June 21, 1995: I performed at Fat Albert's

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday evening I performed on the Fat Albert’s open stage.

Beah Richards

            On Thursday I went to bed at around 1:45 and didn’t get much sleep before getting up at 5:00. I worked out the chords for the first verse of “L'âme slave” (Slavic Soul) by Boris Vian. 

            I searched for the next Serge Gainsbourg song that I didn’t finish and found one in the 1968 file. I memorized the first verse of “La plus jolie fille du monde” (The Prettiest Girl in the World) and revised my translation. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer. 

            I weighed 87.65 before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since June 8 though not nearly as heavy. 

            Around midday I worked on and almost finished my ninth Batgirl video for which I’ve isolated all of the Batgirl scenes from episode 9 of the third season of the 60s TV series Batman. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. 

            I edited some more of the cartoons "Congo Jazz" and "Romeo in Rhythm" and cut them down to just the singing parts in Movie Maker. 

           I compared the song practice videos of my Martin acoustic performances of “Laisse tomber les filles” on September 3 and 5. September 5 is a less grainy video and the camera is positioned to show the whole guitar. I compared September 9 to September 5 and I think September 5 looks and sounds better. I compared September 11 to September 5 and still think September is the best so far. I compared September 15 to September 5 and September 5 is still on top. 

            I realized that I forgot to stop at Freshco on the way back from my bike ride, so I’ll have to go tomorrow. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching season 2, episode 4 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet is substitute teaching an English class and the lesson is on “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns. The focus is on the lines “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. He catches Georgina doing her makeup during class. Later she tells him she doesn’t have to study because she’s an Aquarius and she’s going to be a movie star. She recently entered a contest for which the prize is a film contract and she knows she’s going to win. Chet tries to warn her that she shouldn’t put all of her hopes into this one thing because it could lead to disappointment. He points out that that is what the poem is about and also gives an example from his own life. He says he recently had a birthday and he has always wanted a surprise party, which he was certain that this year he would get. His mother called him and wanted to make sure he was coming over later. Then his brother calls and asks him to come over to babysit his nephew Jerry for half an hour and Chet thinks the party is there, but it isn’t. Then he gets a call from Ruth and she is crying as she tells him she broke up with Martin and needs to talk. Chet thinks it’s a trick and that she’s bringing the surprise party to his place but she doesn’t. She wants Chet to drive her to a party where Martin would be coming and she knows when they see each other they will make up. Chet thinks the party is for him even though he doesn’t know anyone there. Then when Martin arrives and they shout “Happy birthday Martin” he realizes it’s not for him and leaves. Then he goes late to his parents’ place where he finds there had been a party for him with all his friends there but everyone had left. When she hears he went looking for his surprise party his mother tells him, “You can’t anticipate life. Life is full of surprises, but you mustn’t chase them or they won’t happen”. Georgina realizes Chet is right in telling her not to be so sure she’s going to be a movie star. But then suddenly her friends come in to tell her she’s won the contest. 

            Chet’s mother was played by Beah Richards, whose first significant theatrical role was at the age of 35 in Take a Giant Step in which she played an 84 year old woman with no aging make-up. She appeared in the original Broadway productions of Purlie Victorious, The Miracle Worker, and A Raisin in the Sun. Her own first play was “Alls Well That Ends”. She wrote the performance poem “A Black Woman Speaks”. She was one of the first people to use the word “black’ to describe African North Americans instead of the Spanish word for black. She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in Amen Corner. Her film debut was in The Mugger in 1958. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. She won two Emmy Awards, one for Frank’s Place and the other for The Practice. Her poem “Keep Climbing Girls” has been turned into a picture book.

June 20, 1995: We started calling William Baker "Scooter"

Thirty years ago today

           On Tuesday night I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage and William Baker was now a regular. At the donut shop later he told us the story of how he crossed Europe on a scooter. Cad said we should call him “Scooter” from now on and so that became his nickname.

Gregory Sierra

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the intro and more than half the first verse of “L'âme slave” (Slavic Soul) by Boris Vian. 

            I published “I Am Capable of Anything”, my translation of “Je suis capable de n’importe quoi” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog and posted the lyrics on Facebook. That takes care of the 1967 Gainsbourg file. Tomorrow I’ll look for the next Gainsbourg song that didn’t get translated because of absence of original text or the audio online. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            At 11:30 I rode to Family Dentistry for my appointment. They still have the Building Permit sign on the window and I could hear power tools in the back. The washroom finally has a mirror and paper towels. Dr. Singh did a few more fillings, this time on the upper right. I have one more appointment on July 2 and that’ll be it for a while. 

            I had a date to meet my upstairs neighbour for lunch but had plenty of time and so I rode west to the new book store Book People. The owner is a young woman named Kai who looked kind of lonely at the back of that long space. I congratulated her for starting a bookstore in Parkdale since there has never been one here in at least fifty years. She said she would look into how she might be able to order my book but meanwhile I could leave a copy there and she said she’d give me 60% if it sells. She put it on the shelf that features local authors and she took down my email. 

            I got home just before the rain storm and fifteen minutes before meeting David. We went to the T.O. Lounge and were the first customers of the day. The owner surprised me when he said he’s been there for 25 years since the T.O. Lounge is new, until I learned that the name used to be Happy Time. Happy Time was there for a long time and was a bit of a dive. The owner has successfully remarketed the place as a live venue and it’s become fairly popular. I think the menu hasn’t really changed but it’s been remarketed as Asian Fusion. I had the popcorn chicken and it was nothing special. I had a pint of steam whistle. David had fish and chips. The owner is very friendly but I find the atmosphere isn’t any better than Happy Time. It was like pulling teeth to get David to let me pay as it always is. I had to jump up and go to the bar to pay before he did. 

            I took a siesta at 14:30 and woke up at 16:18. It was raining and so I was thinking I might be staying home but by the time I’d brushed my teeth the rain had stopped. I weighed 87.35 kilos at 16:39. I took a bike ride downtown and back in the heat and it was my first time making it all the way downtown and back with the newly elevated handlebars. The handlebar height is now quite comfortable. The seat post is the same height as before because it’s fused to the frame but the Brooks saddle is a little higher than the Selle Royal and so I’m bending my knee a bit less when I pedal low. Supposedly the leather seat will drop to some extent over time. 

            When I got back I still weighed 87.35 kilos when I should have lost some of the prior measurement. The scale has got to be wrong for one of those weights. 

            I remembered that I was out of beer and so I went over to the liquor store to get a six-pack of Creemore. 

            From time to time I do a search for my book to see if anybody has bought or read it. This evening I saw that it’s now available on Amazon. I assume Ekstasis Editions made it available there but it’s weird Richard Olafson didn’t do that before. Maybe he was nudged by the interest of Type Books having ordered it. 

https://www.amazon.com/Paranoiac-Utopia-Poetry-Christian/dp/177171574X?language=en_US

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:48. I finished editing the Tweety bird cartoon musical segments, a Betty Boop musical segment and a Hep Cat Symphony musical segment. I figure if I get all the animated clips that I converted to WMV down to the musical parts then it will be easier for me to pick which ones I’ll use for the Ballad of My Chest Cavity video. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, pesto sauce, Genoa salami and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episode 3 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet is showing his class how to perform on the parallel bars when he slips and hurts his back. A colleague has to help him to the hospital. At reception he gives his birthdate as 7/12/37, which is the same as Bill Cosby’s. But he doesn’t have his Blue Cross card with him and so he has to call the school to get someone to get the card from his wallet and tell them his number. He is finally placed in an examination room and lies down painfully on the table. He’s facing the other way when the janitor comes in but Chet thinks he’s the doctor. He offers Chet medical advice and says heat and bedrest are the best things in the world. Then Chet finds out he’s not the doctor. The nurse tells him to take off his clothes because the orthopaedic surgeon has just stepped off the floor. Chet says, “I hope he didn’t hurt himself”. An intern tells the nurse he needs the room and so Chet has to go to an orthopaedic room. He shares the room with a boy named Jimmy who is about to get out after having been in hospitals most of this life. Doctor #2 comes in with three medical students. The doctor has each student give a diagnosis. One of them asks Chet to get out of bed so he can test his motor response. With excruciating movements Chet struggles out of bed and then is told to touch his toes. Chet’s colleague brings him his clothes and says he just saw Dr. Libby down the hall. He says Libby does all the compensation cases for the board of ed. When the last gym teacher hurt his back Libby paid the claim but recommended him to be retired to a desk job. Because of that Chet decides to leave the hospital and gets dressed in the washroom. Meanwhile Jimmy’s father arrives to pick Jimmy up but Jimmy isn’t thrilled about leaving. The nurse comes to take Jimmy to see the doctor one more time. Chet comes out, thinks Jimmy’s father is Dr. Libby, and pretends he’s fine. He’s on his way out the door when he finds out it’s not Dr. Libby, then he asks him to help him to the bed. Chet still hasn’t seen a doctor and so Jimmy shows him how to get one right away. He has Chet call the desk and claim to be Dr. Kelty, who is very important at the hospital. He tells the head nurse to have a doctor see Chet Kincaid immediately and it works. The doctor comes in and tells Chet there’s nothing wrong with him but a muscle spasm so he can leave. He recommends the exact same treatment as the janitor suggested. He and Jimmy leave together but Jimmy is scared because he doesn’t know how to function outside of a hospital. Chet gives him a pep talk and tells him that how well he handles himself in the hospital proves he will do great on the outside. While checking out Chet meets Dr. Libby and tells him he’s not going to file a claim. 

            Jimmy’s father was played by Gregory Sierra, who as a teenager was just beginning to flirt with gang life in New York when he discovered the theatre and became a Shakespearean actor. He moved to Hollywood in 1969 and his TV debut was in It Takes a Thief. He got his first big break playing the part of Julio Fuentes on Sanford and Son. His film debut was in Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1970. He became a star when he played Sergeant Chano Amenguale on the first two seasons of Barney Miller. He co-starred on the short lived sitcom Zorro and Son and the short lived science fiction series Something is Out There. He played El Puerco in the final season of Soap. He played the Cardassian Corbin Entek in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode “Second Skin”. He co-starred in John Carpenter’s Vampires, and The Prisoner of Zenda.

June 19, 1995: I wrote my weekly Commentary on the Gumby Bible

Thirty years ago today

           On Monday there was no work and so I would have worked on writing my Commentary on the Gumby Bible group poem.

Paul Comi

            On Tuesday morning my thumb was still very sore from the failure of the poorly installed bike equipment that caused me to wipe out yesterday. I was able to do all my yoga but when I was playing guitar I had to strum extremely lightly to avoid pain. 

            I found one set of chords for “L'âme slave” (Slavic Soul) by Boris Vian and transcribed them. I worked out the chords for about half the intro. 

            I ran through singing and playing “I’m Capable of Anything”, my translation of “Je suis capable de n’importe quoi” by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. I should have it published tomorrow. 

            I played my Epi acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. I had to strum extremely lightly to avoid hitting my sore thumb on the strings and because I couldn’t grip the pick as tightly as usual. It did allow me to focus on my singing more though. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went over to Metro Cycle and told Gordon I was afraid to ride my Raleigh without a tool to tighten the handlebar extension post so it wouldn’t fail on me and cause an accident like it did yesterday. He gave me an Allen key. 

            I rode to the bank machine at Freshco to get $400 then came back home to put my Epi acoustic guitar and my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar in cases and then strapped them to my bike trailer. I headed up to Wood Instruments. I stopped at the new book store Book People near Roncesvalles and Queen but it’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I want to see if they’ll carry my book Paranoiac Utopia. I continued up to Wood Instruments then after a few calls I finally got through to Alex and he let me in. First of all he showed me his upgrades of my Martin. It sure looks pretty good. I couldn’t really tell from playing it right there whether his upgrades solved the tuning problem. I won’t really know until I spend a whole practice with it but it sounds nice so far. I paid him $395. He put the truss rod cover back on my Gibson. He looked at my Epi and it appears that some similar upgrades could be done but warned me that with a lower end guitar it might not turn out to be as great a sound improvement as with the Martin. I said the guitar has sentimental value from thirty years of play and I think it deserves to spend its last years with me in more luxurious condition. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos at 15:10. 

            I took a siesta from 15:45 to 17:40. 

            I weighed 87.45 kilos at 18:00, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since June 8. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:52. 

            I imported a cartoon called “Tin Pan Alley Cats” into Movie Maker. I copied it to the end of the timeline of my “Ballad of My Chest Cavity” project but then removed it because I don’t really want a cigar chomping character singing in the video. I imported all the other animated shorts I’d downloaded, and copied a montage of Sylvester and Tweety clips to the end of the timeline. I started editing out everything but the parts when Tweety sings. I’ll finish that but I’m not sure I want Tweety in the video because the character may be too familiar, although Tweety singing in the bathtub fits thematically with the first verse. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching season 2, episode 2 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet’s colleague Wes just got his real estate license but has set up two open houses for one day and so he asks Chet to sell one of them to earn a big commission. So he goes to the house on a Saturday where he meets Fred and Jo Thompson who are selling because they are getting a divorce. They are constantly arguing but keep out of the way when viewers arrive. The first couple that comes to view the house are a 12 year old boy and girl named Jeffrey and Melinda. Chet tries to send them away but Jeffrey quotes him the open house rules that he has to show the house to anyone interested. Jeffrey says they are planning on getting married in 14 years after he graduates from medical school. Chet shows them the house but Melinda wants a split level Tudor. Then Richard and Barbara Perry come to look at the house. They are very critical of the décor and leave. Fred and Jo have been listening and the Perrys’ insults about the work they put into the place together have brought them back in harmony. The Perrys come back to say they’ll take the house. But then the Thompsons announce they are keeping it. 

            Fred was played by Paul Comi, whose stage debut was at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1957. His film debut was in The Young Lions in 1957. He co-starred in the series Two Faces West. He co-starred in the Twilight Zone episode People Are Alike All Over. He played the pilot on the series Ripcord. He played Victor Martin in the soap opera Capital. He earned an MA from USC in 1965. He played Lieutenant Andrew Siles in the Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror”. He was president of Caffe D’amore Inc, which made the first instant cappuccino. He was a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

June 18, 1995: I was angry and so I sang better

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday it was Fathers Day and Nancy dropped my daughter off at the Golden Griddle on Lakeshore so she and I could have the Father’s Day brunch together. After eating we walked along the beach to Parkdale. It was the second day of the second annual Parkdale Art Festival. I performed poetry at the Rhino. Later I danced to one of the bands with my daughter in my arms. William Baker was there watching us and he later wrote a poem about it: 

Street Dance 

Strollers drawn by terpischoric rhythms 

summer sounds on summer streets 

Rebellious feet move in helpless syncopation 

The air is bouncing

vibrating

Crowds fill the empty spaces 

heads and shoulders shift and shake 

Two dancers take to centre stage 

and in a crude bolero 

jump and thump and dive and dart and twirl and spin 

inventing choreography 

oblivious to the smiling crowd 

Onlookers even sense they should avert their gaze 

to not intrude upon this much too seldom moment 

This pirouetting father and his wriggling giggling child 

with silk-tossed hair and bubble-gum cheeks 

laughter and shrieks 

the tiny frame 

adoring eyes 

and gripping never slipping arms

whirling gyroscopically on stomping feet 

            My band Christian and the Lions performed but Full Circle the group that played before us left early and so we couldn’t use their drum kit. Barzin and I got some plastic buckets from a restaurant that he used for drumming. But Mark Critoph refused to play bass because we didn’t have a proper drum kit. That made me angry, which helped me sing better and I gave a great performance. Bob Cooke played some lead guitar for us. A couple of people complimented me afterwards. We didn’t win a prize but the prize judging was a joke that year.