Dort Clark

            On Sunday morning I memorized the second five lines of the first monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. As far as I can tell the next five lines of text fit with the audio and so I’ll start memorizing them tomorrow. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since last Sunday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of four sessions. It stayed in tune fairly well. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer electric. 

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been running all week and set the other one going. I didn’t have time to fully clean it before lunch. I did the vinegar soak and got the mineral deposits off but left it soaking in water for several hours. 

            I had Sky Flakes with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of iced tea. 

            I weighed 89.65 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was really cold on the way back so I wore my balaclava as more than a toque. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos at 18:10. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:00. 

            I tried to record a cassette from my stereo through my audio interface to Audacity but I had trouble getting the audio to flash on the interface and when I did I couldn’t see a wave form in Audacity. I eventually got them both working at the same time but I don’t know exactly how and by then it was too late to record. What did record sounded good though so I guess I’m on the right track. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Le moribond” and “When They Put Me in that Hole” from October 1, 2024 to October 8 2024. For five of those sessions the camera battery charge ran out before either of those songs and for the other three it ran out during the songs. 

            I made pizza on two slices of multigrain sandwich bread. Two slices because there were big holes in the slices probably because the dough wasn’t kneaded properly. So since the holes were at one end of the slices I reversed a slice and put it on top of the other to cover the hole so the marinara sauce wouldn’t fall through it into the pan. On top of the marinara I put tomato pesto, pepperoni, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with my last Creemore while watching season 2, episode 16 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Next to the Bronx Home Savings Bank is the failed Hasty Tasty Luncheonette, which Eddie and Laverne Montaine, Laverne’s brother Barney and Eddie’s cousin Duke have just rented. They’re actually a gang planning to break through from their back wall to rob the bank’s safe. But as they are marking the wall for where to start drilling, Toody and Muldoon walk in. When they saw that the “for rent” sign was down they thought they’d welcome the new tenants to the neighbourhood. 

            But Toody is worried for them because the Hasty Tasty is a white elephant that never lasts more than six months no matter what business people try to start there. The Montaine’s are just starting to tear down the wall when Toody and Muldoon arrive with more cops. They’re the Helping Hand Committee of the Precinct Brotherhood club and they’re there to help get the restaurant started. Schnauser mixes plaster and fills the hole in the wall. 

            The next day Eddie walks in to find the place actually functioning as a restaurant with the place full of cops having breakfast. The police are enjoying the food too much and Eddie is worried they’ll never get rid of them and so he puts soap in the Hungarian goulash, causing them all to get sick except for Toody. We learn that Toody has no taste buds and that’s the secret to the success of his marriage to Lucille. 

            The cops don’t want to go back to the Hasty Tasty but Toody wants to find them a good cook. Then Toody and Muldoon overhear Captain Block talking with Willie, who just got out of Sing Sing where he was the best cook the prison ever had but now he can’t find work. Toody and Muldoon bring him to the Montaines, who have just broken through to the back of the bank safe and are about to start cutting with an acetylene torch. Toody and Muldoon see the hole and just think Schnauser is a lousy plasterer. They insist on Montaine hiring Willie. 

            But the next day Eddie announces he has to go out of business because Willie has made enough Irish Stew for 3200 people with 500 gallons more in the basement. He’s got 4300 biscuits in the oven. It’s the only way Willie knows how to cook. Eddie says the expense of Willie’s supplies has wiped them out. 

            Toody and Muldoon begin to promote the Hasty Tasty as caterers for large groups and end up bringing in a lot of business. They end up making $50,000 in six months, which would be half a million now. They’ve given up the dream of robbing the bank. This has been done before on other shows. I think it was on Andy Griffith or Gomer Pyle. 

            The Montaines meet Ma and Pa Smathers who are renting the store on the other side of the bank and say it will be a stamp store. We see the elderly couple also drilling to get to the bank vault when Toody and Muldoon walk in with the Helping Hand committee and say they’ll have their stamp store open tomorrow. 

            Eddie Montaine was played by Dort Clark, who graduated from teachers college in 1940. He made his Broadway debut in Sweet Charity in 1942. He played Inspector Barnes in the Broadway show Bells Are Ringing and in the 1960 movie. He performed on Broadway in many productions. He appeared in more than sixty television series and several movies including Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.