I’m working (slowly) on a doc about my dad.

Terry Doyle was the kind of man who got dealt a rough hand and decided the joke was on whoever dealt it. That’s the whole movie, really. Not adversity overcome, but adversity outlasted, with a punchline ready the entire time.

He was a Mountie once. Then he sold menswear. Then real estate. Somewhere in there he took the stage as an amateur performer, because why not, the man clearly liked an audience. It’s the resume of someone who never confused a job with an identity, who understood that you could be many things across one life and none of them had to be the “real” you, because they all were.

He loved Jane, his wife, for as long as he had her. He loved his three kids the way fathers do when they’re paying attention, which is to say imperfectly and completely. And he loved golf, which tells you something too, a game built entirely on bad bounces and how you respond to them.

Dear Ol’ Dad isn’t interested in turning Terry into a saint or a symbol. It just wants you to sit with a man who laughed until the end, because laughing was simply what he did with the time he had. No moral, no lesson, just a life lived loud and lopsided and entirely on his own terms.

It’s a celebration, not an elegy. Terry would have insisted on that distinction.

My father, who lived to be 87, hasn’t eaten or drunk anything for 20 years. He’s been fed through a stomach drip after surviving cancer. Despite this, his positive outlook and incredible sense of humor have always been contagious. I truly believe this documentary will uplift people. It’s filled with archival footage, hilarious photos, and even insights from his book Where Was I?, which raises a lot of fascinating questions.

He was a born-again atheist, a gentleman, and a gentle man, with a sharp, wicked sense of humor. It's not a time sensitive project, so I work on it as money comes in...I aim to complete the project by the end of this year.

I am happy to credit anyone who donates to this project at the end of the film. Thanks in advance for checking this out, and double thank you if you can help in some way!