November 4, 1993: Mudds Cabaret offered Mary Milne and I our own weekly open stage

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday evening I posed for the Ontario College of Art at the Stewart Building. After work I went to Mudds Cabaret where there was no open stage but Mary Milne and I stood up and read our poetry anyway. Then Mark approached us and suggested that we take charge of promoting the poetry reading and to do it in the back room on Tuesday nights. Mary drove me home and came in until well after midnight to discuss it.

Dan White

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the first verse of “Your Under Arrest” by Serge Gainsbourg. The chorus is not anything that needs to be memorized. It’s just a silly rap that goes , “You’re under arrest cause you’re the best. Slippity slam baboomboombabam…” etcetera. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second session of two. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I painted a first coat of primer on the edges, the tops and bottoms of my kitchen counter doors, as well as the area just below the counter and at the bottom. I still need to remove the drawers so I can paint what’s left of the front. I’ll do that tomorrow and might have time to start the second coat. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought three bags of green grapes, two bags of black grapes, bananas, two packs of raspberries, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, a jug of limeade, salsa, two containers of Full City Dark coffee, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:45.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:54. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my August 6 song practice I finished synchronizing the audio and the video. Then I saved the project as “Time of the Yo-Yo (Acoustic). Tomorrow I’ll isolate the song and will maybe have time to publish it. 

            I scanned what I thought was a set of black and white negatives but they still looked like negatives in the scanner. That would suggest that they were slides but the images were very faint. I’m wondering if I accidentally bought black and white slide film and developed it myself thinking it was regular black and white film. I’ll try scanning the strip as slides tomorrow and see what happens. 

            I roasted a sirloin beef tip and had an end piece with a big potato and gravy while watching season 2, episodes 24 and 25 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Lisa decides to plant a vegetable garden. Meanwhile Oliver’s tractor breaks down when he needs it for ploughing. He can’t borrow or rent a tractor from any of his neighbours and so he buys a horse from Haney. He hooks it up to a plough but it won’t go until he says “Tally Ho” and then it takes off without the plough, dragging Oliver through a barbed wire fence. While he’s tangled he sees Lisa drive by in a tractor. She says she paid $4000 for it but Oliver tells her to take it back. She does so but they only give her $3000 back because of depreciation. Anyway Lisa got all her garden ploughing done in the time she had it. But she didn’t plant any vegetables because Oliver told her she doesn’t need to buy any extra equipment. It's very odd that Oliver doesn’t simply buy a new tractor. He seems to be rich. 

            In the second story Eb starts not only seeing flying saucers but talking to their inhabitants. Lisa tells Sam Drucker and he puts it on his headline. Suddenly their farm is flooded with people wanting to talk to Eb. Oliver meets a little being in a space suit but it turns out to be a little boy also there to talk with Eb. Someone from the air force comes to interview Eb but when Eb thinks he’s answering specific details all anyone hears is “bleep bleep bleep” because the aliens have wiped his mind of that information. 

            One of the people who came to meet Eb was played by Dan White, who at the age of 14 hooked up with a travelling show and ran away from home. For years he travelled with tent, minstrel, vaudeville and theatre shows. In 1935 he decided to pack up his family and drive from Florida to Hollywood. It was during the depression and he had to stop frequently to make money as an auto mechanic. He struggled for three years until he finally got work at Republic Pictures. His first movie was a small part in Prairie Moon. On the radio he created the role of Red Ryder. He gained a reputation for playing villains in B westerns.

November 3, 1993: My daughter and I played in the fallen leaves

Thirty years ago today

            Wednesday was mostly a blank because I was behind on my diary. I had my daughter either just during the day or overnight. Since it was fall we probably didn’t play with the hose in the back yard. But there’s a good chance we went to the park and played in the fallen leaves.

Harry Antrim

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the third verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian. I assume that the fourth and fifth verses will have the same chords as the first and second, then the sixth will have the same melody as the third, but we’ll see. 

            On my Christian’s Translations blog I published “The Garden of my Love”, my translation of “L'amour de moi” by Serge Gainsbourg and “My Love’s Private Garden” my translation of the 15th Century song “L'amour de moy” on which the Gainsbourg song is based. That’s the end of the 1986 Gainsbourg file. There are forty-four of his songs and one short novel left in my Gainsbourg translation project. I sang along with the title song from his 1987 album “Your Under Arrest” a couple of times. Tomorrow I’ll start memorizing it. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. I’ve been keeping the volume low so as to not disturb anyone but it was getting hard to hear what I was doing so I turned it up a bit. It’s still not as loud as my acoustic guitar. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in 35 days.

            Around midday I called The PC Shop to ask if they had usb cassette-to-mp3 converters. They don’t and I don’t think I would have an easy time finding one other than online. I decided to see if I could purchase one by debit on Amazon. I’ve never tried that before. It seems like the transaction went through but I didn’t see any money leave my account. Supposedly it will be delivered on Friday, November 3. I saw later in my online bank account that the purchase is pending. They did the same thing when I paid for my MA application at U of T. It looks like I’ll be getting the converter. I have a shitload of cassettes I accumulated before I went digital of concerts that I did that got recorded by sound technicians at the places where I played. 

            I started painting the doors and drawers of my kitchen counter. I put down most of the first coat of primer, except for the bottom, the edges of the doors and drawers and the areas that I’ll need to remove the drawers to get at. I might have some primer left over to paint the kitchen shelves. The plan after priming is to paint it a dark but warm purple. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before lunch. It’s been almost a month since I weighed that little at midday.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I decided not to chisel any quartz on the deck because the renovators are back. They’ve finished unit 5 and someone I think has moved in. Today he was renovating Benji’s place and doing a lot of sawing on the deck. Benji says he’s fixing it so the rats don’t come up from downstairs. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I was planning on spending more than half an hour synchronizing the audio and the video in my Movie Maker project for my August 6 song practice. But Movie Maker was misbehaving and the video was choppy. So I decided to restart my computer but my computer decided to install Windows updates. Once I was back in Movie Maker I only had time to work fifteen minutes on that project. But I got the audio up to just a few seconds behind and they should be lined up tomorrow. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song Megaphor I continued to edit the clip of the movie Ziegfeld Girl so part of it goes in reverse. 

            I cleaned and scanned a set of colour negatives that were partly shots of an outdoor art show and partly of an indoor art exhibit. It seemed to be a continuation of another roll that featured the same exhibit. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 22 and 23 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Oliver gets an offer to work as a lawyer in Washington where he would be arguing cases before the Supreme Court. He’s always wanted to do that and so he’s torn between his love of farming and his desire to advance as a lawyer. His neighbours have grown to like him and don’t want to see him go so they try to make up legal cases so he’ll be interested in staying. Doris and Fred Ziffel ask him to help them get a divorce. Oliver says he can’t defend them both in a dispute and besides he can’t help his friends get divorced. Then Newt Kylie says he wants to sue Fred because his fence is on his property. Oliver asks if he’s sure. Newt says he helped him move it there. Oliver tells him to help him move it back. Then he realizes that his neighbours are trying make him stay and he is touched. He decides to not take the job in Washington. But then his neighbours begin to wonder why Oliver seems to have so much money even though his farm only made $16 last year. They begin to speculate that he’s involved in something illegal. Then when Oliver gets a call to phone operator 235 in Washington they think that he’s a secret agent. Oliver lets them believe that and tells them that in the interest of national security they have to forget about it. 

            In the second story the Hooterville Young Peoples Agricultural Society (HYPAS) are putting on a play to raise money to build a clubhouse so they don’t have to meet under Sam’s front porch. The play is going to be a script from the Beverly Hillbillies. The thing is that the people from Hooterville, including Oliver and Lisa have met the real Clampetts of The Beverly Hillbillies during a Christmas episode but that isn’t mentioned. Eb sprains his ankle but it’s better in time to rehearse. Lisa helps him by playing Elly May while he plays Jethro. Then Doris, who was supposed to play Granny gets a cold. So Lisa takes on the role of Granny. But then Eb sprains his ankle again so Oliver plays Jethro. Hank Kimball plays Jed. But during dress rehearsal Oliver slips on a skateboard and sprains his ankle. 

            The doctor who treats Eb’s ankle was Doc Wilson. It was the first time there wasn’t some incarnation of Doc Stuart. Wilson was played by Harry Antrim, who was born in 1884 and started out working in vaudeville. His first movie was a small part in Small Town Girl in 1936. He played Mr. Walker the druggist on The Andy Griffith Show.

November 2, 1993: I didn’t get much sleep before working at the Ontario College of Art from 9:00 to 16:00

Thirty years ago today

            I got home after 4:00 on Tuesday morning so I didn’t get much sleep before having to get up again. I went back downtown to work at the Ontario College of Art from 9:00 to 16:00.

Murray Alper

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for the first two lines of the third verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian.

            In Christian’s Translations I finished preparing “L'amour de moi” by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation “My Love’s Garden” for publication on the blog. But I still need to prepare the 15th Century song “L'amour de moy” on which the Gainsbourg song is based to be published with it. I should finish posting it on Wednesday. 

            During song practice I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the final session of four. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in thirteen days. 

            I had planned on painting my kitchen counter doors and drawers today but I got caught up in reading the CBC article about Buffy Sainte Marie. They claim they have evidence that she lied but she sure as hell doesn’t look Italian and she looks a lot like a Cree girlfriend I had. I think that before the Scoop there was lots of private, church-sponsored scooping going on. Birth certificates have been faked and amended to make it look like the adoptive parents are the birth parents. 

            Although I didn’t get to painting I thought I would prepare for it by putting painter’s tape around the knobs. But that was too difficult and suddenly it dawned on me that I could just remove the knobs before painting, so I did that. 

            I looked into services that digitize cassette tapes but most charge about $20 for each tape, which is ridiculous. It probably costs them nothing. I found there are usb devices that can convert cassettes to mp3 and Best Buy has them but it seems only for ordering online. Walmart has them but I couldn’t tell if they were in the store or online. I rode to the computer place in the little plaza just west of Lansdowne but the guy didn’t have them. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I rode up to Walmart to look for the converter but they only sell them online. I rode to College and Spadina and went into Mod Computers but they didn’t have them either. Tomorrow I’ll call The PC Shop. I went to Popeyes to pee and then rode home, stopping at Freshco on the way. I bought four bags of grapes and a pack of Sponge Towels. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:20. 

            Even though I had my August 19 electric guitar performance of “Le temps des yoyos” made into a movie yesterday, I’d forgotten to check the audio balance before publishing it. Today I went back into Movie Maker and switched the balance so it’s entirely from the Audacity recording with nothing from the camera microphone. I published it again and uploaded it to YouTube. 

            Then I made a new Movie Maker project for my August 5, song practice and started working on synchronizing the audio and the video. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Megaphor” I continued to edit the clip from the movie Ziegfeld Girl to make part of it play in reverse. 

            I had a potato with gravy, two chicken wings and a spine while watching season 2, episodes 20 and 21. 

            In the first story Oliver takes Lisa with him to the farmers convention. There he runs into Wanda, a former burlesque dancer who knew him from his wilder days. Wanda just happens to be married to Charlie, a farmer who Lisa knew in New York when he was her mother’s bootlegger. Charlie served time on a prison farm and got a taste for farming. When he got out he bought a 100 acre farm but by using extortion techniques he gradually built it up to a few thousand acres. Oliver and Lisa wind up partying with Charlie and Wanda through the whole convention. Lisa and Charlie dance up a storm together. Oliver comes home with a hangover. Shortly after that Charlie and Wanda come to visit. Charlie feels so sorry for Oliver because of how small his farm is that he starts to give him a lot of expensive farm equipment like a new tractor and livestock. But then they hear on the news that everything they’ve gotten from Charlie has been recently stolen and they send it all back. Wanda was played by the always delightful Barbara Nichols. 

            Charlie’s chauffeur and henchman was played by Murray Alper, who worked on Broadway from 1927 to 1940. His first movie appearance was in The Royal Family of Broadway. He appeared in eight Bowery Boys comedies in the 1940s and 50s. He played a friendly cab driver in The Maltese Falcon and became typecast in that kind of role. He was cast to appear in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat but illness caused him to miss filming and so he was replaced by William Bendix. He appeared twice in Three Stooges films. 

            In the second story Ralph asks to borrow $18 for a computer matchmaking service. Oliver gives her the money but this leads to an argument between him and Lisa. She says that a computer can’t bring compatible people together but Oliver says it can. Oliver bets Lisa that if they both got computer profiles then the computer would match them. They go to the service and meet Mr. Blisswell the owner and his secretary Mrs. Blisswell who were matched by a computer. But the computer doesn’t match Oliver and Lisa and so when they get home Lisa won’t let Oliver into the bedroom. Later they make up but then a big guy arrives who says he’s Lisa’s match. Oliver throws him out but gets punched in the nose. Then Ralph arrives and says the computer found her a match. But the number of the profile is Oliver’s.

November 1, 1993: My first ever show went well, and all my friends were there

November 1, 1993 

            On Monday I worked from 10:00 to 15:00 at The Heliconian Club. I called Nancy several times and argued until she finally agreed to bring our daughter to my show that night, but only if she was still awake. I called Mike Copping and arranged to meet later. I went to Yehudah’s place and did a set of rehearsal until Tom Smarda showed up. Diana Dufretes came over. Then Tom, Yehudah and I did another set together before leaving to meet Tom’s friend Marcus and my friend Mike. We all went to Capers on Bloor Street. The waitress was very friendly and sat down top eat her dinner with us. I got her phone number. But Yehudah ordered too much whisky and food and the bill was enormous. I had to borrow money from Mike to pay for it and I was disappointed that Tom had to pay for his own meal because I had planned on treating him for his birthday. But anyway, it was quite magical to get along with so many people. 

            We walked to Yehudah’s place to pick up Tom’s guitar and then went to Crickets. Susana Wald was there and so was my former sister-in-law Ann. Nancy came without my daughter because she had fallen asleep before she left. She brought her friend Rakina, her sister Susan, and Susan’s friend Reggie. Tom’s friend Nathalie, Tom’s roommate Jim, and Cy Strom from Artists 25 were there. Ann had to leave halfway through. 

            Our show went well and Marcus recorded it. Mike enjoyed it and so did Nancy. When we left, Yehudah performed with his cello for some girls on the street. Then he and Mike played chess until 3:00. Mike and I walked to his car and he drove me to Queen Street, where we had a coffee before I went home.