Month: September 2006

  • The Daily News
    1  So...Jimmy Lester walks into a bar...

    2  So it goes; so it goes...

    3  Well, what an amazing week.

    4  Turns out my computer has been slapping me silly lately, so writing the DN or answering e-mails has become a major challenge in the waning days of this ant-plagued week.

    5  Last night I was busily answering e-mails and combing my locks when my computer froze like a caramel frap.

    6  It's like I'm right in the middle of delicately constructing the DN when it just stops. That's it, no warning. It works like lightning, then time freezes. Hourglass. Arrow. Nada.


    7  So I've taken to writing the now very famous DN on bright green Post-its notes, hoping to have a hard copy before it all goes away.

    8  Tough way to live.

    9  Every cloud. It gets me to bed two hours earlier each night. = ) <------- sideways smiley face guy, now considered "almost" obsolete. Those creepy little talking ones who talk to you on Myspace are evidently the order of the day. I just feel weird when I hear little voices talking to me. I always mix it up with the Wee People.

    10  But enough of that.

    11  It does, however, put a bit of a rush on the Trademark of Quality that is now the boldly stolen trademark of the Daily News.

    12  Anyway, I have been having a ball up here in the Chill on the Hill. Even my first Volleyball game rocked.

    13  I got in there, got things going, was useless with yet a second scoreboard that didn't want to work, moved over to the concession area to help out the Athletic Boosters get things opened up and working when a parent came up to me.

    14  She looked pretty exhausted, one of those situations where her kids had attended the school two years ago, but all were gone, but she still throws in to help after a hard day of living, which happens to all of us. Anyway, the band percussion section stationed themselves right outside the gym door, which I, of course, loved, because I am a big fan of bands.

    15  But I could tell that this volunteer had been on the edge from whatever happened in her day of living, and that the pounding drums weren't doing much for her psychologically. She asked me if I could get the band to move.

    16  

    17  Now I'm one of those people who loves all music, and that band is run by a great friend, Steve Barnhill. I totally respect that they practice right there every night, so I was wondering how tactfully to ask these awesome musicians to move because their music was irritating someone. I'm too big to be walking tightropes of that sort, so I asked the volunteer if I could just close the door. She concurred and nodded, "It's all right...it's all right."  She really was all right.

    18  I've been told by many customer service folks that it's always good to be gracious and always send someone away feeling that if you couldn't do everything for them, that you could sure try to make things better, a goodly lesson to anyone who works with people. Always leave them with a sense that you took care of them, and that you are genuinely concerned. And I mean that; it really does work and makes for better communication.

    19  Anyway, enough of that one. She stood for a second, looked down as though she was about to break down crying, and I asked her if there was anything else I could do to help make things better.

    20  She paused for a moment, lifted her head as though I were her very last resort, and asked exhaustedly...

    21  "Do you know how to get rid of ants?"

    22  And so...

    23  I have arrived.

    25  Peace.
                                                                                     ~H~

                                 


  • The Daily News


    1  Three weeks ago, I was lazily floating in my backyard pool. At the time, I never dreamed my entire life would change as radically as it has. It hasn't been bad, quite the contrary, it's been a complete new departure, and very exciting and invigorating.

     2  I'm not really sure WHAT I thought would happen. It was the dawg days of summer; I still had time to float in my pool, to watch the butterflies moving from flower to flower in my yard, and to listen to late summer baseball games. And not have to get up until I wanted to get up.



    3  So the phone call that shattered all that came rather abruptly, causing me to jump into regular clothes instead of summer shorts and Hawaiin shirts, jump into the TOOONDRA, and never look back. That fast. In five minutes summer was over, and I suddenly found myself on a swirling rollercoaster with what felt like no seat belt. If it sounds like some sort of surreal nightmare, then you aren't far from the Truth. From beaches and coastal breezes, from cosmic days and nights in beautiful Tahoe, from my own peace of a summer yard, I had suddenly jumped square into the eye of a nightmare.

    4  And yet it all seemed amazing as well, going from the laid back lazy hazy crazy days of summer into a hyper-tense insanity, scurrying to figure things out before the year would begin in two weeks. I had to move out of YB in a day,  to put everything into storage, to call key people, to be sure that the Drama Workshop, the Pigeon Players, and ATFNL were taken care of, to meet and say good-bye to an endless parade of wonderful friends, and somehow to figure out how to do a job with almost no direction. The task was monumental, especially since I knew virtually nothing about the school I was moving into.

    5  Since that time I've been to numerous meetings, have already conducted countless activities, ushered in my first football game, and yesterday completely organized an all-day Freshmen class visit with their candidates for office, culminating in a lunchtime of loud hip-hop, interviews with the candidates, posters everywhere, and school spirit shining through loud and clear. The Freshmen candidates went class-to-class giving speeches to all the Freshmen English classes, and by the end of the day, this small group from the Class of 2010 had bonded so tightly that they didn't care if they won or not, just that they vowed to stay close through the rest of their high school lives.

    6  Yes. You heard it. The Class of 2010. Anyone feeling old?

    7  They had gone to almost fifteen classes and given their spiel, stood in front of the entire school at lunch and fielded questions like seasoned celebrities, and finished up with a return to the cafeteria, where they sat, bonded, and laughed. I had slipped out during the last period and brought them pizza, which they loved, and they all hugged and couldn't wait to get in there and do it tomorrow. You would have thought they had won a softball championship!

    8  It was a telling moment. After school, they all took off, virtually best friends, with smiles and hope lighting up the afternoon. Almost all of them stayed together, dancing and high-fiving, and it was hard not to look on it all with smiles, but with a certain knowing wisdom as well.

    9  Been there.

    10  I returned to my office, turned the lights down, put on some Ella Fitzgerald, and pullled one of those shifting color things on my computer screen and finally relaxed. I smiled. It all seemed so familiar. I recalled all the excitement when I took over for the Class of '05 so many years ago, and I remembered being caught up in all that stuff. This time I just smiled a knowing and experienced smile.

    11  They had no idea what had just occurred. I had.



    12  I still had bigger things on my plate: a volleyball game to organize, a football game Friday night, teachers who wanted to kill me, teachers who wanted to do nothing more than to welcome and support me, a Back-to-School night next week, a SECOND volleyball game, and finally, a dance with a pirate theme next Friday night. The simplicity of the Class of 2010 just amused me in all it's silly innocence. I had moved beyond all that, and yet it still made me smile to see the fun and spirit in those kids.

    13  I sat in the cool semi-darkness of my office, listening to jazz and resting all my molecules when I noticed something.

    12  No ants.

    13  I had spent the morning wiping the walls down, cleaning up the beer bottles and ashtrays, and cleaning everything in the office. And suddenly, no ants. I had used a little of everybody's solutions, but something clearly had worked.

    14  I could now throw all those fluorescent green post-its filled with ant-extermination ideas away. I thought I'd have post-its with  names of  balloon companies, or places to get  Homecoming Court paraphrenilia, but really, ant post-its. There must have been thirty of them.

    15  Borax and syrup. Lemon detergent. Diatomaceous Earth algae skeletons. Boiling water poured over the nest. Moving one nest and dumping it on the other because "ants are very territorial, and they will readily hunt and kill invading colonies."

    16  Vinegar. Cayenne pepper. Cayenne pepper IN boiling water. Cream of Tartar. Salt. Perfume. Instant grits.

    17  And my favorite, a recipe:

    1 part dry yeast, 2 parts molasses, 1 part sugar.

    "They will be attracted to the sugar in the mixture and will eat it readily. Once consumed the yeast will produce gas in the ant, and because they can't expel gas, it will kill them."

    18  Ants implode because they can't fart. Am I reading this correctly?

    19  It's a living.

    20  See ya again.

    21  Peace.


     

     

     



    ~H~

     

     




  • The Daily News

    1  In all the hustle and bustle of getting through life, things happen, things we just don't want to have happen, things we just don't want to read about, but they happen nevertheless. And I write about them, and we all read about them. It's the way of the world.

    2  I recently received an e-mail from our own Luis "Shunshine" Ruiz, who has been spending his days and nights on a mission inside the heart of Iraq.

    3  His e-mail told me in a very matter-of-fact style that on September 4, he was caught in a bombing raid, and that debris and shrapnel shattered his foot, and that he sustained injuries to his arm as well as to his side. He's okay, at least that's what he told me, and he was moved back to Germany, where he is safe, and will be home shortly. They want him to get better, but they also want hm to go back to Iraq.

    4  This DN was to have a picture of  a heart in the sands of Carmel, where CB and I wrote "We love you Sunshine!" so that it would appear at the top of this page today, but my computer kept freezing on me last night. A heart in the sand would have been meaningful to Sunshine, because this one stayed intact, for the most part. Our prayers and thoughts remain with Sunshine, his family, and his loved ones in the coming days.

    5  Moving on: So my beautiful sister Linda read my diatribe about ants yesterday. She informed me of a friend who insists that chalk is the only true ants-er.

    6  Sorry.

    7  She has this friend who chalked her classroom the same way the turf guys chalk a football field before a big game. Her friend came in  and ran chalk along the floor, up windows, and along sidelines. Her description of what happened next was supposed to be printed in this DN, but the freeze factor keeps that one from happening. She did say that the ants began jumping, dancing, and pounding their chests, but that they eventually couldn't cross those lines.

    8  Some English major is going to think I was going deep there, but you guys need to back WAY off all that analysis. The ants literally couldn't cross the chalk line because they would turn dry and old, and in need of a cold Guinness.


    9  Anyway, thanks Linda, for sending me all that. I loved the imagery.

    10  So there you go.  Now what about my daughter's cure for ant invasion? Well, I put three of those little plastic jobs with the goo right at the bottom of a trail yesterday, and the traffic quadrupled. By 3 o'clock there was no room at the inn. Each little trap had ants hanging our the doors and windows like students at a huge dorm party. Most of them were passed out, but a few were still pounding their chests and dancing around  like madmen.

    11  The wall still had trails going up and down like traffic in the night. So time, they say, will tell. Meanwhile, I'm going to go back to wondering about important things in life, like what to watch on Tuesday nights, Veronica Mars, or House.
     

    12  But that's reserved for another time. Tough call though.

    13  Meanwhile, if my computer decides to freeze, I'm on early release, in some strange way.

    14  Take some time for yourself today.

    15  Peace.

      ~H~





     

  • The Daily News


    1  I have ants.

    2  That's like telling someone, "I have a cold!"

    3  It isn't that people don't care, it's just that they can't be bothered
    that you go in each day to an office that has trails of ants in rush-hour
    traffic, hurrying ahead of you as though they were commuting across the
    Bay Bridge.

    4  So I realized right away that the ants in my office weren't really a District
    priority. It isn't like the Super is over there on the horn saying, "Get a crew out
    there to that H-boy, stat!  The boy has ANTS!"


    5  Like anyone on a new job, I just want to figure things out quietly and start
    getting in there and doing what it is I'm hired to do.

    6  So the first day on the job, I was writing post-it notes all over the place about
    questions I had regarding the job and all. The first two days, the first post-its had bullets,
    and each day the first bullet said "Ants". I tried using what was available, but...

    7  I used Windex, and they disappeared briefly, only to return an hour later with the red 
    completely removed from their eyes, and their eyes clear. They hopped right back on to
    the ant freeway and started in again, only with much more clarity of vision.

    8  The annoying thing about it is if they stayed on the ant freeway, it wouldn't  have been so bad.

    9  But the deal is that there is always some misdirected ant who has wandered off on a social trail and starts doing weight-lifting moves on his hind legs, right next to the top of my hand, which suddenly has some OTHER ant on it, sniffing around like a drunk on New Year's.

    10  And then we have the attackers, the ones who just do the Kamikaze run directly at you. Those are what I call the thumb ants, because they get pretty much crunched by my thumb.  They usually get swept to the floor, where they just disappear somewhere, maybe the same place that boogers and toenails go when you can no longer find them.

    11  Can we delete everything I just wrote for the last 25 words?

    12  Ah, just kidding.

    13  The funny thing about ants is that NOBODY seems to know how to get rid of them, yet EVERYBODY has their old mama's recipe.

    14  I never believe in any of those old mama recipes. I believe in a HUGE can of RAID!


    15  So I bought a few of those little traps that you always have lying around your house, but backed it with a cop's can of RAID! I laid the traps, and the ants just crawled all over it like it was a dead carcass. It said to put them in all corners and "anywhere ants might hide". Yeah, like...everywhere?

    16  Well I immediately knew I wasn't going to squeeze into any corners anywhere on this planet or on the next, so I just looked for their trail.

    17  It tripled around the top of the room, went out the door, across the quad, and I have to guess, all the way to New Zealand, where they evidently looped around and came back home.

    18  Finally, on the fourth day, I got into a WWI biplane, put on the leather jacket and goggles, and flew all about, finding holes in the ceiling and ant freeways. I bombed the freeways, soaked entire ant lanes, and then closed all the windows for the night so they would suffocate in PIZIN'!

    19  The next day I looked and saw ant carcasses hanging everywhere like dark metal sculptures. Some looked as though they were in the middle of a song. "I gotta be MEEEEEE, I GOTTA BE MEEEEEE!" while some looked as though they had been frozen for thousands of years.

    20  One way or another, I won. They were wiped out, clinging to the walls and tables. But so were about eight students, all of whom showed up with gas masks and plastic gloves. Some wore quarantine space suits. I got the hint, opened the windows, and was back to square one.

    21  So I asked around. How do you get rid of ants? They were back, in droves, scurrying this way ant that, climbing into my lunch, over my hand, upon my cheek, upon my word!
    I put out word, but it seemed they were intent on taking over the universe! And there was seemingly no answer!!!!



    22  The answers were all  what I call "mama recipes". Those are the answers that somebody's mama told them, and which ALWAYS work, because mamas just ain't wrong, i.e.  "Cinnamon, man. My friend works at fill-in-the-blank and they were INFESTED, and so they just sprinkled a little cinnamon everywhere, and you wouldn't even know there ever WERE ants."

    23  "That chalk stuff you get in Vietnamese  stores. You just draw a line, and they NEVER come back."  Well, word on the street is that if you use THAT stuff,  you can get carted off to jail for attempted genocide. The campus goat ate some last week, grew HUGE horns, and proceeded to collapse. Peoples arms fell off, I've heard tell...

    24  Hey, the best mama recipe came from the Athletic Director. I asked him how to get rid of ants.

    25   "DDT and acid." he laughed.  I'm not quite sure what that meant, but it didn't sound environmentally safe. He smiled a knowing smile, so it MUST work well in the gym.

    26    A dancer came up with this one: "Catnip!"  = )

    27   My daughter Nicole finally brought me some mystical potion, and with a sly smile said, "Dad, search no more! They crawl into these little babies, and then take the poison back to their homes, and it is OVER. You won't have any ants. It worked in my apartment; it'll work anywhere man!"

    28  I believe her. She's my daughter. I believe her.

    29  So.

    30  I still like Herb's idea. DDT and acid. You could put it in a bong and have the ants smoke it.

    31  Just think.  Right in the midst of a hooka of acid, the ant straightens up, stiffens, his eyes pop out, and he goes over. I gotta love it. Peace, as they say, comes at quite a price.

    32  Have a great day.

    33  Peace.

    34   That's ants.


    ~H~

      





         


  • The Daily News

    1  Today is the anniversary of the tragic bombing of the World Trade Center, an event so tragic, and so unforgettable that it emblazons itself in our minds every 11th of September. I always feel rather solemn and pondering each time this painful anniversary rolls around, as do many of you. I'm guessing that a great many of you remember exactly where you were that terrible morning in 2001. I was in the shower with water pouring over my head, getting ready for another go of it at YB.

    2  I recall a massive cleansing going on as the word came to me, and closing my eyes hoping what was coming over the radio was some sort of hoax. As the morning moved on, it was clearly a day like no other in our nation's history. Shadows of Pearl Harbor and JFK flew past, but this was happening now, today, 9/11, 2001.

    3  The day moved on with horror after horror unfolding with terrible regularity. I pulled  a television into my classroom and the students were left to watch, as stunned as everyone else. I recall silence. I recall disbelief.

    4  And I remembered how much I really loved my country.

    5  A few weeks ago, George Bush declared 9/11 Patriot's Day, or Patriot Day. I'm not sure which, but it just didn't seem to have the same feeling as anyone who went through those agonizing hours might reflect. We all felt patriotic, but in a different fashion.  For many of us, it was our childhoods, our safety, our families, our friends, and our country that had been ravaged.

    6  Several weeks ago I was given a memo from my principal mentioning Bush's declaration of 9/11 as Patriot's Day, or Patriot Day. The whole thing sort of put me off, because I have always kept my own personal thoughts and prayers rather personal, and while I do understand various memorials taking place all over, I felt the late notice and the jingoistic and almost opportunistic request for some formal form of declaration smacked a bit of political jingoism. A small ceremony unrelated to the Bush administration seemed appropriate to me. At my school, organizing anything beyond perhaps a flag ceremony and a moment of silence seemed enough, given the time factor, and given the solemnity of the moments that simply wouldn't go away.

    7  Each year in my English and drama classes, I would show the CBS documentary 9/11, one of the best ever done. It is the film taken by the NYFD cameraman who happened to have his camera on that day. His documentary is over four hours, and is simply his camera following the entire day. It is riveting and more than anyone should have to bear. 

    8  And each year, I would also read a piece I wrote a year later. It was almost one year to the day when I had finished writing it, and I've shared it with not only my students, but with readers of the DN ever since.

    9  It never was very Xanga friendly, which is a shame, because it was written completely from the heart. As I am writing this  this morning, I am listening to a moment of silence, followed by a reading of the names of the people who were lost to us that day, and the list is being read in New York. It is exactly what this day is really about.

    10  With that, I'll throw Patriot's Day over my shoulder. New York, and my own feelings for family and friends, and for my beautiful country, I shall keep.

    11  Here is the piece. It isn't much, but I always will feel that 9/11 should always be something silent and meaningful. With that, I leave you with this piece. It doesn't even display beautifully, but it is everything it should be. This is my memorial to what we all lost on September 11, 2001:



    Peace.

    ~H~

  • The Daily News

     
    ...and in the middle of the celebration I break down...

    1  Everyone seems to be losing their mind these days. The following people are
    losing their minds, according to the tabloids: Bill Clinton and Laura Bush.

    2  Their spouses (is that translated into "spice"?) are both presidential candidates.

    3  Well, I guess maybe it's just the times. People who seemed perfectly normal
    suddenly so mixed up by everything that they can't even think straight.

    4  It's a good thing there are people like me and uh...uh...d00d.

    5  I think I'm losing my marbles.

    6  Oh well, there are other marbles that are just as good.

    7  Paris Hilton clearly is losing HER marbles. She got a DUI, claiming only having had one drink as she sped her way to In 'n' Out Burgers because she was so hungry.

    8  Poor little innocent thing had one little drinky-poo.



    9  Ah, the role models are out there slaughtering themselves like pigs in a poke. They have no idea what they even look like anymore. They've lost all touch. So sad to see.

    10  Ain't that just the world though.

    11  Moving on: In the past couple of days I've been visited by people, and it has been really nice seeing you all. Sometimes it feels like I died, but that I'm still talking to people, sort of like Bruce Willis in that good ol' creeper The Sixth Sense.

    12  I always goof on the fact that not only in that movie, but in a lot of reading I've done about ghosts and stuff that the dead don't know when they're dead. I first REALLY goofed on that when I did a 360 on the freeway right as I was entering to go to Jenny's wedding rehearsal.

    13  Some lady almost swiped me and I pulled the steering wheel to the right, and the TOONDRA spun completely around and flew up an embankment, then came back down so that it was facing traffic. I was pretty shaken, but not stirred.

    14  I wasn't speeding or anything; it was misty out, sort of like the street had a slight bit of rain and dirt on it, just enough to make it eerily slippery. Once I was into the spin, I knew that all I could do was sit there while it went out of control.

    15 Eventually I righted everything and continued on my way, thanking God and Jay-zuss that I was okay, that I had a second lease.


    16  And that was the first time it occurred to me: hmm, am I REALLY still alive, or is this like the Sixth Sense?

    17  Such a weird thought man. And while I was hiking at Cascade Falls, my foot hit a rock and the entire clump of rocks and grass gave way from the rains, and I slipped and cracked my head and back against the huge granite slab. My head literally bounced hard, and once more I thought...about stuff.

    18  And now after all that I suddenly have this new dawn, this new existence, this new day, and I have that Michael Buble CD up in my office, the only CD I remember to bring in there. Sometimes it feels as though an entire life HAS gone, and I'm somewhere completely new, and really awesome. I know that hurts the kids back at YB to hear that, but it I feel that all my experiences in this life have led me to this new place I'm in. I'm not in my space anymore.

    19  And it's a little bit funny.

    20  That's all. Like every experience in my life has led me to where I am now, and I'm at complete peace. And I mean that in all sincerity. Everything that has happened in my life has mysteriously led me to this.

    21  And I'm feelin' good.

    22  That's the goody.

    23  I'm finally at peace with everything.

    24  Thanks for listening.

    25  Peace.

                                       



  •  
     The Daily News


    1  Oh, I imagine.

    2  Well, the week seems to be winding down like a tired old clock, and things seem to be slowing a bit, at least around these parts. Right in the midst of all this maelstrom, the immortal Xanga decided to change its whole format on me. It feels like it's making things humongous, but it's difficult to judge.

    3  It's a roll of the dice.

    4  It's fun, you know, change. I was never one to enjoy it; I always felt comfortable just relaxing and not giving out too much in the change department. Stability rocks, as does the familiar. When you get to a new place, it's all different, but often, sort of exciting. You can begin all over; you can start up on new hopes and dreams, and you sometimes feel lonely, but it doesn't matter because if you're remotely like I am, you want to fly, and to meet new people and to take on huge challenges.

    5  You can also comb the place for great places to eat!

    6  So yesterday while I was putting the past away and moving into my new realm with vigor and a shotgun full of caffeine, I got munched, a madman let loose in a gorilla zoo. Anything would have worked: a baloney sandwich, a banana/cocoanut frap, roadkill with salt pork...

    7  I would have eaten this old Asian woman in a straw hat, but a) I hate straw, and b) I would have been hungry an hour later, and c) hey it was a nice hat.

    8  No, but REALLY.

    9  Anyway, I literally had to get on my walkie-talkie (yeah, I'm one of THOSE)

     {{{static!}}}  "Is this your veee-hickle?"

    {{{static!static!!}}}  "Base we have a young lady here wearing a Pokemon hat..."

     and tell the office I had to leave for around fifteen.

    10  So I ditched that thing, put on my Beatles hat, sunglasses, and hopped in the TOOONDRA, blasting U2's Vertigo all the way. It felt SO badassss! I was H once more baby, and all was well! Hello, hello, little place called Vertigo...


    11  I instantly found that there was NOWHERE TO EAT! Nowhere close that is. Oh, there was a Carl's Jr's, which is for total pig-slobs, but I wear a tie now..<pinky up> and just didn't want to have all the tomatoes and onions and mayo slip out and onto my shirt. So I did the TOOONDRA bypass, which is to fly at light speed past the place 'til it's a blur, music blaring, windows rolled WAY down.

    12  Badass.

    13  I saw a cop, but did a Star Wars turn down a black avenue, and put it into warp speed, because these guys have me on a clock. Closing walls, ticking clocks...

    14  I finally flew past my gym, Bally's, which had an APB missing person's report out on me anyway. They even had my picture on one of those milk bottles of synthetic STEROIDS. They never even saw me the TOONDRA was flying so damned fast.

    15  I then circled the fingerless Wendy's over in them thar hills and manuevered to the Drive-Thru.

    16  Everybody for the rest of this life and the next will always spell the word "through" "thru".

    17  No point trying to fight the stupidity. It's as prevalent as the world's cockroaches and thrice as indestructible. The great poet Fried Rich Von Schiller once said,

     
    "Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain."
     
    Smart guy, that Fried Rich. I'm dealing with some dumbasses who just don't get it right now, but that's saved for another time.

    18  Anyway, where was I?


    19  Oh yeah. Fingerless Wendy's.

    20   Not my idea of lunch exactly, but I was in a hurry, and I was HUNGRUH!

    21  Looking at the menu, all I could see was more tomatoes and onions and mayo slipping out and getting all over my shirt. And then you know how one thought triggers another thought that triggers another thought that triggers another? Well, at one point I looked down at my tie and thought, "The only reason anyone would have invented this article of useless clothing is to catch tomatoes and onions and mayo!" I felt like Goddam Einstein.

    22  AnywayZ, the I really wanted some greasy fries and a chocolate shake. Last year I began a couple of missions. One was for the perfect skeleton key, and the second, for the perfect chocolate shake. So far, Carrows is winning. But one thought triggers another and so on...

    23  I also have this thing that fast foods in a hurry = something missing in your bag.

    24  The lady handed me this tiny yellow cup with solid ice cream in it, and no straw. I asked for a straw, and she was WAY happy to proffer it. In fact, she seemed to like her job a little TOO much it seemed to me. So I stuck it into the miniscule cup, and it bent. The shake was just a big mound of chocolate frosty.

    25  Then I got my food, some chicken strips or something non-drippy that didn't remotely resemble a chicken, and I inched off. Glancing into my bag, I noticed an obvious dearth of greasy fries, but looked back and there were cars lined up around the block, so I just took off, shaking my head the whole way.

    26  I then looked at the sweet-n-sour (the word "and" is disappearing from any sort of store with a sign) 'n'  decided that opening it would result in splashing red sweet-n-sour all over my tie. Yeah, it wouldn't be as artistic as tomatoes and onions and mayo, but it would have made quite a stain, thankyouveddy much.

    27  So I just raced back to work, eating breaded hot shit that crumbled all over my lap, and squishing the "milkshake" like a push-up. You know push-ups. Those ice creams with the stick in bottom, and you push them up? Little kindergartners with huge Hello, Kitty! heads eat them in driveways.

    28  Well, I made sure I could eat all that stuff without leaking any of it, and did it!

    29  And that's my story about going to lunch.

    30  Today I think I'll just skip lunch. It would just go straight to muh hips anyway.

    32  Have a lovely day.

    33  Peace.

     
     
     
     
     
    ~H~
     
     
     
     
    trademark of quality
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

  • The Daily News


    And a church is burning
    The flames rise higher
    Like hands that are praying,
    The fire ascends
    You can burn down my churches
    but I shall be free...
                                                
    --Paul Simon
    1  Or in this instance, a  Cathedral.

    2  That's a part of Mars you see burning at the top of the page.

    3   I spent  a large part of the summer walking all through that area, which has a nice warm fire running through it these days.

    4  When we go to Mars, Cascade Falls is one of the main places, a place so beautiful it almost makes everyone stop, find their own spot, and look out over beautiful Fallen Leaf Lake, and ultimately, the very breathtaking LakeTahoe herself.

    5  And a church is burning...

    6  We go there, all of us, some of the most intelligent, wonderful, beautiful people in my life; we go to Cascade Falls, and we enjoyed it more this year than ever because of the rains...

    7  Here's my sister, lost in the Desolation Wilderness:




    8  Gayle is a hiker; she walked up the majestic Mt. Tallac this summer, a monumental effort that ascends close to 10,000 feet, or one-third of Everest. I've done it twice. She seems lost in her search for Cascade Falls, a much milder, but nonetheless splendid hike.

    9  She eventually go there...

    10  Cathedral. Water splashing all around, a series of rushing falls meeting at the wondrously wet and clear Cascade Falls, where one can sit for long periods of time and say nothing, and say nothing...

    11  We brought along Fartman from Southpark.
    12  Actually, this is Ringo from the famous Beatles, throwing out the peace sign at the top of the falls, and overlooking Fallen Leaf Lake. Just on the other side of the horizon, if you're really good, you'll see the blue of Lake Tahoe. This is all, of course, courtesy of satellite Direct from Mars. This is Cathedral.

    13  A church is burning, the flames rise higher...

    14  The flames rise higher like hands that are praying...



    15  The fire ascends...

    16   You can burn down my churches...

                                                                             

    you can burn down my churches  the fire ascends  and a church is burning  the flames rise higher

    you can burn down my churches

    you can burn down my churches

    but I shall be free...


    ~H~


    peace.

  • The Daily News
    CRIKEY!

    1  So...Steve Irwin walks into a bar...

    2  Sometimes the DN can just catch you. I actually had this little scoop ready to go to press yesterday. Ah, it has to feel pretty strange. I don't know about you, but I always loved the guy.

    3  Thanks Nathan, for that bit of sad news. Well it seems that our beloved Crocodile Hunter lost a nature battle with a stingray. It's just plain sad. There are just some people who you figure time won't touch. Sad stuff, truly.

    4  So it goes.

    5  Moving on: A little tidbit about when I got the new job: I was floating around in my backyard pool when my cell phone rang. I had just come in from Mars, so my reflexes were a bit on laid-back mode, so I started to get up when I heard the house phone go off. A message began speaking in a weathered voice. "Mr. Harrington...?" it began. Within fifteen short seconds, my entire life turned around.

    6  I got showered, dressed, and hopped in the TOONDRA, flying across lanes of traffic and flew low as I drifted up the immortal Quimby road. Right around Ruby, the cross street to EVHS, a car pulled right in front of me, on my very first day officially on the job. My eyes focused instantly on the license plate, looking for mystical signs, as always. I wasn't disappointed.  The license read "HIGH T 2". Within seconds, my laid-back mind grew into a big smile on my face, as I listened to what that actually said.

    7  Heidi II.

    8  You can run but you can't hide.

    9  How is Steve Irwin not in a better place? Or rather, how is that place not made better by Steve Irwin? The crocks and alligators are dancing!

    10  Anyway, yep! That's what it said all right, right there at Quimby and Ruby.

    11  A quimby, by the way, according to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is a fellow who farts in the bathtub and chews on the bubbles.


    12  I didn't want that one to slip by.

    13  By and by, I pulled up and began my first insane day as an Activities Director. I knew nothing, but I sure LOOKED as though I knew what I was doing. Well, within a few days I had told everybody, tried to figure creative ways of keeping the Drama Workshop, the ATFNL, AND the Pigeon Players all circulating and moving forward, attempted to figure out how even to begin a job that has no written description, enjoyed visits from everyone I have ever known, all of whom wanted to go get FOOD (I had no idea that success was so fattening!), and somehow managed to meet with kids who were excited and ready to begin, and to meet with kids who were shell-shocked and looking at me with big sad cow eyes.

    14  It's a living, that's for sure.                                                    

    15  In the midst of all this, I somehow managed to meet with students up there and the next thing I knew I found myself handing out freshmen schedules. As I looked around, I saw a fellow who just LOOKED like a drama guy visiting the campus.

    16  Well, I was right. His name was Scott Seay, and he was the representative of American Musical Theatre San Jose, and he was there schmoozing with our Assistant Principal. Well, I've been wanting to hook up with AMTSJ for some time now, to organize the purchase of tickets for four of their shows, so I just stepped in and introduced myself.

    17  Scott smiled and let me know some exciting things about the student series, and it is good news for DN readers as well. AMTSJ now gets ticket deals for EVERYONE. So I'll be trying to get something going not only for Evergreen, but for YB's Drama Workshop, ATFNL. and you, the faithful readers of the DN! I'm on it, I promise you!

    18  Meanwhile, I finally got to my district e-mail and opened the following letter from Scott Sea of AMTSJ. He had mailed this the very day we met. I just loved it!
     Here ya go!

    To wit:

    Hello, Bud --

    It was great meeting you today withAngela. Your name was familiar to me but I could not place it until Igot back to my office. I have been looking at high school websites overthe last week or so, getting the names of drama and music teachers tosend information on our Student Performance Series. I was looking atYerba Buena's site this past Sunday and I ended up getting very littledone on my project because I got caught up reading about Heidi. I foundit absolutely fascinating! And here we are, two days later and I meetyou at a completely different school. One more strange coincidence!

    Okay, one more small coincidence: ourProduction Stage Manager's name is Heidi and as I was writing thise-mail she walked by my office to say she would help me with a projectin a couple of minutes. Fascinating!

    Scott Seay
    Manager of Education and Outreach
    American Musical Theatre of San Jose

    19  Well long time subscribers to the DN, how about THAT one?

    20  And the goody is that it looks like we may be able to work a deal for tickets to their upcoming shows.

    21  So there you have it!

    22  And that's Tuesday's edition of the DN!

    23  Oh, and to the great Crocodile Hunter in the sky; we look up and salute you man.

    24  Thanks for all the laughs and thrills big guy.

    25   We're down here just watching it all unfold, so let someone know that, okay mate?

      

    26  Peace. We'll miss ya, Crocodile Hunter.

    27  Thanks for all the fun.

    28  Peace.




    ~H~






  • The Daily News

    1  Good morning!

    2  Isn't that just a great greeting?

    3  Good morning!

    4  Each morning I awaken and it's a good morning these days. I can't wait to get up, get dressed, watch a little Korean soap opera, and take off to the hills. So fun that I'd wind up at a school in the foothills of Mt. Hamilton, since I always loved driving up there whenever I could.

    5  Each morning reminds me of '05's Senior Sunrise when Loan and I road up that goat trail listening to Coldplay, laughing, and looking down at the city, not quite awake yet, but with that magical twinkle of dawn.

    6  My time of day.

    7  The fun thing is that I get there twice as fast as my morning commute to YB. You'd think it would take longer, but because of the hour, it's swift.

    8  I'm out the door refreshed because I get home, chat and enjoy home, conk, awaken at midnight, write the DN, answer e-mails, read My Space (HA!) until my computer freezes, and then I conk out, and awaken at five a.m. The dog shakes her back; she's less nervous and exhausted these days too.

    9  And I have a morning stop at Starbuck's, get a Cocoanut/Banana Frap blended, and then mosey up the street, pass Ruby, and then park. It's quiet; it's dawn over the city, and it's a new day. Like that Michael Buble song.

    10  Yesterday I had one class, Leadership. I didn't do much leading because I had guest speakers, tuxedo people who look like they're fresh out of a Korean drama, and the Principal, who wants to address the ASB once a month. Easy Street.

    11  So I hung out in my office relaxing a bit for once, the only worry being the Daily Bulletin, which is read by ASB people right after first period. It's all done in ASB, not in the front, and that alone is liberating!

    12  It's the only thing I have to worry about, and this girl who is in charge of that is on a laptop updating today's bulletin. ASB is a working, organized presence, and the center of the world up there on the hill.

               Well the first days are the hardest days don't you worry 
                anymore, 'cuz when life looks like Easy Street there is
                                            danger at your door...

                                                               --The Grateful Dead

     

    13  Indeed.

    14  The bell rang, I smiled because I was done teaching for the day, and that happens every single Thursday. I sat down and talked with the formal wear representative, and we laughed and chatted about the irony of working together when I ran the guy out of YB with a cattle prod just about a year-and-a half back, and now we were chatting like young villagers.

    15 I looked out only to see that all 79 ASB kids had disappeared, when one student popped his head in. "Are we doing the bulletin?" he asked.

    16  Suddenly, I was the old H again. "WHAT!?!?!? Where the Hell are the bulletin guys??!?!?" The Principal wanted to be absolutely certain that the bulletin was consistent, on time, and that people know about picture day on Tuesday and that they buy a yearbook/ASB package that she invented. I asked the guy if he could do it; the bell rang, and no bulletin announcements anywhere near us!~

    17  Ain't this fun?

    18  The guy jumped over, grabbed the mic, as I went online, which took its sweet time, you know, the way it do, and he just whispered, "It's cool; they're just getting settled. We have a minute." I hit the website, having remembered that the girl was updating, and viola! Saw the bulletin, clicked it, and the guy jumped right in, "Gooooooood morning...!" Another amazing save, and a little more work on the old ticker!

    19  So I thought last night at midnight, "What should I write in the DN today?"

    20  How about a typical morning, and share a typical moment in the new job. I mean, what would the REAL Daily News typically report?

    21  I won't be doing that to you all the time, but I just thought it might be fun for you to have a morning story, and just a taste of what it's like to be in the eye of the storm two weeks into an exciting new job. All right, all right, it ain't Cupid, or cabs, but it is home.

    22  So anyway, the rest of the day was spent talking with the tuxedo people, sharing prom stories, learning of the pitfalls, helping one another, and eventually breaking for lunch, where kids lined up with various concerns: the Red Cross Club wanting to do a fashion show, which won't happen, but they will be excited about doing an annual blood drive, which I suggested, every year around Valentine's Day, and we'll call it Real Love. My idea, thenkyouveddymuch. Or the Junior Class wanting to have an outdoor movie night, and I didn't think of that one, but I love that one!  Or a kid who wanted to start a Martial Arts club.

    23  All this followed with the bell sounding the end of lunch, a quick handshake with the formal wear people who were just great, and on to a Department Chair meeting.

    24  Uh...what department? What the heck IS leadership anyway?

    25  At the end of the meeting either my phone buzzed or my stomach growled. It was the phone, Thuy Ann! I always enjoy hearing from good ol' Thuy Ann and she had brought a group of the famous PK to visit. Peter put on the school mascot, a Cougar, and went outside and waved at people, and I just said hi to all these guys. Sunshine called from Iraq, and it was just a wonderful surprise.

    26  We chatted, enjoyed the company, went to the Theatre for a quick tour of that beautiful facility, and then we all parted with smiles.

    27  I went back to YB, saw Ngoc, Trung, John De Vera and Tramy, then Wolcott and Rocha, and finished with the immortal Nathan, who has been a strong Drama Workshop supporter and dear friend for the past hundred years.

    28 And finally I was exhausted. I have no idea what I spent the day doing, but somewhere, that was a taste of my new life.

    29  I knew I wouldn't be good for anything last night because I have been working way hard for three weeks, and yesterday felt a bit more relaxing and fun.

    30  So I thought I'd share my new life with all of you. A day in the life, culminating in Real Love.

    31  It was a good morning. It was a good day. In fact, when I arrived at the school yesterday, I stood around with some new colleagues, and the Principal said this to everyone: "You wanna know what the best thing I did all summer was?" She pointed at me. "Hiring this guy!"

    32  What a thoughtful thing to say. If she only knew how truly scared and insecure a person could feel in a new job of that magnitude. It just felt reassuring.

    33  It was a new day, a new dawn.

    34  It was a good morning.

    35  Peace.

     

    ~H~

     

     

     

     


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