THE RIMMER HATED COGNAC. RUM AND Coke, stingers, gin and tonics, whiskey; now those were drinks. But as a reporter on assignment in Paris in 1967 at a sidewalk cafe; on the Champs-Elysees, Rimstead dutifully followed in the path of his idol Ernest Hemingway and ordered cognac. In fact, Rimstead often found himself doing things… Continue reading The Lush Life of Paul Rimstead

It’s lunch time in Montreal, but the day’s just getting started for the editors at the alternative newsweekly Hour. Six staffers have gathered for a meeting around an egg-shaped boardroom table strewn with notepads, ashtrays, latte bowls and candy wrappers. At the moment, they’re puzzling over an ad that a local theatre company has placed… Continue reading La Belle Chaos

It is 1978. Women’s lib is a hot topic. Women are busy getting in touch with their ovaries and men are busy getting in touch with the dishes. Marty Goodman, editor of The Toronto Star, is in his office with his newly hired women’s columnist. “Do you understand,” he asks her, “what we mean by… Continue reading ”The Personal Is Political, Honey”

The Globe and Mail‘s veteran science reporter–a tall, burly, balding man with green/grey eyes and greying hair that stands straight off his head was at the bottom of Inco’s Creighton Mine near Sudbury, Ontario. His mind was filled with the day’s experiences: the four_minute, ear_popping elevator ride straight down (a distance equivalent to five stacked… Continue reading Lost In Space

We were acting like rave DJs, who are the hottest shit in music right now,” says Stephen Marshall, ex-frontman of the now defunct Channel Zero “video-news company.” “DJs take tracks and they assemble them into collages that keep people dancing for eight to 10 hours. I think that’s what we were doing. It wasn’t that… Continue reading Video Killed the TV News Star