I revised my translation of “Mon Légionnaire” by Raymond Asso. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it and then I’ll upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog.
I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions.
Around midday I went to No Frills where I bought seven bags of grapes, a pint of strawberries, three mangoes, some vine tomatoes, a pack of cherry tomatoes, three bags of imperfect avocadoes, dental floss, a jug of Garden Cocktail, and two jugs of orange juice. I forgot to buy bananas.
I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch. I had a salad with cherry tomatoes, avocadoes, and lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 85.7 kilos at 17:45.
I was caught up on my journal at 18:45.
I worked on my Critical Summary, mostly finding alternative translations of parts of “Pearl” from the Middle English.
I had the usual tomato, avocado, cucumber, and scallion, with lemon juice salad with a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching season 2, episode 21 of Burke’s Law.
A wealthy businessman, Monty Crippen, nicknamed the Fat Cat, is throwing a big costume party when suddenly he drops dead. George in the lab says it was cyanide. They have Crippen’s cigarette case, lighter, and toothpick box. Crippen was a major stockholder in four corporations. He was rated highly with Dun and Bradstreet. The presidents of the four corporations were Waldo Nicely, Beaulah Brothers, Artemis Newpenny, and Laurel Peachey. In 1943 Crippen was arrested for suspicion of black marketeering and there was half a million $ involved but no conviction. Burke goes to Peachey’s company which seems to be some sort of spa. He finds Peachey upside down on a trapeze in her office. Her father was in the circus and then worked for Crippen. Her company started in the carnival as she worked as a living statue on the midway. Burke says Crippen walking away with all the profits could be a motive. Burke gets a call that Les is in the emergency hospital from cyanide poisoning. He hadn’t even left Burke’s office. The four presidents were just figureheads who didn’t profit from the profits. Crippen had complete control. In his office Burke sees several chewed toothpicks in his ashtray and sends them to the lab. George says the toothpicks are the murder weapon and also what poisoned Les. The toothpicks were handmade from chokecherry wood, which is a natural source of cyanide. Burke goes to see Crippen‘s ex-partner Swifty Piedmont. He whittles and runs a merry-go-round at a park. Swifty is also a pickpocket. Crippen tricked him out of his money in the black market deal. He says Crippen was worth killing. Burke goes to Artemis Newpenny’s company Think Inc and in the waiting area there is no receptionist’s desk. A sexy voice comes over the speaker asking, “Yes? What did you have in mind? Have you come here with a thought? When Burke states his identity Newpenny tells him to come in. It’s a very high tech place for the mid 60s with sliding automatic doors. Newpenny used to run a midway carnival game. Les gets out of the hospital and accompanies Tim to the company Yppep where they see a group of fake First Nations warriors do an appropriated dance to advertize an elixir called Yppep. They meet the President Beaulah Brothers. She says everybody hated Crippen. She drinks some Yppep and suddenly her voice starts to slur. She was also in the carnival with Crippen. She did a flesh act and made everybody’s costumes. She still makes her own clothes like the leopard dress she’s wearing. Yppep has chokecherries. They used to sell the same elixir in the carnival. Beaulah says she was married to Crippen. Peachey was one of his side girls. All the companies had access to the chokecherry grove. Burke visits the lingerie company Lace Inc. and meets Waldo Nicely. Waldo plays a shell game with Burke for $50. Burke picks the right one and grabs it before Waldo can pull the fast hand. Waldo is very confrontational and takes off his jacket to challenge Burke. Burke wants to know how Crippen turned a small carnival into four big corporations. Waldo takes a swing and Burke knocks him out. Burke has Tim spend all night going over Crippen’s financial books. The black market $450,000 was passed back and forth between each company. Burke goes back to Newpenny and tells him he knows he killed Crippen after the money came back to Think Inc. Newberry attacks Burke with a knife but Burke stops him with a judo throw.
Beulah was played by Martha Raye, who was born backstage in a vaudeville theatre in Butte, Montana according to one source or the local hospital in Butte, Montana according to another. Her parents were Vaudeville performers in the act “Reed and Hopper”. Martha was performing onstage with her parents before the age of ten. In her late teens she was singing with a big band and was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout in 1934. Her Broadway debut was in Calling All Stars. Her first feature film was Rhythm on the Range. From 1936 to 1939 she was a featured cast member of Al Jolson’s radio show. She appeared in several comedy films and started becoming well known. She popularized the phrases “Oh Boy!” and “Yeah Man!”. During the war she was dedicated to touring and performing for the troops and became so popular for her patriotism that she earned the nickname Colonel Maggie. In her full career she was considered to be the female Bob Hope because of her many tours to entertain the troops from WWII, to Korea, to Vietnam. She often also served as a nurse on these trips. She was the first female member of the Friars Club. She was nicknamed Bigmouth. Bill Clinton gave her a Green Beret and made her an honorary Lieutenant Colonel. She is the only woman buried in the Special Forces Cemetery at Fort Bragg. She sued Bette Midler and the producers of “For the Boys” for ripping off her life but she lost. She could barely read and her scripts had to be read to her. She was afraid of flying and the only way she could do it was to get very drunk first. Her behaviour on these flights led to her being refused service by some airlines. In 1954 she starred in the sitcom The Martha Raye Show co-starring Rocky Graziano. She co-starred in the movie Pufnstuf and the children’s TV series The Bugaloos.
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