Tommy Sands

            On Tuesday I pretty much finished working out the chords to “Les filles n'ont aucun dégoût" but there might be a slight change in the finale.

            My hip muscles were bothering me more than usual after my longer bike ride the day before.

            I had extra dishes to do because I hadn’t had time to clean up the day before because of the leak in the bathroom. On top of that I was feeling low in energy and even though I had a bit of time to wash part of the living room floor I couldn’t bring myself to make the effort. Instead I fixed a knob that had come off of one of my electric guitars, which took more concentration than sweat. The screw that held the knob is inside of the guitar but I couldn’t put the nut back on because the screw goes back into the guitar without the nut holding it up. Finally I realized that I had to turn the guitar upside down to slip the nut on and then pull the screw up with pliers while I turned the nut to secure the screw. After that the knob just popped on.

            I took a siesta in the early afternoon. When I woke up my pillow was wet from drool. I tried to work on a poem but had no concentration. I looked at the clock on my computer and saw that I’d only taken a half hour nap and so I went back to bed. I got up at 15:45 but still couldn’t focus my brain and so I lay down again for half an hour.

            I did some exercises and then took a bike ride up Brock to Dundas, across to Gladstone, south to Queen and then home. That seemed to give me back some energy.

            I spent bout an hour on the extension of my poem “The Street Sucks the Sandman’s Bag” and made some progress until I got tuckered out.

            I boiled two small potatoes, heated a chicken breast and some gravy and watched the last of the United States Steel Hour plays that have downloaded so far. There are three more in my torrents list but they’re all at 0%.

            This story was about a young man named Lennie who has just graduated from high school and is looking for a job. The problem is that he has a stutter and it makes it difficult for him to even get an interview let alone passing an interview. His mother decides to take matters into her own hands and to secretly speak to Barney the head of a company mailroom about giving her son a chance. Barney is a tough boss who is always yelling but he feels sympathy because when he was a teenager her was very overweight and people used to make fun of him. Lennie’s mother asks Barney not to let on to Lennie that she was there. He hires Lennie and he works out fine, especially with the help of a young woman named Sylvia with whom he works on the tally once a day. They like each other a lot and he eventually gets the nerve to ask Sylvia out on a double date with his friend Mickey and his girl. Sylvia is helping Lennie with his speaking and she becomes his girl. Lennie begins to get overconfident and while distracted he breaks a valuable piece of equipment. Barney is yelling at him and he yells, “Your mother didn’t tell me you had dropsy too!” Lennie tells him to shut his big fat mouth and storms out. Lennie’s mother tells him to go back and apologize and so he does. It’s after hours nut Barney is working late. He apologizes but Barney doesn’t accept it. Lennie persists and asks for his job back. Barney says “No” but Lennie starts helping Barney and Barney tells him to take his jacket off if he’s going to work. Sylvia comes in and helps out as well.

            Lennie was played by Tommy Sands, who was a DJ at age 12 and cut his first record at 14. In 1957 at the age of 20 he got the lead role in Kraft Theatre’s “The Singin Idol”, which was the first rock and roll themed television drama. “Teenage Crush”, the song he sang on the show hit #3 on the charts and Sands became an overnight sensation and a teen idol. He was married to Nancy Sinatra from 1960-1965 and when he divorced her it is rumoured that Frank Sinatra made sure his career would tumble.

            Sylvia was played by Cynthia Pepper, who later became a regular on My Three Sons as the girlfriend of the oldest son. She starred in her own series called “Margie” for one season.

            Mickie was played by a 22 year old Martin Sheen.

            Pete, one of Lennie’s co-workers that made fun of his stuttering was played by George Segal.