Will Hines Dot Net

Some people at work today wore costumes. I wanted to join in but had no ideas. This morning I grabbed my green jumpsuit and big bushy brown beard without bothering to come up with a justification of what I might be.

Suggestions from my co-workers have included:

Terrorist Janitor
A young Santa Claus
A shitty Fidel Castro costume

Edited to add: Last night at the UCBT Halloween party I got the following additional suggestions:
ZZ Top Gun
Woody Allen in Bananas
The mean dude from Lost who hit the button before Desmond showed up.

Part of my job here at AOL is filming and producing videos for Mo Rocca (he has a blog with us). It is terrific fun. We make three a week, which means we’re making them fast and furious, just my speed. Sketch stuff at UCBT and video with Channel 102 stuff was decent preparation for this run-and-gun style. It doesn’t hurt to have Mo and his thousands of ideas, either.

Usually, the pieces are simple man-on-the-street or interviews with a political hook. Sometimes we choose to be silly with little justification, like with the one shown below. We were in a hurry for a third piece, so we filmed Mo getting a free shave and massage, then had editor Dave Kovenetsky lift as many conventions as possible from old Jefferson Airplane videos.

[youtube lNCXJJsW9_s nolink]

A good time. Check them all out here, if you’re so inclined.

Other news:

Seven Fights was fun last night. DeCoster added a twist to a sketch by entering the stage completely soaked. A terrific entrance which I weakened by laughing on stage. Kevin’s ending monologue hit very well, also. Afterwards, Matt Dyna and I dined at the superb Empre Grand Szechuan (or something like that) on Ninth Avenue. Look at us! The Algonquin Round Table of the sullen and obsessive!

Mitch Magee’s excellent Mr. Glasses screened at Channel 101 on Sunday night and did very well. Congrats, Mitchell.

Fastidious. That’s a fun one. I am not fastidious but I do enjoy the way that collection of syllables sounds.

I’m mentioning Kevin only because he’s upset that his name in my tag cloud is slightly smaller than our other brother, whom I can’t name because then I would have to tag him. This is straight-up tag cloud affirmative action. Quotas, people. Start your virtual protests now at this artificial market correction: Kevin Hines. There.

Seven Fights is tonight, people. 8pm at UCBT. Let’s enjoy some sketch comedy.

Saw Morrissey Friday night. He was great; I coulda used more Smiths, but who couldn’t? One of the best parts of the show was the strange film clips they play instead of house music. Among the footage: a stilted wardrobe test of James Dean and his co-star for East of Eden; a clip from the old tv show The Untouchables with Eliot Ness and his boys talking about a thug named ‘Morrissey’; and a German variety show featuring a performance from The New York Dolls.

I also loved how Morrissey’s six nights in New York seemed to be required viewing for many of my friends. Everyone has been checking in with their Morrissey report.

Although I like him, I’m not among the super-devoted — of which there are many. I came to liking his stuff pretty late — in July 2003, actually. I was stuck on the Williamsburg Bridge in traffic and WFUV played The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead in its entirety, and I loved it.

The strange thing is I’m the right age to have loved The Smiths when they were around. I was 14 when their first album came out — prime age to fall in love with a band. But they were too fey; too British and I spent my time memorizing Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen instead. I do remember the artsy girls in my honors classes all loved Morrissey, though. In fact, I distinctly remember in March 1988 when one of these girls played “There Is A Light That Will Never Go Out.” She proudly played the song, and I laughed openly at the absurdly over-dramatic lyric “If a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.” Laughing at things was sort of my only strategy for getting attention at that time. She was rightly pissed off.

But on Friday night, twenty years later, I was standing there wishing he’d play it above all other songs! You win, artsy girl! You win, Morrissey!

This post has both a picture of me in tights and also a picture of Morrissey. Let me state for the record that I am a heterosexual.

Amazing! The Red Sox are World Series Champs for the second time in four years. That is crazy.

It’s a long way from 1986.

My digital camera seems to be working. Let’s get right to it, folks!

This top-entry litter box has changed my life. I had resigned myself that my kitchen would forever be a shallow sandbox of scattered cat litter flicks — but this contraption has returned it to looking like an Actual-Grown Up’s kitchen. Big thumbs-up to these things.

I’m pleased to report that my Windows 2000 machine at work did not need any software installed in order to extract photos from my camera. My iMac at home had no problem either, but I had expected that.

I’m going to see Morrissey tonight with Porter Mason. It should be ridiculous and fun. I told my improv class last night “I’m going to see Morrissey tomorrow” and someone immediately responded “Morrissey’s still alive?” I hope he is!

I just bought a Cobb salad, and now that I’m eating it I realize that I was most excited about the one half of an egg, hard-boiled, resting on the top. It was good.

The Red Sox are going to the World Series for the second time in four years. Pretty amazing. A friend of mine who roots for the just-beaten Cleveland Indians says that he kinda hates the Red Sox now, because they “feel like the new Yankees!” And by “Yankees” he means some combination of “team that always wins” or “bullying team that buys its way to success” or “evil” or so I assume.

First of all, the Red Sox are not truly “the Yankees” until people stop comparing the Red Sox to the Yankees. Second of all, it’s doubtful that any of us will live long enough to see any American sports franchise have as much success for as long a time as the New York Yankees.

I started rooting for the Red Sox when I was eight because my family had just moved to Connecticut, where you root for either the Sox or the Yankees. I liked the Sox logo better and that was that. Because of that almost completely impulsive decision 29 years ago — I am entitled to talk shit to certain friends of mine today. That’s just the way it goes.

I just finished watched “The Great Escape.” I would like to be the ten millionth person ever to observe: Steve McQueen is goddamned cool. The movie is… odd, though. Parts of it seem as silly as Hogan’s Heroes in how the Germans seem to let the captured soliders have full run of the camp. And no one in this movie is scared of Nazis. These were the Silly Nazis, I guess.

I keep wanting to create a “hit single” comedy video but most of my ideas involve detailed lists of obscure adjectives.

That’s all I got.

Manny Ramirez dared to say that if the Red Sox lose the playoffs, it’s “not the end of the world.” Specifically, he said:

“Why should we panic? We’ve got a great team. It doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

And so Red Sox Nation, of which I am a proud member, is supposed to be furious with their best hitter talking about being okay with losing. Except I’m NOT angry — I think Manny has the perfect attitude. It’s that same laid-back attitude that lets him NOT get rattled when he’s at the plate in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. He doesn’t care if it’s two outs or one or what team he’s playing for or what month it is. He stands there, focuses on the pitch, and swings as hard as a wrecking ball. Fine with me.

I don’t like peer pressure to stand up and talk the big talk. If you’re a mellow guy but you’re good, then be mellow, dude. I’m on board.

Wally Wood’s famous 22 panels that always work.

Ivan Brunetti’s not-famous and funnier 22 panels that always work, sometimes.

I like titles that declare unsupportable things like “always work.”

I bought a digital camera. Photos will return to this blog in short order. Here is a random photo to serve as placeholder for where I would normally be putting a photo that I take.

It’s a woodpecker’s house.