then you'll want to sedate yourself with with whatever, whether it's, you know, booze or drugs, or it could be sex, it could be gambling, it can be any of that stuff, but it's just hard. I think it's harder these days than it was and things were dysfunctional. It's probably easier to hide things now.

Fearless Fred  1:02:52  
Yeah, it is, and it's also easier to give a false impression of how you're doing. It's a lot easier because, like you said, there's not as many people keeping tabs on you, like making sure that you're all right. Like it used to be you have one program director for the whole station. That's it. Now it's like the cluster. Then some people, there's like one program director looking after multiple clusters. And you're a young person, it's so easy to let things get at a hand. And I do legitimately wonder where my career would have been I feel like that. I had my bosses at my first two big full time gigs were not good managers of young talent. Specifically, that's not me excusing any of the idiocy that I pulled off. It wound up getting me fired because I think that's all my fault, but focusing on like keeping their feet grounded where they are, and letting them know the realities of their situation is something that you need somebody to do. And Darren did that. Darren was very good at that. And then when I got to power in Winnipeg, I was working with Lachlan cross. Lachlan would call you out. You needed to be honest with him. And there were a lot like, I feel that Winnipeg was where that was the crossroads for me, where things could have got really dark when I was there. They could have got really bad. But I had Hal Anderson, and I had Lachlan cross, and Lachlan would always, like, call me out on anything. If I was getting a little bit too weird, he'd call me out on it. And same Christian Hall, Steve Parsons. And then I was lucky to have those people in my life to give me tools to assess what I'm doing. And I feel like right now, with my mental health and being in the business is just an acceptance of the reality of the situation, a knowledge that this might not last. You know, you get to Toronto and you see so many people that think this is how it's always going to be like. They think that this is it's made in the shade. It's never going to end. It's never going to stop. Up, and then it stops. And they have no concept of who they are outside of the room. You know, they don't get it. And that real identity, it's so intertwined with their identity that they can't let it go. And right before, right before I got here, like right before I got here, it was right after Martin passed. Stu Myers gave me the harshest but best advice. But he said, This isn't your life, it's how you make your living, and you need to remember that. And there's so many people, and I don't, honestly, younger announcers, I don't think are the same way about it. Maybe they are, because radio doesn't have the same profound impact with younger people as it did. I see it now happening with YouTubers and podcast host type people. They don't know who they are off that feed, and I know that if everything ends tomorrow, everything ends tomorrow, I'll be sad, I'll be upset, I will miss it, but it's not my life. It's just how I make my living. I'll find another job. You'll

Matt Cundill  1:06:17  
still live a creative life, because you'll still be doing that creative work that you're talking about on the go train.

Fearless Fred  1:06:22  
Yeah, well, I just won't do it on the go train because I can't afford it anymore. I'll sit in the living room, wear sweatpants and do it. I think that's also a good way, is having a creative outlet, having something else you do outside of this. I know people that work in the business, that have worked in the business as long as I have, if not longer that they didn't have the foresight to find something outside to do. And it can be anything. Doesn't even need to be something creative. It can be just like a hobby, like maybe they they find something that they really like doing, and you put your energies into that. But I am fortunate that I've never things have not been easy, but people have had a lot harder than me, you know, and I've been very lucky, and things have happened at the right times to prevent me from falling into those real deep doldrums. Because I don't like it when people pass judgment on others for the poor decisions that they've made. Because I think there's a lot of factors going into those poor decisions that maybe people aren't, you know, taking into consideration, but knowing who you are as an individual is huge in terms of mental health. Like, I'm not fearless Fred, when I get home, I'm just the guy who doesn't load the dishwasher properly. You know, that's just who I am. That's who I am when I get home,

Matt Cundill  1:07:42  
the sound of podcast. There is an episode of WKRP that's like that, and that's the Riptide episode. What you're talking about here is not small. I think a lot of people go through this in some capacity. I think there were times being Matt mauler. By Friday, I was tired of being Matt mauler, and the way to get rid of that was to go to the Black Dog on white Avenue and have a few cigarettes and bunch of beers. And what's that drink they do, where they drop the shot in the beer and chug it, Jager Bomb. Yeah, that's the one, yeah,

Fearless Fred  1:08:15  
oh, you know, it's these kids these days. They don't even understand the concept of the Jager Bomb. I want to do a video with our midday announcer on on the edge. MK, who, I think is delight. There's it's frustrating, because there's talent in the game still. I think people of radio people always talk about how the industry is dying, and there's no talent like there used to be, and there's no this. And I think there's a lot of young talent. I just think a lot of that young talent is driven out because they want to make money, and the money is not there like it used to be. But there's some brilliant talents out there. And I think mk bullyer, like the that she does mid days on the edge, she is a good Instagram follow. Yes, she's a mess, but she is a monster talent, like she came in to do like a school project on me when I was doing drive on the edge. This is like 2011 or think, and she came in, and she came in with a bunch of other students from her school, and she's this little character. She's just this little gnome of chaos, and she's not even trying to be funny. She's not even trying to be funny. She's just captivating because the way she functions, like in the sense that I say things that people think are weird, it's like, I listen to her talk, I'm like, what's going on? But what? No, like, she confuses me. And I think she's brilliantly, brilliantly talented,

Matt Cundill  1:09:56  
so she's confusing you the same way you confuse Dean. Years ago, yes,

Fearless Fred  1:10:01  
all 100% like she came when she came in, I immediately was, I immediately went to Ross winters about her, like when she was sending out tape anywhere I was poking everyone being like, trust me, trust me. Like Jesse mods was another one. Dan Chen as well. And MK were three people that I was like fighting for. Alex Payne is another. She was an intern for a while. She does a lot of DJing stuff now, and I thought that she could have been a superstar level talent. She just didn't really want to go through the grind of doing it. But Dan Jesse and MK all did, and they're all great. But MK, to me, is like, if she was starting in radio and it was like 1987 and she just had somebody making sure that the wolves didn't go after she could be like a phenom, superstar broadcaster more than like almost anyone I've ever worked with, because I just don't get what's going on with her. But it's awesome. It's so good, yeah,

Matt Cundill  1:11:13  
and that's something that's gonna play out on air and online, and just follow it on Instagram and listen to it when you can. And by the way, it's easier than ever to listen, because we've got these nice devices, and you can just ask them to play

Fearless Fred  1:11:27  
it. Are you talking about her, her gnome God series, The gnomes in her backyard, and how she created gnome God. And I remember being like, this is, this is brilliant. So if it's like watching Nathan fielder, but it's not a bit what's going on with her. It's amazing. I love it,

Matt Cundill  1:11:48  
yeah. And I do, I do feel for I think Bob Willett was on this show, and he was talking about, I think my favorite quote from him is he goes, Well, I'm so glad you made it to work here at the edge, but you missed the best part. The golden days have already happened. It's like every station that you that you arrive to, well, the best times have already passed, and now we sort of look at the talent that's that's on the air, whether it's in Toronto or Vancouver in Edmonton, as being like, well, you miss the best times of radio. And it's, it's kind of not true.

Fearless Fred  1:12:19  
No, I'm not disparaging, like any of it. It is just frustrating when, like my agent, my voice agent, Paul, was also like the voice agents of the who's who of Toronto radio in the 1980s and the 90s, and he was just starting out in like representation for voice work. And he tells me the stories about just the money. I don't think the golden age of creativity is any different than it ever was. If anything, you're being forced to create social on air and multiple markets. You're being forced to do more. You need to be more creative. But man, if I could make that money, like, that's when I say, that's what I want, that's what I would want.

Matt Cundill  1:13:08  
That's true. The money is different. I mean, it's everywhere. Now it's online, it's on the air, it's it's spread out amongst so many different places.

Fearless Fred  1:13:19  
Gotta get into, like, AI, I gotta make an AI robot, and that's where the money is. Apparently those guys were all filthy rich. That's what I gotta do.

Matt Cundill  1:13:28  
Well, I was, I was reading today about open AI. They're not really making any money. They're not about the money. Just yet. They will be charging for it one day, but they got to figure out what it does before they start to sell it

Fearless Fred  1:13:40  
seems to be money in there. Though. There's a lot of people driving nice cars. Matt,

Matt Cundill  1:13:46  
yeah, by the way, I think think this is how you and I got to start the conversation of, hey, can you come back on this show and talk? Because it was going to be about AI, was what we were going to talk about. Not

Fearless Fred  1:13:58  
a fan. I hate it. I do. I hate it. I really do. And here's why. And I broke this down for you when we were texting. Said, If I sample a song, like, I have a number one hit song, and I sample your song, like, you got a great song from like, 10 years ago, I sample it. Okay,

Matt Cundill  1:14:14  
so I'm queen and David Bowie doing under pressure on your Vanilla Ice. Yes,

Fearless Fred  1:14:18  
I sample it. I create a number one hit song, and the big thing like that's included in the song is sample from your song. I gotta pay you money. I gotta pay you money, or you will destroy me. Ai, doesn't they? Harvest, harvest, harvest. Like copy written stuff that, like, is trademarked, that people have made, and then they don't pay anybody for it, like generative AI Period, end of story cannot exist without IP theft, like and people can make all of the arguments about, yeah, well, that's just the way it is. It's like, it's still wrong, it's still. Wrong

Matt Cundill  1:15:02  
if I go to the Acadia library to write my paper and I cite something from a book from about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and use it in the paper and I attribute it, is that stealing? Because that's pretty much what's happening when I'm using chat, GPT, no,

Fearless Fred  1:15:21  
that's not what's happening when you're using chat GPT. When you're using chat GPT, it is taking a sample from 10s of 1000s, millions of people's work that they might not even realize is being harvested, and when you're giving a citation that is automatically referencing whose work you're taking and incorporating into your own and using it to prove a point. You know what I mean? I don't think it's the same at all. And it's frustrating because we keep being told this is the this is the thing, this is the thing, this is the thing. But you do a voiceover for a video game, okay? You do a voiceover for a video game, then they make you say a bunch of stuff, and then they use that to create background audio, talking, vocals, etc. They don't even need you anymore. You're taking away a livelihood. And people could be like, don't choose the nature of the game. You can argue that all you want, but it's not, no,

Matt Cundill  1:16:16  
that's that's pure theft. That is, by the way, I already had a client do it and say, we don't, we're going to pay you $50 we don't need you anymore. I said I liked it better when I read it fresh for 500 so that has happened, and I think that's one thing. But if on chat, GPT, I go in and say, Tell me something about fearless Fred. And they listed, well, Fred said on the sound off podcast that you know, Jillian Foote called drunk one night, and they had it out on the thing, and there was that incident. If it's just cited, that's all you've done, is just lift it from my show and say, Well, I heard on this show that that happened, and it's cited

Fearless Fred  1:16:55  
to me. If that was what was happening, I would be a lot less upset about it. But that is not the problem that we're seeing right now. Is we are seeing every creative field get utterly decimated, and once again, it is taking things that people haven't given their consent to be consent to be used there's and working in comic books, this is like a huge thing right now, it's a huge thing,

Matt Cundill  1:17:25  
yeah, well, in literary and books, I think there's, there's something here.

Fearless Fred  1:17:31  
And what really is frightening to me is that you've seen the way people have been polarized just by real people posting things on social media now you're in just like two years, like a third plus of the content that is going on to Facebook is AI. It's aI drivel, when you're gonna have somebody who does not have the tools to discern what is clearly pandering nonsense versus what is written critically analytically, and then they're getting 500 articles of this pandering garbage, versus one thing that's written properly by somebody who's being like, critical and analyzing a situation. It's like, I shudder to think how manipulated people are. And what really irks me is they're bringing this AI into the classroom so they're already they're already paving things down to just force feed you nonsense. It really is. I think I remember watching the Terminator. You watch the Terminator, and this

Matt Cundill  1:18:43  
is what we were trying to stop. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  1:18:46  
yeah. It's like, the the line being like, the science fiction author writes the hell machine. And it's like, I wrote this as a warning billionaire tech guy. I just did it. I created the hell machine. And it's like, No, you were not supposed to create the hell machine. And it's like, you could go, like, Pandora's box is another perfect example. I mean, I was reading this one interview with the like, these Finnish guys, they have, like, a tech company in Finland, and, like, it's a security company. And they were talking about how they use AI to detect algorithms and fraud in banks, and how what they've seen come because of that, they were explaining how these guys that like, open AI and chat, GPT, they create these things, not even really knowing what it's going to do. And just be like, well, let's see what happens. And it's like, really, that's not a good plan, guys, it's not a good plan.

Matt Cundill  1:19:42  
There's always people in the back alley. Hey, let's start a fire. Hey, now throw some crud on it. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  1:19:47  
go to one public school. Go to one. It's no it's bad. It's bad. And particularly with like the creative fields, I think that we're. The where the beach, but I think what comes after the beach is where the bad stuff is going to be. And I think by the time it gets past the beach, this is the weird thing is that everyone seems to think that it's not going to affect them, like it's not going to affect me, it's not going to affect me. If you work in logistics, you're a truck driver, you work in logistics, and you are not worried right now, buddy, you are not paying attention. Last week, an automated trucking company launched between Houston and Dallas. Nobody's involved. The truck is just driving back and forth. And it's like, you think that's not coming. You really think that because there's like, a laundry list of people investing billions of dollars a week to make sure that you will never work again. And I it's all the kids should be watching Maximum Overdrive, because that's what's going

Matt Cundill  1:20:51  
to happen. Let me tell you. So I bought a car this week and it it parks itself.

Fearless Fred  1:20:58  
Ah, see. Man, I'm fine with that. I get the sense that, like, I want my car to be parking itself. I want my taxes to be done, my dishes to be made, all that stuff so that I can write and do creative fun stuff. I don't want the robot doing all the creative fun stuff so that all I can do is laundry and taxes and park cars. Come on, that's the problem.

Matt Cundill  1:21:22  
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I wasted my life because I lived in Montreal and could squeeze the car into the smallest particular spot. And I thought it was a great skill, and then I don't need that anymore. And I thought it was very important to learn about all the releases of YouTube and bad companies so I could recite them in mid days on the bear. And, you know, now we have Wikipedia. We don't need me anymore to do midday on the bear. That's

Fearless Fred  1:21:45  
where you got to find something that you can't get on Wikipedia is not spitting at one of MKS weird ass social media videos. Let me tell you that like that. That's the unique talents I think, are still out there. The era of just rip and read is gone like it is gone done. It never should have lasted as long as it did.

Matt Cundill  1:22:07  
Yeah, my worry with chat GPT is we're going to lose writers. First question I would ask everybody in an interview is, can you write? What do you write? And if it was No, I was like, okay, they're going to have to have a different angle to be on the air and to really survive, it was going to be different. And you need to know how to write. If you want to be in podcasting, if you would want to be on the air, you've got to know something about how to construct the bit, and yes, from scratch, because you can't let the computer start you off on this, because then you're behind all Google is and chat GPT is really the the mean you haven't done anything once you've asked it to do something, maybe it got you through the first 50% of something, and you can be well on your way, but maybe it didn't give you the best start either.

Fearless Fred  1:22:55  
Yeah, I get really, really defensive and annoyed when someone's like, why don't you just use chat GPT, like, No man, create something that's yours, that's not just a Frankenstein of something somebody else did. There's no soul in it. And that sounds so goofy to say, but people use the it's like vinyl in CDs. Man, it's no it is completely different. So

Matt Cundill  1:23:21  
for this show, I could unleash the beast and let it write the summary, but I have a relationship with you, and it doesn't understand that relationship, you know? So I'm gonna write the show notes and go, Hey, listen, Fred and I go back. Let me tell you how Fred and I go back. Let me tell you how we met. Let me tell you right and then make it less embarrassing for me. Why would I make it embarrassing?

Fearless Fred  1:23:46  
Because, man, it is embarrassing. I was talking to my son about this.

Matt Cundill  1:23:50  
Why is any of it embarrassing? What's the embarrassing part? Not embarrassing?

Fearless Fred  1:23:55  
Because I would write notes so that when I called you to get advice. I didn't sound like an idiot because I was so scared. And then, like, if you don't remember this, this is this why it's embarrassing, because I'm creepy and I remember details. I called you to ask about, like, how to get another job, because I've been fired from

Matt Cundill  1:24:14  
cigo, right from Port Hawkesbury, yeah,

Fearless Fred  1:24:16  
yeah. And I called you, and it's the MTV Video or just some shit on TV. I was like, writing things about what was happening on the show, and I'm like, I got all these notes. And I'm like, yeah, and then this happened. You're like, yeah, I don't watch that shit. And I'm like, Oh, next page. Go to the next page. My notes about other things that I could bring up to talk to you about. It was embarrassing. Like, it's embarrassing now, but it's a so desperate, so hungry. You know what I mean?

Matt Cundill  1:24:45  
Yeah, you know what's embarrassing is going through old Air Checks. I've got cassettes over on the floor. You're probably on some of them.

Fearless Fred  1:24:51  
I probably am. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  1:24:55  
I just, just should sit down with a case of beer and just go through the. All, and I'll probably hear some of the weird stuff, because a lot of it is either from show them, or from Magic 97 or from probably the bear. Yeah,

Fearless Fred  1:25:09  
you used to do this great thing that you'd put callers on together, but you wouldn't let them know that they were on air together, and then they would have to, like, figure out that they were on air together. That was always like, I stole that. Totally stole that from you. Oh, that was a fun one. I totally stole that. I would do that at the edge when I was there, at the beginning a lot. It was great.

Matt Cundill  1:25:28  
The song would end, and, you know, there was, like, a beep that would happen on the phone. And they would both beep together, and we put them together. Hello, hello. Did I win? Who's this? And we would just record it. We did reaction. You know, agree. I mean, there's reaction videos that we see all the time on YouTube, but I think Jake and I had a really good one one day where we would say, Man, I gotta tell you about the Cleveland steamer, but I cannot tell you what a Cleveland steamer is, but you can call us and we'll tell you, and all we do is play people's reactions all day, and we would just run reactions about the Cleveland steamer. We get offices talking. No, you call them. No, you call them. I gotta know. And it was just a way to disrupt every office in the middle of ratings. So we pull one out in the middle of ratings all the time, just to disrupt people's work day

Fearless Fred  1:26:16  
that bank, aha, man, banking, audio and all that stuff, and also dancing around codes. Now, were you saying you're not talking about the Cleveland steam runner because you're breaching code, or because you want to keep it above board and elicit the phone calls,

Matt Cundill  1:26:31  
I want the reactions, and we would play the reactions back on the air.

Fearless Fred  1:26:34  
Yeah. And then nobody knows what it is, so it's like, they gotta guess,

Matt Cundill  1:26:38  
right? And then, well, then we had this other we had this thing where we would read, you know, the who was playing in the bar, I can't remember, was like, bear tips or something like that, what's new around town, or who's playing in the bar. And three weeks later, I got the script and you want to join the band. Cleveland steamer is playing tonight at blues on white. You inspired them. I know good time times.

Fearless Fred  1:27:05  
There's also the code thing where you can't make certain jokes, like you can't do things you can't make a joke about a death on the air. And then finding a way to make the joke without make the joke is always like, that's the funnest part of the gig. And then when it's also fun, when it blows up in your face, you totally, we totally ruin it, and we're like, Ah, you gotta call the boss. I don't think that's gonna go over. Well, yeah, so like, can't make a death boat a joke on the air. And I read a story about, like, an old woman, and she was peeing by railroad tracks, and she's peeing a cow lands on her, and you're thinking, like, how did that? How did that happen? And then you explain, like, Well, the thing is, is that she was just peeing, and a train down the tracks hit a cow, launched it through the air, and it landed on her. And I'm not saying that's funny, but I am saying that if I was peeing by a track and a cow landed on me and I died and you didn't laugh about it, then you can't come to my funeral. And just like dancing around, because I'm not making a joke about it, you know, or when people are they're taking selfies and they fall off a cliff. I'm not going to make the joke about it, but I just want to know, is it okay to laugh if somebody dies while taking a selfie and they fall off a cliff, and then just getting them to talk about it, like in a very serious way, and then you're not saying anything, and no one's making the joke, so you can't really get in trouble, like the dancing around codes. And Dean was really good at it, but he was doing it so close to the line, it was inevitable he was gonna get caught, but he was very good about just don't say this and then technically you're fine. You know, he was great,

Matt Cundill  1:28:51  
yeah, but he still led the country in complaints. Well, yeah, him and Jerry Forbes, yeah, yeah.

Fearless Fred  1:28:59  
This is no disrespect to Jerry Forbes, but I will say that I think that Dean's complaints were cleverer. That makes any sense? Yes, it does. He was trying harder not to get those complaints. But I think you know exactly what I mean I do that's not saying anything bad about Jerry Forbes at all. It's just Dean was clearly trying to dance. Jerry was just walking into it. Yeah? And

Matt Cundill  1:29:27  
by the way, the all the letters were published, and so I'd read through them, and so I would just, I didn't have to hear the bits. I could just read the letters.

Fearless Fred  1:29:34  
Yeah, I got two guilties. Have you had one in the last 10 years. I had one three months ago. But I am not talking about it. A kid is way too close. I'm not talking

Matt Cundill  1:29:48  
about it. Why wouldn't you talk about it? Because I can just ask chat GPT, and they'll tell me,

Fearless Fred  1:29:53  
No, I don't know if you can. I think it might have gone like it went the distance and then it all. I. Dude, I fell at the heels. I can't talk about it, but I had, because it was very they called me while I was on vacation in Mexico about it. They

Matt Cundill  1:30:07  
probably just wanted to know what time and where was the tape, and can we get this done? Right?

Fearless Fred  1:30:13  
They wanted to make sure that it was me before all the paperwork went through, I just

Matt Cundill  1:30:19  
checked. There's no decision on it so, so you make it go away, that's great,

Fearless Fred  1:30:22  
yeah, like, I, the thing was, is that I knew, and that's something that, like, if you know you're gonna lose, just fall on the sword, just apologize. It's fine. And what happens is, when you apologize, you'll be shocked at how many people think it's ridiculous that you had to apologize. And that's kind of affirming. I do remember the first time experiencing that type of situation was BJ Burke calling the Virgin Mary a slut on the air. And then as soon as he says it, how? Anderson goes, he can't, you can't. No beach. You can't, you can't do that. He goes, what? I'm a Catholic if I'm not going to say it, who is since the way he said it, and then I'm like, the stunt boy, so I'm in the room pushing buttons, and then we've got to go into Steve Parsons office and just watching his like, and then like, BJ so relentlessly, saying that it's okay because he's Catholic and he's allowed it's Like, because they think, is that telling me I can't, that's religiously oppressing me? And I'm like, and in my head, I'm thinking, is that true? Is that real? Is that really religious oppression? Because I don't know anything. I literally just hang out in the room when they're there, learning, trying to figure out how to do things. But yeah, what a show,

Matt Cundill  1:31:39  
particularly for show on Good Friday, and we were forced to work because it was ratings, and there was nobody. It just,

Fearless Fred  1:31:46  
I don't know, that was BBM style, right? Yeah,

Matt Cundill  1:31:51  
it was like, I don't know, sometime in the 90s, and it's, there's nobody listening. And anyway, we got to the end of the show, and, you know, we're trying to wrap it up when we've not had a very good show. And it doesn't matter, because no one's listening anyway. And finally, I said, Well, hope you have a great weekend, Jake. And he goes, yep, I just want to say thanks to the Jews for acing our Lord and giving us this holiday. And I it's the last thing. And I'm like, I'm like, shocked, and I pulled down the microphones and then yell at him. I say, you can't say that. He's sure I can no one's listening see. And sure enough, nobody, the lights weren't blinking. About two weeks later, I was walking down Jasper Avenue, and I ran into the local rabbi, and local rabbi says, You guys are funny. I said, Hey, thanks for listening to the show. I really appreciate it. That thing about ace in the Lord, and given the holiday I couldn't stop laughing. It's the funniest thing I've ever heard. And in that moment, I realized nobody took us seriously anyway, and that's good.

Fearless Fred  1:32:51  
Yeah, man, I was when I got to Q, I thought for sure that it was going to be made in the shade, man, in terms of complaints and people being mad about stuff, but I don't think I've ever dealt with a more sensitive audience in my entire career, like they're they, they want you to know they're there,

Matt Cundill  1:33:11  
that they're there. Well, there's something about Toronto. It might be just, I don't know if it's the politics in the water. You

Fearless Fred  1:33:19  
know what it is. It's weird because they'll talk about how offended they are about everything. One time I said I referred to bad company as a classic, and the guy was like, well, you're trying to make me feel old. And it's like, they'll go off like this, but then, without the slightest sense of irony, they'll refer to anyone under the age of 50 as a as a fragile snowflake, and I'm like, You're upset about everything. It's wild. I

Matt Cundill  1:33:46  
looked at my traffic for the podcast and how most people arrive in the search terms that it takes for people to get here. And a lot of it is 640 and so people are punching 640 and then 640 by the way, is the third station where, where Fred is, because it's edge Q and 640 but a lot of it just gets piped through 640 and so if I've had a guest on from or if I've had a guest on this show that worked at that station, at some point, just the traffic comes screaming through. I think people are sitting around googling all day for things to complain about in Toronto.

Fearless Fred  1:34:20  
Yeah, man, that wouldn't surprise me at all. Yeah, it's something I'll tell you. 640 is super political now. Kelly Cottrell was like, my I loved Kelly Cora. Show is super pop culture focused, but it just feels like it's just getting angrier and angrier. I don't know

Matt Cundill  1:34:41  
Well, it's really reflecting what's out there. You know, I'm a pragmatic person. I will tell you straight to your face why I think something's not working. I've already given all the solutions for the Toronto Maple Leafs. You could sit me down. I'll tell you what, where the Conservatives did not get elected. I could tell you. Exactly why, and it's that anger and the inability to be pragmatic on situations, to to open your tent a little bit and let things in. But by doing that, you don't get clicks, you don't get attention all that stuff, all the likes and the shares and stuff like that. That's all the currency to media these days, and it's, it's like cocaine, it's like, and you wake up the next morning and you're, you feel like shit, you're hungover and you're angry, and that's what we're doing every day. And you know, I'm a pragmatic person. I'm never going to get pushed on X or YouTube for any of the stuff I do, because it's smart and it's, oh, well, wait a second. I think we can work with that. That's not what people want. You just want to people want to fight me. Yeah, I 100% agree.

Fearless Fred  1:35:49  
It does this feel like the every day you're just getting a bunch of people that are trying to make you mad and angry, and this is what you need to be afraid of, and this is the group of people you need to be mad at because they're ruining everything. And, yeah, it's, it's, it's just too much. That's why we started doing a thing Joanne and I, we started doing the daily dopamine where we do something that's just genuinely like a little thing that makes you happy. You know, like a brand new jar of peanut butter. Oh, like when that foil comes off the way that peanut butter looks on the top. You take a first scoop, feeling of power so great, or the the opening of the can of tennis balls, pulling a plastic sheet off of a new TV, like all those things, just to combat the the wave of negativity that we're always being inundated with. But I gotta run, man, I gotta go to bash. Are you joking? No, I'm exhausted. I've been up since super early this morning, and I gotta take my kids.

Matt Cundill  1:36:47  
Oh, you wanted you just think you just end this podcast right now. Yeah.

Fearless Fred  1:36:52  
Well, I got, I kind of gotta one more question, give me, give me, and I'll sync it. Oh,

Matt Cundill  1:36:58  
you want me to ask the question? Yeah. First of all, I want to ask you why you're going to bed when the Oilers are on TV and playing a playoff hockey game right

Fearless Fred  1:37:06  
now. I can't watch the game from home, like I can't watch the first round. I gotta go to bed. I can't watch it. I can't know anything about it. I gotta go home. Go to bed when it gets to the second round, that's when I have to start going out for every game. It's a system. It got them to game seven last year, and then this is the problem. This is what happened. I brought my wife and kids to game seven. Never should have done that. We got in the car. My oldest was crying. I didn't want to tell him it was his fault, but I wanted to tell him it was his fault, but I did not tell him that it was his fault.

Matt Cundill  1:37:40  
Quarter to 11 where you are now. Bedtime is is precious. I totally get it. It's late for me too, but I did want to know what's going to be your morning

Fearless Fred  1:37:48  
routine tomorrow. I got to get up and I got to take my youngest kid to play rehearsals, and then I'm going to come home and I'm going to make breakfast for my other kid. My wife starts work really early because she works from home and works remotely for Canadian Blood Services. So I'm going to make her tea, and then I'm going to work out, and then I'm going to go to work. So that's going to be the routine. And then once I get to work, focus on all the prep stuff right on the train, and when I finish the day, we'll see what else happens. I do have a kind of a cool thing that's going on with a comic book artist from Montreal right now, actually, interestingly enough, so that's kind of where my head is at, and I gotta get some stuff ahead done on

that. 

Matt Cundill  1:38:29  
Fred, thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it, 

Fearless Fred  1:38:31  
dude, absolutely. Anytime 

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  1:38:33  
the sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Taylor MacLean, social media by Aidan Glassey, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.