Happy Halloween!!! Is this the best holiday? Let's see how it measures up in today's DN!!!     The Daily News   Happy Birthday Rene!!!!   1  And many happy returns to me old friend and confidante Rene!   2   Lotta good times, too many to list.   3   Good times, good times.   4   Here's hoping the whole day is magic.   5   Moving on: I already screwed up on my vow to hit the  gym and to stay up until 11. Yesterday, after a pretty exciting week with the Heidi stories and all, I came home, collapsed on the couch, and slept until 1 a.m.   6   It flew right past the gym, far too sleepy to go in and do some much-needed work, did some much-needed banking, and got home exhausted.   7   No gym. No staying awake to avoid my classic insomnia.   8   The good news is that as of this writing, I've already slept five hours.   9   The lousy news is that I have to awaken in three hours, right after I post this edition of the DN.   10  ...which is too bad, because I had a GREAT hit piece about Facebook all ready to roar, but it's just a bit too late to put it together for this week.   11   It's all good.   12   It's Frideeee of Halloween week.   13   I'm pretty sure that Halloween is my favorite of all the major holidays. Hmmm. Why don't we take out our calendars and measure Halloween. I just yanked a calendar off the wall and lost the little nail holding it up there, so I let us take a stroll through the holidays throughout the year, shall we? We'll begin with the next one, Thanksgiving.   14   Thanksgiving has too many basic issues, although I love the entire concept of counting blessings. I'm not so sure about the whole historical stuff, and pretty much refuse to go there. It also is the major harbinger that it is time to officially begin the process of going broke by January.   15   Christmas, of course, is the grandaddy of all the holidays, so it is almost eliminated as my fave because it is too mainstream to say that. I LOVE Christmas, except that every year I walk away from it with hopefully a buck fitty.   16   Christmas I'm always hopelessly out of money, which is its major drawback. They begin their propaganda in mid-July and plant the idea of over-spending in a sneaky and surreptitious way for the next five months. By Christmas, your wallet is pretty much thin beyond words. But you have friends and family, so that's a plus.   17   New Years should be eliminated altogether. Fake holiday if you ask me, and a monstrous hangover looking for a place to happen. Pointless. I'd rather evaluate the year on the last day of school and around graduation and all that, but maybe that's because I'm in a profession that has an annual beginning and ending.   18   Martin Luther King, Jr.Day is always great. Love going up to San Francisco and enjoying the day.   19   Tet is cool because I get gifts, but I'm not Asian, even though I feel Asian a lotta the time.   20    Valentine's is always cute, but sad for people who don't have "boos".   21    President's Day USED to be divided between Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday. They musta found out something harrible about Washington, because lots of calendars have eliminated his birthday altogether, and have somehow retained Lincoln's. They finally gave up, and gave schools a week off to recuperate. Score.   22   St. Patty's is always another fave, but only because I'm Irish.   23   April Fool's is a lousy idea, and a traditionally stupid day.   24   Easter is cool, but never lands on the same day, and also: what does a rabbit have to do with Jesus?   25   Earth Day is a great idea that is never observed. Sort of like the Earth shoe. Nobody knows or cares.   26   Victoria Day is cool if you're a Canadian, which you probably aren't.   27   Cinco de Mayo is always fun, and one of the most underrated of holidays except for at King and Story.   28   Memorial Day is misplaced. It really should be Almost Summer Day, because hardly anybody is sad on the first great weekend going into summer, except lugubrious bastards.   29   St. John Batiste Day is always on calendars, but who celebrates it? It is unique to Que'bec, which has that weird dash right in the middle of it, and NOBODY knows what it's for.   30   Both Mother's Day and Father's Day are forced guilt days. Flower companies and guys who sell ties make a little hay on these ones. Flowers go up like 200% on Mother's Day. Shameful.   31   I LOVE 4th of July because it's summer, and I usually am barbecuing, partying, and watching baseball. One of the best!   32  Labor Day is the exact opposite of Memorial Day. Nobody even blinks at Labor Day as anything remotely associated with labor, except for hardline union dudes. It's just the last hope of stretching summer out, and it usually doesn't work. It's just there.   33  Columbus Day should either be eliminated altogether, or we should add Hitler Day, and Himmler Day, or maybe Genocide Day. The tepid effort to re-name it Native American Day or whatever is just idiotic and a valiant effort, but elimination of Columbus Day as any sort of holiday should be the proper move. Give Native Americans a day in November that is dignified and an honor, not a reaction. Screw Columbus, and screw his day. He was a racist mass murderer, thief, and rapist. Macy's should be ashamed for having sales in his honor.   34  Well folks, those are the major ones. I'm sure I left something out, but all things considered, I have to get back to the original point, which is that Halloween remains one of the purist and best of all holidays. It's history is consistent with it's celebration, and I love everything about it.   35  So go out and have an awesome Halloween. It's crazy fun every year, and it's really for the kids, which is the best part of it. Candy, ghosts, costumes, fall leaves, and full moons make for a perfect holiday.   36  Enjoy your weekend, y'all.   37  Peace.   ~H~       www.xanga.com/bharrington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U2 Rocks Better Than Ever!!!

and

 

Latest Heidi Updates!!!!

  BOO!!!!

 The Daily News

1  LOVING a GREAT week.

2   Every year October always grabs me by the wrist, directs me where to go. I get tossed up, down, around and every which way.

3   Yesterday a teacher came up to me and asked me if I wanted "in" on U2 tix. I had thought that I missed the deadline, but this guy ALWAYS manages to get tickets to EVERYTHING. It's beginning to look good that I may get some tix.

4  Over the years I never HAD to fight for tickets because I sold merch at those events, and usually walked away with a pretty tidy wad of cash, as well as enjoying the concerts as they would happen. Most merch sales took place when the bands weren't on stage, right? So we'd switch off going out and watching, all the time making boatloads of money.

5   I have since retired from all of that, mainly because they lowered the percentage cut we received. I got pretty spoiled over the years, so at one point, a reasonably large check didn't equal the twelve to fifteen hours of work involved.

6   But while it lasted, it was awesome. I worked some of the greatest concerts ever, including Journey, Foreigner, Pink Floyd, U2, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Metallica, Greenday, Santana, and always the immortal Rolling Stones, who sold more stuff than most of all the others combined. There were many more, too numerous to list here, but it was a lot of years that I not only didn't have to pay for a concert, but that I was a part of the concert.

7   I do recall one great sound check when Pink Floyd came out to warm up. They did this awesome version of the very amazing My Sharona! Can you begin to imagine?

8   Years ago my friends and I snuck to the Stones' backstage area, which was a bunch of mini outdoor bistros with huge spreads of food and drinks for all the workers.

9   Great memories, great times. Now I'm on the other side of the fence, but honestly! Like I always sort of  liked U2 until their Joshua Tree tour years ago. Working that concert totally pulled me into the entire U2 world. All they had was a backdrop of a Joshua Tree, and the rest was pure music.

10  After that show, the Drama Workshop never went anywhere without U2 helping us build sets.

11  That band has gotten better and better, and right now may be at their very best.

12   Hopefully I can get some tickets. I could probably figure out a way to sneak in, but I'm not the immortal Nhat, who could get into any concert on Earth. I'm still going to try to get to the Oakland show.

13   Moving on:  I'm still pretty honored to have been chosen to be a judge at this year's Homecoming. I've been a large part of the school's spirit activities since I got there, so it's a fun thing being a part of all of that stuff.

14   Yesterday I finished up the Heidi Chronicles, and even read a piece from my November 1, 2006 DN in which I detailed the Heidi trips taking place from my last year at YB to my first year up at the Chill.

15   The students had never heard me refer to their school as the Chill-on-the Hill, my term-of-endearment nickname for Evergreen Valley. I told the students that I love "chillin'" at EV, and indeed I do!

16   Looking forward to watching all the Spirit Week stuff. They have all four classes decorate different areas of the school on Friday, and then have a midday rally. I get to be a part of that, as well as of an ice-cream social Friday after school. All great fun going into the Homecoming Game.

17  And then Saturday is good ol' Halloween! I won't be making it to the Homecoming Dance, mainly because I love Halloween and all that goes with it.

18  So it's been a fun-filled week, and sometimes I think I have the greatest job on the planet!

19  Moving on, Part the Second: The Heidi Chronz took on an interesting twist the other day. After my second period class, I looked up into the houselights and saw a rather strange glow, even pointing it out to a student, Chris Davis. I shone my flashlight on the glow, and then turned it off. The glow remained. I then walked out to the lobby, went back into the theatre, and the glow had disappeared.

21  Facebook has worked normally since I got on it, then it went haywire for two days prior to my stories, removing what I considered to be pertinent posts by both myself and by friends.

22   Yesterday we had a faculty meeting and were handed 3 X 5 cards with numbers on them. It didn't surprise me one bit that I picked a nine. It was our table number so that they could divide groups. Only the numbers stopped at eight, so I sat at table eight, even though I was a nine. I later saw that table nine had been placed next to table one, which caused a conversation to ensue all about nines and ones, almost five minutes worth. Because ones and nines play a role in the Heidi stories, I smiled that the conversation continued in the background.

23  It's a cool coincidence, but not as cool as last night's Seinfeld re-run. It had a running gag about the word "yadda", and THAT continued throughout the entire episode. In the Heidi stories, the word "yadda" spell-checked out to Audi (the name of the psychic who said we had "activity" and who worked for Sylvia Browne, and of course, "Heidi". Years ago my daughter's friend and she asked a Ouija board if there was a ghost in the YB Theatre. Lindsay stalled with eyes closed, then opened her eyes wide and shouted, "Yadda yadda yadda yadda!" She had no idea bout the spell check. This is always a great moment in the Heidi Chronz, so it is interesting that we had nines and ones in the afternoon, repeating, and "yaddas" at 11 p.m. during a Seinfeld re-run.  Just another set of what seems an endless deluge of coincidences. Carl Jung called it "synchronicity". Indeed.

20  Moving on, Part the Third: Looks like I'll be going to the gym beginning Monday. I re-joined the one by my school. I had left it because I didn't like the management a coupla years ago, but I'm going to give it a second shot. The last time I worked at this gym, I lost almost 25 pounds and got toned and stronger, ate better, and felt healthier.

21  I may even begin today; I dunno. I'm hoping to get in great shape by Christmas. It'll be my gift to my own health. I figure if I announce it here, I may actually stick to it again.

22  Welp, that's the news. Not much, really, but no news is always good news. Liked the nines/ones and yaddas. Keep 'em coming.

23   Peace.

 

~H~

 

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And Now...The NEWS!!!!

Happy Birthday Nicoley Bolyey Macaroni Hangin'on a Telephone Poley!!!

The Daily News

1  And many happy returns.

2  Lovin' it. Nicole had a class pic taken with the classes she is teaching yesterday, and it cuted me to smiles. Each kid had some story behind the ears and smiles, so it was definitely a great teaching moment.

3  She puts everything into her teaching, and still has to pull stuff out of a hat once in a while. That happened to her yesterday, and she had one of her best lessons ever.

4   We had one of those talks where we BOTH had AWESOME teaching days, which happens every now and again, although lately mine have been much more nows than agains!

5  It was fun seeing her learn how to improv when the carefully structured lesson goes awry. It's one thing to hang in there like a bad pitching inning, it's refined when she turns it into a dynamite lesson despite the setback. Therein lies the difference of a new teacher to a seasoned veteran.

6  She turned it around and it worked with her students. Can you ask for a better birthday present than to have a successful day with kids you are trying to reach?

7  Awesome, girl! Have a beautiful birthday!!!

8  Am I proud? Does it show? Haha, well yes, and yes!

9   Moving on: I had perhaps my own best day of the year yesterday with the Heidi Chronz. I know people probably think it's the same ol' schtick, but really, it changes from year to year. It changes because the story keeps happening, so the time frame for telling the story gets shorter with each falling leaf.

10  My challenge yesterday was trying to keep the story rolling while adding all the new things in recent years. The older stories STILL rock beyond belief, but the newer ones are more relevant to this batch of students.

11  If you know the Chronz, in several periods I had to completely leave out the time that we brought the lights up and down when setting them for Kristi Parker's singing of the song Winter.  Also missing from this year's stories were the stories of Moon Dreams and Blue Moon, when the entire cast heard a little girl singing Blue Moon backstage. Both are fun stories, but time took its toll on those.

12  Everything else rocked the house all day long. The theatre became ice cold during the Titanic stories for the first three periods in the morning. A ghostly glow lingered in a spot in the houselights right over the area of the theatre where the seats clicked in YB's theatre so many years ago. When I went to the lobby and came back in, the glow disappeared!  I naturally thought I must have adjusted the houselights, but when I got home, it occurred to me that I probably didn't.

13  Anyway, by the end of the school day, I had students who had no seventh period coming in just to listen, a full house, and an attentive one!

14  It's funny because I had been nervous the night before, practicing my pieces several times so that I would have the story down and scripted. In the morning, nobody was there to let me in the theatre, which never stopped me, so I managed to get in anyway, but the light booth was out. I had to depend on a lantern I bought at CPR, or whatever Long's is called now. It was great, a little $10 flickering Halloween lamp worked magic all morning, and it was darker than ever, AND it got cold!

15  I just got into a grand groove and never left it, all day long. The scares worked genuinely, I brought up newer things, like ATFNL's haunted house, and all the Van Gogh stuff during Lovebirds, as well as the newer "hauntings" that made their way up to the Chill-on-the Hill. I brought in many people who read the DN, countless in number, and so many readers of this should know that they are officially legend.

16  Added to all of it was the blustery, beautiful fall winds, which as this is being written are making the wind chimes celebrate in the darkness of my back yard.

17  I'm convinced my Mom puts herself into those chimes just to let me know things are cool. I'm also convinced my Mom has met Heidi lol!

18  Anyway, it was an awesome day every single period. The students held on to one another for dear life, laughed together, screamed together, and applauded in the end.

19  When I got home, I was buzzing for the first two hours, knowing that all the planning and work were worth it.

20  And it was 10-27-09, a 19 when you add them up. Ones and nines play a major role in the story. On my way to school, a school bus flew past me. I looked at its number.

21  It was a nine.

22  Not too many other modern occurrences, although I personally will place the vanishing and re-appearances of Facebook posts were a major part of this years Chronz, because the posts that disappeared or came back happened at moments that were clearly relevant personally.

23  Moving on, Part the Second: I was also honored yesterday to be invited to be a judge at this year's Homecoming, which is the fourth year in a row I have been invited by the ASB. I realize my position as a former Activites Director warranted a lot of it, but to me, it's always an honor to be a chosen to be one of the five or six judges. There's something fun about being a large part of EV's early history.

24  I guess that's about it. A happy birthday salute to a beautiful daughter, and a brag sheet about one guy who had a deliriously grand day. We all have them, and so it isn't such a great accomplishment as it is a thing that happens periodically to all of us.

25  Two days ago I had a bad one, and vowed to turn it around right away. It worked is all.

26  Always a great way to view bad days: sometimes they're just testing your character. It is always important to pay attention and to come out swinging the next day. That usually works, or at least it has for me.

27  This time it became an awesome day, which translates in this case into rocking memories not only for myself, but for all my students as well. It worked better perhaps than it ever has, and that's not a small statement.

28  I'm still buzzing from the adrenalin. I had a cool hat, cool tie, and everything simply worked, so I feel I won a championship yesterday. I had to share it, since I wasn't sure two days ago if I was walking in or into doors.

29  Yesterday they opened beyond all expectations, and past and present joined in a grand day.

30  Hope you have a good one today too!

31  Live life, love life. And another Happy Birthday to my gorgeous daughter Nicoley!!!

32  Peace, y'all!!!

   

 

~H~

 

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Heidi Chronz TODAY (TUESDAY)!!! Come see them LIVE!!!!

The Daily News

"Prepare yourself for greatness..."

Cat Deeley, MC of this season's So You Think You Can Dance...

1  Bring it on.

2  Great show.

3  Can't wait, since I'm no longer falling asleep at seven and awakening at one. Last night, I must admit, I conked at eight, but awoke at nine, much better than my insomniacal behaviors in recent years.

4  The nap was organic, just the result of an ordinary day.

5   I awoke and watched a delayed DVR of So You Think You Can Dance. Just awesome.

6   The only thing that worries me is that I also had a cup of coffee, which might possibly keep me up later, although I'm not sure. Sometimes coffee wears off and puts you out even worse.

7   Which is not something you want to do every night eether. eyether. eether. eyether.

8   Either. Long eeez. Otherwise, you sound HELLA stuck up.

9   We've been down that road.

10  Moving on: I'm going to present my one-man show, The Heidi Chronz, with all due respect to playwright Wendy Wasserstein, all day today in the Theatre up at the Chill-on-the Hill. You're all invited if you want to listen to my presentation.

11  The presentations will begin at the following times:

2nd Period:  8:15-9:15

3rd Period:  9:20-10:15

4th Period:  10:35-11:30

Lunch/5th Prep Period: 11:30-1:00

6th Period:  1:05-2:00

7th Period:  2:05-3:00

Evergreen Valley High School. Google the address and get a map. Keeps mashers away. Meet me at the Theatre door and I'll bring you in. Introduce yourself if I haven't seen you in a while; you look different yo!  Bring me a Venti Caramel
Frapp from Starbucks if you think of it. Whip it, and whip it good. My diet begins tomorrow, quite naturally.

11  I can't wait for this year's stories. I haven't reviewed my script, but will right after I mail out this early edition of the DN.

12  Many of you will be mentioned to my students. It's my own means of binding past with present.

13  I can almost guarantee Heidi will be there.

14  How?

15  Two times in the last two days I've heard the name "Heidi" mentioned. I haven't heard the name mentioned outside of regular discussions about ghosts in the past three weeks.

16  Also, Facebook has gone COMPLETELY wonky for me beginning on Sunday.

17  I can't totally explain it, but Heidi trips are sometimes like computer viruses. Everything goes along like normal, and every time the Heidi things start to happen, they happen in droves. There is usually a reason, and the reason usually is something that keeps me from doing something else stupid, or often, it solves a challenge.

18  Not enough room here to explain this more fully, but people who have followed the stories and coincidences over the years know precisely what I'm talking about.

19  Heidi solves problems. She also has my back. Truly.

20  By the way, I rarely use the word "problem" anymore, ever since '05, who taught me to use the word "challenge" in its place.

21  I thank me old friend and confidante Thuy Ann Le for teaching me that life's lesson.

22  It works. I just chose to use the word here because most people understand the word.

23  In my book, the sentence should have read, "Heidi solves challenges".

24  Much more accurate.

25  Anyway, I've rested the past week for this, tried remaining awake between 7 p.m. and midnight, avoided insomnia for four out of five days, and have been eating good foods. My voice should be strong and my memory stronger today (Tuesday, October 27).

26  It will be a bit different this year as it isn't Halloween, the traditional day for the Chronz, but this year, Halloween is on Saturday, and on Friday we have a shortened schedule due to Homecoming.

27  No matter.

28  The entire Facebook weirdness with meaningful posts disappearing, reappearing and going completely wonky gives me enough already to know something is up! Since I joined Facebook a few months ago, I've never had ANYTHING appear or disappear. Suddenly it starts. Coincidence? Of course, you idjit!

29  But the Heidi stories are all ABOUT coincidences. Each coincidence individually is just that: a coincidence.

30  What makes the Heidi stories rock is that coincidences happen on top of other coincidences to the point of amazement. To an outsider, it's just coincidence. To a person at the receiving end of these, year after year, it begins to speak.

31 The coincidences happen usually at two times: when I'm going through an emotional "crisis" (good or bad!) or at certain times of the year, Halloween traditionally one of the more pronounced.

32  So...Facebook all of a sudden stalling and acting strange when I wanted certain things posted at certain times is just the beginning. I will reiterate that up until this past weekend, I've NEVER had a post by either myself or a friend disappear. It's goes a bit deeper when I try to time my posts so that they are read at certain times. For example, tonight I want the DN to go out early, say before 11. I also wanted yesterday's post to go out before midnight, which it refused to do, which ALSO never happened before.

33  The fun thing is reporting all this and looking like a lunatic, but at this point in life, I'm quite certain that the Heidi stuff is quite real, and quite consistent. I say this with confidence because the stories themselves are factual, not figments of an over-zealous imagination. They are specific occurences that have happened at specific times, many times with lots of witnesses.

34  What I will deliver today will be the basics; the remainder of the story remains unreported simply because I don't wish to report the rest, which probably constitutes over 60 per cent of the real stories.

35  The story is all true, to my best recollection.

36   If you are still interested in the Heidi Chronz but can't make it to the school, you can find it by clicking this link:

http://www.ybdrama.com/The_Heidi_Chronicles.html

36  That should take you to the ybdrama.com website and should be the link that is the only document of the Heidi Chronz. Each year I try to update on Halloween, but each year something has always prevented it. I don't usually have time to pursue it, so it sits in those October leaves, but it still reads like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

37  Looking forward to it.

38   It is today (Tuesday) with five one-hour sessions. Something interesting happens every single year. With the addition of this year's Facebook scramble, it already looks as though it may just be business as usual.

39  So I'm going to send this off to Facebook first, then to the DN subscribers, a reverse of standard operating procedure.

40  Moving on: U2 fans should know that tickets for their Oakland concert later in the year go on sale TODAY!!! Quick announcement, and thank you Yvonne Carrera McGuire for the heads up. Get your VISA out and go to this website immediately if you want tix:

http://www.u2.com/tour/index/

41  I think that's about it for today. I'll re-post this one a few times probably.

42   Come visit.

43   Muhahahahahahaha!

44    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the link to the episodes:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc309/Speedy_Gonzalez_13/CryptS2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thehorrorenthusiast.com/2009/08/tales-from-crypt-complete-second-season.html&usg=__PBzJq8wLQzJb7fJzn0W-6-sYIsY=&h=471&w=350&sz=35&hl=en&start=1&sig2=33ZUQtZU9I3jz1RHYDH15A&um=1&tbnid=NUVTDsh4XsPx8M:&tbnh=129&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtales%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2Bcrypt%2Bseason%2B2%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1R2IRFA_en%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1&ei=i-7kSo6iEpPqsQP6kd3ODA

Angels Come Back to Beat the Yankees!!!!

Yankees lose,thuuuuuh Yankees lose!!!!

The Daily News

1  No matter how much we avoid enjoying it, it is always a triumphant moment when the Yankees lose! Great game, and great sports moment last night.

2   I LOVED it, all the way. I never minded the Angels for some reason, but always hated the Dodgers, and ALWAYS hated the Yankees, but only because it is the American way to hate the Yankees.

3   It's the right of every American to hate the Yankees. As anyone knows, I'm one of the most patriotic guys around.

4   I love America.

5   And I love when the Yankees lose.

6   Have I alienated enough people now?

7   Can't help it. I was raised that way. You've got to be carefully taught.

8   Moving on: So...Soupy Sales walks into a bar...

9   That one just doesn't seem to have too much mustard, poor guy. You'd almost think I was insensitive to this one, but fear not, I'm not.

10  But it was worth mention. First Saturday kids' show that didn't feature cartoons. I'd love to say he brought the idea of throwing pies in peoples' faces to an entire generation, but the Stooges did that years earlier, and at a much better pace.

11  Well, may you pie a WHOLE buncha people who made it to heaven, Soupman.

12  Moving on, Part the Second: I heard that great old tune Welcome Back by John Sebastian on KOFY teevee last night, channel 20. I sorta bounced away in a Lovin' Spoonful sorta way when it occurred to me that I had NO idea that KOFY teevee ever disappeared. Even when I was a kid, which was a LENGTHY time ago, I never really watched that station.

13  It was sorta mellow, as I recall, so I ignored it, by and large. I assumed it was still around even though I didn't bother checking.

14  Happens to people all the time.

15  The older I get, the more invisible I become.

16   Occupational hazard.

17   Ah, vell. Welcome back, I KOFY.

18   That tune ironically became the signature tune to an old show about a teacher, Welcome Back, Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan, a show that featured John Travolta before he went platinum.

19   Well, all you can say is that it's just another slow news day. When Soupy Sales and Gabe Kaplan run the news, it's time to call it a week. It's like Friday gave up on vigor or something.

20   My goodness.

21   Moving on, Part Three: NBC must be wondering what they were doing when they decided to move Jay Leno to the ten o'clock slot. Simple show biz logic dictates that FOLLOWING the news is a much better spot than OPENING for the news. What made Leno great was his time slot. For many, it was always the very last thing they would watch before launching into a good night's sleep, or in my case, into an insomniacal nightmare.

22  Leno saved many DN's over the years with some great jokes, puns, headlines, interviews, and clearly, raw talent, and split-second timing. If he's smart, he'll re-examine the decision and move back. His new show is abysmal, and the time-slot absolutely absurd. Whoever caved and allowed that should be assigned to an assistant coach position under Tom Cable.

23  And anyone placed IN that spot with Leno still acitively putting on an early night dog-and-pony show should have been redesignated to Siberia. Last night's show, for example, had some semi-Amish looking guy strumming a guitar and pontificating for five minutes on Daylight Saving Time, which midway through he switched and called it "Daylight Wasting Time". <are you KIDDING me?>

24  The show is low-budget, ill-produced, poorly written, and horribly paced. Astonishing. And his late-night "replacement"?

25  I'll lose the rest of everybody on this one, but come on. Conan O' Brien? He always tried like crazy to be edgy, but always came off as a guy who could make marijuana addicts nod and think he was fresh and over-the-top. Uh...nah. He always looked to me like a guy stumbling through a bad hangover, ill prepared, and rarely funny. Contrast to Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel, both of whom are likeable, prepared, and genuinely funny, particularly Ferguson, who always manages to knock my socks off.

26  Leno's show still rocks, although his new hairdo is a bit ridiculous. It's almost like he is jealous of Conan's red-headed-surfer dude head shake, which always seemed to annoy me at all hours of the night. My, oh my. After a while, I just switched over to Ferguson. SO much more natural talent. Jay. You're not fooling anyone dude. It would be like me putting a bowtie on my combover. Turn back before it's too late.

27  Welp, I think I still have one guy still out there reading all of this. The nice thing is, it's Frideeeeeee!!! I can duck out, get my fourth straight good night's sleep, and be ready to come in and throw on Monday morning.

28   Meanwhile, the rest of you still reading all this folderol should have a beautiful weekend. Still missing you all more than you'll ever know, so just remember to live life, love life, and give someone who deserves it a great big hug.Have an awesome weekend.

29   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 

 

 

 

 

  The Daily News

1  I guess the little things make us survive on a daily basis.

2  For me, the Phillies' champagne shower and clinch of the National league pennant worked, and if I may, only because it sent the Dodgers packing, always a pleasure.

3   Mind you, I don't mean that for me; I mean that for America.

4   The country has been through a lot. What it didn't need was a Dodgers-Yankees series.

5   So...the L.A. Dodgers' dreams walk into a bar...

6   All right, so it might sound like sour grapes, but it's really not...

7   It's for America.

8   Any fool knows that.

9   Moving on: So now Dodgers' fans can join Giants' fans in knowing what is going on in Glee.

10  Moving on, Part the Second:  Last night I went into my third straight night of sleep without insomnia. Almost didn't make it, since I conked out at around 8:15, but awoke soon thereafter to watch the Phils feast on the Bums.

11  Because of the rest, healthier eating, and longer nights of sleep, I was able yesterday to hold court on Haunted Houses of California, an overview of the immortal book by Antoinette May. I think that I gave the incorrect title in yesterday's DN, so this is a correction.

12  Fortunately I've reached a point in life where I'm not that bummed out about something like that. In my earlier days, I'd have had an apoplectic fit. In the world of 2009, shoddy journalism seems to be embraced; idiocy is forgivin, and the real news clearly not as important as the daily yellow journalism that passes for accuracy.

13  Nobody cares, and if they do, they look like raving madmen.

14  The news is so easily controlled these days that the country thinks exactly the way the moguls want them to think. If we want a swine flu scare, everybody will fall in line, and make sure that everybody is squirting hand sanitizer and frowning on anyone near them who dares allow a sneeze.

15  To be honest, I caught myself doing that in the past few days. The fear worked: I bought two bottles of hand sanitizer, thick rolls of Kleenex, two boxes of Sudafed, and even plopped a coupla Airbornes into a large coffee cup, and poured water in, allowing me chemically to remain pure in the germ warfare scenario, the government's latest and best effort at scaring us to death. <sigh>

16  Half a minute! Sweet Caroline is making the nation sing on Glee tonight. Hands are up, with or without hand sanitizer!!!! Liberate!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMV4QevheIA

17  Whew. Intense one-minute song, but for that one amazing minute, I felt the entire country throwing their hands up and singing, "Sweet Caroline! Springtime never looked so good...!!"

18  It's funny, but that beyond-corny song has brought Tahoe to its feet each summer for the past ten years. When I was younger, Neil Diamond struck me as a bit of a greaseball Rico Suave sorta Vegas guy. Over time, however, his music has become somewhat of a campy fun go of it. The past ten summertimes have seen us grab  guitars and rock the Lake with that tune. Always a fan fave!

19  Glee. I swear to God. Well named.

20   Ah, so fun.

21   Moving on, Part Three: Reverting back to item 10, I entered my third straight night of getting a good night's sleep after beginning the week with a horrible bout of insomnia, worry, and stress.

22   I figured rightfully that the stress and emotional duress were clearly the result of sleep deprivation, and I was clearly right. Yesterday I walked into the school day with energy, poise, and a lot of renewed vitality. Although it didn't work perfectly all day, I was able to stave off voice loss and to deliver an overview of California haunts, and to answer questions and field comments by the students.

23  They did the rest, which I've been doing more and more this year; letting THEM teach and correcting/explaining what they share. It's great fun, and seems to work time and again.

24  Sidebar: Glee is doing I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady! First off, I absolutely LOVE that musical because I absolutely LOVE George Bernard Shaw. He wrote Pygmalion, the play on which My Fair Lady was based.

25  I also love that musical because the guy who wrote the music, Frederic "Fritz" Lowe, did lots of odd jobs as a younger man, including working as an amateur boxer!

26  I always wondered if that song was inspired from Lowe's pugilistic meanderings at a younger age.

27  The show included the great tunes, "Wouldn't it be Loverly", "Get Me to the Church On Time", "With a Litte Bit of Luck", and the immortal, "I've Grown Accustomed to her Face". Alan Jay Lerner, whom Fritz met in a New York bar, where the two ran into one another on the way to the bathroom. As the story goes, Lowe approached Lerner and said, "I understand you write lyrics," to which Lerner replied, "Well, I understand you write music". The rest, as the saying goes, is theatrical history. The former prizefighter and the lyricist went on to create such epic pieces of musical history as Brigadoon, Camelot, and My Fair Lady.

The late, great Frederick Lowe.

28  Ah, useless information, but always a bit of fun. A poignant moment in "Face" is when Henry Higgins, the intellectual puppeteer of Eliza Doolittle finds a moment when he realizes that he misses her terribly. He sings, "I've grown accustomed to her looks, accustomed to her voice, accustomed to her..." and he hesitates with perhaps the greatest pause in musical history, followed wonderully by a solo violin playing "I Could Have Danced All Night". The film score has this moment down, and it's a great listen, each and every time.

29  All this from a prizefighter.

30  Well, it's ten p.m. as of this writing, rather than 3 a.m. I'm wide awake due to a nice cuppa coffee I downed midway through this, but I'm going to relax a bit, and then get to sleep early for the third night running.

31  I'll wake up, mail this off, and then post it on the ubiquitous Facebook.

32  When you all awaken, this will be on your doorstep. Hope you enjoy a nice morning cup of your favorite beverage, a bit of a smile, and a beautiful morning.

33  You deserve it. Make someone smile; let someone know you care. And live give it your very best today.

34   And for all you do...

35   Peace.

The fighter still remains.

~H~

 

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 

 

 

 

   Heidi: The Early Days...Untold

Tales from Back in the Day!!!

The Heidi Doll from the classic ATFNL Haunted House, 2005.

The Daily News

1  The last time I complained about a slow news day was on 9/10/01.

2   Absolutely true.

3   I remember distinctly wondering why I cared about Chandra Levy and Gary Condit, and the entire mystery surrounding the murder of Levy.

4   It occurred to me at the time that we had become a nation of chowderheads. I complained in the DN about it.

5   Unfortunately, I don't have the archive with me. My online archives begin in 2002, even though the DN dates back to 1996. I have hard copies dating back to 1997, but they remain in storage. I still insist that the DN is the world's first blog, though it was in paper and posted on the wall in the Performing Arts Building beginning in the Spring of 1996. Personal claim to fame. 'Course nobody cares but me, but that's how life rolls.

6  Anyway, enough of that. That leads everywhere.  ;  )  <-------little sideways winky guy

7  Let's Move Forward: Back to slow news days: I just remember distinctly having been overwhelmed with how shallow we had all become that this odd sad murder case became the thing of drooling scandal.

8  Condit admitted an affair, but not to the murder. If you think about it, even if he HAD murdered her, he still would probably have denied it. To me, it sure LOOKED as though he was guilty, what with his swagger and with his coat thrown over his shoulder.

9  The following morning, that story disappeared virtually forever when the World Trade Center towers were hit.

10  Ever since then, I've been excessively nervous about slow news days.

11  I'm now a firm believer that no news is good news, and that good news is grand news.

12  Amazing how we all made it this far, innit?

13  Moving on:  I received my first Heidi Chronz update from me old friend and confidante Yvonne Carrera, who was one of the first ever to use a Ouija board to try to reach "the other side". Interestingly, she talked of how she borrowed a Ouija board from Luis "Beto" Banuelos (sorry, no teeeeelda man) and how a group of kids would hide in the boys' dressing room and play with the board.

14  Yvonne reported how weird the entire place felt, a feeling that passed its way down through the years. There was always a sort of heightened awareness when much of these things would happen, something I was to learn a few years later. At that point, even though I was pretty young, I patrolled the use of the board, mainly because I didn't want it to travel through the school that I was allowing "conjuring", or really, allowing any sort of "rituals" to go on.

15  New teacher. You wanna make points, and I knew how news can get distorted. I figured if I didn't lay the hammer down, I would have some sort of fluky reputation that might border on a devil worship and boiling cauldrons.

16  Yep.

17  Even back then.

18  I always wanted Halloween to be a fun day where we would tell a few ghost stories, talk about legends and oral tradition, scare a few people, and walk outside to the bright November days knowing we had a great session.

19  I'm setting that up right now at EV.

20  It's always AWESOME, no matter how many times I've done it.

21  But I always had the presence of mind to keep it as "storytelling" as possible. Any time someone would want to "reach" the other side, I would back off, which was pretty wise, if I may be so bold.It was about stories, oral tradition, legends, and really, pure fun, like ghost stories around a campfire.

22  I've a million stories of those sessions, many of which I'll never remember, but always an amazing afternoon, when weird things would always happen. I also recall in the Fall of 2005 our construction of a Haunted House in the Theatre proper, and of the great tribute room which we called simply The Heidi Room. We made the Haunted House for Anti-Tobacco Friday Night Live (ATFNL) club, and it really was a lot of fun. I especially loved the Heidi room, which consisted of spider webs, a fireplace, red lighting, and dolls, with a Heidi doll looking over the entire room.

23  It wasn't creepy, even though it was designed to have been. It was a silent salute to the mysterious entity that has been a part of the YB Theatre for years and years.

24  She did, incidentally, follow me up to Evergreen, I'm quite convinced!

25  I've told this one also, but like so many other things, it bears repeating: the very first time I went to work at Evergreen in August of 2006, I was excited to be moving away from the emotional aftermath of '05 and into a new dawn, a new day, and all of that.

26  I drove up Quimby Road right up to Ruby, the corner that begins the entrance to the EV world.

27  Right before I hit the stop sign, a car cut me off, flying right in front of me. I was mad, but not too, because it was indeed a bright, beautiful day. I smiled, and then glanced at the car in front of me.

28   I looked at the license plate of the car, which we all do every now and then.

29   It read "High T 2". Sound it out.

30   I smiled, and moved into my new place.

31   The Halloween's followed with some remarkable coincidences: lights going out when I would mention lights going out, massive coincidences at Halloween, too numerous to mention here, and the entire heightened sense that was present in the boys' dressing room all those years ago.

32   You would need to hit the bharrington@xanga.com link in order to navigate to some of those DN's. I documented a lot of the things, but I always feared boring people with ALL of the coincidences, so I just kept the greatest hits. For every one coincidence archived, I probably had three or four more that went unreported.

33  I thought ALL of it was fantastic!  I'll go back maybe later tomorrow and check out some of the better ones, but they included bounce-backs from the Starry Night sessions when I wrote a play called Lovebirds. Some Van Gogh things that were absolutely amazing at the time, and when I reported them to the EV students the following year, I opened a Daily Spark journal book randomly during the sessions and turned right to page 81 (numerologically a 9, right?). The page was entitledStarry Night. I had just mentioned Starry Night the day before, as there was a series of remarkable coincidences surrounding that. I also opened my ghost book, the classic Haunted Houses of California by Antoinette May, and it randomly turned to the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. I had just purchased tickets to The Jersey Boys the day before. The Jersey Boys played the selfsame Curran. Those two things happened within seconds of one another. There were more in that brief five minutes, but let's just let that one marinate.

34  It's all WAY too much to include in this brief overview, and perhaps some day I'll report the entire story, up to the minute, because it keeps happening, and I keep loving that whoever Heidi is, she is certainly a spiritual continuem.

35  Always friendly, always there when times would get stressful, and always there rapping and tapping when music is in the air.

36  Too long a story for the uninitiated, but always a grand story. With the addition of Facebook, I now have access to people who were directly there, and therefore a LOT of corroboration, for Heidi didn't do things in front of me alone; she quite often did things in front of large groups, most of whom would shrug each thing off as coincidence.

37  But sometimes when the "coincidences" move entirely beyond the realm of the causal, we must turn our heads to the acausal, which always makes me smile.

38  Don't know why, but it always assures me that there is something way more than all this folderol. It manages to steer us to something bigger, perhaps. If you get struck by lightning once, you figure it's a coincidence. If you get struck by lightning nine times, it's providence. Something like that.

39  And so it begins. Yesterday I introduced my students to ghost stories, and they are bringing stories from diverse cultures for sharing today. They'll practice telling the stories in groups, and next week we will have three days of amazing sessions.

40  Heidi will be there. Coincidences and wonderful craziness will ensue. It will get cold in the theatre, as it always has.

41   And it all begins with the seedlings being brought in today.

42   I'll keep you posted.

43   Thanks for listening, and stay tuned...

44    Peace.

A friend of Heidi, also in the room.

 

~H~

 

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Daily News

1  Indeed, the verdict is out.

2  Presently living with the wheezes and the sneezes, but unsure as to whether I'm actually sick, or just exhausted from intense versions of insomnia in the past week.

3  Finishing up doing the grades took a huge toll on me, changing all hope of trying to work an intelligently arranged schedule. I was up late, up early, sleepy, and knocked around.

4  Occupational hazard.

5  The night before last, I awoke at some ungodly hour and couldn't get back to sleep. I worried about lots of things about which I had utterly no control, and then when I tried to get back to sleep, found my chest filled with the wheezes and the sneezes.

6   I jokingly posted on Facebook that I wondered if my students would notice if I took a snooze in the afternoon.

7   I was only partially joking. Well, actually I was totally joking, but in the back of my mind, a nice snooze would have worked beautifully.

8   I naturally chose NOT to do that, and somehow made it, and then conked out when I got home. Sound familiar?

9   October.

10  I took around an hour afternoon nap, and then proceeded to bubble up an amazing chicken soup in the tradition of Original Joe's. Lots of carrots, celery, and onions, and a lot of other dandy ingredients made for an amazingly close cure to the common cold.

11  I then fought to stay awake for the rest of the evening in order to prevent the insomnia that usually hits me at two or three a.m.

12  Well, it SORT of worked. At around 8:30 I conked out, but awoke an hour later, and decided to have a bit more soup to see if it was a fluke.

13  It was spot on like Joe's! Yeah, cold 'cuz I didn't bother to heat it. Ever just take a scoop of something from a Tupperware? Okay, I confess! I'm one of those guys!

14   Anyway, it held its own, so I then walked around, trying NOT to put on a small pot of coffee.

15   I have some Starbuck's Sumatran that is pretty much dynamite.

16   I'm not certain how that would work. My experience with coffee is that it gets you really awakened, but within two hours, one is fast asleep in Sluggoland, a place where we not only sleep, but sleep sluggishly.

17   I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but it seemed like a great plan.

18   Still thinking of doing an offshoot; that is, of drinking a cup of YESTERDAY'S coffee. It seems more tame. Making a pot of coffee at 10:30 at night seems a scary thing, even though I've had coffee this late many times before.

19   Welp, it hasn't been easy this week.

20   My voice is completely annhilated from the wheezes and the sneezes, and I don't know that I should be going in to teach.

21   But I don't trust anyone to do the job. I've worked the students into a discussion mode, so I may be able to do it. Plus, I'm not sure if the wheezes and sneezes are the result of lack of sleep, or of whatever. I'm not feverish, so it's really difficult to tell.

22  Ah, vell...

23  Moving on: nothing like writing twenty some-odd items about one's struggle with personal stuff. Makes for great journalism, right?

24   Let's move on to coincidences and October.

25   Moving on, Part the Second: The only thing that has happened in the past few days is that I found a flyer in a delicatessen. The flyer advertised Heidi's Hens, which amused me. It's some sort of organic turkey farm so people could go green this Thanksgiving.

26   I looked at the turkeys on the cover and they were running around a meadow looking stupid.

27  The thought of eating those poor fellows struck me as wrong, well, at first. Reminded me of those wild turkeys that run loose through Grant Park. So peaceful and harmless.

28   My sympathy never transferred over to the chicken soup for some reason...

29   Ah, cheap hypocrisy!

30   Anyway, the most interesting thing about this Halloween season is the absolute lack of coincidences, especially with all the nines and ones that travel through this particular Halloween.

31   With the Heidi stories, the numbers nine and one have always been an integral part of the coincidences and oddities that have chased me through time. I always LOVE when a good coincidence hits, but this year, they've stayed remarkably tame.

32   They won't, mind you, especially now that a Heidi thing has entered the realm. Yes it's just a brochure, but once it happens the coincidences and oddities start moving in at a locomotive pace. If you hit the xanga site at the bottom of this page, you should be able to browse older DN's, where many of these coincidences have been recorded for posterity.

33   If you want to read the Heidi Chronz, they still lie rusting in the weeds on the  ybdrama.com website, which is practically extinct. Each year I try to get them onto this xanga series, but each year I try, something stops that from occurring. So the major part of the story remains on that once rich website:

http://www.ybdrama.com

34   I throw this out there because ever since I hit Facebook, I have re-associated myself with many of the people who were there early on. I'd love to have those guys read the Heidi Chronicles on the ybdrama.com website and hit me with an e-mail about their own recollections. I'm sure very many will corroborate the stories that I share with my students. My e-mail address is gfharrington@aol.com. I'd love to hear things from the perspective of people who were there.Here is a fast track to the only full version of those stories ever compiled:

http://www.ybdrama.com/The_Heidi_Chronicles.html

35  Read those first, then see if you could answer a few questions for me. The questions I always get are these: How did you reach Heidi? How old was she? WHO was she? How did she die? Why does she follow me around? She was a good spirit, to be sure, but were there any bad ones? I rarely have answers to those questions.

36   And most of the people from the Ship of Fools era haven't yet reached me on Facebook, although Paul Long has been in careful touch. John Williams is also out there, but I don't know if he would remember the night he came into the Theatre and asked if anything having to do with Heidi had come up.

37   We were ready to do a rehearsal for Ship of Fools, the Titanic scene, and I told him just to watch. It got freezing cold, and all the seats clicked during the entire scene.

38   I also have Paul Castor and Jason Cuascut who were at those sessions. If memory serves, I kept asking for the lights to raise and lower in order to get the stars bright for Kristi Parker's singing of the song Winter. The lights adjusted up and down, and when I thought it looked perfect, asked Jason to come out into the house to take a look at the stage, so he could see how awesome it looked, like a night sky.

39  Jason popped out from stage left, even though the lightboard was located at stage right.

40  We closed the Theatre that night, immediately, for the first time ever, in absolute fear. That was probably the only time "Heidi" ever scared the shit outta me!

41   Anyway, if you have some detailed tales, send them my way. I'd love to see how close the stories come to my own accounts, which I noted and marked down when they happened so they would be accurate down the road.

42   Well, it's down the road right now, so send me your recollections of Heidi on my e-mail, again which is gfharrington@aol.com.  I'll gather them together and see what I could do with them. An update with accurate accounts by other witnesses might do much to enrich the students' enjoyment of the Heidi Chronz this year.

43   Aight then. I think this DN is done for now, and it's still before 11 p.m. I may be able to sleep through the night tonight.

44   But first, I think I'll bubble up a little coffee and slide over to Facebook...

45   Haha. For the record, I wound up going to bed early and slept peacefully all through the night. Between items 43 and this one were well over six hours of peaceful sleep. Finally. = )

46   Peace.

 

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington