Will Hines Dot Net

DeCoster and I are performing our sketch show Saturday night at 7:30pm. We perform again in two weeks on the 15th. We are paired with the inimitable Robert Lathan and his “Get Psyched” show.

Details:

UCB Theatre
307 West 26th Street (& 8th Ave.)
Cost: $8
Reservations: 212-366-9176 or go online here.
Written by and starring Matt DeCoster and Will Hines.
Also featuring Kevin Hines. Directed by Dyna Moe.

Other ridiculous pictures:

• Headlock
• Bareknuckle
• Kick
• Strongman demonstration

Brothers Hines lost at Cagematch last night to Chubby Chase. But we had the pleasure of losing by not too much, and losing to hilarious friends of ours, so it was a good fun night all around. Mitch and Kaveri were there, and we even guilted Danger Dyna Moe into attending. We showed a film of our dad holding up pictures of us in high school, which went over much bigger than Kevin and I expected! Nice job, Dad.

Thank you to everyone who came out to watch us and to Charlie Todd for booking us! Kevin and I have been studying, watching and performing shows at the UCBT for something like thirty years, but you know what? It’s still an enormous thrill to get to walk out on that stage and perform there. You haven’t done it until you do it there. It’s our CBGBs, man. Maybe even our Carnegie Hall. And we were over our heads enough for these shows to be exhilarating, but each week still did a show we’d gladly hang our hats on. Improv, right? Pretty cool.

And it really was a family event! Hines Bro Brian would check in each Friday to see how it went. And we’d train up to Dad’s in Connecticut to put together a time-out. A good time. Here’s our time-outs in one place:

• Week 1: Baby pictures
• Week 2: Junior High
• Week 3: High school (Dad helps out)
• Kev’s flickr set of all the photos

I guess we’ll YouTube them, maybe? Is that what is done? Happy weekend, everyone.

[youtube XUNPRboUcV8 nolink]

I like Doonesbury, especially the pre-1980 stuff. Two years ago Mitch Magee and I wrote this sketch. Picking it as our simplest unpublished work, we made it into this video. Mitch directed/edited. Paul Rondeau filmed. I hope we are not overwhelmed on YouTube with all of the other budding comedians’ sketches about “Doonesbury.” If you watch it, please enjoy Mitch’s awesome decision to cut to a close-up of the machine at choice moments. I love that.

Other news:

• Brothers Hines hits Cagematch tonight for the third week! We go up against the massive team Chubby Chase – a team which prides itself on being a bunch of big dudes. Come out and feel the love and the hunger.
• Eight episodes into The Wire. I feel like I’ll soon be allowed to be friends with my friends soon.
• I turn 37 this weekend. Isn’t that a magic number of some kind?

So we finished Baby Party. This was a film starring and written by Sue Galloway and Danielle Cook. I directed it and Luke Ward shot it and edited it. I love this.

[youtube ykFkyDpr8-4 nolink]

It’s a simple concept — two girls become jealous of the attention a baby gets at a party. But shooting it was challenging — lotsa extras, lotsa shots, a baby, a few stylistic changes within it. It’s the most complicated shoot I’ve organized, at least. Danielle and Sue were hilarious every take — which is good, because I had to spend most of my mental energy watching the shot list and seeing how tired the baby was. We had lots of patient extras who helped a bunch also. This was fun to do, especially because Luke took on the big job of editing. So check it out.

Separate news: Kevin and I won Cagematch. We squeaked by with 4 votes. We knew the show wasn’t as strong as the week before, but garnered enough audience affection to survive! We also had another montage of embarrassing photos, this time from junior high. We play again this Thursday. More photos in this show, too.

• Brothers Hines in Cagematch tonight. Let’s keep it going. We have a new time-out, for people into that sort of thing.
• Almost done with Confess, Fletch! Endorsed by Kevin Hines
• Three episodes into The Wire, which I am watching just so I understand what Erik Tanouye is blathering about. The title of this blog post is a reference to that show. So now I am included.
• Channel 102 is next Wednesday. That’s something. I am interested in seeing the next episode of Welcome To Our House.
• Best Mr. Show sketch ever? “24 Is The Highest Number.” Don’t fuck with me on this.
• Kevin pointed out this cartoon of TMBG as superheroes. I enjoy it.

To my relief The Third Man was a fun movie. It’s one of those old movies that film buffs speak of in hushed reverent tones — and you never know if that means it’s Actually Good or just some boring old movie that had cool lights, which I never give two shits about. No one should ever speak of anything in hushed, reverent tones — it makes me feel like I’m in church. From what I can tell, The Third Man is simply a good yarn that gets moving quickly and is smart and interesting. I don’t give a shit what it means about post-war society or evil or friendship or lights or cinema or Orson Welles’ career or sewers or America. It was fun.

Other old movies spoken of in hushed reverent tones that are actually fun: His Girl Friday, Casablanca, The Manchurian Candidate and The Thin Man.

Movies spoken of in hushed reverent tones that maybe are good but still feel like homework: Citizen Kane, Roshoman, Modern Times.

Half fun, half-homework: City Lights, Notorious, The Seven Samurai.

All opinions in this blog are 100% right.

P.S. I actually speak of things in hushed reverent tones all the time, but I am acknowledging in this sentence that that is annoying and I should stop.

“You know, 25 minutes is a LONG time,” Kevin said to me about 10 minutes before we started our set at Cagematch last Thursday — and he’s right! I had a nervous excitement that I haven’t felt in a long time. Our opponent C,C&C Improv Factory went first and had an explosive set — the audience was going nuts. But our set felt solid very early, the audience was responsive, and our deliberately manipulative montage of baby pictures was a hit. I didn’t know how excited I’d be until we actually won, but I was really excited. I’d say it was one of my top five favorite nights of improv ever, and I’ve been doing this since 1967. Thank you to everyone who went.

I picked out new glasses frames on Saturday with the help of glasses aficionado Dyna Moe. They look like Clipboard’s — which I was leaning towards for a while.

I just bought Howard Jones greatest hits from iTunes. Silly but good. Brian, prepare to hear these on the next mix.

The Brothers Hines are in Cagematch tonight. Come on out. It’s an improv show 32 years in the making. Buckle up for some adorable self-deprecation TONIGHT!!!

Thanks to Charlie Todd and Improv Everywhere, my image is on a cool t-shirt:

http://www.neighborhoodies.com/four-feet-p-178.html

This is to commemorate the Suicide Jumper From A Four Foot Ledge scene that IE did December before last. There are also t-shirts for Lathan (from the Rob! mission), Ptolemy and Terry (from the Fake U2 show). Steve Dressler did these cool designs. The t-shirts don’t really make sense out of the context of the experiment, but if you’re like me, you PREFER non-sequitors like “Asian Edge” and “Rob!” on your humorous t-shirts. The Creepy Cowboy commercial I was in didn’t really make sense either, so with the arrival of these t-shirts I’m creating a pattern of starring in tiny media explosions that don’t make sense.

But I love it! Let’s keep this going. Or else!

I thought I had left my cell phone at home on Monday; but it turns out I had left it in a cab Sunday evening. When I called to check my messages, the cabbie answered “Hello?” I was stunned to hear someone answering the phone that I was picturing sitting in my living room. So I said “Is this Will Hines?” I know that *I* am Will Hines, but I guess my brain believed that only Will Hines could answer Will Hines’ cell phone, no matter what.

The cabbie said “What?”
And I repeated “Is this Will Hines? Well, I know you’re not. I’m Will Hines.”
Long pause. Then he said “Who are you?”
And I didn’t say anything, confused.
And then he said “I found this phone in my cab.”

Then he brought it to me and I gave him $40 and now I have my phone back. He seemed liked a nice guy. But for one second, I was in the science-fiction novel of my dreams, where I had phoned my future self to get a warning about my life.