Michael Maltese

            On Saturday morning I ran through the song “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) by Boris Vian in French. Tomorrow I’ll play and sing it in English to see if everything is alright before I upload it to Christian's Translations. 

            I posted my translation of “Bana basadi balalo” (While All the Women Are Sleeping) by Serge Gainsbourg and listened to the recording I have of his song “Evguénie Sokolov” with the intention of singing along. But neither my recording nor any of the ones I could find online have him singing those lyrics. The song is an instrumental with fart noises. I assume the lyrics accompanied the song in text form on the album Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles. There are only six lines and so I memorized them and then posted my translation on Christian’s Translations. There are only two more Gainsbourg songs from 1981 for me to learn. I’ll start on the next one tomorrow. 

            For the first time in more than a month I didn’t record my song practice. It was nice to relax and get through all of the songs. Recording compels me to do songs over and over to get them right and that meant that the later songs on my daily list were only performed in shortened form for the last few weeks. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before breakfast. Around midday, I went down to No Frills where I bought five bags of grapes, a bunch of bananas, a large pack of ground beef, a carton of spoon-size shredded wheat, and a container of skyr. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. As I was on my way up Brock I saw ahead of me that there was a street festival on Bloor, so I turned on the street just south of Bloor and went to Dufferin, then turned back onto Bloor. On the way home I passed a woman preaching that some forms of entertainment are doorways to the devil. 

            I weighed 85 kilos at 17:00. I reviewed the first five video recordings of my song “Megaphor”. The first two were done during the time I was having the clipping problem while recording the audio. The third one on June 8 was audio-recorded with the Windows Voice Recorder of the old computer. The B chord sometimes sounded dissonant and near the end it was really off. On June 9 it was my first recording through the interface and on Audacity. This wasn’t bad. I hit the B chord properly almost every time. It was only really off once. On June 10 it was the first recording with the pop blocker but it was also a face blocker. I didn’t hit the B chord as solidly as the day before. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:35. 

            I imported the two video files of the Christian and the Lions concert at the Riot Gallery into Movie Maker and merged them into one movie. There’s a little pause at the seam but I don’t think it’s crucial at that point. Then I imported that movie back into Movie Maker and made a separate movie just of our performance of Instructions for Electroshock Therapy. Then I imported it into the main project of making a video for that song. I copied it to the end of the timeline and then removed the first half because I only want a clip of me singing the line, “Oh but the voltage on the screen is not the voltage in the human being” to replace where that part has become frozen in the main video. Tomorrow I’ll finish editing the clip and then inject it where I need it to try to synchronize it with the studio audio. 

            I continued going through the first file folder of my writing, separating the pages into non-poetic relationship stuff and everything else. I’m almost done with that folder. 

            I made pizza on a roti with marinara sauce, a cut-up beef burger, and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1945. 

            In the first story, Bugs is working for a department store in the sporting goods department as part of a display in which he hops around a campsite. At the end of the day, the manager tells him that the sale is over and that he has a new job in the taxidermy department as a stuffed rabbit. It takes a while for it to sink in but when it does, Bugs runs. The manager goes after him with a gun. Bugs gets hold of a gun too but it turns out to be only a pop gun. The manager says, “Kind of outsmarted you, eh little chum?” Bugs says, “You sound like that guy on the radio, “The Great Gildersneeze”. Bugs runs and the manager chases after him but he stops to serve a lady in the shoe department who turns out to be Bugs in drag. The manager begins to tickle her feet and bugs is tickled right out of his disguise. The manager chases Bugs through various departments and they come out each time wearing costumes related to those sections. But coming out of the lingerie department the manager is wearing a sheer bedroom outfit and Bugs Bunny is chasing him while barking like a dog. The manager chases Bugs to the stairs and he runs up. The manager takes the elevator and the operator is Bugs. After some elevator-stairs hijinx, the manager follows Bugs to the roof where Bugs directs the manager to another elevator door but there is only the shaft, so he falls. The manager returns and is cornering Bugs when Bugs says he read in a book about a big guy cornering a little guy, but suddenly behind the big guy is a monster. The manager turns and sees bugs making a hideous face, then he runs and jumps off the roof. Then Bugs looks in the mirror and jumps as well. 

            In the second story, Elmer Fudd has just purchased Bugs Bunny from a meat store because he wants to make rabbit stew. Bugs says, “He don’t know me very well, do he?” In the kitchen, Bugs rings a bell and Elmer thinks it’s the phone. Bugs uses the distraction to escape and he is outside the house but then decides this is too easy and that he has to go back in and harass Elmer. Bugs gets behind the radio and imitates a news announcer’s voice warning that all rabbits sold in the last three days have rabbititis. Now Elmer wants to get rid of Bugs but he refuses to leave. Elmer tries to avoid contact with Bugs. Bugs leaves but comes back in and points to a sign on the door that says the place is quarantined and no one may leave. Bugs touches Elmer and he runs to take a shower but Bugs says the water’s been turned off. Bugs knocks on the door and is disguised as Dr. Killpatient from the board of health. He says he wants to examine the rabbit. He tells Elmer that the symptoms of rabbititis include taking on rabbit characteristics. Elmer goes to look in the mirror but Bugs has removed the glass. He imitates everything Elmer does until he thinks he looks like a rabbit. Elmer chases Bugs out of the house with a gun. Bugs stops to point out to Elmer that the people in the audience are starting to look like rabbits too. Elmer runs back into the house. Then Bugs reassures the members of the audience that if they had rabbititis they’d see swirling spots. Spots appear and begin to swirl. Then everything would go black, and it does, because it’s the end. 

            In the third story, a train is going through the old west and Bugs is in the mail car, playing banjo and singing, “Peepin' through the knot-hole of Grandpa's wooden leg, who'll wind the clock when I am gone? Go get the ax there's a flea in Lizzie's ear and a boy's best friend is his mother // I fell from a window, a second-story window / Why do they build the shore so near the ocean? Who cut the sleeves out of Dear old daddy's vest? And dug up Fido's bones to build the sewer?” 

            We see a want-ed poster for Yosemite Sam, wanted for train robbery. Reward $5000. Then we see Sam standing on the track with both guns out, waiting to stop the train, but he is so short the train goes right over him. Sam whistles for his horse but has to get on it with a set of stairs. Sam gets on the train and starts to rob the mail car. Sam tells Bugs that he’s the meanest, toughest hombre what ever packed a six-shooter. Bugs says there’s a guy in the next car who says he’s the meanest, toughest, etcetera. Sam goes to confront him and it’s Bugs in a cowboy hat with seven-shooters. Sam says, “I’m giving ya one second to draw a gun” and so Bugs draws one on paper. Then Sam tries to show his drawing skills but he keeps crossing his work out. Bugs says it stinks. Sam chases Bugs through a train that seems to be empty except for the saloon car that has a live action scene from an old western movie. They have a shoot-out until Bugs pours red ink on Sam’s head and he thinks he’s been shot. Sam chases Bugs again and this time catches him on the top of the train. He ties Bugs up and hangs a weight from him and begins to cut the rope to let him be smashed on the rocks below. The announcer asks if this is the end for Bugs Bunny, but Bugs says, “He don’t know me very well, do he?” 

            In the fourth story, a news report says everyone is asking, “Where is Herman Gering?” Rumour has it that he is in his hunting lodge in the Black Forest. Gering is hunting when his dachshund points to a rabbit. Bugs pops out of the ground and sees the sign saying "Black Forest". He looks at his map and says, “I must’ve taken a wrong toin at Albuquoique.” Bugs asks Gering the way to Las Vegas and he is puzzled. Then Bugs says, “I know, ya take the road down to the first dachshund, turn left and ya can’t miss it.” Gering thanks him and starts to leave, then realizes there is no Las Vegas in Germany. Bugs says “Goimany? Yipe!” and goes down the hole. Then Gering starts ranting about how much he hates Hitler when Bugs puts dirt on his head and above his lip to resemble Hitler’s hair and mustache. Suddenly Gering is worshipful. Then we hear The Pilgrim’s Chorus and Bugs is dressed as Brunhilde and riding a horse. Gering dresses as Siegfried and they perform a dance. When Gering realizes it’s the rabbit he sends his falcon after him. Bugs goes down a hole and the falcon catches him in a sack. Gering takes him to Hitler saying it’s Bugsenheimer Bunny. But when they look in the bag both Hitler and Gering are terrified because Bugs looks like Joseph Stalin. 

            Herr Meets Hare was written by Michael Maltese, who started out as a cel painter at Fleischer Studios in 1935. In 1937 he was hired by Leon Schlesinger as an in-betweener and then promoted to storyman. His first writing credit was The Haunted Mouse in 1941. In 1949 he wrote the Academy Award-winning short “For Scentimental Reasons” featuring Pepé le Pew. He also wrote the public health documentary “So Much For So Little: which also won an Oscar the same year. He also did voice work and played the part of Mussolini in The Ducktators in 1942. He wrote “Fresh Hare, Hare Trigger”, the first story featuring Yosemite Sam. In 1953 he was hired by Walter Lantz to write several Woody Woodpecker cartoons, He also wrote the Academy Award-nominated Chilly Willy cartoon, “The Legend of Rockabye Point”. 

            I searched for bedbugs before bed and didn’t find any. I’m going to assume that the black thing I knocked out a crack but couldn’t find on the floor two days ago was a bedbug. Since it fell so easily it could have been very sick or even dead.