Mari Blanchard

            On Monday morning I blog-published “Dreams in X-Ray”, my translation of “Amour puissance six” (Love to the Power of Six) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll post the lyrics on Facebook and then start learning the next Gainsbourg song on my list.

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in thirteen days. 

            I read chapter 8 of The Hobbit. Bilbo discovers that his dwarf companions have been captured by giant spiders. Using the magic ring to make himself invisible he uses his little sword, which he has named “Sting” to kill several spiders and free the dwarves. 

            I read most of chapter 8 of Bored of the Rings. Frito encounters Goddam, the parody of Gollum. So far he just seems to be a very annoying person who puts people to sleep with his incessant talking and knock-knock jokes.

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. I made guacamole with the last of my avocadoes and had it with potato chips. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            I read chapter 9 of The Hobbit. Bilbo’s dwarf companions have been captured by wood elves. Bilbo remains invisible and infiltrates their kingdom. He spends two weeks figuring out a possible plan of escape that is risky but the only option. Supplies come in barrels from other elf communities upriver and then the empty barrels are sealed and sent floating back downstream. During the night of an elf festival when everyone is drunk, Bilbo frees the dwarves, seals each one in a barrel and then the elves whose task it is to send the barrels into the river do so. Bilbo jumps in and hangs onto the last barrel. The river carries them all to the Lonely Mountain, which was their intended destination from the start of this mission. 

            I read chapter 9 of Bored of the Rings. Frito puts the ring around Goddam’s neck and pushes him into the tar pit. Fordor is destroyed and the mission is complete. 

            I heated frozen wedge fries and made chili out of black beans and salsa. I had the fries with some of the chili while watching episode 6 of Amos Burke: Secret Agent. 

            In Mexico an assassination attempt is made on the life of a labour leader named Pablo Vasquez. Wyatt the suspected assassin is in jail. Burke gets drunk and into a barfight, then ends up in the same cell as Wyatt. Then Pepe Delgado is thrown in the same cell and when he learns Wyatt is there he attacks him. Pepe knocks him out and then we see that Burke and Pepe are working together. While Wyatt is unconscious they feed him a radioactive pill so they can track him. Wyatt is released and so is Burke. Burke is accosted outside the jail by a reporter named Chrissie Keller. She tries to get a story but Burke won’t bark. Burke goes to see Pepe who has tracked Wyatt to the home of a wealthy industrialist named Maximillian Darvas. He tells Wyatt he needs to try to kill Vasquez again. Then he tells his houseguest Consuelo Martinez the matador they must get rid of Burke. A treaty between the US and Mexico is about to be signed but Vasquez is against it. If Vasquez is assassinated by someone from the US the treaty will not be signed. Burke goes to see Vasquez with a painting that Vasquez has been trying to acquire. Burke meets Mrs. Vasquez and Consuelo. Consuelo takes Burke out on the town. They watch an impressive fire dancer. 

            Burke reveals to Vasquez that he’s a US agent trying to keep him alive. It turns out another of Vasquez’s houseguests is Chrissie. She is about to share some information with Burke when she is shot and killed. That night at Vaquez’s birthday party Burke is dancing with Consuelo when a member of the band tries to kill Vasquez but Burke kills him. The assassin turns out to be Wyatt in disguise. 

            The next day Vasquez meets with Darvas and Consuelo. They are all in on the plot to discredit the US. It was meant to be a failed assassination by someone from the US but now Burke has saved him and ruined it. 

            Pepe is attacked and his cobalt pills are confiscated. Vasquez puts one in Burke’s drink. Burke is called away but his glass is now empty. Later Vasquez calls Burke and asks him over. Darvas injects Vasquez with a paralyzing drug and then sets a bomb on his desk that will react to the cobalt pill in Burke’s system and blow up when he approaches Vasquez. Consuelo tries to walk away from Darvas but he shoots her. Burke arrives to meet Vasquez but when he approaches his desk there is no explosion because Burke never drank the sherry. He dumped it in a cactus. Burke removes Vasquez from the house and then sets off a hand grenade. Darvas comes to see and ends up setting off the bomb. The villagers bring Consuelo’s body and blame Burke. They are about to attack when Consuelo calls out that it was not Burke’s fault. 

            Mrs. Vasquez was played by Mari Blanchard, who was paralyzed by polio as a child but worked hard to overcome it with competitive swimming. She ran away from home in her teens and became a trapeze artist in the circus. She became an advertizing model and was the inspiration for Al Capp’s character Stupifyin Jones. She co-starred in Back at the Front, The Veils of Bagdad, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Destry, Man Mad, Black Horse Canyon, Jungle Heat, and No Place to Land. She starred in She Devil and Machete. She co-starred in the TV series Klondike. She answered all of her own fan mail.