Best Learning from Andrew WK

So ultra-earnest, completely non-ironic heavy party rock musician Andrew WK has an ultra-earnest, completely non-ironic advice column in the Village Voice now and it's really popular, right? Maybe you've seen someone on Facebook posting one of his—hold on, wait. If you don't know or can't remember who Andrew WK is, maybe take a minute to watch at least some of the video for his big hit "Party Hard" to get the general idea/the general reminder:



Ok, like I was saying, he's been writing an advice column for the Village Voice. Maybe you're seen someone on Facebook you've never expected to be posting about Andrew WK posting his responses to the "Prayer is Stupid, Right?" or "My Dad is a Right-Wing 'Jerk Face'"? Or maybe you saw him on Glenn Beck?

Anyway, the advice business is going well for Andrew right now and last night he held a live Advicing event at his club, Santos Party House, which is around the corner from my house. And it was cheap. And I was curious. So I went! See!

Andrew, as he is, was terribly humble and grateful and the audience generous with their questions. Andrew did a good job of answering the questions in his own style, it's got to be a lot easier to do it when you're writing your responses and have time to think about them. All of his Advices were in line with his pro-partying, pro-do what makes you happy, pro-think about the other person worldview.  I wrote some notes and voice memo'd just about the whole thing, but some of these notes I can't remember the context to them. But here are some of the notes:

• Told someone (I can't remember the issue but I think it was heavy?): "Choose wisely and have fun with it."
• A woman asked him about how she likes smoking and feels like she should quit but really likes smoking so she doesn't want to quit. As Andrew is in favor of doing what you like to do, he told her (after looking stumped for a second): "Life's too short not to smoke" and "Until you want to not smoke you should smoke as hard as you can smoke." It was pretty funny.
• When asked about people who choose not to do anything (meaning stay at home all day resting or playing video games) Andrew defended the all-day gamers by saying "Well, you can make millions of dollars playing video games professionally now" and that resting all day might have inspired "the guy who invented my pillow" (Andrew then talked a bit about his pillow that he loves so much and how he saw a woman taking the same pillow home on the subway and it was in a box and why should a pillow be in a box, they're soft.)
• He also added that someone resting at home all day "Might work on a shoe invention" which I just thought was a funny thing to say..."shoe invention."
• There were lots of questions about paths in life and challenges in life and he said "Maybe you were supposed to go through all those things to know you weren't supposed to go through all those things."

As the show wrapped up Andrew began to mention, repeatedly, that we could take pictures together after. There was a line and it was a long show and he was having a conversation with each guest, so here's a picture of Andrew with someone that is not me.

Okay, so maybe this wasn't my most ace reporting, but it was an event worth at least trying to talk about.