April 29, 1994: My daughter and I probably went to the park

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I was six months behind on this diary. My daughter and I probably went to the park and the playground. I don’t know if the members of Christian and the Lions: Steve Lowe, Tom Smarda, Mike Martin, and Arjan came over to rehearse for our May 11 feature at Fat Albert’s.

Ron Randell

            On Saturday morning I almost finished editing “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog and I should have it published tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            My upstairs neighbour David came by to show me a Pentax camera because I’d told him I was looking for a camera. But he didn’t know about the video capabilities or the quality of the microphone. He wanted to give it to me but I have enough cameras for shooting pictures alone. I want something I can use for both pictures and videos that are of a higher quality than the Nikon Coolpix that Nick Cushing gave me. I find sometimes the videos seem out of focus on the one I’ve been using. 

            I discovered that the big beautiful cast iron casserole pan that I found yesterday is too big for my oven. I’ll hold onto it though in case I get a bigger stove down the road. The one I have doesn’t always work properly. 

            Around midday I went to Vina Pharmacy and picked up my Betaderm prescription. Then I went to No Frills where the red grapes were on sale. I bought seven bags. I also got two packs of raspberries, some bananas, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, cinnamon-raisin bread, two packs of naan, mouthwash, Basilica sauce, a jug of orange juice, and a container of skyr. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at midday since April 14. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade.

            In the afternoon I took the tonga drum that I gave my daughter when she was two along with me on my bike ride just in case the African drum shop would be open on the way home. After riding to Yonge and Bloor and went down to College and then west to The Urbane Cyclist where I asked about trailers for my bike. This was the sixth place I’d tried and the only place that has trailers in stock. They had two kinds at the same price of $400: the solid flat kind and a folding model called a Burley Travoy that works better for me. It can also double as a hand truck and I could probably strap a shopping basket to it and so it’s very convenient. I bought it and it cost about $450 after tax. I didn’t really notice it while driving and was worrying that I’d lost it except when I was going past some construction cones and could feel the trailer wheels hitting them. 

            I stopped at the African Drum shop and finally found it open. Sékou explained that he was away at the end of last summer and that’s why I kept finding it closed. He said he’ll repair my drum for $50. I’ll pick it up next week. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:45. 

            I was going to work on making a video for my August 29 song practice electric performance of “Joanna” but contrary to what I thought, that date is not synchronized on Movie Maker. Since I’ve already got an acoustic version on YouTube and since I don’t think that song sounds as good on the electric, I decided to work on the electric take of “Joanna Dancing” from September 3, which is already in Movie Maker. I made a project called “Joanna Dancing (Electric) and eliminated part A of that day’s song practice, then I worked on synchronizing the audio and video. I’ll continue that tomorrow. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 23 and 24 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha’s neighbourhood desperately needs a traffic light on its busiest corner. The community organizes and has a rally at the school, inviting the mayor. But the mayor says the city’s policy is to only install traffic lights where there are a significant number of accidents. As the meeting ends, Samantha arranges for Endora to zap the mayor’s limousine so it won’t start. Samantha comes along and fixes it, then asks for a ride. The limo gets stuck in traffic and that same corner that is under discussion and he realizes that it needs a traffic light. 

            In the second story Samantha takes Endora to show her the mortal sport of bargain hunting. But then Samantha is challenged by the fact that she has to do the marketing while she is at the same time scheduled for a dress fitting. Endora offers her help by changing her own form to that of Samantha and goes for the dress fitting in her place. On the way there she meets an author named Bob Frazer who is in the store signing his book on Helen of Troy. When he sees Samantha he puts on the charm and Endora responds positively. They end up going out together four nights in a row with Endora still taking her daughter’s form. Then one day when Samantha is in the store Bob comes up behind her and nibbles on her ear. She slaps his face. Then she realizes that her mother has been seeing this man while looking like her. When she talks with Endora about it and her mother tells her his name is Bob Frazer she realizes that Bob is Darrin’s old friend and he’s coming over for dinner. Endora keeps her lunch date with Bob as Samantha and tells him Darrin is her husband. But he asks her to tell him she loves Darrin but she is unconvincing when she tries. Bob comes over to Darrin and Samantha’s place and tells Darrin that he’s fallen in love with the woman he’s been seeing and it’s Samantha. Darrin and Samantha talk alone and she explains what happened. Then Endora shows up, still in Samantha’s shape and Bob is told that Samantha has an identical twin. Endora has promised Samantha that she will break up with Bob. This episode really showcased Elizabeth Montgomery’s acting talents. She imitates Endora’s vocalizations and body mannerisms wonderfully. 

            Bob was played by Ron Randell, who started out acting as a teen on the radio for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He made his stage debut in 1937 and worked with the same company for several years while also acting in war propaganda films. He starred in the Australian movie Southern Cross. He was a fighter pilot during WWII for the Australian air force and shot down five Japanese planes. He moved to Hollywood and co-starred in It Had to Be You. He starred in Bulldog Drummond at Bay, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, The Lone Wolf and His Lady, The Shark God, and Most Dangerous Man Alive. He co-starred in Make Believe Ballroom, Tyrant of the Sea, Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard, China Corsair, The Mating of Millie, The Sign of the Ram, Captive Women, Desert Sands, Frontier Scout, Bermuda Affair, It’s a Great Life, and Savage Pampas. He starred in the British TV series O.S.S.

April 28, 1994: Tom Smarda and I had a good rehearsal

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday Tom Smarda came over and we rehearsed one really good set of my songs in preparation for our May 11 feature at Fat Albert’s. My daughter and I just hung out all day and she didn’t go to sleep until after midnight.

Greta Chi

            On Friday morning I memorized the thirteenth verse of “Les frères” by Boris Vian. There are two verses left to nail down. 

            I finished working out the chords for “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it in French. Tomorrow I’ll run through it in English and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog. 

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

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I threw out six pairs of holey underwear and six pairs of worn out socks. 

            At 13:00 I met my upstairs neighbour David downstairs and he took me to lunch at the Rhino. I had the fish and chips and a pint of Creemore. He ordered a chicken sandwich and a Labatt Blue. He hardly ate the sandwich because he had pizza at 11:00. Then he rushed me to finish my beer because he had an appointment. What is the point of going for lunch if one can’t relax? Next time he invites me I will make sure he has nothing else planned before I agree to meet him. It’s no fun being told to hurry up and finish my beer. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and found some cookery on the lawn of a house on Brock between the railroad bridge and Dundas. There was a cast iron casserole by Lodge twice as big as the aluminium one I’ve been using for years; a cast iron camp oven; and a little rectangular cast iron Dutch oven by Paderno about the size of a block of butter. It’s amazing how much stuff I find while cycling and more often than not I find stuff within a few blocks of home. I took them all home and then went back out for my bike ride. 

            I stopped at The Bike Depot to ask about bike trailers but they don’t have them. I went down the street to Sweet Pete’s and they didn’t have them either but suggested I try The Urbane Cyclist, which is now on College. I’ll check it out on Saturday. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:45, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since April 15. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. 

            I uploaded my September 11 song practice performance of “Joanna Dancing” to YouTube. Tomorrow I’ll start making a video of my August 29 electric performance of “Joanna”. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my song “Angeline” I made a five second clip of the dance scene from Mata Hari starring Greta Garbo and inserted it into the main video between the lines “I’d been looking hard and long” and “But my machinery felt a surge of power that night I listened to your song”. It wasn’t hard to re-synchronize the video with the audio for that last line. After that though, in the concert video I sing “Ahhhh” again while I don’t in the studio audio so I have to cut that part out and replace it with another short Garbo clip. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two porkchops while watching season 1, episodes 21 and 22 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha finds a Siamese cat in her back yard and makes friends with it. This is the same Siamese cat that Darrin brought home in episode 18 but it’s being treated like that never happened. Meanwhile Darrin is looking for an exotic girl to represent the Jewel of the East campaign but although he’s interviewed several women, none of them fit. The deadline is closing fast for them to find someone or they lose the contract. Samantha decides to help by turning the Siamese cat into a human and she is gorgeous. She shows up at the McMann and Tate office and introduces herself as Ling Ling. Darrin, Larry, and Wally the photographer know right away that Ling Ling is perfect for the campaign. Wally spends the day photographing her and she is a natural at posing because she is so patient. Darrin decides to celebrate by inviting Larry and Louise Tate and Wally and Ling Ling home for dinner. Ling Ling devours all the sardine hors d’oeuvres and laps the cream soup without a spoon. Samantha makes everyone believe that is the traditional way to eat that kind of soup. Wally is falling for Ling Ling and so Samantha has to intervene. Ling Ling tells her she doesn’t care about Wally but she loves being pampered and she doesn’t want to go back to scrounging in alleys like she did before. Samantha slips catnip into Ling Ling’s drink and she gets high. Wally tries to take her drink away and she scratches him, then leaves. Later the nosy neighbour puts out a bowl of milk for the stray cat but when she looks out the window she sees a woman on her hands and knees lapping up the milk. She calls to Abner to look but before he does Samantha turns Ling Ling back to a cat. 

            In the second story Samantha, Darrin, and Samantha’s mother Endora are in an antique shop. Endora and Samantha know the proprietor is lying about the age of some of the items because they were both around when they were new. Endora plays a trick on Darrin by moving a picture from the 17th Century of a maid of Salem who looks like Samantha into his view. It suddenly occurs to Darrin that he doesn’t know how old Samantha is. She avoids the question when he asks. Darrin begins to worry about the possibility that Samantha will still look young when he is old. He suddenly starts feeling old and weak. Endora might be causing his weakness with witchcraft. He spends a lot of the episode soul searching in bars and in the park until finally he decides the aging difference is not as important as their love. 

            In the first story Ling Ling was played by Greta Chi, who was born in Denmark and raised in Switzerland. After graduating from a Swiss college she went to Hollywood where she studied at the La Jolla Playhouse. Her acting coach was Martin Landau. Her only starring role was in the movie Fall Girl. She played Mata Hari in La Reina del Chantecler. She returned to Europe and when her parents died she inherited the ownership of the Li Tai Pe restaurant in Lucerne, Switzerland.

April 27, 1994: I took offense to Mary supervising my daughter while I was there

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I took my daughter to work and posed for Joe Morse. During lunch I ran into Marjorie Robero on the street. Five minutes later I ran into Yehudah Cullman. I picked up my copies from Kinkos and then posed for Joe again. After work I took my daughter with me to Fat Albert’s open stage. I took offense to Mary Milne supervising my daughter while I was there and I told her so. She seemed pissed off and so I left early.

Robert F. Simon

            On Thursday I worked out the chords for the chorus and the first couple of lines of the first verse of “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

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

            I weighed 87.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            When I posted my five-years ago diary I noticed that this time five years ago I went downtown to renew my health card. I checked my card and saw that it will expire on my birthday next month and so today seemed like a good day to renew it again. I checked online to see if it’s possible to do it online and it is if one has an Ontario Photo Card but I don’t. It never occurred to me to get one before but it seemed like a good idea now so I decided I’d ask when I got downtown to Service Ontario. I left at around 11:30 and took my usual bike ride to Yonge and Bloor first, then I went down to Dundas and across to Bay. Once there I realized I’d gone too far and should have turned right at Yonge and College. I had to pee like crazy and made it to the washroom at 777 Bay just in time. At Service Ontario there was no line-up whatsoever although five years ago I had to wait over an hour and a half. I asked the receptionist how people renew their cards online if they need to get their picture taken. She said if one renews it online they use the old photo but if they do it there they need to get their picture taken. I asked why and she sounded slightly bored and annoyed by the question when she said, “I don’t know. Your number’s being called at booth 27.” At the booth I showed all the id I needed and ordered both the health card renewal and a photo card for the first time. I needed to take two photos. I asked if there was no lineup because everybody is doing it online now. She said that no, it is usually very busy and this was unusual. 

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought five bags of grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a jug of raspberry lemonade, Full City Dark coffee, salsa, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s Sweet Chili chips. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos at 14:30, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since March 29. 

            I took a late siesta at 15:00. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:00. 

            I copied the Movie Maker project for my September 11, 2023 song practice as “Joanna Dancing (acoustic)” and isolated that one song. I kept mostly the audio I recorded on Audacity with a touch from the camera microphone. I put it in grey scale and added the effect of starting close and easing back, then I published it. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to YouTube.

            I downloaded the dance performance from Mata Hari starring Greta Garbo. I converted it to WMV and then imported it into the Movie Maker project for my song “Angeline”. I placed it at the end of the timeline and started cutting out the parts I don’t need. I got it down to 39 seconds but I probably only need about 2.

            I scanned some more slides from the fourth to the last box and got more than half of the box done. There are mostly baby pictures from the late summer of 1991, some urban shots of buildings, and one portrait of my daughter’s Aunt Susan. 

            I grilled four pork chops and fried two. I had one of the fried ones with a potato and gravy while watching season 1, episodes 19 and 20 of Bewitched. 

            Samantha invites Darrin’s parents Phyllis and Frank for dinner but also invites her mother Endora. Endora is extremely charming and impresses Frank so much that Phyllis gets jealous. Frank tells Endora that he and Phyllis are going to the theatre and invites her along. Phyllis says she’s going to have a headache that night. She thinks Frank is smitten. The day after the theatre Phyllis tells Darrin she’s looking for a good divorce lawyer because Frank didn’t come home the night before. It turns out he did come home but he didn’t have his keys and Phyllis either didn’t hear him calling or refused to. Frank tells Samantha he spent the night at his club. He tells her the story of how he and Phyllis fell in love at Angel Falls in his convertible when it started rain storming and he couldn’t get the top up. Samantha helps to patch things up and Phyllis is preparing for a date with Frank but then Endora shows up to apologize to her and Phyllis gets the wrong idea. She thinks Frank and Endora want to be together and nothing Endora says can convince her otherwise. Phyllis takes a train to Phoenix and Frank catches a plane to Florida. Samantha asks for Endora’s help to fix things. Samantha causes the train to stop in Angel Falls and Endora makes the plane land there. Phyllis and Frank meet and he’s driving a convertible. He gives her a ride and it’s like that time before. 

            In the second story Samantha is invited to be the matron of honour at her cousin’s wedding in Cairo. Darrin can’t make it and tells Endora that Samantha isn’t travelling without him. Samantha agrees but Endora blames Darrin and tells him he’s in trouble. That day at work Darrin is swamped and Larry hires him an assistant from the copy writing department. Gideon arrives and acts like he is extremely worshipful of Darrin. Darrin brings Gideon to the meeting with Mr. Wolfe of Wolfe Brothers Department Store. As soon as they meet Wolfe, Darrin begins to fumble while Gideon is smooth and charming with Wolfe. While making his presentation Darrin gets the hiccups and Gideon has to take over. Later on the way to another meeting with Wolfe, Darrin gets stuck in the elevator and when Darrin doesn’t show up, Gideon takes over. Later at home Darrin gets the idea that Endora jinxed him. The next day Darrin is late for work because he ran out of gas even though he filled the tank the day before. When he gets there he finds that Gideon has just presented Wolfe with the exact same layouts that Darrin worked on all night but left at home. That evening Samantha tells him his thinking is becoming dangerous if every time things go wrong he’s going to blame it on witchcraft from now on. But when he tells her about the layouts she starts to think it might actually be witchcraft. The next day Darrin begins a presentation before the entire Wolfe Brothers board and things go wrong again, including a model of a Wolfe home going up in flames. Darrin is given a few days off. Gideon is sent to pick up the Wolfe file from Darrin’s briefcase and Samantha takes the opportunity to cast a spell to make Gideon reveal himself. It turns out he is not a warlock but a very clever and conniving human being. Darren tends to doodle at work and Gideon went through his waste basket to figure out his layouts. Gideon overloaded the circuits in the elevator by pressing all of the buttons at once. Darrin overhears and punches Gideon. The next day Gideon is back to sharpening pencils and Darrin impressively takes over the Wolfe account again. 

            Darrin’s father was played by Robert F. Simon, who took up acting to overcome shyness. He spent ten years on Broadway as both an actor and a stage manager. He played Captain Rudy Olsen on The Streets of San Francisco and J. Jonah Jameson on the live action Spiderman TV series in the late 70s.

April 26, 1994: I gave Nik Beat a feature at my open stage

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday Steve Lowe and Arjan came over to rehearse my songs for our May 11 feature at Fat Albert’s. That evening I went to the Art Bar at the Gladstone Hotel to host my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy weekly writers open stage. A week or so before that Nik Beat had asked if I would give him a feature. It wasn’t my plan to have featured performers at my event but since Nik asked I made an exception and booked him for this night. I performed one of his poems. I was feeling weird towards my co-host Mary Milne, I think because she seemed to be attracted to me and I didn’t want people to get the impression that we were a couple.

Clarence Lung

            On Wednesday morn ing I finished memorizing “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one has posted them so I worked them out for the intro and a bit of the first line. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. 

            I weighed 96.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I downloaded my tax slips from my pension payments and did my taxes with H&R Block. It only took about an hour because I let them fill in all my info from last year. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. I stopped at the Brockton Cyclery to inquire about trailers for bikes, but all they had was one of those covered trailers for carting children around. They didn’t know where I could get a simple trailer, so I’ll have to keep looking. I already asked at Metro a few weeks ago but they said they are too small to carry trailers. I rode downtown and back. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:20. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my acoustic version of “Joanna” I brightened the video and added an ease-in effect. I uploaded it to You Tube. Tomorrow I’ll work on the video for the acoustic version on my translation, “Joanna Dancing Lightly”. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my song “Angeline” I aged the section of the concert video in which I sing, “I’d been looking hard and long”. The next part of the video shows me with my mouth open and singing, “Ahhhh” but I don’t do that in the studio audio so I have to cut it out and replace it with another Greta Garbo clip to match the line, “My machinery had a surge of power”. I settled on a clip of the temple dance scene from Mata Hari. 

            I scanned some more slides from the fourth to last box. I have about a quarter of that batch done. A couple more are overexposed except for the urban shots of buildings. There’s also another shot of my niece Kelly posing with my brother Allison after her wedding in the summer of 1991. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 17 and 18 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Darrin sprains his ankle and is bedridden. He is constantly calling Samantha to ask for things and so she never gets anything done. Finally she suggests that she could enchant the house so it does Darrin’s bidding and that way she could do her housework without interruptions. He starts to like having magic at his command and then tells Samantha that he’s been selfish and wrong to stop her from using her magic. This leads to him deciding to quit his job so they can travel the globe and enjoy the good things. Samantha agrees to all of this but is unhappy. She gets the idea to cure Darrin of this taste for the easy life by going over the top with it. She tells him she wants an enormous mansion. He buys her some roses and a watch and she begins to cry, saying she will go wherever he wants but she wants him to know that these gifts are the most important things in the world to her. Darrin asks her to take him back in time to before he got control of the house. She does and this time when he calls out for a pencil she doesn’t float it to him but carries it upstairs. 

            In the second story Darrin has designed a campaign for the Countess Margaret Cosmetics company and the president loves it. But the chairman of the board is Margaret Marshall, who also likes it but wants to discuss a few changes with Darrin. She insists on him flying to Chicago that night to meet her. Tonight happens also to be Darrin and Samantha’s seven month anniversary and so he has to break it to her. They exchange gifts and Darrin gives her a piece of jewellery in the shape of a cat. She suggests she come with him disguised as a cat but he says no. At the Chicago airport Darrin is picked up by Margaret’s chauffeur Kujo, who drives her to the harbour where the captain of her yacht meets him. He is holding a Siamese cat that he says he just found. He says he might as well give it a good home aboard the yacht. Darrin thinks the cat is Samantha. Margaret lives on her yacht, which she has christened The True Love. When Darrin and Margaret are alone she shows she is more interested in pleasure than business. Darrin’s boss has told him not to tell Margaret that he is married. He spends a lot of time trying to put physical space between them, plus he thinks Samantha is watching. Eventually Margaret figures out that Darrin is married but wants to use his campaign anyway. Darrin takes the cat home, still thinking that it is Samantha. But Samantha is there waiting for him. He gives Samantha the cat. Apparently it really was Elizabeth Montgomery’s pet Siamese, which she called “Zip Zip”. 

            Kujo was played by Clarence Lung, whose first film role was an uncredited part in The Good Earth. He played Takahari in the 13 chapter film serial Secret Agent X-9.

April 25, 1994: My daughter and I played and then I rehearsed with Tom

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday my daughter was still with me because her mother was away. We just played at home and maybe went to the playground. Tom Smarda came over in the afternoon to rehearse my songs for our May 11 feature at Fat Albert’s.

Virginia Martin

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the fourth verse of “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg. There is one verse left to nail down and I should have that done on Wednesday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third session of four. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Today was laundry day but I’d forgotten to look for Sunlight lemon detergent when I was at Freshco on Thursday. They never have it at No Frills. I walked over to Fullworth but they didn’t have it there either. I walked west on Queen and stopped at several places. Shoppers Drug Mart had the orange and the apple sunlight but not the lemon. The orange smells like someone puked after drinking too much Orange Crush. I walked back east past my place to the hardware store. They had a section on the shelf in the back with the label “lemon Sunlight” but that area was empty. I guess it’s popular. I went home and got my bike and rode it down to Freshco where they had no Sunlight whatsoever of any kind. I had no choice but to buy lemon Dawn Ultra instead. I was much later than usual finishing my laundry because of all this running around. I usually take a whole hour for lunch and read the news but this time I only took about fifteen minutes. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos at 17:30.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my September 6 song practice I copied it and named it “Joanna (acoustic)”. “Joanna” is in part B of that session and so I deleted the audio and video timelines for Part A. Then I needed to re-synchronize the audio with the video because there’s more of a pause in the video as it shuts down and I have to start it again while the Audacity audio recording keeps going. I got them in synch and isolated the song. I added a fade to black effect and adjusted the audio levels so there’s a bit of the audio from the camera microphone to warm it up. Tomorrow I’ll add a visual effect before uploading it to YouTube. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my song “Angeline” I added the video clip of Greta Garbo standing in the doorway of the bar and looking around the room in Anna Christie, to correspond with my line, “You weren’t quite what I was looking for”. Then I cut and synchronized the concert video of the Christian and the Lions performance at the 360 Club on June 3, 1998 so it lined up with the studio audio of me singing “though I’d been looking hard and long”. I also switched that part to grey scale so it’s not too drastic a transition from the much darker Riot Gallery concert video. Tomorrow I’ll try also adding an old film aging effect to see how that looks. 

            I scanned the first few slides from the fourth to the last box. The mounts for the slides in this box are very difficult to open and it’s even harder to close them once the slides are back inside. I guess back in the 90s I had the idea that I was going to get a slide projector, otherwise the mounting is meaningless. A couple of the slides I scanned are overexposed; one is of an interesting juxtaposition of buildings and another is a wedding photo. I assume the wedding is that of my niece Kelly in the summer of 1991 in Peterborough. The shot is from a distance but it seems to show Kelly, her groom and my brother Allison posing together for another photographer.

            I had a potato with gravy and the last of the stewing beef while watching season 1, episodes 15 and 16 of Bewitched. 

            The first story is a Christmas episode. Samantha and Darrin go to the local orphanage as part of a program in which married couples temporarily adopt orphans over Christmas. Gladys and Abner Kravitz have signed up to do the same and they arrive first to meet their charge, the sweet tempered Tommy. But Tommy gets into a argument with a boy named Michael who is very cynical about Christmas and tells Tommy there is no Santa Clause. They both end up fighting and the director breaks the tussle up. Michael is sitting by himself when Samantha and Darrin arrive and it turns out he is the boy they are scheduled to take home. Darrin is told that Michael is a problem child and he suggests to Samantha that they pick someone else but Samantha feels Michael needs them and she convinces Darrin to take Michael home. That night Darrin dresses up as Santa but Michael is not impressed. Finally Samantha offers to take Michael to meet the real Santa Clause at the North Pole. Of course he doesn’t believe she could do that and so she has to prove to Michael that she is a witch. After Darrin walks in, Samantha invites Darrin to come with them. So off they all fly on Samantha’s broomstick to Santa’s workshop. There we see that Samantha and Santa are old friends. Michael is convinced there is a Santa Clause, especially after he and Santa have a chat about the spirit of giving. In the wee hours Darrin wakes up at home with Michael sleeping on his lap. Darrin thinks it was all a dream. The next day Michael brings Tommy a toy fire truck and they become friends. Then the director of the orphanage comes by with the Johnson couple who are interested in adopting Michael. Michael gives Mr. Johnson a tool box and suggests they could build things together. 

            In the second story Samantha is appointed the entertainment chairman by the ladies of the hospital fundraising committee. They always appoint the newest member as no one who’s ever done it before wants to do it again because of the very limited budget. The waiter in the restaurant where the meeting took place gives Samantha the address of a magician. Samantha arrives at the Great Zeno’s room just as Roxy, his assistant is leaving him. Zeno has an obvious drinking problem but Samantha hires him anyway and gives him his $50 in advance. That would be about $500 today so that’s not bad. Samantha wants to keep Zeno sober and so she causes him to think that he is hallucinating. Goldfish appear in his glass and a big parrot shows up near his sink. Zeno dumps his booze down the drain. The night of the show Zeno is too nervous to go on without an assistant and so Samantha agrees to accompany him on stage. He fumbles his tricks and so she helps him out with some real magic. The show is a success and it leads to Zeno being offered a chance to perform his act on TV. Samantha tells him she won’t assist him but she will come down for moral support. Meanwhile Roxy returns because she wants to cash in on Zeno’s newfound success. She tries to make herself the star of the show but Samantha makes her disappear, making it look like it’s part of Zeno’s act. Samantha has built Zeno’s confidence and so now he starts to successfully do his own tricks. 

            Roxy was played by Virginia Martin, who made her Broadway debut as Bessie Noonan in the original run of South Pacific. In 1961 she originated the role of Hedy Larue in the Broadway production of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1963 for her performance in Little Me. She also played Charmaine Leach on Bewitched.

April 24, 1994: I was annoyed with Mike because he resisted playing drums as I envisioned for my songs

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I just hung out at home. I was annoyed with Mike Martin’s behaviour at rehearsals because he resisted playing the drums according to my vision of my songs. Some parts of some of my songs require stopping the beat for a moment but he always wanted to keep playing.

Kit Smythe

            On Monday morning I was working on memorizing “Les frères” by Boris Vian and suddenly parts of the first few verses that have been solidly in my head for weeks slipped away. I’m sure it was just one of those days and I’ll get it back. 

            I memorized the third verse of “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are just two verses left to learn so I should have it all in my head by Wednesday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen floor in front of the counter. I’ve got to do laundry tomorrow and then my taxes on Wednesday. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a shorter siesta than usual. My upstairs neighbour sent me a desperate text that read: “Please help me, my plant is dying”. I went up there and looked, then assured him the aloe vera I gave him last year is perfectly fine. It’s green and it’s growing. He insisted on giving me $40. I gave him some soil and stuck a nitrogen stick into his plant pot. We’re going for lunch on Friday. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown. I had to pee at the disgusting McDonald’s washroom on Yonge just above College. I stopped at Freshco on the way back where I bought three bags of grapes, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, course sea salt in a reusable grinder, and Sponge Towels.

            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I compared the video of my song practice performance of “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from August 20 to that of August 14 and I think August 20 is a little better. I compared August 24 to August 20 and it’s clear that August 20 looks better. I compared September 3 to August 20 and there is very little traffic noise on September 3, plus it sounds just as good and it’s already synchronized in Movie Maker. I compared September 5 to September 3 and they are about equal. Since September 3 is already in Movie Maker it wins that round. I compared September 15 to September 3 and saw that the light and my playing are not as good on September 15, so September 3 will be uploaded to YouTube. I now have the four versions of the song that I’ll make videos for: acoustic “Joanna” from September 6, acoustic “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from September 11, electric “Joanna” from August 29, and electric “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from September 3, in that order. I’ll start that tomorrow. 

            I searched for a Greta Garbo video clip to fit the line, “You weren’t quite what I was looking for, though I’d been looking hard and long” from my song “Angeline”. I found the scene from Anna Christie when the bartender opens the door and she’s standing there looking disheveled. I think it’s perfect so I downloaded it, converted it to WMV and then imported it to the Movie Maker project for “Angeline”. I cut out everything but the part where she’s standing and looking around in the doorway. Tomorrow I’ll insert it into the video. 

            I finished scanning what I thought was the fourth to the last box of slides but it turns out it was the fifth to the last. It’s mostly baby pictures of my daughter and some of them with her mother Nancy. There are a few shots from a photo shoot I did of Nancy’s sister Susan climbing on some multi angled support pipes, but I forget where this was. 

            I grilled a pack of stewing beef. I had half of the bits with a potato and gravy while watching season 1, episodes 13 and 14 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha’s plain friend Gertrude is looking for a boyfriend. Samantha wants Darrin to bring home one of the eligible bachelors who work at his advertizing firm. The only single guy he knows is Kermit, but he’s a swinger who dates all the models that the firm hires, so Darrin doesn’t think he’d be interested. But when Darrin asks Kermit to come for dinner he jumps at the chance for a home cooked meal. Samantha invites Gertrude as well and she and Kermit immediately hit it off. Darrin feels like something is not right because Gertrude is not what Darrin imagines Kermit’s type to be, considering the women he usually dates. When Darrin asks Kermit what he wants to drink he says he’ll have a Crazy Charlie and adds that it’s his own invention. He’s about to list the ingredients when Gertrude does it for him: two parts vodka, one part gin, and one part bicarbonate of soda. There is a drink called a Crazy Charlie but those aren’t the ingredients. Anyway Kermit is impressed and wonders how Gertrude knew. She says she doesn’t know. Darrin is alarmed and asks Samantha if Gertrude is a witch. She says she isn’t and that she just cast a little spell to help Gertrude out. Darrin isn’t convinced and tries to stop Gertrude and Kermit from being together. He calls Kermit’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend Susan and arranges for her to meet him and Kermit at a certain bar. But Samantha arranges for Gertrude to meet her at the same bar. Samantha casts a spell to make Susan mad at Kermit and she storms away. Gertrude arrives and Kermit asks her to marry him. They do get married. Plotwise it’s a very thin and lacklustre story. 

            In the second story Darrin’s parents are about to arrive to meet Samantha for the first time. Just before that Samatha’s Aunt Clara arrives through the chimney because she is elderly and her magic is always going wrong. Clara’s bag and umbrella do not arrive with her because they were not ready when she left. Later they ring the doorbell and float in. Samantha is glad to have someone from her own family there because she is nervous about meeting Darrin’s mother. Darrin is just meeting Clara for the first time himself and he doesn’t think she should be there when his parents are there. Samantha says she’s not going to hurt Clara’s feelings by asking her to leave. Meanwhile Clara is matter of factly telling Darrin’s parents that she and Samantha are both witches. But when Clara tries to walk through a wall she can’t and so they just think she is delusional. Samantha is getting the impression that Phyllis disapproves of her. Clara decides to help her out by preparing coq au vin and pineapple upside down cake for dinner but making it look like Samantha did it. Seeing Samantha as a good cook gives Phyllis a sick headache. When Darrin finds out that Clara conjured the meal he tries to ask her to not use magic. She takes that as meaning she is unwelcome and leaves. Samantha is upset that Clara has gone and she blames Darrin for being mad that Clara prepared the meal. When Phyllis hears that Samantha can’t cook she is overjoyed. She was afraid she was being pushed aside. Now that Phyllis knows Samantha isn’t perfect and now that Samantha knows she doesn’t have to be they can be friends and share a concern for Clara. Samantha asked Clara’s umbrella where she is and it told her she is at the bus station and so Darrin brings her back. In the first story Kermit was played by Adam West, who would soon be cast as Batman on the popular TV series. 

            Gertrude was played by Kit Smythe who graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1960. She debuted on Broadway in No Strings at the age of 21. She was the original Ginger in the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island. The character was originally a secretary rather than a movie star.

April 23, 1994: My band rehearsed until the guy upstairs started banging on the floor

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday Tom Smarda brought his electric guitar, Arjan brought his bass, and Mike Martin brought his bongos to my place. We rehearsed until 22:30 when the guy above me started banging angrily on the floor.

Irene Vernon

            On Sunday morning I memorized the second verse of “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I swept and mopped my apartment. I dumped two buckets of black water down the toilet. Tomorrow the plan is to clean the bathroom and maybe the area on the kitchen floor that I painted in front of the counter and the stove. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. When I got home I went out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:40. 

            I compared the videos of my song practice performances of “Joanna” on August 13 and 19 and found that the later one looks a lot better and sounds just as good such as it is. This song sounds better on the acoustic. I compared August 29 to August 19 and I think the Kramer was more in tune on the later date. I compared September 4 to August 29 and they are about equal except that the August 29 session is already synchronized in Movie Maker. I compared September 14 to August 29 and I think August 29 looks and sounds slightly better so that’s the take I’ll upload to YouTube. Next I need to compare the videos of my electric performances of “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from last year’s sessions. I compared August 14 and August 18. Both have traffic noise but I think August 14 looks and sounds better. The guitar sounds heavier. I have six more to compare. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my song “Angeline” I imported the video of the Christian and the Lions concert at the 360 Club on June 3, 1998. But when I tried to load it into the timeline it would only go into the audio line because it was a VOS file. I thought for sure I must have it in a compatible format since I used clips from it for my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" video but for whatever reason I didn’t have it. So I used Total Video Converter to make a copy in WMV, then I imported that. I placed it at the end of the timeline and deleted everything but the beginning of “Angeline”. That was as far as I got this time. The Riot Gallery concert version of the song cuts off at the beginning of the second verse. I don’t think it would look good to just suddenly introduce the other video where the first one left off since they are drastically different videos in lighting and in look. I think I’d better find another Greta Garbo clip as a buffer between them. Then I think I’ll need to alter the appearance of the 360 version at least at the beginning so it’s not too drastic a change. 

           I scanned about ten more slides from the fourth to the last box. These were all shots of my daughter a few days after her birth, sometimes with her mother. I think that there are only five slides left to scan. I’ll have to double check to see of the slides on the other half of the box were done in January but I’m pretty sure they were. 

           I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 11 and 12 of Bewitched.

            In the first story Endora has been snooping in Darrin’s briefcase and she’s found photos of attractive women. Samantha explains that they are models and looking at those kinds of pictures are part of an advertizing man’s job but Endora doesn’t buy it. Darrin is looking for a special woman to be Miss Jasmine and to represent the Jasmine Perfume account. He hasn’t quite found the right one but then one day he looks up from his desk and sees an absolutely enchanting woman who wants to audition for the job. She says her name is Jeannine Fleur. Darrin knows at first sight that Janine is perfect for the job and Larry agrees. Her measurements are 94-59-94 cm. The shots are taken and Darrin is happy with them. Darrin tells Jeannine it’s time for lunch. She asks, “Where shall we go?” Darrin says, “We? I’m having lunch with my wife.” She says she thinks he’d better get another Miss Jasmine. He says they need to talk about that and so he calls and cancels lunch with Samantha. Endora keeps telling Samantha she can’t trust Darrin but she says they’ll go to lunch where Darrin and Jeannine are to prove she can. When Samantha sees Janine she suddenly stands up and casts a spell to suspend in time all the humans in the room. Then she walks over to Darrin’s table and addresses Janine, who is only pretending to be frozen, as Sarah Baker. Sarah is also a witch and it turns out that it was Endora who put her up to testing Darrin. Samantha says to back off and Endora tells her to do what Samantha says. But Sarah says, “You know how difficult it is for me to leave a job unfinished?” Samantha considers telling Darrin that Janine is a witch but Endora warns him that might make him think that he is susceptible to witches and then suspect that Samantha used enchantment on him when they first met. Janine asks Darrin to her apartment and so Darrin asks Larry to come along. Sarah uses a sleep potion on Larry and a love potion on Darrin. He is about to kiss her when Samantha appears and suspends him in time. She says Darrin can resist her as long as she doesn’t use magic. She breaks the spells and disappears. Sarah puts magic powder on the fire and Darrin wants to kiss her again but Samantha breaks that spell as well. The next time Sarah makes him want to kiss her she ends up kissing a dead fish. Samantha foils Sarah’s plans. 

            In the second story Gladis Kravitz sees her neighbour Samantha diving in her back yard and then hears a splash. It’s a hot day and she is thrilled to see her neighbour has a pool. But when she looks over the fence there is no pool. Then Samantha gets a call from Louise Tate who asks to come over. She says she just found out after 16 years of marriage that she is pregnant and asks Samantha to come to the doctor with her. Meanwhile Larry has a toothache and goes to the dentist at the same medical centre. When he leaves the dentist’s office he sees Louise and Samantha going into the obstetrician’s office. He opens the door long enough to hear Samantha say she can’t wait to tell Darrin. Larry is excited and goes to tell Darrin that Samantha is pregnant. Samantha calls to say she wants Larry and Louise to come to dinner that night. Darrin daydreams that he has a bunch of children but that they are all broomstick flying witches. When Darrin and Larry arrive at Darrin’s house they both have flowers. Darrin gives his to Samantha and Louise holds up her hands to receive Larry’s bouquet but he gives his to Samantha as well. Both men are doting on Samantha and ignoring Louise. At dinner Louise tries to tell Larry the news but he says he already knows but Samantha should tell Darrin. Louise says it’s all right with her and so Samantha tells Darrin that Louise is going to have a baby. At first it doesn’t register with Larry until he realizes that Samantha said “Louise”. When Louise confirms she’s pregnant he is thrilled.

            Louise was played by Irene Vernon, who had small roles in films during the 1940s. In the 1950s she started acting on television. She was cast as Louise Tate on Bewitched because of the influence of writer Danny Arnold who she had known since they studied acting together. Later when Arnold quit after two years, because of her association with him she was fired. There is no explanation anywhere as to why that would be a reason. Another explanation some give is that her husband was ill. She was replaced by Kasey Rogers who had to wear an uncomfortable dark wig to make her look like Vernon.

April 22, 1994: I got a $900 retroactive cheque from the Board of Ed

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I took my daughter to work with me at Central Technical School, but there were so few students there to draw me that Steve Timmins let us go an hour early. We went to the Toronto Board of Education where I picked up my paycheque plus a retroactive cheque for over $900. I went to Ontario Hydro and paid my full bill. My daughter fell asleep on the streetcar ride home and I put her to bed. In the afternoon Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and Arjan came over and we did a three hour rehearsal of my songs for our May 11 feature at Fat Alberts. My daughter woke up around the time we were finishing.

Cheryl Holdridge

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first verse of “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

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

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since last Saturday. 

            Around midday I went to Vina Pharmacy to ask them to fax my doctor to ask him to renew my Betaderm prescription. 

           Then I went to No Frills where I bought three bags of red grapes, two bags of green grapes, bananas, pork ribs, a pack of pork chops, two artisan naan, dental floss, three bags of skim milk, chili sauce, a container of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s ketchup chips. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. I’m getting tired of limeade so I think I’ll find something else to drink. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 17:15. 

            I tried to post my blog but Blogger was down. 

            I compared the video of my August 16 song practice performance of “Joanna Dances Lightly” to that of September 7. I think August 16 is more expressive and brighter. I compared September 11 to August 16 and found September 11 to look better and I also played it at a better with a slower tempo. I compared September 13 to September 11 and September 11 has much better light, plus it’s already synchronized in Movie Maker. Now I have the French and English acoustic versions of that song that I will upload to YouTube. Next I have to review the electric versions. 

            I compared my August 13 and 17 electric performances of “Joanna”. August 17 looks better and I play better but there is way too much traffic noise and so for now August 13 wins. 

            Blogger was back up again after half an hour. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 9 and 10 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story a junior high school student named Liza who is writing a paper on advertizing calls Darrin to ask for an interview. When she comes over she turns out to be very well developed and gorgeous. On Saturday morning Darrin takes Liza on a tour of the advertizing firm where he works. After they leave in Darrin’s car Liza’s musclebound and very jealous young boyfriend Monster knocks on Samantha’s door. He says he has a date with Liza every Saturday but she broke this one to go shopping with her mother. He says she has a father complex and is obsessed with older men and that is why he is going to break Darrin in half. Samantha spends the day feeding Monster so as to subdue his anger. Meanwhile Liza is in Darrin’s office and coming on very strong. Darrin has to fight her off and take charge. By the time they get back to Darrin’s place Monster is no longer obsessed with Liza now that he has spent the day with Samantha and understands the appeal of an older woman. Suddenly Liza in interested in Monster and she tells him that Darrin came on to her. He goes to punch Darrin but Samantha puts up a very hard invisible barrier and Monster hurts his hand. Now Liza is mad at Darrin and slaps his face. Darrin wonders why Samantha protected him from Monster but let Liza slap him. She answers that it was the least she could do. 

            In the second story Samantha learns that her father Maurice is coming to see her. He has learned that she is married and thinks her husband is a warlock. He is dead set against mixed marriages and has a violent temper. When Darrin calls Samantha from a phone booth she locks him inside to keep him from coming home. When Maurice arrives Samantha lets him believe that Darrin is a warlock. But then he finds a picture of Darrin in a military uniform and finds medicine with Darrin’s name on it. Two things a warlock would never do is join the military or need medicine. Samantha admits that Darrin is mortal and Maurice says he will annul the marriage forever. Before Darrin enters the house Endora turns him into the evening paper to protect him. Maurice takes the paper and tosses it into the fire. Samantha rescues it and turns Darrin back. Darrin stands up to Samantha’s father and Maurice is impressed. He tells Samantha she picked a good one and that he almost feels sorry but he makes Darrin disappear. Endora threatens to move in with Maurice if he doesn’t bring Darrin back. It takes him all his concentration but he finally manages to rematerialize Darrin. They have dinner and Maurice conjures up a bottle of Chanson du Mer 59. Darrin one ups him because he already has a bottle of Chanson du Mer 53. Maurice is impressed and wonders if Darrin isn’t a warlock after all. 

            In the first story Liza was played by Cheryl Holdridge, who made her professional dancing debut in 1953 at the age of nine with the New York City Ballet in The Nutcracker. She became a Mouseketeer in the Mickey Mouse Club show’s second season and was good friends with Annette Funicello. She was cast as Betty in the unsold 1962 pilot of the sitcom Life with Archie based on the comic books.