Gene Baylos

            On Monday morning there was a bicycle that I’d never seen before in the hallway and it was parked in front of my door where I always put mine when I’m on my way out. I assume it belonged to either the guy in unit 5 or someone who was visiting him. It was gone an hour later. 

            I continued to work on memorizing the eighth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I consolidated my memorization of the second five lines of the first monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Of the third five lines I only got to line eleven. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since January 4. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio for the first time in several weeks during song practice. It went out of tune quite a bit but stayed in tune about a third of the time. The strings are new so that might have contributed to the problem. It would have sounded better if I could have turned it up but I was afraid of complaints. 

            At about 12:25 I left to meet Brian Haddon for lunch at The Artful Dodger at Yonge and Isabella. We were to meet at 13:00. It was 12:59 by the time I locked my bike and Brian arrived about five minutes later. Our favourite booth by the window in the north room was free this time. Brian had his favourite, the steak and mushroom pie and I had the Dickens club sandwich with fries. We shared a pint of Creemore. He’s finished his musical composition project “At the Sign of…” and uploaded it to YouTube. We agreed to get together again on Family Day before I start my annual fast. 

            I got home at around 16:00 and took a siesta at 16:18 with the intention of getting up at 17:48 but I slept an extra hour. 

            I weighed 89.85 kilos at 19:15. That’s the most I’ve pushed the scale in the evening since December 29. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:12. 

            I tried again to make a recording from my Sony cassette player to Audacity through my Scarlett audio interface. It works most of the time but the only problem is that the jack loses the connection to the interface sometimes. It seems to be because of the position of the long wire and if I can find a way to secure it this won’t happen. I didn’t keep the recording although I got most of what was on the cassette. I want to be able to digitize everything so I’ll try again tomorrow. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 2, episode 17 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Toody and Muldoon with great difficulty get Captain Block to allow them to testify at the parole hearing of Benny the Bookie. Block argues that Benny has been arrested 72 times but Toody and Muldoon tell him that he has a lot of support from the community to help him make a new start with a candy store. They successfully get Benny paroled and he’s looking forward to running the store but doesn’t like the fact that there’s a phone because he knows he’ll be tempted. Almost immediately someone calls to make a bet but Benny hangs up on them. They call again and once more he cuts them off. But after the third call he’s back to taking bets. 

            Then he is visited by a gangster named Killer Brown and his henchman Rudolph. Brown tells Benny he’s cutting in on his territory. Rudolph asks if he can cut Benny into little pieces but Brown says he wants to make a $10,000 bet and asks Rudolph to pick a horse. He turns on the radio and the results of the race are broadcast. Zippy Zelda won and paid 3 to 1. Brown says that’s the horse he wants. Benny protests that the race is over but Brown says, “Good! I won! You owe me $30,000!” He tells Benny he’ll be back at 18:00 and he’d better have the $30,000 or he’ll have a reason to chop him into little pieces. 

            Now Benny feels the only way he’ll be safe is to go back to prison and so he desperately tries to get arrested. First he throws a brick through the window of Schnauser’s patrol car and then another brick at Schnauser’s head. Muldoon and Toody convince Schnauser to let him go. 

            Then Benny hears Captain Block tell his men that there is a masher problem in Crotona Park and that anyone who even makes a remark to a woman there must be arrested. Suddenly Benny runs out the door and heads for Crotona Park. Next a woman (played by Margaret Hamilton of Wicked Witch of the West fame) has Benny arrested for jumping out of the bushes and kissing her. Muldoon convinces her that Benny couldn’t help himself because she’s a goddess. She agrees to drop the charges if Benny takes her out to dinner. 

           Then Benny gets his friend Katz the butcher to pretend that he’s robbing him. He ties him up and gags him. Muldoon and Toody arrive but all Benny has is a squirt gun and Katz can barely keep his story straight. Muldoon reminds Katz that if he presses charges he has to close the store, Katz thinks he'll have to get his brother in law to run the store, who will rob him more than Benny so he drops the charges. 

            Finally Benny pulls a fire alarm and when the chief sees it’s false he wants Benny arrested. But suddenly he sees a fire at the house next door and hails Benny as a hero. It turns out that it’s Killer Brown’s house and Killer now tells Benny he’s indebted to him. They both become partners in the candy store without a phone and now Benny is married to Margaret Hamilton.

            Benny was played by Gene Baylos, who developed his stand-up routine on the Borscht Belt starting in the 1930s. He came to be known as the comedian’s comedian, often improvising as he spoke. He co-starred in Jerry Lewis’s The Family Jewels. 

            Later my upstairs neighbour Jacob was blasting his stereo again and ironically shouting “Faggot!” out the window. Those things don’t bother me but I could also hear him running across his apartment, leaping and then repeatedly slamming his feet on the floor and knocking down big pieces of plaster while shouting , “Motherfucker!!!” My other third floor neighbour Dacvid says he sees Jacob buying wine at the liquor store every day.