willhines.net

Stand-up at Oh Hello went pretty well. Nick and John hosted as characters I hadn’t seen before: two gay men who work in catering services for It’s So Raven. Their names? Fabreze Fabreze and Sean Fierce. Those names are so hilarious I am going to type them again: Fabreze Fabreze and Sean Fierce. I could have watched just them for an hour. Now that my night performing there has passed, you may take that as an unbiased recommendation and not a plug. It was a packed house, and I was so nervous before my set that I chewed an entire sheet of paper. It was like I was building a hive.

But it’s a friendly room, and I was happy with how I went over. I need to figure out how to tell jokes without pausing for 10 seconds in between. But I have no segues and it feels abrupt to just leap from my criticism of overuse of the word ridiculous right into my opinions of the New York Times without giving the audience a chance to catch its breath.

Lo and behold, there’s pictures of it.

In the front row at Oh Hello was a guy named Chris from the Atlanta improv group Dad’s Garage, one of the other improv groups at the San Fran festival last weekend. He was in town for the Del Close Marathon (more on that later). I took he and his friend with me to karoke afterwards at the Alligator Lounge, where I met up with Eliza, Glennis, Mitch and Todd. That makes 100% of the times I see people from Dad’s Garage that I’m going to a karoke night. Karoke was decently fun, though at the end of the evening Eliza had vomit spilled on her and I threw up in my mouth briefly. Those were separate events.

The Del Close Marathon starts today — a debaucherous, indulgent and very fun spead of improv. 72 hours straight. I recommend coming from midnight until 6am both Friday and Saturday nights, for reals. Crazy silly stuff. If you just want your Will Hines improv, I’ll be performing with

• 1985 (8:45pm Friday - Stage 3)
• Primal Bias (11am Saturday - Stage 1)
• The Compromise (7:15pm Saturday - Stage 3)
• Monkeydick (12:30am Sunday - Stage 2)

Believe it or not, typing that paragraph has sincerely made me feel as good about my life as I’ve felt in months.