May 24, 1994: I called a radio show to request Bob Dylan's “My Back Pages” so I could write down the lyrics

Thirty years ago today 

            On Tuesday morning I posed at Northern Secondary School then I went home. That night would be another installment of my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel. I always posted a free listing for The Orgy in Now Magazine and Eye Magazine so they would come out on the previous Thursday to let people know about the event. Since today was Bob Dylan’s birthday I had posted an invitation for writers to either come and perform something by Dylan or something of their own in Bob Dylan’s voice. I called up a radio show on CKLN and requested “My Back Pages” so I could write down the lyrics. I didn’t get all of them but planned on faking the rest that night. Before going there I posed from 19:30 to 22:00 at Artists 25. That night not a lot of people showed up for the open stage but of course my co-host Mary Milne was there. Mike Copping came and so did Wendy.

Kasey Rogers

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the intro and the first line of “On fait des rêves” (We Keep Dreaming) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing “China Doll” by Serge Gainsbourg. I didn’t bother to search for the chords because I’m pretty sure no one has posted them. I started working them out while repeatedly listening to the extract on Apple Music. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since May 14. 

            Around midday I rode to The Mother of All Guitar Shops at Dundas and Roncesvalles to ask about switch pedals. He had effects pedals but no pedals to plug into the back of my amp. While I was there I tried out an attractive Gibson with a solid, dark wood body. It sounded pretty good. A middle aged woman was there buying her first electric guitar. She told me she had only been playing acoustic for a little while. She said she has a paid account with Ultimate Guitar. I was surprised because I always find chords for free on that site. 

            I rode up to Junction Guitars but he didn’t have the kind of pedal I want either. I noticed that he had a Jackson electric guitar that looks exactly like my Kramer. He had a lot of Telecasters but I didn’t like their look. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos at 13:45. 

            I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry iced tea for lunch.

            I weighed 87.3 kilos at 16:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:45. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my performance of “Kenya (acoustic)” I finished editing the video. I darkened it and added the effect for it to span the colour spectrum, then I published it. I looked for a thumbnail to use for when I upload it to YouTube tomorrow and settled on a Kenyan sculpture. 

            I continued to search for a Greta Garbo video clip to match the line “Restless days of hopeless sleep” for my “Angeline” video project. I skimmed two or three of her early silent films but so far haven’t found what I’m looking for. I’ll skim through The Mysterious Lady tomorrow. 

            I scanned the last seven slides of the penultimate box and the first ten slides of the final box. These so far are baby pictures and more shots of my daughter’s Aunt Susan. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a hot honey smoked sausage and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the first two episodes of season three of Bewitched.

            Samantha takes Tabatha for her check-up and just as the doctor is declaring that she is a healthy, normal baby she begins to levitate the doctor’s stethoscope behind his back. It’s been a year since she was born and this is the first time she’s shown that she has magical powers. She also wiggles her nose like her mother but she has to use her finger to make it twitch. Meanwhile Darrin’s boss Larry says he’s bringing Mark Robbins the new client over to Darrin’s place for cocktails so he can get a better feel of what kind of image he wants in his advertizing campaign. While Mark is there Darrin takes him to see Tabatha in the nursery and Mark immediately declares that Tabatha has the face he wants for his product, which is truck transmissions. A photo shoot is arranged with Diego Fenman the world’s best baby photographer. Samantha plans on warning Darrin in the morning that his daughter is a witch but he takes Tabatha to the photographer while Samantha is sleeping. Samantha catches up to them at the studio. Diego insists on being alone with Tabatha during the shoot. He sets up the first shot with some of the many stuffed toys in his studio but just before he snaps it Tabatha transports a stuffed giraffe into the frame. Every shot he arranges, Tabatha changes. Then Tabatha starts levitating several toys as they dance in a circle. Diego thinks he is losing his mind. Then when everyone comes in he blames Tabatha. Tabatha causes a painting of a pony to break over Diego’s head. 

            In the second story it’s Samantha and Darrin’s second anniversary and they have Aunt Clara come over to baby sit. But Samantha hasn’t told Clara that Tabatha has begun to use magic and so when Clara sees things floating around she thinks her own powers are even more on the blink than usual. She goes home to rest and so now since they can’t get a sitter they have Larry and Louise over for the anniversary party. But during the party Tabatha keeps levitating things from the living room, up the stairs to her nursery. Darrin sees some things floating and Samantha suggests to him that Aunt Clara’s spells may have a delayed reaction. But then Darrin follows a copper pot up the stairs and sees it floating into Tabatha’s hands. Samantha admits that it’s Tabatha’s doing and Darrin is in shock. They decide they have to get rid of the Tates before they see something they shouldn’t. Samantha casts a few spells to make it appear that Larry has had too much to drink. She makes him knock things over, slur his speech and lose his balance until even Larry is convinced he is drunk and he and Louise leave. Then Samantha calls for Aunt Clara to appear and lets her know that it wasn’t her own spells going haywire but Tabatha’s. Clara flies off to spread the news to the rest of the family that a new generation of witches has arrived. Darrin has gotten over his shock and is willing to accept that his daughter, like his wife, is a witch. 

            The new Louise Tate, replacing Irene Vernon after two seasons was Kasey Rogers, who got the nickname Casey in grade school because of how far she could hit a baseball. She studied piano, accordion, acting, and elocution from the age of seven. Her first film role was in the 1949 movie Special Agent. Her best-known film role was in Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train. She played Julie Anderson on Peyton Place for 103 episodes. She later took up competitive motocross racing and started PURR (Powderpuffs Unlimited Riders and Racers). She became a writer and developer of TV shows. She wrote several Bewitched themed craft, interior design, and cookbooks such as The Bewitched Cookbook.

May 23, 1994: It was my last week until fall of posing for a high school art class

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I began my last week until autumn of posing for the art classes at Northern Secondary School.

Jack Weston

            On Tuesday morning I searched for the chords for “On fait des rêves” (We Keep Dreaming) by Boris Vian. No one has posted them and so I’ll start working them out tomorrow. 

            I memorized the second verse of “China Doll” by Serge Gainsbourg. The third and final verse, except for the last two lines is just a repetition of the first verse and so I should have the song nailed down on Wednesday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I took an early bike ride because I wanted to start looking for an effects pedal. I stopped at Long and McQuade where I learned that one effects pedal is for one effect and if I want distortion and reverb I would need two pedals, or a multiple effects pedal system and also a power supply. They had a used HOF pedal for $50. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then down to Richmond as usual, turning back up to Queen at Peter. I stopped at Steve’s music where I got a lot more help. What I discovered is that what I’m looking for is not an effects pedal but a switch pedal to connect to the back of my amp so I can access its built in distortion and reverb. He looked up the recommended switch pedals for my Roland Jazz Chorus 50. They had Boss FS5L single switch pedals that can be linked together but the FS6L is already double and cheaper than two, and which they didn’t have in the store right now. I’ll look at five more places before I make a decision. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home, where I bought toilet paper and organic whole milk. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 14:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 13. 

            I took a late siesta at 14:30 and slept until 16:30. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:45. 

            I published the video of my acoustic performance of “Là-bas c'est naturel” by Serge Gainsbourg and uploaded it to YouTube. 

            I copied the Movie Maker project of my September 11 song practice and saved it as “Kenya”. I isolated “Kenya” from the other songs. This was already in synch and so I didn’t have to do any tedious work lining up the video with the audio. I should have the video published tomorrow and will probably upload it to YouTube on Thursday. 

            I continued searching for a Greta Garbo clip to match the end of the third verse of my song “Angeline” for my Movie Maker project to make a video for the studio recording. I was trying to find something to fit the line, “restless days of hopeless sleep” but so far haven’t found anything. I’ll look again on Wednesday, starting from the beginning of her filmography. I’ll read the plot synopses for the ones that have them and see if anything looks like it would have what I’m looking for. 

            I scanned most of the penultimate box of slides. The first half were mostly reflections of me and the street in a vertically distorting mirror. The second half so far consists of shots of the skating rink at Hazelton Lanes in Yorkville. There are seven slides left in that box. 

            I had a potato with gravy, and the last parts of the whole chicken I roasted last week: two wings and the spine. I ate while watching the last two episodes of season 2 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Darrin is disappointed that Larry didn’t give him the Waterhouse Thumbtacks account. But then he goes to work and finds that Larry changed his mind this morning. Then Larry tells him that he ran into Samantha in the parking lot on his way in. Suddenly Darrin suspects that Samantha used witchcraft on Larry to make him change his mind. Now Darrin says he doesn’t want the account. He tries to sabotage the account by talking to the old fashioned Waterhouse like a hipster and giving him crazy ideas for commercials showing people sitting on thumbtacks. But Waterhouse loves the ideas. Suddenly Darrin thinks that he has been charmed and everything he guesses turns out to be true. He asks the secretary Betty where she was born and when she says Minneapolis he bets Larry that she wasn’t. He tells her to call her mother to ask. She does so and learns that she was born in St. Paul. He tells Samantha that she’s the reason for his newfound confidence but he doesn’t tell her that he thinks she deliberately charmed him with magic. But then Samantha hears from Larry that he’s worried about Darrin. He relates how when he first gave him the Waterhouse account he said something about not wanting his life run by his wife. Now she realizes he thinks she cast a spell so now she has to teach him a lesson. When Darrin comes home he finds the interior of his house transformed. A butler greets him and he learns that there is an upstairs maid, a chef and a valet as well. He says he can’t accept it because he didn’t earn it. Samantha names all of his big accounts and tells him she helped him land them all. He argues that he landed those accounts because he has talent. Then Samantha says he forgot about having faith. Then she tells him she didn’t help with Waterhouse and he feels like a heel. He apologizes and Samantha changes everything back. 

            The second story must have been delayed in its release because it still features Alice Pearce as Gladys Kravitz even though she died at least a month earlier. Gladys’s brother Louis is a concert violinist who hasn’t done a concert since he was nine. He was a child prodigy playing Carnegie Hall when his pants fell down. He’s now a grown man who moves from relative to relative and doesn’t do concerts because he is terrified. Gladys’s husband Abner calls him “the chicken fiddler”. Samantha decides to help by arranging for him to play a hospital benefit. He says he can’t do it but Samantha keeps pushing. He tries to smash his violin but she renders it indestructible. Then she changes it back but then Abner accidentally sits on it. She says they have an extra, then she goes to the closet and conjures up a Stradivarius. The night of the benefit he tries to escape to the airport in a cab but Samantha makes the cab drive backwards at high speed back to the benefit. He tries to escape down a manhole but Samantha makes the tunnel lead to a vent in the backstage wall. Samantha gets him started and then the concert is a success. Months later Louis lands a gig on national television. Samantha and Darrin are watching him perform on the Kravitz’s TV when Louis’s pants fall down. 

            Louis was played by Jack Weston, who really did play violin quite well in this episode. He acted from the age of 10 to 19 at the Cleveland Playhouse. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance on Broadway in The Floating Lightbulb. His film debut was in Stagestruck in 1958. He co-starred in Fuzz, Gator, and A New Leaf. He starred in The Ritz. He co-starred in the TV series Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers and The Hathaways. He starred in the sitcom The Four Seasons. His brother was porn producer and director Anthony Spinelli.

May 22, 1994: I spent my Sunday writing poetry

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I had lots of free time alone and so I must have spent it writing poetry and getting caught up on my journal.

Marion Thompson

            On Monday morning I finished memorizing “On fait des rêves” (We Keep Dreaming) by Boris Vian. I did a quick search for the chords but nothing turned up. Sometimes I find a set on France Tabs when I search “accords” so I’ll try that tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll work them out. 

            I published “What You Love of Me is Just a Dream”, my translation of “Quoi toi moi t’aimer tu rêves” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog. I memorized the first verse of his song “China Doll”. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since May 6. 

            Around midday I swept and mopped my floors. Tomorrow if it’s not raining I’ll start shopping for an effects pedal. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I went to the Beer Store at Bathurst and College. It’s the only one downtown that’s open on Victoria Day and I was surprised that the line-up wasn’t longer. I bought a twelve pack of Creemore. 

            When I got home I noticed the area above my ankles was all puffed up because my socks had cut off the circulation. It took a while in my bare feet for the swelling to go down. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos at 17:15. I was caught up on my journal at 18:05. 

            In the Movie Maker project for “La bas c’est natural (acoustic) I synchronized the video with the Audacity recording. I cut out the songs that come after in that session and added a fade to black at the end of the song. There’s traffic noise picked up by the camera microphone but I kept some of the camera audio just to keep it from sounding too cold. I converted it to grey scale and added the “threshold” effect, which with the addition of grey scale gives the video extreme contrast. I’ll publish the video tomorrow and probably upload it to YouTube. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio at the beginning of the third verse. It was easy to do because the video was only slightly behind so I only had to cut some of it. Then the video and audio were perfectly in synch for the next six lines. That concert at the old 360 Club is closer in timing to the studio recording than the Riot Gallery concert. After those six lines the video jumps ahead of the audio and so I need to find an appropriate Greta Garbo clip to push it back. I started searching for something from a movie showing her restless in bed but so far I couldn’t find anything. 

            I scanned about a quarter of my penultimate box of slides. They are all shots of my reflection in some kind of elongating surface on the street. They look pretty interesting. I’m wearing my long winter coat so I’m assuming this is late 1991 or early 1992. 

            I had a potato with gravy, a chicken breast and a beer while watching season 2, episodes 35 and 36 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha and Endora go for lunch at the place where Darrin and Samantha used to always go when they were dating. When they arrive they see Darrin having lunch with a beautiful blonde woman. Samantha trusts her husband and assumes this is the client he said he needed to have lunch with. It is and her name is Toni Devlin. Darrin made it clear upon meeting her that he is happily married. That night Toni comes to Darrin and Samantha’s house to discuss some things about the advertizing campaign. While she’s waiting for Darrin on the couch Endora turns her into a cat. Meanwhile the private investigator Charlie Leach is back watching and listening. Endora has gone away and while Samantha is breaking the news about Toni to Darrin, Charlie comes in the other room and steals the cat. Samantha and Darrin see the door open and assume the cat wandered off. Toni is supposed to chair the board meeting tomorrow. Then Charlie comes to tell them he has the cat but Samantha needs to conjure a million dollars before he returns the feline. Samantha tells him her powers aren’t strong enough to materialize a million all at once but she makes him a money tree. Its fruit is hundred dollar bills but there are only ten of them. Samantha explains that it grows more every 24 hours. He says he’ll return the cat after 24 hours. The next morning while Charlie is feeding the cat Samantha turns him into a mouse. After a terrifying chase until Toni almost eats him, she changes him back but threatens to do it again if he doesn’t return Toni. He brings her back and now the problem is finding Endora. Samantha flies all over the world until she finally finds her in Tibet having tea with the Lord High Lama. She calls long distance and changes Toni back over the phone. The next day there is no new money on Charlie’s tree and even the $1000 he picked the day before has turned to leaves. 

            Toni was played by Marion Thompson, who auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera at 16. She studied acting with Stella Adler in New York. Her first screen appearance was an uncredited role in The Pleasure of His Company in 1961 and then a credited role in The Phantom Planet the same year. In 1965 she appeared as a love interest on Dr. Kildare but then the show was canceled. She made guest appearances on several TV series, including playing Medusa on Land of the Lost. She was co-founder of the Gemini Theatre Projects that produced and performed Uncle Vanya and The Master Builder. She sang and played guitar at The Troubadour and other clubs. She is now an award winning jewellery designer. 

            In the second story Endora tempts Samantha to wonder if Darrin would have still married her if he’d known beforehand that she is a witch. She didn’t tell him until their wedding night. So Endora offers to send her back in time so she can tell him before his proposal. She tells him and he runs away. Back in the present Samantha is very upset but Darrin tells her she didn’t wait to find out what happened next because he’s sure he would have come back after his initial shock. Samantha tells her mother to send them back. We find Darrin at work, thinking about Samantha and how much he loves her. He tells his boss Larry that Samantha is a witch and she appears before him to prove it. Larry sees this as a way of getting rich. Later Darrin calls Samantha and asks her to come over. She does and he tells her he loves her. He starts to propose but then Larry comes in with his plans to use Samantha to get rich. Samantha thinks that Darrin is in on those plans and so now they are back in the present. Darrin demands to go back to prove he loves her and so they go. Larry is still there and now Darrin throws him out for trying to take advantage of Samantha. Darrin returns to his proposal but then Endora appears and says meeting his mother in law before his proposal would be the real acid test. He keeps trying to kiss Samantha and Endora keeps sending him out of the room but he persists in returning over and over. Finally he gets so angry that Endora disappears and then he shouts his proposal, which Samantha accepts.

May 21, 1994: It was my first day without my daughter in a month

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday it was my first day without my daughter in a month. I probably started tidying my place up and spent more time writing.