Ted Knight

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll look for the chords but earlier I’d done a quick search and no one seemed to have posted any, so I suspect that’s the case. 

            I also finished memorizing “Shush shush Charlotte” by Serge Gainsbourg and then started adjusting my translation. I’ll finish that tomorrow and then look for the chords. For this song I think probably at least one person has posted them. 

            I video-recorded most of my song practice and audio-recorded the whole thing. It went better today, with fewer mistakes, especially at first. It seemed to help to just focus on the camera while singing and playing rather than looking at myself in the mirror behind it. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I scrubbed again the area of the kitchen floor just to the left of the fridge. The water in the bucket got dirty so I’ll go over it again on Sunday. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was quite warm but not hot like yesterday. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:20. 

            In my Movie Maker project of a video for my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” I inserted the clips from “Welcome to the Quiet Room” into the main video to correspond with the line, “But if you want to make it work use a tight rubber belt to hold those spastic jerks.” Then I deleted the part of the concert video in which I sing that line because I couldn’t synchronize it with the studio audio. Next, I’ll try to synchronize the concert video with the line, “Let’s burn up the temples and raise the church …” I should at least be able to line them up where I sing “Let’s …” and if the rest doesn’t fit I’ll try to find some more video clips to insert there. 

            I worked a bit on a poem for my series “My Blood in a Bug.” 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching six more episodes of the Aquaman cartoon from the 1960s. 

            In story twenty-one, a Gill-Man pursues Tusky but Aquaman stops him by putting a shell over his head and then having two giant octopuses secure him. But the Gill Man says he was not trying to hurt Tusky but to follow him to Aquaman. He has come asking for help because a giant half-human, half sea-mastodon from the subterranean ocean is attacking his village. Aquaman lures the monster away from the village. Aqualad attacks while riding a swordfish but the creature shoots a jet of water that knocks him off so he hits his head. They escape to a cave but the mastodon man sticks its trunk in and tries to suck them out. Aquaman throws a big rock that plugs its trunk. But then the monster blows and shoots the rock like a missile towards the Gill men’s village. The monster grabs Aqualad and is about to throw him on some sharp stalagmites. Aquaman ropes the creature’s tusks with strong seaweed and ties the other end to two whales who pull the monster away to sink him back into the subterranean ocean. 

            In story twenty-two, after collecting a large rock of phosphorus to light Atlantis, Aquaman sees that Tusky has been captured by animated seagrass. The grass has been hit by the animator ray of the Sea Scamp, whose purpose seems to be mischief rather than conquest. Aquaman has thresher sharks cut through the grass to free Tusky. The Scamp uses his ray on the phosphorus and turns it into a giant glowing Golem that attacks them. They can’t fight it directly because it is poisonous to the touch. Aquaman has a school of stargazer fish shoot electricity at the thing, causing it to explode. The Scamp sends his half human half monkfish minions to attack, but they are easily beaten. Scamp tries to get away but a whale rams his ship, causing it to crash and explode. Scamp is captured by Tusky and he’ll be forced to invent things for Atlantis. 

            In story twenty-three, Aquaman rendezvous with test pilot Mark Bartholomew to supervise the sea trials of the US Navy’s latest development, the Devil Fish. It can travel underwater as fast as a jet in the air, outmanoeuvre a shark and smash through rock. But Black Manta’s spies have learned of this boat and he aims to possess it. He has his mantamen attack to get their attention and then retreats to lead them back to his lair, which is the ruins of an ancient civilization. Mark trails Black Manta in the Devil Fish and Aquaman follows. Mark uses the Devil Fish to knock Manta into the water and they escape. Aquaman has a whale push a big boulder into the whirlpool entrance to Manta’s lair and closes it off. 

            In story twenty-four, Scavo the scavenger wants to destroy an oil rig that is too close to his hideout. It’s not much of a hideout if you publicly threaten people to stay away from it. He has his giant submarobot attack the rig. Aquaman has the biggest sea creatures attack the robot but it shoots razor-sharp pinwheels from its fingers. Aquaman throws compressed water balls to hit the pinwheels and send them back into the robot’s fingers to explode and somehow destroy the whole robot. I guess because these stories are only seven minutes long there’s not a lot of time to write them so they make sense. Scavo and his men attack with guns that shoot compressed air bubbles that are hard as steel. They are all stunned but Aquaman recovers and attacks from behind. The scavengers retreat to the surface where Scavo shoots a ray to overheat the ocean. Aquaman creates a tidal wave that stops them and they are captured. 

            In story twenty-five, the crystalline Jewel People who mine the ocean for precious gems are attacked by Captain Barracuda and his steed Starro the giant starfish. When Aquaman and Aqualad arrive Barracuda stuns Aqualad with a ray gun. Aquaman summons two stargazer fish to shock Aqualad back to consciousness. The Jewel people hide in their domed city but Starro begins to use suction to crack it. When Aquaman arrives, Starro blinds him with ink but Aquaman has blowfish absorb it. He then commands octopuses and sharks to get Starro off the dome. Aquaman disarms Barracuda with a ball of compressed water and then captures him. He is put in a ball and chain and forced to mine jewels with a pickaxe for the Jewel people. 

            In story twenty-six, the Brain has formed an alliance with the people of the planet Imago. They have created a Mirror Man who is an exact replica of Aquaman, right down to his powers. The Mirror Man commands sea creatures to attack each other. But when Aquaman telepathically orders them to stop, they are confused and respond chaotically. Brain Men attack Aquaman and stun him, then carry him onto Brain’s ship where he is bathed in a heat beam to dehydrate and kill him. The Mirror Man poses as Aquaman and is about to open all the doors to allow the brain to invade Atlantis. But Aquaman uses a magnifying lens to concentrate the heat ray and burn a hole in the floor of Brain’s ship to escape. Aquaman fights Mirror Man but even though Brain doesn’t know which is which, he stupidly fires upon one of the two identical combatants and hits Mirror Man. Brain tries to escape but Aquaman creates a wall of concentrated water into which Brain’s ship crashes and explodes. The Mirror Man says the Mirror people were deceived by Brain that Aquaman was evil, and then he disappears. But clearly in the beginning Brain was talking with Reflecto the leader of Planet Imago about stealing the riches of Atlantis. 

            The announcer for the Aquaman stories was Ted Knight, who earned five Battle Stars during WWII. After the war, he learned puppeteering and ventriloquism and became a children’s show host for a local station. After hosting more children’s shows he was told he was too talented for local TV and that he should go to Hollywood. He played supporting roles in several movies and TV shows and did voice work for a lot of animated series. He became a star when he was cast as Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He played Judge Elihu Smails in Caddyshack. He starred as Henry Rush in the sitcom Too Close for Comfort in which he made use of his early training with ventriloquism and puppets. 

            I searched for bedbugs before bed and broke the pattern of finding one every other day. There were none this time.