Joe Brooks

            On Tuesday morning I searched for the lyrics to the 1953 Boris Vian songs “Depuis le Temps”, “J'étais amoureux”, and “J'fais des croix”, but nothing turned up. I already have the lyrics for his song “Le petit Lauriston” and I listened to two recordings. I worked on memorizing the first verse. Whoever Lauriston was they were not liked. The song is basically a list of nasty gifts for Lauriston. 

            I memorized the chorus of “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are four verses left to learn and the rest of the song is repetition of verses. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. It was in tune once after a song was done. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the newest warm mist humidifier again. They say in the manual to remove the heating unit before soaking the humidifier in vinegar, but it also has to be soaked and then brushed. I find it cleans better to just leave it in for the twenty minutes and then remove it after to brush it clean. It was the same with the disinfecting process in the water-bleach solution. It went faster this time. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took my bike out but there was still too much snow to go far. I went up to Seaforth and had to walk part of the way to Brock. Brock is fairly clear so I rode down to Queen and east to Freshco where I bought seven bags of green grapes and then just went home. On the way back I noticed that my right pedal was not turning smoothly and I’d noticed the same thing yesterday so I stopped at Metro Cycles where it’s still under warranty. Mark said it was definitely loose. He took the pedal off and tightened it. He said that if it happens again I should bring it back because it would be a manufacturing problem that will need to be resolved. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:21. 

            I imported the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World” into Movie Maker. I placed it at the end of the video timeline of my “Seven Shades of Blues” project and began editing out the parts I don’t need. I kept shots of flower children, people dancing in chains at Be-Ins, naked hippies covered in mud, and a flower child spinning in a flowing dress. I had just got to the section on Arthur Brown when I stopped for the night. I don’t know if I’ll use the video clips of Arthur Brown but I’ll keep them because he was such a fascinating figure of that era with his song that begins “I am the god of hell fire” and his dancing under a flaming helmet. 

            “I reviewed the song practice video of my electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 7. The Gibson sounded rattly because of low action and the take starting at 33:15 had at least one wrong chord at the end. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 3, episode 5 of Batman. 

            This story continues from the previous episode. The Penguin and Lola Lasagne are trying to pull a fast one at the race track for the Wayne Foundation Handicap. Since Lola’s horse Parasol is the favourite, betting on it won’t win much money. So they buy or steal a horse from the glue factory and paint it to look like Parasol and paint Parasol to look like the glue factory horse. The disguised Parasol is renamed Bumbershoot. Since everyone else will be betting on Parasol the big payoff will be for Penguin and Lola when Bumbershoot wins. But Penguin and Lola need money to bet and so at the end of the last episode Penguin goes to the Gotham Library to steal the priceless folio on famous parasols. The librarian Barbara Gordon has an alarm in her bedroom that goes off when Penguin trips it in the library and she calls her father, Police Commissioner Gordon. Gordon calls Batman and somehow Penguin is only just leaving the library when Batman and Robin arrive. Penguin shoots sparks at them and escapes. Back at his bookstore he tells Lola that he’s going to arrange things so only Parasol and Bumbershoot will be running in the race. He has Lola pepper the other horses with itching powder so they will be scratched. Penguin still needs to sell the folio and notices in the classifieds that a collector named A. L. Fredd will pay top dollar for folios, especially ones of parasols. Penguin calls him and it turns out that A.L. Fredd is Batman’s butler Alfred and he buys the folio for $10,000. Penguin is still angry at Barbara for not marrying him when he tried to force a union and so he sends her a dangerous toy penguin. Bruce Wayne learns that Parasol’s jockey has disappeared. He says he’ll arrange for another and he’ll also enter his own horse Waynebeau in the race. Bruce tells Dick he can ride the fake Parasol and he would like Batgirl to ride Waynebeau but he doesn’t know how to reach her. Later at the library, Barbara’s colleague Myrtle opens the box that Penguin sent and pulls out the toy penguin. Barbara warns her and backs away but Myrtle gets gassed. Alfred arrives in time to put his coat over the penguin. Myrtle goes to lie down and Alfred tells Batgirl that she is needed at the horserace as Batgirl. As the race is about to begin, Waynebeau steps up to the gate ridden by Batgirl. Penguin himself is riding Bumbershoot (and Burgess Meredith was the only actor who didn’t need a stunt double for riding because he was a prize winning equestrian). The race begins and Batgirl wins. Penguin dismounts and runs away as Batgirl dismounts and pursues him. She catches up to him in the locker room. He has two of his men attack her and she has no problem against them. Penguin calls in three more henchmen just as Batman and Robin arrive to join the fight. Batgirl continues fighting as usual without fists but with feet or objects and then she sneaks away when it is clear that Batman and Robin don’t need her. Penguin and Lola are arrested. Later Barbara sees King Tut lurking round the library and so we know who the villain will be in the next episode. 

            Penguin’s henchman Visor was played by Joe Brooks, who started working as an extra. His first movie speaking part was in The Fighting Seabees in 1944. In 1964 he auditioned for the role of Vanderbilt the fort lookout in the pilot of the sitcom F Troop. He decided to play the part of the lookout as someone who was extremely near sighted and he won the role when the series was approved.