Jack Riley

            On Sunday after midnight I did my usual check for bedbugs and found none. That makes ten days since I saw the last one. 

            It's hard to pinpoint any progress in mobility for my sprained right arm. Maybe I was able to put a little more weight on it and extend it upward a few more times against the resistance of a rubber band.

            I worked out the chords for the second verse and chorus of "U.S.S.R. / U.S.A." by Serge Gainsbourg and part of the instrumental. 

            Around midday I worked some more on scraping the grease from my fryer basket. It'll take another two sessions to finish it, which means maybe next Sunday. I'll never really get all the grease off unless I unravel all the wires, clean them and then twist them back together but I'm not going to do that.

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before lunch.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. I'd had my windows closed all day and thought that I was going to need my jacket but when I went out on the deck I found it was warmer outside than it looked. I wore an open long sleeved shirt and I was fine. I weighed 89.6 kilos when I got home. 

            I wrote my email assignment to send to Professor Lopez before Shakespeare class tomorrow morning: 

            Carrying on with your theme of things not adding up, the ways in which the two Antipholi are different does not fit with the nature of twins. When identical twins are drastically unalike it tends to be the result of the circumstance of being raised apart. Being a father of twins Shakespeare would have known how similar in personality twins are. Individuals are more likely to be the opposite of themselves than twins are to be the opposite of one another. If Antipholus of Syracuse is by nature a wanderer then Antipholus of Ephesus would be as well. Among the many things Shakespeare is doing in this play it seems that he is showing how circumstances transform people and he is applying this to class. Outside of circumstances Antipholus of Syracuse is close to being the same person as Antipholus of Ephesus and Shakespeare is using this to say that the ways in which society determines station do not add up. 

            I finished my second reading of The Comedy of Errors. The professor had suggested a tension between the two Antipholi when they finally meet but I notice that Antipholus of Syracuse tells Dromio of Syracuse to rejoice over finding his twin. That must mean that rejoicing is on Antipholus of Syracuse's mind as well. 

            I finished a second reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self Reliance." He makes an odd statement in the beginning: " ... tomorrow a stranger will say with masterful good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." It seems like he's saying it's a race and so express your ideas before anyone else. 

            I also re-read the first four pages of Henry David Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government." 

            I made pizza on naan with Napolese sauce and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story Gomer comes to the Bluebird Cafe and reveals to Sergeant Carter and Bunny that whenever he has the same dream three times it comes true. He says he dreamed thrice that Sergeant Carter would get his uniform messed up right there at the cafe. Then Gomer stands up and accidentally spills chili all over Carter's uniform. Next Gomer comes to Bunny and Carter in a supermarket and tells her that he dreamed three times that Bunny is going to have a night on the town with Sergeant Carter. At the checkout Bunny is greeted as the millionth customer and in addition to $100 worth of groceries she will be given a night on the town. Gomer then reveals that he's dreamed twice that Sergeant Carter will propose to Bunny and all he has to do is dream it a third time and it will come true. Carter desperately tries to keep Gomer from dreaming by making him stay awake with special details. But Carter ends up having a dream about marrying Bunny. He decides that he might as well get it over with and propose. But when he does so he is so defeated about it that Bunny turns him down. She says she wants him to propose when the idea makes him happy. Gomer comes and tells them he had the dream a third time. Carter says his dream didn't come true but Gomer says it did because all he dreamed was the proposal and not the answer. 

            The clerk at the supermarket checkout was played by Dee Carroll, who appeared in The Stunt Man. She played the housekeeper Adele Winston Hamilton on Days of Our Lives. 

            During this fourth season Duke, Gomer's usual companion is not the there because Ronnie Schelle had his own sitcom that year. He'll return as a corporal in the final season of Gomer Pyle USMC. 

            At the very beginning of this episode Gomer is sitting with a fellow Marine named Larry. Larry was played by Jack Riley, who started out as a baseball player. He became a radio personality in Cleveland and then went out west to work as a writer for his friend Tim Conway's TV guest appearances. He became a regular on the sitcom "Occasional Wife." He became both a writer and performer for "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In." He played Elliot Carlin on "The Bob Newhart Show." He had a recurring role on "Son of the Beach." He was the voice of Stu Pickles on "Rugrats."