Do Something With Your Life

When I enrolled at the Vancouver Film School for 2005 I had two simple goals for what lay ahead during and after my year-long intensive study of the art of writing for television, film and new media: Get paid to write* and make a movie. In the summer of 2010, I was lucky to see the latter through as we began the production of the feature-length independent film “Do Something With Your Life”, of which I wrote the screenplay.

Writing is weird. Art is weird. We talked a lot about community, supporting other artists, working with people both liked and respected for their talents: everyone working together to get better and make better projects. For a long time, this shared mentality lead me to opportunities I would never had even with VFS on my resume:  I was able to write and help make** 40-something sketches, two seasons of a webseries- writing and acting in it- I did stand-up comedy, wrote sketches for a bunch of groups and helped produce sketch shows***, work-shopped stuff with other writers, gave notes for projects in production, and I even appeared an iPhone videogame for a popular SyFy series as a monk AND a pirate. When I start to reflect, listing those achievements, (as mundane as some of them may be****) I get a sense of pride I haven’t felt since I was active in the community.  That’s weird to me, because for the last 3 years it’s pretty much been petulance and anger.

Fourth Date

A Degenerate’s Manifesto: Chapter 2

I was encouraged to dig through my old files to find some inspirational half-starts and unpolished turds. The following is an excerpt from a novel I tried to write about six years ago.

Click below to read chapter 2.

Full Moon Tonight

Uncle Dick’s Sick-Ass Roadtrip

I wrote the following tale of adolescent loss/avuncularly tomfoolery over a 36 hour typing binge in the spring of 2007 when  I was an under-employed wannabe screenwriter trying to figure out a way to make money with my whimsical coming of age stories. Some facts about the script, which may or may not deter you from reading the complete 99 pages:

1.  It is a first draft so the spelling/story may leave something to be desired.

2. The last name “Kranson” is indeed a reference to Bryan Cranston, however as this script was written well before Breaking Bad please note that I was paying homage to Mr. Cranson’s work in Malcolm in the Middle.

3. If you imagine Tim Allen as Uncle Dick, it’s funnier.

Uncle Dick’s Sick-Ass Roadtrip is a feature screenplay written by me, Andrew Menzies, available to read through Google Docs after the jump. Enjoy.

We’re all dumping water on our heads

The Ice Bucket Challenge, which is this thing that’s happening right now* in which someone willingly dumps a bucket of ice water on themselves lest they have to make a charitable donation to ALS (sometimes they do both). Friends, cohorts and enemies are also challenged to do the same within 24 hours, lest they look like a fool:

Below are the common Internet opinions regarding this current trope:

Hello

I have not travelled far in my twenty nine years as a tax paying 21st century human boy.

My self-awareness can be measured by dividing the preceding statement with the observation that it is most definitely literal and also probably figurative. The cheaper- arguably more concise metaphor- is that I’m getting older and trying to find my place in the world*.

It’s an old story- if you’re a dickhead you might call it cliché- but I’ve essentially packed all of my stuff in a car and drove across the country in search of a change: location, lifestyle and attitude. This is not something I would do on my own, as I’m fortunate enough to have a supportive companion going through the same late-twenties malaise: debt, career-paths, friendships morphing and decaying, more debt, marriage (to me), happiness and a future teetering on the line between hope and desolation. As an anxiety-ridden fellow often locked in a routine, I would not have made this much needed change without her support and guidance. I jumped off the cliff- the water is coming towards me fast and all I can do is brace and wait to hit the surface. Is it deep enough? Will I find a job? Is there a hidden jagged rock that’s going to rip my knee caps off?**

As bright as the future is, leaving behind friends and family with no timetable of when you’ll see them again is fucking impossible.