Timothy Carey

            On Tuesday I translated another verse of “Je suis snob” by Boris Vian:

I'm a snob... I'm a snob

My name's Patrick, but I’m called Bob

I go horse-riding every morn

Because I love the smell of manure

I only date baronesses

With names like trombones in distress, yes

I'm a snob... an excessive snob

When I speak love poetry

I’m stark naked in the alley

            I almost finished memorizing “Pour des haricots” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I went on Acorn, the U of T student website to find out my start time for enrolment but discovered that this wasn’t the day. Acorn doesn’t post the date for finding the start time and so I had to spend half an hour searching for it. The problem is that posts of dates from several years are still online and they clutter up searches. Finally I found it at artsci.utoronto.ca and the day for third year students to find their start times is July 8 this year.

            I had a chicken wing and some yogourt for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did some exercises and got ready for a bike ride. I decided that since beer cans were falling from the garbage bag I’ve been filling for the last several months that I might as well extend my ride along Dundas a few more blocks and take them to the Beer Store. I got $6.50 back and then I rode down Dovercourt to Queen and past my place to Freedom Mobile to pay for my phone service. Thanks to the Beer Store I had the exact change and the clerk appreciated it.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I made a few small edits to some of the poems in my manuscript and changed their order of appearance based on Albert Moritz’s suggestions.

            I boiled a potato, sautéed a zucchini with an orange pepper, heated some gravy and a chicken breast and had them for dinner while watching an episode of The Untouchables.

            A bootlegger named Big Jim Harrington is branching out because Prohibition is almost over. He threatens to burn down a nightclub belonging to Benny Hoff if he doesn’t sell him a majority stake in it. Benny gives in and sells the whole club. Benny still owns a beer hall where his friend and roommate Johnny Paycheque is a stand-up comedian. While Johnny is performing Big Jim, his psychotic henchman Loxie and his girlfriend Renee come in and sit down. Johnny comes over to their table, flirts with Renee and makes fun of the gangsters. Big Jim thinks he’s funny and hires him to work in the club that Benny used to own. Johnny wants the leave town with Benny and go to New York. He gives Benny some inside information about the location of one of Big Jim’s stills. Big Jim offers Johnny work at a new and bigger club that he’s taken over. Benny calls Elliot Ness and tells him what Johnny told him. The workers go down into the sewer from a mattress company and come up in a bottling plant. Somewhere in between is the still. After the call Benny is crushed against a dead end alley wall by Loxie’s car. Johnny tries to leave town but Loxie stops him. In a bizarre scene Johnny is made to put on a private performance for Big Jim, Renee and Loxie. He's so scared for his life that Big Jim doesn’t find him funny and so he tells Loxie to kill him. Just then the Untouchables burst in and arrest Big Jim and his men. They leave Johnny and Renee alone each in their own despair. It’s a very good atmospheric ending.

            Renee was played by Phyllis Coates who played Lois Lane on the first season of the 1950s Superman TV show. She actually looked more like a Renee than a Phyllis anyway.

            Loxie was played by Timothy Carey, who even when he wasn’t playing psychos in movies and on TV, the cops frequently stopped him because he looked so suspicious. He built a reputation for improvising early in his career when, as the biker Chino he decided to squirt beer in Marlon Brando’s face. He was the bouncer that threatened James Dean in East of Eden. He was in Stanley Kubrick’s "The Killing” and “Paths of Glory". In 1957 he did “Bajou" which was re-cut and renamed “Poor White Trash" in 1961 and became a grindhouse classic for a decade. Jack Nicholson was a big fan of Carey and he wrote the character of Lord High and Low in his screenplay for The Monkees “Head” with Carey in mind. In 1962 Carey produced, wrote, directed and starred in "The World's Greatest Sinner". Elvis asked Carey for a copy but he turned him down. When John Cassavetes came to visit him Carey made him put on a thick suit and then he siked his attack dog on him. Carey once faked his own kidnapping for publicity. Quentin Tarantino dedicated “Reservoir Dogs" to Carey. Tarantinto wanted Carey in the film but Harvey Keitel was afraid of him and so he didn’t get the part. He said that he always treated every part like it was his last one. He said the more enthusiasm you put into a role the less enthusiastic your co-stars are about you.