Charles C. Wilson

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for all but the last line of the second verse “À la manière de Brassens” (In the Style of Georges Brassens) by Boris Vian. I might be able to finish the song tomorrow. 

            I memorized the first verse and almost nailed down the second of “Ballade Des Oiseaux de Croix” (Song of the Birds of the Cross) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are only four verses and no chorus and so this song shouldn’t take long. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my out of tune Martin acoustic guitar. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I filed my income tax. It only took about an hour. I didn’t have to fill in the information from any slips because I gave the government permission to just download all my slips directly into the return. I always dread filing my return even though it’s always pretty easy. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown. It was quite a bit warmer than the 14 degrees my computer said it was. On the way home I stopped at Type bookstore to see if they’d been able to order my book. The guy I’d spoken to wasn’t there and so I’ll have to go back at another time. I stopped at Queen Fresh Market where I bought two bags of red grapes. 

            I weighed 85.25 kilos at 18:15, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since April 4. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:04. 

            In the second Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I found the missing clips from the BBC documentary When Hippies Ruled the World that I’d used in the previous project. I added them to the main timeline of the new project but still had to copy and repeat one of the clips to make it fit. I also had to repeat a clip of Arthur Brown in order to bring it up the beginning of the instrumental. I left off trying to recreate the montage of clips that I’d used for the instrumental in the project that I’d absent mindedly deleted. I should have that done tomorrow and then I’ll recreate the clips from Blackboard Jungle that I used before.

            I had some of my lima bean chili on oven fries while watching the last two episodes of the 1943 Batman movie serial. 

            In part 14, Batman has fallen through a trap door into a chamber with spiked walls that are closing in on him. Just before falling he’d sent Robin to the car for a crowbar and he returns just before the spikes are about to pierce Batman’s body. Robin passes the tool down just in time and Batman wedges it between the walls to stop their motion. Then he climbs out of the pit on a ladder of spikes. Meanwhile Daka has completed the process of turning Linda Page into one of his zombie slaves. He plans to use her to lure Bruce Wayne to him. But then Daka discovers that Batman has escaped his trap. Daka blows up the exit that Batman must have used so that now the only way in or out of Daka’s headquarters is through the House of Horrors. Minutes later one of Daka’s men sees Robin run to get into a car and so two of them follow in theirs. They cut them off and block their way but by that time Robin and Batman have changed back to Dick and Bruce and so they let them go. But now Bruce has Alfred follow Daka’s men and cut them off then after a fight in a park with the help of Alfred, they knock them out and take them to the Bat Cave where they are still holding Bernie prisoner. When they get home there is a note from Linda asking Bruce to meet her at 37 Pike Street. Meanwhile at 37 Pike Street two of Daka’s men carry a coffin into a room, open it and inside is Linda the zombie. They help her out and sit her in a chair to wait for Bruce. When Batman arrives he is slugged from behind and placed inside the coffin. The coffin is carried to Daka’s headquarters and immediately tossed into his alligator pit. 

            In the serial finale, the flashback to the previous episode goes back further than the cliffhanger. Just after Batman is locked in the coffin he sends a radio message in morse code to Robin telling him he is trapped. Robin climbs to the room and while the guard Wallace is distracted has just enough time to unlock the box. Batman emerges and knocks out Wallace, who is then placed in the coffin and when Daka’s men come back for it they follow them to the Chamber of Horrors ride that is the entrance to Daka’s headquarters. So when the coffin is tossed to Daka’s alligators Daka and his men know from the screams that it’s Wallace and not Batman inside. Meanwhile at the entrance to the Chamber of Horrors Alfred pretends to be a cockney drunk and distracts the barker long enough for Batman and Robin to sneak in. Inside they are attacked by the shirtless strong man who always stands guard outside the secret cave door to Daka’s den. Batman knocks him out and Robin ties him up. Batman sees a man ring the buzzer and be given entrance so Batman rings the buzzer too. Daka sees it’s Batman and has his men ambush him. Batman and Robin beat them to unconsciousness and Batman leaves Robin to tie those men up as well while he enters Daka’s headquarters. He is grabbed by two of Daka’s zombies who are too strong for Batman. When Batman sees Daka he exclaims, “A Jap!” Batman is taken to Daka’s lab. Batman knows Daka because he murdered two agents who were assigned to deport him. Batman is knocked out and strapped in the zombie making chair. While Batman is still self aware Daka has a surprise for him. He has his zombies Linda and Martin come to the lab. Robin follows them. Daka tells Linda to slap Batman’s face and she does so. Batman calls Daka a “Jap devil”. Daka is about to unmask Batman when Robin ropes him from behind and ties him up. Robin then frees Batman, and Daka is forced to either reverse the zombie effect on Linda or Batman will make Daka a zombie. Meanwhile Alfred is arrested for trying to break into the now closed and locked Chamber of Horrors. Linda is placed in the chair again and the reversal of her condition seems to be the same as how she became a zombie in the first place. The same switch is pulled and that seems pretty weak. That’s like knocking somebody out with a club and then hitting them hard again to wake them up. Linda is returned to normal and then so are all the other zombies. Batman finds records that show that Daka was responsible for Martin Warren being sent to prison by having someone give false testimony. Daka cuts himself free with a knife and grabs Linda. He is backing out of the room with her when he falls in his own alligator pit. Alfred arrives with the cops and Captain Arnold who has animosity towards Batman but takes credit for everything he does. Arnold wants to unmask Batman but he and Robin get away and then Bruce and Dick come to take Linda home. 

            This series was pretty good and suspenseful but one has to side step the racism. 

            In this 1943 serial there was no Commissioner Gordon even though Gordon has been in the comics since 1939. Captain Arnold is the highest ranking cop Batman deals with in this story and he was played by Charles C. Wilson. He appeared in six Broadway plays between 1918 and 1931. He made his film debut in Lucky Boy in 1928 which he also directed. It was his only time directing a movie. He died in 1948 at the age of 54 and it was the same year he made his final film, Blazing Across the Pecos.