The Bonnot Gang

            On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. On Tuesday I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and English before uploading it to my Christian’s Translations blog. 

            The song “L’anguille” is one of the songs Vian wrote for a comedy musical called “La bande à Bonnot (The Bonnot Gang)”, with music by Jimmy Walter. Vian took a week to write twenty songs for the play. The Bonnot Gang was led by Jules Bonnot and active between 1911 and 1912. They robbed, burgled and murdered with somewhat of an Anarchist ideology as an act of rebellion against what they considered to be an oppressive society. They were the first crooks to use a getaway car, which overwhelmed the police, who didn’t even have many cars at that time. Most of the gang was captured or killed and Bonnot was holed up in a residence surrounded by 500 cops. He wounded three officers and held them back in the shootout until the police dynamited the front of the building. He was shot ten times before he was captured and later died in the hospital. Bonnot’s operations inspired many Anarchists to try to imitate him. The police cracked down so hard that anyone who said anything positive about Bonnot could end up in jail.

            I worked out the chords for the chorus and the instrumental lead-in to the second verse of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. That probably completes the pattern and the rest of the chords should be the same. I weighed 90.9 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 2. I played my Martin during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune for every song. I weighed 91.8 kilos before lunch. That’s the same as the early afternoon of February 20. I took my stereo extension cable to Long and McQuade. The same guy who tested my cable adaptor last week tested the cable and said that the sound goes in and out when the jack is wiggled so I bought a new one. I rode downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco where I bought seven bags of green grapes for $4.39 a kilo. When I got home I tried out the new cable but the same problem of only getting one channel persisted. I tried switching the RCA jacks with the black on the left and for a little while I got both tracks. But when I switched it back to the red on the left I lost the extra track and even when I put the black back onto the left I only got one channel. The black RCA jack doesn’t work at all. Whether the red is in the right or the left plug I get the left channel. On my audio interface if I switch the red and the black I get only the right channel. I weighed 91.1 kilos at 19:20. I worked on getting caught up in my journal. I had two small potatoes with the last of my gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching season 9, episode 2 of The Carol Burnett Show. Tim Conway is now a regular member of the cast. In the first sketch Sammy Davis Jr. plays Johnny, a similar character to himself. He is famous and now returns to do a show for the first time in his home town where he grew up and experienced a lot of racism. The reporters come in along with a richly dressed woman (played by Carol) who shyly enters behind them. Johnny says he’s going to be starring in a western film. He says he met Queen Elizabeth last year but didn’t give her the soul hand slap. The well dressed woman begins to laugh and Johnny looks over to recognize Eleonor Simpson. He tells the reporters that they practically grew up together as his mother was the Simpson family’s maid. He says he bought his mother a big house in Beverly Hills with a lot of servants but she still insists on doing all the cleaning. She says their silverware has not been as shiny since she left. She tells Johnny that he was no slouch at shining her daddy’s boots. She says, “Daddy always said that he thought you had some kind of magic spit”. She adds that whenever her daddy sees Johnny on TV he wishes he was back there to shine his boots. He invites her to supper but she says she can’t tonight. She compliments the show he did tonight and says his diction was perfect. She understood every single word he said and he tossed off those polysyllables like you were born to them. He says, “I guess Mama did manage to throw in a few long words along with the ‘honey childs’”. She says she’s been doing some singing too and gives a sample. He recognizes that it’s Gilbert and Sullivan. She says, “How clever of you! Don’t tell me you’ve done Gilbert and Sullivan too!” He says he hasn’t and she says, “Thank goodness for that! I do think some things outta be sacred!” He hands her a spoon for her coffee and she wipes it on her dress before using it. She says, “Some people might say you’re a little out of place doing a western. You don’t see John Wayne doing Porgy and Bess”. She says, “I do believe a performer must stretch. Many of you people now are playing upper class roles. Can’t even turn on the TV without seeing a whole bunch of you doing commercials and using products and everything”. She says she’s married now and her husband’s sitting at the bar. Johnny suggests they go meet him but Eleonor says he’s in a bad mood because of the expense of the evening. She says he said, “What kind of gyp joint is this? A $10 cover charge just to sit and watch a…” He says it’s too bad she can’t come for supper because the mayor and his wife would be joining them. Eleonor says that might have taken the curse off it for her husband. She tells Johnny she shouldn’t get the wrong idea about her husband because he is very liberal. He has a restaurant and hires all black waiters, but of course the cashier is white. She repeats that she wishes she could get his mama back to clean the house. She says it’s hard to find decent help since all the coloureds got hired by the phone company. You call them up to ask for information and you can’t understand a word they’re saying. He says goodbye to her and calls her “honey” but she finds that too familiar. He mockingly says he’s sorry for being uppity but she says it’s alright because they’re such wonderful friends. Carol says they’ve been trying to get Sammy Davis Jr. on for the last eight years but the schedules didn’t mesh but now she introduces him. He does a medley of his most popular songs: “Yes I Can” by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams from the 1964 musical Golden Boy; “Too Close for Comfort” by Jerry Bock, George David Weiss, and Larry Holofcener from the 1956 musical Mr. Wonderful; the 1954 song “Something’s Gotta Give” by Johnny Mercer; “Hey There” by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler from the 1954 musical The Pajama Game; “The Birth of the Blues” by Duddy DeSylva and Lew Brown from the 1926 revue George White’s Scandals; “The Candy Man” by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley from the 1971 musical Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; and “What Kind of Fool Am I?” by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley from the 1962 musical Stop the World I Want to Get Off. Vicki says that not long ago many of the commercial airlines introduced a new low cost fare that was nicknamed “The No Frills Plan”. The next skit is a parody of that plan. Harvey and Tim board a plane and Tim is in the No Frills section, which begins just behind Harvey’s seat right where the carpet stops. Tim says he saved $40 by choosing the No Frills plan and he thinks the only difference is that one has to bring their own lunch. He adds that it’s a lot safer in the back the plane because planes never back into mountains. Carol plays the flight attendant and she comes back to ask Tim if she can take his coat. She then rolls it up and uses it as a pillow for Harvey. She then tells Tim to get his foot off the rug of the frills section and kicks his foot. Carol gives all the regular passengers the emergency instructions by whispering them in their ears so Tim can’t hear them. Tim doesn’t have a seatbelt so Carol ties him to his seat with a rope. There’s no glass in the window of his seat. Harvey lights a cigarette but when Tim does it Carol puts it out with a fire extinguisher. The captain announces that they will be going through some turbulence but only Tim’s seat experiences it. Carol asks Harvey if he’s getting off in Chicago and he’s not but Tim says he is. Carol tells him to come with her. he asks what time they’ll be landing? She says, “Landing?” Then she opens the door and pushes him out. In a wild west saloon the sheriff (played by Harvey) is getting drunk at a table by himself. Vicki the saloon girl asks the bartender what’s the matter with the marshal. He says that his Deputy Pecos left him for another marshal (This is another skit in which the professional relationships of men are treated like romantic relationships). Vicki tries to console him. He says he should have known there was another marshal. He says if he was a good marshal he wouldn’t have run off with another lawman. She says there’ll be somebody else but he cries, “I don’t want somebody else. I want my Pecos back!” Sammy comes in dressed in black and walking like John Wayne. He fires his gun in the air then spins it in a fancy way similar to when I saw him guest star on The Rifleman. The sheriff recognizes his old deputy Ringo who he left for Pecos. Ringo admits he came back to gloat but didn’t realize he was in so much pain. Ringo talks about how he waited for the sheriff’s posse on the road to Abilene but he never came. The marshal says he was supposed to go all the way to Abilene. Ringo says, “It was my first posse and you expected me to go all the way?” The sheriff asks if they can start again and hands him a badge. Ringo refuses it and asks, “You didn’t expect me to wait forever did ya?” “What are you sayin?” “Don’t you understand? There’s somebody else! I’ve been deputized!” “Congratulations. Who’s the lucky lawman?” “Wyatt Earp.” “Earp? (he looks like he’s burping when he says it).” Someone comes in to tell the marshal that the Dalton boys are on their way to kill him. The sheriff prepares to face them alone. Vickie asks Ringo to help but he refuses at first. Finally he gives in and says he’s going with him but, “If you tell Wyatt about this I’ll scratch your eyes out!” They end the show with a mini-musical celebrating the songs of Harold Harlen. Sammy plays a bartender in a tropical bar. He sings “Two Ladies in the Shade of the Banana Tree” with lyrics by Truman Capote from the 1954 musical House of Flowers. Then he sings “Get Happy” with lyrics by Ted Koehler from the 1930 musical The Nine Fifteen Revue. Carol and Vicki sing to Tim each different parts of “Gotta Have Me Go With You” with lyrics by Ira Gershwin from the 1954 film A Star is Born. Carol sings to Tim “Come rain or Come Shine” with lyrics by Johnny Mercer from the 1946 musical St. Louis Woman. Sammy sings “Hooray for Love” with lyrics by Mercer from the 1935 film of the same name. Vicki tells Tim to “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” with lyrics by Yip Harburg from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Carol and Sammy sing “The Man That Got Away” also from A Star is Born. They sing “Down With Love” by Yip Harburg from the 1937 musical Hooray for What. Carol sings “I’m Through with Moanin” from the same musical. Sammy sings the 1941 song “When the Sun Comes Out” with lyrics by Ted Koehler. Then Harvey comes in and sings “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” with lyrics by Koehler from the 1932 show Earl Carroll’s Follies. Then Harvey sings the 1933 song “Stormy Weather” with lyrics by Koehler while Carol sings “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz. Harvey sings “Let’s Fall in Love” by Koehler form the 1933 film of the same name. Sammy sings “Hooray for Love” again. Then he sings the 1944 song “Accentuate the Positive” with lyrics by Johnny Mercer while Carol and Harvey sing “Get Happy”.