February 3, 1996: I performed my song naked

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday evening I went to Club Saturnalia at 183 Bathurst to perform in the Partying Into the 21st Century event. Nancy brought our daughter down to see my show but regretted it because she thought my performance was inappropriate for her to see. 

            I did three songs. The organizer who’d invited me to perform asked me to make a political statement and so I took his request to heart. After some thought I concluded that the most political statement one can make is to be oneself. I began by saying I wanted to express myself by being natural like the way Anne Murray used to perform in concert and so I took my shoes off and sang my song “The Next State of Grace”. Then I said it would be closer to me if I was savagely free like Iggy Pop and so I took my shirt off and sang my song “Megaphor”. Finally I concluded that I should be entirely myself and stripped fully naked to perform my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”. A big guy in a black suit with a white tie who looked like a Mafia hitman was security for the event. Why would they hire that kind of person for an event full of positive artists? He tried to get up onstage to grab me but I pushed him off. The organizers were also trying to shut me down but the audience protested and demanded that they let me finish. So I finished my song naked. Later I was chatting with Tricia Postle and she said I had a nice body.

Joyce Vanderveen

            On Sunday morning at about 4:45 my upstairs neighbour Jacob stomped hard on his floor. 

            I worked out the chords for the first two verses of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s only one verse left plus the monologues and I don’t think I need chords for the monologues. If not I might have the song done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 89.65 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year. 

            At around 9:30 I was watching an old episode of Last Week Tonight when Jacob stomped on the floor several times. My volume level was minus 14 and didn’t seem loud. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been working all week and set the other one going. 

            I was typing on my keyboard when Jacob started stomping again. 

            I weighed 90.35 kilos before lunch. I had four slices of baguette with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and ventured up Brock Avenue for the first time since before the storm. When I got to Bloor the bike lane was totally filled in with snow. I’ve never seen it that bad since they built the lane a few years ago. I turned around and rode home. I will definitely have to go downtown on Thursday because I’m having lunch with Brian Haddon at The Artful Dodger on Isabella. If the lane isn’t cleared by then I’ll have to ride on Bloor with the cars like I used to. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos at 17:25.

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:24. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1, tape 1 of what I think was my second Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. The first Slamnation was at We’ave and it was hosted by Kevin Subliminal White Trash Pierce. Background music was provided by Tricia Postle and Peter Fruchter. 

            I put several photos in sub-folders in my solid state drive and deleted quite a few from my hard drive. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with tomato pesto, oven french fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 7 of Combat.

            Lieutenant Hanley is the only survivor of a battle that was won by the Germans. There is no explanation why no one we recognize from his unit is there and they will be all alive in the next episode. German soldiers come to inspect and rob the bodies while Hanley plays dead. But he is discovered and taken prisoner. 

            He is interrogated for a while and then General Von Strelitz takes him into his custody. He is placed in the passenger’s side of a car with Strelitz in the back. After a while the driver is told to turn off the road. While holding up a map the general pulls out his gun and shoots the driver through it. Then he forces Hanley to change clothes with the driver. The driver’s body is dumped in a river and Hanley is told to drive. 

            He has to pose as the general’s captain. He must open doors for him, sit when he sits, and stand at attention when he stands. They go to an officer’s night club where a young woman comes out and sings in German. Strelitz writes a note and tells him to pass it to her. An SS officer named Colonel Kleist in plain clothes gets a phone call and then comes looking for Strelitz, only to find him gone.

            Strelitz has Hanley drive to an abandoned house where they spend the night and Strelitz explains the situation. He was part of a movement called Operation Valkyrie and was involved in what came to be known as the 20 July plot by several German generals to assassinate Hitler and to liberate Germany from Nazism. The plot failed and Colonel Kleist is already on Strelitz’s tail. Strelitz and Hanley are going to meet the woman from the club at the train station and escape into Allied lines. Hanley asks how he knows he can trust his girlfriend and Strelitz reveals, “Because she is my daughter”. 

            The next day they leave the house but are confronted by armed French children who plan to assassinate them. A French priest intervenes and is accidentally shot. The children are upset and forget about Strelitz and Hanley. 

            They make it to the train and Maria meets them. Strelitz tells Maria what he has done and that he wants her to come with them. But she is certain that Germany will triumph and refuses to betray Hitler. She says she will turn him in and leaves. Kleist and his men have followed Maria to the station and she talks to them. 

            There is a cat and mouse game as they evade the soldiers and finally escape in a car but Strelitz is wounded. By the time Hanley reaches British lines Strelitz is dead. 

            Maria was played by Joyce Vanderveen, who was a child prodigy and at the age of nine conducted a children’s orchestra, as well as danced ballet and played violin at festivals. Anne Frank had clipped her picture from a magazine and had it pinned to the wall of her hiding place. When the Nazis invaded Amsterdam, Joyce and her mother escaped to Northern Holland. After the war they returned to Amsterdam. As a teenager she was a well known ballerina in the Royal Netherlands Ballet. She later joined the Monte Carlo Ballet in Paris. Joyce was not identified as the ballerina in Ann Frank’s picture until 1996. In the late 1950s a member of the Kennedy family arranged for her to come to the US on a special artist’s visa. Her first acting job was in the Live General Electric Theatre. She was given a contract with Universal and appeared in The Ten Commandments and The Singing Nun, as well as making guest appearances on several TV series like Combat and Peter Gunn. She became a dance teacher.

February 2, 1996: I promoted my Feb 3 feature at Club Saturnalia

February 2, 1996 

            On Friday evening I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron and promoted my feature at Club Saturnalia on February 3.

Maria Machado

            On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for half of the first verse of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 89.45 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it stayed in tune a lot better than yesterday. I only needed to tune it four times in the 90 minute session. It’s a mystery why. Maybe I should fill up the little Oasis humidifier every day instead of every other day. 

            Around midday I was heading out to No Frills when I met David at the front of our building. He said he’d forgotten to buy French stick at the supermarket and so I told him I’d get him some. 

            As I was approaching No Frills from the side I saw an attractive woman who’s smiled at and spoken to me a few times while we were shopping. She was just entering the store, saw me through the window and smiled. I saw her inside a few times from a distance but our paths didn’t cross this time. 

            I bought two bags of green grapes, three bags of cherries, two packs of raspberries, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a double pack of ground New Zealand grass fed beef, dental floss, a box of freezer bags, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and two bags of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            On the way home I realized that I’d forgotten to get David his bread. I took my trailer upstairs and walked over to the St James bakery on Brock where they had whole wheat baguettes, so I got one for David and one for me. I left David’s in front of his door. 

            I weighed 89.85 kilos at 14:45. I had four slices of my baguette with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea.

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:07 when it was too late for a bike ride. 

            David texted me that he needed to borrow $20 until Monday because his bank card had expired so I gave it to him. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:35. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the pre-event interview of me, Raven, and Denise Naples to promote my first 20,000 Poets Under the League slam. My daughter Astrid was also there making a lot of noise. I sang my song “Sugar”, the revised text of which is in my book Paranoiac Utopia. I’m missing at least one tape of the second 20,000 Poets Under the League slam but now I’ve digitized all the rest of the four slams. Next I’ll digitize the six tapes I have of three of my Slamnation poetry slams. 

            I moved several photos to my solid state drive and created sub-folders. I deleted a lot of images from my hard drive. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with tomato pesto, oven fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 6 of Combat.

            Colonel Hobey Jabko is shot down over France and is missing in action. 

            K Company is dug in at the front lines and they are told there are Germans dressed as French civilians. Someone dressed as a French civilian approaches and Fergus opens fire. Before the man dies he reveals he’s Lieutenant Tafe of the U.S. Air Force and that Colonel Jabko is at a French farmhouse. Fergus is very upset that he killed one of his own. 

            K company is sent to rescue Jabko and are taken behind enemy lines by Maquis leader Gallard who is posing as a farmer driving produce to market. The truck is made to look like it’s packed with produce but at a checkpoint a German soldier fires into the truck but lets it go. Inside, Fergus has been badly wounded. 

            They make it to the farmhouse and Gallard continues to market. The farm belongs to an elderly couple and their daughter Denise. Denise and Jabko have become lovers and she doesn’t want him to leave. The airman that Fergus killed was a friend of Jabko’s and he’s angry and now distrustful of K company’s ability to get him out of there. 

            Fergus dies of his stomach wound and is buried. 

            Gallard returns and says he’s learned there is a leak in his organization. 

            German soldiers come to the farmhouse and so Jabko, Gallard, and K company hide. They search the house and find a bedsheet with a stain indicative of a stomach wound which matches that of the body they dug up nearby. They shoot Denise’s mother and father but leave Denise alive. When they exit the farmhouse Jabko opens fire and then K company and Gallard also shoot, killing all the German soldiers. 

            They find Denise with the bodies of her parents and Gallard wonders why they didn’t shoot her as well. Jabko also wants to know but Denise has no good reason. She finally admits she leaked information to keep him with her. Jabko leaves to taken out of France. Gallard tells Denise he won’t kill her now but he will find her. 

             Denise was played by Maria Machado in her TV debut. She acted for several years in repertory theatre in Germany before moving to Paris in 1965. She became a student of Tania Balachova who introduced her to French theatre. She made her film debut in Monsieur le président-directeur general in 1966. She played Alma Lincoln in the French TV series Face aux Lancaster in 1971.

February 1, 1996: I concluded that the most political thing one can do is to be oneself

Thirty years ago today  

            On Thursday I probably posed somewhere. I rehearsed for my feature at the “Partying into the 21st Century” event on February 3. I had been asked to make a political statement and so I was working out what my statement would be. I concluded that the most political statement one can make is to be one’s self. I began to formulate a way to express being myself in my performance.

Joe Mantell

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the chorus of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the first verse and that should set the pattern for the whole song. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune on every song just like my Kramer did yesterday. My guitars don’t like the current weather despite how much I humidify them.

            Around midday I touched up the pink that I painted on the bathroom exhaust fan yesterday. Next week I’ll fix the blue on the front and the frame. After that I have to bring out the purple wall paint to cover the blue and pink smudges under the fan. Then it’ll be back to the blue to paint the shelves, the door and the door frame. 

            I weighed 89.9 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. I thought I might try to take the hill on Brock but there was some slight slippage as I crossed Seaforth from O’Hara to Brock and so I didn’t want to risk slipping on the incline. I rode around the block and then up the street to Freedom Mobile to pay for my February phone plan. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos at 17:20, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening in a few years. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:22. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the finale of my second 20,000 Poets Under the League slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. I then digitized in the same manner side 1 of the recording of the CIUT radio interview of me, Raven and Denise Naples to promote my first 20,000 Poets Under the League slam. 

            I moved more than 700 photos to my SSD and deleted them from my hard drive. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching season 1, episode 5 of Combat. 

            We learn that Lieutenant Hanley’s unit is called 2nd Platoon, K Company and their radio callsign is King 2. 

            They are making their way through the brush when they are ambushed by a big machine gun. Private Grady Long takes out the machine gun nest with his Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) but is killed in the process. Sgt. Saunders is particularly upset about the loss of Grady because they had become close (although we never saw him).

            Kirby thinks that he will be inheriting the BAR, the most powerful weapon in the unit because he knows how to use and care for it better than anyone else. But Saunders gives it to the new recruit, Delaney. Adding insult to injury, Delaney has been serving as an assistant cook, he’s 40 years old, and has never seen combat. There is resentment of Delaney because of this, especially from Kirby. Some of the men warm up to him when they learn that unlike most of them, Delaney was not drafted but rather volunteered. 

           They travel to an abandoned town to watch for a heavy concentration of enemy armour that they think is nearby. When they see it they can call in the coordinates and have it taken out. The Germans arrive in the town and K Company plans to hide in one of the buildings to wait for them to leave. But by chance they occupy the loft of the building where they are hiding and so they are trapped. If they call for the attack they will be in the middle of it but now they have no choice. When the attack begins they have to run for it. They have to cross a bridge where a machine gun is mounted. Delaney freezes and hides. Saunders confronts him and says he could be responsible for all of them dying and so he rises to the occasion. Delaney gets shot while trying to take on the machine gun but manages to throw a grenade that takes it out before he dies. 

            Saunders feels bad that he never learned Delaney’s first name. He makes up for his mistake with the next new recruit. He also admits he was wrong to give the BAR to Delaney. He did it because he didn’t want to lose another one of the men he’d come to know well. 

            Delaney was played by Joe Mantell, whose credited film debut was in Barbary Pirate in 1949. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting performance in Marty in 1955. He starred in the Twilight Zone episode “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room” and co-starred in the episode “Steel”. He played Ernie Biggs in the sitcom Pete and Gladys and Albie Loos on Mannix. He played Lawrence Walsh in both Chinatown and The Two Jakes.

January 31, 1996: I promoted my upcoming gig at Club Saturnalia

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I probably worked but have no record of where. I would have likely gone to Fat Albert’s open stage and the open stage that closes the Art Bar reading series where I performed and promoted my upcoming gig at Club Saturnalia.