Jimmie Rodgers

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first verse of “Les Araignées” (The Arachnids) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished editing “Paris d’papa” by Serge Gainsbourg in my Christian’s Translations blog and published my translation: “Leaving Your Parents’ Paris”. Tomorrow I’ll post the lyrics on Facebook and then track down the next Gainsbourg song that I couldn’t translate before. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where there were only two bags left of Canadian cherries but they were too soft. I got a Canadian watermelon but that wouldn’t last the week and so I had to give in and buy seven bags of green grapes from the US. I also got some bananas, two packs of five-year-old Canadian cheddar, a whole chicken, some Comet cleanser (because I’m expecting a dirty comet), some plastic wrap, marinara sauce, tomato pesto, three bags of skim milk, a jug of iced tea, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 87.85 kilos at 13:50. I had saltines with artichoke paste, five-year-old cheddar, and a glass of iced tea.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was behind on my journal because I got sleepy last night and went to bed early. I spent two hours getting caught up. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, basil pesto, oven fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a can of Creemore while watching episode 21 of Checkmate. 

            Pop singer and teen idol Buddy Robbins has been getting death threats from a woman for the last six weeks. At first his manager thought it was a prank but finally he’s called Checkmate. At first they were only phone calls but when Buddy is mobbed by some screaming young women one of the autograph books he is handed is opened to a page where there is written in lipstick “I’m going to kill you”. Hyatt begins analyzing the note. Jed becomes Buddy’s body guard. Buddy is going to LA to make a movie. A woman shows up on the ledge of Buddy’s high up hotel room and asks Buddy to save her. Jed gets her back inside and then her boss shows up. He’s Matt Keeler, a publicity man for the film studio. He wanted to get pictures of Buddy saving the girl. Buddy’s opening act and friend is Joey Thomas the comedian. Joey discovered Buddy when Joey used to be a big deal but one night Joey went on his TV show drunk and started swearing and so now nobody wants to hire him. Buddy feels sorry for him. Jed and Buddy take the freight elevator to avoid the fans but the elevator almost crashes after the cable was sabotaged. On the train to LA there is a cutout of a human figure with Buddy’s picture hanging from a noose in the bathroom. Jed discovers in Buddy’s scrapbook of pictures of fans, the same woman in several different cities. The girl is obviously following him. Hyatt blows up and enhances one of the pictures until they have a face. Jed is having coffee in the hotel café when the waiter turns out to be her. Her name is Myra Simon and Jed chats her up, eventually getting her to go on a date with him. He comes into her place with her afterward and when she isn’t watching he checks her drawer where he finds a gun. The next day someone tries to shoot Buddy from outside the bungalow where he’s staying. Jed immediately calls Myra but she doesn’t answer. He goes over to her place and she says she just came in. He accuses her but then finds her gun has not been fired. In fact she never bought any bullets for it. She shows him a picture of her sister and tells him that Buddy killed her. They dated and she loved him but he didn’t want to get married so he killed her by getting her drunk, putting her into a car and sending it crashing into a tree. She found out about it from anonymous letters that somebody sent her. Myra says she wanted to frighten Buddy but couldn’t bring herself to kill him. Jed takes her to Buddy’s place where his manager says he remembers Myra’s sister Pat and how she got drunk and wouldn’t leave Buddy alone. He says Joey used to date Pat too. Myra says Joey wanted to marry Pat. Joey got drunk on his TV show the night after Pat died. Jed suddenly realizes that Joey is the one who’s been trying to kill Buddy. The scene changes to Buddy and Joey together at Joey’s place. Joey pulls a gun and says he and Pat were secretly married but she was leaving him because she loved Buddy. He blames Buddy for Pat’s death. Joey chases and shoots at Buddy through the movie sets as Jed follows. Joey shoots Jed’s gun away but Jed tackles him and knocks him out. 

            Buddy was played by Jimmie Rodgers, who was discovered on Arthur Godrey’s Talent Show. His first big hit was “Honeycomb” by Bob Merrill. “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” by Pete Seeger was also a top 10 hit for Rodgers. He made several appearances on Ed Sullivan and on one occasion was viewed by 48,500,000 TV watchers. He was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award for “The Long Hot Summer”. He starred in The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come” and “Back Door to Hell”. In 1966 he had a hit with his own song “It’s Over”. In December of 1967 he was stopped by a highway patrolman who was joined by three other officers and Rodgers claims they brutally beat him. The cops said Rodgers was drunk and hurt himself falling down. Another theory comes from the fact that Jimmie’s record company had connections with the mafia and they didn’t like the fact that he was suing them over payments he didn’t receive. The result was severe head trauma that required several surgeries. He made fewer public appearances after the incident. His autobiography was called Dancing On the Moon.

            I posted my Batgirl 21 video on YouTube and this one was not blocked. 

            I posted my "Tour of the Milky Way" video on YouTube