Candy Samples

            I stayed up after midnight because I was collecting pictures of porn star Candy Samples, who I found out had died five months ago.

            The first name that Candy Samples used professionally was Mary Gavin. She was already in her thirties when she moved from Nebraska to California with her son. Her husband had died in a car accident and she was a single mom on welfare. One day in Marina Del Rey a photographer approached her and she got her first work as a nude model. She was 42 when she did her first porn film and 44 when she appeared in Flesh Gordon. After working with Russ Meyer in Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens she was a full-fledged porn star in her early 50s.

I thought it was only going to cut a little bit into my sleep but I should have realized there would be lots of pictures of her. I ended up going to bed after 3:30. I didn’t go to sleep right away and ended up getting less than one hour of sleep before getting up at 5:00.

            I wasn’t limping as much this morning.

            I finished memorizing “Zig Zig Avec Toi”  (Zig Zig With You) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I was getting pretty tired in the late morning and so I couldn’t concentrate on my essay. To keep myself awake I decided to go to the supermarket a little earlier than usual. My neighbours Benji and Shankar were in the hall chatting as I was leaving. They mentioned that yesterday was the annual Shivaratri festival. It’s a celebration of the wedding night of Siva and Parvati. I only participated in one Shivaratri when I was living at the ashram in 1975. As I recall we stayed up all night fasting and when it was over there was a big feast of mostly Indian sweets. I know my landlord is a worshipper of Siva. He was downstairs as we were speaking hammering away to complete the renovations of the commercial space where Popeyes is supposedly moving in.

            At No Frills I bought six bags of black sable grapes, a pack of three chicken legs that were on sale for $2.10, mouthwash, a pack of stainless steel wool, a carton of soy milk and a container of Greek yogourt.

            After bringing my groceries home I went out to the liquor store to buy a six-pack of Creemore. I paid by debit.

            I had a pastrami and old cheddar sandwich for lunch and it was quite delicious.

            I took a much-needed siesta at 14:00 and got up at 15:45.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was their annual Christmas show and the script tends to be pretty much the same every year. Andy goes window-shopping with Amos’s daughter Arbadilla and she shows him a big talking doll that she wants but her father tells her she wrote too late to Santa for it. This means that Amos can’t afford the doll. Inexplicably Andy is broke for this story as usual even though earlier in the year he inherited a small fortune that would be the 1950 equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars. Since it’s the same story every year with the same doll I guess it exists outside of real time. As usual Andy is upset about not being able to give Arbadilla what she wants from Santa Clause. He gets a job as a department store Santa Clause. His dialogues with the kids on his knee are only slightly altered from previous years. One boy says he hates school and refuses to try to do well but Andy tells him he’ll get what he wanted for Christmas if he tries harder. He wants a Hop Along Cassidy hat, a Hop Along Cassidy costume and a Hop Along Cassidy gun. Andy says Hop Along Cassidy must be his favourite cowboy but the kid says it’s Roy Rogers. A little girl says she’s already sent her list to Santa but just came to sit on Santa’s lap to wish him a merry Christmas. When Andy says he doesn’t have a little girl like her she gives him a hug and a kiss. A tough kid challenges Andy to name all the reindeer but he has to make up some of the names. He gives him a list of what he wants but Andy says he would probably get some but not all of it. The little boy threatens to punch him in front of all the other kids and so Andy says he’ll get everything he wants after all. The last kid says he wants a baby sister but Andy is too embarrassed to explain how he would get one. So as usual Andy gets the doll for his payment and brings it to Amos’s place for Arbadilla along with lots of other presents for Amos’s family. The final part of the story always involves Amos tucking Arbadilla in and explaining the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer to her before Christmas music closes the show.

            I worked on my reflection paper, condensing and simplifying the two anti-pipeline Maclean’s Magazine opinion pieces into their essential arguments.

            I made pizza with a loaf of naan. I spread it with some Hunt’s Thick and Rich (like Donald Trump) pasta sauce and some leftover salsa. I covered it with slices of Black Diamond cheddar, baked it for about fifteen minutes and had it with a beer while watching the last episode of the second season of Zorro.

            This story begins with a wealthy young woman named Cellesta Villagrana travelling along the highway by wagon with her servant Montez as the driver. Suddenly their way is blocked by a hooded highwayman. Montez pulls his pistol but the robber fires first and the scene goes black. Shortly after this Bernardo is riding along the same route when he sees something shining in the bushes. He dismounts and finds a brooch, which he finds attractive and so wraps it in his handkerchief and puts it in his pocket. Then he sees just off the rode the overturned carriage and hears the moaning of Cellesta. She is still unconscious and so he begins to carry her. Suddenly however she becomes conscious and thinks that Bernardo is the highwayman trying to carry her off. She struggles and runs away just as Sergeant Garcia and Corporal Reyes come riding up. Cellesta accuses Bernardo of robbing her and so Garcia has not choice but to arrest him. Diego convinces Cellesta that Bernardo could not have been the robber and so she asks Garcia to release him. However when Bernardo pulls out his handkerchief to wipe his brow the brooch falls out. Cellesta asks for Garcia to arrest Bernardo again. To make matters worse Montez shows up alive with his arm in a cast and insists he saw the face of the highwayman. Instead of telling Montez to describe the attacker Garcia stupidly asks if he was a little man with a bald head and of course Montez confirms that he was. Diego insists that Montez pick out the attacker in a line-up. Six other short bald men are selected and lined up in the tavern with Montez kept out of the room. But one of the men in the room is Lopez, Montez’s accomplice. Lopez sees Bernardo escorted into the room and placed in the middle and so when Montez is brought into the room Lopez holds up four fingers so Montez knows that Bernardo is the fourth man from either end. He declares that Bernardo was the highwayman. Both Diego and Alejandro saw Lopez give the signal but could not prove it. Later Zorro comes to the tavern where Lopez and Montez are drinking and discussing a plan to stay in town until after Bernardo has been hung because to leave might arouse suspicion. Zorro is watching them from the storage room behind the bar. Garcia and Reyes are also at a table and they see Zorro. They go to the storage room to catch Zorro but the vigilante locks them in the room. Then Zorro draws his sword and confronts Lopez and Montez. Lopez insists he does not know anything about the robbery but then Zorro slices open Lopez’s coat and Cellesta’s bag of money falls to the floor. Lopez attacks Zorro and they duel. Montez tries to help Lopez but Zorro throws a knife and nails his sleeve to the wall. Zorro defeats Lopez but Montez pulls his fake cast off and grabs the knife from the wall. Garcia has been watching from a small window in the storage room door. He shouts a warning just as Montez throws the knife and Zorro is able to stop the projectile with a stool. Zorro catches Montez and brings him to the storage room door. Garcia reaches his arm through the window and hooks it around Montez’s neck, squeezing until he confesses.

            This was the last season of Zorro as an official TV series but there were four made-for-TV movies with the same characters the following year that is thought of as a third season.