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.

Gunnar Hellström

            On Wednesday morning I revised my translation of the chorus and the first verse of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the last of two sessions and it went out of tune pretty much every time. Kramers when properly set up stay in tune for a long time but now it’s due for a reno. 

            In the early afternoon I took my laundry to the Speedy Queen. There was one bike post free but it was half buried in snow and so locked my bike with the front wheel up. When I came back to pick up my clothes the post was occupied and so, since there was no management there today, I just took my bike and trailer inside the laundromat. When I got to my building I went to lock my bike outside while I took the trailer upstairs and realized that I’d forgotten my lock and chain back at the Speedy Queen. I probably should have gone back with the trailer but I stuck the trailer at the bottom of the stairs with just enough room for my neighbours to squeeze by and rushed back to the laundromat. It was there, I grabbed it and hurried back to lock my bike and take my trailer up. 

            I weighed 88.85 kilos at 16:20, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since January 10. I had four slices of baguette with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar, and a glass of ice tea.

            I took a siesta at 17:00, intending to get up at 18:30 but I slept until 19:00. 

            I weighed 89.75 kilos at 19:10. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:23. 

            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 10, of Combat. 

            An elderly Frenchman is being escorted to deliver vital information about German plans but trips a landmine and is severely injured. Private Wayne Temple also suffers life threatening wounds.

            They are both transported to a nearby convent of cloistered nuns. The sisters behave as if they are not there because they have taken a vow of silence, but the Mother Superior is allowed to speak and Caje converses with her. She says they are welcome as long as they don’t bring their war inside. Kirby is creeped out by the nuns meditating over skulls to remind them of death. 

            Doc the medic says there isn’t much he can do for the injured men and so a doctor, Captain Corelli is summoned. Lieutenant Hanley and his men escort the doctor across enemy lines but he is not used to keeping pace with the soldiers and dies of a heart attack. Hanley brings the doctor’s equipment to the convent. 

            Through Caje they ask the Mother Superior if there is a doctor nearby. She says there was a doctor in the village two years ago but she doesn’t know if he is still there. The village is occupied by German soldiers and tanks but Saunders has no choice but to try. He takes Caje with him and they learn there is a hospital at the end of town. 

            They find Doctor Belzer alone but when he takes his white coat off they see that he is a German officer. As he is their only hope they abduct him. He examines the Frenchman and says he needs surgery but he is not a surgeon. They force him to operate and Saunders warns that he will kill him if he dies. Belzer asks if he thinks someone can perform surgery better under threat. 

            Belzer examines Temple and says he needs a transfusion. He’s type O and so is one of the men and so Belzer gives him blood. He says it will help him for a while but it’s not likely that he’ll live. 

            He returns to the Frenchman. The Mother Superior tells them that one of the sisters is a trained nurse and so she silently assists Belzer. At one point the blood pressure drops severely but Belzer is able to bring it back up and ultimately saves the Frenchman. 

            It’s possible that Belzer would have helped them anyway if he believed in “Do no harm” but apparently Nazi physicians did not take the Hippocratic oath. 

            Belzer was played by Gunnar Hellström, who made his film acting debut in the Swedish movie While the City Sleeps. He co-starred in Marianne, and Nightmare. He directed and starred in Simon the Sinner, Night Child, and Synnöve Solbakken. He directed 33 episodes of Gunsmoke. He starred in Rififi in Stockholm. He wrote, directed and starred in Zorn and Raskenstam (co-starring Agnetha Fältskog of Abba).

February 5, 1996: I found a new apartment

Thirty years ago today 

            Around this time, perhaps on Monday I posed for a class at the Ontario College of Art that had a model at each side of the studio. The other model was Helga Schlatter who was very outgoing and socially fearless in a manner that rendered her both extremely charming and (I would find out later) somewhat Machiavellian. I mentioned that I was looking for a new apartment and she told me that she and her partner had one available in the house they rented. She invited me to come and look at it after work. As we waited for the Dundas streetcar she told me she was four months pregnant. I commented that there was a glow about her and she strangely responded, “I am in an open relationship”. Their house was on Sheridan Avenue just south of Dundas and I met Helga’s partner Peter Bird, who seemed nice. The apartment was two big rooms with a bathroom in the front of the main floor and we would be sharing the kitchen. The price was lower than the place I’d been living and so I said I’d take it.

Albert Salmi

            On Tuesday morning I went to bed at around 1:08. For at least the next hour my upstairs neighbour was blasting music, jumping on the floor, and shouting out the window. 

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

            I ran through singing and playing “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg in French. I started working on revising my translation, which might take at least a couple of days. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune for almost every song. 

            Around midday I touched up the blue paint on the frame and the front of my bathroom exhaust fan. There had been a pink smudge on the front from when I painted the vent. It’s been two steps forward and one step back with that exhaust fan. I fixed the pink smudge but ended up getting some blue paint where the pink is supposed to be. I’ll try to fix that on Friday. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride up to Bloor. The bike lane is still full of snow but I wanted to go to Freshco so I rode west on Bloor without the benefit of the bike lane and went south on Gladstone. When Gladstone stops at the park I rode on the pathway through to where Gladstone picks up again and the pathway was clearer than Gladstone. South of Dundas it was treacherously slippery. 

            At Freshco I bought a pack of raspberries and five bags of cherries. I price matched the cherries with No Frills’ much cheaper price of $6.59 a kilo. 

            I weighed 90.05 kilos at 18:20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:10. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1, tape 2 of my second Slamnation poetry slam. 

            I created some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork with skyr while watching season 1, episode 9 of Combat. 

            Saunders is sent to work with another unit on a reconnaissance mission to find out what the Germans are up to. He ends up with the reckless Sergeant Jenkins who resents Saunders coming along. As they make their way through the woods one of Jenkins’s men is killed by a sniper. Jenkins sends the men forward one by one to be shot at until they can figure out where the sniper is hiding. Saunders says they should just bypass the sniper rather than sacrificing men to flush him out. Finally Jenkins spots the sniper and takes him out. As they continue Saunders falls behind. Jenkins finds him dismantling a mine. Then one of Jenkins’s men is killed by another mine and Jenkins admits they should go more slowly now. 

           They find a mill and Jenkins decides the upper floor would make a good lookout point. He asks for a volunteer to go in with him and Saunders says he’ll go. While they are inside, a German patrol arrives and kills all of Jenkins’s men. They hide and keep quiet with their boots off as the Germans search the building and then they realize the Germans aren’t just passing through but moving in. There is a colonel in charge as they set up the mill as a German command post. Saunders tries to radio their own nearest command post but they are out of range. 

            They wait until dark and then plan to escape near the water wheel. But then Jenkins deliberately gets himself captured. He pretends to cooperate under threat but gives the colonel false information. He asks for a map to point out the Allied positions. From hiding Saunders can see the German positions clearly marked on the map. Saunders’ boots are discovered and then Jenkins knocks out the lamp and shouts for him to escape. Jenkins is killed and Saunders is able to take out several Germans from his hiding place. He escapes and makes it back to command only to be told the information he has is unnecessary because they already cracked the German code. Saunders is upset that so many men died pointlessly to get useless information. He’s told it wasn’t pointless because they had to use every necessary means. 

            Jenkins was played by Albert Salmi, who served in the army during WWII then studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Workshop on the GI Bill. He made his Broadway debut in End as a Man in 1953. In 1955 he starred as Bo Decker in Bus Stop on Broadway and was offered to reprise his role in the film version but turned it down because he didn’t want to do movies. His film debut was in The Brothers Karamazov for which he turned down an Oscar nomination. He co-starred with Julie Newmar in the Twilight Zone episode Of Late I Think of Cliffordville. He played Alonzo P. Tucker on Lost in Space. He co-starred in the TV series Petrocelli. He co-starred in the films Burned at the Stake, Near the end of his career he taught drama classes. In 1990 he and his wife were found dead from gunshot wounds. The best guess by the police was that he committed a murder suicide.

February 4, 1996: It was very cold out so my daughter and I played inside

Thirty years ago today

            Sunday was a very cold day and so my daughter and I played inside.