Tuesday 16 May 2023

Soupy Sales


            On Monday morning I worked out the chords for the third and fourth verses of "La Dernière valse" (Final Waltz) by Boris Vian. 
            I finished working out the chords for "Quoi" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through it in French. I started reworking my translation to fit the melody better. That might take a couple of days. 
            I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. 
            There was an email from my landlord in response to my notifying him yesterday about the leak in my kitchen sink: 
            "This is the 5th time your kitchen sink leaking in our record. No one in the unit having any issue. This is happening since you are storing many things under your sink. Every time I advised you keep that area clean and you never follow. Every time it is causing by your ignorance. I am also out of country. I will ask my contractor and let you know what time he can make it. Please make sure you are available. Also make sure nothing impact the business downstairs." 
            I responded, "One again you blame your tenant for your faulty equipment and unprofessional installations. There is no lack of cleanliness in my kitchen. Yogi came last night and says the strainer of the drain is stripped and needs to be replaced. Obviously that issue is not related to cleanliness. Think before you make accusations. 
            The landlord responded: "I talked to Yoki and he said you are putting oil and dirt in the sink that’s why it’s blocking all the times. How come it’s not happening with any other tenants only you all the times. We are doing same parts and same service to all the tenants . According to the contractor you are dumbing dirty stuff in the sink without filtering which causing the leaking all the times. This is your warning make sure use the filter all the times. From next time I will send you the invoice with all the damages. It’s your responsibility." 
            I responded: "There is no oil going in the sink. Whatever food remnants that are too small for the filter are not causing the locknut to be stripped. That's your equipment that has worn out. Once again you refuse to take responsibility because it's cheaper to blame others." 
            The landlord responded: "Make sure you use the proper filter to filter all the dirt. That’s the one keep causing blocking and leaking all the times. If something is keep happening in your unit ONLY , it’s your ignorance. If this leak happens again it’s your sole responsibility. I will invoice you. I do not have to reply any more . It’s your responsibility." 
            I responded: "Logically, dirt did not cause the mechanical failure of the locknut. There are hundreds of reasons why it could happen in my unit. Lots of things go down the smaller bathroom drain and it never leaks and so the problem is obviously your kitchen equipment. You could continue threatening your tenants about charging them for what is your responsibility. Or you could behave like a decent landlord and do your job without animosity." 
            Around midday I finished cleaning the tiles of the northern bathroom wall above the bathtub and started on the western tiles. There are just the bottom two rows of tiles left and they are the dirtiest. 
            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way home to buy some Sunlight dish detergent. There was a long lineup for the cashiers. 
            I weighed 84.5 at 17:15. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:35. 
            I compared my June 11 and 20 recordings of "The Wooden Leg" and I think there are less mistakes on the C# and less traffic noise on June 11. I compared June 11 to July 10 and couldn't decide which was better. I compared them both to July 12 and couldn't figure why I thought that July 12 was a contender. There were mistakes and lots of traffic noise. I compared June 11 and July 10 again and I think June 11 is better. It definitely has a lot less traffic noise. Both sessions are already synchronized in Movie Maker so that makes things easy. It's not perfect and I plan on recording it again next time but I might as well put this not horrible version up on YouTube for now. There are three recordings of "La jambe de bois" to compare but I'll do that tomorrow. 
            Microsoft Word crashed after I copied and pasted the email exchange with my landlord. A lot of text entirely disappeared until I saved a recovered file and deleted the old one. 
            In Movie Maker I inserted the clip of the nurse with the needle into the main video for my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" to correspond with the line, "For details on injections of amytol and other drugs". Then I copied the two files that I use of Brian Haddon singing "shock therapy" from the beginning of the video and tried to paste the copies at the end of the timeline for easy access but one of them got copied and pasted inside the video and it screwed up the whole sequence. I had to undo everything I'd done today and start over. I got the nurse back in and one of the clips of Brian. I had the Brian clip pan from upper right to upper left and also posterized it to change the image. The next line is, "just in case you want to reduce the violence of these convulsions" and to correspond with that I'll try to synchronize the concert video with it but if it doesn't fit I'll add another grand mal seizure clip followed by another clip of Brian singing "shock therapy". 
            I scanned a few more black and white negatives from the 1980s. I finished a set of people walking on the street and started another set of shots of my ex-girlfriend Brenda with her friend Suzanne. There are also some experimental photos of rubber gloves put into various hand positions juxtaposed with real hands in the same positions as well as mirror images and shadows of hands. 
            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 8, episodes 12 and 13 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 
            In the first story Shorty Kellem is still carousing with women. Now that the attractive bank secretaries have found out he's not rich and rejected him, he's now partying with go-go girls, and Jethro is staying out all night with them too. Granny is upset and decides to punish Shorty by making him do chores like woodchopping while she points her shotgun at him. Shorty wants to withdraw his $1180 from Drysdale's bank. Jed calls Drysdale to tell him they are coming down to take out some money and Drysdale is worried Jed will remove his own money, so he promises the four secretaries $100 each to flirt with Jed. He comes home with lipstick kiss marks all over his face and Granny thinks Shorty has corrupted him. So Granny makes Shorty do laundry in a washtub with her lye soap. He says he's lost two fingernails already. Jed reminds Shorty that he's going to inherit his father's farm back in the hills and suggests that he go back there and take a wife. Shorty says hill girls aren't as pretty as city girls but Jed points out that Elly May is a hill girl. Shorty gets the wrong impression and slips a marriage proposal under Elly's door. Jed convinces Shorty that he slipped the proposal under Granny's door and so Shorty heads back to the hills as fast as he can. 
            In the second story a big sign saying "Welcome Hero" has been placed above the front door of the Clampett mansion. Jethro thinks it's for him because he thinks he rescued Margaret Drysdale's French poodle from a man who was trying to cut its hair off. Jethro stopped the man, who said, "Monsieur" but Jethro thinks he said "Ma sewer!" and told him to go back to his sewer. Jethro tossed him in the pool and then he ran away with Margaret running after him calling "Henri" but Jethro thinks she's calling him "ornery". The sign however was put above the Clampetts' door by mistake and its not for Jethro but for Margaret's nephew Lance "Jetstream" Bradford, the pride of the US Air Force. Milburn Drysdale is going to make Lance the vice president of his bank and is planning a big hero's reception for him there. He invites the Clampetts but they think the reception is for Jethro. Lance arrives and stands up in the back seat of the convertible to address the crowd when the Clampetts arrive and Jethro rams the back of the car, knocking Jetstream on his head. Lance recovers but it turns out that while everyone in the bank was outside greeting Jetstream, the bank was robbed. Jetstream meets Elly May and comes to the Clampett house to invite her to the party in his honour at the Drysdale house. While Jetstream is hanging out with Elly, Margaret comes to try to stop any communication between them because he thinks the Clampetts plan to snare and corrupt her nephew. She begins insulting Elly and Granny pushes her in the pool. Jetstream says if he could swim to save her he would have joined the Navy. 
            Jetstream was played by Soupy Sales, who grew up in North Carolina as part of the only Jewish family in the area. He said his family's store sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan. During WWII he was in the navy and survived the Battle of Okinawa. He started out as a DJ and script writer at a small radio station but said he had to leave for health reasons because they were sick of him. His first pie in the face was while hosting a children's television show in 1951. His children's show "Lunch With Soupy Sales" became a hit in 1953 and later became "The Soupy Sales Show". Getting a pie in the face in various ways became his career trademark. His signature dance was the Soupy Shuffle. On one show he encouraged children to steal money from their parents and send it to him. Some of them did and so the money was given to charity. Soupy's show was suspended for two weeks as punishment but it only increased its popularity. Frank Sinatra's daughter Nancy was a big fan of Soupy's show and through her Frank began to like it as well. He signed Soupy to a record deal. He had a top ten novelty song called "Do the Mouse" in 1965. At the same time he had a late night variety show called "Soupy's On". He was a tremendous jazz fan and hosted some of the greatest jazz performers, for some of whom his show has the only surviving video footage. He became a fill-in host of The Tonight Show between Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. In the mid 60s his show moved to New York and he had many famous guests such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis Jr., The Supremes, and The Temptations. His television show "Soupy's Soda Shop" was the first teen dance program. His was the first voice of Donkey Kong. He was a regular panelist on What's My Line. His two sons were members of David Bowie's band Tin Machine.













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