Will Hines Dot Net

The problem with being a sedate older white man hanging out with a hard core hip hop group is you never know when they’re going to adopt something you say as their own personal slang. Once while trying to find new glasses frames for Phazer I mumbled to myself angrily about the expensive lens coating. “Goddamn lens coating” I said and then Fuuman giggled. For the next four or five weeks “goddamn lens coating” kept popping up in all of their conversations and chatting. “That’s some goddamn lens coating right there,” DregBets said, complaining about a venue trying to charge them for damages to a green room. “burger, yo, but don’t get me any of that lens coating, nah” said The Flames, when placing his order with Dominent who was going to Wendy’s.

The same sort of thing has happened before and there’s no consistency to what phrase will tickle the groups fancy. Once I said “bucket” a particular way only to hear the group parrot it back for the next six months. Other phrases that become part of their vocabulary: “Where’s the Honda?” and “That’s a JACKET” and “Florence.” Sometimes I would try to force a phrase — say it with emphasis in an attempts to have them notice it. “Check out these JALAPENOS” I’d say. We are all at a barbecue at my house, before I had the deck stained. Those attempts were always ignored.

I’m too undisciplined, but I think the story points of When Harry Met Sally match up pretty well with Last Tango In Paris. Just replace “run across NYC” with “drunkenly stumble across Paris,” “Harry Connick Jr. song” with “crying over wife’s body” and “cutesy fake orgasm” with “butter sodomy.”

But really, I think it lines up.

So why does Valley Girl work but Party Girl doesn’t? I watched them both on Netflix Instant last night and they seem to follow similar blueprints: iconic young characters of a specific time. Lots of stereotypes and generalities. Carefully chosen soundtracks. But there’s no question: Valley Girl is a sweet, warm, engaging movie and Party Girl feels like actors are doing a table read — actors that we know are good! What’s the difference? Explain it to me, film nerds. My initial vote is casting, followed by coolness of the soundtrack, followed by hip story choices (the hippie parents of Julie in Valley Girl are nice and smart people — something you rarely see in teen comedies).

Though it annoyed him to a terrific degree, Arthur was great at LSD. It didn’t fit in with any other part of his lifestyle: his stuffy corporate job, his early rising, his one-banana-and-that’s-it breakfasts, his steadfast fidelity to his 35 year long marriage, his chocolate lab, his love of Simon and Garfunkel, his enjoyment of the films of Owen Wilson, his muted palate of earth tones that comprised his clothes, his Honda Accord, his absolutely staid conversation beginnings. But there was no doubt about it: he was goddamn great at dropping acid.

He had crystal clear visions that filled all five senses, he never really lost control of his judgment, he was sweet and wise, he remembered everything for after the trip to record in concise inspiring phrases, like “it’s the pauses between your thoughts that make you smarter” and “dogs are more fluid in how their emotions are tied to their bodies” and “more eggs, always more eggs.” His body was born to have LSD coursing through his veins and once he realized this he pounded the palm of his hand onto his 3 wood and exclaimed “This is really gonna muck things up.”

Vote “Get Psyched” as best book for the ECNY awards. All you need is an email address:

http://www.ecnyawards.com/vote/

And thank you to everyone who has thus far bought the book and perhaps even read it! I am very proud and happy to be the co-author of this weird funny animal of a book. Read samples from it here:

http://www.getpsyched.biz/book/preview.php5

Or buy it on amazon.com! Or see Rob read from a chapter! See Dr. Lanny’s promo for the book! See Ed Helms read from it at UCB-LA! Damn, girl, I don’t know — do all these things! But vote for it. I would love it if this book won that award.

Thank you for your time.

Things I both agree with but am bewildered by:
1. The persistence of baseball’s popularity
2. Bruce Springsteen’s enthusiastic mid-song celebrations of Clarence Clemens.

After that big long post of our feud day, I think I should write down a quick smattering of the fun we had on the CG Road Trip. The fighting was one day, but other 12 were fun and fight-free — and that’s a far more positive ratio than I was expecting when I went into this. So in the interest of fair reporting and what I’m hoping is a new habit of dwelling on the positive (will not happen), here are some cool things about the Chris Gethard show RV trip which wrapped up Thursday night with a show at UCBT-LA.

• The hot springs in New Mexico with Melanie Hamlett. Beautiful, soothing and a miracle — I would not have ever visited these without this trip. That we all got naked in a “this is no big deal way” was actually secondary to how amazing the springs were themselves. And I also soaked my hairy naked self in the frigid water of the Rio Grande to simulate going to Tenth Street Baths.
• Doing our entire show for five organic farmers in the back of their coffee shop before they shuffled off to live in their backyard “yerts.” Even though the hostess said that my “costumed sucked” (referring to my normal clothes) it was a fun and ridiculous show to do.
• Driving across America. The mundane things like deciding when and where to sleep, when and where to eat — were all fun and exciting. The logistics of travelling made me forget about stresses from the regular routine. It was somehow very fun to be shaving with my shirt off in a Wal-Mart bathroom at 7 in the morning. I felt like a society drop-out driving a truck, but in a freeing way.
• Doing the show 7 times. I’ve never toured, but for this trip I felt like a rock musician, working on my set, seeing the show firm up, learning how it played for different audiences. I was genuinely curious and confident by the time we got to LA to see which version of the show would emerge for the UCBT-LA audience (the best one did, I think).
• Getting to know the band and re-know my friends: except for the overly-documented feud, everyone pretty much always got along, and was very businesslike about dealing with the cramped quarters. I guess no one would have agreed to go if they weren’t cool with living small for a while. We slept head-to-toe as we crammed at one point 11 people in an RV built for 8 and really had nary a complaint (except a few arguments over who snored the most loudly). I got to know the guys in the LLC (the band), I got to hang out a lot with Gethard and Spo and Fanelli. Got to talk a lot with Riley and DeMuth and JD and Bethany and Erika. My favorite parts were driving all night, getting to chat and share music with whoever was in the passenger seat. Much earnest playing of the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Smiths, Gin Blossoms (yes), Replacements, Beyoncee and lots of other stuff. DeMuth and I developed ridiculous unusable comedic characters, JD and I argued film, Riley and I talked about girls, lots of of fun shit.
• On that same note, everyone learning to appreciate everyone else’s strengths for getting through stuff.
• One more word about that fight day: it was real, and it hurt. But we all did talk about it like adults and fixed that shit fast. Perhaps the most reassuring thing was how quickly we acknowledged stuff and moved on. Having a show to do helps you get over stuff.
• Seeing UCBT-LA and having all the NY ex-pats come out. Scheer and Owen and Mantzoukas and DC and Sanders and Dippold and Lennon and St. Clair and Finkelstein and Kula and Eric and Tricia and Eugene and Elaine and everyone. Reassuring and exciting. And Neil Campbell and Cody and Susan and Lindsay putting up with our smelly asses.
• Seeing Black Swan at the ArcLight. That movie was fun, yo.
• Seeing Route 66
• Changing plans last minute because of twitter, like when we went to Philly and wrestled a sketch group.

It was really fun, I’m glad I did it. Thank you Gethard and everyone.

If you ask me why I threw Chris Gethard off of his own RV Saturday morning into a muddy ditch 12 miles outside of Waco, Texas, the truth is that it was 40% good for the show and 60% just really fun. After a week in the RV, the line between what was funny for the show and what was real was very blurry. We were exhausted and smelly and were being told that our videos were too tame and not going far enough. Saturday we pushed it. By the end of the day I understood what it would be like to be part of that famous Stanford prison experiment where volunteers who were told to act like prison wardens started committed genuine acts of cruelty even though they knew it was all an act. We’d end up going too far. It was also a really fun day.

We’d been up all Friday night driving so we could make it from Knoxville, Tennessee to Austin, Texas for two Saturday night shows — an 8pm improv set and the 10pm Chris Gethard talk show. Trying to stir things up, Chris started Saturday morning by playing the bully, zapping Shannon in the back of the neck with a electric sex toy and telling everyone he talked to on his phone that his “crew” needed to “step it up” and that I in particular was “being a little bitch.”

I don’t know why I didn’t just say “Chris, not now, I’m tired.” Unconsciously, it felt uncool and wrong to stop a bit. So it made 100% sense to me that instead we should just pull over and throw Chris out. It’d be funny and for me, satisfying. Driving, I checked with Spo in the passenger seat who agreed that we should do it. She was pissed off that after driving for nine hours she’d been zapped in the neck. I clued in producer JD Amato to grab a camera because we were going to throw Chris out. He grinned as he’d been hungry for a big video all week and started gathering his gear.

Chris was talking with the improv group Jump On 3 when I pulled over. “Hold him,” I said to the other people on the RV. I walked back and grabbed Chris around the torso and dragged him out on the road. JD followed. Chris bellowed for help, but I think he was enjoying it. Spo made sure Chris had his phone and we left him there. It was super hilarious and fun. We knew he’d be all right. Sure it was an amazingly desolate area, but he had his phone, a cameraman, and it was only 11am. He’d get a ride off of Twitter or hitchhike or absolute worst case, walk 12 miles.

We were giggling like fools, especially when we realized we had Chris’ ATM card. We went to a Holiday Inn Express and rented a room so we could all take hot showers. We took over his hotline so it directed to Shannon’s phone instead of his. We started tweeting with the hashtag #AmericanWillandSPO in addition to #AmericaGethard. Then we went to an amazing spa called Le Bella Visage and gave ourselves the works. A weirdly hot Texan grandmother named Madra gave me a facial, a suave dude named Anthony massaged Spo’s zapped neck, cheerfully bewildered Alicia blew out Riley Soloner’s already ridiculous hair into a an Ace Ventura-like pompadour and calmly charming Amanda did bass player’s Joe’s nails. The whole time, we read Chris’ twitter begging for rides. Superman videographer Jon DeMuth filmed everything and it was fun.

We could have stopped there, but the for the rest of the day we all started swinging a lot harder. The thing about competitive bits is you can easily cross lines and go too far. And when you’re being filmed and you feel a pressure to “push it” and you’ve been raised in an improv culture which trains you to “say yes” to weird, unusual things — it’s very easy to lose track of real feelings.

First, Chris’ cameraman/producer JD texted us that he was headed to Austin on a greyhound without Chris. JD said that Chris had wandered into Waco, Texas looking for anti-depressants (plausible) and had not come back. Eventually Chris texted us that he was having a panic attack and wouldn’t be doing the Austin shows that night.

We all bought it and freaked out. We cased the Waco Greyhound station, we called pharmacies, we called friends in New York to see if they’d heard from Gethard. We never thought he was dead, but we’d all seen him legitimately break down and had visions of him getting into serious shit in Waco, which is disorganized backwards annoying city that is broken in every way except for its spas.

Then it dawned on us that Gethard was fucking with us. No way JD would leave town without him, and he’d only been separated from his medication for like 6 hours. It was clear that he wanted us to do the Austin shows without him and then he’d show up partway through the performance in a surprise entrance.

This was war. The rest of the night was a game of chicken where neither Spo/myself or Chris would admit we could make the Austin shows.

We hit the road for Austin and called the venue there and told them with complete conviction to cancel the shows.  “Chris is in Waco, ” I lied. “and we will not leave here without him.” Eventually, people from the UCB office in New York had to call and un-cancel the shows.

JD texted us that we needed to come to Austin because Chris wasn’t there. Spo called JD and started fake crying and screamed that she was freaking out over Chris. Shaken, JD admitted it was a bit — Chris was in Austin and he was fine. Would we please come and do the show?

We said no. Actually Shannon screamed “BULLSHIT,” hung up, and then we laughed. More, more! We were hungry to go FURTHER!

We called JD and told him Spo was furious Chris had lied to us (not true) and that she was looking into plane tickets to fly home (also not true). As we were pulling into Austin, we assured JD there was no way we could make the shows. Still no word from Chris. We decided we’d skip the 8pm improv show and only show up for the 10pm show when a presumedly freaked-out Chris was already on stage with everything he needed for that show. JD freaked out but we got no response from Chris.

Five minutes to 8pm, Chris started texting us, admitting he had been in Austin. “Please tell me what is going on, where are you guys?”  He called Shannon and I probably 15 times in a three minute span and texted us continuously. “Please someone communicate with me.” We did not answer, instead gathering stuff for the 10pm show as we sat in the RV a mere three minute drive away. Other cast members who had arrived that day — Don Fanelli, Bethany — each started phoning and texting. We maintained radio silence, excited we had not caved.

At 10:05pm, with the band playing and Chris on stage we walked on stage with his anti-depressants, DVDs and the electric sex toy he needed for the closing show bit.

Gethard, impressively, never missed a beat in the show. The Austin crowd was rowdy and drunk and fun and the show went over very well. He introduced as us all for our normal portions of the show  — I did stand-up, Shannon did her insane caricaturist — and Chris was funny even though he was undoubtedly freaked out and still in the dark as to what had happened. To his knowledge, Shannon was leaving the trip and we were all furious. Afterwards we admitted we had no intention of missing the 10pm show.

Spo and I felt proud we stuck to our guns, and were exhilarated from our surprise feud. But everyone felt a little dirty and kinda mean. We needed to get back on the same page. That night in the RV we talked over what happened and how we needed a way to call off bits. It was a harsh talk, but refreshing and relieving.

I woke up the next day still feeling bad that we’d put Chris through the wringer. He and I spoke outside the RV (we had crashed in the parking lot of the apartment of someone who’d seen the show) and I admitted it was too far. Chris also acknowledged that he could see why we did it, with our stated desire to push things. Spo assured him that she was never that mad, except for getting zapped in the morning. Pretty soon we were laughing about it. “You really called to cancel the shows?” asked Chris. We all got on the road and that night went to Pizza Hut and were laughing about it. No more feuds.

Shit got a bit screwed up. But it WAS fascinating and fun and ultimately was worth it. We didn’t sign up for 12 days on an RV for things to be normal.

First bite of the day was ground beef. How satisfying that is. To assert your superiority over another animal as your very first act of eating. It’s so unnecessary and violent and indulgent.

Gradually, Liam was accepting it: These girls were not interested in his opinions on Pavement.