Burt Ward

            On Saturday morning I woke up fifteen minutes after the alarm went off at 5:00. I had gone to bed at 2:15 and so it’s understandable that my body wouldn’t want to wake up. I cut a lot of corners during yoga and wound up finishing about the same time as usual. A lot of yoga is holding poses and relaxing so I just treated the poses more like exercises this time to save time. 

            I worked out the chords for the fifth line of “A Cannes cet été” (To Cannes This Summer) by Boris Vian. 

            I revised my translation of “Variations sur le même t'aime” (Variations on the Usual I Love You) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through singing and playing it in English, then I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and began preparing it for publication. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. The laryngitis has diminished to some degree. I was not croak-talking the lyrics like yesterday and now it sounded more like croak-singing. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to No Frills where I bought five bags of red grapes, a pack of raspberries, bananas, a carton of spoon size shredded wheat, two containers of skyr, a bag of regular Miss Vickie’s chips and another of the sweet chili kind. 

            For lunch I had Cheez-it crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

            I took a siesta and slept 38 minutes longer than usual so I decided not to take a bike ride. Instead I spent some time flushing the wax out of my ears. 

            I weighed 85.85 kilos at 17:15. I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I finished the first frame of the second animated rainbow wave for the video I’m creating for my song “Seven Shades of Blues”. I started working on the second frame by cutting a narrow vertical section from the left side of the first frame, moving the rest of the frame into its space and then pasting the left section into the now empty space on the right. I worked on filling in the background of the second frame but wasn’t finished when the time allotted ran out. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my October 1 song practice I synchronized the audio with the video. Then I copied the project and saved it as “Vomit of the Star Eater (acoustic). I started cutting out everything before the beginning of the final take of that song. There were a lot of takes of “Vomit of the Star Eater” that day so I’m not sure I got to the beginning of the final take before dinner. I’ll work on it tomorrow. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with Italian sausage pasta sauce, salami, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 5 and 6 of Batman. This is a two part story. 

            In part 1, the Joker is a convict in Gotham State prison and he’s playing the position of pitcher in a softball game. At one point however the catcher secretly switches balls and tosses the new one to Joker. The Joker throws the ball and the batter hits it, causing a smoke bomb explosion under the cover of which a springed platform under the pitcher’s mound flings Joker over the wall into a waiting net and he escapes. Under the platform is found a bust of Joker mounted on a pedestal. Batman thinks it’s a clue that Joker is plotting something in a museum. That day is scheduled the opening in the museum of a Comedians Hall of Fame from which the Joker has been excluded. Batman and Robin rush to the museum where they find that a Joker sculpture has been included after all. They go looking for the museum director to find out why. But after the heroes leave the exhibit there is a small explosion and Joker emerges from inside of his own statue. Then he calls for his cronies and they emerge from the other statues, including that of Ernie Kovacs, who died four years before this episode aired. The Joker and his gang are now inside of a museum that is impossible to break into but once inside it is the Joker’s candy store. He and his gang head for the precious jewels exhibit. Batman can’t find the director and suddenly realize that maybe the Joker is already inside the museum. Batman cuts open the lock to get back inside. Batman and Robin confront the Joker while he and his men are pilfering precious gems. There follows the usual fight with visible boldly written sound effects. But a sword falls from the wall onto Batman’s head, knocking him out, and Robin is also captured. The dynamic duo are being carried away when Batman wakes and removes a smoke bomb from his utility belt that turns the tables. All of Joker’s gang are captured but Joker escapes. He swears he will never be foiled by Batman’s utility belt again. Later in his amusement park hideout the Joker reveals to the rest of his gang, including the beautiful Queenie, his own utility belt. He says it’s his Aladdin’s lamp and Queenie makes a wish on it for a two week ocean cruise. That gives Joker the idea for his next crime. The SS Gotham luxury liner is going to be launched by Batman and Robin on Saturday. He plans to steal the ship and hold it for ransom. Later a clown doll is thrown through Commissioner Gordon’s window. Batman thinks it means that Joker is planning something at the live telecast of Pagliacci at the Gotham City Opera. Later we see the Pierrot performing the aria in a mask. Batman and Robin interrupt the performance to unmask the Joker. The Joker uses sneezing powder from his new utility belt on the crimefighters and while they are sneezing they are captured by Joker’s gang. Now Joker plans to unmask Batman on live television, and that’s the cliffhanger. 

            In part 2, Batman is about to be unmasked when he tosses a flash bomb up to set off the sprinklers. For some reason that foils the Joker’s plan though it’s hard to see why since it’s only water. Joker uses a smoke bomb to escape to the catwalk. Batman climbs to intercept him but Joker throws confetti that wraps around Batman to confine him and the Joker gets away. The news report asks if the Joker is making fools of Batman and Robin. Then the Joker and Queenie highjack the news show. Joker asks Batman what is wrong with this sentence: “He who laughs last laughs good”. The real quote ends in “best” but Alfred points out that grammatically the correct ending is “well”. Batman concludes that it is a clue about Professor Laughwell’s collection of African masks. Batman and Robin go to the warehouse where they find Joker and his gang stealing the artefacts. There is a fight at close quarters and then Joker and his cronies run away. Batman throws a bomb after them from his belt but it produces confetti and he realizes that while he was wrestling with the Joker, their utility belts were switched. Later Joker puts a special cork into a bottle of champagne that will be used for the boat christening. At the christening Queenie hands the bottle to Batman. Something about the bottle makes Batman take a special capsule and he tells Robin to do so as well. When Batman breaks the bottle on the boat, a gas is emitted that causes everyone, including the heroes to collapse. The Joker’s gang carries Batman and Robin away. Later Joker hijacks another telecast and says the ownership of the SS Gotham must be handed to him or he will have Batman and Robin beheaded on live television. But suddenly Batman and Robin reveal they were only pretending to be affected by the gas. When they analyzed Joker’s utility belt they found traces of the gas and knew then to prepare for it. Batman also recognized that the champagne was fake. There is another fight, this time in a storm of confetti. 

            Robin was played by Burt Ward, who as a teenager was an accomplished athlete, martial artist, chess player, and math student. He was clocked as the world’s fastest reader with 90% comprehension. He was referred to as a boy wonder before playing the Boy Wonder on TV. He became one of the youngest real estate agents in the US. When he tested to play Robin he was already friends with Bruce Lee through martial arts. Playing Robin was his first acting job. He often did his own stunts and was sent to the emergency room dozens of times. He also did the voice of Robin for several animated features. Years later when Burt was showing off his million dollar costume at Harvard, a group of Harvard students staged a Batman villain style theft of the costume, which after taking photos they returned to him. The leader of the gang was Conan O’Brien. Ward and his wife created Gentle Giants, the largest dog rescue in the world. They’ve rescued more than 15,500 dogs. They also have a popular brand of Gentle Giants dog food. His autobiography is entitled “Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights”. He operates the Boy Wonder Visual Effects Company. He recorded “Orange Coloured Sky” and “Boy Wonder I Love You” with Frank Zappa. He co-starred in the movies Virgin High and Robot Ninja.