Ed Ames

            On Sunday after midnight I put down fresh carpet tape on the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow and picked up a few bedbugs from the curtains. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck. I turned the heat on before going to bed at 1:30. I slept until the alarm went off, limped to the bathroom to pee and wash, stumbled back to the living room to dress for yoga but then looked at my computer and realized that once again I’d forgotten to turn my alarm clock back and it was 4:00. So I went back to bed for another hour. After yoga I searched for bedbugs and found one stuck to the carpet tape but more crawling freely around the baseboards. 

            I memorized the second verse of “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room and pick up a few bedbugs. They used to climb the wall at the head of my bed after feeding on me but now they like the curtains. 

            I weighed 91.55 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at the No Frills at John and Richmond. I hate that store because it’s crowded and the aisles are narrow and people are always bumping into you. Also whenever I go there looking for something I forgot at my regular No Frills, they don’t have it. I thought for sure they would have PC skyr but they didn’t. I had to buy Siggis skyr, which is not as good. If I’d known I was going to have to settle for Siggis I would have just gone to Freshco in my neighbourhood. There was an extremely long lineup so it took at least 15 minutes. I decided to try the automatic teller but it wouldn’t take cash and I couldn’t see where to put my debit card until I got help. I feel sorry for the condomagnon cave dwellers who have to use that store on a regular basis. 

            I weighed 90.9 kilos at 18:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:15. I digitized a cassette recording of a rehearsal of Christian and the Lions with Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe, and Mike Martin. We did “Charm and Money”, “Fallen Angels”, an early version of “Angeline”, and “Seven Shades of Blues”. Mike kept annoyingly banging his bongos at the same speed no matter what we were doing. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedges, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching episode 3 of Daniel Boone. 

            Yadkin is trading with some Cherokee when Mingo appears. Then Creek warriors ambush and kill the Cherokee, then Mingo shoots Yad. 

            Daniel Boone and his son Israel are fishing when they find the unconscious and wounded Yad floating in the water. They take him back to the court and when he is conscious he says that Mingo shot him. Most of the citizens of Boonesborough are ready to lynch Mingo but Boone wants to talk with him. Israel says it couldn’t have been Mingo. 

            While Boone is searching for Mingo he comes across a burned down Cherokee village that only holds one weeping old woman. She tells him the one that carries a whip led the attack. 

            Boone finds Mingo and brings him back to the fort. Mingo asks Yad if he still thinks he shot him and Yad says it was either you or your ghost. Mingo seems to recognize something in that statements and repeats, “A ghost?” The men want to hang Mingo but Boone says to let the magistrate in Salem settle it. Four walls and an iron door don’t appeal to Mingo so he escapes. 

            Boone once again tracks him but he is ambushed by Cherokee. He wakes up tied up and in the presence of the Cherokee Chief Matawa. He says Creek warriors led by Mingo raided a Cherokee village and since he is Mingo’s friend maybe he helped him. Boone says Mingo is now his enemy he will prove he’s not lying with the Cherokee fire test. Boone holds his hand over the fire and his face doesn’t change (His hand sure would if he really did it but there’s no such thing as the Cherokee fire test). They let Boone go and he tracks Mingo again. He comes upon a campfire at night and a bullwhip lashes out to wrap around his face then pulls him down to knock him out. Mingo takes Boone’s gun and leaves. 

            Later Mingo is at a campfire with some Creek warriors. But Caramingo sneaks up on the camp and confronts his twin brother Taramingo. It’s been three years since Caramingo put Taramingo in a grave thinking he was dead but he wasn’t and now he’s come back to kill Mingo. They fight and it looks like Mingo lost because Boone finds him staked to the ground and being circled above by vultures. Boone frees him and Mingo tells him the truth about his brother. Boone goes after Taramingo though Mingo says he’s his to kill but he’s too weak to follow. 

            Boone finds Taramingo and three Creek warriors travelling and knocks out the last one, then takes his whip. There sure are a lot of First Nations people with whips in this show considering how it’s not a traditional weapon. Boone knocks out the next last Creek, is seen and runs away from gunfire. Boone shoots the last Creek. Boone and Taramingo have a whip duel. I guess Mingo has been giving him lessons. The fight goes to the top of some rocks and Taramingo knocks Boone on his back. Then he picks up a large rock and is about to kill Boone when Mingo shoots and kills him. 

            Back at the Fort Daniel asks Israel why he was so sure Mingo didn’t shoot Yadkin. He says if Mingo had shot Yadkin then Yadkin would be dead. 

            Mingo is played by Ed Ames who began his entertainment career as a member of The Ames Brothers. They wone several amateur contests and made their professional debut at the Boston nightclub Foxes and Hounds. They became very popular on the nightclub circuit in the east and west. They had a #1 hit in 1950 with the proto rock and roll song “Rag Mop”. They had a #3 hit in 1954 with “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane”. As a solo singer he had four top 20 hits: “Try to Remember” and “Time Time” in 1966; “My Cup Runneth Over” in 1967; and “Who Will Answer?” in 1968. His song “When the Snow is on the Roses” was #1 on the Easy Listening chart in 1967. The same year his cover of Buffy St. Marie’s “Timeless Love” reached #2. He studied acting at the Herbert Berghof School. He played The Chief in the Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This led to him being cast as Mingo on Daniel Boone. While demonstrating his tomahawk throwing skills on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the outline of a cowboy was set up across the room. Ed hit the cowboy square in the groin, causing Johnny to comment, “Welcome to Frontier Bris! I didn’t know you were Jewish!”, which got one of the biggest laughs in the history of the show. In the 1970s he went back to school and earned a BA in Theatre and Cinema Arts. He was a secular Jew but became president of the Zionist Organization of America. He was part owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team.

November 2, 1996: It snowed a little

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday my daughter and I started our weekend together. It actually snowed a little bit so there might have been enough on the back roof of my place to make snowballs.

Fess Parker

            On Saturday after midnight I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow and picked up quite a few bedbugs from the curtains. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck. I turned the heat on before going to bed at 1:30. I woke up around 3:00 to pee and turned the heat off, then went back to sleep until 5:00. 

            I finished sorting out the text I had for “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg with the transcript I downloaded from Turboscribe and with the transcript that accompanies the YouTube video for the album Bobino by Zizi Jeanmaire. AI is pretty naïve about sexual symbolism and doesn’t always get what’s being conveyed. I fed this last sentence to AI and it agrees with me on that subject. I memorized and translated the first verse of “Yes Man”. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune a little more than half the time. 

            Around midday I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my November phone plan. I had to wait at least twenty minutes because some guy was buying a new phone. 

            I went to Vina pharmacy to pick up my Metro Gel prescription. 

            I rode to No Frills where only one bag of grapes was firm enough to buy. I also got two packs of raspberries, two packs of blueberries, two bags of oranges, some bananas, an apple-cinnamon pie, a whole chicken, lemon dish detergent, a pack of toilet paper, a jug of lemonade, and a jug of orange juice. I forgot to buy skyr so I’ll have to pick some up the next time I pass a No Frills. I probably have enough to last until Monday. 

            I weighed 91.05 kilos at 14:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since October 21. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and got up at 17:00, too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:31. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of a Christian and the Lions rehearsal with Steve Lowe and Arjan. We did “Megaphor”, “Me and Gravity”, “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”, and “Thin Red Line”. These songs were all new to the band. Steve was teaching Arjan how to play bass. The last time I tried to digitize this session the sound was coming from the speakers but there was no waveform in Audacity so I had to put a microphone against the speaker and turn up the volume. Since I got my cable problems worked out everything came through, except that there’s a bit of a hum. Tomorrow I’ll try the noise reduction effect to hear if I can make it sound better. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedges, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching episode 2 of Daniel Boone. 

            A young Cherokee woman named Tekawitha (though it’s a Mohawk name meaning “She who organizes things”, but all the First Nations cultures are somewhat mashed together on this show) comes to shore in a canoe. She is assaulted and captured by a nasty trapper named Flathead Joseph. 

            He takes her to Fort Boonesborough to sell her as a slave. Boone tells him, “We don’t deal in the slave buying trade” but that’s absolute horseshit. Fort Boonesborough was built by slaves and they played a major role in defending it. The very first baby born at the fort was the child of a slave. Joseph is paid off with some rum and gunpowder then he leaves. 

            It turns out that Tekawitha is white but she is culturally Cherokee, having been raised as a daughter to the chief Menawa. Tekawitha is hostile towards the settlers but she has been abused by Flathead and she collapses. There is a locket around Tekawitha’s neck with the name Ruth McCleod and it turns out that she was an old flame of Boone’s before he met Rebecca. Boone left there and Ruth married and had a child. But the settlement was raided by Tuscarora and the baby girl was taken to be a slave but when they crossed Cherokee territory on their way home they were killed and Tekawitha was raised as the daughter of Menawa. Now the Cherokee want her back. 

            Boone goes to the Cherokee village and walks in singing “Sing Song Kitty”. He tells Menawa that Tekawitha is with her own people now and he can’t have her back. This means war. 

            Tekawitha is adjusting to living at the fort. 

            Later Boone puts Israel to sleep by singing “The Farmyard Song”. 

            The Cherokee gather outside the fort to attack and the settlers are ready for a fight. The Cherokee charge and Boone says to wait until he fires but Tekawitha opens the gates and runs out to embrace her adopted father Menawa. Boone tries to argue that she should be with white people but she tells him he is trying to hang on to the memory of Ruth McLeod through her. So he lets her go. Rebecca comes out and quotes for Daniel a line from the Book of Ruth, which is the story of a Moabite woman who chose to become an Israelite. 

            Tekawitha was played by Lynn Loring who went on to become president of MGM and United Artists Television Productions. 

            Daniel Boone was played by Fess Parker who studied drama in his 20s. He took dance lessons from Buddy Ebsen in exchange for guitar lessons. He made his film debut in Springfield Rifle in 1952. Walt Disney saw him in the 1954 science fiction film Them and cast him as Davy Crocket. He co-starred in Old Yeller, Thunder Over the Plains, The Hangman, The Jayhawkers, and Hell is for Heroes. He starred in The Great Locomotive Chase, Westward Ho the Wagons, The Light in the Forest, and Smoky. He starred in the sitcom Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He starred as Daniel Boone for 6 years and then went into real estate. He owned an ocean front resort in Santa Barbara, an inn in Los Olivos, and an award winning winery that appeared under a fictional name in the movie Sideways.

November 1, 1996: I was now legally "Christian Christian"

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday my name change came through from the government and so now I was legally “Christian Christian”. The Mexican stripper came over to my place. It was weird seeing her out of uniform and in very modest clothing. She seemed uncomfortable being alone with me at my place so I just took her to the government agency to help her inquire about taking courses here. I don’t even know how it turned out as we didn’t really keep in touch. I went to see her one more time at the Club Paradise but it wasn’t as much of a turn-on now that I’d seen her vulnerable in the world.

Patricia Blair

            On Friday after midnight I put fresh carpet tape on the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow and picked up a few bedbugs from the curtains. I didn’t shake out my sheet and comforter on the deck because it was still wet from the rain. I turned the heat on before going to bed at 1:30. I woke up around 3:30 to pee and turned the heat off, then went back to sleep until 5:00. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “C’est ici (It’s Right Here) by Boris Vian. That’s about half the song. 

            I continued to sort out the text I had for “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg with the transcript I downloaded from Turboscribe and with the transcript that accompanies the YouTube video for the album Bobino by Zizi Jeanmaire. YouTube transcripts are almost always nonsensical. As far as I can tell the guy in question is a “Yes” man for the singer because he has a big penis and so when I’m not sure of a possible translation I steer it in that direction. 

            I weighed 90.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            I weighed 91.3 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 91.15 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:32. 

            I digitized a cassette tape recording of several of my performances on the Fat Albert’s open stage mostly with some iteration of Christian and the Lions but a couple just acapella. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching the first episode of Daniel Boone. I don’t think I ever saw this series. I got it confused with Davy Crocket, which also starred Fess Parker. Davy Crocket was ten years before Daniel Boone and had a better theme song. 

            The story begins with Daniel and his friend Tadkin huiding in the woods and watching some Mohawk warriors meeting with British soldiers. They then go to visit George Washington to find ou what’s going on. George is with Mr. Brayton. Daniel says the British are moving more troops into Boston and there are rumours of war. George asks why shouldn’t the colonies remain loyal to the king.

            Daniel and Yad leave and later George catches up with them on horseback. He says Brayton is dangerous and that war is coming. They’ll need every man in the Carolinas to man the fort at the Cumberland Gap. Daniel says Fort Cumberland won’t help if the British can win over the First Nations. George says they will. George shows them a map of Kentucke, the hunting grounds of the Wyandot, the Creek, Shawnee, and the Cherokee. George wants Dan to find where the trails meet so they can build a fort there. 

            Before going there Daniel stops off to see his wife Rebecca and their kids Jemima and Israel. They ask if George Washington has a big house. Daniel says he has 12 “people” just to take care of the inside. “People” of course means slaves. 

            Rebecca is mad that he’s planning to leave again right away but he wins her over by playing the dulcimer and singing the folk song “Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song)”. 

            Dan and Tad go to Kentucky where they see a Shawnee hunting party chasing a Cherokee. The runner turns on them and is somehow an expert at fighting with a bullwhip. Dan and Tad help him out and so they become friends. His name is Cadamingo and he was educated at Oxford. He says the British have offered all the nations guns, bullets, powder, and a bounty on colonists’ scalps. Mingo doesn’t want his people in the fight. That’s odd considering that the British were trying to stop the colonists from illegally encroaching on their land. He shows Dan where they can build a fort. 

            Dan sends Tad back to report while he stays with Mingo. They get captured by Shawnee. Dan decides to stay and meet Chief Black Fish but Mingo escapes. Black Fish has heard of Boone and his prowess and so he tests him in the gauntlet. Boone has his hands tied behind his back but grabs a spear and fights several men anyway, eventually freeing himself. Black Fish is impressed and believes now that Boone will die bravely at the stake. Colonel Brayton of the British army offers to buy Boone for a thousand scalps in order to kill the legend rather than the man. 

            Black Fish ridiculously declares Boone his son and gives him a wife named Tall Willow. They plan on attacking Fort Cumberland but Boone will be forced to stay in the village until his people are dead and then his only people will be the Shawnee. Colonel Bryton’s Mohawks are guarding Boone to keep him from going to help save the fort. But Mingo has snuck into the camp and creates a distraction, drawing the Mohawks away while Boone escapes. 

            Boone and Mingo arrive at Fort Cumberland just after the attack has begun by the Wyandot and the Creek. They didn’t wait for the Shawnee. The fort inhabitants drive them back for now but Black Fish has arrived and will hold a counsel that night to plan a better attack. 

            That night Boone and Mingo sneak into the Shawnee camp and take Black Fish as a hostage. Boone climbs Mingo’s whip into the fort and is almost shot by Tad who is on guard. They lower a ladder for Mingo and Black Fish to climb. The warriors approach the fort and Black Fish’s second in command still wants to attack despite the fact that they have Black Fish. Boone challenges him to a one on one fight. Boone wins and Bryton tries to shoot him but Mingo whips his gun away. Black Fish says there will be peace. Boone immediately says goodbye to his wife and family again and heads for Kentucky. They seem okay with his being away all the time. 

            After the Colonial Revolution Daniel Boone owned at least 7 slaves. 

            Daniel Boone’s wife Rebecca was played by Patricia Blair, who started modeling as a young teenager. Warner Brothers became interested in her film potential after seeing her in some cheesecake photos. She made her film debut in Jump Into Hell in 1955. She co-starred in Crime Against Joe, City of Fear, Cage of Evil, She co-starred in 22 episodes of The Rifleman. Six seasons co-starring on Daniel Boone made her a star. She refused to sign a contract for season 3 unless her TV daughter Veronica Cartwright was dropped from the show because now that Veronica was an 18 year old woman Patricia was afraid she made her look too old, so they fired Veronica.

October 31, 1996: I told the Mexican stripper I'd help her figure out how to go to school in Canada

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I went back to the Club Paradise and bought some more lap dances from the Mexican cutie. She said she wanted to go to school in Toronto and was having trouble getting started. I told her I would help her look into it and we made a date for her to come over to my place the next day.

Andrea King

            On Thursday after midnight I put fresh carpet tape on the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow and picked up a few bedbugs from the curtains. I shook my sheet and comforter out on the deck. I turned the heat off before going to bed at 1:30. I didn’t get to sleep right away but when I did I dreamed that the graffiti guys were back. There was a guy at the top of a long ladder across the street serving as a lookout. I asked him how many people were doing it and he said just one but he was helping out. They were tracing graffiti that was being projected from the top of a building up the street and also from another building. After yoga I found a few bedbugs crawling around the baseboards. 

            I tried to sort out the text I had for “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg with the transcript I downloaded from Turboscribe and with the transcript that accompanies the YouTube video for the album Bobino by Zizi Jeanmaire. Sometimes one made more sense than the other and sometimes none of them did. I got through two verses. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since October 19 though not as heavy. 

            I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room and picked up a few bedbugs.

            I weighed 91.65 kilos before lunch. October 19 was the last early afternoon when I pushed the scale so hard. 

            I took a siesta and slept for an extra 45 minutes so it was too late for a bike ride. I still went to Freshco though as I do every Thursday. Most of the grapes were too soft but I found one bag of red ones that were relatively firm. I also bought a bag of oranges, a bag of grapefruits, two packs of blueberries, some bananas, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, a pork tenderloin, a Coho salmon fillet, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, a jar of salsa, and a lint roller. I did a price match on the grapes with the $4.14 a kilo price at Real Canadian Super Store. 

            I weighed 91.65 kilos at 18:15. That’s the same as the evening of October 19. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:15. I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching Prescription Murder, the 1968 Columbo pilot. It wasn’t the first time Columbo had appeared on screen but it was the beginning of Peter Falk defining the role. The series wouldn’t begin until the early 70s but this was the kick-off TV movie. 

            Dr. Ray Flemming and his wife Carol are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary but in the middle of the party he gets a call. He tells his wife it’s a patient having an anxiety attack and he has to go, but he goes to his lover Joan. It becomes fairly certain as they talk that he plans to murder Carol and Joan is going to help him. 

            He gets home at 1:00 and Carol is waiting for him. She says she knows he’s having an affair but then he reveals the reason for his secretism has been his plan to take her on a trip to Acapulco for their anniversary and they will leave tomorrow night. But just before they are to leave for the airport Ray strangles Carol. Then he smashes the balcony window, makes it look like someone broke in to rob the place, was discovered by Carol, killed her, opened all the drawers, stole her valuables and got away. Ray puts Carol’s jewellery in a suitcase along with a few other expensive things. 

            Joan arrives and Ray gives her Carol’s blue dress and gloves to wear. Joan is an actor working at a major film studio and she has secretly borrowed a wig of the same colour and style as Carol’s hair and brought along a pair of sunglasses. She disguises herself as Carol, they leave for the airport and get on the plane. Before the plane takes off they stage an argument and Joan leaves. She puts the dress in a laundry bag that has been left outside Ray’s penthouse for the cleaners to pick up. 

            Ray spends two weeks fishing in Mexico and dumps Carol’s jewellery into the ocean. When he comes home he walks in and sees the police tape outlining Carol’s body and goes to stand by the window. He’s surprised when police Lieutenant Columbo steps out of the bedroom. Ray learns that his wife is not dead but in a coma in the hospital and they go there. When they arrive outside Carol’s room he is told she’s just become conscious but then the doctor comes out and tells him she has died. The last thing she said was “Ray!”. 

            Columbo wonders why Ray didn’t call out for his wife when he got home from his trip, since that’s what most husbands would do. He also wonders why Ray’s luggage was 4 kilos lighter when he came back from Mexico. Ray explains that he took several medical brochures with him to read and since most were ads he left them behind after reading them. 

            Because Columbo keeps on coming around to ask questions, Ray gets his friend the district attorney Burt Gordon to pull some strings and have Columbo taken off the case. Columbo comes to Ray’s office to inform him that he was removed but says he finds it odd. He says he’d like to become Ray’s patient because his wife says he’s chronically suspicious. They have a drink in Ray’s office and Ray discusses the type of person Columbo is pursuing, concluding that he is too smart to catch.

            Columbo begins to harass Joan and says she is a suspect of being an accessory to a murder. He has her visibly followed and someone is always staked outside her place. 

            The next day Joan misses her psychiatric appointment with Ray and when his secretary calls to inquire she learns the coroner is at her home. Ray goes there and finds them pulling a body from Joan’s pool. Columbo says she took an overdose of barbiturates and he blames himself because he rode her too hard. But he also tells Ray that he’s also to blame as it was because of her that he killed Carol. Ray says if he had killed Carol it would have been for her money and not for Joan. And also if he had killed Carol he would not have had any problem killing Joan if she became an inconvenience. Suddenly Joan reveals that she is alive and she has been listening to what Ray said. She is now willing to make a statement to the police. 

            In the beginning, during the anniversary party we meet Cynthia Gordon, the wife of Burt Gordon. She was played by Andrea King, who began acting professionally at the age of 14. During her late teens and early 20s she worked for the Lillian Gish Stock Company. She made her film debut in The Ramparts We Watch in 1940. In 1945 she was voted the most photogenic actress at Warner Brothers. She co-starred in The Beast With Five Fingers, Shadow of a Woman, The Man I Love, Dial 1119, Southside 1-1000, Red Planet Mars, The World in His Arms, Silent Fear, Hotel Berlin, Navy Nurse, My Wild Irish Rose, She starred in Outlaw Queen, She made her TV debut on Stump the Stars in 1950. She wrote children’s stories and an autobiography. She never cooked a meal or purchased groceries in her entire life, and ate all of her three meals a day in restaurants.