Interview: Andy wants to make you convulse involuntarily
MK
Sent to you by MK via Google Reader:
As you’ll notice is now a trend, here are 8 songs off the top of Andy’s head during the interview. Listen while you read! I am listening right now.
SOTD: Tell me something BIG about yourself
Andy: I’ve got this Tuba group in Eugene. I’m the conductor of a 14-piece Tuba ensemble. Nothing but Tubas. I arrange music for them. Last year our big number we did that I made for them was Pirates of the Caribbean. This year, I arranged it, let’s see if they can play it, It’s a toughy but I managed to do it. Bohemian Rhapsody.
SOTD: Do the tuba people have a website?
Andy: http://oregontuba.org/ A project we’ve wanted to do for a long time is make a CD, but for copyright reasons that’s problematic.
SOTD: Is there any one person or event that made you want to get into comedy? What made you light bulb?
Andy: There are a couple reasons that I went into it in the first place. One, when I was, from a very early age, like eleven years old and saw stand-up comics for the first time on television. I was like “that is so cool, to be a guy just up on stage in front of a bunch of people and you just say stuff” almost like waving your magic wand and just commanding them all to laugh. That level of influence to make people convulse involuntary was appealing to me. *laughs* Now I make it sound creepy. But what a cool thing, to be able to make a bunch of people to laugh. It was something I always liked and admired for a long time, but what actually got me into it to begin with was that I wanted to be a writer. When I was 22 I worked on this screenplay, which I finished and everything, but I came to realize that Hollywood, they don’t buy stuff from no names. So it was kind of a waste of time in one sense, because no one’s going to buy this thing, but while I was writing I kept this document kind of off to the side titled “stand-up material.” What I eventually came to realize was that there’s no way that anything I write is ever going to be performed or made unless I’ve got great connections. Or lucky and just happen to be in the right place at the right time. I don’t want to throw it all to the fates, I want to make it happen myself. Stand-up is pretty much the only thing that you can do, at least that’s considered a legitimate art form, where you can be all of it; the producer, the director, everything all at the same time and command your own act. One day, I kicked myself in the pants almost three years ago and I just made myself go to an open mic, run my stuff… and haven’t quit yet.
SOTD: Who is the funniest person you know in real life? A real person that you really know.
Andy: Not counting celebrities or other comedians, I’ll just say the first name that pops into my head when you list that qualification. My friend Joe, we grew up together for a long time. He just cracks me up. He’s got that rhythm, that freewheelingness. It’s different though. He’s the type of guy who reacts to situations very well and in clever ways, that are just funny how he can just roll with it. You’ll give him the set up and he’ll be right there with the punchline. A lot of fun.
SOTD: Who is your favorite Saved by the bell character?
Andy: I always thought Kelly was hot. But if you mean in terms of “the character” and their personality traits, that’s a toughy. If I was to choose to be one, who would I want to be.. obviously not Screech, nobody wants to be Screech. Zack I guess had the wit and charm, Slater a little less so but he was a little more built. I thought Slater was better looking than Zack, but Zack had better internal qualities, at least that’s how the show sold it. That’s an *odd* question. I’m going to stick with Kelly, that’s the least gay sounding answer.
SOTD: I have a theory I’m asking people about that Screech was not as ridiculous as you think he was, and that he was just messing with everyone throughout the entire series.
Andy: Oh I see. So the character himself, you’re theorizing, adopted that character consciously because NO ONE would actually act like that. Therefore there had to have been an ulterior motive.
SOTD: I mean, he had the cool friends, Zack obviously had a sense of humor and brought him into the cool group.
Andy: I LOVE alternative theories about stuff. I love that kind of thing. There’s just a certain fun to doing that, taking a set of whatever it is, and then throwing in some completely different interpretation on it and seeing if you can make all the assets of that still fit your theory just as fluidly as with whatever everyone thinks. I’d have to go back and re-watch. I’ve been nostalgic as of the last few years going and watching old stuff. Now everything is online. You can find these tv sites and movies sites and watch old things. It’s weird having seen it as a kid and then going back and watching it as an adult and seeing it in a different light. You’re like “wow, some of those shows aren’t as good as I remember them being.”
SOTD: It’s kind of sad, you might not want to for that reason.
Andy: Yeah, Ninja turtles was kind of ruined for me when I did that. Oh, some of those lines, not very good dialogue.
SOTD: Favorite ninja turtle?
Andy: I always swapped between two, but I ultimately decided on Donatello.
Sarah: Really?
Andy: What do you mean really? I’ll tell you why, it was between him and Michelangelo. Michelangelo had the cool weapons, nunchucks are cool, and he was the party turtle, he always liked having fun, he was a good time, and he had the cool voice. Who wouldn’t want to talk like that all the time? But Donatello was the smart one. He seemed to me to be the most useful member of the group. He could actually do stuff and invent things from just, scraps. He was the McGyver, the genius. Plus, frankly, I think he had the best weapon, the Bo, it’s huge, at least in the game. If you play the games his character almost always overpowered the others. All the characters weapons did the same amount of damage. The fact that his weapon was the longest gave him the advantage. Range advantage. The other problem, in the show, poor Raphael and Leonardo, because they had blade weapons, could never strike a person because it would draw blood. It was great in the show because they fought a lot of robots. But you notice anytime they’re fighting a mutant or a person they had to kick them. They’re limited to their feet.
SOTD: Kids can’t know that blood is real.
Andy: Particularly in the movies, if you go back and watch those, in their live actions suits. They never can hit anyone in the whole movie.
SOTD: So they’re really just decoration. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Andy: This changed a lot. When I was a really young kid I for some reason had this fascination which no longer exists, I really dug gold and gems, maybe this was the fault of Ducktales. As a result I wanted to be a geologist, jeweler type thing. That never materialized into anything. During my gold craze I dug this GIGANTIC hole in our back yard looking for gold and I discovered something interesting that not a lot of people know. If you take a rock, and you take like, a trowel or anything, and just hit it, underneath that gray layer is this shiny rough yellow stuff. If you chip away all the gray you can turn regular rocks into stuff that kind of looks like gold. It’s weird, if you chip past that you get kind of a silver layer, so I didn’t do that anymore. So I had all these yellow rocks sitting around this giant hole, it was really more like a crater.
SOTD: Best compliment you’ve ever gotten from a stranger?
Andy: Probably from doing the stand-up. I don’t remember anything verbatim. I mean, I’ve gotten good reviews.
SOTD: Have you ever been in a physical altercation.
Andy: Never have, I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never been in a fight. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’ve always been able to not get myself in those situations. I’m very much a golden rule, reciprocity kind of fellow. I like to get out what I put in. I try to only put in positive, and not negative, and hopefully through karma and people’s general understanding of fairness, few things bad will befall me.
SOTD: Putting a lot of faith in humanity.
Andy: It’s a leap of faith.
SOTD: Did you ever make prank phone calls?
Andy: We prank called a pizza place, we made the dumb mistake, we had never done this before. We called the same pizza place. You’re supposed to prank call different pizza places! What happened was they called back, wanting to get us in trouble, they asked for an adult. My friend was the last one who spoke to them, so when they called back I was like “give it to me, give it to me.” So I just pretended to be the dad, deepen the voice. and acted all pissed off “Why are you bothering me, those stupid kids, I’ll give them a talking to. ” And they bought it.
SOTD: Do you follow any celebrity gossip?
Andy: I don’t. The little bits I get are cover pages from Enquirer type whatevers when I’m shopping at Fred Meyer. What was the last thing? That guy who plays guitar, he’s very good looking, he did something, or cheated on his girl or something.
SOTD: That’s very juicy gossip.
Andy: Then of course there was the Tiger Woods thing.
SOTD: Besides the comedy thing, any other activities, hobbies etc?
Andy: I do music, I teach music students. That’s what I do for money. As of recent I’ve been collecting old video games from back when I was a kid.
SOTD: Because you’re in the nostalgia phase.
Andy: Pretty heavily. I’m pining for a time where things were simpler and I was not as jaded and cynical as I am today. A longing for the person that I was at the time. There’s a certain benefit to being as naive and gullible and idealistic as you were when you were younger.
Where to see Andy
Where to find Andy online
Other important promotions
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to Stranger of the Day using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites