Liberace

            On Tuesday morning I started working out the chords for “Rue Traversière” (Traversière Street) by Boris Vian and got the first line done. 

            I worked out the chords for the seventh verse of “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg. There is one verse left so I should have it finished tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since December 29. 

            Around midday I cleaned the wire rack that I keep on the back of the toilet to hold the containers for my hairbrushes, toothpaste and toothbrushes. Then I cleaned the bathroom sink and counter. 

            I registered for the new government high speed internet plan. I don’t like the fact that the only ISPs I can use are either Bell or Rogers, but $20 a month is a pretty good deal. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back put on the balaclava. It certainly is easier on the face on a cold night. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos at 18:24. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:07. 

            I finished frames 18 to 22 of the second rainbow wave in my animation project. 

            I uploaded to YouTube the video of my October 6 song practice electric performance of “Vomit of the Star Eater”. 

            I reviewed the videos of my September 1 song practice electric performance of “Les Sucettes” and my September 2 electric performance of “Annie C’s Aniseed Suckers”. In both cases I only did one take despite all the fumbles. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two chicken drumsticks while watching season 2, episodes 15 and 16 of Batman. 

            In episode 15, Harriet is practicing a vocal recital to the accompaniment of the famous pianist Chandell. He tells her she has the voice of a nightingale but she doesn’t. They are rehearsing for the annual benefit of the Wayne Foundation. He’s playing "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" Alfred comments that he can almost smell the highland heather remembered so fondly from his youth. But he mentioned in an earlier episode that he was from Liverpool, while the actor Alan Napier is from Birmingham. Suddenly a trio of gorgeous women in a simulation of highland garb but wearing sexy mini kilts and one of them playing a bag pipe come through the patio door. The two without the bag pipe draw swords and tell them to hand over their jewellery. They say they are ghosts who have been called from slumber by the bonny music and it will happen repeatedly whenever Chandell performs. Her pipe playing knocks out Chandell and Alfred. They rob the rest of the house while Harriet calls the cops. When they arrive she tells Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara that Bruce Wayne is away on a hunting trip and Dick is on a school holiday. Gordon tries to reach Batman but Alfred tells him Batman and Robin are away on a rare vacation. Gordon and O’Hara are in shock that they have to solve a case by themselves. O’Hara arranges for maximum security to protect Chandell’s concert that night. Behind the façade of a bankrupt manufacturer of music rolls for player pianos, Chandell is with his three female criminal accomplices. Then Chandell’s twin brother Harry arrives, who is a gangster type and seems to be the criminal mastermind behind their organization. The plan is to rob the audience and Harry says he’ll keep 95% of the take. Harry has blackmailed Chandell into a life of crime. Harry found out that Chandell used a player piano at the White House concert that made him famous because he’d injured his fingers in the piano lid. Harry says he’d set Chandell free from his influence for $5 million cash. That night Gordon has gone to extreme measures to provide security for the Chandell concert, even fingerprinting every guest. While Chandell plays a Burmese waltz his three sexy accomplices, dressed in harem garb appear before a guard outside the building as a dancing six armed goddess. Chandell hits a certain note and an explosion occurs behind the dancers at the Burma Import Company. Meanwhile on his muskrat hunting trip Bruce Wayne is listening in his tent to the radio broadcast of Chandell’s concert and hears the one C minor chord that doesn’t belong. Meanwhile Dick is on a date with Sal when Bruce sends him a secret signal. Dick “accidentally” spills water on Sal so she’ll go to the washroom and Dick talks to Bruce through the radio in his geometry textbook. They both know it's impossible for Chandell to make a mistake. Bruce says something is going on and they have to cut their holidays short. They arrive home to learn that Harriet is visiting Chandell in his dressing room and so they head there as Batman and Robin. Chandell hears that Batman and Robin are back so he sends Harriet home. Before they arrive he calls Harry to have him set a trap and then breaks a root beer bottle over his own head to make the heroes believe that his brother Harry attacked him. He tells them where to find Harry. Chandell’s three girls are there dancing to distract Batman and Robin while Harry’s three burly piano movers attack. The girls keep deliberately dancing in the dynamic duo’s way so the movers get the upper hand. Then Harry drops a giant music roll on Batman and Robin’s heads. They are tied to a conveyor belt leading into a music roll cutting machine so their bodies will be perforated with the code for a piece of music. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 16, after Harry leaves them alone to die in the musical hole punching machine to a ragtime piece of music. Batman and Robin begin singing bebop style skat to counter the music that is supposed to be copied. The notes Batman selected were precisely calculated to cause the punches to come down outside the outlines of their bodies. Batman knocks out Harry with a baterang but deliberately lets the women escape. Harry is interrogated by Gordon and O’Hara. He tells them a criminal mastermind named Fingers is behind the whole operation. Suddenly the criminal lawyer Alfred Slye arrives to stop the questioning. He says Batman and Robin deliberately sabotaged Harry’s machine by running their own bodies through it. Harry walks away with his lawyer. Batman learns that the fictional criminal Fingers is after the Wayne fortune and speculates on how anyone could possibly get his money. If Bruce died Dick would inherit it but then if Dick was also deceased the estate would go to Harriet. Then someone would have to marry Harriet to get access to the fortune and now Batman suspects Fingers is Chandell. Batman somehow deduces how Chandell was turned to a life of crime. He has Robin use his phonographic memory to recall Chandell’s White House concert. Batman tells him to concentrate on the andante passage in the 12th bar of his first selection from the top of page 17 of the score. Suddenly Robin recognizes that it was a carbon copy of the Paderewski version of the same piece. Batman says Harry would have supplied the music roll. Batman and Robin go to the balcony of Chandell’s dressing room from which they spy on Chandell as he romances Harriet. Batman has a plan and next we see Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson fake their own deaths in a darkroom explosion. As a former darkroom technician I can’t think of any darkroom chemicals that are explosive. Meanwhile Chandell’s three accomplices hear him tell them he plans on giving up crime after paying off Harry. Fearing that will lead to their unemployment Doe attacks Chandell with the sonic assault of her bagpipe. Mr. Slye hands Harry a $100,000 legal bill. Harry says that’s criminal but Slye says he’s always said he was a criminal attorney. Doe takes care of Slye with her pipes. Harry disguises himself as Chandell and tries to continue to court Harriet. He proposes that she sing at a concert he is going to give in honour of Bruce and Dick, then he kisses her hand and leaves. But she can tell from his kiss that he is not Chandell. Later as she rehearses with him she points a gun at him and tells him hands up. When he lifts his hands the piano keeps playing. But Doe attacks Harriet with her pipes and she is disarmed. Harry has his movers put her and Alfred in a trunk and then deliver it to him. He then pulls out a machine gun and fires at the trunk but Batman and Robin emerge from inside protected by the bat shield. They beat the movers. Doe tries her pipes but they have no effect. Harry and the women are knocked out with bat gas. Batman saves Chandell and Slye from the music roll puncher. Harriet is never told that her love was a criminal. He sends a letter telling her that he’s gone on a long tour but he is really in prison. These two episodes were the highest rated of the entire three years of the Batman series. 

              Chandell and Harry were played by Liberace, who learned to play the piano by ear at the age of four. As a teenager he found work playing piano in movie theatres and speakeasys. At 17 he joined the Works Progress Administration Symphony Orchestra. At the age of 20 he started playing concerts of popular songs in classical style and it was this mode of performance that made him famous. For instance he would mix Chopin with “Home on the Range”. He was one of the headliners in the first TV command performance by Queen Elizabeth. His film debut was in East of Java in 1950. On television the Liberace Show was a smash hit that ran for 17 years. He starred in the film Sincerely Yours. His autobiography Liberace was a best seller and his cookbook Liberace Cooks had seven printings. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 and kept it a secret until he died in 1987. Unlike most TV stars he made a habit of learning the names of the entire production crew of his shows and addressed them all by name. After each day of filming he would give concerts for the crews and take requests. He is mentioned in the songs “Mr. Sandman”, “My Baby Just Cares For Me” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. The phrase “I cried all the way to the bank” is said to have been coined by Liberace in response to a bad review. Then he added that he bought the bank. He said, “Without the show there is no business”. “What’s better than roses on your piano? Tulips on your organ.”