The Daily News

1  Any Hairspray fans out there?

2  I watched it for the first time last night.

3  Can you imagine?

4  It was just so bad it was good.

5  Anyway, enjoyed it.

6  Moving on: This is the time of year last year that I was getting around an hour of sleep a night. I’m getting better. It’s like closer to four this year.

7  Fortunately, years of long hours at YB trained me for all of this.

8  The fun thing is that this past week when I haven’t been in the gym at basketball games or wrestlng matches, I’ve been in the Theatre.

9  We have four different things going in there in the next week, including SF Shakes Twelfth NIght on Friday morning, a VSU Fashion Show Friday night, an evening of One-Acts on Saturday night, and a Talent Show next week…

10  None of which matters except that I’ve been spending hours upon hours in the Theatre once again, and it feels so comfortable it’s almost uncanny.

11  Same lighting unit as the one at YB, and ETC express, and just sitting at a light booth doing cues once again is just wonderful.

12  Plus there’s another teacher at the school who LOVES doing lights, working tech all day, putting music on, and lighting down sets at the end of a long tech day. We sat in the Theatre last night staring at the set and exchanging war stories, which were remarkably similar.

13  “Ever have people screaming at you to turn the lights on, then off, then different colors?”  “Ever have groups come in who know absolutely nothing about show biz but think they know everything?” “Ever gotten zapped?” “Nah, only once, but it wasn’t that bad…”

14  But sitting staring down at the stage and watching the lights change and blend and create a canvas without any real strokes.

15  Different strokes for different folks.

16  Anyway, just checking in on the old DN Department.

17  And with that, I sign off.

18  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

4   It was a pretty gift-wrapped look at Lennon’s political battle to maintain his U.S. citizenship when the Nixon administration wanted him out.

5  At the time, the war raged, and it outraged Lennon so much that he began touring and protesting loudly, with a simple message: peace.

6  But his influence on literally millions of people scared the daylights out of the Nixonian white house, even though publicly they blew him off.

7  Anyway, to keep it short, he clearly was being handed deportation papers due really to his political dissent rather than any real reasons.

8  Well, he beat the big boys and was given permanent residence on his birthday AND on the exact day of his son Sean’s birth.

9  Elated, reporters advanced on him, and Lennon met the throngs with his usual acerbic wit. Here’s the passage:

Reporter: Mr. Lennon, do you feel any antagonism toward the people who have attempted to have you deported?

John Lennon: Absolutely not. I believe time wounds all heels.

11  Moving on:  Yesterday I thought it might be a good idea to try to fix things. I was inspired when my niece, Amy came and visited, we sold her one of our Toyota’s. It needed wiper blades, so we took off to Kragen’s.

12  It’s been a while since I changed wiper blades, so naturally I figured by the year 2008, they probably have made advancements on how to change a wiper blade.

13  Wrong.

14  I figured by 2008 you could buy a replacement, and it ought to be as easy as replacing an ink cartridge.

15  Wrong.

16  It came with an entire erector set neck that had to be assembled with screws the size of rice grains, and which required about forty special tools, an 80-page manual in fourteen different languages, and a CD-Rom.

17  Just perfect for the guy trying to put one of those on a window in the driving rain.

18  Because when DO most people change their blades? During storms, of course!

19  Okay, so it’s a bit of an exaggeration.

20  We also went over to the gas station to put air in the tires.

21  Now here’s something I’d like to know: why do tires a) put any pertinent information about them in black, and b) put any information other than how much air you have to put in them ON them? Who cares about anything except amount of air?

22  I put on my reading glasses and knelt down to read the PSI info. My knees got soaked and I finally got it. I put the nozzle over the little air thingy and it began rapidly to deflate. My pants got soaked at the knees, and the tire nearly went flat, but I recovered like the champ I am and blew it up to the size of a balloon.

23  Eventually it all evened out, Amy got the car safely up to Sac, and I decided to take fixing things to the next level, and decided to fix the driver’s seat belt in the TOOOOOONDRA.

24  The driver’s seat belt in the TOOOOOONDRA has come to look like a long, twisting piece of taffy, as you’d see coming out of a machine at the Beach/Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Sometimes it’s so twisted that I just throw it over my shoulder to fool cops, at least until I can get it home and screw with it.

25  Coming right off the experience with the wiper blades, I was ready.

26  I went to the base of the thing, popped the cover and saw that the mechanism of the thing was straight and correct.

27  So!

28  All I needed to do was to follow its straightness up through the loop and untwist it.

29  I moved slowly, decisively, and with meticulous attention to detail, I began untwisting the thing from the bottom up. It was working; it straightened right out, and as I moved slowly toward the apex, I began to notice that it twisted so tightly that the entire thing came to look like a corkscrew. I jammed it by tugging a bit too hard, and as of this morning, it looks as though I’m going to need to wear it as though I’m a military officer.

30  Oy.

31  A day of one mechanical delight after another. A day after me own heart.

32  Ah, vuttevuh.

33  You all have a beautiful Monday.

34  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1  Yesterday was WHACK.

2   That kills me.

3   Dood, that is WHACK.

4   When you’ve lived as long as I, you’ve heard every expression, and you know that someday, we’ll all be making fun of when we used to call things WHACK.

5  For the older set out there, it means whacky, goofy, way outta here.

6  But why mince words?

7  Yesterday WAS whack.

8  But do you suppose today might be more whack?

9  Hopefully it won’t be anywhere near as whack.

10  I’m sorta hoping today will be reasonably whackless.

11  Ah, ya gotta love it.

12  When a day is WHACK, ya gotta just ride it.

13  Usually it’s some guy who is WHACK that makes your day whack.

14  Anyhow, I’m anticipating some good thing comin’ up.

15  Stay tuned.

16  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

  
 Ralph Waldo Emerson

 The Daily News

1  Last night the teevee was on some channel that had this show on where people asked other people embarrassing questions.

2  I’m throughly convinced it was The Transylvania Show.

3  All vampires from the actual Transylvania.

4  You can’t beat that.

5  Holy macaroni.

6  I don’t really remember anything about this show except at one point, I found myself saying, “Okay Yoko, sick ‘em.”

7  All bets are off.

8  Moving on: Everybody talks about the weather but, uh, something.

9  California. I swear. Last night I think it got down to around 38 degrees and my fingers suddenly stopped dead cold.

10  They kept locking up on me.

11  But not until I discovered something about the Prezdent of the United States.

12  I found out that his office lied 935 times about Iraq so we’d go in there.

13  I think HE lied only a couple of hundred times.

14  Took the sting out for me, because as anyone knows, that goober is my hero.

15                            

16    Anyway my fingers locked into a guitar chord last night and stayed there for around 40 seconds.

17  My dog walked in and slapped me.

18  Rained last night.

19  My bones froze, even though it was only around 38 degrees outside.

20  I thought for a second that I was Tening Norgay.

21  Californians, I swear.

22  It’s all balmy out and I’m feelin’ like Chilly Willie skating on a frozen pond.

23  It takes infinite patience to achieve instant results.

                                                              —Fortune cookie on Mars

24  Rented a tent.

      A tent a tent.

      Rented a tent,

       Rented a tent,

       Rented a rented a tent.

                                 —Snare Drum on Mars

25  I never wrote Snare Drum on Mars. It was Vonnegut.

26  Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

                                                                             —Ralph Waldo Emerson

27  Put on a skirt, Princess.

                             —Letterman’s writers in a message to Terrell Owens following his
                                 heartfelt news conference last week

28  That’s enough quotes. Three quotes. Yeesh.

29   Four quotes and you have a gallon.

30   Time to bow out.

31   Y’all have a good one.

32    Peace.

   The Daily News

1  So…Bobby Fischer, Heath Ledger, Allan Melvin,  AND Suzanne Pleshette all crowd into a bar…

2  And by association, so do Ellen Hartley, Sam the Butcher AND Magilla Gorilla.

3  Bam.

4  Well, Fischer was perhaps the most interesting because he really believed everyone was out to get him, especially the Russians. He lived his last year purportedly as somewhat of an Anti-Semitic madman and complete misanthrope.

5  That is, of course, according to the Wall Street Journal, another Rupert Murdoch-owned institution, which means it’s probably all boushit anyway.

6  I’ve given up caring on most of that.

7  But Suzanne Pleshette and Allan Melvin had nothing but good press.

8  And Magilla Gorilla. Gone but not forgotten.

9  Heath Ledger was the strangest. Found naked, face down, like Marilyn Monroe. I’m not trying to be silly here, but why do so many celebrities die naked face down? How often are YOU naked, face down on the floor? It may be best if we move on.

10  Moving on: Did you ever procrastinate? That’s the great accepted sin that we all do. I’ve been meaning to write a piece about procrastination for around eight years now.

11  So, here we go. I think I broke my record for procrastination over this last four days.

12  Because I do procrastinate, I had lots of papers to grade, and STILL procrastinated because once that happens, once you decide to stop procrastinating,  it can become a daunting task, sort of like cleaning out all your miscellaneous files and REALLY organizing them this time.

13  Or getting into your junk drawer and throwing away the four thousand dime bags of nuts, screws, bolts, old film, dead pens, and sandy, crusty things that seem to find a home in those places.

14  I have around sixty projects just waiting for the day I have a litte time: light fixtures, plugs, wind-blown cable receivers, seventy-thousand unlabeled boxes in the garage, and what to do with the six dog leashes hanging on a hook by the front door.

15  I WILL ultimately get to all this stuff, but I have other things to do.

16  Like moving back and forth to the refrigerator, walking into one room and then another, and then forgetting why, finally shuffling back to the couch and throwing a blanket over meself, checking out that one lengthy toenail that somehow I missed.

17  But before I do any of that,  I have to make a little ramen and write the DN.

18  First things first.

19  Who just died? Is it in Snopes? Is it true? Maybe it’s a conspiracy. I think I’ll cruise the web. E-mails. That’s right. Gotta get to those. I haven’t checked them. While I’m there, I think I’ll take a gander at my My Space, which is a forgotten planet. Hmmm. You Tube has this great little version of some guy who must have a thousand fingers playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps on a ukelele. I’d better get to that. and check it out. I should call mom and boushit about football. I need Starbucks.

20  Where are my shoes?

21  I’ve lost my harmonica, Albert.

22  Know what? Today you should just take care of YOU.

23  But first you should take care of the plates in the sink.

24  I gotta work out.

25  I’m all over it.

26  I’m on it man.

27  I can’t wait to get back to work.

28  But first I have to grade those papers. The guilt.

29  Gottago.

30  Peace man.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1  How come everything has 99 cents tagged onto it?

2  Ever since I was born. This is $1.99. Oh, that wil be $5.99. Ah, shopping for presents? I know where you can get a nice jacket for $29.99.

3  We even have a 99 cents or less store.

4  You know that singer, 50 Cent? He oughta give himself a raise and make it 59 Cent.

5  Moving on: Did they always have two Zambonis?

6  Moving on, part deux: Last night we were talking about coaches and ties.

7  My daughter Nicole is becoming a Sharks’ fan and was wondering why all coaches wear ties. I wondered if they always had two Zambonis.

8  I also let her know that all coaches don’t wear ties, and that some coaches wear the team uniform, like all baseball coaches, including the 83-year old ball boys.

9  I remember this friend of mine, Brian, who suggested that all coaches should wear uniforms, sort of a King Arthur thing.

10  It’d be great. Instead of ties, basketball coaches would be wearing shorts and wifebeaters while yelling at referees. It would add an element of humor.

11 Watching NFL coaches strutting the sidelines like macabre XFL rejects would be great, especially if they get doused with Gatorade and carried out on the team’s shoulders. That’s right out of Mad Magazine.

12  Can you imagine some Russian ice dancing coach glancing sourly over at the judges while wearing a tutu with a large bow?

13  Well. Nice to see SOME teevee writers are still working. Last night Letterman brought up the item about Lisa del Gioncondo, the Mona Lisa, and evidently she was a bit round of heels. Letterman said she saw more ceilings than Michaelangelo.

14  Bam.

15  It’s Friday, and we already have four days off here, if you include the weekend. This means no DN for Monday or Tuesday = (  <——–cheesy sideways sad guy

16  Semester break.

17  I know what yer sayin’. Where do I sign up? This usually includes around 35 hours of grading papers, staple cuts on the lips, papers all over the place, calling perfectly nice people human knuckleheads at around 1 a.m., screaming at papers with no names, and doing one final all-nighter in order to hit your deadline.

18  That’s just the way I roll.

19  I love that one. “Hey, that’s the way I roll.”

20  Covers a multitude of sins.

21  Pardone mois.

22  Anyway, I think I’m just gonna roll outta here. Here’s a parting shot, not a 99 at the end, but at least a 9/10th, and a cheapo laugh.

23  See ya Wednesday.

24   Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1  So there’s someone on this planet who can’t live without this man.

2  Who has been seen in public places with this man:

And THIS man, who can knock a sparrow out of a tree with his uncanny ability to fart freely in quiet forests:

3  All three of whom worship strange gods:

2  And whose own interests are as varied as this:

 So howzbout THAT?

3  I wasn’t sure if Ken and Vicki wanted to let the world know quite yet, but looks to me like it got out and is now officially amazing! I’ve sorta kept this to myself because I just wasn’t sure, but word had leaked out as early as last week when I was over at Independence for an Activities Directors’ meeting. Rocha threw a huge hint at me and Liz Dinh, the Activities Director over there, asked, “What about Ken?” to which Rocha and I both chimed, “Oh nothing!”

4  And on Tuesday Cari, my Principal, pulled me into her office where we just had a regular meeting, and then she said, “So, did you hear about Ken?

5  So I was gonna call ya Ponch, just to see if we could launch it in the DN, but ya scooped me, dawg!

5  Royalty.

6  I don’t wanna tellya how to do it, but I picture white horses and a coach.

7  Anyway, I said it earlier and I’ll say it again:  Raise a glass.

8  To Royalty.

Maestro.

Strike up the Band.

Congrats.

Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   I accidentally watched the American Idol premiere last night. I promise no pictures.

2   I’m thoroughly convinced it’s time to pull the plug on teevee.

3   Now there’s a plan, Stan. Here’s a quick overview from the Writers’ Guild of America. You might click on it when you’re done with today’s DN. Some viable issues, especially corporate greed vs. working people. Have a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ55Ir2jCxk

4   Boycotting teevee when nobody else is seems pretty fruitless, but let’s just begin with the utter mediocrity that is swiftly replacing shows that are not only entertaining, but often have a semblance of intelligence. Let’s go back to last night’s “premiere”.

5   First, there are commercials for this teevee show called The Moment of Truth, and it looks really terribly disturbing.

6   And then there’s the sinking of American Idol.

7   Mind you, I’m still boycotting teevee, but it’s still on, which defeats the whole purpose. But I’m in a shared room, and as such am outvoted. It really serves as a background to family fun, sort of like a video fireplace, so I’m not going to change stuff we’ve been doing for years. So I let the teevee do what it’s always done, but I tend to ignore it normally.

8   Last night on the first Idol, some guy came on in a cape, and then stripped to reveal a hairy, horrid mushroom man belly, complete with trojan woman outfit and utterly no talent. He was unutterably horrible, but after around two minutes of his being out there, he was removed to a room where the hair on his chest was taken off with duct tape. He was allowed to return for a second go of it.

9   Another guy came on and stalked Paula, looking at her with the eyes of a complete freak, clearly staged, and clearly a company man. The reactions by the hosts also were contrived and staged.

10  Another girl dressed like Princess Leia was dismissed for her looks, and she stomped out to the loving arms of her grandparents, where she proceeded to cuss like a dock worker. Fully staged.

11  So much was so bad that it was evident that Idol has probably been written by pretty good writers for Fox over the years, and what also come clear is that the entire show is a sham. If there really were a “stalker” (ironically followed by a girl whose last name was Stalker…hmmm….) you would have seen him immediately removed and Paula crying and maybe even quitting the show.

12  The strike continues, and soon the public will begin to catch on that the teevee producers give not a hoot about hiring cheap hacks to work for them, that the American public won’t be able to notice the difference. Our largest and most influencial medium is going to be written by second-hand screwballs as bad as most of the wannabes we’ve come to adore on what we thought were real auditions.

13  Don’t believe any of it for a minute. Last night’s Idol showed that and exposed the show for what it probably has been all along, a scripted show probably using many people but clearly with some ringers to bring up the ratings.

14  Ah, vell. There IS an off switch.

15  And Rupert Murdoch and his fellow Terrorists of Taste and Control have stooped to new lows in getting ratings up and profiteering on the lives of the people who lost jobs because of the strike.

16  Turn off your teevees, I swear to you. Jan Leno should be ashamed. As weeks turn into months more and more people are going to come to realize that the writers  are the only remaining backbone of maintaining what little thoughtful and incisive television we have left, and that thoughtful programming is vanishing at an alarming rate.

17  The writers kept a bit of a system of checks and balances in place on the most influential medium in the world.

18  If you thought they were writing what they are told, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

19  Last night’s American Idol was shameful.

20  Time to pull the plug. Those writers may never get their jobs back, and their replacements will not only be far worse, but will do whatever they’re told. Paula’s stalker is a living example of that one.

21  As Simon put it, “That was creepy.”

22  That’s the best thing written about this entire thing since it began.

23  Creepy.

24   Pull the plug.

25   Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

 
The Lisa Del Giocondo

by

Leonardo

1    I see that they have finally concluded that the Mona Lisa was in fact one Lisa Del Gioncondo, the wife of some Florentine cool guy.

2    I heard rumors that it was Leonardo’s mistress, that it was really a gay man, that it was possibly Leonardo himself, and it was Rupert Murdoch throwing banga signs.

3   I for one was impressed to know it was some guy’s wife that Leonardo was drooling over.

4   The only thing I drool over these days is my pillow.

5   Someone walked into a bar early this morning but for the life of me I can’t remember who.

6  So it goes.

7  Oh! I remember! My memory walked into a bar.

8  Yoiks.

9   I love conspiracy theories. I have this theory that those cell phone towers that you see everywhere are erasing our memories, as well as our abilities to think.

10  So…the Bill of Rights walks into a bar…

11  Just rambling.

12  I’m a Ramblin’ Man.

13  You know what I’ve been goofin’ on? How they now put the top of the straw wrapper on the straw when you order drinks at Starbuck’s.

14  I first noticed that around three or four years ago.

15  Then I noticed Jamba Juice doing the same thing. I asked the girl at JJ why they did that and she said, “It’s for sanitary purposes.”

16  I then looked into the glass window display, where pretzels and bread sticks had been sitting out for hours.

17  You can’t be too careful.

18  Well that’s that.

19  And that’s the news…

20  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

With Lambeau Field looking like a snow globe,
Favre frolicked in the flurries, throwing three touchdown passes
 as the Packers beat Seattle 42-20 Saturday, the highest-scoring
postseason game in Green Bay history.
                                                             –Associated Press

1  Eli in. Payton out. T.O.’s mouth hushed. Brett Favre looking like either a Sherpa, or a man of destiny.

2  What just happened?

3  Sorry, non-fooobowl folks. But this weekend was quite something.

4  Man oh man.

5  And I didn’t really see a moment of any of it.

6  I was busy helping Caitlin move out, so I missed the Snow Bowl in Green Bay, although I saw bits and pieces, snow fights, and a man you just gotta love fighting maybe one last time to get the ring.

7  The good money says he won’t, but wouldn’t it be a fun thing to see?

8  I still don’t understand why his name isn’t prounounced FAH-VREY instead of FARVE, but when I look at people wearing cheesheads with snow on them, I get a sort-of understanding.

9  Fooobowl.

10  I have my silly suspension of disbelief that it’s all somehow free from the scandal that is rocking baseball and track, and so I enjoyed romping through the snow of denial, and enjoying watching Favre throw accurate snowballs.

11  Meanwhile, the clouds gather.

12  Marion Jones, the mouth that roared, is now sitting behind bars for six months.

13  Ah, let’s move on. I’m a hypocrite. I use performance-enhancing drugs every day.

14  It’s called Starbuck’s.

15  Moving on:  Did you catch this gem from the Associated Press the other day?

NEW YORK – A longtime baseball fan is suing the New York Yankees over some players’ reported use of performance-enhancing drugs, saying he wants repayment for $221 in tickets and a public response from his once-beloved team.

“I look at it almost as consumer fraud,” said Matthew Mitchell, 30, a Brooklyn resident who said he went to his first game at Yankee Stadium in 1984. “If I’m going to watch a baseball game, then I expect it to be the real thing.”

The Yankees declined to comment.

16  I just remember several years ago when I was up at what was then Pac Bell Park, and some obnoxious Yankee fan (are there any other kinds? ;  ) shouted at anyone within earshot, “Baa-rrwee Bahnds is just a big head. Everything he does is becawsz he’s a joo-suh.”

17  At the time I was a huge Bonds’ fan, and defender, and in a way I’m glad I kept silent, but I wanted to clock the guy. Still, when the San Francisco Chronicle began  running the stories of the Balco scandal, I had to accept that what this guy said was probably true.

18  And to that fan’s credit, I understand where he’s coming from. And I’m just reeling from baseball, and a large part of me never wanted to see that rock lifted. I believed in Barry, and told people that they were way off base. Did you ever think that MAYBE some people just work hard, and Barry is one of ‘em? And with Mays and McCovey and his dad constantly around him, how could he possibly be anything but hard-working and clean? Well, it’s now clear that he wasn’t.

19  And it’s now it’s clear that it isn’t just Bonds, and isn’t just a few athletes, it’s an enormous amount, and I’m quite certain in every sport. For some reason, you just don’t want to go there. It’s easier to quaff a couple of beers with some buddies and talk about what an asshole Canseco is, and what dickheads those reporters are.

20  Deep inside, we all knew it; we just didn’t want to talk about it.

21  What’s really sad is being an ardent Giants fan, or A’s fan.

22  We all got duped.

23  Meanwhile, it felt refreshing to see two NFL underdogs win the playoffs yesterday, and Brett Favre, the grand old man of a grand old team working miracles in the snow. For one brief shining moment I had the magic of sports surrounding me this weekend.

24  And the Sharks’ game on Saturday night was a classic as well.

25  Lotta fun, and it felt so exhilarating watching it, all of it.

26  So I’ll enjoy fooobowl for the amazing season I’ve been watching unfold, and which seems to marching to a very interesting conclusion.

27  We’ll just have to wait and see.

28  I’m going to enjoy fooobowl to the end, and then I’ll chuck sports over my shoulder and enjoy it on a pretend level.

29  In the meantime, I hope Mr. Mitchell wins his lawsuit. The Yankees can afford the $221, and for what it’s worth, it’s the least all of these assholes could do for ruining the entire concept of what sports is all about.

30  And thank you Mr. Favre, for the grit, and for the years. We still are open to miracles.

31  Godspeed.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington