Screenplays: I'm Ready To Go Back And Do What I Was Trained To Do
I've started so many, but I gave my life to music since it was so damn cool.
All my Mike Dynamo music and videos are in a single spot!
Right HERE!
As always…
If you like it, share it.
If you love it, subscribe.
This Substack is run by donations. So, if you can't live without The Dynamoverse, put a few dollars in the Substack!
I went to college to become a doctor.
At first.
Once I had a terrible time with biochemistry and used a note written during a final to not fail calculus, I closed the chapter on that profession. Doctors may not need to know imaginary math, but I was not going to stick around to find out.
In the early days of wandering around the University of Texas, I would run into high school friends on the regular. Out of 640 graduating seniors, it felt like half of us matriculated to UT and the other half went to Texas A&M. I've heard that UT is where the smart kids would go. I'm not sure how true that is, but all the party people went to both. As a freshman, I spent a lot of time with a kid named Tray. He left high school and became a film major. That sounded way cooler than that doctor business my parents told me to do (sorry Mom and Dad).
When I went to freshman orientation, I wasn't aware that I had already picked a major. Rather than going with the biochemistry group, I went off with the computer science guys instead. Once the upperpersons started explaining majors, they had packets for everyone in the group... except me. It was incredibly embarrassing.
Luckily, I was able to make the change from biochemistry to Radio Television Film, or RTF. Knowing my empathy and undiagnosed ADHD would make it hard to become a director, I decided it would be more fun to tell a director what to do instead. I decided to become a screenwriter!
How did that turn out?
The day I graduated from college was one of the worst days of my life.
Rather than having it in May, I still had another semester left and wouldn't graduate until December. I remember standing on graduation day, wearing my gown, and wondering who all these people were. Why were these kids moving to Los Angeles? Did I not spend enough of my college career meeting my classmates? Oh snap! I didn't spend enough time meeting my classmates!
The music called me too hard back then. Too many bands. Too many shows. Some of the best times of my life were rocking stages and learning the art of performance. Bands started at 17 and never stopped. Still... in 2011, after an entire decade of danger, car problems, and playing "Austin rockstar," I decided I needed to get MORE serious about writing. That's when I joined a Creative Writing graduate program at Full Sail University. Full Sail teaches people about the entertainment world. It's like the Berklee School of Music for the entertainment industry.
I found myself signing up for that program because I could graduate in a year, they gave me the fanciest 2011 MacBook Pro I'd ever seen, and the government was going to give me more money to do it! Finally! I was going to be a famous screenwriter AND pay $100,000. I was jazzed.
Wow! Is that when you got famous?
No... No it is not.
I joined the program. I quit my jobs. I took up daily space in coffee shops around town, and I wrote until I felt like I was good at it. I even finished an entire script... that I wouldn't let anyone read. At the time, I couldn't deal with that level of exposure. Still, I passed and graduated from Full Sail, still feeling completely unprepared for whatever could be next.
I managed to get a few jobs editing scripts for people in Austin, writing SEO for attorneys, and was once asked by a Black author to write a script based on his Autobiography. After finishing his book, the man died from cancer before I close to finishing that assignment. I still feel terribly about that. I have his book, though. All I can remember from it is that according to the writer, Steve Harvey is an asshole. I would never take dating advice from that guy.
Regardless of my efforts to change, music called again as it always does. It called me to hip hop, ska, reggae, much better reggae, coffee shop jams, and winning karaoke contests. Making music has always been my home away from home, but it never paid me like it loved me. So when 2016 rolled around, I was offered a chance to move to Cambodia and start a career in dropshipping by an old friend. It took a few days, but eventually...
I said yes.
So you quit Austin and moved to Cambodia?
Yes. I quit the town. I left my band, said my goodbyes, and took the trip to Southeast Asia. I'd been there months before with another friend to go to the Full Moon Party. That thing was mind-blowing, and I'd never seen that many Europeans in one place before. That is another essay, for another time.
When I agreed to move to Asia, I made a deal with myself to give up on music. It was fun, but it kept me hustling. It was time to focus and make this dropship thing pay off. My friend and I created a company, formed a logo, made some websites, grabbed some phones, and took off.
I hated dropshipping.
I knew I had to get out. Once I managed to sell an $8,000 massage chair to a man I had to talk to every night for two weeks, I let my partner keep the money while I braved Cambodia to find a job I could keep. Of course, that job was writing SEO articles for a company that had me interview someone in the first week. I thought that was so fishy. All in all… it didn’t matter.
The music would call on me once again.
I became a neighborhood star at a bar called Showbox by singing covers for fun. I met a poet who became my co-emcee in Hypnotic Fist Technique. I made more music friends, and it didn't take long for us to start a band. I lied to myself and said I was doing this for fun, but no... I liked the thrill of it. I needed music as much as it needed me.
HFT worked its way up the ranks quickly and played or some of the biggest festivals in the region.
I also quit writing SEO for that company, too.
That is a lot of music.
My life has been all about making music since 2000. It's been an incredible ride. In Cambodia (when I stayed at the haunted motel… another essay), once, my cover band, The 99 Boyz, got a party jumping so hard we almost collapsed the dock into the river. Great people, great times.
Even though I wasn't writing scripts, I shifted over to essays and blogging. Now... I want to go back to doing what I was trained to do. I want to write a bitchin' 90 - 120 page screenplay. I want to sell that screenplay for money, and I want to have it made. I'm adding this to my list of missions, which goes like this:
Write a script and get the movie made.
Write a song for Eurovision.
Sync songs like there is no tomorrow.
That's it. If I can do those things, I'll know that I made it. Isn't that all we want? To make it. I want to be great at something, and I want the world to acknowledge it.
I'm going to have a whole lot of fun doing it. Here’s a music video:
So if any of you want to get involved or know where I am on this project, you've got a variety of comments and social media apps where you can find me. Including the chats here on Substack
Feel free. Do it. Ask me questions. If you have advice, I'm open to that too.
Let's write a movie!
