Hi, guys. I’m Andres Torres aka Dre from That Toronto Show, winners of the Blue Microphone Show Us Your Pod Contest.

I’ve had a wild ride in broadcast up to this point, this is my story.

In the early 90s, most kids go through a phase where they record themselves on their cassette recorders, Walkmen, or if times were rough, even the classic Yak Bak would have done the trick. It was just one of those things a lot of kids did for fun, before the Internet, and before easy access to porn. Making radio shows for fun just seemed like the right thing to do.

My friend Brandon and I would lock ourselves in my room for hours playing pretend radio, doing a whole show. Recording phone calls, commercials, doing different voices, arguing with those made-up voices, playing whole songs, taking requests and of course flipping over to side B when side A ran out.

Fast forward 20 years later and Brandon landed himself a role from DC’s The Flash series as Chester P. Just to be clear this isn’t me saying I take some credit for his successful career, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t take at least some credit for his successful career. I went to school for Journalism and Broadcast, against the advice of many people who were telling me that newspapers are dead, magazines are dead, and the Toronto Radio Industry was being held down by a bunch of old white dudes who have no plan to retire anytime soon.

I was told not only was the industry dying but that Radio itself has been replaced by the almighty AUX cord.

These doubts were multiplied in a major way when one of my idols Scott Fox went on a rant on his Z103.5 morning show the day after presenting Radio awards to students at a Toronto University. “Hundreds of students graduate from Toronto Broadcast programs every year, hoping to be on the air,” he said, sounding pretty frustrated. “How many jobs do they think are out there?” Again I thought to myself, he is talking about everyone else who isn’t the best. The great ones always find a way in and there will always be spots for the best. What a douche I was.

This ride took me all the way to 2015 when I finally graduated and found my way into the business side of media, working in Media Relations, Communications, and Program Management.

The constant voice in my mind telling me to go for the dream never stopped. Thousands of applications, resumes, and cover letters later, the harsh reality started to hit that maybe the industry did not want me, and if I wanted in, I would have to prove it.

My lifelong dream is to make a living off radio, off talking to people, entertaining people during the most miserable part of their day. All I would have to do is get my foot in the door for a chance to prove that I was made for this.

I resisted podcasting at first; I didn’t want to be like anyone else I thought. I told myself I was special somehow because I studied broadcast for a few years and everyone else didn’t, they weren’t doing a show, and they were just talking. People with natural talent on Youtube were getting jobs with huge companies showcasing their talent, they didn’t need school, training, just passion, drive, discipline and most importantly sacrifice.

We all share that never-ending hunger and desire to always do better and always be better, always improve and most importantly always put on a show and never be just people around a microphone talking.

It has been a year and a half, starting 1 month before Covid-19 struck the beautiful city and left us with more obstacles to overcome than we could ever imagine. A year and a half putting more work on this show than I have ever put into anything, to prove to myself and to my team that we have something special.

We are going for one of the most difficult things to attain during these times, we want people to lend us their attention for a few hours a day, we want them to give us a chance to inform them and make them laugh, entertain them with our stories and opinions until success gives us more entertaining stories and opinions to share.

The dream is never over, whatever the dream may be. If there you have passion and that uncontrollable desire to come out on top and prove to yourself you always had it in you, then keep working, keep fighting, and keep dreaming.