I almost worked out the chords for the third verse of “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions.
I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since March 12.
Around midday I was hitching up my trailer before going down to No Frills and my upstairs neighbour David came over to look at my new bike.
At No Frills I bought about seven bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, four bags of avocadoes, bananas, green onions, a bag of English cucumbers, a jug of orange juice and a jug of Garden Cocktail.
I weighed 86.4 kilos at 14:45. March 8 was the last time I was that light in the early afternoon. I had the same lunch I usually have while fasting: tomato, avocadoes and lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail.
I took a siesta at 15:30 and woke up at 17:00, too late to take a bike ride, but that’s usual for a Saturday.
I weighed 86.55 kilos at 17:15.
I was caught up on my journal at 18:30.
In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I edited a little more of my copy of Wings of Desire. I’ve kept the part from the beginning that shows the angel’s wings fading away. I deleted everything up until the trapeze artist with the costume angel wings and kept all of those parts. There is about an hour and 45 minutes left.
I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from October 6 to 9. On October 6 and 9 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar. On October 6 the take at 20:45 was okay but in the end I pronounced “sixteen” as “sixstain”. On October 9 the take at 31:30 sounded okay except that I used the volume pedal instead of the tremolo bar because I was so used to playing the Gibson. On October 7 and 8 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar. On October 7 the take at 29:00 wasn’t bad. On October 8 the take at 27:45 wasn’t bad and it looked good but the E flat at the end wasn’t firm.
I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 7 and 8 of The Adventures of Batman cartoon series.
Batman and Robin in the Batmobile are pursuing one of Catwoman’s tabbies. He leads them down an alley where the Batmobile is snagged from underneath by a hook. That section of the alley floor is a turntable that points them at the brick wall where a door slides up and they are conveyed inside. Inside the building is an elaborate elevated roadway that would have cost millions of dollars to construct and a lot of human labour. Catwoman would have to be extremely wealthy. They almost crash into another car but it’s just the Batmobile in a mirror. The mirror slides up revealing a chamber with several numbered doors and Catwoman’s voice invites them in. She’s suspended from the ceiling in a cage. She says she’s set nine lethal traps but only one door leads to freedom, and then she disappears. From the first door a panther jumps out. Batman throws a knife that cuts the rope that holds the suspended cage and it falls on the big cat. Then we see Catwoman is still in the cage and had only disappeared by illusion. Batman pulls her out and now she is a prisoner too. Batman tries the next door and a spear comes flying out towards Catwoman but Robin rescues her. She agrees to show them the way out. But gasses them and escapes on the way. They exit the building and see her in the Catmobile driving away. They follow in the Batmobile but the bomb detector alarm sounds and indicates that if they hit 100 kph the bomb will explode. They stop and explode the bomb but when Catwoman hears the explosion she thinks it means that Batman and Robin are dead. The heroes go home and discover that now they are glowing. Via Commissioner Gordon they receive a message from Catwoman that the gas in the tunnel was radioactive and will cause them to shine for 24 hours. She says if they go out in public she’ll know their secret identities. That doesn’t sound plausible. One assumes Gotham is a city with millions of people. It wouldn’t be that easy to find two members of the population who happen to be glowing. Dick suggests they just stay home for 24 hours but Bruce says tomorrow is election day and he is duty bound to vote. Catwoman is watching one particular polling station and she sees Bruce Wayne arrive while glowing, but then she sees Gordon and Chief O’Hara glowing as well. If those were the only people Batman made to glow it should still be obvious that Bruce is Batman but now she says she can’t tell. Plus, is there only one polling station for all of Gotham? How could she know where Batman would vote? She sees Robin on the lookout for her and so she makes herself visible to lure him in pursuit. He tracks her to Miss Kitty’s Wollens where he is ambushed by Catwoman’s tabbies. He puts up a fight but is knocked out. Catwoman turns on Robin’s homing device to lead Batman into a trap. Batman finds Robin tied in a tank being filled with water. Batman can’t break the tank because it will explode. But Batman uses the Bat Pulley and throws it so a suction cup catches on the ceiling just above the tank. The pulley is under the cup and there’s a hook on the end of the rope to catch Robin and raise him out. Catwoman puts a ring of fire around them but now they can break the water tank with sling shots. It doesn’t say that they disabled the explosive so that doesn’t make sense. They are knocked out by the rush of water and wake up in a vat of quick sand but Batman and Robin activate the rockets in their boots and escape in time to catch Catwoman and her men robbing the diamond exchange. There’s a fight and the heroes win. Catwoman is captured.
In the second story Joker keeps borrowing books on pirates from the library. Barbara Gordon tells Batman about it. He doesn’t think borrowing books is suspicious activity but Barbara thinks Joker is up to no good and decides to investigate as Batgirl. She goes out to Gotham Bay where she sees a pirate ship with the Joker’s face and crossbones on its flag. He’s on the beach with his men ordering them to dig. There is a movie camera but it’s pointed away. Suddenly she gets knocked over the head and captured. Joker puts her in the ship’s brig without her utility bag but she still has her belt and under the buckle is a transmitter that signals Batman with an SOS. Batman and Robin swim to Joker’s ship and climb aboard. After a bit of a fight Batman and Robin are knocked out and put in the hold with Batgirl. She says she saw a map leading to a treasure buried by Captain Crink. Batman says there was no Captain Crink but there was a gangster named Big Arnie who stole $10 million from a Crink’s armoured car. Batman and Robin are also sans utility belts but Batgirl uses a hair pin to pick the lock. They go looking for the Joker and Batgirl falls down one of the holes his men dug. She feels something hard underneath her and discovers the treasure chest. They pull the chest up and it is full of $10 million in cash. Batman starts removing the money from the chest and tells Robin to go and distract The Joker and his men. Robin calls to them while they are digging and they run after him. Batman has Batgirl get inside the chest and lowers it into the hole the men have been digging. The Joker follows Robin to a cliff he dives from. Assuming he’s drowned they head back to the digging site where they find the chest. They take it to the ship and prepare to open it. The Batboat is off Starboard and Batgirl pops out of the chest. Joker fires cannons at the Batboat. Batgirl drops the anchor, causing the men to stumble. Batman and Robin climb aboard and the fight starts. Batman, Batgirl and Robin defeat Joker and his men easily. Batman reveals that the $10 million was all counterfeit. Joker laughs and says they can’t charge him for looking for phony money but Commissioner Gordon charges him with shooting a movie without a permit. But he didn’t even shoot a movie.
This story was written by Bob Haney, who earned a BA from Columbia University. He wrote a number of novels and then entered the comic book industry. His first published story was “College for Murder” in Black Cat #9. Several of the publishers he worked for in the 50s went out of business because of Frederic Wertham’s anti comic book publication Seduction of the Innocent. Haney ended up working for DC for the next thirty years. His first DC story was “Frogman’s Secret” in All American Men of War. In 1959 he introduced the world to Sergeant Rock with the story “Rock of Easy Co”. He claimed to have co-created The Doom Patrol but the other creators of that series say he only co-created the character of Negative Man. In 1964 he co-created The Teen Titans. He co-created Metamorpho, which he considered to be his greatest artistic achievement. He co-created the character The Enchantress in 1966. He often contradicted DC canon in his stories like when he had Batman get over his parents’ murder. He wrote himself into Brave and Bold #124. He co-created the Super Sons of Superman and Batman. After he left DC he returned to writing for animated shows like The Thunder Cats. He was married to Chevy Chase’s aunt.
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