Month: April 2006

  • The Daily News


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    "It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."


    -A. Bartlett Giamatti


    1  Baseball.


    2  I dreamed a dream last night. I dreamed I saw Baseball once again yesterday.


    3  Can't really tellya much more, but sometimes, it just rips at my soul. Baseball, that is. It's designed to do that.


    4  Perhaps it was in a dream. I saw things in that dream.


    5  I saw a lady who reminded me of my mom walking around, holding tickets, and looking like a kid, ready for the season to begin. I wished my mom could have been there yesterday. She can't walk, but she still loves her Giants. So does my dad. I love them with all my heart. In my dream, she became my mom. The lady holding the tickets that is.  Quite a dream. I saw lots of things in that dream.


    6  I saw a friend of mine, Bill Phillips, from New York, pull me aside after the game and say in his best carny New York accent, "So this lady who comes heah every yeeuh approaches me today, awlmost in teahs. She tells me this was going to be huh lehast Opennuh, that she had cansuh, and that she wasn't gonna be heuh next yeeuh. So seeadd, man. Broke my haht." True story. A touchin' good story. Sad. But real. At least in my dream of yesterday. Broke his heart. Broke my heart. But ya gotta have heart, I imagine.


    7  Yeah, it's just plain designed that way.


    8  I saw little kids with huge baseball gloves, dazzled by the game I have grown to love. I saw a kid with a glove bigger than his head look up to his dad yesterday and say, "I missed this place."  Yep. It does that too.


    9  I saw Tom, this sort of Pied-Piper guy from the Great Candlestick Section 24 gang in the final years, who used to help kids sneak in, and who would bring red licorice for everyone, and teach kids how to get foul balls. He wore a San Francisco Seals jersey, authentic, and it just rocked. I knew he was going to sneak a few kids in the park yesterday; you could count on it.


    10  I saw a father buy his kid an Opening Day pin, and then take off. When I asked him where he was going, he said his kid had a game, and that he had to leave  the Opener. I said, "Whatdya, nuts?" and he replied, "I lost a son two years ago. I still have three other kids. You gotta love 'em when they're here, you know?"


    11  Boy, do I know.


    12  I saw two teachers, one with a son, and one high school principal, all of whom ditched school and went to the ballgame. In my dream, we all agreed silently that nobody would ever tell. No one ever will.


    13  I saw everything I have ever been, coming back and smiling in the form of sunshine bursting through dark clouds and shining down on all of us yesterday.


    14  Sometimes it's the little things.


    15  I dreamed I got a flat tire right when I was all ready to go up to the ballpark, right after I heard Mike Krukow say on the radio, "Well, if my having a dead battery this morning is the worst thing to happen to me today, then I've had a great day!"


    16  I saw in my dream a fellow who works up there, a guy I dreamed was my partner, telling me that HIS wife had a flat tire this morning...


    17  She was just returning home from the hospital with her nine-year old boy, a big baseball fan. He had been in the hospital for several days recovering from a  life-threatening bout of pneumonia. He is nine, and was doing just fine yesterday morning, when the flat tire hit. His name is Herman. Herman was able to catch the game where his daddy was working on the radio. Herman loves his daddy. His daddy's name is Pete.


    18  I dreamed of many memories of amazing and storied times at all the baseball games I ever attended.


    19  I dreamed of my only home run ever, coming remarkably just a few years ago, when I won a reunion game with my sandlot buddies by launching a towering home run to win the game, to the cheers of every friend I ever had. I might as well have been Bobby Thompson.


    20  I dreamed of all the best moments of my entire life in slow motion. I dreamed of burying pieces of cement in dirt in the lot next to my house when I was a kid, and using them as bases. I dreamed of bubble-gum cards.


    21 I dreamed yesterday that I heard a 90 year-old woman say, "This is always the best day of the year."


    22  I dreamed of the great years at Candlestick.


    23  I dreamed I had my life back once more.


    24  I dreamed of lost loves, of broken hearts, of dreams and of miracles, and of how much I love the people I love.


    25  And when I returned home, I dreamed of finally having myself back, and all that ever was.


    26  Baseball can do all that to a guy.


    27  Baseball.


    28  Glory days.


    29  Peace.


     


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    ~h~


     


     


     


     


     


  • The Daily News


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    1  It's hard to believe it's already baseball season. We are raining almost every single minute of every single day this year, and it's just weird to see that they already had Opening Night at Oakland the other night.


    2  And as difficult as it is to get into it this year, I must confess that I always become reborn the second baseball arrives with the Spring.


    3  I was all into it the other day, turned on the Giants/Padres game only to find it had rained out.


    4  There aren't that many rainouts to begin with, but I was all pumped and ready, only to read there was a rainout IN San Diego, where I think the last time it rained, Taft was President.


    5  Now that's a LONG time.


    6  And with the whole steroid thing going on, it's really tough trying to get into the game. But I KNOW that if I don't, I may wind up with a season like last season, where I really didn't follow my favorite sport all summer.


    7  So I think I'm going to jump right in with everything I have this year, and try to love the game that has defined much of my life.


    8  Diamonds aren't just a girl's best friend.


    Moving on: our rehearsal yesterday was just really fun. We were able to re-do a couple of classic songs from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and with the eight microphones, it all is sounding much, much more professional.


    10  We also worked on the immortal Gee, Officer Krupke from West Side Story, a song I've just never had the pleasure of putting together, and our guys nailed it.


    11 It's just a joy doing all those wonderful songs, as well as trying out different songs. It's like a good shopping day; some fit, some don't, some are heaven, some a catastrophe. But meanwhile, the road there is sure an interesting one.  


    12  There's no business like show business.


    13  So yeah, Spring has sprung, most assuredly. Well, maybe it seems that it's just sprung a leak, but it has sprung anyway. Soon, the birds will be chirping, the cherry trees blossoming, and the Spring musical playing amid baseball games, longer days, and purple lilacs blooming in the drenched green hills.


    14  May I share a poem with you.



    in Just-


    spring       when the world is mud-


    luscious the little


    lame balloonman



    whistles       far       and wee



    and eddieandbill come


    running from marbles and


    piracies and it's


    spring



    when the world is puddle-wonderful



    the queer


    old balloonman whistles


    far       and       wee


    and bettyandisbel come dancing



     from hop-scotch and jump-rope and



    it's


    spring


    and


         the



                 goat-footed



    balloonMan       whistles


    far


    and


    wee



    e.e. cummings

    15  I hope you all have a lovely, lovely day.


    16  Go Giants. go e.e. cummings


    17  Peace.


    http://x50.xanga.com/71fa07012803746689867/b31476662.jpg


     


    ~h~


     


  • The Daily News


     

    1  Okay, so I'm late on this one, but last night, at exactly 1:02 and 3 seconds, it was officially 01:02.03 on 04/05/06. Did I do that right? Some e-mail or other was sent to me, and I totally goofed on that for a stint.

     

    2  So...it was 123456.

     

    3  So yeah.

     

    4  Well, we put on the song RENT last night at the parent meeting, and we totally kicked ass!

     

    5  All three and a half parents applauded, and swore they'd get a posse to the show.

     

    6  Afterwards, we ate our 600th Little Caesar's $5.00 pizza. We celebrated with party  hats, root beer, and whistles.

     

    7   Woo-hoo.

     

    8   My, how you've grown.

     

    9   And it's been a little while.

     

    10  Wow, it's Wednesday already.

     

    11  This is our 600th Wednesday since I began counting.

     

    12  It's all about numbers.

     

    13  I think I'm going mad.

     

    14  Some fun.

     

    15  So yeah.

     

    16  Afterwards, we had a bit of a party in my room, good ol' Peace 61, eating pizza, watching this amazing video called Fosse, and laughing.

     

    17  At sunset, we got in the TOOOOONDRA and put on this CD of Broadway songs, and drove around the campus singing some great old tunes. Songs included Seasons of Love, Memory, My Favorite Things, There's No Business Like Show Business, and Do-Re-Me. Just wonderful. The sky was a raincloud painting, and it was cold, but beautiful.



     


     


     

    18  Sometimes it's the little things.

     

    19  No matter what else, My Favorite Things is already a memory.

     

    20  So yeah.

     

    21  A classic night.

     

    22  I got home, rested, and threw this out to all of you.

     

    23  Not much else.

     

    24  Just good times, good times.

     

    25  Enjoy your day.

     

    26   Peace.














     

     

     

    ~h~

     

     

     

     

  • The Daily News


    Champions!


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    1  Congrats this morning to the Class of '06 for their FANTASTICS victory on Friday night! That's no small task, believe me! Besides having to control everything you could possibly control, you have to win the GAMES, and that's just not that easy to do.


    2  So congrats! And congrats to the whole school once more for coming together with a really fun evening that brings everyone home. Nice to touch home every now and again.


    Still more congrats: Last week the Choir went over to Evergreen for the District Choir Festival, and by the time I got word on how they did, it was already the weekend. On Friday I talked with Ms. Hooper, and she told me that the Choir just kicked it into gear and took people to school!


    4  I saw that one coming in the Fall at the Winter Concert. You guys have gotten great; I came in and gave a listen right before you guys left, and trust me, you are all very much the real deal!


    5  So it's a Monday of congratulations!


    Moving on: Our musical, My Favorite Things, ran into some trouble on Saturday, looking and sounding quite flat and quite worrisome. I kept them there until almost 7 p.m.  By the end of the day, we turned all of it around. And yesterday we moved in and completely gave the stage a beautiful makeover! It has gone from shriveled and dusty-black to an explosively beautiful, colorful set!


    7  I wisely canceled this weekend's performances so we could use the time to rehearse and get sharp.


    8  Last night I got home and tried to write the DN, but I was SO exhausted from this entire weekend, including FANTASTICS, that I kept falling asleep on the keyboard.


    9  I kept waking up to an entire page of the letter "d", no idea why, except that's what happened.


    10  Sort of like this: dddddddddddddddddddddddddd
    only it went all across the page and into my kitchen.


    11  I followed it to the fridge and had a baloney sandwich, like Yogi Bear sleepwalking.


    12  Hey, that's a good name for a rock band.


    13  No, it isn't.


    14  I nid more slip.


    15  I just got word that it's supposed to rain into the next decade. Someone swiped my umbrella. I loved my umbrella, and when I catch the guy...


    http://xea.xanga.com/55ea572ac423246096393/b24596026.jpg


    Conspiracy Guy says he's somewhere in this picture.


    16  Hold it. We interrupt this DN with a special useless bulletin!I have to go outside and turn off my automatic sprinklers. I SWEAR they just went on. And why wouldn't they?


    17  Okay. Whew. Helene just pushed this button that says, "Rain delay". Evidently, watering a lawn is sort of like a baseball game. Who knew? We ought really to push that button for the rest of the decade.


    18  I looked out the window only to see my neighbor working on something in his driveway, something that looks suspiciously like an Ark...


    19  There's only one guy who would be doing that. There was a rainbow over his garage, so I gotta be wonderin'. Here's a picture I took of the guy when I schlogged out to the driveway in my boxers to get the morning paper:


    http://xcc.xanga.com/361b675a0463346098853/b31100558.jpg



    20  That guy's always trying to one-up everybody.


    21  He CLAIMS this is him:


    http://xa3.xanga.com/c26b46234943146099081/b31100470.jpg


    22  I say horse manure.


    23 Anyway, this is getting all over the place, like a dripping wet Mr. Chau sans umbrella, so I think I'll just bow out gracefully.


    24  It's supposed to be a congratulatory DN, but the rain seems just to want to keep on top of the news this whole year. No point in daylight savings time. My crops are all soaked.


    25  I have to go anyway; it's collaboration, and I'm thinking I'd better collaborate over to Long's and buy a new umbrella.


    26  I loved the other one. I hope it surfaces.


    27  Opening Day. Go Giants. Go A's. Go away Barry.


    28   Just a parting shot. I'll go now.


    29  Stay out of the rain.


    30  Peace. 


    http://x72.xanga.com/9fcb75247933046099437/b31100521.jpg


     


    ~h~


     


     


     

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