The Daily News

 

Breaking News!

1  Johnny Manziel sighting in Sacramento last night.

2   I was over at our Safeway buying a few items for dinner, when the clerk said, "A customer told me he saw Johnny Manziel tonight." He was talking to the kid in front of me, who who must have been all of thirteen. He clearly had no idea  who Johnny Manziel was.

3  I said to the Safeway guy,"Why would he be in Sac?"

4  He said, "If the 49ers were interested, wouldn't he be in San Francisco?"

5  My answer: "Nope. Sac makes more sense. Anywhere in the Bay Area would leak." Hmmm. I'm surprised that no Sac shows picked up on the sighting. Safeway guy said, "Just because he told me, doesn't mean it's true."

6  I liked the clerk. He was smart, and he clearly knew football. "Maybe the guy's just lonely!" I said. We had a good laugh. I remember vividly the day Manziel had the 49ers for lunch. I wouldn't mind having him. 

7  I got home last night hoping to break the story, but I was also pretty anxious to have dinner. I realized that I really hadn't eaten yesterday because I spent the entire day repairing my guitars, polishing them and then re-stringing them. 

8  So I held back 'til this morning.

9  It might be a no-story, but it certainly makes Manziel a Person of Interest if you ask me. 

10  We shall see. I would like it if Manziel became a Niner. I saw him kick the Niners's ass this season, so on that alone, I would like it.

11  Moving On, Part One: When do pitchers and catchers report?

12  Just kidding.

13  I did spend the entire day flipping guitars. I began with my Yamaha, Annabel. I took all the strings off her, but one little piece fell off, and I had to glue it back. I cleaned her up with Murphy Oil Soap, which worked wonderfully.

14  I had time to Google how to clean guitars, and Lemon Pledge (which I used for years, but tell no one please), was a HUGE no-no to the purists. It always worked for me, because I never cleaned my guitars that often. This is living proof that I am not a guitarist, nor even a musician, for that matter. 

15  Google had pure guitarists giving Murphy a thumbs up, so I decided to use it, especially since Caitlin had an almost full bottle. 

16  Because the piece fell off of Annabel, I decided to wait 'til today to re-string her.

17  I turned my efforts to this reasonably elegant John Turser guitar I bought for dirt cheap at Musician's Warehouse on Tully Road, across from Eastridge.

18  It was a great acoustic. It was wired for amplifiers, so it could do both. 

19  I repaired it last year after a few things unscrewed, and stuff came undone. And then I left it sitting on a guitar stand, where it gathered dust and spider webs. 

20  I had just begun singing and playing guitar with the Twincesses when Annabel broke. 

21  I pulled out Turser yesterday and did the flip. It took me a while, because I took my time, since I had the time. 

22  Nearing the end of the day with the Twincesses, my job was complete.

23  It looked glorious, and it sounded brash and proud.

24  Strings that gave a thud in the morning rang with freedom and brightness in the early eve.

25  Memory issues disappeared into the night, and some great chord changes came back to me. I LOVE new strings and clean guitars! Do that today! It's gonna rain anyway. It's like knitting, only better.

26  Years ago, a friend of mine taught me this awesome chord arrangement for The Girl From Ipanema, a Brazilian bossa nova tune that was written in 1962. Antonio Carlos Jobim is credited with the music, and the lyrics were written in Portugese by a fellow named Vinicius de Moraes. The English lyrics were by a guy named Norman Gimbel. Who knew?

27  Thank you Wiki, for those tidbits. 

28  A week ago on a thudding guitar, I couldn't for the life of me remember that arrangement. There are variations of the tune all over the internet, but the one that my friend taught me couldn't be found. 

29  The only way I would be able to remember those chords would be to relax my mind and trust my fingers. 

30  On a guitar that has been shown neglect, it didn't happen.

31  But with a happy, shiny new/old guitar, the memory opened up, and the chords appeared.

32  Not only did they appear, they challenged me to continue on with the song, which has some amazing changes.

33  I got the second part of the song started yesterday.

34  I'm excited about re-stringing Annabel later today, visiting the babies, and playing more music. 

35  I hope I have the temerity and the patience to continue. That song might take me forever, but other songs are cake.

36  Moving On, Part Two: There was this cooking show called Sugar Showdown on late last night. It followed with a show called Donut Showdown. 

37  A bunch of donut shop owners competed. Most contestants were young. One guy was well into his 70's. His name was Stormy. I was conking out, but watching it like a one-eyed Jack. 

38  One ingredient they all used is some substance called Tahini.

39  That sounds like a place that gnarly surfer dudes might hang. 

40  "Duuuuude! Let's do, like, Tahini, Duuuuuuude!!!!!!!

41

42  Ha.

43  High on Tahini.

44  Where do ya take it from here? Well, Stormy won. He had diet donuts. They are the ones with holes in them. Nah, I just had to sneak that one in. Used it before. Stormy did win the donut contest. Good to see an old geezer going the distance. 

45  You take it home.

46  Know why?

47  It's Friday, Duuuuuuude!!!!!!!

48  All work must cease at noon, as you well know. 

49  And it will.

50  As the Lord is my witness.

51  It will.

52  Gottago. Great week. LOTS of laughs.

53  And music. And beautiful babies. Like them in the Newsie hats? They slay me! Cuties, I'm tellin' ya. So fun. I'm going to enjoy them every chance I can. We have lot of fun and music today too. Pretty sure. AND cuteness. So...gottago.

54  See you again.

55  Have a GREAT weekend.

56  Peace.

~H~

fin.

The Daily News

1  It occurred to me yesterday that I could friend myself on Facebook.

2  I have two of them. Two Facebooks. One was originally for school and alumni, the other for family and old friends.

3  I thought I had friended myself already, but evidently not. I have over 50 mutual friends with myself.

4  Actually, I didn't look. I think I have 50 mutual friends with myself. I'm too lazy to check, even though I got a record ten hours of sleep last night. That is my Sacramento record.

5  And in CIA fashion, my profile pictures are both Tahoe sunrises, pretty sure two different sunrises, but Tahoe sunrises.

6  I make me a good friend.

7  It's a pretty healthy relationship.

8  Ten hours of sleep. Fancy that. Ten lovely hours. That never happens. Hmmm. Less coffee. Lesson learned.

9  Moving On, Part One: I brought my guitar over to Caitlin's the other day so that we could sing and play for the babies. They enjoyed it, although I played Punky's Dilemma for Isla, and when I whistled the fade-out melody, I was way louder than normal. I usually have a mic, and use a bit of reverb, but I thought I might put the tall ceilings to work for me. I went louder because I didn't expect it to be that loud. That's why you rehearse. Catastrophic decision. It startled Isla.

10  Her face instantly turned to sheer fear. The color ran out of her cheeks, and then her face flushed. She instantly began crying fiercely, which triggered Maren, who was sitting across the room. 

11  They both cried and cried. Each cry caused another. My heart sank. My first thought was that they would never enjoy music, for the rest of their lives.

12  I thought I had scarred both of them for life. I had to act swiftly. I segued to "The...wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round..." and other lighter fare.

13  They eventually settled right back in. I found myself a bit rattled.  

14  I don't consider myself a musician. I do play guitar, but pretty poorly.  I couldn't keep a steady rhythm if I had a ticking clock next to me.

15  My voice was a bit raspy from the exhaustion of a full week. I did have days when I didn't sleep eight or ten hours. More often than not, my middle-of-the-night awakenings took place every hour on the hour. Bottom line: raspy voice, despite cutting back on coffee and singing more. 

16  So cut back on your coffee, kids. And get to bed earlier. It is healthier in every way. Preach. 

17  Moving On, Part Two: Yesterday I was going to write this, and then go buy new strings and picks for my guitar.

18  <basketball buzzer> Things-Break-Down-Daily, Dept.:

19  My laptop began draining down. The fonts kept changing and jumping. You know how I have taken to putting the Chaplinesque fin at the end of the DN? I was trying to launch this. That's the last thing I put, like a stamp on an envelope. Takes two seconds. Nope. It kept turning black, obliterating itself from the background. I was running late, which is usually when this stuff happens. Artificial Intelligence. It has a mind, I swear. I no longer talk smack about lovely, lovely Cortana. 

20  I moved to my good ol' Dell desktop. 

21  It buffered incessantly. 

22  Anyway, I got out way late, and Googled Guitar Center. It said it was nineteen minutes away, so I had Siri or whoever guide me there. It intimidated me that I had to drive that far for strings, but worth it. 

23  I expected to have crazy loudness inside. I love guitar; I love loud, but I don't want to go into a store where eighteen young dudes are thrashing all at once. 

24  The ride over, I went Zen and became Mr. Walker, the polite driver in Goofy's Motor Mania. I stayed as mellow as possible, even though there were tons of Mr. Wheelers out in the backstreets.

25  I took a few wrong turns, clearly annoying Miss Siri, who changed to two syllable directions: "Turn right. Turn Left."

26  Nothing like getting the cold shoulder from a machine.

27  I eventually pulled up to Guitar Center. I saw an old hippy couple walking in. He had his socks in his sandals, a bad look. I do it when it's hot because my feet get dry, and then crack if I don't. That's why old dudes get that Cargos-and-Sox look. 

28  I'm revealing my beauty secrets here.

29  It needs to stop.

30  Meanwhile, inside Guitar Center...

31  I'm sorry. Did my frabjous mind wander again?

32  It does that.

33  Inside Guitar Center, I thought this: "Ooooooo, shiny..."

34  The place was completely silent. No amplifiers sounding off, no young dudes, just a quiet store that surrounded me with pure coolness. 

35  They had all sorts of electric guitars hanging on the walls, many that were reasonably priced. I didn't go near any guitar strings. I made it straight for the acoustic guitar rooms, through wooden doors in the back.

36  I loved all of them, but I wanted something a bit light, the same as Jasmine. I saw one, but it was a blonde. She was next to a pink one. It didn't take long for me to see that this was Taylor Swift's line of guitars. They looked a little like Barbie guitars.

37  I sat down with a Fender that played sweetly, looked awesome, and tuned perfectly. I liked it, but it was a bit heavy.

38  I looked up and saw a guitar that said Grateful Dead on it, and it had lightning bolts as fret markers. I picked it up. It was light and breezy, like the Dead. Here is how it looked:

39  I instantly did the opening riff to Truckin', really quietlike. I loved the thing. It wasn't that expensive. It played similar to Jasmine, my guitar that died last week. So it goes.

40  I then went into Wharf Rat, one of my faves. I didn't sing, but that song is well within my vocal range, so it was fun. 

41  I thought better about buying it. It had old strings on it, which many of the guitars had. In San Jose, I didn't stray far to play guitars; I worked right up the street from Muscian's Warehouse, which always manages to have new strings on its guitars.

42  I knew I had to get going, so I went over and bought three packs of Martin Marquis strings, and a bag of picks. 

43  I walked out having spent a little over twenty dollars, joined some string club, and figured I could string three of my old guitars at home, and that would give me the equivalent of one new one. It should hold me over. 

44  AND I hope to buy a piano at some point. I saw a few at consignment stores in town. We could fit a small piano in our living room. 

45  So, fun stuff. I'm going musical again. Beware, world!

46  I hope you have good glass insurance.

47  I gottago. I haven't strung Annabel yet.

48  It's fine time she got tuned up. New strings. I suggest everyone who has a guitar get new strings immediately! Your life will turn around. I swear. Gottago.

49  See you again.

50  Have a GREAT day.

51  Peace.

~H~

fin.

The Daily News

1  Did bills yesterday.

2  If you are anything like me, you want to jump off the hood of a Buick after doing bills.

3  I don't like automatic payments.

4  I'm old, remember?

5  I don't want anyone to have easy access to my wallet.

6  Me and Yoda. Set in our ways are we.

7  

8  

9

10  Moving On, Part One: God, go ahead and get old.

11  Just don't get crotchety.

12  Hard not to when half the things you buy don't work.

13  The latest? The sound bar I bought I think last Christmas.

14  Could be user, mind you. It just stopped working last night. My laptop cable this morning. No charge. 6% left. Someone throw me a life saber. 

15  Maybe if I re-boot my life...

16  Moving On, Part Two: I got home early last night and saw that some channel or other was playing the very fun Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I hit the sound bar, because you can't have the Bacharach score sounding like it is coming from a tin can. For the record, it didn't work at first, but later in the movie it worked again. So technically, it isn't broken. Unless you consider inconsistent and broken the same thing. Some of us curmudges do.  

17  That film score traveled with me since I first saw the film, and it has always accompanied beach trips in Tahoe. My sister Linda had the sound track on a CD, and my job was walk behind her while she filmed our Tahoe vacations. Pretty brilliant. So there was always a Butch Cassidy soundtrack/Tahoe connection. Gotta love it. 

18  Watching a lot of the scenery stuff in the film, I wondered if Tahoe might have been one of the locations, especially in the classic jumping scene. 

19  The scenes looked exactly like Tahoe to me, more than I had remembered. 

20  It was not filmed in Tahoe, to my disappointment.

21  It was filmed in the following places: Durango,Colorado; New Mexico, and Zion National Park in Utah, with Bolivia scenes in Cuernavaca and Taxco in Mexico.  

22

23  That's probably more info than you cared to know.

24  Moving On, Part the Thoid: I awakened this morning thinking I would reveal who I intend to vote for.

25  The trouble is, I think it is clear as day who should be in there. We have a candidate who is consistent, honest, and able.

26  Fortunately, I received an email from me old friend and confidante Rosi Hollinbeck. I read it before having my one cup of coffee. It lit up the morning.

27  I'm going to attempt to share it with you this morning.

28  Hoping this transition is a cut/paste, and won't knock everything into wonkiness.

29  Here go:

If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.

~Jay Leno~

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

~Henry Cate, VII~

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office

~Aesop~

If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union speeches, there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.

~Will Rogers~

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.

~Nikita Khrushchev~

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.

~Clarence Darrow~

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.

~John Quinton~

Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.

~Author unknown~

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

~Oscar Ameringer~

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.

~Adlai Stevenson, 1952~

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.

~ Tex Guinan~

I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

~Charles de Gaulle~

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

~Doug Larson~

There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on Congressmen.  

~Will Rogers

30  Ha! Houston...we have contact! That never happens. It usually throws the fonts every which way. Yard sale. Thanks, Rosi!

31  I don't know where it came from, so I just want it known that neither Rosi nor I am the author. Are the author. How do you phrase that one in a hurry? With nor and or, it goes with the subject that is closer to the verb. Correct construction: am. Knowledge for college.

32  Moving On, Part Four: It scares me a bit that I have tons of teachers reading this nonsense.

33  It began as a piece of paper hung up in the hallway of the Performing Arts building at YB. I began writing it and posting each day in 1996, during our run of Guys and Dolls.

34  I don't think I ever missed a day, even if I was absent. I would get to the school and hang it up.

35  It began as a notification on where we were to meet: band in band room, actors out on stage, etc.

36  That got boring rather quickly, so I started adding the gags and stuff.

37  I like to claim that the Daily News was the world's first blog.

38  I did have this online over ten years ago, but Geocities became Alderon. So much for posterity.

39  I decided to continue writing it, just because.

40  I love sharing, but I'm always worried about the writing. English teachers far better than I read this. And I've just gotten better at editing this year.

41  Deadlines. I swear. 

42  One nice thing about all this: I control the deadlines.

43  I've reached it.

44  I gottago. I'd have more, but my desktop just buffered for around a gazillion hours. 

45 See you again.

46  Have a GREAT day.

47  Peace.

~H~

fin.