I translated the first monologue from “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s a good chance I’ll have the whole song finished tomorrow.
I weighed 89.75 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune about three-fifths of the time. That’s better than yesterday anyway.
Around midday I touched up the pink sections of my bathroom exhaust fan. I fixed the border around the front of the casing and though it’s not perfectly straight, neither am I. I fixed the grid area or thought I did but later when I looked I saw that there are still some blue smudges to cover.
I weighed 90.55 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon in a long time.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Brock and Bloor and went a few meters east on the bike lane but I was slipping and sliding because it’s still not solid and so I turned around and rode home. I have to go downtown on Monday for my periodontal bone graft so hopefully it’ll be clearer by then.
I weighed 89.95 kilos at 17:30.
I was caught up in my journal at 18:12.
I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the second tape of my 2nd Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. Unfortunately the two tapes did not capture the entire slam because so many poets hogged the stage and took up a lot of time. This was the night that had the disastrous end because my co-judge Simon Orpana who agreed to be a judge for the event decided at the end that he couldn’t pass judgement and so he held up what was his half of the prize money that was supposed to reward a poet for their talent and he just simply asked who wants it. Evangeline Marsh quickly said she would take it and so the only actual winner of the slam that night was the poet I selected. It was such an asshole move on the part of Simon. I know he’s a Marxist but no Marxist society would just offer awards on a first come first serve basis, which would be the opposite of Socialism and more like survival of the fittest. Agreeing to be a judge and then not judging is like saying you will cook a meal and then when everyone comes to eat declaring you can’t cook. If you can’t judge, don’t take on the role asshole! I forget who won that slam and it’s not on tape. Maybe someone who was there remembers. I would usually pick a previous winner to be my co-judge and so it may be revealed when I listen to the third year tape.
I deleted a large number of photos from my main hard drive because I already had copies in my SSD.
I had a potato with gravy and my last slice of roast pork while watching season 1, episode 12 of Combat.
Braddock is a mildly slimy character in that he takes advantage of others in some small ways such as trading dead batteries for another soldier’s rations. He is acting as a runner for Lieutenant Hanley. The batteries are dead on the radio and so Hanley sends Braddock back to Company to let them know they are stuck.
Braddock makes it through and the captain is surprised to see him having done the dirty job as a runner because Braddock has a reputation to find an easy way to do everything he has to do. While he’s there Braddock hears that Colonel Clyde requires a driver. Braddock, perhaps to avoid making his way back to Hanley volunteers to be Clyde’s driver.
The gruff Clyde insists on driving the jeep and drives at top speed as he used to be a race car driver. Braddock has to hold on for dear life. Braddock starts sneezing and says he caught a chill and so Clyde lends him his coat.
Clyde is speeding down the road when he has to swerve to avoid a cow. The jeep flips and lands upside down in the river while Braddock is thrown to lie unconscious in the middle of the road.
He wakes up surrounded by German soldiers who salute him because they think he is a colonel as he is wearing Colonel Clyde’s coat and the helmet he accidentally puts on when he gets up is also Clyde’s. He at first tries to convince them that he’s a private and not a colonel but they think he’s joking. They essentially treat him like royalty with good food and cognac, so he stops denying that he’s a colonel.
They are transporting him to a command post when he sees they have three US prisoners. He demands that they be fed and also lets them have some cognac. They were going to make the men walk to the command post but Braddock insists they ride in the car with him.
Back at US lines it is reported that the Germans have captured a colonel and Clyde’s men think it’s him, since he’s missing.
At the German command post the officers have detailed information on Clyde and figure out that Braddock is not him. But they want him to continue posing as Clyde because they want to exchange him for Colonel Hoffman, who has been captured by nearby Allied forces. They send one of the prisoners back to Allied lines to deliver the message about the proposed exchange. The Germans will trade Clyde and the two prisoners for Hoffman and his aide.
Suddenly Clyde walks in, all dirty from the accident but very much alive. When he hears about the exchange he starts laughing because he figures out that Braddock is the prisoner they think is him. Clyde gets the uniforms of Hoffman and his aide and dresses two German privates in their clothes to make the exchange. Braddock and the two US soldiers are exchanged and shortly after realizing the ruse the Germans begin firing.
Braddock asks Clyde if he’s going to get court martialed for impersonating an officer. Clyde says it depends on how well he did it. He demands that he show him his impersonation. He does and gets the captain to salute him.
Braddock was played by Shecky Greene, who liked to sing Strauss and started a drama club in high school. At first he planned on becoming a gym teacher but after performing stand-up in Chicago he began steering towards a career in comedy. He was in a comedy team with Dick Sterling. He served in the US Navy during WWII. He was a headliner at the Tropicana Hotel from 1957 to 1962. His salary at one point was $150,000 a week. In 1962 he became part of the cast of Combat. He co-starred in The Love Machine. Between 1968 and 1979 he appeared 68 times on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, sometimes as a guest host. After that they had a falling out and he was no longer invited. He owned several nightclubs. He says Frank Sinatra once saved his life when some hoods were beating him up. Frank saved him by saying, “That’s enough”. He was inducted into the National Comedy Hall of Fame in 2020.
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