Sugar Ray Robinson

            On Saturday morning I went to bed with my undershirt, sweatpants, and socks on because it was minus 20 outside and seeping in through the window. When I got up to pee at around 3:30 I got naked because I’d warmed up the bed. 

            After yoga I continued working on memorizing the tenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I continued trying to memorize the final monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s a good chance I’ll have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of four sessions. It went out of tune several times but not to the frustrating degree that the electrics have been misbehaving. 

            The bike post ring in front of my building has been knocked off its post, perhaps by a snowplough. It was lying on the street side of the snowbank so I brought it up to my place. Maybe I’ll call the city to see if they’re going to fix it. If not I wouldn’t mind keeping it because those old ones are pretty cool. I’d rather have it in front of my place and functional though. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills. I bought two bags of green grapes, a bag of red grapes, two bags of cherries, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of three chicken legs, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, mouthwash, tomato pesto, three bags of skim milk, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 89.8 kilos at 15:00. I had saltines with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:00 and it was too late for a bike ride. 

            There was an email from the landlady about a complaint about the loudness my music from my upstairs neighbour Jacob. That’s rich coming from someone who often plays music louder than I do, plus stomping and shouting, and in the nighttime. Nonetheless I’ll lower my top listening volume to minus 5 from minus 4 and see if that shuts him up, though I’m sure it won’t. 

            I weighed 90.05 kilos at 17:20, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening in a few years. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:32. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive tape 1, side 2 of my third 20,000 Poets Under the League Slam, hosted by Mark Critoph. These digitizations I’m doing from my Sony Dolby player are sounding much better than the cassette-to-MP3 convertor that I got through Amazon and there are no glitches. The recordings skipped in places after conversion by that device. 

            I edited more of my Photos folder, deleting a lot of images and putting others in sub-folders. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, oven wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the penultimate episode of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Judy is a hairdresser who works at Antoinne’s where most of the precinct officers’ wives get their hair done. She asks Toody to help her stop Antoinne from becoming a boxer even though he’s already won his first four fights. Toody agrees that Tony is a sweet guy and says that when his wife Lucille comes home from the beauty parlour it takes hours for her to get mean again. 

            Muldoon and Toody get the idea that what Tony needs is to be knocked out to discourage him from fighting. They offer to take Tony to Waxey Kilroy’s gym. They convince Waxey to have one of his best fighters go in the ring with Tony. Waxey tells Spider to make it quick but as soon as Tony steps into the ring he roars like an animal and tears into Spider until he’s down. Now Waxey wants Tony to be one of his fighters. 

            Muldoon and Toody know that if they got Sugar Ray Robinson to fight Tony he’d be able to knock him out but that wouldn’t discourage Tony because Sugar can beat everybody. They go and convince Sugar to let them get a police disguise artist to make him look like an old man. Then they talk Tony into fighting him. The disguised Sugar knocks Tony out right away and after that Tony gives up boxing. But then he loses his sweet disposition and starts being mean to his customers. 

           Judy appeals to Toody and Muldoon to help Tony again. Muldoon realizes that Tony needed boxing for an outlet and now he’s taking his frustrations out on everybody else. They get the undisguised Sugar Ray to come and tell Tony that he was tricked and so he starts fighting again. In the end we see him take on three guys at once. 

            Tony was played by Rocky Graziano, a former middleweight champion who really was knocked out by Sugar Ray Robinson. 

            Sugar Ray played himself. His birth name was Walker Smith. He started using the name of Ray Robinson when he was an amateur so his mother wouldn’t find out he was boxing. He was undefeated as an amateur in all 85 of his fights with 69 knockouts and 42 of them in the first round. As a pro his first loss was to Jake LaMotta but he beat LaMotta five times after that. He was world champion six times in his 25 year career with over 100 knockouts. He knocked out Jimmy Doyle in 1947 who died as a result so he bought Doyle’s mother a house. In 1949 he was on a European tour and knocked out Gerard Hecht with a kidney punch, which would have been legal in the US but not in Europe and so he was disqualified. In 1952 he retired and spent two and a half years as a singer and tap dancer. He returned to boxing in 1955. He fought in a variety of styles depending on who he was fighting. He retired at 45, with almost no money after having spent millions on a lavish lifestyle and having been ripped off by his accountant. He is still considered to be the best boxer of all time and was idolized by Muhammed Ali who fought in a heavier weight class. He was friends with Frank Sinatra. He owned an entire block in Harlem. He always travelled with an entourage of twenty and paid all their bills. These included a secretary, a masseur, a barber, beautiful women, a dwarf mascot, and a voice coach. He always owned a brand new pink Cadillac convertible. During WWII he was drafted into the US army and served by doing exhibition boxing matches for the troops but refused to fight for segregated audiences.

January 25, 1996: I probably worked at an art school

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I might have worked and if I did it probably would have either been at the Ontario College of Art or at Central Technical School.

Ruth Kobart

            On Friday morning I continued working on memorizing the tenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I continued trying to memorize the final monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Both of these songs are so large it’s overwhelming. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and the B string went out of tune on most of the songs.

            Around midday I finished painting the frame and the front of my bathroom exhaust fan with the Blue Bliss (a shade of turquoise). There were some overlaps into the vent, which I plan to paint with Crazy in Love (pink). Next time when I add the Crazy in Love I’ll lay down some Frog Tape first to make the lines straighter. 

            I weighed 89 kilos before lunch, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since last Friday. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. My wheels slipped on the ramp just before Dovercourt on the Bloor bike lane so I decided to only go as far as Ossington. I didn’t realize until I got to Dundas that I’d gone south on Dovercourt, which I tend to avoid in the winter but it was fine. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos at 18:00. December 29 was the last evening when I pushed the scale that high. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:02. 

            I recorded from cassette through audio interface to Audacity and then copied to my hard drive the finale of my fourth and I think last 20,000 Poets Under the League slam. It was hosted by the vivacious and flamboyant Sahara Spracklin. The three judges each selected three finalists and the nine finalists each read a second poem. I didn’t like the second poems of any of my choices and so I picked my winner from one of the other judge’s second or third choices. I remember that Peter Fruchter was pissed off that I’d commented when I announced my choice that the second poems of my picks sucked.

            I also recorded the beginning of what I think was my second 20,000 Poets Under the League slam. This one was hosted by Mark Critoph. 

            I had the good parts of two small potatoes with gravy and a slice of roast pork with peach chutney while watching the antepenultimate episode of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            A phony publisher is active in the Bronx. It convinces people they are writers and then get money in advance from them under the pretence of publishing their book. One of the victims is the adult son of Mrs. Abernathy and he and his mother are now at the 53rd Precinct where she wants to press charges but her son doesn’t agree because he feels the publishers in question are the only ones who ever believed in him. Mrs. Abernathy says her son got the $300 ($3000 in today’s money) from her after saying he wanted to get his teeth straightened. 

            His book is called “Millard Flaggenbaum, the Father of Our Country”. He claims to have documented proof that Millard Flaggenbaum was the first president of the United States. He says George Washington, whose real name was Harold Kramer, was a front put in the White House by the Powdered Wig Lobby. The PWL is still around and they are behind President Kennedy’s long haircut. He’s in their power. He also says that Otto Schmidlap was the 16th president and Abraham Lincoln was really a front for the beard lobby and that’s in his next book: “The Truth About the Civil War”. He has proof that the Civil War was really just a fight between the Hair Lobby and the Razor Interests. 

            It’s suggested that Sylvia Schnauser could serve as a decoy to nab the fake publishers because she used to be an actor. Sylvia comes in wearing a veil and overflowing with drama as she thinks she’s being enlisted as a super spy. She is told to just behave like an ordinary housewife because that’s who this publisher preys upon. Captain Block gives her a note with the address then she eats it and asks if he has another. 

           The publishers are playing cards when Sylvia walks in. Immediately they begin claiming they feel the same electricity from her that they felt when Edna Ferber walked through that door with the script of “Back Street” in her shopping bag (“Back Street” is not by Edna Ferber but Fannie Hurst and it becomes public domain this year). They say she is obviously a woman who’s had many loves and she just has to write them down. She remembers her first love was a pot roast dripping in heavenly gravy and caressed with just a touch of onion. She says because of her eating problem she once tried to hang herself but the rope started to look like a salami and she ate it. They encourage her to write a cookbook called “The Loves of Sylvia Schnauser”. She pays them the $150. 

            Sylvia sits at the typewriter. She types the title “The 51 Loves of Sylvia Schnauser” and writes down “basil herb”. Schnauser, Toody, and Muldoon come in to get the evidence against the publishers but she refuses to file charges against the men who discovered the real Sylvia Schnauser. We get the first threat of marital violence to appear in an episode of this show when Leo threatens to splatter her over the walls. Leo reads the title and is shocked because he thinks she’s talking about men. He reads “Herb” and “Basil” and thinks they are the names of two of her boyfriends. He researches the police personnel files and finds that Herb Meloski and Basil Bannister were transferred out of the precinct twelve years ago. Leo starts asking Toody if he remembers two guys transferred because of affairs with another cop’s wife whose name starts with an “S”. Toody knows nothing about it but his suggestive mind thinks he remembers all of that. 

            This talk about scandals gets mixed up with the information that Sylvia is writing a book and the rumour spreads like wildfire throughout the precinct that Sylvia is writing a book about the scandals of the 53rd Precinct. Each cop begins to remember innocent things they did that could in certain light be viewed as scandalous. For example that time at a party when an officer’s wife sat on Captain Block’s knee as they did a skit in which they were pretending to be a ventriloquist and his dummy. Someone says the book will be called “Precinct Place” (Like “Peyton Place” which was already a scandalous novel but not yet a TV series). 

            Leo is obsessed with finding the names of the other 49 lovers he thinks are in Sylvia’s book. Leo is about to come home when he hears Officer Nicholson in his apartment talking with Sylvia and he thinks he’s one of her old boyfriends. Nicholson is just there to relate the incident that he was involved in that could be scandalized and to ask her not to put it in his book. She assures him it won’t be. Leo hides in the hallway as a steady stream of officers come to see Sylvia for similar reasons. 

            Muldoon and Toody go to Discovery Publishers to warn them not to publish Sylvia’s book. They don’t even remember who Sylvia is but assume if the police want to stop it the book must be sexy trash that would be lucrative for them to publish. Muldoon and Toody go to every publisher in the building and now even the publisher of Physics texts wants her book. They all go to Sylvia and make bids of thousands of dollars for her book. She accepts $5,000 from Discovery and hands them the manuscript. They are very disappointed to see it’s a cookbook. Captain Block tells them they have 24 hours to get out of New York. Sylvia gives the $5000 to Block to distribute to the people who were ripped off by Discovery. She tells Leo there’s only one love in her life: Hungarian goulash. 

            Then Sylvia decides to write the book the guys at the precinct all thought she was writing: “Precinct Place”. 

            Mrs. Abernathy was played by Ruth Kobart, who began as an opera singer and was a member of the American Conservatory Theatre from 1967 to 1994. She made her theatrical debut in the off Broadway production of Hansel and Gretel as the witch. She made her Broadway debut in Pipe Dream in 1955. She created the role of Agata in Maria Golovin at Expo 58 in Brussels. She created the role of Arina in The Marriage. She played Miss Jones in the Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 1961 and reprised her role in the film. She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. She was the voice of Malicia in the game King’s Quest VII. She played Iris Frankel on the sitcom Bob.

January 24, 1996: I performed at Fat Albert's and the Art Bar reading series

Thirty years ago

            On Wednesday evening I performed on the Fat Albert’s open stage and then went to the Art Bar reading series for the open stage there.

Sandu Scott

            On Thursday morning I worked on memorizing the tenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I continued trying to memorize the final monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I might have it done in a couple of days. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune on almost every song. I think it’s because the action is too low. 

            Around midday I applied Proofide to the top and underside of my Brooks leather seat on my Surly bike. After a few hours I buffed the top. I might have time to do the Brooks seat on my Raleigh on Sunday. 

            I weighed 89.85 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since January 12. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but while going up Brock Avenue my tire slipped slightly on a manhole cover and so I decided not to go all the way up to Bloor. I turned right on College, went south on Gladstone and stopped at Freshco. I bought seven bags of red grapes, two packs of blackberries, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, a pack of chicken legs, a sirloin tip roast, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, and two packs of Full City Dark coffee. I did a price match on the grapes at $4.37 a kilo but the cashier only let me do the match for four bags. She’s nice but she’s a bit of a stickler and so next time I have price matches I’ll avoid her. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos at 18:05. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:12. 

            I recorded from cassette tape to audio interface to Audacity and then copied to my hard drive side one of the finale of my 20,000 Poets Under the League slam hosted by Sahara Spracklin. 

            I edited my Photos folder, deleting several images and putting others into sub-folders. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork with peach chutney while watching season 2, episode 27 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Lucille is turning 40 and feeling old and so Toody wants to get her a present that makes her feel special. The next day he sees Sgt. McBride kissing a beautiful blonde and is surprised because he’s married. Then he finds out that the beautiful blonde is actually Mrs. McBride in a wig and decides that he wants to buy Lucille a wig for her birthday. 

            He goes to Miss Allison’s wig shop but can’t decide whether to get Lucille a blonde or a brunette wig. She offers to send them both to his house so he can decide overnight and then bring them back tomorrow. That night he has Muldoon model the wigs for him while wearing Lucille’s earrings, necklace and robe. Meanwhile Sylvia Schnauser drags Leo over to Toody’s place because she promised Lucille she’d look in on him while Lucille is visiting her sister for one night (It’s odd that she’d ask her to do that for an overnight trip when she already knows Muldoon will be staying with him). Sylvia opens the door without knocking and when she sees Muldoon from the back in the blonde wig she thinks that Toody is with another woman. 

           Toody decides on the blonde wig but Miss Allison tells him she needs to know Lucille’s head size. He asks her if she can think of how he can measure Lucille’s head without her knowing and she agrees to meet him later in a restaurant to tell him what she comes up with. Meanwhile Sylvia arranges to meet Lucille in the same restaurant to break it to her that Toody is having an affair. Lucille thinks it’s funny and explains that Francis Muldoon was with Toody and he probably brought a friend over. Lucille goes to call Toody to let him know she’s back and then Sylvia sees a beautiful blonde come in and sit down with Toody at a nearby booth behind a barrier so she can hear but not see them. The woman tells Toody to wait until Lucille is asleep and then wrap this scarf tightly around her. Of course Toody knows she means Lucille’s head but Sylvia concludes it’s a plot to kill Lucille. Toody and Miss Allison leave, then Lucille comes back and Sylvia tells her but of course she doesn’t believe her. 

            But that night Lucille wakes up to see Toody leaning over her with the scarf in both his hands and she screams and faints. Toody measures her head then calls Miss Allison who agrees to open the store to fit the wig. Meanwhile Lucille comes to and calls Sylvia to tell her she was right. Sylvia forces Leo out of bed and they rush over. Sylvia walks in to see Toody standing with a wig box and thinks Lucille’s head is inside then faints. Then Lucille sees him and faints as well but when she regains consciousness he gives her the wig and says happy birthday. She smiles and that’s the end. 

            Miss Allison was played by Sandu Scott, who before she entered show business was a champion backstroke swimmer. She won the Miss New York beauty pageant in 1951 but lost her title when it was discovered she hadn’t lived in New York City long enough to qualify. She studied acting with Lee Strasberg but was more of a lounge singer and an impressionist. Her band Sandu Scott and the Scotties released two singles: “Hopscotch” and “Bridle Path”. They performed on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1948. In 1955 she was booked to sing at some Montreal nightclubs owned by Solly Silver who she married in 1956. She lived in Montreal and commuted to New York. In 1959 she hosted the variety show Anything Goes for ABC in New York. She split from Solly around 1960 when he was getting trouble with the Montreal Mafia. She continued to perform in Montreal and was a very popular feature at clubs like the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. On December 20, 1964 she was backed by The Thunderbolts on the Ed Sullivan Show. Lee Greenwood, Felix Caveliere, and Dino Danelli were members of the band. The last two would later form The Rascals. In 1965 she married Marco von Nesselhauf. They settled in Puerto Rico to raise horses.

January 23, 1996: I hosted my open stage at the Gladstone Hotel

Thirty years ago today 

            As always I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

Rae Allen

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the ninth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are eight verses left but with some repeated lines they work out to about six verses. 

            I memorized the first five lines of the final monologue in Zizi Jeanmaire’s performance of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 88.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions. It went out of tune a lot in the beginning but behaved itself for the most part in the second half. 

            Around midday I started adding the third and final colour (Blue Bliss, a shade of turquoise) to my bathroom beginning with the frame of the bathroom exhaust fan. It was very time consuming because I had to use a small brush and keep from crossing into the main wall colour which is kind of a pinkish purple. I only got about half of the frame done and it’ll need more than one coat. I’ll have time to do some more on Friday but it’s going to take a long time to finish the bathroom. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar, peanut butter, and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I tried to take a bike ride but there was more snow and Seaforth was slippery, so I only went around the block. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos at 17:10, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since January 12. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:25. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then saved to my hard drive side 2 of the finale of my first 20,000 Poets Under the League slam. It was hosted by Cad Lowlife.

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Why I Drink” on September 28, 2024 and October 12, 2024. I played it a little better on October 12 but I won’t be rendering it in Movie Maker. I’ll wait until my next recording project when I’ll have more takes to compare and a better version. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “The Butcher’s Tango” on September 28, 2024 and October 12, 2024. On September 28 the final take was okay. On October 12 the camera battery charge ran out before I could finish. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my performance of “When I Will Have the Wind in My Hollow Skull” on September 28, 2024 and the take at 115:00 was not bad. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my performance of “Do Me Bad Johnny” on September 28, 2024 and the camera battery charge ran out during the song. 

            That completes my reviews of my 2024 recording project. I’m hoping to record again this year from June 1 to July 15. I want to make sure that my Martin, my Kramer, and my Gibson are all sounding good this time. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, a chopped grass-fed beef burger 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? 

            Thelma Eisenberg wants the Wedding Bells Matrimonial Agency shut down and its owner arrested for scamming her father. The agency has matched him with Joan Crawford. He admits it’s not definite yet but he’s already buying clothes he needs to spend half the year in Beverly Hills. Then the precinct’s elderly cleaning lady gives her notice because she plans to leave for California soon to marry Charles Boyer. 

            Toody and Muldoon go to the agency only to discover that it’s run by Mrs. Bronson, who they and we’ve encountered on two previous occasions. Knowing that Muldoon isn’t married she immediately begins to name off movie stars as potential wives for him. Muldoon tells her Thelma Eisenberg has filed a complaint. Bronson says if it wasn’t for Thelma’s big mouth she could have gotten her Gregory Peck. She tells Muldoon if he’d only been there yesterday he could have had Kim Novak but Mr. Fidenbaum the Iceman grabbed her. Bronson reads them letters from Joan Crawford thanking her for her concern but telling her she’s not considering marriage and she’s returning the salami. Bronson says Joan is playing hard to get. Then she reads a letter from Crawford’s lawyer telling her to cease and desist. Bronson says never once does Joan say “No”. Then Bronson says she’s found a match for Muldoon in Anita Ekberg. Muldoon says it’s ridiculous but Bronson warns him not to lose Anita like he lost Kim to Mr. Fidenbaum. Muldoon argues that Kim Novak would be a better match for him since she has an apartment in New York and Bronson should give Anita to Fidenbaum. Then Captain Block walks in and Muldoon realizes that he temporarily lost his mind. Block sends them away and says he’ll handle it. He tells her he’s married and so her scam won’t work on him but Bronson says, “Poor Ava Gardner!” Ava wants a man who will take her on fishing trips. 

            Thelma comes back to the police station with her father saying she’s just caught him downtown buying an engagement ring. They find Block arguing with his wife about how she never goes fishing with him. Then Block realizes he temporarily lost his mind. 

            The Frauds and Rackets squad is called to shut down Mrs. Bronson. Agent Megginson confronts Bronson but when he uses the word “accoutrements” she thinks he speaks French and matches him with Brigitte Bardot. She takes Megginson’s picture from his government ID to send to BB. He goes back to tell his boss he'd better get someone else for the case because he might be leaving for Paris at any minute. 

            Agent Callahan is sent to Bronson who says her husband must be proud of her. Callahan says she has no intention to get married but Bronson says she should be ashamed to deny a man such an enchanting woman. Callahan goes back to headquarters to announce that she’s marrying Eddy Fisher because he needs her. Her boss Inspector Brown goes to shut down Bronson. 

            They finally get Bronson in court where on the witness stand she explains that she’s just trying to make the movie stars happy by matching them with people from the Bronx who are the happiest people in the world. Muldoon is put on the stand and is asked how many of Bronson’s clients have ever got married. He answers that they all have. For example, Mr. Eisenberg who was going to marry Joan Crawford and Mrs. Harrigan who was going to wed Charles Boyer are now married to each other. Then the judge marries Megginson and Callahan. Then Bronson matches the judge to Anita Ekberg. 

            Thelma was played by Rae Allen, who played Buttercup in HMS Pinafore for the Sullivan Company in Greenwich Village at the age of 15. She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1947. She made her theatrical debut on Broadway in 1948 in Where’s Charley? She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in the original production of Damn Yankees. She reprised her role in the film adaption. She also received a Tony nomination for Traveller Without Luggage. In 1971 she won the Tony for her starring role in And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little. She played Quentina Blundetto on The Sopranos. She also directed several plays.