B.S. Pully

            On Monday morning I finished memorizing the first monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. The second monologue should be a lot easier as she’s asking someone simple questions and some of them are in English. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the last of two sessions and it went out of tune a lot. 

            I was sitting naked in front of my computer watching a video before going to the bathroom to shave and shower when my landlord and a bunch of guys walked in. I’m not shy about being seen naked but I hate my landlord coming in uninvited. I walked up to him nude and confronted him about coming into my place without permission. I took satisfaction in knowing it embarrassed the fuck out of him and I’m pretty sure he’ll think twice before just coming in from now on. He claims he knocked but he usually knocks a lot louder. He was walking with a cane and so maybe his knocking hand was occupied. Anyway they were there to check on the smoke detector and so I put my sweat pants on and the guy came back a few minutes later to just poke it to see if it works. Maybe the third guy was Raja’s son helping him take the garbage to the dump to further pollute Canada. If not for that incident I might have had time to treat one of my leather bicycle seats as I’ve been planning to do. Maybe I’ll have time to do that on Thursday now. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since last Monday. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but didn’t go downtown this time either. There’s a very narrow cowpath in the middle of the ice on the Bloor bike lane. I didn’t slip but I didn’t want to risk it so I only went as far as Ossington. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought seven bags of red grapes, a pack of toilet paper, and a pack of Sponge Towels. I did a price match on the grapes with Real Canadian Super Store at $4.39 a kilo. Priscilla reminded me that I could have gotten a big discount on the toilet paper with a Scene Card. I always thought it was a scam. When I got home I looked up how supermarkets make money with Scene cards. It seems that they only make a profit if the deals for card holders compel people to buy things they don’t normally buy. I guess it could happen with me but it might not. I went online and got a digital Scene card to keep on my phone. 

            I weighed 88.95 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:37. 

            I recorded from cassette through audio interface to Audacity then saved to my hard drive side 2 of the recording of the 2nd set of my first 20,000 Poets Under the League slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife.

            I reviewed the video of my song practice performance of “Le déserteur” on September 15, 2024 but the camera battery charge ran out before I could finish. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching season 2, episode 24 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Toody and Muldoon coach a Police Athletic League basketball team of boys but the team is playing poorly. One of the reasons is that one of the players, Joel has his bar mitzvah approaching and he’s depressed because no one is coming. Everybody likes Joel but they hate his father Pokrass the nasty landlord more than they love Joel. Toody promises that not only will he and Muldoon come but they’ll have the synagogue packed. But they can’t find anyone that wants to be in the same room with Pokrass. Katz the butcher would rather die. He says mentioning Pokrass in his shop will spoil the meat. He said he froze in a Pokrass building for nine winters. He says the lease says painting every two years but not your apartment but Pokrass’s. Tenants also have to serve him supper. Mrs. Kramer says she’ll dance if Pokrass is run over by a truck. Even Schnauser won’t go because Pokrass is his brother in law’s landlord. Toody and Muldoon go to see Pokrass and tell him what a nice kid he has. Pokrass says he’ll grow out of being nice. Pokrass says he sent out 50 invitations and got 54 rejections so this will teach Joel that people are undependable. They go to see the rabbi and he calls his friend the Catholic priest who says he’s on a picket line in front of one of Pokrass’s buildings demanding heat. On the day of Joel’s bar mitzvah Toody and Muldoon have still found no one to go. They are about to leave for the synagogue when Captain Block tells them they have to escort several prisoners to night court. Toody gets the idea to take the prisoners to the bar mitzvah on the way to court. Some of the prisoners also don’t want to be in the same room with Pokrass but they are forced. When Pokrass sees people come in to his son’s bar mitzvah his heart starts to melt. Then Schnauser, Katz, Kramer and several others and their families arrive and they are surprised when Pokrass says, “Welcome friends!” After that Pokrass cuts everybody’s rent by half and turns up the heat. This is definitely a fantasy story. Toody and Muldoon are about to confess that they brought prisoners to Joel’s bar mitzvah but Pokrass says he already knew that and when they get out of jail he’s going to give them all jobs. 

            Pokrass was played by B.S. Pully, and the “B.S.” in his stage name actually stood for “bull shit”. He started as a burlesque comedian with blue material. He made his film debut in Four Jills in a Jeep in 1944. He created the role of Big Jule for the original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls and reprised that part in the movie. He co-starred in Nob Hill, and Within These Walls.