Will Hines Dot Net

Here’s Ask Bobby — a Rob Lathan sketch from the Osgood-Schlatter days. I had the pleasure of shooting and editing these. Greg Tuculescu and Violet Krumbein are the callers.

Spoiler Alert: If you’ve watched it already, you’re probably trying to put the pieces together. Ok, a few pieces of advice: watch what Bobby does with his hands right in the opening credits of the show, then compare that with the record sleeve that comes into view towards the end. Remember that FDR had a cat named “Ben.” If you watch the timer at the bottom, you’ll see that a significant confession always seems to arrive when the clock is on a prime number. That’s not an accident. The color green figures prominently throughout the piece. The Shakespeare quote is not actually from Shakespeare but Marlowe, which is significant since Marlowe had huge jealousy of Shakespeare — and that matters since Bobby is the one doing the quoting at that time. The parrot is not a red herring. Everything the callers say is true. Email me with questions. I won’t give away the answer but I’ll let you know if you’re on the right track.

Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert: The spoiler does not really apply to this or any other video.

My previous post, upon reflection, was weirdly sexist.

I do get annoyed at either men or women discussing reality shows, and I don’t really know why. But that is a separate point and probably something to do with my desire to be at the center of attention and maybe 65 years old.

I’m basing this on people at my office only. The woman who sits across from me gets really excited to talk about television; and the three guys who sit near me don’t. A small sample set, but I’m ready to extrapolate that poorly-founded hunch onto the entire American population.

So: do women like television more than men?

We were playing trivia here at work. And I said a “fun” trivia challenge is to name the vice-presidential candidate on the losing side of the last 10 elections. So we tried that and got to Dan Quayle and laughed about the millions of amazingly dumb things he would say. Then we remembered that our current president also famously says dumb things. So now: I want a video of our current President playing Dan Quayle in Simon.

Is that really that funny, my co-worker asked? It’s worth a blog, I replied.

Is there a food shortage? Or am I letting Drudge get to me? I remember as a kid hearing my Dad say “Brazil will someday be a superpower, because they can grow the most food” or something like that. It made sense even to my seven-year-old brain.

For Earth Day, my company gave out compact flourescent light bulbs to everyone. A fine idea, though since they were each wrapped in generous amouns of non-bio-degradable plastic — are we breaking even on helping the Earth?

I’m reading It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, a 1936 book which describes how America might elect its own version of Hitler. A weird fact: it was pitched as a TV series in the early 80s. Producers decided it was too cerebral, so changed “fascists” to “aliens” and came up with …. “V!”

Since Tabitha showed me how to manage bit torrenting, I’m back on the downloading-music-and-videos train. But sometimes I still buy singles through iTunes, mostly for the convenience. One search and click and you’re done, for only a buck. That usually happens when I’ve been drinking. The last few songs on my “Purchased” playlist: Only You by Yaz, Cool it Now by New Edition, New Song by Howard Jones, She’s Not There by The Zombies.

When returning from the laundromat, I balance my bag on my head. No matter how foolish that looks, it really is easiest to carry it that way.

I had to dig through some archives at AOL today and stumbled on this clip of Amy Winehouse singing “Valerie” at AOL. It is, technically speaking, Amy Winehouse’ U.S. debut — last January 2007. She was performing a concert somewhere in NYC and stopped at AOL for an interview and to record some songs. I was told “Someone named Amy Winehouse is recording some tracks here; we might as well videotape it. Grab a camera, set it to auto-everything and get it.” I was also told “She’s supposed to be a handful so get ready.”

But in the audio engineer’s office, she walked in and was as sweet as pie. She might even have been nervous since when she introduced her songs she had a slight stammer. But when she started singing — she was confident and great! I was nervous to even zoom in for fear of breaking the spell. It’s amazing how casual this all was — that’s her coat resting on the arm of her chair because she had just walked in and plopped down behind the mike. In two months I was hearing her songs in every Starbucks and whenever I was on hold — but this is my favorite version of her singing. Sara did a great interview with her right after. The other tracks are on YouTube here. The audio tracks are here on AOL’s The Interface.

Maggie: Thin, frightened, dumb.

Hopey: Fat, mean, smart.

My brothers and my recreation of us in Superman underoos has made it on to the hallowed pages of neatorama.com, a site I just discovered when Jon Gabrus sent me this link.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/04/17/young-me-now-me-photographs/

I forgot to post this weeks ago. On our last night in Orlando, Andy and I and the director and his wife and some folks stopped by The Red Fox Lounge (in the back of a Mount Vernon Inn) to see Mark and Lorna — a husband-and-wife lounge act that may or may not be the inspiration for the Will Ferrel / Ana Gasteyer sketch. Well, they introduce themselves that way and I believe it.

[youtube Xye0caa1Rb8 Mark and Lorna]

Except the sketch does not come close to capturing how weirdly awesome going to see them live is. I guess it’s campy, but it’s also just plain fun. You amble through a hotel to the back, and they’re singing to a room of 95% regulars, many of whom take a turn on the mike to see an old Frank Sinatra song. Mark’s toupee is shameless. Both of them are very nice and friendly and hilarious. We were also bombed when we arrived, which leaves me remembering the whole thing like a fever dream, or like I’d been taken to the Bat Cave under sleeping gas so I’ll never find it on my own.

It was great. I think the sketch is hilarious but does not capture the strange magic of seeing this show. Everyone should immediately fly down to Orlando and see them. Thank you.

I am only just now watching 30 Rock, at Tabitha’s insistence. Working my way through season 1 — the show is so good, it hurts me.

I’ve been asked to put together a series of ideas for news-based comedy. News-based comedy! Not only is it all people (with money) seem to want, it’s what people assume I’m good at. I may radiate “newsiness” but I’m as topical as Wacky Packs.

DeCoster and I did Oxygen Destroyer for Michelle’s Gilda’s Club benefit. Fun. People laughed.

The second (of this era of) Maude Night happened. I direct the team Mix Tape ‘98. It’s terrific fun. There were no Rick Roll parodies, which made me feel better about the world.

Cat update: Hopey is now enormously fat. Maggie remains thin, mostly because Hopey hogs all the food. Hopey has learned to meow openly and often whenever she wants attention, which is all the time. Still, I’m oddly flattered that this once terrified animal has finally loosened up to the point where she feels comfortable eating all of the food and “talking” to me. Pix

Stand-up this Friday at the Comic-Con. Matt Little, be prepared to hear a few of the jokes I loved from last year.