I worked out the chords for the first verse of “Le rent' dedans” (The Pick-Up) by Serge Gainsbourg.
Since I wrote the last entry of my 1995 diary on November 4 of that year I’ve been going through my writing to see if I can piece together the events of my life after that point. I was writing all the time but I wrote very little of the details of my life at that time. But today I found an issue of the now defunct free African Canadian magazine The Word dated February, 1996. I must have found it on an empty seat on the streetcar when I had a pen with me but no paper and wrote some stuff on top of the text. I was in the process of moving to my new place on St. Clarens where I would be renting a space from Helga Schlatter and her partner Peter Bird. I was carrying large pieces of furniture by myself late at night on nearly empty streetcars from the Beaches to the west end near Lansdowne and Dundas. I’d been trying to figure out when I moved there and it seems fairly clear now that it was in February of 1996. I doubt if a February issue of a magazine like that would be there at any other time.
I weighed 89.3 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune on most songs.
At a little after noon I rode downtown to the Graduate School of Dentistry to get my teeth cleaned. The Canadian federal dental plan only covers about one and a half cleanings every year and it’s been a year since the last time I didn’t have to pay and so this time it was covered. The plan covers a lot of fillings but it’s weird that it doesn’t cover many cleanings, which are the most important thing to prevent needing fillings. My first cleaning last year hurt so much that I needed freezing but it has gradually become less painful with each cleaning and this time it didn’t hurt much at all. Villy knows that I’m considering an implant. She suggested that I could also get bridges, which would be partially covered by the federal plan and which she says I could get cheaper if I had a student do the work. She said I could also get whiter teeth that way. She said my gums are in so much better shape that I won’t need cleaning every three months anymore. She booked me for March 4.
I weighed 89.15 kilos at 15:04.
I took a siesta at 15:45 and woke up at 17:45.
I weighed 89.85 kilos at 17:55, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since October 27.
I was behind on my journal because I dozed off at the computer for too long last night, so I spent some time getting caught up.
I had a big potato with margarine and two chicken drumsticks while watching episode 27 of Cain’s Hundred.
The mobster Big Ed Pavanne is on his deathbed and wants to see his son Rico. He makes his brother Vincent swear he’ll bring him. Rico Pavanne has changed his name to Rick Carter and is a top student in college. He helps out with the basketball team and his best friend is the star player Alec Benson. Vincent comes to see him but Rick doesn’t want to have anything to do with him or his father since he knows they both are killers. Meanwhile Nicholas Cain and some federal detectives are following Vincent to catch him for his specialty of game fixing but they don’t yet know who Rick is. Because Vincent swore to his brother he would bring Rico to him he is determined to do so. After a couple of failed attempts he finally makes a proposition. He says that everyone can be bought, including his friend Alec and the deal is that if he can’t get Alec to shave points off a game for $2500 then he will leave Rick alone, but if he can then Rick has to come to see his father. Rick brings Alec to him and Vincent tells him he doesn’t have to lose the game but only limit his team’s points to a narrow win. He offers him $1500 up front and Rick is appalled when his friend takes the money. During the game, when his team is slightly ahead Alec commits several fowls until he is kicked out of the game. In the locker room Rick is shouting at Alec about going to get the rest of his money when Cain approaches them. He reveals that Alec has been working with the authorities and that he wore a wire the night Rick took him to see Vincent and they told him to shave the points so Vincent could be caught giving him the money. Meanwhile Vincent learns that Rick’s father has died and he’s defeated. He knows that all the feds need are two witnesses and so he surrenders.
The late teenaged Rick was convincingly played by the nearly 30 year old Robert Blake. He started singing and dancing as a child on stage in an act with his parents who he later said physically and sexually abused him. He made his film debut in Bridal Suite. He was a member of the Our Gang movie troupe as Mickey at the age of 5. He played Little Beaver in the Red Ryder series of 22 films. He co-starred in Mokey, The Purple Gang, Town Without Pity, tell Them Willie Boy is Here, Coast to Coast, and Lost Highway. He starred in In Cold Blood, Electra Glide in Blue, Corky, and Second Hand Hearts. He appeared in 15 episodes of The Richard Boone Show. He was the star of the hit TV series Baretta (for which he won an Emmy). He created, produced and starred in the series Joe Dancer. He was the star of the hit series Hell Town (for which he wrote the pilot) but quit after one season because of personal difficulties. He was tried for the murder of his wife and acquitted but he never recovered from the experience. He was later tried for being liable for her wrongful death in a civil suit and ordered to pay $30 million, after which he filed for bankruptcy. In 2019 he started a YouTube channel called “I Ain’t Dead Yet”. His autobiography is titled Tales of a Rascal.
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