Author: Derek Hills

DEREK HILLS is a storyteller and playwright from Washington, DC. He's notched over 100 performances on several DC-area stages, including Story District, The Moth, and Better Said Than Done. He's also appeared in "e-Geaux (beta)" and "Apocalypse Picnic" at the Capital Fringe Festival, and debuted his full-length comedy, "Prison Break, Incorporated," in 2016. He contributes occasional freelance arts criticism and essays to the Washington City Paper and Washington Post and is now working on a play called "Shopworn," which runs July 17-28, 2018 at the Capital Fringe Festival.

The Virgin Diaries: check out my feature in the Washington City Paper

I’ve been working hard on my one-man storytelling show, No Sex, Please, which premieres Friday, July 12 at the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival.  I’m very excited and can’t wait for the show to open – it covers my bumbling experiences with love and sex from my formative years on through to my mid-twenties.  Long story short:  I was a virgin until I was nearly 28-years-old.

Go here to learn more about the show and my process (read: struggle) to create it – AND WHAT IT ALL MEANS! – in my feature for the City Paper. Continue reading “The Virgin Diaries: check out my feature in the Washington City Paper” →

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I am not Tobias Funke: a walk down the doppelganger* trail…

Uh-oh – there it is again. That shimmying vapor that is the Hypnagogic Portal! Step though with me, friends, to see what lies on the other side… But be warned – the vapor is not without its hallucinogenic effects…!

1982

Whoa! It’s Jason Bateman! But not the revitalized, culturally-relevant Jason Bateman from Arrested Development. No way. This is the Bateman from Silver Spoons, he of the swooping feathered hair and hellion mien that shuddered the hearts of moms everywhere during the Reagan ‘80s. That guy. I see him Continue reading “I am not Tobias Funke: a walk down the doppelganger* trail…” →

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We voted for Wealth Inequality in America

As a Yankees fan, I enjoy the paroxysms of hatred that my kind inspires in nearly everyone else who follows baseball.  Now let’s set aside for a second that Yankees fans are essentially arrogant dicks who couldn’t hit a fastball if it meant a million bucks.  And let’s forget, too, how they take credit for every Derek Jeter single and throw “we” around as if they personally contributed to every glowing accomplishment in Yankees history.  They’re not grammarians, you know?  They’re fanatics – high on mildewy successes from yesteryear and a gilded future that seems their birthright, never mind the team’s AARP-eligible roster, overpriced talent, and the sinking feeling that, maybe, the Yankees aren’t what they used to be.  Yet still… Continue reading “We voted for Wealth Inequality in America” →

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Storytelling with SpeakeasyDC: Fifty Shades of Grey

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Here’s the video from my most recent storytelling gig, in February.  It covers the tawdry events and psychic baggage that almost stopped me from getting to first base (for the first time, people!) when I was in 11th grade.  You can file it under “Triumph of the Human Spirit,” if you’re so inclined.  From SpeakeasyDC‘s Valentine’s Day show.  Cheers.

Thanks to Nick Newlin for posting the video!

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My notebook habit…

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a pair of leather-bound notebooks.  “You’re a journal writer, right?”  I had to think about it for a second before offering a tentative “yes,” since I’m a journal writer more in concept than in practice.  I’m far more likely to watch a film or read a story about a journal writer than to actually sit down, crack open a new page, and put my pen to paper (or fingers to keypad, as it were) nowadays, such is the procrastination, lethargy, and outright dissipation that can dominate my existence.

But still, I accepted those notebooks, as if Continue reading “My notebook habit…” →

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Steel cage match: Excel Xlerator vs. Dyson Airblade

Among watering-holes and restaurants catering to perpetually unmarried folk who like their prices high, portions small, and wait times in excess of 90 minutes, I’ve found bathrooms appointed with one of two brands of automatic hand dryer (often in addition to linen-infused paper towels for the environmentally unconcerned)…  First up is the Dyson Airblade, that darling of the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), whose air-handling innards are said to smite 99.9% of germs that cross its path.  Its womb-like chamber beckons your dripping fingers and promises to dry them in just seconds!  But crimony – it’s a stupid British import!

Well, fret not, Francophiles.  Its challenger is as all-American as school shootings and cure-all tax cuts Continue reading “Steel cage match: Excel Xlerator vs. Dyson Airblade” →

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Back our hacks!

I’m bummed that, sometime by the end of this decade, all DC cabs will be red.  I suppose the tarty sheen will make the city’s wheezing fleet of 7,000 90s-era Crown Vics easier to spot among tourists and other out-of-towners – and perhaps inspire an end-times showdown with their slick-dick competitors, Uber, over a giant checkerboard in Dupont Circle – but this is one reform that I could do without.

But don’t lump me among nostalgia-prone pensioners just because I’m wary of this change.  Continue reading “Back our hacks!” →

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