Linda Evans

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the fourth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There are ten verses left to nail down. 

            I finished working out the chords for “L’Amour à deux” (Passion for Two) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it in French. Tomorrow I’ll run through my translation and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the second session of four. I audio and video recorded the session as I will every morning until October 15. After my surgery yesterday I was advised not to wear my denture but I can’t shoot videos of myself singing with a gap in my mouth. So I wore it for the hour or so that the video was recording. He thought that it would aggravate the stitches but I think he might be wrong. It actually felt like the denture was supporting the stitches while I was singing. After a few takes I made it through “Vomit of the Star Eater” and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” without any major mistakes. But I don’t know yet if anything I recorded is a keeper.

            I weighed 86.45 before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since August 9.

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 87 kilos at 18:00. 

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

            I searched for video clips of tall buildings imploding and there are lots but none that I could find without a watermark. Then I tried to find footage of the destruction of the giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan but every one of those videos had been pissed on as well. 

            I reviewed my song practice video from September 5 up to minute 44. That was one of the days I shot with the curtains closed and it looks pretty good and sometimes sounds okay as well. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a steamed salmon fillet with lemon while watching episode 2 of The Big Valley. 

            In this story Heath and Nick are leading a big cattle drive. Heath catches some of the men goofing off and tells them to get back to work. Barrett ignores him. When Heath tries to pull rank Barrett says he only takes orders from Barkleys. Barrett points to the “B” brand and says that in Heath’s case the “B” doesn’t stand for Barkley. Heath fires him but later Nick hires him back. Jarrod tells him that was a mistake but Nick insists that he needs every hand for this drive. Heath confronts Barrett in the men’s cookhouse. Since Heath was sired out of wedlock by the Barkley patriarch, Barrett calls him dead man’s dirt. They fight and wreck the cookhouse and after a long battle Heath wins and staggers out of the building, not realizing that in their struggle they set fire to the cookhouse with Barrett unconscious inside. A stranger on a white horse arrives. He jumps into the horse trough and makes himself soaking wet. Then he charges into the cookhouse and carries Barrett out before collapsing. Nick recognizes the man as General Wallant who he knew and admired during the Civil War. Heath recognizes Wallant’s white horse but forgets where he saw it before. Wallant visits the bunkhouse and learns that most of the men served in the war. He establishes connections with them and they all admire him. Nick plans to water the herd at a lake on the way to San Diego but Wallant tells him it’s not a lake but a runoff and that now it’s dry. Audra Barkley is excited that they are entertaining a general but her mother tells her there is a button missing from the top of her dress. Nick is planning an alternative route based on Wallant’s information and Wallant is invited to come along. That night Heath remembers where he saw Wallant’s white horse before. It and its rider were with the hired railroad thugs during the recent gun battle, but Heath can’t prove it. The drive sets off. That night Wallant visits the campfire of three Mexican gunrunners. He wants 40 Winchesters and he wants one of the Mexicans to kill someone. A few days later Nick is shot but just as he’s shifting to dismount and so he is only wounded in the leg. Heath chases the would be assassin who in trying to get away slips and breaks his back. Wallant shoots him just as Heath is approaching. Nick has to go get treatment and so he puts Heath in charge of the drive. Heath says he’s going stay camped another day to check out the lake. Wallant reminds him that he said there is no lake. Heath says he thinks he only said that to make himself necessary. With Nick out of the way and a group of men less inclined to follow Heath, that night Wallant starts to recruit the men in an alternative mission that he says is much more lucrative. Later Wallant sneaks away from the camp but Heath follows him to a meeting with two men at a cabin. After they all leave, Heath enters the cabin to find it full of arms and explosives. The next morning the men won’t follow orders. Heath learns they are all going to follow Wallant to serve as mercenaries in Diez, Mexico. Wallant says they’ll win their own province. The men all leave with Wallant and head for the cabin armoury. But Heath is already inside and fires a warning shot. Out of earshot of the men Wallant tells Heath his men are sheep. He sends Schad in with a knife to take out Heath but Heath disarms him and knocks him out. Wallant tells three of them to take Heath head on and they start to doubt their mission. Heath shoots one man in the leg and the others retreat to bring him back. Wallant seems to be losing his mind. He leads a charge at the cabin but no one is following. Heath steps out to meet him and says for him to hand over his gun. Wallant tries to fire but Heath shoots first and Wallant dies. Now for some reason the men all want to follow Heath on the drive again. 

            Audra Barkley was played by Linda Evans, who took drama classes at 14 to overcome shyness. At 15 she auditioned for her first commercial and won it. Her TV debut was a guest appearance on Bachelor Father. Her film debut was in Twilight of Honour. She appeared in Playboy in 1971. She co-starred in the film Avalanche Express. She co-starred in the cop show Hunter. She would later star in Dynasty from 1981 to 1989. She was nominated for five Golden Globe awards for that role and won in 1982. She won five People’s Choice awards and was nominated for an Emmy. She did a series of commercials for Crystal Light. She was a guest at the wedding of Charles and Camilla. She won the Hell’s Kitchen competition in 2009. She’s a member of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment.