On Friday I posed from 9:00 to 16:00 in room 352 at the Ontario College of Art.
In the evening I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.
Sunday, 4 October 2026
Saturday, 3 October 2026
Owen Painter
I memorized the fifth verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted A Little Money) by Boris Vian. There are three verses left to learn.
I ran through singing and playing “La fille aux claquettes” by Serge Gainsbourg and then my translation “The Lucky Tap Dance”. Tomorrow I’ll upload them to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare them for publication.
I weighed 92 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since August 20.
I removed some of my guitar cases and some other items from the upper storage shelf in my bedroom. I didn’t find any bedbugs nesting in those things.
I weighed 93.25 kilos before lunch. That’s a record high for the early afternoon since I’ve been recording my weight. I haven’t had a bowel movement for several days so maybe that’s why I’m so heavy. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. While riding, since this was the Day of Reconciliation I counted the number of orange shirts. There were about a hundred on my trip to Yonge and Bloor and 55 on the way home. On Bloor there was a stand selling them. Most of the people wearing them were school kids. The 155 I counted were just during my bike trip. I saw more all day long outside my window.
I weighed 91.75 kilos at 18:10.
I was still four days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I made pizza on a slice of 7 grain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, a chopped slice of ham and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 2, episode 7 of Wednesday on Discord with my daughter Astrid.
The story opens with a flashback to 15 years ago. The current Principal Dort was then starting an organization called Morning Song for Outcasts and he recruits Outcast and actor Arnold Hunt to be the face of the organization. On the surface, Morning Song is there to give a sense of belonging to Outcasts but its real purpose is to take criminal advantage of people with special abilities.
In the present day Principal Dort finds Bianca hiding her mother in the tunnels under Nevermore. He reveals that he is Morning Song and forces them to work for him.
Agnes continues to devotedly serve Wednesday and now she is even wearing Wednesday’s clothes and a black braided wig. She gives Wednesday the student file on the zombie genius Isaac Night. Wednesday learns that Isaac and her father were roommates at Nevermore and confronts him about it. He says he and Isaac were best friends. Wednesday informs her parents that Isaac has now teamed up with his sister Francoise and her son Tyler.
Wednesday reveals that her premonition has changed and that now an Addams is destined to die. She tells her mother she would like to sacrifice her brother Pugsley.
Professor Capri warns Enid that she has to keep herself locked up during the full moon because if she transforms into an Alpha Werewolf at that time while still young she could become trapped in that form for the rest of her life.
Because Isaac has yet to cure his sister, Francoise is still dying and coughing blood. She needs medicine and so Isaac, Francoise, and Tyler go to steal some from the animal hospital.
With the help of Eugene, Wednesday uses moths that nested in Isaac’s body to track him as they return to their host.
Dort has been seeking a donation from Wednesday’s Grandmama Hester. She meets with Dort in his office with the intention of crushing his hopes. But Dort has arranged for Bianca to Siren Hester and compel her to donate her entire fortune to Nevermore.
At the animal hospital Tyler tricks the vet into letting him come in to use his phone. Isaac feasts on the vet’s brains. Francoise starts to get worse and so Isaac gives her a transfusion of Tyler’s Hyde blood.
When Wednesday learns Grandmama is donating her fortune to Nevermore she is suspicious.
Bianca is practicing her fencing when Wednesday challenges her to a duel. While they fight Wednesday says she knows Bianca sirened her Grandmama. Wednesday defeats Bianca who admits she was forced by Dort to manipulate Hester. But then Bianca sirens Wednesday and tells her to forget everything, then she leaves. But Wednesday anticipated this and arranged for Agnes to invisibly watch and record the encounter. Agnes tells Wednesday everything Bianca made her forget.
Once Hester has transferred her fortune to the Nevermore account, Dort plans on taking the money and escaping to Venezuela.
Enid has broken up with Bruno. Agnes has been rejected by Wednesday. Enid tells Agnes to stop imitating Wednesday and find her own psycho. Enid had been scheduled to perform a dance at the gala with Bruno. Agnes has been spying on the routine and offers to dance with Enid. Wednesday arrives and Agnes tells her she’s no longer her mindless servant. Wednesday is glad to hear it and so now they can all just work together. Wednesday details her plan.
Enid and Agnes do their dance, during which Agnes sometimes makes herself invisible. During one of those times Agnes sneaks up on Dort and removes his anti-Siren amulet from his vest. Bianca, Hester and Dort take the stage. She sirens him into confessing all of his schemes to the crowd and Hester learns that she has been manipulated. Dort grabs Bianca and threatens to burn her with his pyro powers as he tries to escape. Ajax uses his Medusa power to turn Dort to stone. The effect would have been temporary but the chandelier falls on Dort and breaks him into pieces.
Pugsley is alone in the graveyard feeling sorry for himself when he is confronted by Isaac. Glad to see his pet zombie he is not prepared when Isaac uses chloroform to take him captive.
Isaac is played by Owen Painter, who earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Screen Acting from Chapman University. He made his film debut in the short movie Soup in 2021. He co-starred in Tiny Beautiful Things.
Mary Ann Mobley
I memorized the fourth verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. That’s half the song.
I finished working out the chords for “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg. The end of each line of every chorus seems to have a different instrumental bit but I didn’t bother to work those out. They’re just accompaniment for a tap dance and so it could be any combination of chords that sound good together. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing the song in French and English and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication.
I weighed 91.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since September 14.
I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time.
I removed a few more strips of wood from the north side of my bedroom storage shelf.
I weighed 93.05 kilos before lunch. That seems off considering how little I had for breakfast. It’s the same as the early afternoon of September 6.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 92.4 kilos at 18:30. September 11 was the last evening when I was that mean to the scale.
I was now four days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I had wedge oven fries with gravy and a chicken breast while watching the first episode of the 1967 TV series Custer.
In 1868, after the Civil War and after having been demoted from general to lieutenant colonel for one year because of dereliction of duty, George Custer arrives at Fort Hays, Kansas, for his new command. He finds the fort gate open and the guard sleeping. In the stable the men are shooting dice. Custer steps on the money and confronts the winner, Private James Bustard, who recognizes him. Bustard is a former Confederate soldier as many of the new recruits are. They fight and Custer wins, then from that time on they’re buddies. Custer immediately promotes him to sergeant.
In the intro to the show it says that Custer was the youngest general in the Civil War at the age of 24. He was then reduced in rank and sent west.
Custer’s commanding officer, General Terry is away from the fort so Custer and Bustard ride to meet him. But from a high position Custer spots some Kiowa waiting in ambush for Terry’s detail. He and Bustard charge through the Kiowa camp drawing fire and causing the Kiowa to mount up and chase them as they head for Terry. Then Terry’s men drive the Kiowa back.
Later a rifle salesman named Tyman arrives at the Kiowa camp and the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse is there. Tyman offers them rifles in exchange for $100 in gold for each rifle (that would be $2,359 per rifle today). That seems like a lot.
Back at the fort we meet the general’s daughter Ann who is rebellious.
Custer reports to Terry who tells him he doesn’t like him but he needs all the men he can get. Terry shows him around the fort and says some of the men are the scum of the earth. No enlisted man in uniform can be arrested or tried for any civil offense. That makes the army a hideout for thieves, renegades, murderers. immigrants, former Confederate soldiers, and mercenaries.
Custer starts to train the men to be cavalry soldiers.
The 5th Cavalry returns from patrol accompanied by the fort’s scout California Joe who knows Custer and is surprised and glad to see him. Ann is with them and she invites Custer to dinner.
At dinner the officers discuss the situation. Once the news spreads back east that there is gold in the Black Hills there will be a rush of fortune hunters. After the prospectors will come the whisky traders and then the land speculators. Custer adds, “and a major attack by the tribes!” He argues that’s why the 7th Calvary needs to be trained to fight. Terry says the 7th already has its assignment: training and work details. Custer leaves in anger. Ann goes after him and asks why he likes to fight. He says Napoleon always rode to the sound of the guns.
Crazy Horse and his warriors attack a mining camp and steal the gold.
The 7th is clearing land when they hear the gunfire. Custer orders them to arm themselves and head in that direction where they find the dead miners. Custer tells Terry they need to attack the Kiowa now. Terry reminds him that the 7th’s job is to prepare the fort for winter.
The Kiowa and Crazy Horse buy the rifles from Tyman. Then they ambush the 5th calvary on patrol. Terry is wounded. He orders California to find Custer and tell him to defend the fort and not to relieve the 5th until he does so. Custer only sends two men to warn Fort Hays and then takes the rest of the men to rescue the 5th. The Kiowa have shotguns and Custer has the range marked at 40 meters. Custer brings his men just up to the markers and then they wait until the Kiowa fire before he orders them to attack while they are trying to reload. The Kiowa retreat. Tyman tries to shoot Custer but he kills him by throwing a Kiowa spear.
Later Terry gives Custer hell for disobeying his orders. Custer says he was carrying out those orders but the general hadn’t specified the route he should take on his way back to the fort.
Ann was played by Mary Ann Mobley, who was Miss Mississippi in 1958 and won the Miss America pageant in 1959. This led to many guest appearances on popular TV series of that era. She made her TV debut on Be Our Guest in 1960. She made her film debut with a starring role in Get Yourself a College Girl. She co-starred in Harum Scarum (which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer), Girl Happy, For Singles Only, Young Dillinger, She was the first female guest star on Mission Impossible. She appeared 50 times as a panelist on Match Game. She co-starred in the final season of Diff’rent Strokes, guest hosted Hour Magazine 11 times, She was an active participant in The March of Dimes for 25 years.
October 3, 1996: I was still bewildered by web surfing
Thirty years ago today
On Thursday Andrew tried to show me how to surf the internet with my new computer but I found it boggling. I wondered if I would ever get it.
Friday, 2 October 2026
Maya Rudolph
I memorized the third verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet) by Boris Vian.
I finished working out the chords for the little instrumental at the end of the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg. The chords for the second verse were almost the same as the first except it began in C.
I weighed 91.3 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune until after the very last song.
I weighed 92.3 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 14.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 91.8 kilos at 18:15. September 14 was the last evening when I was that rough on the scale.
I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I had wedge oven fries with gravy and a chicken breast while watching The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special.
Stephen Colbert introduces the special. He says every Saturday night people didn’t go out. They stayed home and watched Carol. When the show ended in the late 70s they had to invent disco just to give people something to do on weekends.
Carol comes out in the same theatre where her show was taped. There are a lot of celebrities in the audience. She does questions and answers and Tom Selleck asks if she believes in petting on the first date. She says it depends on the age of the dog.
Bob Barker stands and asks when she’s coming back. She seems to have mistaken him for Pat Sajak because she called him “Pat”.
Next Carol is sitting with Amy Poehler, Kaley Cuoco, Maya Rudolph, and Jane Lynch. Then she brings Vicki Lawrence out.
We see a picture of Carol posing with Vicki after she won the Miss Fireball Contest.
Carol brings out Jay Leno, who comes with a gift. He says the item was made the same week that Carol’s show premiered. It’s a carburetor for a 1967 Buick Riviera.
Bill Hader comes out with a bouquet of flowers for Carol.
Jay says he wouldn’t be here today if not for Harvey Korman. He was performing at the Improv and Johnny Carson came but wasn’t impressed. Harvey encouraged Johnny to come back to see him again and he did.
Bill says when he did a Vincent Price impression on Saturday Night Live it was actually an impression of Harvey. He says Harvey had that slow burn. Bill’s favourite Harvey performance was when he did the Wolfman. He says the timing was impeccable.
Jay says everybody copied Carol’s soap opera parody.
Carol brings out Jim Carrie who tells her she’s more than Carol Burnett to him. He says love is a vibration that finds its reflection and that’s what found the audience. He tells Carol she’s the space in which love happened (What a load of horse shit).
Jim says when he was 10 years old he really wanted to be on the Carol Burnett Show. He did a lot of voices and wrote Carol a letter to ask if he could become a regular. Then he waited for her response like Jodie Foster in Contact for a signal from the universe. That is re-enacted with a ten year old actor receiving Carol’s rejection letter. He says, “Aww jeepers!” Jim pushes Carol’s hand away now. Jim says, “Just for the record I have never said ‘Jeepers’. It was 1972 and not 1932.” Carol says, “You’re on the show now.” Jim shouts, “Jeepers! We did it!” and his younger self runs into his arms.
Carol brings Martin Short out.
Carol shows some clips of Tim. Martin says Tim is so physical in his comedy but so calm at the same time.
Carol is sitting with Bill, Amy, and Tracy Ellis Ross.
Amy says her favourite character is Mrs. Wiggens because she was a study in silence and movement.
Bill asks Carol to do her Tarzan yell. She says she’ll do it but everybody else has to try it first. Bill and Maya almost get it. Tracy gives it a try. Amy’s Tarzan yell is, “Hey! Tarzan!” Steve Carell sends a video of him just yelling.
Carol and Vicki discuss the Family. They show a clip in which Eunice learns her daddy died in the bathroom.
In 11 years Bob Mackie designed around 17,000 costumes for The Carol Burnett Show.
Carol introduces Bob Mackie.
For Mrs. Wiggens Bob suggested that she be like those temp girls who work at CBS and sit at their desks doing their nails and watching the clock.
Carol is with Stephen Colbert in the Ed Sullivan Theatre where he shot the Late Show and where she was a regular of The Garry Moore Show.
To reminisce about the songs that were sung on the show Carol brings out Kristen Chenowith and Bernadette Peters. Stephen has Jon Batiste play piano. Bernadette sings “All That Jazz”, which she sand on her first guest spot on Carol’s show. Carol pays tribute to her late friend Jim Nabors. Kristen sings “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” then segues into “Born Free”, and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Stephen says his favourite male singer on Carol’s show was Steve Lawrence. They show a clip of him doing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” then Stephen continues the song but then Steve Lawrence comes out and sings it with him. They all sing a song about the Carol Burnett Show called “Saturdays at 10:00”.
There’s a clip of Julia Louise Dreyfuss saying that Carol’s connection with the audience made her want to get into show business.
Carol is sitting with Leno, Short, Amy, Lyle, Kaley, and Beth Behrs.
Martin says his favourite sketch is The Dentist.
Carol shows a clip in which she got back at Tim for the elephant story when she was playing an old homeless lady on a bench with Tim as an elderly man. She tells him a story about having once had two Siamese elephants joined at the trunk until one of them caught a cold, sneezed and blew both their brains out.
There’s a clip of Jimmy Kimmel saying when he was growing up The Carol Burnett Show was as important to his family as spaghetti, and spaghetti was very important.
Carol is sitting with Steve Martin in a movie theatre.
There’s a clip of Ellen DeGeneres wearing a parody of the curtain gown from Carol’s Gone With the Wind spoof: Went With the Wind.
Carol brings out Harry Connick Jr. He says the day The Carol Burnett Show premiered, September 11, 1967 was the day he was born. They sing Carol’s theme song together. Carol starts crying for some reason. Then all the other guests come out and join in.
Maya Rudolph is the daughter of Minnie Riperton in whose hit song “Loving You” she sings the name Maya several times at the end. Minnie died when Maya was 7 years old. Maya was friends with Gwynneth Paltrow while growing up. Maya majored in Photography at the University of California and formed the band Supersauce. After graduation she joined the band The Rentals as keyboardist and backup singer After they broke up she joined the improv troupe The Groundlings. In 2000 she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and continued for 7 seasons. Later when guesting on the show she played Kamala Harris, for which she won an Emmy. She co-starred in the sitcom Up All Night. She starred in The Maya Rudolph Show TV special. She co-starred in Idiocracy, Grown-ups 1 and 2, Bridesmaids, Inherent Vice, Sisters, Life of the Party, Disenchanted, Away We Go, The Way Way Back, The Nut Job, McGruber, Friends with Kids, Maggie’s Plan, A Very Murray Christmas, Mr. Pig, My Entire High School Sinking, We Don’t Belong Here, The Happytime Murders, Wine Country, The Willoughbys, Big Hero 6, The Angry Birds Movie, The Emoji Movie, Luca, The Lego Movie 2, and The Mitchells vs The Machines, She co-starred with Martin Short in the variety show Maya and Marty. She starred in the sitcom Loot. She co-starred in the sitcom Big Mouth for which she won 4 Emmy Awards. She co-starred in City of Angels, Forever, and Human Resources. She made her Broadway debut in 2026 in Oh Mary!. She is in a Prince cover band called Princess.
October 2, 1996: I posed for David Campbell's class at OCA
Thirty years ago today
On Wednesday night I posed for David Campbell’s drawing class at the Ontario College of Art. Since I didn’t have to work the next day I went after work to perform on the Art Bar reading series open stage.
Thursday, 1 October 2026
Paul Newman
I consolidated my memorization of the first two verses of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet) by Boris Vian.
I worked out all the chords for the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg except for the little instrumental bit after the final line. I’ll have that done on Monday and then the pattern of the song should be established.
I weighed 90.85 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time.
I lint rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room and picked up a cluster of bedbugs attempting to form a nest.
I removed the boards from the upper storage shelf in my bedroom. I put the ones with collages on them and the ones that are part of furniture in the kitchen and threw out a few that I hadn’t been keeping for any good reason.
I weighed 91.85 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 91.5 kilos at 18:00.
I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I made pizza on a slice of 7 grain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, a chopped slice of ham, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching This Time Together a cast reunion of The Carol Burnett Show from 2012.
Carol once gave the cast a lecture before the family sketch telling them she wanted some discipline and for people to stop cracking up. That was just before the time in the Family sketch when Tim was playing Mickey Hart and telling the story of the Siamese elephants joined at the trunks. Carol was the first one to crack up.
Lyle thinks Tim’s future wife Charlene had a lot to do with him getting hired because he heard that Joe the producer asked her what she thought.
Vicki says when the writers of the Family sketch heard Carol, Vicki, and Harvey doing the characters in a southern US accent they walked out of the room because they were so upset. They eventually liked the accents. Carol started asking them for more Family sketches and one could hear them both typing like crazy from their office and yelling at each other.
Vicki says the echo in the women’s washroom was great for rehearsing character voices.
The time that Joanne Woodward was a guest on the show her husband Paul Newman was in the booth. Later they went for Chinese food and Paul taught Carol how to use chopsticks.
Carol says Desi Arnaz invented the three camera thing for sitcoms.
Tim says he didn’t really want to be in the business but The Carol Burnett Show was so comfortable that he changed his mind.
Lyle says he was getting gas one time when he noticed another guy looking at him. The guy came over and asked if he was an actor and Lyle confirmed he was. He asked for his autograph and Lyle gave it to him but when he read, “Lyle Waggoner?” he said, “Never heard of you!” then he handed it back and drove away.
Carol says a guy walking with his wife in New York stopped her once and asked, “Aren’t you that girl on The Garry Moore Show?” Carol told him she was and he said to his wife, “Hey May, she ain’t such a dog!”
Vicki says once when she and Carol were in Hawaii they went to the washroom and somebody passed their autograph book to Carol under the stall to ask for her autograph.
Vicki says when they flew to shoot the show in Australia and the plane landed, Tim was rolling down the aisle, bumping into seats and going, “Ow! Yipes! Whoa!” until he bumped against the pilot’s door at the front. Then he stood up and he was wearing his sleep mask like a bra. Then he said, “Wow! Rough landing!” and walked back to his seat.
Carol says when they were in Australia she and her husband Joe were going to take Tim to dinner. When they knocked on his room to pick him up he shouted, “It’s open! C’mon in!” They found him in bed with a life sized toy sheep while smoking a cigarette.
One time in Hawaii they were dining in their hotel restaurant that had a palm tree that went up through the ceiling. Tim said he was going to his room, then just climbed the palm tree and disappeared.
Paul Newman came from a well off family in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He acted in plays in grade school and high school. He got kicked out of Ohio University for denting the college president’s car with a beer keg. He later attended the Yale University School of Drama, paying his tuition by selling encyclopaedias, which he was a very good at. He made his TV debut in 1952 in Tales of Tomorrow. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 when he was an understudy for the lead in the play Picnic. His future wife Joanne Woodward was also an understudy in the same play. He was accepted without auditioning into The Actors Studio. He starred in Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Left Handed Gun, The Rack, The Long Hot Summer (for which he won Best Actor at Cannes), Harper, Hombre, The Secret War of Harry Frigg, Sweet Bird of Youth, Rally Round the Flag Boys, From the Terrace, Paris Blues, A New Kind of Love, Winning, WUSA, The Drowning Pool, Harry and Son (which he also directed), Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Towering Inferno, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Slap Shot (his favourite), Sometimes a Great Notion (which he also directed), The Verdict, The Colour of Money (for which he finally won an Oscar), Absence of Malice, Nobody’s Fool, When Time Ran Out, Twilight, Blaze, Pocket Money, Exodus, The Young Philadelphians, Torn Curtain, and Fort Apache the Bronx. He co-starred in Until They Sail, The Helen Morgan Story, Cat On a Hot Tim Roof (for which he was Oscar nominated), The Hudsucker Proxy, and Cars. He made his directorial debut with Rachel Rachel in 1968. He directed The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man In The Moon Marigolds and The Glass Menagerie. He was a civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, gun control, and anti war activist. He was a passionate race car driver. His Newman’s Own salad dressing business raised $600 million for charity. He founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children with serious illnesses. He was a skilled blues and jazz piano player. He was on Richard Nixon’s Enemies list. He trained to be a pilot in the US Navy but was rejected because he was colour blind. He was the model for the silver age superhero Green Lantern in 1959. He said he signed over 500 autographs as Marlon Brando. He was nominated for ten Academy Awards. He was the principle shareholder of the periodical The Nation and sometimes wrote for it.
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