George Chandler

            On Sunday morning I memorized the fifth verse of "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian. I memorized the second and third verses of "Pour ce que tu n’étais pas" (For Someone You Were Not) by Serge Gainsbourg. That's half the song so I should have it nailed down in two or three days. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice as I will on Monday. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I finished scrubbing and scraping the glue from floorboards eight to eleven under the stove and started on the final four. It might take one more session to finish it. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before lunch, which is the most I've weighed at midday in a week. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade mixed with orange juice. 

            I took a bike ride downtown and back in the afternoon. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:00. 

            I spent half an hour chiseling slate to free up fossils. I have just one small piece of the second slab of slate and the third one left to break up. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:20. 

            I compared the two takes of my performance of "Megaphor" on the electric guitar on June 17 and I think the second take is better. I compared June 17 to June 20 and although June 20 looks better and is a better performance, some of the chords sound off. I compared June 17 to June 21 and on June 21 some of the chords are slightly dissonant. I compared June 17 to June 26 they both have flaws but I think that I'm hitting the chords a little more firmly on the 26th and it also looks a bit better in the light. I'm going to say that June 26 is now ahead in the competition. There are nine more sessions it has to be compared with. 

            I looked through my files for any video footage I have of Sleep in the Snow. On my computer I have no videos of the song, but it's part of a Riot Gallery concert on DVD. I had a hell of a time playing the DVD because it kept freezing but finally it worked. I could copy the concert from the DVD but since I already have the video on YouTube I'm pretty sure I have a copy of it on my external hard drive. I haven't accessed that since I bought the newer computer, but I should because I have a lot of files to back up in addition to retrieving that video. I'll try it on Monday. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a honey-garlic sausage and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 4, episodes 2 and 3 of Petticoat Junction. The first story introduces Steve Elliot, who will eventually marry Betty Joe. Steve crashes his crop dusting plane after seeing the Bradley sisters swimming in the water tower. They find him unconscious and take him to the hotel to recuperate. A new Doc Stuart comes to examine him and says he has no major injuries. He recovers fairly quickly but when he sees his beautiful nurses he decides to be sick for a little while longer. Meanwhile Joe examines the plane and thinks that it's equipped for aerial photography and that Steve is a Russian spy. He contacts the local air force base and a Major Corbett comes with two MPs. But it turns out that Corbett and Steve know each other from the air force. Steve tries to get Corbett to pretend he needs to be placed under surveillance at the Shady Rest but when Kate asks where she should send the bill the jig is up. Steve asks Kate if he can stay until he can pay her and she says he can.

            The new Doc Stuart was played by George Chandler, who started working professionally as a jazz violinist and performed on the vaudeville circuit as a comedian called George Chandler the Musical Nut. He co-starred with W.C. Fields in the 1933 comedy short The Fatal Glass of Beer. On television he played Uncle Petrie on 59 episodes of Lassie. He starred in the short-lived sitcom Ichabod and Me. He was the treasurer of the Screen Actors Guild before replacing Ronald Reagan as president.

            In the second story the guy from the finance company comes to get Steve's payment for the plane. Kate and the girls bandage Steve up to make his condition look extreme. He gives Steve thirty days and leaves but forgets his briefcase and when he comes back in the room Steve is partially out of the bandages. Steve needs money to fix his plane and so the Bradley family start asking around the community for donations. They raise a little but not much. But when they all go to church on Sunday and the congregation is singing "Come to the Church in the Wild Wood", Steve impresses everyone with his singing. The minister makes a donation for Steve's plane and so does everyone else. With Betty Joe's help Steve manages to fix his plane. Kate comes with a champagne bottle to christen the plane "The Spirit of Hooterville" but when she hits the propeller with the bottle she breaks the blade. Steve is not disappointed because he wants to stay. Kate reveals to Joe that she filled the champagne bottle with sand. It's fucked up that she deliberately destroyed a crucial part of his plane just to keep him there, especially since he probably would have stayed anyway.