John Ireland

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the eighth and ninth verses of “Allons z'enfants” (Be All You Can Be) by Boris Vian and the third verse of “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. 

            I weighed 87.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I sanded the bathroom side edge of the middle of the inside of the door frame. On Tuesday I’ll sand the top and sides of the middle part that divides the frame between the bathroom and the kitchen. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.75 kilos at 18:12. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:35. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Comme un Boomerang” and “Like a Boomerang” from September 23 to 26. On September 23 I played “Comme un boomerang” on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar and the Gibson continued to sound bad. On September 24 I played “Like a Boomerang” on the Gibson and strangely for a while the Gibson sounded almost okay but after I fumbled a take and started again it was back to not sounding good. On September 25 I played “Comme un Boomerang” on my Martin Road Series acoustic guitar and the take at 4:15 was okay. On September 26 I played “Like a Boomerang” on the Martin and the take at 2:30 was also okay. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching the last two episodes of Branded. In the first story McCord is on his way to Panamint when he finds a man named Ted Evers with his leg caught under a wagon wheel while the wagon is stuck in the mud. McCord uses a 4X4 from the back of the wagon as a lever to lift the wagon long enough to free Evers. The man is grateful until he learns that McCord is coming to Evers’s town to help put a railway through. Evers owns a freight company that uses wagons and horses and he fears that a railroad would wipe him out of business. When McCord gets to town he returns to the newspaper office of Ann Williams, who we met several episodes ago. They greet each other with a passionate kiss like they are old lovers even though they parted previously as sweet friends. He says he’s there to build a railroad but Ann says they did a survey two years ago and determined that it would be too expensive to lay down track around the mountain. McCord says he plans to see if the old silver mine can be transformed into a railroad tunnel. Evers makes another appeal to McCord but McCord says the railroads are coming west whether anyone likes it or not, if not this year then the next. Two of Evers’s men try to wreck McCord’s equipment but he stops them. Evers finds McCord preparing the mine to see if it can be continued through the mountain. He tries to stop him again but is beaten. Evers leaves but in a moment of thoughtless anger grabs his gun and fires into the mine, causing a cave in. He immediately feels remorseful over what he’s done and sets about to try to free McCord. Following McCord’s instructions and with Ann’s help, Evers lowers a bottle of nitro into the mine, tied to a long rope. Several meters away he jerks the rope until the bottle breaks against a rock and the explosion clears the rubble. McCord gets approval from the railroad to blast a tunnel and so it looks like McCord will be settling down with Ann in Panamint. His grandfather General McCord is coming out to join them. 

            Evers was played by Canadian born actor John Ireland, whose first supporting film part was in A Walk in the Sun. He co-starred in All the King’s Men (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Hannah Lee (which he co-directed), The Good Die Young, The Fighting Seventh, I Shot Jesse James, Dieci bianchi uccisi da un piccolo indiano, Vengeance Valley, One On Top of the Other, Anna Lucasta, Little Big Horn, Southwest Passage, Faces in the Dark, Wild in the Country, I Saw What You Did, and Thunder Run. He starred in Railroaded, Open Secret, The Basketball Fix, The Scarf, The Bushwhackers, The Glass cage, Hell’s Horizon, Gunslinger, No Place to Land, Stormy Crossing, Return of a Stranger, Fort Utah, The Rebel, Satan’s Cheerleaders, and The House of Seven Corpses. He co-directed The Fast and the Furious, He starred in the TV series The Cheaters. He had an affair with Joan Crawford while still married to his first wife. He also had an affair with 16 year old Tuesday Weld. 

            In the second story McCord’s grandfather has joined him and they have opened up a survey engineering business called McCord and McCord. McCord has just put up the sign when a bank robbery takes place. The robbers are shooting their way out of town and McCord shoots and mortally wounds the one carrying the money. His 11 year old daughter Kelly runs up and cries over her father as he dies. She pulls out her knife and tries to kill McCord but he stops her. Despite Kelly’s rebelliousness, Ann takes her in and she eventually warms up to McCord, though a little too quickly to be realistic. Since the bank safe has been blown, McCord keeps the money in his office safe. Meanwhile the other three robbers led by Trask are camped outside of town and still planning on getting the money. They also want to get Kelly so she can’t identify them. McCord has to guard the money for one night before it is shipped. The robbers find Kelly and she agrees to help them get the money. She knocks on McCord’s office door and he opens it to be met by a fist to the face. With his gun pointed at McCord, Trask tells him to open the safe. But Kelly knocks out the lamp and slides McCord’s gun to him. He’s able to kill two of the crooks. While general McCord clubs the one who was standing outside. Ann is allowed to care for Kelly until other relatives are found. One assumes the producers knew this was the end of the series. Having McCord settle down with Ann, his grandfather and a surrogate daughter doesn’t really fit with the premise of the show. Viewers never did learn exactly what happened at Bitter Creek.