Douglas ‘Michael’ Leander 1950-2025
NW Examiner’s first, and funniest, columnist
Michael Leander contributed zany columns to the first three editions of the NW Examiner in 1986, but he was never replaced. You can’t replace the funniest, most interesting man in the world, an assessment shared by many who knew him.
Leander died in Eugene on Feb. 7 at age 74, after fighting off a blood disorder for four years that was supposed to kill him in two weeks.
Nothing about Leander was predictable. He was fluent in Russian and was loved by many immigrants for whom he interpreted in court, hospitals or wherever needed. He amazed companions by connecting with strangers in languages they had no idea he spoke.
His irreverent multicultural fluency shined in his third column, “Terrorism in the Northwest,” in which he portrayed “Akhmed Al-Gresshami” and “Zarzan Teheran.”
The caption read, “A group of desperate, media-hardened Northwest terrorists maneuver this plastique-laden pickup on a crash course with a Northwest 23rd Avenue business. Using the preferred terrorist technique of forming explosives into everyday objects, Zarzan leads the 6-cylinder charge with explosive croissants strapped to his body.”
I called the column “The Retractors: The only column requiring a preemptive retraction. The editor, the publisher and the author are not responsible for its content.”
Still, there were requests for retractions. Another early contributor to the paper, Janet Mandaville, complained about the ethnic stereotyping of a part of the world where she had lived. Leander said his fictional terrorist cell also included German, Irish and domestic terrorists, but he couldn’t displease everyone.
He didn’t even have to open his mouth to make people laugh. His 6-foot-2, 300-pound former high school lineman’s body crammed into a mini-compact would do the trick.
He worked at assorted jobs, including many years in computer programming. Despite his communication skills, his career at The Oregonian never included journalism. He worked in the graphics department, where to keep things lively he challenged colleagues to create the most offensive bumper sticker imaginable, put it on their car and see if they could draw angry honks before driving one block.
Sasha Aginsky, owner of Via Delizia, recalls the story Leander told at his restaurant in the Pearl, where he was a regular patron.
“An incredible guy,” Aginsky said. “It was impossible not to like him. … He was a character.”
One day Leander needed to cover a debt, so he called an old friend who was then working for Goldman Sachs. He asked for $10,000, which was quickly granted.
“Stupid me, I should have asked for $100,000,” he joked.
“Stupid you,” his benefactor replied. “You should have asked for $1 million.”
It may not have mattered. Leander was not one to hang on to money.
He told Aginsky about loaning $40,000 to the owner of a soon-to-fail bar on Northwest 16th Avenue.
Aginsky asked how he was going to get the money back. Leander wasn’t worried, he told the man he could repay him $1 a month.
“He was so generous,” Aginsky said, “but he had no business savvy.”
Leander’s short-run column in the Examiner was entirely his idea. He asked for no compensation. His friends, Ralph Wells (a longtime Northwest Portland resident who died in January) and Mike Taylor helped with the production.
The first Retractors columns dealt with the alien influx sneaking across West Burnside to reach prosperity in Northwest Portland.
“Even the minor family squabbles that have broken out between the 21st Avenue faction (Phalangist Militia for the Liberation of Jerry Garcia) and the 23rd Avenue Faction (The
New Believers of the Open Market) have been affected by the alien onslaught.
“'The Northwest—leave it and leave it again,’” is the motto of our more conservative community business members.
"Free land! Free housing! Free parking! Free deli takeout!" is the more liberal rallying cry.
“'May they name a disease after you,’” is a favorite of my brother-in-law.”
I never did learn the name of his blood disorder, so I will call it Mike Leander’s disease.
I don’t think it was contagious, but to know him was to die laughing.
Thank you for that tribute and reaching out by phone today. We could have talked for hours. He may never know the community of people he brought together.
Thank you very much for this wonderful tribute to my dear friend, Mike Leander. We worked together at The Oregonian for 18 years and knew each other well for 30, through good times and bad. His combination of remarkable intelligence and silliness were devastatingly funny, not unlike Monty Python, National Lampoon or The Onion. When he left Portland in 2020, out of concern for his health, in the wake of Covid, I was only able to see him one more time before he passed, but we spoke on the phone regularly. We shared many inside jokes, most of which were based on our mutual appreciation of a slightly dark and somewhat inappropriate sense of humor. But above all else, to his friends and family, Mike was a big-hearted, kind, generous, loyal, loving, incredibly smart man who never condescended to those of us who possesed nothing close to his command of history, geography, economics, languages and politics. He had a tremendous thirst for knowledge and never stopped learning. I will miss him dearly, but will never forget the many times we laughed together, hysterically, like madmen.
John Denner