Ken Mayer

            On Sunday morning I finished memorizing “Amour année zéro” (Love In The Year Zero) by Serge Gainsbourg and did a quick look for the chords. I saw there are some posted and so I'll transcribe those tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. I read the first few pages of Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand about the lowest caste in Indian society, the people who clean the latrines and sweep the street. They are not even allowed to draw water from wells used by people of higher castes and if they don't have their own well they have to beg for water from the higher castes who come to get theirs. Sometimes it takes hours of waiting to find someone generous enough to do it for them. 

            I read the first half of “Modernism and Politics” by Sarah Blair. I hadn't realized how many writers with extreme right-wing views helped to found Modernism. Some of them were out and out supporters of Hitler. Even T.S. Eliot, although he had no fascist affiliations, was alarmingly anti-Semitic, and thought that countries like Britain and the United States should be run entirely by white Christians. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before lunch. I had Ritz crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride without knowing how far I wanted to go. I decided to turn south at Bloor and Shaw. I weighed 86.7 kilos when I got home.

            I got caught up on my journal a little after 18:00. 

            I read some more of Untouchable. The protagonist Bakha is going to pay some upper caste children to teach him to read because untouchables are not allowed to go to school. 

            I finished reading “Modernism and Politics.” There were Modernists on the extreme right and left. I read “When Was Modernism” again out loud. 

            I had an egg sunny side up with heated naan and a beer while watching an episode of The Addams Family. 

            In this story, after stuffing himself with Mama's yak stew, Gomez begins to sleepwalk. The next day the papers report that a cat burglar has been active in the neighbourhood. The next night after more yak stew Gomez somnambulates again. Morticia discovers a room full of treasure and realizes Gomez is the burglar. Morticia hypnotizes Gomez and finds that he's been reading Robin Hood but hasn't given the treasure to the poor yet because he's only halfway through the book. Gomez sleep walks again and brings home more stuff. They wake him up and tell him what he's been doing. He wants to return all the booty but doesn't know from whom he took it. The police arrive with a detailed list but won't share it. They want to arrest Gomez but Morticia hypnotizes them and gives them instructions to return all the things that had been stolen. 

            One of the cops was played by Ken Mayer, who played Major Robbie Robertson on the TV series Space Patrol and the sheriff on Death Valley Days. He won the best actor award at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1948. He costarred in Frontier Uprising.