February 16, 1996: I heard that my friend Mike Copping had died

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I got a call from Peter Copping, the brother of my friend Mike Copping. He told me that the previous weekend Mike had died of a heart attack in the kitchen of his home outside London, Ontario. He was surrounded by his wife and two children when he passed away. I felt very sad and cried for a few days. I picked up my four and a half year old daughter for the weekend and told her I needed a hug. We went to the Rustic Cosmo Café for a poetry open stage and Raven was there.

Marie Gomez

            On Saturday morning after I went to bed I could hear my upstairs neighbour’s dog in distress. I don’t know what Jacob was doing to it. I got the impression he punished her by locking her out of the apartment on the stairway. 

            After yoga I finally memorized the thirteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are five verses left but some have repeated lines I already know and so it’s more like three more verses to learn. 

            I searched online for vintage photos of down and out millionaires and millionaires who act poor. Then I looked for old photos of millionaires in China. These are all for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune for almost the whole session. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I bought five bags of red grapes, three packs of raspberries, some organic bananas, mouthwash but I accidentally got the kind without alcohol, margarine with olive oil, a jug of orange juice, a jug of iced tea, a container of 4% skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 90.65 kilos at 14:45, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon in a long time. 

            I weighed 91.7 kilos at 17:35. That’s the most I’ve pushed the scale in the evening in a few years. I gained weight because of the diet after the last bone graft as well. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:12. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive the finale of my last Slamnation poetry slam. It was hosted by Cad Lowlife who now calls himself Cad Gold Junior. There was a small turnout and so there were only one and a half tapes. I’ve now digitized all the audio recordings of all my poetry slams. 

            I made some more sub-folders of photos in my SSD and deleted a lot more from my hard drive.

            I cut up five hot Italian sausages and sautéed them. I added the last of my garlic chicken broth and the rest of a container of pho broth. I tried to cook the Japanese noodles in the steamer above the soup but it was taking too long so I just tossed them into the soup. 

            I had a bowl of the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 20 of Combat. 

            K Company makes a stop at an evac hospital and all the men’s mouths are watering to see female nurses. Suddenly against orders Corporal Andy March jumps out of the jeep and runs into the tent. He approaches one of the nurses and starts kissing her. It turns out that it’s Lieutenant Amelia March, Andy’s wife. They’ve been married eight months but have only known each other for two days. Saunders tells March they have to move out but March begs for more time with his wife. Saunders says he’ll put in a request on his behalf for two days leave. 

            Kirby is jealous to find out that his friend March has a woman in his life and he tries to pick up a waiter in a local bar but Saunders tells him she’s off limits. They will have to go out on patrol the next day but that night Kirby goes AWOL to try to make it with the girl at the bar. She seems uninterested and a man with the French Resistance tells him she is engaged to his brother. That doesn’t stop Kirby and so he gets beaten up by three Maquis kick boxers and tossed unconscious out with the garbage. He’s at the evac hospital before his company finds out he’s missing. 

            March has to take Kirby’s place on patrol and he gets caught in a mortar shell explosion and is taken to evac with life threatening injuries. Kirby learns from a patient who’s been there a while that Lieutenant March is actually in a relationship with the doctor Captain Anders. The captain has to operate on March to remove the metal from his skull. 

            Amelia admits to Saunders that she’s in love with Captain Anders. She planned to tell Andy after the war but if he dies it will make her relationship with Anders impossible. Andy lives and it looks like Kirby won’t be court martialed for going AWOL. 

            The waiter in the bar was played by Marie Gomez, who was discovered by Leonard Sillman. She began her career on Broadway in New Faces of 1962. She appeared in five episodes of The High Chaparral. She made her TV debut on Dobie Gillis in 1962. She was a contestant on Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Professionals. In later life she did charity work for orphans in Mexico.

February 15, 1996: I got my phone connected

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I got my phone connected at my new place.

Dan O'Hirlihy

            On Friday morning swelling had definitely gone down in my right cheek. During yoga I was able to put the right side of my face on the floor for the first time since the bone graft. There’s still a bruise on my cheek but supposedly that will go away. 

            I started looking for vintage images related to the idea of broken millionaires. I found a few images but I’ve got to change the wording of my search. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            I painted the tops of my upper bathroom shelves with Blue Bliss. 

            I smudged the northern wall in a few places. I’ll touch that up on Tuesday and after that I might be finished with the ladder for the bathroom as I start painting the rest of the shelves. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor where the bike lane further east is still blocked with snow. I don’t think they are going to bother clearing that section. I went down Shaw to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos at 17:40, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since February 2. 

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

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of tape 1 of my fourth and last Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. The tape ends about halfway through the readings by the finalists. 

            I deleted about 65 images from my Photos folder. 

            I boiled a potato and added it to the ground beef soup that I’d made with the pho broth a few days ago. Earlier at lunch I added a can of butter chicken soup and it was quite good. I ate supper while watching season 1, episode 19 of Combat. 

            Doc is caring for a very badly wounded Lieutenant Hanley, plus Braddock and Corporal Cording. Jackson is driving them to a hospital according to the directions he’s been given but they arrive at a French chateau. The owner Count de Gontran resents their presence because he wants to keep the war far from his home. He lets them take the wounded in his ballroom but tells them they only have two hours. 

            Jackson tries to speed away to get help but is killed by German soldiers led by Major Richter who then arrives at the chateau and impresses Gontran with his gentlemanly manner and cultured ways. He encourages his daughter Gabrielle to be nice to Richter. When the US soldiers are discovered Richter allows doc to continue to treat his wounded but reminds them they are now prisoners of war. Doc can leave the room for medical purposes but if the others leave they will be shot.

            Braddock and Corporal Cording plot for one of them to escape to get help. They do rock paper scissors and Cording loses. He strangles their guard and tries to make it out but gets caught in the foyer and Richter shoots him. 

            Meanwhile Gontran sees Richter’s soldiers removing the priceless paintings from the walls of his chateau and complains. Richter claims he is only protecting them because the chateau is now a military target. Gabrielle begs Richter to at least leave the most precious painting. Richter finds Gabrielle charming and desirable and when he makes a list of the paintings for Gontran to sign he leaves out the one that Gabrielle mentioned. 

            But Gabrielle finds her father beside the unsigned list and he has committed suicide. Gabrielle comes to Richter’s room and behaves seductively but she has a knife in the pocket of her dress and stabs him when he comes to kiss her. She takes Richter’s gun and puts it beside her father’s body, then she tells Richter’s secretary that Richter does not want to be disturbed but has asked him to allow the US medic to look at her father, who is not feeling well. When Doc comes she secretly passes him the gun to transfer to his med kit. Doc, Hanley and Braddock are taken to a cage vehicle to be transferred to a prison camp. 

            On the road Braddock shoots the driver and the lock and they escape. They notify Allied command of the occupied chateau and bombers are sent. Gabrielle sits there smiling while her home comes down on top of her. It’s a fucked up ending. Neither side has respect for history. 

            Richter was played magnificently by Irish actor Dan O’Hirlihy. He studied architecture and published political cartoons. Although he earned the architectural degree his interest shifted towards acting and he found work on the stage as both actor and set designer and on the radio as a voice actor. His first lead was in Red Roses for Me in 1944. His film debut was in Odd Man Out in 1947. He co-starred in Orson Welles’ Macbeth in 1948. He starred in the Luis Buñuel production of Robinson Crusoe in 1954 and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. He co-starred in Kidnapped, Invasion USA, Sword of Venus, That Woman Opposite, Home Before Dark, A Terrible Beauty, The Young Land, Imitation of Life, One Foot in Hell, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Big Cube, The Carey Treatment, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Robocop, Robocop 2, The Dead, He co-starred in the TV series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters and The Long Hot Summer.

February 14, 1996: I moved the rest of my stuff to the new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday Scooter and his car helped me move the rest of my things from the old apartment to the new one. Then we probably went to the Art Bar reading series for the open stage.

Ben Cooper

            On Thursday morning I gathered more images of Zizi Jeanmaire for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I changed the wording of the search and found pictures from some of her movies like Guinguette. 

            I weighed 89.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune during every song. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars.

            I finally put away my laundry. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor where the bike lane is still blocked with snow. I went south to Harbord and west to Ossington, then south to Queen. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought five bags of cherries, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, a pack of hot Italian sausages, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, some pho broth, some chicken broth, two packs of gourmet ramen noodles, and a can of generic tomato soup. I tried to show my Scene card at the cash but couldn’t find it because I typed the search wrong and people were waiting so I gave up. Afterwards I found it right away. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 18:40, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since February 2.

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:27. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1 of tape 1 of my fourth and final Slamnation poetry slam, hosted again by Cad Lowlife. There was a small turnout that year. 

            I made two sub-folders for photos in my SSD. 

            I boiled a chicken leg with a potato and had them with gravy while watching season 1, episode 18 of Combat. 

            K Company is cornered by a tank that is closing in but suddenly it bursts into flames and from behind it walks a US soldier with an anti-tank gun. He introduces himself as Corporal John Cross and he’s been sent as a new recruit for K Company. As a corporal, Cross would be in command if anything happens to Saunders. 

           They are sent to occupy a farmhouse at the top of a hill and Saunders has Kirby and Cross come with him to check it for Germans. It’s empty above and seems to be unoccupied in the wine cellar but then Cross sees a German bayonet come from the shadows behind Saunders’ back. He aims his rifle but doesn’t fire. Then Kirby arrives and shoots the enemy. There are other Germans that Saunders now kills. Saunders confronts Cross about his failure to fire and he says his gun jammed but Saunders checks and Cross’s weapon is fine. His second explanation is that he froze. Since Cross already showed himself to be brave Saunders doesn’t buy it and there’s a suspicion that Cross wants to be in command. 

            Later they see two German soldiers with a donkey arrive to bring supplies for the soldiers they think still occupy the farmhouse. Saunders sends Cross into the barn after one of them but the German sees him and tries to sneak away in the dark. Cross has a clear shot as the German leaves through the back door but doesn’t fire until after he’s gone so as not to arouse suspicion. 

            Later Saunders finds Cross drunk in the wine cellar. He tells him that he was transferred because he accidentally killed his sergeant. Then he confesses that he let the German soldier go and so more will be coming. The Germans come and are shooting mortar shells at the house, tearing it apart. Cross sneaks out with a rifle and crawls until he flanks the mortar cannon nest. He takes out most of the men but is shot multiple times. Saunders takes out the rest. 

            Kind of boring coward turned hero in the end trope they’ve done before. 

            Cross was played by Ben Cooper, who made his Broadway debut at the age of 9 in Life With Father and was in the play for 4 years. He had his own horse by the age of 12 and practiced stunts. He rehearsed his quick draw for 90 minutes a day for four years. Between 1946 and 1952 he worked on several popular radio soap operas and serials. He made his screen debut in 1950 at the age of 17 in Side Street. He co-starred in The Woman They Almost Lynched, Outlaw’s Son, The Eternal Sea, The Headline Hunters, Duel at Apache Wells, A Strange Adventure, The Fighting Chance, Rebel in Town, and Chartroose Caboose.

February 13, 1996: I brought some friends to my new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday night after my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage, since I now lived fairly close by, I brought some of my friends like Raven, Scooter, Cad and Anna back to my new place for coffee.