It's Stupid to Call People Stupid

            At around 1:30 on Saturday I woke up with a major cramp running from my right hip down to my calf. It was so bad it felt like I’d somehow injured myself in my sleep. I was worried that it might not be a cramp and that there might be something wrong with my hip. I decided to try and get up to see if that would help. I wasn't sure if I could but it wasn’t much of a problem. I limped a bit when I went to and from the bathroom and then I sat down in the living room for a couple of minutes. It felt slightly better and I went back to bed. I fell asleep again not long after that and when I woke up at 5:00 the cramp was gone.

            During yoga I came up with a theory about what might have caused the cramp. On August 10^th I added a new pose to my yoga routine in which I lean back and balance my body on one hand and foot with my other hand and foot in the air. The muscles that are worked on my right leg by that pose are the same ones that cramped up while I was in bed that morning. I’ve had cramps for a while in the past while my body got used to a new exercise.

            I worked on finding the chords to “L’Oiseau du Paradis” by Serge Gainsbourg. Quick Partitions had the sheet music for the first verse, which is enough for this song because there is no chorus, but only some of the chords sounded right to me. D7, B-minor 7 and F-sharp fit in places but the rest needed other chords, so I had listen to the only version that exists online, the one by Zizi Jeanne-Maire, note for note, over and over again, to find the right chords, but after an hour I only had the first two lines done. I'll finish the rest tomorrow.

            When I started making breakfast I discovered that the two baskets of peaches that I’d bought from Freshco had gone rotten and that the fruit flies had found their way under the bag the cloth bag that I’d been using to cover them with on the kitchen table. The bag was soaked in peach blood. I was able to save parts of some of the peaches but most of them went outdoors in the garbage.

            At 9:45 I went to the food bank and found my place in line behind a white cart containing a large bag with Christmas colours and the close-up cartoon portrait of the face of a smiling snowman surrounded by snowflakes. As I write about it I wonder if an albino snowman would be transparent.

             A few of the regulars were sitting on the steps of 1501 Queen and smoking. Skinny Brenda was standing and chatting with a guy who wasn't a regular but I think I’d seen him there before. Elderly Michael came walking by in his large snow-white sneakers and Brenda came over to give him a kiss on the cheek. He smiled politely but made it clear that he wasn't comfortable with it, so she came in again as if to kiss him on the mouth but he gently dodged away. Brenda returned to her conversation and said, “Ya gotta have a sense of humour or you're dead!” The thought that came to me from that was, if the poor didn’t have a sense of humour, the rich would be dead.

             I read another couple of pages of Gustav Flaubert's "St Julian the Hospitaler". After the dying stag that Julian had shot prophesied that Julian was destined to kill his own parents, he refused to go hunting and spent several weeks in bed. When he recovered his father gave him a scimitar, but while standing on a ladder to take it down from a trophy stand, it slipped from Julian’s fingers and cut into the coat of his father, who was standing below. Thinking that he’d half fulfilled the prophecy, Julian fainted. After this Julian avoided weapons, but his advisor, the old monk encouraged him to behave like a noble. Julian took his advice and began practicing the javelin with the squires. He became the best among them but one day when he saw the wings of a stork through the branches of a tree he heaved his javelin and knocked his mother’s long ribboned hat from her head, nailing it to a wall. Julian immediately left home and never came back. 

            The second hand smoke had me moving away too and there seemed to be more people smoking than usual. It was hard to avoid because people were smoking far to the east, around the PARC door and just as many paces to west, to the end of an extra long food bank line.

            The food bank didn’t open at 10:30. Valdene came with the van and the volunteers unloaded it, then she drove away and a while later came back with another load. We took our places in line at around 10:30.

            The guy behind me in line was a regular who after putting his cart in line goes to sit by himself on the sidewalk until it's time for the line to move. He kind of looks like a gentle version of Charles Manson from when he had long hair, but after he lost his teeth. I noticed two collages in his cart and I asked if he’d made them. He confirmed that he had and that he was taking them to a friend’s place later. They were colourful and made from various materials and objects, such as different textures of paper and cloth and I saw at least one red feather. They had their charm but were not outstanding works of art because there was no flow between the diverse elements incorporated in the pieces and there were empty spaces between each object. The collages looked more like something that came out of art therapy rather than having been the result of an artistic vision. They were nice though and I’m sure his friend will like having them on their wall.

            The volunteers had taken about half a vanload downstairs and while Valdene was waiting for them she sat on the back of the van and broke up bread to throw to the pigeons.
            It was after 11:00 when the line started moving. Marlena was having a smoke after letting some people go downstairs while Valdene was still feeding the pigeons. Marlena commented, “They’re not white anymore!" I don't know if she'd seen some almost white ones earlier or if Valdene had told her that pigeons used to be white. “No, they’re filthy!" Valdene said, "But we took their land away!" She's mistaken about that. Feral pigeons are not native to North America. They’re descended from domesticated rock doves that were brought over to Port Royal, Nova Scotia by settlers from France in 1606.  They’re an invasive species and should not be fed.

            A guy behind me asked Valdene and Marlena if they were still using the number system. Marlena said no and he said “Good!” I asked him why he thought it was good and said, “Because I'm usually here earlier." Marlena said, "Nobody wanted the numbers." I said that think the reason people voted against the number system was because everybody thinks they can get there earlier, although nobody ever does. The first ten people can’t win with the number system and the last ten people can't lose. Valdene said, "I'd shuttle everybody in if I could!”

            Downstairs was a new volunteer that was a very beautiful young Black woman with a long ponytail. When I walked in she was standing by the baked goods section and looking at the bread. Lana, who's in charge of the bread, came up and told her not to touch it. The woman didn’t think there was anything wrong with her touching the bread and they argued about it. The young woman declared that she didn’t want to work on Saturdays anymore. After I’d shown my card and was waiting to shop the shelves, I saw them continuing their argument in the back. Lana told her that she had a bad attitude.

            I don’t know exactly why Lana was bothered by the young woman touching the bread, since the bread she’d picked up was in a bag and it looked to me like she'd been just curious about the ingredients.

            From the shelves I got a package of two almond butter granola cups; three peanut butter Clif bars; a sleeve of soda crackers; a large can of chickpeas and a small tin of tomato paste. There was again no cereal but Raisin Bran was on sale at Freshco that week and so I’d already gotten some. There was also no tuna for the third week in a row.

            As I stood behind the woman with the white cart and waited to shop the dairy and meat section, the row between Lana and the young woman was still going on. Apparently the young woman had called Lana “stupid” and that upset her to an extreme degree. Lana said she was going to report her to the board of directors and “where I come from you don't talk to people that way!" Sylvia said, “I’m with you on that! It's okay to call someone dumb, but not stupid!”

            The woman in front of me was waiting for Angie because she had gone to the back to get something for her, and so my volunteer stepped in and served me from that section. In addition to the usual 2% milk there were a lot of nut milks like soya and coconut, but I didn’t take either. I got a pack of four single servings of cherry flavoured Greek yogourt and the usual bag of three eggs. I turned down the usual frozen ground chicken, hot dogs and bologna. He also offered me a pack of veggie cheese slices and when I said I didn’t want those either, the guy behind me, who'd gotten ahead of the collage guy, asked if he could have mine. The volunteer said that he couldn’t give him an extra pack of veggie cheese but if I took one I could give it to him, so I did. It’s hilarious that I had to make something that I didn’t want mine for a second by touching it, just so someone else could have it, when it should have been enough for me to just say, "He can have mine”.

            Sylvia had quite a bit of stuff. She offered me another bag of potatoes but I told her that I got one last week an I only eat one potato a day. She nodded knowingly and said, “I have some nice mushrooms!" I told her I needed a bag for them and she just happened to have some plastic ones. I think that they were maitake mushrooms, which means, “dancing” mushrooms. She dug down in a box of bananas to get me a bunch of four that weren’t too ripe. She pointed at a bin of broccoli and told me she didn’t like the ones she had today. I agreed that they were a bit too yellow. She gave me a seedless, cucumber, an eggplant and some leaf lettuce and then I moved on to the bread section.

            I only really needed one loaf and there seemed to be plenty of variety already on the shelves but Lana was insistent on going to the back and getting me some more. While she was gone I grabbed a foccaccia loaf with rosemary and a pack of gourmet chocolate chip cookies. She came back with a box containing multigrain bread and dark rye, which she said she calls “chocolate bread”. I took multigrain loaf, even though I didn’t need any more, but I felt sorry for Lana because the other volunteer had been so mean to her.

            Calling someone stupid is really both ironic and absurd. If you really thought that someone was stupid it would be pointless to try to communicate it to them because if they were stupid they would not understand. Therefore the only reason one would have to call someone stupid is for the sake of some kind of mean-spirited self-satisfaction, which strongly suggests that anyone that would call someone stupid is actually stupid.

            

Sidekicks Are Boring

            It rained several times on Friday and so I didn’t take a bike ride. I just stayed home and got caught up on my writing.

            I grilled an eye of round steak for dinner and watched an episode of Mike Hammer, Private Eye, starring Stacy Keach. A young woman goes missing and Hammer is called but her little brother assures Hammer that Tamara is dead. They find that’s when he gives them a URL that links to a snuff site and shows Tamara being killed. It all started with Tamara joining a modelling agency that books young, attractive women to pose in lingerie online in sexy poses. But unknown to the owner of the agency, some rogue employees are diverting selected girls into more hardcore stuff. Hammer infiltrates the agency as someone wanting to supply them with girls from the Midwest. A party is thrown and the champagne for the models is spiked with super roofies. One attractive, scantily clad and stoned model pulls Hammer into a separate room to make out. He doesn’t want to take advantage of her situation but he goes along and tries to reason with her. It turns out though that she’s a CIA agent that knows who Hammer really is but she’s too stoned to help him. There are video cameras monitoring every room and so the bad guys find out Hammer is under cover and there’s a gunfight, which of course Hammer and his partner win. We don't see the undercover CIA agent again. It would have been a more interesting ending and funnier if she’d tried to help out in the gunfight while at the same time being stoned.

            One of the worst things about this show is that Hammer has a sidekick. Mike Hammer is supposed to fight alone.

            An interesting aspect of the show, though not interesting enough to save it is that there is a yoga studio across from Hammer’s office. In every episode he has some interaction with the instructor that is supposed to provide comic relief by making fun of yoga teachers. In this episode, the instructor, Maya, approaches Hammer and complains about all the cigarette smoking being done in the building. Then she walks away while smoking a cigarette. Her character is played by Malgosia Tomassi, who is the real life wife of Stacy Keach. 

Hookers

           When I started yoga on Thursday morning a woman walked by across the street in a very short and tight green dress which she filled out with an extremely out and up behind and she wore her curly hair in a very high and vertical mushroom cloud. I wondered where hookers are working in the area these days.

            Sometimes my tuner says my guitar’s in tune but it isn’t but if I loosen the B and E strings and re-try it comes out right. It seems to happen like that more often when it’s humid.

            I didn’t take a bike ride in the afternoon because there was a chance of rain but I did ride down to Freshco to buy fruit. I got cherries, peaches, nectarines, two eye of round steaks, some Greek yogourt and a big box of Raisin Bran. The cashier exclaimed under her breath, “The cherries are so expensive!” I spent almost $75, so I guess she was right. Three bags of BC cherries came out to about $20. I sure wouldn’t have had the money for them before this year. It’s a good thing I don’t any other expensive vices besides eating good food.

            I watched the second episode of Mike Hammer, Private Eye.

            In the story an investigative TV show does an exposé on a paint manufacturer named Dean, claiming that he dumped toxic chemicals into the Hudson River. He goes to ask Hammer to prove he’s innocent. Meanwhile the reporter that did the report has turned up dead and the gun is found at Dean’s house. Dean is arrested for murder. It doesn’t help that he admits to sending a death threat. Hammer forms a relationship with Beth, the producer of the show, who in the end turns out to be behind the reporter’s death.

            Hammer sees the mysterious woman again. She smiles at him in a hallway but he turns his head and she’s gone.

Pot Smoking Cyclists

            I took a bike ride on Wednesday. It was a hot and muggy day. On the way east I felt like I was wrapped in cellophane. But when I went north on Warden there was a nice breeze. As I was climbing the hill from Danforth Rd a cyclist turned onto Warden from a side street and was taking the slope a lot easier than me. I could smell marijuana smoke as I trailed him and at the top of the hill I passed him as he stopped to finish his joint. They didn’t put vitamins in weed when I was a pothead.

            Near Pharmacy I stopped to take pictures of an abandoned department store that I'd never heard of but the sign implied it had been part of a chain. .

I didn’t have to pee on the way out and I barely had to go on the way back but I thought I rather be safe than sorry and stopped to use the washroom at Starbucks.

When I got home I bought a can of beer and for dinner I cooked one of the burger patties I’d gotten from the food bank. I had it with tomato, cucumber ketchup and mustard and watched the first episode of the 1997 TV series, Mike Hammer, Private Eye. I hated it immediately for a lot of reasons. First of all, it was set in 1997, the production values were low, the dialogue was corny, Velda was blonde and not in love with Hammer. Stacy Keach was 56 and too old and overweight to revive the character he did in the 80s. He was a few kilograms short of playing Cannon.

The story starts with Hammer helping an old friend and ex-cop named Chick Farrell try to nab the drug dealer that killed his son. But it turns out to be the Russian mob and Chick gets killed. The only witness is a junkie hooker. Hammer works closely with a cop named Gorby who’s a Russian mob expert. He tells them the Russian mob is like the KGB without the charm. They got big fast as soon as the Berlin Wall came down. Hemmer goes to UN to talk with a Russian official named Itchy who tracks the activities of the Russian mob. There’s a secretary licking stamps who looks like Melania Trump. Hammer asks her if her tongue gets tires and she says, “Is good exercise.” Hammer finds the prostitute witness and saves her from being beaten to death by the mob. He takes her to his office and Velda takes care of her while she’s recovering. Gorby gets killed. Chick’s last living son Nick is at first a suspect because he has a drug record but he tells Hammer that he took the rap for his brother because Nick was underage and his older brother would have done time, but Nick has never used drugs. Nick couldn’t join the police because even though his juvenile record is sealed, it’s not really. Nick helps Hammer with the case. Itchy turns out to be the head of the mob and his secretary is an assassin who kills the hooker. Nick becomes Hammer’s assistant at the end and so he’ll be a series regular.

Velda is played by Shannon Whirry who did a lot of erotic B movies in the 90s and was one of the scream queens.

The hooker was played by Sherrie Rose, who is also a director, producer and writer.

The only interesting plotline that seems to thread through the entire series is a woman that appears before Hammer in various places and then is gone. In this case she’s in an elevator but the doors close before he can reach her. She’s referred to only as "The Face". Her name is Rebekah Chaney, she's an actress and a horror film director and she's the great grandniece of Lon Chaney.

            

Shirley Eaton

            On Tuesday my whole morning was wasted arguing about Socialism versus Capitalism on Twitter. I’ve fallen so far behind on my writing that even though there was no forecast for rain, I didn’t take a bike ride.

In the late afternoon I looked out and there was a young woman on the corner ranting like a preacher. Nearby was what looked like a janitor’s cart which would normally carry the things that custodians use as they move from room to room while cleaning a building, The only thing on her cart that was for cleaning was a new looking straw broom that fit vertically, handle down in a slot on a corner of her cart. The rest of the things on the cart looked like her personal possessions. From what I could make out, one of the things she was speaking about was the language barrier and she was using pretty good English but in an eastern European accent so thick that I couldn’t understand most of what she said, so I guess she was right. From time to time she would stop shouting and walk over to her cart to pick up her canned beverage, take a drink, put it down and walk back to the corner to shout again. She was saying something about landlords and I speculated that, judging from her emotional state and her cart, she might be recently homeless. She didn’t seem to be just spewing things incoherently and I got the impression that she was delivering a lecture to passersby. She called out “You have democratic rights!” “Develop the sector!” “Mathematical number of buildings for people!” “I am sorry that I cannot shout anymore!” “Thank you! Thank you very much!” Then she went to her cart and began pushing it down Dunn Avenue.

That night I watched the 1963 film noir, “The Girl Hunters” based upon Mickey Spillane’s 1962 Mike Hammer novel of the same name, and starring Mickey Spillane as Mike Hammer.

There were ten years between the previous Mike Hammer novel, “Kiss Me Deadly” and this story. It begins with Mike Hammer drunk in an alley, which has been pretty much his situation after his secretary, Velda, whom he’d finally asked to marry him, was killed. The cops find Hammer and take him to Pat Chambers’s house. Hammer and Past are no longer friends and when Hammer insults Pat the police captain begins beating Hammer. Pat is willing to put Hammer back in the gutter but there is a prisoner named Cole who is dying and the only way he’ll give any information is if he can talk to Mike Hammer. Pat wants Mike to find out who shot Cole. They take Hammer to the hospital but he demands a drink before he talks with Cole, so they give him one. When they are alone in the room together it’s clear that Hammer and Cole have never seen each other before. Cole mentions Velda. Hammer asks, “You knew her?” Cole says, “I know her!” “Alive?” “Alive!” “Where is she?” “She’ll be killed if I … Grey is looking for her too. Get her first!” “Where?” “I gave directions to old Dewey Busick on Lexington.” “Where is she?” “Get the dragon before he gets her!” “Why me?” “Need someone terrible, someone ruthless!” Then Cole dies. From that moment on Hammer doesn’t touch another drop of liquor. Pat demands to know what Cole told him but Hammer wants to know who Cole was. Pat threatens torture and begins beating Hammer.

Because of the beatings Hammer is in the hospital. The doctor tells Hammer that Pat was in love with Velda too and blames Hammer for her death. Hammer tells him that he’d had a job protecting a rich woman and her jewels and since Velda could go with her into places like the ladies room he put her on the case. The woman was found shot and dead in the river with her jewels gone but Velda was never seen again.

The doctor leaves and a federal agent named Rickerby comes in with a big cigar. Her tells Hammer that Cole was also a fed and a good friend and he needs to find out who killed him. Hammer says he needs a day and he needs to be released from custody. Rickerby agrees and gives Hammer some money.

Hammer goes to Dewey’s newspaper stand but the kid that helps the old man says Dewey hasn’t been there for two days. He goes to Dewey’s place and finds him dead.

Hammer goes to the building where his office had been and goes to see the building manager who tells him that they kept his office for him and the phones are still connected. Hammer tries to thank him but he says, “Don’t talk, just take! Remember when you gave? For you I’ll lower the rent to a dollar a year!”
            From his office he calls Rickerby to come over to talk. He finds his old Colt 45 automatic in the place where he’d hidden it under his desk.
            Rickerby arrives and Hammer asks what Cole’s cover had been. He says Cole was a seaman.

Hammer goes to a newspaper reporter named Hyde who’s an old friend. He asks him about Senator Nap. He’s told he was the country’s number one missile man and he was murdered. Hammer goes to Nap’s country estate to talk to Nap’s widow and finds the beautiful Laura Nap in the back, sleeping on a floating pillow in the pool. He wakes her and after pleasantries he tells her that Cole was shot with the same gun that killed her husband and so he might be able to find the killer. Laura tells Hammer what happened the night her husband was killed. The safe was robbed and the thief must have forced the combination from the senator. Hammer asks to see the safe and she gives him the combination. He opens it and deliberately pushes the alarm. Armed private security officers arrive and Hammer apologizes. He asks if the alarm had gone off the night the senator died and they say no.

Hammer meets Rickerby in a restaurant and finds that Cole was disobeying orders and would have been in trouble if he hadn’t been killed. Hammer asks for another week before he tells him what Cole told him. He agrees but warns him that if he doesn’t spill by that time he’ll get the information out of him by other means.

Hammer goes back to his office and someone slugs him and leaves. When Hammer gets up he sees that his office has been turned upside down. On the way out he finds the desk clerk for his building dead.

Hammer goes to Joe Grissi’s bar on the waterfront. A guy tells him to blow and threatens him with a dagger. Hammer drops a bullet on the bar, slips his hand inside his coat and tells him to eat the bullet. He eats it and walks away. Grissi comes up and tells him to leave. Hammer pulls a gun on him, removes the bullets onto the bar and puts the gun in Grissi’s pocket and orders a beer. An old newspaper reporter named Henry approaches him. Hammer asks if he knows Cole. Henry says, he has a room under his and they’re good friends. Cole makes good money from smuggling. Hammer tells him Cole is dead and that he was a federal agent. Henry takes Hammer to Cole’s room where he finds a photo album containing a picture of a woman sitting with her legs crossed. The top is torn off but he recognizes Velda’s legs. They leave through the back but someone in a car shoots at them in the alley.

Hammer meets Rickerby in a bar. He asks if Cole had any friends and he gives him a couple of names. After Rickerby leaves, Hammer wraps his gun in a newspaper and asks the headwaiter to mail it to his office. He goes back to the alley behind Cole’s place and pries from a fence the bullet that had been fired at him. Back at his office, Pat and Laura are waiting for him. He gives pat the bullet to check on and asks him to check on Velda’s P.I. license. New York law says one has to have three years in an accredited police agency before becoming a private investigator. Hammer had never bothered to check on whom Velda had worked for. Pat leaves. Laura tells Hammer that she’d been at Pat’s office when he got the call about the death in hammer’s building, so she’d asked to come. She offers to put money at Hammer’s disposal to find her husband’s killer.

Hammer goes to Pat’s office and find’s that the bullet that had been shot at him came from the same gun that killed Cole and Nap. Pat says that another bullet found in that alley was from a 45 and warns Hammer that if he kills someone without a license he’ll be in deep trouble. Pat has Velda’s information too. She was an active member of the OSI during the war.

Hammer meets Rickerby again who tells him that Cole was a commander of the 17 Group during the war. He asks Hammer if he’s heard of Butterfly 2. Hammer knows it was a spy ring that backed up the political powers in Europe just before WWI. Rickerby says that Cole used to meet Velda on his trips home. A man name Urlich who was head of Butterfly 2 was Cole’s prime target at the time. Cole met Velda for the first time in Paris in connection with that case. Urlich organized a huge espionage ring in 1910 with a plan for world conquest that the central powers had developed to take over every nation one after the other until the world was under a single dictatorship. The reds uncovered the organization and took it over. Hammer asks who the Dragon is. Rickerby says it’s the code name for an executioner for the communists. Hammer says that Cole told him the Dragon is the one that shot him but that he told him something else that would stop the Dragon. Hammer says he’ll give him that information in exchange for getting his gun license back.

Hammer goes to his newspaper connection and asks him to find out all he can on The Dragon. He asks also for a picture of Urlich, which he gives him. Hammer drives to Laura’s place and asks what her husband did during the war. She tells him he was a general. “Was he ever in intelligence?” “I don’t think so.” She offers to let Hammer look through her husband’s effects. Just then a silenced shot is fired between that hits Laura’s radio. A car speeds away. Laura takes Hammer to a trunk containing her husband’s things but he finds nothing.

When Hammer comes back to his office Rickerby is waiting inside with a permit allowing Hammer to carry a gun in any state. He tells him that when he finds the Dragon not to kill him because he wants him. He informs him that Urlich has been dead for five years. The Dragon killed him when the Reds took over. Every time Hammer has met Rickerby he’s had a big cigar in his mouth. Hammer finally strikes a match and says, “Will you light that damn thing?” “Oh, no, no!” Rickerby blows out the match and says, “I can’t stand the smell of cigar smoke!”

Hammer goes to the newspaper and his friend tells him that the Dragon is the hottest thing in the Cold War. Velda is a target for the Dragon but he missed.

Laura comes into town and Hammer meets her at a restaurant. She’s also invited Pat, who arrives says there’s a gem connection running through the whole investigation going back to the jewelry robbery that Hammered was supposed to have prevented when Civic’s wife was killed and Velda and Civic disappeared. Pat shows hammer a picture of Civic and it matches the one that Hammer has of Urlich. Pat leaves and Hammer says he needs a place to think and so Laura takes him to her house. They spend the night together and the next day he tells Laura that Urlich and Civic are the same man and that he was abducted with Velda and taken to Russia but they are both back in the States somehow. They decide to go for a swim and Laura says she has a suit for him in the pool house. They go in and hammer finds a double barrel shotgun standing nose down in a planter. He balls her out for it because she’s plugged up the barrels with clay and they would have backfired on her if she’d ever had to use it to protect herself. He cleans it out for her.

Hammer goes to Dewey’s newspaper stand and asks the kid if Dewey left an envelope for him but he says he never saw one. The kid shows him a stack of Cavalier magazines had he’d ordered and Hammer says he’ll pick them up in a few days. Hammer walks away but when the kid is moving the magazines an envelope falls out.

Hammer goes back to Grissi’s to see Henry. He asks him what the name of Cole’s ship was. He tells him it was the Vanessa but it’s already sailed. He adds though that half the sailors didn’t sign back on. Hammer asks if there was anyone that Cole hung out with and Henry tells him about a guy that Cole used to play chess with. He lives in a flophouse and Henry takes him there. They wake Red up and hammer asks him if he knew about the girl on the ship. “Sure, we hid her in the hold. Dennis Wallace put her in a crate and then he and a friend of his took her off the ship.” Henry says he knows where Dennis lives. Red asks, “How come everybody wants Dennis?” Hammer asks, “Who else wanted him?” “A big guy. Mean looking. He gave me this bottle.” Hammer says, “The Dragon!” and leaves. They find Dennis dead.

Hammer drives to see Alex Bird at his house in the country and finds him dead but he knows the killer is upstairs. He switches on the light and catches him on the stairs. Hammer shoots his gun out of his hand but the Dragon jumps him, knocks him over and runs. Hammer catches him in the barn and their fight takes them all through two levels of the building, knocking various things over and using other things as weapons. A rotary saw gets turned on and the Dragon almost manages to cut Hammer in half. After a long fight they are both exhausted by the time Hammer manages to knock him out. Hammer nails the Dragon’s hand to the wooden floor with a spike so he won’t get away. Hammer calls Rickerby to tell him where the Dragon is but he tells him that the Dragon is not one person. It’s a team. Hammer sees an old copy of Cavalier Magazine in the barn and suddenly remembers that he and Velda had always had a way of connecting.

Hammer goes to see Laura. She sees his beaten face and says she’ll take care of him as soon as she changes out of her bathing suit. They go to the beach house and while she’s showering behind the glass he tells her what he thinks. Her jewels were red herrings. Decoys. “Your husband was a frightening political figure. But he was smart and realized his work was being stymied. He bated a trap by casually remarking that important military papers were in his safe. Then he caught the enemy opening his safe and they shot him. The burglar alibi was beautiful. As a widow she could still have her ear to the ground at important Washington functions with her secret identity safe.” While Hammer is talking he takes Laura’s shotgun and puts it nose down in the dirt in order to fill the barrels with clay again. “Then came Velda who was accidentally abducted with Urlich. She got to know the big thing about Butterfly 2 before she escaped. She made contact with Cole and got smuggled back to the States with her secret. Alex delivered her to an address that Cole gave to Dewey and it’s in a copy of a magazine I pick up every month. What she’ll have to say will open up the secrets of the greatest espionage organization the world has ever known. I may be wrong, but now there’s only one way left to find out!” Mike leaves the pool house and Laura calls after him. He turns and Laura is pointing the shotgun at him. She fires and blows her own head off.

Mickey Spillane’s performance really wasn’t bad. He’d done a bit of acting in films since the mid 50s. Around that time he became a Jehovah’s Witness and people could open their doors to have Mickey Spillane trying to sell them The Watchtower.

Laura was played by British actor Shirley Eaton, one of the most famous Bond girls of all time, because of her performance in Goldfinger.

Pamela Duncan

            On Monday I worked on my journal. In the afternoon I decided not to take a bike ride because it looked and smelled like rain, even though the forecast said there was a only a 30% chance. It didn’t rain after all but what also had motivated me to stay home was that I was so far behind on my writing. I guess one reason I was behind was because of the extra time my bike rides had taken on Friday, Saturday and Sunday because I’d had to detour around the Taste of the Danforth street festival. The other reason was that instead of a couple of half hour TV shows at night, I’d been watching whole movies, which take almost an extra hour.

            I watched another Mike Hammer movie on Monday night. This one was the film noir My Gun is Quick from 1957 and based on Mickey Spillane’s second Mike Hammer novel.

            Mike Hammer, dead tired from having been up for more than fifty-two hours, goes into a diner that is empty of customers except for an attractive young woman called Red. He gets a cup of coffee and Red asks for a refill but the cranky cook tells her it’s a dime. She says for him to give her two cents worth. She hands Hammer a toothpick and tells him it’s to prop open his eyes. He finds out she’s from Nebraska and wants to go home. He offers her something to eat and she takes a bowl of soup. A young man comes in and tries to force Red to leave with him. Hammer punches him. The man pulls a knife but Hammer’s gun is quickly against his throat. The man leaves. Hammer gives Red some money to buy some clothes and a ticket home and he also writes his name and address on a napkin. He notices she is wearing a unique ring. She says it’s worthless but it won’t come off.

            The next day the cops want to talk to Hammer because they find his name and address on Red’s body after a hit and run left her with a broken neck. Pat Chambers shows Hammer the girl’s things but the ring is missing. They check with the morgue and there is no ring but her finger is skinned, as it would be if a tight ring has been forced off. Hammer draws the ring for Pat. He recognizes it as part of the missing Venacci jewels. A Colonel Holloway found the jewels in Germany during a spy operation at the end of WWII and brought them to the States. Holloway was imprisoned but he’s just been released.
            Hammer goes back to the diner to question the cook and threatens him until he coughs up that he thinks she worked at a nightspot called The Bluebell and had a friend there named Maria. Hammer goes there and sees Maria doing a mild but sexy burlesque act with actual dancing for a mixed clientele. Instead of working the stage, Maria dances from table to table and when she comes up to hammer’s he holds up a sign that reads, “It was no accident. Red was murdered”. When Maria’s act is over, Hammer goes to her dressing room. She tells him that Red lived in the same house that she does. She takes him there and they find that Red’s room has been torn apart. Maria tells him that Red said the ring was given to her by a Frenchman who’d had his tongue cut out during the war. He sweeps up at the Bluebell in the morning and so they go to see him then. The Frenchman writes that he will show him something at 10:00 at 625 Odin Street. When he gets there though, on a stairway outside the building there is a crowd gathered around the dead body of the Frenchman. Hammer recognizes a man walking away at the top of the stairs as the same man that had harassed Red in the diner. Hammer follows him and the man gets into a car. Hammer follows him in his to an upscale neighbourhood where he parks in front of a large house. No one answers the bell and so Hammer goes around the back to find an attractive woman named Nancy sunbathing. They chat a bit and she offers him a drink. It turns out that the man Hammer followed is Nancy’s butler, Louie. Hammer tells her about his two encounters with Louie and then catches Louie listening at the door. Nancy fires him. Hammer calls Pat Chambers to tell him to pick up Louie for questioning. Nancy hires Hammer as a companion/bodyguard and his first assignment is to go out on her yacht with her. When they get back Hammer notices that someone has been in Nancy’s house because he’d closed her beachside door. On the floor Nancy finds Red’s ring. Hammer sees a man running for the dock and he goes after him. In a waiting boat is a man with a hook instead of a left hand. While Hammer is struggling with the first man the second hits him over the head with a boat hook. They escape and Nancy runs to Hammer. He recovers quickly and goes to Nancy’s boat but it won’t start because the men fowled up the motor. Hammer fixes it and they try to go after the burglars. Hammer tells her about the Venacci jewels and Nancy wonders why they would be looking for them in her house. Because Nancy had been in Europe for ten years, over that time she’d rented the house to three different tenants, though she’d done it through an agency and doesn’t know who the tenants were. Hammer thinks a Colonel Holloway might have been one of them. From the boat Hammer calls his secretary Velda to have her find out all the names of Nancy’s tenants for the last ten years.

            Nancy asks about Velda and Hammer has a great line: “She’s got a brain that figures all the angles. Mine only figures the curves.”

            When Hammer gets back to his office Velda confirms that Holloway was one of Nancy’s tenants and she also shows him an issue of Life Magazine with an article about the Venacci jewels. There is a photo inside of Holloway posing in front of Nancy’s house.
            Maria arrives to tell Hammer that a man has been looking for her at the Bluebell and she’s scared. He leaves her with Velda and goes to see Pat. The cops have to let Louie go because he has alibis for the times of both murders.

            Hammer goes looking for Maria but she’s not there. A drunk man with two girls says he can have one of his. The blonde named Dionne gives Hammer a key and an address to meet her in one hour. Hammer comes in through the back and Dionne is there but as Hammer expected, so is Holloway, facing the front door, but no longer pretending to be drunk. Holloway thinks that Hammer has the jewels and he wants them because they are his but he will give Hammer 25%. Holloway doesn’t believe Hammer doesn’t have the jewels and pulls a gun but gives it to Hammer. He tells Hammer that the mute Frenchman had his the jewels for him during the ten years he was in prison. A French gang that works on the docks is also after the jewels. The man with the hook is Laroche.

            Hammer goes to Maria’s room but she’s not there and he is jumped by three men who knock him out. When he comes to he sees on Maria’s table the copy of Life magazine that Velda had found.

            Hammer goes to Nancy’s place and tells her he thinks the Venacci jewels are hidden in her house. Hammer sits down and says he’s bushed and Nancy offers him a drink. She slips a sedative into it and when he wakes up at noon the next day she admits it and tells him it was for his own good. He seems to appreciate the gesture. There is a call from Pat telling him that Maria has been killed.

            Hammer goes to his office and Holloway is waiting. He tells him that whoever has the jewels will use a diamond cutter named Teller who is arriving in Los Angeles that day.

            Teller arrives and Hammer tails him after he leaves customs. He walks through the docks where a crane with an electromagnet is transferring scrap metal between a boat and the dock. The crane operator is a member of the French gang. He picks up a load of metal and controls the electromagnet to follow Hammer from above. Just as the magnet is positioned directly above him, Hammer looks up and dodges dives out of the way when the metal drops. Teller gets into Louie’s car and drives away. Hammer finds out from customs which hotel Teller is staying at but when he goes there Teller has yet to check in.

            Hammer hears on the police radio in his car that there is trouble at Nancy’s place. There is also an all points bulletin to bring Mike Hammer in for questioning. Hammer goes to Nancy’s place but it’s crawling with cops, so he climbs to the roof of the house next door and jumps to Nancy’s second floor balcony. He watches from upstairs the scene in Nancy’s living room as Louie’s dead body is being taken away and Teller collapses on the floor. There is a hole that’s been made in one of Nancy’s walls and there is a space between the bricks where something might have been hidden. Hammer goes back to his car and Holloway is in the back telling him that Laroche has got the jewels. They go to the docks and Holloway points out Laroche’s boat. They try to sneak up to the boat but Holloway accidentally knocks something over and the gang begins firing at them. Shots are exchanged for a while before Hammer takes out one of them and he and Holloway jump to the boat. Holloway is shot and Hammer shoots the one that got him. The only one left is Laroche, who runs out of bullets and Hammer begins to fight him. In the struggle, Laroche is impaled on his own hook. Hammer finds the jewels on Laroche’s body. Holloway is still alive and Hammer brings him the jewels. He looks at them and dies happily knowing they are his. Just then Nancy pulls up beside the boat in her yacht and Hammer jumps aboard. He takes the wheel and she looks at the jewels. “Are they all there?” he asks. She answers, “Yes, all but the ring” but then she realizes Hammer has trapped her into admitting she’d been after the jewels from the start. She’d gotten them to take the ring from red and then pretended to find it. She’d also been behind the murder of Frenchie and had only pretended to fire Louie. The sedative she’d given Hammer had given her time to silence Maria. Nancy wants Mike to go to Mexico with her but he says he’s turning her in. She pulls a gun on him. He accelerates the boat, causing her to lose her balance, then grabs the gun and tosses it overboard.
            Nancy was played by Whitney Blake who played the mother on Hazel and was the co-creator of One Day at a Time. She was also the mother of Meredith Baxter who played the mother on Family Ties. Velda was played by Pamela Duncan who was in Attack of the Crab Monsters. Red was played by Jan Chaney. Maria was played by Genie Coree

Kiss Me Deadly

            On Sunday I spent a lot of the day writing about the events of Friday.

            In the late afternoon I once again rode up Broadview to Mortimer and down Donlands to avoid the Taste of The Danforth festival. I took Warden to Sherry Rd and followed that to where it ends at Sinnott. Industrial streets are so nice and peaceful on Sundays, although they smell a little oily.

            There’s construction on Birchmount at a certain point and traffic is narrowed to a single lane, so no one could pass me as I was climbing the hill. An SUV was beeping impatiently. When I got past the narrow part there were two teenage guys barely old enough to drive grinning at me from the vehicle.

            I stopped again at Starbucks to use the washroom. Most of the bike lock rings were tied up but I knew a secret that the attendees of the festival did not know. The rusted green and yellow locked on the curb side of the ring beside Starbucks is an abandoned bike that’s been there since April. I just locked my velo to the forsaken one and went inside. There was a long line-up as there had been throughout the Danforth festival. There were two attractive women in their thirties ahead of me in line who looked like they could have been sisters. They both had long brown hair with blonde highlights and had a sexy accent. I was thinking that they looked Lebanese but I guess they could have been Greek. Usually no one in line needed to know the key code to open the washroom doors because when someone came out they would hold the door for the next person. But one of the women was holding the door to the accessible washroom for an old lady with a walker and so the door on the other washroom shut before she could get to it. She was futilely trying to open the door by the handle and so I said, “Excuse me!” She turned her head and I told her the code. While her friend or sister was waiting for the washroom on the left to be vacant she asked me to repeat the code. I told her it was 147#. She had me repeat it a couple of times but still didn’t seem to get it. I tried to explain that 147 are just all of the numbers on the left side of the keypad, but then the door opened, the person held it and she went in. When her friend or sister came out of the washroom on the right she gave me a friendly smile.

            This time I didn’t dick around on my way home but rather went up to Mortimer as soon as I could and took that to Broadview. I got home half an hour sooner than I had the day before.

            For dinner I heated up some frozen chicken fingers that I’d gotten from the food bank. They were good with ketchup, hot sauce and a beer. I watched the second ever Mike Hammer film, Kiss Me Deadly from 1955. It was based on the 1952 novel of the same name, which was Mickey Spillane’s sixth Mike Hammer novel. The movie was much better made than I the Jury and it was classic film noir as all Mike Hammer films should be. This was set in LA, though in the novel it’s New York.

            The movie begins with a frightened young woman, played by the great Cloris Leachman in her first film appearance, running from something out on a dark highway. A car is approaching and she stands in its path, hoping it will stop, but closing her eyes in case it doesn’t. The 1951 Jaguar XK 120 Roadster driven by Mike Hammer veers away from her at the last instant and comes to a stop just off the side of the road. He yells at her for almost wrecking his car but seeing the state she’s in he tells her to get in. As they begin to drive, “I’d Rather Have the Blues” by Nat King Cole plays over the radio and the opening credits roll. When the song is finished a news report comes on, warning listeners about a woman that has escaped from a local mental hospital. Her description fits that of Hammer's passenger. She doesn't deny that it's her but when they come up to a police roadblock Hammer pretends that she's his wife and the cops let them through.
            Hammer stops at a service station because one of his wheels is pulling to the right. The woman goes to the washroom. The attendant finds that the branch of a bush had gotten wedged around the wheel. The woman comes back and asks the attendant to mail a letter for her. She and hammer continue on and the plan is for him to drop her off at the nearest bus stop. He asks her name and she says she is named after a poet called Christina Rossetti. She tells him, "If you drop me off at the bus stop you can forget me, but if we don't make it, remember me".  They don’t make it to the bus stop. The road is blocked by cars and enough men to overwhelm Hammer. Next, in a cheap room while Hammer is unconscious on a mattressless bed, Christina is tortured to death and then both of them are put into Hammer’s Jaguar and pushed over a cliff.

            Hammer wakes up in the hospital. When he's more or less recovered he begins to investigate. Christina was not a patient in the hospital. She was being interrogated.
            Hammer goes to see a man named Ray Diker who left a message with his address and is followed for a long walk by a man who finally pulls out a switchblade. Hammer stops him with a few hard punches. He meets Diker and he tells Hammer that Christina was afraid like he is. Her name was Christina Bailey and Diker gives him her last address. Hammer goes to the address and the landlord lets him see her room. Her roommate, Lilly Carver moved suddenly out a couple of days ago. In the bedroom Hammer finds a book of poems by Christina Rossetti and takes it. On his way out an old man tells Hammer that he moved Carver out and she was like someone afraid to die. He tells her where he moved her. At that address he finds a woman with a trench coat on in a bed and pointing a gun at him. He sits on the bed to talk to her. She seems like she is somewhat neurotic. She puts the gun down as they talk. She says the police took Christina away. When men came to talk to her too she didn't stick around to find out what they wanted. When Hammer gets home he receives a call from a man telling him to forget he ever picked Christina up. He says it’s not a threat but says for him to look outside his door the next morning. The next morning Hammer's mechanic Nick is walking by and sees that Hammer has a new car parked outside his home. He gets in and decides to take it for a ride around the block but before he can turn the key Hammer shouts from his door for him to stop. He tells him to open the hood and he finds dynamite connected to the starter. They start driving and Nick suggests they take it out on the freeway to open it up but Hammer says they have to go to the garage to remove the other bomb that's connected to the speedometer first. Hammer promises Vic a new car if he can find out who planted the bomb. Back at his office Hammer’s secretary tells him Ray Diker left him two names: Kawolsky and Raymondo. Kawolsky was a boxer. They both knew Christina and died in traffic “accidents”. Hammer goes to see a man named Walls who drove the truck that ran over Kawolsky. He says it seemed like someone pushed him in front of his truck. Hammer goes to a gym where Kawolsky used to train but the trainer said two guys named Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse had already come by to warn him not to talk about the dead fighter if he valued breathing. Hammer calls someone and finds out that Max and Smallhouse work for Karl Evalo. Hammer goes to Karl’s mansion where several men are listening to a horse race and gambling around the pool. Karl’s half sister immediately accosts Hammer and begins kissing him, though they've never met. Karl sees Hammer go into the pool house and Karl sends Charlie and Sugar after him. Sugar attacks Hammer but he uses some kind of special move that we don’t see and the Sugar collapses, causing Charlie to run. Karl invites Hammer into the house. Karl admits to planting a bomb in his car. Hammer goes to see a retired opera singer who knows Nicholas Raymondo. He says he knows nothing. Hammer takes one of his rare opera records of Caruso and breaks it. The singer says Raymondo was a sad scientist with a secret and he hid something from some people. Hammer goes back to see Lilly Carver and she says they came for her the night before but she hid in the basement. Takes her to his place and tells her to lock the door, then he goes to see Nick and finds that he has been crushed to death under a car. Hammer goes to a Black bar and gets drunk while a singer does the same song he’d heard over his car radio when he picked up Christina. Hammer blacks out at the bar and the bartender wakes him up tell him that somebody just came in with a message that they've got Velda. Hammer goes back to the service station where he'd stopped with Christina and finds out that the letter that Christina had given the attendant to mail had been addressed to him. He goes back to his office to find it. Charlie and Sugar are waiting for him. They knock him out and take him to a beach house. He tries to get away but they overpower him and he ends up tied face down and spread eagle on a bed. A man enters whose face we can't see. He injects Hammer with sodium pentothal and tries to find out what “Remember me” means but all Hammer does is mumble incoherently. When they leave him alone he manages to slip one of his hands from the ropes and then puts it back in to make it look like he’s still bound. He calls for them and Karl comes in. Hammer tells him he needs to whisper the information. We don't see him take out Karl but he does. Charlie hears Karl say, “Hammer talked. He’s yours”. Charlie comes in and stabs the man tied to the bed, but it's Karl. Sugar hears a scream and comes in to find both Karl and Charlie dead. Hammer goes home and finds Lilly dressed in Velda’s clothes. He gets Lilly to read the poem "Remember" by Christina Rossetti: “Remember me when I am gone away ... if the darkness and corruption leave a vestige of the thoughts that I once had / better by far you should forget and smile / than that you should remember and be sad.” Hammer is about to leave but Lilly tells him they tried to get in last night so he takes her with him to the morgue to see Christina’s body. He figures that the "vestige" left by the corruption mentioned in the poem must be a thing that Christina swallowed and that the man that did the autopsy has it. He admits that he does. He shows Hammer a key and Hammer gives him some money but he wants more. He goes to put the key back in his desk drawer when Hammer slams the drawer hard on his hand. Hammer takes the key, which has the letters “HAC”. He drives to the Hollywood Athletic Club and tells Lilly to wait in the car. He shows the man at the desk the key but he won't help him because he's not a member. Hammer offers him money but he refuses and so Hammer slaps him till he gives in. It’s a locker key belonging to Raymondo. The locker contains a leather box. He undoes the traps. Inside the leather box is a metal box that is hot to the touch. He opens it a crack and inside is a bright light and it makes a sound like a howling wind. He closes it quickly but his hand has been burned. He says to not let anyone near it.  Outside, Lilly is gone but when hammer goes to talk to the cops, Pat Chambers tells him that they fished Lilly Carver’s body out of the harbour a week ago. Pat tells Hammer that he’s found the kind of stuff that goes into an atomic bomb. Hammer calls the athletic club but there is no answer. We see the locker open, the box gone and the clerk dead. Hammer goes to see Ray Diker and forces him to tell him who the man is that he’d introduced to Velda. It’s William Mist. Hammer breaks in to the Mist Gallery. When Mist hears him he takes drugs to incapacitate himself so he can’t talk. The name on the prescription bottle is Dr Soberin, who Velda had mentioned before. Soberin’s answering service says he might be at his beach cottage.
            We see Soberin with Gabrielle, the woman who’s been posing as Lilly. They have the box. Though she doesn’t know what's in the box she knows it's valuable and wants it. She shoots and kills Soberin. As he dies he tells her not to open it. Gabrielle starts to open the box and Hammer arrives. She points her gun at Hammer, tells him to kiss her and then shoots him. He Collapses on the floor. Gabrielle opens the box and begins to scream in agony. Hammer recovers and crawls out of the room as Gabrielle is engulfed in flames. The sound effects for the radiation are ridiculous. It's that electronic squeaking one heard from flying saucers in movies of the same era. He calls for Velda and finds her in another locked room. They escape from the house just before it explodes.

            Velda was played by Maxine Cooper. Karl’s sister, Friday was played by Marian Carr, Gabrielle was played by Gaby Rodgers and of course Cloris Leachman was Christina. Gaby Rodgers was married to Jerry Lieber, who co-wrote Jailhouse Rock.