The Green Hornet

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for the first line of the third verse of “Le temps passe” (Time Goes By) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the chorus of “Tandem” by Serge Gainsbourg. There is essentially only one verse left to learn and so I might have the whole song in my head tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. 

            I weighed 85.15 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since January 25. 

            Around midday I shut off my week-old warm mist humidifier and replaced it with my old one. It was the first time I’d used the old one since it shut down from lack of cleaning and I had to spend two days scraping the rock hard guck out of the heating unit. I was worried that all the scraping I had to do damaged the unit but it seems to be functioning as good as new. I cleaned the new humidifier and even after a week there was a lot of guck inside but it was soft and fairly easy to clean. It took me half an hour. I’ll clean the old humidifier again next Tuesday and continue to alternate them on a weekly basis.

            I weighed 86.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was minus nine degrees. For the first time this year there was enough light to not have to turn my flashers on. 

            I weighed 85.85 kilos at 18:22. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:35. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I finished the rainbow wave animation segments that accompany the intro. I started looking for live action videos of hippies with rainbows to go along with the beginning of the vocal part. 

            I grilled three rib steaks and had one with a potato and gravy while watching season 2, episode 51 of Batman. 

            This story begins with the Green Hornet and Kato after midnight in Gotham City investigating a stamp counterfeiting ring at the Pink Chip Stamp Company. The Green Hornet TV series never audibly named the home city of the heroes but it is written sometimes as Metropolitan City. We don’t really know where Metropolitan City is in relation to Gotham but the narrator says that they are far from home. They step into the factory and the foreman Colonel Gumm tells them to leave. He tells his men to throw them out but Hornet uses his gas gun and Kato uses kung fu and makes short work of them. Then they leave as Hornet explains they have what they’re looking for and will wrap it up tomorrow. The next day Pinky Pinkston, the owner of the Pink Chip Stamp Company asks Gumm who the visitors were last night. He tells her they were a couple of hoods so she calls Commissioner Gordon and her description of the intruders surprises him. He calls Batman to let him know that the arch criminal Green Hornet is in town. Although the Green Hornet and Kato are really heroes, their method of operation is to have people believe they are crooks so they can more easily infiltrate the underworld and bring its members to justice. Meanwhile Britt Reid, the secret identity of the Hornet calls up Bruce Wayne because apparently they are old childhood friends. Britt is in town for the newspaper publisher’s convention and wants to say hello to Bruce but Bruce is on his way to see Gordon as Batman. Then Britt calls Pinky to ask her to lunch but she says she’s having lunch with Bruce, then suggests that he join them. At Gordon’s office Batman speculates that Hornet might be looking for the extremely valuable but lost Gotham Gothic stamp, which belonged to Pinky’s late father. Back at the Pink Chip we hear Gumm say that he plans to attend the great International Stamps Exhibition from which he plots to walk away with some of the rarest stamps in the world. At the lunch date Bruce says he’ll get Batman to protect Pinky’s factory and Britt says he’ll try to find out what the Green Hornet is doing in Gotham. At a nearby table Colonel Gumm is in disguise and eavesdropping. Bruce says he has to drop by Boris Savaroff, his stamp dealer. Bruce thinks Boris sold him a bogus Russian Blue Boar. Britt says he also got ripped off with some fake vintage stamps. Bruce invites Britt to come with him. It turns out that Savaroff is also Gumm in disguise. After they leave, Gumm calls his henchman Reprint at the factory and tells him to shift into high gear because things are getting hot. Reprint tells him he’ll be impressed with his latest batch of counterfeit stamps. Then he looks up and sees Pinky has been listening. When she confronts Gumm he has his men lock her up in his office. Meanwhile Green Hornet tells Kato he’s sure Gumm and Savaroff are the same person. That night the Batmobile and Hornet’s limo Black Beauty arrive at the Pink Chip at the same time but at opposite sides of the building. Hornet and Kato go inside and Hornet asks Gumm to cut him in. Hornet is interested in a large machine and Gumm tells him it’s his own invention, the enlarged perforating and coiling machine. He suggests he take a closer look and then pushes them both inside and switches it on for them to be blocked, gummed and perforated. Then Batman and Robin enter and Gumm and his men attack. The heroes are winning until they are forced back onto a large non-detachable glue panel that is attached to the wall. They become stuck on it like flies on flypaper. Then from out of the other end of the machine a life size stamp emerges with the image of the Green Hornet. Apparently it is the Green Hornet. Gumm says after Kato comes through then Batman and Robin will be run through the machine. That’s the cliffhanger.

            The Green Hornet started as a radio show. Behind the mask he is Britt Reid, the publisher of the Daily Sentinel newspaper. His father was the nephew of the Lone Ranger. The show was adapted into two movie serials in 1940 and 1941. Keye Luke plays Kato in both serials. In the 1966 TV series Van Williams played the Green Hornet and Bruce Lee in his acting debut played Kato. It was the first time real Asian martial arts had ever been demonstrated on US TV. The show was created by William Dozier who was also the dreamer behind the Batman TV series. There is a feature length Green Hornet movie being planned that will hopefully be better than the Seth Rogen film that came out a few years ago.