The Women Of Ill Repute

The Women Of Ill Repute

Women of Ill Repute is a compliment. And not just for women! Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway have left CBC and CHFI to chat with sassy women about sex, family, politics, and media. Lots of secrets and no room for shame. Is it journalism or comedy? It’s both. Smart talk with tv and radio stars, comedians, authors, lawyers, politicos, restaurant icons and more. All of them brave, fierce and funny. Fun!

Episodes

October 22, 2024 23 mins
Well hello. It’s been a while. We are back, but only to say goodbye, then take you with us. After almost three years of being independent podcasters with the Sound Off Network, we are moving over to Substack. Substack is primarily a writers’ platform, but you can host podcasts there too, so we are taking the existing episodes of Women of Ill Repute (all 95 of them!) and putting them up there. You can still listen to us on Apple and...
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Our Summer Throwback series continues. Is an ambivert a pervert? No, it’s most of us! Maybe we are all just less funny versions of Colin Mochrie, who reveals he is, of course, an ambivert, someone who feels comfortable in social situations but also really enjoys time alone. You may know Colin as an extrovert, but he’s often really introverted. He says he’s afraid his neighbours might think he’s a dick, when he’s really just shy. Co...
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August 20, 2024 38 mins
Our Summer Throwback series continues. Even when playing old ladies, she’s beautiful. Sheila McCarthy is one of those people you feel like you’ve known forever. And maybe we have. She’s been in everything, and now stars in Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking”, the Oscar-winning movie based on a true story by Miriam Toews about Mennonite women and girls drugged and then raped by men they know in their Bolivian colony. It’s all about viole...
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August 13, 2024 44 mins
This week we go back to Episode 20 and the First Man. Rick Mercer was the first male to appear on our show. We decided to open up the floodgates and talk to anyone fearless and/or funny enough to want to talk to US, and no one fits that bill better than Rick. He’s been called a national treasure, Canada’s beloved comic genius, the scourge of Parliament Hill, and … the nicest man you’d ever want to meet. We love Rick for a million r...
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It's August and we are into some Summer Throwbacks! We go back to earlier this year and Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, a diva in the true sense of the word: a famous female opera star, with all the fierce discipline and flair for drama that that entails. But Measha is also a mother, a wife, a memoirist, a 7th generation Canadian descended from Black loyalists, on her way to finishing a Masters degree in practical theology. She does eve...
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July 10, 2024 33 mins
Sometimes singers sing about singing, writers write about writing, and podcasters podcast about … yes, podcasting. This episode is actually a live off the floor recording of an interview we did with Sarah Burke, the founder of the Women in Media podcast and network. It takes place in Toronto at the Soundwave Summit, a conference and showcase for independent podcasters. Sarah tells us about why and how she started her pod, and then ...
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July 2, 2024 33 mins
So Wendy never reads sports, but always reads Cathal Kelly, the sports writer at the Globe and Mail. He’s funny and fearless and clever, Cathal just happens to have chosen sports as the best vehicle. We pretended we were going to talk about the upcoming Paris Olympics, and we did! (Cathal loves the Olympics, aka 23-year-olds doing crazy, exceptional things, sometimes involving the River Seine) We also talk about his book, a memoir ...
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June 25, 2024 34 mins
We both feel like we know her, Martha Chaves is after all the funniest Nicaraguan Canadian LGBTQ+ Stand Up Comedian in the World! We know her best from radio shows like “The Debaters”, and “Because News”. She also teaches comedy at Humber and Metropolitan Toronto University, showing the ropes to people just starting out. Martha tells us she’s heard and seen lots of sexism, racism and homophobia over the years in Stand Up, but she j...
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June 18, 2024 38 mins
We love books and authors, we consider a lot of them for our podcast, but Vancouver Island’s Chelsea Wakelyn sent us an intriguing email. So we read her first book and got truly blown away. “What Remains of Elsie Jane” is a quasi-fictional story about losing her beloved partner, father to her kids, to drugs and addiction just as the opioid crisis began sweeping B.C. All while Chelsea was in her 30’s. It sounds like a gut-wrencher. ...
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There are many pathways to fame and fortune, but being exceptionally good at doing laundry is an unusual one. Enter Melissa Dilkes Pateras, whose knowledge of housecleaning tips and tricks has turned her into an internet sensation. Well, that, and her sly sense of humour and unblinking acknowledgement of her sexuality. A resident of Uxbridge, Ontario, and mother of three, Melissa started making videos during the Covid-19 lockdown t...
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June 4, 2024 39 mins
There’s no getting away from Ann Pornel, not that you would want to. She’s loud, she’s proud, she’s utterly glamorous and funny as hell. Ann’s a sketch comedian and an actress who is best known as the host of The Great Canadian Baking Show. Born in the Philippines, Ann moved with her family to Canada, then came up through the comedy ranks at the University of Toronto (yes, U of T is a hotbed of comedy). She’s written for Baroness V...
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George Stroumboulopoulos is a man for all seasons. He’s everything: a media personality, broadcaster, former VJ, radio, talk and reality show host, social advocate and one time host of Hockey Night in Canada. Everyone knows George, and George know everyone, but what do we really know about him? He’s 51 and lives in L.A. now, where he does a show for Apple Music. He’s a vegan who embraces a straight edge lifestyle, rides a motorcycl...
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May 21, 2024 34 mins
We had to ask about the red hair, does one get ridiculed or admired? Loreena McKennitt has a mass of beautiful red curls but is mostly admired for her music. When Mo thinks of her, she sees mists and magic and fairy tales. Loreena’s sold more than 14 million albums and toured the world with her harp and her beloved band of fellow musicians. She’s a singer, songwriter and composer with a new album full of early Celtic tunes called “...
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May 14, 2024 34 mins
“Going to the coconut tree”. You hear it all the time on “Survivor”. What does that mean? Erica Casupanan spills the beans. She is the first Canadian to win “Survivor”, and the first Filipino. Tiny and Asian, she was tired of always being underestimated, so she used it on “Survivor 41”. Erika voted out her rivals, won over everyone else, and surprise, she won! More than a million bucks. A bit more than her previous salary as a comm...
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Michael Smith is a Celebrity Chef who decided he had a problem with the Celebrity part. He’s kind of a big deal, has published several cookbooks, hosted TV shows on the Canadian Food Network, and wore the chef’s hat at some big-name restaurants around the world. Now, tired of Michelin-priced restaurants, he moved to Prince Edward Island and runs the 5-star “Inn at Bay Fortune”, where the farm is as sumptuous as the food. And there ...
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April 30, 2024 33 mins
Ron James says comedy should never be mean, but he sure has a lot of opinions! You should hear what he says about Quebec comedians. Is there a geographic link to comedy, a humour gene unique to Eastern Canada? Ron says he learned the power of laughter at his father’s knee in Glace Bay and then Halifax. That’s why he loves to tour, he says laughs are truly the bottom line.Like so many comedians, Ron got his start at Second City in T...
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April 23, 2024 40 mins
Jen Gerson of “The Line” readily admits to being a mouthy babe, but only when she writes, she insists she is actually shy. Jen says she’s just opinionated, not trying to change anyone’s mind. She argues that’s not a journalist's job, that only activists try to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”. Well, call us afflicted! Her writing makes us think. Jen has written for The New York Times, The Economist, Macleans, the...
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April 16, 2024 25 mins
You know you know Michaela Watkins, but you may not know why. Then you remember (or are told) that she’s been in over a hundred sitcoms, dramas and comedies, including a 2 year stint on SNL. And then you remember that you love her, and when you see her latest movie, Suze, you’ll remember why. In Suze, Michaela plays a woman who once wanted more for herself and sets about reclaiming it, with the help of her daughter’s abandoned boyf...
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April 9, 2024 32 mins
Ron Sexsmith says “I’m not really shy, I’m just Canadian”. He’s a singer-songwriter who has never had a top 40 hit, is not rich, but is deeply admired by the people he admires most. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, and Gordon Lightfoot, are all, were all, huge fans. Sexmsith’s songs, like “Secret Heart”, have been performed by everyone from Rod Stewart to Feist to Nick Lowe.We spoke to him as he was about to headline at T...
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April 2, 2024 35 mins
Award-winning director and cinematographer Dianne Whelan does not choose easy topics. She’s made docs about Mount Everest, and the Arctic, but this one, about being the first to tackle the whole Trans Canada Trail, takes the cake. Or in this case, the reheated oatmeal. Dianne has called her new documentary “500 Days in the Wild”, because that was the plan, to travel from St. John’s NL. to Victoria B.C., 24 thousand miles in 500 day...
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