rivoli

A lot of people don't know this about me, but in my spare time I like to wander around Toronto using Google Maps "Street View" option (if confused, try it out for yourself - it blew me away when I first used it). I don't really look for funny moments or people bailing on their bicycles. I just look for me.

Tonight I came pretty close to my goal. Even though the face is blurred out, there's a small chance that could actually be me. The only problem is I'm usually not walking that direction on Queen West, and the only white plastic bags I carry are from New Ho King, and that's always past 2 in the morning.

Who knows for sure though.

koodo

Photographer Tom Feidler once told me:

Don't let school get in the way of your education.

I think of that every time I step through the door.

EX_JEW_FOR_JESUS

I sent this email to my dear friend Tiffany tonight and thought I'd share.

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Hey Tiffany,

I mentioned a movie called Religulous tonight and thought I might as well send you the link, seeing as I'm an atheist and am sure you might find a couple laughs in this movie. It's not too long, and Bill Maher is a funny enough man to watch 1:40 hours of.

A little known fact about me. I almost drowned to my death when I was 6. I was running around the pool at my childhood home with my brother and slipped into the deep end of our pool. Once I hit the bottom, all I could recall thinking about was this really amazing Ninja Turtles van my parents had bought for me earlier that week. It shot little pizzas. My mom grabbed me by the arm soon after and saved my life. I still remember that van, yet the pizzas remain buried within the furnace system of my early childhood home because they were really hard to find once you shot them at evil opponents.

Andy.

Religulous.

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happy 200

200th Post. Something monumental I guess.

To celebrate, I'm throwing in some Three Stooges for good measure. I'm not sure what my hankering is all about to watch Three Stooges clips all night, but maybe it has something to do with the show Dan, Darcy and I played tonight here in Toronto.

Because clearly Dan is Moe, Darcy is Larry, and I'm Curly. Enjoy.

the winds of shit

It's Danny's birthday today. My main man is 24.

Tonight there will be a party of some proportion. I'm kind of scared.
It reminds me of the morning of St. Paddy's Day, where you know some shit is going to go down.

I can feel the shit pressure rising, and the shit barometer dropping.

thought of the day

Hitler ruined a perfectly good mustache for everybody.

ringing ears

We had rehearsals today for the first time in almost a month. Jess was in Portugal and Andrew was pissing out his ass in Peru (Dan and I sympathized, as we had similar stomach problems in Fiji - needless to say, we all had a good laugh).

So with them back, we had a really fun Sunday afternoon jam and went over most of the material we've been working on, as well as a couple new diddy's. On top of that, it had to be the loudest jam to date. The boys bought a beautiful new VOX amp for electric guitars, which means we now play with two electrics, bass, keyboards, and drums all at the same time. As you can probably notice from the photo, the space isn't huge. This is the first time I've ever left a rehearsal with my ears ringing probably because we played Rooftops today about six times, which is about this loud and this fast.

Here's a pretty irrelevant shot of my studio. I thought I'd take it because my wide angle lens gives me a pretty nice view of the place. You can check out some of the notes on my Flickr. There's some funny treasures in there.

hitchhiker's guide

After so many major consequtive purchases, I literally have a few dollars to my name at the moment. When asked if I wanted to go out tonight by my dear friend Kudzai, one story came to mind immediately.

The story of a penniless, stranded Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy goes as follows:

"Adams claimed that the title came from a 1971 incident while he was hitchhiking around Europe as a young man with a copy of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Europe book, and while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck with a copy of the book and looking up at the stars, thought it would be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well."

The book went on to sell more than 14 million copies.

I plan to do something similar tonight.

I'm literally going to take the twenty dollar bill in my pocket and blow it on beer with one of my best friends in effort to drink and dance my way into some flash-of-genius-stupor that will send my artistic career into another (if any) stratosphere.

I really enjoy putting myself in holes like this. At times I consider money to be simply a privilege; something to be enjoyed and dealt with at a later date. It's one of the great freedoms we allow ourselves to relish in: the ability to do whatever we want with our earnings. The simple fact about money that doesn't scare me one bit goes like this:

I know I'm not going to die.

I have food in my house and money coming my way in various directions. I know I'm not going to go hungry or homeless tonight, so it's time to put my inspiration on the stove and let it cook for a while.

whoopdy woo

Sure, we won the Olympic gold medal in hockey.
Yet one thing struck me as I was walking the streets after the victory (I was on the bus for the last half of the game, so you can understand when I say I wasn't in the mood): on New Years Eve, everyone screams "Happy New Year!!", on Christmas morning everyone screams "Merry Christmas!", yet when Canada wins the goal - all we can do is stick our heads out the window and scream, which is something I've never really understood.

The Canadian hockey term certainly doesn't make me a proud Canadian, because that makes little to no sense when you think about it. The only reason people stick their heads out the window on those certain days is because they're merely excited they were born in the country that acquires men and women who skate well.

Being Canadian has nothing to do with people on ice.

As usual, to bring some more clarity to the situation, here's George:

danny in three

I finished this piece a few weeks ago for a required school assignment. I'd been toying with the idea of manipulating photos through various mediums over the past few months and have recently jumped head-first into the pool.

I suppose I was originally inspired by the works of Christo and Jean-Claude a few years back. I was obsessed with Christo's draftsmanship when applying pastel and various other mediums to schematic photographs. For those of you unfamiliar, first: what have you been doing with your life, and second: here's a link.

There will be a lot more of this work coming out of my studio these next couple months. My newest series is driven by memory: I plan to blow up (massive) old black and white photographs and apply washes of color in attempt to recreate how I remember them at the point of when they were initially shot. Exciting, no question.

find me outside

Finally, an updated Flickr account. I used to be so heavy into that.

Last weekend I spent some more time in London "researching" my term project. I'll say researching because I showed up to the schools, which were locked. I have no idea why I didn't put this together in my mind days before leaving. However, on a more positive note, the principle of HB Beal has just granted me access to the school at my disposal. Fantastic.

Another reason for being in London was to purchase what would ultimately lead me to applying for welfare. That's right: the coveted Sigma 10-20 wide-angle lens. I purchased it mostly for my term project, which solely revolves around the photographing of interiors. That, and it has a 10 year warranty - which is great because I'm pretty hard on my lenses for the most part ie. my Nikon stock lens vs. Rivoli pool hall floor circa 2007.


So, it's safe to say I've been using this lens extensively, which is at least ten times a day. On top of that, I picked up a portable flash from my moms house over the Christmas holidays, which allows for much more dynamic lighting scenarios as opposed to that flat-in-yo-face-flash. That's also been a ton of fun to practice.

Oh, and Bike and I got to play in the snow most of the day Saturday. Great packing snow.