I worked out the chords for verses 2, 3, and 4 and part of the bridge of “No Man’s Land” by Serge Gainsbourg. I might have it finished tomorrow.
I played my constantly out of tune Martin acoustic guitar for the last of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my almost always in tune electric guitars.
I weighed 86.35 kilos before breakfast.
At around midday, in the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I continued working on shortening the duration of the frames of my second animation from 37% of a second to 33%. I’ve almost got it so the animation ends when I start singing.
I weighed 86 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I headed out to take a bike ride but wanted to go to Metro Cycles first to get my saddle tightened. Outside my building I saw my upstairs neighbour David standing there. He said he was waiting for someone to bring him some Ethiopian food. He went to Metro with me. Gordon said I need a multi-tool. He says the best one they have is $60, so I might buy it later. I rode downtown and on the way back stopped at the No Frills at John and Richmond to see if they had any firm grapes. They did but I wanted to price match with Walmart, however that store doesn’t price match with Walmart. I bought seven bags anyway.
I weighed 86.25 kilos at 18:30, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since April 2.
I was caught up on my journal at 19:30.
In my Seven Shades of Blues Movie Maker project I only needed to shorten one more frame from my second animation for it to end exactly when I start singing. Then I added the clip of the rainbow umbrella from the Rainbow Family Gathering documentary, followed by the clip of the girl with the rainbow umbrella from the Woodstock doc. I’m now slightly less that two months behind in recreating this video after having absent mindedly deleted the project four days ago. At that point I was six months behind, so I’m making progress.
I heated up the lima bean chili I made yesterday and had it with barbecue flavoured chips while watching episodes 6 and 7 of the 1943 Batman movie serial.
In part 6, Batman is on a plane with a top secret engine that has been stolen by two of Daka’s zombies to deliver to a Japanese submarine. But the authorities have learned of the theft and order the plane shot down. Batman survives the crash and takes the mind controlling headsets from the two zombies. The Japanese sub surfaces only to be accidentally rammed by an Allied destroyer. When Bruce and Dick return home Linda is waiting for them to tell them that Ken Colton is in town to try to get in touch with his old friend, Linda’s Uncle Martin. Ken has struck it rich with a radium mine. Bruce is also a friend of Ken’s and agrees to meet him at Linda’s place later. Daka is determined to destroy Batman and since he has saved Linda Page on more than one occasion he figures there must be a connection. He arranges for a bugging device to be planted in her apartment. That is how he learns about Colton’s radium mine. Ken is about to show them where his mine is located and asks Linda for a map of the state. She goes to her desk to get a map and ends up dropping some papers, which go under the desk. Dick says he’ll pick them up and that’s when he finds and disconnects the bugging device. Daka sends his men to Colton’s room to get his papers. Bruce and Dick drop Ken off at his hotel, then Dick tells Bruce about the bug. Bruce thinks whoever planted it will come after Ken again so they change to Batman and Robin. Ken comes home and is attacked by the men searching his room. He puts up a pretty good fight while Batman and Robin climb the fire escape. They fight Daka’s men who eventually escape through the window. Batman and Robin change to Bruce and Dick to come to see Ken, who says the thugs didn’t get what they came for. The next day Ken calls Bruce to tell him he just heard from Martin Warren, who is a co-owner of the mine. He asks Bruce to come along to meet him. Bruce suggests that Ken let him check to see that it’s not a trap by the claim jumpers from last night. Bruce arranges for a reluctant Alfred to pose as Colton to keep the appointment. The disguised Alfred meets some of Daka’s men who tell him that Warren will be along later. In the middle of the room is a vat of highly powerful acid that could dissolve a person in an instant. They begin to demand the location of his mine and are about to get rough when Batman and Robin swing in. During the fight some live wires get pulled from the wall and are sparking on the floor. One of the men pulls a gun and while Batman is struggling with him some wild shots hit the vat of acid, sending a stream running towards the sparks. Batman gets knocked out while Alfred and Robin are locked in another room. Daka’s men escape just before the stream of acid catches fire and causes the vat of acid to explode. That’s the cliffhanger.
In part 7, Batman survives the explosion and the collapse of the ceiling as the beams formed an arch and protected him. Bruce calls Ken to warn him not to let anyone in his room. Then he goes to report the explosion to the police. He looks at some mug shots and he and Dick recognize one of the pictures. The captain says it’s Sam Fletcher, a former civil engineer. A man claiming to be a doctor comes to examine Colton, claiming he was sent by Linda. Ken lets his guard down and the fake doctor knocks him out with chloroform. Then some fake EMTs come to carry Ken to a fake ambulance on a stretcher. Bruce and Dick arrive at Ken’s room too late but smell the chloroform. They take for analysis the cloth that was used to administer the drug. The still unconscious Colton is brought to Daka and revived. Colton refuses to tell Daka the location of his mine but Daka calls Martin Warren into the room. Colton is shocked to see his old friend as a zombie slave and to avoid ending up that way he agrees to cooperate. But then he pulls a gun on Daka and using him as a hostage backs out of his lair, only to be clubbed by the strong man who stands guard in the chambre of horrors. Meanwhile in the lab Bruce uses a black light to find traces of a mark from a Japanese laundry of which there are few. Bruce knows there’s a Japanese laundry in the warehouse district and that night he and Dick go there. They see some of Daka’s men arrive to pick up some supplies for their trip to Colton’s mine. Bruce and Dick change to Batman and Robin and head for the roof. They jump down on the men through the skylight. After a fight, Robin is knocked out and Batman is flipped over the gate of the freight elevator to fall to the bottom of the shaft. Then one of them signals the elevator to descend and now it is on its way to crush Batman. That’s the cliffhanger.
Ken Colton was played by Charles Middleton, who was the child of a millionaire but ran away from home at the age of 12 to join the circus where he got a job caring for the elephants. Then he was elevated to performing dramatic vignettes between acts. At 18 he formed his own stock company and toured the south doing Shakespeare and some of his own plays. Once he’d achieved the vaudeville circuit he met Stan Laurel. He made his film debut at the age of 46 in the The $1,000,000 Reward. He appeared in a few silent films but his film career didn’t take off until sound came in because producers started seeking theatrical actors who knew how to speak. He played Ming the Merciless in three Flash Gordon serials: Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars, and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. He sings and dances in the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. He co-starred in the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle. He played Abraham Lincoln several times. In later life he toured a one man show in which he showed clips of his old films and talked about his career.
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