Will Hines Dot Net

My Harold team 1985 is in Cagematch tonight. Won’t you come? Starts at 11pm at the UCBT. Fun times all around.

This entry, as a piece of writing designed to entertain, goes downhill starting now:

In Cagematch, two improv teams perform, and the audience votes for a winner, who returns the next week. My first cagematch was on February 1, 2001 when the original cast of sorta-hallowed improv team Monkeydick took the stage. Brian Berrebbi, Mitch Magee, Rob Lathan, Pete Bosniak, myself and John Gemberling strutted out for our first public performance. I remember being terribly excited and nervous, hoping that we would at least be able to complete the show without stopping. At that time, it was [...]

• Saw the most recent episode of Doctor WHO at Terry Jinn’s. This is the second series, because Terry’s television is so expensive and big it can pick up television from Great Britain (not the actual reason he has the show, but it’s more fun than the truth). David Tennant, who plays the 10th doctor, is perfect for the role, I think. He may yet to be prove to be better than Tom Baker — pelt me with your Star Trek concordances in protest if you wish.
• I skipped reading last night to scrub my kitchen floor and bathroom and marvel at the filth that has accumulated there in the past 3 years. The cats were scared at first, and then fascinated. [...]

Ok, so I’m reading a bunch of Philip K. Dick books. Oh, because A Scanner Darkly is coming out, you say? Not at all. Then you say, oh because one of your favorite authors, Jonathan Lethem, likes Philip K. Dick? Not really, no.

It’s because I saw a top ten list of “best Philip K. Dick books.” And my robotic nature is compelled to complete most lists that I read as if they were assigned to me by my innermost DNA.

Other lists I have tried hard to “complete”:

• 20 Scariest Movies by Entertainment Weekly
• 100 best rock albums ever, by Rolling Stone (published in the spring of 1987, introduced me to Elvis Costello)
• AFI’s top 100 comedies (a terribly [...]

As part of my Holland-Dozier-Holland obsession, I bought a “Supremes Gold” CD. Love it. Also, I discovered that the Supremes song “You Keep Me Hanging On” has the line “Why don’t you be a man about it” which is a line from the Elvis Costello song “Hand in Hand.” Elvis even spits out that line in the same rhythm as Diana Ross — a clear homage/theft! Also, the awesome EC song “High Fidelity” starts off with the title of a Supremes song “Some things you never get used to.”

Elvis Costello, the angry, amphatemine-filled nerd rocker of late 70s Britain, loved the Supremes. Dig it.

Today’s entry is the equivalent of looking through a photo album. I forgive you all for skipping it.

I have had a spate of re-connecting with old friends lately. By the way, I just got back from being outside and I’m in such a good mood that I’m throwing around words like “spate” without even checking to see if I’m using them correctly (I usually am using words wrong when I’m only half-sure). Looking up “spate” now…”a sudden rush or outpouring” — hey, I used it right! Yeah!

Anyway, old friends. First of all Jim Foster came down from Massachusetts. We’ve been friends since high school, but don’t get to see each other that often. Jim is married and has twin boys. [...]

Got to catch up here. First of all, Rob Lathan got married two weekends ago and Eliza and I were on hand to witness the event. It was a sweet wedding, if a bit disappointingly normal. Where’s the stilts, Rob? The fake mustache? Although as Rob promised in his blog, his father did enter the rehearsal dinner dressed as Elvis Presley, complete with white sequinned jumpsuit. If anyone had ever wondered how Rob Lathan, a man who could easily pass a regular member of society otherwise, had developed his peculiar need to strut across stages in neck braces and straight jackets — the Elvis moment would erase the mystery. The senior Lathan performed for half an hour, never betraying even [...]

It was… ungood.

Eliza put it best: It was like watching someone become retarded. That movie was like Charly in “Flowers for Algernon.” Started smart, ended with a movie being broadcast in full retardo-vision.