Carmen Miranda

            On Tuesday morning I was adding information to a document that indicates the changes that I’ve made to my Paranoiac Utopia poetry manuscript since submitting it to Exile Editions, when Windows crashed. The message was “There is a problem with your device and it needs to restart.” This happened last night too. I lost between five and ten minutes both times. 

            I finished singing and playing my translation of “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) by Boris Vian and so now it’s ready to be uploaded to Christian’s Translations. I’ll do that tomorrow. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Negusa Nagast” (King of Kings) by Serge Gainsbourg, ran through it in French and English, and then uploaded it to Christian’s Translations. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before breakfast. 

            I called the Ontario Seniors Dental Program because I’d received a notice that I was ineligible this year because my net income is past the limit. I told the person I think their criterion is very unfair because what pushed me over the limit is the grants that I get to pay for university courses. I can’t very well use those to pay for dental work. I also get $2500 a year from the Ministry of Housing to help pay my rent. I said it’s ironic that it’s because I receive benefits for someone with a low income that I’m considered to have too high an income for the dental program. The woman was sympathetic but told me the income ceiling is set and there is no appeal process. She said the only thing I could do is to get my MPP to push to change the legislation so the criteria for the program are fairer. 

            Around midday, I used an old toothbrush to clean between the ribs of the radiator at the eastern end of my kitchen. It was difficult work because it’s in an awkward corner. Most of the dirt is accumulated at the bottom curve between each set of ribs. I think some of the stuff I dug out is cat hair that accumulated between 1998 and 2016. I still have to do at least one more session with a brush. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back and it was a very hot day. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos at 17:00. I was caught up in my journal at 18:12. 

            I reviewed six videos from June 22 to June 27 of me playing my song “Megaphor”. On June 22 the audio recording on Ableton was the second one of two that had crackling. I think all the ones after this day came out clean. It’s a shame because my last run-through of the song wasn’t bad. On June 23, I found the right camera position so the pop blocker was not in the way and I was centred properly from left to right. This was a pretty good performance. Maybe the best so far. June 24 wasn’t bad but I think I hit the B chord wrong a couple of times. On June 25 for some reason, the camera was out of focus. This was the only day when it was like that and I don’t think I did anything any different with the camera. I hit the B chord wrong a couple of times anyway. On June 26 I was off on the B chord a few times. On June 27 the light was great and I looked good but I hit the B chord wrong at least once. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”, I finished editing the clip from the movie Poltergeist of the child being touched by the electricity in the shape of a skeletal hand coming out of the TV screen. I inserted it into the main video just after I sing, “But the voltage in the screen …” and while I’m singing, “,,, is not the voltage in the human being.” Next, I need to try to synchronize the concert video and the studio audio when I sing, “So let’s meditate now on the golden mean of shock therapy.” 

            I wrote a letter to my MPP Bhutila Karpoche to ask her to push for a change in legislation regarding the income ceiling for qualifying for the Seniors Dental Program, but I didn’t put it in an email yet. I saw a link to her email earlier today so I’ll send it tomorrow. 

            It was too hot to use the stove, so for dinner, I had a cold chicken leg with potato chips, salsa, yogourt, and a beer. Then I had a glass of homemade iced tea. 

            I watched four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1947. 

            In the first story a gossip columnist named Lola Beverly goes with a film crew to the palatial home of the latest Hollywood star, Bugs Bunny. Despite the mansion and the swimming pool, Bugs still lives in a hole in the ground. He tells Lola the story of his humble beginnings on the east side of New York City. In the flashback, we see Bugs in a straw hat and wearing a big, red bowtie, while tap dancing down the street as he sings “The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady.” He encounters a gang of tough dogs who start picking on him but he quickly turns the tables as he tends to do. They pile on him but he winds up on top. Only the big bulldog leader pursues Bugs now. He chases him through the Stork Club, which is full of storks. Bugs stops in front of a coin-operated pie dispenser and asks the dog for a nickel, then he gets a pie and puts it in the dog’s face. The dog follows Bugs to the top of a skyscraper where Bugs pulls out a fetching stick and the dog begins to jump and bark in excited anticipation. Bugs throws it off the roof and the dog goes after it and falls. He catches hold of a clothes line but then on the line above it a pair of red long johns rolls and stops. Bugs pokes his head from the bum flap and while reciting “This little piggy” unfolds the dog’s grip. Next, the dog gang reunites and corners Bugs in a blind alley near a magazine stand. Bugs grabs a book to defend himself but when he holds it up the dogs read that the cover says, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” Suddenly all the dogs run for Brooklyn. 

            In the second story, Bugs comes across a crying Easter Bunny who says his feet are killing him but he still has all of the eggs to deliver. Bugs says he’ll do it for him. After Bugs leaves, the Easter Bunny says, “Every year I get some dumb bunny to do my work for me.” Bugs’s first stop is a shabby house with a sign reading Dead End Kid. Inside he finds a mean little kid sucking on a gun like a baby bottle. Bugs gives the kid an Easter Egg but the kid smashes it in Bugs’s face, then he bites him in the leg. The boy beats Bugs with wrestling moves and then Bugs grabs the kid’s arm. The kid shouts, “He broke my little arm!” and suddenly three gigantic adults with guns have Bugs surrounded. Bugs es-capes in a hail of gunfire. When Bugs tries to take the eggs back to the Easter Bunny, but he says, “You’ll give the Easter Bunny a bad name!” Bugs says he already has a bad name for the Easter Bunny but he’ll try again. The next stop is Elmer Fudd’s house where Elmer is planning on having Easter Rabbit stew. Elmer pretends to be a baby in a stroller. Bugs gives him an egg but smashes it in his hands. Elmer digs a pit trap and Bugs falls in. Then Elmer fills the pit with water but Bugs buoys up on a raft and floats downstream into a hollow log. Elmer follows but they emerge together from the tunnel of love in each other’s arms. Elmer goes after Bugs with a gun. As Bugs is running, the Easter Bunny trips him and reminds him he has eggs to deliver. The next few houses either have Elmer and his gun or the mean little kid. Finally, Bugs paints Elmer’s head like an Easter egg and calls to the mean kid who jumps on Elmer with a hammer. Then Bugs leaves one last Easter egg for the Easter Bunny. It explodes and leaves the Easter Bunny hanging over a tree limb. 

            The third story has another race between Bugs Bunny and Cecil the Turtle. This time Cecil’s secret weapon is that he has a jet engine inside his shell. While they are racing Bugs gets a postcard from Cecil in Chicago. Cecil then gets a package in Chicago and Bugs is inside. Bugs kisses him and starts running. Cecil gets in his jet shell and takes off, but Bugs steals the shell and uses it himself. The shell breaks down and Cecil fixes it to suddenly leave in it. But Bugs is riding on his back and pours water in the engine. Cecil fixes it but Bugs pours on the speed of his own legs and crosses the finish line. Cecil says you must have been traveling mighty fast. Bugs says he was going 100. Cecil tells the cops to take Bugs away for speeding. 

            The fourth story takes place in a fancy restaurant in Hollywood called the Mocrumbo. The place is full of Hollywood stars. One of them is Frank Sinatra who is seen drinking a cocktail with a straw. In those days he had a reputation for being very thin and so the joke is that after he sucks on the straw, the straw sucks back and he is drawn inside. Humphrey Bogart calls Elmer Fudd the waiter to his table and demands fried rabbit but Elmer says they are out. Bogart puts a machine gun on the table and then says he wants a rabbit in twenty minutes or else. Elmer finds Bugs in the kitchen under a pile of carrots. Elmer tells him Bogart wants to have him for dinner. Bugs is excited until he learns that he’s on the main course. Bugs escapes to the dining area where he hides among the Marx Brothers dis-guised as Groucho. But Elmer is disguised as Harpo with a meat cleaver. Bugs runs away hunched over like Groucho. Then Carmen Miranda comes out and sings “Sambaiana” with Bugs inside of her hat feasting on the fruit. Then Bugs does a solo Samba dance. Bugs goes back to the kitchen where Elmer comes at him with a meat cleaver. Suddenly Bugs is a waiter and calls for a lemon marengo pie. Elmer prepares it and Bugs smashes it in Elmer’s face. Then Bugs calls for a banana cream pie and Elmer gets that in the face. Then Bugs calls for a custard pie with whipped cream but Elmer is wise to him. He throws the pie at Bugs but misses and hits Humphrey Bogart. Bogart gives him five more minutes to get the rabbit. The time is up but Elmer says he doesn’t have one. Bogart reaches into his jacket and Elmer thinks he’s going for a gun but it’s a handkerchief. Bogart says Baby will just have to have a ham sandwich instead. Bugs exclaims “Baby?” then he runs and jumps on a plate on Bogart’s table in front of Lauren Bacall and offers himself. 

            Carmen Miranda did her own voice. She was born in Portugal but her parents moved to Brazil when she was one year old. As a teenager, she worked in a hat boutique, learned the craft of making hats and then opened her own shop. Her father beat her when he learned that she had auditioned for a radio show. She recorded her first single, “Não vá Simbora” at the age of twenty. Her second single, "Prá Você Gostar de Mim" sold a record 35,000 copies in 1930. She signed a two-year contract with RCA Victor in 1930, giving them exclusive rights to her image. She was the first Brazilian to have a radio contract and the highest-paid Brazilian singer at that time. In the early 1930s, she became a star in Brazilian musical films. In 1939 she was offered to perform in “The Streets of Paris” on Broadway but would only do so if her Brazilian band could back her. Her performances made the show and she began to become a New York sensation, gaining the nickname “The Brazilian Bombshell.” When news of this new star reached Hollywood she was cast in the 1940 film “Down Argentine Way” and it was a big hit. She was criticized by Brazilians for making Brazilian women look like Bimbos and also for singing black salsas. When returned to Brazil she was upset by the public reaction and didn’t return for 14 years. But in the United States she became a superstar and in 1945 was the highest paid entertainer in the United States. In the late 1940s, her film career waned but her recording career was still successful and she was an extremely popular nightclub act. 

            Before bed I searched for bedbugs but found none for the second night in a row.