Susan Bernard

            On Monday morning I memorized the second verse of "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the second verse of "Vieille Canaille" (Old Rascal) by Serge Gainsbourg and made more adjustments to my translation. 

            I weighed a whopping 87 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning this year, and 1.3 kilos heavier than last year. 

            I composed my cover letter to send to Ekstasis Editions: 

            Dear Richard Olafson, This letter accompanies my exclusive submission to Ekstasis Editions of the forty page manuscript for my book of poems "Paranoiac Utopia." These poems are inspired by one of the most unique communities in the world, Toronto's own village of Parkdale. It's unique in many ways but particularly because it is where the Mad Pride movement began. My poems touch on its vibrant street life, its kaleidoscopic blend of cultures, accompanied by a peripheral Greek chorus of its discarded population of the mentally ill. My own background as a poet is somewhat unique in that I was raised on a farm in New Brunswick, where I began writing, but in my mid teens I ran away and suddenly immersed myself in the Canadian inner city experience. For many years I lived and wrote on the streets of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In 1993 I joined the spoken word community in Toronto. That year I started my own weekly reading series called "The Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy" which ran for seven years, mostly on the frontier of Parkdale at the Gladstone Hotel. In 1994 I formed the band Christian and the Lions, which featured my poetry in song form. In the latter half of the 90s I organized two annual poetry slams: "20,000 Poets Under the League" and "Slamnation." I also put out two hand made chapbooks: "Vomit of the Star Eater" and "Adventures in Standing Still." I am currently a fourth year English Specialist at U of T and have studied poetry under George Elliott Clarke and Albert Moritz, the latter course being Albert's Poetry Master Class. Albert Moritz has been kind enough to help with the editing of my manuscript and he has put Ekstasis Editions at the top of the list of publishers for submitting my book. I think that this book would complement some of your previous publications, such as "Homeless Memorial" by John La Greca and "The Big Thirst" by Jim Christy. The former because of its invocation of the spirit of the street and the latter because of its grit. Thank you for having a publishing house that receives the work of poets to consider for publication. I hope that you'll consider mine and I look forward to your response. 

            In their submission instructions they say to send the manuscript with a stamped return envelope and so they may not accept email submissions. But they don't say they don't accept email submissions so I sent my cover letter and my manuscript as two attachments in an email. If I find out they want it by mail I'll have to buy more paper. I haven't even had to submit paper essays at U of T for four years because everyone wants to save paper. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta and slept half an hour longer than usual. But I managed to get ready and leave for my bike ride downtown only fifteen minutes later than usual. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 17:15.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. I tried to solve the delay problem of hearing my guitar in Ableton. I followed a tutorial and a lot of what I learned last year about Ableton came back to me. I was able to hear the guitar but not without a delay. I learned that Windows drivers can't diminish the delay and that I needed an ASIO driver. I followed a link and tried to download one but ended up downloading a driver manager app which I had to uninstall. Then I saw that I did have an ASIO driver for my Scarlett interface and when I switched to it the buffer size went way down, which is supposed to cure the delay, but then I couldn't hear the guitar at all again. Also Ableton crashed once and I had to restart it. I had to stop trying to figure it out so I could have dinner. I'll try again tomorrow. Hopefully I can get this set up properly for recording so I don't have to waste my time like this. I've got other things to work on like finishing the video for my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and two hot Italian sausages while watching season 9, episodes 12 and 13 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Jed finally learns why Granny is so afraid of Mark being with Elly. She thinks a Naval Frogman is frog from the navel down. Jed brings Granny to the pool so she can see Mark remove his flippers and his wetsuit, so now she knows Mark is human. Now she's back to being obsessed with Mark marrying Elly. Mark announces that he's leaving the Navy to work full time on his oceanography project with the help of Jed's $48 million cheque. Mark goes to the bank to open a special account but when he gets there he sees that Drysdale has already elected himself treasurer. Mark tells him Jed will be president and he's made himself treasurer. Mark was going to put the money in the Commerce Bank but in view of Drysdale's attitude he's going to put it in another bank. Drysdale takes off his jacket to challenge Mark to a fight and tells him to take off his jacket. He does so and Drysdale tells him to step outside. Then Drysdale sends Jane out to fight him and closes the office door. A minute later Drysdale brings Mark's jacket to him and apologizes. Mark leaves and then Drysdale reveals to Jane that he picked Marks pocket and removed the cheque for $48 million. Drysdale has sunk so low in her eyes that Jane decides to resign. She gives Helen Thompson her job as Drysdale's secretary. Drysdale asks Jane where she'll find another man like him to work for. She says, "It won't be easy. Most of them are behind bars". Jane says she's going to retire to the beach and watch the grunion invasion. The grunion are little fish that appear certain times of the year. Jane shows him a newspaper headline about the invasion. 

            Drysdale decides the only way to stop Mark from getting Jed's money is a devious full Iago plan. He dresses in his fake Navy uniform and goes to see Jed. He shows Jed the newspaper headline about the Grunion invasion and makes Jed believe that the Grunion are human invaders from another country. He also makes Jed believe that Mark is a coward for resigning from the Navy at a time when his country is being invaded. Jed decides he and his family are grabbing their guns and heading for the beach to fight the Grunion invasion.

            In the second story the Clampetts are getting ready to head for the beach to fight the grunions when Jane pulls up in a dune buggy. She says she's taken a little place at Malibu and they can use it for their headquarters. The Clampetts arrive in Malibu and build a sand fort facing the beach. Jed looks at the ocean through a little telescope and thinks that a lone surfer he spies is a Grunion scout. Then Jane finds them and when Jed tells her their plan to fire on the Grunion she explains that they have to be captured by hand. They ask what to do with them after one captures them and she says they make a delicious dinner but it takes twelve of them to make a meal. Jed thinks she means they are good cooks but it takes a lot of them to serve up a dinner. Jed sees more surfers and thinks the invasion has started. One of the surfers lands on the beach and Elly goes down to confront him. She asks if he's a Grunion and he says no but she insists that he is and flips him. She won't let him up until he confesses to be a Grunion and so he does. Even Elly has turned into an asshole in this last season. Elly takes him prisoner and brings him back to the camp. Jethro asks for food but Granny says he can't have anything until he's done like Elly and captured a Grunion. Jethro finds a girl on the beach who says she's hungry. Jethro tells her if she's a Grunion then they can have a feast and so she says she is. He carries her back to camp. 

            The girl on the beach was played by Sue Bernard, who was the daughter of renowned Hollywood photographer Bruno Bernard who invented the pin-up and who took many early and later photos of Marilyn Monroe including the famous shot of her with her dress being blown up by the air rising from a subway grating. She claimed to have been the first Jewish Playboy Playmate of the month in the December 1966 issue, but Cindy Fuller appeared seven and a half years earlier. Sue co-starred in "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill" and was a regular on two seasons of General Hospital. She has written six books, mostly about her personal experiences growing up in Hollywood and meeting so many big stars through her father. She's also curated books of her father's photographs and written a book about motherhood.