Henry Corden

            On Wednesday morning I finished working out the chords to "Kiss Me Hardy" by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through playing and singing the song in French and English and then I uploaded it to Christian's Translations to prepare it for publication on the blog. I should have that finished tomorrow and then I'll start learning his song "No Comment". 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            The guys the landlord hired to paint the hallways started today. I asked the head guy if he was going to paint my door and he said he was. I told him I'm hoping he won't paint over my "Om" symbol that I made out of the number 3 on my door. He wasn't sure if he could avoid it but finally said he'd try to go around it. I'm not entirely convinced since I see they've spattered paint all over the place. I guess if I have to I'll do it over. 

            I worked a bit on my essay. I need another secondary source for my research and so I downloaded Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman. It's not very scholarly and it's also very personal about being ugly and fat. So far the only paraphrase I have from it is, "Those who fail at female beauty are less than human". 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I've been at that time in nine days. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Bathurst. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:07. 

            I spend almost two hours researching for my essay. I skimmed all of Women and Other Monsters but there was nothing worth using. It's mostly self indulgence with a lot of stuff about the male gaze. I looked at a couple other essays but they didn't really say anything I haven't said. Some wrote about Foucault writing about monsters but I couldn't find the original essay or even its title. I'll look again tomorrow. 

            I had the usual avocadoes, tomatoes, cucumber, scallion and lime juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail at the end of the thirteenth day of my fast. Tomorrow is the final day. I ate while watching season 6, episode 6 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            The Clampetts are getting ready to drive back to Tennessee for the fall festival at Silver Dollar City, but before they can leave, Jethro gets a draft notice. Jed stays behind and sends Granny and Elly back home by plane. Jed has heard how much it costs to train a soldier and so he takes out $50,000 to pay the military for Jethro's room and board. Jethro hasn't decided which branch of the military he'll join and so he gets a bunch of uniforms from the movie studio. One of them is a Prussian field marshal's uniform from WWI and the other is an imitation of General Patton's combat uniform from WWII. Jethro decides to try out Patton's branch of the military but needs a tank to practice with so Jed takes out another $50.000 to buy one. Jethro gets a tank and enlists Drysdale to be his crew. He makes him wear the Prussian uniform and they head for Griffith Park. 

            Jed gets a call from his cousin Pearl from back home. It's the first time we've seen Pear for a few seasons since at this time the actor Bea Benaderet who plays her has her own show called Petticoat Junction. 

            In Griffith Park Jethro fires the big tank gun a few times and the park ranger calls the police. One of the cops is the same as the one who tried to arrest Drysdale last episode. The other's name is Charlie. They find Drysdale alone in the tank and Charlie recognizes him from WWII when Drysdale was a sergeant in the Quartermaster Corps and leant money with a daily interest of 40%. His fight with Drysdale at that time inadvertently caused Charlie to be shipped behind enemy lines in Germany. Drysdale is arrested and Jed has to come and pay his bail and the amount Charlie lost from Drysdale in the war. 

            Charlie was played by Henry Corden, who was born in Montreal but his family moved to New York when he was a child. His first movie role was a supporting part in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He played Jeannie's father on I Dream of Jeannie and Mr. Babbitt the landlord on The Monkees. He started doing the voice of Fred Flintstone sometimes while Alan Reed was still voicing the character when Fred had to sing, which Reed couldn't do. He took over Flintstone's voice when Reed died and continued for 25 years until just before his own death. He was good friends with Buster Keaton. 

            For the nineteenth night in a row I found no bedbugs.