March | 2007 | bharrington's Xanga Site

Month: March 2007

The Daily News

1 Good times.

2 All those goofy things I mean.

3 Battle.

4 Jay Leno has been saying the word “Battle” for the past fifteen minutes. I haven’t really even been watching, but it’s pretty weird.

5 We have this thing going on tomorrow night and it’s called Battle. It’s the biggest event of the school year besides prom and graduation. It’s the equivalent to FANTASTICS, only with longer skits and way fewer games.

6 It’s the same thing though. The students throw everything into it, and it’s amazing what they accomplish in terms of bonding, struggle, hunger, poster paint, glitter, balloons, and all the rest.

7 I’m pretty much the Mayor of the Madness. We stayed last night until well after 11 p.m. because I’m getting the head custodian to dress like an evil badass and have the doors fly open and him come in on a huge motorcycle, with all cylinders burning out the back.

8 He’s going to drive in Freddy Cougar, whom I will officially name tonight. He’s been SORT of called that each year, but nobody has yet dubbed him. They are flying in on his hardcore shiny Harley as Star Wars pounds loudly through the walls of the gymnasium, hopefully awakening any sleeping giants.

9 Thus will we enter Rafa, the custodian who stays until all hours helping the kids constantly, and who has been there since the school began. He’s not only a custodian, he is also the artist who painted the murals inside San Jose State’s Student Union building.

10 Anyway, he’s an artist as well, and quite loved.

11 Their Battle has one theme: Broadway. Right up my alley! One of our judges is a professional actress from AMTSJ. We’ll have a red carpet, and I’m hoping to get vintage cars from the 30′s parked in front of the gym.

13 Anyway, it’s tonight, and it’s already sold out. I’ve even heard tell that these guys are so good they have scalpers selling tickets for up to $50. While that disturbs me, it also gives a feel for the magnitude of this event.

14 And I’m the Mayor of the Madness. And I’m loving it.

15 YB is having their FANTASTICS tonight also, so it’s a killer time for me. Al Russell will host his last FANTASTICS, and I just want to throw out a huge salute to Captain FANTASTICS. It’ll never be the same, but I’m there in spirit. We’ll all miss you, Al-Bob.

16 FANTASTICS.

17 Conan just said, “Everything is fantastic tonight,” just as I said that.

18 Good times. All the synchronicity. More than has happened in quite some time. I was bombarded with so much last night it’s not even worth mentioning.

19 The Seniors over in these parts put up a huge painting last night. I didn’t really notice it until it was up, and when I looked up and saw it, I was amazed.

20 It was a 10′ by 15′ poster of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

21 I won’t even go into it.

22 The Seniors at EV are doing Moulin Rouge, the one with Can Can and Your Song. I had wanted to do that in ’05, but that was another time.

23 Tonight it’s a new dawn, a new day, and a new life.

24 It’s Battle.

25 And I’m feelin’ good.

26 But I’ll be wearing a few fun things tonight. First I’m going to wear my San Bruno shirt, the same one I wore when my own Class of ’05 won FANTASTICS just two years ago. I wore it when I played Old Time Rock ‘N’ Roll.

27 The second thing I’m going to wear is my Class of ’05 medal. It’ll be worn all night, and it is a salute to the wonderful kids who got me there.

28 I’ll never forget. I promise you that.

29 Meanwhile…

30 Just good times.

31 Have a great day.

32 Peace.

~H~
The Daily News

1 Ever try to do something on a computer but you are supposed to be doing something else?

2 Part of being a person who is in tune to synchronicity is the sense of humor that goes along with it. I think they call it Murphy’s Law. Let’s examine how it all works, since we just recently celebrated St. Patty’s Day. It goes something like this:

3 Last night I was caught at the school working on bringing the new students from the eighth grade in. My job wasn’t a large one, but I had been stuck down there all day the day before, until almost 11 p.m. That was on my birthday, but of course I didn’t tell anyone, because I just don’t.

4 In fact, a student asked me last night if it WAS my birthday the day before, and I said that it was. When I told her that it didn’t really matter, she didn’t believe it. My answer was this: I’m nobody important, and everybody is somebody’s birthday.

5 I’ve had to work on my birthday so many times, or had to do something on it that I just stopped worrying about it, and in fact would only remember every hour or so. I mean it’s ALWAYS there on your birthday, but I realized over the years that something would always come by that just needed to be done, so I’d do it and just move on with life, another day older and deeper in debt.

6 Anyway, last night I was supposed to watch over the student runners and also to run the copy machine, a reasonably easy gig. But the stuff got backed up, and I definitely needed to remain aloof enough so that I could move to another room if we got backed up.

7 During the down times, however, I had moments that were slow, so I thought I could do the DN. I just KNEW, however, that right after around two hours of jackhammering work, the second I relaxed a bit someone in charge would come in, look at the computer screen, and think, “Look at that guy goofing off! G-r-r-r-r-r….” even though the night before I stayed there until all hours on my birthday.

8 I finally decided to give it a shot. I got all hooked up and managed to get onto the website. The exact SECOND that it booted up a boss came walking in.

9 Isn’t that just the way it is? Okay so that’s a perfectly normal boring thing that happens to everyone. This isn’t really about that; it’s about the occasional humor of synchronicity. It’s like when that teacher screamed about me being the “guy with the keys” and figured I was just late to that basketball practice, when I did nothing BUT gear myself to getting to the gym the other day. You might recall that he needed me there sooner because he had to pee, and dashed out. I KILLED myself to get there, but was just waylaid by people with demands on the way.

10 Anyway it reminded me of a time around eight or nine years ago when Ponticelli came up to me on his awards night and asked if he could use the television in my classroom for his banquet at Original Joe’s.

11 “Dude. That television belongs to Rocha, and I just can’t lend it out.”

12 Now normally Ponch would respect that, but not that night. He needed it like yesterday, and just said, “Look, we’ll just grab it, put it in your trunk, and zip it there. We’ll be back at around 11 and we’ll put it right back. Rocha will never know!”

13 “I don’t know man…I just don’t feel right taking someone else’s property like that…”

14 The next thing I knew I was pulling this huge television off the cart, thinking the entire time, “It’s around five in the afternoon. Everyone has either gone home, or they’re inside a building. The only thing outside right now are the birds, and maybe a few kids hanging out at the gym. Just move fast. Out of 150 staff members, there’s only one you don’t want to see If you move quickly enough, the odds of his seeing you are ridiculously low. It’s wrong, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and everyone will be happy. Just DON’T be seen by that one guy…”

15 I had students check to see if anyone was outside, and had pulled the good ol’ Trio right up to my room, which was right next to the present-day Activities Office at YB. At the time it just belonged to another teacher, Ton That. I figured I would just grab the TV, go right out the door, put the thing in the trunk, and then bungee the trunk down. The TV was WAY bigger than the trunk, but the mighty TRIO could do wonders. This was just one of ‘em.

The classic Trio. This guy once carried two twelve-foot diameter
tabletops on the roof, with no rope.

16 I had just checked, and the coast was MIGHTILY clear. I even had a student open the door AND the trunk, which would not even be able to close because the TV was so huge. The bungee was just window dressing. We’d drive slowly down Keyes like the Clampett family.

17 All that in place, I gave the CIA command to go. The kid opened the door, popped the trunk, and I swiftly made my move right out the door and to the trunk. The TV was ridiculously ponderous and heavy, but I managed to get it on the lip of the trunk and balanced it like a huge visionary seesaw.

18 I was balancing it swiftly and trying to get the bungee on it at a super speed. It rocked and gave me trouble, but I got it going, stretched the bungee, and almost had it wedged in when I heard a voice cry out thunderously:

19 “HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH MY TEEVEEEEEEE????!!!!”

20 Guess who?

21 I tried to explain that it wasn’t my fault, that Ponticelli was in a huge hurry and that I was just trying to help a brother out.

22 I didn’t even have time to argue because Kenny needed it and I try never to let anyone down if I could help it, so I just talked swiftly and got in the Trio, thumped it, and flew out of there WITH Rocha’s television wedged in the back. The bungee was just a decoration, and I saw Rocha screaming at me in the rear view, but I got the job done.

23 We all laughed, and even Rocha was laughing, but the timing was a classic example of how synchronicity sometimes creates a life filled with those sorts of episodes.

24 The Irish call it Murphy’s Law, but I think EVERYONE calls it Murphy’s Law.

25 The classic joke about Murphy’s Law, which is IF ANYTHING CAN GO WRONG, IT WILL is that Murphy was an optimist.

26 To this minute Rocha throws that one in my face every time I tell him I’m an honest guy.

27 I also am hard-working, but each time I finally stop to take a breather at work, someone comes in. I think I was searching for a good picture of Goofy last night when I was caught doing this.

28 To this moment I don’t know if it was ever seen, but I swear to you the very SECOND I began relaxing and writing this DN someone came in. I just heard the voice and clicked the minimize box. It defaulted to the Giants’ website.

29 That must have given old Murphy a belly laugh.

30 Thanks guy, for always keeping it real for us.

31 Peace.

~H~
The Daily News



1 Welcome home everyone!

2 This is Wednesday and lots of people are on Spring Break and Sannozay is the only thing that makes any real sense to a lot of us.

3 Say what you will; this is home. San Jose.

4 That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

5   Home.

6 Until you’ve been somewhere that isn’t home, you don’t realize how wonderful life is when you’re home.

7 Yesterday I was trying to explain to my students the difference between denotation and connotation in poetry.





8 I know, I know. How on Earth did ANY of us ever make it through life without knowing THAT one?

9 But just for ducks, why not follow this for a sec?

10 Thanks. Once a teacher, always a teacher.

11 Anyway I had mentioned that denotation is the dictionary definition of a word, the technical breakdown. House and home, for example, are both “a building in which one resides.”

12 Connotation is the world that comes with the word, and all the things that seem naturally associated with it.



13 A house then, is a place you live. To some people, their house is where they eat and sleep, but isn’t necessarily their “home”. Their home would be perhaps associated with a more comfortable world, somewhere they can hear laughter and smell good food cooking in the oven, a place to remain warm and safe.

14 For many of us, our houses ARE our homes. We think of being able to act goofy with those we love, to enjoy hugs and barbecues with family and friends, and to feel completely loved.

15 Add to that your own hometown. You might live in a house, and hopefully even a home. But the place that really works sometimes is the place you grew up, the familiar hills and small streets, the neighbor who waters his lawn each morning at 6 a.m., the familiar laughter and places spent with friends and loved ones. All these places have their moments.

16 I’m teaching the great Greek epic The Odyssey right now. It’s pretty much the story of a guy who just wants to go home, but can’t seem to get there.

17 Oh, there’s a lot more, but it’s an epic journey story in which a guy sets out on a journey, or a quest, and in his head, as in anyone’s head who has departed, he always thinks back of home. Can you go home again? I say you can, and that you always can.

18 So many of us made it home this week, myself included.

19 I remember flying into San Jose just a few weeks ago and looking out over the wing and seeing the rolling familiar green hills out my window. As we got closer to the ground, we flew through some clouds, and when it cleared, I saw things I just take for granted: Lake Cunningham, the Fairmont, schools, neighborhoods, trees, and finally the touchdown and bounce.

20 And the sound of applause.

21 Yesterday I got trapped at the school. I was there for sixteen hours and to many, it wasn’t enough.

22 At around one o’clock I met up with both Caitlin and Nicole, my wonderful daughters. We decided to just up and leave and go to the Macaroni Grill for lunch. The waitress was wonderful, and provided us with crayons. Naturally it enhanced the goofiness and made all of us laugh and enjoy the brief moments we had, but those brief moments were golden.

23 When I got back to the school to face more demands of more people, which is pretty much my job, Nhat was standing at the top of the stairs with a gift for me. I smiled and thought it was such a thoughtful thing. He had to leave, but he took the time to do that.

23 That was home as well. Later I was in the gym watching the students planning thier Battle of the Classes and received a phone call filled with support and laughter from Helene. I couldn’t leave but it didn’t matter, because home managed to find me.

24 I also had voicemails wishing me well, and e-mails from many of you, the most important of which were from my Mom and Dad, They sang to me. My sister Gayle wrote and my sister Linda called, and so many others too numerous to mention.

25 After all that I thought of how lucky I am to have a home. I began writing this DN when I got home, and found those good ol’ pictures of home.

26 Then of course, my computer froze. I just laughed.

27 Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.

28 Thanks to all of you for giving me life.

29 And for letting me know what home is all about.

30 Peace.



                                                             ~H~
The Daily News

1 Some weather, huh?

2 Don’t be a bit fooled, any more than you were fooled by the beginning of this month.

3 Baseball season begins on Sunday, and all is well.

4 Yeah, so Barry Bonds has to drag us all through more horse manure. If he had stayed out of the horse manure, we all would be breathing a lot easier.

5 But there’s everything else that goes with baseball, the hope, the Spring, the long days of doing nothing but looking forward to another game, John Miller telling us stories and somehow never missing a pitch, and Barry Zito.

6 Sorry A’s fans. I hope the A’s have an awesome season too. Just because I’m a Giants’ fan doesn’t mean I don’t like the A’s. I just wasn’t really raised with them, and I was raised with the Giants. As a kid I loved talking with my grandfather about the Giants. During my Junior year in high school, I became a seat vendor at Candlestick Park, and practically lived there every summer until they left the old place.

7 Oh, I worked A’s games too, but the Giants were my family then as now.

8 It isn’t just that. It’s that baseball is the greatest of all the sports. Yeah I just say that to piss people off, but personally, I think it’s an amazing sport. It’s boring, at least that’s what everyone says. That’s because they don’t get it.

9 It’s an investment. It’s like a Grateful Dead concert. Jerry Garcia once compared the Grateful Dead to baseball, and it was a darned tootin’ good analogy. You go, you kick back, lie in the sun, enjoy the scenery and the fun, and soon you tune into what’s happening.

10 Before you know it, you’re completely hooked into a rhythm and paying close attention to every pitch, or swinging to every note. Suddenly the entire thing is magnified and your entire being is engaged. A great thunderous moment brings you out of your senses and has you shouting, jumping, and acting like an imbecile.

11 Then there’s a moment that is poignant and sweet, sometimes dare I say it, sentimental as well. You think of different times, and of all you’ve been through, and somehow you, and this thing you do and enjoy is still there, like a nice friend.

12 It takes you through life on a gentle breeze of hope and always delivers, sometimes just there, other times making sense every time that life becomes senseless.

13 Sometimes it just delivers a smile and a doff of the hat.

14 Steal your base.

15 Anyway this might be making a little sense if you’re into one or the other, but one thing is clear: they both give tremendous hope and good times to all. I watch a game in the context of a season, and it could just be a mellow afternoon, or it could be a pennant race where every agnonizing pitch takes an eternity. Or it could be winning on the last pitch of a tight game.

16 But there are 161 more, each filled with great defensive plays, amazing pitches, tremendous feats of strength, and picture perfect nostalgia. Sometimes I’ll look out at a ballyard and pretend it’s the 1930′s. Easy to do.

17 I’m looking forward to that first pitch. I hope I can somehow be out there.

18 Because no matter what else is happening, baseball is almost here, and life is good.

19 Lately it occurs to me.

20 I’m another year older and another year blessed.

21 I think I’m going to sit down now and patch my bones.

22 And get back truckin’ on.

23 Peace.

~H~
The Daily News

Harry Houdini (1874-1926)

Was Houdini murdered?

1 Recent reports abound that the great Harry Houdini, magician, anti-spiritualist, possibly spy, and definite escape artist, may have been the victim of a murder.

2 The reports have brought together a group of forensic experts who hope to exhume the body for evidence of arsenic or of lead. The group has received an okay from the family of the world-renowned magician.

3 This stuff came at me last week, and I thought it might make an interesting piece.

4 So what is this story about? Well, the classic Houdini death story is that he had been punched in the stomach a few days before doing his now famous Water Torture Cell Escape and died several days later in the midst of performing the escape. The coroner’s report was that Houdini died of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. Hollywood has several versions where a guy with an ax breaks the glass of the water cell, releasing the water, but too late for the magician. He subsequently died on Halloween in 1926.

5 Well, there is a book entiled The Man Who Killed Houdini by an suthor by the name of Don Bell. His theory is that a college student named J. Gordon Whitehead visited the magician with several others, and when Houdini talked of his muscle strength, rabbit-punched Houdini before the magician could blink, and continued until the latter protested. This supposedly caused the rupture which brought on the peritonitis, and the author spent years hunting down Whitehead.

6 A more sinister theory comes to us from a book entitled The Secret Life of Harry Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. They have a different theory, one that includes Houdini’s discrediting of people who have spiritual gifts. Houdini spent a good part of his life exposing people claiming to have spiritual powers, the same way the Amazing Randi spent much of his career discrediting people like Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne. Houdini felt that such people preyed on the sadness of people, and was adament about showing the world all of their tricks and deceitful scams.

7 Enter the famous Sherlock Holmes author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into the mix. Doyle, who was an earlier friend of Houdini, felt later that Houdini was trying to hide the realities of spiritualism, and that Houdini’s powers were real. He formed a group called the Spiritualists, a group who claimed that spiritualism was real, and that Houdini was hurting people who were completely honest, the most famous of whom was a gal by the name of Mina Crandon, aka “Margery”, a spiritualist whom Houdini had particularly criticized as a complete and absolute sham.

The immortal Basil Rathbone as the

quintessential Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

(1859-1930)

Author of the Sherlock Holmes stories

was quite cozy with the Spiritualists

8 Margery was married to a fellow by the name of Dr. Le Roi Crandon, who became more and more angry with Houdini. They became arch enemies, and Crandon purportedly talked of the spirits taking Houdini away if he displeased them.

9 On July 23, 1924 ”Margery” tried to win a prestigious prize offered by the very respectful magazine Scientific American. At the time, Margery was extremely popular, and SA was interested in her purported abilities with telekinesis, the moving of things with the mind.

10 The prize committee included several prominent psychic researchers including William McDougal, professor of psychology form Harvard University, another magician and author named Herewood Carrington, and Houdini.

11 Houdini scandalized Margery, immitating every one of her tricks and even writing a pamphlet about her claims. She was found by the committe to be completely fraudulent and was not given the prize. The only member of the committe to vote for her was Carrington, with whom she was having an affair.

12 Doyle was not convinced, nor was Dr. Crandon, and certainly not Carrington.

13 The rest of the story is left to the authors, as well as to history. As of March 24, 2007, the exhumation has been okayed by the family of Houdini, who would like to have the body detected for poisoning, as well as perhaps prompting an investigation into one of the most mysterious deaths of the 20th Century.

14 A lot to chew on. Here is the website from which much of this information was gleaned. Feel free to explore and enjoy this new story, which certainly has some fun legs!

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=256461

15 I think I’ll leave the rest up to you. Get out your spyglasses and follow this intriguing little story. I have to put down my pipe and violin for now.

16 I have to go. Xanga wants everything centered today so all apologies for the sudden change in format. Meanwhile, enjoy your research. This was just the tip of the story, which sounds pretty fun. There’s a lot more to it, but this ought to get you going.

17 Have a fun Monday everybody.

18 Peace.

~H~
   The Daily News

1 You remember how I talked about how much I enjoyed playing some hard basketball the other day?

2 That very morning, the morning that DN went out, I took my class to the library for something or other. I had them do some handouts, and for once I had time to relax a bit. But what on Earth can you do in a library?

3 Oh yeah.

4 Well, I thought I should walk down the mythology aisle, since we were studying the Odyssey, and then I thought I should just grab anytning by Shakespeare so as to advertise our next unit in a rather subliminal way.

5 Neither thing happened. I drifted down the sports aisle, still buzzing with adrenaline from the hard-fought basketball game the day before. As I grazed across the various titles, I saw a book about the basics of basketball. Honestly I don’t remember the title, but it drew me in instantly, because its premise was that basketball is a mind game, and not so much a physical game.

6 Some Zen master. I liked the concept because it meant that with the correct mindset, someone older and wiser could outthink a younger player with more skills. For a guy who has been youthening since the age of 900, I felt it fit me like a comfortable gym shoe.

7 I moved past the students and sat in the corner, opened the book and became engulfed. EVERYTHING in basketball is mental, was the premise. It gave wonderful tips on how to focus on the ball, or on your opponents stomach when guarding. Lots of great tips on how to slow down but explode with speed when needed.

8 I was getting swallowed up in the book when a voice came right over the top of my head.

9 “Whatcha reading?” It was the guy who played on my team the day before. This guy could leap over the top of the rim and spring off the end with his Nike’s.

10 “Me? Oh…uh, nothin’. Just a book about basketball.” I flashed the cover and he was amused.

11 “It’s all mental, man. See ya tomorrow.” He gave a cool-guy point and moved out. Cool Guy Zen Master. I clicked back like a character from a bad Woody Allen movie and returned to my reading.

12 Right before the bell rang I shouted at my students to push chairs back and pick up trash, a diversionary tactic so I could back-door them and dunk the book back onto the shelf.

13 When the bell rang, I thanked the librarian, crumpled a piece of paper and sank a twelve-foot free throw right into her trash can. She looked, I shrugged, she smiled, and I moved out.

14 For the remainder of the day I couldn’t wait to play yesterday. In the morning I ran into the guy arranging the game and we started talking about the practice that would commence early yesterday because we had a block schedule, creating a nice early release period. We’d be on the courts by 2:15, which was awesome. I couldn’t wait.

15 Well, the day went slowly, and people kept requesting after-school time for meetings, doors to be unlocked, Battle (FANTASTICS for you YB’ers) practices, and
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” people. I realized I needed some shoes, so once everyone disappeared, I vanished myself, hopped in the TOOOOONDRA and screamed down Quimby to Eastridge.

16 I walked into some shoe store that had HUGE sports shoes with no prices, a guy wearing large jerseys, a crooked hat, bling, and who completely ignored me. Some beatbox crap blared in the store and I felt a bit out of place. Just a bit.

17 I skipped out, dashed upstairs, looked to my right and saw JC Penney’s. THEN I saw an oasis. Payless Shoes. HAAAAAAILYEAH! Found a pair of sleek Spaldings that fits guys with duck feet, and then I thanked the gal. I bolted out of the store, popped the TOOOOOONDRA into gear and flew back up Quimby.

18 I opened the doors for everyone who needed doors opened, met with people who wanted to talk, and FINALLY broke into the gym, where the door opened and nine teachers stood at center court and applauded. One guy looked like he wanted to cry.

19 “It’s the guy with the keys!” He grabbed them and dashed to the bathroom, screaming “I’ve had to pee for twenty minutes!” Everyone laughed. They started giving me crap, “Hey, it’s Air Bud! If we pick teams, we get him!” Yeah, I had a pretty good game and it spread that the old guy is dangerous on the court. Of course I loved it, even if it was bullshit.

20 We finally got going. I stretched, shot for a few minutes, and the game was underway. Full court. Zen. The sun beamed through the gym windows. We played hard, and had lots of fun. I got into a rhythm and scored four points early, which made me feel great until I screwed up three passes, missed horribly on an easy shot, and fouled some guy shamelessly. That felt good though.

21 I grabbed a loose ball at center court, dribbled down, got past three people and landed a lay-up, and moved back down the court. I didn’t want them to think I was lagging, even though my lungs were ready to explode.

22 Then it happened.

23 I felt the huge pop in my calf, and had to stop immediately. I walked it off. They stopped the game and everyone rested while I limped around in terrific pain. They wanted to resume and I said I’d go back in and see if I could just run it off.

24 Couldn’t.

25 Flat tire.

26 I continued walking around almost in tears, but I kept smiling and acting cool. Zen, right? I thought of how all the Zen in the world wouldn’t make things work if the body wouldn’t do it.

27 A flat tire.

28 It never did get better. I hobbled out to the TOOOOOONDRA, literally had to lift my leg into the truck by holding my pants and carrying the thing in. The entire limb was gone, a massive slab of painful dead weight. Horrified, I managed my way home.

29 Last night I began typing up the DN, but the pain was unbearable, and then the computer froze. I tried getting my leg up on the couch, but it wouldn’t work. I was in excruciating pain. I just turned off the light and went to sleep, woke up this morning and the computer was still stupid, but the leg felt better, just from one night of rest.

30 But for a while, the entire world stopped. As of yesterday, my leg still wouldn’t work at all. Although I had less pain, it still wouldn’t work. I was completely immobile, except to hobble to any available destination.

31 A flat tire.

32 That explains that dame at the top of the page.

33 I figured if you saw a picture of me and my leg, you probably wouldn’t have spent the morning reading all of this.

34 Thanks for listening.

35 Have a great day.

36 Ain’t she sweet?

37 Peace.



~H~

MONDAY: HOUDINI
The Daily News

1 Question: Which two people walked into a bar yesterday?

2 Answer: Larry “Bud” Melman and Charles Harrelson.

3 So it goes.

4 Melman is most famous for being a chief sidekick of David Letterman.

5 Oh. THAT guy.

6 Well…yeah.

7 And Harrelson is arguably the guy who pulled the trigger on JFK. I just heard a rumor that he’s dead, so I’m not so sure about it, but that’s what happens when you deal with the JFK assassination. Truth seems spoken in a foreign tongue that nobody seems to be able to decipher accurately.

8 Amazing.

9 The morning that JFK was shot, three tramps were found hiding in a train boxcar shortly after the assassination and marched right through Dealy Plaza, the location of the assassination. They were pretty clean cut and the police uniforms didn’t fit the police properly. They also were supposed to have their rifles positioned differently while marching dangerous criminals through crime scenes.

10 There were pictures taken of these “tramps”, and all the people in the pictures closely resemble known CIA figures at that time. Most of the people they resembled were members of known CIA Operations agents, many of whom trained people in the overthrow of small governments dangerous to the United States.

11 Earlier this year, E. Howard Hunt, a very famous CIA spy, passed away. I put pictures of one of the “tramps” up on the DN, and showed how closely the third one resembled the incredibly mysterious agent Hunt, one of the key players in the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion, in which a bunch of agents failed in an invasion of Cuba, the primary purpose of which was the overthrow of the Castro government. Each tramp resembled a member of that particular assassination team.

12 Harrelson is arguably another of the three tramps (I’ll leave out the quotes) caught by the police and marched through Dealy. Harrelson was already a known hired gun and was arrested for killing a judge. His resemblance to the second tramp was uncanny.

13 The pictures above are of the tramp, and then Charle’s Harrelson when he was arrested for the murder of the judge. The resemblance is striking.

14 With all due respect, there is a lot of evidence pointing to Harrelson, who is the father of actor Woody Harrelson. It’s way more than I can negotiate in one DN, but it can be found in most books on the assassination. It is a theory that very serious investigators have certainly kept out on the table. I personally never looked deep enough into it, but it is one of the most intriguing mysteries in the most mysterious crime of the twentieth century.

15 Here is a picture of the three tramps, just for old times’s sake:

16 The third tramp, the one in the back, has been identified by many as being E. Howard Hunt. Here is a picture of the third tramp alongside one of Hunt:

17 Just cover match the hatline angle with your thumb and it will become eerie.

18 There is a ton of evidence that Hunt probably was there, although there’s some guy named Chauncy Holt who claims HE was one of the tramps as well…

19 Harrelson has been pointed to as the middle tramp, but so has a fellow CIA/Mafia guy named Frank Sturgis, who could also be that tramp.

20 Is there a real story? Probably.

21 Do I know it?

22 Undoubtedly.

23 Do I think Charles Harrelson may have shot JFK?

24 There is intriguing evidence. Is Harrelson really dead?

25 You can’t really go too deep into the “conspiracy theory” on one DN because you need to do years of cross-referencing sources and getting different perspectives on the story. Your best source is a grand book by a fellow by the name of Jim Garrison, the DA in New Orleans at the time. Garrison got dragged into the case when the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was found with the library card of a known CIA/Mafia operative in his wallet. Garrison was made to look like a conspiracy nut, and left out to dry. He wrote a great JFK book of his ordeal entitled On the Trail of the Assassins, on which the film JFK was based.

The late Jim Garrison

26 Hard book to locate.

27 Anyway, I’ve thrown in the towel. I know the story, and it clearly has ramifications right straight down to the modern elections, as well as the entire political direction of the U.S. since the Cold War.

28 I know so much about that tragic murder that I don’t waste time debating it any longer.

29 Each time a character from that goofy story walks into a bar, I question even that.

30 You’re just not going to get the real deal in one DN.

31 Anyway, evidently Charles Harrelson is dead, and his secret, whatever it may be, made it safely to the grave.

32 At least I THINK he’s dead. I actually had someone tell me that happened, but I haven’t really bothered to look too much further.

33 So much for my credibility.

34 Anyway, gottago. Enjoy comparing the pics.

35 I’ll see ya tomorrow.

36 Peace.

~H~

The Daily News

1 Sorry about yesterday’s DN.

2 I dealt with a computer that had decided to slow down and lock up and all sorts of nasty things.

3 I’m not even certain that there weren’t strange spellings and upside-down letters going off in every direction.

4 It reminded me of this slot machine called Haywire. You put money in, and then right when you think you won or lost something, it starts spinning out of control. You ususally win something, like an adjustable plastic ring or even Chinese handcuffs.

5 You know how every now and again your computer just decides to have a life of its own?

6 I’d start to write the DN and then the page would shift down, revealing a picture of Brahms or Whitaker Chambers.

hay 3 brahms best

7 Whoever they were.

8 Sometimes I just feel I’m a character in a computer game. I actually AM a character in a computer game of wrestling, only I can’t remember my name.

9 I just know that my pin hold is called the Flying Francis, which if memory serves is just me jumping off a top rope on to some guy’s stomach.

10 It’s great because it was made by Jose, Ray, and Peter so needless to say it’s adoringly flattering.

11 I wear a leather coat and have huge legs.

12 What are the odds?

13 In some ways, it IS pretty fun seeing characters wrestling each other only they are guys you know. I imagine I get my butt kicked regularly by all the younger cartoons I fight. But it’s nice to know I have a little fight left, for an old codger.

14 Moving on: Yesterday I was running around doing stuff and opening things for people when I was asked to help get the small gym ready for the teachers to practice for a basketball game coming up in April. We’re playing the students in a faculty/staff/student game.

15 It somehow got on the calendar, but nobody knows WHO thought of the idea. Well, I just thought it was cool and left it. I had no intention REALLY of actually playing in the game, since I do know my place, and my place is to remain an old codger with ankles that are still working.

16 Well…since not that many teachers showed up, it was pretty hard not to pick up a basketball and shoot. It’s been ages. To my surprise, the first ball was true, and swished.

17 Suddenly I grew twelve feet. I started pumping and jumping and soon found myself moving around pretty well.

18 I know, I know, the image, the image…

19 Anyway at first we were all just shooting around, but after around an hour it started to become addicting, and before we knew it, we were engaged in a three-on-three game. These guys were pretty good, and it was amazingly fun.

20 I shot bricks and airballs and couldn’t drive myself to jump in and be aggressive on defense because I was thinking more about having a bowl of pho, but before I knew it, I had begun to hit.

21 Trust me, I was a lot more bad than good, but in a two-hour game, I scored 14 points. That was a lot for me, and it was a ton of fun. Somehow a couple of shots just went, and it felt wonderful. And yes, I counted the amount of points. Everybody claims they don’t, but when you start scoring, you count the points. Don’t even lie.

22 Yeah I couldn’t block shots, stop drives, and my defense was the worst I’d ever played, but somehow I did well offensively. Usually I’m better at defense. But sometimes the ball becomes your friend.

23 Afterwards we all just sat on the rolled-up wrestling mats, each of us drenched in sweat. My ankles never felt better, but I did address the group.

24 “If I turn up missing tomorrow, come down here, okay guys? I think I’m stuck in this position…”

hay yoga 1

25 Eventually the called AAA for a tow. The tops of my feet feel like the guy dropped a heavy chain on them, and I have pain where I never knew I had body parts.

26 But I played.

27 Most of the other players were young, full of spring, and pretty rough on the court.

28 But I played, and to be honest, I’ve been looking forward to the game a whole bunch. As sore as I am, I’m ready to go back out on that court for a little more punishment.

29 I just need to figure out how to put all my fingers back into the right positions and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to re-learn how to walk sometime in the three weeks.

30 While that miracle stretches to take place, please smile and have a great day.

31 Thanks for listening. I feel pretty good this morning.

32 It’s Wednesday, just keep going and winning.

33 If I can do it, you can do it.

34 Peace.
hay basketball playuh

~H~

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The Daily News

Yvonne: Where were you last night?

    Rick: That’s so long ago I don’t remember.

    Yvonne: Will I see you tonight?

    Rick: I never make plans that far ahead.

Casasablanca

1 I never do either.

2 You know that Monday thing that comes over people. Nice weekend. Hope you can slip in and out of whatever it is you have on Monday and just make it safely to Tuesday.

3 I guess it began on Friday when I suddenly got boxloads of something delivered to my office. I was in the process of organizing and getting stuff neatly put away for Monday when this stuff just appeared, a miracle second only to the sword and stone appearing in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

4 It came with instructions, which ALSO included it’s own box. Sort of like the sword that accompanied the stone, only boxes.

5 They put it right in front of my refrigerator door.

6 Fortunately for them I happened to be on a diet that day.

7 After moving them about thirty thousand times, I finally looked at the packing slip and called the company asking who they were and why they kept sending me boxes.

8 Nobody answered because it was in Cincinatti. I left a kind message asking why all this stuff was arriving.

9 No answer.

10 I finally got a phone call in the early afternoon yesterday telling me that I had ordered some huge activity to be done at our school on Wednesday and that of course I must have known this.

11 Turns out that in November, when these guys were talking to me, I had told them that I didn’t even know what I was doing next week, and that I didn’t even have the spring calendar in place and had no idea when things were happening in the Spring.

12 “Just pick two dates so we have a toehold,” came a voice from the other end of the line. They assured me they had come in last year, so I just said, “Well, I don’t want to commit to anything…” I was brand new and had NO idea of anything past January.

13 They just said, “Well, the third Thursday in March and April is what we did before.” Something like that. I said, “Well I guess just pencil that in so we at least have a proposed date. We can always change it, right?”

14 I really don’t recall what was said after that, but I heard nothing until this stuff just started arriving. Suddenly I am being asked on a Monday morning to somehow have almost 400 Seniors available at a meeting on Thursday, AND I had no recollection of everh having committed to ANYTHING in November, since I had no idea of our Spring calendar at that time.

15 Being a recovering Catholic, I felt guilty backing out, and became very apologetic about things. I didn’t realize that in a very obvious way, they never followed up and solidified the date, and never contacted me after November.

16 Last night at 1 a.m. I awoke after a crashing nap and realized what had taken place. It seemed obvious to me at the time that I must have turned into a sucker and back into a human being when I told the guy to “pencil me in” with the clear contingency that it WASN’T set in concrete.

17 Amazing. Every time you think you’ve seen it all, some guy like that comes down the pike, and next thing you know you’ve been played.

18 Right after that, I received a call telling me I had to move all my classes into the library today. I have 89 students in my morning Leadership class. Oops. Last-minute notice. Time to change everything you’re doing mang.

19 Well, all in a day’s work. Nobody is REALLY interested in anyone else’s work, but I just thought I’d share a universal Monday. I managed to postpone that group who sent all that stuff, having felt guilty, and also managed to get my classes moved.

20 Friday morning none of that stuff even existed. I deliberately told that company in the Fall that I wasn’t interested in booking ANYTHING; it was clear as a bell. Penciled in doesn’t = a yes. This seems to happen quite a bit. I tell people that we’ll keep a toehold and they see it as a yes.

21 Friday morning I never had to move all my troops in one day. Neither item was anything I had anything to do with. It was THEM.

22 It’s funny how we doubt ourselves sometimes. I instantly thought I had screwed up, when I have been extremely careful about doing a thorough job all year. These guys were wrong, both groups, and yet somehow I felt I had done something stupid.

23 You wonder why people turn crabby. Fortunately, I can laugh at most of this stuff and at my own insecurities.

24 I just let crap like that roll off my back. I do sometimes think of what happens to people with less backbone, and of people who might have also been played but who would have moved mountains on a Monday to accomodate someone who got in through the back door.

25 I just open the front door and tell them to go around.

26 And then I slide the lock into place. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?

Ugarte:   Well Rick, after tonight I’ll be through with the whole business and I am finally
    leaving this Casablanca.

Rick: Who did you bribe for your visa, Renault of yourself?

Ugarte: Myself. I found myself more reasonable.

27 And stay out.

28 Let this be another of life’s beautiful lessons.

29 I stick my neck out for nobody.

30 Peace.


~H~
The Daily News

1 Well, everybody talks about the weather…

2 An inconvenient truth: I enjoyed a popsicle the other day, St. Patrick’s Day, which was just filled with barbecues and wonderful weather.

3 My popsicle melted faster than normal. I still enjoyed licking it and getting all that red juice all over my face. I threw the popsickle stick into a little water and squirt it into a small little river I created out of mud.

4 I watered and mowed down my weeds so that they looked ALMOST like a lawn, and I suddenly have flowers everywhere in my backyard.

5 In fact, spring has sprung so early this year that each time I go to the store, I force myself to buy $2 to $3 worth of flowers. You’d be surprised how fast you have a porch filled with color and sunlight on a beautiful day.

6 I’ve been enjoying watering the flowers and aiming the nozzle high over my above-ground pool so that it drops like rain into the center of the pool. I have a small CD player outside playing Vivaldi. The sun beat down and with hope and vision the other day.

7 The night before last I took some Christmas lights out of my shed and took all but the green lights out and ran them from the corner of my overhang to the top of a garden arch, just for a nice St. Patrick’s day barbecue.

8 I lit the other backyard lights and lit the coals.

9 A rubber duck with sunglasses floated amid the cherry blossoms that had landed in the pool. He would turn and stare for a second and then reverse direction.

10 If you put rasberry sauce on a corned beef and let it slow cook over a barbecue, it comes out beautifully within a few hours. The entire thing goes wonderfully with the spring air and with family and friends.

11 Saturday morning I met my daughter at the gym and we went to Starbuck’s, just talking about what a gorgeous day it was, and how we couldn’t wait for summer, and for out annual trip to Tahoe. A bird flitted in a maple tree and another sang sweetly.

12 Of course we felt guilty that enjoying a day like this while glaciers melt is tantamount to genocide. We laughed.

13 It was an inconvenient truth that we just enjoyed a beautiful day. We even had the nerve to CALL it a beautiful day.

14 Spring.

15 I love the Spring.

16 We are just about officially in Spring, but it has already put a lot of us into a better mood. Spring let’s us reclaim our lives, to take our lives and who we are back, and with a joyous vengeance.

17 Those same people who irk us or those same things that seem SO important suddenly get placed in a perfect perspective to the things that are really important in life, like popsicles and the smiles of daughters.

18 If you look at things in just the right way, you smile for what you have, and you love everything worth loving on a beautiful Spring day.

19 Memories become vivid and alive; sounds remind us all of better days, and the entire world decides that we have a right to enjoy life and to smile at the simple things.

20 It’s an inconvenient truth.

21 But on a bright sunny day in early Spring, we are all reborn.

22 Enjoy your day; mine’s already being enjoyed.

23 Smile and open a window. Listen to the world turn into Spring.

24 And remember that there’s nothing wrong with remembering fond memories of beautiful Spring days.

25 Love life.

26 Peace.
~H~

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Month: March 2007

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