Marie Windsor

            On Wednesday morning I finished memorizing “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg but it took me an extra fifteen minutes of straining my brain. Tomorrow I’ll look for the chords. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice and it was the first time I’d performed without recording the session in audio and video in a month and a half. It was very relaxing to not worry about getting a perfect take and less time consuming to be free of all the extra cables. I had fun. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. Since I changed the batteries in my scale it’s registered lower weight for me. But it still shows the proper weight for my 4.5 kilos dumbbell so it either showed my weight too high before or else I’ve lost weight, but I don’t feel like I have. 

            I had a little time to return to my bathroom project and sanded a bit more of the door frame. 

            I weighed 84 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. These days most of the bikes downtown are electric and being driven by people talking in South Asian languages. Most of them work in long sleeves and pants even in the summer heat and I even saw one wearing a winter coat. They gather and discuss their trade often just south of Bloor on Yonge and west of Spadina on Queen. They will often block other cyclists behind them after a light has turned green while they take the time to study their GPS. The Karaoke Preacher was back at the preachers’ corner of Yonge and Dundas. He has a shitty sound system for his voice as he sings along to the music of classic rock songs but with his Christianized lyrics that are obsessed with the Devil. He usually sounds pretty bad with a voice ravaged by a past of smoke and cheap booze but today he was singing to a basic blues melody which makes toneless voices irrelevant so he didn’t sound half bad. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 18:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since March 22. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:08. 

            I opened in Paint the first of the rainbow images I saved a couple of days ago. I made the range of the image taller and wider, then I copied the rainbow, flipped it, then lined up the left end of the flipped rainbow so the reversed rainbow looks like it’s flowing out of the other one. I did this again connecting the first image with the second to end up with a rainbow wave. Then I cut and pasted pieces of the blue sky around it and opened the whole thing in Photos because Paint will only rotate images in 90 degree turns whereas in Photos one can pick any angle one wants. The rainbow wave that I made in Paint travelled upward at about a forty degree angle but I needed it to be horizontal. I was able to level it off in Photos but one always loses some of the image when one does that. However I ended up with a wave image that I can turn into more waves. Once I cut them into parts and paste those onto the video timeline of my “Seven Shades of Blues” Movie Maker project, I should end up with an animated Rainbow wave for the song intro. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of “Comme un Boomerang” from September 1 of this year. I deleted part A because there as no full version of the song there. I played the Gibson, made a lot of mistakes and didn’t try to start over. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up slice of Black Forest ham and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 13 and 14 of Branded. 

            In the first story McCord arrives in Canaan only to see that it’s a ghost town. Then he hears the church bell ring and goes inside. There he finds Joshua Murdock ranting like a madman and giving a sermon to an empty room. He greets McCord by name because Murdock is the one who contacted McCord about an engineering job in Canaan to lay the infrastructure of a city. McCord tries to reason with him that the town is dead but Murdock begins to rant again. McCord starts to leave but Murdock’s sons Micah and Malachi are armed and guarding the exit. Murdoch tells McCord he will be in Canaan for the rest of his life. McCord begins to fight his way out but the brothers overwhelm him and he is knocked out. When he wakes up he finds Murdock and his sons in the empty saloon. Murdock reveals that his son Obadiah died in the Bitter Creek massacre under McCord’s command. Almost every story refers to a person who died at Bitter Creek but it was made clear early on that there were only 31 people in the company. They’ll probably reference more than that before the series is over. Murdock says that tomorrow at daybreak they will re-enact the battle of Bitter Creek. Murdock takes McCord to the jail to show that he has imprisoned Grey Eagle, one of the Apache chiefs who signed the treaty with General Reed. Murdoch has captured Grey Eagle to hold as a guarantee that his sons Red Arm and Blue Hawk will do their best to kill him in the re-enactment. Micah and Malachi will make sure they don’t join forces. The next day Blue Hawk sneaks up on McCord but doesn’t want to kill him. They make a plan to free Grey Eagle but Malachi shoots Blue Hawk in the back for cheating. McCord goes to the jail and knocks out Micah. He retrieves his gun and frees Grey Eagle, then he kills Malachi. McCord saddles his horse while Murdock rants. Micah is about to shoot McCord when Red Arm kills him, causing Micah’s shot to go wild and kill Murdock. McCord asks Red Arm if he knows how he got away at Bitter Creek but he doesn’t. 

            In the second story McCord is trying to solve the mystery of how to drain the water from a silver mine so the company can mine it but it keeps re-flooding. Meanwhile at West Point Cadet Richard Bain is in trouble because he has written a thesis that declares that Jason McCord was not a coward at Bitter Creek. He is given thirty days sabbatical to reconsider his position and apologize. If he doesn’t he will be court martialed and kicked out of school. He travels to the mine where McCord is employed and asks the owner Carrie Milligan for a job as an assistant engineer. Both McCord and Carrie agree to hire him. Richard suggests that the river is draining into an old shaft next to the one they are trying to mine. Richard agrees to be dangled into the mine to find out for sure as long as McCord holds the rope. But Richard disappears inside and the rope returns cut. McCord swims in after him and discovers that Richard deliberately cut it to test McCord to prove his thesis that he’s not a coward. McCord is very angry but they find the break, blow it up and drain the mine, thus finding a large vein of silver. Richard is about to leave but begs to know what happened at Bitter Creek. McCord tells him the whole story about General Reed’s dementia and how he can’t reveal it officially without endangering the Apache treaties that Reed negotiated when he was competent. Richard agrees to return to West Point and to lie that he was wrong and to tell his teachers that McCord really was a coward. 

            Carrie was played by film noire star, Marie Windsor, who trained for the stage under Maria Ouspenskaya. She started out writing jokes and sending them to Jack Benny. When he met her he was stunned by her beauty and immediately got her signed with Warner Brothers. She became so notorious as a “bad woman” in her film roles that people used to mail her Bibles to help save her soul. She was known as Queen of the Bs because of all the B movies she starred in. She said a femme fatale gets the hero into bed and then into trouble. She said people tend to forget nice girls so she’d rather play a bad woman. She co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 noire “The Killing”. She co-starred in The Narrow Margin, Hellfire, Force of Evil, The Sniper, City That Never Sleeps, Cat Women of the Moon, and The Bounty Hunter. She was so tall she had to bend her knees while standing beside many of her leading men. She was director of the Screen Actors Guild for 25 years. When she retired from film acting she became a painter and sculptor but continued to work on stage. I suspect that the character of Mia Wallace as played by Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction was based on the appearance of some of Marie Windsor’s femme fatale characters.

October 17, 1994: Adina and I went to hear Alex Anthony at the Hard Rock

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I posed at the Ontario College of Art from 16:00 to 22:00 and then went over to the Hard Rock Café where Adina was waiting. We got a table and listened to Alex Anthony. When he took a break we had a discussion about some guy who tried to buy her a drink. I introduced myself and Adina to Alex and told him about my upcoming gig at the El Mocambo.

Kathryn Hays

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the thirteenth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There is one verse left to learn. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s one verse left to nail down plus some repetitions and I should have that done on Wednesday. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and audio and video recorded the session for the last time of this year’s 45 day project. I’m glad it’s over and I can get that extra hour back. I can also return to sanding my bathroom. Tonight I’ll start reviewing all the songs I recorded to hear if any turned out well enough to upload to YouTube. I spent more time today doing retakes of “Vomit of the Star Eater” than I have throughout the entire project because I wanted to get a good version on this last day. I redid “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” a few times and I think I ended up with an okay take. 

            I weighed 84.95 kilos before breakfast. That’s the lightest I’ve been in the morning in a long time. 

            I weighed 85.75 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I had planned on just using the Freshco washroom and then walking over to Metro to buy grapes. But the red grapes at Freshco were in pretty good shape so I got five bags and did a price match with the Metro Price at $5.38 a kilo. When Priscilla looked at the flyer on my phone she caused the image to go away and so she looked it up on her much faster phone. 

            I weighed 85.35 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:07. 

            I searched for videos of rainbows but there isn’t much. I think I’m better off turning still images into a video for the opening of my “Seven Shades of Blues” project. 

            I grilled two T-bone steaks and had one with a small potato and gravy while watching season 1, episodes 11 and 12 of Branded. 

            The first story starts with a flashback to the Civil War. Jason McCord takes shelter in a bomb crater where he is attacked by a Confederate soldier. They fight and McCord kills him. The dying man forgives him and gives him a pocket watch to give back to his father if he has the chance, but he dies before he can tell him his name. It’s McCord’s first kill and it haunts him but he hangs onto the watch in case he can ever find the family of the man he killed. Years later McCord goes to a saloon for a beer. A poker game is going on and the inebriated Adam Manning has just lost to a man named Rand, but Adam is short $20. Rand demands the money but Adam doesn’t have it. Rand shoves him in anger and he falls against McCord who catches him and turns him around to see a man who is identical to the man he killed. He takes him home where he meets his father Sam Manning. He learns that the man he killed was Tad Manning and Sam has made him into a giant in his memory. He is constantly comparing Adam to Tad and often tells him what a disappointment he is. Rand comes for his money but Adam still doesn’t have it. Rand says he’ll get it from Sam but Adam tries to stop him and they fight but Rand wins and he’s about to beat Adam more when McCord stops him, easily beats him, and then gives him the $20 that Adam owes. Later McCord is about to leave and tells Sam that he killed his son then gives him the watch. Sam is angry and encourages Adam to do something about it. Adam confronts McCord with a rifle but McCord easily takes it away from him. He hands him the knife he made from the sword he used to kill Tad and tells him to use it if he can live with it. Adam can’t do it and walks away. Sam says he was wrong, thanks McCord for giving him back his son and then goes to Adam. 

            In the second story, Christina Adams hates Jason McCord because she blames him for her brother’s death at Bitter Creek. McCord was Clark Adams’s commanding officer and Clark was killed in the massacre. Before the war Clark and Christina inherited the ranch and Clark tried to manage it but it wasn’t in his blood. There were financial pitfalls and so Clark took out a loan from the bank, putting up the ranch as collateral. He also took out an insurance policy on the loan so that if he died the debt would be canceled. But the banker now contends that Clark joined the army so he would be killed and the loan canceled to protect Christina. If the bank can prove that Clark had a death wish then the bank can take the ranch. That’s why despite her hatred of McCord she needs him as a character witness in court. Her lawyer tracks McCord down and he agrees to testify. The court learns from a witness that Clark always requested transfer to companies that were under fire. When McCord takes the stand the courtroom is in shock to hear his name. He says that at first Clark was reckless but then he realized that his recklessness was putting his comrades in danger and so he changed his ways. He says Clark was one of the last men standing and protecting a wounded man. He says he was that wounded man. That conflicts with McCord’s earlier account that he was knocked unconscious and missed the battle altogether. McCord later tells Christina that before he died Clark was writing a letter to her talking about his hopes for the future which would be evidence that he did not want to die. She says she never got it but McCord suggests it was unfinished and never sent. He tells her to check his effects that were sent to her after he died and to look inside his cap, which was often where soldiers kept their letters. She goes to look and while she is doing so a group of men, including the banker, come to tar and feather McCord. He fights off several men but is about to be overwhelmed when Christina fires a shotgun. Then she reads the men the letter she found, which proves that Adam wanted to live and also that Jason McCord inspired that change of attitude. McCord and Christina are friends at the end. 

            Christina was played by Kathryn Hays, who started as a model but quickly moved to acting on stage. Her TV debut was in Hawaiian Eye and her film debut was in Ladybug Ladybug. She co-starred in the TV series The Road West. She played the Minaran empath Gem on the Star Trek episode “Empath”. She co-starred in the film Counterpoint. She spent 38 years playing the matriarch Kim Sullivan Hughes on As the World Turns until the final episode. She was married for three years to Hollywood legend Glenn Ford. After dinner I looked in the mirror and saw that my gnawing the T-bone had caused my front filling to wear away in the corner. It’s a happy coincidence that it happened after I shot the last video of my project. My book launch is supposedly at the end of November so I don’t want to get the filling fixed too soon before then and run the risk of it breaking again before the event. I’ll wait until about a month from now.

October 16, 1994: My daughter was with me and Adina came over

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I had my daughter with me and Adina came over as well. This might have been the day I carved the pumpkin and not last Thursday.

Wendell Corey

            On Thanksgiving Monday morning I wasn’t quite able to memorize the fourth verse of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I should have it nailed down and maybe even the rest of the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 44th of 45 days. I went through “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” and it wasn’t bad but I decided that since this was my last day of recording with the acoustic guitar I’d go through it again. Both times a motorcycle went by but I think the second time was better than the first. It was relatively quiet outside because of the holiday early on but then at 10:00 a guy with a very loud power washer started cleaning the building of the Elaine Fleck Gallery and the Capital Espresso. He was still doing it two hours later. It probably ruined anything I recorded after he started. I was pretty sure it was against the law to make that kind of noise on a holiday. But when I looked it up on the city website it looks like what he’s doing is okay since it’s after 9:00. 

            I weighed 87.85 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since last Monday, though not as heavy. 

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

            I weighed 86.10 kilos at 18:25. That’s the lightest I’ve been in the evening since August 22. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. 

            I started a Movie Maker project for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues”. This is the only one of my songs recorded by Christian and the Lions that has no concert video to use as the infrastructure of the music video. So I have to create a video that does not have me in it. I copied the song to the audio timeline and then I closed Movie Maker. I have no overall plan but I have an idea of how to begin. I spent about half an hour collecting images of rainbows and I got twenty two. Tomorrow I’ll see what kind of rainbow videos I can find. I might manipulate some of images to create a rainbow wave form and animate it for the intro. 

            I uploaded today’s song practice videos and I’ll convert the big one to AVI overnight. Tomorrow I’ll record the last video for this year’s project. Tomorrow night I’ll start reviewing all 45 sessions song by song to find out which song recordings are good enough to upload to YouTube. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 9 and 10 of Branded. 

            These stories are parts two and three of a three part story. 

            US President Ulysses S. Grant needs McCord for an undercover operation because although McCord doesn’t hate the army he has reasons to that will help him to pose convincingly as a traitor. Outposts, border stations and civilian properties are being raided from across the Mexican border by a Mexican gang. The army can’t pursue them across the border without violating the US treaty with Mexico. The plan is for McCord to infiltrate them and convince them to hit the payroll at Fort Perry. McCord arrives in a small town in Mexico near the border and goes into a cantina where two men pick a fight with him. After beating them McCord says he wants to talk with their head man. Why would he assume that these ruffians are members of the gang he wants to infiltrate? Chances are if they are part of a criminal organization they wouldn’t behave so chaotically. Someone knocks McCord out from behind and when he wakes up he is in the presence of someone higher up in the gang named Emil Brissac. He tells Brissac he’s familiar with US army garrisons and he knows the pattern their gang is using for their raids. He predicts correctly that their next target will be Fort Ryder. He says he can tell them which fort to hit that will net them the greatest profit but he needs a long term contract with their real head man. The next day McCord meets General Arriola (played by Cesar Romero) and advises him to do the unexpected by raiding Fort Perry. There is a large shipment of silver being held there for one day. If Arriola’s men disguise themselves as US cavalry they can enter the fort without firing a shot. The general agrees to the deal. McCord trains half the gang to behave as cavalry soldiers. The other half will chase the disguised gang members into the fort and then will retreat luring the soldiers from the fort away as they give chase. That will free up McCord and the disguised bandits to steal the silver. The night before they leave, Crispo, the man McCord fought earlier, led a raid across the border and killed several members of the US cavalry. He brings back the uniforms to use for disguises. McCord sees that one of the uniforms was that of Colonel Snow, who was supposed to be McCord’s contact at Fort Perry and would have warned the fort of the plan. McCord has no choice but to go through with the mission anyway. The next morning they head out.

            At the beginning of part 3 the marauders led by McCord reach Fort Perry. The ones in uniform pretend they are being chased by the bandits and so the fort opens its gate for them. Several fort soldiers give chase while McCord, Brissac and Crispo go to where the silver is being held. Meanwhile however one of the soldiers tells the fort commander Major Whitcomb that he recognized the man disguised as a colonel to be Jason McCord. Brissac and Crispo are about to steal the silver when McCord pulls a gun on them. But then Whitcomb has McCord placed under arrest. He doesn’t believe that he’s on a mission and he says he’ll face a firing squad tomorrow. On top of McCord’s alleged crimes the major resents McCord because while the major fought his way to the top, McCord was a West Point graduate and had everything handed to him. Whitcomb wants McCord to tell him who is in charge of the gang but McCord doesn’t think the major is competent to have that information. Later McCord tries to escape and makes it just outside the gates before he is recaptured. The next morning McCord is placed before the firing squad. McCord makes one last request, then the shots are heard. Afterward Whitcomb goes to see Brissac and Crispo and asks if McCord had been their leader. Crispo says he was a spy, then we see McCord is not dead as Whitcomb calls to him. McCord is freed and heads back to Washington.

            Whitcomb was played by Wendell Corey, who started acting in summer stock. He joined the Federal Theatre Project during the Depression. He made his Broadway debut in Comes the Revelation in 1942. He became a Broadway star when he played one of the lead roles in Dream Girl in 1945. This led to him being signed to Paramount Pictures. His film debut was in Desert Fury in 1947. He co-starred in The File on Thelma Jordon, No Sad Songs For Me, and Rear Window. He starred in the TV drama series Harbor Command. He starred in the TV sitcom Peck’s Bad Girl in 1959. He was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963. As a Republican he was elected to the Santa Monica city council in 1965. He ran for congress in 1966 but didn’t win.

Adina and I danced to The Murder of Bryan Adams

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I didn’t see my daughter. Steve Lowe at the last minute offered me two tickets to see Tony Hightower’s band The Murder of Bryan Adams at the Spadina Hotel. I picked them up at Steve’s place and then went to the Café Verité to meet Adina. We walked to the Green Room where we said hi to Matthew and Peter, then we took the Spadina bus to King Street. We didn’t have to show our tickets because we were almost the only ones there. Before the concert Adina and I were kissing and Tony suggested we come up for air. Anodyne Necklace opened the show and Adina and I danced. Then Tony’s band played and we had a blast. I met Blitz, the bass player and was interested in having him play with Christian and the Lions. A few months later Tony got a cease and desist order from Bryan Adams’s lawyers and he had to change the name of his band. He changed it to The Trapped Tigers.

Charla Doherty

            On Sunday I went to bed after 2:30 and got up at 5:00 as usual. The problem is that I often doze off at the computer at night, sometimes for an hour and so I don’t update my journal until 2:00. 

            In the morning I memorized the third verse of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s half the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 43rd day of 45. It was a pretty good rehearsal and I think I got good takes of both “Vomit of the Star Eater” and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma”. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 87.9 kilos at 17:50. I was caught up on my journal at 18:50. 

            I uploaded the video of my song “Me and Gravity” to YouTube. 

            I uploaded to my computer today’s song practice video. The 30 gig file however cut down on my hard drive space so I moved several files over to my external hard drive. I might have to transfer some more before this project is done. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up slice of Black Forest ham, five-year-old cheddar, and my last egg. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 7 and 8 of Branded. 

            In the first story, McCord has been hired by a town to look for precious metals. He finds a large fault of high grade silver where three veins join. But warns that if there is a motherload it’s a long way down and it would take heavy equipment to get to it. However, when the town learns there is silver almost all the men and half the women head out there to prospect. How the town learned of it is a mystery because it was meant to be a secret. It turns out that it’s a gang of crooks led by Luke Garret who spread the rumour as they plan to rob the bank. They knock out the telegraph operator and destroy the machine. They then go to the sheriff’s office. He’s also gone to look for silver but has left the young deputy Clay Holden in charge. They tell him that they are going to rob the bank and they want him to collect all the guns in town and put them in the middle of the street by 16:00 or they will burn the town to the ground. Holden begins collecting the guns but when he goes to get McCord’s and describes the man who made the threat, McCord knows who he is. He says Garret served under him in the cavalry and was court martialed for arson. He tells Clay that Garret will burn the town anyway. McCord gets Clay to help, then several women are armed and they stand against the gang when they come at 16:00. When Garret sees McCord he tells the townspeople about his reputation as a coward and they begin to lose confidence. Then the men take Clay’s girl Karin hostage and so McCord backs down. Clay and the women turn in their guns. Clay is locked in the jail with Topaz as the guard. McCord busts in and kills him, then he frees Clay. Three of the gang are blowing the safe while another waits with the wagon. McCord takes out the driver. The gang leaves the bank with Karin but McCord surprises them from behind and shoots two while Clay takes out another. The gang is stopped. 

            Clay was played by Johnny Crawford, who played the son of Chuck Connors’s character on all 168 episodes of The Rifleman. 

            Karin was played by Charla Doherty, whose TV debut was at 15 on The Donna Reed Show. Her film debut was in Take Her She’s Mine. She played Julie Olson in the first season of Days of Our Lives. She co-starred in the TV movie In the Year 2889. 

            The second story is the first of a three part arc in colour. McCord is tracked down by his old girlfriend Lorette Lansing. They would have been married if not for the events of Bitter Creek that made him an outcast. She says her father Senator Lansing wants him to come to Washington to address a congressional committee. He comes to Washington with her. The senator also would like him to be his son in law. McCord visits his grandfather General McCord. Jason tells the general the truth about Bitter Creek and how General Reed lost his mind. McCord tells his grandfather that he was knocked unconscious during the Apache attack and woke up three days later in a farmhouse far away from the battle. The general says Jason made the right decision not exposing Reed as demented. That night McCord meets with the congressional committee. The senator says he wants to renegotiate the treaty with the Apache so settlers can have more land. McCord tells him that’s a bad idea. He refuses to testify to Reed’s incompetence in order to void the treaty. He is offended by the idea and leaves. Outside he’s attacked by three men but he is saved by Secret Service agents who tell him to come with them. McCord is taken to the White House to meet President Grant. Grant presents him with a mission that will cause him to be branded as a traitor.