Growing up in a small town leads to mischief. I was a teenage nightmare. Stealing alcohol from my parents and wherever I could around 12. Smoking weed and ouija boards at 13. Smoking speed (which I’m pretty sure means we smoked crack) and dropping acid at school at 14. Then I jumped off the roof of my high school at 15…(and subsequently shattered my left ankle)
Ok Rewind.
Now why would a young girl in Canada jump off the roof of her high school?
Well, cause Boozy the clown told me to! DUH!
If you grew up skateboarding and snowboarding in the 90’s you probably heard of the “Whiskey Videos.”
Pre CKY and Jackass, they were shred videos mixed in with drunken debauchery led by an alcoholic clown named Boozy. He did things like ride motorcycles through grocery stores and fight 7-11 employees.
Probably the most famous scene from the films is a bunch of fucking idiots smashing beer bottles over their heads. (or not smashing them lol)
This did something to my generation.
I cannot tell you how many Friday and Saturday nights I spent in church parking lots watching dudes and the rare chick, smash beer bottles on their heads. It was all about technique. You had to do a full swing and no holds barred. Mostly the nights ended in a bloody mess; running in all directions from the cops and picking glass out of peoples foreheads.
For the record I never broke a bottle. And I am proud of that.
Being in a skate or snowboard video was the holy grail. Especially drunk. Careful what you wish for or you’d end up like me. As seen in the wonderful clip at the top of this newsletter of myself drinking whiskey in the Skate film “Bitch Ass” made by one of my best friends Benny Stoddard.
Talk about an ender ender.
Years would go by and I’d move to many mountain towns, continuing the bender 7 days a week. I even started making my own all girls snowboard flicks.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d have a run-in with the real Boozy the Clown. Not only did I run into the motherfucker. I dated him. It didn’t last long in time, but the effect was profound. He was a fucking dick. But I thought I loved him. I was 23. What the fuck did I know?
I wandered the streets of Vancouver crying for years about it. Making art, not love, until I somehow convinced Boozy I should make a documentary about the Whiskey videos.
The scam worked and Boozy got a used luxury car dealer, that I’ll call “100%” to fund the film. Not even kidding. A fucking used car salesman was my first film producer.
“100%” gave us 100k and we were off to the races. I traveled North America interviewing every heavyweight skater, snowboarder and jackass I could find. I behaved my best, didn’t fuck anyone and finished my first cut of the film.
Myself editing in the boozy suit. Wendy Dyk Photo
Here’s a sample of the unreltrailer
Upon viewing the first cut of the film, “100%” called and told me it was a “dogs breakfast” (he had no idea what a rough cut was) and said “I was just like his ex wife.”
OK Bro.
Boozy showed up at my house a few hours later and made me go to AA. Fucking AA…with Boozy the clown. I smoked weed chronically, I wasn’t an alcoholic. Then I was forced into NA. After one meeting of a bunch of heroin junkies trying to fuck me I bailed.
All because of a rough cut.
The movie was dead.
After being forced into sobriety, I accidentally got married (whole other story) and moved to Los Angeles, California.
I had made acquaintances with the idiots at the Jackass TV Show / Films at Dickhouse Productions & they decided to come onto the project as producers so I could finish the film.
I was walking on air.
So I worked again for months, recutting the film. And then one day I got a magical call from Johnny Knoxville.
“Hey kid, MTV wants to buy your movie” he said.
I rode the bus home from work that day in a daze.
I was 27 and I had done it. I had sold my first film to MTV.
We went back to Boozy to tell him about the MTV deal. But Boozy got selfish and asked for way more money than MTV had. MTV is low budget. It was 2007. Not fucking 1990.
The Whiskey crew proved to be real Whiskey Dicks and screwed around on the deal so long it went soft.
Viacom bought MTV a few weeks later, and fired the guy who’d acquired the film.
And that was that. No more movie deal.
The first of many films I’d make that would be shelved.
What could I do? Cry? Fuck yeah I cried.
It was a hilarious movie that no one will ever see.
But I just kept going. And still am.
It did get me a job at Dickhouse Productions, which we’ll get into soon.
Did I learn anything ?
Don’t trust drunken clowns, kids.
Myself again in the Boozy Suit. I somehow lost the suit since then. Wendy Dyk Photo
Whiskey Dick