Lewis Wilson

            On Saturday morning I memorized the third verse of “À la manière de Brassens” (In the Style of Georges Brassens). There are two verses left to learn. 

            I finished memorizing “No Man’s Land” by Serge Gainsbourg and searched for the chords but it was no surprise that no one has posted them. I’ll start working them out tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to Vina Pharmacy to see if my doctor had renewed my prescription but he hasn’t yet responded to last week’s fax. I wonder if he’s on vacation or if he’s not working during Passover. 

            I went to No Frills where I got the only six bags of relatively firm grapes they had. I also bought a pack of raspberries, a sack of potatoes, a loaf of sandwich bread, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, marinara sauce, a can of broad beans, a carton of spoon sized shredded wheat, iced tea (I could have gotten the low sugar iced tea but I thought Lipton was a US company. It turns out it’s owned by a Dutch company now), a bag of Miss Vickie’s regular chips and another of the Applewood smoked barbecue. I wanted to buy some spinach but every kind they had was from the US. It was the same with the Swiss chard.

            I weighed 85.85 kilos at 14:30. 

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:00. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos at 17:30. 

            The heat was blasting when it was well over 27 in the hall. I saw that someone had the thermostat set for 25. That’s ridiculous. I reset it for 22. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:05. 

            In the new Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” to replace the project I absent mindedly deleted two days ago, I added all of the frames for the second animation that I created for the intro. Now I have to shorten each of the last fifty or so frames because right now they not only take up the length of the intro but the whole song. When I started this evening I was three months behind on the project but after half an hour I was about two months behind. I shortened all of the frames to 40% of a second but that makes it about four frames too long to end with the intro. I’ll just shorten slightly the last few frames until it fits, then I’ll find the video clips I used before the project was lost. The first two are easy but most of the first part of the song once I start singing has clips from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World” and I organized those clips in a particular way that might be hard to recreate exactly. Arranging those clips will be the most time consuming part of the project but it won’t take as long as the first time. 

            I had the rest of the chili I made yesterday with plantain chips while watching episodes 2 and 3 of the 1943 Batman serial. 

            In part 2, Batman has been pushed off the roof of a tall building and is plummeting but he lands on a scaffolding for window washers and immediately climbs back up to the roof. Prince Daka’s men are escaping but Robin tackles one of them and causes him to drop the radium gun. Robin is struggling with the man when Batman comes to help. They’ve confiscated the gun, plus they’ve captured one of Daka’s men. They take him to the Batcave to question him. We see the shadows of a lot of bats flitting about, a lot more than in the 1949 serial. I don’t think there were any bats in the Batcave of the 1960s TV series. The man is frightened of the bats and Batman tells him they won’t bite unless he tells them to. When they threaten to leave him alone in the cave he volunteers to tell them everything. He says he was taking the radium to the Open Door flop joint. He says a guy named Smith hired him. He had a knife scar on his right wrist. Batman points the radium gun at him and he’s startled. Batman asks what he knows about the gun. Bruce plays a prank on Alfred who has gotten himself worked up over a detective story. Bruce uses the radium gun to shatter a vase in front of Alfred. In this series Alfred is a much more nervous type whereas he was quite brave in the 1949 serial and very heroic in the 60s series. Batman delivers his prisoner tied up in front of the police station with a note attached. Meanwhile Daka is trying to retrieve the radium gun and figures that Linda Page would know what happened to it. Since she hasn’t heard her Uncle Martin’s voice for five years, Daka’s man Foster calls Linda while pretending to be her uncle. He wants her to meet him tonight at The Blue Parrot. She calls Bruce to let him know that Martin has finally gotten in touch. Bruce offers to accompany her but she says Martin told her to come alone. Bruce finds that suspicious and so he and Dick go there to secretly watch over her. Linda gets paged for a phone call in the booth in the lobby. Bruce says for Dick to follow her and see where she goes. When he sees her in the phone booth he comes back to Bruce but Bruce tells him he wanted him to not let her out of his sight. Meanwhile the phone booth fills up with gas and two men abduct Linda so when Dick gets back to the booth she is gone. Bruce takes off his suit and tie and makes himself look like the kind of guy who would go to a flop house. Dick is disguised as a paper boy and starts selling papers outside while he keeps watch outside the Open Door flop house. Bruce sneaks upstairs while Dick sells a paper to a man with a knife scar on the back of his hand. The man shows his hand to the desk clerk and is given room 50. The man goes through a secret passage in the closet where the other men have been questioning Linda, but she doesn’t know anything. Bruce goes back downstairs and he and Dick return to their car to change to Batman and Robin. They climb up to the window of the room the man entered. Linda has fainted during questioning and now Batman and Robin smash through the window to fight with the men. Some chemicals on a shelf are knocked over and poison gas fills the room. The men escape to the front room and lock the closet. Robin goes out the window first walking across the electrical wire while Batman follows while carrying Linda. Foster is on the roof and throws another wire against the hydro wire on which Batman is walking causing it to become grounded. Sparks start travelling towards Batman. Robin slides down the rope to the alley. Batman has almost reached the rope when the sparks reach him and he jumps with Linda in his arms. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In part 3, Robin throws a rope that Batman catches as he and Linda are falling and he swings to safety. Batman changes back to Bruce Wayne and takes Linda to a doctor to find she’ll be fine. Meanwhile Daka gives Linda’s Uncle Martin one more chance to join the new order but he still refuses. He is taken to the lab where a bell is lowered over his head. It is switched on and there is electrical activity, then it is raised and the headpiece is placed over his head. He is now one of Daka’s zombies who obey his every command. Daka’s next plan is to plant a bomb on the West Gate Bridge that will blow up when the supply train passes over. Daka also reads a classified ad from someone who has found a strange looking gun that can be claimed in room 802 of the Godfrey Building. Foster has made an appointment for 22:00 but Daka knows it is a trap set by Batman and so he tells his men to go there at 21:00. In room 802 Batman has disguised Alfred with a beard to wait for the crooks while Batman waits outside the window on the ledge. Robin follows one of the men to the roof. Foster enters the room and pulls a gun on Alfred to demand the radium gun. Two other men enter to search the office. The man on the roof sees Batman below on the ledge and pulls a gun but Robin grabs him and they struggle until they both fall through the skylight into room 802. Batman enters to fight the men. Alfred calls the police, then when a gun falls near him he starts firing without hitting anyone until all the bullets are spent. The men escape. Alfred asks how many he killed. Batman says seven. Alfred says there were only four but Robin says, “You killed three of them twice”. Foster left his coat behind and inside is a map of the Shoreline Railroad. There’s a circle around the West Gate Bridge and 22:00 written in the margin. They have 26 minutes to make it to the bridge before 22:00. Daka’s men go to the middle of the bridge to plant the bomb. The train whistle can be heard in the distance. The train’s getting closer. Foster stays on the bridge to finish setting up the bomb. The other three men are attacked by Batman and Robin. Batman gets to the bomb and throws it off the bridge but he’s knocked out by a thrown object and collapses on the track as the train draws close. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            Batman was played by Lewis Wilson who was born in Massachusetts (I thought I detected that old Boston accent that almost sounds British) and he was the first actor to ever portray Batman on screen. This was his film debut. After the war he joined the Pasadena Playhouse. He starred in Wild Women. He co-starred in the TV series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist in 1952. After he quit acting in 1954 he worked for General Foods. His ex-wife married Cubby Broccoli who was the executive producer of the James Bond films. His son Michael G. Wilson became a producer of the James Bond films.

April 13, 1995: I wrote poetry and tidied up

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I probably worked on my poetry, tidied up and in the evening watched TV.

Shirley Patterson

            On Friday morning I memorized the second verse of “À la manière de Brassens” (In the Style of Georges Brassens). There are three verses left to learn. 

            I memorized the second verse of “No Man’s Land” by Serge Gainsbourg and almost nailed down the rest of the song. I should have it done tomorrow.

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice. Tomorrow I’ll play my Kramer. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before breakfast. Around midday I brought in the stepladder and sanded the northwest quarter of my bathroom ceiling. I should be able to finish the ceiling on Sunday and on the following Sunday I’ll start the upper part of the eastern wall. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I was almost downtown when I realized I’d forgotten to wear my denture. Fortunately I hadn’t planned on stopping at the supermarket where I might have smiled at somebody. 

            I weighed 85.95 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:06. 

            I opened Movie Maker to work on my Seven Shades of Blues project but I couldn’t find it. I deleted a few Movie Maker projects yesterday because I’d already published the projects and didn’t need the project files anymore. I must have absentmindedly deleted the Seven Shades of Blues project. It’s extremely frustrating for me to depend on somebody as stupid as I am. I still have all of the animation frames I created for the project and all of the videos from which I made clips. I started the project again, adding the audio and then recreating the first rainbow wave animation that I’d put together frame by frame over a period of two weeks in October. It helped to scroll back in my diary to remind myself of exactly what I did. I left off my review at the December 15 point in my journal when I was still building the frames for the second animation. I’ll probably be able to add the entire second animation to the timeline tomorrow and then start remaking the video clips I need. It’s especially exasperating because I was only a couple of video clips away from finishing this project. I might have been done with it next week. As it is it might take me two weeks to get back to where I left off yesterday. But the damage is done and I’ll just have to move forward. 

            I steamed a package of frozen edamame beans. I sautéed three cloves of garlic and added the beans, a cup of water and a jar of hot salsa. I had the chili with plantain chips while watching episode 1 of the 1943 Batman serial. 

            The story starts with Batman and Robin catching a couple of crooks and leaving them handcuffed with bat symbols on their foreheads after notifying the cops where to find them. Then he changes to Bruce Wayne for his date with his girlfriend Linda Page. Linda works at the Gotham City Foundation. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson arrive to wait for Linda to get off work. Bruce is made to be the same lazy rich guy as in the 1949 serial. Dick is played by a seventeen year old actor and so he’s the first and last age appropriate Robin. Tomorrow Bruce and Dick will accompany Linda to meet her Uncle Martin when he gets out of prison. The next day when Martin Warren is released, Foster one of his old cellmates and two other men are there to meet him. Foster tells him his niece couldn’t make it but they’re going to take him to her. But as they are driving away Martin sees Linda in Bruce’s car and tells them to stop the car but Foster tells him he’s going with them. Linda learns from the guards at the gate that Warren left with three men in a black sedan. They remember passing the car and Bruce tells Alfred to drive after it. The abductors notice they are being followed and when they turn a corner and are out of sight they release a gas that changes the colour of their car from black to white and they also pull a switch that flips their licence plate to a new one, then they turn around and meet Bruce’s car on the road without being noticed. Foster’s car arrives in a part of Gotham called Little Tokyo. Then unbelievably the narrator says, “Since a wise government rounded up the shifty eyed Japs it has become virtually a ghost street where only one business survives, eking out a precarious existence on the dimes of curiosity seekers”. Foster and his men escort Warren to a House of Horrors ride like one would find at a fair. They get off in the middle of the ride and go through a secret passage where in a room decorated in a semblance of Japanese style, Warren is greeted by Dr. Daka (played by a white guy made to look sort of east Asian) and the League of the New Order. All the others at the table Daka says have been dishonoured like Warren. Warren insists he committed no crime but Daka says he’s still dishonoured. Daka says he is the humble servant of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito. He says his country will destroy the democratic forces of evil in the United States to make way for the New Order to liberate the enslaved people of Middle North America. Warren refuses to cooperate and says no torture can make him. Daka says he does not believe in torture. Then a man with electronic attachments to the top of his head walks in like an automaton. Warren recognizes him as his former partner, Bob. Daka says Bob also refused to cooperate and so he was deprived of his ability to think. He’s been converted to a zombie. From the metal headpiece there is a wire leading to the spine. This is tuned to a microphone through which Daka speaks commands that Bob obeys, no matter how far away he is. Warren still refuses to cooperate and so he is taken to Daka’s electronic lab. Daka tells him he is not going to destroy his brain until he gets the valuable information it contains. Warren is injected with truth serum and he answers all of Daka’s questions. He asks where the radium is at the Gotham Foundation and he says it’s in a safe behind the picture. Daka says he does not need the combination to the safe as he has his radium gun. He demonstrates that it can turn a cement block into a pile of dust. He gives the gun to Foster so he can steal the radium. Meanwhile Bruce and Dick are with Linda at the Foundation but they leave to let her get her work done. As Bruce and Dick leave they recognize Foster from the black car the day before. They change to Batman and Robin to investigate. Foster and his men enter Linda’s office and grab her. She is taken to another room while Foster uses the raygun to blow open the safe and take the radium. Batman and Robin climb the fire escape to the roof and then climb down the side with Bat Ropes and smash through the hallway window just as Foster and his men are leaving the office. They chase them to the roof where Foster fires the ray gun at them but they dodge it. They climb up and jump behind them but Foster fires again but they again dodge, then the heroes close in for a fist fight. One of the men is one of Daka’s zombies and his mindlessness has given him great strength when he attacks Batman. Meanwhile Linda calls the cops. The zombie has Batman by the throat and is pushing home over the edge of the roof. Daka tells his zombie to leave the roof and he jumps down to the street below. Two more men attack Batman and he is thrown off the roof. He is still falling at the end of the episode.

            Linda was played by Canadian actor Shirley Patterson, who was born in Winnipeg and then lived in Eastend, Saskatchewan but her father moved to California for his health and she went to high school in Sherman Oaks, California. She won the Miss California pageant in 1940 but was disqualified because it was learned she was underage. She appeared mostly in serials, B westerns and Three Stooges comedies. Her film debut was in North of the Rockies. She starred in The Vigilantes Ride. She co-starred in Riders of the Northland, The Spirit of Stanford, Riding Through Nevada, Law of the Northwest, Driftin River, Tumbleweed Trail, Stars Over Texas, Black Hills, The Land Unknown, and It! The Terror from Outer Space. She married Alfred Smith and took time off from acting from 1947 to 1953 to raise her family. Then she re-emerged as Shawn Smith to co-star in a few science fiction films. In 1958 a skiing accident broke her leg in eight places and ended her film career. 

            I added the first 27 frames of the second animation to my “Seven Shades of Blues” project and shortened them to 40% of a second like each frame of the first wave. This is where I was on January 15 and so while I was six months behind when I discovered that I’d deleted the project, I’m now three months behind. I might have the animation done tomorrow and then I’ll start recutting and arranging all the video clips.

April 12, 1995: I wrote that day and performed at Fat's that night

Thirty years ago today

            I spent the day writing and that night performed on the Fat Albert’s open stage.

Leonard Penn

            On Thursday morning I memorized the first verse of “No Man’s Land” by Serge Gainsbourg and almost nailed down the second. This song won’t take long to learn. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I finished editing my fourth Batgirl video and published it but the rendered movie froze halfway through every time I played it and so I deleted it and will try again later. Movie Maker has done that before and so it might be just a matter of republishing it when the app isn’t tired. I tried it later and it worked. 

            I weighed 86.15 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I got up about 18 minutes late from my siesta and didn’t get away for my bike ride until after 17:00 so I didn’t go downtown but rather just as far as Ossington and Bloor. Even if I’d gotten away earlier I probably wouldn’t have gone downtown because it was raining and snowing. I stopped at Freshco on the way home. I was all ready to do a price match on their grapes but they were all too soft and so I didn’t buy any. I got a pack of raspberries, bananas, some avocadoes, and a bunch of cilantro. I was looking for the Canadian product sign of the maple leaf and noticed that Post Shreddies has it but not Post spoon size shredded wheat. Apparently they are both manufactured in Canada. I was also surprised Simply Orange juice had the symbol. It’s a US brand owned by Coca Cola but made in Canada, one assumes though not with Canadian oranges. The only salsa with the symbol was Tostitos. It’s made by Frito Lay Canada but that is owned by Pepsi. It’s pretty complicated. I got two jars and I also bought a pack of Nabob Full City Dark coffee. I know Nabob is Canadian, although it’s owned by Kraft. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:40. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I edited the clip of Captain Kirk wrestling the Andorian down to about seven seconds. I still haven’t decided which wrestling clip, the Buster Keaton or one of the two Star Trek ones that I’ll insert into the main timeline to match my line, “So wrestle with that angel but never let it lose”. I’ll try the Keaton one first to see how it looks. 

            I had the rest of the stew I made yesterday from edamame beans and broccoli. I ate while watching the last two episodes of the 1949 Batman and Robin serial. 

            In part 14 the now invisible Wizard has put a bomb in front of the safe at the research plant. Batman is inside the vault to protect the plans for the superjet. The Wizard leaves without the plans. Just before the explosion Batman steps into the back chamber of the safe and is not affected by the blast. Back at the Wizard’s headquarters Neil is under orders to shut off the machines that are making the Wizard invisible when they get too hot. Wizard is exiting the research plant building and seconds later finds he has become visible. Guards see him and begin shooting as he tries to get away. He hides behind some crates as Batman and Robin join the search. They find a door open that should be closed and discover it was opened by Dunn the private eye. One of the guards is sure he shot the Wizard in his right hand and Dunn has a fresh wound in the same place. He says he snagged it on the barbed wire while climbing the fence. Batman finds on the ground one of the Wizard’s gloves torn by a bullet. He thinks that back at the lab in the Bat Cave he might be able to get fingerprints from the inside. Wizard makes it back to headquarters. Batman suspects that the Wizard gained the ability to make himself invisible and deduces how. The remote control machine at full power can cause disintegration while the neutralizer with its electromagnetic force counters those rays. If the beams cross each other to focus on one object they can together make it invisible. Commissioner Gordon calls for Barry Brown to come to his office but he still refuses to reveal his sources that sometimes tip off the Wizard and sometimes the police. Gordon tells him to take his glove off and sees that he also has a wound on his right hand. He says it came from moving broken glass in his garage. Gordon leaves the office and Brown plants a bugging device before leaving. Bruce finds out whose fingerprints are on the glove and they belong to Professor Hammil’s butler, Carter. Batman and Robin head for Hammil’s estate. Meanwhile Carter is snooping in Hammil’s study when the door opens and we see a hand holding a gun. It fires and Carter is shot. Batman, Robin, and Gordon arrive. Shortly after that Hammil is walking out of his house, while before he kept his ability to make himself abled a secret. Batman finds Carter dead. Then Hammil walks in and is surprised that his butler is dead. Hammil also has a wound on his right hand, which he says he burned in the lab. Batman thinks the Wizard is much too smart to end up dead in this way. Barry Brown gives a special broadcast to tell the authorities that they are wrong in their assessment of the identity of the Wizard. He says the wizard plans to kill Gordon at 14:00 in his office. He is about to give the real information of who the Wizard is when an invisible force begins choking him and he is rendered unconscious. He has a throat hemorrhage and won’t be able to talk for a while. Approaching 14:00 Batman is in Gordon’s office to protect him. Vickie Vale arrives and Batman gives her a special infra red bulb for her camera, which he says will make the Wizard visible on film. The Wizard’s car arrives and shortly after that the machinery at headquarters is turned on to make him invisible. At 14:00 a rope lowers outside the window of Gordon’s office and a gun seems to be floating in the air. Vickie sees it and shouts as she sets off the flash. The gun fires as Gordon hits the floor. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In the finale, Gordon hit the floor below the bullet’s path. Vickie takes her film to be developed. Two cops check out the Wizard’s driver and arrest him because he’s Jason who was allowed to escape earlier when Batman wanted to follow him to the hideout. That was stupid of the wizard to have Jason as his driver since he knew all that. Since they’ve confiscated the car the Wizard will have to use a payphone to call for another. Batman tells Gordon to get the telephone company to listen in on all payphones in the area. As they suspected, the Wizard makes a call and it is traced to the address of the phone booth. The Wizard tells Neil to keep the machines running to keep him invisible even though they are overheating. He says to have a car pick him up at Ocean Blvd and the city line. Vickie’s developed film shows the Wizard to be Carter although they saw him dead. Batman tells Robin to go to the cliff where the Wizard and his men disappeared twice before. He says for him to hide and see if he can learn how they vanished. When the cops arrive at the phone booth the Wizard slips away. He steals their police car and escapes. He crashes through a roadblock and then later hits a pole. He hides in the bushes and becomes visible as the police arrive. Wizard’s man Nolan arrives to pick him up. Robin parks near the cliff and shortly after that so does Vicki Vale. She is captured by the Wizard’s men just before Wizard gets there. He says to get rid of her and so she is tied up and placed in her car and then pushed as her car moves towards the cliff. Batman arrives and then rushes to pull her emergency brake at the very edge of the precipice. Meanwhile Robin sees the Wizard and Nolan move the camouflage bush from the entrance to his cave. The men who tied up Vicki are arrested. Batman meets Robin and he shows him the cave. They catch one of Wizard’s men returning the submarine after it has taken Wizard to headquarters. Batman and Robin jump him and force him to take them to Wizard. They remain out of sight until the door to Wizard’s lab opens and then they confront the villain. There is a fight with his men while the Wizard escapes the back way that leads to Hammil’s mansion. They find Hammil and Carter’s twin brother in Hammil’s study. Hammil tells Batman he’s willing to make a full confession. But Batman says the dead twin was not Carter. He grabs Carter and accused him of forcing Hammil to confess he was the Wizard. Hammil confirms that’s true. Back at Gordon’s office Vicki invites Batman to have dinner with her and Bruce Wayne and he agrees. But then she gets a call from Bruce Wayne saying he can’t make it although it’s really a recording of Bruce being played by Alfred. She says she had the silly idea that Bruce was Batman and they all laugh. 

            This was actually a pretty good series. It was suspenseful, exciting, intriguing and it kept the viewer guessing. Some of the pseudo science was almost as good as that of Star Trek while the 60’s Batman series had some absolutely ridiculous science.

            Carter, his twin brother and the Wizard were played by Leonard Penn, who was a stage actor in six Broadway productions from 1934 to 1941. He appeared in 81 films and 21 television productions from 1937 to 1960. His film debut was in Song of the City in 1937. His TV debut was in The Lone Ranger in 1949.

April 11, 1995: As always on Tuesday night I hosted my writers open stage

Thirty years ago today 

            As always on Tuesday night I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

Rick Vallin

            On Wednesday morning I searched to see if the songs “Soyez amoureux” and “Venez dans mon Coeur” by Boris Vian have been posted online. The titles only appear on lists of lost Boris Vian songs. I memorized the first verse of his 1954 song “À la manière de Brassens” (In the Style of Georges Brassens). George Brassens was a popular singer songwriter and a contemporary of Vian. He covered at least one of Vian’s songs and attended his funeral. 

            I finished translating the 1965 song “No Man’s land” by Serge Gainsbourg. It’s the singer’s lament that they don’t have a man. I found a recording of the song and sang along with it a couple of times. Tomorrow I’ll begin memorizing it and I don’t think it will take long as it’s a pretty simple song both musically and lyrically. It’s very mid sixties romantic in its style like the kind of London sound that Petula Clark had. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. The machine for the B string has been very stiff and I noticed it’s loose. I partially tightened it with the wrong size Phillips screwdriver and it moved a little better although it’s still going out of tune. I’ve got to get the proper size screwdriver for the machines, although I don’t think that’s what’s causing the tuning issues. 

            I weighed 85.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought in the step ladder and sanded the southeast quarter of the bathroom ceiling. The paper deep depressions in the middle all had the filling come off but the deeper gaps where the wall meets the ceiling remained filled but smoothed over. I think I’ll have time to do the northwest quarter on Sunday but for the rest of the week the days when I would work on the project will be occupied with laundry and taxes, in that order. 

            I weighed 85.55 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:56. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I edited the clip of the wrestling match from Buster Keaton’s Three Ages down to about seven seconds and did the same to the wrestling match between Captain Kirk and the Gorn. I’ll do the same with Kirk’s fight with the Andorian. I still haven’t decided which of those three I’ll insert into the main timeline to correspond with my line, “So wrestle with that angel but never let it lose”. The Keaton clip might be too funny for the mood of that part of the song. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Leave the Naïve Alone” and “Laisse tomber les filles” from September 8 to 11. On September 8 I played “Leave the Naïve Alone” on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar and the take at 58:30 didn’t sound great because of low action. On September 10 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 35:45 was okay. On September 9 and 11 I played “Laisse tomber les filles” on the Martin. On September 9 the take at 40:15 was okay and on September 11 the take at 35:00 was not bad. 

           I sautéed garlic, ginger, scallions, and mushrooms. I added a bag of frozen edamame beans, two bunches of broccoli and a small jar of salsa. I had a bowl of the stew while watching episodes 12 and 13 of the 1949 Batman serial. 

            In part 12, as Batman and Robin are pursuing the Wizard at high speed, the Wizard blinds them with a smoke screen so they crash into the bushes. The Wizard’s car is too far ahead now to chase but Batman observes that they are on the road leading to the cliff where they lost the Wizard’s men before, so they head there to see if they can catch a trail. On top of the cliff the Wizard and Neil move the bush that hides the entrance to the cave that leads to the submarine that travels to the cave that is Wizard’s main headquarters. Batman and Robin find no trace of the Wizard on the clifftop. The nearest house is that of Professor Hammil, and Batman decides to pay him a visit. When they get there they start looking around the grounds but Hammil’s butler Carter starts firing at them. Batman jumps him and Carter is surprised because he thought he was shooting at a prowler who broke into the house. They see a man crossing the lawn and go after him. The prowler turns out to be the private detective named Dunn. Batman escorts Dunn back into the mansion and Hammil’s study where Dunn is confronted by Batman, Robin and Hammil. Batman searches him and finds a roll of microfilm inside a cigar. Dunn says it contains photos of blueprints for a neutralizer that Hammil took from the Research Plant without permission. The neutralizer would render the Wizard’s remote control device useless. Hammil argues that the plans are his because he is their inventor. But the research council says the plans belong to the government. Dunn says he found the microfilm in Hammil’s desk. Batman says he’ll turn the film over to the authorities. Later Bruce Wayne delivers the film to the president of the Research Council. Bruce says Batman wants word to get out that the neutralizer parts have already been manufactured and that the microfilm shows how to assemble them. Later Gordon calls for Barry Brown to come in, but Brown refuses to divulge the source of the inside information he so often broadcasts. Gordon gets called away to another office and while he is gone Brown snoops around his desk and finds under a notebook a confidential memo. It says an armoured car will transport the working model of the neutralizer to Culver Hills. After Gordon returns, Brown leaves and from behind a curtain emerge Batman and Robin who confirm that Brown took the bait. Brown broadcasts the information. Later the armoured car is on its way and in the back is Robin. The Wizard’s men intercept it and toss a gas bomb through the roof to force the driver out. Robin breathes through a special portable tube we saw in a previous episode. The Wizard sends his decoy armoured car to continue along the same route by remote control. Wizard’s men are waiting for the gas to clear out before they take the armoured car and so meanwhile they move their car out of sight. But Robin emerges from the back and takes off with the armoured car. The Wizard’s men give chase and at the same time radio the Wizard’s lookout plane above. The pilot starts dropping bombs on the armoured car. The second one is close enough to cause Robin to lose control and the armoured car goes over a cliff. That’s the literal cliffhanger. 

            In part 13, Robin jumps out just before the armoured car goes over the cliff. The Wizard’s men go down to retrieve the neutralizer but only find they’ve been tricked with an empty crate. Batman picks up Robin. Meanwhile Hammil tells Carter he’s going to surprise the Research Council with his neutralizer and tasks Carter to deliver it. Then the Wizard orders his men to go to Hammil’s house. Hammil gives Carter a case containing the neutralizer but as he is carrying it to his car he is attacked by Wizard’s men and they grab the case. Batman and Robin arrive and stop the men before they can load the case into the car. They get away but leave the case behind. But when the case is returned to Hammil he finds that it’s empty. Meanwhile at Wizard’s headquarters Neil delivers the real neutralizer. Wizard demonstrates for Neil the power that the neutralizer will give him. He points out a disintegrator ray that he already has and says the neutralizer will meet and throw back the disintegrator ray. He shows him what will happen if the beam and the ray meet at the point where disintegration is checked. He puts a device around his neck that is tuned to both machines. Both machines are turned on and the Wizard stands in between them. The result is that the Wizard turns invisible. When the power on both machines is turned off he becomes visible again. The Wizard calls Barry Brown and tells him he plans to acquire the secret plan for the super jet plane. He will appear at 15:00 at the Research Plant. Brown broadcasts that information and the police and Batman prepare to protect the plans. The Wizard arrives in front of the research plant while back at headquarters Neil turns on full power, rendering the Wizard invisible. He easily enters through the gate and the guards see the gate open by itself. A police guard in front of the door is knocked out by a blow from nowhere and his keys are taken as Wizard lets himself in. When word reaches Batman that someone unseen has entered the plant he decides to hide inside the vault. Robin is alone in the director’s office when he is knocked out. A box of explosives floats over to the safe and settles in front of it. Then the invisible Wizard leaves. The explosive blows up and that’s the cliffhanger. 

            Barry Brown is played by Rick Vallin, who by his late teens was acting in stock productions, on the radio, and in films. He later joined the Pasadena Playhouse. His film debut was in Freshman Year in 1940. His first co-starring role was in The Panther’s Claw in 1942. He co-starred in The Silent Witness, Secret of Linda Hamilton, and in the serials Brick Bradford, Riding with Buffalo Bill, and Adventures of Captain Africa. He starred in Smart Guy.

April 10, 1995: I posed for the Heliconian Club

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I posed for the Heliconian Club in Yorkville and had lunch in the kitchen with the members.

Don C. Harvey

            On Tuesday morning I posted “Our Pretty Gestapo”, my translation of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian on my Boris Vian Facebook page and on my personal Facebook page. Tomorrow I’ll start learning the next Vian song on my list. 

            I gave up trying to transcribe from the audio the 1964 Serge Gainsbourg song “Al Cassel’s Air”. There is no text available online. I know I have friends on Facebook who speak french but none that I feel I can ask to transcribe the audio for me because they don’t visibly follow my posts. I marked the song for future reference but for now I’ll consider it outside my Gainsbourg project. I moved on to the next song that I’ve yet to translate and in the 1965 Gainsbourg file found “No Man’s Land”. In this case I found the lyrics on Gainsbourg.net and transcribed them. I translated the first verse. Tomorrow I’ll finish my translation and start memorizing the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. It’s cold outside, the heat and the humidifiers are still on but hopefully spring will arrive next week and I can get the Martin fixed. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the older warm mist humidifier. Hopefully I won’t have to use it again until fall and will only have to clean the newer humidifier one more time. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown through the injustice of a freezing cold April and stopped at Freshco on the way back. The red grapes are still on sale but most of them were too soft. I usually squeeze one or two grapes in a bag before deciding if they are firm or not. Someone asked me, “Are you squeezing every single grape in every bag? That’s disgusting!” I said, “I’m only squeezing one grape in each bag”. If it’s firm I buy it and if it’s not then nobody would eat it anyway. But it’s disgusting that she doesn’t wash her grapes before eating them. I don’t think she realizes how many hands touch grapes from the field to the store. The pickers touched them, the people who sort them touch them, the people who bag them touch them, they are probably re-bagged more than once before they are sold, plus they are covered in insecticide and need to be washed. I only bought two bags. I also got a carton of soy milk, and two packs of Full City Dark coffee. There were some new salad dressings on the shelves with some interesting flavours. I got miso lime ginger, and maple Dijon. I forgot to buy ripe avocadoes. All the ones I have are too green right now. 

            I weighed 85.45 kilos at 18:41. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:40. 

            I imported to Movie Maker the video clip of Captain Kirk wrestling with the Andorian and copied it to the end of the timeline of my Seven Shades of Blues project. I edited out all the parts with the knife and with hitting. Then I edited further the clip of Buster Keaton wresting with the attractive woman in The Three Ages. I steamed a bunch of asparagus and added it to a salad with cucumber, tomato, and scallion, topped by balsamic vinaigrette. I ate while watching episodes 10 and 11 of the 1949 Batman serial. 

            In part 10, Batman has been trailing the Wizard’s men, but the Wizard takes control of the car Batman is driving and sends it over a cliff. Batman and Robin bail out just before it goes over. Meanwhile Jimmy Vale is in the office of his sister Vicki and while she is running an errand, he calls Wizard’s lieutenant Neil to receive his instructions. Vicki and the police think Jimmy has turned against the Wizard and his gang but that was all meant to divert the efforts of Batman and the cops. When Vickie comes back he pretends to be asleep. When she steps into the darkroom he leaves but she comes out shortly to see him gone and follows him to the Markham Building. On a certain floor of the Markham building is one of the bases of operations for Wizard’s men. The floor is wired with high tech detection devices that can track anyone in the hall and look through the door to see who’s on the other side. They let Jimmy in and a little later Vicki comes snooping in the hall. Two of the men grab her and take her into the room. Neil says to lock her up and Jimmy tries to stop them but gets knocked out. They lock Vicki in an office where the phone isn’t plugged in but she reconnects it and calls Wayne Manor to tell Alfred she is being held captive in an office building downtown. She is about to give the address when she gets caught. When Bruce learns of the incomplete call he figures that the best chance of learning the address of the building is to get it from the man they captured a few hours ago. Later the man in question, Jason is being escorted from the police station while handcuffed to a cop. The policeman is slugged and the man who hit him takes his key to free Jason. He tells Jason not to ask questions and to “Get in that delivery truck and take off!” Jason drives to the Markham Building without realizing that Batman and Robin are in the back. When Jason gets to Rendezvous D in the Markham Building he learns that they didn’t arrange for his escape and so it must have been a trick. Neil pulls a switch so that anyone who touches a doorknob in the hall will be electrocuted. All the men leave to look for who’s in the hallway now. Jimmy wakes up and tries to set Vicki free but the door is locked so he tells her he’ll be back and leaves. Meanwhile Batman is in the hallway and tries a door only to be shocked into unconsciousness. Jimmy finds him and looks under his cowl to learn that Batman is Bruce Wayne. I knew at that moment that Jimmy would be dead before he could tell anyone. That’s a trope of all double identity hero stories. He drags Batman into one of the rooms. Shortly we see Batman running down the hallway. He hides, then jumps and knocks out Neil to take his keys, then he frees Vicki. But the men return and Batman fights with them while Vicki escapes the building. Batman subdues the men long enough to leave the room but they are soon after him. He tries to get out through a window when they catch up with him and he has to fight again until he stumbles backwards through the open window and plunges far below to the street. 

            In part 11, Robin has just seen his partner Batman plunge to his death but then sees Bruce leave the Markham building wearing Jimmy Vale’s clothes. Bruce explains that it was Jimmy Vale who died in the Batman costume. While Batman was unconscious from the electric shock, Jimmy removed his costume and put it on, probably trying to make things right with Vicki by opposing the organization that got him into trouble. Meanwhile at the Wizard’s headquarters the men are discussing whether Jimmy was really Batman and conclude he couldn’t have been. One of the men says he saw Bruce Wayne leave the building and drive away with Robin. The Wizard says they need to focus on Wayne. Later Bruce goes to see Professor Hammil, who is his usual anti-social self. He makes it clear that the answers to the questions Bruce asks are none of his business but nonetheless invites him to stay for dinner. Bruce says he has a date with Vicki Vale at the French Café. As soon as Bruce leaves, Hammil locks his study door and heads for the room where he hides his revivifying electronic chair. Then we see the Wizard radioing his men that Wayne will be meeting Vale at the French Café. That night when Bruce arrives to meet Vickie, two men force him back in his car and make him drive. Vicki arrives in her car and seeing Bruce driving away, follows, but loses them. Meanwhile Bruce asks what’s going on and they call him Batman but he plays dumb. He presses a button on the floor with his foot and it turns on a microphone transmitting to Dick in the Bat Cave. They have Bruce drive to the industrial section of town and when they get to the warehouse Bruce says out loud “52 Commercial Street”. Dick changes to Robin and heads for that address. Bruce is taken to another room that acts as a base of operations. Robin arrives and goes to the window of the room where Bruce is being held which is conveniently at street level. Robin shines the Bat signal on the wall. Four of the men go looking for whoever is out there and leave one man to guard Bruce. In the alley the men see Batman and go after him. He evades them in a maze of crates but sneaks out to punch one of them unconscious. Meanwhile Robin returns to the window. He removes his cape and uses it to snag the back of the chair of Bruce’s guard to pull him backwards to the floor. Bruce piles furniture on top of his guard and then escapes through the window. The Wizard arrives and when he learns what happened he tells the men to call it off as he and Neil leave for Rendezvous C. Bruce and Robin see the Wizard leave and Batman says they’re going after him. Robin asks, “What about Alfred?” We see Alfred was the one dressed as Batman to confuse the Wizard’s men. Alfred gets into a car and drives home. Bruce changes to Batman as Robin drives after the Wizard. But Neil notices they are being followed. As they gain on the Wizard he pulls a lever to send a smoke screen behind his car that blinds Batman and Robin so the car heads for the trees at high speed. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episodes 1 to 6 of this serial, Nolan, the later dismissed leader of the Wizard’s men was played by Don C. Harvey. he started his career in tent shows, repertory companies and on the radio. His first credited role was in his second film, Dragnet. He played supporting roles in a few other serials such as Adventures of Sir Galahad and Atom Man vs. Superman. He and his wife Jean owned a horse named Goldie that they rented out for movies. It played Kit Carson’s horse Apache in the serial The Adventures of Kit Carson.

April 9, 1995: My daughter and I went to the playground

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I must have spent time with my daughter. Her grandparents probably brought her down on their way to church. We probably went to the playground.

William Fawcett

            On Monday morning I published on my Christian’s Translations blog “Our Pretty Gestapo”, which is my translation of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll probably post the lyrics on Facebook. 

            I searched for the next Serge Gainsbourg song that I’d put aside because I couldn’t find a transcript of the French text. I found in my 1964 Gainsbourg file the song “Al Cassel’s Air”. There is still no text for it posted online. I’ll give it another try to figure it out by ear but this one might be a write-off. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the first of four sessions and the B string continues to be out of tune. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 25. 

            Around midday I edited some more of season 3, episode 4 of the 60s TV series Batman, cutting out every scene that doesn’t have Batgirl or Barbara Gordon. 

            I weighed 86.65 before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.15 when I was caught up on my journal at 19:12. 

            I downloaded the video of Captain Kirk fighting the Gorn and the other of him wrestling the Andorian. I converted them to WMV and imported the Gorn fight to Movie Maker. I copied it to the end of the timeline of my Seven Shades of Blues project and edited out everything but the parts where Kirk and the Gorn are wrestling. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Laisse tomber les filles” and “Leave the Naïve Alone” from September 3 to 7. On September 3 and 5 I played “Laisse tomber les filles” on my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 3 the take at 27:45 was okay. On September 5 the take at 37:15 wasn’t bad. On September 7 I played it on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar and the Gibson sounded rattly. On September 4 and 6 I played “Leave the Naïve Alone” on the Martin. September 4 was not horrible and September 6 was one of the best so far. 

            I had a salad with cucumber, scallion, avocado, tomato and the last of my lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette while watching episodes 8 and 9 of the 1949 Batman serial. 

            In part 8, Batman and President Harrison of the Railroad escape the bomb by taking shelter in the small cellar of the cabin just before the explosion. The Wizard’s men get away and Neil and another man go to headquarters through usual roundabout route of the cave under the bush to the submarine and then to the Wizard’s cave. Neil assures Wizard that Batman is dead. Meanwhile Batman, Robin and Harrison go to Commissioner Gordon’s office. Gordon tells them that Wizard wants $5 million or he’ll paralyze the railroad system. That would be $65.5 million now. Harrison refuses to cooperate but Batman has a plan to make the Wizard think they’ve given in. Later, Barry Brown announces that the railroads have surrendered to the Wizard and the money will be dropped from a train at a designated location. Bruce tells Dick that the money consists of old bills that the government was going to destroy anyway. The bills have been painted with a radioactive substance that Batman and Robin can track. When the package of cash is opened and exposed to the air, it will burst into flames. At the time of the drop, Batman and Robin are watching from above in the Bat Plane (which just looks like an ordinary plane). Below them Robin observes the Wizard’s plane and we see that it’s piloted by Jimmy Vale. Jimmy radios to the Wizard’s men below to tell them where the money was dropped. Batman tells Robin to land the plane near the Bruce Mobile while he parachutes to the drop off point. Batman lands near the Wizard’s car and hides in the trunk while Neil and the others locate the cash. They bring it back to the car and instead of logical choice of putting it in the trunk they put it in the back seat. They drive until they rendezvous with car 4, then transfer the money there. They send the first car over a cliff but Batman jumps out at the last second. The crooks drive away and just as Batman returns to the road, Robin arrives in the Bruce Mobile. They track the radioactive money with an indicator. The Wizard’s men go to a warehouse in an industrial area. Batman continues to follow the money’s radioactive trail while the crooks open up the crate. Batman and Robin arrive at the warehouse, and Batman tells Robin to wait by the car while he goes inside. Wizard arrives to get the money, sneaks up behind Robin and knocks him out. Inside the warehouse, one of the crooks is standing guard while the others unpack the money. Batman makes a noise to lure the guard away from his post, then attacks and knocks him out, but not before his gun goes off. When Wizard hears the gun he leaves without entering the warehouse. Inside the men are fighting with Batman and during the tussle some of the money is knocked over to become free of its packaging. On contact with the air it bursts into flames and the warehouse begins to burn. The fight continues but one of the men grabs a hammer and knocks Batman unconscious as the flames rise and the Wizard’s men escape. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In part 9, Batman recovers before the flames reach him and makes his way out of the warehouse just as Robin is coming to consciousness after getting knocked out by the Wizard. Meanwhile the disabled Professor Hammil locks himself in his study again, one assumes to re-able himself in his electronic chair, although it doesn’t show it this time. As usual after a scene with Hammil alone the next person we see is the Wizard. He is mad about the double cross of the ransom money and now he plans to paralyze all vehicle traffic in Gotham. We see cars stalling everywhere. But the Wizard’s machine’s power is too strong for its working parts. The diamond bearings have burnt out and so traffic begins to move again. Wizard locates a new supply of synthetic diamonds that resists heat and friction better than real ones. Meanwhile Vicki Vale has just had lunch with Bruce Wayne and he escorts her back to her office. But as he leaves he overhears her receive a call from her brother Jimmy, who has been working for the Wizard. We see that Jimmy is tied up he and tells her he needs help. Bruce and Dick hide around the corner while Vicki leave, then they go in her office to see that she wrote “Harbour Club” on her notepad. As the Harbour Club is one of the hideouts of the Wizard’s men they decide to go there as Batman and Robin. Vicki sneaks into the Harbour Club awfully easily and unties Jimmy. He leaves with her but they are seen. The Wizard’s man is almost upon them when Batman and Robin arrive and capture the crook. Vicki and Jimmy head for police headquarters where he tells the story of how he got involved with the Wizard. He thought he was being hired as a pilot for a chartered flight. He says the Wizard plans to attack the Research Council tomorrow to steal the synthetic diamonds. Jimmy is released in Vicki’s custody and she takes him back to her office. She says she has to rush some negatives to the enlarging room and Jimmy says he’ll hang around her office. But as soon as she is gone he calls Neil to tell him the plan is working and that Gordon fell for his fake story and is moving the diamonds that afternoon. Meanwhile Bruce learns from Gordon that the man who was guarding Jimmy had blanks in his gun. He suspects that Jimmy’s escape and the telling of his story was part of a plan. Batman and Robin head for the Research Council. At the Research Council two of Wizard’s men are outside the gate pretending to be fixing their car when the car with the diamonds leaves the gate. They follow. Batman and Robin get there and learn the diamonds are headed for the research plant. The Wizard’s men drive the courier car off the road and steal the diamonds. Batman and Robin head after them and when the crooks see Batman’s car behind them they radio the Wizard, who remotely disables Batman’s car engine. Batman flags down a car and asks to borrow it. The driver is surprisingly obliging. But when the crooks see the other car gaining on them they again radio Wizard. Wizard looks through his video (although there is no logical indication as to where a camera might be) and sees Batman is behind the wheel. He takes control of the vehicle and sends it over a cliff. That’s literally the cliffhanger.

            Professor Hammil is played by William Faucette, who was known as “Doc T” because of his PHD in Theatre. He was a professor of Theatre at Michigan State University when he decided to stop teaching and start acting. He made his film debut at the age of 52 in Stars Over Texas. He co-starred as Merlin in the serials Adventures of Sir Galahad and also co-starred in Cody of the Pony Express. He co-starred as Pete Wilkey in all 116 episodes of the Saturday morning western series Fury from 1955 to 1960.

April 8, 1995: I went to a party but I don't know where

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I posed for the Ontario College of Art. My diary says I attended a party but it doesn’t say where.

Johnny Duncan

            On Sunday morning I posted “Song and Dance” my translation of “Distel et Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg from 1963. Tomorrow I’ll search for any more songs that I didn’t translate yet in my Gainsbourg project. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar. Maybe next week I’ll be able to get it fixed. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I put on some clothes I wouldn’t normally wear in public. I brought in the step ladder and sanded the north east quarter of the bathroom ceiling. I sanded off most of the drywall compound that I’d put up there except for where the walls meet the ceiling. Any patches that I’d filled where there was older paint surrounded by newer old paint pretty much all came off. There are some areas I’ll have to fill again. It’ll probably be May before I’ve finished sanding the bathroom and return to filling. Maybe it’ll be ready to paint by summertime. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 85.9 kilos at 18:13. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:18. 

            I downloaded the silent Buster Keaton film, The Three Ages and converted it to WMV. I imported it to Movie Maker and copied it to the end of the timeline of my Seven Shades of Blues project. I cut out everything but the one minute segment set in ancient Rome in which a woman flirts with Buster but when he tries to kiss her it turns into a Greco-Roman wrestling match that she wins. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my electric performance of “Laisse tomber les filles” on September 1. In the take that went from the end of part C to the beginning of part D, I fumbled through without trying to do a smooth take. Of my performance of “Leave the Naïve Alone”, the take at 51:15 was okay but the Gibson sounded rattly. 

            I had a lettuce, cucumber, scallion, tomato, and avocado salad with balsamic vinaigrette while watching episodes 6 and 7 of the 1949 Batman serial. 

            In part 6, during a fight between Batman and the Wizard’s men, Vicki Vale has gotten knocked off the pier. Batman jumps in to save her but gasoline has been leaking into the water from bullet holes in barrels and Nolan tosses a lit kerosene lamp in so that Batman and Vicki are surrounded by floating flames. It doesn’t stop them from climbing out onto the dock. When Wizard’s men see them they start coming back to attack again but Robin starts a siren in Bruce Wayne’s car that scares them away. Batman and Robin have taken one of Wizard’s men, Mack Lacey prisoner. Batman takes a picture of him before turning him in to the police. Then Batman disguises himself as Mack and uses his Harbour Club membership card to get in. The Wizard’s men are all there and Nolan wants to know what happened to him. He says he was captured by Batman but got away from Robin. Nolan says they need two men at headquarters to help the Wizard convert the remote control machine to the new X90 power. They go to hideout B while Robin follows. When Batman learns there is an alarm set off by a bump in the road he lights a cigarette and then tosses it out the window. Robin, who is still driving as Dick Grayson sees the cigarette and parks the car. He changes to Robin and approaches the cabin that Batman and the Wizard’s men have entered. The men listen to Barry Brown’s broadcast and hear him disclose that Mack Lacey is in custody. Nolan confronts the Batman’s fake Lacey. Robin is watching through the window and shines a Bat Signal on the wall. Nolan leaves one man to guard “Mack” and he and the rest go outside to investigate. They capture Robin while Batman knocks his guard down. He heads for the door just as Nolan comes in with Robin. Nolan asks him who he really is. He says he’s a friend of Mack’s. Nolan doesn’t believe him but gives him a chance to prove him himself. He puts Robin against the wall and tells the disguised Batman to shoot him. Batman doesn’t hesitate. He fires one shot and Robin goes down. But when the men go to see if Robin is still alive the unscathed sidekick begins to fight while Batman shoots out the lights. In the confusion Batman and Robin get away to drive away in the Bruce mobile. Robin tells Bruce it was good shooting to hit his small belt buckle at that distance. Robin says they can’t follow them because he sabotaged their car. Nolan radios the Wizard who says he’s replacing him because of his bungling. He tells Holt to keep Nolan under guard until he can get rid of him. Batman sees the Bat Signal and stops at a gas station to call Commissioner Gordon. Gordon tells him that Mack talked and gave the police the location of the next caper. It’s on Marine Street on the waterfront. When Batman and Robin get there they spot three of Wizard’s men outside a warehouse. The men see them and duck inside. Batman and Robin follow but see no one inside. They go through a door into a storage room only to have the door locked behind them. Then carbon dioxide is pumped into the room and eventually they collapse. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In part 7, Batman pulls two glass tubes from his utility belt and hands one to Robin for him to breath through. He then pulls a sizeable acetylene torch from his belt as well. That must make it hard to walk let alone fight. He cuts a hole in the door and they escape. Barry Brown announces that Batman and Robin are dead. Bruce and Dick are visiting Gordon when Barry Brown walks in. Gordon tells him if it was up to him he’d be behind bars. The Wizard sends a threat to the railroads demanding an unspecified sum or he will stop every train from leaving or entering Gotham. He will demonstrate his power for five minutes. Meanwhile we see Professor Hammel once again struggling from his wheelchair to an electronic chair that temporarily revives his ability to walk. As usual he grabs his leather gloves and leaves through a secret door in his large fireplace. When he does that we always next see The Wizard entering his cavern headquarters. He turns some dials and flips some switches and then all the trains stop for five minutes. Barry Brown announces that Winslow Harrison, the president of the Associated Railroads will personally investigate the train stoppages. He refuses to be blackmailed. Batman and Robin go to where Harrison is scheduled to travel. A car is following them and Batman stops it. The driver is Vicki Vale and she asks if Bruce Wayne knows Batman is driving his car. Batman says of course he does. Batman takes her car keys so she can’t follow them any further. He tells her Bruce will pick her up later, then he leaves her there. But Vicki smiles and digs out another set of keys from her purse. Meanwhile at another cabin hideout, the Wizard’s men see Harrison’s car passing. Wizard stops the car by remote control and his men approach with guns drawn. They start taking Harrison to the cabin but his chauffeur really knows how to fight and is holding his own against two men. Batman and Robin arrive. Robin goes to help the chauffeur while Batman goes to help Harrison. Batman jumps Harrison’s abductors and knocks them out. He escorts Harrison to the cabin, but the thug guarding the shack activates and hides a device, then leaves through the back door. He meets the other men and they cover the cabin with their guns to make sure Batman and Harrison don’t leave. Suddenly the clock starts ticking quickly and the hands on Harrison’s watch are spinning. The curtains and paper in the room begin to spontaneously combust. Then the cabin explodes and that’s the cliffhanger. 

            Robin was played by Johnny Duncan, who had a natural talent for dancing. He ran a dance school and taught local kids how to tap dance. An agent helped him get to Hollywood where he got early roles playing juveniles in movies that featured the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys. He also appeared in a lot of films as a swing dancer. His first movie appearance was in The Arizona Wildcat in 1939. He taught Lana Turner how to jitterbug. He rode motorbikes with Lee Marvin and Clark Gable. He appeared in Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Wild One. His last film appearance was in Spartacus in 1960. He would still show up at comic book conventions to sign photos even up until just before he died at the age if 92.

April 7, 1995: I posed for the Ontario College of Art

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I posed at the Ontario College of Art.

Robert Lowery

            On Saturday morning I continued to edit both “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian and “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg in my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare them for publication. The latter is almost done but the scat parts take a long time because there’s usually a new chord for each syllable. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric during song practice and it sounded good. 

            I weighed 85.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I rode to Vina Pharmacy and asked them to fax my doctor about renewing a prescription. Then I went down to No Frills where the red grapes were in pretty good shape but expensive. I reached for my phone to find the Freshco flyer for a price match because their grapes were less than half the No Frills price at $3.38 a kilo this week but discovered that I’d forgotten my phone at home. So I went all the way back to my place to get it and then returned to the supermarket. I bought seven bags of grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, three bags of avocadoes, three individual avocadoes, a pack of mushrooms, a bunch of broccoli, fifteen vine ripened tomatoes, a bunch of asparagus, Vaseline, two bags of plantain chips, and a jug of Del Monte orange juice because it has a Canadian symbol in front of it on the shelf. I looked it up later and Del Monte Canada is not Canadian but it’s not Middle North American either. It’s owned by a French company. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch at 14:48. 

            I took a siesta at 16:00 and didn’t wake up until almost 18:00. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 18:08. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:56. 

            I searched for “wrestling in silent films” and found a couple of good movies. There’s one film that doesn’t fit with my project but it’s quite funny. It’s called “Luttes extravagantes” from 1900 and it has a lot of funny transformations. There is also a Buster Keaton film called The Three Ages and about twenty minutes in he has a pretty good wrestling match with a beautiful woman and gets legitimately thrashed. There are also a couple of good fights that Captain Kirk has with aliens on Star Trek. One is with the Gorn on the desert planet and the other is with an Andorian on the Enterprise. The latter looks like a real wrestling match. I’ve bookmarked all three. 

            I compared the song practice video of my electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on October 15 to that of the October 5. While October 15 looks better, on October 5 I play the E flat chord more firmly. So if I do upload an electric version of this song from the 2024 sessions it will be the one from October 5. But I think I play “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” better now and so I’m going to try to capture a superior version in the next recording project. Next I’ll review my performances of “Laisse tomber les filles” and “Leave the Naïve Alone” from last year’s sessions. 

            I had a lettuce, cucumber, scallion, tomato and avocado salad with raspberry vinaigrette while watching episodes 4 and 5 of the 1949 Batman serial. 

            To recap: A machine has been developed that can remotely operate any vehicle within a range of 80 kilometers. The machine is powered by diamonds. Some thugs steal the device and Batman and Robin are called. Professor Hammil, the inventor of the remote control arrives in a wheelchair to complain about them allowing his device to be stolen. Later when Hammil is alone at home he wheels himself to a locked room where he struggles to transfer himself from the wheelchair to a strange looking electronic chair. He switches it on and within seconds he becomes more erect until after a minute he rises from the chair with the strength of a fully abled man. He steps through a secret passage in his fireplace. Meanwhile the thugs who stole the remote control are waiting for their boss in a cave full of high tech equipment. Their masked, hooded and caped master The Wizard arrives. He tells his men they will need to steal a lot of diamonds to operate the machine. The Wizard’s men make off with a few satchels of diamonds. Batman and Robin retrieve some of the diamonds but Wizard’s men Nolan and Evans get away with a lot. Wizard says a shipment of industrial diamonds is leaving Gotham Airport tomorrow and he’s going to get them. A radio announcer named Barry Brown seems to have news of that theft before it happens. Bruce calls Gordon to tell him that he and Robin will replace the pilots of the diamond shipment. The next day they are flying the plane but Wizard takes control of it and forces it to land. The Wizard’s men land near them and then force them at gunpoint to throw out the diamonds. They force them back in the plane and then the Wizard causes their plane to explode. 

            Batman and Robin escape from the plane just before the Wizard blows it up. They sneak onto the plane the Wizard’s men landed in and hide in the storage area. When the crooks board the plane Batman and Robin eavesdrop and learn for the first time that the mastermind they are up against is called The Wizard. During the flight, Nolan falls asleep in his seat with the packet of diamonds in his coat pocket. Batman sneaks out of hiding and picks Nolan’s pocket, replacing the diamonds with an identical packet full of pebbles. After the plane lands, Batman and Robin follow the Wizard’s men down a trail, but don’t see them when they move the fake bush to descend into the cave and travel by sub again to headquarters. The Wizard is understandably angry about his men losing the diamonds. Having lost the trail of the thieves, Batman and Robin return to their car. Batman is curious how Barry Brown the radio announcer got inside information on the diamond theft. Later Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are on their way to see Brown when they see a well known private investigator named Dunne leaving Brown’s home. Bruce decides to tail him. While they do so they listen to Barry Brown’s broadcast, which predicts that the remote control device will be used to steal a shipment leaving by train today from Gotham City. Dunne stops at the railroad yards. Bruce follows him alone on foot. Then he sees two men leaving after assaulting a railroad shipping clerk. They were trying to get info from him on a new explosive called X90 that is scheduled to be shipped on a train that just left. Meanwhile the Wizard radios Nolan and his men to tell him he will use the remote control to slow the train at a certain crossing so they can board it. Batman and Robin are now trying to catch the train as well. The crooks board the train and travel on top. Robin drives up beside the back of the train enough for Batman to climb on. Batman fights with two of the Wizard’s men on top of the train. 

            The Wizard learns Batman is aboard the train and stops it. His men are trying to steal the X90 when Batman jumps them. Batman is knocked out and the crooks make off with the X90. Meanwhile the driver of the car the Wizard’s men use has stopped and left the car. Robin stops as well and jumps him. But the man outfights Robin and gets away. Robin returns to Batman’s car and he and Batman pursue the crooks. Nolan radios Wizard about Batman, and the Wizard uses his remote control to cause Batman’s car to swerve from side to side so they have to stop. Nolan and his crew bring the X90 to the Wizard. The Wizard asks for the other box but Nolan doesn’t know what he means. The other box contains the detonators, without which the X90 is useless. Wesley Morton, the inventor of X90 is staying at the Stafford Hotel. Suddenly Nolan and his men arrive with guns drawn. Morton is abducted and taken to a shack aboveground. Wizard appears and hypnotizes Morton, forcing him to tell him that the detonators are in the electronic research plant in vault 10. Then the Wizard disappears. A truck driver for the electronic research plant stops to help some men having motor trouble, but they turn out to be Nolan and his crew and they knock the driver out. The Wizard’s men arrive at the electronic research plant driving the truck and are let in. Hammil is in the director’s office. Vault 10 opens for Nolan and his men. They grab all the detonators and load them onto the truck then leave while Batman follows. The truck stops just around a bend. Batman climbs the side of a mountain to get behind them and jumps them. Nolan attacks Batman with a crowbar but Batman gets it away from him. The Wizard somehow knows what Batman is holding although there is no remote video. He takes control of the crowbar and causes Batman to fall down the mountain. Then the men find Robin snooping around their truck and beat him unconscious. 

            In episode 4, as Batman falls off down the mountain he catches himself on some tree limbs. He starts making his way back up the mountain while the unconscious Robin is loaded into the back of the truck. There are two men riding on the back with Robin but they are looking forward and don’t know that he is conscious. He sneaks over to a tank containing some kind of chemical and turns on the tap, then goes back to pretending to be unconscious. The leaking tank leaves a dark trail on the road. The truck stops at a shack in the mountains and they try to carry Robin inside but he starts to fight and escapes. They go after him but he hides in a tree. Batman reaches the road and his vehicle, which is not a Batmobile. It’s the same car Bruce Wayne drives except that Bruce drives it with the top down. While the men are looking for Robin he doubles back to the shack but hides behind it. Nolan and one other man returns to the shack where the inventor, Morton is being held captive. Robin spies through the window, then sneaks into the shack to hide around a corner. Batman finds the trail left by Robin and follows it. In the shack everything goes dark and the Wizard appears. He tells Morton he knows that his invention is not just an explosive but a great power source. He also knows that he has worked out a formula for harnessing that energy to machinery. Morton refuses to talk and so Wizard tries to hypnotize him and perhaps he is successful but suddenly he is aware that someone is hiding in the room behind the curtains. Nolan fires his gun but only finds Robin’s boots as Robin runs out of the shack with no boots on. Morton tries to escape but is knocked out. Robin is captured again just as Batman arrives. There is a short fight then Wizard’s men run into the shack and out the back. Batman and Robin find the unconscious Morton. The Wizard laughs and addresses Batman, then he pulls a gun. Batman throws something from a table at Wizard and it breaks a glass door but Wizard disappears. Batman says Wizard was never there and the glass was a television screen. They take Morton to a hospital. Later back in Bruce Wayne’s home he and Dick listen to the Barry Brown broadcast. The reporter announces on the radio the exact location of Morton. Nolan hears the broadcast as well and he and Wizard’s other men head for the hospital. Robin suggests that Brown is the Wizard and that his broadcasts are how he gives his men orders. Bruce and Dick go to the hospital. In Morton’s room Bruce, Dick and Vickie are there and a fake orderly comes in. Morton starts coming to and while everyone is looking at Morton the Wizard’s man plants something in a flower vase before leaving. In the car, Nolan and the others hear through the radio transmitter Morton tell Commissioner Gordon where the formula is hidden. Nolan turns off the transmitter but it makes a noise in Morton’s room. Bruce finds the transmitter in the vase and they know now that the Wizard’s men know where the formula is. Everyone heads for Morton’s office at the Markham Building. Bruce and Dick put the top up and change to Batman and Robin. Nolan and his men are breaking into the filing cabinet. Batman and Robin arrive and see two of Nolan’s men guarding outside the room. Batman has Robin attract their attention and when they chase him, Batman is waiting around the corner to knock their heads together. Nolan finds Morton’s formula. Batman bursts into the office and fights with the three men. batman falls back against a switchboard that electrocutes him and he falls unconscious. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            In episode 5, Nolan and his men escape with the formula by crossing a ladder that is stretched from the window of the Markham building to the next building. They get to their car and drive away but Vickie Vale takes a photo of their car as they drive away. Meanwhile Robin finds Batman unconscious. Batman revives and they go after the crooks with the police. Nolan hears the sirens and radios the Wizard for help, who says he will activate the robot car. Nolan’s car turns into an alley while an identical robot car moves forward, The police car follows the robot car until it stops and they discover that there is no driver. Meanwhile the crooks are on their way back to headquarters and discussing the photograph that Vickie Vale took. Nolan says they have to get it back and the best way is through Vickie’s brother Jimmy, who it turns out is driving the car. Jimmy calls Vicki and she tells him she developed the film and made a print. She knows that he was driving the car. He says for her to meet him in the picnic grounds at Graham’s Park and to bring the negative. Vicki talks to Bruce before she meets Jimmy, but he doesn’t have any advice other than to meet Jimmy and hear his story. But after Vicki leaves, he and Dick change to Batman and Robin so they can be there as well. Vicki goes to the park but Nolan is there instead of her brother. He demands the negative and she refuses and so he grabs her purse. Batman and Robin arrive but Nolan’s men emerge from behind some bushes. There is a fight, during which Nolan kicks the negative and the print into a camp fire with no campers. Maybe Nolan started the fire specifically for destroying the photo. Batman and Robin are knocked down and the crooks escape. Batman recovers the ashes from the negative and the print. later in the lab Bruce puts the charred remains of the negative under a dome and a gas fills it up. He explains that it's known as aerolic red and it will restore the molecular structure of the negative (This is the first crazy Batman invention in this series. Of course the 60s Batman would have some that were a lot more absurd). Then Bruce re-prints the photograph from the restored negative. The picture shows Jimmy Vale and another beside him in the front seat. Bruce checks through his rogues gallery files to find a match. The man’s name is Mack Lacey and frequents the Harbour Club, and so Batman and Robin head there. Meanwhile Professor Hammel is alone in his study and once again goes in his wheelchair to the secret electronic chair that temporarily makes him strong and able. Shortly after that The Wizard arrives in his cavern headquarters to grant Nolan entry and receive Morton’s formula. Jimmy calls Vicki to make sure she’s all right, tells her he’s leaving town, and hangs up. Vicki has the call traced to the Harbour Club, which is where she goes now. When she gets there Jimmy is gone but Nolan and another of his men are there. They decide to hold her. Batman and Robin arrive at the Harbour Club and see Mack. Batman lets Mack punch him once and then knocks him out. Batman and Robin place Mack in the back of their car. Nolan has Vicki gagged with her hands tied behind her and intends to take her to the boat. As they are taking her along the alley her gag comes off and she begins to scream. Batman runs to her but Nolan sees him and begins to fire. Batman takes shelter behind some gasoline cans as gas pours out from the bullet holes. The three men attack Batman while Vicki gets free of her bonds. She tries to help Batman but gets pushed into the water. Batman dives in to save her but Nolan tosses a kerosene lamp in the water on which the leaking gasoline has been floating and Batman and Vicki are surrounded by flames. That’s the cliffhanger.

            Batman and Bruce Wayne are played by Robert Lowery, who played with the old Kansas City Blues baseball team. He was a singer for Slats Randall’s Orchestra in Kansas City. After his father died he and his mother went to Hollywood to try to find work as actors. He enrolled in the Lila Bliss acting school and after working in local theatre for a while came to the attention of Twentieth Century Fox. His film debut was in Come and Get It in 1936. He co-starred in The Mark of Zorro, The Mummy’s Ghost, Dangerous Passage, and The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, He was the second actor to play Batman. On television he co-starred from 1956 to 1957 in the TV series Circus Boy (which also featured child actor and future Monkee, Micky Dolenz). After retiring from acting he became partners with Jackie Coogan in a celebrity travel cruise business. He was related on his father’s side to Abraham Lincoln.