Sunday 3 September 2023

Geoff Edwards


            On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for the eighth and ninth verses of "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian. There are just two left. 
            I worked out the chords for the intro and the first line and a half of "Le Couteau dans le play" (The Knife in the Play) by Serge Gainsbourg. 
            I audio and video recorded song practice while at first playing my Kramer electric guitar. I got through "Megaphor" after a couple of takes and then I heard that it was out of tune. I tuned it and somehow the high E string broke between the lock at the top of the neck and the machine. For that to happen I would have to have tried to tune it with the machine while it was locked but I don't recall having done that. I guess I might have done so absent mindedly but I don't know. It's not something I would normally do. Anyway I didn't have time to change the string and so I switched to the Japanese fake Gibson (I call it a Fibson) for the rest of the session. It was hard to find the chords because the neck is different. It took a long time to get through "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" and the only other song I completed before the camera timed out after that was "L'accordion". I'll have to change the string on the Kramer today because I don't like playing the Fibson as much. 
            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast. 
            Around midday I went down to No Frills where the grapes were all too soft, so I bought four expensive bags of Canadian cherries. I got a watermelon that was heavy and sounded perfect but a woman pointed out to me that it had a crack in it. That seemed at first to be true but when I looked closer I saw that it was only a shallow growth flaw and it didn't penetrate the skin. I bought some bananas, a pack of chicken drumsticks, a kilo of honey, a jug of orange juice, and two large containers of skyr. The always nice middle aged cashier Jessica remembered that I don't need bags and don't have a points card. I thanked her for noticing me. 
            I weighed 85.3 kilos before lunch. I had whole wheat crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade.
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It was raining lightly when I started out and was ready to turn around if it got heavier but it slackened off and it was actually partially sunny on the way home. 
            I weighed 85 kilos at 17:00. 
            I changed the high E string on my Kramer and hopefully won't have any problems with it for the next two weeks. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:17. 
            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. I use distortion when I play "Megaphor" and the amp is louder with the distortion turned up. It was louder than usual this morning and drowning out my voice on the camera microphone. I lowered the guitar volume earlier in the Audacity recording and so it brought my voice forward. I thought the final take of "Megaphor" was pretty good even though the guitar was out of tune. I broke the string while tuning and so everything else was played with the Fibson. "Le temps des yéyé" was okay but playing "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" was more of a struggle to get used to the other guitar. "L'accordion" wasn't too bad but the camera timed out before I was done.
            The Fibson is uncomfortable with the strap that I had custom made for the Kramer because the button near the neck is in a different position, which causes the strap to twist and so I get the edge of the strap cutting into my left nipple rather than the comfortable bottom. I think if I have to play it again I'll have a shoelace ready to tie between the strap and the top of the neck like I do with the acoustic. 
            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for my song "Sleep in the Snow" I synchronized the final bits of the concert video with the studio audio and I think I'm pretty much done. I'm going to make two videos. The one overdubbed with me playing the drums is the one I've been working on. But the audio without the drums is the same length so I'll just make two videos, one with and one without the drums to see which works the best for me and for people viewing the video online. 
            I scanned a few more of the loose single black and white negatives that I gathered from the bottom of a file folder in my photo drawer. They range from the mid-1980s to 1991. There were a couple more shots of me nude and aroused in an attempt to look sexy, some street shots, and a shot of my newborn daughter. There are three more singles, and three strips of two left. All of those are time consuming because I have to remove the easel from the scanner and place each frame by hand. When I get to strips of three or more I can just run the strips through the scanner and things will go more quickly. 
            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar while watching season 5, episodes 18 and 19 of Petticoat Junction. 
            In the first story Bobbie Joe is excited because she and a graduate student she likes named Jeff Powers have been given an assignment together by their journalism professor. If they can find a newspaper publisher who will allow it they can take over the paper for a week. Sam Drucker agrees to let them take over the Hooterville World Guardian for a week. Jeff is majoring in journalism and wants to be a hard hitting objective journalist. Bobbie Joe is serving as the field reporter. Jeff's first headline exposes the fact that two years ago County Supervisor Cooper promised in his election campaign that he'd build an irrigation dam in the Hooterville area, but it hasn't been built. Sam is doubtful about the headline because he doesn't want to ruffle any feathers but Kate thinks it's okay, so he goes along with it. Next Bobbie tells Jeff that Newt Kylie's barn burned down and the volunteer fire department didn't show up. Jeff wants Bobbie to find out why. Uncle Joe is the fire chief and she asks him. Joe didn't even know about the fire and said that their lookout Len Stacey was supposed to sound the alarm. Len says he did. It turns out that the Volunteer Fire department band was practicing in Sam's store at the time of the fire and didn't hear the alarm. Jeff's next headline is on the fire and the failure of the fire department. But when Jeff names Joe and the other members Bobbie gets upset. Then the members come to protest but Kate is on Jeff's side. While they are all shouting Kate points out that the alarm is ringing again. While the fire department is looking for the fire around town they miss the fact that it is across the tracks from Sam's store. Grandpa Miller puts out the fire before they get there. Sam gets a call from the county supervisor telling him that the Hooterville irrigation dam is going to be built now because of Jeff's headline. 
            Jeff was played by Geoff Edwards, who started as a radio news reporter in the 1960s. He was sent to Dallas when news of the Kennedy assassination broke and he became a witness to Jack Ruby's killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. He became the host of both the Canadian and US versions of The New Treasure Hunt game show from 1973 to 1977. In 1983 he became the host of the video arcade game show Starcade. He hosted The Big Spin from 1985 to 1995. He hosted a total of ten game shows throughout his career. He hosted a travel website and wrote the book Going All the Way: the Good Bad and the Weird of a World Cruise. He was a regular on The Bobby Darin Show. 



            In the second story, wealthy landowner J.P. Marshal comes to stay at the Shady Rest. He owns most of the farmland in the valley and he's there to find someone to dust his crops. Joe tells him that Steve is a crop duster and for the next few days Marshal will consider whether to make up a contract with Steve and Joe's business. Meanwhile Marshal's breathtakingly voluptuous daughter Millicent comes to stay at the hotel as well. As soon as she sees Steve she latches onto him and always wants him to fly her someplace. Steve goes along so as not to lose the contract but Betty Joe is jealous and finally decides to leave little reminders of their marriage all over his plan. He gets the message and tells Marshal it's off. Marshal says it isn't off because as Steve has proved that he's not an apple polisher he is just the crop duster he needs. This was the first episode of the show in which Bea Benaderet did not appear. She was being treated for lung cancer.

No comments:

Post a Comment