Will Hines Dot Net

What songs, Will Hines? What songs have you listened to again and again, with little to no explanation lately?

“My City of Ruins” and “The Ties That Bind” by Bruce Springsteen.
“A Little Respect” by Erasure
“Drift Away” by Dobie Gray
“Amie” by Pure Prarie League

God bless them all, these songs.

Nick Gibbons made a series of funny commercial parodies, and I got to be in one. You can see them all here. To see the one featuring me, click the button to the right of the bright red one.
http://www.nickgibbons.com/berightback.html

Pretty slick interface, Nick! Also, next time, don’t be afraid to be a little less subtle with your premises! Whoa! That’s right! You cast me in your video and I’m going to take the piss out of you on my blog with my awesomely hilarious barbs!

These videos are funny.

Digging through my stuff has unearthed some gems of nostalgia, including my first-ever published newspaper article. After I graduated UConn in 1992 (magna cum laude in English, bitch! Not that you can tell from the demonstrations of grammar in this blog), I pursued journalism. My first job was with the weekly newspaper The Weston Forum. I’m sure if any of you were living in Weston in 1992, you probably remember well the very moment on Wednesday, June 10 when your eyes came to rest on this piece of earth-shattering news, brought to you courtesy of then brand-new reporter Will Hines:

A magnet for drama, I was, even then. This was front page, mind you.

I actually feel like it’s too easy and also inaccurate to make fun of the small-towniness of small town newspapers. Yeah, we’d have things like barking dogs on page 3, but my editors and peers were truly talented writers, and it was one of my favorite jobs ever. Still, I couldn’t have started my career on a more understated step.

I’ve added two more stacks of books I’m giving away. Go to this post to request any. I’m keeping this post closed so all the requests are in one place.

I had THREE copies of Moby Dick on my shelves. Who am I, Fone Bone^*?

^* Main character of Bone comics. Loves Moby Dick. I also have all Bone comics and I’m not giving THOSE away.

I put out six very full garbage bags last night and as I type this the garbagemen are throwing them in the truck. Or they WERE until one of the bags broke, scattering various items on the ground. Now they are going through my trash and picking out some things, I assume to keep (unless they are collecting evidence with which to write me a fine for Improper Disposal of A Shitload of VHS Tapes).

Among the things they are setting aside:

• Six decks of playing cards
• A lighter in the shape of a woman whose breasts light up when you flick it on (can’t remember where I had gotten that)
• Two sets of the Star Wars triology on VHS (I had three copies in various editions)
• A mini-dartboard
• And this is the strangest one: A DVD jewel case for The Man In The Thin White Suit starring Alec Guiness.

I hope they realize the DVD has been removed from that case, or else their Poker/Darts/Ealing Studios movie night is going to be ruined. I guess they can watch Star Wars instead. I should point out that I am assuming these two guys live together and do all their socializing together.

At this very moment, they have picked up my portable tape recorder and are listening to the cassette tape which was in there. I’m about 95% sure it’s a recording of me practicing the high-pitched voice of Baku, the magic seal from Dyna’s live anime Girl Crush show. Don’t fight over it, guys!

EDITED ON THURSDAY TO ADD: I added two more stacks of books. These are ones that I do love, but I’m honestly not going to read again any time soon. Click on the same link — there’s two more pictures whose names start with “new.”

Ok, these are the books I’m cleaning out. If anyone wants any (those of you in NYC), let me know. The Harry Potter books are for Rachael — I forgot to take them out of the pile when I snapped these shots.

http://www.willhines.net/books/index.php

Mind you: just because I’m getting rid of these doesn’t mean I haven’t loved these books. I feel like the lowest infidel throwing away Peanuts books, honestly. But I just have too many. So I’m getting rid of books that I’m either a) enjoyed, but am unlikely to look at again or b) could easily get again if I needed it (like any “classic” novel like Crime and Punishment).

A few of these were gifts, long ago. It’s very hard to throw out something given to you that you liked very much. But this is a Great Purge, and I had to be strong. My rule of thumb was “Have I opened this book in the past 10 months?”

The Seattle sketch group Flaming Box of Stuff is coming the UCBT this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you’re a fan of sketch comedy, go see this show. I saw it in June when they performed it as part of New York Sketchfest and it blew me away. I’m likely ruining their chances of having a good show by over-hyping it, but I doubt it. I over-hyped The Swarm for years, and they seem to have survived the Will Hines Media Storm.

“So what’s the big deal about this show, Will?” You know, I’ve been wondering that myself. Not “what’s the big deal” but how to DESCRIBE what the big deal was. It’s about a group of people who work at a brewery that gets shut down. But why is it GOOD? I think it’s as simple as saying that these guys are good actors. Much of the sketch I see (and write, and perform) is hard-core premise-based stuff. This show, while a sketch show, seems theater-based and acting-based. They’re conscious of stage picture. They’re conscious of timing, of character development. Of balancing naturalistic moments (two guys chatting outside the brewery which might get closed) with absurd moments (everyone hunting for bears in synchronized movements). Iconic simple things (“this guy always has a coffee cup”) followed by subtle, realistic things (“this woman’s heart is breaking”).

Just go see it and tell me what you think.

Also coming to town this weekend is Kasper Hauser which I’ve never seen. But when I talked to some of the Flaming Box of Stuff guys after their show in June, this was the show THEY raved about. So in the same way buying “Born to Run” made me buy “Freewheeling Bob Dylan” made me buy Woody Guthrie, I will go see KH.

I visited my friend Ryan McGinness, an artist, yesterday at his studio which occupies a full floor of a building in Chinatown. Although Ryan is an easy-going and friendly fellow he is tyrannical when it comes to keeping his workplace free of clutter. It is immaculately spartan, well-organized and frankly, beautiful. Neat stacks of blank CD-roms sit next to a bulletin board area where no piece of paper is overlapping another. His desk is mostly empty, except for a few squared-off stacks of papers. Sunbeams poured in through the windows and bathed the space in clean, uninterrupted light. Then I came home to my apartment, which demonstrates the wanton disarray of the library of a serial killer.

I’m a stringsaver, especially when it comes to books, CDs and DVDs. Lots of people are like this. I know that *I* am like this because my books, CDs and DVDs are my friends. I am happy to see them and remember the time I read/saw/heard them. I like knowing that This Year’s Model is always just a step away, as is Love and Death and One Hundred Years of Solitude or for that matter, Fantastic Four #232 (John Byrne’s first issue).

But you know what? That’s pointless! I don’t re-read and re-watch everything I own. Average time I read any given piece of printed matter, even the ones I dearly love: one. The few things I re-read could easily fit on 1/4 of a bookshelf.

So I decided I would throw out or store everything I own, hoping to achieve some portion of the order I saw in my friend’s studio. I went to The Container Store, bought ten sturdy book boxes with lids, a stainless steel garbage can (a brand called “SimpleHuman,” which sounded too much like 1984-esque doublespeak to resist), and a cloth booklet to hold DVDs.

Then I tore through my closets and cabinets, trying to dispose of things I no longer need before I get to the onerous task of choosing which books to store. I have found some ridiculous things, including:

• 2 glitter-covered signs spelling out “Citizen Nuts”, which Mitch and I used in our sketch show THREE years ago.
• Five(!) kickballs
• An unassembled file cabinet
• An unassembled bookshelf, which was taking up space… on a bookshelf
• Four suits I last wore in 1996
• Four big cardboard boxes filled with wire hangars
• Three shoeboxes filled with mix tapes — actual tapes — from 1994 and earlier. First tape, first song: “Avalon” by Roxy Music.
• Four empty shoeboxes
• A bag of change
• Six phone books
• Seven different rolls of Scotch tape

I had to call NYC’s info line (311) to find how to throw these things out. A stereo: on “bulk day” only. Huge stacks of wire hangars? Recyclable, so you put them in clear bags and in the proper colored bin. Big wooden signs that spell out “Citizen Nuts”? I forgot to ask.

My room is of course now more cluttered than ever. But it’s just a transition to better things, I hope.

So, both Communique and Brothers In Arms were far better than I had expected, especially Communique. There were indeed albums — a consistent sound, and very soothing to have on in the background. I’m not one to really pay a lot of attention to the guitar in songs. But so many people have raved about Knopfler’s guitar work that I did try to pay attention. It seemed much more economical then I expected — not very many notes, at all — although many songs ended with an extended-ish jam. The jams I rarely liked, but the elegant playing before that was really great.

Arthur by The Kinks was really really great. Fun, catchy, and well, FUN. FUN FUN FUN. The Kinks always sound like they’re a bunch of normally-depressed guys who are having fun for the hell of it just for the duration of the album. Or they sound like a drunk bunch of hooligans. The Replacements now sound like The Kinks to me, you know?

Working my way through Justin’s albums — Aja was great — but are there double tracks on that album or did Justin just give me double copies of Peg and Black Cow and others? Red House Painters did not hit me, but Loveless by My Bloody Valentine definitely did. I loved it. I already had and loved Lucinda Williams eponymous (and I like Car Wheels better too, Justin), and P.J. Harvey’s Stories From The City (and I agree that it’s amazing! Way better than the far-more-hyped To Bring You My Love). Listening to DJ Shadow right now, that punk.

The Delivery Man by Elvis Costello. Well, it didn’t really hook me — just sounded like another competent, responsible work from an immensely hard-working songwriter. Elvis Costello long-ago achieved permafrost status in my muscial taste so it would be hard for me to dislike anything he did. And while I did not dislike it, I can’t as I’m sitting here remember any of the songs.

I am trying to get through at least one suggestion from everyone. If you want add more here, let’s have no more than 3 per person if possible. No lectures, I promise.

I’m watering plants for my neighbor. Every other day, I walk down a flight and pour water over her collection of about 12 plants, which she gathered together on her kitchen table so they’d be easily accessible. During this time, my own plant has died. A metaphor for my future parenting, perhaps? I wish my brain could see the world as metaphors for future success, but what sort of conclusions would YOU draw from such a thing?

Also, her apartment is spartanly decorated — almost nothing in there, which lets white light pour through the windows, dressing the place up smartly. In short, it looks much better in there then it does in my dark home, cluttered with piles of graphic novels and blank CDs. So next week I think I’m going to try and throw out half of my belongings.