Beth Brickell

            On Saturday morning I gathered a couple more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 87.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of four sessions and until the last few songs it went out of tune during every song. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where the grapes were $3.90 a kilo so I got seven bags but had to really look a long time for firm ones. I also bought two packs of raspberries, some bananas, several vine tomatoes, several avocadoes, a bag of limes, a bottle of Garden Cocktail, and a jug of orange juice. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos at 14:40. 

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

            I weighed 89.6 kilos at 17:20, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since last Saturday but not as much. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:39. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of a recording of a rehearsal of some of my songs with Steve Lowe and Arjan. On this tape the songs were “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” and “Thin Red Line”. But the recording is distorted and unacceptable just like side 1. I searched online to try to find a solution. The problem can’t be with the tape because Audacity should record exactly what I’m hearing when I play it. I tried removing the distortion from the Audacity recording in effects but that just made it worse. I saw that some sites say that when recording from line-out of a tape player it can’t go to mic because that’s too sensitive. It has to go to line in. I posed the specific question about recording from tape to my Scarlett 212 audio interface where there is nothing that says “line in”. The answer was that “instrument” is the equivalent of line in, so I guess “air” is the same as mic. I changed that. But then later I saw that neither “inst” or “air” should be switched on. It was advised to also update the Scarlett driver. I found out I didn’t have it so I downloaded it. I won’t know if anything I did helped until I try again tomorrow. 

            I ate some grapes while watching the series finale of Captain Nice. 

            Carter Nash and Candy Cane are leaving an exhibition of lab equipment where they went on a date. She’ll go anywhere with him. Candy notices a car that’s illegally parked and tells the driver to move. He tells her to beat it. When he sees her pulling out her badge he knocks it out of her hand and starts to drive away. Carter leans into the back window as the car starts going and he is carried with it.

            Candy is trying to retrieve her badge when two guys come out of a building and one wonders what happened to their getaway car. The other says, “I guess it got away”. He says he got the driver from an agency and he’ll call them tomorrow. 

            Several blocks away Carter finally falls free of the car and ducks behind a mailbox to change into Captain Nice. 

            Sergeant Candy pulls her gun on the two hoods but the getaway driver pulls up behind her with a gun and she has to put her hands up. Kincade the leader says he’ll take care of the cop as the car drives away but Captain Nice arrives and arrests him.

            The scene changes to Club Medulla, which we saw in a previous episode. It is owned by the mentalist Medulla and he and his assistant Renata are in the middle of a performance. But we see the club only has one customer who isn’t even watching the show. 

            Then one of the thugs from earlier and the getaway driver come in and sit with the customer. They discuss Kincaid’s situation in jail. He has asked to take a lie detector test at the police lab because it will be easier for them to break him out from there. 

            The men leave but Medulla sees that they’ve drawn their plans on his tablecloth. He goes to the city hall and tells Mayor Finney, Chief Segal and Carter that he had a premonition that there will be an attempted jailbreak today of Kincaid from the crime lab. 

            During the lie detector test Kincaid’s men break the window of the lab and toss in tear gas. They successfully break Kincaid out and so Carter resigns because he feels it was his fault. 

            Carter and his mother Esther go to confront Medulla about where he really learned of the jailbreak. Kincaid and his men arrive to get the tablecloth on which was written the plans. Medulla tells them the tablecloth is at the Ajax laundry so Kincaid forces them all to go there. 

            They are tied up in the laundry room but Medulla has a switchblade in his pocket and cuts his ropes and those of the others. Carter goes into the dryer room and climbs into a machine to transform into Captain Nice. Someone turns it on and he starts spinning but he breaks out and the crooks are caught. 

            Later the Medulla is with Finney, Segal, Esther and Carter. He tells them he can prove his powers are real. He says he knows that one person in the room has a terrible secret. He turns his back and counts to five for them to reveal themselves. When he turns back around everybody’s gone. He tells the fourth wall, “Works every time!” 

            Renata was played by Beth Brickell, who earned a BA in History and Political Science. While travelling in Europe she had an audience with Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly) who inspired her to become an actor. She trained with Lee Strasberg and was accepted as a member of the Actors Studio. She co-starred in the TV series Gentle Ben. She co-starred in the movie The Only Way Home. She was nominated for Emmys for her guest appearances on Bonanza and Hawaii Five-O. She taught acting for three years at the Lee Strasberg Institute. She then attended the American Film Institute and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing and Screen Writing. She produced, directed and co-wrote A Rainy Day, and Summer’s End. She wrote, produced and directed Mr. Christmas. She directed two episodes of Knots Landing, She wrote for the Arkansas Gazette the series “Mystery at Camden”. She’s served as the chair of the Directors Guild of America.

March 15, 1996: I learned my dad died and I was looking forward to some money

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I got a call from my brother Allison telling me that my father died on March 6. I wasn’t broken up about it. Hearing a parent has died just makes you remember things about them. Allison was even less close to him than I was but it seemed to mean more to him because he was a traditionalist. My sister Sibyl was executor of his estate. I talked to her on the phone later and she said there were dad’s debts to pay but I would be getting about $15,000 in a few months. I was looking forward to that.

Jo Anne Worley

                                              

            On Friday morning I finally memorized the nineteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are eleven lines left to learn. 

            I continued to search for images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg but only found one this time. 

            I weighed 87.55 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since December 24. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic. 

            Around midday I finished painting the second coat of “blue bliss” on the trim that runs along the north, east, and south walls between the walls above and the tiles below in the bathroom. I think two coats will be enough and so on Tuesday I can start painting the door frame with the same colour. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was snowing wet snow and so I decided to only go as far as Dovercourt and Bloor. I went south to Queen and west to home. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 17:35. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:47. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive side one of a tape of an early Christian and the Lions rehearsal with Steve Lowe on guitar and Arjan on bass. Steve was teaching Arjan how to play my songs on bass. This is the one I’ve been struggling with all week and the recording is just as distorted as the first time I tried. Previous tapes have not come out that way and I’ve digitized more than fifteen with this system. Maybe it’s the old tape but the recording I made with the same cassette to MP3 converter is cleaner, albeit with skipping. I can’t think of what settings to change. I’ll try recording side two tomorrow. 

            I renamed some images in my Photos folder and deleted some others. 

            I had a salad with grape tomatoes, avocadoes, mini cucumber, and lime juice while watching the penultimate episode of Captain Nice. 

            Captain Nice attends the opening of a new Apple club in Bigtown. Apple clubs are similar to Playboy clubs in this story and the owner Lloyd Larchmont is clearly a parody of Hugh Hefner. He’s so extremely self absorbed he doesn’t remember anyone’s last name. 

            Part of the club opening ceremony involves Larchmont biting into the ceremonial apple but Captain Nice stops him because he notices a particular discolouration on the platform where the apple had been sitting. He crushes the apple and sulphuric acid drips out. Larchmont is somewhat indifferent to being targeted for death and is disappointed that now he won’t know what his last words would have been. 

            He says his clubs are not a business but the fulfillment of everyone’s dreams. Everyone deserves to eat, drink, and make noise while surrounded by girls who smile endlessly no matter what. 

            Carter fingerprints all of the Apple girls. One of them tells him she’s really a magazine model and not a waitress. Carter asks what magazine she models for and she answers “The Waitress Weekly”. Another girl tells him her hobbies include phoning the weather bureau, reading the Dead Sea Scrolls and training gold fish. She prefers to date either middle North Americans or men from foreign nations. In her spare time she is studying to be a nuclear physicist (but she pronounces it as “physikist).

            Larchmont introduces the person who trains all his Apple girls and who’s been one of his closest advisors and his faithful right arm for many years: “Rusty… (and he forgets her last name)” She says “Davis”. He then introduces his attorney Lionel Barrot, “Without whom I could not have created my new project”. Lionel says, “You would have achieved greatness without anybody’s help”. Larchmont says, “You’re absolutely right”. 

            His latest project is the Lloyd Larchmont Foundation where his disciples will rise at dawn, live on roots and herbs, and study the teachings of Lloyd Larchmont. There will be only two rules: Each man must strive to achieve a oneness with the universe and each girl must kick back 50% of her tips.

            Sergeant Candy Cane is going to go undercover and become an Apple Girl, with only Larchmont knowing who she is. The mayor asks Carter to go for dinner there to hear her report. He takes his mother Esther and his father Harvey. It’s the first time we’ve seen Carter’s father out of his easy chair and out from behind his newspaper but he is behind the menu instead. 

            Candy is shy about wearing the skimpy costume. 

            Larchmont shows her a picture of his parents who made every conceivable sacrifice for his success. Candy asks where are they now and he answers, “Beats me”. 

            Lionel runs secretly to Rusty’s arms in a storage room. She tells him they can’t keep meeting like this. He asks why and she says “Because I don’t like you”. They discuss their plot to kill Larchmont. She says if Larchmont found out he wouldn’t speak to her for days. 

            Rusty says she wants to talk with Larchmont and guides him under a chandelier. Candy sees that the chandelier is about to fall and pushes him out of the way. 

            Carter wants to check on Candy but Esther convinces him that it would be better for her to do it. They’ve got Candy running the souvenir counter. She tells Esther that Rusty’s part of the plot to kill Larchmont but then Rusty steps up with a gun and takes them both to Larchmont’s apartment where they are tied up. Then Larchmont is tied up as well. Lionel rigs a tape recorder with a bomb. He presses “play” and his recorded voice counts backward from 20 and when he reaches 1 it will explode. 

            Carter goes looking for his mother and Candy. One of the Apple girls says she saw them go upstairs with Rusty. At the backward count of 10 Carter enters the room and unties everyone. At 5 he’s alone in the room. At 3 he drinks his super power formula and at 1 he shields the explosion with his body. Rusty and Lionel are arrested. 

            Rusty was played by Jo Anne Worley, who was known as the school comedienne in high school. After graduation she apprenticed with the Pickwick Players. She won a two year Dramatic scholarship to Midwestern State University in Texas and then moved west to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. She made her professional debut in a production of Wonderful Town. She made her TV debut on The Many Loves of Dobey Gllis in 1960. She made her Broadway debut in Billy Barnes People in 1961. Her film debut was as an extra in Moon Pilot in 1962. In 1966 she was starring in a nightclub act in Greenwich village when she was discovered by Merv Griffin. She appeared over 40 times on his TV show. That led to her being cast in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. She was very popular on the show and became a star. After Laugh-In she became a star of musical theatre. She is president of Actors and Others for Animals.

March 14, 1996: I was offered a feature at the Art Bar reading series

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday evening I went to the Art Bar reading series and Pierre L’Abbé invited me to do a feature there in the summer.

Dick Curtis

            On Thursday I thought for sure I would be able to finally memorize the nineteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian but I was plagued by memory lapses. I would forgot a line from the middle of the song that I usually breeze through. I would repeat it to get it back in my head and then I’d start the song again and get that line right but forget another one. I finally made it all the way through and even got verse nineteen right but then I saw that I’d forgotten one line from verse fifteen. Some days are just bad memory days and then everything comes back the next day so hopefully I’ll be able to nail the nineteenth verse down tomorrow. I spent over an hour on this and so I didn’t have time today to gather images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time.

            I renamed some images of the same people so they would move together in my Photos folder. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown but should have worn long underwear. I stopped to pee at the Yonge and College McDonald’s. On the way home I stopped at Freshco where the grapes were super cheap and firm and so I got seven bags, I also bought a pack of blueberries, some bananas, several avocadoes, three mangoes, and a bottle of cranberry-raspberry juice. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos at 19:10. 

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

            I tried to record from the same cassette to Audacity again that I’ve been attempting to digitize for the last few days. The clip of Leonard Cohen before my band starts playing still has no waveform but when my band is playing there is a waveform. It was like that before and the recording sounded distorted. I tried a restart but it didn’t help. I didn’t have time to fiddle with it tonight because I got home too late so I’ll try again tomorrow. 

            I ate some grapes while watching episode 12 of Captain Nice on archive.org because that episode didn’t come with my download. 

            Carter Nash is helping his mother Esther shop when she notices the well known gangster Harry Houseman entering the post office. She wonders how he got out of prison and Carter explains that he was paroled because two politicians gave him excellent references. He knew them because they had been cellmates. They look in the window of Houseman’s car and see it’s full of guns. So Carter drinks his last bottle of formula to turn into Captain Nice. He confronts Houseman and looks into the box he is about to mail to find more guns. But it turns out that the guns are all toys. One of them is a cap gun and Sergeant Candy Cane asks if there’s a law against carrying one. Chief Segal says he’s been carrying one for years. 

            Now Carter is out of his formula and he can’t make a new batch without sodiumphenocarbolate. There’s only one place in the country that has it and he sent for it a month ago through the mayor’s office. He leaves his mother in the lab and goes to the mayor’s office to find what happened. He is told to go look in storage for his requisition form. When he returns to the lab and finds his mother has washed the evidence from all his microscope slides because she thought they were dirty. 

            Carter tries to add to the formula the closest thing to sodiumphenocarbolate, which is salt. He drinks it and transforms but not to a hero. Now dogs are chasing him because he smells like hamburger. He makes more of the hamburger odour and throws it out the window to draw the dogs away and it works. 

            On their way home they pass the post office where they see Houseman and his henchman Bostic getting let into the locked post office by an inside man. Carter and Esther are going to go call the police when they are stopped by Bostic, who pulls a gun and forces them inside. They are tied up in the mail room. Houseman goes to look through the mail to see if there is anything of value to steal. Esther tries to appeal to him and asks, “What do you suppose your mother is doing right now?” He says, “Ten to twenty for kidnapping”. 

            Houseman finds a package addressed to Carter and tosses it to him. He thinks it’s amusing because he won’t live to open it. He leaves and Carter’s hands are just free enough to open it. It’s the sodiumphenocarbolate he ordered. The incomplete bottle of formula is in his briefcase and they are able to complete it but Carter’s hands aren’t free enough to drink it. However one of the toy squirt guns is nearby and Esther is able to load some of the formula into it and aim it at Carter’s mouth. He transforms into Captain Nice, breaks free and captures Houseman and his gang in mailbags. 

            Chief Segal arrives to arrest them. He asks Esther why he always sees her around crime and violence. She says she guesses it’s because she doesn’t get enough of it at home. 

            Bostic was played by Dick Curtis, who started in Hollywood at the age of 8, running errands for actors. He became a singer, dancer, and nightclub performer and cut two record albums. He joined the Marines during WWII and afterward returned to entertaining, starting with The Jack Benny Show. He was a regular castmember of the Jonathan Winters Show. He was the voice of Motormouse. He did commercials for Blitz-Weinhard beer. He wrote for Revue 61 and The Spade Cooley Show.

March 13, 1996: My landlady complained my guests and I talked too loud

Thirty years ago today

             On Tuesday evening I hosted as always my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage. Afterwards I brought some people back to my place for coffee. My landlady Helga complained about the noise of our conversation.

Felice Orlandi

            On Wednesday morning I gathered a couple more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 201 now. 

            I weighed 87.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for the second of two sessions and it went out of tune during almost every song. It liked yesterday’s weather but not today’s. 

            Around midday I finished painting the first coat of “blue bliss” along the trim between the bathroom walls above and the wall tiles below, plus I painted the plate of the wall outlet. They’ll need another coat when I return to the project on Friday. After that I’ll start the door frame and the door with the same colour. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco. I had to pee really bad and was considering going home first because the Freshco washroom had been out of order for weeks. But I took a chance and went straight to the supermarket where I found they’ve finally fixed the washroom. 

            All the grapes were too soft and so I just bought two bags of oranges and a pack of Sponge Towels. The towels were more than $2 cheaper because of my Scene card. I weighed 88.35 kilos at 19:20. I was caught up in my journal at 20:34 so it was too late to try digitizing the cassette tape that failed the last couple of times I tried. 

            I ate three oranges while watching episode 8 of Captain Nice on Archive.org because it didn’t come in my download of the series. 

            The police have a gang of bank robbers surrounded but the crooks are firing machine guns through the window of the bank at the cops on the street. They can’t get them to surrender but as soon as Captain Nice arrives and speaks to them through the megaphone the crooks give up. 

            They get off because they confess to the crime without a lawyer present. It was their leader Lucky’s idea. 

            At city hall the counsellors argue that the police force is useless because all of the crimes are being stopped by Captain Nice. A decision is made to cut the police force in half and so Carter Nash loses his job as police chemist and Sergeant Candy Cane also gets the shaft. When Carter tells his mother Esther that he’s been fired along with half the force, she is very upset. 

            When Carter goes to his room she takes his costume and his super power serum and heads to the Fashion Centre because tonight the Selma diamond will be on display. She plans to steal it in order to teach the city council a lesson. But Lucky and his gang see Esther in the alley and grab her because they think she’s competition. Then Lucky finds Captain Nice’s costume in her purse and he thinks she must have some connection to the super hero so they hold her hostage while they enter the museum. 

            Carter realizes his mother is missing and so is his costume and serum. He concludes that she must have gone to the Fashion Centre. He tells Candy to round up as many ex-cops as she can find and meet him there. 

            Carter sees his mother there with Lucky’s gang but she denies knowing him. She tells Lucky that Carter is her dentist. They lead her away and she tosses her purse behind her to Carter and it contains his costume and serum. 

            The gang steals the diamond. 

            Captain Nice arrives and one of the councilmen demands to know where he’s been. Nice points out that the city pays him nothing and so they are lucky he drops in sometimes. Then Candy and several of the fired cops arrive, having done a citizens arrest and taken Lucky and his gang into custody. The councilmen are reminded that the police are necessary after all. 

            Lucky was played by Felice Orlandi, who was married to Alice Ghostly, who played Carter’s mother Esther Nash. It was one of the rare occasions they worked together because his focus was drama while her’s was comedy. They were together for 52 years until he died. He earned a Theatre-Arts degree at Carnegie Tech. He made his Broadway debut in The Girl on the Via Flaminia in 1954. He made his film debut in Killer’s Kiss in 1955. He co-starred in The Pusher.

March 12, 1996: I was on the fourth day of my annual fruit fast

Thirty years ago today

             On Monday I probably worked somewhere. I was also on the fourth day of my annual fruit fast and feeling a little weak.

Charles R. Rondeau

            On Tuesday morning I collected more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 199 so far.

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of two sessions and it actually stayed in tune half the time. All my guitars seem to like this weather.

            Around midday I took my laundry to the laundromat and brought it home at around 15:30.

            I weighed 87.6 kilos at 15:45. 

            I took a siesta at 16:30 and slept until 18:18. 

            I weighed 89 kilos at 18:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:36. 

            Once again I struggled with trying to record from cassette tape to Audacity because I couldn’t get a waveform. I tried a couple of restarts and spent a lot of time clicking around in Settings until just before dinner I saw that I had both Stereo Mix and my Scarlett audio interface enabled as input devices. I disabled the Stereo Mix and finally got a waveform when recording but by then it was suppertime and too late to record. Tomorrow I’ll try again and hopefully the settings won’t change again by themselves.

            I ate some grapes, an orange and a fig while watching episode 13 of Captain Nice. Episode 8 and 12 are missing from my download but I found them on archive.org, so I’ll watch episode 8 tomorrow and 12 on Thursday. The entire series only has 15 episodes.

            Carter Nash sees a man on the ledge who looks like he is going to jump so he ducks into an alley to change to Captain Nice. But before he can drink his super power serum he sees that the man is just retrieving a cat. He stoops down to put the serum back in his briefcase but he is in front of the back door of a business and a beautiful woman carrying packages steps out and trips over him. To make up for the mishap he offers to help her with her packages. Another attractive woman comes out and he helps her as well. She thinks he’s working with her and she tells him to come inside. He sees there are four pretty women carrying packages out to a van and continues to assist them until he sees a man tied up and realizes the four women are thieves. The girls force him into the fur storage safe and lock the door. He takes his serum but when the woman tripped over him some of it spilled and it doesn’t give him enough power to break out. 

            The next morning when Chief Segal and Sergeant Candy Cane investigate the robbery they find Carter shivering in the safe. The store owner recognizes Carter as someone who was helping the fur filchers. He is under suspicion and will be charged if the real thieves are not found. 

            Segal orders every beautiful woman in town with a police record to be brought in for the police line-up. The viewing audience of men is standing room only and the line-ups are booked up until Friday. 

            Carter’s only clue is that he found on the floor of the fur store bits of a type of floor wax that is used at dance studios. Candy does some research on her own and finds there is one dance studio with four beautiful employees who match Carter’s description of the thieves. 

            Candy goes undercover and gets a job at the dance studio but she doesn’t realize that one of the women recognizes her. They plan to use Candy as bait to catch Carter, who was the only witness to their fur robbery. They call Carter to tell him Candy needs his help. He finds Candy in studio 16 but it turns out to be rigged. A pump is being used to remove the air from the room and Carter and Candy are becoming weak. Carter feels he has no choice but to reveal his secret identity to Candy but by the time he does she is unconscious. After changing to Captain Nice he makes a run for the door but a customer opens it and he smashes through several walls until he is out in the alley. The gang of lovely ladies is rounded up and arrested. 

            This episode was directed by Charles R. Rondeau, who made his directorial debut with The Littlest Hobo in 1958. He directed 3 of the 15 episodes of Captain Nice. He directed 4 episodes of Get Smart, 44 episodes of Love American Style, 15 episodes of Room 222, 6 episodes of Tabitha, 4 episodes of Batman, 20 episodes of F Troop, 14 episodes of Surfside 6, 12 episodes of Hawaiian Eye, and 6 episodes of The Partridge Family. He directed the movies The Threat, The Girl in Lovers Lane and The Devil’s Partner.

March 11, 1996: My landlady complained about my daughter's behaviour

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I went to the little playground in the parkette off Dundas. We played a bit in the backyard of my place. My landlady Helga complained about True’s behaviour but I didn’t see anything wrong. She behaved like the four year old she was.

Sheldon Allman

            On Monday morning I continued collecting images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 196 so far. 

            I weighed 88.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I deleted several photos from my hard drive. 

            I weighed 89.15 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped to pee at the McDonald’s at Yonge and College. On the way home I stopped at Freshco where all the grapes were too soft. I bought a pack of figs, several avocadoes, and a jug of orange juice. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 18:45. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:36. 

            I tried to record from cassette tape to Audacity and had problems again. Over the last few weeks I’ve made many successful recordings but lately it’s become glitchy. I couldn’t get a waveform at all this time even after restarting several times. Finally after clicking that the recording device is Audacity I got a waveform. There’s a Leonard Cohen clip at the beginning of the tape but weirdly there was no wave form for it and the waveform only showed with the beginning of the recording of my band. It begins with a Christian and the Lions concert performance of “Megaphor” and then there is a rehearsal of “Me and Gravity” and “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” with Steve Lowe on guitar and Arjan on bass. I recorded through audio interface to Audacity as usual and then exported it to my hard drive but it sounded distorted. I tried exporting it in MP3 format but that sounded worse. I’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe the fact that it didn’t show a waveform for the Leonard Cohen clip should have warned me there was a problem. 

            I ate some grapes while watching episode 11 of Captain Nice. 

            Chief Segal is in charge of guarding the city payroll with the help of Sergeant Candy Cane and several other police officers. The armoured car arrives and suddenly it is ambushed. There is a firefight between the crooks and the police. Candy Cane is never shown with a gun. She is given the task of writing down the events as they unfold. 

            Carter Nash is just on his way home when he hears the shots and runs to change into Captain Nice. 

            The police are forced to take cover and one of the gangsters drives the armoured car away. Seconds later an identical armoured car containing counterfeit money is driven up to replace it. When the shooting stops the cops emerge from cover as Captain Nice arrives on the scene. Segal claims they fought the robbers off and the payroll is safe. Candy reports that 97 rounds of ammunition were fired with no hits. The chief admits that he shuts his eyes when he shoots. 

            The next day Carter is given $5 by Mayor Finney for lab supplies. But he smells the bill and detects that one of the chemicals is wrong. He tells Arthur the new sketch artist that he’s going to run some tests on it. But it turns out that Arthur is part of the counterfeiting and payroll robbing gang. He runs to their hideout to warn them about Carter, but Gordon the boss says there isn’t going to be a test because there isn’t going to be a Carter. They go to Carter’s house and force their way in. Gordon tells Carter he wants the $5 but Carter says it’s in the safe at the lab. He tells Anthony to accompany Carter to the lab and warns Carter that everyone will be shot if he isn’t back in an hour. 

            When Carter gets there he realizes that he can’t open the safe until 8:00 because it has a time lock. He says he can jar the lock with some nitro. Anthony accidentally knocks the nitro off the safe and the explosion knocks them both out. 

            With only seconds left before Gordon shoots them, Carter’s mother Esther and Candy break free and start using martial arts on the gang. They are doing fine until Gordon regains his gun and stops them. 

            Carter regains consciousness first and takes his super power serum. Within seconds Captain Nice is at the Nash house but Gordon is pointing his gun at Esther and Candy and warns him to leave. Suddenly his gun is shot out of his hand by Mr. Nash, who apparently picked up a gun from one of the fallen gangsters. We have never seen his face as it’s always behind a newspaper and he shot the gun through the paper. For some reason he wasn’t tied up like Esther and Candy. 

            A week later the chief has a foolproof plan to protect the payroll from thieves. He puts all his cops in the back of the armoured car. Robbers ambush the guards, padlock the back door of the armoured car and drive away with it. There is no money in the back and all they got away with is a $20,000 armoured car and the entire Big Town police force. 

            Gordon was played by Sheldon Allman, who was born in Chicago but moved to Canada as a baby. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII and was wounded. He was convalescing in a British hospital and playing piano and singing original songs when he was heard by Ted Thorpe who was putting together a show for army bases in England. Sheldon with the Maple Leaf Show began singing with the Royal National Guard. After the war he played nightclubs in Canada until he moved back to the states in 1949 to attend the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. While studying he wrote songs, played clubs, produced TV shows, and worked as a DJ. He was the singing voice for Mister Ed and the writer of the Mister Ed songs “Pretty Little Filly with the Pony Tail” and “The Empty Feedbag Blues”. He wrote “A Quiet Kind of Love”, Christmas in the Air”, “Patapan”, and the theme songs for “George of the Jungle”, “Super Chicken”, and “Tom Slick”. He co-wrote the screenplay for Monster Mash. His song “Crawl Out Through the Fallout” appears in the game Fallout 4 and in the TV adaptation of Fallout. He co-wrote the musicals I’m Sorry, the Bridge is Out, You’ll Have to Spend the Night (on which the movie Monster Mash is based) and Frankenstein Unbound. His film debut was in Inside the Mafia in 1959.

March 10, 1996: My daughter stayed with me for the weekend

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I picked up my daughter and she stayed at my place for the weekend. We stayed inside the first day and I worked on building her toy crossbow.

Noah Keen

            On Sunday morning I woke up at 5:51 and realized that I’d missed the stupid time change again. I decided to pretend it was still 4:51 and went back to bed for a few more minutes. I chose to go through my normal routine until I arrived at an hour that I could sacrifice and then change the time. 

            After yoga I gathered more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 189 so far. 

            I weighed 88.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that had been working all week and started the other one going. While it was soaking in vinegar I changed my alarm to stupid time. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos at 14:20. 

            I took a siesta at 15:00 and so that put me only half an hour behind. 

            I had just enough time in the afternoon to take a bike ride to Ossington and back, so then I was caught up with the time change. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 18:05, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since January 16. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:52. 

            I tried to do some more recording in Audacity but even without the sound turned on when I clicked “Record” there was just a solid blue block across the timeline instead of a waveform. I tried restarting a few times and got the same thing and once no waveform at all when the tape was playing. A few months ago I downloaded a new version of Audacity that I thought the program was just going to upgrade by itself. But it turns out I was supposed to install it, so I did. Version 3.7.7 worked after a couple of tries. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive the first part of the Christian and the Lions rehearsal that I’d started last night. Tom Smarda and Steve Lowe on guitars were learning my songs “Charm and Money” (to the tune of “Love and Marriage”) and “Fallen”. Mike Martin just kept playing his bongos the same speed no matter what we were doing fast or slow. Steve claimed he no longer wanted to have sex and just wanted to play his guitar. I called bullshit. Tom and Steve didn’t agree with the premise of “Charm and Money” that potential lovers are more attracted to charm and money than they are to kindness and intelligence. The next rehearsal tape I’ll record tomorrow is more coherent as Steve had gotten a better grip on my songs.

            I had a tomato, avocado, and cucumber salad with lime juice while watching episode 10 of Captain Nice. 

            A crime syndicate fronted by a mysterious Mr. X. captures a mob that has been muscling in on their territory and now they are going to be bumped off but they say they would settle for a good scolding. They are lined up against the wall inside the Bigtown Garage as the assassin named Gunnar prepares his machine gun. Gunnar wonders when he will meet Mr. X but he is told nobody but his girlfriend Amanda Woolf has ever seen him. The beautiful Amanda is there keeping the syndicate’s records in code in a little black book. Gunnar is about to fire when Carter pulls in for gas and goes looking for an attendant. He opens the door and sees the gangsters, then he heads back to his car to change into Captain Nice. Gunnar fires but misses. Captain Nice flies in front of the next barrage. Amanda pretends to faint to distract Nice while her colleagues get away. 

            The saved mobsters are brought in but won’t talk and Amanda won’t testify. Carter and Sergeant Candy Cane are looking for clues in the garage when Candy finds Amanda’s black book. Carter says if he can crack the code he’ll find out the identity of Mr. X. 

            Mayor Finney and Chief Segal interrogate Mr. X’s suspected right hand man O’Brien. O’Brien says they can’t prove it. Finney says O’Brien deposited half a million in his account this year (which would be $5 million now) and yet he only runs a small cleaning business. O’Brien says he finds a lot of loose change in the clothing. 

            Carter arrives to announce he has the little black book and he thinks he can crack the code. Amanda sees he has her book and plots to get it back. She says she’s changed her mind and she will testify after all but needs to be in protective custody at Carter’s house. It’s unlikely that a police chemist would be assigned to watch after a material witness but they agree. Carter is warned he can’t even tell his mother the identity of Amanda. 

            Carter brings Amanda home and she has more suitcases than a luggage store. 

            O’Brien is released and puts out a hit on Amanda. He overheard at the mayor’s office that she would be staying at Carter’s place. His gang kidnaps Chief Segal and forces him to tell them where Carter lives. 

            Carter figures out that the code is based on the telephone dial with the letters and numbers representing each other. 

            O’Brien and the gang invade the Nash home and tie up Carter’s mother, father, and Amanda. Carter is unnoticed but he sees them from the study. He changes to Captain Nice before the captives can be killed. Gunnar shoots Nice but the bullets bounce off to kill the entire gang, including Gunnar. 

            The next day Carter reveals that Amanda is Mr. X. I saw that coming. 

            O’Brien was played by Noah Keen, who after graduating from university worked at NBC. He made his film debut in 1957 in A Face in the Crowd. He guest starred in the Twilight Zone episodes The Arrival and The Trade Ins.

March 9, 1996: Brian and I went busking and made enough for lunch

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday Brian Haddon and I went busking and made enough for lunch. Then we performed together on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

Bill Zuckert

            On Saturday morning I continued searching for images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 183 so far. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where I bought five bags of grapes, three packs of strawberries, some bananas, avocadoes, two packs of cherry tomatoes, a pack of mini-cucumbers, two bottles of Garden Cocktail, a bottle of cranberry-raspberry juice, and a jug of orange juice. I did a price match on the grapes with the Walmart price of $6.55 a kilo but each bag was still about $5 each. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at 14:30. I had a tomato and avocado salad with lime juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail. 

            I took a siesta and got up at 17:00 but still felt tired so I went back to bed for another forty minutes. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:01. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive an early Christian and the Lions rehearsal with Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and Mike Martin. We worked on my songs “Fallen”, “Angeline”, and “Seven Shades of Blues”. Tom mentions in the session that we have a gig in about a month on May 11 and so this had to be April of 1994. Steve had yet to work out his great guitar accompaniment for “Angeline”. Mike just kept playing his bongos at a fast tempo while we were trying to slowly work out the songs and it was very distracting. The digitized recording didn’t sound as clear as previous ones. I exported the same file in MP3 and it sounded a little better. 

            I ate some grapes while watching episode 9 of Captain Nice. I watched episode 7 last night but episode 8 seems to be unavailable either in torrent form or for streaming. 

            Carter Nash is doing some important lab work late at night at the police station for Chief Segal but the night club next door is making a lot of noise. He goes over and talks with Lola the owner about them turning the music down. But in reality the band is playing loud to cover the noise of the men digging to break Doc Simmons out of jail before he is transferred to prison. Lola invites Carter to have a drink but he says he doesn’t imbibe. She offers him a non-alcoholic fruit punch and he agrees to that but the bartender drugs it and Carter is immediately unconscious. Lola has him thrown in the alley and the hatcheck girl takes pictures that are sent to the newspaper. 

            The next night Carter is trying to finish his work but the noise from the club compels him to once again confront Lola. This time he refuses a drink but Lola pretends to be faint and asks him to help her to the bar. She asks the bartender for a glass of water, which he spikes again. She pretends to take a sip and then says it tastes funny. She asks Carter to try it and he is again drugged. This time however he is semi-conscious, staggers and knocks over some garbage cans that are full of the dirt from the digging of the tunnel. He realizes there is a jail break going on but he’s incoherent and collapses. 

            Meanwhile Milton the Mole breaks into Doc’s cell. Sergeant Candy Cane catches them but they kidnap her and take her with them into the tunnel. 

            Carter wakes up again and this time manages to take his super power serum. He turns to Captain Nice but he is still drugged. He staggers and smashes through the wall of Lola’s then stumbles around causing destruction with his super strength, not knowing what he’s doing. He ends up bringing down part of the ceiling, which blocks the exit door. 

            Doc, Milton, and Candy emerge in the back room of the club but Lola tells them there’s no exit and so they have to go back into the tunnel. The bartender throws a grenade at Nice and then runs for the tunnel. Captain Nice doesn’t even know it’s a grenade when he casually tosses it away and it goes down the hole to explode in the tunnel. 

            Now Doc has no place to go but back in his cell. He is now there with Milton, Lola, Candy, and all the guests and staff from the club as the club band happily plays in the crowded cell. 

            Police Chief Segal was played by Bill Zuckert, who started acting on radio in 1941 and his voice could be heard in hundreds of dramas over the next twenty years. He co-starred in the radio drama series Crime and Peter Chambers in 1954. He made his film debut in Ada in 1961. He played Sheriff Johnny Behan in the third season Star Trek episode “Spectre of the Gun”.

March 8, 1996: I posed for artists

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I probably posed at some art school or for some art group and maybe more than one.

Joe Flynn

            On Friday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 179 so far. 

            I weighed 88.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I would normally done some painting in the bathroom today but I had to take a shower since I skipped it yesterday. 

            I was behind on my journal so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos before lunch. I had a salad of cherry tomatoes and avocadoes with lime juice for dressing and a glass of Garden Cocktail. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I had to stop and pee at the McDonald’s on Yonge just north of College. The chess board is back and a bunch of old Asian guys were hanging around it while two of them played. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos at 18:35. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:56. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of my rehearsal with Tom Smarda. These were early versions of a lot of songs that eventually became part of the Christian and the Lions repertoire. There are two or three songs there that were never recorded anywhere else. 

            I had a tomato and avocado salad with lime juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episode 7 of Captain Nice. 

            Carter has brought Candy Cane on a date to the Natural History Museum. They are in a room full of artefacts from the daily life of the Juma people of Brazil. There’s an exhibit of a monetary system but it’s not real because they didn’t have one. All of the objects in the room were brought back by Dr. Edgars who was one of Carter’s professors in college. He spent five years in the Brazilian jungle. 

            The head of the museum, Dr. Dunbar, who never went to Brazil, steps up to the podium to give a speech and to accept the award for the exhibition, plus a grant for $10,000 (which would be $100,000 today). Candy asks Carter what Edgars got out of it and he answers, “malaria”. 

            A hand reaches through a ridiculously open window and grabs a Juma blow gun. A Juma poison dart hits the wall behind Dunbar. Edgars pushes him aside just before a dart hits Edgars’ pith helmet. Carter runs into a storage room to change into Captain Nice but he is clubbed over the head by what he’d thought was a wooden statue of a Juma warrior. 

            Dunbar indifferently thanks Edgars for saving his life and then tells him he’s going back to Brazil that night. Edgars doesn’t want to leave his wife and children again. 

            Carter comes to ask Dunbar for more samples of the dart poison. He says Edgars would have that and his office is in the basement behind the boiler room. 

            Meanwhile in the basement we see the large Juma that clubbed Carter and tried to kill Dunbar is Edgars’ servant Luna who he controls with a flashlight, which Luna thinks is the magic stick that holds the sun. It was Edgars’ plan to “save” Dunbar’s life to set him up for his actual murder. 

            Carter arrives to ask for the poison and Luna pretends to be a statue again. Edgars gives Carter the poison and asks him to leave. Now Edgars tells Luna that Carter has to be killed too. 

            That night Luna tracks Carter to his home and from the bushes outside shoots a dart that hits the wall behind him. Carter’s mother Esther comes home and sees with her flashlight Luna lurking outside. She brings him into the house. Luna refuses to say why he tried to kill Carter because he has sworn allegiance to his spirit man. Carter goes to change into Captain Nice and when Luna sees him fly he recognizes him as his new spirit man. He admits now that Edgars has been using him as an assassin. Candy is on guard duty at the museum and Carter calls to warn her that her life may be in danger. Just then Edgars grabs her from behind and she is cut off. Edgars injects Candy with the deadly dart poison.

            Captain Nice arrives with Luna who tells Edgars that Nice is his new Spirit Man. Edgars says Nice is fake so Luna shoots a dart at each of them. One bounces off Nice but Edgars is poisoned. Luna knows the antidote but can’t translate the ingredients required. They need a chemist and so Captain Nice leaves and shortly afterward Carter returns. With Luna’s guidance he mixes the antidote and saves both Candy and Edgars. 

            Carter’s mother takes Luna under her wing and in one week he is talking like an Anglo North American and is fully “civilized”. He’s going back to Brazil with a flashlight to do the same to his people. 

            Edgars was played by Joe Flynn, who majored in political science at USC. He started in entertainment as a ventriloquist and a radio DJ. He directed theatre productions for the Canfield Players in Ohio. He made his TV debut in 1948 in the sitcom Yer Ol Buddy on a local LA station. In 1950 he ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio senate as a Republican. He made his film debut in The Big Chase in 1954. He appeared in 4 episodes of the George Gobel Show, then 8 episodes of the Joey Bishop Show. He starred in several episodes of The Silent Service. He played Mr. Kelley in 15 episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He co-starred in the TV series McHale’s Navy and two movie adaptations of that show: McHale’s Navy and McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force. He co-starred on the Tim Conway Show. He co-starred in the films The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Now You See Him Now You Don’t, The Strongest Man in the World, Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?, The Barefoot Executive, The Million Dollar Duck, and Superdad. He appeared in more Disney films than any other actor. He appeared 12 times on the Johnny Carson Show. He drowned in his pool while having a heart attack with a cast on his leg.

March 7, 1996: Brian Haddon and I got invited to do a feature at Fat Albert's

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday Brian Haddon and I went busking again and then performed on the Fat Albert’s open stage. We got invited to do a feature in the near future.

Marilyn Lovell

            On Thursday morning before going to bed a little after 1:30 I drank the Omnipaque, which was the final preparation for my CT scan later that day. It was horrible tasting stuff. They said I could drink it with ginger ale but I didn’t have any. I looked it up online to see if I could drink it with cranberry juice but the response was no, despite the instructions saying that the clear fluids I could drink during the preparation included cranberry juice. I was confused about the difference between clear fluid and clear liquid and so I played it safe and suffered through drinking the stuff with just water. It almost immediately bloated up my stomach to an uncomfortable degree and so it took me a while to get to sleep. 

            After yoga I finally memorized the eighteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are fifteen new lines left to learn. 

            I continued to gather images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 171 so far. 

            I left for Mount Sinai Hospital at 7:37 and got to Imaging Reception a little before 8:30. I sat in the CT scan waiting area for about half an hour. I was looking for this week’s supermarket flyers on my phone but had a difficult time because the Mount Sinai wifi is very weak. 

            Someone called me and directed me to the dressing booth where I put the gowns on correctly this time. Sheila was waiting for me when I had changed and helped me carry my stuff to the fancy high tech CT scan room. She was very nice and personable and calmly explained what was going to happen and how it was going to feel. 

            I found out that I could have drank cranberry juice with the Omnipaque after all. 

            She injected Buscopan into my arm to reduce bowel spasms. She inserted a tube in my anus with a balloon on the end and then pumped carbon dioxide into my colon. It was quite uncomfortable.

            Several shots were taken with me on my stomach and back while a robot voice told me when to inhale and hold my breath. Near the end they found that there was an area that didn’t have a clear image. I asked if it was the same area they couldn’t reach during the colonoscopy and she said it probably was. She reinjected the gas and had me lie on my right side for another scan and this time they got it. 

            When I left the hospital I saw that I’d been there for an hour and twenty minutes. 

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought four bags of grapes, a pack of raspberries, bananas, avocadoes, vine tomatoes, a jug of cranberry juice, and two bottles of Garden Cocktail.

            I weighed 87.6 kilos at 11:15, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since December 24.

            I had breakfast and then took an early siesta. 

            I did the sit-ups, the chin-ups, the push-ups, and the skips that I normally do in the morning. 

            I weighed 88.25 kilos at 16:15. January 7 was the last early afternoon when I was that easy on the scale. I had a couple of mashed avocadoes with the last of my plantain chips and a glass of orange juice for lunch. 

            Song practice was a write off today for the first time in years because of the time I had to leave earlier that morning. I just couldn’t find the time to do it. I also skipped my usual shower. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:11. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, side 1 of a rehearsal with Tom Smarda on January 6, 1994. We practiced several of my songs that became part of the Christian and the Lions repertoire, including “Megaphor”, “The Next State of Grace”, “Calendar Girl”, “Seven Shades of Blues”, “Hungry Hippunk Goes to Work”, and “Me and Gravity”. At first there was no wave form and so I restarted but there were still no jagged sound lines. I shut down Bit Torrent to free up some memory and restarted again but the same problem persisted. I went into the Task Manager and shut down a few more things, then restarted again and this time it worked. 

            I heated the rest of the vegetable broth. I made a salad with vine ripened cherry tomatoes, two avocadoes, marinated mushrooms, olive paste, and maple-Dijon dressing. I ate supper while watching episode 6 of Captain Nice. 

            Carter Nash and his mother Esther Nash are just leaving a movie theatre when they hear a woman cry for help at the top of a burning building. Carter takes a ridiculous amount of time to change to Captain Nice. Even after he’s changed he doesn’t save her right away and while he’s standing there a guy comes out of the burning building and hands him a kerosene can. He saves her and it turns out she’s an exotic dancer named Miss Devine. Nice runs back into the burning building to see if there’s anyone else that needs rescuing and Esther calls out , “Carter be careful!”. The arson is listening from around the corner and repeats, “Carter”. 

            Devine is brought to look at suspects in a police line-up and although the suspects are known arsonists she doesn’t recognize any of them. She says the only one who saw the firebug was Captain Nice. Carter is sitting right there and has to pretend he didn’t see the bad guy. Then Lipton, the owner of the building steps in and Carter recognizes him as the arsonist but can't say anything without revealing his secret identity. 

            Carter checks the city records and finds that Lipton’s building was insured for twice as much as it was worth. 

            Captain Nice arrives at the mayor’s office just as Lipton is leaving and lets Chief Segal know that Lipton is the arsonist. Nice reluctantly agrees to testify in court. 

            While waiting outside the courtroom Carter is handed a note by the bailiff and it’s from Lipton. It reads, “If I am found guilty I will reveal your secret identity”. From the witness stand Nice points out Lipton as the arsonist. Lipton shouts, “You’ll pay for this!” The judge asks, “Are you threatening the witness?” “You bet I am!” “All right, I was just wondering. No need to get sore.” 

            Captain Nice leaves the courtroom and changes to Carter then goes back into court. Lipton grabs the guard’s gun and says he knows Captain Nice won’t stop his escape for fear of revealing his secret. Lipton backs toward the door but the door opens behind him and Carter’s mother in a Captain Nice costume knocks Lipton out with her purse. 

            Miss Devine was played by Marilyn Lovell, who often played a ding-bat character in her acting roles and in her cabaret performances. In 1958 she released her album Scotch Mist. She sang on the soundtracks for Scream Blacula Scream, The Return of Count Yorga, and Terror House. She returned to college in the 70s and 80s and became a therapist with a focus on AIDS patients. She performed many fund raising benefit cabaret concerts for AIDS research.