things I've learned at 1806

I'll preface this next bit with some notes. I've lived here, in the same room, for three years, and I know every in and out of this neighborhood within a four-block radius. I've lived with some serious characters and have experienced some pretty amazing times. There's been some quiet times, and some really loud times. If these walls could talk, there would probably be a lot of bleeping-out.

The Sound

My room at 1806 is partly separated by glass from another bedroom. Apparently, everything can be heard coming from my room in the other bedroom, and I mean everything. Yet the strange thing is, I've never heard much of anything come from the other side. It's almost like a one-way-mirror, except for sound. Strange, indeed.

The Lifts.

The elevators are incredibly smart here. I've never seen elevators like it. When idled, one sits at ground level, another in the middle, and the other at the penthouse. They juggle perfectly as if actually controlled by one very considerate man.

The Delta Chelsea.

This hotel sits across the street from my room. It ruins what would be an incredible view of south downtown Toronto. The shortcut through the lobby is the only real redeeming quality about the place, which I've probably passed through over 500 times. It's also extremely ugly. On top of that, I never saw any full-on sex coming from any of the rooms. How lame is that? Every night I'd look out my window to see if anything was going down, and nothing. I've seen some weird stuff however. I've seen a blowjob in progress, an old guy masturbating naked, two naked people laying on the bed with the lights on, and a whole lot of people changing. So, for all my real friends, do me a favor and go have sex at the Delta. Not so that I can sit and watch, but so that I can finally say after three years "Oh look, people are having sex at the Delta. Neat". On a final note - Blair and I are still trying to figure a way to blow up the entire building, just so he'll have a nice view.

The Alarms.

My condo is allergic to smoke. Even if you burn toast, the smoke alarm goes off. There's been some perticularly hilarious stories surrounding that device. The interesting thing is though, howcome the alarm never went off after we Jamaican Sauna'd the bathroom? I've seen steam come out of that bathroom that would honestly rival Niagara Falls.

The Changes.

Something is always wrong with this place. They're always shutting off the water, closing the gym, renovating the pool, fixing soggy ceilings, tearing up floors, bleaching something, and removing something else. I'm going to guess that there were only a total of 21 days where nothing was wrong with this building. I'm sure the site coordinator loses sleep at night.

The Halls.

The hallways smell like Toys R' Us. I noticed that the day I moved in. Do you know the smell I'm talking about? It's dominantly a fresh plastic smell, mixed with the odd stroller that passes by.

The Water.

It's god-damn delicious. Toronto water in general is the tastiest water ever. I have no idea why either. If the water here could be embody an inanimate object, it would probably be a milk shake, because that's how good it feels to drink. Going from another other towns water to Toronto's is like going from Marble Cheese to Double-Creme Brie. Get the picture?

The Tank.

I was never busted for practically living in my studio. My studio space is a large storage unit located one floor below street level. Two security cameras point directly at the door, and yet I was never hassled for being down there for hours at a time. Sometimes, a few people will accompany me, back in the good old Think Tank days. We'd stay there for hours. I'd have girls down there (intentionally or not). I play albums on full blast. I empty piss jugs and used oils/chemicals into the small drain outside the door. I clean by brushes at the Car Wash bay (and I usually do a pretty good job of spraying all the colors into the drain). Strange things come and go from that room as well, such as: a gigantic mirror, a five-foot wagon wheel, bee bee guns, an oven door, countless canvases, and lots of busted furniture.

24/7

It's too convenient here. It's literally impossible to go hungry in this area. There are four 24-hour establishments within five minutes of each other, and I couldn't even tell you how many times I've visited them at 5 a.m. There's a Panago next to my front door, a Subway, and a Falafel house around the corner. The convenience is also one of the major factors in leaving this place: I just don't want it that easy anymore.

Blair.

I love living with Blair, because he thinks I'm a pretty cool guy and really hams me up when I'm in the kitchen. He laughs at all my bad jokes and catches all my movie references. He is easily persuaded by his vices, and I've practiced that persuasion many, many times. His hobby is cleaning, which is good, because my hobbies create a lot of mess. He thinks I look like Sinatra, and once said I'm like the Dos Equis guy. No wonder I love Blair.

lights on, I can't sleep.

I completely forgot about this next piece. I wrote it while drinking beer in our hotel room in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland. I originally intended it to be longer, but the ideas are all there - and there they will stay.

Life is funny like this.

Most of my personal time is spent perusing through the isles of everything I think I believe in. Since being on tour, there have been a lot of waiting periods, particularly before the shows themselves. At these points, I'll usually find myself in only a handful of places.

I spend a lot of time in the bathroom, for instance. There's something about the silence and tranquility of bathrooms that really calms my nerves. I usually stand in front of the stall, read ads on excessive gambling, pants completely zipped up, until some other guy walks in. At that point, we'll exchange maybe two words until I wash my hands and leave. I also love our van. I'll sit in the drivers seat, listen to some music, and play poker on my phone. I roll down the windows, just to catch some breeze and to listen to street chatter.

I also like a nice cigarette sometimes. Now, don't go assuming that I'm Joe Smoke. I'm in no way addicted to the stick; I merely appreciate the calmness that nicotine brings me, and this is nothing new.

The nice thing about smoking is that it gives you an excuse to be outside. Hear me out on this one. When it comes to socializing, I thoroughly believe that at least 90% of any conversation when meeting new people is useless dribble. There's so much bullshit slung amongst people these days, it's scary. So naturally, I'm not standing on a patio just to meet people, because I can meet people any time I want. Anyone can. All you have to do is use your vocal chords, even badly. I'm there to catch some fresh air and maybe a puff. If somebody wants to talk, that's fine. I'll talk. Otherwise, I'm not going to seek out individuals because they have cooler clothes than me.

Lastly, I'll walk. Particularly in foreign places, I find myself wandering the streets for the majority of my stay. Every dark alley is explored, and even the odd fence is jumped. I think the idea of getting into trouble excites me, only because I'm curious to see how I'd get out of the situations I put myself into. Words like "trespassing" and "restricted" spark my curiosity, so I'll usually challenge them. I've also taken sincere pleasure in watching others partake in something as simple as walking. Human beings are far too interesting to assume you have them figured out. Just watch.

pink cloud tracing paper

Sometimes, life just isn't fair.

Before summer began, I spent over two months working on the same painting. It barely budged. I would constantly work, re-work, and re-adjust on the same canvas - which is a terrible ordeal for the same piece of fabric when working with oil. I could never settle on a color scheme, nor an image itself. This is the type of thing that misdirects my ambition the most.

However, freakishly, today I nearly finished two in two hours.

Where is the justice?

I only have one real explanation for such ordeals:

Normally, I'll enter the studio with an idea in mind. Seeing as I predominantly work in landscape, I'll have an idea for color schemes, cloud shapes, and terrain. Some days, like today, are just considered "Hail Mary's". That's when you take everything you thought of before hand and just throw it out the window.

I had a very shape-shifting talk with MB one day, about a year ago. I was yammering about my approach to painting and how, if I don't know something, I do my research. If I'm ignorant to a fact, it would usually induce a big coffee, a big walk, and a big read. I'd never leave anything to chance. I would examine every approach (even chemically, at times), study color wheels and different brush strokes before I even thought of touching oil again.

I'd heard everything she was saying before, but really did need to hear it again.

There are times, artistically, when you really need to let things take their course. This afternoon, for instance, my nose never left the surface of the canvas. I threw every tendency to reevaluate the piece out the window, and let imagination take it's course. Colors shifted seamlessly. Blending happened naturally. I should have prefaced this article by saying that landscape artwork is vastly subjective. I once asked my friend Scott (way back) how to paint proper clouds, to which he answered "there is no real way to do it". I took that advice very literally, and decided to base an entire series of work based off that statement.


I am currently working on Absolute Nothings . This series will be in the works for the next few months, and will combine ideas from past works, with a slight twist. I'll keep you all posted on the progression, which may be a long time coming considering there is mathematical research involved.

ps. Flash portfolio website is in the works.

not even a twizzler/oh baby it's tight i tell ya it's tight

A while back during tour, I was going to write a post on the delicate procedure of packing a van full of equipment. There is seriously a fine art to the entire ordeal. The MuteMath boys explain it best.

Those guys are big enough to have a real trailer. My band, on the other hand, gladly tour in a minivan. When I was a kid I did a lot of grocery shopping with my dad. One of my favorite parts (aside from using Loeb's Cookie Club membership) was putting all the items on to the conveyor belt at checkout. I was so good at finding places to put items, and still am to this day. I could probably fit an entire grocery cart on one reel of belt. It was all about shapes.

Same thing goes for trailers. Everything just seems to find it's place over time. And the longer you tour, the easier it is to fit everything. We actually had more space in the van than when we started the tour, despite collecting things along the way.

However much credit I lend myself as a packer, I have to hand it to Darcy. On top of being freakishly strong (due to either leverage or his Grandfather, Gumby), that guy can pack.

new years

For some reason, when making these images, only one person came to mind who would truly appreciate this program. Tiffany Mok, if you're reading, I think I found our new weekend activity. Thanks for the site Ro-Ro.

Holy Christ, I look like my dad in the pic above. For those of you who've had the pleasure of knowing my dad: let's laugh together.

fuck chinatown, i'm going italian

"Man, I know exactly how it's going to happen. Andy's going to wait until the last minute, and then out of nowhere he'll find some awesome place. That's how it's going to happen."

That's exactly how it did happen.


About an hour ago, I agreed to live in a bachelor at the intersection of College and Markham! Without fail, I waited until the last week of August to start looking. I was pretty taken with the space as soon as I stepped in for the tour. Big kitchen with nice appliances, great big bedroom, lots of closet space, and a decent bathroom. It's located in the basement of a house owned by a fairly young family. Luckily, my charm payed off and the owners really liked me, so they asked if I wanted in. I happily agreed.

Sure, a little pricey, but it'll work. I think I'm most excited to live by myself. I think I've fantasized about the idea steadily for over a year. I'll probably soon liberate my moms piano from her place so I can relax and work on some stuff I've had in my head for a while. Dinner parties will be planned on occasion, as I am sandwiched between two of the finest ethnic hubs in Toronto. On top of that, I even have room for all my stuff - even my projector. I can't wait.

I'm also planning on painting it a different color, which means I'm looking at you, kiddo.

Blair and I have decided to squeeze the last bit of summer by going to New York for the weekend until Monday. I hope to find another Miles David t-shirt gem.

yogurt

Come September, I think I'll start doing some yoga.

I sat down the other day and really micro-managed my mental health and realized:

Although on the surface I consistently appear calm, my soul races with stress on the inside.

I think this has been the case for quite some time. It has always (ever since I can remember) been my style to just shrug things off and let them resolve itself in my head, mainly when I sleep. My family has always known this, and I am occasionally called "a fart in a windstorm", mostly because I just drift through life seamlessly without a care in the world.

Until recently, I realized differently.
There is a small sign in the gym, here in my condo. It states:

Stress can be related to 90% of all illness.

True or not, it scared the shit out of me.

Maybe I've lived so strongly by my carefree lifestyle for so long, I've neglected the possibility of having any stress in my life at all. Now that I do, I have no idea what to do with it. I usually play my music loud enough in my headphones to drown out any concrete thoughts that may come floating in. My mom wants me to see a therapist because, after all, my personal life took a huge beating these past two years. I've never been too keen on the whole idea, probably because I'm old school and think therapy is an expensive way of dealing with your problems. After all this I can only rationalize one thought:

Isn't life fucking sweet, folks?

Just when you thought you were as cool as can be, life switches the picture and smacks you on the head. Just when you thought life was all figured out, your mind throws a stick in the spokes and tells you to handle it. I'm fine with that, because the path to self-discovery is like finally learning how to factor or long-divide numbers in Grade 11 math. When you realize something is wrong, what else is there to do than to tackle that motherfucker and get to the bottom of it? You can ignore it all you like. Shit, I've done it for most of my life.

I'm pretty sure there is a literal mass of neglected stress, stories, memories, and images stored somewhere in my body. It has to have created mass by now. I'm assuming it's either in my brain, my stomach, my heart, or my balls. Wherever it may be, it's time for a reduction.

So maybe some yoga will do.

my heart sweats

The results are in:

My Heart Is Okay

...to a certain extent.


For instance, my standing heart rate is (and I guessed it right on the money) 90.

Yours is probably around 70.

On top of that, the night I had the monitor on, we performed under the highest temperatures ever felt by Hue on stage. Apparently around the time of our set, my heart rate hit 194 bpm.

That's more than three times a second, got that?

So the plan is business as usual: Less beer, less salt, less caffeine.
I've been following that lifestyle for the past few months, along with some extended exercise.

I think I'm going to go celebrate by drinking a pint of Guinness at Molly's, while enjoying some free wireless internet - looking for a place to live.

everything is broken

Well friends, here we are again.

I trust you've all been soaking up your summer to it's full extent.

I've personally been squeezing the living shit out of my summer. I swam in a Great Lake yesterday and slept in a tent. We can complain about the heat and sweat all day, but when it comes down to it, we all know we'll be complaining about the cold in six months.

I usually like to keep this blog away from my personal life, but for now I'm going to dictate the next week of my life for historical purposes. So that one day, when I have a cushy life, I'll look back on the good ol' days and smile for a minute. I truly believe that no matter how feverish my life currently is, I'll reminisce about how much fun it really was.

In the next week I have to:

Find a Place To Live For September
Course Selection
Rehearsals
Convince Rogers To Sell Me a New Phone
Work Four Days In a Row
Install a New Painting Exhibition, & Remove An Old One
Figure Out How I'm Going To Do All Of The Above

Piece of cake? Easy as pie? Sure, why not.

In related phone problems, the final sentence was delivered the other night.

The screen on my phone is completely ruined. I'm sure the damage somehow correlated nicely with the cut on my arm pictured below. The funny thing is, I can hear when someone texts me, but can't read who it came from. So I've just been calling everyone, which has been kind of nice.

On top of that, I stepped on my ipod headphones. I'm not upset about this, because those buds are so terrible in terms of sound quality.

wedding crashers

Cara sent me this video a little while back and I just recently watched it.

I fucking love it.

Serious kudos to those two for organizing something so fresh and hilarious. I can only hope that my wedding will be that cool. On top of the dancing, that's got to be the cutest couple on the planet. When the groom busts in with that somersault? Are you kidding me? And the wife's solo entrance makes me want to cry. My wife better be that cool.

Give it a looksy.

works every time

Some days I just feel like giving Much Music a chance.

I sat down this morning with some peanut butter toast and decided:

"Shit. Since there's nothing but shows about boats on TV, I might as well head over to Much Music. Maybe there's something good on,"

I was greeted by THIS.

I strongly suggest that you watch the entire video before reading anything below, just to put it into context.

First, a strong slew of obscenities comes to mind. This comes as no real surprise. Secondly, and most importantly, you have to ask "WHY?".

For starters, this suburban white-boy honky has no right being on television. He's not even good looking! Usually the formula goes as follows:

A = current looks, with chance of insurmountably awkward puberty stage
B = current voice, with chance for digital tuning
C = personality and marketability
D = chance for product placement

A + B + C + D = $$$

The strange thing is, this kid barely falls into any of these categories. He's not good looking: Usually the big record labels will go for the image first, and then start from the ground up. He's not talented: auto-tuning has more prominence on that track than keyboards. On top of that, the kid can't dance worth dick. Last time I saw something that white I was staring into the sun. The director knew that, so they either put a black kid next to him, or put him on a skateboard. Watch me ollie!

I understand that what I'm saying has been said time and time again, and that it will never get any better. I know why music sucks and I know why it will never change. Lou Pearlman practically wrote the bible of the formula in the early 90's.

My biggest question remains: WHY THIS KID?

He's on DEF JAM for fuck sakes. You know Def Jam? The Roots, Nas, Method Man and Red Man, Ghostface Killah, and this cracker? Why is Usher hanging out with this loser?

How long was I asleep?

if you're not going to turn it off, turn it up

There's nothing like a fuck-off-sized lightning storm to scare the shit out of everyone. It's actually quite humbling to be honest. Just when you think to yourself "damn I should go get groceries", sorry Jack, you're staying in tonight.

Storms are funny that way. My brother and I used to landscape for a woman who really, really loved storms. She'd go on and on about how powerful and primal they were and how much she loved the energy. Later we'd laugh about how she probably got extremely horny when she heard thunder, even though we both secretly wanted to bang her.

Come on Mike, you KNOW you did.

-----------------------------------------------

Here's a story: When I was young I went to an eighth grade pool party. Everyone was swimming in our friends pool. My one friend Chrissy (a guy) was there. He didn't know how to swim, so his mom attended every pool party and made him wear water wings. It was a real buzz kill. The funny thing was, Chrissy was tall enough to stand in the deep end, so he looked ridiculous wearing water wings in the first place.

Everyone heard thunder, so my friends mom made us get out of the pool. We all huddled under the awning and ate soaking wet chips. Surely enough, lightning struck the pool. Not ten feet away, a huge white beam came down and struck the water, followed by the single loudest sound I've ever heard. Try to imagine a thousand car accidents happening at once in front of you.

I can easily say I will never be that close to a bolt of lightning ever again.

I almost wish Chrissy was in that pool, mostly because I'm curious of those water wings and if they'd explode.

Also, at that same party I kicked a girl in the vag' accidentally while we were on her trampoline. I was going up, she was coming down, I had my foot out, and she happened to catch it between her legs. We didn't talk much after that.

-------------------------------

On a final note: Do epileptics get seizures during lightning storms? I'm talking BIG lightning storms. It seems logical to me. If so, would they have to close their eyes if they were outdoors during a storm? Would they have to draw the blinds at home? I'd hate to see someone on the street, soaking wet, having a seizure. In this town they'd probably be thrown in the drunk tank.

yes yes, from the northwest

I was planning on gushing about how much fun the golf trip was, but I think I'll celebrate my return to Toronto with something a little simpler..


I can easily say I recite different lines from that song at least once a week. They usually find their way into my diction, and sometimes really cool people pick up on it. Then we high-five.

I don't want to think about how much work I have to do, so I won't. Instead I'm going to hang with friends, sit on my ass, start a painting, buy expensive olives, go swimming, and sip beer on my roof in the afternoon. I'll get to those important life decisions later.

non-stop-summer

Here we go again.

Another year, another week of golf with hilarious old guys in Michigan.

Lots of golf, lots of beer, lots of laughs.

I'll be back on Friday.

get up offa that thang

As expected, my annual phone troubles came right on time, almost an exact year from my last incident. However, this time I did not crush my phone to death playing the drums. I simply dropped it in a glass of water before bed. Sweet. The funny thing was, a friend called me while it was still sitting in the bottom and worked fine.
For now it still works, I just can't use any of the buttons. I've decided to let it sit and dry for a couple days.

Anyone have any tips for this scenario?

.....it's shit like this that I'd use a Twitter account for.