November 1, 2006
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The Daily News
This is how I feel
right now.1 Boo.2 It’s Halloween Night as I compose these words. I read a little Poe a bit ago, just some factual stuff, but a sort of creepy story about a guy he knew who was killed by another guy. The murderer, whose name was Greene, disappeared soon afterwards. The story went down that he was plied with liquor, taken to this creepy basement area, chained to the floor, and cemented and bricked in. That happened to this guy who killed a friend of Poe’s.
3 His friends celebrated with a cask party, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! And he got a story out of it.
Fortunato.4 Most of that is true, except for the nyuks.
5 Did anyone watch Dancing With the Stars last night? It was blaring behind me, and all I could garner from the show was audio stuff. Some band tried to play the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil, and they completely ruined the tune. It was the scariest thing all week! Keith Richards turned over in his grave, even though he is still presumably alive. Anyway, here’s a belated Halloween wish from the boys;
Happy Halloween from Mick and the Boys.6 Moving on: My freshmen this year are the exact opposite of my Freshmen last year. These kids are wonderful, good writers, witty, and amazing! Well I wound up taking them into my small ASB office yesterday, turned all the lights out that I could, but couldn’t seem to figure out how to turn off the hall light, which was on right outside the office.7 I made it pretty dark, and began telling them the Heidi Chronicles, just like the wise old sage I know I am. At first, they didn’t quite get it, but soon, we all got into a groove, because that story just draws you in. I talked of Jason, and of Paul, one of our faithful DN readers, by the way! And of the entire fun story of Abraham Lincoln, and of the same scene we had written during the day playing on television that night, and the fact that the Creative Consultant, or some credit, was given to Heidi, no last name.
8 I had to leave out the things that went on last year. No time.
9 So here ya go: when I was writing the play Lovebirds, and had been going through a bit of a mourning process while writing it, I had thought of this ending with Vincent Van Gogh, and Starry NIght and all, but my sadness over so many sad things last fall kept me from remembering that idea. So I went to Camp Everytown, and had such a great camp last year that I came back and swore I wouldn’t think about all the stuff that was bothering me anymore. I was going to stay WAY away from all the coincidences and things as well. I wound up having a remarkable time at Camp Everytown, and felt cured of all of this nonsense. I was DONE with it.
10 After the camp, I thought, “Forget all those coincidences and strange things, time to move on with your life!” I turned on my television and the film Serendipity was on, you know, the movie all about synchronicity, the one with John Cusack. So much for putting away all thoughts of synchronicity.
11 So I watched this whole film about some couple who meet and life coincidences eventually get them together. I thought it was cute, but I was sort of ready to start getting that stuff out of my life.
12 I also knew I had to write an ending to the play, because it was going up in two weeks. Nice to have an ending! But alas! The Camp had erased anything I had been thinking about prior to camp. I was BRAINWASHED! It felt great!
13 I decided to stay off the computer, and to hand-write the ending. The only challenge: I couldn’t remember the ending I had written. I didn’t even remember it was going to be about Vincent Van Gogh. So I began writing the last scene, the sort of argument scene between the girl and the boy, and got stuck. I sat staring at the TeeVee, and instantly, I saw Vincent Van Gogh in 3-D on that show Medium. It then went to Starry Night, and then to his suicide.
This guy might have been a great painter,
but he was also a fruitcake.14 I had completely forgotten that I had wanted a scene with the couple discussing Van Gogh. My notes from that night suddenly went haywire! I had gotten stuck trying to remember what I had come up with a week earlier, and suddenly there was Van Gogh, in 3-D yet! I jotted notes all over the script at that second, talking of how amazing it was that I needed that answer and that the TeeVee provided it at that exact moment. Shades of Great Moments.15 There was a lot more last year. It may require more than one chapter. I won’t be able to get it to the Heidi Chronz tonight because I’m just too tired, but I will try to round them up and get them out there as soon as possible.16 Last night I received an e-mail from Jeff Ramirez, Jenny’s husband, who is on a tour of duty in Iraq right now. He had read the Heidi Chronz, and instantly contacted Jenny about something that had happened when he proposed, which wason the 19th, but he didn’t tell me the month.17 Here is a section of the letter he sent me. I don’t think Jeff would mind my sharing it. I left it in e-mail lower case because this is a copy/paste. I provided the italics:speaking of heidi, last year when i proposed to jenny on stage i believe she [Heidi] was there. i was having trouble what to say to her cause i never do prepared speeches, i always improvise on the spot. somehow, i believe someone took over and put words into me that might have what jenny wanted to hear because seriously, i don’t remember my speech at all! after the proposal i felt like i had an audience and i looked towards the left from the stage to the seats. i didn’t see or hear anything but i felt a strong presence. funny thing though was that i felt that the presence was extremely happy! i believe heidi knew who i was and i believe that she especially knew jenny and that she was proud of her for all her work in the theater. above it all, i believe she was truly happy that heidi was truly happy that i chose the stage for my proposal and that jenny was getting married to someone heidi knows that can be trusted to be the right husband. well i just wanted to tell my side, feels good to get something off my chest. talks for listening…er…reading, whatever. see ya’ll soon.18 Those things happen, and Jeff’s mention of a “strong presence” is something I’ve kept out of the Chronz because I always thought people would feel that it wasn’t factual. There’s a big difference to the Lincoln thing coming on television, and a “feeling” I had. So in general, although that has happened to me many times, I tend not to write about it.19 And many have felt that same presence, certainly Jenny, who has been a part of the Workshop since she was in sixth grade!20 So THAT was a strange thing, and I must reiterate right here, the presence has occurred to me on many occasions. It certainly happened during the composing of the ending to Lovebirds. I was so excited about it that I told Angie, and SHE told me to go to her Myspace. I went, and it had this at the top:
Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night
21 I got sort of happy when I saw that. Angie told me that Van Gogh’s Starry Night was so much a part of her life that her VISA card had it on it. The next time I saw her, she showed it to me. Her entire VISA card was Van Gogh’s Starry Night.22 Still more: Within a week or two, I had gone to Carmel, and walked into a small store. I saw a music box that said My Favorite Things. I picked it up and looked at it, and when I pulled it back, it was blocking another music box that had Starry Night on it.
23 I finally got to the point that I needed rest from the play, and from all the strange goings on, but I thought I might read about synchronicity in this book entitled You’ll See It When You Believe It byDr. Wayne Dyer anyway. But alas! I couldn’t find the book! So I decided to watch a little TeeVee. I clicked it on, and Dr. Wayne Dyer was on the channel that was on already! Within fifteen minutes, he did a pledge break, and came back. Behind him was..Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
24 And so it goes…there were so many stories like that last year that it was off the hook. No chance of keeping up with it all. Very many of you had things going on also, so it’s just too much to write on the Heidi Chronz tonight.
25 So I’ll leave it with this: yesterday I was telling my Freshmen the Heidi Chronz, and when I began talking about the part where the lights adjusted the stars and the singer during Ship of Fools, the lights in the hallway, which I couldn’t turn off before we started, suddenly blacked out.
26 Still more: The day I went up to the Chill on the Hill for the first day of work, a car pulled up right in front of me, at the Ruby stoplight.
27 The license plate read High T 2.
28 I smiled, and drove forward with a smile.
29 We had arrived.
30 Peace.
~H~
Now I’m stepping out this Old Brown Shoe, baby I’m in love with you,
I’m so glad you came here it won’t be the same now I’m telling you.–George Harrison/The Beatles
