Gary Merrill

            On Wednesday morning I finished my search for the chords to “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There were no more than the two sets I found. I worked out the first three chords of the instrumental intro. 

            I memorized the first two verses of “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. It feels like the action has gone up more since Brian at The Twelfth Fret raised it last week. It feels a little high but manageable so far. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I sanded the top and the upper half of the sides of the widest part of the inside of the bathroom door frame. Tomorrow I might have time to do the bottom half. 

            I weighed 84.75 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted slice of multigrain sandwich bread with sliced tomato and five-year-old cheddar. 

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

            I weighed 85.45 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:45. 

            I took another stab at animating the rainbow wave image that I created. I made seven copies of the original image and each time cut a finger-width section off the left side, moved the rest of the image to the left and pasted the cut image into the white space on the right end. I loaded all eight images in sequence on the video timeline of my “Seven Shades of Blues” project and when I clicked “play” it seemed to work. But the default timeline space that any images occupy in Movie Maker is four seconds, so I have to cut the time of each image to get a better idea of how the wave flows. I’ll work on that tomorrow. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my acoustic performance of “Like a Boomerang” on September 10 and in the take at 5:15 I didn’t have a solid grip on the E flat. On September 11 I played “Comme un Boomerang” with my Martin and had a problem remembering some of the lines in the second verse. This took 15 minutes and I still sang the wrong line.

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with Basilica sauce, a sliced chicken burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 13 and 14 of Branded. This is a two part story. 

            In part 1 McCord has been sent by the territorial governor to make a survey of the land of wealthy rancher Aaron Shields. Shields has a contract with the army to provide them with horses and so he has hired a band of Romany to break his wild horses. He is racist towards Romany people and doesn’t consider them to be human but he says they are the best bronc busters around. Shortly after McCord meets Shields, the rancher gets word that his daughter Robin has been seen going to meet Kolyan, the king of the band. This story is something of a Romeo and Juliet type scenario, except for the ending. Shields goes to teach Kolyan to stay away from his daughter. When he finds them he lets loose on him with a bullwhip until McCord cuts the whip at the handle with his sabre. In defending the Romany, McCord has made an enemy of Shields but a lifelong friend of Kolyan who invites him to stay in their camp. But Kolyan’s sister Lisa seems to hate white people as much as Shields hates Romany. But when she hears he saved Kolyan’s life she tosses him a begrudging welcome. The next day McCord is watching Kolyan break horses and when her brother is thrown Lisa challenges McCord to break the bronco. McCord rides the bucking horse until it is broken. While McCord is surveying the Shields land, Shields brings his foreman Jud to go over his figures and slow him down. Jud deliberately breaks one of the legs of McCord’s survey tripod so McCord punches him. Lisa brings food for McCord and Lazar and when she rides away Jud tries to go after her but she outrides him. That night Lisa begins to change her attitude to McCord and they kiss. Then the sheriff comes to arrest McCord on false charges made up by Shields. Kolyan tries to bail McCord out but the sheriff says bail is set at $300. This is continued. 

            In Part 2 Kolyan gives Robin an extremely valuable jewel encrusted Romany music box in exchange for the $300 he needs to get McCord out of jail. That night there is a big party in the Romany camp and Lisa dances for McCord. Shields finds out that Robin gave Kolyan the money and tells his men to attack McCord and the Romany camp. Later Shields finds that Robin has snuck out of the house to go to the same Romany camp that he’s ordered attacked, and so he heads there. Jud tries to grab Lisa and McCord punches him. The brawl ensues until all of Shields’s men are subdued or chased away. Kolyan holds Jud captive and puts a knife on the fire. He says he’s going to put out his eye as punishment for abusing his sister. Robin and McCord try to stop him, then Shields rides up. When he hears that his foreman attacked a woman he fires him. The next day Shields pays Kolyan for the horse breaking but he doesn’t return to camp. Lisa thinks Shields has harmed him and organizes her men to ride and attack the ranch. McCord finds out from Robin that Kolyan was supposed to meet her at the oak grove and so he goes there. He finds that Kolyan’s horse stepped in a hole and Kolyan was thrown, hurt his ankle and couldn’t walk so he decided to get drunk since he was stuck there. Just as Lisa and her men are about to attack the ranch, McCord rides up with Kolyan. Robin wants to be with Kolyan but he says she doesn’t belong. McCord kisses Lisa goodbye. She has him draw a card so she can see his future. Then he rides away. She shows that he drew the queen of hearts, which is her card. She seems more like the queen of spades to me. 

            Shields was played by Gary Merrill, who started acting while in the United States Army Air Forces. He began his career acting in summer stock plays. He was the voice of Batman in the Superman radio series. His film debut was in This Is the Army. He co-starred in the film Twelve O’Clock High, Witness to Murder, and Clambake. His TV debut was on the 20th Century Fox Hour. In 1950 he met Bette Davis on the set of All About Eve and they fell for each other right away. They divorced their spouses and got married in Mexico. They were together for ten years of fighting until they got divorced. He had an affair with Rita Hayworth. He later found greater financial success doing radio and television commercials than he did from movies. His autobiography was called Bette, Rita and the Rest of My Life.