willhines.net

It’s hard to start posting once you’ve stopped. The inertia, it grabs a hold of you. And you have to will yourself back into this self-absorbed world of public navel picking, and here I go:

• I’m doing stand-up this Monday night. Eliza convinced her musical improv group I Eat Pandas (which is Eliza, Glennis and Travis) to let me open for them. Maybe you, YOU, should come check this out. My stand-up is downright fascinating. And I Eat Pandas are a guaranteed good time. I’m convinced they could sell out a theatre once a week on a regular basis. Like it could be a decent living for these folks. That is what I think. Come see. 8pm, Monday night at Under St. Marks Theatre on 94 St. Marks. between 1st and A, closer to 1st.
• Mailed in the title to my car to the National Kidney Foundation. Presuming they clear my paperwork, they will call me to arrange picking up my car and dragging it out of my life and into a scrapheap somewhere. I am spending my last days with it hailing down taxis and town cars to convince them to give it a jump start so I can move it for alternate side of the street parking. The best part of deciding to get rid of the car is that whenever someone suggests that I’m throwing away a good deal I offer the car to them for free. No takers.
• There’s a Jack Russell terrier in my office. I am ignoring him but he is yelping at me to play tug of war RIGHT NOW. He is insistent, but small. I am not afraid.
• Channel 102, the monthly screening of five-minute television episodes, happened Monday night. 177 people, a 70 person jump from the previous screening. Since I help run it, I hear many people offer their ideas of what would make a funny five minute television episode. The number one suggestion? A direct parody of an existing popular television series. There’s no hard and fast rules, of course, but your hilarious twist on The Biggest Loser is fighting uphill with me. I think I might hate show-specific parodies because America loves them so much, and I feel left out because I believe America, should its collective unconscious ever become aware of me, would dislike me.
• I’m reading Jonathan Lethem’s books. I’m through The Wall of The Sky, The Wall of the Eye; Motherless Brooklyn and Gun, with Occasional Music. They are good. Geeky and warm.
• Went to Karoke last night with Eliza, Mitch, Glennis, Jen, Neil and Ryan. Neil closed out the night with a rousing rendition of “Rosalita.” I would not have expected the room of Williamsburg hipsters to respond so positively to an unironic 70s anthem, but the crowd was overjoyed.