Month: November 2010

  •   

     The Daily News

    1   So...Joe the Bear's ear walks into a bar...

    2   A few days ago I was fishing around for a blind light socket, and I knocked Joe the Bear onto the floor.

    3   He's SO cool. If you are a DN fan, then you know that Joe the Bear brings peace to the Earth, sort of like Gandhi, or Jesus, or maybe even Snoop.

    4   He is this figurine who just sits and lets me know that you have to keep an even keel if you are going to enjoy the true things that matter in life.

    5   Joe's deep.

    6   It's clear that he wasn't bothered by the dis-earring, but I felt mortified.

    7   I guess that's the difference between the human and the etheareal.

    8   M'bad. Ethereal. I know that. I also know what it is. It's what you do in the morning. You ethereal.    ; )        <---------- sideways winky guy, and yes, that's two groans it two items.

    9   Well, I finished all my grading early on last night, and now I just need to enter all the data into the database.

    10  Yeesh.

    11  Database.

    12  If you will.

    13  At what point in life did we suddenly depend on "databases"? We're all turning into bots.

    14  It's the end of innocence, I tellya.

    15  Anyway, after tomorrow I'm free as a bird.

    16  Grading papers at a high-achieving school. Climbing Everest in a blizzard. Same thing.

    17  But I just planted a torn flag into the snow, and smiled like a Sherpa.

    18  I'm gonna keep this one short today, because we have a minimum sched. We still have to go to meetings, but isn't that the bane of our existence nowadays?

    19  Dude.

    20  Who invented all of this anywayZ?

    21   I just keep laughing, and poking the world on the nose and running, like a juvenile goof in a bear cage.

    22   Life's WAY too short to take all the stuff we take on a daily basis seriously.

    23   So I won't.

    24   And you shounnnint either.

    25   That's the way my students say "shouldn't".

    26   Shounnnint.

    27   No rest for the wicked, I well imagine.

    28   Anyway, don't expect much. I'm off for a coupla days for Armistice Day and its good friend and confidant Veteran's Day.

    29   So no DN's 'til next week.

    30   In the mintum, I'm gonna try to see what's up with the new AOL, which absolutely can't figure out what to do with itself.

    31  Someday I'll explain why I stay with that imbecilic company.

    32  Right now though, I'm completely spent.

    33  I feel like a boxer who was pummeled in the first fourteen rounds, but who now raises his hand in bruised and bloody glory. My eye is swollen, and my nose bleeds mixed metaphors.

    34   And you know?

    35   The fighter still remains.

    36   That's it.

    37   So much more to say, but I ain't sayin' it.

    38   Have a restful and marvelous weekend.

    39   I'm outta here.

    40   Time to get Zen, hit the coast, and spring free.

    41   Peace.

    ~H~

    a cool guy 1 cool guy

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

     

    a a a joe 2

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


  •  
    And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
    You shout and no one seems to hear.
    And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
    I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

    ---Roger Waters, Brain Damage
    The Daily News


    1   There's all this music playing, and the frosty air just now froze my fingers.

    2    How out of sorts.

    3    Wasn't the last day of summer last week?

    4    How does it happen?

    5    Ah, I dunno.

    6    It's 12:06. That's after midnight.

    7   I'm out of sorts.

    8   I'm not really sure what that means. I mean, I KNOW what it means, but I don't know why it means it.

    9   Right now I don't know a lot of things, because music is playing, and my fingers are frozen, I swear to you.

    10  I just finished all my grading, and the Flight of the Valkyries is playing sort of loudly in the other room.

    11   Same song that sorta played somewhere when the Giants won it all.

    12   Only while I was winning my own personal World Series, I had The Birth of a Nation playing on the teevee.

    13   Strange, strange, racist movie, considered one of the greatest of the silents.

    14   D.W. Griffith's purported masterpiece.

    15   Also a favorite of the Klan.

    16   Go figure.

    17   I left it on, just to goof on the Lincoln scenes.

    18   If you've seen that Geico commercial with Lincoln being brutally honest to that woman, it is clearly copped from this terribly strange "artsy" film.

    19   Oh, I imagine.

    20   Just horribly strange.

    21   Lincoln.

    22   I went out into the yard in order to look to the stars for inspiration, and my fingers got frostbit.

    23   I went inside to brush my teeth, and almost knocked a tooth out with the toothbrush.

    24   Crazuh.

    25   I fought all year to keep ups with the grading, and I think I got it. I just have to double check numbers, my goal six weeks ago to get it all done tonight.

    26   I'm actually a day or two early here, for the first time in my ridiculous life.

    27   To a teacher, every six weeks we have the equivalent of four finals going on, and a relentless, ruthless deadline. At the Chill it's borderline madness.

    28   I hit the ground running this school year, and had loads of work to grade from the git go.

    29   I deliberately don't work every single night because I have wanted to get to bed early. To me, it is important to give my mind, body, and spirit to staying alive, organized, and on it for each day of lessons.

    30   I succeeded this entire year, staying pumped up and super active every single day.

    31   Today I'm not so sure. I haven't been up this late in a long, long time. I don't ever want to drag and look exhausted to the students, so each day this year I've jumped into each class fresh as a daisy.

    32   But I conquered this six weeks, at least I hope I did. I've never had larger challenges, and somehow, by some miracle, it all worked last night.

    33   And the film continues to play loudly in the other room, with tons of classical music that has brought in a lot of minor chords to major songs.

    34   It's just all so WEIRD.

    35   AnywayZ...

    36   We have just three days this week, due in large part to Armistice Day, and it's strange doppelganger Veteran's Day.

    37   They've two-ed it up so that we get Thursday AND Friday off this week.

    38   They're playing this tune that sounds like "Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light..." but it has minor chords traveling through it. If you know music, they've made a minor chord on the word "can", giving the entire feel of the Anthem one of brutal angst.

    39   Such an odd little night.

    40   I feel like a madmen with frozen fingers, and with music.

    41   I feel like my joints need some fire.

    42   Whoops.

    43   That came out wrong. The lunatic is in the hall.

    44   I'm hungry. The lunatic is in my head.

    45   Time to go. I have a saloon to run.

    46   Have a GRAND Tuesday.

    47   So, so weird.

    48    We're all mad.

    49   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

  •  

     

     

    "I guess there's two things that'll always be in the world--dirt and homework."
    --Wally Cleaver
    The Daily News


    1  Hey, Wally!!!!

    2  Yesterday was yet another emotional day. First, my wonderful daughter Nicoley moved out. A lot of things simply stood unspoken, but Miss Harrington is in her first year teaching, and finally has a place of her own.

    3   She's all growed up.

    4   This year she and I talked teaching in between innings, and any time life handed us a moment or two.

    5   We both prepared on weekends, during Giants' torture, and ultimately, during Giants' becoming World Champions.

    6   We exchanged war stories every chance we could.

    7   Anybody who knows Miss Harrington knows that she can tell a story better than anyone on the planet.

    8   I think that I'm pretty good at storytelling too, but her daily anecdotes kept me smiling and loving this amazing profession. She takes storytelling to a level of pure art.

    9   Anyway, about a week ago, in the midst of all this Mid-Fall Night's Dream, I happened upon this dog-eared book called Life According to Beaver. The author, Irwyn Applebaum, who, in his Foreward to this charming book, stated: "Let me offer my 'because', as Beaver might say, my excuse, why an adult from a respectable family with two Ivy League degrees and a responsible job found joy and happiness working on a book about the Beaver."

    10  Amen, my good fellow.

    11  He called it "a special understanding of what it means to be a kid."

    12  Last Christmas Nicole gave me a box-set of this lovely old sit-com, and we spent parts of the summer watching episode after episode, and laughing at the love, the laughs, and a philosphy of life from the perspective of a kid.

    13  Our favorite episodes, naturally, were of how much school plays a role in our eventual makeup as adults, in a world that is clearly distant from those innocent days.

    14   And to any kid, school becomes the center of a kid's universe.

    15   When I listened to Nicole tell me stories of her own kindergarten class, I teared up, and laughed beyond anything since the days of yore that painted my own young days, which only now seems like a water-color painting that has dried out in the weeds.

    16  So yesterday morning, while we were recovering from Saturday antics, grading papers, preparing classes, and all the rest, I read some amusing excerpts from Applebaum's book to Miss Harrington while she sipped coffee, probably with her mind attached to the move, and lots of other things. My rantings about the book were a bit secondary on a busy morning, but the excerpts from the actual scripts started the day off exactly the way a day like that should start. She heard the stories, and I'm guessing on second glance, will smile this morning.

    17  The book is extraordinary, and you almost want to paste a cover of Beowulf over it so people don't know that you are reading something so goofy.

    18  But today's DN is going to include excerpts from the wit and wisdom at the very heart of the Cleaver household.

    19   So sit back, and enjoy the ancient philosphies of life in black-and white. It is as pure as Shakespeare, as anguished as Socrates, and as soulful as Aretha.

    20   Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you the chapter called quite simply, "School". It's a great way to spend ten minutes on a rainy Monday morning.

    21   So hold on to your baseball caps! Here go:

    **************************************************************************************************
    Beaver:  Dad, in business, how often do you have to invert fractions?

    Ward:   Well, almost never, Beaver, but that's not the question. Solving problems like these teaches you how to thinik and prepares you for your future life.

    Beaver:  Gee, I didn't know school prepared you for anything. I thought it was just something you had to sit through.

    ***********************************
    Beaver:   I hope it's one of those neat colleges like I see in the movies where everyone is always singin' an' havin' fun all the time.

    Ward:  Beaver, let me tell you one of the hard facts of life. There just aren't any colleges like that in the whole world.

    Beaver:  Yeah, I kinda figured that. I didn't really think any teacher would get up and sing lessons to his class, even if he was Bing Crosby.

    *********************************

    The Duck

    by Theodore Cleaver

    3rd Grade

    Once I wished I was a duck
    Cause most ducks have lotsa luck
    They swim around all day in a pool
    And most never have to go to skool.

    Then I saw a duck
    Hanging in a Butcher store
    And I didnt wanna be
    A duck no more.

    *********************************
    Wally:  You go in the morning, and if you've done your homework, it's all right. If you haven't done your homework, they holler at ya. That's all there is to school.

    *********************************

    Beaver:  I didn't write it dumb--it came out dumb.

    *********************************

    Eddie:  Hey, on problem number five in math, what did you get for an answer?

    Wally:   What did you get?

    Eddie:   I got three good answers.

    Wally:   Let's see, mine came out to 61.873.

    Eddie:   Very good.

    Wally:   Is that what you got?

    Eddie:   I got it now.

    Wally:   Come on, Eddie. What are you trying to pull? Besides, the teacher is going to want to see how you arrived at the answer.

    Eddie:   No he won't. I got a gimmick. The solution I write out real crummy; the answer I write out real neat. By the time old man Brownley tries to figure out the solution, he's so shook he's happy to settle for the answer.

    ***********************************

    Dear Miss Canfield,

    I have received your note dated two days ago, the one sent home with Theodore. I have whipped him, his father has whipped him. He is sorry, we are very sorry.

    Your friend

    Mrs. Ward Cleaver
    (the Beavers mother) [crossed out]
    Theodore's


    **************************************

    Dear Miss Landers,

    We are all shocked by what Beaver said. Especially his wife, who is a lady. I have washed out his mouth with soap and beat him up three times. I hope, because I have done this so good, I won't have to come down to school.

    Yours truly,
    Ward Cleaver, Theodore's father.


    ***************************************

    Judy:  Miss Landers, while we were pledging allegiance to the flag, Beaver was looking out the window. And I don't think that's very patriotic.

    Miss Landers:  Beaver, you're supposed to look at the flag; you know that.

    Beaver:  I was loking at the flag outside on the pole.

    Miss Landers:  Well, from now on, we'll all look at the flag inside. Now, as I started to say---what is it, Larry?

    Larry:  If we're pledging allegiance outside, do we have to look at the flag inside?

    Miss Landers:  We'll have a discussion on that some other time.

    ****************************************

    Beaver:  You know somethin', Mom--our lima bean died yesterday.

    June:   Your lima bean died?

    Beaver:  Yeah, our class was growin'it on a piece of blotter on the windowsill. Some of the guys say it died the day before, but I think it died yesterday. We still got our potato though. It growed a new wart on Monday.

    *****************************************

    Eddie:  Hold it Alvin, hold it. I can see you're getting the wrong picture. You don't measure college by the courses they can give you. It's by the fraternities. Look, pay attention close. You guys can graduate with your Ph.D.s, your B.A.s, whatever, but just let me get next to a fraternity brother whose old man is the president of some oil company, and I got it made.

    Wally:  Cut it out, Eddie. It doesn't matter who you get next to. You still have to have an education.

    Barry:  That's right; the whole business of who you know instead of waht you know is out the window.

    Eddie:  Aw, hold it. I can see you guys are going to need some briefing. Look, you're up in the frat house filling up those bags of water to throw out the window. If the guy  you're filling those bags with is a senator's son, he can do you a lot more good than old Professor Glockenspiel in the science lab!

    *******************************************
    Wally:  Look, I been going to school all my life. You can't get in trouble by keeping your mouth shut.

    *******************************************
    Beaver:  Hey, Richard, look at all the books.

    Richard:  What do you want to look at books for?

    Beaver:  Our teacher, Mr. Blair, says that books are our friends and they speak to us.

    Richard:  Tell me one book that ever said, "hello" to you.

    Beaver:  It's just a teacher expression, like, "Let's put on our thinking caps." If you wore a hat in the classroom, He's send you right to the principal.

    *********************************************

    Beaver:  The principal sent for dad?  Oh, boy!  Wally must have done this time.

    June:  What do you mean?

    Beaver:  Well, when you're a little bad, you get sent down to the principal. And if you do somethin' badder, he gives you a note for your father, but when they ask you to bring your father into school, you know you've had it. (Happy thought) Hey, maybe Wally will even be expelled!

    *********************************************

    Miss Landers:  To deliberately miss a day of school means that you don't respect your school or the value of an education.

    Beaver:  I respect the school. I never write on the walls or anything.

    Miss Landers:  Beaver, you might have learned something here today, no matter how small, that might have stood you in good stead the rest of your life. Why, it's just as though you took a day out of your life and threw it away. Do you understand that?

    Beaver:  I think so. I guess if I'm going to throw any days away, I should do it with a Saturday.

    Miss Landers:  Well, Beaver, I don't think it's wise to throw any days away, but especially school days. There's so much to learn, Theodore, and so little time to learn it.

    Beaver:  Well, I'm sorry, Miss Landers...and to make up for what I didn't learn today, I'll learn twice as much tomorrow as I'm supposed to.

    *********************************************

    22   That's it. A brief look at School through the eyes of students.

    23   Timeless, charmless, and so simple.

    24    I have to go in now and finish up grades, holler at students who didn't do their homework, and enjoy a chuckle or two, an occurence that happens each and every day in the classroom.

    25  Miss Harrington reminds me a lot of Miss Landers, and I wish nothing more than a lifetime of tears, laughs, and inspirations, all of which go both ways.

    26   And thank you, old man Applebaum, for getting all of that down on paper so that the rest of us could re-visit the wonderful world of school.  Great writers, wonderful old show. Old school, in all it's glory.

    27   It's Monday.

    28   Hope this brightened your morning.

    29   And thanks to Beaver, Wally, and all their goofy friends for keeping it pure.

    30   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

  •  

    a a a sparky 1 sunset

     a a a me 5 skull and roses The Daily News

    1   I feel sort of like astronauts must feel when they hit air on re-entry from space.

    2   Everything has slowed.

    3   Don't get me wrong; it feels like a return to reality after having danced through the cosmos for the past week.

    4   Anyway, I digress.

    5   Sooooo...Sparky Anderson walks into a bar...

    6   And as far as I know, Sparky Nguyen is still torching it up on sound, and doing shows.

    7   Who knows?

    8    I've been away from the Earth for a few months, and it is really weird trying to get back to a sweet spot.

    9    Last night's sunset turned into a pretty good spot, for example.

    10  Moving on, Part the First: It seems it isn't just the DN porchers have felt the wrath of AOL. I have been in touch with my friends from high school for a few weeks, and we have been having a baseball/nostalgia fest going on with emails back and forth.

    11  Yesterday I tried to respond to the group, which consists of eight to ten great friends from high school.

    12  I sent off an email last night, and it returned, unable to deliver.

    13  This just in: AOL, if you have uprgraded, why have you downgraded? Imbeciles. I'm about ready finally to change to G-mail.But I won't. But allow me to vent for a few seconds.

    14   AOL: LISTEN! You have done this crap to your faithful for years now, but this one, COMPLETELY unannounced, romps clearly ridiculous. I could switch to any other company, import all my friends, and get my DN back out there.

    15   <Pauses as smoke shoots out of his ears>  

    16    Dig it.

    17    "We have grown..."  --John Lennon, Starting Over

    18    Sorry. Just had a Lennon moment.

    19   Okay, so I must finish grades, and then get to you.

    20   But seriously...you failed during the greatest week of my life.

    21   And dude, you'll pay.

    22  You will pay. Except that I'm always hesitant to do this. I'm afraid I'll lose track of people. So you won't pay. I'll have to figure out why you suddenly can't deliver a group of ten people my emails. And the thing about it is, I haven't the time to mess with you.

    23   Moving on, Part the Second: Well honestly, it's nice to return to the wonderful work of KFOG, 97.7 FM.  Always a wonderful drift at sunset, and boy, did anyone see last night's sunset? Oh yeah, I already asked that. Yeesh.

    24   I actually had time to throw out a barbecue and salad, a new commitment to health, and a great dinner, while this thing drifted with Cirrus' clouds that were strawberry pink, and the sky an delicate light blue.

    25  If there was a hummingbird out there, he enjoyed it.

    26  Colors swirled, and my head swooned. Exhaustion had finally settled in.

    27  Mind boggling. It was like my Mom dipped her brush into the delicate pallette that exists only in heaven, and brought her beauty on the world.

    28   Mom.

    29   Yeesh. What an artist.

    30   You're not supposed to think of your Mom as gorgeous, amazing, talented, and eternal.

    31  Sorry to pop your bubble.

    32  My Mom was, and Is.

    33  She proves Heaven exists, at least in my frabjous mind.

    34   So thanks Mom, for understanding the importance of re-entry!

    35   Be back, gotta have a moment.

    36   Okay.

    37   I need rest. Nicoley moves out this weekend, and I'm really gonna miss her.

    38   Two teachers. She's becoming amazing. She loves teaching, and is really passionate about it. Is it without frustrations? No. But she has hung in there and has now had a few moments.  She just left for school. Moment.

    39   Thankfully, she's moving pretty close.

    40    Anyway, Coley, your daddy is going to miss you.

    41    I think that's all I have left in me on this incredible, incredible, emotionally draining  week. It was without a doubt one of the longest weeks of my life, even though it had just as many hours as any other week.

    42   So I'm gonna sleep a bit more, and then get ready for the last day of the longest week of the year.

    43   Relativity.

    44   Particles.

    45   I need a miracle every day.

    46   G'night.

    47   Good morning.

    48   Peace.

    ~H~

    a cool guy 1 cool guy

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

    a a a giants 4 baseball shirt

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     



  •     
    The Daily News


    1   Some will win, some will lose; I gotta write the Daily News...

    2   Ha!

    3   I had EVERY intention yesterday of going home and catching up with my grading, which is truly all I do nowadays.

    4   But first there was a guardian of a student who wanted a full blown explanation of why she didn't do well in my class.

    5   Then there was my favorite student who needed a recommendation to get in to a voluntary medical program of some sort.

    6   Then there was the faculty meeting in which we had to completely re-vamp the grading system in the District.

    7   Then there was the moment of actual relaxation, in which my friend Gemma and I sat on a park bench and enjoyed the afternoon chatting.

    8   I thought if it rained, we both would have turned to copper, and turned into a rusted bird bath.

    9    Then there was going home, and turning on the orange-and-black Parade.

    10   THEN there were all the texts and emails from old friends and family, still enjoying the Moment.

    11   Then there were more tears and amazement at the entire Bay Area miracle of the Giants. It's gone beyond the unbelievable, and on to the surreal.

    12   I could make any number of cheap analogies, but I do think that the Santa Cruz gnarly image sort of works with me.

    13   I'm gonna simply ride this wave. No guilt, no boushit. Catcha wave and you're sittin' on top of the world.

    14   Catch a surreal, gnarly, orange-and-black wave...

    15    That's "Way it's at" man.

    16   All apologies to anyone not ridin' this one all the way in.

    17   I LOVED the parade, and I wasn't gonna let it pass by.

    18   This is arguably the greatest month of my entire life.

    19   Ah, except for one thing.

    20   Nicoley moves out this weekend, and the boxes suddenly appeared. That's my baby; that's my girl.

    21   I naturally avoided going into the loft and pokin' around, because my Dad and I MADE the loft, and it is an area of the house where memories merge with spider webs and dust.

    22   So my heart is getting packed up in old boxes with cracked tape and all, and somehow moving back into the living room, like some sad wraith.

    23   Fortunately, she's moving right around the street, so I could go to her new apartment and work out in the gym, and still swim and all.

    24   After all, this November is the arrested development of the summer of the Ages, right?

    25   Last night I went to turn on the midnight Giants' game, and some horse's ass was talking about the Tennessee Titans.

    26   Uh...who?

    27   I hear Warriors and Sharks somewhere in the wind, but to me, it's STILL all about the Giants, at least for now. I'm living in the Moment.

    28   Moving on, Part the First: With all of this orange-and-black blubbering and essential love fest, I almost forgot that I was the number one hack reporter on the planet.

    29   Not good, not good.

    30   My AOL special forces haven't even been getting the DN, because AOL decided to upgrade by downgrading once again.

    31   Their "upgrade" did one thing: it has prevented me from being able to do mass mailings. Thanks, AOL, for the usual stupidity. Your improvements are pretty supportive of someone who has been with you since you were invented.

    32   Moving on, Part the Second: At yesterday's meeting on restructuring grading, one teacher suggested we should be able to give F minuses to students who refuse to do any work.

    33   He said that the group thought of calling them FU's, but decided against it.

    34   HUGE applause from an overworked staff.

    35   Moving on, Part the Third: I ALSO dropped the ball a bit on the Heidi Chronz, and any subsequent Heidi trips.

    36   Only two, and one might have been a plant.

    37   On Tuesday, while students wrote vocab sentences on the board, a student in my last class of the day picked up a playing card that he claimed was on the rug in front of the room. It was a nine of clubs, an exact replica of one I found on a sidewalk last year, and which I eventually tore up. Before I did, a student pointed out that the nine of clubs shapes an H. Okay. True.

    38   I still claim that he brought it to class, but his sincerity seems pretty, well, sincere.

    39   So I can't really call that a Heidi trip.

    40   But this next item I can.

    41   Yesterday I reviewed the Poe stuff: Annabel Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Raven, for my students.

    42   During my third period class, which seems to be Heidi-friendly, it turned cold when I reviewed Cask, if I may refer to it in it's abbreviated state. Not unusual, because I constantly have to change the temperature in my classroom because of the huge windows.

    43   The second I finished reviewing The Raven, an enormous black crow smashed into my skylight window, which is high up on the front side of the room. I didn't see it crash, but almost thirty students did. I definitely heard it though.

    44   Just another coincidence in a seemingly endless amount of coincidences. My first year at the Chill, I worked a volleyball game, and was caught there until around ten at night.

    45   I was in the Activities' office inside Cougar Hall when I heard a flutter go past my right ear.

    46   I looked up, and saw that a blackbird had landed on the small tee-vee in the office, and was quirking it's head at me.

    47   Okay, if you've ever read The Raven, one thing the narrator mentions is the odds of a black bird entering your chamber. Here is the excerpt:
     
    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
    Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
    Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
    With such name as `Nevermore.'


     
    48  I'd love to say, "Amazing" but I won't.

    49  Well, it's late. The other night I found one of my very first DN's online. It had eleven items.

    50   How I ever got it up to over fifty is beyond me, but it just seems that it needs to be done.

    51   So it's almost 4:30 in the morning right now, so I think I'll call it a night. I did sleep from around eight to about 3:30, so this is really not categorically insomnia.

    52   But I still have a saloon to run.

    53   Happy November.

    54   I'm outta here.

    55   Peace.

    ~H~



    www.xanga.com

     
















      

     

     

     


  •  a a a me 90 1 dish a a a me 5 skull and roses a a a circus 2 the one nines a a a barbara billingsley 2 bbq in pie town, new mexico, circa 1940 The Daily News

    1   Wow.

    2   Back to normal.

    3   I must tell you, I had NO idea what winning a World Series does to a person.

    4   Almost the moment the Giants won that final game, I absolutely fell off the Earth.

    5   I simply was struck dumb.

    6   It isn't often that I have absolutely nothing to say.

    7   But it all caught up with me, as it did with a lot of people.

    8   The moment outshone the words.

    9   I tried writing the DN, but it felt that nothing I could put into words could match the feelings of exhaustion, emotion, and finality that coursed through me.

    10  I wrote something, but can't even remember doing so.

    11  I know one thing: I stayed up all night, even though I slept.

    12   KNBR played each game all summer at midnight, at least I THINK it was at midnight. I would often put it on right before I would go to sleep, especially during some of the tortuous games.

    13   The other night, I fell asleep at the computer. The radio kept blasting all around me, but I fell into a dizzying stupor.

    14   So I listened to the entire game, all through the night. 

    15   Yesterday morning I awoke from a night of what seemed like no sleep, and listened to the Murph and Mac show on KNBR.

    16   Brian Murphy, who wrote a coffee-table book on the history of the Giants, was stumbling and mumbling the same things that traveled through my own mind: the words couldn't overcome the emotions.

    17   Now HE was taken to the stadium as were many employees of the Giants. He hadn't really missed a live game all year, as far as I could see. So his voice croaked raspiness and disbelief, and somehow, he made it through not only having watched the entire game from the highest seat in the stadium, but he somehow did an all-nighter, and never slept, but simply started his job immediately following all that incredibly emotion.

    18   He just kept telling his audience that he thought reporting back to everyone what had just taken place would be easy, but that it was much harder than he thought.

    19   Tell me.

    20   Yesterday vanished. I died, and felt like a ghost. I somehow managed to get throught the school day, but clearly was a corpse.

    21   I don't think my students noticed, because I have certain things that happen on certain days, but the unreal, unearthly day traveled around me like a juggler having madness balls frozen all around him in mid-air.

    22   I taught, answered emails, graded papers, all seemingly normal, but something was eerily unreal all day.

    23   During my last class of the day, while students wrote vocabulary sentences on the board, a student saw a card on the rug in front of the room. I never saw it, but he turned it up and showed it to me.

    24   It was a nine of clubs, and it formed an "H".

    25   I didn't buy it. I'm fairly certain that this guy "planted" it just to mess with me. 

    26   He swore he found it. 

    27   I say no way.

    28   I tried not freak out too much. I had an interesting experience with a nine of clubs last year, and wound up tearing it up and throwing it into the recycling. 

    29   So even that didn't really penetrate the absolute strangeness of the entire day. 

    30   I simply couldn't get anything done. I couldn't write the DN. I couldn't MAIL the DN. I couldn't manage to text back all the people who texted me when the Giants won it all. 

    31   I managed to get out to the polls and vote, which I'm quite glad I was able to do. I also found my way to Kinko's in order to have some sort of lesson plan for today.

    32   I had another teacher take my shift at supervising the volleyball game last night; I simply couldn't do it. 

    33   Last night I sat down to write today's DN and conked out again at the computer. 

    35   Brian Murphy thought that he was going to die yesterday morning. 

    36   I totally relate.

    37   Last night I was out at like around eight p.m., once again completely unable to think, or to write, or to grade any papers. 

    38   I couldn't even muster the power to write a recommendation for one of my best students, something on which I pride myself. I'll get it done today, but usually I'm pretty amazing at getting that done for people. I've missed one or two over the years, but most times I've been sensational in that area. 

    39   Anyway, last night I awakened at 11:30 p.m. and was finally rested enough to get to the keys and hammer this guy out. 

    40   The words still don't seem to want to do what I want them to do, but Murph had the same thing happen. Someday, maybe. But right now, no way.

    41   So today at 11 a.m. San Francisco throws one of the biggest parties of the year, certainly the biggest one since the turn of the new century. I'll miss it, of course, because of work, but somehow I don't mind. 

    42   Anyway, yesterday during the said vocabulary sentences, a student wrote "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" on my board. 

    43   I laughed, figuring that we are nowhere near the holidays.

    44   I then realized that it is November!

    45   But it's still eighty degrees outside. But my garden still has color. But we're still playing baseball...

    46   And Thanksgiving is in a few weeks. 

    47   Unreal.

    48   Unreal.

    49   I still feel this was all a dream, very much like Bottom in Midsummer. 

    50   So if I WAS able to relate this strange weirdness, then I guess I succeeded.

    51   Either way, I notice that it is also Wednesday, at least I THINK it's Wednesday.

    52   I hope you all cut school and work and hit the Giants' parade.

    53   I'm trying to think of how a teacher could sleep on the job.

    54   You enjoy it all.

    55   Thanks for listening.

    56   Peace.

    ~H~   

    a cool guy 1 cool guy

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

     

    a a a giants 4 baseball shirt

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • "History will find us."

    --Brian Sabean

     a a a me 2010 giants win the world 

    a a a me 62 giants win world a a a a one a a a me Askon

    a a a fire 3 screaming

     a cool guy 1 cool guy 

    CONGRATULATIONS GIANNNNNNNTSSSS!!!!

    YOU WON THE 2010WORLD SERIES!!!!

    a a a timmeh  The Daily News

    1  GIANTS!!!!

    2   For the first time in 52 years the San Francisco Giants are World Champions!

    3   TORTURE!!!!

    4    No longer!

    5    What's amazing is the completely surreal reality surrounding all of it.

    6    The first thing I did, the second they won, was to call my Dad.

    7    We both blamed my Mom for us finally winning!

    8    The funniest thing was that I knew last night that I couldn't possibly have made it through another game.

    9    It HAD to happen last night. For Mom. For Dad. For Aunt Tag. For all of us.

    10   All I thought about all summer was dreaming about last night.

    11   If you are a baseball fan, you know exactly what it is I'm talking about.

    12   And when it finally happened, I stood astonished.

    13   My brain stopped working for around five hours.

    14   Did I want Edgar Renteria to be the hero?

    15   I would have taken anyone, so why not Renteria? I was all over the guy all season, so he wasn't my first choice.

    16   The beauty of all of this is that this was the penultimate team.

    17   Before the game, I simply thought that I simply didn't have one more game left in me.

    18   Right before the game, Duane Kuiper said, "Good night for baseball."

    19   I knew right then that it was our night.

    20   And nobody will ever have caught that, but I sure did.

    21   Good night for baseball.

    22   Because it was.

    23   Like others, I found myself completely exhausted with baseball.

    24   I was on every pitch, for eight months, and perhaps historically for fifty-two years.

    25   That brought not only my Dad into the mix, but my Mom and her total vibes, and her Dad, and his total vibes, and everything that makes this sport the most emotional, amazing, and tortuous sport ever.

    26   And after we won it all, I found myself unable to capture any of it.

    27    Anything I had to say I said to my Dad, and for the life of me, I can't even remember what we said, but it simply doesn't matter.

    28    First time in Giants' history that they won a game in November.

    29    I guess what I'm trying to say is that after all of this torture, and after absolutely falling in love with this entire team, I have nothing left in me to express what it all means.

    30   I just love life right now, and I love my Giants. I have orange and black bleeding out of me.

    31   Maybe in some sort of strange way, I got that across.

    32   The whole thing is surreal.

    33   It is La Vie En Orange and Black.

    35   Success is countest sweetest, sweet Emily, indeed.

    35   And the sun shines on the Bay.

    36   Thanks Giants, for an absolute MIRACLE, and for letting Dad know that Mom brought it.

    37    Say hey.

    38    And they say there is no crying in baseball.

    39    Indeed. So this goes out to my Papu, to my Mom, to my Dad, to my Aunt Tag, and to my entire Family, and to the family of the San Francisco Giants:

    40    Holla.

    41    We did it.

    42    Live life.

    42    Love life.

    43    Peace.

    ~H~

    a cool guy 1 cool guy

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

     

    a a a giants 4 baseball shirt

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


  •   The Daily News
    1   Giants!!! Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!!!!

    2    The game is on as of this writing, but I'm pretty much certain that the Giants are going to win this won. Ooops! One. Singular sensation.

    3   Either way, last night midway through Halloween, my daughter Nicole started a rousing round of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. Not "Smith". "Schmidt." I asked, and she lay down good knowledge.

    4   I love Halloweeeeeeeeen!!!

    5   Dayum.

    6   Yesterday turned into a GORGEOUS day!

    7   I had held myself prisoner to the grading of papers, did all I could to keep it going, and eventually gave in to the Series, to Halloween, and to loving life!

    8   It all worked, although the night before last, not so good.

    9   I went to bed pretty early because of the horrid performance by the Giants, especially the inability to lift Jonathan Sanchez by Bochy, and I had to take TWO walks around the block to cool off.

    10  Eventually, I hit the hay. I awoke at around 2 a.m. and totally freaked out! So I woke up, TRIPPIN' that not only hadn't I written up the good ol' DN, but that I had NO lesson plan for Mondeeeeee!!!

    11  In my tween time, which is the time between illusion and reality upon waking, I began an emergency DN, in which I envisioned the Bush's sending a thug to Bochy to be sure that, "If your boy isn't getting hit by the fifth, he might."

    12  I also thought that these creeps rigged the game so that they and the Cheney mafia would reap billions on gambling assets. You don't need to talk to too many players to make them an offer they can't refuse, you know.

    13   Then the fog lifted, and I realized that I was just paranoid about not having my stuff together.

    14   And only THEN did I realize that public schools aren't in session on Sundays.

    15   America is too busy worshipping football.

    16   And so I slept...

    17   Last night I slept much better. First, my prediction about the Giants was fulfilled. At no point in the evening did I ever feel the Giants weren't going to win last night. I had spent the entire day working on school stuff, so by game time, I had my particles in place.

    18   I played Ashkon (I hope that's spelled correctly, because it's the middle of the night and I'm WAY to sleepy to look it all up!), and put on my Giants' garb, which consists of a beat-up old Giants' hat, a black tee-shirt, Lou Seal sunglasses, and a piece of orange yarn around my neck. I think the most expensive thing was the sunglasses, which cost me five bucks midsummer.

    19   I knew going in that our pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, was miles better than their guy. I also finally learned how to spell "Bumgarner".

    20   Just a great night, with little Halloween kids knocking on the door, and we even had some people in their thirties and forties with candy bags.

    21   We put beards on LCD lit pumpkins, and a Giants' hat on the biggest. It was fun when the husbands would ask the score. "Two zip! Make that three zip!"

    22   And game four goes to...

    23   Sooooooo fun!

    24   And I have to guess that Timmeh is licking his chops and smacking his lips right now.

    25   Aren't we all?

    26   There's only one story out there right now, and it's all about the Giants!

    27   Happy Mondeeeee!!!!

    28   Now let's DO THISSSSSSSS!!!!!

    29   Wooo-HOOOOO!!!

    ~H~



    www.xanga.com/bharrington

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