Bruce Bushman

            On Wednesday morning the heat had been off for 24 hours and hadn’t needed the humidifier for a whole day. The atmosphere in my apartment was perfect. 

            I transcribed a set of chords for “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children) by Boris Vian although they are ukulele chords. I’ll search for more tomorrow. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Qui lira ces mots” (Whoever Reads These Words) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it in French. On Thursday I’ll run through singing and playing my translation before uploading it to my Christian’s Translations blog. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before breakfast.

            I sent an email to my dentist’s office demanding a $50 fee because they canceled my appointment without 48 hours notice. They got back to me and reminded me the dentist was sick and that they would also not charge a fee if a patient canceled due to illness. I said in that case I wouldn’t charge them the fee. They gave me a new appointment for May 14 at 16:30. I’m already getting a cleaning at the Graduate School at 13:00 but I figured I might as well get all the dental work done in one day and accepted the appointment. They have this habit though of sending incessant reminders. I booked my cleaning three months ago and the Graduate School only calls me one time, a week before the appointment to get a confirmation. Even that is unnecessary but it’s not annoying. I asked my dentist’s office to please stop reminding me. They apologized and said their automatic reminding system is not working properly. 

            Around midday I took a bike ride and stopped around Ossington and Bloor at Strictly Bulk to see if they had any interesting candy. I got a few latte covered almonds. Then I went to Bulk Mine at Yonge and Isabella where I bought various bulk candy items, a Toxic Waste piggy bank full of sour candy, Toxic Waste sour soda, Dr. Pepper cherry soda, about half a kilo of various Jelly Bellies, Haribo sour spaghetti, Bonds of London chocolate limes, Bonds of London black currant licorice, and Walker’s cheese and onion chips. I then rode down to Ricardo’s Candy Corner in the Eaton Centre where I got some more stuff. My daughter Astrid likes gummies, sour stuff and weird stuff. I got some gummy alligators, a tequila lollipop with a worm inside and a few other items. 

            On the way home I stopped at the No Frills at John and Richmond where I got one bag of red grapes, and four bags of green grapes. It was the least crowded I’d ever seen that place but that’s because it was still before the 9:00 to 17:00 crowd gets off work. 

            Passing the Cameron House one of the bands playing that night was The Bad Dates. That’s one of the best band names I never came up with. 

            I weighed 86.15 kilos at 16:30. I had saltines with four-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

            I took a siesta and woke up at 18:30. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 18:45. Then I tried again and it came out 86.55 twice, so I’ll go with that.

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:51. 

            I continued adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 19 of my rainbow wave animation. I’m more than halfway done with this frame and then there will be ten left to do. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with marinara sauce, Genoa sausage and four-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 14 of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio.

            In the first Birdman story, Professor Taggart (an agent of F.E.A.R.) infiltrates the Pentagon and interrupts a meeting of military leaders led by General Stone. Rays come out of Taggart’s eyes or glasses that duplicate Stone, with the copy being obedient to Taggart. The real stone is captured and the doppelganger orders missiles to be removed. Falcon 7 notifies Birdman of this uncharacteristic behaviour and they suspect a duplication plot by F.E.A.R. They agree that the next target for copying could be the president. Birdman goes to the Whitehouse but learns the president has gone to the airport. Meanwhile we see Taggart being hindered by a guard from reaching the president’s plane so Taggart copies the guard and the copy knocks the real guard out. Birdman observes this and tries to stop Taggart but he makes five more copies of the guard. Birdman stuns them all. Then he looks at them through an x-ray lens and sees they are not human and so he is free to destroy any duplicates. Taggart copies a pilot and a jet and takes off while Birdman follows. Taggart flies out over the ocean and notifies headquarters then a dome rises from the water that opens to reveal a landing pad. The plane lands and Birdman and Avenger also enter the dome, that closes and sinks back into the water. Then we see Taggart confronted by the real Taggart who destroys him for failing in his mission. Taggart then tries to force his captured generals to tell him where to best capture the president. Birdman confronts Taggart and tells him he can tell by his eyes that he is also a copy. Birdman frees the generals while Taggart sets off a bomb to destroy the facility and himself. 

            In the Galaxy Trio story Condor 1 enters the atmosphere of Planet V9 without clearance and so the planetary defenses are forced to fire. Condor 1 takes out their defenses and steals a component before leaving. Then Planet L14 reports that the Galaxy Trio has robbed them of their voraxim cultures. Other planets are also robbed. Interplanetary Police are notified and the Galaxy Trio become wanted. The real Trio learns of this and avoids capture in order to clear themselves. They take out the unmanned police drones. Galaxy Girl uses the ship’s computer to determine that the fake Condor 1 has landed on X4. Meanwhile on X4 the imposters are shown to be apelike beings and the last survivors of the planet Magnatron. They have an army of exploding androids that attack the Trio when they land. Two androids capture Gravity Girl and she can’t use her powers on them because any shift in weight would cause them to explode. Meteor Man and Vapour Man don’t dare to do anything for fear of hurting Gravity Girl. Several androids surround Condor 1 to keep the team from entering while the Magnatronians escape. Gravity Girl thinks she knows how to defeat the androids. She says they were created at 37 degrees and haven’t set yet. If Vapour Man can change the atmosphere, they will change as well. It works and all the androids are destroyed. It turns out they don’t have to pursue the Magnatronians because the robot police drones have captured them, thinking they are the Galaxy Trio.

            In the second Birdman story, at the Pentagon, a Dr. Beckman presents the generals with a little black box called the solar box that can transfer anything into the fourth dimension and bring it back. It’s powered by a glowing meteorite. Suddenly someone delivers boxes that look like they contain long stemmed roses to each general, but inside are living vines that tie them up while Professor Nightshade, an agent of F.E.A.R. steals the box. While Falcon is reporting this to Birdman from Washington, the entire city has disappeared. Birdman goes to Beckman, who gives him a smaller fragment of the meteor. He says the closer it gets to the box the brighter it will glow. The fragment leads him to a greenhouse where he confronts Nightshade. But both Birdman and Avenger are tangled in vines and Birdman has used up too much solar energy. Nightshade tries to send Birdman into the 4th dimension but the meteor in the solar box recharges Birdman’s powers and he breaks free. Nightshade tries again to use the box on Birdman but the beam bounces off him and sends the villain into the fourth dimension. 

            One of the layout artists was Bruce Bushman, who was the son of silent film star Francis X. Bushman. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute and was later hired by Disney as a layout artist on Fantasia. He worked his way up to being an art director. He was assigned to help develop Disneyland. He helped design Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. He designed the overall layout of the theme park and specifically Fantasyland Castle and the King Arthur Carousel. He was a sketch artist for the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He became the art director for the Mickey Mouse Club, designing the look of the show and the Mickey Mouse Club logo and the mouse ear caps. He left Disney and became the art director for the TV shows Sea Hunt, Bat Masterson and Gentle Ben. Then he became a layout artist for Hanna-Barbera on Jonny Quest, The Flintstones and The Jetsons. He made sketches for a proposed Hanna-Barbera theme park .