I'm so excited to finally have this next guest on my show for once.
I'm usually on his show.
We have the host of, oh, I almost said the morning drive.
That would have been hilarious.
We have AM 800's Dan Macdonald.
Hey, hey, I'm pumped to be here.
I've had you on my show for so long, and I always say the podcast, and here I am honest.
This is great to finally be here.
I'm super excited.
I am too, and nervous as heck.
Oh, God.
I always find the ones that where you actually know the person or have conversed with them,
they're harder to try and figure out questions to ask.
Yeah, it's true, because you know them already.
I get the same thing.
Exactly.
Now, before we get started with this episode, I wanted to let you know it is sponsored by
GL Heritage Brewing Company if you sit inside or you decide to sit outside on a nice warm
night where you see the sunset and you get to play some cornhole and just enjoy yourself.
The variety of beer and seltzers that they have, they're amazing.
I had the blueberry one.
Make sure that if you're in the Amersburg area, you head out to GL Heritage, and if you can't
be, then check them out on social media and you'll catch all their events.
Now, Dan, you're such a natural on the radio.
Was that always your calling or?
No, it wasn't.
Originally, even though in a weird way, I've been doing that since I was old enough to
have my own tape recorder.
I was making fake radio shows and taping songs off the TV with my radio tape recorder and
then pretending to be a DJ back selling and front selling the songs.
But my calling originally was all writing.
I entered into St. Clair College journalism program in hopes of my dream was to be a rock
and roll journalist for Rolling Stone magazine or even work for the Windsor Star.
Not that I'm not like, I'm rolling the Windsor Star.
I wanted to work for the Windsor Star.
I wanted to work for a local publication, a newspaper.
The dream was rock star journalist.
But one thing led to another and I fell into radio.
That was my approach.
I was influenced by people like Erica M on Much Music.
She was my favorite and I loved how she just sounded like somebody who you'd put a record
on and she'd talk about how much she liked it.
And I liked that she wasn't talking down on people like a big booming announcer.
She sounded like a real person.
And I always thought I loved that.
I loved Sookie and Lee on Much Music.
I thought she did the same thing.
Another guy, Steve Anthony on Much Music.
And I love George Strambolopoulos.
I was a big fan of him too.
And locally, Lynn Martin, whose show Time Slot I Took Over, I loved her pace, her flow,
the way she just was someone talking about news on an eye level way.
So those were my inspirations.
So if it sounds natural, they were, I think those were all very natural sounding people.
Yeah, because I didn't know that your morning show was your first one until Jen from Tailgate
Takeout told me that she's known you for 20 years.
I'm like, how?
Oh yeah.
Because I've been doing the talk show, the Dan McDonald show for, it'll be five years
now, but I can't believe that, in October.
But I did music radio on 93, down the river FM dial for Windsor, Detroit for 13 years.
Oh my goodness.
And that was like back selling the front, selling the songs, like what I was kind of
practicing since I was a kid.
And that was a whole different thing.
You know what I mean?
That was a whole different job.
But that was fun.
That was really fun going to live shows and introducing bands and meeting bands and bands
coming on the station.
And that was a really, really great job.
I do miss it.
I miss it, miss it so much.
But this is more connected to the community, which I like too.
I can say I honestly do understand that because way back in the day, dating myself, Trillium
Cable, I used to write all of the ads that would go across the screen.
And that was my job.
But they also filmed with Dominic Papa, the news and all them.
And they taught me how to do the camera and a little bit of the editing and people that
would come in for their news or they'd go out for sports or concerts.
I was always bugging them.
I want to come, I want to come.
Oh yeah.
Could you, were you allowed to go along to it?
Just that one that they told you about, The Glass Tiger.
And they got backstage footage.
Oh sweet.
Well, it's funny, the behind the scenes stuff, I started at the radio station as a writer
with no intention, believe it or not, of one day getting on the air.
In fact, my first time walking through that door, I thought, wouldn't it be neat if one
day I had a show like Lynn Martin?
I thought that.
But I was a writer.
I wrote commercials, I wrote promos.
And the thing about writing those types of scripts, you have to write them as if you
are going to say them.
So you would have to read them out loud.
You couldn't just write them and hand them in because it never sounded right.
You had to read it out loud and be like, ooh, that stumbles.
That sounds weird.
So I got to writing in kind of a smooth flow of how I just picture in my head, how would
the announcer say this?
And I'll write it that way in their voice.
You know what I mean?
So that was a big help to leading into it.
That would be fun.
I used to love the Lynn Martin show.
When they used to do the giveaways where they shock people.
Oh, I want to start doing that.
I got it.
You got it once?
I got it once.
John had gone away for work, my husband, and I was at the clinic counter at the Bay and
she came up to me and it didn't even dawn on me who she was.
And I'm just getting some stuff.
And she's like, add on to it.
I'm buying it today.
And I turned around, I'm like, oh my God.
And then I started fangirling and I was having a fit, but I didn't want to be overly, you
know, like I don't want to ask for too much.
So I just said, OK, I'll just have this and this.
And she's like, are you sure?
Yeah.
And then the next day they gave somebody a stove at Home Depot.
And I'm like, really?
I could have got like the whole counter.
Oh, next time take the counter.
I know.
Take the counter.
I loved her.
So when she retired, then you came on the air and I'm like, oh, for crying out loud.
Like I loved her.
What's this going to be?
But it seemed like it was a smooth, seamless transition.
Well, she was my very first caller because I think I was worried about that because she'd
been there for 40 years and she's beloved.
You know what I mean?
She was just a staple that everyone knew every morning she was on.
So when I took over that show, her and I were talking for like months in advance about it.
Just like, are you sure you want it?
It's this.
You can be contentious.
You can get people who don't agree with you.
And she kind of gave me the whole lot, the land of how it was just to do kind of a changing
of the guard.
My very first day before I even introduced a topic, I saw my producer, Will said, actually,
Dan, you have a caller.
I was like, I have a caller already.
What the heck?
And I didn't even put two and two together.
Line one, Lynn.
Okay.
Hi, Lynn.
Good morning, Dan.
It's Lynn Martin.
And she kind of gave it her blessing.
And it was nice, I think, for the audience to hear that just to say like Lynn Martin
is okay with Dan taking over the show.
You know what I mean?
It wasn't like I didn't barge in like it's my show now.
I got much respect to Lynn because like in the beginning, she was one of the influences
for me.
Like I've listened to her for the majority of her career.
You know what I mean?
So she's a huge influence on me.
Gigantic.
So it meant a lot being her being caller number one.
Yeah, that would be really cool.
It is.
Yeah.
Yeah, because she was great.
And the funny thing was, is you have a distinct voice.
And I had never put two and two together that you were Lana's brother that I had met before
you even started.
That's right.
You were taking photos and stuff.
Yeah.
At her baby shower until you messaged on one of the Facebook things you liked and said,
oh, my nephew is so cute.
And then I'm going, oh, that's Uncle Dan.
Oh my goodness.
I hear you every morning.
It didn't even dawn on me.
And you took beautiful photos, too.
Yeah.
They were gorgeous.
I was so excited about those pictures.
He is so darn cute.
He's a cute kid.
Yeah, he is.
He really is.
He looks a lot like you, Lana.
Oh, yeah, he does.
He does.
Yeah, I see it, too.
Well, one thing about him, too, it's funny how you see little things come out in kids.
He reminds me of me because in any Disney show, Star Wars show, he always is rooting
for the villain.
And that was me.
Like my favorite character was always like Darth Vader, the evil queen, the wicked witch
of the West, like the Joker.
It was always that was my favorite were the villains.
And he had whatever gene that is.
He is the villain kid.
He loves the villain.
And I'm like, that's just so cool.
That is cute.
I see a lot of me and him through that.
I love him.
I haven't seen him in a few years since that Christmas shoot.
But I see his pictures when you have them.
And it's like, oh my God, he's getting big.
I can't believe he's taking the bus to school.
I know.
It gives me anxiety.
I wanted to follow the bus the first day of school.
I'm like, I got you in case something happens.
I know.
It's very cool seeing him grow up.
You are really passionate about our community, about the Windsor-Essex County area.
Have you always had that passion for our area or is this is something that's grown as you've
Yeah.
I mean, it's definitely something that's grown, but I've always loved the things that I love
and I'm passionate about.
I've always had that.
Like since I can remember what I would do in my summer vacation.
I'm talking seven, eight, nine.
I would get on my bike and my favorite place to hang out was this place called Olympic
Comics.
And they sold comic books.
I didn't really care much about comic books, but they had vinyl records there.
And I'm not kidding.
I was seven and eight years old and I just loved looking through the vinyl records and
I would spend hours in there like pulling them out.
I didn't even know who half the bands were.
I look back now and I remember like, oh, that was Roxy Music.
That was Led Zeppelin.
That was David Bowie.
But I remember spending so much time and kids would go into this place because it was a
comic book store and they caused trouble and the guy used to kick everybody out.
I wish I knew where that guy was today.
He'd kick everybody out, but he would let me stay because he's like, well, you're good.
You just quietly look at the record so you can stay.
So that was kind of my little safe space.
I did the same thing with the record shop and there was a video store by my house too
called Reruns Video.
Yes.
Right on the corner of Tecumseh and Alexis, I think.
And we didn't rewind the video.
It was called Reruns was further down the road.
Yeah, that was down by my house.
Yeah, it's down by Tecumseh.
Rewind Video is called.
And we didn't have a VCR.
So I would spend hours reading the backs of horror movies.
And I just loved the little small shop vibe.
I got to know the girl and she'd give me treats and stuff when I'd be in there.
So I always loved just small businesses that did cool things.
I've always loved that vibe.
That was my favorite place to hang out, like a spot that was a neat place you could go
and learn about things.
So that's kind of where it started and just kind of grew from there.
It's just me being interested in like a few neat stuff.
I like people who do neat stuff.
Yeah.
That's kind of what it is.
Original.
Yeah.
And then it kind of just rose like, oh, that's also supporting local.
Who knew?
And that's kind of become the mantra of the show, right?
It's like supporting local.
But it's really just supporting cool things that I like and that I've become passionate
about.
And you are definitely passionate about music.
And I see that you're always traveling like to Michigan or Toronto.
Chicago.
Wherever for concerts.
How do you feel that we hold up to other areas?
Because I'm sure you go to the smaller bars.
Oh, yeah.
I've always loved our local music scene.
Always loved it.
And that got ignited back when I was of age to go to the clubs.
Just about of age.
And I started watching bands perform and I fell in love with some of them right away,
the ones that really, really spoke to me.
And it was when I found that little certain niche, like there were the top 40 cover bands
and stuff.
And that was neat.
It was great.
Oh, yeah.
It was this one night, probably 1994, 1995, I went to The Loop when they had live music
and a band called the Kildare Trio was performing.
And I, whatever it was, flicked a switch in my head and I'm like, this is the live music
and type of band I would go to Detroit to see.
Like, this is a band I want their CD.
And I asked them after, do you have an album?
And they did and I bought it, I got the tape.
And I just became a big fan and started following a lot of people in that band were in other
bands and a lot of the members were interchangeable.
So I kind of started following that little like crew of musicians and that led to other
musicians.
We have a rock solid music scene.
We really do.
And it recently, I think, saw a resurgence with some phenomenal bands who were just on
their game.
Like ones off the top of my head, the Blue Stones are doing phenomenal right now.
People like Christy Cochran, people like the band Hutch.
I don't know why Hutch isn't gigantic because they're one of the best bands around.
Period.
Not Windsor bands, just best bands around.
Like period.
Yeah.
Flowerface, who I adore.
She's been signed.
She's in Montreal now doing incredible things, working with great people.
We've launched a lot of great bands.
It's small, but it's gritty and it's mighty.
And it's just really, really interesting, our music scene.
I love it.
And I think it's very strong.
There's a little bit of Detroit in us.
It's just, yeah, there's that too.
Right?
Yeah.
I'm not, obviously, I'm a little too old for the bar scene.
I'm a grandma.
I go to bed early, but I was thinking about when I was preparing for our podcast and I
was watching yours with Anthony Sheridan, who's going to be here in a couple of days.
Oh, I love Anthony.
I do too.
And you guys talk nonstop about music.
Yeah.
And I'm thinking about it.
It's like, okay, I may not listen to them, but like I know Sam, who's a pony.
Right, yeah, yeah.
And I know the Autumn Kings because they've come in to be photographed in our studio.
Christian Vega?
Christian Vega.
Vega.
Yes, guitar virtuoso.
I know him because he is actually a teacher at Elite Music Studios.
Right, that's right.
Or Link Piano.
Right, yeah.
And he is amazing.
This guy has such a love for teaching young kids that they were supposed to be recording
in Michigan.
He actually made them wait and the studio's waiting, the band's waiting, everybody's waiting
because he wanted to make sure he was there for his students when they got up to perform
their recitals that we took pictures of.
So that's very cool.
The local artists are also really big lovers of our community and giving back.
Very supportive of each other too.
Exactly.
There isn't like a rivalry, at least not that I couldn't know ever since, but everyone seems
to kind of have everyone's back and support each other and I love that.
They really do.
Yeah.
I've heard of music rivalries in some cities.
I'm like, well why are you like, everyone's doing their own thing.
Like, just you do you and let someone else do them.
And I don't really see that attitude in Windsor.
It seems a bit more welcoming.
Who knows?
I'm not a musician.
Maybe there are bands that hate each other.
I have no idea.
I'd kind of be in on that drama.
Get the popcorn out, right?
Why not?
As long as I'm not involved.
Totally.
Everybody seems very, very talented, very passionate and has everyone's back.
So it seems cool.
And they don't understand that having each other's back is actually good for them because
then they're going to be promoted.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
You get what you give.
And a lot of people I think in our area, for the most part, follow that.
I think so too.
And they're really supportive of each other.
Yeah.
Windsor, I think Windsor is that kind of a city.
We always kind of were very, we're very, we're very gritty, but we're also, I think we're
kind at our core more than anything else here in Windsor.
I think so.
Windsor and Essex County has just such a small town vibe.
And I love that.
It's just a small community for the amount of people we have.
Yeah.
And we're very lucky because we have a major US city right next to us.
Like that's such a big perk that we have that we can go experience Detroit and then come
back to Windsor and do something entirely different.
It's such a neat, it's such a neat vibe we have here.
I couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else.
I know.
And I used to be the one, it was so funny growing up where it's like, well, you can't
shop local.
It's so expensive.
It's so pricey.
And now it's like, I have a hard time going to regular stores because I just really enjoy
the local stores and the stores.
You end up talking to somebody for 10 minutes in there.
Well, you mentioned GL Heritage.
Well, fun fact, in 2020 when everything was shut down, I was doing a local music concert
series where we'd get bands.
We'd go to either wineries or distilleries or breweries and they'd play.
We'd pay the band and people would come.
And it was a really, really cool thing.
And of course, 2020 music venues were shut down.
So GL, we went online and GL Heritage was the venue.
And one of the coolest things about that, she kind of shared every story behind every
beer they had on tap.
And it was so neat.
I didn't know what some of the more I can't think of the names now, but she'd say this
one is called this because and then she'd tell this really cool anecdotal story.
And it's like, oh, that is so neat.
And just it connected you so much to it when you're, you know, when you know the back story.
I love that's what I love so much is the local, just the story behind it and the history that
we don't celebrate enough here in Windsor or rich history.
We're getting better at it, though.
Yeah, we are.
And I really, really do think that we need to start becoming a destination area with
everything we offer between Essex County and Michigan.
And we know we don't.
This is not ripping on Wednesday, but what we don't do, what we are bad at, we do not
to our own horn enough.
Exactly.
Even some of the history have I know people are going to be eye rolling, but like, OK,
the rum runners history, like, shamefully, me even, I live in Walkerville.
I did not go on that tour until like 2016.
Like, like, I'm Walker.
And I was only one of the tours.
There's two.
There's the distillery where they make it all.
Then there's like the offices where the really cool one.
They don't do that one anymore.
But 2016, I finally went to the office tour and I couldn't believe the history.
I'm like, how aren't there more movies made about where we live and where we grew up in
this history?
Then I went into the distillery tour and learned more about it.
But there's that there's our black history with the Underground Railroad and Amersburg
and the ties there.
I know we have the museum, but I feel like we don't we don't lift that up enough and
promote it.
And we should because it's amazing.
And I know that people are curious about it, especially in Michigan and United States,
because I'll look on my RSS feed.
I put it out to probably about seven or eight different places.
And I have more people in the United States that listen to the show than there are in
Windsor.
Wow.
Isn't that wild?
Yeah.
All over the United States, they listen to it.
All over Ontario, they listen to it.
But United States is kind of interested in us.
And you know, it's funny, it kind of makes you reimagine what local is, right?
Is local for us specifically for us, not for London, Ontario, not for anywhere else, for
Windsor, Ontario, Windsor, Essex.
Local is geographical and local to me when I hang out in Detroit, that is supporting
local because that's a seven minute bridge right away.
Tunnel, bright tunnel right away.
It's right there.
So to me, it is supporting local.
And didn't they used to call us Southern Detroit?
They did.
Yeah.
Well, even the reason radio when I was on music radio, you know, stations like CKLW
was one of them, 89X, the river.
Everyone was under the impression that we were broadcasting out of Detroit.
And they're like, oh, you're all in Detroit.
And like what?
You're in Canada.
You're in Windsor.
And that's where the legendary CKLW, which was the biggest radio station in North America
was out of Windsor, Ontario.
Like that's that's in history books, that station.
So it's really cool that that is our locality is is the U.S. is part of our locality, I
think here specifically.
And I think the U.S. knows us a little bit more than our own country does, because everybody
seems to think that Ontario stops at London.
Yes.
Maybe Chatham.
They might know about Chatham, but.
I know it's like, how do you think you get over to Michigan?
Right.
I know we're the we're the big border crossing.
Now that always that bugs me so much, that whole thing.
But I one thing I do love doing is asking people who aren't from here, either from Detroit
or from Toronto or from somewhere not here.
I love asking them what they're on the show on my radio show.
What are your thoughts on Windsor?
How do you see us?
Like the good, bad, the ugly.
Tell us what you love, what you hate.
What's your impression of Windsor?
And it's always things that never crossed my mind.
And I'm like, wow, it's neat seeing.
I think we take it for granted living here.
And I don't know, we rag on it a lot.
We're also maybe humble.
I don't know.
Maybe we're humble about it.
I don't know.
Yeah, I agree.
It's probably that we're humble, but also I think we just took ourselves for granted.
Yeah, that's the big one.
And now we're starting to understand that we have this great area and why not utilize
it and stop depending and relying on all these big corporations and companies and start figuring
it out, making it special again.
Now we don't have Boblo to make us special, so we need to...
I know.
I miss that.
I do too.
I wish I could have experienced that as an adult.
Yeah.
Actually, you didn't?
No, I was a teenager when it closed.
Well, I was too cool.
I went through the cool stage, so I just didn't go to Boblo anymore.
But when I hit my 20s, it was closed.
And that's when I would have had Boblo a different way in my 20s.
But I think I stopped...
Last time I went was probably...
I was probably 13 years old.
My grade eight class trip was to Boblo.
I was pregnant at 23 and they said they were going to close it.
And I actually went one last time by myself.
I drove out there and everybody's like, why?
And I'm like, I just wanted to say goodbye.
No kidding.
It was awesome.
Have you been out there since?
Yes.
And I got massive poison.
Oh no.
Well, we took our cameras and we're going through and I'm on...
I'm just wearing flip-flops and we're going through the bushes, down the little train
tracks and getting all the pictures.
That was, oh God, probably about seven or eight years ago.
It's weird, eh?
It was really kind of creepy and sad.
Yeah.
I agree.
I mean, no disrespect to anybody who lives in Boblo.
Oh, their part's beautiful.
But the Boblo, you can see little remnants and it's just like, wow, everything's kind
of overgrown.
And it's just, I remember when this place, this spot had so much life to it.
It's weird seeing the weeds and you got poison.
They could kind of make a horror movie in that area.
Yeah.
It's very eerie.
But I remember being like, man, the memory is here.
But it's like everything is just a bit lopsided now.
Even driving down the road in Amersburg and seeing the ramp and it's just kind of all
falling over.
It's like, get rid of it.
It's just, it's ripping my heart out.
Watch it.
It's sad seeing it just die a slow death, basically.
Yeah.
Rip it down.
Yeah.
But yeah, it'll be a day when that comes down.
Oh, it'll be sad.
Yeah.
I know.
I...
Do you still read?
Do I read?
OMG.
I read at least a book a week.
Well, do you still do a book club?
No, that's going to start up again soon.
OK.
I did the book club for a year and we kind of took a break for spring summer, but that's
going to be coming back probably in the fall.
Don't quote me on that, but it is coming back.
Oh, god, because I missed it every time.
Oh, it was great.
No, I...
The book club was a book that I'd kind of pick.
I'd pick a book that was like safe enough that it wouldn't like...
It'd be good for all readers.
You know what I mean?
We did all local authors too.
That was an accident, by the way.
It wasn't really originally supposed to be all local authors, but local authors kept
approaching me and I'd read their book and I'd be like, oh, this is perfect for book
club.
So it became like a local author book club, which is even better if you ask me.
It's better.
But I read a book a week and I'm constantly reading.
I'm a fast reader, but I love books.
Not just local.
I love all books, but yeah, I read...
I'm reading one right now called Bunny and it's like a weird satire horror, I think.
It's about all these sorority girls who hang out and they call each other bunny.
But something sinister is happening.
It's a really good read.
Margaret Atwood gave it a good review on the blurb.
Oh, I like her.
On the book, yeah.
So I'm a nonstop reader though.
Yeah.
I wanted to go to this one.
I got this book so that I could go to your book club.
And then yeah, Brewed in Windsor.
And then I think a podcast or something came up and I couldn't do it and I was so bummed
out.
But that was a good one because I partnered with the Essex County Library for the book
club and they said they wanted to try different things.
They said, why don't we have the book club at a brewery?
So we went to the Grove and we had Elaine and Chris come down and we had some beer and
talked about Brewed in Windsor.
It was really fun.
It's awesome.
I don't know.
I'm just very nostalgic and I really love our area and I'm starting to love it more
and more.
The more I do this podcast and I meet the people and I see their businesses and their
passion and their love and we have so many events coming up and going on.
We're just hopping left, right and center.
There's so much going on.
You do a great job of putting small businesses out there too.
I've discovered a couple from your podcast.
Like Auntie Aldo's I discovered from your podcast.
Love her.
And the other one too, and forgive me, you might know it.
I can't think of it now, but I actually reached out and had them on my show.
The business who does the wooden dome thing where it's all light and I can't think of
it.
Oh no, the NeuroThr, well that's what it is.
The egg.
Yeah, the egg.
Yes.
That when I saw that.
Did you try that egg?
I didn't try it.
No, but I need to because that's right up my alley.
But you do a great job of promoting small cool things going on.
I really do enjoy it and I love meeting the new businesses and through it and through
Jake, my friend, I've met a lot in the drag queen area in the last year.
I've really gotten into that community.
He's dragged me to drag shows.
You got dragged to drag.
Got dragged to drag.
Am I having a memory or was I at your first drag show?
You were at that brunch.
That was your first one, right?
Yeah, with Coco.
Yeah.
Because I knew Coco.
And then in Amersburg, you hosted that night.
True Festival.
The True Fest.
Yep.
And now we have Queens of Pride.
We're going to be hosting that.
I can't.
Fourth year in a row.
Pride Fest.
I am volunteering that year and I've never been.
Oh, you'll love it.
So I can't wait.
It's great.
Now our Pride community, that I can speak to.
I've been active with the Pride community for years now, but our Pride community, you
know, you go to Toronto and Toronto is where the party's at.
I mean, it's massive.
That's an economy like driver for that whole city when that comes around.
It's huge.
It's like a party I've never seen before.
But I will tell you, I will take Windsor Pride a thousand times.
I love Toronto Pride, but I'll take Windsor Pride any day because it is so community.
The president of Pride Fest is there conducting the parade and walking.
Everyone is so hands on deck.
Everybody knows everybody.
Like it is the sense of community.
People come together and it just, it feels so organic.
Not that Toronto's feels inauthentic, but because it is smaller, it feels like such
a community and it's, it's you'll see when you volunteer.
It's such a great vibe Windsor Pride.
They do such a wonderful job.
Even the events that I've gone to, the drag queen shows in that, but even the audience,
like everybody's just a huge community.
They're all supportive of each other.
They all know each other.
And I like that.
The one thing, the one thing, because I host that event, that Queens of Pride event on
Saturday at Lansbury, I'm also kind of in charge of wrangling the drag queens before
they have to come on.
Make sure they have no drama.
Yeah.
There is, there is DST, Drag Standard Time.
There's Dance Standard Time too.
Drag Standard Time is way different and I will not go out on stage to introduce them
unless I can see them.
So I'll be like, I'm not going up there because I once, once I announced and they were not
ready and it's like, oh my God, now what do I do?
Do I do stand up?
What am I supposed to do?
The drag queen isn't ready.
They're getting their lashes on or something.
So now I grab them like, hey, don't move.
I'm announcing you and you're going on.
So that's a bit of a challenge, but they're phenomenal.
They're so great.
They're really, really fun.
Yeah.
Venom Von Snap.
She's going to be there.
She's on my, I actually interviewed her last week and she came here early.
Oh really?
She was actually early, full on and I'm going to air that episode the week of the Pride
Fest.
Oh cool.
So I love her.
Now I'm glad you mentioned her because I've never officially met her before, but I've,
I have been a fan for so long and I'm actually going to be on a panel with her coming up
at Art Gat, at the Art Windsor Essex.
And when I saw that she was on, I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to fan boy out when
I see her.
Cause I'm a big fan, but I'm a fan from afar.
So I'm pumped to work with her in Queens of Pride and I'm pumped to share a panel with
her about Pride coming up too.
Yeah.
She's really cool.
Jake introduced me to her as well and I love her and I tell you, bitch doesn't need to
wear a wig because she has some nice hair without it.
Really?
Oh yeah.
She's got curlies and oh, wow.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
But yeah, I've been, I just love her look and she just seems really cool.
So I'm excited.
We had, we went for a meeting, even though I met her, we went for a meeting cause I always
like to meet everybody before and we were at the mall.
She's getting ready to go to work, but we stopped in at Sephora and by the time we had
to leave Sephora because we had tried so much of the perfume, I literally wanted to gag.
I'm like, okay.
I came home and I had to shower because it was all over my clothes.
I'm like, oh my God, they're going to die.
I got dragged.
She was so much fun.
I just, I love her so much.
She's very cool.
Yeah.
And we had our little goodbye to Coco because she came to my podcast wearing clothes from
Coco.
Oh, she's wearing Coco attire.
Yes.
The pink outfit and yeah.
Cause Coco has kind of stepped away a little bit from the drag scene as far as I know.
Yeah.
Was a huge supporter.
Talk about a cheerleader who really kind of got it going.
Oh yes.
And wins her.
Yeah.
She was an amazing performer and an amazing friend.
I actually, I miss, I miss them.
Well you know what's interesting?
I used to go to drag shows in Detroit a lot before there was a lot of drag shows here
back in the 1990s.
And that was another thing about Windsor Detroit that we were very lucky.
We could go, you had to be 18 to get into clubs there.
So you couldn't drink, but you got the bracelet.
You could be 18, you could be a bit younger.
But that was a neat thing about Detroit was you could be anything you wanted to be in
a different city where nobody knew you.
You could reinvent yourself and then you come back to Windsor.
At least I did.
I can only speak for myself, but I know.
I know I'm not alone.
A lot of people did that.
We went up to Detroit and we clubbed it up and we did what we did and we had a lot of
fun and then we came home and if you were in the closet like I was, you could be in
the closet and then be, I could be Wild Gay Dan at Menjo's in Detroit.
And we did that.
And I remember seeing a lot of the drag queens.
One was named Amanda.
Amanda Collins was her name and she was like a legendary Detroit drag queen.
I used to go see all the time.
I don't know what happened to her, but I remember she was like, she was a thing when she was
performing like people came out in droves to see her and she was great.
I love the drag scene.
I'm learning a lot.
I learned from Venom about drag mothers and then I learned at that brunch about a female
could be a drag queen.
An AFAB queen, yeah.
A sign female at birth.
Wow.
Yeah, it's wild.
I had no idea of that.
Well, I think there's a big misconception about drag because-
And then drag queens.
Drag kings, yeah.
Drag really is just kind of a persona and a character and I don't know if you can call
it a shield or you can call it a key that opens up and shows a side that you normally
hide.
But when you think about it, people like Elvira, like Cassandra Peterson, that's a drag queen.
That's a drag persona.
I never even thought of it like that.
It's a wig.
It's the outfit.
And when she's out of that drag, she looks totally different.
She's a redhead who you could pass in the street and would know.
Another drag king, I think, is Pee Wee Herman, Paul Rubens.
He was a drag king.
That character, Pee Wee Herman, didn't exist.
That's the guy he invented with the little red bow tie and the gray suit and the hair
and the stupid laugh.
And Paul Rubens was an actor and Pee Wee Herman was his drag persona.
And it was a persona.
You never think of that-
That was drag.
You know what I mean?
He invented a character just like Venom invented Venom.
Coco invented Coco.
And who is Coco?
Coco is bubbly and likes pink and is kind of ditzy and kind of- you know what I mean?
That was Coco.
Yeah.
And she was very Valley Girl and kind of slutty and boob jokes.
And she was not like that in person.
Right.
It was a whole different thing.
Oh my god.
Very together when she speaks.
But Valley Girl is a Lyra.
And I love that.
So I love that people are exploring drag in that sense.
And I'm glad that our- I find that the Windsor-Essex County area is very inviting and they're
very warm to the drag community.
Not like how it used to be.
People are getting used to it.
Yeah, I think so too.
And you know, if you look online, online is one thing.
There's always going to be backlash online.
And that's- I've almost learned to treat- even though I love online, you kind of have to
treat it like an alternate reality.
If people are going to say really horrible things online, it doesn't often come out in
real life though.
And for drag, the drag community here in Windsor, there is a little bit of backlash now and
then.
But for the most part, we're really, really accepting here in Windsor.
We kind of always have been too, I think.
Oh, that's good.
I feel like we have.
I mean, it's evolving, obviously.
Well, it's new to me, so I'm just learning it.
But I was shocked by the amount of people at TrueFest.
Oh, yeah.
Oh my God, I had so much fun.
It's nice to see that.
It was really nice.
And I won't lie, part of me still gets a little bit nervous when I'm hosting any kind of drag
event.
I think, oh, is someone going to come and protest?
Is someone- and I'll be honest, my mind even goes dark.
Is somebody going to try to beat somebody up or worse?
You never know.
Oh, the New York one.
Exactly.
Things like that I worry about.
But time and time again, everyone's just there to have fun.
And if you don't like it, don't go.
Exactly.
And it's as easy as that.
That's all it is too.
But if you want to go, I had a caller once to my show who was complaining about TrueFest.
I said, you know, I said, listen, I want to challenge you with something.
It's free.
Just walk through.
I'm not asking you to pay anything or tip a drag queen.
Just walk through and take note of what you see.
You're not going to see anything inappropriate.
You're just going to see people dressed up in goofy clothing, having a lot of fun.
And what's wrong with that?
If it's not your thing, it's not your thing.
And that's cool too.
But it's nothing to protest.
It's just people having a good time.
And I don't know why anybody would be against that.
Yeah, it's Boy George.
It's Boy George.
Yeah.
Did you grow up in the 80s?
Have you seen the men in the 80s?
They all look like women.
Oh my God.
Prince wore the highest heels of anyone in the 80s.
And he probably wore a lot more eyeliner too.
And there was Boy George and there was Duran Duran and all those guys.
Michael Jackson.
I mean, the masculine role models were Prince and Michael Jackson.
They weren't the most masculine guys.
No.
And the other guys too.
All those 80s new wave bands.
They wore more makeup than Cindy Lauper.
Alice Cooper.
My God.
How hard and manly can a person be like Alice Cooper who wore nothing but makeup?
Well, those were always my favorite artists too were the ones who were very extravagant.
I was always drawn to Kiss as a kid because they had fun makeup.
David Bowie I thought was just the coolest thing ever.
Amy Lennox always played with persona.
In a way all those people are kind of, you could say they're playing with drag.
And all of them walked the line of gender play too.
Like Prince was very, very feminine.
But all of his songs were about getting it on with women.
He was also every, but look at him.
He had this high falsetto voice.
He pranced around.
He wore capes, heels and eyeliner.
And the ass cut out of his jeans or his pants.
But man, he got the ladies.
But I love that he played with gender and walked that line and really blurred all the
lines and that's what it's all about.
That's when it gets really fun.
I think it's interesting.
Alice Cooper I like that people are able to be more open.
David Bowie Yes.
Alice Cooper And like our friend Six.
He actually does his wife's nails as well as his own.
And they look so good.
David Bowie Oh yeah.
Alice Cooper I just like that we can do that now.
David Bowie It is.
It's very, very nice.
It's when you think about it really when somebody would get angry because somebody else painted
their nails.
Like what a silly thing to get angry about.
It's like why?
And really whenever somebody is angry or gets mad or I don't like that person because they're
a guy wearing a dress or painting their nails or they have long hair, you know back in the
60s, heaven forbid the Beatles had long hair.
I just think well if that's more about you than the person with long hair painted nails.
What is it about that that bothers you?
Ask yourself why am I getting upset and triggered and angry and all these my back is up.
Ask yourself why and that will tell you more about you than the person with the long hair
or whatever it is they're doing the drag queen whatever you're mad about.
Why are you mad?
Explore that truthfully and honestly why are you mad?
And it'll be like oh my god I have a weird hang up about this because and I need to stop
that.
It's all a cute clue to who you are right?
Alice Cooper Or go to a drag show and tell me which one
is the from birth female.
Yes, that I didn't know.
Do you remember they used to do that on Maury Povich and stuff?
Who's the man who's the woman with drag queens?
I used to love that one.
I couldn't tell.
I wouldn't have picked that one that day.
I was shocked when Jake told me I'm like no they do that.
Oh yeah.
Drag king shows I'm glad are getting more fun.
I have not seen one yet.
I saw one believe it or not in 1996.
They did them back then.
It was opening for a band called The Murmurs in Detroit.
The Murmurs were like a lesbian duo folk group and it was at a lesbian bar and I was the
token male there.
The only one and it was a drag king show that opened.
I'm like well this is neat.
I've never seen a drag king show.
I would have been 19 or 20 and it was weird because you know when it's when it's female
presenting drag it's all the things about females but exaggerated.
So big makeup, big hair, the big boobs, the big hips like everything is big and bright
and colorful and sparkly.
So with drag king it was like everything masculine was emphasized so it was a whole different
vibe.
Like it was almost kind of like is this person gonna beat me up?
Like this is very very this is a lot of masculinity going on here but I'm glad to see like the
drag kings that I'm seeing today are very like flurry and fun and goofy and almost more
clowning in a lot of ways.
Do we have any of those shows in Windsor?
There are a few.
All drag king shows know but I know one that I can think of is named Hudson Bay and they
do drag king work.
Very androgynous but kind of more drag king oriented.
I would love to see a show.
Yeah Hudson Bay they're really they're very very cool.
Put on a very interesting show and there's some va vroom to it.
The drag king show I saw in Ann Arbor Michigan it was a little bit like intimidating because
they were almost going by like the sexist male so it was kind of like eesh like this
isn't really worth celebrating.
Like drag queens seem more fabulous.
This is just kind of a guy I wouldn't want to hang out with but the drag kings I'm seeing
now are just kind of like fun flamboyant almost like Prince or Liberace or they have that
flair to them but it's still masculine but it's that that different type of masculine.
That would be fun to see.
It's cool yeah.
So what is your next event that you're going to be doing?
Windsor Pride is my next big thing that's coming up you know first week first couple
weeks of August and I'll be hosting the Queens of Pride event.
I'll be in the parade.
I'm not sure when this podcast is coming out but I'm two days.
Okay so I'm I'll let it simmer but I'm going to be playing a very significant role in Pride
this year.
I don't know if it's announced yet but I'm very very honored.
I was given that title and I'm extremely honored for that.
That's going to be coming out when Pride happens but I'm going to be pride in it up and celebrating
the love here in Windsor Essex for our community and for the allies too.
That's one of my favorite things about Pride is you know it used to be about more of a
protest more of marching in the streets and being known and power and visibility and now
that is still there.
Visibility I think is number one.
You need that visibility but I love seeing parents of people who have come out and allies
and friends and seeing that support that is that's something I've seen evolve where it
was eight people by the sidelines watching you march in the parade versus now people
are coming out.
A lot of that's to do with drag queens but a lot of it's just it shows the changing of
the times that we're supporting each other and that's what it's all about.
My next go is I am ready to pride it up.
I'll be at all the Pride events.
I can't wait.
And in the fall you're going to have your book club back.
That is coming back yes and again I can't say completely yet but I am going to be returning
to the stage as well in 2025 and believe it or not a musical and I can't say much more
about that but it is some singing and it is some singing singing.
So you can sing?
I can say well I'm going to be singing.
Lots of classes.
Lots of classes but it's like a legit musical musical and it's a very prominent role and
I can't say too much more about that but I'm already like I'm already trying to get in
shape for it.
I've been practicing I've been kind of changing.
Oh is that why you're walking?
That's why I'm walking that's exactly why I'm walking and no one has connected that
dot yet but that is 100% why I'm doing the walks.
It's to slowly build up to eventually getting back to the gym that I've been paying for
for four years and haven't gone to once isn't that great?
That's on the other side of that panel is gym equipment that I don't come downstairs
for and I started walking I'm so proud of myself I'm keeping up because I used to do
20 some thousand a day when we went keto a few years ago.
That's good.
And then all of a sudden it got humid my legs swelled up because the doctor I'm like am
I having congestive heart failure and they're like no you're retaining water and I'm like
come on.
Walking can be bad.
So I started rowing because I have a rowing machine upstairs but yeah well you're kicking
butt.
I am I'm walking a lot yeah and the thing is I tend to make these super lofty goals
and I beat myself I don't meet them so this one I'm like you know what let's just do something
that's not that challenging but it's a bit more 10,000 a day is gonna be it like that'll
be what I reach that's what I want to reach but I've been going to you know 17, 22 so
I'm.
It's not hard no it's just just walk and just make a point of it like an hour and a half
a day or an hour a day and just.
Well that's what me and John do an hour every morning or at least we were and I want to
get back to that again in a couple days.
Have you ever tried our Herb Gray Parkway?
Love it.
The trail?
Love it.
Amazing what a gem that is.
It really is and if you go early enough in the morning I think around 6 a.m. 5 3 v 6
when it starts to get light you can see some nice coyotes.
Oh get out I've never seen a coyote.
Well each entrance and exit on here in church in East E.R.O. there's dens there and then
we have tons of deer.
Oh I love seeing deer.
Tons of deer and bunnies.
Are the coyotes scary at all?
The one that I saw was it had a gimp leg and it's known in the neighborhood and usually
if you hang outside down our street on Sunday nights or they like the garbage night.
Really?
Yeah.
I love that Herb Gray trail.
Yeah it is one that like if you were to say park here and walk it and you can get over
a couple of those overpasses those are killer.
My heart rate will go up to like 130.
Oh yeah I believe it.
I scooter a lot too so I do the trails like that as well.
We have the LaSalle.
Love them.
Those trails I did them once during the pandemic and I like almost I was like I don't know
where I am right now.
Like I kind of lost like my bearings I'm like I had to pull my phone like where GPS am I'm
like okay here I was like I could be in Amisburg right now I have no idea.
I'm just wandering through trails.
I think I'm on a different trail system now.
There's a LaSalle this LaSalle one that you go through a bush you end up on a ranch with
horses and a mule.
That's what happened.
I saw a big pile of like poop.
But it was big and I was like um is there a brontosaurus?
Like what is big enough to make that kind of poop?
Like where am I right now?
And then I saw like the ranch with the horses.
Yeah and then but if you go straight then you end up in a marsh.
Right.
It's really cool.
Yeah we're very lucky.
I gotta explore that one again because it was during the pandemic and it was just a
bizarre time.
I gotta go back.
That's when I found it was during the pandemic and I love this area and I love winter.
Me too yeah.
I love your show because and now watching you guys so I can hear it instead of having
like little air buds in trying to listen to the shows but the morning drive if people
watch or listen to the morning drive and then you they know what's going on in the city
and small businesses events and just tired of people saying I know I didn't know about
this event how'd you know about this event?
I don't know.
I know.
That's the scary thing because it's a good thing and it's a bad thing but it's a changing
of the times before you know when we had four channels on our TV and everybody watched one
of four channels and everyone listened to the radio and that was kind of it.
But now it's like oh this I heard about this on Facebook.
Oh I'm not on Facebook.
Instagram why didn't you advertise on Instagram?
I'm on Twitter.
Oh I didn't advertise on Twitter and I don't listen to that.
I listen to podcasts, not radio stations.
It's all good.
There's so much more media but it did create getting that message out a bit more difficult
before you know you'd put an ad in the Windsor Star and everybody knew about it.
Well that's what pissed me off about Canadians, the Canadian government stopping the news
on Instagram, on our social media.
Because everybody's on social media and you can't share a story anymore on Facebook anyway.
No.
Instagram sometimes I see some getting through but not too much.
At least threads but not too many people use threads.
I even ended up giving up on threads.
I was on threads for a bit and I was kind of like eh.
I'm like that with X.
I get lost when it was Twitter.
I got it and I got lost in it and it's like okay where's the people that I follow?
Yeah that's what I wanted to and I got rid of X too.
I liked it for a bit.
I had a good following too.
I had close to 10,000 people which is decent and I just found every time I pull my feet
up it was things I didn't follow, things that I could tell were designed to get me ticked
off.
They want you engaged.
I'm like you know what I'm done.
I'm not playing this game goodbye and I just rushed all the way.
It's gone.
Yes.
But it is neat.
We have so many options now but it does make getting the word out a bit more difficult because
everyone is tuned into different channels now than we were before.
And if you can't catch Dan's show in the morning I found out trying to find the stupid northern
lights that your show is aired at night as well.
It is.
Yes it is.
You didn't know that.
I didn't know that until I heard it one night in the car.
I was like oh my god this is me right now.
This is so cool.
And it was on every air I think an hour or two.
Not the full show but an hour.
Did they do the round table?
I don't think so.
I think it's the hour or two after that.
But yeah it is in the evening as well so you can catch it then too.
And I'll see sometimes texts of people texting in thinking it's a live show.
I'll get them in the morning.
I'm like oh they thought it was live at 10 o'clock last night but it's not.
Yeah because they don't put it out there that or at least I didn't hear that this is a recording.
Please do not call in.
Did you get to see the northern lights?
No I was like you.
That's right.
I didn't see anything.
No.
I'm like is this a joke am I being punked?
We drove all across the city.
Well people okay they said use your phones.
We were even in the county and.
Nothing.
Yeah it was a disappointment.
I was very upset about that.
Same here.
I'm like well that was a waste of time.
But anyway I so appreciate you being here.
Oh are you kidding?
This is so much fun.
Anytime you want me I'm here.
I'm keeping you up with that.
Do please do yes.
And make sure that you catch Dan McDonald on AM 800 weekdays from 9 until noon.
Oh really quickly the round table was did you always have the round table or is that
just recent?
No that's well.
It was once a week wasn't it?
It used to be once a week during the pandemic.
We did it via phone too which was hard to do over the phone.
It was next to impossible.
Then when things got back and things really opened up we started having them in the studio
and then we did it every day, every day 9 to 10 first hour.
So we have different people every day.
Two to three people usually three.
Sometimes somebody will drop out at the last minute or something so it's two.
But we always have.
It's been really fun getting to know people.
I love listening to it.
Yeah it is good.
So definitely AM 800 weekdays 9 to noon, Dan Macdonald and the round table from 9 to 10.
That is a must.
Yeah thank you.
That is a must.
Thank you.
Thank you again my name is Tracy Martens and thank you for joining me for another episode
of YQG In Bloom.
You guys have a great day.