Frank Sutton

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of "Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg and all but the end of the second verse. I think all the verses basically have the same chords but there’s a repetition at the end of a couple of verses that isn't in "Stormy Weather". Plus he's added a couple more verses to his translation of “Stormy Weather" than are in the original. 

            Around midday I sanded some more of the plaster on the frame of my bedroom door. I also sanded down some of the plaster that partially covers the lower hinge and next time I’ll work on the upper. I don’t think there's a reason to be too much of a perfectionist on this project because I could really go on for years if I let myself and I don’t think the result would be that noticeable. After a bit more sanding I have to plaster a few more holes and then sand again. Hopefully I’ll be able to paint the door and frame in the next month or so. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. I had seven saltines and old cheddar with lemonade. 

            At around 16:00 I went out to the liquor store to buy a six pack of Creemore. 

            After that I was headed out for my bike ride when I met Caesar on the stairs. He complained that my making music in the morning was keeping him awake. It's weird because in all the years he's lived above me he's never complained about noise and I've been playing and singing every morning for well over a decade. In fact I used to play at 6:00 and he never said anything. Apparently hearing loss in the elderly makes them ironically sensitive to all noise because they can’t selectively filter sounds out like a younger person can. Caesar was huffing and puffing so painfully as he climbed the stairs that it didn’t look like he'd be able to make it. He's 79 now and it's just going to get harder and harder for him to live on the third floor and function without someone taking care of him. 

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor and weighed 89 kilos when I got back. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug.” 

            I want to move some files to my external hard drive, but I decided to go through my James Brown discography first and delete the songs I don’t want. Some of the songs are just Brown hacking his own style and it's still good but not as engaging. Other files are just recordings of his band The J.B.s cutting loose by themselves and they're great but I don't need instrumental music. I only got up to editing 1972 when it was time for dinner. 

            I've been having my eggs fried for years but my favourite style is actually poached. I've avoided poaching eggs for a long time because I've experienced the whites sticking to the bottom of the pot. But I made a poached egg with toast for dinner and had not problem with sticking. Maybe because I washed the pot while it was still hot. I had my egg and toast with a beer while watching the last two episodes of the fourth season of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In the first story Andy, Barney and Gomer take Opie and several other boys camping. Gomer admits he knows nothing about living off the land but Barney of course is full of bombast about abilities that he doesn’t really have. The next morning Opie is missing and Andy goes looking for him, expecting Barney and Gomer to stay with the other boys. But Barney leads Gomer off to search as well and they get lost, although Barney won’t admit it. When they get hungry Barney builds an ineffectual pheasant trap and then tries unsuccessfully to start a fire by spinning a stick in a hole in a log. Meanwhile Andy finds Opie, who had wandered off to pick berries. A friend named Foley arrives with roast chickens from Aunt Bee and with bows and arrows for the boys. While Foley is teaching archery Andy goes looking for Barney and Gomer. When he finds Gomer he tells him not to let on that they are lost because Barney’s feelings would be hurt if the boys make fun of him. He tells Gomer to sneak some match heads into the hole in the log and after Barney starts the fire and goes to get wood, Andy gives Gomer a roasted chicken and says to tell Barney the trap was successful. Andy then leads them back to camp by pretending to be a lake loon. 

            The season finale served as the pilot for the new series “Gomer Pyle, USMC”. Gomer comes by the court house and announces to Andy that he's going to join the Marine Corps. Since he’d received his draft notice he has decided to enlist. Andy clearly doesn't think Gomer can make it but offers to drive him to the base. Gomer is late and too talkative and gets on the bad side of Sergeant Carter from the start. When the uniforms are delivered to the barracks they include Carter’s dress uniform. The other recruits take advantage of Gomer’s naivety and trick him into wearing the sergeant’s dress blues. Carter blows his top and makes Gomer sit with a bucket over his head. The colonel is coming to inspect the recruits and Carter is sure that when he sees Pyle he will send him home. But Andy overhears this in the bar and has a talk with Carter. Andy lets slip the name of General Lucias Pyle and lets Carter's imagination run wild. Carter starts thinking Gomer must be the general’s son planted as a test and so he works personally to help Gomer prepare himself for inspection. The colonel is most impressed with Gomer and says he’d almost think he was Lucias Pyle's son if the general had ever had any children, but he didn’t. 

            Sergeant Carter was played by Frank Sutton and he continued in the role for five seasons of Gomer Pyle USMC and became famous for phrases like, "Move it, Move it, Move it!” and "I can't HEAR you!" Later he co-starred in the Jim Nabors Hour. In the 1950s he played Cadet Radisson on Tom Corbitt, Space Cadet. He also had roles on “The Edge of Night" and “The Secret Storm", which were my mother’s two favourite soap operas. He co-starred in the films, “Four Boys and a Gun” and “The Satan Bug”. He died of a heart attack at the age of fifty while rehearsing the play “Luv”.