The Daily News

Joe-the-Bear

1  Headline in yesterday's Merc News: Federal Judge Rules Pledge of Allegiance Unconstitutional.

2  I'm serious.

3  One nation, under Joe-the-Bear...

4  Oh, Joe-the-Bear sits on my window sill. He just sits and chills and always seems to be there with a stare. Used to sit on the  toilet tank, which was even MORE philosophical, in a very real way. I get very much of my spiritual guidance from Joe-the-Bear. Every time I turn stupid, which is pretty-much quite a lot, he just sits there, until it dawns on me that yep, I was, indeed, stupid. He doesn't say much, but just look at the guy. Ever SEE a more sensible bloke?

5  There's a bear.

6  Funny, as I write this, some guy on David Letterman just started talking about bears. THEN I look down at my desk, and there, on the cover of the Merc News, just to the left of that headline up there, is a picture of a couple of grizzles, under the headline Yellowstone's Good-News-Bears.

Grizzlies in the Merc

7  Every time I turn around these days, coincidences.

8  Right when I wrote this stuff, that guy on Letterman talked of bears, and then I saw this picture.

9  I swear.

10  AND I was just talking about my guy, Joe-the-Bear.

11  All this talk of bears. It's a bit funny, but this summer, I hiked through areas of Desolaton Wilderness, and goofed on what a cool death it would be to get eaten by a bear. I mean, yeah, it would suck while the bear was eating you, but imagine the BRAGGING rights you'd have in heaven:

Deadguy One.  Howdja die, man?

Deadguy Two. Natural causes, ay. You?

Deadguy One. I got eaten by a bear.

Deadguy Two. (thud.)

Blackout.

12  Can't beat it.

13  I'd better go.

14  My dear friend Thuy said that we shouldn't say "good-bye" anymore. We should say, "See ya later..."

15  So.

16  Have a great weekend.

17  See ya later.

 

The Daily News

"A nickel isn't worth a dime today."
                                                             ---Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra

1   Baseball.

2  I love the game.

3  Last night I came upon a list of quotes by the great Yogi Berra.

4  If you've never heard Yogi-isms, you're in for a fun go! (And THAT, ladies and gents, is a baseball pun!)

5  So here is a bit of a break for me; the DN can keep me up late, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning. So I'm going to cheat a bit this morning and give you some great Yogi-isms. I hope you enjoy them!

6  So here goes. This is American humor at its best. Bon appetit.

You can observe a lot just by watching.

He must have made that before he died.--referring to a Steve McQueen movie

You've got to be very careful if you don't know whre you're going, because you might not get there.

I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.

Slump? I ain't in no slump! I just ain't hitting.

I made a wrong mistake.

Texas has a lot of electrical votes.

I always thought that record would stand unitl it was broken.

You give 100% in the first half of a game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left.

It gets late early out here.

Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself.--After being told he looked cool.

The other teams could make trouble for us if they win.

Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.

How long have you known me Jack? and you still don't know how to spell my name.--Upon receiving a check from Jack Buck made out to "bearer".

90 % of the putts that ae short don't go in.

Yeah, but we're making great time!--In reply to "Hey Yogi, I think we're lost!"

It ain't the heat; it's the humility.

The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.

You should always go to other peoples' funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours.

7  Thanks, Yogi.

8  Make someone happy today.

9  Peace.

 

 

 

The Daily News

Who are the 10 most pointless celebrities?

1  Now that I'm done being sad and all, it's time to bring a bit of humor to the good ol' DN. From Great Britain, I stumbled upon this goofy piece: GB's Channel 4 did a TV show entitled The Death of Celebrity, in which they conducted a survey to name the 10 Most Pointless Celebrities.

2  If that isn't right up my alley, I don't know what is.

3  Turns out that Victoria Beckham, of Spice Girl fame, was tops on the list, followed by her dumb husband. Here is their list, for your own edification:

 
The Beckham's

The 10 Most Pointless Celebrities

1  Victoria Beckham

2  David Beckham

3 Jordan

4  Abi Titmuss

5  Tony Blair

6  Jade Goody

7  The Royal Family

8  Jodie Marsh

9  Anyone from Big Brother

10  Rebecca Loos

4  The Breaking News, IE, the webpage that carried the story, said this of the show: "...the programme wages war on celebrities who are famous despite having little or no talent."

5  WELL!

6  I don't know about any of you, but I personally could come up with a much better list than THAT. I spun it around and asked friends, and here are some serious candidates, in no particular order, coming to you with a little help from my friends:

 Ryan "Stupid" Seacrest (IN!), Richard "The Gay Blade" Simmons, Gene Simmons, Larry King, Vanna White, any bimbo Jay Leno takes seriously while oogling at her cleavage, John Bon Jovi, Snoop Dawg, Joe Besser, the Low-Budget Stooge. He was SO not a stooge. He was about as much of a Stooge as Pete Best was a Beatle, only fatter, and he wore suits that were way too small. That ain't no Stooge! Larry Fine. THERE'S a Stooge!

7 Continuing: Star Jones, Burt Reynolds--(A  g-g-g-g-ghost!  Nice eye job, Burt), Ben Affleck--and  I think he knows it, Queen Latifah, Ozzy Osbourne and his entire family of freaks, Richard Hatch, Kathie Lee, Maria Shriver, Bobby Brown, Pamela Anderson (except her two friends), Pee Wee Herman, Monica Lewinsky.

8  Okay, you get the idea. No shortage. I personally submitted the first ten, and then put it out there.

9  How 'bout it? Any candidates for Most Pointless Celebrity? Lemme know.

10  Thanks to all of you who submitted jokes last week. I think my personal fave came from Evelyn, who wrote this one:

Where do you find a dog with no legs?

Wherever you left him.

11  Ha!

12  I'll have to go through my 8 gazillion e-mails to find some of the others. I got hit hard this past week, so it's been a busy one.

13  Okay, just thought I'd jump start a little fun into the DN, and to give your morning a bit of a kick start!

14  Enjoy the day; someone once named Wednesday "Hump Day", and for the life of me, I just SORT of get that one. You know, you're over the hump when it's over.

15  And I'll take the high road on that one.

16  Always a safe bet.

17  Keep those cards and letters coming!

18  Peace.

Snoop Dawg

d00d, you're pointless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Daily News

  What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us...
                                                 --Ralph Waldo Emerson

1  Oh, my.

  Blue sky, sunshine, what a day to take a walk in the park,
ice cream, daydream, 'til the sky becomes a blanket of stars...
what a day for pickin' daisies,
and lots of red balloons
and what a day for thinkin' right out loud
I love you!

                                            ---Spanky and Our Gang, Lazy Day
                                              

2  What a day, indeed.

3  Who knew?

4  The other night, I went to a going-away party for I think all 300-plus members of the Class of '05 of Yerba Buena High School. It was simply a final send-off to an utterly amazing group of kids.

5  When I became the class advisor several years ago, I knew precisely what it was I was getting into. The year previous, I had already met and advised a goodly amount of them, feeling always that I had somehow walked into a magical world of Disney characters walking innocently through purple balloons. I thought they were the sweetest group of kids I had ever met...

6  It wasn't long before I was invited to be their advisor, and almost instantly, a bond happened, and I knew that I was, perhaps, what Mr.Worden deemed "the luckiest guy in the world." Well, I wouldn't go THAT far, but I knew that I would be darned close for at least three years...

7  Have you ever been involved in something that you just feel was almost too good to be true? Every single day that I would work with those kids, I felt that it would be really easy to plan for every single day to be the best day in life. Every single day I looked forward to yet another sweet and wonderful day filled with joy and pure love, laughs and hugs. They were THAT good. They still are.

8  Through thick and thin, there was a remarkable bond. We spent hours upon hours planning, living, holding onto one another when tragedies would happen, and laughing and hugging when the good times would happen, and man, let me tell you, they would happen, more than anyone could ever imagine!

9  The other night, we again all gathered, as we always have, and laughed and enjoyed the "stuff in life". That night was probably the final gathering to what seems to me like the Longest Good-bye in the History of the World.

10  The challenge I always had was that the entire time I traveled with this group, I knew that it was finite. I knew that at some point, it all had to change, and that every single moment spent should never be taken for granted. I've lived long enough to know a good thing when I would see it, and these guys were definitely a good thing. But I'm guessing I've said this before, so let's move on...

11  The day has finally arrived. They are on day one of officially blasting off into the world and making it a vastly better place. Today. Tuesday. Oh, we already had a few take off, just to give my heart a nudge. Sunshine took off to Georgia for basic training in late July. We drove around until 2:30 in the morning, talking, and speaking of things that matter.  

12  And just last week, Loan visited, just before she left for San Luis Obispo. She instantly came up and gave me a huge hug, and we both almost lost it. Both times I fought tears, but felt their emotions deeply. They were two of the very best, and they almost slipped out undetected, but both had spiritual good-byes with me before they left.

13  And that was just TWO of them.

14  The other night, it was suddenly everyone else, gathered at the home of their amazing prez, Thuy Ann. As always, she pulled together a huge gathering, and ran all around her house making certain that everyone was enjoying every last minute, moving from group to group with her usual grace and fun style. 

15  Thuy Ann left for UCSD today. I never got to get over to say a final good-bye yesterday. The brakes in my truck made it too dangerous to drive, so I never went over to her house. We said our good-byes probably beginning in January anyway, but fortunately, we did get in one as the party was dying down.  I don't really even remember what we said in the end, but it might have been what we didn't say that was more important anyway. Thuy Ann was and is a remarkable president,  a dazzlingly amazing leader, and more importantly, a wonderful friend.

16  Tomorrow Trami leaves. And this will continue all the way until around the 25th of the month, when the UC Davis kids finally move off.

17  For me, I'm exhausted, never expected THAT many good-byes in my entire life! I feel that I shared deep moments with each of these kids, and that each one was one of the most special people I have ever met.

18  That class was like that. Everybody tended to be special to everybody, and now that they're all beginning to go, it's a swirling flurry of emotions, but now that it's finally set in motion, it quite winds up the world's gain.

19  So Thuy Ann, and the rest of all of you, godspeed, best wishes, and make us all proud.

20  The world needs you right now a lot more than we do.

21  In the end, it's right.

22  Good-bye, for now...

23  Peace.

Blue sky, sunshine, flowers bloomin', children say-in' hello.

Row boats, bird notes, People smilin' everywhere that they go.

What a day to be together, and what a sky of blue

And what a day for think-in' right out loud I love you! To my very specical Class of '05, I love all of y'all!!! Peace, and Godspeed. ~H~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Daily News 1  It's September 11, 2005 as I compose these words. Three years ago I awoke on September 8 with vivid memories of 9/11 haunting my sleep. It had been nearly a year, and the memory of that day made my night a restless one, and I felt I needed to put together something in words. 2  I wrote a piece called 9-11: A Tribute..., and the words just naturally poured out. Historically, this pre-dated Xanga, but it didn't pre-date my Drama Workshop website, which had The Daily News online. 3  So I wrote the piece, which I wrote with a great amount of emotion going through me. I thought of my country, and of what it means to be an American, and all sorts of other things. I wrote it down, every word, before it all became lost in senitity and over-editing. Well, it worked. The piece came out expressing some pretty genuine feelings. 4  Last year, I thought I'd get REALLY clever and cut and paste the piece to my other Xanga site. It resulted in overloading my Xanga with too much HTML, or some gawd-awful thing, and the piece just lay over my New Weblog Entry like a big, fat, lazy walrus! 5  I couldn't touch any editing tools, or anything, for that matter.  Each time I would log on, that piece would just be sitting over all the little buttons and whistles that one could use to make this site work. 6  Well, last night I had decided to put the piece back up for the Daily News crowd, forgetting completely about what had happened last year. I pulled it off the Drama Workshop site, but it did it AGAIN (well, of course!), only this time I knew how to delete it. 7  Anyway, I really wanted to get it out there, because I really see 9/11 as a date none of us should ever forget, no matter where we are, who we are, or what we believe. I just feel it is important not to forget simply out of respect for the day America changed forever. 8  So here is the link. I couldn't get it into the DN the way I would like, but this link should get you to it: http://www.ybdrama.com/911tribute3.html 9  I had a billion other things on my mind last night, things that mean so much to me that 9/11 almost feels like I'm just going through the motions. 10 But that's precisely why I WANT to bring the piece back into the light. Just four short years after that terrible day, I find myself occupying myself with a new life, and new things, and the temptation is to put that sad day where it belongs: on the shelf, somewhere, so that we could just move past it. But to me, the anniversary of 9/11 should be a national holiday, a tribute, a very important day in America, and it deserves respect. 11  I have SO many other things to say, especially today. But I feel that 9/11 should be the focus. I'll write the other stuff tomorrow. Right now, it just seems that we owe it to ourselves never to forget the great tragedy of when America changed forever. 12  It might seem ridiculous, but I feel very strongly that we must never forget that day. Once a year, I offer this tribute out of reverence to every one of us. The piece proper isn't amazing. It isn't even the best thing I ever wrote. It is, however, a very brief piece that I wrote a year after the Twin Towers went down. 13 So when you finish reading this, click the link, or if you are at the school, take time to read the piece. It is from the heart of a Yankee Doodle Boy. Or, if you're too busy, catch it some other time. As I said, it's not the most brilliant thing, it's just from the heart of a person who woke up disturbed by memories of that strange day. 14  It is important to me that we always remember. It should be important to all of us, out of respect for a day that changed all of us. Take a moment today and give a prayer, and  a moment. And never forget the families, friends, and lives that were touched by that day. 15  And always have hope. 16  Peace.

The Daily News

1  Make someone happy...

2  What a cool song. It was just on a commercial, on the televesion that sits behind me like some new age hearth, cozy, comforting, and wonderfully familiar.

3  Half the time I don't really even watch the teevee. But it's almost the law that you must always have a TVgoing somewhere in the house. I wonder if there's some psychological reason for that.

4  I know I always sleep better if there is some re-run of an old TV show on in the background. Full House works almost as well as a teddy bear for me, but don't spread that around. I ain't no wuss. OH! And Care Bears. Actually, almost nothing works better than the music to Perry Mason. Or any Disney film after and including The Little Mermaid.

5  Perry Mason. Lawyer show. Raymond Burr...ah, meh.

6  I don't know about anyone else out there, but Thursday seems to be a pretty exhausting day. I got home last night and talked a bit with my wife, and just conked out at around 9. I mean, gone, man. I awoke at 11:15 and began writing this. Thursday. Hmm.

7  Nhat, the Class of '05 ponderer, put together a CD of days of the week, you know, beginning with Monday, Monday, going to Ruby Tuesday, and all the rest. In the course of working on it, he discovered that Wednesday and Thursday had no songs written about them. He asked me for help, and I simply came up empty, but with a theory that Wednesday and Thursday are probably the least romantic days of the week.

8  Friday and Saturday, of course, have tons of songs written about them, especially Saturday night.

9  Speaking of Saturday night, on Saturday, September 24, Comedy Cental LIVE brings Drew Carey, Greg Proops, and the Improv All Stars to the Flint Center, which, for you drama sorts, translates roughly to Whose Line is it Anyway uncensored. I'm not sure of times and prices, but tickets can be purchased by calling ticketmaster at (408) 998-8497, or going to the ticketmaster website, which is http://www.ticketmaster.com .

10  Greg Proops. Had to be a fighter.

11  They're actually advertised as the Improv Allstars, but I wrongfully corrected it. Talk about issues. English teachers. Yeesh.

12  Make someone happy.

13  I remember that song from a great old film called Sleepless in Seattle, only it was sung by the immortal Jimmy Durante. If you are familiar with Durante, you'd know that he was the old guy with the huge schnozolla, a guy who always charmed everybody walking around. A friend of mine once mused that any song is automatically better if sung by Jimmy Durante. I quite agree.

Jimmy Durante

14  So which songs did Nhat put on his CD? Well, the two already mentioned, and then Wednesday by Tori Amos, Thursday's Child by Raffish, Friday I'm in Love, the Cure, Saturday Night's All Right for Fightin' by Elton John, and the amazing Sunday, Bloody Sunday by U2.

15  What an artist! Now Nhat, if you could just put a CD together of Jimmy Durante covers...

16  I'd finish with Make Someone Happy. Yeah, Sinatra did the tune a long, long time ago, but only Durante could add the magic ingredient of simple charm.  It goes like this, but is much better if you listen to it. If you know it, sing along...

Make, someone happy,
Make just one, someone happy,
Make just one heart the heart you sing to!
One smile that cheers you,
One face that lights when it nears you,
One girl you're everything to!

Fame, if you win it,
Comes an' goes in a minute,
Where's the 'real-stuff' in life to cling to?
Love, is the answer,
Someone to love, is the answer,
Once you've found her,
Build your world around her!
Make, someone happy,
Make just one, someone happy,
And you will be happy too!

Fame, if you win it,
Comes an' goes in a minute . . .

Where's the 'real-stuff' in life to cling to?
Love, is the answer,
Someone to love, is the answer,
Once you've found her,
Build your world around her!
Make, someone happy,
Make just one, someone happy,
And you will be happy too!

~ from the Broadway production Do Re Mi

Music by Julie Styne

with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green

 

17  Sweet...

 

18  Make someone happy today.

 

19  That's it.

 

20  Peace.

 

 

The Daily News

1  A few of us Drama Workshop people gathered yesterday at the Olive Garden for a fun session. We must have had fun, because some HUGE guy eating fat noodles shooshed us. I never thought we were really that loud, but as far as I can tell, that was the first time in my entire life a HUGE guy eating noodles shooshed me in a restaurant.

2  There were like eight of us, just laughing about good times and shows and stuff, but evidently this guy couldn't do his noodles to the noise of laughter and friends gathering.

3  D00d. It's not my fault you hate your father.

4  The conversation came around to favorite plays, and the votes came in overwhelmingly for This Side Up. Midsummer sort of took a "second", and Songs We've Heard took perhaps a sentimental third. Creature Creeps was a hands-down hit to any who were remotely associated with it, especially the immortal Halloween night, when the Theatre looked like a Tim Burton nightmare, one of the greatest opening nights ever. Those who were there: ask the guy who directed; it WAS electric that night, amazing, and yes, it was REAL.

4  Best Final Scene went to the final Friday night of A Love Letter, in which Charlie Chaplin (Sunshine) walked off with the Girl (Trami), and with the big heart on the back wall, with Joe Brown playing a ukelele and singing I'll See You in my Dreams, and with the mirror ball kicking in, time utterly fell silent for the almost last time...just sweet.

5  The Chaplin character, by the way, was the FIRST character ever to enter a Drama Workshop show. He stepped out on stage in 1982, in a show called Silents. It's fitting that he was the last character to leave the stage nearly 23 years later.

6  We talked of the good times, always the good times. How Jose named Sparky one fine afternoon when Sparky almost killed him with electricity. Or C.B.'s exit into a flat in Hamlet. Or Zack's nimble hands in The Last Flower...or his amazing hurtling of suitcases down the stairs in Creature.

7  I have LOTS of Drama Workshop memories, all very real, and many just fun to look back on.

8  Good times, my friends, good times.

9  Yesterday was really healthy, laughing about good times and saying good-bye to a lot of very recent Drama Workshop memories. When I got home last night and started in on the Daily News, I almost fell into a hundred different stories of the Theatre.

10  But for now, we'll just say a very fond see ya soon to all of it.

11  I'll see you in my dreams...

12  Peace.

finis.

 

The Daily News

1  So...Bob Denver walks into a bar...

2  Nope. He didn't invent the omelette.

3  Nope. He didn't get a city named after him.

4  Nope. He didn't already die in a Rocky Mountain High.

5  Give up? He was Gilligan. Gilligan's Island. A three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. Even became a teacher...

6  Nevermind.

7  Is Wacko Jacko going to become Wacko Jocko? Inquiring minds want to know. Evidently, Michael Jackson isn't done doing things that will make people throw rocks at him. Jacko, now 47, is having a redo in Bahrain, and he will be cutting his hair short, wearing less makup, and hopes to get some muscles somewhere. He ALSO wishes to land a long-term gig in Vegas. Yeah? Hey Mikey. How about begging for coins at the end of an organ-grinder's leash? If you want to be in a circus, join a circus.

8  Meh. Guy needs to get looked at.

9  Okay, here's a piece. Some guy in West Hartford, Conn. was arrested because he allegedly threatened to castrate a Melly's ice-cream truck driver with hedge clippers because the guy driving the truck wouldn't turn off his jingle machine, even though the driver was told that no kids lived there. That item comes to us courtesy of the News of the Weird in yesterday's Merc, and how THAT one got past me is anybody's guess.

10  Now this is off the subject, but do ALL ice-cream trucks play Turkey-in-the-Straw, and loop it so it squawks over and over and over? No wonder people go crazy with castration fantasies. That guy probably psycologically wanted to cut the wire to the beat-up old speaker...

11  Guy needs to get looked at.

12  "We need to have a investigation..."
                                              --President George "Dubya" Bush, 
                                  when pushed about the government's
                                   pathetically slow response to Hurricane
                                  Katrina.

13  Where's Clippy?

14   Well, it's Wednesday already. If ever there was a week moving too swiftly for me, this would be it. That's a rare complaint, granted, but yeesh.

15  If you know me, you probably know why. It's a tacit thing...

16  Tacit.

17  That's understood without...

18  Nevermind.

19  It's a beautifully sunny day; go out and enjoy it,
every chance you can! A sunny day with a smile and
a good friend can surely keep the blues away!

20  The sun is almost up. Write it in your heart.

21   Here comes the sun. It's all right...

22  Have a wonderful day!

19  Peace.

 

 

 

 

The Daily News

 

1  It’s never too late to learn to play the piano.

                                                                    --Clippy

 

2  That's what "Clippy" the Annoying Paperclip preached to me yesterday. Okay, I was minding my own business when that guy popped up for the millionth time, with the usual no regard for getting right in my way. Only THIS time, with utterly no warning nor coaxing, he gave me some advice. Actually, some pretty darned good advice, but advice.

 

3  Now, WHY "Clippy" is suddenly telling people how to live their lives is beyond me, but still, I had to ponder...I mean, it IS never too late to learn to play the piano...it's just...I mean, d00d. Why is "Clippy" suddenly sending me messages?

 

3  I just hope the little bastard isn't a Republican...

 

4  Moving on: So...Chief Justice William Hubbs Rehnquist walks into a bar...

 

5  So it goes.

 

6  Uh...Hubbs? I wonder how that went down...

                      ***goes into a dream, as always...***

The Rehnquists Name a Baby

 

a short play

 

(lights up.)

 

Mr. Rehnquist: But what should his middle name be called?

 

Mrs. Rehnquist: Hubbs.

(blackout.)

             

7  Oy.

 

8  On Jerry Rice...not wishing to work as a fourth-string receiver for the Denver Broncos, the greatest player in NFL history retired yesterday after 20 NFL seasons. Count 'em, 20 as well as 38 NFL records, including Career Receptions (1,549), Yards Receiving (22,895), and Touchdowns Receiving (197). Beyond that, Jerry Rice is a class act, a TREMENDOUS role model for all of us, and in my eyes, the greatest ever. You deserve better, Jerry. But you are, in the heart of many, simply the greatest NFL football player of all time.

 

9  It's never too late to learn to play football...

 

10  The Tree of Hope is alive and operational, even if it isn't quite up yet. Long story, but if you give cash, or write a check and make it out to Evelyn Huynh, the money you give will be matched by Yahoo! because Evelyn works there!!! So get those checks to me. Or send them to Yerba Buena High School, 1855 Lucretia Ave. San Jose, CA 95122, attn. Bud Harrington. The sooner, the better, because it's a fast window of time that Yahoo! will match funds.

 

11  And any donation will be given a leaf on the Tree of Hope in my room. All monies go to the American Red Cross, Santa Clara Chapter, and are earmarked for Hurricane Katrina Relief.

 

12  All monies. Isn't "money" a collective noun? All monies...ummm. Clippy? gone. Never around when you need him.

 

13  Maggie? A little help? Ah, she dashed off to UCLA, or at least that's the rumor. One of our GREAT student grammarians, now on the loose at a major American university!

 

14  Maggie began learning piano just last year, and grew accordingly. No, d00d. Saying, "Play an accordingly--go to jail!" just misses the boat, d00d, entirely. Stay off the doobies in the a.m guy.

 

15  But it's never too late to learn to play the piano...

 

16  It's never too late.

 

17  Thanks, Clippy. You'll just never know, man.

 

18  You'll just...never know.

 

19  Peace, love, and cheese.

 

 

 

 

The Daily News

1  Hurricane Katrina Relief, Update: So on Friday (remember WAY back, Friday?) I received an e-mail from the always awesome Evelyn Huynh, who now works at Yahoo! She said that she could be our direct line to matching funds for the American Red Cross. My room is already set up and has officially made $28, not much, but double that in one day and you have...

2  $56!

3  It's Saturday, d00d!

4  Anyway, it looks as though my room will have a Tree of Hope at the end of the day on Monday, so if you donate, we'll put a leaf on the tree for you. If you wish to donate by check, make the check payable to Evelyn Huynh, (she has to give Yahoo! cash) and send it to Yerba Buena High School, 1855 Lucretia Ave. San Jose, CA 95122, Attn. Bud Harrington. The window of matching funds is usually open for a few weeks, so the sooner the better.

5  You can also stop by my room and donate, and maybe buy a Pepsi, or a water, and also get a leaf for the tree. Any donation at this point shall be matched by Yahoo! Thanks Evelyn, as always!!! And thanks Yahoo!

6  Last Thursday night, my daughter Nicole called and wanted to go for Starbuck's and a chat, which we do regularly. As I was taking her home, I saw a parking spot between Original Joe's, and the California Theatre downtown, two venerable San Jose institutions. I instantly pulled the TOOONDRA into the spot, taking out a GEO Prizm, one tree, a homeless guy, and a parking meter all at once, and parked. Hey, it was a tight squeeze, yo.

7  We went for the classic cheapo Joe's fare, two bowls of Joe's Chicken soup, the best chicken soup since the Creator of the Universe invented soup. Only OJ's instantly improved on both the food, and the service. I was pleased to see our waiter was Ozai Hassan, who clearly was personally trained by the Creator of the Universe.

8  Hassan, as always, served not only soup, but the absolute class that is Joe's signature. He looked right at me, said, "I know you no longer drink, so a couple of coffees?"  "Two cokes," I mused. He returned within seconds. "Sorry for the delay," he quirked. "Here you are, two Pinots. This was a good year. Enjoy!" Nicoley broke into a huge smile, which always makes ME break into a huge smile!

9  As always, Hassan delivered not only coffee, but grace and class the entire night. My cup never went down more than a quarter of an inch, and he would fill it as though we were in a Disney cartoon!

10 When we left, our minds and spirits had lifted, and we got back in the TOONDRA, and ended the evening with nothing but laughs and love.

11  That's Joe's, man. That's what Joe's is about. Period. Hassan is the grandmaster, the trainer of the greatest waiting crew in the world.

12  This morning's Mercury News had an article on the Munoz brothers, four waiters at Joe's, all of whom I'm sure most of you who have gone there have both encountered and enjoyed. It's a fun article, and part of the reason for this special edition of the Mercury News. These four brothers from Mexico charm and cheer up everybody they meet, and all FOUR were trained by the irreplicable Hassan.

13  The article talks of famous customers, including Bill Cosby, KISS, Earthquakes president and former soccer star Alexi Lalas, and to David, the third born of the brothers, it was former President George Herbert Walker Bush!

14  David was a busboy at the time, and Hassan had waited on the president. I'll let Merc News' awesome Joe Rodriguez finish the story for you. I thought you might appreciate it on a Saturday afternoon:

..The president and his Secret Service bodyguards
didn't know it, but in the next booth sat two San Jose pimps
and their prostitutes. Who left the bigger tip?
"The pimps!"

15  Well, I just thought I'd shoot off a Special Edition of the DN today, because time is of the essence for receiving the matching Red Cross funds. When I saw the article on OJ's, it simply made sense to send you a bit of a laugh on a Saturday.

Waiter Camerino Munoz, one of O.J.'s best!!

16  That's it!! Have a GREAT day everybody!!! Eat at Joe's!!!

17  Piece.

18   Of cheesecake that is!