Vamp et Vampire

            On Monday morning I translated “Vamp et vampires" by Serge Gainsbourg but couldn't find a video or audio online so I could learn the song and work out the chords. I know it was written for Zizi Jeanmaire and that she recorded it but no one has posted it so far. Maybe later on. I noticed a lot of stuff has appeared since she died last year so maybe it’ll show up sometime in the near future. I see it’s available on Amazon and other sites but I don't have a credit card so I'll wait. I published the song on my Christian’s Translations blog without a video or chords. 

            I weighed 89.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I went to the corner store to buy baking soda because I’d forgotten to buy it on Saturday at the supermarket. My project today was to clean the oven door and I didn’t want to use Comet because I thought it might create fumes later when the oven was on. I spent two hours scrubbing, dirtied five buckets of soapy water, went through the whole small box of baking soda and most of the detergent. I know I made progress because the oven window was fully blackened over with caked in grease when I started and when I stopped for the day at lunch time I’d cleared about an eighth of the glass. I nicked two fingers over the time I was working. I expected the actual inside of the oven to be difficult but had thought that I’d be able to finish the door in one session. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor and on the way home I stopped at Freshco to buy more baking soda and detergent so I could tackle the oven door again tomorrow. I bought two double size boxes of baking soda and a larger size bottle of Sunlight dish detergent. 

            Priscilla the express cashier had on an elegant glittery black face mask in addition to her usual elaborate eye makeup and very long false eyelashes. I wonder who she doesn’t work as a professional makeup artist instead of as a supermarket cashier. 

            I noticed one of my boxes of baking soda was leaking so she said I could replace it. But when I got back I saw the other one was leaking as well and so I went to replace that too. I took the last one from the shelf and it was leaking slightly also but not enough to be overly concerned. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug". I copied from the DVD to my hard drive the video of the May 8, 1998 performance of Christian and the Lions at the Riot Gallery. I deleted the first half of the concert and then copied the second half to a new Movie Maker project. In the program I cut out everything before and after our performance of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy." Then I imported the audio for the studio recording we'd made of the same song. The instrumental intro is longer in the video so I have to figure out if I'm just going to do a straight clip of the video beginning or of selected parts in ordr to match things up. Once the vocals start I doubt if the audio and video will be in sync the whole way through so I assume I’ll have to do a lot of delicate work that's new to me in order to get it right. I have some ideas for adding actual footage of electroshock therapy and perhaps other related images. We’ll see how it unfolds. I'm sure it will be a learning curve. At least I've got it started and I'm excited to see how it will turn out. 

            I had french fries and four chicken tenders for dinner while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Opie finds a wallet containing $50. Andy tells him that he’ll hold it at the sheriff's office for seven days and if no one comes to claim it he can keep the money. Opie spends the week planning how he will spend the money. The owner does not come and so Andy gives Opie the cash. He also gives him a piggy bank and suggests that he only spend $10 and save the rest. After Opie leaves Barney finds an ad in the lost and found section of the paper from a man named Parnell Rigsby saying he lost a wallet containing $50. Andy doesn't have the heart to tell Opie and so he decides to let Opie keep the money and Andy goes to withdraw what might be the last $50 from his own account. Meanwhile Opie comes into the empty sheriff's office with his new fishing rod and then Parnell Rigsby enters. He tells Opie he'd come to see the sheriff about his lost wallet but he’ll come back later. When Parnell gets home he finds Andy and Barney are talking to Parnell's wife and they've just given him back his wallet with $50 inside. When Parnell mentions that he'd met Opie and mentioned the wallet Andy angrily goes looking for Opie. At home he finds that Opie has broken open the piggy bank. Andy finds Opie in the sporting goods store and thinking that he’s on a spending spree he drags him out. He confronts Opie only to learn that when Opie met Mr Rigsby he realized the money wasn't his and so he broke the piggy bank and returned the fishing rod. Opie hands his father the $50 to give to Mr Rigsby and Andy realizes he has once again underestimated his son. He buys him a fishing rod to compensate for his mistake. 

            Mrs Rigsby was played by Mary Jackson, who played the bootlegger Emily Baldwin on The Waltons. She worked in theatre for many years and didn’t get film and television roles until she was in her middle age. She co-starred in Peter Bogdonavich’s first film, “Targets”. She played Jane Fonda’s mother in "Fun With Dick and Jane.” 

            In the second story Andy is offered a better paying job in Raleigh with a detective agency and he is considering taking it. He tells Barney that he will probably become the new sheriff. Andy goes for the meeting about the job and leaves Barney in charge. Barney deputizes Otis, Judd and Goober and they are all incompetent. There is a chaotic traffic jam in the middle of town and a boy gets his head stuck in the sewer grate. These events make Barney feel like he would rather not have the responsibility. In order to keep Andy in Mayberry he plots a fake crime wave and gets Goober and Floyd to play along, but their accounts of the crimes committed are too far fetched and Andy sees through the ruse. He tells Barney he’s already decided to stay in Mayberry after all. Andy seemed a little too certain that Barney could handle being sheriff considering how much he screws up. Just last season Barney was offered a job as sheriff in a nearby town and Andy was sure he couldn’t handle it.