In the summer of 1987, I worked as a reporter and photographer for the Low Down to Hull and Back News, a community paper that is based in Wakefield, Québec. It was my first job at a newspaper, outside of my six-week internship at The Ottawa Citizen.
Being a small-town paper, I often had to find the stories where I could: there was a farmer who was fighting town council to get calcium for his Lac La Pêche dirt road, so that the dirt that was kicked up from cars wouldn't fall on his fields. There was the man near Lac Bernard, who had been on an expedition to the North Pole, who was now raising rare breeds of dogs. When Mont Ste. Marie ski resort was installing the region's first quad lift, I was there to cover the story.
I know. Exciting stuff.
Other things just fell in my lap. For instance, the main road through Wakefield was suddenly cleared, as were all of the cars in the parking lot of the Wakefield General Hospital, and the neighbouring manor inn, because a patient needed to be airlifted to Ottawa. I waited, with the police, to capture the helicopter's landing (it was a tight area, surrounded by trees and power lines) and the patient being loaded into the air ambulance.
I enjoyed driving around the Gatineau region, looking for photo opportunities. When there was talk about bringing the steam train back into service, I made my way to an isolated and overgrown stretch of track to capture an image. When plans resumed to extend Highway 5, which, in 1987, ended at Scott Road, in Chelsea, I drove past the barriers at the end of the southbound lane, climbed atop the rocks, and shot where now is a dual-carriageway overpass.
One of my favourite pictures that I took was during the annual fair, at the end of the summer, in Rupert. It wasn't much of a fair: a few pony rides, a home-made arcade with simple games, and basic food for sale.
I took a photo down the main street, trying to capture all of the so-called action, but there really wasn't a decent angle to make the fair stand out. I was about to count my losses, when I spied a young girl sitting on a painted, metal chair, blowing bubbles. Her knees where scratched and bruised from doing what all kids do. Another young girl looked over her.
With my telephoto lens on my Minolta X-700, I crouched from the other side of the street and snapped two shots in quick succession.
The story about the fair was only a couple of lines, describing what a reader could have found there. Because our paper came out weekly, by the time the story ran, the fair was already over.
But the photo stood out and made covering the story worthwhile.
In the album where I store many of these photos (yeah, I took a bunch with me when I left), they are all now faded and yellowing. I should digitize and restore more of them, to remember that summer 33 years ago. But I thought I would start with this one.
Happy Friday!
Over the years, I've shared some embarrassing photos of the hair styles of my youth, but none have been more embarrassing than when I was in my early 20s, in the late 1980s.
(Well, there was that Year of the 'Fro, but let's not speak of that.)
A couple of days ago, as I was searching through old photo albums (remember when we used to print photographs and place them in binders?), looking for images of DW and me, in our early years of dating and travelling, I came across some photos that stood out. Not because they were well-composed, properly focused, or of any real interest, but because of what stood out, more than anything else, in the pictures.
My hair.
They were snapshots taken of me. Portraits, of a kind. Shot from the waist up, with me standing on a slight angle, in half-profile but head mostly facing the lens.
The first shot stood out, to a lesser degree, because I was wearing a respirator and face shield. I immediately remembered the day. A datestamp, faded, in the upper-right corner (though, not visible in the scanned and digitally touched-up copy), showed that the photo was captured on my birthday, in 1987.
It was a quiet day in the camera store, in the Merivale Mall, and a couple of things were going on. First, I was helping the photo-lab technicians change the chemicals in our then state-of-the-art printer (which accounted for the protective gear—I would have also worn a lab coat to protect my clothes).
Second, my colleagues and I were playing with one of the pocket cameras, which captured the date on the image. I know that this wasn't shot with any of my cameras because, at the time, I owned no 35mm camera that would imprint numbers on the film.
Third, because we also offered a passport-photo service, I posed for the photo in front of our white backdrop.
These three factors brought back the memory of the day. It was quiet in the store, so my colleagues and I did what we usually did when there was little left in the store to do—when there were no customers, no shelves to stock, no display cases to clean. We played with the cameras to better familiarize ourselves with the products we offered to customers.
My colleague was going to capture an image of me, but before she did, our lab technician asked if I could help carry a large plastic container filled with developing liquid. I suited up and gave my assistance.
Once finished, I removed the lab coat, but my sales colleague said, "That mask is fetching, Ross. You should keep it on."
Thus, the photo.
The flash cast a shadow on the passport backdrop, but there was no mistaking the mass of long, wavy hair in the back. That infamous hockey hair.
Looking at it, the other day, in the photo album, I shook my head. To think that I thought that this hair style suited me.
Flipping the pages, I jumped ahead to June 3, 1989. It was the wedding day of an elementary schoolhood friend (schoolhood? is that a word?), and I was one of his groomsmen. The black tuxedos with the bright-red cummerbund, matching kerchief and bow tie marked the end of the 80s. But I still had that damned hair.
I remember that day. I would have actually gone to my hairdresser earlier that day and said, "Clean me up, I have a wedding to attend. But keep the hair long in the back."
These days, when I get my hair cut, I tell my stylist to keep it short. No waves, no curls. When I wash my hair, I want to spend no more than a few seconds brushing it and then getting on with my life.
May hockey hair be gone forever.
Long before I decided to pretend to be Roland Axam, before I went to Scotland for the first time, I was drawn to the Scottish brogue. I loved the rough sound and the way the R's would roll off the tongue. I particularly liked the Scottish accent coming from a woman's mouth.
That was, and still is, a big turn on for me.
I used to be a customer at a bank where one of the tellers was a Scot. Her voice was soft but the accent was clear, to be sure. And later, I worked in a camera shop with a Scottish lass who put a smile on my face when she would offer a promotion to our customers: "With that, you can have three free rolls of film or three free photo albums."
Imagine that said with a brogue, the R's rolling on and on.
But my first encounter with a loud, guttural, Scottish brogue came in the summer of '87, when some friends and I were enjoying a gorgeous evening in the back patio of the long-gone, Byward Market bar, Stoney Mondays.
On their patio, you felt like you were in someone's over-sized back yard, with the picnic tables and the high, wooden fence. You would often find yourself sitting on top of the tables, where you could get a better look of what went on: namely, watching the ladies. The waitresses would carry opened cases with an assortment of beers in cans. You would catch her attention, pay her, and then pull a can from the case. Quick and easy.
On this one occasion, I caught up with a waitress who was standing with a man who was maybe one or two years older than me. He was bald, had a pointed nose and squinting eyes, and very much reminded me of a rat. Hard as it may seem, he was several inches shorter than me, but he was lean and seemed fit, wearing a navy rugby shirt. He seemed more interested in talking up the pretty young server than in making a purchase, so when I approached, and she saw me, she turned the case in my direction (she had already served me a couple of times that evening, and on previous occasions, so she was familiar with me).
I handed her the cash and drew a tall can from within (I won't say what it was because my taste in beer has radically changed in the ensuing decades).
As I was turning to return to my friends, this loud voice boomed from this man, his Scottish heritage clear as a bell: "Hey, you. That's me beer yeh took. Ya gi'it back of I'll punch yer fuckin' lights oot!"
I turned to him, surprised that what had been a quiet transaction had now turned into a confrontation. Was he really willing to fight me for the can in my hand or was he just trying to impress the waitress?
My eyes met his, his squinting in anger, or in sensitivity to the light. I then looked into the case, where many more cans awaited. I reached in, retrieved an identical can, and put it in his hand. It was my turn to speak: "Sorry, mate. I di'n't know it had your name on it." My attempt at a Scottish accent was poor, but effective. I nodded at the waitress, turned, and walked to my friends.
I didn't know if the guy was going to follow me or escalate the incident. But I walked straight to my friends, who were looking at me, having seen the exchange, wanting to know what that was all about.
I explained what happened, mirroring the guy's voice and accent, which drew plenty of laughter from my friends. For the rest of the evening, when we would fetch another beer, we would take turns saying, "Hey, you, that's me beer yeh took. Ya gi'it back or I'll punch yer fuckin' lights oot!"
It was the start to what would later be my perfected Scottish tongue. One that would fool many, including actual Scots. The accent that I still miss using.
The Internet Age has not only made the world a smaller place, but it has also brought people closer with the advent of social media.
These days, you can keep in touch with far-away friends through e-mail, Skype, Facebook, and Twitter, to name a few methods (or, at least, the methods that I use). But you can also reach out to people who, before social media, where only accessible through the big screen, television, and radio: public figures and celebrities. And, in those forms, contact was only one way.
Because of Twitter, you can follow your favourite celebs and read what they are doing at that particular moment, but you can also reach out to them, responding to their tweets or just contacting them directly. If you're lucky, they will respond to you.
Recently, I remembered that, for a short period, I was able to interact with famous folks without the Internet, without social media.
When I was a journalism student at Algonquin College, I spent six weeks in an internship at The Ottawa Citizen. And, as luck would have it, I was assigned to the Entertainment department, where I would follow stories about local celebrities, artists, and musicians, and would occasionally get to see famous people that were known across the country, even world-wide.
For my 500th post on The Brown Knowser (already!), I thought I would share some of my brushes with celebrities and what made these encounters so memorable.
Former members of The Guess Who: on my first day at The Citizen, I was sent downtown to cover a press conference, where some musicians where announcing that there was going to be an increase in the royalty amounts that they would earn for their songs. For decades, Canadian artists were earning far less than their American and European counterparts, which made many of them head south of the border. The increase was an effort to keep our Canadian singers and songwriters in Canada.
Among those speaking at the press conference were none other than Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman. For me, it was great to be sitting in the press gallery, able to ask questions. I still remember the question that I asked, addressed to Cummings: had he considered leaving Canada before this increase? His answer was an emphatic "no," that he loved his country and had helped lead the charge to this increase.
When the conference broke up, I made sure to move up and shake Cummings' and Bachman's hands, letting them know that I appreciated their part in Canada's music scene.
Will Millar, of The Irish Rovers: long after The Unicorn and Wasn't That a Party were big hits, the Rovers had a huge following. So when they were coming to Ottawa to perform at the NAC, I was asked to interview one of the members, Will Millar.
The interview was conducted over the phone, as it was held the day before The Irish Rovers were to play in town. They were currently in Toronto and we wanted the story to run for the next morning.
One of the problems was that when I called Millar's hotel room at the appointed time, his manager answered the phone and said that Millar was taking a bath, and I should call back in a half hour. Thirty minutes later, when I called, Millar was still in the bath: maybe I should try again in another half hour, his agent suggested.
I waited for 40 minutes, just to make sure. When his manager answered, I was informed that Millar had just exited his bathroom, in a robe, and could I call back in 10 minutes. I said, "if he's decent, put him on now. I can't see him, and he's probably comfortable in that robe."
Millar took the call.
My first question to him: "How was your bath?"
Wonderful, was his answer (or something like that). He laughed, and I knew this was going to be a good interview. It was. It was also the first full story of mine to appear with a byline.
Alanis Morissette: because she lived in Ottawa, my interview with Morissette took place at her home (actually, it was her parents' home: she was only 13). We sat in her kitchen while her mother prepared dinner. This interview took place long before her angry Jagged Little Pill, before she was known outside a tiny circle of fans. Back then, Morissette wanted to be a pop star; as she told me, she wanted to be the next Olivia Newton-John.
After the interview, I was given a single of hers to take with me. I promised that I would listen to it while I wrote up my piece for the paper. When I got home, I put the 45-rpm vinyl on and played the song once. I wrote a simple, fluffy piece about a young kid wanting to make it big in the music industry. When I gave the written piece to my editor, I told him about the music and the song I heard. My exact words to him: "She'll never amount to anything."
The story was never published.
Lee Aaron: people may not remember her, but in the 80s she was a queen of heavy metal. She was also a hottie. Like The Irish Rovers, Aaron was interviewed over the phone in advance of a performance in Ottawa.
I knew very little about her music other than a bio I was sent before our conversation. I knew that she had done a ballad with Canadian icon Dan (Sometimes When We Touch) Hill. Known for his sentimental, saccharine-drenched love songs, I asked Aaron, "Is he a wuss in real life?" She laughed and said, "Not at all!"
During the chat, Aaron let me know that her first band was called Lee Aaron. When I guessed that it was named after her, she said no, that no one in the band was named either Lee or Aaron. Naturally, my next question was, "So, what is your real name?"
She hesitated, saying she wasn't sure that she wanted to say her real name. She asked me if I'd use it. I said that I might, unless she told me not to before giving me her name. She then said that she didn't know if she'd get in trouble with her agent if she disclosed her name, and I then said that she didn't have to give it.
"It's Karen Greening," she said. "Are you going to use it?"
"I might," I repeated. I did.
When we ended the interview, I told her to drop by the newspaper when she came to Ottawa and that I'd buy her lunch. She never came.
Later the next day, when Aaron/Greening was in town (after my story ran), she conducted an in-studio interview with rock-radio station, CHEZ 106. A friend of mine, who was driving home from work, told me about the interview.
When the interviewer brought up her real name, Aaron growled, "some <expletive> reporter, whose name I won't mention, leaked that."
I was famous for an instant, though only those who read The Citizen story would know who she was talking about.
Adrian Smith, guitarist for Iron Maiden: the day before my phone interview (again, they were coming to town), I received a press release that included their latest album. That evening, I listened to the first side of the album while I prepared my questions for a person from a band I didn't know. At the end of side one, I took the record off my turntable and returned it to the sleeve. I never listened to it again.
My first question to Smith: "Do you actually like the music you perform?" I wasn't laughing.
Bob Rock, of the Payola$ and Rock & Hyde: Rock came into The Citizen to meet with me face to face. It was the scariest interview with a musician, because he could see my face. He wasn't performing in Ottawa, even though his latest album, Under the Volcano, had just been released. He was in Ottawa to receive an award and to attend a show-business gala, hosted by CHEZ 106.
The interview went very well: Rock was lively, animated, and understanding at the fact that I was a rookie intern. I only knew his famous song Eyes of a Stranger and had heard only a bit of one song from his new album (Dirty Water).
As we wrapped up the interview, Rock said, "Now that we're done, can I ask you a question?"
"Yes," I said.
"Have you heard my latest album?" I told him I hadn't, that I received no bio kit before our interview (as was usually the case). "If you walk me to my car, I'll give you a copy."
During our walk, he also asked me if I was going to the gala. I told him that I wanted to, but the tickets were pricey and by now, was sold out.
He reached into his pocket and gave me two. "Take mine," he said, kindly.
"But aren't you going?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "but I'm Bob Rock. I don't need tickets to get in."
I took one of my best friends, who also was in the journalism program and was interning at the Citizen's city desk. Shortly after we arrived, I saw Bob Rock with an entourage of followers, a pretty woman on each arm. From a distance, I waved, and when he recognized me, he called my friend and me over.
He introduced me to his entourage and then got all of their attention: "This is Ross Brown, from The Citizen. We had a lovely chat this afternoon." He bought us drinks, spent a few minutes chatting with us. I don't remember any of the conversation at that point because I was in awe that such a well-known celebrity would take the time with a relatively unknown person and make me and my friend feel so special.
He was a true gentleman.
Of all the famous people that I met during that internship and since, my experience with Bob Rock will live with me the longest.
Unless, of course, any of my top five want to meet me.
