The Daily News

 

1  Rain.

2  Sometimes it knows exactly when to plip and plop into our lives.

3  Suddenly, rain.

4  Umbrellas you misplace, because they simply aren't part of the daily routine.

5  Hills of green, glistening beneath the thick clouds.

6  Dog barks echoing through the neighboring canyons.

7  Rain.

8  Slick city streets reflecting street lamps and traffic lights.

9  Kids chasing twigs through rushing creeks.

10  A sudden clap of lightning.

11  Rain.

12  Puffy clouds drifting through still puddles.

13  The sweet smell of the wet coming off the gravel in the street.

14  Branches strewn about the wet lawn.

15  Old people.

16  Young people.

17  Rain.

 

 

 

 

~h~

 

 

 

The Daily News

and now the time has come,
and so my love i must go
one day you'll look
to see i've gone
but tomorrow may rain so
i'll follow the sun.

1  Hey, I mean, the guy's a Beatle. What can you say...

2  What a show! VERY kickback. But Paul played, and played, and played his heart out for San Jose last night. The show was close to two hours and forty-five minutes, and almost all of it was vintage Beatles.

3  Paul opened with a slide show, and the opening number was Magical Mystery Tour.

4  The magic happened.

5  Miracles.

6  Yeesh.

7  Paul was pretty mellow, overall. T-shirt, the aw-shucks stuff. I loved it. About two songs in, he just said, "I'm going to just drink this all in for a minute." And he just leaned against an amp and smiled, squinted into the lights, looked out at the audience, and just kicked back. I loved it.

8  A minute later, he launched into a tune called I'll Get You, which was the original flip-side to She Loves You, one of the Beatles' biggest early hits. It seemed to me that almost nobody but me knew the tune. I harmonized with Paul. It worked. The funny thing is, I've NEVER seen him do She Loves You. For those of you too young to remember, that's the yeah, yeah, yeah song that made the Beatles famous! And Paul comes in with I'll Get You instead of She Loves You. I gotta love it. SO stupidly wonderful!! To wit:

I think about you night and day
it's easy, 'cuz it's true;
when I thnk about you I can say
I'm never, never blue

So I'm telling
you my friend
that I'll get you, I'll get you in the end
yes I will, I'll get you in the end
oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!

 

haha!!! SO corny!!!

 

9  His new stuff was great, although I can't remember the name of any of the songs.

10 But he covered some wonderful songs, because let's face it: all Beatle songs are wonderful!!! So all that being said, I always enjoy when I hear him play a song he normally doesn't do. This was my third time seeing him, and not too many surprises.

11 But at one point, his band left the stage, leaving just Paul and an acoustic guitar. Usually that means either Blackbird, or Yesterday. Instead, he rocked us into a lovely old tune called I Will, which I used to play for Caitlin and Nicole when they were little. I'd play it as a lullabye at bedtime, and it was lovely, and always lulled them to sleep. 

11  But he did Too Many People from his Ram album, a rarity if ever there was one.

12  All the rest just rocked. Eleanor Rigby, was particularly impressive. That song was inspired by Hitchcock's Psycho, by the way. But what a lovely tune. He did a long set acoustically, and I loved it.

13  He and his band also played some rather vintage guitars. Of course, he had his classic left-handed Hofner bass, which he played on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963, a Gibson Les Paul, which made some wonderfully Lennonesque dirty sounds, a classic Hollow-body red Gretch, which George Harrison used to play, and which my good friend Geoff USED to have. Hey, GOOF, do you still have it man? I think you told me you got rid of all your guitars, didn't you?

14  Ah, who knows.

15  One of his guitarists had the guitarLennon used on the classic rooftop Let it Be session in London. I can't recall what type of guitar it was...anyway, they had this look going on...

Paul with his classic Hofner.

16  There's just sooo much more, but probably one of the best songs was the classic Please, Please Me. Just an amazing song. Simple.

17  She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, and the final jam on Abbey Road played incredibly, with a three-guitar jam going on for around three straight minutes, followed by the beautiful The End, and the night, indeed, ended.

18  I would love to have heard Her Majesty.

19  Overall, the concert rocked sweetly, not really rowdy, but very kicked back and fun. Paul saluted everyone in the audience, no matter where they sat, and you had the feeling after a while that you were just in a pub, and that you could buy him a beer.

20  So Paul, thank you for a great show. Let it Be rocked my soul at the end. My soul needed rocking. My soul needed rock.

21  Paul McCartney delivered. He left us with this word: paraventure.

it means "perchance, perhaps..."

I'm not quite sure WHY Paul McCartney gave us a vocabulary lesson explaining a word he used in a song, but Sheryll Marmito sent me that word the other night. She saw the concert too.

22  And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

23  Paraventure.

24  Peace.

...her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
some day I'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah
some day I'm gonna make her mine.

 

 

 

 

~h~

 

 

 

 

 

~H~

The Daily News

The Beatles' last concert ever

Ringo and Paul, 1966, Candlestick Park

Getting off the plane in SFO, San Bruno, CA

1  You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs.

2  Well I look around me and I see it isn't so.

3  Oh no.

4  Paul McCartney, legend. Now appearing at the Tank.

5  The Beatles' very last concert took place in the Bay Area at the immortal Candlestick Park, San Francisco, where I was born.

6  San Francisco. I was born in San Francisco. I was raised at Candlestick Park.

7  By a toothless, bearded hag.

8  I recall a Rolling Stones' concert at Candlestick Park, years later, as always, a packed house, and I recall the wily Mick Jagger, after his opening two songs, prancing to the mic and, and sayin' "So how ya doin'? Ya know, this is where the Beatles plyed theh lahst consutt." you know, with the British rocker accent and all.

9  Over 60,000 people rose, yelled, shouted, tweaked, and applauded, for almost an entire minute. Awesome moment, being part of rock history. Mick Jagger, paying homage to the real British Royalty, the venerable Beatles.

10  Jagger then swaggered back to the mic and said briskly, "Useless fahking informytion." To which people stood up, and the Stones launched into the opening licks to Let's Spend the Night Together. Instantly, the entire place stood up and applauded, and the party was on.

11  The Beatles' last concert was before my time. As big a fan as I am, I never saw the entire band. I did see Paul McCartney, and I did get to see George. I've seen Sir Paul twice now.

12  And tonight, I will again see a Beatle. No matter how you look at it, Paul McCartney is rock royalty. I never saw Elvis; I never saw Sinatra. I HAVE seen the Stones, a million times now.

13  But it isn't often you see a real Beatle. They just don't get out much.

14  In August of '66, nobody knew they were going to stop touring after the Candlestick show. There's footage, and even a DVD. But they did Shea Stadium in New York, and then finished with good ol' Candlestick Park, where I was this past Sunday.

15 Useless fahking imformytion. Here's their set, on the back of an obscure album called Shea/Candlestick, which I JUST discovered online last night!

Now, I have to guess that Spank records was not on the up-and-up. This was clearly a bootleg album, and what a fun find!

16  The songs I would love to have heard would have been If I Needed Someone, from Yesterday and Today album, Yesterday, because I'm pretty sure Paul played it acoustically, and Nowhere Man, of course, because it is THE quintessential Lennon tune.

17  And NOBODY could do Long Tall Sally like Paul. The Chuck Berryesque lyrics still rock to this day:

I saw Uncle John
with Long Tall Sally;
he saw Aunt Mary coming' and he ducked back in the alley
oh, baby!

18  For years, I thought Chuck Berry wrote that song, which has been performed by no less than Elvis Presley, Little Richard, AND the Beatles. Great rocker. Pure fun!

19  For the record, Long Tall Sally was penned by Enortis Johnson, Robert Blackwell, Richard Penniman, and a few others who changed lyrics at will, including Chuck Berry AND Paul McCartney.

20 I always loved Little Richard saying HE saw Uncle John with BALD-headed Sally, he saw Aunt Mary comin' and he ducked back in the alley..

21 Pure rock. Bald-headed Sally. Ya gotta love it.

22 An interesting side-note is that I Wanna Be Your Man, which was written by Lennon/McCartney in 1963, was covered by the Rolling Stones and was their third single released, also in 1963. The "B" side is an unknown song called Stoned. Useless? Yeah, I imagine, I imagine...

23  Just pretty exciting times when a Beatle comes to town. For the record, SFO is listed as San Francisco, but the airport itself clearly sits in San Bruno, my old hunting grounds.

24  WAY useless fahking informytion.

25  Anyway...Paul McCartney. Legend. Can't wait.

25  We're gonna have some fun tonight!

26   Peace.

 

 

~h~

 

 

 

The Daily News The early Beatles, with Pete Best 1  Ever just go through a time when you're just not yourself? 2  Maybe it's the exhaustion from last week's events, running auditions, and the haunted house and then the subsequent clean-up, but I've been pretty out there. Just gone. Can't explain it. 3  I got some rest, but still. I mean, when you GET rest, and then you turn on the television, it is usually at odd hours, like 3 a.m. or something, when the TV news has things like a camel that got loose in Tennessee. I watch stuff like that, and figure, "Okay...so now I need to worry about camels coming to town." I'll then peek just over my window sill, and I just HOPE I don't look up to see a camel staring back at me. 4  Three days ago, I had hay. 5  Yesterday was just...strange. I went to Candlestick Park, aka Monster Park, to work the 49er game. It was WAY early, like 8:30 in the morning, when suddenly, Reveille blared through some speakers in the parking lot. If you DON'T know, Reveille is the military bugle call to get you to wake up in the morning. 6  Suddenly, it was blaring across the "F" Gate parking area, really loud! The second it was over, the first bars of Frank Sinatra's New York, New York began drifting over everyone's heads. I looked from atop "F" Gate, and stared over the parking lot, absolutely enchanted. Only in San Francisco. I loved it. But first camels, then that. 7  Okay...so I walk around the stadium, and suddenly, at EVERY  entrance to the field, there is a maroon sign with gulden's-yellow lettering that says this: No standing on aisle and/or vomitory. 8  Interesting choice of noun for a team that is 2 and 6. "And/or vomitory." Huh? Did I READ that correctly? 9  Of course, almost NOBODY knows what a "vomitory" is. All I could think of was, "Who thought of THAT one? How'd he pitch it to the owners? Do YOU think management has any IDEA of what a vomitory is? And let's face it: don't some words have...er...baggage?" I thought it hysterical! Your team is struggling, and yet you may not stand around the vomitory when things go south. 10  Well, thanks in large part to Dictionary.com, I got this series of definitions, for your Monday viewing pleasure: ADVERTISEMENT var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 * Math.random())+1); document.write('');     Related ads: Cannibal Corpse T Shirts Napalm Death Shirts Death Metal Music Nevermore Shirts Mercyful Fate Shirts   4 entries found for vomitory. vom·i·to·ry    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (vm-tôr, -tr) adj. Inducing vomiting; vomitive. n. pl. vom·i·to·ries Something that induces vomiting. An aperture through which matter is discharged. One of the tunnellike passages of an amphitheater or stadium between the seats and the outside wall or passageway. 11   Well, I took a walk around the stadium after a touchdown was called back, the Niners got two penalties in a row, then threw an interception, and New York took it home and scored. It crossed my mind that I should have ordered some Cannibal Corpse T-shirts, or perhaps a Napalm Death Shirt to sell to those poor folks. Anarchists and rebels banded and huddled in the vomitoria. 12  For the most part, they were lined up in each vomitory. I kicked myself for not thinking ahead and ordering feathers to sell. I probably could sell all that stuff on E-Bay, and get some Raider fans' hard-earned pay as well. 13  Anyway, things are weird. I got a dollar bill yesterday that had pink writing on it that said this: See where I've been Track where I go next. www.wheresgeorge.com 14  If you DON'T know, my real name is George. And lately, let me tell you, I don't know where George is any more than anyone else. 15  He appears lost these days. 16  Pretty mystical, considering my mental state. 17  Moving on: I'm going to see a BEATLE!!! Sir Paul McCartney, about whom I wrote a long Xanga about his purported death, will be alive and well on Tuesday night at the Arena. I shall be attending, and taking copious notes as to whether or not I think he is still alive. 18  My sources tell me yes. How often do we get a chance to see a legend? Students see legends every day; they just don' realize it. ; ) 19  Anyway, if you can GET tix, you should!!! It is the closest you'll EVER get to seeing a Beatles' concert, or so I've been told. The boy can still rock, even though he is WAY older than me. I can't wait; if anything can put me back on my game, it'll be rock 'n' roll. 20  All you need is love. 21  All you need is VISA. 22  I hope he does side two of Abbey Road. 23  I hope he plays Here Comes the Sun, even though it's a George Harrison song. 24  I hope he isn't dead. 25  Rock. Legends. They seem to be everywhere. 26  You can't hurt steel. 27  Peace.             ~h~

 

 

 

 

The Daily News

1  Did you know that the process of getting a nose job is called rhinoplasty?

2  I swear. I'm guessing I'm the only guy walking around who didn't.

3  You want to know what rocks? New socks. The other day, I started to notice that my socks were sort of peeling off my feet at the end of these twelve-hour days, and were in sore need of either repair, or disqualification. They were clearly in disrepair.

4  The other night, after the Haunted House and all, I swear my socks just started talking to me, requesting ethical suicide.

5  Two of them stood up by themselves, keeping a candlight vigil in my window.

6  Indeed, the time had come for new socks.

7  The Dollar Store had pairs of socks for, well, a dollar.

8  Now to an old white guy who quite frequently walks into Asian households, nice clean socks are clearly a necessity.

9  Two months ago I accidentally wore this pair of socks that I had walked around the Theatre in, because I have triple-X  feet, meaning they are massively wide, and shoes have turned all my toes in.

10  You could grow corn in those mugs, I swear.

11  So I bought every sock in the Dollar Store, which translates to three pairs. They felt WAY cozy.

12  I know, I know. Ever seen my feet? If you look at them, the one word that just doesn't fit them is, "cozy". The word that immediately strikes me is "platypus".

13  The good ol' Dollar Store. It's actual name is the Dollar Tree, but does ANYONE ever refer to it as such? Not Sock Boy.

14  They had some other foot stuff too!  They had powder, but it was body powder, not foot powder, but when I compared ingredients to the foot powder, the body powder had the same ingredients, the most active being "methyl salicylate", the same stuff that they use to keep mummies clean in ancient ruins.

15  Well, maybe to preserve them. 

16  Anyway, what any of this has to do with rhinoplasty is anyone's guess, but it's been an insane week.

17  And no, I'm NOT thinking new nose.

18  If the Governor comes through here and insists that I get a new nose, I say we picket. Nose. Picket.

19  Nevermind.

20  Okay, I officially need rest.

21  It's Friday; get some rest.

22  We'll be back on Monday. 

23  See ya later.

24  Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

~h~

The Daily News

1  Some things just amaze me.

2  Like, did you ever just begin a task that should take about five minutes, only to find that it winds up taking like about three-thousand years?

3  Okay, so I'm exaggerating just a wee bit.

4  But that just happened yesterday. Allow me to take it back around a week. Last week, Michelon and I (I know, I know!) took off for Starbuck's during our horrific second-period prep, and just before we arrived back at school, stopped in at the San Jose Police Department's ranch, just off Sherlock.

5  Sometimes traveling around with a damned Republican makes sense. He knows where to find easily accessible horse manure, for one thing.

6  Well, where there are lots of cops and still lots more horse manure, you're bound to find some hay, and so we did.

7  The Department was kind enough to throw us a free bail of hay for the Anti-tobacco/drugs etc. cause, so we put it on the bed of the TOOOOONDRA, and off we went.

8  The hay made a perfect floor cover for our Haunted House's graveyard. We had our crew throw it all over the backstage left area, and the place looked awesome.

9  Sparky's idea, by the way. He'd kill me with his annoying voice if I didn't give him props.

10  Anyway, yesterday, while striking the set, we found ourselves ass over elbows in hay. We put it all in the back of the TOOOONDRA with the idea of throwing it into that big blue garbage bin that is used for cleaning up Spirit Week. The bin is right behind my classroom, thereby making the job seem like a lark.

11 But woe was us. Or so we thought.

12  The bin was filled with enough cardboard and paper and posters and stuff from Spirit Week that we would have had to have flown the hay in with a helicopter.

13  So at around 6 p.m. last night, I was driving about with enough hay to kill every horse in Texas.

14  Now at six-of-the clock in the evening, trying to find a place to get rid of a ton of hay containing spider webs, plastic, cup-of-noodles, and candy wrappers can become a challenge.

15  The TOOOONDRA instantly took off for the hills, during the most spectacular sunset of the year so far. I mention that just because, well, it was.

16  We means me, Jose, and Ray, who do more work than every kid at YB put together, yet who are constantly harrassed by the office for being there helping.

17  I just thought I'd throw that shot in as well.

18  The second we hit Lucretia, a bag containing garbage fell off the bed of the truck. Ironically, a police horse-trailer stopped to let us pick it up. So much for dumping it back there, which was our first thought.

19  The sunset splashed pink, orange, and purple across the October sky, and so we decided to head for the hills above the city lights.

20  So with the TOOOONDRA flying up the mountain with a full bed of hay, we laughed about where and how we were going to ditch it. The hills lifted all around us, and as we elevated, the city became this vast masterpiece painted by the Creator of the Universe, and once again, magic happened.

21  The sky became orange, purple and brown, with the lights brilliantly clear in the foreground, and the clouds swirling with windy brushstrokes, a drifting, windy still-life. We had Cumberland Blues by the Grateful Dead swirling around us on our hayride.

22  We flew past every driveway on the hill, lifting higher, past the two arrows, and the spot we always go to get mystical, and ever higher, in search of the perfect place to leave hay.

23  We laughed our asses off the whole time, figuring we were totally on a CIA op to dump hay swiftly, clean it out hop back in the truck, and then slip back down the hill and into the masterpiece undetected.

24  Naturally, we accomplished the mission better than James Bond could ever have dreamed. We stopped, and each guy knew exactly what to do: from opening the back, to slipping all the hay to the side of the road, to removing all spider webs, plastic, cup o' noodles, and candy wrappers, to enjoying the beauty of the city lit gloriously below, then finally, to the subsequent escape down the mountain and flight into the adjoining clouds and lights.

25  Tim Burton meets James Bond.

26  Mission accomplished.

27  Some things should just be left unsaid.

28  Sometimes, life reminds you that its true essence is just around the corner. In this case, a simple clean-up became a steep adventure, with three silhouette spies flying in a TOOONDRA through a cartoon.

29  And with that, I'll set you all down gently back into calmer, more settled lives.

30  Let the landing gears kick in, and..

31  Peace. Applause.

32  Thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

~H~

 

The Daily News

Seasons of Love...

1  Yesterday we had the first Drama Workshop rehearsal since we did A Love Letter last year. Suddenly, there is a brand new Drama Workshop, with a whole bunch of new faces, and a whole bunch of new personalities. It's an absolute miracle, and I enjoyed the entire rehearsal.

2  Angie and Doan came in and had all of us enjoying some theatre games, as well as enunciation exercises, and before long, everybody was acting and enjoying the rebirth of the Drama Workshop!

3  Somehow, with all that going on, I was actually able to get home at a decent hour. I still collapsed on the sofa when I walked through the door, only this time it was around 6 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. I was able to nap, and then to watch Biggest Loser.

4  Some beefalo lost 10 pounds last week, and everyone on the show said, "Wow."

5  I threw down some sausages and chocolate chasers and made fun of all the people who worked out.

6  Great show on which to goof.

7  It'd be better if I was over at the gym watching it with headphones on, and traveling nowhere on the elliptical, but for whatever reason, the school makes me sedentary.

8  I lost like 500 pounds this summer, but gained 490 of it back.

9  But I'm jolly.

10  I've lost track of stuff in the past two weeks. Been spending a tonna time online, yelling at my computer and looking at my e-mail box, which now has spider webs in it. Everybody has been WAY busy.

11  Well, that happens.

12  I'm sitting here with some REAL problems for a change, like deciding between My Name is Earl, or House, for example.

13  Yeesh.

14  And I'm just not getting the right sort of rest. Did you know that there is a Center for Narcolepsy at the Stanford School of Medicine? I went there to tell the Doctor about my insomnia concerns, but he drifted off.

15  Stanford also boasts a thing called the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic, evidently within the Center for Narcolepsy wing. I went into the waiting room, but all the nurses were lying on little straw mats, with mini-milk cartons next to them, and half-opened boxes of graham crackers strewn about the floor.

16  This information comes to us from a Rita E. Morales, who is a senior at Presentation High School in San Jose. Rita wrote an article about the long-term effects of sleeplessness in yesterday's Merc, the Read This! section, which is written by local high school students.

17  In the article, Morales cited some of the health risks of not getting enough sleep, including obesity, cardiovascular concerns, diabetes, and even early death.

18 Yeesh.

19  That stuff will have to get in line behind bird flus, terrorism, global warming, and clumsy people with guns.

20  Personally, I'd just like to die peacefully in my sleep.

21  If I could get to sleep after collapsing on the couch from 7-10:30 each night...

22  Well, looks like another all-nighter, so I think I'll go for a caffeine run.

23  Seems caffeine leads to serious sleep disorders.

24  Do ya think?

25  What they need to do is to cancel mid-terms and finals.

26  Okay then, I'm off. I have a night sky to stare at, like Bart Simpson.

27  Party on.

28  Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

~h~

 

 

The Daily News

1  I'll tellya, Halloween continues to be weird.

2  Things that I can normally do just don't want to work.

3  For example, last night I wanted to update the Heidi Chronicles on my ybdrama.com website. As recently as two weeks ago, I was able to go on the website and change things.

4  So last night, after we finished the Haunted House, I was anxious to get home and write my annual update of the Heidi Chronicles. A LOT of coincidences and stuff have happened this year, and it is an annual ritual that I update ON Halloween.

5  Well, good ol' geocities just didn't want to work for me, so I guess the update will have to be some other time. Story of this year. Homecoming is away. Parking has been re-directed to a much less convenient spot, for no reason. Coffee might burn down the faculty lounge. The WPC (White People With Clipboards) have been twitching their noses into every corner of campus. The other day they were walking around the outside of the rally, taking copious notes on something or other.

6  That oughta make our students brighter.

7  Ah, well.

8   I actually can't wait to start goofing on non-campus issues once again. It's a funny world out there, and it needs a deft hand at reporting all of its subtle nuances.

9  Like, I read in the paper yesterday that some minister in Texas was electrocuted when he adjusted a microphone while standing in water. ELECTROCUTED! A mic. Who knew?

10  I have lots of questions these days.

11  For instance,  is it just me, or is Mars getting HUGE these days?

12  Is it true that some bowls of pho contain ox dongs?

13  Do they have Playboy in braille?

14   And a million other items, sitting on the edge of my mind like crazed gargoyles, ready to pounce.

15  I just need to re-group from all this folderol, and become myself once again.

16  Maybe we all do.

17  Maybe we all do.

18  Peace, have a sweet day.

19  Out.

 

~h~