Bob Got a Microphone

David Frum doesn't need much of an introduction - if you've paid any attention to Canadian or US politics over the last twenty-five or so years, you know him. He's written ten books, is featured in The Atlantic magazine, is a sought-after commentator on television and online - in short, he's a leading observer of American society. This conversation isn't about politics. It's primarily about writing - but it's about lots more besides. We discuss how and why he writes fiction and non-fiction, the power of texts, how he counsels overcoming writer's block, and even the differences between jealousy and envy. You can easily find David's work in lots of places - for his latest, check him out on Twitter @davidfrum or at https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-frum/

Jason Ward seemed to have everything a lawyer could ask for: his own successful firm, community recognition, money, a family. But there was a problem: he was drinking himself into oblivion every night. Jason has come through to the other side of mental health and substance use challenges that very nearly derailed his career, his relationships, and even his life. He is now sharing his story with others, aiming to raise awareness, provide guidance to those facing similar challenges, and effect positive change. You can find Jason at https://mentallyspeaking.ca/ and read more about his story at https://macleans.ca/society/lawyer-mental-health/

Lots of different people use lots of different words to describe Caryma Sa'd: citizen journalist, lawyer, provocateur, badass - but one which seemed obvious to me, and seems even more obvious after this conversation, is storyteller. We discuss how she acquired her public profile, how she has experienced a number of different evolutions, including in her politics, the divisions and polarizing effects she observes and encounters, and the kinds of stories she wants to be entrusted to tell. You can find Caryma on Twitter @carymarules on Instagram @carymasad and at https://www.carymarules.com/

Professor Amy Salyzyn (University of Ottawa) teaches and writes about, among other things, legal ethics, and recently she's been turning her attention to the practical and ethical implications for lawyers of the latest wave of generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT. We talk about the promises and pitfalls of generative AI for lawyers and their clients, what risks are at risk being overlooked in the conversation, and what lawyers should keep their eye on when thinking about this latest wave of technological innovation. "But I'm not a lawyer, and this sounds boring!", you say? Well, AI optimists are claiming (hoping?) that AI innovations might dramatically cut down on the number of lawyers - so maybe you want to stick around to hear whether that's actually a possibility?

You can follow Professor Salyzyn on Twitter @AmySalyzyn and read her recent piece at slaw.ca on lawyers and ChatGPT here: https://www.slaw.ca/2023/02/23/the-chatgpt-lawyer-promises-perils-and-practicalities/

In 2022, Philip Slayton started publishing The Endgame, a Substack where he contemplates a world in which few moves remain, victory or defeat are close at hand, and options are limited and rapidly diminishing. That all seemed a little melancholic to me, which struck me as odd: Slayton has had a long and varied life and career as a Rhodes scholar, law professor, law school dean, Bay Street lawyer, and, for the last twenty or so years, as a writer of eight books - so I wanted to find out what was up. We talk about his writing, including his most recent book in which he explores antisemitism and how best to respond to it, and his concerns about free expression and identity politics. You can read and subscribe to The Endgame on Substack at https://philipslayton.substack.com/ and you can find out more about Slayton's work at https://philipslayton.com/. His most recent book, Antisemitism: an ancient hatred in an age of identity politics, is available from Sutherland House at https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/product/antisemitism/

I find it compelling when someone is passionate about something – especially when they’re passionate about something that isn’t, you know, obvious. It’s not something they can monetize, it’s not something everyone else is talking about... it’s something that they’re bringing focused insight to in a way you would otherwise never think about. A few years ago I learned that Graham Henderson – previously a lawyer and music industry advocate – was really into Percy Bysshe Shelley, the romantic poet who died two hundred years ago this past July. And he’s passionate about surfacing aspects of Shelley’s art and politics in a way that is accessible and relevant to contemporary readers. We talk about poets as legislators of the world, the difficult conversations sons sometimes have with their fathers through art, what great art asks us to do, but mostly we talk about Shelley - the radical poet of empathy.

You can read Graham's work on Shelley at http://www.grahamhenderson.ca/

No one writes about Canadian music with more insight or elan than Michael Barclay - and he's just released the magisterial Hearts On Fire: Six Years that Changed Canadian Music 2000–2005. It's the authoritative story about how, in the early years of the new millennium, the world noticed that the musical artists coming out of Canada - from Arcade Fire to Tegan and Sara, from Broken Social Scene to Cadence Weapon and beyond - were, amazingly, incontrovertibly, and finally, cool. We talk about the the amazing diversity of musical talent on offer, the material conditions that made the phenomenon possible (including the role played by cheap real estate), the importance of killer live performances (and drummers!), and the role that late Tragically Hip lead singer Gord Downie played in bringing the book to fruition. 

Hearts on Fire is available for sale now wherever fine books are sold, and you can find more from Michael on Twitter @mmmbarclay.

Some serendipitous conversations early in the pandemic inspired employment and human rights lawyer Rob Tarantino (no relation! really!) to do something a little unusual, a little creative, and definitely a whole lot tasty: he started making and selling small-batch, hand-rolled bagels. We talk about growing up Tarantino, what motivated him to start making bagels, the differences and similarities between becoming a bagelmonger and starting his own legal practice, and how sharing food that he loves has helped him tap into a supportive community of bagel enthusiasts across the city. You can find Rob and his bagels on Instagram @stclarensbagels and his legal practice at https://www.tarantinolaw.ca/

How does a four-day work week sound? With no reduction in pay? Quinn Ross thought it sounded so good he implemented it at the law firm he runs. Oh, and he also increased the size of the team to 70 people. During a pandemic. We talk about how his commitment to the four-day work week is both driven by and enables taking care of people, and how you could say it all started with a tornado. Really.

Find out more about Quinn M. Ross and his work by checking out https://rossfirm.com/ 

Connect with Quinn on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinn-m-ross-81b81319/

A few weeks ago I was listening to a podcast hosted by my friend Jonathan Kay - he's a writer and journalist who has authored such insightful books as Your Move: What Board Games Can Teach Us About Life (co-written with Joan Moriarty) - and he offhandedly mentioned that he liked watches. "Hey", I thought, "I like watches too - maybe me and Jon could talk about the psychology of why middle-aged guys often suddenly find themselves deeply invested in new hobbies like watch collecting". Well, this episode is the record of that conversation. As you'll hear, we cover a lot of topics that, at best, only obliquely shed light on why we like watches... until suddenly everything becomes perfectly clear.

Erin Zipes wears a few different hats: she's VP Legal at Shopify, one of the country's biggest and most successful companies, and she's part of the Backbone Angels investing collective - but just naming those roles doesn't shed enough light on how thoughtful and insightful she is about how lawyers can be their best professional selves. We cover a lot of ground in this engaging discussion, from how she built the legal team at a company experiencing hypergrowth, to how she learned to be a lawyer who adds value rather than simply mitigating risk, to grappling with the sacred trust imparted in being responsible for managing people, to the message she would deliver to her younger self. 

Learn more about Backbone Angels here: https://www.backboneangels.com/

Dilemmas of Free Expression, a collection of papers edited and contributed to by Professor Emmett Macfarlane, presents a variety of perspectives examining ways to confront the challenging moral issues and policy problems inherent in controversies such as hate speech, far-right populism, campus speech debates, and censorship. In this wide-ranging discussion, we touch on matters including how the book came about, the extent to which those on university campuses face a chilling effect, and how we can productively think about, and potentially overcome, the challenges posed by expansive conceptions of free expression and competing values such as inclusion and harm reduction.

You can find the book Dilemmas of Free Expression here: https://utorontopress.com/9781487529307/dilemmas-of-free-expression/

If you've been to Toronto's Kensington Market, you're probably familiar with Good Egg: an eclectic and personable shop offering a curated collection of cookbooks and kitchenware. Mika Bereket is Good Egg's owner and we chat about how she discovers and chooses what to carry, how being located in Kensington has informed her approach to cooking and the store's identity, how cookbooks have evolved, the different national cultures of cookbooks, and the meditative pleasure she has discovered in expanding her efforts to include publishing cookbooks (including the books Blood and Limes). You can find out more about Good Egg at http://www.goodegg.ca/ and https://goodeggbooks.ca/

Chris Claremont was the writer of Uncanny X-Men from 1975 to 1991 - the longest tenure in history on a mainstream superhero comic - during which he turned it into the best-selling comic in the world, featuring iconic characters like Wolverine and Storm and lauded stories such as The Dark Phoenix Saga and Inferno. Claremont's work featured strong female characters, gripping interpersonal dramatics, and lengthy, complex and engrossing storylines that have influenced contemporary storytelling in a way that can be seen on TV and movie screens around the world. Professor Andrew Deman is studying Claremont's work in The Claremont Run - an academic project, funded by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), exploring the impact of Claremont's UXM run on the representation of gender and sexuality in comics and on "long continuity" in modern entertainment. Andrew and I discuss how to think about Claremont's legacy, his collaboration with artists and editors, and how readers can best approach the Claremont Run. You can learn more about The Claremont Run at http://www.claremontrun.com and follow it on Twitter @ClaremontRun

It does what it says on the tin: to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Guns N' Roses' "Use Your Illusion" albums, me and my friend Chris Ross argue about which tracks deserve attention, which album is better, whether they're any good at all, and where they rank among the historically rich profusion of rock and rap records released in 1991.

What can lawyers learn from stand-up and improv comedy? Are comedians just engaging in "therapy, but with an audience" when they're on stage? What the hell was the "skin baby" joke? Learn the answers to these questions - and more! - in this conversation with Peter Henein, litigator and procurer of laughs.

To me, it's no surprise that Anne Driscoll is where she is: the CEO of Launch Pad - a company on a mission to catalyze the growth of entrepreneurship ecosystems in cities across the United States - and a veteran of Silicon Valley who has embraced a life of accomplishment, risk-taking, and engagement with opportunity in whatever form it presents itself. Anne and I have known each other since we were kids, and it was a real treat to catch up with her - we talk about how she successfully navigates running a business with her spouse, overcoming the challenges COVID presented to a business model premised on in-person community-building, the upside of divorce, and how she managed to get her career to the point where she can say she's the happiest she's ever been.

Brian L. Frye is a law professor and filmmaker - and somewhere along the way, he decided to draw on the most interesting bits of both those endeavours and come up with an entirely different approach to his engagement with the law. He describes his work as "conceptual art in the medium of legal scholarship", wherein he challenges some of the most dearly-held commitments of the academy, including arguing that norms against plagiarism are illegitimate (indeed, he specifically encourages and authorizes people to plagiarize his work). Lately, he's taken to successfully selling his law review article art projects as NFTs. We talk about imagining Sergei Eisenstein, what he lifted from Isaiah Berlin, why law students say they don't like math but actually do, and what's been inspiring his most recent run of publications and interventions. You can follow Brian on Twitter @brianlfrye, check out some of his scholarship at SSRN, and listen to his podcast, Ipse Dixit, at https://shows.acast.com/ipse-dixit.

Author and academic Andrew Potter's most recent book is On Decline - Stagnation, Nostalgia, and Why Every Year is the Worst One Ever. We discuss why everything seems to be going to sh*t, the casinofication of life, the seeming inversion of political left and right on issues of decline, and whether there's any way out of a lapse into unreason. You can find On Decline at http://biblioasis.com/shop/forthcoming/on-decline/

By any measure, Michael Rossi had a noteworthy career in the corporate world, culminating in more than five years as president of adidas Canada. In 2021, he did something perhaps even more remarkable: he decided to step off that track, and re-orient his life around one of his passions - coaching. He founded Voce Leadership, where, by guiding people to discover and cultivate their voice, he helps emerging leaders realize their full potential. We talk about how he ended up making such a big change, what he finds so fulfilling about coaching, and how he's navigated some seismic shifts in his professional life over the last 18 months. Find out more about Michael and Voce Leadership at https://voceleadership.com/

About a decade ago, Norman Bacal was the managing partner of one of Canada's premier law firms - but when things fell apart and the firm collapsed, he turned to writing in order to process his resulting anger. That lead to the widely read non-fiction book "Breakdown", and he's gone on to write two novels, as well as his most recent book "Take Charge: The Skills That Drive Professional Success". He's still writing and he's also mentoring young professionals - we talk about what motivates him, his process, where he gets his best advice, and the satisfaction he's getting in helping others advance their careers. You can find Norm at https://normanbacal.com/

Serial entrepreneur, innovation guru, observer, commentator - Aron Solomon is, as a lawyer might say, sui generis. We talk about intentionally constructing your career, leaving Berlin, the advantages of being an outsider... and the audacity of starting a watch company motivated by making something you love. 

Check out Mission Watch Co. - https://www.missionwatchco.com/

After spending a few years in bands bouncing between Toronto and Los Angeles, in 1981 David Quinton released a solo album of punk-inflected power pop. He then spent a few decades raising a family and practising law. And then, in 2018 and 2019, he found himself playing his songs for appreciative audiences... in Japan. As if that weren't peculiar enough, in 2021 he's playing drums on new music released by iconic Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson. We chat about strange trips, looking back on the art you created in your twenties, and talking drums with Neil Peart.

He's a comic book writer, cartoonist, professional wrestler, and podcaster - among many other things. We talk about which is skeezier, independent comics or independent wrestling; the time a drunk publisher swore at him; what happened when he met Ontario premier Doug Ford; his "101 Things in 1001 Days" project; and who Anthony dreams of telling to "f**k off".

Check out his various endeavours at:

https://ruttgaizer.com/

http://www.handsomegeniusclub.com

http://www.1001days.ca

Joe and his family bought an Airstream and hit the road for nearly a year - and when they were done, he became a cricket farmer. We talk about leaving, arriving, mid-life crises, whether you need a crossbow, and the wisdom of entomophagy during a climate emergency.

Check out Yes Crickets at www.yescrickets.com

Send praise, condemnation, threats to: bob@bobgotamicrophone.com

Check out other episodes at: https://anchor.fm/bobgotamicrophone