Thursday, 5 March 2026

March 5, 1996: My new landlords suddenly decided they didn't want to share their place after all


Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday my new landlords Helga and Peter told me they’d decided they didn’t want to share their rented house with anyone after all and asked if I would kindly move out. I couldn’t believe they would invite someone to go through the trouble of pulling up their roots and then expect them to just move again after settling in when I’d done nothing to hurt them whatsoever other than just being another person in their lives. I refused to move and they immediately put the wheels into motion to try to evict me. It turned out that Helga was particularly talented in that kind of devious endeavour.

Wednesday, 4 March 2026

Sabrina Scharf


            On Tuesday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 166 so far. 
            I weighed 90.25 kilos before breakfast. 
            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of two sessions and it was out of tune on every song for the first three quarters of the session. During the last five songs it stayed in tune.
            I made a few more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several more images from my hard drive. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 
            I weighed 90.4 kilos at 18:30. 
            I was caught up in my journal at 19:16. 
            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side one of a rehearsal of my songs “Spool of the Moon” and “Snow on a Poppy” with Steve Lowe trying to learn the songs on guitar. Neither song ever became part of the Christian and the Lions repertoire. 
            I deleted a few photos from my hard drive. 
            I steamed the rest of my broccoli and had it in a salad with two vine ripened tomatoes, two avocadoes, a scallion, and lime-miso dressing. I ate while watching episode 4 of Captain Nice
            At the dedication of a bridge from Big Town to Trash Island we learn that it is being named after Mayor Finney. Maybe Donald Trump got his ideas of naming landmarks after himself from this show.
            Finney has the oldest person in town dedicate the bridge by breaking a bottle of champagne against it. The impact causes large pieces of the bridge to begin falling apart. 
            Carter Nash is there and quickly finds a secluded place to change into Captain Nice. He saves people from a falling girder.
            Later Carter analyzes the bridge cement and finds that it’s 30% oatmeal. He interrupts Finney’s flirtations with his secretary Miss Schneider to tell him about the faulty construction material. 
            The mayor confronts Porter and Spencer the bridge builders about their shoddy material. They first try to bribe him but when that doesn’t work they pull a gun and hold him hostage until he signs the million dollar cheque. 
            Finney’s absence is barely noticed and Miss Schneider has almost forgotten him. Carter’s mother wants him to turn to Captain Nice and then fly around looking for her brother the mayor but he doesn’t want to fly when he has a cold. She tells him to wear his winter costume and two pairs of socks but he says he has to leave. Carter leaves behind something he earlier told Sergeant Candy Cane was “turpin hydro phosphor chlorate” but it’s probably Turpin-hydrate (a kind of cough medicine that used to be popular). His mother thinks he left behind his super power serum and she drinks it in order to fly to find her brother. She jumps out the window and crashes. 
            Carter and Candy in civilian clothes go to see Porter and Spencer under the pretense of having them build an apartment building for them. But they recognize Candy as a cop and pull a gun. They capture Candy but Carter runs outside and hides in a garbage bin where he transforms into Captain Nice. Spencer attacks him with a forklift but Nice bends the forks. Spencer and Porter try to escape into their own building but when they slam the door the building collapses. Nice says they’ll be sentenced to several years in prison but the prison won’t hold them for more than a few days because they built it.
             Miss Schneider was played by Sabrina Scharf, who when she was 15 eloped with her algebra teacher but the marriage was annulled after 3 years. She travelled to New York where in a Greenwich Village diner she met an off-Broadway theatre troupe that offered her a job as an assistant and let her sleep in the theatre. After working as a Playboy Bunny for a while in a New York club she went out to California. She got hired as a contract player by Columbia and her TV debut was on an episode of Gidget in 1965. Her film debut was in Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round in 1966. She co-starred in Hells Angels On Wheels. She appeared in the film Easy Rider and guest starred as Miramanee, Kirk’s love interest in the Star Trek episode The Paradise Syndrome. In 1972 she ran for the California state senate and only lost by 700 votes. She became an attorney and practiced real estate law.


March 4, 1996: It was still too cold to play outside


Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday it was cold so my daughter and I played inside.

Tuesday, 3 March 2026

Johnny Haymer


            On Monday morning I continued collecting images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires”. I have 163 so far. 
            I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since February 21. 
            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune pretty much the whole session. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic. 
            Around midday I finished painting with “blue bliss” the underside of my lower bathroom shelf and added a first coat to the trim between north wall and the wall tiles below. I might have all the trim done on Friday, and after that I’ll start of the door and the door frame.
            I weighed 91.6 kilos before lunch. That’s the unkindest I’ve been to the scale in the early afternoon since February 20. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I stopped at Metro in the Annex to buy five vine ripened tomatoes. 
            I weighed 90.7 kilos at 18:30, the same as last Monday evening. 
            I was caught up in my journal at 19:08. 
            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive a recording of Steve Lowe and I rehearsing my songs “Angeline” twice and “Calendar Girl” once. Steve was very proud of his guitar playing on “Angeline”. This was side two of the tape that I started copying yesterday and which contained on the other side my performance of Rocky Capano’s song and also of my own song “Me and Gravity”. 
            I made some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several more images from my hard drive. 
            I steamed some broccoli and had it in a salad with two tomatoes, two avocadoes, a scallion, and lime-miso salad dressing. I ate it while watching episode 3 of Captain Nice
            While stopping two burglars from breaking into a jewellery store Captain Nice accidentally and unknowingly spills his super power serum. He doesn’t notice it’s missing until the next morning and then he goes back to the jewellery store. There is a small hole in the glass window of the store with some threads around it. Then he hears the police say the entire Garden of Eden Botanical Nursery has been stolen and he goes along with them as police chemist Carter Nash to investigate. He finds the same silk threads at the nursery and concludes that the nursery wasn’t stolen but rather eaten, perhaps by some kind of animal. 
            Carter and Sergeant Candy Cane go to see the animal expert Dr. Von Keppel at the zoo. Carter says he knows he’s been studying animals all his life. The doctor says “longer than that”. He says animals are his main love and then he shoos away a pigeon from his window and expresses how disgusting they are. Keppel says animals should be allowed to roam freely and anyone who disagrees with that should be in jail. 
            While they are there they see an elephant has been knocked unconscious. Inside the nearby food storage building they hear the sounds of eating and a great roar. Carter goes inside and then comes back out in shock. He says it was a caterpillar. The little monster has already consumed the produce of six supermarkets and trees are falling all around. The army starts bombing it but it has no effect. Carter says it will soon turn into a moth. 
            Carter builds a caterpillar lure that reproduces the sound of lettuce. He activates it in the park, then turns into Captain Nice. He tries to fight the unseen monster but it tosses him away easily. Then Nice feeds his serum to his mother’s pet parakeet Sheldon and the bird eats the caterpillar. Now Sheldon is missing and several hundred kilos of birdseed have disappeared from the grainery. 
            Dr. Von Keppel was played by Johnny Haymer, who portrayed Sergeant Zelmo Zale on twenty episodes of M.A.S.H. He was the voice if the Decepticon Swindle in the Transformers. He guest starred in “All Our Yesterdays”, the penultimate episode of the original Star Trek series. He co-starred on Madame’s Place. He did TV commercials for Standard Shoes.



March 3, 1996: I started making a toy crossbow for my daughter


Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday it was cold so my daughter and I spent the day inside at my place. I started making a toy crossbow for her out of junk I found like an old crutch and a door latch.

Monday, 2 March 2026

Liam Dunn


            On Sunday morning I continued to gather images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 153 so far. 
            I weighed 90.15 kilos before breakfast. I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 
            Yesterday I’d forgotten to buy high acid vinegar for cleaning my warm mist humidifiers. Sunday’s my humidifier cleaning day and so around midday I rode to Freshco to buy some. I also bought some broccoli. When I got home I immediately worked on cleaning the humidifier that’s been running all week and started the other one working. Starting in about three weeks I’ll probably be using the humidifiers less and less until I won’t need to use them again until fall. 
            I weighed 90.8 kilos before lunch. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was cold again for the first time in a few days. Spring will be here in three weeks and probably after that there will only be one more storm before the weather starts getting warmer. 
            I weighed 90.45 kilos at 18:20. 
            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 the song I sang while reading Rocky Capano’s lyrics at Cherry Beach Recording Studio on August 4, 1994. There were professional studio musicians backing me up. Rocky just handed me a lyric sheet and asked me to sing the song, so I made up the melody as I went along. I also got to record my song “Me and Gravity” with the same musicians. It wasn’t really the style I wanted for my song but it was interesting. It was the only time I’d ever performed in a fully professional recording studio. 
            I sautéed garlic and scallions, added some broccoli and then pho broth. I tossed in the half bowl of chili that was left over from last night. I had all two and a half bowls of soup for supper while watching episode 2 of Captain Nice
            The very wealthy Sheik Abdul comes to Big Town. Captain Nice saves him from an assassination attempt. Mayor Finney asks the sheik what he wants to buy in Big Town and he says he wants to buy Big Town but he’ll send back what he doesn’t use. 
            The sheik decides he wants Sergeant Candy Cane for his 120th wife. He starts the wheels in motion by first having Candy assigned as his police bodyguard (It looks like she’s a cop now and no longer a parking enforcement officer). The sheik asks Candy to marry him but she blurts out that she belongs to Carter Nash. The sheik offers Carter one of his beautiful wives in exchange for Candy but he turns him down. 
            The mayor’s sister is Carter’s domineering mother and she wants the sheik to come for lunch at her house. He accepts the invitation but plans on having Carter killed while he’s there. There are name cards and so the sheik’s servant injects poison into Carter’s pastry. But before the meal the sheik demands that his food taster sample the food. Carter feels bad that the taster only gets a few mouthfuls of food a day so he gives him his pastry which kills him. 
            The next time Candy is in the sheik’s hotel room a sack is pulled over her body, head first. He tells her that after a few years as his wife she will come to love him and then he will let her out of the sack. 
            Carter overhears the sheik’s plans to smuggle Candy out of the country and so he changes to Captain Nice (Whenever he does so he always first carefully hangs up his civilian clothes). Nice frees Candy and she places the sheik’s servant under arrest for murder, assault and attempted kidnapping. He is surprised and asks, “You arrest people for that?” Nice tells him, “This is a democracy. We can arrest people for practically anything”. 
            Mayor Finney was played by Liam Dunn, who studied at a small acting school while still in high school. He worked as a casting director for CBS and gave Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen and George C. Scott their first acting jobs. His film debut was in That’s My Man in 1947. He had a role in What’s Up Doc? and was noticed by Mel Brooks who made him part of his stock company of actors.



March 2, 1996: Brian Haddon performed with me at Spit Fridays


Thirty years ago today

            On Friday Brian Haddon and I busked together on Queen Street and in the evening he performed with me on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.