Tuesday 10 January 2023

Sue Casey


            On Monday morning I blog published "I Took You for Other than a Traitor", which is my translation of "Entre autre, pas en traître" by Serge Gainsbourg. I started memorizing his song "OK pour plus jamais" (Okay for No More Always). 
            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. 
            I reviewed some more videos of me singing and playing "Joanna" by Serge Gainsbourg in French and my translation from June 23 to June 27 of last year. For the French versions, the one on June 23 was good but I wasn't smiling as much because it was the third take. The one I recorded on June 27 was pretty good. Of the English recordings, the one I did on June 26 was good. 
            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 
            I had an appointment for 16:00 at Parkdale Community Legal Services. The receptionist had a mask on and it was the most muffled I'd heard anyone speak through a mask since the pandemic began. She asked, "Mfmphmphmphm?" I told her I didn't understand. She repeated it futilely a few more times before finally pulling the mask away from her mouth just enough so I got, "Dphyouknowphthemnameofphthepherson?" I answered no. Then she asked my name and told me to take a seat. 
            I read another chapter of Jane Eyre while waiting before two pleasant student lawyers greeted me and led me to a boardroom. One asked me what I was reading and I explained it was for my course. She knew that a bildungsroman is a novel of development. 
            They said this would just be an intake meeting to take down my information. I guess they would have to relay the info to the actual lawyer that is there supervisor. Even my rent increase couldn't be assessed at this meeting. We talked for a good half hour about the year and seven month long bedbug situation that I've been living through and the difficulties I've been having with my landlord over that time. They said that it's especially good that I've been keeping a diary. I gave them two files on a USB drive. One is the email exchange between myself, my landlord, and James Forde the bylaw inspector; and the other is the Bedbug Timeline that I've extracted from my daily diary. They said that my idea of circulating a petition among my fellow tenants is a good one and they would put me in touch with community organizers to help me with that. They said they'd get back to me in a week. It was 16:45 when I left and although nothing was resolved I felt like people were on my side and I was in a better mood because of it. 
            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 17:00. 
            I checked the U of T student website and found that I got an A in my English in the World course. The Medieval Literature marks have yet to be posted. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:47. 
            In my Movie Maker project for my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I imported the video clip from "The Daughter of the Wolf" and put it at the end of the timeline. I edited out everything but the close-ups of the threat of the wolf attack. That's as far as I'll go with that until after the spring semester when I'll inject the clip into the video and continue creating the rest of the movie. 
            I scanned some more negatives. The coloured ones are from the late 90s and contain the image segments that I used for the collage that I created to be the cover of my Paranoiac Utopia book of poems. The black and white ones that I scanned are extremely damaged. I cleaned them as best as I could but any images there might have been on them are obscured by the damage. I scanned them anyway because some of the damage makes interesting abstract shapes. I've got three more of the black and white negs to scan and then I'll put the hundreds of other negatives on hold until April. 
            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching season 3, episodes 29 and 30 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 
            In the first story Jed is itching to make himself useful. Back home people used to come from all around to get Jed to sharpen or fix things for him. He puts together a fix-it wagon and decides that he'll go around the neighbourhood ringing a bell to let people know he's available to help them. The first place he goes is Mr. Drysdale's house. Drysdale doesn't want Jed to be lowering property values in the neighbourhood so he tries to keep him at his place by breaking his own furniture for him to fix.
            Drysdale goes to his rival Mr. Cushing's bank to get some papers signed and he notices that Cushing has a boat in a bottle. He says it took him three years to build it. Drysdale thinks that's a hobby Jed could take up and so he borrows the boat to show him. But the hobby makes no sense to Jed because one would have to get the boat out of the bottle to float it. He tries to sell Jed on stamp collecting by showing him a $50,000 Hawaiian stamp. But Jed says if he knew somebody in Hawaii he wouldn't spend that much money to send them a letter. He shows Jed a coin collection and a dime that's worth $12000. Jed asks if he put that dime in a candy machine would he get $12000 worth of candy?
            Meanwhile Jethro has removed Cushing's boat from the bottle and tried to float it in the pool but it sank. Jed feels obligated to take the boat back to Cushing to apologize. But Cushing is still trying to get Jed's millions in his bank and he's willing to do anything. He offers to make Jed a vice president in charge of farm loans although he gets no farmers looking for loans. He gives Jed an office and his own secretary. When Drysdale finds out about it he and Cushing start fighting over Jed so much he says he won't work for either of them. Jed turns their old truck into a fix-it wagon and the whole family starts driving around the neighbourhood to offer their help. 
            Cushing's secretary Roberta Graham was played by Sue Casey, whose first film part was that of an extra in "Holiday in Mexico". Although she didn't get any great parts at first her looks made her somewhat valuable for promotion of Samuel Goldwyn's studio at parties and other functions. She also worked as a photographer and an art model. After ten years in the movies she had barely spoken two lines. She played a sunbather in Hitchcock's "Rear Window". On television she appeared in over 200 commercials. After twenty years in the business she finally got a co-starring role in "The Beach Girls and the Monster", which became a cult classic but she didn't get paid for it until years later when the movie was sold to television. 
            The second story is somewhat of a continuation of the previous one. The Clampetts are extremely disappointed with their neighbours after driving the fix-it wagon around offering to help them. They've had hoses and dogs turned on them. Granny wants to go back home and so does Elly.
            Meanwhile an old bookkeeper named Leroy Lester, who's been working at Drysdale's bank for 45 years has been replaced by a machine. He's being offered no pension and he's still paying off the car he bought new in 1919 with the horrible loan rates offered by Drysdale's father. Drysdale tells Leroy he can come once a month to his house and straighten out his wife's chequebook. Leroy goes there but his car breaks down and Jethro pushes it over to the Clampett house. There he is fed and treated royally and offered to live with the Clampetts. Back at the bank the computer blows up. Jane shows Drysdale that Leroy hasn't made a mistake in 45 years and his books balance to the penny. Drysdale wants him back but Leroy says he's taking his first vacation in 45 years. Jed says he's solved Drysdale's bookkeeping problem by giving him Jethro to replace Leroy. But when Jethro starts showing off his adding skills he gets stuck at 16 plus 16. 
            For the second night in a row I found no bedbugs.

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