Ruth White

            On Monday morning I finished translating the twelfth verse and half the final verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are only three lines left and so I should have it done tomorrow. 

            I worked out the chords for half of the chorus of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. I think the first two lines of the second half mirror the tune of the first and then it changes slightly but I’ll find out for sure on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since last Monday. 

            I played my Epi acoustic for the second of three sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time. Tomorrow I’ll be hopefully picking up my Martin from Alex Wood. 

            Around midday I shaved and showered and then went over to the hardware store to buy some small brushes so I can start doing touch-ups of the bathroom ceiling edges and tops of the walls on Wednesday. I got a pack of three with pony hair bristles. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on my way back where I bought five bags of grapes, a jug of orange juice, and a jug of iced tea. I price matched the grapes to the Real Canadian Superstore's $6.59 a kilo.

            I weighed 88.95 kilos at 18:45. That’s the furthest I’ve pushed the scale in the evening since November 30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:51. 

            I reviewed the last of my self recorded cassette tapes. It was recorded over something official sounding in French and is still mostly that. On one side there is a Leonard Cohen interview called “Poetry is a Verdict” with Laurie Brown on CBC. Along with that there are snippets of attempts to record my pre-verbal daughter. I digitized it. All that’s left is the studio recorded tape On a Sour Note by Jim Bravo, who played drums with my band a few times; and another by the band Bomb Shelter Light that played at my open stage. 

            I grilled 8 chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching season 1, episode 24 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Muldoon has a reputation for being shy around attractive women and so he is always chosen as a trusted escort when a friend needs him to look after his girlfriend while he’s away, when the captain needs him to guide some Vassar College girls on a tour of the precinct, and when wives need reassurance that there will be no fooling around on a night out with the boys. All the guys want Muldoon to do things for them on Saturday night because they know he won’t have a date but now he’s fed up and tells them all he has a date even though he doesn’t. But they don’t believe him so he decides to pretend he has a date. In front of the boys he calls up the phone service one calls to hear the exact time and pretends he’s flirting with his date. He says he’s taking her to the Club Chi Chi and doesn’t expect to actually go there but then Toody is borrowing his car that night and insists on dropping him off. Muldoon goes in the club abd leaves after Toody drives away but then officers O’Hara and Sanders drive up and he ducks back in. They want to check on Muldoon’s girl and so desperately he sits down with the extremely conservative Mr. and Mrs. Parker who are observing rather than celebrating their daughter Priscilla’s 21st birthday because she wanted to see a night club as a present. Muldoon puts his arm around Priscilla and asks them all to play along. Priscilla just looks stunned while her parents catch a glimpse of Muldoon’s gun under his jacket. They comply obediently because they think he‘s a gangster and fear for their lives. When O’Hara and Sanders leave, Muldoon thinks he’s in the clear and leaves the Parkers. But when he leaves the club, Officers Schnauzer and Henderson roll up. Just then the Parkers are leaving and so Muldoon grabs Priscilla again and says they all have to walk together. His colleagues follow in the squad car and the Parkers don’t live far away and so Muldoon insists on coming in. Schnauzer is too nosy to drive away and watches through the window as Muldoon sits on the couch with Priscilla, who has not reacted or spoken this whole time. Muldoon says he has to call mother but Mr. Parker thinks “Mother” is a code name for the head gangster. Muldoon decides to just leave even though his friends are still outside but Priscilla in thinking he is about to be arrested suddenly comes to life and begs him to take her with him and they can escape through the back. She says he’s the first man who ever noticed her and now she belongs to him. Schnauzer and Henderson come in and help Muldoon get away but Priscilla thinks he’s under arrest and shouts that she’ll wait for him. The next week Muldoon calls Priscilla and now she’s all dolled up and transformed into a confident woman. She tells her parents she’ll be out until 2:00. 

            Priscilla was played by Sybil Lamb but other than a few Broadway appearances there’s very little information about her career. 

            Mrs. Parker was played by Ruth White, who studied acting with Maria Ouspenskaya. She was the lead resident actress for five years at the Bucks County Playhouse. She made her Broadway debut in 1949 in Ivy Green. She became a critically acclaimed actor in New York theatre. She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in The Birthday Party. In 1962 she won an Obie award for her work in the off Broadway play Happy Days. She was nominated for an Emmy for her role in the TV play Little Moon of Alban. She taught acting and drama at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

December 9, 1995: It was a cold day so my daughter and I played inside

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I probably got together with my daughter either at my place or up in Scarborough. It was a cold day so we likely played inside.

Frederick O'Neal

            On Sunday morning after midnight there was an email from Best Buy and they finally called me Christian instead of Astrid but said I need to call them again. Maybe my edits set off alarm bells even though the edits are the correct information. I’ll have to call them after 8:00. 

            I translated the third refrain and half the twelfth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the first two lines of the chorus of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I called Best Buy one more time as they requested and the person told me she’s sure the problem is with my bank. So I called the Bank of Montreal again and this time the wait time was 5 to 15 minutes and so I waited. I found out that the problem with my Best Buy purchase really was with the bank because the $3200 exceeded my limit. I got them to increase my limit and so now it’s $10,000. I also suggested that they notify customers when a purchase is being blocked and give the reason. As it was I was in limbo for the last two days not knowing why my computer purchase was not being processed. The guy said it was a good idea and filed my complaint. 

            I weighed 88 kilos before breakfast. 

            I was 15 minutes late starting song practice because of my time on the phone and so I finished breakfast first. I played my Epi acoustic for the first of three sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time.

            I cleaned one of my warm mist humidifiers and set the other one working. While the humidifier was soaking in vinegar I removed the painters tape from the east, north and west edges of the bathroom ceiling. As I expected there are some thin strips of white that need to be touched up but unexpectedly at the south west corner a section of paint about the width of a cracker and the length of two slices of bread peeled off the ceiling and the wall. I assume the steam from the shower had something to do with how the paint stuck to the tape there. It’s probably not that big a deal and just a matter of a few brush strokes with each colour to fix it on Wednesday. 

            I weighed 88.95 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since last Sunday. I had Sky Flakes crackers with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar. I didn’t have any iced tea but I drank a Body Armour strawberry-banana drink that they gave away at the supermarket a year and a half ago. 

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

            When I got home I was curious and so I spent about fifteen minutes removing the rest of the tape. Most of it came out evenly and this time no paint peeled off. On Wednesday I’ll start touching up the ceiling edges and it shouldn’t take long. I have plenty of the ceiling and the wall paint. 

            I weighed 88.75 kilos at 18:30.

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:42. 

            I finished reviewing the rehearsal cassette tape of Steve Lowe and I at my place. One side has him trying to learn “Spool of the Moon” and on the other side we worked on “Snow on a Poppy”. Neither song became part of the Christian and the Lions repertoire. There are only three more cassettes to review and only one of them looks like a tape of me or my band. I’ll find out tomorrow what’s on it. 

            I had pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, Genoa salami, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 23 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Lieutenant Cushman brings four rookies to the 53rd Precinct to work with seasoned officers. He has used what he calls “The Cushman Method” and has carefully studied the officers and the rookies to make the most compatible matches. Garfield will ride in car 46 with Wallace and O’Hara. Corrigan will ride in car 54 with Toody and Muldoon. Captain Block is surprised by this choice because the last time a rookie was assigned to car 54 he joined the fire department. But Cushman says the matching is of Corrigan with just Muldoon because they are both academics and intellectuals. Corrigan graduated from the police academy with highest marks ever and he is a Harvard Graduate. Muldoon is also a college graduate and was the top man in his class at the Academy. Cushman’s plan is to ultimately have Corrigan replace Toody. Wallace finds it a relief to have someone to talk with besides O’Hara. When Corrigan goes out with Toody and Muldoon, Toody tries to get him to talk about sports but he’s not interested. Corrigan’s rapport with Muldoon begins when Corrigan starts a quote in French by Voltaire: “Il ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices” and Muldoon finishes it: “et n'emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées”: (They only use thought to authorize their injustices” then Muldoon adds, “and only use words to disguise their thoughts”). Corrigan says Voltaire based most of his essays on the fundamentals laid down by Montaigne. But Muldane doesn’t think he did so consciously. He says they were both confronted by the growing tendency towards materialism. Corrigan asks, “Wouldn’t it be funny if they were both written by the same person?” Muldoon adds, “Like the Baconian theory of Shakespeare” and they both laugh as Toody laughs as well though he has no idea what they are talking about. Then Muldoon quotes Cisero: “O tempora o mores” (Oh the times, oh the customs). They talk about the sad state of modern poetry and Muldoon says, except for a few avant garde poets they are just aping the 19th Century Romanticists. Then they discuss Bernstein’s recording of the Manfred Overture. Muldoon says Bernstein’s approach is contemporary but its energy and intention make it the cyclical symphony it is. Corrigan adds, “What overtones he gives! What long brooding lines!” Toody interjects that Bernstein is just a bandleader but a bandleader is better when he can do more than shake a stick and also sings along with his band like Vaughn Monroe or plays a washboard like Spike Jones. Those are good points. Toody says there are 110 musicians in the New York Philharmonic and the law of averages states that if 70 of them play right they make Bernstein look good. He adds Muggsy Spanier’s Tuxedo Five only has five guys. If one of them makes a mistake Muggsy looks like a bum. After work Muldoon and Corrigan go to Carnegie Hall to hear the Budapest String Quartet even though it’s bowling night. Toody decides to skip bowling too and borrows a volume of the encyclopaedia from the library so he can find something intelligent to talk about. The next day he tries to discuss aardvarks. It doesn’t work and Toody feels left out. He finally decides to transfer to another partner and Cushman matches him with Schnauzer in another car. But now car 54 is passing right by as crimes are being committed. When Muldoon is confronted about this he says he wants Corrigan off his back. He says when Toody talks he talks nonsense and so Muldoon doesn’t have to listen, which allows him to concentrate on police work. But Corrigan’s conversation is too intelligent and distracting. Muldoon and Toody are reunited and happy. 

            Wallace was played by Frederick O’Neal, who started acting professionally in St Louis in 1927. He made his New York debut in 1936 with the Civic Repertory Theatre. He co-founded the American Negro Theatre in 1940, which became the first black theatre company to produce a black radio series. He gave Sidney Poitier free acting lessons. He also co-founded the British Negro Theatre. In 1944 he won the Clarence Derwent award for his Broadway performance in Anna Lucasta. He made his film debut in Pinky in 1949. In 1964 he became the president emeritus of the Actors Equity Association and Associated Actors and Artistes of America. He was on Nixon’s list of enemies.

December 8, 1995: I busked on Queen Street near the Horseshoe Tavern

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday I probably spent the day writing and then went to perform on the Spit Fridays open stage at the Cameron House. After that I might have busked on Queen Street near the Horseshoe Tavern.

Athena Lorde

            On Saturday morning I checked my email and there was a message from Best Buy to contact them by phone to confirm my bank card information. I was suspicious but when I searched the phone number it was definitely that of Best Buy. They said they’ll cancel my computer order in five days if I don’t contact them. I think it’s because my first purchase from them last year was a gift for my daughter Astrid, which I had them ship to her in Montreal. Ever since then when they send me notifications they call me Astrid. I think I just have to confirm my identity for them and I’ll try to do that this morning.

            After yoga I translated the eleventh verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian.

            I worked out the chords for the first verse of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I called up Best Buy and assume I was talking to someone in India. She was audibly yawning when she first greeted me. Later she was coughing and I asked if she was okay. In a bored voice she thanked me for asking. She adjusted my billing information and assured me everything was fine now and my order would be processed. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the last of two sessions. It stayed in tune about half the time. Tomorrow I begin a four session stretch of playing my acoustic guitars. I’ll play my Epi for three sessions and might have my Martin back for Wednesday. 

            Around midday I rode over to Vina Pharmacy to pick up my Pico-Salax prescription. The pharmacist told me not to drink anything red or purple with it because the doctor might think it’s blood during the colonoscopy. It cost me $37.75. 

            I went to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft so I got two bags of oranges instead. I also bought three packs of raspberries, some bananas, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, tomato pesto, some kitchen garbage bags, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. I also got a pack of two charcoal toothbrushes. It seems to be something new although charcoal may be an old thing for tooth care from some cultures. I’d never heard of it before and frankly I was drawn more to the dark purple colour of one of the brushes. Anyway it’s supposed to make one’s teeth whiter. I haven’t noticed anything drastic in terms of brightening. They’re not widely recommended by dentists because they can be abrasive but they do remove plaque. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos at 14:30. I had Sky Flakes crackers with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. I should have bought iced tea at the supermarket but I mistakenly envisioned myself having plenty. 

            I took a siesta at 15:02 and woke up at 16:38. It was too late to take a bike ride downtown so I just rode to Ossington and Bloor. 

            I got another email from Best Buy saying they were still having problems processing my order. They wanted me to check with my bank but there was a 45 minute wait to call and I didn’t have time. I noticed that my daughter’s name was still on my bank card information on the bill and so I edited it. Ever since I bought her a humidifier last year they’ve been calling me Astrid in their notifications. 

            I weighed 88.75 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:57. 

            I reviewed the next cassette tape on the pile and it was nearly empty except for part of a song by a woman about moving on. It sounds like it was recorded at an open stage. Maybe Fat Albert’s. The next tape is a recording of a rehearsal with Steve Lowe at my place in the Beaches. We worked quite a bit on “Spool of the Moon” and were just starting on “Snow on a Poppy” when I stopped listening for the night. 

            In my 2020-09-24 Song Practice Movie Maker project I continued to delete the songs that come before “Leave Some for Everyone Else”. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, Genoa salami, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 22 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Every Thursday night at exactly 23:00 Leo Schnauzer and his wife Sylvia argue very loudly on various topics, such as: Who is the better dancer, Kelly or Astair? Who is the best actor? Who was the best president?, etcetera. Toody and Muldoon are aware of this habit and always arrive before the fight begins to avoid the embarrassment of their fellow officer being arrested for disturbing the peace. But the neighbours always gather in the hall and threaten to report it if they don’t. The rest of the week Leo and Sylvia are annoyingly sweet with one another, so what sets them off on Thursdays? Schnauzer explains that he wakes up mad on Thursdays because he dreads Sylvia being angry over her weekly confrontation with Katz the butcher because she buys chicken on Thursdays and likes to squeeze the chickens before buying them, but Katz doesn’t want her to. So she takes it out on Leo. Schnauzer casually comments, “If only there wasn’t a Thursday!” That gets Toody thinking of a plan to get rid of Thursday for Schnauzer. He thinks that if they miss fighting one Thursday it might break the spell. Toody’s cousin Ed works in the press room of the New York Morning News and Friday morning’s paper is printed on Thursday. The early trial runs come off the press early Thursday so he arranges to get Ed to sneak him a copy before work. So Muldoon pretends to be on the phone when Schnauzer arrives at work and complains how hard it is to order fish on Friday. Then he congratulates Schnauzer for not getting into a fight with Sylvia last night. He says he and Toody were waiting in the hall for things to blow up and nothing happened. Toody comes in with the paper and Schnauzer checks to see it’s Friday. Then Toody changes the day on the sign-in book with the intention of changing it back after Schnauzer signs in. But when he is about to change it back Captain Block is there telling him to go out on patrol and takes the newspaper away from him because an on duty officer shouldn’t be seen reading the paper. Then Block sees the sign-in book and the paper and also thinks it’s Friday, then he tells all the desk officers to get on the ball and they start their Friday paperwork. Then patrolman Nicholson hands in his report for the previous day and Block chews him out for not handing in Thursday’s report. Nicholson seems somewhat in a stupor for the rest of the day. Then a drunk who was just put in a cell is released because everybody thinks it’s the next day. Meanwhile Sylvia has just spent the day with Lucille and Rose and they are talking about seeing the movie Gaslight in which Charles Boyer starts to drive Ingrid Bergman mad when she’s dressed for the ball but he convinces her that they already went the night before. So when she goes home and hears Leo telling her it’s Friday she thinks he’s also trying to drive her insane and so she begins fighting with him. 

            One of Schnauzer’s neighbours was played by Athena Lorde who became a member of the American Theatre Wing. She acted in several popular radio series before she began work in television. She made her TV debut in the soap opera One Man’s Family in 1950. She played Betty Matthews on the soap opera The Greatest Gift in 1955. She also provided voices for several animated features and shows.

December 7, 1995: I posed for a sculpture class

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday evening I posed for the second of four night school sessions for the sculpture studio of Central Technical School. Each student probably worked on one sculpture over the four nights, which they would kiln and that would be their midterm exam. It’s very possible that I did a standing pose on the turning stage as I often did.

Severn Darden

            On Friday morning I translated the tenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. He wrote some long songs. It’s going to be hell to memorize when the time comes. 

            I searched for the chords for “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. No one has posted them and so I worked them out for the intro and the first line. 

            I weighed 87.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since October 23. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune a few times in the beginning but for most of the time stayed in tune. 

            Around midday I finished applying the final coat of wall paint in my bathroom. Wednesday’s the next day I’ll have time for my bathroom project and then I’ll take all the painter’s tape off to see if any touch-ups are needed. After that I’ll buy a liter of the last colour I’ll be needing for the shelves, the door and door frame. 

            I weighed 88.1 kilos at 14:24. 

            I took a siesta until 16:30 and it was too late for a bike ride downtown but I took a ride to Ossington and Bloor. 

            I weighed 88.35 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:53. 

            I reviewed a cassette recording of a Christian and the Lions concert for Sedated Sundays at the El Mocambo. We did “I Saw My Reflection in an Open Wound”, Seven Veils of Armour”, “Thin Red Line” and “Seven Shades of Blues”. 

            I uploaded to YouTube the video of my electric version of “Laisses-en un peu pour les autres”. 

            I started a 2024-09-24 Song Practice Movie Maker project and synchronized the audio with the video. Next I have to delete every song that comes before “Leave Some for Everyone Else”. 

            I had a large potato with gravy and a reheated T-bone steak while watching season 1, episode 21 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Toody and Muldoon are sent to serve an eviction notice to an artist named Karpathia. While the painter is packing, they look at his abstracts, which Muldoon thinks are junk but Toody finds beautiful. Toody especially likes one painting which he says reminds him of lower Manhattan at sunset as seen from the New Jersey side. Suddenly Karpathia kisses Toody because he is the first person who has ever understood his work and “Lower Manhattan at Sunset from the New Jersey side” is the actual name of the painting. He is so appreciative that he gives Toody the painting. Toody takes it home but Lucille hates it. Toody goes back to work while Lucille throws the painting in the garbage. Meanwhile Toody is selling raffle tickets for the precinct Brotherhood Club and the draw is tomorrow but he forgot to acquire a prize for the ticket buyers to win. He decides to present Karpathia’s painting as the prize and finds it outside his building in the garbage. The painting is wrapped and presented to the winner, who it turns out is Schnauzer, who says bad luck runs in his family and he never wins anything. He’s excited about winning until he sees the painting and then realizes winning a piece of garbage is just more bad luck. But he takes it home because his wife wants a frame. Later a museum curator comes to Lucille and asks to borrow Karpathia’s masterpiece for a Karpathia exhibit and tells her it will be worth worth $25,000 (That would be $250,000 today) once it is seen at the exhibit. She tells him it’s impossible but doesn’t say she threw it out. He hopes Toody changes his mind and leaves Lucille standing frozen in shock with her broom. She is still standing there hours later when Toody comes home. She hands him the broom and tells him to beat her. He says she’s alone too much and he’s going to get her a dog. She tells him about the painting and he calls Schnauzer who rushes home to get it but at the gallery when they unwrap it, there is only the frame and Schnauzer’s wedding photo. Schnauzer says not to worry because his wife never throws anything out and they rush back to his place. Meanwhile we see Sylvia bringing home a cookie jar she’s just bought and how obsessively she saves every piece of the packaging right down to the tags. But when Schnauzer comes in and asks where the painting is she says she incinerated it because who wants to keep junk? Karpathia doesn’t care because he has finally reached one soul in Toody who understands his work. He recreates the painting on top of Toody’s wallpaper where the painting had briefly hung. But then Toody starts pointing out other things besides the painting that remind him of lower Manhattan at sunset from the New Jersey side and it turns out it’s just about everything. Karpathia asks him not to mention that if he is interviewed and Toody agrees.

            Karpathia was played by Severn Darden, who was one of the founders of Chicago’s Compass Theatre, which was the first improvisational theatre in the United States and which became Second City of which he was one of the original members. His live improv skit “A Short Talk on the Universe” as the character Walther von der Vogelweide is one of the most influential skits in improv history. He participated in the 1964 Acid Test put on by the Merry Pranksters. He performed in three seasons of the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut. He was nominated for a Tony for his performance in the musical From the Second City. He co-starred in The President’s Analyst.