Pamela Mason

            On Friday morning I finished memorizing "Lola Rastaquouère" by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. A few sites had only the one set that say the chords are just G minor and F minor all the way through the verses and the chorus. I'll see if I agree tomorrow. 

            My Washburn seems to go out of tune a little more often every day. It's past the warranty now and so there's no point taking it back to Remenyi. So far it's manageable and doesn't sound horrible during song practice. I think I can still do some recording with it once I get a haircut and a microphone.

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning after shaving, showering and doing the dishes there was no time for me to work on finishing cleaning the oven door. So I just washed a pair of shorts and put them out on the deck to dry. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I got an email from Albert Moritz and he said he loved my manuscript. He transferred it to a pdf because the poems on the document I sent him kept shifting up and down. I think it's because it was a Word file revised in Open Office but kept in Word format. He asked if I was okay with sending the manuscript to Exile Editions first and I said that's fine. I like the name "Exile" for a publisher because my poems are outsider poems and also because I've been exiled so much in the Toronto poetry scene. Also I met Exile's founder Barry Calahan about thirty years ago and so it feels like there's some kind of connection. 

            It was raining around the time I would have taken a bike ride and so I stayed home and did some hip exercises while listening to season five, episode four from October 19, 1954 of The Goon Show:

Greenslade: Tonight's broadcast comes to you from an Arab Stench-Recuperating Centre in Stoke Poges. The play is considered unsuitable for people.

Secombe: Tonight, the Goons, with the aid of a calibrated Turkish boot lathe and a portable volcano net, will re-enact a drama of crime. Mr. Greenslade? Tell the eager masses what we have in store for them.

Greenslade: Rubbish.

Secombe: We call it 'The Phantom Head Shaver of Brighton'.

Milligan: It started in Brighton - 1898 - the year of the great Edison Bell.

Secombe: Midnight o'clock and a half quarter - six and seven-eighths or thereabouts! Sleeping peacefully in the Hotel Fred are the delightful young newlyweds Nugent and Mrs. Dirt.

Milligan: Suddenly! From their room we hear...

Mrs Dirt: Oooooo! Help! Oh! Look at his bonce!

Nugent Dirt: Prunella, are you awake, dearest heart?

Mrs Dirt: Get away from me with that dirty big bald head!

Nugent Dirt: Bald head?

FX: Door bursts open

Moriarty: You are waking all the other honeymoon couples up - now what is the trouble?

Mrs Dirt: It's 'im - my husband - look at him.

Moriarty: He appears to be a perfectly normal freak.

Nugent Dirt: If I get off this billiard table I'll strike you down -

Mrs Dirt: You shut up - baldy.

Nugent Dirt: What's all this baldy stuff - I'm not bald.

Moriarty: The madame is right - you are - bald!

Greenslade: Indeed he was hairless. The Phantom Head Shaver had struck. The day after, I, Wallace Greenslade, opened a little tobacco kiosk. It was that week that Nugent Dirt was taken to court by his wife.

Usher: Silence in court! The court will now stand for Judge Schnorrer. Raise yer right hand and yer left leg. Now, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Mrs Dirt: I do.

Ropesock: My client, Mrs. Prunella Dirt, claims that her husband, Nugent Dirt, did deceive her in that during their courting days, right up to their marriage night, he did in fact conceal his baldness from her without her knowledge.

Seagoon: As council for the defence, I think we are straying from the facts. My client is accused of hiding a bald head. He denies this and claims he was shaved in the night with a razor - by person or persons unknown. 

Greenslade: I remember the case because during the recess I did a brisk trade in my little tobacco kiosk - one of my best clients was the defending council, Q.C. Hairy Seagoon. 

Seagoon: [Coughs] Yes, I smoked heavily during the trial. It was one evening as I puffed on my alabaster meershaum pipe that events took a turn in the favour of Nugent Dirt. 

FX: [Knock on door, door opens] 

Seagoon: Oh, a parcel! 

FX: [Paper parcel being opened] 

Seagoon: Good heavens it's human hair - and a note - 'Nugent Dirt is innocent - this hair is his - it was I who balded him while he slept - Signed - The Phantom Head Shaver'! 

Judge Schnorrer: Nugent Dirt - the jury of three just men and twenty-nine criminals finds you guilty of hiding your bald nut from your wife until after you had married her. Therefore - I sentence you to pay a fine of three shillings or do sixty years in the nick. 

Nugent Dirt: I'll do the sixty years - I'm not throwing three bob down the drain. 

Judge Schnorrer: Any last request? Nugent Dirt: Yes - I want to hear 'I can't believe that you're in love with me'. 

Judge Schnorrer: Call Max Geldray. Max Geldray and orchestra: Musical Interlude: 'I can't believe that you're in love with me' 

Seagoon: Stop the case! I have here evidence that will prove my client innocent! This hair is his - I submit it for analysis. 

Judge Schnorrer: Case suspended until the hair is analysed, and proved to be or not to be Nugent Dirt's.

Seagoon: [Coughing] Gad, this tobacco! [Cough] I must tell Mr. Greenslade not to make it so strong.

FX: [Knock on door. Door opens] 

Seagoon: Oh - another parcel? [Sound of paper opening] Good heavens, it's empty! Wait, here's a note. 'Dear Seagoon - I struck again last night - this time I have not sent you the victim's hair - Signed - The Phantom Head Shaver.' 'P.S. If you want to know who the victim is - look in the mirror.' Ahhhhhhhhh - I've been balded - he's balded me! 

Sellers: In the months that followed - the Phantom struck again and again! Fifty men were balded while they slept. 

Milligan: Brighton became a city of terror - the holiday trade was threatened - that year only two gentlemen came to Brighton. 

Churchill: Come on Clem, what've we got to lose? 

Old man: Gentlemen - people aren't coming to Brighton, they're frightened. I ask you to think of an idea that will revive the holiday trade and defeat the Phantom Head Shaver! 

Henry Crun: I suggest that every one entering Brighton be handed a bald wig and that he should sleep in that self-same wig. Minnie Bannister: Rubbish - if all the men wear bald wigs, the Phantom will attack the women. 

Henry Crun: I fear that the ladies, too, will have to wear bald wigs. 

Minnie Bannister: Why should I wear a bald wig - I'm already bald. 

Henry Crun: Wear a bald wig with hair on. 

Milligan: Could I speak to Mr. Seagoon please? 

Seagoon: Hello, Seagoon here. 

Sellers: Forensic Laboratory here. That hair we analysed... It wasn't hair - it was tobacco. 

Seagoon: What? In that case - Ellington, play while I medeetate. Ray Ellington Quartet: [Musical Interlude: 'Skokiaan'] 

Seagoon: By now the position was serious. All told, three hundred men had been balded by the Phantom. [Coughs] I'll go and seek this Phantom myself. Bluebottle? 

Bluebottle: I heard you call, my Capt'in. Enter Bluebottle - pauses for audience applause - as usual not a sausage - strikes defiant bus driver outside garage-pose, but trousers fall down and ruin effect. 

Seagoon: Tonight we ride to track down the Phantom Head Shaver. Are you ready? 

Bluebottle: I am ready, my Capatain - let justice be doned. He will fall under the wrath of my Boys' Wonder mag cardboard sword. Pulls up trousers - tucks in shirt. 

Seagoon: The Shaver's a dangerous man - he might kill. 

Bluebottle: I just remembered - I gotta go and shampoo my goldfish. 

Seagoon: Come here, Bluebottle - don't tell me you're a coward? 

Bluebottle: I won't. But you're bound to hear about it sometime. 

Greenslade: To Haywards Heath they rode - to the exit that was guarded by the finest of British troops.

Eccles: Halt, who goes dere? Anybody dere? Halt or I fire - fire or I halt - halt - anybody dere - anybody out dere in the dark, anybody? If dere's anybody dere, speak up - if there nobody - keep quiet.

Bloodnok: Eccles? Will you get out of that bed and get outside on guard. 

Seagoon: Have no fear, I'm Queens Council Hairy Seagoon - defending council in the Nugent Dirt case. I have on me several documents of identification - including a letter of personal trust from the Commander of the British Army; a memo of recommendation from Mr. Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary; a special pass signed by Mr. Clement Atlee, Leader of the Opposition; and last but not least, a permit to go where I please, signed by the Prime Minister the Right Honourable Sir Winston Spencer Churchill. 

Eccles: Friend or foe? 

Bloodnok: I surrender - you wouldn't hit a nursing mother would you? I tell you, sir, the Phantom wouldn't dare come near here - not with old Bloodnok on duty. Why, I haven't slept for three nights - I've just sat here waiting for him - oh yes, old Bloodnok needs a smart man to outwit him - oh yes... If the Phantom Head Shaver were to come here I... What are you staring at? 

Seagoon: Do you usually have half your head shaved? 

Seagoon: Now Major, there, there - this is really a blessing in disguise. You see, I must have interrupted him in his work - and we all know that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. 

Bloodnok: What - yer mean you want me to wait here for him to come back and shave the other half? You filthy swine you. Oh, very well, I'll do it. Just leave me that book about Scottish Regiments.

Seagoon: But it's called The Decameron. 

Bloodnok: Of course - it's all about the Decameron Highlanders. 

Bluebottle: Capatain, I'm frighted - I can hear someone in the ammunition hut - it sounds like a man sharpening a dirty big razor. 

Seagoon: Come out, Phantom Head Shaver - you're surrounded, d'yer hear? We're all heavily armed - if you don't come, we'll come to that door - and so help me - we'll knock! 

Seagoon: Bluebottle - go in and get him! The Phantom won't harm you - not when he sees that you're armed with a Jet Morgan cardboard cutout space catapult. 

Bluebottle: Alright, Capitain, I will go in - I shall conquer him in mortal combat. [aside] Quickly makes out last will and testament on back of fag packet. 

Bluebottle: Not a soul was in dere - we must have been hearing things - ha ha, what a relief to hear things isn't it? Can I go home now? I say Capitain, What are you starin' at me for? 

Seagoon: Look in this mirror. 

Bluebottle: Nooooooo, you rotten swine you - I've been balded - you've ruined my Tony Curtis type haircut! 

Seagoon: He's still in there. I'll fix him - throw this stick of dynamite in through the door. 

FX: [Fuse burning. Stops with splutter.] 

Seagoon: Curse, it was a dud. Now let's go in, keep me covered with your finger... 

FX: [Door opens - mammoth explosion - splintering glass - bits of nuts and bolts falling - forks, spoons, etc.] 

Bloodnok: Oh, poor fellows! They were looking for the Head Shaver, yer know. 

Greenslade: Yes - I know... 

Bloodnok: Yes, I... Suppose he was blown up as well? 

Greenslade: [Pause] Care for a pipe of tobacco? 

Bloodnok: Tobacco eh? Mmm yes lovely. Gad, it's almost the same colour as my hair - it is the same colour... Stop that man!

            I weighed 88 kilos at 18:30. I worked on my poem series "My Blood In A Bug." 

            I edited my video for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy" and cut out some parts of the plugging in of the electrical cord into my "Pipe Dream" sculpture. Now it shows the hand holding the cord going toward the hole four times but only arriving the last time. This corresponds to me singing, "Plug the male end into any, any, any old electric hole" and the hole is plugged at the end of that line. Next I will delete some of the concert video to try to synchronize the next line, "Now turn the switch, the light is green" with that of the studio recording. 

            I colourized four more bricks in my skateboarder photo. There are three left. 

            I had a potato, gravy and two chicken drumsticks for dinner while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Mike has gotten into the habit of sending in coupons from catalogues because he likes getting the return mail. But one day he receives a copy machine on a ten day trial. He is trying to raise the $9.50 he needs to buy Aunt Bee a silver vase for her birthday and so he and his friend Harold decide to take advantage of the ten day trial to go into business making copies for locals like Andy and Emmett. But he hasn't told his father about the machine and Sam only finds out when a representative of the Amalgamated Copy Company comes to collect the $75. Sam tells Mike he has to send the machine back but on his way to the post office Harold tells him they have an order for 100 copies. At three cents a copy that would bring Mike the money for Bee's present. But while doing the job Mike trips over the cord and the machine falls to the floor. It still makes copies but it is scratched and makes a lot of noise and so now Mike can't send it back. When Sam finds out he is angry but when he learns why Sam wanted to use the machine he softens and decides that he could use a copy machine and decides to buy it. 

            In the second story Sam receives a letter from a national panel show broadcast from New York called "Talk It Up" in which panelists discuss current big topics. In an upcoming show panelists from New York, including Pamela Mason, will debate with the representatives of a small town to argue as to which is better. They've chosen Mayberry and ask for the town to send two representatives to New York. The town counsel decides on Emmett and Howard but once Howard is in New York he is overwhelmed and on the show he agrees with his opponents on the advantages of the big city and even argues with Emmett. Many of the Mayberians who watched the show are now ashamed of Howard and shun him so badly that he's considering leaving. Then Sam finds in Howard's wastebasket a poem that he wrote about his feelings for Mayberry. Sam sends it to a New York paper and it is published. When Howard's friends read it they are ashamed of how they've treated him. 

            Pamela Mason played herself in the story. She was an actor and writer who was married to James Mason whom she met on the set of "I Met a Murderer", which she wrote and also co-starred in. She was married to someone else at the time and had an affair with Mason that led to her divorce and subsequent marriage to Mason. She also wrote and appeared in "Lady Possessed." She appeared as herself in Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask." She hosted two talk shows, "The Pamela Mason Show" and "The Weaker Sex". She wrote several books, including the novel Ignoramus. Her son Morgan Mason is the husband of Belinda Carlisle.