Beth Brickell

            On Saturday morning I gathered a couple more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 87.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of four sessions and until the last few songs it went out of tune during every song. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where the grapes were $3.90 a kilo so I got seven bags but had to really look a long time for firm ones. I also bought two packs of raspberries, some bananas, several vine tomatoes, several avocadoes, a bag of limes, a bottle of Garden Cocktail, and a jug of orange juice. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos at 14:40. 

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:00 and it was too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos at 17:20, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since last Saturday but not as much. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:39. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of a recording of a rehearsal of some of my songs with Steve Lowe and Arjan. On this tape the songs were “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” and “Thin Red Line”. But the recording is distorted and unacceptable just like side 1. I searched online to try to find a solution. The problem can’t be with the tape because Audacity should record exactly what I’m hearing when I play it. I tried removing the distortion from the Audacity recording in effects but that just made it worse. I saw that some sites say that when recording from line-out of a tape player it can’t go to mic because that’s too sensitive. It has to go to line in. I posed the specific question about recording from tape to my Scarlett 212 audio interface where there is nothing that says “line in”. The answer was that “instrument” is the equivalent of line in, so I guess “air” is the same as mic. I changed that. But then later I saw that neither “inst” or “air” should be switched on. It was advised to also update the Scarlett driver. I found out I didn’t have it so I downloaded it. I won’t know if anything I did helped until I try again tomorrow. 

            I ate some grapes while watching the series finale of Captain Nice. 

            Carter Nash and Candy Cane are leaving an exhibition of lab equipment where they went on a date. She’ll go anywhere with him. Candy notices a car that’s illegally parked and tells the driver to move. He tells her to beat it. When he sees her pulling out her badge he knocks it out of her hand and starts to drive away. Carter leans into the back window as the car starts going and he is carried with it.

            Candy is trying to retrieve her badge when two guys come out of a building and one wonders what happened to their getaway car. The other says, “I guess it got away”. He says he got the driver from an agency and he’ll call them tomorrow. 

            Several blocks away Carter finally falls free of the car and ducks behind a mailbox to change into Captain Nice. 

            Sergeant Candy pulls her gun on the two hoods but the getaway driver pulls up behind her with a gun and she has to put her hands up. Kincade the leader says he’ll take care of the cop as the car drives away but Captain Nice arrives and arrests him.

            The scene changes to Club Medulla, which we saw in a previous episode. It is owned by the mentalist Medulla and he and his assistant Renata are in the middle of a performance. But we see the club only has one customer who isn’t even watching the show. 

            Then one of the thugs from earlier and the getaway driver come in and sit with the customer. They discuss Kincaid’s situation in jail. He has asked to take a lie detector test at the police lab because it will be easier for them to break him out from there. 

            The men leave but Medulla sees that they’ve drawn their plans on his tablecloth. He goes to the city hall and tells Mayor Finney, Chief Segal and Carter that he had a premonition that there will be an attempted jailbreak today of Kincaid from the crime lab. 

            During the lie detector test Kincaid’s men break the window of the lab and toss in tear gas. They successfully break Kincaid out and so Carter resigns because he feels it was his fault. 

            Carter and his mother Esther go to confront Medulla about where he really learned of the jailbreak. Kincaid and his men arrive to get the tablecloth on which was written the plans. Medulla tells them the tablecloth is at the Ajax laundry so Kincaid forces them all to go there. 

            They are tied up in the laundry room but Medulla has a switchblade in his pocket and cuts his ropes and those of the others. Carter goes into the dryer room and climbs into a machine to transform into Captain Nice. Someone turns it on and he starts spinning but he breaks out and the crooks are caught. 

            Later the Medulla is with Finney, Segal, Esther and Carter. He tells them he can prove his powers are real. He says he knows that one person in the room has a terrible secret. He turns his back and counts to five for them to reveal themselves. When he turns back around everybody’s gone. He tells the fourth wall, “Works every time!” 

            Renata was played by Beth Brickell, who earned a BA in History and Political Science. While travelling in Europe she had an audience with Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly) who inspired her to become an actor. She trained with Lee Strasberg and was accepted as a member of the Actors Studio. She co-starred in the TV series Gentle Ben. She co-starred in the movie The Only Way Home. She was nominated for Emmys for her guest appearances on Bonanza and Hawaii Five-O. She taught acting for three years at the Lee Strasberg Institute. She then attended the American Film Institute and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing and Screen Writing. She produced, directed and co-wrote A Rainy Day, and Summer’s End. She wrote, produced and directed Mr. Christmas. She directed two episodes of Knots Landing, She wrote for the Arkansas Gazette the series “Mystery at Camden”. She’s served as the chair of the Directors Guild of America.