The Daily News

1  Okay, Scientist. This one’s for you.

2  FANTASTICS tonight.

3  It’s amazing. I got home at 1:55 a.m. last night, just cleaning up, counting ticket money, going shopping at midnight, and enjoying a late-night snack at Jaggin’ the Box. And this after a LONG day.

4  Isn’t it interesting, though, that after running around all week getting this, that, and the other thing, that every possible technical problem/challenge that could happen at a dress rehearsal DID?

5  The Seniors did fine. At least I THINK they did. I was wrestling around with all sorts of sound equipment that wasn’t functioning, keyboards that decided to give me trouble, mics not loud enough, electrical things, and on and on. It was almost amusing, when put in perspective.

6  Still, very…frustrating comes immediately to mind.

7  But we figured out how to handle most of the challenges, laughed at and with them.

8  Okay, so if THAT’S my only problem these days, then I GOT no problems!

9  I know; I know. I HAVE no problems.

10 Tell you one thing. There are lots of things in life more important than FANTASTICS, and technical glitches and all.

11  There is the honest-to-goodness people you love and hold dear in this life. The Scientist took all of us to school yesterday on that one.

12  This morning I sat and talked with my best friend in the whole wide world. That is my wife, Helene. She is more important to me than all the FANTASTICS, plays, or anything else this world has to offer.

13  She hugged me, and we just smiled, got WAY closer, and talked of good times.

14  It rocked.

15  That’s the lesson I learned. She’s my rock.

16  School of Rock. End of  yesterday’s lesson.

17  Today’s lesson:

18  Kick some ass.

19  So good luck everybody. Love this for all it’s worth. Enjoy it, and when it’s over, remember who you are, and who it is you love.

20  Thanks, Scientist, for all the love. We’re there for you, man. The whole school. So just smile tonight. We’ll all feel it.

21  Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you.

22  Peace.

 

The Daily News

1  A HUGE congratulations to the CHOIR for kicking some serious booty at the District Choir Festival last night!!! Sometimes magic happens!!! I was pretty-much stuck down here watching over all the practices and all, but you can TELL when a Performing Arts group has kicked some ass, and last night, that’s EXACTLY what happened. I could tell as soon as I pulled up to the Theatre (I now DRIVE to the front of the Theatre from my room!).  I saw CHOIR kids hugging, singing, and high-fiving, knowing full well that they took it HOME!!!! Celebrate; listen to the CD!!! And on behalf of the rest of YB, I just want to say that you made our whole school PROUD last night!!!

2  Thank your teacher!!!! Pink slip this!!!

3  Excelllent job! I’m WAY looking forward to the Spring Concert!! I just got energized off all you guys last night, and I’m sort of jealous that I didn’t get to see you!!

4  Oh, well.

5  I keep forgetting to make my Xanga version of the DN public. What I do is that each night, I go home and write this stuff, just because I do. It’s always fun to think of people who are bored, or having coffee, or whatever, reading all this useless nonsense in the morning, or at work, or school, or whenever. I just like to write a few things that might liven up the old day. It’s sort of like routine for a lot of folks. They get this stuff in the e-mail, and either delete it immediately, or occasionally give it a glance through just to see if I am still as idiotic as ever.

6  The good ol’ Daily News.

7  And I listen for news all day long, stuff everyone is goofing on, and I like to see if I could throw in my two cents, which is about all I have every mid-month

8  Is Barely Bonds going to play? I can’t see that story getting any better. My guess: he’ll go for it. That’s like getting around 200 feet from the top of Everest and stopping with a bum ankle, but the REAL reason you stopped  is because the world is getting pretty hip to the fact that a few hundred sherpas carried your carcass up a few thousand feet in the process of reaching your milestone.

9  I got that out of the Big Book of Bad Analogies.

10  All apologies. I want like crazy to make a better one, but I’m too exhausted. Once again, I’m at the school. The Senior Class seems distant right now. It actually feels pretty good. A whole bunch of them went over to the District Choir Festival tonight (last night!), and for the life of me, I wish I could have gotten over. I’ve just been a mess lately.

11  Things have been so busy and emotional that I’m actually dizzy. Everything seems unreal.

12  Except the Choir!

13  Sometimes, when things get sort of unreal, you need a dose of good news and smiles to give everyone a huge boost.

14  So thanks, guys, for bringing our school some smiles.

15  Okay, since it IS the DN, I have to report the news occasionally. This one is amazing.

16  I have professed that one of the BEST fast food deals in town is the chili they serve at Wendy’s on Alma. The stuff is consistently hot, has onions, and is always served with soda crackers, which is one of my weaknesses. But on a cold, rainy day, nothing beats a bowl of Wendy’s red. ESPECIALLY the Wendy’s on Alma.

17  Yesterday, at that selfsame Wendy’s, some lady…okay, stop reading if you are squeamish. A 39-year old woman took a  bite out of her chili yesterday, and spit it out, horrified that she had almost eaten the tip of a human finger!! Now this sort of story is usually fake, but evidently, this one is not. The employees claimed it was a vegetable, but when they saw a fingernail on it, they backed off. Officials are trying to find out whose finger it was.

18  Personally, I’d just check it for prints, but then, that’s just me.

19  Uh…think I’ll leave now.

20  Peace.

The Daily News

1  It’s a little bit funny, I imagine. I’m down at the school right now; it’s 8 p.m., and it seems early. In the room right next to me, I hear the booming sound of music, driving kids to invent dances.

2  As I compose these words, there are kids in the Theatre painting, sewing, listening to beats, making friends, eating, and bonding for this huge tribal thing we have coming up on Friday. It almost seems like a tribal ritual being practiced somewhere in the dense rainforest.

3  All around there is noise, joy, flirtation, exhaustion, and spirit, and it is so alive; it’s truly wonderful.

4  For a second, I found myself just staring, you know how you get when you’re tired, just floating from all the emotion and exhaustion of the past week.

5  Sunshine came up to me and asked what was wrong. Somehow, that guy KNOWS when things are wrong, only this time, I just thought, “Nothing is wrong. A whole lot is right.”

6  Because I heard laughter. I heard song. I watched dances. The entire Theatre building was literally buzzing with spirit and life, and I just felt really good. Sunshine asked if I didn’t want all those kids just to leave, to go home, to give me some peace and all.

7  And all I thought of was how wonderful it was to be alive, and to be able to enjoy all of this. I thought of next year, and how it might just be a cold, dark Theatre with no activities. But only for a brief second. Then I saw kids smiling, laughing, and getting ready for the big ritual on Friday night.

8  There is so much worse than a bunch of kids having a bunch of fun.

9  We don’t always count our blessings.

10  Call me a relic; call me watch you will. Say I’m old fashioned say I’m over-the-hill. But I think that wonderful activities like FANTASTICS, and kids having a ball, and enjoying life for all its worth is pretty darned healthy.

11  Expecially to we older set. I smiled, knowing full well that all this could be over in a flash, so I’m going to live it and enjoy it for all it’s worth. And when it finally all comes to a halt, I’ll have some lovely memories of when this place was once alive and dynamic.

12  That gorgeous rainbow I saw the other day put some spirit back into me.

13  I’m ready to rock.

14  Hope you guys are too. It’s not altogether a bad thing.

15  Not in the least.

16  Someday, I’ll reminisce about the days of old.

17  Right now, I’m going to live them.

18  Peace.

The Daily News

1   Think it’ll rain this year?

2   Well, as they say, when it rains…

3   Duty calls: I was able to get together with Conrotto yesterday and get myself down to the District Office and turn in this uncomfortable little piece of paper called a Request for Hearing form. At first, I thought it was really a nice thing the District did for its teachers. I lost a goodly part of my hearing in 1991, just after a swim. I spent the next nine years moving my jaw forward in an effort to pop the ear and get my hearing back. After all that, I thought yesterday, I just had simply to fill out this little piece of paper, and…

4  Request for Hearing.

5  Yeah.

6  Turns out that I was all wrong about the District. They weren’t interested in helping people who had lost their hearing at all. The Request for Hearing form was a request by me to come in and make a case for myself as to why I shouln’t be laid off.

7  Then I had to file some other stuff with our teachers’ union, ESTA, so that I had a solid case for myself. After 24 years of teaching in this District, and doing all the shows, and getting home late, giving up most Saturdays, and all the rest, I still had to spend time on a Monday afternoon writing up a case for keeping myself on board.

8  By the way, when I say “I”, I’m referring to the other 787 people who received those pink slips as well. It is completely unreal.

9  And nothing to get hung about.

10  I guess.

11  I got lost running around town looking for the CTA office so that I could drop off my literature. How many English teachers does it take to fine a CTA office?

12  Almost ran out of gas searching.

13  By the time I got back to school, it was already late in the afternoon. My Seniors needed me, I imagine.

14  Or not.

15  FANTASTICS practices were in full bloom. It was quite a ruckus in the Theatre, because a little bit of every class was putting together dances, skits, strategies and all the rest.

16  At around 10:17, I looked around and asked myself, “What on Earth am I still DOING here?”

17  I also realized that whatever it was I WAS doing there was never going to make it onto a Request for Hearing form. A whole bunch of teachers go through the same basic thing every single night. If they aren’t down there physically, I guarantee they are thinking of ways to make things better for kids 24/7, whether they admit it or not.

18  Because they’re teachers.

19  And that’s just what they do.

20  Almost all of them are up until 10, 11, 12, or later planning dances, skits, and strategies to help make students better people.

21  Because we’re teachers.

22  And that’s just what we do.

23  That’s just what we do.

24  Peace.

The Daily News

1   Yeesh.

2   I could try to be funny and all today, but all that comes out of me is
     this: yeesh.

3   Right after it rained yesterday, a really beautiful rainbow hit the east foothills over by my house. I didn’t bother looking for a pot of gold or anything. I just looked up at it, like a Care Bear.

4  Sometimes you just do that.

5  I took a picture of the rainbow, all bright and lovely against the dark rainclouds and all. But the picture didn’t catch it at all. In fact, I don’t know if a lot of people saw what I saw. I guess it looked so beautiful because sometimes it just does. No reason.

6  I want to smile, and say something beautiful, and something comforting.

7  I want to say I love you.

8  I want to smile up there and hug down here, and let the rain hit me right in the face.

9  I want to cry.

10  I want to be a friend.

11  I want something to make sense.

12  Anything.

13  The rainbow made sense, I imagine.

14  I guess I will just give out a cry. It’s allowed.

15  And then I’ll close this DN out for the day.

16  And yeah, I’ll say a few prayers.

17  Hold on.

18  We’re all there, more than you’ll ever know.

19  Peace.

The Daily News

1  Yesterday I wound up not going to that seminar I was supposed to go to. It was a terribly strange day. I got to school ready to search for WHERE I was supposed to go, when my substitute, another YB teacher, met me outside my room. I said, “Good! I didn’t think anyone was going to cover! All the stuff you need to do is on my desk…” and I looked at the teacher, and his eyes were red-rimmed; his nose slightly runny, and his demeanor clearly shaken.

2  When he talked, he choked his words, which came out strained, and with a lot of pain. I asked if he was sick, and he responded that he was upset about what had happened to his school, and to all the wonderful people in his department. It became clear to me that this man was in no position to take no an extra class, so I told him it was okay, that things would get better, and not to worry. I instantly canceled all other plans, and sent him to the faculty lounge to relax, and feel better about things before taking on a hectic Thursday.

3  Suddenly, I had a full day to be in classes, and felt that I could have used a day off myself. But I stayed, did the first period thing, and went on, shaken, but certainly not stirred.

4  Other things happened as the day rolled on. Out of respect for the other people, I won’t go into it. I received some phone calls from different people, and let’s just say that I am glad I was there to help some very dear people out. Sometimes there’s a reason that things like that happen. My decision to stay helped some people, and for that, I am thankful that it happened.

5  Just another day in the life of a guy who looks out on all the madness with a tough face, facing the cold winds.

6  And hoping his hat doesn’t blow off.

7  Haha.

8  JK.

9  Speaking of cold winds, I’m amazed and riveted with the continuing story of the biggest baseball scandal since the Black Sox.

10 The Balco Sox Scandal of 2005.

11  I’ll let the players dig in. I’m thinking that they might be digging their historical graves. Mark McGwire made Scott Peterson look like an innocent man. This is going to be painful, folks. I really think they should have stepped up to the plate with a little bit more on it.

12  The plate.

13  Well, that was a strained attempt at humor.

14  Sometimes it’s tough to laugh.

15  This goes out to a special friend: I love you, man. We all do.

16  Go into the weekend smiling everybody. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

17  I’ll be back.

18  Peace.

The Daily News

1   I’m not at school today. In fact, I’m not so sure WHERE I am today. I was so busy with FANTASTICS practice last night that I got home after midnight!!! Who knew?

2   One reason I was at the school so late was that I lost the paper telling me where I was to report today. So around 10 p.m. it occurred to me that I was supposed to be out for two days, attending a seminar, I just forgot where the heck the seminar was to be.

3  I’m hoping this is an honest mistake, and yet a part of me would LOVE not to know where to go today. I know that’s wrong, but hey, those things happen. Not much you can do.

4  Speaking of which, yesterday was WEIRD, man, looking into the eyes of all the teachers, and seeing the common bond we teachers all have. You know, no matter what people say about educators, most of us, good or bad, just want to see young people go in the right direction, and we just want to help them get there. At times, we slip into our own personalities, and those personalities take over, but any time someone throws something crooked at us, we tend to bond, because really, all of us have pretty much the same goals: to help young people get through youth, and to assist in their learning and growing.

5  So yesterday was like walking out on a battlefield the morning after a major skirmish. We slowly came out and talked with one another. Theories abounded, but the bottom line remained: a WHOLE bunch of awesome teachers got pinked. I guess that would be the expression, no?

6  “DOOOOOD! He got PINKED!

7   Hopefully everything will be all right…

8  Difficult to laugh right now. Tired beyond words.

9  Well, I imagine it’s just one foot in front of the other and on to victory.

10  Have a beautiful day.

The Daily News

1   Got pink slipped yesterday.

2   A whole buncha awesome people did.

3   Here.

Oh well, the touch of grey
kinda suits you anyway
that is all I have to say…
it’s all right…

We will get by;
We will get by;
We will get by,

We will survive.

 

~The Grateful Dead~

~H~

 

The Daily News

The Ides of March

1   You know what sucks? Writing a Daily News for aroung 45 minutes on a Sunday night, only to forget to switch it from “private” to “public” on a Monday morning.

2  I’ve been doing a lot of stupid things lately. One time I caught myself putting milk in the kitchen cabinet. Ever do stuff like that? It’s hilarious when you find it, because you NEVER find it at first.

3  It’s like sometime around late afternoon, you go to get salt or vinegar or cumin or something, and open the cupboard, and there, in all its glory, stands a jug of milk.

4  They have a name for this phenom, at least in my book.

5  Manopause.

6  It’s like hot flashes and flutters. It’s like buttuh.

7  Let’s hear it for San Francisco. Great ruling, Judge Kramer. You make me proud of my city by the bay. Oh whoa, oh, oh, oh-whoa. Sometimes, I want to get back to my city by the bay, yay.

8  I was born there.

9  The place rocks.

10  Moving on: Have you guys tried those self-checkout things? Albertson’s has one, and it’s hilarious watching people trying to deal. For once in my life, I got smart about that one. I mastered them when they first came out, and now I totally GOOF on people who get all flustered with them.

11  The deal is, I’m convinced it’s some Candid Camera reality show at work. Because they make it so you HAVE to yell at an inanimate object. It’s like, say you’re buying prunes or something. You have to push this thing that has you describe the item, and you push the letter “p” on the keyboard. It then gives you about sixteen different kinds of prunes. The ones YOU have are like 12 cents a pound or something, but you put those prunes on the scale, and it says in that ridiculous 2005 voice: four…ninety-nine…and you start yelling, “HEY! IT SAYS 12 CENTS A POUND OVER IN THE FRUIT SECTION!!!” And instead of bitching at someone, you feel bad that you chose a machine over a human, and move over to a place where a real person could screw it up, instead of having a machine do it.

12  Or worse, it tells you that there is an unknown item in the baggage area. Please remove the item. So you remove the item. Then it says, “Put the item back.” This goes on for several minutes, as you start acting like Curly from the Three Stooges. I’m thoroughly convinced that the stores purchased those things so that employees could watch it all happening on their breaks. It probably has something to do with boosting morale.

13  Is there any other explanation?

14  Then, when you start jumping up and down and shouting at the machine, some real person comes over and tells you that the reason everything is so screwed up is because you’ve been leaning on the scales. Or something.

15  Personally, I’ve learned my lesson.

16  I pick up stuff like milk, put it in my cart, move through the checkout that actually uses REAL people, and then pay and leave.

17  Once I get home, I throw all seventeen bags of groceries on the sink.

18  I then eat almost half of the stuff I bought: cheese, salads, Cheese Its, apples, etc. If nobody is looking, I uncork the ice-cold milk, and chug-a-lug as much as I can, then swiftly put the top back on.

19  Before anyone knows it, I have that stuff stored safely in the nearest cupboard, safe and sane.

20  After all, staying organized is what it’s about, right?

21  Have a lovely day.

The Daily News

1  Y’know what’s funny? How like, when you’re driving, and some guy is weaving all in and out in the lane next to you, and then you all wind up at the stoplight anyway.

2  I always used to goof on that with my daughters. Some guy would be tailgating like Goofy, shouting, weaving, moving in and out, inevitably winding up at the light right next to me. I used to say calmly, just loud enough so that my daughters could hear, “Where ya goin’? WHERE ya goin’?” and then, just as calmly, I’d say, “See you at the light.”

3  Deep.

4  Or not.

5  Anyway, that happened to me yesterday. I was driving down Hostetter Road over by where I live, and some guy was going insane in the lane next to me, slamming his hands on the wheel, zooming in and out, and tailgating everyone in sight. By the time I arrived at the stoplight, he had actually lost around three inches on me. It was a scream. I just looked over at the guy.

6  I wonder why we do that? It’s like we WANT to see what an idiot looks like. We always hear people talking about idiots, but how often do we have the opportunity to put a face to it?

7  Now I’m talking abstract idiots. We all have idiots in our daily routine. We’re used to them, sort of like loony neighborhood pets, and their goofy owners. But when there’s a random one out there driving into your vision, I find it’s always best to do a little rubbernecking so you could SEE an idiot in its natural habitat. School is sort of a natural habitat, but much of the stupidity is pretty familiar, and therefore, routine, and uninspiring.

8  But when a loony is on the loose out there in the human zoo that is daily life beyond the fences, it’s like I want to cheer, make faces, and throw peanuts. I rarely get road rage anymore, unless one of those guys almost kills me or something.

9  That happened one Halloween several years ago. I almost got run down by a drunken gorilla. I caught him in my rear-view, bobbing and weaving, flying at jet speed toward me, drifting swiftly in and out, in and out, and then he buzzed me, but missed by a windblown whisker. I looked over, and he was a gorilla, top to bottom. Must have been late to a Halloween party. It’s funny, because I really just wanted to look to see what an idiot actually looked like out of context, and this guy is dressed like a gorilla.

10  I just laughed. I was pretty glad to have survived, but I sometimes think that when I do finally leave this place, it will never be as colorful as getting run down by a drunken gorilla. Just doesn’t happen.

11  Anyway, it’s Monday. If you come up against massive stupidity today, just smile. Look at it as your own fun, because within your mind, you can simply goof on the stupidity, and you won’t be as irritated by people as much. Just look at it as God’s zoo. Chuckle in your head, and humor ‘em.

12  They usually go away, or meander out of your vision, and into the shadows. If they do that, just look to them, and say, within your mind, “Where ya goin’? WHERE ya goin’?” And get a calm chuckle out of it. It’s much healthier, and you’ll be a better because of it.

13  See ya later.

13  See you at the light.

14  Peace.