Out of the Pan and into the Fire.

Before I get to the screenwriting... Some backstory if you don't mind?

I was born in a mining town in Norther Ontario - Timmins (home of Shania Twain!) - that neighbours the town James Cameron was born in...

All that shit on the sidebar to your right, the schools and stuff. That's all true. My father didn't get along too well with most of his mining employers. So we moved a lot.

My older brother's an actor: Jody Racicot. He started off pretty big, acting alongside Jon Favreau and Jeremy Piven in PCU.

I was still in high school at the time. I drank, smoked a lot of hash, and sold and dropped a ton of acid. I started to get in trouble (with the FUCKING LAW) prior to the circus coming to town when I got in that fight with the Ringmaster (did I mention his ol' lady beat me about the head with a broom before the rest of the circus monkeys crawled out of their eighteen-wheelers and proceeded to kick the living shit out of me and drag me - to what I presumed to be, the lions' cage - before the cops saved my ass?) Motherfuckers.

Anyway...

The trouble was there and I was in the thick of it. Coke dealers, dope slingers, dishwashers. That was my future. In Timmins fucking Ontario.

Then my father quit another job and we all moved to Australia. I started to read Charles Bukowski, drink white wine mixed with red cordial, and NOT get laid.

I backpacked and hitchhiked around their (the Australians) country, scribbled notes in numerous soft cover books and when I got the living shit kicked out of me by a gang of Aboriginals (with this stupid weapon made of a sack filled with sand? and swung with a rope) I flew to Los Angeles.

I stayed at a backpacker's hostel in Venice Beach then moved to the beaches of San Diego and then went back up to Hollywood. I got the best blowjob of my life from this French girl just off of Hollywood Blvd... I honestly felt like she was trying to kill me. A sex assassin. Her weapon was fellatio.

Fast-Forward >>

Back to Canada to fuck around. I hitchhiked 'cross the country a couple of times... lived in a van. In a parking lot. Down by the river. But that was Whistler. It was a lot more fun than depressing.

When I moved to Montreal in 2000, I started writing my 'First-time Writer' semi-auto biographical novel. Like George (we share the same birth day) Orwell's Down and out in Paris and London. Only I wrote about Australia, California, and the Greyhound Bus... And not getting laid.

This was during the time when 'Chick Lit' was big. What was the dude's equivalent? 'Dick Lit?'

Anyway. There was that dude Eggers that kind of made it all seem laughable. I don't know why, that's just how I remember it.

Fast-Forward >>

Shortly after writing this one hundred thousand word opus, I wrote a screenplay. It probably sucked.

Fast-Forward >>

My dad passed away and I moved to New Orleans. I tried to drink myself to death. Didn't work. I ran out of money.

Fast-Forward >>

Back in Montreal after having worked all 'round the U.S: Miami, New York, New Haven, Montana... I took a screenwriting workshop that saved my life. Or more importantly, I found a mentor who told me I had talent and encouraged me to keep working at improving my craft - that it always pays off in the end.

Fast-Forward >>

A comedy Spec Pilot, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and a half dozen feature specs have led me to this:

The Horror Movie! I grew up on Horror movies...

Four years old and I'm watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Alone. In my uncle's basement. As my parents smoke hash and party upstairs... Terror Train - kindergarten... Friday the 13th - every Friday... And An American Werewolf in London. I was a teenager before I could get through the whole thing - and it's funny?!

I'm presently work shopping my first horror spec with Randy Pearlstein (Cabin Fever) and it's a kickass motherfucker of a non-stop boot in the balls sunovabitch. Here's the logline:

While celebrating Spring Break at a secluded lake house, a recently returned soldier and his former high school friends are terrorized by a madman stalking the surrounding woods.

I've got a second draft.

Wish me luck.