The Daily News

1  Yesterday AOL had this picture of Mick Jagger (not the one above) seemingly all upset that he was censored at the Super Bowl. I knew he had censored a line from Start Me Up, and perhaps it wasn't exactly family material. It came at the end of the song, in the exact same spot where they would normally chorus, "You make a grown man cry..." I'm guessing he wasn't too upset at all, and that right now, he's crying all the way to the bank.

2  But who knew he had censored a line in their new song, Rough Justice? According to AP Sports reporter David Bauder, they had censored a "synonym for rooster". Hmmm. Ya got me.

3  I still can't get over the fact that they even bothered performing that song. What did they HOPE to achieve? I still think Brown Sugar would have worked, with the audience participation and all. I would have opened with that instead of Start Me Up, which is SO NFL cliche'.

4  And yes, I think I know that band well enough that I should be an armchair band member on that one. You open with Brown Sugar, which brings people to a frenzy, do Satisfaction, for old times' sake, and finish with Jumpin' Jack Flash. So Mick, if you're reading, live and learn, mate.

5  I did love his comment before Satisfaction, "Here's one we could have done for Super Bowl 1!" Classic Mick Jagger banter.

6  I don't know about anyone else, but that's about all I really care about with the Super Bowl. After a while, it gets pretty blah blah blah about controversial plays, or which commercials were the best. They need some fresh material. Yeah, like REAL championship teams, for one thing.

7  I think most of us just got back to our lives pretty quickly.

8  It's time to brace for Valentine's Day, the annual two-week massacre that I just wish would get up and go away.

9  I mean, anyone who KNOWS me knows I'm a loverboy and all. So it isn't that. It's just such a low-rent holiday, unless you are a) fresh in love, which usually means you are essentially suffering a form of brain damage, or b) a jeweler.

10  For the rest of us poor schleps, we can't win. We HAVE to give flowers, I mean, come on! But if you want fresh roses, which is essential, the price instantly quadruples on Valentine's Day.

11  And that's just if you go to the Albertson's florist.

12  I wonder how many guys have gotten into serious automobile accidents trying to peel the price sticker off the plastic flower wrapping? Or how many guys want to KILL either St. Valentine himself, or at least kill that little cherubic Cupid for making girls think that little white bears with red trim make great gifts?  Yeah, until the day after Valentine's Day. Then they look tacky, for the rest of the girl's life.

13  Pardonne moi! Well, gentlemen, here's a hot tip from the very best: just BITE that sticker right off the wrapping, and spit it out. She'll never notice, and you've gotten rid of that idiotic price sticker. THEN sue the flower company for taking out your choppers with that infernal green plastic wrap that won't rip if you took a machete to it. 

14  Sorry, d00ds. I'm a Valentine's grinch. Simple as that.

15  Hey guys! Wanna make some real inroads with your ladies? Don't buy them a Vermont bear. Buy them HELLA stock in Vermont bears. Trust me.

16  Because Mr. Vermont is going to make a LOT of loot this coming holiday.

17  I have 3000 shares. Any takers?

18  Mr. Romance over here.

19  Well, I gottago. I have to get my Valentine's shopping done.

20  You make a grown man cry.

21  Peace.

~H~

 

 

The Daily News

1  So...Al Lewis walks into a bar...

2  He played Grandpa on The Munsters. Great guy. So it goes. He was 95, which gives all of us hope!

3  I'd like to send a HUGE congratulations to the Band for their awesome performance at the rally on Friday! You guys stepped up, and really delivered! I'm pretty sure that you stole a whole bunch of the Show, and you percussion dudes, you just rocked everyone!!!

4  But all of you looked bright, played brilliantly, and made me really proud! Evan, you are one of the best ever! But all of you looked and sounded sharp! It was hard not to dance, but I really thought about that one, and then thought better of it! Tracy Wolcott got her groove on though! You go, wild one!

5  Movin' on: After school, I was suddenly hit with the first major flaking of the Spring Musical. I guess you have to take the good with the bad, and a WHOLE bunch of kids cut out of rehearsal on Friday. Ouch...

6  Trouble periodically happens in Paradise, it is said.

7  Anyway, as is my wont, I continued rehearsing anyway, and we wound up with a rousingly amazing LIVE version of Hey, Big Spender! from Sweet Charity! These guys really sounded awesome!

8  But two days in a row we had hints of flakiness. In the past, we've lost shows when things like that happen. This would really be a shame, since I don't offer this sort of show that often, and I have also done some of the best directing of my career. Already we have almost six songs we are working with, and all of them sound good, and two of them already have choreography!

9  So get the word out that it takes hard work and dedication to make a great show! I'm guessing that when working with a lot of new people, we might get a little miscommunication. It's just...oy.

10  We also had a number of people out on a field trip.

11  Either way, we've stayed with it and come away with just some amazing work. At the end of the day on Friday, I was knocked out by the girls' delivery of Hey, Big Spender. They loved it, and so did everyone!

12  Well, I deliberately didn't hype up the Super Bowl this year, don't know why I didn't, really. Good game, but it just seems to lag. I was SORT of there, but not really. Sort of like the Seahawks.

13  I LOVED that they featured the Rolling Stones at halftime, but I couldn't help wondering why they didn't feature Motown stars instead. Aretha should have been the half-time show, and maybe the Temptations.

14  I honestly thought Jagger would bring out Aretha and jam Brown Sugar, but he was already censoring lines from Start Me Up, and I'm guessing that song would have brought a few jeers from the PC. But why on Earth did they play an unknown song called Rough Justice? Huh? To promote a new album? 600 billion kajillion people would have preferred Brown Sugar, or Jumpin' Jack Flash. Still, Mick Jagger looked like he could have flown to the end zone and caught passes for Seattle, and swirled back to the stage to catch roses.

15  And later, if you were REALLY watching, Slim Fast had this commercial that just butchered the Stones' anthem, Time is on My Side. So it goes, so it goes.

16  So no Aretha, who could have used a little Slim Fast. She has grown about thirty chins since I last saw her. But I can criticize, 'cuz I'm just so cut. Hey, you goin' to the Show?

17  My favorite commercial? None of them, really.

18  Oh, there was one where Yosemite Sam macks on a mud flap girl for some truck, but it wasn't a Toooondra, so I just felt happy for that hot-headed fellow. He could use a dame like that, God knows. Calm his ass down.

19  That varmint.

20   I wonder what the kids'll look like?

21  Okay, well, enjoy your Monday! I better get outta here. Yo, Sam! Fine time ya got a saucy dame, ya varmint.

22 I gotta get outta here fast! Have a calm day,
man.

23  Peace.

 

~H~

 

 

The Daily News

1  Okay, Godspell fanatics out there! There are LOTS of you, because anybody who knows the history of our Theatre knows that Godspell has always been THE Show, always and forever.

2  My very first Show had me cast as the music director, and I had NO idea what the heck I was doing, but I met the best group of guys in the world, and we became a band, and our primary focus was rocking and playing, but Godspell became the center of it all.

3  We became Daffy and the Ducks, and to this day, I think we have been bonded together as a band in this life and on into the next! But that all started in room 703, which is Mr. Russell's room now, I believe. We had a bunch of beat up guitars, including my wonderful old Yamaha, which we have affectionately named "Scratch" this year, and we jammed every single day, three to four hours, and just perfected Godspell, almost lick-for-lick. That same guitar will be featured in this Show.

4  Anyway, that was my introductory year to YB. Time it was, and what a time it was, it was...

5  Since that first day that we first jammed, Godspell has been THE musical that defines that Theatre. In 1990, I finally directed Godspell, and to this day, it remains my favorite Show of all time.

6  Yesterday we choreographed a large segment of a wonderful old Godspell piece called We Beseech Thee. The years flew by, and once again, another group has been touched by the magic of Godspell.

7  Just three days ago, I found a copy of our 1990 closing night video and showed parts of it to this cast, and they were just amazed! It inspired yesterday's rehearsal, a rehearsal that was just exhilarating, and fun beyond words.

8  The Theatre once again became magic.

9  It does that; it does that.

10  I think the best voice of how this Show is going came in an e-mail from Kim Nimori, who was in the 1990 cast. She talked about the magic of the Theatre as

...a time when the biggest thing that we had to worry about was what kind of food we were all going to go get after rehearsal!  Every time you write about the old shows, it brings me back and puts a smile on my face!

Yep. The Theatre. Rehearsals. Friends, food, singing, laughing. I used to jokingly say to Mr. P that we are in the business of making memories.

11  It's funny how just listening to the kids singing and enjoying such venerable tunes as We Beseech Thee and All Good Gifts can only bring a smile to the face of this old brown shoe!

12  And to other alumni who have been writing, thanks! I promise I'll get to each of you, because this Show seems to have connected all of us, all of those out there who ever was there when that Theatre would become magic!

13  It did that once more, yesterday.

14  Anybody who has ever spent an extra moment in there knows exactly what I mean.

15 At the end of the rehearsal of We Beseech Thee, I
popped in this CD that Maggie sent me. It had this wonderful folk/rock cover of Tomorrow from Annie, only it was by an artist named Rivers Cuomo. The kids in the cast joined in, and again, we just bonded and sang, and had fun. You know, just chillin' in the warmth of the Theatre...

16  It's late as I compose over this way. I'm listening to another track, Isreael Kamakawiwi'ole's cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and it seems appropriate enough to smile back on yesterday's rehearsal with that as rolling credits.

17  So it's time I bowed out for the week.

18  Just thought I'd share the joy!

19  Have a super weekend.

20  Peace.

 

 

~h~

 

The Daily News

1  Meanwhile, back at the White House, Dubya, our Fearless Leader, posed and spouted about freedom as two women, both wearing political T-Shirts, got escorted out of His speech. One was the a gal named Beverly Young, wife of a Florida congressman, and she was asked to leave because she was wearing a T- shirt that said, "Support Our Troops". Calamities!

2  Yeah, what a high crime. I'd a hung her.

3  That sort of message! People might think that there are actually REAL kids over there fighting and battling sanity itself. I can see where she should have been dragged kicking and screaming out of there.

4  The second person escorted out was that goony Cindy Sheehan. She's the gal whose son was killed in Iraq. She had a shirt on that said, Dead: 2,245. How Many More? Now SHE was arrested. But that's because she was basically a basset hound.

5  I'm not crazy about that gal, but I have to hand it to her when she said, "Why did my son die for his country if his mother can't even wear a shirt?"

6  The logic of which escapes me, really.

7  Welcome to America. Please leave your brains at the door.

7  Yeesh.

8  The bottom line: two people with dissenting views wore T-Shirts that had their free opinions on them, and BOTH were hustled out, and one arrested. I claim they both shoulda been stretched, and put in stocks. Thumb screws and duct tape. Or, as my good friend Kenny the P used to say, "YOU! OUTTA THE POOL!"

9  You, outta the pool. Gotta love it. Gotta love KP.

10  Now, I don't know about you, but I just can't imagine something like that taking place when JFK was president, or even Clinton. That's how far we've strayed with our freedoms.

11  It's suddenly okay for the White House to remove and distance anybody protesting anything. And people just sit around thinking, "Well...I mean, you ARE supposed to dress up for that speech..."

12  Because wearing a dress and pearls and coiffed hairdo is MUCH more patriotic than voicing your opinion in a free country.

13  It just seems less and less free by the minute. I'm guessing that many soldiers over there would support those ladies' right to dissent, and to speak up for what they believe. Of course, they might get court-martialed.Their Commander-in-Chief doesn't like when people express their opinions, unless they're sixteen miles away from Him, and a good ol' boy.

14  This is off the subject, but doesn't He bear a striking resemblance to Curious George?

15  Why do we always seem to allow this banana to continually attempt to crush the first amendment? Even if someone looks ridiculously baggy and unkempt, and possibly have fleas, they still have some basic constitutional rights.

16  There's a war on. That's going to stir people up, no matter WHAT they believe.

17  But no matter what they believe, they have a right to believe it, and to express it.

18  Oops. I'd better watch over my shoulder.

19  Those thugs have hated me for years!

20  Ah, I'm just an old Kennedy Irish/Catholic liberal, born in San Francisco, and prone to questioning things, and standing up and speaking up. Almost got fired last year when I openly and loudly criticized that Superintendent lady who nobody remembers anymore. She's gone. It seems enough people were brave enough to take that one on that she was sent packing. Good riddance. I'm glad I had the balls to speak up when the emperor had no clothes. Because the image alone...

21  I spoke up, and spoke loudly and clearly. I took a huge risk. But you see,  my America allows freedoms. My America doesn't muzzle the press, or surround schools with armed police, or threaten college-bound kids, or any teachers who wish to voice honest and sincere opinions.

22  My America allows people to wear T-Shirts, even if they're smelly, or even if they make the person wearing them look like a baggy old potato.

23  My America allows differing opinions, and my
America allows political dissent.

24  My America allows me the right to say this in a small little rag called the Daily News.

25  The day they start to go after this is the day you should REALLY start worrying.

26  I'm gonna go now.

27  Peace. Um...can I say that?

 

peace.

 

~h~

 

The Daily News

1  I went to the service for Mr. Rocha's father yesterday, and it was a beautiful ceremony, with his family and friends all around him, and the whole thing just moved me a great deal.

2  We take so much of our real lives for granted, the people who are the REAL stuff, instead of the almost pretend worlds we cling to for whatever it all means.

3  Sometimes it takes exact moments for us to come to our senses and realize the people who really are there for us, and not for themselves...

4  Mr. Rocha's brother <I think> spoke at the end about how anyone who loves their fathers or their mothers must be moved by this, and it just hit me.

5  Tell the people who are really there for you that you love them today. You will know instantly in your heart who they are, and it isn't necessarily the "me" people that often seem like they are there for you. The real ones will materialize, because they have your real heart.

6  I'm not sure I really know what I'm saying today, but it's too late, and it's already been said.

7  I'd like to cut it short today, and share a poem I wrote that kept moving through me as I stood watching the ceremony yesterday, with the guard, and with the American flag, and the loving family and friends all gathered.

8  Here is the poem. Sometimes I just re-print it in times like these. So I send this out to everyone, and I send it with all my love. I love you all, everything.

untitled

there will be days of sorrow, cloudy and dense

there will be days of heavy sighs, of a single blackbird ascending

from the bare branches of a winter tree,

and of the rain slanting across your face, as you stand bundled up

to face the winter winds.

 

there will be times of  reflection.

 

there will be days of wet autumn leaves clinging to your shoes

there will be days of dense sadness, of a car moving slowly

down the rainy streets of winter

and of the wet, falling over your eyes as you brace the chill with your

collar up.

 

there will be times of sadness.

 

there will be warm breezes, even though it’s still winter

there will be days of hollow smiles, of a cloud pushing slowly

its way northward, across the tops of trees,

and of the wet mists touching the redness of your face, as you look down in your

sadness.

 

there will be the consideration of other times

there will be days of sorrow, cloudy and dense

 

 

 

 

                                                          11/5/98

 

 

 

peace.

 

 

 

~h~