The Daily News

1  So...Peter Graves walks into a bar...

2   Impossible.

3   It must be a hoax.

4   Ah, perhaps not. So another one bites the dust.

5   Thank you, Mr. Phelps. You helped make the world safe for democracy.

6   Good place.

7   Hope he meets my Mom.  She could always make you think the impossible possible.

8   Moving on, Part 1: I THINK I made it through the Ides of March. Who knows?

9   It's a little bit funny ( ; ) ) 'cuz I was pretty superstitious yesterday. Not in a bad way, but our school decided to make The Ides of March a big deal. Of course, I became instantly superstitious and spent all day Sunday making vocab lists for both English 1A, who are doing Romeo and Juliet, and English 2, who are doing Julius Caesar.

10  Ride with me here.

11   I must have spent four hours on Sunday writing glossaries for both, in hopes that the students will begin to understand some of the odd language of the Bard.

12   I spent a LOT of time on this project, knowing full well that yesterday was the eternal Ides of March. Another teacher prepped the entire school with posters that said, "Beware the Ides of March!"

13   I jumped on that bandwagon and told the students all about the Ides of March, and EVEN the Ides of February!

14   I got to school especially early so that I could run both vocab lists in repro. I made sure that I followed every safety rule of the road on the way to school.

15   I was SO eternally careful to make SURE that I wasn't jinxed lol!

16   When I finally got back to the classroom with all my stuff, I realized about one minute before the bell that I had run ALL Julius Caesar stuff and NO Romeo and Juliet stuff.  Somehow, I wound up with about a million vocab lists for JC, and NONE for R and J!

17   Just shoot me, haha! FML, right?

18   My first class were R and J English 1A's, and I had to tell them that they had to write definitions that I would dictate, including spellings and definitions.

19   They naturally balked, squirmed, and gave me a buncha noise about it.

20   Instead of throwing the text through the windows and turning into the Tasmanian Devil on them, I quietly walked out of the room to get some air. They were STILL stunned, because I'm usually so patient and nice about nearly everything up at the Chill. I used to have one major annual blow-up at YB, but calmed it when I reached the Chill-on-the Hill.

21   AnywayZ,  I quietly walked out for a breather, and then returned to an astonished room. They thought I was MUCH angrier than I was. I actually walked in quite calm because of the beautiful weather outside.

22   From there, I dictated the entire thing by the seat of me pants, but did a dandy job of it.

23   I finally told them to make sentences out of the words I had somehow miraculously managed to lecture, and was able to look through all six-thousand Caesar handouts, and of COURSE, found the R and J master around three sheets short of a ream, which was sort of how I felt by the end of the period.

24  Well, I managed to get all the words to them, run to repro and run the remainder of handouts, so that everything finally worked.

25  They were a bit pushed, but the assignment got off without a hitch.

26  I then took to grading older papers while they created new ones.

27  In the midst of the day, I decided to goof off a bit on Facebook, and graded papers simultaneously.

28 Moving on, just a little:  Near the end of the day, I ran across a vocab sentence that read hilariously. I was trying to give them words that had the prefix "mono" in it, meaning "one", as I assume most of you are aware.

29  Their job was to create sentences using the words correctly.

30   I realized that I had included the word "monocle", which most students have NO concept of in 2010. I insisted they try, giving examples of guys who wore monocles: Mr. Peanut, The Grand Duke in Cinderella, and other guys from old movies and such.

31   When the sentences came in, one guy had written this:  "Mr. Peanut in Cinderella has a monocle."

32   You tell me. I almost went over from laughter, because the kid obviously knew what a monocle was, but mixed up my examples.

33   The entire image of Mr. Peanut somehow being a part of the Cinderella story smashed me!

34    I instantly went on Facebook and reported it, but Facebook has billions of people trying to throw something else out there, so the entire thing got lost in the shuffle of Farmville's, Mafias, and all the rest.

35   I absolutely LOVED it, because it is everything that teaching is all about.

36   After school, I pulled out my guitar and started learning the immortal Across the Universe, only because I found a list of cool songs that once came into my life a few years back.  It was an AWESOME list of songs, and I thought I might even either make a playlist for my iPod, or just learn all of  'em!

37  So it turned into a pretty prodcutive and beautiful day.

38   Write it in your heart.

39   I got most of the guitar work down, and am now just trying like crazuh to learn the words.

40   So...life, right?

41   The best laid plans...

42   AnywayZ, no harm done.

43   Life is good.

44   Life is very good.

45   Live life.

46   Love life.

47   Do the impossible today.

~H~



www.xanga. com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1     Yippeeeee!

2     Are you as happy as I?

3     I have no idea why I should be happy, what with my garage door now fixed to the tune of about a million dollars, but I just AM.

4     If you really are interested, I should be back up and running on the Internet by later tonight, and all the other stuff seems to have also corrected itself.

5     Meanwhile…

6     Ah, who cares?

7     I have no idea about anything that has happened in the past twenty hours.

8     I can’t care, really, because it has all done what it wanted to be done.

9     I just know that this quite interesting week saw me trying like crazy to fix things that just didn’t want to be fixed.

10  It matters not. All I know is that with all the stuff that went down, I am personally emerging quite triumphant.

11 Am I tired?

12  No way dude.

13  I just wanna fight.

14  The new DVR is already on the kitchen sink, another cool hundred.

15 And as stated, the Internet will be up and running by tonight.

16 I’m out around a million dollars, but I think this week still worked wonderfully.

17 Why?

18 Because I realized that things don’t make our lives any better. It’s the people around us who enrich our lives, every single day. Old friends suddenly surfaced this week; my Dad had a beautiful Sunday last week, my grades were done, and my family made me laugh.

19  Life taught me an awful lot in the past week. So despite all the surface bad things that went down, the things that were important shone through.

20 So I head to this weekend knowing what I’ve always known: things will seldom make us happy. Money isn’t the most important thing in life, nor are fancy clothes, expensive things, or anything else. What gives us life is life itself, friends, family, health, laughter, music, and honest, familiar things.

21 Anything that isn’t genuine is cosmetic and false.

22 I’m into the real deal.

23 Feels good.

24 The sun feels good.

25 The rain feels good.

26 Have a beautiful weekend, and get to what really works. Somewhere in all of this it is listed.

27 Live life.

28 Love life.

29 Peace.

~H~

Corey Haim 1971-2010

The Daily News

1     So…Corey Haim walks into a bar…

2     Way too young, way too young. It's almost impossible to say how that moved me. Tough thing to watch, indeed.

3     Yeesh.

4     As always, it puts everything into perspective.

5     Moving on, Part the First: Last night I sat down and read the first couple of scenes from Julius Caesar. It’s funny, because I have come to depend on the internet for good knowledge, of which there is much if one knows how to navigate.

6     Having only one source of information at my fingertips challenged me into reading JC on the spot. Oh, I have Shakespeare books out in the garage, but they are high up in a heavy box, which is a back injury looking for a place to happen. PLUS I would also have to look at the broken springs on my garage door. Themz varmints looks angruh.

7     I really wanted to read up on the Feast of the Lupercal, in which young men “back in the day” would run through the streets of Rome nekkid, and would strike all the unfertile wimminz in the head using a sandal. As I recall, the wimminz who got stricken in the head would become fertile.

8     The play begins on the Ides of February, the underrated “ides”,since Caesar gets shanked on the Ides of March, the “ides” being the middle of the month. The Ides of March are much more famous than the Ides of February.

9     I love the stage directions in Act 1, Scene 2, when we first meet all the characters. I imagine a cast sitting at a read-around at the first gathering of the company, reading the following:

[A flourish of trumpets announces the approach of Caesar. A large crowd of Commoners has assembled; a Soothsayer is among them. Enter Caesar, his wife Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, and Anthony, who is stripped for running in the games.]

10 The fun thing is thinking of the guy who gets to play Anthony.

Amazingly there are side-notes for just about every other line, but nothing on those stage directions.

11 Yet ANY company doing the show would instantly all turn to the poor guy cast as Anthony, and laugh, unless they are a haughty group. I loved the way they try to keep it ambiguous. “Stripped for running in the games…”

12 That stage direction might get past English 2 students, but it     

wouldn’t get past a sharp cast, and it certainly wouldn’t get past the guy playing Anthony!

13 What’s funny is I KNOW directors who are purists when it comes to

scripts. Now I was never a prude, nor even remotely prudish in my comments, but I would never put in scenes that might get backlash from audience members.

14 The REASON I worked pretty clean with scripts was simply I didn’t

have time to create any situation that would require taking time to go down to the office and fight for the First Amendment. For one thing, I knew that in general, I would more likely than not win that one, believe it or don’t.

15 Every show was always a race to the finish, with enough real-life

roadblocks: outside groups who wanted to use the Theatre, Principals who needed to have meetings, clubs that would get into the Theatre and not respect the work being done, or other clubs and organizations that would use the Theatre as a playground. None had any training in the actual mounting and organization of staging a production except students of drama.  

16 I fought a million battles over the years, and won nearly every one of

them. So nope, I would instantly have put Anthony on the spot for a second, insisting he would have to go au naturel, but really, I would have brought in some sort of cover. I never saw a reason to have some dunderheaded administrator pull me into the office and argue over those sorts of issues. I would either chose shows that kept away from that sort of thing, or just re-write slight directions so that the above stage directions might read: […and Anthony, who is wearing an Alaskan otter coat and large mittens…]

17 ;  )  ß------sideways cool winky guy.

18 Uh…dude.

19 Do you KNOW who you’re dealing with here?

20 LOLz.

21 Lots o’ Lovin’.

22 Moving on, Part the Second: Some band is on Jimmy Fallon right now singing a song that sounds like the guy is singing, “It’s terrible I’m walking in Spandex…” The band kicks ass, but I’m not sure about the lyrics.

23 I didn’t get the name of the band, so I grabbed my remote and tried running it back.

24 The DVR is out. Forgot.

25 So I decided to Google it.

26 Access denied. My internet is down.

27 Decided to go to the store for some well-deserved chocolate.

28 Can’t get the garage door to open…

29 Decided to finish up writing the DN, and then returning to Julius Caesar. I’m thinking of having the conspirators use squirt guns to kill Caesar, so we don’t get into any First Amendment concerns with parents who feel it’s too violent.

30 Whatdya think?

31 These are, after all, all honourable men.

32  Anyway, that’s the best I could do working on a shoestring last night.

33  I think I’m going to take the high road outta here.

34  I hope y’all have an excellent Thursday.

35  As always, fly low.

36  Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1     I had the best thing happen yesterday.

2     First thing in the morning the garage door spring broke, so I couldn’t get a car out of the garage.

3     I got to school and had a glorious day, culminating in the completion of my grading.

4     I got home, and my internet modem crashed, so I have no internet ‘til Friday.

5     The DVR also crashed.

6     The second I got home, three things that normally would have sent me over the edge all crashed down, and I just smiled.

7     Best thing, honestly.

8     Why would I say that?

9     Because I became disengaged from the insults of Facebook, the checking for e-mails from parents, or from wayward friends, the nightly fun of writing the DN, the blue-light insomnia that happens at 3 a.m. when I can’t sleep and I go online, and almost all things mundane and mechanical.

10  I suddenly realized that I could walk outside and look at the stars, or see visions in clouds, or feel the wind on my face.

11  I also realized that I could actually talk to people.

12  You know, it sounds a bit cliché, but we have become a nation of Twitterers, Aimsters, Facebookers, emailers, texters, cell-phonies, and all the rest, and we have lost the fine art of conversation, and of communication with other human beings. In some regard, we have learned that we can ignore, disregard, and even toss friends right out of our lives with virtual ease. Somewhere in all of this, we have gained so much, but in many other ways, we have lost our hearts, and perhaps we have lost our very souls as well.  

13  Most of our daily interactions tend to be in short bursts, and how little time we spend talking over things, sharing, and getting into relevant, or even irreverent discourse anymore.

14  I’ve almost lost friends because of this, because people misinterpret things, and never think things through, or more importanlty, talk things along.

15  Turning off all the machines for a day or two can give us time for reflection, and time to think and allow our thoughts to become more clear and logical.

16 The very fact that I could walk across the hall and talk to a friend without asking permission to be a friend seems liberating these days.

17 How absurd! When you REALLY think about it, how utterly absurd!

18  Yet that’s the world that has been created for us, and into which many of us have now entered.

19  We begin to lose our own identities in that world.

20  I’ve been feeling that way for around a year now anyway, but it’s interesting when you are suddenly without all these “things” that make our lives so much better.

21  Logical things suddenly occur. Clarity of thought enters the thought processes, and many things that were unclear become crystal clear.

22   The grade I gave that kid WAS accurate, despite the parents telling me that the kid insists I must have lost twelve or thirteen assignments. Each marking period. Uh…no?

23  It’s interesting that the “loss” of all the electronic marvels seems to coincide with Daylight Saving Time this weekend.

24  I’m thinking of getting my hands off the computer and into some mud.

25  Or of picking up a guitar and finishing up some songs.

26  I may even look at the stars.

27  I may even look how they shine for you.

28   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 
 
The Daily News

 

2   I have a tendency truly not to care.

 

3   I think it's the blue-collar guy in me. I believe that EVERYBODY deserves an award in their OWN lives just for waking up each morning and being unappreciated.

 

4   It was fun watching Jeff Bridges win, and then stumble through his lines of acceptance. There are always good moments. But for the most part, we have scripted stuff, unfunny lines, and a lot of schleppy stuff from Hollywood.

 

5   It is always a tough DN, because everybody wants an angle on all of this, but believe me, a little goes a long way.

 

6   To me, the lady who helps me each time I go into Walgreens should win an award for "Most Polite Clerk With Interestingly Amazing Concern About Everything I Buy." Nicest lady you could meet. Never an award, so far as I know.

 

7   Always with some sort of thing like, "Oh, I just LOVE Quaker Oats' bars! They're so wonderful!"

 

8   Hey, she doesn't have to do that.

 

9   So as always, I just wish to acknowledge all the everyday Joe's who come in each day to their jobs (if they HAVE jobs!) and always deliver. We ALL have people like that in our lives, so let's give THEM awards, instead of a bunch of people with inflated egos.

 

10  Sandra Bullock received the Best Actress and Worst Actress awards all in the same night. She actually delivered a somewhat fun speech, but then took it a bit further than it needed to go.

 

11  But really?

 

12   Let's thank the REAL people who work hard for us in our lives.

 

13   To ALL of you who really DO work to make things better, I give YOU my accolades, for what it's worth.

 

14   Moving on, Part the First: Well, we're on the road to getting grades done, which is always an interesting ordeal. It takes a ton to do, and is usually met with nothing short of absolutely nobody really caring at all.

 

15   And the award goes to...

 

16   I really think I'm hitting that groove in life where we start to roll our eyes at nearly everything.

 

17   Fortunately, I still love nearly everything, know absolutely NOTHING about The Hurt Locker, could care less, and continue to live life, and to love life.

 

18   And of course, not really to take any of it seriously.

 

19   I'm more interested right now in the correct way to open a banana, for example.

20   I think we've been down this road before, but my daughter Caitlin brought banana-opening to my attention earlier this year.

 

21   She asked me which end of the banana I tended to open: the part that hangs on the tree, or the other end.

 

22   Like most people, I answered, "Why, the part that hangs on the tree!"

 

23   Her response was that monkeys open the OTHER end.

 

24   Who knew? A monkey would know, but he sure as heck isn't going to tell you.

25   Who knows anyway?

26   Anyway, I just figure that's a pretty important issue, and if what K.T. says is right, it could revolutionize lunch for billions of caring people.

27   This moves me deeply.

28   Moving on, Part the Second: Does it ever strike you as remarkable the amount of Mondays in a year?

29   I assume there are 52, which really IS an extraordinary amount.

30   But that's 52 Sunday nights as well, when many people start getting nervous about the rest of the week.

31   Interesting cycle, life.

32   We make our meek adjustments, each and every day.

33   I am once more reminded of the great poem Chaplinesque by Hart Crane. It has been a major poem in my life since I first ran across it so long ago when I did my first Show at YB. It was called simply, Silents, and to this day remains one of my fondest memories.

34   And here is the poem that dovetailed with the Show:

Chaplinesque by Hart Crane We will make our meek adjustments, Contented with such random consolations As the wind deposits In slithered and too ample pockets. For we can still love the world, who find A famished kitten on the step, and know Recesses for it from the fury of the street, Or warm torn elbow coverts. We will sidestep, and to the final smirk Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us, Facing the dull squint with what innocence And what surprise! And yet these fine collapses are not lies More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane; Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise. We can evade you, and all else but the heart: What blame to us if the heart live on. The game enforces smirks; but we have seen The moon in lonely alleys make A grail of laughter of an empty ash can, And through all sound of gaiety and quest Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.

36    Always has.

37    I hope you all have a wonderful Monday. Mine is looking pretty good, all things considered.

38    Live life.

39    Love life.

40    Peace. I love you. Read Chaplinesque again.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

Sweets for the Sweets?

The Daily News

1   Did I read correctly that medical marijuana in Santa Barbara has made its way into classrooms in the guise of lollipops and sweets, and that a student recently got sick as a result?

2   Well, yes.

3   Evidently medical marijuana has been put into cookies, candies and sweets, and definitely made it to Santa Barbara High School a couple of days ago, and indeed, a student did get sick from it.

4  Wow.

5   I think they are beginning to lose the marijuana battle, not sure. It's been around forever, and is still pretty controversial.

6   Probably not a really good thing, because I used to think it should be legal, because the myth was that it was WAY safer than alcohol. We coulda taxed the stuff, made it legal, and put money into the state.

7   I don't know that I believe that anymore. I hear it is WAY stronger than "back-in-the-day", so if it IS, then it does become a bit scary knowing people are heading out in cars and driving while they are "faded". On the other hand, it clearly has tremendous value with people who need it for medical purposes. Yes, there could be abuse, but dude. There'll be abuse whether it's legal or not, and moving towards legalization also is a move towards controlling it's strength, and what goes into it. I think I know how I feel about it, but I just had a green lollipop, and I can't remember how I feel about it. Uh, yeah? Think I'll put on some old Hendrix. LOL! Lots O' Lollipops? I feel like having pizza and chocolate bananas. I'm not sure. Huh? Wow...look at the colors...I love puffy clouds. Do you? Hungry...must...have. sleeeep...sleepy...g'night ^^^^^^^zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...cofffeeeeee......

8   Well, interesting, that's for sure. Of course, in Santa Barbara, you could probably walk around and stay not only safe, but surrounded by beauty. Why drive when you could float?  ;  )   <----cool winky dude

9  Moving on, Part the First: Well, the Giants won, and even scored EIGHT runs yesterday! It doesn't matter, but reports are in that the weather in AZ was gorgeous. Lincecum got a bit roughed up, but so...it's Spring. Maybe he went to Santa Barbara for a little candy before floatin' over to AZ...

10  M' bad.

11  Moving on, Part the Second:  Yesterday I did lighting design for the music concert tonight. It's the first time in years that I went up high and aimed a few lights, shuttered bad focuses, and re-aimed some ellipsoidals.

12   I know it SOUNDS creative and wonderful, but really? I was scared to death. I had to go up a vertical ladder that went straight up to like 30 feet, and at one point felt like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchock's Vertigo, and then had flashbacks to when I was on the ladder at Half Dome and heard fierce winds and thunder blowing beneath me.

13   In the end, I wound up with a pretty nice light design, but it was pretty eye opening. Quite a rush!

14   It didn't help much that as I went up the ladder, me old friend and confidant Steve Barnhill began bellowing Phantom of the Opera from the tech window.

15   Mutual friend of me and Ponch, wouldn't ye know.

16   They have a show tonight, and my prediction is that our orchestra is going to blow everybody away.

17   Can't wait.

18   Anyway, I managed to work a pretty nice light design, albeit all white wash, which is seldom rewarding to light designers. I LOVE working with color, but it just wouldn't quite do it in a high school music concert. Still, it is a nice design, if I do say so meself.

19   Moving on, Part the Second:  Our girls' basketball team, who did a Threepeat in league play, lost in the second round of CCS playoffs last night. It was a barn burning game that went into overtime, and with around 18 seconds left, Menlo Atherton had a girl lift a three-pointer,  from which we came back and got within three, but lost at the last second on a really close attempt at a three at the buzzer. It missed by inches, and our girls went home deflated and sad beyond words. Emotional, because many of them had played together for years, and were now done. We all tried to keep their spirits up, but it really was an emotional time.

20  Heartbreaking, since seven seniors saw their last game slip past them at the selfsame buzzer.

21  Crushing, but an amazing battle that could have gone either way. They took league, finishing 14-1, so they had a GREAT season, and brought some amazing skills to a lot of us. I'm really proud of them, and believe they deserve more than mere mention in the DN. They were nothing short of awesome!

22  Moving on, Part the Third: The hard rains will finally subside this week. I like that, even though we could always use a little more wet.

23  I just think of the Beatles: Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting.

24  Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear.

25  Here comes the sun! Here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right...  = )  <----this guy.

26  Indeed.

27  I hope you all  enjoy the sun and skies the rest of the week.

28  I have awesome lessons coming up, and can't wait to deliver.

29  Life is getting gently sweeter.

30  Let us pray.

31  Live life.

32  Love life.

33  Peace.

~H~

www/xanga.com/bharrington