On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for more than half of the first verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Be All You Can Be) by Boris Vian and the first two chords of the first line.
I memorized the fourth verse of “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg and revised my translation of the final verse. There are two verses left to learn.
The humidifier seems to be working out okay. I have it set up in the living room but in the corner next to the entrance to the bedroom. The hygrometer in the bedroom near my Martin guitar is registering just under 60 and the living room is a lot cooler. It feels weird and sometimes uncomfortable with a chill in my spine.
I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar.
I weighed 84 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in a long time.
Around midday I went to Vina Pharmacy to pick up my Betaderm prescription. It was over $11. Then I went to No Frills where there was only one bag of firm grapes. I also bought two packs of raspberries, bananas, petroleum jelly, Comet cleanser, a jug of low sugar iced tea, two containers of PC skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. I tried to do a price match on the grapes and the raspberries at the Food Basics price but the cashier informed me that they don’t price match with Food Basics because it’s out of their district. The No Frills at Dundas and Lansdowne will price match with Food Basics because the nearest Food Basics store is at Lansdowne and Dupont. So I learned something new about No Frills. Freshco honoured the Food Basics price match even though it’s further away for them, so I guess Freshco doesn’t have that same limitation.
I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. I had Breton crackers with cream cheese and a glass of low sugar iced tea.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I wore my fall gloves but it’ll soon be cold enough for the winter ones.
I weighed 83.55 kilos at 18:00 and it’s been months since I’ve been that light in the evening.
I was caught up on my journal at 18:51.
In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “The Next State of Grace” I needed the rainbow wave that I animated to end when the guitar begins, but it went on well past that point. So I shaved ten percent off of each half second segment, which brought me up short again. So I added three more to the sequence but made the last one seven percent longer. That brought my rainbow wave to the same length as the first part of the intro. I closed Movie Maker and opened a new rainbow image in Paint. I cropped it so there was no earth beneath it and then made it the same size as each of the segments of my rainbow wave. That’s as far as I got but the plan is to start a new wave to correspond with the second part of the intro and to make it look like it was generated by the previous wave.
I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Comme un Boomerang” and “Like a Boomerang” from September 13 to 17. On September 13 and 17 I played “Comme un Boomerang” with my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar and both times the Gibson went out of tune easily and it also sounded off because the action was too low. The same was true on September 14 when I played “Like a Boomerang” with the Gibson. On September 15 I played “Comme un Boomerang” on my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 2:45 was okay. On September 16 I played “Like a Boomerang” on the Martin and the take at 8:00 was one of the best, such as they are.
I grilled five hot Italian sausages and sliced one of them onto a pizza I made with multigrain sandwich bread, Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 19 and 20 of Branded.
In the first story some soldiers enter McCord’s hotel room while he’s sleeping and wake him up. He fights them until they convince him they are not there to harass him but to deliver a package and a letter. It’s from President Grant reminding him of an event that occurred exactly ten years before that during the Civil War. Most of the story from this point is a flashback to that event when McCord entered a cabin where he found General Grant. Grant says he fell from his horse and took shelter in this place. This is the first time McCord and Grant meet. Grant learns that McCord is the grandson of a friend and fellow soldier from the Mexican war. Grant is feeling like a failure and is depressed because of all the men that have died under his command. He says he was drummed out of the army at Fort Humbolt. He was unsuccessful as a civilian and rejoined the army when the Civil War broke out. Suddenly a Confederate Lieutenant named Laurence bursts in with two Confederate deserters that he’s arrested. He’s very surprised that he’s just accidentally captured General Grant. If he can get Grant back to Confederate lines alive he can be used to negotiate peace. Laurence allows his prisoners to disarm Grant and McCord but now that they are armed his prisoners turn on him. They say they are going to kill Laurence, McCord and Grant so that way they will be heroes without anybody being able to say otherwise. But Laurence attacks and is followed by McCord and Grant. Laurence is mortally wounded but manages to shoot and kill the deserters just before he dies. Back in McCord’s present he opens the package and it’s a bottle of whiskey. At a certain minute exactly ten years later with McCord there and Grant in the White House, they share a drink.
In the second story McCord rides into Silverton where a crowd is gathered outside a saloon where a showdown is taking place. Shots are fired and then the sheriff staggers out, collapses and dies. A mother named Dora Kendall picks up the sheriff’s gun and walks inside where she points it at the killer Joe Latigo. She says his father killed her husband when he was sheriff. McCord walks in and gets Dora to move aside as he faces Latigo. McCord draws faster and kills him. The chairman of the citizens committee offers McCord $20 a day to be their sheriff. That would be $618 a day today. McCord is on his way to the Brighton Mine to work as an engineer but he says he’ll temporarily become sheriff long enough to earn the price of the pack mule and supplies he’ll need to get there. Dora tells him that Joe’s father Bill Latigo will be after him now. The first thing McCord does as sheriff is instigate a no guns in town policy and gives everyone an hour to turn their guns in to his office. The townsmen think it’s ridiculous and don’t intend to comply. McCord starts confiscating guns. Then Bill Latigo arrives to challenge him. McCord faces him from the roof with a shotgun. Latigo knows McCord’s reputation as the coward of Bitter Creek and he thinks him standing on the roof is another example of his cowardice, but Latigo leaves town for now. The town thinks McCord’s manner of law enforcement is cowardly as well. They want to see him engage in shootouts and to kill the bad guys. McCord points out that nobody has died since he’s been sheriff but that doesn’t impress the citizens. McCord says he doesn’t need to play a killer’s game to stop a killer. McCord in frustration with the town’s reaction to his policies throws down his badge and quits. He’s just unhitching his horse when Latigo challenges him. Latigo draws and McCord draws faster, killing him. Suddenly the town loves him again and the chairman wants him back. He offers to pay him a bonus then McCord punches him, mounts up and rides away.
Dora was played by Mona Freeman, who started modelling while still in high school and became a successful cover girl in her teens. She was the first Miss New York Subway. She was discovered by Howard Hughes. Her movie debut was in Till We Meet Again. She became a teen movie star. She co-starred in Angel Face. Because she photographed young she got teen roles long after she was no longer a teenager. She retired from film work in the late 50s and worked in television. Her TV debut was in Wanted Dead or Alive. She said one could learn more about acting from five minutes of television than from working on an entire film. She had a long term love affair with Bing Crosby. She became a professional portrait painter after 1961.
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