Murray Alper

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for the first two lines of the third verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian.

            In Christian’s Translations I finished preparing “L'amour de moi” by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation “My Love’s Garden” for publication on the blog. But I still need to prepare the 15th Century song “L'amour de moy” on which the Gainsbourg song is based to be published with it. I should finish posting it on Wednesday. 

            During song practice I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the final session of four. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in thirteen days. 

            I had planned on painting my kitchen counter doors and drawers today but I got caught up in reading the CBC article about Buffy Sainte Marie. They claim they have evidence that she lied but she sure as hell doesn’t look Italian and she looks a lot like a Cree girlfriend I had. I think that before the Scoop there was lots of private, church-sponsored scooping going on. Birth certificates have been faked and amended to make it look like the adoptive parents are the birth parents. 

            Although I didn’t get to painting I thought I would prepare for it by putting painter’s tape around the knobs. But that was too difficult and suddenly it dawned on me that I could just remove the knobs before painting, so I did that. 

            I looked into services that digitize cassette tapes but most charge about $20 for each tape, which is ridiculous. It probably costs them nothing. I found there are usb devices that can convert cassettes to mp3 and Best Buy has them but it seems only for ordering online. Walmart has them but I couldn’t tell if they were in the store or online. I rode to the computer place in the little plaza just west of Lansdowne but the guy didn’t have them. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I rode up to Walmart to look for the converter but they only sell them online. I rode to College and Spadina and went into Mod Computers but they didn’t have them either. Tomorrow I’ll call The PC Shop. I went to Popeyes to pee and then rode home, stopping at Freshco on the way. I bought four bags of grapes and a pack of Sponge Towels. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:20. 

            Even though I had my August 19 electric guitar performance of “Le temps des yoyos” made into a movie yesterday, I’d forgotten to check the audio balance before publishing it. Today I went back into Movie Maker and switched the balance so it’s entirely from the Audacity recording with nothing from the camera microphone. I published it again and uploaded it to YouTube. 

            Then I made a new Movie Maker project for my August 5, song practice and started working on synchronizing the audio and the video. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Megaphor” I continued to edit the clip from the movie Ziegfeld Girl to make part of it play in reverse. 

            I had a potato with gravy, two chicken wings and a spine while watching season 2, episodes 20 and 21. 

            In the first story Oliver takes Lisa with him to the farmers convention. There he runs into Wanda, a former burlesque dancer who knew him from his wilder days. Wanda just happens to be married to Charlie, a farmer who Lisa knew in New York when he was her mother’s bootlegger. Charlie served time on a prison farm and got a taste for farming. When he got out he bought a 100 acre farm but by using extortion techniques he gradually built it up to a few thousand acres. Oliver and Lisa wind up partying with Charlie and Wanda through the whole convention. Lisa and Charlie dance up a storm together. Oliver comes home with a hangover. Shortly after that Charlie and Wanda come to visit. Charlie feels so sorry for Oliver because of how small his farm is that he starts to give him a lot of expensive farm equipment like a new tractor and livestock. But then they hear on the news that everything they’ve gotten from Charlie has been recently stolen and they send it all back. Wanda was played by the always delightful Barbara Nichols. 

            Charlie’s chauffeur and henchman was played by Murray Alper, who worked on Broadway from 1927 to 1940. His first movie appearance was in The Royal Family of Broadway. He appeared in eight Bowery Boys comedies in the 1940s and 50s. He played a friendly cab driver in The Maltese Falcon and became typecast in that kind of role. He was cast to appear in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat but illness caused him to miss filming and so he was replaced by William Bendix. He appeared twice in Three Stooges films. 

            In the second story Ralph asks to borrow $18 for a computer matchmaking service. Oliver gives her the money but this leads to an argument between him and Lisa. She says that a computer can’t bring compatible people together but Oliver says it can. Oliver bets Lisa that if they both got computer profiles then the computer would match them. They go to the service and meet Mr. Blisswell the owner and his secretary Mrs. Blisswell who were matched by a computer. But the computer doesn’t match Oliver and Lisa and so when they get home Lisa won’t let Oliver into the bedroom. Later they make up but then a big guy arrives who says he’s Lisa’s match. Oliver throws him out but gets punched in the nose. Then Ralph arrives and says the computer found her a match. But the number of the profile is Oliver’s.