I finished working out the chords for “Au charme non plus” (The Charm is Gone) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and then I think I might need to revise my translation a little more.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. I ran through “Paranoiac Utopia” but fumbled a couple of times.
I weighed 86.75 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since November 8.
I spent about half an hour rehearsing “Paranoiac Utopia” but never made it all the way through without fumbling. I almost did once and it was smoothest take yet, up until I screwed up the finale.
I weighed 87.45 kilos before lunch. That’s the least I’ve tipped the scales since last Friday.
I was having chest pains during lunch and afterwards. I don’t think it was my heart because it didn’t get worse when I took a bike ride. It’s just anxiety over feeling that I don’t have enough time to fully prepare for my book launch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was very cold so it’s time to break out the long underwear for my next trip. I had to pee really bad as I was coming into my place and peed a bit on the floor near the toilet before I had a chance to aim.
I weighed 87.1 kilos at 18:00.
I was caught up on my journal at 19:08.
I spent over an hour rehearsing for my book launch and was able to get through “Paranoiac Utopia” in just a couple of takes. The rest of the time was spent re-learning “Memo to the Heart of Insecurity” and I managed to do a complete take of the song just before dinner. Hopefully I can make it through both songs plus “The Next State of Grace” as a set several times tomorrow so I can be ready for Sunday. The only time I have left to rehearse is Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching episodes 36 to 40 of Batfink.
In episode 36, a shipment of uncut diamonds is being transported by plane, but stowed away in a box among the others is The Human Pretzel. He grabs the diamonds and parachutes out. Batfink sends out his super sonar to find the thief while the Pretzel has closed his carnival and is about to mail himself to South America. Batfink finds him and the Pretzel knocks him out. He sets Batfink up behind a target in the ball throwing game and invites Karate to hit the target three times and win a teddy bear. Karate throws two baseballs and hits the target then The Pretzel hands him a spherical bomb to throw but he misses and the explosion merely rouses Batfink to consciousness. Pretzel tries to run but Batfink beans him with a baseball.
In episode 37, a jewellery store safe is opened by invisible thieves and the jewels appear to leave the store by themselves. The chief calls Batfink to the scene of the crime and as they ponder the mystery the chief slaps at a flea. Karate tries to step on it but Batfink stops him because it might be a clue. They follow the flea to a flea circus where all the other fleas are delivering the jewellery to their master Professor Hopper. The flea named Melvin is the last one to arrive and tells Hopper about being almost killed but saved by Batfink. Batfink arrives and Hopper has his fleas attack. Batfink and Karate are itching all over and rush for the water but Hopper has the fleas stretch out a rope to trip and knock the heroes out. They are tied to a target and Hopper aims a cannon at them. But the target tips over and the cannonball misses them because Melvin has returned the favour of Batfink saving his life.
In episode 38, Roz the Shnoz the human bloodhound is sniffing for valuables to steal in a fashionable district. She smells mink and money and takes them. The cops find no fingerprints but plenty of nose prints. Batfink follows his super sonar to Roz’s house but he does not know her and tells her there is a thief hiding in her house. She knocks out Karate and pulls a gun on Batfink. When bullets don’t work she says she gives up and the loot is in the closet. But when Batfink opens it he is buried and knocked out by items like appliances and furniture that had filled up the closet. She ties Batfink to a chair suspended over a fire and counterweighted by a sack of sand which she punctures so he is slowly lowered towards the fire. Then she leaves but outside Karate gives her a rose, but her nose is allergic to roses and explodes with a super sneeze that blows into her house and blows Batfink free of the fire at the last second. He puts golden handcuffs on Roz.
In episode 39, the Golden hand of Kara-Tay is on display at the Art Museum. Karate enters, smashes the case with a karate chop and escapes with the hand. But then he removes his mask and it is not Karate. The police chief wants to arrest Karate. Karate says the only person in the world who could have cut through ten cm glass with a karate chop is Spider the Spliitter who went to Karate school with Karate. Karate asks Batfink let him take the lead on this case because it's personal. Meanwhile Spider is about to melt down the hand so he can sell the gold to dentists. Batfink’s sonar finds Spider and then Karate enters his hideout. Then thinking his own reflection is Spider in disguise he attacks a mirror and knocks himself out. Then Batfink is captured by a clamp that pins his wings and suspends him on an overhead conveyor. Spider says he’s going to melt Batfink’s wings and sell them as auto bumpers. As the conveyor belt moves them to their doom, Batfink sends out a sonar beep that changes shape into a monkey wrench that is thrown into the cogs of the conveyor. Then he sends out another beep that closes the door of Spider’s blast furnace, causing it to overheat and explode, knocking Spider out.
In episode 40, the oldest bone ever found, the dinosaur wishbone is being shipped on a tour of museums. But its carriers are followed by the luckiest thief in the world, Lucky Chuck. The guards slip on a banana peel and the bone flies into the back of Chuck’s car. When Batfink finds Chuck’s hideout, Chuck shoots at the heroes and gets in a lucky shot that drops a chandelier on top of them, knocking them out. They are each tied to an arm of the wishbone with dynamite underneath. The dynamite explodes and Batfink and Karate are blown into the air. The bone is also still intact because according to Batfink, dynamite can’t destroy a petrified dinosaur bone. The bone lands on Chuck.
This episode was co-animated by Frank Endres, who started at Fleischer in 1930, where he worked adding colour to the inked celluloid sheets. He worked uncredited on the Betty Boop cartoons. His first credit as an animator was in 1940’s Popeye cartoon “Stealin’ Ain’t Honest”. He drew on Superman’s first animated film. After the war he animated Tom Johnson’s Popeye cartoons throughout their run.
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