Elon Packard

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the intro and the first line and a half of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian. 

            I continued to search for the chords for “L'amour de moi” (The Love of My Life) by Serge Gainsbourg and for the 15th Century song “L’amour de moy” from which he lifted the melody. But the only chords posted were the ones I found yesterday for “L’amour de moy” as sung by Nana Mouskouri. I started working them out and I hear entirely different chords than those posted. I finished the first line.

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first day of two.

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            At 13:00 I met Brian Haddon in front of my place and we walked over to Mezzrows for lunch. But when we got there we learned that their kitchen doesn’t open until 15:00. So we walked west and when we got to Roncesvalles we decided to walk north. We walked almost to Howard Park before we found something interesting. We went into an Argentinian-Venezuelan restaurant called Bacan. Brian had the cachapa con queso (a folded corn pancake with cheese) and I had a steak with a fried egg on top and yuca fries. I wouldn’t have been able to tell that the yuca fries weren’t french fries if they hadn’t told me. We shared a pitcher of Great Lakes Lager because their Creemore tap wasn’t set up. Our waiter looked about sixteen but that may have been just appearance. I picked up the bill, which was almost $100. We were there for a couple of hours and might get together again at the end of November in his neighbourhood when I go up there to get a haircut. But he says there’s nothing good at Yonge and St. Clair anymore. I walked Brian to the Dundas West subway station and then walked home. 

            It was almost 17:00 when I got home and I still needed to go to the supermarket and so I rode to Freshco. The grapes were too soft again and so I got two bags of oranges. I also bought a pack of strawberries, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, three bags of milk, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, a jug of limeade, Full City Dark coffee, and some deodorant. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 18:00. 

            I had planned on just skipping my daily siesta because it was so late but I was exhausted and so I took a nap from 18:10 to 19:40. That meant I didn’t get to work on any projects today but if I had I would have been useless anyway. I’ll get back into the grind tomorrow. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching season 2, episodes 10 and 11 of Green Acres. In the first story Oliver is invited to join the Hooterville Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Haney tries to sell him a Hooterville Chamber of Commerce belt buckle, tie clip and the Chamber nail file. Oliver refuses but it turns out that he’s not even allowed to speak or vote at the meetings without those items. The chamber votes to bring in money by having a Hollywood movie come to town. Oliver tells them it’s absurd but his comment doesn’t count. Later Oliver is complaining to Lisa about how nothing grows on his farm even though he has followed all of the directions on the pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture. He decides to write another angry letter to Washington. Then a Mr. Gibson of the department brings the letter to James Stewart of the same department. Stewart for a long time has been thinking of making a documentary about the hazards faced by city people who take up farming and fail due to inexperience. He thinks Oliver Douglas would be a good subject. But when James Stewart calls up Sam’s store talking about making a movie, Sam, Fred and Doris Ziffel, and Newt Kylie all think it’s the film star Jimmie Stewart coming to make a Hollywood movie. They are very disappointed when Stewart arrives. Stewart points out to Oliver a lot of his farming mistakes, such as that he shouldn’t have planted corn if corn had been planted there the year before. Also that he shouldn’t have planted his soybeans until six weeks after liming the soil. Back in Washington the movie taken of Oliver’s farm is so ridiculous that Stewart burns it. 

            In the second story Oliver is so frustrated with Ralph and Alf having worked on his bedroom for nine months without getting anything done that he fires them. Then he hires an architect from Pixley to design a new home for him. Contract workers are hired but they refuse to cross Ralph and Alf’s picket line. Finally Oliver agrees to rehire Ralph and Alf and give them raises. But then the workers refuse again because Mr. Haney has an injunction to stop renovations. He says that the old house is a historical landmark built by the founder of that great (unnamed) state, who is also Haney’s ancestor. So now they can’t fix up the place at all. Also during this episode Lisa demonstrates that she can get Eleonor the cow to milk herself. She just puts a cup under her udder and asks for a cup. She turns it on like a tap at will. She also asks for butter but we don’t find out if Eleonor can actually make that as well. This episode was co-written by Elon Packard, who also co-wrote the George Burns One Man Show, 33 episodes of Wendy and Me, and the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show. He wrote one episode of Good Times, one of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, one of The Red Skelton Show, four of The Phyllis Diller Show, one of The Wild Wild West, one of My Three Sons, two of The Joey Bishop Show, two of The Real McCoys, one of Leave it to Beaver, and seven of The George Gobel Show.