Cesar Romero

            On Sunday morning I almost finished translating "On n'est pas là pour se faire engueuler" (We Didn’t Come Here to be Shouted At) by Boris Vian. In the first verse the speaker is pushed around by the cops at a parade; in the second verse he gets attacked by his wife for coming home drunk with a friend; in the last verse his wife has killed him and he arrives still drunk at the line-up for heaven. St Peter gives him such a hard time that he tells him off and then he and his friends choose to go down to hell where they party for eternity. I just have two lines left to translate that state the moral of the song. Something like, “If you complain at the right moment you get what you want." I just have to figure out how to make it fit the metre and rhyme.

            I almost finished working out the chords for “L’amour prison” by Serge Gainsbourg. I just have to figure out the finale.

            I spent about half an hour organizing the overhead storage shelf in my bedroom. I threw a few things out and put a big storage bin back up there that had been taking up space at the bottom of the set of shelves in the kitchen hallway. It looks neater now but there are still a few things to do to finish the job. I had wanted to wash that whole space before putting things away but that would have taken too much time. I think I’ll have to wait until spring or summer for that.

            I had Triscuits and cheese for lunch.

            I tried to open the document I’d converted from the Indian Day Schools class action suit pdf but it caused Word to shut down all my documents and so I just deleted the file. I can live with the pdf.

            I did my exercises in the afternoon while listening to Amos and Andy. At the beginning of this story the lodge has voted that the Kingfish needs a secretary because their files have gone into disarray. They’d sent a get-well card to a lodge member that had died twenty-seven years ago. Andy comes by to help Kingfish interview possible secretaries. Charmagne Larue has a heavy southern US accent and she’s good looking and so Andy wants to hire her right away. Kingfish is more practical.  He asks her if she knows shorthand and at first she asks, “What’s that? Oh, you mean those little doodads?” He asks how many words of dictation can she write in a minute. She says, “About four.” Kingfish says that most secretaries can do four hundred. Andy argues that between the two of them they only know about one hundred and twenty words anyhow, so they hire her. But when Sapphire finds that her husband has hired a young, attractive secretary she is upset and calls her mother. When Kingfish comes home Sapphire’s mother tells him Sapphire has gotten a job as a secretary for an attractive banker who is sending her flowers. When he sends her candy he is so upset he can only eat half of them. Finally he gives in and lets Charmagne go but he still has to hire a secretary. He thinks everything will be fine until the agency sends Sapphire’s mother over.

            I spent a couple of hours reading through the pdf of the executive report on the Indian Day schools class action lawsuit. It's weird that the pdf didn't allow me to copy some sections of the first third of the document but later I could copy freely. I assume it wasn’t deliberately restricted but rather just some kind of glitch since the material is not any different in either part. There seem to be only four plaintiffs in the Manitoba part of the class action suit. There are two from Quebec but I guess a class action means that the plaintiffs symbolically represent everyone else in the group of those abused. The victims don’t have to come forward until after the government agrees to make a payment.

            For dinner I had two strips of bacon, an egg and a piece of toast with a beer while watching Zorro. In this story a gentleman named Esteban de la Cruz arrives in Los Angeles from Barcelona. He resents acting commandant Garcia searching his bags. He shows him a bag of what look like precious gems. While Garcia and Reyes are searching his bags, of which he has a lot, he goes to the local inn and buys everyone a drink. He dances with a bar maid and he is a very good dancer. He tells Garcia that he is looking for a place to live while he is in Los Angeles. Garcia says the inn is the only place that rents rooms. Esteban says he wants to acquire an entire hacienda and hears that the de la Vega hacienda is very good. Garcia tells him it is but he doesn’t think it’s for sale. Esteban insists that Garcia escort him there. As soon as he gets there he begins to redecorate and Garcia is worried that when Don Alejandro and Don Diego return home then Alejandro will run Esteban through with his sword. But when they arrive it turns out that Esteban is Diego’s uncle. A big party is thrown in Esteban’s honour that night and Diego notices that Esteban is showing his jewels to everyone. Diego and his father are worried that the jewels are fake and that Esteban will try to sell them, thus embarrassing the family. They arrange for Bernardo to pick Esteban’s pocket but Esteban picks Bernardo’s and gets the jewels immediately back. Diego and his father agree that Zorro may be needed but before Zorro can take the jewels two thieves club Esteban and rob him. When Esteban wakes up he sees Zorro and thinks he is the robber. He begins to call for help. Zorro escapes with the soldiers in pursuit but the real thieves are also escaping. Zorro knocks them from their horses with a rope strung across the gate and turns them over to the police. Zorro holds onto the fake jewels but Esteban seems unconcerned. He declares, much to Diego and Alejandro’s frustration that he might stay for quite a while.

            I recognized immediately that Esteban was played by Cesar Romero. I hadn’t realized what a good dancer he was. He started out playing a Latin lover in several films. He played the Cisco kid in a series of film shorts and of course he is best known as the Joker on the Batman TV series. He refused to shave his moustache for the role and so they just really laid on the white makeup. His Joker laugh was established when the producer overheard him begin laughing hysterically at his Joker costume, which he considered to be absurd.