On
Saturday morning I finished posting “Bébé gai” by Serge Gainsbourg on
Christian's Translations and started copying the lyrics for his song "My
chérie Jane" from a YouTube video.
I worked on my poem series “My Blood
in a Bug”, sectioning off parts of the text into verse form. I’m almost
finished with that. Nest I’ll start turning the verses into poetry.
At 9:30 I started getting ready to
go and stand in the food bank line-up. I got there a little after 9:45.
Veronica was much further ahead of me than usual. She explained that Wheeltrans
had come early.
She said that she saw Graham last
week on her way out of the food bank as he was waiting to come in. She
commented that even though he has a job he is one of the working poor. She said
he probably doesn’t make very much because he works for a non-profit
organization. That seemed strange to me since I’d heard that sending medical
caregivers out to help individuals is one of the most profitable industries.
I saw Beth step in line and I went
to let her know I was in front of her. Beth came up to chat with us. Veronica
asked her if her name was Beth and she said, “Yes like in the Kiss song.” She
said Peter Criss had written it about his wife but none of his three wives were
named Beth. The original song was called “Beck” because when Chris was in the
band Chelsea a band mate named Mike Brand had a wife named Becky who used to
call him during rehearsals to ask when he was coming home. I hadn’t heard the
song then and commented that it being Kiss it was probably very simple. I said
their most melodic song was probably, “I Was Made For Loving You” and I sang
the first two lines while Veronica bobbed her head from side to side.
Veronica asked, “What’s melody?”
That was a tough one. I said it was a certain balance between simplicity and
complexity in music with repetition that makes a song catchy. I sang the melody
from the chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as an example. The musical
changes have to be contained enough for the pattern to be recognized by the
attention as a piece of music that stands by itself in the memory.
Graham stepped into line behind
Beth’s place and came up to chat with us. Veronica asked if his company is a
non-profit. I was confused by the idea since they do charge money for their
services and so extra money must come in. It seems the way it works is that to
be a non-profit there is no owner that benefits from extra money coming in. Any
profits go back into the company but that could be for raising the salaries of
employees. There are chief executives of nonprofits that make six figure
salaries. So it seems like a bit of a head game to call them “nonprofits”.
Graham said he’s coming to the food
bank every week in order to save money for first and last month on a place. He
has found a place that he wants up at Wilson Heights but it’s being renovated
and he’s still trying to negotiate with the landlady to let him take the place.
He said he might take out a loan in order to pay for first and last. I told him
that there’s probably a much higher quality of food bank up there that he could
go to. Beth said all the food banks are supplied by Daily Bread and so they get
the same stuff. That’s not entirely true since people within the community can
donate food to an individual food bank. I told her the main difference is that
at any other food bank in Toronto the clients would not be standing outside in
the cold.
Beth asked what I know about Alice
Cooper. I told her I sing one of his songs every day. She asked which song and
I said, “I Love the Dead”. Veronica seemed surprised and said, “I thought he
was a Christian!” I confirmed that he is but that Christianity is really a
death cult anyway. It’s a religion that worships the dead.
I said the best concert I ever saw
was the original Alice Cooper group at Maple Leaf Gardens. Beth wanted to know
what year "I Love the Dead" came out. I told her it was 1970. Beth
surprised me by saying she was born in 1969. I’d thought for sure that she was
older than me. Graham told her she’s ten years younger than him. I said I was
born in 1955, the year the first rock and roll song became a number one hit.
Graham guessed that it had been a Bill Haley song and I confirmed that it was
Rock Around the Clock. She shared the trivia that it had bumped “How Much is
that Doggie in the Window” by Doris Day from the top spot. Veronica mentioned
"Que Sera Sera" and I said that song became especially popular
because it was prominently featured in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who
Knew Too Much". Doris Day's character sang it very loud as a beacon to
find her kidnapped son. I said some of Hitchcock's silent films like "The
Lodger" were his best. Veronica said she doesn't like silent movies. I
said the expression of the actors and the way the cinematographers worked with
light and shadow were in many ways above the way movies are made now. There's a
great scene in the Lodger that conveys suspense simply by showing someone’s
hand descending the railing of a spiral staircase.
Veronica asked Graham to make a
computer program for her in Excel because she needs to coordinate information
for her Overcomers group. Graham told her there are apps for things like that.
I said that maybe she doesn’t need a program but rather just someone to point
her in the right direction.
Veronica said I should do a benefit concert for her. I said I don’t
think many people would pay to hear me play.
Beth repeated some theory about Jesus about how he was married. I said
he might have been gay but Beth dismissed that. I said there are hundreds of
ideas about Jesus was and told them that I’d once read a book that gave a
convincing argument that Jesus Christ was a mushroom. Graham talked about the
First Council of Nicaea in the year 325 and how much information about Jesus
must have been rejected in an effort to arrive at consensus as to what the
doctrine of a Christian faith should be. I said, “Think of the telephone game
and how one can pass the wrong information on in a matter of minutes and
imagine that game extended over 2000 years.
It was time for everyone to get in line. Me, Beth and Graham left
Veronica and we continued our conversation further back. Beth said they found a
statue of Joseph. I said I didn’t think a statue from Joseph’s era wouldn’t be
dust by now but she said they found it in a pyramid. I asked how could they
possibly know that it was a statue of Joseph. It's not like they had any point
of reference for identification. And why would there be a statue of Joseph
inside of a pyramid? This may have come from some people from the 2nd
Century identifying Joseph as the Egyptian god Serapis. This blending came
about because Serapis was a god of the grain harvest and Joseph is said to have
saved his people from famine by stockpiling grain in large granaries. For
centuries people thought that the pyramids had been built to serve as granaries
until scholars were actually able to travel to Egypt and see that had not been
the case. If a statue was found in a pyramid it was probably one of Serapis and
then seen by association as a statue of Joseph.
I said that there is no historical evidence that Joseph, David or
Solomon, a united Israel or any of these Biblical figures ever existed. They
may have been simply characters in stories like Hercules. Beth insisted that
they found that David and Solomon were real people. But there are only a couple
of possible references outside of the Bible to a leader named David. There is
even less evidence of Solomon’s existence.
A streetcar went by and Beth declared how much she likes the new ones.
Graham said he hates them because when he gets on a streetcar he wants to sit
down and the seating was designed for people that are much smaller than
average. He complained that he frequently has to stick his legs out in the
aisle if someone else is sitting in front and facing him. That seems to me to
be the only drawback. They load more quickly than the old streetcars and
they’re great for someone like Beth, who walks with a cane, because there are
no steep steps to climb.
My back started to hurt from standing around for so long and the damp
cold began to sink into my body just as the line began to move.
Downstairs there were a couple of very young volunteers helping out at
the shelves. My helper was a young woman with long brown hair.
From the top of the first set of shelves I took a bottle of balsamic
dressing and a can of peaches. Below there were lots of crackers but I had
plenty so I just grabbed a handful of chocolate chip and marshmallow granola
bars.
From the canned beans section I got two tins of chickpeas. Further down
was a jar of real peanut butter but if I took that I couldn’t have a can of
tuna, so skipped it.
From the soup shelf I picked a large carton of beef broth and a can of
chilli. Is chilli soup? Maybe it’s stew. I guess they don’t put it with the
canned beans because it’s got other stuff in it.
From the beverage shelf I took a can of Mellow Mood Relaxation Drink from
the Bob Marley Beverage Company. It was raspberry tea lemonade and when I later
had it for lunch I felt the sugar tearing into my teeth so fiercely that I had
to rinse my teeth with the Waterpik. I found a news article from 2012 about
some school kids in New Jersey that bought the drink at their cafeteria and it
induced drowsiness, splitting headaches and vomiting. One of the ingredients is
valerian root, which can cause dizziness.
Angie offered a choice of Black Forest hams or medium sized frozen pizzas.
I took a ham. She had eggs, milk and yogourt but I just wanted the three eggs.
From the bread section I selected a bag of whole-wheat English muffins.
Sylvia offered me potatoes but I still had a full bag from the week
before. She gave me four apples, two oranges and two small onions.
From the bin by the door I looked at the yellow peppers but they seemed
a bit soft and so I just took a bunch of broccoli.
All in all this was a pretty good haul. The ham was a score and the
broccoli was fresh. I give this week at the food bank a B.
On Saturday after the food bank I went home to put my food away. On the
way back out to go to the supermarket I ran into my next-door neighbour Benji.
I thought he might know whether or not Coffeetime had gotten a one-month extension
on their lease. Although he used to hang around there all the time when the
previous owner had the place, he doesn’t know what’s going on there now.
At No Frills I got four bags of grapes, a pint of strawberries, two
half pints of raspberries, three bulbs of garlic, a bottle of mouthwash and two
containers of Greek yogourt.
For lunch I had a ham and cheese sandwich on a toasted English muffin.
I worked on writing my Food Bank Adventure.
For dinner I had two strips of bacon, an egg and a toasted English
muffin with a beer while watching two episodes of South Park.
The first story begins with Sheila Broflovski getting the C-dif virus
and she is given a fecal transplant. The result is that she feels ten years
younger but all of her friends are asking for her poop so they can feel the
same way. She refuses because she thinks one should consult a physician for
such a procedure. But since her friends are not sick they can’t get fecal
transplants. One of Sheila’s friends gets access to a video game that is not
yet on the market and tries to bribe Kyle to get his mother’s poop. Kyle
refuses but the other boys go in the basement and try to get Sheila’s shit but
Kyle catches them. Kyle is disgusted at first that half of human cells are
bacteria but then he begins to communicate with them. Suddenly half the
population of South Park becomes sick because of illicit fecal transplants and
they may die. We learn that the most coveted poop is that of football star Tom
Brady and everyone is trying so hard to access his biome that they use every
trick in the book. They refer to Brady’s poop as "The Spice". In the
end, Kyle, guided by his own bacteria, enters Brady’s house, goes directly to a
bookcase and behind it reveals a secret chamber where Brady has been collecting
his shit. Brady's turds save the town.
The second story is about Scott Malkinson,
who is the only diabetic child at South Park Elementary until a new girl named
Sophie Gray arrives. Scott immediately falls in love but all the other boys
like her too. He thinks she should be with him because of what they have in
common. He learns that Sophie loves the Disney plus series “The Mandalorian”
and invites her to his place to watch it. The problem is that his house doesn’t
have streaming because Scott’s father Clark is a cable guy and refuses to have
anything but cable. He is so angry about how streaming has taken over that he
organizes the other cable guys to sabotage the cable that allows the streaming.
But the running joke is that like any cable guys coming to any appointment they
take until the last minute to show up for the sabotage. Scott sells his insulin
on the black market for pirated access to Disney Plus and Sophie comes over but
the streaming fails after the sabotage. They go to the other boys’ houses but
it has failed there too. Scott resents all the attention the other boys are
giving to “my girlfriend" but Sophie sets him straight. She's not his
girlfriend but she does like him.
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