Pert Kelton

            On Friday after midnight before going to sleep I did my usual search of the walls and baseboards for bedbugs and found none until I looked in the last place. On the west side of the passage between the bedroom and the living room, about 30 cm above the baseboard I was running my finger down the wall and ended up bursting open a baby bedbug. All I saw was the blood smear down the wall and not the bug. This was a day and a half after pest control treated the place and the technician would probably say that it's a good sign that a baby bedbug would be out in the open and wandering around in confusion. We'll see. 

            I finished running through singing my translation of "La java des chaussettes à clous" (The Tap dance of the Hobnail Boots) by Boris Vian and uploaded the song to Christian's Translations. 

            I finished memorizing "La Fautive" (The Whole Fault) by Serge Gainsbourg and started searching for the chords. I doubt if I'll find them but I'll look again tomorrow and then begin working them out on my own. It shouldn't take long because it's not a very complicated song. 

            I weighed 89.4 kilos before breakfast.

            Around midday I cleaned the space around the bottoms of the muffin cups on the first of my two muffin pans. I just have the bottoms of the cups left to do and that's mostly the creases where the rims meet the cups. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. On the way back I was on Queen just having crossed Spadina. There were three cyclists ahead of me and there was no traffic behind me so I went out between the streetcar tracks to get past them. I went to move back into the right lane but while veering I dipped down into a manhold cover that was sunk below street level and I lost my balance. I fell over to the right and went sliding on my right side up to some traffic cones. I really felt my right arm grinding along the concrete but my right leg took a sanding as well. It was hard to get up. A couple who were cycling together stopped to check on me and I got him to lift my bike off me. My right arm was weak but I managed to get up. I stood there for a while to wait to be able to ride again. It's the worst wipe out I've ever had and it's weird because it's the first time I fell on my right side. I knew I was going to be even more sore tomorrow and that yoga was going to be very difficult. 

           My chain was off but I got it back on. I started riding painfully home and noticed my front brakes weren't working. The back ones were okay but I feel safer with both. When I got to my place it looked like the tip of one of the arms on my front brakes had snapped right off and so there's no place to attach the cable. When I got home I took a shower because I'd ground a lot of street dirt into my leg and arm. I looked on the website of Bike Pirates and saw that they aren't doing DIY for major repairs and are actually doing small repairs for cyclists but I don't think this would be a small repair. I think I need new front brakes so I might have to just get it done next door at Metro Cycle. They were closed when I got home so I'll drop in tomorrow. 

            I can type with my right arm because it stays low but I have to use my left arm to work the mouse because I can't lift the right that far. I think I'd better get some x-rays done to make sure I didn't break or fracture anything. I can't bend my elbow more than ninety degrees. I don't even know if I'll be able to play guitar tomorrow. 

            I worked on my poem series "My Blood In A Bug." 

            I inserted the 4.5 second clip from Rosemary's Baby of the ring being removed into the main video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." It's supposed to correspond to my line, "to avoid any bruises let no metal touch the skin." But before that line there's a part where my keyboardist Brian Haddon sings "shock therapy" again, so I inserted another clip from the concert at the 360 Club in which Brian sings the line and then I synchronized it with the studio audio by trimming a few moments from the main concert video after I sing "sacrifice." I'll have to trim some more of the Rosemary's Baby clip tomorrow. 

            I cut the bad parts from my last two potatoes and boiled the remainders. I had them with gravy, two chicken wings and a part of a chicken spine while watching two episodes of Gomer Pyle. 

            In the first story Gomer is in town late at night and comes across a man named Harry Purcell who is very drunk. He wants help getting to his car so he can drive home. But Gomer knows he is too drunk to drive and so he drives Harry home and also helps him into his house. But as soon as Harry's wife Iona sees the condition Harry is in she blames Gomer for getting her husband drunk. The next day a sober Harry Purcell comes to the base to thank Gomer and to invite him for a steak dinner. But while they are in the restaurant Harry gets drunk again and Gomer has to once again drive him home. Iona is even more upset with Gomer this time for influencing her husband, who she insists doesn't drink. The next day Iona comes to see Sergeant Carter and to complain about Gomer. She threatens to take it to the colonel if something is not done. Carter knows that Gomer doesn't drink but starts to believe he's taken it up. He tells Gomer to stay away from Purcell. The next night Gomer is in his favourite diner and about to have a late supper when Harry stumbles in. He once again tries to get Gomer to drive him but this time he refuses. Carter walks in and sends Gomer back to the base, then he tries to drag Purcell to a cab. Iona shows up and this time blames Carter for getting Harry drunk and starts hitting him with her purse. 

            Iona was played by Pert Kelton, who started out on Vaudeville. She played Trixie in "The Bowery" and this led to several roles in A list films in which she played the leading lady's wisecracking friend. In the pre code film "Bed of Roses" she played a witty prostitute with lines that would not have been allowed later on. During prohibition she owned a hotel in New York that was popular with many celebrities and it had a speakeasy in the basement. She was the original Alice Kramden in the Honeymooners before it became a self contained TV sitcom. Many critics consider her to have been the best foil for Jackie Gleason in the part. She was forced out of the role because of Blacklisting but later she returned to play Alice's mother. She played Mrs Paroo in "The Music Man" She played a comical cleaning woman in several Spic n Span commercials. She was nominated for two Tony awards for performances on Broadway. 

                       In the second story Gomer has started to grow a garden on the base. He got special permission because the colonel is also an avid gardener but Carter doesn't like it. He plots to sour Gomer on gardening by buying a market watermelon, spiking it with vodka and then placing it in Gomer's garden. He thinks that when Gomer eats the melon and gets drunk for the first time in his life he will no longer want to take the risk of gardening. When Gomer finds the melon he is surprised and thrilled. He tries to give it to Carter but Carter insists Gomer eat it. But Gomer instead gives it to the colonel. Carter now must try to get the watermelon back but fails after several attempts. When the colonel calls Gomer to his office Carter thinks he's in trouble and so comes along as well. But the colonel has called Gomer to praise his watermelon because his wife served it at her bridge luncheon and it was the hit of the event. It caused the women to sing and dance.