David Tendlar

            On Friday morning I finished memorizing “A Cannes cet été” (To Cannes This Summer) by Boris Vian. I did a quick search for the chords and there is at least one set. 

            I wasn’t quite able to finish memorizing “Variations sur le même t'aime” (Variations on the Usual I Love You) by Serge Gainsbourg but I should have it all in my head tomorrow. 

            It’s really hard to keep the humidity up with the heat on full blast in combination with the window being slightly open. The room fills up with moisture more quickly with the window shut but I can’t always do that. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            After breakfast I didn’t tidy up as I usually do but just got ready to take my guitar to the Twelfth Fret. I peed several times before leaving so I wouldn’t have to pee too soon on my bike ride out to Danforth and Woodbine. I usually stop at the Second Cup at Danforth and Hampton just before Logan to pee, but this time I had to stop at Chipotle just past Yonge. By the time I got to The Twelfth Fret a block after Woodbine I needed to go badly again. When I got there Brian was out to lunch and another staff member told me they were understaffed today and weren’t doing any set-ups and so I would either have to come back the next day or leave my guitar there. I opted to leave the Martin there and went downstairs to use the washroom. When I came back up Brian was there. He said he’d probably have time to restring my guitar and adjust the action either tonight or tomorrow morning. I told him the action went up after I got the humidifier and he confirmed, “That’d do it”. I theorized that if I could keep the humidity up during the winter, then when natural humidity arrives in the spring then maybe the action will balance itself out. He thought that was logical. 

            So I headed back towards home feeling naked without my Martin. If it’s ready tomorrow I won’t be able to come back because Saturday is my No Frills day. They are closed on Sundays and Mondays but I don’t really need the guitar until Tuesday anyway because I’ll be playing my Gibson on the weekend and the Kramer on Monday and Tuesday. Picking up the Martin on Tuesday will make it ready to play on Wednesday morning as planned. 

            It was a cold trip. I had on two pairs of socks but was wearing my Blundies because the sole of one of the Blondo boots that David gave me a few years ago has come undone. Those boots aren’t worth repairing because they’re in bad shape anyway. But they lasted at least five years and so maybe I’ll get another pair. Meanwhile I think I’ll start wearing my snow boots. The cold was also seeping into my winter gloves and so I think I should look into getting a warmer pair. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where again I had to rush to the washroom to pee. I bought five bags of grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a big frozen meat lasagna, and a jar of salsa. Priscilla the cashier asked me if I was going to do a price match. I told her I’d found a lower price at Sobeys on my computer but couldn’t find it on my phone. She was kind enough to find it on her phone and did the price match for me. She’s so nice. 

            I weighed 84.75 kilos at 16:11, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since October 29. 

            I had a late lunch and took a siesta at 16:38. 

            Because the newly bled radiators are so hot, my humidifier has trouble reaching the 55% level I want for my guitars. I decided to set up the cool mist humidifier at the opposite corner of the room. This way it helps with the humidity and the high heat cancels out the chill I got when I first set it up and decided I couldn’t use it in the winter. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 18:30. 

            I didn’t get a chance to work on either of my video projects because I was working on a graphic for my blog post to make it look like a radiator is dripping blood. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and my last T-bone steak while watching episodes 66 to 70 of Batfink. 

            In episode 66, Hugo Agogo has a lamp that’s shaped like Aladdin’s lamp but rather than containing a genie his lamp emits smoke that he can control. He uses it first to force the guards out of an armoured car and then drives away with the contents. Batfink and Karate go to Hugo’s lair where Hugo has his smoke cover Karate’s head to blind him while Hugo knocks him out with a big hammer. He does the same to Batfink who cries out “I’m as blind as a bat!” before also being knocked out. Hugo ties the heroes up and places them on one end of a see-saw that is jutting out over a cliff. Weighting down the other end is a block of ice, which will become lighter as it melts and Batfink and his sidekick will fall. Hugo uses his lamp to help the block melt faster. The heroes fall but the cool water from the melting ice block revives Batfink and he saves them both. When they return to the top of the cliff Karate chops Hugo’s lamp in two. 

            In episode 67, at the last spike ceremony for the completion of a new railroad, the president of the company is about to hammer in the golden spike. But Daniel Boom switches the president’s hammer with an exploding one and after the explosion Daniel gets away with the spike. Batfink uses his super sonar Beep to track Boom to his cabin but Boom hooks a bomb to Batfink’s beep and sends it back to him. It explodes but the Batillac is equipped with a thermonuclear plutonium booby trap shield. The heroes enter the cabin but have a 2000 kilo weight dropped on their heads, knocking them out. They wake in Boom’s booby trap chamber where there are six doors. Only one door is not booby trapped and if they open it they can go free. If they don’t try, Boom will just blow up the chamber. Batfink picks the right one because his wings of steel can also serve as a mine detector. 

            This was co-animated by David Tendlar, who joined Fleischer Studio in 1931 and worked on Popeye and Betty Boop shorts. He directed A Self Made Mongrel. When Fleischer was taken over by Paramount and turned into Famous Studios in 1953, he stayed on. He directed the Mighty Mouse short Outer Space Visitor. He later worked for terry Toons, Ralph Bakshi, and Hanna-Barbera. He was also a comic book artist and did work for Jingle Jangle Comics and Harvey Comics, drawing Huey, Herman and Katnip, and Buzzy the Crow. 

            In episode 68, Queenie Bee goes to an art gallery where the painting of Mona Lisa’s sister Mona Loser is on display. Queenie’s handbag is a bee hive and she whistles to signal her bees to swarm the guard while she steals the painting. Batfink sends out his Beep and Queenie’s bees sting every letter but B because bees stick together. They try to arrest her but her bees chase them away. They come back wearing protective masks but Queenie has clamps descend from the ceiling to grab the heroes and pull them up to hit the ceiling and be knocked out. She suspends them upside down over a barrel of honey. She cuts the rope to let them drop. The honey lubricates their bonds and allows them to slip out. She is about to call her bees to help her when Batfink sends his Beep to block the door of the hive so they can’t get out. Queenie and her bees are arrested. 

            In episode 69, the Idol’s Eye is on display in the museum. Sabubu the Thief from Bagdad come in on a flying carpet and plucks the eye with a bathroom plunger. Batfink’s super sonar finds Sabubu in his carpet shop. Sabubu shoots rapid fire carpet tacks at Batfink. Karate chases him onto a bed of hot coals and gets burned. Batfink lifts him off. Then Karate sits on Sabubu’s bed of nails. Sabubu knocks the heroes out by dropping a big bag of sand on their heads. Then he binds them and flies them up on his carpet to let them drop. But as they fall, a thread from Sabubu’s carpet is caught on one tip of Batfink’s wing, causing it to unravel. When there is no more carpet left, Sabubu falls. Meanwhile Batfink’s wing re-weaves the thread into a magic carpet again, which he slips under Karate to save him. Then Batfink grabs Sabubu and arrests him. 

            In episode 70, the Mean Green Midget (the opposite of the Jolly Green Giant), who has leaves for hair, gives a plant to a bank president. Then he waits outside the president’s office window while the president is putting money in his safe. The president does not notice that for every bundle of bills he puts into the safe, the plant reaches in, grabs it and passes it out the window to Mean Green. The president realizes he’s been robbed but does not suspect the plant. Batfink is called and it is he who notices that the plant is the thief. Batfink finds Mean Green in a canning factory. Mean Green shoots the seeds from a watermelon crossed with a grapefruit at them. Then he drops watermelons crossed with bowling balls on their heads and knocks them out. He puts the heroes on an automated assembly line to be sealed in cans. Karate is canned but the magnet attracts Batfink’s wings and pulls him out of the can. Batfink arrests Mean Green and saves Karate.