I finished my song “Megaphor” after two tries but I gave up on “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” after three. Each time I made it one verse further but the last time I failed with two verses to go.
I weighed 84.2 kilos before a breakfast that was so late that by the time I’d finished it was almost time for lunch.
Because I lost two hours of the morning trying in vain to recover my recording, I didn’t get to clean the eastern kitchen window as I’d planned.
For lunch, I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride, and on Brock, I found a box of items marked “Free”. There were two space heaters, some pottery, some books, candy, Christmas decorations, and small packages of coffee and cocoa. I took Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac, three containers of French roast coffee, and one container of peppermint truffle cocoa mix. I went downtown and back. I noticed a lot of attractive women.
I weighed 84.7 kilos at 17:00.
I found what looks to be the WAV file for my lost recording but it wouldn’t play because it seems to be corrupted. The file after it was the one I recorded after the power went on and that one is fine. I tried converting the file but that wouldn’t work either. I think today’s first audio recording then is a write-off.
I searched for videos that might fit with my line, “start at three-tenths of a second at ten or twenty volts.” I decided to try to find old footage of a Tesla coil but all I could find are modern vide-os. I’ll try again tomorrow.
I made pizza on a roti with ricotta sauce, a cut-up sirloin tip, and extra-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching six Bugs Bunny cartoons.
The Bugs Bunny mega pack that I downloaded seems to have all of the Bugs Bunny cartoons with the years attached. But the annoying thing is that the years are listed at the end of the titles and so they don’t appear in chronological order. I had to look up on Wikipedia which were the first appearances of the character and then track them down from the files. I renamed more than half the files with the years in front so they are easier to view.
In the first appearance in 1938 of the character that would eventually evolve into Bugs Bunny, he is rabbit-sized, behaves in a much more manic manner, has a different voice, with a maniacal laugh similar to that of Woody Woodpecker. We first see a whole group of rabbits raiding a corn field when shots are fired. The lead rabbit, who doesn’t get the name Bugs for a few more years, but I’ll call him Bugs here anyway, tells the others to run. The predator in this story is Porky Pig, accompanied by his dog Zero. When Porky walks into central view the rabbit taps him on the shoulder. When Porky sees him he begins to fire and his shotgun goes off like a machine gun, mowing down the entire corn field. The rabbit laughs and says, “You missed me!” Bugs decoys Zero with a wind-up rabbit. Meanwhile, Porky’s shotgun is acting like a long nose and sniffing the ground for rabbits. Bugs puts pepper down the barrel causing the gun to sneeze/fire out of control. Bugs then drinks hare remover and becomes invisible. Then Bugs pulls himself out of a hat by the ears and says, “Here I am fat boy!” Then Zero attacks and the exchange becomes like a bullfight as Bugs holds out a cloth like a toreador. At one point the dog disappears inside the cloth, then Bugs rolls it up into a tube, blows at one end and Porky gets hit in the back by a flying dog. Bugs says “Don’t let me worry ya chief. I’m just a trifle pixilated.” Then Bugs spins his ears and takes off like a helicopter, repeatedly diving and causing Porky to hit the dirt. After he flies away, Porky says, “I’m sure glad to get rid of that dope!” But Bugs pokes his head from behind a tree and says, “That’s what you think!” When Porky corners Bugs he tells him he’s a married man with a family and shows him a picture of himself with his wife and hundreds of children. But Porky is unmoved. He pulls the trigger but he is out of buckshot. Bugs take his gun away and breaks it over his knee. Then he asks to see Porky’s hunting license and then he tears it up. Then he takes off like a helicopter again but Porky throws a rock and Bugs goes into a dive into a hay pile. Bugs does a dramatic death scene until he almost has Porky’s sympathy and then he says, “Of course, you know this means war!” Porky chases him until he runs into a small cave. There just happens to be a box of dynamite nearby and Porky lights a stick and tosses it in the hole. Porky plugs his ears and closes his eyes while Bugs tosses it back out at Porky’s feet and it explodes. Next, we see Porky in traction in the hospital. Bugs brings flowers and asks if he’s okay. Porky says he is but Bugs asks several times to make sure. Porky assures him he’ll be out in a couple of days but Bugs says, “That’s what you think!” Then he pulls on the traction apparatus to injure him further then jumps laughing out the window and down the road. What a mean-spirited little bunny! He gets nicer in later appearances.
The second appearance of Bugs Bunny (though still not named) was in 1939. Two dogs escaping from a dog catcher hide at the front door of a house that has a sign outside that reads “Home of Sham Fu the Magician”. The door swings open and then springs under the floor of the porch serve as a catapult to toss them into the house. The clock announces that it is midnight and instead of a cuckoo it’s a raven in a wide-brimmed hat who laughs in a sinister manner after telling the time. One dog walks through a door that disappears, leaving them apart. The bigger brown dog left behind hears Bugs say “Psst!” from behind a coat on a rack. This rabbit is bigger than the first Bugs and taller than the dog but not the same size as a human, like the later Bugs. He is also all white. This rabbit has magical powers and since we don’t see any humans in this story, maybe Bugs is Shamu. He makes a vase disappear and then he makes it fall from the ceiling and break on the dog’s head.
Meanwhile, the little white dog encounters an animated Hindu rope that knocks him over the head.
Bugs goes into a big vase on the floor and a tree grows out of it. The dog pulls out the tree and while he is holding it, it turns into Bugs. Their faces are close together and Bugs gives him a noisy kiss on the mouth. The dog wipes his mouth in disgust. The dog is growling but Bugs disappears again.
In the other room, the little dog chases the rope into Shamu’s chest. The rope uses the magic wand to make things appear and drop on the dog’s head. The dog grabs the wand and accidentally swallows it. He begins to hiccup things like birds and balloons.
The rabbit appears again and continues to tease the dog, at one point tickling him into hysterics. He also kisses him again. Bugs enters the other room leaving the big dog behind and locked out but the little dog has tried to hold his breath instead of hiccupping balloons and he becomes a living balloon but suddenly goes flying when he exhales, slamming into Bugs and sending them both through the door. Bugs is tied up in a rope so the big dog grabs him and locks him in three chests. Then the little dog hiccups another balloon that pops and Bugs appears. Bugs starts to make himself disappear by grabbing his head with one hand and his feet with the other and pushing them together. He is almost gone when the big dog grabs him, uncompresses him, then punches him into a fishbowl. That’s the end and the only time I can recall that Bugs ever loses in the end.
The third appearance of Bugs Bunny was also in 1939. We see a man in his home reading in the paper about soaring meat prices. He says he’s not going to take it anymore and grabs his gun and calls his dog. Out in the country, he’s following rabbit tracks but we see Bugs (still shorter but now grey and white like the later Bugs) using a stamp to make rabbit tracks. He still has the Woody Woodpecker-type laugh. The dog goes into a hollow log and when he comes out the other end Bugs puts his hands over his eyes and says, “Guess who”. The dog barks and Bugs says, “Guess again”. The dog barks again and Bugs says, “You’re getting warmer”. The dog barks again and Bugs says, “That’s absolutely correct!” Then he kicks the log with the dog inside down a hill. The log hits a tree and the dazed and dizzy dog staggers to a pier. A motorboat comes up and Bugs gets off with a doctor’s bag and a stethoscope to examine the dog. He asks, “Are you subject to fits?” The dog nods and Bugs says, “So am I! Maybe that’s what’s the matter with me!” Then Bugs laughs like a maniac and goes bouncing over the water.
Meanwhile, the hunter sees rabbits jumping on the other side of a hill. He fires but on the other side, he sees two spinning wheels with decoy rabbits attached. Then he sees Bugs sleeping and goes up to put salt on him but Bugs suddenly holds out a stalk of celery and says, “Celery, a mighty fine nerve tonic, and boy have I got nerve!” Then Bugs runs into a cave. Then the cave has an elevator door and Bugs says, “Going up.” Then it opens again and Bugs says, “You don’t have to be crazy to do this but it sure helps!”
Then Bugs puts on a female dog suit and seduces the hunter’s dog. The dog grabs Bugs and the suit comes off as the dog keeps kissing it. The dog chases Bugs but then there is a siren and Bugs comes up behind him with a cop’s hat and riding an invisible motorcycle. Bugs takes out a ticket book and says, “Goin a little fast weren’t you buddy?” He tells him that this will cost him September, April, June, and Montana. Then Bugs laughs like a maniac and runs away again.
Then Bugs sings a song, “All the world was gay, swinging on its way. Things were looking brighter day by day. Nothing ever wrong, life was just a song, till that looney tune came along. Oh I’m going cuckoo, woo woo, here comes the choo choo, woowoo. I’m so gooney, looney tuneey, teched in the head. Please pass the ketchup, I think I’ll go to bed. Hoo! Am I the screwball, woo woo, throw me the eight ball, woo woo. Once I knew a thing or two, but now I’m a bufferoo. Hinky dinky parley woo woo!”
At the end of the song the hunter has him cornered. Bugs argues that he’s not good to eat because even the government meat inspectors turned him down. He shows a government seal saying “rejected” on his foot. He says he hasn’t been well lately and begins coughing pathetically. The hunter begins to cry but then Bugs shakes his hand and shocks him with a joy buzzer. Bugs runs away and the hunter shouts for him to come back and fight. He says, “I can whip you and your whole family!” But then hundreds of rabbits surround him with their dukes up, and that’s the end.
The next appearance of what would soon officially become Bugs Bunny was in the 1940 car-toon “Elmer’s Candid Camera.” The animation and colour are really kicked up in quality above the previous stories. In this story, Elmer is just a photographer and not a threat and yet Bugs tortures him anyway. Elmer finds Bugs sleeping and sets up the camera. Bugs gets behind him and asks what he’s taking pictures of. Elmer says, “A rabbit”. “What rabbit?” Elmer sees there’s no rabbit. Bugs walks away bent over like Groucho Marx. Elmer tries to photograph a squirrel but Bugs snaps the lens like an elastic and sends Elmer flying into an apple tree and he gets covered in apples. Elmer gets mad and snags Bugs in a butterfly net. Bugs pretends he’s panicking from being trapped and faints. Elmer begins to cry and takes the net off, but then Bugs puts the net on him. Elmer loses his mind and starts raving about rabbits, then he jumps into the lake. Bugs puts on a full-body striped lifeguard’s swimsuit and jumps in to save him. On the shore, Bugs asks how he is and after repeating it and getting Elmer’s absolute certainty that he’s fine, Bugs kicks him back into the water.
The next appearance of the rabbit in “The Wild Hare” in 1940 is considered to be the first official appearance of Bugs Bunny. Elmer tells the audience to be very very quiet because he is hunting rabbits. He finds a rabbit hole and puts out a carrot as bait. A hand grabs the carrot. Elmer puts his gun down the hole but it comes out tied in a knot. Elmer begins digging to get in the hole. Bugs comes out of another hole, knocks on Elmer’s head, and then uses his famous catchphrase “What’s up doc?” for the first time. Elmer tells him there’s a rabbit down there. It takes a while for Elmer to realize he’s talking to the rabbit. Elmer follows him around a tree. Bugs comes up behind, puts his hands over Elmer's eyes, and says, “Guess who”. Elmer guesses various hot actresses of the day like Hedy Lamar and Barbara Stanwick. When he guesses “Olivia De Havilland,” Bugs says he’s getting warmer. When Elmer asks if he’s that screwy rabbit Bugs gives him a kiss on the lips. Bugs goes down a hole, Elmer sticks his head down and gets kissed again.
Elmer sets a trap with a carrot as bait. Elmer reaches in and grabs a skunk but doesn’t look at it. He sees Bugs standing nearby and tells him he finally caught him. Then Bugs kisses him again as Elmer sees the skunk. Bugs says he’ll give him one good shot. Elmer fires and Bugs goes through another dramatic death scene. Elmer starts to cry and calls himself a murderer. While he’s hugging a tree and crying, Bugs comes up behind and after a big windup kicks him halfway up the tree. Elmer runs off ranting about rabbits.
The final episode I watched, from 1941 was called “All This and Rabbit Stew” and it was extremely racist. It shows the highly caricatured stereotype of a black boy hunting for rabbits. His manner of speaking is also stereotypical and I can’t imagine this being shown anywhere nowadays. The gags would have been funny with any ordinary predator. The boy sticks his gun down the rabbit hole and we see Bug’s hand raise in surrender. The boy tells him to march and the hole moves and then goes up a tree. The hunter fires and destroys the tree but Bugs is lying on top of the gun and asks, “What’s up doc?” Bugs pulls the boy’s hat over his head and then dives into the ground and swims away like it’s water. The hunter asks Bugs which way he went and Bugs points. Bugs goes down a hole but the hunter uses a plunger and sucks him out. Then Bugs tickles him and gets away. The hunter chases him and grabs his tail as he goes down a hole but pulls up a skunk. He chases Bugs into a dark cave and thinks he’s caught him but it’s a bear. Later the hunter fires at Bugs and the buckshot follows him like a guided missile in and out of several holes. The hunter chases Bugs into a hollow log which Bugs spins around so the end is over a cliff. The hunter runs out into the air and panics, then runs back into the log but Bugs spins it again and the hunter is once again in the air. He gets back in the log but it happens again and this time he falls. Bugs thinks it’s over but then the hunter appears covered in bandages with his gun aimed at Bugs at close range. Then there is another racist moment as Bugs shakes some dice in his hand and suddenly the black hunter is tempted into a game of craps. Bugs wins and walks away wearing the hunter’s clothes, carrying his gun and talking like him while the hunter stands naked and says, “Well, call me Adam!”
This story was withheld from television viewing and considered one of the “Censored Eleven”. This referred to a group of Loonie Tunes cartoons that were deemed inappropriate for audiences.
It took me almost an hour to rename half the Bugs Bunny files with the years in front. It tired me out and I went to bed at 0:30, which is earlier than I’ve done lately.
I searched for bedbugs before bed and for the third night in a row I didn’t find any.
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