July 24, 1992: While talking to my daughter on the phone she thrilled me by saying "Dadda" for the first time

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I only worked until 11:00 at Central Tech but I got paid as if I’d worked from 9:00 to 13:00. I grabbed an ice cream and caught the Bathurst streetcar to Queen and then the Queen car to Peter. I went into The Silver Snail but found that they still didn’t have Tomb of Dracula #50. On the way home I stopped at the liquor store and picked up some Lone Star Beer. 

            I talked to my daughter on the phone as usual and without expecting a response I asked, “Can you say hi to daddy?” She said, “Dadda” and I was thrilled. Nancy was pretty surprised as well.

            Nancy would be going to Mexico for two weeks on August 16, so I would be taking care of the baby. But I would be working four of those days and it was a little bit scary because I hated the idea of leaving my daughter with Nancy’s Nazi parents

Steve Brodie

            On Friday morning I memorized the third verse of “Strike” by Serge Gainsbourg and almost the last verse. I should have the song nailed down in my head tomorrow. 

            My song practice performances feel really sloppy after a month of recording in which I focused on trying to play songs seamlessly all the way through. Now if I fumble I just correct my mistake and move on but there are still a lot of mistakes. 

            At around 8:30 the power went off for a couple of minutes. It wasn’t that big a deal this time because I wasn’t recording and even if I had been, a power outage at that time would have been after I’d finished. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos before breakfast. My weight is creeping back up it seems. Last night I ate too many potato chips. 

            Around midday, I cleaned some of the things that I store in the northeast corner of my kitchen: the dustpan, an extra board for shelving, my darkroom easel, and my big steel square rule. The square rule is very rusty and I got a lot of it off but I think I’ll give it another try later with baking soda. 

            At 13:00 I left for an early bike ride because on the way back I was going to meet Brian Haddon at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern. We were supposed to meet there last week and we both were there but Brian had gotten the time wrong and left before I got there. This time he was there. I had previously asked him if he would consent to have me take a video of him saying “No!” for my larger video project. He hadn’t given me an answer but I brought my camera and tripod along just in case. But he decided he didn’t want to do it. We each had two pints of Wheat Sheaf pilsner, he had a Ruben sandwich and I had honey garlic wings. The bar played a lot of good funk music from the 1960s, like Sly and the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, and others. We caught each other up on what we’ve been doing. We talked about how much we both liked Star Trek Strange New Worlds. We talked about TV and music and various other topics. We were there for a couple of hours. He said that maybe next time we get together we could meet at the Rhino in my neighbourhood. 

            I had a late siesta at 15:00 and got up at 17:30. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos at 17:38. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:15. 

            I coated some chicken drumsticks in olive oil, salt, and roasted garlic with herbs, and roasted them in the oven. If I’d already had some cooked meat in the fridge I would have chosen not to use the stove today because it was still pretty hot outside. 

            I reviewed five videos of me playing my song "Megaphor" from July 8 to July 12. July 8 wasn’t bad. On July 9, my second time doing the song might be one of the best. July 10 was okay, but maybe a little off at the end. July 11 was passable but I think the B chord was dull sometimes. July 12 wasn’t too shabby. 

            I tried again to download a video containing the image of the burning Vietnamese monk from 1963, but 4K Downloader still said it couldn’t parse it. So I searched for alternative video clips to correspond with my line, “meditate on the golden mean” of shock therapy”. The simulation of peyote hallucinations at the beginning of “Altered States” might work. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a drumstick while watching three Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1948 and 1949. 

            In the first story, as he’s done before, Bugs takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque while tunneling underground and ends up in a country across the ocean. In this case, it is Scotland and the first thing he sees is a man in a kilt playing bagpipes. Bugs thinks it’s a monster attacking an old lady and so he grabs the pipes and destroys them. The Scotsman goes after Bugs with a gun but finally decides to settle it with a game of golf. Bugs cheats in ridiculous ways. He hits the ball and then runs to dig an enormous hole for it to land in, then declares he has a hole in one. He nails down the man’s ball but the Scotsman gets a hole in one anyway. When he misses a put, Bugs digs a trench for the ball to follow so that it turns around and goes back to the hole. When the Scotsman accuses Bugs of cheating, Bugs cites several golf games where the exact same plays were legally done, so the Scotsman admits defeat. But then he challenges Bugs to a bagpipe competition. Bugs plays a set of bagpipes with several instruments attached and it sounds like a Dixieland jazz band. 

            In the second story, there is a boxing match going on between a big brute and a much weaker opponent in a far lower-weight class. Bugs Bunny is heckling the champion and he is forced to fight him. Bugs keeps getting knocked down until he begins to outsmart his opponent. He convinces him that he’s broken his leg. Bugs pretends to be a doctor and wraps him in bandages. Then the boxer substitutes Bugs’s resin with axel grease but Bugs uses it on his feet and skates rings around his opponent, coming in quickly to hit him as he skates. Bugs hands him a bomb that explodes. Finally, the boxer ties Bugs to a railroad track and drives a train to run him over. But the film ends and we see Bugs with scissors after having cut that scene out. 

            In the third story, a gambler in the Bowery named Steve Brodie is having bad luck and so he goes looking for a rabbit so he can cut off its foot and have a good luck charm. He can’t find a rabbit in Manhattan but he does in the wilderness of Flatbush. He pulls Bugs out of his hole by the ears and tells him he needs to take his foot for good luck. Bugs tells him that rabbits are not lucky. Just look at the lives they lead. Bugs tells Steve he needs the help of Swami Rabbitima, and gives him his card. Steve goes to the swami and it’s Bugs in disguise. Bugs asks if he wants his palm read and Steve holds out his hand. Bugs paints it red. Bugs asks if he wants the bumps on his head read. Steve says I ain’t got none. Bugs hits him a few times with a hammer and he has bumps. Steve draws a knife but then Bugs lays out some cards and tells Steve he has a meeting with a man wearing a carnation. “Keep him with you at all times because he is your good luck mascot.” On the street, Steve meets Bugs and he is disguised with a bowler hat and a mustache and he is wearing a carnation. Steve takes him to a dice game but loses. Steve goes back to the swami who spins a wheel and determines that Steve is the sign of the wolf and that he should be seeking his fortune with the ladies. On the street, he meets Bugs Bunny in drag but when he approaches her she calls the cops and he is beaten up. He goes back to the swami with his knife drawn. The swami asks why he wants his luck changed. Steve says he wants to get his hands on some dough. We’ve seen the “dough” gag before. Bugs directs him to a bakery and Steve ends up covered in dough and baked into a pie. Then Steve realizes that the baker, the woman, the swami, and the mascot are all rabbits. Then he looks in the mirror and Bugs is there making him think he’s a rabbit. Steve goes onto the Brooklyn Bridge and asks for help from a cop but the cop is also Bugs Bunny. Steve Brodie jumps off the bridge. 

            There was a real Steve Brodie who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge on July 23, 1886, and became famous for it. Before this Brodie was a penniless, luckless gambler, but afterwards he gained a successful saloon and a profitable performing career. Some people claimed that his jump was a trick and that a dummy was thrown from the bridge while Brodie jumped from a rowboat. He was arrested in Canada in 1889 for jumping off Horseshoe Falls, even though no one saw that jump either. The judge said he’d let him go if he denied making the jump but he refused. He appeared in the vaudeville musicals “Mad Money” and “On the Bowery.” After his success, he shared his profits by often giving food to the needy and the homeless. His estate was worth $100,000 when he died in 1901, which would be $3.5 million today. 

            I got very tired after dinner and couldn’t watch more than three of the cartoons. I decided at 21:20 to take a siesta with the intention of getting up at 22:00, but I slept until 23:00. I did the dishes, and then did my usual nocturnal search for bedbugs, finding none for the fifth night in a row. I made my bed and wrote in my journal until I was too tired and then went to bed again at 0:45.

July 23, 1992: Mike Copping and I argued over whether Leonard Cohen was a great poet

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday I got up at around 8:30. I cleaned up a bit and managed to take some stuff to the new place. I called Mike Copping and we arranged to meet between 21:00 and 22:00 at the chess tables downtown. I was a long way from being ready to move. I took a couple more things to the new apartment on my way downtown. Mike showed up at about 21:20 and we went to The World’s Biggest Bookstore. We argued about whether or not Leonard Cohen was a great poet. We went to the Horseshoe, and I told him about when I first met Brenda. We walked back to his car and cruised the hookers for a while. I was disappointed that he wouldn’t let me play my Leonard Cohen tape in his player because it had adhesive tape on it. It took me quite a while to get home. I watched TV.

Sara Berner

            On Thursday morning I memorized the first two verses of “Strike” by Serge Gainsbourg. There are two more verses so it’s possible I’ll have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            One would think that after a month of intense practice of some of my songs I would play them better, but that does not seem to be the case. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I finished cleaning the radiator at the eastern end of my kitchen. Since I still had a clean bucket of soapy water I used it to wash the top, side and front of my refrigerator. Then I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up all the paint chips that had fallen on the wooden floor around the radiator. I used several brushes to sweep the chips out of the cracks between the floorboards. I finished the job with the vacuum cleaner, but then when I wanted to use it to clean a little more of the cracks in the kitchen floor, it shut down. I think it overheated and will probably work next time I use it but I really need a new vacuum cleaner. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was a sweltering day, but a good breeze blew to take the edge off. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought five bags of cherries, a pint of strawberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a larger pack of cheaper extra-old cheddar for cooking, skyr, two bags of kettle chips, mild salsa, Basilica sauce, and Sunlight dish detergent. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:55. 

            I reviewed four videos of me playing my song “Megaphor” from July 4 to July 7. On July 4, I did it three times and two of them were pretty good except for being off on the B chord near the end. On July 5 it was pretty good twice until the end when I hit the B chord wrong both times. On July 6 it seemed I was getting better at playing the body of the song but tended to still screw up the ending. On July 7 I did it three times but each time at least one hit on the B chord was off at the end. 

            Using a variety of sources I tried several times to download a video containing the image of the Vietnamese monk who burned himself to death in the lotus position in 1963, but 4K Downloader said it couldn’t parse it. I don’t know if it’s a censorship issue. 

            It was too hot to use the stove, so for dinner I had kettle chips, salsa, a cold chicken leg, and some ice tea that I brewed yesterday. I ate while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1948. 

            In the first story, Bugs is floating on the ocean in a barrel. On the barrel are the signs “Help” and “SOS” but inside he seems to be having a pleasant time. He’s reading Esquire, eating carrots, and singing the Harry Owens song, “Where the Trade Winds Play.” Bugs is floating towards the island of Bingzi Bangzi, the land of the ferocious apes. The apes are shown relax-ing and reading books such as “The Apes of Wrath.” But in one hut a female ape is complaining to her husband Gruesome that the stork has yet to visit them. Gruesome just growls ferociously and grumbles, “Kids!” The female goes down to the shore just as Bugs’s barrel is floating up. She looks inside and thinks that the stork has finally delivered a baby to her. Bugs tries to tell her that’s not the case but when she starts to cry he decides to play along and let her believe he’s her baby. She dresses Bugs in baby clothes and takes him home to meet his father. When Gruesome sees Bugs he tells his wife he’s taking junior for a walk. Then Gruesome tries to get rid of Bugs. He throws Bugs high in the air but doesn’t catch him when he comes back down. Bugs says, “Can we try it again my way?” and then he hits Gruesome with a shovel. The two face off like two apes about to fight but then it turns into a conga dance before Bugs knocks a coconut on Gruesome’s head. There is a chase and Bugs is pretty good at swinging from vine to vine and from limb to limb. But finally, Bugs reaches the edge of a cliff and he is cornered. Gruesome grabs him and jumps on him and throws him to the ground until Gruesome collapses. Bugs says, “I wore him out!” 

            In the second story Bugs is getting ready for date with Daisy, but in the den next door his rival Casbah has the same intention. They emerge from their holes side by side but Casbah has a bigger bouquet, so Bugs goes back and gets chocolates; Casbah goes back to getter an even bigger box of bon bons; Bugs gets a diamond ring; Casbah gets a necklace. They go back and forth, each time getting bigger gifts until Bugs gets an anvil and drops it on Casbah’s head. Bugs gets to Daisy’s place first and finds she’s gone shopping. He hears Casbah coming and he disguises himself as Daisy. He flirts with him on the love seat but sets a mousetrap for when he walks his fingers too close. Bugs serves him an exploding carrot. Casbah tries to grab and kiss Bugs and while holding him off he asks the audience, “Do all you girls out there have to go through this?” Bugs says he’ll kiss him if he closes his eyes, then he puts lipstick on a bathroom plunger and shoves it onto Casbah’s face. He loves it. Then Bugs hangs Daisy’s dress from a fence post and places a spherical bomb on top. He paints a female face on the bomb and puts a wig on top and lights the fuse. Casbah begins to kiss it and it explodes, but that seems to put him in ecstasy. But Casbah becomes wise to Bugs and begins chasing him. Then Daisy comes home but Casbah thinks she’s Bugs in drag and he hits her with a vase. She chases him away and Bugs has her all to himself. But as they are on the couch, Daisy sees a box of carrots and takes one. But they are the exploding carrots. He kisses her just after she eats it and she thinks the ex-plosion is from his kiss. She exclaims, “What a man!” 

            In the third story, Bugs is being forced to become the first astronaut to land on the Moon. He resists until he sees the rocket is being loaded with tons of carrots. But after he lands on the Moon, Bugs is out walking around when a rocket from Mars lands. From the ship emerges Marvin the Mar-tian and he proceeds to light the fuse of a missile that is aimed at the Earth. Bugs asks him what he is doing and he says he is going to destroy the Earth. Bugs steals the explosive device and so Marvin sends his green dog after him. The dog takes the bomb that looks like a stick of dynamite in his mouth, Bugs says “Give me that!” The dog says “Oh no I won’t!” Bugs says “Oh yes you will!” This is repeated until Bugs reverses it and says, “Oh no you won’t!” That makes the dog insist on giving Bugs the bomb. Then Bugs disguises himself as a Martian mailman and says, “Special delivery from Mars.” Marvin thinks it’s another bomb for his missile, but it’s attached to wires and a plunger and Bugs ignites it. It blows the Moon from a sphere to a crescent and Bugs, Marvin and the dog are hang-ing onto the lower corner. Bugs calls to Earth, “Get me out of here!” 

            In the fourth story Bugs is a lab rabbit and living a luxurious life. But then the scientist wants to use him for a demonstration of switching Bug’s brain with that of a chicken. The auditorium is filled with scientists and Bugs thinks he’s supposed to entertain them. He tries dramatic performance, magic tricks and song and dance but he gets no reaction. When Bugs realizes what is happening he runs away. After a long chase, the scientist gets him with laughing gas. A helmet with wires attached is placed on Bugs’s head and another on the chicken’s head. But we see there is another on the scientist's head when he pulls the switch and Bugs has cut the wire to his own helmet. Now the scientist has the chicken’s brain and the chicken has the scientist’s. 

            In the “Hare Splitter” cartoon, the voice of Daisy Lou was done by Sara Berner, who studied drama at the University of Tulsa. After graduating she was working in a department store but got fired for imitating a customer. She moved to New York and worked in a millinery that made costumes for Broadway. There she began to study her customers’ dialects. In the late 1930s, she toured with an all-girl Vaudeville act and did impersonations of famous female stars. On the Jack Benny Radio Program, she played Jack’s girlfriend Gladys Zybisco and the telephone operator Mabel Flapsaddle. She played Mrs. Horowitz in “Life With Luigi”. Helen Wilson on “Amos and Andy” and an Italian housekeeper on the Jimmy Durante Show. She voiced several female characters in Warner Brothers cartoons. She played Jimmy Stewart’s neighbour in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”. Eddie Cantor considered her to be the greatest impersonator and dialectician of all time. When she was being interviewed she would constantly change accents. 

            For the fourth night in a row I didn’t find any bedbugs.

July 22, 1992: I took a lamp, a juicer, and my enlarger to the new place

Thirty years ago today

            I got up on Wednesday at around 8:30 when Nancy called to tell me that she didn’t need me to take the baby that day. We discussed her suggestion of going to Toronto Island on Thursday, but I needed to finish moving to my new apartment. I bought grapefruit juice and muffins and poached some eggs. I made some progressed astrological charts. I went back to Triple 8 Drugs to exchange the shampoo for conditioner. I took a lamp and a juicer to the new place. I went home and read a chapter of Siddhartha and some of Practical Astrology. I took my enlarger to the new apartment. I made some black and white copies of a collage and then I went home and put my Venus Aligns with Mercury collage on the wall and the black and white collage on my door. At 18:00 I carried a chair and a box of photo-developing stuff to the new place and then went to work.

Edward Selzer

            On Wednesday morning I uploaded “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) by Boris Vian to Christian’s Translations and began the editing process to prepare it for publication on the blog. 

            I finished posting my translation of “Negusa Nagast” (King of Kings) by Serge Gainsbourg and listened twice to his song “Strike.” It’s the final song in my 1981 Gainsbourg file. I’ll begin memorizing it tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I sent an email to Bhutila Karpoche: 

            Dear Ms. Karpoche, 

            I am writing to you because you’re my MPP for Parkdale, although this is not a community-related issue. I am writing to ask you to push for a change in the financial criteria for qualifying for the Ontario Seniors Dental Program. The program sets a ceiling of an annual net income of $22,200 without considering that one’s income could include benefits from other social programs that cannot be put towards dental care but nonetheless push one’s net income above the allowed amount. For example, as a low-income senior I receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement with my Canada Pension Plan. If all I received was the GIS I would fall below the Seniors Dental Program financial ceiling and therefore qualify for dental care. But in addition to the GIS I also receive grants to help me pay for the courses I take at the University of Toronto. On top of that, I receive the Toronto Housing Allowance from the Ontario Ministry of Housing to help me pay my rent. Both of these benefits combined put me $1000 above the financial ceiling for qualifying for the dental program and therefore disqualify me from dental care. It is extremely unfair for the program to only look at net income and not take into consideration that the sources of one’s income may come from social programs. The message seems to be that as a senior I can choose to either get grants to attend university or I can save myself from losing my teeth, but I can’t have both. It’s also ironic that the benefits that I receive for being poor make me too rich in the provincial government’s assessment to receive other low-income benefits. Please consider pushing for legislation that will change how eligibility for the Seniors Dental Program is assessed.

            Around midday, I took a more versatile brush than a toothbrush and tried to clean the radiator at the east end of my kitchen. That would only do so much, so I used a soapy wet tea towel and stuck it between each rib, then pushed it with a chopstick over the lower spine of the radiator, then reached underneath and, holding both ends of the cloth, pulled it back and forth. There are also front ribs and back ribs on each side of the radiator. It’s impossible to clean the other side near the wall but I slipped the cloth in the space between the first ten front and back ribs on the kitchen side and ran the cloth back and forth and up and down each rib. Tomorrow I’ll do the last ten and after that, there isn’t much I can do to clean this radiator without detaching it from the pipes. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and glass of lemon-ade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was another hot day but not as sti-fling as yesterday. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos at 17:00. 

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

            I reviewed five videos from June 28 to July 3 of me playing my song “Megaphor.” On June 28 the final run-through was okay but I looked angry while singing a song that is supposed to be positive. June 29 wasn’t bad but maybe I hit the B chord a little bit off a few times. July 1 was okay but the B chord was also sometimes off. July 2 was okay. July 3 was pretty good except for a couple of slightly off hits on the B chord. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” I worked on trying to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio when I sing, “Let’s meditate on the golden mean of shock therapy.” I got them lined up at “Let’s” but I sing the line more slowly in concert, so I’ll have to think about whether to add another outside video clip between “Let’s” and “shock therapy.” 

            I made pizza on a roti with marinara sauce, a cut up beef burger, and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1948. 

            The first story is similar to Hiawatha’s Hare Hunt from a few years before, except that the In-digenous person hunting rabbits is an adult. The guy puts a mousetrap with a carrot for bait beside the rabbit hole. Bugs takes them both and when the brave reaches down the hole the trap snaps on his hand. Then while he’s jumping around Bugs puts another trap under him and it clamps on his foot. Bugs comes out and removes the traps. The brave gets his bow and arrows and hunts, but Bugs is in-side his quiver, throwing his voice to say where to shoot. Then Bugs lets himself be quivered and shot like an arrow because he figures that is his escape, but he hits a tree. Bugs is captured and tied to a stake while the brave is boiling water in a big pot over a campfire. But the stake is not driven into the ground and so Bugs keeps moving away. Each time he does so the brave picks up the wood, the fire and the pot and moves beside where Bugs has moved. After some more typical chase-gags, Bugs asks who he thinks he is to be chasing him. The brave says he’s the last of the Mohicans. Bugs says for him to look at the sky and he sees several storks carrying his newborn children. This causes him to faint. But then Bugs sees more storks carrying bunnies, he faints as well. 

            In the second story Bugs finds Aladdin’s lamp, rubs it and a flamboyant genie comes out and says he’ll grant Bugs a wish. Bugs doesn’t believe him but wishes for a couple carrots and gets them. The genie says he is going back to Baghdad and without thinking, Bugs says, “I wish I could go to Baghdad.” Suddenly Bugs is flying through the air. He lands in Caliph Hassen Pheffer’s palace on top of the caliph. The caliph picks up the lamp and says, “Aladdin’s lamp!” Bugs grabs it and says, “Correction, Bugs Bunny’s lamp!” The caliph starts chasing Bugs around the palace with his scimitar and so Bugs rubs the lamp. But the genie is taking a bath and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Bugs tries again but the genie is interrupted during dinner and tells Bugs to go away. Bugs is pursued from the palace and steals a magic carpet from the lot to escape. He rubs the lamp again and intrudes on the genie making time with a female genie. The genie warns Bugs, “If you disturb me one more time I’ll beat you to a pulp!” The carpet runs out of gas and Bugs crashes. The lamp bounces into the caliph’s hands. He rubs it and the genie comes out and beats him to a pulp. Then the genie grants Bugs another wish. We next see Bugs with his own harem. 

            In the third story, Yosemite Sam is Seagoing Sam the pirate and he’s burying his treasure when Bugs Bunny pops out of the hole wearing the stolen jewels. Sam points a gun at Bugs and says, “Dead rabbits tell no tales.” Bugs corrects him that the saying is, “Dead men tell no tales.” Sam says your right and points his gun to his own head saying, “I reckon I got no alternative.” But then he real-izes that’s screwy and starts shooting at Bugs. Bugs jumps in a rowboat and begins to row but rows himself off the rowboat and across the water to the pirate ship. Sam jumps in the rowboat but sees no oars so he swims to the ship to get them, swims back to the rowboat, and then rows to the ship. On the ship, he is surprised to find Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty. Bligh tells him he’s a disgrace to the navy and then gives him a bunch of nautical commands. Of course, Bligh is really Bugs in disguise. Sam chases Bugs around the ship. Bugs goes up in the crow’s nest and Sam tries to get him down. Bugs is lounging on the deck of the pirate ship like it’s a cruise ship. Sam comes after him. Cannons keep going off in Sam’s face. Bugs throws a match into the store of gunpowder and the ship blows up. Back on the island Sam chases Bugs into a hole and pokes his head down only to be shot by another cannon. 

            The fourth story begins with bullets raining back and forth in an old wild western town. But the town has a traffic light system, so bullets going in one direction stop on the red, while the others go on the green. In a tough saloon, Yosemite Sam walks in and tells everybody to clear out. The tough gunfighters all know him and run, except for Bugs Bunny. Sam tells him this town ain’t big enough for the two of them. Bugs says, “It ain’t?” Then he goes and builds up the town, adding skyscrapers. Then he comes back and asks if it’s still not big enough. Sam says it isn’t. He starts shooting and tells Bugs to dance and so Bugs does a tap dance routine. Then he says, “Take it Sam!” and Sam does a dance as well but dances down a mine shaft. Sam confronts Bugs again and Bugs tells him, “Step over this line.” Sam steps over it but Bugs keeps drawing lines for Sam to step over until they are out of town and on the edge of the cliff and finally Sam steps off the cliff. Then Sam chases Bugs on horseback until Bugs points out it’s going nowhere. He proposes they settle it with a game of cards and the loser has to leave town. Sam loses and Bugs escorts him to the train but when Bugs sees the train is full of sexy bikini-clad bathing beauties he gets on the train instead of Sam. 

            The producer of Warner Brothers cartoons from 1944 to 1958 was Edward Selzer, who in the navy was Golden Gloves boxer. In 1930 he was hired by Warner Brothers to work on their “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” series and to start an animation unit. In 1944 he was made the studio head and his first cartoon was “Goldilocks and the Jivin Bears”. He knew nothing about animation and no particular appreciation for cartoons. A lot of the successes in Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies resulted from Selzer telling his animators and writers what isn’t funny and his employees setting about to prove him wrong. He didn’t think pairing Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird would work, but the first Sylvester and Tweety cartoon won an Academy Award. He thought the Tasmanian Devil was too gruesome. He didn’t think Camels or bullfighting were funny and so the animators made the cartoons “Sahara Hare” and “Bully for Bugs” to prove him wrong. He also didn’t think a French skunk would be funny but he later accepted the Academy Award for the first Pepé le Pew cartoon. 

            I found no bedbugs for the third night in a row.

July 21, 1992: I didn't want to take the baby carriage with my daughter but her mother cried so I gave in

Thirty years ago today 

            On Tuesday I woke up at 7:01 and rushed to get to work. At first, I thought I would be late, but I realized there was a 7:43 GO Train that would get me to Oakville in time. I paid an extra dollar to catch the express bus to Sheridan College. After posing for a portrait class, I managed to board the 12:30 train back to Toronto. I called Nancy but there was no message and so I got a hotdog and headed home. I wrote this when the streetcar was at Coxwell. When I got home, I took a shit, and then I called Nancy and her mother said she would be waiting for me between 14:00 and 15:00 at McDonald’s in the Eaton Centre, so, I headed down there and arrived at 15:00. Nancy wanted me to take the baby carriage along with my daughter but when I protested, she started wailing and crying. All I’d wanted was an explanation, but finally, of course, I took it. The baby fell asleep on the streetcar and when we got home, I put her to bed. She woke up at around 18:30 and we went for a walk down to the lake.