Sunday 1 September 2024

Billie Hayes


            On Saturday morning I started memorizing “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian but didn’t quite get the first verse. 
            I uploaded “Amours des feintes” (Feinting Romance) by Serge Gainsbourg to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. 
            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the second of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll start a four session stretch of playing my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar. I think I’ll also start recording on Sunday and so I’d better recharge my guitar pick-up battery. 
            I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast. 
            Around midday I hooked up my bike trailer and headed for the supermarket. On the way I stopped at Freedom Mobile to pay for my September phone plan. At No Frills the grapes were all too soft and so I didn’t bother to do a price match with Freshco. Instead I got two watermelons and a basket of peaches. I also bought a pack of raspberries, bananas, two T-bone steaks, a microfibre cloth, scouring sponges, Irish Spring soap, Basilica sauce, Triscuits, Arm and Hammer toothpaste, a jug of orange juice, a jug of lemon iced tea, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s sweet chili chips. 
            I weighed 86.95 kilos at 18:00. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. 
            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “The Next State of Grace” I imported the video I shot of Minh on the street. I made a clip of his last repetition of “Line up and wait for the next state of grace” and inserted it into the main video to sync it with the part of the studio audio where Brian Haddon first sings that line. Then I converted to AVI WMV the video I’d shot on the street of David, the guy who sits with a begging bowl in front of my place. I imported it into Movie Maker and made a clip of him singing the same line as Minh. Then I inserted that into the main video and edited Minh’s part so he’s only mouthing “Line up and wait for”. Then I cut out the beginning of David’s line so he’s finishing Minh’s part with “the next state of grace”. Next I’ll harvest another clip from the video I shot on the street of me singing “Line up and wait for the next state of grace”. That will be followed by two more clips of people I’ve video recorded on the street singing the same line as Minh and David. That will lead to one last extended retention of the line by me to end the song. Preferably the last part will come from the old concert video if I can sync it to the studio audio. 
            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 8, episodes 9 and 10 of Bewitched
            In the first story Endora visits and discovers that Samantha has lost her powers. Dr. Bombay finds her to be perfectly healthy and concludes that her deficit is the result of her marriage to a mortal. For Darrin’s protection Samantha doesn’t want her father Maurice to find out, but he does. In his anger he decides to turn Darrin into a leaping lizard but his spell does not work because he has also lost his powers. Dr. Bombay appears to reveal that his first diagnosis was a mistake and that Samantha and now Maurice have contracted perimaridictivitis. He says Maurice caught it when he kissed Samantha. But losing his powers does not seem to have phased Maurice one bit. While waiting for the cure to me prepared, which could take anything from minutes to years, he treats it as one more adventure in his long life. He’s decided to accompany Darrin to his office and see what he does for a living. Darrin says he can’t come but Maurice puts the point of a sword to Darrin’s neck and so Darrin invites him to accompany him to the office. Maurice is very gallant towards Darrin’s secretary Betty, kissing her hand and complimenting her. The campaign that Darrin and Larry are working on is for Benson’s Chili Con Carne. Maurice doesn’t know what chili is but he is surprised that neither Darrin nor Larry have tasted it. They say it’s not necessary. Meanwhile Bombay appears before Samantha and Endora with the prescription but he says the apothecary insists that Samantha come to him personally to be examined before filling it because he doesn’t trust Bombay’s diagnoses. The old apothecary confirms Bombay’s diagnosis but says it’s only the second time he’s been right this year. The warlock druggist begins chasing Samantha around the store and finally traps her on his lap, demanding a kiss before he gives her the cure. She kisses him on the nose and he’s happy with that. Back at the office Darrin and Larry are pitching their ad ideas to Mr. Benson but he doesn’t like any of them. Then Maurice walks in the room and shakes Benson’s hand, congratulating him on his delicious chili. Samantha arrives with the cure for the magic-canceling affliction but Maurice tells her he wants to share his ideas with Mr. Benson first. Maurice recites some poetry and Benson recognizes it as Robert Browning but Maurice says Browning got it from him. Maurice paints a verbal picture of a sophisticated and wealthy man with a gourmet feast before him, but says to his butler, “Take away the caviar and bring me Benson’s Chili Con Carne”. Maurice advises that if one strikes a man in his ego one touches home. Benson loves the idea. 
            In the second story Samantha is reading Hansel and Gretel to Tabitha and Adam but has to stop in the middle to get ready for a dinner party she and Darrin are having with Larry and Louise as guests. Tabitha can read now so her mother invites her to continue reading the story to Adam. Tabitha talks to Hansel and Gretel in the book and finds out they are hungry so she brings them out of the book and they appear in her bedroom. A plate of cheese puffs that Samantha made for her guests disappears and Tabitha feeds them to Hansel and Gretel. Tabitha asks if they’d like to spend the night but they say their father wouldn’t allow it. Tabitha goes into the book to ask their father’s permission while at the same time causing the leg of lamb Samantha is preparing to float out of the oven. Samantha follows it up the stairs and discovers what is going on. She puts herself inside the book to retrieve Tabitha. While searching she comes across the wicked witch’s gingerbread house. The witch is well aware that she is part of a story but tells Samantha that she doesn’t belong there and for her to leave. After Samantha goes away we see inside the witch’s house and behind a curtain she has Tabitha in a cage. Back in the real world Hansel and Gretel go downstairs, chat with Larry and Louise, then leave the house to look for food. Samantha finds the house of the woodcutter and talks to his wife who wonders why she believed the wicked witch when she said she hadn’t seen Tabitha. Samantha goes back to the witch’s house. The witch tells her to take off and threatens her but Samantha turns her into a good fairy all in white and disgusts her. She confesses that she has Tabitha in her “guest room”. Samantha transports her and Tabitha out of the book where she discovers Hansel and Gretel are missing. Soon however two cops show up with the storybook children because they caught them stealing ice cream from a street vendor. Samantha gives the cops a fake address to take Hansel and Gretel to and once they are outside transports them back into the book. 
            The wicked witch was played by Billie Hayes, who started performing in nightclubs as a tap dancer at the age of 9. In her teens she was part of a touring orchestra and when she got to Chicago she formed a solo singing and dancing act. Then she joined a New York revue. On Broadway she joined the cast of New Faces of 1956, which ran for 220 performances. She played Mammy Yokum in the 1959 film version of Li’l Abner. Her first TV role was a guest appearance on The Monkees. She was cast as Witchiepoo on the TV series H.R. Pufnstuf. She later co-starred as Weenie the Genie in the series Lidsville. She was the president of the animal rescue organization Pet Hope.



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