Bek Nelson

            On Thursday I had canned chickpeas for lunch and they were horrible. Some of the garbanzo skins were almost as tough as toenails. I don’t think I’ll take chickpeas from Arz again. I think they also gave me food poisoning.

            I spent a lot of time writing my review of Shab-e She’r and got it half done.

            I watched an episode of Peter Gunn. This story begins with an old man named Raleigh getting ready for bed in a big house full of medieval weapons. The only modern convenience we see his the stair lift chair that he sits on. It is halfway up when the halberd hung on the wall directly above him comes swinging down with the blade narrowly missing him. He clutches his heart. A day or so later Gunn arrives at Raleigh’s mansion. Raleigh tells him that his nephew Martin, whom he’d had put in prison for stealing from his company, is trying to kill him. Martin was just released from prison. Raleigh wants Gunn to find Martin. Gunn tries out the stair lift. The middle-aged nurse sees him and begins to giggle. She apologizes and explains that whenever things get serious she has this uncontrollable urge to laugh. She asks who he is and when he answers “Bozo the clown” she giggles and runs away. Gunn discovers that the lift has been sabotaged. Gunn goes looking for Martin and begins at Mother’s because it turns out that Martin is a guitarist. He finds out from one of the musicians there that Martin was engaged to a woman named Victoria. Gunn gets a call from someone claiming o be Martin who says he’s going to kill his uncle and then himself. Gunn goes to Raleigh’s house and as he’s arriving hears two shots. He finds Raleigh dead. Gunn goes to see Virginia and she’s kind of a beatnik photographer. As soon as he walks into her apartment she takes his picture. She asks, “What can I do for you subject?” “I’d like to ask you a few questions about your fiancé.” “Which one? I always have two or three.” When he says “Martin” it takes her a minute to find his picture among her gallery of men. She gives Gunn the photo with Martin’s address. Gunn goes to Martin’s room and finds him dead with a gun in his right hand. On his typewriter is a suicide note. He picks up Martin’s guitar and sees that it’s strung for a left-handed player. Gunn sneaks back into Raleigh’s house that night. He hides while Raleigh’s secretary Collins comes into the study and puts something in the safe. Raleigh suddenly grabs a medieval weapon and attacks the person in the shadows but Gunn knocks him down. Gunn accuses him of killing Raleigh and they begin to fight, with Collins grabbing various ancient weapons as they knock around the room until Gunn punches Collins and he falls back onto a sword.

            Virginia was played by Bek Nelson, who was married to Don Gordon, a close friend of Steve McQueen. Bek played the role of an alien from the planet Zirkon in the Three Stooges film, “Flying Saucer Daffy”.