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.

John McLiam

            On Tuesday after midnight I added fresh carpet tape to 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 of bedbugs from the curtains and one or two from the bed. I had to reset the thermostat from 21.5 to 22.5 so the heat would kick on because the temperature in the hall was just staying at 21.5. I went to bed at 1:30, slept until 3:00 when I got up to pee, then slept right through to the 5:00 alarm. After yoga there was one bedbug stuck to the carpet tape on my mattress and a few on the walls and on the baseboards around my bed. 

            I’m sure it will be different when it gets colder outside but right now with the new thermostat I have to set it at 22.5 to turn the heat on and then back down to 21.5 to turn it off. 

            I finished memorizing “C’est ici (This is the Place) by Boris Vian. On Wednesday I’ll start revising my translation. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and English and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to begin preparing it for publication. 

            I weighed 89.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since July 15. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune about half the time. 

            I removed all the old carpet tape from the edges of my futon and put fresh tape all around. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and my pillow. I picked up a couple of bedbugs from the curtains. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos before lunch. September 25 was the last early afternoon when I was so kind to the scale. 

            I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco where I found only three bags of grapes firm enough to buy. I also got a pack of Sponge Towels. I did a $4:15 a kilo price match on the grapes. Priscilla borrowed the swipe from Isabella to do the price match and absent mindedly almost handed it to me. I said maybe I should have one of my own since I come here so often. They thought that was funny. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 18:30. On the evening of July 11 I was a little lighter. I was caught up in my journal at 20:25. 

            I went through February, 2023 in year 10 of my journal to harvest bedbug events and add them to my Bedbug Timeline document. The first bedbug sighting in 5 and a half years, marking the beginning of the current infestation was June 8, 2021. 

            I roasted a sirloin beef tip roast and had a third of it with a potato and gravy while watching episode 11 of Daniel Boone. 

            A man named Guthrie McCanders is at his solo campsite near his canoe when he is confronted by William Russell, Charles Bane, and John Hawkins. Guthrie knows them and appeals fearfully to the leader Russell. He says he meant to share but then Russell stabs him with the retractable blade in his cane. 

            Boone is sleeping in his chair at home and dreams of a time during the French and Indian War when he served as a wagon driver for British General Edward Braddock. At the Battle of the Monongahela in Western Pennsylvania the British army is attempting to seize Fort Duquesne (which is now Pittsburgh). The British are being ripped apart and Boone climbs a mountain to get away. At the top he finds a British soldier named McCanders burying something. Guthrie attacks Boone but falls down the mountain. 

            Boone wakes to a knock on his door and it’s McCanders saying he’s come for him. He wants him to take him back to the mountain because he can’t rest until he gets there. Boone goes with him to his campsite but leaves saying he won’t help him. Guthrie says he’ll meet him there anyway but Boone is still dreaming. 

            There is another knock and this time Boone is awake. It’s Russell, Bane, and Hawkins also asking him to guide them back to the mountain. Boone finally agrees because all of these coincidences are nagging at him. 

            Yad and Mingo find McCanders’ body and come to tell Boone only to learn he’s gone. Rebecca tells them about Daniel’s meeting last night with McCanders. Mingo says that’s impossible since McCanders has been dead for at least an entire day. She asks them to go after Daniel and so they do.

            Camping with Russell and his men, Boone tells them about meeting McCanders and of course they are surprised. Boone thinks McCanders must also be on his way there and so he goes to look for the light of his campfire. 

            Russell sends Bane out to look for Boone but he staggers back and drops dead with a knife in his back. Russell and Hawkins are captured by Shawnee but Boone comes to rescue them without a fight. He calmly walks across some coals to prove he’s Daniel Boone so they let them go. 

            When they reach the mountain, Russell knocks Boone out and ties him to a wagon wheel. Boone is told that McCanders, Russell, Bane, and Hawkins had stolen the 10,000 Pounds of gold sovereigns that was the payroll for Braddock’s army and it’s still buried on the mountain. Boone has been grinding his ropes against a stone and now he escapes. 

            Russell climbs to the top of the mountain and Boone follows. In their confrontation Russell falls from the cliff and dies. Boone finds there are only ten gold pieces left, and that’s exactly what McCanders offered to pay him. 

            Russell was played by Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen. Bane was played by Canadian actor John McLiam, who earned a Master’s Degree from St. Mary’s College in Berkeley, California. His acting debut was in Winterset in San Francisco in 1946. He made his Broadway debut in Barefoot in Athens in 1951. He made his film debut in Decoy in 1957. He co-starred in The Missouri Breaks and The End of August. He played T.J. Hooker’s father. He played Fento in the Star Trek: The Next generation episode “Who Watches the Watchers?”. He wrote the Broadway play The Sin of Pat Muldoon.

November 11, 1996: I spent the day writing

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday there was no work so I just worked on my writing.

Brock Peters

            On Monday after midnight I added fresh carpet tape to 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 of bedbugs from the curtains and one or two from the bed. I went to bed at 1:35 and slept right through to the 5:00 alarm. After yoga there were quite a few bedbugs stuck to the carpet tape on my mattress and some on the walls and on the baseboards around my bed.

            I’ve almost finished memorizing “C’est ici (It’s Right Here) by Boris Vian. I might have it done on Tuesday. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse of “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg. I’m pretty sure the rest of the verses have the same chords but I’ll find out tomorrow. 

            I weighed 90.25 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            Yugi came and installed a new thermostat. There’s no off switch. He set it at 21.5 degrees. The temperature in the hall hasn’t gone below that all day but it has in my place. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos before lunch. 

            At 14:00 I had a phone meeting with a student lawyer about the bed bug situation. She said she thinks I have a pretty good case to file a tenant form with the Landlord Tenant Board. She says I could get up to $25,000 but I think that’s only if I lost property because of the bedbugs. I did buy two new mattresses years ago because of bedbugs. If I still have the receipts I could maybe get reimbursed but I don’t know if I do. The main thing for me is that the Board forces the landlord to treat the place until the bedbugs are gone. She was going to email me the form by the end of today but didn’t.

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

            I weighed 91.05 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:37. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of my first CIUT interview. This was promoting the launch of Orgasmagazine. I didn’t get to perform but the beautiful Kelly Lynn Grace interviewed me a bit and said that she’s heard me perform and it left her breathless. The next cassette I digitize will be one of me rehearsing my song “Seven Shades of Blues” with Yehudah Culman on cello. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching episode 10 of Daniel Boone.

            The show opens with a deep voiced man named Pompey singing the spiritual “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?” Then we see that the man singing is chained with leg irons and linked to several other men. His singing has put the guard to sleep and at the same time it is somewhat masking the sound of the filing that he’s doing on his leg irons. He cuts through the chain but has to pretend he’s still chained as Calhoun the boss angrily wakes up the guard. Calhoun then goes to every man to check that his chains are secure. But when he gets to Pompey he is knocked down as the man runs for freedom. 

            Daniel and Yad are in Salem buying supplies for Boonesborough when Calhoun approaches them with a plea to help him recapture Pompey. Boone says he’s not interested but later discovers that some of the contents of a box of tools he bought is missing. 

            Boone and Yad follow the tracks of a man dragging a chain and catch up with him outside of town. They find him flutily trying to get the chain off. Boone tells Pompey they just want their tools back but will use them to get his chains off first and then he can go free. They remove Pompey’s chains but then Calhoun shows up pointing a rifle. Pompey says he can shoot him but he’s not going back. Calhoun is getting ready to wound Pompey when Boone kicks the gun away. Calhoun tells Boone he’s now committed a crime to help a slave escape. 

            Then Calhoun mentions his master and we learn that he is an indentured servant to Pompey’s master for three years. His time is almost up and then he can send for his wife in Ireland but if Pompey gets away Calhoun will have to continue being indentured to work off the 500 crowns the master paid for him and that would take years. 

            Suddenly they are attacked by Shawnee who want to steal their horses. Calhoon takes an arrow in the leg. Yad takes the horses away while Boone stands off against the Shawnee, but Pompey grabs his length of broken chain and swings into action, taking out several Shawnee until all that is left is the chief Tabuka. They stand off for several minutes until Tabuka smiles and walks away calling Pompey “Waka Boka”. 

            Pompey and Calhoun go with Boone back to Boonesborough. Calhoun reminds Boone that the Carolina Militia will come to arrest him for helping Pompey. Boone tells Pompey to take a rifle and leave but he refuses. He says he can’t let the man who removed his chains hang so he will go back with Calhoun in two weeks when he recovers from his wound. 

            During those two weeks Pompey comes to work for Boone and becomes close to him and his family. 

            When the time is up Calhoun has had two weeks to weigh it all in his conscience. He decides to let Pompey go but demands satisfaction from Boone for the trouble he has caused him. They fight and it’s pretty equal until Calhoun holds Boone in a bear hug and whispers for him to let him win. So Calhoun punches Boone one more time and he pretends to be knocked out. 

            The Shawnee are approaching the fort and everyone runs to battle stations. But Tabuka approaches alone and says they will give back the horses they stole but they invite Waka Boka to have a home with them and become a member of their nation because he is a great warrior. Pompey likes the name and the opportunity and so he goes with the Shawnee. 

            Calhoun is given enough furs to pay his master for his lost slave and perhaps even to buy his own freedom. 

            This story is a bit of a fantasy considering that the real Daniel Boone was a slave owner could very well have been on the other side of this dispute. 

            Pompey (Waka Baka) was played by Brock Peters in his TV debut. He attended the Music and Arts High School in New York. He made his film debut in Carmen Jones in 1954. He made his Broadway debut in Mr. Johnson in 1962. He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for his performance in Lost In the Stars and reprised his role in the film adaptation. He co-starred in To Kill a Mockingbird, The Pawnbroker, The L-Shaped Room, Major Dundee, The McMasters, Black Girl, Slaughter’s Big Rip Off, Framed, Alligator II, He played Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek IV and Star Trek VI. He played Sisko’s father on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. He played Darth Vader in the radio adaptation of Star Wars. He sang backup vocals on harry Belafonte’s recording of “Banana Boat”. he had his own production company in Delbro Enterprises.