Van Johnson

            On Thursday morning I memorized the fifth verse of “Rue Traversière” (Traversière Street) by Boris Vian. That’s over half the song. 

            I finished memorizing “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them and so I worked them out for the intro. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. The B string is always going out of tune. It’s weird because the tuner shows it’s in tune but it sounds off. Then when I make it flat and retune it the string sounds fine. I wonder if that means the intonation is off. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal but I was still a day behind. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos before lunch.

            In the afternoon I started on a bike ride but my bike malfunctioned. For the last few months there has been a wobble in the back wheel. It’s been only in the last week or so that the wobble could be felt rather than only seen. But now it was rubbing against the bike frame and I couldn’t ride. I went to Metro Cycle but a sign says they’ll be closed until January 5. I took my bike back upstairs, turned it upside down, loosened the back wheel and rebalanced it so the wobble would clear the frame. It was now rideable but I didn’t feel safe to take it all the way downtown. I rode it up to the Brockton Cyclery but they were closed. I rode up to the Bike Depot but the lights were off there. I decided to just go to the supermarket and then to go home. I rode to Havelock, south to College, west to Gladstone and then south to Freshco. At the supermarket I bought four bags of red grapes, three packs of raspberries, bananas, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, three bags of skim milk and a bag of Café Verona. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 18:30. 

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal. 

            I had the rest of the buffalo wings and some bistro fries with gravy and melted cheese while watching season 2, episodes 5 and 6 of Batman. 

            In episode 5, there is panic on the Gotham City stock exchange because of wild quotation errors. Just as the news is reporting on this the broadcast is interrupted by a man in 13th Century garb and holding a lute. In a song he introduces himself as The Minstrel and then speaks a message to the members of the Gotham City Stock Exchange. He is advertizing The Minstrel’s Friendly Stock Brokers Protective Association, which he says will guarantee immunity from a repetition of today’s calamity. He asks each stock exchange member to pay $1000 a week to account 007 in the Broccoli Bank in Switzerland (Get the James Bond references?). Commissioner Gordon calls Batman. Batman says it’s not strange at all that a minstrel would also be an electronic genius because music and electronic energy are both transmitted by waves that obey the same laws of physics. But that doesn’t take creativity into account which is often independent of technical knowledge. Batman meets the president of the stock exchange who explains what happened during the trading day. The quotations going out over the Trans-Lux went completely wild. Some were high and some were low but none were correct. Orders poured in in response to the false prices and it caused disaster. Batman asks to see the transmission room in the exchange building. He looks at the coding circuits and he and Robin pretend they don’t know that Minstrel has bugged the device. The Batman’s plan is to reel the Minstrel in with false confidence. That night Batman and Robin are staking out the stock exchange when a janitor in the hall is whistling the same tune the Minstrel sang earlier, which was Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Wandering Minstrel. They confront the cleaning lady and she turns out to be Phyllis Diller. This show has gotten into the habit of popping in these celebrity cameos for no particular reason other than comic effect starting with Jerry Lewis, then Dick Clark and now Phyllis Diller. She says they told her to expect a replacement but she didn’t expect two. She hands them the mop, says she’s glad they wore their old clothes and leaves. Then the Minstrel steps through a door, lights a flare and blinds them. Later Batman finds and removes the Minstrel’s heterodyning counter oscillator from the coding circuits, which confused the frequency so each number came out anything but right. Back at the Batcave, Batman and Robin build a drone that will be able to pick up the Minstrel’s wavelength if he goes on the air again and track it to his broadcasting studio. The drone lands near the old Willow Street warehouse and so Batman and Robin go there. But Minstrel knows they tracked the signal and prepares a trap. Batman and Robin use the bat ropes to climb to the top floor. Once inside they are attacked by four of Minstrel’s men with the props they fight around and with being mostly large drums, some large chimes and guitars. The men run away and the heroes pursue them by breaking down a door but Batman and Robin are trapped somehow and next we see them tied back to back horizontally over an electronic spit that heats to infra red as the spit begins to turn. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 6, Batman and Robin are turning on the spit while Minstrel and his men gloat. But suddenly they hear explosions in the hallway and leave to check them out. The blasts come from bat bombs that Batman left in the hall before they were trapped. While they are away Batman and Robin make their weakest escape yet. They simply shake their bodies as they are turning, enough to break the pole they are turning on. Meanwhile Minstrel sees the bombs are merely diversionary and so he heads back to where Batman and Robin are. Batman and Robin ambush them. Minstrel escapes and electrifies the door so he can’t be followed. Octavia stays behind and gives herself up. Batman says although appearances say she is part of Minstrel’s gang, his instincts tell him she is innocent. He lets her go and when Robin asks why Batman tells him he’s put a transmitter in Octavia’s purse. Later Octavia arrives at Minstrel’s hideout. He’s surprised Batman let her go and she says he was very considerate. Minstrel turns on his bug detector and the alarm goes off. He then shows Octavia how the “considerate” Batman slipped a transmitter in her purse and now she is angry at Batman for betraying her. Minstrel speaks to Batman through the transmitter and tells him to be in the conference room of the stock exchange with the members, as well as Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara in 30 minutes. When they are all gathered there and waiting for Minstrel, suddenly the building begins to shake. They think it’s an earthquake but when Batman looks outside all of the other buildings remain stable. Batman determines that Minstrel used a subsonic note to shake the building. Minstrel appears on video telling them that was a warning and that the next tremor will destroy the building if his demands are not met. He wants the same payment he demanded before by 18:00 tomorrow. The members are considering giving in but Batman tells them that the Minstrel can’t shake the building if the power is turned off. They will need to connect all the circuits in the building to one master switch though. The next night they are assembled in the conference room with candles ready. Just before 18:00 they light the candles and Batman calls for the power to be switched off. They are in candlelight for a few seconds but then the chandelier eases back on and the power is on throughout the building. The Minstrel is broadcasting electricity into the building. The Minstrel appears on the video screen to remind them they can’t evade his sonic beam. He says there’s still time but not much and then he shakes the building to bring his point home. They are ready to buckle under but Batman says the Minstrel is already in the room and then he removes the glasses from one of the members to reveal he is the Minstrel. Minstrel calls for his men and the big final sound effects fight takes place. After his men are defeated Minstrel tries to use the same electronic flare that blinded Batman and Robin earlier, but the Dynamic Duo are prepared this time with particle Bat accelerator units to create an anti charge and deflect his static bolts. Later as Minstrel is about to be taken to prison, a TV news announcer is granted a final interview with the Minstrel. The Minstrel sings one last song, “Wait till the jailbreak Batman, you’ve not seen the last of me. I’ll clobber you and Robin, wait and see. You’ll vibrate both together. I’ll shake off your heads. Oh just you wait till the jailbreak Batman. You’ll be dead”. 

            The Minstrel was played by Van Johnson. There was a tendency on this show to dig up washed up film stars to have them play villains. Some of them like Cesar Romero and Vincent Price were able take the opportunity and fly with it, making their nasty characters iconic. Others like Art Carney as the Archer or Van Johnson as the Minstrel just kind of phoned it in. 

            In the Bobby-Sox era during and just after world war two Van Johnson was the second biggest musical movie star next to Frank Sinatra. He studied music, dancing and singing during high school and after graduation headed for New York. He made his Broadway debut in the New Faces of 1936 revue. He was part of a large vaudeville act called The Eight Young Men of Manhattan. In the late 30s he formed a lifelong friendship with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball that boosted his career. His film debut was in Too Many Girls in 1940. In 1943 he was involved in a car accident that permanently scarred his face and so from then on he had to wear heavy make-up on screen, but he went on to become a star. The accident also exempted him from serving in WWII. He co-starred in Human Sabotage, A Guy Named Joe, Brigadoon, Pilot No. 5, Weekend at the Waldorf, State of the Union, Command Decision, Mother is a Freshman, In the Good Old Summertime, The Big Hangover, Duchess of Idaho, Three Guys Named Mike, It’s a Big Country, Too Young to Kiss, The Caine Mutiny (in which he insisted on not covering up his facial scars), The End of the Affair, The Bottom of the Bottle, and Yours Mine and Ours. He starred in Murder in the Big House, Two Girls and a Sailor, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Thrill of a Romance, Easy to Wed, Scene of the Crime, Battleground, Go for Broke, Slander, Action of the Tiger, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin. He played Dr. Red Adams in the Dr. Gillespie film series that spun off from the Dr. Kildare series. On television he won an Emmy for his performance in the miniseries Rich Man Poor Man.

January 3, 1995: There was a small turn-out for my open stage

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday evening I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel and there was a small turn out but one new guy came.

Buck Kartalian

            On Wednesday morning I had a bit of a hangover. The night before that I only had four beers but that chocolate stout was fourth and little too much. It had a chocolate foretaste but the aftertaste was still stout and I don’t think I like stout. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “Rue Traversière” (Traversière Street) by Boris Vian. I memorized the sixth verse of “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg. There is only one verse left to nail down so I’ll probably have it done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            I was still a day behind on my journal and tried to get caught up before lunch but I kept dozing off. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before lunch. I had rice crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 18:30. 

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal before supper. 

            I reheated the rest of the meat lasagna and had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 3 and 4 of Batman. 

            In episode 3, a cat burglar climbs into an office and steals a catalogue then he attaches a parachute to it and drops it out the window to be caught by Catwoman. Later from the nautical society a model of a catamaran is parachuted into her clutches. Then from an apartment high rise three little mittens fall from the apartment of Andrew S. Kitten. Commissioner Gordon concludes that all of these thefts must be the work of Catwoman. He calls Batman to tell him Catwoman is alive. The last time we saw her she fell down a bottomless pit. Batman contacts Jack O’Shea, who writes the most widely read gossip column in the country. He asks him to place an item in his column about a rare species of canary that’s being exhibited on the 12th floor of the Gotham Natural History Museum. But it turns out that O’Shea is in league with Catwoman and calls to warn her. Meanwhile Catwoman is with her gang of elite cat burglars. Twelve men applied for the job but the others were arrested. The ones left over proved themselves by escaping capture. She is running a school to upgrade their skills and now gives them a lesson in window jimmying. Batman and Robin go to the natural history museum to ambush Catwoman. One of Catwoman’s burglars arrives but while the heroes are confronting him Catwoman and the others sneak up behind them. She relaxes and watches while her men fight Batman and Robin. Once her men lose the fight she pulls out her golden cat dart guns with darts dipped in catatonic. Batman and Robin are put to sleep and Catwoman plans to throw them out the twelfth floor window. But Batman has prepared for this and set up a net below the window to break their fall. The next day the police have in their custody one of Catwoman’s burglar’s. He says he’ll never talk but Chief O’Hara raises his hand to slap him and he says he’ll talk. All he knows is that her big crime is planned for that night. Meanwhile Aunt Harriet is dancing to the latest craze, the Catusi, by Benedict Arnold and the Traitors. One makes a lot of clawing movements with one’s hands while dancing. She tells Bruce and Dick that it started at a new restaurant called the Pink Sandbox. That night Batman and Robin go to the Pink Sandbox and sit at a booth while everyone is dancing the Catusi. They think that Catwoman is using the restaurant as a cover-up. Suddenly their booth spins into the wall and they are tossed into a metal cell. Catwoman appears above them behind a round, shatterproof window. She tells Batman if they weren’t on opposite sides she could go for him in a small way. She says, “The Joker called for a date last Monday. He’s fairly attractive but I can’t stand his green hair. And the Penguin’s too small for me.” Batman tells her that her problem is she’s been running around with a bad crowd”. Catwoman says, “Enough of this moralizing. Nobody likes a preaching crime fighter!” Ain’t that the truth? She stretches out in a sultry way and then tells Charlie to switch it on. The floor of Batman and Robin’s cell becomes red hot and so they begin dancing. Batman tries to drill a hole in an overhead water pipe but it contains liquid catatonia and they collapse. For some off reason she has them moved from that deathtrap to another. They are now on a rooftop, each tied to a grill that has been greased with margarine. Robin says, “Holy Oleo!” and Catwoman responds, “I didn’t know you could yodel”. I’ve always remembered that line. A magnifying glass is positioned over each grill to concentrate the sunlight. She says she has to leave for her assault on Mount Gotham. Batman and Robin are about to get fried and that’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 4, Batman and Robin are about to be fried by the sun but as was mentioned in the previous episode, today there will be a total eclipse of the sun over Gotham. During the half minute of darkness, Batman tells Robin to move his magnifying glass exactly 14 degrees to his left. He says he’s calculated the azimuthal equidistant projection of the sun’s rays. They move the magnifying glasses each with their tied together feet and when the sun returns the beam burns the ropes on their left wrists. With left hands free they untie their right hands and then their feet. Robin admits he was scared but Batman says he had no fear whatsoever. Batman believes they always escape their enemies because their hearts are pure. That’s fucked up. That implies that the millions of people who have been victimized and slaughtered throughout history met their doom because they weren’t pure of heart. Back at the Batcave they speculate on what Catwoman meant by an assault on Mount Gotham since there is no mountain named Gotham. They conclude she means the highest building in Gotham, the Gotham State Building. They head for that location. They ask the director of the building if any special events are taking place. He says Zubin Zucchini has rented the penthouse for a party. Next we see Zubin being taken from his home to the Gotham State Building in an armoured car carrying two Stradivarius violins. Catwoman knocks on the door of Miss Minerva Matthews the wealthy recluse. She is an elderly woman with uncombed hair under a floral hat and wearing thick glasses. Catwoman puts her to sleep and then assumes her identity. Then an armoured car comes to pick her up as well. The driver also is transporting half a million from Minerva’s Christmas Club account. The driver’s name is Ralph Staphylococcus. He says his friend calls him Ralph. She tips Ralph $1000 when he drops her off at the Gotham State Building. After the disguised Catwoman reaches the penthouse she shuts off the elevator. Two of her men are waiting and she sends them out on the ledge of the 102nd floor. Batman arrives and tells Commissioner Gordon that Catwoman is there to steal two Stradivarius violins valued at half a million. Since the elevator is out of order Batman attaches rockets to the bottom to propel him to the top floor. Meanwhile Catwoman gets the violins and pays Zubin the money but he complains that she’s $1000 short. She changes back to Catwoman and tells him to give back the cash. Zubin reveals he’s really Robin in disguise. But her men grab Robin from behind. Jack O’Shea is also there and wheels out their getaway rocket with bicycle handlebars. Catwoman straddles the vehicle to prepare top escape. They are about to toss Robin out the window when Batman arrives. Catwoman tries to start the rocket but it won’t go. The big final fight occurs with the written sound effects while a frustrated Catwoman continues to try to get the rocket started. Finally she just grabs the money and the violins and goes out onto the ledge. She doesn’t seem to have very good balance for a Catwoman. Batman convinces her to catch his bat rope. Robin says she can drop the violins because they are fakes and someone will pick up the money, so she does so. But then she slips and she’s hanging on by the rope. Batman starts to pull her up but Jack pushes him. Batman is now beside Catwoman as they hang onto the rope together. She asks if he’s spoken for. He says he’s not. At police headquarters after the trial and after Batman testified against her Catwoman says goodbye to him. Batman says “There will always be someone waiting for one as beauteous as you”. She rubs her cheek against his and says “Meow” and is led away while Batman is blushing. 

            Catwoman’s burglar John was played by Buck Kartalian, whose first job in entertainment was as a professional wrestler named The Hell’s Kitchen Roughneck. This led to several roles on Broadway even though he never took a single acting class. Between 1953 and his retirement in 2006 he appeared in over 70 films and TV shows. His TV debut was in Robert Montgomery Presents in 1953. His film debut was in Cell 2455 Death Row in 1955. He played Julius in Planet of the Apes and Frank in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. He co-starred as Bruce W. Wolf on the Saturday morning adventure show Monster Squad.

January 2, 1995: My first day back at work after a few weeks

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I worked from 16:00 to 19:00 at the Ontario College of Art. After work I went to meet with Mistress Patricia Marsh for a while and then I went home to continue my efforts to finish reading my old newspapers. 

Art Carney

            On Tuesday morning I went to bed after 2:30 and didn’t get much if any sleep before getting up at 5:00. 

            I memorized the second and third verses of “Rue Traversière” (Traversière Street) by Boris Vian. I memorized the fifth verse of “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are only two verses left to learn. I made some revisions to my translation. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it stayed in tune for most of the session. Tomorrow I’ll start a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar and I expect it to continue going out of tune. I can’t take it back the Twelfth Fret until January 7 because they’ll be closed until then. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I was still two days behind on my journal and so between breakfast and lunch I worked on getting caught up. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos at 18:23. 

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal and had a couple of cans of Creemore while doing so. By the suppertime I was only a day behind. 

            I heated some frozen buffalo wings and some bistro fries. I melted five-year-old cheddar on the fries and put some gravy on top. I had them with another beer while watching season 2, episodes 1 and 2 of Batman. 

            In episode 1, Bruce Wayne is meeting in his home with Mr. Allan Dale, the administrative head of public relations for the Wayne Foundation. Dale doesn’t think they should donate money to the poor because the criminal Archer and his band may steal it. Suddenly a gas releasing arrow hits the piano and everyone is knocked out. The Archer arrives and he’s like a Middle North Americanized knock off of Robin Hood, complete with his own Friar and his own Little John. One of his arrows blows open the safe and he robs Bruce Wayne. The Archer then rides to the poor part of town and throws the money to the underprivileged who surprisingly are all white. The cops arrive but Archer shoots a sneezing powder arrow at their feet and while the cops are sternutating the Archer and his men escape. Commissioner Gordon calls Batman. He says most of the poor people turned in the money once they learned it was stolen. Archer shoots a blinding flash arrow into Gordon’s office. Mr. Dale suggests they should replace Batman with the Archer. The Archer and his men escape through the window and Batman and Robin follow, climbing down the wall. On the way a window opens and it’s Dick Clark, who asks if they are in a band. Batman knows he’s from Philadelphia because he dipped his diphthong. He tells him to return to his business. The Archer’s moll is Maid Marilyn and she’s played by the every delightful Barbara Nichols. She’s not the usual subservient moll but is always complaining and talking back. The Archer wants to find the Batcave so he can destroy the Batman’s anti crime computer. Marilyn calls Gordon to tell him where Archer will be giving money to the poor next. Later Archer robs a coin machine company and distributes the coins to the poor. Batman and Robin arrive and start throwing punches while the crowd boos them. Archer and his men are arrested but the poor people of Gotham raise $50,000 for his bail. Batman is trying to locate Archer’s hideout. Since people are calling Archer another Robin Hood, Batman asks what was Ribin Hood’s real name. Robin says he was the Earl of Huntington. The Bat Computer locates an archery range owned by someone named Earl Huntington. Batman knows that Alfred used to be an archery champion. Alfred admits that he was known as the William Tell of Liverpool. He sure doesn’t sound like he’s from Liverpool. The Alfred actor Alan Napier was from Birmingham. Batman sends Alfred to Archer’s archery range where he says he wants to purchase some arrows. Finding Alfred to be knowledgeable, Archer challenges him to a competition. They keep splitting each other’s arrows at the bullseye of the target. Meanwhile Batman and Robin locate Archer’s dungeon hideout. But they have tripped a silent alarm and Marilyn trips a trap so that the heroes are caught in a net. Alfred tries to leave but Archer thinks he was sent as a distraction and stops him. Archer interrogates Batman and Robin and tries to force them to reveal the location of the Batcave. They are strung up by their thumbs. Batman says, “You’ll have to kill us” but Archer says he’ll kill Alfred instead. They put Alfred in a guillotine and the blade comes down but it was only a trick guillotine and Batman recognized that. They are released. Archer slaps Batman with a glove and challenges him to a duel and Batman accepts. But there is no duel and they are tied to stakes out in the field while Archer and his men charge them with lances to run them through. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 2, just before Archer and his men can pierce them with their lances, Batman and Robin activate the springs in their boots and they shoot up off the stakes they are tied to. One can see the strings pulling them up. Archer is going to attack again but Marilyn accidentally breaks Archer’s cheering machine that motivates him, so he leaves. The Archer and his band are hiding out in the basement of police headquarters. Archer and his men affect their speech with these and thous but Marilyn refuses to ditch her Queens accent. She reminds Archer that they come from the same neighbourhood. There’s a knock on the door and it’s Mr. Dale, who tells Archer how the $10 million in charity money from the Wayne Foundation will be delivered because they’ve had a deal all along that Archer will cut him in. Later Archer and his men attack the armoured car with explosive arrows. The guards look for who is shooting but can’t see. Archer is around the corner with arrows he’s developed that make 90 degree turns. While the guards are looking for where the arrows came from, Marilyn drives away with the armoured car. But they find the armoured car and it seems all the money is still there. Bruce and Dick go down the Bat Poles but Bruce pulls a switch that says “Negate Bruce’s change” and so somehow they can either be dressed or not automatically on the way down. Both Bruce Wayne and Batman and Robin are to be at the ceremony for donating the funds. Bruce has Alfred put on a Batman costume and appear on a nearby roof, close enough to be visible but not enough to show his moustache. The poor people are being handed out money in cash one by one in reverse alphabetical order but when Zoltan Zorba gets his bill he sees it has a picture of Archer on it. Gordon calls for Batman but Bruce has no time to change and so he gives Alfred a voice changer that will allow him to speak in his voice. Batman is standing off in the distance and explains it’s because he has a cold. Later at the Batcave Batman says that the only person who knew when and where the armoured car would deliver the money was Allan Dale. Batman says the only safe place Archer could stash the money with sequential serial numbers is Switzerland and so they head for a the Bat Boat and confront Archer at the pier. Meanwhile Archer, his band and Dale are on a boat. Archer is now wearing a pirate’s hat. Batman and Robin board the boat. Archer and his men fight them with swords. For some reason Marilyn passes Batman and Robin swords so they can duel fairly. Batman and Robin defeat the Archer. 

            In a lacklustre performance for a Batman villain, Art Carney played the Archer. Other Batman villains are over the top but Carney was just goofy. I love Art Carney but as a supervillain he just doesn’t match the scenery chewing performances of Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin and Julie Newmar. Carney started in the 1930s as a big band singer for Horace Heidt’s Orchestra. They appeared frequently on the radio and on the radio game show Pot O’ Gold. Carne’s film debut was in the movie Pot O’ Gold. He was wounded during the invasion of Normandy and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. After the war he became a radio character actor and showed himself to have a talent for impressions. He was a regular on Gangbusters. He starred as The Red Lantern on the radio adventure series Land of the Lost. He played Charlie the door man on both the radio and television versions of The Morey Amsterdam Show. In 1950 he was hired to do a sketch with Jackie Gleason on Cavalcade of Stars. Their chemistry was so good that Carney became a regular and then a co-star when Cavalcade became The Jackie Gleason Show. The most popular sketch was The Honeymooners in which Carney played Ed Norton. It eventually earned its own sitcom, which even though it only lasted for one season became iconic and of course inspired The Flintstones, with Barney Rubble being an Ed Norton parody. Jackie Gleason said that Carney was 90% responsible for the success of the Honeymooners. He had a hit record with “The Song of the Sewer”. He was nominated for seven Emmy Awards and won six of them. He made his Broadway debut in 1957 when he starred in The Rope Dancers. On Broadway in 1965 he was the first actor to play Felix Unger in The Odd Couple. He starred in the TV special Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf. He had his own show, the short lived Art Carney Special. He won an Academy Award for his performance in Harry and Tonto. He co-starred in Last Action Hero, House Calls, Going in Style, and Movie Movie. He starred in The Late Show. He was an accomplished jazz pianist.

January 1, 1995: I spent the day trying get through the rest of my old newspapers

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I spent the first day of the year working on getting through all my old newspapers.