Henry Fonda

            On Friday morning on my Christian’s Translations blog I published “On the Way to Harry’s Bar”, my translation of “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg. I then posted the lyrics on Facebook. I listened once to the Gainsbourg song “Johnsyne et Kossigone” and tomorrow I’ll start memorizing it. It’s a pretty simple song, so it shouldn’t be difficult to learn.

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. It was pretty much in tune from the start. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Epi acoustic guitar and it won’t be in tune very often. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I rode to Christie and Bloor to an imaging lab to get my bone density scan done. My doctor said that now that I’m 70 I have to do that every couple of years. It’s a weird, noisy Star Trek looking thing that moves over the body. I thought it was going to teleport me someplace or do a 3-D print of my body. My stomach felt weird but maybe that was just from the noise and the proximity of the machine. The technician said it shouldn’t affect my stomach. I learned that there is a lab next door in the basement that could do my blood work and so I went there. I thought I would have to fast for 12 hours but they said it was okay and I got it done. One of the tests was not covered by OHIP and so I had to pay $41. I’d thought I’d have to get these two tests done on separate days but now they are both out of the way. 

            I continued riding to Yonge and Bloor, south to Richmond, west to Peter, north to Queen and west to Parkdale. My front brakes were sounding weird and so I stopped at Metro Cycle. Gordon said the metal was coming through on one of my brake pads. I don’t know why they didn’t find that during my tune-up. Anyway I bought new pads for $40. Gordon said this is his slowest year since he opened in 2019. He said the economy has shied people away from buying new bikes. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 15:30, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 15. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos at 18:20. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:41. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I worked on shortening the duration of the frames of the animated rainbow wave at the end of the video. I need to shorten them a bit more and then maybe mix some of them up with the images of Brunhilde’s castle from Fritz Lang’s Sigfried. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 1, episode 16 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            After the end of the school day Chet gets on the elevator in the basement just as Mr. Richards is getting off. But Richards didn’t want the basement and gets back on. Chet explains how the elevator works. Richards pressed the button on the third floor to call the elevator there, but in between then and the time the elevator arrived on floor 3, Chet had pushed the button to call the elevator to the basement. The elevator goes to wherever it is called first. The door opens and they are at the third floor when Richards wanted the ground floor. Chet explains that is because Richards impatiently pushed the button again on the third floor after Chet called the elevator to the basement and so the lift then returned to the third floor where it had been called after. He says now it will go to the ground floor because Richards pushed that button after he got in. But it doesn’t go to the ground floor but to the fourth floor because the cleaning lady Mrs. Wochuk called it there before Richards pushed for the ground floor. Wochuck does not speak English other than “How you do” when she gets in. But on the way down the elevator gets stuck between the third and second floors. The three of them are forced to spend the night together. Chet instigates a game of twenty questions and several other games to pass the time with Richards until they start arguing. Then Wochuk opens her thermos and there seems to be booze inside because she starts dancing some kind of Slavic or Yiddish dance and everybody else joins in. Then Chet starts asking Richards about his life and they learn that they are both “undecided” voters. Chet says his family have been undecided voters for generations. Richards says that polls show that undecideds outnumber Republicans and Democrats put together. He speculates that if they formed an Undecided party they could take over the US. “Fellow undecided voters, don’t just do something, stand there!” Richards gets serious and says he has been undecided about his own life for the thirty years he’s been a teacher. He decides he’s going to quit and go and breathe fresh air, then he and everybody else starts dancing. They are freed in the morning and later Chet invites Richards and Wochuk to his place for dinner and Richards suggests they make it an annual event. Richards announces that he finally knows he wants to be a school teacher. Mrs. Wochuk was played by Elsa Lanchester who played one of the most iconic characters in the history of cinema in the title role in The Bride of Frankenstein. 

            Joshua Richards was played by Henry Fonda, who at the age of 14 witnessed the lynching of Will Brown during the Omaha race riots and it enraged him against racism for the rest of his life. In 1923 he enrolled in the University of Minnesota as a Journalism major but after two years decided Journalism was not for him. He worked at various jobs but after playing the lead role in a one-week play called Merton of the Movies, he was hooked on acting. He joined the University Players where he met and became lifelong friends with James Stewart. He studied acting with Marlon Brando’s mother Dorothy. In 1934 he did a comedy sketch with Imogene Coca in the Broadway review New Faces. He hired Leyland Howard as his agent and manager and it is he that persuaded Ford to enter film acting. His film debut in 1935 was a co-starring role in The Farmer Takes a Wife. He co-starred in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, You Only Live Once, The Moon’s Our Home, Jezebel, Jesse James, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Mad Miss Manton, The Lady Eve, Daisy Kenyon, Battle of Midway, Let Us Live, War and Peace, The Deputy, Fort Apache, Fire Creek, The Cheyenne Social Club, There Was a Crooked Man, My Name is Nobody, Tentacles, Roller Coaster, City on Fire, Yours Mine and Ours (Jane says her father was in love with Lucille Ball), On Golden Pond (for which he won an Oscar). He starred in I Dream Too Much, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Grapes of Wrath (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), My Darling Clementine, The Ox Bow Incident, 12 Angry Men (which he also produced), Rings On Her Fingers, The Wrong Man, The Return of Frank James, Big Deal at Dodge City, The Tin Star, Once Upon a Time in the West, Mister Roberts (He won a Tony for the Broadway version), Battle of the Bulge, Gideon’s Trumpet, Fail Safe, Stage Struck, The Male Animal, Spencer’s Mountain (which inspired The Waltons). He starred in the short-lived sitcom The Smith Family. During the time of the House of Un-American Activities investigations into Communist activity in Hollywood he was one of the actors who protested the witch hunt. He was so offended by the political climate in Hollywood that he moved to New York until 1955. He approved of his daughter Jane’s anti-Vietnam War activism. He was a big fan of All in the Family and hosted a TV special about the show. He became a skilled painter. Quote: “I’ve been close to Bette Davis for 38 years and I have the cigarette burns to prove it”. The character Major Major Major Major in Catch-22 is based on Henry Fonda.

May 31, 1995: I worked for a high school and a college

Thirty years ago today 

            On Wednesday I posed during the day at Northern Secondary School and that night from 18:30 to 22:00 I worked for the Ontario College of Art in room 208 of the Stewart Building. I probably didn’t go to Fat Albert’s after that.

Bryan O'Byrne

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the sixth verse of “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children) by Boris Vian. There is one verse left to figure out. 

            I ran through singing and playing “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation, then I uploaded them to my Christian’s Translations blog. I started preparing them for publication and I’ll have them posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice and the rattling sound is gone since Alex Wood raised the action. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I’ve been waiting two weeks for a call from Life Labs about an appointment to get a bone density scan. They are so hard to get in touch with by phone that I decided to call an imaging place at Christie and Bloor. They said they don’t do appointments but I could walk in, so I’ll go in the early afternoon next Tuesday. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since March 18. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on my way back. I bought five bags of red grapes, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, peameal bacon, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, Italian pasta sauce, salsa, and a can of shaving gel. I did a price match on the grapes at the No Frills price of $8.80 a kilo. It’s often a hassle showing the cashier the price in kilos because it’s always smaller than the price in pounds. Don’t we live in Canada? Why aren’t all the prices in kilograms? 

            I weighed 87.55 kilos at 18:45.

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. 

            I continued adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of the last frame of my rainbow wave animation. I just had one shade left to add at suppertime. 

            I had a potato with gravy and some pork ribs while watching season 1, episode 15 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

           Chet’s colleague Winona tells him he has to serve as one of the chaperones for the school dance tonight. At lunch he meets the other two chaperones besides himself and Winona. They are Leonard and the new teacher Diane. Leonard is escorting Winona, who suggests that Chet escort Diane. Chet and Diane are happy with that arrangement because they find each other attractive and he will pick her up at 19:00. Meanwhile a student named Norman reports that he’s missing his bite plate. Chet’s car is being disassembled in the school auto shop (though it’s absurd that he would allow his Mustang convertible to be taken apart by students). He calls his sister in law Verna to ask if he can borrow Brian’s car but she is so hypnotized by her soap opera that she just says “yes” without thinking. Later when he comes to pick up the car Verna has no memory of it, otherwise she would have told him that Brian’s car is in the shop. Brian had to drive his company’s garbage truck home and so Chet has no choice but to drive the garbage truck to pick up Diane. But she doesn’t seem to mind. At the dance Chet sees Norman with a date and when they go to dance Chet sees Norman’s bite plate on his seat. Chet brings it to Norman in the washroom and tells him someone who likes him won’t mind. Chet waltzes with Diane, Leonard dances with Winona, and the students are having a great time as well. The instrumental rock music being played is probably by Quincy Jones. This was the thinnest story yet in the series. 

            Leonard was played by Bryan O’Byrne, who studied acting under Stella Adler and dance under Martha Graham. He co-starred in Duel of Angels with Vivien Leigh. At the beginning of his career he was a neighbour and friend of Marlon Brando in New York. He made his TV debut in Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1962. He appeared in more than 200 TV commercials. He played Hodgkins on Get Smart, Dick Grayson’s principal on Batman, a mortician on The Munsters, and the mailman on Blondie. He became an acting coach and some of his students became stars, such as Forest Whitaker, Jimmy Smits, Lou Diamond Philips and Pam Dawber. He discovered Nick Nolte when he was coaching Nolte’s college roommate. He asked Nolte to read some lines opposite his student and then discovered that Nolte had talent. Nolte slept on O’Byrne’s couch for almost a year while being coached. O’Byrne cast Nolte in his production of the play The Last Pad and launched his career.

             Before bed I finished adding blue to the last sepia copy of the last frame of my rainbow wave animation. I imported all of the blued sepia frames to Movie Maker and placed them in sequence at the end of the timeline of my "Seven Shades of Blues" video project. 

May 30, 1995: It was Bill Baker's first time at my open stage and he didn't know what to think

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday I posed at Northern Secondary School. That night I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel. It was the anniversary of the Gumby Bible group poem and we had a bit of a party. Members of the audience took turns reading parts of the poem that were collectively written over the past year. It was William Baker’s first visit and he didn’t know what to think of us.

Quincy Jones

            On Wednesday morning I finished working out the chords to “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and English before uploading it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            I played my old Epi acoustic guitar during song practice and it went out of tune a lot but slightly less than the Martin did. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 18. 

            At 13:00 I finished sanding the drywall compound over the cracks I’d filled on the western wall of my bathroom. The southern wall is the last part I’ll need the stepladder to reach. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with Genoa salami, five-year-old cheddar and Dijon. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was raining lightly and got a little heavier as I went along, enough for me to turn and head home at Gladstone and Bloor. 

            I weighed 87.5 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I finished adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of the penultimate frame of my rainbow wave animation and started on the last one. I was over halfway done at suppertime. 

            I made pizza on two halves of a Montreal style bagel with Genoa salami, marinara sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 14 of The Bill Cosby Show.

            Chet is sick and has to stay home from his job as a high school gym teacher. Then his mother calls the school, learns he’s sick and comes over. When he lets her in she criticizes him for getting out of bed. She criticizes him for several other things like not wearing slippers, keeping a messy apartment, not having enough blankets, and not having any food in the fridge. For each one she adds, “No wonder you catch cold!” She puts camphorated oil on his chest and now he smells like moth balls. She goes out to the market and then Chet’s sister Vicki comes by and criticizes him for not wearing a bathrobe, adding “No wonder you’re sick!” She gives him some mysterious orange pills and afterwards he can’t blink. His mother returns and she and Vicki argue over whether Chet has a fever. His mother gives Chet a drink made of lemon juice, onion, sugar and kerosene. Kerosene used to be a popular home remedy until a little after WWII when access to professional medical care became more common. Now pretty much everyone knows kerosene is toxic and should not be taken internally. Vicki and Chet’s mother canceled their card game to take care of Chet but decide to have Helen and Betty come over to play there. Helen brings Chet some mustard green soup. Then Chet’s brother Brian comes over and gives him some of his own mixture, which they both get happily drunk from. The next day Chet goes to work and his co-coach Tom tells him he still looks horrible and tries to give him some raspberry juice. This wasn’t a particularly funny episode and seemed to be just an excuse to introduce some new characters.

            The music for The Bill Cosby Show was composed by Quincy Jones. At the age of 15 Ray Charles introduced him to heroin but he only used it for 5 months. In 1951 he won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. But he dropped out to tour with Lionel Hampton as a trumpet player and conductor. He toured Europe with a production of Harold Arlen’s Free and Easy. He returned to New York and became the vice president of Mercury Records. While there he also composed and arranged for Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, and Dinah Washington. His first hits as a producer were “It’s My Party”, “Judy’s Turn to Cry”, “Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows”, and “You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore. In 1963 he won his first Grammy for his Count Basie arrangement of “I Can’t Stop Loving You”. In 1967 he became the first black person to win the Oscar for Best Original Song with “The Eyes of Love”. He wrote the scores for The Pawnbroker, The Wiz and Roots. He became the conductor and arranger for Frank Sinatra’s orchestra, and arranged Sinatra’s recording of “Fly Me To the Moon”. He wrote the music for In the Heat of the Night and The Italian Job. He composed the theme song for Sanford and Son. He produced Michael Jackson’s albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. He put out his own albums: The Dude, and Walking in Space. He wrote the score for The Colour Purple. He wrote the theme song for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. His production company produced Jenny Jones and Mad TV. He was married to Peggy Lipton of The Mod Squad and they were the parents of Rashida Jones of the sitcom Parks and Recreation. He had a common-law relationship with Nastassja Kinski and they had one child. He won 26 Grammy Awards. His Listen Up Foundation built more than 100 homes in South Africa. He never learned to drive a car. He said The Beatles were the worst musicians in the world but I wonder if he said it after his brain aneurysm. He also claimed to know who killed JFK other than Oswald and that Marlon Brando had sexual relationships with James Baldwin, Richard Pryor and Marvin Gaye.

May 29, 1995: I posed at Northern Secondary

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I posed at Northern Secondary School from 9:00 to 11:30 in the studio that sits on top of the roof.

Rex Ingram

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for the first two verses of “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s half the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third session. I’ll be taking it to Alex Wood today to have him do the upgrades. Tomorrow I guess I’ll play my old Epi for one session. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            At around 13:00 I took my Martin guitar and my Gibson Les Paul up to Alex Wood. I left the Martin with him and he says he should have it on his bench in about a week and the re-fretting, and the installing of the new tuners, the new saddle, and the new nut will only take a couple of days. He raised the action on my Gibson but forgot to put the truss rod cover back on before I left with it and texted me about it later. I don’t really need it to play it so I’ll bring it up when I go to pick up the Martin. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta at 15:00 and didn’t wake up until 16:45. It was too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos at 17:30, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since November 28. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:15. 

            I returned to adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of the penultimate frame of my rainbow wave animation. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 1, episode 13 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet is still volunteering at the community centre for under privileged children. It’s Christmas Eve and he has promised to get a tree for the kids to decorate. At a tree lot a cranky old salesman named George is threatened with firing because of his surly attitude. He shows a customer a tree but the man says “I don’t know” and turns away. Chet arrives and immediately says he wants that tree and pays for it. The other customer now says he was about to buy the tree. George lets Chet take it but the other customer complains to the manager and George is fired. Chet is about to drive away when he sees George walking away and then learns he was terminated. He offers to take the tree back but George says it’s too late. He asked George where he’s going and he says the Ashley Hotel. Chet offers him a ride but he refuses. Chet delivers the tree to the centre and helps the kids decorate it. When it’s time for Santa Clause Helen tells Chet that he has to take on the role again because the other guy couldn’t make it. Chet has a date and doesn’t want to do it but suddenly he gets the idea to get George to play Santa. He goes to the Ashley Hotel and offers George $10 to do it. At first George refuses and says he doesn’t get along with kids. He says he had a daughter who died at the age of 6. Chet persists but George still rejects the offer. Chet goes back to the centre and starts putting on the costume and is about to stuff his belly with a pillow when George arrives and says he’ll do it but only if his interaction with the children is minimal. At first he is quite cold towards the kids while handing them their presents but then one girl is crying when she receives her gift. She says she was bad sometimes and isn’t sure if she deserves it. Suddenly George becomes tender and tells her she can keep the present. She kisses him and says she loves him and George immediately (a little too quickly) starts behaving like Santa Clause towards everybody. It’s a Christmas miracle. 

            George was played by Rex Ingram, who died at the age of 74 before this episode aired. Cosby personally asked Ingram to play the part. He graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in medicine but was approached on the street to appear in the first Tarzan film and after that became an actor for the next fifty years. His film debut was in the 1918 silent movie Tarzan of the Apes. He made his Broadway debut in 1929. He starred in The Green Pastures in 1936. He co-starred in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He played Lucifer Junior in the original Broadway production of Cabin in the Sky. He co-starred in Hell on Devil’s Island, and Watusi. His TV debut was in Climax in 1956. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for transporting a teenage girl across state lines “for immoral purposes”. But the Mann Act disproportionately targeted black men. He pleaded guilty and may or may not have been but the way the system is set up, lawyers often advise their clients to plead guilty in order to receive a lighter sentence when conviction is inevitable. He became the first black actor to be cast in a US soap opera but A Brighter Day was canceled about a month into his role. He was a partner in the LA jazz club Alabam.

May 28, 1995: It rained

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday it rained so my daughter and I played inside.

Alan Cumming

            On Monday it was my birthday.

            I had gone to bed early and woke up at 3:30. I laid in bed for a while and got up at 4:00. I didn’t listen to the radio during yoga but instead played Bach: “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her” (Salvation Now Has Come For All); “Mein Seel erhebt den Herren” (My Soul Magnifies the Lord); “Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen” (Laud to God in All His Kingdoms); and “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” (Weeping, Lamenting, Worrying, Fearing). I did all my exercises, including my chin-ups and skipping earlier than usual. 

            I looked ahead for the next Serge Gainsbourg songs for which I hadn’t yet worked out the chords and found two more in the 1967 file that now have audio files online. In addition to these there’s one more song in the 1967 file but unfortunately there does not seem to be a recording or any lyrics posted. It’s an anti capital punishment song about Carol Chessman (who was executed in the US) that Gainsbourg sang with France Gall, but any record of it seems to be lost. 

            Around midday I rode east almost to Spadina to get a dozen sesame seed bagels at Bagels On Fire. I stopped at A&W where I got a bacon and egg sandwich on a muffin and some fries. When I got home I went to Pope Yes and bought six biscuits, which were already done. Then I went over to Ali’s Roti to ask if they could still make a spinach and potato roti with just spinach. In the last few years they’ve added some other vegetables that I find nasty. The guy at the counter said they add Bok choy and something else now and it can’t be changed. He said he doesn’t like it either because it tastes bitter. He said, “You can thank Ali for that”. I got a potato and curried split pea roti with hot sauce. 

           When I got home I made coffee and was heating up the fries and the breakfast sandwich when I got a call from my upstairs neighbour David. He said he was waiting for me downstairs at Pope Yes. I told him I couldn’t come and he was disappointed. Somehow he’d gotten the impression that I’d agreed to hang out with him today. I always have plans on my birthday that don’t involve hanging out in fast food joints. I told him we could do it another time. 

            I had the breakfast sandwich, fries and coffee while watching episode 1 of the latest season of Doctor Who. 

            The story opens with Alan Budd presenting Belinda Chandra with a certificate that shows he’s paid to have a star named after her. Seventeen years later Belinda is a nurse in a hospital and she comes home after a long shift to find her co-op invaded by giant robots who capture her to take her back to Missbelindachandra One” as the queen of the planet that orbits the star that Alan named after her. The Doctor arrives too late to save her. He tries but fails to intercept the ship on the way to the before mentioned planet. She is greeted by a human named Sasha 55 who calls her the queen but says the robots must be obeyed. She steps forward and whispers “Please help us!” There is a rebellion by the humans and the robots are killing them. Two rows of humans are there on either side (including the Doctor) as she is told to walk towards her throne. She is told she will marry the Great AI Generator. The AI holds a copy of Belinda’s star certificate and says it is a binding contract. He tells her she will bond with the machine. She refuses but the robots say the marriage will be enforced. Belinda asks why everything on this planet is so stupid. Sasha introduces the planet’s designated historian to explain and it is the Doctor. He tells her how the robots and humans used to live together in peace but adds a different word outside of his story about how the AI Generator conquered the robots, in every ninth word with the message “Listen to me please carefully. Robots faulty, cannot hear every ninth word”. She understands and counts her words to confirm she understands. He adds “Rebels fight back very soon. The time is now!” Suddenly the rebels draw blaster guns to attack the robots. Many of the rebels are killed but some escape with Belinda to their headquarters. Sasha dies and it turns out she was beloved by the Doctor and others. Some rebels resent Belinda and say it’s her fault. She returns to nurse mode and helps the wounded. The Doctor tells her someone told him she was important. He says AI’s star certificate is not a copy of hers but the exact same certificate. He says time is out of sync. When he arrived at Belinda’s planet the robots impounded his Tardis. For Belinda only two hours have passed but for the Doctor it has been six months. If Belinda’s certificate were to touch AI’s certificate there would be an explosion. There is fighting going on outside of the rebels’ hideout and it’s in danger of collapsing. Belinda turns on a floor polishing robot knowing full well that if it is activated the robots will find their hideout. She does this to save the humans by surrendering herself to marriage with the AI. When she approaches the AI she discovers that it is not AI but rather Al Budd. When she was being abducted earlier she had called out that they should go after Al instead of her since he bought the certificate. It turns out that this caused them to go back in time through the time fracture to abduct Alan Budd. He loved it because it was like a video game he could live in. They transformed him into the AI and he took control. He was an incel with an obsession for Belinda. That night when he gave her the certificate he proposed but wanted full control and she told him no. Al now holds out the certificate for her to take the other end and bond with him. But she takes the original certificate and touches it to his. As they are the same from different timelines it causes a kind of time explosion. The Doctor pulls her out of it but in doing so he goes through her entire lifetime to realize that he has been connected with her since she came into being. Alan reverts to a sperm and egg and then the floor cleaner sucks him up. The robots return to being friends with the humans. They return the Tardis to the Doctor. Belinda enters it with the usual reaction. He tells her that the soldier Manisha Chetri who he met in the 51st Century was a direct descendant of her. She accuses him of testing her DNA without her permission and says he is dangerous. He wants to take her on adventures and says she will not miss her shift in the hospital but she demands that he take her home. However the Tardis is deflected by something that prevents her from returning to her point of departure. It looks like Earth has been exploded in that timeline. 

            I brought the step ladder in and with a hammer and chisel I tore the plaster and concrete off a meter square area of the eastern living room wall above the door, freeing up the bricks. 

            I rode up to Marks at the Dufferin Mall to buy a pair of sweatpants. The pair I’ve had for years has started to fall apart and is just being held up by the drawstring, which cut my finger at one point. They had three sizes of extra large but I discovered that the increase in size is just in width and that the leg length is the same for all of them, so I just bought the smaller extra large, which seems to be about the same length as the ones I had already but they are 72% cotton while the old ones are 100% polyester so I think it’s probably an improvement. 

            I weighed 85.85 kilos at 17:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since May 9. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:25. 

            David came by and I gave him a biscuit and a Montreal bagel. He says the landlord’s son is moving in above me. Incredible that Raja would put his own child at ground zero of the bedbug infestation. 

            I heated my roti and had it with a few beers while watching episode 2 of the current season of Doctor Who. 

            In a cinema in Florida in 1952, a cartoon character named Mr. Ringading in the animated pre-movie short comes to life and attacks the audience. Meanwhile the Doctor is still trying to get Belinda back to May 24, 2025. He assembles a Vortex Indicator or Vindicator. The Tardis now has to land somewhere and he’ll activate the Vindicator, which will cast out a signal like a fishing line to May 24, 2025 and then the Tardis can hone in on the signal. They land in 1952 and get clothes from the Tardis to wear for that time period. They step out and are in front of the cinema where Mr. Ringading came to life. They find that the door to the cinema has been chained shut and that people have left flowers in the doorway with more than one name addressed. The Vindicator goes off, indicating that it has made the connection to May 24, 2055. Belinda wants to go home but the Doctor wants to investigate the movie theatre. Belinda says, “You’re Scooby Doo!” He says, “Honey please, I’m Velma”, meaning Velma Dinkley of Scooby Doo Where Are You? They go to the diner next door to have coffee and ask questions. They learn that fifteen people went missing from the picture house. The waiter says he’ll bend the rules but Belinda doesn’t understand. The Doctor explains that in 1952 in Miami the diner is segregated and coloured people are not allowed. They talk to the mother of a teenager named Tommy Lee who disappeared. The police searched the theatre again and again. The mother sits in the diner all the time watching the cinema through the window and waiting for Tommy. They can hear that movies are still being played in the movie house and the waiter explains that Mr. Pye the projectionist is still in there playing the movies to an empty house. The Doctor now wants to go inside so Belinda says, “Come on Velma” and he says, “Okay Fred!” He uses his sonic screwdriver to break the chain. They enter the cinema and call for Pye. He sees them from his booth and begs Mr. Ringading not to hurt them. They hear tap dancing and Mr. Ringading emerges from behind the curtains to do a self introductory song and dance. The Doctor observes that he is made of light. Ringading’s catchphrase is “Don’t make me laugh!” The Doctor realizes that the most dangerous thing about Ringading is his laugh. He laughs and it knocks some of the letters from the theatre marquee so that the remaining ones spell “harbinger”. The Doctor says that the gods of Chaos have harbingers. Ringading introduces himself as Lux Imperator the God of Light. They run from him and take shelter in the projection booth. Pye says he continuously plays movies to feed Lux. He explains that his wife died but Lux brought her back through Pye’s home movies of her. Belinda finds a strip of film hanging with 15 frames. The Doctor says that Lux has trapped each of the audience members in celluloid. Lux enters the booth under the door and realizes the Doctor must be the one the other gods fought with. Lux turns the projectors on the Doctor and Belinda and turns them into cartoons. At first they are extremely simple until Belinda says, “Your life is terrifying! I don’t think you’ll ever get me home!” Suddenly her image gains more definition and the Doctor concludes that it was because she said something with depth. He tries it by explaining to her that he’s the last of the Time Lords and he also becomes more rounded. They continue like this as they each become more and more real until they are but then they are still trapped inside of the cartoon background. They start to pull down their frames faster and faster until they are free. Suddenly a cop enters the theatre with Tommy’s mother and with his gun drawn. He demands answers from the Doctor but the Doctor tells him his continuity is off. This is Miami but he is wearing a New York police uniform. The Doctor realizes they are still inside a movie and they can’t get out by pulling frames. They have to push the fourth wall. They step out of a TV screen into the living room of some fans watching Doctor Who. Two of the fans are surprised but a third says she knew it would happen because it was leaked online. The Doctor then learns that he is a fictional character on a TV show. They all say their favourite episode is “Blink” but the current Doctor keeps citing some of his own adventures, however they still say it’s the one with David Tennant’s Doctor. Then they tell the Doctor and Belinda that they aren’t fictional but they the fans are. Then they tell them it’s time for the third act and so they have to go back in and fight. That means that when the Doctor and Belinda leave the fans will cease to exist. They pull the frame down and the Doctor and Belinda are in a blank space. The Doctor says the only way out is to stop the film. If a film stops while being projected it will burn. They stretch out to fill the frame and stop it from moving. It burns all around them and suddenly they are free. The Doctor has a third degree burn on his hand but heals it with light from within. Lux however observes this and sees that the Doctor has exact what he wants. Suddenly strips of film shoot out to wind around the Doctor. He is tied to the wall in front of the projector window. The projector shoots through the Doctor and sends his energy to Lux, making him more and more real. Belinda goes to the film shelves and knocks all the canisters into a pile. She tells Pye that she needs matches to burn the film. He is reluctant because he doesn’t want to lose his wife but she appears before him and hands him a box of matches. He burns the movies and the projector booth blows up, knocking the Doctor into the aisle with sunlight shining through the hole in the wall. Bathed in sunlight, Lux grows larger and larger as he floats out of the theatre and into the sky to become one with all light. The fifteen missing audience members then emerge from the cinema. Mrs. Flood appears at the end to point at the Tardis disappearing. How did she get to 1952 Florida? The fans are watching and suddenly realize they didn’t die. 

            Lux was played by Alan Cumming (He played King James in an earlier episode), who started appearing in high school plays then worked with the Carnoustie Theatre Club and the Carnoustie Music Society. He graduated from high school early. He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and earned a BA in Dramatic Studies. He formed a successful cabaret act with Forbes Masson called “Victor and Barry”. he made his professional stage acting debut in MacBeth. His TV debut was as a regular on the soap opera “Take the High Road” in 1980. He co-starred in the BBC sitcom “The High Life”. His London debut was in “Conquest of the South Pole”, for which he won an Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 1991 he won another for Best Comedy Performance of the Year in “Accidental Death of An Anarchist”. His film debut was in Prague in 1992, and he was nominated for a BAFTA. He co-starred in Bernard and the Genie. He won the 1994 Best Actor in a Musical Olivier for Cabaret. His Hollywood debut was in Circle of Friends. He co-starred in Buddy. He made his Broadway debut in Cabaret in 1998 and won a Tony. He played Nightcrawler in X-Men 2 (He’s supposed to play the character again in Avengers: Doomsday). He co-starred in Son of the Mask. He co-wrote, co-directed and starred in The Anniversary Party. He produced and co-starred in Full Grown Men. he wrote the novel Tommy’s Tale in 2002. He has his own cologne called “Cumming”. His 2014 memoir is called Not My Father’s Son. he’s an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. he owns Cummings Club in New York. he co-hosted the 69th Annual Tony Awards. 

            After supper I went to wash the dishes. I had left a paper towel on top of the stove that I’d used as a napkin during my meal. The towel was moving and obviously there was a mouse underneath. I grabbed it and could feel and hear it squirming and squeaking under the towel as I walked over to the window, opened it and released it onto the ledge. It immediately jumped down to the foliage below. That’s one mouse gone.

May 27, 1995: I took my daughter to the playground

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I spent a lot of time with my daughter on the playground.

Jon Walmsley

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the fifth verse of “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children) by Boris Vian. There are two verses left to figure out. 

            I worked out the chords for the intro and half the first verse of “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of three sessions. On Tuesday I’ll be taking it to Alex Wood to have him do the upgrades. I could go today but I have to shave and shower and I don’t want to go on Monday because it’s my birthday and I don’t want to do any business and lug guitars around. 

            I weighed 86.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            I shaved and showered. 

           I added shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 27 of my rainbow wave animation. There are two frames left after this. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta from 14:30 to 16:00. When I got up it was raining. I headed out for a bike ride but I would have gotten wet if I’d gone too far and so I only went around the block. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:30. 

            I finished adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 27 of my rainbow wave animation and started on the penultimate frame. I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, basil pesto, Genoa salami, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 12 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet runs into Al, a guy he knew in high school who also happens to now be a professional football player. Al says the real money is in commercials and when he hears that Chet is a football coach he tells him that a certain ad agency is looking for a real coach to do a cereal commercial. He says one can get $10,000 ($87,000 today) if the commercial runs on TV. Chet goes to audition and the people in charge are impressed. He goes to his colleague Miss Hardy at Holmes High School and she gives him some acting lessons, which might have made him a little too self conscious during the actual shoot. He has to interact with a child star named Jeff Lord at a breakfast table and introduce him to Corn Wispies. Chet fumbles a lot and is getting sick from the cereal. He asks Jeff how he can stand it since the cereal is horrible. Jeff says, “Just drink the milk. That stuff’l kill ya!” They finally get an acceptable take, but later Chet gets a rejection letter and a cheque for only $250. 

            Jeff was played by a 13 year old Jon Walmsley, who was born in the UK and came to the US at the age of two, but in 2018 he returned to England to live. His TV debut was in Combat in 1966. He played Jason Walton on The Waltons for the entire nine year run of the series. He also created the voice of Christopher Robin for the Disney Winnie the Pooh cartoons. He was a guitarist for Richard Marx’s touring band and appeared in two of his music videos.

May 26, 1995: I went to the Spit Fridays open stage at the Cameron for the first time

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday it was my birthday. I posed a full school day from 9:00 to 15:00 at West Toronto Secondary School. After work I wandered around and bought a porno magazine. That evening I went to the Spit Fridays open stage at the Cameron House for the first time, hosted by the Leslie Spit Treeo: Pat Langner and Laura Hubert. I think I performed “Dahshine” and Pat reacted to the refrain “Don’t smile at me unless you wanna have sex with me”. When I was done he pointed at me and told everyone, “Don’t anybody smile at him!” I think Laura took an immediate dislike to me but it didn’t matter much to me because although she had a good voice she seemed like just a dumb alcoholic.

Olive Dunbar

            On Saturday morning I finished memorizing “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but was not surprised that nothing turned up, since this song was only written for a one-off TV skit. Tomorrow I’ll start working them out and they shouldn’t be very difficult, as all the verses have the same melody and there’s no chorus. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it was in tune from the start and stayed there. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar unless I hear soon from Alex Wood that he’s ready to repair it, in which case I’ll take it up there on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to No Frills where I bought one bag of red grapes, four bags of green grapes, two packs of raspberries, some bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a double pack of New Zealand grass fed ground beef, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, a pack of chocolate croissants, two artisan naan, two large containers of skyr, one small container of creamy skyr, PC vanilla ice cream, PC coffee ice cream, a bottle of compressed whipped cream, a jug of raspberry iced tea (they were out of the low sugar kind, a bag of Miss Vickie’s jalapeno chips, and a bag of PC Korma chips. When I got home I went out to the LCBO and bought two six-packs of Creemore. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 14:45. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea.

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:00. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos at 17:15. I was caught up in my journal at 18:15. 

            I started adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 26 of my rainbow wave animation. I was almost done at suppertime. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, Genoa salami and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 11 of The Bill Cosby Show.

            Chet’s nephew Roger is sick and asks his uncle to take his paper route for a day. To save Roger from losing his job, Chet agrees to do it. Chet rides Roger’s bike to the place where the other kids gather to wait for the truck to bring them their papers. The boys look down on Chet because he doesn’t know how to fold the papers for throwing. He struggles with it and all the others have left by the time he gets it. He does the job but doesn’t always have a good aim while throwing the papers and has to retrieve them, once from behind a fence with an angry dog. When he’s finished one of the boys informs him that he took the wrong route and now has to retrieve all the papers he delivered to take them to the right street. At the Jacobi house he sees Mr. Jacobi coming home drunk and grabbing the paper so Chet follows him inside to retrieve it. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobi are arguing while Chet tries to find the paper. Chet intervenes and acts as a counselor, causing the couple to tenderly reconcile, then Chet finds the paper and leaves. Later Chet goes by his brother’s place to see how his nephew is doing only to learn that he had a recovery, went to school and now he’s out playing. Chet tells Velma that he’s going to go beat Roger up. 

            Mrs. Jacobi was played by Olive Dunbar, who attended the Yale School of Drama and was one of the youngest in the class of 1946. She began her acting career on stage. She made her Broadway debut in The Joyous Season in 1948. When one of her theatrical tours ended in LA she decided to stay and break into film and television. She starred in the 1969 short film adaptation of the short story “The Lottery” as Tessie Hutchinson, the woman who is stoned to death.

May 25, 1995: I posed that night for OCA

Thirty years ago today   

            On Thursday night I posed from 18:30 to 22:30 in room 214 of the Stewart Building for the Ontario College of Art.

Olga James

            On Friday morning I was still getting used to my upper left tooth being gone but it was nice to be off the ibuprofen. I memorized the second verse of “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg and that’s half the song. During song practice I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar. I was worried that having the tooth extracted would affect my singing but it doesn’t seem to. It feels like there’s meat in the hole but I assume that’s just clotted blood or maybe just my gum. I weighed 86.2 kilos before breakfast. Around midday I called 311 to get the city of Toronto to compel my landlord to get a Green Bin. I found out that Raja is not required by law to provide a green bin for his tenants. He’s one of the 33% of landlords that choose to remove waste privately. He doesn’t recycle but just puts all of the waste (organic or not) together in big garbage bags and carts it in his van to the dump. The person I spoke with suggested that I call the Landlord-Tenant Board. I did but didn’t reach a live person, but only got recorded information about filing a maintenance complaint. I predict that wouldn’t do much good. I did a bit of research and learned that this year the rules will be changing and landlords may soon be required to provide green bins. Raja’s system of taking everything to the dump is very common but when organics are put in landfills they produce greenhouse gasses. A lot of tenants throughout Ontario are complaining and supposedly the laws will be changed soon, so I might as well just wait. The next time the landlord complains about me putting grapes in the garbage I’ll just remind him the problem would be solved with the green bin that he’ll have to get soon and so he might as well avoid the rush. I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. I avoided crunchy food today and just made some not crisp oven fries that I had with salsa and skyr. In the afternoon I took a bike ride and passed on the Bloor bike lane the folk singer Elizabeth Block. At the light I turned and said hello. At Yonge and Bloor there was a “Free Palestine” demonstration and so I assume that’s where Elizabeth was headed. The last time I saw her was when I rode past a demonstration and she was wearing a “Jews Against Israel” T-shirt. I stopped at Type bookstore on the way back to ask about them ordering my book. The manager, Clare said she’s still nudging Kyle about it so she said to call in a couple of weeks. I weighed 86.6 kilos at 18:00. I was caught up on my journal at 19:15. I continued adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 25 of my rainbow wave animation. There are four frames left to do after this. I was only supposed to eat soft food today after my extraction so I didn’t heat up any of the pork ribs I’d grilled on Wednesday. I made a new batch of gravy with the pork drippings. I’d marinated them in salad dressing and so the gravy tasted a little vinegary but after I added paprika it was delicious. I had some with a potato and skyr while watching season 1, episode 10 of The Bill Cosby Show. Chet is at home preparing a romantic dinner for Beverly, his new love interest, when his brother Brian barges in with a suitcase. He says he’s left his wife Verna and he’s moving in for a while. Chet says he can’t because he has a date but Brian says he’ll keep out of the way. Beverly arrives and they are just about to relax on the couch when Brian starts shouting in the bedroom at Verna over the phone. Then he storms out and tells Beverly that Chet thinks all he has to do use a little finesse and he can get a woman any way he wants her. He tells her that Chet thinks he’s an expert on women and doesn’t know there’s a difference between single and married women. He says single women are agreeable because they are desperate. Suddenly Beverly confronts Chet and accuses him of agreeing with Brian and she leaves. At bedtime Brian refuses to sleep on the couch and reminds Chet that they slept in the same bed when they were kids. Brian takes up most of the bed and the covers and on top of that snores and puts his arm around Chet in his sleep. At 13:00 the doorbell rings and it’s their father who says their mother woke him up because Verna told her Brian left. He says he has Verna in the car and tells Chet that his mother won’t go to sleep until Brian goes home and that means he won’t go to sleep until Brian goes home. He accuses Chet of encouraging Brian. Then Verna comes in and she and Brian immediately embrace. They leave together and before his father leaves he tells Chet to stop getting involved in everybody’s personal affairs. Later Chet has another but more intimate dinner date with Beverly at his place when the doorbell rings. This time Chet ignores it. Verna was played by Olga James, who studied opera at Julliard in the same class as Leontyne Price. Her stage debut was in the opera Four Saints in Three Acts in 1952 in Paris. Her film debut was in Carmen Jones in 1954. Her Broadway debut was in Mr. Wonderful in 1956. She was married to legendary jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and they were together from 1962 until he died in 1975. She married folk singer-songwriter Len Chandler who wrote “Beans in My Ears” and they were together until he died in 2023. She died in 2025.