Mike Usinger

2 weeks ago | straight.com | Mike Usinger

What’s In Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what’s sitting beside the Heinz ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators. Graham ClarkI’m a comedian based here in Vancouver. I have been around long enough to have had a MySpace page dedicated to my comedy. I have been called “constantly hilarious” by Vulture.

2 weeks ago | straight.com | Mike Usinger

Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter. When things get truly bad it helps if you have heroes to turn to, documentary filmmaker Scott Crawford doing just that in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Raised on Reagan-era punk and hardcore, the director found himself predictably horrified last decade as America swung hard to the right under Donald Trump and the MAGA hordes.

2 weeks ago | straight.com | Mike Usinger

Michelle Thrush’s childhood was anything but a charmed one, but her award-winning play, Inner Elder, wouldn’t exist if things had been different. The 58-year-old Cree actor, who calls Calgary home, recalls an upbringing marked by raging alcoholism and violence that created the kind of scars which can all too often be permanent. “All of my aunts and uncles were drinking when I was growing up,” Thrush says. “All of my family passed away in horrific ways—murders, suicides, overdoses, and cirrhosis.

3 weeks ago | straight.com | Mike Usinger

Proud and excited as he is about MOVETHECOMPANY’s 20th Anniversary Extravaganza, Joshua Beamish will allow that he hasn’t exactly made things easy for himself. “Reflecting back, I am grateful, but I’m also kicking myself,” Beamish says.

3 weeks ago | straight.com | Mike Usinger

As much as Ariane Tapp loves the process of putting words together to create something beautiful, the Quebec-based poet notes that the art form can also serve a higher, more meaningful purpose. Sometimes you need an outlet for things that are going on inside. “Poetry is a way for me to express myself and my emotions, and maybe the darker side of me,” the Quebec City-based Tapp says in an interview with the Straight. “I always come across as a really joyful and zestful person—full of energy.