During my teen years, my dad had a friend who'd drop by from time to time. He was funny and confident and handsome, apparently smart and quite good at what he did. He also had a wife he complained about endlessly. She was difficult and didn't like to do any of the things he liked to do. She made his life miserable in all sorts of inventive ways. She never accompanied him on any of his visits so I never met her and after a while...

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GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART SIX "You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends." - Joseph Conrad Although I've mostly talked about my Saskatchewan Roughriders this week, there is another team competing for the Grey Cup tomorrow night, a damn good one… Led Anthony Calvillo, undeniably the best quarterback in the league and a brilliant head coach in Marc Trestman, this season's Montreal Alouettes feature...

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GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART FIVE When you become a fan of the Saskatchewan Roughriders you become a fan for life. Win or lose, come what may in your own life, you stick with them. Nothing they or you will ever do breaks the bond of loyalty and affection. Like the place they come from, every heartbreak is immediately healed by the knowledge that next year, next time, things will turn out better. Last year, in the dying...

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GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART FOUR Glitchy day at World Headquarters. My apologies to those who barely got started on what was supposed to be today's installment before it evaporated. Maintenance got underway and then I realized it's probably better to take the Halftime break and re-group. Something my team probably won't have to do on Sunday, but as of today the Vegas Line has them at 4 point favorites. What's up with...

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GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART THREE I believe it was the great Hollywood writer/director Billy Wilder who once said of audiences, "Individually, they're idiots. Collectively, they're a genius.". Truer words may have never been spoke -- and they apply to sports fans as much as those who spend their time watching movies and television. Toronto sports emporium "The Skydome" sports a sculpture that has always bothered me....

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GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART TWO I feed my dog what's called a BARF diet. That doesn't mean I'm hoping to get her on the next Twitter feed to become a CBS series -- "$#*! My Dog $#*!s". It stands for Biological Appropriate Raw Food. It's what she'd eat if she didn't have a human buying her kibble and cans of dog food. And that means eating what she was designed to consume. Similarly there is Food Appropriate for a Grey...

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GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART ONE The finalists have been decided! And now the countdown begins to Canada's National Party -- Grey Cup Weekend. This is where we show the world that the word "Football" has nothing to do with a round ball, knee socks and the magic sponge. Nor does it have any relationship to a postage stamp sized field and taking four downs to do what real football players can accomplish in three. It's...

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Earlier this weekend, LA based Canadian screenwriter Brent Piaskoski twittered a suggestion -- "I think more people in L.A. would go to plays if they called them live 3D movies". I'm sure Mr. P was just joking around, but I also think there's a lot of truth in what he has to say. And I'm beginning to believe that a form of 3D might be about to transform not only theatre, but a lot of the other things now classed as "Live"...

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My first exposure to the essential works of cinema, the films you absolutely need to have in your professional vocabulary, happened when I was 7 or 8 years old. Television was a new arrival in my part of the world and one night a week the CBC would run a feature film without commercials under the title "Great Movies". My dad would make popcorn and the whole family would gather around the B&W set as Toronto Star film critic...

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I'm often accused of just wanting to tear down the current system we have for creating film and television in Canada. And many of those who share my opinions on cultural topics often encourage me to find some way of working within the structures and programs already available to Canadian artists, offering that "at least we've got this" or "what other choice do we have" or maybe "C'mon, I think they're finally starting to listen...

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Two years ago, I helped get a new reality/lifestyle show off the ground, producing and directing the first episodes and mapping out what would transpire over the first season. It was a complex and ambitious series so we began interviewing for an additional producer position. One of the applicants had a lengthy resume in that style of programming and said she'd just come off a "train wreck" series. In my naiveté or maybe pre-conditioned...

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All Art and most commerce is subjective. Some people like the same TV shows, movies or music I do and some don't. Some people love Fords or Chevrolets and others wouldn't be caught dead buying one. When I was 8 years old, my friends and I would argue endlessly over who made the best pick-up truck, though none of us had ever actually driven one and we didn't have the first clue what we were talking about. These days...

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