February 9, 1996: I had a falling out with some of my so called friends

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday evening I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron. I was starting to become estranged from some of the people I’d been hanging out with and they didn’t want to be around me anymore. My blunt outspokenness alienated them. A very charismatic and big woman from Chicago resented that I’d disagreed with something she said on stage about not applauding if you don’t mean it. I said people should applaud whether they mean it or not because it’s the friendly thing to do. I was busking on Queen later as she and some of my “friends” passed by. She actually bullied Bruce for stopping to talk with me. Later I probably moved another piece of furniture to my new place and slept there.

Angela Clarke

            On Saturday morning I finished translating “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in English and then I’ll start collecting images for the photo video. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and there were about five times out of twenty songs that it was still in tune when I finished a song. 

            In the early afternoon I went to No Frills where the grapes were very cheap but I had to pick through all of the bags to find three that were firm enough. I also got three bags of cherries, two packs of raspberries, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a rack of pork ribs without noticing they were from the US, garbage bags, a jar of tomato pesto, three bags of skim milk, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, a bag of frozen wedge french fries, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips.

            It was bitterly cold outside. 

            I weighed 89.9 kilos at 14:45. I had the rest of my baguette with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar, and a glass of iced tea. 

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

            I weighed 89.95 kilos at 17:35. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:25. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive side 1, tape 1 of my third annual Slamnation poetry slam. It was hosted again by Cad Lowlife and my co-judge was Michelle Ferman. I always picked my co-judge from one of the winners of the previous slam and so that answers yesterday’s question as to who won. I had only brought two tapes on which to record the slam that year and since there were so many stage hogs I didn’t get the finale on tape. Michelle would be a logical choice because she is (hopefully not was) a fine poet. 

           The previous year I’d had Tricia Postle on the hurdy-gurdy and Peter Fruchter on the Baroque clarinet playing background music for the poets. This year I did double duty and while acting as a judge I also fiddled with my Kramer electric to lay down sonic wallpaper for the readers. Listening to recordings of the two years I was surprised to find that my accompaniment sounded better than that of Tricia and Peter even though they are better musicians than I. It was a little more sensitive to moods of the poetry being spoken. 

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

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, oven french fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 13 of Combat.

            Paul Villers of K Company has not seen his French father Dr. Emile Villers for 17 years since he separated from Paul’s mother in the US and returned to France. Now K company is in Paul’s father’s village and he is searching for him. He finds him in his house where Paul’s Aunt Clair also lives. Saunders gives Paul permission to stay for dinner and get reacquainted with his father. While he is there the French Resistance barges in and arrests Emile. They accuse him of collaborating with the Germans but Emile says he only treated a German captain for his stomach problem. The French leader Henri Fouquet says after Emile has met with the German captain members of the Maquis have died. He assures Paul his father will get a fair trial but if found guilty he will be shot. Saunders tells Paul they are not allowed to intervene. 

            A few days later Saunders has a reconnaissance mission into town and takes Paul with him. They also are supposed to meet with Fouquet but learn from his wife that he has been killed. On leaving the house they are attacked by Germans and Saunders is wounded. Paul takes him to his father who shelters them in a storage room and treats Saunders there. A patient arrives and says the Germans have searched every house. Since they haven’t searched the doctor’s house Paul becomes suspicious that his father is a collaborator. Emile admits the Germans give him extra food and gasoline because he is a doctor. 

            Paul and Saunders are getting ready to leave when the German captain arrives. While hiding in the back room the captain speaks of information Emile has provided in the past. After the captain leaves, Paul confronts his father and he admits he did what was needed to survive. Paul leaves in disgust but outside the house they are confronted by German soldiers. Emile steps out and shoots the Germans but is also shot and killed. Clair drives Paul and Saunders to near their command post. She tells Paul his father wanted to stay alive to see his son. 

            Clair was played by Angela Clarke, who didn’t make her film debut until the age of 37 in Her Sister’s Secret. Her first credited appearance was in The Undercover Man in 1949. She co-starred in Mrs. Mike. Her film career came to a halt in the mid 50s when two people ratted her out as a communist to the House Un-American Activities Committee. She admitted to the committee that she had been a member of the Communist Party from 1942 to 1949 but she refused to give them any names and so she was blacklisted. She didn’t work in films again until 1962. She made her TV debut on the premier episode of Ben Casey in 1961. She had many guest appearances on popular shows after that. She had a recurring character in three episodes of St. Elsewhere.

February 8, 1996: At night when the streetcars were empty I carried some of my furniture to the new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday night after the streetcars got emptier I started making trips from my old place in the Beaches to the new place in Little Portugal, carrying my biggest pieces of furniture each time.

Shecky Greene

            On Friday I memorized the twelfth 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 translated the first monologue from “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s a good chance I’ll have the whole song finished tomorrow. 

            I weighed 89.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune about three-fifths of the time. That’s better than yesterday anyway. 

            Around midday I touched up the pink sections of my bathroom exhaust fan. I fixed the border around the front of the casing and though it’s not perfectly straight, neither am I. I fixed the grid area or thought I did but later when I looked I saw that there are still some blue smudges to cover. 

            I weighed 90.55 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon in a long time. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Brock and Bloor and went a few meters east on the bike lane but I was slipping and sliding because it’s still not solid and so I turned around and rode home. I have to go downtown on Monday for my periodontal bone graft so hopefully it’ll be clearer by then. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:12. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the second tape of my 2nd Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. Unfortunately the two tapes did not capture the entire slam because so many poets hogged the stage and took up a lot of time. This was the night that had the disastrous end because my co-judge Simon Orpana who agreed to be a judge for the event decided at the end that he couldn’t pass judgement and so he held up what was his half of the prize money that was supposed to reward a poet for their talent and he just simply asked who wants it. Evangeline Marsh quickly said she would take it and so the only actual winner of the slam that night was the poet I selected. It was such an asshole move on the part of Simon. I know he’s a Marxist but no Marxist society would just offer awards on a first come first serve basis, which would be the opposite of Socialism and more like survival of the fittest. Agreeing to be a judge and then not judging is like saying you will cook a meal and then when everyone comes to eat declaring you can’t cook. If you can’t judge, don’t take on the role asshole! I forget who won that slam and it’s not on tape. Maybe someone who was there remembers. I would usually pick a previous winner to be my co-judge and so it may be revealed when I listen to the third year tape. 

            I deleted a large number of photos from my main hard drive because I already had copies in my SSD. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last slice of roast pork while watching season 1, episode 12 of Combat. 

            Braddock is a mildly slimy character in that he takes advantage of others in some small ways such as trading dead batteries for another soldier’s rations. He is acting as a runner for Lieutenant Hanley. The batteries are dead on the radio and so Hanley sends Braddock back to Company to let them know they are stuck. 

            Braddock makes it through and the captain is surprised to see him having done the dirty job as a runner because Braddock has a reputation to find an easy way to do everything he has to do. While he’s there Braddock hears that Colonel Clyde requires a driver. Braddock, perhaps to avoid making his way back to Hanley volunteers to be Clyde’s driver. 

            The gruff Clyde insists on driving the jeep and drives at top speed as he used to be a race car driver. Braddock has to hold on for dear life. Braddock starts sneezing and says he caught a chill and so Clyde lends him his coat. 

            Clyde is speeding down the road when he has to swerve to avoid a cow. The jeep flips and lands upside down in the river while Braddock is thrown to lie unconscious in the middle of the road. 

            He wakes up surrounded by German soldiers who salute him because they think he is a colonel as he is wearing Colonel Clyde’s coat and the helmet he accidentally puts on when he gets up is also Clyde’s. He at first tries to convince them that he’s a private and not a colonel but they think he’s joking. They essentially treat him like royalty with good food and cognac, so he stops denying that he’s a colonel. 

            They are transporting him to a command post when he sees they have three US prisoners. He demands that they be fed and also lets them have some cognac. They were going to make the men walk to the command post but Braddock insists they ride in the car with him. 

            Back at US lines it is reported that the Germans have captured a colonel and Clyde’s men think it’s him, since he’s missing. 

            At the German command post the officers have detailed information on Clyde and figure out that Braddock is not him. But they want him to continue posing as Clyde because they want to exchange him for Colonel Hoffman, who has been captured by nearby Allied forces. They send one of the prisoners back to Allied lines to deliver the message about the proposed exchange. The Germans will trade Clyde and the two prisoners for Hoffman and his aide. 

            Suddenly Clyde walks in, all dirty from the accident but very much alive. When he hears about the exchange he starts laughing because he figures out that Braddock is the prisoner they think is him. Clyde gets the uniforms of Hoffman and his aide and dresses two German privates in their clothes to make the exchange. Braddock and the two US soldiers are exchanged and shortly after realizing the ruse the Germans begin firing. 

            Braddock asks Clyde if he’s going to get court martialed for impersonating an officer. Clyde says it depends on how well he did it. He demands that he show him his impersonation. He does and gets the captain to salute him. 

            Braddock was played by Shecky Greene, who liked to sing Strauss and started a drama club in high school. At first he planned on becoming a gym teacher but after performing stand-up in Chicago he began steering towards a career in comedy. He was in a comedy team with Dick Sterling. He served in the US Navy during WWII. He was a headliner at the Tropicana Hotel from 1957 to 1962. His salary at one point was $150,000 a week. In 1962 he became part of the cast of Combat. He co-starred in The Love Machine. Between 1968 and 1979 he appeared 68 times on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, sometimes as a guest host. After that they had a falling out and he was no longer invited. He owned several nightclubs. He says Frank Sinatra once saved his life when some hoods were beating him up. Frank saved him by saying, “That’s enough”. He was inducted into the National Comedy Hall of Fame in 2020.

February 7, 1996: I moved my mattress to my new place on the streetcar

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday evening I probably performed on the Fat Albert’s and Art Bar reading series open stages. After that I might have gone back to my place in the Beaches and taken my mattress, carried it to the streetcar and transported it to my new apartment in the west end. Then I would have spent my first night in my new home.

Lisa Montell

            On Thursday morning I revised my translation of the rest of the verses of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Next I’ll translate the monologues, which shouldn’t be as difficult since they don’t need to rhyme. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since January 23. 

            During song practice I played my Martin acoustic and it went out of tune constantly. It’s very frustrating to have no guitars that behave themselves lately. 

            At around 12:15 I headed downtown for the first time since before the storm. They had finally ploughed the Bloor bike lane but not enough. I was slipping and sliding all the way to Dufferin until I gave up and just rode on Bloor Street. From Bathurst on, the bike lane was clear enough for riding. I went to Yonge and Isabella, locked my bike and waited for Brian Haddon. He arrived on time and we had lunch at the Artful Dodger. We shared a pitcher of Creemore and each had the lunch special: the smoked turkey and bacon wrap with fries. Brian recently uploaded to YouTube his suite for wind quintet called “At the Sign of” and he appreciated all the comments I made on it: 

            I’ll be going for oral surgery on Monday and then starting my annual fast a week later so we won’t be getting together again until sometime in April. 

            I stopped at Steve’s Music to buy a rechargeable guitar tuner. The one I use now takes CR2032 batteries. For a long time I used that kind of battery for my bike flashers, my digital scale and my tuner. But now my flashers are rechargeable and I use rechargeable AAA batteries for my scale and so it seems like a waste of money to buy CR2032s just for the tuner. I bought a Snark for about $35 so hopefully it’s a good one. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought five bags of red grapes, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, a squeezer of honey, marinara sauce, Irish Spring soap, a pack of Sponge Towels and a pack of toilet paper. I did a price match on the grapes with the Real Canadian Super Store's price of $4.39 a kilo. 

            I took a siesta from 17:15 to 18:45. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos at 19:20. That’s the easiest I’ve been on the scale since January 27. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork with skyr while watching season 1, episode 11 of Combat. 

            This is a flashback story that really should have been the first episode of the series. The men have been waiting in London for D-Day. There is a betting pool with a large pot that has accumulated from all the men who wagered on the day they move out. Braddock ends up winning the $800 prize, which would be almost $15,000 today. Lieutenant Hanley is only a sergeant like Saunders but he still outranks him though Saunders has more combat experience than Hanley. Saunders has apparently been knocked back to private more than once since he joined the army. 

            Braddock’s bag of rations gets caught in the landing vehicle and he has to leave it behind. Later his bag carrying the $800 is blown up by a mortar shell. 

            Their mission is to locate some captured paratroopers at a farmhouse but they decide to rescue them. The farmhouse is protected by a tank. Under fire, Caje panics and runs. While cowering some distance away he meets some members of the French resistance who say he’s a hero and give him some wine. He regains his confidence and returns to K company with the French resistance fighters that include the beautiful Marcelle. They have also given him grenade launchers. Marcelle gives them some Molotov cocktails. Saunders climbs on the tank and throws one. The Germans surrender. Caje, Hanley and Saunders kiss Marcelle goodbye and they march on into France. 

            Marcelle was played by Lisa Montell, who was born in Poland but moved to the US at the age of 6. She studied voice, art , and dance and was accepted into the High School of Music and Art in New York. She transferred to the High School of Performing Arts. Her father was in the iron mining business and because of that they moved to Peru. It was there in 1953 that Lisa was first noticed by Hollywood producers who were there to shoot Daughter of the Sun God. The movie wasn’t released until 1962. Lisa appeared in some local films but when her father died she and her mother moved to LA. Her TV debut was in Public Defender in 1954. Her Hollywood film debut was Jump Into Hell in 1955. She co-starred in She Gods of Shark Reef. Her last film was The Firebrand in 1962. After that she focused on education and her Bahai religion. She gave talks on the faith and later took graduate studies at university. She taught university courses in holistic education.

February 6, 1996: I paid the rent for my new place with the rent for my old place

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday afternoon, before going to the Gladstone Hotel to host my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage, I took the rent money from my place on Wineva that the super hadn’t come for, and went to the house on Sheridan Avenue to pay for the first month on my new apartment. I felt good about this move.