The Black Keys

  • Jobs, like the legendary magazine editors, trusted his gut

    Jobs, like the legendary magazine editors, trusted his gut My first journalism  job was at a magazine called InfoAge, which was all about what we then called microcomputers. I went to a lot of press conferences where hopeful manufacturers launched new models; the release of the Apple II in 1977 had turned a hobbyist gadget into something surprisingly powerful and then IBM’s introduction of its PC in 1981 made the “home computer” a legitimate business tool — and created a mad scramble of other companies that saw money to be made. At the time, I owned a machine that ran…

  • “You’re lucky to be alive, asshole”

    “You’re lucky to be alive, asshole” I wrote my first piece for The Toronto Standard last week. “No City for Middle-Aged Men” tells some funny (I hope) anecdotes about my experiences as a middle-aged guy who goes to lots of club shows full of lots of young people, while also trying to make a point or two about something or other. And now, I see that Will Sheff, frontman of the indie band Okkervil River, and a truly fine songwriter, has told Pitchfork: One of the most depressing things in the world to me is how people start to get frozen…

  • Fact Checking the Fords

    Fact Checking the Fords I’ve launched a new side project: a Tumblr that will aggregate the fact checking of Canadian politicians of all stripes. I call it Fact Checking the Fords because I am expecting Toronto’s Ford brothers will provide a lot of the content. More than just calling out the politicians, I want to honour the journalists — professional or not — who not only refuse to take our elected representatives at their word, but actually do the research to prove them wrong. Wish more reporters would do that. If you see anything worthy of inclusion, please let me know here or…

  • Vengeance is Ford’s

    Vengeance is Ford’s My old friend @cityslikr runs a great blog called All Fired Up in the Big Smoke, which is all about Toronto politics. He claims he will buy me two drinks for every guest post I write and you can read my latest offering here. It’s about Mayor Rob Ford and the triumph of vengeance over vision. I also mention my great-great-grandfather, who built a mansion on Jarvis St. in 1875. (No, I never met him.) Update: Sol Chrom has already responded to my post. He ain’t buying my long-term optimism and cites several good examples of destructive leaders…

  • Ryerson Review of Journalism wins six AEJMC awards

    Ryerson Review of Journalism wins six AEJMC awards The Winter 2011 issue My fabulous students, who produced the Winter 2011 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism, just won several awards in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Student Magazine Contest: Winter 2011 issue (editor: Liam Casey) — First Place, Single Issue of an Ongoing Print Magazine: Editorial   Judge’s comments: The depth and breadth of stories covered with top-notch, professional work. I wouldn’t have known this was student journalism had I just picked it up and started reading. The stories were so compelling I could hardly put it down. The story…

  • If Toronto’s Mayors Were Maple Leafs

    If Toronto’s Mayors Were Maple Leafs Last September, during the municipal election, Shawn Micallef wrote a perspicacious open letter to George Smitherman in Eye Weekly (now known as The Grid). Micallef urged the Toronto mayoral candidate to be more like Wendel Clark and less like Tie Domi. Although I am not a Maple Leaf fan, I’ve watched the team for decades and inevitably started wondering what Leafs our former mayors most resemble. So I wrote a guest post for the All Fired Up in the Big Smoke blog. Now that I’ve seen [seen enough, surely — ed.] Rob Ford in action, I’ve updated the…

  • Car Songs

    Car Songs Spacing magazine, which launches its first national edition tonight, is holding a road trip mix CD contest. Make a CD for Matthew Blackett’s cross-Canada drive and get a free subscription. Gotta like that. To get you in the mood and give you some ideas, here’s the Car Song Appendix from my book Drive: A Road Trip through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile. But please don’t steal too many of the songs from this list. No matter what the audio system is, music rarely sounds better than when it’s cranked up during a road trip with friends. And…

  • CIHR Journalism Award

    CIHR Journalism Award I managed to score a Canadian Institutes of Health Research journalism award to write about music and health. I will be doing stories for Maisonneuve and Reader’s Digest. And I hope this is the beginning of another great adventure (a book, in other words).

  • Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

    Here We Are Now, Entertain Us I am collaborating with psychologist and popular parenting expert Alex Russell on a book called Here We Are Now, Entertain Us: Parenting in the Age of Entitlement. Wiley Canada will publish the book in the spring of 2012.

  • Berton House Writers Retreat

    Berton House Writers Retreat I will be writer-in-residence at Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon from April through June, 2012. (Yes, the wait is killing me.)