December 13, 1995: I posed at Central Tech in the morning

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday morning I posed from 9:00 to 11:30 in studio 302 of Central Technical School. I went home and in the evening came back downtown to perform on the Fat Albert’s and Art Bar reading series open stages.

John Gibson

            On Thursday morning I memorized the second verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through singing and playing it in French. On Friday I’ll finish revising my translation then run through singing and playing it. 

            I weighed 88.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions. It went out of tune a few times during the first few songs but then behaved itself for the rest. 

            I weighed 88.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I headed out for a bike ride but there were ice patches on Seaforth that my wheels slipped slightly on. I figured if they didn’t de-ice the side streets they wouldn’t have salted the Bloor bike lane so I just rode to Freshco at Gladstone and Queen. The red grapes were firm and so I got five bags. I also bought a pack of raspberries, some bananas, cinnamon-raisin bread, a small bag of peanuts in the shell, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, three bags of skim milk, chicken bouillon, beef bouillon, and pork bouillon. 

            I weighed 88.55 at 18:00. 

            I checked my bank account and the amount for the new computer: $2,810.30 is on hold, so it looks like this order won’t be canceled and I’ll have a new computer before Christmas. 

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

            I plugged in my Sony Dolby two-cassette player for the first time in about twenty years. I’m just smart enough to know not to try to play a tape without cleaning out two decades of dust. I used several Q-Tips and alcohol but after half an hour there was still dirt. I’ll tackle it again tomorrow. 

            In my “2024-10-06 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I deleted all the songs that came before the final take of “Leave Some for Everyone Else”. I copied the project as “Leave Some for Everyone Else (Kramer electric)” and then deleted all the songs that came after that song. I added a fade to black, an older film effect and two sharpening effects. It gave the video a kind of faded, sparkly look. I published the movie and took some screen shots. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to YouTube and then I’ll be done with that song. I’ll add another of my own songs to my daily repertoire. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and two small chicken drumsticks while watching season 1, episode 27 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Sylvia Schnauser attends a beautiful wedding with her husband Leo but it just makes her miserable because it reminds her of the fact that she never had a big wedding. They just did it on her lunch break at city hall and so she missed lunch as well. Then when the bride throws the bouquet it falls into Sylvia’s hands and so she takes it as a sign. She demands a wedding from Leo and when he refuses she begins to behave as if they are not married. She won’t let him sleep in the bedroom and during the day she wears a maid’s uniform and Leo has to pay her to do the cooking and housework. Leo appeals to Muldoon to talk to her because she’s always considered him the most intelligent of Leo’s friends but when he tries she just tells him she’s available for dates on Thursday nights. Leo asks Toody to get Lucille to talk to her and she agrees to set her straight but when Sylvia asks Lucille to be her matron of honour she is suddenly on Sylvia’s side. Then Sylvia asks Toody to give her away at the wedding and he begins to behave as Sylvia’s father. Sylvia moves in with Toody and Lucille and begins calling them “mom and dad”. Finally Leo gives in and arrives at Toody’s place with flowers and candy to court Sylvia. He gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him. A hall is rented and all the guests are there for the wedding. A judge is there to perform the ceremony. Muldoon is prepared to be the best man. Leo and Syvia are late but they’ve been shopping for the ring and it’s figured they are caught in traffic. But then Leo calls and says they couldn’t wait and decided to get married at city hall. So Toody and Lucille renew their vows instead. 

            The judge was played by John Gibson, who co-starred in all 178 episodes of the popular radio adventure series Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police, which ran from early 1937 to mid 1940. The character of Speed Gibson is a 15 year old pilot who becomes a member of the International Secret Police. Gibson played Speed’s sidekick Barney Dunlap, whose catchphrase was, “Suffering Wangdoodles!”. He also played the chaplain on the Phil Silvers Show.

December 12, 1995: I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage

Thirty years ago today 

             On Tuesday I spent the day writing and then took the streetcar to the Gladstone Hotel on the edge of Parkdale to host my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar.

Howard Freeman

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the first verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the chorus and verses two and three of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. I’ll probably have the song finished tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.15 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first time in a few weeks since Alex Wood set it up and it sounded great. It stayed in tune most of the time. 

            Around midday I opened up the old can of Crazy in Love paint and started touching up the edges of my bathroom ceiling. I started with the patch where a bunch of paint peeled off with the painters tape and I filled that in. I did all of the west side and almost half each of the north and south edges. Doing fine work on a ceiling is a pain in the ass so now I understand what Michelangelo went through. It’s surprising that it’s not always easy to tell where the ceiling ends and the wall begins even when they are different colours and shades. But in retrospect what I did looks good. There were slight overlaps but when I touch up the wall paint it will be easier to cover the lighter ceiling paint at a better angle. 

            I weighed 88.65 kilos before lunch. I had Skyflakes crackers with peanut butter and five year old cheddar with a glass of iced tea. 

            I tried to take a bike ride but my tires slipped slightly on a strip of frozen sledge and so I anticipated things being worse on the bike lane and just went around the block. My policy these days for surviving winter riding is: “With just one slight slip I will end my bike trip”. 

            I weighed 88.65 kilos at 17:25. 

            I checked the status of my Best Buy order and found that after ten days of problems with my banking limit and conflicting addresses they canceled it. I searched their site for several minutes and found the same computer but with twice as much RAM (64GB) and it was $400 cheaper, so I ordered that. Hopefully starting fresh there won’t be any hassles. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:51. 

            I reviewed the last cassette tape on my pile. This was the demo of Bomb Shelter Light, which featured on my open stage on October 8, 1996. They gifted me the cassette with the note that I am an inspiration to many. The thing is I don’t remember the names of the guys in the band and no internet search turns up anything about them. I have a vague memory of what the two guys in the band looked like but nothing else. The music sounds influenced by Nick Cave. I digitized the cassette twice. Tomorrow I want to start trying to figure out how to get my Sony Dolby double cassette player working again so I can make some less glitchy conversions from tape to digital. 

            I uploaded my “Leave Some for Everyone Else (Gibson electric) video to You Tube.

            I opened my “2024-10-06 Song Practice” Movie Maker project and deleted all the songs before “Leave Some For Everyone Else”. I hadn’t found the final take before supper. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, Genoa salami, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 2, episode 26 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            The filing system at the 53rd precinct is a mess with files dating back to President Woodrow Wilson. Captain Block can’t get any of his men to help organize the place. Then Inspector Kerman arrives to tell Block he has to take a vacation because he hasn’t had one in five years. Block says he can’t leave Toody alone with another captain and the inspector is aware of Toody being a special case. But the inspector insists and so Block has to go. They need to replace him for two weeks with another captain but the only one available is Captain Burkholtz. Burkholtz however is not an effective precinct captain because he is the sweetest, kindest, most easy going police officer to ever wear a uniform. The last time he was in charge of a precinct it spoiled all the men so much that they needed to be reassigned. Because of that they have buried Burkholtz for the last fifteen years as the head of Lost and Found. For anyone who comes to his department looking for something he insists that if they can’t find it they should walk away with something else they like. But nobody at the 53rd Precinct knows anything about Burkholtz. Toody and Muldoon deliver Block’s vacation papers to the chief of police and hear him say they hate to do this to the 53rd but they are going to have to let Burkholtz out. Now they are scared that Burkholtz is some kind of monster and so they go to the files department only to find there is no file on him. Someone has to check the old archives to find the Burkholtz file. All that person hears is about the 91st Precinct being ruined but not how so he assumes it’s because Burkholtz is a sadistic tyrant. The rumour passes through the file department and builds with each person until Toody and Muldoon are told that Burkholtz is a former Nazi general. When Burkholtz arrives he comes with his beloved fish in their tanks and he is as sweet as can be. But they have all seen the movies about smiling torturers and they assume that the captain’s fish are man eating piranhas. The men all decide in their terror that they need to work like dogs for the next two weeks to give no reason for Burkholtz to discipline them. They work on their days off and overtime to clean, paint and organize the precinct. They do everything that Captain Block could not get them to do. Burkholtz sees Officer Kissel is working too hard and takes him into his office to feed his fish because it’s a calming activity. But Kissel is so nervous Burkholtz concludes he needs a holiday. Kissel says he doesn’t want the men to see him abandon them and so Burkholtz helps him sneak away unnoticed. When the men see Kissel go into the captain’s office but not come out they assume he has been fed to the piranhas. But then the two weeks are up and Burholtz says goodbye. Kissel returns and everyone is relieved. Block tries to discipline the men the way he thinks Burkholtz did but the men go back to their old habits. 

            Burkholtz was played by Howard Freeman, who worked in theatre for almost twenty years before entering the film industry. His film debut was in Inflation in 1942. He co-starred in The Unwritten Code, Carolina Blues, I’ll Tell the World, and Susie Steps Out.

December 11, 1995: I posed for the Heliconian Club in Yorkville

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday from 10:00 to 12:00 and from 13:00 to 15:00 I posed for the Heliconian Club in Yorkville and got paid in cash.

John C. Becher

            On Tuesday morning I finished translating “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian and started working on memorizing it. The only song adaptation seems to be by Michel Fedrizzi and it’s in an up-tempo old French folk song style but he leaves out entire verses and eliminates lines from the verses he does use. I’ll try to adapt the whole song to his melody. 

            I worked out all but the last six chords of the chorus of “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have that done on Wednesday and then I will probably have the pattern for the rest of the song. 

            I weighed 88.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Epi acoustic during song practice for the third of three sessions. 

            At 13:00 I rode with my bike trailer to Wood Instruments to pick up my Martin acoustic from Alex Wood. He said that despite the fact that I have the humidifiers going all the time the humidity is not getting inside the guitar. The action had dropped 20% but after he humidified it the action went back up. He recommended an Oasis guitar humidifier. We chatted for a while. He went to OCADU for a while and thinks he might remember drawing me at some time back in the 2010s. I paid him $90 for the set-up. He still has my Les Paul electric but thinks he might have it finished in about a week. When I pick it up I might bring in my Kramer to be worked on. 

            I weighed 88.55 kilos at 14:30. 

            I took a siesta at 15:15 and slept until 17:30. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos at 17:50, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since November 30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:36. 

            I reviewed the cassette tape that Jim Bravo gave me years ago. I met Jim when I was modelling at the Ontario College of Art. I told a teacher I was looking for a drummer and she told me one of her students played drums and so he ended up playing with my band for at least one show at the El Mocambo. I don’t recall ever listening to his tape. It’s kind of retro psychedelic in a minimalist way. I think there’s a Living Colour influence there. I digitized it but maybe only one side because the tape snapped. I notice the whole album is available online so I’m not going to bother repairing the tape. 

            In my “2024-09-24 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I deleted all the songs before the final take of “Leave Some for Everyone Else”. I saved the project as “Leave Some for Everyone Else (Gibson electric). Then I isolated the song. I added fade to black, edge detection, sharpen, and span the colour spectrum effects. I published the movie. Then I took a screen shot and altered it in Paint because some lines on my face were too dark. Tomorrow I’ll probably upload it to YouTube. 

            I had a potato with gravy while watching season 1, episode 25 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            In 9 years on the force Toody has only earned one citation and that was for having the cleanest locker. The city is looking for police volunteers to catch pickpockets at the World Series game at Yankee Stadium. Toody volunteers and Captain Block reluctantly lets him do so but only if Muldoon is there to watch over him. Muldoon wants to watch the World Series on TV but Block orders him to volunteer. Toody disguises himself as a souvenir hawker but when a boy asks for a Micky Mantle doll Toody tells him to go away because for some reason he didn’t expect to sell any souvenirs. The boy’s father thinks it’s fishy and wants to call the police and so Toody sells the boy a doll but when Toody tries to make change he catches a hand in his pocket. He's nabbed Benny “Feather fingers” Featherton who tells him he wanted to be a cop but he was too short. He thinks he would have made a great cop though. When the wagon comes Benny has lifted from Toody both his badge and the keys to the handcuffs and introduces himself as Officer Toody to the officer in charge of the wagon. Since Toody can’t prove who he is he ends up in the wagon while Benny decides to prove what a good cop he would have been by nabbing pickpocket after pickpocket. Meanwhile Muldoon is disguised in a cowboy hat and hanging around behind a hot dog vendor. The vendor thinks he’s suspicious and keeps moving his cash tray away from him as Muldoon paces back and forth. Then Muldoon walks away and the vendor sees his cash is gone so he calls the police. Block gets a call from downtown and hears that his officer Toody is arresting so many pickpockets that the ones not being arrested are just leaving town. Toody uses his phone call to get Muldoon to come downtown and identify him. Block goes downtown to pose for photographs in front of all the crooks his man has caught only to find Toody is one of the prisoners. Toody and Block leave with the chief just before Muldoon arrives. He looks for Toody among those arrested and while talking with one of them follows him through a door where he ends up in a line-up and is identified by the hot dog vendor, then arrested. Block gets Muldoon released and then meets Benny. Benny is happy he had a chance to prove himself and Block tells him he would have made a great officer. Benny is taken away but when Block tries to leave he is stopped by a guard who says Captain Block already left. Benny stole his badge. 

            The father of the boy was played by John C. Becher, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Milwaukee Teachers College and a bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. He made his professional debut at the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey. He played Mr. Upson in the original Broadway production of Mame.

December 10, 1995: My daughter's grandparents dropped her off at my place

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter’s grandparents probably dropped her off on their way to church. It was even colder than the day before so we likely played inside.