November 15, 1996: I wrote poems and turned them into songs

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I worked on writing poems and turning them into songs. Then in the evening I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

Don Ingalls

            On Friday after midnight I put down more carpet tape on the edges of my mattress where it had become 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 of bedbugs from the curtains. I went to bed at 1:10 and slept until 3:30 when I got up to pee. Then I went back to bed and slept right through to the 5:00 alarm. 

            After yoga I skipped all my writing and translation projects and played hooky on song practice to get my place ready for the pest control technician who was scheduled to be here between 10:00 and 17:00. I worked for almost four hours clearing out the bedroom and the north side of the living room.

            Gregg the pest control technician arrived at around 11:00. It turns out that my place was the only one he was tasked to treat for bedbugs and he only inspected Benji’s and David’s units. I asked him if only treating one apartment could drive the bedbugs into surrounding units and he said it potentially could. The landlord is an idiot and he’ll keep this infestation going indefinitely just to save money. I asked Gregg about the previous Orkin technician, Steve. He told me Steve has been promoted to management and he’s taken over Steve’s route. I told him to say hi to Steve. It's sad to be on a first name basis with guys who regularly treat your home for bedbugs. 

            I did my laundry and set the dial on the washer to hot but I guess I accidentally reset it to “Quick Wash” when I pushed the knob to start the machine and that’s only 24 minutes. I decided when it was done to wash everything again at the “hot” setting. 

            I rode to Metro where I bought three bags of relatively firm black grapes. 

            Back at my place Gregg had taken my big box fan from the kitchen and set it up in the bedroom to dry out the poison. He left a trap on my living room bookshelf that had three struggling bedbugs on it. I found a couple on the wall of the bedroom. He’s coming again on November 30 so there’s no point in putting everything away. 

            I weighed 89.45 kilos at 14:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since July 15. 

            I took a siesta at 15:33 and woke up just before 17:30. 

            I weighed 90.35 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:05. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of a CBC Brave New Waves profile of the Anarchist band Chumbawamba. The next cassette I digitize will be of my daughter singing songs at Christmastime when she was about 4. 

            I removed the hard drive from my third to last computer and put the panel back on. Tomorrow I’ll probably throw the PC out as it’s just taking up space. It still works but it was slow. 

            I had a potato with margarine and the last piece of the sirloin tip roast while watching episode 14 of Daniel Boone. 

            Three Cherokee are sitting at a campfire gambling furs when a very friendly and charming white man comes out of the woods. He pulls out a jug and the braves drink. They like it and invite the man to sit. 

            The same man shows up in Boonesborough and sells some furs to Cincinnatus. He says he’s looking for Daniel Boone so Yad takes him to Boone’s cabin. It turns out that Will Cary and Daniel Boone are old friends. Will charms Boone’s family and entertains the community. There is a big party to celebrate his visit but then Mingo shows up to tell Boone about three Cherokees who were knifed, scalped and had their pelts stolen. He says that the white man’s trail ends at Boonesborough. Daniel says no one there killed the hunters. Will wonders why there’s such a fuss over some dead redskins.

            Daniel goes with Mingo to talk with Chief Menewa who warns Boone that if he doesn’t bring the killer to justice, the Cherokee will bring justice down on all of Boonesborough. 

            Boone hasn’t returned from his meeting and it’s late. Rebecca is worried and Will begins to comfort her but then starts caressing her hair and she moves away uncomfortably. 

            Boone asks Will if he did it and Will asks, “If I did it would I be sittin around here?” Boone answers that he would. Will says inside him there’s a jar of horny toads howling to get loose that sometimes do and he can’t help it. But he still declares that this time he’s innocent. 

            Will has a trial before the community and he says he may have brought in the same kind of furs the Cherokee bucks had trapped but that’s all. The community votes on whether to fight the Cherokee or to take Will to court in Salem and they decide to fight. 

            Later Will gets drunk and admits that he killed the three Cherokee. Boone says for Yad and Cincinnatus to hold Will there until he goes to tell Menewa. He tells the chief that Cary will be taken to Salem to stand trial but when he gets back he finds Yad knocked out and Cincinnatus stabbed in the bank. Cincinnatus says Will was smiling when he stabbed him. 

            Boone goes after Will and finds him. Will pulls out his knife and Boone wields his. They end up falling off a cliff together with Boone on top and Will dies. 

            This story was written by Don Ingalls, who after serving as a bomber pilot during WWII worked as a test pilot. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department as a press relations officer and edited the police magazine Beat. He wrote speeches for police bosses and served as a public spokesman for the department. It was in the LAPD that he first met, shared an office with, and became lifelong friends with Gene Roddenberry. He was a columnist for The Valley Times. He made his script writing debut in 1957 with a story for the TV show Harbour Command. Roddenberry helped him get hired as a story editor for Have Gun Will Travel. He became an associate producer and then a producer. He wrote scripts for Adam 12, Bonanza (4 episodes), 12 O’Clock High (11 episodes), The Big Valley (5 episodes), Gunsmoke (2 episodes), Marcus Welby (2 episodes), The Mod Squad (2 episodes), Police Story, and The Virginian. He wrote two episodes of Star Trek: “The Alternative Factor” and an anti Vietnam war allegory called “A Private Little War”, which Rodenberry heavily re-wrote and pissed Ingalls off so much that he was angry at him for a year. He insisted that he only be credited as Jud Crucis. He associate produced 21 episodes and wrote one episode of Honey West. He directed 2 episodes, wrote 29 episodes, and produced 67 episodes of Fantasy Island. He was a producer for T.J. Hooker. he made his movie writing debut with Dial Hot Line in 1970. He wrote the script for the movie Airport 1975 and the 1979 TV movie Captain America. He wrote the novel Watchers on the Mountain in 2005. He said a writer who understands their craft can write anything. He said he applied dramatic concepts to even comedy scripts and was never unemployed.

November 14, 1996: I spent the day writing poems and songs

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday there was no work so I spent the day writing.

Rhodes Reason

            On Thursday after midnight I put down more carpet tape on the edges of my mattress where it had become 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 of bedbugs from the curtains. I went to bed at 1:50 and slept right through to the 5:00 alarm. 

            I revised my translation of verses 3 and 4 of “C’est ici (This is the Place) by Boris Vian. 

            I uploaded “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg to my Christian’s Translations blog and began preparing it for publication. I won’t work on it tomorrow because I have to prepare for a visit from pest control but I should have it posted on Saturday. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and living room, the top of my bed, and my pillow. I picked up a couple of bedbugs from the curtains. 

            I did a quick clean of the bathroom sink, the toilet, and the bathroom floor. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta and got up at 15:45 thinking I’d slept in but realized I still had fifteen minutes so I went back to bed. I ended up sleeping for another hour so it was too late for a bike ride. 

            I rode to Freshco where all the grapes were too soft. I bought a bag of oranges, a pack of blueberries, some bananas, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, a pack of chicken legs, three bags of 1% milk, a jar of marinara, a jar of salsa, and a lint roller. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:36. 

            I had a potato with gravy and another third of the sirloin tip roast while watching episode 13 of Daniel Boone. 

            Rebecca Boone is kidnapped by Seneca Warriors and Boone and Mingo go after them for hundreds of kilometers north. When Boone sees their camp in Ohio he knows it’s that of Seneca Queen Ester Moncour. She’s supposed to be half French and from Quebec but sure doesn’t sound like it. She is in league with British Captain William Butler of His Majesty’s New York Rangers. Apparently Boone and Ester know each other from the French war. Boone sends Mingo back to warn Boonesborough about a possible Seneca attack. 

            Boone goes to Ester’s tent and pretends he has no emotional attachment to Rebecca. Rebecca doesn’t take kindly to being a servant and gets into a big fight with a Seneca woman. Butler says they are holding Rebecca in order to force him to convince the First Nations that he is friendly with to back the British in the upcoming Colonial Revolution. Ester says the British have promised that if the rebellion is put down no white man will be allowed west of the Alleghanies. 

            Boone pretends to court Ester and she is swayed. Boone offers Butler the 500 Seneca warriors he will control once he controls Ester. Butler offers a large amount of First Nations land for helping the British. He doesn’t say where but most of the land given to loyalists was in Eastern Canada. 

           Boone sneaks to Rebecca’s tent and convinces her to play along with the Seneca purification ritual to prepare her to marry a Seneca brave. 

           Boone reveals to Ester Butler’s secret offer of First Nations land and she feels betrayed. She forces Boone and Butler to fight and Butler gets killed. She lets Boone take Rebecca home. 

           Butler was played by Rhodes Reason, who made his stage debut in 1948 at the age of 18 in a production of Romeo and Juliet under the direction of Charles Laughton. He made his film debut in Lady Godiva of Coventry in 1955. He starred in King Kong Escapes. He co-starred in Voodoo Island and A Fever in the Blood. He starred in the TV series White Hunter and Bus Stop. He played Flavius Maximus in the Star Trek episode Bread and Circuses. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

November 13, 1996: Design students are better at drawing than other artists

Thirty years ago today 

            On Wednesday I posed from 16:00 to 19:00 for a Design class in room 210 at the Ontario College of Art. Design students tended to be better at drawing than other art students. After work I took my guitar to perform at Fat Albert’s open stage.

Walter Pidgeon

            On Wednesday 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 a few of bedbugs from the curtains. I reset the thermostat from 21.5 to 22.5 so the heat would kick on. I went to bed at 1:50, slept until 3:15 when I got up to pee, then slept right through to the 5:00 alarm. 

            I use two yoga mats and the bottom one has fallen apart but for years I’ve had another on the shelf waiting to take its place. It’s a woven vinyl mat that I found years ago and it turns out to be thicker and more comfortable than the old one. 

            After yoga there were a few bedbugs on the walls and on the baseboards around my bed. 

            I revised my translation of the first two verses and the chorus of “C’est ici (This is the Place) by Boris Vian. 

            I ran through singing and playing “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg in French and English. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to begin preparing it for publication. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune more than half the time. 

            I got an email from the landlady telling me that pest control will be coming on Friday. It’s been 2 and a half years since the last time. 

            I weighed 91.05 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 back. 

            I weighed 89.8 kilos at 18:25, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since July 11.

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

            I digitized a cassette recording of my daughter Astrid when she was pre-verbal and a rehearsal with Yehudah Culman and his cello of my song “Seven Shades of Blues”. I had to use the Noise reduction effect in Audacity several times to get rid of humming. 

            I made pizza on 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 12 of Daniel Boone. 

            A British unit led by Major Halpen on horseback marches into Boonesborough. A declaration is read that the territory of Kentuck now belongs to the colony of Virginia and therefore the king. The residents have 30 days to move out. Yad points a rifle at Halpen and gets shot in the shoulder. 

           Mingo goes to Daniel to inform him. When Boone reads the declaration it says the governor of Virginia is Lord Dunsmore. Mingo seems to recognize the name. Boone says he’s going to meet with Dunsmore and Mingo says he wants to come along to meet him as well. They force their way into Dunsmore’s office and Dunsmore welcomes them. He seems to recognize Mingo. Dunsmore explains that a treaty with the Tuscarora is what gave them Kentucky. 

           Boone and Yad go into Tuscarora territory to get Chief Tamend to come with them and to point out this was a mistake. Boone first captures him and then convinces him to freely come with them. 

           We find Mingo standing before a structure and singing something he says is the “Cherokee Death Song”. It seems to be just made up for this show. He also sings it in English and it addresses his mother. As he starts to walk away he sees Lord Dunsmore has been listening. He says he’d forgotten how sad that melody is. He says Mingo’s mother’s name meant “Singing Wind”. We now know that Mingo is Lord Dunsmore’s son. When his mother died he took him back to England. He tells Mingo the title of Lord Dunsmore is still his to claim. 

            Boone, Tad, and Tamend are captured by Halpen. They are to be held until Dunsmore’s orders are carried out. But Mingo comes and frees them and says he’s found another William Penn treaty, this one giving Virginia to the Cherokee. But then Halpen recaptures them. However Boone challenges Halpen to a fencing duel. He loses his sword but knocks him out with a punch. They disarm Halpen’s men and escape. 

            Next we see Boone and the Kentucky settlers storming Dunsmore’s mansion. They begin carrying the furniture out of his office, saying he’s been evicted because Boone bought the deed to Virginia from the Cherokee (of course this is not historically true). Cincinnatus is there planning on turning the office into a bar like at Boonesborough. Dunsmore smiles and admits defeat. He says they can keep Kentucky. He tears up the titles and they all have a drink. 

            Dunsmore was played by Canadian actor Walter Pidgeon, who was born in St. John, New Brunswick. He tried to join the Canadian Army at 16 but was discovered and sent home. He studied Law and Drama at the University of New Brunswick. During WWI he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Artillery but was crushed between two gun carriages during training and spent 17 months in a Toronto hospital, missing out on the rest of the futile war. He tried to join the RCMP but was rejected because of his army injuries. He studied voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He studied acting at E.E. Clive’s Copley Playhouse where he made his stage debut. He performed in stage musicals before moving to Hollywood. He made his Broadway debut in Puzzles of 1925. He made his film debut in the silent picture Mannequin. He co-starred in the silent films The Outsider, Old Loves and New, Miss Nobody, Marriage License?, The Heart of Salome, The Girl From Rio, The Thirteenth Juror, The Gorilla, The Gateway of the Moon, Woman Wise, Turn Back the Hours, and Clothes Make the Woman, He co-starred in Her Private Life, A Most Immoral Lady, Bride of the Regiment, Sweet Kitty Belairs, The Gorilla, Viennese Nights, Kiss Me Again, The Hot Heiress, Big Brown Eyes, She’s Dangerous, Girl Overboard, As Good As Married, Saratoga, My Dear Miss Aldrich, A Girl With Ideas, Man Proof, The Girl of the Golden West, The Shopworn Angel, Too Hot to Handle, Listen Darling, Stronger than Desire, The House Across the Bay, It’s a Date, Dark Command, Flight Command, Blossoms in the Dust, Mrs. Miniver (for which he was Oscar nominated), White Cargo, Dream Wife, Madame Curie (for which he was Oscar nominated), Mrs. Parkington, Julia Misbehaves, Command Decision, The Miniver Story, Scandal at Scourie, That Forsyte Woman, Weekend at the Waldorf, The Secret Heart, Million Dollar Mermaid, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Executive Suite, Men of the Fighting Lady, These Wilder Years, The Rack, Advise and Consent, The Two Colonels, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Warning Shot, Funny Girl, Harry in Your Pocket, The Neptune Factor, Live Again Die Again, and Sextette (Mae West’s last film). He starred in Melody of Love, Fatal Lady, Society Lawyer, 6000 Enemies, Nick Carter Master Detective, Sky Murder, Phantom Raiders, Man Hunt, How Green Was My Valley, Holiday in Mexico, If Winter Comes, The Red Danube, Calling Bulldog Drummond, The Unknown Man, The Sellout, Forbidden Planet, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Big Red, The Vatican Affair, and The Mask of Sheba. He had a poor memory for names and often just called people “Joe”. He had an encyclopaedic memory for risque limericks and used to sing them to his co-stars. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1952 to 1957 and in that capacity he tried to stop the production of the film Salt of the Earth because blacklisted people were in the cast. He donated his body to the UCLA Medical School.

November 12, 1996: I posed all day at OCA

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday I posed from 9:00 to 16:00 in room 356 of the Ontario College of Art.