My Favourite Bookshelf

            On Thursday I memorized the first thirteen lines of “Aéroplanes” by Serge Gainsbourg. One more session and I should have the whole song nailed down.

            After initially tuning the Washburn I went through the first five songs of my set before I had to adjust it again.

            While I was singing a young woman walking two dogs across Queen looked up at me and smiled before passing under my window.

            Around midday I washed my kitchen bookshelf with wood soap. I got scratched by a nail that was sticking in from the top of the back. I had to mix two batches of the Murphy’s Oil Soap because the first bucket got black. The shelf had been dirty but not that bad. I think that the blackness was due to some of the stain being washed off. I still have to wash everything that goes on the shelf before returning it. Then I have to wash the radiator and its casing before finally getting back to scrubbing the kitchen floor.

            I had a can of tuna and vegetables mixed with salsa and some jalapeno kettle chips for lunch.

            I made a video of my rehearsal of my song “God Goes to My Head” from my July 28, 2017 song practice and deleted the rest. I just have four rehearsals to go through for August of that year and then I’ll be ready to start recording new songs again and this time with the new guitar.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. The stories are usually pretty lame but every now and then there are some funny gags. Andy and Kingfish have gotten a job cleaning a new and upscale office building to get it ready the tenants. While they are working Kingfish is approached by a man named Murdock who wants to rent an office. He says he’ll slip Kingfish $50 if he helps him to get in and so Kingfish tells the manager that he’s known Murdock for years. But Murdock is a head of an illegal betting operation. After Murdock and his men move in they go out for lunch. Kingfish and Andy come by to see if he’s settled in okay but there’s no answer. They use their pass key to get in to see if there’s a wastebasket to empty. When they see all the pictures of horses on the wall Andy thinks Murdock must be in the hamburger business. One of the twelve phones rings and Kingfish answers it. Someone says something about Gypsy Girl and asks if it’s five to six but Kingfish says it’s twenty to eight. The man seems very happy to hear the correct time. But five to six were odds for the payout and because of that when the person that called won he had to pay him an extra $1000. He forces Kingfish and Andy to give him $500 each.

            One of the gags is that Andy has taken up smoking cigarettes with built in filters. The filter takes out the nicotine, the resin, the tar, filters the smoke and removes the harmful irritants. But he’s decided to give them up because, “Why should I pay eighteen cents a pack just to breathe fresh air?”

            Kingfish suggests to Andy that they start their own cleaning business and charge by the cubic foot but Andy says he doesn’t want to clean any Cuban’s feet.

            Kingfish is talking to the lawyer Calhoun about friendship and Calhoun agrees that it’s a beautiful thing. He relates a story about when he was young and prospecting in Alaska: “One day I got lost out there in the icy waste. I was lost for three days without food or water and nobody could find me. But then someone sent my faithful dog Blueboy that I’d raised from a puppy out to find me. That dog swam rivers, climbed mountains and trudged through snow for four days until he finally found me tired, exhausted and starving!” Kingfish asks, “How was the dog?” Calhoun says, “Deeelicious!”

            I took a bike ride. I noticed there was a lot of “local” traffic weaving around the traffic cones on the designated quiet street Brock Avenue.

            It looked like more places were opening up but workmen were screwing plywood over the windows of some of the big stores on Bloor, Yonge and Queen, including the Bay. It’s apparently in anticipation of looters in case upcoming protests turn into riots.

            I stopped at Freshco where I bought a few bags of grapes, a pint of strawberries, a pack of five year old cheddar, some spoon size shredded wheat cereal, a bag of kettle chips and a box of Earl Grey tea. I ran into one of my old yoga students from PARC.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            For dinner I had a carrot, a potato, my last piece of the whole chicken I’d roasted and some gravy while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

            The first story was unique in that Robin does not appear at all. It begins with a cat getting frightened and climbing a tree. The cat is the pet of Simon, the son of Sir Charles. Simon demands that his cat be rescued and so Charles orders his serf, Tom Joyner to climb up and get it. But Tom falls and since there is no heartbeat he is pronounced dead. The body is taken back to his home where Tom recovers. But Sir Charles has already claimed Tom’s ox for the death tax known as the heriot tax. The heriot tax was created originally in time of war when serfs served as soldiers for the lord. If the serf died the lord of the manor had the right to claim the serf’s horse and armour. Later it came to be that the lord could take the best of the serf’s livestock as payment of the heriot tax. Since Tom is alive he demands to have his ox back but Sir Charles refuses and the bailiff tells Tom that he is legally dead and so the ox now belongs to Sir Charles. Friar Tuck tells Charles that if Tom is dead and the heriot tax has been paid then that means Charles has no right to claim a tax from Tom later on when he dies again. Charles agrees that this is true and so Tuck has him sign a document to that effect. Then Tuck gathers the people of the village and convinces them to sell all of their livestock to Tom for a penny each. Since the serfs no longer own any livestock that means that it cannot be claimed by Sir Charles when they die and it also can't be taken from Tom Joyner, since he’s legally dead. Tom will lend the livestock back to the other serfs to use and care for as they always have. Tuck draws up a document and all of the villagers sign it, thus effectively freeing themselves from the heriot tax. Tom must take the two documents to the Abbot of Whitby to be copied and recorded so that if Sir Charles refuses to recognize the agreement later on he would have to face the power of the church. Charles plots to kill Tom on his way to the abbot with reasoning that it is no crime to kill a dead man. An ambush is prepared but Robin’s men, led by Little John, thwart the soldiers.

            The second story features the return of the young Peter Asher and Prince Arthur, the rightful heir to the British throne. His uncle, Prince John has been keeping Arthur in the Tower of London. But John wants Arthur permanently out of the way and arranges to take him hunting outside of Nottingham where he hopes he will become the victim of an unfortunate accident. He sends him charging on his horse after their prey, knowing that up ahead is a cliff. Arthur is able to halt his horse just in time. Prince John and Arthur stop at Lady Marian’s estate where John says Arthur can spend the night and be brought to Nottingham in the morning. John says he and the sheriff will go ahead that night. He plots with the sheriff for a group of soldiers disguised as Robin Hood’s outlaws to kill Arthur as he travels with a few royal guards. The sheriff spreads the false information that the tax collector, loaded with gold, will be travelling down Wattling Road at dawn. This draws Little John and the rest of Robin’s men outside of Sherwood Forest. Meanwhile Robin is out hunting where he encounters and is forced to kill a spy. Marian is suspicious of John’s motives and so that night she goes to Robin. Robin sends Tuck to bring the men back to Sherwood. The next morning when the captain tells Arthur it is time to go Marian insists on coming along. In the forest they are attacked by false outlaws who kill the royal guard and tie Marian and Arthur to a tree. They are about to execute them when Robin attacks, joined shortly afterwards by Little John and the rest of the band. They defeat the assassins and Arthur is reunited with his mother, Constance. She says she will take Arthur to Brittany but to insure their safe journey Robin says he will accompany them, bring Friar Tuck along. This story will be continued in the next episode.