Friday, 25 October 2024

Carol Brewster


            On Thursday morning I finished working out the chords for the intro to “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian and the first two chords of the first line. 
            I wasn’t quite able to memorize the third verse of “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg but I’ll probably have it nailed down tomorrow. 
            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of two sessions. I was kind of distracted and made mistakes. I turned on my new humidifier for the first time while I was playing but had to turn it off because it emits a cool mist that was uncomfortable on my back. I turned it back on after song practice.
            I weighed 84.6 kilos before breakfast. 
            Around midday I sanded the lower left half of the widest part of the inside of the bathroom door frame. 
            I weighed 84.75 kilos before lunch. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I did a price match on the grapes and raspberries with the Food Basics price. The grapes weren’t a big difference but the raspberries were $1.47 compared with the Freshco price of $3.00. I bought four bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a box of lemon pepper fish fillets, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, a jar of salsa (because I didn’t remember I already had some), a box of Breton crackers, and a pack of Sponge Towels. 
            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 18:30. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30.
            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I shortened the eight frames of my rainbow wave animation to one second each. In a sense that speed follows the 4-4 beat of the song but I want to see what happens if I speed it up some more. I made and added five more frames and I might need more. 
            I reviewed the song practice video of my acoustic performance of “Like a Boomerang” on September 12 and the take at 4:45 was okay. I started reviewing the video of my electric performance of “Comme un Boomerang” on September 13. I was already eleven and a half minutes in when I had to stop for dinner. The Gibson didn’t sound good and the action might have been low through all of the electric sessions of September. I might not get a good electric take of any of the songs I did until October. 
            I had a small potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 2, episodes 15 and 16 of Branded
            In the first story McCord finds two children, Mike and Abigail out in the snow without proper clothing on a late December night. They are scared of him because they think Mr. Stoddard sent him after them but he convinces them otherwise and makes them a meal. Abigail says that Mike shot Stoddard’s son. Mike says he didn’t do it. McCord says the best way to settle it is to go back. They say Mr. Perrin takes care of them and six other orphans but Stoddard wants to drive Perrin and the kids out of town. McCord rides into New Hope with the children. Two men try to force him to give the kids to them but he knocks them down. He takes Mike and Abigail to Perrin’s tailor shop and Perrin and the other kids are glad to see them. Perrin started with a baby whose parents had died from disease and people started leaving children with him. Stoddard owns the mortgage on Perrin’s shop and wants him out next week. Although it is not overtly stated, the implication seems to be that Perrin is a Jew. Meanwhile Stoddard’s son Randy is being treated by a doctor and he keeps trying to tell his father what really happened but he keeps telling him to rest and not to talk. The doctor tells Stoddard that Randy is not doing well and may die. McCord talks with Stoddard who says Perrin’s kids are godless savages. Stoddard won’t let him talk to Randy. Stoddard tells one of his men to give Perrin a wagon, a team, and $100 but to force him and his kids to leave town tonight. McCord talks with Mrs. Stoddard and she doesn’t agree with her husband. She says she’ll try to talk to him. When McCord returns to Perrin’s shop Stoddard’s men are there trying to force them out, so he beats them up. Meanwhile Randy has gone missing but they find him and the doctor says that amazingly the boy is healing. Randy says he was on the way to Perrin’s to deliver some of his toys to the kids. Randy says he stole the gun and it accidentally went off. Stoddard has just built a Grange Hall for his fraternal order but McCord convinces him to turn it into an orphanage for Perrin to run. They all celebrate Christmas together and it’s Perrin’s first Christmas. 
            Grace Stoddard was played by Carol Brewster, who started as a model. She posed in a Ziegfeld Follies film and her movie acting debut was in The Barkleys of Broadway. She appeared in Cat Women of the Moon. She was stricken with polio in the mid 50s but overcame it and returned to acting. Her TV debut was in Alfred Hitchcock Presents




           
            In the second story McCord arrives in a town and he is confronted by army officers who tell him that his court martial case is being re-opened because there is now evidence of him conspiring with the Apache at Bitter Creek. He resists arrest but he is overwhelmed and placed in in a prison wagon with another traitor, the former Confederate Treasury agent Colonel Randall Kirby. The wagon stops and the prisoners are allowed to stretch but this time McCord knocks out one of them and takes his gun, shooting two more. At this point it starts to look suspicious since McCord wouldn’t shoot soldiers. Since they are chained together McCord and Kirby escape riding the same horse. After they ride away the soldiers get up unharmed and tell their major that the plan is working. It turns out that McCord is working under cover by the orders of President Grant. Kirby has $300,000 in gold hidden that his Rangers won in a raid just before Lee surrendered. That would be about $9 million now. Kirby reveals to McCord that he’s the leader of the Knights of Liberty, and its 100 members plan to start a Confederate Empire in the Caribbean. McCord attends a secret meeting of the hooded Knights and overhears two men talking about killing Kirby and getting the gold for themselves. Kirby knights McCord. Later McCord goes to get his horse at the stable but is confronted my Sheriff Gorman. McCord tells Gorman that he is working under cover, but it turns out that Gorman is one of the knights and the one who was plotting against Kirby. Gorman tells Kirby that McCord is working under cover. Kirby tells Gorman the gold is in the barrels there in the stable. Gorman shoots and mortally wounds Kirby. McCord fights and kills Gorman. One of the barrels smashes open but it is full of bags of sand. Kirby tells McCord the gold is buried at Cemetery Hill.


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