March 2, 1996: Brian Haddon performed with me at Spit Fridays

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday Brian Haddon and I busked together on Queen Street and in the evening he performed with me on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

William Daniels

            On Saturday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 151 pictures so far. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of four sessions. It only stayed in tune for about five songs near the end. 

            My Snark guitar tuner displays notes for sirens going by. An approaching fire truck on Queen wailed in C, then when it turned on Dunn Avenue it toned G before going back to C. 

            Around midday I went over to Freedom Mobile to pay for my March phone plan. Then I went to Vina Pharmacy to buy some Pico Salax for Wednesday the day before my CT scan. I got cranberry flavour this time. I wasn’t allowed cranberry juice before my colonoscopy but red stuff is totally all right before the CT scan since I’ll already be drinking red dye. 

            I went to No Frills where I bought five bags of red grapes, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, several avocadoes, lemon dish detergent, pho broth, vegetable broth, two jugs of cranberry juice, a jug of orange juice, and two bags of plantain chips. I did a price match on the grapes with the Freshco price of $4.39 a kilo. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at 14:35. I had plantain chips with some mashed avocado. 

            I took a siesta intending to get up at 17:00 but I forgot that and panicked when I woke up at 16:40. After brushing my teeth I realized my mistake and went back to bed for twenty minutes.

            I weighed 89.95 kilos at 17:35, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since February 11.

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:31. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive an interview with me on CIUT radio when I was promoting my chapbook Vomit of the Star Eater. I performed on my guitar “The Princess and the Pea Happy Song” and “Sleep in the Snow”. I sang acapella “Vomit of the Star Eater”. 

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

            I heated yesterday’s chili and had a bowl with a toasted slice of Bavarian sandwich bread while watching the first episode of Captain Nice. 

            Carter Nash is a mild mannered police chemist who has developed a serum that can give super powers to whoever drinks it. He provides a demonstration to the mayor and the chief of police giving the serum to a mouse and showing it knocking out a cat. The mayor however fails to see the practical application. When Carter asks him what he thought would happen if he took the serum the mayor thinks he’d only be able to beat up a cat. 

            The mayor and the chief are more concerned about the super villain and master of disguise Omnus. 

            Meanwhile Parking Enforcement Officer Sergeant Candy Cane is aggressively trying to get Carter romantically involved with her, although Carter is mostly oblivious to her advances. She takes him for a walk in the park but she is abducted by two of Omnus’s men. 

            Omnus has been spying on Carter and knows about the formula and its potential. He knows the formula is in Carter’s briefcase and is trying to get it. Carter drinks the serum so Omnus won’t be able to possess it. There is an explosion in Carter’s body that causes his clothing to be torn in such a way that it looks like a superhero’s costume. He now has super strength, invulnerability and the ability to fly and is easily able to defeat Omnus’s henchmen. 

            Carter goes home and tells his domineering mother and his father who is always hidden by a newspaper. It’s his mother who tells him he must keep making the formula so he can keep drinking it to fight crime. She says she’ll make him a better costume. 

            Carter was played by William Daniels, who was a member of the singing and dancing Daniels family and made his radio debut in 1936. He made his TV debut performing with his family in an experimental broadcast in 1943 at the age of 16. The same year he made his Broadway debut in Life With Father. He was drafted in 1945 and served in Italy as an army radio disc jockey. After the war he attended North Western University where his classmates were Paul Lynde and his future wife Bonnie Bartlett (they’ve been married for a Hollywood record of 74 years). He won an Obee award for his performance in Edward Albee’s Zoo Story in 1958. He made his film debut in Ladybug Ladybug in 1963. He co-starred in The Parallax View, All Night Long, and Her Alibi. He was the voice of the car KITT on Knight Rider. He played Dr. Mark Craig on St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988. He played the teacher George Feeny on Boy Meets World from 1993 to 2000. He was the voice of a hospital ship in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Critical Care”. He starred in the movie 1776. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1999 to 2001. At age 98 he appeared on Dancing With the Stars.

March 1, 1996: I probably worked somewhere

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I possibly posed for a school or an art group but I don’t know which one.