Vincent Price

            On Monday morning I finished memorizing “Rue Traversière” (Traversière Street) by Boris Vian. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them and so tomorrow I’ll start working them out. I think all the verses will have the same chords. 

            I worked out the chords for the fifth and sixth verses of “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are two verses left. 

            At 11:00 I took my bike three doors up to Metro Cycles and I was the first customer of the year. I left it there for them to fix the wobble in the back wheel, the back brakes, to change the back tire and to oil the chain. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before lunch. 

            At 16:00 I got ready for my bike ride and then went to Metro Cycle to pick up my bike. The mechanic said he’d tried to call because my rim couldn’t be trued. I said to go ahead and put on a new rim and waited while he did so. I paid cash so I wouldn’t have to pay tax and so it cost me $225. 

            It was already 17:00 when I left and so I didn’t ride downtown. It was minus 10 out and I think I’ll put on more layers next time and start wearing a balaclava. I went as far as Bloor and Shaw and then went south to Queen. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought six bags of grapes. Priscilla the cashier was kind enough to look for a price match for me on the grapes but she couldn’t find a cheaper price. She’s such a nice person. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos at 18:30, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since November 27. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:37.

            I finished frames 16 and 17 of the second rainbow wave in my animation project.

            It was too late to upload the video of my electric performance of my song “Vomit of the Star Eater” to YouTube but I should have time tomorrow. 

            I had bistro fries with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 2, episodes 13 and 14 of Batman. 

            In episode 13, tourists at city hall are viewing the original Gotham City Charter. But among them are Egghead and his gang. Egghead uses an egg gas bomb to subdue the crowd and an eggsplosive to open the case and steal the charter. Later Bruce Wayne is explaining the Gotham Charter to Dick Grayson. Gotham was founded by three families who landed at Gotham Rock. Those families were the Savages, the Tylers and the Waynes. The original land was leased from the Mohican nation for the price of nine raccoon pelts. That’s just silly. First Nations people were trappers and would have more easily acquired raccoon pelts on their own. If anything they would have traded their own animal pelts for something Europeans are good at making. Every five years the lease has to be renewed. So that night Bruce Wayne and the other descendants of the original settlers have to deliver three raccoon pelts each to the last descendant of the Mohicans, Chief Screaming Chicken. Bruce is interrupted by a call to Batman and so they head for Commissioner Gordon’s office. Batman admits that Egghead is the smartest of his enemies. He goes to parley with Screaming Chicken. There are actually currently 3000 Mohicans and so Chief Screaming Chicken would not be the last. If Gotham is on Mohican land that would put it on the Hudson River just north of New York City. But I don’t think New York exists in this Batman TV universe. In the modern DCU Gotham is in New Jersey. Meanwhile Egghead’s headquarters is in a caviar company. His girlfriend and scribe is Miss Bacon who writes down every word he says. He is studying the charter he stole and has found that if the pelts are not paid on time Gotham reverts back to Mohican ownership. Batman greets Screaming Chicken in a ridiculous ceremony that is supposed to be Mohican tradition. The chief says he’ll be at the ceremony but after Batman leaves Egghead comes out of Screaming Chicken’s tepee because he wants to make sure the pelts are not delivered so he can negotiate the lease of Gotham City for himself. Batman figures out that Egghead’s hideout is in a fish egg company. He and Robin go there and fight Egghead and his two men. Screaming Chicken helps Egghead. Egghead tosses a laughing gas bomb and gets away. Batman and Robin take sad pills to counteract the laughing. Robin wonders why the chief is on Egghead’s side. Batman says that Screaming Chicken once had a boss who told him to go back to his own country. The Gotham founding fathers descendants are picked up by a limo to go to the ceremony but the limo is driven by Egghead. He fills the back with knockout gas. Egghead holds them all captive in his hideout and announces that he has deduced that one of the three millionaires is Batman and he thinks it’s Bruce Wayne. He has Bruce hooked up to his electro thought transferor. It will suck all info from Bruce’s brain and transfer it to Egghead. Bruce’s brain will be left empty. The machine is turned on and that’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 14, while Bruce is having his brain drained Dick sneaks to a dial that increases the power and overloads the device until it short circuits. What little Egghead absorbed from Bruce’s brain makes him conclude that he couldn’t be Batman because his mind is full of trivia. But Bruce has learned to discipline his brain so only certain thoughts are revealed. Egghead leaves the millionaires with a motion bomb that will explode if they try to follow him or leave. It’s two minutes before the Gotham lease expires. Bruce and the others escape by jumping up to an overhead pipe and then crossing the room above the bomb hand over hand. Before he leaves the room Bruce sets off the bomb by tossing a grape at it. Bruce and the other descendants arrive too late for the ceremony. The Gotham lease has expired and now the chief owns the city and its suburbs. Batman, Gordon and the mayor are in Mayor Linseed’s office when Egghead walks in with the new lease. He fires Linseed and Gordon and makes it illegal for Batman to be within the Gotham City limits under the pain of death. So Bruce and Dick decide to steal the charter so they can find a loophole to defeat Egghead. Meanwhile Egghead is letting criminals run rampant over Gotham while the cops arrest law abiding citizens for jaywalking. Bruce steals the charter and an alarm goes off in Egghead’s headquarters but he thinks Batman and Robin did it. While the cops are looking for Batman and Robin, Bruce and Dick get away. Bruce finds the loophole, which says Gotham may never be leased to anyone who has committed crimes against the city, territory or crown. Batman concludes that Egghead’s main plan is to steal the money from the treasury while he is in control because another word for treasurer is exchequer or for Egghead “Eggschequer”. Egghead and his gang steal 30 million from the treasury. Batman notifies Gordon that Egghead has no claim over the lease and so the police are no longer under orders to kill Batman. Batman and Robin climb down the side of city hall and there is a cameo from Bill Dana as Jose Jemenez who says he’s in a jury that has just made their verdict and asks Batman to leave the rope. At the treasury Batman finds the chief tied up in a closet. He says Egghead is on his way to buy Venezuela. Batman concludes that before leaving, Egghead will need to stock up on his egg supply because that is all he eats. They catch him robbing Old McDonald’s egg farm. There is a big egg fight before Egg head is defeated. 

            Egghead was played by the great Vincent Price and he makes a great over the top Batman villain even though this story was stupid. Vincent Price was born rich because his grandfather invented Dr. Price's Baking Powder. His first film role was as the leading man in the comedy Service de Luxe in 1938. The very next year he starting his long career of dabbling in horror films with The Tower of London and The Return of The Invisible Man. He starred on the radio as Simon Templar in The Saint. He starred in House of Wax, House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, The Fly and Return of the Fly. His role in The House of Usher led to a series of Edgar Allan Poe film adaptations. He starred in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. He did a lot of voice-over work for cartoon series and did narration for Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare and Michael Jackson's Thriller. He was a gourmet cook and wrote several cookbooks with his second wife. He appeared on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and demonstrated how to poach a fish with a dishwasher. He was an art collector and near the end of his life donated several important works to what is now the Vincent Price Museum. In the early days of Nazism he was an admirer of Hitler and an anti-Semite until events caused him to have a change of heart so he became a hard core liberal and an outspoken opponent of racism.