Les Claypool

            On Thursday morning I had a little more flexibility than the day before and it’s been improving every day since Monday’s bike accident. I was able with difficulty to touch my fingers on each side of my feet during forward bending. 

            I finally memorized the third verse of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. There are no actual verses left. Just two monologues and three choruses. I already know the choruses but the monologues are going to take some time. 

            I weighed 89.25 kilos before breakfast. I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the second of four sessions. 

            I weighed 90.05 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since November 30. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I was afraid while riding up the hill of Brock Avenue because of wiping out on the ice on Monday. But I’ve climbed Brock hundreds of times in the winter and only that time was it slippery. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:33. 

            I started listening to side two of the cassette recording of my first 20,000 Poets Under the League poetry slam. 

            I reviewed the video of my song practice electric performance of “Ne me quitte pas” from September 23, 2024, and it wasn’t very good. There are no other versions that I highlighted. That session is already in Movie Maker so it might not be too much trouble to see how it comes out with the recorded audio. I reviewed the video of my September 18, 2024 performance of “Please Don’t Quit Me Now”. I didn’t have time to compare it to October 6, 2024 but September 18 is the day I had a big honking hair on my shirt for the whole session. Normally I would have gone over it with a lint roller and gotten it off but I forgot that day. 

            I had a potato with gravy, the rest of the roasted chicken, the last two pieces of the frozen Buffalo wings and the rest of the cranberry sauce while watching season 28, episode 2 of South Park.

            The Marsh family is homeless and has to move in with Randy’s father in his little space in the retirement home. 

            On the site of the demolition of the east wing of the White House Satan is surprised to learn Trump is building a ballroom. He thought it would be a nursery for their baby. Satan also learns there is a plot to stop the baby from being born and doesn’t know that Trump and Vance are behind it. The Attorney General Pam Bondi always has Trump’s shit on her nose from kissing his ass. Stephen Miller thinks that the destruction of the east wing may have unleashed a vengeful wrath. 

            Peter Thiel is in a motel with Cartman under heavy sedation, waiting to take him to Washington. Vice President J.D. Vance calls to tell him it’s not safe yet. 

            Kyle and Kenny visit Stan in the retirement home. Stan says the problem is that South Park sucks now because of all the politics and they agree. They start a South Park Sucks Now online community. The next day it has 756,000 followers. Stan introduces the South Park Sucks Now Crypto Currency Coin. Kyle doesn’t like the idea but Stan is motivated by homelessness. 

            Trump says ever since he tore down the east wing this thing keeps appearing. Now it’s everywhere he goes and he can’t get away from it. Then he points in the corner and it’s there. It is a fashionably dressed woman with a wide brimmed hat over her face standing perfectly still and it’s obviously Trump’s wife Melania. Someone points that fact out to Trump and he asks, “What does it want?” 

            Stan hires Kyle’s cousin Kyle Schwartz as his crypto advisor. Kyle Broflovski argues “It’s not about a coin. It’s about a movement” but they decide to use that phrase as their slogan to sell the bit coin. 

            Some paranormal investigators analyze the shit on Bondi’s nose and some of it is made of Trump’s semen, indicating that he eats his own cum. Trump has them arrested. 

            Kyle quits because of the bit coin thing. He says you can’t fix things if you’re only thinking about yourself. Kyle Schwartz meets with Don Jr. at the White House to promote the bit coin and get approval. Pam Bondi calls everyone to the dining room for a séance. Pam calls for the presence in the hat to leave the president alone. Melania appears and Pam is taken over. She points at Vance and shouts “Deception!” But Kyle Schwartz thinks it’s about him and admits that Bitcoin is all deception and begs not to be haunted anymore. The ten year old Kyle is arrested and put in prison for ten years. So Stan’s bitcoin crashes. 

            The songwriter and singer of the South Park theme is Les Claypool, who went to high school with Kirk Hammett of Metallica. He auditioned for Metallica on bass but they thought he was too good and too funky. He says he always wanted to make money from what he did best but there was no market for masturbation and so he settled on the bass. Rolling Stone ranks him as one of the greatest bass players of all time. His band Primus played the South Park theme. They had hits with “My Name is Mud”, “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver”, and “Tommy the Cat”, which they performed in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. He has a band called Sausage consisting of the original members of Primus. He is also in the band Claypool Lennon Delerium with Sean Lennon. He is additionally a member of Oysterhead with Stewart Copeland, Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, Fancy Band. and Holy Mackerel. He owns a boutique winery called Claypool Cellars. He wrote and directed the mockumentary Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo. He wrote the novel South of the Pumphouse.

January 2, 1996: There was probably no work on Tuesday

Thirty years ago today

            The first half of 1996 is the only period in my three decades of art modelling for which I am missing a daily planner and so I don’t know exactly what I did in January of that year. Looking at my other planners I can see that I did not usually have work in the first week of January although sometimes there was something for Central Technical School. If I didn’t work I probably spent the day writing poetry and turning poems into songs.

The Antichrist

            On Wednesday I was a lot more flexible than the day before after my bicycle accident on Monday. Forward bending was still painful but this time I could actually touch my feet. It was also still difficult to do a split with my left leg forward. When I tried to lift myself up from the floor on my left foot and left hand I was able to do it for a split second, so that’s progress. 

            I still wasn’t quite able to memorize the third verse of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg but I’m pretty sure I’ll have it in my head on Thursday. 

            I weighed 88.15 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since last Wednesday. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of four sessions. After the initial tuning it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I went over to Freedom Mobile to pay for my January phone plan. Then I called AMI electronics about my Sony Dolby double cassette player but they still hadn’t looked at it to give me an estimate. He mentioned how much stuff they have piled up there and I said I noticed and wondered how they ever got it all fixed. He said they fix about twenty pieces of equipment every day. 

            I rode downtown to look for a new backpack because my Samsonite one of almost the last three years has one zipper that’s finished and another that’s pretty much gone. I went to College Park because that’s where I bought my Samsonite backpack but the store was gone. I used the wifi at College Park to look for another store and found out they have Samsonite backpacks at Staples. I went there but they didn’t have Samsonite in-store. They did have Swiss Gear, which was the kind I had before the Samsonite and it was on sale for $94 and change. I decided on the Targus Voyager II, which seemed more sturdy, more plush inside, and had more pockets. It cost me $169.50. 

            I had to pee really bad but the Staples washroom was out of order. I walked up to University Centre where a security guard directed me to the public washroom in a terse tone as if I’d offended her by asking. 

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco but the grapes were all too soft so I walked over to Metro. They don’t price match but their green grapes were relatively cheap though not as cheap as what I would have price matched. I got five bags of fairly firm green ones. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos at 16:25. I had a late lunch of Sky Flakes with blue cheese and a glass of limeade with a dash of rum. 

            It was a little late for a siesta but I knew I wouldn’t be functional unless I had some sleep. I went to bed from 17:00 to 18:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:22. 

            I reviewed part of side 1 of the cassette recording of what sounds like the second half of my 20,000 Poets Under the League poetry slam from 1997 that was hosted by Cad Gold Jr. although he still called himself Cad Lowlife back then. I think this was my first slam. 

            I compared the video of my song practice performance of “Please Don’t Quit Me Now”. on September 4, 2024 to that of September 6 of the same year and I hit a wrong chord on September 4. I compared September 10 to September 6 and saw that September 6 is a better looking video. I compared September 16 to September 6 and September 16 has some wrong chords. I compared September 26 to September 6 and saw that September 6 looks better. I compared September 28 to September 6 and September 6 is still the best looking video. I compared October 2 of that year to September 6 and September 6 still stands out. I compared October 8 to September 6 and September 6 is the winner. It’s not good enough for YouTube but I’ll make a movie of it with the audio just for archiving. 

            I had two glasses of Creemore before supper. I heated some frozen Buffalo wings and some wedge oven fries and had them with another beer while watching season 27, episode 6 of South Park.

            All the kids at South park Elementary are obsessed with the 6-7 fad. Butters tells his friends he woke up around 6:07 and then everybody shouts “67!” and then teeter their hands up and down as if weighing something in them. PC Principal calls an assembly and says there’s some Satanic numerology going on. He introduces the highest authority on Biblical prophecies and Jesus thinks he’s going to introduce him but he calls up Peter Thiel. Thiel says the antichrist might arrive in 6 to 7 weeks and so all the kids shout “67!” Thiel says when god exiled Satan from Heaven he shrank Satan’s anus to the size of a pinhole so he couldn’t get pregnant with the Antichrist. But that has changed since he and Trump became lovers because Trump has a penis the size of a pin and that’s how Satan was able to get pregnant. 

            Meanwhile Trump and Satan are in prenatal class. Trump says he’s bored and Satan angrily says he can go home and jerk off. He does so and always with a pair of tweezers. J.D. Vence interrupts to inform him that they’ve shut down all but one abortion clinic and suggests that Trump could go and talk with the doctor who runs the last one. 

            Jesus tells PC Principal he doesn’t think he fits in at the kind of Christian school that South Park has become. He introduces Jesus to his wife who only recently became a Christian. She used to be called Strong Woman but now she is Strong Christian Woman but the main difference seems to be that she now has large breast implants. They take Jesus on a blind date with a recent Christian convert named Peggy Rockbottom who also has large breast implants. She says she became Christian because she was sick of wokeness and now guys are always checking out her Christianity. She says she’s never read the Bible but she’s listened to lots of podcasts about it. She thinks Greta Thunberg is the Antichrist.

            Meanwhile every time Cartman gets someone to say “67” he begins to uncontrollably projectile vomit. 

           Trump goes to the abortion clinic and asks the doctor to perform an abortion on Satan while he’s asleep. He says he wouldn’t know how to perform an abortion on Satan. 

           Peter Thiel tells the South Park staff that to cure the students of the 67 cult he needs access all student records and all CCTV footage of the school. Jesus doesn’t think it’s right to be spying on people, especially children. One staff member thinks this Christian stuff has gone too far and PC Principal begins beating him up. We learn that Peter Thiel is working for J.D. Vence on a mission to stop the Antichrist from being born so Vence can become president. Vence is talking to him from Trump’s bathroom where Towelie is listening. 

            Jesus tells PC Principal that he still thinks the most important thing about Christianity is love. PC is surprised and asks Jesus if he’s a fag. 

            Thiel goes to Cartman’s house as the music of Tubular Bells from the Exorcist is playing. He reads passages from the Bible that contain 67 and Cartman keeps puking and laughing. Thiel tells Mrs. Cartman he has to take her son to Washington because he is the key. 

            Jesus confronts PC Principal about his type of Christianity and accuses him of bullying people with the Bible. PC begins punching Jesus in the face but Jesus just walks away. Jesus goes for a long walk, then rolls up his sleeves and returns to the Cheesecake Factory where he left PC and takes Peggy with him. Then Jesus shaves off his beard and says, “Let’s fuckin go!” 

            The Antichrist here seems to represent people posing as Christians who aren’t. The far right might say that wokeism is the Antichrist whereas the far left would say that bigotry and an obsession with saying whatever you want being the same as free speech is the Antichrist. Most people would say these days that Christianity is about love but was it always? The fact as that without conquests by Christian armies and forced conversions most of us would never have heard of Christianity in order to say it’s about peace and love.

January 1, 1996: I spent New Years day with my daughter then cleaned up

Thirty years ago today

            I might have spent New Years day with my daughter and perhaps Nancy picked her up later. I probably cleaned up afterwards.

Pam Brady

            On Tuesday morning when I went to bed at around 1:00 my left hip was too sore from my bike accident to sleep on my favourite side so I didn’t sleep that well. 

            When I did my yoga it was quite painful and I was moaning and grunting a lot. I was surprised that I was able to do most of the poses but I couldn’t forward bend as far as usual especially on the left side, which is normally my most flexible forward bending side. I also couldn’t balance on my left leg and left hand with my right leg and right arm in the air. 

            I finally memorized the first chorus of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are twelve verses left if one counts the choruses but half of each chorus from now on is a repetition. 

            I almost finished memorizing the third verse of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I might have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            I weighed 89.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions. It went out of tune quite a bit in the first half but held steady for the second. Tomorrow I begin a four session stretch of playing my Kramer electric. 

            Around midday I packed my laundry onto my trailer and took it to the Speedy Queen coin laundry. I didn’t get it all back home until around 15:30. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos at 16:00. 

            I took a siesta at 16:30 and got up at 18:18. I was able to sleep on my left hip and it felt a lot better when I got up. I think it’s going to be okay. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos at 18:40. 

            I was still about half a day behind on my journal so I worked on getting caught up. I was still a bit behind at suppertime. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast with cranberry sauce while watching season 27, episode 5 of South Park. 

            All the kids and really everybody else are obsessed with online betting through the prediction market app. One of the bets is “Will Kyle’s mom bomb Gaza and destroy a Palestinian hospital?” 

            Jesus has to remind the kids not to use their phones during school. 

            The number one trending bet on the app is will Trump and Satan’s baby be a boy or a girl? Meanwhile Trump is upset that all the gifts arriving at the White House are for the baby and not him. Trump begins to plot to induce a miscarriage. Trump finds Satan knitting in bed and unsuccessfully invites him to get into a hot tub and smoke cigarettes, both of which are bad for fetuses. 

            Kyle tries to shut down the betting on his mom. He calls a strategic advisor for predictive markets and we see it’s Donald Trump Jr. He tells Kyle all their bets are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and so he’ll have to talk to them. He calls them and it’s also Don Junior who answers the phone. He tells Kyle the FCC is dealing with all the offensive stuff now and he connects him but again answers the phone. 

            Trump tries to sabotage the White House stairway with a trip rope and coats the steps with Crisco then calls for Satan to come downstairs. But Brendan Carr of the FCC falls for the trap instead.

            Cartman is trying to convince betters that Kyle’s mom has it in for Palestine so they will bet that she will bomb it and so he can bet against them thereby making more money. 

            Kyle’s mom is having lunch with some friends and she is surprised when they begin asking her how she feels about the current situation in Gaza. She gets upset at the questioning and leaves.

            Trump is in the kitchen making soup into which he adds several boxes of Plan B emergency contraceptive. Trump brings a big bowl to Satan but he looks at it and says he doesn’t like carrots. Brendan Carr comes in and tries to show Satan how good the soup is by trying it himself and he begins to shit so forcefully that he becomes like a jet and flies out the window and around the White House. 

           At the Broflovsky household Sheila has had enough of people expecting US Jews to have anything to do with Israel and so she says she’s going to find out who’s behind it and give him a piece of her mind, then she storms out of the house. 

           J.D. Vence brings another gift for the baby to Trump. It’s a kitten and Vence says they have to be careful because cats can be harmful to pregnant mothers, causing toxoplasmosis. So Trump gets a whole bunch of cats and puts them in the attic until there is a big pile of shitty kitty litter sitting on top of a trap door. He calls to Satan who has just come from the ultrasound and is pissed off Trump didn’t go with him. Then Brendan Carr triggers the trap and gets dumped with kitty litter. 

            Cartman has gotten 95% of betters to believe Shiela is going to bomb Gaza and he’s so sure she won’t that he bets $1400 from his mom’s debit card. Then the news is Broadcast that Shiela is in Israel. Kyle calls the special advisor to Israel and it’s also Don Jr. Cartman tells Kyle to tell him to take the bet down. 

            Brendan Carr is in the hospital and Vence brings him flowers. The doctor says if Carr’s toxoplasmosis reaches his brain he might lose his freedom of speech. Vence tells Carr to stop messing with his attempts to kill the baby and threatens him. 

            Then Don Jr. starts talking to himself on the phone and gets himself to take the bet down.

            Cartman is relieved but then learns from Kyle that Shiela didn’t go to Israel to bomb a Palestinian hospital. She went to give the person responsible a piece of her mind. Then we see Shiela bursting toto a conference room and confronting Netanyahu. She says, “Who do you think you are, killing thousands and flattening neighbourhoods, then wrapping yourself in Judaism like it’s some shield from criticism? You’re making life for Jews miserable and life for US Jews impossible!” She’s still nagging him as the show ends. 

             All of the production staff are jokingly referred to as “Strategic Advisors” in the credits of this episode. One of the producers is Pam Brady, who first met Trey Parker and Matt Stone when she was working for Fox. She wanted them to turn their student film Cannibal the Musical into a TV series. She put together Time Warped with them but it wasn’t picked up. When they started making South Park for Comedy Central they brought Brady in as a writer. She co-created the short-lived sitcom The Loop. She co-wrote Team America: World Police. She wrote and directed the animated series Neighbours from Hell. She co-created the sitcoms Lady Dynamite, Mr. Wong, and #1 Happy Family USA. She developed the sitcom Go Fish. She wrote for The John Larroquet Show and Just Shoot Me. She wrote the screenplay for Hot Rod, Hamlet 2, and Smurfs. She co-wrote the screenplays for The Bubble, Ruby Gilman, and The Sponge Bob Movie.

December 31, 1995: I watched TV and drank beer

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter might have stayed overnight. I don’t think I was invited to any parties so I probably just watched some New Years special on TV and had a couple of beers.

John "Nancy" Hansen

            On Monday morning I continued trying to memorize the second part of the first chorus of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. I’m pretty sure I’ll have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            I almost finished memorizing the third verse of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. That should also be done on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 89.25 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since November 11. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune quite a bit. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. November 30 was the last time I pushed the scale that far in the early afternoon. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but while climbing the hill after going under the railroad bridge on Brock Avenue south of Dundas my wheels started slipping on the ice. I thought I’d just ride to the next corner, then cross and go home but the bike slipped out from under me and I landed on my left hip. I was so determined to not have any more winter accidents. I should have just stopped with the first spin of the tires, gotten off and walked back. I got up and crossed the street and was about to try to ride back south down the hill but decided it was a recipe for another accident. So I walked until I was past the bridge and then rode home. It seems like they salted the road more properly between the bridge and Queen. 

            When I got to my building my upstairs neighbour Jacob was coming down the stairs. This is the guy who shouted in the hall last month his belief that I was singing about being a paedophile. As he stepped onto the street I said, “Shame! Shame on you for slandering your neighbours and telling lies. Then I called him Son of Sam after that other song interpreter who thought “Rich Girl” by Hall and Oates was about murdering young women. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at 17:00. That’s the same as the evening of November 29. 

            I had a potato with gravy while watching season 27, episode 4 of South Park. 

            At school Nelly and Betsy are showing each other their new Labubu dolls. At first they gush over each other’s acquisitions but then begin to fight while all the boys cheer them on. They are sent to the counselor’s office and the counselor is now Jesus Christ. He’s confused by their conflict and by Labubus. Jesus confiscates their Labubus until after school. The girls call him a shitty counselor. 

            Red McArthur approaches Butters and invites him to her birthday party. She then texts him a picture of the gift she wants him to buy her. Butters goes to the City Asian Popup store that used to be City Wok (still pronounced by the owner as “Shitty”). There’s sign on the wall that reads “Wok is dead”. Butters show him the Labubu he wants but the owner says he has to buy a mystery box and take his chances. Butters is shocked that a mystery box costs $85. The owner explains it’s because of Trump’s tariffs and the customer always pays the tariffs. Butters pays the money then the owner’s wife complains in Chinese about him taking advantage of children. 

           Then we see a Fox News report showing Trump getting off Air Force One after returning from his tariff summit and Satan is with him. There is a press briefing at the airport and all the reporters want to know is if Trump is fucking Satan. He denies it but they are all sure Trump is fucking Satan. 

            At a school staff meeting Jesus is concerned about the girls fist fighting over Labubus. The rest of the staff doesn’t seem all that concerned. They show Jesus a TikTok of one of the students opening her Labubu and then performing a ritual with it in the middle of a pentagram and killing a live chicken then drinking its blood then spitting the blood onto her Labubu. Then the Labubu comes to life. Christ is concerned that the Labubus are dark magic. The staff all agree that they are demonic. The kids are infusing them with a Mesopotamian entity. Jesus is surprised that the staff are so casual about it. He says the kids are in trouble. They agree and say that’s why every school needs a counselor. 

            Butters goes back to City Popup to get another mystery box with the $88.42 in his piggy bank. The owner says the mystery boxes are now $120 because of tariffs. He suggests Butters use the claw machine to try to get the Labubu he wants cheaper. The owner’s wife complains again about his treatment of the children. 

            Back at the school Jesus talks to two mothers of daughters who were fighting over Labubus. He suggests taking the Labubus away and keeping the kids off TikTok. They sarcastically say, “Great counseling”. They ask Jesus if he has kids and he says no. They say it figures. 

            There is another news report of Trump fucking Satan with footage of them sneaking together into the bushes at a golf course. Everybody loves the idea that Trump is fucking Satan. 

            Jesus goes to City Popup to try to stop the owner from selling Labubus. While they are talking Butters finally gets the Labubu he wants with the claw machine. Christ says for him to put it down. The owner is upset and thinks Butters should pay $600 for that rare Labubu. The owner’s wife argues he won the Labubu. Butters leaves before they can stop them. 

            Butters arrives at Red’s birthday party and gives her the gift. Red takes Butters up to her bedroom to “do it” and Butters thinks they are going to have sex. Red draws a pentagram and gets Butters to take a video as she performs the ritual while the other girls watch. She sacrifices a chicken. Blood red clouds rush over the house. The Labubu rises into the air and then forms a portal through which Trump and Satan emerge. Fox News reports on the event and it turns out that Satan and Trump appear at every Labubu party. The girls leave the party screaming followed by Satan and Trump. 

            Jesus arrives and confronts Satan. Christ demands that Satan leaves this realm. Satan says he wants to leave but is bound to Trump. Satan hands Jesus an ornate chest he carries and inside is a pregnancy test. Satan says he can’t leave because he is pregnant. A Fox news science consultant says that Satan is butt pregnant as that’s the way demonic pregnancy works. Everybody at Fox News celebrates that Trump is now confirmed to be fucking Satan. Kid Rock is crying with happiness. Jesus bans TikTok, cell phones and Labubus from school and gives Butters and Red two weeks detention.

            One of the production supervisors of South Park is John "Nancy" Hansen, who was also the voice Mr. Slave when he was a semi-regular character on the show. He also played John Travolta in the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet".