James Westerfield

            On Friday I woke up a little after 3:00 because I had to pee and planned on getting up to go to the toilet and then to look for bedbugs during their rush hour. But I fell back to sleep and didn't wake up until just before 5:00 when the alarm would soon go off. But my ability to sleep suggests that no bedbugs were crawling on me this time because I usually feel it. 

            I finished memorizing "Le java des chaussettes à clous" (The Dance of the Studded Stockings) by Boris Vian. I spent an extra four minutes on it because I hadn't quite nailed it down during the second run through but I was so close that I wanted to finish it, so I went through it a third time and got it. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse of "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg and the first note of the transition to the second verse. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning after doing a full shave and showering I didn't have as much time as I'd planned to work on my bedroom project of cutting two small pieces of a spare piece of floor board to fill the gaps in the bedroom floor. I managed to cut the length that I wanted with my hack saw out on the deck, but it took a long time. I still have that jigsaw that I found but it didn't seem worth going to the hardware store and looking for a blade for it just to cut a little piece of wood. The floor board that I cut is from the kitchen and those slats are wider than in the bed and living rooms, so I took a razor knife and started shaving off one side. I think its narrow enough now but it still won't fit because there's an edge of another floor board sticking out in the hole. Maybe because that edge inserted into and linked with the missing board. I think that rather than shave any more off my piece I'll take the blade to that edge to widen the hole. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt with a glass of orange juice. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. On the Bloor bike lane a skinny woman riding a bike with a child seat on the back shot past me. She was riding so hard with such intent that it made me wonder if the child had fallen off a long ways back and that she hadn't noticed. Or maybe she was on her way to desperately pick up the child to fill the seat before the custodial parent and that if she was successful we would get an Amber Alert on our phones in the wee hours of the morning. I got past her a couple of times and finally again just before I turned south on Yonge. 

            Just south of College in the narrow construction corridor that runs for half a block, a trail of broken glass led to a discarded blonde wig. 

            On Queen just before Strachan there's another narrowing and usually a lot of cars but someone usually lets me slip ahead when I signal. But this time the driver didn't let me in and so I had to ride ahead in the narrow gap between the track and the cones until I could find a space to ride between the tracks. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos when I got home.

            I worked on my poem series "My Blood In A Bug." 

            In my video project for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy" I synchronized the concert footage and the studio audio for the line, "We're wearing white and we're feeling clean." It's also in synch while I'm repeatedly downstrumming one chord over and over leading up to me shouting, "for shock therapy" but there's more of a pause in the concert video and so "shock therapy" is not in sync. So I need to insert some other video briefly into that pause. I'd previously bookmarked a YouTube video of footage from the 1940s of someone getting shock therapy and of the moment when the patient first receives the shock and violently jerks upwards. In the studio I told the bass player to slide up to a high note just before I sang "shock therapy"and so maybe I could synchronize the jerking up of the patient with that part. We'll see how it looks. 

            I grilled five steaks in the oven, small but thicker than the ones I just finished eating yesterday. I had one with a potato and gravy while watching two episodes of "Mayberry RFD." In the first story Mike wants a convertible but he's only thirteen and not old enough to drive. Sam tells him he can save his money to get one and so Mike gets a job after school helping Goober out at the gas station. Sam is proud of Mike for his responsibility and determination and tells him that once he's ready to buy a car he'll put in half the money. Goober has an old convertible that he hasn't been able to to fix and when Mike asks how much he's asking he says $30. At the end of the week Goober pays Mike $15 and Mike says he wants to use it to buy the car and that his father will pay the rest. Sam is surprised to see the car in front of his house and even more shocked that Mike has bought it. When Sam confronts Goober he reassures him that it won't run because it has no battery along with some other problems. Goober tells Sam that Mike can learn a lot just from tinkering with the vehicle. But while Mike is working on it two of his friends come by and challenge Mike to prove the car works. They say he can use the battery from his father's tractor and call him chicken when he says he can't do it. Mike takes the battery and manages to get the car to start. Then they cajole him into proving the car will move and so he does but it turns out that the car has no brakes and it doesn't stop until after it's knocked down Sam's mailbox and gotten stuck across the road halfway in the ditch. In order to punish Mike, Sam asks Goober to give Mike a ticket and the ticket has a long list of violations. But what Sam didn't figure on was the fact that the car is registered in his name because Mike is too young, and so it's Sam that has to go to court. Mike however has learned his lesson and sold the car back to Goober. 

            The second story is another one that was ripped off from an earlier episode of The Andy Griffith Show." Howard and Sam are preparing to take the Junior Woodsmen on their annual hike. Mike and his friends want to explore the Indian Caves but Howard and Sam say they need a guide. Goober says he knows every nook and cranny of those caves and volunteers to be their guide. But once they are inside and exploring a big chamber, Goober wanders off and gets lost. Since they don't know the caves they can't look for him but can only find their way out. The boys are taken home and Sam calls the state police. The search parties can't begin until daylight and so Goober has to spend the night in the cave after his lamp runs out of fuel. When Goober wakes up in the morning he sees daylight and climbs to the exit. He finds a shack where an old hermit lives and who takes him in to feed him. On the old man's TV they see the rescue operation underway to save Goober Pyle. Goober wants to go and show them he's okay but the old man says that's the worst thing he can do. After eating a big meal Goober goes back to the cave exit and goes in to be found by the rescuers. When Millie tries to give Goober a sandwich Sam is suspicious when Goober says, "I couldn't eat another bite" after supposedly having spent 24 hours with no food. 

            The state policeman in charge of the search was played by James Westerfield, who started out in theatre not only as an actor but also as a producer, director and set designer. He won two New York Drama Critics Awards for acting. He played a befuddled cop in several Disney comedies such as "The Shaggy Dog" but is best remembered for his role of Big Mac in "On the Waterfront". He played John Murrel in "The Travels of Jamie McPheeters."