March 10, 1996: My daughter stayed with me for the weekend

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I picked up my daughter and she stayed at my place for the weekend. We stayed inside the first day and I worked on building her toy crossbow.

Noah Keen

            On Sunday morning I woke up at 5:51 and realized that I’d missed the stupid time change again. I decided to pretend it was still 4:51 and went back to bed for a few more minutes. I chose to go through my normal routine until I arrived at an hour that I could sacrifice and then change the time. 

            After yoga I gathered more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 189 so far. 

            I weighed 88.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that had been working all week and started the other one going. While it was soaking in vinegar I changed my alarm to stupid time. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos at 14:20. 

            I took a siesta at 15:00 and so that put me only half an hour behind. 

            I had just enough time in the afternoon to take a bike ride to Ossington and back, so then I was caught up with the time change. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 18:05, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since January 16. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:52. 

            I tried to do some more recording in Audacity but even without the sound turned on when I clicked “Record” there was just a solid blue block across the timeline instead of a waveform. I tried restarting a few times and got the same thing and once no waveform at all when the tape was playing. A few months ago I downloaded a new version of Audacity that I thought the program was just going to upgrade by itself. But it turns out I was supposed to install it, so I did. Version 3.7.7 worked after a couple of tries. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive the first part of the Christian and the Lions rehearsal that I’d started last night. Tom Smarda and Steve Lowe on guitars were learning my songs “Charm and Money” (to the tune of “Love and Marriage”) and “Fallen”. Mike Martin just kept playing his bongos the same speed no matter what we were doing fast or slow. Steve claimed he no longer wanted to have sex and just wanted to play his guitar. I called bullshit. Tom and Steve didn’t agree with the premise of “Charm and Money” that potential lovers are more attracted to charm and money than they are to kindness and intelligence. The next rehearsal tape I’ll record tomorrow is more coherent as Steve had gotten a better grip on my songs.

            I had a tomato, avocado, and cucumber salad with lime juice while watching episode 10 of Captain Nice. 

            A crime syndicate fronted by a mysterious Mr. X. captures a mob that has been muscling in on their territory and now they are going to be bumped off but they say they would settle for a good scolding. They are lined up against the wall inside the Bigtown Garage as the assassin named Gunnar prepares his machine gun. Gunnar wonders when he will meet Mr. X but he is told nobody but his girlfriend Amanda Woolf has ever seen him. The beautiful Amanda is there keeping the syndicate’s records in code in a little black book. Gunnar is about to fire when Carter pulls in for gas and goes looking for an attendant. He opens the door and sees the gangsters, then he heads back to his car to change into Captain Nice. Gunnar fires but misses. Captain Nice flies in front of the next barrage. Amanda pretends to faint to distract Nice while her colleagues get away. 

            The saved mobsters are brought in but won’t talk and Amanda won’t testify. Carter and Sergeant Candy Cane are looking for clues in the garage when Candy finds Amanda’s black book. Carter says if he can crack the code he’ll find out the identity of Mr. X. 

            Mayor Finney and Chief Segal interrogate Mr. X’s suspected right hand man O’Brien. O’Brien says they can’t prove it. Finney says O’Brien deposited half a million in his account this year (which would be $5 million now) and yet he only runs a small cleaning business. O’Brien says he finds a lot of loose change in the clothing. 

            Carter arrives to announce he has the little black book and he thinks he can crack the code. Amanda sees he has her book and plots to get it back. She says she’s changed her mind and she will testify after all but needs to be in protective custody at Carter’s house. It’s unlikely that a police chemist would be assigned to watch after a material witness but they agree. Carter is warned he can’t even tell his mother the identity of Amanda. 

            Carter brings Amanda home and she has more suitcases than a luggage store. 

            O’Brien is released and puts out a hit on Amanda. He overheard at the mayor’s office that she would be staying at Carter’s place. His gang kidnaps Chief Segal and forces him to tell them where Carter lives. 

            Carter figures out that the code is based on the telephone dial with the letters and numbers representing each other. 

            O’Brien and the gang invade the Nash home and tie up Carter’s mother, father, and Amanda. Carter is unnoticed but he sees them from the study. He changes to Captain Nice before the captives can be killed. Gunnar shoots Nice but the bullets bounce off to kill the entire gang, including Gunnar. 

            The next day Carter reveals that Amanda is Mr. X. I saw that coming. 

            O’Brien was played by Noah Keen, who after graduating from university worked at NBC. He made his film debut in 1957 in A Face in the Crowd. He guest starred in the Twilight Zone episodes The Arrival and The Trade Ins.

March 9, 1996: Brian and I went busking and made enough for lunch

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday Brian Haddon and I went busking and made enough for lunch. Then we performed together on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

Bill Zuckert

            On Saturday morning I continued searching for images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 183 so far. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where I bought five bags of grapes, three packs of strawberries, some bananas, avocadoes, two packs of cherry tomatoes, a pack of mini-cucumbers, two bottles of Garden Cocktail, a bottle of cranberry-raspberry juice, and a jug of orange juice. I did a price match on the grapes with the Walmart price of $6.55 a kilo but each bag was still about $5 each. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at 14:30. I had a tomato and avocado salad with lime juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail. 

            I took a siesta and got up at 17:00 but still felt tired so I went back to bed for another forty minutes. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:01. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive an early Christian and the Lions rehearsal with Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and Mike Martin. We worked on my songs “Fallen”, “Angeline”, and “Seven Shades of Blues”. Tom mentions in the session that we have a gig in about a month on May 11 and so this had to be April of 1994. Steve had yet to work out his great guitar accompaniment for “Angeline”. Mike just kept playing his bongos at a fast tempo while we were trying to slowly work out the songs and it was very distracting. The digitized recording didn’t sound as clear as previous ones. I exported the same file in MP3 and it sounded a little better. 

            I ate some grapes while watching episode 9 of Captain Nice. I watched episode 7 last night but episode 8 seems to be unavailable either in torrent form or for streaming. 

            Carter Nash is doing some important lab work late at night at the police station for Chief Segal but the night club next door is making a lot of noise. He goes over and talks with Lola the owner about them turning the music down. But in reality the band is playing loud to cover the noise of the men digging to break Doc Simmons out of jail before he is transferred to prison. Lola invites Carter to have a drink but he says he doesn’t imbibe. She offers him a non-alcoholic fruit punch and he agrees to that but the bartender drugs it and Carter is immediately unconscious. Lola has him thrown in the alley and the hatcheck girl takes pictures that are sent to the newspaper. 

            The next night Carter is trying to finish his work but the noise from the club compels him to once again confront Lola. This time he refuses a drink but Lola pretends to be faint and asks him to help her to the bar. She asks the bartender for a glass of water, which he spikes again. She pretends to take a sip and then says it tastes funny. She asks Carter to try it and he is again drugged. This time however he is semi-conscious, staggers and knocks over some garbage cans that are full of the dirt from the digging of the tunnel. He realizes there is a jail break going on but he’s incoherent and collapses. 

            Meanwhile Milton the Mole breaks into Doc’s cell. Sergeant Candy Cane catches them but they kidnap her and take her with them into the tunnel. 

            Carter wakes up again and this time manages to take his super power serum. He turns to Captain Nice but he is still drugged. He staggers and smashes through the wall of Lola’s then stumbles around causing destruction with his super strength, not knowing what he’s doing. He ends up bringing down part of the ceiling, which blocks the exit door. 

            Doc, Milton, and Candy emerge in the back room of the club but Lola tells them there’s no exit and so they have to go back into the tunnel. The bartender throws a grenade at Nice and then runs for the tunnel. Captain Nice doesn’t even know it’s a grenade when he casually tosses it away and it goes down the hole to explode in the tunnel. 

            Now Doc has no place to go but back in his cell. He is now there with Milton, Lola, Candy, and all the guests and staff from the club as the club band happily plays in the crowded cell. 

            Police Chief Segal was played by Bill Zuckert, who started acting on radio in 1941 and his voice could be heard in hundreds of dramas over the next twenty years. He co-starred in the radio drama series Crime and Peter Chambers in 1954. He made his film debut in Ada in 1961. He played Sheriff Johnny Behan in the third season Star Trek episode “Spectre of the Gun”.

March 8, 1996: I posed for artists

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I probably posed at some art school or for some art group and maybe more than one.

Joe Flynn

            On Friday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 179 so far. 

            I weighed 88.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I would normally done some painting in the bathroom today but I had to take a shower since I skipped it yesterday. 

            I was behind on my journal so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos before lunch. I had a salad of cherry tomatoes and avocadoes with lime juice for dressing and a glass of Garden Cocktail. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I had to stop and pee at the McDonald’s on Yonge just north of College. The chess board is back and a bunch of old Asian guys were hanging around it while two of them played. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos at 18:35. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:56. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of my rehearsal with Tom Smarda. These were early versions of a lot of songs that eventually became part of the Christian and the Lions repertoire. There are two or three songs there that were never recorded anywhere else. 

            I had a tomato and avocado salad with lime juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episode 7 of Captain Nice. 

            Carter has brought Candy Cane on a date to the Natural History Museum. They are in a room full of artefacts from the daily life of the Juma people of Brazil. There’s an exhibit of a monetary system but it’s not real because they didn’t have one. All of the objects in the room were brought back by Dr. Edgars who was one of Carter’s professors in college. He spent five years in the Brazilian jungle. 

            The head of the museum, Dr. Dunbar, who never went to Brazil, steps up to the podium to give a speech and to accept the award for the exhibition, plus a grant for $10,000 (which would be $100,000 today). Candy asks Carter what Edgars got out of it and he answers, “malaria”. 

            A hand reaches through a ridiculously open window and grabs a Juma blow gun. A Juma poison dart hits the wall behind Dunbar. Edgars pushes him aside just before a dart hits Edgars’ pith helmet. Carter runs into a storage room to change into Captain Nice but he is clubbed over the head by what he’d thought was a wooden statue of a Juma warrior. 

            Dunbar indifferently thanks Edgars for saving his life and then tells him he’s going back to Brazil that night. Edgars doesn’t want to leave his wife and children again. 

            Carter comes to ask Dunbar for more samples of the dart poison. He says Edgars would have that and his office is in the basement behind the boiler room. 

            Meanwhile in the basement we see the large Juma that clubbed Carter and tried to kill Dunbar is Edgars’ servant Luna who he controls with a flashlight, which Luna thinks is the magic stick that holds the sun. It was Edgars’ plan to “save” Dunbar’s life to set him up for his actual murder. 

            Carter arrives to ask for the poison and Luna pretends to be a statue again. Edgars gives Carter the poison and asks him to leave. Now Edgars tells Luna that Carter has to be killed too. 

            That night Luna tracks Carter to his home and from the bushes outside shoots a dart that hits the wall behind him. Carter’s mother Esther comes home and sees with her flashlight Luna lurking outside. She brings him into the house. Luna refuses to say why he tried to kill Carter because he has sworn allegiance to his spirit man. Carter goes to change into Captain Nice and when Luna sees him fly he recognizes him as his new spirit man. He admits now that Edgars has been using him as an assassin. Candy is on guard duty at the museum and Carter calls to warn her that her life may be in danger. Just then Edgars grabs her from behind and she is cut off. Edgars injects Candy with the deadly dart poison.

            Captain Nice arrives with Luna who tells Edgars that Nice is his new Spirit Man. Edgars says Nice is fake so Luna shoots a dart at each of them. One bounces off Nice but Edgars is poisoned. Luna knows the antidote but can’t translate the ingredients required. They need a chemist and so Captain Nice leaves and shortly afterward Carter returns. With Luna’s guidance he mixes the antidote and saves both Candy and Edgars. 

            Carter’s mother takes Luna under her wing and in one week he is talking like an Anglo North American and is fully “civilized”. He’s going back to Brazil with a flashlight to do the same to his people. 

            Edgars was played by Joe Flynn, who majored in political science at USC. He started in entertainment as a ventriloquist and a radio DJ. He directed theatre productions for the Canfield Players in Ohio. He made his TV debut in 1948 in the sitcom Yer Ol Buddy on a local LA station. In 1950 he ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio senate as a Republican. He made his film debut in The Big Chase in 1954. He appeared in 4 episodes of the George Gobel Show, then 8 episodes of the Joey Bishop Show. He starred in several episodes of The Silent Service. He played Mr. Kelley in 15 episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He co-starred in the TV series McHale’s Navy and two movie adaptations of that show: McHale’s Navy and McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force. He co-starred on the Tim Conway Show. He co-starred in the films The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Now You See Him Now You Don’t, The Strongest Man in the World, Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?, The Barefoot Executive, The Million Dollar Duck, and Superdad. He appeared in more Disney films than any other actor. He appeared 12 times on the Johnny Carson Show. He drowned in his pool while having a heart attack with a cast on his leg.

March 7, 1996: Brian Haddon and I got invited to do a feature at Fat Albert's

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday Brian Haddon and I went busking again and then performed on the Fat Albert’s open stage. We got invited to do a feature in the near future.