Edward Selzer

            On Wednesday morning I uploaded “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) by Boris Vian to Christian’s Translations and began the editing process to prepare it for publication on the blog. 

            I finished posting my translation of “Negusa Nagast” (King of Kings) by Serge Gainsbourg and listened twice to his song “Strike.” It’s the final song in my 1981 Gainsbourg file. I’ll begin memorizing it tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I sent an email to Bhutila Karpoche: 

            Dear Ms. Karpoche, 

            I am writing to you because you’re my MPP for Parkdale, although this is not a community-related issue. I am writing to ask you to push for a change in the financial criteria for qualifying for the Ontario Seniors Dental Program. The program sets a ceiling of an annual net income of $22,200 without considering that one’s income could include benefits from other social programs that cannot be put towards dental care but nonetheless push one’s net income above the allowed amount. For example, as a low-income senior I receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement with my Canada Pension Plan. If all I received was the GIS I would fall below the Seniors Dental Program financial ceiling and therefore qualify for dental care. But in addition to the GIS I also receive grants to help me pay for the courses I take at the University of Toronto. On top of that, I receive the Toronto Housing Allowance from the Ontario Ministry of Housing to help me pay my rent. Both of these benefits combined put me $1000 above the financial ceiling for qualifying for the dental program and therefore disqualify me from dental care. It is extremely unfair for the program to only look at net income and not take into consideration that the sources of one’s income may come from social programs. The message seems to be that as a senior I can choose to either get grants to attend university or I can save myself from losing my teeth, but I can’t have both. It’s also ironic that the benefits that I receive for being poor make me too rich in the provincial government’s assessment to receive other low-income benefits. Please consider pushing for legislation that will change how eligibility for the Seniors Dental Program is assessed.

            Around midday, I took a more versatile brush than a toothbrush and tried to clean the radiator at the east end of my kitchen. That would only do so much, so I used a soapy wet tea towel and stuck it between each rib, then pushed it with a chopstick over the lower spine of the radiator, then reached underneath and, holding both ends of the cloth, pulled it back and forth. There are also front ribs and back ribs on each side of the radiator. It’s impossible to clean the other side near the wall but I slipped the cloth in the space between the first ten front and back ribs on the kitchen side and ran the cloth back and forth and up and down each rib. Tomorrow I’ll do the last ten and after that, there isn’t much I can do to clean this radiator without detaching it from the pipes. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and glass of lemon-ade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was another hot day but not as sti-fling as yesterday. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:52. 

            I reviewed five videos from June 28 to July 3 of me playing my song “Megaphor.” On June 28 the final run-through was okay but I looked angry while singing a song that is supposed to be positive. June 29 wasn’t bad but maybe I hit the B chord a little bit off a few times. July 1 was okay but the B chord was also sometimes off. July 2 was okay. July 3 was pretty good except for a couple of slightly off hits on the B chord. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” I worked on trying to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio when I sing, “Let’s meditate on the golden mean of shock therapy.” I got them lined up at “Let’s” but I sing the line more slowly in concert, so I’ll have to think about whether to add another outside video clip between “Let’s” and “shock therapy.” 

            I made pizza on a roti with marinara sauce, a cut up beef burger, and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1948. 

            The first story is similar to Hiawatha’s Hare Hunt from a few years before, except that the In-digenous person hunting rabbits is an adult. The guy puts a mousetrap with a carrot for bait beside the rabbit hole. Bugs takes them both and when the brave reaches down the hole the trap snaps on his hand. Then while he’s jumping around Bugs puts another trap under him and it clamps on his foot. Bugs comes out and removes the traps. The brave gets his bow and arrows and hunts, but Bugs is in-side his quiver, throwing his voice to say where to shoot. Then Bugs lets himself be quivered and shot like an arrow because he figures that is his escape, but he hits a tree. Bugs is captured and tied to a stake while the brave is boiling water in a big pot over a campfire. But the stake is not driven into the ground and so Bugs keeps moving away. Each time he does so the brave picks up the wood, the fire and the pot and moves beside where Bugs has moved. After some more typical chase-gags, Bugs asks who he thinks he is to be chasing him. The brave says he’s the last of the Mohicans. Bugs says for him to look at the sky and he sees several storks carrying his newborn children. This causes him to faint. But then Bugs sees more storks carrying bunnies, he faints as well. 

            In the second story Bugs finds Aladdin’s lamp, rubs it and a flamboyant genie comes out and says he’ll grant Bugs a wish. Bugs doesn’t believe him but wishes for a couple carrots and gets them. The genie says he is going back to Baghdad and without thinking, Bugs says, “I wish I could go to Baghdad.” Suddenly Bugs is flying through the air. He lands in Caliph Hassen Pheffer’s palace on top of the caliph. The caliph picks up the lamp and says, “Aladdin’s lamp!” Bugs grabs it and says, “Correction, Bugs Bunny’s lamp!” The caliph starts chasing Bugs around the palace with his scimitar and so Bugs rubs the lamp. But the genie is taking a bath and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Bugs tries again but the genie is interrupted during dinner and tells Bugs to go away. Bugs is pursued from the palace and steals a magic carpet from the lot to escape. He rubs the lamp again and intrudes on the genie making time with a female genie. The genie warns Bugs, “If you disturb me one more time I’ll beat you to a pulp!” The carpet runs out of gas and Bugs crashes. The lamp bounces into the caliph’s hands. He rubs it and the genie comes out and beats him to a pulp. Then the genie grants Bugs another wish. We next see Bugs with his own harem. 

            In the third story, Yosemite Sam is Seagoing Sam the pirate and he’s burying his treasure when Bugs Bunny pops out of the hole wearing the stolen jewels. Sam points a gun at Bugs and says, “Dead rabbits tell no tales.” Bugs corrects him that the saying is, “Dead men tell no tales.” Sam says your right and points his gun to his own head saying, “I reckon I got no alternative.” But then he real-izes that’s screwy and starts shooting at Bugs. Bugs jumps in a rowboat and begins to row but rows himself off the rowboat and across the water to the pirate ship. Sam jumps in the rowboat but sees no oars so he swims to the ship to get them, swims back to the rowboat, and then rows to the ship. On the ship, he is surprised to find Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty. Bligh tells him he’s a disgrace to the navy and then gives him a bunch of nautical commands. Of course, Bligh is really Bugs in disguise. Sam chases Bugs around the ship. Bugs goes up in the crow’s nest and Sam tries to get him down. Bugs is lounging on the deck of the pirate ship like it’s a cruise ship. Sam comes after him. Cannons keep going off in Sam’s face. Bugs throws a match into the store of gunpowder and the ship blows up. Back on the island Sam chases Bugs into a hole and pokes his head down only to be shot by another cannon. 

            The fourth story begins with bullets raining back and forth in an old wild western town. But the town has a traffic light system, so bullets going in one direction stop on the red, while the others go on the green. In a tough saloon, Yosemite Sam walks in and tells everybody to clear out. The tough gunfighters all know him and run, except for Bugs Bunny. Sam tells him this town ain’t big enough for the two of them. Bugs says, “It ain’t?” Then he goes and builds up the town, adding skyscrapers. Then he comes back and asks if it’s still not big enough. Sam says it isn’t. He starts shooting and tells Bugs to dance and so Bugs does a tap dance routine. Then he says, “Take it Sam!” and Sam does a dance as well but dances down a mine shaft. Sam confronts Bugs again and Bugs tells him, “Step over this line.” Sam steps over it but Bugs keeps drawing lines for Sam to step over until they are out of town and on the edge of the cliff and finally Sam steps off the cliff. Then Sam chases Bugs on horseback until Bugs points out it’s going nowhere. He proposes they settle it with a game of cards and the loser has to leave town. Sam loses and Bugs escorts him to the train but when Bugs sees the train is full of sexy bikini-clad bathing beauties he gets on the train instead of Sam. 

            The producer of Warner Brothers cartoons from 1944 to 1958 was Edward Selzer, who in the navy was Golden Gloves boxer. In 1930 he was hired by Warner Brothers to work on their “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” series and to start an animation unit. In 1944 he was made the studio head and his first cartoon was “Goldilocks and the Jivin Bears”. He knew nothing about animation and no particular appreciation for cartoons. A lot of the successes in Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies resulted from Selzer telling his animators and writers what isn’t funny and his employees setting about to prove him wrong. He didn’t think pairing Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird would work, but the first Sylvester and Tweety cartoon won an Academy Award. He thought the Tasmanian Devil was too gruesome. He didn’t think Camels or bullfighting were funny and so the animators made the cartoons “Sahara Hare” and “Bully for Bugs” to prove him wrong. He also didn’t think a French skunk would be funny but he later accepted the Academy Award for the first Pepé le Pew cartoon. 

            I found no bedbugs for the third night in a row.