Bruce Howard

            On Wednesday morning I heard in French on Radio Canada that Donald Trump won the election in the States. The US had the chance to elect its first Canadian president, which might have saved them but they blew it. What are ya gonna do? US history is a series of blunders from the revolution on. The US was supposed to have its first female president eight years ago since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but the US is never ready for progress. 

            I revised my translation of the first verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Be All You Can Be) by Boris Vian. This is going to take a few days. 

            I revised my translation of “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication and I might have it posted tomorrow.

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since last Wednesday. 

            At 14:00 I decided to lie down for fifteen minutes because wanted to give myself half an hour to get ready to leave at 14:45 for my dental appointment. I woke up at 14:45 and had to rush and inadequately brush my teeth. I left at 14:50 and got to Dentistry on Queen West at 14:55. I had to take a bowel movement, which I rarely do in public washrooms. When I came out I was called in and the assistant asked me how I’d chipped my tooth. I related how I was in my late teens living in the Beaches and working downtown. On hot summer days it was easy to fall asleep during the ride home. The backs of the streetcar seats had curved steel bars over the top and when the streetcar slammed its breaks my sleeping head slammed face first into the bar and chipped the tooth. It only occurred to me today that I could have and should have sued. The filling took less than 25 minutes. Dr. Singer didn’t charge me anything because it was only four months ago that he did the same filling. That was unexpected and nice. 

            From there I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco to take advantage of this being the last day that Food Basics had their grapes for $4.18 a kilo, so I could price match it at Freshco. I got five bags and I didn’t even have to show the flyer to Katarina because she said she’d been doing price matches with Food Basics on grapes all day long. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos at 17:10. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:24. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Like a Boomerang” and “Comme un boomerang” from October 10 to 13. On October 10 I played “Like a Boomerang” on my Kramer electric guitar and on the take at 6:00 I didn’t have enough of a grip on the E flat. On October 11 and 13 I played “Comme un Boomerang” on my Martin acoustic guitar. On October 11 the take at 5:30 was okay but the E flat was not firm. On October 13 the take at 6:00 was okay. On October 12 I played “Like a Boomerang” on the Martin and the take at 7:15 was okay but again the E flat was sometimes off. 

            I finished collecting all of the song versions of the poems from my book Paranoiac Utopia into one document and I started re-learning the title piece. 

            I made four ground beef patties and grilled them in the oven. I forgot to buy sandwich bread on Saturday and so I had to use two toasted slices of cinnamon-raisin bread to hold a burger. I used one patty, Dijon, chili sauce, horseradish and two slices of dill pickle. I had my burger with a beer while watching videos 9 and 10 of The Beatles cartoon series. 

            In story 1 of video 9 The Beatles visit a reservation in Texas where the natives pretend to talk in broken English because that’s what tourists expect. Meanwhile a little girl is trying to be a great hunter and trapper when a boy tells her that girls can’t do that. She proves they can by trapping John and Paul and then George and Ringo. They sing “Little Child” to her while upside down. She fetches the little boy to show his catch and he is impressed but when he tells her she caught the Beatles she faints. 

            The first singalong is to The Beatles version of “Long Tall Sally”, co-written and recorded by Little Richard in 1956. The Beatles started performing the song when they were The Quarrymen in 1957. The second singalong song is “Twist and Shout”. 

            In Story 2 of video 9 The Beatles are performing Ticket to Ride at a concert in Texas. The impresario gifts Ringo with a solid gold guitar decorated with diamonds. Three hillbilly musicians steal the guitar but the Beatles use special radar to track the guitar to the hillbillies’ shack. Ringo smashes through their house in a mining car and gets the guitar back to the tune of “I’ll Be Back”.

            In story 1 of video 10 The Beatles stop to spend the night in an English castle. An old man lets them in and they are interested in two suits of armour that are on display. He warns them not to touch them because the armour suits are cursed. Any two people that wear them will fight to the death unless they hear the drums of peace. John and Ringo put them on and John’s armour comes with the long lance of Salisbury that is nicknamed “Long Tall Sally”. They begin to fight until they fall into the drum of peace. 

            The first singalong song is “I’ll Follow the Sun”, which was written and sung by Paul. The second singalong is “When I Get Home”, which was written and sung by John. 

            In story 2 of video 10 The Beatles are visiting Japan where George is on his way for a judo lesson when he stops to give autographs and gets a swollen hand from autographitis. John, Paul and Ringo rush him to find a doctor. They see a sign of a hand and think it’s a hand doctor but it’s a karate studio. Inside the studio the karate champion is told he will be fighting the man with the stiffest hand in the world, the Masked Masher. Outside the studio George is worried that the doctor will recognize him and ask for his autograph and so Paul puts a mask on him. When George enters the studio the champion attacks him to the tune of “I’ll Cry Instead”, which was written and sung by John. The champion fumbles his way to his own defeat and the exercise cured George’s hand. 

            Both of these episodes were co-written by Bruce Howard, who started as a stand-up comedian. He was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on The Red Skelton Show. He wrote dozens of episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard, as well as episodes of McHale’s Navy, The Lucy Show, Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeannie, The Brady Bunch, The Jeffersons, Alice, Too Close for Comfort, Punky Brewster, One Day at a Time, and The Love Boat. He co-wrote the US version of King Kong Vs Godzilla in 1963.