Syd Barrett

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children) by Boris Vian. 

            I tried to transcribe the text for the second verse of “Au risque de te déplaire” (At the Risk You’ll Have the Blues) by Serge Gainsbourg. I was able to figure out two lines but the next one is too difficult. I tried to look for a program for getting text from YouTube videos but none of them worked, maybe because they are programmed to recognize only English. I’ll try again tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions and totally forgot some lyrics and chord sequences that have been habitual for months and years. That happens sometimes but this might have been the worst. Usually the next day I’ll remember everything as if nothing had been lost, so we’ll see how it works out tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before breakfast almost an hour later than usual. 

            I put all the candy I’d bought for my daughter Astrid into the Canada Post flat rate box but there was still room so I found a few other things to put in to fill it up. The postage was already paid when I bought the box since it was under 5 kilos. The clerk at the post office recognized me because he came to my open stage at the Gladstone a couple of times back in the 90s. 

            I went to No Frills where I bought one bag of green grapes, three bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, two T-bone steaks, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, a tub of margarine, a jug of low sugar iced tea, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s Applewood smoked barbecue chips. I did a price match on the grapes at the Sobey’s price but when I got home I saw that the cashier had only price matched the green grapes. I went back and she said I’d shown her a picture of green grapes in the flyer. But though that’s true the text said “grapes” and not “green grapes” , so I got $5.50 back after waiting about fifteen minutes. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos at 16:15. 

            I took a siesta at 17:00 and got up at 18:30. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos at 18:54, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since April 2. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:30. 

            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 the antepenultimate episode of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. 

            In the first Birdman story, in a prison a convict named Demoniac is working in a prison lab. I don’t think they have chemistry labs for prisoners in penitentiaries. Anyway, there is an explosion and Demoniac suddenly gains super speed which he uses to escape. He makes a special titanium costume so the friction of the high speeds doesn’t burn his body and he calls himself The Speed Demon. He easily performs several thefts, even advertizing them beforehand but he gets bored. What he really wants is to destroy Birdman, who put him in prison (although we never saw that happen). He notifies Falcon 7 in advance that he will steal the new experimental missile because he knows Birdman will try to stop him. He steals the missile easily and when he sees Birdman flying in his direction he begins spinning at such high speed that he forms a tornado and flies to surround and overwhelm Birdman. He ties Birdman to the missile so that he can’t use his solar powers without exploding it. He aims the missile at a mountain which is supposed to hold the lost Dutchman’s mine. Avenger comes and Birdman gets the pet eagle to unscrew the detonator of the missile. He does it with its beak but that wouldn’t be possible. The missile is launched but Birdman throws his solar shield against the mountain, causing the missile to bounce off. It now seeks the titanium in Speed Demon’s suit. Speed Demon tries to outrun it but trips and falls. Birdman puts his solar shield on top of Speed Demon so the missile doesn’t hit him. The missile crashes and Avenger helps Birdman get free, then he goes back for Speed Demon only to find that his use of super speed has caused him to age into an old man. He is taken to prison. 

            In the Galaxy Trio story, galactic outposts are being mysteriously destroyed. The Trio checks with Ranger 90 on outpost A-15 when the ranger reports that spores are forming over his observation dome. The spores merge and form a monster that smashes the dome. It is about to destroy Ranger 90 when the Trio beams him away. Condor 1 lands on A-15 and the team separates to look around. Gravity Girl is grabbed by the monster and surrounded in a transparent cocoon. Meteor Man finds her but is confronted by the monster. He turns into a giant and smashes it to pieces, then frees Gravity Girl. The pieces of the creature reform and put a cocoon around Meteor Man. Gravity Girl lures the monster under a ledge and causes it to fall on the creature. It oozes out but is a little smaller so she can levitate it. Then another one attacks. Vapour Man tries to burn it but that causes them to multiply. He is able to temporarily freeze them. Inside the cocoon Meteor Man is rendered unconscious by a sleep gas. Vapour Man seeps inside to wake him up with heat, then tells him to grow into a giant. That breaks the cocoon. The Trio uses the gatherer missile from Condor 1 to suck in the spores and then launch them into space.

            In the second Birdman story, Jesse Johns, who claims to be a descendant of Jesse James, has a gang in the modern west with futuristic weapons like flying horse-shaped scooters and paralyzer ray guns. They rob a bank and the jewellery store. Several other towns are robbed as well and Birdman is notified. Birdman pursues the gang just after they rob another town and captures one of them. He forces him to talk by taking him high up in the air and dropping him and only rescues him after he agrees to divulge the location of their hideout. As Birdman approaches the hideout an electronic rope extends from the chimney and ties him up. He is placed in a jail cell. Birdman tells Jesse that the real Jesse James had no ancestors. That would be quite a trick. He obviously means Jesse James had no descendants but that’s not true. His son had four daughters; one of his granddaughters had three sons; and I think the line has kept on going to the present. Birdman is left in the jail while the gang goes to kidnap the governor. Avenger comes to the window of Birdman’s cell. There happens to be a rope lying around in the cell and Birdman gives one end to the eagle and tells it to hook it to something that moves while Birdman ties the other end to the bars on the window. Avenger loops the rope around a bull’s horns and then taunts the bull to chase him. The bull impossibly tears off part of the wall of the hideout. Jesse’s gang has ripped up the tracks ahead of the train carrying the governor. If the train isn’t stopped it will be wrecked and so Birdman uses his strength to stop it. Birdman challenges the gang to a shootout and blasts them all with solar energy. They are arrested. 

            I’ve recently listened to the Syd Barrett discography. When Barrett was 15 his father died. To help Syd get over his grief, his mother let him rehearse in the front room of their house with his first band, Geoff Mott and the Mottoes. He studied art at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology. In 1963, influenced by Bo Diddly, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Syd started writing songs. In 1964 he formed Pink Floyd. An unofficial member of the band was light artist Mike Leonard. Unlike most bands whose lightshows are programmed to fit the music, Pink Floyd improvised music for the light shows. Syd wrote most of the songs for the first album and most of the creative ideas were his as well. Piper at the Gates of Dawn reached number 6 on the UK album charts. He started taking a lot of acid and his behaviour changed. The US tour was somewhat of a disaster. He would sometimes stop playing and stare into space. During the US tour he untuned his guitar during a concert. Syd’s old friend David Gilmour was hired to replace Syd’s guitar parts whenever Syd stopped playing. Eventually they just decided one day not to pick Syd up on their way to rehearsal. He did two solo albums and Gilmour produced one of them. On one song they couldn’t make the guitar fit until Syd suggested they play it backwards. Syd accompanied the backward tape and then when they played it forward again the backward guitar fit perfectly. Syd stopped playing guitar and took up painting, photography and gardening. He showed up in the recording studio after seven years, having gained a lot of weight and with his head and eyebrows shaved. He was jumping up and down and brushing his teeth. His family claimed he had no mental illness. He was never on medication and received no treatment but he got very upset and depressed if the members of Pink Floyd visited him and so they stayed away. Gilmour made sure that Syd received Pink Floyd royalties for the rest of his life.