Bernard West

            On Tuesday morning I continued to work on memorizing the eighth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian and the third set of five lines of the first monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 89.25 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since January 2. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune a lot. Also it sounds tinny and I think it’s because the action is too low. 

            Around midday I returned to touching up the wall paint in my bathroom. I filled in the edges where the undersides of the upper shelves and the top of the lower shelf meet the wall. The tricky part was getting a consistent division between the top horizontal parts of the shelf brackets where they bend to become the vertical parts. It comes out as a nice triangle design. Tomorrow I’ll do the wall where it meets the underside of the lower shelf and make the same design for those brackets. Then all that’s left is the edge of the wall where it meets the strip above tiles and then the edges of the wall where it meets the bathroom door. After that I’ll buy the Blue Bliss coloured paint for the shelves and door. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:33. 

            I was able to record through my Scarlett audio interface to Audacity from the cassette tape recording of the finalists in my 20,000 Poets Under the League slam that was hosted by Sahara Spracklin. This time the jack didn’t lose its connection at all and so I got everything that was on the tape much better than my cassette to MP3 converter. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Le moribond” and “When They Put Me in that Hole” from October 9, 2024 to October 14 of the same year. On October 9 I played “Le moribond” on my Kramer electric but the camera battery charge ran out before this song. On October 11 and 13 I played it on my Martin acoustic. On October 11 I was about to finish a good take when a siren went by and then the battery charge ran out. On October 13 the camera battery charge ran out just before the last verse. On October 10 I played “When They Put Me in that Hole” on the Kramer and the take at 2:00 in part C didn’t sound bad. On October 12 and 14 I played it on my Martin. On October 12 the take at 1:15 in Part B wasn’t bad. On October 14 the camera battery charge ran out before this song.

            I compared the videos of my acoustic performances of “Le moribond” on September 9, 2024 with that of September 15 of the same year and September 9 is better. There are no other videos of that song that I highlighted from that session. 

            The six Libbey Gibraltar iced tea glasses that I ordered were supposed to be delivered by the end of the day on January 12. Tracking still says the package will be here yesterday. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks with skyr while watching season 2, episode 18 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            At a meeting of the Brotherhood Committee a guest speaker named Walter Gander is brought in to promote a group burial plan for police officers in a converted golf course. Two of the selling points are that it’s located near the New Mets baseball park and a drive-in movie theatre. Toody says he can’t wait. Muldoon says he’s selected the burial locations for each officer but Nicholson protests and calls Muldoon a dictator. Toody says he’d rather be dead than be buried next to Nicholson. 

            Muldoon has been president of the Brotherhood committee for several years in a row because they always vote him in unanimously. He admits he’s getting arrogant but tells his fellow officers that it’s their fault. He says in the next election he’ll run but only if someone runs against him. Schnauser wants to be sure Muldoon wins and so he talks Toody into being his opponent. He gets Jimmy to be his campaign manager but Jimmy starts having dreams of being a king maker and so he starts to use dirty politics. Toody makes impossible but very attractive and popular promises such as double pay after retirement, Florida vacations with pay, and police radios in stereo. He also slanders Muldoon by saying he’s friends with Fidel Castro and owns a yacht. Schnauser has no choice but to bug his own locker with a microphone connected to the intercom. Then when Toody walks by, Schnauser tells him he’s going to vote for him because Muldoon is a bum and a crook. Toody tells him not to say those things about his friend. He says Muldoon would be a better president than him. On the day of the election only one person voted for Toody and Muldoon confesses it was him. Toody says because of that he feels like he won. 

            Walter Gander was played by Bernard West, who started as a stand-up comic in a team with Michael Ross. They went on to become a TV writing team. He was in the original 1956 Broadway production of Bells Are Ringing for which he created the character of the singing dentist Dr. Kitchell. He reprised the role in the film adaptation. He wrote or co-wrote 33 episodes of All in the Family (he co-wrote the episode The Bunkers and the Swingers), co-created The Jeffersons, co-created the character of Maude and the spin-off sitcom featuring her character. He co-created the sitcom Three’s Company (based on the British series).