I worked out the chords for the chorus of “Au charme non plus” (The Charm is Gone) by Serge Gainsbourg. I think the rest of the song is just repetitions of the chords of the first verse and the chorus but I’ll find out tomorrow.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. I ran through “Paranoiac Utopia” and fumbled about three times.
I weighed 87.55 kilos before breakfast.
Around midday I spent about half an hour practicing “Paranoiac Utopia”. It wasn’t until just before lunch that I managed to get through the song without a fumble throwing me off. It was a very sloppy take but the mistakes I made probably wouldn’t be noticed by most members of an audience.
I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride and noticed while I was downtown that my front flasher had run out of power. I had expected it to get dim first but it was quite bright when I started out. I stopped at Freshco on the way back. I bought four bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a sack of potatoes, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, a jug of orange juice, and pasta sauce with Italian sausage (Classico seems to have phased out the Basilica sauce as I haven’t seen it among their choices for a few weeks). I did a price match on the grapes with the Food Basics price and got them for less than half the Freshco price.
I weighed 86.95 kilos at 18:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since November 20.
I recharged both flashers even though it was only the white one that wasn’t working.
I spent about an hour re-learning “Memo to the Heart of Insecurity”. I can now play the first and second verses but not together yet. This song is definitely easier than “Paranoiac Utopia”.
I grilled four chicken legs and had one with a potato and gravy while watching episodes 31 to 35 of Batfink.
In episode 31, Professor Vibrato is a prisoner at police headquarters. He has fashioned a cello out of old cigar boxes and is giving the chief and an officer a concert. He plays a piece that paralyzes the cops and another to break through the walls of his cell. He goes to his hideout, which is an abandoned mining shaft at the peak of Clyde Mountain. Batfink flies to catch him but Vibrato turns him into a human tuning fork by vibrating his wings. Karate tries to climb up but Vibrato causes cracks to form on the mountain wherever he goes. Batfink tells him he’s played his last note but Vibrato says, “Oh man, you’re as wrong as Lennie Bernstein was when he threw me out of his group!” Vibrato opens up the mountain to swallow Batfink. But Batfink holds on and the crack lengthens to swallow Vibrato. Batfink saves him and then arrests him.
In episode 32, a tornado travels through town and is stripping everything such as the outer clothing from people’s bodies but it also sucks up the money from banks. It travels to a junk yard where we see the junkyard owner has generated the tornado with a machine he’s made from junk. When Batfink arrives in his Batillac to catch the crook the car is grabbed by a mechanical grabber crane. The owner offers Batfink $1.50 for the Batillac. He lets it drop and Batfink and Karate are thrown free. Then the owner begins shooting them with a cannon that shoots any kind of junk, like tires and appliances. Then the junkman uses his tornado machine to wrap Batfink in cable and drill him into the ground. But Batfink comes flying back up on a gusher of oil after puncturing a pipeline and lassos the junkman with his cable.
In episode 33, it’s payday at police headquarters and Greasy Gus uses his oilcan to cause the chief to slip and let go of his bag of money. The police now refuse to work until they’ve been paid. Batfink finds Gus at Gus’s Garage. Gus had been working on a car which he now lets drop on the heroes. But Batfink uses his wing as a jack to lift the car. Gus drops tires around Batfink and Karate to restrain them. Then Gus escapes in the car he was repairing but Batfink and Karate, although still restrained roll sideways after Gus. Gus stops on the edge of a cliff and greases the edge so that the heroes slip over to fall. But because of the grease Batfink is now able to slip free of the tires. After they land safely they leave an oil slick that Gus’s car skids on and they catch him.
In episode 34, at an exclusive auction the original manuscript of The Three Musketeers is being sold. But a masked and caped swordsman swings from the ceiling and grabs it. He carves the figure 0 with his sword. Batfink says it’s the mark of Zero. Batfink uses his super sonar to track Zero to the home of P.A. Minus but he doesn’t suspect that Minus and Zero are the same person. Minus welcomes Batfink and when he hears that Zero is in his home he says he will hide. Then he changes to Zero and swings a piano at Batfink then changes back to Minus. But then Batfink realizes that Plus and Minus equals zero and now knows they are one and the same. Zero knocks Batfink out and suspends him over a cauldron of boiling oil with a rope attached to a door. He then tells Karate that Batfink needs him with the plan that Karate will open the door and kill his own partner. But Karate opens the door the wrong way and frees Batfink. They capture Zero while he’s changing.
In episode 35, Swami Salami uses a rope trick to rise to a penthouse where he steals a box of precious jewels. Batfink and Karate find Salami who knocks them out with his crystal ball. Batfink and Karate are tied together with a snake that is squeezing tighter and tighter. Batfink uses his super sonar to make one of his beeps look like a snake that suddenly the real snake falls in love with and follows. Salami is captured.
Batfink was created and produced by Hal Seeger, who started as an animator for Fleischer Studios in the 1940s. He did animations for the Colour Classics series and for the short film Mr. Bug Goes to Town. He wrote the screenplays for live action films that targeted African American audiences such as Hi De Ho, Killer Diller, and Boarding House Blues. He formed Hal Seeger Productions and produced 100 Out of the Inkwell cartoons starring Koko the Clown. He created, produced and directed Milton the Monster, and Muggy Doo. He also produced Fearless Fly. He directed Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter.
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