Ernest Truex

            On Sunday morning I blog published "Bamboo Kiss", my translation of "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg and listened once to his song "Charlotte Forever", which is another duet with his daughter, Charlotte.

            I did my third song practice in a row playing the Kramer electric guitar and video and audio recorded the session. I got through Megaphor on the first try but it didn't feel exactly right and so I did it again and it felt worse. I got through Sixteen Tons of Dogma in a couple of takes. I breezed through several songs and had not problem pronouncing the line "Il passe un nuit tranquille" that I had such difficulty with two days ago. It looked like I was going to break this year's record for the number of songs that would make it onto the memory card, but then when I sang "La jambe de bois" my mouth fumbled several times in a row on the line, "passe du coté des Cossacks". It's so weird because I've done it right hundreds of times and gotten it correct many times in recording, but this time I couldn't get past it, except for once but then fumbled another line. In the end the battery timed out before I could get through the song. I'll probably do it correctly with no problem next time and many times after. Anyway I'm pretty sure I've already got good takes of this song even if I don't get another before July 15. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went out and paid for my July phone service. There were three people ahead of me and of course the person in front was buying a phone, which takes a long time. There seems to be a ritual of the customer opening the box before taking it home. It's supposed to be an exciting experience.

            From there I went to No Frills where I bought five bags of grapes, a pack of raspberries, a watermelon, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, cinnamon-raisin bread, a bag of naan, two large containers of skyr, and a bag of kettle chips. 

            For lunch I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. It was raining a bit when I got up from my siesta but not hard enough to get wet on a short bike ride, so I rode as far as Bloor and Dovercourt and back. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 16:30. 

            I chiseled some more of my amethyst rock and broke it into two pieces each about the size of a tennis ball. I'll keep knocking them down until they arrive at satisfying shapes, though I don't know what those will be. One of the chunks I broke off of the big rock I started with looks like a piece of cake with purple crystal frosting. I chiseled my second finger once. The skin didn't break but it's a bit red just down from my guitar callous and it smarts a bit sort of like a mild burn.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:49. 

            I reviewed the video of my song practice this morning. Both takes of Megaphor sounded okay and so did Sixteen Tons of Dogma and the other songs in part A. But I spent the whole of part B fumbling the words to "La jambe de bois". 

            In Movie Maker I published my performance of "Laisse tomber les filles" and uploaded it to YouTube. Tomorrow I'll upload my translation, "Leave the Naïve Alone". 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar but while it was in the oven I realized that I'd forgotten to buy beer. I would have bought it on Saturday but I was thrown off by Canada Day. I had intended to go and get some after the supermarket today but it totally slipped my mind. I owe myself a beer on Monday. Instead I had the pizza with limeade and a splash of rum while watching season 2, episodes 16 and 17 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Billie Joe wins a competition at business school to get a job working as a secretary for romance author Oliver Fenton. He is renting a house in Hooterville to research his next novel. But Selma Plout has gotten his books banned from the Hooterville Library because it's racy. Selma lends her copy to Kate. The novel has people being taken into arms and kissed ardently. Because of the handsome picture of Fenton and because he wants Billie to work privately out of his home, Kate doesn't want to let her go. Finally she gives in and Billie finds out that Fenton is an elderly man with a hair piece. Billie gives highly exaggerated and romanticized reports of what goes on while she's working for Fenton. For instance, he asks her to work late and have dinner at his place and says that he always serves his women caviar and champagne. But he means the women in his novels. He also says he wishes he could take her to Paris but he means because she's such a good typist. When Kate hears about Paris, caviar and champagne she goes to Fenton's home to confront him. She realizes she overreacted and Fenton shares the ham sandwich with Kate that he was going to share with Billie. He learns about Kate's life and then writes a romance novel about a woman who runs a rural hotel. Kate throws it in the stove. 

            Fenton was played by Ernest Truex, who was the child of a physician and received early theatrical training from one of his father's patients in lieu of money for medical bills. He was an acting prodigy and his mother took him on tour as The Child Entertainer who recited Shakespeare. He first appeared on Broadway as a teenager in 1908. His first film was at the age of 14 in "Caprice" with Mary Pickford and then he co-starred with her again in "The Good Little Devil. He starred in "Artie the Millionaire Kid", "Come On In", "Goodbye Bill", and his last silent film, "Six Cylinder Love". In sound films he starred in "Get That Venus", "Whistling in the Dark", "Everybody Dance", "Mama Runs Wild", "Kick the Can", and in 1956 he starred in "The Benny Goodman Story". On television he was a regular on "Mister Peepers", "The Ann Sothern Show", "Jamie", and "December Bride". 

            In the second story the girls are frustrated by the fact that they are the only people in the valley without a telephone. Kate explains that it would cost them $800 to install a telephone because the main line runs along the county road which is three kilometers away. They would have to pay to have the wire run that distance from the road. So they have to depend on the Cannonball relaying messages back and forth from Sam Drucker's telephone in Hooterville. For instance when Billie Joe wants to send a message to Henry she sends a note with Charlie and Floyd and then Sam calls Henry and then writes down his response. It gets very complicated and finally Sam gives up. Joe buys a field telephone from the Army Navy Store in Pixley and plans to use it to start his own telephone company. He runs wire to the Cannonball track which connects to Ben Miller's barbed wire fence then back to the tracks, then to Fred Ziffle's barbed wire fence, then the tracks to Newt Kiley's barbed wire then back to the track to Hooterville Station. The Shady Rest, Ben, Fred, Newt and the station all have two field telephones each but calls have to be done by relay. The Shady Rest can only call Ben, Ben can only call the Shady Rest and Fred Ziffle. Fred Ziffle can only call Ben or Newt. Newt can only call Fred or Hooterville. Then receivers from each station have to be placed together for the Shady Rest to communicate directly to Hooterville. The girls are on the phone all the time and nobody in between is getting anything done. Finally the people in between rip out their lines. Kate decides to use the telegraph system that was in place when she was a girl.