December 19, 1996: My landlady felt right about her pregnancy

Thirty years ago today 

             On Monday I chatted with my new landlady Helga Schlatter about her pregnancy. She said that she’d been pregnant once before but had gotten an abortion because she’d had a premonition that the baby would be evil. Considering that the one she did have is now in prison for murder, maybe she got her psychic wires crossed.

Marlene Parker

            On Tuesday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of the song “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year. No wonder I’m out of breath after I do my chin-ups. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it was staying in tune about half the time until the battery died on my tuner. I switched to my new rechargeable Snark tuner for the first time and it seems more accurate. After that the guitar stayed in tune almost the whole time. Time will tell if all my tuning problems all these years have been because of a bad tuner. It may just be that the Gibson liked the damp weather today and the tuner is just a coincidence.

            Around midday I finished touching up the wall paint above the top bathroom shelf and also fixed an area on the north wall that I’d smudged with pink paint. Now I’m finished with the stepladder for the bathroom and tomorrow I’ll start painting the undersides of the top shelves with the Blue Bliss paint. 

            I weighed 92.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and found they’d cleared the snow that’s been blocking the Bloor bike lane at Shaw and Bloor but it’s still clogged up from Grace Street on. I went down Grace to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and west to home. The sun was enormous and red because of the dwindling fog. I took some pictures but it was already partly behind buildings. 

            I weighed 92.1 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was behind in my journal because I fell asleep at the computer last night. I got caught up at 19:18. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of “Dancing to the Words”, which was my disc jockey audition tape for CKLN. At first the waveform died about a song and a half into the tape and so like the day before yesterday I had to restart my computer before Audacity would record the whole thing. 

            I deleted a few more photos from my hard drive. 

            I used the rest of the water in which I’d cooked the three chicken legs two days ago to boil the good parts of two potatoes. It tasted a little thin to be soup so I added some miso. That helped but not enough and I didn’t want to use too much miso. It didn’t taste like soup until I added the rest of the gravy and the last chicken leg. After that it was delicious. I had two bowls while watching season 1, episode 23 of Combat. 

            K company is holed up in an abandoned town when the Germans attack. They are forced to surrender and are marched to a command post where they are tied to the wooden fence of a goat pen. 

            A German soldier named Kurt needs a better pair of boots and sees that Kelly wears the same size. He steals Kelly’s boots and then says, “Danke schoen mister”. 

            The Allies begin shelling the command post and the stable catches fire. All the men but Saunders break free of their ropes and run, thinking Saunders is with them. They make it across the river and are taking a moment’s rest when Saunders emerges from the flaming stable in a state of shock with both of his hands badly burned. He crosses the river and faints just as K company moves on. 

            Saunders wakes and continues on. He collapses by a stream that K Company has just crossed. He finds the mud soothing and covers his hands. 

           That night K Company stumbles on a German campsite with a supply tent. They kill two guards and steal rations. Kelly finds boots and puts them on, telling the others he’ll catch up but he is discovered and shot by a German soldier. They escape and after they eat they wade up the river. Saunders also enters the river and collapses on a log. K Company passes him in the dark and then his log comes loose from the shore and floats downstream. When he wakes in the morning he makes his way upstream again. 

            He finds some leftover rations that he has to eat like a dog because he can’t use his hands. K Company finds an orchard and feasts, taking lot’s of apples with them. Saunders finds the same orchard but now all the low hanging fruit is gone and he can’t grip a stick to knock any apples down. 

            Weak from hunger he becomes delusional. He finds a dead German soldier and thinks it’s his brother Joey. He picks him up and begins to carry him. K Company comes across two Allied tanks and several soldiers and they are saved. A little later Saunders is found by the tank crew, still carrying the German. 

            This was the last episode directed by Robert Altman. 

            The German soldier Kurt was played by Marlene Parker, then credited as John Siegfried. She was born Siegfried Speck in Dresden in 1930 to a deaf and mute mother who could not care for her. She was placed in an orphanage and then adopted at the age of 6 by an unaffectionate family. When she was 14 the Allies repeatedly firebombed Dresden but her foster parents lived outside the city. After Germany fell the Russians were more brutal than the Nazis. She apprenticed as a hairdresser and then got work in a fashionable salon in East Berlin. Before the Berlin wall went up she and her boyfriend made the treacherous journey to West Germany. She eventually got work as a hairdresser on a cruise ship and ended up in Hollywood with many famous clients such as Doris Day. She started acting in plays at the German Club. Her film debut was in the 1959 remake of The Blue Angel. She played a German officer who is executed for being gay in the movie Hitler. She was Rock Hudson’s lover. She was on the verge of suicide before she decided to transition. After she started taking the hormones she lost a lot of work because she no longer looked like the guy they wanted for commercials. She transitioned in 1978.

February 18, 1996: It was too cold to play outside

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday it was too cold to go outside so my daughter and I played in my new home.

Dick Peabody

            On Monday morning I gathered a few more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 92 kilos before breakfat, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year.

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions and it only stayed in tune all the way through one song. 

            I deleted several photos from my hard drive. 

            I weighed 92.55 kilos before lunch. That’s the most in long time for the early afternoon. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor. The Bloor bike lane is still blocked with snow from Shaw maybe to Bathurst. If they clear it I’ll start riding downtown again. 

            I weighed 92.6 kilos at 17:45. It’s been years of evenings since it’s been that high. I’m looking forward to getting off this soft diet. Soups are very fattening. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:20. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1 of “Dancing to the Words”, which was my disc jockey audition tape for CKLN radio. 

            I made some more Photos sub-folders in my SSD and deleted 90 images from my hard drive. 

            I cooked a potato in chicken broth and added a cooked chicken leg. I ate the soup while watching season 1, episode 22 of Combat. 

            In a rainy European forest we see two German soldiers. Soon a lone US soldier appears and kills them. He takes their rifles and walks through the forest into some thick foliage that conceals the mouth of a very large cave. He descends to a campfire and tosses the rifles onto a pile. 

            The scene switches to K company where Lieutenant Hanley says they are going out on night patrol in two teams. The mission for each team is to take at least one German soldier prisoner and then return. Sergeant Saunders’ team consists of Caje, Kirby, Littlejohn, and Billy. 

            Saunders sends Kirby out to scout around and shortly after that he comes back with a German soldier as prisoner. Saunders says they can go home now but suddenly there is a shot and the German falls dead. The shooter is the lone soldier we saw earlier. He introduces himself as Lieutenant Joseph B. Krantz and says he got separated from his squad. When he learns they didn’t want the German dead he says he owes them one and would like to tag along to help them out. Even though he outranks Saunders he says he’ll follow his orders. But when Saunders says it’s almost time to go back Krantz suggests a fighting soldier would stay until they got what they came for. Saunders says he was told to avoid a fight and so he’s following orders. 

            Krantz wanders off and Saunders is about ready to head back when Krantz appears and says their way back is cut off by a German patrol. Saunders says they’ll have to hide for a while and so Krantz leads them to his cave. 

            Saunders places Billy and Littlejohn on guard outside the cave. Billy says he doesn’t think Krantz is an officer because he doesn’t carry himself like one. 

            Caje finds a keyring containing the dog tags of several US solders. Saunders is looking at them and reading out the names when Krantz grabs them from his hand. 

            Saunders and Kirby explore the cave and find a hot springs pool containing the bodies of nine US soldiers. The dogtags of one of them reads Lieutenant Joseph Krantz. Saunders confronts “Krantz” and he finally tells the real story. He says the real Krantz wouldn’t listen to him when he said the shouldn’t use the cave. The Germans outnumbered them and they were trapped. After some pushing by Saunders he admits that he survived because he ran. Saunders asks who he is and he says he doesn’t know. 

            Littlejohn tells Saunders there are Germans coming. They put out the fire and hide. There’s a firefight. “Krantz” tells Saunders there’s a back way out. He holds off the Germans alone and finishes them off with a grenade before being shot and killed. Saunders only reports that they found the bodies of ten US soldiers and gives Hanley the dogtags. 

            Littlejohn was played by Dick Peabody, who served in the US Navy during WWII. He studied electrical engineering under the GI Bill but switched to acting. After graduation he was making TV commercials when he was noticed by Robert Altman. He became a news anchor, a radio host, and a TV producer. He was successful but bored so he moved to Hollywood where he hooked up with Altman again, who cast him in Combat. He was a theatrical instructor at UCLA and was a founding member of the Canyon Theatre Guild. He did commercials for Lipton Tea and Paper Mate Pens. In 1985 he stopped acting because of back pain but resumed his writing. he wrote a column called Peabody’s Place for a local paper in Placerville, California.

February 17, 1996: I adapted Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" as a tribute to my late friend Mike

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I spent the day with my daughter at my new place and she stayed overnight. When she was sleeping I worked on learning the song “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison. I remembered that Morrison was a favourite of my recently deceased friend Mike Copping and so I changed the lyrics as a tribute.

Denise Alexander

            On Sunday morning I continued to gather images for my photo-video for the song “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year. My arms are going to be disproportionately muscular from doing chin-ups every day with my increased weight. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and a few times it actually stayed in tune.

            Around midday I set my clean warm mist humidifier going and cleaned the one that’s been running all week. 

            I weighed 92.2 kilos before lunch. I’d have to look through old files to find when I weighed that much in the early afternoon. I had the rest of the hot Italian sausage soup that I made yesterday and added saltines. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor, east of which the Bloor bike lane is still blocked. I went south to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and west to home. 

            I weighed 91.95 kilos at 17:40. It’s been a few years since it’s been that high in the evening. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:16. 

            I started trying to record from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity but the audio wasn’t showing up as a waveform in Audacity. I tried to recheck my settings and even the connections but nothing seemed to be wrong. Finally I just restarted my computer and then it worked. I recorded what I’d labeled as “Copyright Tape”. I had mailed it to myself more than thirty years ago but the envelope had worn out and there was no sealed proof anymore, so I just recorded it. The whole tape only contains one song, which is my 14 minute long “Portrait of My Quicksilver Headdress”. So now it’s digitized. It’s one song I never recorded other than on this tape even though Brian Haddon and I performed it when I featured at the Art Bar Reading Series probably about 29 years ago. At that venue the features were required to provide copies of the poems for the audience to read and so what I did was write the whole song out on one long piece of old style perforated printer paper that was passed around the room like a snake as we performed. 

            I made some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several more images from my hard drive. 

            I boiled three chicken legs and combined one of them with pho broth and shin ramen. I had the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 21 of Combat.

            K Company is reconning a town when Germans open fire from various windows. Grenades take out the machine gun nests. A lone elderly Frenchman emerges to tell them that the Germans are holding five children, himself and the librarian in the library. Lieutenant tells his men to fall back and he contacts the command post. He learns they are going to shell the library in about three hours. 

            So Hanley goes in solo to try to rescue the children. Lieutenant Liebner is the German officer in charge. He catches the old man Marcel reading the children the history of France and orders all of the books burned. Liebner fancies the librarian Annette and takes her to the wine store for a glass. When he has finished he leaves but she lingers and Hanley comes out of hiding. She tells him to leave and runs away. 

            Hanley goes through a basement window of the library but finds the door locked from the outside. Annette sees him go in from an upper window and makes an excuse that one of the children is cold and she needs a blanket from the basement. She goes down to tell Hanley to leave. He tells her the Allies are going to shell the library. She thinks that if she tells Liebner they will leave. Marcel comes down, then a soldier. Hanley fights and stabs the soldier. Liebner comes looking for Annette. Marcel creates a distraction by attacking Liebner with a knife and Liebner shoots him. Annette says Marcel killed the other soldier. 

            The door is locked and Hanley is trapped again. Annette writes a note and gives it to the oldest child. Then she pretends to give in to Liebner’s advances and asks that they go to the wine shop and finish their drink. The boy brings the note to Hanley telling him where everyone is. While Annette distracts Liebner, Hanley rescues the children. Liebner sees them running away and fires after them. He is about to kill Annette when the shelling begins and he dies. 

           After the children are safe Hanley takes Saunders back to look for Annette but they find she’s been killed by the shelling. They claim there was no other way. Hanley reluctantly agrees. I say if even one innocent dies in war it should be considered a war crime. 

            Annette was played by Denise Alexander. She earned a Bachelors degree in Arts and Sciences. She made her TV debut in an episode of Dimension X in 1950. She made her feature film debut in Crime in the Streets in 1956. She played Susan Hunter Martin on Days of Our Lives from 1966 to 1973. When she left Days of Our Lives for General Hospital she was the highest paid daytime TV actress. She appeared in 1117 episodes of General Hospital as Dr. Lesley Webber. She played Mary McKinnon on Another World from 1986 to 1989. She was a published photographer.

February 16, 1996: I heard that my friend Mike Copping had died

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I got a call from Peter Copping, the brother of my friend Mike Copping. He told me that the previous weekend Mike had died of a heart attack in the kitchen of his home outside London, Ontario. He was surrounded by his wife and two children when he passed away. I felt very sad and cried for a few days. I picked up my four and a half year old daughter for the weekend and told her I needed a hug. We went to the Rustic Cosmo Café for a poetry open stage and Raven was there.

Marie Gomez

            On Saturday morning after I went to bed I could hear my upstairs neighbour’s dog in distress. I don’t know what Jacob was doing to it. I got the impression he punished her by locking her out of the apartment on the stairway. 

            After yoga I finally memorized the thirteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are five verses left but some have repeated lines I already know and so it’s more like three more verses to learn. 

            I searched online for vintage photos of down and out millionaires and millionaires who act poor. Then I looked for old photos of millionaires in China. These are all for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune for almost the whole session. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I bought five bags of red grapes, three packs of raspberries, some organic bananas, mouthwash but I accidentally got the kind without alcohol, margarine with olive oil, a jug of orange juice, a jug of iced tea, a container of 4% skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 90.65 kilos at 14:45, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon in a long time. 

            I weighed 91.7 kilos at 17:35. That’s the most I’ve pushed the scale in the evening in a few years. I gained weight because of the diet after the last bone graft as well. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:12. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive the finale of my last Slamnation poetry slam. It was hosted by Cad Lowlife who now calls himself Cad Gold Junior. There was a small turnout and so there were only one and a half tapes. I’ve now digitized all the audio recordings of all my poetry slams. 

            I made some more sub-folders of photos in my SSD and deleted a lot more from my hard drive.

            I cut up five hot Italian sausages and sautéed them. I added the last of my garlic chicken broth and the rest of a container of pho broth. I tried to cook the Japanese noodles in the steamer above the soup but it was taking too long so I just tossed them into the soup. 

            I had a bowl of the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 20 of Combat. 

            K Company makes a stop at an evac hospital and all the men’s mouths are watering to see female nurses. Suddenly against orders Corporal Andy March jumps out of the jeep and runs into the tent. He approaches one of the nurses and starts kissing her. It turns out that it’s Lieutenant Amelia March, Andy’s wife. They’ve been married eight months but have only known each other for two days. Saunders tells March they have to move out but March begs for more time with his wife. Saunders says he’ll put in a request on his behalf for two days leave. 

            Kirby is jealous to find out that his friend March has a woman in his life and he tries to pick up a waiter in a local bar but Saunders tells him she’s off limits. They will have to go out on patrol the next day but that night Kirby goes AWOL to try to make it with the girl at the bar. She seems uninterested and a man with the French Resistance tells him she is engaged to his brother. That doesn’t stop Kirby and so he gets beaten up by three Maquis kick boxers and tossed unconscious out with the garbage. He’s at the evac hospital before his company finds out he’s missing. 

            March has to take Kirby’s place on patrol and he gets caught in a mortar shell explosion and is taken to evac with life threatening injuries. Kirby learns from a patient who’s been there a while that Lieutenant March is actually in a relationship with the doctor Captain Anders. The captain has to operate on March to remove the metal from his skull. 

            Amelia admits to Saunders that she’s in love with Captain Anders. She planned to tell Andy after the war but if he dies it will make her relationship with Anders impossible. Andy lives and it looks like Kirby won’t be court martialed for going AWOL. 

            The waiter in the bar was played by Marie Gomez, who was discovered by Leonard Sillman. She began her career on Broadway in New Faces of 1962. She appeared in five episodes of The High Chaparral. She made her TV debut on Dobie Gillis in 1962. She was a contestant on Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Professionals. In later life she did charity work for orphans in Mexico.

February 15, 1996: I got my phone connected

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I got my phone connected at my new place.

Dan O'Hirlihy

            On Friday morning swelling had definitely gone down in my right cheek. During yoga I was able to put the right side of my face on the floor for the first time since the bone graft. There’s still a bruise on my cheek but supposedly that will go away. 

            I started looking for vintage images related to the idea of broken millionaires. I found a few images but I’ve got to change the wording of my search. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune almost half the time. 

            I painted the tops of my upper bathroom shelves with Blue Bliss. 

            I smudged the northern wall in a few places. I’ll touch that up on Tuesday and after that I might be finished with the ladder for the bathroom as I start painting the rest of the shelves. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor where the bike lane further east is still blocked with snow. I don’t think they are going to bother clearing that section. I went down Shaw to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos at 17:40, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since February 2. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:55. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of tape 1 of my fourth and last Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. The tape ends about halfway through the readings by the finalists. 

            I deleted about 65 images from my Photos folder. 

            I boiled a potato and added it to the ground beef soup that I’d made with the pho broth a few days ago. Earlier at lunch I added a can of butter chicken soup and it was quite good. I ate supper while watching season 1, episode 19 of Combat. 

            Doc is caring for a very badly wounded Lieutenant Hanley, plus Braddock and Corporal Cording. Jackson is driving them to a hospital according to the directions he’s been given but they arrive at a French chateau. The owner Count de Gontran resents their presence because he wants to keep the war far from his home. He lets them take the wounded in his ballroom but tells them they only have two hours. 

            Jackson tries to speed away to get help but is killed by German soldiers led by Major Richter who then arrives at the chateau and impresses Gontran with his gentlemanly manner and cultured ways. He encourages his daughter Gabrielle to be nice to Richter. When the US soldiers are discovered Richter allows doc to continue to treat his wounded but reminds them they are now prisoners of war. Doc can leave the room for medical purposes but if the others leave they will be shot.

            Braddock and Corporal Cording plot for one of them to escape to get help. They do rock paper scissors and Cording loses. He strangles their guard and tries to make it out but gets caught in the foyer and Richter shoots him. 

            Meanwhile Gontran sees Richter’s soldiers removing the priceless paintings from the walls of his chateau and complains. Richter claims he is only protecting them because the chateau is now a military target. Gabrielle begs Richter to at least leave the most precious painting. Richter finds Gabrielle charming and desirable and when he makes a list of the paintings for Gontran to sign he leaves out the one that Gabrielle mentioned. 

            But Gabrielle finds her father beside the unsigned list and he has committed suicide. Gabrielle comes to Richter’s room and behaves seductively but she has a knife in the pocket of her dress and stabs him when he comes to kiss her. She takes Richter’s gun and puts it beside her father’s body, then she tells Richter’s secretary that Richter does not want to be disturbed but has asked him to allow the US medic to look at her father, who is not feeling well. When Doc comes she secretly passes him the gun to transfer to his med kit. Doc, Hanley and Braddock are taken to a cage vehicle to be transferred to a prison camp. 

            On the road Braddock shoots the driver and the lock and they escape. They notify Allied command of the occupied chateau and bombers are sent. Gabrielle sits there smiling while her home comes down on top of her. It’s a fucked up ending. Neither side has respect for history. 

            Richter was played magnificently by Irish actor Dan O’Hirlihy. He studied architecture and published political cartoons. Although he earned the architectural degree his interest shifted towards acting and he found work on the stage as both actor and set designer and on the radio as a voice actor. His first lead was in Red Roses for Me in 1944. His film debut was in Odd Man Out in 1947. He co-starred in Orson Welles’ Macbeth in 1948. He starred in the Luis Buñuel production of Robinson Crusoe in 1954 and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. He co-starred in Kidnapped, Invasion USA, Sword of Venus, That Woman Opposite, Home Before Dark, A Terrible Beauty, The Young Land, Imitation of Life, One Foot in Hell, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Big Cube, The Carey Treatment, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Robocop, Robocop 2, The Dead, He co-starred in the TV series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters and The Long Hot Summer.

February 14, 1996: I moved the rest of my stuff to the new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday Scooter and his car helped me move the rest of my things from the old apartment to the new one. Then we probably went to the Art Bar reading series for the open stage.

Ben Cooper

            On Thursday morning I gathered more images of Zizi Jeanmaire for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I changed the wording of the search and found pictures from some of her movies like Guinguette. 

            I weighed 89.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune during every song. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars.

            I finally put away my laundry. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor where the bike lane is still blocked with snow. I went south to Harbord and west to Ossington, then south to Queen. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought five bags of cherries, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, a pack of hot Italian sausages, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, some pho broth, some chicken broth, two packs of gourmet ramen noodles, and a can of generic tomato soup. I tried to show my Scene card at the cash but couldn’t find it because I typed the search wrong and people were waiting so I gave up. Afterwards I found it right away. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 18:40, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since February 2.

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:27. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1 of tape 1 of my fourth and final Slamnation poetry slam, hosted again by Cad Lowlife. There was a small turnout that year. 

            I made two sub-folders for photos in my SSD. 

            I boiled a chicken leg with a potato and had them with gravy while watching season 1, episode 18 of Combat. 

            K Company is cornered by a tank that is closing in but suddenly it bursts into flames and from behind it walks a US soldier with an anti-tank gun. He introduces himself as Corporal John Cross and he’s been sent as a new recruit for K Company. As a corporal, Cross would be in command if anything happens to Saunders. 

           They are sent to occupy a farmhouse at the top of a hill and Saunders has Kirby and Cross come with him to check it for Germans. It’s empty above and seems to be unoccupied in the wine cellar but then Cross sees a German bayonet come from the shadows behind Saunders’ back. He aims his rifle but doesn’t fire. Then Kirby arrives and shoots the enemy. There are other Germans that Saunders now kills. Saunders confronts Cross about his failure to fire and he says his gun jammed but Saunders checks and Cross’s weapon is fine. His second explanation is that he froze. Since Cross already showed himself to be brave Saunders doesn’t buy it and there’s a suspicion that Cross wants to be in command. 

            Later they see two German soldiers with a donkey arrive to bring supplies for the soldiers they think still occupy the farmhouse. Saunders sends Cross into the barn after one of them but the German sees him and tries to sneak away in the dark. Cross has a clear shot as the German leaves through the back door but doesn’t fire until after he’s gone so as not to arouse suspicion. 

            Later Saunders finds Cross drunk in the wine cellar. He tells him that he was transferred because he accidentally killed his sergeant. Then he confesses that he let the German soldier go and so more will be coming. The Germans come and are shooting mortar shells at the house, tearing it apart. Cross sneaks out with a rifle and crawls until he flanks the mortar cannon nest. He takes out most of the men but is shot multiple times. Saunders takes out the rest. 

            Kind of boring coward turned hero in the end trope they’ve done before. 

            Cross was played by Ben Cooper, who made his Broadway debut at the age of 9 in Life With Father and was in the play for 4 years. He had his own horse by the age of 12 and practiced stunts. He rehearsed his quick draw for 90 minutes a day for four years. Between 1946 and 1952 he worked on several popular radio soap operas and serials. He made his screen debut in 1950 at the age of 17 in Side Street. He co-starred in The Woman They Almost Lynched, Outlaw’s Son, The Eternal Sea, The Headline Hunters, Duel at Apache Wells, A Strange Adventure, The Fighting Chance, Rebel in Town, and Chartroose Caboose.

February 13, 1996: I brought some friends to my new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday night after my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage, since I now lived fairly close by, I brought some of my friends like Raven, Scooter, Cad and Anna back to my new place for coffee.

Jonathan Bolt

            On Wednesday morning I woke up at 5:05 having missed the 5:00 alarm. I shortened one of my yoga poses to get caught up.

            My right cheek was even more swollen. According to medical sites online though it’s normal and the swelling should peek today. 

            After yoga I gathered a few more images of Zizi Jeanmaire for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I’m going to change the wording of the search to see if I can get some different pictures of her. 

            I weighed 88.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since January 21. 

            During song practice I played my Martin acoustic for the second of four sessions. Only two or three times was it still in tune when I ended a song. 

            I finished touching up the area around the bathroom exhaust fan with the purplish paint that for some reason is called Pink Parade. On Friday I will probably start painting the bathroom shelves with Blue Bliss. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. I had a can of spicy tomato soup with garlic chicken broth, some melted five-year-old cheddar, and saltines. I recall Campbells tomato soup tasting better than it does now. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and the Bloor bike lane was clear until Shaw and Bloor. At that point I turned around and went home. 

            When I got home I went back out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 89.9 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:30. 

            I finally solved the problem of recording from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity. A few days ago I was recording tape 2, side 1 of my third Slamnation poetry slam and in the middle I lost the waveform and most of the audio. I’ve been trying to correct the problem for two days and finally discovered that somehow the microphone volume had gotten turned down in my settings. So tonight I re-recorded that part. There is nothing on side 2 of the tape and so once again the finale was not recorded. 

            I created some more sub-folders in my SSD and deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I sautéed the two packs of ground New Zealand grass-fed beef, added pho broth and cooked some Japanese noodles in the steamer while it was boiling. I had my soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 17 of Combat. 

            A new recruit for K Company is Mosely Lovelace from Georgia. Lovelace comes having been issued a pair of boots that make everyone jealous. Saunders offers him $60 for them, which would be over $1000 now. Lovelace says it’s bad enough that he had to join the Yankee army but his Civil War grandfather would climb out of his grave if he sold his boots to a Yankee. 

            Lovelace resents digging foxholes because he thinks brave solders should fight out in the open. They go out on patrol and Lovelace asks Saunders what patrols are like. Saunders says it’s like s turkey shoot except that we’re the turkeys. They are just there on recon to see how far back the Germans have pulled so they are not there to fight. When two German soldiers pass on motorcycles Lovelace shoots them. Lieutenant Hanley tells him if he fires his rifle one more time he’ll be shot. 

            Lovelace falls behind because he removes his boots to cross a stream. By the time he catches up he finds his company under machine gun fire. He ambushes a German soldier takes his machine gun and then takes out the other Germans including the one with the big machine gun. 

            They are moving out but Lovelace says he has to go back for his boots. A group of German soldiers laying mines has found his boots. Lovelace captures them all and brings them back to K Company although two of them die because of a mine on the way back. 

            Lovelace was played by Jonathan Bolt who made his stage debut as a scenic designer in 1956. He made his Broadway debut in Look Homeward Angel in 1958. He made his TV debut in The Verdict is Yours in 1960. He made his film debut in Captain Newman MD in 1963. His play Threads debuted in 1978 and was published in 1981. He directed the world premier of Arthur Miller’s Archbishop’s Ceiling in 1984. His other plays are Eye and the Hands of God, Teddy Roosevelt, First Lady, Plotline, and To Culebra. He became the director of The American Academy of Dramatic Art’s Third Year Company Program.

February 12, 1996: People didn’t want to get too close to me

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I was still in the process of moving to my new place. It was a secret because I was actually skipping out on the rent at the old place. I carried large pieces of furniture onto the streetcar and got to know one driver in particular who picked me up during several trips. At one point I wanted to write but had no journal to write in and so I grabbed a February copy of a free black culture magazine called Word I found on a streetcar seat and wrote this down on top of the text: 

            So I’m back on the streetcar on my way to the new place. The driver is the same one who took me east. He went around the loop and came back while I went to the old place to pick up a tabletop and a dresser mirror. When he saw me fishing for my Metropass he told me not to worry about it. He went as far as Connaught and it was the end of his shift, so now there’s a different driver. Now we’re at Pape, no, Leslie and I’m lost again. I can’t find my correct temperament. Where’s my friendship ring? The thing that gets me most is the fact that I’m on my own again. I thought that I’d found a group of friends and now I realize that was my mistake and it was only a non-profit business association. Like Marc Brandeis says, “People don’t want to get too close”. I think what is really true is that people don’t want to get too close to me. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been accused of justifying my behaviour but all I can say is what I see. I recognize my own innocence unless there truly is some form of universal behaviour towards women that’s appropriate. Who says a man or woman can’t get a spanking on stage if they want it?

Pierre Jalbert

            On Tuesday morning went to bed after 2:00. I laid on my left side and kept a cold gel pack sitting on my right cheek while I tried to sleep. I don’t think I got much if any sleep. My right cheek was so swollen I could see it in the corner of my eye. 

            After yoga I collected more images of Zizi Jeanmaire for a photo video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg while holding the gel pack against my cheek. I have 22 pictures but I think I might need 300. 

            I weighed 88.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since January 21. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune most of the time. I couldn’t really sing because of the stitches but couldn’t play the songs unless I followed the lyrical sequence so I mumbled the words in key. 

            I weighed 89.85 kilos before lunch. 

            Around midday I finished touching up the pink areas on the grid of my bathroom exhaust fan. Tomorrow I’ll open up the wall paint and fix the blue and pink smudges below the fan. 

            I took a siesta at 14:30 and planned to sleep until 16 but didn’t wake until 16:39. 

            I took a bike ride as far as Ossington and Bloor because there was some melting today and the Bloor bike lane was clearer. I stopped at Freshco where I bought seven bags of grapes and matched them to the No Frills price of $4.34 a kilo. I also got some Pho broth, garlic chicken broth, two packs of Japanese beef noodles, a can of spicy tomato soup and a can of butter chicken soup. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos at 18:40. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:36. 

            I tried again to record from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity but Audacity still shows no waveform and there’s no audio reaching the track even though there’s a horizontal green recording bar bouncing to indicate it’s picking up the audio. It was working fine yesterday until halfway through a tape. I tried various things until suppertime but couldn’t figure it out.

            I had a potato with gravy and a boiled chicken leg while watching season 1, episode 16 of Combat. 

            K company has liberated a French town and the villagers are celebrating them. 13 year old Gilbert, who has lost his entire family in the war, grabs his father’s rifle and approaches the men to volunteer as a US soldier. Lieutenant Hanley, rather than simply telling Gilbert he’s too young, has Caje explain in French that they are not allowed to recruit while in the field. 

           But when K Company moves out, Gilbert follows. He finds them under fire. When Hanley gets wounded and seems to have also a concussion, Saunders wants Gilbert to help Hanley back to his village until they can bring help. Caje gets him to go by telling him Hanley has made him his adjutant.

           On the way Hanley collapses and then Gilbert sees German soldiers approaching, He covers Hanley in brush and then runs so the Germans will chase him. He is caught and the Germans find him amusing. One soldier named Kurt is particularly nice to him.

           When the Germans move out Gilbert uncovers Hanley. He finds an overturned cart and uses it to wheel Hanley into the village, which is now abandoned. He takes him to his family house and puts him in bed. Then he sees a squad of Germans occupy the town, setting up machine guns in several windows. Hanley manages to communicate to Gilbert that he has to go get his men. He finds them and brings them back to the village where they take out the machine gun nests with grenades. 

           Gilbert uses his rifle to kill one of the German soldiers but when he does so he is upset, especially when he discovers that the German he killed is Kurt, the one German who was nice to him. He no longer wants to be a soldier. 

           Caje was played by Canadian actor Pierre Jalbert who was the Canadian junior national ski champion, senior national ski champion and captain of Canada’s 1948 Olympics ski team. He broke his leg before the games and couldn’t compete. He studied art appreciation at the Sorbonne in Paris then joined a French film company as a production assistant. He worked for the National Film Board of Canada then moved to Hollywood in 1952 and got work as a film cutter and editor for MGM. His screen acting debut was in Ski Crazy in 1955. After ten years working for MGM he was cast as Caje in Combat. He was the voice of Jules Verne in the documentary Footprints on the Moon – Apollo 11. He returned to film editing and was an assistant editor for The Godfather. He was nominated for an Emmy award for sound editing in the 1981 mini series Shogun.

February 11, 1996: My daughter and I played in the backyard of my new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I played in the back yard of my new place.

Micheline Presle

            On Monday morning I collected ten more images of Zizi Jeanmaire for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune most of the time but once I made it into a third song and it was still behaving. 

            At around 12:45 I headed downtown to the U of T Graduate School of Dentistry for my bone graft surgery in preparation for the implant I hope to get. I had to pay $1200 for the procedure but they always overestimate and didn’t use as much bone as I paid for and so I’ll get a credit. It took at least two hours and Dr. Xia reapplied the bone more than once and undid the stitches once because he wasn’t happy with what he’d done and redid them. At one point he said, “I’m so stupid”. He later explained it had nothing to do with the procedure. Some periodontists do all the stitches with one thread but he did a lot of individual stitches. The assistant says people can always tell from pictures which ones are Dr. Xia’s sutures. His professor came to look and said it was perfect. There are twenty stitches and they can’t come out for at least three weeks. He says I can’t wear my denture. I have an appointment with him in two weeks and I’ll bring my other denture see if I can use that. If not he says they can get me a retainer to wear until I get the implant. He gave me a prescription for Peridex oral rinse, some antibiotics, and some Ibuprofen. He also told me to get a gel pack. 

            I went to Vina Pharmacy to fill the prescriptions and the druggist asked if I’d had oral surgery. It turns out he’s also waiting to get a bone graft towards an implant. 

            It was too late for a siesta when I got home. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos at 18:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since January 19. 

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

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity side 1 of tape 2 of my third Slamnation poetry slam. But about halfway through, the audio stopped recording although there’re were green flashes on the gain dial on the audio interface and there was a small waveform in Audacity. I spent the rest of the time before dinner trying to get it working. I even restarted my computer but it didn’t help. An error message did appear indicating there was a memory problem perhaps because of too many devices operating. 

            I had potato chips even though I’m not supposed to eat anything crunchy. I tried my best to crumble them and make them soggy and ate them on the left side of my mouth. I boiled a chicken leg with a potato and had them with gravy while watching season 1, episode 15 of Combat. 

            Saunders is in Normandy searching a house when he is captured by Germans. He is put in the back of an armoured truck with two Canadian soldiers and one French civilian. The truck is ambushed by the French Resistance and it turns out the civilian is their leader. He shelters them temporarily while he tries to get gas for his truck from the proprietor of a bar but she can’t help him. A woman named Annette overhears and offers a gas certificate in exchange for a ride to Paris. When they are stopped at a German checkpoint he has a gun ready and tells her who is in the back. She is shocked and wants nothing to do with it but she keeps her mouth shut to the Germans and they are allowed to pass. 

            In a town he stops at a tavern but he is arrested. Annette wants to leave but Saunders says they need her help because they don’t speak French and one of the Canadians is wounded. Finally she agrees to drive them to Paris where they meet with a shopkeeper who had only agreed to shelter one of them while they wait for papers as he is already helping four. He begs her to take two to her apartment but she refuses. 

            Finally she agrees to take Saunders. She lets him sleep in what used to be the maid’s quarters. Saunders hides when Annette’s boyfriend arrives who is a German major who it turns out provides her with her lavish apartment. But she is not just a kept lover as she and Kurt do adore one another. He tells her he knows his country will lose the war and soon. He says his brother was just drafted and he’s only 14. The next day she goes out with Kurt and Saunders has to sit and let the phone ring all day. They come back and while Kurt is shaving she answers the phone. It’s a message that Saunders has to leave to board a garbage barge. But as he’s trying to leave Kurt points a gun at him. Annette begs him to let Saunders go but he calls the Gestapo. There is a struggle and Kurt is shot. Before he dies he tells her to go with Saunders because the Gestapo will kill her. 

            She hates Saunders for killing her lover but goes along to survive. After the barge lands they are met with two escorts, one of whom will take half to US lines and the other to British lines. Annette splits from Saunders at this point. 

            Annette was played by Micheline Presle, who was discovered at the age of 17 and made her film debut in Jeunes filles en détresse in 1939. She became a star early in her career. She co-starred in They were Twelve Women, Paradise Lost, Histoire de rire (released in English as Foolish Husbands), La nuit fantastique, The Beautiful Adventure, Félicie nanteuil (Twilight), Falbalas (Paris Frills), Fausse alerte (The French Way), House of Ricordi, The She Wolves, Five Day Lover, The Bamboo Stroke, Devil in the Brain, Venus Beauty Institute, . She starred in Boule de suif (Angel and Sinner), Le diable au corps (Devil in the Flesh), Les jeux sont faits, All Roads Lead to Rome, The Lady of the Camellias, Sins of Pompeii, It Happened in the Park, Les Impures, Thirteen at the Table, Beatrice Cenci, The Law of Men, and L’amour d’une femme. In 1949 she married Hollywood producer William Marshal and co-starred in Under My Skin, American Guerilla in the Philippines, Adventures of Captain Fabian, and If a Man Answers. She divorced Marshal in 1954 and returned to Europe where she co-starred in Blind Date, The Bride is Much Too Beautiful, Le baron de l’écluse, Mistress of the World, The Nun, A Slightly Pregnant Man, and Démons de midi. She starred in Good Weather but Stormy Late this Afternoon. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1957. She starred in the TV series Les Saintes Chéries.

February 10, 1996: My daughter liked my new place enough to spend the night there

Thirty years ago today

            I brought my daughter to my new place and introduced Helga and Peter to her. She liked it and was okay with spending the night there. For the last year or so she’d been unwilling to stay overnight in my basement apartment in the Beaches.

Rick Jason

            On Sunday morning I ran through singing and playing “Where Did All the Millionaires Go?” my translation of “Les Millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I started collecting images of Zizi Jeanmaire for a photo-video of the song. 

            I weighed 89.25 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it went out of tune most of the time.

            Around midday I started up the clean warm mist humidifier and then cleaned the one that’s been going all week. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of iced tea.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but only as far as Dufferin and Bloor. They’d ploughed the bike lane again but it was still somewhat slippery so I turned around and headed west on the eastbound bike lane since there was no one coming east anywhere in the distance. A lone cyclist who was heading west on the north side of Bloor where the bike lane has not been cleared at all shouted that I was going the wrong way. 

            I weighed 89.8 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:44. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of tape 1 of the recording of my third Slamnation poetry slam. For some unknown reason I stopped playing guitar after the first set. Did people not like it or did I decide to concentrate on judging? There were a lot of poets with affected US accents.

            I created a sub-folder for photos of Eva Vortex in my SSD and deleted a lot of her pictures from my hard drive. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, oven french fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 14 of Combat. 

            K Company is ambushed by a tank. Vince D’Amato and Fred Wharton are some distance away from the others. D’Amato decides to try to take out the tank. As Wharton protests but follows D’Amato as he crawls along a trench until he’s flanking the tank. D'Amato kills the gunner with his rifle, runs up and drops a grenade down into the tank, then takes over the gun. He uses it to kill about twelve Germans. One German officer manages to shoot him and then the Germans retreat as K Company advances. 

            Wharton runs from cover to Vince’s body and is so upset that he runs to the tank and starts shooting the bodies of the dead German soldiers. Seeing Wharton on the tank the others from K Company think he’s the one that saved them. He at first dismisses his role. Lieutenant Haney says he’s going to recommend Wharton for a Silver Star. At that moment Wharton and the others have to move out. 

            Later Wharton gets a Dear John letter and feels like a nobody so he decides to let Haney write the letter about the Silver Star. Haney asks Wharton for details and he puts himself in the part that D’Amato really played. But later they capture one of the German soldiers who was there. He pretends to acknowledge that Wharton was the one who commandeered the tank gun and killed his comrades. Later however when they are alone the German tells Wharton he knows he was not the one and offers silence in exchange for letting him escape. Saunders walks in on the conversation and now knows Wharton was not the hero. The German tries to run and Wharton shoots him. 

            Later when they are under fire just the two of them in a town, Saunders gets hit by a falling sign and knocked into some barbed wire. Wharton jumps in and shoots at the Germans while unclipping Saunders. A German throws a grenade. Wharton grabs it and tries to throw it back but it explodes and injures his arm. He shoots the rest of the Germans with his good arm and gets Saunders back to the post.

            The doctor says he won’t be able to use his right arm again but before they carry him to the ambulance he confesses that the Silver Star should be sent to D’Amato’s widow. 

            Wharton was played by Frank Gorshin, who would later star as The Riddler on the Batman TV series. 

            Lieutenant Hanley was played by Rick Jason, who was born rich. He got expelled from eight prep schools but finally graduated from the ninth. His father bought him a seat on the New York Stock Exchange but he sold it and joined the army during WWII. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was spotted in a play in 1950 by Canadian actor, director, and writer Hume Cronyn who cast him in his play Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. For Jason’s role in it he earned a Theatre World Award and a Columbia contract. After a year he still hadn’t done a film and so he got released and was cast in Sombrero by MGM. He co-starred in The Sarecen Blade, This is My Love, Sierra Baron, Colour Me Dead, and The Witch Who Came from the Sea. He starred in Rx Murder. He played the lead in The Fountain of Youth: a TV pilot by Orson Welles that was never picked up as a series but aired in 1958 on Colgate Theatre. He starred in the 1960 detective series The Case of the Dangerous Robin (in which he was the first actor to use karate on television). The show was canceled after he injured the sciatic nerve in his back. After that he was cast in Combat. He was a regular on The Young and the Restless when the soap premiered. After retirement he ran The Wine Locker. He spoke French, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. He shot himself to death at the age of 77. His autobiography Scrapbooks of my Mind was published after his death.