Fired radio host picks up where he left off… on podcast from his basement

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/07/2018 (2356 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former 92.1 CITI FM morning radio host Dave Wheeler was back behind a microphone Monday morning, less than a week after he was axed from Winnipeg airwaves for making controversial comments about transgender people on air and in widely circulated private messages early last week.

But this time, the studio is in his basement.

He launched a new podcast with his wife, Wheeler in the Morning with Dave and Candace Rae out of their new home business Safety Net Studio.

He didn’t address the comments that got him fired, in which — in part — he compared transgender people to people pretending to be dogs in private messages. Rather he focused on standard morning-show fare — local news, sports, weather and pop culture.

“I’m not going to get into what you want me to get into. I can’t — not yet,” he said in the opening minutes of the 34-minute podcast, implying he might address the topic in the future.

Although he didn’t speak on his comments about transgender people, he did play a local musician’s parody of Lola by The Kinks, a 1971 rock song about an interaction between a man and a transgender woman.

“Boys will be girls and girls will be boys, it’s a mixed-up, overly sensitive world for my Wheeler,” musician Grant Leutschaft sings in the parody.

Wheeler didn’t address the comments he made on-air last week about actress Scarlett Johansson dropping the role of a trans man in an upcoming film after an outcry from the transgender community — he compared transgender people to actors playing a role — but he did promote an appearance by the actress on his Monday podcast.

It was a stunt.

It appears he cut audio clips from movies and interviews with the actress into a faux-conversation, mostly focused on her appearance and her role in Marvel’s The Avengers and sequels. At one point, he made a joke about losing weight and taking off his shirt, before singing Weezer’s Island in the Sun, with the noise of a shower laid over top of his vocals and a clip of Johansson singing an unrelated song about islands.

Wheeler said he plans to record and publish the podcast Monday to Friday. It’s unclear if the show is making any revenue. As of noon Monday, the podcast had over 3,000 listens.

Wheeler was fired by Rogers Media last Tuesday after calls for boycotts of 92.1 CITI FM’s advertisers circulated Monday.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera reports for the city desk, with a particular focus on crime and justice.

   Read full biography