Indigenous Ethiopians

            On Sunday at around 0:30, before going to sleep I checked the baseboards and walls for bedbugs and found none.

            After yoga I revised my translation of the third cop dialogue in "La java des chaussettes à clous" (The Tap dance of the Hobnail Boots) by Boris Vian: "Officer Otis Pifre, you have the remains of brains all over your left shoe / I'm sorry sergeant / For the next time be sure that you wipe off the defendant's hair." 

            I worked out the chords for the first two verses of "Chavirer la France" (Bowling Over France) by Serge Gainsbourg and for the first line of the chorus. 

            During song practice for the last few days the shoelace that I use to extend my guitar strap must have stretched because my guitar has been hanging low. To some degree it looks cool like that but it was getting difficult to hit certain chords. I was waiting to have time to shorten the shoelace but this morning I realized I could just buckle the strap up a notch and so after I did that it was much easier to play.

            While I was singing and dancing during one song there was a beautiful young black woman with natural hair high on her head like a flower waiting at the light across the street. She was pushing a toddler in a stroller and watching me. Then when she crossed the street she looked up at me through my window and gave me a sweet smile. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I worked on cleaning the top of one of my muffin pans. That's pretty well done now but the edge and bottom will be harder. 

            At noon my upstairs neighbour David came to take me to lunch. As we passed The Skyline where we had lunch last time I commented that it used to be in Parkdale but now it thinks it's in Rosedale. We went next door to Ali Baba's. We each ordered a chicken shawarma wrap and I got a Jones root beer. It was very hot in the restaurant and I suggested we take our food to the park, so we walked to Dunn Avenue where a block down is a little parkette. We sat in the shade on raised concrete around the ventilation grid of an apartment building and ate and talked. He said the guy that served us at Ali Baba's is from Ethiopia like him but speaks a different language and is Muslim. I asked him if his people are indigenous to Ethiopia and he said it's a complicated question. 

            According to my research the indigenous peoples of Ethiopia are the hunter-gatherer communities of the Majang (Majengir) who live in the forest and the Anuak agro-pastoralist people who live in the Gambella region. 

            David seems to want to take me to lunch every Sunday and so next week we're going to Ali's Roti. He has this idea that every week we will travel a little further west along Queen and have lunch at a different place each time. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. I weighed 89.5 kilos when I got home. 

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

            I shut down and then started my computer to refresh it so it wouldn't be so slow in the evening.

            I imported Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" into my Movie Maker project of creating a video for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." I put the film at the end of the timeline and trimmed everything but the four minute scene just before Rosemary is raped by the Devil. I'll narrow it down more tomorrow since I probably don't need any more than ten seconds. 

            I worked on making the graffiti clearer on one of the bricks in my "Anti Gravity's Rainbow" photo. I still can't figure out what it says. 

            I made two pork patties, added olive oil, salt and pepper jelly and grilled them in the oven. I had one in a sandwich topped by ketchup, mustard, peri peri sauce and a pickle. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Gomer Pyle. 

            In the first story Gomer wins a trip for two to Las Vegas and invites Carter to come along. Carter thinks he's going to have it made gambling as he shows Gomer around. But Gomer has their stay all planned out and gambling in Vegas has not entered his mind. Carter invites his Vegas girlfriend Irene to join them, promising that they'll do the town soon but Gomer drags them to the Rock and Mineral museum, Hoover dam and a staged indigenous ceremony. Gomer has $20 left of his prize money and when he takes a nap Carter borrows it and heads for the crap tables. Gomer wakes up thinking he's been robbed. When he finds Carter he explains that he borrowed the money and turned it into $200. Gomer is glad to hear it because he'd planned on giving $10 to charity. So he takes the money, keeps $10 and gives the rest to the Red Cross. As they are getting ready to leave Gomer tries a slot machine and wins $40. He tells Carter he's giving it all to him to donate to the charity of his choice. 

            Irene was played by Joyce Jameson. 

            In the second story the base is ordered to be extra vigilant about behaving as Marines because an important group of journalists is coming to tour the facilities. But suddenly young Opie shows up in Gomer's barracks. He has run away from home to avoid his father's anger over his bad marks and now the twelve year old wants to join the Marines. Gomer, Duke and Frankie try to keep Opie hidden and keep trying and failing to sneak him off the base. Finally Opie is discovered by Carter and he has no choice but to help get Opie out of Camp Henderson. It is arranged for him to have a room at a motel and Andy is contacted to fly out and pick him up. But Opie would have to sleep by himself in the motel room and Gomer can't bring himself to leave him and so he takes him back to the base. Carter takes matters in his own hands and takes Opie back to the motel but he also can't leave him and brings him to his own duty hut to sleep in a bunk where he'll be safe, even though it is against regulations. The next morning the colonel brings the journalists to Carter's duty hut and Opie is discovered. Opie appeals to the colonel not to blame Gomer or Carter. He says he wanted to come out and join what Gomer has always said is the best platoon in the Marines. The journalists think this is a great story. Andy comes to get Opie and he looks very stern. Carter remembers being beaten by his own father and urges Andy not to be too tough. Andy leaves with his arm around Opie. I felt very tired at around 22:30 and so I went to bed much earlier than usual.