willhines.net

Matt DeCoster and I wrote and performed a sketch show last summer. And if you’re not Kevin Hines, Rob Lathan, Jackie Clarke, Dyna Moe, Elliott Kalan,Brett Gelman or the 5 drunk people Kevin got from the adjacent bar– then you missed the show. But here’s two sketches we did in it. They’re like 4 minutes each. I haven’t timed them. They’re close to that.

Big thanks to Terry Jinn (editor of Fun Squad) for helping us record these.

Samples (audio only):
• 100 Pin Bowling: .mp3 - 3.6mb
• Huge Slingshot: .mp3 - 5.3mb

On an entirely unrelated note, I decided today my favorite swear is “goddamned.” I feel like it makes me sound like a grizzled WWII sergeant. It doesn’t.

3 Comments

Another Vermont treat was listening to Wilmington’s classic rock radio station The Fox, which broadcast on two frequencies and still managed to come in ONLY within Wilmington’s tiny city limits. It is comforting to know that no matter where you go in this country you can find a radio station which will play the same 20 Eric Clapton songs you remember hearing from your own hometown’s classic rock station.

I tried to put on my computer programming hat and determine what algorithim would correctly predict which songs are acceptable to a classic rock playlist. You could say “rock from the 70s” but that doesn’t really cover it — they don’t really play heavier stuff like Black Sabbath or Deep [...]

5 Comments

So yeah, Eliza and I went to Vermont last week. Wilmington, Vermont — right outside of Brattleboro. We drove up in my Honda. 700 miles logged in total, and it held together.

Vermont, as you might expect, was simply lathered in quaint. Horses in people’s front lawns? Yep! Requisite maple sugar stands every few miles. Check! A mixture of senior citizens lumbering next to general stores along with occasional packs of tattooed unshowered Phish-dropouts slumping next to the Connecticut River? Sure!

I realized on this trip that I’m a workaholic. Four days away from email and I felt like I’d left my baby somewhere.

We canoed one day. I like to canoe when I get a chance merely because I know [...]

5 Comments

All right, people who recommended albums. Let’s make this happen. Eliza and I were in Vermont last week, hunting bears. On the way up I stopped in a used CD store in Northhampton, Mass. Also, a package arrived from Amazon.com. Also, people who posted to “A Call For Albums” have been giving me copies of CDs.

As a result, the following albums are sitting in front of me right now. And today, I will listen to them, as far as I get (with the person who recommended it in parenthesis):

Innervisions - Stevie Wonder (Eliza)
Where’d You Hide The Body - James McMurty (Tanouye)
My Bloody Valentine (Purnell. He also gave me a CD with 34 albums worth of mp3s. I’ll [...]

20 Comments

Cleaning up files on my computer. Found this recording that Latham and I did a while back for our Rob and Will Fix America show. It’s just under 2 minutes:

J.D. Salinger changes his voice mail.

• Windows Media (106 kb)
• Quicktime (672 kb)

He thinks to himself: J.D. Salinger impersonations will soon start sweeping the nation. I will soon be a star.

4 Comments

All right people, enough screwing around. Why pretend that we care about each other’s opinions of music? Let’s get down to some serious pictures of cats.

Click this picture for more of them.

The cats turned one year old on July 19th. In general, they’ve made huge strides since they moved in as semi-feral hissing creatures of fear and anger. They definitely prefer when I’m around and pretty much follow me around like two very aloof dogs. They have their turfs as always. Hopey sits on my lap when I’m at the computer, particularly between 3pm-5pm. Maggie has declared the bathroom her turf and will follow me into the bathroom, even if she had just been [...]

3 Comments

Can you please recommend a great album for me to listen to? Periodically, I’ll email my friends to ask for music recommendations. Usually, I just want song recommendations. But I was listening to Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie and was taken aback by how good an ALBUM it is. You all know what I mean. The ones in which it’s better when you listen to that whole album, rather than just the songs (even though the songs are so great!). And it’s a been while since I’ve really devoured albums whole. You know what I’m talking about — those albums where there’s something that makes the sum greater than the parts.

Albums like:
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots — Flaming Lips[...]

72 Comments

Saw this (Bad News Bears, no “The” thank you) on Sunday with Kevin and Kirk. It’s was Kirk’s idea, based (I think) almost solely because he loved a scene in the original where a kid kicks another kid in the balls. So we went.

Well, I loved this movie! The Bad News Bears (original) is one of my favorite movies — perhaps my FAVORITE baseball movie, and I think this was BETTER. At the very least, it’s a model of how to remake a movie that was already good (as many people have pointed out, Hollywood seems to remake movies that don’t need it — like The Ring — rather than movies which DO, like, I don’t know, Mystery [...]

12 Comments

Can’t sleep.

Today, I went running. I run occasionally, but never that far. I usually execute a hurried trot for four laps around a track near my house, and I assume that’s just over a mile. The track has been under repairs since the middle of last summer, so when I say around a track — I mean a good distance around it. I circle it like a shy wolf. You can tell I just woke up when I’m typing half-finished metaphors like that.

When it comes to exercise, the only way I get any done is to assure myself that a sloppily executed half-hearted routine is still infinitely better than none at all. So I run a mile, and it [...]

2 Comments