Robert Altman

            On Friday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 145 so far. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since February 11. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the third of four sessions and only about four times was it still in tune when I finished a song.

            Around midday I added a second coat of “blue bliss” coloured paint to the top and sides of the lower shelf in the bathroom. I finished a first coat for the underside. I think the top is fine now but the underside needs another coat, which I should have time to add on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. Their washroom has been out of order for a few weeks but they are legally required to provide a washroom for customers. I asked one employee but he didn’t know while another simply said he wasn’t allowed to let me use the employees’ washroom. I asked to see the manager but the guy said he wasn’t there. I think I’ll call the city to complain. 

            I bought seven bags of red grapes that were on sale, a pack of raspberries that weren’t, some bananas, a bunch of scallions, and a pack of toilet paper. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at 18:50. That’s the easiest I’ve been on the scale in the evening since February 11. 

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

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive my first interview on CIUT, sometime in the middle of 1995. I was promoting the launch of Orgasmagazine. 

            I sautéed some garlic, two scallions, added two cans of kidney beans, the rest of my marinara sauce, the rest of a jar of tomato pesto and some Calabrese hot paste. I ate the chili with two slices of toasted Bavarian sandwich bread while watching the mini-documentary on the first season of Combat.

            Jo Davidsmeyer says Combat was the greatest WWII TV series. There was conflict between the producers in the first season and directors like Robert Altman. He would feature members of the squad in stories for an anthology feel but the producers wanted to feature the entire squad working together. Altman put his unique stamp on every show. There was a lot of praise for Vic Morrow’s acting and his attitude. He said he was a comet and not a star. He became Pierre Jalbert’s acting teacher during the show but Jalbert shared with Vic his technical knowledge about film making. Shecky Greene quit halfway through the first season because he was making very little money on the show compared to what he could rake in doing stand-up in Vegas. Jalbert says he still gets letters from women who say that thanks to Combat they’ve come to understand their veteran fathers better. 

            Robert Altman started experimenting with sound in high school with cheap tape recorders. After WWII he tried acting and appeared in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He wrote a musical called The Rumours Are Flying, which ran briefly on Broadway. He co-wrote The Bodyguard, Christmas Eve, and Corn’s a Poppin. He co-created and directed the short lived TV series Pulse of the City. His feature film directorial debut was The Delinquents in 1957, which he also wrote. He started directing episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and for a while made a career of TV directing until he was offered M.A.S.H. He said M.A.S.H. wasn’t released but escaped. It was his highest grossing film. He directed That Cold Day in the Park, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, A Perfect Couple, Quintet, Short Cuts, The Long Goodbye, Brewster McCloud, California Split, Thieves Like Us, The Gingerbread Man, The Player, Gosford Park, Nashville, The Company, Images, 3 Women, A Wedding, Popeye, Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean, O.C. and Stiggs, Fool For Love, Beyond Therapy, Vincent and Theo, part of Aria, Secret Honour, The Laundromat, Ready to Wear, Cookie’s Fortune, Dr. T and the Women, and A Prairie Home Companion. He won 5 Academy Awards. He won an Emmy for directing the miniseries Tanner 88. Warren Beatty wanted to kill Altman during filming of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Altman worked best with improvisational actors. He didn’t like the TV version of M.A.S.H. because it wasn’t anti-war. He said wisdom is knowing not to stick your finger in a light socket while love is sticking your finger everywhere. His influences were Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, Huston, and Jean Renoir. I could see the Fellini influence when I saw Nashville. Nashville is Robert Altman’s Amarcord. He said Titanic was the worst film he’s ever seen. He co-wrote the song Black Sheep with John Anderson. He co-wrote the libretto for McTeague. His son Mike Altman, at the age of 14 wrote the lyrics for “Suicide is Painless”.

February 28, 1996: Brian Haddon and I went busking for the first time

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday Brian Haddon and I went busking together for the first time. We played in front of the defunct University Theatre on Bloor and made enough to go for supper and beer before playing together on the Fat Albert’s open stage for the first time. Mary Milne commented that we sounded good together.

Andrea Darvi

            On Thursday morning I gathered more images for a photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 133 so far. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the second of four sessions. 

            At around 13:15 I headed downtown to Mount Sinai and to Imaging on the fifth floor to buy a CT Colonography Preparation Kit for my CT scan next week, which costs $30. I asked the receptionist what I was paying for and she explained it’s the dye and the barium I have to combine and drink the day before the scan. I paid, took the package and left, but outside the hospital I looked for and couldn’t find the original letter I’d been sent with my instructions so I went back upstairs. The receptionist said no one else had been there so I must still have it. I looked in another pocket of my backpack and it was there. 

            I had planned on stopping at Freshco on my way home but I had to pee and the washroom at Freshco has been out of service for weeks so I decided I’d go there tomorrow instead. 

            I weighed 89 kilos at 15:25, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since January 16. 

            I took a siesta at 16:00, intending to get up at 17:30 but I slept until 18:00. 

            I weighed 90.05 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:16. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the tape I recorded yesterday. Side 1 had pre-verbal sounds from my daughter, plus a rehearsal of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” with Yehudah Cullman playing his cello. Side 2 was a recording of the CBC radio show Brave New Waves with host Brent Bambury featuring the British anarchist punk band Chumbawamba. 

            I renamed some photos to match them with more similar images. I deleted several others. 

            I boiled my last two potatoes and then baked them with the last of the five-year-old cheddar on top. I ate them while watching the first season finale of Combat. 

            K Company is fighting Germans who have occupied a French town and they are tossing grenades into windows and doorways. But Caje throws a grenade that kills a Frenchman and he is extremely broken up about it. 

            At the man’s burial he learns that he lived in a barge by the river and so he goes there. Inside he sees the man’s wedding picture, which doesn’t help. Then the man’s 11 year old daughter comes home and Caje has to break it to her that her father is dead. It turns out that her mother died earlier at the hands of the Germans and so now she is an orphan. 

            Feeling responsible as he should he strikes up a relationship with Micheline and they bond. But Caje is neglecting his duties and even walks away from Lieutenant Hanley when he gives him an order. Sergeant Saunders assures Hanley he can snap Caje out of it but Hanley warns him the next time Caje turns his back on him he’ll have him up on insubordination charges. 

            An elderly Frenchman is found who is willing to adopt Micheline but Caje is angry when the man asks how much he will be paid. 

            The Germans re-invade the town and Caje wants to go to Micheline but Saunders convinces him to stay and fight because Micheline will be safer if the Germans are defeated. 

            He tells him he’s been using Micheline as a crutch to deal with his own guilt. 

            Later Caje meets the entire family of the elderly man and there is at least one woman the age of Micheline’s mother, so knowing Micheline has someone to care for her he is able to leave. 

            Micheline was played by Andrea Darvi, who made her TV debut at 8 in the Twilight Zone episode “The Night of the Meek”. She only appeared in two movies: Torn Curtain and The Night God Screamed. She mostly left acting in 1966. She earned a BA in English, a Masters degree in Journalism, and a Masters Degree in Social Work. She became a licensed clinical social worker at the department of Veterans Affairs. She wrote Pretty Babies: An Insider’s Look at the World of the Hollywood Child Star and Madness: In the Trenches of America’s Troubled Department of Veterans Affairs. She taught in the Sociology department of Loyola Marymount University.

February 27, 1996: I brought some friends back to my place for coffee

Thirty years ago today 

            On Tuesday night after my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel, Raven, Cad, and Anna came back to my place for coffee.

David Zelag Goodman

            On Wednesday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 126 so far. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since February 13. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and a couple of times it stayed in tune for three songs in a row. The problem with my new rechargeable Snark guitar tuner is that the charge doesn’t last more than a couple of days. But it might last longer if I shut it off after using it. I’ve been used to the old non-rechargeable that shuts off by itself. This also shuts off by itself but not as soon. I had to recharge the Snark during song practice and kept unplugging it from the USB to retune. It was fully recharged about three quarters of the way through the session. 

            Around midday I started painting the lower bathroom shelf with the “blue bliss” colour. I covered the top, the sides, and most of the edges of the underside where the shelf meets the wall. The top needs another coat but I might have the whole shelf done on Friday. After that there will be the trim between the wall tiles and the wall, the door and the frame, the bathroom rack, and the bathroom mirror frame to paint with that hue. 

            I weighed 91.15 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought six bags of green grapes with a price match of $4.14 a kilo and some petroleum jelly. I walked over to Metro where they had non-dairy ice cream. I got a vanilla flavoured kind that’s cashew based by a company called Nora’s that I’d never seen before.

            I weighed 90.4 kilos at 18:55. February 13 was the last evening when I was that easy on the scale. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:49. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive some pre-verbal vocalizations by my daughter, plus a rehearsal of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” with Yehudah Cullman on the cello. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of iced tea while watching the penultimate episode of the first season of Combat. 

            A soldier named Lawson is transferred to K Company and he has a reputation for being a one man army. Sure enough, when they are all held down by a sniper in a tree, Lawson sees the sun glinting off the sniper’s rifle scope, moves in and takes him out. Later when they are held down by two machine gun nests that are shooting from inside a barn, Lawson waits until the machine gun swings away, runs into the barn, dives and takes out all of the Germans. Despite his success, Saunders chews him out because being in a squad is about teamwork and not grandstanding. He tells him he could have gotten himself killed because they were all firing at the barn. Kirby is worried for another reason, which is that if K Company gets a reputation for having a super soldier in the squad they are going to be assigned with more dangerous missions more often. 

           The other men confront Lawson but he tells everyone they are going to be fine if their mothers told them they are coming home. Lawson’s mother told him that he would die in the war because it runs in the family. His father died in WWI and his grandfather died in the Spanish-American War. He believes he is fated to die. 

           The next day the squad is sent to destroy two German armoured vehicles. Saunders says for Lawson to go to the bridge and wait for the first car to come but not to try to take it himself until they use their grenades to destroy the second one. He does wait and after the other car is in flames he tosses a grenade inside the first one. But his grenade is a dud so now he is pinned down until the others get there to destroy it with their grenades. 

            The story started off interesting but the conclusion is weak. The implication is that Lawson’s death wish has been cured but not very convincingly. 

            It was written by David Zelag Goodman, who studied playwriting at Queen’s College and then at Yale Drama School. The title of this episode was “High Named Today”, which is the same name as his play, that had a short run off Broadway. His first feature film screenplay was The Stranglers of Bombay in 1960. He was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing Lovers and Other Strangers. He co-wrote Straw Dogs, Monte Walsh, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Fighting Back, and Logan’s Run. He wrote Farewell My Lovely, Man on a Swing, and March or Die. He wrote eight episodes of The Untouchables. He was often consulted as a script doctor and it was apparently his idea that Glenn Close’s character should die in Fatal Attraction.

February 26, 1996: My arrangements of my songs accompanied by Brian Haddon were coming together

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday Brian Haddon came back to my place and we rehearsed my songs with me on guitar and him on recorder. The arrangements were shaping up.

George Davis

            On Tuesday I finally memorized the fifteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are four verses left but some have repeated lines I already know and so it’s more like two more verses to learn. 

            I continued to search online for vintage photos to add to my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I’ve got 120 so far. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since February 14. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune about every third song. I had my voice back after the stitches came out yesterday. For the last couple of weeks I’ve had to be careful not to stretch my mouth too much while singing and I couldn’t whistle at all. 

            Around midday I painted the second coat of Blue Bliss on the undersides of my upper shelves in the bathroom. It looks like two coats are enough and so tomorrow I’ll start painting the lower shelf.

            I weighed 90.75 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 90.55 kilos at 18:30. February 13 was the last evening when I was that easy on the scale. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:38. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive a recording of my daughter Astrid and I talking and singing around Christmas of 1994. I tried it last night but thought there was something wrong so I tried again. But it came out at low volume again except that the parts that were from a pre-recorded documentary about China was loud and clear and so the problem seems to be with the original recording. Anyway it came out better than what I got from the cassette to MP3 converter. I might be able to clean it up later in Audacity. 

            I made a couple more sub-folders for photos in my SSD. 

            I boiled the good parts of three potatoes and then baked them in the oven with five-year-old cheddar on top. I had supper while watching season 1, episode 30 of Combat. 

            Saunders hurts his leg in a German attack and so he hitches a ride in an ambulance to the aid station in Orre. In the back is the doctor Captain August, his nurse and partner Lieutenant Ann Hunter, and a wounded patient on IV drip. 

            When he gets to Orre the aid station is gone but he thinks he can catch up as he splits from the ambulance. But then German bombers attack and Saunders gets knocked out. When he comes to he sees the ambulance is still there but when he goes to it there is only the patient inside. He changes the bottle on the man’s drip and then gets in the cab to start driving the ambulance out of Orre. On the way he sees the driver, August and Hunter and he orders them in the back even though he’s outranked by two of them. 

            On the road the ambulance blows a tire. Saunders confronts August about abandoning his patient. The captain argues that the soldier doesn’t have a prayer and he left to help the other men in the convoy who had a chance of survival. Saunders says he’s going to Layelle even though they have to go through German lines.

            After the tire is changed Saunders drives on but has to stop for a horse and wagon in the middle of the road. In the back is a dying old Frenchman who wants them to leave him there because he’s tired of the war. 

            Saunders explains to Jones the driver that he is risking court martial by being rough on the captain because he recognizes that he has combat fatigue and that’s the only way to get him out of it. If he gets enough spine to have Saunders arrested then he’s cured. 

            That night there is a rain storm and they get stuck in the mud. They spend the night in a nearby barn. Jones admits that he abandoned the ambulance out of cowardice. Saunders tells him it’s easy to run but if you stand your ground just once it becomes easier after that. Ann tells Saunders that August is a brilliant and dedicated neurosurgeon who before the war saved lives no one else could. She says the day of the landing at Normandy he crawled on his stomach and saved the lives of fifty men. But as the war went on and he started losing lives he gave up. 

            In the morning Saunders sees four German soldiers struggling to get the ambulance out of the mud and after they succeed Saunders guns them all down from the loft of the barn. The Germans have had plenty of opportunities to just shoot Saunders like that over the course of the war. He should be glad they were more merciful than he is. 

            On the last stretch to Layelle the Allies begin bombarding the Germans on the road but Saunders drives past them. At the hospital August is able to save his patient and himself. 

            The old Frenchman was played by George Davis who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He started in Vaudeville and made his film debut in The Yellow Traffic in 1914. He co-starred in The Wagon Show and Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus.

February 25, 1996: My daughter and I found some interesting junk

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I explored a wild area near Dundas and Lansdowne between the north side of Dundas and the railroad tracks. We found an old crutch and a bunch of other stuff.

Bernard McEveety

            On Monday morning I gathered some vintage photos of sex workers for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune about every other song until the last five songs and then it fully behaved itself until the end. 

            I shaved and showered directly after song practice and then got ready for my appointment with my periodontist Dr. Xia. I got there pretty much just on time. He removed most of my stitches and said the rest are soluble and will dissolve by themselves over the next couple of weeks. He said the bone graft looks pretty good so far, so it appears like I’m on track to getting the implant. I brought my smaller denture along to see if it fits but he says it still doesn’t right now. I’m coming back in three weeks to check again. He doesn’t think it will fit because the bone graft has changed the shape of the gap. At that point if it still doesn’t fit they’ll order a retainer for me to wear for the few months until I get the implant. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought four bags of green grapes, a pack of raspberries, a Caribbean avocado, two containers of roasted red pepper hummus, and a container of Baba ganouj. I looked for non-dairy ice cream, which they had last year but there was none in sight this time other than in pop form on sticks. 

            I weighed 90.45 kilos at 15:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since February 12. 

            I took a siesta at 16:30, planning to get up at 18:00 but I slept until 18:45. 

            I weighed 91.3 kilos at 19:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:07. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity a recording of my daughter Astrid singing at around the age of 3 but the recording is very low in volume. I’ll try again tomorrow as it might be a memory issue for my computer in Audacity. Sometimes a restart will fix it. 

            I had two potatoes with margarine and two slices of five-year-old cheddar while watching season 1, episode 29 of Combat. 

            K Company is behind enemy lines and have to get back to their side within two and a half hours before Allied shelling of the area begins. While checking a barn for Germans, Kirby hears a noise and fires, just missing a baby in a basket. A dead woman they assume was the child’s mother is found outside the barn, having been killed by German mortars the night before. 

            Saunders says they have to move out and the men assume they will be taking the baby but he says no. They protest and grumble as they make their way until finally Saunders sends two men back for the baby. Since Doc is unarmed he is the only one allowed to carry the baby as they need every gun to be ready. The map shows that there is a convent not far away and so they make their way there only to find that it’s been destroyed. 

            Then they see a German patrol approaching on the road and they hide. On both sides of the road is an orchard and the Germans stop to pick apples. After a while they move on but Doc has been covering the baby’s mouth to keep it from making noise and it seems it may have killed the infant. Doc performs mouth to mouth for a long time and is almost ready to give up when the baby returns to consciousness. 

            They find a bombed out house where there is a bicycle and clothing that survived the blasts. Stroback sees a cow and goes running towards it to get milk for the baby when he steps on a mine and is killed. Since the Germans might have heard the mine, Saunders takes Brockmeier with him to recon. Meanwhile the men go against orders and sweep the field for mines so they can milk the cow. A wine bottle is washed and Doc rigs a nipple from a dropper in his med kit. When Saunders comes back Kirby lies that the cow wandered over to them so they milked it. He doesn’t believe him. 

            In the baby’s clothes they find a locket that indicates the baby had a German father and a French mother. 

            To get back to their lines they have to cross a fast river over which the only crossing is a pontoon bridge heavily guarded by German soldiers. K Company will have to try to cross where the river is rapid but they wouldn’t be able to carry the baby. Caje sees a Frenchman cross the bridge on a bicycle and the soldiers don’t ask to see his papers. He gets the idea to take the baby back to the house, change into the clothes they found and ride the bicycle with the baby in the basket across the bridge and then meet his company on the other side. He finds one German soldier goofing off by the house then sneaks up behind and strangles him. He and the baby make it across the bridge and meet K Company on the other side. 

            The Allied mortar fire begins and they have to make their way through it back to their lines while still shielding the baby. They find a convent that is happy to take the baby. All the men, including Saunders are sad to be free of the infant. 

            This episode was directed by Bernard McEveety, who directed 52 episodes of Gunsmoke, and 5 episodes of Knight Rider. He directed The Brotherhood of Satan, Ride Beyond Vengeance, and Napoleon and Samantha. The latter was Jodie Foster’s feature film debut at the age of 9. While shooting it she was picked up by a lion and shaken in its mouth before the trainer said “Drop it!”

February 24, 1996: My daughter and I found a nearby playground in my new neighbourhood

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday my daughter and I began our weekend together. It was fairly warm for February. We found a playground in my new neighbourhood.

Eric Braeden

            On Sunday morning I continued to collect images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune on almost every song.

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been running all week and set the other one going. Maybe in a month or so I won’t need the humidifiers anymore and my Sundays will be freed up for painting. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar, with a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown but only as far as St George and Bloor because the Bloor bike lane was getting slippery. I went south to Harbord, west to Bathurst. south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 91.05 kilos at 18:05. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:41. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive a recording that has my daughter Astrid making mostly pre-verbal sounds. Most of the first half of one side is a CBC interview with Leonard Cohen. The rest of the tape consists of a woman reading Ontario legal documents in French. 

            I made some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted a few more images from my hard drive. I’m up to the pictures with titles that start with “L”. 

            I cubed a pack of tofu and sautéed it. I added water, spinach, two Szechuan spice packs, and two servings of noodles. I ate supper with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 28 of Combat. 

            K Company has just liberated a French town and is looking forward to rest and relaxation there when a sniper kills one of their men. They search house to house but we see a man dressed as a local walk to a bombed out factory on the edge of town and descend to a hidden living quarters in the basement. We see him don a German uniform. 

            Later he returns to the village, again dressed as a local and from another upper floor room kills another GI. The sniper easily escapes back to his hideout. Francoise the bartender goes to meet him there and we see they are lovers. 

            Kirby runs across two boys playing war. Caje learns they are looking for the sniper. They say they saw someone go into the factory. Saunders and Caje go there and meet Francoise and Hans on the way. They find the sniper’s lair. 

            After they return to the village the sniper targets Saunders but he sees the gun in the window and moves. The bullet hits the wall near Saunders’ face and partially blinds him. The sniper stops to help an old lady with her baskets just as Hanley asks if they’ve seen anybody. Through his blurry vision Saunders can see Francoise walking out of the village and he follows her. She detects him and hides. The sniper grabs one of his cached rifles and hides behind a ridge to wait for Saunders. Francoise sees this and calls out a warning so the shot misses him. Hans shoots Francoise then Saunders fires from side to side in his general direction with his machine gun until he hits and kills the sniper. He goes to Francoise as she is dying. 

            The sniper was played by Eric Braeden, who immigrated to the US as a teenager and worked as a translator, a cowhand, and a lumber mill hand in Montana and Texas. He earned a track and field scholarship to Montana State University. He and Bob McKinnon made a documentary of their successful trip the length of the Salmon River. He went to Hollywood to find a distributor and ended up being cast as the co-star in The Rat Patrol. His film debut was in Operation Eichman in 1961. He starred in Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Adulteress, and The Man Who Came Back. He co-starred in The Mask of Sheba, The Ultimate Thrill, and The Ambulance. He reluctantly accepted the role of Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless and it made him a star. He has been nominated for five Emmy Awards. He co-starred in the mini series Lucky Chances. He thinks Hollywood’s portrayal of US soldiers in WWII caused the Vietnam war.

February 23, 1996: Brian Haddon didn't want to perform with me until everything was right

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron. I invited Brian Haddon to accompany me but he was a bit of a perfectionist and wanted us to rehearse a few more times.

Curt Conway

            On Saturday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les Millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune during almost every song. The new tuner is more accurate but has no magical effect on the guitar.

            Around midday I went to No Frills where I got a refund for the zero alcohol mouthwash that I accidentally bought last week. The grapes were very cheap at $4.14 a kilo but I could only find five bags that were relatively firm. I also bought a pack of raspberries, some bananas, mouthwash, a carton of coconut milk, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, and a container of what I thought was non-dairy coconut ice cream but it was dairy coconut ice cream. I’m pretty sure I’ve bought non-dairy ice cream at No Frills but there’s none there now. They have it at Freshco so maybe I’ll pop by there tomorrow. 

            My upstairs neighbour David called and said he forgot to buy bread so I gave him three slices of Bavarian sandwich bread. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 14:35, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since last Saturday. 

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:00. It was too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos at 17:20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive a recording of my daughter Astrid making pre-verbal sounds. It’s only on the beginning of side A. I have another tape that has more of her on it that I’ll digitize tomorrow. 

            I created more sub-folders in my SSD for photos including one for Kitten Natividad. I deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I used the remainder of some tofu I cooked a few days ago, added water, some broccoli, and two Szechuan flavour packets. I cooked them for a while, then added two servings of ramen noodles. I had two bowls of the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 27 of Combat. 

            Kirby is on trial for desertion and if found guilty the punishment could be the firing squad. Saunders and Caje attend his trial.

            He had been separated from K Company when they were under heavy mortar fire. He was found by Sgt. Metcalf of F Company and ordered to help take Hill 256. But on the way up Kirby saw that they were under machine gun fire and ran. Metcalf saw no machine gun and his word has more weight because he’s a decorated soldier while Kirby has a reputation for being a troublemaker. 

            Saunders points out that he’s fought beside Kirby many times and he’s never run but he’s told that one only needs to run once to be a coward. 

            There is one German prisoner from that battle and Saunders tries to get him to confirm that there was a machine gun but he refuses to give anything but his name, rank, and serial number. 

            Saunders and Kirby’s lawyer Captain Dugan check the records and find there has only been that one battle on Hill 256 so if machine gun shells can be found there it could save Kirby. Saunders and Caje decide to go on a private mission to Hill 256 but they only have one night because Kirby will be on the witness stand in the morning. They enter British lines and are captured but after a few hours their identities are confirmed and they are allowed to continue because the Brits sympathize with their situation. 

            They see German soldiers as they make their way to the hill and strangle two of them. At the top of the hill Caje falls into a deep man-made hole and inside finds a spent machine gun belt. But a truckload of Germans arrive to start cutting down trees in the area. They kill one of them who gets too close to the hole and then sneak away. 

           They give the shells to Dugan who brings an ordinance expert into court to identify the shells as German. The prosecution drops the charges and Kirby is free to go. Metcalf still insists he saw no machine gun.

            Saunders concludes that Metcalfe is so conditioned to be brave that he can’t even see danger when it’s staring down his throat. 

            Captain Dugan was played by Curt Conway, who was a member of the Actors Studio. His film debut was in Singapore in 1947. He played Hitler in an episode of the Twilight Zone. He appeared on four episodes of The Odd Couple. He founded the Conway Theatre Studio in Hollywood in 1962. He was on the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts and taught at the Civic Light Opera Musical Theatre Workshop in LA. He taught acting at the University of California from 1970 to 1972.

February 22, 1996: It was so much easier to teach another musician my songs now that I could play them

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday Brian Haddon started learning to play my songs on the recorder. It was so much easier to teach another musician my songs now that I could play them on guitar. Rehearsals were chaotic with the earlier ensemble of Christian and the Lions when I would just try to sing them my songs.

Hendrik Vallaerts

            On Friday at about 3:00 my upstairs neighbour Jacob was banging on something. 

            At 3:45 the fire alarm started bonking and continued for half an hour until the firemen came. I could hear them in the hall but I didn’t get up to check on whether there was actually a fire. I fell asleep and dreamed that I went out to talk with them and saw that unit 2 was totally gutted and black. Of course it wasn’t. 

            After yoga I gathered more images from the internet for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it didn’t stay in tune as well as yesterday but it wasn’t too bad. 

            Around midday I painted the underside of my top bathroom shelves with “blue bliss”. I also straightened out the lines where the top shelves meet the walls. It looks good but it’ll need at least one more coat, which I’ll add on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 91.8 kilos before lunch.

            I took a siesta at 14:30 as usual but didn’t wake up until 17:15. My body was probably making up for its loss of sleep while the fire alarm was sounding. It was too late for a bike ride.

            I weighed 91.95 kilos at 17:40. 

            I called my periodontist Dr. Xia and left a message to let him know I was almost finished with the Peridex mouth rinse and wondered if I could go back to regular mouthwash. He got back to me an hour later and said I could use warm salted water instead. He also said I could lightly brush the area of surgery now. I’m looking forward to getting the twenty stitches out. I can feel the ends of the threads and it feels like I’ve got a spider in my mouth. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:41. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the Bomb Shelter Light demo tape. The next tape I’ll digitize is one containing pre-verbal sounds my daughter made when she was small. 

            I created some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I boiled a potato in vegetable broth, added spinach, and five-year old cheddar. I put in a little too much salt. I ate while watching season 1, episode 26 of Combat. 

            K Company is battling the Germans in what is supposed to be an evacuated French town. Then they notice a beautiful young woman sitting in a rose garden oblivious to the gunfire and the explosions. Oddly the garden has been untouched while outside its gate the streets are torn up. The Germans retreat but will be back and they outnumber K Company. Saunders enters the garden to try to get the woman to leave. The young woman’s name is Jeannine and she is with her caregiver, the elderly Celeste. Jeannine has lost her family and now lives in a delusional fantasy of peace in the garden. Celeste speaks English and tells Saunders that divine intervention is protecting Jeannine and her garden. She says that Jeannine will die if she leaves. 

            Later Saunders comes back to try again. Although Jeannine cannot speak English she has taken a liking to Saunders and follows him when he leads her to the gate. But then she sees the devastation outside and has a panic attack. She retreats to the garden. 

            Saunders goes back to his company. The Germans begin to shell the town and Lieutenant Hanley tells Saunders to try again to get the civilians out. Jeannine is playing a record and wants Saunders to dance with her. Celeste points a rifle at Saunders and forces him to do so. He doesn’t really have to be forced. After a while Jeannine becomes very calm in his arms and he picks her up to carry her out of the garden with Celeste following. He lays her down in a stable at the command post but when she wakes up she panics. Doc gives her an injection that puts her to sleep. 

            The Germans stop firing for the night and everyone goes to sleep. Jeannine wakes up and wanders back to her garden. Saunders finds her there as German troops occupy the town. A machine gun nest is holding K Company down. There’s an abandoned tank nearby with the big gun out of commission but the machine gun works. Caje tries to get to it but is wounded. Saunders successfully gets into the tank and uses the machine gun to take out the nest. The Germans are gone from the town for now. Jeannine and Celeste are back in the garden and Jeannine gives Saunders a rose before he leaves. 

            This story was written by Hendrik Vallaerts, who started as a writer for Frank Sinatra’s radio show. He wrote the Star Trek episode “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”. He wrote six scripts of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and created the minisub they used in the series. He wrote the two episodes of Batman for which he created the villain the Bookworm.

February 21, 1996: Brian Haddon joined my band Christian and the Lions

Thirty years ago today 

             On Wednesday Brian Haddon brought his recorder to work and afterwards we went back to my place to jam. He decided he was interested in learning my songs and we made plans to start busking together as well.

J.D. Cannon

            On Thursday morning I finally memorized the fourteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are four verses left but some have repeated lines I already know and so it’s more like two more verses to learn. 

            I continued to search online for vintage photos to add to my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I’ve got 74 so far. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and after having to retune following the first song and then the second, it stayed in tune for the rest of the session. 

            I created a few more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several images from my hard drive.

            I weighed 91.05 before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and for the first time since before the big storm the Bloor bike lane was clear enough for me to ride all the way downtown. I was almost disappointed because I’d gotten used to these shorter bike rides over the last few weeks. It was quite tiring riding downtown and back without practice. I stopped at Freshco on my way back where I bought seven bags of grapes but stuffed them all into four bags just in case the cashier wanted to be strict about the four item limit for price matches. I also got two packs of raspberries, some bananas, a carton of soy milk, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, two cans of kidney beans, Sensodyne toothpaste, and shaving gel. 

            The price match on the grapes was with the No Frills price of $4.14 a kilo. For some reason Jeremy the cashier disputed that and got out his calculator to work out a much higher price per kilo. I said, “You didn’t get $4.14 a kilo?” He said that’s not what $2.99 a pound works out to. I informed him, “It’s not $2.99 a pound, it’s $1.88 a pound!” When he looked at my flyer he’d been looking at the price for the item below the grapes. He fixed his mistake but I’ll probably avoid Jeremy’s counter from now on. 

            When I got home I saw that I’d forgotten the bananas and they weren’t on my receipt. I took them out of my basket when I was putting the seven bags of grapes into four bags and then must have forgotten to put them back in.

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 19:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:35.

            There was no time to work on any projects tonight. 

            I boiled the good parts of two potatoes in vegetable broth. On another burner I heated what was left of the chicken and potato soup I’d made yesterday and added two slices of five-year-old cheddar. To the main soup I added spinach and after about ten minutes added yesterday’s soup. The finished product was delicious. 

            I had supper while watching season 1, episode 25 of Combat. This story had the feel of a back door pilot. The star, Rick Jason did very little while the episode was driven by the guest star, J.D. Cannon, playing superspy Ted Slocum. AI says that there is a considerable group of fans and critics that agree with me that this was probably a back door pilot. Espionage shows were very popular at that time but it would have been unique to have one set during WWII.

            In the middle of being shelled by Germans in France, Lieutenant Hanley gets orders to report to a cocktail lounge in London. They fly him out still dirty from night patrol. He gets cleaned up at the hotel and soon he’s in uniform enjoying a drink in the lounge. 

            At the bar two men are debating and then finally betting on how many companies a German infantry regiment has. The British man says 15 and the Middle North American argues it’s 12. They see Hanley and recognize by his uniform that he would know and so they agree that he can settle the bet. Hanley says 15 so the Middle North American pays a pound. He sits with Hanley and asks what outfit he’s with but he won’t say. The Middle North American shows his credentials and he’s Ted Slocum of the Washington Foreign Press but Hanley still won’t give out any information.

            Slocum leaves and then Hanley gets a phone call to go to a certain address. He enters a dark room lit by one candle where a man named Williams at a table tells him to sit down and look at a photograph on the table. Hanley recognizes the Barole family. There is Raymond, who was Hanley’s college roommate, Raymond’s little sister Marie and their father Dr. Barole the physicist. Williams says that Dr. Barole is in hiding in occupied France to avoid being forced to serve the German war effort. He is hiding in a town near the Swiss border. 

            An attempt was made to help him escape but it failed because someone tipped off the Gestapo and Raymond was killed. Barole needs someone he can trust so he will cooperate with a new escape plan. Williams says that Hanley would be accompanied by an experienced spy who has jumped into occupied territory many times. Only Marie knows where her father is but the Maquis would lead them to her. 

            Hanley agrees to the mission and then a light comes on revealing that nearby is sitting Ted Slocum, the spy who will lead the mission. Hanley is impressed because he found Slocum very convincing as a news correspondent when he met him in the bar. 

            Slocum takes Hanley to get their papers. A man who was recently in prison for counterfeiting is now the expert in charge of that department. They get suited up with French citizens’ clothing of the region in question. 

            They jump and are met by two men and one woman of the Maquis. Two Germans are approaching and Slocum immediately tells the other men to hide, then he grabs Lily, throws her down on the ground and begins kissing her. The German soldiers just think it’s a couple of French lovers and they let them go. 

            They go to Marie and she is happy to see Hanley again. It turns out that Dr. Barole is hiding in Marie’s cellar. Slocum tells him they have to leave tonight. Barole says he needs his notebook, which he’s hidden in the wine cellar of a local bar that is frequented by German soldiers. 

            Slocum burgles a uniform store and dresses as a German officer. He walks into the bar and asks for wine but acts disgusted by what he tastes. So the bartender takes him to the basement where Slocum “accidentally” breaks the wine bottle the bartender hands him and while the proprietor goes upstairs for a mop, Slocum finds Barole’s notebook. On his way out the other German officers are leaving and he learns that they are going to the church where he, Hanley and the Baroles are supposed to rendezvous. He goes back to Hanley and says there is a traitor among the three Maquis they are working with. Slocum tells each of the three a different location for their next rendezvous. Then later he says they are going to the church tower to watch and see which location the Gestapo go. That way they will know who the traitor is. Lily suddenly jumps out of the car and runs. Slocum drives after her but she runs into an area under curfew and the Germans shoot her. 

            Slocum, Haney, the other two Maquis and the Baroles make it across the Swiss border and then Hanley and Slocum head back to London so Slocum can buy Haney a drink. 

            Slocum was played by J.D. Cannon, who started his studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before WWII and finished them after. He was a founding member of the New York Shakespeare Festival. His TV debut was on the Phil Silvers Show. He starred in the original off-Broadway production of Blood Knot in 1964. His film debut was in An American Dream in 1966. He co-starred in Cool Hand Luke, He appeared in 5 episodes of Alias Smith and Jones. He played Police Detective Peter B. Clifford on McCloud from 1970 to 1977 (a role that his producers said was the closest thing to a living Dick Tracy).

February 20, 1996: I met my fellow model and musician Brian Haddon

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday I took my guitar to work with me at the Ontario College of Art. Sometimes I would pose with it for paintings. At lunchtime I would sit in the models’ lounge and in those days the school had a nice one with a big couch where models could hang out and get to know each other. That day I met Brian Haddon who it turned out was also a musician and had studied at the Royal Conservatory. He said he played recorder and we talked about getting together and playing to find out if he’d like to join Christian and the Lions.

Garry Walberg

            On Wednesday morning I gathered more images from the internet for my phot-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time but not as much as yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer and we’ll see how the new tuner works on that. I tuned my Martin acoustic with it earlier and it was difficult. I find it needs to be slightly below dead-on the notes for the B and the high E. I was used to finding where that was with the old tuner. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos before lunch. I had some of the potato and chicken soup that I made yesterday and added saltines. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but because of the storm O’Hara was too slippery so I just went straight to Freshco along Queen. That was difficult as well but not as bad. I had to walk around a couple of cars. At the supermarket I bought three bags of cherries, some spinach, some broccoli, two packs of tofu, one container of Compliments vegetable broth and another of Campbells just to see if there was a difference. Once again I couldn’t find my Scene card at the cash. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos at 17:40. 

            I spent an annoying hour trying figure out how I could access my Scene card without looking in my Gmail. I kept getting trapped in the Scene website and couldn’t get out. That happened several times. Finally I was able to put my card in Google Wallet and then I had to figure out how to have Google Wallet easily accessible. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:41. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side one of Bomb Shelter Light’s demo tape. Bomb Shelter Light featured at least once at my The Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage. The songs seem derivative of Nick Cave. 

            I cubed a pack of sautéed tofu, added the rest of the pho broth, and some chopped broccoli. After the broccoli was cooked I added a pack of kimchi ramen noodles and the herbs and spices that came with it. I had supper with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 24 of Combat. 

            Three journalists come to observe K Company in action. The most aggressive among them is Eleanora Hunt, who will do anything to get a story. Captain Smith tells Hanley and Saunders to look out for Hunt as she can do the war a lot of good. She’s one of the best magazine photographers in the business. 

            She goes out to an observation post with Saunders and Billy and complains she’s yet to hear a shot or see a dead German. Suddenly they are attacked by two Germans, who are killed. She jumps into a car carrying two resistance fighters and so Saunders gets in too as he’s been ordered to watch out for her. They drive back to the command post. 

            That night Eleanora sneaks off with the Maquis fighters to the nearby village of Trois Anges. K Company has to go after her. The people of the village misunderstand Eleanora’s presence there as being part of the liberation of the town. Everyone comes out to celebrate, which could tip off potential traitors who now would know who among them was with the resistance. Later they learn that the town has been occupied and Hanley and Saunders lead a squad to do reconnaissance. Eleanor tries to tag along in a commandeered jeep but agrees to wait outside the town. 

            A jeep is attacked and one of the men is killed. The two resistance fighters are found, one of them dead and the other dying. Eleanora is brought in and Saunders shows her the dead in a school and three members of the resistance hanging from church bells. 

            Later Eleanora mails Saunders a copy of the magazine containing her article and pictures. 

            One of the other journalists was played by Garry Walberg, whose film debut was in Gangster Story in 1959. His TV debut was on Rawhide in 1959. He played Sergeant Sullivan on five episodes of Johnny Stacatto. He appeared in the very first episode of The Twilight Zone. He played Sergeant Goddard in 33 episodes of Peyton Place. He played Hansen in the Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror”. He played Oscar’s poker buddy Homer on the sitcom The Odd Couple. He played Police Lieutenant Frank Monahan on all seven seasons of Quincy.

December 19, 1996: My landlady felt right about her pregnancy

Thirty years ago today 

             On Monday I chatted with my new landlady Helga Schlatter about her pregnancy. She said that she’d been pregnant once before but had gotten an abortion because she’d had a premonition that the baby would be evil. Considering that the one she did have is now in prison for murder, maybe she got her psychic wires crossed.

Marlene Parker

            On Tuesday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of the song “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year. No wonder I’m out of breath after I do my chin-ups. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it was staying in tune about half the time until the battery died on my tuner. I switched to my new rechargeable Snark tuner for the first time and it seems more accurate. After that the guitar stayed in tune almost the whole time. Time will tell if all my tuning problems all these years have been because of a bad tuner. It may just be that the Gibson liked the damp weather today and the tuner is just a coincidence.

            Around midday I finished touching up the wall paint above the top bathroom shelf and also fixed an area on the north wall that I’d smudged with pink paint. Now I’m finished with the stepladder for the bathroom and tomorrow I’ll start painting the undersides of the top shelves with the Blue Bliss paint. 

            I weighed 92.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and found they’d cleared the snow that’s been blocking the Bloor bike lane at Shaw and Bloor but it’s still clogged up from Grace Street on. I went down Grace to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and west to home. The sun was enormous and red because of the dwindling fog. I took some pictures but it was already partly behind buildings. 

            I weighed 92.1 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was behind in my journal because I fell asleep at the computer last night. I got caught up at 19:18. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of “Dancing to the Words”, which was my disc jockey audition tape for CKLN. At first the waveform died about a song and a half into the tape and so like the day before yesterday I had to restart my computer before Audacity would record the whole thing. 

            I deleted a few more photos from my hard drive. 

            I used the rest of the water in which I’d cooked the three chicken legs two days ago to boil the good parts of two potatoes. It tasted a little thin to be soup so I added some miso. That helped but not enough and I didn’t want to use too much miso. It didn’t taste like soup until I added the rest of the gravy and the last chicken leg. After that it was delicious. I had two bowls while watching season 1, episode 23 of Combat. 

            K company is holed up in an abandoned town when the Germans attack. They are forced to surrender and are marched to a command post where they are tied to the wooden fence of a goat pen. 

            A German soldier named Kurt needs a better pair of boots and sees that Kelly wears the same size. He steals Kelly’s boots and then says, “Danke schoen mister”. 

            The Allies begin shelling the command post and the stable catches fire. All the men but Saunders break free of their ropes and run, thinking Saunders is with them. They make it across the river and are taking a moment’s rest when Saunders emerges from the flaming stable in a state of shock with both of his hands badly burned. He crosses the river and faints just as K company moves on. 

            Saunders wakes and continues on. He collapses by a stream that K Company has just crossed. He finds the mud soothing and covers his hands. 

           That night K Company stumbles on a German campsite with a supply tent. They kill two guards and steal rations. Kelly finds boots and puts them on, telling the others he’ll catch up but he is discovered and shot by a German soldier. They escape and after they eat they wade up the river. Saunders also enters the river and collapses on a log. K Company passes him in the dark and then his log comes loose from the shore and floats downstream. When he wakes in the morning he makes his way upstream again. 

            He finds some leftover rations that he has to eat like a dog because he can’t use his hands. K Company finds an orchard and feasts, taking lot’s of apples with them. Saunders finds the same orchard but now all the low hanging fruit is gone and he can’t grip a stick to knock any apples down. 

            Weak from hunger he becomes delusional. He finds a dead German soldier and thinks it’s his brother Joey. He picks him up and begins to carry him. K Company comes across two Allied tanks and several soldiers and they are saved. A little later Saunders is found by the tank crew, still carrying the German. 

            This was the last episode directed by Robert Altman. 

            The German soldier Kurt was played by Marlene Parker, then credited as John Siegfried. She was born Siegfried Speck in Dresden in 1930 to a deaf and mute mother who could not care for her. She was placed in an orphanage and then adopted at the age of 6 by an unaffectionate family. When she was 14 the Allies repeatedly firebombed Dresden but her foster parents lived outside the city. After Germany fell the Russians were more brutal than the Nazis. She apprenticed as a hairdresser and then got work in a fashionable salon in East Berlin. Before the Berlin wall went up she and her boyfriend made the treacherous journey to West Germany. She eventually got work as a hairdresser on a cruise ship and ended up in Hollywood with many famous clients such as Doris Day. She started acting in plays at the German Club. Her film debut was in the 1959 remake of The Blue Angel. She played a German officer who is executed for being gay in the movie Hitler. She was Rock Hudson’s lover. She was on the verge of suicide before she decided to transition. After she started taking the hormones she lost a lot of work because she no longer looked like the guy they wanted for commercials. She transitioned in 1978.