Will Hines Dot Net

Surprisingly, people of NYC gave up constantly noodling on their phones when the subways got wi fi. That final piece made it so everyone in the city could get the internet always and it finally satiated everyone. Too much, the city said as a group and very soon no one was on their phones. People looked up and smiled at each other. Cheerful hellos peppered Fifth Avenue. Bagel carts were the new water coolers. Neighbors learned each others’ birthdays. The internet is for work, we all silently agreed, or when we are already alone. We started taking our chances to be away from it when we could.

A pipe dream of mine — and I do understand why this is impossible — is that we would never publish the name of the 22-year-old Arizona shooter. That we’d just refer to him as a description: a 22-year-old college dropout from the area who’d left a YouTube account full of videos with aimless rambling political rhetoric. You could even link to the videos, which would have his name. But you’d never directly put his name in print.

Not to make him MORE powerful, but less. I can’t help but think that part of the twisted motivation behind people who do this is to be known, heard and famous. We shouldn’t validate it.

When the Virigina Tech student shot his classmates, I was opposed to the news agencies that published those photos of him posing with his guns. I do understand that when in doubt, you should be transparent and show the information you have, and that everyone is curious to know who it is who commits these horrible crimes.But in that case, showing him proudly posing with his guns was giving him his fantasy come true, and we already knew who he was and what he looked like.

I like that there is an understanding of news agencies to not print the names of victims of sexual assault. There should be that same understanding of these public murderers. We shouldn’t know the names of the Columbine killers, JFK’s killer, or this horrible man from Arizona.

I know, I know — it wouldn’t work. But if *I* were a newspaper editor, my paper would not publish his name. Man that would show him! But anyway I wouldn’t publish his name.

A side note: when I worked for a weekly newspaper in Connecticut, the founding publisher did not believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays. He had read about it and believed that they were written by Earl Edward de Vere, a popular candidate from people who thought it was unlikely Shakespeare had the background to write with such familiarity of the courts and royalty. So when we quoted Shakespeare we had to attribute the quotes to “de Vere.” So above the masthead would be the quote (we had different quotes each week) “To be or not to be. That is the question. – de Vere” I always thought it was cool that the publisher was like “this is what I believe the truth is, based on research so in our paper that is the truth.”

“To write a great screenplay, write the trailer first,” – Daniel Purdy, screenwriting guru of Nashua, New Hampshire and author of the pamphlet “Screenplays Can Be Fun!” Example:

We FADE UP and the Pope is shadowboxing. Jabs, uppercuts, grunts.

A SLOW PAN across a sheriff fiddling with a Rubik’s cube.

WHITE FLASH to a PUSH on a beagle staring at a guitar. It’s important, the dog is thinking.

Then TITLE (“Crossroads of Paradise?”)

A BIRD’S-EYE SHOT of a desk. A man in a rumpled dress shirt unfurls blueprints of a ski boot outlet. He pounds the desk a single time as a WHOOSH sound effect is heard.

An infuriated housewife strides out of her Honda Civic to topple a mailbox with a single slap! KETTLE DRUM STRIKE.

A doctor looks directly in the camera as he snaps on a rubber glove, spins on his heels, and enters a helicopter. WIPE.

A bird flies, carrying a rose in its teeth. It lands on the Statue of Liberty. SOPRANO TRUMPETS FLOURISH.

1980s underground band The Replacements are manning a lemonade stand. Paul Westerbeg pounds the table a single time as a second WHOOSH is heard.

The Pope is in a parking garage talking to an NFL Quarterback, who is taking notes and nodding. CROSS FADE TO…

Two postal workers circling each other in a boxing ring. Sweat beads prominent. WHITE FLASH.

Four coffee cakes. Scrumptious. WHIP-PAN AWAY.

A light grey tabby cat blinks. Suddenly it is DARK GREY. A WHOOSH, then SIDE WIPE TO…

There’s just a bunch of dudes whaling on other dudes. SMASH CUT…
DOLLY SHOT forward to a set of French doors. They open to reveal four identical Whoopi Goldbergs. A scientist nods. CROSS FADE….

The bird flies by a second time. It lands on The Pope. FADE TO…

TITLE AGAIN (“Final Crossroads of Paradise”)

Now for the first draft…

I took Robitussin this morning and woke up in the Cloisters wearing a dress I made out of ants. Here’s how you make a dress out of ants: dip them all in sugar so they try to eat each other and then when they have all bitten into each other’s hides you freeze them, and then it’s like a piece of chain mail or a beaded curtain except it’s not — it’s a big sheet of ants. I did that while in a haze from the Robitussin. Shows you how bad-ass I am, I think, that I could do such a complicated thing while heavily sedated.

The dress started to wake up after a few moments and soon disintegrated and scattered away into the ground.

I was naked. I got arrested. I had been dressed, I explained, but the police wouldn’t believe me about the ants.  I overreact to cold medicine, I told them. I tend to fall into a deep sleep but remain active. I’ll walk around my apartment and re-organize my books. I’ll call ex-girlfriends and imitate them. I’ll go out into the street and try to replace the asphalt with cobblestones. If there are already cobblestones I’ll use ants.

In jail I explained that I had a drug habit. That made my cell mates interested in me. What drugs? What dosage? What is your preferred method of delivery? Syringe? Snorting? I explained I liked cold medicine and that I drank it. They got bored. I explained about making dresses from ants. There were amazed I wore dresses since I’m a guy. The ant part either bored them or they didn’t hear it. I got bailed out by my neighbor. I was wearing a paper suit the police had given me.

My neighbor was waiting outside the precinct.

“We don’t even know each other. I was surprised to get your call,” he said.
“Yes, it’s surprising,” I replied.
“It’s a big imposition to ask a stranger to bail you out. I’ll expect interest on what I paid.”
“Very reasonable. Thank you so much for coming down to the station.”
“Your apartment smells. I catch whiffs of it through the vents.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”

I was disappointed he wasn’t noticing the paper suit, I was dying to talk about it. Who knew the police would give you clothes if you were naked when you were arrested? And made of paper? It was like a doctor’s scrubs but more cheaply made. I wanted my own set of paper suits — different colors, one for each day of the week. I’d look like the main character in a children’s book. A young child, before they get all mean and stupid. I spit at the disgusting thought of a non-young child.

“Just make sure to pay me back.” he said and left.

I missed him immediately. I made a mental note to begin writing him letters. I had an urge to climb a tree or maybe move to Oregon. Instead I went home and slept on the couch. I slept like a baby.

Welcome. You have entered the reception area of The Vision Fountain, which is my casting agency. Here at The Vision Fountain we pledge a one hundred percent commitment to high quality commercial casting. No funny business, except the appropriate amount of whimsy for your lighthearted comedic commercial needs. Beyond that, the only time we smile is when we have delivered an actor who can communicate your brand’s message with complete efficiency and professionalism. As you see, our office is sparsely furnished, since we keep only what is needed to execute our mission.  That the logo is made of die cut aluminum letters should let you know we’re not fucking around.

I am the owner. I have not smiled for 275 days, because that is the last time I delivered what I considered to be the perfect actor (Danny Purdy, “loud man” for Best Buy). I arrive at six in the morning. I read the descriptions for commercials for cell phones, car batteries, cable providers and vaginal lubricants and begin the laborious process of casting. Every day that I fail to make what I consider to be a perfect match I go home and begin an exacting ritual of self-punishment which begins with simple and literal self-flagellation and ends with a coat hanger inserted into an electrical socket. You’ll notice my hair.

So yes, I think we here at The Vision Fountain can accommodate your needs quite well. We will sacrifice everything to get the perfect spokesman for your brand of organic chips. Let’s hear the breakdown. “An Everyman with comedic sensibility, charismatic but not good-looking, think Seth Rogen or even Jonah Hill.” I see, yes, I see. Sorry, let me close my eyes here, I must think. Let me remove my shirt, I most absorb this breakdown into my skin. I am removing my pants. My heart beats more fully. My head is bowed. The sweat begins. The process, the war, the life…. it is underway.

Karls Rakivach (RAHK-eh-vach, almost rhymes with “avalanche”) , 1940-1997, is a Swedish composer most famous for his ambient noise works of the late 1970s that focused on the sounds of crying babies. Works like Faaghern (“foghorn”), yurpeedile (“crocodile”), sachk flaxxen dejstroochiln, (“exploding paper bag”) not only transcending all existing genres of ambient music, but created a whole new one — the genre of making babies cry and recording it.

Rakivach never liked to use any hired babies. He found them crying naturally in their own habitats. He’d wander the back alleys of Helsinki with a single Seinheiser ML-80 microphone in his hand and a Karnak 4-track recorder in his backpack cocking his head for a faint cry. He’d crouch outside an open kitchen window to capture the wails of a toddler who didn’t like his canned peaches. Or dress up as a Registered Nurse to get into the natal wing of a hospital, recording equipment clumsily hidden under a smock. Or he’d slink along a stone wall to get close to a hungry screaming baby on a picnic blanket with his family. If caught, he’d never explain — just hurl a smoke bomb at his feet and sprint away at maximum speed in the billowing fog, shrieking in fear.

“The baby’s cries must be natural,” he explained to the New Musical Express in their feature article on him Primal Scream in Scandanavia. “That is why it is important that the baby and its caretakers do not know I am there.” Rakivach was arrested more than 45 times in his adult life and once sent to prison for reckless endangerment of a child — charges which he denied for his entire life. “The harness holding me above that stroller was as sturdy as steel,” would be his only comment.

Besides babies crying, Rakivach’s music consisted of muted synthesized tones, rippling in their lower registers like a cat purring, with sprinkles of bells and chimes — powerfully soothing sounds — as if hoping to lull the listener into a near-dreamlike state. Then you’d hear it: a whole buncha crying babies: the singers in Rakivach’s eerie jazz ensemble. Sometimes you’d hear the parents, too. “What are you doing here?” or “Oh my god, it’s a pervert! Call the authorities.” One can clearly hear the prime minister of Sweden calling the police on one of Rakivach’s masterpieces, Foolgarden Falseton (“Clown Mask.”)  If you listen through the fade out you can hear the master himself defending himself “It’s just a microphone, I wasn’t pleasuring anything!”

Rakivach had many imitators including Jools Holland whose first compositions all featured sobbing infants (hired babies, since Jools never had Rakivach’s emotional commitment) and Steve Nieve, the keyboardist for Elvis Costello who used to insist that their live performances always open with an unexplained ten minute session of a live baby in its mother’s arms crying nonstop. Neither of these otherwise talented men had Rakivach’s unforced touch for making completely innocent spirits sob out their souls. “I use clown masks,” Rakivach would say if asked, or even if he wasn’t.

Lost to time is Rakivach’s first career as a thrash guitarist in the speed/hate metal band Devil Sores. Though they toured to sold out ballrooms and intimate arenas in the area of their hometown, they band only recorded their music in one session after which they lost the master tapes because they ate them.

Rakivach died while touring Finland from two gunshot wounds sustained while recording a two month old baby at three in the morning without the parent’s consent. The shooters — both mother and father fired simultaneously — were absolved of all charges in an absurdly short one and half minute trial.

The great man’s funeral was tasteful. And although his native homeland banned him from being buried in any of its cemeteries — the composer ended his life with a victory. As his ashes floated out into the North Sea an onlooker saw on the beach a toddler pointing up. He was sobbing.

Your statement is now available online. By informing you of this, we absolve responsibility of telling you what the statement means, what you should do about it, or who we even are. Our main point: it’s not our fault, no matter what happens. If you get sued, or go to jail, or fall in love with the worst possible person, we won’t help you. We are not saying that any of these things will happen. All we are saying is that you can follow this link to view your statement and beyond that, you’re dead to us.

Your statement contains all the information you need. Balances, withdrawals, deposits, accrued interest, actions you took, actions you didn’t, the names of relatives you haven’t spoken to in years, dreams you can’t quite visualize — like being a product designer but only for spoons, the times and dates at which you failed the people who loved you. They are all recorded in a fixed-width typeface in a Flash interface that crashes if you try to enlarge your web browser. What conclusions you should draw from this data we will not even hint at.

A hypothetical: you wake up tomorrow and find fifteen voice mail messages from a collector’s agency, insisting you owe 45,000 dollars and have since college. And there’s a knock at the door and it’s your second girlfriend ever, with indisputable proof that you should have given her a chance to fix things. And then you look around and notice your bedroom is riddled with eagles. And let’s say you are able to conclude after investigating thoroughly that these situations resulted from information in your online statement. If at that point you try to commence legal action against us, we will print out a copy of this notice and happily absolve ourselves of blame.

We will not send you any more notices about this statement. If you ignore this email, and then phone us to ask questions, we won’t even acknowledge that the statement exists, or who you are, or that you are calling, or that there are such things as phones. We’ll hide under our desks and trap you with our “push one to speak English” menus. We’ll make you leave voice mails which we won’t answer, ever.  We’ll send you to an exhausted operator who clearly hates himself and will make you repeat everything you entered and then hang up. We’ll do this again and again until the flesh rots from your bones. And we won’t feel sorry, because we sent you this notice. Whatever you’re going to do about your statement, do it now.

You should do SOMETHING, we’ll say that much. You can feel that. There is something really important in the statement, in terms of a legal or financial obligation. Or maybe it has to do with a career option, or the true love of your life, who you have yet to meet. You should act now – not like the time you refused to change your major, and not like the time you passed up on making amends with your father. For the love of your universe, you should do something, immediately. And the one thing we can tell you about this thing you should do is that we will not tell you. It’s all in the statement, which, as we’ve made very clear, is available.

You also have to have your login and password, and if you’ve forgotten that you’re really screwed.

Thank you. Have a seat everyone. Before I begin this press conference I’d like to remind all of you that you don’t exist. This is my living room, and you are my sofa, two shoddy bookcases and various pairs of jeans. I put a mug there on the sofa because it has a face on it, but still, none of you are people. I hope that doesn’t upset anyone, I know it doesn’t deter me in the slightest. What we have to discuss today is too important.

I’d like first to call attention to this chart up here. Can you all see this? It’s not a chart of course, but a spray-bottle of tile cleaner that I left on this table some weeks ago, but can you see it? The brand is “Fantastik” but I hardly see how that matters. What’s important is for you to see the data, as I think the numbers tell a pretty harrowing story. We need to take action, and soon. Opportunities are slipping away from us. Things are moving so fast.

Now I hope that I’m wearing pajamas doesn’t take away from the gravity of the situation. I’m going to step from behind this podium — yes, a real podium — and ask you to join me in looking out the window. Can you see the Capitol building, and the great grassy mall stretching out before it? Of course you can’t, because this is not Washington but Brooklyn. It’s very early. Wouldn’t it be fun if there were farmers out here? Who thinks it would be fun? Sofa? Jeans? Of course it’d be fun. But there are no farmers, just trucks. Lots of them. They’re noisy but their presence can be soothing. Because trucks are something that are still needed — they’re not obsolete yet no matter much technology races forward. They needed trucks in the thirties when still communicated via paper mail. And even today in 2011 we need trucks, no matter how many smart phones you own. If you can make out the East River in the distance you might see a freighter ship carrying tons of goods. Feel good that we still need boats, pillows! Email is great, but when you need to move a shit-ton of merchandise there’s nothing like a big ‘ol boat. Do you agree, pirate mug? The face on the mug is that of a pirate.

Now as I move back to the podium I’d like to say that I think we can get through this. It’s understandable that we’re all terrified of things moving so fast. She moved on quickly, we can all agree on that can’t we? Sofa, your thoughts? And separately from that, we can all agree that I am by far the oldest person working at my company, and that seems to have happened very suddenly, I think that’s clear. I may get fired or be alone forever, and that’s just something we as an organization will have to accommodate. Any nervousness we’re feeling about the world is something I would describe as “justified.” I have a chart on that too, by which I mean this refrigerator magnet of Ohio.

I’m at the refrigerator now if you can’t see me, by the way. I’m trying to find the eggs. Weren’t there eggs here? Who knows if there were eggs here? Bookcases, do you know? Don’t feel bad if you don’t know bookcases, this meeting was called so last-minute that I don’t expect you to have prepared all the necessary information. I woke up at 5am and knew there needed to be a press conference. It’s a testament to all of your great character that you showed up here.  It shows how much we care about the success of our operation that we all attended. I’m eating now, so I hope you can all still understand me. I’m talking more loudly so you can understand. There’s bits of egg flying out of my mouth. I must look like a horrible monster, I do apologize.

I need to finish this.  I can’t talk while drinking coffee. My mood changes too rapidly, I lose my train of thought. Where did I get a podium, for example? Distracting thoughts like that start to pollute my speeches. So let me finish eating. In the meantime, please look at your packets, by which I mean your nothing as you don’t have hands to hold anything, but look at them. Inside you’ll see a plan. We can get through this. We will find our center, even as things spin out of control. Don’t you see? The charts, the outlines, the quotes, the bullet points, the clip art of secretaries holding clipboards. Do you see, living room? Podium? Windows? Trucks? Farmers, if you were there, could you see the plan? You do see it. You hear the trucks, still driving? Okay. I feel better about things already. Don’t you?

Newspapers are long gone, right?
Twitter is my AP wire.
Tumblr my op-ed page.
Facebook the society section.
Craigslist the classifieds

Blogs are still the same self-indulgent bullshit they’ve always been though. Yeeeeeaaaaaaah!

Pundit Looks Like A Fish! Written by Kevin Hines.

Very Mary-Kate: Presentation 2 written by Elaine Carroll, in which I play a beleaguered professor.