About Me

This is who I am. I am to put stuff about me here.



I grew up about 8oo kms from the ocean and nowhere close to Vancouver. My father worked for a telephone company and mother mostly worked in a jewelry store. 

In high school I had no idea what I was doing or going to do. There was always something I felt i was 'not getting'. Like everyone else was in on something that I wasn't. I still feel that way.

I started writing about 20 years ago, after I spent a  disillusioning year in college earning an Office Administration diploma, and then wasting another year at a certain film school that Kevin Smith attended for a few months. We were the last class to learn editing on an old-fashioned Steenbeck editing table as computer editing was becoming all the rage. Sign of the times.

After film school I published a humorous yet cynical Canadian independent film magazine for 2 years called the Filmbin. While the magazine was fun to write it was a time when the change from big print houses to on-demand publishing was happening. It was a nightmare to keep afloat. The same was happening in film as HDD video. 

The same changes were going on in publishing. I used to go to Kinko's to scan pictures into my 1.44mb discs - having to save the file on zip discs, which were a big thing at the time. My distribution relied on the bus schedules, the selling of adverts was the worst part of the job, and in that, I failed it.

But I was quite proud of it, even getting a review in 'zine industry leader Broken Pencil:

This is a great magazine that deals with the ugly world of indie film in Canada. It takes a bitter and skeptical look at government funding and an indigenous lack of support for the medium, all the while doing its bit to promote new film-makers doing interesting things. Filmbin is a fun and interesting read, and probably a must for the indie Canadian film-maker (though it ain’t exactly encouraging) - See more at: http://www.brokenpencil.com/reviews

After 2 years I gave up on my Big City dreams after the Filmbin's Halloween Xmas Edition and returned to my hometown, tail between my legs. I piled everything i owned into this little Honda Civic i bought for $300 and remember having to dig out my piggy bank to pay for some oil about an hour's out from PG as the car was bone dry. 

I attempted to start another little 'zine (that being the time of zines) called Pulp while working in a brewpub. I also started doing some cartooning and 'invented' a beer called Tragically Hemp when i mixed up the barley and hops formula. I also invented JackKnife Brown, and his sidekick, Cigarette Butt. It was a good time to be alive and have access to cheap beer.

Once in awhile I wrote a short story or essay that I was proud of. I filled lot of books with notes about things that made me laugh.

I produced a children's television show for the local community access channel. I was given free reign to use the equipment but little else in terms of corporate support. I mainly had the feeling that the powers above just put up with me. As did the 'Talent' who tattled on me for having beer in the editing room. That lasted 5 shows.

Skip ahead 5 years, many jobs, 1 failed attempt at a Canadian indie movie later I found myself in Halifax where my first night was spent in a hospital where I was misdiagnosed with Kidney stones. It turned out to be cancer. Life. Six weeks later the tumor was removed and I went back to BC with only a few memories of Halifax and the amazing people and donairs there.

During my year long convalescence I finished my first draft of Stoner, started on the bare bones of EaFoM and wasted away my savings. I once did a 4 hour commute to work security for a film set overnight in the middle of downtown Vancouver. That was interesting, watching prostitutes and night people from the safety of the back of my 2nd beat up Jeep Cherokee, having to scare away only one person who was peeking inside my windows.

I moved a few more times, worked on a junk truck with a few more side gigs in film production. I worked with the Muppets, fulfilling a life-long dream that I didn't know I had. Again, I gave it up to move back north to manage a brewpub. That didn't last long. Instead, I became involved in social services, working with youth in trouble with the law. I met a beautiful woman through that job and we are still together nearly 7 years and two kids later. I have another child through a different woman who simply put I was not compatible with. The kids and my wife mean the world to me and while we may not have the same interests, she is what keeps me relatively sane and perhaps paradoxically why I have returned to writing.

We have moved many times in those 7 years and for the last few we have called Coldstream, BC our home. I now work with handicapped men, volunteer with the local fire department and yes, I also do mortgages.

thanks for the interest,
jay

Writing Credits;

The Filmbin Terminal City Pulp eforte Innovate! Magazine  Popmatters.com  Whatculture.com  spooftimes.com, Lumby Valley Times

Influences,

Kirk Vonnegut Jr, Orson Scott Card, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Malcolm Gladwell, Catch 22, 1984, Brave New World, The Fountainhead, Ken Kesey, the Hardy Boys, Calvin and Hobbes.


From my Smashwords Bio;

Duff Ragwell and His Amazing Channel Changer did little for me.
Wrote and directed an incredible masterful horror movie in the middle of a Canadian winter but nobody would believe me.
Pee'd in a hurricane.
Life goal to drive a car through a chain-link gate and a corn field, preferably at the same time.
Cynical yet optimistic.


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