Michael Caine

            On Monday morning I finished looking for the chords for “Ah! Si javais un franc cinquante” (Oh! If I Had A Dollar Fifty) by Boris Vian. All the versions I found had the same basic chords but some added more in the middle.

I memorized three quarters of "Raccrochez c'est une horreur!” (Hang Up! This is Horrible!” by Serge Gainsbourg.

During song practice I felt the machine head for my B string coming loose again and so I had to stop to screw it back on. A few minutes later I couldn’t read my tuner and so I had to change the battery. A few songs after that my G string broke but luckily I had one left to put on.

Around 10:00 I called up the Financial Aid office at U of T because I’d been trying to apply for the Noah Meltz grant online but whenever I tried to access the application form my cursor turned into a red circle with a line through it. I was on hold for twenty minutes and then when I got through to someone the line suddenly went dead, although my phone said the call was still going on. Five minutes later there was a beep and the call ended and so I called again. After another twenty minutes on hold I finally reached someone. Apparently most of the staff are working from home right now and of course no students can go to the office because of the pandemic. I told her about my problem. At first she told me I should email the Noah Meltz people, which I'd already done but before she ended the call she told me to wait and she looked a little closer. She found out that the application form had only just been uploaded and that I should wait until tomorrow or later in the week to apply. It seems to me that they should have waited until they’d uploaded the form before setting up a link to it.

Around midday I washed and scrubbed the rest of the section of the kitchen floor that’s in between the radiator and the credenza. I had wanted to also clean the left end of the radiator and the wall and baseboard in that area but I didn’t have time.

While I was working I had another shit fart but this time I made it to the bathroom and cleaned myself before it got to my underwear. I hope I don’t have to start wearing adult diapers in public.

For lunch I had a lettuce, tomato and sausage salad.

When I woke up from a siesta in the afternoon it was raining and hailing. The guy from the sign company that put up the Popeyes sign was standing on a scaffold with an umbrella. They’d been there all day putting up canopies on each side of the building to project round lights downward. My neighbour Benji pointed out that they’ve put up a camera on each side of the building. One of them is under my living room window. He said it took them sixteen hours to install them.

I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire and her mother leave for Chicago and she warns Kingfish that he might receive a letter saying she’s leaving him for good. Later Kingfish hears from a society columnist that Sapphire has been seen with a wealthy playboy at the Lakeview Lodge. What Kingfish doesn’t know is that Sapphire has been working as the entertainment director at the lodge and she’s also been introducing guests to one another. When Kingfish hears that the playboy wants to marry a woman he met there he thinks it’s Sapphire but Sapphire just introduced the young couple. When Sapphire sends Kingfish a letter explaining everything he doesn’t open it because he thinks it's the letter that Sapphire warned him she might send. The letter is asking Kingfish to come to help her organize the wedding between the young couple. When Sapphire calls Kingfish and asks him to come to the wedding and give the bride away he thinks she’s talking about him giving her away and he faints.

The sign company’s truck was idling in front of my building all afternoon and they weren’t even using the scaffold when I went down to tell the guy that the building was filling up with exhaust fumes. He had his helper turn the truck off.

I had oven fries, sautéed pepper and onion, two chicken drumsticks and gravy for dinner while watching two episodes of The Adventures of William Tell.

In the first story an Austrian general named Bullinger is using Swiss prisoners as slaves to build a road through Switzerland. One of the prisoners is a man named Jules who has information that could meant the downfall of the general. William Tell plots to enter the prison as an inmate in order to find jewels and hear his message. Tell has a blacksmith fashion a special ball and chain that looks like the one the prisoners wear but which he will be able to remove. He comes to the bushes near the road crew and talks with the closest worker, prisoner number six, whose name is Max. He tells him he’s going to take his place and when the guard isn’t looking they switch and Max heads up the hill where Hedda and another Swiss patriot are waiting. Once back in the prison Tell learns where Jules is located. One of his cellmates just happens to have made a device out of copper that can be placed on the lock of the cell door so it doesn’t shut properly. That night he uses it to get out. He has to knock out only one guard who is dragged into the cell by the other prisoners and kept knocked out while Tell is gone. He finds Jules and gets the information. There is a chalet on Elkhorn mountain where is being kept Prince Frederick who is the true heir of the Austrian throne.  The general is keeping the prince there until a time when he can use him to bring down the emperor. Tell returns to his cell, the unconscious guard is placed outside with his keys on top of him and the cell door is locked. The next day on the road crew Tell removes his ball and chain, and fights three guards until the other prisoners fall on them. Tell escapes. Tell and Hedda go to the chalet to get the prince to help them take down the general but when they get there they find that the prince is just a small boy. The boy and his mother or nanny are sent to a safe place in Italy. When the general arrives Tell is waiting for him and tells him that if he does not release the prisoners and stop building the road the emperor will be told that the general did not kill the prince as he was ordered to do.

Max or prisoner number six was played by a young Michael Caine, who had little parts in over a hundred TV dramas like this in the 1950s before he started to become successful on stage and in film.

In the second story Landburgher Gessler wants the largest house in the town but it is owned by a Swiss named Jules Gunther and so he plots to take it away. He promises freedom to one of his prisoners if he goes to Gunther’s house saying he has escaped custody and needs to hide from the guards. Gunther does not hesitate to help the man but of course it is a trap and Gunther is arrested for the treason of harbouring a traitor. William Tell’s father in law, Judge Furst is instructed to order the execution of Gunther but he refuses. Gessler knows that he cannot replace Furst with an Austrian judge but he finds that Furst’s Swiss clark, Schwarz is willing to obey his orders and so he throws Furst in prison and makes Schwarz the new judge. That night as Schwarz is enjoying the pleasures of Furst’s fine house and servants, William Tell and his friends arrange for Schwarz’s wine to be drugged. While he is sleeping in Furst’s bed, Tell, Hedda, Walter and several others move the furnishings and décor of the bedroom to a basement cell. Schwarz is awakened by William Tell speaking into a vessel that gives his voice a ghostly echo. The voice warns Schwarz of the consequences of his actions. He jumps from his bed and tries to leave but finds no doors or windows and only stone walls behind the curtains and draperies. As the voice continues to plague him he finally promises to find Gunther innocent at his trial the next day. The voice tells him to drink from the cup by his bedside and he goes back to sleep, the next day waking up in Furst’s bedroom again. In court he declares Gunther innocent and is thrown in the dungeon. Furst is released because of public protests against his imprisonment and reinstated as judge.