Jan Murray

            On Monday after midnight I started looking into a new computer. I figured I’d get another Hewlett Packard because that’s what I have now and even my previous HP is still functional. I just needed one that is Windows 11 compatible and that’s somewhat of an upgrade from the one I have. I checked out the HP website and there were a couple of HP Z2 Tower G9 Workstations on sale. One that had 16 GB RAM was $1429, which is slightly more memory than I have but it only had 512 gigs of storage, which is less than I have now. For $2,599 there was the same one with 32 gigs of RAM but also a terabyte of storage. I had planned on going downtown and shopping for one in person but I realized that just seeing a computer on a table and reading the specs on a sign is really no different from shopping online. I decided to get that one but HP wouldn’t take debit. I found a much cheaper refurbished one on Fleet Network but they also wouldn’t take debit. They would take an email transfer but I was suspicious and checked reviews of FN and found a lot of customers had bad experiences. Finally I found the same computer at Best Buy although it cost a little more. They accepted debit and I paid over $3000 although the money has yet to leave my account. 

            I went to bed. 

            I translated another verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are only two more verses to squeeze into my head. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since November 22. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the third of four sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            Around midday I put away the rest of my laundry from last Wednesday. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I wore my long underwear, an extra shirt, two scarves, and two pairs of socks. I’m going to start bringing along my balaclava as well. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 18:15. That’s the least I’ve pushed the scale in the evening since November 23.

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:09. 

            I finished reviewing the cassette recording of my early Christian and the Lions rehearsal with Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and Mike Martin. It was chaotic and I just couldn’t teach them the song I wanted them to learn. Steve said my melodies are weird. Mike’s drumming was horrible. I digitized the tape recording. 

            In my “2024-09-23 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I synchronized the audio with the video. I began deleting all the songs leading up to “Laisses-en un peu pour les autres”. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching season 1, episode 17 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Muldoon, Toody, Schnauzer and one other officer are in a barbershop quartet directed by Captain Block and competing for a trophy against more than a hundred other quartets. Muldoon is the star of the group and Block is so hungry for that trophy that he insists on the others pampering him, keeping his throat warm and not letting him speak. In the first round Block’s quartet are number 64 and the director of the competition says that each group must sing “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” and so the three judges have to hear the same “boom boom boom” vocal bass being sung over and over. One of the judges is comedian and popular game show host Jan Murray. He’s fine for around the first fifty quartets but after that he begins to twitch and by the time Block’s group take the stage he loses it, screams and runs out of the room. As the final competition approaches, the quartet makes use of a rehearsal space owned by Schnauzer’s cousin. But by coincidence Jan Murray is rehearsing in the room next door with some other actors for a play. He has just gotten out of a sanitarium and feels well rested until he hears the same voices doing “Boom boom boom” again and loses it. Hours before the final competition the two sets of partners that make up the quartet converge on the street because of a false alarm. They decide to do a quick rehearsal right there on the sidewalk but they are under the window of a psychiatrist’s office where Murray is on the couch. He ends up hospitalized. Later Muldoon and Toody are investigating a robbery at Katz’s Butcher by the notorious Butcher Bandit. Muldoon goes into the freezer to look for evidence while Katz tells Toody he can give a good description of the Butcher Bandit. Until now nobody knows what he looks like. Toody is so excited that he closes the freezer door and rushes Katz to the station to have a sketch artist draw the bandit. All this time Toody thinks Muldoon is still with him until Block asks where Muldoon is and he realizes he’s in the freezer. They rush back and find Muldoon frozen solid. He is taken to the hospital and thawed out. He recovers and his voice is fine so he wants to get to the contest but the doctor insists he be observed for 24 hours. Muldoon calls Toody and plans an escape, saying he will be in a certain room. But then Muldoon pleads with the doctor and he lets him go. Toody and Schnauzer come disguised as scrubs and start wheeling a patient they think is Muldoon out of the room but it’s Murray. They realize their mistake and learn Muldoon has gone ahead but Murray keeps saying he wants to go where the Boom Boom is. The quartet wins the competition. 

            Fred Gwynne was a very good singer but he had a baritone voice and in this story he’s a tenor so he must have been lip synching. 

            Jan Murray played himself. He was 16 when he got his first gig as a comedian at the Bronx Opera House. He built a name for himself in the Catskills Borscht Belt while at the same time entertaining the troops during WWII. After the war he worked vaudeville and night clubs until he became a Vegas headliner. In the 1950s he became the first comedian to work as a TV game show host. He hosted Dollar a Second from 1953 to 1957. He hosted Treasure Hunt from 1956 to 1959. He was a regular panelist on Hollywood Squares from 1966 to 1980 and appeared in almost 250 episodes. He guest hosted the Tonight Show, the Joey Bishop Show, and the Mike Douglas Show. He frequently performed on Ed Sullivan. He co-starred in Which Way to the Front?, Who Killed Teddy Bear, and Tarzan and the Great River,