Generation X Offender

103 Letter To My Son Regarding Leonard Cohen

WARNING!: Mature Subject Matter - Due to certain references to sexual activity in this podcast, Listener Discretion Is Strongly Advised In this episode we take you on an unexpected journey through the life and legacy of iconic poet turned singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Growing up in a household that dismissed Cohen's music as taboo, we reflect on the surprising allure Cohen held for women, particularly our friend's free-spirited Moms in the '70s. Discovering a battered vinyl copy of Cohen's greatest hits sparked a fascination with songs like "Chelsea Hotel," along with intertwining tales of love, loss, and the gritty underbelly of fame. Experience firsthand the profound impact of Cohen's lyrics, exploring themes of desire, regret, and the complexities of modern relationships through the usual mix of personal anecdotes and cultural references you've come to expect from an episode of The GXO. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream through poignant moments including Cohen's heartfelt deathbed farewell to the beloved Marianne along with the bittersweet reality of his later years, marked by both triumph and adversity. Blending nostalgia and reverence, this episode promises to resonate with both long-time fans and newcomers alike, inviting all to rediscover the haunting beauty of Leonard Cohen's music. Tune in for an engaging exploration of artistry, memory, and the enduring power of love! *THE MUSIC (all songs written by Leonard Cohen)   Dance Me To The End Of Love by American chanteuse jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux from her album Careless Love    Chelsea Hotel No. 2 by Leonard Cohen from his album New Skin For An Old Ceremony   Everybody Knows performed by fellow Montrealer Rufus Wainwright (father to Cohen's granddaughter Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen) from the motion picture soundtrack to the performance film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man   The Future from Leonard Cohen's album of the same name   I’m Your Man performed by amateur theologian and former lead singer from Australia's The Birthday Party; Nick Cave from the motion picture soundtrack to the performance film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man   Tower Of Song performed by Leonard Cohen and Ireland's U2 from the motion picture soundtrack to the performance film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man   So Long, Marianne by Leonard Cohen from his album Live In Dublin   You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen from his 14th and final studio album of the same name, released 17 days before Cohen's death in 2026. The lyrics to the song were later recited during Cohen's interment ceremony at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery on the northern slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada   This episode is dedicated to my son Dylan who is the inspiration for its creation. Thanks kid. Do you have a burning desire to send us an email? Please do! info@gxopodcast.com [info@generationxoffender.com]   Want on our mailing list? Only one weekly email update, we promise! We're far too lazy to do any more. Wanna leave a comment? Need to contact us? Visit the Official Generation X Offender GXO website at www.gxopodcast.com [http://www.generationxoffender.com/]   *Please Note: Audio portions of this podcast have been reproduced under the "Fair Use" doctrine. This use is intended to be transformative, adding perspective to the original work, serving an educational purpose rather than commercial gain. This use is intended academically and does not serve as a substitute for the original. Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. "Fair Use" is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

102 Bob Ironside Pt. 2

The latest installment of the continuing story of master carver, writer, scholar, humorist, lyricist, composer, multi instrumentalist, recording artist, record producer, recording engineer, singer, songwriter, guitarist extraordinaire, son, brother, cousin, husband, soul mate, father, grandfather, bandmate... Robert Bruce James Ironside (1961-2024)  THE Bob Ironside, the guy who played live onstage at the legendary Grossman's Tavern on Spadina Avenue, Toronto, just down from the neon palms of Mick n Keith and the El Mocambo of back in the day... THE Bob Ironside, possibly one of the only other lead guitarists in history to share a stage with guitar legend David Wilcox who, at the time, had Bob vow to never tell anyone he had, or ELSE! (he would blow up his car!) to which Bob replied, "I don't have a car" "You will" said Wilcox. "You will". THE Bob Ironside, jamming with and friend to the late, great Texan, the One, the Only, Mickey Jones, perfecter of The Texas Shuffle ("If you can't get Mickey Jones, get Jim Keltner. And if you can't get Keltner, call Ringo") DRUMMER Extraordinaire, Dylan's choice of rhythm section for the infamous "ELECTRIC JUDAS" tour of the UK and 1966 masterstroke Blonde On Blonde, BEFORE the motorcycle accident... Bob wrote the honky tonk country jag "Preplanned Obsolescence" specifically for Mickey Jones which has to be heard to be believed... THE Bob Ironside, lead sideman and songwriter to The Kar Tunes, The Voyer Brothers, soul sistah Windy Ironside, Poultry Season, The Funbags Charlie Manson Band Tribute Band Extravaganza Band!, Dada Puba, and most recently Slippery Trip Hazard ...as heard on both self titled debut albums by The Voyer Brothers and Slippery Trip Hazard as well as his own exceptionally rare and highly sought after self titled solo album and the long rumored unreleased sophomore album "Flip Gets Glasses" by Slippery Trip Hazard. *THE MUSIC The two recordings heard in this podcast, "Garbage Day" and "The Cockroach Song" were both composed by Robert Ironside and are the sole property of The Estate of Robert Ironside. It should also be noted that every instrument heard on both of these recordings was played by Robert Ironside himself, written, recorded, engineered, produced and performed by the one man band himself known as Robert Ironside. A special thank you for this episode goes out to the great Grand Matriarch of our family, the perpetually stunning, perpetually beautiful, moral center and guiding light, the one, the only Kathy Aitkens, the other half of sky. Bob's girl. This episode is dedicated to Bob's children David, Katy, Liz, Bronwin and granddaughter Cordelia. Do you have a burning desire to send us an email? Please do! info@gxopodcast.com [info@generationxoffender.com]   Want on our mailing list? Only one weekly email update, we promise! We're far too lazy to do any more. Wanna leave a comment? Need to contact us? Visit the Official Generation X Offender GXO website at www.gxopodcast.com [http://www.generationxoffender.com/]   *Please Note: Audio portions of this podcast have been reproduced under the "Fair Use" doctrine. This use is intended to be transformative, adding perspective to the original work, serving an educational purpose rather than commercial gain. This use is intended academically and does not serve as a substitute for the original. Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. "Fair Use" is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

101 Robert Ironside: The Big Reveal

In the grand tradition of a proper Bob & Kathy visit, it is obligatory to proceed at once to the stove and put the kettle on to boil. Brew the tea properly careful not to bruise it and ease yourself in to this week's episode of The GXO Podcast focusing on everything Robert Ironside & Family... Robert Ironside: The Big Reveal Now this story may have begun in 1983, when, on one fateful Halloween, two star crossed lovers first met... Or it may have begun August 16, 1983 when a 119 pound Toronto bound Blitz Kid stepped off a train at Union Station and into the skin of a 17 year bleach blonde alternative school educated punk calling himself Damien Emez... Or it may have started years earlier in the 1930s on the unforgiving streets of Depression era Toronto where a sullied homeless boy with holes in his pants never combed his hair... Or it may have started before World War 1 on Thorah Island with Bessie Big Canoe Emes, her husband William (referred to from here on is as Old Man Passmore) and their golden boy Joseph William Preston Passmore, who came into the world with so much promise in 1911, only to perish at the tender age of 7 in 1918 while his father William was fighting overseas in the muddied bombed out trenches of Europe... Thorah island, 60 miles northeast of Toronto, was under strict quarantine at the time due to the global Spanish flu epidemic. Alone with no one to help her, Bessie, our grandmother, was tasked with preparing her son's final resting place and committing his remains to the earth... Years later on her deathbed, Bessie turned to her youngest surviving son, my father, Bill Passmore, and made him vow that the family land on Thorah Island, southeast on Lake Simcoe, two and a half miles west of Beaverton, Ontario, never fall out of family hands... As of this writing, the land on Thorah Island and Bessie's precious son, still rest easy in family hands. *THE MUSIC The Ballad Of Mad Dogs And Englishmen https://music.apple.com/ca/album/the-ballad-of-mad-dogs-and-englishmen/723595944?i=723596282 [https://music.apple.com/ca/album/the-ballad-of-mad-dogs-and-englishmen/723595944?i=723596282] by Leon Russell from his 1971 album Leon Russell & The Shelter People. Robbie Ironside was just 10 years old when this record came out The two other recordings heard in this podcast, "My Street" and "Vision Of Loveliness" were both composed by Robert Ironside and are the sole property of The Estate of Robert Ironside. It should also be noted that every instrument heard on both of these recordings was played by Robert Ironside himself, written, recorded, engineered, produced and performed by the one man band himself known as Robert Ironside. A special thank you for this episode goes out to the great Grand Matriarch of our family, the perpetually stunning, perpetually beautiful, moral center and guiding light, the one, the only Kathy Aitkens, the other half of sky. Bob's girl. Do you have a burning desire to send us an email? Please do! info@gxopodcast.com [info@generationxoffender.com]   Want on our mailing list? Only one weekly email update, we promise! We're far too lazy to do any more. Wanna leave a comment? Need to contact us? Visit the Official Generation X Offender GXO website at www.gxopodcast.com [http://www.generationxoffender.com/]   *Please Note: Audio portions of this podcast have been reproduced under the "Fair Use" doctrine. This use is intended to be transformative, adding perspective to the original work, serving an educational purpose rather than commercial gain. This use is intended academically and does not serve as a substitute for the original. Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. "Fair Use" is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.            ...

100 Summer Listening Guide Vol 1

Greetings! And welcome! Your Official Summer Listening Guide to 2026 has just arrived! Join us as we dance you through the garden of earthly delights with music in this, our first installment:   FAB FREEDOM PRIDE '26!   We've scoured a globe of time, distance and destiny to bring you nothing but the finest from...   Phoenix, Arizona's Scorpion vs Tarantula featuring the inexhaustible talents of their fearless leader, one L. Hotshot!   Fredericton New Brunswick's Penelope Stevens, THE PENELOPE of Penny & The Pits along with a banger from their debut album   Sh*T Creek Blues from nonother than Swedish garage blues sensation The Delta Shake   Vintage Canuck punk circa 1978 with Vancouver's Art Bergman (recent inductee into the Order of Canada!) and his band of merry Young Canadians   Legendary Jayne County, Queen of Max's Kansas City, as featured in our three part series from earlier this year, "Sex, Drugs N Rock N Roll!"   Former West coast now newly minted East coast, Coast to coast transplant Bruce Wilson and his brilliant new anthemic track Carry The Sky    Prince Edward Island, Canada's own Sun Witch and their outstanding new self titled debut album   First formed in 1968, legendary Sparks brothers Russell & Ron from their self titled debut album   Rockpile Dave Edmunds   Carsie Blanton with The Burning Hell and their NEW incendiary contribution to popular music: the INVENTION of an ENTIRELY NEW GENRE of music! The ADULT Children's Album! (ya heard it hear first!!)   and the Woman who got this whole Rock N Roll thing started in the FIRST PLACE. The FIRST EVER recording of VOCAL BLUES...from 1920!! The One! The Only! Mamie Smith!   All this AND MORE!   including personal record store remembrances from people and things that went before. I know we often talk about them...   Lou Marvin Kenny Bob   In my life at the record store Yonge Street Sam The Record Man Toronto Canada   *THE MUSIC   Beautiful Freaks the latest single from UK singing sensation MEEK: https://music.apple.com/ca/album/beautiful-freeks/6764602393?i=6764602396 [https://music.apple.com/ca/album/beautiful-freeks/6764602393?i=6764602396]   Fabulous from MEEK'S EP of the same name from earlier this year: https://music.apple.com/ca/album/fabulous/1862804004?i=1862804005 [https://music.apple.com/ca/album/fabulous/1862804004?i=1862804005]   As promised...   The link to Music Guru, the competition, Mr. Louis Bova HIMSELF: https://youtube.com/@theviewfrom2a?si=FdnaEwBMpbdWs9VV [https://youtube.com/@theviewfrom2a?si=FdnaEwBMpbdWs9VV]   Link to Your Official Summer Listening Guide Vol 1   FAB FREEDOM PRIDE '26   Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/fab-freedom-pride-26/pl.u-XkD0YGBtD0W72gY [https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/fab-freedom-pride-26/pl.u-XkD0YGBtD0W72gY]   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1w8iYjcTEYAG0PUktMvUWy?si=O_F3lz4DTlmGvG0_6Lr6fQ&pi=wMiJHjbpSY2V7&nd=1&dlsi=d18dd75e4bd44fdd [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1w8iYjcTEYAG0PUktMvUWy?si=O_F3lz4DTlmGvG0_6Lr6fQ&pi=wMiJHjbpSY2V7&nd=1&dlsi=d18dd75e4bd44fdd]   YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRv1k6R5uUVtDxb9tvirVICZSELHmb8EB&si=mdIgb3ngTRwd2t9Y [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRv1k6R5uUVtDxb9tvirVICZSELHmb8EB&si=mdIgb3ngTRwd2t9Y]     MistyK The DJ Summer Vibes '26: https://www.mixcloud.com/Redgirl77/summer-vibes-26/ [https://www.mixcloud.com/Redgirl77/summer-vibes-26/]   Do you have a burning desire to send us an email? Please do! info@gxopodcast.com [info@generationxoffender.com]   Want on our mailing list? Only one weekly email update, we promise! We're far too lazy to do any more. Wanna leave a comment? Need to contact us? Visit the Official Generation X Offender GXO website at www.gxopodcast.com [http://www.generationxoffender.com/]   *Please Note: Audio portions of this podcast have been reproduced under the "Fair Use" doctrine. This use is intended to be transformative, adding perspective to the original work, serving an educational purpose rather than commercial gain. This use is intended academically and does not serve as a substitute for the original. Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. "Fair Use" is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

99 Canada's Tiny Woke Province Cancels Local Comedian

(Before proceeding, please take note that there are a few F-bombs and assorted bad words kicked around casually throughout this week's podcast. Listener Discretion is advised)   Yup, your eyes have not deceived you. We're taking a wee break from the Fabulous 50s this week celebrating 70 years of Rock N Roll (1956-2026) And have landed right smack into the splat of CONTROVERSY! Comedy In The 21st Century (or lack thereof) Jimi Hendrix said it first: If 6s were 9s. Everything's upside down today. We here at The Generation X Offender podcast are every bit as much a product of the 1960s as we are of the 1980s (ouch!) In the 1960s Universities were hotbeds of critical thinking, activism, higher learning and radical politics. Today most comedians won't go near them. Why? The New Left has gone so far left they are now the extreme right.  The New Left does not support Freedom of Speech The New Left does not support Freedom of Assembly Anyone disagreeing with the New Left is immediately branded a Hate Monger, A Racist, A Bigot or worse... The New Left promotes Bully Culture. Mob Culture. And Cancel Culture... Us Human Beings are social animals by nature. Historically, the worst form of human punishment, more feared then death perhaps, is banishment. Abandonment. P is the NEW Scarlet Letter. P for Pariah... Canadian, Prince Edward Island actor, writer, performer, humorist, comedian Dennis Trainer sold out 5 shows in the past six years. Everything's rosy. Until... Suddenly a gig that had been booked for months was CANCELED. After hanging up on a confused Dennis, the venue's owner stopped returning his phone calls. Radio silence. Ghosted. No reason given. This is the same owner whose local "record store" hosted an event barring members of the public based on their gender, race and sexual orientation, all in the name of "Inclusion" (yea, we had to do a double take on that one too. Irony's a bitch). As previously stated, this Gen X kid was raised in the shadow of the Civil Rights Movement, tirelessly fighting AGAINST racism... This Gen X kid was raised in the shadow of the bra burning feminist movement, tirelessly fighting AGAINST sexism... This Gen X kid was raised in the shadow of the burgeoning Gay Pride movement, tirelessly fighting AGAINST any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation... The New Left is clawing back these societal gains born out of the radicalism and activism of the 1960s... And we've got something to say about that. And boobies too. With a side nod to the often beguiling male member... All this AND MORE! In the latest episode of The GXO, your trusted, insider source for all things music, pop culture and current events. *THE MUSIC "God's Comic" https://music.apple.com/ca/album/gods-comic/294809684?i=294809843 [https://music.apple.com/ca/album/gods-comic/294809684?i=294809843] by a decidedly Attraction-less Elvis Costello (taking a break from the band through a trilogy of fabulous albums) and his legendary Spike album "Everything Is Great" by Carsie Blanton and Canada's own The Burning Hell  https://music.apple.com/ca/album/everything-is-great/1877954113?i=1877954114 [https://music.apple.com/ca/album/everything-is-great/1877954113?i=1877954114] from latest timely album from 2026   Do you have a burning desire to send us an email? Please do! info@gxopodcast.com [info@generationxoffender.com]   Want on our mailing list? Only one weekly email update, we promise! We're far too lazy to do any more. Wanna leave a comment? Need to contact us? Visit the Official Generation X Offender GXO website at www.gxopodcast.com [http://www.generationxoffender.com/]   *Please Note: Audio portions of this podcast have been reproduced under the "Fair Use" doctrine. This use is intended to be transformative, adding perspective to the original work, serving an educational purpose rather than commercial gain. This use is intended academically and does not serve as a substitute for the original. Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. "Fair Use" is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.