It’s one of the great truisms of life that, Pulitzer Prize winners and J. K. Rowling aside, writers don’t take on their craft as a profession to make money.
In fact, pretty much any writer worth their blank Word page existential angst will tell you that they have to write, that not expressing all those words, ideas and thoughts inside of them is no more possible than sprouting wings and flying to the moon.
But needing to write, and finding forums in which to write can often prove to be almost irreconcilable imperatives, meaning that you often end up working in fields and on projects that may not necessarily be your first pick.
Which is how comedy writer Ethan Cole came to write this hilarious short film for his CBC web series My 90-Year-Old Roommate, in which he ends up composing eulogies for those still living who get to have a say in what’s written, a tactic that proves to not be quite as straightforward or rewarding as he might have hoped.
If you’re a writer, you will understand immediately why Ethan takes the gig and even if you’re not, the insightful humour in the piece, which was inspired, according to Laughing Squid, “by a drunken conversation with his grandfather while the two were living together”, will have you laughing in wry recognition.
Life, and in this case, death don’t always give us what we want but half the fun, as the film reminds us, is figuring out what to do in less than ideal situations and making the best of it, come what may.
And regardless, hard though it is, of what your grandfather, who’s not short of pithy opinions, may say to you.
Dear Aussiemoose,
That’s so interesting. Now, what do you think of My 90-Year-Old Roommate?