Bob Carr

            On Saturday morning I finished revising my translation of the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. There’s just one verse left and so I should have it done on Sunday. 

            I worked out the chords for Cassel’s tap dance music and his scat in “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left is the simple final scat by Distel and Cassel together and I should have that done tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the last of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 86.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my April phone plan. From there I went to No Frills where I bought five bags of green grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, four bags of avocadoes, fifteen vine ripened tomatoes, mouthwash, lemon dish detergent, two jugs of orange juice, and two jugs of Garden Cocktail. I had the feeling I was forgetting something but couldn’t remember what. Walking down every aisle usually helps fix that but this time I didn’t bother. When I got home I realized it was vinegar for cleaning my humidifier that I’d forgotten. I don’t need it until Tuesday and so I’ll pick it up from Freshco on Monday. 

            When I left the supermarket my brakes were squealing and grinding very loudly. After I hauled my trailer upstairs I took my bike over to Metro Cycle. Gordon said disk brakes do that when they get wet and one just has to shake the water out by riding the bike and slamming the brakes a few times. He took my bike for a spin and shook the squeaks out. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos at 14:30. I took a late siesta at 15:30 and woke up at around 17:15. It was too late to take a bike ride and it was raining anyway. 

            I weighed 86 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:48. 

            I downloaded all of the video clips I could find of the 1913 film Lime Kiln Club Field Day, which was the first movie ever made with an all black cast. 4K Downloader downloads everything in MP4, which won’t work in Movie Maker and so I used Total Video Converter to convert all but one to WMV. It rejected that one file as did my WinX converter but Cloud Convert online did the job. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on October 14 and 15. On October 14 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 31:30 wasn’t bad. On October 15 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 8:15 in part B wasn’t bad but the E flat seemed off. I now have eleven acoustic and nine electric takes of the song to compare and to decide which was the best of each. 

            I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 21 and 22 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            In the first story, a young stowaway on a freighter arriving in Gotham City is, except for his blond hair, a dead ringer for Dick Grayson. When the crew see him he jumps ship and swims to shore. On the docks he sees the Catwoman being chased by cops but doesn’t recognize her or them. All he knows is that a woman is in trouble and so he throws a knife to drop a net on the cops. Then the ship’s crew grab him, Catwoman decides to return the favour as she sends her men to take out the sailors. She learns that he has amnesia and then notices that he looks identical to Robin so she takes him on as a protegee (If she recognizes this boy as looking like Robin without a mask, why hasn’t she ever done the same with Dick Grayson?). She dyes his hair, dresses him as Robin and begins training him until she’s sure he can fight like Robin. Because she saved him he’ll do anything she asks. She plans to replace Batman’s Robin with her Robin. Catwoman stages a robbery to attract Batman and Robin to the scene. She lures Robin apart from Batman where he is pulled into the back of a van and knocked out. The van is driven away while the fake Robin pretends to be unconscious on the street. When Batman finds him he says he was hit from behind. Catwoman drives the van towards a construction pit and jumps out at the last minute, sending the van with Robin in it crashing below. The fake Robin pretends to faint and so Batman takes him home where he is put to bed and cared for by Alfred. Meanwhile the real Robin is inside the van that is buried in rubble. He manages to push open the back doors only to have more rubble rush into the van. The fake Robin pretends to have amnesia and asks Alfred to show him the way to the Bat Cave. When Batman sees him in the Bat Cave he orders him back to bed while Batman goes after Catwoman solo and thwarts her robbery of a fashion house. Meanwhile Robin continues to try to dig his way out. The fake Robin tries to call Catwoman to tell her Batman’s secret but Alfred stops him. He says the real Dick would not disobey an order. The fake Robin steals the Bat Copter and awkwardly flies it to try and reach Catwoman. Meanwhile the real Robin finally reaches the surface and makes his way to the Batcave. He takes a mini helicopter after the Bat Copter. The Bat Copter crashes and the real Robin confronts the fake one. They fight but the real Robin is weak from digging. Catwoman arrives and the fake Robin runs to her to tell her Batman’s secret but one of Catwoman’s men thinks he’s the real Robin and throws a rock that hits him in the head. The real Robin reunites with Batman. When the fake Robin regains consciousness he remembers that his real name is Christopher Collins and that he ran away from home to seek adventure. But now he doesn’t remember anything that has occurred since before he met Catwoman and so he’s forgotten Batman’s secret. 

            In the second story, the Maharaja of Taipoor is about to land at Gotham airport. When the Maharaja’s plane lands, a jeep drives in front of it with a sign on the back reading “Follow Me”. The plane taxis after the jeep to a remote part of the runway. As soon as the Maharaja emerges from the plane he is abducted and transferred to Mr. Freeze’s black plane. The Maharaja thinks they are shooting a gangster movie and is enjoying being part of it. Batman and Robin take to the air in the Batplane but they are looking for a black plane. Freeze covers his plane in frost until it turns white, then doubles back to Gotham airport. Freeze’s plane lands and the Maharaja is transferred to a limo. The limo drives into the back of a frozen food truck. Batman and Robin see the truck from the Bat Copter and Batman is lowered to the ground in a small Batcar to go after it. Freeze ices the road behind the truck, causing Batman difficulties. Then freeze turns the fog bank solid so Batman has to eject before the Batcar crashes into it. The ladder from the Batcopter is still there and he returns above. The truck goes to Freeze’s hideout at the old ice house. Freeze encases the Maharaja in ice. Batman and Robin descend to the roof on the ladder. They take out Freeze’s men easily and Freeze’s cold gun has no effect because they have the thermal power turned up on their utility belts. Freeze is arrested. The whole reason for all of this was for Freeze to get the Maharaja’s crown jewels but the Maharaja reveals he never goes out wearing his real jewels. 

            Some of the animation for these episodes was done by Bob Carr, who got his BA from the California Institute of the Arts. After graduation he became an assistant animator at Walt Disney. After that he worked freelance, animating for Hanna Barbera, Filmation, and Ralph Bakshi. He also did book illustrations for McGraw Hill. For Filmation he worked on Superman, Batman, Super Friends, and Scooby Doo. For Hanna Barbera he worked on Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Quick Draw McGraw, The Harlem Globetrotters and Space Ghost. For Bakshi he worked on American Pop.