John C. Becher

            On Tuesday morning I finished translating “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian and started working on memorizing it. The only song adaptation seems to be by Michel Fedrizzi and it’s in an up-tempo old French folk song style but he leaves out entire verses and eliminates lines from the verses he does use. I’ll try to adapt the whole song to his melody. 

            I worked out all but the last six chords of the chorus of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have that done on Wednesday and then I will probably have the pattern for the rest of the song. 

            I weighed 88.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Epi acoustic during song practice for the third of three sessions. 

            At 13:00 I rode with my bike trailer to Wood Instruments to pick up my Martin acoustic from Alex Wood. He said that despite the fact that I have the humidifiers going all the time the humidity is not getting inside the guitar. The action had dropped 20% but after he humidified it the action went back up. He recommended an Oasis guitar humidifier. We chatted for a while. He went to OCADU for a while and thinks he might remember drawing me at some time back in the 2010s. I paid him $90 for the set-up. He still has my Les Paul electric but thinks he might have it finished in about a week. When I pick it up I might bring in my Kramer to be worked on. 

            I weighed 88.55 kilos at 14:30. 

            I took a siesta at 15:15 and slept until 17:30. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos at 17:50, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since November 30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:36. 

            I reviewed the cassette tape that Jim Bravo gave me years ago. I met Jim when I was modelling at the Ontario College of Art. I told a teacher I was looking for a drummer and she told me one of her students played drums and so he ended up playing with my band for at least one show at the El Mocambo. I don’t recall ever listening to his tape. It’s kind of retro psychedelic in a minimalist way. I think there’s a Living Colour influence there. I digitized it but maybe only one side because the tape snapped. I notice the whole album is available online so I’m not going to bother repairing the tape. 

            In my “2024-09-24 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I deleted all the songs before the final take of “Leave Some for Everyone Else”. I saved the project as “Leave Some for Everyone Else (Gibson electric). Then I isolated the song. I added fade to black, edge detection, sharpen, and span the colour spectrum effects. I published the movie. Then I took a screen shot and altered it in Paint because some lines on my face were too dark. Tomorrow I’ll probably upload it to YouTube. 

            I had a potato with gravy while watching season 1, episode 25 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            In 9 years on the force Toody has only earned one citation and that was for having the cleanest locker. The city is looking for police volunteers to catch pickpockets at the World Series game at Yankee Stadium. Toody volunteers and Captain Block reluctantly lets him do so but only if Muldoon is there to watch over him. Muldoon wants to watch the World Series on TV but Block orders him to volunteer. Toody disguises himself as a souvenir hawker but when a boy asks for a Micky Mantle doll Toody tells him to go away because for some reason he didn’t expect to sell any souvenirs. The boy’s father thinks it’s fishy and wants to call the police and so Toody sells the boy a doll but when Toody tries to make change he catches a hand in his pocket. He's nabbed Benny “Feather fingers” Featherton who tells him he wanted to be a cop but he was too short. He thinks he would have made a great cop though. When the wagon comes Benny has lifted from Toody both his badge and the keys to the handcuffs and introduces himself as Officer Toody to the officer in charge of the wagon. Since Toody can’t prove who he is he ends up in the wagon while Benny decides to prove what a good cop he would have been by nabbing pickpocket after pickpocket. Meanwhile Muldoon is disguised in a cowboy hat and hanging around behind a hot dog vendor. The vendor thinks he’s suspicious and keeps moving his cash tray away from him as Muldoon paces back and forth. Then Muldoon walks away and the vendor sees his cash is gone so he calls the police. Block gets a call from downtown and hears that his officer Toody is arresting so many pickpockets that the ones not being arrested are just leaving town. Toody uses his phone call to get Muldoon to come downtown and identify him. Block goes downtown to pose for photographs in front of all the crooks his man has caught only to find Toody is one of the prisoners. Toody and Block leave with the chief just before Muldoon arrives. He looks for Toody among those arrested and while talking with one of them follows him through a door where he ends up in a line-up and is identified by the hot dog vendor, then arrested. Block gets Muldoon released and then meets Benny. Benny is happy he had a chance to prove himself and Block tells him he would have made a great officer. Benny is taken away but when Block tries to leave he is stopped by a guard who says Captain Block already left. Benny stole his badge. 

            The father of the boy was played by John C. Becher, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Milwaukee Teachers College and a bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. He made his professional debut at the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey. He played Mr. Upson in the original Broadway production of Mame.