April 10, 1996: As always I hosted my writers open stage

Thirty years ago today 

            On Tuesday night as always I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

Kerrice Brooks

            On Wednesday morning I revised my translation of the first chorus of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            In my Movie Maker project containing all the songs from the Zizi Je t’aime concert by Zizi Jeanmaire at the Casino de Paris I created a new project called “Chaussures noires et pompes funèbres” (Black Shoes and Funeral Parlours) and isolated the song. I uploaded the song to Sonix and got a transcript of the French lyrics. I actually don’t know if it’s the song I’m looking for because the title doesn’t appear in the lyrics. On the album the song is just listed as “Finale” but also that they are written by Gainsbourg. There’s no song with the title “Finale” with authorship by Gainsbourg so this might be it. “Chaussures noires et pompes funèbres” is also the name of an unfinished screenplay by Gainsbourg that I found the transcript for. I’ll look at that tomorrow and see if any of it fits with the lyrics to this song. 

            I weighed 87.85 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            Around midday, with the pinkish purple wall paint I worked on evening out the area where the bathroom wall meets the blue trim that separates the wall from the wall tiles. It’s delicate work and it’s still uneven. 

            When I was leaving for my bike ride, my upstairs neighbour David was standing outside. He wants to go for lunch on Friday so I guess I won’t be painting again until Tuesday. 

            I rode downtown and back. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos at 18:15, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since last Wednesday. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:01. 

            I tried for the fourth day to digitize the cassette tape in which I chant two poems at Fat Albert’s. I tried it at the MME setting but there was still some distortion. I’ll try again tomorrow. 

            I made pizza on a slice of seven grain bread with marinara, tomato pesto, three slices of bacon, five-year-old cheddar, and an egg. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching episode 5 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. 

            Sam’s name is an acronym made from Series Acclimation Mil. She is only 217 days old. She was created on Kasq and is a hologram or as her people prefer to be called, a Photonic. She’s been sent to Starfleet Academy as an emissary and a diplomat. Her makers are also Photonics but they have never left Kasq. She has to report to them once a week to explain what she has learned about physical beings. Organics created her species a long time ago to be servants. Photonics became sentient and independent and now want to connect with organics but don’t trust them and so they need to learn about them first. She tells her makers she is still struggling with the intangible behaviours and sexual desires of organics. Her makers tell her to enrol in a course called Confronting the Unexplainable. 

            She finds a section of the course that intrigues her: The Fate of Benjamin Sisko Emissary of the Prophets. The Cardassian Professor Illa says she can’t join the class this late in the semester but she’s welcome to try to solve the mystery. She gets in trouble for disrupting a meeting of Bajoran students.

            She goes to the Sisko Museum where she activates the hologram of Sisko’s son Jake (played by the now grown up Cirroc Lofton, who played Jake on Deep Space 9). He says he didn’t know his father as an emissary. 

            Illa says Sisko expressed himself through his gumbo recipes. Sam does not eat and so she needs to serve gumbo to her friends so they can describe their experience. They are in ecstasy. Caleb tells Sam that if she gives him access to her primary system he might be able to figure out a way for her to taste food. He’s not successful. 

            Sisko used to go to a bar called The Launching Pad, which is long gone but in the same place is a bar called The Academy and it’s cadet night every Friday during midterms so Sam and her friends decide to go. 

            When Sam’s makers contact her, time freezes. They tell her if she fails in her task she will be brought back to Kasq forever. She has one more week to succeed. 

            At the bar Caleb accesses Sam’s system and says he can help her feel the way organics feel after drinking alcohol. He tells her one tap of the holographic screen equals one shot but she taps several times and gets uncontrollably drunk. 

            They are confronted by the War College cadets who say this is their bar. The friendly war cadet named Kyle starts flirting with Kraag, and Kalem is jealous. 

            Caleb meets Tarima outside and they talk for a while but suddenly she starts kissing him. 

            On the dance floor Romulan War Cadet Dzolo tries to pick a fight with Sam and gets punched out then tossed out. Everyone is shocked that Sam could do that. 

            When they get back to the Academy Caleb makes Sam sober again. The Doctor tells Sam that he knew Jake Sisko who was a brilliant writer. 

            Sam goes back to Illa to tell her she failed. Illa lends her Jake’s book “Anslem” about his father. While reading the book Sam sees and talks with Jake as if he is there. He tells her that Sisko served the prophets but did it his way and didn’t always take their advice.

            Illa comes to get the book and tells Sam she expects to see her in her class next semester. She can find her under her full name of Illa Dax. It turns out she’s the host of the Dax symbiont, which when hosted by Jadzia Dax was a close friend of Benjamin Sisko and so Illa has all of those memories.             SAM is played by Kerrice Brooks, who started dancing at 3 and began her career as a back-up dancer for acts like Billie Eilish. She made her film debut in 2020 as a dancer in The Prom. She appeared in the film My Old Ass.

April 9, 1996: My landlady and landlord saved money by keeping the furnace turned off

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I probably worked someplace but I don’t know where. It was still cold outside sometimes but my landlords Helga and Peter had made a decision to not have the furnace on most of the time to save money. They’d been doing this all winter and into the spring. I had a space heater going all the time in my apartment.

Karim Diané

            On Tuesday morning I revised my translation of the fourth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            In my Christian’s Translations blog I published “Fishing for Millionaires”, my translation of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg and posted the lyrics on Facebook. The next unfinished translation on my Gainsbourg list is “Chaussures noires et pompes funèbres” (Black Shoes and Funeral Parlours). I don’t see the song on YouTube but it might be part of the Zizi Jeanmaire concert at Casino de Paris that I’ve downloaded. It’s also the name of an unfinished screenplay by Gainsbourg that I found the transcript for. I’ll look a little closer tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.15 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it only stayed in tune for one song near the end. 

            Around midday I did some touch-ups on the bathroom walls with the pinkish purple paint. I covered the blue overlaps where the shelves meet the walls. I also evened out the places where the wall meets the trim that divides the wall from the wall tiles below and where the doorframe touches the wall. It’s still a bit uneven and so I’ll try again tomorrow to straighten it out. 

            I weighed 88.55 kilos before lunch.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown. The heat is on in the apartment and so it was nice to be out in the cool air. I stopped at Freshco to buy seven bags of red grapes and price matched them with the Real Canadian Superstore’s price of $3.95 a kilo. 

            I weighed 88.55 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:10. 

            I tried again to digitize the cassette tape of me reciting two poems that has come out wrong for the last two days of trying. It either came out distorted or with extreme fluctuations of volume. This time it seemed relatively clear and I was able to control some of the volume changes with my hand constantly on the gain knob. Afterwards though I decided to try to even out the volume in Effects but the result was distorted and so I undid all the amplifications and decreases but afterwards the distortion seemed to still be there. Next time I’ll avoid effecting amplifications and see if that helps. 

            I made a new batch of gravy with pork rib drippings and had some with a potato and three ribs while watching episode 4 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. 

            The cadets are on their first space trip on the Starship Athena as part of their Academy Studies. The Doctor creates a debating competition and Caleb turns out to be a natural debater while Kraag freezes because of his fear of public speaking. Then Kraag is called to Captain Nahla’s office where he is informed that there has been a crash of a Klingon ship carrying most of the members of the eight houses and his parents may have also been killed. Kraag does not react and says he said his goodbyes to his parents a long time ago. But now he suddenly wants to debate and asks that the subject be a Klingon diaspora. He will take the position against the Federation providing assistance to the Klingons while Caleb will argue for it. 

            In a flashback Kraag remembers his life as a refugee on Krios Prime. His brother Thar is a traditional Klingon warrior and hunter but Thar sees in Kraag that he has a different path as a healer and encourages him to contact the Federation to help him realize that goal. Thar dies because his father refuses to seek the medical help of the Federation. Kraag’s father takes him hunting and urges him to kill his first bird of prey but Kraag refuses. He believes that bravely pursuing non-violence is also a warrior’s path. His father aims his bow and arrow but misses the bird and appears angry. Shortly after that Kraag’s parents leave Krios and abandon him there. Kraag contacts Starfleet and we return to the present. 

            Starfleet finds an uninhabited planet that is very similar to the lost Klingon homeworld of Kronos but the problem is that the Klingons would not accept it as a gift from the Federation. 

            Kraag argues there is no protection from loss. It is an existential right for Klingons to define themselves. Caleb says Kaarg stabbed his family in the back. They begin to get personal and so they are both disqualified from the debate. 

            Thok comes to talk with Kraag. She is Klingon on her mother’s side and Jem Hadar on her father’s. He tells her the story of his father missing the bird after Kraag refused to shoot it. She says a Klingon’s aim becomes sharper when angry and so his father deliberately missed in order to secretly honour Kraag’s chosen path of peace and to let him go. 

            Kraag asks to be allowed to return to the debate. He argues that the Federation loses its identity if it insists on Klingons losing theirs. The Klingon problem requires a Klingon solution. 

            With the Athena at the front, Starfleet pretends that they are challenging the Klingons for possession of the planet Faan Alpha. A battle for the planet takes place with Starfleet holding back when they could easily win against the weakened Klingon forces. Starfleet surrenders and the Klingons take the planet as their new homeworld. 

            Kraag is now a warrior because of his victory and he can now eat the spicy warrior stew. 

            Kraag is played by Karim Diané, who was born in LA but descended from the Mandingo tribe of West Africa. He competed in the X Factor USA singing competition. He developed a following on YouTube by posting videos of himself singing in the shower. He co-starred in the series One of Us is Lying. As Kraag on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy he is the first gay Klingon.

April 8, 1996: My daughter and I went to the playground

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I went to the playground on Dundas.

Bella Shepard

            On Monday morning I revised my translation of the first three verses of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            In my Christian’s Translations blog I was almost finished preparing “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation for publication. I should be done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 7. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune during all but one song. That one song is usually “Le déserteur” or my translation “The Deserter”. It’s weird because I can play that song for three minutes and still have my guitar in tune but if I set my guitar down for a minute it will go out of tune by itself. 

            I deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos before lunch. That’s the same as the early afternoon of March 8.

            I took a siesta at 14:30 and planned to sleep for my usual 90 minutes but I was out for an extra half an hour. By the time I was ready to take a bike ride it was too late to ride all the way downtown. Besides I had to get my back brake looked at so I went to Metro Cycles. Gordon said my cable barrel on the right brake grip needed to be adjusted and he screwed it back in. I rode to Ossington and Bloor, went south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 88.85 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:41. 

            I worked on recording from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity an acapella performance of two of my poems at Fat Albert’s but the digitization was distorted. I restarted my computer and tried again but it still didn’t sound good. I tried putting a microphone to the speaker but it still sounded bad. I restarted again, turned up the volume and turned down the bass. The result was almost tolerable but I decided to try again with a direct line to the interface from the tape player. I started getting a clean sound but the volume kept fluctuating drastically. I tried adjusting the volume in Audacity and it sort of worked except in cases where the volume jumped drastically during the recording. I’m going to try it again tomorrow. 

            I grilled two racks of pork ribs and had three with a potato and margarine while watching episode 3 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It’s nice to be eating meat again. 

            As the Academy begins its first semester in 100 years the War College Cadets with whom the Starfleet Cadets share a campus begin to instigate a rivalry. They consider the Starfleet Cadets to be soft and undisciplined. The cadets are dressing after gym class when one by one they begin to disappear. They rematerialize half dressed at various parts of the Academy. Then the War Cadets hack the video screens of the public address system to reveal to the Starfleet Cadets that they did this and will keep doing it. 

            Thok tells Chancellor Nahla Ake that she needs to demand an apology from Kelrec who runs the War College. Nahla thinks that cadets need to resolve their own problems and she thinks the rivalry is fun. 

            Nahla introduces her cadets to the Vitus Reflux empathy plant. She wants them to grow them so they can learn patience and empathy. The plants reflect back one’s emotions and kind of talk in a squeaky voice. She also quotes The Art of War that they should respect their enemy. 

            Thok instructs them in the game of Calica which is sort of like laser tag on steroids. It prepares the cadets for real combat. Each team has a mascot that defends the goal. The top 8 scorers make the team. They are attacked by drones and have to get through to ring a bell. The phaser used in the game has a transport setting that teleports the player out of the game for one round. Caleb is disqualified for actually jumping, grabbing and smashing a drone. 

            Later Caleb finds Tarima playing basketball alone and goes to talk. She joined the War College instead of the Academy. He tells her she didn’t have to join the wrong school to avoid him when she could have joined the Academy and avoided him there. He calls the War College the Asshole Factory. He confronts her with avoiding him after it was clear there was energy between them. She looks upset and her empathic inhibiter turns red. 

            Tarima’s brother Ocam doesn’t make the Calica team but he fits the mascot costume. Genesis and Darem are tied for top scores and so they have to do a side by side shoot off to determine which of them will be captain. But Darem says something about Genesis’s insecurities relating to her admiral father and it distracts her enough for him to win. 

            The War College cadets again hack the big video screens and broadcast all of the moments when the Starfleet Cadets fumbled during the Calica game. 

            Nahla confronts Kelrec because she knows only he could have given his cadets access to the footage of the Calica game. She says the competition between the two schools should be a level playing field not assisted by staff. 

            Darem challenges the War Cadets to a game of Calica. But Darem just wants to meet the War Cadets on their own level and in a fight of simple force and skill the War Cadets are superior. In mid game, Genesis rebels against Darem’s leadership, rallies the other players, and starts to apply strategy. She takes out the replicators and it creates a fog they can use for cover. The War cadets begin firing at the academy mascot but it’s really Sam using her photonic abilities to disguise herself as the mascot. The Academy cadets under Genesis win the round but Darem feels humiliated. 

            They are caught by Thok for breaking the rules by having this fight. They are brought to Nahla’s quarters where she confronts them about failing to use the strategies of patience and empathy. She shouts for them to “Grow!” and says something about tailoring an eyeball. 

            We learn that Reno is in a relationship with Thok and that Thok likes Klingon-French fusion cuisine. 

            They replicate the War Cadet mascot costume and Caleb has to wear it to infiltrate their college undetected. Darem admits that Genesis is a better leader than he is and agrees to follow her. They need Kelrec’s DNA and so Darem approaches him and under the pretence of an apology for the illicit Calica game he pretends to give him a traditional Khionian apology by hugging him and holding his neck from which he painlessly removes some skin, which Kraag uses in the genetics lab to “tailor an eyeball” so they can use it to breach security at the War College. That’s what Caleb does in his mascot disguise but Tarima’s empathic abilities are able to recognize him and she confronts him. She also tells him that she chose the War College over the Academy because outside of Betazed her empathic feelings are out of control and she needs to learn discipline to control them. She kisses him and then pushes the alarm. 

            Sam delivers the Vitus Reflux spores under the doors of every dorm at the War College. At sunrise the War College cadets begin to scream as the Vitus Reflux plants grow to gigantic proportions and begin to snake through all of the dormitories. One War College cadet finds it all very amusing and he’s been smiling through the whole episode. Other than him the War College cadets are painted in two dimensions. 

            Kelrec admits defeat to Nahla and says says her cadets learned from the best. Nahla tells Caleb that the War College teaches fighting war while the Academy teaches how to end them. It turns out that Nahla was a legendary prankster when she was in the Academy and the War College’s prank with the transporters was a copy of the one she used when she transported the War College cadets to Alcatraz.

            Genesis is played by Bella Shepard, whose film debut was in Oz the Great and Powerful. She played Blake Navarro in the series Wolf Pack. She plays drums, ukelele, and guitar. She was co-star of the series Grace and Frankie. She co-starred in the series A Girl Named Jo.

April 7, 1996: My daughter spent the weekend at my place

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday I picked up my daughter from her mother’s place in Scarborough and she spent the weekend at my place.