Paul Newlan

            On Monday morning I searched for the chords for "Dernière valse" (Final Waltz) by Boris Vian and immediately found a set at Boite a chanson (Sound Box). I started transcribing them and I'll continue tomorrow. 

            I memorized the chorus of "Quoi" by Serge Gainsbourg and worked on revising my translation. There are only a couple more lines to learn because the rest of the song is mostly repetition of the first verse and the chorus. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the part of the eastern wall of my bathroom between the levels of the upper shelves and the lower shelf. The lower shelf was pretty dirty. For the next level down I'll need to turn off the power for the bathroom so I can clean the electrical outlet. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took my first bike ride downtown since last Thursday. Before last Thursday it had rained every day since the Friday before that. Last Friday I had the flat tire, which I couldn't fix until Saturday and then on Sunday it rained again. This has been a sparse spring for bike riding. On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought seven bags of green grapes, a bottle of mouth wash, and a pack of Sponge Towels. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:12. 

            I reviewed my recordings of "Post Colonial Breakdown" and "Mamadou" from June 28 to July 4 of last year. I certainly was playing the songs better into July but always ending on the A chord. Sometimes the A almost sounds right. But I think ending on a chord at all rather than a note is the problem. I play lead until the last two chords which are G and A and that's what makes it sound wrong. The A sounds good after the G but the G and the A don't sound right after the picking. On July 4 I ended "Post Colonial Breakdown" on the C7 chord this time and that sounds better but traffic was extremely noisy. 

            In the Movie Maker project of making a video for my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I edited clips from the 1931 movie Dracula that show the three wives of Dracula walking, and inserted them into the main video to correspond with my line, "for the rest of their life they will be walking slow...". For the end of the line "...from shock therapy" I immediately jump back into the 1940s clip of the shock patient having a grand mal seizure. There is just one verse left and the finale, so next I have to see at what point I can again synchronize the concert footage with the studio audio when I start singing the line, "For details on injections of amytol and other drugs just in cast you want to reduce the violence of these convulsions...". I'll start figuring that out tomorrow. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 7, episodes 24 and 25 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Jethro has taken up yoga with the motive of becoming a guru because girls are crazy about them. We see him trying to stand on his head. Meanwhile Margaret Drysdale's guru is teaching her meditation while he sneaks a glass of brandy from her bar. He gets her to spend $3000 for a pilgrimage to India. Jethro tries to come see him but she cuts him off. But when the guru finds out the Clampetts have $80 million he goes over there. He tells Jethro he can give him a guruing license for $5000. Granny decides to use her moonshine on the guru as a truth serum. But after a shot he sees Granny as the great mother. Granny goes along with becoming the guru's guru. She calls Milburn Drysdale to tell him to draw out the funds for her trip to India. Drysdale sends the police to arrest the guru but the cop arrests Granny instead. 

            At the beginning of the second story Granny hears through the hedge Margaret Drysdale talking about beating Milburn Drysdale and she thinks Milburn is a victim of domestic violence. The truth is that they are jogging because they want to join the Beverly Hills Jogging Club. She wants to join because it will improve her social station. Milburn wants to join so he can get the rich members of the club to open accounts in his bank. Meanwhile Elly May and Jethro have also taken up jogging, but for them it's easy. They just ran the 24 kilometers to the airport and back. The Beverly Hills Jogging Club requires a doctor's certificate from all new members. Granny tests Drysdale and it's discovered that his blood pressure shoots up every time he's near money, but she passes him anyway. Drysdale goes jogging with Jason Detweiler, the head of the club but Jason pushes Drysdale back in a shopping cart. He tells Granny she's a quack for passing Drysdale. She challenges him to a race and ends up pushing Jason back in a shopping cart. Meanwhile when Elly May is out jogging in her short shorts she passes the Beverly Hills jogging club and they follow her home. Drysdale says he's part of Elly's club and they can join too but they have to also join his bank. 

            Jason Detweiler was played by Paul Newlan, who started out in Vaudeville. He played Captain Grey on the TV series M Squad, Big Harpe on Davy Crockett, and General Prichard on Twelve O'clock High. He had supporting roles in many films, and guest appearances on several TV series.