Monday 15 August 2022

Cab Calloway


            On Sunday morning I finished memorizing "J'en ai autant pour toi" (I Feel the Same About You) by Serge Gainsbourg. The chords weren't posted and so I worked them out for the intro and the first verse. 
            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 
            Around midday I cleaned the glass of the frame of the black and white photo called "Hole In the Heart Donut Shop" that I took more than thirty years ago, and keep above the southern kitchen window. I also washed the wooden dinosaur skeleton that I keep up there as well. Tomorrow I'll start cleaning the wall above the window. 
            While I worked I listened to Cab Calloway. As soon as I put him on he makes me feel good, no matter what he's singing about. 




            I weighed 85.9 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 
            In the afternoon I took a siesta. I got up to pee and looked at my phone, thinking I still had half an hour to sleep. But it turned out that I'd slept for an extra thirty-five minutes. I took a bike ride downtown and back half an hour later than usual. 
            When I got home, I went out to the liquor store to see if they'd gotten Creemore delivered yet. It's been more than a week since the liquor store has been out of my favourite beer. When I asked, the guy told me that I was the second person to ask in the last five minutes. He said they'll be getting it tomorrow, but that's what I was told on Saturday. I bought two cans of Helles Lager to hold me over until next weekend. 
            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 17:34. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:25. 
            I reviewed three more videos of me playing my song "Sixteen Tons of Dogma". The one I shot on June 25 would have been the best so far if I hadn't fumbled one chord. On both June 26 and June 27 I screwed up the final verse. 
            I looked at the movie I'd published before bed last night of the video I'd shot on Friday and was glad to see that I'd finally gotten it upright. I watched it and then I imported it to my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project. I copied it to the end of the timeline and started editing out all parts that show me setting up for each time I lip-synch "No" to Brian Haddon's voice from the studio audio of my song. I'll cut some more tomorrow. 
            I worked on putting my copies of the Gumby Bible in chronological order. I'm missing some of the poems that I called "Commentaries on the Gumby Bible". I know that I have them, but I just have to find them. 
            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut-up beef burger, and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching three Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1959 and one from 1960. 
            In the first story, Daffy Duck hears that a TV station is celebrating the opening of rabbit season by giving $1000 to the first person who brings a rabbit into the station. He goes to visit Bugs Bunny to ask him to come along but he has things to do. So, Daffy grabs a gun from above Bugs's mantle and forces him to go to the station. At the station, there are various studios with game shows and large prizes like cars, boats, and appliances being delivered. Daffy decides to lock Bugs in a phone booth while he goes to win prizes. The phone in the booth rings and Bugs answers it. The caller is offering Bugs a chance to win a jacket pot if he can answer how much is 1,297 times 142. Bugs immediately says, "184,174". Bugs is right and his jackpot is delivered through the change return of the phone. The caller asks how Bugs got the answer so easily and he replies, "If there's one thing we rabbits are good at, it's multiplying." Daffy goes to Art Lamplighter's show, "People Are Phoney", which is a parody of Canadian born radio and TV host Art Linkletter's show of that era, "People Are Funny." Daffy becomes a contestant in a segment in which he has twenty minutes to help an old lady across the street. But the elderly woman doesn't want any help and keeps hitting Daffy with her umbrella. Daffy goes back to the phone booth where Bugs tells him about the prize money he won. He fakes the sound of a phone ringing with his voice and pretends he's talking to someone who is looking for another contestant. Daffy pushes Bugs out of the phone booth and takes the receiver, but it's a lit stick of dynamite. Then Bugs in disguise takes Daffy into a dressing room and tells him he's on in three minutes. He has him put on a rabbit costume and delivers him to the show that is offering $1000 for the first rabbit. Bugs gets the prize but then Daffy reveals he's a duck. The host says, "That's perfect because now it's duck season!" Hunters emerge and begin firing. 
            The second story is set in the time of Robin Hood. Bugs tries to steal a carrot from the king's carrot patch, but it has an alarm attached and he is grabbed by the Sherriff of Nottingham. Suddenly Little John breaks out of the forest and says, "Never fear, Robin Hood will soon be here!" But nothing happens and John leaves. Bugs tells the sheriff, "Look, the king is here!" The sheriff turns to look and Bugs clubs him, then runs. The sheriff catches him in the royal rose garden but then Bugs sells the sheriff a plot for a house. The sheriff starts building a house but then realizes what he's done and starts hitting himself in the head with a hammer. He comes after Bugs again and Bugs once more points that the king is coming. But this time the sheriff won't fall for it. But then Bugs arrives disguised as the king and tells the sheriff he's going to knight him. He gives the sheriff several titles and for each one, he gives him a whack on the head with his mace. Then Little John arrives again to say Robin will soon be here. Bugs says, You've been saying that through the whole picture, so where is he?" Suddenly we see a live-action clip from the 1938 film, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" as Errol Flynn swings into view and says, "Welcome to Sherwood!" 
            The third story is set in the wild west and it's similar to a previous story. Yosemite Sam is the fastest gun in the west and everyone is scared of him but the gunfighter Bugs Bunny. Bugs demonstrates that he can shoot the church bell, bounce the bullet to the water tower, have it ricochet off the bottle on the bar and part Sam's hair down the middle. They have a duel like they've had before with Sam taking ten paces but Bugs following him so when he turns, he has to reach around Bugs to fire. They have a shootout until Sam hears the 5:15 and has to go rob it. Bugs gets to the train first to save it. Sam keeps slamming into things on the way. Bugs becomes the engineer of the train. Sam hits a wall when the train goes through a tunnel and later falls off the very high railroad bridge. Sam gets ahead and drives another train on a collision course with the 5:15. But Bugs's train extends its height on scissor supports and Sam's train goes under it, then over a cliff when the track ends. 
            In the fourth story, Sam the Duke of Yosemite has had his allowance cut off by the king. Bugs Bunny shows up at the door in a parody of the show The Millionaire, offering Sam 1 million pounds. The only condition is that money will be deducted from that award every time Sam gets angry. Bugs moves in with Sam to make sure he behaves. But Sam becomes angry almost immediately over very small things. When Bugs asks for the olives at dinner Sam runs into a room and starts blowing his top. But Bugs says he heard him and that will cost him 400 pounds. Sam runs far away from the castle to blow his top. That night Bugs makes noise singing loudly after bedtime, then he begins banging on a drum and cymbals. The next morning Bugs is occupying the bathroom and Sam gets mad again. Bugs says that will cost 400 pounds. Sam decides he'll have to kill Bugs and sets a trap outside the bathroom door, sawing a hole with a carpet on top. Sam's castle is very high and it's a long drop. Sam tells Bugs someone's at the door for him, but Bugs says he'll be in the bathroom all day. Sam storms the room and drags Bugs out but falls through the trap door. When Sam gets back up, he charges Bugs and falls through the trap door again. Later Sam tries to kill Bugs with an axe while disguised as a statue in armour, but he slips and falls down the extremely long and winding stairs. Finally, Sam says he's managed his anger problem and shows Bugs by having his servants repeatedly abuse him. Bugs watches him and informs us he doesn't have the heart to tell Sam that the money is all gone. 
            I searched for bedbugs and found a baby in a crack in the wall at the foot of my bed. It was the first time in a month or so that I've killed one that looked like it had fresh blood inside.

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