Andrew Cotton

Tuesday 31 May 2011

Wanna be.


Creative collective: Gulfstream from wavedreamer on Vimeo.


When I was a grom all I wanted to be is a pro surfer but the problem  stopping me from being one was that I was shit, well this was a pretty major problem actually which was really messing up my goal. So rather than admit defeat when I left school I started an apprenticeship at Gulf Stream Surfboards which would mean I got to spend heaps more time in the sea and travel for 3 months every winter whilst earning some money, it was like being a pro surfer in the way I could surf when ever and I got to travel a lot but I also had to do that thing called manual labour in a surfboard factory for 45 hours a week.
Had a pretty epic time there which lasted 10 years, surfed shit loads, travelled every winter and learnt heaps about boards, shaping and glassing but it ended all of a sudden when I woke up in a bad mood one day and quit out of the blue. Yeah slightly odd I know but I can be some times.
So the clip above is about my mate Jools who I worked for and surfed with for the 10 years I was there, he shapes pretty sick boards by hand and talks some sense too so check it out.

Sunday 22 May 2011

Tommy

Had my first shave In over a month yesterday, not that I was being lazy not shaving or anything but remember that time I had to leave my bag in Heathrow because of the excess luggage scenario and that bitch trying to rip me off a grand, well one of the things I left in it was my electric razor charger and I’ve only just got the bag back. Obviously you’re thinking I could of had a wet shave but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, tried it once when I first started shaving and it really hurt my face and I came up with a rash on my neck so I vowed never to do it again.So been home in Devon for a few weeks now and they haven’t been the best, I started to get sick in Jakarta on the way back from Indo and haven’t been on top form since, I sought medical advice from Dr Baker just before we started our separate missions home and he told me ‘Keep washing your hands and face and take these tablets every 4 hours and you’ll be fine’ and handed me a packet of lemsips. I was grateful obviously as it wasn’t like he charged me for the consultation or the lemsips but as I lay on the floor in the airport freezing cold, shivering yet sweating my tits off I couldn’t help but think ‘ why the fuck does he want me to keep washing my hands and face?’
So this is Tommy the Tortoise, my Mum and Dad looked after it a while back and I just found a photo of it on my phone, I was looking for a relevant photo of Dr Baker, the one I had in mind was a photo I saw on Facebook of him in make up dressed as a woman doing his funny little wrist thing that he does. But for the life of me I can’t find it which is a little disappointing so Tommy will have to do.