The Daily News

The rest is silence.

                        --Hamlet

1  Hamlet's last words. I write them on the board on my departure day every year.

2  True, I haven't officially departed.

3  In fact this isn't the last DN for this year.

4  But I put it on the board of my English class because it seemed appropriate.

5  The teacher with whom I share a room is retiring.

6  It was sorta my gift to her.

7  That simple sentence can be taken on so many levels.

8  The rest is silence.

9  Retirement.

10  Summer.

11  You get the drift.

12  I officially made it through two years as Activities Director at the Chill.

13  I won't be going for three.

14  Today I put in an official request to return to the classroom to teach English.

15  I had already informed both my Principal and my English Dept. Chairperson.

16  I announced it also to my Leadership students, who were very understanding, a bit confused, but who rolled with it.

17  Reasons: simply stated, too many rules.

18  I waited until today so that the Seniors and retirees could have their moments in the sun.

19  I just wish to bow out gracefully and then enjoy my summer.

20  Anyway, that decision was pretty huge, and I had made it quite some time ago.

21  Meanwhile, it's our classic last day for staff today.

22  It'll still be an emotional mess day, which that day always is.

23  I still have a staff breakfast and a graduation to run.

24  All right, that was pretty boastful. They will both run themselves.

25  I'll give you so much more on Monday.

26  Right now just have a beautiful morning.

27  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1  So today is the last day of school.

2  It isn't my last DN though, so don't panic.

3  I'm writing late, or early because I spent all yesterday grading papers.

4  Well, AFTER graduation practice.

5  Okay so Oprah is on right now.

6  It's funny because I've always said that the teevee is on perpetually and that it might as well be a lava lamp with music and boushit.

7  Anyway Oprah is wearing gardening clothes and is spouting off about "ergonomics" and gardening.

8  In strange way, it reminded me of that brainwashing scene from The Manchurian Candidate, the original, not the remake.

9  Great scene where the KGB has brainwashed a bunch of American prisoners that they are at a garden show instead of at a top meeting of KGB brainwashers.

10  Oprah had the apron and floppy hat like the women in that scene.

11  It was great.

12  They just dragged out Michael Buble who sang a song about having the world on a string. Good stuff, really.

13  Anyway, that's all happening right in front of me, so I might as well report it.

14  Moving on: A lotta reflection and thinking goes on when it's the last day of the school year. First off, teachers measure their failures. It's natural because you see all the things you never covered. Never fails.

15  I try to look on the year postively and to see what things I learned that I can improve on

16  Lots.

17  Time management.

18  It's 2:07 a.m.

19  Anyway, in the midst of counting my failures, I had a teacher compliment me for acting swiftly when I threw a couple of groups out of our last dance.

20  Yep. They wanted to rouse up a fight. 500 kids. I threw them out in a heartbeat. Two different groups, and just said, "Bye."

21  A couple of different students came up with "Thank You" cards.

22  Always sweet.

23  This one said that at first they thought I was too nice, but that time has proven I'm a "force to be reckoned with" which I took as a major compliment.

24  I was sorta thrust into that position, a guy who has to make tough decisions and fast decisions.

25  Anyway, if that's what I've become, I guess there are worse things.

26  A force to be reckoned with.

27  Has a nice ring.

28  I'm not sure what that means but it sure sounds cool.

29  We had a party yesterday for teachers who were going away, for example, and I had to take a phone call from this really angry parent.  NOBODY wanted to deal with the situation at a party for gawdsakes, but I took the call and calmed the person down.

30  That's why they pay me the big bucks.

31  Sheyeahright.

32  Anyway, I ain't quite done yet because I'm just trying to get a quick one out to you.

33  So I'm gonna go.

34  See ya tomorrow.

35  Peace.

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

  The Daily News

1  How did it become Wennsdee already?

2  It's been a fun week for me. Monday I got to go to Santa Cruz all day, and yesterday I spent the entire morning getting sound to an area that has no electrical outlets.

3  Took all morning.

4  Brand new state-of-the art Shure mics, wireless and wonderful.

5  Except when you need 'em.

6  Some of you folks from '91 might remember when we did Little Shop, and some of you from '97 might remember The Show, which had some Little Shop tunes in it. Little Shop of Howooz. Before I forget, I think Santa Clara University is staging Hair as we speak. Ah, no time, no time. But YOU could go! Anyway, I digress. The topic: wireless mics. Little Shop. '91. Needed wireless in order to do the Show.

7  I had to go all the way to Oakland to pick up some Nady mics so we'd have wireless, because you can't do that show without them.

8  I remember trying to amplify everyone, but the mics kept making some horrid noise, and they would bustle and crack and make huge humming noises.

9  I THINK the problem was that they eat up batteries like crazy.

10  I just kept acting like a complete horse's ass (wittle ol' ME?) and screaming at Ponch to make it all work.

11  To this day I don't know what caused the mics to do that, but they did stop and the Show went on without them ever doing that during a performance.

12  But the rehearsals were pretty stressful. We practically LIVED in the Theatre for the entire Spring Break, going down early in the morning, working on sets until mid-afternoon, having a dinner hour where we'd all relax, and then get back to working until 11 p.m., sometimes midnight. Sound familiar?

13  It WAS fun because we had all these neon bar signs set up outside like a small bar (those rumors are untrue I tellya! ;  )  <--------strange little sideways winky guy) and marshmallows that we often referred to as "scuds" when on fire and launched great distances.

14  But we had put SO much into the show, and when those wireless started cackling, hissing, and making huge buzzing noises, it was just tense.

15  Fast forward to yesterday.

16  Karma.

17  I had miraculously brought electricity from almost 100 yards away, running extension cords from our main stadium up some stairs, across a path and out to the baseball field, where I hooked up this amazing Shure wireless system.

18  Brand spankin' new.

19  Last week it had gotten broken in by a school hip-hop group, who just kicked it into high gear wid it.

20  Worked like a champ. The whole school applauded and went crazy.

21  The musicians felt awesome after they blew everyone away, including me.

22  But yesterday I had hooked it all up again and this time it started in.

23  "Okay graduates...I...one...to say.  Any...this...not walk on...so...and...or else..."

24   {{{{BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ}}}}

25  Little Shop, Little Shoppa Howooz oh! Oh Oh Oh!!!!!

26  Shing-a-ling.

27  Didn't work. No matter what I did. Kept buzzing and making obnoxious clunking noises.

28  I figured it was Heidi.

29  My computer clicked earlier this morning, so it may have been.

30  I got a straight wired mic working, so the grad rehearsal worked, ultimately, but I was pretty humbled. I was crowing like a rooster when I got around all odds and brought the electricity to an area no man had ever brought electricity before.

31  I was a GAMER man.

32  Until the thing decided to embarrass me and all my hubris.

33  And I SWEAR to you it was the exact same punking and thumping and noises that had happened all those years ago.

34  Anyway, life is for learning.

35  And one thing I learned was this: you ain't EVER all that.

36  Haha.

37  Anyway, I'll finish the week and give the DN a good Summer send-off.

38  Whoa!

39  The Giants' game just did a brief film of Turn Back the Clock Day, 1991. Got it? Just talked about Little Shop.1991. I was just number 19 in a restaurant, and my change was 91 cents. And electrical has been acting up on me lately...hmmmmm...

40  Heidi is a gamer.

41  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1   So yesterday I broke my all-time record for almost being killed.

2   I SWEAR to you.

3   THREE times I was facing traffic from across a light. I was going to go straight.

4   THREE times a guy going left from across the way jumped in front of me and almost killed me.

5   The second two were the same light. It turned green and I proceeded straight and TWO cars zipped right through and turned right in front of me. One guy was laughing.

6  I just put my arms WAY out to the side of the wheel with a huge WTF? on my face and a heart pounding at the quarter inch difference that allowed those guys to go home safely.

7  No wonder I've become so crotchety.

8  After the first one, I went to Save Mart to buy some stuff.

9  I would swear to you that there were the same two wimminz in every aisle.

10  You know when you want to go down an aisle and a pair of lunkheads have their carts criss-crossed so you can't even go down the aisle?

11  That happened in around four aisles, right after the first moron had almost killed me.

12  I tried to remain positive, but come on.

13  I got irritated by everybody in the store: the people who worked at the place blocking the back by having a three-way conversation that was clearly store gossip.

14  Don't get me wrong, nobody at Save Mart was doing anything really bad, it was just in the context of everything else that I had to squeeze by those three to get to my purchases.

15  I went in for some cat food and toilet paper.

16  I wanted to get my stuff so I could get home, cook, write the DN, and grade papers.

17  But I was rattled!

18  So I overbought. I bought this package of 2-ply Charmin that stood up to my chin.

19  I bought a 24-pack of cat food, which costs around $17 a can.

20  They had a couple of specials on a few things, so I grabbed them and got to the front.

21  There was only one woman in line. She had three kids in tow, one of whom was screaming something that looked like this: "ARFGMNJQWUXZ!!!!!!!"

22  Instead of just ignoring the request, she stood in front of me trying to translate this gibberish, coming out of the mouth of a kid who was just a little over a year old maybe.

23  Someone came up behind me with  one item and I just offered him the stank eye.

24  The lady in front of me with the three kids kept asking the kid what he wanted.

25  "ARFGMNJQWUXZ!!!!!! ARFGMNJQWUXZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!" and the kid suddenly turned all red and began screaming and pointing desperately at something over my left ear.

26  She then took forever to get her money out. A check. Oy.

27  I started goofing on all the other people walking by, glancing in their baskets to see what the heck they are eating. I sorta always do that. I like to see who'se eating healthy and who's eating like me!

28  Anyway, I finally slid up to the cashier, who talked as though she had rocks in her mouth.

29  I just sort of nodded and smiled, slid my card and then she mumbled something else.

30  "I'm sorry I didn't hear you?"

31  She got louder.

32  "ARFGMNJQWUXZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!"

33  "Ohhhhh! Um...no it's okay."

34   "Push the green buh-in."

35   So I pushed the green buh-in.

36  I okayed over $75 in impulse buys, when the original trip was for cat food and toilet paper.

37  Yeesh.

38  And THEN, on the way home, those two morons almost torpedoed me.

39  Anyway, I got over it pretty quickly, but just couldn't understand why I was so crotchety.

40  So I sat down, wrote the DN, reminded myself that the Giants won, and re-focused off those THREE people who tried to gun me down last night.

41  I got Zen, which nowadays means I napped and felt invigorated afterwards.

42  Sometimes when things go wrong, we just need to find the good. Stupid stuff happens all the time. Babies are allowed to be babies. All people aren't articulate. Bad drivers are bad drivers.

43  And I still believe that all people are basically good. We're all just examining things in the context of other things that are going on.

44  We all exist in our own worlds, and often our worlds collide with others' worlds.

45  Somewhere I guess a point was made today.

46  Go enjoy your day and make someone smile.

47  ;  )   <-------------sideways winky guy

48  Peace.

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   The late, great Jerry Garcia.

The magnificent JBL Wall of Sound, 1974. The Grateful Dead's.
This is the second of the three pictures I didn't take.

Tahoe sunrise

Angora Lake, July 2007

The diving rock, Angora Lake, July 2007. It survived, as did the entire place.

The ride out of Angora Lake saw this tree, half burnt, half not.
The division of what was saved and what was not was that precise.

Looking left on the road to Angora.
The entire area was devastated.

The Daily News

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, February 2008

1  So...Jim McKay walks into a bar...

2  Well!

3  This is the last week of school, and the last week of the DN until we meet again in August!

4  To many, that's GREAT news, because I won't be annoying them anymore.

5  Anyway I still have a lot of time to screw up the English language, misspell easy words, and lord some realllllly lousy analogies at you.

6  McKay, by the way, was not only the announcer who reported the terrorism that struck the '72 Olympics in Munich, but was also a complete class act, and an amazing commentator. I always enjoyed his coverage of the Winter Olympics.  Quite a loss.

The immortal Jim Mckay.
This is the third pic I didn't take.

7  Moving on:  There's a part of me that really enjoys becoming an old geezer. I took a little time the other day to do weeds, pick the deadheads off my flowers, and just meander quietly around the garden area of Orchard Supply.

8  Doing the garden, digging the weeds. Who could ask for more?

9  I also got an iPod for my birthday, so I could listen to the Grateful Dead while making my yard look pretty.

10  I remember years ago when I directed Thornton Wilder's Our Town, there was a line in which the Stage Manager said that one in ten men think it's a privilege to push their own lawnmower. For some reason, I wasn't sure as to what Wilder was trying to say there.

11  While I was just taking it WAY slow and daydreaming during all of this, I thought about that line, and it made perfect sense.

12  Seeing your housework as a chore that HAS to be done makes you resent anything you do when you could be out at the beach or something.

13  But yesterday I just got this old-geezer inner peace thing goin' on, and the Dead is traditionally a perfect band to listen to when you're working on projects. We listened to lots of the Grateful Dead when we built sets.

14  So in a way, it's still Dead Week in my eyes. All that talk about them put me in the mood for them.

15  Plus on Friday, that dance was going wrong the entire time I was setting it up, and our deadline to open the doors pushed us to the max. In the midst of a lot of stress and insanity I got a text message from my daughter Caitlin.

16  Caitlin was never really too interested in the Dead, just would hear them now and again throughout her life.

17  Anyway, in the midst of all the stress of getting the decorations up and making the dance happen, Caitlin texted me.

18  "Daddy! I am listening to the grateful dead right now. ; ) "

19  I just smiled. I had just finished talking with our new custodian, who was raised in San Francisco and knew Carlos and Jorge Santana. He was sharing some stories about the old days in the Mission District of San Francisco when Caitlin buzzed me with that.

20  I shared that with the guy and we both just laughed. In the middle of all this insanity and madness, the Grateful Dead made one more entrance into Dead Week.

21  Ah, the good ol' Grateful Dead.

22  Okay, so it's three days running. They deserve the time.

23  I remember one time Jerry Garcia likening a Dead concert to a baseball game. Just a place to relax, enjoy some good music, maybe read a book, nap, while the Dead play in the background. But at some point a true fan might find himself waking up, and suddenly realiziing it could get really dramatic any moment. And within seconds, the tension might mount, and the Dead might turn it into a sudden explosion of old tyme Rock 'n' Roll, like Johnny B. Goode, or their awesome One More Saturday Night.

26  The Dead usually get me safely to and from Tahoe each summer as well. I always love playing their music when I'm approaching Echo Summit on Highway 50 because the road moves up a couple of miles and then the second you begin descending, an amazing vista of the Sierra with your first view of the Lake comes dramatically into view.

27  Always a celebration that takes place almost a mile and a half into the sky.

28  Go Johnny go!

29  The ride back, sometimes at night, can be dreadfully scary. There are no lights going down the mountain, with the exception of the lights of the cars coming up the mountain and right into your eyes.

30  Times like that find me holding onto the Dead for dear life. They are so sweet and familiar I know I'll find my way back home.

31  This past summer I heard of the Angora fires, and I was worried about Angora resort, a beautiful little place nestled high in the Sierra, an alpine lake resort that rents boats, has small cabins, and a little store that sells fresh lemonade and sandwiches.

Angora Lake survived the fire. The clear water stood untouched.
As I took these shots I felt I was witnessing a miracle. I didn't know
if this beautiful setting had survived until I got there.

Families enjoying Angora after the devastating fire.

The Angora store survived. It rents boats, makes sandwiches, and
boasts the best lemonade on the planet.

32  After I arrived in Tahoe, I finally took a look up there. The road and area on the way to Angora had been devastated by the fire, but the final ride in to the resort had been saved, and the place still lived through it all, in pristine condition.

The road into Angora. Notice the left side is completely burnt,
and the right side untouched. Angora Lake resort survived all of it.

The tree again. This just amazed me. Fire on the Mountain.

About a half mile from the last picture was this entrance to
Angora Lakes. The remainder of the way in looked just like this.

33  I drove around and listened to the Grateful Dead's Fire on the Mountain thinking of all the people who had lost houses and pets in that fire, and how amazing the fire department was in it's care for saving so many other homes and pets.

34  I thought of this year's Summit Fire in the Santa Cruz mountains, and again, the Grateful Dead's song reminded me of how fragile everything can be.

35  I could go on, but I won't.

36  The Angora fire came within one mile of where my family stays every year, for years and years. It's our sanctuary. I sometimes refer to it as Mars, because you can't reach any of us there, so we might as well be on Mars. And it's pretty meaningful and significant in my own life. I listen to the Grateful Dead a lot when I'm in Tahoe.

37 So it ain't  Dead Week. It would make sense that it would run over a couple of days so let's squeeze in one more tribute.

38  Their songs are intelligent and often funny. Their contributions? Just the other day there was an article in the San Jose Merc talking about how ahead of their time they were when they let everyone plug into their concerts and record them.

39  The business idea was that it would promote them WAY faster than all all the advertising they could do to sell their albums. They were ahead of iPods by years.

40  And what have they done for us lately?

41  They are actively backing Obama for President. Sorry Hillary people, and I'm not that sorry to McCain people, but I'm just reporting the facts here. And already Ben and Jerry's has ice cream called Cherry Garcia. And of course, they have moved into Starbucks as well. And they're STILL together. So far.

42  Ah, anyway there's so much more. All the sets we built, the '93 Giants season (I listened to the Grateful Dead that entire amazing season when the Giants won 103 games and never made it to the playoffs.), and my entire long strange trip of a life.

43  And now my yard looks pretty.

44  That reference, for the layperson, is from arguably their most famous song, called Truckin'. Here is the context:

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me.
Other times I can barely see.

Lately it occurs to me
what a long, strange trip it's been.

45  So true. Always works. Any time, any age.

46  The Grateful Dead.

47  Peace.

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 The Daily News

Memorial, Polo Grounds August 13 1995.
San Francisco, California

1  "I  couldn't sleep last night..."

2   I just opened my eyes to a Unisom commercial.

3   Those were the first words I heard.

4   And then they had this REALLY goofy couple lying in bed look out at the camera and smiling, as though they had just solved all the world's problems.

5  Poker is on.

6  These guys had some dumb conversation going on, pretending they didn't have a $3700 pot.

7  Poker faced.

8  This was followed by another commercial for AmbienCR, which is ANOTHER cure for insomnia.

9  A bunch of guys sitting around playing poker is the meat, and commercials about curing insomnia the bread.

10  They shoulda put one of my lectures on as background music.

11  Anyway, the reason I was awake was that I was awake until 5 a.m. the night before.

12  That was when I wrote about Kelley/Mouse, and the Grateful Dead.

13  Well, if you remember school, it IS Dead week.

14  Ponch and I always used to play Grateful Dead songs all week long in the Performing Arts office.

15  Some people got it, but it was always a sly little joke. Kids would come in and chill, talk about their finals and stuff, and essentially get loud, and we'd just smile and listen to Jerry and the boys.

16  By the way, the poster of Jerry Garcia is still hanging over the fire door in the Y.B. Theatre. It was a poster that was a huge flag at Garcia's memorial in Golden Gate Park, just after he passed away.

17  I went to that.

18  It was amazing. I felt like Garcia was a good friend, and so I went, and it was a grand celebration.

19  I remember arriving and Jerry's own song The Wheel played on a perfect sound system. San Francisco is the City that knows How, I'm tellin' ya.

20  The song is about how life just keeps moving and turning. I think it's his finest piece.

21  Dead Week.

22  I got home and collapsed again. Dead Week Schmed Week.

23  They gave out yearbooks yesterday.

24  I helped. It was pretty organized but with a lot of running around.

25  900 yearbooks=900 people, three different areas with 300 people in each line.

26  Feeding time at the zoo.

27  My job was to run all over doing everything.

28  Another 12-hour day because they had two banquets last night.

29  At the Chill, EVERYBODY has banquets, because the place has a cafeteria.

30  One entire wall is windows, so I've joked that I'm literally in a glass house.

31  Banquets mean tables, chairs, sound systems, screens, LCD projectors, and running all over the Earth making sure everybody has everything they need.

32  I got home late, and then conked out around 9 p.m.

33  Awwwww, poor little guy...

34  I'm actually not complaining, just filling space here on a Frideee.

35  It's almost 4 a.m. again.

36  Ever get into those patterns?

37  Yesterday AFTER I mailed off the DN at around 4:15, I tossed and turned, and THEN my alarm, which is usually just KGO radio had been toyed with and this high-pitched beeping went off around 5:15 a.m.

38  Dead Week.

39  My legs cracked and ached just a little bit ago. I felt like a Grateful Dead skelton.

40  Dead Week. No activities.Somebody explain all this to me.

41  I have a dance tonight. End-of-the Year job.

42  The theme is Land Before Time. Dinosaur theme. Perfect for this Old Brown Shoe.

43  I'm done grousing. I'm actually doing fine, already slept five hours. I just needed something to write about so I could knock this nonsense off swiftly.

44  I may get this one in before 4.

45  Dance tonight.

46  Dead Week.

47  Love it.

48  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 
The late, great Bo Diddley

The Daily News

1  So...Bo Diddley walks into a bar...

2   Rock 'n' Roll legend.

3   One of the Rolling Stones' heroes.

4   Some fun. The A's and Giants both home, both winning big.

5   And speaking of sports, not so fast Red Wings.

6   Some fun, I'm tellin' ya.

7   Ah, it's getting closer and closer to summertime.

8   Hard to believe, man.

9   At any school, it's always madness right about now.

10  High schools tend to get more and more insane, but at least the weather has been pleasant.

11  Yesterday I can't remember where I was, but this guy who looked like Bert from Sesame Street almost mowed me down on the way to a liquor store.

12  You know those guys who look like Bert?

13   It's pretty darned funny. Around twelve or thirteen years ago some guy went to YB's Halloween costume contest as Bert. He just painted his face and arms off-yellow and pretty much already looked like he normally did.

14  Everywhere I go I still see guys walking around whose hair looks pretty much like Bert.

15  SO looks like Bert has left an indelible mark on hairstyles .

16  Well, I'm keepin' this one pretty short.

17  I'm just pretty tuckered.

18  And I have a saloon to run.

19  You have a great Tuesdee.

20  Peace.

~H~

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