By Mark Leiren-Young Vancouver Canucks Coach John Tortorella really does have a sense of history. On Sunday he successfully reminded everyone of the days when it was embarrassing to cheer for the Canucks. And anyone who thought Torts couldn’t do anything tackier than try to fight another coach was proven wrong when he benched goalie […]
Neither Arrogant, nor a Worm
By Mark Leiren-Young A long time ago in a theatre far far away — okay, 1991 at The Vancouver East Cultural Centre just before Valentine’s Day — my comedy partner Kevin Crofton and I launched ourselves as the satirical duo Local Anxiety in a show called “A CBC Love Affair,” featuring another comedy couple, Double […]
Thank god nobody’s reading this
By Mark Leiren-Young Is anything private? A few weeks ago I was asked to fill out a survey from the Writer’s Union of Canada about “Spying and Harassment.” The union was asking writers whether living in a surveillance society was having an impact on their work. Years ago a friend was working on a TV […]
Reindeer Games
By Mark Leiren-Young I was a teenaged reindeer . . . I always wanted to be Santa Claus. When it’s Christmas and you’re in the dressing-up in costumes business, who doesn’t want to be the big guy? But as a gangly teenager — six foot two and maybe 170 pounds, even covered in costume fur […]
Seeing through Lululemon
By Mark Leiren-Young Chip Wilson, founding Big Lulu of Lululemon, recently resigned after publicly suggesting the fabric on his company’s Luon yoga pants was fraying at the crotch because women can only search for Shiva’s enlightenment if they don’t have Ganesha’s thighs. As a man who started wearing Lululemon a few years ago, I wanted […]
When sea monsters ruled
By Mark Leiren-Young “The Department of Fisheries had put knives on the front of their boats so they could ram these big sharks and kill them — and the sharks were harmless.” The first time I heard this I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I thought I’d misheard, misunderstood. I asked again. Then I […]
Broken Big
By Mark Leiren-Young So on Friday I got to interview the man who created the man who knocks. The interview with Vince Gilligan, creator and show runner of Breaking Bad, ended at about 2:40 pm. I raced out of Vancouver’s Sutton Place Hotel to find a place to transcribe it and write my story for […]
Elmore Leonard’s tasty dialogue
By Mark Leiren-Young So I meet Elmore Leonard on one of the only junkets I’ve ever covered for the Georgia Straight. I’m with a group of just over a half-dozen journalists at a studio in LA and we’ve screened Get Shorty and when we get to the Four Seasons Hotel to do the junket interviews […]
Cory Monteith: The boy next door
By Mark Leiren-Young The only time I saw Cory Monteith in person was at a Canucks Game. He and his on-screen and off-screen love interest Lea Michele were in their Canucks jerseys at GM Place cheering on the home team at game one of this year’s playoff debacle against the San Jose Sharks. Their smiling […]
Calgary’s artists rebuild
By Mark Leiren-Young As I was driving away from Calgary it started to rain. I was on my “C Canada tour,” promoting my new book in Cochrane, Calgary, and Cranbrook. The Calgary event was a reading at Pages — a funky bookstore in the type of funky neighbourhood that doesn’t exist in the minds-eye view […]
