Diahann Carroll

            I didn’t go to the food bank on Saturday morning because I needed to finish my review of Shab-e She'r and I probably won't go for a while because I want to finish all the reading for my Romantic Literature course and get started on my research essay, which makes up the highest mark of the term.

Raja knocked on my door in the late morning to hand me a new notice of rent increase, this time dated for May 1. He warned me, “Don’t fuck around!” and suggested that I may lose my life if I do. So my landlord has threatened to kill me. I told him to relax and do some yoga. He complained about me playing games with how things are worded on legal documents. I said that things are worded precisely on legal documents for a reason and if those words meant nothing then he’d be able to just raise the rent whenever he wanted.       

I rode down to No Frills around midday where I bought black sable grapes, blueberries and toilet paper.

I had two slices of marble cheese on toast for lunch.

I finished my review of Shab-e Sh’er, posted it on my blog and sent a copy to K.J. Mullins at newz4u.ca.

For dinner I had an egg with toast and a beer and watched two episodes of Peter Gunn.

The first story was unique in that it featured the first lead role by an African American actor in the Peter Gunn series and even the “bad” guy was black. The first story begins with us having the point of view of someone getting out of prison, so we can’t see whom it is. Next we see a burial ceremony in a cemetery where Gunn meets Arnie, the husband of the deceased woman. He is told that contrary to reports, his wife, the singer Dina Wright was murdered and he wants Gunn to find the killer. Gunn goes to see a songwriter named Bernie who only seems to write songs that have already been written. He plays something called “Begin the Baha” but Gunn tells him it’s the melody of “Begin the Beguine”. Bernie declares, "That don't make no sense! Who wrote it?" "Cole Porter, twenty years ago!” “Never heard of him!” Gunn asks for some information on the murder of Dina Wright and Bernie reluctantly tells him to look in a club called Monty's across the river. Gunn goes there and finds a woman named Donna Martin singing “Don’t Worry Bout Me” by Rube Bloom and Ted Koehler. After her song Gunn confronts her and reveals that he knows she’s really Dina Wright. She says she'll talk to him about it after getting dressed but she sneaks away. He tracks her to her apartment and catches her on the fire escape trying to get away again. She says that she staged her death because her husband is trying to kill her and Gunn realizes that Arnie had hired him to locate her. Gunn asks her to sing again at Monty’s to draw out Arnie and she agrees. Lieutenant Jacoby poses as a waiter. Dina sings, “I’m Through with Love” by Gus Kahn, Matty Malneck and Jay Livingston. Arnie shows up and pulls a gun. He is shot in the arm and captured, so no black people get killed at all.

Arnie was played by pioneering black film actor James Edwards.

Dina was played by Diahann Carroll, who started off as a singer, became a musical star. She was the first African American woman to win a Tony Award, and in the 60s she was the first African American woman to become a TV star in the show Julia. This Peter Gunn episode was her first television role. She looks in a lot of photos like my ex-girlfriend Brenda.

In the second story, Joe Webber, an old style mob boss has gotten out of several decades in prison and finds that the current boss, thinking that he wants to reclaim his territory, has put a hit out on him. Joe’s daughter Carole asks Gunn to protect her father. He tries but it turns out that Joe really does want to rebuild his crime empire. He goes to confront the new boss and pulls out a machine gun. He manages to wipe out the competition but takes a fatal bullet.
Carole was played by Claudia Barrett, who starred in the famously bad 1953 science fiction film, Robot Monster. The monster, while killing off the last family on earth, falls in love with her character.