Thursday 18 May 2023

Guy Raymond


            On Wednesday morning I finished editing "Quoi" by Serge Gainsbourg in Christian's Translations. I just need to find a video to post with it and I'll publish it on the blog tomorrow. 
            The temperature dropped overnight and the heat was on full blast in the morning. I had to have all the windows open during song practice. 
            I weighed 84.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I've been in the morning in 18 days.
            At around 11:30 I went up the street to L'il Demon to pick up my electric guitar. I tried it out and it sounds good. It cost $245, which is more than I paid for the guitar 25 years ago but of course it would cost me a lot more now for a Kramer. I took it home and came back with my Martin to see if the action needed to be lowered. Gian said the action is actually too low on the high strings. he told me the guitar has not been set up properly. He tried to see if he could do it quickly but the pickup makes it more complicated. I would have to leave it with him for at least a week, which is what he said about the Kramer and it stretched out to three. He advised me to take it back to The 12th Fret since it's under warranty and they'll do it for free. I called them and they said it's possible but not guaranteed that they can set it up for me without me leaving it there, so I guess I'll ride out there tomorrow. 
            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 
            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 17:15 and that's the most I've weighed at that time in nine days. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:37. 
            I reviewed the videos of me singing "Baby Pop" and "Dance and Sing to Baby Pop" from June 14 to June 20. The spit screen was in my face on June 14 and 15 and there was traffic noise. The traffic noise was too much for all but June 19 and 20. Those were both pretty good. 
            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for the first four words of my line, "just in case you want to reduce the violence of these convulsions". After that it goes out of sync again and so I added another clip of a shock induced grand mal seizure until the end of the line when Brian Haddon sings "shock therapy". At that point I inserted another clip of Brian doing that but I'll fine tune the synchronization of that in the next session. 
            I seasoned three basa fillets with olive oil, salt, paprika, basil, lime, and garlic. I grilled them in the oven and had two with a beer while watching season 8, episodes 16 and 17 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 
            The first story is a continuation of the previous one. Jed has put up the money so Steve can get a new crop dusting plane. Howard Hewes is giving him an old hay barn for a hanger. Milburn Drysdale has learned about Jed's partnership with Hewes and he thinks that it's with Howard Hughes the billionaire. He's notifying the press about the deal and his involvement in it. He doesn't realize that Hewes Airport is just going to be a pasture for a crop dusting plane to land on and take off from. Drysdale dresses in jeans and a sweatshirt before leaving to meet the famously casual Howard Hughes. He is bringing along his three singing secretaries to sing a love song to Howard Hughes that Milburn wrote. Drysdale, Jane and the trio arrive in Hooterville. Even when Drysdale meets Howard Hewes he still thinks he's Howard Hughes because the reclusive mogul was extremely camera shy and not a lot of people recognized him. Drysdale fawns all over Howard and even cleans his muddy boots on his sweatshirt. He gives Howard champagne and makes him comfortable in the parlour of the Shady Rest. Meanwhile Howard's gruff, loud and jealous wife comes looking for him in the kitchen of the Shady Rest. Drysdale has the girls sit next to Howard and start singing the love song to him when Howard's wife walks in. Howard runs and his wife runs after him. She catches him and Steve assumes he will soon be the late Howard Hewes. Then Drysdale looks at Sam Drucker's newspaper headline about the Clampett-Hewes deal. Drysdale tells Sam that Howard Hughes the billionaire doesn't spell his name that way. Sam says maybe not but Howard Hewes the farmer does. Suddenly Drysdale realizes his mistake and wants to be shot. 
            In the second story Shad Heller the mayor and blacksmith of Silver Dollar City comes to visit the Clampetts. Granny tells him that they are being robbed every night and it's always food that goes missing. Jane seems attracted to Shad and was turned on when she was in Silver Dollar City and watching him work in his blacksmith shop. Jed asks Shad how Shorty is doing but Shad says Shorty never got home. Granny announces that the thief stole her goat cheese. Jed says they are looking for a desperate man. That night Jed and Shad catch Shorty raiding the Clampett icebox. Shorty explains that when he mistakenly proposed to Granny he was afraid she'd come after him in Silver Dollar City so he decided to hide in Beverly Hills. Jed tells him that Granny never saw his proposal and he just said that to scare some sense into him. Granny comes into the kitchen with a shotgun and Jed tells her that Shorty caught the thief. 
            The next day Jed tells Shad that Shorty was happiest when he ran the Silver Dollar Hotel, so he's got to get it back, Shad says it was bought by Elverna Bradshaw. There was a contest for the most beautiful business and Elverna won because he'd spruced up the hotel. Shad says the only way Shorty can get the hotel back is to marry Elverna. Jed shocks Shorty by telling him Elverna won a beauty contest. Jed and Shad keep working on Shorty and tell him how much Elly May looks like Elverna. Finally Shorty calls Elverna and proposes to her. Elverna flies to Beverly Hills so they can drive to Las Vegas to get married. Shorty picks Elverna up at the airport. When he gets her to the Clampett house he gives her a big kiss. She goes in the house while he starts fixing the car. Then the attractive bank secretary Gloria arrives to get Jed to sign some papers but when she sees Shorty she's suddenly interested in him again even though she and all the other secretaries rejected him when they found he wasn't rich. He says he's got something to tell her and she gives him a big hug. Suddenly he forgets what he had to say. She invites him for a drive in Miss Hathaway's convertible. Meanwhile Elly's chimpanzee has put on Shorty's hat and gone to sleep under a blanket in the back seat of Shorty's car. Elverna thinks it's Shorty and so she decides to start driving the car to Las Vegas while he gets his rest.
            Howard Hewes was played by Guy Raymond, whose first professional entertainment job was as a comic dancer at the age of 15. He danced for 14 years in the duo of Shea and Raymond. They were one of the top dance teams in the country and toured with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. He played the gangster Stinker in the original 1954 stage production of Mrs. McThing starring Helen Hayes. He reprised the role in a TV production in 1958. He played Cliff Murdock on the sitcom Tom, Dick, and Mary.

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