Alice Cooper

            On Tuesday morning I was one word short of memorizing the ninth verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing “Le moi et le je” (The Me and the I) by Serge Gainsbourg and searched for the chords. At the top of the first page was a set on Ultimate Guitar and so I transcribed those. I’ll search for more on Wednesday. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second session of two. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I did my laundry. The friendly attendant was walking with a bag of french fry-sized spring rolls and offered me one. Then she offered me two more. They were tasty. I asked if they were Tibetan but she said that came from a Filipino place nearby. When I came back someone had opened the door on my dryer with thirteen minutes to go. 

            I’ve been listening to the Alice Cooper discography. The original Alice Cooper band on their 1974 tour was the best rock and roll show I ever saw. The bass player Dennis Dunaway practically jumped over Alice’s head while he was leaping around the stage. The first Alice Cooper record I had was Love it to Death when I was eighteen and it featured the song Eighteen. That and Billion Dollar Babies are my two favourites. I sing and play I Love the Dead every morning and I’ve even written a French version. I wasn’t familiar with their first two albums Pretties for You and Easy Action. They really lean heavily on a combination of Sergeant Pepper and San Francisco psychedelic styles. They could barely play their instruments on their first album in 1969 but curiously a couple of live recordings from the same year show an entirely different, more interesting and experimental sound with a touch of Frank Zappa’s style thrown in. Killer is a good album while School’s Out is only really memorable for that one song. The first girl I ever lived with was what we used to call an “Alice Cooper Chick”. They had feathered hair, heavy makeup, black lipstick and nail polish and high boots with platform soles. The guys had similar hair, platform boots, satin pants and often carried stylized canes. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before lunch at 13:37, which is the lightest I’ve been in the middle of the day in eleven days. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back a little later than usual and got back just before 17:30. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:41. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Time of the Yo-Yo” and “Le temps des yé-yé” from September 11 to 15. I played “Time of the Yo-Yo” on September 11. 13, and 15. On September 11 and 13 I played it with my acoustic guitar. On September 11 the take at 5:15 was okay but there was some traffic noise. On September 13 the take at 10:00 was okay but it didn’t look great. On September 15 I played it with the electric but it wasn’t great and neither was the lighting. I played “Le temps des yé-yé” on September 12 and 13. On September 12 the acoustic take had bad light and a lot of traffic noise. On September 14 I think the electric guitar was out of tune. 

            I compared my August 6 and 10 acoustic performances of “Time of the Yo-Yo” and August 6 was definitely better, although both had traffic noise. There are four more acoustic takes of my translation to compare. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Megaphor” I finished editing out all but the scenes of Gloria Swanson tied to the train track in the 1917 silent film Teddy at the Throttle. Now I have nothing but train track bondage for both the 1913 silent film Race for a Life and Teddy at the Throttle. There’s a total of about two and a half minutes and I only need a few seconds, so I need to cut out a lot more from both. 

            I scanned an uncut strip of colour negatives from the late 80s that are mostly nude photos of my ex-girlfriend Brenda. I cut them into strips of five, put them in an envelope, labelled and then filed them. I couldn’t clean another strip tonight because I need the kitchen table for that and it was covered with laundry. I finished putting the laundry away. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two pork ribs while watching season 1, episodes 24 and 25 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Sam Drucker is going on vacation for two weeks and needs someone to be a deputy while he’s gone. Fred and Newt say they are too busy and while Oliver is telling them they should be ashamed of themselves for not being proud to serve, Sam deputizes the reluctant Oliver. He gives him his badge, an empty gun, handcuffs and the keys. On the way home he stops Mr. Haney and tries to give him a ticket for not having a license plate. But while he’s doing so a patrol officer stops who happens to be Haney’s nephew. Haney says his license plate was stolen and so the officer tears up the ticket. Then he gives Oliver a ticket for having New York plates when he’s lived in this state for more than six months. It is never mentioned what state Hooterville is supposed to be in but we know there’s no snow in the winter. The rest of the episode leans on the tired old comedy trope of handcuffs without a key. He puts them on Lisa and then discovers he’s lost the key. After he drags Lisa all over the place trying to find the keys, she uncuffs herself with a hair pin, then cuffs Oliver to the kitchen table and goes to bed. 

            In the second story the dilapidated electrical generator that Oliver bought from Haney has now sputtered and died. Oliver applied for electrical service from the power company six months before. He discovers that Sam forgot to mail the letter. Oliver goes to deliver it himself. At the power company’s office the waiting room is empty but the clerk insists that Oliver take a number. Oliver gets a meter installed but discovers that it’s running without power so it is returned. Meanwhile a line is extended to Oliver’s house but the lineman says he can’t connect it without a meter. He returns to the office and is told that the meter has been sent to Japan to be repaired and it will take six months. Meanwhile the clerk gives Oliver an alternative solution. A pole with a plug at the top is installed outside the house but when Oliver climbs it to plug in the extension cord it causes the 1965 blackout throughout eastern North America.