hue video diary one

due to the lack of posts, i'll justify myself by putting this video up

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.

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.

don't shoot the messenger

I'll preface this next piece by saying I've never known my name to mean much other than simply "manly" (some friends phones have been assigned this title under my name, naturally). However, Tess hooked me up with a few little nuggets of info from the Urban Dictionary. Actually these nuggets are not little at all.

I laughed through every single one of these. Give them a read.

Ultra cool, Usually hot or at least sort of cute. Awesome sense of style, music, and humor. Sexy, awesome kisser

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the modern day superman, makes little asian kids cry by hitting them with pillows

Aaron: "damn nigga you owned me with a pillow andrew"

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a warrior, a man who does not give up; also a man who gets all the ladies

Andrew is the toughest and bravest man alive

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the hottest shit alive.

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has been laid by jenna jamenson, tila tequila, pamela anderson, and other hoes that dont stank.

duuude that guy reminds me of andrew, he gets all the hot girls!!

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A complete stud who all girls want to fuck. He has a large cock and some girls think it is perfect. Is kind and never is mean to people.

I wish i were like andrew.

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the most awesomest guy ever. everyone wants to be him. Girl version of name: Andrea

"Andrew is the coolest dude at buchanan high school"

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The most amazing person ever. Andrew's are super cool. Everyone loves Andrew. No one can live without Andrew. Andrew gets all the ladies

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has GIANT HANDS!!

WOAH!, did Andrew grow antlers.
No thats just his hands next to his head.

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Andrew is the best person in the world. He is perfect in everyway possible. Everyone (including me) loves him. If you go out with him you are way lucky. When he's with you, you feel like nothing can go wrong. Andrew is way hot, nice, funny, caring, and amazing. When he has his arm around you, you want time to stop because you know it wont last. When he leaves you, you feel like he took your life with him. Andrew always make you happy. But he leaves. When he does there is nothing left because he meant so much to you and you feel like you just let your life fall into a never ending pit that you can never leave. But when he's with you it's the best thing in the whole world.

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The best at everything known to man, created by General Custard in the 1800's, He's half man, half robot, half penis. He was created with the voice of angels and the strength of Hercules. He is most remembered for beating Chuck Norris in an arm wrestling championship. He once saved the world from aliens only to have sex with their women, he is man, he is everything, he is the one....

Chuck Norris' chest hairs are tingling.... Andrew's close by.

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

Let's just say I'll be calling my mom in the morning saying

"Hey, thanks."

OH PS. MY TWIN EXISTS.

Okay. Trippy shit. Meme and I were surfing people falling on escalators (don't ask why), and we came across a video where a spectator has the EXACT same laugh as me. Give it a listen and tell me what you think. We both think it's a dead-ringer.

nay-sexual

A couple days ago, it was nearing the end of the day and something interesting occurred to me:

I hadn't been turned on once the entire day.

In truth, everyone gets sexually turned on by something daily, if not by the minute (you know who you are). There's nothing at all wrong with that. Yet on this day, I had nothing. Not a dirty thought entered my mind nor a smokin' be-hind to look at. So, naturally you can understand the gravity of this, because I noticed it right away.
I was so excited by this fact that I quickly walked home so that I could write about it. But on the way, sadly, this girl walking past me was popping huge cleav' and we eye-fucked for about two seconds. Great. My experience was completely ruined by really nice boobs. Now I'll have to wait another 23 years until it happens again.

marla and me

I've mentioned it a hundred times over: I am utterly confused by the term artist. He's an artist, she's an artist, they're artists. It all boggles my mind, and I'll tell you why.

The reason I'm so confused by this term is that I thoroughly believe that anyone is capable of making art. We all are. In fact, I know people who are more an artist than I and they don't even make art. It's in the way they carry themselves: the way they articulate words and tinker with anything tangible, almost unconsciously. Then there are those that make art, but do not consciously think it's good enough to display and become discouraged out of any sort of exhibitionism for their work. There are also some that make art and don't even know it.

There are also those that claim to be artists, which is all good, provided you backup your statement, you ballsy prick. Like I said, I've mentioned this argument before.

There is a massive grey area to be seen. For instance, in the dictionary the term "artist" seems fairly straight forward: the centric line states "a person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby". Fine. Later, the same dictionary mentions singers, dancers, and actors. Except what the hell is a singer creating? All they really do is remember someone's lyrics and make their vocal chords vibrate. However, they do have the capacity to provoke emotion, just as much as Christo's big bedsheets, Serrano's Piss Christ and Rothko's squares of color.

The fact of the matter is, everything that has been indeed deemed "art" has provoked some sort of emotion one way or another. Your kids crayon drawings, your dog barking (ever hear that barking solo from Eels?), the suds on your car. This is where the problem presents itself to me, because all I see is grey.

If somebody were to walk into a room and a friend of mine turns and says "Hey, that guys an artist!" I'd say "Fuck him". Not the most well-rounded argument, but it's a state of mind.

HOWEVER

There are people who I do truly credit as artists. They've paid their due's, and got paid. Fine. My big problem is finding the line between your seven year old kid and the man who hangs work every two weeks in seven countries. A prime example of this can be seen in the film My Kid Could Paint That.

Although I'm not looking for the answer just yet, let it be known that I'm still on my quest. Because nothing makes me feel dirtier than calling myself "an awwwwtist".

tbc.

Tin Tin.

It went down.

Use All Your Shit!

If I were to have my own cookbook, the cover would be exactly Phoebe Gilman's Something From Nothing, except the old mans face would be substituted with my own.

When I cook, I can literally take anything in my house and make it into something relatively tasty. It's always been that way. Mind you, I wasn't so good at it when I didn't know anything about balance, texture, flavor bases or combination, but I still tried.

I've always wanted to have my own cooking show called Use All Your Shit!
It would go like so: I would show up to peoples houses (not invite myself over like that Australian prick on Take Home Asshole), to which I would open their fridge and pantry doors and concoct something delicious out of what they thought was "nothing".

I'll give you an example of this.

As of now, and for the past few days, I've had virtually nothing in my fridge. Lets say I had five items in there at most.

Last night I made deep fried vegetarian spring rolls with cheese, a homemade batter and even a dipping sauce from scratch.

Tonight I made a rosemary-infused cream of chicken soup with spinach, red onion, and diced carrots. For dessert I had a puree of strawberries and maple syrup on toast with a glass of red wine.

I swear to you - if you looked in my fridge you'd see nothing but stray bags of barely-there vegetables, a stick of butter, and rolls of film. I'm not normally the type to gloat, but I'm really fucking good at being creative in the kitchen. I could make you a roast chicken out of shards of glass if I wanted to.

ps. Except for that one time: I made Mike eat this "casserole" I made that was made only from wonder bread, sliced ham, white onion, and egg. That was fucking horrendous, and crunching into that burden still haunts me to this day. Sorry Mike.

truly brothers

Everyone, feel free to print and frame this, or make your permanent background.

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.

plaster sandwich

Well, I have since had an upgrade and it is surely more stable than the last. This addition has made me realize many things, some of which I will now go into detail about.

. It has been a very interesting learning curve so far. Actually, I should say re-learning curve. I am slowly realizing what I can and cannot perform with my right hand. For instance, these are the things you wouldn't think would be difficult, but actually are: grinding pepper, getting your wallet out of jeans, tying shoelaces, grating cheese, all bathroom activities, shaking hands, answering the phone, writing, typing, riding a bike and holding pretty much anything.

. It's really warm. I never think to wear gloves when it's cold, (not that a glove would ever fit). I can even avoid using oven mits at times.

. It is relatively bad ass. People really second look when they see a busted hand protruding from a jacket sleeve. It's just among one of those cool things to have in your hands when walking. The list also includes: hot dogs, a wreath, a coffee, a box of books, a bag of fruit, a christmas tree, a tripod, etc. Either that, or they think I'm an idiot.

. If I had a lady throughout the duration of this cast we would probably have lots of sex. Lots and lots. That's something I would enjoy doing with my time instead of fumbling with paint brushes and roaming around College Park. Nothing like the mambo to take your mind off things.

. Showering is becoming less difficult. Seeing as I can't get my cast wet, I have to do whatever it takes to keep it dry, even if it means asking my Coll-Bev lovers to hoard empty sleeves for me. The only really difficult thing about showering is dispensing soap. How is it done with one hand? Think about how you'd do it. I'll leave you with that image.

. Since I'm not working, I've been forced to conjure up some get-rich-quick schemes. Around my place they call that "The Big Dirty". I always find a way to make giant sums of money really fast, and it pisses off my brother to all hell. He'll work for three months and I'll sell two paintings in a day. Sometimes that horseshoe gets uncomfortable in my ass.

. Half of my shirts don't fit because I can't get my arm through the sleeve.

. The cast will probably affect my stair climb later next week. I use my hands a lot throughout the event when grabbing the rails. Oh! Also, I'm accepting pledges and I'm $25 away from reaching my goal, so if you like to donate to the cause just drop me a line. I'll go into detail about this day later this week.


All in all, this cast has turned out to be a very interesting ride so far. I've never had something so constricting attached to my body for so long, except for that time in Vegas, but that's a whole other story. Every morning I wake up and it just feels like it was all a dream, until I attempt to wiggle my fingers. I guess distance makes the hand grow stronger.

race to sleep

On any given day I couldn't care less about telling stories about dreams, or hearing about peoples dreams. It's never really interested me, and why should it? It never happened, and probably never will. Although some dreams are just hilarious, why should other people care about my or your subconscious? This is probably the same reason why I never read fiction novels. I crave knowledge, and although I have a very vivid imagination, I don't really put a lot of interest into things that will never occur. Is that lame? Maybe.

Well, today is not one of those days because I have two dreams I simply have to get off my chest.

The other night I dreamt that I was walking the streets with Bike. It was later in the evening and we were just out for a stroll. I noticed one woman really checking me out and following us. This woman looked exactly like Jen from Hells Kitchen.
Yes, that Jen. Except she was a TTC employee and on her name tag it read CLING. I have no idea what that means, but moving along. We talked and she was being really touchy and inappropriate. I threatened to call the TTC office and report her behavior, but she was persistent. We began walking quickly through some mall and she was running after us! I was honestly terrified. We thought we'd lost her in some backyard, until I got smoked in the head by a can of Five-Alive. It was CLING, once again.
The strangest part about this dream wasn't really about sex-hungry TTC employees, but rather citrus fruit. Every time we thought we'd outrun her, I was assaulted by a flying piece of citrus fruit. That is the jist of that dream.

Now, the next dream is more of a personal nightmare. Some very close friends, especially my band, know about this dream because it scares the shit out of me. I have it about once a month and it never gets any better. I dream that my drums slide away from me while performing in front of large groups of people.

Basically, try to imagine playing the drums on top of a sheet of ice and every time you hit something it slides further and further away from you. Not only this, but everything is at really strange heights. Cymbals will be nearly eight feet in the air and my snare drum will be five feet to the left. I never play my drum kit, and something terrible always happens. During last nights dream I just gave up during a performance and decided sing a solo version of Oh Come All Ye Faithful acapella, except with tonnes of delay on my vocals, which sounded terrible and nobody clapped.

I wish I could express how much I hate these dreams. The funny thing is, I've experienced things like this when playing in reality. I remember when opening for The Spades last year, my kick drum (the big one) slid around the stage to the point where I couldn't even produce sound from it because it wasn't attached to the pedal. I would have to pull this 50-pound beast back to me at every chance, even mid-song.
And that is that.

it's a wrap

Once the swelling subsided, I knew something wasn't feeling right. My pinky finger was all twisted and my knuckle had been clearly pushed backwards.
After checking into emerge I awaited to hear my name called. It's really based on priority, so I understood why I was forced to wait three hours just to see somebody. I spent my time mainly talking to this woman, as well as eavesdropping on the police that were questioning her. Poor thing.

I was also quite amused at how many different places I was asked to wait throughout the hospital. I think it topped off somewhere between nine or ten different locations. At one point I was asked to stand in the middle of the hallway, conveniently located in front of a room where a fat naked Samoan guy (I think everyone is Samoan) was laying in bed. Deelish.
I then had my x-rays by some douchebag who got my hopes up when saying "Well done" but actually meant "Your hand is fucked".

Long story short, I've managed to fractured and misaligned my fifth metacarpal. This means cast time, and not even one of those cool casts. I look like I have a mummy hand. Apparently this will be on for around four weeks. I still don't consider this to a break, so the streak lives on. Yet now that I think of it, how uncool is it to have never broken a bone? Broken bone stories are far better than none at all.

it's always something

I'm seriously beginning to think that my body is trying to meet some sort of quota for how many things can go wrong with me in one year.

The other night I bailed stepping over a parking block and allowed my right hand, my favorite, to take the brunt of the fall. I must have crushed the shit out of it because it is currently about the size of a softball and the swelling is so thick that I can't tell if it's broken or not. The palm of my hand is slowly turning darker and the pain is almost nauseating at times.
Don't get me wrong, I can still use it. I'm just worried that it might be broken. That would be amazing because we play a show in two weeks and I can't really afford to take time off work. I also don't like icing it when I sleep because the coldness seems to give me nightmares.

ain't i a sap

A few months back everyone in our band challenged each other to write a quick piano part to be recorded and put on our MySpace, under the Band Members category. Naturally, I wrote something ultra sappy in a key that I usually refer to as "black notes", meaning using nearly all the black keys on a piano. Very specific combination's of black keys sound like love, hate, and everything in between the two.
I have always been known to write dismal melodies on the piano, and I'm totally fine with that. I think I provide a bit of balance to a bands writing curve that usually revolves around fast pop hooks. Leave it to me to provide irregular chords, depressing progressions and slower tempos. This is probably drawn from my love for early George Winston.

spoke too soon

So, I clearly forgot to knock on wood.

Not an hour ago, I was diagnosed with pneumonia.

I checked into the walk-in clinic earlier this morning to see if I was just paranoid about this chest stuff. Dr. Kara told me to lift my shirt so he could listen to me breathing from my back, through the stethoscope. He asked me to breath deeply while he checked all the parts of my back. He asked me to repeat this breathing while his scope was placed on this one particular section of my back.

"Andrew, you have a crackle in your right lung." Great.

He said it was a good thing I came in when I did, or else the illness could have worsened badly within the next couple days.
Either way, I'm now on antibiotics for the next week. I even got a puffer! I was always envious of those asthmatics and their cool puffers.

LG

This video honestly kills me.

The other day Bike and I were down in the studio working on some stuff. He was editing some video on my Mac and I was working on a new piece.
He'd noticed I'd been jiving to some Hey Darcy! pretty hard in the basement and decided to shoot a video to see if he could catch my dancing on film. Surely enough, about ten seconds after pressing record, some goofy dance emerges and is forever captured on film.
Maybe it was the joy of being reunited with my favorite sweater, or maybe it was my fancy drumming on that album. Either way, it's funny as hell.

cock-eyed

Just recently I've realized that my slang, abbreviations, and cockney-like delivery on words has made my everyday diction almost incomprehensible. I'm not sure what triggered this, but I'm well aware of it by seeing how many people I confuse on a daily basis. I'm going to write a couple lines, in simple English, then translate them into Times New Andy.

i) Hey friend. What time did you want to meet up for a drink later? I can't make it until at least 8. I have things to do. Goodbye.

Hey Brewhan. What's the dill on drizzing tonight? I'm a No-Can-Doosky till 8. Too much shit on the plate. Paaaece.

ii) Be careful when walking home tonight. Some people are just looking for trouble. Jees Louise.

Make sure you don't get jacked later cruising home. Some fuckheads are just down for rocking a mob. Fuck sakes!

Now, I should draw some sort of conclusion as to how such foul language came to be. I could easily take inspiration (if that's what you call it) from several specific, as well as broad sources. For starters, Trailer Park Boys has grossly effected my vocabulary. Words like rock, fuck, bang, brew, shit, cock, dick etc., can be sourced to most of my bad words. Listening to hip-hop will do this too, but that's where the tact comes from and not so much the words themselves. British people. They're a huge help. Brits have the most disgusting and appealing slang going on in the world today. At moments I hate it (there's nothing worse than a burly-brit-bitch who laughs too much at her own bad British jokes), and other times I think it's the most badass and tasteful way to swear, ever. Hell, guys swear at girls (and they like it), and kids swear at their parents (and they think it's cute).
I've had some help from George Carlin as well. His cusses flow like water and stabbed like knives, and nobody swore like George. His swearing also utilized a lot of purpose, which is something that gets easily lost in the act of using bad language. This is something I've had in the back of my mind when dropping bombs for several years now. This nothing more ignorant or unattractive than using cusses poorly, and I'll admit to doing it every so often. Such as using "fuckin..." as a space, segway, or intro to an idea. "She was like, fuckiinnn, lookin' at me n' shit."

Ig-no-runt.

BIG! Top Look- Alikes of the Year!

Okay. One gigantic hobby of mine, and several of my friends, is discovering uncanny look-alikes of others we know. But to my surprise, this year I was called out to more doppelgangers than ever. It seemed like every few days, some stranger would approach me with comments about how I look like so-and-so. Here's a list of my favorites from this year.
Prince William. Some lady commented on this young gent and our similarities. Now, this is not a dead ringer, but it surely was flattering. I don't have that cool ginger rosacea shit either. Regardless, he's a royal guy and I thought it was cute of her, even if she was old enough to be the Queen.

Peyton Manning. My friend Kudzai pulled this one out on me. I mistook him for Tom Brady at first, but this one was a little closer than I thought.
He had a point, although this is more of what future-andy might look like, and I wouldn't have made a career out of throwing a ball, because pro sports are all bullshit!, and I'll get to that topic at a later date.










Adam Savage. Yes, the second half to the brilliant Mythbusters duo. I actually brought this one on all by myself. Hell, I was Adam Savage for Halloween this year for chrissakes!
There are some striking similarities in there though. The foreheads are nearly identical. The eyes are, eeehhhh, they're close, but he's got that blue-eyed ginger shit going on. His beard is admirable though, I'll let the savage have that.







Tom Paris. This one took me entirely by surprise. For starters, I couldn't give less of a shit about Star Trek. I'm sure its good, but give me The Millenium Falcon over the Enterprise any day. A good friend of mine pulled this gem on me one morning and I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought he meant Neelix (look him up, I kind of look like that guy too). But to my surprise, Tom is easily one of the top candidates for the Andylike of the year.

Matt Sundin. There's really not a whole lot that needs to be said about this one. I'm pretty sure it started as a joke, but this Swede almost looks more like me than me! Just look at that guy. The only major difference is that I have more skin under my chin. Matt literally can't look up and have his mouth closed at the same time; there just isn't enough skin there. I, on the other hand, have a shit load that I'm looking to get rid of. So Matt, if you want some ginger neck goods, I'm a phone call away.
PS. I may just get that tattoo because its hilarious and redicu-bad.

Josh Homme. Again, out of nowhere, but I can see some potential for candidacy in this guy. For those of you who do not know Josh, he's the front man for Queens of the Stone Age. Take a look around for some images. He also has red hair, I just couldn't get a decent photo that wasn't all scrunchy-guitar-faced.

Bobby Flay. Honestly, this is the OG look alike. I've been approached on numerous occasions about this guy. The funny thing is, I really don't think I look that much like him. I think the only physical quality we have in common is our complexion, and that's about it. It's really just funny to joke about.

Danny Elfman. Damn you Mike! I hate this comparison, but at a few points in our lives we did look like each other. He's a lot older looking now and is all grizzled from what I'm assuming is due to countless hours scoring films, brilliantly. He certainly is an elf man.

Wayne Gretzky. Probably the absolute furthest from the source on this whole list. This was Danny's top pic, which makes me laugh because I don't see any of me in that face. Which is fine, because every science experiment needs a control - something to tilt the scale a bit.

Orc from The Lord of the Rings.
Every time Mike and I watch The Return of the King, we spot this one stupid orc at the Pelennor Fields battle and laugh. He's in the middle of firing this arrow and makes this ridiculous sound - which I'm awesome at emulating. Regardless, we both think that if I looked like an orc, it would be this lucky archer.
PS. this pic took me so long to find that if you don't laugh I'll be shooting you with an arrow myself.