Will Hines Dot Net

A huge lump of avocado just fell out of my sandwich and rolled down my T-shirt, leaving a disproportionately large streak of green muck all across my torso. I look like I ate this sandiwich while having an epileptic fit.

Eliza and I saw the documentary “Rize” yesterday which reports on the culture of a type of street dancing in south Los Angeles called “Krumpin.” Part of the story is that krumpin’ rose out of a culture of “clown gangs” in which groups of young black kids would paint clown makeup on their faces and dance and sing — for entertainment or for competition. The clown gangs seemed like a positive and reassuring alternative to gangs for its members. It’s a happy story, and was truly inspiring and compelling.

On the other hand, they’re DRESSED AS CLOWNS. Even though it wasn’t the primary focus of the movie, I was stunned to see how surreal it was to watch groups of 10-15 year olds proudly wandering around the streets together dressed in clown outfits. It seemed like a Harlan Ellison science fiction movie. “In the future, society divided into the Morlocks, the Runners and the Clowns. Goddamned war that brought us to this strange place, where we have to buy water and make food from our old video games.”

It almost looked like the clown gangs were unintentional parodies of old minsterel shows — but it was black men in whiteface rather than vice versa. Blackface shows were a racist and condescending institution, yes? So why would a group of black kids — suffering through poverty — paint their faces and dance to entertain? I’m probably overthinking it, and I feel so unconfident in my understanding of racism that I don’t even feel like I’m allowed to write about minsterel shows, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it while watching the clown gangs. I remember reading once how Bob Gibson, the dominant pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in the late 60s and 70s had been a Harlem Globetrotter before he played baseball but quit because he resented clowning around. But these kids were proud, strong and happy — so clearly they weren’t bothered by whatever I was noticing.

At one point, I expected the entire documentary to be a hoax. Like at the end there’d be an announcement “By the way, teenagers in south central Los Angeles don’t dress up as clowns and hang out together. You BELIEVED us? You must be racist, white boy, to believe that life in the poor section of a big city is so different from yours that they’d dress up as clowns in the manner portrayed in this movie. Man, Will Hines, you are a naive fool.”

The probably non-existent paralell with blackface shows was an incidental part. Probably the main part of the movie which I loved was watching the birth of a subculture — how these kids have a true group mind with each other, and establish unspoken rules of code, culture and style. You can’t define Krumping, but you know it when you see it. And the movie seemed to capture it without over-labeling it to the point where it becomes sterile. Very cool.

Our latest five-minute television pilot, Kerry On, was rejected for the Channel 102 screening. But we still love it, so check it out. See the films page or click on one of the links below.

• .mov (Quicktime format) – 25mb
• .mp4 (whatever that is) – 13mb
• .mov (Quicktime 7 — highest resolution) – 27 mb

Barb Trickett and Brian Watts got married yesterday. Some pictures are contained within. Barb got married in her back yard, which was the same place she’d thrown her annual deck parties for like 15 years. So this was like a slightly more formal deck party, except she and Brian made a lifetime commitment in the middle of it, and there was dancing instead of wiffle ball.

It was very nice, and very Barb in that it was clever and playful and chill. The wedding invitations had stick figure drawings of a bride and groom. For dessert, there was a table of candy which people were welcome to take in plastic bags back to their table (and to save for children, I assume). At the reception (also in the back yard) everyone was invited to draw pictures of themselves on a placemat for Barb and Brian to keep. Instead of cards, everyone’s table assignments were elegantly handwritten on smooth stones. Fun stuff.

It is mind-blowing to realize how long I’ve known my oldest friends. Barb, for example, I met during my freshman year at UConn, when I realized I had forgotten to bring black socks to marching band. I complained about this out loud, and she had an extra pair. That was in October 1988. It doesn’t feel that long ago, but it is. Seeing my college friends all surrounded by at least 2 children was jarring also.

Still, when everyone gets together, it’s a bit like conditional learning. It seems like it’s going to be weird, but then it really feels like it always did. Or maybe memories are selective. In a way, everyone from college seems exactly the same as they always did. But when I think of how differently *I* feel from when I was a freshman compared with now — then I assume everyone must feel that way. I suppose it’s like everyone has come into focus more. There were X number of ways we all could have gone from college — and all of them would have made sense. And so now we’ve each settled into one of those ways, and we can all look back and trace it back to the person we knew at UConn.

Eliza couldn’t go to the wedding, but she came to the rehearsal dinner and met everyone. What’s more nerve-wracking — having my friends meet her? Or having her meet my old friends? I’m not a good host in group situations like that — I feel a pressure to try and take care of all parties and consequently withdraw and take care of none. But Eliza handled the weirdness of being in a huge group of strangers well, and my friends were nice. So that was easier than I had expected.

The weather was beautiful, but stiflingly hot. I sweat bullets in an autumn breeze, so yesterday was an endurance test for me, in a black suit in the sun. I held up all right, I believe.

At this very moment, the most recent song displayed on my “what’s playing on my iTunes” is “Win in the End” from the movie Teen Wolf.

I am the perfect human.

Man, look at that last entry! Will Hines all blabby-blab about the comic books! Don’t worry, true blog-ievers! I’m still going to wax ineloquently about matters of trivial import via tiny paragraphs!

I just finished reading Volume 4 of The Essential Fantastic Four — which collects issues 60-something through 80-something — back when it was done by Jack Kirby with Stan Lee. So awesome! Kirby never had a half-hearted idea in his life! I love it!

But more importantly, the night after I started reading it, I had a dream that Jack Kirby’s son (not sure if he actually had a son) was hunting me for sport. This was taking place in a hotel, down a hallway of conference rooms. I was evading Kirby, Jr.’s arrows by breaking down the sliding plastic walls which divided the conference rooms into smaller sections. Kirby was not mad at me — that was clear. In fact, right before he drew his bow and arrow he and I were having a very agreeable discussion of what makes a great comic book. But then seconds later I’m bounding through the ground floor of a Radisson, dodging crossbowbolts by the son of the man who invented The Fantastic Four, Hulk and Captain America.

Odd.

Very busy lately:

• Had another Sketch Cram, in which a small group of UCBers meet at 11am and write a sketch show to be performed at midnight. I was so inspired by the sketch groups I had seen at Sketchfest NYC that I was obsessed with establishing a theme and having striking visuals. Unfortuntaely, we forgot to focus on simply generating material and we ended up with less than 20 minutes of sketches. Whoops. The cast did an improv set, which was well received by what I assume was a startled audience.
• Finished a submission for Channel 102: the pilot episode Kerry On. We shot it back in February, but I didn’t have to finish it until this week. It’s very very silly. Maybe even nonsensical. Regardless of whether it qualified to be screened, I feel we did a good job with footage that we shot back when we really didn’t know at all what we were doing (as opposed to now, when… we still don’t know).
• Burned Game Face’s last sketch show to DVD and met with the group to watch it and make plans for our July shows.
• Started teaching a new improv class.
• Reworked my waking daydream in which I pitch a perfect game for the Red Sox. In its current incarnation, 4 of the last 5 outs are all very tough grounders that my defense saves. The final out is a very high pop-up which still lands just inside right field.

Eliza made a catnip toy for Maggie and Hopey. They love it. It took about 15 seconds to turn them into complete addicts. They seem friendlier now. Maybe that stuff reassured them that the world isn’t so bad, after all.

Kevin and I spent five hours on Wednesday driving back and forth to Cromwell, CT so we could watch the film Batman Begins on opening night with Brother Brian. Turns out Brian and Kevin have watched every Batman movie together on opening night. I was with them for only Batman and Batman Returns. Since I missed the last two, history says I could have skipped this. But upon realizing that we could solidfy this into a ridiculous tradition of going far out of our way for movie openings– I was more than on board for the trek up into central CT. As Brian pointed out, the Hines Bros. will skip a Thanksgiving or a Christmas, but a Batman movie opening? Well, that’s worth going out your way for.

The movie was okay. It took the story seriously, had a great cast and some great sequences. But I never really felt wrapped up in it. Maybe it was overexplained, or took too long to get to any action.

Regardless of that, it brought back fond memories of the comic book Batman: Year One, by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzuccelli, which I assume is the very loose basis for the movie. Besides being a story of Batman’s first adventure, there is almost nothing in common between the comic book and the movie. The movie, like I said, is okay. The comic book is spectacular and one of my favorite superhero stories of all time.

Year One came out in something like 1987, on the heels of The Dark Knight Returns, the Batman-at-50 epic which Miller wrote and drew. Dark Knight had been like a nuclear explosion in the superhero comics world. Everyone bought it and raved about it constantly. It had been published in a softcover book format, which would be known for years after as “The Dark Knight format.” It was an epic story, that recklessly altered classic characters (Superman an obsequieous weakling? The Joker not just a villian but a violent mass-murdering mythic force? Robin as a 12 year old girl? Batman as a brooding near-sociopathic vigilante instead of a cheery Spock-like detective?) It turned Miller into a comics superstar. Rolling Stone wrote about it. It was more of an event than a story. People are still trying to shock comic book audiences the way that book did, and no one has done it.

Year One, in contrast, was a simple quiet story about Batman’s first year. Although a big hit and still a fan favorite, it has never been revered in the way that Dark Knight has — probably because it’s just a less ambitious tale. If Dark Knight is The Godfather, then Year One is more like Ocean’s Eleven. Still, with all these years past, I now think Year One probably a far better book than Dark Knight. It’s simple, but it’s also very elegant. There’s room to breathe and digest the story as you go in Year One. I’ve definitely re-read it far more often than I’ve re-read Dark Knight, if that’s any indication.

It’s called a Batman story, but the comic follows Jim Gordon as he starts his new job as a cop in Gotham. He struggles to be a good cop, when everyone else on the force, including the commissioner he will one day replace, is unabashedly corrupt. Gotham City, like in all good Batman stories, is as much a character as any person. We see its decay, its corrupt criminals, the resignation of its citizens. In fact, although there are bad guys in the book, the main villian is the corruption of Gotham City. At the start of the tale, it owns the city. But at the end, Jim Gordan and Batman have managed to establish footholds that will help them battle it for the rest of their lives.

It’s Gordon’s story. We see Batman struggle as he learns to effectively scare and fight crooks. But really, he’s more like an unchanging elemental force. Gordon is the one who goes through doubt, is beaten down, must fight back, cheats on his wife, almost loses his baby — and still ends up as the best, strongest, purest good guy on the block. Batman gets stronger, but there’s no real introspection to speak of. You finish Year One wanting to know more about Gordon. Even watching Batman Begins I found myself thinking “More Gordon!”

The art is what really pushes Year One from “good story” into “great story.” Although written by Miller — and therefore containing his terse, cynical descriptions and super-noir characterizations (nothing is halfway for Miller — Catwoman is a karate-trained prostitute; the corrupt swat team demolishes a whole city block just to try and kill Batman) — it’s drawn by Dave Mazzuccelli. Miller’s art is bold and innovate, but Mazzuccelli’s is far prettier, more elegant and I think more powerful. I can’t stand most comics today, because they cram so much detail into each panel that it’s boring. Mazzuccelli is an artist — framing just a few images very well so they burn into your retinas. The coloring by Richmond Lewis is probably a big part of this, too, but I don’t know enough about how comics are drawn to know for sure.

I loved this story tremendously when it came out. Miller was untouchable back then. Kevin and I only just sold off the original issues in the past few months (we figure we have the trade paperbacks now to read). I remember sitting in high school on Tuesdays, knowing the next chapter was waiting for me at Outer Limits Comics.

Moral: If you like Batman, or if you like superhero stories, or if you like any tightly-written heroic journeys — skip the movie and get Year One.

Then come back here and read about my cats.

You know what a soothing song is? “Mr. Tambourine Man,” by Bob Dylan. So is “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Okay, good night.

I had four water bowls for the cats scattered around the apartment. Water is good for them, I thought. And they seem to like to be around me when I’m home. So if I keep water around me wherever I am, then they’ll drink more water.

Then Maggie picked up this habit of sticking her paw in the water, and then licking her paw. Okay, that’s no problem. Then I noticed she would sort of splash the water when she was done. A bit messy and sometimes I’d catch a few drops in my face, but really no bother. Then today she decided to start really aggressively splash the water in all the bowls one by one, until most of the water was on the desk, rug, floor and floor respectively.

Now they just have their water bowls by their food, where it’s easier for me to clean up. Sorry, Maggie! I can’t have my computers getting soaked.

This is a comedy entry. Normal people might be advised to skip ahead to the next entry, which will probably be about what kind of Frosted Mini-Wheats I would prefer to be eating.

I keep thinking I’m going to have time to talk about this, and I’m not. So quickly: Gameface, my sketch comedy group (that’s 4 friends of mine, Dad, with whom I write and perform comedy shows), particpated in Sketchfest NYC. Basically, some 15 or so sketch groups descended on the UCB Theatre this past weekend and all performed their shows. We were the final act — midnight at Saturday.

Gameface traditionally has just done groups of sketches that have nothing to do with each other. But we’re trying to learn how to make whole shows, where the sketches inform each other — or there’s a framework. So we took our five favorite sketches and made a show around it. We came out on stage and announced that we had joined a cult — The Church of Positivitology — and that the sketches were the sacred texts of our church. We passed out what we said were poison juice boxes and asked people to “commit suicide” with us at the end. There was a pretty big turnout for our show (the first full show since last September, I think). I’d say it was a success, especially considering it was our first attempt at a whole show,

More importantly, I got to see a bunch of other sketch groups. Turns out I don’t watch enough sketch. Seeing these other groups was far more inspirational than I could have imagined. I guess I always assumed that seeing all of Monty Python, Mr. Show, Kids in the Hall and a bunch of UCBT sketch was enough. Not really. These other groups — particularly Flaming Box of Stuff, Hypnogogia, Third Floor and Ten West — blew my mind. The main thing I noticed — was that they actually have STAGE shows. Like they have things happen that are best suited for the stage. Like they use a lot more pantomine than we do. They roller skate across the stage. They play films on the back wall that are part of the scene. They have characters, stories, solid acting and recurring themes. They have SHOWS.

Flaming Box of Stuff’s opening — their whole show was the biggest hit of the festival, I think — started in the dark. Pink Floyd plays. A cardboard cityscape sits at the back of the stage, with 2 people laying down behind it. Those two people use a laser pointer to draw an EKG pattern on the backwall to the beat of the song. Two other people carry in a third guy, who has his arms exteneded outward so he’s making a cross shape, is holding two mini flashlights and has flourescent tape running. After a moment, I realize he looks like an airplane. Then two other people make a runway on the stage, barely visible in the dark. The “plane” lands and the show begins. Very fun.

When I saw Second City’s shows (main stage and second stage) back in 1999, I was impressed with the professional presentation, but didn’t think they were so FUNNY. So I think I assumed that productions which work too hard at lighting and stage picture forget to be funny. These shows that I saw this weekend were both. It was very cool.

Plus, the other performers were all supportive off the stage. People seemed to watch each other’s stuff, for the most part. As usual, Gameface was scrambling up until the last minute to prepare so we missed stuff that went on right before us, but I saw enough to re-inspire me for a bit.

I’ve been meaning to summarize a lot more of what I saw but I think it wouldn’t really translate. So, in short, it was fun.