This Just In

Remember Matt Morris' documentary film Mr. Happy Man, about a well-known Bermudian who greets Hamilton commuters each morning? Well, the director has just placed the full version of the award-winning short film online, which means you too can see the smiles Johnny Barnes brings to islanders each day. The film won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the AFI/Discovery Silverdocs, Best Documentary Short Film at the Sidewalk Motion Picture Festival, Honorable Mention at the Nashville Film Festival and an Ideal Award at the Adventure Film Festival. Even better, it's also playing on Outside Television, the American cable network I'm also an on-air correspondent for (click here to watch my interview with Matt Morris live from Mountainfilm in Telluride). Go on, get happy.

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If you're a casual reader of Bermuda Shorts you probably know that in addition to writing for the New York Times, Caribbean Travel+Life and Jetsetter among others, that I'm also a correspondent for Outside Television. It's a fantastic gig, especially in May when I head to Telluride, Colorado, to host Outside Film Festival: Mountainfilm, a 16-episode show, which airs the finest independent documentary films shown at that year's festival (that's me and my co-host Lynsey Dyer on location near Wilson Peak this year). I've blogged about it again and again, even though it had no real connection to Bermuda but that just changed in a major way. This year's festival screened Matt Morris' fantastic short film Mr. Happy Man, a fourteen-minute documentary featuring Bermuda's own Johnny Barnes. In case you've never heard about Johnny, he's an 80-something bearded Bermudian man who greets Hamilton commuters every morning with a wave, a smile and boisterous shouts of "I love ya!" He's so beloved that Bermuda erected a bronze statue in his honor, which stands just yards down the road from where he greets people each morning. If you're interested in watching the entire film in addition to an interesting chat I had with filmmaker Matt Morris in Telluride, head on over to OutsideTelevision.com where you can view the complete episode. And if you feel like sticking around for more you can also watch The Fall Line, about an injured Iraq war veteran who overcomes great odds on the ski slopes of Aspen and Wild Water, a beautiful short film about big water kayaking. Go ahead, check it out! It's the best fourteen minutes you'll watch all day.

Johnny Barnes on HuffPo!

It looks like the island’s most beloved resident has been making quite a splash in the press these days. According to life coach and Huffington Post contributor Arjuna Ardagh, Bermuda’s own Johnny Barnes exemplifies the epitome of unconditional love by greeting commuters each morning with shouts of “I love you!” at the corner of Crow Lane, just outside the City of Hamilton. Commenting on the fallout from the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, Ardagh cited the book Love For No Reason, which profiles 150 “love luminaries.” Writes Ardagh in yesterday's Huffington Post: “Some are well-known writers and celebrities, like Marianne Williamson, Melissa Etheridge and Geneen Roth. But my favorite was the story of Johnny Barnes, a native of Bermuda, who in the 1940's was working as an electrician on the railway. The impulse came to him, out of the blue, to start waving to people, calling out ‘I love you.’ He liked it so much, he started to do this every day during his lunch hour. Now Johnny is 84 years old. He gets up at 3:30 am every day to stand on the Crow Lane roundabout in busy downtown Hamilton till 10 am, calling out "Good Morning, Have a Good Day, God Bless you!” All very true. Don’t believe me? Then check out the above video, which shows Johnny greeting commuters as they enter Hamilton. Now THAT’s unconditional love. Said Johnny in the book: “If you can bring joy and happiness to others, you keep on doing it. People seem to like my staying power. I just keep showing up day after day, and year after year—they kind of count on it now. In fact, not long ago the city actually put up a statue of me, wide-brimmed hat and all, doing my two-handed wave! I never thought I'd see a statue of myself. Never. But there it is, a life-sized bronze sculpture that stands on the opposite side of the roundabout from me. It keeps on spreading love after I go home.” Spreading the love indeed.

The Reasons: An Addendum

Even casual readers of Bermuda Shorts know of my great affinity for the island. Back in March I posted my top ten reasons why living in Bermuda is so darn delightful—things like lobster season, the prevalence of Dark n Stormy’s, the opportunity to grow a winter beard. Ya know, the basics. Well my friends, consider this an addendum to my original list, because living in Bermuda would not be the same without the one and only Johnny Barnes. You see, Johnny is a living legend here in Bermuda: Every morning between 8am and 10am, the 86-year-old gray-bearded Bermudian greets morning traffic entering the City of Hamilton with a kiss and wave. “I love ya, I love ya, I love ya,” he says with all sincerity as he blows kisses into the air. It’s astounding. Every morning like clockwork there’s Johnny, greeting commuters like it’s his job. He’s so beloved that Bermuda has even erected a bronze statue in his honor down the road from where he stands each morning—a phenomenon that still blows my mind (don't you have to be a Communist dictator to have a statue erected in your honor while you're still living?). I mean the guy even has his own Wikipedia page for goodness sake. And apparently I’m not the only one who knows what an impact Johnny has on daily life in Bermuda. According to Bernews, director Matt Morris is searching for locals to interview for his new film about Johnny titled “Mr. Happy Man.” Watch the short trailer above and try not to get excited for the upcoming documentary. So to you Johnny, I say three cheers! Thanks for making Bermuda such a wonderful place to call home.