Will Hines Dot Net

Get Psyched is going to be a book, almost definitely in time for Christmas. GET PSYCHED!

Frequently Asked Questions About This Post:

Q: Really? A Book?
A: Yep, Rob and I wrote a book. It’s written and almost done being laid out.

Q: But not really. This is a bit?
A: Nope, we really wrote a book. 110 pages on how to properly Get Psyched.

Q: Wow! Who’s publishing it?
A: We are.

Q: Oh.
A: Yeah, well what’s wrong with that? It looks great, it’s hilarious and it will instantly solve all of your problems immediately.

Q: What if a real publisher gets wind of this, sees some sample chapters and wants to publish it?
A: We’d likely sell out immediately. Barring that, be on the lookout for Dr. Lanny Latham on the corners outside of Barnes & Nobles everywhere, soon.

I don’t remember seeing this since I’ve started improvising. Hamlet’s advice to actors. Here’s his comments for comedians (I believe saying to avoid laughing at yourself on stage):

And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.

VILLANOUS! Also, the opening comments speak against over-acting, methinks:

It offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant — it out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

So bad acting out-Herods Herod? It’s worse than the man who asked for the head of Jesus? Hyperbole much, son? This guy sounds like Delaney!

Fun, though.

CONS: It makes you look like a pretentious douche. Or maybe like a tiny-dicked angry person reading Nietzche prominently like Kevin Kline’s character in A Fish Called Wanda. It’s heavy. It’s dense and rambly with lots of big words hanging off of run-on sentences and therefore takes mental energy.

PROS: It’s more fun than you’d think. There’s more funny parts than I remember. The dramatic parts are very cool. Melville seems crazy but he seems to know it. You feel like a smart person. You feel like an American.

If nothing else, you should read the first paragraph if you’re a New Yorker. Ishmael is explaining why he feels the need to go to sea, and the way he describes himself feeling depressed in NYC (wanting to knock people’s hats off of their head, stopping in front of coffin stores) feels accurate to me!

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Whole book here.

What are the most American books? I was catching up on Mad Men episodes, and got to the point where one of the British managers of Don Draper’s ad firm says “I have been reading some of your American literature” and I knew that it’d be Mark Twain because whenever someone says they are reading American literature it’s Mark Twain. I remember an Atlantic Monthly profile on Saddam Hussein years and years ago which said “He even reads American literature — the complete Mark Twain sits on his bookshelf” (the profile was not complimentary, despite what that sentence implies).

Separate from that, on the documentary shoot we were watching an episode of Jeopardy while waiting for some lights to be set up and Moby Dick was one of the categories. I was surprised that most people in the room knew the answers to most of the questions even though few had read the book. But maybe that’s because Moby Dick is one of the Great American novels so we all hold onto whatever knowledge we glean because we know it’s “important?”

I certainly don’t mind Mark Twain being the first guy people think of when trying to think of an American author. But what others do people think of? What are the most American books? Or authors?

Observation: Sherlock Holmes, Superman and Dracula are all immensely popular characters whose stories are known across many countries, nations and cultures.

Second Observation: They all wear capes.

Hypothesis: Wearing a cape makes a fictional character exponentially more popular.

Experiment to Test: Write a story in which all characters are described as wearing capes. Publish. Measure worldwide fame after two weeks.

Here is my story:

Roderick and Helen

The train rumbled over the border of Pennsylvania into Ohio. Lake Erie was emerging into view at the northern horizon. In a sparsely appointed third class compartment, Roderick leaned over to Helen.

“I need to know where the body is.”

“He’s dead. Forget him.” She was fussing with her bracelet, whose clasp was annoyingly loose.

“While there’s a body, there’s evidence and we are still in danger.” Sweat was glistening just in front of his ears.

“All you need to know is I’ve disposed of him as we discussed. The less you know beyond that the safer we both are. What if we’re caught? You couldn’t confess enough to put me in danger, much less you. ”

“Don’t be foolish. If either of us is caught we’re both in danger. Tell me where the body is, so I can help put this matter to rest.”

She drew a pistol with one hand and a pillow with the other. Shocked, he could only stare as she placed the pillow against his stomach and fired twice into it.

“There, now it’s to rest,” she said. “I’m staying with my husband and now you know where the body is.”

“You used the pillow as a silencer,” he gasped.

“As we discussed.”

He collapsed, blood pooling in his cape. She got up and left the car. She was also wearing a cape.

See you in two weeks, when I’m a world-famous authors succckkkaaaaaas!

Comedian Bob Powers hosted Topsham Pantsuit and read from his funny book The Terrible, Horrible, Temp-to-Perm Debacle: Book Two in the Just Make a Choice! Series.

It’s an updated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, but instead of time machines or secret agents this one is about a 33 year old aspiring writer/alcoholic who is trying to avoid becoming a permanent employee at his company. I liked it.

And it made me think of books! Funny books! What are great funny books? The best in my opinion is Woody Allen’s Without Feathers.

Published in 1975, it’s a collection of short humor pieces Allen had written, mostly for The New Yorker. It’s worth it for the opening piece “Selections from the Allen Notebooks” alone. Here’s the opening paragraph, which makes me smile now as I type it:

Getting through the night is becoming harder and harder. Last evening, I had the uneasy feeling that some men were trying to break into my room to shampoo me. But why? I kept imagining I saw shadowy forms, and a 3 a.m. the underwear I had draped over a chair resembled the Kaiser on roller skates. When I finally did fall asleep, I had that same hideous nightmare in which a woodchuck is trying to claim my prize at a raffle. Despair.

My dad got it for me when I was in ninth grade, when he was in Heathrow Airport, after noticing that I had been watching Woody Allen movies. I still have that book — one of the few I refuse to give away as I re-read it probably once every six months.

Besides “Selections”, Without Feathers also has:

• The one-act plays Death and God, both hilarious
• A Guide To Some of Lesser Ballets
• Match Wits With Inspector Ford — a parody of Encyclopedia Brown type of books.
• “The Whore of Mensa” — a story about a brothel whose women don’t offer sex but instead look intellectual and will bullshit about books with you. It’s one of two Mickey Spillane-type pieces I’ve read by Allen, which are both awesome combinations of overdramatic nonsense and silliness. This is the opening of “Whore of Mensa”:

One thing about being a private investigator, you’ve got to learn to go with your hunches. That’s why when a quivering pat of butter named Word Babcock walked into my office and laid his cards on the table, I should have trusted the cold chill that shot up my spine.

“Kaiser?” he said. “Kaiser Lupowitz?”

“That’s what it says on my license,” I owned up.

“You’ve got to help me. I’m being blackmailed. Please!” He was shaking like the lead singer in a rumba band. I pushed a glass across the desk top and a bottle of rye I keep handy for nonmedicinal purposes.

I like the name “Word Babcock.”

So what are other funny books? GOOD ONES. My nominees:

• Keith Giffen’s Ambush Bug comics
• Don’t Point That Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli
• Any of those Jeeves novels by P.G. Wodehouse

And I don’t know what else.

The “I Can Read Movie Series” is a series of covers for movie novelizations that were never done, in the style of used paperback books you’d find. It’s probably aping a particular line of books, but whatever — they are COOL. Here’s the one for War Games, the best movie ever which you are not allowed to criticize as my brother Brian learned on some Hines Bro driving trip somewhere:

See them all! The Hudsucker Proxy and Blade Runner are also great.

Watched, recently: Touch of Evil, Swing Vote, A Scanner Darkly, Amadeus, Fitzcarraldo, BSG, some 30 Rock, some SNL, an episode of Gossip Girl.

Read (books): more of Demonology by Ricky Moody;

Read (comics): Comics: Acme Novelty 16, 17, 18, 19 by Chris Ware; Hey Wait by Jason; old John Byrne FF stuff; Walking Dead.

I want a Kindle just to look at one but I do not read enough to justify it in any way.

Listened to: Vampire Weekend, The Blow, Yo La Tengo and a live Freedy Johnston album recently. And that song “American Boy” by Estelle and Kanye West a bunch.

I gave notice at AOL. Mo’s contract ended and 2+ years felt like enough. I’m going to be an assistant to the academic supervisor at UCBT, and do some programming and further destroy my life with a scattershot of creative priorities.

I did stand-up at Comic-Con last weekend and told my best joke, which fortunately involves the Hulk. I did stand-up last night and mispronounced both “nuclear” and “Rihanna.”

Yep!

I’m interested in hiring someone to help me design a book in InDesign. I’ll have the text and some illustrations. I need someone basically to help me format a few chapters, then I’ll finish it up, then I’ll need help again at the end.

It’s a self-help book with many footnotes, testimonials, illustrations and photos. Doing any one chapter probably tackles the problems that come up in any of them.

Not counting the cover — this is just the meat of the book.

It’ll be fun and, as a former web site designer, I will work to make requests as simple as possible once I learn what’s simple/time-consuming for you to do.

My email is “whines” and then an at sign, right? And then “gmail” and then a dot, then com.

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.