Tisha Sterling

            On Saturday morning I memorized the eighth verse of “Rue Traversière” (Traversière Street) by Boris Vian. There is one verse left. 

            I worked out the chords for the second and third verses of “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. It still sounds horrible. If my bike is fixed by Wednesday I’ll ride it to Woodbine and Danforth to see if I can get the guitar adjusted. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to Vina Pharmacy to renew a prescription. It wouldn’t be ready for ten minutes so I said I’d pick it up next week. 

            I went to No Frills where the grapes were all too soft so I bought five bags of cherries instead. I also got three packs of raspberries, a double pack of New Zealand grass fed lean ground beef, a pack of West Coast Dark coffee, a pack of saltines, a jug of low sugar iced tea, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. I had rice crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea.

            I took a siesta and woke up at 16:39. I took a 23 minute bike ride to College and Gladstone and then home. Even when I take bike rides downtown and back there are only two hills, the one up Brock Avenue and the one west on Queen from Dufferin, so even on local rides I take those hills. 

            I think I might wait until Metro Cycle is back from holiday to get my bike repaired since there if I pay cash I don’t have to pay tax. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 17:49. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30 for the first time since December 24.

            I finished the tenth and eleventh frames for the second rainbow wave in my animation project and started on frame twelve. 

            I started a Movie Maker project for my October 6 song practice. This time Movie Maker accepted my AVI video even though for the October 1 project the AVI was rejected and I had to convert it to AVI WMV. I synchronized the audio with the video and then I copied it and named the copy “Vomit of the Star Eater (Electric)”. The Kramer guitar sounds good in the recording. Tomorrow I’ll start cutting out everything but the final take of the song. 

            I heated the rest of my frozen samosas and had them with Thai style sweet chili dipping sauce and a beer while watching season 2, episodes 9 and 10 of Batman. 

            In episode 9, the Gotham Chamber of Commerce is presenting their Mother of the Year Award. The chairlady calls out the winner, Ma Parker and asks her to say a few words. Her words are “Stick em up!” as she points a machine gun at the audience. She introduces her sons: Pretty Boy, Machine Gun, and Mad Dog. She almost forgets her least favourite child, Legs, because she’s a girl. They all commence to rob the audience. Later in Commissioner Gordon’s office he discusses Ma Parker with Chief O’Hara. Parker and her gang have terrorized almost every other city in the country but they’ve avoided Gotham until now. Gordon thinks she’s steered clear of Gotham because of fear of dealing with Batman. He calls Batman and when he arrives he outlines Parker’s profile for him. Part of her success as a criminal is the fact that she is motherly and calls every male criminal in her gang her “boy”. Gordon learns that Parker and her family are surrounded in their hideout on the outskirts of town. Ma opens fire on the cops while her kids finish their dinner. Parker is happy for some reason when she sees Batman and Robin arrive. The dynamic duo climb up the side of the house and crash through the ceiling into the dining room. Batman disarms Parker and she sics her boys on them. After Ma’s three sons have been knocked out she surrenders and Batman escorts her out to be taken into police custody. While she’s crying about being a poor mother trying to get along she pulls a smoke bomb out of her hair and gets away with her family except for Pretty Boy, who is caught. Later the Bat computer analyzes that Parker has been robbing society gatherings. Batman guesses that the next one she’ll victimize will be the one at the Bijou theatre that afternoon. After fleecing the wealthy cinema fans she and her clan hijack a truck as Batman and Robin arrive. But while climbing onto the truck, Machine Gun drops his violin and stops to get it, causing him to be left behind. Batman and Robin find Parker, Legs and Mad Dog robbing a drug store. Mad Dog is captured but Ma and Legs get away. Batman and Robin speculate that Ma would hide in plain sight at a retirement home and so they go to the biggest one. They find her in a wheelchair with Legs posing as a nurse. Parker tries to get away with rockets on her wheelchair but she slams into a wall. Later Batman and Robin and Commissioner Gordon are at the prison when Parker and her children are about to be taken to their cells. Warden Crichton says that prison is not about punishment but rehabilitation. He says the greatest criminal minds are in Gotham State Prison but even if they were to escape, Batman would return them. Batman, Robin and Gordon leave and Crichton tells the guards to take the Parkers to their cells but the guards only smile and grab Chrichton. Ma tells him they are taking over the prison. For months she’s been substituting his guards with members of her gang. Before Batman and Robin reach the Batmobile in the prison parking lot a trustee plants a bomb that will explode when the car is driven over 100 km an hour. Batman and Robin take to the highway as the speedometer climbs towards 100. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 10, Batman obeys a sign that limits the speed to 90 kph and so there is no danger of the Batmobile exploding. Batman remembers he saw the trustee looking under the hood and now stops to find the bomb. Batman and Robin turn back to the prison. When they ask the warden if anything is wrong he is afraid to tell them and so he says all is well. He shows Batman Ma’s cell and Batman sees that the women and the boys are in the same cell block. Crichton says it’s his family plan because the family that dorms together reforms together. After Batman leaves, Ma exits her cell and addresses all the other prisoners in the yard. She says she now leads a gang of the top criminals in the country and we see that Catwoman is among them. Catwoman asks why Joker and Penguin are still in their cells. Ma says they’ll stay there until they know who’s boss. She says Batman and Robin will only be rounding up more talent for her Gotham State Pen Gang. Back at the Batcave Batman is starting to think that capturing Ma Parker was too easy. Later Ma and her gang steal half a million in cash from an armoured car in downtown Gotham. When they use a grenade Batman’s instruments pick it up in the Batcave and determine that it was near the bank. When she sees the Batmobile she creates a distraction by tossing money to the crowd. Batman only tears off the sleeve of one of the crooks as he escapes but back at the Batcave analysis shows the sleeve is prison material. Batman calls Crichton who shouts to him that Parker has taken over. Batman and Robin go back to the prison and climb over the wall. They are confronted by a guard who is really a prisoner and who is played by Milton Berle. Batman knows the man as Lefty and reminds him that he’s jeopardizing his future since he has only 48 more years until parole. Lefty thinks on that and agrees that Batman is right. he says, “48 more years and I’m a free man” so he throws his gun away. Milton Berle was 58 at the time of this show. Some other guards capture Batman and Robin and take them to Ma. She has them placed in electric chairs and plans to pull the switch at midnight. When they are left alone Batman is able to break one of the wires and connect it with the bat transmitter in his utility belt. He sends a message in Morse code to Alfred in the Batcave. Ma comes to pull the switch but just as she does the power goes out because Batman’s message to Alfred was to have the electric company shut off the prison power at midnight. Batman and Robin break free and there is the big final sound effects fight with her boys. Ma reaches for another bomb in her hair but Batman has it in his hand because he removed it during the fight. 

            Ma Parker was played by the great Shelley Winters, who I already featured in my blog a few years ago. 

            Legs was played by Tisha Sterling, who is the daughter of golden age film star Ann Sothern. Tisha made her TV debut on The Ann Sothern Show. Her film debut was in Village of the Giants in 1965. She appeared twice on the cover of Seventeen Magazine. In The Whales of August she played her mother’s character’s younger self in flashbacks. She became a florist and designer in Idaho. Her memoir is entitled Why I Failed Charm School.