Tuesday 26 July 2022

Warren Foster


            On Monday morning I reworked my translation of "Strike" by Serge Gainsbourg in light of a better understanding of the rhyme scheme and the meaning. Tomorrow I'll run through playing and singing the song in English and then upload it to Christian's Translations. 
            I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast. 
            In the late morning I cleaned and scrubbed as much rust as I could off my handsaw and then put some oil on it. 
            Around midday I cut most of the dead parts off my hanging aloe vera. I also clipped the deceased leaves from the top of the other aloe vera that sits on top of the fridge, but left the dead hanging leaves on it because they look good. I gave the same treatment to my amaryllis and turned it around because the leaves were leaning too far into the window. 


           Tomorrow I think I'll pull the fridge out from the wall and scrub the floor underneath it. 
            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 
            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:00. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:11. 
            I reviewed five more videos of me playing "Megaphor". On June 27 the B chord was definitely slightly off a couple of times, so this rendition is out. On June 28 I looked a little angry but it wasn't bad, so this can go through to the next round. July 2 was definitely not too bad and it will compete in the next round. July 3 was off enough to be out. July 4 really wasn't horrible but I was off enough on the B chord at times for it to be pushed out of the running. 
            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video for my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I edited the psychedelic segments from the Ken Russell film "Altered States" down to just a minute and fifteen seconds. I might only need between one and two seconds, so I've got more cutting to do.
            I went through a fourth folder from the filing cabinet where I keep the hard copies of writing. This one is almost all original pages of the Gumby Bible, on the back of which I tended to write my commentaries. So I started to go through the other folder of my poetry to separate all the poems that were also commentaries on the Gumby Bible. It looks like the Gumby Bible folder is going to be stuffed and so I'll probably have separate that further into just the Gumby Bible pages and the poetry that I wrote that wasn't on the original pages. 
            I had a big potato with gravy and my smallest chicken drumstick while watching two Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1949 and two from 1950. 
            In the first story, the Three Little Pigs are reading the story about the Three Little Pigs and so they know what is going to happen. They know that the big bad wolf is going to blow down one pig's straw house, and the second pig's wooden house, so they decide to all move into the third pig's brick house. But since the first two pigs are going to lose their houses they decide to make a profit from them beforehand. The first pig sells his house to Bugs Bunny and after the wolf blows it down, the second pig sells Bugs his wooden house. When the wooden house is blown down, Bugs says, "Of course you know, this means war!" The wolf is in the woods reading the book and learning that he can't blow the brick house down, when Bugs skips by dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. Bugs hands the wolf the story, tells him to read it and goes away. The wolf reads it and realizes he's late to do what the story says and so he rushes to grandma's house, kicks grandma out and waits for Red Riding Hood. When Bugs arrives he pokes the wolf in the eyes and pulls his ears. The wolf pulls Bugs's ears. Bugs stomps on the wolf's foot. They each remove the other's disguise. The wolf chases Bugs and Bugs runs to the basement. The wolf is at the top of the stairs with a baseball bat and he turns on the light switch to reveal that Bugs is at the bottom, also with a bat. Bugs switches off the light at the bottom. The wolf goes back up to switch it on. This happens a couple more times and then Bugs just says "click" and the wolf switches the light off before descending the stairs and getting hit over the head. Bugs leaves the house and escapes on a bike but it's a tandem bike and the wolf is at the back until he gets yanked off by a clothesline. Bugs says it serves him right for blowing his houses down. The wolf says he was blowing the pigs' houses down and explains he has to follow the book. Bugs realizes he was conned by the pigs and so he tells the wolf to blow their brick house down. The wolf says he can't because of the book. Bugs says, "Book shmook, blow the house down!" The wolf blows and then there is an explosion that leaves the brick house in ruins. Bugs is standing nearby with a detonating plunger. 
            The second story is a bit racist. An African witch doctor is drawn to follow certain stereotypes. He's following a recipe for a medicine and uses lizard tongues, fish eyes, gnats eyebrows, leopard spots, bee stingers, and frogs legs, but he is missing the last ingredient, which is rabbit. Bugs is walking through the jungle and the doctor uses his spear to force him back to his hut. As he has in the past, Bugs mistakes the cooking pot for a bath and gets in. But this time there is a cover that the doctor locks. Bugs has to break out in a panic. Bugs escapes to the river and swims to a riverboat. The doctor jumps in after him but gets swallowed by an alligator. Bugs doesn't like that and so he beats up the alligator, turning him into a suitcase, inside of which is the doctor, alive and in one piece and wearing alligator shoes. 
            In the third story, the Ice Frolics show closes down and leaves behind its star, the skating penguin. The penguin, while chasing after the convoy falls down a rabbit hole. Bugs feels sorry for the bird and decides to help him get home. He reads that penguins are from the South Pole and so off they go. They hop a freight car headed south on which Bugs has to save his friend from a hungry hobo. In New Orleans Bugs puts his friend on the Admiral Byrd to take him to the South Pole. But after it sets sail, Bugs learns it's headed for Brooklyn. Bugs swims to the boat and finds his friend in the kitchen hanging with the meat. Bugs rescues him and they swim to Martinique where Humphrey Bogart asks for a handout but Bugs tells him to hit the road. The penguin builds them a boat and they drift. Bugs goes ten days without food. They trek through South America and end up in another cooking pot surrounded by dancing natives. But the natives all run when "Bwana" is approaching. It's Bogie again asking for a handout. This time Bugs gives him a coin. After a treacherous journey Bugs delivers his friend to Antarctica. Bugs starts to walk away but the penguin begins to cry. Bugs learns that the skating penguin was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. 
            In the fourth story, while trying to find shelter from rabbit hunting season, Bugs tunnels into a prison. The main guard, Sam Schultz sees Bugs in a hole and thinks he's trying to escape. He puts Bugs in a ball and chain and forces him to break rocks. Bugs tells him a prisoner is escaping over the north wall. Bugs puts his ball in a cannon and then Schultz fires it at the north wall, sending bugs flying over it. Sam recaptures Bugs and puts him in a cell. Bugs asks why he locked him outside and locked himself inside. Sam then locks himself in the cell and Bugs outside. Sam confronts Bugs with a gun. Bugs says you wouldn't be so tough without your uniform. Sam takes his uniform off. Bugs takes his striped clothing off, then he puts on Sam's uniform and blows a whistler. The guards come, beat Sam up and put him in a cell. Bugs brings Sam a loaf of bread containing an escape kit and a map. Following the map, Sam digs a tunnel that leads to the warden's office. The warden chews Sam out and tells him to get back to work. While chasing Bugs, Sam winds up hanging from a noose. The warden shouts for him to come to his office but now the warden is Bugs in disguise. He tells Sam to pull up a chair and it's an electric chair. Bugs pulls the switch and Sam is electrocuted. Sam chases Bugs with a club out of the warden's office and then back in. The warden is sitting at his desk but Sam thinks it's Bugs and hits him over the head. After being chewed out by the warden again, Sam tells Bugs to get out of the prison. But then Sam is imprisoned for helping a prisoner escape. 
            The "Which is Witch" story was the last Bugs Bunny cartoon to contain caricatures of black people. 
            The Windblown Hare fairy tale story was written by Warren Foster, who started out as a writer on the surreal "Porky in Wackyland" cartoon. 


            He also wrote the banned cartoon "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs." 


            He wrote Tweety Bird's theme song "I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat." 


            In 1959 he joined Hanna Barbara and became a writer for Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and The Flintstones. Before bed I searched for bedbugs and found none.

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