Gary Dubin

            On Tuesday morning I finished working out the chords for "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll start running through singing and playing it in French. Then I need to do some major revisions to my translation. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Five easy pisseuses” (Five Easy Pieces) by Serge Gainsbourg. I had less time today because I had to prepare for pest control but tomorrow I might have the song nailed down.

            I did an abbreviated song practice with my Martin acoustic guitar and did only one verse and one chorus of most of the songs. 

            I started cleaning my place a little before 8:00 and was finished around 9:30. I packed up my laundry, vacuumed the futons, flipped the living room futon frame on its end, and mopped the floors. Steve from Orkin came at around 10:00. Caesar wouldn’t let him in to his place. I have two wishes for Caesar. First that he move into a seniors home and live to be 120. But if he stays here I can’t help but hope that he dies very soon so we can be free of the bedbugs. David was home because he’s on sick leave. He apparently lost a kidney twenty years ago and now the other one is bothering him. We’re walking up to Little Italy for lunch on Saturday. Steve did my place last. He told me that all of the Toronto libraries are infested with bedbugs, especially around the computers. The administrators don’t want chemicals sprayed and insist on steam but one can’t steam around computers. I had time to eat some bananas and raspberries with skyr before Steve did my place. 

           I did my laundry at the laundromat and I went home afterward even though one is supposed to stay away for a few hours. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought four bags of grapes, a carton of spoon size shredded wheat, and some dental floss. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 17:45. 

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

            I reviewed my song practice e performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from August 8 to 9. On August 8 I played the electric guitar and the take at 10:45 wasn’t bad. On August 9 I played the acoustic and it was the best version so far. There was good light and I was expressive but the ending wasn’t great. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 3, episodes 18 and 19 of Green Acres. In the first story Eb finds a ten year old child sleeping in the barn. The kid keeps making up ridiculous names so Oliver can’t identify him and return him to his parents. Oliver goes to the sheriff to ask if a boy has been reported missing. The sheriff wants to put him in child correctional services until his parents can claim him but Oliver doesn’t like the idea of the boy being locked up and asks if he and Lisa can take care of him. Oliver is about to go to Sam’s to buy some clothes for the boy when Haney shows up and has on the back of his truck two child students from his Haney School of Modelling. One models a dress and the other a Little Lord Fauntleroy costume. Later when the sheriff comes to give Oliver an update the boy runs away. He ends up running into Arnold the pig who takes him home to Fred and Doris’s place. He tells them he’s Oliver’s son and explains that they’ve never seen him because he was sent to Westpoint at the age of four. Then when Oliver and Lisa come looking for him at the Ziffels’ he runs to Sam’s store where he says he’s Fred Ziffel Jr.. Then he gets picked up by Hank Kimball and tells him he’s Sam Drucker Jr.. They get stopped by the sheriff who asks the boy if his name is Gilbert Henshaw. He admits that it is and is told his parents are looking for him. Later more children are discovered in the barn because Gilbert has told his friends that the Douglas farm is the best destination for running away. 

            Gilbert was played by Gary Dubin, whose first acting job was for a potato chip commercial. He played Punky Lazaar on The Partridge Family. He voiced Toulouse in The Aristocats. He played a teenager eaten by a shark in Jaws 2. He did a lot of voice dubbing for Japanese animation. He grew up to become both an acting coach and a personal trainer. He worked out at the gym twice a day for 25 years. 

            In the second story Eb’s ten year old friend Dilly Watkins is an electronic genius who plans on revolutionizing the agricultural industry by having all farm chores run by the pushing of buttons. Lisa agrees to invest $28 in the business and Eb gives her a third interest. Oliver and Lisa go away for a week to a farm equipment exhibit and while they are away Eb has Dilly come to use Oliver’s farm as a model for electronification. When Oliver and Lisa return, Oliver sets off an alarm and nearly gets electrocuted by his doorknob. Oliver tries to call Dilly to have the alarm removed but the spikes have been removed from the pole so he can’t climb it and there are now “up” and “down” buttons that lower or raise the phone to ground level. It looks like a pretty good system but it malfunctions and goes up and down without a prompt. Then they discover that the inside of their TV set has been removed. Dilly has used the parts to make a barn door opener and a TV camera. The barn door now won’t open unless a cow moos. Eb uses a two way radio to call for Eleonor the cow and she comes to open the door. But then once Oliver is inside with Eleonor he can’t get out. He tries to get Eleonor to moo again while he is being watched on television by the Ziffels and by Sam Drucker. Then someone named Malone from the Federal Communications Commission comes with a warrant for Oliver’s arrest because he thinks he’s been running an illegal television station. Dilly’s system cut in on the local station in Pixley showing Oliver getting undressed. Malone takes the camera and Oliver avoids arrest but now the cow caller that Dilly designed is picking up Oliver explaining income tax evasion to Lisa and it is cutting in on local radio stations.