Robert Lowery

            On Saturday morning I continued to edit both “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian and “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg in my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare them for publication. The latter is almost done but the scat parts take a long time because there’s usually a new chord for each syllable. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric during song practice and it sounded good. 

            I weighed 85.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I rode to Vina Pharmacy and asked them to fax my doctor about renewing a prescription. Then I went down to No Frills where the red grapes were in pretty good shape but expensive. I reached for my phone to find the Freshco flyer for a price match because their grapes were less than half the No Frills price at $3.38 a kilo this week but discovered that I’d forgotten my phone at home. So I went all the way back to my place to get it and then returned to the supermarket. I bought seven bags of grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, three bags of avocadoes, three individual avocadoes, a pack of mushrooms, a bunch of broccoli, fifteen vine ripened tomatoes, a bunch of asparagus, Vaseline, two bags of plantain chips, and a jug of Del Monte orange juice because it has a Canadian symbol in front of it on the shelf. I looked it up later and Del Monte Canada is not Canadian but it’s not Middle North American either. It’s owned by a French company. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch at 14:48. 

            I took a siesta at 16:00 and didn’t wake up until almost 18:00. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 18:08. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:56. 

            I searched for “wrestling in silent films” and found a couple of good movies. There’s one film that doesn’t fit with my project but it’s quite funny. It’s called “Luttes extravagantes” from 1900 and it has a lot of funny transformations. There is also a Buster Keaton film called The Three Ages and about twenty minutes in he has a pretty good wrestling match with a beautiful woman and gets legitimately thrashed. There are also a couple of good fights that Captain Kirk has with aliens on Star Trek. One is with the Gorn on the desert planet and the other is with an Andorian on the Enterprise. The latter looks like a real wrestling match. I’ve bookmarked all three. 

            I compared the song practice video of my electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on October 15 to that of the October 5. While October 15 looks better, on October 5 I play the E flat chord more firmly. So if I do upload an electric version of this song from the 2024 sessions it will be the one from October 5. But I think I play “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” better now and so I’m going to try to capture a superior version in the next recording project. Next I’ll review my performances of “Laisse tomber les filles” and “Leave the Naïve Alone” from last year’s sessions. 

            I had a lettuce, cucumber, scallion, tomato and avocado salad with raspberry vinaigrette while watching episodes 4 and 5 of the 1949 Batman serial. 

            To recap: A machine has been developed that can remotely operate any vehicle within a range of 80 kilometers. The machine is powered by diamonds. Some thugs steal the device and Batman and Robin are called. Professor Hammil, the inventor of the remote control arrives in a wheelchair to complain about them allowing his device to be stolen. Later when Hammil is alone at home he wheels himself to a locked room where he struggles to transfer himself from the wheelchair to a strange looking electronic chair. He switches it on and within seconds he becomes more erect until after a minute he rises from the chair with the strength of a fully abled man. He steps through a secret passage in his fireplace. Meanwhile the thugs who stole the remote control are waiting for their boss in a cave full of high tech equipment. Their masked, hooded and caped master The Wizard arrives. He tells his men they will need to steal a lot of diamonds to operate the machine. The Wizard’s men make off with a few satchels of diamonds. Batman and Robin retrieve some of the diamonds but Wizard’s men Nolan and Evans get away with a lot. Wizard says a shipment of industrial diamonds is leaving Gotham Airport tomorrow and he’s going to get them. A radio announcer named Barry Brown seems to have news of that theft before it happens. Bruce calls Gordon to tell him that he and Robin will replace the pilots of the diamond shipment. The next day they are flying the plane but Wizard takes control of it and forces it to land. The Wizard’s men land near them and then force them at gunpoint to throw out the diamonds. They force them back in the plane and then the Wizard causes their plane to explode. 

            Batman and Robin escape from the plane just before the Wizard blows it up. They sneak onto the plane the Wizard’s men landed in and hide in the storage area. When the crooks board the plane Batman and Robin eavesdrop and learn for the first time that the mastermind they are up against is called The Wizard. During the flight, Nolan falls asleep in his seat with the packet of diamonds in his coat pocket. Batman sneaks out of hiding and picks Nolan’s pocket, replacing the diamonds with an identical packet full of pebbles. After the plane lands, Batman and Robin follow the Wizard’s men down a trail, but don’t see them when they move the fake bush to descend into the cave and travel by sub again to headquarters. The Wizard is understandably angry about his men losing the diamonds. Having lost the trail of the thieves, Batman and Robin return to their car. Batman is curious how Barry Brown the radio announcer got inside information on the diamond theft. Later Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are on their way to see Brown when they see a well known private investigator named Dunne leaving Brown’s home. Bruce decides to tail him. While they do so they listen to Barry Brown’s broadcast, which predicts that the remote control device will be used to steal a shipment leaving by train today from Gotham City. Dunne stops at the railroad yards. Bruce follows him alone on foot. Then he sees two men leaving after assaulting a railroad shipping clerk. They were trying to get info from him on a new explosive called X90 that is scheduled to be shipped on a train that just left. Meanwhile the Wizard radios Nolan and his men to tell him he will use the remote control to slow the train at a certain crossing so they can board it. Batman and Robin are now trying to catch the train as well. The crooks board the train and travel on top. Robin drives up beside the back of the train enough for Batman to climb on. Batman fights with two of the Wizard’s men on top of the train. 

            The Wizard learns Batman is aboard the train and stops it. His men are trying to steal the X90 when Batman jumps them. Batman is knocked out and the crooks make off with the X90. Meanwhile the driver of the car the Wizard’s men use has stopped and left the car. Robin stops as well and jumps him. But the man outfights Robin and gets away. Robin returns to Batman’s car and he and Batman pursue the crooks. Nolan radios Wizard about Batman, and the Wizard uses his remote control to cause Batman’s car to swerve from side to side so they have to stop. Nolan and his crew bring the X90 to the Wizard. The Wizard asks for the other box but Nolan doesn’t know what he means. The other box contains the detonators, without which the X90 is useless. Wesley Morton, the inventor of X90 is staying at the Stafford Hotel. Suddenly Nolan and his men arrive with guns drawn. Morton is abducted and taken to a shack aboveground. Wizard appears and hypnotizes Morton, forcing him to tell him that the detonators are in the electronic research plant in vault 10. Then the Wizard disappears. A truck driver for the electronic research plant stops to help some men having motor trouble, but they turn out to be Nolan and his crew and they knock the driver out. The Wizard’s men arrive at the electronic research plant driving the truck and are let in. Hammil is in the director’s office. Vault 10 opens for Nolan and his men. They grab all the detonators and load them onto the truck then leave while Batman follows. The truck stops just around a bend. Batman climbs the side of a mountain to get behind them and jumps them. Nolan attacks Batman with a crowbar but Batman gets it away from him. The Wizard somehow knows what Batman is holding although there is no remote video. He takes control of the crowbar and causes Batman to fall down the mountain. Then the men find Robin snooping around their truck and beat him unconscious. 

            In episode 4, as Batman falls off down the mountain he catches himself on some tree limbs. He starts making his way back up the mountain while the unconscious Robin is loaded into the back of the truck. There are two men riding on the back with Robin but they are looking forward and don’t know that he is conscious. He sneaks over to a tank containing some kind of chemical and turns on the tap, then goes back to pretending to be unconscious. The leaking tank leaves a dark trail on the road. The truck stops at a shack in the mountains and they try to carry Robin inside but he starts to fight and escapes. They go after him but he hides in a tree. Batman reaches the road and his vehicle, which is not a Batmobile. It’s the same car Bruce Wayne drives except that Bruce drives it with the top down. While the men are looking for Robin he doubles back to the shack but hides behind it. Nolan and one other man returns to the shack where the inventor, Morton is being held captive. Robin spies through the window, then sneaks into the shack to hide around a corner. Batman finds the trail left by Robin and follows it. In the shack everything goes dark and the Wizard appears. He tells Morton he knows that his invention is not just an explosive but a great power source. He also knows that he has worked out a formula for harnessing that energy to machinery. Morton refuses to talk and so Wizard tries to hypnotize him and perhaps he is successful but suddenly he is aware that someone is hiding in the room behind the curtains. Nolan fires his gun but only finds Robin’s boots as Robin runs out of the shack with no boots on. Morton tries to escape but is knocked out. Robin is captured again just as Batman arrives. There is a short fight then Wizard’s men run into the shack and out the back. Batman and Robin find the unconscious Morton. The Wizard laughs and addresses Batman, then he pulls a gun. Batman throws something from a table at Wizard and it breaks a glass door but Wizard disappears. Batman says Wizard was never there and the glass was a television screen. They take Morton to a hospital. Later back in Bruce Wayne’s home he and Dick listen to the Barry Brown broadcast. The reporter announces on the radio the exact location of Morton. Nolan hears the broadcast as well and he and Wizard’s other men head for the hospital. Robin suggests that Brown is the Wizard and that his broadcasts are how he gives his men orders. Bruce and Dick go to the hospital. In Morton’s room Bruce, Dick and Vickie are there and a fake orderly comes in. Morton starts coming to and while everyone is looking at Morton the Wizard’s man plants something in a flower vase before leaving. In the car, Nolan and the others hear through the radio transmitter Morton tell Commissioner Gordon where the formula is hidden. Nolan turns off the transmitter but it makes a noise in Morton’s room. Bruce finds the transmitter in the vase and they know now that the Wizard’s men know where the formula is. Everyone heads for Morton’s office at the Markham Building. Bruce and Dick put the top up and change to Batman and Robin. Nolan and his men are breaking into the filing cabinet. Batman and Robin arrive and see two of Nolan’s men guarding outside the room. Batman has Robin attract their attention and when they chase him, Batman is waiting around the corner to knock their heads together. Nolan finds Morton’s formula. Batman bursts into the office and fights with the three men. batman falls back against a switchboard that electrocutes him and he falls unconscious. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 5, Nolan and his men escape with the formula by crossing a ladder that is stretched from the window of the Markham building to the next building. They get to their car and drive away but Vickie Vale takes a photo of their car as they drive away. Meanwhile Robin finds Batman unconscious. Batman revives and they go after the crooks with the police. Nolan hears the sirens and radios the Wizard for help, who says he will activate the robot car. Nolan’s car turns into an alley while an identical robot car moves forward, The police car follows the robot car until it stops and they discover that there is no driver. Meanwhile the crooks are on their way back to headquarters and discussing the photograph that Vickie Vale took. Nolan says they have to get it back and the best way is through Vickie’s brother Jimmy, who it turns out is driving the car. Jimmy calls Vicki and she tells him she developed the film and made a print. She knows that he was driving the car. He says for her to meet him in the picnic grounds at Graham’s Park and to bring the negative. Vicki talks to Bruce before she meets Jimmy, but he doesn’t have any advice other than to meet Jimmy and hear his story. But after Vicki leaves, he and Dick change to Batman and Robin so they can be there as well. Vicki goes to the park but Nolan is there instead of her brother. He demands the negative and she refuses and so he grabs her purse. Batman and Robin arrive but Nolan’s men emerge from behind some bushes. There is a fight, during which Nolan kicks the negative and the print into a camp fire with no campers. Maybe Nolan started the fire specifically for destroying the photo. Batman and Robin are knocked down and the crooks escape. Batman recovers the ashes from the negative and the print. later in the lab Bruce puts the charred remains of the negative under a dome and a gas fills it up. He explains that it's known as aerolic red and it will restore the molecular structure of the negative (This is the first crazy Batman invention in this series. Of course the 60s Batman would have some that were a lot more absurd). Then Bruce re-prints the photograph from the restored negative. The picture shows Jimmy Vale and another beside him in the front seat. Bruce checks through his rogues gallery files to find a match. The man’s name is Mack Lacey and frequents the Harbour Club, and so Batman and Robin head there. Meanwhile Professor Hammel is alone in his study and once again goes in his wheelchair to the secret electronic chair that temporarily makes him strong and able. Shortly after that The Wizard arrives in his cavern headquarters to grant Nolan entry and receive Morton’s formula. Jimmy calls Vicki to make sure she’s all right, tells her he’s leaving town, and hangs up. Vicki has the call traced to the Harbour Club, which is where she goes now. When she gets there Jimmy is gone but Nolan and another of his men are there. They decide to hold her. Batman and Robin arrive at the Harbour Club and see Mack. Batman lets Mack punch him once and then knocks him out. Batman and Robin place Mack in the back of their car. Nolan has Vicki gagged with her hands tied behind her and intends to take her to the boat. As they are taking her along the alley her gag comes off and she begins to scream. Batman runs to her but Nolan sees him and begins to fire. Batman takes shelter behind some gasoline cans as gas pours out from the bullet holes. The three men attack Batman while Vicki gets free of her bonds. She tries to help Batman but gets pushed into the water. Batman dives in to save her but Nolan tosses a kerosene lamp in the water on which the leaking gasoline has been floating and Batman and Vicki are surrounded by flames. That’s the cliffhanger.

            Batman and Bruce Wayne are played by Robert Lowery, who played with the old Kansas City Blues baseball team. He was a singer for Slats Randall’s Orchestra in Kansas City. After his father died he and his mother went to Hollywood to try to find work as actors. He enrolled in the Lila Bliss acting school and after working in local theatre for a while came to the attention of Twentieth Century Fox. His film debut was in Come and Get It in 1936. He co-starred in The Mark of Zorro, The Mummy’s Ghost, Dangerous Passage, and The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, He was the second actor to play Batman. On television he co-starred from 1956 to 1957 in the TV series Circus Boy (which also featured child actor and future Monkee, Micky Dolenz). After retiring from acting he became partners with Jackie Coogan in a celebrity travel cruise business. He was related on his father’s side to Abraham Lincoln.

April 6, 1995: I cleaned and I wrote

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday, since there was no work I probably spent the day at home cleaning up and writing.

Reuben Timmins

            On Friday morning I continued to edit both “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian and “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg in my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare them for publication. I should have the latter posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of two sessions. I made a lot of mistakes. 

            I weighed 85.35 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since February 10. 

            Around midday I finished filling the holes, cracks and gaps in the bathroom. Next I have to do the dreaded ceiling sanding, which will be a pain in the neck and messy. 

            I weighed 86.35 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 18:00. That’s the same as the evening of January 8.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:54. 

            I tried to find old movies that depict the Biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel but I only found one from the 50s or 60s and it wasn’t very good. I’m surprised there are no silent films. 

            I compared the song practice video of my Kramer electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on October 5 to that of October 3. Although October 3 sounds and looks generally better I do handle the E flat chord better on October 5. I compared October 6 to October 5 and they are about the same except that on October 6 I mispronounced “sixteen” as “sixtain” at the end. I compared October 9 to October 5 and on October 9 I forgot I was playing the Kramer and didn’t use the tremolo bar but rather the volume pedal for that effect. I compared October 10 to October 5 and October 10 is generally better but I play the E flat better on October 5. There’s one more video to compare. 

            I had a salad of lettuce, cucumber, scallion, avocadoes, and grape tomatoes with raspberry vinaigrette and a glass of Caesar mix while watching the last two episodes of The Adventures of Batman animated series. 

            In the first story, giant spheres of ice the size of a truck are appearing in craters. Batman is researching the phenomena of ice meteors and the Bat computer says they are real. I doubted that very much but looked it up and saw that there are ice meteors or megacryometeors and some of them are big enough to form small craters but they don’t fall from space. They are formed in the atmosphere and are bigger than hailstones. One that was about two meters in diameter fell in Scotland in the summer of 1849. In this story, many in Gotham are speculating that the ice spheres are caused by Mr. Freeze. They aren’t but Freeze decides to take advantage of being identified with the phenomenon and cuts in on all the TV broadcasts to threaten to rain ice meteors on the city if his demands are not met. Batman thinks he’s bluffing. He tracks Freeze’s TV interference beam to his submarine and drops charges on it from the Bat copter that force him to surface. Freeze emerges from his vessel waving a white flag. He tells Batman to come below and take over but he escapes in a smaller sub while the doors of the main sub are sealed, the vessel dives and the temperature is lowered to below freezing. Batman puts Robin in a torpedo tube and sends him to the surface. A little later Batman does the same. Freeze predicts through the media that he will cause an ice meteor to fall in Gotham recreational park. But what he does is dynamite the semblance of a crater and then forms a large sphere with his ice gun. Batman sights Freeze’s ice cream truck and goes after it. Freeze creates an ice bridge over the water and the Batmobile follows but Freeze blows up the bridge behind him. Batman is able to put the Batmobile in reverse just in time to escape the explosion. Professor Dilworth at the observatory confirms that the ice meteor came from outer space (But a meteor of rock or even iron would burn down to just 5% of its original size in the Earth’s atmosphere. If there were any made of ice they would instantly vaporize while falling). Freeze and his men arrive at the observatory and attack. All of his men are beaten but Freeze uses his cold gun on Batman, Robin and everyone else to freeze them before he escapes. As everyone thinks that Freeze can still drop ice meteors on them, he uses that belief to plunder the city. He holds a fake electronic box with a button, telling the people in charge of the places he robs that he can send an ice meteor down at the push of a button. Batman somehow edges his frozen body towards a ray of sunlight. He thaws one hand, then moves the telescope to catch the ray of sunlight and to thaw his whole body. Then he thaws everyone else. During the fight Batman placed a bug on one of Freeze’s men and so they listen in to learn that Freeze has a secret plane at the airport. Batman turns the telescope into a heat ray and aims it at Freeze’s plane. The plane’s temperature rises so high that it threatens Freeze’s life since he can’t survive temperatures higher than 50 below. He lands and surrenders. 

            In the second story Batman is monitoring a notorious international criminal who is up for parole on Satan’s Island. Batman sends the judge on the case the data on the crook that he’s gathered in his Bat Computer. Based on that information the judge denies the convict parole. The convict attacks the judge but it is only to secretly switch gavels. After the guards pull the prisoner back the judge hammers his gavel and it explodes. The crook takes the wig and the robe from the unconscious judge and puts them on, declaring himself The Judge as he escapes. Later Batman and Robin attend the trial of the Cosgrove Gang but as soon as the judge of this case opens up the files on the gang the book turns out to be another knockout gas bomb and The Judge escorts the gang to freedom. At his hideout that is made to look like a courtroom, The Judge has the gang sit in a jury box. He says tomorrow they will liberate more criminals to complete a jury of twelve. The judge stops a bus carrying a load of prisoners to the penitentiary. He subdues the guards with some kind of streamers that shoot from a scepter and tie them up. The judge needs money to finance his operation and so he goes to see Bruce Wayne. He hands him a statue of Lady Justice that electrocutes him and renders him unconscious. Bruce is abducted but Robin follows in the Batmobile and forces the Judge’s vehicle off the road. Robin retrieves Bruce and puts him in the Batmobile, which he sends back to the Batcave by remote control. Robin remains behind and is immediately captured and is taken to stand trial where he is found guilty. But Robin is wearing a transmitter and so Batman heads for the location of the signal. Robin is placed in a giant book that will slowly close and press him flat. Batman arrives and turns the switch to open the book but nothing happens. he tells Robin to cut himself out with his Bat laser and he does. But his hands are clamped so how he reaches the laser isn’t shown and besides that the book fully closes before Robin can burn his way out and so why is he not flat? The judge and his men are defeated and the Judge is sent back to Satan’s Island. It wasn’t a very well written series and the portrayals of the villains were one dimensional. I also didn’t like most of the voices, Catwoman sounded like the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. 

            Some of the animation for these stories was done by Reuben Timmins, who worked for Fleischer in the 1930s and worked on several Betty Boop shorts, such as Somebody Stole My Gal, Just a Gigolo, and Cupid gets His Man. He worked for Terrytoons in the mid 30s on Farmer Al Falfa’s 20th Anniversary. Then he worked for Disney on several Donald Duck cartoons among others. In 1949 he illustrated a series of Laurel and Hardy comic books. In the late 50s he moved to television and over the years worked on Crusader Rabbit, Mr. Magoo, Charlie Brown, Spiderman, The Archie Show, The Batman/Superman Hour, Fat Albert, and Star Trek.

April 5, 1995: I posed at OCA and performed on an open stage

Thirty years ago today 

            On Wednesday I posed at the Ontario College of Art and then performed on the Fat Albert’s open stage.

Ken Southworth

            On Thursday morning I uploaded to my Christian’s Translations blog “Our Pretty Gestapo”, my translation of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. I started preparing it for publication. 

            For my translation of “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg, I named the characters Mr. Warble (representing the singer) for M. Distel and Mr. Gambol (representing the dancer) for M. Cassel. I uploaded it to Christian’s Translations and began preparing it for publication. I’ll probably have it posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. Hopefully next week the humidifiers won’t be necessary and I can take the Martin to be repaired. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I was looking for my WinX video converter but couldn’t find it anywhere. I used to find it in my start menu. I started reinstalling it when I saw in the Destination that the first word in its name is Digiarty and so I cancelled the installation since I knew I already had it under that name. I converted Season 3, episode 4 of Batman to WMV. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown. I passed a guy on an electric bike and later he came up beside me at a light to tell me he liked my bike. He said it looks like a fast model. I told him I’m not a fast model anymore. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where the red grapes were super cheap and so I picked through them all until I got seven bags of relatively firm ones. I also bought a pack of raspberries, three individual avocadoes, two bags of avocadoes, a bunch of leaf lettuce, and a bunch of scallions. I wanted to find a Canadian alternative to Motts Garden Cocktail so I thought I’d try Matt and Steve’s Caesar. 

            I weighed 85.45 kilos at 18:26, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since February 9.

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:24. 

            I tried to use WinX to download from YouTube the video “The Story Behind Flower Power” but it turns out I would have to pay for the upgrade to do that. So I downloaded it with 4K Downloader and then used WinX to convert the MP4 file to WMV. I imported that into Movie Maker and copied it to the end of the timeline of my Seven Shades of Blues project. I edited it down to two segments and then inserted the clip of the riot police beating peaceful anti-war protestors to correspond with “Rebellion drags us to the grave”; followed by the clip of the young protestor putting flowers in the barrels of the guns of the military police, to fit with “resistance leads to growth”. Next I have to find videos to correspond with the last two lines of the song, “So wrestle with that angel but never let it lose / The rainbow road to Asgard’s paved with seven shades of blues”. I’ll start looking tomorrow. 

            I compared the electric song practice video of my October 3 performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” to that of September 20. I found that I play the E flat about the same in both takes but the October 3 video looks a lot better. There are five more to compare. 

            I had a grape tomato, avocado, cucumber, and scallion salad with lemon juice for dressing and a glass of Matt and Steve’s Caesar (The foretaste isn’t great but the aftertaste ain’t bad). It was the last meal of my 14 day fast and I ate while watching episodes 31 and 32 of The Adventures of Batman and Robin. 

            In the first story, a South American luxury liner in Gotham harbour has in its safe a map to the lost treasure of the Incas. The Joker cracks the safe only to find inside of it Batman’s head because it’s a fake safe on a fake wall that Batman is standing behind in front of the real safe. Joker escapes. A week later the same map is travelling in an armoured car to a bank vault when the vehicle is bombed by Penguin. But as he descends upon it in his upside down umbrella the Batmobile arrives and so he flies away. Days later the Riddler is approaching the bank vault but is confronted by Batgirl. He tosses a grenade that is caught by Robin, then thrown to Batman and then back to Riddler, who throws it away just before it explodes. It blows a hole in the wall through which he escapes. Later Joker, Penguin, and Riddler meet to pool their minds on how to defeat Batman so they can get the Peruvian treasure map. They decide to try to split the team up by making Robin jealous of Batgirl. They fake a robbery of a jewellery store by Joker’s men and pull the alarm themselves to attract Batman and Robin. They wait until the Batmobile and then Batgirl arrives and make sure Batgirl sees it when one of them sneaks up on Batman. Batgirl snags the thug with her Batrope. Then three of them attack Batgirl while another three attack Robin, but Batgirl’s assailants pretend that she is too much for them while with Robin they don’t hold back. Then when Batgirl comes to rescue Robin, his attackers say, “Look out! Here comes Batgirl!” and they run away. Inside the store a trap is set for Batman and both Batgirl and Robin run inside. But a hidden thug trips Robin while Batgirl is unimpeded to save Batman from being hit from behind. The press arrive and take pictures of Batgirl with Batman while ignoring Robin. Later Dick Grayson goes for a bike ride to clear his head when he sees a billboard that reads “Welcome to Gotham City Home of Batman and Batgirl”. Dick is moping at home and listening to the radio when the DJ announces a new song about Batman and Batgirl, although Dick can’t see that Joker, Riddler, and Penguin are forcing the DJ to play it. That night on the Ed Sullivan Show, Batgirl is introduced as Batman’s number one partner. Dick answers the Batphone to hear that Joker, Riddler and Penguin have just been seen exiting the Broadcast Building and that Riddler left a riddle behind: “What’s worth two in the bush?”. Everybody knows that it’s a bird in hand that’s worth two in the bush but Dick misinterprets that the bird is the Penguin. Dick decides to change to Robin and to prove himself by capturing all three villains by himself. Robin heads out in the Batmobile but suddenly a giant hand blocks the road. When he leaves the car to approach it a cage drops over him. Robin is taken to an abandoned factory where he finds himself on a precariously narrow island of concrete surrounded by hungry alligators. Meanwhile both Batman and Batgirl separately conclude that the bird that’s worth two in the bush is Robin and they head out to save him. Robin activates the homing transmitter on his utility belt and both Batman and Batgirl are tracking it. Just as Robin is about to fall into the water, Batman swings in to save him and then Batgirl arrives. They all realize this has been a plot to break them up. The three villains approach the mansion of the Peruvian ambassador and break in, crack the safe, and steal the map. They each take a piece of the map but Batman sneaks up and grabs Riddler’s piece. But the ambassador drops a net on Batman, not realizing he’s not a burglar and the real crooks get away. The heroes now scheme to turn the tables and to break up the team of villains. Batman, Robin and Batgirl are being interviewed on television and Batman says that he feels sorry for Penguin because the other two will no doubt try to cut him out. Batgirl says she thinks the Riddler will double cross the Joker. At the bad guys’ hideout the Penguin confronts to other two and demands their thirds of the map. But he gets a dose of knockout gas from Riddler and then Joker gasses Riddler. Joker heads with the map for a yacht and tells the captain to make way for Peru. But the captain turns out to be Batman. Joker escapes in a speed boat but is pursued by Robin in a chair copter. Joker jumps in the water and swims to a dock where Batgirl is waiting for him. The moral is that you can’t beat teamwork. 

            In the second story, Batman and Robin attend the unveiling of a sculpture of themselves carved in the side of a mountain. But when the tarpaulin is pulled off there is also a statue of the Joker. Then the Joker appears atop the Batman statue. Batman and Robin try to reach Joker via the Batcopter. They lower themselves onto the Joker sculpture only to find that it’s not made of stone but of a sticky type of plastic into which they are sinking like in quicksand. Joker leaves to commit a crime “where the matador gets the girl”. The Batcopter is hovering above and Batman uses his remote control to have the ladder lowered and they pull themselves up. Back home Bruce and Dick are trying to figure out the meaning of “Where the matador gets the girl” when Alfred asks for the night off so he can go see Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. Suddenly Batman remembers that it is in Carmen where the matador gets the girl. Robin says he read in the paper that the star soprano would be wearing the Tetrazzini Tiara tomorrow night and it is under guard back stage right now at the Opera House. That night Joker and his men are in the opera house when they see the floating and glowing heads of Batman and Robin up on the balcony. Joker sends two of his men to investigate and they see two glowing forms of Batman and Robin in the corridor. The men run because they think they are ghosts. The Joker sees the heroes swinging and cut their ropes so they fall but disappear before hitting the floor. Batman and Robin are using mirrors for their vanishing act. Joker swings and grabs the tiara from the guards. Joker escapes in the Jokermobile but has to make sure the heroes are really dead and so he goes back to the sculpture in the mountain. He’s poking the plastic sculpture when he is startled by Batman and falls in to begin sinking. They save Joker and arrest him. 

            Some of the animation for these episodes was done by Ken Southworth, who was born in England and won a scholarship to the Chicago Art Institute when he was ten. He got hired as an assistant animator by Disney in 1944. He completed the rough animation of Alice in Wonderland. He worked on animating the wicked stepmother in Cinderella. He worked on the film Song of the South and on several cartoon shorts. He worked at a number of animation studios after Disney. He is said to be the creator of the Woody Woodpecker show intro. At Hanna Barbera he worked on Scooby Doo, Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, and the Smurfs. He directed all 100 episodes of Q.T. Hush. He did the Looney Tunes animation that appears in Gremlins 2. He taught animation seminars at several institutions and also created a video home instruction animation course.

April 4, 1995: As always on Tuesday nights I hosted my open stage

Thirty years ago today

            As always on Tuesday night I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

Otto Feuer

            On Wednesday morning I finished running through singing and playing “Our Pretty Gestapo”, which is my translation of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            After revising my translation of the third line I ran through singing and playing “Song and Dance”, my translation of “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. Since few people anymore know who the singer Sacha Distel and the dancer Jean-Pierre Cassel are, I decided to call them Mr. Singer and Mr. Dancer. But that doesn’t work because the name of one or the other is said after each line and the name rhymes with an “el” sound at the end of each line. I’m going to try to find alternative but recognizable names for “Singer” and “Dancer” to use for the names of the characters in the song. I’ll probably upload the song to Christian’s Translations on Thursday as well. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the last of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic. 

            I weighed 86.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I used drywall compound to fill up the gaps, holes and cracks under the lower shelf in the bathroom. Then I did about half of the bathroom doorframe. I might have all the filling done on Friday and then after that I’ll have to do the dreaded ceiling sanding. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos before lunch. 

            When I got up from my siesta there was snow outside being heavily rained on and so I decided not to venture into the mess on my bike. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 16:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:38. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues”, I inserted the clips of the kiss and the cakewalk from the 1913 film Lime Kilm Club Field Day into the main video to correspond with my line, “Freedom marries slavery and their child transcends them both”. Then I needed some video to fit my line, “Rebellion drags us to the grave / Resistance leads to growth”. I tried to find film footage of the Kent State massacre and found some footage of the protests and some of the National Guard but nothing of the actual shootings. Then I found a great video of that classic moment from three years earlier when the young protestor placed flowers in the barrels of some soldiers’ guns at an anti-war protest in Washington. That’s followed by footage of riot police beating protesters with clubs. I think that video will give me the two clips I need and so I bookmarked it. 

            I compared the video of my acoustic song practice performance of “Seven Shades of Blues” on October 1 with that of September 22. I play the E flat chord slightly better on October 1 but the September 22 video looks better and there’s less traffic noise. I compared October 7 to September 22 and I still play the E flat better on September 22. I compared October 13 to September 22 and I play the E flat better on October 13. I compared October 14 to October 13 and found that on October 13 I play the E flat better. So if I upload an acoustic version of this song from that year’s project it’ll be the one from October 13. 

            I compared the videos of my electric song practice performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 14 and 19. The two videos are fairly equal except that on September 19 I missed a beat. I compared September 20 to September 14 and I play the E flat chord better on September 20, plus the video looks better. There are six more to compare. 

            I had an avocado, tomato, cucumber, and scallion salad with lemon and lime juice as dressing, with a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 29 and 30 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            In the first story, in his headquarters in the Drilred Puzzle Factory, Riddler has the new hobby of painting. His latest work has been rejected by the art museum and so he plans to blow the museum up. That night Batman is called about a break-in at the museum but it is found that nothing has been stolen. However a closer look shows that something has been added. One of the paintings has been marked with the riddle, “When is a museum like an inflated balloon?”. Answer: When it is blown up. Another riddle is found on the same painting: “Why does the king raise his sword?” In the painting the king is raising his sword to knight Jonathan. They conclude that the Riddler plans to blow up the museum tonight. That night Batman and Robin stake out two different parts of the museum but the Riddler captures Robin. Barbara Gordon is in her father, Commissioner Gordon’s office when he hears of Robin’s capture. When Barbara hears that the Riddler said to take Robin back to the “Puzzle Factory” she goes home to change to Batgirl. She has a puzzle from the Drilred Puzzle Company and now she’s sure that’s where Robin has been taken. Meanwhile Batman also figures out that Drilred is an anagram for Riddler. Meanwhile the Riddler has Robin tied spread eagle to a giant jigsaw table with the jigsaw ready to cut him down the middle. When Batman gets to the roof of Drilred he is helped up by Robin, but it isn’t really Robin but rather Batgirl in disguise. Her reasoning is that if Riddler sees another Robin he might think he’s captured the wrong one. But when they step onto a stairway the steps suddenly straighten to form a slide but for some reason it doesn’t send them to a trap but only the next floor. Batman opens a door that leads to a hallway, the floor of which is only paper, below which is a vat of acid. Robin knows about the acid and is desperate to free himself from the jigsaw so he can save Batman. He manoeuvres his body as the saw advances to cut the rope that binds his left foot, then his left hand so he can free himself. Batman is about to step through the door when Robin opens the other one and tells him to stop. Batman swings across and is about to swing the rope over to Batgirl when she is grabbed by Riddler, thinking she’s the escaped Robin. She is put in the back of a van that drives away just as Batman and Robin emerge from the building. Riddler is headed to blow up the museum with explosive eggs. The Batmobile gets to the museum before the Riddler by crossing the water in amphibious mode. Robin ejects to the roof. When Riddler arrives Batman confronts him. Riddler threatens to blow up Robin but then is shocked when Robin calls to him from the roof. Robin jumps and kicks Riddler while Batman frees Batgirl. She wants to join the fight but is disappointed when Batman tells her to go get the police. Batman and Robin take out several of Riddler’s men and are standing on top of Riddler’s van to hold the others off when Riddler opens a trap door to capture them in the back of the truck. Later Batman and Robin find themselves on a pedestal surrounded by explosive eggs that they most avoid to get to a door. But steam rises from the floor to obscure their view of the eggs. Above is a ventilating fan and so Batman sets his electromagnetic Bat power pack in reverse to reverse the direction of the fan and suck the steam out of the room. They escape and when the Riddler and his men attack, they defeat them. Batgirl arrives with Gordon and complains Batman and Robin didn’t save any for her. 

            In the second story the Wayne Foundation is building a state of the art crime lab. But Riddler plans on kidnapping Bruce Wayne’s ward Dick Grayson to force him not to build the lab. He sends a riddle to commissioner Gordon that Barbara reads with him: “What do you have when the hair of your heir changes colour?” The answer is “a grey son” and Barbara concludes it means Riddler plans on abducting Dick Grayson. She changes to Batgirl to try to stop Riddler. Meanwhile Bruce and Dick arrive at Wayne Manor from the Batcave only to find Alfred tied up. Riddler and his men are there and attack. Bruce and Dick put up a fight, but they are overwhelmed. Batgirl jumps the men trying to take Dick away and frees him to fight again. They fight a winning battle against Riddler’s men until Batgirl is grabbed from behind. Bruce and Dick head for the Batcave and change to Batman and Robin to head for the construction site of the crime lab where Batgirl is tied to a post. They are told by the crew that no one is down in the pit but Batgirl kicks the steam whistle to alert them of her presence. Robin frees Batgirl while Batman faces off against several of Riddler’s men. Soon he is joined by Batgirl and Robin and together they defeat the crooks. 

            Some of the animation for these episodes was done by Otto Feuer, who studied art at the Cooper Union in New York. In the 1930s he began animating for Fleisher Studios. In 1943 he became a comic book artist. He worked on Jungle Antics for Better Publications, and Cilly Goose for Dell. Then he became one of the main artists for DC’s funny animal comic line, such as Comic Cavalcade, Animal Antics, Funny Stuff, and Funny Folk. Through the 40s and 50s he worked on the features, Dodo and the Frog, Peter Porkchops, Nip ‘n’ Chip, Bernard the Brave, Fraidy Cat, and Raccoon Kids. Dodo and the Frog, and Peter Porkchops eventually got their own comic books. In 1955 he founded his own studio, Animotion Associates. From the late 60s to the 80s he animated for Filmation on such features as Batman and Superman.